Tag: Misc

I just heard on the news that the TSA and local police were beefing up more security at the Detroit airport. For off, this sounds like closing the barn door after the horses have left. Second off, the flight didn’t originate from Detroit (it didn’t even originate in this country)! So adding more security in Detroit won’t help flights coming into the airport. Wow, brilliant.

(I hope the news just got this wrong, because if someone actually decided this, it seems like a complete waste to me.)

I’ve been a Bank of America customer for many years (I actually started with Security Pacific in 1991 which Bank of America bought). I’m in the process of moving my home loan to another bank because BofA’s rates are pretty awful. As such, I lose my free “Prima Checking” account. So, I’m closing all my BofA accounts and moving them elsewhere where I don’t have to worry about fees. Well, the problem with that is I also have a safe deposit box at BofA and in order to have a box, I need a BofA account.

OK, fine I’ll drop my account down to the basic account (MyAccess checking) which if I don’t maintain the minimum balance, it will cost me $8.95 a month. When looking online, I see that if I open a MyAccess checking account online, there is no minimum balance and no monthly fee. So, I asked BofA about it and they said I’d have to close my account and open a new one despite them being the same type of account. How is that for loyalty? This just reaffirms my decision to move all my accounts away from them. Hey, Brian Moynihan, work on customer service and stop trying to nickel and dime your loyal customers.

Several months ago, my wife and I bought our son a Tonka Mighty Motorized Garbage Truck from Costco to give him for Hanukkah as he’s a bit scared of the garbage truck coming down the street and we thought that this could help him. We gave him the truck last night and within 5 minutes, the lifting mechanism stopped working. My wife got new batteries as it shouldn’t like the motor was dying, but that didn’t help. After a few online searches, my wife saw many horrible reviews of this product with the same problem.

I told our son that I’d try to fix it after he went to sleep. Well, it has triangular shaped screws which made it a bit hard to take apart. However, a small flat head screwdriver seemed to fit and turned the screws. I disassembled the entire truck and found the problem. One of the gears wasn’t firmly attached to the metal shaft. I used some super glue to glue it onto the shaft and presto, it started working again. Yeah! However, this little repair job took over 2 hours! Tonka doesn’t make toys like they used to, so the $20 we spent on the toy was topped off with 2 hours of repair work making the toy a lot more expensive than $20.

Our son was delighted that his garbage truck was working again. He probably has one of the only Tonka garbage trucks that is still working. While it is still early, I’m crossing my fingers that my repair job worked.

We, as a society, keep demanding lower prices on products, but in a lot of cases are willing to accept poor quality.

Note, it appears that Tonka has licensed its name to a company called Funrise Toys. That’s too bad because I always thought that Tonka trucks were well built.

I’ve written in the past criticizing the TSA and up until now, I haven’t been put on any “extra screen” list as far as I know. However, that may change after this post.

I had to fly from San Diego to Newark this past week and encountered a situation with the TSA that reinforces my feelings that the government has wasted tremendous amounts of money on a useless system. I started by flying out of San Diego’s commuter terminal which has only a few people manning the checkpoint and I’ve never encountered an issue; we breezed through after I did my standard ritual of emptying my pockets of all my gadgets (I put them in my bag before the checkpoint), take off my shoes, my sweatshirt, etc. The line is always short at this terminal, so the screeners have plenty of time to carefully check passengers if they wish; they don’t.

On the way home, we flew out of Newark’s Liberty airport and had no problems with security going this way as well even though it appeared that they cared a little more about security.

When I got home today, I emptied out my laptop bag and reached far into a pocket that I normally don’t store anything. What I pulled out of the pocket made my jaw drop. I completely forgot what I had put into the pocket.

Here’s what I found:

I immediately knew what it was; it was a small multi-tool that I put into my bag. Here’s what it looks like out of the sheath.

And this last picture shows the tool completely open.

Yes, the tool has several blades, a pair of pliers, a nail file and some screwdrivers.

So, I managed to get this through 2 security checkpoints without being stopped or questioned. I didn’t realize this was in there and would have gladly surrendered it if it was brought to my attention (it was cheap). I’ve questioned the methods of the TSA for awhile, but this reinforces the point that the overt screening techniques of the TSA are utterly and completely useless.

I think that the government needs to take a closer look at the TSA and invest more in profiling and intelligence than in the current, useless method of screening passengers. Should a screener have been able to detect this multi-tool? Probably, but if they can’t clearly see it on the x-ray, then what good is the x-ray?

Will I be getting a call from the TSA or will someone appear at my door tomorrow because of this post? I have no idea.

