Ramblings From Justin Penney

They Grow Up So Fast

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 04:36:00 +0000

Evan is standing up while pulling on furniture and Lily got an iPhone. Wacky.

I'm hoping we made the right decision with the phone. Lily has had a cell phone for a little over a year. We cut our landline and had a cell phone for Lily to use at the house. This house/cell phone evolved into Lily's phone. For her 10th birthday she wanted a laptop or a phone and the laptop was out of the question. She had also received nothing but hand-me-down phones. We gave her a $200 budget as that was pretty in-line with the cost of the bicycles that she had received on previous birthdays.

While Lily was shopping for phone, it was decided that I would be moving to AT&T to get an iPhone 3G S. So Lily then switched from looking at phone on T-mobile to looking at phone on AT&T and settled on the iPhone 3G. I tried to get her to wait for the 3G S (which was within her budget) but she really wanted the phone now and was fine with the lack of video support. In reality, the move from a second hand RAZR to an iPhone is amazing enough to keep her satisfied.

Evan is now completely happy when he pulls himself up using the coffee table. He's even inching his was from coffee table to sofa with a little coaxing. This kid wants to walk!

The Grill is On

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:46:00 +0000

Today marked the 2009 opening of the grill. After a good cleaning and a test run we set about making our dinner.

We ended up with four items on the grill: potato packets, corn on the cob, potabello mushroom, and bacon wrapped 5 oz. sirloin.

Potato Packets

This is Jacey's signature grill dish. It's simple, fast and always tasty. There's a lot of room for variations, like the carrots that we added today.

3 medium russet potatoes
1/2 of a large vidalia onion
4 small carrots
Butter
Mrs. Dash
Sea salt
Black pepper

The potatoes, carrots and onion were cut in to small pieces and placed on squares of aluminum foil. She sprinkled the salt an Mrs. Dash on them laid about 1 Tbsp of butter (real butter by the way) on top and folded the foil up into little packets. These were on a medium high grill for about 50 minutes. They could have come off around the 40 minute mark.

Corn on the Cob

It's a pain, but full ears of corn are so good on the grill. Having the intact husk keeps the corn nice and moist.

Remove all but a few (3 to 4) layers of husk then open each ear and remove the silk. Place the ears in cold water for a while, they were in water for 45 to 60 minutes today. After soaking, brush each ear with olive oil, add any seasonings, then fold the husks back over the ears. Today I made a mix of sea salt, paprika, and black pepper that I sprinkled on each ear before closing them up.

Place the ears on a medium-high grill for around 20 minutes. Make sure to put out any flaming husks.

Portabello

I'm pretty hit and miss on the preparation of portabellos. This one appeared to be a hit. Unfortunately, I didn't taste it.

After cleaning the mushroom, I drizzled some Worcestershire sauce into the ribs then placed it into a plastic bag with Italian dressing. I let it sit in the refrigerator for a little over an hour. I grilled it for around 4 minutes a side on a hot grill then moved it to the warming rack.

Bacon Wrapped Sirloin

These 5 oz. sirloins were pre-wrapped with bacon. I augmented the seasoning used for the corn to use as a rub:

Sea salt
Paprika
Black pepper
Garlic powder
Parsley

After applying the rub, I placed these on a very hot portion of the grill for 3 minutes a side creating a nice sear on the outside. I then moved the steaks to part of the grill that had medium heat and brought them up to 150 degrees as this was right between rare and medium on my meat thermometer.

Upon further reading of doneness and temperature, 150 is pretty high being in the medium-well category. Maybe I wasn't measuring deep enough or my thermometer was off, but these were solidly medium-rare with a red, juicy center surrounded by just graying outside.

Impressions

I overcooked the potato packets. I usually check these pretty frequently but failed to do so today. I received the most burnt packet. Jacey and Lily were very happy with their potatoes.

The corn was amazing! There was a little char character from a couple husk flare ups but the kernels were firm but easy to bite. The olive oil and spices added so much flavor that I didn't add anything to mine. Jacey and Lily both added butter.

