Month: October 2018

The Story of The Great Internet Outage of 2018

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This weekend will forever be known as the great internet outage of 2018. My DSL went down and the provider ended up thinking its my router. Problem is my DLS goes down on average 3 times a day. I have the up and down notification emails to prove it. The provider is highly rated and I like them for their no filtering and no throttling approach to internet providing. The issue is this constant mini outages. Usually lasting a few minutes. This time it has been down for a day. It looks like it will be down till at least tomorrow when my new router shows up.

This incident has finally gotten me to decide to switch providers and sign up for Virgin. Two other families on my block have it and say the speed is pretty good. Reviews say depending on the block you may be good or bad. I opted for the high end 300+meg plan. It only has about 25mb upload but that is around what i get with DSL. On DSL my download is theoretical maximum of 70 something mb. This change should be significant. I am also happy since i didn’t realize i have a virgin cable jack already installed right by my media center where the BT jack is in the entry to my house and thus everything is a wireless connection.

I have about a month left on my DLS contract. If i cannot cancel it before the contract runs out the one month extra cost will be worth it to have a stable connection. M is suffering with a data connection on her phone and no iPad. I at least have some data on my ipad. I had to get some work done earlier and had to tether my laptop to my mobile.

The Story of My Complex Relationship With The Old Fashioned

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There was a time long ago (2-3 years ago) when I did not like the taste of a good old fashioned  . Let’s call that time in my life BOF (Before Old Fashioned). I recall ordering one or two at bars and not really liking them. Then one January a few years ago on our anniversary M and I went to Jean George’s. I remember the night because I got there early or on time. M and I were both coming from work so we did not travel together. Side note the subway was messed up and M does not give herself any leeway in travel time.  Those factors and the fact that I generally am too early to things added up to me waiting about 20 to 30 minutes before M joined me.

While I was waiting at the bar I figured I was at a three-star Michelin rated restaurant so I assumed they can make pretty good cocktails. Up until that point I have had bad luck with old fashioned’s. They just didn’t taste quite right to me.  I did want to give it a few tries before I made my decision on if I like them or not. So I ordered one and drank it while waiting for M. The verdict was I still did not like it. At the time that last bad experience settled the drinks fate. It was off my list of things I would drink.  Or was it?

Flash forward a few years and I tried one again. My memory is fuzzy on the circumstances. I think it was we were at M’s friend Joe’s in Maine. The prior year he made me a fantastic Manhattan. So much so that I started making them myself the way he did it.  Wow those are strong but yummy.. The next time we saw him I believe he made an old-fashioned.  When he made it for me it was really good and I enjoyed it. So much so that when I was out with friends from work I started trying to order them again. It was still hit and miss in the beginning but after that I got really into them.

I started mixing them at home. The old fashioned are more complex and time-consuming to make than my favorite sidecar. I made them anyway. The first time I ran out of the ingredients to make the old-fashioned I forgot what it was that I originally had bought. I turned to the Internet to see what good bourbon to use for the drink. I found a couple of review sites that talked about the best bourbons to use in the drink. I then took the two top suggestions and went to the local liquor store to see if they had them. They had both options however for some reason I said I’m gonna buy the second best one. I can’t remember why.  I think the description better suited me.. It wasn’t like one was that much better than the other. They just had different reasons for liking one over the other. And that’s how I started mixing drinks with the Four Roses.

When I would be out and ordering an old-fashioned at a bar some of the better places would ask what I wanted it made with. It used to be I never knew a good answer for that.  Then I started asking what the suggested options were. That’s when I realized I had picked a delicious choice because many of the places I went to with good bars would have the four roses as a choice. After a while when asked what I wanted the drink made with I would specifically ask for that.  Then every so often i would get a “good choice” reply.  It was nice that something i liked made me sound like i knew what i was talking about.  I really do not know what I am talking about.

Somewhere along the way in my old-fashioned drinking experience I was introduced to the maple old-fashioned. It was super delicious. It basically replaces the simple syrup,  sugar, and water of a regular old-fashioned and replaces it with maple syrup. It was a simple Google search or in my case duck duck go search and I had the ingredients and how to make the drink. It was significantly easier to prepare and almost more delicious.

I thought I found a new goto drink that i could make at home.  Side Cars are good and easier than a regular old fashioned however if i do it the way i like it with the sugar on the glass it gets messy and takes a little longer.  To have an easier option would be great.  I made a few of the maple old fashioned at home. In the same general time frame I was waking up with migraines now and again. That’s rare for me. I was curious what the trigger was. After a little while I thought the trigger might have been the Maple old-fashioned. It is a lot of sugar. Some foods can be trigger so I got really scared.  Migraines are not something I mess around with so that stopped my buying or mixing this cocktail cold.

