My friend Rod recently had a very bad experience with Kathryn MacGeraghty and her team at Blue Sage Realty in Westminster, CO:

We requested the lease be amended to give us 30 days after move-in to evaluate the A/C, the electricity, and see the upstairs bathroom for the first time. We had hoped that they wouldn’t think we were jerking them around, since we’d be unlikely to pay for moving expenses and then leave after 30 days just to be annoying, but 30 days would also give us time to make sure everything worked correctly. We thought this was a good solution for everyone.

Johleen sighed with annoyance and said she’d get her manager. The manager for Blue Sage Realty, Kathryn MacGeraghty, entered the room, already irritated, and asked what we wanted. I re-explained, politely, that it’d be nice to get 30 days to make sure that everything in the house worked. She curtly told us that was unheard of and “not going to happen.” “No,” she said.

I told her that she was being a bit rude, and she told me “Well, you’re free to leave.”

I asked her if this was how their company was going to be as landlords. If our roof was leaking and we called them, would they tell us we were being nitpicky? She told me, “I’m rejecting your application. Get out.”

You can read more about his experience at Blue Sage Realty of Westminster, CO at Yelp, and my blog also has an entry about Blue Sage Realty.

There are a few other listings for Blue Sage Realty on the interwebs– this is the one that he had the aforementioned bad experience at:

Blue Sage Realty, Inc
8471 Turnpike Dr, Suite 220
Westminster, CO 80031
(303) 432-9898 Office

http://www.bluesagerealtyinc.com

American Furniture Warehouse
8501 Grant Street
Denver, CO 80229
(303) 289-4100
Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Do you remember those old couches your Grandma had? You know, the big fluffy ones with tacky floral prints? You can find the exact same version of those at AFW! Although they do have a few things here and there that look okay, you’ll regret buying any of it. Most of the store is filled with tacky junk that only the most tasteless of tasteless people would ever buy. For instance– the big sectional couch with a cooler and cheap radio built in? YEE-HAW, LETS GITS SUM BUDWIZERZ AND TURNS ON TEH NASCARS CLETUS!!!

When I was younger and buying my first new furniture, I unfortunately made the choice to shop at AFW because it was what I could afford at the time. I purchased a sleeper couch, and a dining set with 6 chairs. By year two, two of the chairs had broken, and the couch was starting to get a little frumpy looking.

By year three the springs started poking out of the backrest on the couch so I regulated it to only being for my dog. It was so uncomfortable that I bought some super cheap used furniture to replace it (until I recently replaced them).

By year four all of the chairs were broken, and the table literally fell into pieces as I was moving it out of the house to replace it with a new one. Each time I moved the couch it cut up my hands because of all of the nails and staples hanging-out of the bottom (even when it was new).

I didn’t buy the cheapest stuff in the store, nor am I someone who requires a crane to get me out of bed (maybe just a small truck), so there is really no reason the furniture should have deteriorated so quickly. Had I known then what I know now, I would have saved my money and looked for quality used furniture.

One thing that really bothers me is that their target market tends to be those who drive big SUV’s and trucks with “Support The Troops” ribbons all over them. However, it’s very interesting how said customers patriotism comes-up short when it comes to buying furniture. In fact, most of the time you can see the shipping containers from China sitting in the empty lot next to this store. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a racist or anything by any means (in fact I’m very liberal), I’m just a concerned US citizen who worries about our reliance on cheap foreign goods. The only thing that seems to be “American” in the American Furniture Warehouse are the customers– certainly not the merchandise.

If you’re looking for shoddily built, cheap, horrible looking furniture from China that will fall apart quickly, American Furniture Warehouse is the place for you! Otherwise, don’t be a sucker and try to save your money for something better or buy some quality used furniture off of craigslist.

Viva Burrito
7550 Pecos St
Denver, CO 80221
(303) 412-7391
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I recently signed-up for a Yelp account and have finally been trying-out a hand at writing reviews about places I’ve eaten at. I don’t think I’m terribly skilled at writing reviews of food, but maybe with some practice I’ll get better at it. That said, here is my review of Viva Burrito, a somewhat unknown national chain with locations across the Denver, CO metro area.