As I said earlier, I didn't taste the mushroom but Jacey was very happy with it.

The steak, the first steak that I have ever prepared, was amazing. It was a good decision to carry on the seasoning theme from the corn as the two dishes blended nicely. The outside of the sirloins were rich with the flavor of the rub while the inside was warm and juicy. These were very tender sirloins. The size, 5 oz., was about perfect. Lily was full with just a bit left on her plate and I was completely satiated. These were also a great deal, $2.50 per steak.

This was a pretty frugal meal overall costing around $10 for the three of us to eat.

WEA: More Child Protection

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:41:00 +0000

I'm glad that they are getting the kinks as that is apparently the point.

from: Kristan P-------- date Mon, May 18, 2009 at 10:06 AM subject Let's try again! Hi ... again! I am so sorry about this! I think that I have all of the kinks out. Let's try this again! http://spreadsheets.google.com/a/----------/ccc?key=----------- Thanks for your patience! Kristan

Evan and Dan

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:03:00 +0000

Don't Override Normal Browser Actions!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Tue, 12 May 2009 05:03:00 +0000

It was always frustrating when overly paranoid sites disabled right clicking thinking that tactic would protect their content from being copied. Now MySpace, the "blighted neighborhood" of social networking, has taken away the alt-left arrow in photo galleries. Instead of the familiar back action, in a MyLameSpace photo gallery pressing that hard-wired key combination goes to the previous image in the gallery.

Overriding well known, and relatively well standardized, keyboard shortcuts is a big FAIL in user interface design. Though MySpace has never had an abundance of thought in that department. I would look to MySpace to support the concept of "money can't make you pretty."

It didn't.

WEA: Wrong Email Address.

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:31:00 +0000

One of my email addresses gets an amazing amount of Wrong Email Address messages. I have previously only bothered to chastise the wrong emailers to my close friends but that is changing. I've decided to post all of my WEA email here!

I will edit out most personal items. And I filter out signature so any "confidentiality agreements" aren't even seen. Also, if it's confidential ... it should NEVER go in unencrypted email.

Anyway ... this one comes from a church in Illinois.

from: Kristan P-----
to: Janet W-------
date: Mon, May 11, 2009 at 3:43 PM
subject: Child Protection Program

Thank you for attending the Child Protection Program class at Church of the Resurrection. That was the first step of the 5 step process. The next two steps are dependant on you: the application and interview. We will then do the reference and background checks. We are in need of your application, interview or both. If you have not yet returned your application, please download the attached application, fill it out and return it to (address omitted). If you need to complete an interview, go to the link below. You will be able to sign yourself up for an upcoming interview. http://spreadsheets.google.com/a/---------.org/ccc?key=----------------------- Thank you for completing the Child Protection Program!

This seems like a normal email about a program at a church. I decided to look in to what a "child protection program" is and was really upset. It's a program, that churches typically pay for, that let's them certify that kids are safe from molestation while at the church.

I've got a Saturday Night Live "Really?" moment going in my head. Do churches, the supposed moral compasses in our culture, really need to certify that their officiants aren't going to touch and rape kids? If so, they really need to reflect upon their original purpose!

Retro Was Modern

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:27:00 +0000

All of the things that are cool because of their anachronistic properties were once cool because they were new. Rock and roll, choppers, café racers, and muscle cars all fall victim to a perceived tradition that was foisted upon them.

None of these things are traditional. They took the traditions of the time and stomped all over them leaving alcohol drenched, skid marked carnage everywhere they flourished.

Unfortunately, I feel like a lot of our culture froze with the burgeoning coolness of these sub-cultures. The American hot-rods are still powered by pushrod V8s. Harley has trouble selling anything that isn't an air-cooled, wobbling v-twin, and most people haven't cared about rock music since 1974.

It's time to move on! Let's look back and cherish (and preserve) our history and the path that it has presented and take that spirit, the new, fresh, aggressive spirit and forge something new. Something exciting, visceral, and innovative. I want a car that's docile and economical like a Prius until I really want to romp on the accelerator then the inner Challenger is unleashed.

