Stephenthedog.com

Recently Eric the operations manager at home depot got back to me about my A’s warped door.

Dear Stephen,

I would like to apologies for the defective product you received from our store.  We sometimes work a little fast while helping customers in this fast paced environment. We should have taken the time to look over the door before you left . I again would like to apologies for the inconvenience to your and your friend. If there is anything we can do, please feel free to call me at the store.

Eric C

Operations Manager #6251

Barkington, DE

(777)-966-9200 Ext. 300

fax(777)-966-9443

My response to Eric is below

Eric,

Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you.  As you can imagine I have been quite busy with my various ventures and unfortunately getting back to you kind of slipped my mind.  I recently was involved with Sponsoring the Medway community farm 5K which took up a lot of my time.  I do have a little bit more free time now so I figure I would close the loop on this issue with you.

I do appreciate your apology for the defective product I received from your store.  However I don’t really feel that it is any reflection on you or your store.  The product was shrink wrapped and there was no way Pete could have noticed the actual door inside the frame was bent.  Maybe if Pete had X-ray vision he might have been able to see this but I bet home depot would frown on employees using X-ray vision at work.  I think that is just opening yourself up for a whole bunch of privacy issues. 

At this point I don’t really think there is much I can reasonably expect you to do regarding this issue.  I did speak to someone at corporate and they sent me a $50 gift card.  I think that is pretty fair, I don’t really want to go through all the aggravation of ripping the entire door frame out so I will probably use the gift card toward purchasing a glass storm door to put in front of the warped door.  It would be nice to get something with a glass I can replace with a screen so I can get some air into the basement in the summer.  My front door has this type of arrangement so I know it is possible.  I just have to get my A motivated.  Once of the major drawbacks of being a dog is a lack of opposable thumbs.  It is next to impossible to hold a hammer. 

There is really not that much that I need.  I would like to come to your store but I understand that dogs are not allowed in the store.  Since this is not your rule I am not going to hold this against you.  It would be kind of cool to get to drive a forklift but I imagine there are insurance issues with that.  I wonder which would be harder writing an apology letter to a dog about a warped door (you did a great job by the way) or writing a letter to corporate about why a dog drove a forklift through the front of your store (darn lack of opposable thumbs).  If I were you I would probably play it safe and nicely tell the dog that only trained Home Depot employees are allowed to drive the forklifts.  (I think Pete in hardware is a forklift trainer)

I am planning on sending my A down to the Home Depot soon.  He has this crazy idea about building a Moat to keep out burglars.  I don’t know if it will really work but if you were a burglar would you pick the house with the moat or would you just move on to the next house?  Personally I would just move on,  if someone is crazy enough to build a moat I don’t want to see what they have inside their house.

Overall I was pretty disappointed about the door but I have moved on and am now in a good place.  I am not going to stress over it and neither should you.  In life these things happen and while as an operations manager at Home Depot I am sure you wield a ton of power, perhaps not enough to let a dog drive a fork lift, but I am sure a significant amount.  I really do not see any way you could have prevented this issue from occurring. 

I would like to stay friends.

Stephen

P.S.

Would it be possible to get an autographed photo of you or you and your home depot team for my collection?

 In our family I am usually the one that writes the letters however recently my A became so enraged he decided to write a letter.  That letter is below.  I would like to point out that I have changed the name of the Dairy and the Egg farms.  I really don’t feel like getting sued. 

Let me tell you getting sued is not fun. 

/*************************************************************************************************/

The sun slowly rises above the tree line as several cows wander out from the barn and into the field.  The air is still is silent, broken only by the quack of the ducks on a nearby pond.  As the dew begins to burn off the fresh green grass the cows are called into the milking shed and hooked up the milking machines by happy smiling workers. 

One has to stop and wonder how did I end up in such an idyllic place?  From the big red barn to the slowly meandering steam, to the bells echoing from the quaint white church on the hill this is New England though and through.   

Unfortunately I am not really in this place but I have the next best thing I am drinking a cold glass of Barkie Dairy milk on my back porch.  You see Barkie dairy has the best milk around hands down and if you want a real treat try the chocolate or the coffee milk.  They simply can not be beat. 

