The Vent and Rant Thread

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I live in Odessa where we just got somewhat decent public transportation if you want to go to the library, the mall, the university or Walmart. But expect long wait times because there are very few buses.

So one pretty much needs a car.

If I lived there, I'd need one too.

At employer -1, my boss suggested I should relocate to Princeton, NJ where his office was. My office at the time was in walking distance from my home.

"Larry, you haven't got enough money to get mo to relocate."
"But it's such a nice area!"
"Larry, you haven't got enough money to get me to relocate, no matter how much money you have. I have convenience you can't buy. In Princeton, I would need a car. No. Not going to."

To his credit, he mostly got it.

Hey question: everyone I have talked to that lives in NYC doesn't own a car so why is there so much traffic?

NYC is a large city, and the metropolitan area is about 10 million population. Manhattan is an island. Many, many people live outside it but work in it, and drive in. There are something like 12,000 medallion cabs (operating a taxi requires a medallion from the city Taxi and Limo Commision), a plethora of limousines, buses, and scads and scads of commercial vehicles and trucks on the street in addition to private cars. Traffic isn't too bad at 3am...

A recent city regulation lowered top speed in the city from 35mph to 25mph. Good luck getting up to 25mph in normal day traffic, let alone 35.

I guess I should take the cords out of the file cabinet.

As long as you know where they are and can find the one you need, why bother?
______
Dennis

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

If I lived there, I'd need one too.

At employer -1, my boss suggested I should relocate to Princeton, NJ where his office was. My office at the time was in walking distance from my home.

"Larry, you haven't got enough money to get mo to relocate."
"But it's such a nice area!"
"Larry, you haven't got enough money to get me to relocate, no matter how much money you have. I have convenience you can't buy. In Princeton, I would need a car. No. Not going to."

To his credit, he mostly got it.


NYC is a large city, and the metropolitan area is about 10 million population. Manhattan is an island. Many, many people live outside it but work in it, and drive in. There are something like 12,000 medallion cabs (operating a taxi requires a medallion from the city Taxi and Limo Commision), a plethora of limousines, buses, and scads and scads of commercial vehicles and trucks on the street in addition to private cars. Traffic isn't too bad at 3am...

A recent city regulation lowered top speed in the city from 35mph to 25mph. Good luck getting up to 25mph in normal day traffic, let alone 35.


As long as you know where they are and can find the one you need, why bother?
______
Dennis

To keep the cords from multiplying lol.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

If I lived there, I'd need one too.

At employer -1, my boss suggested I should relocate to Princeton, NJ where his office was. My office at the time was in walking distance from my home.

Well, it's about ~1hour from Princeton to NYC, if you know the best routes. Longer if you don't, and at 7-8.30 in the morning, fuhgeddaboudit. I lived 15 mins from Princeton, (further north), and I always loved the area. It's not cheap, and while there is a lot of public transpo--as there always is when students are half the population, give or take--you'd still need a car.

(n.b.: STILL, as I remember it, traffic into Manhattan for the bridge and tunnel crowd was still FAR better at rush hour than the equivalent hours in L.A. LA's traffic is simply mind-blowing. I had to leave LA, in '85, before I lost my mind suffering through the traffic every morning--even HOURS before work started--and turned into a TV News story (deranged woman goes on freeway shooting rampage...). Of course, as memorialized in song, LA really IS a great big freeway, and much like Phoenix, public transportation is pretty much useless unless you reside AND work in the very heart of the city.)

We reside in AZ, and there is simply no such thing as relying on public transpo here. I remember when I first arrived here, I was pretty surprised that public transpo was an also-ran afterthought, because while NYC is a dense city, Phoenix and its burbs are far, far, FAR larger, physically. You can drive from one borough to the other in NYC fairly quickly. (Or bus, cab, train/subway, etc.). Here, I can have to drive nearly 60 miles one way to go from one suburb of Phoenix to another. That's large. Oh, and, of course, our population spread is mostly out--horizontal--rather than vertical, like the larger older cities like NYC, Chicago, et al.

"Larry, you haven't got enough money to get mo to relocate."
"But it's such a nice area!"
"Larry, you haven't got enough money to get me to relocate, no matter how much money you have. I have convenience you can't buy. In Princeton, I would need a car. No. Not going to."

