If you use the online financial service Mint, and you also have a Chase account, you may (or may not) have noticed that for the past 5-6 days Mint cannot pull in your Chase account data.

Mint has posted information in their forums regarding the issue:

Chase was down this weekend and Checking/Savings and Chase Loan are now working again. However, we do have a problem with Chase Credit and our data provider is actively working to resolve this. Sorry for the frustration this is causing.

They say the Checking/Savings stuff should be back up, but at least for me it’s not. I have no idea what is going on, but it’s just giving me another reason to ditch Chase. First reason being my paychecks “pending” for days in my account. We’ll see what happens, but I’m guessing within the next few weeks, my wife and I will be migrating to a different bank.

Just thought I’d post some pictures from our Julian Getaway from the 31st of last month. Enjoy!

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My wife is updating like crazy over at her blog, Inquisitive Sensitive. Check it out, please! It will give you a bit of insight into our (sometimes crazy) lives.

That's my can of Barbasol shaving cream exploding on the countertop. My wife and I heard a pop sound one night, and since it was late didn't bother finding the source until morning. That's what we found. I just laughed about it, since the can was a bit old and had gotten a lot of use, but thought we should write Barbasol anyways. It also helped that I had read about a similiar incident on Consumerist.com, titled "If Your Barbasol Shaving Cream Explodes In Your Shower, You Will Receive Coupons"

My wife drafted up a letter, explaining the situation and included picture and video links in case they wanted to check them out, and e-mailed it off. I wasn't expecting any response, but a week or so later, we received this in the mail:

Good form, Barbasol! Now, my brand of Barbasol is actually $2.50 at most local retailers, but come on, a two-dollar bill? How cool is that. Who else gives you 80% of your money back like that these days?

Bonus, video clip of the foaming action:

I purchased a 2007 Nissan Altima in January of last year, and it's been great. Even though I've driven over a 5-inch high piece of wood and bombed it off of a foot high drop on a dirt road. I felt it was worth paying the "extra" for the technology package. Bluetooth? Check. Navigation? Check. Traffic information? Check.

The Bluetooth works like it's supposed to, although it is hard to hear sometimes. I can't fault the car, because the inside of a car isn't dead quiet like the commercials would lead you to believe. The navigation works well, with some flaws. I've found some aftermarket devices that allow you to override the buttons while driving, but haven't implemented them in my own car yet. Kinda scared to do that, lest I turn my car's wiring into a rat's nest.

But that isn't what this entry is about. I'm talking specifically about the XM NavTraffic feature linked with my navigation system that is supposed to allow for real-time traffic information to be overlaid on your map. It works as advertised, and indeed does show green/orange/red lines next to the road if there is traffic, and little icons if there is an accident or construction.

The problem is, most of the time the data was completely worthless. I don't know if it's on a delayed update or what, but driving up to Riverside, the roads would be all green. I can tell you from personal experience that the I-15 to I-215 to I-60 route is not "all green", especially during morning or afternoon traffic. It got so bad that I eventually started manually setting avoidance areas in my navigation system.

The accident information was also delayed. If I was sitting in traffic caused by an accident, rarely would I see it on my screen. For the times it actually did show on my screen, it leads me to make my second point-- Nissan's navigation system doesn't re-route around bad traffic or accidents!

Sure, there is an option to enable the feature, but it does nothing as far as I can tell. At least on my old Magellan GPS unit, it would announce "re-calculating route due to traffic conditions." Heck, the Magellan unit would sense that I was on a freeway and doing stop-n-go traffic, then automatically route me 5, 10, 15 or 20 miles around the block of freeway. Unacceptable that this feature is not found in a much larger (and more expensive) unit.

So eventually, it just didn't make sense anymore to have XM NavTraffic in my car. Maybe your car interprets XM's data differently (and actually avoids problems), but definitely not in a Nissan Altima.

