New England B.S. Thread

So you can choose whoever you want for your pick up. Bad customer service and probably not keeping a regular driver a route to keep it consistent. Good call on changing . I do municipal work now , but when I did a subscription route I rarely screwed up. The driver that would cover for me would if they weren’t familiar . I would come back from vacation to a shit show .
I did Groton /Pepperell ( Monday) , Fitchburg/ Lancaster(Tuesday) , and three days in Acton for the rest of the week

 

That’s who I work for. If you don’t have a good driver that’s dedicated to a non municipal route you will find headaches, and more than you care for.

 

And we appreciate that . Customer service and dedication. Can’t say that enough

 

It's a town wide contract.
Missed pick up, messes, and before the bins, a laundry list of issues.
Always excuses.
Believe me, if we could get our own dumpsters, we would... but, surprise, not allowed.
Just like we don't get options on cable/web.

I hate these no compete deals in this state/town.
When someone can drop your service, and go elsewhere, there is incentive to... you know... care.
Otherwise, it's a bill you can't control, and typically higher....

 

Maybe you'll get Whip City Fiber. They've been moving out pretty far. We use to only have Comcast

 

Had a good time fishing on the Black Hawk boat, out of Niantic, CT. Bottom fished Block Island area and also Coxes Ledge. Excellent boat. The crew is outstanding. I caught Black Sea Bass and also Ocean Perch (AKA Choggies, Cunners, Bergal, etc.). Why keep a Choggie you ask? Because they were over a foot long and are an excellent eating fish.
Yummy dinner !

 

Well , I hope they improve. Have they been there for long? I know Republic bought out JRM and with it came 25 municipal contracts. Initially it was a shit show but has steadily improved since.

 

Yeah, been here for a while.
Used to be Allied before IIRC.
Anyway, this is in no way a reflection on you. And I hate to bring it up here.

Anyway.....snowed here for a bit last night... so... there is THAT....

 

I can't be the only one who takes on a "this could be a fun small project, a hobby if you will" and next thing you know you've bought eleventy billion random pieces and parts, right?

I'm sure I posted here that I bought the parts to replicate one of my "nice" guitars in cheaper parts so I don't have to worry about a chance of the kids damaging it when it's hanging on my wall, right? Well, I decided for a fun winter project to build a guitar from parts. I bought the neck I wanted and put an order in for a bare pre-painted body. Unfortunately the color, while matching the website, didn't match the builds I saw and doesn't match the actual nameplate color. So here I am buying another used guitar to strip down to build what I wanted to build in the first place.

In essence I had wanted the Tom Delonge Stratocaster since I was in HS. I had the opportunity to buy the re-issue and I love it, but the way the guitars hang in my office there's a non-zero chance my typically well-behaved monsters could bang into it, so I have it in a case and pull it when they're not around. Wanting something to pull off the wall, I grabbed a Squier that had the right color scheme / neck design. I was messing around on Reverb and found a matching neck. I had always wanted the blue version of the guitar as well (mine is green) so I bought a Guitar Fetish Daphne Blue body. It looked surf green in the pic, but I had seen a build where it looked the correct color and lo and behold I got it and it's the same color as my green one. I'll have to eat return shipping, but such is life.

I ended up finding a used Daphne blue Squier on Guitar Center's website somewhere in TX. It looks a little bit like aged Daphne compared to the more blue on the new ones, but I called and had the guy Facetime me and hold it next to a Surf Green and it's definitely not green. So I'm going to neck swap it and start building it. I've never done anything like this before, so this is either going to be amazing or a fantastic waste of money. My suspicion it's going to be the latter, but we will see what happens, right?

It would be tremendously helpful if I could actually play guitar.

 

Daphne blue/seafoam green/surf green is always a crapshoot. I'm partial to surf but it seems like everyone throws those 3 colors around willy nilly. The nice thing about fender and their clonesis that you're partscaster will more than likely sound and feel great, but it might open the door for the different tonality parts/wood imparts on the whole picture...

 

If only my ear was as discerning enough to hear the difference!

