collisionbend.com

Found in an interesting site for all you golf lovers out there: www.golfflyover.com.

Now before you head over there to be amazed, be advised: don’t bother. One silly fact: these guys are so paranoid about people stealing their stuff that you can only view one or two courses at a time!

Beyond that, don’t go to one course and then another and then back to the first one, because they won’t let you. I had to email them to let them know that I was having difficulty, and their response was polite enough, but I can’t recommend that anyone actually use their site until they get real.

Their reply:

…Several people have tried unsuccessfully to scan our website and download all our data.

OK, so if they tried, then you’ve looked at your server logs, no? Why not just ban the IP? It’s not all that hard… Beyond that, there’s all sorts of tricks you can play with the .htaccess file to prevent mass downloads as well — and they all work for the most part.

No, they want to make it hard on the end user — and that is what borks this site, not the application itself. Yeah, I could say a lot about inaccessible HTML, invalid markup & CSS and all, but it’s not worth it.

Then he gave me a link — and it didn’t work. I had to manipulate Google Earth to get me there (I was looking at Powderhorn in Madison; I wanted to look at Thunder Hill as well, but no dice), and it took some wrangling.

Seriously: if you and a friend are perusing courses, trying to decide what course you’d like to play, see the challenges that each course provides, then make a decision, you’re strictly S.O.L. — in the sincerest form of that term. And that’s too bad: this site has a nice potential.

There’s reasonable fear, then there’s unreasonable paranoia, and these guys crossed that line years ago.

But for the way it is right now, you’re better off with the golf course’s brochure — this site isn’t ready for prime time yet.

Cleveland, you gotta’ be kiddin’ me.

I pass this amazing piece of crap twice a day, every morning and every evening, and I’m always amazed that it exists.

How long are you going to sit passively in your cars and pass this wretched hulk day after day? Take a good look, Cleveland, because this is the real face of our city:

A real beauty, right?

The city could probably take this building by Eminent Domain, and for a song. The only problem is that this hulk has been sitting on this spot, just like this, for years: open, broken windows, open doors — the works. It’s probably going to cost a fortune to clean the hazardous waste out of this building.

What? Hazardous waste? What hazardous waste? In an empty building?

You bet: just about every bird living within 10 miles of the city has to know that this nice, little shelter is here waiting for them in bad weather. Just about every rat the size of Shamu does, too. And every stray dog, too. What about snakes? We have them in this region of Ohio. And I’ll bet there’s more bird shit and rat shit in there than Exxon has oil.

THAT hazardous waste. (It’s time to call in Mike Rowe for another episode of “Dirty Jobs.”)

The land could be worth a fortune — if it were habitable, which it’s not. Not by a long shot. You could build something very nice here: a housing complex, perhaps, or an aquarium, maybe, or an office building, possibly. Gee: maybe even — dare I say it — a casino? Not that I’m for having one in Cleveland, but if we did have one, this would be an excellent location…

The possibilities are endless for a property with an outstanding lake view like this.

But instead, we have this hulk just sitting here, taking up space, rotting from the inside out and the outside in, housing all sorts of vermin, rodentia, and the like. Just a thought: if mosquitoes are breeding there, and they are breeding in water polluted with rabid or diseased animal waste, you have to wonder what kind of diseases they carry with them — and what they can infect us with.

Our priorities are elsewhere: a convention center, a medical mart… not that these things are unimportant — they certainly are important — but you can’t forget about severe rot like this. Not in an area so visible.

So, Cleveland, there you have it: your fair city. This is the face of Cleveland, Ohio, like it or not: this is what every visitor to this city sees every time they go down to Progressive Field, or Cleveland Browns Stadium, or the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame, or one of those supposed conventions our politicians want so badly that we never seem to be able to attract.

They blame the lack of hotel space (ironically — and laughably — this is an abandoned Howard Johnson Hotel!) for the lack of conventions here. Yeah, right. If you were hosting a convention, and you had a choice between just about any other American city — and this dung heap — what would you choose?

