2023 Week 28/29 – Catching Up

What’s Going On:
It’s been busy around the IndyScan household these past 2 weeks. I’m continuing to study & take practice exams for the Amateur Rario license upgrade. It’s all starting to click, and I need to get a better handle on the electronic theory to pass the 35-question exam successfully.


What I’m Eating:
A number of new laws passed last July 1, and one that probably slipped under the radar for a lot of people allows children in Bar areas of restaurants. I, for one, think this is a HUGE mistake & have already witnessed it firsthand. On this particular occasion, the guy was trying to make a point to the wait staff as he loudly explained that he could now bring his child into the 21 and over area.

I choose to sit in the bar area of restaurants to get away from the noise little kids make. They’re kids; that’s what they do. Up until now, I could sit elsewhere, but now it looks like the area of solitude might be coming to an end at some establishments.

The linked article above also states, “Previously the law allowed minors ages 18 to 20 to sit in the bar area specifically for “dining purposes only.”  The amendment removes the age limit.” I did NOT know that was allowed previously! For now, it’s up to the individual restaurant to choose to allow it.


I had pretty much forgotten about Yats for some reason when it popped into my head last weekend. I stopped into the Fishers location and got a half-and-half Chilli Cheese Etoufe and White Bean Chicken Chili with extra bread (of course). It hit the spot!


Speaking of blasts from the past… After the Annual Corporate Challenge at the IMS, I was starving, and Hoagies & Hops happened to be on my way home. I was WAY overdue for a cheesesteak, and it was exactly as I remembered it. I recommend the potato salad if you’re looking to add a side to your sandwich.


What I’m Watching:
I watched the Greyhound (2020) movie on AppleTV+ last weekend, and it gets two thumbs up. It was 90 minutes of nonstop action. Tom Hanks stars in a WWII movie about protecting ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean while being hunted by German U-Boats.

Hijack on AppleTV+ is all about an airline that gets taken over by terrorists and a “negotiator” on the plane that tries to resolve the situation. I’m only 5 episodes in & waiting anxiously for the next episode to drop on Wednesday.


What I’m Reading:
AT&T and Verizon accused of ignoring toxic lead cabling

A Flight Attendant’s 12 Etiquette Rules for Summer Travel

This Surveillance System Tracks Inmates Down to Their Heart Rate


What Else:
Last weekend I was Interviewed by Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism regarding Police Radio Encryption. Police and Fire agencies throughout the United States are choosing to encrypt their radio traffic, causing increased levels of distrust among the very people they are sworn to protect. In Indiana, a law was passed in 2022 that prohibits the transmission of SSN numbers over unencrypted radio frequencies. That law went into effect on July 1, 2023.

Hamilton County announced they would encrypt their radio traffic “sometime after July 1”. The funny thing is I have been in the hobby a LONG time, and the last time I heard an SSN number read over the air was back when your SSN was your Drivers License number.

In 2004, President Bush signed a law barring states from putting Social Security numbers on new or renewed driver’s licenses, identification cards, or vehicle registrations. The law took effect in December 2005. Indiana has since stopped that practice in favor of an Operator License Number (OLN).

As of today, Hamilton County has not increased the use of encryption on its radio system (they already have encryption enabled for tactical and car-to-car channels where a lot of radio traffic occurs), but full encryption is most likely coming.


And Finally…
Creating “light pictures” from Paper. This is VERY cool!

2023 Week 19 – Giddy Up

I Spent most of last week on PTO in the Texas Hill Country and loved every minute of it. I flew down to San Antonio, picked up my better half, who was down there for work, and drove north to Comfort, TX, about 45 minutes northwest of the city.

When I booked the Trip, Enterprise had some very affordable options, including several premium models for just a little more than a full-sized car. I ended up with an Audi Q3 SUV for the trip and really enjoyed driving around the Texas roads. You’ll first notice the speed limits if you’ve never driven in Texas. On a 2-lane curvy road, the posted speed limit is often 10-20 MPH higher than in Indiana (70MPH +), and on the highway, it can be as high as 85 MPH. The little Audi was a champ and got surprisingly good gas mileage as we traveled between locations at speeds that sometimes felt too fast!

Our B&B (Hotel Giles) was an old hotel built in the late 1800s and was very nice, with covered porches and a gazebo in the back. Our host was very gracious and had a wonderful breakfast ready for us at 9 am sharp every morning. The town also had an amazing little wood-fired pizza shop in an old gas station down the street with delicious pizza and homemade gelato that was some of the best we had ever had.

