Of course the photographer didn't get any pictures of where I was *really* leaned over, but this picture isn't bad.
I wish he would have got one of the really leaned over ones.. would have made a cool poster for the garage.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Friday, May 20, 2005
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Wowie!
I just don't know how else to describe this week, especially today. It's motorcycling nirvana. I rode the loop - the
Cherahola (sp?) skyway to 360 to 72 to the dragon/129. Checked out Fort Laudoun and spent the rest of the day riding the dragon.
Spent some time with Lori - semi-cute redhead whose boyfriend is the dude behind killboy.com and the main keeper of "the dragon". They are nearly celebrities.. even the factory reps know them.
I got to follow her for a while and learn some decent lines. Got my pic taken with both of them, etc.
The Rennsports (track tires with no grooves on the sidewall - do not ride in rain) are on along with the brake pads and race fluid. Shit that fuckin' bike rocks. It is *so* much better than I will ever be. I have completely fallen in love with the zx-10 and want it to have my baby.
I've been sticking to my diet pretty well, but drinking a *lot* of beer. I expect to have gained weight this week. :(
Miss y'all
R
Cherahola (sp?) skyway to 360 to 72 to the dragon/129. Checked out Fort Laudoun and spent the rest of the day riding the dragon.
Spent some time with Lori - semi-cute redhead whose boyfriend is the dude behind killboy.com and the main keeper of "the dragon". They are nearly celebrities.. even the factory reps know them.
I got to follow her for a while and learn some decent lines. Got my pic taken with both of them, etc.
The Rennsports (track tires with no grooves on the sidewall - do not ride in rain) are on along with the brake pads and race fluid. Shit that fuckin' bike rocks. It is *so* much better than I will ever be. I have completely fallen in love with the zx-10 and want it to have my baby.
I've been sticking to my diet pretty well, but drinking a *lot* of beer. I expect to have gained weight this week. :(
Miss y'all
R
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Slip Slidin' Away
Another beautiful day. Slept in until about 10. Woke up Chris so we could leave about 10:30. Hit the dragon and did one pass up and back. Stopped at Wheelers to see some of the guys from the other house and just hang out. There was a long line to get things done and as luck would have it, my tires were greasy enough that the back of the bike started sliding on me - I needed to get them changed; ASAP!
Rode back to the house, loaded the bike on the trailer and brought it back (this had to be done so I could have bike and tires in the same place at the same time.
I got to ride a pocket bike (super tiny motorcycle powered by a 50cc engine). That was pretty cool.
Ended up hanging out at the shop until 9pm. Ended up putting my race brake pads in front and putting the race fluid in and bleeding the brakes as well. Also did a dyno run. 147 HP at the rear wheel with the tire slipping on the drum, not too shabby (out of about 20 other bikes, the next highest was 110 HP)!
The rest of the guys were going on a night run. I told them that I would stay behind - I don't see that well at night and it was my turn to buy beer anyway.
Went on a beer run - dry county, so the "run" took 45 minutes. Picked up some beer for (Ken) Wheeler - The mechanic. Hung out with him for about an hour shooting the shit and drinking beer in front of his shop. Very relaxing evening. He's a good guy, and a helluva mechanic. Somewhat of a legend around here. Good person to know. All seemed right with the world.
Back to the house. Somebody has came in, set the air conditioning to 58 degrees, erased most of the marker board (people have been putting stuff up there all week, it was kinda cool.. Almost a graffiti wall), taken the DVD I was supposed to watch tonight, and just generally made themselves at home.. I need to find out who this is and have a little chat with him.
So here I sit all by myself with 2 cases of beer (the guys aren't back to the other house yet) and not a damn thing to do. Hmm, I get the feeling I'm going to be drunk tonight. lol
Here are some pictures from the trip. If you can't see them, let me know and I will download and post them.
G'night world. Pray for good weather!
Rode back to the house, loaded the bike on the trailer and brought it back (this had to be done so I could have bike and tires in the same place at the same time.
I got to ride a pocket bike (super tiny motorcycle powered by a 50cc engine). That was pretty cool.
Ended up hanging out at the shop until 9pm. Ended up putting my race brake pads in front and putting the race fluid in and bleeding the brakes as well. Also did a dyno run. 147 HP at the rear wheel with the tire slipping on the drum, not too shabby (out of about 20 other bikes, the next highest was 110 HP)!
The rest of the guys were going on a night run. I told them that I would stay behind - I don't see that well at night and it was my turn to buy beer anyway.
Went on a beer run - dry county, so the "run" took 45 minutes. Picked up some beer for (Ken) Wheeler - The mechanic. Hung out with him for about an hour shooting the shit and drinking beer in front of his shop. Very relaxing evening. He's a good guy, and a helluva mechanic. Somewhat of a legend around here. Good person to know. All seemed right with the world.
Back to the house. Somebody has came in, set the air conditioning to 58 degrees, erased most of the marker board (people have been putting stuff up there all week, it was kinda cool.. Almost a graffiti wall), taken the DVD I was supposed to watch tonight, and just generally made themselves at home.. I need to find out who this is and have a little chat with him.
