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Showing posts from 2009

Jason Mraz: Highly Recommended

Always recommend Jason Mraz (an amazing song-writer and great guitarist) - but even more so with his final performance of the Gratitude Cafe tour in San Diego, CA, singing the following: ( In My Life, the Beatles ) - although some lyrics were missed, this was beautiful. But it also reminds me of one of his original songs, 1000 things. A slightly different sentiment but somehow quite similar, about how after all , there is one thing you remember: "But I stopped my counting when I saw your face Erasing memory, well I feel as though I've never seen a face before Until I saw your eyes And they're smiling back at me through my tears I've been counting all these years, oh Suddenly the thousand things I've seen were nothing more than dreams of Of you and me" --- Jason Mraz Mraz is often considered fairly egotistical in his writing - but with the renditions of these songs, I think he shows what a wonderful guitarist and lyricist he is.

Wine Garden: Recommended

Company: Wine Garden (West) - RECOMMENDED The Wine Garden is a wine-making company, similar yet different to make-your-own-wine businesses but with a twist. Most wine making companies offer juices or concentrates, where you have to purchase large quantities of juice and then wait (usually longer than 2 months) to receive your wine. The end result? It's up in the air. The Wine Garden is different. Yes, you still have to pre-order the wine but what is available is a wide variety of taste and price. Most of the juices offered all come from the Maipo valley in Chile, where their provider provides grapes directly from a first-press vineyard. While there are third-press juices like many companies, the treat is in the Wine Garden's first-press grapes, frozen grapes brought up right from various regions. Matt and Kevin, the owners, take special attention in the pressing and fermentation process. These first-press grapes can take upwards of six months but are stored in beautiful Hungar

WestJet Airlines: Recommended

Company: WestJet Airlines - RECOMMENDED There are effectively two major airlines in Canada: Air Canada and WestJet. Air Canada has gone from being a government subsidized airline to a private company, gobbling up other private airlines. WestJet is the latest of airline companies who provide competition with Air Canada for across the country, as well as some international flights. We recently flew to Vancouver from Ottawa. This was the first time we have flown on WestJet and based on our experience, we would definitely fly them again. On the way out, we had a brief stop-over in Calgary. The flight attendants on both flights were friendly, attentive and in the case of Michael, hilarious. Michael made a "show" of the emergency announcements and both times, got the attention of most passengers, to the point of making the other flight attendant laugh during her announcements. Only downside was on the flight back where the pilots did not welcome the passengers on-board (a small thi

NOT Recommended: Around the Home Handyman Services

Company: Around the Home Handyman - Norm (Norman) Richter - NOT RECOMMENDED This company is NOT Recommended. Here is a link to their BBB listing. Note that the Around the Home BBB rating is not an "A" as noted on other sites. (something I don't usually do here is comment on individual businesses or go on non-technical tirades. This is an exception to the rule - so if you're looking for tech comments, please ignore). On a personal note, I can appreciate people can't work for free these days. It's tough - but any company who offers a one-year guarantee for their work should not be charging for problems with existing work (new work, yes - but work that they originally did? Absolutely not). We have used Around the Home handyman services, owned by Norm Richter (also listed as Norman Richter) for two separate pieces of work: roofing and flooring. The roofing job was done extremely well and on budget. After the flooring work, we will never use them again. T