We went to Claim Jumpers in Redmond, Washington Friday night at about 7:30pm.  It was pretty full, which is usually a good sign, but there was still an open table for us.

We sat down at t a table in the bar area and waited 5 minutes before our server noticed us.  We ordered some sodas, and waited another 5 minutes before we even got any menus.  10 minutes later, our order was finally taken.

We then waited another hour to get our food.  My widowmaker burger was good, but hardly worth waiting that long for.  At one point, our server asked if I’d like another drink, and then never actually brought it to me.  I hope that this was just a bad night for them, and that they were irregularly short staffed.  Either way, I won’t be back.

Based on my experience, I can only assume that the restaurant name means that they “claim” to jump, but never actually follow through.

So, if you’ve read my review of Housepad, you know that I was not impressed with their Flat-Fee listing service.  I had paid them $300 to list my house for 6 months, and then they failed to deliver.  But I still didn’t want to pay 3% for a listing agent, so I decided to try another flat-fee MLS listing service.

I had a completely opposite, and positive experience with SoldByMe.com.  I only wish that I had found them first.  SoldByMe had great online-entry forms that I could include all of my MLS listing information.   They responded to my emails and calls within minutes, rather than days.   Then I uploaded pictures and they were posted entered into my local MLS system quickly. The other differentiator, is that SoldbyMe provided me with blank forms for all the paperwork I would need, such as the sellers disclosure form.

When I requested to have my MLS listing price lowered, it was changed within an hour.

As with any flat-fee listing service I still had to do all the scheduling, correspondence, and negotiations with the buyers agents.   But I was pleased to do all of that myself.  SoldByMe certainly lived up to their end.

We’ve now sold our house, and I can personally say that I would gladly use SoldByMe again if I were to do it over again.

VTech Walkie Talkies

Our girls got these toys for Christmas and I was pretty impressed.   They work pretty well as walkie talkies, so I knew they weren’t your old style AM analog pair you used to get as kids. These radios can send pre-canned text messages to each other like Happy Birthday and other cute stuff.  They also have a couple of games.  I was mostly impressed with the range of the little toys.  I could easily understand my 3yo from the other side of the house though.  Most of the cheap kid walkie talkies I remember don’t do that.

I spent a good 30 minutes on the internet trying to figure out what frequency and transmission scheme they used.  I couldn’t find it anywhere.  And the FCC ID on the back of the radios had no info on the FCC website?  weird.

The manual that comes with the radios explains that they use CTCSS technology (better known as tone squelch) in the UHF spectrum.  Here are the channels or “group” numbers the radios use.

1. 462.5875 MHz with CTCSS tone of 218.1 Hz
2. 462.6375 MHz with CTCSS tone of 225.7 Hz
3. 462.6875 MHz with CTCSS tone of 203.5 Hz
4. 467.5675 MHz with CTCSS tone of 210.7 Hz

Those are the FRS or Family Radio Service Channels 2,4,6 and 8 respectively.  So…  I guess don’t let your kids’ friends play with them or you’ll be in violation of the FCC “Family” rules.

So, my kids watch too much TV, but supposedly a recent iCarly show made a big deal out of spaghetti tacos. Who knows, my kids may be messing with me.

But I tried it. You’ll probably see all kinds of fancy recipes about this, but I went straight to the heart of this with a man’s recipe (4 ingredients):

Ragu pasta sauce (with meat, this is a man’s recipe)
Mozzarella cheese (shredded)
Spaghetti Noodles
Yellow Corn Taco Shells

I wouldn’t say it was a show stopper, but it wasn’t bad either. It was kinda messy, but no more so than sloppy joes or regular tacos.

my conclusion: worth fixing. I recommend a 6 month occurrence.

We bought this model and brought it home, only to find out that the handles didn’t match the floor model display in the store. In the store, the handles were metal and looked like brushed nickel or chrome. The one we received at home had gray plastic handles, which looked very cheap and fragile. The brushed metal sheen of the doors also didn’t match our other stainless appliances at all. It just looked much more dull grey-colored.

We returned it (thanks sears for the no hassle 30-day return policy) and bought a very similar Frigidaire for $200 more. It looks way better, and we’re much happier with it.

The controls on this Kenmore have 7 temperature settings. We had to use the coldest setting to get the fridge to cool to 38 degrees. The fridge we replaced it with has a digital thermostat with specific settings to the degree.