Some of you may have noticed less of me about.  My son has been having a tough time of middle school.  We found out he has ADHD and we are learning how to adjust our parenting style to meet what he needs.  

I'm also looking for a new job.  Still have the old one, but I'm wanting one that will allow me to have more consistent hours, less hours and I'll be able to be home at night and on weekends.  It's a bit daunting being in the job market after 18 years in one place, especially with the crap economy... But I'm optimistic.

So yeah I'll be around less, though I'll still try to do letos and pop into the server every now and then.


Miranda ~ aka DM Daisy

http://somehedgehog.livejournal.com/245807.html

MCCAIN: Yeah?  Bring it!  I didn't spend 3 years in the Abyss with Githzerai hooking my nads up to a car battery to get beat by some Wellesley girl.

HILARY: WHATEVER, you can't even lift your arms over your head.

Just taking a moment on this Caturday to thank our Moffers for the Kittens.  I can't remember the last time I saw spam on LotN forums and it's all due to the kitties!

Much thanks Moff.


Yay Kitties!!

My letter to the owner of the resort we just went to.

Camping for $400 a night?

As a first time visitor to Belknap Springs, I was excited to experience the enchanting place my friends had told me about.  This was our annual family get together.  My sisters' families, my brother, my mom, my dad and my family all meet up from as far as Portland, fourteen of us in total.  We paid for an extra campsite to accommodate all of us.  We usually camp at one of the campgrounds up Hwy 242, but the road was closed still from snow fall damage and bridge construction, so we decided to take our reunion indoors this year.

We rented cabin #7, across a footbridge and only accessible by trail which we didn’t mind, as it would mean we’d be away from the RVs and be more secluded.  They had a very helpful young man that helped transport our belongings in an ATV.  As we rounded the bend in the trail and our cabin came into view, our eyes were not disappointed.  The four bedroom, two story cabin surrounded by trees, sunshine splashing though the leaves, and the sound of the McKenzie river rushing by was indeed enchanting at first glance.  

The facade came crashing down when we entered the cabin.  First we noticed the dirty floors, spots where something sticky had been dripped followed by dirt adhering to make splotches of dirt that don't go away without a good mopping and the built up grime by all the baseboards, the telltale signs of no thorough cleaning.  As we unpacked, we started noticing other things.  The carpets were stained and crusty in spots.  There were many spider webs in corners, a used Kleenex peeked out from under one of the easy chairs and all the window sills had dozens of dead bugs.  The cupboards were streaked with grime in places.  The dishes were put away dirty, some were so thick with grease you could see the puddle of white grease in the bottom of the bowl. In one of the bathrooms there was something black on the tub, that easily wiped off.  The toilets were poorly designed and only flushed down the used toilet paper if you threw it to the back of the toilet.

The beds were mostly dilapidated.  Many of them sagged badly in the middle.  The roll-out beds’ sheets had crumbs and what appeared to be rat droppings in one of them, and obviously hadn't been changed.  Upon request the front desk gave us extra sheets so we could put clean sheets on the rollout beds.  

On the balcony and back porch there was a ton of confetti.  There was a lot of trash (confetti, plastic toy parts, a bottle, a can and a few forks around the fire pit area outside as well.  Many of the Adirondack chairs were cracked, you had to be careful how you sat on them.

For a place that claims to be fully equipped to accommodate 12-16 people, the largest fry pan was a 6" sauce pan.  They only provided two dish towels and a dirty, worn out sponge with no scrub left in it. The coffee maker was missing as well, but the front desk gave us one when we inquired about it.  Wine glasses would be a nice addition.

It was a slow process realizing how filthy the place really was.  As we found new dirty things we complained to the front desk.  We were told that the group before us had left the place trashed and they had worked hard to clean it up.  They sent someone to clean up the confetti and trash as best they could.  I also overheard the cleaning woman telling the front desk receptionist that she had mopped our cabin.  If this is the case, then she needs a new mop or lessons on how to mop.  

