Latest stories

Product Marketing/Management Partition

P

I have started this blog posting several times, and have been diverted each time. It is a complex topic, and it almost seems like heresy, but I believe it needs to be said. There has been much said on the roles of Product Management, and Product Marketing. There are firms who have well developed frameworks, and extensive training to help you get to a “good” state. In particular, I am familiar...

Awesome Customer Support – Bose

A

A lot of people have complained that Bose is over priced for what you get, and that their quality isn’t that high. But I beg to differ. Back in 2004 or so, I got a set of Bose QC-2 headphones for my birthday. I was doing a lot of international traveling, and the headset was a godsend. No, it didn’t eliminate all noise, but it really reduced the jet engine noise, and make listening to...

What I learned to ride on.

W

Probably in 1977 or so, I began my experience with motorcycles. I was too young to have my permit for the street, so naturally, we did the off road thing. Recently I have been reliving my youth, and sharing some experiences, so I thought I would go back even further to the first bikes I rode. We had a pair of Honda XL125’s, 1976. Red tank, black plastic, mild steel rims, and the street...

Blast from the Past: Kawasaki Bighorn 350

B

On my way home every day, at a trailer park there is facing the road a motorcycle trailer with something that is from the deep past. A Kawasaki Bighorn 350cc “enduro” bike. A friend in high school rode one, and we gave him a ton of shit for it. Starting in the early 1970’s Japanese off road motorcycles started redefining the dirt bike experience in the US. Prior to that, you had...

Geek Warning: Mathematics being spoken

G

I work with atomic force microscopes (AFM’s). At their heart is a PID control system that keeps the probe doing the right thing, and giving us ultra high resolution images of a variety of things (topography, elasticity, etc). But I realized that I knew little about actual control systems. I was not an engineering student in university, so I wasn’t exposed to the concepts. Now I am...

This is harder than it should be

T

In in effort to save money, I was investigating options to reduce the cost of my monthly cell phone bill. I had actually considered cancelling it, but thought better of that, since I use it for several 2-factor authentication sites. So I head over to AT&T’s site, log in, and start the “upgrade” process. I figure I will just get a cheap feature phone, and be done with it...

A classic – 1983 Honda V65 Magna

A

On the way home today, I saw a truck hauling a piece of motorcycling history. A Honda V65 Magna, circa 1983, was strapped to the trailer. One of the first Honda V4’s, the v65 was the boss bike that year. It was the fastest off the line, and held the production quarter mile title. Shaft drive, 65 cubic inches displacement, and a laid back cruiser styling. It was pretty rough, but I strongly...

Foreclosed Houses

F

About 7 months ago, we moved to one of the foreclosure hot spots in the country, Phoenix. When I was first looking for houses, I was thought I would be able to pick up one of the many short sales, or foreclosed properties. Clearly, there was a large inventory, and finding a lot of listings in the $150K price range was easy. However, it wasn’t as simple as that. First, it is pretty clear...

Neighbor Parties

N

One thing I miss about Tucson is the solitude we had. We lived on the edge of town, at the end of a street with a fair amount of open space around us. Behind us was county property, SR zoned, 5 acre minimum lots. Not much noise at night. Here in Chandler, we live in a nice sub-division (Dobson Place), with (mostly) good neighbors. But on one side of us, there is a college aged kid  who lives with...

Posts

Subscribe to Tralfaz via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 4 other subscribers
April 2024
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930  

Spam Blocked