Samaritan Lights

Here is a good samaritan story that has happened to me a few times.

I was in a parking lot and someone has left their car. They left the lights on.  I tell the person, wondering if their car is the kind that automatically turns the lights off.  They inform me that the lights will go off in a couple minutes.

Who invented that lame feature anyway?  Why is it useful?  Every time this happens to me I feel like such a shmuck, and I wonder how many times those people get warned that their lights are on.

Identity Scanning

Identity management.  I wish I had more control over my identity information, and who can use, store, and distribute it.

In the past couple months I have been notified that my personal information may have been obtained when some files went missing from a mutual fund office, and I have my credit card re-issued by the bank due to the loss of some data from somewhere.

This frustrates me, and infuriates me.  I take precautions to prevent ID theft, and someone else can lose a laptop/harddrive/back up file containing the critical information for thousands of people.

Coreman has a bunch of links to info about identity management.

What is making me post about is a return I made to Office Depot today.  The receipt has a barcode that the clerk scanned.  After scanning the returned items, he hands me a slip to sign that is my credit card credit.  I realized quickly that I never handed over my credit card.

Somewhere Office Depot may be storing my credit card number.  Great.  How secure is their datacentre?  Some day maybe there will be the control I desire, but for now why should I be expected to live with always being concerned that some company I shop at stores my personal info and has the potential to lose it?

Experience Dads

I just got back from an interesting experience today.  I had to do some errands this morning, so I took Sprout with me.  I ended up at Mayfair mall, and after finishing my running around, I decided to get a coffee from Starbucks.

As I am heading in to the store, I notice a friend of mine wheeling his son towards the mall. He also had a friend of his, with his daughter.

So, there I am with two other dads, and two other kids, walking around the mall talking dad stuff, and drinking coffee.  I found it very enjoyable, yet something I never would have imagined myself if you had asked me when I was in my 20’s.

Sprout had fun too.  He always likes getting out, and that mall has a lot of sights to see.  I also bought him a few new toys which he seems to love playing with 🙂

Sweating Map

climbing towards fitness

Training rides seem like they are hard to come by. Today I rode to work, and it took a lot less time than I was expecting, which is a great thing.

Starting off from home it was a little chilly, but just perfect for riding really. My HRM seems a little wonky, and wasn’t registering for the longest time. When it did start when I was downtown I was already up to 160. I slowed down a bit so I would be sweating quite so much at work. Light rain started when I was a few blocks away, so I didn’t even get wet.

I took the most direct route, which also has the most traffic and stop lights. I left home a little after 7:30, and was in the office at 8. Not bad I would say. The linked map says it is just a little over 7.5 km.

I think for my ride home I will take a longer route. Maybe along the water. According to the map that is approx 16.5 km.

Deck Luxury

The man is on a roll. The deck is nearing completion. The guy doing the construction was out in the back yard in the rain for several hours on Sunday. I think he stopped when he ran out of wood. I am actually hopeful that he will finish by the end of the month. I just need to find out if he plans to stain the deck. If not, then I get to bring the BBQ back onto the deck instead of keeping it in the carport. That will be luxury!




Sensor Climbing

Got out on the trails for a ride today.  Training for Canmore is hard!  Add in that I was pretty forgetful today, and you get a weird ride.

Two blocks from home I remembered that I forgot the HRM strap, which is the sensor.  I had move the receiver over to my mountain bike, but without the sensor things are just useless.  I decided not to return home for it.

Once at the trailhead, I noticed that I was the only vehicle in the parking lot.  Weird.  It was 8:30 or so, but still, I expected to see at least another car out there.

I geared up and headed out.  It was a little chilly, but I knew I would warm up soon enough.  about 2 minutes from the truck I remembered that I left my camera in the truck.  Damn.

I took a route that had lots of climbing which was what I had planned.  If I had a working HRM this would have been fine.  Instead I pushed too hard, and got my heart rate too high.  The forced me to stop more than once to recuperate before I threw up.  Not a good feeling to stop riding, and feel nauseous, and dizzy from lack of O2.

I quite enjoyed the fresh cool air, and had a fun ride.  It was just over an hour long too.

Deck Screwed

Another deck update. Slowly but surely we are seeing some progress. Finally after several months of nothing. This weekend more decking was added, and the stuff that was already there, got properly screwed down (there was only a couple screws per piece of wood).

I just hope that the guy working on it remembers that we need access to the back yard. I hope he will build to one door or the other, and not in long strips like he is doing now. If he has to stop and we can’t let Yoshi in the back yard, I will be very unhappy.