That didn’t stop me from making or buying regular old-fashioned. I just make them less often since they are a pain to do.  When we got to to London I didn’t have the same ingredients to make the original ones I liked the cube sugar that M had bought so I at the time thought stupidly to roll the dice and had M get some maple syrup. After the first attempt i was ok.  So i tried them again.  I was still ok.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could drink them and be okay. No trigger made me very happy so I was back on making these delicious beverages.

This brings me to what inspired me to write what turned into this very long post. I had a finite supply of Four Roses.  A big positive of London vs New York is you can go anywhere and get liquor.  The local market we use has.  Getting a good selection of higher end liquor is more of a challenge.  Some suggestions given to me did not pan out.  I turned to Amazon almost just to check for funzies.  Turned out they had what i wanted.  Amazon had a decent selection so I not only got the Four Roses I wanted I now have a new goto place to order any nicer stuff i may want to buy.

Next up for me is finding a new cocktail to master.

My Story of A Tail of Two Credit Card Concierge’s

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I can calculate how long I have had an American Express card in Decades not years. During most of that time I have been aware some of the benefits offered that I never took advantage of.  One of those benefits is the personal concierge service. For years I knew it could be a valuable tool yet I only once used it. Thinking back I cannot come up with a good reason not to use this service. Maybe it was because I am a control freak. I like researching things on my own. When I worked at Datastream Systems they had their own travel people in house.  The job required constant travel. I still would research what I wanted and call the travel people and tell them to book me on specific flights. So either I was a control freak or just lazy not wanting to talk to someone to make plans with a concierge. Either way this potentially valuable service went unused. With an upcoming trip I decided to change that.

My mom came to visit and we all went to Paris. She has been great and offered M and I to go on a date night while we are there. Not knowing the city i figured why shouldn’t i try the American Express concierge and see what they can come up with based on the criteria we have. We want a restaurant no more than 30-45 min from our hotel on the metro. We are looking for a French place known for their sea food. We also want a place that has good cocktails. I also provided the two dates we were looking at for possible reservations. The requirements were simple enough.  I did not want to spend hours on tripadvisor or whatever review site is popular in Paris trying to find a place.

The call to the Amex Concierge was simple enough. Using the mobile I had on file and a preset code I created when setting up the account I was authenticated and ready to go when the representative got on the phone. When I spoke to the representative I gave her my criteria and she said she was going to email or call me with options. I chose for her to email me.

Once i was done with American Express I decided to source options from somewhere else and turn this experiment into a full fledge comparison. I just got a VISA card that offered VISA Infinite concierge. I was curious if they were any good either so I figured why not try them out too. Calling VISA was slightly less straight forward. I had to provide my card number twice to an automated system. Once I got someone on the phone I gave the VISA people the same criteria. The lady i spoke with was super friendly and helpful. Like the person I spoke to at AMEX she offered to call me back or email me. Again I opted for an email.

American Express sent me an email within an hour of our call with four options. They also gave me a PDF guidebook of restaurants where they have special offers in Europe. One specific thing that was annoying was I told them we were going Sunday or Monday night. One of their suggestions wasn’t even open those days. All the options they gave us did look great. We had two favorites right away from the list we were given.

Visa infinite said they would send details up to four hours later. Because of the time we called I didn’t read their email until the next day. They sent a PDF with the options included. The format was definitely nicer looking then AMEX. After looking over the options M didn’t like any of them. I didn’t have time to look at it myself so I won’t directly comment on the quality. I will say that the customer service rep I spoke to from the visa infinite pointed out that many places are closed Sunday or Monday in France and would be on the lookout for that in selecting options. That was a good catch especially since the American Express rep sent us an option we couldn’t even use.

if i was rating on how long it took to get my information, AMEX won. They were quick and looked pretty spot on even though they skewed a little pricier than I asked for. For presentation of the information VISA one out over AMEX. It was easier for me to understand the visa concierge as well. That was because it was during US business hours and I got a native English-speaking person in the US. The American Express concierge I got someone who was native Italian speaking so it was a little more difficult for me to understand however she actually lived in Paris and was very knowledgeable of the neighborhood we were staying in. I’ll give both of them even scores for different reasons.

In the end I’ll give American Express the win since M like the restaurant options. When I called back to book the reservation we wanted to put me on hold to try to reach the restaurant in real time. They were closed. The lady I was speaking to quickly checked and confirmed that there was availability and we could book online. She offered to call back later when they were open to book the reservation directly or to have us book online ourselves. For whatever reason they were unable to book electronically for us. It was trivial for me to make the reservation so I just did it myself.

