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!

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.

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.

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*

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.

My first visit with them was over 6 months ago. I was back in the area last week which is why I brought up the subject of the bike shop to my wife.

We had an opportunity to drop by there this week while looking for an adapter for a 1-1/4″ bike rack to fit in my 2″ hitch. This is something that is typically included with a new bike rack. I bought mine used off of Craig’s List and it did not have the adapter.

The man in the bike shop suggested that I go to Wal-Mart and tell them that I bought the rack from them and have them pull an adapter from one of their in-store displays. I told the guy I did not buy the rack from Wal-Mart. He said, “It doesn’t matter. They rip people off all the time, they might as well get ripped off occasionally.”

That type of mentality shows a lack of character. It doesn’t matter what a person thinks about another company or individual, they can’t suggest that stealing from the business is justified because that company isn’t fair. This tells me that the man in the bike shop would probably take advantage of me if it easily benefitted him.

While the good experience I had when I first stepped in the store carried enough weight to send me back there, the lack of character and ethics will keep me from ever going back to that store again. Be careful what you say to your customers, it could cost you many dollars in the future.

We were greeted by a friendly hostess. She shared with us some of the history of the museum and its pieces before we started talking about the bikes themselves. Much of the collection was bought individually at auction when the Schwinn family had to sell off their bikes.

There was a good 15 minute video that we watched to help get us started in the history of the bikes. Then we spent more time than we had available browsing through the collection. The hostess and a volunteer were there to answer our questions. They both seemed very knowledgeable and willing. When I asked about a specific bike brand (Bianchi, my bike) the hostess went into their warehouse to bring out a sample from them. The showroom does not have enough space for them to show all their bikes at once. Therefore they constantly rotate bikes in so there is a different group of bikes each time you go. The main ones are always on display, but many secondary bikes are rotated. We are talking about hundreds of bikes on display at once.

In the parking lot of the museum is an extra treat. The Erie Canal passed through this town and one of the locks is right there beside the parking area.

I did some recording at the museum. I have not had a chance to listen to it, but if it is any good I will share it here.

Face it. Life can be stressful. But not when you have some lightly battered premium white-meat chicken by your side. Just grip, dip and go. Wasn’t that easy? Take that, yoga class.

Essentially Burger King is saying that to relieve stress you are better off eating deep fat fried chicken that has 53% of it’s 390 calories coming from fat than to do a yoga class. And if the fat and calories were not enough, they provide 41% of your RDA of sodium. They are trying to convince us that getting almost half of your sodium in one meal (that does not count the fries or anything else with your meal) is less stressful, and presumably better for you, than doing a round of exercise that is perfectly designed for stress relief.

Am I the only one that has a problem with this?

I know that fast food joints are not known for their promotion of good health, but to say that you will be more stress free and, implying, healthier by eating the Chicken Fries than exercising seems irresponsible.

This time was special though, I had to be on my best behavior. He was finally going to let me meet his wife. Actually, we had to prove to her that I was really a man so she wouldn’t think strange things about us.

The plans were that I would pick up Terry after the two of them drove to a meeting she had. Then Terry and I would go have dinner and do some general running around with me as his chauffeur for the evening. After we painted Wal-Mart and the Post Office red, then I would take him home and meet Jen, his “lovely and talented wife.”

As is often the case, plans got changed. This time for the better. Jen was able to leave her meeting early and join us for dinner. We had a great time eating and talking. Then, all of a sudden, we all geeked out together. Jen pulled out her Palm Centro, while Terry was on his Palm T|X. I had my iPhone and we all silently conversed through text messages, Facebook exchanges, Twitter comments and verbal snide remarks.

We finally parted ways with Jen going home to get stuff together for a weekend trip while Terry and I set out on the mission.

For Terry the goal was to get the gift cards that he was giving away prepared and in the mail before his trip. My responsibility was to help him spend the extra money on 2 separate gift cards. He needed $2.32 on each card, but Wal-Mart would not let him buy the exact amount. He had to buy $5 cards and I had to spend the extra $2.68 (exactly) on each card as my birthday gift (coming up December 15).