So here I sit all by myself with 2 cases of beer (the guys aren't back to the other house yet) and not a damn thing to do. Hmm, I get the feeling I'm going to be drunk tonight. lol
Here are some pictures from the trip. If you can't see them, let me know and I will download and post them.
G'night world. Pray for good weather!
Monday, May 16, 2005
A Perfect Day
This has been the most awesome day. 4 trips up, 4 trips back on "the dragon" in Deals Gap, plus a trip up and back on the Cherohala Skyway. I miss the hell out of my wife, my dogs, and to be perfectly honest, I miss my gf a fair amount as well - haven't seen her in a month or so, but anyway - today was just about the perfect fucking day.
For those of you that are bikers and understand this sort of thing - once every 6 months to a year, you have one of those "zen moment" rides... I've had two of them *today*. My tires are worn out, I'm exhausted, but gimme a quick fuck and this would be the perfect day.
G'night.
For those of you that are bikers and understand this sort of thing - once every 6 months to a year, you have one of those "zen moment" rides... I've had two of them *today*. My tires are worn out, I'm exhausted, but gimme a quick fuck and this would be the perfect day.
G'night.
Deals Gap day 3
Took the minivan, trailering the zx-10. Arrived Saturday afternoon in Robbinsville. Raining on and off. Rode the dragon, dropped off the scooter wheel and tire at Wheelers Performance shop. Hung out at the deals gap resort for a while, checked out the tree of shame. Everybody back to the house. Soak in the hottub and watch some bike videos.
Sunday (yesterday) it rained most of the day. We did manage a nice ride across the skyline. Great road, lots of sweepers. Perfect road for the 10. Built a fire, hung out in the huge 30x50 foot garage at the other house drinking beer and playing pool, in bed around midnight.
Up at 7:30 this morning. Bob, John and Greg have left for home already leaving only Chris and myself in this huge house meant for 12 people. I get the feeling we'll be spending most of the evening at the other house. Chris and I plan on hitting the dragon a few times and watching "the circus". The circus is all of the squidly happenings at the deals gap resort.
80 degrees and sunny today. Yes, this is motorcycle heaven.
Sunday (yesterday) it rained most of the day. We did manage a nice ride across the skyline. Great road, lots of sweepers. Perfect road for the 10. Built a fire, hung out in the huge 30x50 foot garage at the other house drinking beer and playing pool, in bed around midnight.
Up at 7:30 this morning. Bob, John and Greg have left for home already leaving only Chris and myself in this huge house meant for 12 people. I get the feeling we'll be spending most of the evening at the other house. Chris and I plan on hitting the dragon a few times and watching "the circus". The circus is all of the squidly happenings at the deals gap resort.
80 degrees and sunny today. Yes, this is motorcycle heaven.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Spring Ride
Spring Ride is finally here! I'll be leaving in the morning for a few glorious days of riding in the mountains with about 50 or so of my old riding buddies. I don't talk to them that much anymore as they live a long ways away, but I make sure to meet up for this ride every year.
Between Spring Ride this weekend, Deals Gap next weekend, and a trackday in June, I may just wear out the sides of the tires faster than the center.
Regarding the comment about the P22.. yes, they have a reputation of being buttery-smooth or jamming like crazy. Most guns I've had, if they jam, you just work a few hundred rounds through them (as frustrating as that can be), by then they will loosen-up and wear-in properly, or you will have left enough clues (in the form of scrapes on the interfering parts) that a gunsmith with file in hand can fix it up in 5 minutes. It's the lightest .22LR with the smallest grip I could find, and it's the one she wanted, so here it is.. If it was for me, it would have been a Browning Buckmaster.
Hope everyone that hangs at the resort is doing well. Looks like it's going to be 3 more Sundays before we make it out there. :/
Between Spring Ride this weekend, Deals Gap next weekend, and a trackday in June, I may just wear out the sides of the tires faster than the center.
Regarding the comment about the P22.. yes, they have a reputation of being buttery-smooth or jamming like crazy. Most guns I've had, if they jam, you just work a few hundred rounds through them (as frustrating as that can be), by then they will loosen-up and wear-in properly, or you will have left enough clues (in the form of scrapes on the interfering parts) that a gunsmith with file in hand can fix it up in 5 minutes. It's the lightest .22LR with the smallest grip I could find, and it's the one she wanted, so here it is.. If it was for me, it would have been a Browning Buckmaster.
Hope everyone that hangs at the resort is doing well. Looks like it's going to be 3 more Sundays before we make it out there. :/
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Gabby
Gabby is the chocolate lab that we semi-rescued from down the street. We got her on Sunday night. She's spent 6 years chained to a crappy plastic doghouse, a few years of that, in the mud. Never had a bath. Yesterday was her first vet trip ever..and boy did it show. All shots, possible ear mites, and heartworm. Poor thing.
I just hope the heartworm treatment doesn't kill her. It's a newer treatment and isn't as dangerous as the old one (IIRC, the old one used arsenic), but it's still pretty dangerous.
