rhaskins

for about 4 hours. I was the oldest guy on the hill *sigh*. I have never been surrounded by so many park monkeys at one time, ane everyone's IQ seems to have dropped since last winter. People stop right in traffic. There was a bottleneck by the park paraphernalia, and a lot of people seemed to think this was a great place to sit down in traffic. My first run, I looked ignorant, second run merely idiotic, third run I was able to stay upright, but couldn't do a toeside turn to save my ass. By the 5th run, all was ok - on my Ride twin. Then, the fun began: PEOPLE SLALOM!! It was great, got down low on the board and whipped between the static groups of butt-wetters. I did that for about 1.5 hours. The only issue was the lines. Everyone was using today as a social event. Groups would stop and chit-chat and not move. Key was to keep to the outside and just pass them. I switched to my twin-tips and kept up the slalom. Another couple of hours and I was done. The snow was completely chopped up by the time I got there at 1:00 pm and by 5, it was completely nasty. No possibility of using a carving board. It was OK, and as a plus, I got to view the entire Burton Fall-Winter fashion lineup! Wow is all I can say: how can they think they are individualists when they all look the same? God I hope I was not like that when I was a kid. Probably was tho. . . Rick

Here: http://forums.epicski.com/ the Barking Bear forums Be warned that there may be some opinionated people posting there! Rick

phone when I found my packages, and it stopped them in mid-sentence. I got an apology and etc. About 15 minutes later the local UPS supervisor called, and IDed the driver as one of her best. So, yah, even the best make mistakes. I even made one last year. I thought I was wrong about something, and boy was I embarrassed when I foung out I was right all along. Go figure.:D Rick

or two by the door when I am expecting a delivery. But, then again, my son would grab that. But, then again, maybe that is why the delivery was so screwed up . . . Rick

means that the lawsuit is dismissed and cannot be reinstated, nor any subsidiary or other claim can be brought by that party that should have been stated in the dismissed claim. They would have to go to an appeals court of some sort to have their case/claim reinstated if they wanted to. It is essentiall a complete bar to the party to bring a similar claim arising out of the same facts again. Dismissed without prejudice means that the party can reinstate their claim, usually by bringing in other facts or with another procedure. Rick

I know what I am going to do: change from a Tee wrench to a nut driver with the correct bits, and just tighten them up fully with that. Limiting factor for tightness is the amount of torque that can be transmitted through the grip. That should get them tight enough without even approaching over-tightening. On slope I will carry my little DaKine Tee tool with the correct bits and lay off the alcohol so I don't over-tighten anything. Having been involved with calibration labs and designing a few things, I know that manual tightening, even with calibrated torque wrenches, has a lot of variability. A torque wrench for binding tightening would be all wrong, but a torque screwdriver might not be bad at all. get to a 2.5 sigma that has an overall +/- 25% variability would be ok for such a manual process. If I remember right, a tightness of 30% of a fastener's tensile strength is a fairly common factor for the amount of torque to apply (all other things being equal like lube and etc.). That would be very over-tight for a binding screw. I would definately back off from that. Let's face it: if there were widespread problems tightening bindings and blowing out board inserts, it would be widely reported. It is just not happening. My concern is with repeated over-tightening and loosening, and the effect that may have over time on the board. I plan on waxing my boards probably 15 or more times in the coming season (just because I can!), and I just want repeatable tightness without any issues on the slope or to the boards. Not too loose, not to tight, I want them just right. I just wanted to see what others are doing and if there were more of a systematic way of doing this. It sounds like everyone applies their own windage to the issue. Thanks for all your input. Rick

The garbage in the post was from cut and paste from my email that I did not see before I posted it. Sorry. Rick

