Archive of 2008 | PolarLava::Blog

November 2008

Site Update

I've been doing a bit of housecleaning on the site over the past couple of days… First off I finally updated my resume. Not really looking for work, but generally it's a good idea to keep it up-to-date, right? Another thing I've been going to do, but just hadn't found the time for was adding a Beer page. This is basically a single-page index of the Beer! blog topic. If nothing else, this helps me avoid creating duplicate entries…of which I did find one while working on it. See, once again beer has helped to make things right! ;)

Permanent link to “Site Update”
Permanent link to “Summit India Pale Ale”
Permanent link to “Summit Extra Pale Ale”
What have I done?

I came across this meme and liked it so I thought I'd give it a shot… I did this. I ain't did this. Kinda dun it. Started your own blog Slept under the stars Played in a band Visited Hawaii Watched a meteor shower Given more than you can afford to charity Been to Disneyland Climbed a mountain Held a praying mantis. Sang a solo Bungee jumped Visited Paris Watched a lightning storm at sea Taught yourself an art from scratch Adopted a child Had food poisoning Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty Grown your own vegetables Seen the Mona Lisa in France Slept on an overnight train Had a pillow fight Hitch hiked Taken a sick day when you're not ill Built a snow fort Held a lamb Gone skinny dipping Run a Marathon Ridden in a gondola in Venice Seen a total eclipse Watched a sunrise or sunset Hit a home run Been on a cruise Seen Niagara Falls in person Visited the birthplace of your ancestors Seen an Amish community Taught yourself a new language Had enough money to be truly satisfied…

Permanent link to “What have I done?”
Arts and Crafts…

My wife and I are both fans of the Arts and Crafts style. We're slowly remodeling our home in this fashion, including furnishings. A couple of years back my wife bought herself an arts and crafts rocking chair. I was jealous and thus we began searching for one for me. So back in February we finally came across one at an antiques shop that, although a grimy and in need of repair, was basically solid and seemed comfortable to me. And best of all, it only cost $50… …more

Permanent link to “Arts and Crafts Rocking Chair”
Killing Sandy

I was way out of the loop yesterday due to some personal issues, but it was truly bummed out this morning when I found out that Sandy (previously discussed in My Organizational System (GTD)) will be shutting down on December 8th. The announcement calls it a fork in the road. At this point it's more like a fork in the heart…Sandy's or mine I'm not sure. Rael Dornfest, the CEO and developer is shutting it down, while he and the IP from Sandy (and it's predecessor Stikkit) are moving to Twitter. Maybe at some point Sandy's functionality will reemerge there, but a complete and immediate Sandy shutdown leaves us loyal users high and dry. There's a lot of bitter words in the comments of the shutdown message (above), but it's not completely unexpected from my perspective. But it was a very small company and times are tough in the free Web 2.0 world so I'm not completely shocked. It's just that I never expected a full shutdown. I always felt it would get gobbled up if nothing else…

Permanent link to “Killing Sandy”
Permanent link to “Magic Hat Hi.P.A.”
Permanent link to “Houghton Shiraz (2004)”
Permanent link to “Recession or Collapse of the Dollar”
New Topic: Wine

Nothing too exciting, but I've decided to add a Wine topic to my blog. Being I love to drink wine as much as Beer! I figure I might as well. I don't intend to pontificate about them, rather it will be a simple photo like the Beer! topic is now. I don't currently have a review source so until then I won't be linking the anywhere either, but would expect I can find some thing. In the meantime, enjoy a fine glass of wine and/or admire what I'm drinking.

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Permanent link to “Zywiec Jasne Pelne”
Rehab: Centurion…

So back in early August I acquired a Centurion Ironman Expert and began rehabilitating it. It was in very good condition other than having been unused and stored for a number of years. So a good cleanup, a full lube job (which really didn't need to be done) and replacement of some of the dry rotted rubber and plastic bits and it's been good to go for a while now. Items replaced and/or added: 2 - Vredestein Rocorso 700x25 folding tires (dry rot replacement) 2- Standard rubber presta value inner tubes (dry rot) Nashbar 6/7 speed chain (clean and stretch free) 2 sets - Shimano brake pads (dry rot, pilfered from another bike, not new) 1 - Blackburn Mountain silver water bottle cage. (Only had one, I wanted two and this was a cheap alternative.) Nashbar racing saddle (Narrower and harder, to replace the softer one that was on here.) Profile Design Bar Wrap Handlebar Tape (Hot pink because the yellow didn't match!) Profile Design Aerobars (old set I wasn't using) Time…

