ZTE may have "Phone of the Year", but Big Fat "F" for Customer Service !! Contact Android instead.

Twice,, ZTE has Failed to Reply ,when they said they would.

COSTCO $50 SURVEY OFFER IS BOGUS !! Beware !!

Just called Costco Corp in Seattle.

Wouldn't it be Nice if they Email Warned All of U.S.??

Google!!, Just stop Harassing me EVERY MINUTE with Your Annoying popups about me forgetting my Gmail ADDRESS !!

STOP IT !!

When I get home I will look it up.
Every minute,,,?!!!!!

YOU ARE REALLY PISSING ME OFF !!

God, do i Hate the SF Giants !!

Build a new ballpark at at Major freeway off ramp, and they use to close the off ramp, King Street !!
Like they are the Only Game town !!
Now they close lots of streets around the cursed  ballpark, like Francoise along the Bay  and South Street,one way!!, in the middle of the sprawling UCSF Medical Campus !!

It's just baseball.

Wait till the Warriors build Their Stadium just South of the Giants !!

And UCSF builds more and more high rises !!

What are you going to do SF, Close all city streets, because Caltrain and 3rd street Streetcars and DPT directing traffic can't handle the Expected CROWDS !!??

What happens when the big parking lots South of the Giants are Removed !?

Talk of taking highway 280 out, for more High Rise Developers!!

It isn't even Spring-Summer-Autumn TOURIST SEASON yet,,,

As i said,SF can not Even handle the crowd  for one giant's baseball game,with many street closures and DPT Not Helping !!
GRIDLOCK !!

God, Do I Ever Hate the orange and black, sf giants, for getting sf to make this TRAFFIC NIGHTMARE, just for one lousy baseball game !!
Ruin my drive, will ya!?
I'm at work now, stuck in GRIDLOCK.

(My little curse worked!!; The LA "how big is too big" Dodgers beat the pampered ,notsogreat sf giants.). ;)

Google "Blogger" lets you write a piece in "Drafts" but does not AUTOMATICALLY save it if you leave "Blogger"!!

What a nuisance !!

Fellow Costco Shoppers: item #11 21 701, Kirkland Signature Men's Boxer Brief, 4 pack is ,,,Not Recommended. Do not keep shape , with only 4% spandex.

Buy the other ones.
Adidas, maybe.

Be aware that Champions DO KEEP THEIR SHAPE, BUT run small, so if you are a 38"-40" , get the next size up. Or suffer a too tight waistband!

Mircosoft(Hotmail,Live, and Outlook) today told me the Reason they do not put the full Sender's Email Address on every email is because,,, get this,,,"There is not enough room." Ha!

Such b.s.
And they know it's b.s.

But what about your Expensive PC tower /  $$$ smartphone's Safety and Security ? Or your laptop ??

Do you use McAfee?
Do you use Norton?

I just re-logged my new ZTE AXON 7 by doing a Clear/"factory reset" 4 times !!

My dear old Mom allowed india HP csr access to her new defective inkjet printer, and computer, altho she felt uneasy about it.
It took a Techie 40hrs or 5 full days to get that Bad Bug out of her Big Custom built PC.
HP in Palo Alto denied "any responsibility."

So, does MSN like an insecure inefficient out of date and mediocre internet experience, and that Mess is why they don't as a rule show the Sender's Full Email Address, all the time ?

More open immigration side is saying how much foreign-born new Citizen bring of value to the USA. Let's see, by the foreign-born Bosses i have worked for in SF.

A Japanese American boss told me to clock in every day.
I did. None of the Asian employees did. They laughed at me doing it, early every day. No problem.
But then this boss told me repeatedly, as only white guy, "You Alway late!!" I showed early time card. Did not matter.
I quit and went elsewhere less hostile to native white Americans.
Hell, the Japanese racism is nothing compared to history of U.S. slavery and on going racism and in black hoods,reverse racism!

