First Mtn. bike ride of the year

April 29, 2007 at 3:23 pm · Filed under Sports

Roger, Richard and myself went for a ride up to Burnaby mountain this morning. It was a great day for riding, it was sunny and mildly warm. All in all it went very well. I was happy with my general fitness (which can barely be called “fit”), and I rode most of the way, getting off the bike only a few times. I did notice that riding tricky stuff (tricky for me) is quite the binary thing. I was either riding everything, or if I lost my confidence for a little bit I would start walking past everything. As for wipe-outs, I managed two endos. One endo was while I was walking the bike. The other end resulting in me getting trapped under my bike and having to commando crawl out from under it, which was actually a lot worse than the crash itself.

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Scooter repair, part deux

April 29, 2007 at 3:17 pm · Filed under Just Stuff

We went to Vancouver Yamaha on Saturday to see what’s what with the repair and bill to date. Things were fairly positive with shop, although I’m still going to be out a lot of money. Here’s the breakdown of the repair. They’ve charged me for a battery, coil and CID. Each of these parts are around $110. They’ve agreed to put back my old battery, as it likely is not a problem. They insist that both the coil and CID are kaput, and I’m not too surprised. They’ll return them to me and i’m going to try and double-check the coil. As well, they only charged 4 hours labour. They still insist there was bad gas in the scooter which I just don’t believe is true, although it’s possible. I do know that the gas was pretty dark, but that doesn’t mean it was a problem, may it’s just a new formulation/mix. Regardless, 4 hours of labour isn’t too bad considering some of the troubleshooting they did. $90/hr of labour gets expensive real quick. The last outstanding issue was the gearing. The slip clutch was seized and they rebuilt it in 2hrs. Again, not excessive. I guess that when I pushed the scooter 20 blocks I seized the clutch. Go figure, I thought it was a great idea to push the scooter there and save $70 in a tow. Instead I wasted $120 extra.

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Retaliatory Feedback on Ebay

April 21, 2007 at 8:13 pm · Filed under Just Stuff

I just realized today that someone has left me a negative feedback on ebay. It is obviously a retaliatory feedback because I had left the other person (the seller) negative feedback. I’m not sure how often this happens on ebay, but it doesn’t surprise me. On many occasions I have received emails from other ebay users where they say things “Thanks for doing business with me. If you leave me positivie feedback I will do the same for you.” While I don’t really like the way that these things are passed along, it isn’t a big deal because almost every one of my ebay experiences have been positive.

The root of this particular auction with the negative feedback is very simple. I bid on a waterproof camera case for my Canon digital camera. I chose this particular auction because it was advertised as being new, and it included the case, a carrying strap, silicon grease and anti-fogging liquid.

After winning the auction, I paid within a few days using the payment method (Paypal) preferred by the seller, and included the neccessary charges for shipping and handling. Within about 2 weeks the item arrived which I thought was pretty good timing. The case was in pretty good condition although it wasn’t new. There were marks on the lens that indicated that it had been used at some point. Nothing else was included in the shipment. Clearly the items were not sent as advertised. A few days later I sent an email to the seller via the ebay messaging system. Because the message went through ebay I don’t have a copy of it. I basically said that the item was not received as advertised and that I wanted to talk to the seller in order to come to some agreement. I still didn’t receive a response from the seller after about 3 weeks so I assumed that he was blowing me off. At this point I left him feedback: Seller’s feedback

It didn’t take long after the negative feedback that I finally heard back from the guy. On April 8 I received a message from skymountainlake via ebay. The message read as follows.
“Hi, I am sorry, I did not get your message on time.recently I could not find
the coming stuff, so if you take off that feed back you left it to me,I
will send $5 refund to you. please let me know if it is ok.
Thank you”
The message came from the email address li_da610@hotmail.com

Okay, so this is not big deal. I didn’t know much about removing feedback and I don’t need $5. So I sent an email to li_da610@hotmail.com which read:
“Hello,
It looks like it is impossible to remove/delete feedback.
However, two members (you and I) can agree to mutually remove feedback.
Information is here:

Regards,
Doug”

I figure that was a nice enough response given the situation. On April 9 I get another email from the guy, only this time it is from the address junexue88@hotmail.com. The email read
“Hi,
Please take off the feed back you left it to me, then I will send $5 refund
to you. if you do not do this,I will send a same feed back to you.
Thank you”

It was at this point that I realized that I was dealing with an asshole who doesn’t know how to read. If he could read, he would know that a person cannot remove feedback. I told him this, and even sent him a link in ebay that describes the process. On top of this, the guy is blatantly threatening me and basically trying to bribe me for a positive feedback for $5.

I then responded to him again. I probably should have known at this point that I was wasting my time but what the heck.

“Hello,
It looks like it is impossible to remove/delete feedback.
However, two members (you and I) can agree to mutually remove feedback.
Information is here:

You need to respond to me with an explanation of your threat, and whether or
not you wish to proceed with the mutual withdraw feedback.”

I didn’t have any intention on retracting feedback unless the guy came up with a damn good explanation. In any event, I never heard from him again until I saw his negative feedback on me.
feedback

The email messages (outlook messages) and auction details can be downloaded HERE if anyone is interested in seeing the actual correspondence.

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Interlude, part deux

April 21, 2007 at 8:02 am · Filed under Interlude SOF kayak

I now basically have the frame together for the Interlude.

Here is a list of some of the issues I’ve encountered during the build.
1. I needed to clamp/jig the keel to keep it straight while putting the boards onto the frames

2. thickened epoxy was used to hold the boards to the frames and it seems to be strong
3. after the epoxy cured, I drilled holes and inserted 3/16″ dowels to pin the boards to the frames. I used PU glue to hold the pins

4. I found it very finicky to cut the board ends (chines & gunwales) in order to meet flush with the stern and bow plates

5. the bow and stern plates are epoxied in place with dowels
6. I had to remove two knots in my chines, and filled these holes with thickened epoxy
7. I’m not sure if my frames are deep enough, maybe I should add some extra support…?
8. I’m not sure exactly how I will finish off the bow/stern plates. It looks like other people add small deck plates to tie/hold everything together
9. I’m not sure what I’ll use to seal the wood. shellac? polyurethane? tung oil? epoxy (too expensive)?

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