Howard

Marathon Training

Howard — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 22:48:00 GMT

Well, half-marathon to be more precise. I've decided to finally get off my lazy-ass and start doing it. I began in earnest this weekend. So far my regiment is 60-min non-stop on an elliptical, and then to kill my abs with crunches until I can't sit up.

Every day.

As my elliptical endurance builds up, I'll keep increasing the level of resistance that it provides. Eventually (maybe within 3 weeks), I'll move to running outright on the treadmill.

I need to get the brand name of the elliptical machine I've been using at the gym later -- I love it. I've used a bunch in the past, but this is the only one that I've used that has really had the proper leg motion to mimmick running. I've been using the "hill" training pattern that they have. It has a 1-20 resistance level setting. I started out with level 6 on Sunday, but jumped to level 10 on Monday. My endurance has already started to increase as well. Sunday and Monday I got about 4.5-5 miles in my 60 min time allotment. Today I got 7.6. I attribute it partially to the book that I was reading as well (Writing Solid Code by Steve Maguire)...it's no Harry Potter but it kept me properly engaged and distracted for my 60 minutes.

Next week I'll begin adding my upper-body training and my additional leg stengthing training...one step at a time.

I have no idea when the (half) marathon that I'm training for is going to be (it's going to be whenever I feel I'm ready I guess), but it should definitely be this year.

I bid on a house (again)

Howard — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 16:20:00 GMT

So, here it is. I didn't actually bid that much. Oh no. That's insane. My bid was much more reasonable. No, really.

Well, maybe not.

They were looking at offers on Tuesday, and I figured I'd have no chance in a bidding war, so I just conceded defeat and didn't both.

Apparently, everyone felt the same way, and they got no bids. Thinking it might be a perfect opportunity, I bid less. They have about 12 hours left to respond to my bid. We'll see what happens.

Help me get Ms. X's present

Howard — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 05:45:00 GMT

Well, Ms. X won't let me spent a lot of money on her birthday present. But -- I know that she wants the iPod Nano to help her train for the New York Marathon (despite my numerous objections for getting an mp3 player that locks her into Apple...).

Anyway, Gratis Networks has been doing this "Free iPod" thing for a while now. They've had write-ups in the NY Times, Wired, etc...because it's legitimate.

I need 4 more people to specifically click this link, and sign up for one offer. The best one to do is the Real Rhapsody one. I'll reimburse you the $1 you spend for the first month. Plus, if you call to cancel towards the end of the 30 days and tell them that you just weren't sure it's worth the money and needed more time, they'll probably give you another month free (well, they did this for me last time). I'm using Yahoo now for my subscription, but, that's neither here nor there, is it?

Anywho, please just sign up and do one offer and then I can get her to stop bugging me about the mp3 player that she currently has but apparently doesn't know how to use ;)

Why don't airplanes have pests on them?

Howard — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 03:29:00 GMT

I was flying home on Sunday, and something got me to thinking...why don't airplanes have any pests on them? I'm talking about gnats or flies. The entry into the airplane from the airport isn't airtight -- there's plenty of space exposed for outdoor insects to get their way inside...

What secret do airplanes hold that we could maybe apply to our households? I'm quite interested after spending a week ridding my apartment of a mysterious infestation of gnats, caused by an even more mysterious disgusting and leaking object from my household garbage (ugh - don't get me started),

Is this one of life's little mysteries, or is there a real cause behind this?

Pics from this weekend are up

Howard — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 01:11:00 GMT

I've been posting some pics from this weekend's White Salmon trip. You can find them in the new photo gallery.

Edit: Had to remove the photo gallery. Apparently, the pics are stored in SQL, but I have a limited size SQL db. argh.

Come see my presentation on EQuAL 8/23

Howard — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 01:30:00 GMT

I'll be doing a presentation on EQuAL this Tuesday night, 8/23/2005 @ 7pm on Microsoft Campus for PSHUG (Pudget Sound Handheld Users Group).

I'll be talking about its history, evolution in design, how to program for its extensibilities, and potential visions of its future.

Hope to see you there.

