Linux (Fedora 10) Sucks!

<--- GEEK ALERT--->

I have been using various forms of Red Hat Linux since 1998. I was primarily using Linux for web development, and did some amazing things with it. In the past I have let it run for more than three months, and only shut it down when I noticed I hadn't used it for weeks. Another time to support development on my computer and hosting on a distant system, I disconnected it from the network (10base2 and dial-up back then) and set up the DNS server to return itself as the response to any request for an address. Worked like a champ.

Over the years I have had trouble keeping up to date with the current version. Back in 2002 or 2003, I burned out the IDE controller trying to install Red Hat 9. Went without Linux for a couple years. My latest system running Linux, an old Micron with a 9GB SCSI drive and 384MB of memory and a CD drive, started at Fedora Core 6 using CDs. I had managed to use the Internet to nurse it through updates to Fedora 7, 8, and 9. Each one presented challenges, but was surmountable. Then came Fedora 10.

Back on January 2, 2009, I decided it was time to update to Fedora 10. I started the process just like the previous updates. I happened to notice that Fedora 10 was not available on CD, but only DVD [sic - see comment 1 below]. As was true with the previous updates (notice I don't call them upgrades) it took many hours. After it tried to reboot, it came up eventually during the boot with the meaningless gibberish message:

Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while ...
Volume group "VolGroup00" not found
Unable to access resume devie (/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01)
mount: error mounting /dev/root on /sysroot as ext3: No such file or directory
scsi target2:0:0: FAST-20 WIDE SCSI 40.0 MB/s ST (50 ns, offset 8)
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] 17783204 512-byte hardware sectors (9105 MB)
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cashe: enabled, read cache: enabled, supports DPO and FUA
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] 17783204 512-byte hardware sectors (9105 MB)
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cashe: enabled, read cache: enabled, supports DPO and FUA
sdb: sdb1 sdb2
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0

Since the computer only had a CD and Fedora 10 was only available on DVD, I quickly tired of this update game and shut it down intending to throw the computer away.

Finally, last weekend on Saturday, 3/22/2009, I decided to checkout CheapBytes.com where I have bought Linux media for a long time. I was surprised to find they now had Fedora 10 on CD as well as DVD. I ordered both versions and they arrived yesterday. I decided I would take a old IBM E series 580, with a DVD reader and CD burner, but only a 9GB hard drive. I had a couple 40GBs laying around and put one of them in the IBM. I started the install process on the Micron using the install CDs and on the IBM using the DVD. On both, I must admit that the media from CheapBytes.com worked great and was faultless.

On the Micron using the CDs, again after hours installing the system rebooted and guess what. The reboot resulted in the same error message above. Darn all that time and electricity wasted on this attempt to update!

On the IBM using the DVD the system booted to the DVD and started the install by asking the standard questions. Eventually it came up to configuring the hard drive. Each time, and there were many attemps even with a different drive, the install would fail on the IBM with the meaningless gibberish message:

anaconda 11.4.1.62 exception report
Traceback (most recent call first):
File "/usr/lib/anaconda/lvm.py", line 248, in vgcreate
raise VGCreateError(vgname, PESize, nodes)
File "/usr/lib/anaconda/fsset.py", line 2506, in setupDevice
entry.device.setupDevice(chroot)
File "/usr/lib/anaconda/packages.py", line 169, in turnOnFilesystems

anaconda.id.fsset.createLogicaVolumes(anaconda.rootPath
File "/usr/lib/anaconda/dispatch.py", line 204, moveStep
rc = stepFunc(self.anaconda)
File "/usr/lib/anaconda/dispatch.py", line 127, in gotoNext
self.moveStep()
File "/usr/lib/anaconda/text.py", line 741, in run
anaconda.dispatch.gotoNext()
File "/usr/lib/anaconda", line955, in
anaconda.intf.run(anaconda)
VGCreateError: vgcreate failed creating vg "VolGroup00" (PESize=32768kB) on
PVs: /dev/sda3
Log:
Running... ['lvm', 'vgcreate', '-v', '-An', '-s', '32768k', 'VolGroup00', '/dev/sda3']

I even put the disk in a external enclosure and deleted the partitions on the drive which I believe came out of a Dell Desktop. All to no avail.