As you have probably figured, this dog (being an outside dog it's entire life) has never been housebroken or trained at all. Considering all of that, she's doing fine. I'm crate training and she hasn't had a chance to have an "accident". She's starting to learn to walk like a civilized dog and generally just calming down a bit now that she's getting walked several times a day (including a long walk in the evening).
The only real problem we've had is that (being an only dog) she doesn't like to share her toys. We are making some progress there. We went from fights over toys the first two days to her and Amber taking turns (with some prompting from me) with Gabby's favorite (and Amber's second favorite) toy without so much as a growl.
I never realized just how different chocolate labs are from yellows and blacks. Their eyes are different (shape, color), their head is a little different, even their demeanor is a bit different. It's almost a separate breed,.. so says the vet.
The other dogs are slowly warming up. they still aren't quite sure what to make of her. Buddy actually wants to play with her. Pup wants to co-exist peacefully (both fights were with Lil' Pup), and Amber wants the good-for-nothing, attention-stealing, master-hogging, toy thief gone,... she's just to nice to say it to her face. It's obvious Amber is somewhat concerned that she might lose her throne as daddy's princess.. wish I could tell her she has nothing to worry about.
I just hope the heartworm treatment doesn't kill her. It's a newer treatment and isn't as dangerous as the old one (IIRC, the old one used arsenic), but it's still pretty dangerous.
As you have probably figured, this dog (being an outside dog it's entire life) has never been housebroken or trained at all. Considering all of that, she's doing fine. I'm crate training and she hasn't had a chance to have an "accident". She's starting to learn to walk like a civilized dog and generally just calming down a bit now that she's getting walked several times a day (including a long walk in the evening).
The only real problem we've had is that (being an only dog) she doesn't like to share her toys. We are making some progress there. We went from fights over toys the first two days to her and Amber taking turns (with some prompting from me) with Gabby's favorite (and Amber's second favorite) toy without so much as a growl.
I never realized just how different chocolate labs are from yellows and blacks. Their eyes are different (shape, color), their head is a little different, even their demeanor is a bit different. It's almost a separate breed,.. so says the vet.
The other dogs are slowly warming up. they still aren't quite sure what to make of her. Buddy actually wants to play with her. Pup wants to co-exist peacefully (both fights were with Lil' Pup), and Amber wants the good-for-nothing, attention-stealing, master-hogging, toy thief gone,... she's just to nice to say it to her face. It's obvious Amber is somewhat concerned that she might lose her throne as daddy's princess.. wish I could tell her she has nothing to worry about.
Friday, April 15, 2005
Ketchup
No, not "ketchup", "catch up".. as in I went out to lunch with a co-worker/friend for the first time in many months. Did some real (as in more than 10 miles) riding, cleaned-up email, paid all the bills, digested the various processes and procedures for work the next few weekends, and a variety of other things.
May be going out with some newly made friends tonight. If not, then it's more studying for me and an early bed time since I've got to be up at 6am for a DR test.
I need to find a table and a pair of chairs (comfortable enough to sit in for several hours at a time) that I can put on the deck so I can work outside.
I'm still trying to get up to speed on the 1,000,001 little tidbits of information relating to flying. My only real weaknesses at this point are airpace - which sectionals and my GPS show me, and weather - which I need to learn for my next certificate, but for now it's not that critical since I'm doing all "fair weather" flying anyway.
I think next month I may take a lesson or two toward my next (instrument) rating so I can practice relevant skills while logging the necessary cross-country time. Hopefully by this time next year I'll have my instrument rating. Then it's just a bunch of studying to get my instructor rating.. which builds hours quickly. Once I have some hours in (500?), I can fly (cargo) boxes around and get paid for it. Yeah!
May be going out with some newly made friends tonight. If not, then it's more studying for me and an early bed time since I've got to be up at 6am for a DR test.
I need to find a table and a pair of chairs (comfortable enough to sit in for several hours at a time) that I can put on the deck so I can work outside.
I'm still trying to get up to speed on the 1,000,001 little tidbits of information relating to flying. My only real weaknesses at this point are airpace - which sectionals and my GPS show me, and weather - which I need to learn for my next certificate, but for now it's not that critical since I'm doing all "fair weather" flying anyway.
I think next month I may take a lesson or two toward my next (instrument) rating so I can practice relevant skills while logging the necessary cross-country time. Hopefully by this time next year I'll have my instrument rating. Then it's just a bunch of studying to get my instructor rating.. which builds hours quickly. Once I have some hours in (500?), I can fly (cargo) boxes around and get paid for it. Yeah!
Monday, April 11, 2005
To Be Rich...
.. and I don't mean in any way other than monetary. Save all your "count your blessings" speeches. I count them every day and yes, I'm damn fortunate.. but what I'm talking about here is having money. I don't mean dirty-stinking-filthy-buy-a-50-caret-diamond-studded-24k-gold-ass-wipe-roll-holder-just-because -you-can rich, I mean having the money to follow your dreams and your obsessions (if you are, like me, the obsessive type).
I'm back into flying now, and I'm already beginning to remember why I walked away from it for a while (other than the heart surgery). It is expensive. Not super expensive, but in order to do any REAL flying - where you get to go away for more than a day, you need your own plane.
