I Have Started Running

The title of the post pretty much says it all. Why have I started? I really don't know for sure. I have a couple of potential reasons.

• It's too cold to ride
• I think I could be a kick ass runner
  
• Riding the trainer is a fate worse than death
• I want to keep some fitness so I can crush my friends when it's time to ride again
• I feel guilty about eating and eating and eating
• I don't think I will ever reach my arbitrary weight goal of 172 without some sort of cross training
• I am a little burned out on riding right now

I think all of these reasons probably all play a little part in why I decided to go out and buy a pair of running shoes. I have always known that if I want to reach the fitness triumvirate of fast-strong-light I have got to take some proactive measures.

I have always thought about running because it's much quicker than riding and you can get a hell of a workout. I am still in the super-low mileage phase in an effort to keep the risk of injury down, but I am also not riding very much. I can't keep it up for too long because basically all of my friends ride. Just yesterday four people said directly to me...

"Hey do you want to go for a ride...(insert day and place here)"

I am not going to be able to keep up the excuses for long.

They say the hardest time for a new hobby/exercise/activity is the beginning. If you can do it for 3 weeks (or something like that) you can make it a habit. At this point it's been almost three weeks, I'll let you know if I feel anything special.

I think I need to beef it up a bit

So I think some of my latest posts have been a little weak. At very least they have been too infrequent to provide any sort of consistent entertainment. As a result I fear that I will lose my consistent viewer base of 4-5 people.

So, I am recommited to WLAM. Mark my words, there will be more movie reviews, personal updates and progress reports for on-going projects.

-Peace

Long Live Long Rides

Categorie(s): Bikes

The title of my post is actually the motto of IMBA the International Mountain Biking Association. I guess it's appropriate because the ride that I did several weeks ago is designated as an "IMBA Epic". The IMBA Epic rides are a collection of 32 rides mostly in the US that are "the reason why we ride". I have actually done two of these rides so far and I am within a day's drive of four others.

Johanna, fenton and I set out to do the Southern Traverse just before the temperature and all of the leaves dropped. Well, we didn't quite make it before the leaves but the weather was awesome.

I got a bunch of pics that day and a couple of movies. If you want to see me clean a huge log with great finesse, check out MOV0018. There are a couple of other attempts filmed as well. That might help give an idea how difficult it was.

Click here for the album

5 Words

Categorie(s): Misc

I was sitting around the house the other day watching TV, an activity I seem to be doing more of lately, when I had a thought. Are there 5 words that one could come up with to describe the last 5-10 years? By default, this would have to describe the last five years in America because I am just not worldly enough to do otherwise.

I know this is a really vague question but give it some thought and see if you can come up with anything. Imaging it's 2020 and you are hanging out with your old buddies from the 00's and you are discussing topics of the past. What topics would come up?

I have some starters...

• Reality Television
  
• 9-11
  
• iPods
  

What do you think? Leave a comment.

My Latest Project and Syba Enclosure Update

Categorie(s): Bikes, Projects

This is actually an old post I had sitting in draft mode waiting to be published. I think it's from early October. I'll release it to you all now. It's kind of ironic because I started on the project that I mention below and now I am already on to a new one. (and no, I haven't finished this one)


First, my new passion. MTB skillz obstacles.

I helped with the CAMBC TAKMBD (Take A Kid Mountain Biking Day) which was pretty cool. Things got a little mixed up and I was supposed to be a ride leader but I ended up with one kid, Jackson, (about 8 years old) his dad and a couple grownups. We had the highest Ride Leader/ Kid rations of any group. It was really cool because Jackson was a little timid about riding over the roots and rocks at first, but by the end the kid almost fell oft the trail 5 feet into a stream because he was trying to tackle some rocks, and he wouldn't quit until he rode the 5 1/2 inch wide see saw they had setup for the kids.

There was a skills course with small logs, a little ramp and the see saw (aka Teeter Totter) that the kids could play around on. It also served to sort the kids out by skill level before the rides grouped together and rolled out.

Well the skills course was so fun that the grownups couldn't help themselves. People were bunny hopping the logs, wheelie dropping the teeter totter, and just being silly. This got a bunch of us thinking..."Is this something that we could have permanently?" I don't know if/where/ or when it could happen, but that little bit of excitement was all I needed to get me building.


About the 3,5" Syba External Enclosure. I am going to have to give it a rating of definitely mediocre. I can't get the fan to stop buzzing. Whenever I have it on it sounds like an electric razor. So, I just decided to unplug the fan...I hope it doesn't fry the drive.

I think there are too many phone numbers

I have noticed recently that I have been getting a lot of wrong numbers calling my cell phone. I think there are just too many numbers these days. The numerical density just too high.

Has anyone else noticed an increase in wrong numbers?

A Civil Rights Icon Moves On

Categorie(s): News

Rosa Parks, matriarch of civil rights, dies at 92

Only 50 years ago Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man. I can't believe it was only 50 years ago. The means that my oldest aunt and uncle had to face segregation and by the time my father was born a revolution had begun and his experiences would differ greatly from his older siblings'.

