Thanks to pokealex for the link to ljArchive. I feel better knowing that I have a backup, because I'd hate to lose such an online literary masterpiece. It has some fun plug-ins too, like a comment count analyzer and word count analyzer. My top 3 words are: ride, bike, and weekend. "Christine" came in at number 5. Maybe I should remedy that.....
Thursday, January 6, 2005
Tuesday, January 4, 2005
Holiday updates
I'm way overdue for some updates. (Hopefully I can remember just what it is I've been up to lately.)
Thursday 12-23 Dog Xmas:
What's better than a dog birthday party? Dog Xmas of course.
Here's Kuzca opening a gift:
Kuzca's best impersonation of a reindeer:
Friday 12-24:
Traditionally the last work day before Christmas is a half day, meaning you work the first half and get the rest off for free. For some reason, one of the other teams at work decided to completely disappear even though they have a product to release soon. A product, I might add, that needs some help. So since our team has all sorts of time (NOT!) I got pulled into that and ended up work a little later than planned. The good news is that I was told if they need me to come in during our holiday shutdown at all (even for an hour) I wouldn't have to take ANY of it off as vacation. Sweet!
Saturday 12-25:
Christine and I went skiing/snowboarding at Keystone. That'll go down in history as one of the best Saturday ski season drives to the slopes ever. There was practically nobody on the road. The snow wasn't that great, but we weren't expecting much so all was well. As more people started to arrive, we left to go the Christine's dad's house in Parker for some tasty home cooking.
Christine got me a the Daily Show book and super cool soft-shell jacket that'll be great for spring skiing and backcountry skiing. I got her some road biking shoes, pedals, and a heart rate monitor. Sure, she didn't have a bike yet, but there's nothing like a push in the right direction. :) Plus, it's really annoying to buy a nice bike and then realize there's a bunch more "necessary" gear to purchase.
Sunday 12-26:
After my huge nudge with the aformentioned gifts, Christine bought the bike she had test ridden a couple weeks ago. (SWEET!) I don't know who's more excited, me or her. (Probably me.) For my own safety, I won't post the picture of her with the bike since she wasn't feeling well that day, but here's a picture of the bike by itself.
Monday 12-27:
I have no idea what I did this day. Probably did some stuff at Christine's new place (which is totally cool, by the way).
Tuesday 12-28:
Dancing at the Merc was PACKED. It's great that there's so much interest, but it makes it really difficult to dance when you spend most of the time worrying about running into people. On the way home my damage-magnet car had a close call. About a mile from Christine's place a cow just decides to start jogging across the street. A COW! WTF? Let's hear it for 13" disc brakes because I stood on them and narrowly missed a serious blood bath. I still managed to clip it's rear leg, but the only damage was a $10 grill piece. They don't tell you this at the dealership, but a clear bra is also effective at protection from hoof marks. A bargain at any price.
Wednesday 12-29:
The bike shop I go to has started somewhat of a group ride on Wednesdays. I say "somewhat" because it hasn't exactly been mentioned to too many people, so I thought it was pretty cool that they asked me to join them. I guess that means they think I can hang. It was a little chilly, so there were only three of us and we rode to Carter Lake, following part of the Carter Lake race route. That may be my first race this year, so it's good to get a little familiar with the terrain.
Thursday 12-30:
Christine and I did a little riding around between my house and her's. It was super windy, which made the riding a little difficult, but thankfully we both stayed upright.
Friday 12-31:
I got on skis for the first time in over 7 years, and I suck. Well, I guess I don't suck too bad; I did go down several blues, and even some small bumps (non-gracefully). But for as much of a (relative) beginner I am on skis again, there are plenty of people that are WAY worse (and I wish they would stay out of my way). I had a good time, but I'm not giving up snowboarding any time soon. I mainly want to relearn how to ski because I think it'll be better in the backcountry than snowboarding.
Ski technology has come a long way since the last time I owned a pair, however boot technology is severely lagging behind. It's not that they were uncomfortable, but they seemed like the same boots that I wore 7 years ago. Do the boot makers not care about improvements? Take a look at snowboard boots. I've gotta believe that's half the reason someone would choose snowboarding over skiing. I'm sure there's a big difference in the stiffness requirements between the two sports' boots, but hire a mechanical engineer and get creative.
Saturday 1-1:
Recovery from multiple days of riding snow and pavement.
