Category Archives: General Stuff

So last Thursday, some knucklehead broke into my car and stole my stereo, my flight headset, and a few other small items. This post is about the process of replacing and/or repairing those losses, so you can consider it somewhat in the nature of a review.

The car was in the “secure” [sic] parking area at my apartment complex. However, it’s fairly easy to get into the parking area, so generally I lock the car. I left the driver’s rear window open about 2″, and that was apparently sufficient for the thief to get in. Another nearby car was burgled by the expedient of a brick thrown through the window (the owner had left spare keys in the ashtray so he lost the whole car!), so I suppose it’s a good thing that I’d left the window open.

I immediately called the Mountain View police non-emergency number; they told me to file a report online, which I did. That part of the process was painless and quick; the CopLogic system that MVPD uses worked well.

Next stop: insurance company. I use USAA for car insurance, and their online claim system worked just as well as CopLogic. I was able to file the claim in less than 10 minutes and got a call back from an adjuster about two hours later. She explained that in California, only items that are powered by the vehicle (or could be) are covered by auto insurance. Your GPS? Covered. Your laptop? Covered. Stereo? Covered. Headset? Nope. She punched a few buttons and told me that I’d be hearing from a company called Premier Services, and that I could get the dash repaired anywhere I liked but, OBTW, there was a USAA-approved shop right up the road in Palo Alto.

Sure enough, I got a call from Premier about an hour later. When I bought this car in December of 2009, I removed the factory stereo and replaced it with a Pioneer AVIC U310BT, the lowest-end Pioneer that had navigation and an iPod/iPhone input. It cost me about $400, plus cables and adapters and so on. I installed it myself, so my total cost including cables, etc., was probably about $550 or so. Pioneer discontinued that model, so the replacement cost they’re offering is substantially more, meaning I can buy something a little nicer. Off to Crutchfield I went, where I ordered a JVC KW-NT500HDT receiver. I’ve been buying from Crutchfield for nearly 20 years and have never had anything less than a great experience with them, so their recommendation of this particular deck carried a lot of weight. The Pioneer unit I had was slow and buggy, and Pioneer’s customer support is terrible, so I wasn’t about to buy another one.

I’m not sure why the thief took my headset, given that it’s only useful for flying in planes– maybe he thought it was a cool set of DJ headphones or something. The headset in question was a Pilot USA PA-1771T Liberty that I bought from Pilot USA as a refurb last year. It isn’t the most comfortable or fanciest headset, but it did a good enough job of providing active noise reduction (ANR) and was reasonably comfortable. I’d planned to treat myself to a newer, nicer ANR headset after I got my actual license, thinking that I’d consign the Liberty to passenger use. Rather than lay out the big bucks for a Bose or Lightspeed, though, I remembered how happy I’ve been with passive noise blocking for music on commercial airplanes, and I decided to try an in-ear headset instead. At first I was leaning towards the Clarity Aloft, but a little research at Aviation Consumer led me towards the Quiet Technologies Halo, which is nearly $200 cheaper than the Clarity. I promptly ordered one, asking on the order form whether it could be shipped faster. Sure enough, about two hours later I got a phone call from Quiet Tech offering me better shipping and a discount because the owner felt sorry for me. Wow.

Next came the body shop. USAA pointed me at Mathews Carlsen in Palo Alto, although they took pains to emphasize that I could use any body shop I liked. I drove to Mathews Carlsen Friday morning and walked out again in 10 minutes, estimate in hand.

Saturday I had planned to install the stereo myself, but I decided against it– I didn’t know what the thieves might have broken or otherwise jacked up when they pulled the old unit and I wasn’t at all interested in spending my time finding out. Luckily I found Custom Audio, which is about a mile from my apartment. I was there about 10 minutes after they opened on Saturday, and about three hours later I had a flawlessly-working stereo.

Over the weekend, I found out that the thieves also snagged my Contour HD camera, and that they’d managed to break the remote trunk release. A quick Monday call to USAA elicited the information that they needed a purchase receipt for the camera and an updated police report. MVPD makes it possible to edit police reports online, so I did, then uploaded the PDF of the report and the camera receipt to USAA’s web site. By Thursday, I’d received a payment from them for all of my expenses (exclusive of my deductible.)

Sadly, I haven’t had a chance to try my new headset yet; it hadn’t arrived by the time of my planned cross-country, but I’ll be testing it tomorrow night.

