Crappy coverage of the Tour de France brought to you by OLN

This Blog is turning into a place for me to complain! I have waited with great excitement for the 2005 Tour de France. Lance is going for win number 7, and I think he can pull it off. So starting at 7:00 this morning I started watching the pre-tour coverage. This was all fine other than the commentator Bob Roll, who even raced the tour four times in a previous life, yet he still sounds like a total hick redneck every time he says, "Tour DEY FrAAnce." Total jackass! So for starters I thought I would go to OLN's web site and check out the pre-ride hoopla. The web site is down....Still is. So finally around 9:30 the actual racing begins, and so does the "digital noise" and dropped signal. During the pre-race show OLN kept touting how they had even launched a new satellite to better cover the tour. So as the race progresses the dropped audio, video and digital noise continues to get worse. The excitement factor was great, but I was so frustrated I was sreaming at the TV. You could tell that it was on OLN's side because the comercials were just fine. By the time Lance got started the signal was bad more than it was good. I missed watching Lance's passing of Ullrich (got part of the replay though), and just as he is coming to the finish line the screen goes blank and the audio gone. 30 seconds later it comes back, still dropping in and out. I couldn't find out if he pulled it off! At the last time split he had 3 seconds on Dave Zabriskie and was in 1st place. It wasn't until almost 10 minutes after it was all done that the offical tour website was updated to show he finished 2 seconds behind Dave Zabriskie. It was bitter sweet for me. Dave Zabriskie races for Team CSC, and wasn't expected to be a contender. He aslo happens to be from my home town of Salt Lake City, Utah...Cool to see a local boy do well. His teammate Ivan Basso, and T-Mobile big boy Jan Ullrich were expected to do well and are well over 1 minute behind the pace! Lance is looking strong and I think is going to put on a great show this year. Go Lance! Wear Yellow!

Sad Day...

Today was going mostly well, same as most...more work than I think I can ever get done. I saw one of my co-workers (and mountain bike buddy) go into our bosses office and I knew it couldn't be good. I didn't get a chance to go ask him if all was well or have a chance encounter to see what was up. Well about an hour ago I was reading Chris's blog (See "my links") and noticed he commented about another key Engineer leaving the company. I put 2+2 together and imediately went to see if it was true. It is. I'm not sure how to react. I am saddend, that I know. We work at such a cool place, and I have already made the decision to stay. It is hard to see another friend leave, I think almost harder when it is of their own choice. I do know what it is like to try to make the decision to stay or go and it isn't an easy one. I don't want to make it any harder on him than I am sure it already is. The selfish part of me wants to go scream and yell and try to convince him to stay. I only wish the best for him...

UPS Sucks

They really do! I received a response from their "customer service" people, and from what I can tell it was a blanket response to the millions of people they have Fu$ked. They have no service at all. A sincere apology does nothing to make it right. In the future I would like to suggest to all that do business with UPS to look elsewhere. When they get it right everything is fine, but when they screw up they aren't willing to do anything to make it right, use FedEx instead. They have gone out of the way to make things right, and for me they did it before I even knew something was wrong. I had a package that was mislabeled-lost. It was shipped from California on a Thursday, and scheduled to be delivered on the following Tuesday. Apparently somewhere between Cali and SLC someone noticed the problem with the label and upgraded the shipping. On Sunday morning I heard a knock, and it was the FedEx man delivering my package two days before I expected it. He indicated that they found a problem with my label and they were concerned it would be lost and so they upgraded my shipping and got me my package early. That is customer service.

I HATE UPS!

So I place an order for two new derailleur hangers for my lovely bike from Ellsworth bikes on June 19th. Normally UPS from California takes at the most 4 days, usually 2-3. I assume that I would have it by Thurdsy-Friday at the latest. I love to track packages. I don't know why, but I find it facinating to watch the progress as my packages move about the country. On Thursday UPS shows that my package is in SLC and "out for delivery". I get home Thursday night expecting to see my package on the doorstep, but it isn't there. Friday comes and the same thing, "out for delivery" but no package...ARG, that means Monday at the soonest. So Monday arrives, and again "out for delivery", no package. Monday night I pull up the tracker and it shows my package has been rescheduled for delivery on July 5th and that my package ARRIVED IN NEW JERSEY! How the hell does a package go from being "out for delivery" in SLC to NEW JERSEY! 15 days to deliver a package from California is unacceptable. I needed this package last week, not a week from next Wednesday! I am really PISSED. So I sent UPS customer service an email indicating that they needed to fix this and make it right. I know they have heard this before, but if they don't fix this I will go out of my way to ensure that nothing I ever ship or recieve ever again will get shipped UPS.