I very much like the concept. Its design makes the most sense today, where there are few charging opportunities when away from your home: if the vehicle were purely electric (e.g., Nissan Leaf; Tesla) you would be in constant fear of it running out of charge and then having to be towed home. With the Volt, you simply pull into a standard (legacy?) filling station to replenish your range while on the road (though it does require premium gasoline). The ability to use just an electric charge for all or most of your daily commute makes for a nice sense of energy independence, and that you are reducing environmental pollution. There are, of course, downsides.... The first and most conspicuous is that you are paying a premium price for this car: the base vehicle is in the $23,000 class, but you are paying $43,000 for it, where rather than getting higher-end appointments, you are getting a battery. The battery assembly is heavy and intrusive into the passenger compartment. The new technology is complex (special drive train, battery temperature maintenance system, etc.), adding things to go wrong. At today's gasoline prices, it would take some 10 years to compensate for the added cost of the vehicle compared wity buying an efficient gasoline-powered car. And it is the case for battery technology vehicles in general is that we do not know how this stuff will fare over a long ownership period. Further, whereas the Volt is a distinct minority of GM's offerings, how good is service going to be at the dealership? And there is the possibility — particularly with the limited enthusiasm for the Volt — that GM could discontinue it, whereupon support for your investment would rapidly disappear. (GM produced the EV1 electric car from 1996 to 1999, which they dropped.)
Toyota Good, but
Toyota is a company whose selling features goodness, toward the environment and
their customers, in particular featuring the Prius line of cars.
The company reality is mixed, however.
In the 2000s they had a record of dragging their feet on recalls.
Far, far worse, it was Toyota vehicles which resulted in the most horrifying
deaths and near-deaths that the world has yet seen from a major car company,
with a stuck accelerator pedal problem — which, again, the company was
slow to respond to.
Though they feature the Prius, the company's full vehicle line-up is dominated by gas guzzlers, as shown in U.S. Department of Energy fuel economy listings. Are Toyota vehicles really that good? A company with great confidence in their cars would offer an expansive maintenance coverage plan. Toyota's ToyotaCare plan is 2 years or 25,000 miles. Contrast this with Volvo's Safe+Secure coverage plan: 5 years.
Volkswagen How low they stoop
In September 2015, Volkswagen was caught by the U.S. government in perpetrating
a fraud in their supposed compliance with the Clean Air Act.
They rigged the software in their cars to detect when a car is undergoing
emissions testing ("defeat device"), to only then turn on full emissions controls.
The EPA alleges that emission standards are met during test situations, but when vehicles
are on the road, nitrogen oxides (NOx) are emitted at "up to 40 times" the standard.
Volkswagen's incentive to cheat was to be able to tout diesel performance,
which is impaired when strict pollution controls are in place.
The company will have to recall about a half million vehicles, and may face up to
$18 billion in fines — in just this one country.
The company also told U.S. dealers to halt sales of some 2015 diesel cars.
(Volkswagen has been heavily advertising these vehicles as "TDI clean diesel",
all the while knowing the "clean" to be a massive lie.)
If they perpetrated this fraud internationally, they will likely have to face regulators
in other countries as well.
This is a collosal, monumental scandal, reflecting on a long term corporate
culture deliberately and methodically lying to the world.
It directly reflects on Germany as a country, which is deeply invested in
Volkswagen in federal and state terms to an extent where Volkswagen is in effect
an integral part of the country.
This scandal casts a pall over the entire diesel car industry. Diesel had been coming under increased scrutiny in Europe. Environmentally conscious buyers had gone to diesel on the basis of promises that it was a better alternative to gasoline. More recently it became apparent that diesel emissions are carcinogenic. The Volkswagen scandal multiplies that issue, as the millions of people who thought they were doing good for the environment were actually horribly polluting it: some 40 times the permitted levels of nitrogen oxides. This scandal necessarily engenders a lot of backlash, and will make for a lot of abandonment of diesel, now being perceived as a big lie. This will be particularly painful for Volkswagen owners, where the value of their vechicles for resale has plummeted. The Volkswagen crisis is then actually a good thing for the environment. European refineries, built for gasoline in the first place, will be able to return to concentrating on that, and diesel fuel imports from Russia and the USA can decline. More to the point, all the people seeking environmentally responsible transport will think more of electric vehicles, and look to countries such as Norway, where electric cars and energy independence are dominant.
