More bits.
Jan. 15th, 2014 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogI finally ordered some pants clips for my bike today. (Those are things to hold your pants in at the ankle so the cuffs don't get caught in the gears or get oily from the chain.) I'm not sure why it took me so long to order them; I've been thinking about it for months, but never quite got 'round to it. At present, I tuck my pant leg into the top of my sock, and that ankle gets a bit cold without the jeans over it.
I haven't been able to find my wool socks this week. I was sure they must have gotten mixed up in someone else's laundry and that I'd have to have people look for them this evening. When I went down to the basement to get dinner out of the freezer though, I realized that I'd left them on a hanger to dry and forgotten about them. I'll have warmer feet for the next two days at least.
I washed off my boots today; they were getting awfully grungy from road salt and slush. My bike is looking pretty dirty these days too; I'm going to do a thorough cleaning at the end of winter. I'm pretty sure it's going to need a real overhaul and a new chain at that point too. I'm really thinking that I'll buy a winter commuting bike next year. Something with an internally-geared rear hub if it's not unreasonably expensive. If not, then probably a single speed with a flip-flop hub.
I'm sure most of you don't care about bicycle jargon. I've played with the idea of starting a single-subject blog on bike commuting in Kenosha. I could call it Wanna-be Carfree Kenosha; it has a ring to it. I've never done that kind of blogging before, but there seems to be an audience.
Anyway, My advisor sent me a gift card for Erehwon as a present for my help as an SI leader; that was sweet! I'm going to use it to buy myself either a balaclava, or more pairs of wool socks. I haven't quite decided which yet. But she's super-nice!
My school books are starting to arrive, and I'm pretty excited about them! The one ones on anthropological theory look so enticing! But I want to read through Bowling Alone first; I'll have time to read the textbooks once the semester starts. That said, Nature's Metropolis, for my History of Urbanzation class, is a doorstop. And it's a topic I'm really interested in; the development of the city of Chicago. I think I'm going to get through Bowling Alone as quickly as I can and get a jump on Nature's Metropolis before classes start.
I've got two laptops here that are going to live at my girlfriends' places, but have not made it there yet. This is because one of them has an OEM key for Windows Vista, but I haven't found viable install media. An article I saw about Ubunto recently put the idea of trying Linux out on it. I kind of don't want to learn Linux; Windows does what I want well enough and I don't feel like investing time in learning new ways of doing things. But as time spent trying to make windows work approaches the break-even point, and as the idea of using an open source OS becomes more appealing for various reasons, Linux becomes more attractive. I hope it's as easy to install as they say it's become since my last abortive attempt at setting it up.
When downloading it, I was presented with a pay-what-you-want dialog. That was oddly jarring. It makes sense, and I don't begrudge them the tactic, but the last time I went looking for a Linux distribution to download, I think it came from an FTP server. I also feel like a bad person, setting the slider to 0 and seeing the unhappy face that appeared. If it works for me, I'll send some money, I promise! I'd just be really aggravated if it doesn't work for me and I already paid the cash.
Speaking of money, I'm having strange debits to my account from a hotel in Mississauga, Ontario. It's the hotel Danae and I stayed at in August, but the room wasn't in my name, nor do I remember using my card there. In November, I was debited 13 dollars and change, and in early December I got a credit of twenty-four cents less than the debit. Odd, no? I called Marriott and they couldn't find the transaction. I let it go at that point, as much as I didn't want to. My time was worth more to me than twenty-four cents, and I figured someone had just made a mistake and then half-assedly tried to fix it. But today I found another debit, this one for a different, third amount of thirteen dollars and change.
Once was bad enough; twice, and likely more, is really not ok. I talked to the hotel, who said they can't find the transaction and I should talk to my bank. I called my bank, who said that it's the hotel and I should talk to them. I have some internal transaction codes that might help the hotel in tracking it down, so I will follow up tomorrow. Joy.
I haven't been able to find my wool socks this week. I was sure they must have gotten mixed up in someone else's laundry and that I'd have to have people look for them this evening. When I went down to the basement to get dinner out of the freezer though, I realized that I'd left them on a hanger to dry and forgotten about them. I'll have warmer feet for the next two days at least.
I washed off my boots today; they were getting awfully grungy from road salt and slush. My bike is looking pretty dirty these days too; I'm going to do a thorough cleaning at the end of winter. I'm pretty sure it's going to need a real overhaul and a new chain at that point too. I'm really thinking that I'll buy a winter commuting bike next year. Something with an internally-geared rear hub if it's not unreasonably expensive. If not, then probably a single speed with a flip-flop hub.
I'm sure most of you don't care about bicycle jargon. I've played with the idea of starting a single-subject blog on bike commuting in Kenosha. I could call it Wanna-be Carfree Kenosha; it has a ring to it. I've never done that kind of blogging before, but there seems to be an audience.
Anyway, My advisor sent me a gift card for Erehwon as a present for my help as an SI leader; that was sweet! I'm going to use it to buy myself either a balaclava, or more pairs of wool socks. I haven't quite decided which yet. But she's super-nice!
My school books are starting to arrive, and I'm pretty excited about them! The one ones on anthropological theory look so enticing! But I want to read through Bowling Alone first; I'll have time to read the textbooks once the semester starts. That said, Nature's Metropolis, for my History of Urbanzation class, is a doorstop. And it's a topic I'm really interested in; the development of the city of Chicago. I think I'm going to get through Bowling Alone as quickly as I can and get a jump on Nature's Metropolis before classes start.
I've got two laptops here that are going to live at my girlfriends' places, but have not made it there yet. This is because one of them has an OEM key for Windows Vista, but I haven't found viable install media. An article I saw about Ubunto recently put the idea of trying Linux out on it. I kind of don't want to learn Linux; Windows does what I want well enough and I don't feel like investing time in learning new ways of doing things. But as time spent trying to make windows work approaches the break-even point, and as the idea of using an open source OS becomes more appealing for various reasons, Linux becomes more attractive. I hope it's as easy to install as they say it's become since my last abortive attempt at setting it up.
When downloading it, I was presented with a pay-what-you-want dialog. That was oddly jarring. It makes sense, and I don't begrudge them the tactic, but the last time I went looking for a Linux distribution to download, I think it came from an FTP server. I also feel like a bad person, setting the slider to 0 and seeing the unhappy face that appeared. If it works for me, I'll send some money, I promise! I'd just be really aggravated if it doesn't work for me and I already paid the cash.
Speaking of money, I'm having strange debits to my account from a hotel in Mississauga, Ontario. It's the hotel Danae and I stayed at in August, but the room wasn't in my name, nor do I remember using my card there. In November, I was debited 13 dollars and change, and in early December I got a credit of twenty-four cents less than the debit. Odd, no? I called Marriott and they couldn't find the transaction. I let it go at that point, as much as I didn't want to. My time was worth more to me than twenty-four cents, and I figured someone had just made a mistake and then half-assedly tried to fix it. But today I found another debit, this one for a different, third amount of thirteen dollars and change.
Once was bad enough; twice, and likely more, is really not ok. I talked to the hotel, who said they can't find the transaction and I should talk to my bank. I called my bank, who said that it's the hotel and I should talk to them. I have some internal transaction codes that might help the hotel in tracking it down, so I will follow up tomorrow. Joy.