To his credit, he mostly got it.

Eh, in fairness to Larry, he's right. It's a gorgeous area in which to reside.

A recent city regulation lowered top speed in the city from 35mph to 25mph. Good luck getting up to 25mph in normal day traffic, let alone 35.

That must be another brainstorm from your mayor. What a joke. Even in my youthful heyday, {mumble} decades ago, you couldn't do 35 in the city streets. That's a bloody laugh, that is. Of course, there's always THAT taxicab pilot that wants to set the record, and cheerfully exceeds 40+, while you're saying a few Ave Marias in the pax compartment.

And that was {mumble} years ago. I can't imagine it's any bloody better now.

Hitch

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

They make that.
http://www.thingcharger.com
$40 and ships May or later.

And as long as you only need to charge one Thing at a time, you're gold. (Of course, you could spend multiples of $40 for more then one.) There have been other power supplies with multiple interchangeable adapters, though you may face the issue of what voltage your device requires. I gather ThingCharger figures that out, which will be a boon.
______
Dennis

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

And as long as you only need to charge one Thing at a time, you're gold. (Of course, you could spend multiples of $40 for more then one.) There have been other power supplies with multiple interchangeable adapters, though you may face the issue of what voltage your device requires. I gather ThingCharger figures that out, which will be a boon.
______
Dennis

This one said you could charge everything at once.

Personally, I just use power strips with multiple chargers.

[cromag]

Hitch, have you checked with your state's authorities to see if there are any laws that apply to abandoned commercial transactions?

My gut feeling is that I would offer a refund and cut ties. Who knows what this person will be like 5 years from now.


I'm about 40 minutes north of Princeton, depending on traffic on 206. Public transportation to NYC, Philly, etc., is pretty good. Public transportation to local destinations, like supermarkets, is pretty poor. It's still pretty nice.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Well, it's about ~1hour from Princeton to NYC, if you know the best routes. Longer if you don't, and at 7-8.30 in the morning, fuhgeddaboudit. I lived 15 mins from Princeton, (further north), and I always loved the area. It's not cheap, and while there is a lot of public transpo--as there always is when students are half the population, give or take--you'd still need a car.

"It's not cheap" was another major minus. My boss at the time was SVP/Operations, and his pay grade was rather above mine.

(n.b.: STILL, as I remember it, traffic into Manhattan for the bridge and tunnel crowd was still FAR better at rush hour than the equivalent hours in L.A. LA's traffic is simply mind-blowing. I had to leave LA, in '85, before I lost my mind suffering through the traffic every morning--even HOURS before work started--and turned into a TV News story (deranged woman goes on freeway shooting rampage...). Of course, as memorialized in song, LA really IS a great big freeway, and much like Phoenix, public transportation is pretty much useless unless you reside AND work in the very heart of the city.)

It pretty much has to be. Far more people work in Manhattan than live there. There's a reason the MTA is the largest municipal transit system in the world, and the city has pushed hard to get workers to leave cars at home and take public transit, or at least car pool to reduce the total number of vehicles.

The office I used to live in walking distance of closed, and I was doing the reverse commute for a while, going from Manhattan to points north to get to work.

We reside in AZ, and there is simply no such thing as relying on public transpo here. I remember when I first arrived here, I was pretty surprised that public transpo was an also-ran afterthought, because while NYC is a dense city, Phoenix and its burbs are far, far, FAR larger, physically. You can drive from one borough to the other in NYC fairly quickly. (Or bus, cab, train/subway, etc.). Here, I can have to drive nearly 60 miles one way to go from one suburb of Phoenix to another. That's large. Oh, and, of course, our population spread is mostly out--horizontal--rather than vertical, like the larger older cities like NYC, Chicago, et al.

The "spread out" is part of it. Manhattan is dense. The scarce resource is land, and it grew up rather than out. I grew up in Philadelphia, which feels smaller than it in fact is. That was in part due to city zoning regulations that forbade buildings taller than the statue of William Penn atop City Hall, so it never developed skyscrapers. That has finally begun to change in recent years, but the city still does things like insist on preserving sight lines so it's nowhere near as dense as NYC. Philly also has a fairly comprehensive transit system operating 24/7, though the subways are nowhere near as extensive as NYC's.