Volvo High quality, but
Volvo is historically renowned for high quality cars and their commitment to
safety engineering.
All of the cars that I've owned have been Volvos.
They are solid and reliable.
The company is confident in their product and offers their vehicles with a 5
year Safe+Secure coverage plan.
Volvo was an independent company who in 1999 sold its car-making division to
Ford, who allowed them to define their own direction, such that the brand remained
true to its heritage.
As is so often the case where a large company buys a smaller one, Ford lost
interest and in 2010 sold Volvo Cars to the parent of Chinese motor manufacturer
Geely Automobile for $1.8 billion.
The only known impact of that acquisition is that Geely wants to manufacture
Volvos in China for that market: the Swedish Volvo contingent continues to make
their own decisions.
But Volvo has mutated.
The station wagon has been the historic hallmark of the Volvo brand.
Incredibly, as of 2012, Volvo no longer sells station wagons in the United States!
The closest thing left is the "crossover" set of vehicles: the XC60, XC70, XC90.
Those are near-SUVs, with massive weight and
poor fuel economy.
This represents a backwards movement, in stark contrast to the weight reduction
and hybrid efforts of other vehicle manufacturers.
Volvo dealers don't like this, as it diminishes saleability.
In fact, when one local dealer gets a V70 wagon to sell as a used car, they
promote it as having better fuel economy than Volvo's current offerings.
Volvo has been experimenting with electric vehicles, but battery technology
remains very expensive and the longevity of electric vehicles is still being
played out in some instances such as the Chevy Volt.
As of January, 2014, Volvo will be reintroducing station wagons into the U.S.,
with the V60 sport wagon.
Stouffer's
Good frozen dinners
A staple in the frozen meal business, Stouffers offers a reasonable selection of
familiar, "comfort" foods.
Their offerings are not the healthiest, but are of high quality.
It's worth participating in their Dinner Club, where you frequent their website
to enter codes found printed on the inside of their boxes, to accumulate enough
for a free meal.
Tyson Chicken
Ugh
If you enjoy barely palatable, low quality chicken —
and you enjoy human hairs in your food — this is the brand for you.
Stop & Shop
Humdrum, disinterested
This is a horribly backward and disinterested store chain, with lackluster
offerings, beat up & spoiled foods, empty shelves, and limited selection.
Compared to Wegman's, Stop & Shop grades as 'F'.
One glaring example: If you run a deli department in the 21st century, you
definitely should make sandwiches to order, right?
Not Stop & Shop, where such a concept seems to not have occurred to them, and
where the only sandwiches they sell are low-brow, pre-made 'subs': no wraps,
nothing progressive.
Rather than offer a wide variety of foods, theirs is a limited selection, where
you find a lot of one thing rather than a variety of things, apparently for
their own convenience of stocking shelves with as few people and as infrequently
as possible.
As of August 2016, Stop & Shop had been running TV commercials touting
"triple-checked" produce, as though you could be assured of impeccable quality.
The reality is that you routinely find beat up celery, bruised & internally
blackened bananas, and moldy blueberries.
Freezer compartments are often their lights working.
Stop & Shop just "doesn't get it".
They aim low, their goal seeming to be to minimize costs rather than to optimize
the customer experience.
