YouTube, my first video..

Starting my XL600R

Hey, I like this place. They brought in Pizza for everyone who actually showed up to work today. The OtterBox for my nano showed up today, while it does make it considerably bulkier it is now waterproof, dirt proof etc.. It's a flash memory unit anyways so now it should be darn near indestructible

Ice, black ice, white ice, that's the story this morning. Pretty slow going this morning into work. At least there weren't any serious accidents out there. It's a notable phenomenon that most of the residents of the Willamette valley have no idea how to drive in ice and snow, but most of them are smart enough to stay home when they know they're in over their heads. When it gets really nasty I get a kind of perverse pleasure from turning on the Portland news and watching the bumpercar cams they set up at known bad intersections.

No riding this weekend... I woke up to slushy snow on Saturday, and heavy wet snow on Sunday.

I picked up a book that details the basic Kanji list. It's no wonder that people are afraid of learning kanji, 2000 characters just to be basically literate. I think the ABC song was a lot easier to learn, you certainly can't do "Hooked on Phonics" for Kanji. Not that phonics are particularly good but you can teach a child to read most words in the english language (even if they don't understand them) because our writing system is based on concatenating basic sounds together with only a few exceptions. Just how do they teach when students can't be expected to read fluently until high school?

Hey, it snowed yesterday... and I didn't even notice. I was sitting at work listening to my ipod and working on who knows what and everybody else took off while I was staring at the computer.

We rode the fruck last night (that's frozen muck btw) I got my FSR out for the ride, I don't normally ride it in Winter but I fgured we weren't going to get muddy since it's been so cold lately. I wasn't feeling very strong and being on the unfamiliar bike didn't help. My FSR is a bigger bike than the SS so it really rides different, corners where I'd be cutting to the inside with that much lean on the SS end up wide on the FSR, longer wheelbase, suspension, etc.. all add up to slower handling. I get used to it over the summer but in the winter when I've been riding the SS so much it feels alien.


Someone commented, jokingly I'm sure, about all the hearts I've broken. Kinda an odd thing to say since I've always thought I didn't ever have much change to break any hearts but looking back with a different perspective the opportunities really were there but did I really break her heart? I don't think I'll ever know.

Last night I successfully recorded a hi-def program off my Comcast DVR onto my computer over firewire. It was fairly painless but a 90 minute program did produce a 10+ gig file, now to take that and convert it into a compressed file, perhaps divx. It's fun to have a widescreen laptop connected to a 32" lcd for playing back videos, it sure enhances the experience to be able to use the whole screen.

Still studying Japanese, I wonder how much I'll know if I keep this up for a year. I only started in late December and have already learned a lot, I can't speak much since I'm just listening to Podcasts but I do understand a lot more of the dialogue in the anime I download.

Gonna ride on the frud tonight (that's frozen mud by the way) It's been cold enough for a few days that the ground should be solid out in Mac forest, maybe I'll ride the FSR instead of the SS.

ACM was saturday, rode the SS as usual for Whypass, it was not very sloppy but the geared bikes still had a hard time. I stopped riding my geared bikes in the winter a few years ago, they are just too much of a pain to keep running in the slop.

Some Pictures from ACM.

http://picasaweb.google.com/bcr123/ACM2008

The zen is dead, I'm now the proud owner of an Ipod Nano. Christmas in January I guess

Rode last night with John, short ride in Mac, I was on the SS again, John on the Mamasita. Looks like the zen might be totally dead now, it won't connect to an XP box either. If I can't get it to work I guess I'll rip out the micro harddrive and get a USB adapter to make a 6gb usb drive out of it..

Ah, Creative your product is crap...I shoulda bought an Ipod.

Found out last night that my zen micro just freezes when I plug it into Vista, even in "removeable disk" mode.

At least I still have an XP machine also so it's not just a paperweight.

Bought a new laptop last night from Costco. I've been wanting a new one for a couple years my old dell just wasn't cutting it anymore, the CD burner hasn't worked right for a couple years, the screen is going out and I had to replace the harddrive a few months back. Hey, now I can watch the widescreen hi-def videos I get from the internet, the old dell just couldn't keep up trying to playback hi-def video.

Fritz got the last rabbit for breakfast this morning, I need to go get more meat for him.

Creampuff????

Well, you've probably figured out I'm considering the Creampuff this year, I've ridden the Puff 4 times, finished twice. I guess I have to make my mind up soon since registration opens on Monday. I've told myself in the past that if I do the puff again it'll be with more of a goal than "just finish" I've already done that twice so there's nothing to prove there.

My previous races were: 2002 (finished) 2003 DNF, 2005 finished, 2006 DNF. I was feeling strong in 2004, I trained pretty hard, even did a 24hr race in February about month after getting hit by a car on my bike. DNF'ing that year was hard, I actually made it to Aid2 on lap 3 with time to go before the cutoff but I knew I was done, the heat just killed me on 1910, up to the end of Lap2 I was feeling pretty good thinking I'd improve my time from 2003.

My Shadow and Me.

Well, It's Monday so back to work.

Who, What Where When....

This aint's no resume folks.. you'll have to figure most of that out.

This weekend, well on Saturday I pretty much did Laundry and watched episodes of School Days, Sunday I finished up School Days, hmmm, that ending was sure appropriate then went for a MTB ride with John up in Mac forest, it was a little sloppy but not bad. I was on my SS, John on his 1x9 Mamasita 29'er. There sure were quite a few people out there I guess the break in the weather had a positive effect heck I even saw my own shadow, how's that for a January ride?

What's on my Zen? (Yeah, I don't have an Ipod, I'm just not fashionable enough...)
http://japanesepod101.com/

Ride Stats:
About 12.5 miles. If We're going to do the Creampuff again we've got a long ways to go from here.