We stopped at LensCrafters on the way home to pick up my reading glasses. The optician had trouble finding my tray until she realized that I had brought my old frames for the new lenses. I like 'em, and I can now read without having to hold a book or newspaper about 2ft away from my face.
I'll hold off on sending the letter that I started writing. I'll just wait for the feedback/comment letter they usually send, and I'll fill it out.
Speaking of comments and feedback. I finally got around to filling out the one that Ford sent us about our recent service visit. I also included a 4-page letter (with 4 pages of photos!) explaining why most of the ratings I gave were either fair or poor, rather than good or excellent.
I'll be interesting to see if they follow up on it, even if it's just to thank us for the feedback. If you're confused, check my blog archives from 05/25 up to today and catch up. :)
I called LensCrafters this afternoon to find out if my glasses were ready. After many rings, someone answered the phone. I told them why I was calling. The woman asked me for my name and tray number. I told her my last name and tray number. I was then asked if someone had called me yet. I said no. She then said that someone would have to call me back and again asked for my name and my phone number. I repeated my info and also gave her my work number. She then confirmed my tray number, again.
She said someone would call me today.
Why, oh why, did I trust that "next week" meant next week. I could kick myself for trusting them a second time after going through the same shit a year and a half ago.
I am so confident that "today" won't be today, that I've already started writing a complaint letter to their head office.
I hope I'm wrong, but I am fully expecting to be disappointed. Again.
Regardless of the outcome, we won't be taking our business to LensCrafters EVER again and I would strongly recommend to anyone willing to listen that they too take their business elsewhere.
I woke up early this morning to watch the live broadcast of the Landsdowne Park South Side stands demolition. It was supposed to be broadcast from the City of Ottawa web site starting at 7:50am, with the actual implosion at 8:00am.
I was sure there'd be plenty of replay broadcasts available later in the day, but it's not the same as actually seeing something like this LIVE.
I got up at 7:30am and loaded up the web site at 7:45. The Rogers Television logo stared back at me from the web page. That should have been my first indication that this was going to go very well.
On cue, the live broadcast began at 7:50am. As 8:00am approached, the streaming broadcast began to stutter.
"Great. Rogers can't handle the demand", I said to myself.
A few minutes after 8:00am, according to my PC time, the warning horn sounded.
More streaming stutter.
My wife and I joked that we're going to miss the implosion. We'll see one frame of the stands still intact, and on the next it'll be gone.
That's pretty much what we saw.
The broadcast stream continued to get worse. Pausing for 10-15 seconds at a time.
Seconds before you could hear the countdown, the tiny screen went all blue. WTF?
You could still hear the occasional bit of audio.
Then the countdown started. Or parts of it. Followed by broken sounds of the explosive charges going off.
Then a picture. A paused picture of the left side of the stands beginning to fall.
Then applause as the demolition crew cheered.
I sat staring at the one image.
All week, the newspapers were warning of road closures and advising people to watch the broadcast stream. That there was no way they could get anywhere near the site to see it live, and then Rogers totally screws up the broadcast stream.
I'm sure it was all due to their inability to handle the demand, but what the hell did they expect?
Am I the only one who thought the entire stands was going to be demolished? It's still kinda cool to see.
This is a spectators video of the implosion. I guess you could get somewhat near enough to see it in person. Judging from a few comments you can hear on the video, I wasn't the only one who thought the entire thing was coming down.
With 1200 entries received for CBC's "Hockey Night In Canada Theme" contest, this entry -- "Hockey Scores!" -- is the most viewed and most voted entry:
Clearly, HNIC fans are still upset about CBC dropping the ball on the old theme, losing it to TSN.
According to this article, having the most votes does not guarantee a win for the entry.
The "ratings," "recommendations" and "most viewed" portions of the contest website are just some of the factors judges will consider when selecting the contest semi-finalists, who will be presented to the country and judged by a celebrity panel on a CBC network television special on Oct. 4.
I went to the optometrist on Saturday for an eye examination. My former reading glasses weren't doing their job. I can read fine if the text is about 2ft away, but for anything closer I have to strain.
I tend to wear my old reading glasses all the time -- even when driving. They're comfortable and I can see well doing pretty much anything, except when it comes to reading a book, magazine, or newspaper.