Stop & Shop is run by Ahold USA, a company with unenlightened, retro management, based upon how they come across in public forums. Their director of treasury, Maureen Elworthy, in 2015 disparaged the progressive and secure Apple Pay, saying that there's nothing in it for their company. This stance, of course, ignored benefits to customers, and is typical of the mindlessness that infects corporate thinkers who can't perceive when a pervasive new technology could actually draw customers to their stores. They would not participate in Apple Wallet, instead requiring that you carry and present a Stop & Shop loyalty card at checkout. Remember how EMV chip cards were supposed to go into effect as of October 1, 2015? At Stop & Shop, it was not until July of 2016 that their PoS terminals finally accepted the chip cards we consumers had been carrying since last year. Finally, in March 2017, Stop & Shop started accepting Apple Pay. That's a big step in the right direction.
Overall, Stop & Shop is a chain ripe for takeover by a supermarket company with forward-thinking management.
The good:
Gorilla Glue
For typical household use, a waste of money
This is a heavily promoted adhesive, but with a huge issue: short shelf life.
Way down in the manufacturer's website it says: "You should expect a year shelf
life"; and that's probably at the outside, where viability is decreasing over time.
This period is way shorter than any other glue you would have in the home.
I went to use my tightly capped, full bottle and found it completely solidified:
a complete waste of money. You will find many complaints of this problem online.
And keep in mind that you don't know how long the bottle has already been
sitting in a warehouse before it became available for you to buy it: this is
particularly insidious because the manufacturer disserves the buyer by not
printing a manufacturing or expiration date on the bottle.
Never again.
Citizens Bank
(www.citizensbank.com) Not what banking should be
On the plus side, Citizens provides a lot of ATMs and brances, including inside Stop & Shop supermarkets.
But there are a lot of negatives...
The interest rates that they offer are stingy and inferior to the rates offered by more progressive banks.
Compared to other banks are slow to offer advanced services such as online check deposit.
SUPPORT:
Their support is poor.
They knowingly understaff their 800 number telephone support such that customers are forced to endure
long waits to speak to a representative in order to resolve a problem.
Their online banking system is notorious for outages and debilitating problems,
made worse by lack of communication within the company such that people in their
call center are unaware of major outages and problems.
As an example: On the morning of January 2, 2015 I tried to use their online banking system
and instead of an account display got the message:
We're sorry, the service you have chosen is currently unavailable.
Continuing to try (multiple computers and browsers), I then got a screen saying:
We are currently experiencing technical difficulties retrieving the required account information;
please try again later. If you continue to experience problems, please contact us.
Error : 889101
So I called their 800 number. After 12 minutes on hold, and having to provide my account number
for a second time, I got to speak to a representative — who knew nothing about the obvious
system problems and suggested that I clear my browser cache.
I explained that I had cleared the cache, tried multiple computers, was not using bookmarks, etc.
and explained the errors that their system (not my browser) was putting out.
She put me on hold and contacted their technical staff — who then told her that there were
known system problems. There were no time estimates on when the outage would be resolved.
(Note that there was no posting anywhere on their website telling of the debilitating problems.)
This is a poorly managed bank. You have to wonder if management has accounts in Citizens.
Verizon FiOS
(http://fios.verizon.com) A better choice
A the end of 2013 I switched from RCN to Verizon FiOS.
The motivations were several...
It was clear that RCN was going to hopelessly remain a lesser network provider: if
you have an Apple TV or the like, you know that to access any special channels on that
device you need to be a customer of a first tier cable company, and RCN is not one of those.
I also had grown tired of RCN's substandard service, and particularly in paying more every
month and seeing no improvement in this area.
It was also becoming clear that RCN's network would have a hard time coping with the future (more on that below).
SWITCHING TO VERIZON:
Getting a network provider, fresh, is a lot simpler than changing from one to another.
To leave RCN, I had to contact them, go through their pleas to keep me from leaving,
make arrangements, and then get their TV box, remote control, and cable modem back to them.
(They will send you a mailer for that, but driving to their limited-hours offices was
more definitive, and got me a receipt.)