Fredericksburg, TX, is often referred to as the Napa Valley of the South because of the number of wineries in the area (over 100), and it was our destination of choice for several days of the trip. Their Main Street was full of specialty shops, restaurants, breweries, and several wineries.

While this was the first time I’ve gotten out of San Antonio and visited TX Hill Country, it will NOT be the last. So many things to do, and in typical Texas fashion, the people are as nice as can be and openly welcome visitors to their great state.


SlapFish opened a new location in the Fishers District a few months ago, and we finally made our way over there for dinner. We ordered a Shrimp Roll and Fish and Chips. Both meals were very fresh and fairly priced (under $20 each) for the portion size. We don’t have any dedicated seafood restaurants in Fishers, so SlapFish is a welcome addition to which we will be returning soon!


And finally… I’m a pretty observant person, and I see a lot of crazy stuff on my daily travels to and from work in Indianapolis. Expired license plates are seen daily, and their sheer number makes me wonder how people are getting away with it. A quick search turned up a 2019 report from local TV station WRTV titled “Parking a car with expired tags or no license plate is illegal in Indianapolis.” It’s not a local issue, as a TV station out of Oregon reported something similar last May:

And Colorado less than a year ago:

2023 Week 14 – #83: Go on, take the last bite

One of the nice things about switching jobs is that fresh new email address that only your coworkers know. That usually only lasts a month or so, and in my case, it was even shorter as we put all of your contact info on the company website. Although we have “anti-scraping” turned on via Cloudflare, it didn’t take long for the email marketers to find me.

I’m pretty heavy-handed with the mark as junk and block functions in Outlook, and I have no problem banishing email marketing messages to keep my inbox clean. A new (to me, at least) tactic I’ve started seeing is the triple email marketing campaign. If your company uses this, let me assure you it’s not working and is even more annoying than usual.

The solicitation starts with an email from “Gabby” attempting to set up an introduction, then a follow-up email from “Gabby” the next day at roughly the same time you read the first one (the email address is slightly different so it gets past the block you set the day before). Within 5 minutes of deleting/blocking the follow-up email, you get an email from “Aira,” referencing the “email conversation” you’ve been having with “Gabby.” So in a span of 24 hours, I’ve received three emails from the same company.

I understand how they do it (spy pixels or tracker pixels). Still, it’s annoying enough that even if I were interested in your offerings, I’d probably not reply because of the aggressive marketing. (End of Rant)


Covid changed a lot in our world. It changed how people interacted with each other, and it also had an impact on modern etiquette. The Cut published a list of 194 Modern Etiquette Rules for Life After Covid. Some are silly, and others are thought-provoking. As the title implies, these are rules, and rules are meant to be bent and sometimes broken. There’s also a sub-section all about The New Rules of Tipping!

Some of my favorites:

2 – You may callously cancel almost any plans up until 2 p.m.

20 – Don’t describe TikToks. It’s more boring than describing dreams.

47 – Listening is not the time for you to silently rehearse what you want to say next.

76 – If your host is doing the dishes, it means you’re supposed to leave.

104 – If you’re in the office, you’re wearing shoes.

194 Modern Etiquette Rules for Life After Covid

And finally… The Cell Phone will be 50 years old in April. Smithsonian Magazine has an excellent article, and CBS Sunday Morning interviewed Marty Cooper, the man who made the first call on a portable Cell Phone.

2022 Week 11 – We Were Robbed

It’s been nice being out of the house this week after isolating for a week with Covid. There are weekends when I don’t leave the house but an entire week was tough. On the plus side I was super productive working remotely and actually enjoyed working from the house this time as opposed to when I did in 2021 because everything was closed.


Microsoft FINALLY released their award-winning Flight Simulator last week on their Cloud Gaming platform and it’s even better than I expected.

I’m a huge Flight Sim fan and used to play for hours when I was younger. The latest version takes its imagery from Bing Maps and can replicate real-time weather conditions in your current location. So it’s about as real as you can get while staying firmly planted on the couch. The Bing maps are a little out of date but it’s pretty easy to visually navigate around town and fly to various landmarks in the area.


