THE PEOPLE MUST HAVE THEIR DAN MILLER

So today I started getting things going on my free laptop deal.

7 (I think it was 7) of the rebates are Staples easy rebates. Those can just be filled out online, so I got that going.

In talking to some people, I did get one friend of mine that did the deal. He ended up going to the same store I did, and this was his report:

“When all of the rebate receipts printed out, they were like “Oh, geez,” and told me about how someone did this the night before right around the same time. I said, “Oh, really” and giggled.”

Ha!

Why, getting paid to take a laptop of course. Those of you who have followed along my crazy adventures in coupon land know that is my mantra.

So recently while browsing around online, I came across two threads talking about how you could make money buying a laptop.

Visit those threads (especially the first one) for details, but the basic gist is that you purchase a laptop, 2 printers and 14 pieces of software from Staples. Your upfront cost is somewhere around $1250. You then submit 57! mail-in rebates, netting you around $1650 back. So you get all that stuff for free, plus make ~$400 for your trouble.

The reason that it’s possible is that most of the software has a few rebates on it, making the software free in and of itself. But it all has ADDITIONAL rebates when you are also purchasing a laptop (or desktop). So Staples this week has a laptop on sale for $449.99, and also has 2 different printers that are free (or close to) when purchasing a laptop. Topping things off, they are running a special where if you buy a new laptop with 3 accessories (software included), then you get 20% off your accessories. It’s like the perfect storm of a deal!!

I had found out about this deal this past Saturday night, and have spent some time over the past few days checking things out. I wanted to make sure this was all legit because $1200 is a pretty big upfront investment. Last night I finally got the opportunity to head over to Staples to take the plunge. I first went to the Hyde Park Staples, but the guy there said that the 20% off only applied to a limit of 3 accessories, and printers were not included. This conflicted what I had been told earlier, so I left and went up to the Kenwood store. The manager there was very helpful. He gave me the 20% off on all 14 of my software purchases and the 2 printers. I mean, even without the 20% on everything, it is still a great deal, but that 20% discount adds up to somewhere around $180. I don’t know if it made a difference, but this time I first went back to the software and loaded up my cart, so they could see that I was looking to drop a couple hundred bucks. It’s funny how the prospect of a huge commission changes some people’s attitudes!!

The laptop and 2 of the pieces of software were out of stock, but they were able to call a different store and take care of it then. I chose to just pay for the stuff now and then have them ship it to my house. The details:

Laptop: $449.98
2 printers: $127.96 after 20% discount
14 Software: $607.86 after 20% discount
2 $3 off coupons from empty ink cartridges: -$6.00
Tax: $76.69
Total: $1256.49

Here’s a picture of my haul, minus the laptop and the 2 software titles, which should arrive Thursday.

And now… the fun starts. As a postscript, if you’re interested in this deal, let me know and I can send you my spreadsheet. As a cautionary note, I would not recommend doing it unless you are VERY comfortable with rebates. This is not a deal for the faint of heart. You WILL have to be very meticulous and anal about filling out your forms, and pay very strict attention to the rebate details. Also, because that’s what rebate companies do, many of your rebates will be initially denied, meaning that you WILL have to call them and fight for your rebates. Luckily that process isn’t too bad, because from my experience, if you call them up and tell them you sent everything in, they will typically just approve your rebate, probably figuring if you’re going to take the time to fight about it, then you probably have all your documentation.

Well, after Carolyn discovered that she was only 26.6, I thought I’d head over to RealAge.com.

And the grand result is that I am a rockin 27.1 years old.

Words you thought you might never see in the same sentence? Yes folks, it is time for some investigative journalism that TPMHTDM is known for. Well, er, maybe.

I come to you on the mighty subject of toilet paper. We all use it, but nobody is ready to ask the hard-hitting questions that the subject deserves. In a way, it’s kind of surprising, since a lot of times some of our most quiet time for rumination occurs within 2 feet of a roll.

So anyway, let me explain my TP situation at work. In each stall (at least the men’s ones) there are 2 rolls of TP on rollers, side by side. Either of these rolls is accessible for usage. I bring that up to point out that this is NOT one of those operations where you have the 2 rolls and the little sliding door underneath, with the idea that you use all of one roll first, while still having a “backup” roll in case things turn for the worst. I would estimate that each of these 2 rolls is used about 50% of the time.

So, on top of these two rolls, the cleaning crew usually leaves smaller rolls. My guess is that when they come to clean each day, if either of the rolls on the rollers has reached a pre-determined level of “smallness” they take it off the roll, put a brand new one on the roll, and then put the smaller roll on top.

Anyway, in the course of human events yesterday at work, I found myself in that aforementioned spot of rumination, and I began to wonder (not for the first time), what do they do with those old rolls? I never see empties, and since the people at work can barely be counted on to get their old paper towels in the trash, I’m not seeing the option that people are using them up and then throwing them away.

Later in the day, while refilling my water cup, I spotted one of the cleaning ladies (not to be sexist - we also have a cleaning guy, though I did not see him yesterday). So I asked her “Hey, what do you do with all those smaller rolls of toilet paper”. And she said that they throw them away!!!!! She also said that I could take them if I wanted to.

