Tag: Review

A open letter to GoPro:

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Dear GoPro,

I am afraid that our relationship isn’t working out. It is not me, it is you – most definitely you. I have been a loyal fan-boy for years, but 2016 has undone us. Let me explain:

I have 4 GoPro cameras, 2 originals, one Hero Session and one Hero 4 Black. There must be $400 worth of mounts and accessories in my video equipment cabinet and mounted to almost everything I own. I was the first in line for the KARMA Drone, and I own a few shares of your stock. Hell, I was at your booth/jam box at NAMM 2 years ago and gushed to the staff there like teeny-bobber. I was at the 2016 NAB show when you guys won the “Best Of” award. Trust me, that I was all in and committed to making it work between us.

I can’t say enough great things about the cameras I own. I love them and use them while biking, boarding, cart racing, 4-wheeling, diving, running, working in the shop, etc… I am happy that the engineers, programmers, and employees in the SF Bay Area can go to work and do cool stuff, get paid a living wage, and work on tech that millions of people use every day. So why are we breaking up???

I mentioned that I own stock. Have you seen those numbers lately?! Hmmm… Screwing up the Amazon relationship before Christmas and not having production capacity did not help after the KARMA fiasco. Did your Contracts Team not even flip through “The Wal-Mart Effect” before negotiations started? Yes, I am somewhat irritated at losing money because a great product line is managed like a PTA bake sale. Additionally, I have had a DJI Phantom 3 Pro for a year or more and it has never once fallen out of the sky. I had the KARMA for 3 days before I had to climb 30 into a pine tree to retrieve it after it fell out of the sky. Camera was OK after the fall, but I sent the drone back for a full refund. One of the smarter things I did in 2016.

The final straw though is GoPro Studio. Holy sweet baby Jesus, I wish I had all the HOURS of my life that have been lost due to crashes, auto-overwrites, searching web forums for patches, and completely re-processing almost half videos I have made in the last 10 months. A recent attempt to make a film out of a Christmas snowboard trip made me want to beat my computer with a hammer for even associating with GoPro Studio. I know, I know it is “free” software… Bundled software with a $500 camera and an $800 drone is not free. As of the writing of this post, the last update to Studio was in October of 2015 – that was 15 months ago, eons of time for software.  I finally had to drink the Kool-Aid and use my wife’s Mac Book to edit the film in iMovie. I made a killer little film in like 50 minutes. The software didn’t glitch, hang, or overwrite my project. It was easy to use even the first time and it just worked. As a note, iMovie is “free” as well…

To be clear, I do not see any of this as a production, software, or engineering failure. It is an issue with program & senior management. Hire professionals that understand product launch logistics, QA/QC, beta test management, vendor & supplier relationships, and the impact all of this has on your business and investors.

In closing, I am sorry that you made me do this on such a public forum. I am sorry that I can no longer support the hard work of your engineering team and production staff by purchasing your products. Spend some time on you, work on who you are and who you want to be, and get some professional help. Maybe someday we can sit down at the table again, but I am going to need my space for now.

Not so short contractor rant

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

We are so close to being done with the garage and the house (yard is still a disaster, which will have to wait ‘til next year, but the stress of dealing with crappy, disorganized, and/or no show contractors throughout this process has been and is so frustrating.  This is not a post to rail on all contractors or even all of our contractors…

We had same great ones:

  1. Maranatha Hardwood Floors showed up on time for the quote. The owner was personable and the quote was reasonable.  They showed up on time, did a beautiful job, listened to a specific request from my wife, there were no extra charges, cleaned up after themselves, and our floor looks great.
  2. RCS Fire Place was A-1: On time, good pricing, no add-on charges, etc…
  3. After an initial sales rep flub, Greenwood Heating & Air did a nice job on our heat pump. Very professional installers.  No complaints.
  4. Vehicle Equipment Solutions was awesome on the lift order and install. I couldn’t be happier with their work.
  5. Our Drywall guys were top notch.  Very professional, great price, showed up when they were supposed to and finished right on time.
  6. The carpet guys that did our bedroom were fast, professional, and did a nice job.
  7. I had some custom wrought iron brackets made and the blacksmith listen to our wants and delivered a beautiful product.
  8. Pacific RIM equipment rental was great in supplying heavy equipment for the garage tear out and site prep. When there was a breakdown, they delivered a new machine and I wasn’t charged for any gas use for the entire weekend.
  9. Bryan at Squak Box was a rock star when it came time to haul out the debris from the old garage and all the old concrete. On time, no hidden costs, dropped the containers perfectly.  Couldn’t ask for more.

