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Wednesday

9

September 2009

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Monday

7

September 2009

0

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Same as it Ever Was

Written by , Posted in Adventures

I am in on another whirlwind tour of the Seattle metro area. So far I’ve hit Phinney Ridge, Lake City, Bothell, Bellevue and West Seattle. The weather seems to be keeping up – it’s been very windy and crazy unexpectedly torrential rain stuck with us for much of the morning. Tomorrow I’m going to my first Bumbershoot, with a mind towards seeing Mirah perform. I’ve gone out for some very tasty food, seen a post-storm sunset on Alki and even done my little part to help the Washington state economy.

I’m valuing the time with my friends even more than normal since it will be a bit harder to stay in touch for the next year. Of course there’s e-mail (although I still really wish for more snail mail), but the nine hour time difference will make phone calls tougher, I won’t be coming out here nearly as much as usual (I’ve visited five times in the past 12 months, for showers, weddings and vacations), and I know a visit to London is a bit much to ask from most people, especially these days.

I hope I’ve really let them know how much I’m going to miss them. But ideally I’ll be back here in a year, with a job, getting ready for my first crisp fall afternoon in my new old home, with many stories to tell and pictures to share of my year in London.

Oh, and to my NYC friends: I’m coming back a couple of days early! I’ll be going to a couple of events that Friday and Saturday night before I leave for London (more on that later), but ideally I’ll have more time to see you then.

Tuesday

1

September 2009

0

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Monday

31

August 2009

0

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Weekend in Lake Tahoe

Written by , Posted in Adventures

This weekend we went up to Lake Tahoe for a quick break from the heat. I hadn’t been up there since the family vacation last summer, when we last saw John (our good friend who passed away this spring). The drive up and the first afternoon were filled with smoke from the fire burning close to Yosemite, but by the evening it cleared up nicely. We went to a little cocktail hour at the local hotel – it was on a floating pier, which was pretty sweet. 

Saturday I made my first attempt at high-altitude running. 6500 feet really does feel different from sea level, especially going up steep hills. But I did it. I’m excited to say that I’m going to run the next three days but take off all the time when I am in Seattle. I don’t really feel like running in the rain, and I haven’t taken more than three or four days off in a row since November, so I hope it’ll be a good rest that will kick-start the final push towards what will likely be my last race this year, the Royal Parks Half Marathon.

Saturday we also went to this pop-up exhibit on the history of the Lake Tahoe area. It was put togehter quite well, and made me hope the exhibitors eventually put together a book on the topic. The area has been pretty interesting – the Washoe tribe used it as their summer getaway, loggers took it over for awhile, a man bought up lots of land to conserve it (while raising his own lion at this crazy huge mansion), and of course Frank Sinatra owned part of one of the more famous casinos in the North Shore, the Cal-Neva. For someone who has been going up to Tahoe since she could walk, it was especially interesting.

The rest of the weekend we were pretty lazy, wandering around town, losing money to the slot machine gods, and eating very yummy food. On the way out this evening we passed the beginning of a nasty fire in Auburn, which should be contained in the next day (hopefully). 

Below are some pictures, which are in an order only posterous understands. But you’ll see some shots of the exhibit, some views of the cloudy skies, the Lake, and this amazing dog that is half wolf and all awesome.

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See the full gallery on Posterous

Friday

28

August 2009

0

COMMENTS

Danville Hotel

Written by , Posted in Adventures

My hometown has a few cool things associated with it. Model Christie Turlington went to one of the local high schools. The pilot that successfully landed Flight 1549 on the Hudson River this January – Capt. Chesley Sullenberger – lives here. There’s an awesome Woody Guthrie song that’s about the town –  We’ve got the Iron Horse trail, the Old Oak Tree (the town symbol), and a main street that in parts resembles a Hollywood back lot version of the Old West.

