rh3toric

This year has been good for travel. Usually I am jetting up to New York or out to Columbus, Ohio for consulting gigs, but this year has taken me a lot farther north, south and east then ever. The real pity is that I barely get to be a tourist and look around.

Windsor, Ontario and Detroit
Sister cities as different as night and day. Windsor has more of a big town feel then an urban one compared to Detroit’s urban decay aesthetic. The differences between Canada and the US is apparent when you compare the two. At a cafe I noticed the warning label on a pack of cigarettes. 510 murders in all of Canada for 1996, that is probably just a little more then the murder rate of Detroit alone. Another unique feature of some Canadian Cities I have seen is the ability to mix strip clubs into the regular business district without creating red light districts. In Windsor I was not sure if some places were dance clubs or strip clubs (maybe both?).

Charlotte, NC
Too bad I was out in the suburbs for this one. On my last day I got to wander around the Fourth Ward, it is like Chestnut Hill with more plants and trees.

Oregon
I finagled being flown into Portland the day before, with my gig being down in Eugene. So, it was to the car rental then off to the coast. Sure Eugene was only 1.5 hours south, but miss the coast are you crazy? My yearning for the coast was fueled by receiving a copy of the American Motorcyclist in the mail the week before with the article “Oregon’s Coast Highway”(membership required). The coast lived up to the hype.

While out for dinner in Eugene I happened to bump in to the local scooter club (Top Dead Center SC. A good bunch of folks, next time I will make sure to make their meeting earlier.

-enough rambling for now

Lately I have had decent luck with bikes. Finding ones I want, having them actually running, and then the rally hit.

Well take any 39 year old bike out for more then 100 miles and something will happen. The first two days it was the belle of the ball (1, 2, 3, can’t find the others).

The ride on Sunday took it’s toll. Earlier the tail lamp running light went out, no biggy. Somehow during the day in the bulb one of the leads running to the filament melted and joined the lead for the brake lamp. This scenario drained my battery.

Time passed and I had not actually gotten on any of the bikes for almost the whole summer (I call that a mix of bad luck and being able to walk to work). Then I get a call from Larry. He would like to know if I could take a look at this BSA someone wanted to trade for a scooter. Well, as it turns out it is one I have always admired, a 1968 B44.

Good luck returns, I have the BSA and Larry’s customer has his scoot. We are all very happy. Now i am in the process of removing two bikes from the collection.

At the end of June my old Apple 21″ CRT passed along. After many attempts at trying to resuscitate it, I had to face the facts and admit it had left this world. One part of me squealed with the excitement of being able to get a new LCD and all its crisp picture glory and desk space minimalism. The other (my inner CFO) did not want to spend the cash.

It used to be 21″ monitors with similar specs were all priced fairly close, with Apple’s always costing just a little more. I had the realization that 24″ and above was not in the calling for me. The 20 inch was the direction I was heading and definitely widescreen. At the time Apple was around 700 something and Dell was offering one for 350 (the Dell has jumped to 460 while the Apple is down to 700). It turned out that the actual screen was the same (made by LG) and the only big difference was the light that made the screen glow (I need to find that link again). Without a doubt the Apple looked better, and hey I am an Apple advocate, but that Dell it was cheap and it had a three year warranty vs. Apple’s 1 year.

Damn good thing it has the warranty. Until last week all was good, then after a weekend away its USB hub would not work. A week of fiddling and hoping it will just work, and no luck. Call the warranty center. Now, I have had to use Dell’s tech support and as long as your machine has a service tag you are in luck. Displays do not have service tags. This scenario makes all of Dell’s online services impossible and all their phone menu options useless (press 0 a couple of times and wait).

After a short discussion, I am told I will be receiving a new display. It arrives yesterday in a box marked “refurbished”. I am not happy and I place another call. It appears that If I had called within the first 21 days, I would have received a new display. Ok, I will deal with that. I open it today and plug it in and the DVI connection doesn’t work.

I have actually spec’d this display for some clients and friends. Luckily they have had no issues.

Update
Well the second replacement worked. Put original and first replacement in their respective boxes and sent them back. All in all, just another little annoyance to make a chaotic week a little more so.

After suffering thru using my Belkin piece o’… for several years, I may have found refuge in the wireless/bluetooth Mighty Mouse. If it performs as well as their bluetooth keyboards in regards to battery usage and responsiveness, I will be very happy.

Grab your scoot and come out to play.

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