E Jacobs

So what's with the Nordie card? It looks like no-fee and 1% back as a Nordstrom gift-card-equivalent (which is the equivalent of no rewards in my book). Is there some amazing customer service? Let's see, what else did people suggest? I have no specific beef with Capital One (other than dumb commercials) and the world MasterCard seems to offer useful travel benefits. I think of them as being pretty pushy on upselling though, and I see a lot of reviews that say they refuse to stop sending the convenience checks. Penfed seems pretty solid, and gets good reviews for customer service. I have specific historical issues with Citi, so they're out for us. Is the BOA credit card customer service better than their banking customer service? We found them to be pretty lacking when we were looking for a new bank, but that may not imply much for the credit card folks. Thanks for everyone's input.

We tend to have two cards. Amex blue cash and "something else" for when vendors don't take Amex. For years, our "something else" has been a visa from our bank and we've been pretty happy with them. When there's a (rare) problem, you talk to a human being and they fix it. However, we've moved to a state with no bank branches, so we're slowly unwinding our accounts there, and their website is essentially non-existant. Our accounts are all moving to Schwab, and they don't have a credit card anymore. We don't run a lot of money through it, a high month is about $3K. We don't carry a balance, so I don't really care about credit limits or APR. Rewards (preferably cash, or gift cards) are nice, but secondary to customer service. I'm pretty anti-annual fee, but might be persuadable. I care about: A functional website with both aggregate and detailed information, online payments, etc. Electronic billing as an alternative to paper billing. Minimal phone tree for customer service calls. Customer service that is willing to actively problem-solve when there's an issue. No junk mail. What are your favorite cards?

I don't know, maybe we're talking past each other here, because I don't usually think of Echo as an flowers. My reading of your description (working off memory, not the post) was pretty much "Walk up rate is $82, but if they look good for it, I lie about the walkup rate, and then offer to sneak them a made-up discount on the fly." And yeah, that seems disingenuous to me. It may be the way the industry works, but it still seems sleazy. And if that's what you've been -told- to do, then I'd say it's your manager who's sleazy, but it seems illogical not to -actually- change the walkup rate, since the desk already has pricing flexibility. IME, managers that set unrealistic guidance on pricing (and being 20K in the hole every month means they're unrealistic or that someone selling rooms is disregarding it and getting away with it) are lousy in a whole host of other ways. It sucks to feel like you have to screw some people to keep your job, I'm just not inclined to sugar-coat the fact that it doesn't seem more "honest" than any other sales negotiation. Likewise "Because it didn't occur to the front desk or the person checking in that it was happening, I assigned them a room with inappropriate bedding (a king instead of 2 doubles), and so I charged them the higher-than-usual rate for both the king room and the double room, even though they only occupied the double room." is completely outside of what I've ever seen as acceptable for hotels or motels. And I've stayed at some odd little places over the years before I found chains I found to be uniformly good. As to the particulars of my recent stay - I drive the I-95 corridor a lot, and I have for the past several years, always with my (now) 6 year old in tow. I routinely get better rates using the little coupon books available at rest areas than I do by calling for reservations or visiting the company website. It also means that I can stop when I'm ready, which can be difficult to predict. I recognize that it's a gamble, and sometimes there are no rooms at that rate, or no rooms to be had at all. I'm usually pretty willing to accept "Oh, we don't have any rooms left at that rate at 11pm, but I can give you a room for X+10" In fact, on the way down, I stayed at a Fairfield that did exactly that. I pulled in just before midnight, with my kid falling asleep in the chair and we made a deal. Cheaper than web-bookings for me, slightly more than the coupon rate - but all was as advertised and it was fine. In fact - selling me 2 exedrin for $4 at 2am means that I'll stay there every time it's convenient. There were little quirks (who doesn't put a fan in the bathroom?) but I didn't -feel- like they were taking advantage of me to excess. On the way north, I picked a Sheraton Four Points over my usual lodgings in that same town. It advertised itself as new, with a full-service restaurant, room service breakfast and dinner, internet access, fridge and microwave. I was willing to pay more for those things - because when everyone in the party has digestive distress - getting fluids delivered is worth paying the room service fee vs trying to load a sleepy, sick kid up for the quickie mart. And, I've always been happy with Sheraton. So I go in, discount in hand. "Oh, no, sorry. Can't give you that discount." No reason provided when I ask, it's just not available. What's your walk up rate? "coupon rate x2" I start thinking about just how much room service might be worth to me and how much I don't want to get back on the expressway. Another person walks up - starts to say a number that's lower than the coupon rate in my hand, then looks at the coupon and amends it to a rate that's coupon + $15. Now - no one forced me to take that rate. So by definition, it was "market" rate - both buyer and seller were willing to conduct the transaction without duress. My point was that it gave me a bad initial impression. So when the room smelled funny, and the carpet was wet, and the fridge didn't work, I got crankier. And when neither the first nor the second TV remote I had worked,and I got dripped on every time I went out the door to my car I started to regret my choice. Certainly when there was no room service, or even a full-service restaurant that I could go to - I was more disgruntled about that than I would have been if I didn't already think they were taking advantage of my circumstances. Yeah, they got a bad review. A review that focused on the shortcomings of the property vs their advertising, not on what I paid or the front desk staff. Because if they'd -had- the features that I cared about, I'd have blown off what I paid for it. And if I'd paid what I'd expected, I'd have chalked it up to hotels cutting features that weren't heavily utilized and keeping their rates (fairly) low. As it happens, they've being dropped by Sheraton effective the end of this month, so I doubt that I was the first person who found that property lacking. Look, I understand that the front desk has discretion, and that if the hotel does badly everyone is out of a job. I don't fool myself into believing I get a rock-bottom rate every time I go into a hotel (or even any time. I'm not a good negotiator in those situations.) And maybe I'm projecting my bad recent experience on your hotel. I don't doubt that you do what you can for people who tug at your heartstrings - I just don't get how you were the good guy in those particular scenarios.

