Fluffy Logic

Update for anyone who reads this – Packing + loading on Monday in Seattle, Flying to San Jose on Wednesday… contact details are the same as always for those who have them.

Allright – so in the 17 days we were in Ireland, I was in a supermarket on 3 of them (that’s 17% of the days!) on or around 10pm, when they called out “we have to stop serving alcohol at 10pm, please bring your purchases to the checkout now”. Thank you VFI, and intoxicating liquor act (2008). Was this supposed to stop binge drinking? Because I saw people buying a case of beer “in case they wanted one or two after the pub”…epic fail, in my opinion.

Still, at least now I can go to safeway at 1:55am and buy beer or wine, although thanks to the Washington state Liquor Board, nothing stronger after 9pm…at least the off-sales booze monopoly here is run by the state, not the publicans..

Dog dog dog

Originally uploaded by ooleary.

Robin had one too many glasses of wine and collapsed on our bed. Obviously he’d been busy looking up doggie social networking just before then.

JRA Bike Shop – you truly are Seattle’s friendliest bike repair shop. And I’ve been to a few.

via JRA Bike Shop, Friendly bike repair in downtown Seattle.

January was the coldest in Dublin for more than 45 years
January was warmest on record for Seattle area

Ruby on rails “just works”, apparently. Someone should tell them what “works” means.

While (for the Nth time) failing to find an item that Ikea’s website claimed was in stock, I asked a helpful staff member “Why?” and I finally got an answer. The floor works on a JIT deployment system, whereby just enough stock for the day is brought out overnight, depleted on the day, and re-filled again overnight with just the right amount to keep most customers happy until EOD. This works great for 90% of their customers, that 90% being the 90% that don’t arrive at the store an hour before closing time, which is of course my favourite time to shop in the giant warehouse. So, the moral of this story is: If you want to purchase something specific in Ikea, and the computer says it’s in stock, don’t wait until the end of the day. It’ll be in stock, but not on the floor, and you won’t find it. And the staff won’t get it, as they’re not allowed take things off the pallets until they’re in place.

Suspicious suitcase blown up at Burien Park and Ride

From king5 news

If only 2% of our electricity comes from non-renewable sources (source: http://www.seattle.gov/light/FuelMix/ ), instead of the 89% of irish electricity (source: http://www.energycustomers.ie/electricity/index.aspx, how does that affect the carbon footprint of appliances? (Or in other words, I don’t accept that one tumble dryer load generates 2kg of CO2)

I’m all for saving the world, and all that, but, everything in a context. Plus – if I were put wet clothes on the clothesline outside today, I’d return to find them frozen. Not something I’m about to try.

Mostly for my own benefit – because, strangely enough, there’s no link to this on the gmail page!

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