A Small Something

Hey, Sarah just called me to tell me she won second place in her school in the science fair! Her project was on how sleep affects violin performance. She kept track over ten days of how much sleep she got at night and then how many mistakes she made the next day playing Hayden Concerto Movement 2. Her hypothosis was that she would make more mistakes if she got fewer than six hours sleep at night than she would if she slept six hours or more. She proved her hypothosis and put together a nice looking poster.

Whoo hoo! Smart girl!

She’s playing that Hayden piece at a violin festival at BYU this coming Saturday. And she now goes to a regional science fair at BYU later in March.

Did you know that back in the early 1900’s there was a network of sugar beet processing plants in Utah County that included beet juice pipelines from satellite plants to the central plant in Lehi where the sugar was made? That’s just one of the things I would have probably never learned if not for geocaching.

Rachel and I went to several geocaches yesterday, including one in Spanish Fork near an old sugar beet plant built in 1901, I think, that featured a 20 mile pipeline to carry its juice to the Lehi plant where it was refined.

We also went to another historical Spanish Fork cache near the location where two Franciscan Friars named Silvestre Valez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio de Dominguez camped in September 1776 while looking for a direct route from Santa Fe, NM to Monterey, CA.

Even if I hadn’t learned anything, it’s still a nice excuse to get outside and feel the sunshine.

Qwest, the local telephone provider, is not known for their good customer service. That’s why it was so shocking when I called a couple of days ago to ask them to remove long distance service from my line (I use my cell phone for that) and I actually got good service. Not only did Stephen understand why I wanted to remove long distance from my account, but he went out of his way to find other ways for me to save money. He asked if the only reason I had a phone line was so I could get DSL, because he could convert the phone line to a data only line if I wanted. That would save me an additional $25 or so each month. After thinking about it I realized I could probably just use my cell phone for everything and still not go over my monthly minutes, so I did have him convert it to data only.

Now get this…he then gave me his full name and his email address and told me that if I have any problems in the future I can contact him directly. Whoa. Good job Qwest.

I’m glad they’re seeing the light and realizing that helping customers do what is right for them is the best way to keep customers, even if it means less per-month from those customers. I’m more likely to want to keep DSL through Qwest now, even if other broadband alternatives were to come along (iProvo?).

People are good. Well, most of them. Here is an example.

On Sunday, Rachel and I went geocaching. I took my cell phone. After we got back home I couldn’t find my cell phone anymore. I wish I could say that this was the first time I have lost my cell phone, but it is quite common for me. Part of the problem is that the belt clip I use releases sometimes too easily and the phone will fall off. I suspected that the phone fell off in my truck, or possibly somewhere outside when I was geocaching. But I hoped it would turn up as it always has before.

The next day I checked my truck and other places where I have lost it before. It wasn’t in any of those places. That night I called the customer service number to tell them I had lost it. They suspended my account until I could either find the phone or make the decision to cancel or buy another phone.

A few days went by. Then yesterday I got a phone call from a guy who asked if I had lost my cell phone. He’s a fellow geocacher, but I hadn’t met him before. He found the phone on Monday, soaking wet, next to one of the caches Rachel and I had visited. He took it home, took it out of the case, took out the battery, shook out the water, and set it next to the fan in the back of his computer to let it dry. Three days later it was dry and he was able to turn it on. He saw my custom welcome message when the phone turned on, asking anyone who found the phone to call me at work.

Very nice, huh? When we met at Arby’s to make the handoff, I offered to buy him lunch but he had another appointment. Maybe next time.

Thanks pokernut!

Several months ago I began to notice that a certain large green semi-truck was often parked across the street from my house. The driver of the truck, who must live in the neighborhood somewhere, continues to park there to this day when he’s not on the road. The truck itself don’t bother me much, so long as it sits there quietly. The problem is when he starts the engine at 6:00 AM and lets it idle to warm up, or when the refrigerated trailer kicks in to keep the load cool in the summer. The sound really carries right into the house and disturbs whoever is at home at the time.

I’ve never met the driver and don’t know where he lives, so I found a copy of the Provo city code to see what it said about trucks that large being parked in a residential neighborhood. The limit is two hours. There are also limits on the amount of noise that can be made. So, one day when the truck was parked there I called the police. They sent a parking enforcement guy out who marked the tires and then came back two hours later and wrote a ticket. I talked to the parking guy and he said he’d come by regularly and leave tickets as long as it took for the guy to stop parking there.

One night earlier this week, around ten o’clock, Rachel noticed the guy parking his truck there again. I called the police again and they didn’t have anyone doing parking enforcement, but said they’d send an officer to issue a citation. I don’t know what happened, because I went to bed. The next morning the engine and the revving woke me up.

This morning I put a cheap webcam that I already had onto the computer by the window and pointed it out to the street. Now I can check all day long what’s parked out there if I want. And I can make a photographic record. Ain’t technology grand? The photo below should be a live image of the street outside my house right now.

The quality is crappy, but it doesn’t need to be good for this purpose. So, if you see the truck there then I haven’t been successful yet. If it’s not there, I’m winning!

Note: (March 31, 2005) I was having problems with the webcam, so I turned it off, but the good news is NO MORE TRUCKS. At least for the last five weeks or so it’s been very peaceful.