Cyber Meltdown

I don't usually look at the article adverts on the sidebar of my Hotmail, but this one caught my eye. Here's an excerpt...

The United States has never experienced a massive Internet outage, but a coalition of dynamic chief executives said Friday that the nation must do more to prepare for that prospect.

Without proper planning, myriad industries--from health care to transportation to financial services--could face devastation if a natural disaster, terrorist or hacker succeeded in disrupting Net access, they said.

You can read the entire article here.

Personally, I think it could be pretty rough to not be able to shop, check account balances, pay bills, get music, etc, online, but I don't think it would be the end of the world. There are so many cyber geeks out there that something would popup to facilitate sharing information.

It has been somewhat lost but personally I think sharing information is the real power behind the internet. Maybe if we have a cyber meltdown, blogs and forums will be king...trumping Amazon and Ebay.

So like I mentioned in the last post, life has been pretty busy lately. I think I am trying to keep too many balls in the air at once but that's just the way I roll. Even with Johanna out of town and in Japan, a lot of my free time is taken up by too much stuff.

First, there's the riding. I am probably averaging 3-5 days on the bike. I don't really do any other form of exercise and it's pretty damn fun. I haven't been on my road bike in a while and the local MTB spots are getting a little stale so I think I am going to have to venture a little farther away fotr some rejuvination. Along with the riding would have to be the race planning. Running Bi-weekly brownie crits and planning cross country races are taking up some time.

Next is the Mini-Z's. Lots and lots of time on the Mini-Z's. Just about every other Saturday I am driving to D.C. (2.5 hours) to race my little cars with other 30ish year olds. These things are a straigh up addiction. They are tons of fun and there is always some tweaing to do. I am waiting for the point where all of my cars are just setup and running. The problem is that it's just as much fun to tweak and mod as it is to drive, so sometimes I spend literally hours at night working on the kitchen table putting a car back together. This should slow down once I get all of my setups dialed though.

Next is more Mini-Z's. Someone gave me a track and I have been setting it up at one of the local hobby shops to try and get some racing going. There are a bunch of RC drivers in this town but they all run big load off road trucks. There used to be a pretty strong following of Mini-Z racers around here over a year ago but it just died down and here I am trying to breathe life back into it.

Next would have to be work. Around all of these hobbies I have to find time to spend a couple of hours a day funding them. Work has been pretty busy these days. Please don't ask what I do, it's not that I would have to kill you it's just that I don't really know...and even if I did, it would bore you anyway. My hobbies are much more exciting!

The icing on the cake is my addiction to procrastinating. I can never just go to bed at 10:30 or 11:00. No, I have to tinker with this, fiddle with that, look up one last thing on the internet, check my email, blah blah blah. I'll settle into a better routine one of these days. (Probably in late August when Johanna gets back from Japan)

Well, if anyone wants to race Mini-Z's, ride mountain bikes, eat brownies, or surf the web, don't hesitate to give me a call.

Peace

It's been a while

I think I am getting in over my head again. I am juggling a lot of things right now (work , riding, Mini-z's, more Mini-Z's, more riding) and I just don't have the time to do it all, nevermind report on it on a daily basis.

There have been a couple of recent big events

Number 1 - Johanna's Graduation

They call it "Final exercises" at UVa. I think that's a dumb name. I have a couple of really good pictures but not on this computer so you'll have to wait for these

Number 2 - My Birthday

I also have pictures from this one but I am too lazy to resize them right now.

Number 3 - Angry Cockatiel

Our female cockatiel Harriet has started laying eggs. We don't think that they are fertile but we have to let her lay a full clutch and sit on them for about 10 days. If we take the eggs away she'll keep laying and that can lead to all kinds of health problems.

Here's a picture of her. She was rolling the eggs under her but she stopped when she saw me, that's why she's only sitting on one and the other two are around her. She's actually a pretty good mom.



A closer look.

I'm Seeing Green

I got motivated about 2 weeks ago to paint the office. I had no idea how to get an inspiration or what colors to choose so I went to the best resource I know...the internet.

I'll spare you the sappy details but after some soul searching I settled on a Sherman-Willians color called Rural Green. I bought a sample last Teusday (which was a waste of $5, I think) decided that I liked the color and got a gallon on Thursday. Here I am a week later in my freshly painted room. The pictures don't really do the color justice. There is a little bit of gold that comes through in natural light. I am pretty pleased. I also didn't get a good shot of the floor. It's a light colored hardwood floor, similar to the closet door. The Rural Green works really well with it.



