More Mundane Meanderings.

We've been watching the Tour de France every night for the past couple of weeks. We're currently a day behind (thanks, TiVo!), due to scheduling conflicts. We just watched the penultimate race: the final time trial in St. Ettienne.

My favorite rider, Mickael Rasmussen, a skinny Dane wearing the polka-dotted King of the Mountains jersey, had a horrible day in the final time trials. He was in an unexpected 3rd place coming into the event and was expected to drop a place to Jan Ullrich after the day. The day turned out much worse for poor Rasmussen. After suffering two serious crashes, two flat tires, and three bike changes, he dropped to 7th place.

His goal for the Tour de France was to win a stage and to take the King of the Mountains jersey, both of which he did. It still must be hard, though, being in line for a spot on the final podium on the next-to-last day and to instead roll bruised and bleeding across the finish line.

The blurry picture here is from Flickr, apparently a photo of someone's TV as they watch Mickael Rasmussen crash for the second time.

Posted by Mike at 07:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've just set up the blogging feature in my Flickr account, so this is a test post from that. The picture his is one I took during this past 4th of July from up on a hill overlooking the Tacoma fireworks being launched off a barge in Commencement Bay. I've got a few other neat ones that I've uploaded to Flickr, as well. Here's a link: My Flickr Photos.

As an aside, I completely dislike typing "Flickr". It just feels wrong, looks wrong, and gets pronounced in my head wrong. Why must they do things like this to me? It makes typing up a blog post take twice as long as it should, since I keep seeing apparent typos. Or, worse yet, I spell it "correctly" as Flicker and then have to go back and fix it. Jerks.

I digress. It looks like this Flickr blog posting works.

Posted by Mike at 07:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's something about the smell of a new piece of computer equipment that makes me happy. I've heard that memory and the olfactory sense are linked; the smell of a new mouse, keyboard, or in this case, a new Powerbook, brings back that feeling from Christmas morning, opening presents from Santa.

Similarly, the smell of new software and books bring back pleasant feelings, though a bit different from computer equipment. Opening up new software brings me back to when I'd save up my allowance and make a trip to Electronics Boutique at the mall and buy a new computer game. That was always fun: leaving shrink-wrap plastic and registration cards scattered over the dining room table while I sat there switching between 12 3.5" floppy disks, installing my new game.

New books--text books, in particular--on the other hand, have an odor that gives me that first-day-of-school feeling, that bit of excitement and optimism that I'd get before realizing, a few weeks later, that this year isn't much different from the last and this year's classes aren't any more exciting than last year's ones.

Anyway, I got a new PowerBook for work. :) Woohoo!

Man, that makes me sound like a geek.

Posted by Mike at 07:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I suppose it was more viewer feedback than customer feedback, but Fox Sports Net has made a few changes to their score box at the top of the Mariners games. Who knows if my feedback played a part, but it's definitely an improvement. Here's a photo:

Continue reading "Customer Feedback Works" »

Posted by Mike at 06:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)