The Fixie Revoultion

Categorie(s): Bikes




My good friend (who I will refer to as DG in order to protect the innocent) has joined the fixie revolution. This is a revolution of which I am not a part but I still highly respect and envy it's memebers. I hope to one day join their ranks, but to add another bike to the stable would reduce the minimal amount of time that I currently spend with each of my four bikes. Maybe I will one day sell one of them for a Langster...

Anyway, this is not about me...it's about a biddy and his new bike. Congrats to DG!

Stoned: The Morning After

So the Stones came to town last night. I wasn't actually there but it was still a sight to see. I got most of the experience without even having to buy a ticket.

I am always amazed at how much big events turn this little town upside down. Since I live about a mile from the Stadium, during big footbal games I usually have to find a clever way home, avoiding the main arteries to grounds. Last night was the worst it's ever been. I thought I was being clever by driving past my exit and trying to come in from the South, bad idea. I will spare you the details but I ended up 4 miles outside of town driving down a windy narrow country road, in the wrong direction, in a rainstorm and my gas light came on. That's all I am going to say be cause I have already begun to forget the experience. I think it's part of that natural human reaction where bad memories get sort of dulled. Kind of like with childbirth or a camping trip where you get caught in the rain.

The impact of the immigration didn't end when the concert was over. As I was driving to work this morning, I noticed the streets were dead. Maybe the rain had something to do with it, but there was an earie silence within 2 miles of the Stadium. Almost as if everyone was still recovering. No die-hard joggers, no one waiting at bus stops to go to work or wherever, no students walking to class. Even if you didn't know the Stones were in town, you knew something happened.

And then I found out where everyone was...

You see Bodos is the Charlottesville institution, nay empire, that has a very specific format. When there is a rush, this particular system requires that almost everyone knows how it works. It's not really that complicated. When it gets busy, there are two lines, one to order and one to wait for your food. The order line is usually very very fast and very short...but the waiting line sometimes gets backed up near the door...maybe you can see what is going to happen here.

So, someone that has never been to Bodos notices that there are a lot of cars in the parking lot, they also notice when they walk in that there are a lot of people. Not knowing what to do they sort of gaze at the menu and latch on to what looks like a line (pretty normal behavior). What they don't realize is that they are really more in a linear crowd, than an actual line. Usually one of the regulars spots this newbie behavior and directs them to the amazingly short order line (where they stand there for several minutes dumbfounded by the menu) and eventually everything is ok.

So, even if you didn't have to drive 15 miles to complete your 4 mile commute last night, an astute Charlottesvillian would know that something happened last night. The big toungues on the T-shirts might have been a giveaway as to what it was, but even without that...there was a disturbance.

Bicycle Racing

So, a couple of months ago I did my first road race. I have been MTB racing for a couple of years and I am no superstar, but I have had my moments. I made an agreement with a couple of roadies that if they did my Brownie Crit, I would do this road race in Richmond. I figured it couldn't be that bad. I heard the course was pretty flat and fairly short with two 14-mile laps. I estimated about 1.5 hours of hard riding, not too bad.

Well...it was interesting. First thing I'll say is that in the end I am glad that I did it. It was a fun little road trip with Mark and Heather but it was really really hard. The course was dead flat. There was a little bit of relief but nothing to speak of. Not enough that anyone could get away. Unfortunately, that made it really really sketchy. We were in a pack of 50 for the entire first lap. There were also a couple of sharp turns but we had a rolling enclosure so that made them a little safer.

After the first lap (of two) I was starting to get a little pooped. The pace started off a LOT faster that Mark or I thought it would. I asked Mark on Saturday if he was bringing a trainer and he laughed. When he did the Commonwealth games he said the race was really slow until the end. But, this race was HOT from the beginning. It felt just like a MTB race, I was pegged for the first 5 miles or so. Then it sort of settled in and I rode next to Mark and said "It's a little hot huh?" He agreed.

Anyway, we are racing along on this fast flat course after one lap and I started to get a little pooped. I was hanging off the back of the bus contemplating how hard I wanted to work when I saw the worst crash I have ever seen in real life. It was like a friggin tour crash. It turns out someone cut off one of our racers and took him down. Then like six more guys must have gone down right away. There were bikes in the air, riders on the ground, blah blah blah. One guy actaully ended up with his wheel about ten feet away from his bike.

So, I slowed down, made sure that the CRC jersey that I saw wasn't Mark and made sure he was okay and then I decided that I couldn't (and didn't want to) get back on the pack so I just rode the rest of the loop with a couple of guys. About 5-10 mimutes after the first crash, we roll up on some carnage from the second crash. Mark saw it and said there were bikes everywhere. Everyone looked okay but there was one guy that was having trouble getting in the wheel truck. There were actually people in the truck from the first crash that got out because they weren't hurt as bad as people from the second crash.

Mark ended up finishing with the pack, he rode off of the front for a little while just to avoid the sketch. Then he came back into the pack and stayed away from the finish so he wouldn't get hurt.

In the end, we both came out without crashing so we were content. That day I decided two things.

