Category: Opinion

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Tuft and Needle–Mattress Review

First, I’m not a mattress expert or a traditionally trained sleep specialist.  Although if sleeping were an Olympic sport, I could probably pretty easily make it into the regionals.

I know how to sleep.

We recently ordered a Tuft and Needle Foam Mattress after reading a review on Bestmattress-brand.org and when I posted that via Facebook folks said they wanted to know what if we liked it.

So here goes.

A good mattress should last between 8 and 10 years.  According to the Internet.  Just google it and that’s the answer you’ll find so I’m using that.

We’ve had multiple mattresses during what’s so far is a 26 year marriage.   Admittedly in the beginning we had cheap ones.  We had a water bed when we first got married (Don’t judge me, it was the 80’s).  Then a cheap King mattress set, and at one point we got a new foam mattress from the in-laws who didn’t like it or found it to soft or something.  I can’t remember the details.

But what I do know and can easily recall is our last mattress.     We decided it was time we had a ‘good mattress’ and we bought that in 2008 from the Original Mattress Factory.    They are, or were highly recommended in our area.  At the time we purchased a Orthopedic Luxury Firm Mattress.

Continue reading “Tuft and Needle–Mattress Review”

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We SOLD our 2003 Pontiac Minivan

We bought it used in 2010 with 117k miles, it now has 192k miles.

Why is that news you might ask?  Well it’s not.

Anyone who knows us, knows how much we loved it.   And by loved it, I mean hated it.   It wasn’t a horrible van.  I mean, it drove OK.  It mostly worked.  It got Claudine to Florida every winter.  But we spent $5k on it in 2010 which at the time we thought that was a fair price.  In the 4 years we’ve owned it we’ve probably spent another $4k just keeping it on the road.   Yeah it’s a 10 year old vehicle and stuff will wear out.  But we replaced stuff that honestly shouldn’t have been needed.  I’m not talking about brakes, and shocks.  After a bunch of miles and years you’re going to have to replace those things.

But all of that said.  Having shopped for cars for Molly and driven a bunch of JUNK, I was really surprised we had to give it away.   KBB put the value of that thing in ‘good’ condition to be between $3900 and $4200.   It was completely loaded, never been wrecked, and the interior, while dirty was in awesome shape.  Most everything still worked, except the dash lights around the speedo and the heated seats.

While shopping for Molly we drove a 2003 Mazda Tribute (aka Ford Escape) with 250,000 miles.   It was like new.  Obviously well taken care of and garaged.  Someone clearly drove this a long way every day on the highway but it drove great.  Was it worth $5000?   I don’t think so but that’s what they sold it for.

We also drove a bunch of overpriced junk.  The whole Cash for Clunkers thing still has used cars all screwed up.   We originally advertised the van for $3000.    While I thought that was kind of high, I figured we’d take $2700 if offered.   Comparable vans on Craigslist seemed to be priced around the same.  But at $3k we had no offers, calls or emails for a week.  So I started lowering it $100 a day.  First $2900 for two days, then $2800, then $2700.   Still not a lot of action.  I had a couple of calls but honestly talked them out of it.  It wasn’t the van for them.  You do NOT want this for a cab service, no-way-no how.

And then it happened.   We realized we need to get rid of it.  See when you buy a new car you have coverage on it and your old car for 30 days under most policies.  Our 30 days was coming up so we had to get rid of it or write a new insurance policy for it.   More out-go that we didn’t need or want.

So I advertised it for $2000.00 CASH this weekend ONLY.   (last weekend).

Then the calls started coming.  A little old lady visiting her sister in Dayton wanted to buy it and drive it home to Florida.  She was a little miffed that I wouldn’t take a check.  No ma’am, sorry cash only. “But the banks won’t be open Saturday”.  Sure they are, till about noon, just go cash a check and you’ll be good to go.   She was kind enough to leave me a voice mail that it wasn’t going to work out.

Then another couple called… 

They wanted it but only had $1300.00, said they’d write me a check for the difference if I held that for 30 days.  What?   No.   Then offered up laptops and kids tablets and all kinds of crap in trade that you surely shouldn’t have if you don’t have a car.  But we didn’t need nor want any of that.  Then actually tried to put the pressure on me, saying there was one closer to them (They were in Indiana) that they were gong to buy instead.  Pfft, fine.  Go do that.    I mean we felt for them, and Claudine and I talked about what we’d take in an effort to help someone else ‘get a leg up’ on life.

