08:36 – I called the local Costco yesterday morning to tell them they’d overcharged us by 41 4-packs of Coke. She corrected the charge and is mailing us a receipt. She did seem annoyed at the checker at the door, who should have noticed that we had only four 4-packs instead of 45 of them.
Last night, I tried on the Kirkland Signature jeans I picked up Sunday. The waist was nominally 38 inches. I didn’t actually measure it, but the waist fit me properly. The only issue is that this line of jeans is “relaxed fit”, which means it allows extra room in the seat of the pants that I don’t really need. I’d prefer standard fit, but they’re not really baggy on me.
The Costco/Kirkland jeans are made in Mexico. I’d prefer US-made but Mexico is okay. At $14, they’re less than a third the price of the US-made jeans I bought at All American Clothing or jeans from LL Bean or Lands’ End, which are made in places like Turkey and Syria and Pakistan. Barbara’s only comment was that if I’m going to keep buying new jeans she thinks I should start purging our closet of some of the old ones.
I’m filling bottles today for a new batch of chemistry kits, and I think I’m going to try something new. For hazardous chemicals, USPS shipping regulations require that “Each inner receptacle must be securely sealed with wire, tape, or other positive means.” Until now, Barbara has been taping the caps on hazardous chemical bottles, which is time-consuming. For example, 10 of the 40-odd chemicals in a chemistry kit are defined as hazardous for shipping purposes, so that’s 10 bottles per kit she needs to tape the caps of.
As a possible alternative, I just ordered a box of 500 shrink bags from Amazon. I already have a heat sealer and a heat gun. There are six 15 mL bottles and four 30 mL per kit that need their caps secured, so I’m going to try making up two blocks in heat-shrink bags: one block of six 15 mL bottles and a second of four 30 mL bottles. The heat shrink bag meets the requirement to secure the caps, and also eliminates one bagging step because the heat shrink bag itself counts as the inner bag. We’ll still need to use an outer bag with absorbent to contain the two heat-shrink bag blocks, but overall that should cut down on the total steps and total time needed. Also, having the bottles neatly blocked will cut down on cubic, which is always a good thing.