Database marketing fail

I recently received the following email, which is hilarious for a number of reasons:

• We did own a Jetta GL.  A 1996 Jetta GL.  I know it's worth nothing.
• Heritage Toyota should know that, because they rejected the Jetta GL as a trade-in back in 2011
• Since we eventually purchased our current vehicle from them, Heritage Toyota should know the make, model and year of our current vehicle

Heritage Toyota may very well just be sending spam emails using a purchased database of car owners and their last known vehicle, but they should really merge that database with their own internal database in order to send better targeted emails.

Saying goodbye to my beloved Outdoor Sportif jacket

In 1996, I went backpacking in the Great Smoky Mountains with my future spouse.  Since I had no equipment, this entailed a trip to the local Army Surplus store to get long underwear, a backpack, and a jacket.  The jacket I found was an Outdoor Sportif with colors I loved:

... and it has served well as my rain jacket and winter shell for 22 years.  It has a single interior pocket, in which I usually put my car and house key:


In addition to the usual exterior pockets at the sides, it also has an exterior chest pocket in which I typically put phone, wallet, and sunglasses



The interesting thing about this pocket is that it's outside the zipper, so I can get at the contents without breaking my heat seal, but it's inside a set of velcro tabs that help to secure the contents of the pocket.




The main negative is that the hood tended to come off in any amount of wind, so it was not a great rain jacket.  Also, after many years of continuous winter use in cold climates, it was wearing down and I've been looking to replace it.  

During early searches, Burton's Hover and Swash came closest among retail jackets to what I was looking for, but the pockets (and colors) aren't quite right.  Then I looked into having a custom jacket made, and while the people I talked to did some excellent work, the pockets in the custom jackets were secured with velcro, and I really like zippers.  

Finally, this fall I discovered Fjällräven and their Keb jacket.  Even better, I got one of the orange/grey ones.  I'm missing the purple-y royal blue on the Sportif, but the Keb has pretty good features to compensate.  

Holiday Catalogs are Dead, Long Live the Holiday Catalog

Now that the JC Penney catalog and Sears catalog are ghosts of Christmases Past, Amazon is filling the void with its own "A Holiday of Play" catalog. The cover simultaneously tries to:

1. play down the Amazon name (which reminds us that it was one of the forces that destroyed brick-and-mortar)
2. evoke a "happier time" when we had simpler toys and made our best toys out of cardboard boxes (and apparently, TiVo?  those antennae, paired with the smiles below look a lot more like TiVo symbol than the rabbit ears of actual TV) 
3. place that Amazon symbol prominently on the box to remind us you get boxes delivered to your door for free when you order from Amazon!

The catalog itself is kinda skimpy in comparison to the 600-page heyday of Penney's and Sears.  All this would be by-the-by... however, the catalog contains no prices.  Now, this may be because of the ever-changing natures of prices online, but it raises my hackles a bit as a possible ploy to create desire for items before revealing their price.

*muffled thump*

Some years ago, we bought a small assemble-your-own shed from Gardener's Supply, in order to clear some room in our crowded garage.  After Vermont Gas came through and we could remove the fuel oil tank from the garage, we didn't need the shed anymore.  Before we could decide what to do with it, however, one of the nearby maples decided for us.

(note: I originally shared this to friends on Facebook and have backdated this post to that date.  I did this on 9/21/2025)

One of the local fauna

A common yellow garden spider, guarding a bit of mint.

It's important to note that the spider is actual size on whatever screen you're viewing it, so I recommend looking at it on a phone if arachnids alarm you. 😉

Note: posted on 8/19/2026, backdated to 2018 when I first shared with friends on facebook.