I explained to them, for them, we’d take $1500 cash.   Not a penny less.  If they wanted it, sell some of their gadgets/laptops, etc and scrape up $200 more dollars.   I was told it would take them ‘time’ to get to $1500.   We told them if it was still here when they did, it was theirs.

Then the folks who finally bought it.   Were mostly local.  They met me, test drove it, and decided they wanted it on Sunday afternoon.   But…   They didn’t have the money either.   They could bring me $500 cash on Tuesday to hold it until Thursday when they got paid.  I was a tad irritated but said OK.   On Tuesday they brought me a friggin check.

“Sorry, we didn’t have time to go to the bank”.   I was aggravated, but they needed it and I wanted rid of it, so I said, “OK but look, $2000 cash on Thursday, cash as in dead green presidents, or I’m relisting it.   I’m not going to mess with your check, just bring me cash.

We set a time for Thursday at 3pm.   Which of course changed to 4:30. but they did come, pay cash and took the van.   They were happy to have it, and needed it.

It was clear to me that this family was broke, and living pay-check to pay-check.   We’ve been there, and it sucks.  We’ve probably given out a dozen of Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Make Over books over the years.   It really changed our life.   On Monday I ordered another 10 planning to give one to this family but they didn’t come in time.   

Using the address that was on the check they tried to give us, I attempted to deliver the book yesterday.   Wholly moly.   That house is empty, as in foreclosed on, and for sale empty, as in they don’t live there and haven’t for a while.   I suspect the check likely would have bounced, maybe not but this didn’t look good, at all.   Yep they needed this book, but now I have no way to get it to them.

So if you are they, and you happen to read this.   Send me an email, and I’ll give you a copy of the book.

Selling cars sucks.  Shopping for cars can suck.   Saving your money and having cash to buy things doesn’t suck.

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Dropcam Pro, more cam, less drop.

Earlier in the year, I picked up a couple Dropcams.  The purpose was to set them up at the office so that we can get a look at what’s going on there.   Mostly to make sure the grounds crew was taking care of their end of the bargain.

I wrote about it here: Dropcam, the perfect name.

In that blog post I was very critical of the product.   We couldn’t keep them connected to our enterprise wireless network no matter what we tried.   In fact we jumped through hoops to do so with no support from Dropcam.  It was their lack of decent tech support that forced me to pan the product, and the company and send them back.   (Amazon return policy for the win).

Recently I got an email about the new Dropcam Pro.

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Initially I had flashbacks to the crappy support.  But thought, maybe, just maybe they’ve fixed them.  So I ordered up a pair.  What they heck right?  Amazon will take them back if they suck, and dollar for dollar, feature for feature they do seem to have something going for them.

The Dropcam Pro features the following upgrades:

  • 130 degree field of view vs. 107
  • 8x zoom vs 4x (although zoom is misleading since it’s a digital zoom, or like a crop and expand).
  • Excellent low light vision vs. ‘Good’ what ever that means.   I love it when a company uses general words to describe things instead of actual numbers.  Would be nice to know the actual LUX sensitivity.
  • Superior Audio Quality vs. ‘Solid’ audio quality.  Again, no real data.    It’s like saying “My dad can beat up your dad”.

Absolutely no mention of any wireless or stability improvements.  None.

So really what makes all this work is this cloud based DVR solution they offer, and of course ‘take additional money for’.   Out of the box you get a camera, that’s pretty straight forward to configure using a web driven wizard with the camera plugged into your computer.   Once you’ve given I the details on how to connect to your wireless network, you unplug it, set it up and give it power.

It then boots up, joins the wireless network and starts streaming your video into the cloud to their cloud.  Where they will allow you one of three options:

  • No DVR, you just get a live view of what ever your camera sees.
  • For the bargain price of $9.99 a month or $99 per year, they will save 7 days of video for you to rewind and replay.
  • For $29.95 a month/$299 a year, you get 30 days worth of your video saved in their cloud to review.

