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5月12日 Chinese Earthquake...Horrible news today about the devastating earthquake in China....my thoughts and prayers are with my friends there. I hope you and your families are all doing okay. Just an awful tragedy in what is supposed to be a year of celebration in your country.... 5月9日 The Flanagan Precept Part IILast weekend I went with my buddy to see another show by my favorite local band, The Flanagan Precept. Actually I really don't know too many other local bands besides them except for my friend Stevo's band but I can't even remember what band he's in at the moment....sigh....They say your memory is the second thing to go, I can't remember what the first is. Anyway, Flanagan was at a bar in Everett so I rode up there on the one day of the week I didn't need to drive there for work. SIGH! And of course I saw people from work at the show. One other note, I think they give you a bit stiffer drinks in Everett than in Seattle.
I like mentioning TFP (as I will now refer to them) because I think I get more people hitting on my blog searching their name. One of those people was actually the drummer and the rest of the band pointed out to him that I was the blogger that was slightly critical of him on a couple of songs and he sort of growled and scowled. He's a good-sized dude so my first comment on the Everett show will be "THE DRUMMER KICKED ASS....HE REALLY TORE IT UP!" Really my only complaint was that the changeover between the opening band and TFP was nearly an hour so they didn't start until almost midnight....Since my ride was from Renton and I was feeling the effects of one too many drinks waiting for their set to start, we didn't stay for the whole show....but what we heard was good.....They're worth checking out. Oh yeah, they asked me to add their link in case anyone else hits on the blog.
Where Have I Been?If anyone actually reads any of my postings you'll notice I haven't written for almost two months....Well, besides being alternately busy and lazy, I also took a two week trip to SE Asia where I crammed in at least four weeks worth of travel and sightseeing and met my lovely Chinese internet pen pal Jinyi for the first time. I've got a few photos up here already and I'll try and post more and get a link to her photo site. Quite an amazing trip, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and back to Thailand. I post some impressions and tips when I get the chance. Actually a month ago today I was in Hanoi catching a bus to Ha Long Bay.......man I wish I was still traveling. (with Little Elephant) Economic Stimulus....Well I just noticed on my on-line banking account that my economic stimulus check was deposited on the 2nd. (due to my low last two social security numbers) Holy crap! Now I can retire! My prayers have been answered.....what a crock. What knuckleheads cook this stuff up? It cost taxpayers billions to send this stuff to me. I got a letter from the IRS explaining what the money was....our tax dollars at work.... The worst part is they'll figure a way to get that money back from us in triple with more taxes. Meanwhile our country's schools and infrastructure are crumbling. The folks living in the trailer park can make a beer and cigarettes run to Wal-Mart though with their $600 checks.....Sigh.... 3月14日 Well, I'm Not In Prison.....Here's a crazy little nugget I read on MSN today:
"The truth is that 90 percent of American men have been married by the age of 40, which, if you subtract prison inmates, is almost the entire straight male population."
I'm 41.....not married and not in prison.....so what exactly are they inferring here? The article didn't cite a source so I'm not sure who is representing the truth in this case. Should I be concerned? 3月13日 South West Plumbing, SeattleOkay I writing about my plumbing experiences with South West Plumbing in Seattle so that if anyone else searches for them online, maybe I can help them out. To be fair, I'm sure nobody is ever happy with what they have to pay for a plumber, myself included but I realize they'e in business to make money and they have a right to charge what the market will bear. However, I think $600-800 an hour is a bit excessive for snaking out a sewer line. I've had an occasional problem with my sewer line backing up into my bathroom, it happens once in a blue moon and then everything slowly seeps back down. Well it happened twice over the weekend and Monday morning I decided I was going to have a professional come in and snake out the entire line and diagnose what was going on.
I searched the internet and couldn't sort out who was close so I turned to old fashioned yellow pages and came up on South West which looked like a nice local shop. Called them up and they said someone could be there in less than an hour, between 10am-noon and they would give me an estimate. Here's where they get great feedback, they showed up right at 10am (surprise) and the guys seemed nice enough. I explained the problem to them and they said they charged a flat rate and they'd have to go calculate that in the truck. They came back and quoted me $766.43 and my jaw dropped...I told them that seemed way too expensive to me and they said well maybe they could knock some off if I removed the toilet and re-seated it myself. They recalculated and said they could knock off $188.92 if I did that myself. I said I still thought it was high but they kind of gave me the hard sell and I was already late for work so I foolishly caved. BTW-it took me three minutes to remove the toilet and four minutes to reinstall, and they were going to charge me $188 to do that. Should have been a huge red flag right there! They also gave me a wax ring which I told them I already had and also a flange repair kit that turned out to be the wrong size. I could have bought the items at the local hardware store for about $5 so no great deal there.