Next, I have worked for 2 iran immigrant brothers. For over 5 years they stole over $10k each year from me and many others in unpaid regular pay and unpaid overtime pay and stolen tips. 8 major labor violations, including forged federal documents, the Fed judge said; but they basically got away with all those years of many employee wage robbery and fled, retired to Florida to build mansions.
This is piddling compared to Wall Street's Bernie Madoff.
Look at all the offshore tax havens where U.S. rich profitable corporations like Apple hide $Billions from fair taxation. Like Grand Cayman,etc.!!
Authur Anderson ,the big accounting firm, was world famous for taking huge fees to intentionally defraud the U.S. Govt. and America!!
As one middle manager told me in the limo, "Any CPA can do honest accounting for a small fee. Arthur Anderson firm makes huge profits by bending to breaking U.S. tax law and getting away with it. So my wife and I are shopping for a mansion second home, looking all over the world."

I had a Swiss owner who hired me.
Right away he confessed, " i take all your Overtime pay and just pay straight regular pay after 8 hours to 16 or 18 hours,whatever. It is totally illegal, but most charter and tour bus companies in SF and the SFBayArea are doing it and getting away with it. I have to be competitive. Now one driver just took me to Small Claims Court and showed his only hand written , straight time payroll record, and won all back OT pay, plus interest and penalty, and you can do the same. I am a a multimillionaire. And being punctual is the most important thing in business ! We have a great charter and tour bus reputation and many famous clients."
Yikes, thanks a bunch, Switzerland, for 3 years !!
He sold the company for "over twice its worth" and I moved on, to another payroll stealing limo company in Burlingame.
If you go to Switzerland, beware of the luxury Zurich lake side hotel and front desk clerk who will palm your c/c on check in, with your Passport, and then go all over W. Europe spending $8000 . Zurich cops won't help you. And Visa will tell you "that agent does not work for us" but Visa did know it was their cheap and incompetent night time subcontractor who goofed and did not immediately close my account. It took months of Visa phoning and emailing threats at me for me to learn this. No apology from Visa.
Just "business".
Why is wage theft and work racism so very common in SF ?

What happened to "tight right" car door locks!? No politician ever asked me about changing to "open rearward"!!

I'm mad as hell, and not going to be abused like that anymore !!

Burlingame and San Mateo city voters believed their Mayors and City Councils that "Any rent control would ruin this city!" Big Fat Lies, but it worked, this time.

The League of Women Voters did a Candidate discussion before the last election. Video filmed it.
God bless the League !!

Most candidates in Burlingame confessed they were sponsored and primarily representing Realtors first and, after lying to get elected, Not representing the best interests of their electorate.

Better informed and generally smarter and Much More Civilized Mountain View, and Alameda, and Richmond voters chose Rent Control. Even San Jose improved its Rent Control. And Rent Control is very popular , with renters and leasers, in San Francisco. Did you not see and not care about those 70 and 80 year old widows in Burlingame on the curb after getting 3 day eviction notices for no cause/fault ??

Maybe you missed it.
Go to the LWV website on a computer and become better informed Voters, for the next election !!
You owe it to the community.

SF has a long history of rough bumpy trenched asphalt over concrete streets. The 311 city repair staff readily admit this. But the City and Mayor Lee won't asphalt repave "too little used streets" like Hariett by the courthouse, nor "too heavily used streets" like Toland in the SE Quarter, the Mayor wants to Gentrify and attract neuvo-riche to this neglected street condition and High crime area.

Let's see, when was the last major snafu fubar costly mistake in SF City and County combined govt , delayed year after year, decade after decade, Postponed Maintenance history?

Oh, yeah, it was the well know fact of too old and too brittle cast iron fire hydrant water main pipes in the very affluent Marina district.
Then, the OCTOBER 1989 earthquake, a 7.1richter , happened;  Too old cast iron easily breaks and no adequate supply of fire fighting water to many burning apartments.
People died. Lots of personal property was destroyed. Watch it on You Tube. What a huge preventable disastrous result. Many buildings were finally bolted to their foundations. And instead of one neglected rusty old fireboat with a sloppy hand painted "for sale" sign that pumped Sacramento River water out of the Bay and saved the Marina, the City now has a few newer fireboats parked near the Bay Bridge.

SF could be much better maintained, from too rough streets all over to too few highly paid cops everywhere on the streets. To more night time, high visibility, white on green, Street signs. To way too few public parking garages that are affordable all over the city. Is underground parking at De Young direction signed enough? To still too inefficient litter and trash collection.
Much more often Health Dept posted inspections of all restaurants. Sidewalk cleaning thankfully is on the rise. And faster graffiti removal.
And it isn't that SF can't afford to do better.

