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Day: May 11, 2009

Sticky Dog Poop

Normally I would have an image here, but the SnapPhoto app for Android is once again failing and the images have come out corrupt. So instead I’ll tell you about what I had to deal with earlier today: dog poop on my bike tire.

When riding into the Stony Creek trails tonight I was rather close behind someone and didn’t notice a pile of very fresh dog poop until it was too late. That is, right as my front wheel was about to hit it. After I hit it there were two large lumps sticking off the side of the tire, showing just how sticky said poop is. I then had to scrape it off (as best as I could) with a stick, before riding up to the top of the nearest hill to meet up with the group.

Once at the top of the hill the corrupt photos were taken, one showing me giving a thumb’s up next to the tire, and another showing a close-up of the tire. I then had to scrape the tire more on the grass and dirt, which (somehow) resulted in dog poop getting on my hand and glove. Riding after that point was also a bit more interesting, because until most of it was worn off I had to go slow enough that it didn’t fling up into my face.

I intend to ride after work tomorrow as well, so I’ll have to wait a day before washing the bike and removing the last bits of poo from the wheel and down tube. Oh well. After that comes a day of storms (Wednesday), paved ride on the other bike (Thursday), and then hopefully a commute to work (Friday) on the other bike.

If you’d like to take a stab at the corrupt JPEGs, they are here: 20090511185103.jpg · 20090511185118.jpg. The issue seems to occur mostly after the app has been running in the background for a few days, as a reboot of the phone seems to make the problem go away. I’ve upgraded to the for-pay, $0.99 Snap Photo Pro app. Hopefully it doesn’t continue to have the same problem.

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USPS Click-N-Ship

After hearing from I decided to give USPS Click-N-Ship a try for both domestic and international packages. In short, it worked great, and didn’t require me to hand-fill any customs forms. Additionally, the postage costs a good bit cheaper than visiting the Post Office in person.

Now I just have to figure out the best way to handle adhering the labels / address forms to the packages. For today’s shipment (as shown above) I just printed the labels on plain paper and stuck them on with rubber cement. In the future I may consider self-adhesive full sheet labels, but that’s also a bit wasteful if I’m not printing at least two labels with each go.

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