I Am Chris Moran

On re-reading The Lord of the Rings after alternative immersive experiences

2011-08-11T09:29:00.000-04:00

This past week I started re-reading The Lord of the Rings. Anyone who knows me knows I am a fanatic about Tolkien's creation, Middle-earth. Shamefully (to me) this is the first time I've read the story since even the Peter Jackson movies came out. My issue has always been, I love The Lord of the Rings, but I'm historically a pretty slow reader and do actually like to read other stuff as well. In any event, I've also always been a fan of including immersive options in my enjoyment of Middle-earth.

In the 80's, Iron Crown Enterprises created Middle-Earth Role Playing. I was (am still) a Dungeons & Dragons player, so didn't really have the time (nor money) to play the game, but seeing the books in the comic book store always grabbed my attention. In hind-sight, many years later, I realize that I likely didn't have the time nor friends for it either, as the rules are pretty rugged and lofty and the few friends I had at the time for D&D don't strike me as having been interested. Anyway, this was around the time of my actually working on my initial read. I'd read The Hobbit in middle school, likely taking my time for about a year, and completed The Lord of the Rings by my sophomore or junior year. I had not seen the Rankin-Bass nor Bakshi animated versions of the source material, though my parents had bought the (very) abridged illustrated book with audio tape that went along with the animated The Hobbit.

In the mid 90's, Iron Crown came out with Middle-earth: The Wizards, a collectable card game. This was a few years after Magic the Gathering had been out, so was trying to capitalize on the craze. I did play this. With a few friends we bought a box of starter decks and a box of booster cards. One of them liked the game and played a few times with me over the course of a couple years, the others either didn't end up liking it, or who knows what, I don't even remember their names really; Trevor and Chuck I think. Over the course of the game's existence, I did end up buying a bunch of cards. I have a nice binder full and a few boxes full. I played in a tournament in Montreal even - got my butt whooped, but it was still worth the 2 hour drive - and was a member of a decent listserv for the game. Did some trading. WANTED to play more, but as with most hobbies I have ever had, most of the friends I tend to make that are close by, have no interest what-so-ever, so I still have that collection and some day perhaps I'll relearn the rules (there were lots, as there were 2 major series and 3 minor (but not small) expansions) and find someone to play. I know there is still an online community that plays via internet methods. I'm not organized enough to be able to create a playable deck without spending hours upon hours of pouring over and admiring each and every card. OC does not mean organized in my case. :(

You want immersive? The second rave I threw was called Middle-Earth: The Rave (1996)! OK, it was just a small rave, but the theme was Middle-earth. The fliers (I'll have to scour for a copy to scan or the original artwork to show) had the DJ names with (my) chosen Wizard/Character names. In one room I had the aforementioned animated features playing on a wall via projection. It was neat. Look here for T-Snake and you'll see a write up about it... I think partly from me and partly someone else???)

By this time, I'm pretty sure I'd completed another read of The Lord of the Rings. It's hard to say. I know I read Fellowship at least once more and at least Two Towers once again. Being a slow reader who loves to read is a torturous thing.

Starting around 1994 or 1995, while I was still a DJ at WRUV-FM, I did an annual broadcast of the BBC radio production of The Lord of the Rings. It is a 13 tape, approximately 12.5 hr edited version of a 26 episode version previously made. My broadcast was pretty popular, covering two days of 7 hour time blocks over a weekend, and for the 2 broadcasts preceding Peter Jackson's Fellowship movie release, it was even more so, because I was participating in a good deal of chatter on Usenet and other locations about speculation over the movies and I was giving updates over the air during the short (~3 minute) breaks between tapes. It was a fun production. Iam Holm was Frodo - in Jackson's movies, Sir. Holm played the role of Bilbo. Nice. One year I had sewn my own beanbag chair together while doing the broadcast. Oh how I miss the days of being allowed to be lazy for that much time.

So comes 2001 and the release of Peter Jackson's version of Fellowship of the Ring, followed by the next two volumes over the next two years. These represent the first of two immersion options that I write this entry for. Jackson and his wife (Fran Walsh) (and others) did a great job turning what should have been a 24 hour movie into about 12 hours (the extended versions). Obviously there had to be a lot of things cut out and because it was a mass market movie they had to add some stuff that didn't belong, but compared to previous attempts, it was gold. If I had a blue-ray player, I'd possibly buy the BD edition for home viewing of the extended version, but for now I'll settle on the extended DVD set. That reminds me, it's time to plan another marathon event for it. For years, Howard Shore defined the soundtrack in my mind for Middle-earth.

Flash to around January 2007, Lord of the Rings Online goes into some beta form that I managed to get into. I think it was closed beta, I could check my account but it's not important. By April, it was released for real. . Without hesitation I plunked down the dough for the box game and the $199 for a lifetime subscription. I'm a gamer, but I couldn't swallow paying $14 or $9 a month for eternity... and I knew I'd play the game til it got shut down. Good call Chris... still going strong, though with some business model changes. In any event, the point is that I'm not almost weekly (I'm a casual player) almost literally in Middle-earth! I have multiple characters that travel, explore, fight in, quest within, and talk to important people from the world hosting one of the greatest stories ever told. Setting aside some less than happy feelings about Warner Brothers and the way sometimes us founder customers feel treated, I can't recommend this game more for a Tolkien fan.

If you've followed my blog at all, you also know that my son is named in part after "The King"... as Aragorn took on the name Elessar, which is also my son's middle name.

I have made it a goal to learn Sindarin or Quenya and for a while recently actually had a good deal of the Tengwar glyphs learned. Use it or loose it really.

And to top it all off, I discovered a few years ago the band Summoning, a Black/Fantasy Metal band that uses a lot of Tolkien for inspiration, lyrics and themes. If you know ME, METAL??? Well, that's a different story. This isn't your craptastic hairband junk metal.

OK, all of that to point out, I care. And now I'm re-reading the story. This time I have a very different eye. I have experienced the story from many different directions and intentions. Obviously, the most recent incarnations are what stand strongest in my mind, the live action movies and the massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG if you will - LotRO). I'm only about 2/3 through Fellowship, but it's enough so far to see, or more like be reminded of, so many things that have been left out, misrepresented or changed. It's also given me renewed insight into how our memories are so easily altered by new things we see. Reading the chapter at the council of Elrond, the book takes its time to develop the fellowship itself. Most everyone is relatively calm and reasoned. Heck, even Boromir isn't "super angry man". While I'm reading it, I have the movie version pictured in my head. I started to think to myself "huh? Why isn't Gimli attempting to chop the One Ring with his battle axe??" Then, "wait, huh? Merry and Pippin weren't hidding in the shrubs too and Elrond isn't declaring the entire fellowship right away?" Oh how embarrassing. Well, not really, no one will know I forgot the REAL sequence. Oh snap, I just wrote that here... so yeah, um, never mind.. :)
Reading the forums over at lotro.com there was a thread (or more likely) that talked about leveling their characters taking too long. That annoys me since I take my time and try to enjoy everything... 4+ years with my main character and he's still not maxed out, I'm fine with that. Another commenter pointed out that's just stupid and that the game moves too fast. He rightly pointed out that travel is far too easy and far too fast. My memory failed me for travel time in book, but picturing in mind how I would travel from the Shire to Bree to Weathertop to the Bruinen Gap to Rivendell, I could indeed picture how long it would take my character running or on horse (ahem, pony - he's a hobbit) back. After reading the chapters involved in describing the trek, he was so right! Getting from Bree to Weathertop is a 10 minute pony ride or so, unhindered. I imagine if the characters walked, it could take 30 minutes. That's real time. Game time, I'm sure that's a good deal more - I just never did a translation of game time to real world time.
This comment made me wonder, imagine actually having to trek that same distance and covering that same amount of time. Most would up and quit before starting. I doubt many would play it out without a serious amount of action along the way, but still, having major neighboring game hubs be that far away would be a serious game ender. But imagine if it was REAL! Yeah, it lead me to thinking, imgine a theme park where locations were compressed, but "actors" re-enacted each scene and getting through the whole thing would/could take weeks of coming back for multi-day adventuring (time compressed), some scenes being interactive, others being a fly on the wall. (Maybe we get Bono to produce it? hehe)
I'm certain that as I continue my re-read I'll run into more things that baffle me or anger me, but I have said all along, I've only seen one movie that outdid the book (Hellraiser vs. Hellbound Heart), the rest are the best approximations given funding and people's willingness to sit for as long as it takes to tell every part of the story in the same detail. To make a game interesting, you have to do more than wander, unfortunately for lore-geeks, this means inventing creatures to fight, or embellishing existing ones (or past ones, since by the 3rd age, Smaug was the last great dragon yet the game has more drakes and dragons, and with names). No matter the quirks of the alternate versions, they all provide mental floss for re-reads of the original material, which in turn makes the experience a hell of a lot more interesting for a re-read.

Oh, and I'm of the camp that Tom Bombadil was NOT missed in the theatrical releases. He is in Lord of the Rings Online, as a quest giver, as is Goldberry in limited NPC status.

Now, when is someone going to do appropriate movies for more stories from the Silmarillian. Children of Hurin would be an awesome movie... and if done right wouldn't have kiddies in the theater. Had I the time and perseverance, I'd be more than happy to try to screenplay some of this stuff and put together a crew to produce a fan film. The Hunt for Gollum and Born of Hope are inspiring fan films.

In the end, I actually, truly hope that my son will grow to love these as well and allow me to read them to him before he can read them himself. That Rankin-Bass illustrated booklet version, I've gotten in it twice for bed time stories... that's a start. Now go read a book. But if you've already just re-read The Lord of the Rings, and feel like you need more depth but don't have time to read all the histories, Silmarillion, et al, then I'm certain you can blow plenty of time at the Encyclopedia of Arda or Tolkien Gateway or many a number of places to get your Tolkien or Middle-earth fill.

Happy Birthday Rowan Elessar Moran

2010-05-20T15:33:00.000-04:00

Today is my son's first birthday. This last year has been amazing. amazingly tiring, amazingly new and amazingly rewarding. Watching him grow, change and become the threat to all things with wires, fur and that look like they will fit in his mouth has been a challenge, but a challenge so worth participating. The first couple of months the poor guy didn't even have a name, so I'm sure he owes us a little hassle, but he did end up with a cool as hell name.
I just wanted to make sure I said something here on my often ignored blog... he deserves plenty of notice from me.

When did I start teaching in China?

2009-12-04T11:51:00.003-05:00

Funny, I expect no access to Facebook or MyCrack as school. Facebook is a serious timewaster and MyCrack is filled with bullshit, skanks and annoying people (yes, I still have my account). But blocking Twitter!?! Really? Really!? Really!!
I mostly only created my twitter account so I COULD post to my Facebook from school. Hey, I have things I wanna say during the day. I believe it worked yesterday, but I went to update this morning and ... GONE. Blocked via administrative rules or something. Are you kidding me? How is Twitter something that should be blocked? What next? Blogger?

I guess I should finish this post before they do block it.

President Obama spoke in China recently about how they need to open up the internet and allow free access to more information. There's ALWAYS an inherent danger in allowing access to information, but there's more danger in NOT allowing it - unless you're the one in charge disallowing it so the danger isn't presented to you.
So, I'm slowly feeling like I'm teaching in a little China. FB blocked, MS blocked, Pandora blocked, Twitter blocked. At this point, I expect them to block Faux News, since you'll find more hate and misinformation and danger there than even MyCrack. I'm surprised they aren't blocking google... that would be hilarious.

I'd ask the IT team about it, but frankly, I don't trust there wouldn't be retribution in some form for just ASKING. There's also always the question of "how is this being used for education?" I guess I need to become a follower of some mathematicians to justify the access?

I've only been at a couple school, but I've found the IT teams in high school seem to have a god complex. Block it until it's proven ok... I am Zeus. When I started in the alt-ed program here nearly 3.5 years ago, I wanted a Japanese font installed on my school provided laptop. I wanted it so I could make alternative signs and posts... make a calendar with something different, express numbers a little differently... just have as little fun. I was shot down. "Explain how you can use this for teaching your class" was the essential response. Seriously? Ridiculous! It's a font. It's something outside the box. It ended up being the start of feeling like the I team actually decides how education will work here. I decided to not go over anyone's head, since I don't trust egomaniacs - no telling when they'd just shut down our net access altogether.

Joy. They have returned to making sure those with money have access to what they want. People with smart phones and data plans only need the providers' network and within school, they have access. Because I refuse to pay $30 extra a month for that on my phone, I am denied.

Rant over. I might be silly about this, but I can't be sillier than blocking a micro-blog site.

Extra credit... demands and all.

2009-09-25T12:06:00.003-04:00

So, I am a little past my first Geometry class for the day. They have a quiz on some basic constructions. Yesterday I gave them packets for practice. I said "you should make sure you can do all of these and practice them for the quiz tomorrow". Not homework, not a requirement.

Before handing out the quiz, I asked to collect any packets that were completed (in any amount really) and that they can ear some bonus points on the quiz based on how much they completed or tried on the packet. I had at least two in class declare I was being unfair by not telling them it would be for extra credit. Yes... I was chastised for not telling them that the work I strongly suggested they do might count for some bonus points. You know, because some kids today never take responsibility for their own lives - no, we have to do it all for them.

Only a few handed anything in. I was shocked. Those who needed the practice the most didn't bother to practice... and likely it will show on their quiz results. I have a feeling my next block will be much more appreciative of the bonus offer. Hey... someone else getting bonus points will not effect their own grades. But you never know... they can and often do find some reason to complain.

I love my job and I'm loving teaching now in the regular high school, but I'm still baffled by the lack of personal responsibility and accountability.

Cash for Chuckelheads

2009-08-03T18:53:00.003-04:00

Let me get this straight - and yeah, I'm a little late, as always - people who bought earth and road unfriendly behemouths are getting bailouts??? First irresponsible homebuyers that bought more house than they could afford with stupid moronic adjustable rates were helped in so many ways it hurt - those of us who waited to be responsible before buying a house - in the mind. Sure, there are foreclosures happening anyway, but so what? Not enough. McMansions and un(der)employed homebuyers alike ruined the housing market.

Blah blah... that's an older blog post or two ago.

So, the deal, or so it appears to me as presented on the news nightly. Vehicle owners who have registered vehicles over the last year that get 18 miles per gallon or less are (have been) given rebates for buying new cars with higher MPG ratings. Details.. I don't care about the details. All I know is that the prices of gas came back down and every asshole with a Hummer gleefully pulled it back out. They won't be trading them in becauase they are too stupid and too asshole-y to get rid of their road menace machines, but every other jerk-off who bought a massive vehicle to, you know, get groceries in, threaten other cars' views on the road, or shine their raised headlights brightly in our eyes via the rear view mirror as they cruise up our asses on the interstate doing 80MPH can buy a new car (do over) to not only save them money, but GET THEM MONEY BACK.

I realize this isn't even about getting metter cars on the road. It's about getting car manufacturures back in business. Sucker people into buying new cars and make it look like the bailed out car makers are actually pulling their weight.

WTF!?!?

Things up front... I am expecting the new homeowner's rebate check in the main within another month or so. It's kinda the same thing, but meant for people who didn't fuck up already and want to do it as right the first time as they can.... oh, and reinvigorate the decaying housing market. Unfortunately, Vermont's market never REALLY crapped out and homeowners tried their damndest to take advantage of buyers - and we found out that you just really cannot trust real estate agents. Did I just say that? Yes I did. Unless you have a contract with an agent for buying your house, they do not have YOU interest at heart, and for a first timer, they borderline criminal (or even violate some ethics codes along the way). Bankers aren't much better. And sellers are lairs.

Ack, WAY off topic.

So yeah, Mr and Mrs "I'm too cool for a fuel efficient car" are getting a break now - a do over. I see many are buying more reasonable vehicles, or is it that the media is only showing those buyers? And what of people who bought the right(er) cars? We bought a Civic. It's not super powerful, but is a good ride. We love it. It's gotten upwards of 38MPG for my interstate commute. We would have gotten a Hybrid Civic, but for the extra 5K they cost and not having moon/sun roofs, it just didn't cut the needs. Current generation hybrids have a good deal more options...a tradein and bonus check from Obama (who I voted for and still really like) would make it a pretty sweat deal... though we paid off the Civic ahead of time, unlike the common debt ridden American.

Welcome to the bail out generation.

Oh, and before and conservative/libertarian jackasses think I'm making good arguments for them... STFU. You're worse for this country than buying out stupid people. Neah!

Almost 6 Weeks Old

2009-06-29T12:34:00.003-04:00

The boy is nearly 6 weeks old, so I thought I'd add some thoughts before I forget them.

He doing awesome. He struggled with feeding for a while, frankly being a little too handsy, so we had to consistently swaddle him with his arms at his sides. Thankfully we're able to let him be free most of the time. He goes through fits of being very fussy and crying, but really, it's not too bad. My neice was colicky, so we have it easy in that regard. I find myself laying on the ground staring at him often. He's so cute and the faces he makes while he's sleeping are hilarious. I take pix every day just about, but video is what makes it not look too freaky. It's pretty easy to capture the awkward moments. My phone camera is too damned slow to capture immediate moments, so sometimes when it looks like he's smiling, by the time the camera actually gets the picture, he's moved on to a crooked mouth that makes him look devious at best.

He also seems freakishly strong. He can stand up and hold himself up, even if only for a split second. He rolls over and around. I just hope that means he'll be interested in being active... I'm hoping he'll like running.

The biggest problem? Name. We've still not named him. We cannot agree on a name. It's frustrating and infuriating. I want to name him Strider for a first name, she hates it, but has no counter... just a list. So, we'll argue over it more and eventually figure it out. Thankfully most people have stopped asking. I think they realize that when we pick a name, we'll make it abundtantly clear, likely plastering our facebooks pages with the name, prehaps an ad in the paper, maybe I'll even make a song in the soon-to-be studio downstaris. ;)

We have experienced some surprises, leading to...

Things they apparantly never tell you:

There will be times when you're chaging diapers 2-4 times within 20 minutes - there are days when we easily change 12 times or more. He really doesn't like it when his diaper is wet, even thought it's not wet, since the diapers are amazing at storing things away from the skin. The weight though... I can see that being annoying.
Hiccups... after almost every feeding and subsequent verticalizing/burping, he has hiccups.
Acne!! WTF!?! He's got acne. Poor little guy didn't even get to experience being a pre-teen/tween and he's already got a teen problem?? Damn! I guess it's normal at the 2 and 6 week periods, but this started around 4 weeks... late bloomer or early?
How far can they see? We read books so had an idea, but I think more people need to know... when you're making googly eyes at teh boy from 5 feet away, he likely cannot even see you as a blur.

Feel free to add more in the comments. I'll add more when I remember them or they come about.

Come to Daddy

2009-05-21T06:49:00.004-04:00

Yesterday at 1446, my son was born. 7lbs 3oz, 18" and healthy. His mom (my wife) is healthy, he is looking comfy right now and I am happy, tired and hungry.

Oddly, I didn't blog about the pregnancy. We kept it "secret" for about 3 months, so I kinda just got used to not talking about it here. I wish I did... updates of the progress, but he won't mind. It was pretty normal until the end when he went breech and there was a very low amount of amniotic fluid. End result was a two week early urgent (but not emergent) Cesarean Section

We're all still spending time in the hospital... mom will be here until Saturday supposedly.

All this and we closed on a house last Friday and I'll be doing the bulk of the moving this weekend. Yeah, didn't really get around to blogging about that either... I'm a bad blogosphere inhabitant... but as you might guess, things have been busy and I've been guarded about some of the info - the house purchase process was not a simple one, with lots of disappointment and trouble and oddities.

It also means I'm out of school two weeks earlier than expected, which is nice, but not really, as I want to make sure my students are good to go for the semester's end. It also means my pole vaulters might be on their own for the rest of the season... though since I sprained my ankle last week... I've been out of pole vault commission anyway.

So, for some this is the pregnancy announcement and the birth announcement all in one. Joy.

Things are good. Time to be afraid I suppose... but I think I'm ready for it all.

Gay Mariage Redux

2009-03-19T10:01:00.004-04:00

It baaaaaack. The fight over "gay marriage", that is.

If you follow my blog or any of my public personality postings, you likely already know where I stand - or can guess. It's not even an issue. A gay couple should have the right to marry.

I wrote an essay years ago - I think 1997 or 1998, I can't find it right now, not even on archive.org - about this issue. My stance was pretty much the same back then.

In Vermont, yesterday there were hearings in Montpelier listening to apparently over a thousand people (well, in attendance, not all spoke) opposed to and in support of legalizing gay marriage (in Vermont).

From the news I heard near sobbing from gay people and having to fight for the same right others just have. I hear dumbass ignorant bigots lay out arguments about "it being against god's will". And this time around, the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington pleading to keep those dirty nasty ungodly beings from joining in any such marital fashion. (he didn't say that, I'm paraphrasing his dopey ignorance and bigotry). Many other clergy have stood strong in support of gay marriage already. I couldn't tell if they spoke out yesterday. But what's it really matter? The claim of "against it"-clergy is that it's not what "god intended". Do they also invalidate my marriage? I'm a friggin atheist. I think they are loopy in the first place. I was married in a civil ceremony, not even the mention of a deity or a savior (though I'm sure mom was praying :) ) in the ceremony. Do I not have a marriage? It was utterly and completely outside the church.
They keep spouting a fear that clergy will be forced to marry gays. Grow up and pay some attention. No reasonable person would say that. It's a legal thing, not a religious thing, in my view. The clergy aren't required to even marry their own parishioners if they feel they don't support the marriage in question are they? Right. I think I heard a collective "oh yeah". So how are they suddenly going to be forced to marry a bunch of sodomizing sinners? Hm...

As I would expect... they are full of crap just trying to scare the ignorant masses.
As well with the argument of "jettisoning" the "traditional meaning of marriage that has been culturally accepted for 6 millenia"... yeah, I saw that in the paper. In other words, we have bible literalists telling the rest of us how we are supposed to live and that we must follow their bible's laws. Assholes. This is the U.S. of A., you have a right to freedom of religion and I have a right to freedom from religion. That means keep your crazy out of the public square and I won't tell you how to believe your ~~fairy tales~~ stories. That includes you not being allowed to say that gays can't get married because you are uncomfortable with it, or insecure with your marriage to the point that your tiny mind would actually believe that two men or two women getting married would somehow magically lessen your marriage. Face it, you haven't a leg to stand on with that argument. You're a liar and a fraud.

