The Lieutenant Colonel got called to attend a matter of national security late last night. She was going to write her post on the plane but must have been otherwise occupied. If she’s able to get to this assignment, I’ll post it today or tomorrow.

Thanks for understanding,

Sergeant Dusty Cummings

After all these years of telling you, you shouldn’t be surprised when the experts at the Today show talk about the Secret power of Middle Children.

Uh huh!!

I got the power!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“Most people are about as happy as they make up their mind to be.”
- Abraham Lincoln

How happy will you decide to be today?

Happy Monday!

I have been on a quest this week – I’ll tell you all about it soon.? Pinky swear!

I’m driving today, Thursday.? With any luck, I’ll be home, harvesting honey and happy.? Yeah!

“If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair.
We’d never have a friendship.
We’d never go into business, because we’d be too cynical.
Well, that’s nonsense.
You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.”
–Anne Dillard

Happy Monday!

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,
but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy”
–Thich Nhat Hanh

Happy Monday!

As you know, I received an email on Friday regarding my post about my experience with Kitchen Resources and the L’Equip RPM Blender.

Please note that the following is my opinion and the basis of my opinion. (For increased clarity, my opinion is written in blue.)

1. Mr. Callom said : “We trust that these actions have resolved your concerns.”

In my initial letter (August 2, 2008) to Kitchen Resources owner and president Gary Leavett, I said: “This is a serious and dangerous issue. As one business owner to another, I strongly encourage you to recall all of these blenders before someone dies. At the very least, you need to discontinue carrying these items.”

The reasoning behind my expressed request and opinion: I was deeply concerned that someone, particularly a child, would gravely injure themselves on these blender blades.

Please note that I have not asked for damages, a refund or any other financial renumeration. I have only asked for something, that in my opinion, is more expensive – integrity.

2. The basis behind my opinion that Kitchen Resources “knew these blades were defective and sold them anyway (from August 15, 2008 email).”

a. I was told by the customer service person that she/he and a number of employees has attempted to speak to the owner about the blade problem with this particular blender. In fact, she/he gave me Gary Leavett’s email saying that Mr. Leavett would have to listen to me as I was the customer. I hesitate to mention this as I don’t want to cost this person her/his job.

b. I informed the company in early July when the blades broke the first time. At that time, I was informed that I would receive a new “stronger” blade. It’s the second set of that shattered into these shards when blending a frozen banana and frozen berries.

c. It’s my opinion that it takes about six months to have a product remanufactured in Asia. Remember, I purchased this blender on June 14, 2008 and received it on June 18, 2008. The blades broke in early July. We are talking about a month and a half since purchase and less than two weeks since replacement with the same blades.

From Mr. Callom’s August 5, 2008: “Just last week we received a quantity of new blade assemblies from our supplier in Asia and I want to be sure that you got the new one.”

Further he states: “We had not been happy with the previous blade, even though I?ve not seen the catastrophic failure that you experienced. This new blade assembly has performed better than the previous ones in the tests that we have done here.”

These two statements lead me to the opinion that Kitchen Resources was not “happy” with the blades on or before June 14, 2008 when I purchased the blender. Moreover, they were not “happy” with the blades when they replaced my original broken blades with the same faulty blades in mid-July.

d. Mr. Callom’s assertion in his August 15, 2008 email: “There is nothing in my email or any fact of this situation that supports any accusation that we knowingly sell defective products.”

This is our differing opinion.

To my knowledge, Kitchen Resources has not recalled this product nor provided what they believe is stronger blades for people who have purchased this blender thus far. In fact, I have no way of knowing if they have replaced the blender blades with each of their distributors. Thus it is my opinion that this product and these blades remain on the market even after my notification to the company in mid-July, at the end of July and in my email to Gary Leavett on August 2, 2008.

Should I learn that this untrue, I will be greatly relieved and happily remove any untruth.

3. Mr Callom: “We respectfully ask that you consider removing from your Internet blog the inflammatory attacks you have made against us and our products. What you experienced is extremely unusual and is not representative of our overall product quality.”

In my opinion, the facts are inflammatory. The very fact that these blender blades shattered – twice – in the normal use of this blender (again frozen berries, frozen banana, and soymilk) is inflammatory.

In addition, when I suggested that my experience was unusual, the Kitchen Resources customer service representative indicated that my experience was not abnormal for this product.

In my opinion, there is no attack here. My experience with Kitchen Resources, Mr. Callom and Mr. Leavett speaks for itself

4.? “This blender will kill someone.” I hold this opinion because:

a. There is no way to know the blender blades are broken.? I missed it the first time.? I only realized the blade was broken when I heard it clink against the plastic bottle.

b.? I tend to be really lucky in these type of matters.

c.? I know that infants and toddlers drink a lot of smoothies.? While I pray it’s not true, I don’t trust a harried, overwhelmed mother to notice the blender blade is broken.

d.? Again, there is no, none, nada, nunka way to know there’s a metal shard inside a thick, dark colored, opaque smoothie.

e. I was using the blender in an approved, in fact suggested, manner.? (There is a smoothie recipe inside the L’Equip brochure that came with the package.)

I am not a contentious person. I dislike conflict at every level. I did not expect conflict in this case. In fact, I assumed that a business owner, such as Gary Leavett, would be grateful to know of his risk.

