| Author |
Message |
Jerome J. Lazar, RA, CCS, CSI, SCIP
Senior Member
Username: lazarcitec
Post Number: 56
Registered: 05-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 19, 2004 - 01:12 pm: |    |
Hey gang - its Friday, its been a long week, I'm working tomorrow, and in the middle of trying to find a use of the 2004 set of sweets catalog, which I just took out of the box:
In no particular order:
Uses for my Sweets Catalogs:
1. They probably make great doorstops
2. Great for laminating artwork
3. Maybe a quickie bookcase - now where can I find some shelves? Let's see the old drawing board - hmmm!
Back to the list:
4. Mad at my teenage daughter - could use them to lock her in her room? Nahh, that does not work.
5. Great bookends
6. Good for a printer stand
7. You know I could use some exercise...one, two, one, two - ok how about in lieu of barbells
Let's see, couple more uses -
8. wonder, need to change the oil in the old car, could they be used instead of my car jacks?
9. Monitor stand
10. Could use them as projectile weapons on clients who don't pay their bills - nahh, not enough projectiles, and I could hurt myself.
Well you all get the idea - now Colin, don't delete this, how about it any other uses for my sweets catalogs -
Please help or they go in the recycling bin!!! |
Lynn Javoroski
Senior Member
Username: lynn_javoroski
Post Number: 160
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Friday, November 19, 2004 - 01:52 pm: | |
The pretty green would work for Christmas decorations - "deck the halls with boughs of Sweets..." |
Linton D. Stables, III, CSI, CCS
New member
Username: lstables
Post Number: 1
Registered: 09-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 19, 2004 - 01:58 pm: | |
Just yesterday I used about half the set to raise my PowerPoint projectors to the right height. |
Jerome J. Lazar, RA, CCS, CSI, SCIP
Senior Member
Username: lazarcitec
Post Number: 57
Registered: 05-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 19, 2004 - 02:19 pm: | |
Excellent - two more uses, maybe we can vote on the top ten list? |
Marc C Chavez
Senior Member
Username: mchavez
Post Number: 52
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Friday, November 19, 2004 - 02:22 pm: | |
I have used them to press wild flowers.
(you know..."Oh he's a lumberjack and he's OK") |
Margaret G. Chewning CSI CCS
Senior Member
Username: presbspec
Post Number: 38
Registered: 01-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 19, 2004 - 02:25 pm: | |
These are cute guys, but seriously, I have found that the VO-Tech Center here in town likes to receive them as a tool to teach high school students preparing to enter the building trades how to do product research. They always get my old set every year. |
Jerome J. Lazar, RA, CCS, CSI, SCIP
Senior Member
Username: lazarcitec
Post Number: 58
Registered: 05-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 19, 2004 - 02:29 pm: | |
Yes Margaret that is a good use, however I have tried to donate them in the past, however I needed to have someone come get them - and no one ever came - though I did call several organizations. Well, I expect to try that when I get the 2005 set. |
Tracy Van Niel
Senior Member
Username: tracy_van_niel
Post Number: 100
Registered: 04-2002
| | Posted on Monday, November 22, 2004 - 08:05 am: | |
I put a couple of them behind my couch to keep a space between the top of the couch and the wall.
P.S. I'd have to say that I agree with Jerome, we tried to give our old ones away two years in a row and weren't successful. |
Anonymous
| | Posted on Monday, November 22, 2004 - 12:00 pm: | |
Anyone else being pestered by McGraw Hill and their legion of salespeople to buy the 2005 set? We decided in 2003 to discontinue ordering these dinosaurs, but still get multiple calls from people trying to sell them to us (order now and save $$!).
