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If you are in the market for a naturopath or acupuncturist, I strongly recommend you NOT go to Tamara Macdonald. I saw her at Northwest Natural Health in Bellevue, and she now also works in an...
If you are in the market for a naturopath or acupuncturist, I strongly recommend you NOT go to Tamara Macdonald. I saw her at Northwest Natural Health in Bellevue, and she now also works in an office in Bothell (don't know the name but it's on NE 180th). I did not post this under Northwest Natural Health as I cannot speak to the efficacy of the other practitioners in the office there, only Ms. Macdonald. I was given the impression, by Dr. Macdonald's inappropriate comments to me, that there was discord between her and the other office members.
I went to see Dr. Macdonald with very high hopes that a natural approach would have a positive effect on my list of health concerns. When I say “list” I mean it literally – I actually presented her with a list of things that I wanted to work on with her to improve my health. One of my concerns was chronic insomnia. Dr. Macdonald became myopically focused on this one issue and the rest of my concerns completely fell out of focus, never to be addressed. She applied various approaches to my insomnia, the main one being acupuncture.
If anyone asks me if I think acupuncture actually does anything, I say, “Sure!” After all, my many, many sessions I had with Dr. Macdonald, quite a number of which left me bruised and bleeding (I don’t think this is typical), resulted in a change in my insomnia! Unfortunately, the change was for the worse. The four to five hours of sleep I was managing to get per night was reduced to two hours! The absolute most I could manage was 2-1/2. This happened directly following a particular acupuncture treatment (they were all a little different). She never even attempted to “reverse” whatever she had done, and by that point, I'd frankly just had it!
Dr. Macdonald seemed to be guessing at a lot of the things she did. She would get out books and read through them while I was in her office, looking for what to do or what to apply. She used a book to find the acupuncture points for me in many of my sessions. I don't know if this is typical, but I had the feeling perhaps it wasn't. While being a very “nice” person, she was quite scattered and forgetful. She didn't go over blood test results with me but thought she did, she often couldn't make heads or tails of her own notes, she kept “looking” for the “directions” for a treatment she thought would be fundamentally effective for me but she could never find all of the instructional pages in the entire *eight months* I saw her, she couldn't seem to get her billing right and kept presenting me with newly calculated amounts that I owed, she left me unintelligible voice mail messages and then would leave additional VM messages that "corrected" the last but were also nonsensical, etc. Her “treatment” of me would sometimes take a left turn after she spoke with her friend at the blood work lab who asked if she had tried this or that. Dr. Macdonald would then apply the lab tech's suggestions to my treatment. Often times, actually, those applications seemed so simplistic that it was amazing Dr. Macdonald had overlooked them.
The acupuncture treatments were sometimes painful and often left me bleeding. I've since talked with others who never had this experience. She would usually put a needle in my wrists during each treatment. One insertion must have nicked my artery as it started bleeding rapidly under the skin. Dr. Macdonald was immediately very panicked and squeezed my wrist so hard it felt like she would break it! It was excruciating! My entire wrist was blue following the “treatment”.
Something that was additionally disturbing is a kind of guilt complex Dr. Macdonald would attempt to put upon me, her patient, as if by not getting better I was making her look bad. She made very strange comments to this effect, leaving me at a complete loss for words. The entire experience was extraordinarily unprofessional as well as damaging to my health.
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We're in need of a new roof for the house and, trying to conduct some form of due diligence before making our contractor decision, we ended up checking into Stoneway Roofing Supply. Have you seen...
We're in need of a new roof for the house and, trying to conduct some form of due diligence before making our contractor decision, we ended up checking into Stoneway Roofing Supply. Have you seen their ads that seem to have just begun to flood the TV airwaves? The ads say that they are "the" place to go to get roofing materials and sound contractor referrals.
We met with the gentleman at Stoneway and were shown some cedar shake planks stacked up on their lot and told they were better than a standard contractor would supply for our job. The planks were constructed of old-growth wood and, per the salesman, that's apparently a rarity. The Stoneway rep went on to tout the professionalism of one particular roofing contractor that did his roof and a family member's roof. The salesman said that the contractor was a former military man and ran his company accordingly.
We went back into the office where the rep was supposed to give us a ballpark idea on cost and three references for roofing contractors. We had to really press to get any loose idea of price and even then, the numbers changed many times. He additionally told us that this ONE particular contractor would get a better discount on the "good" cedar shakes than anyone else would by 10%. Curious. He indicated that the savings would be passed on to us. When it came time to give us the name and numbers of the three referrals, he only supplied the name and number of that one contractor. He said he would give this person our information and have him call us.
