Incursio

Damn. Oregon is not included. T-Mobile Gets Sued Over Termination Fees But it is at least a start. If the suit is successful I can see some sweeping changes to mobile phone contracts. In fact, I predict some "pre-emptive" changes possibly coming soon. I have never understood why they charge so much for service cancellation fees. (They being not the magical "They" that is responsible for almost anything, but rather in this case I mean mobile phone providers in general). I mean - at most they are out the cost of the deal you got on the phone. They already usually charge you a setup fee, activation fee or something like that... That covers their manpower needed for the slightly-above-minimum-wage employee to type your name into the computer and open your box and show you the "on" button. Other than that labor involved, they mostly just need to recoup the cost of the phone. Say there is a groovy new Nokia phone that retails for $200 without any p

Timberline Ski Area on Mt. Hood plans to begin their winter ski season this weekend, 11/16! Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Area is still innaccessible , but can open as soon as the road (Hwy 35) does. Mt. Hood Ski Bowl , and the smaller Summit Ski area , and Cooper Spur are all still awaiting more snow.

The Libre Maps project has purchased and made available for free all of the USGS Topographical maps of the USA. All 50 states. The maps have always been free sort-of, there was just no where until now to actually GET them for free. The Libre Maps project raised enough funds to buy the many gigabytes of data and the Internet Archive is hosting them. These are great 24k scale topographical maps folks. The same types you pay for in sporting goods stores. And many applications on your computers can work directly with them and your GPS. You can get water and tear resistant paper and print them out.. All good stuff... For the lazy in the audience, here are Oregon's.

Well, what a pisser. After dropping $400 for the 4x4 season pass to Meadows we might not get to ski at all. No matter what the snow is like. Highway 35 has been wiped out by mudslides. (I am not sure how long that page will be current, so just in case here is a screenshot of the page...) There are a few pictures of the damage here. Oh well. It is not like I needed that $400 anyway... Here are some more links: FOX 12 reporting Hood River News reports Maybe I get to test my Jeep's off-roading capabilities now. :) That Mt. Hood Fusion Pass - in hindsight - looks pretty good right about now...