The SoapBoxers

This is Joe’s final post from Canada

Our 4th day began with an unfortunate phone call. Our excursion to go Heliskiing was postponed due to the poor visibility and low ceiling. We had our ski boots at the shop, so we headed up with our skis and skied the Blackcomb Mountain. We walked right onto the same gondola we waited for 30 minutes the day before. Not only was there no line there, we didn’t wait in line for a lift all day. Even the cafeteria wasn’t that packed. However, due to the gold medal hockey game starting at noon local time, there was a loud group watching.

The lack of people and the amount of terrain were spectacular. The visibility was the worst I’ve ever skied in. Most of the day we could only see at most 2-3 chairs infront of us. The cloud sublimated on our goggles like rain on a windshield. Even when the clouds shifted and allowed for better horizontal vision, there was no way to see the terrain or fall lines. The light was so flat, we fell many times because we thought we were going down hill when all of the sudden, we weren’t. It was very tough to ski the whole day in the “ready” position.

We decided to quit skiing at 2:30, so we skied to the bottom to pick up our shoes. When we got to the Heli shop where we left them, they had closed for the hockey game until 3:00. We couldn’t go back up because it took at least that long to get back on the gondola and get to another lift. We watched the end of the game on the big screen at the base. After it was over, we went to pick up our shoes. To avoid a $2 bus fee back to our hotel, we decided to ski with them to our hotel. We took the other gondola to the top of Whistler Mountain. When we got to our run to our hotel, we were told it was closed. They said it was too late in the day. Not only that, but because of the amount of material that still hadn’t been cleaned up from the Olympic ski racing, the gondola wouldn’t be open from our building to the top for the next two days. So much for having a ski-in/ski-out. We skied back to the village and took the bus back.

The day ended spectacularly with a soak in our hot tub and pool and dinner at the Mongolian grill in town. We were in bed early to wake up and check the conditions for heli-skiing in case we had to ski the regular mountain again. The low clouds had all blown out and the sun was eeking through the lightly overcast skies. We grabbed breakfast before heading out to the bus to the heliport. Because of the Games, the heliport had the same security check as the airport. There were also 3 pads occupied by the Canadian military for patrolling the valley. We went through a quick avalanche beacon training course then prepared for the day.

The trip went up 6,500 feet to an elevation of 8,500 took all of about 15 minutes. We went behind the Blackcomb ski area over glacial fields up to a point called Shark’s Tooth, named for obvious reasons. The landing spot on top was no more than 10′ x 14′. After unloading all the skis and the 4 skiers in our group, the chopper was off and we were left stading there on top of two separate glaciers. We skied off the Shark’s Tooth to the Tremor Glacier. Our big fat skis we rented kept us from breaking all the way through the crust into over 8 feet of snow. They also helped us transferring from turn to turn by acting as like a springboard to jump out of the snow. The turns were effortless and soft. The views were endless and breathtaking.

However, after two runs the snow started to warm up. Turns became more of a chore, and the next glaciers had more traversing and more steeps. A few crashes in the deep stuff really took a lot out of us. We made it through the last two runs and stopped for a lunch of sandwiches, juice boxes, soup, tea, and a desert bar. We took a few pictures, then headed back to the heliport. We decided to make it a cheaper night and stopped at the market for steaks, salad, and noodles. After a soak in the hot tub, we cooked them up and had a great meal and were ready for lounging by 6:00. A truly amazing day.

I recently got consumed with the idea of getting a storefront online. The store will have my fiction eBooks and and, in the future, some audio versions of those books. There will be a lot more about the store tomorrow, so I won’t dwell on the details.

I asked for some advice on how best to go about this. I received good suggestions about working with web sites that routinely sell eBooks for people. Unfortunately, the setup fees were more than I wanted to deal with – I wanted to keep more of the money in house, so that I could afford to charge a lower rate to customers.

This led me to a product called Zen Cart, which was advertised as a “one step install” on my web host, Dreamhost. Let’s look at the good and bad of Zen Cart,

What Zen Cart did right

First of all, Zen Cart is free. How does the company manage to stay in business? They sell a manual, of course. I’m a big fan of this business model. It’s possible to use the product completely for free if you can Google to find the answers to your questions (as I did). If you like it well enough, you can always leave a donation later.

The installation itself actually was pretty easy. A big chunk of the praise goes to Dreamhost for this, though. All the necessary databases are set up by invisible hands, and Dreamhost sends you an email cheat sheet to guide you through the installation screens. I stumbled through the screens a bit because I wasn’t paying attention. Once I actually read what was written, I did much better.

The product is actually pretty feature rich. More features than I needed, really. It has support for multiple tax structures (for each state, for example), allows various payment methods (including pretty cool PayPal integration), digital products (the files are stored within the Zen Cart installation), coupons, and much, much more. I’ve barely scratched the surface, since I had fairly minimal needs.