So, the sheep do as they are told. The faithful (I don't know any atheists/agnostics who are against gay marriage - not to say they don't exist, I've just not met any... who weren't against marriage as a rule - and let this be clear, I know more faithful who are pro-gay-marriage than not) cling to their bibles and lash out at people who are different. Worse yet, they argue things like "we can't let a minority make these changes". Again, who the hell are they? I suppose they are against blacks still too... they are still a minority. How about this, from polls I've seen, bible literalists are a minority. That means you freaks who believe Noah's Ark was a real thing are a minority. Those who believe the world is only 6000 years old... minority. How about we start limiting your rights? Oh yeah, "this is a Christian nation"... so as long as you declare that "jesus christ is your savior" then you are above the law or expectation of equality for all. Shut up! You are poison. You might likely be raising children who are poisoned and will poison the world they way you do. Because this isn't just about gay marriage or gay rights, it's about being a bigot and declaring that your way is the only way. It's about you not realizing that your way might be the right way... for you and yours, but that you have no right to rules others' lives when those others' actions do in fact not impact your life in any way. Gay marriage has no impact on you. It just doesn't. Stop lieing. Stop pretending. Stop. If your marriage is weak enough that another's marriage will ruin its meaning, then you need to end it. You are not ready anyway. My marriage will be stronger knowing that the institute of marriage I have will be shared with a larger group of people who believe as I do... that marriage is about sharing your life, love, and everything in between with another person, with rights, responsibilities, privileges, hopes, desires, families, jobs... everything you have. How can you hold the one single difference between the you and "them" as the litmus for something like marriage? When it comes to human rights, a simple majority rule has no place in deciding who gets to use those rights.

I've insulted a lot of people here, it's nothing uncommon. Feel free to hate me, that would be justified. But hating those I am sticking up for in this is not justified. Supporting gay marriage is supporting marriage and family.

Uni Presies and a Lower Drinking Age

2009-02-21T09:19:00.003-05:00

The question I just heard on the TV.. "why are college presidents pushing for lowered drinking ages?"

My simple answer... they don't want to be held responsible for the most entitled, bratty and ill-raised children in a very long time going to higher education and getting screwed up and giving the schools a bad name... or a good name on the "party school" lists.

These presidents don't care about the communities their schools are in.

But they sure do look cool to kids who wanna get their drink on legally - perhaps those presidents preside over schools that are cooler to those needy brats. Boom. Higher enrollments.

And if your argument FOR it is that "if they can die for our country, they should be able to drink"... well, I think 18 is too young to decide your future in a war. It's a false patriotism and encouraging kids to join the military under the guise of "dieing for your country" is sick and twisted and what I'd expect from terrorists and Israeli or North Korean soldiers - and the poor, who also unfortunately probably suffer fro higher percentages of alcohol related deaths, violence and crime.

But I'm straightedge, so who really cares what I think? And I know I didn't have a drop as a student, yet I wasn't a perfect student either. But I also never threw up in a public restroom, trashed a neighbor's yard, walked into some random persons home uninvited - at 3am, and I didn't sexually assault anyone.

To top it off, I read last week how many states/communities are thinking of changing their alcohol sales laws. Sure, the laws are religiously dogmatic relics, but just because the economy is in the crapper... oh wait. See, that's the point. The guise is that it's to generate more income via taxe. I don't buy it one bit. Well, that's not true, I'm sure some view it that way, especially those in Utah thinking about it - Mormon attitudes aside. No, I think it's about making sure people have easy access to one of the essier ways to drown your sorrows without legalizing other drugs. Yeah folks, I think people want us drunk. Progressives with the same ideals would rather we get high instead. either way, they hope we stop thinking for a while and go with the flow.

Everything is big picture - small picture stuff is a cloak.

"Hero"

2009-01-25T14:20:00.002-05:00

So, as always I'm johnny come lately when it comes to posting about recent event. Too busy to put thought to finger to keyboard, but this news item annoyed me and brought up feelings that have annoyed me for quite some time.
Last week US Airways pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger successfully brought his plane down on the Hudson river after the engines we supposedly destroyed by birds. All over the news we heard about "Sully" the hero and his amazing feat. Ok, you've likely heard it all by now, seen the pictures, joined the facebook groups and said your meaningless prayers - maybe even sent around a chain letter about it.

But, is he really a hero?

Over at Merriam-Webster you will see a number of definitions for hero. I think the only two that people might be attributing to "Sully" are:

c: a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities
d: one that shows great courage

Let's break down each one a little bit with respect to what very little I know about "Sully".

c) acheivements and noble qualities:
He's definitely acheived something more Americans have not. He is a professional pilot. I always wanted to be an astronaut. I knew I'd need to be a pilot first (at least back then that was the expectation). However, the reality that I'd have to either join the military or have a significant amount of money to do that set in quickly. Yeah, for the vastly most part folks, you have to be wealthy or come from money to become a pilot. I don't know that enlisted "men" can be pilots, I should ask my dad - who was a jet mechanic for a while early in his Air Force career.
Noble. Is he more noble than most? What makes him such? I know that there have been a significant amount of nice things said about him by his friends, family and neighbors, but what are they going to say about a man who the media is calling a hero? Catch-22 if you ask me.
Were his actions noble? Well, it was his job to make sure his passengers didn't die. That's not noble, that's called employment.

So, to sum up the first part... he couldn't have even been a part of this "heroism" if not for it being his job and what his career was about - flying planes.

d) one that shows great courage:
This one confuses me. It's really a chicken and egg problem. Of course it takes courage to not choke when a plane is facing the possibility of crashing and killing everyone inside. But then again, isn't that what a pilot is trained for - not crashing a plane? Is it courage that has him at the helm in the first place? Well, like I said, I'd have just as much liked to be in that position.
For the most part, his job is pretty damn safe though. Modern planes practically don't even need pilots. The truth is, once you're up, unless there are odd circumstances, a plane is a very safe place. I believe Mythbusters proved that a novice could be talked through a relatively safe landing.
Therefore, what was there really to be afraid of that he hadn't already been trained for?

Part d summary... woop de doo. Again, his training to not screw shit up kept him calm enough to not screw shit up.

Now, to the question, is he a hero?
I enthusiastically say, no, he is not. What he is, though, is a competent man who did his job and did it well. He was put into a situation where the trouble was sudden and unexpected. But he did his job. He saved the lives of the passengers and realistically, the lives of others who might have died had he not been around or easily accessible to the river instead of say a road or park.

There we have it. The media is wrong. You might be wrong. The man isn't a hero. The man did his job. In fact, if he had crashed the plane and everyone buy him died, he'd likely have lost his job for not doing his job correctly. There would have been an investigation into it where someone would have tried to find a way to blame him for it. That's how things in the US work. Hero worship is about making certain type of people heroes but in strange twists of fate, those same people can be looked at as monsters or cowards or just plain old regular people.

I do not attempt to detract from his professionalism. He doesn't seem to be taking the "hero" speak to heart too much, he's been caught off guard as much as anyone.

I'm not done.

We're still in a war. In fact, we're still in a war that involves no one that invaded our own land. We invaded other countries. Bush lied, thousands died, right? Well, why are we constantly expected to call our military personnel "heroes"? Really, explain this one to me. Because they die for our freedom? Well, sure thing, if our freedom is in danger from the forces being fought - which it isn't, our freedoms are only compromised right now because of a lying fear/war monger who just left the Whitehouse.
So, we are barraged by media and religious nuts and right wingers and "patriots" constantly calling our soldiers heroes. Don't get me wrong, I respect the military. I was an Air Force brat for 14 years - my dad was a 20 year career Air Force man, I was plenty proud of him. He never killed anyone, but if he joined the military to kill people, he wouldn't be a hero to me, just a mad man.
And then there's the current situation.
Take this example. I have a student who wants to join the Marines when he graduates. Forget that if he can't work harder to get passing grades he might not even get in - or he shouldn't get in, morons with guns are plenty dangerous. His plan? Front line. He wants to kill people. So, let me get this straight. A kid plans in advance to join up with the military with the full intention of being sent over to a war-zone (that is not, in my liberal opinion, a legit war) and being on the front lines to shoot people, and we're in the end supposed to treat him as a hero? Fighting for our freedom?
Obviously there are military men and women who are fighting because they are told to. They enlisted before the war or enlisted not expecting to be sent off to fight and now they are doing the executive branch's wishes - my understanding is they don't particularly have a choice once that order is set. There are plenty who are over there helping to rebuild what others destroyed and looking to create positive relationships with civilians who are just caught up in it all unwillingly. Are they heroes? Hard to say. But with respect to the killing itself, the only heroes are those who refuse to fight an illegal war just because the president told them to. And if your solider son ever comments on "killing those 'rag-heads'". Rest assured... he is far from being a hero.
This will make me insanely unpopular, I'm sure, but as I pointed out above, if it's your job, you're not a hero.

Another example that's always gotten at me. Firefighters. Two types that I know of. Career firefighters and volunteer firefighters. You already know my reasoning for saying that those who earn their living by fighting fires are not heroes. If they didn't save someone would others say "you're so not a hero". Maybe, but more than likely, there would be a job security issue.
However... a volunteer is a hero. My bro joked that the volunteers are just fire-bugs.
I'm not sure I can laugh about that, as I'm sure there are lots of fire-bugs fighting fires, some of whom set their own fires, but I doubt highly that is even remotely the standard. But a man or woman willing to plunge into a burning building to rescue others, putting themselves in obvious danger, by the shear nature of some set of altruism, they are heroes.

I could go on, but I won't, not on that line of thought.

Who are heroes?
I've hear people call teachers heroes because they (we) can save the world by training the right people for the future. Well, I care about what I do. I went into teaching to make a difference, but if I do anything remotely "heroic", assume it's because I thought it was the right thing to do in the line of my duty as a teacher. Perhaps some day I'll step outside my comfort zone as a teacher and do something well over and above. I'm not sure what that would be for me to consider it "hero"-worthy, but that will be then. For now, I do what I am supposed to do and really hope it's the right thing.

Snitches. OK, this is where the kiddies and punks will get all defensive and say trash like "snitches wear stitches" and other shit like that. With respect to reporting some illegal acts - like acts of violence or other crimes that effect the greater community, or just some poor soul, it is black and white. You're either a hero or a coward. If you know and do nothing about it, you are a coward. It's easy, and I hold no ill will toward you, unless you are only being a coward because you know that someone else has something on you, etc.. But those who step out of safety and speak up are protecting the greater good. In business and government they are called whistle-blowers. They are people who very well may be scumbags themselves, but are doing the right thing in situations where something better or right should come of their actions.
When you see someone committing an illegal act on another - not of their will, even though I think it is a moral imperative to do something about it, I still think it's heroic.

Anyone who speaks up against their own better good for that of others is being heroic.

What do you consider heroic? Do you think I'm wrong? Are you offended by my thoughts (imagine that)? Feel free to comment. I have to admit that I do not hold these thoughts as absolutes and I could easily find some holes in them just as quickly as others. There's always exceptions to the rules, but my main point is that too many people use the word "hero" far to easily and quickly. It's a big word - too big to be thrown around like penny candies.

A Crazy Time for 2009

2009-01-01T14:21:00.003-05:00

So, first, Happy New Year. I'm sure anyone who would be reading MY blog would agree, this year most certainly can't be worse than last year (hello Mr. Obama!!! :) ).

I've been itching to make this more public but I think less people view my blog than view my facebook page, so I can get away with posting this here before the wife says it's ok... muahahahaaaa.

We are expecting our first child on June 3rd. Truthfully, I suspect it'll be closer to the 10th or so. Our 10 year anniversary is June 12th, so he will be the most awesome anniversary gift from us. (hehehe some of my religious nutter readers might have held their breath for a brief second thinking I'd say "gift from *od"... suckers! Keep it real.

I cannot wait to be daddy. Stranger times ahead.

This is also the year I truly expect to buy our first home. The time is right. The housing market finally headed down because of all the fools who bought too much and got in trouble. Those of us who waited might ACTUALLY have a chance for a piece of the pie - and to show how it's supposed to be done... responsibly.

On the slightly scarier side... my job will more than likely change. Not gonna go into details here yet, nothing is perfectly clear yet for anyone involved even, I just know that things are going to change, and I'm just trying to be ready.

President Obama

2008-11-04T23:30:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to President Barack Obama* and VP Joe Biden.

Time to take our country back.

Most of my candidates did not win, but at least the top of the ticket took it.

Jim Doneless Douglas... you'll continue to be our ineffective and pointless Governor with your just as useless lapdog Brian Dubie. Congrats on showing that Vermonters, even while they embraced Obama were passive enough to vote you two back into office.

*I think my endorsement settled the deal. ;)

Skitzovote

2008-11-04T16:25:00.002-05:00

just got back from voting. What? You didn't?? Must not be an American citizen, because an eligible voter who doesn't vote - well...perhaps only a step smarter than someone who didn't know who they were voting for in the presidential election until they got to the ticket. Or perhaps you've not voted YET. If polls are still open... you can come back to read this later... go vote.

I'm sick. Left school early, lucky to not have students with me for the afternoon, so I wouldn't be missed. Called my violin teacher to let her know I wouldn't be seeing her today... just get home, wait for Karen, go vote, come home and try to recover from the cold, which has had a seriously bad effect on my throat.

Why is my voting worthy of a blog entry? Pshh... I dunno, I guess some of it is a little in need of explanation.
First, the one without real need is the vote for the Obama-Biden ticket. For real... did you vote for McBush and Caribu Barbie? Give me a break. YOU need to seriously soul search to have a good explanation for that move. It's your right... just using it for evil is wrong. Enough of that.

The US house only has one Vermont rep. currently it's Peter Welch. He replaced Bernie Sanders last election (who went to the Senate with traitor Leahy). I voted them all into their positions. This time, however, Welch didn't do a few things I expected. He didn't stand full force agains the war, he didn't stand against the final passing of the corporate bailout last month and he didn't stand UP for articles of impeachment to be placed on W. To big things to me. So I voted for Jerry Trudell. He's a slightly wacked out "Energy Independence" party candidate but isn't wacked out what the US House is about? Put the people with loud ideas and wild ideas? He's not going to win, but I felt like Welch let us down - those of us who expected a much more liberal-anti-current-GOP guy. I could have gone with the Progressive Party candidate, but when I watched him in a debate on Vermont Public TV, he came off as unsure at times and had a hard time looking UP when answering questions. Shifty almost. If Trudell got his wacky ass in the House, maybe there could be some real energy behind alternative energy in the US.

Vermont State Governor! I voted for Dean. When he went off to change how the US Presidental campaigning process would work forever, I voted for Burlington mayor Peter Clavelle - who lost, then for - well, I don't remember. They all lost to Jim Douglas, whom I'm nicknamed Doneless because he's pretty much done nothing FOR Vermonters. Vermonters tend to be ok with keeping people around who don't screw up completely as long as they are neutral. Well, Gov. Doneless is a total neuter. Anthony Pollina is the Progressive Party candidate. That's the same party Bernie Sanders wan with before going national - independent is what the greater US knows versus Democrat or Republican. Pollina entered the race relatively early on. Gaye Symington entered well after he did. She was the top dog in the Vermont House, a Democrat. When she entered the race officially, many in the Democratic party called Pollina a spoiler.
It's a legit claim in a way, since liberals in VT (if not all of the US or world) are often willing to split their voting among Democrats and alterna-candidates. It appears conservatives of today are single minded. Thus, I believe Doneless' first win and subsequent wins. I used to concider myself a Democrat. No, I'm a liberal. I voted for Pollina. He'll lose, but I hope that he and Symington' total is the same as Donless', which I believe would prove that Instant Runoff Voting will in fact be the most fair option for voters. I like Pollina, but I'm also voting AGAINST Donless.

I suppose the only other vote I made that needs explanation is for the Vermont State Representatives. Two seats from my ward have been taken up by the team of David Zuckerman and Chris Pearson for a few elections. I voted for them even. This year, Keisha Ram ran. She recently graduated from UVM. I met her years ago as a student in the McNair program - a program that aims to get first-gen college students to stick it out to graduate school. I helped run a training program for her cohort in some computer and software skills. I taught her how to do video editing. She, along with a couple others in her group, was very intelligent and well spoken. Something I felt wasn't often presented by perople in her generation. When I heard she was running for state rep, I was a little excited - then I realized it was against the pear-zuck team. She has also pretty much pointed out that she has no real differences than those two. They are Progressive Party candidates and she is a Democrat. Both perfectly fine in my eyes. I had a couple little back and forths with Keisha and Chris on a couple issues. I see Dave almost weekly at the farmers market - I think he sold out when he cut his hair, but my wife reminds me that perhaps it was done for a greater purpose. Anyway, this was the only major vote I made up my mind AT the booth. I split my vote - Keisha and Chris. I know Chris will continue to do a great job and can only hope Keisha maintains the tradition. I do feel a little guilty for taking a spot away from someone I'm certain is more progressive, but since I feel like the house left some work undone (IRV) in the past (though Doneless promised to veto any IRV legislation) a little change in a similar direction is a worthy gamble.

There you have it. I don't OWE explanations, but I figure it's a good thing to provide. I would love to run for an important office some day, but being an atheist in the US nearly garentees that I'll not get elected to the types of positions I'd want. Oh well, I'll just do what I do and keep hope alive.

Undecideds Are Stupid

2008-10-08T14:17:00.003-04:00

So the focus on last night's presidential debate was in part on the "undecided" voters who were part of the present question askers. I won't get into it completely now - I'll save it for a longer post - but man, if you are not decided by now, you MUST be a moron. I'd be shocked if even Nader would claim that McCain and Obama are even remotely the same choice. So what's holding you up?
If you haven't decided by now, perhaps you should just give it up. Your opinions are useless anyway.

I have included an image in my left column showing the most current electoral college tallies for the November races based on polls and the analysis from Electoral Vote. Last "election" I was glued to this site for days before the election. It ended up being wrong, but that only goes further to proving that the election was a hoax anyway. Even Zogby, the night before the election called it for Kerry (I should provide a source huh - but really, who cares... he lost a lot of credibility).

I'll likely remove the image after the election of Obama. Yeah, I am calling it. Because a vote for McCain is a vote for Bush and a vote for Palin is a vote for the local beauty queen dufus, and even delusional evangelicals MUST be smarter than those options.

Torbrand the Sneaksy Hobbit

2008-09-30T06:10:00.003-04:00

If case you didn't know, I play Lord of the Rings Online. I love most things Tolkien related and being able to role play IN actual Middle Earth (well, you know... a computer representation of) is amazingly cool. I believe a lot of WoW player think it's stupid and lacks features, but they are tools who appear to miss the point. Better for the rest of us I suppose.
I don't play very often as it is a role playing game essentially and requires a decent amount of time for each session to accomplish anything, so I tend to try to play for chunks of no less than 3 hours and a few times have squeezed in about 8+ hours. With my job and the requirement of getting to work early, the essentially means I play during vacations or some long weekend. I even put together a special computer specifically for this game - only had to buy a new CPU, additional ram and a kick ass video card to do it. I'm also a lifer, so I never have to pay for my time again after the initial $199 I paid for play time. This means I'm good until the game dies away. I just hope it sticks around for a good long time. I'd been waiting for this since Sierra originally started to develop a version around 10 years ago.

I played this summer connected to a video projector. I'm not sure there's a better way to play a video game (or do anything video related), but it sure was a pain in the ass to set up each time. Finally though I figured out how to get it to diosplay on the TV. It's only a 36" CRT, but it does fine. I don't run at a super high resolution anyway, not wanting to risk the nice framerates and turned up graphics effects - man, seeing the tall grass swaying in the wind while I'm running through it is just cool as anything. That doesn't mean I play more - school has started, so I haven't actually played in over a month, but soon... soon!
Mines of Moria, the first pay for expansion comes out shortly. I'm not going to get it right away. I know I can get it now for a deal (I think), but I believe it's really for higher level characters and my primary character (see below) is only level 19 right now. Like I said, no rush. It's Middle Earth for crying out loud... enjoy it or leave. :)

I got an email this morning from the peeps at LotRO about the new ability to have sigs for the forums with dtat blocks for out characters, and those also include a "likeness". Still very cool - though I don't post in the forums much. Even cooler, I can post an image of the sig stat block elsewhere... so it made for a good excuse to create another entry here and show off my Hobbit Burglar.

If I know you and you are interested in playing, let me know. You can play a trial of it, but if I hook you up with an invite, and you buy, I get a 30 day free play time cert... which I don't need (lifetime membership, remember?) but I can transfer... thus adding a month to your play time, unless you go lifetime as well. I'd say you could come watch the game in action, but well... hey, if you are interested in that, perhaps something could be worked out. If I don't know you - wow, thanks for reading. Check youtube or summat, I'm sure there are lots of videos posted. I tried to capture some video while playing and it didn't go well. If you are already playing, tell me during gameplay that you read this :)... then come help me on a quest.

Shake It Up

2008-09-01T10:23:00.003-04:00

I'm doing P90X to get myself back into a more athletic shape. I started this past June and will be ending in two weeks (had to restart the penultimate week because I was dead tired and sore after the first week back to school - this past week). One important thing I learned this time around was the importance of protein. Last summer during fitquest I didn't supplement my running and other workouts with protein, so I lost a lot of weight (~25 pounds), but didn't really gain much muscle. So this time I hooked up with protein drink mix. Gold Standard 100% Whey is what I eneded up going with after asking questions and checking the ingredients. I mostly have the Double Rich Chocolate flavor. It's actually quite good, but has an aroma that isn't all pleasant to all. In fact, my breath afterward usually makes the wife cringe. Wanting to be able to mix with other thins than water (I didn't tend to mix with milk) I later got the Strawberry-Banana flavor. Not too bad either. No great, but certainly passable. Smells a little better too - though the wife does not like bananas, so I can't really win now can I? :)

The first two phases of the program limit carbs a lot and all phases limit fruit in the diet as well. Well, I didn't follow the diet too clasely. If I did, I'd have definitely lost more fat, but I think I did pretty well so far. I'll be posting the pre and post pix when I'm officially done. I did avoid a lot of fruits, which is hard for me, but I stil lfind it hard to get in a ton of veggies - they are expensive to buy fresh and we don't like most frozen options - or the fresh go bad before we finish. I did try tyo eat a lot of cucumbers and lettuce from our garden.

3rd phase, however, more carbs are needed. Not sure it really factors in, but I decided to turn my drink into a shake. It allows me to turn an 8oz protein drink into about a 20 ouce mini meal after my workout. Mmm-mm. It's some good stuff, and here's my recipe. Nothing special, I'm sure there are a ton out there just like it, but hey here's my take:

Chris' Choco-Banana-Protein Shake
1 scoop of Gold Standard 100% Whey - Double Rich Chocolate
1/2 scoop of Gold Standard 100% Whey - Strawberry Banana
1 Medium banana (best if frozen first)
8 oz Milk (skim)
2 Tbps Dark Chocolate Dreams (brand All natural Peanut Butter & Co.)
6 Ice Cubes

In a blender, add the first 5 indredients and blend until smooth. You might need to stop it once to push down any ingredients that got stuck to the sides of the blender.
Keeping the blender running, drop in once ice cube at a time and continue to blend on high until you don't hear any chunky sounds, perhaps doing a few sustained pulses to chop up any last ice chunks.