Alrighty then -- forums

Howard — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 01:58:00 GMT

In anticipation of the upcoming release with EQuAL, I've been getting the forums set up so that I can collect feedback from users.

Of course, this does hurt me that I'm not using the forum of my own creation from many years ago : The Pubb, but this is currently an experiment in staying 100% .NET and seeing how much I like it.

Well, feedback awaits --

Stupid geeky techy thing

Howard — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 00:45:00 GMT

Chris just told me about this. You know how when you paste something into Word and it has that little icon that lets you choose if you want to let it keep the formatting or revert?

No?

Yeah. I told you this was a stupid geeky techy thing. You probably should just ignore this entry altogether.

Use Alt-Shift-F10 and you can access that without a mouse.

Ah. That, my friend, is keyboard satisfaction.

Turning 200

Howard — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 18:33:00 GMT

Well, my trusty '92 Camry turned 200 today....more specifically, it passed the 200,000 mile mark.

wow.

I love my car.

With a taste of disgust in my mouth

Howard — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 04:38:00 GMT

So, today I finished reading The Bourne Legacy. I feel mentally robbed of the wondrous characters that Ludlum created. If he was one to bemoan the destruction of his fictional universe post-mortem, he'd not only be rolling in his grave, but screaming his ass off at the same time.

Eric Van Lustbader created an interesting story. In its own right, it would have been a story that I probably would have read eventually, and might have enjoyed. The problem is that he tried to take his idea and fit it into the Bourne universe, and then he plastered Ludlum's name right on the cover in huge letters, making it appear that Ludlum had given his stamp of approval (something that I'd be hardpressed to believe he could have been coerced to do had he been alive).

What follows would normally be called spoilers. But, if that could be the case at all, then I'd say the whole damn book was a spoiler for the wonderful universe that Ludlum had created with his first three novels, the original trilogy. Lustbader (I'll still use respect by using his last name, even though he showed no respect to Ludlum) really didn't seem to grasp the universe that he was trying to enter.

Marie has always been an important part of each Bourne novel. She has never allowed David/Jason to shut her out; to take her out of the action. She has always ignored him and it was always in his better interest in the end. So, where was Marie in this novel?

Hidden.

What the hell? Jason sends her a text message to hide, and so, she does? She knows to attempt no communication until she gets the next coded text message? That doesn't sound like the Marie that I know, the Marie that I've spent countless hours getting to know while reading the original trilogy.

But, I sound bitter. It can't be that bad, can it? Oh yes. And it gets worse.

Mo and Conklin are killed straight-out. So, two of the three key people in the Bourne history are now completely removed. That is a rather bold move for an impersonating author to do to another brilliant writer's universe. But maybe he knew what he was doing? I could only hope. Half way through the book though, I knew that it was for naught.

I'm not exactly sure if Lustbader read the other books and knew the character that he was writing. We learn on the last page that this book is happening about 6 years after Ultimatum (it's Jamie's 11th birthday, and he was 5 during Ultimatum). Since he was 50 in Ultimatum, that puts him around the nice old age of 56. During Ultimatum, Ludlum made it a point to remind us that he was 50, and let us know that Bourne wasn't in the same form as he used to be as Delta. The way that Legacy was written, it sounded like he was a brisk 39-year-old in top form, who just happened to get the shit kicked out of him a lot, and was constantly wounded.

Bourne didn't seem 56 in this book, and that really upset me. There was an acute loss of realism here. But that still isn't all of it.

Bourne isn't Bond. He doesn't have a Q. So why was Deron (and on that note, where's good-'ol Cactus?) trying to play the part by giving Jason a "ceramic gun?" "It's a prototype. Let's say this, you name the price based on its use to you. I trust you'll be fair." Ugh. I think I'm going to hurl. Bourne never needed props like that before. He was an opportunistic man who managed to find what he needed, wherever he was. That ceramic gun came in handy too often, and was used way too much throughout the book. That quote from Deron really made me squirm in my chair, because it was just calling attention to how important that would be during the whole book. Puke, I say.