1) I will ride my road bike recreationally and the MTB will be the competitive one.

2) I would be perfectly fine hanging the Lemond up until November.

That was back July sometime. It is now the last day in September and I have ridden my road bike once since that day. It wasn't a real ride, I rode to work. I should probably get back on my road bike, but it's just not as much fun as the MTB.

Now, 7 Springs! That was a good time! That'll be next.

Blogger Question

I am wondering if there is any way to label my posts into general categories. It seems that I usually default into movie reviews, Internet and other geeky things, bikes, stupid links and probably some other miscellaneous things.

I would like a way to categorize my posts but it doesn't seem possible in Blogger.

Can anyone help me out?

External HD Update

I hope I am not geeking out on this external Hard Drive but I feel obligated to post an update.

Here's the stats:

External Enclosure: $23
160 Gig Hard Drive: $84 - $50 rebate

Has it saved me money? Yes. Has it saved me time? No. To get this thing to be recognized on my machine, I had to update my OS to Windows XP Service Pack 2. To get there from my original installation took about 2-3 hours of downloading and installing.

Once I got the ting to show up on my machine, I had to format it. That went fine. Mostly.

I also had to assemble the whole thing. That part wasn't too bad. I was able to get it put together while watching TV. But, here's the rub...

The fan in this thing is unbearable! There is a little internal fan that was screaming like a banshee. I say WAS because I decided to grab me Dremel tool and make my own modifications. Basically I mounted the fan externally so it wouldn't rub on anything.

Here's a shot of the fan mounted externally on the back plate.




Note I also had to make a little slot for the fan wires to go back into the enclosure. I also cut out the fins in the plastic to make a clear slot for the air to pull through.




Here's what the whole thing looks like put back together.


It's still kind of loud, but it's better than it was.

Computer Cleanup

This isn't even really a worthwhile post, but here it goes...

I have been thinking about getting an external HD for my computer for a little while. Maybe just something to backup my music and pictures, or even save them there permanently. Externals are about $1/gig at retail and sometimes you can find some really good deals for about $.50/gig. But there is also another option.

It turns out that an external hard drive is really just an internal drive stuck into a USB case. So I started to scour slickdeals for some deals on internal HD's and enclosures. I found some things and after I submit my rebate, it will come out to 37.58 for the HD and 23 for the enclosure for a total of about $60. It's a 160 Gig drive so it's about .37/gig. You could probably find a better deal on the drive and get a bigger one so you have a better ratio, but this works for me.

This also inspired some cleanup of my 4+ year old computer. It still works pretty well for my purposes (email, word processing, some Java coding, editing pictures, etc) but I had a lot of junk on there. Mostly programs that I didn't use anymore and duplicates of pictures and songs. Anyway, I managed to clear out about 15 Gigs of space without too much trouble. I think it runs a little faster now but it could be the clean car phenomenon.

Give your car a good wash and wax, inside and out, and I swear it will run faster, smoother and quieter. At least that's how it feels. It works with bikes too.

MATH is HARD, Let's not teach it anymore...

If only there were a sarcasm font, I would use it for the title of my latest post.

Has anyone else heard that there are rumblings in the American academic scene about eliminating fractions from the grade-school curriculum? To be fair, I don't think it's a complete removal, it would be more of a down-sizing.

Here's the deal...

There are estimates that if we moved to the metric system (meters, cc's, etc) we would drastically reduce our need for fractions. But here's the kicker, if we reduced the amount of energy spent teaching fractions, [the estimates say] we could gain 1-2 years in grade school math.

Think about it, when do you need fractions? How about adding 1/4" to 3 7/8". or when you want to triple that chocolate cookie recipe that you are making. If we went metric, you could just convert everything to a decimal and add the numbers with your graphing calculator.

So, all we have to do is go metric and POOF! We gain TONS of time.

Personally, I think this is one of the worst ideas I have ever heard. We don't want to teach something because it's hard?!! I managed to make it through. How about we decrease the student to teacher ratio (or fraction, or whatever) get the parents to pay attention to what the students are doing in school, and we get some kids that actually learn something.

Just recently I was watching the news and I saw something about one of the local schools complaining because in order to get a certain accreditation, they had to graduate 70% of the students. They wanted the number bumped down to 65%. This is unbelievable.

If you didn't know

iPod nano

So, it's 5:25 AM

...and I have been up for an hour. Why? you ask, well because I am going to New York, that's why. Actually, I am going to New Jersey by way of New York.

I am sitting in a bus that boards at 5:30 in the morning in C-vill and gets to NYC at noon. I don't know if we are actually going to make it by noon, but we'll see what happens. I guess that doesn't really tell you Why I am on this bus at this time. Well, yesterday was my dad's birthday and I wasn't able to getup to Jersey yesterday because of work and stuff, so insidering the price of gas, the cost of short-notice air-travel and the time it would take to drive, this was my only reasonable option. It's the Starlight express. For $149 round trip this bus leave C-ville at 6 AM on Saturday, gets into NYC at noon and leaves NYC on Sunday at 5:30 for a return time of Midnight in C-ville. Come Monday morning, you haven't dont much more than sit around for several hours and you have been transplanted to another world for just a little while.