So they put down a couple of mats, which again I had put my own down already and spent a couple minutes to crawl under my house just to look at my pipes and then assembled a motorized snake. They spent about 20 minutes of snaking 100 ft. of line and hit one small blockage they said. They were out the door and in their truck 45 minutes later. Total time spent door to door, 45 minutes...total bill with $50 tax, $628!! This includes the time they spent trying to sell me on hiring them to run a camera down the line (they didn't have one with them but would come back to do that for $375) and digging up my old concrete line and replacing it with a plastic one. That's buried under my concrete driveway so I didn't ask how much that would cost. At $600 an hour, I'd likely need to take out another mortgage to pay for it.
So they were prompt, polite and my line hasn't backed up again for the last few days BUT.....I feel the price was way too much and they don't guarentee their work and no warrenty without the aforementioned camera work down the line. They also didn't really read the dispatchers notes because they said they expected a problem in a basement. They blamed the mix-up on the dispatcher but the office read the dispatcher's notes back to me and it was exactly what I told her, they were making that part up.
I called the office and said I appreciated the prompt and courteous service but that I felt they charged way too much for the work actually performed. I was transferred to a manager who told me he'd look at the bill and take it into consideration but that they charged higher rates because they gave superior service. He told me that they had a formula for determining how much each job should take and that they would not have charged more if the job had taken 4-5 hours instead of 45 minutes. I kind of doubt that but the actual labor with equipment use portion of the call was only 20 minutes and total time was 45 minutes!
He called the next day and said he was still waiting for the tech to turn the invoice in...Finally, today he called back and said he looked at the invoice and said he thought charges were totally fair. He said they charged more because they had "nice, clean trucks and their tech wore clean uniforms instead of overalls. They were a larger company with a high overhead." I told him at those kind of prices I would not be using them again and he said that was fine because there were "plenty of people who were willing to pay more for their superior customer service." You know I just wanted my sewer line unclogged, I didn't care if the tech's outfit was spotless. He's a plumber, I expect him to get dirty on the job. Speaking of job, I feel I was jobbed....
Today I did a quick google search of their name and found a bunch of testamonials from people warning of their excessive prices....wished I had done that to begin with. Saved me a bunch of cash and a bitter taste left in my mouth.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing their work but I had a fairly simple problem that took basically no time for them to fix. (at least I hope it's fixed for now) I would have hoped that they would have seen fit to refund part of my money due to the ease of the job. They are just way overpriced and seem to think they're plumbers to the stars or something. As for the claims that plenty of people are willing to pay their rates, I'm sure many of those people are fools like me who cave when they show up and then tell us the amount. Check out the other testamonials on line and you'll see a pattern....
3月11日 Time Waits For No Man....However, I waited to change my clocks when we did the "fall back" thing.....actually I never changed most of them, including the one in my truck and as of 2am last Sunday, they're all back to the correct time with daylight savings. So by procrastinating, I saved time and energy....Am I smart or what? 3月10日 Another Moral Crusader Bites The Dust....Okay I thought I was having a bad day. My plumbing problem reared it's ugly head again this morning, the drain backing up while I was in the shower. So I bit the bullet and called a plumbing company (more on that later) to try and figure this damn thing out once and for all. They actually got there fast, were friendly guys and did a nice job, but......they didn't do that much and charged quite a bit. Over $600 for 45 minutes total time and about 15-20 of that was actually running a snake down the sewer pipe....I think I got jobbed and I'm kind of upset about it but I don't feel near as bad as Eliot Spitzer must feel right now.
Spitzer, Governor of New York, today was exposed (no pun intended) as having been caught up in a prostitution ring investigation. OOPS! MSN Headline - "Spitzer’s political career teetered on the brink of collapse Monday after the corruption-fighting politician once known as “Mr. Clean” was accused of paying for sex with a high-priced call girl." The 48-year-old father of three daughters, (and wife Silda who stood behind him at his "geeze I'm so sorry press conference") paid $4300 for about two and a half hours with a call girl sent out to meet Emperors Club VIP "Client 9" in a Washington D.C. Hotel.
