General ramblings

As you may have guessed from the last three posts, I have been having fun with my new phone. Alan actually posted the one before this (beers in the garden) - his first ever blog post! Don't hold your breath for another one, unless I leave my phone unattended... It does video too, as you can see from the one with Alan shooting. Pretty cool.



RANT: Shops that assume you're a criminal when you walk in the door. I've gone into Shop X a hundred times and today they wanted me to check my bag at the door. The same bag as I've gone in there with 99 times before. I carry a smallish messenger bag; it's not even big enough to hold a laptop in. No way am I going to let them hold onto it when it contains my entire life. There's a few shops around that want to check bags but this is the first time I've had it for this bag. Gave me the right ire, that did. (No, they didn't get the bag.)


RAVE: The US Postal Service. Simply because they offer such civilised services. Such as holding your mail if you go away for a while (this will be handy during Alan's sabbatical), re-routing your mail when you move for a whole year (for free I might add, as opposed to the UK's Post Office which charges up to around $200), and also for picking mail up from your mailbox as well as dropping it off, if you're on a rural route.

This is what the little mailbox flags are for, to tell the mail carrier there's something to collect. Old news to most people I'm sure, but it took a little while for this to sink in when we first arrived. So, I'm dense...

The pick-up is great when you know what the postage is i.e. for ordinary letters but they have moved to a size/weight combination charging system here so for anything bigger it's safer to go to the post office.

I'm still not sure why mail seems to take an age to get here from the UK, when it goes from here to to the UK in seemingly no time at all... Must be differences in customs or something.