I’ve been meaning to get down there with my real camera and take some better photos; I just might tomorrow morning, if the weather holds. I will post more photos here as I take them, believe me.

I read a lot. I mean a LOT. (People, please take note: it’s “a lot” — not “alot,” OK?)

Lately, however, I have been just about tattooed to my computer, either at home or at work, and I haven’t had much time to go book shopping.

I love reading, especially books: there’s a touch, a feel, that you get with books that you’ll never get with a digital copy — I love the weight of a book, the resistance the binding gives you as you hold it open, the feel of a page as you turn it, the feel of the irregular edges of the pages as they rest while closed — all of the common, relaxing, tactile sensations one feels reading a book.

It’s why I think eBooks, while a great idea (and audio books, for that matter, but to a lesser degree), will never take the place of the bound paper book. eBooks have their place, and can be valuable to someone like me — busy, on the go, with limited time to shop (even on Amazon.com) — and their presence on the market is a godsend.

To this extent, there are a few notable solutions for this, namely Amazon.com’s Kindle,a $399 portable handheld book reader with EVDO (cell phone-style) wireless access and the ability to hold over 200 titles in storage. It’s portable at 7.5″ x 5.3″ and 3/4″ thick — easily carried in a briefcase or purse, and it only weighs 10 ounces.

Sweet device, eh? It gets better, and I think it’s probably the best bet for portable eBooks — you don’t need a computer to sync it with — the included power adapter and USB 2.0 cable are there for charging, not synchronization.

Have a computer, and a more limited budget, then reading on the computer might be more your style: eBooks are available for several platforms: Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket, and Adobe.

Mobipocket is great if you use a Blackberry or the like, but not if you want to use your computer — and it doesn’t support all mobile devices (forget it, iPhone users!). It would leave me out, too, as a Verizon Wireless customer: Verizon is renowned for its de-balling of its electronic equipment. Utility is not one of Verizon’s calling cards.

Microsoft is… well… Microsoft: they think they are the only computer company worth anything on the planet. Wrong, they are, as we all know. But, as they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, right? After 20 years of using Microsoft products, I would still like to know what flavor Kool-Aid they drank…

Then Sony has the eBook Reader , a $299, 9-ounce version like the Amazon unit that can hold around 160 eBooks in internal memory, and a lot more with an extra memory card like you use in your digital camera. Probably the most versatile eBook reader, it’s 1/3 of an inch thick, and can also access other types of documents, like PDFs, Microsoft Word documents, and more.

I’d like to get the Sony PRS505, but there is only one small drawback to this unit: it only works with Windows XP, XP Media Edition, or Vista. And we all know what a bomb Vista has been, right?

One noticeable drawback — no support for someone who, let’s say, might use a different Operating System… like… well… Mac OS X? This unit must sync with a computer, and Sony has been too lazy to include the entire world — as if Mac users didn’t read.

Thanks a lot Sony: you have made me realize that you are trying very hard to live up to your acronym: Sales ONlY.

And then there’s the software-based option I didn’t list above, Adobe Digital Reader, a free eBook reader available from Adobe that will read PDF-based or XHTML-based (web page-based) documents. It’s supposed to be cross-platform, but: it doesn’t work in OS X 10.5 Leopard.

It’s been this way since Leopard came out, which has been almost a full year now. Adobe is officially the last major company that has failed to support Leopard for one of their projects. Maybe they don’t see the importance, or the urgency, but they have failed to come up with a solution, leaving Mac users out in La-La-Land.

Do Mac users not read? Are Mac users considered illiterate? Why are we not supported? Are we not an important part of the technology market? Let’s define EPIC FAIL, shall we?

It will be a great day when computer people start realizing that other people make choices, and they may not the the same choices they make for themselves, and they have the same responsibility for access for all — just as architects and building owners and store owners and the like have to allow access for all to their facilities.

It will be a great day when we realize that for a similar as we all are, we are all still different: we make different choices, sometimes based on how we live or how we think, other times based on how we have to live or think, and sometimes based on how we want to live or think.

It’s time we started thinking about others, especially when we start thinking about how cool our creations are instead of how many can actually use it.

