Sena 20S Bluetooth Headset - quick review

I bought a Sena 20S bluetooth headset for my (fairly old) HJC helmet about 6 weeks ago.  Now that we moved and have a lot of things going on I thought it was important to maintain my ability to talk with the family while I commute for work and it can be used with my phone for navigation use.  I did a little research and this headset seemed like a good solution.  The Bluetooth 4.1 is a bit newer, has some good features and the runtime is a bit better than others I saw.

You can find the headset at places like Revzilla.

The attachment to the helmet wasn't too hard to make - it just clamps.  My helmet lining wasn't as easy to work with as some of the newer helmets out there but it seems solid enough.  I will say that the location I have the speakers isn't perfect and squeezes on the ears a bit.  I might be able to adjust it a bit better or a different helmet may have a little bit more room in the ear area.

I tend to try to avoid talking while commuting (traffic is very heavy) so I have only made/taken calls a dozen or so times.  The voice quality and volume is pretty good.  The difficult part is that I still feel the need to adjust the volume when stopped versus travelling 35-55mph.  I usually end up being too loud when stopped.

The controls are basically a rotating dial (that depresses in the center too) and a couple buttons.  They are pretty easy to operate but the buttons I tend to have to hunt for a little bit.  It might be a bit challenging with thicker winter gloves for the smaller buttons but thin gloves still allow enough feeling to operate.

I don't use it enough (and haven't reread the documentation recently) to remember how to access most of the features while riding - just answering the phone taxes my memory some days. 

To program the speed dials or change other settings you can either use a smart phone app or a PC based application.  I've done both and it was pretty straight forward.  I do wish I had 4 speed dials instead of just 3 but that isn't a deal breaker.

I did use this with my phone (Android based) once or twice for navigation purposes and it worked well.  I bought a handle bar mount phone holder to allow easy use for this - this is pretty much a requirement. I'm also tempted to get a double USB charger and cables that I can use from the bike in case I get lax on keeping things charged on a day I really need it.  Would I ever get lax on charging?  Um, yeah.. (sheepish look)..

Overall this was a good purchase.  If we end up doing a bunch of dirt biking it might be worth getting more so we can communicate easily.

This is a view of the overall external attachment.  The mic is easily adjustable back into the correct position once you get the helmet on.

 

This shows where I detached the portion that contains the battery. I tend to detach it to charge but I could charge it while on the helmet if I have a convenient wall socket and place to sit the helmet.


The round blob on the lower part of the pic in the cheek area is one of the speakers. The kit comes with some Velcro type attachments which hold pretty well.




This pick shows the other speaker at the top of the strap.




Thanks for reading and I pray for safe travels for all the other riders out there.
Scott

Tampa Florida impression - the first 2 months

Well, it has been around 2 months since I got myself moved to the Tampa area.  My wife and kids have been here a month or so longer though.  I won't speak for them here but I think generally everyone is happy.

The weather has cooled off and is beautiful.  When first getting here it was hot but that was expected.  It was bearable because we didn't really need to spend much time outside then. 

The area is quite pretty around the northern / north eastern Tampa area. We are still house hunting and there are many pretty lakes and ponds along with plenty of Spanish moss. The hunting is going slow but we are hoping to find a house that is really good fit for our family.

The current apartment complex isn't bad overall; they keep it picked up and well groomed.  I just don't like living in apartments though - just not enough room.  Downside is one neighbor seems to yell a lot which is quite audible through the walls.  Can only pray for them - haven't really met them.  Otherwise, the complex is pretty quiet. I do wish there were washers/dryers in the units though - having to cart the laundry around is pretty inconvenient and expensive.  I pray for my wife that it goes well since she is the one with the best availability to handle it.

The job side of things is ok but not quite as good as I hoped; at least not yet.  I continue to hope that I can get involved in a way that I grow technically. I can only pray about that. It may just take time and patience on my part.  With a totally distributed team, it is a bit awkward and even isolating at times.  It is hard to justify a ton of interaction with those sitting around me when to a large degree our work isn't crossing much at this moment.  That has changed a little bit (to the better) as I need some reasonable guidance on what direction cloud computing is moving in the organization. I am forced out of my quiet comfort zone some days and have to "spam" groups standing around to determine who knows the right person to talk to regarding various things.  I'm starting to meet people that way which is a plus.

I think my biggest issue right now is traffic and travel time.  It takes me about an hour to go ~15 miles.  That is taking a few "short" cuts but not speeding like a maniac though. I think the traffic signs are there to taunt you - as in "he he, you could go this fast if there wasn't this much traffic and numerous accidents in front of you"  Two notable days were:  one where I was passed about 3 times by a guy on the sidewalk with a shopping cart.  He was walking slow and had a limp too.  A different day it was an older bicyclist that passed me on the sidewalk several times.  At other places where traffic isn't heavy, you get people blowing by at 20mph+ over the speed limits.  They like to weave around people.  There are also tons of people who race down the empty lanes and then force themselves in front of people. I can only pray that people learn to respect others and give up some of the "life revolves around me" attitude.  These types of attitudes explain why insurance is higher in our county - the amount of speeding and accidents is pretty outrageous. I will say that I can understand how the traffic can wear on you - especially when many of the lights are REALLY long. If you miss a light, you are generally going to be sitting there a while.  I think this is why so many people run the red lights here.  I don't know if they could time lights better or not but the overall effect is you sit at red lights and then you sit at green lights because the traffic on the far side of the light is backed up as well.  Throw in some accidents and pedestrian traffic and it isn't a relaxing drive. I'm hoping I can do some work from home at some point.

