Ready for the Commute

This is kind of exciting – another milestone.

This morning, the weather was so beautiful that I decided to take the plunge and do my first bike commute to the new office. So, I loaded all of the office and bike essentials into the panniers and enjoyed an uneventful ride. Locked up at a completely empty bike rack and got to work fresh and relaxed in time for my first meeting of the day.

The loaded panniers added noticeable weight to the bike. I’m guessing I’ll be paying the price on the long uphill part of my ride home this evening.

Bonus! The new EMC/Isilon office has a shower! I didn’t need it this morning, but I’ve been given a key and will be able to use it when I do need it.

Update

As expected, the long uphill heading east on Wootton Parkway was considerably harder with the loaded panniers. I had to rest a couple of times, but I made it home without incident, and so ends my first day of bike commuting. I’ll definitely be doing more of this.

Posted from Rockville, Maryland, United States.

Today’s ride was 8.6 miles on the Millennium Trail, with a stop to wait for the rain storm to pass. I’m starting to almost enjoy this.

Posted from Rockville, Maryland, United States.

During my ride yesterday, a motorist ran a red light on Wootton Parkway while I was crossing (with both a green light and a pedestrian crossing signal). I had to speed up to avoid being hit, and was then going too fast and wiped out trying to make my turn onto the Trail.

I wasn’t badly hurt. The bike took some scrapes, and I re-opened the wound on my knee from my first fall a month ago.

The motorist drove blithely on as if I wasn’t even there.

Oh, yes… the current stats: Yesterday, 8 miles. Today 6.5 miles. Maximum speed: 26.7 mph. Lifetime biking miles: 94.9. My next ride could put me over 100 miles!

Posted from Rockville, Maryland, United States.

Yesterday, I went a bit further on the Millennium Trail than I had gone before. I made it up the hill that had beaten me before, and found a very pleasant bit after crossing over I-270.

Today, I joined the Rockville Bike Advisory Committee’s Sunday Fun Ride. Very pleasant, though a bit hot. We rode to the top of a seven-level parking garage, and could see Sugarloaf Mountain from Rockville!

The stats: Yesterday, 5.5 miles. Today 6.5 miles (these are my longest rides so far without hurting myself). Lifetime biking miles: 64. Record maximum speed (achieved today): 25.7 mph (downhill, of course!).

Posted from Rockville, Maryland, United States.

Today, I went with an REI class on the W&OD Trail. While I didn’t actually manage to go the full distance with the group, and had to walk up a couple of the hills (not all of them, though), I put in 10.4 miles, which is more than double my longest previous ride.

I also took my first fall today. It looked pretty dramatic, quite a bit of blood, but it’s not so bad. No stitches required.

I think I’ll lay off riding for a few days until my leg heals, but I’m absolutely planning to get back in the saddle again.

Posted from Rockville, Maryland, United States.

Fortunately, that’s changing. Here’s a photo of my first bike, which I picked up about two weeks ago.

The folks at Revolution Cycles in Rockville couldn’t have been better. They spent a great deal of time answering all of my questions, and even stayed for almost an hour after closing time to help me pick out the right bike (and to get my money, of course).

I’ve been trying to get out and ride about every other day, and am slowly working up to longer rides. My longest ride so far is just a bit over four miles, but that’s not bad for someone who before last month had never been on a bike.

For now, I’m exploring the bike trails in my neighborhood. I’m still not quite ready to ride in rush hour traffic, but I think I’ll get there soon.

And will it be “just Ike riding a bicycle”; meaning, I suppose, something I will never forget how to do? That remains to be seen.

Posted from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.

The photo above doesn’t look like anything to be proud about, until you consider the facts that I’m in my mid-fifties, and up until this past weekend had never been on a bicycle in my life. I was raised in West Virginia on a mountainside with unpaved roads and scary steep grades. This was also well before mountain bikes were available.

So why now?

First, I have been looking for some form of exercise I can actually enjoy. I have come to realize that I just don’t like going to the gym, and neither Sailing nor SCUBA Diving is really very much of a work-out (and they’re also not things I can easily do more than once every week or so).