And the not so great:

My garage contractor has now quit.  There is little I can do at this point besides shake my head in wonder and disgust.  It has been a bumpy road from almost the start, but I figured that with a little bit of work it would all be OK.  A bit of work turned into a part time job and time spent on the garage was time not spent on the house and that made Stamps-With-Foot grumble.  In addition to the garage tear down and the site preparation that had to be done (40+ hours of my time and ~$3000.  I had to do 4-5 hours of slab/rebar prep when the contractor’s guy messed up, then had to ask for poly burlap to cure the slab, apparently not standard.  I ended up keeping the slab wet for the entire 10-day cure (to limit cracking and allow it to fully harden, then apply the concrete densifier after my normal workday and the end of the cure process.

Installation of fire blocking isn’t required per code in Seattle for a wall less than 10’, but it is the right thing to do.  It was out of scope for the contractor and an additional cost, so The Ruminator and I ended up doing it while he was here on summer vacation.  I had to install two forgotten kicker studs, tighten missed/forgotten anchor bolt nuts, added nails to the hurricane straps, and had to go over punch list items twice before they were addressed.

The windows and door trim were installed incorrectly – I could see daylight in the corners of the windows and I asked that they be re-installed.  When that was being done, my siding got cracked.  I also found that instead of every 16” per code, the siding was nailed every 4’ in some locations.  I called and the foreman came out.  He addressed some issues but caused others.  I then called the owner and he came out.  He agreed with every point I had.  They crew came back and while some items were fixed, others were not and new problems popped up.  I let the owner know and this was his response:

“Unfortunately we’ve succeeded in messing up again.  ____ had no excuse for why he didn’t read my email, about taking the siding out from the bottom of the windows, and what they were thinking with the screws into the bottom of the fascia’s.  If they’d pre-drilled the holes it would have worked and been clean.

I don’t have anyone else in my employee who I could send down to make any corrections, and I don’t think you would trust anyone I sent to do any more work.  What I’d like to offer is to forego our final payment and let  you clean up any items by your self.  I don’t like doing this, I really want to get the job done for  you but we’ve already had three try’s.  I know you might not be as happy as you should be but I want to at least make you satisfied with _____________.”

I am not happy and while I agree that I don’t trust his guys to come back a third time, the keeping of a few hundred bucks does not make it all better.  Now, I either have to find and pay someone else or do it myself.  Frustrating.

I have looked at this.  Am I just an asshole?  Am I too picky or do I expect too much?  I really have looked at this hard and yes, I can be an asshole,  but not in this and not with a single contractor or tradesman on my site.  We provided lunches, Gator-aid, and beer for all the guys working, I talked to every contractor that has been on our property like I would want to be spoken to, If I wanted something different or changed, I addressed it right then by ASKING and wasn’t the least bit of a shit about it.  I cleaned up the job site in the afternoons after I got off work to save them all time and effort.

Is needing someone to stick to a schedule, be on time, and not halfway do something too particular?  I don’t think so.  Is asking that a contractor meet minimum code requirements, pull permits, and do the job they agreed to for the agreed to price crazy?  apparently so.

Other issues:

In addition to the plumbing circus that we had in the spring, we had a carpentry crew that abandoned us for a job where the other customer was screaming louder.  They left tools, work unfinished, material, you name it.   My electrician has been a little flakey – uncashed checks, no shows, showing up unannounced and unscheduled, really hard to get a hold of, etc., but at least this one hasn’t broken into our house while we were gone…  I have had 3 contractors come out for quotes on our basement bathroom tile and never heard from two of them again.  The third guy finally called me back and said the job was just way too small and “not worth the time it would take to set up his wet-saw.”

I get it, all the contractors in Seattle are busier than a puppy with two peckers.  That means that 1. they can be super picky, 2. charge what they want, 3. if they fuck up, no worries, there are three other jobs waiting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let down by an online tool seller with GIANT balls.

