New Jersey vs Oregon

There is quite a culture difference between New Jersey’s and Oregon. Evidently every Jersey Lawn needs this poison applied like sunshine!

People and pets beware! Poisonous materials applied.
Drain to the river.

With drains to the river what poisons do they think won’t leech the 20 feet from the lawn to the drain?

20 feet from the lawn poison sign to the drain.

The big culture difference is that Oregonians who have been part of families who have lived in Oregon a long time generally are anti-pesticide. (Even though the logging industry uses pesticides without restrictions.) All over Eugene there are yard signs stating: “this yard is a bee sanctuary” and “pesticide free”.

The simple fact remains. Unconstrained capitalism allows a business to sell the poisoning of a domestic space as a product, even if that poison is liable to travel into other places in the watershed, including rivers and estuaries.

Princton Rec Pool Lifeguards

The first time Katja swam with me at the Rec pool she asked me if this was a dangerous pool to swim at. The question caught me off guard. I asked her what she meant. She said that the life guards were on the same side of the pool and talking to each other instead of watching the swimmers. So today I took a picture of one guard on break behind me and the other two chatting with each other.

On break behind my shoulder.
In the far perch.

Filtered water… for what

Words cause our brains to make certain associations. For example, water is supposed to be fresh to be best.

So I find the following marketing posted by water fount to be interesting. First, Princeton University wants people to think their water is “fresh” but really, it’s filtered. Second, they don’t really advertise what is filtered out. The EPA report designates Princeton city water as containing PFAS chemicals. So, does the filtering actually solve that problem? It makes me wonder if drinking local is really healthy.

What is local water at Princeton?
Page from EPA report.

Select Hotel Gendarmenmarkt Berlin – Review

BEWARE of this place. There were two major issues: 1. The staff would not refund me even though I wanted to check out early and I booked directly with the hotel. 2. The quality of the rooms was low.

I stayed in Room 440. There were several things wrong with the room. First, there were tile bits in the bathroom shower and floor which were chipped and broken. Second, there were stained bed sheets. Third the electrically controlled sun shade which is used to keep the room cool in the day was inoperable. The climate control in the room could not keep up with the intense heat from the afternoon sun. Additionally, at various times I could hear people in the neighboring room, their shower, their alarm clock (phone), and their sun shade operating.

I talked to the front desk because I wanted to check out of the hotel 1/2 through my stay. I wanted a refund on the remaining part of my stay. They said it was not in their power to make that decision. I had to email the main office. By the next day the main office still had not replied to my email. I kept asking at the front desk and they (the front desk) eventually sent me a response saying no they would not refund me. Their position was that because there were no widely attended activities in Berlin during the scheduled time they were not likely to be able to re-rent the room. By this time I had gone online and looked at their nightly rate. It was 100 Euro less than what they were charging me. So I sent another email to the main office asking for a price adjustment to the advertised nightly rate. This time they ignored my email and did not reply at all.

Management and the team here are not looking to make repeat customers. My next trip to Berlin City Center will likely support the City Mission of Berlin and stay at their Gasthaus.

Stains on the bed sheets.

Stains on the bed sheets.

Inoperable sun shade.

Inoperable sun shade.

Bathroom tiles missing

Bathroom tiles missing.

Kinder Eier

When I was a kid, part of the whole special experience that a Kinder Überaschung Eier created was due to the novelty of the characters they created. It was their toys and their ideas.

Now, it seems that they have in some way reduced to catering to facilitating mania. It is as if their brand isn’t as big as it once was and they think that they need to piggyback on someone else’s moment. It’s really say that they don’t seem to be able to retain their uniqueness in both brand and culture.

Paw patrol? Really?!?