Month: November 2008

Obligatory air travel post

Eh, nothing exciting, so let’s just get this out of the way:

From SFO to PHL a United attendant used the phrase “as quickly as feasibly possible.” That’s redundantly repetitive.

US Airways no longer shows movies on domestic flights. Fortunately, this also means (at least in my experience) the end of the annoying inescapable commercials.

The tray table ad at my seat on a US Airways flight from PHL to SFO was upside-down. I wonder if that made it cheaper for the advertiser.

A page in US Airways Magazine dubbed a Las Vegas restaurant as “Chicago’s favorite Las Vegas Italian restaurant.” I’m sure that both the citizens of Las Vegas and the Italians are honored.

One of the flight attendants kept telling people to “boot down” their computers.

The flight attendants kept entering the cockpit on their own and breaking the snack cart barrier rule.

I left the airport in a taxi and gave the driver directions as I read from Google Maps on my iPhone. I don’t think that’s how it should work.

I don’t know if it’s my driving back from the airport persona or if it’s just a little bit of the East Coast wearing off, but every time I drive back to my apartment after a trip I am faster than usual.

Ok, that’s it. Happier blog posts to come starting tomorrow. I have an idea for a new series.

How to get money from me every year

Hi, are you a charity or non-profit organization that I support? Would you like me to give you money every year? Here’s a great way to increase your chances of this actually happening: ask me for a donation once, and only once, per year.

A problem I have with many organizations is that they ask me for a donation multiple times in a single year. Since I (and I’m assuming most people) prefer to give on no more than an annual basis, asking multiple times just confuses me, and likely hurts the cause financially as a result. Schools are especially bad, since they like to refer to an “annual fund,” which really threw me off before I realized they had been over-begging. I’d like to hear about the annual fund annually.

Here’s the basic problem: I cannot remember the last time I gave. I can’t even remember where I park my car every day. So, when I receive a solicitation, I think, “Hmm, did I already give this year?” And then my memory flashes back to the last mailing, which was less than a year ago. And I think, “Yep, it feels like I just gave,” whether or not I actually did. The mailing then goes into the (virtual or physical) trash. This continues until a mailing happens to come along at a time when I happen to be feeling exceptionally charitable or bored, and actually check my official record of charitable giving: Google’s gift matching program. There, I can see if I’m actually due.

Here’s how I think it should be done: Send me a reminder about donations once per year. And, perhaps more importantly since it will take me a while to trust that you only nag me once a year, include a copy of my giving history with the donation form. That way I can immediately see that I’m due to give, and how much I gave last time. It’s simple, it will cut mailing costs, and I might even give more.

Oh, and just as a reminder, let me give online. Who do you think I am, my mom paying for groceries 15 years ago? I have no idea where my checkbook is most of the time. Most charities are actually pretty good about this now, but I didn’t want to waste the line about my mom at a grocery store.

Heading home

I’m just killing time here keeping myself awake until I leave for the airport. I didn’t want to risk sleeping in and missing my flight, so I’ve been up all night. Don’t worry, I haven’t done anything productive. I’m not even finished packing. Maybe this time I’ll take a photographic inventory of which clothes I leave at home, so I know what I do and don’t have to pack next time I fly back.

If things were the other way around and I was staying up on the East Coast right now, instead of writing this blog post I’d be out satisfying my craving for this:

Wawa coffee and a doughnut

Last year, I was able to catch the tail end of the fall leaves. On the way to Thanksgiving dinner, one of the roads was lined in yellow:

yellow leaves

Well, I guess I should finish up this packing thing and get going. Have a great Thanksgiving.

Final Cut Pro: Plays fine in sequence, but audio out of sync on export

I lost a few hours to this issue today, so I’m dedicating a blog entry to a simple checkbox to help others:

If your Final Cut Pro sequence plays fine from the project file, but the audio and video get out of sync or there is a rendering glitch when you export a QuickTime movie, try selecting “Recompress all frames” when you export. You can also play around with clearing render files, etc., but this one box seems to do the trick.

Pumpkin pie

pumpkin pie

On Thursday night, I will eat pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving for the first time in this millennium. As you may know, I’m a picky eater. My first memories of pumpkin pie are of me thinking that it looks mushy, and that’s not a texture that I like. I did give it a try one Thanksgiving night, and I know it was before 2000 because I remember we were in our old house. Just as I suspected, it was mushy, and I didn’t like it.