Permanent link to “Rehab: Centurion Ironman Expert”
Canon SX10 IS

Since August when my Canon S1 IS died, I've been camera-less and sad. But FINALLY, my wife relented her fiscal restraints and yesterday allowed me to shell for a new Canon PowerShot SX10 IS. There aren't a lot of reviews to be found yet, but there is some information both here and here. And for those to lazy or disinterested to follow the above links, here it is: And the backside… Basically this is the 5th generation of the S1, S-series camera I previously had. The S1 was followed by the S2, S3, S5 and now the SX10 and SX1; (An even nicer and likely pricier version (CMOS sensor) that is only available in Europe.) This is a pretty major jump in features/abilities as the S1 was a 10x/3MP camera and the SX10 is a 20x/10MP camera. But there's a lot more with a bigger sensor and other electronics upgrade. In short this a serious upgrade over the older S1 I had. I would like to have jumped to a true DSLR, but this is a better choice for me. A DSLR initially wouldn't have cost…

Permanent link to “Canon SX10 IS”
PolarLava CycleLog…

Last weekend I found time to make a minor update to my CycleLog. The Bikes page now features a lightbox image popup for each of the bike images. This now allows for a small thumbnail image that can be clicked to view in a larger size. This is what I wanted to do all along, but didn't have the time back when I added the images. This was really needed as the original image sizes were too large which resulted in horribly slow page loads. Plus the reduced image display size looked really lousy. So all is well now, although I need to update the Centurion Ironman image since the bike was rebuilt.

Permanent link to “PolarLava CycleLog V2.5.1”
You Can't Question…

So a few months ago Mary Lou and I ordered Chinese food for dinner. And of course it came with fortune cookies. Here was her fortune… So clearly this means she should trust me implicitly and never question any place I may go or anything I may do. So then I opened mine… Oh, yeah, I obviously have immunity here because of her fortune. She needn't be concerning her pretty little head with anything I may be doing or anyone I may be doing it with. Unfortunately she didn't seem to quite see it this way for some reason. :) We did have a very long hearty laugh while discussing all of this though!

Permanent link to “You Can't Question Me”
Exhibit A: Why…

I'm a huge fan of PostSecret and read it every week. Often some very compelling stuff. Anyhow, apparently he (Frank) also has a PostSecret MySpace page…sorry I've never been there and only to few other MySpace pages when there isn't an alternative. So much of it is crap. And now he's learned one of the biggest issues of when you publish your content on a site you don't control: Censorship. Apparently you can view it if he "friends" you. Another bullshit concept in my opinion. If you've got something to say, say it. If you want feedback, accept it. And don't make me have to be your "friend". (I'm looking at you LiveJournal people.)

Permanent link to “Exhibit A: Why MySpace Sucks!”
Goodbye Continental…

Today I said goodbye to my old friend, my Schwinn Continental II. This was my first road bike which I rode extensively in my formative years. I had been working over the summer on converting it to a commuter bike, but decided it wasn't really going to work out as I had hoped. So I began looking for something else and then acquired my Centurion Ironman Expert. So not having a need for it and at my wife's encouragement to get rid of it, I gave it away today. Hopefully it will see some practical use as I gave it away to a college student who was looking for a cheap bike to get around on. So now it is gone and I'm moving on with "only" 4 bikes…for now.

Permanent link to “Goodbye Continental II”
Server Move

Okay, this was resolved yesterday without any further incidents and things should be good to go. Thus let me know if you find something odd happening. —— So you may have noticed that my site was down from late Monday through yesterday. That was due to moving from one server to another (better) server by my hosting company. It's all moved and appears to be faster —which is a good thing, but there's a couple of remaining issues. At the moment my subdomains (myclient, polarblog, projects and sffl.polarlava.com) are not resolving although the configuration and data all appears to be there. Also my photo gallery is not longer working and results in 500 server error when you go there. Thus I have a support ticket open and currently am awaiting for a resolution of these issues.