Pour into a tall glass and drink as is or use a straw.

Nutritional info:
538 Calories
Fat 15g
Saturated 3.5g
Protein 51.5g
Carbohydrates 55.6g
Fiber 5.1g
Starch 6.3g
Sugars 35.4g

Try it and post comments on how you feel about it. Unfortunately, you can't just buy a couple scoops of the Whey mix, but you might be able to get sample packs at the local vitamin shoppe or gnc or somewhere. You could also use a similar powder mix of a different brand. I'm certain it won't be too different, though the nutritional info would likely be different. The kicks Nutella's ass. It's different, but common. I did make this with Nutella and it tasted just great as well, so you could substitute that as well. I have also done it with just peanut butter. I use Simply Jif because it has less sugar and salt and less of the additives or others.

Are You Training for a Marathon?

2008-08-23T19:05:00.002-04:00

Aug 20th was a changed day. We were supposed to be gaming that night - moving gaming back to Wednesday nights after a summer of Monday night gaming - we're dangerous like that. ;) Anyway, it meant less pressure to get my act together for gaming, and since Violin lessons are now on Tuesdays, I wasn't too worried about making sure to get a practice session in the day before a lesson as usual. I also didn't feel like doing my Kenpo X workout (oh, I never mentioned here I'm doing P90X - saving it up for the final report :) ) so I decided to go for a run. My normal run is about an hour - run down to the bike path and keep going until I get to about 30 minutes then turn back. Great plan for forcing the full hour and usually MORE, as the return home has a nasty uphill: battery park. Ugh!
The weather was perfect. Perfect!
At the 30 minute mark I actually ran (not literally) into my violin teacher walking the opposite direction. I stopped and we chatted for a bit and I continued. I figured I'd go for another 5-10 minutes... then about 5-10 minutes later I realized "hey I feel pretty good", so I decided to try to run to the Burlington-Colchester line, which is about the middle of the bridge over the Winooski River on the bike path.
Well, as I was about as mile away from there, I started to wander in the mind again. I realized I was pushing my luck - well, pushing my muscles. It still felt good, but I knew I had to run back home, so I started to worry, or more so wonder, "what if?" OK, I could turn back now. Nah. I'm to OC for that, I'd feel like I didn't try. That happens nearly every year when we hike the White Mountains. I'll be feeling like I just want to get to the next hut and bypass some side-hikes that either get me up a peak that "counts" or to some neat views. This year I didn't do that. If it had a geographical name and it was in my way, I climbed it. It only ended up adding perhaps an extra half-to-full mile, none easy, and more time, but it was worth it.
So, not continuing on the run was out of the question. Then I thought "hey, I could just keep running until I couldn't any longer. I've neve done that before. I have NO idea how long that would be. I joked in my mind that I'd end up in Canada. Hahaha. Then I'd just call Karen for a ride home. Well, turns out that would have been a bad idea . I didn't have my phone and didn't have money or well, anything besides my clothes, mp3 player and a house key. So I set the bridge as my goal, thinking "hey, round trip, that'll be close to a half marathon.

I ran. By about 58 minutes, I got to the bridge just as what appeared to be a larger group of young girl soccer players out with their coach on a bike ride coming the opposite direction. I stopped to rest for a minute to let them pass. I didn't realize they would stop on the bridge next to me. I was feeling like I might block other traffic, so I turned and started running again. I just barely passed the lead and they started up again, slowly all passing me by. I kept going. It was my thing, typically, unlike most activities, when I'm running I don't care too much about who passes me. I was passed a couple times by the same woman who was running with her two dogs. She looked older than me, but she looked more fit and was wearing what appeared to be a commemorative t-shirt for some running race or marathon. I know I can't compete with a competative distance runner. I'm a sprinter at heart.

At about 1:30 into the run, I realized my ass was really starting to hurt. My legs were sore too, but nothing like my ass. I noticed I was running with a straighter leg stride. I decided to run with my knees up some more. All the while I was trying to keep my heartrate within the range my polar HR watch was telling me to keep it - 164BPM being the top it set for optimum performance. Well, that wasn't going well. I was more hovering around 167-172. The knees up did allevieate the butt pain, but it did tire me out a little more. I kept it up to stretch out the glutes and then went back.
Something extremely annoying about the bike path - no water fountains on the path. At least not on the part I was on. WTF is that all about? Encourage people to get out their and be active, but don't give them an easy way to hydrate?!?! I don't carry water on me when I run because I can't satand having a bottle bouncing around on me and I don't have a decent secure way to strap it on anyway. I see some people carry their bottles. No way. Not for me. I need to be able to loosen up my hands when I run. It promotes better running form.

Anyway, I'm convinced I was dehydrated and that caused a lot of the muscle pain and fatigue. I had to drop down to a fast walk for about 30 seconds 3 times on the bike path. I was burnt. When I got to the pain park at the foot of college street I could finally get to a fountain. I stopped the timer and got some water. Whew... that was good.
Then starts the rough part. Up the hill to Battery St and then up the Battery Park path. Uh, I could run TO the path, but I had to walk up the path. It was just way too much, if I wanted to make it home in one peice. Keep in mind, my knees aren't so great and I always worry about weakening them to the point that they just give out.

I got up the hill and ran back to the base of my block, at which time I ran harder - as much of a sprint as I could muster - to the end, where I live. Done. Stretch time and some moments to reflect on accomplishing the longest run I have ever done, both distance and time-wise. I spent a good 10 minutes stretching outside the front door then went in for my protein drink. All said and done it was just over 11.5 miles. Not quite the half marathon I thought it was, but still... easily 3 miles more than normal for me. I do suspect that the measurement of the run is off though, but what can I say? I believe I used to typically run 8 miles in about 1:20 or so. It's all iffy.

Here is the map of my run if you wanna see it's glory. The masochist in me thinks I should try to do this perhaps once a week. Eventually it'll become a lot easier and perhaps I'll build it longer. I'd love to be able to run a solid marathon one day. I might try to make a team to do the Vermone City Marathon next year, so that's a good start. Watching the olympians do it in the under 3 hour time makes me shiver knowing that I'd be lucky in my current level to finish in 5 hours.

In any event, it was a run in the right direction and proof that my fitness level is not too bad.

The X Factor

2008-07-30T13:21:00.002-04:00

So, I just finished watching Xanadu for the first time in possibly 10 years or more. Not sure for sure how long it's been. This movie has been a favorite of mine (when I remember) since I was 10 or 11. Obviously Olivia Newton John (1) was the primary reason at the time but E.L.O. supplying the bulk of the soundtrack was also a big thing which also fed a little of my inspriation in the electronic side of music through the years.

Anyway, is it weird that a cheesy ass movie like Xanadu could still have the same effect on a 36 year old dude that it had when he was 11? Sad movies don't make me cry - or they RARELY do. Movies with needfully happy endings do choke me up.

So, have your laughs at my expense - just remember I did share. And I still hold that I did not like when OLJ got all tight and leathery in Grease. To this day I still like the innocent and angelic look.

All that said - the movie is pretty lame. Most musicals are lame. All the added feature songs and stuff to showcase "talent" and embellish the stories. Yuk. Not my thing. However, I will watch it again, and likely numerous times before I drop dead.

I Thought Vermont Was Friendly

2008-06-28T09:19:00.004-04:00

"I thought Vermont was friendly"

Believe it or not, I was told that quote yesterday by someone from (I'm guessing) Florida. I'm guessing Florida because that was where the license plate on her car was from. Her car that was parked behind our cars blocking them in the driveway. Which we only noticed when we needed to get out to pick up our Wings.

Yeah, we walk out to get a move on, guessing another 10 minutes for them to be ready and about a 5-10 minute drive.

As you can see in the image, nicely recreated if I may say so myself, there are 3! empty spots in the lot. If anyone can point out ANY logic for why one would even remotely think her parking where she did was the right thing, or even reasonable.
But what followed was even more strangely stupid.
After we walked around to the other people's who share the parking lot apartments to see if it was of their friends, to no avail, we called the towing company (scumbags in their own rights) to tow the car away. As Karen was on the phone, a girl came out of the apartment with a gaggle of other students and walked toward the car.
I asked "is this your car?" She said yes. I then sorta laid into her, "are you insane? Why would you park blocking us in like that. There are open spots and you chose to park behind two cars blocking them in?!"
"I'm sorry" she said. But frankly, I wanted to her to feel stupid and ridiculed, or at least embarrassed. She didn't. She had NO conscience about it.
"I figured you could just parallel park out of the spot."
Say what?!? We were parked about 6 inches from our front car and she was about 1.5 feet behind us. Perhaps I could have made it just fine - I'm not so great at the parallel parking. But who is this moron to tell me I have to do such an extreme thing just to get out of MY space???

"I'm trying to be nice." She said. As if I did something to her and she was doing me a favor. In sane. Followed by "I though Vermont was friendly" and even "I thought Vermont was nice" while I was still trying to get her to understand that I didn't understand why she would choose to park behind us when there were open spots - not to mention it is a private lot where she had no right to be parked in in the first place.

It's funny. People give me a strange look when I comment that I'm more or less a misanthrope, but people like this and situations like this only prove that people are stupid and can only really be trusted to do the most selfish things in the end. I feel like I need to track her parents down and slap them silly then ask them if they feel comfortable having raised such a stupid child. Then find out which college she goes to so I can make sure I never recommend that anyone ever apply to a place that would accept such an idiot into their student body. Yet another case of entitlement strikes again.

If you are a parent, please teach your child/ren than they are not infact the only important people around and that they are not exempt from some common decency and that if they pull this kind of crap on me, I will lay into them like you apparently never did.

Firefox Lightweights

2008-06-24T11:48:00.003-04:00

Yeah, been a while since last post. That'll be fixed soon.
Anyway, Firefox 3 officially came out as the final stable release a couple weeks ago. I had been waiting MADLY for it for a long time. Seriously! My Firefox 2 would consistently, after being open for a couple days use up approaching 850 MB of memory. Almost a gig. That was a year ago or so. I got fed up and instead of reinstalling my system (come on, next to moving, I rate reinstalling my systems up there as the worst activities) I bought more ram. I jumped the lappy from 1GB to 2GB. I figured that would help. It sorta did, but frankly, it just gave the old FF2 extra headroom to pillage. Eventually, by late may, it would be eating up 1.2GB or memory.

In all this time, if I wanted to play a game (mainly Lord of the Rings Online - I'm usually Torband [Hobbit Burlgar] on the Elendilmir server, I have great screenshots to post) I'd shut down Firefox altogether to free up resources.

Blah blah blah. So FF3 came out and I was excited. I had already downlaoded beta 5 or so, but installed it seperately so I could maintain FF2 and just test. First, FF3 didn't seem to have a working version of the Session Manager etxtension. Errp. Game over. I live by that extension. You'll understand when I get to my point. The truth is that I believe it did at the time work, but I didn't dig deep enough or look properly. So I waited. I practically live in my web browser, so putting a beta in place is not my way any longer. I did back in the days. I would happily install the latest Netscape and Mozilla versions and jumped on Firefox as soon as it was publicly available. Anything to not us Internet Exploder.

Now I've had Firefox 3 installed for a couple weeks and have to say I like it and I'm happy. My system does run better now and my memory use is back down to something I'd consider acceptible. I just read a review on FF3 that isn't a bad one, but doesn't glow. I don't care about that. To each his/her own, really. What cought my eyes for real though was that he was commenting on running 4 tabs. Um... what's that? 4 Tabs???? What kind of web user is that? Am I really just way the hell out there? Let me explain. I currently have 37 Firefox windows open and a total count of 144 tabs. Yes, you read that right. 144 tabs. I believe the most I've had Firefox 3 take up memory-wise has been in the 550MB range. That's still a lot, but I'm also not a moron. I expect it will take a lot, but that's less than half of previous, and frankly, previously, I'd try to stay under 34 windows and about 130 tabs. I have noticed that CPU use is a bigger bottleneck, but my system still runs better with Firefox 3 than previously.

What's the real problem? All the jackasses who design web sites with unimportant java and flash content. All the tools who have to embed multiple youtube videos into the pages. I have some of those things on sites I make, but frankly, I'm just not like all the idiots on MySpace who actually think that using every tool at your disposal on your page makes you look cooler or like you know what the hell you're doing - because ... wait for it, you don't have a friggin clue. Just because there is more bandwidth doesn't mean every visitor wants your lame-ass example of design or layout. Ahem - I'm getting off topic.

I suppose the point of this was to point out that in my opinion, if your idea of surfing the web is having a couple windows open and a few tabs, you are in no position to really talk about the efficiency of th software. The original overhead of the software is always getting higher and higher. My first PC - an IBM PS/2 Model 55 - has (I still have it) a 40 megabyte drive. That's one long mp3 song and certainly couldn't fit most operating systems - barely even any modern linux distros. The fact that his 4 tab Firefox 3 experience chokes up 150MB of ram or so when my 37 window/144 tab instance is currently using **485,292KB (485MB) shows that is scales up well and has certainly solved the memory leak issue, and frankly, that's almost good enough a reason to upgrade.

In case you're still one of those people who are still using Internet Explorer, get over it and just get Firefox 3. I gain nothing from it other than one more person not being lazy and sticking with the default browser or M$ fanboy (only a little better than an Apple fanboy) who always claims "Microsoft just makes software that works" (hahavistahahaha). Of course, I also highly advocate to those Windows (and even OSX posers) out there with an extra machine or older laptop to install linux on it and give it a serious try. Try to not put it on an already broken system, because then you'll just blame linux and that's stupid.

**the memory useage will go up, and possibly down from time to time, but I've fun it for 5 day without a restart and it didn't go above 550MB or so.

Kindlicious

2008-05-04T19:36:00.004-04:00

So, yeah, I know, sometimes I could be like an marketing whore. Actually, that's not really the case. If I talk about a product, I must have a strong feeling about it. Usually it's games I think I even wrote some about books (and likely will plenty often later on). This time I'm just writing a little about my Kindle. If you've been under a rock for a while, or for some reason never go to Amazon's web site, you might not know what the Kindle is. The Kindle is an ebook reader. It's a new school one though. It uses e-ink, which is actually microcapsules of black particles that get rearranged to produce a sharp grayscale display. Its extremely low power requirement makes is great for displaying content that you could be staring at for hours on end, like a book.
Meh, you might know about other ebook readers, Cybook and the Sony Reader are other examples. I actually checked out the Sony Reader one night at Borders, which is what set it back into my mind to look into options. My luck usually sucks majorly, but sometimes serendipity just kicks in. The Kindle pretty much hit all the blogs and engadget type places where people drool over new technology and geek toys. I read up on it but wasn't sure. I put it out of my mind. Frankly, these devices are too damned expensive for most people to take seriously.
That said, I somehow, a few weeks ago, decided to do some more research on the Kindle. Reviews were all over the place, but because Amazon sold out pretty quickly from it's first batch in like January or February, very few people had actually touched them. In fact, I read a lot of very scathing reviews from people who never set a finger on one. I could understand the constant dissing of DRM - it makes me sick too - but dissing the usability of the device!?!? Come one people, get some lives. But when I research, I mostly read the 5 star reviews and the 1 star reviews. I like the polar opposites. I found I needed to concentrate on the 4 star reviews because there are some certain flaws with the device that kept a lot of people from giving a full 5 star rating. The 1 star reviews were mostly useful for laughs and cries.
So, the point. Yep, it's for reading books, but it also connects to the Sprint EVDO network (they call it the Whispernet). This allows for purchasing books directly from the unit, but also allows for basic web surfing. I can read my gmail, but some sites don't work right (such as Meebo.com for trying to do IM on it). This feature uses a lot more battery life, but it can be turned off with a hard switch on the back, next to the power switch.
It also play mp3 files. I think it's a cool feature, but I have an mp3 player for that. I used to want mega-multi-use gear, but have some to realize that unless you want to spend a lot of money, you get mediocre versions of each thing compiled into one device when you do that. The web on the Kindle is a little better than mediocre, but it's not the main focus - Whispernet as a content delivery method is though. Anyway, I might throw a long mp3 piece on there for background reading music, but I'm not really worried about it.

The look. It just looks good - reading the screen that is. The white shell is nothing to sing about, but it's plainness is akin to the tragedy that is Mac design. Boring. (Though Mac fanboys always claim it as a pinnacle of design - whatever, white, beige, silver-blue, whoop-de-doo.) Wherever you look for reviews, you'll see the same thing, likely, reading e-ink is easy. Just like a book it can be held at any angle and still be seen (obviously within reason). The text size can also be adjusted. I have perfect vision, so I'll be leaving it at the smallest size most of the time, but the largest size could make for coke bottle bottoms wearing people to read easily.
It remembers where you left off. I have been relatively randomly switching for book to book reading a bit here and there. When I got back to a book, It goes right back to where I left off. That is key for me. You can set up bookmarks as well. I haven't done that. You can annotate too. I haven't done that either, but I'm sue when I used more educationally inclined books, I'll mark it up some.
The device itself is almost exactly the same size as a standard DVD movie case - all dimensions. The reading screen is almost as wide and about 2/3 the height of a typical form factor paperback book. When you change font sizes, it repaginates the document. It sort of makes traditional page numbers useless, but has it's own "locations" system, which I have read is plenty fine for citation use.
If you let it sit, it'll go into a "screensaver" mode, which just shows some grayscale images. No page turnes happening, so battery life stays super low. Supposedly we should able to get a week or more from a single charge, without using Whispernet. I don't know, haven't tried to test the limits. When I take it to the White Mountains this summer, I'm hoping to have my solar USB charger fixed to being along. It will trickle charge from usb, I believe at about 1/4 the speed (says 2 hours to full charge on wall wart). You can turn the "screensaver" on and off at will, which is nice for acting like a lock screen mode so that the cats or someone else poking around doesn't accidentally activate one of the biggest complaints from users: the sensitive location of the page turn buttons. Yep, it IS relatively easy to changes pages forward by accident. Depending on how you hold it, you might need to intentionally adjust how you place your fingers or thumb in order to not hit either of the two next buttons of the single prev button, or the "back" button, which isn't "back a page" but "back a level", like back to the menu or something like that.

So, the price. Yup, $399!!! That's a lot of money. If you're the type who buys a lot of books though, it could pay for itself pretty quickly, as many books can be bought for about $9.99. However, if you like paperback novels, that's likely not much of a deal.
The good news is that you can download and convert books of all types (well... we'll see about that).
If you want to download some ebooks for free, here are some sites I've found:

eSnips- Pretty good searching but messy. It appears to link outside for some content, but does also seem to provide content/books that are NOT likely legal - as in, copyright violations. Frankly, I don't care. Paying for a paper book and then having to pay for the electronic version of it again annoys me. And yes, I think I should have access to mp3 versions of all the old hip hop cassettes I have.
wowio - I haven't spent much time, but they appear to have a cool collection of all free books and a good philosophy.
Manybooks - more free books
Project Guttenberg - a project for electronification of old texts and such by a large community of transcribers.
Baen Free Library - a for profit publisher that realizes that offering some free and complete content will build faith in, fans of and support for writers and their publishers. Read the introduction on the main library page (the link) - it's a lot like how I feel about the music business, though I feel it should go even farther.
... eh, you can do a search from here on. That list alone will net you serious results. Bit Torrent land has some stuff too, but beware, there's a LOT of PDFs, and converting PDFs to a format the Kindle will read is a craps shoot - the other serious flaw: no native PDF reading ability. They need to add that as a firmware upgrade.

So, you have content or downloaded a book that you want on the Kindle but it's not already in the PRC for AZW ebook format... now what? You can create a compatible file using Mobipocket Creator, which I believe is actually supported or something by Amazon. It's free. It's not the most incredible interface and doesn't allow easy customization (such as a simplified way to make a table of contents). Of course, you could also email your documents to "yourkindlename"@kindle.com and for ten cents per document to be sent right to your Kindle or @free.kindle.com for a free conversion that will be send back to your email address (as registered at Amazon. I tried to convert a document and it came back ok, but the equations and images in it kinda got in the way. Again, they need to work on the "experimental"-ness of that feature.

So, there ya go. A long review of the Amazon Kindle . I tried to say what matters, but I'm sure I left some thoughts out. I'm sure I can only keep your attention for so long anyway. As for the link to buy it above, hey, yeah, I'll make some change on it, but if I helped convince you to buy it, why not? :)

Of Mice and Money

2008-04-23T18:22:00.002-04:00

Strangest thing today. I went out to take the back wheel off the bike to remove the tire and check for defects and erosion on the rim. I had moved the bike to the back of the driveway, next to the garage that I have no access to. Moving around and dawdling, I look down and see a dead mouse and a dollar bill, right next to each other.

The rear tire has been leaking slowly for quite some time, a little bit before I put it to rest in December (2007). I decided I didn't want to keep checking it and pumping more air in it, especially since I'd be mostly using it starting at about 6:45am to head to school, after which it would likely have fallen from the 41 psi or so to about 25 psi. Not so good. Not so safe, and certainly not fuel efficient. So I was going to follow the advice of fellow VF500F owners and check to see if there was erosion on the rim where the bead seats. Well, as almost always is the case, working on the bike rarely goes smoothly and timely. So much for going for the bike ride I wanted to go on.
For crying out loud!

It took me about two hours to get the tire OFF the rim. What a pain in the ass that was. Nothing new, but I think I always forget how much a PITA is will be - "oh, it'll only take a few minutes". Stupid.

I get it off finally and sand around the bead area clean up the rim and check the tire for holes or cracks. After some more struggle, I get the tire back on the rim. If you've never changed a tire (not wheel) you might not know that it's not easy to do by hand - using tire irons - versus what an equipped shop would have for this very job.
I crank on the compressor and ready for the seating. It NEVER goes easy. I usually have to bounce the wheel around like a basketball to get the beads to at least move close enough to the seat area such that when I pump in the air, it actually pumps up the tire and doesn't just blow air out the openings.
Well, it didn't go well. It's only a 125 psi compressor, which would be more than fine if the bead set quicker, but noooooooo, never.
As I'm sitting there in the tiny little space at our front entry which doubles as a workshop, yelling and swearing at my wheel and my bad luck, I see something shiny.
WTF!?!
There it is. There was some metal thing sticking into my tire. I had to pry it out and all of about 12-13 mm of it were embedded into the tire.
Fuck!
Yeah, that figures. So, I sat there then laid back, angry, steaming quietly, wondering about how I'm gonna deal with this. I try to be self sufficient, but there are times I'm not equipped, and this appears to be one of them.

The tire can likely be repaired (as temporary as that's supposed to be), but for all intent and purposes, it's dead, like that mouse, and it's gonna cost me some money I didn't expect to have to spend, like that dollar bill.

I don't believe in "fate" or "omens" - they are as silly as religion/faith. But sometimes, the irony that life gives is a serious punch in the face.

