First run with Forerunner 305

Today was my first run with my Garmin Forerunner 305. I had already plotted my course using Google Earth because I didn't expect to get the unit so soon. So I went ahead and ran that run around Mission Bay and then along the ocean. I was extremely pleased with the unit; I've never had anything like this before (I do have a GPS unit, but nothing I can wear). It was easy to setup and easy to read while running. The other day, MotionBased released a Mac plugin for their service. It worked great and uploaded my data without a problem. The analysis it does is great for anyone that likes statistics and such. It will prove to be more useful as I keep up my training. Next I'll have to decide if I want to upgrade from the free service. I'm not the fastest runner in the world and have only one goal for the marathon I'm going to run; finish. You can check out my run and laugh at my results; I need to work on trying to get my heart rate down a bit. (MotionBased lets you set events to be public if you want, so that anyone can view them.)

Who designs receipts?

Yesterday, I went to RoadRunner Sports to pick up some stuff for running (in case you haven't guessed, I'm in training for a marathon; my first marathon to prove to myself that I can do it). I had a coupon for $10 and after checking out, I walked outside, looked at the receipt and scratched my head. Normally receipts have several columns including description, quantity, unit price and extended price. In my experience they also take discounts off at the end. Not here. They had description, quantity and unit price. So if you add up the price column, it will only be correct if you bought one of each item, which I didn't. To confuse matters, my $10 discount wasn't taken off at the end, it was taken off the first item. My first item was PowerBar Gel stuff with a price listed as -$2.10. I had to go back in and get this explained to me. What the computer did is take the total cost of the item (3 @ $1.23) and then subtract off $10 and divide by quantity to give -$2.10 each.

That's just not logical; I guess most people don't look at their receipts as close as I do or this would be a bigger issue for them having to waste time explaining it to customers.

I'm impatient

I couldn't wait to get my Garmin Forerunner 305, so as I was checking some forums, I saw that people were picking them up at REI in northern California. So, I gave it another try (I had called on Thursday and was told that I'd have to order it online as they usually don't come to the stores until the backorders were filled). I called my local store and they said they didn't have any, but the next closest store (30 minutes away did). I called that store and asked them to hold one for me. I went this morning to pick it up and even though I had to pay sales tax, I did get to use my REI dividend. From reading some forums, calling close to closing time may produce better results as the inventory is unpacked and people anxious to get stuff are going in the morning instead of last thing at night (I called 30 minutes before closing).

Hassle free coin counting

I've seen those Coinstar machines at the grocery store and always thought it is ridiculous to pay 8.9% of what's counted for convenience. Recently I saw an ad or heard an ad indicating that there was a no-fee way to get your coins counted by the machine. I checked the website this morning and found that if you get a gift certificate to Amazon.com or some other places, there is no-fee. I figured that we regularly buy stuff from Amazon, so it just made it more convenient for me to get rid of the pile of change we had on our counter in a plastic counter. Turns out we had $92.46 of change! Now what should I get from Amazon?