To make those trips with any level of comfort, you need a decent sized 4 seater, and a 6 seater isn't beyond reason (realize that just because there are that many seats, it doesn't mean you can carry that many adults AND full fuel tanks). We are talking between $75k and $125k for this kind of plane; and I don't mean new. I'm talking about a well-maintained 25-45 year old plane.
Frustrating! I've promised myself since I was 16 years old that this (my 35th year) would be the year that I own an airplane. All the planets came into alignment giving me both a well paying job and super low interest rates at the same time, in the correct year, and yet it still won't happen until at least next year. Did I mention that this is frustrating?
How nice would it be if, within reason, you could have what you want? I don't think I'd want it without a *small* amount of work, as it doesn't get appreciated. But somehow, some way, always being able to work it out. Want to tour the world on a motorcycle? Do it. Want to buy a plane so you can go where you want, when you want? Go for it! Want to join the peace corps and (hopefully) make a difference in the world, without losing everything you have? Sure, no problem.
Want degrees in archeology, anthropology, genealogy, and design so you can try your hand at breeding mini pink-polkadot dinosaurs? It's your dream baby, hell yeah!
Are y'all as restless as I am?
I'm back into flying now, and I'm already beginning to remember why I walked away from it for a while (other than the heart surgery). It is expensive. Not super expensive, but in order to do any REAL flying - where you get to go away for more than a day, you need your own plane.
To make those trips with any level of comfort, you need a decent sized 4 seater, and a 6 seater isn't beyond reason (realize that just because there are that many seats, it doesn't mean you can carry that many adults AND full fuel tanks). We are talking between $75k and $125k for this kind of plane; and I don't mean new. I'm talking about a well-maintained 25-45 year old plane.
Frustrating! I've promised myself since I was 16 years old that this (my 35th year) would be the year that I own an airplane. All the planets came into alignment giving me both a well paying job and super low interest rates at the same time, in the correct year, and yet it still won't happen until at least next year. Did I mention that this is frustrating?
How nice would it be if, within reason, you could have what you want? I don't think I'd want it without a *small* amount of work, as it doesn't get appreciated. But somehow, some way, always being able to work it out. Want to tour the world on a motorcycle? Do it. Want to buy a plane so you can go where you want, when you want? Go for it! Want to join the peace corps and (hopefully) make a difference in the world, without losing everything you have? Sure, no problem.
Want degrees in archeology, anthropology, genealogy, and design so you can try your hand at breeding mini pink-polkadot dinosaurs? It's your dream baby, hell yeah!
Are y'all as restless as I am?
Thursday, April 07, 2005
It's Dark In Here!
It seems that almost everybody has fallen off their blogs. Not much to say here, just the usual goings-on:
Working too much, practicing my putting, studying aviation stuff, craving smokes and having to fend off awful snack-attacks because of it, missing eating red meat as much as I used to (that is to say: at least once or twice a week).
Bought a cheap desktop to use for flight simulator so I can practice my radio navigation without racking up a crazy flying bill.
Going flying this Sunday.. a short 75 mile trip. Just enough to log as cross-country time (50 hours cross country time is needed before I can get my next rating, so it's important to make every trip I can count towards it) and grab something to eat.
The little voices in my head have been extremely quiet lately, which is good, but makes for a serious lack of blog entries.
Hope anybody left out there that may be reading this is doing well.
Working too much, practicing my putting, studying aviation stuff, craving smokes and having to fend off awful snack-attacks because of it, missing eating red meat as much as I used to (that is to say: at least once or twice a week).
Bought a cheap desktop to use for flight simulator so I can practice my radio navigation without racking up a crazy flying bill.
Going flying this Sunday.. a short 75 mile trip. Just enough to log as cross-country time (50 hours cross country time is needed before I can get my next rating, so it's important to make every trip I can count towards it) and grab something to eat.
The little voices in my head have been extremely quiet lately, which is good, but makes for a serious lack of blog entries.
Hope anybody left out there that may be reading this is doing well.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
The eagle has landed
Went for the flight portion of my BFR (Biennial Flight Review) today and passed. I'm now a fully fledged private pilot again (woo-hoo)!
I've still got a bit of studying to do (doncha just hate re-learning the same thing 3 or 4 times?), and need to practice a few things (nothing I'm doing wrong, just things I could be better at), but I'm legal. I've rented the plane on Sunday morning, so I'll get the practice in then and do the studying over the next week or two (it's several hundred pages).
.. and in my tiny little corner of the world, that's about as good as news can get.
Over.
I've still got a bit of studying to do (doncha just hate re-learning the same thing 3 or 4 times?), and need to practice a few things (nothing I'm doing wrong, just things I could be better at), but I'm legal. I've rented the plane on Sunday morning, so I'll get the practice in then and do the studying over the next week or two (it's several hundred pages).
.. and in my tiny little corner of the world, that's about as good as news can get.
Over.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Change of Direction
I've decided to listen to what I've been saying in my blog and cut out some of the crap and replace with quality filler (in my life, not the blog).