There are other bonuses like motion alerts and what not.   But that’s the gist of it.  You bought a camera that you can only view through their website/portal, and/or can pay them for DVR services. 

There is no ‘bring your own DVR model’ or a way to store video captured locally.   Not that I’ve found yet, with a precursory look on the web.   I’m sure it can be done, but that’s not their business model.  I wouldn’t hold your breath.  They will likely never offer this, hopefully some thoughtful hackers will in the future.

In all honesty, their base free offering is all we really need for what we’re using it for.   Again, that’s mostly to ensure the grounds crew does their job and clears the parking lot during bad weather.

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So far, at the time of this writing it’s stayed connected to our network for 3 days.   One small blip but not anything I’d consider a fail at this point.   So they look like keepers.

Video is good, night vision is decent, though this is behind a window, though our parking lot is fairly well lit. 

So what about their tech support?    Here’s where I get to hit them with a hammer again.   Upon disconnecting the service last time I was told (neigh warned), that we’re gonna delete your account, if you ever buy a drop cam again you’ll have to re-register.  I was OK with that.

So upon setup, I tried to ‘register’.   I couldn’t, that name was in use.  I thought, OK, so they didn’t really delete me.   Let me recover my password.

Sorry, that email is in use.  What?

Sorry, that email and that username don’t match up.  

Those were the only two items you can use to recover, and I’m certain nobody else registered that username with my email.  Not possible, not even to guess.

So I opened a ticket.   “Hey, I’m trying to set up a drop cam, and it says my password is no good.  I tried to use your password reset form and it tells me that the username and password don’t go together.   You recognize my username on one page, and my email on another, but I can’t make this account “GO”.    What shall I do?

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The response?

Without reading and processing my request:  Go here and use the password reset form. 

Gee.  Thanks for that.   So while waiting, I just created another email alias, and registered a new username with that.   I was skeptical I’d get my two weeks free trial using that ‘recovered’ account anyway.

So if you’re in the market for a nice camera, that’s backed by a cloud ONLY storage solution.  One who’s tech support is sketchy at best.   I can highly recommend Dropcam.

If you’re not worried that the company will fail, and you’ll lose the ability to store (or potentially even view) video down the road, Dropcam is for you.

If any of this cloud monkey business scares you, as it probably should might. Companies die and go out of business all the time.   Then Dropcam might not be for you.  I really hope it’s still working 2 years from now.

For what it is, I give it one and a half thumbs up.   Which is significantly better than the previous experience.

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Racing and Bourbon, what a weekend.

So back in 2011, Christmas 2011 to be exact, Claudine bought me a 12 lap NASCAR racing Experience for Christmas.  The Shootout experience with Rusty Wallace Racing to be exact.

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We attempted to get that scheduled in in 2012 and at the last opportunity to do so we ran down to KY speedway, and, of course it got rained out.

So here we are this year.  On Thursday/Friday, the weather was NOT promising.   It was supposed to rain.   We had a back up plan though.   We were taking a ‘Weekend Away’, and Claudine picked The Bourbon Trail, as the destination.   Should we get rained out, no big deal we’d just be halfway to where we were going anyway.

As for the racing experience.   I give Rusty Wallace group “Two Thumbs Up”.   The one hour class was a bit ‘long’ but I get that they have to cover safety stuff with folks.   Some folks who apparently have trouble knowing right from left.   That would be super important to have down when your radio spotter needs to tell you “Left and Lift”.

OK, so this is the description of the package

“Our “Shootout” experience is so much more than any entry level experience. We will get you suited in our beautiful custom Rusty Wallace Racing Experience driver’s suit made by Oakley. You go through a 45 minute orientation with one of our Professional Instructors and then you drive for 12 laps of racing. You will start behind the pace car just like the pros, after a couple of warm up laps its “Green, Green, Green” as you’re turned lose for an incredible run where passing is allowed and encouraged.”

The last time, the time that was rained out, one of the guys convinced us to do a ride-along, do that before you drive, it’s important and will make your driving experience better.   We signed up for it, but didn’t get to do that.   This time I did do the ride along, and I do believe it was well worth the added $69 (race day special add-on price).

