The Itinerant Cyclist » 2008 » December

Comcasted

CyclistRick — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:50:03 +0000

We awoke this morning to our cable TV signal showing a lot of noise, and the cable modem showing that we had no network connection to the outside world. I called Comcast, ran through their ‘we want you to add more services’ telephone obstacle course, to land at the headset of a customer service rep. His first tact was to blame it on my equipment. Excuse me, I said, but both both the TV box and the network modem are having connection issues, so you expect me to accept that two pieces of equipment in my house both went on the fritz at the same time? So he started putzing around, had me reset the two boxes, and still nothing worked. He tried to do a remote reset, but (surprise) our box did not receive his signal (hint: if the cable line is not working, a remote signal sent down the cable probably is likely to not work. But hey, that is the advanced class, and this customer service has not made it there, yet). A bit confused, and apparently under orders not to admit they had a problem, the CR rep puts me on hold. A couple of minutes later a woman comes on the line and acts as if I had just called in. She wants me to power cycle my equipment (didn’t the guy who passed me off tell me we had done this?), then it is time to start the sales pitch: she tells me that if they have to dispatch a technician to diagnose the problem that I might have to pay for their time, but I can add a service guarantee to my monthly fee and then I will not be charged. Huh? I decline and tell her I need it fixed, but she wants me to sit at home all day and wait for a technician, but then again I might have to pay if they send the technician out since I do not have the service guarantee. Sheesh. Poor old me, I have only been designing, building, and maintaining information networks for 3 or so decades, so I cannot possibly understand the complexities of their system and the fact that the problem must be in my house since no one else in my neighborhood has called to report a problem …. at 5:45 AM. So I have to resort to the old ‘fix it or I walk’ ultimatum, at which time she agrees to escalate the issue, but then again unless I have the service guarantee I might have to pay for the technician’s time.

I thought Comcast would have rid themselves of the AT&T service mentality and customer service reps when they bought the old AT&T cable division. Apparently not.

After finishing the call, and seeing The Wife out the door, I started to get ready to go to the office (can’t work from home if there is no network, but that was a non-issue since the money man who pays me wants us all in the office today). By the time I was dressed for work all the cable stuff in our home was working. Wonder if they are going to bill us for the technician’s time?

Bundling up

CyclistRick — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:55:44 +0000

It has been cold here the past couple of days, or at least as cold as it normally gets in Northern California. And for the doubters, I do know cold; I once lived on the side of a mountain where it rarely got above freezing from late October through early April and nighttime temperatures could plunge down below -40 degrees (no need to specify Celsius or Farhrenheit as -40 is the crossover temperature). Back on track here; it is time to dig for the cold weather gear when heading out on the bike. The Wife thought she was ‘Sta-Puft Marshmellow Girl’ with all the layers of clothing she had to wear for our ride Saturday. Now is the time to have the proper attire!

My idea of proper attire is usually some sort of wool base layer, a heavier than summer-weight longsleeve jersey, some thermal bib shorts, and wool socks. If it is really wet or cold I may add the SealSkinz socks over my wool socks, and if there is a cold rain I will add my Showers Pass jacket and maybe the Showers Pass rain pants. I thought that with that full regalia I was a bit over the top. Then I was perusing recent pics on Copenhagen Cycle Chic. Why wear SealSkinz socks when you can wear a seal skin jacket. If that is not your style, perhaps some other form of fur, either in a coat or boots might be your style. Not sure how comfortable those jackets would be around here. I think I might get a bit overheated. I’ll stick with what I have for now.

That transitional time of year

CyclistRick — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:54:08 +0000

The days are getting shorter, the mornings cooler, and despite the lack of the expected rains I know we are in that period of time where fall starts to move to winter. It is a time of transition. I have transitioned from wearing shorts and short sleeve jerseys to tights and a long sleeve jersey with a wool base layer on the morning rides, and from wearing T-shirts and light pants/shorts during the day to long sleeve shirts with jeans. No more worrying about the tomato plants but rather trying to conquer the thick carpet of oxalis trying to grow up in their place. No longer do I sleep with the windows open at night, but am searching for any drafty leaks at all the windows to plug to keep the warmth inside.