Which of course brings up the question of whether or not I want to. I am a cheapskate (or, as I prefer it, frugal). I think I have no problem taking this if they’re just going to throw it away. As a side note, the quality of this TP is not quite the Charmin that we got when I worked for P&G, but it is not quite travel plaza worthy either.

But what I’m most concerned about is people giving me crap about it, pardon the pun. I’ve received occasional crap from people for scavenging food from work. It is just amazing to me the amount of food and other servicable stuff that people will just THROW AWAY!. So if someone puts out pizza or other food in the breakroom, and it’s not all gone by 5 p.m., I will take some of it home as I leave. Or once someone had thrown away a dozen donuts IN THE BOX that nobody had bothered to eat. So I rescued those too. Like I said, I have occasionally been given grief over this. So now, whenever I try to do things like this, I try to make sure nobody’s watching. Not because I feel like I’m doing anything “wrong”, but mostly just to minimize the crap I’m given.

So, loyal readers, what say you? What should I do in this situation?

Yes, yes it’s true. 11 people must have their Dan Miller. One of the features of Google Reader is that it will tell you how many people are subscribed to your blog, if you have it hosted on your own website. If you look in the access logs, there are lines like this

• 65.214.44.29 - - [09/Aug/2007:12:41:49 -0500] “GET /blog/atom.xml HTTP/1.1″ 304 - “-” “Bloglines/3.1 (http://www.bloglines.com; 2 subscribers)”
• 209.85.238.11 - - [09/Aug/2007:12:39:08 -0500] “GET /blog/atom.xml HTTP/1.1″ 304 - “-” “Feedfetcher-Google; (+http://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html; 7 subscribers; feed-id=17013892812815636262)”
• 209.85.238.11 - - [09/Aug/2007:11:59:06 -0500] “GET /blog/rss.xml HTTP/1.1″ 304 - “-” “Feedfetcher-Google; (+http://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html; 2 subscribers; feed-id=16923755633143554832)”

If you can make your way through the technobabble, you will see that 11 people must have their Dan Miller. 9 are subscribed through Google Reader (7 to atom.xml and 2 to rss.xml) and 2 through Bloglines. Both Google Reader and Bloglines do essentially the same thing - allow people to subscribe to multiple blogs / feeds.

That way you only have 1 place to go (Google Reader or Bloglines) for any and all feeds that you want to check up on. And it will alert you to which ones have new posts. It’s a time-saving feature - that way you only have to go to the blogs that have new content. I highly recommend getting yourself on one of these. If you already have a Google account (Gmail or blogger or other), then it’s pretty easy to get started with Google Reader. Of course, then when Google disables your account that makes it doubly or triply annoying but hey!

In other news, yesterday (August 8th) marked the 10th anniversary of my return to the US from my 2 year mission in the Dominican Republic. Woah I’m old!

So out yourself, oh 11 people that must have their Dan Miller! Let me hear you say it loud, say it proud!

So I have been trying to get out on a weekend for a longer bike ride for awhile now. But it seems like things just seem to always come up that take precedence, and so it has taken until now to get out.

Under threat of rain, I headed out about 6:30 pm over to the Little Miami bike trail. I was planning on heading up to Morrow (Tomorrow! Tomorrow! it’s only a daaaay away), but after looking at some mileages, it became apparent that I would not be able to make it there and back before dark (or at least it would be close). So I decided to try for a 30-mile ride. Plus, since Carolyn had just run her first 5K (3.1 miles), I figured 3 and 1 were the numbers of the day, so I was going for a 31 mile bike ride.

I drove out to Miamiville and parked there (noticing that they have removed the port-a-potty that used to be there), and headed out. I was feeling pretty good - going out around 17-18 mph. I hadn’t quite decided where I was going to turn around, but ended up going to the 32.0 mile marker. That was 15.5 miles, in 57:24.15, for a speed of 16.2 mph. I turned around and kept going, for about another mile or so before stopping at a park in South Lebanon.

The ride back was definitely harder. It shouldn’t be surprising since I was tired. I did all right at first, but then was definitely hurting. I really wanted to stop in Loveland for another break, but I willed myself on (5 more miles, 5 more miles!) A bit south of there, I realized that it might be possible to finish in under 2 hours if I could keep up ~15 mph for the final stretch. Alas, it was not meant to be. The final 15.7 miles (not sure why it was different out and back) was done in 1:03:33.51, for 14.8 mph. Final totals, 31.2 miles in 2:00:57.66, 15.5 mph.

So, keeping in mind my goal of 1000 miles of exercise for the year, this of course helps quite a bit. My last 3 weeks I’ve had no cycling, and my running totals have been 2, 11 and 6 miles. This week had 3.6 miles running and 40.4 miles cycling.

That puts my year-to-date totals at Running: 122.0 miles, Cycling: 300.2 miles, and Swimming: 4.9 miles for a total of 427.1 miles. I have somewhere around 21 weeks left in the year, so that means I need to do 27.3 miles per week. I think I need to step it up a notch.