I'll have to go a little easier on Khan (and that name. I couldn't help but hear Khaaaaaaaaaan! every time I read it), but not much. He had Ozskar, whom was as close to Q as you could get without just calling him that. And then he had his magic coat.

Bourne saw that the inside was composed of a number of pockets, all of which looked filled.
"What d'you have in there?" he asked.
"Tricks of the trade," Khan said unhelpfully.

Maybe that's just how the more modern assassins work, with magic, but it just seemed too much for me. Both Bourne and Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan! got out of situations too many times in unbelievable fashions (and yes, I do believe that his capture of the impersonator in Ultimatum was realistic, especially compared to all of this crap). There were also far too many convenient similarities between characters. Zina and Khaaaaaaaaaaaan were shown to be way too similar at the end of the book. And Lustbader even had the gall to allow for the insinuation that Khaaaaaan was (metaphorically) the brother she had been searching for for all these years.

Then you had Annaka and Khaaaaaan who both hated their fathers, at least at some point in the story they both did.

There were the all-too-comical-because-they-weren't-supposed-to-be scenes where you had chains of "tailing" people, all thinking that they weren't being tailed (a simple example was when Khaaaaaan was tailing McColl who was tailing Anna (who was going to see Jason at the bio-lab)). All just too unrealistic.

Spalko had no good reason not to shoot Bourne with the ceramic gun when he was leaving with Annaka. It was a "classic" mistake made by the bad-guy, whereas Ludlum's badguys never really seemed to make that mistake (well, Carlos never seemed to kill Bourne when he should, but I'll let that slide)...

But wait! That's not all!

With Alex's death, he was quits with them, even though the DCI himself had asked him to stay, even though he actually liked and respected Martin Lindros, the man responsible for having the sanction against him lifted.

Like they had to explain that? Lindros had read Bourne's file and the DCI knew Bourne as well. Why would they even ask. It was well established that Bourne detested the government and wanted nothing to do with them. And what about Karpov and Robbinet? During Legacy, we learn that Bourne saved both of their lives on different "missions" that he was on. Missions? What missions? Bourne was never on missions. He was Delta during Medusa in Saigon. And then he was Bourne. The assassin. For 3 years. Chasing Carlos. He never did missions. Ludlum did mention that he had prevented some of the Jackal's jobs from taking place, but they were never "missions." I want to know who this mythical character is that Lustbader is spinning his yarn for.

Now, I have to take a moment and acknowledge the fact that Lustbader did tell a tale that I still found interesting, and is likely better than any story of that style that I could ever write (although, I'll still try my darnedest). My main issue with his story is that it seems to completely destroy the entire Bourne mythos.

And to that end, my final cry of frustration: Ludlum let his characters throw around classified information a little too freely, and the bad guys seemed to be able to get info on him way too easily, but I'd still say that at the end of the original trilogy, less than 200 people probably knew that David Webb == Jason Bourne. Well, now at the end of Legacy, the whole damned world knows, yet it doesn't seem to impact David/Jason at all. What the hell?

ARGH!!!!!

I could go on and on and complain about the large number of inconsistencies in this book, but I think that I'd just explode with frustration. As it is, I think that I've made a pretty clear point that The Bourne Legacy should be avoided if you care about the Bourne mythos. If you just want to read a somewhat entertaining, although wholly unbelievable, and somewhat predictable, book, then please, by all means, get it through my affiliate link: The Bourne Legacy.

KEXP, I Love You

Howard — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 22:49:00 GMT

If you haven't heard of KEXP, well, shame on you. Go there now and listen.

I don't have much time to write up about KEXP right now, but I'll try to write some more in the next couple days. Pretty much all of the music that I've been listening to lately (take a look on the left for the albums I've been listening to lately) were all first introduced to me on that fantastic radio station.

Right now, I'm listening to Lyrics Born - Same !@#$, Different Day, and I can't stop. It's mesmerizing. I highly recommend it.

How I Managed to Get a Refund for my Helmet Camera after Seven Months of Trying

Howard — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 03:05:00 GMT

a story by Howard Wolosky

The background
After we finally started getting the hang of not swimming, kayaking really started to become quite a lot of fun. At some unknown tipping point, we got to the point where what we were doing would look rather cool on video (as opposed to funny). It was at that point that I began my well-known multi-month-long investigation into the right video camera and helmet camera setup so that I could indeed begin to record our whitewater antics.