"Prior to becoming governor, Spitzer spent eight years as Attorney General in New York. "His cases as attorney general included criminal prosecutions of prostitution rings and tourism involving prostitutes. In 2004, he was part of an investigation of an escort service in New York City that resulted in the arrests of 18 people on charges of promoting prostitution and related charges." and another one gone and another one gone, another one bites the dust....
Democratic Assemblyman John McEneny said: “I don’t think anyone remembers anything like this. The fact that the governor has a reputation as a reformer and there is a certain assumption as attorney general that you’re Caesar’s wife. It’s a different element than if you were an accountant.” Bigtime OOPS! (BTW I've never heard the term Caesar's wife used before, that's a good one.)
I also learned about the Mann Act of 1910, otherwise known as the White-Slave Traffic Act, which outlawed travel across state lines for prostitution. Heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson was the first person convicted under this law and actor Sir Charles "Charlie" Chaplin's career was tarnished after he was prosecuted and later aquitted of violating the act. Other notables listed in Wikipedia of being prosecuted under the act include Chuck Berry, Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Manson....Spitzer likely won't be prosecuted for that one but the people running the ring have been. Maybe Spitzer was secretly running his own undercover sting operation.....
In other New York news, it's being reported that negotiations are underway for the final game in Yankee Stadium....and it won't be baseball! The New York Daily News is reporting that the New York Rangers are negotiating to play an outdoor hockey game in the House that Ruth built.... 3月6日 A lazy blogger...Well I have received several comments concerning the fact that I haven't written anything, changed my music or added new photos in awhile. Guilty as charged! Working, getting outside since the weather is nicer and just doing other things lately. I have a very small following but you folks are loyal so I'll try and pick it up a little. Put some different songs up today but none of them are new, in fact they're some oldies but some different sides of my personality and tastes. Now if I can just think of something interesting to write about..... 3月3日 A Crappy Monday.... Okay it wasn't a dead body but it was still pretty nasty. I have today off since I worked over the weekend and was busy working on my tax return (oh joy) on a rainy Monday (double joy) while doing laundry and cleaning house. While the washing machine was on I walked into the bathroom and noticed that the toilet was beginning to overflow. The sewer was backing up into my bathroom. This happened once before when I was gone and it was a horrible surprise when I returned home to find my bathroom filled with sewage. Several hours of snaking drain pipes did virtually nothing and I paid a plumber to run a bigger, professional snake and saw down the pipe. Then he ran a camera down the pipe to show nothing was blocking it. Of course it cost me several hundred dollars to find out that nothing was blocking the pipe that time. So today I removed the toilet and snaked out the drain, poured liquid plumber down the pipe. Crawled under the house several times and removed cleanout valve and snaked it too. Poured buckets of water down the pipe and everything seemed to be fine but of course once I had the toilet back in place and turned on the sink and the shower at the same time, it started backing up again. By then it's after 5pm so I'm looking at emergency after hours rates when I think the basic rates start around $90 for a house call. Another great thing about scheduling a plumber is that while they're not as bad as the cable guy, you're never sure how long you'll have to wait for them. Oh happy day! 3月1日 A Nasty Discovery...Hey, I know....it's been a long time since I've written anything. Been working a lot lately and also trying to plan a big vacation in the near future. Nothing really that interesting to write about. Until tonight....My friend Ron, the friend with possibly the smallest house on Lake Washington called me up yesterday to tell me he had just helped pull a dead body out of the water near his neighbor's dock. Actually, the neighbor noticed the body and Ron went out in a rotton old rowboat and pushed the body into the dock with his boat, using a metal rake because he couldn't find the oars. I didn't even know that the boat would float and it weighs a ton, I don't know how he got it in the water.
Here's an article with a photo of the area: http://www.komotv.com/news/local/16132577.html
Ron's house is the little tiny one to the right of the big house with the red roof. Turns out the body was identified as a 40 year old male who was missing since December 27th. He's been in the water for awhile. Same water I did my polar bear swim in. Glad I didn't run into him then. Another interesting fact about Ron. He was one of the people who was seriously injured in the bombing incident at the Atlanta Olympic games....He's long since healed from that but yesterday was something else. 2月6日 Sightings: Discovery Park Coyote....Seniors Speeding in Ballard.Couple of amusing sights and of course I don't have my camera with me. Last night coming home from work about 11:30pm I finally had my first Discovery Park Coyote sighting. He wasn't in the park though, about a mile and a half away actually. Saw him crossing the bridge at W. Emerson and Gilman from Magnolia into Interbay. He must have come down the railroad tracks but he was pretty bold jogging down the street through a mini mart/gas station parking lot, a bank parking lot and finally after taling him awhile I lost him somewhere in Fisherman's Terminal. He could have jumped in the bushes and hit but he just kept trottering along. Bolder than I thought he'd be.