Finally, on a whim I thought I would stick an old Windows 98 install disk in and see if it would install. Sure enough, after answering more questions than a typical 3-year old has, it formatted the hard drive and installed. Since I blew past the driver searches by telling it to skip each file it was looking for, it's not really functional, but it didn't seem to have any problems with the hard drive like Fedora 10 did. It should be embarrassing to the Linux community, and Red Hat in particular that a ten (10) year old OS is robust enough to deal with installing on this hardware.

This experience along with the history of Linux might explain the Slashdot story back on March 25, 2009 entitled "Red Hat CEO Questions Relevance of Desktop Linux". The slashdot story was:

"Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst questioned the relevance of Linux on the desktop, citing several financial and interoperability hurdles to business adoption at a panel on end-users and Linux last night at the OSBC. 'First of all, I don't know how to make money on it,'Whitehurst said, adding that he was uncertain how relevant the desktop itself will be in five years given advances in cloud-based and smartphone computing, as well as VDI. 'The concept of a desktop is kind of ridiculous in this day and age. I'd rather think about skating to where the puck is going to be than where it is now.' Despite increasing awareness that desktop Linux is ready for widespread mainstream adoption, fellow panelists questioned the practicality of switching to Linux, noting that even some Linux developers prefer Macs to Linux. 'There's a desire [to use desktop Linux],' one panelist said, 'but practicality sets in. There are significant barriers to switching.'"

Discuss this story.
Anyone have any comments, other than Windows 98 is from the same era as the hardware and thus should support it.  I might go back to CheapBytes.com and get the CD version of Fedora 9 and try to install it on both systems.

I've not been a big fan of Microsoft over the years, primarily for their attitude that they know what you want more than you do and force things on you. However, I now find myself with:

* Gateway desktop w/ Vista with 8GB of memory 750 GB hard drive
* Homebuilt desktop w/ XP Pro 2 GB of memory 320 GB hard drive (see Seagate Story below)
* HP desktop w/ XP Home 1 GB of memory 80 GB hard drive
* Dell Dimension desktop w/ XP Home 1 GB of memory 250 GB hard drive
* Dell Inspiron laptop w/ XP Home 1.256 GB of memory 160 GB hard drive
* Compaq laptop w/ Win 98SE
* Homebuilt desktop w/ Win 98 64 MB of memory 6 GB hard drive

Seagate Support Services [sic] Are Totally Incompetent

I can't believe over all this time, I've not properly uploaded my thoughts to this blog even though I wrote them up and saved them on my computer. Here's another example. The journal below documents an experience with a "high-tech" company. Though it's not given below, the story eventually did end without much help from Seagate. They now leave me alone and I try to buy Western Digital drives rather than Seaget or Maxtor (owned by Seagate).

May 9, 2007 - I buy a Seagate ST3320620AS 320GB SATA Hard Disc from Newegg.com for $79.99 with free shipping.

May 19, 2007 - I install the drive with no problems using the Seagate DiscWizard tool which is their version of the Acronis software to clone my disk. The drive is replacing the system disk on my primary computer.

Jan 18, 2008 - The computer was left on overnight to run a Norton Internet Security full system scan.

Jan 19, 2008 - Awake to find a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) telling me that Norton GoBack was having problems with insufficient disk space. Eventually found that yes in deed, the Seagate ST3320620AS 320GB SATA primary hard drive had failed. I owned the Seagate ST3320620AS 320GB SATA 246 days, 35.1 Weeks, 9 Months or 0.68 years or a total of 5904 hours. I estimate, based on my typical usage including the holidays was 1019 hours. I begin using my laptop as my primary computer.