Sunday 1-2:
The weekly group rode to Lyons. It was pretty cold out, so we took an extended break at the Barking Dog Cafe to regain feeling in our toes. I chose to continue the celebration of Festivus by eating a muffin top. Top 'o the muffin to ya. Muffin tops yes, bagels no.
Monday 1-3:
I had planned on going to work to use the gym, but it turned out that there was some work for me too do (today is still a holiday for us). I put in a half day after I worked out, which isn't too bad because now I think I can get my vacation days back from last week.
If you've made it this far, you must really be bored.
Thursday 12-23 Dog Xmas:
What's better than a dog birthday party? Dog Xmas of course.
Here's Kuzca opening a gift:
Kuzca's best impersonation of a reindeer:
Friday 12-24:
Traditionally the last work day before Christmas is a half day, meaning you work the first half and get the rest off for free. For some reason, one of the other teams at work decided to completely disappear even though they have a product to release soon. A product, I might add, that needs some help. So since our team has all sorts of time (NOT!) I got pulled into that and ended up work a little later than planned. The good news is that I was told if they need me to come in during our holiday shutdown at all (even for an hour) I wouldn't have to take ANY of it off as vacation. Sweet!
Saturday 12-25:
Christine and I went skiing/snowboarding at Keystone. That'll go down in history as one of the best Saturday ski season drives to the slopes ever. There was practically nobody on the road. The snow wasn't that great, but we weren't expecting much so all was well. As more people started to arrive, we left to go the Christine's dad's house in Parker for some tasty home cooking.
Christine got me a the Daily Show book and super cool soft-shell jacket that'll be great for spring skiing and backcountry skiing. I got her some road biking shoes, pedals, and a heart rate monitor. Sure, she didn't have a bike yet, but there's nothing like a push in the right direction. :) Plus, it's really annoying to buy a nice bike and then realize there's a bunch more "necessary" gear to purchase.
Sunday 12-26:
After my huge nudge with the aformentioned gifts, Christine bought the bike she had test ridden a couple weeks ago. (SWEET!) I don't know who's more excited, me or her. (Probably me.) For my own safety, I won't post the picture of her with the bike since she wasn't feeling well that day, but here's a picture of the bike by itself.
Monday 12-27:
I have no idea what I did this day. Probably did some stuff at Christine's new place (which is totally cool, by the way).
Tuesday 12-28:
Dancing at the Merc was PACKED. It's great that there's so much interest, but it makes it really difficult to dance when you spend most of the time worrying about running into people. On the way home my damage-magnet car had a close call. About a mile from Christine's place a cow just decides to start jogging across the street. A COW! WTF? Let's hear it for 13" disc brakes because I stood on them and narrowly missed a serious blood bath. I still managed to clip it's rear leg, but the only damage was a $10 grill piece. They don't tell you this at the dealership, but a clear bra is also effective at protection from hoof marks. A bargain at any price.
Wednesday 12-29:
The bike shop I go to has started somewhat of a group ride on Wednesdays. I say "somewhat" because it hasn't exactly been mentioned to too many people, so I thought it was pretty cool that they asked me to join them. I guess that means they think I can hang. It was a little chilly, so there were only three of us and we rode to Carter Lake, following part of the Carter Lake race route. That may be my first race this year, so it's good to get a little familiar with the terrain.
Thursday 12-30:
Christine and I did a little riding around between my house and her's. It was super windy, which made the riding a little difficult, but thankfully we both stayed upright.
Friday 12-31:
I got on skis for the first time in over 7 years, and I suck. Well, I guess I don't suck too bad; I did go down several blues, and even some small bumps (non-gracefully). But for as much of a (relative) beginner I am on skis again, there are plenty of people that are WAY worse (and I wish they would stay out of my way). I had a good time, but I'm not giving up snowboarding any time soon. I mainly want to relearn how to ski because I think it'll be better in the backcountry than snowboarding.
Ski technology has come a long way since the last time I owned a pair, however boot technology is severely lagging behind. It's not that they were uncomfortable, but they seemed like the same boots that I wore 7 years ago. Do the boot makers not care about improvements? Take a look at snowboard boots. I've gotta believe that's half the reason someone would choose snowboarding over skiing. I'm sure there's a big difference in the stiffness requirements between the two sports' boots, but hire a mechanical engineer and get creative.
Saturday 1-1:
Recovery from multiple days of riding snow and pavement.