The other unusual sight was watching a motorcycle cop pull over a little old lady who had to be in her 80's for speeding in Ballard. They have a regular speed trap on 15th just before market. They wait on a side street just before Schuck's and sometimes they're three motorcycles deep. Usually they're earlier in the day and of course the bikes are never there in inclement weather. They sit there and nail the people coming across the Ballard Bridge. By the time you spot them they've already nailed you. Fortunately one was crossing the bridge going south as I was going north so I knew there'd be others and slowed down. I watched the cop pull the little grannie over and walk up to her window and show her the actual readout on the radar gun. Of course she stopped in the right turn lane and everyone had to stop and look at the scene so it created a mini traffic jam. Year of the Rat....Happy Chinese New Year!Happy New Year to all my friends in China! Hope the year of the rat is a great one for you. 1月31日 Flanagan's Precept....Went to a show at Showbox SODO last night with several bands playing. A buddy had a couple tickets because his friend was lead guitar for a band called "Flanagan's Precept." I couldn't figure the band's name out. Somebody explained to me that it's an addendum to "Murphy's Law." Murphy's Law basically states that if anything can go wrong, it will. Flanagan's Precept states that Murphy was an optimist.
The name seemed kind of appropriate as the lead guitarist broke a string just at the point their set was really clicking along. It took the other guys a good 5-10 minutes to figure out they should just start jamming while he was repairing his guitar instead of just standing around. All in all, they were very good though, especially considering it was the band's first-ever show together. The guitarist kicked some butt and the lead singer warmed up after a couple songs and he could really scream. Drummer sped things up a little too much on a couple of songs but overall they were pretty tight. Did a couple of covers by Filter and Incubus, (according to my friend) I wouldn't know, I'm not the music buff but most songs were original. I'd say worth checking out if you get the chance. There was some weird cat telling us that he was some sort of producer/talent scout checking them out for a possible contract but then he'd say "oh, I can't really talk about it." Then he'd keep talking about even though we never asked about it. 1月28日 Discovery Park's Coyote Wanted Dead Or Alive?The Seattle Times has run another article on the still to be determined fate of the now famous Discovery Park coyote. I've yet to see the thing on my frequent walks through the park. Apparently he's nabbed a pet cat and chased a small dog but dogs are supposed to be on a leash so I don't have a lot of sympathy for that one. I often see owners with dogs off leash running around the tide flats chasing birds. I love dogs but they're not allowed on city beaches period. I suspect the coyote is in Discovery for one reason. An abundant supply of food, mainly pet rabbits that people dump in the park when they get tired of them. They seem to think dumping a tame animal in the wild is a humane thing to do. Guess what happens? If they survive, they chew up the vegetation causing erosion and destroy the park while breeding like.....well breeding like rabbits. They don't have much in the way of natural predators there so of course any coyote with half a brain is going to make his way to the park. I've never seen the coyote but I see rabbits everywhere.
The Navy has set out traps and talked of assigning a sharpshooter to take out the coyote because he's making people nervous. While they're at it maybe they should shoot all the rabbits and the dogs running loose on the beach....they're more of a nuisence than the coyote. Of course that will never happen....
Here's a link to the Times' article: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004149685_webcoyote28m.html 1月22日 I don't go there for the service...Funny thing just happened when I went to lunch....well I thought it was amusing. Went to Subway like I do most of the week and an attractive, corporate type woman walked in right behind me. The young kid behind the counter says to her "dude, you're my attorney at my probation violation hearing on the 22nd." She doesn't look amused. He finishes my sandwich and she steps up to the counter and hands him what I assume is a summons and says to him that he's lucky another attorney at her office knows where he works. The kid looks at the paper and says, "oh wait, today's the 22nd, oh I completely forgot about my hearing." Whoops! Sad thing is, he's one of the better employees at the store.... 1月21日 Watching A Chick Flick During NFL Playoffs....Wow, unbelievable but true I missed most of the NFL playoff games yesterday because I was watching "27 Dresses" with some friends. Even the ticket taker had fun teasing me when I stepped up and told her the name of the movie I wanted to watch. I was outnumbered by women at least seven or eight to one. You know what? It was okay, alright I enjoyed the damn movie. I liked the accurate portrayal of the hysteria that is women planning for weddings. I thought the movie was hilarious but the women in the crowd were not laughing that much, especially at the moments I found most amusing. I think they were biting their lips and cringing. After sacrificing NFL football, you thought I would have been golden, but no.....I was criticized for making to big of a scene about attending the movie and my behavior with the ticket taker apparently embarrassed one of the friends I attended the movie with. Heck everyone else knew I was just joking around....some people just don't have a sense of humor.
