Do It Scared!

I went hiking with a friend in the Walnut Creek area. She had hiked at the park before but didn’t usually take the lead so was not certain about the trails. I had never been there before. Together, we were clueless.

It was a nice, sunny day. As we walked deeper into the park, she commented that there was no shade and that it wasn’t as pretty as she remembered. We kept going and finally found another entrance to the park with a feeder street, small parking lot, and a trail map. Unfortunately, the trail map didn’t have any spot saying “You are here!”

We asked one of the friendly hikers there if he knew where we were (well, he looked friendly and was the nearest person… I’m lazy that way). Surprisingly, he didn’t know where we were or even what the nearby street name was. So we spent 5 to 10 mins figuring out where we were; finally, the friendly but no longer clueless hiker said, “I got it!” Once we located ourselves on the map, we realized that my friend’s usual hiking path was along the creek. It made sense because we had crossed the creek earlier and there was shade from trees and wooden benches along the water.

After thanking the hiker, we plotted a path back. As we were well on our way back, my friend commented that she hoped we were on the right trail.

“Don’t worry”, I reassured her, “I have short-term photographic memory.”

“So, you have the trail map in your head, right?”, she asked.

“Not really”, I admitted, “It’s very short. Maybe ten seconds max.”

We did find the creek and managed to get safely back to our parking lot.

My friend sent me this and I thought, wow, I would love to visit this tea house. But to get there, I have to take a mountain trail in China; specifically, Hua Shan mountain near Xi’an, ShanXi Province.

First, we’ll need to take a tram to the start of the trail.
Now take the plank path.
Make sure you have a solid grip on the chain.
Look ahead now and then.
Careful when passing people coming back down.
A few steps to help you now and then.
Dig your foot into that hole.
Almost there… just a couple of steps left.
Finally, made it. Sit, relax, have some tea, and contemplate the trip back.

I believe this post is the original. There is also a video of the plank path.

Three years ago, I went on vacation. I left my Volkswagen Jetta, not yet one year old at the time, at my parents for a week. During that time, there were heavy rains. When I came back, the left-front driver foot well was under three inches of water. I was sure that I had locked the doors securely before leaving… and all the windows, including sunroof, were closed tightly. What could be the matter? Maybe it was a leak somewhere on the driver side?

A wet vac, a lot of effort, and the problem was mostly solved, except for the unpleasant wet carpet smell which lingered before disappearing. Being a procrastinator, I never did take the car to the dealer to find the leak.

Since then, rains have come and gone. Unless the rains were heavy, I didn’t see any moisture in the cabin. But when the heavy rains came, the water appeared in the front driver foot well. I checked the driver-side door but didn’t see any wet trail. I couldn’t figure it out.

Recently, during some heavy rains, I noticed that the front right passenger foot well was also accumulating water. What the heck? Did my Jetta just spring another leak? I resolved to get down to the root of the problem; I went to the Internet and found complaints about the sunroofs from all cars including Acura, Mercedes, and Volkswagen (bingo!).

Evidently, the sunroofs are not water-tight. Water does get into and accumulate in the well of the sunroof. The water is usually drained away by tubes. If the tubes get clogged or disconnected, then the water builds up, eventually floods into the roof structure, and appears in the main cabin in several places. Supposedly once a year, you should check that sunroof drainage tubes and clear any blockage.

I cracked open the trusty Jetta owner’s manual; it didn’t mentioned anything about the above. What the heck? How many drivers out there are wondering why their brand new car with sunroof starts leaking after a year or two?

On the Jetta, there are four drainage tubes, one at each corner of the sunroof. The front two tubes come out in the middle of both sides, near the front door hinges. The rear two tubes comes out underneath both sides near the rear bumper. Now, why the front two doesn’t come out underneath, I have no idea. Worse, there are nipples at the end of each of the four tubes… I guess to promote clogging?

Others recommend cutting the nipples off, but I took the less severe method of squeezing the nipples to make them open wide. Pouring water into the sunroof and then squeezing the nipples caused all sorts of particles, some big and some small, to come out, followed by a torrent of freed water. Yippee! Now, I just need to remember to do this once or twice a year.

If you don’t have time to do the above, another quick fix is to use painter’s tape (aka masking tape) to seal all four edges of the sunroof.

This email came from a certain large German software company that I once worked at. At the beginning of 2000, we were losing about one person per day; i.e., in three months, 90 employees left. That’s quit, not layoff. Suffice to say, getting a good-bye email almost every day did not do much for employee morale.