Yes I can say I am a huge fan of Barkie Dairy milk. 

Recently however I had an experience that was completely out of character with what I have come to expect from the Dairy.  I have been a customer for a little over a month and have been slowly testing out products and expanding the scope of my order.  I love the Chicken Salad and the Shrimp and Corn chowder is awesome.  Based on these previous experiences I could was so excited to get my Guacamole kit.  I love Guacamole and to be able to get all the ingredients in kit format that is just the cherry on top of the sundae.

My Guacamole kit showed up on Thursday and I was so excited, unfortunately I was too busy to make the Guacamole on Thursday so it had to wait until Sunday evening.  I planned a whole Mexican themed dinner around the Guacamole, enchiladas, rice and beans and some tacos.  It was going to be great.  As soon as I sliced open the Avocado I got a bad feeling, it was way too hard to slice.  Avocados should be soft and this thing was as firm as an 8 day old pizza.  I did manage to get the Avocado’s sliced and tried to mash them up in a food processor but I ended up with tiny little chunks about the consistency of couscous.  It was just not good.  Avocado couscous is just not good.

Fortunately as I began my preparations for Hari-Kari my wife intervened and ran out and bought me some new Avocados at the local store which were soft and mashed up nicely.  I was able to use the kit with these new avocados and the guacamole was very good.  However I am very dismayed that the Barkie Dairy Avocados were so poor.  I would say that perhaps they were not ripe but these were not even close, it would have taken at least a week for them to ripen by which time tomatoes in the kit would have perished.   

I guess all I can say is nice try, poor execution.  However this does raise another point.  Personally I view Barkie Dairy as a premium service offering me the best local food around.  (Obviously there are no Avocado groves in Delaware).  I hope my recent Avocado experience is just an anomaly and not an indication of the produce Barkie is delivering.  This was my 1st produce experience and I found it severely lacking so I am wondering if I should try again so just stick to milk. 

It seems Barkie goes to great lengths to take good care of their cows and provide them with a happy life.  Even going so far as to get them water beds to sleep on, this is awesome, if I had a cow I would want it to sleep on a water bed unless it got sea sick.

 I am a huge fan of sustainable agriculture and try to my best to avoid animal exploitation was much as possible and Barkie’s image seems to be in line with that goal.

Which brings me to another issue.  I don’t understand your eggs.  Barkie Dairy is selling Little Chickie farms eggs and packaging them in Barkie Dairy labeling.   Your website even quotes the following

Brown Eggs are local eggs…. Well, you know the rest!

Unfortunately I do know the rest.  Little Chickie farms is in fact local but that is about it.  Little Chickie farms debeaks their chickens, keeps them in small cages and engages in the practice of molting their hens.  Molting is the process of starving hens until they have lost 15-20% of their weight in order to increase egg production.  A little time on the internet will show you a lot about little Chickie farms, in fact, far more than I ever wanted to know. 

I really don’t see why Barkie Dairy is associated with this farm.  It really does not fit my image of what Barkie Dairy seems to be all about.  I am a realist and do understand that the lives of farm animals are not exactly ideal.  I am aware of what happens at cattle feed lots and slaughter houses and yet I do still choose to eat beef.  I guess I made the assumption that since Barkie Dairy seems to pride it self on the treatment of its cows it would only partner with like vendors. 

Thanks for you time, I really do love your milk and am very disappointed that you are choosing to carry these eggs.  I will still continue to buy your milk but I promise you I will never ever buy these “Local Eggs” and I am reluctant to buy any produce based on the avocado catastrophe.

Sincerely,

 Stephen’s A

A fan of Barkie Dairy Milk, maybe produce but definitely not Eggs!

The Medway Community farm 5K Chicken  Chase is over and I am back in Barkington DE.  It was a really great day even though it rained a little bit.  I even got my name on the back of all the T-shirts and I am sure some people are walking around with T-shirts and wondering what the heck stephenthedog.com is all about and why one earth is it on the back of a t-shirt from the 5k I just ran?