Being that I live in a fairly unsavory part of the metro area, I’ve made it a point to try everything in my neighborhood in hopes of finding some gems (or at least places I didn’t have to go out of my way to eat at). Viva Burrito has been one of the better experiences.

Generally speaking you get what you pay for at Viva Burrito– the beef is super greasy, the bacon is not bacon, but merely crisply fried ham, and I’ve had a few items that I didn’t want to know details about. After trying several things out on the menu, the things I can recommend are:

- Rolled tacos. Crunchy and super greasy, but pretty good.
- Beef tacos. See above.
- Chicken burritos. The chicken tastes pretty plain, but has some sort of spicy red sauce which is pretty good.
- Breakfast burritos. I’m partial to the ham ones, though the “bacon” ones are good sometimes too.

If I liked tomatoes the nachos would be pretty good. Essentially they contains some pico de gallo, shredded cheese, and chips. I’d also highly recommend asking for the green salsa instead of the red. The red stuff is pretty watery and not really hot or flavorful. The green at least has flavor.

Oh, and I’ve never eaten inside. I would highly recommend being fluent in Spanish if you decide to try it.

If you’re looking for something other than Taco Bell at 2 AM, I would highly recommend getting a breakfast burrito here. Otherwise you’re not missing much, but it’s nice to know it’s there in a pinch. The food can be hit or miss, but is usually decent considering that it’s fast food and inexpensive. It is much more authentic than most any other similar place.

If you’re from Highlands Ranch and easily spooked by eating somewhere outside of Applebee’s or being outside of neighborhoods which might have at least a little character, you should probably never try it. In fact you’re too boring to even be on the internet researching restaurants– why are you still reading this?

Other reviews of Viva Burrito:

• Westword
• CitySearch

I came across an article today on how to keep babies and annoying kids in places they don’t belong to go somewhere else. Being young and unmarried with a dog that I only take to places where she’s invited, I have to say I find myself being annoyed way too often by kids with behavioral issues/bad parents, or parents taking babies to places where they don’t belong (ie.. bars after 8 PM). I suppose the article is a little tongue-in-cheek, but I’m sure it works:

Long ago, I learned a single sentence that sends obnoxious juniors away from me as fast as their little legs will carry them. Here it is:

Lean over to the child’s watcher and, as politely as you possibly can, just say, “According to the terms of my parole, I’m not really supposed to be this close to children”. Mom, Dad, or whoever they pawned off their hell-spawn onto will immediately grab the little devil and exit your presence!! I’ve done this about a dozen times and it always works. When you speak the magic words, say them as normally and friendly as you can muster and the resulting freak-out effect will be even greater.

Read more at thisisbyus.

One of several fun genetic traits I’ve inherited is sinus problems. I grew-up with many ear infection related problems, and still to this day have frequent sinus problems and allergies. My mom has actually had one of the sinus surgeries performed to help with sinus problems, and I think I’m getting closer and closer to going down that path myself as my occurance of getting sinus infections is ever increasing.

Given my high frequency of sinus infections, I’ve personally found a pretty good regiment for handling the various symptoms associated with them. I’m not a doctor by any means, so you might want to run this by your doctor for your particular case. Anyhow, here’s what I use to manage the symptoms of short term sinus infections:

• Sudafed 24 Hour – You’ll probably have to ask your pharmacist for them since they are usually behind the counter, but they do actually last 23-24 hours. Helps keep your sinuses from getting too congested, and I have never noticed them making me drowsy. You’ll want to read all of the precautions as this medication is not for everyone, and may even keep you up.
• Ibuprofen – Ibuprofen works well any time you need to reduce swelling and pain. This helps calm down irritated sinuses, and also keeps your sore throat at bay. If you use a decongestant other than the aforementioned Sudafed 24 Hour, make sure it doesn’t already provide ibuprofen as many do.
• Lots of hot tea – Keeping hydrated is important to make sure the mucus stays thin and doesn’t keep building-up in your sinuses. Hot liquids are supposed to be the best thing for this purpose, and I’ve read that you should avoid cold things (ice cream, chilled beverages, etc). It will also make your sinus infection worse if you don’t keep hydrated, so if you don’t like hot tea, be sure to drink plenty of water or other liquid, and consume liquid-rich food items like soup which are low in sodium and don’t contain MSG.

