Customer service

Every time I try to get help with a problem that starts with the basic functionality of some website (e.g., a bank, credit card or insurance website) I seem to have to go through several iterations with the people on the other end before they appear to be willing to actually read my question. Their response process looks like it's designed to dispose of questions by sending out boilerplate answers based on keyword recognition - never mind the actual semantics of the question.

My latest example: Now that both kids have bank accounts, I'd like to arrange to automatically transfer their allowances from my account to theirs. We use Bank of America, which has a facility for automatic periodic transfers. But - for some mysterious reason - not to other B of A accounts. You can do automatic periodic transfers to third-party banks, but not to another account at B of A. At least that's how the web site is set up.

Just to be absolutely sure that this was a hard & fast constraint, and not just some perverse safety feature, I asked: "Message text: Is it possible to set up regularly scheduled transfers to
another Bank of America account? The website only allows for one-time immediate transfers. Thank you." The reply: "We understand you are interested in creating a recurring transfer to
another Bank of America account. The Transfer Funds screen allows you to
set up a recurring transfer plan which makes your transfers
automatically at intervals that you choose." followed by the boilerplate instructions on using this screen. No reference to my question about the limitation. So I replied "When I follow these directions I see this message: "Transfers to another Bank of America customer can only be made on a one time immediate
basis." All the other options are disabled. I am asking whether there's a way to set up periodic transfers, since
the web site doesn't allow it." This time the reply was just awesome in its thickheadedness: "Please be informed that transfers to other Bank of America customers can only be made on a one-time, immediate basis. We recommend you to set up recurring transfers." followed by the same boilerplate. Am I hallucinating, or does the second sentence completely ignore the first?

UPDATE - Round 3, more obliviousness: "We apologize for the confusion you may have experienced regarding the transfers. Please be advised that you are able to make recurring transfers to your daughters's account with Bank of America." followed by the same instructions that don't work.

Poker

Is it wrong to play poker for money in a hold'em tournament with your kids? OK, how about this: is it wrong to put your 11 year old daughter all-in with a set of 9s against her pocket kings?

Afternoon on the bay

Sailing around Angel Island: sunny, nice breezes with the occasional 25mph gusts and a little bit of spray. The GG bridge towers poking through the fog, which stopped just at the edge of the bay. Saw a couple of small dolphins and some sea lions. And a monster catamaran. Lots of fun. Thanks Chris!

Yosemite high sierra camps

What could be better than hiking in the wilderness to a remote campsite by a waterfall? Only having the remote campsite equipped with beds, a dining hall and cheerful staff serving excellent food. (But way too much.)

We missed the high camp lottery this year, but were still able to find spots almost matching what we had wanted. May Lake camp is a short hike in from the trailhead, across the lake from Mt. Hoffman. Glen Aulin is an 8+ mile march downhill from there to the Tuolumne river. We had a one day layover at Glen Aulin and used it to hike down to Water Wheel falls. We didn't make it there, out of an abundance of caution about how the hike back would be for the girls, but the earlier falls - California and LeConte were pretty nice anyway.

OpenDNS, Firefox and the Google Toolbar

I use OpenDNS for DNS lookup, because it seems to be faster than whatever AT&T is providing for my DSL connection. One of the ways OpenDNS gets paid for the service is by redirecting browser address bar searches to their own search engine (which I believe is actually Yahoo). This is annoying, so I tried changing it back to Google (using the about:config keyword in the address bar). But every time I overrode it (in Firefox) I'd find it changed back to "about:neterror?e=query&u=", which leads to OpenDNS.

Turns out the problem was some code run by Google Toolbar when Firefox starts up. GT tells Firefox to run toolbar.js (in the profiles subdirectory extensions/{3112ca9c-de6d-4884-a869-9855de68056c}/lib/), which checks the preferences value of keyword.URL and changes it if it was modified. This is surprisingly unfriendly behavior for Google, not to mention counterproductive because of how it interacts with OpenDNS.

The solution I found was to create a mozilla.cfg file in the Firefox application directory:
//
lockPref("keyword.URL", "http://www.google.com/search?q=");

Then I also modified the file all.js in the greprefs subdirectory (not safe, I know). First I changed
pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0); // for MCD .cfg files
replacing the "13" that was there before (because I can't see the point to this ROT13 mumbo-jumbo), and adding
pref("general.config.filename", "mozilla.cfg");
so that the locked preference gets loaded.

Finally, I get google search from the address bar.