Well, If you are one of those people then welcome it is great to have you here.  Feel free to look around or move on no pressure.  I am not selling knives that can cut both tomatoes and garden hoses,  nor am I pitching self help books or a no money down real estate scheme.  You will get none of that here. None of those programs will make you any money.  If you want to make really money it is all about magazine subscription multilevel marketing.  That is the way to early retirement and I am here to help you just send $19.95 to Stephen TheDog and I will get your welcome packet out to in the next couple days.  Once you receive your welcome packet you will be on your way to financial security. 

My A did managed to complete the 5k but he ended up walking which was nice.  I got to walk the 5K with my A and R and the Swaddlepotimous, I have no idea why they insist on taking that thing everywhere they go.  All it does is scream and make weird noises, it can’t even move around on its own. I guess I would equate it to a noisy plant that smells.  Personally I would just leave it on the porch it would make life a heck of a lot easier and much quieter.

My A has this theory that there is something magical about the shower.  He thinks that whenever he turns on the shower the swaddlepotimous stops screaming.  I guess he figures that since he can’t hear her screaming in the shower she must have stopped.  It is an interesting theory but I think he needs to do a little more research.  Perhaps he should ask himself why the dog always wants to go outside just before he gets into the shower.

It took 49min for us to finish the 5k definitely not a great time but on the plus side my A has agreed to see a doctor about his feet.  Your feet should not hurt then go numb just walking 3miles. It was also great to be able to just walk along and take my time.  I got a ton of compliments about how great a dog I am.  Obviously I already knew that but it is nice that others can recognize it as well.  I am sure we would have had a much better time but people kept coming up and asking to pet me and really I don’t want to deprive anyone of that opportunity.  

Congratulations to Ken Jacobson for winning the race and a special shout out to KRISTINA SMITH who came in 8^th.  Not too shabby for a 12 year old I am predicting big things out of her next year.  My A got smoked by A 12 year old and a 54 year old man.  I really better not let him look at the results he even got beat by a 7yr old.  That is kind of pathetic if you ask me. 

I have already signed up as a sponsor for next year. Hopefully they will have a convertible for me to ride is as I am going to make my A run.  We have a bet going if he does not break 30 min next year he owes me $100 which I am going to give to the farm.  If he finishes in under 30min well I will play fetch with him for one day.  Fortunately he is not going to break 30min so will not have to worry about demeaning myself by playing fetch.

Well time to get back to the business of being a dog.  I did finally get a response from Home Depot about the door.  It was very weak and I have yet to respond back perhaps later this week.

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope to see you at next year’s Chicken Chase to benefit Medway Community farm presented by Stephen TheDog

As you are no doubt aware the Chicken Chase is rapidly approaching.  My A has about 4 days left to get ready and there is just no way.  It is going to be really really bad. I almost feel bad for him but then I remember he has been giving the swaddlepotimous way more attention lately.  

On Sunday my A went to the gym to work out and ended up having his feet go numb on the treadmill.  I don’t think that is a good sign you probably should not run with numb feet.  I know my A is planning on seeing a doctor about his feet but of course being the genius that he is, he is going to wait till after the Chicken Chase.  He want to make sure he is good and hurt before he goes to a doctor.  My A does not really believe in preventive medicine.  I have A feeling that after Sunday I will be getting fewer walks.

My is considering loading up on Vicodin right before the race and filling his shoes with Oragel.  I really don’t know how well this will work.  To me it seems like a bad idea I would think the Oragel squishing around in your shoes would be very annoying and I am not sure of the legality of using narcotics in a road race.  Personally I think it will be much worse to get caught by the Chicken Chase doping control team than to run a 1 hour 5K.  Hopefully I can talk my A out of this stupid plan. Does anyone know if you can detect Oragel with a urine test?  

Speaking of running I would like to congratulate Steve Runner.  www.steverunner.com on completing the 114^th Boston marathon in just over 6.5hrs. Yes you read that right he was running for over 6 hours.  Now I don’t care what you say about Steve that is determination ,or insanity, either way nice job Steve. 

Steve recently was talking to my A about having an event for all the people who listen to his podcast and want to meet him.  After my success with the Chicken Chase, since I came onboard  as a sponsor registrations have more than tripled, Steve asked me to sponsor his event as well.  This sponsorship thing is kind of cool it is nice to see people get behind a cause.