It should be pretty obvious that you should use the right tool for the right job. Unfortunately it seems that when I do some home projects, I don’t always have that luxury. Yesterday, however, was an exception. last week I bought a “fiberglass running kit” from Harbor Freight (I love some of the stuff you can get from the store, but I’m pretty careful about what I get as the quality of some of their products isn’t great). I needed to run a new phone line to my entertainment center so that I could try out Oooma.

I’ve run a lot of wire down this particular wall and struggled with many of the runs. A flexible fish tape is a bit cumbersome and not the ideal tool; that’s all I had before, so I used it. Yesterday, I put together 3 pieces of the rod together, pushed it down the wall, went downstairs and was able to easily grab the end of the rod. I attached a Cat 5E cable to it and then was able to pull it up the wall. It was, by far, the easiest pull I’ve done. Why I didn’t get something like this before is probably because I was too cheap, so I spent lots of time doing the work.

Lesson of the day, don’t be too cheap with tools.

On the topic of the right tool for the right job, I was spoiled doing contract work where everyone I dealt with was pretty tech savvy. When we needed a tool to track issues for our projects, we found something and installed it. I’ve used TestTrack, Mantis, and Redmine as bug tracking/project management tools. While none is perfect, they are a huge help. Now that I’m no longer doing contract work, I’m finding that the tool of choice is Microsoft Excel. While Excel is a fine tool for some things, I’m not a fan of it (I haven’t liked it since college when I spent far too much time using it to try to get results). I see Excel used for tasks that databases, bug databases, and project management applications were designed to handle. These systems are multi-user and allow people with access the ability to get up to the minute status on a project; Excel, of course, is static, and you can’t get status of a project when you need it. You rely on one person updating it and sending it out via email or posting it on a Web site (the latter is actually much better than the former).

This is not to say that there isn’t a place for Excel in business applications, but it is not the be all, end all tool (so far I haven’t found one).

Included in my new dishwasher is the standard product registration card from LG Electronics. I usually don’t fill out the registration cards as they don’t affect warranty service. I did briefly look at the card and laughed when I saw it. It said:
Registration can serve as verification of your ownership in the event of product theft or loss.

I know that this is a standard registration card for all products, but it was funny.

I’ve decided to provide step by step instructions for stealing my dishwasher because the product registration will help me prove that I own it.

1. Break into house.
2. Get past attack dog.
3. Find kitchen.
4. Take off cabinet toe kick. Hint there is one nail hidden in it.
5. Unscrew dishwasher toe kick.
6. Shut off water to dishwasher (the connection is under the sink; however, the cabinet under the sink has a child lock so you have to find the magnet).
7. Disconnect drain hose while you’re under the sink.
8. Unscrew electrical cover.
9. Put on leather gloves and unscrew connections (or go out back and turn off the circuit breaker). Be careful!
10. Find a tool to lower the leveling feet.
11. Lower dishwasher.
12. Pull dishwasher out (you have to feed the drain and supply hoses while you’re doing this).
13. If you didn’t shut off the circuit breaker (it’s labeled in the box), be very, very careful with the water that comes out of the hoses so that it doesn’t come in contact with the live wires.
14. Drag dishwasher out front door (it easily fits out the front).
15. Shove it in your truck without my neighbors calling the police.

That’s all there is to stealing my dishwasher, so if you’re up for the challenge, be my guest as I have LG to back me up when I need to prove to the police that it’s mine.

The below steps are what I did to replace our ailing dishwasher. They should NOT be followed by anyone and your dishwasher should be installed by a professional. However, please note that the $100 install charge that Home Depot and Lowes charges may not cover your install if something is not simple.

