Okay so a couple of weeks ago I went to the post office. On the way home, I was in an accident. I was traveling towards an intersection, where I have the right of way - no stops sign in my direction, when the driver crossing my intersection quickly stops then goes. I notice he is on the phone. I slam on my brakes and veer to the right in hopes of not hitting him. Unfortunately that is not the case. I come in contact with his right front wheel well. There is no damage to his car. Mine on the other hand is messed up to the tune of almost $2000. I did call the police. They came out logged the accident in their system, however did not do a report because as he stated "the damage is so minor". The driver admitted to the police officer that it was his fault and when the policeman heard that he said "well you've exchanged information that's all you need to do."
His insurance company is SAFECO. They sent me a letter today denying my claim and telling me their driver is not at fault. How is that possible? I am so tired of insurance companies. Anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed?
Safeco if Evil. Looks like I will have to go to small claims court.
30 March 2009
What the frack happened?
28 March 2009
Yet another reason to love technology
This is my newest technological love. It's a simple voice recorder with fantastic recording quality.
It plugs into my iPod and records anything I want it to. I love it. It's made by Belkin, found it at Amazon. Lists for between $60 and $70 and picked mine up for $30. I can use it to record Little Miss or my end of a phone conversation or even a podcast - maybe we'll do a tutorial soon! Neat stuff this technology!
24 March 2009
I love Steve
Some of you may have noticed the I love Steve button on my sidebar. No it isn't Steve from 8th grade. Yeah I still love him too, but the Steve I'm talking about is Steve Jobs. He is definitely my favorite Steve. The website that the button takes you to is so you can wish Steve a speedy recovery. I'm not sure who it belongs to, or how they're going about advertising it, but currently there are only 413 people who've sent a note of wellness to Steve.
I'm not pushing the get well thing. I just wanted to brag about being a Mac lover. We fell in love with Macs shortly after making the wrong choice and purchasing a PC junior. OUr neighbors were cooler than us and bought the first version of a Mac. We quickly converted, testifying to all who'd listen, and began being apostles for all things Mac. Our first Apple was a Wozniak IIGS. We owned it up until about two years ago. I regret not keeping it. Think of how much I could have made on eBay with that one! Especially now that Steve "The Woz" Wozniak is on Dancing with the Stars! Sigh.
Oh well. We got iPhones shortly after the new year this year and I am again impressed. I remember when I used to say "I don't want a cell phone!" and my husband mentioning that with all the solitary driving I do around this state if I didn't have one they'd find me dried up and eaten by wolves in the desert if I didn't have a phone. I relented and got a phone.
A phone that made you want to open a window while you were driving and pitch it as far as you could! It had fun stuff like voice recognition on it. You could just say the name of the person you wanted to talk to and it would dial the number fast and efficiently. Yeah right. I'd say call Babe (my husband's nickname) and it would dial my mom. Seriously.
In January when Babe said to "go down to the AT&T store and pick up a couple of iPhones" the door did not hit me in the behind as I darted down to the store. And boy am I ever happy I got one. There are so many features! My favorite is the maps program. It works like my own personal GPS device. Forget Garmin, I've got the iPhone! Then there's the hold button - talk to two people at once! And the Safari browser and email so you can check your email and find out the latest financial news. Did I mention the games? Yep when I don't have reading to do, you can download a Kindle app for your phone now!, I play games to kill time between appointments.
All this neat stuff because of a guy named Steve. Well, maybe two guys named Steve. I love ya, man!
23 March 2009
Chihuly in the desert
I'm going to Arizona!
Saturday our newest issue of Sunset Magazine arrived. There were all the usual coastline enticements for travel. We are waiting for May to come so we can travel to the coast to see family so I paid the ocean air invites no mind. I was on my way to the chicken story!
Then I turned the page that changed it all. Page 34. The beginning of a list of the top ten botanical gardens. hmmm. I love me some botanical gardens. The arboretum in Arcadia, the giant gardens and pools at Balboa Park and now this! Chihuly in the desert!
Dale Chihuly has done for glass what Christo did for fabric. He's taken his art to the people and the land. The Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix is hosting Dale Chihuly through May 31st of this year. Not an average exhibit mind you. A Chihuly exhibit. Large glass sculptures throughout the 145 acre garden. The Garden are limiting attendance, you must have reservations. Time available will be from 8a.m. to Noon, Noon to 4 p.m. or 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. You can read more about it here. Make sure you take your camera. Like Christo, this art doesn't last!
18 March 2009
Interesting Meme - Album Cover
I think I could do this all day. I love old album covers and this way of naming a band, an album, and using a photo is really quite interesting. You should try it.
The rules are here:
1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”or click
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 - Go to "Random quotations"or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together. Post on your blog, facebook or where ever you want.
12 March 2009
Adversaries
Jim Collins said it best:
“They do see us as a threat and actively try to take action and publicity to try and negate our positive effect on the market.”
Seems like Hollywood is ticked and will spew what ever they think they need to in order to put people in their rightful place. Tom Hanks and the Big Love drama this week is evidence of that. Tom Hanks stated then later retracted that the people who voted for Proposition 8 were anti-American. Now as an executive produce of the aforementioned television show he has chosen to attack the group, he feels was primarily responsible for the passage of that piece of legislation, by mocking their sacred rituals.
What a grown up he is.
