Wednesday, December 8, 2010
The sore throat I started getting yesterday was a little worse this morning, so I called in sick. While checking Twitter this morning I came across a tweet from John B: "Watching the Falcon 9/Dragon launch countdown!" I didn't know what this was, but I searched in Google and within about 10 seconds and about 3 clicks I was watching the same thing—a spacecraft launch. Coincidentally when I loaded the webcast there was T-17 seconds for the launch, and I caught it just in time. Google's search results page automatically displayed live tweets of the event, and I was able to learn more about the project, also within a few seconds and a few clicks. It was exciting to watch the event live and observe the stage separations. Breakfast at home: egg and hash brown sandwich. Called Sports Basement and got my 5% off back. Implemented the image blink fix for LLGH. Applied my National Bike Registry sticker to my bike. Ebay seller vitocompanies2010 is uncommunicative, atypically so for ebay sellers, in my experience. I sent vitocompanies2010 a message with questions 4 days ago and have heard no response. vitocompanies2010 currently has a positive feedback score of 88.9% which is low compared to most sellers on ebay I see, so I won't be doing business with vitocompanies2010 even though it has items in which I'm interested. Late lunch: TJ's organic vegetarian chili (too spicy but I ate it anyway) with sesame blue corn tortilla chips. Left feedback for Gap Adventures: [There doesn't seem to be a way to provide feedback on the entire booking experience rather than specifically on this CEO, so I will provide that here. 1. Use "passengers" instead of "pax"—I didn't know what pax meant and it was confusing to me. 2. When I log into my account on the website I expect to be able to see the status and full details of any booking. It's very frustrating to place a booking or a hold on a booking and then not be able to see these details even when I have created an account. 3. The entire user experience for booking needs a lot of work. The website could do a lot better of a job stepping people through the many steps needed to be all set up for a trip. The website should show in 1 place the statuses of everything: flight options, insurance, additional accommodations, airport-to-hotel transfers, medical approvals for travel, etc. This keeps both you and me organized and informed. 4. Why must I print out vouchers? Why can't you be paperless in this regard? It seems silly in 2010 that my entire trip rests on my possession of a sheet of paper. Why can't you let me upload medical approvals to my account in your website? 5. The worst part of this experience for me was that the airfare needed to be purchased separately. I know you offer airfare options, but when I looked at fares through your site they were not competitive, so I purchased flights separately, but then my booking was placed on hold for about a week while my medical approval was processed, and I worried every day and night during this time that I'd be stuck with $2000 worth of flights and lose my Gap Adventures booking. It might be a nicer experience to tell people to get the medical approval taken care of first since it might take some time.] Dinner at home: vegetable noodle soup from a can with wheat thins, hot water. Caught up on failblog, read wins.failblog.org for the first time. Where did the time go? Late meal: organic mac and cheese with tuna from a can. Watched part of Infernal Affairs on Netflix DVD. Dessert: one tutti frutti Jelly Belly.