Second, with the acquisition of Isilon Systems by EMC Corporation, I suddenly have an office I can use which is just two miles from home. Better yet, the entire commute is on designated Bike Routes.

With those factors in mind, I started researching what it would take to get into biking with no prior experience, and thanks to REI Outdoor School, I was able to at least get a good start in a single weekend. By late Sunday afternoon, I was getting up on the bike and riding around entirely on my own for a couple of minutes at a time (though I still need a lot of practice before I will really be in control).

I’ve already ordered my bike, which should be ready for me in about a week. I’m really looking forward to doing a bike commute and to hitting the many wonderful trails in my area.

Posted from Rockville, Maryland, United States.

Accept Payments. Everywhere.

With Square, it’s easy, and free.

Square is a mobile credit card processing service founded by Jack Dorsey (one of the co-founders of Twitter).

One of the original iPad-only apps (and the very first app I downloaded to my iPad on release day in April 2010), it is now available for iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android devices. The app is free, and once installed, you set up a Square account. Once your account has been activated (now just a matter of days), the small Square Card Reader (also free) is sent to you.

It couldn’t be easier – plug the Square reader into the audio jack of your device, launch the Square app, enter details of your sale, then swipe your customer’s card, and have him sign (with his finger) and enter an email address. The transaction is processed immediately, and an email receipt is sent, which includes the location of the transaction and, optionally, a photo of the item sold.

The Square app for iPhone or Android works well enough, but the version for iPad is still the best experience. You can set up a library of items for quick access, and the larger screen makes the signing process much easier.

You may also enter the card information manually, but the processing fee will be higher (see below).

You don’t have to be running a store, or any kind of business, to use Square. Anyone can sign up for the service and get a free reader. If you want to be able to split a bar tab with friends and have them pay you via credit card, you can get a Square account and reader, and you’ll be ready to swipe your buddies’ cards to get paid.

It’s understandable that you might have security concerns. I certainly did at first. Fortunately, the folks at Square have thought everything through. The actual credit card information is never stored on your device. It goes right from the reader to Square for processing, and everything is encrypted. You can read more about Square security here.

Sure, there were some early problems…

The initial charge limits were far too low – with a daily limit of $100, and a weekly limit of $700, on the rare occasion that I would like to accept a credit card, I would easily exceed the daily limit. Fortunately, Square managed to completely rework their underwriting to get those limits increased. There is now no limit on how many or how large a payment you can accept. The first $1,001.00 per week is immediately deposited to your bank account (and typically available the very next day). The remaining amount is deposited within 30 days of the transaction.

There were also production problems with the first batch of readers. In a letter to users sent on 18 June 2010, “The Home Stretch“, Jack Dorsey stated that the company “released parts of Square before they were fully baked”, and that the whole team was hard at work resolving the issues.

As a result, it took months to get readers shipped out. They started with a small number of hand-picked customers, and worked out the kinks from there. A couple of weeks after I signed up in April, my account page showed that my reader was about to be shipped. A week or so after that, the status went blank, then I didn’t hear anything from Square until the end of August, when they asked to verify my financial information.

My reader finally arrived on 8 October, and worked flawlessly the first time, on my iPad. Not so lucky with my new iPhone 4, however. It seems that the original version of the reader made a metal-to-metal contact with the external antenna of the iPhone 4, and the resulting interference made it unusable. You can’t blame them, really, since none of the existing devices at the time the reader was designed had the metal band antennae of the iPhone 4. I tried a number of hacks with o-rings and small bits of paper, then finally got it to work with some very thin plastic film. It isn’t pretty, but it works.

In the photo below, the original reader is shown on the left, complete with the plastic film insulator. The new and improved version, which works with the iPhone 4 right out of the box, is on the right.

One week after the reader arrived, I found myself teaching a SCUBA class on a Saturday morning, and two of the students had not yet paid the course fee. I said that I could accept credit cards on the spot, and they both jumped at the opportunity to try this. I handed over my iPad to each student, and five minutes later, had done $850.00 in charges, and both had already received their email receipts. The money, less the transaction fees, was in my bank account on Monday. Sweet!

