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| Hi Xanga,
I'm sick today. I guess when we're not feeling well, we go to those old things that used to make us comfortable, and I guess you fit that description. I'm glad you're still here. My mission for the evening is to go find a fax machine to send an order into the hospital. On my way.
More later, I hope.
Akshay | | |
| Hi Xanga. I miss you. This isn't going to be exhaustive at all, and I didn't even check when my last entry was, but since we last met, Carly and I have left Hawaii, moved to Boston, gotten married in California, I finished my MPH at Harvard, and we're getting ready to move to San Francisco.
In the meantime, we've had to shuffle some things around. I bought and sold an old Porsche, sold LeChuck, drove mom's old car Trixie, and sold her yesterday.
I took a class in conflict negotiation, and one of the things we discussed was positional bargaining, and buying a car is pretty much the prototypical example. I ended up selling Trixie for $2995 - which is what I was asking, but it's so sad considering she was almost $50K new. So many luxurious features and so much attention to detail made absolutely worthless by stupid decisions about efficiency and design.
The car went to a nice couple who I think will treat her well, but I wanted to document a text-back&forth with someone who was not nice and did a stupid thing by trying to pull a fast one with me.
Recall, my posting was for $2995.
Tony: like to make offer 2200 cash for cadi today
Me: What's your name? There are a couple people looking at her this afternoon. If they offer more, do you want me to contact you or is 2200 your ceiling? Wanna come down and drive her?
Tony: sorry i am laid off from work thats my bottom looking to buy today thanks anyway
Me: If I don't sell today, I will call you. My name is Akshay.
between these two text messages, I called him, at which time he told me it was his son who was interested in the car (I still hadn't learned either of their names). He asked me what the "son" had offered via text. I replied that he had offered $2200, and that I was inviting them to come down and drive the car and see if they liked it. I made no claim about whether or not I had accepted or rejected the offer.
Tony: spoke to my son and he would like to come see it. drive it, and if all ok make the deal. if u agree either later today or tomorrow say 11.00am Tony
Me: Is 4 pm tomorrow ok?
this bought me time because a number of other people had expressed interest at my asking price
Tony: ok whats address. now is anything wrong with it at all? does it needs anything? check engine lights tranny or engine problems. etc.
Me: 13 Union St. Brighton, MA 02135. It is in beautiful condition and needs nothing.
Tony: ok deal will come and drive it and hope fully all is ok. ok?
This was his attempt of strong arming me into accepting his offer without further negotiation. If I wanted to ask more at this point, it was up to me. At this time, I knew this was an adversarial encounter.
Tony: Hi This is Tony do u mind just signing the title and giving me bill of sale? if i buy dont know if i want to put it in my wifes name, or the business or my sons, depending on where I can get best Ins quote. u ok with that?
at this point I'm like ... uhhh, didn't he just say he was laid off? What business is this? I'm thinking shady.
Me: I have to think about that. Should be pretty cheap to insure. With all the moving work I still have to do, I'd rather do everything by the books and send my paperwork off.
Tony: ok then we will have to pass thank u
This is attempt at walking away from the bargaining table to force me to comply with his demands. I called his bluff.
Me: Go ahead and run your ins quotes and lemme know which comes out the cheapest and we can move fwd then. Those quotes cmoe back quickly. Good luck.
This is me telling him I'm calling his bluff without putting him down. This let's him know he can still offer me stuff if he wants but that I can take him or leave him, making me in charge of the bargain.
Tony: i run a business 7 days a wekk the car isnt getting registered till my son is out of school june 23. so we will go look for something else too bad we couldnt do business
He's trying to bluff leaving again to see if I'll respond differently a second time, but I don't.
Me: Ok. Good luck to you. I'll let you know if anything changes. Still wanna test drive tomorrow or shall I scratch you off the list?
This is me implying there are multiple people interested (which there were - but I would have said it the same way even if there weren't because he was clearly very interested).
Tony: no if u have a bill of sale signed by me that u sold it to me covers u. dont know what the big issues is I am 56 years old not a kid. no we are not interested.