Yeah, I had someone pull that crap on me when on my last car trip. 2-3pm on a Thursday and you don't have any of the coupon-rate rooms? They finally offered a rate between first-quote and the coupon rate. Could I have afforded either one? Sure. Was I going to pay pretty much whatever they wanted because I was fond of that chain, and with my kid and I both having come down with stomach flu on the drive (why we were stopping in the middle of the day) I didn't want to get back into the car? Yup. Did I feel like I got screwed? Yup. Will I -ever- stay there again? Nope. And while it's bad timing for a return trip, I usually stay fairly nearly that city on the way out. So for an extra $15 - they've lost whatever revenue would have come from me, got a bad review submitted to their franchise office, a bad review on travel sites, and somewhat soured me on the brand. The hotel itself wasn't bad. The room had an odd odor (and they'd left the ozone machine in there because they knew it), and the floor was damp over near the a/c, and there was water dripping down the outside of the building that landed on you when you went through the closest exterior door. There were some other minor quibbles, but I'd have written most of that off if I hadn't thought the desk took advantage of the fact I obviously didn't -want- to try somewhere else. Oh - and if you'd tried to charge me for -both- rooms after giving me an unsuitable room? I'm not paying, even if that means not staying in the wee hours of the night without other good options. I have limits about how much I can be screwed. *shrug* Sorry, I don't find you to be particularly honest in this situation.

computer-wise? You can sort it any way you like.... by year, month, day, or month, year, day, or...if there is some weird reason, day, month year I do the same format for the same reason yyyy-mm-dd, because it sorts. The date in the file name isn't almost never the same as the date modified or created, and the file-name-date is what I'm most likely to search or sort by. When I write dates on checks I do mm/dd/yyyy, and dates in something like excel/a database are displayed in whatever manner makes the relevant change more obvious to me/users of the data.

My daughter's dance studio runs classes in the summer. The problem is that we're out of town for 3 weeks of their 10 week schedule. And summer camp runs until 4 or 5 (depending on which week of camp it is) vs the 3 when school gets out so we can't make it to the 4:15 class we'd usually take. That seemed to be a pretty common theme with the parents I talked to. They have a lot of trouble filling their summer classes and were canvassing parents to see what would work. They ended up offering to pro-rate for vacation weeks if you could tell them up-front when you were going to miss, and offering more weekend classes. I'm still not sure how I feel about taking enrolling in a class where you know you're going to miss a third of it, but she wants to go and they want to have her, so she'll probably take one anyway.

It seems fine, but I'd suggest trying to come up with a handful of different things - because a smoothie a day tends to get old (although they're nice in the summer). Adding a little protein to every meal or snack is also a lot easier than gulping down protein shakes. A popular dessert in my house is that same greek yogurt dolloped on fresh fruit and topped with a drizzle of honey and a sprinkle of toasted and chopped nuts, for example. You get more sweetening effect with less sugar if it's on the suface vs mixed in (IME). Instead of a snack of fruit, have fruit and a few toasted almonds, or an apple with peanut butter. Maybe a piece of part-skim string cheese. Add an egg or some canadian bacon to breakfast. - or make a frittata/quiche that you can eat hot or cold. A salad can be bumped up with meat/fish or hardboiled egg (just white, if you're so inclined). Dip crackers/veggies/etc in hummus instead of ranch.