Permanent link to “Server Move”

October 2008

Food meme

Been going to do this for a while since seeing Allan's list… 1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions. 2) Bold all the items you've eaten. 3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. 4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results. In my case, there's also strike and bold. That being because some of these things I've eaten, but wouldn't again because I don't eat land animals 1. Venison 2. Nettle tea 3. Huevos rancheros 4. Steak tartare 5. Crocodile 6. Black pudding 7. Cheese fondue 8. Carp 9. Borscht 10. Baba ghanoush 11. Calamari 12. Pho 13. PB&J sandwich 14. Aloo gobi 15. Hot dog from a street cart 16. Epoisses 17. Black truffle 18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes 19. Steamed pork buns 20. Pistachio ice cream 21. Heirloom tomatoes 22. Fresh wild berries 23. Foie gras 24. Rice and beans 25. Brawn, or head cheese 26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper 27. Dulce de leche 28. Oysters 29…

Permanent link to “Food meme”
Joining the iPhone…

For the past three years my job has required me to be available 24/7/365. Fortunately it's more precautionary than necessary as we're very cautious about things that could disrupt our service. In any case, the company had provide me a Motorola RAZR with a full data plan so I could text and monitor email. This setup worked pretty well as I had few meeting that weren't regularly scheduled. Thus I could accept the invites on our Exchange Server, but then put them on my Google Calendar with alerts to my phone. Similarly, I rarely had a need to write anything other than a short email reply. But with my recent move to Engineering Manager - Portal I quickly ran into problems keeping up with email and meetings during the day. As such, it was time for a new more full featured phone. And until very recently it would have meant a Samsung Blackjack 2. I could have had one of these long ago, but I liked the small size of the RAZR and I was getting by with it. But at my boss's insistence…

Permanent link to “Joining the iPhone Cult”

September 2008

Engineering Manager…

So once again my career at Synacor has evolved. As of September 15th I'm now the "Engineering Manager - Portal". So what does this mean? In short, I'm now primarily a PHB. I'm no longer directly involved in system architecture, although I do still have some responsibility for it. The three direct reports that I had previously (2 - Architecture & Infrastructure, 1 - Code Review Engineer) still report to me and their jobs remain largely the same, although they are available at my discretion for other development. And that's the other part of this; I now have four engineers reporting to me to do portal development. Thus I now spend most of my day running to meeting and chasing down answers and making sure stuff in getting done as our priorities change fast and often. Also, I currently have open requisitions for two additional engineers which I desperately need to fill. So if you're a top notch programmer with some PHP experience, want to do mostly PHP (with some Perl…

Permanent link to “Engineering Manager - Portal”

August 2008

The Gemstone

The Gemstone Critical placement What it takes to hold Proper fitting The light will show It's a phony, it's far too small But in the doorway It's the key to the hall Found the third one, it's color is gold In the floor hold, it begins to grow Shines a light, for a place to crawl Now you've got it, the rock that does it Holding it tight, immersed in light This your take for making your fate Fall 1983

Permanent link to “The Gemstone”
The Waterspout

This picture is from a few weeks ago and was taken by a coworker although I think I deserve partial credit because I alerted him to the photo op. This is a shot of a waterspout over Lake Erie and moving towards the Erie Basin Marina (of which we overlook) before it finally dissipated. Another a couple of other coworkers took lesser quality photos as well that you will find here and here.

Permanent link to “The Waterspout”
Permanent link to “Falling Stream (Letchworth State Park)”
Permanent link to “Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout”
Centurion Ironman…

I've wanted to start riding a bike to work for a long time. And when gas started to skyrocket I tried to setup my old Schwinn Continental II. So I tuned it up, put a rack on it and took it for a test ride. That lasted exactly 1/10 of a mile before the front tire blew out. It was heavy too which didn't thrill me. So I began to watch the Buffalo bicycles on craigslist for a suitable but affordable replacement. A few thing that intrigued me, but nothing that was right for the right money. So out of the blue, Rob pinged me a couple of days ago to see if I'd be interested in his old road bike. Well, uh, yeah! We're about the same size although his legs are a bit longer so I figured it might work out. So he dropped it off last night and as I suspected it's a bit bigger —56cm, than what I usually ride —54cm…that's about 3/4 of an inch which is alright. Anyhow, so now I'm the happy and proud owner of a 1987 Centurion Ironman Expert "Dave Scott" bicycle: It's been sitting…

Permanent link to “Centurion Ironman Expert”

