All Narfed Up photography and words by Bryan Villarin

Up until now, I’ve had two AeroBeds. The first was purchased at a remarkable discount from SmartBargains. That one was leaking air after a few weeks, so I got a replacement from ThinkAero, which brought me to my current AeroBed Premier Classic (Queen size).

Before I get negative, the positive is that Aero Products sent me a brand new bed as a replacement. The process was painless: get an RMA number, cut out the cover valve, mail it to Aero Products so they know it’s destroyed, then they send the other one.

This second one has been perfect since 3/17/2007 until yesterday (4/29/07), which was exactly six weeks. Early yesterday morning, I woke up in sunken to the ground. It was a leak! In an attempt to be optimistic, at least it wasn’t completely deflated.

Andy thinks that 1) I’m too heavy, and 2) it can’t be used daily. So, I went to the AeroBed® Premier Classic FAQ for proof:

• Queen: 78″L X 60″W X 9″H; supports up to 750 lbs.
• You cannot over inflate your AeroBed Premier Classic.
• Your AeroBed Premier Classic is meant to be used as an extra bed, but is durable enough to sleep on every night.
• The AeroBed Premier Classic is made of heavy duty puncture resistant PVC.
• The AeroBed Premier Classic is engineered to support several hundreds of pounds of weight.

In a last attempt to find the leak, I inflated the bed and lifted it so it was standing on its edge. There it was — the leak. It was on the underside of the bed, along the seam of one of the squares, about 3cm long. I tried one of the repair patches, but since the tear was in a recessed part of the square, it didn’t help and the air was escaping through the groove.

Supposedly, I can try sealing it with Amazing Marine Goop — without a repair patch — and it should do the trick (a suggestion from DoItYourself.com Forums).

…

An open letter to Aero Products International:

Please figure out the cause of the leaks. Otherwise, retract the guarantee that the AeroBed is durable enough to sleep on every night or that it’s puncture resistant. (I’m sleeping on carpet, what gives?)

My mom was almost going to buy another one for herself, whenever she goes to a friend’s house or something. Now, it doesn’t look like that’ll happen. Help me help you!

As for me, I’m not sure how I can recommend this product, especially when it’s the second AeroBed that developed a leak.

A disgruntled customer,

Bryan

Since the beginning of April, anybody I’ve emailed at Yahoo says they haven’t gotten any email from me, or they don’t reply (when they normally would). The exception seems to be my web host’s Yahoo email address. Yes, it’s odd, isn’t it?

My email is being blocked by Yahoo! Mail. What can I do?

Talking with my host and looking at the mail server logs, they’re delivered successfully. Some of them will say “421 Message from (205.134.225.50) temporarily deferred.” A few seconds later [in the mail server log], it’ll say “250 ok dirdel” which means it’s all good.

I’ve been bugging my host about this, but if I don’t have to, I need a reason to believe everything is okay except for these few people who don’t check their Bulk Mail folder. (That would be another issue.)

Any ideas? If you want to help me test, email me with your Yahoo address and I promise to email you back. The more the better. Thanks!

Update 4:20pm 4/29/07 - Thanks to Connie’s help, at least I can verify that my emails are going directly into the Bulk Mail folder. What now?

Update 8:25pm 4/29/07 - My last email to Connie went directly into her Yahoo inbox — but she added me to her address book beforehand. Is there anything I can do?

Update 10:16am 4/30/07 - Carlo (who emailed me from Yahoo-Inc.com) emailed me through a co-worker that saw this blog post. Carlo, if you’re reading this, I emailed you back at 9:30am and haven’t heard back.

Update 10:43am 4/30/07 - From Carlo: “I’ve updated our database to reflect the correct category for your sending IP; the changes should take full effect in a few hours. If you continue to receive reports of your emails going missing or into your recipients’ Bulk folder thereafter, just let me know.”

Lastly, refer to Why am I getting “451 Message temporarily deferred” or “421 Message from x.x.x.x temporarily deferred” errors when sending mail to Yahoo!? and fill out the form if you’re having the same problems.

Blogging is cool, especially if important people actually read it. All should be back to normal soon enough — whatever that means! Special thanks to Carlo and your co-worker informant!

I finally bought a year’s supply of contact lenses. Wednesday was Staff Appreciation Day. Took my car to get an oil change. My mom came with me tonight to check out the business I’m doing, which still has to remain nameless.

Craziness is coming. The essay that got bumped is due on Tuesday, and I can already feel the heat of the Religion final. Also, we’ve got our show coming up next Saturday evening. (More info)

I’ve been writing more in a private journal — using TiddlyWiki — that’s stored on my hard drive. That probably explains the sporadic posting here.