There are still a few things left to fix; Mathews Carlsen hasn’t gotten the replacement dash parts yet, so the dash isn’t back together, and I still need to get the remote trunk release fixed. However, I am delighted with how easy USAA made it to file and handle a claim, as well as with the speed of their payment. Crutchfield came through, as always, and I am happy with the job that Custom Audio did for me as well. All things considered, this was about as hassle-free an episode as you can reasonably expect.

(Side note: my apartment complex management company is now putting surveillance cameras in the parking area. Yay!)

Saturday I worked a bunch, then went for my first solo flight here in the Bay Area (flight journal here). Saturday night I went to the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix. Sunday I went to the Maker Faire and then took a flight on a B-17.. now I feel like I need a nap.

So, let’s start with the fight. Strikeforce is the little brother of the MMA world, trailing UFC in both attendance and influence. Many of its successful fighters have gone on to compete in UFC; not a few UFC fighters have stepped back down to Strikeforce, sort of like a baseball player might spend some time in the minors before returning to the show. We had great seats and got there about 10 minutes before the fights started– just long enough to grab an H-P Pavilion hot dog. (Note to self: skip the hot dog next time.)

floor seats: 13 rows back, not too shabby. Not shown: enormous overhead video screen.

There were a total of four fights scheduled. The first two were both over very quickly: one by knockout, one by submission. The third fight is when things started getting interesting; it pitted Josh Thomson against Gilbert Melendez. Both fighters are from the Bay Area, but the crowd was clearly favoring Melendez. However, a funny thing happened as the fight progressed: Thomson seemed to be winning. He was connecting with Melendez better, to the point where Melendez’s face was showing a lot of wear and tear. Melendez was also clearly not in the same physical condition as Thomson. However, at the end of the fight, the judges gave a 2-1 split decision to Melendez– and I say “gave” because that’s sure what it looked like. Booing ensued. In a classy move, though, when Thomson was interviewed ringside the first thing he said was basically “don’t boo Gilbert; it was a good fight and he’s a good fighter.” Very classy. (See the official summary here.)

The main event was Josh Barnett, a former professional wrestler,  versus Daniel Cormier, a former Olympian. As soon as I saw that Cormier is from Lafayette, I knew who to root for. The fight started fairly slowly. Both of the fighters were above their ideal fighting weight by at least 20 lbs; there was a lot of flailing and bouncing flab but about the middle of the second round, Cormier started landing more punches. His advantage increased to the point that by the end of the fourth round he was clearly trying not to lose, no longer pressing to put Barnett out (though Barnett very nearly got him in a leg lock.) Cormier won a unanimous decision, as he should have; he clearly outfought and outpointed Barnett. (See official summary here.)

 Now, about the Maker Faire: I guess the most appropriate adjective I can think of is “overstimulating.” Fire! Robots! Microcontrollers! Arts and crafts! Lots of people! I saw some very cool stuff; I also saw some things that made me think “well, all right, I guess some people are into that sort of thing.” I’m not particular artsy or creative so much of the artsy-creative stuff was wasted on me. However, I did take pictures of some excellent apparatuses of various kinds, to wit:

clearly a case of truth in labeling: this guy is obviously a giant cardboard robot

this little girl ran right up to R2-D2 and gave him (it?) a huge hug, after which he started beeping and rolling around

 these are actually electric vehicles, but oh, so delicious…

I couldn’t get close enough to get a picture of the LEGO Kermit the Frog holding a banjo that was off to the left, which is a real pity

if I had a garden, I would have bought several of these guys. Maybe next year.

realistic-looking replica weapons from Halo

a Dalek you can ride in

a bike you could ride, maybe

Ah, Bo… you’re sounding like a grumpy old man:

I see a post nearly every day, usually in the morning, on Facebook or Twitter lamenting that the poster can’t get to sleep.

The poster, who is sitting upright, performing a task with his/her hands requiring considerable dexterity, and staring at a brightly lit and colorful screen can’t get to sleep.

Go figure.

See, here’s the thing: smartphones. It’s perfectly feasible to dash off a quick tweet, text, or Facebook status update in the middle of the night while remaining horizontal, and perhaps even using only one hand. Hell, you can even dim your phone’s screen before you go to bed so that it doesn’t blast you in the face like Ivy Mike.

Personally, I will often read and respond to texts, check Twitter, and occasionally even check in on Facebook or read e-mail when I can’t sleep. It doesn’t hurt, and sometimes it helps pass the time.

You don’t even have to be all the way awake, any more than you have to be completely sober (so I’m told.)

As for the quality of these communications, in both syntax and content: well, that’s another matter. If you get a garbled text from me, and it’s late at night where I am, that’s probably why.

Bonus image from Hyperbole and a Half.