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Originally uploaded by iiooioiioo
Everybody knows about Chili’s daily happy-hour. Its the place for $3 burger and frys. But the glory days have ended. Chili’s have closed their doors.
To replace the void in my life, Red Robin is the next place I’d go. Now i’m not saying I prefer one over the other. It’s a convenience thing. One is closer than the other.
Red Robin (NASDAQ: RRGB) is a chain of casual dining restaurants founded in 1969 in Seattle, Washington, USA, and now headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado. The chain is best known for its gourmet burgers and bottomless steak fries as well as its freckled lemonade.
The first Red Robin still stands at the corner of Furhman and Eastlake avenues E. in Seattle, at the southern end of the University Bridge. This building dates from 1940 and was first called Sam’s Tavern. The owner, Sam, sang in a barber shop quartet and could frequently be heard singing, “When the red, red robin goes bob, bob, bobbin’ along.” (Henry Woods). He liked the song so much that he eventually changed the name to Sam’s Red Robin.
A Red Robin restaurant in Tukwila, Washington
They eventually dropped the “Sam” and simply became Red Robin. The first restaurant was 1,200 sq ft (110 m²). In 1973, the restaurant expanded their business to include their most well-known hamburgers including the Red Robin Bacon Cheeseburger and the Royal Red Robin Burger which has a fried egg on the patty. Local Seattle restaurant entrepreneur Gerry Kingen bought the restaurant and expanded it.
In 1979, Red Robin regulars, Mike and Steve Snyder, decided to open their own Red Robin in Yakima, Wash. The Snyder Group Company became Red Robin’s first franchisee. In 1980, Red Robin was well on its way to becoming “America’s Gourmet Burgers & Spirits” by opening a restaurant in Portland, Ore. In 1983, Red Robin adopted a mascot named Red. In 1985, the headquarters was moved from dowtown Seattle to suburban Colorado after Kingen sold a controlling interest in Red Robin Corp. to The Skylark Corporation of Japan. With marginal successes and poor financial performance under Skylark’s management, Kingen, then a minority owner, in 1995 stepped back into the CEO position to nurse the company back to profitibility. In 1994, the company introduced its “Bottomless Steak Fries.” In 2000, the company celebrated the opening of its 150th restaurant. As of February 2007, there are 307 locations across the United States and 18 in Canada.
Despite the fact that there are no restaurants in the area, Red Robin runs an ad campaign in the Tampa Bay area in Florida.
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From Issaquah to Redmond by Trail
Originally uploaded by iiooioiioo
The best things in town are the common scene decisions made by the planning committee. Walk and Bike trails are a great thing I’ve found in King County. The Metro King County website has a great map in PDF that one can use to plan their path of travel. If I had the desire and discipline, I could make a trek from Issaquah to Redmond. I’ve never met anyone who’s succeeded in this undertaking, but I’m going to speculate that it’s common, and manageable.
During weekdays I enjoy being in Redmond, part of that enjoyment is contributed by the trail that is near by. I can take a stroll down the gravel and asphalt trails when I’m ready for some introspective time.
This link to the King County Road Services group specifically talks about Biking in the county. It makes available great maps, accessible via PDF. All is organized with an index map griding areas of detail paths. Here’s the link.
Originally uploaded by iiooioiioo
Here’s a clue, it’s dark, and there’s nothing to take a photo of outside at 11 PM at night.
I found a registry setting in my HTC 8925 ATT Tilt smart-phone that is turned off by default. Surprisingly enough, this little phone has a built in GPS-Camera. I know that this phone has GPS, and it has a camera, but I didn’t know that they are integrated; I looked through the manual but it says nothing about this setting. It’s not documented. After “googleing” and reading through forums I found a post by person noted as Joe. Here’s the link.
He, Joe, goes on to explain that I can turn on this feature by going into my window mobile device’s registry and switching the value to 1 (on). It’s that easy. It works. I just tried it. In the middle of the night, while it’s very dark, with nothing to take a picture of. I try to get the GPS to lock in the geostationary satellites while in the home but that didn’t work. I had to step out side. To get into the registry there may be many different ways to go about this, but this is the application I used, PHM Registry Editor v0.70, here’s the link. It’s free and works well.