1. Shut off water supply to dishwasher.
2. Shut off circuit breaker to dishwasher.
3. Figure out how to remove cabinet kick plate. This proved to be challenging because tile was put in after the cabinetry and dishwasher was installed>.
4. Disconnect water supply from dishwasher.
5. Carefully open box with power supply.
6. Unscrew wirenuts and use test meter to verify that power is off.
7. Attempt to pull dishwasher out.
8. Realize that dishwasher is too tall because tile was put in after dishwasher was put in.
9. Try to lower feet by hand, but it doesn’t work.
10. Grab pliers and screw in feet.
11. Pull out dishwasher.
12. Disconnect drain line.
13. Put dishwasher aside.
14. Notice extra wires in the back with a wirenut only on the hot.
15. Put wirenut on the neutral (just because).
16. Push wires back into hole in wall.
17. Notice that wires seem like they’re going to break.
18. Take off wirenuts and test wires.
19. See that no current is flowing.
20. Cut wires below where it looked like it was going to break.
21. Thank goodness that I was using rubber handled cutters.
22. Wait for heart to stop racing.
23. Think about how on this green earth was I going to cap this live wire without shutting off power to the whole house.
24. Put on leather gloves.
25. Put test meter on newly exposed wires and see that they are live.
26. Realize that the reason that the meter initially said there was no current was because the wires were broken.
27. Shut off circuit breakers and retest wires.
28. Carefully finish cutting the wires.
29. Carefully strip the wires and apply wirenuts.
30. Push wires back in wall.
31. Turn breaker for that circuit back on.
32. Call it a day.
33. Wait for dishwasher to arrive.
34. See that hole for drain line and supply line wasn’t big enough.
35. Use recipricating saw to make hole bigger.
36. When saw doesn’t finish the job, grab Dremel and work on the hole.
37. Attach supply line to water line and feed it through the hole.
38. Feed drain hose through hole (it’s attached to the dishwasher).
39. Put supply line in channel under dishwasher.
40. Screw right angle connector onto dishwasher for water supply line after putting Teflon tape on it.
41. Think that the direction the right angle connector ended up could be a problem later.
42. Push dishwasher into hole.
43. See that power doesn’t come through the channel like it should have.
44. Attempt to pull dishwasher back out and see it get stuck.
45. Spend awhile trying to yank the dishwasher out and figuring out what to do.
46. Grab plastic drywall knife and jam it into the side to try to get dishwasher out.
47. Pull dishwasher out.
48. Grab Dremel and make modifications to cabinet.
49. Attach lead wire to power cable with electrical tape to help feed it.
50. Push dishwasher back in cabinet.
51. Yank on wire for power.
52. See feed wire come off.
53. Pull dishwasher out.
54. Tie feed wire to power and re-tape it.
55. Push dishwasher back in.
56. Connect water supply line.
57. Turn on water supply line.
58. See water leak at supply line side of right angle connector.
59. Turn off water supply.
60. Redo Teflon tape and re-attach water supply line.
61. Turn water back on.
62. Wait a few minutes.
63. See water leak on other side of right angle connector.
64. Shut off water supply.
65. Unscrew water supply line.
66. Unscrew right angle connector.
67. Reapply Teflon tape on right angle connector.
68. Reattach right angle connector.
69. Reapply Teflin tape on right angle connector on supply line side.
70. Reattach water supply line.
71. Turn on water.
72. See that water didn’t leak.
73. Connect power supply with wirenuts.
74. Attach drain hose to airgap.
75. Attempt to level front feet.
76. Directions say to use 1/4″ ratchet to screw down feet.
77. See that my socket fits, but the wrench doesn’t physically fit no matter what I did.
78. Look all around for something to lower the feet.
79. Find Gerber multitool in garage.
80. As a last ditch effort, use tool to lower feet. The big issue was the tile made it difficult to get access to the feet.
81. Finish leveling dishwasher.
82. Secure top brackets of dishwasher.
83. Attempt to put cabinet kick plate back.
84. Struggle with it.
85. Make cutout for dishwasher bigger.
86. Try to put it back; still didn’t work.
87. Excess grout was causing it not to fit.
88. Chip out some grout with a screwdriver.
89. Use Dremel to grind down some grout.
90. Push kick plate back in and put in a nail (one seems to hold it).
91. Turn on circuit breaker, cross fingers.
92. Test dishwasher.
93. Cleanup. (This took awhile as I made a complete mess out of the kitchen.)
94. Relax and pat yourself on the back.

As you can see, this experience was not easy and if I had to do it again, I probably would have just spent the money to have someone else do it (I think I always say that, but come back to thinking that I can do anything around the house).

On Saturday, we were doing errands and stopped to get gas. The gas station was busy, so we had to wait. The person in front of us pulled up and started trying to pump gas. He pulled the handle and nothing happened; he thing went over to the automated kiosk and looked quite confused. By this time, I saw a space open up, so I zipped around and got to a pump. I went inside, pre-paid for my gas (I decided against using the kiosk that took cash; many of the kiosks around don’t take cash).

When I was done pumping gas and got back into my car, the guy still hadn’t started pumping gas. At first when we saw him, we couldn’t understand how anyone couldn’t know how to pump gas (he appeared older than me). While I was pumping gas, my wife was analyzing the situation and saw that he had a Boise State shirt on and surmised that he might have been on vacation.

OK, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. So, the question is, where do you pay for gas after you pump it? I’ve lived in California for the last 18 years (with a small stint in Portland where you can’t pump your own gas) and all I can remember is paying for gas first; my memory could be foggy.

I read some forums and people complain about pre-paid gas when you’re using cash as you have to go into the cashier and then afterwards to get change (if needed). I frankly never considered this a problem; maybe I’m just used to this process. Hmmm.