What Zen Cart did wrong

Setting up downloadable products was not very intuitive. I finally figured out how to do this by Google’ing for the answer. It involves setting up and “option name” and “option value” and configuring this option to point to a file. I was expecting to perhaps just check a box for “this product contains a download” and be prompted for the file location.  There are a lot of people interested in selling their intellectual property on the internet.  A quick-to-setup solution would gain a lot of fans.

On the subject of downloads, when you configure the product, you type in the file name, rather than using a dropdown box to select it from the available files. The greatly increases the chance of making an error.  (Oh, hey, make sure you actually TEST the process).  Setting up a multi-part file was even a bit different.  In the end, I was able to set this all up, and the downloads enable after the cutomers finished the checkout process successfully.

By default, the customer registration screen asks for the person’s physical address. This is completely unnecessary for me, since all I’m selling are downloads. I really don’t care what street you live one. This fields were also set up as required. My fear was that some potential customers would say “aw, screw it” when asked for that much information. I just wanted them to enter their email address and password.

It took a bit of searching to find the answer to this. Finally I stumbled across the perfect solution from a helpful forum member (this guy) who outlined a five step process that involved editing 3 PHP files. It was very effective – but, seriously, I need to edit a PHP file so that people buying my PDF books don’t have to type their address and phone number?

Along the same lines, I had to edit PHP in order to change the default text on other screens, notable the main page for the screen.

I suspect that a manual would have come in handy – or even a step through the tutorials. Of course, I didn’t have the time for that ☺

The verdict

I do like the product. It’s not the simplest thing to configure, but once you have it set up, it does work very well. If you need a virtual storefront, give Zen Cart a shot. If you’re selling products that sell for less than $12, you will also want to sign up for PayPal’s micropayments option. This is a different fee schedule that charges for 5% plus 5 cents for each transaction instead of 2.9% plus 30 cents. At the very low end of the price range, this can make a lot of sense.

In 2001, I set off on a long, solo vacation.  This was the longest vacation of my life at that point, in terms of both distance and elapsed time.

I was really excited about the trip and got very little sleep the night before I was scheduled to leave.  Eventually, I just packed the car, ate a quick breakfast at Denny’s, and hit the road.  I wasn’t much of a morning person by then, but I was on the road by about 5 AM.  470 miles later, I pulled up to my hotel in Canton, Ohio.  I had made really good time on the trip.  In spite of it being an hour later in Ohio (different time zone), I managed to arrive at the hotel before my room was ready.  I was pretty tired from the road and didn’t do too much that night.

The next day, I went to the football Hall of Fame in Canton.  Honestly, I was not overly impressed.  If you’re a hard core NFL fan, it might be worth the effort to go.  If you’re a casual fan, I’m not sure.  I did pick up some nice Vikings socks in the gift shop.

That I drove to Akron to catch an Aeros (class AA) baseball game.  I had purchased tickets months in advance, which was good. It was bobblehead night (Sean Casey), and the place was absolutely packed. I had a seat right behind home plate (4-5 rows back, I think). The ticket cost maybe $15?  Nice stadium.

Early the next morning, I hit the road again.  That afternoon, I arrived in the hamlet of Cooperstown, New York – home of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.  Earlier in the year, I had become a supporter of the Hall of Fame.  Once nice benefit was that the membership card gave me unlimited free entry to the Hall of Fame.  I made a cursory review that Sunday afternoon.  I spent two more days digesting the museum in greater detail.  I saw the contract that sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees, a priceless T-206 Honus Wagner card, Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski’s masters thesis (not a great writer, in my opinion –  at least not at that stage of his life), and countless artifacts of the game.  Unlike many halls of fame, the baseball hall of fame encompasses all aspects of the sport – not just Major League Baseball.

One of the things I really liked was the exhibit of awards.  There were quite a few MVP and Cy Young awards on display.  I could feel a connection to the award winning athlete, imagining how they felt when they won the award.  Two of  Tom Seaver’s Cy Youngs were on display.  Something that struck me as odd was that one was perfectly shiny while the silver on the other had become tarnished over time.  Was this the result of a different quality of metal being used in those two years?

On Wednesday, I checked out of the Hickory Grove Motor Inn (leaving behind an audio book for the friendly women behind the front desk).  Be forewarned – it is advisable to make hotel reservations far in advance of your trip.  Cooperstown is quite small (around 2000 people) and there aren’t too many large cities in the area.  Why this location?  Because of the since-descredited story that civil war general Abner Doubleday invented the game in a nearby cow pasture.