By now, I can assume that you have been able to dig yourselves out of the snow and actually get around our fair city.

For some of us, that process took longer than others.

I got home Friday night around 7:30, and it was just in time: I took my lunch leftovers and the daily mail inside, dropped it on the kitchen counter, then slid into the bathroom to do something… well, if you can imagine that it took me almost 90 minutes to drive home, you can imagine what I had to do in there.

Afterward, I went outside to have a cigarette, and I saw the first of what was to become a long list of cars to get stuck in front of my home over the weekend. I lost count around 18 or 20, most of which were 4-wheel drive trucks with snow plows, or Jeeps, but there were a couple of cars and minivans — and one of the latter got stuck right at the end of my driveway sometime late Saturday morning.

By that time, we had at least 16 inches of snow in the street, and it was still coming down — hard. (When all was said and done, we ended up with 28 - 30 inches of snow in the street, drifting to 4 or 5 feet in some places just off-road.)

The lady who owned the minivan abandoned her vehicle with the intent of returning to get it out. She tried later, only to get her Jeep stuck before she arrived at her minivan.

What really got to me was what happened Sunday morning: a city snow plow, trying to get around Ms. Had-no-business-being-out-in-the-worst-snowstorm-in-Cleveland-history’s minivan, got stuck in the very same place many other vehicles found them selves in the hours earlier.

I woke up just in time to take these videos (I apologize for the sharpness — I woke up just seconds before, grabbed the camera, and began shooting; the fuzziness is the window screen):

Turn the volume up and you can hear my bride and I talking about what a good job these guys were (and have been) doing — and they have.

I mean, let’s face it: the heavy snow wasn’t hardly their fault. Nor was the fact that their jobs were made infinitely more difficult by the bozos who felt that they were such good drivers, and their cars were so great in the snow, that they could get through anything.

For that, the proof is in the pudding, as they say:

In this second video, you can hear me say, “oh, please hit that minivan — please hit that minivan!” I was saying this because the person that left their minivan there had absolutely no business being on the road on Saturday — for whatever reason. And their lack of consideration for themselves or others resulted in many more individuals getting stuck in the same place — and to preventing the plows from cleaning our street when all of the others in the neighborhood had been cleared at least twice.

We were stuck in our house until 5:00 p.m. Sunday, unable to go for groceries or other goods when others had been out for hours — thanks to this person’s stupidity.

I took the video because you never see snow plows getting stuck — or pulled out of such a situation; I posted the videos because people need to see what a lack of thought and consideration can do to inconvenience others (and I’m not just talking about me).

Next time they say to stay off the roads unless it’s an absolute emergency — stay off the roads.

UPDATE — My video has been picked up by The News-Herald.

OK, here’s the scene: we’re coming home from dinner at Applebee’s in Mayfield. We have an iPod (not mine) hooked up to the USB port connected to the car stereo, and the car is equipped with Microsoft Sync. This is exactly how this conversation went down, word-for-word, verbatim:

• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• “Play artist Duran Duran.”
• Car: “Playing artist Carrie Underwood.”
• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• (More clearly and deliberately) “Play artist Dur-RAN.”
• Car: “Playing artist Barry Manilow.”
• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• “Play artist Go f*** yourself!”
• Car: “Playing artist the Arkies” (the Archies)
• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• “Play artist Billy Joel.”
• Car: “Playing artist Billy Joel.”

Interestingly enough, the Billy Joel tune the car decided to play was “Innocent Man.”

Needless to say, I’m reprogramming my bride’s iPod.

~~~~~~~~~~

Now, this is the conversation I imagine having if we had connected my iPod:

• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• “Play artist Eric Clapton.”
• Car: “Playing artist Eric Clapton.”
• Car: “NOW you’re talking! Clapton is GOD!”

~~~~~~~~~~

And while I’m on the topic of Applebee’s: I was always raised to take my hat off when I entered a public building — it was something that a gentleman always did, as a matter of politeness, good manners, and common courtesy.

