Late Again. I Don't Know Why I Bother to Get Out of Bed in the Morning. Aldi. And Tim Tierney.

I have overlooked Aldi.  I watched it being built.  Roxy Ross told me it was a nice and interesting grocery store.  I saw Aldi in Massachusetts.  Very recently, Tim Tierney told me in detail about the deals at Aldi.  Yesterday, I finally decided to drop in.  Aldi is a strange, interesting, advantageous place to shop.  Or to look.

Aldi is set up almost like a big box store, except it's very small.  It's a lot of boxes of things, and prices are tenuously, and seemingly temporarily, displayed.  There are many off brands, some likely to be unfamiliar store brands.  And prices are very low, just as Tim said they were.  A bag of potato chips is about $1.50 for the usual size, the one that costs $2.50 on sale at Publix.  Berries (blue, black, and rasp) are under $2.  Hass avocados are 79 cents, if you buy them individually, or $1.99 for a bag of three.  The best price at Publix is $1.00 each on sale.  At Costco, it's about the same, or maybe 80 cents each, if you buy a bag.  Several of the wines were $4.99 or less.  I asked one shopper if she had bought wine there, since that's what she was shopping when I was there.  Yes, she confirmed, and the $4.99 Malbec was excellent, according to her.

I couldn't identify the clientele.  Many of them look like the people who shop at President supermarket on 125th Street.  One guy was wearing a hot pink wig of women's-looking hair, he had his toenails painted bright red, he was wearing a very colorful print "top," and he had tattoos up his neck.  Another guy, with a long ponytail, was way more friendly, and outspoken/loud, than was necessary in a grocery store, and he let me know that the pastries were highly addictive.  The pastries-- cookies, croissants, and similar pastries,-- by the way, were very cheap.  My new friend declared them to be very tasty.

I decided to make an introductory purchase.  I settled on five avocados and three bottles of wine.  I got the avocados individually, because the individual ones seemed to be larger than the ones combined in bags.  I needed three more bottles of wine like a hole in the head.  No, wait, I need a hole in the head more than I need three more bottles of wine.  But so be it.  I want to know how good these $4.99 bottles of wine are.  If you're as curious as I am, come over, and let's share one.  I have no idea how I'm going to get through all the wine.  I hope my children are adventurous about their inheritance.

You might want to bring your own bag to Aldi.  The alternative is you pay them 10 cents per plastic bag, 6 cents per paper bag, or you buy their reusable canvas bag for $1.99. Or you can buy a reusable canvas bag from Publix for 99 cents.

My other recent failing was in overlooking Tim Tierney.  I decided to explore impact-resistant windows.  I have accordion shutters, but Chuck and Roxy Ross have reassured me that their new impact resistant windows are much better.  They do not have to be manipulated in order to work, as accordion shutters do, they block temperature transfer, thereby lowering the electric bill, and they block lots of noise.  I got one estimate several months ago, but it was much more than I was willing to pay.  Someone working in the neighborhood came to my door soliciting a week or so ago, I accepted a visit to provide an estimate, and that estimate was significantly lower than the first.  So I agreed.  I didn't see how I could do better.

I was telling this to Chuck Ross, when he suggested I ask Tim Tierney.  I knew Tim did this kind of work in the past, but I thought he had transferred himself to a different business.  That's why I never asked him in the first place.  Because Chuck thought Tim was still in the impact-resistant window business, I contacted Tim.  Tim came by, and he sent me an estimate a few days later.  I calculated this would work, because I had three days to cancel the other contract.  But the windows Tim proposed to install were not the same as those of the other company (FHA Home-Improvement Associates), and FHA insisted their windows were better than the ones Tim suggested.  I got back to Tim about this, and I asked him for an estimate using the other windows.  Tim did not, by the way, disagree that the other windows were good.  And the other windows have twice the warrantee.  Eventually ("eventually" becomes the operative word), Tim got me an estimate for the same windows that FHA recommended.  The price was about half of what FHA charges.  I could give you FHA's explanation, but as best I can read between the lines, it's a bunch of song and dance and misrepresentation. And they invoked the "we've already ordered your windows [it's past your three-day window to cancel]" clause, so I'm stuck overpaying them.  I missed out on a chance to contract with Tim.  FHA tell me I'll be very happy with their product and their work.  I have no doubt this is true.  But I also think I would have been very happy with Tim's product and work, and I would have saved a great deal of money.  So if you want impact-resistant windows, call Tim at 954-391-9725 or 305-443-7160.  As a frame of reference, Tim has bought, renovated, and sold at least a couple of houses in BP, and the results of his work are very, very impressive.