I've been a Teamster 4 times, with higher salary but Rampant Corruption and self-serving by Teamsters.

Last time as a SFO-hub , UPS delivery driver about 20 years ago.
The private co. stock buying manager told me to drive in Winter rains without computer way back then and With 3 thin, Lincoln penny test, tire treads; the Teamsters were no help. Often in the Xmas rush and if you were a little late the day before, the nightshift loaders and managers would "toss" your load leaving a huge messy pile more than half filling the brown truck; Again, Teamsters Union was no help. UPS would give you painful crude rough cloth uniform to start and fire you for one mistake; Again ,no help from Teamsters. Drivers are now allowed to buy stock ,since the co. went public with a huge IPO. Every Teamsters meeting seemed about more theft and misuse of dues, even from the SF hub !!

The first time was as a Yosemite National Park shuttle and tour bus driver , way back in the 1970s. We had a very abusive dispatcher, Joe Westmoreland, and a very abusive company as lead/major park Concessionaire in MCA after the Curry Family sold out.  The 2 greasy weasel Teamsters Union reps from the Central Valley ,when asked for enforced fair work rules, told us all to "sit down and shut up! ! We do Not represent you ! You will do exactly as we say and you will be lucky to get anything, and may lose, during this Negotiation period !" They went over to the main office by the Village Store and had cocktails with mgmt and a good laugh at us, our spy said. MCA sold C. rights to horrid Delaware North of New York who kept the names "Ahwahnee" Hotel and "Curry" Village, by NPS incompetence!  Now DN-NY has sold to Aramark, the company kicked out of Muir Woods National Monument for very unsanitary food cafe practice of guest food and floor litter handling without gloves or hand washing! Atrocious !

The Feds took over the Teamsters for very good reason; Unfortunately for all Teamsters workers, it did not clean up the Teamsters Union, at all.

Hiya at Google's Play Store does not have an UNINSTALL option, so if you DOWNLOAD Hiya caller I. D.,,, You may be Stuck with it,,, FOREVER!! and Google troubleshooting guy says "Google is OK with that." Thus, PLAY STORE is Not a Safe Place.

Most apps have an UNINSTALL option.
Hiya does not have one,  or an icon to slide to UNINSTALL, and is not listed with all your other "smartphone" apps.

And Google is fine with this.
Their representative said "Some people may really like Hiya and never want to uninstall it."
And "we are not responsible for what we offer on Google Play Store."

YIKES!!

NO MINIMUM STANDARDS.
BEWARE of Google Play Store!!

Fellow Costco Shoppers: item # 144893, EL MONTEREY Shredded Steak and Three Cheese BURRITO frozen ,,, have tough chewy Gummy flour tortillas, and need to be IMPROVED pronto !!

I think the Mfg  can solve this minor problem.
I'm not buying any more ,,,
Until they do.
And again, Costco should have Higher food standards for taste ,safety, and value.

Why does SOCIAL SECURITY hide your legally taxed And illegally untaxed WORK HISTORY for decades from EVERY WORKING EMPLOYEE ??

It should be easy and safe to see in full online.

Cal CalTrans is LIABLE for POTHOLE FLAT TIRES !! So People!, Submit the form and bills!!

Caltrans needs to hire MUCH BETTER highway asphalt CONTRACTORS !!

I wish Sacramento would prohibit realtors from trying to represent both sides, the seller and buyer. It can not ethically be done.

I never feel served if dealing with the lying Seller's real estate agent.
And you?

TOILET SHOPPING CLASS, "bonehead" 30A

First, get a glazed trap.
That's the crucial S-curve below the toilet bowl.
How do you know it is glazed? You put your hand down the new, dry, clean unused toilet and feel below the bowl!  Is it rough ,,, or smooth as the bowl?
Why is this so important? Because unglazed toilet bowl "traps" will clog up much More often than glazed ones. Yes, even Home Depot tries to fob-off unglazed toilet trap toilets, so beware !!

Second, get the Widest trap you can find, as there is a big difference brand to brand, of even an inch or half an inch.  Same reason,,, do you want to be toilet plungering and snaking and mopping,,, or not ,,, weekly or daily ?