Now all my photos from the HTC 8925 smart-phone are georeferenced. This means; the camera will grab the Latitude and Longitude from the streaming NMEA (in the WGS 84 datum) and embed it into the EXIF header the moment the photo is taken in a format understood by Flickr. Flickr is my photo host. When you click on my photo it will take you to flickr, and flickr will let you see the location on a map. Very interesting.
Sunset Way & Front St
While waiting for the Sound Transit 554 – 12:49 PM bus, I can watch the passers-by of the local community.
Originally uploaded by iiooioiioo
With the King County Library having one of it many structures built in down town, it’s a perfect stop when traveling via the local public transit system for books, videos, local news and the opportunity to use one their meeting rooms for future reserved events.
The King County Library System (KCLS) is a library system serving the residents of King County, Washington. Although the city of Seattle is located in King County, it is serviced by its own system-The Seattle Public Library.
The King County Library System is currently the second busiest library in the United States, circulating over 19 million items in 2007. The system consists of 43 libraries, a Traveling Library Center, a mobile TechLab, and the ABC Express childrens library van. KCLS offers a collection of more than 4.1 million items including books, periodicals, newspapers, audio and videotapes, films, CDs, DVDs and extensive online resources. All KCLS libraries offer free Wi-fi connections.
The local watering hole is very tempting after a day at the office. Issaquah Brewhouse is now owned by Rogue. This gives a great selection of local and out of city specialties in brewing favorites. The happy hour between Monday and Thursday adds to the great atmosphere with low cost treats and eats to go with the suds.
I noticed also a small non intrusive round blue Masonic logo hang on a near by building between the Brewhouse and the fish hatchery.
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Thank You For Shopping at Fred Meyer
You can survive without a Wal Mart when a Fred Meyer is down the road from your family.
Originally uploaded by iiooioiioo
After the move to Issaquah, Washington I realized something was missing, so I thought. When weekly shopping time came, a staple resource to the routine shopping trip was apparently missing. A void in the basic supply of “cheap household and toilet” items was nowhere to be found.
Alas, I found a little known large store with Food, Clothing and Household goods. Little known only to me everyone else new and shoped their frequently.
Located at 6100 E Lake Sammamish Pkwy SE, Issaquah, WA
Fred Meyer, Inc is an American company founded in 1922 in Portland, Oregon by Fred G. Meyer. The company was one of the pioneers of the retail supercenter or hypermarket format of store which combines a grocery supermarket and a department store. It has locations throughout the Pacific Northwest. Prior to the company’s merger with Kroger it traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol FMY. Although the company is now a division of The Kroger Company, Fred Meyer and the western region of Kroger are still headquartered in Portland. Fred Meyer is sometimes known as “Freddy’s”, a nickname the company has used in its advertising and for its mascot, Fred Bear. For a number of years the company has used the marketing jingle, What’s on your list today? You’ll find it at Fred Meyer! in print, radio and television advertising.
Website: http://www.fredmeyer.com
Bellevue Square – 10 Minutes West of Issaquah, originally uploaded by iiooioiioo.
An afternoon at the mall.
Here are the cold facts for Bellevue Square. Bellevue Square attracts over 16 million visitors annually who individually spend nearly two hours per trip spending $126, well above the national average. Over $600 is spent for every square foot of retail space each year. The only reason I’m speaking with any authority is this information is furnished by the publicly managed wikipedia. *Thank you wiki people*
I’m waiting in one of the main corridors, not sure what side of the mall that I’m on. While here, my other beloved member of my party is shopping, I’m resting on the readily available benches one may find in front of every store.
Bellevue Square is a shopping mall in Bellevue, eight miles (13 km) east of Seattle. The mall has 180 retail stores, including anchors JCPenney, Macy’s, and Nordstrom, specialty stores like Mercer, the Apple Store, Armani Exchange and Williams-Sonoma, and restaurants like P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, Cheesecake Factory, Red Robin, and Ruth’s Chris Steak House. Bellevue Square also offers concierge services, valet parking, a local shuttle bus, and children’s play areas.
Website http://www.bellevuesquare.com