Getting them to take down the dropwire from the pole and the interface box on the outside
of the house was as protracted a struggle as I had anticipated, taking weeks and several phone calls.
Thereafter, I got several phone calls from RCN managers pleading with me not to leave.
This is in notable contrast to never getting a call or email from them in all the years
that I was a customer: no interest then in customer satisfaction.
There was also another wrinkle in all this: In my initial call to RCN to discontinue service,
the rep asked me what service I was switching to. I didn't think much of them asking, then;
but a while after I got FiOS, a mailing arrived from Comcast talking of me having switched
to Verizon, but that Comcast could do better. The suspicion here is that RCN might be making
a few dollars by selling such info to FiOS competitors.
Making arrangements with Verizon was very straightforward: they have a remarkably thorough website (in stark contrast to RCN), which explains everything, and they provide videos about the installation process, and preparations you should make. Their web pages also provide a chat function, which I found excellent in getting solid information about anything. There was an old telephone dropwire to the house that I would like taken down as part of the FiOS install, which the chat nicely arranged. My research made it clear that it was best that I pre-wire a high-quality coax cable from my TV area to a prospective spot for the FiOS interface box to be installed, which was inside, where the phone wires start for the house. That work was arduous but satisfying. Be aware that in modern construction, there may be a horizontal 2x4 halfway up the wall for bracing, which thwarts attempts to drill a hole from the attic for feeding cable into the wall cavity: I had to remove a section of paneling and drill a hole through that wood piece, which turned out to be hardwood. All this took hours — not something the installer should do.
The installer arrived at the scheduled time, to survey the work to be done. He agreed upon the location for the interface box: they prefer those boxes to be indoors, which keeps water and other factors from causing problems, resulting in service calls. He was glad to see that I had pre-wired. The installer is a seasoned and congenial company employee, not a contractor as with most cable companies. He first went up the pole to prep that location, then drove over to the neighborhood's distribution box to activate there. Back at the house, he removed the old telephone dropwire as I had requested, then ran the fibre optic cable to the house. Inside, he installed the interface box and made all connections. He also got all my phone jacks working, which RCN's alleged technicians had screwed up years ago. In the family room he installed the Cisco TV box and the combination cable modem and wireless router. Again, this was a coax connection from the interface box to this router. (But, if you want to go to speeds over 50 Mbps, the connection instead must be CAT-5e.) Everything worked perfectly. All this purely FiOS and network work took about four hours. This reinforces why you should do any special in-house wiring yourself, beforehand, as there isn't time to do it during the FiOS install.
Particulars:
WIRELESS MODEM:
Never expect that the modem/router that is installed will be latest technology.
This one's speed was up to 802.11n.
Apple's computers now support the much faster 802.11ac.
I turned off the wireless capability in the FiOS router and instead cable-connected
my Apple Time Capsule to it, for very high speed wireless in the house.
TV QUALITY:
There seems to be something of a myth, that FiOS TV quality is much better than
that of its competitors.
I can say that FiOS TV quality is not better than I experienced with RCN.
In particular, when changing channels you will often experience digital break-up as the
channel settles in. Also, during scene transitions within a show, you will often see
blocky pixelation.
Worst of all is "channel absence" events:
you change from one familiar channel to another, and you find a black screen rather than the channel.
Self-diagnostics then kick in, where you subsequently get a screen labeled "In-Home Agent" saying:
There is an outage in your area. Our engineers are working on it. It is expected to be restored by 4:22 PM local time.This, when the local time is actually around 6 pm. And if you simply switch to another channel and then back, the channel then appears.
Alternatives to cable companies Mixed feelings
Given the ever increasing costs of cable company service, one naturally
contemplates alternatives.
In contemporary terms, this is called "cable cutting".
How realistic is it?
Dropping cable TV inherently means losing a lot of channels.
There remain digital broadcast channels, but their number is limited, and of
course good content such as the Discovery Channel is unavailable via broadcast.
(More on that below.)