So, I have new bindings and boards, and I finally became inquisitive on how much torque to use to fasten/tighten my bindings to my boards. I did search the archives and found a massive amount of opinions about how much to tighten. Not really a consensus. My car has a recommended torque setting for the wheels (a sort-of analogy), why not bindings. So, I emailed Sean Martin, manufacturer of every alpine board I have. He kindly gave me permission to publish this exchange. Me: I have 3 Doneks: Axxess, FC1 and a Razor. Question: How much torque should I put on binding mounting? Inch/lbs, newton/meters, stone/furlong? Any recommendations? I have searched around and can really find no consensus. Sean: That's a question I've never had before. When mounting a freeride binding with a #3 phillips screw driver, I apply as much torque as I can gripping the screw driver with my bare hand. I'm not equiped to measure such a thing. Mounting bindings with an allen wrench is a bit different. We see things overtightened and under tightened at the SES. With the aluminim bindings, you'll get a sulfer odor when you crack the screw loose if it's over tightened. I'd say the torque is about the same as with the phillips screw driver, but since you're dealing with a different shaped tool, it's tough to know. My suggestion to you would be to hand tighten things, so you can fairly easily remove the screws by hand. Check the hardware frequently to see if it's loosening up. If it is, then tighten a bit more next time. It's important to be able to remove the screws as hot waxing should always be done without the bindings mounted. Me: Thanks for the quick reply. Do you mind if I publish this on bomber? I want to find out what others are doing. I am supposed to receive my Catek FR2’s today for my Razor, and am going to order some TD3’s for my FC1, so this is a question of interest for me. Sean: You are welcome to publish it. Fin at Bomber probably has some exact numbers as he's more knowledgable about bindings and the ASTM standards surrounding them.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> <o:p>Anyone know of a good, all purpose spec for torque? Anyone have any other manufacturer recommendations? Is there a spec that the "good" snowboard shops use and keep as a trade secret? I use a phillips driver in a driver handle to tighten soft bindings just like Sean says, but not for my alpine stuff.</o:p> <o:p></o:p> <o:p>What I am looking for is consistency. A "L" or "T" handled hex driver can have vastly different amounts of torque by the same person due to shape. A hex driver in a driver handle would be really different also. In manufacturing, we use torque drivers for consistency (and calibrate them). I am going to be removing my bindins for waxing from now on and I don't want to under or over tighten. And, yes, I can be kinda anal. I don't want to strip out an insert nor do I want to have my bindings come loose.</o:p> <o:p></o:p> <o:p>Rick</o:p> <o:p></o:p>

Just received my FR2 bindings. They looke great! Jeff thru in a comp set of Binding spacers. Better than Great, SCHWEET!!!!!! OTOH, UPS delivered the boxes to the wrong house. I saw they were delivered from the UPS tracking, and ran home from work to get them, and could not find them. I called UPS customer service and they told me to FREAKING FILE A CLAIM WITH THE SHIPPING COMPANY!!!!!!!!!!! I told them the guy just misdeliverd and to call Tom or whatever his name was to trace his route and get them. They said that they could not do that. So, with them on the phone and me arguing with customer service, I jump in my car and head out searching, and spy them immediately on my neighbors doorstep, my house number ends in 40, theirs ends in 24. I grab them and my order from McMaster-Carr (my address plainly stated on all 3 (FREAKING THREE!!!) boxes. UPS said sorry about that. Gotta run back to work. I luv Catek. Rick

What steps did you take to verify that this happened thru Catek? Did you contact the credit card transaction company that Catek uses? What are the particulars? Need details. Don't make statements like this unless you have details to back that up. Just saying. Rick

Got the heels today. Great stuff. Thanks a lot, appreciate it. Rick

I got a set from another bomber- Jeff Cole. Thanks for the offer. Rick

having software issues. I just find that good (expensive) hardware seems to run more trouble free than the cheaper stuff. Business class machines are usualy built to a spec for the life of the product, where consumer class machines are not. Sales engineers at both Dell and HP have admitted this to us. The consumer class stuff may change a lot of parts during a production run, where the business class suff doesn't. The changing parts in the consumer class machines brings driver issues. We had some where we had perfect images that did not run on machines later in the manufacturers production run, we kept having to chase issues around with drivers and other functional problems. We switched to business class and those type of issues resolved. Cheap Compaq consumer class laptops (pre-merger with HP) were the worst example of that. God I hate the low bidder stuff. We had a bright young person save us a boat load of money by buying some of these - they all ended up being scrapped. I have had computers (business class) running very stable pre-SP1 with a stable set of drivers and software confniguration. Again, YMMV Rick