We did find a great church (Idlewild Baptist Chuch) though and are hoping that we can find a house that keeps us close enough to do regular activities with along with make my work commute a bit shorter.  We do miss folks at our old church - Staples Mill Road Baptist Church still in VA but the folks here at Idlewild seem to have the same heart for Christ and many opportunities to help people.
The church is much larger than we are used to which is good/bad.  Trying to get/stay involved with a life group but struggling with other stuff (kids schooling mainly) right now.  One more thing that I hope settles down soon.

Overall though, we are liking things.  We still aren't settled enough to really enough the things around us - activities to do, places to visit, etc.  Hoping we can enjoy those things soon.

 I wanted to end this with a bible verse but I see my wife struggling to get laundry stuff around so I must go now.  Hope God blesses you today though.

Scott

Job change and relocation complete - Florida here we are!

We had decided to move closer to my family in SW  Florida a while ago but had not really decided when to make the move. Well, about 2 weeks before the K12 schools started in Fl we decided to make the move.  My wife was awesome in finding some temporary housing and in under 2 weeks I had them down in an apartment while I still job hunted. 

Last month, I interviewed with a large company and decided that it was a good move.  A number of other good opportunities were available but this one just seems like the best fit from a "whole family" perspective. Not an easy choice by any means and even harder when you are in the middle of trying to further your in-progress relocation.

I will say that there were many things that came together in just the right way but many other things were pretty painful.  The job and housing came together with amazing timing.  There are huge praises regarding those. Now the fact that my wife and kids were in Fl which left me with all the decisions regarding getting out of our Virginia house was pretty painful.  For my 2 week notice with my previous employer, I worked on packing/organizing in the evening for 2-3 hours each night.  I had my in-laws help with some items as well which was great.  Probably the biggest problem/praise was dealing with the bulk of 16 years of accumulation in the house/garage.  It was an enormous undertaking getting it all of of the house.  We decided to get the house listed for sale by a prior church friend and set a set of Sept 15th to be listed.  This gave me around 9 days of full time attention to get the house packed and into a POD, our travel trailer, my mother in-laws house/garage or into our truck/utility trailer for a final run before I start the new job. I timed it so I would still have around 1 week of time to "relax" before the new job but that really means dealing with drivers licenses, and car/truck/motorcycle/trailer/travel trailer titles, licenses and insurance. 

Anyways, back to the boxing and storing..  I have to give much praise for our friends - the Martinez family.  There were such a wonderful blessing that words are not enough.  I would not be remotely ready without them and would likely have ended up in the hospital trying to do it alone.  I am still in a ton of pain from some of the stuff but I am SO grateful for the help I received which was far from easy on them as well.

We ended up packing a 8ft x 8ft x 16ft amazingly tight (thank you..).  That took the bulk of what we didn't move via Uhaul and pickup truck in 2 prior Fl round trips.  I did end up with a pretty large truckful for my last "one way trip" prior to the job starting.  I put a good amount of stuff in our travel trailer and a little at my mother in-laws.

I made about 2 1/2 heaping trailer fulls of junk to the dump.  A lot of it was little odds/ends of wood working projects from long ago which "could still be useful for another project".  Lesson learned is to throw away the odds/ends and just get a bit of new wood/stuff as needed.  It is probably cheaper in the long run that way and way easier on the back. 

I'm hoping that the dreams of boxes and strapping tape running out soon end. 

The 10-14 hour days packing over the last week+ were not fun.  Pretty much every muscle hurts. I did lose about 5-7 lbs which was the only major plus I can think of.  My phone indicated that on a few days I carried it with me that I walked over 8 miles in a day.

Getting a POD (Packrat actually) is a great way to move stuff.  It will get shipped to a storage location and held there until we get a house.  This was way easier than carting the remaining stuff via Uhaul and having to do multiple load/unloads in the process.  About the only 2 negatives are cost (still pretty pricey) and size.  I wish we had been able to go a bit more than 16ft in length - 20-24 ft probably would have keep me from needing to store in the travel trailer and mother in-laws. Some of the moving trucks are larger but even more expensive so it was a trade-off.   Getting a nice convertible hand truck from Sams Club was good along with some Harbor Freight dollies and a few other moving items. ** Boy am I glad I didn't buy a milling machine yet (1800-2400 lbs)  !!!  **

Having time to do things at an non-rushed pace would have been great but our choices didn't allow it.  Having great friends made that bearable. 

I would recommend not waiting to do some of the "hard stuff" like drywall patches, painting and removing things like the surface mounted welding wiring and RV wiring you are going to take with you. I ended up getting up at 5:15am the day I was leaving to sand a drywall patch and paint it since the patch wasn't dry by midnight when I was trying to finish up.  Stuff like that makes for a difficult long drive. In my defense, we did have a couple days of rain which did put of a few of the tasks.

Anyways, a brief trip in October ought to allow us to get the bulk of the remaining stuff and travel trailer.  Only major thing which needs to wait on a house will likely be my wifes favorite roll top desk. 

A new house is still in the research phase.  Tough decisions and more trade-offs.  We are having some issues with some aspects of the local schools.  I think the police are now going to be at the bus stop for the middle schoolers - a few of them are just out of control.  The schools are overcrowded and the buses are a big issue in general - the behavior of some children just puts things over the top.  I feel very sad for my kids and many other on the buses. We didn't see these types of problems in VA to this large of an extent. 

So much more to do but getting there.

Thanks for reading,
Scott