On the way back west, I saw a sign for Niagara Falls.  It was only about 15 miles out of the way, so I decided to go there.  I wasn’t really expecting very much.  After all, it’s just a bunch of water going over a hill, right?  Wow, I was very impressed.  If you go to Niagara Falls, make sure to go to the Canadian side.  You get a much better view from the Canadian side – you’re looking at the Falls from in front of them instead of a more awkward angle on the US side.  I could have spent more time there (and a few years later, did spend more time there with my wife), but I had a long drive to complete.

At the end of the day, I found myself back in Ohio – this time in Sandusky.  Sandusky is home to Cedar Point amusement park.  This was my first exposure to Cedar Point, and I was completely blown away (full review here).  Regardless of what type of roller coaster you like, they probably have it.  I was there on a Thursday and Friday, when crowds were pretty reasonable.

All good things eventually come to an end, and I hit the road on Friday afternoon and arrived back home in Illinois very late that night – just in time to attend my niece’s college graduation the next day.

I got to see a decent chunk of the country, and had a great time at every spot along the way.   I also gained a lot of appreciation for audio books during the trip.  Nelson DeMille’s The Lion’s Game (review here) was with me on this trip.  The unabridged edition is a hefty 25 hours!  The book has a great plot (I’ve listened to it about a half dozen time since) and made the time pass very quickly.

What about you?  Which solo trip did you enjoy the most?

In case you missed it, there was a FNN news story published earlier today.  FNN stands for Fake News Network …

Happy Black Friday.  We’re delaying Fiction Friday this week, but will have a special two-part story on Saturday and Sunday.  Today, however, we make a blatant attempt to get you to buy more stuff.

Yep, it’s your conscience telling you to read more often!  In the spirit of the Thanksgiving season, one thing that I am thankful for is the written works of my favorite authors.  How different my life would be without the pleasure of reading.  Winter is a great time to catch up on reading, since the weather sucks.

You’re looking for suggestions on some good books to read?  Well, you’ve come to the right place.  I’ll not only recommend some books to read, I’ll recommend a baker’s dozen of my favorite authors.  (Note: all of the links are Amazon affiliate links – which means I will get a small commission if you buy something.)

Yes, the authors are listed in order of preference.  You might noticed that there are no women on the list.  Fear not, I do not exclude female authors from my reading list.  Patricia Cornwell and Sue Grafton would probably be #14 and #15, but I had to stop somewhere.  There is a decent dropoff between this group of 13 and the next dozen authors that I follow, so I stopped at #13.

1. Lawrence Block – Lawrence Block is my hero. That’s really what it boils down to. From the moment I read his first book, he has ranked among my favorite authors. I particularly enjoy the comedic Burglar series and the hard boiled Scudder books. I profiled Block several months ago, so I won’t rehash the details.

2. Michael Crichton – Michael Crichton left us far too soon. Crichton is best known for Jurassic Park and the television show ER, but there are plenty of treasures amongst his works – Timeline, Sphere, Congo, Prey – the list goes on.

3. Jeffery Deaver – I was introduced to Jeffery Deaver by the movie The Bone Collector. You might not know this, by Deaver has an entire series of books related to Lincoln Rhyme (the character played by Denzel Washington).

4. Dan Brown – I have devoted quite a bit of digital ink to Dan Brown, reviewing The Lost Symbol, as well as his other works. Whether you like him or not, he tells an interesting tale.

5. John Sandford – There a local connection to John Sandford. Sandford is the pen name of Pulitzer prize winning writer John Camp, who hails from Cedar Rapids, Iowa originally. Sandford’s fictional detective Lucas Davenport works in various capacities for the Minneapolis police or the state of Minnesota over the course of the “Prey” novels. Davenport is well off financially because of a software company he owned, which is a cool twist. One of Davenport’s friends is Dell Capslock … whose name was taken off a computer keyboard.

6. William X. Kienzle – Kienzle is himself a former priest, and he writes about a priest (Father Koesler) who solves crimes. The books delve a bit into the inner workings of the church as well as some theology, but in a non-preaching way. As a Catholic myself, I find this background information interesting. Note: I’m linking to the search results for him instead of the main author page, because the author page is missing the vast majority of his books!

7. John Grisham – I’ve fallen toward the outer edge of the Grisham bandwagon in recent years, as he has started to write fewer legal thrillers and more books of other types. When he does publish a new lawyer book, I’m always first in line. The master hasn’t lost his touch; he simply decided to go some new directions.

8. Michael Connelly – I never really intended to become a big fan of Connelly. I’d just read the occasional book here and there. One day, I glanced at the list of his books and realized that i had really nearly 20 of his books! In addition to the Harry Bosch detective novels, Connelly is the author of Blood Work, which was turned into a Clint Eastwood film..