I’m trying to take more photos, but I haven’t been going out too much this week. If I do, even if they’re average quality, I’ll usually put ‘em on Flickr.

Do you have an account there? If so, add me as a contact!

Anyway, I hope you’re all having a great week!

By the way, the photos were meant to be totally random.

Chicago Bulls Bucket Boys — looks like they’ve got mad skills!

Other videos of them:

• Bucket Boys Halftime Show
• Outside Wrigley Field

If you haven’t heard of RSS, or haven’t used Bloglines, Google Reader, Netvibes, or Newsgator, please watch this video: RSS in Plain English. It’ll explain how it’ll save you time and make your life much easier — in less than 4 minutes! (via Chris Pirillo, Twitter)

Click To Play

I had my Starbucks card registered a few months ago. This weekend, I got a postcard in the mail from Starbucks:

Because you’re a loyal registered Starbucks card member, we’re giving you a little gift: $5 loaded onto your Starbucks Card by April 19, 2007.

Use the $5 to treat yourself to that indulgent beverage you’ve always wanted to try or anything else you enjoy at Starbucks.

The choice is yours. Thank you and enjoy.

Your Friends at Starbucks.

Moral: Load up all the gift cards you get at the Starbucks website (up to three); even if they’ve got zero balance, you might get this cool gift!

Photo by zacksphoto

I checked my Wells Fargo account this morning, and my tax refund just came in — just like TurboTax said! Sweet!

If I wasn’t in debt…

Some would go into an emergency fund, some towards building my own DVR, then invest the rest into an aggressive long-term mutual fund of some kind, aiming for 12-14%. That’s it.

What will I actually do with it?

Put the all (or the majority of it) towards debt.

It hinges on whether or not I take over bass guitar when Dan leaves. If we find someone else for that, I’ll use part of the money to buy myself a new guitar — to replace the one that got stolen — then use the rest for debt.

What will you do with your tax refund?

This is an update to the How-to article, “How to speed up podcasts for free with Audacity.”

In Audacity 1.3.2 (Beta), configuring the batch script is easier. The developers moved the location, though, so you might be lost if you recently updated to this version.

First, setup the chain: File > Edit Chains

In the left pane of the window that pops up, you’ll need to add a new chain. Title it “Speedup,” or whatever you like. With it selected, the right pane should have only one parameter: END.

Select that command, then at the bottom of the window, click Insert. Another window will pop up, and you’ll want to choose Change Tempo. Change the parameter to 25.000000, then click OK. (Later, you can increase the tempo if you’re comfortable.) Again, click Insert, select the ExportMP3 command, then click OK. Finally, OK out of the Edit Chains window.

Then, if you want to run the script, go to File > Apply Chain. Select the chain you just created, click Apply to Files, then browse to the folder where the podcasts are stored. Like I mentioned in the previous How-to, I copy the MP3s to the root podcast folder, so I’m not limited to one show (folder) at a time.

Conclusion

This’ll empower you to listen to podcasts, or any other supported audio files in a shorter amount of time, and you can convert multiple files at once. In addition to podcasts, I also speed up class lectures. 80-minute classes reduced to 64 minutes — awesome!

Last Friday, I woke up and my wrist was slightly bothering me. As the day progressed, it got worse. It hurts to lift my wrist up. I wrapped it so it’d have more support, and I’ve been icing it when I can.

I must’ve slept on it wrong, huh? Depressing. My ankle was messed up two months ago, too. I’m frustrated, that’s for sure. Hope it heals quickly, especially since we’ve got a show coming up. Plus, I just want to workout, blasted!

A few weeks ago, our band was getting ready for practice in the garage — until a neighbor came over and asked us “not to do this today.” Reluctantly, we agreed and went our separate ways.

Yesterday, we came back to the garage to practice, only to find that my guitar was gone. (I left it there.) We’ve all left our stuff in the garage on a regular basis, and nothing was ever stolen. Drums, amps, Bill’s cabinet, PA system: all intact.

What kind of guitar did I have? A 9-year-old Squier® Standard Stratocaster Electric Guitar. It wasn’t the cleanest instrument, but it got the job done. I think its present monetary value is around $100. But, the memories… *sniff*

What also stinks is that it was housed in a SKB hard guitar case. It was a friend’s. Perhaps the thief thought it might be expensive; fortunately, the guitar wasn’t, but the case was.

As soon as my tax return money gets deposited in my account, I’ll have to use a small portion of it to buy a new (inexpensive) guitar from Musician’s Friend or Guitar Center. The rest of the money will still go towards paying off my credit cards.

Thief - I forgive you, but I’m not leaving my stuff in the garage like that again. James will also resume locking the door. I hope you change your ways.