I want to see a hybrid that uses a super efficient turbo-diesel engine to keep the batteries charged.

I want to see a CVT matched to an efficient but high specific output engine (like the legendary Honda B series) that sips on the oil nipple under most loads and is able to hold that peak output and let the rolling parts catch up.

At this point, it would be revolutionary for a "muscle car" to have aerodynamics that were slightly better than a brick.

Timbre and Voicing

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Tue, 05 May 2009 03:04:00 +0000

Among guitarists, the capo can be a very divisive tool. Some guitarists take it as a challenge to never use a capo. The opposing side sees it as silly to make it hard when this little device can make something much more direct.

I recently had a discussion with an anti-capo person and brought up two things that the capo changes that most people overllook: timbre and voicing.

The change in voicing can make an old chord progression feel completely different. It can also help get two guitars out of each others way. Considering that an open chord can cover as much as two octaves, simple changes, like in which octave a third resides, makes a huge difference in keep the parts distinct but supportive.

The timbre of the instrument is completely changed too. Playing a B barre chord on the 7th fret sounds completely different from capoing at the 7th fret and playing the same pattern. There is less flesh in contact with the instrument and the overall resonance of it feels and sounds completely different.

I think a lot of guitarists overlook these components ... and not just with capos. I get in a rut playing the same chords, the same patterns ... it gets dull and lifeless. Some people turn to alternate tunings, which are fun but I would probably never use them as they can be daunting to perform live. Instead I've taken the observation of timbre and voicing and played other instruments before picking up my guitar.

My mom gave me an old autoharp and tonight I was working on getting it in playing order. I had it mostly in tune and started playing a bit. The same I-IV -V progressions that sound tired on guitar were completely new sounding. The chords were all voiced in a strange way and the plinky sound was unique. After playing it until it went horribly out of tune, I picked up my guitar and tried to emulate some of the character that I heard in the autoharp.

After about 30 minutes (about as long as my thumb can take playing) I had a couple new song pieces and even some new melodies. They were nothing like I was playing on the autoharp but those snippets of song would have never come in to existence I not been trying to capture an unfamiliar sound.

Time For Gear

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 02:16:00 +0000

ATGATT - All The Gear ,All The Time. Until recently I've been MOTGMOTT - Most Of The Gear, Most Of The Time.

Other than a helmet (which is always on) and long pants, the rest of my gear would come and go. I usually wore gloves and boots, but I was spotty with my jacket completely ditching it on the hottest of summer days. Two years ago I bought a mesh jacket with padding in key places. That helped tremendously. I fairly strictly follow Murphy's Laws and believe that jinxes and irony are to be seriously contemplated before any endeavor, so I started to always wear my jacket. I knew that the one day I didn't wear it I would fall somewhere that would have been protected and be ticked off at myself.

I also moved back to full face helmets. I love the free feeling of open face helmets but bugs and rocks take their toll after a while. After my accident in which I hit the face of my helmet, I'm sticking pretty intently to the full face.

This week, I added over-pants. These are mesh (with a zip in liner for wind/rain protection) and slide on pretty easily. Yesterday was my first time suiting up in full protective gear and I am definitely adjusting.

One big plus is that I can wear shorts under the over-pants; the downside is that I'm wearing boots ... with shorts. I need to make sure to bring some shoes in my saddle bag. The multiple layers of mesh do a pretty good job of letting air through. Today was in the 80s and sunny and I only started to get hot when stopped. Buying gear in a color lighter than black (like grey) would help quite a bit. I bought my jacket on closeout and it was black ... so I took the black one ... and the pants had to match.

There are two things I dislike about all the gear. First, stupidly vain, it looks a little dorky. The over-pants look like winter weather gear at first glance. They are a little big to accommodate the underlying clothes. When wearing the mesh jacket I would get "aren't you hot?" comments nearly every time I was riding. This is only going to get worse.