Every time? No. Most of the time, yes. If I'm coming in and staying in - shoes come off. If I'm unloading the car from groceries or a trip or whatever - I usually leave them on until I'm done unloading (and my shoes are usually pretty clean). If I've been working in the yard, they almost always come off. When we were doing a lot of landscaping earlier in the year, we put down a layer of towels between the front door and the kitchen (which has hard flooring). I didn't want mud/clay/mulch/compost ground into the carpet, but I knew there was no way everyone was going to remember to take their shoes off every time. Oh, and social visitors are usually asked to take their shoes off, but business visitors aren't (although many business visitors do, especially the frequent ones.) We're trying to make the carpet last another 4 years (it's 12 years old now), so we do try on average to be gentle to the carpet. Of course, the 5 year old has made "fairy dust" out of chalk and sprinkled it on the carpet, so I'm not sure why a little dirt is worse than the red, blue and yellow patches we have.

We've been doing a lot of landscaping, so I've been going through jamaica (hibiscus flower tea) with lime like crazy. When I'm not doing heavy work, I'm a water girl, though. With a wedge of lemon or lime when they're not using chloramine for water treatment.

DD got hers somewhere around 5.5. When she could read, and wanted to write letters, but didn't yet have the manual dexterity to really write legibly and was familiar enough with skype and email to expect faster responses than postal mail. She gets email from her grandparents, and her year-older cousin, and generally responds in kind.

I quit my job last month, and had to sit in while my boss interviewed replacements. We've discussed legal and not legal questions many times before, so instead of asking -directly- what religion candidates are, he says things like "We offer flexible hours, you could even work on Sunday mornings unless you'll be in church!" And then he just looks at them and waits until they reveal their religious leanings. For those who aren't forthcoming, there are more pointed references. And he tells stories about the people who have the audacity to claim unemployment after he fires them, and how he's going to fight it, but they'll probably win because they're <race> and the unemployment office always gives benefits to <race>. I know what all of the interviewee's spouses do for a living. And if they're planning more children. I know how old they are, and how many more years they're planning to work before they retire. I know where they were born, I know where they grew up. Yeah, he can really run an interview. The woman he hired had seven hours of interviews before she got the job offer. Too bad he didn't let us ask any job-related questions of the candidates, which is why he hired someone who completely lacks the required computer skills, but still isn't dumb enough not to notice that he lied to her about the salary budget. (Note, don't lie to the new bookkeeper about how much you paid the old bookkeeper and when raise cycles are. Especially when her first task is to enter payroll.)

I buy my beans from a local craft/micro roaster. Usually Yirgacheffe, but sometimes Oaxacan or Costa Rican, If he gets in something usual, he can usually tell me if I'll adore it and he's yet to steer me wrong. Mostly I pick among my favorites based on roast date, although lately we've been shooting the breeze about harvest dates as well, so that decision is getting a bit more complex. Ground daily in my burr grinder, and brewed in a french press, drunk black. On weekends we grind it fine and brew it in a mokka pot. I usually add a splash of warm milk to the mokka-spresso

Driver's license. Prox card for the office. ATM card visa/amex Costco card two gift cards I need to remember to use library card rental car executive card (forgot to remove it after the last trip) stamp card for the local popsicle shop In the "for emergencies" pocket: Auto insurance card my health insurance card my husband's health insurance card $20

Half is going to be pushing it. Typically 25-30% is pretty safe with almond flour. However, you can probably replace another 20% with coconut flour and get an acceptable product. Normally you'd need to add an equal volume additional liquid for the coconut flour (water works fine) but if you're doing 25-30% almond flour (which doesn't really absorb liquid) I'd only add half as much extra liquid as you did coconut flour. Coconut flour has about twice as many non-fiber carbs as almond flour, but it also has about twice as much protein and less fat. It's also about a third fiber by weight, which might help with the blood sugar levels. It will add a slightly sweet/generic bakery flavor, as well.

The thought of quid pro quo never really crossed my mind. The more I think about this though, the less inclined I am to participate. My DD attends a private Jewish school. The deadline for donations is the 14th, so the middle of Chanukah, which isn't really a gift-giving holiday to begin with. Really, it looks more like a year-end bonus than anything else, and the school should be providing that, not me. That aside, I do "owe" one of my DD's teachers a thank-you gift for sitting with her on a few days last month that I was running late for pickup. Maybe some floor pillows for the classroom, on the grounds that there's never quite enough places for everyone to curl up with a book during free reading time.