It also serves as a new start. I had to completely clear my desk to move things around and get setup for painting. My goal now is to keep the desk free of paper, unless it is something that I am currently working on. I'll probably pick up a small filing cabinet and try to keep everything filed away.

Sherman-Williams actually has a cool color visualizer that you can use to "see" SW colors in a room of your choice.

Layouts I Likes

More than anything, this post is a placeholder for webpage layouts that I like. Eventually I would like to register a domain and create a webpage. I don't know when I would find time to do this, but there's always hope. Maybe I can stop sleeping.

FIXPERT
I really like the bold distinct color on this one as well as the graphics. The fixpert logos are pretty unique. The layout is also very clean and it's easy to find the latest information.

NOWHERESKATEBOARDS
I love the opening page on nowhere. The flash intro's (on other sites) that take forever are really annoying, but the first image is quick and has some nice depth to it.

LATENCYPROJECT
I don't know if this is on purpose but the black and white on this page really makes the color fotos stand out. This guy seems to be pretty techie. I don't know anything about this guy except what you see on the page. The MTB accident is a bit of a downer.

CVILLEPODCAST
I don't really like this one very much at all. It's poor use of white space. Everything is legible, but nothing draws your eye. Everything just seems to float on the page.

HOMEPOKERTOURNEY
The information is presented well but there are too many ads and crap on the sides. The content is good, but that's about it.

If I ever get my page up and running, I hope to take a couple of elements from the good sites and avoid the problems that I see in the bad sites. I am sure this is going to take way more time than I have, especially since I am thinking of painting another room in my house and I haven't even finished the bathroom yet. It's almost done, but not quite. Gotta finish up the baseboard and figure out what to do with the floor.

If anyone has any input (with or without examples) feel free to post a reply.

Starting to Feel Like I Live Here

So, I have lived in Charlottesville for about 6 years now and I didn't notice it until today but I have managed to carve my own little niche here. I have definitely left a decent legacy with some of the Mountain Bike events that I help organize but it was two subtle interactions that I had today that made me realize that I actually live here now.

I had some errands to run this morning before I got to work for what I expected to be a fairly busy day.

My first stop was the Barber Shop. I have been cutting my own hair for a while (with Johanna's help) but it was time to get a professional to do the job. Johanna is out of town and it's a pain in the ass to cut your own hair. Plus it never looks as good as when the pro's do it. I had been going to the same barber shop for a while but since I bought a set of clippers, I hadn't been back. It's not that I don't like the place. It took me a while to find it and I actually like it a lot. The benefit of DIY is the time and money savings. If you show up to a Barber Shop on Saturday morning, you could be waiting two hours for a haircut.

Anyway, I decided to go back to my Barber Shop this morning for a real haircut. I showed up, probably 4th in line and was in the chair about 25 minutes after I showed up. The barber greeted me, said he hadn't seen me in a while, I mumbled something about being out of town, then he asked me how I wanted my hair cut. (They always ask). I told him what I wanted and he finished up by asking about how I like the front cut. Something like "No shaping in the front right?" Of course that was right. I hadn't been there in probably a year and he remembered exactly what I wanted.

I didn't think much of it until my next stop...Oil Change...

I drove to the shop where I usually get my oil changed. They aren't the cheapest place in town but I trust their work and they always explain things to me when I have questions. I never feel rushed and they can usually fit me in.

I parked my car and went into the office to see if I could drop the car off for an oil change. The guy said "sure" and asked me when I wanted to pick it up. He started to write up a slip and already knew my last name and the model, year and color of my car. I drive a lot so maybe I am one of his more frequent customers, but who expects a random auto shop to remember your last name. I don't. I feel like that something that happens to middle-aged people that have lived in a town most of their lives.

It made me feel kind of weird.

I don't think either one of these alone would have given me enough clues to come to the realization that I had today. But between the Barber Shop and the Auto Shop...I guess I have been around for a while.

How do you know when you are addicted to the Internet?

