Things on Wednesday (updated with pictures)

Lots of things going on. My Aunt Margaret, who turned 100 last November, passed away yesterday. Unfortunately, she's not a blood relative (my mother's brother's wife), but she was an inspiration. Her house was from the 1950s (like ours) and is very retro. Will got to see it on a visit a couple years ago, and he's been talking about it ever since. She got to live in her house until she died, with a caretaker, of course, and what a great thing that was for her. While I won't be able to attend the funeral on Thursday, Aunt Margaret will be in my heart. I haven't seen her in awhile, but I think of her and remember times, especially when our family moved to California in 1959 and we lived with Aunt Margaret and Uncle Mike for a few months. Wow - 100 years old!!!

We are sending Will's mother and her soon-to-be new husband down to visit us. I'm once again dealing with Southwest Airlines, or as I call them, Southworst Airlines. They still can't figure out that choosing seats before you get on the flight is desirable. Southwest, you might want to send spies to fly on Virgin America to see how it's done. When we took VA, we didn't have to line up an hour ahead because no matter when we boarded, our seats were waiting for us - BECAUSE THEY ARE ASSIGNED SEATS. Seats I pick on the computer when I book my flight. What a concept! Maybe now that SW's Chairman is retiring, whomever takes his place will realize we don't want to be treated like cattle. We want to be civilized. We want assigned seating.

But I digress. I have a $43 credit with Southwest that expires on June 25th, but they won't be coming here until June 27th, so it seems that Southwest once again gets to keep some of my money for NOTHING. And to show just how stupid this airline is (or maybe they are smart and some of their customers are stupid), they told Will when he called for me that they could extend this deadline but it would cost me $50. Hello? Do the math. I'd owe those idiots money. Sure, can you sign me up? I think they may have misunderstood the question and they think I'm trying to extend an award. Whatever, they suck. This is probably a big revenue maker for them.

Maybe other airlines are the same, and some charge to change reservations, where Southwest does not, but it seems unfair, and if Southworst wanted to be thought of as better than the airlines, they'd change this STUPID, CHEAP, ANNOYING policy, AND they'd also assign seats. It's a shame they cost less than most other airlines (but I guess you get what you pay for. I want to get there safely, and pay as little as I can to do that). I checked Virgin America, and while they are only $7 each way per person more than SW, they only go to San Francisco Airport, and that isn't worth it. So once again Southwest wins, even though they bug me enough to not want to travel any more unless I have to.

I went to Google (also not my favorite business - they REQUIRE their employees to have a 4.0 college grade point average even if college was 25 years ago - yet another stupid policy by a company run by idiots) and typed in "southwest sucks" and guess what? I'm NOT the only one who hates Southwest! http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=southwest+airlines+sucks.

I found a website called "Southwest Sucks" (well sort of) http://www.southwestsucks.com/ and guess what? It's a Southwest site. They know someone else would take that site if they didn't! I love the message that is posted at http://www.southwestsucks.com/:
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A Message From Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines strives to maintain a high level of Customer Service and is proud of its corporate reputation and responsiveness to its Customers. As part of that effort, Southwest wants to control the release of inaccurate and irresponsible information about the Company via the Internet. If you would like more information on Southwest, please go to http://www.southwest.com/.
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Me, again - I do not think they know what Customer Service actually is. They think, and sadly some of their customers think, flight attendents who make stupid jokes and wear shorts on a flight is customer service. It is not. Refunding my money so I'd be a happy customer who would be happy to turn around and book another flight on Southwest is customer service. Assigning my seat before I get on the plane so I don't feel like saying "Moow" like a cow as I get on the plane is customer service. Allowing me to contact them via email instead of snail mail or calling is customer service. But since they get to keep my money anyway, they don't really give a ..... do they?

Good news: I found a flight that is on Alaska Airlines that is about the same amount less than Southwest's flight as the amount Southwest is making off me by not letting me us the money in "my" account.

And now for important stuff - the brown sweater is coming along. I have to do the second sleeve and then crochet around the edges, particularly by the neck, as you can see. I had my shoulder up, so this is a funny picture, but all the more fitting for "blog fodder". It's still a little bit shorter than I had orginally hoped for, but it fits and I like it.

Monday Photos

It was HOT this past weekend, but today it has cooled down to the 70s, which is desirable and bearable. Do I look hot? Then why are you taking my picture and bothering me?! And when you look at the picture at the top right-hand corner of this blog of Alex and Mowry, you can see how pure black Alex used to be!