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

So, I am a little tweaked… I got a small bonus at work and sent a little money to my mom and daughter, got something for my wife, paid to have a tree taken out, sent Heifer and MSF some funds, paid off my last student loan (FREEDOM!!), put a little money back for a rainy day, and with the last bit decided to do a little something small just for me: I bought a few beech molding planes and 3 mortise chisels from a guy with a web store in the Scotland. I will call him UK Tool Guy. I have bought twice from him before and it all went really smooth and my purchases were exactly as expected. I bought a toothing plane from him at a good price that was in perfect working order and arrived exactly as pictured on his site.

My experience this time around was different. The order part was normal, but when I received my stuff it was all kinds of wrong. Painted parts, broken pieces, condition received was NOT as advertised, etc… I spent 4 hours cleaning and fixing and will have to spend another 4-5 repairing 2 chisels and 2 of the planes. 8-9 hours is a lot of time to unexpectedly fix stuff that I just bought. I am not super-important in the grand scheme of things, but my time is worth something to me.

Anyway, I took a few pictures and wrote the guy to let him know about the issues, asking about the possibility of some remuneration. He sends me back a mail offering me a little credit instead of a refund. I take him up on it, not knowing what the shipping will be I choose a couple of items from his web store that equals to less than £50 (~$78) that he offered up. I think my time and frustration was worth more, but I didn’t press the point.

He sent me a response that informed me that I had gone over budget and that he would “…let me off for now…” Seriously‽‽ Was this guy born with an extra set of balls? This is the third time I have done business with him. I check his site regularly for stuff I am looking for – I am even on his MF mailing list. The bottom line is that I got an unexpected crappy deal, I was gracious and completely undemanding and he will “…let me off for now…”. It took over three weeks for him to send the stuff two new items out. So much for the “Shortly” time frame he referenced in his last mail. I believe that this is the last time I will be doing business with the UK Tool Guy

For the sake of Transparency, I have included the whole chain I sent below – only deleting names and contact info.
___________________________________________________________________________
Hi Matt

Thanks for your response.
Those two items actually come to £63.50 with postage which is a bit over
£50 but I’ll let you off for now, we can maybe adjust slightly with any
future order. I will get these off to you shortly.

THANKS

> On 17 March 2015 at 11:20, drivenoutside wrote:

Hi _____,

Sorry, I didn’t mean to come off as someone that can’t be pleased. It is
not that at all and my two previous purchases were really spot on.

Thank you for your immediate response and offer for credit. I would love
to have the boxwood rule and the upholstery hammer if you are OK with that.

Thank you and regards,
Matt

> On March 16, 2015 at 4:18 AM UK Tool Guy wrote:

Hi Matt

Thanks for your e-mail and I am sorry you had so much to complain about.
Not that it is an excuse on my part but I have a funny feeling I didn’t
pack your order up as otherwise I would have picked up on some if not all
of these points as I check everything properly when I am packing it. I
understand your frustrations when you get something that is not quite what
you were expecting and once again I am sorry for this. Rather than
refunding you some monies why don’t you instead have a look at the site and
see if there is something there around the £50 mark including postage that
you might like FREE. If there is just drop me an e-mail with the product
number so I can remove it off the site and send it over to you.

THANKS

> On 15 March 2015 at 20:36, drivenoutside wrote:

Hi _____,

I received the molding planes and chisels a couple of weeks ago, but as I
travel a good bit for work, I just this weekend had the time to open the
packaging up and take a look. What I found was a little surprising as I
have ordered a couple of planes from you before and condition was spot on
as advertised. I did not expect like-new condition as some of this
material is over 200 years old, but some of it was not as stated.

Two of the collars on the sash chisels are cracked, one completely. I am
going to have to tear them apart and replace the collars. I guess I will
either see if I can source from Marples or turn down some brass stock on
the lathe.

I spent most of yesterday flattening, polishing, sharpening, and oiling
the plane blades. There is a good deal of pitting on some of them and I
will need to replace two. Most of the plane bodies were fine, but the #12
was painted red and the #16 had a screw holding a crack in the body
together. I drilled it, filled with hide glue and inserted a beech dowel.
The #1 round’s wedge is cracked in half and has been glued back together
by a previous owner. I am going to have to make a copy of it and replace.
When I unwrapped the #9 there was wood worm in the packaging. Not just old
holes, but a live worm in the plastic. There was damage to the plane and
the wedge. I took the whole lot to our local vet and had her x-ray the box
4 times. It is a Luthier’s trick and it kills any worm/moth larva.

