2010-05-21 (Friday)
Spinning Class
This morning had an excellent spinning class at the Houston City Center Lifetime Fitness. Nice place.
2010-05-20 (Thursday)
Happy Birthday Gordon Jr.!
My favorite son, Gordon Jr., is 23 years old today! I’m sending out a great big virtual Happy Birthday to him, way over in Iraq at F.O.B. Delta.
2010-05-15 (Saturday)
Easy Run
Chelsea and her friend Penny got here at around 03:30 this morning. Mikie had stayed up to make sure they got here safely. So there was zero activity around the house when I got up this morning and headed out for an easy run. We had gotten a lot of rain last night and the streets looked really clean this morning. I have missed lots of workouts lately due to my crazy work schedule, so I decided to do just 5 miles. Here are my splits:
| Split | Time | Moving Time | Distance | Elevation Gain | Elevation Loss | Avg Pace | Avg Moving Pace | Best Pace | Steps | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Warm-up (walk) | 00:03:03 | 00:02:54 | 0.20 | 0 | 0 | 15:06 | 14:21 | 12:31 | 0 | 15 |
| Home to Park | 00:11:31 | 00:11:31 | 1.33 | 0 | 0 | 08:39 | 08:39 | 06:59 | 0 | 155 |
| 2-mile Park lap | 00:15:44 | 00:15:44 | 2.02 | 0 | 4 | 07:47 | 07:47 | 05:10 | 0 | 240 |
| Park to Home | 00:11:15 | 00:11:16 | 1.33 | 7 | 0 | 08:28 | 08:29 | 05:52 | 0 | 157 |
| Cool-down (walk) | 00:06:55 | 00:06:31 | 0.34 | 0 | 0 | 20:21 | 19:08 | 09:42 | 0 | 30 |
| Summary | 00:48:29 | 00:47:56 | 5.22 | 7 | 4 | 09:17 | 09:10 | 05:10 | 0 | 597 |
As I was leaving the park I ran through a clump of folks that had just gotten to the park and were warming up. I asked what group they were with and they told me Fitness Junkies Boot Camp. Cool!
Iron Man 2
Mikie, Michelle and I just got back from watching Iron Man 2 at the Deerbrook Movie Tavern (in Humble, Texas). Got to say that this was an extremely cool movie. Full of action. Pushed all the right buttons. Lots of fun. Plus, Michelle happened to have 3 giant beer mugs that she had purchased from Movie Tavern so we all enjoyed giant beers at a significant discount. A good time was had by all.
For what it is worth, I highly recommend this movie.
2010-05-08 (Saturday)
just got back from an easy 5 mile run. Was nice out. Took just under 45 minutes so that works out to a pace of just under 9 minutes per mile. My usual 5 mile course is from the house to Humble Park, then the 2 mile lap at the park, then back home. Noticed a running group getting set up at Humble park. Not sure which group it was. If I see them there again next weekend I may stop and ask.
There is an article on the front page of this morning’s New York Times: “White Pages May Go the Way of the Rotary-Dialed Phone.” Got to say that I cannot remember the last time I looked up anything in the white pages or yellow pages. It has literally been years. And honestly I can’t really see printed newspapers and magazines being around too very much longer.
We shall see.
cubagooding jr at the chimney
If you have some free time on May 30, come see our friend Brandon Duhon and his band “cubabooding jr” play at The Chimney on 2003 Richmond Ave in Houston, TX (next to the blue fish). Their URL is http://moderntouchdjs.com/.
Django with On-Rev Hosting
Pics from the Houston Python Meetup
My wife was kind enough to come with me to last night’s Python meetup at the Stag’s Head Pub in Houston. The light was very good in our meeting room but she was still able to get some pictures for us.
Click Continue reading to view the Flickr photo set.
Performance Bicycle Sneakiness
Performance Bicycle is a large retail chain that sells bicycles, components, etc. Their web site is http://www.performancebike.com/. You can be a member of their “Team Performance” club if you like. The cost is $25.00 / year.