Ready to Roll

2008-04-15T21:10:00.003-04:00

OK, only 3 more days will spring break. Man, I've been counting down the days for a little while, but not all that seriously. This week comes and for crying out loud, as expected, the kids are (some) worse than normal... some MUCH worse. Yeah, I know, that's what happens the week before spring break, but honestly, TRUST ME, if you saw how some of the kids were behaving today, you'd give me a shoulder massage. Well, not ACTUAL violence, but I felt like some was potentially gonna happen. One kid will be staying home tomorrow for (one) telling another student "why don't you kill yourself". That's screwed up.

The good, however, was that I got the pole vaulters in the air a little bit yesterday. They are sorely missing access to a proper pit, and therefore missing the opportunity to ACTUALLY vault. This is a screwed up situation. I'm waiting to hear back on some used mats and access to the UVM pit over spring break. First meet of the year tomorrow and supposedly the coach at the home school will let us use the pit to practice after the PV event is done. That would be cool... assuming my vaulters remember to bring some poles. Heh!

I got the bike ready a week and a half ago for the spring release and today I finally took it out. Re-riveted the right can first. Believe it or not, the bike started first try with only about a second of turnover... amazing!! I'd take it to work starting tomorrow, but I made an appointment to get a chip in the Civic's windshield fixed, then Thursday I need to pick Karen up fro work... so grrr... looks like Friday will be the first chance to take the bike to work. It better be a fucking nice day out... hehe, but I'm also guessing there will be more heating over the next two days so the ambient temperature might be up in the morning, which would be nice. It's still chilly in the morning.

So, I'm ready to roll - roll on into spring break, roll on over the crossbar, roll onto the streets and roll away from 12 stress inducing sperm byproducts for a week.

Aim for the sky

2008-04-06T22:11:00.002-04:00

Wanted to post a quickie I'll need to add to later when I have time... Westborough MA, Patriot Pole Vault Club coaches... young vaulters and eager coaches, together in the windy cold learning about vaulting, coaching vaulting and camaraderie. Well worth a 240 mile (each way) drive.

I think I'm back in the game... now to find some new pole vault mats to make the kit at school legal.

... again, more later.

Oh, and I got some LAAAAAAAME video footage. If I can get anything useful out of it, I'll see about posting it.

Look ma, no hands.

2008-03-09T19:41:00.002-04:00

So lately while playing DDR on the Wii I've been getting access to new "challengers" after scoring A's on certain songs. I looked into it and found info saying what amounted to it being too early for me to be getting them, having not completed more than ONE songs with an A in the difficult level - forget about expert. The tracks are "Super Samurai" and "tokyoEvolved" (I think, they could be "artist" names.. doesn't really matter to me at this point). They are pretty cool. Samurai is a neo hip hop thing... tokyo is a hyper pseudo-industrial-hardcore techno track. Both challenges are hard as hell, and frankly, I'm not ready for them.
So, I went to youtube to see if anyone posted some tips on how to get better at doing the complicated steps and such. I found people who aces these songs, yet interestingly, they all turn the hand motions off.
Say what!?!
Yeah, one main point of the Wii DDR is the use of hand motions, turning it off is lame and well, in my opinion, cheating. So, I'm certainly impressed with the scores, but they are leaving out an important part... I guess I'll have to reserve some judgment on their merits. Hey, I doubt I could score well yet without the hands anyway.

On that note, I can't condone when people post their amazing scores when the camera is pointing only at the TV or.... you can hear them hitting buttons on their controller instead of stomping on the DDR pad. For real... what are you bragging about?

I'll set up a cam one of these days to capture me my attempts at DDR superstardom. They'll be real and honest... and hopefully I don't have to censor my rage attacks when stuff doesn't work.

If we put you there, don't screw us!

2008-03-04T00:18:00.003-05:00

In less than 14 hours I'll be going to vote, primarily in the Democratic primary, but also for local stuff - school board, councilors, permission to explore a re purposing of a dilapidated local landmark.

Over the last few years, I've been looking forward to this election cycle in a massive way. Brattleboro (I believe) Vermont is putting on their ballot a vote for whether to indict W if he sets foot in their jurisdiction. I wish Burlington had the same thing. I think back 3 year and then 7 years and I have to believe that more and more of those people who voted for that scumbag realize they royally screwed up and royally hosed America in the act. The least patriotic people I could imagine - those who unquestionably supported this criminal over and over.

So, now I'm expecting the tide to turn and a democrat to take over the White House - and coupled with the Democratic majority in the House and Senate a reclaiming of what's important for the success of the country, and not just rich people, oil men, libertarians and poor people who actually believe that making their bosses wealthy will trickle down. Um, watch the movie "Idiocracy". The only thing that appears to be trickling down is brain damage resembling lack of foresight and common sense.

That said, if/when a Democrat recovers the White House, s(he) better not fuck it up. I swear, unlike Repugs, we need to hold our elected officials accountable. No more bullshit like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Obviously, as recently stated, I'm voting for Barack Obama. I have a feeling he's representing more of what he'll actually do an less of what we just want to hear. I hate people who are happy to have politicians say what "we want to hear" and forget that "show and prove" is more important.

DDRdict or Dance Dance Ragealution

2008-02-28T22:18:00.002-05:00

As previously noted here, I have the DDR for the Wii. It's amazingly fun and a great workout. When I'm not sick or overly tired, I try to get in an hour most days and days where Karen isn't around for an extended time and I'd want to play, I go for more. This morning I played for around 2 hours. I also got my heart rate monitor watch in the mail yesterday, so I put it on and tested it out while playing. Before I accidentally stopped the "exercise mode", which monitors my heart rate range as I go and the calories burned, it was about 750 calories. I do tend to try to stick to the faster/high foot rate songs, but that sounds high. however, 1.5 hours of counting, I guess it would make sense. I wasn't tired like during my fitquest hour long runs, but it was good. So if it is as reliable as I'd guess it's price and reputation would signify... well, yay.

However, have you fricken played it? How about DDR anywhere? There is beginner, basic, difficult and expert modes. Beginner really (for me) is about getting used to how it works and getting used to the steps/pad placement. The Wii version uses the Wiimote and 'chuck for doing hand motions, which are essentially punching at the air. More on that in a bit. Well, the difficulty jump from basic to difficult is ridiculous. No exaggeration what-so-ever. I can kick pretty good ass on most all the songs on basic level, but as soon as I kick it up to difficult, boo-yaa. MY ass stomped on the floor. When my neighbor downstairs is home, I wouldn't even try, as I know I stomp on the floor a lot, hopping around like the pad was hot coals and my feet were made of tissue. I'm honestly lucky to have a few good measure, but it has lots of combination steps that I can't fathom yet. Massive hats off to those who can do it. I'm sure I'll get there, but I imagine it'll be a while. I realized that some songs' difficult are only a level harder than some basics, so I should focus on them until I get some of the techniques.

As for the hand thing. Fer feck sake! Touchy. Countless times I have had a chance to have a complete combo - meaning I don't miss any steps - and a hand movement suddenly doesn't get registered. I think I have the secret to getting it and then I'm only proven wrong. PAINFUL and aggravating. Yep, to the point of rage sometimes. I start swearing at the game and yelling. Really, I should be embarrassed, but I guess I'm at home, so it should be ok, though is bothers Karen like mad.

And that leads to the DDRdict... this game is addicting to a perfectionist. I want to beat the songs, beat the challenges and beat myself. This morning I tried again for the last (that I know of) challenge in the challenge stage (I really hope there are more when I finish it - ready to be unlocked). The song is nice and not too fast, but for crying out loud. The missed hand motion or a misplaced step kept ruining it. I needed a 50 combo and to beat the master in that stage. I got a 49 and a 48 and a bunch of lower. At one point though I was messing up on the hand thing within the first 8 steps... and I got pissed and sat the rest of the song out, pouting like a child.
I kept telling myself "ok, this is the last time", "no, this is definitely the last time" and on and on. Pathetic. I did the same song/challenge at least 10 times. I just have to beat it. Finally I just said screw it, I must be tired (I was a little) and took off the chest band - for the heart rate monitor - which meant I was done. Hehehe. I folded up the mat and proceeded to putter around a bit before trying out the P90X Ab Ripper X video - uhhhh... ouch! More on that some other day, I'm sure.

Vacation is nice. Now if only I had more days where I could just do what I want without worrying about bothering Karen (or ignoring) - though she does DDR with me most of the time. Tomorrow, LotRO using a projector on a big wall. Should be fun.

Yes I can, yes I will

2008-02-03T20:48:00.000-05:00

A couple posts ago I commented on a slight hesitation to fully throw my support behind Barack Obama. It had nothing to with the man's politics, but more to do with how he's still so much like them all and a teeny tiny fear of winability. I just read, this morning, about his stance on gay marriage. I didn't do my due diligence previously. The fact is, the primary 5 remaining candidates (Obama, Clinton, Huckabee, Romney and McCain), not one of them supports gay marriage. I find it ridiculous, but at this point in time, it's one issue I have to set aside. I'm not gay, it won't effect me, but it does effect me. He's still a xian, which is a given in US politics these days, so again, I have to suck it up.

Going around is a "music video" produced by will.i.am (or the Black Eyed Peas) created using an Obama speech. It's filled with tons of celebs throwing their voices and support behind the Big-O. I missed the speech originally - I tire of some of the political speak when it's more or less "preaching to the choir". It is very inspiring and has given me the final nudge to say:
"Iamchrismoran", aka Chris Moran of Burlington Vermont, T-Snake of Crossfade Records and Torbrand of the Shire (hehehe, LotRO reference) support and endorse Barack Obama for the office of the President of the United States of America. May the Bush taint never stain this country again. I guess now I have to think about using the bumper sticker I got this past summer when downtown with Karen. We stopped at the Obama table and I said, "I'd like to take one. I haven't made up my mind yet, but just in case, I'd like to be ready." I am ready! Yes I can, yes I will. Yes we can, yes we will.

+100%

2008-01-13T23:12:00.000-05:00

So I commute to work about 48 miles each way. Hay, I don't like it. The idea of being a commuter sickens me, but frankly, good jobs are scarce, and teaching jobs are few and far between in today's climate.
Our budget is getting hit like mad because of this. It's been angering me to see $3.15+ gas prices and I've just started to remember things form the past, like President George "fucking lying scumbag piece of shit" W. Bush telling us that his glorious war was going to find lower gas prices. Am I the only one who remembers this? I can't find a reference in a quick google search, but I swear there was at least a line or two in his war declaration (I have it recorded somewhere, I guess I should check it out) about how destroying Iraq will make gas prices go down for US citizens.

Anyway, it did make me think about how much we have been paying and finally - after weeks of meaning to do it - look up the stats. This site lets you chart the gas price trends in Vermont, but only as far back as 6 years. That, however, is not too bad. 2/24/2002 appears to be around $1.40. Today, at least $3.15 and climbing. Hmmm..... that MORE THAN DOUBLING in price in only 6 years. How fucked is that? The chart shows a nasty spike in August of 2005 and a cooling off in Q3/2006. But in the last year - a DOLLAR per gallon increase. The D.O.E. has a chart showing what I'm guessing are national averages since a long time ago. I wanted to know what it was like in 1998, before I got married. The wife and I both walked to work back then and only drove for shopping and visiting family. $1.06!

Did you miss that? $1.10! That's nearly 1/3 of what we are paying now, and certainly will be LESS than 1/3 of what we will be paying this summer I'm guessing. Their chart kindly converts the prices into "real" prices, which accounts for inflationary prices. Actual average was $1.06, according to the chart. Worst yet is that since 2001, the "real" price is lower than the "nominal". I'm no economist, but I'm pretty sure that represents the US Dollar falling into the shitter over that time. $2.59 was only really worth $2.23. Der! No one here is surprised to find that not only are we paying more for necessities, but even the value of them is dropping.

Why the fuck this fuck-tard president isn't heading to prison for shitting on the country, I don't know. This man has got to be the WORST president in our history and he's too fucking stupid to even know it.

My new gig as a teacher has luckily paid me more than I was getting after 8 years at UVM, but so much of that is getting sucked away in the nearly $5 per day fuel cost to get there, and it's killing me. Even riding my motorcycle isn't looking like the fuel saving option any longer.

During Bill Clinton's run as Commander in Chief, prices were in check. We had wars during his terms. But as soon as big oil man W got in the throne, it nearly immediately started to go up, and up and up and up. Fluctuations happened, but it was consistently more than anytime since 1985 (in "real" dollars").

Don't get me wrong. This is a good thing in that it's forcing people to re-evaluate their fuel consumption practices, but as I'm sure you see, it's not stopping asswipes from buying Hummers or other large SUVs. Not even close. This weekend I did see a news blurb about how the sales of hybrids is going up (something like by 60%) and SUV sales are going down (but only by 12% or so), but really. For every Hummer out there, you likely need to buy 10 Priuses to make up for it. When we went looking for our first new car, the Honda Civic Hybrid is really what I wanted, but at the time (forgot the year), it was $5000 more than the Civic and came with less of the things I wanted. Hell, if it had just the sun/moon roof, I'd have likely jumped at it. I have to assume the modern Prius and more are more ammenity oriented, but the last car we got was for bad weather travel fears, a Subaru. It does the job, but frankly, it's a lackluster car, even at the
high trim level. So, when our Civic EX dies - likely soon, since we just got the title from the bank - I'm hoping we look at an alternative fuel option more seriously.

Until then, just over a year until President Fuck-Up moves the fuck out of the Whitehouse and perhaps we have a chance to fix all of his fuck-ups. Personally, I hope he dies on his way out the door. Yeah, I said it.

Big O

2008-01-03T23:00:00.000-05:00

So the news just said that Barack Obama just won the Iowa primary. Cool!

For weeks I've been struggling with my candidate support options. I almost wrote an entry here to fully support Obama, but I still struggled. At the time - about a month and a half ago - it was really between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The true struggle? They are all happily outwardly Christian. Not that I will be able to vote for a winnable candidate who isn't, but I'm really tired of the christ-pandering. That said, they are at least progressive when compared to the repugnicans running for the executive seat.

So I didn't type out my endorsement. I still like Kucinich and Richardson. I think they are more honest and likely reliable and quite more likely to be less likely to pander to religious nutters. But those are traits that don't get people elected in today's U.S.A.. I also like John Edwards. In fact, I like him more than Hillary. Don't get me wrong, I'd happily support another Bill Clinton term (hehehe) but they are really part of the problem. She's just in too deep. Edwards may be a lawyer and likely wearing snake skin, but I seem to trust him. THAT said, we've GOT to admit, it's time to have a president who isn't from the South.

I'm not officially sticking my name behind anyone specifically right this second, but I'm very happy to see that Obama has taken a big step forward. He's the one I feel will actually make a CHANGE at the top - though frankly, would it even be possible to elect another fuck-tard like George W. Bush again? Well, we the evangelical xian movement continues to prove, you can't idiot proof politics as the idiots get better and better - and not in a good way. Huckabee... you seem like a nice person, but you're still a fucking wackjob lunatic like all the wack-job lunatics who you (used to) preach to.

And if this is any indication of who's running for the top job, then in all reality, we're all screwed no matter, since Gravel and Kucinich are the only two who are operating in what I would consider the most important quadrant. For the lazy, I've included just the graphical story.For the record, I'm much more left and a little more south of Gravel (L/R: -8.25, L/A: -3.79)

WiiiiiiiDDR

2007-12-22T17:08:00.000-05:00

Much thanks to my bro and his wifey and the rugrat for the Wii DDR system for solstice gifts. Woot!!My wife and I are already rockin to it (they left only a little while ago) and I've got a great sweat going on. The music for DDR Hottest Dance Pary is a decent selection. I'm sure more tracks will open up, but for now, I can't complain, especially with a few happy hardcore speed tracks mixed with some slower ones that Karen can groove to that require a little less coordination (sorry hun ;) ).

I'm so very happy.

Anyway, first post here in a while, so I'm glad to have a nice one before I post a few upcoming ones that will be a little less than nice.

Craack, ungh, splrsh, shuullllll

2007-11-10T17:15:00.000-05:00

The title represents my onomatopoeia representation of the glorious sounds of death that can be found in Manhunt 2. If you don't know what Manhunt 2 is... um, wake up and smell the geek coffee. ;) Err... well, I didn't know until a couple months ago. I was checking out some trailer on youtube and saw sidebar videos with trailers and other captures from Manhunt (1, but before there was a 2, it was just Manhunt I'm sure - naahtahmean?). I watched and was shocked and in love. The main character sneaking up on peeps and murdering them in such brutal and violent ways that I didn't know that kind of violence got on video games. Whew. Then I read a comment about Manhunt 2 and its being banned in the UK... I had to check that out. Sure enough, it was banned because of was given an AO rating - that's Adults Only for the newbs. My response. "And?" Adults Only!! Now, if only parents would get their shit together and shops wouldn't cave in, then kids would not have such easy access to games and adults could actually have some adult only gaming fun without nosey fucks interfering. So, as a cop out Rockstar Games made changes to the game to make it M rated (that's Mature to the newbs). Have to be 17 or older to buy, versus the 18 or older for AO. I'm fricken 35 and I'm relatively well-adjusted, who the hell are they to tell me what I can play? Urgh. That pisses me off.

Anyway, I bought the game anyway... I want brutality. It's damn fantasy. It's not real and my mind is not going to act on it. I know for a fact that kids do act on their game training. I teach kids who are playing some games that frankly their parents should be slapped for letting them play. I love Grand Theft Auto, but a 13 year old kid should not be playing it. A married, well educated, average Joe isn't the issue. So I'm playing the game, a few hours of play time - hey it's a hard game for this guy - and I've seen the changes. The execution scenes have been altered (as the word on the net is) such that they are all washed in a red tint and blurred, covering so much of the detail that's it's really mostly hinted violence. I'm actually pissed and offended by it, but I still enjoy the game. Rockstar sold out. The game would still sell like mad if they kept the AO version, frankly the difference between 17+ and 18+ is a little silly. I realize M is like an rating from the MPAA (don't even get me started on that terrorist organization) and thus AO is meant to be like X (or XXX since X was done away with so that a triple-x rating could seem worse) and I'm fine with that, but why on earth does that really cause releases to fail? Ok, I realize a lot of adults would feel weird walking into a store to buy real pr0n (not that bullshit tease softcore crap you find on old-school skinemax), but I guess that's a whole different topic.

Blah, I'm ranting and rambling.

There's apparently a version floating around in torrent land that is the uncensored release, but I only saw info on the PS3 version... and even if there was one for the Wii, I'd not hack my Wii just to be able to do it. When I first put Metroid Prime 3 Corruption Wii in my system, it said it was installing something that warned that if I had done any modifications to my system, it might stop working. Yikes!

So, tonight I believe SNL isn't new since the TV writer's strike is still on, I'm hoping the wife won't mind if I play some more. Hahaha, she'll likely need to go to bed first though. When I first put the game in the night I got it, to just check it out, I had the option of a little tutorial on how to use the Wiimote and Nunchuk... it just had me move the parts in ways to cause thing happen - uh, yeah - but the sounds were obvious. The sounds of crunching or bones and popping body parts causing blood splatter. The sound really bothered her. It cracked me up. You could see what appeared to be blood splatter on the screen, slowly dripping, but it was dark. In any event, she's an audibly annoyed person. It did not set well. Thankfully the headphones have a long cable.

Other than the annoying censorship of the game, I despise that they ignored lefties. I have to have the Wiimote in my right hand because all the primary weapons end up in that one. Damnit, I'm a lefty, I should have the options of switching, even if only because it's a lot harder for me to control certain actions with my right hand. What idiot forgot about something as simple as that???

Still... great game that will provide hours and hours of brutal, bloody, mental violent fun. And some of my students had the gall to call me square last year.

Dumbldore is gay... and some people are just assholes

2007-10-26T08:32:00.000-04:00

Perhaps it was intentionally not "big news", but I mostly only caught that Harry Potter author JK Rowling announced that Hogwarts headmaster Professor Albus Dumbledore was gay by chance listen on the news. I was shocked at the announcement, but frankly, after reading Deathly Hallows, who is really shocked about the fact??? For real. As a young wizard he totally had a boy-love relationship with Grindelwald. My only disappointment is that there wasn't a better hint. No need to explicitly state it, as it really had no bearing on the story, but I had a feeling and it would have been cool to have just a tiny hint more to make a better educated guess. But so fargin what? I still found the book amazing and will forever be happy I was pushed into reading the series. Bravo JK.

The second after I heard the news, I knew for a fact that the ignorant masses that are homophobes would freak out about it. Boy did they. I'm looking right now at the comments section to a posted article at The Leaky Cauldron where I see lots of support, but lots of ignorance and homophobia.

To bring things closer to home... I have played the Harry Potter Trading Card Game for years. Actually, I've had it for years, but rarely play. It's a fun game though. I joined a Yahoo! group for players of it and have gotten some info and advice from the list. It's a low traffic group, but still served its purpose. This morning however, the original creator of the group sent this final message to the group:

Due to Rowling's decision to turn HP into a series for homosexual
propaganda, making the series unsafe for children, this group is being
shut down.

Um, you asshole! I realize she created the group, but in the real world, if a group thrives even without the direction of the creator of the group, who is the creator to destroy it? Especially since the server is was supported by was not hers.

In any event, I was shocked to see such an abrupt message and that when I went to check if the group was still there, it was already gone, so she really did kill it off quickly. I'm honestly guessing she wanted to hurt it by making sure we couldn't easily get the member list so if a new group would be created, the previous members could be directly invited. So I responded to her in a not nice way - screw it, homophobes are not deserving of respect when they do something specifically to make negative issue of homosexuals - and then wrote to one of the group members who is much a group leader. Another person already started a new one and he was added as a co-owner (a good idea BTW, in case someone flips out - I got booted off the LG-V6000 group because I made a comment about the group creator making some religious comments) so he invited me.

I was in the car going out to lunch with my mom a few years ago, possibly even 6 or so. She had the radio on a Christian talk show. They happened to be talking about how evil Harry Potter books were and how kids should not be allowed to read them; they should be removed from school, and all that stuff. I asked what my mom felt about it (being an evangelical xian) and she didn't really have an opinion. I don't recall too much more, other than stating the positive the books have done even to get more kids reading (statistically debatable from what I've heard) and questioning if she had a problem with The Lord of the Rings -something she knew I had had interest in strongly for a very long time. She hadn't formed an opinion. As of last year, I'm certain her opinion was aligned with the rest of the religious zealots. It's a shame. She even talked my dad out of wanting to see Order of the Phoenix at the drive in. Eh, what can I say. The point is, the wingnut fervor died down for a while, or at least wimpered, and now they are at it again - and it has hit my inbox yet again.

So yeah, Dumbledore is gay. It's cool, and it's not... it just is. Being an asshole is a choice, however.

