I used to travel for work. Which afforded me the opportunity to try a lot of different mattresses. Also noteworthy, most hotels have an online store. =) So over my years of travel, I found a mattress I really liked. I attempted to find the consumer version of it, since they are all made by major manufacturers anyway,…

This explains why the airlines are so eager to get volunteers when they are overbooked. It is much cheaper to get a volunteer then to go back to the bumped customer and possibly have to pay hundreds more.

hmmm.. I have a consolidation loan. It was recently sold to a new provider and now when I pay more I get a letter saying something to the effect that it will be saved and applied to the next payment. Now I understand what they are doing... they are not applying the over payment to the principle. Thanks for this…

Perhaps. But assuming their price is not so attractive that they never have empty units, they loose a lot of money not having them occupied. Keeping a good tenant at a slightly lower rate is MUCH more valuable than an empty unit or poor tenant.

Not so munch a negotiation, but when I was renting a place, they quoted me a fair price. Once I made arrangements to move in, they said that they made a mistake and the rent would be $50 more per month. I was not pleased, so I wrote their management a letter and suggested that they review this price and if they truly…

Politeness is a sign of respect as well. You respect others and their feelings. This goes a long way toward building allies and open communication. Everyone is entitled to have a bad day. Being polite and reasonable rarely costs anything and pays huge dividends. Best investment one can make.

Colors could be good contrast to let them easily stay away from edges

Or if you are doing number 4, you are a member of the US Armed Forces. That is common practice in basic training and dress functions.

I feel your pain. there is a lot of vitriol in this semi-anonymous world of blog posts. The only advice I would propose, is that folks do not read them if they cannot let those comments roll off their backs. Having a dialog may make things incrementally better over years or decades, but honestly, the only real person…

I was always a fan of Captain Hindsight

My online name "Mako", like the shark, (and my Xbox gamertag) is one I have used since before there was much beyond Archie, Gopher, Telnet and FTP. I got the name from an old D&D character I used to play with my friends in the Air Force. I liked the name. It was short, easy to say (although for some reason most people…