I woke up at 2 am this morning. After some work, reading and a movie, I caught some more sleep between 6 o’clock and 7:30. A sturdy breakfast, and I was ready for a day of Domotex at the gigantic Hannover Messe.

I’m on a delayed train from Hannover to Cologne as I write this (no internet connection from my computer now; this will be a delayed posting). There was some sort of disturbance on the regular line, so DB decided to re-route the train. At least DB’s 1st class is just that: 1st Class. A very comfortable ride.

A word of caution if you’re a foreigner traveling new lines in Germany: Make sure you get on the right train and look out for “split” trains. The one I boarded in Hannover happened to be a split version, meaning it will splinter off in two directions somewhere along the way. When in doubt, just get on and play stupid. The attendants are helpful and it’s better to be on the way than left stranded on a platform and having to wait for the next train.

I was seven years old when I started building Bionicles. I had some random pieces (without instructions) mixed in with a bunch of used LEGOs that my parents had bought for Christmas one year. I really wanted to build Pohatu Nuva. I had my dad search for directions online.

The first time I tried to build it there were a lot of pieces I couldn’t find and I wasn’t going to look for them. Just a few weeks ago I tried it again and took the time needed to find the right pieces. I’m still looking for the tan leg section. I found out how to build this set at ToysPeriod.com. It’s a useful site for LEGO and Bionicle directions if you don’t have the original sets.

I have a 2011 MacBook Pro 15″. After running this update, I have observed two things:

1) My MacBook runs very hot, with a lot more fan action than before.
2) The battery drains more than twice as fast as it did before.

I’m not the only one with this problem. Some of us have sounded off on Apple’s discussion board and I’m sure there are many silent users out there facing the same situation.

If I could turn back time, I would ignore this update altogether. Presently, I don’t have any Thunderbolt peripherals, so the announced “stability” that this upgrade was supposed to offer is of no use. Instead, I have a slightly crippled MacBook. Apple, please fix this problem with a proper update soon.

As a side note: I use the Thunderbolt port for my Mini Display adapter to run a monitor via HDMI at work. This still works fine since the upgrade. On the other hand, I had no problems with it earlier, so there’s no improvement.

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UPDATE: I have found a solution to this problem (at least one that works for me).

First, I found a thread discussing an unrelated topic here: https://discussions.apple.com/message/15478460

I followed these instructions, which didn’t have anything to do with the Thunderbolt firmware update, and it appears my problem is fixed. I’m not sure if the update caused this problem or if it was a pure fluke. Regardless, I’m happy again.

The flight to Amsterdam was uneventful. Three movies and almost no reading, then touchdown. But I hear there’s another volcano problem brewing in Iceland. Let’s hope they don’t shut down the airspace over Europe this week because I’m scheduled to fly from Düsseldorf to Stockholm on Friday night. I have to monitor that situation.

The drive from Amsterdam to Waregem, Belgium, was quick and I arrived ahead of schedule. When I came over in January I had such horrible sleep problems that I decided to just go for a nap as soon as I got the hotel this time. I squeezed in a solid four hours this afternoon and would have kept on snoring had I not set the alarm for 17:00.

I went for a long stroll tonight and found a good restaurant. I devoured an Entrecôte with Béarnaise Sauce and fries and was heading back to the hotel when I walked by a little bistro with free wi-fi. I’m having a small Stella Artois there now and am ready to head back to the hotel. It’s 21:45 and still fairly light outside.

Sure enough there was a $59.95 charge on my credit card. The problem is, I never signed up for this service and haven’t been a member before. There is no trial membership to renew. However, I had to use their service when signing up for both the Yakima River Canyon Marathon and Portland Marathon last year, which means they have my credit card on file.

I’m not the only one who’s having this problem. A quick search on the internet reveals many similar stories. Here’s just one example (from active.com’s own forum):

http://community.active.com/message/838243

I called the company this morning and the first thing the lady on the phone asked me was if I was calling to have the $59.95 reversed. They must be getting tons of calls about this. I told her yes and pointed out that I had never signed up for their service in the first place and shouldn’t have to make this call. She promised that the charge would be reversed within the next 2-3 days (and I did receive an email confirming this). If this indeed happens I wouldn’t go so far as to call them fraudulent. But in my book it definitely qualifies as a scam and reeks of disgusting business practice all around. Shame on any company engaged in this kind of behavior.

To the organizers of both the Yakima River Canyon and Portland Marathons: I urge you to find a different business partner to handle your online payment processing. Surely you must have heard about this problem by now. To continue using active.com means that you knowingly and willingly put your clients at risk. It’s a shame to have the experiences of such great racing events tarnished by scammers.

I haven’t had the time or the energy to dabble much with website work in a while but I did get around to uploading some old pictures (from April) to our SmugMug account today (click here to view).

I know some friends drop in here from time to time. For now, I’m posting tweets. The column on the right only lists the last five tweets but if if you click on the title (the one that says “Tweets”) you’ll go straight to my Twitter account. This serves as a mini-blog for now. As for Facebook, I’m giving serious thought to shutting down my account.

Come January, I’m heading to Europe for a week and should have some cool pictures and travel anecdotes. Until then, I’ll try to get some more pictures (and maybe a video or two) up.