I spent two hours this afternoon trying to make a contact with a friend from work via ham radio, with no success. We spent the entire time on the phone trying to figure out what was going on — but neither of us could hear the other one on the radio, whether we used voice (SSB) or digital (PSK31). It’s a good thing the nation wasn’t relying on us for emergency communications today!

And I guess it’s also a clue that I need a better antenna.

But at least I got the radio back into action for the first time in months! Some day, I’ll actually work someone….

Today, I stopped by the local Staples, which is going out of business, to pick up a bunch of miscellaneous supplies (labels, Rolodex cards, and the like). They happened to have a pile of Tensor booklights, too, and I needed one, so I bought it. When I got home, I found that the light didn’t work; foolishly, I thought that they might make an exception to “All Sales Final” for merchandise that was instantly defective.

So I went back to the store and asked the cashier, who called the manager, who told me that “Staples doesn’t own the merchandise in the store any more, the liquidator does, and they say no returns”, and went on to say that I should have tested the booklight before buying it (which would have required opening the blister pack and having had the foresight to have brought batteries along).

I could have tolerated being told “no refunds”. But I was angered by the manager’s “blame the customer” attitude, hence this posting (and the letter I’ve just mailed to Staples’ CEO), and my plan to avoid Staples from now on.