Another sign of transition is all the cyclists wearing different kits than they did a month or two ago. This was expecially apparent this past weekend. The Wife, who is in transition from being a V’Girl to being a Bella (in part; she will maintain club relationships with the V’Girl posse) wanted to ride the Bay Area Womens Group Ride organized by Kat Curri Mathis on Saturday. She received her new kit on Friday and decided Saturday’s ride would be a good time for her coming out in the new kit. When we arrived at the Los Altos Peet’s at the appointed time it was mayhem with parts of three rides overlapping; the A-V ‘B’ ride, the Women’s Group ride, and a much smaller contingent from the club with which I am affiliated all gathering for the morning’s socialization rides. Amid the chaos and the greeting of folks we have not seen for a while I realized that there were a number of folks who had changed affiliations since our last encounters.

Angela (left) and The Wife (right) check out each other's new kits

Lindsay's new LGBRC kit is mostly hidden by her Dewar's vest

Anny is a new member of the Mintie Mafia

Alas, I was not allowed to ride with the Women’s ride so I reversed their loop, in part, so I could get a bit of climbing to Skyline under my belt. Another transition, me going back to adding elevation gain to my ride profile’s. After the ride the day was spent getting ready for holiday extravaganza thrown by the company The Wife works for at the present time.

Sunday I got an early start to head 25 or so miles south to be a course marshall for the 4-person TTT put on by the club with which I am affiliated. A transition to worker rather than racer, a condition that will be true for a while still. It was an interesting race to watch, as the teams looped by several times each, some of them getting a bit smaller and more ragged as time went on, but everyone seemed in good spirits. Except I do not think a couple of teams believed me when I told them to watch out for the boat coming up fast behind them.

Santa at the helm

Cellular luddite

CyclistRick — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:38:18 +0000

I freely admit I am a bit of a luddite when it comes to cell phones. I am not apologetic. I have worked in technology related fields for almost three decades, and I appreciate many of the new innovations. But that does not mean I need most of them.

My current cell phone is a Motorola V600. Has to be getting close to five years old now, and it does all I need at present, which is not much. And it fill all my requirements for a cell phone, which are a bit more stringent than most folks I know. Here is my list of requirments:

GSM – The world is GSM. Outside of the U. S. CDMA technology deployments are sparse (even Darrel Issa’s [same man who brought California the gubernatorial recall in 2003] thinly veiled attempt to get the U.S. to build a CDMA network in Iraq because GSM was ‘French’ was widely ridiculed as creating a cellular island in a GSM sea). If you want a phone that will travel the world it has to be GSM. Even places where CDMA had a foothold are pulling back as Qualcomm twists arms for higher licensing fees.
Quad band – The U. S. always has to be different. The world (outside of North America) runs GSM on the 900 and 1800 MHz bands, the U. S. uses the 850 and 1900 MHz bands. Canadians follow the U. S. for obvious reasons. For a GSM phone to really work around the world it must be quad band.
Unlocked – Locking a phone to particular carriers network is crazy. It came about due the carriers subsidizing the phones and wanting to make sure that the customer used their network, only. But it locks the customer to unreasonable, in my opinion, restrictions. If I take my phone to Europe, and stay locked to my U. S. provider’s network, I can expect to pay exorbitant fees for all incoming and outgoing phone calls. Last time we were in Europe the cost was $2.00/minute. That call had better be important if I am paying $0.03333/second of connect time! It is so easy, and much cheaper, to have an alternative SIM on another carrier and pay as I go. And many of them have free incoming calling plans. We have travelled with TeleItalia, Orange, and Amena SIMs in the past, now I have a more ride-ranging pay-as-I-go SIM that is UK based. And the very worst case scenario is being locked to AT&T’s network. By far the worst customer service outfit in the world, hands down. And I won’t even go into their political contributions.
Batteries that can be replaced by the customer – too crazy to put something that will die inside a device and then tell the consumer they cannot open the device to replace it. I always travel with a spare battery for my phone … just in case. Try to find and Apple store in the Alps to get your iPhone battery replaced.

The is an even longer list of features I do not need. A camera is ’so-what’ feature I can take or leave. MP3 player? Forget it. Corporate e-mail connectivity? A minus in my book. I can connect to ‘open’ IMAP4/POP3 mail servers from my old Motorola if/when I want to, but the ‘open’ generally obviates corporate systems. And that is fine with me. The 4 GPS’s I own are all better than any in even the newest cell phones. Web browsing is sometimes useful, but it is not a make or break for me, and the old Motorola can even do some of that.

So you will not find me out looking for that new whiz-bang phone anytime soon. I am comfortable with my luddite status.