In a week or so, you will probably get a recap on a 24 hour race that I am doing with the Bathtub Burrito (don't ask) and as I was getting ready this morning, I realized that this was pretty good training. With 6 hours of sleep (it wil be less next week) I am forced awake by a buzzing alarm. It's completely dark, a little cold I am a little dioriented, I have to get up and ride a bike, and...it's raining. Actually, I didn't have to ride the bike this morning. My plan was to get out of the house around 5:00 and get on my single speed MTB to ride across town and get on the bus. When I saw the rain I heard a voice in my head "Expet the Worst" and I had to adapt. First, I han't planned for rain or cold at all. With 95+ degree weather over the last four weks, why should I? I was going to leave the house in shorts and a T-shirt. SoI had to figure out how I was going to get to the bus without getting too wet. I thouht one option was to park near the bus stop and ride to the bus if I had to.

I put my bike on the car and grabbed my rain jacket, (which is really nice to have right now because the bus is freezing) and I hopped in the car. As luck would have it, there was a space right at the bus stop. So now my car is parked (with bike) waiting for me when I get back.
oh, wait, quick interruption. The first of my fellow passengers have arrived. I was curious who else would be taking a36 hour trip to Manhatten. It's two middle aged ladies who seem to know each other but chose to sit in different seats. They seem friendly.


So back to the bus. If it gets any colder in here I am going to have to put on the one pair of pants that i almost didn't pack.

So it seems the bus driver has a son...and maybe a wife? I guess this is a family affair. I noticed the kids seat when I came in but I didn'treally think much of it. This is really a nice setup. He started with a 44 passenger bus, took out all of the seats, and replaced them with 22 BMW SUV chairs. Now that I think about it, the happy female customer getting out of the bus in NYC with her toddler on the Startlight Shuttle advert is probably this guys wife. It maybe just shy of 6 AM but I can still put 2 and 2 together. Anyway, the seats are actually kind of nice. I was just poking around and the seats actaully move. There little controls that you would have in your X5 actually work, well mostly. I can get the seat to move up, down, left and right but I don't think mine leans back. That's a bit of a bummer. I may have to switch seats at some point.


OK, I am glad I am not allergic. Someone just came onboard with an animal in a small cage.I am assuming a cat.

So, now we have two middle-aged women, the bus driver, his wife and child, a younger lady with an animal another gray-haired lay that snuck on at some point. And the kid is making a littlebit of noise. This should be fun.

Three more passengers have just gotten on the bus. They all look post-college age. Two females that appear to be travelling together and a tall skinny dude that I would simply describe as "mild-goth" Maybe by the PM he will be able to go full goth..it's still early.

More info, the two middle-aged ladys are sisters. I am tired, I am going to close the computer and try to get a nap before I watch Sin City.



Ok, it's four hours later. We seem to be making pretty good time. The bus doesn't have to wait at any of the tolls. Either he's got a really good eye for the fast lane or he is setup with EZ pass or something to get throught some special booths. I just finished watching Be Cool, the first of the three movies that I rented frm Blockbuster for this trip. It's pretty good! I kind of remember when I saw the previews and thought I would enjoy it. I won't give a review now but it's worth seeing. Vince Vaugn is priceless.

I did manage to get some sleep but the (bus driver's) wife woke me up because they were picking two people up on the way and I was in the only availale two-person seat. I don't know how long I was asleep, but it was pretty nice to get a little nap. The weather is moderately crappy. Steady light rain for as long as I have been awake and watching movies. Considering the rain and the current state of my wipers, I am pretty glad that I am not driving.

OK, this is uncalled for! Someone on the bus stinks! I have pets so I can understand bringing the cats, and I know it's a little early to be getting on a bus, but somebody should have showered last night and maybe threw on some deoderant this morning. I am not the only one who has noticed. We just got a bad backdraft and I sawthe girl across the walkway discretely trying to cover her mouth and nose with her jacket. That's just bad form.

Internet Aptitude Test

So maybe I am just an elitist a-hole but I think people should be seperated into dumb and not-dumb. This wouldn't be a global rating, it would just apply to certain things.

Like if some one came up to me and asked..."Matlab. Dumb or not-dumb?"

I would reply. "Not Dumb"

"Drywall Installation. Dumb or not-dumb?"

I would definitely have to say... "Dumb"

I could go on but you get the idea. In the spirit of the dumb/not-dumb rating system (dndrs), I propose an internet aptitude test. Why? you ask...Because I don't think everyone that has an internet connection should be allowed to participate in all internet-based activities. There should be a minimum level of competence required to participate in such tasks.

It wouldn't be too hard. It could start off with some simple questions. Maybe some general computer questions and some more specific internet related questions. For example...

1) What kind of computer do you have? (Almost any answer could be acceptable here, PC, MAC, Dell, Gateway, Laptop, a White one)

2) What is the name of the internet browser that you use?

3) What type of internet connection do you have?

4) Open your internet browser and find a particular item on Ebay.

