Tomasz Korwel
programmer, administrator, engineer - my everyday fights with reality

As some of you probably know I started to snowboard recently. As I’m no longer 10 years old and I care about my health I purchased some protection gear to keep me together no mater what.

Among other thing I have chosen Crash Pads 2500 Padded Shorts from XSportProtective and
knee pads from Sports Authority.

Both purchases were made on Monday around 12 p.m. And guess what - shorts are here in less than 48h (keep in mind that they were shipped from Pennsylvania) while knee pads are still in the warehouse.

In the future I will definitely think twice before ordering from Sports Authority. I’m not saying I won’t mainly because their wide range of products, but I will always rethink and look for faster store.

*Small update - it’s been over a week now and the knee pads still aren’t here - I think I won’t ever buy from them again :-(

Today I found out that I may be crazy. How? I went to give blood. And I was deferred because I have spent more than 5 years in Europe between 1980 and 1996 total. Thereof I was highly exposed to the BSE and they don’t want to risk being sued by potential blood taker.

Of course I didn’t get any answer on my question “So how the hell whole Europe is taking donations there?”.

I can tell you - this is funny country.

Technorati Tags: blood, Europe, BSE

As some of you may know I belong to this kind of human beings whose eyes need some help to correctly describe what is going on around us. Most of the time it doesn’t make any problems - I’m wearing my prescriptions and everything looks normal.

Problems start when I’m going to snowboard. Usually snowboarding comes together with frost, wind and sun. OK sun not so often but the rest is almost always present on the slope. Again usually it doesn’t make any problems - you just wear ski/snowboard goggles and everything is fine.

But what if you need both of them? When I was exploring this problem couple of years before the only solution to my problem was switch to contacts and wear goggles.

Some time went by and finally this year we started to snowboard. The problem of goggles showed up again, but this time I have found the solution: goggles OTG (over the glasses). It looks like now almost every manufacturer has something in the catalog to please four-eyed people.

Here is what I’ve chosen:

Uvex Optic Vision L - one of two or three that were available in large size. As you may see on the pictures - my huge prescription glasses fit very well.

Technorati Tags: goggles, OTG, over, glasses, Uvex

How do you recognize good seller on eBay? One can say “check their feedback” other “look for return policy”. Probably there is as many recipes as buyers. I have one more to add - check customer service quality. I usually “attach” to the store. When my buying experience is good I will return to the store. I will put it on the top of my list and check it first for needed thing.

Lets go to the details - I wanted to buy snowboards (with boots and bindings) for us. After careful examining eBay’s listing I have narrowed them to 2 stores - one in Minnesota and another from Colorado. As I’m rookie I didn’t know precisely what I want. So I asked both of the a question. i have to admit that it was quite a general question, yet very important to someone who wants to spend $500 on new equipment. Guess what, only one answered. I didn’t wait long, after clarifying some other things I ordered two sets containing Lamar snowboard and SIMS boots and bindings. After some unpleasant experiences with FeDeX the package arrived last Friday. After quick scan of picture howto I mounted the bindings and we were ready to go.

Next day on the slope something strange happened. While tightening my straps one ratchet… broke. I took the broken part with me to closely examine it at home. You can see the results below:

I was quite surprised as it turned out that the ratchet handle was made from some kind of metal. More - the manufacturer was advertising this binding as a bulletproof. So I wrote an email with those pictures to my eBay seller and imagine my surprise - without any hesitation I got the answer I hoped to see - they will send me new replacement part.

I know that it probably cost less than $5 so it’s not a big deal for them, but yet - in very profit/competition oriented environment which without any doubts eBay is, they found time to answer all my not-so-brilliant questions, timely package and sent the equipment and then nicely handle warranty claim.

I can tell you - since now every time I will need something from sport equipment I will first go and check at the Snowboardnstuff.com

Technorati Tags: eBay, snowboard, bindings

Let’s hope that this new 2007 year will be at least as good as the 2006 one.

Happy New Year!