To that extent, I've taken the golf lesson, ordered clubs and will start hitting the driving range this weekend with hopes of a game in a week or two.
More importantly though, I've been studying my ass off. I took a ground school lesson yesterday and will be taking a flight lesson tomorrow. With a little luck, my BFR (Biennial Flight Review) will be signed off within a week or two and I'll be a real pilot again.
Not much in the way of airplanes available for rent out this way. I need to find some evening/weekend contract work for a few months so I can get some bills paid off and get a plane financed before it's too late.
Absolutely gorgeous day today. Been out riding once (found a lost and very thirsty siberian husky with no tags - me with no phone to call for help.. very sad) today and am going to try to make it out again.
All the windows and doors are open and the fans are on and the place still smells like a friggin' garlic and onion brewery (if there were such a thing). The eggrolls are good, too bad I can't eat them (diet).
It's too nice out to be sitting here blogging, or even working. Going to get my work done and go play.
buh bye.
To that extent, I've taken the golf lesson, ordered clubs and will start hitting the driving range this weekend with hopes of a game in a week or two.
More importantly though, I've been studying my ass off. I took a ground school lesson yesterday and will be taking a flight lesson tomorrow. With a little luck, my BFR (Biennial Flight Review) will be signed off within a week or two and I'll be a real pilot again.
Not much in the way of airplanes available for rent out this way. I need to find some evening/weekend contract work for a few months so I can get some bills paid off and get a plane financed before it's too late.
Absolutely gorgeous day today. Been out riding once (found a lost and very thirsty siberian husky with no tags - me with no phone to call for help.. very sad) today and am going to try to make it out again.
All the windows and doors are open and the fans are on and the place still smells like a friggin' garlic and onion brewery (if there were such a thing). The eggrolls are good, too bad I can't eat them (diet).
It's too nice out to be sitting here blogging, or even working. Going to get my work done and go play.
buh bye.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Update
I haven't posted in a while and figured it was time for an update.
I took the golf lesson, and it was actually halfway enjoyable. I'm now hunting for some clubs. I've found some good clones at a reasonable price, just gotta figure out which set I want. I'm going to try to stop by Dick's tonight to try out some name-brand clubs so I know which clones to buy.
Hard at work studying in preparation for re-validating my pilots license. Will probably start flying next week after I get through the relevant info in the books.
Just now recovering from oncall last week. 86.5 hours, most of it 20 minutes at a time. Oncall week is hell!
Considering acquiring and/or restoring a Charger similar to the ones I had when I was younger. Still undecided though.
That's it!
I took the golf lesson, and it was actually halfway enjoyable. I'm now hunting for some clubs. I've found some good clones at a reasonable price, just gotta figure out which set I want. I'm going to try to stop by Dick's tonight to try out some name-brand clubs so I know which clones to buy.
Hard at work studying in preparation for re-validating my pilots license. Will probably start flying next week after I get through the relevant info in the books.
Just now recovering from oncall last week. 86.5 hours, most of it 20 minutes at a time. Oncall week is hell!
Considering acquiring and/or restoring a Charger similar to the ones I had when I was younger. Still undecided though.
That's it!
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Choices
I've been thinking about choices today. That is, why we make the choices we do, even when they aren't the choices we really want and there's nothing stopping us from choosing those things that we do want.
Growing up, there were four things I wanted to do in/with my life: Neurosurgeon (ok, this was more a means to the end, which was an early retirement), professional motorcycle racer, musician, and fighter or test pilot.
Breaking things down:
Neurosurgeon: Why did I choose to excel in reading instead of math (I was excellent at both), knowing that having college level reading in the sixth grade was impressive, but would get me nowhere, I still chose it, instead of math, which would have got me a scholarship to college, or at the very least, out of high school a few years early so I could pursue my other dreams. Why did I choose partying instead of studying? Why did I spend two years in vocational school for auto mechanics? None of it makes sense.
Motorcycle racer: Why did I choose to spend all my money on BMX bikes instead of motorcycles. Why did I not put more effort into getting my dad to take me to the track when I finally get one (at 13 or 14 years old) instead of giving up on the old man and trading a damn nice XL-250 for a "yamahopper" (yamaha qt50) moped? Why, when I could finally get a loan and "afford" to get back into motorcycles did I buy a small cruiser (Suzuki GS-450) instead of a dirt bike or a sport bike?.. and then trade it on a car less than a year later and not have another motorcycle for many years (other than a few brief 3 month stints)?
Musician: I played tenor sax, and was *damn* good at it: I often got invitations to play with MSU at their shows when I was still in middle school. Why did I drop out of band in the second semester of 12th grade? That was a sure scholarship to Interlochen and probably a full scholarship to a major university; and now that I have enough equipment for an entire band downstairs, and had a lifelong dream of playing drums, do I not ever play?
Fighter/Test (or at least airline Pilot: God was against me on this one. At the time I was young enough to begin this career, you had to have 20/20 vision to fly the airlines. Something I was nowhere near (20/500 was closer to the truth - no faking/lying when you are that blind). What I really wanted was to fly fighter jets, F14s in particular. Not only did you have to have 20/20 vision, but you had to be an officer. To be an officer, you had to had a college degree. If you've read the above, you've probably figured out that I was too busy partying and generally fucking around to be bothered with college, so that was out.
