zLarson Recent Articles http://www.zlarson.com zLarson Recent Articles en Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:06:30 -0500 Bicyle CommutingzacharticlesFor the past 2 months or so I have been riding my bike into work 2-3 days a week. The initial moti...]]>Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0500Bicyle Commuting
For the past 2 months or so I have been riding my bike into work 2-3 days a week. The initial motivation came from Bike To Work Week. The route from Ankeny, IA to Johnston, IA that I take is a little out of the way of my driving route so I can avoid traffic and get a little more mileage in. I ride ~10.5 miles each way which turns into a decent workout each day.

Some things I have learned so far:

1 - keep work shoes in the office
Shoes are the heaviest and bulkiest item I have to carry. I now keep my work shoes in a drawer with my flip flops that I wear to the locker room to shower.
2 - get you stuff ready the night before
There is nothing worse than arriving to work and realizing you forgot your ID card. People don't like letting the guy on the bike sneak into the building behind them. Also, forgetting a piece of clothing such as your belt isnt a good thing to find out in the locker room. After walking around for a day constantly tugging on your jeans to keep them up you wont forget it again.


Benefits I have noticed so far:

1 - the workout
Its nice getting to work and getting a workout in. I used to have to worry about making time after work to run or bicycle. Now if I dont have time to go workout after I get home I know that I already rode 20+ miles on my bike.
2 - Getting to work early means leaving early
I get to the office after showering around 7:15am. That means, if i work through lunch, I can take off around 3:30pm! Thats much better than the normal 5pm.
3 - Energy levels
I have noticed that I am much more relaxed and not so tense when I get to work. I am very energized and ready to begin my day when I get here.
4 - Money Saver
This should be number 1 on the list. I sometimes cant remember when the last time was that I put fuel in my car. Also, since I only have my bike at work I am less likely to head out for lunch and spend money on crappy food.

So yeah, if you can, give commuting a shot. Its very rewarding and addictive.

comments: 0]]>Lots of photos and lots of ridingzacharticlesMon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500Lots of photos and lots of riding
This weekend was pretty busy. On Saturday I went over to Amy's house where she works as a counselor and took school pictures for all the kids there. They don't get to participate in normal school pictures so we thought it would be nice for them to have a couple pictures to keep and give to their families. It went really well. I think the kids were really excited about it. They all got their haircut and were dressed up when I got there. I took pictures around the house and we grilled out and all had lunch afterwards.

Sunday we went to church and a goth guy with real fangs sat behind us. Weird. That afternoon, before broomball, Amy and I stopped by Trents so i could take the pictures of his camper that he is trying to sell. After that we headed to broomball. We did pretty good. We won full-ice and lost horribly in half-ice.

This week is Bike To Work Week. Pioneer has breakfast for us each day which is nice. I rode into work last week a couple times to figure out a route and how long is was going to take. It ended up being 10.5 miles and takes just around 30 minutes to get here. I leave the house around 6:30am, get here around 7am, shower and get to my desk around 7:30am. It feels pretty good getting a workout in while getting to work.

Also, we made plans to go out to Virginia Beach in August for Amys cousins wedding. Cant wait!

comments: 0]]>Weekend - March 8, 2008zacharticlesWed, 12 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500Weekend - March 8, 2008
About a week ago I got a text message from my cousin Amy saying that she was getting married in a week. Her and Sean were supposed to get married in June but because of Sean's interest in a job in the Air Force he was going to have to leave for training in March. Amy and Sean decided to get married before he left. My mom called me about 2 minutes after i read the text message to let me know. Because of my new found interest in photography I thought it would be a great experience to try shooting the wedding for them since they had to cancel with their original photographer. I really needed a new flash for my camera because the little pop-up flash wouldn't come close to getting the job done. I went to Christian Photography and picked up the Canon 430EX Speedlite Flash.

The flash is pretty nice. Its got all the normal functions that any external flash should have. Its got a left-to-right and up-and-down swiveling head, pop up filter to spread the light really wide for wide angle lenses, and it can be a slave flash used with my pop-up flash. It also has a really nice setting called second curtain sync where the flash will go off right at the end before the shutter closes. Its nice for long exposures where you want the bluriness and the crazy lights but you want the object/person in perfect focus. So yeah, so far, I like it.

I left Des Moines friday afternoon and met some family at the church so i could get an idea for the lighting and try out a couple test shots to see what I needed to do. The wedding was on saturday and everything went great. I took over 500 photos and after looking them over I kept about half of them. We went out for dinner afterwards and that night I went out to my dads to stay the night. We were sitting around visiting when Aaron called me.

Aaron: Hey what are you doing?!?!
Me: Im at my dads, whats up?
Aaron: Im 20 miles from Galesburg
Me: Come over!

So Aaron headed over and my brother and Anna showed up right before he got there. We all hung out for a while and decided to head into Galesburg to check out a couple bars. My cousin was in town from Dubuque, IA and he mentioned wanting to do something that night so i gave him a call too. We all met up at The Pub and had a beer. After that we headed to a new martini bar called Olives where BJ, Aaron, and I immediately went next door for a beer instead. After that we all moved to McGillacuddy's before calling it a night. On the way home my dad, Aaron, and I were all in Aarons Taurus and decided we were hungry so we went back to my dads and ate a bunch of lasagna at 2am.