So in the safety class, they explain to to what’s really happening is it’s a “Live Hot Track”, constant running.   More like a NASCAR practice session.   The track itself is divided up, they are giving us ‘Noobs’ the bottom 2/3rds of the track from the yellow line to approximately 2 and 1/2 car lanes up the track.   The outer traffic line is reserved for the Ride-along/Pro drivers.   We don’t get to go up there.   I’m sure there’s be lots of wadded up cars if the did.     Anyway this line is marked on the track with Orange Squares.  You can’t miss them.   You are told to stay in that middle 1 and a half lanes as you run.   If you come up on someone, the spotter will move them to the inside lane so you can pass.  That was mostly true.  You were warned that if your spotter told you “Left and Lift”, you were about to be passed and needed to yield that spot and hit the inside lane and let them by.  (Don’t get passed you should not get passed.  2nd place is first loser).

There are also 3 sets of cones for each corner.   KY Speedway is a “Tri-Oval”, but it really only has 2 ‘turns’ if you will.   Each turn had ‘Lift Cones, cones where you should probably lift the throttle for optimum driving, followed by a cone to indicate where you’d want to apply some brake to settle the car, get the nose down to get some bite, and a set of cones as you exit that were your ‘apply throttle’ cones.

As we walked from the class I thanked the instructor, he asked if I was doing a ride along, I said “Yes”.   He said “Great”, ask for Scott, he’s the best, he’ll show you all the cones, point things out to you that will be important if you are driving.   And, he said “Watch his feet”, and left it at that.

Now we know going in, or at least you should know going in, that you don’t really get a full-on NASCAR race car, no you don’t get to do 12 laps in that for $499, or what ever the price is, I think we paid $249 on groupon.

No what you get is maybe the former Shell of a NASCAR car.  But given the way it will be driven it’s gotta be dumbed down.  (mine didn’t have a Tach for instance), which (a) you don’t need for this , and (b) would probably actually cause more issues than it would help.   at 150-160 MPH you don’t want any noob looking at a Tach, they need to be looking down the track.

The Ride-along though, appear to have the real deal, or at least one that’s only slightly modified (passenger seat), and maybe other things to make it a tad more reliable.

I brought a helmet, I brought a helmet last time, because I thought I read that I could, well you can’t, unless your helmet already has HANS device hookups, which mine of course did not.

So, the ride along went great, 2 laps in my line, two laps in the high line inches from the wall on the back stretch and tri-oval. 

Then it was my turn, I got the #10 Monster Energy Drink car.  You get the car that’s mostly likely to fit you.  It was fine.

First, it’s loud, really loud (as expected).  Their helmets are mediocre, but that’s not unexpected given the use that they see.   They give you speakers to shove up in the helmet so that you can hear your spotter.  This is important because you can’t see anything behind you, there are no mirrors.  None.  The HANS device severely limits your ability to turn your head, you won’t be checking any blind spots so you need to be able to hear.   The speakers are loud too, they have to be, and there is no volume control.

You get in the car and they strap you in, and go over a few safety items.   You’ll suddenly hear your spotter who will guide you to get going.   “Switches Up, start your car.  OK, pull out to the right, stay on the right side of pit lane, as soon as you exit and you’re on the access road begin accelerating.    There is a checkered line at the entrance to the track, that is your spot to blend into that middle line.  I’ll tell you if it’s safe to do so. ”

As you start going down pit road they will tell you to get it into 4th (high gear) as soon as possible.  There is no shifting at KY speedway.  You just GO.   

I got out there into the line, first 2-3 laps are a pretty overwhelming.  Stuff is happening fast at 130MPH.  It’s loud, it’s awful bumpy to be honest.  You are looking for cones, watching for traffic, watching for the orange square you’re not allowed to get above.   Oh you’re supposed to watch for flags too.  Yeah, not at first, you are 100% hyper focused on the car, and the track, at least I was.    You are focused on trying to be smooth, smooth is fast, cones, lift, brake, on the gas.   Then it hit me, I watch the ‘Ride-along driver’, I did look over at his feet, he never lifted.   By lap 3 I was fully throttle, banging off the rev limiter in the straights.

Did I mention it’s noisy?  When I hit the rev limiter, it’s not like the rev limiter on my bike, you are immediately down on power.   I’m sure I was down on power in the car too but it wasn’t immediately noticeable.  I was just too hyper focused on staying in my line.  By lap (4) my spotters in my ear “Hey man, when you hear that, back off a little bit”, and it was on.