The second drawback ... time:

Change into boots (4 zippers)
Put on pants (maybe put in liner which adds a few steps): 2 buttons, 3 zippers, 2 velcro straps
Put on jacket (maybe put in liner): two zippers (one hooks the the pants)
Put on helmet (changing face shield for sun conditions)
Put on gloves
Zip jacket sleeves (2 zippers)

That's a lot to do to make a quick run to the store that's two miles away.

Man-baby and Baby-man

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 04:09:00 +0000

I will completely agree with anyone that calls me a man-baby or man-child or any attempt at a derogatory name relating to being oldish but enjoying childish things. I like toys (with and without motors), frolicking, objects that roll, and screwing off.

I have a new baby that also enjoys some of these pursuits.

We bought a Baby Bjorn carrier (one of those weird contraptions that holds a baby on your chest), and I plopped Evan in that and we wandered all over the neighborhood. I had the Chuck-it ball thrower and a tennis ball so Wendy followed us all over the cul-de-sac.

After we exhausted the dog (Wendy) and the Bjorn (my back), I strapped Evan in his car seat and we headed to the upscale car wash. The were closed. It was 7:01 and the tightened that ship down at 7! Damn. I am convinced that this place does a better job at cleaning cars than any other car wash I've been to. So ... Evan and I were both completely dejected and went to Hy-Vee for lemons and limes.

When checking out, the sacker said, "this makes me think of Sprite." Immediately my mind thought of the Mitch Hedberg bit about homemade Sprite and I choke back saying "not until you figure out what the fuck else is in it." Sophomoric and brilliant in one sentence.

I also notice the "it's a baby" phenomenon. As I was exiting the store numerous adults and children pointed in the direction of me and Evan and said, "It's a baby," or just, "baaaaabyyyyyy!" I told Evan that it would be funny to put a puppy in a baby carrier and then when people said, "baaaaaabyyyyyyy," turn and show them the puppy and so yell, "Puppy!"

Evan laughed.

Back On Two Wheels

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 03:46:00 +0000

This evening I went for a 15 mile ride on my motorcycle and loved every minute of it. I'm paying for it (via soreness) now, but do not regret my decision to motor around for a while.

Five weeks ago I was practicing panic stops in a parking lot fell over going about 30 miles an hour. Overall, I was pretty OK after the fall and following slide. I had a little road rash on my knee but got up quick and then had very deep concern for my machine that was now lying lifeless on the ground. When I reached for the handlebars to right my fallen steed I noticed that my left thumb was not taking input from my brain. This was the point that I knew I had a reasonably serious injury.

Luckily, I was with Nick and he rode my bike to my house to pick up my truck. He returned to the parking lot and I drove my truck, and Nick rode his bike, to my house. This was a perfect opportunity for ice and ice cold beers.

After a few hours I decided that I should go to an urgent card facility and get my amazingly immobile, and now very sore, thumb looked at.

I broke it. The X-ray displays a little jagged piece right where my thumb meets my wrist. This little anomaly on the image meant that I would spend many weeks with my thumb and wrist immobilised in some device of modern medical bondage. I did, fortunately, escape surgery and pins.

After four weeks the orthopedic surgeon gave me freedom from the thumb spica splint that impeded my existence. He also moved me into the land of sore shrunken hands.

In my daily existence, I use my hands a tremendous amount. Typing, wrenching, instruments ... all of this lead to pretty strong dexterous hands. After years of honing their fine, powerful movements of purpose, four short weeks in a splint demolishes my left hand. It's now a diminutive mirror of it's eastern brother with dry, loose skin and a tendency to shake when called in to action. Every movement require and inordinate amount of thought and planning.

I was wholly unprepared for the extent of an injury such as this. I was lucky through the decades of skateboards, inline skates, and bicycles that I never had more than a week or so out of commission. I am still in denial about the recovery time of this injury ... and that denial is pretty painful.

Safety Gear

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:48:00 +0000

I recently had a "get off" while practicing braking. In the fall I broke my thumb and got a good bit of road rash and stiff bruising on my knees. Thanks to some safety gear my shoulder, elbow, face, head, and feet were fine. A little stiff after a couple of days, but overall fine.

I'll start at the top which, in this case, mean my head. When I started out for the day I picked up my HJC 3/4 helmet and started to put it on when my inner voice said "wear your new full face." I listened. I even rode to Donnell's and bought a smoked face shield for it. In the fall I hit my head pretty hard and have scrapes on my then new face shield. Much better than my actual face.

That helmet has now been replaced with another HJC CL-SP (stick with what works) in a much more garish, silver metal flake and yellow, graphic.

I was wearing my Joe Rocket mesh jacket which explains the lack of upper body damage. I even had the back and shoulder protectors out. They are now back in their proper places. It has some minor abrasions but is still very usable.

At one point during the slide, the bike started to slide on my foot. I was able to kick it away preventing any major ankle injuries. I was wearing Docs instead of my normal Ariats. Luckily they took the sliding well. I'm glad there wasn't more pressure on my ankle though, as I know that the boots offer very little ankle protection.

My knee was the first thing that hurt. It burned and was immediately stiff. After sliding to a stop these things wen through my head:

(Took a deep breath) I can breathe ... that's good.
I can feel every part of my body ... that's good.
Holy shit my knee hurts!

After stretching my leg with little fanfare, I stood up and when examining the bike realised that my thumb wasn't working quite correctly. And it was starting to hurt. Nick thought it looked swollen, but I showed him my other hand and we agreed that it looked normal. It wasn't, but it didn't look too bad then.

I don't know of anything that would have prevented the thumb injury but I have ordered some padded overpants. My knee, while not majorly injured, is still not right. It crackles and pops (well ... a little more than usual) and some movements are still a little tender.

I'm very thankful for the gear I had on and I have a new emphasis on dressing for the ride.

Honda Spree Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:34:00 +0000

My sister has a Honda Spree that was at my grandparents house. It hadn't started in a few years and I thought it would be fun to rip it open and get it working again.

After getting it home I immediately ripped the body work off, drained the gas tank, and rebuilt the carburetor. I still need to drain and refill the oil tank. After getting the cleaned up carb back on I tried to start it using the kick start lever ... well something snapped inside.

Then, I snapped my thumb and it's been languishing in the garage.

Donson from The Motorcyclist Cafe happened to have an extra Spree motor and was kind enough to ship it to me. Tonight, with only one working hand, I finally pulled the massive 49 cc motor out and started inspecting it. I pulled the side cover and found all of the parts that I broke with my overzealous kicking. I also found that the starter is pretty much done as it won't even reliably flick the motor when the spark plug is removed.

I'm heading in the right direction. Hopefully I'll have my left hand back in action next week and I can get this little toy running.

F That

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:43:00 +0000

After making my last post, I sat in quiet reflection (read: I opened a beer) and thought, "that's bullshit." And it is. This is my area of narcissism. I say what I want, post what I want. There's no "network" or culture whose rules I should follow ... it's just me.

Going on 5 Years

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:39:00 +0000

I just realised that this blog has almost reached the 5 year mark. I'm also realising that it's almost pointless.

Most everyone I know and care to interact with is on Facebook. I go to specific forums for special interest items (that means motorcycles).

Maybe if I had a theme ...

Nope, I don't.

64bit CentOS/Red Hat 5 with Firefox and Java

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:39:00 +0000

Having a working Java 6 plugin for Firefox has been critical with most of the iKVM IPMI cards using a Java based viewer to access to iKVM. I think it's ridiculous to use Java for this when VNC or even RDP could be used with standard viewers ... but it's the crap we're given. Thankfully, Sun finally added a 64bit browser plugin in version 6u12.

Download the latest JDK or JRE package for RPM. The filename ends in rpm.bin; I used jdk-6u13-linux-x64-rpm.bin
Make the package executable: chmod +x jdk-6u13-linux-x64-rpm.bin
Run the file: ./jdk-6u13-linux-x64-rpm.bin
Agree to the license and the RPMS will be extracted and installed.
The Java software is installed in /usr/java and two symlinks are created: default and latest. I used latest.
Add the Sun java executable to the list of alternatives: alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/java/latest/bin/java 1

Configure the new java executable to be the default:

alternatives --config java

There are 2 programs which provide 'java'.