9. Nelson Demille – One of my favorite books of all time is The Lion’s Game. Most of DeMille’s books deal with international incidents and/or the military. In addition to The Lion’s Game, I strongly recommend Up Country, Charm School, and The General’s Daughter (which was turned into a movie starring John Travolta).

10. Douglas Preston and 11. Lincoln Child – it’s unusual enough to see a successful writing duo, much less one whose members also achieve success as solo authors. Together, they write books about FBI agent Pendergast. Among their solo efforts, I recommend Preston’s The Codex and Child’s Utopia.  The Codex reminds me a bit of Grisham’s The Testament.

12. Ed McBain – McBain is our lens into the inner workings of a police department –   in this case, the 87th precinct in New York City. Detective Steve Carella stars as the good guy in the series, but there are some negative cop characters, too – most notable, Fat Ollie Weeks from the neighboring 88th precinct.

13. John D. MacDonald – MacDonald’s hero, Travis McGee, takes his retirement in installments, rather than waiting until he is older. McGee lives on a houseboat (The Busted Flush, which he won in a poker game) and helps friends out of trouble every once in a while.

A substantial portion of the readers from The Soap Boxers are from the midwest, but we also have other people spread out over quite a geographic area – not just in the United States and Canada, but spread out across Europe and Asia as well (with the occasional visitor from Australia or New Zealand spread it).  Today’s article is mostly geared toward the out of area readers.

Jobs

When I say that I’m from Iowa, you might immediately jump to the conclusion that I grew up on a pig farm.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

It was a dairy farm.

While it’s true that a considerable portion of Iowa’s economy is tied to the agriculture industry, it is far from the only industry in the state.  My own “day job” is working in the information technology area of one of the most recognizable companies in the country.  Quite a few Fortune 500 companies have a presence in Iowa, and there are plenty of white collar jobs in the state.

Cost of Living

One of the best things about the midwest is a substantially lower cost of living than on the coasts.  I live in a city that is more expensive than most in the state, but it’s laughably less expensive than New York, San Francisco, Seattle, or even the larger metro areas within the midwest.  On the rare occasion that I watch a real estate show that watches people buy homes in other cities, I have to laugh.  People are paying multiples of what my house costs and getting a fraction of the space.

Caveat: salaries in cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Seattle can often by higher than those in the midwest.

Weather / Traffic

The midwest is blessed/cursed by the existence of seasons.  We don’t have the consistently frigid temperatures of Point Barrow or the baking heat of Death Valley, but it does get over 100 degrees in the summer and wind chills can dip to fifty degrees below zero in the winer (although that is fairly rare).  During the course of the year, we’ll get rain, snow, sleet, hail, freezing rain, fog, and even something fun called “wintry mix”.

One quirky thing that we do in Iowa answer the question of “How far is it to point X” in miles!  Why don’t we give the answer in minutes?  Well, because there’s a pretty standard conversion factor that everyone knows.  1 mile = 1 minute.  I work in one of the larger cities in the state, and a “major” traffic delay means 15-30 minutes.  A few years ago, I was delayed for nearly an hour!  For someone in NYC, this might not sound like much of a delay, but it’s historic around here 🙂

Politics

Considering that Iowa has the first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucuses, you may jump to the conclusion that Iowans are, by nature, very political people.  This really isn’t the case, though.  The registered voters in the state are split pretty evenly between Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters.  The Democrats have done well in recent elections, but any given election can turned based on how the substantial block of unaffiliated voters swing.

The big political news this year was the state supreme court legalizing gay marriage.  Iowa has never been known as an activist state, so this came as a surprise to many.  Opponents of gay marriage are proposing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.  However, it’s difficult to even get such a measure on the ballot.  Such a measure must pass in the state house and senate in TWO consecutive state assemblies (an assembly lasts two years) before going in front of the voters.  With the Democrats in control of the state legislature, there is not chance of this occurring any time soon.  The next chance the Republicans would have to gain control would be in the 2011-2012 general assembly, meaning that it will be 2013, at the very earliest, before this measure could go in front of voters (since it must pass in TWO assemblies) – where it would face an uncertain fate.

What to Do – Sports

Iowa has no top-level professional sports teams.  However, we are within an easy day’s drive of Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, and Milwaukee (or a more aggressive day’s drive to quite a few other cities).  So sports fans in Iowa aren’t completely shut out.  A nice bonus to this is that you don’t feel compelled to lock in to one particular sports team.  The fan base within the state is fractured.  The Cubs have a plurality among baseball fans, but there’s also a strong contingent of Cardinals and White Sox fans.  The Vikings probably have the most football fans right now, but this tends to flip-flop between the Vikings, Bears, and Packers depending on who is doing the best on the field.