One of the best buildings is the Danville Hotel. It’s existed since 1874, and has been in its current location since 1927. Every Mothers Day my family would have brunch at the fancy restaurant in the Hotel, complete with the most amazing sopaipillas.

Probably a decade or more ago the fancy restaurant closed down and was replaced with a Mexican restaurant. That, too, has been shuttered, and now the building is falling apart. It made me so sad to see. I went back to take some pictures before it completely falls apart.

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See the full gallery on Posterous

Wednesday

26

August 2009

0

COMMENTS

Tuesday

25

August 2009

0

COMMENTS

Pay Pal Just Impressed Me

Written by , Posted in Random

So as you can read last night I was frustrated beyond frustration. I probably shouldn’t make financial calls at 10:30 at night.

This morning I called Pay Pal. It turns out that my old account was still open and a company called Nexus Europe Limited (http://nexuseurope.net/) charged my Pay Pal account over $50 two Mondays ago. Now, that particular Monday I was tooling around Manhattan, and I’ve never heard of Nexus Europe Limited, so yes that was not a real charge. 

Pay Pal saw that I hadn’t used my account in years and so refused to pay Nexus but the transaction to pull the funds from my Citibank account had already gone through. An old e-mail address was attached to that account, so their notification went there and not to the one I currently use.

Wade from Pay Pal was so nice and explaind that the money was still in my Pay Pal account, so we just closed it which meant the money would go straight back into my bank account.

I am impressed. It took maybe 10 minutes with Pay Pal to get it straightened out. I am especially impressed at how quickly they react to possible fraud. If I’d had my current e-mail address associated with the old account I would have know about this two weeks ago.

Now I know that even if I don’t know the ultimate vendor (in this case Nexus Europe Limited), I should see if I can find the contact information for whatever company shows up on the bank statement and call them first if there’s just one suspicious charge on my debit card.

Tuesday

25

August 2009

0

COMMENTS

Monday Night Frustration

Written by , Posted in Random

A couple of days ago I noticed a charge in my checking account from Pay Pal. While I don’t currently have an account with them I know a lot of businesses use them to collect online payments, so it is certainly possible that I would encounter them while purchasing from a small business online. Unfortunately I have no record of this Pay Pal charge. I searched my gmail for Pay Pal, for the electronic check company they use and for the amount charged. I looked back at an old vitamin order that shipped in parts to see if that company was were charging me for the second shipment. But nope. Nothing.

I called Citibank to see how to get an investigation into this. Now, it may be an entirely legitimate purchase; it happened the first couple of weeks in August, when I was running around trying to get everything in place for my move. But the only way for me to find out is to have information on who put through the request through Pay Pal.

George (the Citibank representative) was, I think, trying to be helpful. However, I’ve not experience such condescension from someone allegedly trying to help me since the police officer who took my statement after my bag was stolen my second year of college. George had the same tone that implied he felt he was trying to explain to a five year old that the Earth is round.

He had his list of questions, all of which were yes or no. Unfortunately, my situation didn’t lend itself to yes or no answers. It got so frustrating that at one point I asked if my call was annoying him because the condesenscion reached amazing levels. That seemed to upset him, possibly since the calls are recorded. Anyway, the conclusion George came to (via Citibank’s crack Q & A) is that since made at least one purchase via Pay Pal at some point in the distant past, this current charge is probably correct, and Citibank can provide no further assistance without stopping payment (which causes both a fee to be charged to me AND cannot be guaranteed).

After telling me to contact the vendor (difficult, since the whole point is that I don’t know on whose behalf Pay Pal was charing me) George gave me a trace number and I hung up before I said anything inappropriate, although I wasn’t as friendly as I could have been. I know it’s not George’s fault that his bank’s procedure isn’t helpful to me in this instance. I’m sure hearing from someone like me – who can’t be certain that the charge is fraudulent – makes his evening a little more difficult. I just wish George didn’t present himself in such a condescending manner.

