Monthly Archives: June 2005
down from the mountain
So, after getting into Statesville a bit later than I was hoping, I decided not to try riding back Saturday night. I took a couple of pics of the trip before the camera batteries died (doh…). Nothing too interesting, your standard Blue Ridge Parkway shots. About 520 miles of riding over the
weekend.
So got up this morning at 6am, and headed back to Raleigh. Since I had other things to do, I took the interstate most of the way. Ran into some fairly heavy rain for about 45 minutes, which sucked a bit, but no big deal. Got back in time to play soccer for two hours or so.
Then off to Phasmatodea practice. Took a minimal rig (guitar, volume pedal, line6 looper). Got some fairly interesting stuff out of it none the less.
Then off to check out the Carolina Rollergirls bout. Which was quite entertaining, especially once I moved down closer to the floor. I didn’t have a clue what was going on, but it was entertaining.
Kind of a busy day all and all.
down from the mountain
So, after getting into Statesville a bit later than I was hoping, I decided not to try riding back Saturday night. I took a couple of pics of the trip before the camera batteries died (doh…). Nothing too interesting, your standard Blue Ridge Parkway shots. About 520 miles of riding over the
weekend.
So got up this morning at 6am, and headed back to Raleigh. Since I had other things to do, I took the interstate most of the way. Ran into some fairly heavy rain for about 45 minutes, which sucked a bit, but no big deal. Got back in time to play soccer for two hours or so.
Then off to Phasmatodea practice. Took a minimal rig (guitar, volume pedal, line6 looper). Got some fairly interesting stuff out of it none the less.
Then off to check out the Carolina Rollergirls bout. Which was quite entertaining, especially once I moved down closer to the floor. I didn’t have a clue what was going on, but it was entertaining.
Kind of a busy day all and all.
riding in the mountains
I was sitting at work about 10 minutes before I was going to go home and I decided it was a good weekend for a road trip. After a few minutes of wavering between the beach and the mountains, I decided on the mountains. So packed up the tank bag, and headed out. Rode 64 all the way to Statesville Friday night, then up into the mountains to Blowing Rock, then down the Blue Ridge Parkway for a while, until I ran into some detours from road closings, and headed back
though Marion and back to Statesville. About 190 mile trip up in the mountains and foothills. Nice ride.
Now just need to get back home. Hopefully in time for soccer. That might be a tough though.
software meme
as per zombiepops and z_kungfu, a quick rundown
of what software I use, by no means complete.
Linux
linux distro
Red Hat, big surprise, RHEL or Fedora/Rawhide depending on what I’m working on. At various points I’ve tried slackware and debian linux. I’ve also tried FreeBSD. But they didn’t really do much for me. I can do the same stuff with Red Hat, and I know it much better. And
linux always seemed to support my hardware better than *bsd.
desktop
GNOME, sorta. I run a pretty minimal config (no nautilus, minimal panel, etc). With ClickToFocus turned off, the way humans use software.
terminal
gnome-terminal I think. whatever I stuck in my panel ages ago. I used to always used a tweak RXVT setup, since I tend to have dozens of terminals open, and it was lighter on mem, but I’ve got tons-o-ram now. All the current gen stuff seems workable, if need be.
editor
vim-enhanced, and emacs. Yup, I’m bi-editorial. vim for doing quick stuff in terminals, email, etc. emacs for
coding, espicially coding python. And vim-enhanced in particular, since normal vim or vi are worthless. I’ll
leave bringing up bare metal broken unices to the admin types.
ide
I guess emacs count. And eclipse when I have to look at java stuff.
mail
mutt for work email, evolution/thunderbird for non work stuff, depending on which one has annoyed me least recently.
im
im at work is for the devil.
browser
firefox
irc
we use irc very heavily at work, I use xchat just because it’s there. Even though it has perhaps the worse server selection screen one could possibly create.
graphics
gimp, gee, big surprise eh…
listening to music
xmms, rhythmbox is overkill for what I need.
osx:
10.4 at the moment
mail
Mail.app or thunderbird, whichever is currently annoying me least. thunderbird at the moment.
browser
firefox
misc
Quicksilver, probably the only app launcher I’ve ever used that actually was faster than a shell in an open terminal.
Desktop Manager, since my brain doesn’t work without virtual desktops.
making music
Cubase SE for recording. It kind of sucks, but I mostly know the ui now.
Reaktor for making weird noises.
Garage Band for fiddling
listening to music
nothing, I don’t have space to store much music on the laptop
fun
MAME
Stella
office
openoffice
editor
stock vim and emacs I got from somewhere
im
iChat
I sometimes use X2vnc and osxvnc/vnc to connect the two. otherwise just ssh/X
If anyone cares, and I missed something, feel free to ask.
road trip
Since I drove the mustang back from Minnesota, I’ve been wanting to go on another road trip.
Getting the motorcycle made me start thinking about it even more.
Just not sure where, when, with who if anyone, how, etc.
At some point my urge to go on a road trip will overcome my laziness.
Anyone got any interesting suggestions?
soccer heartrate plot
I’m not exactly what you would call “athletic”. But I’ve been trying anyway.
But I’m also a bit of a geek, so I went and bought a heart rate monitor that someone has written linux support for. In this case, a Polar s720i. I wore it when we played soccer yesterday.
Thats a graph of my heart rate over the ~2hours or so we played soccer. Pretty neat. Max was 193bpm, and
average was 134bpm.
I think playing soccer officially counts as exercise.
It’s also got stuff to hook into a bike to graph speed/cadence/altitude, but haven’t had a chance to try that yet.
soccer heartrate plot
I’m not exactly what you would call “athletic”. But I’ve been trying anyway.
But I’m also a bit of a geek, so I went and bought a heart rate monitor that someone has written linux support for. In this case, a Polar s720i. I wore it when we played soccer yesterday.
Thats a graph of my heart rate over the ~2hours or so we played soccer. Pretty neat. Max was 193bpm, and
average was 134bpm.
I think playing soccer officially counts as exercise.
It’s also got stuff to hook into a bike to graph speed/cadence/altitude, but haven’t had a chance to try that yet.
Bio Diesel Bike
The Kneeslider » Thunder Star 1200 Diesel by Star Twin
So, apparently, someone has built a bike powered by a turbo charge direct injection diesel engine from a VW Lupo. They
claim 120hp and 250lb/ft torque and150 mpg.
I want one.
melt bananna
After another odd day, I headed down to Kings to see Melt Banana. I was running a little late, but was still surprised to see it sold out when I got there. So I waited outside for half an hour or so until enough folks left. In the meantime, chatted with Badger, base10, and other
folks.
Oddly, once inside, it didn’t seem all that packed. Definitely not as crowded as say, The Great Cover Up.
I only caught the last song of Vaz, so can’t really comment on them.
Melt Banana was good, and quite entertaining. But not nearly as loud and as intense as I was expecting. But then maybe I’m just biased in that regard. King’s
pa is a little underpowered for giving that kind of show its full impact.
The odd thing was, people were moshing. Party like it’s 1994. And I remember why that always annoyed me. It makes you pay attention to the crowd, instead of the show, and paying close attention to make sure your not going to get a boot in the head tends to make time go kind of slowly.