Actually I also got to see the final two minutes of the Giants/Packers game and the dramatic overtime game-winning field goal that I'm sure the networks loved now that New York and New England will meet in Superbowl 42. (I noticed a lot of people have dropped the roman numerals from the superbowl title this year.) Boston has enough sports success to cheer about lately but I am not ready to root for New York either. I can't win....
Gorgeous sunny day in Seattle but it's not a work holiday for me. You know the cold doesn't seem so cold when it's sunny and dry out. Took some photos downtown yesterday and some skyline shots to prove it was sunny today but I forgot my camera cables so I'll post some more shots from the holidays at Kingston on the space today. 1月18日 Embarrassing Polar Bear Photos....Okay, since I don't plan on running for president in the future I will post these shots very briefly....Unfortunately there is no ice or snow so it doesn't look cold but trust me it was. Check out the tense neck muscles in the photo. It was dang cold. I have no shame I'll put the photos up. Sadly the guest photographer did not capture the moment where I was actually underwater. You'll have to take my word for it. Looks more like an albino whale wading in the water. Did I mention it was cold? And I was sober? Night Photography...I still don't get itTook my camera along to my first Chinese class last night and tried some night shots at a park by Seattle Community College. First off I'm going to have to get a tripod and second, I'm going to have to read my camera's manual. Let me correct myself, I'm going to have to FIND the manual, then read it. I definitely don't have it down yet. Maybe slightly blurry images can be my signature style.....The sky had some beautiful deep purple hues going on but my shots didn't really reflect that. Still, I just "run and gun" with my camera, I don't plan ahead or have certain shots in mind. What I see is what I get and it was dark out. It was cold but fairly clear out and later I grabbed a burger and vanilla shake at Dick's on lower Queen Anne and then walked around the Seattle Center shooting the Space Needle and Pacific Science Center arches. So I guess they weren't horrible consider hand held shots with a slow shutter speed. Hardly anyone out and about last night. Really quiet and deserted on the Center Grounds, I enjoyed the quiet. Couldn't resist shooting the Pink Elephant Car Wash sign. It's a classic!
This morning I was working in the garage when a big old raccoon lumbered across my lawn and climbed up on top of my compost bin and laid down hanging his head over one side and his back legs over the other. He must have had a long night and was exhausted. It was a funny sight so I ran inside to grab my camera. When I came back out he got spooked and scrambled off before I could get a decent shot. He was favoring one hind leg, not walking on it at all. Must have been a recent injury because he was one fat raccoon. I guess you don't need four good legs to intimidate cats away from their food dishes or to tip over trash cans. He was eating enough anyway. They're always hanging out in my back yard at night but I never see them around during the day.
Went to the chiropractor to get my back "cracked" today. I thought my neck snapped into two it was cracking so loud. I was so knotted up and everything has been aching bad. After some cracking and massage I'm really sore now but feel looser and probably will start feeling better tomorrow. It's kind of scary when the doc starts yanking and pushing and popping bones back into place. It's been a year since I've last seen him so it seems he's doing a good job with my spine. 1月17日 Writer's Block....First Chinese ClassSeems I'm suffering it lately. Can't come up with anything that seems interesting enough to write about. Maybe I'm just lazy. Nothing too exciting happening right now, just trying to survive miserable winter weather. We did have a nice sunny and warmer day yesterday but now it's grey, gloomy and really cold out again. Likely going to snow again soon. Cannot wait for spring. Lousiest winter I can remember in quite some time.
I start my Chinese classes tonight. Conversational Chinese for beginners....hopefully I learn something. Curious what the class will be like and will it be young people or seniors in the class? I'm a little nervous, haven't attended a class in anything for quite awhile and I'm not too fast at picking up languages. Hate it when the teacher makes you speak in front of everyone. At my age I should be over that. Actually I'm most nervous about finding parking and the right building where the classes are being held. 6pm start guarentees bad traffic in downtown Seattle on my 30 mile commute there. Right now I know four words in Mandarin and I'm probably mispronouncing at least one of those four... |
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