Tonight, I watched at least 5 grown men, sitting at tables, dining, wearing hats. One even wore a hoodie over his baseball cap, as if he was trying not to be seen, drinking a bottle of beer (not a glass).

Where have our manners gone?

~~~~~~~~~~

Of course, one of them who was not handicapped in the least — nor was anyone in his party — had parked his brand-spanking-new Cadillac Esaclade in the handicapped spot right out front. They all jumped into the car — not one struggled. Not one looked the least bit guilty about it, either.

Yes, he had a placard hanging from the mirror, but I’m wondering: how much did he pay for it?

Right about when I thought I had seen just about everything…

I was searching USENET (the link is there for those of you who are unaware of part of the Internet’s history — or just what USENET is).

I found this special interest group, whose title is somewhat self-explanatory:

alt.sex.beastiality.with.chickens.whilst.wearing.rubber.knickers

And here I thought I knew just about everything.

Dear (local Cleveland car dealer),

Thank you so much for your interest and belief in me. Thanks also for your belief in your product.

Unfortunately, I have chosen to purchase a brand-new, 2008 Mercury Milan. The features were far beyond what your cars offered, the quality was far beyond as well, and I have placed myself in a vehicle that meets my immediate and future needs better than what we looked at at your place.

My decision has no bearing on you as a salesperson; it was your product that left me in the lurch: you had better, and you could do better (price-wise), and you could have given me a better price on my trade. Beyond that, you could have skipped the lies and twisted truths that you use to badger people into submission.

But, I digress…

You did well, and I respect the work that you did with me, and so I must offer a reply in kind to let you know that you can stop pestering we with your follow-up calls: I ain’t returning them, and I regret giving you my number.

GO AWAY.

In short, you lost. But, in your business, you lose more often than you win. You’ll make enough to get by — until you realize that lying, strong-arm tactics, bullying, and nagging will send people screaming away rather than running toward you.

Good Luck (sick of your bullshit),

Will Kessel
www.collisionbend.com

P.S. — Here’s a list, not comprehensive, of cars and dealerships that I looked at, and what they told me about the cars:

2 - 2006 Malibu’s at Saturn of Mentor: both had “lelan” CarFax reports — both skipped sideways so badly over a bump that it was obvious that both cars had been hit — badly.

2 - Malibu Maxx’s at Sims Buick-Pontiac in Euclid. Both had “clean” CarFax reports — one had obvious damage to the rear quarter, and the other had a really bad pull — the kind of pull you get when the car has been broadsided and hasn’t had a realignment or a frame straightening.

2 - Volkswagen Jettas, one a 2003, the other a 2004 (the 2003 at Classic Toyota, the 2004 at Classic Volkswagen-Hyundai): both had accidents, and a clean CarFax report. The one salesman admitted it when pressed, the other didn’t.

The folks at Classic Volkswagen-Hyundai in Mentor then allowed me to drive a 2006 Sonata with 15,000 miles. It had a leaky transmission, which my mechanic found. It had been obviously sanitized. When pressed, they knew nothing about it.

I wanted to look at a couple of cars at Classic Ford in Mentor, but couldn’t get a salesman to help me — on a Monday evening. The $14,000 2007 Fusion in their ad turned out to be a $26,000 Fusion fully loaded.

I looked at a PT Cruiser at Brunswick Auto Mart. Worst mistake I ever made. They promised the moon. They gave me an unbeatable price, and an unbelieveable amount for my Sable, then said I could get 7.9% financing over 5 years on their car — when Chrysler was offering 2.9% over 5 years — and then wouldn’t let me out of the dealership for almost an hour, trying to pressure me into buying.

Assholes.

I looked at a 2008 Milan at Liberty Lincoln-Mercury in Independence. They quoted me an X-Plan price of $19,690 on an I4 Milan with the automatic package — and nothing else — and then proceeded to tell me that they could give me that price and it included my car as a trade — yet never placed my car on the proposal as a factor in the price.

Call that one the old “home run ball.”

There are far more examples, but these are the most relevant: if you want respect, don’t bullshit or over-pressure your prospective clients. Don’t give them a line. Don’t disrespect them.

Where I bought my Milan, they quoted me a far lower X-Plan price for the same I4 Milan with the Moon and Tune package (moonroof and 6-disc/Sirius stereo) than Liberty did for the same car without the Moon-and-Tune package. They even showed me the invoice and handed me a calculator. Then they credited my car in the deal, then figured the tax…

They were honest. I ended up buying from them. Then I ended up with Z-Plan, which sealed the deal.

Now I have a new car, a 2008 Mercury Milan I4 in Silver Vapor with a Charcoal interior, Moon-and-Tune, and the automatic package. It’s a great car. Even at a little below sticker, it’s the best-little-known secret in the American Auto industry to date: a phenomenal car at an unbelievable price — even lower than Fusion with the same options — and nicer.

And I’m as happy as a clam, whatever that means…

I am watching the Indians get thumped by the Boston Red Sox tonight. OK, it was bound to happen; the Red Sox have a good team this year. The Tribe is good, too, so I’m not all that worried; they’ll bounce back. The might not win the series, but they’ll bounce back and make it respectable.

Enough of baseball. I’m on to something else.

My beloved Buckeyes are hosting Kent State at noon Saturday (tomorrow — or today, depending on when you read this) at the ‘Shoe. The game is being televised on The Big Ten Network.

Time Warner Cable, unlike their competitors who feel that The Big Ten Network belongs in the standard tier, feels that I should pay a premium for this network.

Like I was subscribing to HBO (which I don’t).

Meanwhile, every other cable service provider offers up The Big Ten Network for no more than their regular monthly fare.

Greedy bastards. Anything to make a buck.

If I had a choice, which I don’t, I’d use another cable provider. I wouldn’t even flinch at the thought. The money-grubbing a-holes (sorry, not G-rated) at Time Warner want to squeeze every last, living dime out of each customer they screw with their over-priced service.

Time Warner Cable gets the long-dormant Recto-Cranial Invert of the Month Award for October, 2007.