  Selection    Command
-----------------------------------------------
*+ 1           /usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.4.2-gcj/bin/java
   2           /usr/java/latest/bin/java

Enter to keep the current selection[+], or type selection number: 2

Verify the installation: java -version
Create a plugins directory for Firefox (adjust to your actual version of Firefox): mkdir /usr/lib64/firefox-3.0.6/plugins
Link the browser plugin to the plugins directory: ln -s /usr/java/latest/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so /usr/lib64/firefox-3.0.6/plugins/libnpjp2.so
Start Firefox and verify that the Java plugin is being used by typing about:plugins into the address bar.

Rituals

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 03:31:00 +0000

Here are a few rituals that I think should be reflected upon.

The creation of a classic cocktail is a wonderful precursor to a fine drink. The muddled mint in a Mint Julep, The squeeze of lime in a Gin and Tonic, and the swirl vermouth in a proper Dry Martini are the fine moments before the party.

A reserved sound check before a concert is wonderful. Caressing your instrument, tuning it, then asking it to perform with you. The best sound checks are succinct and thorough.

A classic wet shave (the full thing with a brush and a cake of soap in a mug) is one of the best ways to start a day. Warm, wet and smooth ... hopefully that's exactly how the day will end.

Suiting up for a ride on a motorcycle offers its own type of Zen. I always start my cycle before starting to suit up as it needs preparation too. The armored jacket, calfskin gloves, and helmet are such purposeful items that you can't help but feel like a warrior preparing for battle at the intersection of rubber and tarmac. The motor of my mount crackles impatiently while I take a breath and take stock of the world: the weather, my mind, my health, my family ... everything that matters goes through my head.

Boulevard Brewery Tour

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:10:00 +0000

To commemorate John Corn's birthday we staged a tour of the Boulevard Brewery.

Boulevard prides themselves on being the second largest brewery in Missouri. This is a pretty big feat considering that the largest is Anheuser-Busch. Our tour guide (whose name I can not remember) said that it take the mighty A-B only seven hours to match Boulevard's annual production.

On our honeymoon, my wife and I toured the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis. It was so large that I felt disconnected from the process of brewing. While the steps were the same as when I homebrew, the scale made it hard to attach a connection. The Boulevard setup was just the opposite. The original brew house makes perfect sense to me. The mash tun to the lauter tun to the brew pot. It was very clear and able to be viewed in one eyeful. Sure, the freaking enormous fermentation tanks are a far cry from a carboy and an airlock, but the principle was so easy and clear to see.

Like anything involving beer, the tasting was the best part! Excepting the excellent Maibach, I had tasted every beer they had on tap within the last week. I had no surprises, but still enjoyed the beer. I have now tasted every boulevard brew except for the Saison. I will be buying a bottle of that later this week.

The best part of the tour was hanging out with a great group of friends while drinking good beers from tiny glasses.

For more photos, head on to my Boulevard Tour Gallery.

Dumb for Smartphones

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 04:10:00 +0000

I thought I was over smartphones when I bought the Sony-Erricson TM-506 ... well I was wrong.

The Sony was/is a great phone; by far is was the most quality feeling phone that I've owned. The software was mostly good (there were a few annoyances) but the hardware felt great. The screen and camera were really good also, definitely better than any phone that I've owned.

I missed the keyboard. Even the Blast's two-per-key pseudo qwerty keyboard was better than working with a standard numeric keypad.

Jacey was also looking for a new phone. She had been using the Sidekick ID for a while but due to its size, she never had it with her. I constantly harassed her for never answering her phone. She had decided on a Blackberry Pearl.

Another bit of confluence, Ryan and Tiffany got Blackberry Curves. Ryan, somewhat a luddite (and I mean that in a nice way), really like the Blackberry. I place a great deal of emphasis on the human interface of gadgets and a positive review from Ryan probably means that there is a reasonable interface.