The biggest sporting events in the state, however, are the college sports.  Iowa is the only state that has a team in both the Big 12 (Iowa State) and Big 10 conferences.  This leads not only to debates about which team is better, but also which conference is better.  (Iowa State and the Big 12 are better, of course).

If you’re a fan of college wrestling, Iowa is a great state for you.  Wrestling legends Dan Gable and Cael Sanderson wrestled for Iowa State, with Iowa native Gable later switching sides and turning the Iowa wrestling program into a juggernaut.  During the season, quite a few wrestling matches are televised on the state’s PBS station.

There are also quite a few race tracks in the state, ranging from go-kart tracks in the smaller towns all the way up the the Iowa Speedway in Newton, which features NASCAR Nationwide and truck racing, as well as an IRL race.

There are five affiliated minor league baseball teams (headlined by the AAA Iowa Cubs) as well as an independent league team in the state.  There is also the Field of Dreams movie site in Dyersville (a hop-skip-and-a-jump from my hometown).  It has been twenty years since the movie came out, but the field still attracts visitors.  Admission is free.  They do accept donations and will happily sell you merchandise.

What to Do – Non-Sports

OK, I realized that not everyone is a sports fan.  What is there for the non-sports fan to do?  Well, of course there is access to activities in the larger metro areas mentioned earlier, but what is there to do within Iowa itself?

Hebert Hoover Presidential Library – It might surprised you to know that Iowa is home to a presidential library.  The library and music of native Herbert Hoover can be found in West Branch.

Cable Cars – Cable cars aren’t just for San Francisco.  You can recreate the experience in Dubuque, riding up the side of a hill in a cable car.  I was there when I was a kid, and it was pretty cool.

Burial Mounds – Effigy Mounds National Monument features more than 200 Native American burial mounds, including 31 that were formed into the shapes of animal.

The Bridges of Madison Country – Yep, Iowa is the home of the covered bridges of movie fame.

Rivers – Iowa is bordered by the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.  This provides great access for fisherman (and fisherwomen), and has also resulted in interesting topography for hikers.  Personally, I like the bluffs along the Mississippi.

The Basilica of State Francis Xavier – Don’t think there’s gothic architecture in Iowa?  Check out the Basilica and you won’t be disappointed.

RAGBRAI – Every year, thousands of people participate in this ride across this state.  It’s half exercise and half party.  Well, maybe that’s not the exact percentage 🙂  They change the route every year (but it’s always west to east)

I’ve just scratched the surface … swing by and visit Iowa some time.

At long last, I finally finished The Lost Symbol on Sunday night.  Instead of the ten days I had alloted for it, it took nearly two months to finally finish the book.  Much of the blame for the delay falls squarely upon the amount of time consumed by writing The Cell Window.

So, what did I think?

Overall Observations:

First of all, the book is long.  It is slightly more than 500 pages.  I personally see this as a positive.  I enjoy reading (when I get the time) and if the book is good, why not extend the pleasure?

When I first heard that the book would be set in Washington, DC (rather than flitting from one locale to the next) I feared that it would turn into something like National Treasure.  Mind you, I enjoyed National Treasure,  but I consider Brown’s works to be a step above it.  Both are good, but picking up a Brown novel and finding National Treasure inside would be like ordering a ribeye steak and having the waiter bring a sirloin.  You’d still enjoy the meal, but it would be missing a certain je ne sais quois.  Happily, this was not the case.

I’ve seen the book get panned by a few people.  I don’t full understood why someone would react adversely to it.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and found it to be in line with Brown’s other works.  The only thing that makes sense is if a person was a fan of The Da Vinci Code and not of Brown’s others work.  [Note: see my author profile of Brown for information about his other novels.]

Plot:

It’s definitely a fascinating tale.  I don’t want to spoil the plot for those who haven’t read it, but the book packs quite a bit of action and quite a few interesting locations into the plot, considering that all of the action is contain within Washington, D.C.  We also get some interesting back stories into the lives of some of the principal characters.  And, once again, Robert Langdon is romantically linked to a female character.  Come on, Langdon, settle down!

Characters:

I’m of fan of the character of Langdon.  The fact that he wears a Mickey Mouse watch as a way to make sure he never takes himself too seriously coincides quite nicely with the fact that I have stuffed versions of Pooh and Eeyore in my cubicle (as well as a small menagerie of stuffed animals) for much the same reason.

The antagonist in the book is also very well developed.  It takes a brilliantly warped mind to develop the sorts of antagonists that find their way into Brown’s novels.

There are quite a few other fairly well developed characters in the book.  Quite a few of them are rather exceptional individuals.  Brown captured their essence well enough that I can imagine them quite well in my mind.