It is with great please that I announce the 1^st annual Phedippidations fish gut to benefit the SRMD foundation.  This is going to be a great even. Please be sure to bring your kids to share in all the fun.   You don’t want to miss out on an opportunity to meet Steve Runner and share a few stories, be sure to ask about the time he got locked in a salt mine for the weekend.  

It looks like my A will not be testing the bat detector on Sunday.  He has run into some issues.  He recently discovered the laser diodes he is using are not rated for continuous duty so they dim to almost nothing after about 4min.  Obviously this will not work as a steady beam of light is needed to detect the bats.  He also managed to blow up his multi meter yesterday.  I think he was trying to figure out how much current was driving a laser module and he blew the fuse in the meter.

Fortunately Radio Shack carries the fuses for his meter.  He was able to get like 6 of them for $3 which is great.  I am however starting to wonder why he bothers going in there.  Apparently today they were a little bit too helpful.  After he got the fuses the clerk asked “can I help you with anything else today”.  My A said “nope just the fuses”, at which point the clerk asked if he needed batteries.  Why does Radio Shack insist on trying to sell batteries with everything?  They would ask you if you wanted batteries if you bought a ham sandwich.  How much money is radio shack making off these batteries?  Did they get a huge shipment of cheap Korean batteries they need to move what is the deal?

After saying no to the batteries the clerk rung up my A’s fuses $3.09 at which point she asked for my A’s email address.   Why do they want email addresses.  However my A being my A provided them with a valid email address SPAM@UCE.GOV.   I would have thought at this point the clerk would have been able to overcome the Radio Shack brainwashing, but nope she proceeded to ask my A when his cell phone plan was up.  Seriously?  The guy came into buy fuses and is spending $3 I don’t think he want to buy a cell phone and certainly not from Radio Shack.  Do you realize you can’t even try out the phones in a Radio Shack they don’t even work.  They are for display only, who buys a phone when you can’t even press the buttons and make it do stuff.  “Hey this phone here with the picture of the hot air balloon on the screen is way cooler than the one with the picture of the ducks”

I really don’t like Radio Shack they are just dumb.  I hope the bat project is over soon so my A will stop going to that place.  I can’t believe Radio Shack is still in business. 

If you are considering going to Radio Shack to buy Monster HDMI cables please call me 1^st I will happily come over bite you in the butt and take all the money out of your wallet for you.  There is no reason to spend $50 on a cable.  HDMI is a digital signal you either get a signal or you don’t.

Well I am rambling I should get back to the business of being a dog.  FYI it is still not too late to register for the Chicken Chase.

It seems like my A is in for a rude awakening when he runs the 1^st Annual Stephen TheDog’s Chicken Chase.  I have noticed he has been coming home limping a lot and seems to be having issues with his feet.

Recently he bought a new pair of running sneakers but I fear he is going to have a really bad day on the 25^th.  I don’t think he is anywhere near ready.  Perhaps instead of sponsoring a race and signing him up I should have tried to get him on the Biggest Loser.  I am pretty sure I could have gotten him up to at least 400lbs.  Really if I got him to quit all activity I am sure I his weight would shoot way up.  Maybe I should contact NBC and see what their thoughts are on me prepping my A for their show.  I wonder how fat I would have to get him for NBC to guarantee a spot.

I am sure my A would be happy to eat subway, chew gum, use a Brita filter and load up on Jenny O turkey.  Apparently that is what you have to do if you are going to be on the show.  It is kind of sad that the show is really 1 hour with an hour of product placement oh well it is nice to see ridiculously fat people shrink down to somewhat normal size.  Too bad it can’t just be about losing weight but instead has to be some sort of a game.  I think the game causes some people to miss the point.  Umm excuse me you are 400lbs perhaps it might not be worth it to eat 20 cupcakes.  Really once you cross the 400lbs line I don’t think there is any reason on god’s green earth why you should eat 20 cupcakes.

On a completely unrelated note my A in working on some mad scientist project in the basement.  I talked to him about it the other day and apparently he is trying to build a bat detector.  I guess the idea is to take pictures of bats in flight.  Personally I think it would be easier to just hit them with a tennis racquet and then take their picture.  If he really wants them in flight he could throw them up in the air again.

