flying

I'm in the air almost to Billings. One of the neat things (in my mind)
is looking out the windows and see the places I've been. Ever after
taking that ridiculous drive across the entire length of I-90, there's
a ton more places along the route from Seattle to
Chicago, Cleveland, and NYC that I've seen on the ground. Granted,
most of that drive was exceptionally boring, but at the very least I
can take comfort knowing that what took me a day to drive we have
covered in an hour and a half. (we're flying past Billings right now)

By the way, exit row and personal entertainment system means good
times. (-:

packing list

(from memory...  I just realized that I'm assuming that pants will dry overnight)

Note:  No boots, no water bottle.

Headwear:
1 Floppy hat
1 pair of sunglasses that I'm about to buy

Footwear:
Sandals
Merrells

Underwear:
3 pairs of socks
4 pairs of lightweight cotton boxers
1 cotton undershirt

Sleepwear:
1 synthetic tee
1 pair of jammy pants

Swimwear:
1 pair of togs

Shirts:
1 dark linen shirt
1 dark synthetic tee
1 dark long sleeve tee

Pants:
1 pair of jeans
1 pair of dark linen pants
1 pair of dark linen shorts

Toiletries:
2 x 2oz contact lens solution
1 contact lens case
2 pairs of contact lenses
1 razor
1 half used bar of soap
1 oz of face wash
0.5 oz of face lotion
1 albuterol inhaler
Some diarrhea meds from YALE
3oz of shampoo from corporate housing
2 pairs of contact lenses
2 single use bottles of body wash
1 toothbrush
10 yards of floss
1.5 oz of toothpaste
1 pair of glasses

Camera:
Canon Digital Rebel XT
6GB CompactFlash card
4GB CompactFlash card
Cheapo Sigma 18-135mm? lens with polarized filter
1 spare battery
Rebel battery charger
Canon Powershot SD-something
2GB SD card
Powershot charger (I won't bring this if PMA has his)
Lens cleaning solution
Lens cleaning wipes
Latex glove
1 dented iPhone
iPhone charger
Apple power adaptor
Generic power adaptor

Bags:
Crumpler camera bag
Jansport day pack with water pouch
Some medium size bag that I'm about to buy

Random crap:
Random drawstrings for laundry lines
1 credit card hidden in the camera bag
1 credit card hidden in the regular bag
1 credit card hidden in the daypack
1 book...  maybe Nudge

four year old stamps... ugh...

packing list

yum!

seattle weather sucks!

i enjoy shaving in public

going home

On the 545. Apparently there were AT LEAST five punctures in the tube.
I'm guessing there were more.

Good news is that I have plenty of spare tubes and also a couple of
spare tires at home. I was actually thinking of putting the other
tires on since I occassionally get flats with the damn Kenda Kwests,
but I wanted to do one last ride with them and my cycling shoes so I
can see how big of a difference the shoes make. My finding is that the
shoes make very little difference if I don't even make it home. The
Kenda Kwests get a big FAIL. I would want the Panaracer Pasela
Tourguards to do better.

dammit

odd day

This has been an odd day so far. 

• I locked myself out of my building while on my way to get breakfast. 
• I left my ATM card in the ATM.  Thankfully someone found it, and they were amused at my derogatory signature on the back that I leave there since I never use my ATM card as a debit card.
• When I was getting my coffee this morning, I did the usual thing where I tell the coffee machine to get started while I then went to wash my cup and put in the milk and sugar.  Usually this leaves me some time to get my cup into the machine to catch the coffee when it comes out, but not today.  Instead, it dumped the whole cup of coffee on the floor.

I'm curious to see what other surprises will come up today.

bike commute - am

facebook suggestions

I’ve already been complaining about how stupid Facebook’s suggestions have been.  Friends were bad enough, but now it suggests fan pages.

Today’s suggestion?  Prayer.  Gee, thanks.

emissions

I don’t really commute by bus/bike because it’s better for the environment, but it’s a good bonus.  For the 27 mile commute (round trip), I think I do about 6 miles on bike and the rest on a bus that’s 3/4 full.

Gotta love SUVs.

iphone update

The good news:  The iPhone is jailbroken, which means I can install all sorts of apps that aren’t available in the App Store.  Sure, they range from useful to amusing to worthless.  Useful would be SBSettings so I can quickly jump to other apps without (slowly) returning to the Home screen.  Amusing would be iSutra.  Worthless would be most of the crap that’s out there.

