We’ve just returned from four days in Vail. This trip was to celebrate my birthday, but the theme was mountain biking.  On Sunday, we took the gondola up to the top & rode our bikes back down.

We stayed in Vail Village, which is a short bike ride from Lionshead, where we caught the Eagle Bahn Gondola up to Adventure Ridge at an elevation of 10,350 feet.

The system they use to get bikes to the top is pretty cool – the seat in each gondola cab flips up to reveal a bike rack large enough for two full-size mountain bikes.

View from Eagle Bahn Gondola

The bikes are set into the cab (two each) and off they go.  We rode in the next cab & headed to the top.

At the top, there are a couple restaurants and other attractions, for example a trampoline bounce rig (you strap into a harness that is hoisted up 15 feet & you perform wild acrobatics as you bounce), as well as the convergence of many trails.  It is here that we caught the start of the Village Trail.

Beginning of Village Trail

Village Trail is “the longest and most pleasant route on the mountain” (from the 2009 Vail Summer Trail Map).  It is a 7 mile gravel road that winds down the mountain in broad, sweeping arcs.  This isn’t a technically challenging trail, but worked very well for our different skill levels.

One advantage to using this trail is that it allowed my oldest son & I to pull ahead of my wife and youngest son and just go fast. At one point, I know I was traveling at nearly 40 mph down the trail.   This was both awesome and a bit terrifying, as neither of us was wearing any safety gear other than a standard biking helmet.

Snowmobiles parked in meadow

Near the top of the trail, we saw a slightly curious sight: dozens of snowmobiles parked in a meadow.  This is where the Ski Patrol’s snowmobiles are parked off-season.  Notice how many of the sleds have orange-flagged whiptails – this provides additional visibility in deep snow.

It was really cool riding down the mountain & passing alongside (and underneath) so much of the lift equipment.  The signage that guides winter skiers is less useful to bikers, but still provides cues about where you are on the mountain.

The Northwoods Express ski lift is just off the right of the trail at this point, as you can see here.

Signage on the trail

We all met up here & had a water and snack break before continuing down the rest of the trail.

Jen and the boys

This is also where the trail took a large, sweeping turn and then went more or less straight downhill for approximately 1/2 mile.

Keeping in mind that this is a beginner’s trail, the angle of descent wasn’t crazy, but it was definitely the steepest part of the trail.  This is where we picked up our greatest speed, mostly because the trail was hard-packed here and visibility was so good.

From here, we continued down and took a short single-track cut-off to connect to Windisch Way, which led us straight into the Village.  Quite by luck, we pulled into just behind Los Amigos (400 Bridge Street, Vail CO), a wonderful Mexican restaurant with excellent food & service.  Just as we arrived, it began to rain.  We enjoyed our lunch while waiting out the storm, and then rode back to the condo.

If you get to Vail in the summer, you really have to check out the trails on Vail Mountain.  There’s something for everyone and I highly recommend it.

I travel a lot.  On the road, I depend upon wireless connectivity everywhere I go.  Recently, I got fed up with the lack of dependable Wifi service (it is horrible at ATL for example), so I purchased a Laptop Connect card. EVDO, 2xG, 3G… if there’s service, this card will pick it up.

This story has four parts: The Card Problem, The Apple Store Experience, the Analysis and The Latch Fix.  If you are only interested in the fix, skip down to that part.

The Card Problem

I was initially very pleased with the card’s performance on my Macbook Pro, but almost immediately the card become difficult to seat in the Expresscard slot.  It would take several attempts before the latch "caught" the card.  This was inconvenient, but not a deal breaker.

But the card became *more* difficult to seat, and in fact started randomly popping out of the slot.  By "popping out" I mean exactly that – the spring inside the Expresscard cage’s latch assembly would let go of the card, forcing the backstop in the cage to forcefully eject the card.

Um, not good.  I dealt with this increasingly more severe issue the past two weeks, and by Wednesday (two days ago), I could effectively no longer use the card.  I went online & made an appointment at the Apple Store Aspen Grove for this morning – the only business day I have available to get this fixed in the next three weeks.  Did I mention I travel a lot?