At this point, I knew he was frustrated (in the basement) because he knew he wasn't in charge of the negotiation. He's not used to that because he's pretty forward, and he's clearly done this plenty of times, so that made it that much more fun.
Next day ... (and in the meantime I had sold the car for my asking price of $2995)
Tony: morning still have eldorado
I figured I'd not bother responding just to let him sit on it anxiously a while. If he wasn't that interested, he wouldn't bother contacting me again, and if he was, then the suspense would serve him right for trying to pull a fast one on me.
couple hours later ...
Tony: hi its Tony we figure out whos name the car will go in. so like to come today at 4.00 and drive it if u still have it.
At this point, I smiled knowing that he had never walked away from the negotiation table and that I had won, so I decided to just let him know.
Me: Sorry Tony. Sold a few hours ago for asking price. Good luck in your search.
Tony: ok
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| I had a great weekend in DC/Maryland. I went down there Friday and met up with Mark Henry and his lovely bride, Mbong for the wedding rehearsal and dinner. It was a weekend of festivities, including a lovely wine tasting and picnic in a Maryland winery, a heart to heart kine bachelor party, a beautiful wedding, fun with old friends (Alice, Natterz, Kevin, Kervin, Mark, Nigel, Nikki, Richard, Jamey), and a trip to DC with Hans!
After the wedding on Sunday I went to family friend Manju Aunty's house, and Monday my friend Hans and I went to DC to see the sights. Checked out the main buildings of political importance, spent a small amount of time at the Smithsonian's American History Building, and then a good chunk of time at the Holocaust museum (Richard's recommendation). It was a really well-done display - powerful and chilling, but in good taste.
We had dinner in Georgetown at a place called Bonaparte - a little crepes place. Very good!
I flew back to Boston early Tuesday morning and went straight to class - only to realize I was getting sick. By the time I finished my day and got home, I was definitely sick. Sore throat, head-ache, fever, cough, stuffy nose and sinuses, dry, chapped lips, blah. I just hope I don't get pink-eye. That happens to me sometimes when I get a viral illness.
This morning, Carly and I awoke to a big storm - thunder, lightning, and lots of rain. I think I'll drive her to work today. | | |
| Searching for used furniture here in Brighton. Saw an ad for dressers $510. Seemed a little weird, so I clicked on it and there was one for $5 and the other for $10 - just over half a mile from me. Boom! Furniture, baby.
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| This weekend has been a fun adventure. I moved back to Boston on Wednesday, and the past few days I have collected a bit of furniture. I got a loveseat for the living area adjacent to Carly's and my room. My downstairs housemate and I literally carried it from the garage sale to our house and then struggled to get it up three awkward, old-fashioned New England floors, after which we realized it has some funk on the upholstery. We both decided there was no way we were taking it out, but I really didn't want random old smells in my new living space, so I decided I'd re-upholster the item.
I have never done anything like this before, so I'll keep a little log of how it goes. I thought the first thing I should do is make pillow covers - seemed easy enough, right?
This was the original pillow:
I undid all the seams and saved that tassel to use on the new pillow, but then decided, to hell with the tassel. 
This is nearly all the way taken apart so I can use the old cases as a template for cutting.
Way better material, don'tcha think?
So then I was like, I have to sew this. My housemates had a sewing machine, so I'm like, well, how hard could this be? 
That's my attempt at going in a straight line. FAIL. This was on a little scrap just to see if I was using the damn machine right.
So whatever, I'm a little crooked - good enough for a year and maybe I'll get better by half way through or so.
I try to remove the item from the machine and realize it's jammed. Why is this?
Because the back looks like this. Apparently I missed part of the memo about how to make this thing work.
So I stopped on the pillowcase for today. Apparently the lady at the store forgot to tell me to buy a pin cushion.
I was debating whether to go to the store and buy one, when I realized (in proper craft mentality), I can just make one!
So that ended up my project for today: make a pin cushion:
This is nothing like sewing gums.
More tomorrow, maybe.
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