And finally… I was robbed last night. Robbed of an hour due to Daylight Saving Time (DST). I had JUST gotten used to the sun rising at 7 am and now we’re back to 8 am for a while. I miss the days when Indiana didn’t change times twice a year. We even had a special Time Zone on computers called “Indiana (East)”. It’s still there last time I checked even though it’s not used anymore.


That’s it for this week. I have a camping & disc golf trip scheduled in a couple of weeks. It’s going to be nice playing outside again.

Local Starbucks Fights the Ghetto Latte

Now that it’s getting cold outside hot coffee is starting to sound good to me again.  I usually only drink hot drinks in the winter while preferring cold any other time.  I’ve enjoyed iced coffee all summer since its easy to make using a concentrate I get at the local store.

meh_coffeeRemembering I had some money on my Starbucks account I stopped at the location near my office.  It’s been a while since I’ve been in here because the service is well below average.  They seem to dedicate all of their staff activity to the drive-thru and, even today, they were serving 3-4 people in the drive-thru to every one person in the store.

After I ordered my plain coffee & walked over to the condiment bar for a splash of half-and-half.  Wait a minute, the stainless steel thermos is missing!  The guy standing next to me saw what I was looking for and said “you have to ask them for it”.

So back to the pickup counter I go and I waited to get someone’s attention.  The employees were too busy tripping over each other to get the orders out the little window to notice me standing there.  After a few moments I got one of the worker bees attention.  “Cream?” I asked.  She was already reading my mind and grabbed a little paper cup and proceeded to pour out a couple of ounces of the heavy moo juice.   I asked, “do you have one you’d like me to put out on the station”, thinking I would be a nice guy and do them a favor.  “No” she said.  “We keep it back here now so it doesn’t run out as fast”.

Then it hit me.  The Ghetto Latte has gotten so bad they have to ration out the dairy to keep people from cheating the system.  I assure you this is a real thing.  I’ve seen it time and time again where people turn a couple of shots of espresso over ice into one (or in some cases when they ask for an extra cup) two Lattes saving themselves a few dollars in the process.

cheap_coffeeWay to stick it to the man cheap skate.  I’d be willing to bet that’s your idling car parked crooked in the handicapped spot too.  Bonus points if you’re talking on your speaker phone while oblivious to everyones personal space the entire time you’re in the store.

So once again, those who take advantage of things make it inconvenient for others who go with the flow.  Say what you want about Starbucks.  I know it’s over priced and there are better options out there.  In this case it was a choice between office coffee (usually empty), a small Keurig we have in our area (meh, I don’t get the pod thing), or something slightly better.

I’m curious if this practice of keeping the half-and-half behind the counter is a isolated thing at this particular Starbucks or if this is a common practice at other coffee shops too.  Anyone else witness a Ghetto Latte in the making?  I’d love to hear your stories!

No Saturday Mail delivery? Fine by me!

Postal-truck-crash

Earlier this week the United States Postal Service (USPS) announced it would stop Saturday mail delivery in August and that’s just fine by me.  I say cut it down to 2-3 days a week.

I go to my mailbox a few times a week and it’s full of advertising inserts, credit card offers and stuff I never even look at.  I pay my bills online and I rarely, if ever, send any kind of written correspondence, and I’m sure I’m not alone.  As a matter of fact, I hate all of the waste generated by direct mail marketing.  I didn’t ask for this stuff but I have to take care of getting rid of it…

The USPS is supposed to be able to pay for itself with the fees it charges to use its service but after being “forced” to take a HUGE loan to pre-fund its union pension program it’s become under water to a tune of $15-billion.  Yet another example of how unions are not good for business anymore (that’s another post all together).

So far I have not read a lot of complaints about the USPS decision.  I think it’s just a sign of the times and probably not the first reduction of service we’ll see in our lifetime.

Swipe to Over Sleep

20130108-220254.jpgAfter using the iPhone for a while I’ve become quite fond of it but with any device there tends to be a few quirks. Case in point; the iPhone alarm clock…

The Apple iOS starts just about all phone interactions with a swipe of the finger. That swipe becomes second nature to a lot of us because we’re unconsciously swiping to unlock our phones all day long.

iphone_alarm_settings_380px

So guess what happens when your alarm is going off at 6 am and you grab your phone to silence it (in my case hit snooze a few times)? That instinctive swipe motion turns the alarm OFF! You have to press a small red button titled “Snooze” to silence he phone for nine minutes. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve accidentally disabled my iPhone alarm in the morning. I think I’m finally getting the hang of it though…

Who came up with the nine minute snooze threshold anyway? Three of the four alarm clocks I’ve ever owned all had the nine minute snooze. The fourth one had a seven min snooze. I want a 10 minute snooze so I can easily calculate how many times I can hit it before I REALY need to get out of bed…

Open Letter to Jack (in-the-Box)

OK Jack, we need to talk…

Having heard about you years ago (1993 to be exact) and becoming impressed with your ability to turn a disaster into an opportunity I was excited to hear you would be expanding your operation setting up shop in the Indianapolis area.

