10 000 miles

In the last month I finally hit the 10 000 mile mark on my Smart Car! It took about 11 months for this feat, and what it means is I was recommended to take my car to the dealership to have the car's first oil change and 10 000 mile service/check-up.

Unfortunately, the closest dealership (and the dealership from where I bought my car) is in San Jose, a mere 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive. It is Smart Center Stevens Creek and it is attached to and a part of the Porsche dealership next door. I was lucky enough to have my brother Andrew come along with me. We made the trek up to San Jose, got to the dealership at 9:00am and let the dealership do there thing. I got the car back shortly before noon, and we were on our way.

The complete work-up cost me about $160.

The dealership did the following on my car:

• Oil/Filter change
• Checked the lights
• Checked and topped up the fluids
• Checked system components such as wiper blades/hoses/belts/horn/clutch
• Checked battery
• Checked tires
• Checked brakes
• Checked underbody and exterior trim
• Washed the exterior of the car
• Vacuum/clean the interior

I also received a "Know Your Vehicle" pamphlet, which has a lot of good information such as tire tread and brake condition. I'm not sure if this was particularly specific to this dealership or not. The car wash was also nice, and I felt very appreciated by the staff at the Smart Dealership as well as the Porsche Dealership.

Wine for the Confused

After work last night I fired up Hulu and watched one of the videos in my queue. I got home at 11:45pm, so I didn't want to watch a full 2-hour movie, and I'm caught up on all my shows, so I found the shortest video in my queue. Wine for the Confused narrated by comedian John Cleese.

I don't consider myself a completely unaware about wine, as I've been wine tasting a number of times throughout California and even in Washington, but I'm by no means at the top of my game. The two things that have been the most helpful in enjoy wine are the wine tasting class I took at Fresno State University, and the numerous wine tasting trips I've taken where you can just chat with the people at the winery/tasting room and sometimes even the wine makers. I do enjoy wine and I am ever increasingly learning about wine and finding out what I enjoy and what goes well with what.

When I saw this show/film on Hulu I thought I might enjoy it because it is about wine and is narrated by a great comedian.

I was not disappointed. If you have about 43 minutes, I strongly recommend watching it. Cleese goes through such topics as wine tasting basics (flavors, smells, etc.), 3 red grapes/wines, 3 white grapes/wines, choosing a wine, price of a wine, and serving wine.

Branding Fresno Business

The Fresno Convention & Visitors Bureau recently released a PDF booklet defining Fresno's brand platform. It doesn't create specific logos or taglines (which would make all Fresno businesses look the same) but rather gives a number of broad categories and descriptors. These phrases and concepts can help organizations develop a brand strategy that will help the overall Fresno brand become more cohesive, as well as focus the efforts of an organization so it is less likely to portray something that will conflict with other Fresno branding attempts.

The booklet includes definition of branding, the Fresno brand platform, a workbook section, and a case study.

The concept I think can be very useful, and hopefully will have the desired effects on branding in Fresno and branding of Fresno. I guess only time will tell if organizations will actually employ this smartly.

Via Creative Fresno (PDF booklet linked at bottom of that page)

My New Phone

If you've been following this blog for a while, you will know that I've been interested in the new phones that HTC has been coming out with. I finally took the plunge and bought one, putting my total lifetime cellphone ownership at 4 (2 Nokia and 2 HTC).

My new phone is the HTC Touch Diamond2.



So far my experience with the phone has been exceptional. The biggest change with this phone from my previous phone (HTC Touch) is the severe lack of Windows Mobile interface. HTC has done a good job at masking a lot of the non-finger friendly Windows Mobile features. My stylus is almost completely unnecessary now (although I do sometimes still like to use it). The new TouchFlo 3D is slick looking and quite user friendly. The other very noticeable feature of this phone is the WVGA screen. At a respectable 3.2" the screen packs a whopping 384 000 pixels (480 x 800). The resolution is so good that I almost can't make out any pixelation at all. It really is a sight to behold.

Some of the other notable things is the G-Sensor (accelerometer), ambient light sensor, zoom bar at the bottom of the screen, GPS, 5MP camera on back and VGA camera on front, FM Radio, & WiFi 802.11 b/g.

It's definitely a big step up from my old phone and it has a lot of fancy new features. I haven't even tried them all out yet, but so far I'm really happy with my purchase.

Good News to Report

As you may have noticed (hopefully) I haven't posted in a while. I recently moved, and due to the move I transferred over my DSL to my new place. Unfortunately AT&T is on a slightly different schedule than I am, and 3 weeks after moving my Internet is finally working today!

