Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category
$1.79
Gas is getting cheaper. I approve.
Total cost to fill my Camry’s tank: $23. When it was the most expensive here, I was paying about $45. Not bad at all.
Let’s see if it goes lower still.
(Hooray for Safeway having discounted gas for cardholders. $100 of groceries savings you $0.10/gal savings for one fillup, and they stack: $200 of groceries gets you $0.20/gal savings, and so on. The grocery purchases needn’t be made all at once: $100 of groceries bought over three months will net you one $0.10/gal savings per fillup. Since I buy groceries anyway, I also get cheap gas. Woot.)
Credit Card Fraud
MasterCard called me this evening to alert me to some suspicious transactions on my CapitalOne card. The card has been locked in my gun safe since August, and certainly hasn’t been used to buy $300 in gasoline (in three separate <$100 transactions) at a single BP gas station in Largo, Florida.
After the first two transactions went through, the card was disabled and the fraud department was notified. The third transaction was declined.
Of course, I’m not liable for any of the charges, and they’re sending me a replacement card (which will also go into the safe — I got the card because they charged no foreign currency conversion fees for my Europe trip, and now I keep it around as a backup) and an affadavit I need to fill out to attest that I didn’t actually make those charges.
I have no idea where the fraudsters got the card information, but I figured I’d let folks know so they’d be a bit more careful.
This is yet another reason why I stick to using credit, rather than debit, cards. While debit cards also offer the same consumer protections, you have to argue with the bank to get your money back (and there’s a risk of bouncing checks and whatnot during that time). With credit cards, you argue whether or not you owe the bank money, and you don’t owe them anything while the investigation is ongoing. There’s no chance for checks to bounce, as it’s not linked to your checking account.
I have awesome friends.
After seeing the picture of the awesome shirt, my friends decided to buy me the shirt for Veteran’s Day[1].
Observe:
Awesome indeed.
[1] I don’t usually think of Veteran’s Day as a gift-giving holiday. While I certainly welcome the shirt (it does, after all, put off the dreaded Laundry Day by another day), I feel a bit sheepish in the face of all the attention my friends have been giving me. I did a job, got hurt, and came home. Not a big deal. Seriously, if you feel that you should honor veterans, that’s fine…but please direction such honor towards those who Went There and Did That. They deserve it, not me.
Jesus likes gunpowder?
Today I discovered that Hodgdon Powder Company, manufacturer of Hodgdon, IMR, and Winchester powders, includes a blurb on their main page saying that their “purpose is to bring credit to our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Evidently Jesus likes gunpowder. That’s sort of neat.
Personally, I’m a bit put-off by a major powder manufacturer openly proclaiming their religious beliefs on their main website. I’m a very private person, and I consider religious beliefs to be a very personal topic, sort of like one’s finances, sex life, etc. It’s something one might discuss in the company of good friends on certain occasions, but not with the world at large.
On a somewhat related note, I noticed that most (all?) IMR powders are made in Canada and packaged in the US. Hodgdon-brand powders are made in Australia and packaged in the US. I’m not sure about Winchester ones. Last time I checked, neither Australia nor Canada are terribly gun-friendly nations (compared to the US, at least). As such, I’m curious why major powder-manufacturing operations are being run from these countries…particularly Australia, as it’s a very long way away, and so shipping costs would be a not-insignificant factor.
One would think that the US, a major producer of arms and ammunition for the domestic and international market, would have more powder-manufacturing plants in the US.
I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance…
…by switching away from GEICO.
That’s an extra $300/year I can put into savings, or maybe spend on ammo.
Update: On a similar note, I’m curious what, if any, insurance you have to protect your firearms. All the renters insurance policies I’ve seen have a $2,000 limit on firearms. I augmented my Allstate renters policy with a “sporting equipment” rider that upped the limit to $5,000 for an extra $20/year. USAA has a similar limitation (and optional add-on rider) for firearms. Any recommendations?
Ugh
Between what seems to be a nasty cold (headache, nasal congestion, sore throat, coughing, etc.) and some Happy Fun Digestion-Related Activities, today is not off to a good start.
Why can’t I have an Emergency Medical Hologram like Star Trek: Voyager?
If I start shambling about (more than usual) and groaning for brains, you know what to do.
Goodbye, grandpa.
My dad’s father died Saturday morning. He was 91.
He lived a long, fruitful, and prosperous life. He was a kind, generous, honorable, and all-around good man.
I will miss him terribly.
Geeky Birthdays
It was my friend D’s birthday yesterday.
A piñata was involved.
However, the kite string that we originally intended to suspend the piñata with proved to be insufficiently strong and kept snapping under the weight of all the tasty candy…so we used a Cat5 ethernet cable instead.
You know you’re in the presence of geeks when nobody found the utterance, “Crap! The string broke again! Does anyone have any ethernet cable?” unusual. I suppose that’s the case when a bunch of physicists, astronomers, and computer engineers get together.
