Ingredients:

• 500ml can of crush/stewed tomatoes
• 500ml can of black/mixed beans
• one cup of frozen corn
• 1 tsp of onion powder
• 1 tsp of garlic powder
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1/4 tsp of sea salt

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients in sauce pan.
2. Heat until hot (if I’m not immediately hungry I simmer on medium heat for 5 minutes to bring out the chili spices more).
3. Eat.

5 Minute Chili ready to serve

The deception, in my opinion, is that they let you pick a backup funding source. This is made out to be a feature for you. It’s actually a feature for the merchant. See, if you don’t have enough money in your account you get NSF’ed. Then, paypal finds out and charges your credit card. Granted, this makes sense, but I feel it also gave a false sense of security to the purchaser. It doesn’t give you anything. If you happen to be at your low cash balance for the month and you get a few recurring charges… the fee’s can add up fast (I guess that depends on you bank… mine is $40 a hit). It gets better!

If you’ve setup paypal payments through a merchant in the past and have a regular amount of business with them they can setup some sort of magical way to remember your preferences and just charge your paypal account like they did last time. This isn’t a “recurring” bill or a “subscription”. It’s some feature I’ve never seen in the paypal API as of yet (and I’ve got it right beside me). So, when I went to renew my domain this month it decided to just go ahead and charge my bank account first… with out asking me. So bank, another $40 charge on my empty bank account. I’m not even sure how I can change this “preference” in paypal. GoDaddy.com doesn’t seem to offer a way to change it either. I guess next time I’ll just opt to use my credit card directly. Which brings me to this.

What incentive is there for a consumer to even offer to pay straight from their account when they have to have a CC to back up the transaction anyways? I don’t see any reason at all to even have my account linked to paypal anymore (after $160 of NSF fees…). I’ll pay straight from my CC for purchases. If I get some extra cash in the account, I’ll use my paypal debit mastercard to take it out.

• http://kivanews.blogspot.com/2009/06/letter-from-kiva-about-pilot.html
• http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,3922.0.html

The whole idea of micro loan’s is that the lender and receiver have a more personal relationship. I know I’m borrowing $100 to Mr. Business owner, he fixes motorbikes. Plan’s to repay his loan over 8 months. You also know about your broker. How much volume they’ve been doing, their repayment rate, their default rate, etc. The system is setup to reward due diligence on part of the broker. It motivates the receiver to pay back, because of the personal nature of the loan. Last but not least, you get to decide for yourself if it’s a person/business/idea/broker that you want to support.

The thing everyone has to remember is that if Kiva fails in America, people will just stop loaning to American’s because of the represented risk. No one in their right mind would loan through a broker who didn’t have an acceptable repayment rate and a very low default rate. This applies to all brokers with Kiva, not just the American brokers.

What I think is more amazing about Kiva is that you and spread your risk around. Given the rate of defaults in general, your chances of losing $25 is very low. From what I’ve been able to observe, most default’s get partial payments anyways… so even then your chance of a complete loss of investment is low.

Really, the only criticism I can throw at Kiva is that it’s a 0% return on investment. Really, I figure it’s more like donating to charity, but you get to keep donating the same set of money over and over again. Doing many times the initial value of good with the same money. I’ve already reinvested $65 since I started. With $125 in the pot at the time. That’s 50% ROI if you look at it as charity.

Basically, if you script any sort of table changes in MSSQL you will eventually need to use this code. In MSSQL’s infinite wisdom they made default values on NOT NULL columns occasionally have a mysterious constraint. Ordinarily, constraints on fields on tables are easily found in INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS; but, these particular constraints are hidden for whatever reason.

This makes removing them programmatically very difficult, since they insist on putting a timestamp/guid on the end of each auto-generated default constraint. SO, this useful page on the MSDN provides a way to query the actual name of the constraint given the table name and column name. This, allowing you to remove it before you do something completely crazy like delete the column.

Of course, if your not in to scripting your database migrations then you can just use Management Studio and delete the column.

I bought light fixtures for my bathrooms 2 months ago. These were brushed nickle with patterned glass plates. Fairly large and hefty suckers and really really bright. I paid $84 and $67 respectively for these fixtures. I figured that was a fair price considering their size and output capacity.

Fast forward to today when I’m looking at chain-able T4 fluorescent fixtures. 12 inches of fixture costs a crisp $55.  Step it up to 24 inches and your looking at $90 (a savings of $20!!! Woo…).  Plus they don’t come with coupler cables to wire then in series, so your looking at $5 for that. I’d need four of the 24 inch segments and a few cables… total was reaching the $400 mark to light 10 feet if cabinets.

When I put it like that, it doesn’t sound so bad… which is what I’m guessing they’re counting on. Having already done my research online I commented that the exact same brand online in Canada ships for about $15 less a fixture. She pointed out that I’d pay shipping and I counter that I only pay one tax. She was stumped on that one, but said she would see what she could do to match the price.

Not even 15 second later, her superior clear says “no” to that request and she returns. Mean while on my iPhone I’ve found even CHEAPER fixtures and they come with all the wires and they’re touch to turn on instead of those old rocker switches. I ask if they have connections to order this brand of lights… and it turns out they don’t. So, with that information in hand I left the dejected sales people to contemplate why they even bother to sell utility lights at such a marvelous mark up.

Btw, I bought my lights here:  Savio Lighting and it cost me $160 CAD.

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.

• Nutters $4.49/lb
• Mom’s Nutrition $2.25/lb
• Steep Hill Co-op $1.75/lb (member price only, when bought by the bag)
• Old Fashion doesn’t carry soy beans

I haven’t checked Superstore, but I suspect they’ll probably be somewhere between Steep Hill and Mom’s Nutrition. Any other places I should go check out? I suspect Eastern Market may carry as well… but no answer when I called today.

• I had completely ignored the “parking pass” rule and somehow someone reported me for parking in my own spot. My car has been towed someplace and I’m doomed.
• Someone stole my car, but there appears to be a lack of evidence to support that.
• I left my car someplace, but where?

So, I narrow it down to my car it somewhere else, of my own choosing. I walk back up to the lobby and consider my options. Did I park it outside the building on the street? Was I drunk recently and got a ride back home? ORRRRR, did I stop at work on the way home from dinner this Sunday… and… leave it parked at work?

Suddenly a panic hits me… I’ve left my car at a meter for 2 days. How long does it take them to impound a car? Assuming the worst, but wanting to deny it… I run to work. On the way I’m texting my friend Curtis with my “hilarious” news. He offers me a ride if my car is M.I.A. At least I’d make it to hot tubing tonight!

Well, I turn the corner (by now I clearly remember driving it there and even where I parked it…) and my car is sitting happily on the street. My next biggest fear I came up with on the way there was I would have dozens of tickets. Once the parking gestapo discovered the car was “abandoned” they would ticket it every 30 minutes or something… right? Thankfully, it appears these “angles of parking violations” are very routine and only pass this meter twice a day. Resulting in a mere $40 worth of tickets.

Woo, I was lucky there. Best part was my car didn’t start immediately when I turned the key. Apparently -7C is too cold for it? Must be lazy now that it’s in a heated parkade.