10 March 2009
Raymond Blanc's Restaurant Wars
Can I say how much I am loving this show. It is on BBC America, Tuesday evenings at 6p.m. here. It is a much more refined presentation than anything they've done here in the U.S. I very much like Raymond Blanc. He is a good teacher, throughout the entire series. He shows the competitors what he would like to see and it is a test of whether or not they were listening most weeks. The opportunity to actually work with Raymond Blanc, running one of his flagship restaurants, proves to be quite intimidating for most of them. Crushing self esteem seems to be the rule of the day.
But that's not Raymond's fault. There are some people who have no business thinking they can run a restaurant. You see, they are in a partnership. It's not one competitor, but a two person team - husband and wife, best friends, Mom and son, Dad and daughter, and other combinations of teams. However, when someone says "You should open a restaurant!" they are usually saying it to one person who cooks well and has a passion for being in the kitchen.
In this show the team is one BOH and one FOH. An FOH is the person who runs the front of the restaurant. You do not want a person who has difficulty talking to other people! If they cannot multitask it is probably not a good idea either. There is a lot of work involved in running a restaurant and just because you love the person you're working with doesn't mean their passion can rub off on you!
It is sad to watch week after week, someone's dreams be crushed because their partner just couldn't cut it. Sometimes it's not the FOH, it's the BOH - back of the house person. If you bake the best apple pie in nine counties, open a pie shop! Don't think you can cook prime rib at a moments notice because Raymond Blanc told you to do it.
All in all I love the show. Cringe through the cringe worthy sections and feel bad when they are eliminated. It's way better than having to listen to Gordon Ramsey scream his guts out at a person who never belonged in a kitchen in the first place.
05 March 2009
Be Honest from Jane
Spring has obviously sprung. At least in blogworld. All around us are stories of cleaning, or the lack thereof. Some people hate it, some perople are resigned to it, me I just do it, occasionally. At What about Mom? she's put up a post about home and hearth. And, asking you all to be honest in your answers. I decided to copy it. Sortof like a meme (plagiarism at its finest). heh. So give it a go.
1. How big is your house? How many people do you have living in it?
2. How many hours a day do you spend cleaning?
3. Do you work for money in or out of the home? Do you clean more/less if (now that) you have a paying job?
4. Are you successful at getting hubs (or wife, my two, dear male readers) or kids (what age?) to help? HOW?
5. Do you clean frantically before guests (your mother-in-law) come?
6. Does housecleaning/house-messiness/housecleaning-inequity affect your daily contentment?
7. Have you discovered how effective blogging is at procrastinating/blocking out messes?
Jane
I'll be interested in the answers from everyone. Another sort of the eavesdropping on your lives I enjoy so much. My answers:
1. 1100 square feet. 6 currently and a very large cat.
2. Um. less than one most days. Then I spend a day a month really cleaning.
3. I did work out of the home for three months recently. I did absolutely nothing at home when I was working, thus this past weeks drive to get things in order. I can't imagine working full time away from home like I did recently.When the girls were young however, I did work full time away from home, and keep the house in order. I have one daughter who thinks I was superwoman. However, we have a rule in our house: "You're part of a family, help out. Bus your own plates from the table, rinse them and put them in the dishwasher if it's empty, on the counter if not. My sons-in-law are finding this an interesting rule. Also, if you made the mess, clean it up. And yes, occasionally you can do something to help with general cleaning, it's your home too."
Keep in mind that I run three individual businesses right here out of my home too. Doing that, and working full time was too much. The three here and cleaning is a much better fit for me.
4. See house rule in question 3. Yes, we're in this together. If you can't keep your room clean, keep the door closed. Mine is closed most of the time, beds are never made, unless there's a party or I go on vacation. Speaking of vacations. That's when my house is cleanest. Because you never know if you are going to die away from home, like my great aunt Vera, and then some random stranger is going to go to my house and go "oh wow!" Silly. yes, I know.
5. Growing up, we'd ask my mom who was coming over any time we cleaned. It was not very often. So this week was a mad dash to make up for the lack of deep cleaning over the last three months (and hoping for a remodel laziness) in prep for a party. But usually if my mother, mother in law or anyone else for that matter, usually gets what they get. I am over trying to make someone think I'm something I'm not.
6. Not in the slightest. My husband on the other hand, it bugs him to death most of the time, so we compromise and try to keep things tidy. He does understand a time crunch and always helps out. Except with laundry. It cracks me up when he does laundry. His clothes are the only dirty ones he can locate.
7. Not messes per se, but worthy endeavors. I could be making money right now, if I'd just get off the computer. sigh.
Oh my! It's Thursday?
Wow. I can't believe it's already Thursday. I probably wouldn't have noticed but the sound of the garbage trucks woke me up. Ah, five hours of sleep, it's enough to function on isn't it?
I've been spring cleaning. Yep. Fun. Well, actually to me it is. That "wowzer I can't believe I let stuff get this bad before doing it, and now it's done" feeling. Sense of accomplishment and all that Stephen R Covey stuff. Check it's done! I can feel the endorphins flowing like the time I got a check for $3400 (after taxes) working as a new stock broker feel. Not really.
My kitchen is really small, as is the main bathroom of the house. We keep saying we're going to remodel and then something like the clutch on my car goes out and then the fuel pump on the truck, and the remodel gets that much farther behind schedule. Because you know, driving beats a good tub soak any day.
The problem with saying you're going to remodel though is that you get really lazy about cleaning. You keep saying, "well, we're going to demo this in a month, so I don't have to worry about the base boards being clean...
Not until you schedule a party at your house. Then you turn on the lights and scream just a bit. I don't have before picture, because I'm all about the illusion that it really wasn't that bad, but here's the well, cleaned kitchen (because the build up on this is so strong I knew you were dying to see it):
