February 2005 Archives

After weeks of trying to get one, I finally found a 1gb iPod Shuffle. I went out a lunch time (mostly from a need to get away from the office), and checked first at my local Target in East Pasadena. They had 512mb units, but no 1gb ones.

I wanted more time away from work, so I stopped at the Target next to Vroman's. Their display had 3 units in the 512mb section, and none in the 1gb section, but for some reason I decided to look at the 3 units and found that the one furthest away was actually a 1gb. The young guy who unlocked the display for me was surprised to find out about my discovery.

I just started playing with it, and expect to put it to good use, primarily for motorcycling use, and when walking either at lunchtime or in the evenings.

I dropped off the FJR at Pasadena Yamaha on Friday morning for its 4000 mile service. I asked the mechanic to check on some vibrations I'd been feeling in the front end; they weren't severe, but it just wasn't right.

I picked it up today at 3:45pm. The mechanic told me that the triple-clamp bolt was loose - he noticed it just pushing it around the shop floor. I wish I'd figured it out before my personal land speed record attempt last Monday...

On the way home, I noticed how nice the bike was running. Shifting was especially smooth, the engine was quiet and powerful, and braking was smooth and precise. Very cool.

I originally volunteered to do one game of the AYSO Section All Star playoff games at 9:00am this morning, but as these things always pan out, I wound up doing 3 games, and didn't get home until after 3:30pm. All in all, it was fun, but I should have worn a hat in the midday sun.

I watched Dinner Rush. Like High Noon, the movie runs almost in real time, at an Italian restaurant in Tribeca. Danny Aiello deals with mobsters, his son's ambitions to own his restaurant, and the mess left by his partner's execution. I stayed 40 minutes past the end of my donation to finish the movie, in spite of Sandra Bernhard. The story skewers all kinds of New York movie stereotypes: Italian mobsters, artists, art critics, restaurant critics, Irish cops (and their wives!), and gays, and feels more like a play with some 30 speaking parts.

by MP Brian Sedgemore

As this will almost certainly be my last speech in Parliament, I shall try hard not to upset anyone. However, our debate here tonight is a grim reminder of how the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are betraying some of Labour's most cherished beliefs. Not content with tossing aside the ideas and ideals that inspire and inform ideology, they seem to be giving up on values too. Liberty, without which democracy has no meaning, and the rule of law, without which state power cannot be contained, look to Parliament for their protection, but this Parliament, sad to say, is failing the nation badly. It is not just the Government but Back-Bench Members who are to blame. It seems that in situations such as this, politics become incompatible with conscience, principle, decency and self-respect. Regrettably, in such situations, the desire for power and position predominates.

On a particularly flat, straight, dry section of I-8 in Arizona between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, I set a new personal land speed record. There was no traffic visible, in either direction, and the V-1 was on the job.

135mph.

There was plenty left in the bike, too.

I filled up at the Circle K on Irvington, then made good time to Casa Grande. I made a last second decision to go west on I-8, to avoid Phoenix and to see some new scenery. I'm not ashamed to say that my adventure on I-8 included a perfectly flat, straight, dry, sunny section of roadway with no traffic to be seen forward or back in either direction, which I put to good use: 135mph, a new personal land speed record. (Previous record was 130 in the 'Vette. And yes, the V-1 was on the job.)

SR-85 from Gila Bend to I-10 was packed with off-roaders going home. I still think it made the trip faster, and I was glad to avoid Phoenix.

I stopped for food and gas at a T/A truck stop. Ate one slice of my personal pan pepperoni pizza, which was somehow nasty, but I enjoyed the bread sticks.

The next break was in Blythe. No more butterscotch, but the strawberry sundae went well with the new book, "Tourist Season".

There was lots of rain, often heavy, between Blythe and Indio. I stopped for gas and to wait out the storm at a Coco's just west of Indio. Jacket was soaked through; gloves too. The henley was sopping at wrists and tail. More than a few heads gave pitying shakes as I left the waiting area to restart the ride.

Perseverance paid off, and I got home just two minutes past my 9:00pm target that I set leaving the Coco's. (There was too much rain and too much traffic to go safely faster.) When I got home, I got complaints from Jeremy that I wasn't going to make dinner, dried off, started a load of towels, and went to bed.

Sunday started out slowly. Carole and I talked about the things we needed to talk about until 11:30 or so. We decided to go to Pastiche, a small but busy "modern eatery", for brunch, followed by a road trip to Nogales (on the AZ side) then up to Patagonia.

Carole has a house in escrow about 3/4 of a mile away. There's been a minor dispute between the parties on the condition of a roof leak, and Carole found it ironic that the seller's were on the roof making repairs in spite of their agent's statements to the contrary.

Pastiche does not serve lunch on the weekends. The line in the drive-thru at the Long John Silver's had an endless wait, but the food was good (once we got it).

The road to Nogales and the accompanying converstation was pleasant. There's some kind of elevated mine that seems to go on for 8-10 miles.

Nogales. Not much to say.

Patagonia Lake, southwest of the city, is a pleasant little lake, just a little smaller than Big Bear Lake. We had a nice walk, and went half-way on a footbridge with a huge arch. I got a little dizzy on the way up.

We decided to visit all the rest of properties that Carole had worked on in Tucson. Tucson needs at least a couple more freeways: one the goes north from the I-10 to Tanque Verde, running just east of Houghton; and one that goes east from the I-10 between Grant and Speedway. Huge section of town are only accessible with a 10-mile drive on surface streets.

As we got closer to Tucson, signs warned of a bridge problem on Houghton right by the freeway. To be safe, Carole went on to Rita Rd. and doubled back slightly to Houghton. We visited a nice house on the 16th fairway of a golf club that Carole's clients bought last year.

From there, we headed back to Pastiche. We waited at the bar, and I "let" Carole beat me at Canasta. (I went out each time, but still lost by so much that we didn't even count up the last hand. Pitiful.)

Carole had a burger and margarita fries (with a vat of Ranch dressing). The waitress was very friendly.

I had a flat-iron steak that was maybe a little undercooked, but the sauce it came in was very good, with a lot of flavor. The mashed sweet potatos were just right - not too soggy, not too firm. I cleaned my plate, including the tomato stuffed with brocolli.

On the way back to Carole's place, we stopped at a rental complex Carole had sold on Ajo Way. Lot's of potential, and a great investment as-is.

I freely admit I picked this up because of the recent Frazz thread, but I've enjoyed other Hiaasen books in the past.

Carole invited me to come out to Tucson in early February, and the initial plan was for the weekend of Feb 12-13, but the rain was bad and the initial forecast for the following weekend was better, so I delayed the trip a week. The Monday holiday meant I'd have a day in between the two legs of the trip, making it much more relaxing, but still an adventure.

My dad turns 79 on Sunday, but I didn't want to miss out on our traditional birthday breakfast at Coco's, and persuaded everyone to meet up on Saturday instead. During breakfast we found out an interesting fact: Sheehan did not know what coffee cake was. Carol doesn't eat the carbs that come with breakfast anyway, so Sheehan got a chance to try it out.

The waiter was very good, and very funny, and everyone enjoyed breakfast immensely.

The earlier forecasts were wrong - dead wrong. After breakfast it took me quite a while to finish last minute packing, get the bike ready, put on my gear and hit the road. I wound up leaving around 10:20am.

The rain started in heavily just after the I-215, and it was apparent that my rain jacket (the heavy, red one) was not waterproof, or even close. I stopped off at a Sportmart in Redlands and got a pair of neoprene gloves, and a $6 rain suit to put over my shirts and under my cycling jacket. This improved my situation somewhat.

Between Yucaipa and Banning I passed two different accidents with overturned cars on the other (westbound) side of I-10. Somewhat sobering, but I knew I had a world-class motorcycle, engineered and equipped to handle all kinds of weather conditions.

I stopped for gas in Coachella, but after the big breakfast I wasn't hungry. In Blythe I needed a break, grabbing a cheeseburger and reading 10 pages of The Forgotten Man. The rain started in again east of Quartzsite, and continued on and off (mostly on) all the way to Tucson.

I stopped for gas at a Shell station in Tonopah. Between Tonopah and Buckeye, a white Chevy pickup road my tail while I passed a slower moving car. Once I cleared the car I was passing, I pulled over into the right lane to let the pickup pass, and made a waggling motion with my left hand to let the driver know I wasn't thrilled about the closeness. As they passed me, the passenger tossed a dark beer bottle onto the road just in front of the bike. No harm, but I was a little angry, and conjured up all sorts of retaliations in my mind. They pulled off after ten miles, with no further incidents.

I pulled in to Carole's garage around 8:00 (9:00pm MST), and finally accepted the offer of a hot bath to cure my shivering.

By Clive Cookson in Washington for the Financial Times
Original Article

A leading US team of climate researchers on Friday released “the most compelling evidence yet” that human activities are responsible for global warming. They said their analysis should “wipe out” claims by sceptics that recent warming is due to non-human factors such as natural fluctuations in climate or variations in solar or volcanic activity.

Congrats to the Mozilla Group for the 25 millionth Firefox download. Resistance is not futile.

