Epinions Recent Reviews for sundogg99

Three star lodging in a one-horse town

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:21:34 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - The tiny village of Cliousclat is nestled in the hilly no man's land between Lyon and Provence. It consists of little more than a few stone buildings scattered on either side of a winding country road. Remarkably (or perhaps not -...

Yawn... but that's a good thing.

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:17:41 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - I've had a 2009 Camry LE for just over 5000 miles now - about 6 months. I finally got tired of being nickeled and dimed to death by my aging Mercedes 320E - where nickels equal $500 and dimes equal $1000 per ever-increasing repair. I wanted...

RIM throws us a Curve

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:39:40 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - I’ve reviewed several BlackBerry devices over the past few years. After discarding my first-generation BlackBerry as a clunky annoyance, I have become a steady (if slow) adopter of the RIM's...

Hotel Cathedrale - Strasbourg

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:17:02 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - As we'd planned, the last night of our 2500 km road trip was in Strasbourg, the main city in the Alsace region of France. After nearly two weeks of country lanes and tiny hamlets, the bustling city came as something of a cultural...

Fine lodging in the Latin Quarter

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 02:51:54 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - My wife and I spent four nights at this hotel at the conclusion of a two week vacation in France in July 2009. After a week and a half of road tripping, changing hotels every night or two, it was pleasant to park ourselves in one place for a few...

Quicken Loans: Online financial services at their best: fast, reliable, inexpensive, and convenient

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:54:59 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - A few years ago I wrote a review about a positive refinancing experience we’d had with Quicken Loans. I should have paid closer attention to my own advice. Recently, along with virtually...

Comfort and style in Lima, Peru

Wed, 8 Apr 2009 18:24:17 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - I recently spent a week on business in Peru. Colleagues recommended this hotel, which was within short walking distance of our Lima office. It turned out to be an excellent recommendation - not only was the hotel convenient, it was also very...

Red Lion Coos Bay - no complaints from us

Mon, 5 Jan 2009 21:20:02 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - Shortly before Christmas, our resident family gymnast participated in the annual state gymnastics meet, which was held this year in Coos Bay, Oregon - a no-nonsense sort of working class timber town located about 220 miles south and west of...

Flying the friendly skies - no, really - with LAN Chile

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:51:30 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - My wife and I accumulated a pile of miles on Alaska Airlines which were scheduled to expire. We tried to get a couple of tickets to Europe, but cashing in flier miles to Europe in mid-summer is pretty much impossible - although we were literally willing...

I beg to differ

Thu, 9 Oct 2008 16:58:37 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - Our venerable KitchenAid blender gave up the ghost shortly after my wife plunged into a regimen of twice-daily smoothie making. Fired up with missionary zeal about the benefits of these frozen concoctions, she felt...

Downtown San Francisco - charming lodging, painful price

Thu, 9 Oct 2008 15:51:30 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - I recently attended a conference in San Francisco that involved an estimated 43,000 people. It was a big conference. So big, in fact, that even a city as accustomed to tourism as San Francisco rather bulged at the seams to accommodate so many...

Mind-blowing magnificence: Iguazu Falls

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 21:38:37 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - Iguazu Falls, an enormous complex of waterfalls on the Iguazu River near its confluence with the Parana River, lies amid the dense rain forest at the boundaries of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina. Both Brazil and Argentina maintain national parks around...

Casa Palermitano: The best B&B in Buenos Aires

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:03:54 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - We didn't originally intend to stay at Casa Palermitano. When planning our two week visit to Argentina, we'd originally made reservations at a different hotel in the San Telmo district of Buenos Aires. Then, less than two weeks before we were scheduled...

Giving our butts a break in Redding

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:03:31 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - Imagine a twelve hour overnight flight. That's twelve flying hours, so now add in an additional four or five hours getting to the airport, passing through customs and immigration, retrieving luggage, etc. Imagine passing directly from that...

Pure and simple - best caffeine delivery system ever?

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:29:38 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - If I had a dollar for every coffee making device we've tried, I could visit Starbuck's every day for... well, for a day. Still, we've tried several things, from a traditional coffee maker to a ludicrously expensive espresso machine to a simple Chemex...

Cuts like a knife. As well it should.

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:44:17 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - My wife likes to tell the story that she was raised in a household where a serrated steak knife was the only piece of kitchen cutlery. It's a true story. We've progressed a bit beyond such a bohemian kitchen in our...

Amsterdam's Hotel Zandbergen - off the well-trod path, but worth the journey

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:36:37 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - Last month PrfStars

and I decided to visit Amsterdam for our anniversary - it's a city we both enjoy and we managed to find a relatively inexpensive air fare to get there. Of course, with the US dollar as devalued as it is,...

Shanghai in the snow

Mon, 4 Feb 2008 21:39:31 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - Take note: if for some reason you decide to wander around Shanghai in the middle of a once-in-a-decade blizzard, remember to bring your hotel address information with you in Chinese. I failed to do this a few nights ago and as a result had an...

Ali Bong's Illegal Seaside Guest House and Ganja Emporium

Fri, 1 Feb 2008 15:13:00 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - Batu Ferrenghi, a former hippie beach hangout in Malaysia, was already well past its heyday when I visited there. Located midway between the more desirable beaches of Thailand and Bali, the island of Penang, and BF in particular, was a convenient way...

Ringing in the new with unwelcome bits of the old

Fri, 4 Jan 2008 14:04:01 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - We made a spur of the moment decision to celebrate the New Year in Seattle with our 6 and 10 year old kids. Lodging in downtown Seattle, never a bargain, was almost impossible to find and hellishly expensive, so my wife made an online reservation at the...

Borden Multi-Purp Hsehld Glue 8Oz: That which binds us together - still

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:14:35 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - Plop down a container of Borden Multi-Purpose Household Glue (or, as it's more commonly known by virtually everyone on the planet, Elmer's Glue) alongside a yellow No.2 Ticonderoga pencil, a Pink Pearl eraser, a box of Crayola Crayons, and...

1-800-FLOWERS.com: The Man's Guide to Flowers

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:04:54 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - Gentlemen, please take your seats. Turn off the game, quit thinking about work, put down your beer, and try to focus for the two-three minutes it will take you to read this. This stuff isn't difficult, it's just completely foreign and therefore...

Considerably sharper than the other W

Fri, 7 Dec 2007 21:11:28 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - Ever since our first stay at the San Francisco W Hotel, my wife and I have enjoyed the chain's ultra-modern, high style properties. However, the nearest property to us, in Seattle, seldom offers rates much below $250/night, which puts it out of our...

Hampton Inn - Redding, CA: Like a rock.

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:49:37 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - Hampton Inns rock. Seriously. They are the 21st century equivalent of what Motel 6 represented when I was a kid: clean, convenient, predictable, and budget-conscious. The Hampton Inn chain offers modern-era travelers the same benefits, plus free...

A viable, cost-effective contender in the midsized HDTV market

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:26:45 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author sundogg99 - This is one of those for-want-of-a-nail homeowner stories - it began when my daughter's TV suddenly stopped working. Who knows why? One day it worked, the next day it didn't. For all I know, some 25 cent part had rattled loose, but her old set might...