Take a look at the attached pictures and let me know what you think and if
you think it is fair to refund me a little of the purchase price and
shipping.

Thanks,

Matt

IMG_4583

IMG_4586

IMG_4580

IMG_4581

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 23 February 2015 at 15:51, drivenoutside wrote:

Hi _____,

The ship to address is: __________
My phone number is: ___________

Please send me the tracking number so that if there is a problem with the
shipper or customs, I can call right away

Thank you again,
Matt

——– Original message ——–
From: UK Tool Guy
Date:02/22/2015 2:30 PM (GMT+02:00)
To: Driven Outside
Cc:
Subject: Re: Tool Order

Hi Matt

Just written out your invoice for the tools ordered. The grand total
including postage comes to £metric shit-ton. An invoice / receipt will be included with the tools. I’m in the shop today until 4:30pm if you want to ring with card details for payment.

MANY THANKS

Fountain Pen Experiment

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Have you ever seen a guy whip out a Montblanc Meisterstück 149 and flourish his writing hand a little before jotting his name down? Did he look at you with a winking smile after he lifted pen from paper? He was a douche bag.

I do love writing with a fountain pen. I don’t care if people look at it or like it or not. I use it to write with, sign checks, jot down notes, scribble, draw, doodle, formulate my plans for world domination, etc… I like how it feels to write with, I like my penmanship better when using one, I like the look of my letters and I like brown indelible ink – try getting that in a fvcking ball point from a plastic pack.

I have carried and used a cheap blue plastic LAMY Safari as my everyday writer since 2007. I picked it up in a Thalia book shop in Hamburg and promised myself that if I wrote with it until I wore out the nib or until it stopped working forever, then I would “deserve” an expensive pen. I don’t mean a gold pen or a flashy pen, but one that writes like an angel whispers, doesn’t clog every other time, won’t leak all over my hand during a meeting (I used to have a Pilot that was cursed). That sort of performance and reliability does not come cheap and is not found at Target.

Well, that day has come! I went to refill my blue friend a couple days ago and found that the threads for the barrel had broken off at the base and the pen wouldn’t go back together. It was kinda sad for me sad as it has been a constant companion for 6 years, but I rallied, pulled the broken in F-nib off and put it on a Stainless Safari that Stamps-With-Foot gave me for our either our 2nd Anniversary or Valentine’s the same year. That pen is now my daily writer and I will keep using it until a Sheaffer Roaring Twenties, Porsche Design TecFlex, or a a Montblanc Chopin happens to fall into my pocket. That last sentence was a hint for my Pretty wife…

Bespoke Shoes and Boots

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

I appreciate quality handcraft. Not the funny pottery you find at Saturday markets, no I am talking about the fruit of a master craftsman’s hands: A perfectly out of proportion tatsu chest, a bespoke suit jacket, an art nouveau mirror, stained glass, brazed bicycle lugs, quality tanned and stitched leather, a hand-bound book, a teak and brass campaign desk, laminated steel knives, a sharp chisel, a fine motorcycle, beech moulding planes, Victorian ironwork, etc…

I have drug my wife into more stores and museums than I could ever count, just to look at a piece or snap a few pictures of an obscure detail. She puts up with it because she both loves me and has a tiny bit of the same fever as I do: she inspects seams and refuses to buy “cheap” cloths if they are not made well. Every now and then I get to sample the wears, caress a bit of dovetailed wood perfection or buy a little piece of hand-made love. The experience usually is the highlight of my trip.

We were in San Francisco a month or so ago, getting our visa’s for France, and after dinner one night we just happened upon a store window filled with treasure!  There were tailored jackets, tiny toddler-sized suits, amazing hand made leather boots, hats, and vests. There were shoe-making foot forms in the window corners and a small wooden sign stating without ego or fanfare, “Al’s Attire. Custom Tailoring. North Beach.” I was in lust and took pictures of all the windows, of the sign, the address, and the cross street. We had an appointment the next day, but we were going back when the shop was opened. Stamps-With-Foot mentioned seeing the shop to a friend who lives in that Bay Area later that evening and her nonplused response was, “Yeah, there are pretty famous, you should stop in.”