Jan 22-30, 2008 - I contact Seagate Data Recovery Services (SDRS). I vacillate on how to deal with the RMA saying ship it to Mcallen, TX and SDRS saying ship it to Santa Clara. I explain until I am blue in the face, I need everything off the drive so that it is bootable. Eventually the SDRS salesman says "Just send the drive to us and we'll take care of it", which convinces me to send it to Santa Clara, CA. I go online and get RMA 1000611097. The fact that Seagate has no means in their system to send a failed drive to SDRS and have the physical hard disc replaced under warranty was my first indication I was dealing with bureaucratic incompetent entity.

Jan 30, 2008 - Under RMA 1000611097, I send the drive to Santa Clara, CA using UPS 2-day air which cost me $69.

Feb 5-7, 2008 - I receive word from SDRS that yes the drive has failed. They say that the data can be recovered; it will take 2-3 weeks and cost approximately $700 or more under the basic data recovery service. I am then informed that all they can recover is the data, and they can not fully restore the drive and make it bootable because of Microsoft licensing issues. This is strange since on May 19, 2007 I had used their software to clone my original disc. I come to the conclusion that SDRS serves no service to mankind other than to frustrate and lie to their customers. When I tell SDRS I do not want them to do anything to my drive and ask them to return it to me, they tell me it will cost $15 for them to ship my drive back. My reply is: “I will pay your money grubbing incompetent company's bloodsucking $15 tomorrow from work. The costs of this useless waste of money and time have now exceeded the original cost of the brand new disk. Let your corporate management know that the service I have received in this very frustrating time has created a lifelong vehement enemy of your company only rivaled and equaled by my opinion of Microsoft. I shall share my opinion on this experience with anyone who will listen throughout the rest of my professional career.

Have a nice day!”

Feb 12, 2008 - I buy another ST3320620AS from Newegg.com for the same price of $79.99.

Feb 15, 2008 - I try to use the Seagate web site kludge to get another RMA, this time with the pre-paid return option. The RMA number is 1000646443. I then find out that for some reason, this is not the pre-paid option but the basic option that they will only send me a new drive after I send them the bad disc. I call customer service to explain the problem. They are having “computer problems” and they can’t fix it right then, but they take my credit card information and promise the matter will be taken care of when the system becomes available and I will receive confirmation then. I never hear anything from Seagate again until June 6, 2008.

Feb 26-Mar 3 - I find a local computer repair service that comes to my house picks up my computer replaces the Seagate disc with the new one I bought from Newegg.com on February 12, 2008. The entire disc is restored with no data lost and is bootable all for $120. After returning the fully functional computer and the failed drive, we install the failed drive in an external USB enclosure. Powering the drive on then off and back on again, we’re able to read and write to failed drive. It was nothing more than a sticky drive that Seagate had wanted to charge me $700+ to partially copy the data off.

Jun 6, 2008 - I finally recover from the frustrations of dealing with Seagate’s “Customer Service [sic]” incompetence, I decide to return the drive for warranty service. Knowing that the Seagate web site is frustrating I call Seagate Customer Service [sic] and explain that I want the $19.99 Advanced Replacement service where they send me the replacement. first The RMA number is 1000920148.

Jun 9-21, 2008 - I receive the replacement disc (June 13) and return the failed disc via the prepaid UPS shipping package that was included with the replacement disc. The failed disc is sent via UPS on June 21 and received at Seagate’s Mcallen, TX facility on June 25, 2008 at 12:16 PM. The tracking number was 1Z830E7V9051423442. Matter closed you would think.

July 11, 2008 - I receive two email messages from Seagate. One message is an acknowledgment for receipt of the failed drive. The second message (sent June 10) from Seagate E-mail Support has the subject: “Seagate Advanced Replacement Reminder [Incident: 080710-001485]” informing me that it is approaching the 30 day period and if they do not receive the failed hard disc before that time they will charge my credit card $179.20 + Taxes. My reply, also sent to Seagate Investor Relations (stx@seagate.com) and the SDRS salesman, was: “I have no idea why Seagate appears incapable of proper record keeping. There were three RMAs, two of which were canceled. The only active RMA (1000920148) was the one I returned the drive under using Seagate's pre-paid UPS packaging. It appears that through poor record keeping receipt of that drive was placed against RMA 1000611097 by Seagate receiving.