Do I look naughty? Just a few minutes before my humans found the plant in the picture below on its side with the clay pot broken, and dirt on the rug. They think it was me, but I'll never tell.
I didn't get to take a picture before Will vacuumed the rug, and fixed the plant with a new pot, but since Mowry is the one who flits about the sunroom looking at birds and sometimes jumping on the screen, it's a safe bet it was him.
Friday after coming home from a client's office, we went to an estate sale given by people whose estate sales we frequent around here - they have a business and run good estate sales. Sometimes their stuff seems overpriced, and sometimes some things are low. We bought the portable dishwasher at one of their sales. I bought this dish for $1.50.
And this picture for $2.00 that is perfect for, and is now hanging in, the bathroom. OK, I give up. I love the colors and textures of this yarn, but I have limits as to how many times I will knit a sock and rip it and re-knit it. I finished both, and one came out bigger than the other, and while it is clearly "operator error" (I either used a different size needle, or different number of stitches - see what happens when you wait too long between socks, unless you do the exact same thing all the time and don't forget what you've done, with "you" being "me"), I give up! I started to rip one of the socks with the intentions of ripping them both out and making a scarf, but then I got a brainstorm. I don't have to rip the whole sock, and I can make fingerless mitts out of them! So here's one sock, and one mitt being worked on. I finished mitt #1 on BART today, so now I can just rip out part of sock #2 and make it into fingerless mitt #2.
It is warm in Colorado where my niece lives! Yay - cold winter number 1 for her is over! But today is May 19th, and there WAS snow in parts of Colorado on May 10th, so never say never!

TGIF - another HOT day

I hope this heat wave isn't a preview of summer weather. We're not used to it being THIS hot! Last night about two hours after we went to sleep, I woke up to the sound of a cat screeching outside, and then dog barks. I got up and went into the office to get the fan because it was still too hot, even with the windows open. We have alarmed screens in our beddroom, so we can sleep with the windows open. It was a good thing I went into the office, because when I opened the door, out walked Mow Mow. We both thought we did a kitty check before the door got closed.

Since I'm at an office, I have to search the internet for "stock shots" to post here. I did not take these pictures, but since they are posted to websites, I believe I can borrow them here.

Today's post is of places I've been that were "WOWs".

The old Dodger Stadium, (before it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch and ruined with the ugly advertising all other stadiums have):

Abpve was a postcard from 1963! Below is Dodger Stadium with the crappy ads all over.

The statue of David in Florence, Italy: The statue of David in Florence, Italy:

Wrigley Field in Chicago (where I got to visit the summer before they put in the lights):

That was the summer of 1987. The first night game at Wrigley Field was on 8/8/88 - this summer will be 20 years!

The Chrysler Building in New York:

The Statue of Liberty in NY:I have a miniature monument collection, and it has several Lady Liberties in different sizes and colors, and a Chrysler Building, among other buildings. I once loved NY, but now that I live so close to SF, I don't have any desire to return to NY.

Cable Cars in SF which I see every time I come to SF for a meeting or to work at a client's office. I feel like I'm on vacation every time! Golden Gate Bridge:
The Palace of Fine Arts (one of my favorite spots in SF):
A nighttime view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the SF Skyline:
But Dorothy is right, there's no place like home (another view of the main street in our town):

Tonight is the Celtics/Cavaliers game, and while Boston had an amazing season, they pushed the first round of playoffs to 7 games, and this is game 6 of round 2. I hope to see Eddie House playing tonight, but for some reason, when he's been with a team that gets to the playoffs, his coaches have not played him much. The other night he played for 21 seconds. They like to put him in with a few seconds remaining at the end of a quarter. You're not fooling us, coach. We may be following a different team next year.

It's TOO Hot!

And just in case you can't see it to read it, here's a close up! And this was at 5:40 pm tonight!
What else can I say? It was even HOT in San Francisco today, setting records, I believe.

Mowry might have been watching TV!
The rhododenruns have opened. I don't recall them opening last year!

I can't decide if I'd rather be hot or cold? I still think winter is more desirable, but I'm convinced that 72 degrees all the time is perfect!

Wednesday - Fire and Weather and Things

Last night we went to Open Mic. We walked in at around 6:30 pm, and a few minutes after us, someone came in and said there was a fire. We walked out and sure enough, there was dark black smoke billowing from a spectacular fire. It was no surpise to me when I heard the fire was at what is known in Niles as "The Henkel building" - property owned by The Henkel company in Germany (http://www.henkel.com/) that has been in the middle of recent controversy about the future development of the abandoned site. There was even discussion of it becoming the victim of fire, as so many old abandoned buildings do. It really was only a matter of time, but it's still a sad, bad story. Does this photo posted on our local newspaper, The Argus's blog site tell it all? The graffiti is disgusting, and the fire makes it all worse.Someone in our neighboorhood takes great pictures and posts them to the group. Since he's posted them to a Yahoo Group, I think I can post them here with credit to Papa John of Niles:



You've seen my pictures of Niles Blvd. in other blog posts, but this one with the fire in the background is quite a different view.
Maybe this is why the Amtrak went thru very slowly. People are never very smart about staying away from the train tracks. I guess a train won't be coming thru if there is a fire across the street, except an Amtrak did go by while the firefighting efforts were going on.