Because of a scheduling win, we were there when they opened the next morning. It was a dark, shop that smelled of leather and wool, with dark corners, exposed brick, 100 year old working sewing machines, sunshine beaming through the windows, a resident puggle, and the most amazing wares. I showed up just wanting to buy a hat maybe and take some pictures… Then I saw the place, smelled it, felt the wooden shoe forms, and I turned into the adolescent who saw boobies for the first time. The shoes and boots were all individually and as a group calling to me. I took picture after picture and then we meet Sarah… She is part of the sales & design team at Al’s and with one look and a sweet manner, up sold me from a flat driving cap to a pair of bespoke buffalo hide wingtip dress boots. I regret nothing!

“Have a seat, we’ll measure you. “It only takes a little while.” “Yes, those ARE beautiful boots.” “Of course we can do a triple layer sole…”

Off to France we go…

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Holy Jiminie-Joe-Bob it has busy around La Maison du Talley! We finally got the green light from the French authorities for our work and residence visas. A week later, the movers showed up, packed our place and loaded most of our possessions onto truck that drove away, hopefully to be seen sometime again in February/March in Toulouse.

We have a list two pages long of stuff to get done before we take our flight around the first of December. Yard work, paint touch up, moving The Nana, small fixes at the house, selling vehicles, etc…

Speaking of the last point: I FVCKING hate car dealers. For me, they rank right up there with lawyers, who hand out cards at accident scenes. You walk in the door of a dealership and you are a mark, like a rube in the big city for the first time. Big smiles and hand shakes, innocent questions, a free coffee or coke, all to gauge how much they will be removing from your wallet. No matter how informed you are of how much research you do, you will be bargaining from a position where they hold all the cards. This is doubly so when trading a vehicles.

We are trying to sell my truck preparation for our move and I want to strangle someone a little. Because of our time table, a private party sale is not going to happen, so we have to take the dealer route. The first dealer I went to offered me $16K for my 20 month old truck and had the identical model on his lot for $23.5K. Even with fees, he stood to make 7 grand on the deal!?!!

I get it. Everyone is in business to make money, but come on… Hate car dealers.

I went to Seattle Hand-tool Heaven today.

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Somehow, I have lived in Seattle for nearly 5 years and yesterday was my first visit to Hardwick’s Hardware in the U-District (just up the hill from another favorite shop – Recycled Cycles). I made a quick stop looking for a used posthole digger while my son and puppy waited out front in the truck. I stumbled into old-school hardware heaven: Narrow rows stacked floor to high ceiling with new and used (in wonderful shape) planes, chisels, axes, drawknives, Knowledgeable – not too crusty – staff, and tools the one Yelp reviewer has said are “mighty enough to build Viking warships with…”

I may be in love… I lingered for as long as possible (10 minutes) and while I left without a posthole digger, a Stanley Sweet Heart #45 plow plane jumped out of its locked case and came home with me. I will be returning when I have a little cash and a couple of hours to peruse alone and without my sweet wife there to narrow her eyes and tell me “no” when I lust after the broad axe or fondle a fish-tail gouge.

The place has been in business since 1932 and proof that there is room left in the world of Home Depots and Lowes for the neighborhood hardware store where Norman Rockwell would feel at home. Hardwick’s is a bit of a drive for me, but it is officially my new go to stop for hand tools and hardware.

Stupid Pinterest…

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I am an admitted cyber-hoarder. I have gigs and gigs of image files across 5-6 hard drives: Images of furniture, vacations, design details, machines, demotivational posters, LOL cats, etc… that I will someday get around to looking at again or using for some future unnamed and unknown project. The few times I have gone looking for something, it has taken forever to find the wanted file.

I was introduced to Pinterest and I thought that this was the solution to my hoarding problem: a cleared up hard drive, organized files, I would be able to add comments to pictures, etc… Nope. Wrong. Stupid Pinterest solved nothing. Now I save files to my hard drives AND link to Pinterest. I have said many times that I don’t use Facebook because it is the black hole of time management. Now I will “glance” at my Pinterest account and BAM!! it is 2:30 am, I have 2% battery left on my iPad, and I have been repinning pictures for seven hours. This is really cutting into the time I have allocated to plotting my scheme for world domination… Dammit!