From: Operations
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2000 6:34 PM
To: Employees
Subject: Copiers/Printers

Dear Colleagues,

Recently we have been having problems with the Savin Color Copier/Printer (DCBK) located in the copy room of Bldg. B. The problems are a direct result of employee misuse & abuse; specifically, jamming the paper trays into the machine, slamming the door & repeated kicking of the machine. We are in danger of losing our service contract with Savin due to the excessive service calls brought on by this physical violence. Please do not, jam the paper trays into the machine, do not slam the door to the copier/printer, & above all do not KICK the copier/printer.

Thank you for your cooperation!

Operations

If you haven’t seen the movie “Office Space”, you should.

Taking a biking tour of Martha’s Vineyard on the Sunday of the July 4th weekend was not such a good idea. It was a great idea!

100 degrees. 100% humidity. 100 miles… uh, 30 miles. The shirt on my back all sweaty. Members of the group staggered across several miles because some were not as fit as others. Stopping at beaches to take a cool dip and then continuing on around the island. Eating burgers at a convenient food shack on the way. Racing back to catch the last ferry. Legs all sore but I’m feeling great.

Best darn trip. Ever.

Two days before July 4th, I took an Amtrak train from New York City to Boston. Suffice to say, this was a pretty dumb thing to do since the Boston fireworks usually drew everyone and their in-laws on the East coast.

In short, the train was packed like a thimble of sardines. There was no seating; there was no floor space. If you were lucky you got to sit/stand on the floor. If you were unlucky, you got to stand in the stairwell of the space between the train cars.

I’m not an expert on trains but it seems to me that Amtrak was breaking several safety laws by overbooking and forcing passengers to stand in the area between cars. I shuddered to think of what would have happened if the train had to make a sudden stop.

To make things worse, the weather that time of year was hot and toasty, approaching and surpassing 100 degrees. And the area between the train cars did not have air conditioning. I don’t want to be that close to the mass of humanity again; exchanging moisture is not my idea of a good time.

In summary the trip took six hours. I stood for 3.5 hours near the car door, where I kept a flow of water from the dispenser to the poor, unfortunate souls stuck outside. Then I managed to sit on the floor for 1.5 hours. Finally, I got a seat for the last hour.

Here are some interesting excerpts.

I talked to a college student who told me, “I’m going to refuse to hand over my ticket. What are they going to do?” He ended up hiding in the bathroom. The ticket collector (TC) didn’t even bother checking the bathroom. Darn, wish I had thought of that idea. [By the way, the bathroom is a good place to take a breather from the crowding. Just don't breathe too deeply.]

“I don’t understand how they can overbook. I mean, the computer tracks the ticket purchases so they should know when all the seats are taken,” a nerd said. Wait, that was me.

A man asked “Is it always like this?” An elderly woman responded, “Yes, every year.” Her elderly companion added, “They’re just greedy! There’s no other reason.”

When the TC finally came (it took her a while to climb over people), the passengers were surprisingly restrained. Only a few spoke out.

Man: “How could you overbook like this? There aren’t enough seats!”
TC: “We guaranteed passage, not a seat.”
Man: “Isn’t there a law against this?”
TC: “Like I said, we guaranteed passage, not a seat.”

After I got back home, I sent a letter to the Massachusetts and New York State Board of Transportation, the Federal Board of Transportation, the Boston Amtrak office, and the New York Amtrak office. I never got a reply from the government offices, but I did get an apology letter from Amtrak plus two $56 coupons.

Have I redeemed those coupons? Nope, it’ll be a cold day in Heck….

So I was in New York and I figured I should visit the Empire State Building. Unfortunately, so did every tourist on Manhattan Island. To reach the top, you must demonstrate great will power and resolve by standing in a long corral, eventually moving in a line which went round and round, up and up a windy staircase.

The so very long line was punctuated by several tiny elevators which every now and then, took you up a few floors to join other lines (what the hey?). Guides with magic wands controlled the elevators.

Eventually, I was almost there, about to go outside. I was in a long line which went back and forth, separated by cordons. So I was waiting patiently and a foreign European couple cut in front of me through a gap between two posts. They knew that the line was there but they just chose to ignore it. (If you hear Europeans complain about rude Americans, ignore them; they ain’t no saints either.)

Of course, when people cut lines, there are always lemmings more than willing to follow. So, I preemptedly reached forward, grabbed one of the post, and pushed the gap closed, blocking off two teenage girls who were about to cross. The people behind me laughed.

The lesson here is that there are better things to do in New York City then to waste several hours trying to reach the top of the Empire State Building. The same advice applies to the Statue of Liberty.