Immediately after expressing my excitement on a popular social networking site (Facebook, have you heard of it and seen how news travels on it?), that excitement was quickly tainted by friends and acquaintances who have befriended you in the past.

“Not good” they said.  “Nothing special” I was told.  Seriously?  How could this be?  A fast food chain who avoided collapse and is currently in the midst of a Midwest expansion must have something good going for it.  If it’s not the food than what is it?  Do you just have the best marketing department in the business?

When your first Indianapolis area location opened there were reports of huge lines.  I took this as a good sign.  People usually like change and having a new fast food option in the stagnated Indianapolis market was surely welcomed.  Then I heard you would be opening up a store in my hometown.  The location was perfect (not to mention a prime piece of real estate that’s been vacant for years) and would surely draw the crowds like your other new locations…

Then you finally opened.  I drove by a few times, not in the mood to eat at the time, and was surprised at the lack of business.  Maybe it was just the off-peak times I was in the area.

One day last week I woke up and was in the mood for something a little more substantial than a bowl of cereal.  I thought to myself “time to give breakfast a try at Jack-in-the-Box!”  I thought it because saying it out loud would have been weird…

I drove across town and hit the drive thru.  Again, no real line of cars like I was expecting…  I was greeted by a friendly voice behind the speaker grill who asked if I would like to try a loaded-something-or-other.  I declined her offer and requested a simple Sausage Egg and Cheese Biscuit.

Then, I sat behind 2 cars for what felt like an hour…  I love the “open kitchen” concept where I can see the employees making my food while I wait to pull forward, that’s a nice touch.  Once again I was greeted by a friendly member of your staff & was handed my food.  I drove the 5 minutes back to the house & that’s when this story turns ugly…

Have you ever stopped at a gas station and been tempted to buy one of those breakfast sandwiches in the warmer next to the cash register?  They’re usually on “sale” for 2/$2.22 or something like that.  Well I’ve bought one (a few times actually) and they’re not half bad, especially for the price.  They’re always a lot hotter than you expect and you have to wait a few minutes to eat them or risk a 2nd degree burn (not a good thing at 8am).

Well Jack, your Sausage Egg and Cheese Biscuit was cold.  I’m not talking a few minutes in a bag in a car on the way home cold.  I’m talking about a partially frozen biscuit bottom.  Not only was it cold but I think you ran across the street the day before, bought the remaining breakfast sandwiches from the gas station, and froze them as a backup in case you ran out of product during the “morning rush”.  I think you were frantically microwaving said sandwich during my ridiculously long wait in the drive thru line.

In a blind taste test I don’t think I (or a veteran road warrior) could tell the difference between the Sausage Egg and Cheese Biscuit from the gas station and one from your store.  Oh, wait I know how to tell… yours is cold and costs twice as much!

I’m disappointed in you Jack.  I’m disappointed that I was holding out for a new fast food option.  I’m disappointed that your friendly staff could not feel the block of ice in their hand as they put the product in the bag.  And finally Jack, I’m disappointed that my first experience with your food has me wishing another chain took over that vacant space.

I really hope you read this and take it to heart.  If you continue to suffer this kind of quality control your expansion in this market is going to suffer.  Sure I could have called and complained.  I could have driven back and asked for a refund.  That would not have fixed the problem.  The problem was the blown first impression.

I hear you have good (cheap) taco’s but I’m not sure I want to risk it again.  Besides it’s probably just a reheated version of the place down the street…

Jack in the Box on Urbanspoon

Apple Customer Support

Had to call Apple customer support this week for a client who had some equipment stolen. I was VERY impressed with how they handled the call. VERY helpful and efficient. Good example for some of the others to follow (I’m talking to you HP, Cisco & Microsoft!!)…

Not often I have ANYTHING to positive to say about support so I thought I would at least pass it along.