We not only cannot give them away when we have them, we cannot, evidently, refuse to order them (we were sent the 2004 collection for free after repeadetly declining to order). |
Richard Howard, AIA CSI CCS
Senior Member
Username: rick_howard
Post Number: 37
Registered: 07-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 22, 2004 - 12:38 pm: | |
The calls are getting to be quite annoying. They were still trying to push the 2004 Sweets as late as July. I think they must be overstocked with leftovers and desperate to boost sales for 2005. I work for a large firm and each and every architect fowards calls to me. I get at least one a day. I have tried to tell them not to call, but it doesn't work. |
Anonymous
| | Posted on Monday, November 22, 2004 - 01:03 pm: | |
Think green...as a condition of "buying" the new set, require McGraw-Hill to "recycle" the old set! Prey on their environmental insensitivities? |
Anne Whitacre, CCS CSI
Senior Member
Username: awhitacre
Post Number: 138
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Monday, November 22, 2004 - 02:02 pm: | |
I knew someone who couldn't get their trash people to haul them away (too heavy) so he buried them.. and 10 years later, he found them in perfect condition.. when he was trying to plant a tree. Marc Chavez and I managed to burn one volume, (purely in the interests of science) but you have to fan the pages to get enough air into the thing to combust. |
Linton D. Stables, III, CSI, CCS
Junior Member
Username: lstables
Post Number: 2
Registered: 09-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 22, 2004 - 02:05 pm: | |
I understand that if you have a fire of at least 451 degrees F they will burn OK. (Sorry--a bad movie reference that I couldn't resist.) |
Tracy Van Niel
Senior Member
Username: tracy_van_niel
Post Number: 101
Registered: 04-2002
| | Posted on Monday, November 22, 2004 - 02:38 pm: | |
Regarding anon's comment about receiving a 2004 set, even after repeatedly declining the order ... sounds to me like McGraw Hill is becoming a scam artist. Check out this website (http://www.opwa.org/scams.htm). Quoting the article "Knowing your rights. If you receive supplies or bills for services you didn't order, don't pay, and don't return the unordered merchandise. You may treat unordered merchandise as a gift. By law, it's illegal for a seller to send you bills or dunning notices for unordered merchandise, or ask you to return it, even if the seller offers to pay for shipping" ... they even tell you at the bottom of the page where you can register a complaint.
And, I agree with the annoying and numerous telephone calls. It finally got to the point towards the end of last year and the beginning of this, that whenever someone representing McGraw Hill would call, I would ask to speak to their supervisor and I would complain about the incessant calls. Supposedly, they put something in their computer that said we should not receive any more calls and that any call should come directly to me and no one else ... but it didn't do much good because the calls did continue even after we were supposedly put on the "special" list. Although (knock on wood), I don't think we've received calls lately so maybe it did work after all (and I better not have jinxed myself by telling y'all about it either)! |
Stansen Specifications
New member
Username: stanspecs
Post Number: 1
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Monday, December 20, 2004 - 05:33 pm: | |
Jerome, I just happened across your posting and have one more use to add if I may, although belatedly. In college we found that the slick pages in the catalogues made fabulous paper airplanes and spent a good deal of time throwing them out our third floor studio windows when the winds were just right. This went on much of the school year until a passerby complained to the dean that the College of Environmental Design wasn't being very environmental. She had a grocery bag full of airplanes to prove it! Guess we should have gone into aeronautics. |
Jerome J. Lazar, RA, CCS, CSI, SCIP
Senior Member
Username: lazarcitec
Post Number: 70
Registered: 05-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 20, 2004 - 05:57 pm: | |
Well my list is not yet complete, work load has been so busy have not had a chance to complie the list - so you all still have time to add your Sweets Catalog Uses - actually, I thought about mailing one volume to a current client who called me on Friday at 6pm EST and asked for specs on a job by the following Monday without a signed contract as a personal favor to him - I figured due to its sheer weight, he would be so excited to think I would respond that fast to his ridiculous request the week before x-mas break. I haven't done it yet, but I am considering it and if successful it will be added to the list.
H'mm, I wonder if McGraw Hill will blackball for this? |
Lynn Javoroski
Senior Member
Username: lynn_javoroski
Post Number: 170
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Monday, December 20, 2004 - 06:06 pm: | |
McGraw Hill is so desparate to sell Sweets, I think they might actually incorporate some of these ideas into their advertisements! |
Randall L. Cox
Senior Member
Username: randy_cox
Post Number: 11
Registered: 04-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, December 23, 2004 - 12:45 pm: | |
I just stumbled on two big boxes in our reception area - Sweets 2005. I was suprised to see them, more suprised to find they had my name on them (especially since I don't handle the library and I've only been here 7 months). I checked and found that the 2003 copy in the library is pristine, and the 2004 copy is still in the box. |
David Stutzman
Senior Member
Username: david_stutzman
Post Number: 30
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Friday, December 24, 2004 - 11:35 am: | |
Even more interesting...
We received Sweets in both of our offices because our staff of 5 are all SCIP members. We received 2 sets in NJ and 10 sets in PA - 7 sets were refused only because someone was there when UPS arrived.