I have returned the hard drive covered under this RMA using the packaging Seagate supplied with the UPS charge pre-paid. The text portion of the receipt from Seagate for the UPS package is given below. You are not to charge my credit card any additional money. Should you charge my credit card, I will notify the credit card company that you have knowingly incorrectly charged my credit card. I will then notify the Colorado Attorney Generals Office of your poor business practices and ask them to investigate on the behalf of the people of Colorado.. I demand positive acknowledgment from Seagate on the closure of this matter.

The incompetency and anti-customer behavior I have seen in dealing with Seagate "Customer Service" is astounding and almost breathtaking.”

I then went to work, at a large Defense Contractor in the Denver area, and told five people (plus those not involved in the conversation, but overhearing it) in a discussion forum what had happened. I then shared the messages above, (July 11 and February 7) which contain my replies, thus continuing to fulfill my promise of February 7. The universal response was “what happened to Seagate they used to be just a good company”.

July 12, 2008 - I awake to find yet another email message from Seagate informing me that “Your order has shipped!” It is amazing Seagate manages to stay in business. I have no idea why they are sending me another ST3320620AS hard disc, if they are truly ignorant enough to do so. The tracking number is 1Z830E7V4245100704. I haven’t decided what I should do with the additional hard disc; keep it, or just refuse to receive it. I have however, concluded that mankind must be protected from such incompetence and that I need to warn the world by posting this to my Blog!

I remain astounded, breathless and amazed that Seagate is actually capable of staying in business.

Our Anniversary Outback Restuarant Experience

Below is the comment I left on the Outback website, on July 15, 2007. If you read any of this, be sure to read the bottom to find out how the local owner/manager responded. Had I thought of it, I should have posted this to the blog way back then.

+-------- Message on Outback Corporate Web Site --------+

Last night my wife and I ate at the Bellevue, Nebraska Outback because today (July 15th) is our 35th Anniversary and I have to go out of town at noon. I want to thank outback for turning our Anniversary dinner into a nightmare.

We arrived and were seated immediately. We ordered our meal of two Prime Ribs (16oz and 8oz) cooked medium well with drinks and Bloomin Onion appetizer. The drinks and Bloomin Onion arrived within a reasonable time. After tiring of the Bloomin Onion, I asked our waitress where our salads were. She said she didn't remember ordering our salads and that she would check whether she had placed our orders for salads. She came back a few minutes later and said she could not find our order anywhere and needed to re-take our order. We repeated our order for a 16 oz and 8 oz Prime Rib, medium well done and salads. Our salads arrived and then eventually the Prime Rib arrived cooked rare. My wife and I looked at each other and just shrugged. We ate as much as we could and decided to take the Prime Rib home and finish cooking it. The next time the waitress came by, we asked to get take out boxes for our meals and that the complimentary dessert for our anniversary be to-go. She asked if everything had been Okay, and I explained the issue with the under cooked Prime Rib. She apparently went and told the manager who came to our table. We explained how things had gone and he left to check on what had happened. Meanwhile two boxes and a bowl of ice cream covered in chocolate syrup with whipped cream and a cherry arrived. We explained that the dessert was supposed to be to-go and the waitress went back to make it to-go. My wife took several bites of the ice cream and commented on how good the chocolate tasted. At that point the manager arrived with a complimentary bottle of wine, a coupon for $45 off on our next visit and an offer to pay for the order minus the alcohol, which I considered a very generous offer. Finally the ice cream to-go arrived, we finished paying our part of the bill and we left with our boxes, ice cream, wine and coupon in hand. We get home and my wife decides to try some of the ice cream. That is when she found that ice cream didn't have any chocolate syrup, just vanilla ice cream with whip cream and a cherry. She just threw it in the freezer in disgust.

I find that we now have a $45 coupon that I don't know who I dislike enough to give it to. Obviously, neither my wife nor I intend to go back, but maybe sometime in the future when I confuse Outback with LoneStar and can't remember which one gave us "the anniversary experience" we might come back, but by then the coupon will be long lost. This is not how we had intended to spend our 35th anniversary.