Moral / Philosophy / Controversy:

Many of Brown’s books contain a moral and/or philosophical thoughts.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that a major facet of the moral in The Lost Symbol is a philosophy that I have been advocating for several years.  I don’t think the messages within The Lost Symbol will be as controversial as those within The Da Vinci Code, but hopefully it will make people stop and think.

The Masons and masonic traditions and rituals are prominently featured in the book.  They are generally portrayed in a positive manner.

Closing thoughts:

This book initially had the working title The Solomon Key.  It quickly became apparent why – it is the surname of key characters in the plot.  I think I would have preferred for the book to keep that name.

I nailed a couple of the surprises at the end of the book.  I figured out the “mysterious location” quite early.

Buy it!

If you plan to buy the book, please considering buying it (and the other Dan Brown books) though the links below.  If you do, I’ll get a small referral bonus from Amazon.  Your price will be the same as if you entered through Amazon’s main site.

The Lost Symbol
Da Vinci Code	Angels & Demons
Deception Point	Digital Fortress

The final chapter was finally written in my saga with HSBC.

On Friday night, I made  a quick trip to get some over-the-counter medications at the drug store and some groceries at the grocery store.  My HSBC card was declined at both places.  (Why did I try at the second place after it was declined at the first?  Just in case the problem was related to the store).  When my wife (primary cardholder) informed HSBC, she was told that this was due to a problem the Mastercard was having during this timeframe.  This may indeed be correct, but I’m unable to find any news stories about this.  Did anyone else experience problems with Mastercards being declined on Friday night?

In any case, this was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.  We decided to cancel the card.  It did take a bit of effort for my wife to convince the HSBC rep to actually cancel the card.  We received a notification on Saturday that the account had indeed been closed.  A big sigh of relief as we put this behind us.

We were running quite a lot of purchases through the card in order to take advantage of the cash back rewards (while paying off the full balance every month, of course).  I suspect that HSBC would consider our level of use to be rather substantial.

For those of you who didn’t read the original article, here’s a recap of the chronology.

• I do some research and find the HSBC Weekender card, which features 1% cash back on all purchases and 2% on all weekend purchases.  This sounded like a great deal.  (And, in fact, it was.  Redeeming the cash rewards was pretty easy).
• My wife signs up for the card and then does additional paperwork to add me as a second card holder.  This means that she gets her card before I get mine.
• My wife activates the card via the 1-800 number.  She attempts to use the card later that weekend and to her great embarrassment, it gets declined.  Why?  Because there was some sort of a problem with the automated authorization system.  (Note: this isn’t listed in the earlier article because I had completely forgotten about it).
• We begin getting calls from telemarketers.  The telemarketers appear to be shy and won’t tell us what they are actually calling about.  This was very bizarre.  We wouldn’t have bought the product or service anyway, but we couldn’t get them to tell us what they were selling.  We were getting a LOT of these calls before calling and complaining a few times.
• HSBC had a security breach (many accounts affected) and had to issue new cards (with different numbers).
• My new card had my name wrong (first and last names transposed).  The HSBC rep seemed to have considerable difficulty grasping the problem and the implications.
• After getting the new card, I try to use the automated authorization number.  This doesn’t work, and I get kicked to a live operator, who tries to sell me additional services while she is activating the card.  Bear in mind that I am speaking to her after a series of THREE problems by HSBC (security breach, wrong name on card, automated authorization failure).
• In April, we were at the mall for our weekly trip to Target and a few other stories.  As we make perhaps the most predictable purchases in the history of the world, HSBC’s fraud alert gets triggered and our card gets locked, causing it to be declined.  These purchases were so predictable that anyone armed with a copy of our past statement could have probably predicted them.  Suspicious was definitely not the word I would use to describe them.
• Five months pass.  Spring gives way to summer, summer gives way to fall.
• I am contacted by someone from the Executive Office of HSBC.  He appears to be genuinely concerned.  It has been five months since we have encountered any actual problems, but I’m happy to work with the if it means fewer troubles for other HSBC customers in the future.  He forwards my case to someone in customer service.  They leave an answering machine message to let us know they are on the case.  Later, they call and ask to speak to me.  Unfortunately, I am temporarily unable to answer the phone, and my wife is unable to focus on the phone call (busy with our toddler) and tells them to call back another time.  Alas, there is not another call.
• Finally, on Friday, the card is declined again and we cancel the card.

Recently, we switched from cable to a combination of DSL and DirecTV.  The DSL is working out OK so far – no service interruptions or anything like that.

What about DirecTV?

Installation

Our tech showed up in the early afternoon.  Very friendly guy.  Pretty quickly, it became apparent that this isn’t going to be a simple installation.  Our current wiring won’t support the requirements of DirecTV.  Since we have a finished lower level (also known as “no access to wiring”), this means drilling new holes.  Note: if you’re in the market for a house, consider drop ceilings.  They make things easier.