Most of us have cell phones, so dropping cable provider phone service isn't a
great issue; but keeping your cell phone on at home as a substitute for a wired
phone can be a chore; and you don't necessarily want to get "home" calls when
you are at work.
As for Internet service, there is no real alternative to cable.
There exist devices known as cellular routers, whereby you can have 4G LTE
substitute for cable. However, cellular companies are even more greedy than
cable companies, making this approach economically infeasible; and there are
caps on the amount of data the cellular companies want to provide.
(Cell companies are, at least thus far, in the service denial business more than
they are in the service provisioning business.)
Dropping cable TV service is a subject unto itself. Increasingly, programming is becoming available over the Internet rather than through the cable TV conduit. ABC provides the ABC Viewer app for the iPad, which allows you to enjoy recent shows with fewer and less obnoxious commercial interruptions. Hulu has been growing in its offerings of TV shows. Netflix provides a wide variety of programming, and as of 2012 has even gotten into producing their own programming. Apple TV has been providing an increasing amount of content, beyond the iTunes Store. People want to view programming when they want, where they happen to be, and this is accommodated by Internet serving of content. A further point is that television has been pushing people away with ever more intrusions onto the screen, with hashtags, banners, and animated promos for upcoming shows overlaying what you're trying to watch. Programming provided over the Internet, particularly if paid for, is generally devoid of such enjoyment-killing intrusions.
Weston Home Sealcoating
(Weston, MA. http://westonhomesealcoating.com) Great result; recommend
After my repaved driveway cured for a year, as recommended before coating, I looked for a company to do this.
Weston Home Sealcoating is a sign you see more than any other for people having their driveways coated.
So, this seemed an obvious choice.
Their website is primitive, but their communication is good.
Can you do this coating yourself?
This is the kind of thing you may need done once every 15 years or so, where pros
know what to do and can do it better, with the right materials, far better than you can
(and you don't want to have to deal with the mess or all the bucket disposals).
So what does the work consist of?
They start by thoroughly clearing any fringing grass or weeds with weed-wacker and blower.
Then they use a hot-drip machine to seal the edges where your driveway meets the street and sidewalk.
Next comes the first layer, taken from the drum trailer, which they carefully spread.
All that takes about 30 minutes.
That cures over the next 24 hours, whereupon they return to apply the second coat, which takes about 15 minutes.
Cost is about $550 for a 4-car driveway.
Don't rush to make the check out to Weston Home Sealcoating: you will receive a bill at second-coat
time with instructions to make the check payable to the owner directly.
(You can give the check to the crew before they leave.)
The perennial questions are: when to do this, and how long to let it cure?
Early fall is a good time, where the humidity is gone, temperatures are less hot,
and leaves won't be falling over the coating.
Allow at least two days for curing before you drive over it; 3 days better.
(I saw one place where the owner did the driveway himself, didn't wait long enough for curing,
drove over it too early, and ruined it.)
Advisory: the coating is very smelly, so keep doors and windows closed when it's fresh.
In the fall of 2015, skim paving of the detriorating Route 9 in Wellesley was begun. Then it stopped, despite good weather, leaving roads incompletely paved, as in a mile or more of one length which is paved 2/3 the width of the road, and the remaing third old pavement, meaning that vehicle wheels are on both old and new simultaneously, at different heights. Even worse, despite advantageous weather they left this raw pavement without putting down lane markings, where you had no clear sense of where the edges of the road were or where you were supposed to be on the road relative to alongside vehicles. It took six more months for the road to get lane markings. This is the antithesis of safety; they just don't care.
Indifference to public safety extends to roadway lighting. Roadside lights around the Route 9/128 interchange have been inoperative for about a decade. This, despite the desperate need for good lighting and the number of collisions during merges which poor lighting has exacerbated. And no lighting was ever installed under the Route 128 bridge over Route 9 at that interchange, leaving a perpetually dark, endangering void.