As always, your mileage may vary, but I thought I’d post what seems to work well for me. Keep in mind this will only help with symptoms– you need to manage a sinus infection with your doctor with antibiotics and other similar treatments to actually end the infection.

Do you have any other suggestions on how to keep the symptoms from a sinus infection at bay?

Rather than buying an “all-in-one” system or spending tons of money on my home entertainment system, I’ve piece mealed a very modest HDTV with 6.1 Surround Sound system over the years. I’ve always been an electronics and audio nerd, and I enjoy building things like this from scratch, attemping to match speakers which will likely sound better with each other, and in general enjoy putting together stuff like that while finding items that are good quality for the money.

However, if there is one thing I’ve noticed over the years, it’s that stores /really/ mark-up cables– everything from network cables, to HDMI cables for HDTV’s. There isn’t much to be made on mark-up on TV’s (especially HDTV’s), so the big stores make-up for it through installation, cables, warranties, etc. Also, the whole Monster Cable thing has been debunked /many/ times. Unless you have an application where you are sending a signal 50-100 feet, pretty much any cable will do. Not to mention, Monster Cable is a bunch of litigious bastards.

You can find good quality cables for much less than even the store brand stuff at your local big-box store just by shopping around a little. Although I have mostly used Parts Express in the past for odds and ends, here are some places I’ve came across which will save you a lot of money if you order cables from them, rather than waste money on the marketing of crap like Monster Cable, as well as avoid the markup of even store brand cables:

• Parts Express
• NewEgg
• MonoPrice
• Blue Jeans Cable
• Cable Wholesale
• eHDMI
• Cables For Less
• Markertek

Places that I would avoid like the plague when buying cables:

• Best Buy
• Circuit City
• Radio Shack
• add yours in the comments!

Seth Stevenson at Slate shows you how to cut through the marketing hype and buy a Mattress:

s there a more maddening industry? They confuse us with silly product names (the Sealy Posturepedic Crown Jewel Fletcher Ultra Plush Pillowtop or the Sealy Posturepedic Crown Jewel Brookmere Plush?). They flummox us with bogus science (“pocketed coils”? “Microtek foundations”? “Fiberlux”?). And they weigh us down with useless features (silk damask ticking?). It’s like buying a used car, and almost as expensive—I’ve seen mattresses going for $7,000. What’s a consumer to do?

Link To Article

There is definately a lot of good information in here, including a few things I’ve adapted. For one I have a European style platform bed and have ditched the box springs. I also found myself nodding about the mattress being too thick, and eventually I’d like to replace mine with one that is much thinner. Lastly, I bought an inexpensive “memory foam” topper which really took the comfort level of my bed to the next level. I’ll elaborate on the topper in a future review (of which I already have a draft of).

Given that I’m a technical writer myself, I found a blog entry about how to write good tutorials to be fairly interesting. Here is an example excerpt from the article

A quality tutorial requires planning and hours of work… if you wrote a tutorial in 10 minutes, then I can guarantee you that it’s useless no matter what your buddies tell you. Now, let’s have a reality check shall we?

You can read more about it here.

Anyone who’s accumulated any amount of money in their lifetime will likely tell you that you can’t make money by spending it all the time, and likely lives well beneath their means. One of the ways to save money (and who doesn’t like to save money?) is to avoid ridiculous fees and charges that corporate America likes to shove down our throats, and a gallery at CNN identifies 35 of these fees and shows you how to avoid them.

Now that Christmas is over, many people are out taking advantage of the many deals that retailers are offering. This reminded me of a link I came across earlier this year which offered advice on the best time to buy many products. Some of the items include:

• Airplane Tickets
• Appliances
• Cars
• Clothing
• .. and many more

Link to Article