Third, get the Adult size toilet and a good brand like Gerber,,, not a child's/"family" 2 inch lower toilet. Have your kids use a short wide step. Ask any gerontologist MD worth a crap and they will say "adult size" for adults,,,

Fourth, shop around.
Usually the cheap Glacier and Kolher are out front.
Ask, "Where do you hide the better brands, like Gerber?"
Try a pro installer store, if you are brave and smart enough, like R.V. Cloud in SillyCon Valley. I got a few of the last 1.6 cu ft flush Gerbers, in the far back warehouse before the nuisance Feds banned them;They should have banned unglazed traps! but didn't do the smart thing, as usual.

Fifth, buy oval rim toilet bowls, not round rim ones, unless you want men peeing down the front and on your floor. All the time. Think about it.

Sixth, use a good flexible hose with woven metal mesh outside to connect to the water supply, not some cheap rigid jointed metal pipe, Especially in earthquake country, like the Pacific Rim.

Seventh, if you poop big try double flushing the poop first and then the TP.
If your are still worried about plugging a toilet, squirt some dish soap, left in the bathroom, just inside
the rim.

Eight, you may have tree roots growing in your house to street drain/sewer line, slowing the flow. Find out where all your kitchen sink and bathroom drains go and have them snaked annually or biannually but at least every 3 years. Remember plumber snakes can not go thru a 90 degree turn, so if you have only one cleaning access you might have never really had your house line cleared out or snaked all the way to the street sewer. And don't trust most plumbers to tell you if you do have a 90 degree drain problem as my parents were lied to for over 40 years by many plumbers who promised they had snaked "all the way to the street" and charged extra for it,but in truth never got past the 90 degree drain turn on the far side of the house. We eventually found a very rare honest plumber and we dug the hole and he put the second cleaning access in and for the very first time cleaned the house drain all the way to the street sewer line!!

Beware of overflowing toilets wetting and rotting the cross-direction 2 subfloors, as that is an expensive repair.
Beware any plumber who say "The subfloor is totally rotted and the thick metal circular mounting flange has turned to flakes of rust, so I'm just going to screw,,, a thin cheap metal flange on top of the totally rusted thick one and leave it like that." Quickly escort that Fool out of your house or condo or apt.!!
Beware of any plumber or tradesperson or "handyman" who shows up with a dirty messy truck with dirty uncared for tools and a pile of parts; in fact ,ask to look at his truck and tools First! and if his tools are clean and well cared for and his truck is organized, only Then would I let him ,with bootie covers, into My home!!

This is some of the basics.
I hope it helps.
If you are too ignorant and or stubborn to take good free advice,,,

REI was politely asked to remake their soft glass case for smartphones, my Great idea, but "no thanks" was the reply.

Cellphones and smartphones need simple to use protection.
Can't REI see the demand and supply void?

Sunbeam "warming electric blankets": HUGE made in China QC PROBLEMS, read the website reviews "blanket stopped working after 2 months!"

CS is sooo slooow.
On my second return, in only 2 years.
And Company is replacing woven blankets with fury "plush" slippery blankets that refuse to stay on your bed, no matter how layered.

No LiveChat.
No point emailing.
Sent wrong blanket.
Out of stock problems.
Big QC chinese problems, like with Apple refusing to replace chinese corroded new laptop, on day of purchase, unless you bought long term warranty.
No Weekend phone service.
And agents are Sooo Slooow !!
Horrible company !!

Every PBS show should have an Easy "public comment" ,open website !!

I wrote KQED and got an off-putting arrogant unhelpful response to a cooking show I just watched with the "teaching chef" always using too long a knife!
It is less controlable and more unsafe, I think.
My mother and sisters also have this bad habit of using the same a 8-10" blade, for everything!
Jaques doesn't do it.

So I stumbled around Google search and finally found "Joanne Weir's Cooking Confidence Show" feedback on joanneweir.com...

No answer yet, but I have seen this too long a knife issue on other PBS shows.
Regret KQED was so unhelpful...

Safe and healthy cooking!!

little Adventures,,,

When i was no more than 12 my master craftman Dad took me backpacking with him and his hunting-ab diving buddy, Blackley, on a circle for a week ending with the scary trail up Mt. Whitney,14k'+, and lots of trout fishing. Met a newly wed with new boots and massive blisters, 'Sierra Sue', so we carried her pack on Dad's homemade fat bike tire 'iron mule' of hinged hi grade aluminum. So much fun. And so few know how to enjoy true wilderness.
So sad, the concrete asphalt life.