Hopefully he will stop working on this thing soon.  Yesterday I caught him trying to cut down the lines of code on the microcontroller , he kept mumbling something about it being too slow the stupid thing runs at 16mhz how can that be too slow.  Anyway it was pretty fun to watch him fry a laser the other day though.  He hooked it up backwards and all this blue smoke came pouring out and the next thing I knew I was being sent outside.   I am a little bit worried about him yes there are a few bats that fly around our house but they are like 15 feet up in the air.  How is he ever going to get that to work.  I want to see him succeed but really wouldn’t trying to get a picture of the dog be a little bit easier.  Perhaps a dog detector “Hey look there’s a dog”.  See it is not that hard, I think he would be far more successful at trying to take a picture of Wonder Woman’s invisible jet.

On the plus side the bat detector project seems to be keeping his mind off the huge embarrassing failure I fear he is destined for at the Chicken Chase.  Let’s just hope he does not decide to test the bat detector on the 25^th I don’t think he can handle that much failure.

Recently I ran the 1^st annual StephenTheDog HFCS challenge.  I viewed this as an interesting project to learn more about what people eat, and while it did do that is also spun out a rather interesting opportunity.

Sometimes I forget how far the internet reaches I have to keep reminding myself that there are people outside the Barkington area who actually read this site.  In fact there are even some who don’t live in the grandmother’s basement.  After my experience with almost winning a town council seat in Baxter seat on throw away votes I should be much more aware of this phenomenon but apparently it slipped my mind.

During the HFCS challenge a woman, lets call her H, from Medway MA contacted me to say she was impressed with what I was doing with the HFCS challenge.   She seemed like a pretty smart lady and as we talked for a while about HFCS organic vegitables and a bunch of other things.  During the course of the conversation she mentioned that she was the President of some kind of community farm initiative.  http://www.medwaycommunityfarm.org/  that was focusing on Organic food.  

Recently organic food has become one of the things I am passionate about.  As I talked to H I realized the farm was in startup mode and needed help.  Well there is nothing I like more than helping at the grass roots startup level, your help goes so much farther.  Is it better to give $1000 to a University with a $4.7 Billon endowment or to a smaller organization where you can actually see the change you impact?  I say go small so you can see your impact.

H and I came up with the idea of my sponsoring a road race to support the Medway farm.  I wanted to call it “Stephen TheDog’s chicken chase”  but H did not really like this idea.  Instead she is calling it “Medway Community Farm 5k Run/Walk”  I guess she is the President and can do whatever she want but I really like my name much better, it has more zing.   H turning down ideas like “Stephen TheDog’s Chicken Chase” are not going to get you reelected to a second term.  

I thought the best part about sponsoring the race would be getting to ride in the pace convertible but I was told there is no convertible this year.  I was pretty upset about this but then H told me I could have a few sponsor’s exemption entries into the race.  This works out because I have been looking for a way to get back at my A for spending so much time with the swaddlepotimous.  

What better revenge than to make my A run 3.1 miles especially since I know he is in no shape to do it currently.  To make things even better since I entered him in the race and he has to run I am pretty sure he can give me a ride up to Massachusetts.  The ride should give me 4 to 5 hours to spend some time with my A and making him run 3.1 miles should teach him you don’t ignore a dog that has free time.    

I don’t even know why he wastes his time with that swaddlepotimous.  The Henry Doorly Zoo certainly had no interest in her. They could even take the time to write me back so I am not sure what my A sees in this thing.   The swaddlepotimous is not even mobile it just sits there and only moves around the house when my A or R move it.  They should have just gotten a plant, plants smell nice, they create oxygen and they don’t poop.

I don’t really want to go on a swaddlepotimous tirade today.  I would rather talk about my race.  It is going to be awesome, not quite as awesome as it would be with a dog riding in a convertible leading the runners but still pretty awesome.  If you enter I think you even get a t-shirt everyone loves t-shirts.    