The contractor called at 8:30 the next morning (Saturday-ugghh). He said he was real busy, but he would be out on Monday afternoon to do an estimate. He advised us that no one need be home. That was more than two weeks ago and we've never heard from this contractor again. I'm not going to call him; someone who couldn't show up for an initial appointment that they set up. This tells me volumes about what to expect if we actually hired this contractor. But what does this tell me about Stoneway Roofing Supply??
I completely do not understand the point of Stoneway advertising to the public, and our experience with them leaves me simply scratching my head.
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I saw Kathy Griffin at The Moore Theater on Friday night. It was a good show, but every time I go to The Moore, I wonder why the place is left in such decline inside. I have no idea what the bar...
I saw Kathy Griffin at The Moore Theater on Friday night. It was a good show, but every time I go to The Moore, I wonder why the place is left in such decline inside. I have no idea what the bar area or bathrooms look like (I always just get to my seat in time for the show to start), but the theater itself has big, thick patches of peeling paint on the walls and ceiling. There was a large plywood patch in the floor of the balcony that we had to walk over that gave me faint concern. The seating is tight, but that's no different than other venues, unfortunately.
For this show, we were too late purchasing to get good seats so we were all the way in the back of the balcony (only 5 rows left behind us). At this altitude the stage is, of course, a bit of a blur, but I also discovered that it's very hard to hear way back there! I’m sure it would be better if seeing the type of show where the audience sits and listens as opposed to a comedy show where the audience is laughing and responding to the artist. It may also have something to do with the low, oddly curved (and peeling!) ceiling up there, as well.
Something I always do appreciate when seeing a show at The Moore Theater is that, because it has no parking of its own, there's no traffic jam after the show. The crowd exits the theater and disperses to various parking lots in the area, allowing the trek out of the city to be really no more difficult than it otherwise would be. I always have the feeling of being punished after seeing a show in a big venue; stuck in horrific traffic just to get out of the massive parking area, and then the nightmare often continues all the way to the freeway entrance. Nobody should have to be tempted to leave a show early just to be able to avoid the struggle of departure.
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My neighbor hired Highridge to rebuild their deck, install a hot tub, etc. Not only did they charge top-dollar, but they could not get the job "completed" correctly. They had tremendous down time...
My neighbor hired Highridge to rebuild their deck, install a hot tub, etc. Not only did they charge top-dollar, but they could not get the job "completed" correctly. They had tremendous down time where the company wasn't sending anyone out to work on their job. It's more than a year past the date of the contracted completion and Highridge is still working on the job, repeatedly needing to redo things that weren't done correctly. This is a company to avoid.
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La Costa restaurant in Issaquah is a great place for Mexican food. The many meals I've had there have always been tasty and the service has always been great. The gentleman who owns the restaurant...
La Costa restaurant in Issaquah is a great place for Mexican food. The many meals I've had there have always been tasty and the service has always been great. The gentleman who owns the restaurant has been there every time we've dined there, walking around and making sure everyone is happy and satisfied. You definitely get the feel that this is a family-owned business. They also recently remodeled their entire interior. La Costa is located at 240 NW Gilman Boulevard (between Front Street and the post office).
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I've eaten at Cascade Garden several times and always enjoyed the meal and the service. One side of the restaurant consists of all booths and offers a quiet ambiance. The other side can be a bit...
I've eaten at Cascade Garden several times and always enjoyed the meal and the service. One side of the restaurant consists of all booths and offers a quiet ambiance. The other side can be a bit noisier; it's filled with tables, a bar and I believe a small stage. There's a wall separating the two sides of the restaurant. I don't know what they use the stage for, but I've eaten on both sides and enjoyed each of the meals very much.
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If you need a root canal, Dr. Faghih at Cascadia Dental Specialists in Bellevue is someone you should strongly consider. I had a horrifying experience with an archaic dentist (Dr. Sims - Issaquah)...
