My wife was in desperate need of new tires. When you buy a used bike you don’t always get a good set of tires. We got a good price on it anyway. It really is a nice bike for getting to and from the store. However, the tires were really bad. We have been using the bikes as our primary transportation for the last month, and even more so recently as we have gotten used to where things are and how to get there.

She needed tires and I have been wanting narrower tires for my bike. Her’s is a “beach cruiser” style bike; a single speed bike that you sit up-right on and has fatter, mountain-bike style, tires. Mine is a mountain bike with 18 speeds, of which I generally only use 4. I had fairly good used tires on mine (it was a used bike too), but wanted the narrower tires for lower rolling resistance. I picked out the tires I wanted at the bike shop, but he only had one. He ordered a set for me on Tuesday which were to be ready for pick-up on Thursday. I knew that meant that it might not be until sometime next week before I got the tires, but at least they were on order. When I stopped by the shop on Friday morning the tires were not there yet. I had not planned to go back to check on them until Saturday, but ended up having to buy a new tube later on Friday afternoon. I was pleased to find that my new tires had arrived by then.

The reason I needed a tube that afternoon was that my wife’s front tire was so bad that the tube protruded out of one of the holes and got punctured. I patched the hole in the tube, but when putting it back together I broke the valve stem. That tube already had 3 patches in it. It had served its time.

A simple 45 minute job of removing her tires and transferring mine onto her bike while installing the new tires on my wheels ended up taking 2.5 hours. On top of that I managed to puncture one tube so badly that it needed 3 patches! I also broke another valve stem, but was ultimately able to salvage it.

The narrower tires roll better and will be much faster with less effort. There are downsides to the skinnier tires though. The ride is smoother on smooth roads, but much rougher on rough roads. Any linear crack in the road (going the same direction as I) tends to suck the tires in and makes it harder to control the bike. Those were things I knew and was prepared for since I have done my time switching between a road bike and a mountain bike back home. What was a funny surprise though is that the new tires make my bike considerably shorter. My kickstand is now too long!

Categories: Argentina, Salesmen
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On our way to church to take our son to a youth activity we stopped at a corner grocery store to pick up a Coke. We were in a hurry since the bus was to leave in 5 minutes (it really left 40 minutes late, but not because they were waiting on us). I ran into the store and saw a display of 2 liter Cokes. I grabbed one and took it up to the check out counter. And waited. And waited. And finally the clerk finished talking on his cell phone and came in to let me pay.

When he punched up the price on his calculator he put in $6.70 (Argentine Pesos). I would not have cared most of the time, but I happened to notice that the price was $6.40 when I picked up the bottle. I didn’t want to let him get by with charging me too much. What if I had to go in there again? Would I stand for him charging me more for every purchase? I decided to nip it in the bud and pointed out to him that the price was $6.40 on the display.

He said, “That is the price for the warm ones, not the ones from the cooler.”

Most of the little stores I have been in charge more if you buy a drink already cold. It makes a little sense because they are paying for the electricity to cool it down for you.

“But, I didn’t get it from the cooler. I got it off the display.”

He said that it was cold; therefore, it had to have come out of the cooler. I told him that was fine, I would take the Coke back to the display and swap it out for another one so he could see I got it from the unrefrigerated display. I grabbed another one and handed it to him. He thought it was too cold too. So he went to the display and dug through the bottles until he found a hot one and shoved the 2 that I had already tried to buy into the cooler.

Did I mention that it was 54 degrees and all the windows and doors were open at the store? Everything was cold in there! But he managed to find one that made him feel better about loosing a little profit.

I didn’t care. I was going to put the Coke on a bus and let it sit there for 3 hours before consumption. It would be the same temperature as the outside air by the time they drank it, which ended up only being 57 degrees for the day.

Categories: Argentina, Salesmen
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Yesterday my wife and I were part of the craziness that is Black Friday. We went to Target to get a hard drive for a great price. We arrived a couple of minutes after 5:00 and the parking lot was full. There was a line that people were voluntarily stepping into and filing orderly into the store. There were no police officers and no one yelling and screaming. I knew right then that we were no longer in Mexico.

This video was taken at about 10 minutes after the store was to have opened. There were already people leaving the store when we got in line. That makes me think that they opened early. There were no hard drives left. They had a space for the drives that could not have held more than 10 drives to start with. I ran across the street to Wal-Mart while my wife paid for a couple of items. At Wal-Mart I found the drives in a stack of about 80. They had plenty of them. They price-matched Target and I got a good deal.

People bash Wal-Mart all the time, but all in all I think they are doing many things right.

Categories: Mexico, Salesmen
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Gone are the days where you could at least hope to find what you needed at Radio Shack. Even if you had to pay a ridiculously high price for a component, you could at least find some of the things you needed to build a project. But, not any more.

I went into my local Radio Shack today to get a stereo plug for a mic connector that I want to build. The lady at The Shack looked at me like I was stupid when I told her what I wanted (1/8″ stereo plug that I could solder my own wires on to). She took me over to the extension cables. At least she was in the right aisle of the store where the plugs would have been in the past. Trying to be helpful, she stood in my way to find this thing herself that she really did not understand. She would have been more helpful if she would have just let me look instead of assuming I was the dumb one in the conversation.

After digging around a while I realized there were very few products for build it yourself projects.

I left with the comment that I would just have to go online and get what I needed and in doing so try to put Radio Shack out of business. She joked that my leaving the store to buy online could, very well, be their demise.

While Radio Shack is probably doing well in their new business, they are no longer a friend to hobbyists who want to build their own equipment. *Sigh*

Categories: Radio, Salesmen
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Yesterday (Thursday) I got a phone call from a doctor’s office I called on Tuesday. The receptionist was calling me back to confirm that my doctor would take my wife as a new patient even though he is currently not taking new patients. This was good news.

The receptionist asked to speak with my wife to get all her information. Since I am clueless as to my wife’s address, phone number and birthdate, I relinquished the phone to her. The conversation included my wife having to give her Social Security number 4 times. Address, phone number and birthdate 3 times. This was because the receptionist (who schedules all the appointments) was having trouble with the “new” computer system.

In my phone conversation with the receptionist on Tuesday I had to go through similar antics. After giving all of my information once, she had to ask for it again. I think I probably went through the whole battery of questions 3 times.

Since I am an existing patient and they have a new computer system I can understand that the receptionist would want to verify my information in their computer. But the data from the old computer system did not get pulled into the new system. So she was having to input it all for the very first time. That seems poorly implemented.

Here’s the rub though. If the system was “new” on Tuesday and all this receptionist does is schedule appointments and input data into the computer, shouldn’t she be better at it after 2 days of use? I can’t imagine having as much problem inputing data into a computer after 2 days as I did the first day. My suspicion is that the system is not “new”, as in, this week, but “new”, as in, the last week or two.

One would hope that the doctor knows how to use his tools before he starts working on you. Shouldn’t other professions be trained in their tools too? I know data entry may not be as life-critical as a surgeon’s work, but you should be able to accomplish such a simple task with at least 2 full days of practice. This isn’t brain surgery; it is data entry.

I try not to be harsh on older people who are trying to learn new technology, but if you have a tool that you are supposed to use for work, you should be able to adapt to it pretty quickly or maybe look at a different line of work. I have no idea how old the lady is in the doctor’s office, but I have never seen anyone in there older than maybe 50 except for one nurse who I am sure is not the data entry specialist.

Categories: Salesmen
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