Last year, at Thanksgiving dinner in Pennsylvania, I as usual passed on the pumpkin pie. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I was on the long flight back to California. It’s a longer flying time than the eastbound flight, and it feels eternal. By the time they served dinner, I was bored and hungry. I was at that point where anything would taste good… I can’t believe the things I’ve eaten on planes out of desperation. I finished the main part of my meal, and as a special treat, they served a slice of pumpkin pie for dessert. I was still hungry, and went for a bite. Wow, it was good. And not just good because I was hungry; it was legitimately delicious. So delicious that I was really mad at myself. I was sitting there enjoying airline food after passing on the homemade version just a few nights before. I promised myself that at the next Thanksgiving dinner, I would eat pumpkin pie. I can’t wait.

The picture you see at the top of this post is from Thanksgiving 2004, just after someone had listed a grilled cheese sandwich on eBay, which, allegedly containing the image of the Virgin Mary, sold for $28,000. As you can see, our pie benefited from some saintly intervention as well, which is probably why, between mouthfuls, the pie-eating members of my family described it as “divine.”

Back online (sorta)

There is no need for me to blog about problems with my Internet connection. There is no way that anyone who is reading this cares. But I took down notes, so I have to put them somewhere!

Friday morning:
No Internet connection. I try resetting modem. No joy. Unplug it and go to work. When I come back, I plug it back in and I’m online.

Saturday morning:
No Internet connection. I try resetting modem. No joy. Unplug it and go to watch YouTube in person. When I come back, I plug it back in and I’m NOT ONLINE. I try resetting several times, and then call tech support. Here’s my log of the call: 

00:00 – 15:00
On hold. One recording is constantly interrupted by another. At one point I actually heard the phrase “cruising the information highway.”

15:00 – 25:00
Provide modem make/model, check status lights, check configuration using browser.

25:00 – 30:00
Escalated to Tier 2. On hold again.

30:00 – 34:00
Tier 2 tech wants to run line tests. I’m put on hold and for the first time get music. It’s really staticy so it sounds like that genre of music where they just yell. At 34:00 the static subsides and I’m listening to “The Way It Is” by Bruce Hornsby. I incorrectly identify it as “Against the Wind.”

34:00 – 43:00
Line tests don’t see the modem so they’re sending me a new one. Meanwhile they’re going to run a maintenance check on my line and call back by noon tomorrow. I’m given the number for the maintenance department as well as a secret code to bypass the automated system.

43:00
After hanging up, I reset the modem again, and plan on doing this repeatedly for the rest of the weekend. It works on the first try, and here I am. For now.

And after trying to publish this post for the first time, I’m kicked off again. It takes several resets but I’m back long enough to put this up. Hopefully the new modem will eliminate this constant resetting.

Off to YouTube Live

I’m about to hop on a shuttle up to San Francisco, where I’ll be helping out with YouTube Live, the first live streaming event on YouTube.

I was lucky enough to visit the YouTube office yesterday, and it’s pretty cool. Nelson, Beah, and I were treated very well as we accompanied Henri, and YouTubers have a strange obsession with puggles. Seriously.

It’s a good thing I’m attending in person, because my AT&T DSL connection has been disconnecting like crazy for the past two days. It was a challenge to even get this blog post published; I had to go to work for the WiFi. Hopefully AT&T has good tech support on the weekends, because I’m calling them as soon as I get back tonight.

Let me know if you watch the show! K, shuttle’s here, I gotta bounce. Grind hard.

Street View on iPhone

It took me a second to figure it out, so in case you were confused, here’s one way to activate Street View after upgrading your iPhone to firmware 2.2 or later.

1. Open the Maps application.
2. Search for something (don’t just use My Location), so you get a pushpin:

map of 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View, CA

3. Tap on the Street View Guy to the left of the location, and you’ll be sent into Street View:

Street View image of Wysz

That’s me next to the bikes!

4. Tap the orientation circle to exit Street View.

Nelson Bradley

I hope I don’t get in trouble for this, because I think Nelson is a cool guy, and he doesn’t really like a lot of attention. But I’ve been told that I do a good impression of him, so I’d rather not let that go to waste. I’m willing to risk losing a friendship for a few extra pageviews.

If the quality is bothering you:
I was going to record it with a nicer camera but I couldn’t find my power cable, and I wanted to shoot it before The Office, so I just shot/edited using my laptop. I can’t find an equalizer on the new iMovie so sorry for the background noise.