Wednesday, January 28, 2009
My credit card number was stolen over the weekend. I'm still not sure how, but I suddenly had a pending charge from MAKEMONEYONLINE. Not the kind of thing I'd purchase online. I called, and they said to wait until the charge went through.
The charge never did go through, but Bank of America emailed me this morning to say that there were other pending charges on my account that were suspicious. Since two were from the College Sports Network I can only assume their software is smart enough to realize I don't watch sports. Once I told her they weren't mine she canceled the card and issued me a new one. Really, this was minor. I don't need to dispute any charges, and only about $500 worth of charges were pending when they caught on.
But I'm impressed. First, they noticed a problem right away and kept the charges from going through. That's good software engineering. They also said in their email that I could call collect from anywhere in the world and they offered to overnight me a new card (I declined, standard mail is fine). That's good customer service. Makes me feel a little better about traveling cross country on their credit card this upcoming summer.
So its all resolved, three days after it started. I'm not happy with how Bank of America handles it's bailout money, but I am happy with how they handle their Visa customers. Having two snow days in a row where I could spend my time monitoring my account helped.
| posted at: 14:27 |
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
One of the features on my digital camera (a Canon SD1100IS) is time lapse video. I had to play with it. After a few experiments around the house, I decided to mount it to my dash on the way home from New York last weekend. I wanted to see if we'd be able to do something similar on our bike.
A few weird and annoying things.
First, the camera stopped shooting video almost exactly 2 hours into the trip. I thought this might mean that video had reached the max file size on a FAT32 formatted SD card, but the file was only 155MB - much too small. I'm still not sure what the issue is, but it's a minor one. When you're shooting time lapse on a bike, missing three or four seconds to restart a camera isn't a big deal.
Second, the battery didn't last. I got almost three hours of footage, but the drive is nearly five hours. A ten minute charge at an Arby's wasn't enough to give it more than another fifteen minutes of juice. I did some looking around for a stronger battery, but they don't appear to exist. So I'm going to need to carry a replacement battery with us cross country.
| posted at: 13:34 |
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Saturday, January 24, 2009
Due to some unfortunate circumstances, I needed to make a trip to New York last weekend. As always, it was very cold there. When I arrived, it was in the teens. My parents were calling this a heat wave, and couldn't remember the last time it had been above freezing. Temperatures that have been below freezing that long usually mean that there are interesting ice formations in the creek behind their house. So I had to take a walk.
Our walk was a bit like walking through a winter calendar. Down at the bottom of the creek we figured it was about 0 degrees. On top of the hill it was probably closer to the high for the day: 12. There was a good eight inches of snow in the fields. It almost made me miss winter.
Sadly, due to the cold my camera's battery was dying quickly. But if I put it in my pocket for ten minutes it would usually find enough energy to take another picture. Made me think that I should probably have a spare battery for our cross country trip.
The midpoint of our hike was on top of the hill overlooking my home town. If you look really carefully in the photo (click on it to see a bigger view) you can see a
white field where my elementary school is. David and I used to ride those hills almost every day. Sorry the pictures didn't combine any better. It was cold enough that I couldn't figure out how to stay in exactly the same spot.
You can check out our entire slideshow (including some awesome pictures of ice columns and weird deer tracks) on Flickr.
| posted at: 11:00 |
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Saturday, January 10, 2009
If you'll recall, I gave up coffee as a New Year's resolution. I might have picked the worst ever time for it. I take it one day at a time. I actually first stopped the day after Christmas, and didn't have any caffeine until New Year's eve. That one mocha on New Year's completely messed up my system again, and the head aches came back for a few days. I feel like a junkie.
Plus finals are coming up. No Caffeine + lots of work = no time to ride.
Of course, that means Jillian is completely killing me in the thousand mile challenge. I think she almost feels guilty getting to ride for an hour or two during the day while I'm at work, but I'm all for it. The better shape she's in the faster we'll go on the bike - and the less for me to do :-). Plus I have almost enough outdoor riding gear to comfortably ride in 30 degree weather. Apparently the trick to keeping your feet warm is to double up on socks and wear plastic bags between the two layers. Keeps the wind out. When I do finally have some time, I can hopefully catch right back up.
And speaking of bikes, we sat down last night and had a real talk about how we're going to afford everything. Expect me in all my nerdiness to run a spreadsheet at some point in the not too distant future. We took a look at some other bikes that might be as much as half as expensive, but decided we'd still rather stick with the Pino. It's a pricey bike, but we hear fantastic things about touring with them from other owners, and we still think the ability to sit in two different positions will prove invaluable to us. A lot of the cycling journals I've read have featured people that don't ride more than 60 miles a day. We're still shooting for 100, and more if we can. We just don't have a lot of time. But 100 miles a day is a lot more time in the saddle, and two different seating positions could really alleviate some pain.
I've also decided that I will not be taking my pocket slippers on the tour. They're too big. If they fit perfectly then I might consider it, but I get the impression that if they fit perfectly then they wouldn't be pocket slippers. So I'm pulling those from the gear page. Instead I'm going to head down to REI some time and look at the Keen Commutes. Hopefully my feet won't be too wide and they'll fit perfectly. Put some low profile cleats on them and I hope to be able to wear them pretty much all the time.
I hate random update entries.
| posted at: 14:19 |
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Friday, January 02, 2009
So Jillian and I have decided to make some New Year's resolutions. We'll do what we can to compete at them, I'm sure.
Resolution 1: Give up Coffee
No, really, I'm going to do it. I used a couple of days last week to try to wean myself off. I can make it all day without a splitting headache now, though I still feel rather lethargic all the time. I was drinking between 3 and 4 cups a day before break. That can't be healthy. Plus I'm sure if we were riding somewhere and I couldn't find my coffee then I'd be totally impossible to be around. I'm going to be instructing my students to yell at me if they see me anywhere in the building drinking coffee. I figure they'll keep me honest.
Resolution 2: Lose 20 Pounds
I know this is a rather traditional resolution, but this one is extra important for us. I weigh 190 pounds, the highest I've ever been. I know that isn't too bad for someone who's 6'2", but 170 pounds is just as healthy for a cyclist. Plus it means we'd be moving 20 fewer pounds on the bike. Of course, I haven't been 170 pounds since when I had my wisdom teeth out and my gums got infected three times (who knew I had mono when I got them out?). Back then I managed to lose the weight eating only ice cream, since my jaw couldn't close. I'm thinking this time I might actually need to pay attention to what I eat.
We'll see how those go. I might need to significantly increase my riding in order to make the second one happen. Too bad it's so cold out - my toes were purple when I got back from my ride yesterday.
| posted at: 10:57 |
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