Immediately I knew that I wanted some snacks to help me with my 11 hour drive from Knoxville to Pensacola the next day. The trail mix I picked out got us to within $1 per card. Fruit was the best way to make up the difference. I decided on Apples and Bananas. I had to pick just the right size to make up the extra dollar without going too much over.

The fun part was explaining to the cashier what we were trying to do. We did a little profiling and looked for a cashier that might be able to understand what we were doing. Needless to say, Terry and I don’t have a future on the FBI: Behaviorial Analysis Unit. The cashier we chose was just one step away from clueless.

We made a math error on the first card which ended up deleting $2.32 and leaving $2.68. The second card did not work at all. So our attempt to be clever failed to give the desired results.

The good that came out of it was I got the coolest spontaneous birthday gift. The trail mix and fruit was only a small part of it. The best part was acting like a couple of college kids trying to play a prank at the expense of Wal-Mart. It was fun acting half our age for a short time.

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This will save you $3 on a regular Road ID and shipping is only $1.50.

I am considering getting a new one this year. Mine is a couple of years old and has my Mexico address on it. But, I always had my parents phone number listed on the ID as the emergency contact. So it is still valid. I would like to have the US address on one though. My current one is yellow. I can’t decide if I want the blue or the red for my next one.

Yes, this is November, 2008. I know that the 1222 and 1223 models have already been discontinued. But, that is the way I buy my shoes. I find discontinued shoes in the models I would have bought anyway and get the older version on sale. Sometimes a crazy cheap sale.

When I stopped at the shoe store on Saturday they did not have any 1223s in my size. They only had a few left since the 1224 model has been out for a short time. But, they did have 992s that they were clearing out for the new 993 model. The 993 shoes are not available in most stores yet. I checked a few places online that I have bought from before and they don’t have the 993 ready to ship. That line of shoe, 992/993, are the ugliest shoe that New Balance makes in my opinion. However, they are extremely popular. The older shoes have a memory foam that conforms to your foot and is supposed to be top of the line in comfort. The memory foam was heavy though and they tossed it out in the newer 993 to save weight. They are still a very heavy (and ugly) shoe.

Weight and yuck factor don’t bother me as long as the price is right and they fit well. The price was right, but they did not fit well. I tried on several pair of the 992s in different widths and lengths. Nothing quite fit right. The one width/length combination that would probably be perfect had been bought out. Someone recently came in and bought all their 992 shoes in 11 4E in each of the 3 colors they had. I guess that is someone who really loves the shoe.

Lamenting my situation, I asked the store owner to pull out what 1223 shoes they had that might fit. Surprisingly I landed on a size that is totally wrong, but it fit like a loose glove (I like my shoes big). She got me into an 11 2E shoe. These shoes were $140 regular price. I bought them for $59. I think that is the best shoe deal I have gotten so far. The 992 that I originally went in for was $69. So I got a shoe I like better, looks nicer, fits great and weighs less for $10 cheaper than I planned to spend.

The interesting thing to me is how different the 1223s are from the 1222. In the pictures you see a 1222 (the dirty one) and the new 1223. They look nothing alike. Not as far as shoe models go. I am wondering how NB justified calling this an update when it is really a different shoe. Whatever the justification, it should still have the same basic properties.

The store owner flagged my name with the fact that I want stability+ (or strong stability) shoes. In the future when they change models and start clearancing out the current ones, she should give me a call. That is service. I just hope I am home to be able to take advantage.

Preaching
We had some great preaching during the week. We had a main speaker and several other men who preached during the time there. One of the preachers was the doctor who spoke on gluttony that I posted previously.

Singing
We had some great singing primarily provided by Evangelist Bill Blount. I have always enjoyed his company. He is a generation or two older than me, but out of all the guys in our group, he is one of the most technologically advanced in our group. He was sporting a Samson Zoom H2 that he set up for recording our sessions. I told his son that when Bro. Blount makes his exit from this world that I wanted to be in the will for the recorder.

