I am Dilbert fan.
If you don’t know what Dilbert is, shame on you. The comic and the cartoons
Here is some other interesting Dilbert related stuff that I own: the figurine set and the board game

Now onto the “please take my money” part.
I wanted to buy myself 2 tshirts with my favourite Dilbert comics: 2007-12-17 and 2007-12-18
I placed an order on the http://thedilbertstore.com and was expecting to get the items in a reasonable time.

Got a confirmation that I placed the oder:

Thank you for ordering from Dilbert Store. Your order dated January 5, 2012 has been received. For customer service please refer to order#

Now it starts to get funny.
On Jan 14 got the following:

Thank you for your recent order! Unfortunately, due to inventory receipt issues we are unable to ship the following item to you until the date listed below.
If we do not hear from you, we will assume this delay is acceptable and will ship your merchandise as soon as it is available. Again, we thank you for your patience.
Item#: DB001490 - DILBERT STRIP T SHIRT BLK LG 000049256
Order Date: 1/05/12
Qty Ordered: 1
Price each: $19.99
Expected to ship on: 1/19/12

Getting over the fact that I received 2 emails (1 for each tshirt I guess) I figured that it’s not the end of the world. I’ll just get them later.

Wait. There’s more:
On Jan 24, 5 days after the items were supposed to be shipped I got:

PLEASE CONTACT US IMMEDIATELY TO AVOID ORDER CANCELLATION!
Thank you for your recent order! We appreciate your patience while we prepare your items with the highest standards of quality and service you’ve come to expect!
Unfortunately, due to inventory receipt issues we are unable to ship the following item to you until the date listed below.>
Should unforeseen further delays cause the expected ship date to be later than the date listed below, we are required to cancel your order for the item unless you tell us to keep this item on order to ship when it is available. The cancellation date shown below is the date before which you must contact us to indicate this preference. You may, of course, cancel this item from your order at any time. Any payments made will be promptly refunded to you. Keep in mind that for orders paid by credit card, your card is not charged until your item is shipped.

Again, to avoid cancellation of the items below, please call us toll-free at your earliest opportunity at 1-800-414-6584 or reply to this email.

Our thanks for your patience.

Your friends at THE DILBERT STORE

Item#: DB001490 - DILBERT STRIP T SHIRT BLK LG
Order Date: 1/05/12
Qty Ordered: 1
Price each: $19.99
* Contact us before 2/02/12 to avoid cancellation of this item from your order.

Again, 2 emails - 1 for each tshirt.

So now we went from we’ll ship them later to we won’t ship them unless you really really want them, and even then you might not get them.
WTF? Is it that hard to just tell me that you don’t have them in stock and let me just move on. Just put a freaking banner on your online “shop” saying “We don’t need your money”. That’s fine. But this? What’s this? I thought this is America, where everybody that sell you something wants to get it to you as fast as possible and make you come back for more.

Up until recently I used to brag how I was never pulled over by the cops. That changed. We were on our way to bring Covrig home, 30 minutes late. Driving on I405, doing around 75 mph in a 60 zone. The freeway has 4 lanes in that area.

The interaction with the cop was extremely short and to the point. I started switching lanes as soon as I saw the police cruiser pulling over into traffic from the median of the freeway. When I was officially being stopped I was already in the right lane waiting for the cop-mobile to turn its lights on.

The nice cop (he was actually a she) informed me that I was speeding, asked for my drivers’ licence and car registration, walked back to the car, prepared the ticket and handed it over to us. Everything took around 5 minutes. We were informed that we’re supposed to pay 93$ for doing 5 mph over the speed limit.

Took the ticket and didn’t think about it for a couple of days. On it you are given 3 options: pay the fine, admit guilt but request a hearing to explain the circumstances (mitigation) of simply don’t admit guilt and go to court (contest).

