Yay! Glad to hear the good news!
If I may make a suggestion, PetCo has a machine that will make a new info tag for only $9. Just had a new one made not too long ago with my always with me cell phone # on it instead of my home #.
*I am in no way affiliated with above store or machine and do not intend to be rude or snarky.
Just lookin’ out for my dog friends.*
For the past few months my Qwest DSL service has been all over the road. I pay for a 7 Mbps downstream connection but as of late that speed dwindles to less than 1Mbps in the evening. I’d be fine with 5-6Mbps. But under 1Mbps is a crime when you consider what I’m paying. I call tech support. They put me on a new “gateway” and things are fine for two weeks. Then the problem returns.
Each time this happens I call Qwest tech support. I always get routed first to a offshore call center where they check the line and promptly tell me that everything on their end is fine. I quickly discovered that you have to ask to be escalated to local tech support (I think they are in Colorado) to actually reach someone who is empowered to remedy the problem. The engineers in Colorado will usually tell you the truth.
Tonight I got one who REALLY told me the truth. From what he said it seems they have a capacity problem. They only have so many 7Mbps connections. However, it seems they have absolutely no qualms about selling 7Mbps connections to anyone who is willing to pay. But in terms of providing that service, they just can’t do it.
The engineer empathized with me. He says Qwest is being reactive as opposed to pro-active and he’s caught in the middle. They wait until a customer calls to complain and then they put that person on one of the 7Mbps “pipes”, simultaneously bumping someone else off the other end. How they can charge people for more fast connections than they can provide without it constituting fraud is beyond me. And there seems to be no recourse. I could seek out a 3rd party DSL service but Qwest owns the hardware. So there is no guarantee I’d ever get what I’m paying for. It’s not all that clear that Comcast internet service would be a lesser evil.
On top of all this I’ve heard that, after the first of the year, Qwest and others will be rolling out even more expensive and exotic high-speed internet plans (slower and exponentially more expensive than similar service enjoyed by the citizens of about 20 other countries).
Obama says he’s gonna fix this. I wish him the best of luck.
Maybe another solution would be to have Christmas a few days late. Why not postpone it a few days and let the storm pass and then everyone can come together w/o having to worry about the weather. My family always gets together on Christmas Eve and one year everyone was sick so we did it on New years Day and it was the best. No one was in a hurry or had to leave early for another family get together.
I’ve always been partial to the tunnel. And I say this as a native Bostonian who is aware of the galactic mismanagement and cost overruns of the Big Dig.
yesterday was kinda fun, today it’s kinda boring…might have something to do with running outa hot toddies. better venture out for more. but i digress; imo i’ve always felt there’s safety in numbers when on a holiday road trip. lots of like-minded people joining the i-5 convoy to festive destinations…generally seems like drivers are relaxed, alert, and saving the partying til they get there.
in all seriousness: Happy Birthday (belated, now) CJB! Your photos are always wonderful, and I think you’re a superstar for hooking us all up with the bacon! Hope you had a nice, snowy birthday.
cjboffoli-
for the record, i only took two bee guards off to see if it made a difference. its kind of a crap shoot. didn’t know i had to boil the water though; i always thought that was to make the sugar dissolve better. i wonder if yeast and mold is an issue when it is so cold? either way, i will start boiling. might walk up to true value to see if i can pick up some back up feeders for rotation. i got a gift certificate from them for my birthday ($10) because i have a true value card. Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you! hope you are enjoying it! certainly no shortage of things to photograph:)
We enjoy the Marriott – great indoor pool (think tropical feel but with evergreen trees!).
It’s clean, the staff has always been nice, they have a nice restaurant (they don’t do the Friday/Sat buffet anymore though). They have shuttle service to airport too.
Hey there – try the DoubleTree. I think they’re still in pretty good shape. They’re always crowded.
BTW – we saw you out on the street with your dog yesterday. We are so in love with your labradoodle!! I want to babysit for fun one day:)
Happy Travels overseas:)
I think I would Have to see your hair but I think red is always a great choice. Plus to all readers: the word “models” may be confusing… you would’t actually have to model the hair but just give me the opportunity to do waht ever color you want… foils, all over, or a more creative color like Cait wants:) Send the word. Thanks!
I’m always tickled when people describe Seattle as “liberal”.
I checked on the defininition of liberal and it included “flexible, unbiased, tolerant, unprejudiced”.
Which does not often characterize the Seattle I’ve met.
If it’s time for a new vacuum cleaner, I always buy the upright that is most highly recommended by Consumer Reports. Comparing very expensive vacuum cleaners to their recommendations is a real eye-opener.
It would be wrong for me to copy/paste information from the Consumer Reports website that is intended to be visible to only their paying subscribers, but I think this teaser may be allowed: “New designs and features are producing increasingly high-tech vacuums, but high-priced, feature-laden machines don’t necessarily deliver better cleaning.”
http://www.consumerreports.org
Deja Vu in Sodo, wonderful! That’s actually a really good idea. Now, the beer and testosterone will have another fine establishment to visit to go blow off steam after the game!! :) (and no, this is not sarcasm)
The fact that The Lusty is owned by two women is awesome – and that they always screw with SAM with their witty sayings.
