Douglas Alpenstock

John Weiland wrote:Just wanting to confirm that you have proof of him as the guilty party.... Did he admit to it when you fired him?  If there is no confession, but you have other present or past workers that are in the vicinity and know about both the truck and the credit card, any chance it could have been another person?

I hear what you say, but there is no HR department to conduct an investigation. If he did not do it, he would have protested his innocence. But who did? If he was under the influence of others who did it, he is a potential liability because (as the OP notes) this will escalate. 450 miles and intoxicants and credit card theft? I don't see that the OP had any other rational option. She is liable for everything that could go wrong.

T. Woolf wrote:Firing is no fun. You could possible let him know the reasons for firing, but he probably already knows it.

People can be flaky. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Yeah, true. I wonder if this was his "swan song." It seems like he was done with this gig, but left the hard bit to the employer. Lovely.

Chin up, you made the best choice. It's too bad, but deliberate theft and neglect of duties is a deal-breaker. It could have been much worse. But once trust has been broken, it's tough to rebuild it.

I applaud the excellent comments above.

Personally, in no particular order, repairing gives me the satisfaction of:

Reducing our mountains of waste -- I think our society is walking down a profligate, wasteful, destructive path

Being ahead of the curve, a responsible citizen of the world

Beating Herblock's Law -- "if it's good, they will stop making it." The shiny new replacement item is almost always of lower quality than the original, and even less repairable.

Cheap entertainment -- why cruise Amazon when I can cruise the local recycling centre and see what interesting tidbits washed in on the tide?

Using something I have fixed to accomplish useful tasks (any idiot can whip out a credit card; it takes some chops to repair things)

Continuous learning and problem solving -- how things work, how they fail, and how they can be repaired

Having a degree of self-sufficiency in case the times get "interesting"

Saving a small fortune on small repairs (e.g. saving $250 on a furnace repair callout when all I needed was a screwdriver and a bit of steel wool to clean off the flame sensor)

Doubling my money by folding it in half and putting it back in my wallet

Passing along skills and experience

Regifting things I have salvaged and fixed

Setting a positive example for others (believing repair is possible is a new thing to many)

Edited to modify my grumpy comments

Well done Erika!

I recently received the "fix" email regarding an Outlook .com address attached to my login.

The account was still live with storage space available, but I hadn't logged in for a long while. I wonder if Outlook decided the Permies stuff was recurring spam and started blocking it?

Anyway, I did the "fix" and while it was a minor nuisance it wasn't a big deal.

Peggy Hughes wrote:I have a fog heating pad. It does not have a variable control like my heating pad. It gets too hot. Is there a "dimmer" for it? Or do I need a reostat?

Hi Peggy, welcome. Do you mean a dog heating pad to keep your pet warm? Or a fog heating pad to keep a mirror from fogging up? Can you give us the make and model?

I think the best way to help heat a van is to have the mass running underneath the van. Park over top and the heat will percolate up.

Another thought is that many RV seasonal parking areas allow a semi-permanent hard structure right beside the van ... sort of a lean-to extension that gives dry storage, a cooking area, sitting room, doghouse, etc. A brick RMH with a cooktop would be brilliant in this situation.

Nancy Reading wrote:
Interesting there are so many votes for boiling. I'm just imaginig the stink, as I would need to use the stove in the kitchen for heat!
I believe that blight only survives in living tubers, so as long as the tubers aren't able to grow I think they ought to be safe. I'm wondering whether to drown the tubers in a bucket? I know that is a good practice for many noxious weeds. The nutrient rich liquid can then be used as feed, although to be safer I'd probably pour it somewhere away from the garden in this case.

I agree that boiling is an outdoor activity, especially if the tubers are already starting to decompose. (Though my inner wise guy says "just add a little garlic to your indoor boil, that'll fix it!")

Letting the tubers rot anaerobically in a pail of water will certainly destroy their ability to grow. Are you certain this deactivates the pathogen?

In the past I have boiled huge pots of sketchy potatoes before tossing them in the compost. I have scrounged a number of those enamel canning pots for such tasks.

The boil is dual purpose -- to kill potential pathogens and to break down the starch so it feeds my composting microorganisms.

I do this during a char burn or when cleaning up junk branches/dry weeds, so I'm utilizing heat that would otherwise be wasted.