Before going further, you should known that in the evergreen state of Washington, in King County, you can request what’s called a ticket deferral, meaning that the current ticket won’t go on record if you don’t get another ticket for 12 months. You can only get a deferral once every 7 years and it’s at the discretion of the judge (ie you might ask for it and not get it). The administrative fee associated with a deferral is 150$. The reason I would want to pay 150$ instead of 93$ is because of the car insurance. Once the insurance sees the ticket they will ask you for more money…

Now, a sane person would expect a deferral check box on the ticket and everything would be over on the spot. Not the case.

So what I actually ended up doing is checking the 3rd option (contesting the ticket). I got a court date that was roughly 3 months after I’ve filled in and mailed the ticket (even if you have to pay the ticket you get to keep the money for that period of time)

Another interesting thing about King Country is that you have the option to defend yourself over mail, if you accept that the judge’s ruling will be final. So I went with that and wrote a lovely letter in which I explained that I don’t believe that 65 in a 60 zone is such a big deal (not the actual words but that was the message) and that I would like to request a deferred finding. The judge granted this, I payed the 150$ and moved on (with a speed lower or equal to the posted speed limit).

So the 3 steps to get a deferral in King Country:

1. Contest the speeding ticket and get a court date
2. Fill in and mail the form that arrived with the court date asking for a deferral
3. Pay the 150$ admin fee if the deferral was granted

For questions and status you can always call the court clerk.

Here is another top, this time beer related.

Before coming to the US, my favourite beer was Silva Dark (Silva Bruna) - a Romanian beer. I would say that it was my favourite because of the strong caramel flavour.

After arriving in the US I’ve searched for a beer similar to this. I was under the impression that it would fit into the Porter or Stout category. Make no mistake, beer classification is serious shit in the US and no matter how much you know about different styles of beers you never know enough. Look at the wikipedia entry for beer styles to get a basic idea.

Anyway, from all the beers that I’ve sampled (which are not necessarily American beers) in the US here are my favourite ones:

1. Alaskan Smoked Porter - by far the best beer. Perfect flavour. Expensive.
2. Guinness Black Lager - closest in constency and flavour to Silva
3. Old Rasputin Imperial Stout - this one is an Imperial Stout: strongest beer sampled by alcohol content
4. Boddingtons Pub Ale - I like how creamy this beer is (the can version)

This is a 2-in-1 post:

• Reflections on the year that just passed: see 2010+1
• New Year’s Resolutions: in my case no new resolution. I’ll just keep the one that I have (ie 1600x900)

Another batch of exceptional songs.
Tim McGraw - Live Like You Were Dying

Billy Currington - People Are Crazy

Brad Paisley - Remind Me (Duet With Carrie Underwood)

Rodney Atkins - Take A Back Road

Darius Rucker - Come Back Song

Although Vancouver is less than 3 hours away from where we live we never visited it before. Main reason: we needed a visitor visa to get into Canada. We would have probably postponed the visit to Canada for much longer if we didn’t have to get out of the US to renew our visas.

We found Canada, at least the British Columbia part we saw, to be different from the US. The speed limits were posted in km/h, the lanes were narrower. The artificialness we grew accustomed to in the US was gone. Vancouver itself is way more European than any other city we saw in the US. It reminded us of Bucharest - in a good way.

The “experience” at the US Embassy was priceless. The only thing that went well was the fact that we got the visa renewed. The whole experience feels very un-American, from being made up sit in line in the rain, having people bark orders at you and having to wait in at least 4 queues. It reminded us of how things work in Romania.

Overall we really really liked it in Vancouver and we will probably be going back to thoroughly explore the area.

Food?

I can already taste it…

Look, either you give me food or I’m gonna eat you…

After food effect

http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/blue-lake
29.10.2011

We did this hike hoping to see some autumn colors. Instead the winter had already taken over.

First three pictures are of Diablo Lake, part of the North Cascades National Park:

Pictures of the actual hike, with the frozen lake covered in snow in the last two pictures: