Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in oshawapilot's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
5:03 am	“Twin” backup for Mac - $70 in the toilet. Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. I’m an avid user of Time Machine to keep all of my media (most importantly, digital pictures dating back 15 years, and scanned images dating back nearly 20 years) backed up and safe, but a few months ago I started to consider the possible issues of having a backup sitting right next to the source. In a situation of hardware failure on our iMac, the Time Machine backup is indispensable - simply fix the hard drive, and restore. However, in a situation of double-hardware failure (unlikely, but possible), corruption (again, unlikely, but possible), or (hopefully never) catastrophic loss of our household contents, a local-based backup is going to prove rather useless. I needed an off-site backup solution to complement the local backups. Risking nearly two decades of memories simply calls for more than a lackadaisical approach to backing up. My current webhost provides me with an unbelievable amount of disk space and the logical solution was to simply backup to this otherwise underutilized space, but simply compressing everything up into a huge archive and FTP’ing the files to the server seemed like a pain in the ass, and since it wasn’t easily automated, it was prone to being forgotten and as the months pass by could still result in file loss. Enter “Twin”, by App4Mac. It seemed perfect, and in testing the feature-limited free version, it also seemed to actually work. It was straightforward to setup, was highly automated, and was able to utilize my wasted server space as an off-site backup destination. It was exactly what I wanted. I was a little put off by the nearly $80 price tag, but I tweeted the developer and was sent back a “20% off” discount code which took a bit of the sting away from the purchase, so I took the dive. The problem is that although it seemed to handle the small amount of files in the demo version, once I was registered and I set Twin loose with my 60 gig iPhoto library, things started going horribly wrong. The first failure was a result of me pausing the backup (using the server applications pause feature) since I needed the bandwidth for something else, except when I went to continue the backup the server crashed. 30 Gigs of upload wasted. The second failure happened after about 40 gigs of the backup had completed. Starting from scratch. The third failure happened after about 50 gigs of the backup had completed. Once again, starting from scratch. You see, aside from the fact that the program doesn’t seem to be able to reliably handle large backups (as is evident from the crashes), it also can’t recover gracefully from said crashes - if a backup is not completed to 100% (a process that can take a very long time with a slow DSL upstream connection handling 60 gigs of upstream content), the program simply orphans everything that was backed up to the point of the failure and wants to start all over again when you restart. Ridiculous you might say, but after discussing the problem with the developer, confirmed. Apparently no interim index of check files are written during the backup, and if it fails to complete for any reason whatsoever, you loose everything. Checking my server I can confirm that my last backup attempt successfully transferred just over 50 gigs (spanning the period of numerous days worth of saturated upstream transfer) and the files are there, but there is absolutely no way to re-associate those files to Twin and make it continue where it left off. Even if I attempted to manually handle the files that it did manage to backup it would prove infuriating since Twin aggravates files into batches, ZIP’s them, splits then as required, and (I understand) renames the source files to fit it’s own backup schema. There is a feature to “recover an orphaned backup”, however again, it only works if the backup in question was 100% completed (at least once) to begin with, and then the Server app somehow lost it’s configuration of such. So, after wasting over 120 gigs of bandwidth, I’ve given up. The developer did last respond saying a future version will address this issue, but when I inquired as to the anticipated release date of the new version, I received no response. I’m considering asking for a refund and looking for an alternative backup solution that does what I need, but I can’t seem to find anything else that handles things quite the same way Twin does - this is of course why I bought it to begin with. The only good part of the story is that I have an ISP that offers me a generous 250gb/Month allowance so these failures aren’t going to cost me an arm and a leg in overage charges, but I still can’t help but feel a bit ripped off.
Saturday, October 10th, 2009
9:36 pm	Elgato H.264 - Well, that sure helps! Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. One of the niceties of the latest version of iMovie was that it (Finally) recognizes my JVC hard drive camcorder natively, meaning that I no longer need to go through the tedious (and painfully slow) process of converting it’s oddly formatted files into .dv files in order to work with them directly in iMovie, or any video editing program, for that matter. When I bought this camcorder back in 2007 I was quite frustrated with the stupid file format that JVC decided to utilize, and frankly, I was surprised that Apple chose to update iMovie to fully support the fact that this camcorder is USB connected (typically OS X only played nice with Firewire connected camcorders), but was also now able to directly handle the silly .mod file format. So, I had started to work with much of the video that has piled up on the camcorder over the years. Some of I’ve just dumped off to one of my external drives for temporary archiving (and to clear space on the camcorders hard drive), and much more has simply sat on the camcorder hard drive itself. One downside of converting the video to H.264 was the fact that it was tediously slow. My iMac is only a 2.0ghz Core2 Duo, and despite having 3 gigs of ram (the maximum for the first generation aluminum models) it was still going to take weeks to convert all the video. So, after talking to my friend Mike Moon about his experience with the Elgato H.264 USB hardware encoder I started looking online, and it wasn’t long before I found someone on toronto.craigslist with the (newer) Turbo.264 HD (High Def model) at a seemingly too-good-to-be-true price. Sure enough, it was too good to be true - despite being advertised as the HD model, it turned out to be the original (non HD) model. Since my camcorder is not HD regardless, this wasn’t a show stopper for me, but did give me a fair amount of negotiation power with the seller on the price (once I informed him of his oversight) and I ended up getting the unit for a great price. The long and the short of it? It works great - I’m now seeing video conversions taking place at about 30-40 frames per second in a full quality conversion - more than real-time. Previously I was seeing only a fraction of this without the hardware encoder, and delays aside, it would often leave my iMac sluggish (as both processors were maxed out) for long periods while conversions were taking place. With the Elgato USB dongle now in place I now only see about 50% processor load while a conversion is taking place - still somewhat higher then I had anticipated, but perhaps related to all the USB overhead necessary to read the source video from one USB external drive and export to another. Overall, a worthy investment for anyone working with H.264 video on a regular basis.
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
8:03 am	Best aborted takeoff video you’ll see all day. Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. Came across this video on YouTube a few days ago. Observations: - The dust that blows back over the aircraft after it runs off into the dirt indicates they were trying to take off with a tail wind. - The crew didn’t put the props into beta when they rejected the takeoff which would have slowed the aircraft more and would perhaps have avoided the over run to begin with. Perhaps there was a reason (I’d be interested to know) as I’ll admit I’m not a specialist on large turboprop multi’s. - For reportedly being a small airport in South Africa in a shanty-town area, the emergency response vehicle is on top of things extremely fast, with sirens being audible only seconds after the overrun occurred.
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
9:28 am	Midsummer update. Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. Haven’t been posting much recently, so for anyone interested, my summer (so far) in a nutshell. - I’ve been working more then I anticipated despite things looking grim in the spring. Prospects for getting back full time are looking up. Eventually. - We took our RV vacation to the east coast of Canada, a few weeks later then planned, but we made it none the less. We spent considerable time in Quebec, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. Overall it was an extremely enjoyable trip with a much more relaxed pace versus last years trip to Vancouver. - Still no flying although the bug has been biting hard recently. Must win lottery. - We’re replacing our minivan with something new. Not sure what yet, I’m opting for a Corvette or something fun, but my wife is leaning towards something slightly more practical for a family of four. One must dream.
Friday, June 26th, 2009
6:28 pm	To sign, or not to sign? Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. My wife’s cellphone contract is expiring in the next week and we are starting to consider the options. The cellphone industry in Canada has undergone a revolution in the last 12 to 18 months on both the voice and data fronts. No longer does it cost $100 for 200 megabytes of cellular data - quite to the contrary, I now have a data plan which offers me a generous 6 gigabytes for $30 per month and allows laptop tethering, although it’s a promotional plan which has came and went a few times. On the non promotional front it’s a little less of a deal at $30 for only 1 gigabyte, but that’s a whole other story that I really should dedicate an entire new post to. With the impending entrance of several (big and small) new competitors to the market courtesy of a recent spectrum auction, further shapeups are inevitable, and the incumbents are taking notice - in the last few months even more drastically improved monthly pricing structures have arrived offering Canadians even better deals. Of course, to obtain these new plans and great new handsets consumers must accept a contract term, and with many of the fancier handsets only being remotely affordable with the dreaded new trend of 3-year contracts, and some (such as the iPhone) demanding them (no other option) the carriers have made consumers pay for the lower rates with longer terms. Of course, without paying a hefty early termination fee, the incumbents now have the consumer locked into a long term contract, possibly making then unable or unwilling to move to one of the new competitors regardless of how much the savings could amount to. In the greater scheme of things I think that the consumer still wins when compared to the realities of years passed, but the long term contracts are troubling to many Canadians, and there is clearly going to be much better deals to be had once the new companies arrive. I called my wife’s cellphone carrier today to see if they were willing to make us an attractive offer in return for us signing a new contract. What we ended up with, despite the reps insistence that he was offering us a “special”, “very attractive” plan that was “not available to the general public”, it was still rather lacklustre, offering only 200 peak minutes a month, free evenings and weekends, free incoming calls, and a bunch of features which in my opinion amounts to fluff (caller ID, voicemail, unlimited texts) the best rate they could give us was still $35 per month. Not bad, but when I inquired about adding a data plan things got weird. My wife would really only need a few hundred megs per month for a device like the iPhone - really, a 500 megabyte plan would probably suffice. That said, it’s $25 for a 500 megabyte plan, but the 6 gigabyte promotional data plan is currently available again for only $30. Although the latter is a good deal (one which I subscribe to because I enjoy and utilize it), it’s a huge overkill for my wife, yet they were unwilling to offer a significant discount (beyond $5) on the 500 gig plan to make it attractive. Regardless, despite the overkill nature of the 6 gigabyte plan it would be stupid to not pay the extra $5 for it regardless. In the end all the figures add up rather unattractively. My wife is contemplating getting an iPhone, but the fact that she would be forced into a 3 year contract with only a mildly attractive price plan (equalling over $75 a month after taxes) suddenly dampens her interest. At this point I’m seriously contemplating just putting things on the back burner for a few months, letting her cellphone plan continue as-is without a contract, and seeing what appears on the horizon with the new carriers. Once the new entrants open up shop (inevitably utilizing GSM) we could contemplate just buying her a used iPhone 3G (which will get cheaper as the 3GS saturates the market and people upgrade) and then hooking her up with the competition instead. Rumors are we can expect to see unlimited minutes and huge (if not unlimited) data for about the same amount of money as she is looking at for 200 minutes and 500 megabytes with her current carrier. The new few months will be interesting indeed. Bring on the competition, Canada awaits.
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
11:36 am	Fading audio in iMovie ‘09 - Possible, but frustrating. Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. Since I switched to Macs one of the features I’ve always enjoyed was iMovie - over the years I’ve taken a great deal of video of family, vacations, events, and whatnot, and it’s nice to be able to take that raw video and occasionally make something semi-professional out of it. I updated to iMovie 09 a few months ago and was pleasantly surprised to discover two things: 1/ The disaster that was iMovie 08 is behind us - iMovie 09 is vastly superior. 2/ My hard drive camcorder, a JVC Everio, is now supported and imports directly into iMovie seamlessly - no more tedious (and confusing, for many) manual imports and conversions are necessary. However, today I was editing some video together of a motocross event that we were at last weekend and I found myself unable to do something seemingly simple - reduce the audio level of a soundtrack / music track at a set point. In iMovie 06 it was easy (lets not even talk about iMovie 08), but in iMovie 09 it seemed impossible. I thought it would be as simple as “Splitting” the audio track and then adjusting the audio volume of the resulting new track, but there seemed to be no way. Sure enough, after quite a lot of Google-Fu, it seems like this is a common (and irritating) complaint with many iMovie 09 users. How Apple could remove such a seemingly important (and simple) feature that was part of iMovie 06 is beyond me, but it’s gone. You can adjust the levels of the primary video clips, but the underlying audio soundtrack is forced to a fixed volume for the entire duration of the track - you can adjust it overall, as well as the fades at the beginning and the end, but want to adjust it in the middle of a track to allow (for example) someone speaking? You’re out of luck. A lot of further searching found some hack-ish methods that either didn’t work the way I wanted, or just didn’t work at all. Eventually I discovered my own work around. I opened up Quicktime and recorded 60 seconds of silence. I exported it as a .wav file, subsequently opened it with iTunes (which imported it, a step that’s necessary for it to show up in the iMovie audio list) and then dragged the clip into my project in iMovie. I lined it up with where I wanted the original soundtrack volume to decrease, and then opened the audio preference settings for the “Silence” clip and then told iMovie to “Reduce volume of other tracks” to 30%, as well as setting the volume level for the silence track to 0%. I suppose one could use any audio track and simply set the volume to 0%, but I had already created my “Silence.wav” audio file by the time I had the revelation. The result did basically what I wanted to accomplish - the audio fades, albeit a bit fast, but the crossfade durations are not adjustable any longer, another sad omission versus iMovie 06. Apple, please bring back mid-track audio editing in the next incarnation of iMovie, or at least let people split audio tracks so that volume levels can be adjusted at various points - the current method of doing it just plain stinks!
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
2:14 pm	Is this thing on? Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. I’ve not had a great deal worthy of blogging about recently which is why it seems I haven’t made a post in over two months. I read through a bit of my blog history back in March and came to the conclusion that it had gone from what was intended to be a typical personal blog (providing an insight on my life for those interested) to a bit of a soapbox for me to stand on and whine from. I didn’t really like where it was headed so I took a hiatus. My domain actually expired at one point and seemingly nobody even noticed for the 10 or 12 days it was gone. I renewed it within the grace period so as not to loose it, but at one point I pondered if I’d even bother blogging anymore and considered just letting the domain expire for good. … The 2009 camping season kicked off last weekend with disappointing weather. We traveled to Presqu’ile Provincial Park to meet friends and open the season. Unfortunately the weather on both Friday evening and Saturday ranged from relatively nice, to windy, rainy, and at one point we were hailed upon. In typical Murphy’s Law fashion as we were departing the campground Sunday afternoon the skies opened up to beautiful blue sky and pleasant conditions. Our summer vacation plans remain unconfirmed based on my employment situation. And yeah, that’s about it.
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
1:25 pm	Pondering vacation plans Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. Despite the fact that I’m (at least temporarily, based on the latest outlook) out of work we have decided to push on with our summer vacation plans. Unlike last summer where we logged over 10,000 Kilometers on a trip to Vancouver BC and back this summers trip still involves our RV, but for a much shorter trip to Prince Edward Island on the east coast of Canada, and then down the eastern seaboard of the US to the Boston area, and then westward towards home. This trip will take us through several notable Canadian cities, many of which I have been to many times before, but not in a tourism aspect, Quebec City being one of the big ones. Our terminus of Charlottetown PEI is a location that I have not visited before, and beyond that the many small towns along the eastern seaboard through Maine and New Hampshire will surely offer up many surprises, excellent scenery, and friendly people, if not big attractions. Instead of taking 4 weeks for this trip as we did last year this years trip will be 2 weeks. That will give us several additional weeks of vacation time later in the summer or fall to keep our options open to take another short trip or to just sit back and unwind near home, and given the much shorter distance involved with the planned route of this years trip (less then half of last year) we simply don’t need as much time to begin with. So, the planning begins.
Monday, March 2nd, 2009
12:18 pm	Fighting bills, because I have time. Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. Finding myself suddenly unemployed (a whole other story) I have started to spend my spare time scrutinizing our monthly bills not only to better categorize where our money is going, but to see where money can be saved. Typically we receive our bills in the mail, open them, pay them, and forget about it. We are far too guilty of often not paying enough attention to the actual contents and charges on said bills unless the amounts seem grossly out of line, and even worse yet, we often do not pay enough attention to amounts that automatically debit from our bank account every month. However, having a sudden increase in spare time I started to look closer and immediately noticed several problems and questionable charges. Simple enough, I figure - I’ll call the businesses in question: 1/ Fido, our cellphone carrier. They had charged me $20 for a long distance call that shouldn’t have been long distance to begin with. 2/ The Toronto Star newspaper. A 1-year promotional subscription price for which we paid $100 only a few months ago is mysteriously up for renewal already and they want more money. 3/ Scotiabank. A large payment we made against our RV last summer was apparently not applied correctly and has resulted in a large account problem that we didn’t become aware of until Friday because nobody bothered to call us and question the situation. However, this is where the frustration begins. Why do companies just automatically assume that you are trying to rip them off, or you are just trying to be a thorn in their side when you dispute something? The root of my complaint with Fido was a charge for nearly $20 worth of long distance for a single call. Now, I know long distances is expensive on my plan because I have an unlimited minute urban plan which despite offering unlimited minutes, also offers a high rate for long distance calls. When I called to dispute the situation they instinctively assumed I was trying to scam them. Despite being nowhere near where the call states it originated on my bill (we were actually about 20 kilometers south when I started the call) they insisted that despite the fact that “it could be a network anomaly” that I was still responsible for the charge and no credit would be given. However, where I actually originated the call from (and to) should have incurred no long distance charge, so I remained steadfast in my rebuttal. When I pressed the matter the rep put me on hold and came back and offered me a 50% credit. Only when I pressed the matter further did a I finally get a supervisor who gave me a 100% credit. It took nearly 45 minutes to accomplish and I’m convinced if I hadn’t pressed on I would have ended up simply eating the $20. The Toronto Star conveniently had a computer system problem when I called and the representative couldn’t help me whatsoever, nor was he able to call me back when it was fixed, but instead suggested I call back “throughout the day” to see when their computers were back up. I have not yet solved this issue. Of all three of today’s challenges Scotiabank was at least relatively straightforward to deal with, although it required an in-person visit to the local branch and being shuffled between several different people. In the end at least they admitted the mistake and offered to remedy it, but there was little done to address how the problem had occurred to begin with beyond fixing the results. Customer service seems to be an increasingly lost art.
Saturday, February 14th, 2009
8:58 pm	Domino’s Pizza Grandview Oshawa - Zero to Hero Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. We order pizza quite often. Too often, actually, but we enjoy it, and given the number of rushed evenings in our household it’s become a staple option for when a quick meal is necessary. For about a year and a half we’ve been ordering from the Domino’s location on Grandview street in Oshawa. Yeah, I know that means nothing to most people here, but I want Google to pickup on it. In that year and a half we’ve ordered many times and always had excellent service and excellent pizza. Except tonight - they messed up our order. No problem we figured, we’d just call and explain our situation and perhaps get a credit towards our next order. Given how late it was, we really didn’t want to wait another 30 minutes or so for the delivery of a replacement pizza, so my wife just ate something else and I enjoyed the remaining (good) pizza. However, when we called in, a debacle ensued. Without elaborating too much, an employee called us a liar, refused to replace the one pizza because my wife had ate a few bites from one single slice, and then when we asked to speak to the manager, the employee told us to call another Domino’s location, a location which we learned after the fact was totally unrelated. To his credit, the manager at the other location, despite being baffled about the whole situation and not quite sure why we were calling his store to deal with a situation from another unrelated location, did address the situation professionally and told us that he’d mail us a gift certificate for the entire order. It was a pleasant, if not slightly confusing phone call. We ended the call still somewhat miffed, but at least satisfied that we had spoke to someone who actually seemed genuinely concerned, remedied the situation, and said he would take it up with the other locations manager right about the situation. We racked it up to a bad experience and given the long history of great pizza from the Grandview location, figured we’d have better luck next time. However, about 20 minutes later the doorbell rang and it was the store manager from the Grandview location. He apologized and said that he had stepped out for a coffee when the situation had occurred and that it should never have been dealt with that way. We chatted for about 10 minutes, I showed him an actual slice of the pizza in question (yes, it WAS clearly a mistake) and he made the situation right with a personal apology and a gift certificate to cover our next order. We expressed how we had been reasonably long term customers of his location - we used a coupon that arrived in the mail a year and a half ago, loved the pizza, and have ordered solely from Domino’s ever since, and he confirmed that he had noticed a long history of orders in their computer system. Anyhow, after chatting it up and mentioning how much we appreciated his effort, he went on his way. We had a smile on our face and a bad situation was suddenly a great situation. Thanks, Brady! In an age of dwindling customer service and retailers who just don’t seem to care anymore this was a refreshing change. Yes, we’ll order Domino’s again, and instead of posting a negative story about a botched order I’ve got a positive story about a great store manager. Now, don’t get me started about how I failed once again and we ended up eating pizza on Valentines day.
Sunday, February 8th, 2009
10:43 am	“Family Day” = “Lost Pay” Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. It’s bad enough that I’m looking at the greater then average possibility of getting laid off in another few months (yet another victim of the recession) but I’m also going to involuntarily loose a days pay when this years Ontario holiday “Family Day” arrives on Monday February 16′th. This holiday was introduced last yet rather hastily by the Ontario Government in an effort to provide Ontarians with a break in the middle of the winter doldrums. Within the province it is a statutory holiday so employers are obligated to pay their employees for the day much like any other major holiday. However, there was a loophole that the government really didn’t consider, and the result is that quite a few Ontarians get the day off, but don’t get paid for it, like it or not. See, the holiday is only recognized within the province of Ontario as an actual holiday - most of the rest of Canada with the exception of a few other provinces (that also have a similar holiday on the same day) do not recognize it. As such, it’s not really a universally accepted “Federal” holiday, but simply a “Provincial” holiday. I work for a federally regulated company, but with one exception (General Motors) almost the exclusive majority of our customers are provincially regulated, hence, closed. What this basically means is that I’m not needed on Family Day, yet my company is not obligated by law to pay me for it either. So, I get forcefully laid off (without pay, of course) to “enjoy” my day. Yes, a long weekend in February is great. Being forced to take it without pay, not so much.
Saturday, January 24th, 2009
9:51 pm	200 Megs/Day via iPhone Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. I was lucky enough (if you consider it lucky compared to unlimited plans elsewhere in the world) to snag a 6-Gig/Month data plan for my iPhone late last summer. After years of struggling with exorbitant mobile data costs and foolish limitations, this was suddenly the “Holy Grail” of data plans. Add to that the fact that it’s a truly free data plan (including tethering) it has actually come in quite handy - while traveling we hook our Macbook to my iPhone and enjoy internet everywhere. Unsurprisingly the data plan in question was discontinued months later and replaced by an 1-Gig plan for the same amount of money, but that’s a whole other story. As the months have passed, and having recently upgraded to an iPhone 3G from my original iPhone 2G, I noticed my data consumption was climbing, but after actually resetting my data counter last week at the beginning of my billing cycle I was astounded to discover that I’m actually consuming about 200 megabytes per day. I sat back and tried to figure out exactly where that amount of data was coming from and it quickly made sense. Podcast Download: I start my day by downloading a podcast (over 3G) that I listen to daily. I used to download it at home and sync it to my iPhone when I was using my old (drastically slower) 2G iPhone, but with the new found blazing 3G speed, I found it more convenient to just download it on the fly in the morning. Total data: 40-50 Megs daily VNC: I spend quite a lot of time with an active VNC connection to my iMac at home so that I can monitor a piece of software running there and provide input as required. It’s a long story, but suffice to say I really enjoy the power that VNC provides in allowing me to access my iMac as if I’m sitting in front of it. Total data: ~100 Megs daily General surfing: The iPhone is a rich surfing experience as anyone who owns one knows. With fast 3G speeds it’s easy to burn a large amount of data very quickly with just plain surfing, catching up on blogs and such. Total data: 10-20 Megs Daily Webcam: I have a security related IP webcam and various occasionally-updated images (weather, etc) that I monitor throughout the day. With the recent addition of the excellent iPhone application “Cam Viewer Lite” I’m now able to monitor them all in real time directly on my iPhone. It’s handy, but even with light usage it’s a large consumer of bandwidth (especially the realtime IP webcams) I’ve discovered. Total data: 20-30 Megs Daily The remainder is a bit of data here and there - the weather app, the Facebook app, email, etc. Quite a lot of my data consumption is purely discretionary and by no means necessary from a personal or work standpoint so I could easily lower it if I needed to, but I subscribe to the “use it if you’ve got it” viewpoint. It wasn’t that long ago when it would have been technologically impossible or financially crippling to do what I’m doing now without hardly a second thought. Oh how times have changed for the better.
Sunday, January 18th, 2009
1:38 pm	An open letter to Mother Nature. Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. After shoveling our latest foot of snow, I’ve had enough. That is all.
Friday, January 16th, 2009
4:18 pm	Dear United States Postal Service Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. I purchased an item from California earlier this week and paid a handsome sum of money for USPS “International Priority” shipping. The stated service window to myself in Ontario Canada for this level of service is “6 to 10 days”, which really doesn’t seem like it’s much of a “priority in your eyes despite the signifigant portion of money I paid to ship what was effectively a 1.5 pound box. but that’s another story. When the alternative was 10 to 15 days for regular 1st class parcel service for only a few dollars less, it seemed to make sense at the time. One of the supposed big advantages of the International Priority shipping was that it had a tracking number. I presumed that this tracking number would actually mean I could track the progress of my parcel, but to date (5 days after shipment) it has shown me absolutely nothing except for the fact that the USPS actually “accepted” the box. I has not shown a single shard of tracking information since. I’m going to guess (hope?) that it’s passed through at least a few USPS depot and was perhaps loaded on a truck for the cross-country trip, but at no point during this process does the parcel get scanned? I’m going to guess that yes, it’s been scanned…so I must ask…why can’t this information be relayed to the customer that paid for “Tracking” to begin with so we actually have a clue that our parcel is still en route, and not lost behind some conveyor belt at a dusty parcel depot in Chicken Scratch Montana?
Saturday, January 10th, 2009
1:51 pm	Apple to my rescue, again. Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. It wasn’t all that long ago that I was writing about how Apple’s customer service had impressed me when they replaced my (long out of warranty) Macbook battery for free under an extended coverage agreement for known problematic batteries. It was easy, it was handled professionally directly at the Apple store, and it saved me $159, the cost for the replacement otherwise. While we were camping a few weeks ago we started to experience another problem, however. The magsafe power supply started acting odd, at times refusing to charge the battery on the Macbook, and at other times seemingly starting to charge but suddenly stopping at random. As the days passed it got progressively worse, and eventually I noticed that the cord had actually split and there was signs of electrical arcing inside the wire visible through the resulting hole. Having had to replace the Magsafe once already after an unfortunate incident with our parrot a year and a half ago, I wasn’t looking forward to the $100 price tag of this repair. However, I seemed to remember reading something about this being a known problem, and sure enough the first relevant Google search returned this page at Engadget. On our way home from our camping trip we stopped at the Yorkdale Apple Store and sure enough it was exchanged effortlessly. They didn’t even request our name, the serial number of the Macbook, or anything else - just our postal code. In less then 5 minutes we had a brand new Magsafe adapter in our hands, and once again left the store quite happy. It’s situations like this that make the Apple ownership experience a joy, the actual machines aside.
Thursday, January 8th, 2009
8:37 pm	Winter camping 2008/2009 - Mostly successful Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. We did indeed end up camping for 4 nights over the new year period. We took some friendly ribbing from friends ranging from “You guys are insane!”, to “It’s not really camping when you’re staying in a hotel room on wheels!”, but we took it all in stride. The trip to MacGregor Provincial Park ended up taking significantly longer then I had expected. I was hoping for about 4 hours, but after a few stops including one for fuel, groceries, and a rather frustrating stint stuck behind a slow moving road salter who apparently couldn’t see (or didn’t care about) the 2 kilometers worth of traffic backed up behind him, we made it there in about 5 hours. The problem with having arrived later then anticipated was that we ended up being forced to setup camp in the dark. That’s bad enough in the summer, but in the winter it was a whole new level of challenge. Thankfully that went well and before long we were comfortable in the trailer and preparing dinner. After dinner I took a small trek through the campground to familiarize myself with the area, but trying to learn a strange campground’s layout (and MacGregor is a bit curious to begin with utilizing a “clover” layout with a center ring road) I figured I’d leave the exploring until the next day. The Campground host Frank popped by to say hello and ensure we were OK, and then we were alone. Not knowing anyone, and being rather tired, we watched a bit of TV and crashed early. The next few days were an adventure: - Questionable weather. Yes, it’s winter and we expected winter weather, but it was constantly overcast and windy most days. It was ironic (and rather frustrating) to wake up to beautiful sunshine, comfortable temperatures, and calm winds on the day we needed to depart. Regardless, considering it was 10c and raining only days before our arrival (which would have been a disastrous muddy mess for camping) I shouldn’t complain. - A questionable hydro situation. Collectively, the at-capacity (for the small section that was open) crowd managed to blow out the parks hydro system on new years eve. It was questionable because the breaker that apparently popped was designed to feed two other similarly-sized loops that were closed for the winter. Yes, we were probably all drawing quite a lot of hydro, but what happens in the summer when the other two loops are open and AC’s are going wide-open? If the winter camping program is to be expanded as discussions seem to indicate is possible, Ontario Parks is going to have to ensure that the parks hydro systems are up to the load. - A great new years eve celebration held by several members of the “Winter Warrior” club who are regulars at MacGregor. It was great fun and I finally got put faces to names of many people who I had talked to online for quite some time. - Plenty of enjoyable social interaction. Campers are of the friendly sort at the best of times, and winter campers tend to be the really hard core amongst them, and as such, even friendlier. Not once did I go out for a walk and not end up stopping at someone’s campsite for a chat, some of which lasted hours. - The trailer performed admirably for not being entirely designed as a winter-capable unit. As with any RV of it’s sort (read as: Designed for summer and poorly insulated) it was difficult to heat even with 30 amps worth of electric heaters running taking the load off the furnace, and was fairly drafty, but overall it was comfortable. It did take a while to sort out the best way to spread the load on the trailers electrical system - who thought it was smart to wire an entire 30′ trailer with 10 plugs in various places with only two circuits? - The fresh water supply and sewer situations did require some creative handling, but with the help of many pointers provided by those who have done this sort of thing before, it all went remarkably well for the most part. It was temping for me to stay another day although I think the rest of the family had reached the point of being ready to head home. Add to that a freezing rain alert for Sunday, and it was clear that Saturday was going to be the day we had to head home, which we did. The trip home was punctuated by a stop at the east Toronto Apple Store (where Apple service shined yet again, but that’s another story for another blog entry) and then me getting the trailer stuck quite well at it’s parking spot after unloading it at home. Will we do the winter camping routine again this year? I doubt it - it was fun, but it was also a considerable amount of work above and beyond summer camping. Next new years? I hope so. Photos: (Updated Gallery)
Saturday, December 20th, 2008
3:01 pm	Winter camping 2008 Prep Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. Due to yesterdays snow as well as several additional forecasted storms in the next week, I decided it was prudent to extract our trailer from it’s storage lot in preparation for our trip to Macgregor Point Provincial Park from the 30′th to the 4′th. Although I’m usually pretty good at making do without it, I’ll admit that having 4WD would have been handy.