Short winded power

2007-10-15T22:51:00.000-04:00

I hate the blogger doesn't have a trackback feature. Gr.
Anyway, just ran into this ditty:
Windbelt, Cheap Generator Alternative, Set to Power Third World

This is kick ass. Of course they don't tell us how to make the low wind generator. What annoys me though is that all these ideas are always "for third world countries"... um, hello? We can all use renewable energy sources. How about making it cheap and easy on the home front (assuming "home front" means the US to you as well). My porch gets all kinds of winds that would make a few of these babies rock (or hum I suppose), so since I live in a developed country where a bunch of eejits drive Hummers, I'm not targeted for energy saving options. I want off the grid.

One day, when I have a mouse with a workshop, I swear, I'll put all this info to use.

update:
I followed a link by a commenter on the above page and viola, an idea I came up with independently a couple years ago... well, very similar.
Micro Wind Turbines
My actual ideas revolved more around the idea of having a bunch of pinwheels. I think that's what they're called, I'm too lazy to look it up. Basically small light aluminum or paper wheels on sticks that kids blow into or let the wind blow into to spin. I wall of those on my porch would look kinda neat and likely not sound any more disturbing to neighbors than the wind chimes on others' porches.

Cough cough cough

2007-10-12T08:51:00.000-04:00

Burlington city counselor Ed Adrian has proposed that Burlington's Church Street Marketplace be smoke free. This is something that for years I've been hoping someone would do. Yeah, I guess I should be someone who tried to get this going, but not being a politician and having to earn a living get in the way of all the social causes I would like to get into.

Anyway, I was going to let the issue rest in the hands of the counsel and others who could make it to open meetings, but then my local list had people who were actually sticking up for smokers violating our lung freely downtown. I couldn't resist... had to write to the list:

If I had a spray bottle with arsenic in it and I sprayed people with it downtown, I'd be arrested. If I spit on someone, I'd possibly be arrested. If I hit someone, I'd be arrested. So why is it that a smoker's right to put their poisonous cloud into my lungs is so often defended by smokers and non-smokers alike? Does seriously believe that people who smoke around others are not doing harm? Still?

I'm also sick of the "the government is always trying to protect us from ourselves" argument. That's shortsighted at best. How about protecting children from you? We're at the point of arresting child predators just moments after the [thought] crosses their mind to offend, but a smoker can directly pollute every child's lungs around them with impunity.
And step a few feet away from the smokers? Why? I suppose if you can't move away from my fist fast enough then it's your own fault if you get hurt, right?

Just Church St.?!?! Be happy it's not being pushed all over the outdoors. When I go running on the *bike path* - you know, sort of an epitome of where to try to be healthy - there are people smoking. Nothing like the smoke and related chemicals burning my lungs when I'm gasping for air as it is, or having to hold my breath til I nearly lose it.

We've had no less than two smokers living in our apartment building whose smoke and odor seeped into our entire apartment.

I have never smoked in my life, but I grew up with smokers around me, so I believe I'm paying much the same price with my own respiratory problems.

No, sympathy for smoker's rights just doesn't make any sense when it amounts to allowing them to choose to poison others.

I believe that smokers are specifically committing acts of assault on others when their smoke interferes with them in any way.

So, as I always do, I write a long winded response to issues that matter to me. And now it's here.
I decided to not attack the same counselor on his intent to support lowering the drinking age at UVM to 18. How friggin stupid is that? For another time.

School mugg

2007-09-23T18:19:00.001-04:00

I haven't had a school picture taking in a very long time. Actually, that's a lie. I had one taken last year, but they didn't offer a comp package of pix I could actually see and I didn't buy the yearbook (might still get a left over one though). Oh, I'm still lying, I had to get a new picture for my ID at UVM this summer. Man, I'm just full of lies aren't I? Well, the point is that I have an actual useful picture of myself that is up to date... and frankly, I think shows the weight loss I've accomplished in the last 5 months.
The scanner did a crap job, so I had to correct it like mad, and sadly, they didn't do any other "corrections", ahem, so I did them too. Not a bad picture. I haven't compared it to my previous pictures, but my face is definitely thinner. Yay! Now I'm waiting for my new school ID with this picture. Who knows when. This package came pretty quickly. The wife's school hasn't even done picture day yet.
I'm relatively sure I'm violating some copyright issues by scanning and posting this picture, but I don't care. I didn't ASK for the package, it was offered. I didn't sign anything, I figure, it's me, I own me, so if someone captures me on film, I reserve the right of reuse of those images. I somehow doubt they'll come after me though. They seemed cooler than the previous photojocks that did the school picture service... who didn't offer teachers squat - not even the option to buy a set of pictures. Sheesh.

Indigestible maze

2007-09-23T17:43:00.000-04:00

Last night, even though I still have a cold and the wife still have lingering symptoms, we went to the Great Vermont Corn Maze. We go at night because it's just more fun being lost in the dark. ;)
We;ve gone for the last few year, I think 4 of them counting this year. The sign at it even says to expect it to take at least an hour and a half. Rob and Nicole took about that long, but they always finish quicker than we do. However, it took us about two hours, and we asked for more help than I am personally comfortable with asking for (from the employees). However, I feel like the maze was much too complicated this year, or worse yet... too many loops. Way too many loops! It's still a lot of fun. Errr... actually, after about an hour I realized I was becoming dehydrated and a little light-headed, so I was getting as little nervous about that. We were caught in a couple spots where I wondered how long it would be for someone to find me if I just fell. Hehe... exciting!

This is the Google Maps location for it. The detail is lame, obviously... but that bigger patch field is where (I believe) the maze actually is.

View Larger Map

I do try to get the post card for it each year so I can actually see the maze from above. We can sometimes figure out some of the places we got lost (or just highly annoyed). So, for your enjoyment, I'm posting the postcard for this year. It might be a spoiler, but I think they aren't doing any more night mazes with this one (only day time??), so you've been warned, try to blur your eyes if you plan on heading to Danville Vermont for this year's maze. And if you want to see some more detail, click through.

The downside... we might not go back. $9 per adult!! Yes, $9. Cheaper than a movie, it turns out, but frankly, we're a little baffled by how they chose to raise the price so high recently. They've got to be making a killing on it. I bet a lot of the workers are family volunteers (or getting some bonding time) for the few evenings they do it, but that's what "farming life is about" isn't it? Anyway, like everyone else who have a local yokel niche, they always feel justified in upping the cost to locals in the name of "spend your money locally", and we eat it up. For $7.50 a person we can go to the drivein for 2 current run movies bringing our own food. Oh well, I'm sure next year we'll go anyway, and they are relying on that. It is seriously good frustrating fun and they do a great job. Just keep us financially struggling folk in mind.

Big Bright Ball, Bantam Bright Bike

2007-09-20T08:12:00.000-04:00

So the last few days I've made a point of riding the motorcycle to work. The mornings are colder (and getting colder) but the afternoons are too nice to pass up the opportunity to take two wheels for the commute home.

First the ugly. About half way into the ride, I'm cold. I can't afford (or am wary of spending the money right now) gloves that are better insulated (and waterproof), so I wear some leather winter gloves, which are good until a certain point - usually about 25-30 miles into the commute. Also around 30 miles into the commute I hit pea soup. The news says it straight up: "Visibility of 10 (I'm assuming miles) in Burlington, visibility of 0 in Montpelier", which means visibility of 0 in Barre, since it is basically a soup bowl. This, of course, scares the wife, so I don't bother telling any more when I'm kissing her goodbye for the day that the weatherman has declared that I shan't be capable of seeing anything. Hahaha. Ahem!

The truth is, I can see enough, but obviously the concern is about them seeing me. You know, them are the morons who even though the conditions are sketchy, they are still chatting (or texting) on their phones while driving, or worse, just really too stupid to be on the road at all... they types that I run into (not literally) at least once every other day that nearly pull over into me as I'm passing or cut me off short after they pass me. They are a concern, but I'm aware and constantly vigilant.

That leads to the title of the entry.
Big bright ball is the sun. Traveling south from Burlington to around Richmond the sun has been huge and glaring down on me. Yesterday and the day before the sun was nearly blinding, so I was looking mostly down at the road. Today, however, the sun was even larger, but something in the sky (pollution?) made it less powerful and it looked awesome. I could watch it and at a few times, as usual, I wished I had a head mounted camera for taking some killer pix. Oh well, another project to work on when I finish learning electronics... yes, too many things.

Bantam bright bike refers to my bike (bantam as an adjective, though it's not really diminutive -unless you compare it to the sun :) ) and its new bright orange paint job. So as I peak some of the I89 hills, I should be like the sun. Nice. The chuckelheads wouldn't accidentally cut of the sun would they? I'm the brightest thing on the road, man! Seriously, I see mostly stock like colored bikes in the morning, Suzuki blues, HD and other cruisers in typical black and some Honda reds, but nothing nearly as bright as my orange. No excuses.

So, after school I'll head back home and be just another thing in the nice bright sun of the afternoon, but that sun will make the sparklies in the paint job twinkle - I like that. Though the bike really needs to be washed and waxed again.

Strings of Ineptitude

2007-09-06T21:33:00.000-04:00

I had my first violin lesson today in two weeks. Since the last lesson I have just not had time to put in proper practice... and frankly, it shows. I'm embarrassed when I struggle on some of the things I do when I'm working with Julia. I'm only a few months into this, but still I feel like I should be better than I am, and I'm positive my wall is my lack of regular daily practice. I don't know how adults do this. I've found that I have a choice when I get home from work... I can workout or I can practice violin. The working out is important because it's working. My weight is getting back under control and I'm feeling like I will get to my goal. But I chose to learn violin because I want to be good at it. I love the violin. When I am playing well (it does happen from time to time) I'm happy and excited and everything looks positive, so it's not like I'm torturing myself.

Sadly, so often I get home too tired for either. I still try to get the run in though because trying to learn violin when I want to sleep is bad, running...well, I lose all choice in the matter when I'm pounding the pavement for an hour or so.

I leave my lesson sometimes just hoping that she doesn't feel like I'm wasting her time. Sure, I'm paying for it, but still. I don't even know where I should be skill-wise by now. Perhaps I'm over criticizing myself, or perhaps I truly am just too lazy to get my ass to the level of ability I should be at. They say, all over the place, to not expect to actually be good for at least a couple year. I just can't let myself believe there's any one thing that takes two years to just be competent at. I tend top pick thing up quickly... though I also tend to pick up too many things quickly.

She did recommend a couple sheet music books to get that have more familiar and interesting pieces to play. We'll see. Right now it might be a little more money that I should spend, but I'll look up the prices. She also loaned me a book. Maybe I'll scan some pages so I can get it back to her right away.

The good news is that even though I have some serious struggles, I am still ever so happy I've taken up this challenge.

Children of Hurin

2007-09-03T22:08:00.000-04:00

I finally finished reading Children of Hurin this evening. Wow. If you're a Tolkien fan, I would have to say you can't pass this one up. I read the Silmarillian a while ago, but don't recall this story specifically. This book, released back in May or so (I ordered it relatively soon after release) is a more complete telling of the tale of the tragic life of mostly Turin, son of Hurin, a lord of Dor-lomin, tucked in the north-west of the land of Beleriand, which is west of the Grey Havens (where the Elves of the fourth age travel to leave the land of Middle-Earth of The Lord of the Rings tale***). Anyway, the story. Hurin is captured by Morgoth and tale is that he's kept alive, but that his kin will be forever cursed. Oh boy, he's not kidding. One of my "labels" for this blog is "Murphy's Law" because that's a great label for much of my life... stuff just always goes wrong. Enter Turin and I have found kin of the misfortuned like rarely before. That said, you might find yourself wondering if you love Turin or hate Turin. I did. I felt it all. The book follows him from childhood, being hidden from his homeland in the hidden city of Elves (in case you didn't know, the Elves aren't particularly loving toward men) into adulthood and being a leader in all ways. Turin is a brat, a hero, a whiner, a leader, a master, an ill-omen - he covers the full range of why Elfkind doesn't trust mankind.

A serious tragic twist happens later that even caused me to drop my jaw (though I wasn't really shocked, half expecting it about half a chapter or more earlier) and say "holy crap". There were a few parts of this story that made me smile, but mostly it was sad and left me feeling loss. I loved it.

I would say it's a relatively short book, but since I'm a slow reader, it was long enough. I bet an average reader could finish this in a few sittings. It was written in a way that was easier to read than Silmarillion, but was still written much like JRRT's other books, with strange linguistic wording and descriptions, but that's part of what I've always liked about reading Tolkien. It does make me want to pull out Silmarillion again and do a re-read, but I still have The Lord of the Rings sitting with a bookmark waiting for another re-read, along with other books. We'll see about that. For now, it's just another thing to invigorate my want to get back to playing Lord of the Rings Online (I have a lifetime subscription to the game, so referral payoffs don't benefit me, but you could contact me if you know me and if you hook up through my referral, their site says you can get in on the same founder pricing options I had, $199 lifetime or $9.99/month).

***Update: 9/6/7: Um, yeah, I felt a little uncertain and stupid when I posted some info above (the ***). I was uncertain about the compared location of Beleriand versus "Middle-earth" as we know them from tLotR. So, being the slight perfectionist I am, and not wanting to look stupid, I did some research. See, I've read the Silmarillion, but it's been a while, and apparently many people are confused about this, so on The Encyclopedia of Arda site, specifically Where in Middle-earth was Beleriand? they have the answer... though you still need to sorta figure more out. I actually had to pull out my Silmarillion book (1st American Edition/printing) with its large map in the back to compare thing. The end result, Beleriand was mostly destroyed, or more it's west coast in "The War"... thanks Morgoth. So an eastern mountain border of Beleriand is now the western most mountain range in Middle-earth (Ered Luin), but the Third Age. I'd need to refresh my memory (or ask a Tolkien expert friend of mine) where exactly the Elves (and Bilbo, Gandalf and Frodo end going) leave for specifically when they leave the Grey Havens. This is why these books warrant re-reads. So much information. I love it.

Monster play

2007-09-02T01:41:00.000-04:00

It's hard to find time to play, but I'm still loving playing Lord of the Rings Online. I sneak in a few hours here and there. Long weekends (like this - Labor Day Weekend) make it a little easier, I just play on Saturday night. Tonight (actually, that would have been a couple hours ago to be Saturday) I played for a little bit. When I logged in I saw the option to play in Monster Play mode. I knew I'd be able to eventually, but last time I played that option was not selectable. I don't know too much about it, but I knew it'd be cool to try out, so I selected it.

You have the choice between 4 monsters or so... maybe it was 5. Thee appears to be two Uruk-hai options, a leader and an archer, a spider, and a couple others... I forgot already. I selected an Uruk-hai archer dude, see picture to the right. His name is Akulnakh. I gave him a surname, but
off hand I can't remember it. Whoopee really, it doesn't matter. Unlike player characters, you don't get to customize the monsters. No biggie. The truth is, I was not too impressed with that monster play. It seemed like I had to travel far too much to accomplish quests, but I
also didn't select a bunch off hand. This picture was taken before I had received around a total of 10 quests. I only finished two of them, and not even finished. I started them, I guess you could say.

After playing for about an hour with him, I logged out and went back in as Torbrand, my hobbit burglar. He's the main character I play with, and since he's only up to level 14 by now, it shows how little I actually play. The good news is that as long as this game stays alive, I'm likely good for a very long time - and my lifetime subscription will indeed be worthwhile. Anyway, I wasn't interested in playing him tonight, I primarily wanted to log him in to get a couple pix. Both are taken in Budgeford, where I last time I ended play after my first two fellowship quests. I'm more in this game to play alone... that's my style, but it just so happened by great luck that two different people were searching for fellowships for the exact quests I wanted to complete. It worked out just great... hey, perhaps I should have taken a group picture, hehehehe. Anyway, the first pic is of Torbrand (in the beta I called him Brand - like my Halfling Rogue in D&D - but someone beat me to the punch to get the name in the final release) flexing in front of some random hobbit habitat. The second is pulled back a bit... he's waving hellow to you. I tried to get him to yawn, but it didn't work for some reason... the yawn would match how tired I am right now - as soon as I'm done writing this entry, I'm going to bed.

If you happen to be a LotRO player, in the first server on the list (see, I don't pay a lot of attention, I think it starts with E... it is one of the original servers, left over from closed beta), post your PC name... perhaps we'll meet in Middle Earth.

Better yet, donate some money to me so I can buy a kick ass gaming card. I'm playing this on my laptop. It plays just fine, but I can't turn up the visual efx and features like I'd like. I'm sure I'm missing a ton of details and beauty in this. The visuals of this game are just stunning, and I only hope I get a system that has the beef enough to power it all. Eh, I'll include one more picture... it's just a farm picture with a nice sky and rainbow in the background. The weather system is cool... I had killer rain one day, but there seems to be more rainbows than IRL. ;) Anyway, my guess is that the details would be better and I bet the trees would even be moving the wind, not to mention more detailed characters and baddies.

My first instructable

2007-08-29T16:47:00.000-04:00

Instructables.com is a site I like to visit, usually through make blog, that has all kinds of, well, instructables on all kinds of topics - how-tos if you will. Some are super cool, some are lame, and some are just amazing, though well above my financial or know-how to do. I've wanted to make one for a while... and I just did.

I set up a bell system at school to go off during the day for block beginnings, endings and warnings, etc using spare parts and a spare laptop running linux. Read it all there:

Simple distributed scheduled bell system

Check it out, I think it's a fun read... leave some comments (there or here).

Vicks Vapo Rub

2007-08-27T18:45:00.000-04:00

So, NFL player Michael Vick has finally plead guilty to being an asshole. Ooops, I guess just to killing dogs that he had set up to kill each other. Wooopeeee... right?

Why is this here? I hate football. I loath professional sports, for the most part... pampered, over-paid social leeches... kinda like Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton.

No, I'm posting because he states that he "has found jesus". Argh!!! Do Christians actually buy this shit? Oh, wait... yes, they do. I know some who personally will likely hate him for the evils he did against animals raised to be murderous sport fodder, but they will sure find a place in their hearts for him since he found jesus(R)(tm).

So, my message to Vick, and anyone else like him expecting that they are above the laws and above general morality, and then declaring they found religion (I guess he was atypical in that he didn't find Allah, as is apparently more common for many blacks in prison... but I'm guessing more poor black men, as Christianity is the capitalist's religion) , is that I hope a baddass, abused battle dog named "jesus" is set to rip you apart. Let it be a lesson. I'm not a PETA freak [I in fact despise PETA], but in this culture dogs are off limits for game killing. I hate dogs - I'm a cat person - but I'm getting tired of the current culture, often pushed by hip hop, of obsessive immorality while also claiming jesus... yar, and yes, glamorizing vicious-bred dogs!

All that said, Vick isn't the only shithead involved in all of this. If his partners are getting off and all the people who were betting and attending and letting it happen are just as guilty. Plea deals or not, there should be justice. I'm tired of seeing celebs getting away with murder, especially in a case where that is literal.

Oh, Lindsey... you're trash.

Don't think I'm attacking Vick because he's a black man. Trust me, if you know me, you know that couldn't be the case... I hate celebs equally. ;)

Bike Beautiful Expensive Orange

2007-08-21T21:23:00.000-04:00

So, the majority of the bike repaint is done. As of yesterday all but the lower cowl/scoop has been painted with the orange and color shifting paint and polishe. The scoop is being a bitch with the fiberglass repair, so I'm not freaking about it. I rode for a couple months in the spring without it at all... so woop dee doo, for now. I also still need to do the airbrushing of the "extras", but I've not decided anything other than what's going on the tank and I'm still trying to figure out what the best masking method will be. I'm going to freehand as little as possible.

The ride after this picture, with the wife on the back was plagued though. We were going to ride to the bike shop (Land Air... I'd link to them, but I'll explain why not in a moment). About 1.5 miles away the bike started revving like a mutha. I sorta freaked, but knew Karen was freaking worse, not the least by the sudden death grip on my waist. This happened after a red light. I couldn't shift down and didn't know what to do, so I thankfully had a shoulder I could pull over into after cutting off the engine. I pulled over and shut her down. We got off. There was smoke coming from somewhere below. I figured, let's let it cool off a bit and try again.

A few minutes later I restarted and it immediately revved to redline. I cut it off right after. Nervous, I called said shop asking for advice. Eventually it was clear I'd need to bring it in. (I have brought my bike to them since I got it 5 years ago or so) I ended up getting a tow sent by AAA, though I don't have RV coverage, so I was going to have to pay for it myself. I figured $45. That sucks, but so would pushing the bike 1.5 miles through some of the more busy traffic in the area.

Tow guy was nice. We got the bike to the shop... fucking $75!!!! I was robbed. It made me sick and I wanted to throttle someone. So, if you are in the Burlington area, you likely already know this, but fuck Handy's. Plain and simple. I've always hated them with a passion, but dude, $75 to tow a bike 1.5 miles. I pushed the bike onto the lift, held it steady and helped get it strapped in. How on earth... whatever!

The guys in the shop were able to get it in within about 10 minutes or so. After a little bit they came out to say they got it started (oh, I forgot to mention that the battery had mysteriously died while I tried to start it while on the phone with the shop to let them hear what was happening - the bike didn't start, obviously). The revved up on him and he didn't know why. He looked and noticed the choke was on. Well, yeah, it was on because I was trying to get the bike started again... thinking there was a fuel issue. He slid the choke off and it ran normally. He came out and reported the find. In hind sight, I think when I FIRST started the bike up, I left the choke on a little to let it warm up some more and forgot to shut it off. Stupid... stupid stupid stupid!!! Anyway all had a good laugh. They noticed the battery could use a charge and test. So they did that. When all was done we waited for the brass tacks. I figured maybe $30 or summat. No, the fuckers charged me $70... a full hour of labor. Um, they started a bike, turned off the choke and stuck the battery on a charger. Wait time for a charging battery is not labor. And for that matter I could have bought a new battery for half that, on the spot. So, someone screwed me over by not mentioning they were gonna rip me off. I've trusted that place for 5 years and even planned on buying my first NEW bike there. I'm not having serious second thoughts. I'll note that the service guys who were there last year wouldn't have done this. They've never screwed me over like that. I'd right a letter to them, but in case I change my mind, I'd rather not be "that guy"... might be hard to get a good deal on a bike. So, after the easily $250+ to paint the bike (paint, paint gun, sandpapers and other stuff), I paid $145 to find out that I left the choke on a little bit. Yeah, I'm pissed.

On the bright side, I did my commute to work this morning. The only bad thing to happen was that the bike needed to go into reserve about 30 miles from where I was going... but it didn't just suck up the fuel. I switched it after a couple kicks from the engine and it slowly died. I pulled over, threw open the choke and got it started, but it was a scary moment. Yar! I love this bike, but I really really really want a newer more modern bike. I passed 32222 miles on my way home. 33K is just around the corner.