Now don't get me wrong, this post isn't about regrets. As the title says, it's about choices. I, as have most people, made some really bad choices, but don't regret my life for a minute. I've been very fortunate (and some would argue deserving) with how far I've come in my career, my personal growth, marriage, etc.. and yet I feel (as I'm sure many do) that I'm meant to do something more.. something bigger.
A part of me feels as though I was meant for semi-greatness, and took a wrong turn somewhere. I've spent the last 5 years not trying to figure out what the wrong turn was (as there have been many) but where the right turn would have led me. Real Estate tycoon? Motorcycle dealerships? Peace Corps? I just don't know... and THAT is what drives me crazy.
I've always had short and long term goals in my life. This year marks the first time I've ever missed one. See, I turned 35 this year, and that means I should have my commercial pilots license and my own four seat airplane. I haven't even maintained proficiency with my private license, and commercial is 2-3 ratings and a 1000 or more hours away.
I can't even imagine trying to finance an airplane right now after buying the house and all the other stuff we've financed over the last year; and I am SO mad at myself for not sticking to my plan as last year interest rates were the lowest they will probably ever be in my lifetime.
.. and yet when given choices, I drool over $60,000 cars instead of $100,000 planes (the payments are about the same), I think about $1500 flatscreen monitors instead of earning that next rating, I spend $250 on a belt sander instead of training aids/ground school, and I plan on spending $60 for golf lessons instead of flying lessons.
Why DO we make the choices we do? Do we all do this (and if so, why?), or am I on some self-destruct course to assure myself of future unhappiness?
.. and how many licks does it take? :)
Growing up, there were four things I wanted to do in/with my life: Neurosurgeon (ok, this was more a means to the end, which was an early retirement), professional motorcycle racer, musician, and fighter or test pilot.
Breaking things down:
Neurosurgeon: Why did I choose to excel in reading instead of math (I was excellent at both), knowing that having college level reading in the sixth grade was impressive, but would get me nowhere, I still chose it, instead of math, which would have got me a scholarship to college, or at the very least, out of high school a few years early so I could pursue my other dreams. Why did I choose partying instead of studying? Why did I spend two years in vocational school for auto mechanics? None of it makes sense.
Motorcycle racer: Why did I choose to spend all my money on BMX bikes instead of motorcycles. Why did I not put more effort into getting my dad to take me to the track when I finally get one (at 13 or 14 years old) instead of giving up on the old man and trading a damn nice XL-250 for a "yamahopper" (yamaha qt50) moped? Why, when I could finally get a loan and "afford" to get back into motorcycles did I buy a small cruiser (Suzuki GS-450) instead of a dirt bike or a sport bike?.. and then trade it on a car less than a year later and not have another motorcycle for many years (other than a few brief 3 month stints)?
Musician: I played tenor sax, and was *damn* good at it: I often got invitations to play with MSU at their shows when I was still in middle school. Why did I drop out of band in the second semester of 12th grade? That was a sure scholarship to Interlochen and probably a full scholarship to a major university; and now that I have enough equipment for an entire band downstairs, and had a lifelong dream of playing drums, do I not ever play?
Fighter/Test (or at least airline Pilot: God was against me on this one. At the time I was young enough to begin this career, you had to have 20/20 vision to fly the airlines. Something I was nowhere near (20/500 was closer to the truth - no faking/lying when you are that blind). What I really wanted was to fly fighter jets, F14s in particular. Not only did you have to have 20/20 vision, but you had to be an officer. To be an officer, you had to had a college degree. If you've read the above, you've probably figured out that I was too busy partying and generally fucking around to be bothered with college, so that was out.
Now don't get me wrong, this post isn't about regrets. As the title says, it's about choices. I, as have most people, made some really bad choices, but don't regret my life for a minute. I've been very fortunate (and some would argue deserving) with how far I've come in my career, my personal growth, marriage, etc.. and yet I feel (as I'm sure many do) that I'm meant to do something more.. something bigger.
A part of me feels as though I was meant for semi-greatness, and took a wrong turn somewhere. I've spent the last 5 years not trying to figure out what the wrong turn was (as there have been many) but where the right turn would have led me. Real Estate tycoon? Motorcycle dealerships? Peace Corps? I just don't know... and THAT is what drives me crazy.
I've always had short and long term goals in my life. This year marks the first time I've ever missed one. See, I turned 35 this year, and that means I should have my commercial pilots license and my own four seat airplane. I haven't even maintained proficiency with my private license, and commercial is 2-3 ratings and a 1000 or more hours away.
I can't even imagine trying to finance an airplane right now after buying the house and all the other stuff we've financed over the last year; and I am SO mad at myself for not sticking to my plan as last year interest rates were the lowest they will probably ever be in my lifetime.