After, quite literally, months of looking, I got an excellent deal on a Sharp VLZ3U MiniDV Camcorder for about $190 from Amazon after combining some coupons and rebates. It was a great, and unfortunately, irreproducible deal. I then had to find the right helmet camera. I searched all over the net for recommendations and options, but found little information out there for whitewater users. Some of the sites that I did end up looking at:

I eventually went with bulletcam.com, even though their prices were generally more expensive than the others, they were the only ones who provided a full kit including the watertight casewatertight case.

I placed my order with them on April 15, 2004 for a grandtotal of $379 ($369 + $10 shipping), in preparation for the rafting trip down the Wenatchee river we were going to be taking on Saturday May 1, 2004. My order kept getting delayed because they didn’t have all of the parts ready to go to make the case. They eventually overnighted the package to me so that I got it Friday April 30, 2004.

Becoming an extreme director
The first couple trips with the helmet cam were experimental in nature. I had to try a couple different angles on the camera until it wasn’t always pointed up or down the whole time. I did manage to get some great video during those trips, although the Yakima rafting trip was probably a waste of tape.

And then came Saturday May 22, 2004. I got pinned against a log and ended up swimming a bunch of the Wenatchee river, having the helmet camera going the whole while. When I finally got in my car later that day, I noticed that the inside of the case was damp and that the camcorder no longer worked. The case had leaked and ruined everything.

And so began the process of refunds
I was bummed the whole time about the loss but I wasn’t overly concerned, because I knew that I had a 90 day full refund policy via my credit card (American Express Blue) for any reason. I got the process with them started for the camcorder, but I decided to go through BulletCam.com for the refund of the helmet camera since they had a policy that superseded that of my credit card. So I contacted them via email and they asked me to send the whole kit back to them for investigation.

The history of the beginning of this process can be tracked in this unresolved Better Business Bureau complaint that I finally filed - they had three failed attempts in contacting BulletCam for a resolution and they now have a mark on their record after months of no response. Essentially, they acknowledged receipt of the kit, and then took over a month to look into the issue and give me a response. When they asked what resolution that I wanted, I finally said that I wanted a refund, and I never heard from them again. I called and left over fifty voicemails over the next few months, and as many emails as well. I never received any further responses.

I tried contacting my credit card company at this point, but they said that they only handle problems within 90 days of purchase; after that, all information would have to be faxed and would be considered on an individual basis (didn’t look good from my standpoint, but still could be a last ditch hope).

I was really giving up hope. I did some searching on the next, and started finding little tidbits like this one (google cache) where other people were getting similarly screwed out of refunds by the same company.

Grabbing at straws
Every once in a while I would go to BulletCam.com to see if they still appeared to be in business (they did). I tried sending emails to them from other email addresses pretending to be a new inquiring customer, just to see if I could get a response (I didn’t). Finally, one day I noticed that the website had changed! Eeeeenteresing.

There’s a link at the bottom of the new site going to http://www.develonet.com/, the website designers for the new site. I started calling and talking to the main designer, Kirk Ziegler (no relation to Craig, I asked). I talked with Kirk a couple times, explaining my situation and asking if he could get me into contact with Mike Doherty (the owner/operator of BulletCam). He said that whenever he calls the number listed on the website, he gets through to Mike right away. I explained that whenever I call, I get voicemail after a number of unanswered rings. So, I gave my contact info to Kirk and asked him to pass it along to Mike. Mike never called me back.

On future calls to Develonet, Kirk told me that Mike remembered me but said he never got any voicemails from me, nor any emails. So, I emailed Mike cc’ing the webguys. Kirk said he got the email from me, but never saw a response from Mike, and neither did I.

Again, I was feeling that I was just completely screwed. I was really just grabbing at straws

A mind like a steel trap
Then, one morning at work (12/9/2004), I remembered an article I read on http://slashdot.org a while ago. It talked about a new consumer service for caller-ID spoofing called Camophone.. I don’t know why I was thinking about it that morning, but my mind just connected the dots immediately on my way to work.

