Year: 2010

The Emperor’s Repose

The Emperor got to laze around the garage today as Donna and I took advantage of the nice weather and the reduced traffic of a no-school day to ride the tandem into work. This was the first time in a while that we have ridden on just two days rest and my sit bones were a little tender when we started out this morning, but I forgot all about them by the end of mile one.

Speaking of sore, I am going to have to give up raising the Miata’s top while seated in the drivers seat for a time. Monday morning when putting the top up for the cold drive to work I strained something in my right shoulder and it still hurts a bit when raising it up over my head.

I am one of the lucky ones because I sit with the seat all the way back and my arm length was just right for hoisting the roof up with little effort. Both shorter and taller drivers didn’t line up well for doing the over the shoulder flip up routine. The folks with roll bars or style bars were usually out of luck doing that procedure too. All and all, a lot of Miata owners had to raise the top while standing outside the car. Hopefully after a couple weeks of rest I will be able to return to my previous ways.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 904

From Bergen to Oslo

Take a video trip by train. 7-1/2 hours. In real time. Set to electronic music. Here is Part 1 in low resolution:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vBD9snz20o

Links to all the videos on Youtube…
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8
Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12
The whole trip sped up to fit in 35 minutes

I downloaded all of the videos in full 720p and the desktop PC can’t always keep up with the video, it buffers quite a bit at full screen. The newer laptop on the other hand does a fine job, even via HDMI to the 32″ HDTV. The video itself was broadcast a year ago on Norway’s equivalent of PBS and you can torrent the entire trip without music in a 22 gigabyte or the original 246 GB Apple ProRes file from their site: Download Bergensbanen in HD.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 904

Let’s Do The Time Warp


Hitchcock Woods Simplified*

This morning I got up and blew the dust off the single bikes and filled their tires with air. Donna and I had decided we were going to see what it felt like not to ride the tandem. At the last minute I realized that the cyclecomputer clocks were one hour ahead. Dang, I forgot about those a couple weeks ago when daylight savings time ended. As I was breaking out the instructions on how to change the clocks, Donna said, “Forget about them, let’s go.” Try as I might I felt slightly askew in the space time continuum the whole time. The weather was so nice that by 10:00 AM (possibly really 9:00 AM) we had our breakfast at an outside table at the Atlanta Bread Company near the end of the ride.

As if the 16 mile bike this morning wasn’t enough, Donna, I and a friend went for a 2-1/2 mile walk in Hitchcock Woods in the afternoon. It was pleasant enough that I walked in shorts. Because of the nice weather the woods were busy, we saw a group of two horse riders and then a group of 4 more as we were standing where the above photo was taken. There were also several people walking their dogs, including one woman who was talking on her cell phone while her dog was checking us out about 50 yards away from her. As we exited the woods a truck slowed and the woman behind the wheel asked if we had seen a muddy border collie. I said no. After she drove off my mind kicked in gear and I remembered something. I should have told her yes, the last time I saw that dog was when he was way ahead of you on trail while you yakked on your phone.

*a photo from an overlook near the Chalk Cliffs in Hitchcock Woods post processed with a filter called Simplifier by AmphiSoft in Paint Shop Pro

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 902

31B the Temptress


Elijah Clark State Park

After breakfast with the MMC Donna and I went geocaching. Surprise, surprise. Our goal for the day was 3 GA counties, one GA State Park and the small inset on on Page 31 of the GA DeLorme atlas. Ten caches later we had found nine and were 4 out of 5 for our objectives. The one we missed was the furthest away and our primary objective, Fishing Creek. The Georgia Delorme is less forgiving than the SC one in that you need to find a cache in every square on every page and Fishing Creek is the only cache in square 31B.

It was not for lack of trying either. We spent 45 minutes hunting in a small patch of woods near a boat ramp. The GPSr said we traveled a little over a mile criss-crossing that 150 foot diameter area. It is not as if we were looking for a 35mm film canister well integrated into the environment either, it was a stinking 30cal ammo can! When we got home and read all the logs for this cache it seems like it is very well hidden and the difficulty level should be a bit higher than the 2 it is advertised at. The way most people locate it is by using the hint and poking with a walking stick, listening for a clunk.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 902

Terriers…

…is my new favorite TV series (and no, it isn’t about dogs.) Terriers is on FX on Wednesday nights at 10PM. I think it is better than Mad Men, but then again I’m a sucker for Private Investigator shows, buddy shows, compelling dramas with smart writing and great acting.

Trouble is that it will be quite possibly a one (season) and done show. We are 10 episodes into the first season run of twelve and the ratings are dismal. I read somewhere that a couple weeks ago the total viewership for an episode was 1/2 million. A 5 year old episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos on the Family Channel probably scored higher. I bet in most places they lost their time slot to the community bulletin board channel on that cable system.

There is already an underground movement to get the show renewed for next year, send an email to user@fxnetworks.com and tell them how much you love it and that you will quite probably curl up and die if it doesn’t get a second season.

I can’t email them. It would be hypocritical of me. Sure I love the show, and look forward to new episodes each week, but I watch them via torrents. I can’t even tell you what kind of lousy commercials they are running during that hour, so why show they even care about my opinion? Even if I did watch the show in “real time”, I wouldn’t matter, I’m a decade past the influential 18-45 age group. And as proof of that I have mentioned the show to several people and no one has even tried it…

Started down went up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 899

115,000 Sharpies

It started 22 days ago as a white spec Miata racer, $100 worth of Sharpies later and Mighty Mike has a masterpiece of Dude Craft.

On the way home from work today Donna and I stopped in and checked on one of our caches. Someone had DNF’d it on Monday and we wanted to see if it was still there. Even though we knew where we hid it, it still took us 5 minutes to find the thing. Probably because there were around 115,000 pieces of pine straw on the ground since we hid it back in April. Also the GPSr read 18 feet away when I was standing right over it.

A couple miles away from the cache the Emperor passed through the 115,000 mile mark and as if to put an exclamation mark on the event the low fuel light lit simultaneously.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 896

Gaddum Plugin

I deactivated the Page Link Manager plugin last night and when I reactivated it, it didn’t function properly. I have a ton of pages on the blog (as you can see by the long ol’ list that is in the inner sidebar right now) and the plugin allowed me to seperate the pages into groups in multiple widgets. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but nothing would let me have more than one widget. I even tried a couple of other similar plugins and they wouldn’t allow me multiple widgets either. I suspect it is a database issue because when I reinstalled the original plugin and then one of a similar nature they both allowed one instance of the widget and both were prepopulated with the pages of the previously working multiple widgets.

So, the way I see it, I have two options; find a workaround or back up all the post information, delete the existing database and install WordPress from scratch. If I choose the second option things might be a little wonky around here over the weekend.

*UPDATE: I did the workaround. The OEM pages plugin allows multiple instances, I just had to type in every page number (out of 73) I wanted excluded in each widget.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 895