+-------- Manager's Ultimate Response --------+

I went out of town that afternoon and was gone for most of the week. When I got home Toni (Martha) said the Bellevue Outback owner had called and wanted to talk to me. When I called him he apologized profusely and said that he was married too and understood the situation. Later we received a box of very expensive cookies and a debit card with $100 on it. We did go back to the Bellevue Outback and the experience was delightful.

Added Noblethoughts to janoble Twitter

I have just added the Noblethoughts blog to twitter using TwitterFeed. We'll see soon whether it works.

Having second thoughts on how to deal with CheapOair.com. I will probably just take it as a life's lesson that cost me $300 and will cost CheapOair.com and Travelzoo.com any business I might have had or might influence with others. Still haven't decided what I'll do. My problem is that I've used Travelocity.com and Expedia.com many times and never had them ignore my request for a particular time of day. In fact if I remember their services correctly, if they can't find a matching flight they tell you, they don't just list flights that are 12 hours later.

CheapOair.com's Initial Response

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Last Day in Albuquerque and Trip Home

This morning I awoke happy to find a working 4-cup coffee pot at the Hawthorn Suites. Turned the cold water on in the wet bar and the spout fell off. Oh well, the bathroom sink works fine so made coffee, fixed the wet bar spout and read email.

Continue to have trouble Hotsyncing my Sprint Treo-755P smartphone with my laptop. This is a long existing problem that Sprint has been unable to help with. It hangs while Hotsyncing media, pictures and video. Removed the "Team 2.0GB miniSD card" and the Hotsync went fine so I suspect the SD card is bad.

These are the sort of things I do while staying in a hotel before Toni (Martha) wakes up. I will sit for hours playing on the computer.

While we were leaving the hotel, I noticed someone on the elevator who was wearing a "Witchcraft" cap. I asked if he had flown on the B-24 Liberator now known as "Witchcraft" and he said yes. He said he had flown in Texas and I told him I had flown in Omaha. What are the odds that two people would meet in Albuquerque on an elevator who had flown this most historic of aircraft owned by the Collins Foundation?

Well, it worked like a charm, almost like someone planned it all out. Checked the car in at Avis and it was $40 less than their estimate. Got to the airport and checked in at United smoothly without much of a wait. Went through security remarkably quickly given how long the line was. The plane left Albuquerque about 10 minutes late, but arrived roughly on time. Got a $9 AAA discount at the car park and drove home without incident. We're home safe.

Our Day at the Albuquerque National Hispanic Cultural Center

What a wonderful, beautiful and huge place! We spent the day from 10:45 to 4:30 at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The NHCC is located at 1701 4th St SW, Albuquerque, NM 87102 (Ph: 505-246-2261 FAX: 505-246-2613). Their website is: NHCC. We even had lunch there which was some of the best mexican buffet I've ever had. Toni (Martha) spent most of the time until 1:00PM researching the Mares family. She didn't find much new information but found the staff there eager to help in the research. We found one of the staff was even married to a Mares. They also suggested she try going to the Special Collections Library, located at 423 Central Ave NE, Albuquerque, NM (404-848-1376 SpecialCollections@cabq.gov) Their web site is at Special Collections Library.