5) What is your email address?

Then maybe they would get a little harder

1) What is your operating system?

2) Name two internet browsers.

3) Actually register with and purchase an item from Ebay.

4) Sign up for an internet forum and make a substantial post, with an image!

5) What is your ISP?

And then a little harder

1) Name 4 internet browsers

2) List an item for sale on Ebay (with html tags and your own hosted images)

3) Remove a virus from an infected machine.

You get the idea. Something like this could save a lot of time! There are plenty of people out there testing internet-based programs and projects that really aren't hitting their target audiences. Think about how much time is lost getting people to set their cookies so they can download a plugin to watch an instructional video or guiding users who are unable to manage multiple usernames and passwords.

Again, maybe I am elitist, maybe this is a dumb idea, but I think someone could benefit from it.

There are some things I am just not good at (yet!)

I can make a pretty good omelet, I can wash the hell out of a dirty pan, I am decent at weeding, I am pretty good at Matlab, and I consider myself an adequate mountain biker…Everyone could probably name a few things that they do particularly well. Things that we just seem to have a knack for or maybe learned at a really young age…but it’s when we go outside of our comfort zones that we find out what we really aren’t good at.

I have been doing some home improvements lately and I have realized

it’s only when you see a professional do what you are trying to do that you realize how much you suck at something.

Maybe suck is too harsh a word. Everyone had to learn from somewhere. No one was born knowing how to drywall or troubleshoot a tripping breaker in a fifty year old house. But I do truly understand why certain people get paid to do what they do. I have only taken one economics class (and only one Cognitive Sciences class also, but that’s irrelevant) but I do remember a couple of basic economic principles. The one that comes to mind is Specialization and Trade. It’s pretty basic. Why learn how to do everything poorly (fix your brakes, grow corn, build a computer) when you can do one (seemingly) useful thing and trade that service with someone who needs that service. Of course we have evolved from the basic principle with a system of credits (read currency) but it’s still the same idea.

I make things happen in Matlab, I get money, I pay someone money to fix my house. Or at least pick up where my limited skills and I left off. So, the next time I feel bad that a professional electrician can do in one hour and fifteen minutes what would take me several weeks, I just think about how long it would take him to generate a simple plot in Matlab.

Here’s some pics from the home improvement process.

This is the paint peeling from the walls and cieling in the bathroom. In this picture we had done some scraping already but not nearly enough.

Here is another shot of the cieling. You can't see the light fixture that I still have to put back together but you can see the vent/light that I installed (with a little help from a professional electrician)

This is the first wall after 2-3 hours of scraping by two people.

This is where the electrical problem was. There is a bad wire in the wall between that hole (used to be a socket) and the lamp that he had to bust out of the drywall. Now there is a wire just dangling in the basement. He's coming back to tighten that up though.

Here's some shots of what I decided to do this morning. Just some gardening.

Ripped up some weeds, turned the dirt, and planted a little doanted mint. There's also some Cukes and greens and something else. It may be too late to get anything to come up, but we'll see. The squash, spinach and raddishes were a huge bust.

looks good without the weeds!

Latest Movie Reviews

I love watching movies. I am easily pleased so if something falls within my range of interests (Mostly Action and Comedy) there is a good chance that I will enjoy it. I think that's why I am having trouble really using Movie Lens to rate and choose movies. All of my selections are between 3.5 and 4.5 stars. I will try to be more critical in an effort to gain some statistical meaning.


Without a Paddle



I am sad to say, even though I like Seth Green, this one was a true stinker. I have seen it twice and I think that's enough to say that this movie get's only one cute blue iPod. The only redeeming qualities were maybe the cute hippies in the big tree and the time they had to snuggle in the rain, but that's about it.




Million Dollar Baby


As much as Without a Paddle sucked, that's how much this movie didn't. It was a little hard to really embrace Dirty Harry since he never opened his eyes and his face looks like an old leather baseball glove, but this movie was dead nuts on!

I can't really say too much without giving away the ending but it's a powerful movie with great characters and some rough situations that leave you thinking for days. For some reason I slept on this one but I am glad BlockBuster was out of whatever else I was thinking of getting.

Five cute blue iPods for this one


Coming Soon...
Melvin Goes to Dinner

Holy Crap! This used to be an Accord!

Click the Ebay Link and look at the pics!

Can they get any smaller?

Welcome MobiBLU!

I can't believe this thing is real. I found it on slickdeals.net and it's being sold at Walmart for about $100. Just search for Mobiblu.

I very rarely shop at Walmart and I don't really ever encourage anyone to but...if you do I have got to see what one of these things looks like. It would be good to get some battery-life specs. I have been thinking of getting a shuffle just to kick around with or when I go Mountain biking. Solid state, relatively cheap, really small, light. If I only had some expendable income!

By the way, did anyone else notice how hairy that guys arms are? Kind of reminds me of that Chapelle skit about the home shopping network.


There's a new Woot in town.

While we are talking about deals...Check out snapgone.com. Most of you may have already seen the one-deal-a-day page WOOT, but it looks like there is a new kid on the block.

