It was Spring cleaning today at work.  The company was selling old computers, laptops, and audio-visual equipment.  I thought it would be nice to get 1 Ghz laptop for $100, so I showed up for the sale about 15 minutes before it started.

Way too late.  There were 300 people there.  40 people into the line was someone who told me he had shown up at 6am.  I got there at 7:45.  So no laptop.  I did buy a similar laptop from E-bay for $300.  Not quite as cheap, but OK.

I noticed an unanticipated benefit for the company.  All around the office there were people at work very early.  Like I had, they showed up early for the Spring clearning sale, but gave up when seeing the long line.  Perhaps the gain in productivity from an early start offset the loss from all the people waiting in line at the sale.

As I mentioned in the last post, I have recently arrived in Tokyo, the first leg on an extended business trip to the Far East. I’ll be visting Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Singapore.

The trip started off with a twist. I had put in a request to be upgraded to First Class with frequent flier miles and had made the waiting list. When I got to the airport, I did not receive a seat assignment as Business Class was overbooked. Everything turned out well. Not only did I get the upgrade, but because they didn’t use the correct “inventory” for issuing my first class boarding pass, I didn’t have to use my frequent flier miles!

The flight was uneventful and long, about 11 hours. Because the flight left as 12:30pm and arrived at 5:00pm, I did not sleep on the flight. My only complaint is that the flight attendant gave me my overcoat and jacket 30 minutes before we landed. I still had my briefcase out, magazines open, etc. I put the jackets in the overhead bin. What is the point of taking your jacket if they are going to give it back to you an hour before you reach the gate?

There was a 45 minute line for immigration. Then a 10 minute wait for currency exchange. Then a 30 minute wait for the bus. So an hour and a half from leaving the plane to getting in the bus into Tokyo. Tokyo’s Narita airport in a long way from Tokyo. It was another hour and a half before I got to the hotel.

The Tokyo Grand Hyatt is a very nice hotel. It is in the Roppongi Hills district, a newly redeveloped area. I met my colleague, Sim Choo, at the hotel and he took me to dinner at Monseiur Ton Ton (I think that is the name), a Japanese steak house. We sat by the grill while the chef made dinner in front of us. The food was excellent. Notable were the very fresh shrimp (so fresh they objected to being cooked) and excellent beef.

After dinner I was able to watch some of the Turino Olympics live, as the time change is my favor with Turino 8 hours behind Tokyo.

This morning, Mount Fuji was visible in the distance as the day broke clear and cold.

The Nishiki bike Andy refers to I bought nearly 20 years ago when I worked for a large urban public school district. That bike is about the only positive memory I have from my first year of teaching. My Nishiki is a racing bike and I bought it because it doesn’t weigh very much. I’m petite & I knew that I wouldn’t be able to lift a heavier bike into a car.

Andy is correct about changes in bike technology. My new comfort bike weighs just a bit more than the Nishiki and riding it is easier on my back. I’m not hunched over the handle-bars as I am when I ride the Nishiki. I love the shock absorbers. Carrying a back-pack full of student work, my PowerMac laptop, and lesson plans leaves me with a stiff lower back. I’m trying to exercise more and regain my flexibility.

While TurboTax may have a good product, and good customer service representatives, they don’t have good customer service.

Last fall I bought TurboTax for the first time. I had gone to the end of the line with extensions, and was filing in October. They offer a service whereby you can order the next year’s software in advance. I did so. The software never arrived.

In an on-line chat (for which I waited about 2 minutes, not the 2 hours advertised), I was told that if you sign up for automatic updates after October 1, you get the following year’s software. In other words, when they asked me to sign up for automatic updates while I was buying 2004 software, I was actually buying a 2006 update, not the 2005 software.

So then I buy the 2005 software. I go through the dialogs and click “buy” or whatever. The same screen returns. I don’t click “buy” again just our of caution, but there is no evidence, no e-mail, no nothing, that my order was received. From another tab, I looked up the order and it was in a pending status. I then spent 15 minutes on hold to get to the call center (India, I think) where I was very quickly provided the means to download the software.

So in each case, flaws in the software led to me using an expensive on-line resource. If the damn thing had worked reasonably in the first instance and correctly in the second, I would have saved 30 minutes of time and Intuit would have saved two, no doubt expensive, customer contacts. Addressing the symptom, not solving the problem.

We bought a new bike for Danielle today. The gentleman at Bikecology was quite helpful, just as he was when I bought my bike a couple of months ago. Bike technology has really improved. They are comfortable, easier to shift, and you get an awful lot for the money. Part of that is the manufacturing in China, but I tend to agree that free trade is good for all involved.

Danielle got a comfort-style mountain bike. It has shocks in the front forks and under the seat. We took a short ride from the house, down Ballona Creek to the Marina and back. Danielle reports that it is much easier and more comfortable riding this bike than her Nishiki (which is also a nice bike).

The challenge will be finding time for all of us to ride together more often. But now that we have the equipment, it is more likely.

This is a test for comparison with Blogger. Is it control or free hosting? No one knows for sure (yet).

It sure looks like blogger may make putting images in much easier. Lets see how it works.

Update: It works by coding the exact URL of the exact photo I think. But I’ll try a full size and see what it does.

OK, so the style somehow resizes the picture, but does not create a link to the full size image.

’nuff said.

Update: The new style does not resize the picture. Hmmmmm.

We went to the California Science Center today to see the IMAX film Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon in 3-D. It was a decent film with a good use of clips. They did some fairly good reenactments, mimicking the environment on the Moon. The reenactments, while realistic, did not look completely real. The sun light was mottled, not the solid blast that the actual pictures showed. And they didn’t get as dirty as the real astronauts did. But it was fun.

Being at the California Science Center reminded us at how it really needs a makeover. This summer, we visited the Science Museum in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota. It is a fantastic museum. Great content. They had a wave similator that let you change the ocean bottom configruation and see how that affects the waves hitting the beach. Kids could “pan” for gemstones. There is a minature golf course designed to teach about river flow. It makes the California Science Center look quite weak.

Not only that, but St. Paul has the Nile River IMAX film. When are we going to get it?