~~~~~~~

My other thought comes from trying to make a purchase at www.hangonsloopy.com (the OSU Team Shop online): if you own a Mac, forget about it — it’ll never go through. Error city. They’ll tell you that your credit card is either invalid or has insufficient funds.

My card is in excellent standing, and I have more than enough funds to pay for my purchase some 300 times over.

They tell me it’s an error in their system.

Bullshit. (Again, sorry for the lack of a G-rating.)

They have so many IT students at OSU that programming a secure web store should be totally free for them — yet they still use PayPal — which they pay for! Using OSU IT students to program their site would be a great teaching resource, as well. OSU offers many co-op positions and internships for things just like this — so why don’t they use it?

What really ticks me off about them, however, is that they are only open Monday through Friday 8:00 - 5:00. When the Hell am I supposed to contact them without taking myself away from my own job? WTF?

You guessed it:

Runner-Up, Recto-Cranial Invert of the Month, October, 2007: www.hangonsloopy.com.

More than once I have written about stupid drivers.

My favorite — complete with photo — is this post, where someone didn’t have the time to clear off more than a handful of snow from their rear window before taking off on an incredibly bad snow day to drive all of 10 miles an hour through snarled traffic.

Other times, I’ve given in to random thoughts about people with no common sense. Yes, a favorite theme around here at the ‘Bend, but sometimes I just can’t resist.

I’ve even taken an ominous tone at times (see thought 4: well, OK, I thought that opening a post with thoughts on the Mob, even though a fictional family, would lend some darkness to the post) about what I see on Cleveland streets.

So now I have found someone with my own ideals at heart. Someone who has the right idea about how to use the web in a grassroots effort to make a serious change for the better.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you: PlateWire.

Not to be restricted to a mere blog about bad drivers — this guy is flagging plates all around the country, having users tell their stories about who did what when — along with car descriptions and license plate numbers.

And, yes, the plates are uncensored.

I registered as a user, which is free. I see enough nonsense every morning rush hour that I can’t help but keep my eye out for bad drivers — some of whom I see plying their trade every morning. And yes, I plan on participating — regularly.

