First things first: booking. I booked by phone as I had some questions about the various types of rooms available and the laundry service. My call was answered promptly with, “Can you hold? *click*”. A local radio station came on the line before I had a chance to say a word. This is unfortunately very common these days, as most people will just say yes anyways; but, kinda rude to not even let me speak. Moving on…

I booked myself into a business class suite. These suckers have nice big chairs and high speed internet (every room has high speed and wifi btw). That was $10 more a night, but it was also on a secure floor, which I was assured was never “loud”. I also confirmed the existence of self serve laundry.

Two days later I arrive after a long day of driving and working on-site. Check-in was nearly painless, except for the standing around part. It took 5 minutes for someone to show up to front desk… not exactly presenting yourself as a leader in hospitality here.

Get to my room, which was adequate in size and features. I proceed to setup my laptop so I can continue working on my clients project. I left my spare cat5 cable on-site, so I had to room service myself one. No big deal, but it took 30 minutes. After getting a cable, I discover the internet does not work. I call front desk who tells me to call the wireless support number for the wired internet support.

I call Sasktel’s special hot line and we go through some real basic stuff like: Is the light on? Which just so happens to be whats wrong with the magical box. So they advise me to get the hotel to swap the box for another box.  So another call to front desk and 30 minutes later a new modem (which honestly did not look very new… but they assured me it was “new”).

It took about all of 2 minutes to discover that modem didn’t work either; so, I called Sasktel back and they told me they would send someone to fix it… in 4 days. I briefly pressed the issue, but understood that it just wasn’t in the cards to get them out here any faster. I called front desk again.

This time they send the “manager” up to try to work some magic on my computer. This amused me, but sadly I had packed my laptop up in anticipation of being moved to a room that had working internet access. After explaining the problem was not with my computer, but with the modem and/or the line, he conceded I should be moved to a new room.

After 30 minutes of him trying to find the cheapest available room for more than an evening in the hotel, he took me to the “spa” suite. We tried the internet there and it didn’t work either. Well, most perplexing, but he suggested that he could reset the Sasktel stuff and give it a try. So he does that while I stand in the spa room turning the modem on and off every so often. At some point it started to work and I checked my email. He came back and was happy it worked, but not wanted to try it back in the room we just came from.

So… back to the old room. Internet still didn’t work on there, so he once again stood there and haggled with front desk for the cheapest possible room. Which apparently was the room we were just in. So, a free upgrade he says! Off to the “spa” room.

“Spa” room is a room with a bathrobe and microwave. It’s also slightly larger and appears to contain a hide-a-bed with no sheets or blanket. It’s also double the cost of my business room and did not have a comfy chair. Of course, it was the same price as the business room for me… so score !?!

Not much exciting happened between that Thursday and Sunday. Room service seemed to take a disturbingly long time to come. House keeping ignored my DnD sign twice… On Sunday I needed to use the free laundry facilities.

Threw my load in at 5pm and came back 45 minutes later. Still washing my clothes apparently, so I took a swim. Came back 30 minutes later and it was obvious the washing machine was stuck on the finial spin and rinse cycle. I caught it before another rinse and then had to leave while I waited for the dry to free up. Came back an hour later and the dry was still in use, the timer put back to 80 minutes. Came back 80 minute later and met the guy who had his laundry in the drier.

As this point, it was obvious the dry was not working. This poor guy had a small load of socks and underwear in there since 4pm. It was now 9:30. He stuff was still more than damp to the touch and barely warm. The dry was obviously broken. Which left me with a pile of soaking wet clothes (two sweaters to boot!). I called the front desk and asked if they had any capacity to help me. She was less than helpful with “umm… aahhhh… errr…” and “gee, that’s not good”. I inquired about getting access to house keeping to use their driers, but she assured me that was impossible since she didn’t have keys.

Apparently Sunday night, the hotel has no staff except for this one girl at front desk. I guess that’s plausible, but I decided to test it. I called front desk from my room (previously called from the pool) and asked if I could get a set of cutlery and a plate. “Sure”, she says. 30 minute later (I swear they time it to 30 minutes on purpose…) I get myself a plate and cutlery. Well, proves she was at the very least lieing about any other staff… and I still have my doubts no one on staff could of granted me access to the driers. Oh well… moving on.

I managed to tell my story to Dean who picked up my clothes and run it threw the drier for a while. Brought it back and I let it hang dry the rest of the night. So, in the end it worked out I guess; but, no thanks to the hotel.

Checkout was possibly the saddest part of the experience. I was checking out a day early, but past checkout time. Understandably there is an “early” checkout fee. I’m fine with that, but I wanted something for the laundry fiasco I had to endure. Front desk staff themselves couldn’t help me and all the management were in a meeting behind in the room behind front desk.

Now, if I was in the customer service industry, I’d feel it would be okay to knock and ask a manager to help with a client. I dunno, maybe I’m crazy or something; but, it seems so simple… Anyways, they made me wait 12 minutes (I stood there staring at the clock…) until the meeting was done. The manager came out, looked the situation over and said there was nothing they could do. They already upgraded my room for free. I was understanding that the room was upgraded for “free”; but, also explained my position that it was for the lack of working internet and not the laundry fiasco. She insisted there was nothing she could do and started to turn away.

