…new cell phone from T-Mobile, and think it’s interesting the lengths to which the company will go to keep a current customer. (The following is also a ringing endorsement of T-Mobile’s customer service department, with whom I have never had a problem.)

Those of you who know me know that I’m not a phone person, and don’t spend much time on the cell. I have T-Mobile’s absolute cheapest plan, the $19.99/mo “Basic” plan. Sixty Whenever and 500 weekend minutes. Nothing unlimited, and nothing special about nighttime.

My Nokia 3390 Gold, the free phone that came with my service, is starting to die. I’ve got a few stuck pixels on the screen, the battery is losing its capacity, and the reception is degraded. A month or two ago, I went over to the T-Mobile store in Technology Square and asked about getting a new phone. The person who helped me in the store said he couldn’t get me anything for free, but suggested I contact Customer Service, who has more leeway and can consider my “tenure” (as they called it) with the company. I’ve been with T-Mobile for a total of over two years so he said it was likely.

Today I finally got the chance to call Customer Service and ask. The rep said that he couldn’t get me a free phone either. I kindly suggested that he try a little harder and he put me on the line with a person from account management. He quickly offered me a free Motorola, the inexpensive Nokia 6010, and a less inexpensive Samsung. He also said he could upgrade me—at no charge—to the “Basic Preferred” rate plan, which has an extra 15 Anytime minutes per month. Added to the fifteen Loyalty Minutes I’ve been getting for the past while, I’d be up to 90 Anytime minutes.

So, less than $25 later, and with another 12 month contract, I have a new phone and more minutes per month. Same phone number, same company, no fuss.

Thanks, T-Mobile. You make up for the fact that your cycling team is the U.S. Postal Service team’s main Tour rivals with your excellent service.

We continue with hot pit action, as Milka Duno climbs into the #30 Citgo Lola B2K/40, running in the LMP2 class.

ISO 64, f/5.6, 1/100 s

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Okay, here it goes. I’m doing this in two posts just to keep from being overly long. One more Petit post will follow these two, then I’m finally done.

Preparing for the big event:

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I do have Day 3 Petit Le Mans photos processed, which will be followed by a Petit special feature (yes, finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for). At least the first of these should be posted tomorrow.

Meanwhile, a total lunar eclipse, which will not reoccur until 2007, happened earlier this evening. All the below photos (except the skyline) were taken with the TCON-17. Shooting was in Yellow Jacket Park, where a bunch of people had gathered at the invitation of the Astronomy Club, who brought telescopes, to view the event.

ISO 64, f/5.6, 1/320 s

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I believe I have 2-3 installments remaining in the Petit Le Mans series, plus Great Georgia Airshow photos that I think I want to get in. I’m going to attempt to get the next Petit photo set done tonight, and hopefully finish that up tomorrow.

This is getting important because NaNo is approaching, and free time will be dedicated to noveling so there won’t be time to process photos. It’s bad enough October’s nearly over (given that the race was in late September) and the photos aren’t done.

Meanwhile, life marches on around me. I think this is the first time I’ve managed to score in the 70s on three tests in a semester. Average-beating 70s, yes, but still 70s. Don’t let anyone tell you your classes get easier the farther you go. They lie.

And I don’t think I ever managed to mention that I finished Life of Pi. I haven’t had much time to do any reading of late (I’m only through three chapters of Restoring the Lost Constitution) so I haven’t really been thinking about it. Reading list update post is planned for the indefinite future.

Regarding NaNo, I’ll say if anything important happens.

Donald Luskin suggests that there is market manipulation. Potentially involving George Soros. (via Instapundit)

For those who don’t know, Tradesports is a “trading exchange,” essentially a stock market for betting propositions. Tradesports has contracts on the upcoming Presidential election, so the value of the shares represents what the traders expect to happen in the election (as opposed to a poll, where a person expresses their desire rather than their expectations). George Bush is currently trading at 54.5, indicating that the traders believe there is a 54.5% chance of Bush being reelected.

The speculation is that the market is being manipulated to reduce the confidence of Bush supporters by forcing the share prices down. Why Soros? He’s done this before, making about $1 billion by heavily shorting the British pound, betting on a fall which he essentially induced—much like what appears to be occurring on Tradesports.

I find this worthy of posting because I think it’s interesting that a market can be essentially manipulated in this way, and I didn’t know about Soros’ British pound bet before.

Template editing, 101.

Both my sister and Gus have asked me how I put those nifty links on the side of my blog. Well, I’d tell you, but the way I do it is more complicated than Blog*Spot allows (it involves server-side includes and means I don’t have to republish when I make changes to those links.) The next best thing is to edit your template directly.

In the Blogger interface, click on the Template tab. You will be presented with some potentially daunting HTML. Don’t panic. Scroll through it until you find something that looks like <h2 class="sidebar-title">Archives</h2>. We’ll insert your blogroll right before this. In order to match the existing style, a similar syntax to the archives will be employed.

Insert the following before that line:


<h2 class="sidebar-title">Blogroll</h2>
<ul class="blogroll-list">
<li><a href="http://patrick.greentaperacing.us/blog/">Missing the Ground</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.homestarrunner.com/">Homestar Runner</a></li>
</ul>


You can, of course, expand this to as many list items as you’d like, and link to whomever you like (though if you don’t link back to me you will hear no end of righteous bitching!) One tip, if you break anything, and your template is otherwise unmodified, just go ahead and reselect it from the list. Of course if you’re like me and have a highly customized (read: written from scratch) template, back it up. But you knew that already.

Thus ends the lesson.

I’ve gone ahead and restructured the blogroll to better divide things. “Providers of Humor” now points at all providers of humor, both blog- and comic-based. The rest of the blogs have been subdivided as you can see. Note the new “Nepotism” section with the blogs of relatives.

For those of you who are not intimately familiar with my family, Cait is my sister, and Gus and Cece are my first two first cousins (chronologically speaking) and are themselves brother and sister.

Nobel prize! Tax cuts! So there! (From Transterrestrial)

Posted for your convenience (and my sanity) without running commentary.

Except for this photo. This one needs explanation. Scott, driver of the #41 Panoz Esperante that appeared in the previous post, qualified second, then proceeded to have to swap transmissions. He was pretty exasperated back in the pits so we didn’t stay long and chat.

ISO 64, f/5.6, 1/40 s

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