July 2008

In Defense of Food

I'm a notoriously slow reader. I drive myself crazy because it takes me months to read most anything. But not this time! I've just finished the wondrously insightful In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan. I found this book incredibly fascinating. Like, "don't want to put it down because I want to keep reading" fascinating. As well as actually staying awake and alert enough to do so at bedtime. As those that really know me should know, I'm somewhat fanatical about health, fitness and exercise. Although I sometimes don't live up to my own standards, I try to do so and encourage others to do so as well. If you're serous about learning where we went wrong and (with the U.S. government's help) got our diets off-track (Hello there High Fructose Corn Syrup!) and you're interested in trying to eat healthier, this book is definitely for you. I really can't say enough positive things about it. You may also find of interest my previous post of Michael…

Permanent link to “In Defense of Food”
Discovering one word

So yesterday I came across one word. The basic premise being it gives you one word and then you have sixty-seconds to write about. Very simple, very easy. This is something I can see doing periodically. So yesterday's word was "spark". To which I came up with: There was a spark that ignited a single flame. But that's all it took to bring the entire house down to a pile of ashes. Sadness reigns. And today (as I literally just did this while writing this post) is "chorus". So I wrote: The voices rang from on high. As the church hall filled with glorious sound. And there were smiles all around and much happiness. The sound of peace. I like it. :)

Permanent link to “Discovering one word”
Permanent link to “Stone Brewing Arrogant Bastard Ale”
One Hundred Push Ups

So a few weeks back I came across One Hundred Push Ups. This site promotes the personal challenge to do 100 push ups. I filed it a way, came back a couple of weeks ago and printed out the entire program. I'm going to do this. I need to do this. Now I just need to get on-track and start on it. Shockingly enough when I brought this up at work the video game addicted, junk food eating (mostly) 20-nothings that I work with…was largely a collective yawn. Disappointing, but not unexpected. That's OK, I'm nearly twice the age of most of them and I'm certainly in much better shape. Now I just need to get mentally tough and raise the bar even higher. …more

Permanent link to “One Hundred Push Ups”

June 2008

Permanent link to “Lamp Standard”
R.I.P. George Carlin

I was really bummed out to hear this morning that George Carlin died of heart failure yesterday at 71. George was a comic genius like none other. His very matter of fact, casual observations of simple subjects were always insightful and more importantly truthful. George could find the absurdity of most any situation and most often in ones that the rest of us would take for granted. We'll all miss you George.

Permanent link to “R.I.P. George Carlin”
Crazy CAPCHA

I understand the need for CAPCHA (because of the annoying scumbag spammers) and I'm used to seeing some with less than clear images or squiggly characters. But this one takes the cake… Please enter all letters having a below. Seriously? This is what it now takes to avoid spammers and robots? It took me a few tries, but I finally deciphered this as being "L9DC". Insanity.

Permanent link to “Crazy CAPCHA”
Permanent link to “Southern Tier Raspberry Porter”
Loren Feldman on…

Loren Feldman has dead-on take on blog comments entitled Comments Are Not Conversation: I used to get relevant comments on occasion, but it's pretty much a one-way street for this blathering idiot. I've used outbound trackbacking, but I don't recall that I've ever had a legitimate trackback to one of my entries. At this point comment and trackbacks seem to be giant spam magnets more than anything else. But in any case, I do keep my comments here and don't plan on outsourcing them anymore than I've outsourced the rest of the things on my site.

Permanent link to “Loren Feldman on Comments”

May 2008

Permanent link to “Three Generations: Victor, Colin & Kevin (2005)”
Polyphasic Sleep

So I recall coming across Polyphasic sleep —the practice of taking short naps every few hours instead of the normal long period night-time (monophasic) sleeping, previously. But I never really had time to explore it further. I have to say I find this very intriguing, but there's no way I could ever do it. It would be incredibly difficult with my family and work schedules as well as my wife's virtually certain objections to it. This is from several years ago (2005), but Steve Pavlina did it for about six months. I haven't read his entire history with it, but I did read enough to know he liked it and could have stayed on this schedule had he wanted too. I guess I need to go read up on his entire adventure…and maybe now you want to as well!