Fitquest 8/20/07

2007-08-20T10:47:00.001-04:00

Fitquest is sorta coming to a close. The real plan was to loose about 20 pounds over the summer. Where that 20 pounds started from, I don't recall. Fact is, I sorta meant for it from my max weight, pushing 199 around April or May. that would mean being down to 179 by summer's end. As of this morning, I'm at 180. Yup, 180 pounds. Pretty close. I start work tomorrow, but I guess one could say that summer is still going on. I know I'll have a hard time keeping up with such a good running routine, since running in the morning is better for me, but needing to leave for work by 6:30 or so makes it a little difficult. I suppose I need to find a way to get in at least 30 minutes when I get home. Only half the time, but hey... one great thing that appears to have happened is that my metabolism has returned to some extent and I've started eating less. So, worst case is that I think I can maintain the weight until I get into something more rigorous.

The true end result is getting into pole vaulting shape, meaning preferably in the 165 pound ranger and building up my upper body strength again.

Let's just hope the stress of the job doesn't cause weight gain again. That would just suck, and likely kill my willpower.

So, this morning I ran northbound on the bike path. I didn't stop at the turning point, just kept going. It ended up being the 4 mile mark (it's not MY 4 mile mark, just a mark on the path marking 4 miles north of Oakledge Park). I'd guess this trip is about 6-5 miles, so not too bad. I took it a little easier. Oh, but I actually ran it all... including the uphill of Battery Park, so heya, it really made up for the couple minutes I took to stop at my friend John's to return a thumb drive.

So, I'm not saying fitquest is over, but I might not be posting about it as frequently as I did this summer. It all really depends. Though now that I think about it, if I have at least one student interested in doing the martial arts afternoon activity, I could work on making it more physical and get a good workout from that as well... he (the one I'm thinking about) could certainly use it.

Some Weeks of Busy

2007-08-17T20:54:00.000-04:00

So, long time no post. Last week we were in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, hiking from AMC hut to AMC hut. From the main road (I forget which road it was) we took the Valley Way trail to Madison Springs Hut. Pretty easy hike, but my hiking companion/brother-in-law kept getting sick. He began his kicking the smoking habit a couple days before, so I'm sure the withdrawals were hitting him. His father caught up (he was hiking with my wife) and he stayed with him while Karen and I finished up the hike. Slower than I like... much slower, but we made it together, which would be the last hiking bit we did together during the trip. Trust me, it works out much better that way.
Anyway, The next morning we (myself and two other guys that go on the trip as well, Colin and Lloyd) left in the rain and wind and fog to hike mostly ridge to Mount Washington. Whew, it was amazing. The wind was great. We were warned to not hike the peaks, but I wanted to. We didn't. I think we summited one though. We did go to Mt. Washington. There was about 20' of visibility. Who cared. We were completely soaked and just looking forward to a hot treat to eat. I had a turkey rice soup. It was pretty good. As I was hanging out near my wet bag, my mom showed up behind me. I knew there was a chance of her showing up, but didn't expect it, since the weather sucked so bad. She and dad took the Cog Railway up... couldn't get a refund or reschedule. The Cog is a scam man... super expensive. In any event, it was great seeing them up there so randomly. They live in Vermont also, so popping over to Mt. Washington isn't just a joy ride. There wasn't much time to visit, as they only had 20 minutes before the train left. Mom got a shot us dad and I (look right). (They drove up the next day, with nice weather)
After spending some time at the summit, the boys and I headed the 1.5 miles back down, to Lakes of the Clouds hut. Even though we spent a good deal of time at the summit, we were still the first of the Madison crew to get there.
The next morning we took off for Mizpah Springs Hut. We went over every peak along the way. It was nice weather pretty much the whole way. However, my solar USB charger didn't appear to build any charge in my MP3 player [more on that another time perhaps?]. We even took a few good long breaks, leap frogging a couple groups twice.
Getting to the hut as soon as we did gave me ample time to get some great reading in on Last Child in the Woods, a book I'm reading for a grad course I'm finishing up over the semester. I actually finished it that night and was able to start in on the second book I brought with me that's been sitting waiting for a read (and another on my summer reading list), The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien, posthumously or course. [I'm still reading it, slowly. It's a quick read, but I'm a slow reader. It's a dark tale so far.]
Ahhh... we're not done yet. The next morning was the trooper of the mornings. The boys and I slacked getting out... actually Colin slacked, it appeared, and I was waiting for Karen to pack up for some reason. She's always among the last to make up her bed in the morning... not last in the group... last of all, hehehe. We got going down the Crawford Path toward Crawford Notch, where the boys would take off early for home and a tennis match. Within an hour of being at the cars, the rest showed up. Karen and company planned on driving around to the Zealand parking lot instead of finishing up the hike, which was another 5 miles or so, I think. I had no intention of driving around. Blasphemy!! So I hiked it alone to Zealand Falls Hut. I actually took the side path to Mt. Tom Spur, which added another mile to the hike. I do not know how I did it, but I had a quick hike of it, still whipping even those who drove over, except for a couple of them who were dropped off first.
The next morning I was happy to get going and get to the car... I drove to a store to get drinks to be ready for the rest when they finished. They were all filing in at the end of the trail when I got back to the lot - good timing. We went for lunch. Oh, and if you don't know the area... nothing is close to anything. We had to drive around to pick up cars that were strategically posted in multiple places and then join up for Pizza. All of this took nearly two more hours.

After a day or two of recovery at home, I finally got back to working on the bike repaint project, which I started the prep for over a week before we left for hiking. The repairs just took forever, and frankly, as of today, they are still being worked on. Most parts are painted, cleared and cut/polished. Niiiiiice. (Pix later). But dammit, I chose to re-repair the tank dents and the bondo mix was torturing me. Not curing fast enough. And the lower scoop/cowl has a huge crack I fixed before, but accidentally sanded right through and the fiberglass repair kit's epoxy mix sucks. I'd mix it and it takes days to cure instead of the hour or so it should take. So, tomorrow I might try to finish the last two parts, but it'll have to all go just right. Thankfully the paint gun and compressor are working out well enough. A little loud, but my downstairs neighbor hasn't been around when I'm working on it.

All this in a quick rush to finish up projects for school, starting work next week and more. A book report, a project plan, I need to lesson plan for one more class and a few more things. I'm excited to get back to school (now listed as a Special Educator in the books... and I just sent in the stupid fee for my provisional license/endorsement) but I'm not happy about my break ending.

Solar USB charger... whatever

2007-08-04T18:28:00.000-04:00

So I know I'm a newb with working with electronics, but still. I want a solar powered USB charger to bring on the hiking trip, but I refuse to pay the ridiculous prices for commercial ones. Last year I saw this: Build a solar iPod charger and only last week ordered the listed parts to build it, including getting a soldering iron, my first.

As you can see, it's not a hard project, relatively straight forward.
However, it doesn't work. I must have done something wrong, but frankly, I have no one I can ask for advice. The author didn't list any contact methods.

So, I've sent out a panicky email to the friend who suggested it and hopefully he'll have some clues for me. Since the hike is 5 nights long, I'm pretty much screwed in having some tunes to listen to while I read at night - which I need to drown out the snoring of other hikers in the huts.

Fitquest 8/4/07

2007-08-04T18:23:00.001-04:00

Riding. I'm so glad I got my bike fixed this spring. I'm saving my knees for the hiking trip next week, so riding the bike helps a little. If I ride hard it hurts my knees, but I put just enough to not hurt. About an hour ride yesterday and just over an hour today.

The bike seat is killing my ass though. Whew. I'll suck it up, as a new seat that'll likely feel better is looking like around $50+ and it's just not that important.

Fitquest 8/4/07

2007-08-04T18:23:00.000-04:00

WTF - spam blogger???

2007-08-02T23:59:00.000-04:00

What the hell is wrong with the world when my lame ass blog gets bot selected by the system as being a "spam blog". I know I don't add much to the world in general... I mean, who really cares about my Fitquest, and certainly no one is commenting on anything... but still.

Anyway, I'm sure since I submitted the "dude, I'm real" request to get the verification process taken off, I'll be a normal blogtard again, but for now, sheesh, insult to injury.

Fitquest 8/2/07

2007-08-02T23:53:00.000-04:00

Yar... missed yesterday, err... Tuesday. Tuesday and today I just did Hip Hop Abs. Yesterday I had a team meeting at school, so I didn't do a morning workout, and frankly, didn't do anything later either. ;)

Today's Hip Hop Abs was doing the Total Body Sculpt workout, which is a single ~45 minute workout. Not too bad. It mega humid today, so I was sweating pretty good.

Fitquest 7/29/07

2007-07-29T21:30:00.000-04:00

A week and a day and we're off to hiking in the white mountains for a week, so I'm debating when to take a fitquest break - need to save the knees.

Yesterday I just did the bike path on my, well, bike... :) Good ride.

Today Karen and I hike Worchester Mountain. I tried something new... not complaining about it being slow or there being lots of stops. Eh... not sure it worked for me, but it could have been worse.

Anyway, I sure was tired. It took most of the hike up to kinda wake up. I stayed up trying to read the new Harry Potter, but I was tired then - more tonight.

Fitquest 7/26/07

2007-07-26T12:25:00.000-04:00

Meh, standard run. Went to Oakledge park via the bike path. Wasn't too bad. Nice hot day - I love running in the heat. Sometimes I think I think too much about my running when I'm running. It's better when I just pay attention to my breathing and try to lose myself in the music or thinking about something else. Makes the run less laborious.

The nice thing is that my weight is still hovering/fluctuating between 185-187. That relative consistency is nice. Body fat percentage is also fluctuating between 21%-23%, which is a BIG difference, since that's really a matter of 3-4 pounds, which I guess actually makes sense with the weight variances.

Fitquest 7/25/07

2007-07-25T12:12:00.000-04:00

I felt like I needed to put some power into the workout again, so I biked the North Ave route to the high school to get some 100m sprints in. The ride was smarter than the bike path ride there for sprints, since the knees hurt less.

There were two kids there, from what they were talking about it seemed like they were heading to college for their first years after summer. Distance runners. While it's great to keep track of laps, I have never liked running longer distances on a track. Ick.

So, I got in 4 100m sprints:
1 - 13.84s
2 - 14.28s
3 - 14.38s
4 - 14.62s

Not too bad. The first one is about 1/10th of a second faster than my previous fitquest fastest, and the rest were respectably good enough.

Fitquest 7/24/07

2007-07-24T11:47:00.000-04:00

Note to self - be more up front with the wife when planning an exercise oriented outing. Saturday I asked her to go riding on the bike path with me. We did, for a little while when I realized she was less interested in the exercise aspect and I wasn't interested in the "looking around at the lake and stuff" aspect. Arguments ensued and I didn't end up getting that ride. Thankfully after things cooled off I did ride out to get groceries so I took the long way and got some exercise anyway.

This morning I got out for a run. I'd been putting it off a little because of the knee pain, but I don't like putting it off. Hell, my weight is even looking like it's doing something more steadily. I might have to thank my sister-in-law. I commented last week that I don't like to eat in the morning before I run because I hate the feeling of food in my stomach when I run. Yuk. But she reminded me that the breakfast jump starts the metabolism. Doh... how could I forget that. So I've been eating a granola bar before I run in the mornings. My weight last night (yup, an evening weighing) was 187. Hehe, 12 more pounds and I'll no longer be lying on my driver's license.

Anyway, I'm pushing a little further on my runs, trying to get farther in the same amount of time. I bumped into the Math Department Head on the bike path - he's a great guy - so I stopped and chatted a little... and it threw off my time a little. I think I ended up doing a 65 minute run (remember, I often end up walking up one of the hills, at least part way).

Good stuff.

Uncle Chris pt 2, the proof

2007-07-24T11:44:00.000-04:00

We did take pictures when we visited the neice. Actually, the room was full of people, but I think we got a few nice pictures and here is one. She's so tiny. And in case I didn't say it before... I forget, her name is Mollie... which I read before I heard, so it kept going to my mind as "Millie". I better get that out of my system.

Mom is good and everyone is home now.

Uncle Chris

2007-07-22T03:34:00.000-04:00

Last night at 10:30 pm, I became an uncle. My youngest brother Rob and his wife Nicole has their first child, a girl. It was actually about 12 hours after the first call he gave us that her water had broken. No one knew how long it would all take start to finish.

I don't think I'll post much personal info on them or her... not really up to me. So, if they update their blog with the details, you can get them there.

In any event, I'm very happy for them. We'll be heading there to meet her this morning.

Bach to me

2007-07-20T21:02:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Julia put me through a test of sorts. I forgot to bring my scales practice sheet in with me - I was transcribing it more neatly to another score sheet and left it at my laptop. She opened up Bach's Sonata No.1 and picked a spot and told me to play and name the notes for a few measures. It was slow as death and I did make a few fundamental mistakes that I was able to self correct with a little verbal nudge, but I did pretty well in her opinion. Coolness. I want to ask her how I'm progressing... slowly, right on, quicker than the average beginner adult... something. I might not want to know. Thankfully I do know I'm having fun with it.

She did say it was time to move on, so she had me buy the Wohlfahrt Melodious Studies book. I picked that up this afternoon. I didn't get a chance to practice today, so tomorrow I'll be sure to put some time in on it.

Update, I had a chance to try the new book out... um, yikes. It has me jumping from the A string to the G string in ways I'm not comfortable with yet... more practice for sho'.

Fitquest 7/20/07

2007-07-20T20:53:00.000-04:00

I'm wondering if there's even a point in posting daily accounts of my activities other than keeping me honest. I'm thinking of moving to a weekly, but that would mean I need to log my stuff on paper, and if you ask my wife, that's likely to either not get done or become another pile of mess at the foot of my folding laptop table.

Anyway, shortened bike path north to high school run, but instead of turning off to the high school I ran down to the beach area to find out how much it costs to rent kayaks (Karen REALLY wants to do that). $20 for two hours. A little steep, but really not that bad, as long as it comes with the safety vest. :)

I retrieved Karen's bike from the shop as well, so perhaps tomorrow we'll do another ride in lieu of a run.

Fitquest 7/19/07

2007-07-19T11:56:00.000-04:00

Yay, I got my ass out of bed earlier this morning. Perhaps I can keep doing that. I like to run early, I just hate being up early in the morning. So I got out at 9am instead of the typical 10am. I suppose if I didn't stay up so late it'd be a lot easier... but I like staying up late. Lord of the Rings Online always calling my name.

Anyway, I ran the bike path northward. No high school stop this time, I continued on about a half 2/3 of a mile farther (I don't feel like mapping it right now) before turning back.

While on the return run I caught David walking the path... very cool. That SOB just looks thinner and thinner each time I see him... he looks great, so he's kinda giving me a little more hope.

The new running shoes are breaking in well. The feel is comfy and my typical foot pain is no longer, other than the standard pain of running 6-7 miles.

Fitquest 7/18/07

2007-07-18T00:43:00.000-04:00

Tired tired tired morning... that and sore shins (shin splints), so I happily did Hip Hop Abs again. Double dose, and this time I tried a lot harder to keep my mid section tight.

It was pretty good. I still don't get the burn from the actual "dancing" though. Funny how the second DVD mentioned "not sitting and doing crunches, etc.", but the last 5 minutes or so of it actually are on the ground. Not doing crunches, but still doing similar type activities. I did get a burn from that. Frankly, I used to do crunches and other stuff to a tight burn each time. I didn't mind it so much, but in the end, I don't recall it doing much. I believe I'm getting a fat burning process with this. Hey, the weight is trickling off, and the body fat percentage is coming down ever so slowly. I'm hoping all of this fitquest stuff is putting me in a place where my metabolism does some work itself, and the 10-17 pounds of fat I hope to lose starts to come off a little faster. 2 pounds a week would be nice, but I can't rely on that. Let's face it, I like food and even though I'm eating less and eating smarter, I still like some less than healthy stuff.

Fitquest 7/17/07

2007-07-17T11:56:00.001-04:00

Wow, entering my info only 30 minutes after getting home form the run.

It was a North Ave to the High School run day... only 2 miles each way... even that felt long. But the sprints were nice. The new shoes still have breaking in to be done, but I did feel better. My previous pair was size 9.5 or 10 (I don't feel like looking). These are 10.5. The 10's just didn't feel right.

So, on to the sprint times:
1 - 100m 13.94s (see, already 0.03 better than my previous best first ;) )
2 - 100m 14.12s
3 - 100m 14.59

All said and done, still not too bad. One of these days I'll get to the track fresh without the 2-2.35 mile run first.

I did see a funny thing running home. Some guy on a gixxer flew by me (toward me) and only seconds later flew by me (from behind). A few seconds later and the cops were right in front of him (coming at him) with their lights on. All said and done, while he took off to get away, there were likely 4 squad cars that were trying to find ways to cut him off. Who knows if he got away. I hope he got caught. He was likely doing about 50+ in a 30... just not cool in a neighborhood area, give the rest of us riders a bad name.

Now back to some summer stuff for the day.

Fitquest 7/16/07

2007-07-16T23:46:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I got Karen out on the bike for about a 14 mile round trip ride. Scary was that we passed our downstairs neighbor heading back on the bike path. Why scary? She left only a few minutes before us, meaning she got pretty damn far... she was running. Made me feel kinda lame. But hey, all in good time. Did I mention that I was never a distance runner? I HS I ran the 400m and 4x400m primarily and the 4x100m, with a spattering of 200m , 100m, thrown in for points from time to time. Oh, and obviously the pole vaulting. Distance to me was running a whole mile.

I also got am email from Shawn (the head track coach) with some info for me regarding pole vaulting. I joined the National Pole Vault Coaches Association and perused some of the training vids on the site. Incentive!

Today I did my bike path south route. I took it relatively easy during some of it. I was wiped out for some reason. I think the bike ride in the sun took a lot out of me.
I ended up walking for probably about 1/4 of a mile of the run, actually likely closer to 1/2 because I often walk part of the uphill return, as it often kills my knees, and it's really only the path up from College St. to Battery Park.

Oh oh oh... and I got new running shoes. The others, I swear were killing my feet. They are about 4 years old, perhaps 3, but that's pretty old by today's product standards. I've likely put well over 200 miles on them. I don't know what I should be able to put on flats, but road running helps kill the treads.

Busy day

2007-07-15T23:41:00.000-04:00

We were supposed to go hiking this morning with a friend, but he called at about 8:30 to double check, based on weather reports. They said it was a 40% chance for thunderstorms where we were planning to go, and at that moment, it was raining here... I hate to START hiking in the rain. We decided not to go.

I was sorta hoping to have a valid reason to not go anyway because I was happy to have a day where nothing was scheduled and I could get my wife to go out with me on the bikes for a ride. We did. It was relatively slow and relaxing, but it was a decent workout compared to hanging around the apartment. ;) On the way back we stopped off at the repair place and she left her bike to get a new gear shifter installed and a tune up. Hopefully she'll get it back soon. I'd like for her to join me in my workouts. She's no runner, but if she rides while I run, it'll be good. I'll also have someone to be my starter at the track for my timed runs.

We got home and had some quick lunch type food and I decided to play some more Wii sports. It still cracks me up that I can work up a sweat playing that game, but I love it.

I also finally registered in a straightedge forum I've been sorta checking out for well over a year. Actually, I had it in an open tab i my browser, and more specifically the main page... not the forum, but I had it there to make sure I didn't forget about it. My del.icio.us list tends to just be as convoluted as my regular bookmarks... thus the primary reason I rely so heavily upon session restore in FireFox. I also waited to join until I read a few posts about the brand of sXe supported there. Some sXe forums are adamant that in order to be sXe you must be in the hardcore scene, either listening to hardcore or buying it or going to shows... all due respect, but that comes off as just a marketing ploy to me. I tried to like hardcore. I found a group that I do like called Isis, but then I found out they are really "Sludge" more than hardcore... whatever the hell
that is. Anyway, they have a remix album that is totally ass kickin dark ambient meets hardcore meats I don't know what. And since they aren't edge, hehehe, then it's doubly pointless to point out as an effort to appreciate hXc. So, I tried... I don't like hardcore, I don't like punk... I just don't.

I also called Bob at Napa about the paint situation... grrr, Tuesday morning he said he should have an answer. I guess I'm slacking anyway, I still need to sand down some parts, especially the panels I let the paint solvent sit on too long and they got a little eaten up. GRR. I might have to bondo the indentations and such - quite annoying. I suppose I should to it tomorrow, but I need to get started on the computer room redesign.

Crap, and I didn't get in any violin practice time. YAR!!!

Isn't summer vacation grand?

Bound to happen

2007-07-14T11:47:00.000-04:00

Last night, whicle watching a movie on the couch, I was laying on my side with my right arm bent and standing upward. Karen was leaning up against me and ended up applying more pressure than was likely good... my shoulder dislocated. It didn't hurt, but freaked me out. I told her to get off my arm and I slowly rotated my arm to get the4 shoulder to pop back in. She started to cry. I guess one might think that two surgeries on the shoulder would have made it much better, but the doc said it, there's always the likeliness of it happening again. I guess the good is that it took a couple years for it to happen.

So, this means I need to take a few days of being really careful with that arm and hope that it really was just about the wrong pressure at the wrong time. I knew that was the way it would happen also. I'm always careful when my arm is bent just so. I still don't feel comfortable with some positions, so I freak out. I also test the limits a little bit from time to time - it always seems fine - and pull it back. I know it's not as strong as the other shoulder.

Of course now this makes me worry about my plans for pole vaulting in the spring. I need to strengthen the shoulder and keep it tight. I'm glad it's my right arm and not the left. It might be hard to take it easy while playing the violin if I messed up the left shoulder.

Fitquest 7/13/07

2007-07-13T13:23:00.000-04:00

I'm not a quick learner... or I'm just stubborn... but I'm still sore today. I also slept in later than normal... long night last night, we went the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at the drive in.

I ran anyway. The shortened bike path north route. I could feel my muscles (and fat) bouncing in a few places that proved quite sore. There's really nothing more than can be said about it.

Fitquest 7/12/07

2007-07-12T14:48:00.000-04:00

The knees and shin splints need a break today... badly. So, I did Hip Hop Abs, but just one of the DVDs. I realize that I need to pay more attention to keeping my abs tight while doing the workout. That's hard, but I'm guessing that's the real trick to it all.

Anyway, 30 minutes on that and I felt like I need some more, so I turned on the Wii for the first time in a while. As always, if you do it right, the Wii Boxing is a fun workout. I bounce around and shout at the TV when my Mii isn't doing what I am. I swear... someone needs to make an actual boxing game for Wii that does real boxing moves, and not just a bunch of moves that twitchy kids can pick up easily. Even better would be a martial arts game that has the Wiimote, nunchuck and two additional connections for the feet... technology is there, someone's gotta be able to do it.

Anyway, yeah, so Wii boxing, bowling, tennis and baseball for a little while, I think about 45 minutes. Not too bad... but I gotta say, I was still plenty sore.