I've used Firefox as my only (almost) browser for many months - long before the 1.0 version was released. I have to keep IE to run my company's ASP-based tools - Niku and Siebel - but otherwise it's only Firefox. I have no problems with pop-ups, and I'm not sure I could work without tabbed browsing and the Google Toolbar extension. I have a bunch of extensions that make online life easier - spell checks, development tools (on-the-fly CSS editing is invaluable), IE view to load the current page in IE (for those non-compliant, IE-only sites we all love to hate). JustBlogIt lets me right-click to add a link to my weblog's Odds and Ends list, the stock ticker keeps track of my company's failing (but now rebounding) fortunes. Image Zoom helps me past my eye-sight problems, and I get unobtrusive icons in the status bar with current and upcoming weather.

MS just announced an IE 7, only because of the increasing buzz and competition from Firefox.

Elvis is drawn into the case of a murdered man who makes a dying claim that Elvis is his son.

Crais just get better and better with each book.

duotrigesimal - a number in base 32 (like hexadecimal).

Hidalgo was a little slow, and I was a long way from the end when I finished the donation.

From Opinions You Should Have

The manufacturers of Zoloft, a popular antidepressant, announced today that they would begin work on a pill that encapulates President Bush's mental disposition. "No matter how bad things are, this pill will make you believe everything is really great," said Betty Garland, a spokesman for Pfizer. "We think this pill will be a best seller."

Indeed, preliminary research indicates that the so-called "W is for Wonderful" pill will induce a state of blissful, ignorant euphoria among its users. The idea for the pill arose after polls showed that a whopping 77 per cent of the American people who watched Bush's address felt that "all was right with the world" after hearing the speech. This same group of listeners felt that their most pressing concerns involved choosing a new upgrade for their riding mower and finding a dishwashing detergent that doesn't cause "unsightly spotting."

The pill will be marketed under the slogan, "Come on! Drink the Kool-Aid!'

Side effects of the pill include blindness, dizziness, addiction, deafness, hypocrititis, ovationoriasis -- an inability to refrain from giving a standing ovation to the most shallow homily --as well as ever-increasing debt and susceptibility to a military draft.

Between work, NFHS, Justin's suspension, doctor's appointments, and other committments, life's been a bitch, pardon my French. When things are hectic during the week, day-to-day stuff backs up, so my plan for the weekend was to catch up on things - laundry, domestic paperwork, taxes - and to relax a little.

Saturday was alternating between chores and relaxing. Sunday morning around 9:00am I got a call from Karen inviting me/us over to their house to watch the Superbowl. It's fun hanging out with John and Cary, but everyone else was otherwise committed, and I wound up going by myself. Not wanting to leech, I stopped at Ralphs for snacks and sodas, and brought the smores maker and the necessary supplies.

The game was good, not great. John had a couple of friends from school over, and Cat came to hang with Sam, but otherwise it was just me. The commercials were fun, but seemed somewhat bland - probably an overreaction from last year's half-time fiasco.

I met my goals for the weekend - chores (mostly) done, relaxing (mostly) done, and a good time with the Bowsers.

I don't consider myself an expert, but freely admit to having significant experience in the skill of lane splitting - specifically, in Southern California lane splitting. In California, it's legal for motorcycles to ride between lanes of traffic, but in many parts of the U.S., lane splitting is not allowed.

Lane splitting in Southern California is not easy. Traffic in general is horrendous. Drivers are pre-occupied with cell phones, car stereos, and blaring kids. To improve overall traffic flow, an extra lane has been added to many freeways by relining existing lanes and shoulders. This results in lanes that are quite skinny, reducing the space that motorcyclists can use for lane splitting. A lot of freeway traffic consists of large trucks and SUVs that occupy almost all of the lane from side-to-side. During rush-hour, its not uncommon to find big rigs in the number two lane.

In this environment, you must ask the question: can lane splitting be done safely. The answer is: usually, but only if you have the proper skills, patience, and knowledge to make it work.

Lane splitting requires two skill sets: a) intimate knowledge of your bikes handling, braking, and acceleration; and b) the unconscience knowledge of the overall traffic situation around you.

Lane splitting must be done only in carpool lanes; if the freeway doesn't have carpool lanes, then only between lanes 1 and 2.

Carpool lanes are preferred. The best lane splitting situation is the carpool lane on the I-10 between East Los Angeles and El Monte. The carpool lane itself is separated from the main traffic lanes by a six-foot wide buffer lane, reducing the chances of an incursion, and there are only a couple of entry points in each direction. In addition, there's a solid white line that marks off a three-foot section on the right side of the carpool lane. It's almost like a separate motorcycle lane, and it gets well used by commuting cyclists.

Most other carpool lanes are separated from the main traffic lanes by only a set of double yellow lines. Cars are allowed to enter and leave the carpool lane only at merge points, which occur every one to three miles.

Rules:

• Only in carpool lanes; if no carpool lane, only between lanes 1 and 2.
• Never more than 10-15 mph over the speed of the slowest lane involved.
• Do not signal lane changes that consist only of moving from one side of the lane divider to the other side.
• Watch for faster cyclists behind you, and move to the left side of the left lane to let them pass.