How not to make a payment system

A few weeks ago, I borrowed Dan’s truck for a trip to Whitby to pick up my dad’s power tools that he doesn’t have room for in his new house. On the way out, I saw a HUGE traffic jam on the 401 in the return direction, so I took the 407 Express Toll Road on the way home. I figured I’d just get the bill from Dan when it came, and pay it. Big mistake.

It turns out that there is absolutely no way to pay this bill without creating some sort of account profile for Dan. I’m not Dan, and I don’t want to create a profile for him. I don’t know him well enough to answer the security questions, for one thing. Plus while it’s unlikely that he is going to be a regular traveller on the 407, I don’t want to be the guardian of his account (ie. I know the PIN) if he does. There is also no way to enter the name on the credit card – if it’s not the same as the person named on the account, it isn’t going to work. There is no way to just send in a check or, if you don’t call from 9-5 on a weekday, to talk to a customer service rep. It seems to me that driving a borrowed car on the 407 should be something that the systems designers might have anticipated happening once in a while and designed in a method to resolve this short of making the owner of the car pay.

I guess in future I should either remember my 407 transponder, or just risk the traffic jams on the 401.

Trying to improve my catch

Today I went for a paddle where I was trying to figure out how to improve my catch. It’s been pointed out to me a few times that I don’t get my paddle blade fully “buried” in the water by the time I start pulling, which means I’m not getting full advantage of the most powerful part of the stroke. In part, that’s because I chose a very long paddle blade in order to make the catch a bit more gentle on my elbows, so I’m not sure I want to fix this entirely. But that said, if I want to get faster, I’m going to have to put more power down.
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Excursion Around The Bay

(Sorry, but as a paddler living near Irondequoit Bay, and a Great Big Sea fan, I realize I’ve probably used that title a few times already. Too bad.)

Today I met up with Doug, Bill and Steve at Baycreek Paddle Center for a paddle on Irondequoit Bay. I didn’t look at the weather beforehand, and just assumed it was going to be as horrible as it had been all week, so I dressed in my farmer john wet suit and long sleeve turtleneck. It turned out to be quite reasonable early fall weather, with temps in the mid 60s, and so I was boiling hot as we got ready. Bill, who was dressed very similar to me, just took off his shirt and paddled only in the farmer john. I, on the other hand, decided that since it was Baycreek’s annual sale, and since I’d been looking for something to wear for weather in between the running shorts and singlet of the summer and the farmer john and long sleeves of late fall, so I bought some better clothes.

It was my first time out on the bay, and my first significant waves, in the Thunderbolt. It wasn’t as wavy as it has been on hot days in the summer, but there were still a few boat wakes. And the consequences of a dump were probably a bit worse, so I’d call it even. There were places which required 100% concentration, with nothing spared for conversation or looking around. But overall, I feel that I wasn’t any shakier out there than I’d been in the early season in the Looksha.

Jim M caught up with us after about 25 minutes. He was as smooth as usual, and was talking about how much fun the waves were in places where I was concentrating on not dumping rather than having fun.

We went up to the bridge, and a little bit further. I’d forgotten my GPS, but the others told me it was about 7 1/4 miles. The first and last half mile were horrible “suck water” as the water level appears to have gone down quite a bit since the time trial season. But it was fun and I’m feeling a lot better about eventually getting comfortable in waves in this boat.

Long Lake again

I found some Youtube video of the race. Unfortunately the camera person seems to mostly concentrate on people who’ve already finished rather than the people finishing, so I don’t get to see how my technique looked at the end of 10 miles.

You can see Mike and I for about 10 seconds towards the end, and the camera switches away seconds before the big seaplane wake hits us
[youtube 35Nbmk9H7Mg]

But here’s the finish of Mike and I, and Steve.
[youtube tgaZVuLrkyM]