While I was sorting out the details for dinner in Paris we were also looking for somethingg to do for an upcoming date night in London right before our trip. Having my mom visiting is a huge treat that we can get some date nights and I get to see my mom. It’s been 6 months since we last saw her.. For our London date night M’s local friends gave her several ideas. One of them was Sushisamba. It looked great to me so we wanted to get a reservation. There are online reservation system said they were unavailable night we wanted to go. I figured it was a long shot however I called the concierge folks at American Express to see if they had any special way to get reservations. That is what concierge is known for anyway, right? For this request I only called the American Express people. I will try the VISA people again but for now AMEX seemed to be “get” what we were looking for. When I called the lady I spoke with confirmed that they do have relationships with many restaurants and had fielded several requests in the past for this particular one that we wanted to go to. After some checking unfortunately she was unable to get us a table. Knowing that they could be useful in the future I file that information away.

Since SushiSamba was not available to us we still needed to find a place to go on our date night in London. When we got the recommendations from American Express for the Paris date night they also sent along a PDF. It listed restaurants in Europe where they had special relationships. Each one had some sort of discount or deal through American Express. Looking through that PDF I saved several places that looked really good for us to try at some point around London. I showed M my top three places I liked as date night options and she agreed that my first option would be really cool. It was the bar restaurant at the Savoy hotel, Kasper’s at the Savoy. Now that we had settled on a new destination I went online to try to book a reservation. For the day that we wanted the only offered counter service. For date night I prefer the table so that wasn’t going to work. Our date was not flexible. It was that night or not at all. I then decided to try American Express again. The lady I spoke to this time was not sure if they had a relationship with Kaspar’s. With a little bit of digging she confirmed that they did have a relationship. She was able to get us a table around the time we wanted to go. That was pretty awesome.

I’m writing this before having gone to either of the restaurants we booked through American Express concierge. The overall experience was also extremely positive. That is saying a lot for me since I refuse to even call a restaurant for take away. Let alone trying to help me with specific details of a request. Unless the recommendations turn out to be horrible for some reason I anticipate using them again. I also can’t see how those recommendations could be bad. They gave us the ideas however checking out TripAdvisor both places have fantastic reviews. The fact that they can also get me into a place that I could not get into myself was pretty awesome.

This is one of those things where I’ve known for ages I should be trying yet I didn’t. If I do start using the more I will wonder why I was so lazy over the years when I had it as an option.

That Story Where I Write A lot About Tea Kettles

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Since way before I met her M has had an old-school metal tea kettle. She uses it to heat up tea and hot water for her coffee funnel. It’s as basic a solution as you can get. It also works surprisingly well. In the past year or so I’ve started to use it to heat water for my French press.

The thing with boiling water on a stove is that it can take a few minutes. I never thought anything of it. It was just how long it took to heat water. When we got to England we needed to heat water for coffee. I can’t remember if we brought our kettle in our luggage and the stove didn’t work. Or we simply did not have our kettle. In any event our stove was not working when we first moved in. We needed coffee. That meant we needed to buy something.

I knew about existence of electric kettles. I even remember my friend “A” who came from England to the US talking about how bad they were in the states. At the time I didn’t quite understand what he was complaining about. American electric kettles if I recall take around the same amount of time to make hot water then boiling it on a stove. If I’m wrong on that that is my recollection. I don’t really have direct knowledge on it. Going into this situation however that was what I was thinking. Electric kettles are slow.

I made one of our several trips to the local Sainsbury’s those first few days and picked up a cheap electric kettle. Once I got home I set it up and started to make enough water for 2 cups of coffee. I remember turning on the kettle and preparing to go do something while it heated the water. I got distracted talking to M for a moment. By the time I got back to realizing what I wanted to do the kettle clicked off indicating the water was done. At the time I thought something was wrong with it because it took maybe 1 to 2 minutes at most. I poured the water into the filter and sure enough it was the perfect temperature.

For what I am told the high-power quick teakettle is thanks to a more powerful power grid in England. I know everyone talks about the fact that the US is 110v and England is 220v however to see it in action was pretty interesting.

The electric kettle was so effective that M even agreed to get rid of her vintage stovetop one. That was a major development in our house.

The lesson here (if there is a lesson to learn) is even if someone explain something to you sometimes it doesn’t fully click until you experience it yourself.

W Sisters Shorts on Have You Met Steve?

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The girls have access to a large cache of Lego thanks to my parents storing the majority of my old Lego in a VCR box for 20 years. I wrote about that previously. Thanks to that and several new Lego kits the girls have a great exposure to Lego.

T and even A to a degree has been building the kits with varying degrees of assistance. They are both getting good at building their own stuff too. I love it.

When we were in Bournemouth back in May i believe the girls had some Lego with them. A started referring to this lego guy pictured as Steve. None of the other lego people have names. I figured she would forget about him after a few days however she didn’t. Flash forward a few months when A is playing with lego she goes looking for Steve by name. it is pretty funny. What is also amazing to me is that figure is at least 35 years old since it is one of the ones we gave them when we got my lego.

They both are a few years away from the entire Hogwarts kit however they are off to a great start.