The bad news:  Battery life is terrible.  It seems like I regularly reach the 20% battery warning.  If I actually use the phone for calls or music the battery is almost guaranteed to die before nightfall.

seattle

Spotty rain and sun in the morning
Sunny in Bremerton, rainy in Bainbridge
A violinist performing outside my grocery store
Two dogs patiently waiting outside Coastal Kitchen for their owners to
finish dinner
A random 130 pound dog riding the bus
The bus driver asking his passengers to wait a few minutes as he runs
out to grab a coffee
Drinks downtown for no apparent reason

needlessly complicated

I’ve never had trouble zipping up after going to the bathroom, but apparently some people have serious problems with getting their stuff back in order after doing #1.  I just witnessed a fellow who was clearly doing it wrong.  Some pointers:

1. Continue facing the wall
   There is no reason to take a step back and turn to face the door and any unsuspecting person like myself so that we can see what you’re up to.  It’s embarrassing to everyone.
2. Don’t worry about your shirt
   With practice, you’ll be able to find your zipper and slide it up without having to lifting up your shirt and holding it there with your chin.  After a few years of practice, you should be able to do this without looking.  If you have no feeling in your fingers, I apologize.  That must be rough.
3. Keep your boxers in your pants
   Pulling your boxers as far out of your pants as possible is the exact opposite of what you want to be doing.  In order to close the zipper, you can’t have your boxers or anything else in the way.  If you do that so that no one can see you while you’re doing the act, then consider facing the wall while you do this whole operation instead of showing off each time so we can see how good you are at what you do.

cold hearted snake

I just got back from having dinner up in Canada.  For the first time, coming back into the US was easier than getting into Canada.  The guy just asked me where I live, what I was doing in Canada, if the car is registered in my name, how long I had the car, how come I have new license plates, what I do in Seattle, and "so you work with Bill?"  Friendly, and reasonable considering my car is filthy and my plates are shiny.  Coming into Canada I ran the gauntlet with the customers officer.  She was kinda cute, but she had no soul.

Why I was visiting Canada?
Where I was going?
Where I am coming from?
What I do here?
Exactly what do I do here?
How long will I be here?
Will I be staying overnight?
Who am I meeting?
Where am I meeting them?
Where do I know them from?
College?  Did I go to university in Canada?
Where are they from?
Why are they in Vancouver?
Is she my girlfriend?
Am I bringing anything into the country?
What do I have in my car?
What specifically do I have in my car?
Is the car registered in my name?

I am not sure what she was getting at, but I was actually questioned TWICE while leaving the US.  I had to talk to a US guy on the US side first.  Usually no one has to do that.  Something must have been up.

iphone’s second coming

A couple days ago my iPhone fell.  At first it seemed OK.  Then I tried switching apps by using the home button…

Nothing happened.  The only way to get back to the home screen was to reboot the damn thing.  After few reboots (which takes forever, by the way), I gave up and went on my way.  I was biking home that day (which is glorious), so I didn’t want to spend time troubleshooting my phone while standing in the hallway by my bike.

After getting home I looked into the issue online.  Apparently it’s a common problem.  And the fix?  No easy fix.  The culprit is likely a loose cable that’s behind the guts of the phone.  Nice.

I hesitated.  Taking the phone apart is no joke.  It requires blades, prying, care, and a hell of a lot of patience.  I wasn’t really looking to do something like that.  Maybe I could deal with rebooting the phone each time I wanted to do something different, I thought.

That’s when I realized that it wouldn’t charge anymore either.  The injury was deep, and the phone was basically paralyzed from the waist down.  Anything “down there” was all jacked up.  No home button, no syncing, no charging, and after a while the speakers starting making random noises.  Fun.  Intolerable.

Since the phone was worthless – can’t use it, can’t charge it, and can’t even save my data, I figure I might as well risk totally destroying the thing.  After all, I’ve been hating on the thing for the past half year for it’s absurdly unresponsive UI.

Step one:  Get the black piece off.  After using a sharp knife on the edges, I was able to get it off.

Step two:  Get the back panel off.  This took forever.  Some more blade and some screwdriver was able to get the job done.  If I spent a few more hours on it I probably could have gotten it off with less scratching, but I wasn’t going to sell the thing anyway, so whatever.  I’ll save myself the effort and use the screwdriver. (-:

Step whatever:  Figure out WTF is the problem.  The thing is tightly packed.  From reading online, I knew that the culprit cable was behind the battery, but after fiddling with it I got no results.  I kept at it though.  Eventually after working at it from multiple angles and reconnecting everything that disconnected itself, I got the thing working.

It’s amazing how easy things inside the phone get disconnected.  Simply gravity was enough to get the camera to fall off.  The same weak connector is also used to connect the side buttons and the screen.  What does this mean for you?  Don’t drop the thing, or it will die.

Drop it on it’s bottom, expect to get what I got.  No home, no sync, no charge.

Drop it on it’s face, and the screen is likely to get disconnected.  This one would also be a complete pain in the ass to fix.

Drop it on it’s back, and camera and/or side buttons are likely to go on you.

For best results, drop it on it’s head.

official

I think I'll make this official. My new preferred method of getting to/
from work is the bike shuttle in the morning and the connector in the
evening. After doing that in a "winter storm" while wearing jeans I've
realized that no matter how bad it is, I'm still ok with it.

Now the question is, should I get some more bike stuff? This bike
home option intrigues me.

Sent from my POS iPhone.

bike home?

I’ve been coming to work super early so far this week (7am).  At this point, I’m beginning to feel a little out of it.  I’m thinking of biking home.  Nothing like a 27 mile bike ride to end the day, right?

The worst thing is that there’s a nice 400’ climb at the end.  Something to look forward to I guess.

Read this chart backwards: