Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Unsolicited product endorsement

Well, maybe "endorsement" is too strong. Let's say I'm just passing along a positive experience. While on vacation to my ancestral home, I ordered an urn for my dad for Father's Day from Mainely Urns. He'd been sitting in the plastic box from the crematory for over a year now and I thought it was about time his mortal remains got a suitable container.

I was quite pleased. I got this one:



The price seemed far more reasonable than what I'd seen in the funeral homes and they delivered it to said ancestral home in about 4 days. The inscription was nicely done as well. The urn itself was okay, I guess, though it's not like I've done lots of hands-on comparisons. It was made in India. No obvious flaws or anything, nice finish, etc. So we were all very pleased.

Indeed, I used my profound sense of time depth to choose said urn as well. Several places had really neat wood ones, but I didn't like those because, as we know, wood decays and by God I'm thinking of the eons here. I also discarded ceramic because, while stable, it breaks too easily. That left stone or metal. There are some nice manufactured stone ones for a reasonable price, but, eh, none of the designs really floored me, or seemed what he would have wanted. So I looked at simple metal ones. I chose pewter because it won't (?) oxidize like brass and doesn't seem like it would ever be valuable enough to be worth stealing (people are nowadays stealing copper ornamentation from gravesites for the money). I figured the design was simple yet classic enough that he wouldn't think it too ostentatious. If I had control over the inscription, I'd have made it deeper, but that's kind of a backup anyway because the niche will have an inscription as well. Plus, it's got a screw top so it can be sealed quite tightly for the ages.

So, hopefully dear old dad can now rest through the ages secure in his little pewter home.