Regal Cinemas
(www.regmovies.com) Good choice
All auditoriums feature stadium seating, so you never have to worry about your
view being obstructed.
Their rewards program, Regal Crown Club, is free, as such programs should be.
Major movies play on their larger screens, when new, then tend to move to their
smaller screens.
Jordan's IMAX
(www.jordans.com/imax) The best
Located in Natick and Framingham, MA, these are the best places to see movies,
featuring huge screens, 12,000 wats of sound power, flawless projection, and
comfortable seats with "rumblers" built into them to enhance the experience.
All this, at a reasonable price.
(To get into the theater, you have to walk past a lot of furniture, so that
self promotion underwrites the theater.)
In their early days, IMAX theaters were film-based, running 70mm film
horizontally through projectors for large image frames and thus best image
quality: the theaters had back rooms where you could look in on the projection
room and be in awe of the equipment.
These days, the projection is digital: no more shipping huge reels of film
around, and no more projection room peeks, as there is little to see now.
Devaney Energy (formerly James Devaney Fuel Company) (www.devaneyenergy.com) Recommended
As based upon my experience of about eight years as a customer:
A well run company that, through merit, has been expanding.
I chose them when they were Diehl Oil, in Wellesley, MA principally on the basis
of Web research.
Another factor in choosing them was my observation on the road that they had
clean trucks, kept in good condition. This may seem inconsequential, but a
company that keeps its equipment well maintained is likely to do the same for
your equipment as a customer.
Their oil delivery service is excellent.
Their annual heating system maintenance service is thorough, where they will
spend hours thoroughly cleaning and testing your oil heat system.
Their technicians are congenial and informative, pointing out issues you should
address as planned activities or upgrades.
Emergency service is prompt and competent.
The best reason to go with Devaney is that they are a full service company,
having a full staff to plan any changes you need made in your home heating or
cooling, such as adding air conditioning, replacing oil tanks, running
replacement oil lines, replacing hot water heaters.
Now they even do general plumbing, which they do well.
So if you have any problem, you have one number to call to get everything taken
care of — directly by them, not a subcontractor.
They have a good online customer account management website.
You can set up a credit card for automated payments, which I have found to be
problem-free.
Their pricing is reasonable.
Yes, you can find other companies which will charge slightly less for oil, but
they won't have the same level of service.
Of late, they have acquired the Hughes Oil Company as well.
Chick-fil-A
(www.chick-fil-a.com) Don't finance intolerance
This is a faith-based business which is expanding northward from their Atlanta origins.
It is a faith-based company which has demonstrated intolerance and discrimination.
Profits help finance intolerance. Ask yourself if you want to be part of that.
John Harvard's Brew House
(www.johnharvards.com) Recommended; but waning?
Configured as a microbrewry up front, with a large dining room in back, this is
a good place to eat.
Booths are large and comfortable, with subdued lighting and not noisy.
Their menu isn't large, but they do food well.
The menu features specials, which officially start at 5 pm, but you can often
get them a bit earlier.
As of 2013, however, their food offerings have been waning, where the menu has largely
shrunk to a small list of tired staples.
Legal Sea Foods (legalseafoods.com) Excellent
This is the gold standard of seafood restaurants.
It's pricey, but you're paying for top quality food, high end ambience, and
attentive service.
An added plus is that they have been serving a delicious turkey dinner on Thanksgiving.
Margaritas Mexican Restaurant (www.margs.com) Okay
Their Framingham restaurant replaced the Naked Fish that had been at the
southeast corner of the intersection of Route 30 and Speen Street in Framingham.
Tends to be a trendy, crowded, noisy place.
Correspondingly, parking may be difficult or impossible (their lot is small).
I went there once, but have not been back, not being impressed with the food.
The meal starts with chips and salsa, which was overly spicy for a starter.
The food was "good", but not as tasty as I've had in other Mexican places.
The service was perfunctory.
You may like it, but it doesn't compell me to go back.
Outback Steakhouse (www.outback.com) Wow!