At 2:00 PM after eating lunch we went to the Performing Arts Center in the NHCC to listen to lecture by Louis Serna and Ema Moya. The lecture was intended to explain the history of the Cryptic Jews of New Mexico and more pertinent to Toni (Martha), Southern Colorado. The format was each speaker was given 20 minutes to explain their portion of the history of the Spanish people of New Mexico. Louis started by going back to Mesopotamian times and due to time constraints quickly covering the 40,000 years since then to illustrate how all the peoples of the world could be traced back to Mesopotamia. Ema then explained the relationship of all the Hispanic names and their role in surviving what they called the Mexican Inquisition which was a derivative of the Spanish Inquisition. We found the Rodriguez family lineage had suffered the most severe retribution of all the families due to the Inquisition. Ema explained why she did not care for the current use of the term "Cryptic Jew" since the expression "Cryptic Jew" was first coined in 1838 to describe the conversion of Jews to Islam under the same threats and intimidation used during the Christian Spanish Inquisition. After the lecture we spoke with both Louis and Ema. Both were delightful to talk to one on one. Toni (Martha) had been emailing with Louis for some time and both were delighted to finally meet. I don't know what it is about me, but after the meeting I voluntarily picked up some copies of two papers that Ema had prepared for the meeting and ended up mobbed and handing out papers for 10 minutes. After the discussions following the meeting I again ended up packing up Ema's pictures and documents and carrying them to her car. This ended up being a unique and treasured experience. Some of Ema's material showed a Albuquerque Mares cemetery stone with Mares and a star of David. Ema explained that there had only been six Mares brothers originally and that she to was related to the Mares family herself. Both Toni (Martha) and I found we would love to spend much more time with Ema as she has so much experience to share.

In just the nick of time we managed to reach "Old Town" to buy gifts for our granddaughters. We found we had plenty of time since typically the New Mexican practice is to close on their own time. Last night Alexis had told us she wanted a Indian feather hat which we interpreted as a Indian Headress. As we drove through the Old Town Square I dropped off Toni (Martha) expecting to circle until she bought what we needed. Instead on my first trip around the square I found a parking place directly in front of the San Felipe de Neri church built in 1706 (see pictures). After that Toni (Martha) and I walked the square buying gifts and a book on Cryptic Jews. For the girls we bought a Indian Headdress, a drum, a Tom-Tom drum and two small dream catchers. Hopefully the girls can keep the dream catchers throughout their long lives and have only good dreams involving their grandmother and grandfather. We also bought Green Chili stew packages and Green Chili peanut brittle. If you haven't already noticed, we love Green Chili.


After shopping, we had an early dinner at the Church Street Cafe behind the San Felipe de Neri church. Toni (Martha) had sopapillas and I had Green Chili Chicken soup and a Chef Salad. I'm catching a theme here involving Green Chili. We left Old Town after dinner to return to the hotel and post this blog.

Stay at Hawthorn Suites - Albuquerque, NM

We booked our hotel through Hotels.com again. My main search criteria was breakfast and in Albuquerque. The price seemed more than fair at the Hawthorn Inn & Suites and it was not too far from either the airport or the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the reason for our visit. The complimentary wireless access played a part in the decision too. According to our reservation with the hotel we had made them through Expedia so they must be related to hotels.com somehow.

To explain my state of mind on our arrival I went through Travelzoo.com to arrange our flight. I chose Friday "morning" for Denver departure and Sunday afternoon for our Albuquerque departure. One of the recommended sites was CheapOair.com. The price they quoted was $157 per person round-trip with a $20 total discount to "purchase now". No mention of the additional fees. I booked them immediately. We got to the airport yesterday at 7:30AM and the Frontier check-in kiosk informed me it was too early to check-in for our flight. We spoke to someone at the counter and they informed us our scheduled flight was not until 9:23PM!!! I checked and sure enough the flight from Denver was 9:23PM and the tickets were Economy so to change the flight cost an additional $150 per person. Frontier changed us to a 11:42AM flight for the extra $300, waived the $15 checked bag fee and we waited till then. Somehow our departure dates and destination were transferred from Travelzoo.com to CheapOair.com, but our time-of-day preference was not, or apparently there was no notice that it was being ignored. I intend to pursue this matter with both Travelzoo.com and CheapOair.com and I'll comment on their response. I'm expecting to get to the Albuquerque airport tomorrow and find that Frontier canceling our original flight caused our E-ticket with United for the return flight to be canceled. So far the score is: Frontier +15, Travelzoo.com -150, CheapOair.com -150.

Now on to the hotel ...