I’ve e-mailed Pay Pal and will call them in the morning to try to get some more information. There’s no option from their pre-selected menu for “you charged me and I don’t know what for,” so I’m sure my e-mail will get routed and re-routed among many departments. As I’ve said, this may very well be a legitimate charge that perhaps was delayed a couple of months, but I can’t know until I know who put through the charge.

With that in mind, here is my thought about how this type of situation should be avoided. What if we require that companies who process payments on behalf of others put the actual business / account name on the note as well? If Pay Pal is charging on behalf of Sunshine Cleaning, it should show up on my bank statement as Pay Pal / Sunshine Cleaning. If I’ve never heard of Sunshine Cleaning, I would then know that the charge was likely an error or fraud.

Just another thing to add to my to do list for when I’m queen . . . 

Saturday

22

August 2009

0

COMMENTS

Odd Facebook Encounter + Inevitable Run-In = Odd Evening

Written by , Posted in Random

Now that I’m back visiting home for a month I know that I’ll run into some people. A few classmates from high school have stayed in and around the area, and some are not that far away. It’s always been a bit of a stomach flip for me, going downtown to run errands or grab lunch, because I don’t know who I’ll run into. In general (especially thanks to Facebook) I’m in touch with everyone from my hometown with whom I want to be in touch. They know when I’m visiting, so we will make plans to meet up.

Everyone else? Yeah, I’m generally not hoping to run into them. Not because they weren’t nice people, or because of anything having to do with them specifically, but because I don’t particularly enjoy small talk. Sure, sometimes I’ll run into someone that I’d lost touch with and am genuinely interested in how life is going with them, but usually not so much. You have between one and three children? Great! Your husband works in sales? Super. Seriously. That’s great. But I don’t really care.

Tonight on the way to pick up dinner I ran into a married couple from my high school. While we aren’t still in touch, I saw them at the reunion last fall and enjoyed talking to them. They’re nice, doing some interesting things, and I don’t find it awkward to talk to them. So that’s good – my first inevitable run-in and it wasn’t painful.

Then I came home to a Facebook message from a woman who is apparently the fiance of a guy I dated when I was 17. He doesn’t have a Facebook account but is trying to track down my college boyfriend – who he used to know – and is doing it via my account. We lost touch when we stopped dating. So that’s a dozen years that have gone by where I have thought of him maybe a handful of times. It’s so strange to me, the double-edged sword that is social networking. Yes, I’ve gotten back in touch with some great people. But me being out there means that people with whom I’ve lost touch (and don’t mind one bit) can contact me.

And that leads to another issue. With an in-person encounter I can at least smile and nod and not be a jerk if I run into someone unexpectedly. It might even be a pleasent experience. But receiving random e-mails and friend requests – especially ones to which I’d just as soon not respond – is somewhat invasive. I don’t want to be rude to anyone, in person or online, but I also haven’t figured out how to nicely “ignore” my cousin or former coworker friend requests, or simply not reply to an e-mail.

Tuesday

18

August 2009

0

COMMENTS

Why I Get to the Airport Crazy Early

Written by , Posted in Adventures

I usually take the air train to the airport. It’s great if you have the time and not a lot of baggage. This morning, since I’m moving, I took a car service so there would be space for my luggage. I got to the airport 2h 15m before my departure time.
 
 
It took me 10 minutes to get from the curb to the check-in line. The terminal was packed in a way I’d never seen. People were loaing their s–t. Yelling at staff, cutting in lines. I get being stressed that one might miss one’s flight, but calling people jerks and squealing generally has no impact on the flight’s departure. After 40 minutes in line I checked my bags and went to security. The line extended fully out past the snaking ropes to the deep recesses of the terminal. It moved quickly, but again people felt they were clearly the most important people there and thus had no need to wait in the line. I’d love it if the TSA folks would send them to the back if they catch people cutting. I feel like missing one’s flight due to being a jackass might prevent the activity in the future.
 
 
But I made it. I even got breakfast before running to the plane. California here I come.

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