As you go farther west, people's notions of close change. Close for me is a ten minute walk. Close out west appears to be a half hour drive.

Eh, in fairness to Larry, he's right. It's a gorgeous area in which to reside.

That's where his office was. He had a house in New Hope, PA, and an apartment in NYC. But it is a nice area to live.

I had call to visit the Princeton office on occasion. That was fun. Mass transit from NYC stops at Princeton Junction. To get to Princeton proper, you take a one car shuttle called the Dinky by locals from the Princeton Junction stop.

That must be another brainstorm from your mayor. What a joke. Even in my youthful heyday, {mumble} decades ago, you couldn't do 35 in the city streets. That's a bloody laugh, that is. Of course, there's always THAT taxicab pilot that wants to set the record, and cheerfully exceeds 40+, while you're saying a few Ave Marias in the pax compartment.

And that was {mumble} years ago. I can't imagine it's any bloody better now.

Politicians always try to gain votes by ostentatiously locking the barn door after the horse has escaped. I believe the proximate cause for this was a pedestrian fatality. Having seen idiots in SUVs more intent on their cell phone than on where they were driving (and hearing a horror story from an old friend who nearly became a bumper ornament with her preteen daughter of one such), pedestrian fatalities are remarkable in how few there are.

(I wished I'd been a city cop there to see what my friend described. Bozo would have been out of his car, SUV towed, him cuffed and taken to the precinct, and his cell phone accidentally being crushed under my heel. And I'd have dome my best to see bozo got jail time, license revoked, and car confiscated.)

And cabbies are largely the same, save that it's harder to find one that speaks English as his native language. I live just above one of the areas called Little India, and the area I live in has a mini eco-system catering to the Indians in the taxi and limo trade who seem to operate from it, with several 24 hour delis, Indian restaurants open at 4am, and a weird little hole in the wall shop selling fresh Paan, taxi accessories, phone cards, and Indian CDs/DVDs. It opens noon or later, and may still be open at 3am because that's when it has the customers.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

To keep the cords from multiplying lol.

Just make sure you separate the males and females...
______
Dennis

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Just make sure you separate the males and females...
______
Dennis

If you insist.
And in some parts close is an hour's drive.
Oh they finally got around to reducing the speed limit on the interstate for our two towns from 75 to 65. And they are redoing some ramps due to the increased traffic.
Funny thing, most of the extra traffic is now gone.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

As you go farther west, people's notions of close change. Close for me is a ten minute walk. Close out west appears to be a half hour drive.

A conversation that still irks me to this day, but I see the humor in it vis-a-vis this "relative" distance stuff:

After my mother passed, I was the executrix. Both my sibs (younger) live near her home (in Jersey, matter of fact). I was in the middle of building a new 5-star hotel, and was working absurd hours. After she passed, I had to get back to F2F type work, as opposed to email-type work. So, silly me, I asked the sibs to get started on going through her house.

Months pass. Finally a discussion with my sister:

"But, do you realize HOW FAR it is from my house to Mom's?" (my sister).
"No, but it's close."
"It's 13 MILES from our house to Mom's! It's not close!"
Me. "I drive further than that to get the nearest convenience store. I drive twice that distance to go to the nearest drugstore or grocery store."
....crickets....

That's where his office was. He had a house in New Hope, PA, and an apartment in NYC. But it is a nice area to live.

Ah, the Bucks County Playhouse! I did summer stock there one year, a long time ago and a galaxy far far away. We lived (when I was a teen) about 15 minutes west of New Hope, over in Jersey.

I had call to visit the Princeton office on occasion. That was fun. Mass transit from NYC stops at Princeton Junction. To get to Princeton proper, you take a one car shuttle called the Dinky by locals from the Princeton Junction stop.

LOL, yes. But who can resist the lure of Einstein?

Politicians always try to gain votes by ostentatiously locking the barn door after the horse has escaped. I believe the proximate cause for this was a pedestrian fatality. Having seen idiots in SUVs more intent on their cell phone than on where they were driving (and hearing a horror story from an old friend who nearly became a bumper ornament with her preteen daughter of one such), pedestrian fatalities are remarkable in how few there are.