I guess its not that they maliciously wanted me to be without Internet access for 3 weeks, none of the two phone jacks in my new apartment were even getting a dial tone. They sent out a few technicians and got the problem resolved. It's just I haven't been 3 weeks without Internet access in years. I know, I'm spoiled, but I use the Internet quite a bit.

I did want to blog about my experience with AT&T tech support.

A majority of the people I talked with on the phone at AT&T were friendly. I think my biggest complaint is the hold times. I spent at least 2.5 hours on hold throughout all my calls, and was switched literally back and forth and back to different departments a number of times. As well, its unfortunate that I was unable to have a technician come out while I wasn't home, and that meant a little longer wait to get a time that would work for both myself and a technician.

Overall, I think I will stay with AT&T, and might even upgrade to their fiber-optic/U-Verse package in the future. One of the good things that came out of this ordeal is I now have the direct toll-free phone number for DSL-line connectivity/strength issues.

Potential Terrorism in London

I read this post at Boing Boing and realized I am a part of these statistics.

I was in fact stopped by two officers of the Metropolitan Police in London back in February of 2008. I was walking around the British Museum waiting for a friend, and was asked to take off my jacket and open my backpack.

The officers were very nice, and we had some good conversation about where I was from, etc. It was a little distressing though, because I had literally gotten off the plane after a trans-atlantic flight, took the tube and walked a good 3 or 4 miles through London to get to the British Museum and I was pretty tired.

Fortunately I am not a terrorist, and I was able to go on my merry way.

How I Met Your Mother - S04E22

SPOILER ALERT - The following blog post contains a SPOILER.

If you had a chance to watch How I Met Your Mother on CBS last night you might be wondering some of the same things I am.

When Ted left the apartment and grabbed for his yellow umbrella I thought this might be the episode where he meets his wife. I was a little surprised/disappointed when the woman who they showed at the end was Stella.

I am pretty sure that Stella is not the "Mother" they have showed what the kids would have looked like if Stella was the mother, and they were both blonde and obviously not the same kids we see every week on the couch. As well, I'm sure Stella would have seen Ted's yellow umbrella and noticed it as her umbrella when she spent all the time at his place that she did.

My guess is that Stella will simply be acting as an intermediary to introduce Ted to his future wife.

If you watch HIMYM regularly, or just want to weigh in, what do you think?

Bike To Work Day

As I was driving home today from work on CA-41 I saw one of the big light boards had a message flashing. I could tell it wasn't an amber alert, so I was at least glad about that. As I got closer though, I saw it said "Bike to Work Day" and then "Share the Road". I thought, that's pretty awesome. They are advertising bike to work day on the freeways, maybe some people will be more inclined to bike to work today.

I then thought, "wait... it's bike to work day today? How come I didn't hear about this sooner?" Then I thought, "what are they doing advertising that today on the freeway, during the afternoon rush hour? Isn't it a bit late to convince people to ride their bikes to work when they are already on their way home?"

Turns out that Bike to Work Day does not happen until next week on Friday. Would it be too much to ask for a date or at least a website to find out when the day is exactly?

Chipotle Mexican Grill

I have discovered over the last year or so that I have a new favorite (fast food) restaurant. Chipotle Mexican Grill is delicious and I find that I love it more and more every time I eat it. It makes it even sweeter that we have 2 Chipotles here in Fresno (area) now with the addition of the Sierra Vista Mall Chipotle in Clovis.

Here is my normal order, which of course I do not limit myself to, but enjoy this on a regular basis.

Chicken burrito with black beans, medium corn salsa, cheese, sour cream, lettuce.

The reason I get this normally is because I love it so much, not because I'm afraid to try other things or thing the other things won't be good, but because I'd be missing out on that.

As a note, Chipotle recently changed their logo/branding (Via Brand New)

Low Carbon Fuel Standard

You may have heard of California's recent move to a "Low Carbon Fuel Standard".

If you want to find out a bit about the effects this may have on the state, check out this post from the California High Speed Rail Blog.

While this is a perspective from the mass/public transit side of the debate, I think it still has a lot of merit. We saw a big increase in public transit use here in California after the last rise in the price of gasoline. This move by the government of California seems to be a focused and concerted effort to help reduce our dependence on oil.

I do hope mass/public transit becomes more popular here in California, and especially in Fresno. If this LCFS is the answer then so be it.