Monocle Magazine Store Visit

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I “discovered” Monocle Magazine while living in Hamburg. As I was perusing my favorite bookstore there after work one day, I happened upon a new glossy – interesting title, bike wheel on the cover, quality paper, hmmm… I have a mistress and she has two wheels, so anything that is smartly bike related catches my attention. I sat down, read a little and fell in love. There were articles about bikes interspaced with design, global politics, a Japanese comic, well-designed fonts (I grow nerdier every day…), lifestyle, city profiles, travel, branding, craft and men’s accoutrements.

The premiere issue of Monocle was launched in February 2007 and the bike issue happened to be the third issue of the magazine. Monocle is headed by Tyler Brûlé, a Canadian-born journalist who also writes/wrote a good weekly editorial for the International Herald Tribune and has some serious chops as a journalist and writer: BBC, The Guardian, Stern, The Sunday Times, Vanity Fair, runs a design firm, and was shot by a sniper while covering the war in Afghanistan…

One of my guilty pleasures in life is buying Monocle Magazine at a specific magazine stand near “C” concourse at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. Which sounds snobby, but I am SOOO unsnobby (except for coffee and beer…). It is just happenstance that for the last couple of years, I travel through Amsterdam every couple of months and it has coincided (give or take a week or two) with the release of each new issue. On one of my recent trips to England I got to spend an off-day in London. I made it a point to detour into the Marylebone neighborhood and into the first Monocle retail store (there are now five along with podcasts, a radio show and a TV spot on Bloomburg) to buy the most current issue. The shopping experience was great: small, but well stocked store, attentive staff, my purchased was wrapped like I was in a Tokyo stationary shop, and I had missed a visit by Tyler Brûlé by 20 minutes. The Monocle HQ is close by and he apparently stops in from time to time.

Note to Starbucks:

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Dear Starbucks;

New Juice: Not yummy…
Old Juice: Yummy.

Please fix.

I sent the above note to Starbucks via their online comment engine. I only wish that I could have pasted in a Mr. Yuck face with my comment… The ladies and gents at that little coffee company up the road from me recently removed the Naked Brand of juices from their cooling case and replaced them with a line of there own juices. The new ones suck. Starbucks bought a company in 2011 that makes juice, so it is a natural that they would move the sister product into their own stores. I get vertical integration, but as stated the new stuff verges on craptastic – water, almost plastic tasting,and makes me want to scrape my tongue

Al least the Starbucks in Barnes&Noble and at the airport haven’t made the switch.

Stranger and weekly indie-paper love

/ Matt Talley / 2 Comments

I love me some of The Stranger.  While I will always open it directly to the Savage Love column, I happened upon a new column in the July 8-14 issue that made me roll with laughter – The Incredible Hulk.  The premier rant was “Hulk Not Racist But…” It was a diatribe about German’s inability to queue.  A topic that I ranted about the whole time we lived in Deutschland.   Laurel heard my opinion so many times that she developed Spidy-Sense and would stop me even as I opened my mouth to launch into my well-rehearsed, and well-thought out if I must say, argument about the genetic inability of a German to stand in an orderly line and take their proper turn.  Holy CRAP!! it used to piss me off: getting on the subway train, at the movies, at Starbucks, in stores, while BUYING GROCERIES!!!  Man, I am all worked up just thinking about it!

Needless to say, I hope to be turning there after finishing Dan Savage’s musings each week.  The New Column section in The Stranger seems to be more of a test piece and they come and go.  I will be sending fan mail asking that this one stays.

I have been into indi weeklies since the day I lived in Little Rock, AR when the weekly there, The Night Flyer, was my lone source of of local left leaning news and local color. My appreciation only grew after moving to Orange County and reading the OC Weekly every Saturday morning at Wahoo’s while choing on a Maui Bowl.  The OC Weekly ranted about the Sheriff, Mike Corona, for years complaining about his corruption, mob ties, kickbacks, etc…   Then one day it all proved true and the rest of the news establishment jumped on the bandwagon.   The paper has rightfully won a number of Pulitzers for their hard work and is where I also found Savage Love for the first time.  Laurel and I would read the reader letters with equal mix of fascination, horror, disgust, and glee – good old fashion American fun!

hulkVgermans

Note: This post was written completely on my iPhone, with  the WordPress App, while I was in the air somewhere above Idaho.  I heart my iPhone!