Jon's Corner of the Whirled

Mileage Accuracy

Jon — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:03:41 +0000

I started an experiment with the last fill up of the tank of gas in my truck. I reset the truck’s trip odometer, and also reset the trip computer in my Garmin Nuvi. After 140 miles or so, the Nuvi is reading a little over 2.5 miles more than the trip odometer. The question is: Which one is right? I guess I’ll have to find a known distance, and reset both of them to see. Something to add to the to-do list, but certainly not at the top.

Unmotivational continued…

Jon — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:56:30 +0000

It appears that the unmotivational posters are being done by someone at work. Here is the latest.

unmotivational posters

Jon — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:42:30 +0000

Recently at my place of employment, there have been a rash of “productivity” posters placed around the workspace, with the intent to give helpful advice about how to be a better performer. I just find them insulting. Take this example:

Work early, late, and on weekends and you will get more done!

Another poster, which disappeared prior to me getting a picture of it, mentioned that better collaboration is possible if you wear under-arm deodorant. I’m not kidding.

As we keep scaling back spending at work, I wonder how much they spent on this poster campaign. Hmmm.

Yahoo Autosync needs an update

Jon — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:54:21 +0000

Yahoo Autosync must be a low priority item for Yahoo. I am running Vista, and it isn’t usable. Looking at the help page for Autosync related to supported platforms, it is pretty obvious that it isn’t something Yahoo values (or they don’t update help very often):

What are the system requirements?
Currently, you need Windows 2000, Windows XP Pro, or Windows XP Home.

You also need at least a Pentium Processor, 128MB RAM, and 40MB disk space.

Note: Vista/Outlook 2007 are not currently supported. We hope to have this by the end of 2007.

Last time I looked 2007, and 2008 have come and gone.

I guess I shouldn’t complain. I didn’t pay for it.

Slackers are people too

Jon — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:55:16 +0000

While reading the summary of Oregon’s benefits from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, I was amused to see that “slackers” are now a Targetted Group that can be used by a business as a tax credit:

“Under current law, businesses are allowed to claim a work opportunity tax credit equal to 40 percent of the first $6,000 of wages paid to employees of one of nine targeted groups … The bill creates two new targeted groups of prospective employees: unemployed veterans and disconnected youth. … An individual qualifies as a disconnected youth if they are between the ages of 16 and 25 and have not been regularly employed or attended school in the past 6 months.”

Does that mean that we will now see signs outside businesses that say “Slackers Wanted”?

Gnomes, belts and eye-sores

Jon — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 22:15:35 +0000

As promised, here is a picture of the new Gnome that myseriously appeared in our yard. I like his optimistic expression.

On a separate topic, the local the last time I had my oil changed, the Toyota dealer told me that I needed to replace the main drive belt in my ‘03 Toyota Tundra. It had just rolled 45K miles. They wanted $122 to replace the belt. I told them “no thanks”, thinking I could do the work myself. Well, I did. The replacement belt cost $32.99, and took me about an hour to install. It was the sort of thing that required two pairs of hands, and I only had one. The funny thing is that the old belt was just fine. A few hairline cracks, but according to my repair manual isn’t anything to worry about. I guess it just goes to show that the dealer isn’t motivated by what is really needed, but by some magic count of miles on the vehicle. The “Gatorback” belt I bought is supposed to last longer than the OEM belt anyway, so I won’t need to replace it anytime soon.

The construction at the end of our street seems to be nearing the end of the street blocking phase. Thank goodness. I had to drag the “Road Closed” sign from in front of our house back to the site yesterday, which I find irritating. The guys that work on the site don’t seem to give a darn where the leave it when they aren’t using it. I don’t particularly like staring at it out of my living room window, nor do I like it taking up a parking space in front of my house. Sometimes they leave it in the street blocking the sidewalk. Nice eh? They took out a walnut tree that was planted in the right-of-way, I wonder what kind of trees they are going to plant?

State of the Whirled…

Jon — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:13:49 +0000

I haven’t been updating this much. There are several reasons for that. First and foremost, the stuff that is going on in my life revolves around my current employment. That stuff is “confidential” and “sensitive”, which makes it difficult to talk about and remain employed.

Baseball has been eating up a bunch of my time. We have been going through registrations, try-outs, and late registrations for the last couple of months. Being the “Information Officer/Secretary” takes up my spare time.

I’ve also been ill. A multi-stage cold/flu thing has been making its way through our friends and family made its way to me as well. That took me out for the better part of a week.

The h44 construction is ongoing and just plain obnoxious, which makes me grumpy. The contractors park everywhere, the street is blocked most of the day, they use lots of noisy equipment, and the relatively unsecured port-a-potties attract a lot of weak bladdered individuals at all hours.

On the interesting front, and to my wife’s dismay, someone added a new gnome to our yard. I’m guessing it was a birthday present, and I have theories about where it came from. When I can find one of our digital cameras, I’ll take a picture of it and post it. Lisa isn’t terribly fond of yard art to begin with, and the notion that it is spontaneously appearing in our yard is less than appealing to her. I find it funny.

Ted says I have to post

Jon — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 09:00:25 +0000

Gnome-nappers

Jon — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:21:10 +0000

Some of our convict gnomes disappeared from our yard in the last couple of days. This means that someone had to go into the yard to get them. They left two, the one holding the deer, and the guard. Pretty darn irritating, if you ask me. With all the other bad news we are getting inundated with on a daily basis, it is hard to keep a positive attitude.

Customer Service Experience at Hawthorne Fred Meyer

Jon — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:54:57 +0000

My wife and I have been frequenting the Hawthorne Fred Meyer, even though it is in a state of great disarray. They are doing a remodel of the entire facility, and it has been in various states of chaos for many months now.

One of the additions is a new deli. We went there thinking we could order some sandwiches for dinner since we were running later than usual. The person behind the counter suggested Lisa look at the paper menu that lets you order sandwiches. We picked out what we want, which took a couple of minutes and she went back up to order. She returned in short order with a look of disgust on her face. “They close at 7:00 and stop making sandwiches at 6:50 because they can’t stay late.” It was 6:51 on my watch. With this kind of lack of appreciation for the customer, this latest expansion is not likely to be a success, in my opinion.

We had a cart load of groceries, so we went to check out. Given the volume of groceries, and the line at the U-Scan, we opted for a line with a person. We waited, as things seemed to be going slowly. Three quarters of the way through groceries for the person at the front of the line, a manager stepped in and said to the checker that they had to switch her out because she was on overtime. This was an unfortunate decision because it took a couple of minutes to make the transition. No apology was given to the people waiting in line from the manager, nor any acknowledgement that we actually existed. Normally, I would have gone to a different line, but I had put about half of our stuff on the belt. Lisa took the kids to the car, and I waited, and waited.

It look a very long time, and I was pretty soured on the whole experience. I think the Fred Meyer employees at Hawthorne could really use some customer service education.