We arrived at 2:00PM knowing the room would not be available till 3:00PM, but we had nothing else to do until then. The person at the front desk called house keeping and found us a room on the third floor of four floors. As we've always experienced the people of New Mexico and Albuquerque are really friendly and easy going. It's an intentional slow pace here. We got to the room to find the promised very comfortable king size bed with a wet bar, fridge, and microwave. Overall the room appears pretty clean. The room has all the normal accoutrements including a hair dryer, hand along with bath soap and body lotion. The room also has a regular ironing board and iron. The minor downside was that we quickly learned the light switch in the bathroom turns on the fan which could wake the dead from the noise. We also found the light on one side of the bed and the florescent light over the wet bar don't work.

We had dinner at the Cervantes restaurant at the corner of the Gibson and San Pedro. The food was excellent, as is anything with Green Chili. We had the Chili Renos and beef enchiladas. The "silver" margaritas were okay and a little expensive.

The wireless Internet works fine, albeit a little slow. The signal strength varies from low to very low with the transfer rates varying from 11 to 24 Mbps. There are two WAPs and I didn't find any difference between them. The connection has proven reliable.

A simple thing, but one that can annoy you are the waste baskets. In the past I've stayed in hotels with one trash can in the room. Our room at the Hawthorn Suites had three trash cans. One in the main room, one under the sink and yet another in the shower/toilet room.

Now serious issues. As we were going to bed around 9:30PM the guests in the room above ours began doing gymnastic floor exercises, or at least it sounded that way. Then guests next door apparently staying with someone directly across the hall started visiting one another frequently and slamming the doors to each room. Sound isolation between rooms and floors is poor. Then I found the bottom sheet on the bed had a torn corner which didn't allow it to stay fixed to the bed. I awoke at 4:30AM and as expected found I was sleeping on the mattress and tangled in the bottom sheet. THEN at 4:30AM I found the carafe to the coffee maker didn't match the coffee maker and the coffee maker would not stay turned on. To adapt and overcome, I stood there holding the "On button" with my left hand while lifting and pressing the coffee carafe against the bottom of the coffee filter to activate the shutoff valve with my right hand for the entire time it took to brew. I did this twice - once for the regular brew and once for the decaf. 4:30AM is not a good time to mess with someones coffee!

The bathroom facilities are a separate room for shower and toilet. A sink and mirror along with the hair dryer are just inside the room door. The shower is wonderful. The water stream is strong. The shower curtain is on a curved rod so that the curtain doesn't cling. The room has several mirrors the one on the bathroom door is full length.

The hot breakfast was wonderful. It consisted of hash browns, scrambled eggs mixed with ham and biscuts with gravy. The cold breakfast available included fruit, cereals, etc. I was very pleased with the breakfast which runs from 7-10AM on weekends and is meant for hotel guests only.

Before breakfast I spoke to the desk person about the lighting and coffee pot. He said he would take care of the issues while we were out. After breakfast we went back to the room and found the light next to the bed turned on. Appears we had missed the independent light switch for that single light fixture, thus our problem not the hotels. The coffee pot and florescent light remain broken. Quick response to our reported problems, the staff are trying.

We spent the day at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) and had a wonderful time. When we got back to the room, the coffee pot had been replaced and seems to work. Since housekeeping left two decaf packets and no regular coffee packets, I went by the front desk and traded for three regular coffee packets. So the problems appear fixed.

The next post will give a brief summary of the day at the NHCC.

Anniversary Stay at downtown Denver Hyatt Regency

Now that I've rediscovered my blog, I thought I would share my experience staying at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Denver for our 36th Anniversary. I originally created this for Hotels.com, thinking I could post this as my comment on the stay. Apparently Hotels.com wasn't able to accept the comment. Here's the post:

---

We stayed two nights to celebrate our 36th wedding anniversary in a "Mountain View 1 King Bed" room. Our bed at home is king size and I doubt the bed in our room was really king size, but instead perhaps queen size or maybe something in between. Never the less the sheets were not big enough and each morning we awoke to the bottom sheets pulled out.