Permanent link to “Polyphasic Sleep”
Permanent link to “El Caminito del Rey”
Permanent link to “Magic Hat Odd Notion - Dark Wheat Ale (Winter 07)”
Vegetarian Articles

In the past weeks I've come across several articles regarding vegetarianism. First there is Vegetarian myths, debunked and Why I stopped being a vegetarian and then reading the paper the other day I found Breaking bread with vegans was fun. I agree with some aspects of all three of these articles. I'm not a true vegetarian although I mostly eat that way. I do eat dairy (lacto) and eggs (ovo) regularly and fish and seafood (pesco) when I can. And I don't see ever becoming a vegan because I really like lacto-ovo-pesco food. But then again there was a time I couldn't have imagined I'd be a vegetarian. I can certainly say I really doubt I'll go back to eating meat…but never say never, right? It really doesn't appeal to me; and now that I've been away from it for about a decade, it generally puts me close to physical illness if I accidentally find I'm eating it. And eating very much of it certainly makes me ill at this point as my body no longer knows how to process it. One thing…

Permanent link to “Vegetarian Articles”
FuelFrog: Tracking…

A long time ago I began tracking my gas mileage on my Palm IIIx using something called FuelLog. This worked well and gave me a running average and a neat little graph. Development had stopped on that and a while later somebody branched it and started pFuel. But it required a newer Palm OS version than I had. And around this time I upgraded my to Treo 90 (a freebie that was given to me) and it's nifty color screen. But it too had the same Palm OS issue. Thus I exported my data and began to track it on scraps of paper and eventually in a small notepad. I did this with the idea that I would eventually find (which I haven't) or build (which I haven't either) a web application to track it. And since adding graphs to my CycleLog, I recently have been contemplating starting to work on that. But then along came FuelFrog. I looked at it and initially was unsure if I wanted to go this route or not. But this weekend I signed up for an account and began to look at it. I'm not certain…

Permanent link to “FuelFrog: Tracking Gas Mileage”
Permanent link to “You can't out spit Darwin”
Permanent link to “Red, White and Pink”
Permanent link to “This peanut needs to get out more”
Permanent link to “Web Browser Toolbars”
Permanent link to “Michael Pollan at Google”
Permanent link to “Hacker-Pschorr (Hefe) Weisse”
Permanent link to “Storm Over Chaiten Volcano”
Permanent link to “Meet Moose”

April 2008

Math Gone Wild

Maybe it's just because I'm old, but this "new math" just seems stupidly wrong as illustrated in this clip. I find this as yet another example of "change for the sake of change" that seems so prevalent in schools these days. About the only thing I find better is the insistence on teaching to pass "the test". Forget critical thinking, it's all about passing the standardized test.

Permanent link to “Math Gone Wild”
Permanent link to “Magic Hat Roxy Rolles”
MP3's Killing The…

The article Who really gives a shit about MP3s killing the album? really struck a chord with me. I care. I started buying records roughly 35 years ago. And I've pretty much always listened to them from start to finish as a complete work. About the only time I really recall playing single tracks was when a good friend of mine would come over and I'd "play DJ" for him as he barked out requests. And in the car where I only have an AM/FM radio, I listen to random tunes. But when it comes to serious listening I always have, and hopefully always will listen to full albums from start to finish. I've made at least a partial transition to MP3's with a portable for while I'm walking, working, etc. But even then it's loaded with full album which I will listen too from beginning to end. I just don't know or like it any other way. So in my mind, vinyl might be dead —although I still have about 300 records myself, the album certainly is not!

Permanent link to “MP3's Killing The Album”
Permanent link to “Sad Kermit”
Permanent link to “Letchworth State Park (Upper Falls)”
Permanent link to “Dual Suspension Road Bike”
Mini-Project…

So after releasing one modification for jpcache, I've now adopted it as a mini-project. I've used this application for a long time now and have found it to be an absolutely great addition to all of my pages. In short it allows you to cache complex pages once they are generated and optionally compress the output on the fly as well. This caching can effectively turn your complex pages into a static pages, thus allowing you to server them up faster. Additionally you can specify the time between page generation/cache updates from 1 second to indefinitely. So what's the problem? I had made a few small contribution to the project a number of years ago and had discussed developing a cache management interface with Jean-Pierre (the "jp" of jpcache). I actually never pursued this as MyClient was already meeting most of my cache management needs. But sometimes I just wanted to quickly flush a single-page from the cache. So I was compelled to develop a page-level flushing…