I intended to by a Curve but Jacey and I ended up with Pearls.

I was happy with how straightforward it was to set up the email and calendar syncing with the Google Apps. I am also pleased that SMS, Email and Pin messages are accessible in one list. There are a lot of options, especially with the profiles, but that kind of flexibility is nice to have. Thankfully, the defaults aren't terrible.

Like always, I have some annoyances to air. Instant messages should be better integrated as normal messages. I have also not been able to log in with AIM and Yahoo. Sometimes it seems to just randomly slow down. When it gets slow, I go through the switch applications dialog and kill everything. This seems to work. I also had a problem with my contacts as I chose to sync them with the Google Apps address book. I had imported contacts from my SIM and during the sync things got pretty wonky and it took around an hour for me to re-enter/edit the ones that needed fixed.

The two-letters-per-key arrangement is much improved over the implementation on the Samsung Blast. The Blast seemed to always default to the most improbable word in it's dictionary, the Blackberry is the exact opposite.

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:43:00 +0000

A funny bit of discourse in the land of Linux:

[root@testcluster SPECS]# ls
tar: *.spec: Not found in archive  tar: This does not look like a tar archive
[root@testcluster SPECS]# dir
tar:\ *.spec:\ Not\ found\ in\ archive tar:\ This\ does\ not\ look\ like\ a\ tar\ archive
[root@testcluster SPECS]# rm tar\:\ This\ does\ not\ look\ like\ a\ tar\ archive 
rm: remove regular empty file `tar: This does not look like a tar archive'? y
[root@testcluster SPECS]# ls
tar: *.spec: Not found in archive
[root@testcluster SPECS]# rm tar\:\ \*.spec\:\ Not\ found\ in\ archive 
rm: remove regular empty file `tar: *.spec: Not found in archive'? y

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:04:00 +0000

This past Saturday the mercury said 70 and the sun shone unabated. It was fairly windy but that didn't stop Nick, Nathan, and me from riding. Nick rides a Yamaha XS400, Nathan just bought a 2003 Sportster Custom, and I was on my Nightster. Nick's XS was purchased from Nathan last year and it's now a nice "half way cafe" machine ... a little ratty, but pretty cool.

We met at Nathan's in Oak Grove, MO and headed south on F highway toward 50. While Nick and I ride frequently (multiple times a week when the weather cooperates) neither of us had ridden with Nathan and didn't know his skill level. F has some nice sweeping curves that are marked 35 and 45 MPH. I was leading and Nathan was pulling up the tail. I kept checking my mirror and Nathan was hanging in there pretty good.

Our first stop was going to be in Holden, MO. When we reached 50 Hwy, we turned to the East and I opened up the throttle. I still love how quick "the ton" comes on the 1200. Once I hit my mark I slowed down and let the other guys catch back up. There were a lot of other bikes on 50 Hwy including a tube framed Buell that sounded awesome as it blew past us.

We stopped at 131 and 50 and Nathan took the lead since I didn't know my way to or around Holden. We followed some signs to a restaurant that ended up being close. Nathan knew of another place just around the corner. It was around the corner, and about 2 blocks down. Not a big deal, but I was a little nervous leaving the bikes on a side road. The restaurant we ended up at was named Galle's and pretty good.

Full of food and coffee we take 131 from Holden to Odessa. This is another rural highway with some decent sweepers.

At Odessa, MO we hit 00 Hwy, to TT Hwy, to Z Hwy in to Bates City. Again, more country sweepers with the aromas of cow and hog pastures.

D Hwy, running North from Bates City, has some tighter turns than the previous roads, but has quite a few gravel roads intersecting so we had to keep on our toes. There are a few nice straights and I was able to pull another triple digit reading. Nick, having recently adjusted his carburetors, also threw the throttle open and found his top end just north of 80.