He was moving guys, for me.  By lap 5 he worked me passed someone and reminded me that I’m not allowed to pass unless he gives me the go ahead.   Of course out of the next corner there was another car, going way to slow, in my lane.   I slowed, I slowed some more, I waited what seemed like an eternity for this guy to move, and for my spotter to tell me what to do.  It never came.  Was this a test?   Ah, well he moved down about 1/2 a lane, and I passed him anyway.   I had lost count of laps at this point, and I honestly couldn’t remember if I had 8, 10 or 12, but I knew I was at least 6 into it, if they kicked me out or black flagged me, well, I’d had my fun.

The next time around on the back stretch the spotter came on, I need you to pit next time by, start slowing down.   We want to check your tires.     Then a few seconds later “You really should start slowing down, we’re under caution”.   I looked at the fence and indeed the caution lights were on.  How long had they been on?  How long before I noticed?  I figured I was about to get a talking too.   As I came down pit road he told me to pull up along side the 48 and shut it down while they check the track for debris.   He said if I wanted a water to signal for it and they’d bring me one.  

I pulled up, shut it down and waited.    A guy walked up and told me they were checking the track and they’d have me back out to finish in a few.   No talking too, no lecture.  This was good.    It was a nice morning mid 70 degrees but it was starting to get HOT in the car.   I just sat there, watch trucks run around the track and look for stuff.

Then the spotter came back on and said to start it up and go.  Same as last time, get into 4th as soon as you can, and go.

That small rest was priceless.   It really calmed things down and I felt 100% more confident after that. 

Within a lap I was full throttle, just off the rev limiter all the way around.  Passing folks like crazy.   I heard from my spotter twice, once to let me know I was getting a little ‘high’, and another to warn me that a ride along was coming.   I tried to keep up with them but there wasn’t any way.   I figure I was topped out at about 160, and they were tooling around at 175-180.   You can get away from someone pretty quickly with a 15MPH delta.   A few more laps later, he told me to come get my checker flag, that I’d done well, and they gave me an extra lap.

Was it worth it?  Hell yeah.  Smile     I want to do it again, only on a super speedway like Daytona or Michigan or Taledega.   I wanna go fast!

Those cars stick like glue, and it takes a little bit to build that confidence.   If I did KY again, I probably would  NOT opt for the additional insurance.  Well maybe I would, but I never felt like I was ever in a spot to wad it up.   I mean if I could run around wide open, no lifting, and not break it loose, the it’s not coming loose.   I’d like to drive a ride along car and feel the difference.

I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t how it was described.   There was no pace car, we didn’t get to line them up and go racing.   You were out there on a hot track with 10 other drivers, maybe 11.  But no you weren’t racing.   That’s probably OK given the vast difference in driving abilities, but no not a true shoot-out.

Again, well worth it.   We were there at 7:30 like we were supposed to be and out by 10:00am.   We didn’t stick around to to watch.   I’ll add photos later when I can get them off of Claudine’s Phone.

RWRE_AllSmiles

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Sena SMH10 Redux

Back in June of last year I evaluated the Sena Bluetooth SMH10 and panned it here.

Back then, prior to 4.0 firmware, Sena had some issues with this product.  Sound quality and volume were in a word absolutely horrible compared to the Starcomm I was using.

This now that Sena was up to firmware version 4.2 I thought I’d reevaluate them.  I knew I was also picking up a new helmet this year and waited before installing the.   I added the Sena to the Nolan N104 the day I got it.  Which was a bit disconcerting since you have to cut a slot for the mounting tab in the bottom of the helmet.

My primary reasons for wanting the Sena were bike-to-bike intercom.  But since that represents less than 5% of my riding I wasn’t willing to give up any audio quality to get that which is why I passed on them last year.

Once mounted up, the speakers dropped (or pressed) right into the helmet where the Nolan BT stuff would normally go.   I used it for a few days.  

Again, I wasn’t happy.  Sound quality blew, and volume was probably 80% of where it needed to be.   I wear earplugs when I ride, wind noise over long distances is very fatiguing.  For a definition of a long ride see the prior post: Mason-Dixon 20-20 Rally Report.  Again I was disappointed in the audio quality with my Zumo 665 via bluetooth and again, phone quality with the iPhone 4s paired with the Zumo was equally bad.