This Australian-themed restaurant chain is one of the best chains in existence.
The food is high quality and attentively served.
(Your waiter may actually be from Australia.)
Booths are large and comfortable.
It's not inexpensive, but you get what you pay for.
A personal favorite of mine is their broccoli, which is the best I've ever had,
perfectly cooked every time.
Ruby Tuesday (www.rubytuesday.com) Skip
This is a place that can't figure out what it wants to be, and keeps changing
its menu. I've periodically tried the place; but the food has always been
undistinguished. What's really bad is the indifferent service, where waitstaff
disappear for long periods — made possible by absentee management.
It's not worth going to.
TGI Friday's, Inc. (www.tgifridays.com) Avoid
This is a bar which claims to also serve food.
If you like alcohol, this might be the place for you.
If you like food, you should stay away.
The food preparation and service are below substandard.
The last time I ate there I ordered a steak, cooked medium.
It arrived so thin and over-cooked that it was almost the consistency of the
sole of a shoe. The unsuitability of this piece of food would have been apparent
to any competent chef or waitperson. In this restaurant, such was not the case,
and this abomination was blithely delivered to my table.
There are real restaurants out there.
Don't waste your time or money at this worthless place.
The Villa Restaurant (http://www.villarestaurantwayland.com/) Avoid
Located in Wayland, MA, this is a long-time Italian restaurant.
I had heard of it, and decided to give it a try, given the dearth of Italian
restaurants in Metrowest.
The place is weird, being a house to which a surrounding restaurant enclosure
was added. One wonders what would happen if there were a fire, with panicked
occupants trying to flee en masse.
Ambience is lacking, being rudimentary and unappealing.
The worst part was the food, which was amateurishly prepared, overcooked, and
essentially uneatable.
Actually, there was a worse part: a bill which was insultingly high for an
undistinguished menu.
Don't waste your money.
Wayside Inn (www.wayside.org) Wonderful
My favorite place to eat, in historic Sudbury (zipcode 01776), is a working inn
with a series of dining rooms, from quaint side rooms holding a few tables
to a great dining room. All have working fireplaces, ablaze in cold weather.
Who would not enjoy classic cooking in authentic colonial American ambience?
Walk around the inn before your meal and take in the historic surroundings.
The inn is particularly colorful around Thanksgiving and Christmas, with
decorations and window lighting. Explore the gift shop.
The food is unique, with very attentive, cordial service.
Don't miss the Jerusha Peach Mold, which you won't find anywhere else.
Expect to leave with a full stomach.
Visit in warmer weather to explore the grounds, and get to the surrouding
sights: the old grist mill, mill pond, church, and school house.
(Don't miss the old country store just west, on Route 20.)
Thank you, Henry Ford!
Ziti's (http://www.zitisofnatick.com) A gem
Located in an out of the way location, down Speen Street in Natick, this is one of the few
Italian restaurants in Metrowest.
It's a casual place, with a good number of tables, a bar, and outdoor deck.
The menu features all the usual staples, plus pizza.
The specials (see the whiteboard to your left as you enter) should not be missed.
This is a reliable place to get a very satisfying meal.
Woe unto you if you have to deal with a UPS situation of non-delivery. Calling UPS is evidenced to be a complete waste of time: they don't care; they don't have to because you as a package recipient are not their customer — the shipper is. You can insist upon talking to someone higher in the UPS chain, but at most you will get a supervisor, who will tell you that he/she has no information (despite all their technology and GPS truck monitoring): at the very most, the supervisor will say that they will notify the UPS facility that the truck came from — which will have zero effect. You will need to contact the shipper for them to initiate what is called a Trace. This is said to take up to eight days. So, you have paid for an item, have waited for it to arrive, and now additionally have to suffer a protracted investigation period. But it gets worse: In claiming non-delivery, you will be required to sign "legal documents" testifying that you did not in fact receive the package. In inversion of the American justice system, you are considered guilty until you prove yourself innocent. If UPS manages to find and finally deliver your missing package, can you find out what happened? No: they won't tell you. Again, you are not their customer: the shipper is.