Thursday, December 18th, 2008
10:54 pm	Procrastination bites me in the ass. Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. If you are suddenly interested in buying a snowblower, the night before what Environment Canada is coining “Snowmageddon” is not the time to go shopping for it. I was laughed out of several stores this evening, along with other fools like me who decided to wait until the last minute and then panic. At virtually every single store we went to snowblowers were nowhere to be seen - even floor models had been snapped up and taken home in preparation of the multiple significant snowfalls we’re scheduled to receive over the next 3 days. Admittedly, I did find 6 snowblowers at one local WalMart, but instead of being a small-ish model that I had in mind (we do only have a two-car driveway, after all), they were of the large (and $900 before tax) breed. I took a pass, but there was several others who weren’t - one family was eagerly watching a WalMart employee assemble their new purchase. I struck up a conversation, and like myself his initial target price range earlier in the day was “about $400″, but out of sheer desperation he was now going to pay over $1000. In a last ditch effort I returned to the adjacent Home Depot and rummaged through the “crap we can’t get rid of” section…and found a lone dejected floor model snow blower. Well, actually, a Toro “Power Shovel”. It looked tiny, but it has some impressive stats, and the size and lightweight appealed to me since it can be easily transported. I literally threw it over my shoulder while in the Home Depot finishing our shopping. I’m sure it’ll have it’s limitations, but I tried it out this evening on some leftover snow from our last dump a few days ago and I was actually quite impressed. Regardless, at this point in my desperation scale, “Anything that moves snow without back breaking effort” rates highly. After last winter (link goes to pics of the crap we dealt with then!) I swore I’d buy a snowblower in time for this winter. But then, of course, doubts about having two bad winters in a row crept in and I got complacent. Complacency teamed up with procrastination, and I was served the results tonight. Meh. My new “power shovel” only cost me $125. Snowblower guy at Walmart is $875 poorer then me.
Friday, December 12th, 2008
8:52 pm	Back in the saddle? Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. No, not from an aviation perspective..not yet anyways. Horses, instead. After several stints at various hobbies including soccer and ballet, my daughter started taking horseback lessons this summer. This was brought on by her experience this summer in Squamish British Columbia during our RV Adventure to the west coast. The “bug” bit her hard after her experience riding there, so we decided to see if she enjoyed lessons. And wow, she’s done spectacular, having done her first solo canter (The horsemanship equivalent of “Taking off the training wheels”) during this past Tuesday’s lesson. The only negative (Well, positive, I guess) is that the bug has bitten me as well. I used to ride recreationally on occasion, although I was hardly an expert by any means. I’ve rode a few times on and off over the last decade, but only in trail-ride situations with what can only be described as “Auto-Pilot” horses that are trained to stay in line and basically ignore all cues from the rider. A few weeks ago I was back on a real (read as: actually responsive) horse again, and it felt great. So, a few weeks from now, I’m toying with taking a lesson after my daughters and seeing exactly how rusty I really am. Spending so much time around horses again has reminded me of how much fun it is and what great creatures they are. Why do I see this new hobby transitioning to something very expensive in our future?
Friday, December 5th, 2008
4:25 pm	Sorry, I’m not type rated on that. Originally published at Information Echo. Please leave any comments there. A friend messaged me through Facebook a short while ago and asked me if I was interested in going in on a share of an aircraft. His first suggestion gave me a good chuckle, but the second suggestion was much less tongue-in-cheek, and honestly very interesting. Aside from the fact that the price point on that is probably out of my range at this point in time (assuming a 1/2 share), my employment situation is currently rather tenuous. That would make entering into any sort of major financial obligation a foolish decision right now. Looking at the pictures sure do make me want to get back to flying, though.