Recycle Your Car Seat In Seattle

When it was time for us to recycle a car seat here in Seattle, we found it especially tough. Neither the fire department nor the police were willing to take it, and all we could find on the web was a single collection event a few years ago at IKEA. Not willing to just trash the seat, we kept searching for a better option.

Fortunately, I ran across the Washington State Safety Restraint Coalition. A quick email to them led me to Goods For The Planet, a store in Seattle that not only sells green goods but also recycles a variety of different items. A quick trip to the store and $8 later, and the seat was gone.

Goods recycles many things for free, including laptops, monitors, and computers, and the rest costs somewhere between $1 and $20. The staff was friendly and quick with the transaction. They're centrally located on Dexter Avenue.

My Office Door Made It On "There I Fixed It"

The door to my office doesn't want to stay open. It's as if the building leans slightly, causing the door to close ever so slowly.

With the help of a colleague, I rigged up something to keep it open. And, apparently There I Fixed It found it funny enough to post.

see more There I Fixed It

Costco vs. Amazon: Who Has The Best Deals?

As both a Costco and an Amazon Prime member, I've been wondering who has the best deals on the stuff we regularly buy. Costco is well-known for its bulk sizing and Kirkland-brand private label products, while Amazon has Prime 2-day shipping and multi-unit, brand-name offers at prices that often undercut what you can get at physical stores.

I went to Costco yesterday and inventoried the stuff we usually buy.

Glide floss, 6 count	$12.99
Pacific Natural Foods Chicken Broth, 6 units of 32oz each	$9.79
Dave's Killer Bread, 2 loaves	$6.99
Kirkland Organic Peanut butter, 2 jars of 28oz each	$7.89
Fage 0% Greek Yogurt, 35.2 oz	$5.79
Cascade Dishwasher Gel, 125oz	$8.99
Kirkland Paper towels, 12 rolls of 80 sheets each	$14.99
Kleenex square boxes, 12 boxes of 85 sheets each	$15.49
Kirkland baby wipes, 900 total	$18.99
Ziplock quart freezer bags, 4 boxes of 54 each	$9.69
Ziplock gallon freezer bags, 4 boxes of 38 each	$10.79
Kirkland diapers, size 5, 168 total	$37.99
Kirkland toilet paper, 36 rolls at 425 sheets per roll (1912 sq ft)	$17.99
Laughing cow cheese, 4 wheels	$8.35
Total	$186.72

Next, I looked for comparables at Amazon. Here's what I did:

• I looked for the exact same brand and product. When it wasn't available, I went for something comparable.
• When the amount of product on Amazon differed from Costco, I went with a per-unit pricing (ounces for the yogurt, square feet for the toilet paper).
• I always went for Amazon Prime products.
• When the product wasn't available at Amazon, I priced it at AmazonFresh (as in the case of the yogurt).

Here's the comparison chart:

	Costco	Amazon	AmazonFresh	Notes
Glide floss, 6 count	$12.99	$20.28
Pacific Natural Foods Chicken Broth, 6 units of 32oz each	$9.79	$18.66
Dave's Killer Bread, 2 loaves	$6.99		$10.98
Kirkland Organic Peanut butter, 2 jars of 28oz each	$7.89	$8.82		Substituted O Organics
Fage 0% Greek Yogurt, 35.2 oz	$5.79		$9.18
Cascade Dishwasher Gel, 125oz	$8.99	$12.49
Kirkland Paper towels, 12 rolls of 80 sheets each	$14.99	$22.15		Substituted Bounty
Kleenex square boxes, 12 boxes of 85 sheets each	$15.49	$28.79
Kirkland baby wipes, 900 total	$18.99	$25.00		Substituted Earth's Best
Ziplock quart freezer bags, 4 boxes of 54 each	$9.69	$16.49
Ziplock gallon freezer bags, 4 boxes of 38 each	$10.79	$26.94
Kirkland diapers, size 5, 168 total	$37.99	$41.28		Substituted Earth's Best
Kirkland toilet paper, 36 rolls at 425 sheets per roll (1912 sq ft)	$17.99	$31.39		Substituted Cottonelle
Laughing cow cheese, 4 wheels	$8.35		$19.56
Total	$186.72	$292.01

As you can see, Amazon comes out to over a 50% premium to Costco. In fact, I found not one product that was cheaper via Amazon. Add to that the $79 Prime membership versus the $50 Costco membership, and the disparity grows.