While I'm complaining, I think I'll point out that it seems the XM audio decoder in my vehicle is not the most current decoder chip utilized by XM (even though it's a 2007 vehicle) -- this leads to lower sound quality. It reminds me of the old Delphi SkyFi XM radio I had my previous cars. I wasn't very happy with the quality at all, until someone over at XM411.com revealed to me that the newer SkyFi2 had an upgraded decoder chip. Sure enough, I bought a SkyFi2 and had a much better sound quality experience. Again, it's a shame that a "new" car doesn't have this upgraded chip.

Anyways, I just thought I'd give everyone a post-mortem on my car. Enjoy.

Since getting my console back after having it repaired, due to the red ring of death problem, I haven't played it much. I decided today to sit down and play Assassin's Creed, and about five minutes into it, my screen starts to look posterized. Basically, it looks like the colors are reduced. Think cheesy 80's music video special effects. Here's some shots:

Of course, if I go to XBox.com and look up my repair information, it says I'm out of warranty. Fantastic. A console I hardly play is broken yet again. I'm going to try to call and deal with their customer service people (in India.. ugh.) But I doubt I will be able to get them to fix this for free.

I haven't found any other information online about this problem. I can't be the only one, though.

Stuff I've tried:

- Changing from 1080p to 1080i, 720p, etc. -- no change.

- Jiggling the entire cable, in case there's a short.

- Unplugging/re-plugging in the video cable.

- Performing the "Reset Video Settings" trick per Microsoft's KB article.

How *$()@% frustrating is this? Microsoft really doesn't get it sometimes.

Update: According to users who replied to my XBox.com forum post, the problem appears to be that the GPU is either overheating, or beginning to break away from the motherboard. This is similar to what causes the "Red Ring of Death" errors, but not the same. I think I'm going to just have to bite the bullet and pay for repairs, even though this is clearly a design flaw, and not a problem I caused.

My best friend Jason and I have made lots of videos over the years. These four videos, made for this year's Vacation Bible School at Mountain View Community Church, are a good example of the silliness that ensues when Jason and I make videos. I usually edit, he directs/films. Jason's the guy with the funny lit-up glasses. Enjoy.

My boss recently posted about A-G Sod Farms on his blog, "Kevin Lewis Blog" and it inspired me to do the same. One of the first projects I was introduced to after being hired by LewisTech was a custom accounting system for A-G Sod Farms. They sell sod in brick & mortar stores, and we recently renovated their ability to order sod online.

I have to admit, at first I was a bit nervous with the scope of the project. I had never worked on anything that large before (and something being used at multiple distant locations, by multiple users.) It was a genuine learning experience, and Kevin helped me every step of the way. In the end, as Kevin's entry attests to, we delivered a great product that has helped the company cut paper usage and be "more green". How about that? A sod company, going green...

So next time you're looking for Sod in Riverside, Sod in Los Angeles, Sod in Sacramento, or Sod in any of their other locations, be sure to check them out. I know that when I purchase a home with Heather (hopefully in the next 5 years?) I will be using them for all my sod needs.

The night before my birthday we all went out to Benihana, as you can see. The chef was great, and even shaped the rice in a "Mickey Mouse" head. My wife says he must've known I was coming. Hah.

Then the next day (my birthday), Heather surprised me by taking me out to IHOP for breakfast, then giving me the option of going to see Iron Man or going to the beach. Which one do you think I chose? :) We both really enjoyed Iron Man. After that, she told me she had purchased a yearly pass for her and I for the Wild Animal Park. So on our way home we stopped there and walked around for a bit, just relaxing and checking out things at a casual pace. Since we live so close (about 20 mins or less) to the Wild Animal Park, the passes will come in handy.

All in all it was a great birthday, and I loved being surprised. My wife is amazing. Just thought I'd share!

I have the greatest wife in the world.

She’s been putting up with my business trips like a champ.

And I get to see her tonight!

So there.

P.S. – And she smells like cupcakes, rainbows and dreams. So double there. Neener!