Fitquest 7/11/07

2007-07-11T23:28:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd change it up today. I rode my bike path north to the high school path on the bicycle this morning. I figured if I rode, I'd have more energy to do more sprints. Well, I did sorta. Actually, the bike ride kinda hurt my knees and shins and tired my quads out more than thed run normally does. I had more energy, but I was more sore.

I only got 3 100m sprints in.
1 - oops, I missed the stop button on the stopwatch... but it had to be either low 14s or possibly even a nice 13.something... but I really can't say for sure.
2 - 14.35s
3 - 14.60s, and it hurt.

My knees hurt enough that I rode home the North Ave way. It's a 2 mile ride versus the 2.35 mile path. In case you didn't know, I also live upstairs... so walking the steps up kinda sucked as well.

I think I might need to take a running break tomorrow. Hip Hop Abs perhaps? I dunno.

Fitquest 7/10/07

2007-07-10T23:28:00.000-04:00

OK, I cheat. I just wrote yesterday's fitquest entry a moment ago. I've been busy with other things, so I don't get around to immediate posts. This one is the same day though (july 10th).

I had to go to Barre to meet with my teaching team to plan some new behavior models to use during the next year... and a few other things. That meant I didn't get home until around 5:30. Half of my ride home I was trying to figure out what I'd do for my workout though. It's pretty much how I'll have to deal with it when school starts up again. Yuk!!! I prefer running in the morning... less people around.

Anyway I decided to just do a run. I did this path but only going to Harrison Ave. then turning back. I don't feel like making the map for it right now... sanoodi doesn't really have a good editing feature to take previous paths and alter them.

It was HUMID like mad. Soup all the way. I had to lift my t-shirt collar up over my mouth and nose a few times so I didn't suck down a family of flying insects that were swarming the path. That said, it was a good (if not shorter than I could have done) run. I was also think about how I am getting back into decent shape already and that when the NH White Mountains trip comes in August - as long as my knees hold out - I'll be in great shape and might give the boys a serious run for their 19 year old money.

Oh, and I weighed myself before showering... 187# and 21% body fat (tanita scale).
I didn't eat a lot of food today, but still.. that's a positive measure. Obviously it means nothing really until it's a stable weight, which it is not yet. But positive motion nevertheless.

Fitquest 7/9/07

2007-07-09T23:19:00.000-04:00

Short and sweet. Ran the northward path of the Burlington Bikepath somewhat unenthusiastically. The intent was just to get to the track and do some sprints. Since my speed has increased a little over the long haul... and I'm getting farther faster, I figured I'd have good reserves for the times sprints. 2.7 miles later and eh... I felt ok. The weather has been super muggy. If I didn't mention it before, I love running in hot weather but not humid. Nice dry heat. My other fave is around 75 deg C and rainy.
Anyway, I got in 3 100m sprints:
1 - 13.97s (the same exact time I got the first time I did a 3 100m sprint set)
2 - 14.22s
3 - 14.41s

So, my worst time was better than the previous worst time. I think Wednesday I'll bike to the track and see how much better I do without a 2.7 mile warm-up.

What appeared to be 3 young siblings showed up at the track right before my last sprint. They ended up at the long jump pit. I gave a quick piece of advice to one boy who ran the majority of the length of the runway, losing speed nearly halfway down, that he might get a longer jump if he shortened his approach. Then I left... to return on the 2.7 back home.

Lucky lucky lucky... shut up

2007-07-07T19:18:00.000-04:00

So, today is 07/07/07 (no matter where you are viewing this on the globe) and all day during news casts have been commentaries about this being a "lucky day". Couples getting married in Vegas and all over because it's a "lucky day". For crying out loud people... you are stupid!

7/7/7 is a cool day, as numbered representations of days go. Not as cool as 6/6/6, hehehe, I'm sure xians all over were a little shaken that day. However, I can't say there's much really notable about the date... if I recall correctly (and I'm too lazy now to look it up for reals) today is Prince's birthday - erp, forget it, I looked it up and damnit, I was a month off. Yeah, it's that kinda year.

So, back to the nutjobs who are superstitious about something that is already knowable. Yeah, unless someone thought human civilization would be gone by now, it was already known that the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year into the new millennium. OMG, just wait until 2077, people will really lose their minds. Whoa, how about 2777, man thing will just be rockin. And 7777? Ferget about it... the party of the 78th century. Man-bot will marry man-bot hoping that their binary nuptials will be praised by all the good luck in the multi-verse.

Am I making too big of a deal about it?
I guess I made my point then.

I did accomplish a good chat with the guy (Bob) at NAPA this afternoon. I'm planning on repainting my motorcycle. He's gonna put in a call with the paint tech peeps to figure out what will be needed to create the color plan I want for my bike. I was disappointed to find that I'll likely not have a cheap method for airbrushing some detail work on it, but I guess we'll see what happens.

I started to repaint my mini toy model of the bike with a bright orange from my minis paint selection. Doesn't look so good... not smooth, but hey, it's just for fun. Hopefully I can start painting the real thing by late next week.

Fitquest 7/7/07

2007-07-07T18:40:00.000-04:00

I didn't even want to run today... just didn't feel like it, but I'm trying to stick to it. I might not run tomorrow... too many commitments, so perhaps I'll squeeze in a Hip Hop Abs workout.

So I did run. It wasn't bad. I beat the rain and had excellent weather.

I was actually not expecting to run this far. Most of my runs have been closer to the 4-5 mile length... I'm slowly getting back to what I'd call the 8 mile in around an hour run... yeah, slowly. But when I got to where I normally get (see, I run out for about 30 minutes then return) I had more time than normal. So I kept running and kinda slowed the pace a little to get to Oakledge Park at about the 30 minute mark. I did end up doing a few minutes of walking... perhaps 5 overall. I was tired and my muscles were feeling wasted.

Actually, I didn't run this exact route. I had to stop by my friend's place to check on his cat. The distance is about he same and I'll reuse this route so I call it a wash.

Fitquest 7/6/07

2007-07-06T23:40:00.000-04:00

Yeah, a mundane entry, but I need to try to enter them all. The run today was the same as the 7/4/07 run, but instead of heading toward downtown Burlington, I just completed the return trip home. I believe it's a longer run, but I don't feel like making the map for it right now.

I believe this is my shortest post.

完（かん）

Catching up on random stuff

2007-07-05T14:27:00.000-04:00

Transformers - Karen (the wife) and I went to the Monday 8pm showing... a whole day earlier than I originally expected to be able to go. We liked it. I liked it as LOT. Sadly, half of my friends hated it. I'm a music snob, but not really a movie snob. I guess my expectations are more easily met. The trailers made me fear that the Transformers would be too clinical and frankly, robotic. Thankfully after more of them came into play, their personalities came out. Could have been more, but it was there, so I was happy about that. The efx were amazing. The 3d models were insanely good. I wish they gave us a bone with some slower transforming shots. For years I wondered about the literal transformability of them. Probably 5 years ago I started to try to model Astrotrain (my triple changer Decepticon) in Lightwave 3D. I gave up because I struggled with a few details and didn't have a lot of time for side projects that were only for experimentation. Anyway, it would have been a little lame compared to even the Beast Wars or Beast Machines models.Those Canadian [Mainframe] modelers know their shit.

Anyway. The only problems I had with the movie were more about the cinematography - the fast pans and fast action made it nearly impossible to really get to take in the transforming action. Seriously... when we were kids, wasn't that one of the most important points of the cartoons? "How did they do that?" I also detest gun violence... and there was just far too much rat-a-tat-tat machine gun action for me.

The picture above is the costumed I made for the annual Halloween party our friends put on. I spent a solid two days on those costumes after some initial work. They could be better, but I lacked the funding to do a few things I would have done better... not to mention ideas I thought of while making them. The picture also really sucks... I have some that are nicer, but don't show the whole top to bottom of them. Oh well.. perhaps we'll pose some day just for a better picture. :)

There... movie covered. July 4th comes with fireworks, but in Burlington they are on the 3rd. I like that. We go to them every year, and sometimes friends join us. This year, we joined up with Jonathan and his new girlfriend (yeah, I said it) Lauren, and her friend JP. I think we both think that his new girlfriend is a pretty good choice. I like her a lot. She's pretty young, compared to us, arguably a solid two generations behind us, but she's "older" than her age. I like that she speaks her mind, and actually has a mind. Much more so than the typical person of her age I've run into over the last 5-6 years. She also just fits in with the group easily... so I'm happy for him and happy for us. Of course, she goes away for grad school in a month. I guess we'll play it by ear.

I just realized I need to post some more politically oriented stuff. I'm getting soft and I wouldn't want the one or two readers I have to think I've lost my edge. ;)

Fitquest 7/5/07

2007-07-05T14:19:00.000-04:00

Simple today... I didn't want to run. So I again did the dual Hip Hop Abs blast. I tried harder to concentrate on keeping my abs tight through more of it, but damn that's hard. I suppose it'll be easier as they get stronger again and I start to get a nicer set of abs under all the flab. The good is that I get winded and sweaty during the total of about 53 minutes of activity. I'd love to know how many calories I'm burning, but I'll live.

I weighed myself after the shower and I was down to 189, which is what I was at before the workout... one should NOT weigh themselves that often... but it's a habit. However, the 189 is nice... I'm hoping I can maintain the downward more than the typical upward jolts. If my target for the summer is 170 lbs., I need to make some other choices to lose more quicker. Pros say losing about 1lb a week is healthy, but I'm hoping that by building more muscle that it'll do some of the work for me in a healthy way. I'm also trying to eat less. 3500 calories a week is a pound, so if I'm burning an average of 500 cals/day during the week, that alone should be a pound off, then limit the food by trying to cut out 3500 cals a week... by the time I get back to school, I should be pretty close... only 8 more weeks though, so that's only 16 pounds - not my goal. I guess to be honest, if I get the body fat % down to 18 or so, that would be good. But still, the weight is an issue for the pole vaulting. that said, I don't intend on getting up on a pole until fall, so I'm sure I'll be battling this crap all year unless I can get it back to my younger self metabolism.

Fitquest 7/4/07

2007-07-04T14:11:00.000-04:00

This was the first time I ran south this year on the bike path. Frankly, I like it more, since there's more sun and I literally run close to the lake for a good deal of it. When I run all the way to Oak Ledge Park, it's nice because there's easy drinking water and some other niceties. The north bound one also has its charms. It usually depends on how far or for how long I'll be running.
Anyway, here's the map:

I did stop off at Quarterstaff Games to chat with Jonathan about gaming stuff, then I went to the garden to check on some progress on the plants (I just realized I never mentioned the gardern in my blog, I'll have to post some pix from it... before during and current). I have a serrano that's coming along nicely and the tomatillos are getting huge... err.. the plan, not the actual fruit.

I digress.

Weigh in was still around 190 lbs..

Fitquest 7/3/07

2007-07-03T11:09:00.000-04:00

I decided to mix it up today and not run. Actually, in part because me knees are starting to feel the toil. I should start lifting some as well. I'm supposed to have fitness center access at UVM since I'm enrolled in a Continuing Ed course, but I'm afraid of running up there only to be turned away. Perhaps later in the week... plus it doesn't open until 11:30am, which is a little silly. Mid fricken day to me... I prefer to work out earlier if possible.

So, today I threw in Hip Hop Abs. No, I didn't buy it... let's just say I got it form a bunch of acquaintances. Ahem. It's actually a lot of fun. The instructor (Shawn T??) is energetic and not all too fake... sorts plays himself I think, so it's fun. The moves are funky-esque but not something I'd do on the dance floor. Doing those moves on the actual dance floor would make me feel like Ronald (Patrick Dempsey) from Can't Buy Me Love when he accidentally watched the PBS show about African tribal dances instead of American Bandstand or summat, and then did those moves at the high school dance... at which time he was the popular guy, so all the tools copied him like he knew something new. Oh... high school dances... hahaha.

Anyway. I've worked out to Hip Hop Abs before, once or twice, but it's been about a month. The first DVD has about a 30 minute ab routine. I did it and felt like it wasn't enough, so I put on the second DVD for the second routine which was a little less than 30 minutes. I can't say my abs are burning still (about 10 minutes after finishing), but I got a great sweat on, and did feel some of a burn during. I suppose I need to tuck my hips more meaningfully and so forth... so next time I'll work harder on that.

Maybe later today I'll lift the dumbbells a little bit... I need to get some more strength in my arms again... the biceps are looking a little pathetic.

Fitquest 7/2/07

2007-07-02T13:00:00.001-04:00

Two days ago, the day after fitquest entry one, I spent the entire day working on repairing the inside of my motorcycle tank. This entailed emptying the tank of fuel, rinsing the tank, washing it with a cleaning solution, rinsing that, preparing the inside with another solution, rinsing that, drying the tank thoroughly (as in bone dry) and then coating the inside with a rust preventing chemical. The tank is seriously difficult to empty, which meant that it required tons of shaking and tilting and rolling. The workout I got seriously made up for not actually running, did I mention the times? I started around 12:30 or 1pm and didn't really finish until around 8pm.

The next day, as in yesterday, I could barely walk. Sore legs back and everything. I'm sure some of that was delayed pain from the sprinting the other day, but still. So, today was my first official exercise day back.

I still had a lot of soreness, but not enough to hold me back.
I did a short route to the high school track:

Even thought I was sore, I decided to try myself out with a 400m sprint to start. Yikes!
400m - 78.91s

Very disappointing. I don't know what I should have expected, but I was hoping to be closer to 70 seconds. Of course, I did just finish a 2 mile run to get there, but still. The sore quads were a factor, but I can say that I had a good stride until the 200m mark, where I slowed for typical race pace, but when I hit the final stretch, I didn't have the juice to kick it in. I didn't go all out, ala old school Chris... where I puked after many a 400m meet race, but I did push.

I walked it off with a walking lap around the track and sorta wandering around, contemplating the performance - preparing for the next sprint, which was just going to be a 100m. By now I had no good expectation for that sprint, but I had to put myself into it. I did some stretching. My quads had tightened up quite a bit. By about the 30m mark, I could feel them really hurting to the point that I shortened my strides. I wanted a good time and a hard workout, but it wasn't worth pulling a muscle, so I slowed it down.

100m - 15.16s

Not even close to the other day, but considering all factors, it wasn't that bad.

On the 29th (fitquest day one) I asked my little brother (is 32 little?) to do a 100m sprint timed... I think he's in better shape than I, not to mention, weighs significantly less. I wanted a basis to judge my times on. He didn't seem interested. Oh well.

Till next time. Tonight we go to an early showing of Transformers - I hope to do a review of sorts... maybe not.

Fitquest 6/29/07

2007-06-29T11:32:00.000-04:00

As I have mentioned before, I want/need to lose some weight. One is the obvious, I gotta get rid of this gut and regain my youthful athleticism, but more recently I've decided that I need to get back into pole vaulting shape. If I'm going to coach pole vaulting at school next year, I want to be able to do it. All too often I've seen (including in my experience) pole vaulters being taught by people who've never done it. There's nothing wrong with that... technique can be taught. The other goal... getting my 1oom time down to something I can challenge the faster guys (and girls).
Oh, and if I can get my 400m back below 60 seconds, I'd be pretty damn happy. Our fast runners would still wipe the track with my ass, but hey.

The fitquest label for my blog will be me posting my exercise regiment and other fitness related stuff, I suppose throwing in my weight from time to time would be good too. Obviously the weight issue is only part of the picture, since I'll be gaining muscle as I lose fat, but really... even that excuse has sucked out for me.

I also plan to post links to maps of my runs and stuff (all thanks to google maps and the genious coders at Sanoodi ... more for me to track, but hey, if you're around, perhaps you'll accidentally bump into me. If I don't post a map, it's possible that I didn't care to, or that I just ran the same path as last time.

Today's weight: 191 lbs
The run:
approximately 5.4 miles round trip
The sprints:

100m - 13.97s
100m - 14.08s
100m - 14.5s

Commentary - those times don't suck IMNSHO for a dude my weight and age and apparent fitness level, but my aim is to get down to a 11 or 12 second 100m. Likely a pipe dream, but I also ran in flats instead of spikes... I really should try to find my old spikes. The Burlington High School track is quite nice, but without blocks and spikes, I figure my time might be up to .2-.4 seconds slower.

So, there's fitquest entry one.

Vacation Chris

2007-06-28T09:32:00.001-04:00

Vacation Chris is the name my wife uses to describe me during times when I have no work commitments that are weighing my mind AND less distractions than normal. Often that persona is the sole purpose for getting out of town - meaning getting me away from my computer or other [feelings of] obligations for work or work related things.. I guess if I was a cell phone nutjob like most, that would also include shutting the phone off, but since I rarely talk on the phone, it's not an issue.

Here I am in Killington, VT, only a few hours away from finishing up the BEST [Building Effective Strategies for Teaching] institute. Yep. That's right. I'm on summer vacation and here I am at the end of 4 days of shop talk and education. Sheesh, really? It's actually been a good thing. I learned a few thing, but more so was reminded of the plethora of thing that have crossed my mind through the last year - my first year as a teacher - as well as hving some new ideas for how to run my class and for how we as a team need to make some changes at school.

But back to Vacation Chris. I need to figure out a way to do this at home... while here, I ran every day. My plan for summer is to lose some weight. 20 pounds would be the goal, but I'll take what I can get, as long as it's real loss and not that up and doy shit that happens all the time. I also read and played Lord of the Rings Online... most of what I had hoped to accomplish outside the organized events here. I half think not being at home helped, but that might be because the wife might have scheduled cleaning activities for me more often than I want (hehe, hi honey), which like a child I tend to fight, then revolt, then end up not doing anything productive. That sucks. Yeah, something I need to work on. Shhhh, you didn't hear that from me.

The week before this conference - or I should say the 3 week days and weekend after school ended, it just didn't feel like summer. I kept feeling the impending doom of this conference coming. More work! More school! More obligation. I decided a couple years ago that obligation is one of the things I despise the most. Commitment good. Obligation bad. Of course, the wife gets annoyed by it, but she's also supportive. This week she's also doing a conference, but she gets to go home after. The irony is that the weather here is less oppressive than there, so she's miserable. But I have called her each night - she likes that - and we IM'd a little bit as well. I will be happy to go home though. Just around a 1:45 minute drive I'm guessing.

Well, I'm home now... seems the hotel's connection dropped so I get fed up trying to locate a proper signal. I don't know how long the ride home was, I forgot to check my watxch when I walked in the door... but I'm home and it's time for the summer of Chris Part II.

Chew Chew choose not to return

2007-06-23T00:28:00.000-04:00

The wife and I went to the Green Mountain Chew Chew Fest this afternoon, an annual event where local restaurants and vendors set up and you pay for tokens for the privilege of overpaying for tiny sample portions of their foods. We've gone for about 10 years, missing one year. I always think it's a bad deal, but she loves it and we have found a couple restaurants by seeing them there that we frequent. That's the best part of it really.

Every year I try to stick to not eating anything I've tried before - or at least never tried from that particular restaurant.

The "deal": $5 gets you 9 brass tokens that you spend at the booths. Prices at the booths range from 2 to 4 tokens. You get sample sizes of dishes. Usually a few bites worth. You walk around with a map of the vendors located under 3 tents and figure out what looks worthy of taste testing and where to get it. Request the item, dump your tokens into bowl or jar or whatever and eat.

This year, the person who sponsors the event decided to charge a $2 per adult admission fee. Yep... a fee to get into a place where you for the last 20+ years got in free to spend money. We were angry, but that was only the tip of the iceberg, since 3 vendor spots listed were empty and the selection pretty much sucked for what was there.

Normally I complain about the event - being expensive for the end results [though we have discovered restaurants through being there] - but this year even my wife was annoyed and even angered. I was annoyed to the point that I wrote an email to the organizer detailing my complaints. I don't expect any resolution from it - the changes appear to be purely financially driven, so who am I to defy capitalism??

On that note, we watched SiCKO tonight. Michael Moore does a killer job at entertaining us and angering us at the same time. This country is out of control with it's capitalism and it's brought to light in me the realization - over the last few years it's been brewing in me - that the core of our evils in this country are capitalism and the driving force of much of that capitalism is christianity. I'll leave more discussion on that topic for another time, but the documentary is about the sick nature of our health care system when compared to other countries. Much like the Chew Chew Fest, if you don't have much money, it's just not the place for you. don't get hungry, don't get sick, sit down and shut up... "let the entrepreneurs do their thing - their American duties - and make a few greenbacks on your hard work".

We now have no intention of returning to the Chew Chew Fest. I have been burned enough, and now the burn is shared. Good job guys... you took what was once likely a really cool thing and turned it into the shit we now expect of anyone who tried to turn a buck on anything that might have any social value.

Night and day...

2007-06-07T21:28:00.000-04:00

So, I teach kids with emotional and behavioral disturbances. The truth is, under most of the hard crusts, most of them are at least good people. Sometimes you just have to carve much deeper to find that good person, but then it's often worth it.

My other side, with respect to being a part of the high school community is that I have been an assistant track coach (I believe I blogged about it before). I am coaching high school kids who are in a sport that loves individual accomplishment and thrives on encouraging each other. Boundaries break and people just get along, even if they have to try a little harder.

So, today was a very long and strange day. Only one more real academic day and a review day are left. The rest is a field trip and finals. So on this next to last real class day one of the kids who has been having a lot of troubles in the last month and a half decided to go the wrong way. If you're an adult, how does it feel when a 14 year old kid says "fuck you" TO YOU? Well, I experience it from time to time at school with these kids, but today, this one student accumulated more "fuck you"s in one day than I have gotten this whole semester. To top it off (actually, since it wasn't the last straw, I can't say it tops it off) he decided it would be funny to fart in the class. He does it often. I'm not sure if he has GI issues or if it really is intentional, but he is never apologetic and never seems to care that he always causes one other student to leave the room angry, another student to no shut up about it - therefore being distracted from doing actual work, and causing me to need to step out of the room. No, he's downright proud of such an accomplishment. The accumulation of all the crap and verbal abuse turned into a suspension for the rest of the academic days and restricted access to time to do his finals. Truth is, two months ago I would have felt very bad. Tonight, I think he's getting better than he deserves. It's still a question if he'll be back in the program next year. While I think he could succeed in our program, I think the cost would include bringing other students down and creating a hostile environment. The benefit of one nowhere near comes close to being more important the benefit of the whole or others.

To contrast is a freshman, about the same age, on the track team. He's an athletic high achiever, but he is still a normal kid. He's respectful and kind to me and even cares about what I think, about his running, but other things. He has his head on straight, even for a sometimes "airheaded" (as another person put it) freshman boy. Sorry, this is short on description... it doesn't need much. It's really that simple.

