This is one reason I hate using eBay

My dad gave me his old camera because mine crapped out. The lens he gave me with it didn’t include filters, and the filters on my old lenses don’t fit. So I thought I’d get the bare minimum, a 1A Skylight filter and a polarizer, from eBay. There was a guy selling a whole bunch of camera stuff, and he said in his actions that if you used the “Buy It Now” feature you didn’t have to the shipping, and if you bought two or more, you could take 50 cents off of each item as a “bulk discount”. He was an eBay power seller or whatever they call it, and he took PayPal so it should have been dead easy.

So I did the “Buy it now” on the two filters I wanted. The eBay checkout procedure would allow me to remove the shipping cost myself, but not the bulk discount. So I emailed the guy and asked him to update the price so I could send him the money. No answer. So the next day I just calculated how much the total should be and Paypal-ed him the money. But he still hasn’t answer any of my emails, nor has he acknowledged me in any way whatsoever. It’s been 4 days so far.

At what point do I say to myself that the money I paypal-ed to him is lost, he’s a fucking rip-off artist, and buy another couple of filters?

Oh, and just to make my life complete, his site advertises that he’s got “autofeedback”, so if you leave him a negative feedback on eBay he’ll automatically leave you a negative feedback.

Well, I guess I can say goodbye to that float plane rating…

New TSA Rule

Short summary – any non-citizen wanting any sort of flight training has to get TSA approval, and as well as the cost and hassle of getting the photos and fingerprints and stuff, there will be a several hundred dollar fee. Oh, and knowing the federal government, probably a 6 month wait for approval.

The forest behind the trees

In spite of the fact that the Bush camp has turned the whole debate around to be about one set of probably-forged papers, one shouldn’t forget that the basic facts are not in dispute. And those facts are that Bush received a sweetheart deal because of his wealth and status, and then didn’t fullfil his committments, and then has had his proxies and surrogates lie and dissemble about this. Why does he get a by on his obvious lack of integrity and faithfulness to his comiittments from the majority of the press?

Air Force Times

Some highlights:

“I heard George Bush get up and say, `I served in the 187th Air National Guard in Montgomery, Alabama,'” retired Lt. Col. Robert Mintz said on camera. “Really? That was my unit. And I don’t remember seeing you there…”

“Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country.” – That’s from Colin Powell’s 1995 book “My American Journey”.

KROC – CYKZ

Vicki and I flew across the lake this weekend. Except for a day trip to Ben and Jerry’s, we haven’t flown an “away” trip together since 1999, when we went to Piseco, NY for a weekend. I love it when we get to fly somewhere together – it sort of makes me feel like all the money I’ve spend on my pilot training wasn’t totally selfish.
Continue reading “KROC – CYKZ”

Country boy, City boy

I’ve always thought that my ideal place to live would either be out in cottage country with woods and a lake, or right downtown in a vibrant exciting city in a high rise with a huge window with a great view. And I always thought that was sort of contradictory of me. But visting Vicki’s friend Jonesiexxx, (who, by the way, lives in a cool neighbourhood in a vibrant exciting city with a huge window with a great view), I think I figured it out.

One of the things I liked living in the country was the quiet and the closeness to nature, but another thing I liked was the sense of belonging to a small community. As we walked down the street, and Jonesiexxx was recognized by people at her neighbourhood butcher and green grocer (yes, real stores with real specialties, not monster supermarkets), I realized that was something that the tiny village of Rupert Quebec and her corner of Toronto had in common – a small community that you could belong to.

Funny that something like that would appeal to an introvert like me. My fear is that if I did live in a place like that, I *wouldn’t* get to know the community and miss out on the whole point of living in a place like that. Fortunately, I have Vicki, who would know everybody in a 5 block radius within two days of our arrival.