[Rupert]

I've had that experience a time or two myself; but food products weren't involved. (Although a lutefisk and bacon sandwich comes close )

Lutefish??? ...and you're the guy that was saying I need to seek help?

[Ex Finn.]

They also have sriracha lip balm.

And the.http://baconsalt.3dcartstores.com/Bacon-Baby-Infant-Formula_p_84.html

[Ex Finn.]

Lutefish??? ...and you're the guy that was saying I need to seek help?

Ahh... Lutefish. It`s the season for it. And Liver casserole, rosolli, rudabake? not sure how to spell that one...
Yumm, all the good stuff from back home.

[tim60]

Aldi shopping eh Rupert?
Here's the "skinny' on your dip:
INGREDIENTS
water, milk, soybean oil, whey protein concentrate, whey, milkfat, maltodextrin, sodium phosphate, less than 2% of milk protein concentrate, salt, sodium alginate, mustard flour, lactic acid, sorbic acid, worcestershire sauce (water, vinegar, hydrolyzed soy protein, caramel color, garlic powder, oil pimento, spices, malt extract), artificial color (yellow #5, yellow #6), cheese culture, enzymes.
Fooducate | eat a bit better

Where is the 'real cheddar' from which they said in the big print that they made it? Misrepresentation. Send Otis.

[Racer X 69]

Well, the power company got the damage from the windstorm fixed up everywhere, ours was only out for 5 days.


The phone wires were put back up the same day, although it only looks like they were simply returned to their previous locations on the poles they were ripped from, but not repaired where the falling trees ripped them apart. There are still loose wires dangling, laying on tree branches, bushes and the side of the road.


Using my cell phone (not the same provider as the land line) I have been engaged in a frustrating dialog that began last Saturday when I tried to report the (obviously) still damaged and dead lines. As I mentioned, the cell signal is weak, sometimes non-existent. The cell carrier gave us a box that boosts the cell signal inside the house, but *sigh* it doesn't work without a live internet connection. So the calls have to be made while outside the house. Did I mention the weather here lately? The daytime highs have not been above 40 (F), the frosted grass in shaded areas never thaws out, and nighttime temps have been in the mid teens.




Supposedly they were going to have someone come to the house last Tuesday. Why they need to come to the house remains a mystery. The service is underground, and I'm pretty sure the trees didn't cause any damage more than a few inches below the surface, let alone the three feet that the wires are buried.


Oh, and that overhead spans of wire that were torn down are about a mile from my home.


So can one of you tell me why a technician from the phone company needs to come to my house?


Really, all they need to do is come out with a bucket truck an splice the wires back together.


It ain't rocket science.


Sheesh!




I called several times Saturday and Sunday, each time wondering if the people I was talking to even knew how the magic of telecommunications even happens.


Monday I called, knowing that on weekdays the customer service lines are no outsourced to Bangladesh. A nice lady assured me that they were working hard to restore service.


Lip service.


But nice lip service.


She even seemed to understand why they didn't need to come to my house to fix wires that were hanging (and I use that term loosely) between three poles a half mile away.


I think.






Anyway, there was a message on my cell phone Wednesday telling me that the appointment was changed to December 27.


Wait.


WHAT?


DECEMBER 27?


ANOTHER MONTH JUST TO SPLICE SOME WIRES BACK TOGETHER?


This is ridiculous.






Besides, there was that nice lady on Monday . . . . . . .








On top of this, there is no other option for service here. Frontier has a monopoly. A couple years back Comcast reworked the area with fiber optic lines, but stopped about a thousand feet from where the trees fell just up the road from my house. I called them when they finished the change out of conductors to ask why they didn't come another mile, seeing as how they had already had run dozens, if not hundreds of miles of the new fiber optic lines. They said that 12 potential customers didn't justify the cost of one mile of line extension.


Pity.


I for one would welcome the elimination of the monopoly that the phone carrier has here. Cable internet is comparable to ADSL, but superior with fiber.


Oh, how I would love to have fiber optic internet and TV.


Oh yeah.


Besides, I need someone else to call and whine to when they fail to provide that which I am paying for.





Living in the foothills of the Cascade mountains cell phone service sucks, so we depend on a land line for communications. Our internet access is also through the phone, via ADSL. So I have been using the wireless access thing I used when driving a truck. It works on the same service as the cell phone, so here in the sticks connectivity is marginal. Web pages take forever to load, or time out. Some stuff doesn't load at all.


So I'm missing out on all the fun here.


And I'm gonna have to finish my Christmas shopping the old fashioned way and drive the 45 miles to the mall, battle traffic, crowds and crappy parking, only to be disappointed that the selections are not as wide and varied as they are on the internet.




Probably not gonna get a K3 either.


Nope.


Not gonna happen.


No sir.


And ma'am.

[tim60]

Racer, yes frustrating when it goes on and on.

Where I used to live, Adelaide, we had a couple of storms two years ago which resulted in power outage. One was just over 12 hours, actually just an inconvenience with no lights, TV or internet but short enough that if you do not open the fridge the stuff inside survives. We sat back and waited for the $90 check that they are required to give, by law, to every customer who loses supply for over 12 hours. Later that summer there was a big wind storm which destroyed powerlines over a big area, affected 250,000 people. We were off power for about 48 hours - long enough to spoil the food. The statutory compensation from the company was about $330. Not enough to pay for all of the losses, but automatic for being a customer of the supplier who failed to have in place means to continue supply, and with the previous payment was not too bad.