On May 18, 2008 at 14:54 CDT I received an email from customerservice@performanceinc.com informing me that my American Express credit card had been charged $25.00 to renew my Team Performance membership.
I was a bit concerned because I did not receive any warning that my credit card was going to be charged on a certain date, etc., so I sent the following email in to their customer support:
Folks I’m a bit concerned about this.
I was not aware that this was an “auto renew” account. I did not receive any warning about this.
Furthermore, I just logged into the team performance buyers club site and I could not find any place that talked about auto renewing nor give me the ability to de-select an auto-renew option.
–gordon tillman
I received this response back from Amber:
Dear Mr. Tillman,
The information is posted on the website.
http://www.performancebike.com/team_policy.cfm
Regards,
Amber
Customer Service
So I went to the page that she referenced and found this:
Memberships are automatically renewed annually at the fee effective at the time of renewal. Consent to Automatic Recurring Charge–By purchasing your Team Performance Membership or Renewal, you request and agree that we may annually automatically renew your Team Performance membership by charging the most recent credit card you have used with Performance, Inc. The charge will be made within the month that is one year after this transaction. In advance of enacting such charge, we will send notification of the membership fee to the email or mailing address you are providing in connection with this transaction, and absent your notification to us that the charge should not be imposed, we will attempt to charge your credit card. If your credit card is no longer valid for any reason, such as that you discontinued or changed the account or if the expiration date has changed, or if the credit card processing company gives us notice that your credit card should not be used, the charge for the annual membership may not be processed and your membership may not be renewed through this process. Please therefore ask us about renewing your membership if the credit card you provided us is no longer valid (or has a changed expiration date). Contact us also if you wish to opt out of or cancel this consent by calling 1-800-727-2433, Mon – Fri 9am – 6pm EST. Consent to Use of Electronic Signature and Records–By purchasing your Team Performance Membership or Renewal, you are affirmatively consenting to the use of the electronic signature process. You understand that you have the right to have the Authorization provided to you in a non-electronic form, provided however that we may assess a copying fee for sending a paper copy of the Authorization to you. Your consent to use the electronic signature process applies only to this specific transaction and not to any other future transactions. If you wish to withdraw your consent to use the electronic signature process at any time or you wish to obtain a paper copy of this Authorization, please contact us by calling 1-800- 727-2433, Mon – Fri 9am – 6pm EST.
In that block of stuff I see that “In advance of enacting such charge, we will send notification of the membership fee to the email or mailing address you are providing in connection with this transaction, and absent your notification to us that the charge should not be imposed, we will attempt to charge your credit card.”
Well, I did not receive this advance warning or notification. I replied to Amber with the following:
Amber I’m pretty sure that I did not receive advance notification per this term:
“In advance of enacting such charge, we will send notification of the membership fee to the email or mailing address you are providing in connection with this transaction…”
Note that the above quote came from the policy page that you told me about, term #1.
I’m hereby notifying PerformanceInc.com that, next year, if this happens again, I will contact my bank and dispute the charge.
I like Performance Bike just fine, but I don’t like being charged without advance notification.
Furthermore I’m going to post full details of our email conversation online for the benefit of others who may be concerned or confused about the policies of PerformanceInc.
–gordon tillman
Shade Cafe
One of our very favorite restaurants is Shade Cafe in the historic Heights area of Houston, Texas.
Every time we eat at Shade, we are delighted by the delicious food, the beautiful presentation, the excellent wine selection, and the gracious and helpful staff.
Here are a couple of pictures I took with my cell phone when we dined there on Sunday. Please keep in mind that the two food pictures really do not do justice to what we were served!
First of all, we ordered a bottle of a light and crisp Portuguese white wine:
Mikie had a lamb dish:
And I had salmon:
A side note…
You may or may not know that a part of the Heights is “dry”; i.e., no alcohol may normally be sold there. Shade is able to get around this restriction by requiring patrons who which to purchase alcohol join their private club. There is not cost to do this, nor are you spammed or hassled in any way.