As it turned out, my former "distance/driving" glasses are now too strong and my former reading glasses have become general purpose glasses. So, realistically I need new driving glasses and new reading glasses. He said at the very least, get new reading glasses as I can get away with using my now-general-purpose glasses for everything else.
So, that's what I did.
As usual, I went to LensCrafters since they're located right next door to the optometrist's office.
I'm using the frames from my old driving glasses, so all I need is new lenses.
Can you believe that the machine they use to make the lenses was broken down, AGAIN? They were waiting on a part that was supposed to arrive this past Monday. That's what happened the last time and I waited over a week. Here's my last experience there. She told me that they would be ready "some time next week", meaning THIS week. I asked her if that's what she meant, and she said it was.
To be fair, she did tell me that I could go to one of the other locations if I needed them sooner. However, since I'm not in as much of a rush (or inconvenience) as the last time, I told her that was fine.
5 days and counting. I'm giving them until Saturday before I call. When Sunday rolls around, it's no longer "next week".
My wife had a doctor appointment yesterday. While we sat in the waiting room, we flipped through some of the old Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines that they had in the waiting room. We had a good laugh at some of the "new" products of 1995 and how they've changed in the last 13 years.
After a long wait, my wife's name was called, leaving me alone to continue reading these wonder magazines. :) I found a more recent Popular Science magazine from 1995 and started flipping through it. It wasn't long before something caught my eye.
Coloured bubbles.
I've never seen a coloured bubble before. But how is this worthy of Popular Science? Surely it can't be that difficult to create? Apparently, it is.
I started reading the article. It took Tim Kehoe 11 years to perfect, and that was before this article was written in 2005. The article went on to say that in the toy industry, where the average shelf life of a toy is 18 months, bubbles are "the juggernaut". In 1995, 200 million bottles of bubbles were being sold every year. With a coloured bubbles, they could enter entirely new markets.
So, it would appear that coloured bubbles could be HUGE.
"Picture bubbles in NFL team colors, or bubbles that match charity ribbons. The potential market would grow to include every man, woman and child."
Unfortunately my wife was ready to leave before I was able to finish reading the article. :(
I did a quick search this afternoon and found the web site for the company and the product. The product is called Zubbles. I was rather shocked to see that they're still not available for sale. 13 years ago they were perfected and yet you still can't buy them? I guess that's why I've never seen them.
Image via WikipediaI've discovered HDR photography.
What started as a simple browsing of some awesome photos taken by Chris Paltzat, turned into browsing various photo groups on Flickr that pertain to my Canon S3 IS, which in turn brought me to an HDR photograph Flickr group.
A quick Google search revealed to me exactly what the "Autoexposure Bracket" feature on my camera is used for. My interest peaked, and another Google search told me that I have software that can do the processing, and have had it all along: Corel's Paintshop Pro X2.
Now I'm anxious to get started and find some nice scenery to shoot.
Back to Chris Paltzat's blog. I had a brief email exchange with him after I sent him a message about his photos. He's a self-taught "amateur" photographer. I hesitate to say he's an amateur, because his photos are quite impressive. But, that's what he claims to be. I asked him for tips and his advice was to read as much as I can, and he kindly referred me to a few books with two of them being highly recommended. I plan to pick both of them up as soon as I can. (Thanks again, Chris!)
If you get a chance, drop by Chris's blog -- three six six -- and have a look around. He's posting a new photo every day of the year.
The Ottawa Sun is running a contest to win a Smart Car and $1200 in gas.I've been entering daily since it began in April. Each week, scouring their web site for tiny car pic, and submitting the locations for it it after collecting 3 days worth.
This afternoon my daughter answered an unknown phone number. I was outside hanging Canada Day decorations on the house when she came out and said "Daddy, the phone is for you."
"Who is it?"
"I dunno.. they asked for Scott".
"So why did you answer it?" I'm thinking it's a telemarketer. We rarely ever answer the phone when we don't recognize the number.
It was someone from the Ottawa Sun. The first thought in my mind was they were going to ask me to subscribe. Even though we already do, we've had calls in the past asking us to subscribe. Weird.
Luck was on my side this time. They were calling to tell me that I am a weekly qualifier!