Reporting
One of my frustrations of the week came from the missionaries when they spoke. Having spent so many years in camping ministry, I see the need to keep things moving on schedule. We had one session where the missionaries were given 5 minutes each to give an elevator pitch of who they were, what their ministry is and what they are doing to accomplish that.

Remember that we were missionaries in a room full of pastors. These pastors are men who are there partially for the purpose of seeing which missionaries they would like to align themselves with and financially support. The missionaries needed to do everything they could to make an impression on these pastors. While support will not be determined on this 5 minute speech, it could affect whether the missionary got a meeting in churches for possible support.

Every missionary went over his 5 minute limit. Some went over by as many as 3 minutes. Pastors are very jealous of their time in the pulpit. When a missionary can’t stay within the time limit imposed on him, a pastor is going to be less interested in having the missionary in his church. I have been told by some pastors that if I went over, by one second, the time limit I was given that it would instantly mean I would not be supported.

One of the missionaries proceeded to talk about how he has been in churches in which the pastors have lied about their willingness to support missionaries. Also how some pastors have put on a show in front of other pastors to look good, and then privately told the missionary he really was not interested in missions. Basically he spent his 5 plus minutes disparaging pastors across the board. Not real smart when you are in a room full of them. Those are things you may experience and think, but you should never say out loud. And certainly not to a group of pastors that you want to support you.

Fellowshipping
I had a great time getting together with other missionaries and pastors. Many of these men I have known for 8 years. They have become friends by association.

Though I was there as part of a conference of missionaries, I was able to see PlaneT3rry again. He was “in the neighborhood” and took time out to drive down to the meeting area and take me out for dinner. (Thanks again for supper!) This was only the second time we have met in person, but it seems like we have been friends for years.

Driving
When it was all over on Wednesday night I loaded up my stuff and started the 11 hour trip from Pigeon Forge to Pensacola. I left about 10:30 at night and was able to drive until 2:00 AM. When I am alone, I am somewhat of a minimalist. Hotels are over-priced for just one person. I slept about 5 hours in my van while shivering myself awake occasionally. I had on 2 shirts, a sweatshirt, 2 jackets and a suit coat. I misplaced my sweater, which would have been my best defense against the cold. But, I got the rest I needed and made the trip home without any problems.

I previously mentioned some problems I was having with my phone. If you read the update I wrote at the end, you will see that I traced the problem to a phone case I have which has a magnet in it. The phone has absolutely not locked up since I stopped using that case. The only thing I can trace the phone problems to is the magnets which hold the flap shut.

I have read pages that talk about how AT&T employees are telling customers to not use cases with magnets. Some of the reasons are bizarre and totally impossible. Such as the magnets messing up the video or erasing the hard drive. There is no traditional hard drive in an iPhone. Magnets will effect a CRT monitor but not an LCD. I think these are reasons made up by the individual employee to explain why not to use a magnet in the iPhone cases.

I have also read where people have said there is no way a magnet could negatively affect the phone. There were some reports of problems, while not the same problem as mine, which are consistent when magnets are involved. I can verify that the magnet is definitely the culprit of my phone locking up.

All that to say, while there is inconsistent data, it does appear that magnets can affect the phone negatively. How strong of a magnet? What will the symptoms be? How long of exposure to the magnet? Those are questions I cannot answer. But I can say that if you are having problems with your iPhone and you have a case with magnets, then try some testing to see if the case is indeed the problem.

It did not really crash, it just would not come out of suspend mode. I would have to do a hard reset on the phone. Sometimes I could go a couple of days without the problem, but more often than not it locked up once or twice a day. This went on for about 3 weeks. I kept trying to find a pattern to see if there was some software that might be causing the problem. I am very patient with technological stupidity. I prefer Linux. That should tell you how patient I am.

I finally broke down and called AppleCare. I decided that there had to be something wrong with the phone and it was not my fault. I had gone through all kinds of diagnostic hoops on my own. It was time for professional help.