You can't tell from these pictures, but this building was a stucco wall with boarded up windows, surrounded by this fence, and the first thing you saw when you came into Niles from the South. It was a homeless hang out, and someone used to deposit their trash bags in the parking area next to the building. It was a complete eyesore, although some in town thought it should be preserved because it was older than 50 years. I don't think all historical sites are worth preserving, but seeing it burned down is just wrong.

The two pictures below are from The Argus. What a great view of the firefighter in action with a rainbow from the water.As you can see above, it was daylight and the sky was blue, but the fire turned it all dark.

Open Mic was fun. Will is now playing bongos with two guitarists (Eddie and Steve, who came by Sunday to practice, and to eat Mowry, or so Mowry thought when I tried to introduce him, and he scrabbled to get away, nailing me a little bit with his claws). The list of players was light last night (could it be because Niles Blvd. was closed off due to the fire?) so they were able to play three times (twice as planned - once Eddie's two songs, and once Steve's two songs) and then a special encore. They are playing again Friday night for the dinner crowd with Steve. It's Steve's gig, but he asked them to play a few songs with him after he does some solo playing. It sounds like fun, but I'll probably be home watching the Celtics game! And yes, Will is FINE with that, and didn't expect me to go!

I asked Will if he thought I should bring my camera to take pictures of him playing at Open Mic, and he said no, so I didn't. Who knew (my favorite saying after "didn't anyone learn anything from ______") I missed a photo op with the huge fire. There were many people out there with cameras. I took a few on my camera cell phone, but they are still on the phone, and aren't as good as the ones above! So what did I learn from this? Take my camera! (Didn't anyone learn anything from ..... I did!).

The weather was delightful in So. SF today. That's the good news (for So. SF) and the bad news (for the rest of the bay area) because that means it will be a scorcher everywhere else! It's 78 in Fremont at noon, but will probably be MUCH hotter later in the day when it peaks. Be careful what you wish for......

Tuesday

It's 10:00 am and it's already 65 degrees here today. It's expected to get as high as 75, but I'm guessing it may get hotter. We're in for a heat wave starting Thursday. I wonder if it will still be chilly and windy in South San Francisco? For once I may welcome that!

I looked at the usual webcams this morning, and there is snow (yes, SNOW!) on May 13, 2008 in Georgetown, Colorado

and in Montrose, Colorado!

If you don't believe me, look at the dates and times on the above webcam shot that I saved!

Tonight is Open Mic. Will is playing bongos with the two guys who came by on Sunday to rehearse.

I chose not to go to a conference in Montreal because it's cold, it's far, and it's expensive to get to. It's this week and it's not that cold! I'm still glad I didn't go.

Monday - BART troubles and things

There were two electrical fires Saturday morning affecting BART, so the story is that they have "limited the number of Bay Area Rapid Transit trains running between the Bay Fair and Fremont stations, creating confusion among commuters Monday morning". I was there - I'm not sure why people were confused, except that many people are just confused in general.

I went to the Fremont BART station because it's one station back, it's the first on the system, and we did a few errands before I was dropped off., and I had a better chance of getting ag ood seat. There are no Richmond-bound trains at Fremont for the next few months, and the only part I found confusing was why they flashed "Richmond" on their sign as though there was a Richmond-bound train coming in to the station.

BART went VERY slow as it put-putted by the fire area (which I couldn't see), and there are fewer trains, and more people who then have to transfer, but it was fine. I didn't have to drive! The only problem I had was that South SF is always chilly and windy and pretty much miserable, at least the part where I go. It's like standing in centerfield of Candlestick Park, which is close to where I have to go.I remember being a kid and watching Giants'/Dodgers games televised on Channel 11 in Los Angeles, and wondering what all the junk was whirling around the field. It was, in fact, garbage. Slobby fans and constant winds. When I moved here I had the "opportunity" to go to a game at the stadium, and was less impressed than my TV introductions to it. What a pit. I remember having to park on a dirt parking lot. Classy, huh? Not when I was used to Dodger Stadium. Their parking lots were in better shape than anything at Candlestick.

I know there are both SF Giants Fans and Candlestick Park fans out there, and some of them are even nice people, but that place blows! (Get it?).

Today's pictures are all from the internet, and not my camera.

This photo is of the Golden Gate Bridge. I haven't been on that bridge for awhile!

I like this shot of the Bay Brdige going toward SF. What a great prospective!
This is the landslide in the hills in Fremont.
While there are already houses at the base of the slide, does anyone STILL think we should develop the hills and build homes? Didn't anyone learn anything from ...... (fill in the blank to complete one of my favorite sayings in life!).