Am I going to give up Amazon Prime? Nope. Amazon has plenty of stuff that Costco doesn't have, and at good prices compared to traditional retailers. But for many things, Costco's combination of private-label products and bulk sizing yields way lower prices. So, I'm sticking with both.

Amazon Prime Has Completely Changed My Shopping Habits

I remember Neil at work telling me about Prime. "Your recycle bin will be overflowing," he said, as he described the free 2-day shipping offer from Amazon and the number of items he purchased from it. At the time I didn't think paying $79 a year for the privilege of shipping was worth it. Then, last holiday season we had a bunch of presents to ship across the country, so we decided to give the free trial a shot. And we haven't looked back since.

Why is Amazon Prime such a hit? Two reasons:

Shipping speed

When I need something, I can categorize that need in terms of time as follows:

• Right now!
• Today-ish
• Soon
• Sometime this month, maybe?
• Eventually, when I get around to it

Amazon Prime succeeds because it hits on all but the first bullet point. Need a whisk? Or some granola? How about some toilet bowl cleaner? If you need this stuff RIGHT NOW then Amazon Prime isn't for you. But if you can wait a day or two, then it's a great fit.

Prices

Amazon has some pretty competitive prices on a variety of goods. These are usually name-brand products in multi-packs (6 bags of granola, 4 packs of toothpaste) that come out to less than what you pay for a single unit at a retail store. Amazon doesn't ALWAYS have the best prices (nearly 7 bucks for Bon Ami?) and doesn't ship EVERYTHING as Prime. But its hit rate for us is a solid 70-80%.

Indeed my recycle bin is overflowing with cardboard boxes, Neil. Amazon's getting a fair amount of my coin these days. Prices and shipping speed together result in a convenient way to buy all but the most urgent of things.

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Henry Blodget Is A Whiner: The IPhone Is A Dream To Use

I just read Henry Blodget's first impressions of the iPhone, after he switched to it from his Blackberry. While it's good to hear that he's overall happy with the phone, I pretty much disagree on everything he thought was faulty with the phone. Perhaps I'm not as sensitive as he because I'm not cybernetically linked to my mobile device 24/7/365. Here's a quick run-down of my opinions based on his:

• Battery life. It's fine. Come on, it'll last you a day, and you plug it up at night. Turn off push may help. If you run out after 5 hours maybe you should spend a portion of those 5 hours doing something other than fiddling with a phone.
• Speed. It's fine. It's fast enough. Really, do you need blazing quad proc speed to check your twitter status updates?
• Setting up email. I got all 3 accounts (including Exchange) on my first try.
• Typing. Indeed it's great. I was worried about my ramp-up and speed but both are awesome. The autocorrect is about 90% accurate for me.
• Email. No syncing? What? When I delete a mail from my iPhone it's gone from my Inbox. Not sure what problem he is having.
• Orientation. A quick turn of the wrist fixes this when it happens. If it happens.
• Video. Awesome indeed.
• Popups. Yeah these can be annoying. I've been conditioned to dismiss them quickly. But I agree on this one.

I predict Henry will get used to some of these minor problems after a week or two. After installing and playing with some great apps, he'll wonder why he didn't switch earlier.

Advertising Experiment: Results

OK, so I more or less did the (work)-week advertising experiment. What did I learn?

• I perceive a lot of ads. Radio and TV are the main sources. Print is moderate. Some billboards. Backs of cars were a surprising blip (license plate frames, bumper stickers). I rarely perceive ads on the web.
• I see or hear a lot of the same ads over and over. Same time of day, same medium (drive into work, watch the evening news).
• Most of the ads were for things I don't buy or use. So it was easy to live by the "don't buy or use it if you see it advertised" rule. I took some exceptions near the end here, though: NBC advertised 30 rock and I was not about to go sit in another room while it was on.
• Once you pay attention to ads, you realize how many you are exposed to. You also realize how many you are likely to perceive subconsciously. It's one thing to be made aware of a product or service. It's another to be inundated by relentless messaging.

Could I take this experiment forward for longer than a week? No way. I would eventually be unable to buy or use more and more things I want or need to buy or use. The critical mass started to build near the end of my week (see 30 rock) so I'm glad I stopped when I did.

Any changes moving forward? I'm going to mute the TV more often and stop looking at billboards, that's for sure.

An Advertising Experiment

I'm going to try an experiment with advertising over the next week.

• I'm going to record every advertisement that I consciously perceive.
• I'm not going to purchase any product or service advertised in the list above.