Permanent link to “Mini-Project: jpcache”
Permanent link to “Hornet? Wasp? Other?”
PolarLava CycleLog…

The latest update to my CycleLog adds graphs for the distance, average and maximum speed. You will find these graphs on main, calendar and search pages. At this time on the main page I'm not graphing the "Lifetime" section as the amount of data requires this to be a tremendously large sized image in order for this to be readable. It's largely more for my current rides as you'll note on the calendar pages. But it's also a nice feature to have on the search page although depending on the data set, it can take up to 30 seconds to generate the image. Thus in most places the image is cached with the notable exception of the current month on the calendar page. The intent is to eventually graphing of the year on the main page as well as on the Yearly Summary page. A lot of that will depend upon finding a suitable image size that will allow the data to be displayed but still maintain a reasonable file size. Being historical data I will only need to actually generate them once…

Permanent link to “PolarLava CycleLog V2.5.0”

March 2008

Permanent link to “Samuel Adams Scotch Ale”
Permanent link to “Following The Island Dream”
House Downsizing

A couple of weeks back I came across a link to Weâ€™re downsizing our home on Unclutterer. It the neighborhood arms race of every bigger McMansions, it's nice to read about somebody bucking the trend and downsizing. Excluding the numerous and relatively small apartments I've lived in, I've had three houses. And although each has been larger than the previous —950 sq. ft., 1350 sq. ft. and now 1850 sq. ft., the three of them combined don't equal the size of some of the houses being built these days. Ironically, my first and smallest house (back in Illinois) was and still is my favorite. It was a 2 bedroom raised ranch on a moderate lot, but it had a 400 sq. ft. deck that ran full length along the backside. And although I had neighbors on one side, the other side and behind was a 200 acre conservation area that was never to be developed. My second house was a rather pedestrian 3 bedroom ranch on a decent sized lot. And my current home is an old (1935) house with a lot of warm oak…

Permanent link to “House Downsizing”
Permanent link to “Fungus On Log (3 shots)”
Band-Aid and brand…

I'm so sick of advertising and the ever increasing need to protect your "brand". This mini-rant was set off by a Band-Aid ad while I was at the doctor's office this morning. Surely we all know the old reliable and "cute" Band-Aid song. But it caught my attention when I learned that "I am stuck on Band-Aid BRAND, because Band-Aid's stuck on me." Stop. When the hell did they decide to "update" a piece of my childhood memories by sticking "brand" in there. Yes, we know Band-Aid is a brand. But frankly, and sorry for them it a generic term for all "adhesive bandages". Just as "Kleenex" is a brand, but also just a generic term for "tissue". See what happens when your advertising is so successful that it become ubiquitous?

Permanent link to “Band-Aid and brand protection”
Permanent link to “Samuel Adams Brown Ale”
Permanent link to “Twitter In Plain English”
Lost

Lost Where am I going, what am I now? What is coming, where does it go? Direction, purpose, unknown Holding on to what little I've got Looking for someone to help me through Turned the wrong way too many times I'm so afraid, I can't find the path Who can hold me, show me what's right Gone wrong in so many ways Can it change? Will it change? Lost is deep thought, is the cause lost? Why am I here? Where can I go? My Direction and purpose are unknown Ca I give what I've got or do I have what you want? Am I in a fog of hopeless cause? Or will it rise so I can't hide? Direction uncertain, purpose unknown Blowing in the jet stream of a nuclear age A number in memory in a computer bank Being crushed by the weight of the technological race Somehow I wonder, will it ever change? What will I become in this modern craze? 9/30/1983

Permanent link to “Lost”
My Organizational…

So I've slowly been evolving my organizational system to help me in (my version of) Getting Things Done (GTD). This post is about where I've been, where I'm at, and where I'm going with it… So way back in 1994/5 I started using EccoPro personal information manager. I used this for several years and absolutely LOVED it. It did calendaring, todo's and notepads. For me this application was absolutely killer because the notpads used an outlining structure which was fantastic for me because I tend to think in outline from (as many others likely do too). Thus I could easily transfer my mental organization to paper/electronic form. Bear in mind this is pre-cellphones/SMS as well as the pre-web days. Unfortunately development of it was dropped and the product effectively whithered away. Oh no! I held on as long as I could and continued to use it, but eventually it became a hassle to try to maintain on newer versions of Windows. Go read the above linked Wikipedia article for the full…