.. and yet when given choices, I drool over $60,000 cars instead of $100,000 planes (the payments are about the same), I think about $1500 flatscreen monitors instead of earning that next rating, I spend $250 on a belt sander instead of training aids/ground school, and I plan on spending $60 for golf lessons instead of flying lessons.
Why DO we make the choices we do? Do we all do this (and if so, why?), or am I on some self-destruct course to assure myself of future unhappiness?
.. and how many licks does it take? :)
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Geek-Out
Since I've done nothing (and I do mean nothing) other than work on computers for the last 36 hours, this entry is mainly going to be geek stuff.
I'm oncall and sick, Buddy is sick. This has got to be the most boring-ass week since we've moved into this place.. at least for me.
It was 72 degrees today and I was in the house all day. Man, that just about killed me. I've got to start getting some jobs done around here. The deck, the garage, the yard. Everything that got put on hold in November needs to start again, soon. I don't mind spending spring working, but I want to enjoy summer and fall this year.
Managed to get about 3 solid hours of sleep today after being up all night and not getting to bed until 12:30 this afternoon. Oncall is *hell*. Pages every 20-40 minutes. Just as you start to fall asleep - that semi-conscious dream-like state between awake and asleep BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP, all night long, from 10pm until 8am. There needs to be some serious process re-design here. Granted this is over 1800 jobs on 150 machines running upwards of 400 enterprise level Oracle databases, but damn... let a guy sleep!
Begin long geek ramblings:
I've been watching the desktop search competition very closely as of late, and reading every review I can get my paws on. Tonight I finally broke down and installed two of them. Google's and X1. X1 is the commercial version that Yahoo's desktop search is based on, but it allows for network drive indexing (which none of the free search tools do), among other things.
It is sorely lacking in one area: It will only handle Outlook contact/address book data. Mozilla address book is not an option. Surprisingly, neither is palm desktop; even though it has a free API, conduit, and other tools to make communicating with it nearly effortless. Were it not for this one fatal flaw, I would gladly pay the $75 for this tool. Oh, having a Trillian chat plugin similar to the one Google has would be cool as well.
It is amazing how much time you save having *everything*, even network server files, right at your fingertips. I just type what I'm looking for.. content, file name, whatever.. and it is *instantly* there. I click on the music icon, and all my music files from my entire network are all there in one list. I single-click and that song begins to play. I click the pictures icon, sort by path, navigate to the newsgroups, and it's instant porn slideshow.
Why the hell didn't somebody come out with this stuff years ago? Oh wait, they did. It was part of OS/2. Another 10-15 years and I think Windows will have almost all of the functionality of that (most beautifully crafted, useful, dynamic, customizable, *kiss* *kiss* *kiss*, now-defunct) operating system. Damn I miss it.
Anyway, if you are a PC user, try the Yahoo desktop search, chances are, you will love it. If you need network drive indexing, you'll want the X1 version. The Google one is pretty decent as well, I just don't like having rogue web servers running on my system.
I've found so many cool multi-function tools lately that I could almost get by with an appliance if it had the following: Limewire Pro, FeedDemon, Mozilla (the entire suite known as seamonkey, which btw, is no longer being updated), Trillian Pro, X1, MusicMatch Pro, and gvim (a "vi" clone text editor). Yup, that would do it.
Of course I would still need my normal heavy-duty suite of tools (which I'm not going to get into) for real work, but for day-to-day computer living, that's all I need.
The Mozilla news makes me really sad. For all the great press firefox has got, and the fact that it is more IE compatible than the Mozilla browser, it doesn't have nearly the features. Bookmarking groups of tabs and having them all open with one click is a feature I don't know that I can live without. It was one of those little things that I used in the past with Opera, but the ease of use with Mozilla made it life-altering (in a strictly web-surfing sense of the phrase).
The long awaited Dell 24" flatscreen monitor that I've been drooling over has finally arrived. Now the only questions left for me are "do I buy one or two", and "where the hell is my tax refund?".
For those of you that are already on the news aggregator bandwagon with me: if you haven't checked into podcasting yet, you owe it to yourself to do so. A podcast is really nothing more than an audio attachment to an RSS feed... simple enough, but the power comes in that when using a tool such as FeedDemon's FeedStation, you can schedule these downloads for off-hours and have them transferred to your portable audio device automagically. Even though podcasting is just starting to gain a foothold, the power of this distribution method is staggering.
News junkies such as myself stay away from mainstream media, spend most of our days reading on 100's of different sites. Then along comes a news aggregator that turns a day's worth of reading into something that can be done in less than an hour. Now much of this news is being distributed via audio and is sitting on our little MP3 players when we wake up in the morning so we no longer even have to take the hour to read, but can simply listen to the broadcasts while performing other tasks.
The analogy of the above in real life is going from 'researching in a library and compiling your own notebook of relevant information' to 'having an assembled book of news items waiting for you at your doorstep' and now to 'programming your own version of NPR.. in your sleep'. Awesome!
I'm oncall and sick, Buddy is sick. This has got to be the most boring-ass week since we've moved into this place.. at least for me.
It was 72 degrees today and I was in the house all day. Man, that just about killed me. I've got to start getting some jobs done around here. The deck, the garage, the yard. Everything that got put on hold in November needs to start again, soon. I don't mind spending spring working, but I want to enjoy summer and fall this year.