Now, the caveats:

• I'm not going to stop purchasing or using products and services I'm already using. For example, if I see a Netflix ad, I won't cancel my Netflix subscription.
• I'm not going to count advertisements that I see at the place of business. A Shell station advertising Shell gas via its signage does not count.
• I'm going to focus on perceived advertisements. Yes, I realize that the subconscious plays a part, but I'm not going to count those ads. This will be especially true in the Internet ad space.
  

Why am I doing this? Two reasons: I want to see how many advertisements I perceive over the course of a week, and I want to see how it changes my habits, if at all. I'll post updates as I go.

Conversion Of An Email Junkie

I've always been a fan of mail. I get excited when the postperson arrives and drops off letters at my house. It's a surprise of sorts: what will I get today? Sure, some of it is junk, some of it I was expecting (like bills), but some is a true unexpected delivery of news, a letter, a card, or the like.

For a long time, I've felt the same way about email. I remember when I first got an email address (through a BBS, before the web), and found it way cool that my friends and I could leave messages for each other without picking up the phone or writing a letter. I would share my email address out, which would result in more people sending me email. More letters appeared in the virtual mailbox for me to open, as a result.

As I moved from BBSes to ISP-provided email to web-based email, my virtual mailbox became much more than a way to exchange messages with friends. E-retailers used it to help me track the status of my order. Newsletters sent me digests of information. And, yes, junk mail started pouring in from faceless people I'd never met.

For a while, I put up with it, as the ratio of letters-from-friends to all of this other stuff remained high. But slowly it waned. The spam piled up, the automatically-generated news and alerts piled up, and my email address became much less personal. The email I received was broadcast at people like me, but not actually penned to me.

Like many others I started trying out social tools like Facebook and Twitter. Slowly, I found myself spending more and more time reading up on what people were doing via these tools, as well as posting and sharing what I was up to. Daily status, pictures, interesting stuff on the web, news...these are all things I used to use email for. But now, here's this web site or app that has all of the people I would email on it anyway, where I can share this stuff. And, I get the side benefit of others being able to look over my shoulders and comment on what I'm doing, which email doesn't easily allow for.

With the arrival of our little one, there was a lot of electronic communication happening last week. The sharing of pictures, status, and congrats was done either over the phone (family, some friends) or on Facebook (family, friends, coworkers, acquaintances) or Twitter (friends, coworkers). Reflecting on that event and the amount of stuff that was communicated about it, email was used very little. I rarely checked my email address during the past week. I was instead primarily using Facebook and Twitter, and occasionally our parents blog.

Truth be told, we did send two emails: one from my wife's personal email account to friends & fam, and one from my work email to coworkers. But there was a fair bit of overlap between these two emails' recipients and the Facebook/Twitter crowd above. And the reason we sent those emails is because not everyone is on Facebook or Twitter. At least, not yet.

So, I think I'm done getting my kicks from email. Sure, I'll still have email addresses to communicate with those not on Facebook, Twitter, or whatever the next social app comes around may be. But as long as my email address resembles my post box (mostly junk, occasional news, once-in-a-blue-moon letter), it's just not doing it for me.

A New Parents Blog

In case you haven't heard, we're going to be parents soon! I've heard from many that they don't necessarily like to read about changing diapers among non-parenting posts, so we decided to start a parents blog to capture our adventures on that front: The Adventures of Baby P. I'll keep this blog baby- and kid-free as a result.

+1 To Procter & Gamble For Replacing My Broken Razor

About a week ago my Gillette razor broke while I was using it: a little piece holding the razor blade to the razor gave way, rendering the razor useless. I emailed this info to Gillette via their web site contact form. 2 days later, I get a response from them, apologizing and asking me to wait to get something in the mail. Yesterday, I open a package from Procter & Gamble that contained a new razor. Thanks, P&G!

Talk about great customer service: quick reply on the complaint, quick resolution of complaint. I'm a continued customer, and I'm blogging about my positive experience which propagates P&G's investment in resolving said complaint.

Take note, other companies. If only 1/2 of you were this responsive to your customers' needs.

The South Earns Low Scores On America's Health Index

Thanks to a tweet from my county's executive, I took a gander at the state-by-state rankings of overall health. Guess where most of the low rankings exist? That's right: the southeast.

Why? Check out some of what these states were penalized for: obesity, childhood poverty, low graduation rates from high school, high rates of the uninsured, and violent crime. And there are reasons why these issues are more prevalent in these states than others (that's a whole other post).

