Bike rides with BB

BB and I went biking this weekend.  We  took a short ride Saturday and a longer ride Sunday out to Nine Acre Corner and stopped at Verrill Farm for some cold drinks.  Now that we're able to ride farther we should be able to bike to local destinations and back.  Here is a sort of video of this weekend's ride.

Afternoon in Wells, Me

One of the people BB works with has a home in Wells, Me.  She invited the office up for a party.  It's a 2 hour drive for us but was a lovely day and great time.  We walked out to the ocean and enjoyed the view.  Here are a couple of photos.

Messing around with Kdenlive

I've  been playing a bit with Kdenlive (nonlinear video editor).  My initial impressions were rather mixed since it had a tendency to crash.  However, once I discovered its preferred work flow it is actually fairly usable.  I took the flip video I made of our ride the other day and made a sort of stop motion video by speeding it up by a factor of 4 and sampling every 60th frame.



Clearly a home movie, but interesting none the less.

Bike ride with BB - Around the neighborhood

BB and I went for a nice bike ride around the neighborhood.  I tried the video camera mounted on top of my helmet.  Actually worked OK.  I took the following stills from the video.

Bike ride with BB - Wayside Inn loop

BB and I went for a bike ride.  About 11 miles in 70 minutes.  We tried a new route down to Wayside Inn and then back to the Assabet.  Nice route but traffic was a bit of an issue particularly with idiots that think it's OK to pass on blind curves and hills into oncoming traffic.  Still it was a nice day and we had a good ride.

Tried mounting the flip video camera on my helmet.  The video seems much more stable.  Unfortunately, I didn't have it reasonably pointed so the video was mostly pavement.  I'll adjust the mount and we'll see what happens.

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Here's the route.

Phone madness

We lost phone service (Verizon) during Irene Saturday August 27th.  It's now 11 days on and still no phone service.  I've tried to work with Verizon but it's been an unbelievably bad experience.

• 8/27 tried to call Verizon - all circuits busy
• 8/27 tried again to call Verizon - all circuits busy
• 8/27 tried for third time to call Verizon - all circuits busy
• 9/1 Comcast back - tried 6 different Telephone numbers from Verizon phone book and Verizon web site.  Five had message "this number is not in service."  One had message "this mailbox is full."
• 9/5 called 1-800 VERIZON.  After IVR was connected to a non-working number.
• 9/5 called 1-800 VERIZON.  Spoke with repair service.  They said service would return by 8 PM.  Asked for credit.  Was told could only be issued from date service outage was reported!  Tried to reason with agent.  Didn't work.  Got routed to customer billing.  30 minutes later hung up.
• 9/6 called 1-800 VERIZON.  After IVR was connected to a non-working number.
• 9/6 called 1-800 VERIZON.  After IVR connected to billing.  System hung up.
• 9/6 called 1-800 VERIZON.  After IVR connected to billing.  System hung up.
• 9/6 called 1-800 VERIZON - all circuits busy
• 9/6 called 1-800 VERIZON - all circuits busy
• 9/6 called 1-800 VERIZON - all circuits busy
• 9/6 called 1-800 VERIZON - all circuits busy
  Addenda
• 9/6 phone service restored at 4 PM.  Message from Verizon says problem fixed last Sunday around 10 AM.  As of this AM I had no dial tone.  Given choice to speak to representative.  Dragged through IVR knothole and placed on hold at 4:06.  Decided to wait on hold with speaker phone to deal with bill.
  
  Got connected to agent at 4:35.  Adjusted bill ($90 in credits).  Explained my experience and cautioned that I and our neighbors were re-evaluating doing business with Verizon.

Have decided to switch phone companies.  Will try to work with Comcast, though it pains me greatly.  Sadly, trying to call Comcast has been a bit of a challenge.  Six attempts with NO success.  Get message "We are unable to process your call at this time."

I've decided to call the security company and see if they can work with with a cell connection.

Bike ride with BB - Great Meadows Reserve

BB and I rode down to the Great Meadow National Wildlife Reserve on the Sudbury River.  It was a great day and a good ride.  Here are some photos and a vid.



Video

Bike Ride With BB

BB and I went on a bike ride a week ago and I took a video using the new Flip camera.  I was delayed in posting it as the video was long, the entire ride, and I needed to learn how to edit in Ubuntu Kdenlive.  I've managed to get something together after a number of false starts.  Here's the results.

Irene - We have electricity and HOT SHOWERS

Irene is now almost truly gone - electricity came back on Wednesday around 11 PM.  Took a few minutes  to shut down the generator and connect things to NSTAR power.  Surprisingly, hot water came up in around 30 minutes so I enjoyed a nice long hot shower.  Life is good.

Plan for the day is to finish the storm cleanup and start washing the decks so they can be stained.

Addenda: Still no phone service.  Tried to call Verizon on cell.  Got several "not in service" and "all line busy" numbers.  This raises SERIOUS issues concerning leaving Comcast internet.  Finally got through to an automated system that said Friday by 11 PM.  My guess is that it's a local CO power issue as that's consistent with power to the rest of Sudbury.