Sometime in October after the contest is over, they'll have a "wrap-up event" for all qualifiers. I have a 1 in 34 chance of winning the car and the $1200 in gas. Just for being a qualifier, I win $100 in gas.
After the recent passing of George Carlin, one of the first things that popped into my mind was "It won't be long before the alleged Carlin quotes start circulating again". Not that they ever stopped while he was still in the land of the living.
Sure enough, this morning I got notification of a new posting over at Snopes.com -- George Carlin on Aging -- debunking the rumoured Carlin quote.
If you reading this, take note. If someone sends you the email, send it back to them with a link to Snopes.com and correct them!
You can also find Carlin's own view of these quotes on his own web site.
I picked up the truck last Thursday... and paid $60 for the 3 "calendar days" of the loaner car. I tried to argue that it was only two days -- Tue > Wed and Wed > Thu, but he said "we count calendar days". Yeh, ok. I tried. :)
I took a quick look at the bumper before leaving the dealership and it looked pretty good. The truck was washed and the inside was even vacuumed. I was happy.
I got home and looked closer at the bumper. The passenger side was beautiful. No complaints. On the driver side, where there were two lower chips (I didn't take photos of that side) I discovered a new paint bubble, almost in the exact same spot that there used to be one on the passenger side. I gave it a light poke with my finger nail and it was indeed a bubble. Not just a build-up of paint.
My wife called the dealership back on Friday and left a message with a brief explanation. No return call. So she called them again this morning and explained what the problem was. "Jamie" said he wasn't aware of this new problem. He said that they don't inspect anything other than what is reported and repaired. My wife told him that we were sure it wasn't there before, so this was likely new due to the repainting. But regardless, since there's a 3 year warranty on the paint, it doesn't matter if it's new or old. He said something to the effect that if they fixed every little thing like this, they could be doing this 5 or 6 times. My wife said if that's the way it has to be, then perhaps the bumper should be replaced? And we're not going to keep paying for a loaner car every time when it should be fixed right the first time.
He said he would have to speak with the service manager.
Now, I can understand that time is limited and maybe they don't have time to inspect the entire bumper, but realistically, how long would that possibly take? I'm not a body repair expert, but it took me all of 10 seconds to spot the bubble when I got home. This new bubble is like a foot higher from where the chips were that they repaired. How could they not see it? It's not like it's on the back of the bumper where they wouldn't have been looking during any preparation or repainting. It's 12" above it!
It was a great event, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. We're already talking about next year! Now that we've experienced the whole event, we'll try to make it even more fun for everyone on our team.
I managed to stay away the entire time, meaning I was awake for about 26-27 hours in total. My entire body is achy and sore. Mostly from carrying the 200lbs of stone dust filled bags that we used in place of tent pegs.
I think my favourite part was the Luminary ceremony after sunset. The field lights were all turned off, leaving the track lit only by the luminaries. It was a very touching moment when the bagpipers played Amazing Grace as Sandra and I stood in front of my Dad's luminary.
I think the only downside was having to move our tents 6 or 7 times on Friday morning to make room for the track. Ideally, it would have been nice if the tracks had been marked prior to setting up.
The funny moment of the evening was when three teens stopped in front of our tent and asked if they could take a picture of our team sign. One of them said "it's the most awesomest team name!" Apparently there were other people who commented on our team name.
The last time we managed to see our total laps, we think it was around 130-140. That's about 5 minutes per lap. However, more often than not, we walked in pairs or small groups and those only count for 1 lap. One lap counter per team. We didn't have any designated times for when each member took their turn. It simply worked out that someone was always willing to take the lap counter and do their part, throughout the night. We had a great team!
A few things I learned from all of this that might help for next year:
Most people either ignored, or weren't aware of, the "no pegs" rule for tents. I was told that there's an underground sprinkler system on the field, therefore they asked that we didn't use tent pegs. We had 200lbs of stone dust packed in freezer bags to use in place of pegs. Moving the bags to and from the truck was a pain. We'll have to think of a better way to "peg down" our tents next year, or get a cart to move the bags!
I am way out of shape. I should start walking more in the weeks leading up to the event. My body hasn't stopped complaining since we got home yesterday. :)
We packed way brought way too much with us.
Parking wasn't as limited as we were told it would be.
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