I'm not back in Lake Charles. My insurance on the side of getting my house repaired is being difficult. I'm in a hotel in Port Arthur, TX and on Friday, I have to move to a different hotel in that city.

The hotel where I am was very rude and let somebody come into my hotel room while I was gone when I didn't ask for housekeeping service (and I was in Lake Charles/Sulphur for a night because I had to take care of some things - and one thing was getting decent laundry bags so I could clean and do laundry) and they complained about "the condition of the room" because I have clothes on the floor and dog food out for my dogs.

Even after getting my key for my car, it was having the same problem again and I want to say it was "juttering" with starting/stopping and stuttering and kinda jutting here and there. I took it back to the mechanic that fixed the VVT solenoid and it needed a new air intake hose.

I have lots of fun with it being an art car and it makes me smile when I see it. I named it Hodge Podge (but it's a Honda and not a Dodge). I've got things all over it - things that are cute and inspirational - and there are a couple of little boys at my church in Bridge City, TX and their mother talks t them about the car and they put new things on it. I want it that way, where different people add things to my car.

There's hardly anywhere to stay in Lake Charles. There aren't apartments with places and there aren't hotel ready for any long term guests. I sure wish my insuranace would get on the ball.

[penelope] I remind the member from Windmill-on-the-Dyke that *she* was the one that said "Credit cards are hardly a Thing in the Netherlands" then prevaricated around the bush when asked an honest question about how that society handled fairly common stuff that absolutely requires a credit card Chez New York. Extraordinary claims and all that. I hardly think that having made a blanket statement about credit card usage in the Netherlands then forcing the audience to go and check for themselves qualifies one for the moral high ground and implied "let me google that for you" smugness harrumph harrumph.

[Tuj] Have you come across the Car Vending Machine?

In the days when currencies were multifarious, credit cards were a great way of avoiding having to carry various denominations around Europe with you. Except that some countries didn't believe in them, like Germany, where if you couldn't bite it wasn't money. My father-in-law drove down once and tried to fill up his car at the local petrol station, but they didn't accept credit cards, and pumped out of the exact quantity from his tank and told him to get lost. Later, when credit cards started to exist there, the company that I was working for there decided that everybody should have company credit cards, which they being American decided would be American Express. Unfortunately nobody within 100 miles accepted it, and they were all on the other side of a border.

Yes, I remember distrust of credit cards when I was young. However, I wasn't evangelizing their use to anyone else, just pondering the seeming national UK preference for debit cards and wondering about how some US-centric "credit card or on yer bike" stuff gets done in places where credit cards are not favoured.