Parking is in a public parking lot under the building. While you are supposed to be able to use your room key to get into the lot, we spent 5 minutes sliding our key up and down with cars piling up behind us. Finally just took a ticket at $6 for the first hour and went back to the front desk. They quickly fixed the problem and changed my charge for parking from $21/day to $10/day. I wasn't even aware parking cost anything if we were guests at the hotel let alone $21 a day. Yikes - we could have taken the light rail to the hotel. The "parking fee" adds to the price of your stay at the hotel.

Internet choices are to either establish a T-Mobile Hotspot service plan account for wireless, or pay $9.95 per 24 hour period for wired. My laptop was prepared for either so I chose the wired rather than establish a service plan I might never use again. Since check-in is at 3:00PM and Check-out is at 11:00AM which is only 20 hours rather than 24 they are charging for at least four hours you can not use. In our case, we didn't get settled in our room and get the Internet set up until 6PM, thus I could only use 17 hours for the last day's service. When are hotels going to learn that people are migrating to hotels that don't charge for internet access?

Other premier hotels offer a free breakfast or at least free coffee. This hotel has an awesome buffet breakfast, but it costs $15 per person plus tax and tips. This added an additonal $60 for our stay which I consider another fee for staying at the hotel. The server and other restaurant personnel were very friendly and service was great.

Speaking of costs, there were two Aquafina bottles of water in the room. They had tags around the necks saying they were $6 each. Room temperature tap water at $6 a bottle is a bit much.

As soon as we checked in and got to our room we used the ice maker on our floor without problems. The second day after spending the day walking the 16th Street Mall in 100 degree weather the ice maker could not fill the ice bucket. As I walked back to the room I noticed that there was some sort of rust/white coloring in the ice. I tried to explain to the housekeeping person about the ice, but only got a blank stare due to a language barrier. I went to another floor and hopefully got good ice. Now I wonder what was in the ice I used the day before.

Around 4:30AM on the first night we began hearing pounding or banging noises from the room next to the head of our bed. The next afternoon at around 5:00PM we heard some banging noises in the room on the other side of ours. Don't know what this was all about, but you'd think making this kind of noise in a modern hotel would require pounding directly on the wall. You could also hear conversations and other noises in the bathroom next to our bathroom.

Service people were very friendly especially the people working in the Altitude restaurant.

The room was clean, but nothing special other than the gorgeous view of the mountains. There was no mattress pad and the sheets came loose during the night. The mattress was comfortable.

Bottom line: Would I recommend staying in this hotel, well yes but ... expect what you see in modern society by greedy companies who don't care what you think and run for stock holders rather than customers. Bring your big coin purse for all the nickels and dimes you'll need.

Long Time No Post

I just read travisdean9152's blog and he posted that it had been a long time since he had added to his blog. It had been a mere month. I then looked and realized it has been over three years since I'd added anything other than pictures. So ...

I still feel deeply about the the two previous opinion or "thought blogs" I posted way back in 2005.

Now for my personal thoughts. In January 2002 we moved from Colorado to Bellevue, Nebraska outside Omaha. The move was necessary to make visiting my mother in Des Moines easier and was made possible by my employer. We left our twin 20 year old sons along with two friends living in our house and moved to an apartment. While we were there, our granddaughter Alexis was born November 23, 2003. We were lucky enough to be back in Colorado for her birth. Since we lived in Nebraska, we didn't get to see her as much as we wanted. Then in November 2007 we moved back to Colorado and into our house, again thanks to my employer. On April 25, 2008 our grandaughter Addison was born and we have enjoyed being able to spend time with them both. Needless to say we enjoy being home with our family, which now includes our two daughter-in-laws Crystal and Stacy.

My plans for retiring at the end of 2010 have been put on hold. We, like everyone else have been impacted by the current economic conditions. I feel confident the United States will be able to recover from this interruption to our economic prosperity. Now that President Obama is spreading a lot more positive spin to economic conditions, contrary to the other democrat cronies in the congress, the country will soon begin to pick up the message and the recovery will begin. Why the democrats leading congress need to spread doom and gloom just to spend massive amounts of money is beyond me. Considering the characters involved in this, I'm sure that I'll comment again on this.