Price Matching Mayhem and Other Shopping Tales

[Chromatix]

I'm in the middle of working out how to see Finland by train. There's a special ticket which gives unlimited travel on any train for a certain number of days within a month, so my plan is to cover as many different lines as possible. This is complicated by the cost of hotels, so I'm trying to plan to come back to Helsinki each night, except perhaps for one or two trips on the sleeper services.

Also, some of the less important lines only have one or two usable services each day. Fortunately the principal services which radiate out from Helsinki are much more frequent than that.

To give an idea of the logistics, one of my day trips will take me about a third of the way up the east side of the country. The outward train departs at about 7am, I get about 2 hours to wait at the furthest point on the route, and I would get back at about 11pm.

That's with direct train connections and no detours, and the bulk of the distance is covered using relatively fast trains (a Pendolino tilting train and an Intercity express). The bulk of the *time* is spent pootling along a little lakeside railway which only has two services in each direction per day.

If I did that by car, I'd have to sleep in it.

[kpzra]

But what I'm talking about is distance and time it takes to travel it. It's about 60 miles from my place to the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, it only takes me about an hour. That's almost the width of CT. Back there, it seems to take an hour to go 20 miles. That's what I have trouble getting.

That and I have a hard time conceiving of being somewhere without wide open spaces.

My favorite was when it took me 5 hours to go 20 miles in Atlanta. Detroit was like that too.

[XCashier]

We need to be able to print out small cards or something that we can hand to clerks when we are in places where we see stuff like that happening.

There is a file for printing out CS business cards: http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=16828

[Ironclad Alibi]

We gots lots of National Forest land (about 20% of the state)....when it's not on fire. Where do you think Smokey Bear came from?

Smokey Bear was rescued from a wildfire in the Capitan Mountains of New Mexico.

[Pagan]

My favorite was when it took me 5 hours to go 20 miles in Atlanta. Detroit was like that too.

Oooh, I'm sorry. The 3 roads (waaaaaay to few) across the river and the Big I back up horribly at rush hours. I avoid them like the plague at those times. I can't imaging sitting in a car for 5 hours and not moving.

There's a reason I keep singing "Don't Fence Me In".

Smokey Bear was rescued from a wildfire in the Capitan Mountains of New Mexico.

Yeah, I know that. More specifically, during the cleaning up after the Capitan Gap fire in 1950. He's buried in Capitan, NM.

The Capitan Mountains are one of the four mountain ranges in the Lincoln National Forest. (Pssst, dude, look at my location. And I grew up very close to Lincoln.)

[Ironclad Alibi]

(Pssst, dude, look at my location. And I grew up very close to Lincoln.)

For some reason I misread your location as Arizona. I wonder if I should cross post this to Brain Burps?

[Sapphire Silk]

My favorite was when it took me 5 hours to go 20 miles in Atlanta. Detroit was like that too.

Ouch! I have similar trouble when I go to Maryland to visit my Mom. If I hit Richmond, VA at the wrong time of day, it will take me an hour to go about 2 miles. There's a place where I-95 goes from 3 lanes to two, then merges with another highway. Traffic backups are horrible there.

Invariably, if I hit that traffic snag, I have to pee

[Ironclad Alibi]

Ouch! I have similar trouble when I go to Maryland to visit my Mom. If I hit Richmond, VA at the wrong time of day, it will take me an hour to go about 2 miles. There's a place where I-95 goes from 3 lanes to two, then merges with another highway. Traffic backups are horrible there.

Invariably, if I hit that traffic snag, I have to pee

If you're traveling from south of Petersburg to north of Richmond, or opposite, take the 295 bypass. It is only 4 miles longer (45 miles vs. 41 miles), 2 minutes longer according to Google Maps, and has a lot less traffic.

[Kogarashi]

We gots lots of National Forest land (about 20% of the state)....when it's not on fire. Where do you think Smokey Bear came from?

Heh. One of the many reasons I don't want to move to California. I prefer to live in a state that doesn't catch fire at least once a year.

[Pagan]

Heh. One of the many reasons I don't want to move to California. I prefer to live in a state that doesn't catch fire at least once a year.

I had a bosque wildfire less than a quarter mile from me at the end of May (Cabezon fire). I actually did grab some things just in case the wind switched around and it started coming my way. Smelled like I was doing BBQ in my apartment the next day.

But then, I tend to over-react to fires. I was evacuated from a forest fire when I was about 10 that burned to within a quarter of a mile from my step-grandmothers house. Scared me so much that I blocked a lot of the memories until the Cerro Grande fire in Los Alamos triggered them.

[Chromatix]

Around here we tend to get the smoke from Russian wildfires - which I'm sure you've seen coverage of this year. Finnish wildfire protection is quite good, but the Russians' approach is to leave many fires to simply burn themselves out, if they're not approaching a major city.

A few years ago I remember the smoke was thick enough that it was occasionally impossible to see a certain major landmark from the balcony of the office, which was less than 1km up the road. The fires producing that smoke were at least 1000km away in Russia.

[RetailWorkhorse]

I miss the desert.

And mountains.

It's been raining pretty much everyday here. I need me some damn sunlight!!!

RAIN!!!! *Squishes on Lupo* I MISS RAIN SO MUCH!

I'm moving to Galveston, dammit. *Pout*

[lupo pazzesco]

RAIN!!!! *Squishes on Lupo* I MISS RAIN SO MUCH!

I'm moving to Galveston, dammit. *Pout*

*squeaks*

Erm...now it's sunny here, and hella hot. Mama Lupo says it's the desert's turn for clouds and rain and ick. She wants me to give her sunshine back!

[RetailWorkhorse]

I haz rain I haz rain I haz rain.

*Dances in the rain*

*Is drenched*

.....I'm WET! I don't like being wet! MOMMY! THE SKY PEED ON ME!

Great, now I'm gonna smell like wet dog. Just what I needed. Someone pass a towel.

[greek_jester]

Around here we tend to get the smoke from Russian wildfires - which I'm sure you've seen coverage of this year. Finnish wildfire protection is quite good, but the Russians' approach is to leave many fires to simply burn themselves out, if they're not approaching a major city.

Actually, so long as they're not raging across 30 square miles of forest, that's the not a bad way to deal with them. Fire is a natural part of a forest's life cycle - in fact, some trees (certain breeds of pine, IIRC) need fire to open up the cones so the seeds can escape. The fire clears room so that the seedlings get enough sun to survive. Smothering every spark that appears can end up being more of a hindrance than a help to a forest's ecosystem.