The Christmas season of 2013 was the test and measure of the proficiency of UPS management. It is obvious to the most ordinary person that Internet sales have been growing, and thus each year would result in increased holiday shipping. The evidence from this season is that UPS was either in denial that such a thing would happen or that they didn't want to scale up to handle it. The well publicized result was many thousands of packages failing to arrive by Christmas, people making long drives to UPS centers to try to pick up their promised packages and being turned away empty-handed, and the company saying that they would try to make deliveries of would-be presents sometime in the week after Christmas. This was horrendous, abject failure of core mission, that was justifiably accompanied by widespread public derision. This is demonstrably not a company "Moving at the speed of business": it is a company which isn't keeping up with the realities of our world.
UPS is also money-grubbing... Join their My Choice program to get notices of packages soon to arrive. The notice includes Change Delivery. So you think, great, I can move the delivery from Thursday to Friday, when I'll be home to sign for it. But, once you log in, you find that there is a $5 fee for the reschedule! Beyond the grating fee, this doesn't even make sense for a company to do. If you don't reschedule, the truck has to drive to your location, the driver has to get your package out of the back of the truck, bring it to the door — only to find that you're not there, to then have to create a slip to leave on the door, and return the package to the truck, to be reprocessed overnight for another delivery attempt. This is insane. This is UPS.
USPS Reliable
The Post Office is the public's favorite target for maligning, but they are a
massive, long-lived operation that reliably delivers mail.
I have sent hundreds of packages through the USPS, and every one of them was
reliably delivered. That's an accomplishment to be recognized.
The one criticism I have is often long lines at the post office, but some of
this is due to unprepared people with limited English language skills sending
poorly wrapped, bulky boxes to foreign countries.
Roger B. Sturgis & Associates
(1455 Concord Street, Framingham, MA) Expensive; Hopeless office staff loses customers
I contacted them for the removal of some pine trees.
They had a look and sent me an estimate. That seemed thorough, so I signed it
and sent it back, with payment arrangements. Then...nothing.
After a reasonable wait, I went on to another company — in that process
learning that the Sturgis quote was way too high, almost 3X what other companies charge.
Lynch Landscaping(110 Old Sudbury Rd, Wayland, MA) Satisfactory work, fair price
I needed some pine trees taken down, so gave this company a try.
In clear, prompt communication they provided a quote with an appealing price.
They did the work quickly, leaving the site cleared of all cuttings.
I found that some aspect of the work banged into the nearby house siding, but
that was minor. I would call this company again for tree work.
The Green Thumb
(www.thegreenthumbwestboro.com/mini-golf) Frustrating rather than fun
Located out on Route 9, westbound, at 187 Turnpike Road, Westborough, MA 01581,
This is a garden center which expanded to host outdoor miniature golf and an ice
cream stand. Out back there are several small enclosures with goats.
The course itself is poorly designed and dissatisfying, with puttways leaning
downward to the left or right rather than being relatively flat as on every
other miniature golf course, so your ball can't help but fall to the left or
right side wall.
I don't know how anyone thought this was a good idea.
There's no incentive to go back there.
Trombetta's Farm
(www.trombettasfarm.com) Visit when nearby
Located on 655 Farm Road in Marlboro, Trombetta's is a garden center which has expanded
its offerings. One greenhouse has been given over to an indoor, 18 hole miniature golf course
which is particularly enjoyable in colder weather.
The course is compact but satisfying, and fun for kids.
They are also known for hosting a homemade ice cream stand with excellent fare.
Trombetta's is seldom seen crowded, and could use more customers.
Don't miss the uniquely small Marlboro Airport (http://www.airnav.com/airport/9B1),
which is just about 200' north of Trombetta's: it's one of the few single-runway
airstrips left in the region.