Having BTDT, I can say that the reason for that is that pedestrians are all too aware that they are targets, not objects to be avoided.

(I wished I'd been a city cop there to see what my friend described. Bozo would have been out of his car, SUV towed, him cuffed and taken to the precinct, and his cell phone accidentally being crushed under my heel. And I'd have dome my best to see bozo got jail time, license revoked, and car confiscated.)

That's more old-school NYC cop than today's, but I get you.

And cabbies are largely the same, save that it's harder to find one that speaks English as his native language. I live just above one of the areas called Little India, and the area I live in has a mini eco-system catering to the Indians in the taxi and limo trade who seem to operate from it, with several 24 hour delis, Indian restaurants open at 4am, and a weird little hole in the wall shop selling fresh Paan, taxi accessories, phone cards, and Indian CDs/DVDs. It opens noon or later, and may still be open at 3am because that's when it has the customers.
______
Dennis

24-hour delis and restaurants. Man, that is the ONE thing about the City that I really, really miss. Endless restaurants to try, and you can't starve as long as the last Chinese restaurant is still standing, no matter the hour of day or night. (And, OMG, do I miss the variety of Chinese food. And decent restaurant Italian. AND PIZZA!!).

Hitch

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I debated about whether to vent and rant here, about this, or to ask for feedback elsewhere in the Lounge, but, meh. Venting seems more appropriate.

<snip>
If you were the CLIENT, would you think that 4.5, nearly 5 years down the road, that the work is still owed, without any type of offset? Or...? I want to be fair about this, and more importantly, I want to stop feeling resentful about it. I mean, sheesh, this client is getting a damn lotta mileage out of a few hundred bucks.



Hitch

If I were the client, I'd likely ask you for a discount but not be surprised if you said no. Or offended. ("Hey, Hitch. Since we never completed this the first time around, but did pay for it, how about knocking !0% off this time as a repeat customer discount?" )

That being said -- this is one of those you can't possible win except by eating it. Regardless of the legal right or wrong. What _I_, as a client, might do or expect is irrelevant. Clearly this client expects to get something for that first time. You had no dormant clause in the old SoW, so nothing explicit to point to, and while I agree that you've certainly spent the $$ in chasing after the client, there's really nothing to gain by pushing the issue. Smile, carefully advise the client of the new clause, and do the job. Sucks, but not worth it.

As for feeling resentful? No. Not ever. That hurts YOU, not the client. Let go of it and go on with your life.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by CRussel

If I were the client, I'd likely ask you for a discount but not be surprised if you said no. Or offended. ("Hey, Hitch. Since we never completed this the first time around, but did pay for it, how about knocking !0% off this time as a repeat customer discount?" )

That being said -- this is one of those you can't possible win except by eating it. Regardless of the legal right or wrong. What _I_, as a client, might do or expect is irrelevant. Clearly this client expects to get something for that first time. You had no dormant clause in the old SoW, so nothing explicit to point to, and while I agree that you've certainly spent the $$ in chasing after the client, there's really nothing to gain by pushing the issue. Smile, carefully advise the client of the new clause, and do the job. Sucks, but not worth it.

As for feeling resentful? No. Not ever. That hurts YOU, not the client. Let go of it and go on with your life.

Charlie:

Yeah. That, unfortunately, is the same conclusion I've come to. Do the job, eat it, shrug, be nice about it. Not much else that can be done.

I must add, though: sheesh, I wish she'd read the damn instructions, etc., that we've given her I-don't-know-how-many-times! If she asks me why she needs embedded fonts one. more. time...

Grrr.

Hitch

[Freeshadow]

I must add, though: sheesh, I wish she'd read the damn instructions, etc., that we've given her I-don't-know-how-many-times! If she asks me why she needs embedded fonts one. more. time...

Grrr.

Hitch

Chandler Pebka time again heh?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

A conversation that still irks me to this day, but I see the humor in it vis-a-vis this "relative" distance stuff:

After my mother passed, I was the executrix. Both my sibs (younger) live near her home (in Jersey, matter of fact). I was in the middle of building a new 5-star hotel, and was working absurd hours. After she passed, I had to get back to F2F type work, as opposed to email-type work. So, silly me, I asked the sibs to get started on going through her house.

