Garbage Day

[howeird]

Work was mostly spent on the continuing saga of this week's pet bug. While showing the automation guy the steps to test it, we found it was not working as I thought it was, some video streams did and some didn't. Very puzzling. Spent some time with the engineer, doing the whole matrix grid thing. More later when two new builds are released to QA.

Lunch was at the Valley Plaza Cafe, which is the hotel restaurant for the Embassy Suites hotel. They have had a sign up for a couple of months with their hours, they are almost next door to Sizzler and next door to the old Peppermill (which is trying very hard to be Axis night club) so I pass by twice a day at least.

I had the braised beef rib (singular) which is served on a pile of lovely broad egg noodles. There was also a delicious very sour bread kind of like focacia but better. The beef and whatever they braised it with was excellent. The noodles looked great but were way too salty. I had the opera cake for dessert - $7 for $2 worth of cake. Iced tea was a little bitter, and they had no  sweeteners on the table. All in all a good place to try other items, but skip dessert and go with a not-tea beverage.

Home, took out the garbage, relaxed a bit, took my BP (it was actually a little low, yay!) then went to the local naked women place and enjoyed watching two of my favorite pole dancers. We're talking high quality routines similar to aerial dancing, not some sleazy bump and grind.

Home, smoked turkey leg and steamed veggies for dinner. Chocolate ice cream, sliced banana, macadamias and whipped cream for dessert.

A couple of days ago, a calendar I sent to a friend in Japan in November was returned marked "unknown number". Odd, because at the time it was the address of my friend's parents, well out of the tsunami area. I was surprised it took so long until I saw it was sent by slow boat, and probably returned by slower boat. I asked for her current address, and she replied with one in Tokyo, different from her pre-tsunami Tokyo address. I have the calendar ready to send again, this time it goes air mail.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Tempted to go to the SJ First Friday Art walk.

Comments

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Do you have any comprehension of why the post office cuts off international first class at 4 pounds and requires parcels over 4 pounds to go by priority mail? It has nothing to do with international treaties or the UPU, because other countries are far more reasonable, or so my global eBay customers tell me.

At one time, there was an international book rate. That disappeared when they changed the name of "book rate" to "media mail."

The actual, real effect of high postal rates has been to cut into sale prices for book dealers selling common used books. For example, a book worth $5 now sells for $1 plus $4 in shipping. This has major impact on a lot of the stuff I sell. My nephew, who does a huge business selling books on Amazon, gets most of his books from a recycling firm. He takes most of the books that would sell for less than $15-20 and either sells them to local bookstores or donates them to charity.

[howeird]

I will guess that international 1st class is required to be flown to the nearest hub to the recipient, while media mail and parcel post can go surface, and the 4-lb limit is where the USPS thinks they stop breaking even on air freight charges.

I donate a lot of books to Goodwill and friends of library sales. I'm not a collector, and all the books I have kept for their entertainment value fit on a single shelf. Little by little I have been donating some of what I've bought from you to BASFA which are then auctioned at the weekly Monday meetings to help fund the group. Anything >$10 I'll probably read & keep.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

I hope those books make lots of money for BASFA.

Get this. Say I have a 4 pound item that fits in a small priority fixed rate box. The priority rate is around $18-19, and the first class rate is about $30. On the other hand, I recently packed a huge number of pulps for Australia - it would have taken up 3 medium fixed-rate boxes - if I'd divided it into 4 pound packages it would have been about $200 by first class, in 3 fixed-rate boxes it would have been $150, and packed into one box (not fixed-rate) it was $93.00. I have a very high IQ. I'm telling you, their system is (a) not a system, (b) makes no sense, and (c) is probably hurting the economy by making America less competitive in international commerce.

There is no parcel post or media mail overseas.

I think their system is designed to lose money and alienate customers, and I think that's part of the reason why the USPS is failing.

[howeird]

Yup, that is whacked. and it's why our dolphin masters invented Fedex, DHL, UPS and sneakernet.