If you need a root canal, Dr. Faghih at Cascadia Dental Specialists in Bellevue is someone you should strongly consider. I had a horrifying experience with an archaic dentist (Dr. Sims - Issaquah) who actually jammed a needle through an abscess that he failed to notice was there (even after viewing my x-rays)! The experience was horrific beyond description and left me within about a centimeter of going into shock. I had to go to Dr. Faghih to get the abscess removed and a root canal in the tooth the following day and was absolutely scared out of my mind. I'd have to say that, unfortunately, Dr. Faghih didn't display an overly compassionate demeanor, but he was nice enough and the man knew what he was doing. The original dentist had emptied a few full needle cartridges of Novocain, waiting after each for me to become numb, but it just wasn't happening. The last attempt at numbing was the shot he jammed right through the source of my incredible pain: the abscess itself. I was scared to death to have Dr. Faghih give me the “numbing shot” before he had to do all that he had to do. He was so good that it didn't hurt a bit AND it only required one shot! The whole procedure was basically a piece of cake AND he charged less for the root canal than the awful, non-specialized dentist I'd come from!! My former dentist always left me looking like road kill with my face all puffed, pulled and deformed, no matter what procedure he was doing. When I left Dr. Faghih's office, you couldn't tell I had had a single shot of Novocain, much less just gone through a root canal procedure. His office is beautiful and his staff is friendly, as well. He shares the space with his wife who does dental implants. Web site: http://www.cascadiadentalspecialists.com/
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We hired Landwork Enterprises to do our large landscaping job ($30K). We saved money as LE is not a higher-end company that drafts a professional drawing of your proposed job. Instead, your job...
We hired Landwork Enterprises to do our large landscaping job ($30K). We saved money as LE is not a higher-end company that drafts a professional drawing of your proposed job. Instead, your job rides on a verbal agreement of a loosely defined idea and you have to be there, guiding the process, every minute. Ryan does not bring a landscaping architect’s knowledge to the job. In fact, he seems to be lacking even the standard landscaper's knowledge of plants. Some of the plants he chose for our project were not appropriate for the sun exposure and many have died! The plants were largely planted too shallow, as well, leaving the roots exposed. We advised him we needed plants that the deer would not find tasty, yet various plants that he chose have already been devoured.
The company is comprised of the owner, Ryan, and his three Spanish workers, only one of whom speaks (very) broken English. Ryan showed up on the job each day after his workers and gave them generic instructions and then left for the rest of the day. His workers drove a little backhoe erratically, slamming into our big pine trees (repeatedly) and simply ran down smaller trees. We lost at least four trees (that we know of) due to their damage and we have one big pine that was left with a very bad gouge. Due to the damage, this tree may be one that we’ll have to hire someone to bring down later, or worse: it may fall down on the house. Ryan replaced only one 10’ tree, with a smaller, less expensive tree which we paid partial labor to plant. One day his workers were driving the backhoe in mad donuts around a big stump that was to be buried. They were purposely banging it into the tree stump, trying to break the stump out! They were digging up my yard under which lay a septic drainage field that they were to be working as GINGERLY as possible over so as not to damage! The backhoe was damaged and leaked oil all over the yard.
Ryan also knew of damage he and his crew did and he tried to cover it up. He proved himself to be anything but trustworthy. To top off the whole, unfortunate experience, the bulbs in the lighting units he installed burned out in about 8 days (when only lit at night for about 2-3 hours per night). When we called him about it, he never returned our calls. When we went to install one of the two “complimentary” replacement bulbs in one of the lights, we noticed that the bulbs already had a black burn mark on them. They were used! Perhaps Ryan replaces the light bulbs in his own yard before they burn out with brand new ones, and installs his old ones in client’s yards. It’s unfathomable that he’s stayed in business as long as he has. And all the while, he’s worked harder than necessary, because his jobs all HAVE to be new. No one would ever call him back for a repeat performance.
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I nearly hired Highridge to re-landscape our front yard (very large job). It took two weeks just for them to return my call, by which time I had already hired another company. I didn't know how...
I nearly hired Highridge to re-landscape our front yard (very large job). It took two weeks just for them to return my call, by which time I had already hired another company. I didn't know how lucky I was! I didn't realize that my neighbor had contracted them to re-do their deck and were having tremendous problems. A job that was estimated to be completed more than a year ago is still being worked on today!! They're also a top-dollar company, so along with the ongoing mistakes and re-dos, they'll present you with a big, fat bill.
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I'm also from California and was glad to see a Chili's here in Issaquah. The first time we ate there, I had a problem with my meal and the manager was more than accommodating. We've eaten there...
I'm also from California and was glad to see a Chili's here in Issaquah. The first time we ate there, I had a problem with my meal and the manager was more than accommodating. We've eaten there numerous times since then and have always had good food (and lots of it). The service is what you'd expect anywhere - not strikingly good or bad, just average. The restaurant is generally very busy and that may slow down service at times. The staff has always been very friendly and the food has always been tasty. Chili's remains a favorite on our restaurant circuit!
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