The Apple Store Experience

I got to the Apple store & they said they couldn’t fix it on the spot. They’d need 2 or 3 days minimum, and maybe more if they had to order parts.  I explained that wasn’t possible because of my travel schedule – I really needed it fixed today.  The guy told me that if I was a Pro Care member, they would put me at the front of the repair line.  I was too pissed to buy the Pro Care (he didn’t offer that anyway), and proceeded to tell the guy I would fix it myself.  I briefly mentioned that all the other gear I was ready you buy during that visit (about $1000 worth), would not be purchased.

While we were talking, he did remove & clean the springs under the space bar, resolving a maddening squeak that I understand many MBP owners have.  So kudos for that, Apple Store dude.

The Analysis

Once I got back home, I was determined to fix this.  Years ago, I repaired computers and still have my professional toolbox.  Using a plastic probe & my headlamp, I opened the Expresscard slot door & assessed the card-cage assembly.  I could see a set of rails (one on each side) along which the card traveled (guided) as it was inserted into the slot.  I also saw the likely culprit of the issue: the spring-loaded latch on the right side of the cage.

It looked like the spring was slightly askew relative to the otherwise perpendicular orientation of the rest of the cage & rail parts.  This convinced me that the spring was slightly bent, and thus was never fully compressing (loading) behind the card as it was inserted.  This changed the length of travel of the spring as it compressed, which caused the back-stop to only slightly be touched at insertion. 

This, in turn, meant that the latch would either not engage the back-stop at all (as evidenced by the multiple failed inserts), or the latch would only barely "grab" the back-stop… and after some brief period, the latch would "let go" because the spring tension was pulling it across the edge or side.

The Latch Fix

Now that I was sure the issue was purely mechanical, and realizing that I really didn’t want to disassemble my MBP, I considered the obvious: physics.

 A basic physical property is at work in securing the card in place: spring potential energy.  I speculated that gravity was compounding the issue, by pulling the deformed spring out of square with the backstop just enough that it would no longer positively engage the latch.

If I could defeat gravity, I may be able to resolve the issue.  Fortunately, I didn’t need a huge laboratory or special ray guns.  I only needed to turn the MBP upside down, laying it flat on my desk.  Gravity was now working to force the spring back into its correct position.  At this point, I turned the EVDO card upside down and inserted it into the Expresscard slot. 

As expected, it immediately latched.  I then carefully turned the MBP rightside up, powered it up normally & was able to connect flawlessly.  It has been inserted & running for about an hour now; yesterday the card wouldn’t stay inserted (when I could *get* it inserted) for more than one minute.

This worked for me and may work for you too.

Tags: apple, macbook pro, expresscard, latch, spring, repair

When I was at SFO last week picking up Dan, I saw the Fly Clear kiosk being setup in Terminal 3. I had heard a little about this before, so I snapped a couple pictures on the iPhone and picked up a pamphlet that explained the program and provided details on how it worked.

I’m skeptical.

The pamphlet indicates that this is a two step enrollment process.

Step 1 – Sign up online. During the online process, you provide background information (presumably the sort of stuff you’d supply for any background check), and then enter your credit card information. It states you won’t be charged if you aren’t approved, but… you don’t actually complete the enrollment process until later at…

Step 2 …a participating airport’s Clear enrollment station. And here’s the rub for me: the disconnect between the online process and the offline process will probably produce a lot of conversations like this:

“The web site didn’t give me a (confirmation | enrollment | secret ID) number.”

“Sorry maam. We have no record of you having supplied the background information.”

“Our records show that we issued your card to you four days ago – that wasn’t you?”

“There’s a problem with your enrollment sir. You’re going to have to come with us.”

I’m skeptical that this will work because this disconnect creates so many opportunities for mistakes. And I don’t even want to think about willingly giving my personal information (including an iris-print, fingerprint and live credit card) to the same agency that was/is responsible for the nonsensical 3-once rule (among other things).

Tags: sfo, “fly clear”, tsa, security

I’m in 9C on a 757 this morning and was listening to some Boston (R.I.P. Brad Delp…) on my iPod when the young one behind me started crying… loudly.  So I had to break out the Powerbook and fire up iTunes, which has a volume level sufficiently high enough to create a whole new zone. 

There’s something about Janis Joplin’s voice and the raw, biting guitar of Big Brother that makes everything else seem, momentarily, unimportant.

Come on.  Try just a little bit harder.

Tags: ipod, itunes, janis joplin, boston

SFO. Powerbook.  Wifi.  iPod. Bowie. Let’s Dance.   Perfect way to tune in & tune out.  Nice.