There was another article on Slashdot that appeared before the one about Camophone, but it was in regards to Star38.com which isn’t available for use by the general public.

I’ll be blunt. Camophone doesn’t look like a legitimate site. It looks very plain and rather suspicious. But the forums on the site looked fairly active enough to be legitimate, and hey, it was only going to cost me $5 to find out ($0.05 a minute, minimum of 100 minutes to charge your account with). Within one second after the paypal transaction, my account on Camophone had the credits, and then, with a lot of trepidation, I placed the call.

Ring 1 (no answer)

Ring 2 (no answer)

At this point, I was losing hope. Two more rings and it would go to voicemail like all of my other calls…

Ring 3: “Hey”

I did it. Mike picked up the phone and answered like he was expecting to talk with Kirk.

I asked if it was Mike, he said yes, but seemed a little hesitant, and then I went into the schpeel quickly. I reminded him who I was and that I wanted my refund. He let me know that he never got any of the voicemails I left, but never responded to why he didn’t answer my emails or call me back when Kirk gave him my contact info. I didn’t push. He was already being too nice at this point.

He said he’d do the paypal refund right there on the phone. We agreed on $369, and then he tacked on another $15 to cover the transaction fee from Paypal (that was actually a nice gesture that I hadn’t even asked for). As soon as he sent it, I accepted the transaction and immediately initiated the withdraw into my bank account (didn’t want to give him a chance to rebuff the refund).

We got off the phone, and that was it. I finally got my refund after seven months of trying.

However, I made a mistake on the camophone website, and I guess I initiated a second call to Mike (BulletCam) either during or shortly after my main one to him. It went into my voicemail and you can listen to his less than enthusiastic response to it.

Wrapping up
I highly recommend http://www.camophone.com if you think you have a legitimate reason to spoof your caller ID. Spending 5 bucks there was well worth getting my $370 back. The interface is rather lackluster, but boy does it do its job well.

AVOID bulletcam.com. Customer service is horrendous and business practices lean towards illegal.

Additional References
* Beating Caller ID - http://artofhacking.com/files/BEATCID.HTM
Additional ideas on how to get around Caller-ID

Fantastic Four - avoid it

Howard — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 21:26:00 GMT

I wasn't all that impressed. It was better than I had expected (but I had such LOW expectations), but I really didn't think it was all that great.

Having recently seen such great movies (Madagascar, Batman Begins, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, War of the Worlds), Fantastic Four just really pales in any comparison.

Well, hmmm...That was rather fast.

Howard — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 21:16:00 GMT

Well, last night I finished The Bourne Ultimatum. Gotta tell ya...those Bourne books are all really, really, really good.

So, that's the last one that good 'ol Ludlum wrote....he unfortunately passed away in 2001 of a heart condition....real sad actually.

But, Bourne still lives! In the shape of The Bourne Legacy. Same character, different author. I just started it. I'm going in hesitantly though, 'cause I don't know if anyone can touch the character the way that Ludlum did, but I'm willing to give the guy a chance.

Oh my. Read these books.

Damn...I need to see the movies again now. I know that they have nothing to do the book, but I need more Bourne damnit.

Damn that was good

Howard — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 21:21:00 GMT

So, I just finished the Bourne Supremacy.

It was fucking awesome.

Highly recommended to anyone who liked the Bourne stories or movies. I will say that the book has absolutely nothing to do with the movie. They were two completely different stories with absolutely no similar plot points. The book was definitely the better of the two stories regardless.

I just finished reading it having watched the entire first season of 24 in about 2 days. While I definitely was picturing Matt Damon as my Jason Bourne/David Webb the first half of the book, after watching 24 it was hard to get Jack Bauer out of my head for that role.

Well, now I must continue. Too many books to read. I have to finish the next book before Harry comes out on 7/16. Argh. Too many good books. Not enough time.

It's a good thing I gave up TV (at least until Smallville starts up in the Fall...)