Permanent link to “My Organizational System (GTD)”
Permanent link to “Samuel Adams Black Lager”
Permanent link to “Sharp-shinned Hawk (2 shots)”
Ice Fishing 2008

So again this year I trekked off to Michigan to go sit on a frozen lake and freeze my ass off. But unlike the past two years it was actually worth the effort. We caught a number of fish, although most were not legal to keep and had to go back. But I faired the best with a walleye that was a keeper and another which was just shy of legal. So Rusty's notion of coming up a couple of weeks later this year seemed to be correct. So in any case, here are this year's pictures.

Permanent link to “Ice Fishing 2008”

February 2008

Permanent link to “Lunar Eclipse”
Permanent link to “Spanish Peaks Black Dog Ale”
I Wanna Be Rich…

I Wanna Be Rich (Take 2) I wanna be rich, and not have to work I wanna sit by the pool, work on my tan I wanna drive fast cars, pig out on caviar I want nice clothes, high fashion modes I wanna be famous for waste Have friends in high places And stocks to trade I wanna big house and a beautiful wife I wanna be two-faced and still be liked Li to run people into the ground If I get the chance — Step on you when you're down Ruin you home life and laugh like hell I wann be rich doing all my way Be obnoxious — Live on the edge Bu it outright, cash up front Getting paid by the hour to go out to lunch Use my car phone to phone home Pay you peanuts to work you to the bone Fly through the sky in my private jet To go play on the beach in San Tropei 9/1/1983 - verse one 10/4/1987 - verse two

Permanent link to “I Wanna Be Rich (Take 2)”
Permanent link to “Living In A Nuclear Age”
Permanent link to “You Got To Listen”
Permanent link to “Butterfly on Banana”
Down and Out

So as well as the year started out, my cycling and general conditioning has now gone in the toilet. I've been battling sinus and lung congestion for three weeks now. As usual it would start to get better and the get worse again. I finally went to the doctor yesterday…I appear to be getting to the end of it, but we're wacking it with antibiotics to make sure it goes away. I'm hopeful that by Monday morning I will be well enough to begin working out again. I'm so tired of this routine as this seem to generally happen at least a couple times of year to me. :(

Permanent link to “Down and Out”
Permanent link to “The Subprime Primer”
Permanent link to “The Armstrong Years”
Permanent link to “Schneider Aventinus”

January 2008

How to Ride Year…

So I mentioned previously in Riding Year Round that I'd write more about how I ride year round. The first thing one need is some good luck —at least if you live somewhere like Buffalo, by being snow-free or at least cold and dry. The problem being it's not fun to ride when it's wet and cold. One or the other is fine, but not both. Plus that kind of weather really takes its toll on your bike because of all the grit and grime. It does a really nice job of wearing out all those lightweight, expensive bits. The other problem is that wet and cold can also mean ice. Not a good thing when you're rolling along on two wheels that are only about 3/4 of an inch wide. So let's assume that it's cold, but not wet. Yeah, lets go out and play. But first you need to definitely have the proper clothes. To call good cycling clothes expensive is a huge understatement. Thus most people do like I did and buy the affordable stuff and improvise until you splurge once on the good stuff. Then you…

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I Wanna Be Rich

I Wanna Be Rich I wanna be rich — Jet set fame I wanna impress — Upon your brain I got that look — Makes you jealously insane High fashion — Nice Clothes Diamond Rings — Townhomes Movie stars — Caviar I wanna be rich with my stocks in trade I'd drive a fast car — and be king of waste Jet planes — Stereo's A beautiful wife and a place called home Limousines — Gold chains A diamond chip — earring See me on — Channel 3 I own the club with the mirrored seats 9/2/1983

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MyClient V3.2.1…

MyClient V3.2.1 has been released. This is release only requires file updates, there are no configuration changes to be made. Enhancements None Bug Fixes Bad include path for session and serialize data support has been corrected. Configuration Changes None New Language Tags None See the MyClient History file for more information. Please see the MyClient Upgrading documentation for information on upgrading your installation.

