Sunday, May 22nd, 2011
I left with a sick kid at home. Not the ideal way to start a trip. Worried and sad for a 9-year old who’s throwing up and sleeping off a fever on the couch. Hang tough, Trek! Uncle Seay stepped up and took me to the airport. Thank you!
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.
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Friday, April 22nd, 2011
I’m posting this as a warning to other runners and triathletes who might sign up for races that use active.com to process payments. I received this email from active.com yesterday:
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.
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Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
The view from our office window this beautiful Tuesday morning. I’m disappointed that we didn’t get more than a dusting of snow overnight but at least it’s cold with a little bit of ice on TYR Lake.
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