Sunday 1-2:
The weekly group rode to Lyons. It was pretty cold out, so we took an extended break at the Barking Dog Cafe to regain feeling in our toes. I chose to continue the celebration of Festivus by eating a muffin top. Top 'o the muffin to ya. Muffin tops yes, bagels no.
Monday 1-3:
I had planned on going to work to use the gym, but it turned out that there was some work for me too do (today is still a holiday for us). I put in a half day after I worked out, which isn't too bad because now I think I can get my vacation days back from last week.
If you've made it this far, you must really be bored.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Weekend update #2
My dog's 3rd birthday was last wednesday (December 8th), so we decided to have a little celebration over the weekend.
Christine baked the dog brownies from a mix I found at the pet store:
No party is complete without party hats:
Chula was not very excited:
Mmmm, tasty hat:
Kuzca blows out the candle:
(I hope this doesn't count as animal cruelty)
Monday, December 13, 2004
Monday, December 6, 2004
Welcome to the future
My house always has dog hair all over the place, and it doesn't help that I rarely vacuum. Thankfully my roommate does occasionally, but it's too infrequent to make a huge difference in air quality. Enter the Roomba.
After hearing liv_e_uh rave about her new robot vacuum, I decided to give it a try. They make a few models and they're all essentially the same, except for a few extra accessories on the pricier models. The Bed Bath and Beyond ad that came in the mail that day contained a 20% off coupon which made the choice that much easier. I opted for the Discovery model because I wanted the home base charging unit. This model also comes with 2 virtual walls (the Roomba won't cross the infrared beam created by the virtual wall), a remote, and a wall hanger.
The inaugural run of the Roomba was made in my main room downstairs because it tends to see the most dog hair. After removing all the extraneous ground clutter (dog toys) I fired it up and let it go to work. My dog mostly ignored it but Christine's was freaked out and jumped up on the couch for some serious consoling:
It's pretty funny to see a 100 pound dog get upset with a 10 pound robot. It took a LONG time for it to clean that room. So long that I decided to shut it off after over an hour so I could go to bed. I was a little worried that my new child was mentally handicapped, but I've since cleaned other rooms and it worked fine. I think it got confused after running into the dogs at various places in the room, but I'm not sure. More experimentation is necessary.
The verdict? So far, so good. My roommate tells me that I've vacuumed more in the past week than I have the entire time she's lived there. The algorithm it uses while cleaning could stand to be improved. If the iRobot people were smart they'd sponsor a computer engineer's senior project because I've seen way more sophisticated navigation from college projects. But since I'm not walking around vacuuming, I'm not too concerned that the program is wasteful. It seems to do a pretty decent job of picking up pet hair. I actually paused it to empty the dust bin in some rooms because there was so much hair. One of the cooler things the Roomba does is vacuum under the bed:
Following a close second in coolness is the way it parks itself on the charger when it's done or the battery is running low. The remote control is mostly useless. I mean, how lazy am I if I can't even be bothered to get off my butt to turn on the automatic vacuum cleaner? The one redeeming factor about the remote is that I can actually drive the Roomba with it and chase the dogs (or the neighborhood kids).
Apparently people name their Roomba. I haven't picked a name yet, but for the time being I'll use "Charro".
Wednesday, December 1, 2004
Support my habits
About a year ago I read Lance Armstrong's first book, It's Not About the Bike, and it's the reason I ride a road bike today. I'm not known as an overly emotional person, but I was touched and inspired but this story of man who overcame the extreme adversity of testicular, brain, and lung cancer to become one of the greatest cyclists ever. I have the utmost respect for him has a person in the way he handled himself during and after treatment. It inspired me then, and it continues to inspire me today.
I first learned about the Ride for the Roses, a charity ride that Lance Armstrong holds every year to benefit his foundation, from his book, and I thought it'd be cool to ride in it someday. It turns out that someday is going to be October 23, 2005. My aunt put up the initial amount required to enter the ride, but I'd still love to collect more money for a worthy cause. If you find a few pennies in your couch cushions, you can donate them by clicking on this link: Donate. It's tax deductible so you'll receive a receipt in the mail for tax purposes. You can also mail a donation to the following address:
Peloton Project
Lock Box 1597
San Antonio, TX 78296-1597
Just put my name and member number (200251087) on the check so they know who's account to credit.
You may be saying to yourself: "Gee, that ride is so far away. What if I forget to donate?" Fear not. I'll remind you again later. :) If you can't donate but would like to go play in Austin, come down that weekend to cheer me on and watch me whoop Lance in a field sprint to the finish line.
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