The first night we also ran into electrical problems.  My eleven year old son plugged in a lamp upstairs and it flashed blue, made a popping sound and went out followed by an electrical sizzle sound zipping through the walls which sent the kids running down the stairs in panic.  My sister heard the noise zip all the way downstairs in her room where the breaker box resided.  My sister went upstairs and could smell that telltale electrical burn smell in the air.  When the front desk was alerted the next day, they seemed unconcerned, numb and unresponsive as she jotted down our complaint.  No one ever came to check the situation out.  We just avoided that outlet and used other lights in the room.

The 1 am sprinklers were also a surprising sound directly outside our windows.  Make sure you don't leave anything out around the campfire ring outside, it will get wet.  

We spent the next day deciding if we wanted to try to find a place to move to for our remaining two nights stay.  I even spent awhile on my cell phone trying to find some place that could accommodate all fourteen of us on short notice.  I actually found a place in Sunriver, but that would mean packing everyone up, a 1 1/2 hour drive and then unpacking all sight unseen, not to mention having to convince Belknap Springs management to refund our money.  We decided it would be too much trouble to try to relocate at this point.  We stuck it out and enjoyed our family time in spite of the squalor.  It was akin to camping only at $400 a night.

I filled out a comment card and left it with the front desk.  While there I overheard the employees talking about another guest wanting to change cabins because they had to sleep upside down on the beds because they were so bad.  I’m not sure the comment card was passed on to you and I didn’t have time to fully express our disappointment of our visit.

We wanted you as the owner to know of our experience in hopes that you could refund our money.  We stayed for three nights.  We took pictures of many of the things described in this letter and can provide them on request.  We also hope that you will provide more staff to service the resort and train them to follow a higher standard of cleanliness.  It would also be advisable to refurnish some of the cabins with beds and house wares or do not advertise as being fully furnished, equipped and then charge less for them.

Dr Horrible singalong

For those Joss whedon/Nathan Fillion fans!

Welcome Gossimer Faith to the GDM ranks!

He and GDM Suppy will be stirring up trouble and all sorts of mischief!  

*locks all her chacters in the closet* Everything will be just fine.  >.>

Things are now in place to be able to schedule this event at long last.  My times are a bit more limited as I've gone back to work albeit hobbling.  But my son's football season is over so I've Sundays available.  If people can't make it Sunday, Monday would be an option too.  

Let's try for Sunday, Nov 4th at 11 am Pacific Standard time (United States West Coast time.)
 We are currently GMT -7.  So pushing it back to normal would be GMT -6.

 Daylight savings time ends at 2 am for us Americans so it will seem like 12pm to some folk.  Europe's version of daylight savings ended Oct 28th so we should all be on the save time wave come Nov 4th.

Please let me know who is available for this, I'd like as many as possible of course.  

ANYONE not previously involved in the Roid Trial please feel free to join in.  We could still use more jurors.  If anyone would like to play a witness, I could arrange something for a few people.  PM me for details if you are interested in being a juror or a witness.

Current Jurors:

Marcus Black, Veryien, Rellika, Tagnus and Swynn.  We could use two more to make it  a larger group and an odd number :-)

Jurors are not required to be here but could if they'd like to watch/emote first hand.  Otherwise you could be sent the transcripts.  And we could have you RP deliberations in a separate event.


A summary for those who weren't here when the events leading up to the trial were going on:

Two members of the Roid Council are on trial for a number of crimes including; slave running, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, extortion and piracy.

Through a series of events members of the Merciful Blade, Army of the North and other concerned citizens uncovered the  alleged crimes of the prominent councilmen Braggerbold and Cecil Hodstetter of the Roid Council.

For those new players this is a long series of quests we are winding up that a former DM began.


Let's get this chapter wrapped up!  *hugs all*  Thanks for all of your patience in waiting for this, I had to get up to speed on all the details, create a court room and had other RL issues come up (buggered knee)  which made things hard to plan.  


DM Daisy