I think the night I was the drunkest I had ever been took me there… and I ended up giving the dancers a show!
I have always thought of that same thing… whats the point of a strip club in Seattle. You’ll get more action going out in Belltown on a Friday/saturday night.
I used to get weekly calls from my 85 year-old grandmother who’d complain about the problems she was having accessing the Pogo website. I’d take a look at her PC and it would always be bogged down with spyware, viruses and other miscellaneous junk.
Then I bought my grandmother an Apple iMac. And now all she calls to complain about it is her irritable bowel syndrome.
Thanks Apple.
The shelter will do the educating, it’s their job and your tax money goes to them for that reason. They are trained to handle any situation, we are not. That is always the first step they take unless the dog is in imminent danger or is being obviously abused. This is not about judging people, its about protecting the animals and neighborhood.
Again, you have the choice to offer the support directly or call the shelter, everyone has to do what is right/safe for them.
Thanks again…
In my experience, I have found that service pack 3 isn’t consistent with XP so my office doesn’t update to service pack 3. When I have problems with IE7 shutting down, I run spyware programs like Ad Aware and Spybot s&D (down on tucows.com for free, make sure it is Spybot Search and Destroy and nothing else!) and run that to clean up malware. It might help the problem. If not, take a USB drive (the little thumb drive) to someone else’s computer and download Firefox so you have a browser you can use since IE7 problems are a tough fix and you can’t go back to 6 without re-installing the operating system. That’s my two cents. :) Good luck!
That’s why I have DTV – comcast always goes out in bad weather.
Ok, a funny story. I am fifteen and every other fifteen year old I know is at Shakey’s too. I have a three year old bother that always wore Osh Kosh overalls, he had to go to the bathroom and refused help. He comes out of the bathroom with the overalls around his ankles, pulling on his thing and at the top of his voice says “Look Parick (Patrick…me) it’s Woodie Pecker (Woodie Wood Pecker) I was mortified of course.
shed22, if you ever DID bite through you lips because of the bacon lip gloos, you could always bandage them up with some bacon “band-aids” from Archie McPhee! :-)
Mike
I wish I could remember the name of the book, but there’s one out there that talks about getting to more mindful living in stages; not expecting that you will be able to suddenly do a lifestyle 180, but to take purposeful steps. It might mean buying products with less packaging, are more humanely raised, or are made by workers with fair labor practices. It also addressed diet, exercise, smoking, many aspects of “living life.” I found it encouraging because you can always keep moving along the spectrum. That said, I do have a coat that was my grandmother’s ca. 1960 and I do tell people it’s fake, because a) I would never buy a new fur and b) it is a style that is popularly copied now.
JoB, last I heard, snow coming after midnight, so you should be okay on that front. They’re always our babies ;)
**details on cow slaughter, please skip if you dont want to know**
I eat red meat on occasion and do wear leather, but cows are not “euthanized” in the way that the word suggests a quiet painless death. My graduate school buddy worked summers a processing plant in the “knock box” where they used a pneumatic bolt and administered the shot to the head. It doesn’t always work and a second station takes care of those who dont immediately go down by slitting the throat.
This is, from what I know, more humane than industrial age practices and is designed to be quick, though not perfect.
I have more of an issue with the way cows (and other livestock) are raised/fattened than the way they are slaughtered. “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” is a great read that is not liberal preachy or pushing vegetarianism.
There are two factors at play here, and again, I’m speaking from having been a TV news manager for 20-plus years (show producer, then executive producer, then assistant news director).
#1 – We really do have the worst conditions in town. So there’s really not any place else to be in Seattle. As I wrote on the HP, I was downtown tonight and was shocked at how there’s really no ice, no snow down there … this is a lot like the early 2007 icefest, we got whacked worst. If Queen Anne had gotten much ice, they’d all be over there – much more convenient to where the stations are (Seattle Center x 2, and the other two a tiny bit further north).
#2 – The fact that we together (you guys and us) are providing minute-to-minute, detailed coverage here means they don’t even have to try hard to figure out where to go. In the pre-neighborhood-news-site days, you would just send a crew out and tell them to FIND an icy street. With a site like ours, piece of cake, all they have to do is read the post/comment thread (and our logs show, they all do, even when there isn’t a big story like this – it’s nothing personal, before the digital days, we all sat around in TV newsrooms and read the paper, TV news departments don’t staff enough people to do lots of original news gathering).
Bonus factor – since WS is a large part of the city and convenient to downtown, there of course are TV people who live over here, and so they also have firsthand knowledge of the troublespots (photographers and producers as well as reporters and anchors). I am always continually surprised as I continue to make more contacts on behalf of WSB, at how many government-agency PR people and actual government officials live over here, beyond the obvious ones you’ve already heard of, like the mayor.
Damn, Jiggers…what a great date you sound like…gracious, charming,always a gentleman…and frugal…yeah, can’t forget frugal……
