Intellectual Poison

So I wanted to try out a cool screensaver I'd seen a few weeks, a 3D Aquarium one that looks gorgeous and has quite realistic fish movement.

And it is gorgeous and nice. It is also shareware, which is totally fine. However, the registration requests start up very quickly and got so damned annoying, I just deleted the stupid ass program.

Shareware makers, I understand your pain and desire to get paid for your creations. But being so in-your-face is annoying and short sighted. Ease up a bit, limit the fish or the tank or whatever but put the registration attack on the back burner. Or just make the program time out in three days or whatever.

You're shooting yourselves in the foot by being so abrasively aggressive in demanding registration. And the 3D Aquarium people have lost any chance of a sale with me because they made themselves to over the top aggravating.

Labels: dumb marketing, shareware

About time I posted a new Cheddar X, this one's about habits.

1. What is your best habit?
Exercise has been a habit since I've been young. If I don't workout, ride or otherwise burn off physical steam, my life doesn't work right. And yet I still miss workouts and rides which leads me to my worst habit.

2. What is your worst habit?
Procrastination.

3. What habit in others annoys you the most?
Interrupting me when I'm speaking. Although Sully's gotten into this habit lately of screeching loud enough to make it feel like my eardrums are bleeding, that's pretty annoying.

4. What habit would you like to acquire?
Going to bed earlier.

5. Why do they call a nun's headgear a habit?
I don't know but I smile everytime I think about The Flying Nun because the headgear looks more like a wing than a habit.

Labels: cheddar x

One of my only complaints about the excellent Google Maps is that you cannot change the route it selects when you map some directions.

Until today (or very recently). Now you can grab and move your route to avoid bad roads, known accidents or to just take the scenic route. And the system will update the directions in real-time for you.

Totally awesome and it has added a huge new dimension of functionality and utility. In addition to make it easier to map out bike routes or trails to get a better idea of distances and the like.
via RealTechNews.

Labels: directions, googletech

That's how I am going to describe the service on my laptop. I dropped it off on Monday afternoon around 2 to have the motherboard replaced, which meant that it had to get sent to an Apple repair house.

They called me today to come and pick it up.

That's under three days for a shipped out repair. No, it wasn't cheap but it was worth it to have my speedy little baby back.

Now I can start to really get some steam behind my photography site.

We also had a nice trip to one of the parks in Santa Cruz, this one overlooks the Boardwalk and has some interesting equipment to play on but also has a bunch of slides.

There was also a trip to CostCo in there as well but it was a trip for necessities, nothing too fun this time around.

I'm just thrilled to have my machine back and with a screen I can actually see, that makes all the difference. And Apple didn't even wipe my hard drive in the repair process. They did, however, declare my third party RAM was a problem and took it out to send it back, the repair shop put it back in for me.

Overall, I'm very, very happy tonight!

Labels: computer, fast, repair

The thing about trying to create a new website is that, no matter how clever your domain name, someone has already freakin' registered it. Absolutely no matter what.

And, if you happen to have initials like mine (ECO) then forget about it. Pretty much any combination of my initials and anything resembling photography has already been snapped up by environmentalists or domain-wranglers.

So, once your first tier of ideas has been rapidly exhausted (and let me tell you, I LOVE going to a domain that I've thought of and finding nothing but ads and links, no website whatsoever) then you start making compromises to see if you can retain a mote of the original idea and wit.

And then you end up with a gobbledegook mash of letters that means nothing to anyone but you.

Which means I'm back to the drawing board, AGAIN. I had a great name this afternoon but, to come close to it, I risk completely losing the concept behind it. Maybe not but I think I'll approach it with a fresh(er) mind in the morning.

Stupid domain-name-wranglers and their stupid computer generated domain registrations.

Labels: annoyances, website

This is where we spent the last week, in a little town called Troncones outside of Zihuatanejo in the state of Guerrero. Our place had a three story villa, a private villa and a couple of other places too. It was spacious, beautiful and nicely maintained.

The two pools, one here and one over at the private villa, were the only things keeping us from bursting into flames during the heat of the day.

The ocean was quite refreshing and the surf was excellent fun to boogie board and play in. Also, just down the beach was a place called Present Moment (tell them the huge group from Casa de la Sirena sent you!), a yoga retreat, where we ended up eating numerous meals and getting to know the owners and staff. And they made a pretty good mojito too!

Labels: photography, vacation

Techdirt: How To Make Being Put On Hold Even More Annoying: Pipe In Some Ads because people waiting for customer service (or emergency tech support) really, really, really make for good potential up-sell customers to blast ads at.

Actually, they don't. At all.

When I need tech support and I'm put on hold while awaiting the next available operator, I cannot adequately express how deeply annoying getting sales pitch after sales pitch for additional services is. If I'm already stressed about my product being broken then there is absolutely zero chance I want to be marketed to for more junk.

I'm sure there's a percentage of people that will buy this way but I can assure you that I will never be one of them and I'll also register my complaint with the sales pitch while on hold as revenue maker model, it is rude. And rude business models deserve to fail.

There are ads almost everywhere, why do advertisers feel so compelled to keep pushing them in our faces? They must understand that humans reach a saturation point beyond which any further targeted marketing is useless, the target has eiher gone to buy the product (which won't stop the ads) or he, like me, has become immune to the non-stop barrage by tuning the vast, vast majority of it out.

Or, I also tend to analyze ads and tear them apart for their tawdry use of manipulative techniques to gain customers.

Labels: bad marketing

Elizabeth Edwards politely and respectfully asked Ann Coulter, directly and not on some interview, to stop with the personal attacks against her husband, John Edwards.

Coulter's response was to try and conflate the request into asking Ann to stop speaking altogether (we should be so lucky). Which is, of course, totally untrue and par for her course, when cornered, she makes something totally over the top up and rides that to safety regardless of its logic or reasonability.

Ann Coulter cares not about respect or discourse, she cares about derailing the political process for her personal financial gain. She cannot possibly believe the bile she spews, nobody is that articulate and that stupid. Therefore, she's playing a game, a baiting game to see who she can get on her hateful little hook to yank around like a toy for a while.

My sister-in-law once mentioned that she listened to Dr. Laura on the radio and was attempting to use some of the harpie's advice in our conversation. At which point, my opinion of her dropped to about half of where it had been. If you parrot hate, if you are nothing but a conduit for the stupid blatherings of the Right Wing Hate Squad then you are truly nothing at all. And I pretty much told her so. Which didn't score me any points but that wasn't my purpose.

Do not be mistaken, Ann Coulter craves the attention she gets from slandering Democrats and their allies, she lives for it and thrives on the anger and frustration she sows. The very best response to her frenzied (and really pretty stupid) rantings is to look upon her with pity for her desperate ego need and then ignore her altogether.

To give her the attention she requires does not a thing but feed her insatiable appetite for more which explains why she's going further and further out on a limb with her insane ramblings. Calling a sitting Senator a faggot? Publicly wishing for his assassination? Wow, scrape that barrel, you pathetic harpie, scrape that barrel until all you get are the splinters you so richly deserve.

Labels: hate speech, politics

I call shenanigans, nobody really cares all that much that a spoiled idiot like Paris Hilton got out of prison today. This has to be her PR team (which is galling to think about in and of itself) spinning the news cycles to revolve around their "star". The news is making it out like she was in prison forever, she's had longer phonecalls. Enough.

Seriously, in the Yahoo Most Viewed photos, 39 of 40 photos are of this twit and her "march to freedom".

One photo is of Curtis Allgier, a real criminal who escaped the other day while on a medical trip, murdered a police officer and was then recaptured. He also happens to have tattoos all over his face and body. He also happens to be a real news story, not some trumped up trollop with her head still very firmly planted between her own ass cheeks and exclaiming that her farts smell like daisies.

And yes, I'm well aware of the irony of kvetching about media coverage for a fool like Paris Hilton and then writing a blog post about it and helping to feed her ego/star power/whatever.

Anyway, I'll wrap this up with a wager for anyone willing to take the over. I will wager a week of posts about kitty cats and furry niceness that Paris Hilton will be arrested again within the year. And I hope she gets her stupid ass sent away for a long time this around.

Any takers? Post a comment with what you'll put on the line when I win the bet.

Labels: "celebrity", wager

I added some code from Flooble.com to the site last night to make the side menus collapsible and hidable. I like the idea of a cleaner interface and that's what I'm going for. If any of y'all run into problems with them menus, let me know, 'kay? The plus sign [+] means the menu can be opened, the minus sign [-] means it can be closed, pretty straightforward although I should note that I wanted little rotating triangles but I couldn't find them so we got math signs instead.

I'm not done with the minor redesign yet but my eyes had gone crossed and I had to go sleep.

And the boys were up at 6, again.

In other news, my powerbook is off for repairs. It is almost as economical to just get another powerbook but I want my laptop back. We'll re-evaluate the situation in a few months and see if I really do need to downsize my portable power.

Labels: powerbook, website

In the process of cleaning up and out my office (and having had to pull down a box in the garage to get my powerbook travel case), I have come to realize that I have a problem with cables. I cannot seem to bring myself to throw them out. Ever.

I have USB cables, ethernet cables, firewire cables (with little ends and big ends) telephone cables, power cables to long lost widgets and appliances, totally random and obtuse cables with odd connectors on each end and many, many more.

I have a box in the garage that is almost dedicated to cables and my briefcase in the office has been converted into a mobile cable storage unit.

But the first step in addressing the problem is recognizing the problem. And I recognize that I have a cable addiction. Today is the first day on my road to recovery and a less cable-cluttered existence.

Labels: addiction

"When I was a boy of 14 my father was so ignorant that I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished by how much the old man had learned in only 7 years."

Being around my family always makes me think about my father more than I usually do (and I think about him often since I see him in my children everyday). I miss him not having gotten a chance to meet my two sons because I know how happy he would have been and how happy he would have been for me.

I don't really have a point in this post, I just like the quote and have had my dad on my mind alot lately.

Labels: father, quote

Pure joy is when your dog gets to see you for the first time after being boarded for a little over a week.

Pure joy is cute in a 40-50 dog, maybe. It can be downright dangerous with a 90 pound hound like Nande!

But it is impossible to not love her enthusiasm and wide, wide smile.

But yeesh does she need a good brushing (with one already done!). I think we'll be going for a bike ride tomorrow, that ought to be nice and fun.

Labels: happiness, life with a dog

Yesterday was a long day. We started in the high humidity and high heat of Troncones/Zihuatenejo and ended up inthe foggy cool darknessof Watsonville. The day of smooth travel was, sadly, not to be had by us.

Our flight out was late which made the chances of our making the connection slimmer and noner by the minute. A night in LA wouldn't have been the worst thing that could have happened (that would probably be a traffic accident in Zihua or having our passports lifted). But still, we wanted our beds in our home. Not another borrowed beds somewhere in a borrowed room.

It turns out that there are significant advantages to flying the same carrier and to having San Francisco as our final destination. The big one being that Alaska Airlines held our connection. Read that slowly again, if you need to. There were about 20 people on the flight from Zihua that were heading to SFO as a final stop.

Rather than issue a crapload of expensive vouchers (since it was an Alaska Airlines plane that was late to get us there) they held the flight for us to clear customs, recheck bags, pass through security and then run to another plane.

Customs going both ways was, surprisingly, easy. Our bags were quick searched and we were greenlighted (literally in Zihua). The US customs in LAX (love that> irony) was huge and cool and fast, the Alaska Airlines baggage delivery was very slow (again, not passenger error or tardiness).

Through all of it both Grady and Sully were troopers of the highest and best order. Not perfect, at all, but they put up with a long day of movement, restriction, not enough food and repeated awakenings and awkward sleepings. Not to mention, idiot teens who think kids have "mute" or "off" buttons, not one but two broken baggage carousels, an excrement scented elevator, a 12:30 am stop at In'n'Out Burger for some road food home and a final arrival at home at just before 2 in the morning after starting the day in Zihua at about 6, the final drive home was very hard because of the deep weariness in us all but we did, finally, eventually and gratefully, get home.

And Grady was up at 6, which is why I am here, typing out a post at 7 am. Shouldn't 3 and a half hours of sleep be enough for a poppa? Apparently.

Alaska Airlines gets big props for stepping up after they dropped the ball on the first flight, also for having spunky stewardesses, good communication AND baby changing tables in the bathrooms (taking notes, US Airways?).

But I do like having my house around me again, I think I'm going to make some pancakes forme and the boys. Sully will be up before too long, I'm sure.

Labels: travel, vacation

In baseball terms, its called the Getaway day. In vacation terms, its called Heading for Home. Either way, tomorrow is our last here in sunny, hot, humid and beautiful Troncones.

We fly out tomorrow afternoon, although in retrospect I'd wished we'd gotten an earlier flight to avoid the peak heat during the middle of the day. But that's alright, we'll be the last to leave.

I'll write up alot more of the trip once we're home and I've got broadband connectivity again. And I'll post some photos as well.

I am hoping the lightning storms come back tonight so I can try to catch some long exposure shots over the ocean. Last night was the first night without them.

We have had a good time but I'll be looking forward to getting back to a place without 190% humidity. Seriously, you wake up sweating here, it is somewhat insane.

Also, I invented a new word last night.
Mojita - a virgin mojito, a play off senorita and somewhat of an inside joke.

Wish us happy travels, easy customs and soft landings. I can't wait to see my hound on Sunday morning! Plus we fly Alaska Airlines out so that'll be a nice twist and should be a marked improvement over the corner cutter bottorom feeder airline that is US Airways.

Labels: travel, vacation

I've always wanted to come here, well, not specifically to Troncones but to Zihuatejeno. Ever since I saw the Shawshank Redemption. This was where Andy Dufrane went after escaping the prison. And I understand why.

It is beautiful here, the water is warm, the weather is hot and the cervezas are cold.

If I weren't poking along on my old warhorse Pismo powerbook I'd upload some photos (taken with the new XTi, which utterly rocks!). I need a telephoto lens soon but it really does take an amazing photo, some of the shots I"ve gotten of Grady have been really excellent.

Last night we had dinner at a yoga retreat up the beach. Yes, we were able to walk along the beach to go to dinner. And it was fantastic. The children, all six of them, danced and played on the wooden yoga platform, a couple of Rhodesian Ridgebacks wandered around looking for scraps and pets and everyone enjoyed cocktails as the sun went down. It was pretty darned nice.

I will have to write up our experiences at the airport in Phoenix when I can, it was INSANE!

But that's behind us now, we're on manana time and really loving every minute of it here. I will say that, without the pool to cool off in, things wouldn't be quite so rosy!

Labels: vacation

I am sorry, not really, but if there is no excuse for a modern airline to NOT have baby changing tables in the airplane bathrooms.

US Airways, aside from truly odd liability disclaimers from the steward, does not deem the need to change a baby's diaper as important enough to make it easy.

Have you ever tried to changed a diaper with your child laying on a toilet seat? It is neither easy nor fun. Add in a baby that refuses to lay flat while his diaper is getting changed and you've got mayhem in a 2 foot by 3 foot box. Woohoo!

I often catch myself wondering who I used to be when these things were totally inconsequential.
But tomorrow brings us to Mexico and family and fun. So I'm gonna go crash for now.

Also, Phoenix is insanely, ridiculously hot, even at 9 pm and beyond. What I call ball-sweating weather.

Labels: travel

We're heading back out on the road again. Posting will be sparse (well sparser than it has been already) but maybe I'll have some to finish a posts that have been sitting as drafts for weeks or longer.

Have a great weekend and week, everyone. I expect we definitely will and I'll have pictures to prove it!

Labels: vacation

I came across a site and service called CheatNeutral that attempts to do for infidelity what the carbon neutral folks are doing for pollution emissions. That is, cheaters can buy a clear conscience by paying someone else to be monogamous.

Yes, you read that right. Men or women who sleep around on their spouses can pay off their guilt.

To which I'm going to have to shout at the top of my lungs, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING?

I'm sure they are doing a brisk business though since guilt is an even easier sell lever to pull than impulse or impotence. Guilt sells more flowers and chocolates than joyous sentiment (actually it probably doesn't but I'm feeling cynical so bear with me). Guilt makes the purchaser feel better, like they are cleansing themselves of the reason they should feel guilty.

So purchased clear consciences for morally bankrupt people who sleep around behind their spouses back makes perfect, albeit nauseating, sense.

Here's a tip for any cheaters who happen to be reading this. If you want a clear conscience (pay attention now) then stop screwing someone you're not supposed to be screwing.

Purchasing guilt removal like this won't resolve your guilt, it'll just lighten your wallet and you'll still be a piece of shit cheating scumbag. Also, if you charge it to your credit card and your cheatee spouse sees it then you are sooooo totally busted.

[Update: Easy and his investigative team have revealed that the site is a farce and is really a big joke. Actually, he just read the site. I have eggs on my face but I'm headed into the shower now so I'm not overly worried. It is a pretty good mock up job. Check it out, Cheat Neutral.

Labels: cheating, culture

My new camera arrived today and I'm pretty damned happy with it already. It seemed like the battery took forever to charge but that's probably because I watched it charge the entire hour and a half it took.

Anyway, my new rig is a Canon Rebel XTi with the basic 18-55 lens.

Initial thoughts and reactions. I snapped some pretty excellent shots of Sully in the late afternoon sun. I like how the camera snaps almost instantly and can run burst shots of 27 frames in a row.

I've got my little book to read and learn more of the ins and outs of this magnificent beast. I will try to upload some new sample shots before we roll out of town on Friday but I can't promise anything with my main computer being mostly kaput right now.

But I've got a shiny new pretty to play with and I'm sure we'll have a grand old time!

Labels: photography

Not when you are waiting for a package to be delivered, not when you're bombing back down some redwood forest single track trying to keep from wiping out or causing one of the two dogs to go tumbling down the steep hill below.

Well, there is too fast in that second instance but most of the time its alright to let 'er rip. I've been quite successful at not getting shredded by the overgrown pricker groves we pass through on the way in and out. Just a few when I could look like I lost a fight with a gang of cats.

We had another good ride this afternoon, no diggers for either of us but I did get to give some whippersnappers a little comeuppance. They thought they'd smoked us and stopped to catch their breath when I came ripping up behind them. HA!

But when a package is en route (according to UPS and their departure scans) and there's no update for a few days, you might start to get antsy too. As in, that camera had better get here before we fly out on Friday.

Luckily, Staples is having a Dads and Grads Sale right now and camera memory is on special. I will eventually need a bunch of memory cards but just a couple should work for now. And a spare battery, of course. And I wouldn't mind one of these lenses. In case anyone wants to make my day.

Labels: biking, shipping

Everyday this funny and fun little boy finds another way to have a good time. Sometimes it entails making a colossal mess, other times it entails just being a silly, little boy. His grin is like a shining beacon that warms my heart and soul.

It isn't all gravy, of course, but the predominance of the time, he is an absolute joy. Which makes his bad behaviour all the worse. But we are all learning and growing together.

Lately he's been listening really well, even while he's still testing the boundaries of what he can and cannot get away with.

Labels: children

We went to the Gilroy outlets this afternoon. A fun drive up and over Hecker Pass and then down into the oven-set-to-high that is Gilroy. I can't understand how people can survive there, the heat is just so oppressive.

I'm sure it is fantastic at night, much like Phoenix in the summertime at night. What a blast it was, out until four in the morning wearing shorts and a tank top, drunk as skunks, of course. But that was a long time ago in a state far, far away.

Today was Gilroy and the same dry heat. And that's fine, it makes you want to stay in the stores longer, oh, the lovely air conditioned stores. Of course, with a fidgety three year old, one place isn't going to do for too long. Unless that place is Chuck E Cheese and then its the adults that aren't going to last too long.

I felt like I was a ball in a pinball machine in the place. Actually, the best metaphor I can think of for Chuck E Cheese is that its Las Vegas in Training. The noises, lights and decorating scheme are all focused on getting those tokens out of your pockets and into the machines.

The tokens (which are worth a quarter or so, depending on how many you buy at once) are gobbled up with alarming speed. Granted that each game only costs a token but some of the games are pretty piss poor really. Not that it really matters all that much.

Because kids love the place. That is, until they have meltdowns from not getting a nap today. Up until that point, Grady was running around and really enjoying the heck out of himself. And the pizza wasn't bad at all. Overpriced for sure but pretty decently edible.

But I was happy to leave and start to let the ringing and flashing lights clear out of my brain.

And I did get a cool new pair of swim trunks that were on sale so that's something!

Labels: children, shopping

Poor, poor Paris Hilton. Almost two full days in the slammer and she nearly had a mental breakdown. I mean, come on, the cocaine they have behind bars is nowhere near as good as what she's used to. And she didn't have her personal valet wipe her royal sphincter when she was done laying her golden eggs (that don't smell in the least).

Seriously, the message I get from her being released from jail so early is that money get really get you anything.

I was hoping she'd become someone's girlfriend.

Yes, sending her to prison was over the top but it won't be when she screws up next time. Can you say Third Strike? Yeah, I knew you could. And this idiot bimbo won't be able to avoid her own stupidity for too long.

Am I being tawdry? Sure, so what. I hate celebrity glad-handing and I'm sick of people with buckets of cash getting away with crimes that would put me behind bars forever. There is no justice in a system that allows the rich to walk free for a crime that would put a lower class person away.

[Update: Good.]

Labels: wanking

Blogger used to be the top of the blogging heap and they have maintained an extraordinarily low barrier for new bloggers to get started with pouring their thoughts and wishes and rants out into the blogosphere.

But they have not improved with the times, they have not made the software easier, more accesible and simple. They've made it more of a pain in the ass to use, less accessible and annoying. The addition of eastern font symbols is nice, for people that need or want to use them. I do not, will not and would just as soon be able to turn them off entirely.

Why? Because the stupid setting auto-resets itself to on no matter what I do. And adding several extra steps just so I can write a blog post that will still sometimes render poorly is just a freaking unnecessary pain in the butt.

Whether it will actually drive me to migrate to something different is another question. We'll have to see.

Labels: blogger

Rather than try to force my way back into the 9-5 world, which didn't really suit me all that well to begin with, we have decided to try to take my photography to the next level.

My new camera will be arriving next week and with it, hopefully, a new beginning to a more satisfying and fun career working as a wedding and event photographer. The camera wasn't cheap and it was hard to justify its cost but my wife and I have talked it over enough that we were both ready to plunge in and give it a go.

Keep your fingers crossed that we bob back up to the surface rather than get caught in the anchor that is another chunk of debt.

And with that mangled metaphor, I'm going to bed. Sully is going to get tested up at the university tomorrow, something for the sociology department. Ought to be interesting.

Labels: career, change, photography

Four times already this morning I've been like, Woohoo, its Friday. But it isn't and I'm like "What the heck?"

Anyway, because I sat down at the computer, both boys have woken up. Almost like they have an alarm clock wired to the chair.

There's an old saying Vermont (and I am sure its used other places as well but I first heard it in Vermont when I was growing up) that goes something like this, "If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes and it'll change."

Somehow that thought's been indoctrinated into my laptop. One moment it will be hunky dory and chugging along properly and then the next it'll gurp and the screen will get covered with scrambled gobbledegook (not a technical term).

Makes me kind of loathe to fire it up at all so as to not get my hopes up only to be dashed again by gobbledegook all over my screen.

And I'm resigned to having to go without it for a little while when it goes in for repairs. I think I'll drop it off before we leave and I'll just mooch computer time off my mom and step-dad.

But for now I'll limp along with partial usage of this machine and alot more usage of my wife's PC and pokey ol' Pismo.

Labels: computer, kaput

Dear Ebay,

Re-fucking-lax. I really and truly hope that you don't really need my $3.60 account balance to keep the lights on so please don't go sending me urgent payment requests for a lame ass $3.60 invoice.

Which will probably turn out to be spam anyway.

Wowee, my eyelids are heavy this morning. But I've got my coffee lifting cranes in place and expect to be able to keep my eyes open for longer than a minute shortly.

[Update: Ebay sent another email this morning, which looked alot like the spam Ebay email I get all the time, that informed me that my account has now been suspended and the world might come to end unless I pay them their $3.60.

Rick mentions in his comment that he's no longer using Ebay, I'm very open to alternatives that don't suck as hard as Ebay does now. Got one to suggest? Bring it on!]

Labels: stupidity, ugly business

My laptop broke last night and stayed broken most of the day, so bad that I had become resigned to dropping $500 to replace the motherboard so I could replace the video card that's soldered to it.

The signal to the display had gone all haywire and zapping PRAM, resetting the PMU, none of it helped (by the way, thanks Apple for trying to charge me $49 to do just those two basic ass key sequences, way to try and capitalize on a down computer). So I backed up my hard drive and started to get it prepped to get sent off for repairs.

And, just when I'd brought my spare laptop, the wisened old Pismo aka the kitchen computer aka Grady's Thomas the Tank Engine viewing machine, up to the office to stand in for the much faster Aluminum. But I thought I'd reboot the Aluminum another time or two to see if it fixed itself yet. And, lo and behold, it has fixed itself. For now.

I have no illusions that my laptop is going to need some major and expensive work sometime in the next couple of months. But it works for now and we're going with it.

I also took Nande out for a great, great ride/run this afternoon. We met up with John and Brady and hit the lower flanks of Nisene Marks but this time we rode all the way out to the far trailhead which was a damned ass long ways up some goodly hills. By the time we topped out, I was nearly tapped out. But there's not much better to recharge your batteries than turning around and descending the hill you've just grunted your way to the top of. And its made more fun by the addition of your hound and your hound's pal and your pal.

I'd also like to note, for the record, that the record now stands at John - 1, Erik - 0. That's a good thing because he's now beating me in biffage. On one part of the descent, he got his front wheel tangled in some roots and went arse over heels, as it were. I was right behind and got a great view, I wish I'd built the camera mount for my bike because it would have been good video.

Anyway, he was actually pretty well protected by his sweatshirt and pants and only suffered one good rashie on his elbow, the initial point of contact.

By the time we'd gotten back to the cars, I was pretty well fried. So tired but really happy with the fantastic ride we'd just racked up. The dogs had had a great time running and playing in the river, we'd gotten in some excellent, fast singletrack and good hill work too.

And Nande and I got a nice bath when we got home, for we were ten kinds of filthy from the trees, dirt, water and dust.

Next time I'll take the GPS to map and measure it. And, hopefully, I'll have put together the camera mount.

Labels: bikes, life with a dog, wrap-up

Whine, whine, whine, grumble, grumble, grumble.

I'm very tired, very cranky and mildly sore.

But we have our trip to Mexico taken care of and that counts for something. Or it should. If I weren't so friggin' tired.

Nothing like trying to take a nap with people playing video games in the room with you. Except adding in a dog that is compelled to bark when our neighbors come home, each and every goddamned time.

But at least I can laugh when I remember the South African version of whine, whinge (like hinge with a "wh" as in what in front). I can remember my flatmate telling me to stop "whinging" one day and I nearly fell over laughing at her.

Labels: whinge

In one short fifteen minute span last night, I split my eyebrow and stabbed my hand to the bone. Both sound much worse than they really are but both hurt like fargin' hell. The eyebrow came from the sliding glass door bouncing back to smack me in the face and, though the actual cut is quite small, the swelling is still pretty noticable.

That should teach me to not remove the lock from the track before trying to open it. Yes, my fault but that doesn't make the pain any less, if anything, it makes it worse because there's nobody to blame but oneself. And that does no good.

The hand was a stupid slip and is also both better and worse than it sounds. The tip of the box cutter blade jabbed into my knuckle (like an eighth of an inch) and stopped on/in the bone. And then it oozed for a long time. And now it is quite sore.

Oh yeah, on top of that, Grady decided to take the container of Touch-A-Bubbles and pour it out all over the floor. Unlike regular soap bubbles, these things have a persistent chemical in them that made cleanup not much fun at all. And the sore face did not help one tiny bit.

I put the accidents down to a chronic lack of decent sleep. Being unable to get to sleep and then being woken up butt-ass early is a rough combination. Do that for a few months and you can become like the walking dead.

So I went to bed a little early last night only to be awoken this morning by a screaming 3 year old who stopped screaming instantly when I picked him up and was back asleep a breath later. Only I wasn't and now I'm fully up and awake.

At least I took the opportunity to give my mom a call and wish her a Happy Birthday!

Labels: accident, D'OH

Now you have. And it didn't cost you an arm or a leg.

Labels: cool, photography

For today, June the First, my youngest child, Sullivan, took his very first steps! Unassisted and not too far but he most definitely did walk and both his mom and I were there to witness, enjoy and cheer him on.

Of course, this opens up a whole new can of worms for his mobility and ability to get into trouble. But it should also give him more capability in escaping his often rambunctious big brother.

Which reminds me, I need to give my own big brother a call and apologize for being such an annoying little brother when we were small. Because Sully delights in nothing more than just messing around with Grady's stuff, he knows it drives him nuts and that's the fun.

Congratulations Sullivan,