After getting a used Adaptec AHA-2940UW adapter card, I found that I needed a 68pin to 50pin external converter. The catch was that the converter had to actively terminate the “high data byte” (upper 8bits on a wide SCSI connection).

So I went to the local Fry’s Electronics to look for a converter or a cable. I found a 68pin to 50pin cable for $36, except the package didn’t say whether the high data byte was terminated or not. I waited at the help desk until one of the workers couldn’t ignore me anymore.

Me: “So, do you know a lot about SCSI?”
Worker mutters something under his breath.
Me: “Excuse me?”
Worker: “Yes, I know a LOT about SCSI.”
Me: “Can you tell me if this 68pin to 50pin cable terminates the upper 8bit path?”
Worker: “Ugh, let me get my supervisor.”
Worker grabs passing supervisor.
Me: “Do you know if this 68pin to 50pin cable terminates the upper 8bit path?”
Supervisor: “No.”
Me: “Can you look it up in the computer?”
Supervisor: “No.”

For trekkers, the conversion in BORG would sound like:

Human: “So, do you know a lot about SCSI?”
Drone: “We are BORG!”
Human: “Can you tell me if this 68pin to 50pin cable terminates the upper 8bit path?”
Drone: “… Bleep!” (drone freezes)
Tertiary Adjunct approaches and dismantles drone.
Adjunct: “We are BORG!”
Human: “Do you know if this 68pin to 50pin cable terminates the upper 8bit path?”
Adjunct: “… You will be assimilated.”
Human: “Doesn’t anyone in the collective know?”
Adjunct: “Resistance is futile.”

I bought the cable, took it home, it didn’t work, went back, stood in line, got a refund. Assimilation complete.

Riptide, based in Half Moon Bay, offers whale-watching trips. Captain Smitty of the Riptide is the owner and operator of the 40 feet long ship, able to carry 20 whale-watching passengers.

On Saturday, Jan. 30, 1999, 16 passengers showed up. One passenger told Capt. Smitty that some of the fishermen had radioed-in that the waves were 4-5 feet high. Capt. Smitty reassured him that everything was going to be okay. So we left the harbor and from there, the trip went to heck. The waves tossed the small ship about, we were crammed into a tiny cabin with not enough seating, bodies were thrown about and bruised, and folks starting throwing up left and right.

Capt. Smitty and his mate were enjoying themselves up in the spacious cockpit, talking about what jobs they held in the past (I was right underneath and could hear them), and were totally oblivious to what their passengers were going through. Finally, we told Capt. Smitty to turn around.

When we got back, we were informed that there will be no refund (partial or otherwise). Sorry, Capt. Smitty said, when we came here in the morning, there weren’t a lot of wind. We left quickly, glad to be back on land.

On Monday (February 1) I sent an email to Capt. Smitty asking that we get a partial reimbursement (we had only used less than 2/3 of the time and fuel that we paid for). To date, I have not received a reply. Perhaps Riptide should change their name to Ripoff.

So, if you want to go whale watching, I recommend you go to Monterey Bay or Santa Cruz where huge whale-watching boats leave every hour. If you do decide on a small boat, make sure to get a weather report from an independent source. There’s bound to be another greedy skipper like Capt. Smitty out there.

This title was bestowed upon me by a friend for going out of my way to get those darn rebate checks. Rebates turn a good deal into a great deal, if you get the rebate.

Here’s what companies offering rebates expect:

1. Most folks will forget to send or don’t want to bother with sending in the rebate coupon.
2. Most folks will forget that they’ve sent in a rebate coupon.
3. Most folks won’t bother calling up to ask why they haven’t received their rebate. Some companies will wait for this call before cutting and sending the check out.

Then there are nerds like me who xerox all the paperwork sent in as evidence, who keep track of outstanding rebate checks (a PalmPilot is good for this), and who will call up the company when the rebate check due date expires.

So far, most namebrand companies (like Maxell, TDK, Memorex) honor the rebate coupon when they receive it. Other namebrand companies (like Diamond Multimedia) will wait for the phone call before sending out the check.

Don’t send rebate coupons to no-namebrand companies if you can help it. You have a low chance of getting the rebate check back. Avoid buying a no-namebrand product just because the rebate makes it a good deal. Buy it only if it’s already a good deal and the rebate makes it a great deal.

If you’re sending a rebate coupon to CompUSA (“The Rebate Store From Heck”), you can kiss it good-bye.

If you need to send in more than one rebate for the same product, check that there isn’t a one per household restriction. If so, just use a friend’s name and address. (Make sure you enter which friend into the PalmPilot. Hey, that’s what friends are for! Abuse, Neglect….)