The AppleCare rep was very patient and he stayed on the line with me for about 45 minutes through the process of resetting my phone as if it were factory new. I was happy to think that the problem might have been solved. It wasn’t. The next day it was acting the same.

Another week went by and the problem got worse. Two days in a row I had to hard reset the phone at least 15 times each day. I was in Indianapolis and near an Apple Store. This was a good excuse to finally get into an Apple Store.

I took the phone to the Genius Bar. The Genius listened to all my symptoms again. He seemed to be completely uninterested in the fact that I had already spoken with AppleCare. He went through his diagnostics and concluded that since it was not displaying the problem at the moment, he could not do anything about the problem. His solution was that if it did it again to call AppleCare and they could send me a new phone (so that I would not have the 2 hour round trip back to the store). But if the problem did not present itself to him, there was nothing he could do.

He did completely wipe the phone and we went through the same steps that I had done with AppleCare. I drove the hour back to the house a bit disappointed that the phone had not been replaced, but hopeful that the problem was really resolved.

It was not 4 hours later that the phone locked up again. I called AppleCare for the next step. I also went through all the explanation again as if I had not spoken with anyone about the problem. I told the man that I was a bit disappointed that they could not pull up my case and read the problem for themselves instead of have me explain it over and over.

He finally put me on hold while he spoke with a “product specialist.” He came back on the line to tell me that they could either send me a new phone or I could go back to the Apple Store and pick one up. He then told me that the phone should have been replaced when I was in the store, but the Genius either did not want to admit defeat or felt the problem really was software related. He never even looked up my previous conversation with AppleCare.

Today I made the drive to the store again to exchange the phone. I arrived about 30 minutes before my appointment (yes, you must have a reservation to get customer service in Apple Stores).

The Genius today asked me to explain the problem. AppleCare instructed me to tell him that if he wanted to know what the problem was that he had to read the case file himself, I had already done enough explaining. The Genius was supposed to just replace the phone. He took the case number and got right to work on replacing my phone.

The conclusion is that they did replace my phone. But it took too much explaining the same problem and one too many trips to the store.

I have only had this new phone for 10 hours, but so far it seems stable. We will see what the next few days bring.

Funny bits of conversation:

• Genius: You should completely shut down and reboot your phone every week or two.
  The phone had never run more than 3 days before having to be hard reset.
• AppleCare: Does the battery last a normal amount of time?
  Often when the phone would lock up it would drain the battery very fast. So I don’t have any idea what a “normal” amount of time is.

UPDATE: I was very disappointed and disgusted when my new phone crashed the same day I got it replaced. I knew at that point it had to be something that I was doing and not the phone.

I ran the phone for several days with just the basic setup and with it checking only 1 email address by way of manually downloading messages. I suspected that maybe the problem was that it tried to download a message and either not come out of sleep state properly, or go back into that mode correctly. It still did not solve the problem.

Then I turned off the auto-brightness and auto-lock (to suspend the phone). Those two seemed to help with the crashing, but it was a red herring.

The phone went for several days earlier this week without crashing. Then it crashed twice in just a couple of hours. I tried to figure out what I could possibly be doing differently that day as opposed to the days previous. When I finally figured it out I was amazed that it did not come to me before.

I was using a phone case that attached to my belt that I have used with my previous phone for 2.5 years. That case had never caused any problems. But, the way the flap is held closed on that case is with a magnet. The magnet was causing something in the iPhone to go terribly wrong. Because it has been much cooler, I have been wearing long sleeved shirts with pockets. I carried the phone in my pocket as opposed to on my belt.

I am now on day 4 since discovering the problem and have not had a single issue. I am very happy to discover the cause. I was quite irritated with my whole phone experience. Now I need to call Apple and let them know what the problem was. It may help someone else in the future.

I wrote a follow up to this post.

Their marquee out front read “Ranked No. 1 in nation by Comfort Inn guest.” Just 1 guest? Could no other guest say anything nice about the other Comfort Inn’s in the nation?

I guess it just does not take much to win an award these days.