Slickdeals is another one that's pretty good. There is a little more satisfaction and time-killing potential with SD because you can go into the forums and look around at the deals that don't get posted on the main page.

Of the three I have only ever purchased anything from slickdeals. I got a Sandisk USB drive from Amazon. I am still waiting for the rebate, but I have been using the USB drive almost every day since I got it. It's great for this Java class that I was sitting in when I started this blog entry.

The iGuy

Mad props to my buddy KP for showing me the latest and greatest in iAccessories. I was the first one to show her the iPod purse, but she has proven that she has got her finger on the iPulse with this one.

At $35 it's a little steep, but it's pretty clever and the designers were bright enough to make the iGuy's legs swing out of the way when you want to dock him on your iStation.

Just a quick update for the 5 people who bother to read this thing.

Once again I am sitting in my Java class with nothing to do, so I am trying out my cool email blogging function.  It's pretty neat...I can just sit here and email my super-secret email address and send it directly to my blog for all of you to read.  

 

Well this is supposed to be a quick one so here it goes.

• Podcasts are the bomb.  Some are really good, some of them are lame, but the idea is awesome.  If you have a Pod, jump on the boat.
• Things are going well with the car wreck thing.  I don't have to pay a dime, I am getting a rental car today and my car should be done in about two weeks.
• I just came back from an awesome vacation at the Outer Banks.  A bunch of us rented a house for a week and had lots and lots of fun.  We played with Kayaks, a HobieCat, a stunt kite, and all kinds of stuff.  We also ate so much BBQ'd meat that I am sure my cholesterol is through the roof.   I would post some pictures but I think I lost my camera.
• I should have a cool new wheelset coming for my Mountain Bike.  I have waited a LONG time for these things and I think they will be done today. 
• At some point I'll tell everyone about my latest success with writing a complaint letter to get a lame ass French company to actually do something.

Okay, back to class for me,

 

Peace out!

Probably not my worst day ever...

But it's not the best either.

The day started off just like most Thursdays. I don't have to be anywhere until 9:30 so sometimes I sleep in, (sometimes I sleep late) sometimes I get up when Johanna does and I get some things done around the house. This morning the birds were making a little noise and I had some stuff to do, so I got up around 7:30 and I cleaned up the kitchen a little bit, I even got a chance to fold some laundry in preperation for our trip to the beach next week.

With all of that done, I took a shower, threw some bikes on the car (one headed to the shop, one for the ride later) grabbed my iPod (with some fresh podcasts) and started to drive to my Java class. This was one of the few times that I wasn't in a rush.

So, I am about half way there (and I almost took a different route) I am headed eastbound on Elloit Ave. and a car on my left starts to roll from the stop sign. I can pretty easily see that if this thing keeps rolling that I am going to get T-boned. There was a slim chance that I would get through the intersection before the other car got the me. So, I kept driving, tried some evasive maneuvers and held on tight.

Well...I managed to not get T-boned but I didn't come out unscathed. I am fine but the Honda took a beating. The woman hit the rear drivers side panel and she must have hit the wheel as well. She sent me spinning 180 degrees and I skidded to a stop basically in a parked space, facing the wrong direction. Fortunately, there is no parking on the street or I would have been bounced around like that Plinko game from The Price it Right. I am also lucky that she didn't pull out just a little faster or a little sooner because I would have been testing the strength of whatever bracing the Honda engineers decided to put in the drivers side door.

All said and done, I am ok. The woman was insured, two witnesses stopped to wait for the cops to show up. The other driver was charged. The court date is in two weeks. I am glad I was wearing my seat belt. I am glad that I saw it coming and I could brace for it. I am glad she was insured.

I don't really know how much more I should tell but the story continues. Maybe I should just give you some facts.

When the woman gets out of her car, she isn't wearing any shoes.

She had a passenger in the car when she hit me. Once she got her car out of the middle of the road, the passenger gathered his things, and walked away never to be seen again. I never got a good look at him so I can't tell you what his deal is. I can only assume that the passenger had his reasons to cut out before the police arrived.

When the woman got out of the car one of the first things she said was that she just got her license a month ago. She looked to be about 40 or at least 35 with several years of hard living. She was also worried that they woudl take her kid away. Who I can only assume was the child in the back seat.

I don't know what her deal was. The cop made her leave her car and walk home. She was obviously compromised and I don't know how or why.

A Quick Test and a Couple of iPod Comments...

So, I am mostly doing this to test out the email functionality that I enabled.  I actually stumbled upon it when checking out the Bolog on fixpert.  I poked around Blogger for a couple of minutes and I found it.  So, I am in Gmail right now typing an email to my secret Blogger address. 

Anway, if this works, I want to ask all of you out there about iTunes 4.9.  I haven't upgraded from 4.7 because I figure, it it ain't broke...

But they seem to be trying to draw everyone in with this Podcasting thing.  I am just wondering if it's any good.  It seems like a neat idea.  If anyone has any experience, please leave a comment.  Does this mean I will need a bigger Pod?