When you are blogging in bed! I have a very strong character trait that usually gets me into trouble. Procrastination. I procrastinate with evertything. For example, I was going to clean the kitchen tonight, but instead I watched the movie Crash. I was going to get to bed at 11:00 but instead I jumped on the computer one more time, to check out a couple of blogs that I haven't visited in a while. Then I decied that I needed to update my blog. I didn't want to push bed time any farther, so I grabbed Johanna's laptop and here I am.

Since I managed to get the wireless up and running, I can Bed-Blog. Very sad I know.

With Johanna in South America until the end of March, it's going to be pretty difficullt to battle my tendancy to procrastinate.

I have a lot to catch up on. I have been a little bit out of touch because so many things are going on.

The hierarchy of projects has been somewhat rattled.

Here's a quick rundown of what's been going on.

I think I skipped right to converting my Klein into a single speed,

I picked up a track for my Mini'Z's (and picked up some whole new tasks along with that)

On top of the projects, I have watched several DVD's(Akira, Crash, Transformers Season I, Napolean Dynamite, scrubs Season 1 and most of Season 2, Appleseed),
played Poker, cut my hair, done some serious house cleaning and a litle bit of laundry.

I would like to get started on the Charlottesville Podcast. I have several ideas for
individuals that I want to interview.

This is sort of a shotgun post, but it's a little taste of what's to come.

It was fine while it lasted

Notice I didn't say fun.

Running is not about fun. In my brief experience with running, I have learned that running is about mitigating pain. There is always some sort of overuse injury, or joint pull, or ligament friction thing that you are trying to dodge. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's because I weigh 185 lbs and I ran 7 miles on a 20 degree day when just 4 months ago I hadn't run 7 feet.

I am sad to say that I think I am aborting the 10 miler training plan. Who am I kidding, I am not sad. I was looking for an excuse to quit this stupid thing. Don't get me wrong here. I will still continue to run, but I think 5 miles is about my limit...at least for now.

If you are curious, I have ITBS. look it up.

It has been about 5 days since my last run. I have sort of been avoiding it. I am telling myself that I am "resting". I'll give it another shot in the next day or two and see how things work out. If the pain is gone, maybe I'll pick the training back up. If not, I'll have to back off and abort the ten miler. The weather is starting to get warmer now anyway...it's time to get back on the bike.

Router Installed

So the problem was my old a$$ NIC. I couldn't get a link between my desktop and the router. The computer is from 2001 so that may have something to do with it. Their tech support was actually pretty good. They tried several things with the router, my computer, etc to get me going.

It took 2 calls and 2 computers but it worked out. I got off of the first call around 1:30 or so, maybe later. I was at a standstill because I couldn't find the little ethernet adaptor that goes to Johanna's computer. (Stupid old computers!) After looking for 10 minutes with the tech guy on the phone, I gave up and resigned to calling back later. Within 30 seconds of hanging up, I found the connector. It was late but I had to call back.

Overall, it took longer than it should have...but the tech support was helpful. There was one weird thing though. Here's an example

Tech Support: Okay Sir, let me know when you have connected the computer to the router.
ME: It's connected

- 90 second pause -

TS: Okay sir, let me know when you have connected the computer to the router.
ME: Uh...it's connected.

That happened at least 4 times. He asked me to tell him when something was done, I did, and he asked me again, so I told him again. Weird.

Well, internet problem resolved. It's a happy ending

Customer Service

So I got on www.slickdeals.net last night for some semi-regular browsing. I have taken advantage of a couple of slickdeals but there is one in particular that I have been waiting for...a wireless router.

I have a pretty good setup on my desktop, but since we have two computers in the house, it would be pretty convenient to have two computers to the internet. So a pretty good deal came up for a router and a PCI card for Johanna's laptop. $30 after rebate for a Wireless G router.

I got home at about 10:45 tonight, spent some time with the birds and got started on the installation. It is now 12:45 and I am on hold with Netgear customer support trying to get some help. I wish I had my camera right now because there is a little sentence on the instruction sheet that I would love for you guys to see...

Estimated completion time: about 20 minutes.

I am going to have to call bull on that one. I have been cranking away at this thing for almost 2 hours. I don't know what the answer is yet but hopefully, they can tell me.

I have searched various forums (which are usually very helpful) but I just can't find anything. Well, I am going to try some reboot cycles while I'm on hold.

-wish me luck