The Stages of Moving Out

Stage 53: That moment you realize that you will probably never be naked within these four walls again. Probably.

Stage 54: Get naked one last time, so that you remember it.

I Now Own a House

Neat.

A New Home... For My Phone

There's rare occasion where I feel the need to have my phone out while driving. Very rare. But when it happens, I'd like the experience to be slightly more convenient than just stuffing the phone under my leg so that it doesn't go skittering across the floor of my van.

3d printing to the rescue.

I printed the replacement for the old UV-toasted tupperware cup at a pretty high speed so the bridging at the top didn't come out as magnificently as it probably should have, but a little blast with the heat gun got things mostly into place. Good enough to be functional. I almost left that part out but felt like it would look weird without something to connect the two horns sticking up above the rim.

I didn't make a cutout for a charging cable because it's an iPhone and it doesn't need charging. Certainly not for the rare occasions I use it in the car.

In a way I'll miss the tupperware cup. It served as a pen and coin holder in both the Jellybean and the Pedovan, and has seen me through thick and thin. Actually no, I take that back; it's filthy, rotting and disgusting, I won't miss it or the neon yellow-green crumbs it was leaving on my dashboard one bit. It had a good life, and it has now lived its last.

Amusingly it's old enough to have "Made in Canada" stamped on the underside. I suspect it's probably a fair few years older than I am, but it will not outlive me.

I Am Thankful For My House

All the i's are dotted and t's are crossed, and now it's just a few days of waiting until Monday when the final contract is signed and the money changes hands, and I will have my house.

Feels good, man.

Pedals Go Round and Round

Finally got the back-ordered pedals in for Bike 2. Still waiting on the missing part from Cannondale but I suspect it should be here this coming week. Just to be safe I had them send it to my work address.

The smoke has been pretty thick here lately so I haven't been in much of a cycling mood, despite just getting some new cold weather gear. There's some forecasts for rains late next week around Thanksgiving so maybe that'll help clear the air a bit. Of course I'm taking Thurs/Fri and all of the week after off for moving so I won't be putting in many commuting miles, but I might sneak in a fun ride if the opportunity presents.

No More Speed Bumps? No, More Speed Bumps!

Turns out I really shouldn't have trusted Sports Basement to put the bike together. I figured "what could they possibly screw up?" Turns out, a lot of stuff.

First off, one of the shifter cables is catching on the stem bolts and is preventing the bike from steering properly. That's only potentially fatal.

Secondly, the cable guide in the bottom bracket is very clearly printed with "USE WITH METAL SUPPORT" and guess what's missing? The metal support.

Finally, the clueless retard managed to use a piece of brake cable housing to route the shifter cable to the rear derailleur. These are literally physically incompatible (brake cable housing is 5mm, shifter housing is 4mm) so you have to go out of your way to bodge it into working.

I'm going to be getting my money back on that service, and hopefully they'll be able to find the missing parts, although if they're gone for good I can just buy them online.

Bike 2! (Almost)

Getting closer. Seat post should be here this coming week, it's just making its way through shipping. Pedals are still ??? but I'm sure they'll show up eventually.

Curiously enough, when I was first shopping for my CAAD9 I had my eye on the matte black color, but it wasn't available with the components I wanted (SRAM Rival) so I ended up with red instead. It's all coming around I guess.

The new frame has much better tire clearance, particularly around the rear brake bridge, so once these 23mm GP4000sII tires wear out I can switch out for 25mm GP4Season without any trouble to make the bike more rain-friendly.

Сука блять

So I got myself a dashcam for the Pedovan. Now I just have to remember to shout "Сука блять" every time someone does something stupid in front of me.

Nice thing about the van is that the windshield is huge, so I can stick the camera just about anywhere and it won't be in the way. For the time being it's down at the bottom of the windshield and wired into the 12v port in the cupholder. Later on I'm planning to dig around in the overhead console to see if I can wire it in there instead and then move the camera up to the top to tidy up the installation.

Last Speed Bump for Bike 2 (I Hope)

So it turns out the new Cannondale frame doesn't come with a seat post, which I wasn't anticipating. The old seat post is a different size and so I can't just use that one. Thankfully this isn't much of a setback because the pedals are still on order so I'm not really missing out on any riding while I order up a new one. Also because I already have a working road bike.

Only hitch now will be if the bits don't come before I move. That would be awkward. Still got a few weeks before that happens though, so I should be good.

That's Just My Two Cents

Literally.

Adventures in Banking

So last week I deposited a total of four Canadian cheques. Three of them were in Canadian dollars, and one in American. They didn't all arrive at the same time, so I had to deposit them in two goes.

First two cheques come, both in Canadian funds. I deposit them and the teller takes maybe 20 minutes figuring out how to do the deposit. No big deal, things eventually get going the right way.

Second two cheques come and the teller (a different one this time) seems to know what she's doing. She deposits the one Canadian one using the weird procedure, and deposits the one in American funds directly, the latter being on the order of $60k.

Monday this week I go to drop off an escrow cheque for about $38k at the title company, and before I do I double-check my bank balance to make sure I have enough available funds cleared, and it's showing something like $57k available of the total amount I have in the account. No problem. I drop off the cheque and go on my way.

Later that day I check my account again to see if the cheque has been cashed already, and lo and behold my available funds has gone negative!

I get on the online live-chat with my bank and the rep doesn't seem very helpful, and just thinks that I tried to deposit a bad cheque. Excuse you, but the cheque is perfectly fine. He can't actually help me though and directs me to call the cheque fraud department. I call the number he gives and navigate through a voice menu for about 5 minutes before landing on a "we're closed for the day" message. Thanks. Couldn't have told me that a little sooner in the call.

The next day I drop by the bank branch in person to try to get to the bottom of things. The branch manager is out for a few days so I end up talking to one of the ordinary staff, and she tells me that the second teller had made an error trying to directly deposit the $60k American cheque, and reversed the deposit to send it out to be processed the slow way. Unfortunately that reversal came out of the available funds rather than the held funds, which is what put me into overdraft. To make matters worse the branch manager, who was out, was the only one with the authorization to clear the holds.

Now I had also gone ahead and sold off my Google shares in my US investment account, and set up a wire transfer to drop those funds into my account immediately, but unfortunately those transactions take two days to settle before they clear, so that would be no help either.

Luckily some sort of stars align and just enough funds get released to allow the escrow cheque, as well as my monthly rent cheque, to clear. But I learned an interesting lesson: you can, by some manner of financial witchcraft, overdraft a bank account by making a deposit. Go figure.

The $60k hasn't reappeared in my account yet, but the bank assures me that it will once the cheque clears. I'll give them a week and poke them again if it's still missing, but in the meantime I have enough deposited to close on my house so it should be all good.

So Close

Dang it! Gonna have to go do another bike ride before the end of the year.