The next morning I left Galesburg pretty early so i could get home in time for our first broomball game. We played the Ice Hounds in half ice and full ice. We beat them 6-2 in full ice and 1-0 in half ice. w00t!

comments: 0]]>WARNING! - FotoConnection.com is a scamzacharticles
My wife was looking online for a place to order the camera. She was on Buy.com and was about to buy it when she saw ...]]>Tue, 08 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0600WARNING! - FotoConnection.com is a scam
This is the continuation of my story about my camera I got for Christmas.

My wife was looking online for a place to order the camera. She was on Buy.com and was about to buy it when she saw the 'Sponsored Ads' section. There was a seller offering the camera for a way cheaper price than Buy.com had it for. She went to their site and ordered it. The next day they called and said the camera she ordered didn't come with the lense that it was pictured with. Tip off #1 that this place is shady. They told her it would be another $100 to get the lense pictured. Even with the exta $100 the total price was still w/in reason so she agreed. That day she got a confirmation email that the ordered had been placed. It said to call to confirm the order. Tip off #2 that this place is shady. She noticed that the order was wrong so she called, like the email said to do, to let them know that the order was not correct. They rudely informed her that the order had already been shipped and that she was SOL and would have to return the order when it arrived.

The package arrived at my wifes moms house. Her mom then returned it and all the proper paper work was sent in along with it. The company received the package and there was no communication for a while. She called to see how things were going and they said it would be shipped out the next day. About a week before Christmas she called back and they said, "Don't worry you will have it by Christmas.". she said, "If it's not going to be here by Christmas then please cancel my order now." Every day up until Christmas she called and they said the same crap, "It's going out today...". Well, Christmas arrived and there was no camera. When we were opening presents she told me all of this had been going on for a month.

The next day I had a mission. I had to call this place, cancel the order, and confirm a few times that it had in fact been cancelled. I found out the way this place works is they try to irritate you enough into giving in and letting them win. When you call their customer support number you instantly go on hold for at least 10 minutes. At most places you could set the phone to speaker and just do something else while on hold. At this place you have to sit on the phone because every 2 minutes you have to push "2" to continue to stay in the queue or else it bumps you. Tip off #3 that this place is shady. When you do get a hold of someone its always the sales department even if you selected customer service from the main menu. When I mentioned the words "cancel order" or "check on status" I was instantly, and very rudely, put back into another queue for the customer support department. If you ever have to deal with these people expect to be lied to, talked down to, and basically treated extremely rudely. I talked to one woman who insisted the order had been shipped that day and I couldnt cancel. I then called back and another woman said that it would be no problem because the order was still sitting in the warehouse. Tip off #4 that this place is shady. She then told me I had to pay a restocking fee and shipping charges. First of all, restocking fees? You guys screwed up so walk that 10 feet and put it back on the shelf yourself. Second, shipping charges? I thought it hadn't been shipped? Tip off #5 that this place is shady. I somewhat agreed to these charges just to get the order cancelled and the funds credited back to the credit card. We are now in the process of disputing these new charges. Throughout the day I called back a few times just to talk to a few different people to make sure it had been cancelled.

Conclusion: Everyone has to learn, either a hard way or an easy way. We got lucky in that this was somewhat of an actual company so there weren't any really bad criminal acts done but there were a lot of shady business acts done. Don't ever do business with these people. Always research a company before buying from them if you haven't heard of them. Alot of places, including this one, own a lot of domain names but opperate out of the same parent business. Just be careful.

comments: 1]]>2008 Iowa CaucuszacharticlesGrowing up in Illinois I always heard about the Iowa Caucus and how it could make or break an election for...]]>Fri, 04 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -06002008 Iowa Caucus
Growing up in Illinois I always heard about the Iowa Caucus and how it could make or break an election for a candidate. Now that I live in Iowa I have been exposed to the numerous television and radio ads for all the candidates as well as all the hype around caucusing.

I decided I wanted to go check it out. I looked up the location I was supposed to be at and headed out around 6pm so I didn't have to wait in the long line I was expecting. I arrived and had to wait in a short line. Because we moved, I had to wait in another line to re-register to vote. While waiting I was greated by numerous people asking me which candidate I was voting for. Based on my response I either got a sticker or a "oh I'm sorry to hear that.". This was kind of annoying but I am glad to see so many people excited about the election.

Once everyone was signed in and the doors were closed we were instructed on how things were going to work. After the briefing we were asked to move to our respected candidates corners of the room. Once we moved into our spots each group was counted. If the group didn't have 15% of the people they became a nonviable group and the members had to disband and join another group or become undecided. There was a lot of talk during this time where people from the viable groups would try to convince these undecided people to come join them. This regrouping took about 15-20 minutes and then there was another count of the groups to get the final numbers.

Where I was at Clinton had around 85 supporters, Edwards had 100 supporters, and Obama around 175 supporters. The turnout was insane. I heard people saying there were 3 times the people than the last caucus. It was fun to be a part of this.

Pictures are here.

comments: 0]]>