Uninsured motorist

Yesterday I found out that my identity was actually worth something. Worth stealing anyway. The bank phoned and asked me to call the fraud department. They read off a list of charges from my debit card that had been declined, including my latest car insurance premium. (Nice to know after the fact that I was breaking the law.)

Initially the thief made a charge for $1 at Home Depot, then tried to pay five months of their cable bill and two months of a T-Mobile cellular bill, among other random charges. Thankfully the bank took action and halted my debit card. They asked if I had the card in my possession and if I had made any of the charges. Luckily I am not responsible for any of them (I will have to dispute the $1.00 from Home Depot though!). I was told to cut it up on the spot. The inconvenience is that I will not have a card for the next week and that I will need to update all my bill payments to a new number.

How did this happen? The purchases were local, so it there is very little chance that my identity was stolen online. Most likely a waiter or someone had kept a copy of my receipt and used it to make a new card. I'm sure that Comcast has some sort of customer privacy policy, so that won't lead anywhere. But the police might be able to get that information.

Regardless of the outcome of my personal investigation... thanks, Chase. And hurry up with my new card.

Scott

I didn't vote for Obama today...

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/eastside93/2008/11/i-didnt-vote-for-obama-today.php

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Friday's Shrimp Boil

In an effort to avoid annoying Lincoln Park crowds infesting our regular watering hole on Friday, we decided to have a small house party. A nice simple intimate gathering with the intention of saving a few dollars on overpriced drinks while getting obscenely drunk at the same time. The theme - Hurricane Relief. 

Paying homage to the city of New Orleans surviving the latest natural threat, we mixed up pitchers of Hurricanes, fried up crab cakes, and had an enormous Shrimp Boil. There was so much food we had to invite more people to assist us in consuming everything. 

There were complaints about my Hurricanes being too strong or something like that, but these were "Class 5 Hurricanes", not Tropical Storms! That was my take on the Cajun term Lagniappe, meaning "a little something extra". (In this case dark rum being the little something!)

Now I don't know exactly how it happened, but we ended up at that local watering hole anyway. Thankfully, (but completely out of character for me) I ended the night before the trip to the neighborhood 4 A.M. bars. (Where I've heard some friends were held up at gunpoint at the gas station across the street...)

But I'm sure that's another story altogether...

Chicago City Chase

Tonight is the the night Sarah and I pick up our team packets at advance registration for the Chicago City Chase. Instead of doing actual work this morning I have spent some quality time preparing for the race. After updating my iPhone, I have downloaded every CTA map I could find, and set checkpoints into the Google Maps app to use with the GPS. Gotta love it when technology is on your side for once!

What are our chances of winning this event? I'd say pretty low. Anyone that knows my motto "I don't even like to drive 10K, let alone run that far" will understand. (That's not true... I DO like to drive on a track, just not in traffic.)

That being said, I think our team has heart (...and a combined height of over 150 inches). I agreed to compete with the understanding that this would be a fun event and I would look back with either fond memories or regret depending on my decision.

So this Saturday, hungover and out of shape, I will attempt to conquer this challenge with my head held high and my knees throbbing. . . Luckily they were smart enough to make the finish a bar.

To the victor goes the spoils!

(Be sure to follow us on Twitter to get real time updates throughout the race.)

Finally have my iPhone working properly and reset the wireless connection in my apartment. Technology is more patient than I am.

My new iPhone is trying to get me fired...

So I spent a few hours on Friday at the Apple Store in Oak Brook picking up a new iPhone 3G. The weekend was full of surprises with this new technological marvel.

The first surprise was that once I had used the iPhone's camera feature it would only load Aperture when connected to my Powerbook. I was a little disturbed because this made iTunes not read the phone at all thinking it was a camera. Looking through the Aperture settings I simply turned off the preference to launch when a camera is connected. This will mean when I do connect my E-510 Olympus I will need to launch it manually. Oh well.

The flip side is that it no longer can be read by iTunes, which required a fresh download and re-installation to get it to work. Finally my iPhone is back.

Fast forward to Monday morning in bed. Alarm on my phone is set to go off at 7:20. I check it and see I still a little time to sleep in. After the alarm goes off I get up to shower only to find out that it is actually 9:02.

I knew this phone would get me into trouble sooner or later. I was expecting later.