Weather’s great, but that’s as far as it goes

The heat wave has broken, but it’ll fix itself and be back.

It’s sunny and 85 with a 43 percent humidity, which means the heat index is 85 also. There was no dew on the grass this morning, so I seized the opportunity to mow the lawn in relative comfort.

Other than that, my day has been one of frustration.

I took yet another run at activating the XM NavWeather feature on my Garmin Zumo 550 this morning. I got through to a woman in XM Tech Support who told me my problem was that my Garmin GPS should be displaying the map during activation, rather than being on the XM radio screen with Channel 1 selected. In all of my conversations with XM listener service reps or tech support people, this is the first time I’ve heard that advice, so I had high hopes when she said she was refreshing the signal and I should be all set in 15-20 minutes.

Twenty-five minutes later, I still had no XM NavWeather. Ditto an hour later. Failed again.

So I decided to cut the grass and, as is my habit, I got my custom in-ear monitors from my bike tank bag so I could listen to my iPod while mowing. But I fumbled a piece of paper and yanked the wire out of the left earpiece as I grabbed for it. Crap. I immediately left a voicemail for Marilyn Navia, the Miami audiologist who made the monitors for me at the 2002 BMW RA rally in Red River, N.M. asking if she could do a repair for me in time for my July 11 departure for the West. I also tried to contact her through her web site PlugUp.com, but found the site isn’t functioning. WTF? She’s listed as one of the vendors at the BMW MOA rally, as are two other companies that make in-ear monitors, so I can get a repair or replacement in Redmond if it comes to that.

I went to Best Buy in search of a short-term solution in case Marilyn can’t turn the repairs around before my departure. After scanning their ear bud offerings, I settled on the $21.99 Sony Bumpin Buds, which have three sizes of ear attachments. Unfortunately, the smallest of the three is still too big for my ear canals and I suspect there are no commercially available ear buds that will give me a good seal, so I very well may be looking at 2,000+ miles of silence on the ride to Redmond.