One of the biggest issues I see with the XP/Vista/Mac debate is an economic one. People that have a lot of issues with XP and Vista usually are using machines on the low end of the price spectrum. That $400 Dell is not going to perform as well as that $800 HP. PC hardware manufacturers go with the low bidder on all their hardware for the price point. When you start to get at the $800 price point, the hardware starts to perform better. This is an issue with dirverse drivers and cheap hardware. I refuse to purchase consumer class pc's; the business class PC's are just that much better. HP business class PC's ($750) without the built-in cameras and all the sound hardware run very smooth. Ditto for upper end consumer class pc's ($1,000). Contrast that with Apple: they set the engineering standards, they manufacture their own hardware, and to get in you have to lay down $1000. To me, from my experience, that is a major factor in the instability of a lot of XP and Vista based machines. Cheap hardware and not enough memory. Unless it is a Lenovo, then it is the tickey-tackey way they engineer their software and drivers. Rick

I support about 350 desktops and laptops with XP SP2 - because SP3 breaks too many things. We still have a lot of issues with XP, altho not near as many as with Win2k. Most issues with XP are user related (some users are incapable of learning anything or wanting to learn anything). Overall, it is fairly stable with the odd weirdness. I have 2 test machines running Vista since it came out that maybe have been rebooted 5 times in the last year for upgrades, 2 personal laptops (Toshiba's) with Vista that never had any problems. I find Vista more stable. All our machines are now less than 3 years old. The best thing we have done to stabalize XP was to remove all our Dells for HP desktops/laptops. The second best thing we have done is to completely remove the ability of users and power users to do any type of system changes. I run true workstations (special hardware) and my XP never crashes. It gets rebooted once in a while when I install an upgrade or other sotware install that requires a reboot. I run a plethora of systems and test software with no issues, software that stresses a machine's environment a lot. My biggest issue is with JAVA apps, some of them are just not ready for prime time. Some Cisco and HP java based software just cannot run on the same machine at the same time. The single largest issue with XP we had is with users that would install anything that attracted their fancy. Some users had so crapped out their registry doing that kind of stuff that they had a 20 to 30 minute boot time. Since that stuff was/is self documenting, we knew what was going on. We did resolve that with policy lockdown. Now they have to ask, me, nicely. And the answer is always no. Unless there is a business reason and we have no other software that can accomplish their tasks. I run a large group of servers with server 2003 and server 2008, and the 2008 machines are very impressive. The new hyper-V is outstanding for virtual environments. The new apps from MS are just getting better and better. I am really looking forward to the new version of Windows desktop for the enhanced policy control potential. The only reason we don't upgrade everyone to Vista is the workload and the fact that we have over half of our machines in the field. policy control over Vista is better than XP. The enhanced policy control of Office 2007 is just amazing. My two Toshiba's run a lot of different software, and they are very stable, secure, and can attach to anything to get internet access. From that experience and supporting other Vista machines for friends, I cannot understand what people are carping about when they say Vista is not stable. Every time I have found an unstable Vista machines among friends or thru consulting, it was caused by the user. One machine had 5 different browsers installed, and they could not figure out what was going on with the machine. That cost them about $400.00 in consulting fees - troubleshooting, uninstalling the crap, further troubleshooting to ID orphaned DLL's that did not uninstall from the crap software, complete reinstall, no restore CD's/DVD's, downloading Lenovo software, reinstall apps. All that time adds up. BTW, Lenovo sucks IMHO. Out of the box they have such weird drivers and crap software installed on their machines that they are just weird, XP or Vista. And so much of their software is dependant on another piece of their software. Remove the wrong app and the entire machine is unstable. HP is so much better engineered. And Apple/Mac machines aren't any better. :D YMMV. Rick

Looking for a set in good condition. I also have a set of Fin-tec's on order: let me help you fund your upgrade to Fin-tec's by relieving you of your older tech heels. Email me at ricohaskins at gmail dot com which I can check during the day or at my email on my profile. Rick

From the testers? Any? Comparisions? Biased or otherwise? Compared to F2, Catek, etc? Rick

for the remote release.