This actually brings me to another point.  Since I got my iPod (only 7 months ago) I have become increasongly impressed with Apple and their product/pricing structure.  It seems that they are always adjusting their available products to hit certain price points and remove redundant products.

When the 20 Gig iPod came out, they discontinued the 15 Gig...and now that the 60 gig is the same price that the 40gig used to be, instead of pricing the 40 gig in between the two, the got rid of it.  I also guess that their market research told them that the whole color thing is taking off so they are done with the 30 gig and our only options for a new iPod are a 20 gig iPod photo or a 60 gig iPod photo. 

It's a race to see who will take over the world first, Google or Apple.  Apple is doing well, but I still have my money on Google.

-peace.

Last Wedding for a while

Chrissy and Devan are now somewhere in the British Virgin Islands. After over a year of planning, they pulled off what I would consider a flawless wedding. It's really hard to manage an event, centered around yourself (but not really about yourself) that includes 150+ guests and 30+ vendors. There are bound to be some oversights. There is no way the schedule is going to stay together. Someone is going to go crazy and have a complete meltdown in the middle of the ceremony.

Well. None of that happened. If you know responsible, organized Devan and his new wife, you aren't surprised. They managed to pull off a dual (Hindu-Christian) ceremony in style and grace. I am pround of them.

Pictures are coming soon, I accidentally published this post. I am such a noob.

Edit: So I looked through my pictures from the weekend, they are mostly crap. but there are a couple of good ones.




The first one isn't actually from the wedding. It's from BWI airport. Did you know they had cyborgs at the B terminal?

Wonderful Weekend in Vermont

Johanna and I came back from one of the coolest weddings last weekend. My buddy Ben got married to a really cool woman Mollie that he met our senior year at Brown.

I think every wedding that I have been to has had somewhere betweeen 100 and 200 guests...ours was.

Ben and Mollie broke the mold and had a 45 person gathering in the hills of Vermont. Several close friends and lots of family gathered at the Wildflower Inn and spent the weekend hiking, swimming, making smores, playing badmitton and throwing horseshoes. There was also a little bit of airhockey and fooseball but I think almost everyone spent most of their time outside.
I think this post would be better served by more pictures and less commentary.

Here are a couple of shots for everyone.

Here is Ben awaiting his bride...

How many people get a rainbow on their wedding day?

I really like this shot. I was just playing around with the camera and this just worked.

If you would like to see more check here. You may need to be a member of imagestation to view the album but you can check out bugmenot to get a login if you don't want to be bugged.^*


* Thanks to DGanes for that link.

Happy Birthday to Me!

It's been almost two weeks since it happened but it was cool enough that I still feel I should share it with everybody.

My B-day was June 10^th which I spent most traveling to Boston by way of Burlington, Vermont. The Tuesday before we were planning to have dinner with some friends of ours (fixpert and barfington) or at least that's what I thought. I cam home on Tuesday ready to go for a little road ride before dinner and I saw a familiar bike on our lawn, but not one that I was expecting. I didn't really think much of it...I just didn't know how she found out about the ride. Then another mystery rider shows up and I am really confused.

Johanna let's the cat out of the bag and informs me that this is a pre-celebration ride.
"It's a celebrationBitches!"

It turned out that just about everyone we know in town was coming over for Beer, Bar-B-Q, Nerf guns and balloon animals. I had a great time and it was good to see everyone at once.

A couple of days later one of these showed up in the mail.



It's a portable speaker system for the iPod. It can be run off of batteries or off of an AC adaptor. It's also a docking station, which is a bonus because I was thinking of getting a second USB cable anyway and this already fits the bill. It's definitely small enough to travel with but the sound sis big enough for a backyard BBQ or anywhere around the house.

If you are lookingfor something to broadcast your pod, this thing is where it's at.

I know I know

It's been a while since I have provided you with a worthwile post. Some might say that I haven't even done that once.

Anyway, I have been crazy busy with work, weddings and this Java class that I am taking. Actually, I just finished my first quiz and now I am going to bed.

When I do have a minute, I can tell you all about my friends' new dog, Pizza, an awesome wedding that I went to last weekend, and maybe even a thing or two about my birthday last week.

For now...you will just have to wait.

Stupid birds

Since my last post I have made pretty good progress on the puzzle. I pretty much matched all of the water pieces and I have been working steadily on getting the rocks to match up. All in all I would say that I have gotten through about 40% of the puzzle.

It's pretty fun and it's something that I can just do a little of and walk away from. It's also nice because I can sit in the living room, where the birds are, and they like it when I just hang out.

Every once in a while they will fly over and try to get in on the puzzle action. It would be a problem if they just stomped around on the loose peices but they usually head for the parts that are together and try to take the puzzle apart. It's not really a problem because I just pick them up and put them back on my shoulder and they get the idea.

Well, I think they were just waiting for the right time. I was pretty tired on Sunday so after lunch I decided to take a nap.

That's when they struck

I was asleep for about 45 minutes, when Johanna woke me up, I sat up on the couch, looked over towards the table and there were 3 cockatiels feverishly disassembling the puzzle. Not 1, not 2, but all 3! They never do anything together. Sometimes you think they hate each other...

