Charles Wilke Posts

Nothing destroys your chances at getting that girl faster than poor grammar on your dating profile. In a study published by Zoosk, 48% of singles polled find bad grammar a deal breaker! Making simple grammar mistakes might make you look less intelligent, or worse: a scammer, and you wouldn’t want that! But the biggest turn off for me when I meet a new match is when it seems like we won’t be able to hold a simple conversation.

I know. I know. Grammar is boring. “I comes before E except after C” reads like some ancient bible translation. But trust me, conjugations are not contagious. And apostrophes are really not that mysterious. So if you’ve slept through English class, you may find your options of sleeping with anyone now a little limiting. Thankfully, you’ve got me!

Let’s discuss a few of my biggest pet peeves when reading your dating profile:

There’s a common assumption that everything will cost more when living in Los Angeles. Gas is routinely over $4 a gallon, eggs can creep into the double digits for a dozen, and monthly utility bills can skyrocket for some.

While most of these expenses are unavoidable, if you’re an LADWP customer and you’ve seen your rates jump, there may be an unexpected reason. Customers receiving an estimated amount on their monthly bills may be scratching their heads over why there’s been a sudden jump in their amount due.

What is an estimated amount on a utility bill?

Previous to this current rash of customers receiving estimated bills, estimated amounts only got issued to customers with inaccessible meters. A meter behind a locked gate or somewhere unreachable by a meter reader, or when a dog is present on the homeowner’s property, usually triggers an estimated bill to get delivered to the customer.

These estimated amounts would be derived from historic usage data and might get adjusted for seasonal variance. This means an estimated bill should reflect an accurate guess based on the customer’s actual usage.

The LADWP is now fielding complaints related to the recent billing system overhaul that has left many customers with higher than normal bills due to estimated amounts getting autogenerated. These new estimated bills aren’t based on individual customer usage, leaving some customers to deal with bills many multiple times their actual utility usage.

While the LADWP is prepared to correct these errors, the municipal utility is dragging its feet while placing the blame on a third-party.

For years now, oil companies have circled the Arctic like vultures hanging in the sky over a dying carcass. From up there, the target is clear, and the execution appears easy.

Political cycles come and go with the idea of drilling in the Arctic rising and falling in popularity. Some believe we can unlock unimaginable energy potential by cracking into the trove of crude buried beneath the frozen tundra. Remember Sarah Palin’s reductive catch phrase, “Drill, baby, drill”? Others think the process of deep-sea arctic drilling is as impossible as tying your shoe on a rollercoaster.

Across the span of quite a few years now, Shell spent a total of $7 billion in research and exploratory drilling of the Arctic. After previously stating its confidence in the “90 billion barrels of crude available” in the Arctic, Shell is now announcing that it is abandoning its arctic operation entirely.

“Shell will now cease further exploration activity in offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future,” the oil company stated. “The decision reflects both the Burger J well [the planned location] result, the high costs associated with the project, and the challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska.”