I just want to be ready for the snow. Jack, some folks have not had communications since sometime in September. If Jeff kicked the bucket (just an example, don't get upset), his estate administrator would have even done something by now. I personally lov small businesses: you get them into a supply contract where you eventually are 90% of their business, then you squeeze them for price until they call uncle!!! Wait, that's Walley World. I will not shop at Walley World, ever, because of those tactics. It is just that the issues with Catek are outside of my experience dealing with small companies. It seems they have walled themselves off from the rest of the world somehow, for whatever reason, and one does not get a response unless there is an internet posting. I would like to know the back story on this one. They have an excellent reputation up to now. Rick

I can communicate with the guy/gal down the hall in half a dozen ways not counting walking down the hall and poking my head in their door. I have access to my companies website, and I could post a message there in a second (and lose my job for that, but that is beside the point). I do support small businesses, and I do have patience. But any small business that ignores me, or makes me a promise and doesn't come through (like SWT promising me a delivery date) makes them look bad. Sean Martin is a guy that is very busy, is in this "industry", and can get back to you in a reasonable time. Ditto for for my contact with Michelle at Bomber. I look at that as setting a standard. Jeff is responsible for the reputation of catek, not Scott. There should NEVER be hundreds of emails to resond to. But Scott,you have to figure out if you want to be a Grad student or a manufacturer's rep. The former is a full time job and then some - I know, 2 post graduate degrees here. The latter couldn't be but a part-time job if you only rep for Catek - and if you have hundreds of emails to respond to, you are blowing it. If you can't do the job, man up and either quit or get a temp. The Grad side doesn't care about the rep side, and the rep side is not necessarily compatible with the Grad side. In the meantime, you are letting Jeff down. My 2 cents. And by the way, this is just a hobby, pastime, sport or whatever, not life or death. What is important is how you deal with people on both sides of a transaction, how fair you are, keeping your word. Rick

my story: http://www.bomberonline.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=22213 Rick

I have had 2 transactions with him in the past and fast shipment. I have searched this forum for his response in the past, and a LOT of people praise Catek customer service. I don't know what is going on. Scott disappoints also. Rick

But, since they got the money from a debit card, there is a lot of hassle getting the money back. Shoulda used a credit card. And how do I contact the company about a dispute????? I still want my FR2's. But nothing more after that. Rick

That posting made me EXTREMELY nervous. Classic signs of going out of business: bunches of promises, phone not answered, no response from any communications. I have seen and been bite but that before. SWT MAY be busy, but if he is a proper company rep, he will communicate, especially if he has so promised - which he did. I call BS on him being out of communications - if in university, he has a laptop and no university is not wired these days. Plus there has to be numerous ways to get on the interwebz where he is at. Unless he is in the heart of the Congo running from the rebels, then I would understand. Maybe everyone at Catek can't get on the Interwebz because their bills are not being paid? Highly speculative I know, but if they are a going concern, they have got to communcate. For Pete's sake (and I am a close personal friend of Pete), they even have a website. They could post updates and the like on that! Just think, communicating using a website! How 1990's! Bomber, Donek, Subsonic, Sk8kings and a number of other small companies I know and have dealt with always respond within a few days to email, sometimes within minutes. They look at customer service as an essential part of their company. I think Catek is messing up. Mad? No. Angry? No. Perplexed? Very. Concerned? Yes. Next set of bindings? Bomber. Or F2. And that is that. Rick

I am stuck here at work this weekend moving gigabytes of email to the new server. Sucks. I do get to check in on the bomber site all I want, refreshing the store site to see if there are any new offerings . . . But that is not why I started this thread. I have a well-respected company in the alpine carving community that I placed an order with over 20 days ago. They promptly (instantly) debited my card for almost $500.00. Since then, no meaningful communications. By that, I mean that a "rep" promised me an update on my order "right away" about 4 or so days after the order was placed, but nothing further. That was over 15 days ago. They do not answer any email to any of their 3 addresses I have, their voicemail for customer service is full (the voicemail system told me so), and the fax line will not receive a fax. I mean I tried everything. I have not flooded them with email, just sent about 5 or 6 total messages. I do not want to appear needy or a pest. Should I publicly complain about the company, naming them? I don't give a rat's a$$ that they may be busy, that they are a caring and nurturing bunch of guys, that they are a leader in the industry and etc. I do care about customer service. And "almost $500.00" is enough money to me to make me concerned. Naming them and detailing their lack of concern (arrogance?) for their customers may get their attention. I have purchased from them before and had no issues. What do y'all think? I would hesitate to purchase from them after this, and am looking at alternative suppliers for my needs. I was really comfortable with them and their reputation up till now. I can tell you it is NOT Bomber. Rick