An Interesting Day
I haven’t been to Sportsman’s Warehouse in a long time, so it was pleasant to visit with a few friends today, including two female friends who are interested in buying guns for themselves — one hitchhikes around (she’s the adventuresome type) and wants to have something in case she needs to protect herself, the other is interested in fun Shooty Goodness trips at the range. They got to handle a few different guns, but didn’t buy anything today.
Interestingly enough, powder prices have stayed the same over the last year or so — it’s about $21 for one pound of IMR 4064 (Is there a more versatile powder? I think not.), just as it was a year ago. Not bad for retail pricing; I’d have to buy a considerable quantity of powder online to save any money per pound, and with a limited budget I simply can’t afford to save that much money. 
In addition to the pound of powder, I also picked up a 12 gauge boresnake, as my poor Mossberg 500 is in need of some attention. I haven’t cleaned it in about a year…of course it still works flawlessly, but I think it’s been long enough.
After returning, I had a date with the kitchen: a bunch of friends came over to my tiny studio apartment and we were going to make pies (I make a pretty tasty apple pie, if I do say so myself).
Unfortunately, the pie-making was delayed by an hour due to freakishly intense thunderstorms. One friend was trapped in her car in a parking lot a few blocks away due to flash-flooding of the streets around her — Tucson has very few storm drains, and flooded roads are quite common. After nearly an hour, the waters subsided enough for her to travel the few remaining blocks to my apartment.
(Photo credit: Tucson Citizen)
Another friend was delayed as the storms prevented him from crossing the 100 yard distance separating our two apartment complexes. The rains were simply too intense, and the lightning too close.
In getting from their cars to my apartment (maybe a 25 yard walk), a few friends got extremely soaked (I said the rain was intense!) and had to borrow some clean, dry clothes. Fortunately, I just did laundry the other day, so I had plenty…though it was rather amusing to see two slender females wearing me-sized t-shirts and shorts. My garments were entirely too large, but they were evidently preferable than wet clothes.
During most storms, I take no additional precautions, but this one was different. My Honda generator was prepared and waiting by the door, computers were shut down and unplugged, and the only things plugged in were the lights, fish tank stuff, and the electric ignitor for my gas oven. One of the lights was plugged into a UPS so that if the power was to go out, there would be sufficient light for us to locate the flashlights and get the generator running. Fortunately, the power only flickered a few times, but never actually went out. My compliments to Tucson Electric Power.
I also need to find a way to protect the generator from the elements while it’s outside. During moderate storms, I have it sit under the overhang outside, where it’s protected from falling rain. However, with the intensity of the wind this evening, there was no place untouched by rain. I should look into securing a small umbrella to the generator with duct tape, so as to keep water away from its sensitive parts.
I discovered a troublesome vulnerability with my apartment: intense wind-driven rain can flood the track in my sliding window, and thus flow into the apartment itself. It required several towels to absorb the incoming water, though at the time it was not possible to actually stop the water from entering in the first place. When the rain subsided a little, I fashioned a small deflector shield with duct tape and affixed it to the outside of the window so as to direct rainwater away from the window track. This seems to have been successful: when the rain returned later, it did not enter the apartment. Since I rarely open the window (air conditioning doesn’t work well with an open window, and I use AC about 80% of the year), I should see if there’s a better, semi-permanent way of sealing the window track. Any suggestions?
As for the pie, my friend Louis made his chilled pumpkin cream pie, which was quite delicious. Since it’s a “cold” pie, no cooking was necessary — simply combine the ingredients, mix, and place in the freezer for an hour or so. My apple pie was moderately good, but in my haste (never make pie when hungry!) I prepared it in a somewhat sub-standard way: the butter in the handmade crust was not distributed evening, and so there were a few spots in the crust with excess butter. Additionally, we ate the pie shortly after it came out of the oven, so it didn’t have time to cool properly, and so lacked some of the distinct apple pie texture. Oh well. It seemed to go over well with the guests, particularly when combined with Blue Moon.
More smokeless powder, a big storm, friendly guests, tasty pies, and ale: what more can one ask for?
Corporate Idiocy
I wrote to my ISP (a major cable company) yesterday informing them that they were vulnerable to a serious security exploit and that they had not yet patched their systems (even though patches had been out for some time).
On the first line of my message was the statement “Please direct this to your security/network operations staff. Front-line customer support will be unable to address this serious security problem.”
I received their response today: “We apologize for your connectivity problems (?!). Please reset your cable modem.”
Idiots. I wrote back, LARTed them for not actually reading my message, and again requested that they direct the message to the suitable department. We’ll see what happens.
I know that customer support folks have to deal with a lot of crap from users (I know, I’ve been there), but this is a serious security issue and there’s no other means that I know of to contact their security staff.
Is it too much to ask that they actually read my message before replying with boilerplate?