The UPS delivery man reported that he just visited a one-man engineering office and dropped 17 sets on the porch (That should teach him to be out of the office). That delivery should be enough for all the architectural firms in a 10 mile radius.
The same day we received the sets in NJ, I got call from Sweets trying to sell me a set. Fortunately I could tell them: "We've already got them, you see. Thank you very much." |
Helaine K. Robinson CCS
Senior Member
Username: hollyrob
Post Number: 115
Registered: 07-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 27, 2004 - 11:52 am: | |
Donate the extra sets to local universities. |
Vivian Volz
Senior Member
Username: vivianvolz
Post Number: 15
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 28, 2004 - 01:16 pm: | |
So they can burn them for heat, or make paper airplanes?
Hey, I bet they make great study models. Use the covers for the base, and glue and collage the pages onto them. I had a classmate who used cereal boxes for model-building, but Sweets would probably have worked almost as well.
Also, seriously, voc-ed programs in high schools and "magnet" schools for arts and architecture might appreciate Sweets catalogs more than universities. Or have you tried kindergartens and elementary schools, which love to tear pages out of magazines for collages? |
Jerome J. Lazar, RA, CCS, CSI, SCIP
Senior Member
Username: lazarcitec
Post Number: 75
Registered: 05-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 05, 2005 - 02:25 pm: | |
IMHO - TOP TEN USES FOR SWEETS CATALOGS:
10. Monitor Stand
9. Bookends
8. Pressing Wild Flowers, Artwork
7. Paper Airplanes.
6. Heating Fuel
5. Doorstops.
4. Weapon of Mass Descruction
3. Exercise Weights.
2. Charitable Contribution.
1. Ladder for short people (wife's suggestion)
ok - TIME FOR THIS BOARD TO VOTE, OR JUST PUT IN YOUR TWO CENTS.
oh by the way
Happy New Year to all. |
Don Falconer
New member
Username: donfalconer
Post Number: 1
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 05, 2005 - 03:13 pm: | |
In the metro Toronto area we have 7 colleges and universities with architectural, building science, fire protection and related programs. I alternate between them and offer our old set when the new arrives - but they must pick up. |
Marc C Chavez
Senior Member
Username: mchavez
Post Number: 61
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, January 06, 2005 - 03:04 pm: | |
Winter has finally hit Seattle. The mere threat of snow has caused many to invest in "Depends"
I was born in Idaho. I have left many of my Idahoian habits behind, but studded snow tires
no later than mid-november is not one of them.
I was thinking today, that if I needed extra weight in the back of the Volvo (Seattle talk for pickup truck) I'd throw the old Sweets in the back till spring.
Much neater than sand bags and if you go off the road you can:
1. crumple them for insulation or
2. burn them for warmth or use as
3. T.P. for emergencies (watch for paper cuts) |
Jerome J. Lazar, RA, CCS, CSI, SCIP
Senior Member
Username: lazarcitec
Post Number: 76
Registered: 05-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 06, 2005 - 03:55 pm: | |
T.P. for emergencies, now that is worthy of being added to the list, besides paper cuts though, wouldn't their be concern about all those ink dyes? |
Melissa Aguiar
Advanced Member
Username: melissaaguiar
Post Number: 5
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 06, 2005 - 04:03 pm: | |
Ink dyes, YEAH, I am looking at them right now and the blue has just taken my fingerprint all over the slick page.
Wonder what your bottom would look like after using it as TP; uh, nevermind, do not want to envision that. he. he. |
Anne Whitacre, CCS CSI
Senior Member
Username: awhitacre
Post Number: 152
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, January 06, 2005 - 04:34 pm: | |
don't forget if you go off the road, you can pile them up, and use them to support the branches that will roof your lean-to shelter. I bet even if they are soggy, they'll stand upright (that's assuming they will absorb any water at all..)
OR, you can open one up and use it as a ramp to get off an icy patch. |
Ann Baker (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, January 10, 2005 - 07:57 pm: | |
I'm just so happy that I'm not the only one who:
1) got rather irritated at repeated requests to order Sweets 2005 (they were useful before the internet) and
2) received an entire set, even though I'm "only" a corresponding SCIP-ie.
My poor husband has finally managed to get rid of my 2000 set that's in the garage for four years, just in time for this year's edition! |
Doug Brinley AIA CSI CDT
Senior Member
Username: dbrinley
Post Number: 30
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Monday, January 10, 2005 - 08:19 pm: | |
Perhaps the subject of this thread should have been 'Ten Uses for a New Set of Sweets' |
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