If anyone would like to run “Stephen TheDog’s Chicken Chase” with my A the information is below.  The registration link actually does not work I will have to tell H about that.  If you do decide to run please tell them you are registering for the “Stephen TheDog’s Chicken Chase”.  If we get enough support for my name they will have to think about changing it next year.  Hopefully they will at least have a convertible for me to ride in next year or if they want to stick with the farm theme a tractor would also be acceptable. 

First Annual Medway Community Farm 5k Run/Walk

Sunday, April 25, 2010
88 Summer Street, Medway High School, Medway MA

9 AM start (rain or shine)
Check-in & race-day registration beginning at 8 AM

Entry Fee: $25
Mail registration and payment to:
 P.O. Box 239 Medway MA 02053
or
Register online at: www.medwaycommunityfarm.org

Timed by 3C Race Productions

The non-profit, Medway Community Farm, Inc. (MCFI) has spent the past year working to move the community farm project forward from - concept to reality - for you the community! Our goal is to provide the community with locally grown food, educational opportunities, volunteer experiences as well as foster community spirit. Please support us in our first fundraising event! All proceeds benefit Medway Community Farm.

 By signing below, participants assume all risks associated with this event. Furthermore you the participant release Medway High School, The Town of Medway, Medway Community Farm, Inc, the Event Director and Volunteers together with their agents and employees from all actions damages, claims, or demands which our heirs, executors, administrators or assigns may have against the above described parties for all personal injuries known or unknown which may be incurred by participating in the above event.

 Name:_____________________________________________

Circle Gender:   M    F    Age:____ 

Address:___________________________________________ Phone:________________________ City:________________________ State:____

Zip Code:________ Email:________________________

HFCS results

Of all the people that signed up for the HFCS challenge 66% we able to go the entire week without ingesting HFCS.  The other 33% got caught up on things like ketchup or salad dressing.  You have to be really careful as HFCS is everywhere. 

My A has completed the HFCS challenge.  I was planning on announcing the results much sooner but we had to get an outside ruling.  It seems my A ate some Swedish meatball prepared by my R’s mom.  Let me tell you those meatballs are delicious.  The problem is that most beef consume actually have trace amounts of HFCS in it.

In order to make sure my A actually complete the HFCS successfully we have to figure out the type of beef broth used for the meatball.  While it did take some time I am happy to report that my A was able to go an entire week without ingesting HFCS.  Unfortunately this task was not all that easy.  HFCS is every where.

My A almost blew the whole challenge by stopping and buying lemonade from the neighborhood kids.  Without even thinking he took a swallow realizing after the first gulp that he probably screwed up and blew the challenge.  My A then spent a some time tracking down the parents of those kids to find out what kind of lemonade they were using.  Fortunately it was crappy light lemonade and did not contain and HFCS.  

I am very proud of my A he did a great job on this challenge.  There we many times he almost slipped up and it really amazed us to see where HFCS could be found.  The thing that really helped my A was he cooked all of his own food for the week making everything from scratch and never ate out.  Once you go out in the real world it gets much harder.  

There is actually a person out there who is trying to avoid all Monsanto products for an entire month.  This is a heck of a lot harder than what my A did.  I think my A lost about 5lbs I am sure this woman will lose far more since she can not eat 90% of the food out there.  Check out her blog it is pretty interesting  http://web.me.com/aprildavila/MWM/Blog/Blog.html

It seems that Princeton has just completed a study showing that HFCS is actually bad for you.  It seems Rat that were feed HFCS did not far are well as rats eating regular sugar.  “Compared to animals eating only rat chow, rats on a diet rich in high-fructose corn syrup showed characteristic signs of a dangerous condition known in humans as the metabolic syndrome, including abnormal weight gain, significant increases in circulating triglycerides and augmented fat deposition, especially visceral fat around the belly.”

WE really need to take a stand and do our best not to eat foods with HFCS.  Obviously it is a pain to totally avoid HFCS just ask my A but if you have a choice go with the option that does not have HFCS.  We live in a capitalist society if we show that we are consumers don’t want HFCS then it will go away but in order to do that we will have to take a stand.  Who is with me.

Corn this is not your Grandfather’s Maize.

Next year I hope to have a get a bigger group involved in the HFCS Challenge.  This year was productive and educational and has also opened up a new opportunity which I will be discussing soon.