Blackley intentionally dropped his lead slab weight belts abalone diving near state Park over-managed ,closed beach and water for research only, bad joke of a state park Ano  Nuevo Bay; So much better protected by farmer Steele who kept abalone rot disease away that the state failed.
He told me to freedive over 30' to get it for him.
Poor visibility, maybe 6', but I found it, and kicked flippers hard to the surface to big snorkel spout!  So much fun and yet many most almost all have never appreciated NorCal's underwater kelp forests. So sad. Or facemask peered into a rich tidepool. So sad.

Was in Oxford and the Bobby's girl asked me to kayak to Henley for a local charity, in one day.
Sure!
She got the hard keel long straight running touring kayak with a rudder and I got the short round bottom slalom whitewater kayak.
She couldn't wait for my squirrelly kayak and went ahead, so I went thru all the locks solo, meeting a few nice folks at the many locks but basically years ago the famous Thames River was all mine. So much fun. Such beautiful countryside, without Cal's poison oak coast and foothills or many poisonous rattlesnakes. Wonderful day.
Met the tall world famous crew rower in the fish&chip shop behind me,after. What a day. Yet so few even do this little tiny small Adventure. So sad.

Walked the gentle lead mine hills of the Yorkshire Dale's out of Gunnerside for a week. Lots of racing weekend motorcycles. Some walkers, but again I had most of the Dale's to myself, the fab pheasants and many rabbits, and a few very low morning Brit fighter jets. So fun. And so few get out of their cars and off roads to enjoy it. So sad.

Rowed the Lake District with my gal. Hiked it for miles and miles, picking up trash from dry stone wall holes until I filled a huge black trash bag with National Trust land walker's litter using salad tongs,from some Woolworth.  So much fun. Snuck it into a pub loo as the trash can outside said "private, bugger off" or something. Dashed for rental car with my gal and got away clean. Such a great day. Too bad only a few actually go out and enjoy it. Or pick up litter in England.  So sad.

Walked up the highly rounded backside of Half Dome in an easy day many times in Yosemite Valley.
Now you need a reservation!
Gloves and short 20' kernmantel rope in case someone fright-freezes on the cables, happens. So exciting. What a great day.
First time as a High Schooler and Boy Scout. And most people don't even know it is there.

Was asked if I wanted to motor-sail the Cal coast from LA to SC during grey whale migration.
Yes.
What an adventure with the best Cal skipper and my Dad.
So lucky.
And so few have seen so much of the Cal coast, from the Pacific.
So sad.

25 and back from Nixon's birthday lottery ,4yrcollege, 2yr cruise to godforsaken Vietnam.  A friend asks,  "Do you want to bicycle this Summer, maybe up and across Canada?"
Sure. Why not.
His bro too, the 3 sprocket-teers having a small Adventure. A semi driver in southern BC tried to swerve over us, with no bike lane and no guard rail to the cliff.
The RCMP came out ," Oh, you're not Canadians." Bye.
Met lots of friendly folk tho, sleeping on the ground or in dirt cheap hostels.
We made it to Saskatoon and Montreal, greyhounding across "blackflies!!!" Ontario to Ottawa and bicycling like Cal Conquers into Ville Quebec in a heavy rainstorm. So much fun for 3 months. Only one Canadian tried to kill us.
And we saw so few bicyclists, except going South with the constant wind on the Cal coast. So sad so few get out and enjoy the countryside.

I use to park on hwy 40, old Donner Summit. Take my Holdsworth touring soft frame bicycle down and bike down to Donner Lake. Then along the Truckee River to Lake Tahoe and clockwise around the lake, back to Tahoe City.
Then follow the Truckee back to Donner Lake and the old highway up to older Donner Pass and my parked car. Easy, fun. Did it every year, for years. No bike lane.
I'm 6'2" so if someone tried to hit me with their car then I would try to make the biggest dent in their car, maybe even break their windshield before I died.
Every year, such an adventure. And never a flat tire. Lucky me. Seldom saw another bicyclist. Had the far right edge of the hiway all to myself. Most drivers back then we're respectful and careful, unlike nowadays. So sad.

Have a little Adventure.

California does Not have Mandatory disclosure of lead pipes in house sales. Why lie?

Shame on Sacramento!!