At this point I was tired and about to let go; but I instead said, “How about you waive the early checkout fee?”. Which, to my surprise she said, “Fine”. She turned away without another word and left. Kinda rude… but victory I guess?

I’ll keep this short and simple, so point form it is:

• After the first few transistions in to direct sun light the do appear to transition in less than a minute.
• Takes a while in indirect light, which is fine.
• Transitioning back to normal takes considerably longer. By my count, about 2.5 minutes (see quote…)
• Function “ok” as shades, but my shares definately provide better reduction in glare
• Price for this feature on lenses is reasonable ($100 CAD), considering custom tinted glasses would cost about the same lens wise.
• Personally, while a cool feature, I would not get transitions on my lenses again. I’ll stick with actual shades next time.

The end.

Right now I have my 300mm, 35mm and flash in the bag. I store the battery charge in the top, along with an extra usb cable and some cleaning supplies. Having the ability to swing the bag under my arm and swap lens is very liberating. Getting used to the way the bag opens up is a bit of a learning experience, so practice on your bed or something. Dropping a lens is never an amusing situation…

This bag has enabled me to causally bring my camera with me places I wouldn’t normally consider taking a camera. In that sense, I feel more opportunities to take pictures, even if they are of non-sense stuff that no one cares about. Experience composing pictures is experience composing pictures. Anyways, I give it an arbitrary two thumbs up.

I first read about Mandylion in… IRC. I didn’t really pay much attention, since they looked kinda cheesy and toy like. It wasn’t until about 6 months ago I noticed them again. This time these key fobs were looking mighty nice for all my password needs. What I want it for is simple, keep track of around 15 passwords I currently use. All of them are different, but I don’t tend to change them very often. Mandylion’s device can help me manage these passwords AND remember them. I’m always forgetting these pesky passwords and doing resets.

The problem for me is that Mandylion sells 5 key fobs as a kit now for about $250 US. I have no… pracical use for 5 Mandylion’s, but I bet there are some people out there that do. If you come across this page and think you’d like to split a kit with me, let me know. I’m not gonna order a kit until I have 4 other people. I don’t care who gets the basestation, since they can operate independent of it anyways. My only worry is if you forget your entry sequence and need a reset. They don’t really mention how a reset is done, but I bet you need that silly station. It looks easy enough to hack your own connection anyways, so maybe you should only get ahold of me if you are able to do such DIY type things. Anyways, ThinkGeek sells them here and you can check out their website here.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/security/7573/

Being the skeptic I am… I called a few more places to see what they said. They all basically said the same thing: “If you wax your car, you don’t really need it.” So there you have it people. If you plan to wax your car a few times a year, then skip the clear coat deal on your car. It’s a complete waste of money.

I found one that goes by CIS World Wide, but they seem to be a complete scam as far as I’m concerned. They claim unlimited lookups, but really you get 5 credits to use some really poor searches. If it doesn’t turn anything up, well your out your credits. They link to a bunch of other services that do searches as well, so I supposed that is a sort of service. I’m inclined to make a page that has all the links to those services for free, see how they feel about that. If anyone is interested in doing any sort of background check on someone and wants a link to a bunch of resources… let me know.

I did manage to get a list of all the property and phone numbers for Steve Jobs thou, that was mildly amusing.

• Sonorix UK offers them for about 84GBP, or $125 Canadian.
• Blue Unplugged, again a UK store. Slightly higher price.
• My favorite Expansys. $240 from them, and they actually ship from the UK, to the USA, to Canada… So… ya.

For the most part the only store to bring them in and sell them AFAIK is FutureShop and BestBuy. They must obviously know it, because they charge a fortune for them. Anyways, it is definitely possible to get them cheaper than $300 like I paid, but… they still don’t fit right and the charging is awkward. I’m still skeptical about the battery life as well. Thou some people have messaged me to say they get plenty of listening off them… so I dunno.

If it doesn’t play you will probably need… this DivX.

Also had some useless features like 128mb built in for listening to mp3’s and such. I could never see myself using that really, but you never know. The charging system is an amazingly well designed “UFO shaped” device. Right, as if that makes it work better or something. Really, what made me return this product was the charging system and battery life. 2 hours or so of headset use. Thats right… thats about 8 or 6 or 4 less than what they say it is (they can’t make up their minds on the the website, box and manual). At any rate, thats way too short for any practical use. Maybe if I could charge them while using them… but that would defeat the purpose a bit. They do include two batteries, so you can always swap when one goes dry. Funny thou, they obviously figures out that was a problem, because in the next model of their headsets, they allow it to be charge via usb.

Verdict is to not buy these, especially for $300 bones plus tax. You can get a Motorola HT820 headset for $100 CND these days. Not as much crap comes with it, but then again… it lets you buy a separate bluetooth adapter that has a range of 250m. Making them really really good for walking around the house. Motorola HT 820