The installer thought that our house was a condo and asked questions about what type of installations were allowed.  I assured him that the house is not a condo, but a zero-lot-line house (known as a duplex in many areas), and that there are no restrictions.  We then discussed the option of placing the dish on the roof or on a pole in the ground.  We get snow during the winter, so we opted with a ground-based unit to allow easy snow removal.  Two other guys show up to install the dish and run the line (underground) from the dish to the house.

The rest of the installation was pretty smooth, and the installer gave us a crash course on the remote before he left.  (This wasn’t the last time we’d see him, though – he left his drill charger behind and would have to return to pick it up).

Billing

Billing did cause some frustration.  My wife was quoted a certain introductory price and was told that there was an additional rebate that would drop the price lower.  In actuality, the rebate could not be used in conjunction with the introductory price.  After reading bunches of fine print, it seems that the people my wife talked to were confusing the details of two different promotions.  Probably an honest mistake, but still frustrating.

We’re also locked into a 2 year contract – there was no contract with cable.

NFL Sunday Ticket

We have the NFL Sunday Ticket.  My wife is pretty happy about this, because she can watch her Rams.  We’re ever so slightly outside the local area for the Fox station that covers the Rams – about 10 miles.  I haven’t taken much advantage of Sunday Ticket because I’m boycotting Brett Favre’s stay with the Vikings.  Dump Favre and put in Sage Rosenfels.

We also found out that the channel that allows you to watch 8 different NFL games at the same time is NOT part of the standard NFL Sunday Ticket package.  I’m not sure how much we would use this anyway, but this seems a bit crazy.  Seriously, the Sunday Ticket is pricey enough – throw this in.

Baseball

We didn’t get MLB Extra Innings this year because the pro-rated price wasn’t worth it, with just a couple of weeks left in the regular season at the time.  I was hoping this might be part of the promo package we got, but it wasn’t.

I have been able to catch my Rockies on a variety of stations, though.  We’re getting the regional Fox Sports Net channels.  Sometimes the games are blacked out, sometimes they aren’t.  I haven’t figured out the logic behind this yet, so I basically flip the TV on and hope for the best.  I’ve caught more games in the last 2 weeks than in the rest of the season combined – the Rockies were NEVER on TV with my cable provider.  Right now I’m watching Rockies vs. Brewers on FSN Wisconsin – complete with  commercials for Piggly Wiggly.

We also get MLB Network, which we didn’t get with our cable provider.  I really, really like this.  It’s like ESPN, but with the non-baseball stuff filtered out.  Pretty cool …

DVRs

The DVR we had with the cable provider wasn’t the greatest.  It seemed to hold between 50 and 80 hours of shows, and also exhibited some bad behavior from time to time.  At least once a week,changing channels would slow to a crawl, and we’d have to pull the plug overnight and plug back in.  This was the recommended fix.  There were also problems with recordings from one particular channel – the local NBC affiliate.  Shows from that channel would not allow the basic DVR functions (rewind, fast forward).  This seems really strange, as I assumed the recordings were just data streams, and that the DVR device wouldn’t even be able to differentiate between shows from various channels.

We have two DVRs for DirecTV, each of which should hold about 200 hours of shows (we don’t have HD – this would be less with HD).  One of them is quickly filling up with Rockies baseball games.  I need to take some time to nab  a few forensics shows, too.  So far, no weird occurences.  Hooray.

The ability to program the DVRs over the internet is cool.  I haven’t used this for anything important yet, but did test it, just as a proof of concept.  It works as advertised.

Miscellany

My alma mater’s game are only covered by the cable company (a channel that the company owns), so I won’t be seeing many of their games.  That’s a bummer, but getting baseball is a fair trade.

When I went to return my cable equipment, there was a security guard at the cable office.  The place actually got robbed a while ago.  I guess a lot of students pay their cable bill in cash.  I’m not sure how there weren’t 100 witnesses, though – the place always seems to be somewhat busy.

Over the years, St. Louis has become a favorite destination for my wife and me.  Many times in the past, trips to St. Louis have included a trip to the Edward Jones Dome to catch my wife’s favorite team, the St. Louis Rams.  Our most recent trip, however, did not include a Rams game.

My wife was the navigator for the trip.  She had programmed destinations into our Nextar GPS navigator, and also had printed information from Mapquest.  We have learned from past experience that the Nextar can be a bit quirky, although it generally does a pretty good job.

