Something Random

Stereodude said:
You need to invest in luggage with wheels. :p

I also try to avoid situations where I need to tip people. Restaurants I can deal with, but bellhops and the like no thanks, leave me alone.
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I have luggage with wheels, but I had two max size checked bags behind me and they weren't fitting through that door.
 
Howell said:
Tipping I believe, but I don't buy bartering. You can just say no thanks if you don't want a service and disown the social pressure.
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Again this is part of dealing with a system that already exists. When I was in SE Asia and showed interest in a product, the seller immediately quoted a price 5-10x what it was worth. I'd respond with an offer 1.1x the value to me (still probably double what they would have settled for had I bargained hard). When they come back with a higher number I walk away and they get mad. When I spend another minute there insisting that I have one price and it is "take it or leave it", they act cheated.

Screw that, them, and any culture that encourages it.
 
ddrueding said:
Again this is part of dealing with a system that already exists. When I was in SE Asia and showed interest in a product, the seller immediately quoted a price 5-10x what it was worth. I'd respond with an offer 1.1x the value to me (still probably double what they would have settled for had I bargained hard). When they come back with a higher number I walk away and they get mad. When I spend another minute there insisting that I have one price and it is "take it or leave it", they act cheated.

Screw that, them, and any culture that encourages it.
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That's not bartering, that's negotiating or haggling. Haggling sux because they make you feel bad? I have to admit that is unexpected from you. :)

Sometimes they respond better after going through the process of bartering. It's a social thing. Sometimes they are never going to be happy because you have a price you are willing to pay and they think all westerners should pay more.
I like the game but I'm bad at it. I can never remember what I've paid for stuff and thereby figure out what it should cost. My wife is awesome at it.
 
ddrueding said:
Again this is part of dealing with a system that already exists. When I was in SE Asia and showed interest in a product, the seller immediately quoted a price 5-10x what it was worth. I'd respond with an offer 1.1x the value to me (still probably double what they would have settled for had I bargained hard). When they come back with a higher number I walk away and they get mad. When I spend another minute there insisting that I have one price and it is "take it or leave it", they act cheated.

Screw that, them, and any culture that encourages it.
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So you really don't like car dealers then?
 
Stereodude said:
Google has been reading your many incoherent & incomprehensible posts and drew the only logical conclusion. :rofl:
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At a field office? How does the Google know that? Nothing was found in my head the last time I was scanned.
 
ddrueding said:
Tipping is awful. It's been shown that tipping and bartering corrilate directly with corruption. There is also a layer of social awkwardness that I find very distasteful. So much so that I nearly injured myself carrying our bags to the room to avoid the guys at the door. This would be so much better with a stated rate. It should be included considering the room was $2500+, but the existing tipping culture already ruined that.
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What corruption? You are just tipping a bellperson to carry the luggage. How is that socially awkward? It's only awkward when you don't pay. Don't you have a very high income anyway?
On a typical foreign vacation I pay tips about 10-28 times. I do try to carry the main photo backpack to prevent possible rough handling.
 
Mercutio said:
Every time I have to pick someone up from ORD, it's a four or five hour ordeal on my part. I love the South Bend International airport. Yes, it's international. It gets flights from Canada. It can land a big boy plane. It's also free to park in the lot and the terminal is across a two-lane road from the parking lot.

I'm glad I don't travel. I'm glad I don't have any reason to travel. Travel is what people do in hell.
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LunarMist said:
Of course travel is varying degrees of unpleaSTEAN
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Some gremlin massacred my post. :(

The main purpose of travel is to get somewhere. :) The process may be unpleasant, but the destination should be worth it. I typically take 8 to 21-day trips for personal use to minimize the percentage of useless travel time. Of course for business purposes, I mainly take short trips. The general rule is not to spend more than 2-3 nights at one location. I did spend 14 days in a Zone 3 once.
 
I dealwith tipping ok, but it can be problematic. In some countries a tip is considered an insult. Knowing social mores in different countries is quite challenging.
 
Stereodude said:
So you really don't like car dealers then?
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Nope. Hate it. One of the big selling points of getting in with your guys on S4s was not having to negotiate. I'm very tempted to get someone else to negotiate my next car. Best experience ever was for my wife's current car; did it all via e-mail over the course of a morning.
 
ddrueding said:
Nope. Hate it. One of the big selling points of getting in with your guys on S4s was not having to negotiate. I'm very tempted to get someone else to negotiate my next car. Best experience ever was for my wife's current car; did it all via e-mail over the course of a morning.
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Doesn't Tesla sell direct to customers? Since you said you were interested in a Tesla anyway for your next car, that seems to be yet another compelling reason to buy one.

I hate haggling myself. When I quote people prices, I almost always quote exactly the price I want. At times I've had people try to chew me down, but I explained I don't highball my initial quote like lots of others do. Oddly enough, lowballing quotes to get jobs seems to be another tactic often used by those in the home improvement business. Once they get the job, they'll claim all sorts of unexpected things are happening and try to charge more for it. Happened to me more than once. After the second time this happened I told them I signed a contract. Either you do the job at the quoted price or you refund ALL my money and I'll find somebody else. In the end they aren't happy since they'll likely lose money, but most will finish the job at the quoted price rather than refund all the money, often leaving them with an even bigger loss if they've already done half the job. I still remember one of them leaving, moaning to me "I lost $3,000 on this job". I simply told him he should have initially quoted me a price he would have made money on instead of playing games.
 
ddrueding said:
Nope. Hate it. One of the big selling points of getting in with your guys on S4s was not having to negotiate. I'm very tempted to get someone else to negotiate my next car. Best experience ever was for my wife's current car; did it all via e-mail over the course of a morning.
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Buy through Costco then. No haggling. You get a pretty good price and don't have to negotiate.
 
So my application for college went through reasonably smoothly. Unfortunately I seem to have been too late to sign up for the scholarships I knew I could get, and I thought my FAFSA was flat-out denied but I guess not (I have some grants listed on my Financial Aid report from UofL). The grants help but apparently I still need to sign for something like $5500 total in loans.
 
sedrosken said:
So my application for college went through reasonably smoothly. Unfortunately I seem to have been too late to sign up for the scholarships I knew I could get, and I thought my FAFSA was flat-out denied but I guess not (I have some grants listed on my Financial Aid report from UofL). The grants help but apparently I still need to sign for something like $5500 total in loans.
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Congratulations on the apps. Is that $5500 just for the first year? Just for tuition?
 
sdbardwick said:
Best sunscreen is the one you use correctly - almost nobody does. Sweethome had a decent roundup

I didn't rip that from the article - several dermatologists said the same thing to me...
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Well, it's a bit ridiculous to expect anyone to put on huge amounts every hour.
My problem is that many of the solutions cause varying skin reactions, dermatitis and worse.
I may try some of the zinc-based stuff in the tropical events I must attend.
 
Howell said:
Zone 3 again? What a pain.
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I made a commitment in early 2015. I did not think the event would actually occur given the multiple, low-probability parameters.
Basically, it seemed like a reasonable plan at the time.
 
Interesting choice of keyboard. I'm the clackity guy at work because of my mechanical daskeyboard. I'm happy I made the switch to mechs. My Ducky Shine 3 at home has been my favorite of them all so far.
 
CougTek said:
We should ask DDrueding's wife what's the Г nationality.
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It's Cyrillic, pronounced like a hard G. Russian is the only such language I've studied, but of course it is part of various eastern European languages.
 
Handruin said:
Interesting choice of keyboard. I'm the clackity guy at work because of my mechanical daskeyboard. I'm happy I made the switch to mechs. My Ducky Shine 3 at home has been my favorite of them all so far.
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I will use it at home. It was pretty much just an impulse buy. I didn't really do any research. The fancy RGB LEDs lured me in.
 
LunarMist said:
It's Cyrillic, pronounced like a hard G. Russian is the only such language I've studied, but of course it is part of various eastern European languages.
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ddrueding said:
Lunar nailed it.
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Well, I'll tell you what... If people can't understand my writing with it because of the hard G in puts in all my writing instead of an R I will send it to ddrueding so his wife and/or MiL can use it. ;)
 
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