I know the incoming Obama administration has promised to focus its energies closer to home as compared to the prior administration. I do hope they take a hard look at what parts of the country are suffering the most, why they're the way they ware, and target some novel solutions to them. Blanket solutions like tax cuts for the middle class won't hurt, but we need something more specific to cure these states' ills.

Southern Vodka?

Not sure if this product came to be because the South was naughty or nice, but there's apparently Sweet Tea and Muscadine Vodka available from a place called Firefly Distillery. This could either be very good or very bad. I'm hoping for the former. Who wants to send me a bottle (I doubt I can get it in WA)?

Washington Mutual Can't Compete With Online Savings Rates

Funny story today: I went to make a deposit at my local WaMu (now WaMuChase or whatever they're calling it). While in line, the teller asked me if I'd ever done an "account review" for potentially better savings rates. I said no, and asked for more info. She was very vague, and said she didn't want to "say something that wasn't right" and that this other person "could sit down with me and tell me what the latest rates are".

"Surely you can give me a summary?" I ask.

"No, I really can't - but TL over here can sit down with you and give you all the info."

I know WaMu's published rates. The teller made it seem like they had something special going on. Having a few minutes to spare, I agreed to consult with this TL person.

After a few minutes, TL (who is another one of the tellers) comes by, asks for ID, finds my info, and then starts to ask me a few things.

"So, are you looking for something more liquid or something like a CD?" he asks.

"It depends," I reply. "What are your rates?"

"Well," he says, after typing on his keyboard for a few moments. "We have a CD rate around 2.75 right now."

"No thanks," I say, "I'm getting 4% savings online, through another bank. And that's liquid."

"Ah," he says. More typing. Then, "we have a long term CD at 5%. What about that?"

"No, I can beat that online, too."

"OK, then," he concludes. "That's all I can offer."

OK, so just to summarize, these people asked me to take extra time out of my day so they could quote me their published (and somewhat sad) savings and CD rates? Give me a break.

Look up yields for CDs and for savings/money market accounts, and then compare with what WaMu offers. Then laugh. Then wonder how they're going to attract retail customers now that their thrift business has evaporated, and the competition is getting tougher.

The Big Picture's 2008 In Review

The Big Picture has published an excellent compilation of photojournalists' work over the past year. I found the compilation to be a reminder of stories that were glossed over by some news sources, yet still reflect a significant part of the year's events.

Here's part 1, part 2, and part 3.

Seattle Drivers Lose All Driving Experience When Snow Hits

I have proof!

Signs There's A Snowstorm In Seattle

From the WSDOT Incidents report:

Seattle Area Incidents

Seattle Area - Thursday Dec 18, 2008 - 07:53:25

INCIDENT INFORMATION ( * = New Incident / Update )

Current Operator: Peter L. , WSDOT

I-5 NORTHBOUND AT MID BOEING FIELD MILTI DISABLED VEHICLE BLOCKING ROADWAY VERIFIED WITH CAMERA 6:11 AM

I-405 NORTHBOUND AT I-90 MULTI DISABLED VEHICLE BLOCKING ROADWAY VERIFIED WITH CAMERA 6:08 AM

SR-520 WESTBOUND AT MARYMOOR PARK MULTI DISABLED VEHICLE BLOCKING ROADWAY VERIFIED WITH CAMERA 5:41 AM


** SR-169 AT KUMMER BRIDGE CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

Foot Detox Pads Are A Bunch Of BS

I'm surprised I still see foot detox pads being sold in stores and online. These things claim to pull toxins from your feet when you wear them, and brown stains on them is the supposed proof.

There are plenty of sources that refute this product's claims. Yet people keep trying to support them; check out some of the comments on this post.

Steer clear of this snake oil. Unless you really like to spend money on expensive placebos.

Why Do Local News Shows Advertise?

I find it amusing to watch local news shows advertise themselves on TV. Sure, they need ratings like every other show. But come on, it's local news.

• It's all pretty much the same. There's hardly any qualitative difference in the reporting they do. A bit of national and local "hard" news at the beginning, followed by a softer or investigative story, weather, sports, and we're done. The same formula, everywhere.
  
• I don't care how many Doppler radars you have or how many times you do on location live reports. It doesn't make me want to watch one show over another.
• You can get all this news and more, on demand, with video and audio if you choose, on the Internet.

I love it when they tout themselves and their resources, with that triumphant music in the background, as they spring into action to report the latest stories. Lame.

Photo: No stabbing area

The employees at Pike Place Fish at the Market have it right: the employee health center, by definition, should NOT be a stabbing area.