Months pass. Finally a discussion with my sister:

"But, do you realize HOW FAR it is from my house to Mom's?" (my sister).
"No, but it's close."
"It's 13 MILES from our house to Mom's! It's not close!"
Me. "I drive further than that to get the nearest convenience store. I drive twice that distance to go to the nearest drugstore or grocery store."
....crickets....

Close is relative. Years back, I had an email exchange with a chap involved in putting on that year's World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, CA. For folks there, "close" was apparently a two hour drive.

That convention wound up with an interesting problem. Leading indicators like advance registrations were lower than previous such events, and they carefully cut the budget to bring expenses in line with anticipated revenues. The the con happened, and a large number of folks showed up and paid stiff at-the-door prices for attending memberships. It was a down economy, but down was relative. Folks delaying big ticket items had no problems coughing up several hundred dollars for a weekend's entertainment, driving a couple of hours each way to get there. The con was left with a large amount of cash and little to do with it. There were lots of things it could have thrown money at earlier on, but once it was up and running, not so much. The Treasury staff (and my SO was one of them) were shaking their heads in wonder. (And my SO was of special value because she'd been a bank teller at one point, and know how to handle large amounts of cash. The rest were used to credit cards and checks.) The event was a 501c3 tax-exempt non-profit, and the surplus was gradually disposed of after the event to various worthy non-profit causes, but they'd have been happier investing it in the con to make it a better show.

Ah, the Bucks County Playhouse! I did summer stock there one year, a long time ago and a galaxy far far away. We lived (when I was a teen) about 15 minutes west of New Hope, over in Jersey.

I vaguely recall having been there a very long time ago.

New Hope is a lovely area, and my recollection is more antique stores concentrated in a small geographic area than just about anywhere else.

LOL, yes. But who can resist the lure of Einstein?

If I got to visit the Institute for Advanced Studies, I couldn't. Beyond that I have no special reason to go.

Having BTDT, I can say that the reason for that is that pedestrians are all too aware that they are targets, not objects to be avoided.

Most folks who live here develop the proper reflexes by osmosis beginning at a pre-verbal age. Folks from out of town may be a different matter.

That's more old-school NYC cop than today's, but I get you.

What I'd really want to do is have bozo found in an alley with the crap beaten out of him, but I couldn't do that in uniform.

24-hour delis and restaurants. Man, that is the ONE thing about the City that I really, really miss. Endless restaurants to try, and you can't starve as long as the last Chinese restaurant is still standing, no matter the hour of day or night. (And, OMG, do I miss the variety of Chinese food. And decent restaurant Italian. AND PIZZA!!).

There's a decent Chinese and sushi place across the street from me, a good thin crust pizza place down the block that serves other Italian dishes too, an Italian place (that I think is actually run by folks from what used to be Yugoslavia) next door, a BBQ joint next block over, a really good Chinese place with "down home" food you don't normally see and mostly Chinese patrons a couple of blocks away, a good (though not 24 hour) diner likewise, and a variety of Indian restaurants, vegetarian and otherwise. Go a little farther afield and I can get Afghan, Turkish, German and French/Vietnamese food, and there's a Georgian event space with Georgian cuisine a couple of blocks west, plus the usual fast food and sandwich shops.

If it's food, you can find in in NYC, and quite possibly in walking distance of me. I'm spoiled.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

If you insist.

It is how you prevent them from breeding...

And in some parts close is an hour's drive.
Oh they finally got around to reducing the speed limit on the interstate for our two towns from 75 to 65. And they are redoing some ramps due to the increased traffic.
Funny thing, most of the extra traffic is now gone.

Speed limits are relative.

An old friend was in the Air Force, stationed in Texas and New Mexico. The posted limits on the interstates appeared to be suggested lower limits, and what the state troopers patrolling their patch cared about was that you drove at the prevailing speed of the other traffic. That the prevailing speed was likely 20mph higher than the posted limit was a detail.

As long as everyone is traveling at the same speed, it's safe enough.
______
Dennis