Cam I Am

Recently, we’ve been having some problems with our cordless phones. Yes, Handset 1 has been acting up again!

We’ve noticed that in two of the three handsets, the batteries are no longer holding a charge.  In fact, one of them last for about 10 minutes after a full charge.  So, I went looking for some new batteries.  After some shopping around, I came to a disappointing conclusion.

It’s cheaper to buy a new set of phones than it is to buy replacement batteries. 

Seriously!  The batteries I priced out between $25 and $30 each..  I found a new set of phones for $69..

Something is very wrong with this picture.  In a society that is trying to be more enviromentally sound, this is unacceptable. 

The ironic thing is that batteries come with the phones.  Shouldn’t the phones cost more?

I haven’t written much recently, partially because of time, but mostly because I haven’t thought of anything to write about..

In the last month, my wife, kids and I and really gotten into geocaching.  With 13 finds now, we are enjoying the time out.  To me, it’s great to spend time out with the family exploring the area, and I get to play with an electronic toy..  It’s win-win!

We’ve booked our campsite for a camping trip this summer.  This year, we’ll be going up to Alice Lake near Squamish.  We have never really ventured up into Sea to Sky country, so it’ll be nice to get away!  Now, I just have to wait for July now..

That’s about it.. 

Last weekend, my wife and I took our kids on a mini-vacation.  Call it guilt or whatever you like, but we figured that if my wife and I could take a six day vacation with just ourselves, our kids deserved a little away time too.

With only having a couple days to go away, we decided to drive down to Seattle for the weekend.  It had been a few years since we had been there and we figured that we’d do the tourist thing for a couple days. 

Despite how close it is to Vancouver, I’ve been to Seattle twice and my wife once.  We haven’t done a lot of sightseeing there, so this time, we were really going to try. 

We stayed at the Springhill Suites by Marriott (I’ll leave our issues with them out of this!) which is in the downtown area.  After checking in, we had promised the kids that we would take them on a double decker bus tour.  My wife and I went on one in San Francisco back in March and found it interesting to see the city and some of the sights that we may want to check out.  But in Seattle, the 45 minute tour was lack-lustre.  Okay..  it was boring.  Their were a few interesting things, but I wasn’t “wowed” with Seattle.

Throughout the weekend, we briefly went to Pike Place Market, walked along the piers, took the kids to Woodland Park Zoo, and even went up the Space Needle.  The zoo was amazing as always and the Space Needle was expensive (as expected), but the rest of the city doesn’t seem to have a lot to offer.  And in the city where Starbucks started, try finding one open on a Sunday morning!   And one of our kids started getting a fever (and subsequently sick), what is with the drug store that was open, but with no children’s Tylenol.  YOU’RE A FREAKIN’ DRUG STORE!

All in all, the kids seemed to have fun, for the most part.  But Seattle left my wife and I with the same impression.

It’s just not a tourist-friendly place.