The Unreasonable Man

Ok, picture this for fun.

• Sunoco gas, Third Line and Speers Road, Oakville.
• Pump billing software.
• A stupid (and if I am right about the nature, predictable) bug in that software.
• An unreasonable gas station owner.

But those three together and this is what you get.

1. I pay $100 for gas (yes - a full $100 and the pump maxes out there, before I am actually full)
2. I indicate “add a car wash” ($8)
3. The system now has to fit $108 into a “under $100″ rule. I suspect that it cannot do this (this has never been needed before: all gas plus wash has easily fitted in less than $100 before). BUG!!
4. In any case: American Express charges my card $100.
5. The system says I have paid. But (presumably due to the bug) the pump prints the wrong receipt entirely for me. Non-existent time, wrong wash, wrong amount, wrong card, wrong number.
6. The attendant inside says “you did not pay. Pay again please”.
7. Amex says “yes, you have been charged $100″.
8. I refuse to pay twice for the same gas.
9. The attendant and his manager say “if you leave, we will call the police and have you charged with a drive-off”.
10. Amex reconfirm that I have been charged $100.
11. Amex give the attendant a manual authorisation code.
12. The attendant does not know what that is.
13. GOTO 6.

The 6-13 loop repeats for 35 minutes as I get more and more annoyed and my blood pressure is 250/130.

In the end, a solution. I get American Express to reverse the charge, and I then repay.

The attendant gave me a free car wash, but his manager shouting at me over the phoneand threatening me with the police means I will never visit this Sunoco again. Stay clear, everyone. They may know you (these guys know me well - been going there 12 years with ever-more thirsty cars), but when their software is buggy, you get threatened with the cops. This shows what they think of customers.

Sunoco, Third line and Speers Road, Oakville. AVOID. Probably best to avoid Sunoco altogether.

Shell, here I come.

The other night, my son went to his high school prom. Of course I was there when they left, to take pictures. At three locations. A few pics of my son and his friends here [link].

This was an interesting photographic exercise. Not nice circumstances: bright sunlight and no assistant to hold a reflector for shade. So, one powerful flash as fill. Tv, 1/200 or as needed, FEC -2 or as needed (actually between -2 and +1). Location one so-so. Location two was great (picture 59 shows the location I would have chosen for all: great background, backlight as hairlight, no squinting into the sun), but there was little time at this location. Location three, not so great again, more harsh light and unfriendly backgrounds. To do it properly I would have set up in that one location nr 2, used an umbrella or two, had an assistant to herd cats, and especially, scoped out the locations in advance.

other Still, on the whole this was acceptable work and much better than what any of the parents did, I suspect.

…then this is the flyer I would do. I did this last night in Pages on the MacBook Air, just to see its page layout capabilities. And I am impressed. It takes almost no effort (and only an hour or so) to churn out something like this double-sided folded flyer:

I am an ATCK: an Adult Third Culture Kid - an “adult TCK”.

I am reading “Third Culture Kids”, a book lent me by a childhood friend from Montreal. This friend I met when we were both in the UK at age 16: she from Quebec and Mauritania; I from the Netherlands. Both of us, and most of the friends we made at school, were displaced, were always moving, were growing up not belonging, between cultures.

Much as I dislike jargon, this book is a bit of an epiphany. I have rather a lot of those in middle age, and this is a big one. My always moving; my not belonging anywhere; my seeing things from all angles; my migratory wanting to move on and be in every culture: my looking in from the outside: typical ATCK behaviour.

Not that this is pathology: my identity is shaped by my experiences and that’s what makes me what I am. Like everyone else, except my experiences are not usual. I have been lucky - that’s how I see it: sunsets in the Arabian desert, landings at Kai Tak airport, Ayer’s Rock, Kurdish dinners by the Tigris, Italy with the Italians, punk culture in 1970s UK: nomadic but rewarding experiences that few others can hope to share. Life is an adventure and I have had my share.

I have always felt that I am part of a small tribe of globetrotters with similar experiences. Now I know.

At McGill. No Pince-nez allowed?

My son Jason needs to choose within 24 hours. McGill university or Waterloo?

I drove him to McGill to take a look.

I say McGill. What say you all? This is for Electrical Engineering.

Seeing McGill (and Montreal - love Montreal) was an experience - and it took me back almost 30 years.

One issue only with the 1D MkIII: color balance is inconsistent. Look here [link], at a rapid fire burst I shot in the classroom the other day. AWB, auto focus, continuous shutter. It does this on single shutter too: unpredictable AWB.

The 5D as well as XTi are fine in this regard. so it’s not expected behaviour. Since I only shoot RAW it is not that big a deal, but when I shoot JPG for others, this is very important.

Weekend teaching continues. A student in today’s class:

Photo details: Digital Rebel XTi; 50mm f/1.8 prime lens; 580EX II flash bounced off the wall; Program mode; f/2.8, 1/60th sec; 100 ISO.

Yes, Program mode, even though I would normally never use this.

Bought a new Blackberry - the Curve 8320, with WiFi.

Alas, it does not work. I have two DLink access point, one open and one with WEP, but on both I get “Security Information does not match”. And this is on access points that work fine with PCs, Macs, the iPod Touch, etc - so it is definitely the Blackberry. Not good for Blackberry. I am thinking of returning it tomorrow: life is too short. And all other devices connect. But will give it some more time.

Ah, and the last time it worked, oddly. But only after a few minutes of doing the very same thing I had done before. And only on one of two APs. Odd. And less solid than the iPod touch.