From D we took 24 Hwy, to 7 Hwy in to Blue Springs. 7 Hwy has these bumps that kill me with the Nightster's terrible excuse for suspension (the air shocks were sold so it's back to stock). We grabbed some gas and headed toward Fleming Park.

On 7 Hwy, there was an older guy and a Kawasaki KZ100. He was giving that bike hell, pulling the front wheel up at the top of first and second at every light. Too bad about the giant sissy bar, would have been a cool looking bike. It sure sounded like a can of angry bees with the 4-1 header and huge megaphone exhaust.

Fleming is a park around Lake Jacomo and has a nice mix of surfaces and turns. Nick and I ride there often and make pretty good work of the curves. Nathan, however, hadn't ridden much for the last few years and was a little slower pushing his bike around. Unfortunately for Nick, he was in back and kept catching up to Nathan in the turns.

After Fleming, Nathan headed home and Nick stopped at my place for an after ride beer.

Fickle Motorcyclists

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 04:37:00 +0000

This week Harley-Davidson released an new model in the Sportster line that they have named "Iron 883". It's a very black Sportster with a satin finish on the paint. The overall feel is like that of the Nightster, the motorcycle I currently own. The Nightster has the larger Sportster motor, 1200 cc, while the Iron 883 has the small 883 cc version.

This thing hasn't even hit the streets and name calling and being pissed at Harley-Davidson is already rampant. Sportsters from 1957 through 1985 are nicknamed ironheads as the engine heads were made of iron. So now the ironhead owners are all in a tizzy because this new model is called iron, but it's not an ironhead.

There seems to be a pretty large group of Sportster owners that were upset about the Nightster being so awesome looking and are now directing their hate toward the Iron 883 as a Night Lite. Great. It's hilarious to see the same group that bitch about their Sportster being called a Skirtster then pick on the people that buy the small one.

Kind of related, I recently had a non-motorcycle riding guy ask if my Sportster was the little one, or the big one. The teenager in my head thought, "Even if it's the little one, I've got the big ones for riding it." I didn't say that, instead I said, "it's the big one."

I kind of feel bad for Harley as they have more than 100 years of baggage to drag around. The V-rod is still pretty marginal, Buell never really took off, and Harley is still mostly making fat bikes for fat old men. When they do look at what people are doing to their bikes, and respond in a fairly timely manner, the get chastised for chasing trends or not sticking to their heritage. So instead they should stick with the tired trend of chaps and beanie helmets with doo rags. Which is a pretty funny combination: the legs are protected, but the head is not.

I think Harley's "Dark Custom" series is a great way for them to broaden their appeal. They won me over (for a while at least) and I never thought I would own a Harley. Even my Dad was speechless for a few moments after I bought mine.

Do Triumph and Ducati receive the same complaints? I don't really see a lot of people railing against the Bonnevilles or GT1000s.

Digital Trails

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 04:27:00 +0000

I want to start by saying that I am not a privacy freak. I'm not one of those people that think Google is evil, I don't encrypt my files, and I don't worry about phone conversations. I assume that if it's not something I would like people to know about ... I just don't do it. This post is not intended to evoke privacy fears, it's just a moment of recognition.

The recommendations from the iTunes store are spot on. To top that, when looking at new albums to purchase, the "listeners also bought" list is nearly always albums that I already own. The advertisements at the top of Gmail are also eerily on target. This says two things:

There are quite a few people out there with nearly identical musical taste. Based on listening to KEXP podcasts, somewhere near 99% of those people are living in Seattle.
I am super predictable. My musical taste and topics of email discussion are on such a straight line that machines are telling me about myself.

I could get freaked out, but instead I think it's awesome. I have this whole group of like minded music listeners that I can meet. Then, software may just hand me new music that I like!

I Should Have Paid More Attention In French Class

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:42:00 +0000

I've been a fan of La Blogothèque for their Take Away Shows. These videos are intimate, quirky, and/or awkward performances by some of the best current music makers.

Three Passengers?

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:18:00 +0000

Earlier this week I was asked if there were any motorcycles that accepted three people. The new Cafe (racer) Society comes to help with their post of a three person moped.