I had started to write up this blog entry in late October, but held off when I got a notice from Square that a new version of the reader was on its way. The new one arrived a few days later, and it works on both my iPad and iPhone 4.

The good news…

• Free App
• Free Card Reader
• No Merchant Account
• No Monthly Fees
• Competitive transaction fees (2.75% for swiped transactions, 3.5% + 15¢ for keyed-in transactions)
• No monthly minimum

If you do a lot of credit card transactions, you’ll probably already have a merchant account and a dedicated card reader. If, however, you don’t find yourself doing enough credit card business to justify the monthly fees and minimums, Square might be just what you need.

22 February 2011 Update

Starting today, the 15¢ fixed fee on swiped transactions has been dropped (was 2.75% + 15¢ per transaction). The 15¢ fee remains in place for manually key-in transactions.

Posted from Rockville, Maryland, United States.

Even though it was magnitude 3.6, and the epicenter was about 10 miles away, it just barely woke me, and I wasn’t really sure at the time if was a quake or if a particularly heavy freight train had just passed. After all, I live pretty close to the railroad tracks, and have learned to sleep through quite a bit of rumbling. Also, it’s not unusual for pictures on the wall to rattle a bit when a big train goes by.

Still, I had a vague sense that this was not just a train. Checking the USGS web site, I discovered that this had, in fact, been the largest earthquake in Maryland since the 3.1 Hancock, MD tremor in 1978.

There was no damage anywhere that I could see, and although Twitter traffic didn’t show anything, I soon found quite a few Facebook statuses mentioning the quake ( the majority seem to have slept through it).

No car alarms, no sirens, and a lot less shaking than in the San Francisco area quakes I’ve experienced.

Still, it’s something to talk about. Almost worthy of a blog post.

The USGS places the precise epicenter at 39.167°N, 77.252°W:

View July 16, 2010 Earthquake in a larger map

Traces from the Maryland Geologic Survey

Posted from Rockville, Maryland, United States.

I quickly discovered that I wasn’t the only one who had been waiting for this opening. When I arrived at about 7PM, it was very crowded both upstairs and down (and extremely noisy downstairs), with quite a waiting list at the Hostess’ station.

I was expecting some friends to be there ahead of me, so I wandered around looking for them and got my first beer – a Cask Conditioned Oliver’s Ale (Baltimore, MD). Upon discovering that my friends weren’t going to be there, I inquired with the Hostess about the approximate wait time for a party of one, and was delighted to find that Meridian has a communal table, and there was one vacancy. Brilliant! Not only was I seated immediately, but I also got to meet several other diners and see more of the food.

My first neighbors were just finishing Half Smokes with Pork Chili and some French Fries with Rarebit Sauce (both of which they recommended). On the other side, another new friend was just receiving her Burger with Blue Cheese, Bacon, and Grilled Onions, which was also rated a winner.

I had been looking at the menu online since early May, and already knew what I would order: The Double Cut Brined Pork Chop with Rhubarb-Hard Cider Sauce. It was served with Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Braised Kale, which I paired with a Trade Winds Tripel, from The Bruery (Orange County, CA). My order arrived in a very reasonable time, as I chatted with my fellows at the communal table. The Pork Chop was tender and moist, a very generous serving, nicely set off by the sauce. I would highly recommend this to anyone with a good appetite.

As some folks moved on, I acquired new neighbors at the table, who ordered the Pork Quesadilla, Grilled Trout, and Braised Short Ribs. Once again, I heard no complaints.

As I was finishing my meal, Chef David Shewmaker dropped by and chatted for a few minutes. I introduced him to some of my new friends, and we all complimented and congratulated him.

I rounded out the evening with a pint of Old Rasputin Stout from North Coast Brewery (Fort Bragg, CA).

I’ve seen several restaurant openings, and they usually start out well enough, but crash and burn before the evening is done because they are simply not fully prepared. Not so at Meridian Pint – everything appeared to be running smoothly my entire time there, and the word from some of my new friends was that it continued to do so well into the night.

Congratulations to the team at Meridian Pint on an excellent opening night. I hope to be returning often and for many years to come.

Meridian Pint – http://meridianpint.com/ – 3400 11th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20010

Posted from Rockville, Maryland, United States.