I saw this dog last weekend in Portland. It seemed very serious about its task of keeping watch over the activity on the street.

I’ve posted road construction pictures two days in a row. Maybe I should just register “constructionblog.com” and get it over with, huh?

I always think it looks neat when they strip all the asphalt off the road and leave it as bare red bricks.

We constantly hear tales of horrible customer service. I’ve told a few of them myself. Perhaps this is indicative of how little companies actually care about serving the customer. Maybe it’s more related to peoples’ love of complaining. In any case, complaints are everywhere. I’d like to break it up with a mention of good customer service.

I won’t bore you with the details of the situations, but in the last 24 hours I’ve had occasion to contact customer service at The Gap and Quiznos. Both companies did an outstanding job of addressing my concerns. They also both replied quite quickly. Quiznos got back to me via both email and telephone within less than an hour of my message. The Gap only took a few hours to reply. I’m impressed! If only more companies would handle customer contacts that well…

I’m lucky enough to have some repaving work going on right outside my apartment this week. That means that not only can I not park in out front to load or unload things from the car, but I get assaulted with horrible fumes from whatever it is they’re doing. I’m not sure if they are melting down the old asphalt or what. I expect bad smells from putting down asphalt, but I was surprised to experience smoke and fumes while they pull up the old surface. At least it won’t last for long. They claim it’s only going to be happening this week.