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MyClient V3.2.0…

MyClient V3.2.0 (Bluefin trevally) has been released. This is release only requires file updates, there are no configuration changes to be made. Enhancements Updated to operate with E_STRICT error_reporting. Added support to display serialized and session data. When enabled, data that is stored in a session format (e.g. using a DB backed session handler) or data that is serialized will be displayed in a more readable unserialized fashion. Using this option will automatically enables the "Render HTML" option so this option displays properly. Bug Fixes None Configuration Changes None New Language Tags RENDER_SERIAL See the MyClient History file for more information. Please see the MyClient Upgrading documentation for information on upgrading your installation.

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Riding Year Round

So I've ridden most of the year since I started riding seriously again in 1995. But I used to take off pretty much all of the winter. But as time has gone on I've ridden more and more in the winter months. The bulk of that being indoors as snowy and icy days like today preclude being outdoors. Thus I've always responded to "Do you ride year round?" with a "mostly". Well, not anymore! As of my ride this past Sunday I can say that "Yes, I do ride year round". As this is the first time I've ever ridden outdoors in January. And it's certainly something I intend to try to do more of in the future. Thanks to global warming it seems that it might even get easier to do. I'm short on time today, but in another post I'll discuss what I've done that allows me to ride year round now.

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To meme, or not to…

Ok, I've decided to shelve this idea for now. Instead I'm going to try to work on posting some of my writings regularly again. Then after that I might try this. —- To meme, or not to meme, that is the question… I've been looking around at a few meme's and I'm trying to decide if I really want to get into that or not. I'm thinking its got to be short/quick/easy or I'll fall behind and/or simply bail on it. I've found a couple that might hold my interest, but I might give it a try at least for a while.

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No Chicken at KFC

So I was heating my lunch up today when I heard a coworker talking about going to KFC for lunch over the holidays and being told they were out of chicken. Lets review. Your business is called Kentucky Fried CHICKEN and you're out of um, CHICKEN. Am I alone in finding this unbelievable? It's your staple product. It's in your name. Shouldn't you always have CHICKEN if you're a CHICKEN restaurant? Ok, thought so.

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PolarLava 2008

Let's review the year of slow to no progress. And it's unlikely to get much better so for 2009 I'm going to just continue to meet the goals I missed here. In no particular order, here are PolarLava's goals for 2008: Resume getting the backlog of all my writing online. PARTIAL, I did get more of them online, but there's a long way to go. Explore/Move my PhotoBlog to a separate photblog specific platform. FAIL, Did look into this a bit, but not too seriously. More than anything now that I got a new camera I need to take more pictures! Start commenting on my PhotoBlog entries so some of them are not quite as abstract. SUCCESS, This I have done as it's relatively easy. Add the ability to drill down and view monthly summary and individual rides from the Yearly Summary page of my Cycling Log. FAIL, But I still want to do this at some point. Add graphs to the Calendar and Yearly Summary pages of my Cycling Log. PARTIAL, I did…

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2008 Cycling Goals

So now that we are into 2009 it's time to look back on how we fared in 2008. There won't be any set goals for this year as I know my riding will be down. I have lots of work around the house that I've been neglecting and my position change at work has also put a lot more demands on my time. So let's review… I've been thinking the past few weeks about what I want to accomplish on the bike in 2008. These are the goals I've set: Ride 4000 miles. That might have happened in 2007, but vacation, back issues and sickness detrailed that in the early fall. - SUCCESS, 4,001.67 miles. Required a concerted effort in December as I got lazy in November. Ride 10% more miles each month than in 2007. I probably won't make this goal every month, but if I can do that overall it will put me close to that 4000 mile goal. - PARTIAL, I haven't figure it out exactly, but most months I did do this, but I know there were a couple that I didn't. But overall I had…

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2007 Cycling Season…

I have to say that 2007 was a tremendous cycling season for me. I didn't really have any goals in mind other that "I want to ride more". But thanks to a flexible work schedule and the ability to crawl out of bed at 4am on a regular basis, I was able meet that goal. In 2006 I rode 2,304.26 miles in 92 rides. My 2007 season included a century ride for the first time since 1998. And it ended this past Sunday with a 32 mile jaunt outside. It's pretty rare that I get to ride outside in December, so this was wonderful. After cutting down my riding in early December, with a lot of support from my wife and a desire to push my highest ever yearly total even higher, I pushed hard for the last 3 days and finished 2007 with 3608.40 in 135 rides. Thus I'm a happy camper and I'm inspired to set some goals and do even more in 2008…

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