Category: Local

Mt. Bachelor Uses RFID For Lift Tickets (Updated)

While RFID is stupid, there’s been so much money invested into it that it’s really too late to switch to better technology. And while adoption of the technology hasn’t been speedy by any means, Mt. Bachelor is apparently using it in their new lift tickets.

The company I work for is a lodging partner with Mt. Bachelor, so we are allowed to sell tickets to our guests. I went to their office today to pick up our first order of the season for this long weekend, and noticed the tickets look different than last year (and the few years prior). They’re smaller, and have just a single smaller bar code. I asked the sales rep there about the new tickets, as it just seemed that the small barcodes would be hard to scan at the base of each lift. He told me there is a small radio antenna inside each card that gets picked up at the base of the lifts. I asked him if it were RFID, and he said that that sounded right.

The tickets that Mt. Bachelor uses are produced by RTP which talks right on their tickets page about the tickets that use RFID. I can only assume that they are Passive RFID tags that can only be read by an external antenna, as the tickets are small and thin and flexible so there’s no way to have a power source in the ticket. That also means that people with these RFID-enabled tickets won’t be broadcasting a radio signal unless activated by an antenna, so skiers don’t have to worry about getting tracked around the mountain unless there are high-power antennas all over the mountain that I don’t know about.

I’ve also been told that the area where the hole is in the ticket cannot be enlarged or modified — I’m guessing because some of the RFID components are in that area around the hole.

If I didn’t have to sell these tickets to guests, I’d dismantle one and post it here (but if I get a used one, I’ll post it up). Anybody been skiing up there yet that has an old ticket that can verify this for me?

Update on 11/27/05: According to Mt. Bachelor (and thanks to Barney), the regular tickets are not RFID-enabled, but the Season Passes are. Makes sense, as the daily passes are a bit twinky while the season passes are a bit heavier-duty.

November 23, 2005

Did You Need Another Cheeseburger, Fatty?

That was just one suggestion for a well done (but short lived) prank on a not-so-well guarded McDonalds sign.

On a sort of related note, dinking around on this same site you’ll find an interesting section (that isn’t actually safe for work unless you have a fairly liberal boss) on a lady that used to spend a lot of time on the Bend.com forums. Let’s just say they’re not all that happy with each other, but it is an entertaining read.

November 22, 2005

Another Bend Blog

The person doing this blog wishes to remain anonymous (in reality, I have no idea who he/she is, I just got this URL sent to me via my e-mail form), but here’s another Bend Blog for you: The Bend Report. From what I can tell, it’s basically a pile of Bend-related news story links locally and from around the state, with a bit of commentary on some of them.

Hopefully that’ll keep you occupied for a bit (as will any of the other Bend Blogs) as I’m totally slammed and probably won’t be blogging until I get my laptop back (hopefully soon) and can work at home then (as I don’t have a home system, as my wife’s is setup for her).

November 17, 2005

No, That Isn’t My Blog

But I can’t say that I disagree with anything Snarky Bend has to say. The writing there is hilarious, and brings out some of the atitude that I think all of us wish we could get away with. Whoever’s running that site, e-mail me privately, man, as I’m curious as to who the hell you are (anonymity guaranteed). Just the same, you’ve been added to BendBlogs.

November 10, 2005

Welcome To Bend, Now Go Home

(Jake Note: I’ve been terribly swamped with work projects, and with my laptop out of commission for another week or so, blogging is going to be light until I get it back — hopefully sooner than later, as I’m going nuts without a computer on my side at all times).

One of the most neglected things I’ve ever done was my lame attempt to create a CafeShops store (here’s my old one, which will probably go dead soon). Inspired by TheDren’s “Katrina Relief” shirt, I threw together a few items worth buying: Basically, they’re T-Shirts on how I’m sure everybody around here feels about the tourists (especially those of us that work with them) in yellow, white or black. Feel free to do some Christmas shopping for your tourist-serving friends, and I’ll be coming up with some more locally-appropriate shirts at some point down the road.

November 9, 2005

Another Bend Blog

Just saw this one pop up on ORblog’s Bend: vorpal.cc, which, according to the whois, is run by David Hogue who works at smartz (which has gone by several different names in its history in Bend, but we’ll just call it smartz).

Welcome to the party, David! Thanks for the link to my site, and you’ve been added to BendBlogs (which now has 123 sites, though I need to clean some of them out).

November 8, 2005

It’s Snowing

Our office Web cam shows the white stuff falling, as does this Web cam, this Web cam and this Web cam. It’s sticking to the ground in some places, not in others, but Winter is officially here.

November 3, 2005

Just Don’t Eat The Parsley

Anybody locally might want to avoid McGrath’s for obvious reasons, but it turns out that the E.Coli outbreak maybe wasn’t their fault, as they got some bad parsley from Washington state.

October 31, 2005

My Thoughts on the DeWolf News

If you haven’t heard already, Tom DeWolf resigned from the Deschutes County commissioner’s office. You can read the Bulletin stories, while they last before you have to buck up and pay, here and here with Bend.com’s “story” (basically just the Lane County Press release) here. Local bloggers have been talking about it with Jon and Chris posting a few good comments and thoughts.

My thoughts? Tom and I go a long way back. Heck, he might even read this site. I’ve known him and his family for many years, talked to them a lot when they owned a local video store, was good friends with two of his daughters growing up, one of them actually being the best “man” at my wedding (she was like a sister to me and always has been — it was only appropriate considering all we had gone through together).

Tom’s a good guy. I haven’t talked to him since these allegations came about, nor have I really read through them in fine detail, but knowing him, it was probably something he did when he just had a few too many to drink (and I know many of you reading this have done things they’ve regretted when they’ve had a few too many). Unfortunately, he’s in a public position, so his screw-ups are going to be put under a microscope, even if all parties involved appeared to be OK with things after the incidents happen. It’s unfortunate, really, as I’m not really fond of the actions of some of the other commissioners, and always thought that, for the most part, Tom was the most level-headed of the bunch (now understand, I don’t follow politics extremely well, so this is obviously a slightly biased opinion).

While he hasn’t really went public beyond a simple released statement, he’s probably sorry as heck, if not to the community but to his family for putting them through this. It’s probably hasn’t been fun for them, either.

Should he have resigned? Yes. Are we better off because he did? I’m not sure yet — we’ll just have to see.

Like I said before, I am slightly biased, so I’m going to leave my comments at that, and leave the forum below for people to discuss.

October 26, 2005

A Little Treat For Those Obnoxious Teenage Trick Or Treaters

Many of you may remember how I spent last Halloween. Long story short, I gave an obnoxious, too-old-to-be-trick-or-treating teenager a can of canned veggies instead of candy because he was far too old to be tricking or treating. While I haven’t quite made plans for this Halloween quite yet (other than some entertaining of my kids as well as my nieces and nephew), I am ready for those morons again if we decide to distribute candy this year (we haven’t quite decided yet).

I have some old cans of veggies and other random items from the pantry (like some pickled asparagus — why I have that, I have no idea) that I have collected and will be sticking these labels on them. That link links to a PDF file I created in about five minutes during my lunch break so edits/changes are appreciated (comment here). The sheet is formated to print on Avery Template 5160 (the 1″ x 2.625″ 30 labels to a sheet mailing label — can be bought very cheap as a generic at OfficeMax). So print them up, stick ’em on, and enjoy (and if anybody has a different design idea and wants to throw one together, e-mail it my direction and I’ll post it here).

Update: Thanks to Barn, I fixed a typo.

October 26, 2005