Forget about traffic cams, people — look out for PlateWire!

Not to be outdone, there is another site in the works: PlateXchange.com. Not to be outdone by PlateWire, PlateXchange has a ncer design and an interface that is easier on the eyes as well as easier to navigate (so far — it’s still in beta as I write this).

So word up, bad drivers all: someone is watching you — and we’re nearby, with cameras, notepads, and Internet connections at the ready.

Go ahead, idiot drivers: make my day.

My new ISP, Road Runner, has released its Turbo service, supposedly running at 15Mbps — 3 times faster than my current cable connection. Little do they know that *I* know that is won’t get over 8Mbps…

Interested, though, I had the following chat with a Time-Warner support rep tonight, looking for cost and availability of Road Runner Turbo in my area:

–[opening personal ID banter redacted]–
me: is it available in my city?
Jay K: Yes it is available in your area.
me: OK, Jay… that’s all I needed. Thanks!!!!!
Jay K: Ok, what you would need to do is to contact our local office at 1-877-xxx-xxxx [redacted] so that they can assist you on that issue
Jay K: If you have no further issues that we can assist you with, you may end the chat session by clicking on the X button in the upper right corner of the chat window and a chat transcript will be displayed for you. Once again thank you for choosing Time Warner Cable Road Runner Internet Technical Chat! In an ongoing effort to continue improving our quality of service, we are conducting a customer survey. If you would like to participate, please copy and paste the following link into your browser: [link redacted]
me: Thanks!
Jay K: You are welcome.
me: no x up there…
me: on a mac…
me: no button there…
me: what do I do?
Jay K: Analyst has closed chat and left the room

OK, so he was helpful. What got to me, though, was that last couple of lines: “you may end the chat session by clicking on the X button in the upper right corner of the chat window…”

I had no such button. At first, I tried to access the support site in Firefox. No dice — you had to be using Netscape 6.0 or higher to use the site, or Safari 1.0 or higher for Mac.

Netscape 6? Not 6.22? OK… Safari 2 I have, but isn’t Firefox merely a better version of Netscape, and far higher than Netscape 6, which was released years ago?

Once again, we see a lack of forethought — and testing — in the development process: there are a lot of Mac users on Road Runner; I am not alone.

Point: when you develop for a system that you *know* will be used on operatng systems other than Windows, you *must* make accommodations to those other operating systems — and browsers. Else, you leave your customers out in the cold.

(This is why I am such a big stickler — especially now that I am a Mac user — for developing on the Mac. this is also why I’m driving my new employer — a *strict* Windows house — crazy with my Mac requests.)

I have no intentions of bashing anybody here — this guy in the chat, Jay K., left the chat session before realizing that he had given me advice for a Windows user — when I couldn’t see what he was referring to because I wasn’t using Windows to chat with him. I flooded the room, slowly, but enough for him to know that I couldn’t see what he saw…

And he left anyway.

Blame it on the designer. Blame it on the developer. Blame it on the development houses that won’t accede to multiple platforms on the internal network. Blame it on the support guy’s trainer. Blame it, finally, on the support guy himself, for he should have stayed in there and found out that I couldn’t see what he saw because I use a Mac.

He could have relayed that info. He didn’t. He bailed. Such is the state of customer service in America.

I haven’t done the survey yet. I might; I might not: last time I used such a survey, after pacing the lot at Classic Ford in Mentor for 35 minutes — including a slow march across the showroom floor at 6:40 on a Monday night — without so much as a wave from a sales rep, I got an almost immediate response: Jim Brown does not want to hear this kind of stuff — and neither do his managers, who are denied their bonuses for a single complaint — which leads to the inevitable conversation from their service department where they tell you not, under any circumstance, tell the phone survey people that you were unhappy with any part of your Classic experience — else they lose their precious bonus (without which they might not be able to put food on the table).

Somehow, I doubt if I’ll get it this time, utilities (especially a legislated monopoly like a cable company) rarely respond to negative experiences.

Such is the state of customer service in America.

Such is the level of BS we put up with from companies on a daily basis. OMG, where are you, Seth?