The connection? The father of the second boy is a guy I graduated high school with. He was an asshole to me a number of times. We didn't hang out. We didn't do the same sports. He wasn't college track, so we didn't even have a single class together. He just found a few reasons within the four year time span to be an ass to me. I never understood it. He was a few steps better than the first boy. I finally got to meet him again tonight and chat about his kid and him. He's changed. He sees what he was at that age and refuses to allow his kids to be that way. He was super positive and completely owned his past - and like me still know how to hold a proper grudge, not against me that is - and was a pleasure to speak with for the nearly 10-15 minutes it must have been. I told him I think his kid is great and he told me I have permission to keep his kid in line if he seems to be going in the wrong direction. I doubt it'll need to happen, but hey, he's a frosh, there's lots of time for things to change or even go wrong. I'm an optimist tough.

I said my good-bye and good luck for the summer to boy #2, wishing him a healthy and active summer, and looking forward to seeing him next year. Boy #1 is currently nowhere near to getting such a positive release statement. Of course me being me, I'll likely change my tune and come next Thursday (I won't be there Friday) I'll give him my best wished for the summer. I suppose that means, in all reality, "I hope you don't get locked up over the summer".

Personal day

2007-06-05T13:01:00.000-04:00

It's amazing the power school boards have over teachers.

Today I'm taking my first of two personal days from work. By the book, it's only supposed to be for purposes that cannot be normally handled during normal school hours. I believe most teachers use it as vacation days, which quite frankly is what they should be. Yep, we get summers off and a week here and there when the kids get the same vacations, but mandated vacations aren't the same as ones where you have a choice. Worse even, since we had 3 snow days, the school board decided that they'd add an extra day for students... wait for it.... wait for it...
and two extra "in-service" days for teachers at the end of the year. They sho' do want they money's worth huh? Even though there are more days built into the academic calendar than are required by Vermont requirements.

So, I'm home today trying to relax a little before the last 3 days of academics, a day field trip and a day of review, then 2 exam days, a make-up exam day (which I'm also taking off as a personal day, followed by a Monday and Tuesday in-service
... ultimately followed up by my summer vacation - though I'm doing a 4 day long conference a week after the first week of vacation, gar!!

I thus far accomplished getting my [rental] violin fixed. It's been making a major buzz when I play. Apparently there was some varnish in a very small place (the clef holes?) that was causing all the trouble. Phew. I tested it out when I got home and no more buzz. Yay!! Then I went outside and installed the replacement speedo cable that came in the mail yesterday on the bike. Took a little longer than I expected - the bugger is in an awkward place for reaching in. But it appears to be working. I noticed I need to replace my grips asap. I put it off for years, but I think it's getting down to goo now. Not nice.

I was going to play some Lord of the Rings Online today, but for some reason I'm just feeling like shutting down everything so I can play. I've got current work up for a web client (Quarterstaff Games) that I keep enhancing. Man, I hope they realize they are getting a killer steal of a deal for the energy and time I'm putting into this. I think it looks great and will be an awesome site. I'll link it when it's actually live.

I watched "The Hills Have Eyes 2" this morning. Creepy, but still not really scary. I have some other horror beauties awaiting, but they might have to wait until break proper or next Friday.

I also ordered the wife an anniversary gift today. She'll be surprised, but I still need to figure out the dinner or "day away" plan. 8 years kicks ass, but I just don't always get excited about anniversaries. My birthday doesn't excite me... I guess I'm just odd.

So, a day of reflection, correction, repair and despair... what a great personal day.

Oh, and yesterday my old partner in musical crime finally showed up again, married and thinner than I remember. Glad he's back in the picture. I hope his time away took at least a little of his religious illness away. Hehehe, hey Todd... I didn't see you there. Um, you know me...

No speedo

2007-05-30T13:10:00.000-04:00

Hah, not specifically THAT kind of speedo, though I don't wear those either :). No, the speedometer cable on my bike sheared during my commute to school last Friday. Very little as surreal as riding about 70mph on the interstate and looking down to see the speedometer resting at 0mph. I reached over and tapped the case... nothin. I got to a straight away and stood up some to reach over and wiggle the cable. Nothin. Then I looked again and realized that the Odometer wasn't moving either. Doh!!

When I got to school, I pulled the cable off the from axle to investigate. After a little move this and spin that, I realized that the last 5 inches or so of the cable has sheared. I pulled it right out - that's not supposed to happen from that end. Yikes.

I called around all the Honda places and no one had a replacement that I could get before tomorrow (Thursday), so I put out the feelers on the VF500F yahoo group and someone said they had an extra. Unfortunately, it's coming from Toronto and won't likely be here until Monday, so I guess I should have just gone with the shops, but oh well, too late. Perhaps I'll be lucky and Canada Post will be early... hahahahahahahahaha... um, yeah, never. If I ever got annoyed with USPS taking a while, it's nothing compared to the snail pace of Canada Post.

Make note, this was the Friday before the Memorial Day weekend. Uh, yeah. I think you can figure out why that sucks... and if you know me already, why that makes perfect sense.

Of course, I could still ride the bike, but I feel unsafe not knowing better how fast I'm moving and I believe it might be illegal to be riding without the Odometer attached. So, better safe than sorry and I'll just hope for some rain to lessen the blow of needing to be on 4 wheels until the replacement comes.

On a similar note, another friend is planning on buying a bike soon (he does the MSF training in about week). I hope he gets a sport bike, but our other friend is hoping for him to get a cruiser. Whatever. I didn't, however, expect it to become a mean spirited discussion from him spouting stereotypes about who would want to get a sport bike. But I suppose I shouldn't expect much with respect to a reasonable discussion between a Japanese sport bike rider and a Hardly Davidson rider. I understand some of the thinking of the HD crowd, but it doesn't make it make sense. I remember whenI did my intermediate MSF training and a woman there was a HD owner (who wasn't licensed) being all friendly with me the whole day. Another guy there had his license and HD and was there for the same reason as me... to get some more guided experience. He ate lunch with me and we spent lots of the free time together chatting about stuff. She wasn't much different, jsut had her car during lunch so did he own thing. At the end of the day, he was shaking my hand saying how he hoped to see me out on the road with a big wave hello. She on the other hand as we were leaving the area and were stopped at the red light, rolled her window down so she could look over to me and shout something about my "lame rice rocket". I didn't get it then, I don't get it now... but I have a friend who I only went riding to Plattsburgh with last month kinda doing the same type of thing.

I'll get over it. Especially if the first friend ends up with a crotch rocket... muahahahaaaaaa.

Run fast, plant, bend, pull, twist, push, land

2007-05-21T19:20:00.000-04:00

Yay! Today at track practice it was all but cemented that if I'm back next year as an assistant track coach, I'll be the official pole vault coach. This means a TON to me. Spaulding High School hasn't had pole vaulting in years, I believe 7 or 8 in fact. Even then, apparently , since I left in 1990, there hasn't been a really competitive vaulter. I'm not sure of that though, since I did leave behind Steve C., who I thought did pretty well... even hitting or breaking my record (11'6"). Anyway, (Mr) Shawn Woods (the AD and current as well as my old track coach) said there really wasn't much.

I've been saying all along since I started down the path of becoming a teacher... I want to coach track. In that, I also really wanted to coach vaulting. I haven't actually vaulted since the spring of 19992, my only year on the UVM Track & Field team. I stunk. I had to relearn how to vault properly, since I mostly taught myself in high school. I only vaulted in one outdoor meet and I believe 2 indoor meets. I still never bettered my 11'6" record.

Spaulding doesn't have vaulting because of some cockamamie national requirement for a specific set of matts that cost in the area of $4000. At a school without a solid number of vaulters, that was too much money to justify buying them. This means that the current plan is that I take the vaulters to another local high school (about 7 miles away or so). That just sucks. I'm not interested in that kind of hassle. I'll do it if that's the only option though. However, I intend on trying to find the money some how. I'm no fund raiser, but perhaps I can come up with something the kids can do. And yes, there are interested people. Even cooler... a girl runner is the one who is getting this thing jump started. Actually, I was literally about to talk to Shawn about it today when he ended up bringing it up before me. I'll need to get certified, but I believe it's not a big deal.. and I'm going to start tonight looking into coaching information, potential for grants and all that.

To top it off, it's incentive for me to get my ass in shape. There's no friggin way I'm going to coach pole vaulting without getting my butt up there on a pole. So, I need to strengthen my shoulders, lose some weight and pre-load with some kind of exercises so that day one, I can do it as an example. I might get my ballsiness back bit too. I'm sure my wife won't be too happy about it, but she'll be ok. :) I hope we don't have to buy new poles as well... yikes, and worse, if we needed to buy a special pole for me to use... yikes!! Grr.

Anyway, if you know me and you're reading this and you want to donate to the cause, I'm more than happy to take some $$$ off of your hands.

I'll update this entry with a pic of me vaulting in HS when I get it scanned (err, after I find it).

There is a god...

2007-05-15T21:10:00.000-04:00

Hahaha, you know I'm just kidding, but one might have to wonder after hearing the great news that Jerry Falwell is DEAD. Oh dear me... wishing ill on the dead. Fuck him. That man is a worthless scumbag piece of shit anyway. Worms might not even want to feat on his carcass when his putrid body rots through his casket. Blame 9/11 on atheist, liberals and homosexuals... fucking moron! Asshole... you KNOW it was your "on the DL butt buddy" G.W. Bush.*

This was a shitty evening ending a not too bad at all day. But it all turned around when I opened my email from the account I wasn't looking at all day and saw the header "Jerry Falwell Dead"... only 10 minutes after finding a stash of gaming dice that I've not seen in a very long time, handily stowed away in my Munchkin Fu box.

I guess now I should make nice with the wife and go put in my violin practice time before SVU.

*I in no way mean my use of that term in disrespect toward homosexuals, or even men on the DL... you just gotta know that people who hate gays as much as they do must be hiding something.

Worst tech week ever

2007-05-06T20:28:00.001-04:00

WTF!?! Last week our new printer came in. We spent months researching what to buy - a color laser that is networkable and does duplex - our ink jet of 8 years was finally just not even trying to work right. Thwe night after I set it up and get it installed on all the machines on the network, I try out printing in duplex... no go. I mean really???

Then out of nowhere, the wireless router dies. Actually, the wireless worked just fine, but the ethernet on it stopped working, so it couldn't connect up to the DSL modem... which makes it relatively useless. I spent about 3 hours fighting the damn thing and eventually had to give up and run out to Best Buy to buy a replacement. I get it home and after spending a while on the phone with Verizon tech support (gee, shock, awe - an Indian who spoke barely understandable English... I didn't expect that from Verizon) until I gave up on her, she wasn't fixing enything. Another hour of trying myself, I got it to work. Unfortunately it's a newer version of the Linksys WRT54G (v8) so the DD-WRT firmware isn't released for it yet... grrr, so for now, bittorrents are touchy since the machines aren't able to be assigned IPs by DHCP using MAC addresses. Grr... yeah, I said that already. I put on some requests in the DD-WRT forum and it looks like it's really new, but I think people are finally working on it.

Thursday afternoon I get home from school ready to do some work on the laptop and then go to violin practice. My screen wouldn't come up. I figured it was just that it was stuck in sleep so I hard booted it - something I really really hate to do. It came up, but then the screen went super dark shortly after. I tried, fruitlessly, a few ideas to get it working, but no go. It stayed on if I started it without the AC adapter attached and the external VGA worked when I plugged into an external monitor. But not good enough... battery life is low and resolution is too high for any of our power hungy CRT monitors.

I break down and call Dell. The machine has Complete Care on it, meaning they are supposed to fix thing and in next day fashion. Well, after 2 and a half hours on the phone with yet another Indian tech support person - who also could barely be understood, causing the call to likely take twice as long, I was told anc convinced that it was a driver issue. I gave him control to install a new driver (which is really the same driver I installed not too long ago anyway) and update the bios for the video adapter. It did work, for about 30 minutes, then the same old thing. I wrote an email about the comeback of the problem. No answer by the next night even. I think I waited even an extra day. Then I remembered my typical standby... boot to a live linux CD. I had the newest Ubuntu CD already downloaded so I burned it and booted to it. I figured, it the machine worked just fine with the other OS, then it's NOT a driver issue. Lo and behold... after plugging the AC adapter in, the LCD went dark after about 10 minutes. Ding ding ding it's a hardware problem. I wrote to Dell again. Still, two more days later, nothing. I'll call them when I have a chance, hopefully tomorrow night. I expect them to send someone here to fix this thing.

Right now I'm working on an older Dell (Latitude C600) that I've had Fedora Core 6 installed on for fun for quite a while. I can't complain, I love it, but the resolution sucks and the machine is slow. I also have web development stuff I needed to do, so my normal way of doing things got torqued. I also had to use the Gimp for some image editing. Don't get me wrong. I love the Gimp, but it does an ass job of creating a nice transparent gif. Photoshop just does it better. Of course, I prefer using png, but since so many fucking dolts still use Internet Explorer (pre version 7), they can't properly see png with alpha channels (that's transparencies), so I still need to do shit like make trans gifs - when I'm doing something for a paying client, unless they are cool with a big F.U. to IE-tards.

Anyway, an install of thunderbird and a few other tools and I'm ok to go, but damnit, I want my main laptop back. I can't even play Lord of the Rings Online, another story altogether. If I'm half lucky, they might have to replace the machine with a new machine that might be better equipped to play LotRO with better video options... hahaha, um, don't count on it.

So, for a guy who lives by technology, this last week was just crappy.

Get me off the grid!!

2007-05-02T14:04:00.000-04:00

What the hell is up with the spill of information? I have been searching for realistic instructions for building a small wind turbine for well over a week and I come up with shells of instructions, or instructions for 6th grade projects or articles about them without anything really useful, but nothing to actually tell me step by step how I can build my own. It's not like I can build a huge 17 foot radius turbine - I live in an apartment in Burlington. But how cool would it be to have one I could throw at the end of our drive way (which attracts wind year 'round) or even on the porch, which is also very often windy. Just a small one. I'd be happy with one that could generate enough energy to power a computer, or better yet, my UPS. If the wind dies down, I'd have some backup power... hahaha. Yeah, that was stupid. OK, enough power to power some of the passive electonics in the house that are always on, which really is mainly computers.

Now, I could do some research myself and come up with the requirement for such power and spend the entire summer learning electronics, aerodynamics and the like and eventually be able to start the project in August - if I'm lucky - but that's not what I want. It is do-able, and people are and have done it, so why aren't more people posting regular guy instructions for how to do it without selling the neighbor's children into slavery to pay for it?

Make Blog has stuff from time to time, usually shell articles with links to Instructables, but nothing of real practical use.

OK, I did just find this one a few minutes ago. Looks like something I should print on the new printer at home and store away... but I haven't read it thoroughly yet.

I've just been annoyed a lot lately (haha, I kid, I've been annoyed for a long time) about energy costs and BUllSHit lies that have caused gas prices this morning to be around $2.97/gallon. I want to be as green as I can be without having to do without some basics. For real. If people really want to convince people to become greener, should they do like what some municipalities are doing with recycling? Burlington has mandatory recycling and it's just covered with our taxes. Of course I wouldn't expect solar panels and portable wind turbines to be free, but they should at least be reasonably priced by now that more than the wealthy or credit card hippies, or people willing to step way outside the box can afford. If (and when) the wife and I get a house of out own, sure I'll be able to tinker with my own land and stuff a little more - if we're living near a river or stream that touches our property line, you better believe I'll be looking for a water turbine solution - but right now, we're still rent paying ijits.

I guess my point of this rant is that I don't understand why this kind of information - how to build your own energy saving/producing devices - is still being kept hidden, hard to find, or requires buying a book from someone. For real!! You'd think people looking to save the planet would be a little more open to giving away their ideas and experiences so that others can embrace them just as well. I give my friggin music away... how about a little love back?

If you know of the perfect resources for such my requests, post them in the comments.

Proof of string

2007-04-22T13:29:00.000-04:00

As mentioned previously... I'm learning how to play the violin. Here's a picture taken this morning by the wife. I had my first lesson last Thursday. It was cool. Different. It's going to be a struggle, physically. I don't have the flexibility yet in my wrist, but I'll get there.

I'm learning with Julia Ainsworth. She nice and took things really slowly. Hopefully we're both comfortable with pushing me a little harder.

I suppose the worst that could come of this is that I waste some money (which would actually hurt a lot more if not for the awesome birthday money I got from my in-laws, or that I find that learning proper music training isn't going to work for me - which would mean back to hacking along with my own productions.

You got your peanut butter on my chocolate!!

2007-04-15T19:41:00.000-04:00

I'm officially on my first spring break in years. A real benefit of being a teacher, breaks where there is no expectation of doing actual work... finally. And thus also the first time I've been able to take a vacation that didn't cost me vacation time or money. I can do what I want, when I want, and how I want.

NOT!!

It's fricken' snowing outside. It's expected to be a big nor'easter ending sometime tomorrow or Tuesday. Are you kidding me? I was so hoping to get my motorcycle out for a real ride and it looks like I will have to wait at least another week... gee, like during the week my wife has her spring break. Go figure.

I suppose that'll make it easier to play Lord of the Rings Online - it opens for real soon, so I should get more time in anyway. I've also got a line up of horror flix waiting to be watched, yay! I've got lots to do, so I won't suffer, but still... the middle of April and it's weather we SHOULD have had in November.

Stringman

2007-04-14T14:18:00.000-04:00

I got my violin today. Well, not mine - I'm renting a violin because I'm starting violin lessons this coming Thursday. Yep. Starting. I've never learned an instrument for real and being 35 and starting with the violin is a challenge from what I've heard, but a challenge that I'm more than excited to get going with. Half of me is really expecting that I'm going to do well, but I feel that way about everything new I try and it's just not always the case.

I got it home and opened it up, put rosin on the bow and checked to see that I could make it play sounds that weren't train wrecks themselves. A little googling to check on bow holding and how to rest the violin on my shoulder and I think I have it... I think I have it. What do I know? That's why I have a teacher - duh. I'm sure she'll happily point out any and all the flaws. Frankly I hope she does. I want to learn this correctly. Perhaps I'll post a picture of it with me as proof. Hahaha. Actually, that's part of the plan since the money being used to pay for the initial rental and lessons is from birthday money from my in-laws, so I'll want them to see what theyve done - and give them time to run for the hills.

[edit]I just got this link from a member of the Beginner Adult Violin Students yahoo group I'm subscribed to. Wow. It's about an experiment with one of the world's best musicians playing in a metro train station - and getting very little respect for it to say the least. A fun read at the very least.[/edit]

Oh, and on a completely unrelated story, I helped my wife set up her blog. Woohoo. I've been telling her for years she should have one because she has great stuff I think would make a pretty fun read. When she has a post created, I'll link her on the side.

Sick and sick

2007-04-10T17:58:00.000-04:00

Ask anyone who's known me for any amount of time in the last 10 years and you'll find agreement that I've often been sick or at least constantly coughing and clearing my throat. I'm sick now. I had a fever of 102.6 deg. F last night and thankfully it went down to 100.2 this morning. Well, I've not been unsick in over a month quite frankly. I got sick during the February break and was sick for a week after that, but really, I had a bad cough consistently since. My wife has told me constantly to go to the doctor. Well, I went last summer. He didn't seem too concerned that I have a persistent cough, but I pushed a little and he did some breathing tests, etc. Eventually he had me try advair... NOT CHEAP. It did nothing.

I'm assuming I might have some alergies, but WTF do I have to do to get my doctor to even care? It just doesn't seem right that a person my age should be getting sick this often.

So, next week I am on spring break... perhaps I'll make an appointment. But the truth is, I'm just getting sick of being sick.

Atheist Easter

2007-04-08T20:20:00.000-04:00

I love my parents. I respect them both and hold them both in high regard in many ways. I do not, however, respect their faith. My mom has always been religious or at least of faith, but around 10 years ago or so, she became "born again". With a certain set of circumstances in life, dad ended up following along. I cannot honestly say what my dad really believes, but at the very worst, he believes my mom is worth him at least following along.

Anyway, they are members of a Methodist church that, from what I can tell, is possibly exclusively evangelical. Completely antithetical to my own beliefs - a strong atheist. Frankly, I find their religion offensive at its core. But like I said, I love my mom and dad and will be by them as much as I can.

So, today is Easter. In my view, a day of celebration of a fraudulent resurrection of a fake historical figure that entices children into celebration with the Easter Bunny and guarantees of chocolate delights (dudes and dudettes [err, I saw TMNT yesterday so cut me some slack], I practically live for chocolate) and other sweets. Christianity is sick in how it distorts everything to match its needs, co-opting pre-existing celebrations to do what it does best, fool people into adding numbers to the appearance of practitioners, to the point where we are now, millions in lunatics who actually believe their dogma, or worse, biblical literalists.

Most often, mo, tried to invoke prayer before we eat there. Usually she tries to get dad to do it, but he's doing it less and less, making me really wonder what's on his mind. When I was younger after their conversion, I defied the practice. I was becoming more open about my atheism on the internet, even had an essay I wrote published in an issue of Secular Nation and copied onto a few web sites. Defying them was something they took personal right off. These days, I let them have their fantasy, I just sit and wait for the madness to end. But what is funny is that when the whole family is together, such as today (immediate family and two wives), mom is surrounded by two strong atheists, an agnostic and a secular humanist. Lots of sore tongues form the biting there of. So I do my duty as a loving son and happy family member and silently - for the moment - suffer the insanity, as it makes them happy and I don't believe they are directly making the world a worse place... only indirectly

Thankfully xmas is pretty much the next forced down our throat xian holiday, where I'll happily go home and spend time (we do at least once a month anyway) doing a dinner with my parents. I just thought I'd point out the irony of the non-theists gathered around the praying theist.

To make it more intriguing I got home and read this exchange between Sam Harris (my somewhat hero) and Rick Warren, a relatively nice guy-but evangelical-creationist nut job. Not as cool as getting The End of Faith and A Letter to a Christian Nation as winter solstice (read as "that forced celebrating of xmas") gifts, but good enough.

Game of choice

2007-04-06T23:16:00.000-04:00

First post and relatively pointless at that... I'm about to get playing Lord of the Rings Online. I was part of one of the stress tests then invited back for the closed beta. I'm new to these types of games, but certainly not new to Tolkien's amazing world... so I really didn't have a choice in the matter, I pre-ordered the game and am now in the open-beta until release and then I'll likely fork over the $200 for the lifetime subscription. Sad huh? Well, I figure that during summer break, I'll get in a LOT of gaming time, so that alone will likely make me feel like I got my money's worth.

So... I'm sure I'll post some pix/screenshots over time and perhaps talk about my experiences there. I'm currently playing a hobbit bandit... had to make a new one for the open beta, but I'm pretty much playing the same character I made for the closed beta. His name WAS "Brand", but amazingly someone took it before I re-created him... damnit!!! I believe I ended up picking Torbrand... good enough. Brand is the name of my halfling monk in one of the D&D campaigns I play in every Wednesday night.

More later.