After poking around, asking on some boards, reading blogs, etc.   It became clear that this is more likely a problem with the Zumo Bluetooth and not the Sena.

Even with the Garmin Zumo 665 paired as the phone so that it uses the higher quality A2DP bluetooth magic, it wasn’t always good.   It was good sometimes, sometimes it seems the Zumo would just choose to use the Hands Free Profile or basic headset profile.  When using those modes, again, audio sounded like listening to an AM radio through a pillow.   Not good.

After discussing with Sena Tech support, I paired with the iPhone directly as a phone.  Wow, audio quality was there.   The volumes wasn’t quite there, but audio quality was.

I then paired the Zumo as a multi-point device, and GPS Audio turn directions were good enough.   Not high quality but that didn’t matter.

So we’re making progress.    More research indicated that the low audio volume problem is well known.   One solution is to use good earbuds instead of speakers.   So I switched up the mount to the Sena Earbud mount and put together a pair of EarFuze custom ear plugs.   Yep, the volume was there.   Now we’re cooking.   The Earfuze are good but not great.  Upgrading those to a pair of Westone UM2’s and we’re there.   Awesome sound quality from the iPhone and more than adequate volume.

So now phase two, intercom testing.   My riding buddy put a Sena on his helmet, we paired them up and went for a ride.   Impressive.    I never had really good luck with intercom with the Starcomm even though that’s what it was designed to do.   It always picked up too much wind noise and I spent way too much time trying to ‘tune it’.  But for single rider use it was pretty awesome.

With the Sena, I can’t wait to ride with my wife or one of my kids and have the ability to chat with them at the same time.

But I now had new problems.   Manipulating an iPhone while riding with gloves on isn’t an easy task.   Yeah the Sena kind of does that but I didn’t find it to be super-reliable.   I’m really hoping they fix that with Firmware 4.3 (hint hint).

A buddy turned me on to a small inexpensive bluetooth remote.   This one.   It works as advertised.

So now I get:

  • Really good, high quality audio through the iPhone with the ability to listen to podcasts, something that I couldn’t easily do with the Zumo.   Getting them, converting them to mp3’s was a pain.   Then Zumo didn’t know the difference so when you’d shuffle music you’d get the occasional pod cast or audiobook.
  • Good enough GPS audio for turn by turn directions.
  • Really good phone call audio.
  • Rider to Rider intercom that actually works, up to about 1/4 mile.

Now using it for the first 800 miles was pretty good.   But there were a couple of problems.

1) I could initiate an intercom with my buddy but he couldn’t “usually” initiate the intercom.   I was streaming audio from the phone and I think the Sena doesn’t know it’s not a phone call so it takes priority.   He was using audio piped in via the mp3 jack, from his mixit so that he’d have music (from an older zumo) and radar.

This wasn’t a deal breaker though, inconvenient yes but not a deal breaker.  He could wave and point to his helmet and I could always call him.   GPS directions from the multi-paired Zumo interrupted the intercom.

2) At the end of our initial ride, my buddy’s Sena just died.  Wouldn’t charge and won’t charge up.  We rode through a crazy amount of rain.  But these things are supposed to be water/rain resistant. 

Luckily we were able to borrow one for the rally ride and for 1440 miles we had the ability to communicate and that was huge.

I’m in the process of testing their warranty at the moment and will add how that goes.   But for now I’ve pulled all of the Starcomm stuff from my bike and plan to use the Sena from here on out.

We got a good 14 hours of use before charging was required.   Thankfully they work while charging so a portable battery in the breast pocket of my jacket kept us going through the rally.  In the future I’ll have one in the tank bag charging or charged and I’ll just swap them.

So as of right now I’ve found a good compromise.   I am disappointed with Garmin and their Zumo 665 BT stack.  This was allegedly broken with the Zumo 665 2.9 firmware update.   I’ve downgraded to 2.8 but that didn’t seem to fix it.  Maybe I’ll roll back to 2.7 and see if that helps.

For now, the Sena dual pack at $300 average retail if you shop around, it’s a bargain.

Read the folding bike reviews for more info.