Not on Sunday, I think as soon as I fell asleep they went to town. They got the entire puzzle almost completely apart.

GAHHHHHHH!!!!

I think I am in over my head

For a little change of pace I decided to try something that I haven't done in a while (maybe ever). I was a little bummed about my mountain bike being out of commission (that's another story...maybe later) and I just wanted something to do as I watched the recently released DVD of Season2 of The Chappelle Show, so why not a puzzle.

I was in the puzzle aisle at Toys R Us and there was a decent selection...Kids puzzles, 3D puzzles, Adult puzzles (That's 12+, not puzzles of nude ladies!). The serious puzzles started at around 500 pieces, then there were 750 pieces and the uber puzzles were 1000 pieces. Well, I felt like I would be a punk if I didn't go with the THOUSAND PIECE PUZZLE! The age was 12+ (and I am way older than 12) so I figured "How hard could it be?"

First, here is what the finished product should look like.

I knew I was in trouble when I had to break out a steak knife to get the box open.

After about an hour, I finally got most of the pieces flipped over so I could get an idea of what the heck I was in for. By that time Homer was really interested.

Yay, first two pieces connected! It only took about four and a half episodes of Dave Chappelle to get this far...not bad.

By midnight (started around 9) this is how far I had gotten.

I am going to guess about 50 pieces, maybe. Two hours of puzzling ( I am not counting the hour of setup) and 50 pieces...at that rate it should only take me another 38 hours to get the remaining 950 pieces put together.

I hope I get better at this.

Hiking with a hand truck

So I had an interesting morning... It all started off pretty normal, I woke up, at some cereal, made some phone calls about rides for the day and I figured I had a some time before any rides were going to happen so I decided it would be a good chance to mow the lawn.

I have been trying to get the house back together since Lodi so I figured I should take advantage of what little time I had.

Anyway, I start mowing the backyard and after about three passes, the mower sputters to a stop. Nothing too hard to figure out, I was just out of gas. Also not a surprise is that the gas can is empty. no big deal, I had my car keys in my pocket, I decided to drive the 1/2 mile to the nearest station and fill 'er up. While I am there I figure why not fill my car too. This is where it gets wierd.

As I am filling the car I see two people walking down 5th street pushing hand-trucks, you know, dollies. The dollies are very well packed with duffle bags or backpacks and systematically secured with lots of bungee cords. There was an older man, maybe 40's or 50's and an overweight woman who were wheeling these neatly packed dollies down the street. This was too strange to ignore. I had to see what it was all about. (I at least needed another look!)

So I hook a left (away from my house) to drive by them one time and get a good look. It was just like I first thought. Two people (somewhat ragged looking) pushing dollies on the sidewalk.
At the same time I saw some youth group washing cars to raise money to go somewhere and I figured I wasn't going to wash my car anytime soon and I would love to have it washed so I pulled into the gas station where they were washing cars to get my car washed. That was going well (they actually did a pretty good job) when I realized that the dolly-toting pair also stopped at this same gas station. I decided that it was a strange enough thing that I had to go over to them and ask them what they were up to. I didn't know how to start, but this is kind of how it went.

me: hey how's it goin'
dollyman:hey
me: So, are you guys headed somewhere
dm: Yeah, we are trying to get to Waynesboro (about 30 miles West)
me: Where are you coming from?
dm: ??? County, Georgia
me: Holy Cow! Are you walking the whole way?
dm: (he signals with his thumb) Nah, Hitchin'
me: Huh!
dm: Yeah, we are going to try to get to a church in Waynesboro to see if they'll put us up for the night,(he motions to the woman) she's pregnant.
(I look at the overweight lady and she barely acknoledges my presence as she takes another puff on her cigerette)
dm: We are trying to get to New Hampshire so we'll go to Waynesboro and head up 81.
me: Well, too bad I'm not headed that way, good luck though.
dm: Sure, no problem, thanks.

So, just to give you an idea of what they were carrying, I managed to snap a picture. You will have to forgive the image quality, I was driving at the same time. Here's what I managed to crop out of it.



Here's another part of the same picture. I noticed that I barely got the guy in the frame too.


In the end, I don't know what they were up to. The woman didn't look pregnant, and I would hope that she wouldn't be smoking if she was, but what do I know. I could have looked like an easy mark and maybe playing the pregnancy card is what got them to Central VA. Maybe they hit a hard patch and have family or a job in NH that can help them out. Maybe they spent all they could scrounge on two (heavy-duty) hand trucks and a sack of bungee cords and decided to try and hitch thier way over 1000 miles to the promise land we call New England.

I just don't know.

Lodi Pics

Well, I promised some pics when I got them and here they are. There's this guy Bill who's a bike shop mechanic that likes to take pictures. He started this website buffalo2step.com to store all of his pics. Bill was at the race and he got these two completely awful shots of me.



I think these were taken at about 4 AM. Here's a really bad one.


There may be more to come...

Here's one more that I found. Not too bad...This was a NASTY descent! SCARY!!