The first stop was at the Galleria Mall.  I’m not much of a shopper, so I made a beeline for the Apple Store.  The Apple Store is a great place to catch up on email and browse the web.  I have used Apple Stores for this purpose in 3 different malls (Mall of America in Minnesota and the Jordan Creek Mall in Des Moines).  In general, if you don’t make a nuisance of yourself or hang out for hours on end, the employees will leave you alone.  There are probably a couple of reasons for this.  First, Apple believes that their computers sell themselves – so that casual users in the Apple Store will eventually turn into buyers.  Second, it’s never a bad idea when there are a lot of people in a store – it makes the product look more popular.

After the Galleria, we checked into our hotel.  We like to stay at the Drury Inn by the Gateway Arch.  The location is great – walking distance to the Edward Jones Dome, Busch Stadium, the Arch, and lots of restaurants.  We hopped on the metro to Union Station.

We wanted to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe.  We were told that the wait was 15-20 minutes.  We patiently waited, and were eventually told that our table was ready.  The waitress began to lead us outside, and we politely mentioned that we preferred an indoor table (we hadn’t been asked for a preference when we checked in initially).  She told us that it would be “a few more minutes.”  Fine, we sat down to wait a few more minutes.  Ten minutes later, I asked if they knew how much longer the table would be.  About 15 minutes.  This seemed to be longer than the “few more minutes” we had been quoted.  It seemed like we were being jerked around a bit, so we left and ate elsewhere.

The next day, we went to Grant’s Farm.  The Busch family donated the property and Anheuser-Busch provides a lot of financing.  Admission is free, although parking is $11.  I don’t quite understand the logic of this, but it’s still a great bargain, so I’m not complaining.  The first part of the trip is a tram ride where you can see a lot of wild animals.  I had the digital camera handy and got a lot of shots – particularly of the bison and zebras.

The tram stops at a central area within the facility where you can see more of the animals up close.  There is a variety of animals from farm animals (you can feed the goats) to African elephants.  My wife loves elephants, so we rushed to the elephant area to catch the elephant show.  The first show didn’t actually have a large enough audience, so the trainers just had the elephants do some training exercises.  This was pretty cool.  After that, we took a look at the other animals, and caught most of the bird show (pretty neat) before going back to the elephant area for the next show.  This time, the audience was large enough.  Robbie (trainer) and Mickey (elephant – short for Michelob) put on a show.  The show was educational and entertaining (Mickey raced a couple of kids in a balloon blowing contest – she gave them a huge head start, and beat them easily with just one breath).  We did the VIP tour ($5 each) afterward.  We got to tour the bull barn – a massive building where Bud (male elephant) lives.  Then we got to meet Bud.  We fed him carrots and got pictures taken with him.

In the afternoon, I made a trip across the street from the hotel to visit the Gateway Arch.  This is, of course, the icon of St. Louis.  The Arch soars 630 feet in the air.  You ride to the top in a little tram car that has five seats.  I’m not sure if it’s actually possible to cram five normal sized people into one of the cars.  The cars have a bit of Ferris Wheel movement to them, since the trip to the top is not completely vertical (since it must travel along the curve of the arch).  I rode to the top with a guy from Pennsylvania and a happy young couple.  The woman had a very nice camera.  I coveted the lens, and told her 🙂

The top of the arch is a fabulous place for taking photos, and I took several dozen photos.  I took a quite a few pictures of Busch Stadium.  The game was over, but they were letting kids run around the bases.  Even though I’m a Rockies fan, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take photos of a ball park.  I also took quite a few pictures of the mighty Mississippi River.

I know what you’re thinking.

“Kosmo – The Lost Symbol has been out for more than a day.  Where’s the review?”

I do indeed have my copy of the book.  I have not yet had the opportunity to read it.  Yesterday was spent getting Direct TV installed, and the next few days will probably be spent in a Direct TV induced coma.  I don’t typically watch much TV at all, but the availability of baseball will be very tempting.  (More on Direct TV in a later article).  However, I plan to finish the book in the next ten days or so, and will publish a review when I’m done.

I do, however, have some initial reactions.

• The book smells really good.  The trees used for the paper were clearly harvested at precisely the correct time.
• When picking up the book, remember to lift with your legs, not your back.  It’s fairly hefty – 509 pages.
• The cover is très chic

Interested in other books by Dan Brown?  Read my author profile (written back in May)

On an unrelated note … I am taking suggestions for Fiction Friday articles.  If you have an idea that you would like to see turned into a short story, let me know (leave a comment below).  While I am perfectly content to keep coming up with my own ideas, I’m also open to the writing about things that are outside of my typical comfort zone.  The ideas can be just a few words, such as “dinosaurs“, “lesbian wedding“, or “attacked by a shark“.  (Note: the links point to stories I have written on those topics).

I can’t guarantee that I will have the time (or interest) to turn every idea into a story, but I will make an effort to use a bunch of the ideas.