Pretty, Shiny Things & A FedEx Rant

Let’s start off with the rant and go from there. FedEx – Ugh! We live in a sparsely populated area. I get that. Does that mean that a huge corporation like FedEx can’t coordinate a little better between FedEx Air and FedEx Ground. Yes, that’s exactly what it means.

FedEx has NEVER tried to make a delivery to my house when I’m home. Never. They always come when I’m not here. Most of the times this is not an issue, but when a signature is required, it becomes a major issue. The FedEx Air facility is only a block from where I work. It is new, clean, and well staffed. The FedEx Ground facility is an “Un-Manned” facility about 12 miles away. You can’t call to arrange Will-Call because there is no one there during the day. You can call and leave a message, but they either ignore the messages or they get your message and then say, “Yea, right buddy. I don’t think so” as they press the delete button.

If you go to FedEx Air to try and talk to a real person it’s as if they have no idea that FedEx Ground even exists. So when I get a package from FedEx that requires a signature in person I’m forced to drive around town to try and find the FedEx truck that has my packages. That happened today. Actually it started yesterday because that was their first attempt. I think they try three times and then return the package to the sender if I don’t find them. Once yesterday and once today I spent about 20 minutes driving around town looking for the FedEx truck. The first truck I found was FedEx Express. I have no idea where they are located, but they’re not affiliated with FedEx Ground either and the guy was no help. On the second scouting expedition I found the truck with my boxes. Very frustrating!

Anyway, I got that off my chest, so lets move on to some pretty, shiny things. This is all the bounty from DEA Bath. This is why I was chasing the stupid FedEx guy all over town for the last two days. For some reason the bill came to a few hundred dollars less than I had originally figured. I wrote the order out in Excel, so the math is right. I know I got everything, but I’ll have to go over the invoice to find out where the difference is. I won’t show you all of it, but a few things are neat-o enough to warrant pictures.




The first two are of the sink trap for the vanity. It is 16 gauge nickel plated brass. It also has the cool little clean-out finial.


This is the new flush valve and rear spud for the high-tank. Also nickel plated brass. In fact, everything’s nickel plated brass


This is new flush tube and seat bumper for the high-tank. The seat bumper fits around the tube and then mounts to the wall. When you lift the seat up it hits the rubber bumper instead of the tube. There wasn’t enough room for one on the upstairs high-tank because the whole thing was too close to the wall, so I'm excited about the seat bumber.


This one’s not much to look at. It’s a 36-inch flexible supply pipe. It should be enough to do the supply lines for the sink and the toilet (fingers crossed). They start with flexible copper tubing and then plate it, so I should be able to bend it slightly in to shape so it can make the connections between the shut-off valves and the faucets.


That's it for now.