I've got an authentic 2023 TD Surf Green and a 2023 Squier Affinity Surf Green that I'm converting to TD spec. It's got the right fretboard and larger headstock and 70s style decal. I always visualize Daphne as a pure baby blue, almost what Sonic Blue used to be. However, it appears some Daphne and especially older Daphne will age to a slight green. I've got a newer dark neck with the 70s headstock and decal I'll slap in. Then Invader, 500k and the pickguard and I'm golden. Neither Squier is a hardtail, so it's still an homage. I'm debating getting the X2N for my oragne Tokai to go Cheshire Cat / Dude Ranch era sound. It's got an Invader in it from my high school days.

(Shrugs)

 

how does the humidity change affect electric guitars? I am getting close to needing to store my acoustics away with humidity packs to try and keep up soon - the fret buzzing is already starting.

I have a few cracks that have been cleated a while ago and the surface checking adds to the character of my older guitars, but it is a never ending battle once the pellet stove and heat really kick on. Been eying a carbon fiber to have as a permanent wall hanger for ease of grabbing, but can't quite adjust to the high end tinnish sound as well as the price tags.

 

My understanding is it's much less of a deal with electrics. I've never paid that much attention to humidity for those. My TD is in a case under my bed, but the others I have hanging on the wall. I guess it's more neck shrinkage. The luthier which did my red guitar's setup RUINED it for me. It needed a little intonation love and the action was a smidge high. Now it's a buzzy mess and the higher frets sound like poo. They claimed I had no more adjustment in my neck and they shimmed it, but who knows. I bought a fret dressing tool that I'm going to play with for my surf green Squier that has rough frets. I have a pretty sad cheap Epiphone acoustic I could practice on.

 

I own 4-5 different razors, and have enough shave soap to last me another 10 years probably. I started wet shaving to try to actually be clean shaven and save $. That didn't happen.

I own (and use) 3 mechanical keyboards. I have 2 more I'm trying to sell off. Wait that's a lie, I have a 4th I'm keeping too, so right now 6, trying to get down to 4....

 

Nowhere near the issue, I do 2 setups as the temps really change and they're fine. Maybe some oil for rosewood if it starts drying out from inactivity?

 

What do you run for keyboards?

 

Did they shim under where the neck attaches to the body? I did my Taylor acoustic with a bolt on neck using a cut up business card to get it close instead of shaving down the bridge, but the truss rod needed some adjustments to keep the higher frets from going dead. From my understanding, intonation on an electric is a bit more straightforward by adjusting the screws on the bridge to make the 12th fret harmonic and played note the same.

I use have a guy in Sturbridge I have used in the past to refret one of my guitars and he did a fantasitc job - also had him put in a bone nut and saddle to help with sustain. At this point in time with my interests switching over to bikes, I am a bit more inclined to do my own work and use the less expensive guitars as my practice tools. Always fun to tinker around.

 

I think they threw it off a truck, ran it over, blew it off and said yup, good enough. There was blue residue on my fretboard. It was miserable.

 

oof - that stinks. Seems a lot of companies and their customer care/quality have gone downhill fast with the influx of too much work (mostly still due to covid demand). A lot of guys want to get it off their desk as fast as possible and leave the customer hanging with any sort of follow up.

 

I feel that. I have so many extra / spare parts laying around. I'm finally culling my non-cased 1/18 models as I don't want to buy another case. I only hang onto them because I don't want to get rid of them, despite the fact they're sitting in a box in my cellar, never to see the light of day.

I bid on a set of BMX GT Mag wheels on eBay last week. Not because I'm a BMX enthusiast anymore, but because I want to convert my old Dyno back to how it was when I was a kid so I wouldn't feel guilty selling my Haro. I haven't ridden either since junior high, but somehow I need to bid $300 on something I won't use.

@ABA180 Do you have any connections for a cheap set of white GT Tomahawks (the straight ones, not the 80s blade style)? I just want to throw them back on my Dyno with white GT tires for a display build. Then the Haro can go up for sale.