Bloggers are under attack everywhere with nuisance lawsuits designed to shut down blogging. With every media outlet owned by corporate conservatives, bloggers are the last little guy capable of speaking to the world.

Personally, I wish Kitchen Resources would put it’s money into replacing the blender blades rather than threaten me. My opinion is that the threatened suit would cost a lot more than simply having the integrity to make certain that every single person who purchased the L’Equip RPM Blender had safe blades. Imagine the public relations coop!

I’ll keep you posted. I assure you that if I receive evidence that my opinion is faulty, I will remove any and all posts as well as apologize for my mistake.

That’s my word, my integrity and my promise to you.

As always, thank you for reading.

Claudia

• I guest blogged at Not a Mean Girl‘s place on Thursday. I re-edited a story called “Hard Blue Chair”. You can check it out here. (It’s short so don’t worry.)
• They cut down the home of the squirrelly’s today… so massive squirrel evacuation in my neighborhood. Shall we bet on how long that will last??
• Exciting news about the Democratic convention!
  • There’s going to be a tent city in the park 1/2 block from my house. No shit. 10,000 – 20,000 people in a park with zero public toilets, zero running water, zero food, and a neighborhood with zero parking. We’re so excited that we’re installing security doors on every door. (For the record, it’s not the tenters that worry me. It’s the people who will come to prey on the tenters.)
  • They are closing the Denver Courts for regular business. Only convention business for the last two weeks of August. Now isn’t that a warm fuzzy!
  • Homeland will close a mile around the Convention. (Let’s see – 20,000 people 1/2 block from her house… unable to get to convention… what are they doing to do with their time??)
• I’ve lost three relatives in the last two months. The insanity is running high in my primary family… very very high. All those who agree that I’m lucky to be the family weirdo, RAISE YOUR HANDS!
• Denver Cereal is doing really well. I’ve picked up a bunch of email subscribers and people are agreeing to be in the story in droves. I just have to keep it all straight now…. More than anything, I’m still enjoying working on it. YAY!
• We’ve drastically reduced our electricity consumption! By:
  • insulating the attic,
  • getting insulated blinds for all windows,
  • adding previously mentioned security doors with screens,
  • getting a house fan (installation should be this weekend),
  • starting to double pain our historic windows (one at a time),
  • instituting one light after 9 p.m. policy (This has other benefits too! , and
  • Rosie and I moved to the basement during the day.
• I created a standing work station in the basement. I can stand and work on the computer. I really like it and particularly like what it’s doing to my legs. I can do almost everything except certain editing/blog posting/image editing. Try this – you’ll be amazed at how you feel at the end of the day.
• I still love Breaking Benjamin and hope they release a new album soon.

Now that you are completely bored, I’ll sign off! Please feel free to leave your completely random updates in the comments. One random update deserves another – plus you KNOW how nosy I am!

Happy Friday!

Sheez, not that Squirrelly! This one:

These guys are no help. No help at all.

Why must Squirrelly die? Because he’s farming, then eating my lettuce! As soon as it’s four inches high – wham, squirrelly eats everything – then waits until it grows again.

The devastation:

See what I mean. He ate just enough.
He is now letting it grow to torture me into thinking
I’m going to have a salad,
then WHAM he eats the lettuce.

Of course, shooting, maiming, poisoning, torturing or hurting a squirrel is illegal by law in the City and County of Denver. I wonder why they had to pass that law….

Anyway, on to updates. We last looked at the urban farm on May 23.

May 23 : Bed 1

June 24 : Bed 1

May 23 : Bed 2

June 24 : Bed 2

May 23 : Bed 3

June 23 : Bed 3

(The blue things are called “walls of water”. They are like portable terrariums.
I use them around tomatoes early in the season.
I’m using them here for watermelon – it’s just not quite warm at night yet.)

Here’s a few extra cool things. We decided to grow asparagus from seed:

Babies…. ahhhh…..

And even a baby blackberry!

(You can check out how we built these beds in this post. Remember, there’s two feet of loose, nutritious soil under each bed.)

Because someone, who will remain named Claudia, saw a buy 3 raspberry plants get 3 free deal meant that you type “3″ in the quantity box, we wound up with 18 raspberry plants. That’s right 18.

So the NEW raspberry bed:

You’ll notice that the soaker goes under the fence.
The neighbors “had to” take some raspberry plants off our hands.
Oh and some basil and some Red Zinnias.

On to our bees.? We have four stable hives.? They seem very healthy and happy.? In fact, they are better than I’ve seen them in a long time.? Two hives already have honey supers on them (what we collect honey from).? I expect to add supers to the others next week.? Keep your fingers crossed!

Thank you for all your prayers and concerns. This is quite an undertaking and so very fun!

Happy Friday!

]]> http://www.on-a-limb.com/2008/06/squirrelly-must-die-and-other-updates/feed/ 16 http://www.on-a-limb.com/2008/06/expect-miracles/ http://www.on-a-limb.com/2008/06/expect-miracles/#comments Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:57:57 +0000 On a Limb w Claudia http://www.on-a-limb.com/?p=1394

If this tiny endangered sea dragon can get pregnant, anything is possible.
What miracle would you like to bring to life?

Happy Friday!