The big bill that hits the company for failure to supply what they contracted to supply, without a court case, makes them serious about reducing risk, such as underground lines, and having repair methods available. And the phone lines are all underground - saves all the problems of poles such as cars driving on the footpath and running them down and lads shooting out the insulators, or even people stealing the wires for the scrap copper.

But I never understood competition in the electricity retailing. The companies, about six of them, sell power delivered on exactly the same power lines, no quality of services issue with who I choose, and they were not proud enough of their prices to display the prices on their web page - you had to ring them up. And they only seemed to get a better deal when you were calling them to say you were changing to someone else because they had a better deal.

At least all the (specialised) buyers of the stuff you make in that big shed know that no-one ever pays list price for a product from the big shed and that the whole process is a sport of wheeling and dealing.

[Parallax]

you're the guy that was saying I need to seek help?

Well, I didn't say you were the only one.

[THoog]

NGREDIENTS
water, milk, soybean oil, whey protein concentrate, whey, milkfat, maltodextrin, sodium phosphate, less than 2% of milk protein concentrate, salt, sodium alginate, mustard flour, lactic acid, sorbic acid, worcestershire sauce (water, vinegar, hydrolyzed soy protein, caramel color, garlic powder, oil pimento, spices, malt extract), artificial color (yellow #5, yellow #6), cheese culture, enzymes.

Where is the 'real cheddar' from which they said in the big print that they made it?

It's there, just torn apart and reconstituted into something else - in the same way that most furniture these days is made from "real wood".

[robtcorl]

One of Racer's planes perhaps?

[normhead]

I have two back up generators. One big one, one small one. For fridges and freezers, you only need to run the big one a couple of hours a day. That does everything but hot water including cooking. The small one is just for a few lights, and the computers, and recharging the batteries we use for those things, when we aren't running any generators. It would cost me about 100 a month in fuel to live like that.A tank of gas costs 20 dollars, lasts 10 hours, and needs to be on at max. 3 hours a day. If it's winter and we can just put the frozen food out on the back deck, even less.

[Rupert]

When the power goes out here the phone rings and Mrs Rupert tells me it will be back in a few minutes....she works at the Co-Op and has for 15 years. However, we are not particularly special, their repair service is superb and fast. No one is in Bangladesh or Pakistan, they are all right here.

My cable service is also superb......owing mostly to the local branch mgr being one of my Chocolate Girlfriends. I dumped AT&T a couple of years ago...poor service and ridiculous prices. My old phone bill averaged $60 a month...with cable it is $20 and there are no taxes or fees that take pages to list on your bill.

The only detriment to good electric and cable service here is....those damn squirrels!

[FantasticMrFox]

I have two back up generators. One big one, one small one.

We occasionally had power outages in Ghana. Once the whole region lost power for three days due to a road accident somewhere 15km away. I managed to recharge my phone in our NGO's office which ran a backup generator for a couple of hours a day, and resolved to convince my family in Germany to get one too to be self reliant in such scenarios. Then I realised that we had one 30 min. power outage since I was born and ditched the idea

But to be honest, I always preferred power outages over water outages. I'm fine lighting some candles and walking around the house with the head torch, as long as I can take a shower every evening Water outages tended to last longer, so we would resort to using water from the numerous rain barrels, but once the water levels in them dropped below a certain point we would go from showering with a 10l bucket to showering with 8l, then 5l - anything below 5l makes it difficult to completely clean yourself. But the one time the rain barrels went completely empty and people in the neighbourhood had to resort to walking to waterholes I was away travelling - lucky me

[normhead]

We occasionally had power outages in Ghana. Once the whole region lost power for three days due to a road accident somewhere 15km away. I managed to recharge my phone in our NGO's office which ran a backup generator for a couple of hours a day, and resolved to convince my family in Germany to get one too to be self reliant in such scenarios. Then I realised that we had one 30 min. power outage since I was born and ditched the idea

But to be honest, I always preferred power outages over water outages. I'm fine lighting some candles and walking around the house with the head torch, as long as I can take a shower every evening Water outages tended to last longer, so we would resort to using water from the numerous rain barrels, but once the water levels in them dropped below a certain point we would go from showering with a 10l bucket to showering with 8l, then 5l - anything below 5l makes it difficult to completely clean yourself. But the one time the rain barrels went completely empty and people in the neighbourhood had to resort to walking to waterholes I was away travelling - lucky me

My generators run the pump on my well....and the river is a half Km from here. Water outages don't happen in my part of the world.

[WPRESTO]

It is extremely rare to lose power in this area for more than 10~24 hours, but there are always exceptions. Following the great Halloween ice storm a few years back we were without electricity for a full seven days. Lost a recently filled freezer worth of food, but we have a wood-burner so we were reasonably comfortable. There was a lot of legislative "why weren't you prepared" nonsense. Along one stretch of road, not more than four miles, I counted more than 30 places where electrical wires were some how damaged - heavy branches dangling, wires snapped, at least three telephone poles snapped. What was it like in all the rest of my town, much less surrounding towns that have many more miles of roads? There is no way an electric company can keep on hand sufficient equipment and crew to deal such a very rare event, nor any way even with massive numbers of personnel that they could make all the repairs in 24 hours.

[robtcorl]

I have my Biolite stove for backup cooking and cell phone recharging.