Managed to get about 3 solid hours of sleep today after being up all night and not getting to bed until 12:30 this afternoon. Oncall is *hell*. Pages every 20-40 minutes. Just as you start to fall asleep - that semi-conscious dream-like state between awake and asleep BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP, all night long, from 10pm until 8am. There needs to be some serious process re-design here. Granted this is over 1800 jobs on 150 machines running upwards of 400 enterprise level Oracle databases, but damn... let a guy sleep!
Begin long geek ramblings:
I've been watching the desktop search competition very closely as of late, and reading every review I can get my paws on. Tonight I finally broke down and installed two of them. Google's and X1. X1 is the commercial version that Yahoo's desktop search is based on, but it allows for network drive indexing (which none of the free search tools do), among other things.
It is sorely lacking in one area: It will only handle Outlook contact/address book data. Mozilla address book is not an option. Surprisingly, neither is palm desktop; even though it has a free API, conduit, and other tools to make communicating with it nearly effortless. Were it not for this one fatal flaw, I would gladly pay the $75 for this tool. Oh, having a Trillian chat plugin similar to the one Google has would be cool as well.
It is amazing how much time you save having *everything*, even network server files, right at your fingertips. I just type what I'm looking for.. content, file name, whatever.. and it is *instantly* there. I click on the music icon, and all my music files from my entire network are all there in one list. I single-click and that song begins to play. I click the pictures icon, sort by path, navigate to the newsgroups, and it's instant porn slideshow.
Why the hell didn't somebody come out with this stuff years ago? Oh wait, they did. It was part of OS/2. Another 10-15 years and I think Windows will have almost all of the functionality of that (most beautifully crafted, useful, dynamic, customizable, *kiss* *kiss* *kiss*, now-defunct) operating system. Damn I miss it.
Anyway, if you are a PC user, try the Yahoo desktop search, chances are, you will love it. If you need network drive indexing, you'll want the X1 version. The Google one is pretty decent as well, I just don't like having rogue web servers running on my system.
I've found so many cool multi-function tools lately that I could almost get by with an appliance if it had the following: Limewire Pro, FeedDemon, Mozilla (the entire suite known as seamonkey, which btw, is no longer being updated), Trillian Pro, X1, MusicMatch Pro, and gvim (a "vi" clone text editor). Yup, that would do it.
Of course I would still need my normal heavy-duty suite of tools (which I'm not going to get into) for real work, but for day-to-day computer living, that's all I need.
The Mozilla news makes me really sad. For all the great press firefox has got, and the fact that it is more IE compatible than the Mozilla browser, it doesn't have nearly the features. Bookmarking groups of tabs and having them all open with one click is a feature I don't know that I can live without. It was one of those little things that I used in the past with Opera, but the ease of use with Mozilla made it life-altering (in a strictly web-surfing sense of the phrase).
The long awaited Dell 24" flatscreen monitor that I've been drooling over has finally arrived. Now the only questions left for me are "do I buy one or two", and "where the hell is my tax refund?".
For those of you that are already on the news aggregator bandwagon with me: if you haven't checked into podcasting yet, you owe it to yourself to do so. A podcast is really nothing more than an audio attachment to an RSS feed... simple enough, but the power comes in that when using a tool such as FeedDemon's FeedStation, you can schedule these downloads for off-hours and have them transferred to your portable audio device automagically. Even though podcasting is just starting to gain a foothold, the power of this distribution method is staggering.
News junkies such as myself stay away from mainstream media, spend most of our days reading on 100's of different sites. Then along comes a news aggregator that turns a day's worth of reading into something that can be done in less than an hour. Now much of this news is being distributed via audio and is sitting on our little MP3 players when we wake up in the morning so we no longer even have to take the hour to read, but can simply listen to the broadcasts while performing other tasks.
The analogy of the above in real life is going from 'researching in a library and compiling your own notebook of relevant information' to 'having an assembled book of news items waiting for you at your doorstep' and now to 'programming your own version of NPR.. in your sleep'. Awesome!
Friday, March 11, 2005
Another Bizarre Mishap
Another busy, crazy, hectic day at work. Oncall started today and we've got a lot of big systems (as in "each system acts like 30 systems" big) going down for patching.. it's going to be a LONG weekend and upcoming week.
The girl I see occasionally stopped by. Not much time to play with all the work stuff going on.
The power goes out for half the day.. yup, that helped me get a lot of work done. *sneer*
Watched spiderman 2 tonight, got paged... slave to the machine, I am.
My apologies for this blog being so damn boring lately. I'm full-blown sick again (different antibiotic started today), work is nuts, I'm oncall, and just generally uninspired at the moment.
Ok, one perhaps slightly amusing thing. That is, if you find amusement in other's suffering. Those who know me know that I have the freakiest little accidents occur. Like the one a few months ago where I was reaching into a 12 pack box for a beer and the cardboard got shoved under my thumbnail so far that it tore one side of the nail loose from my finger.
This month's entry into the klutz hall of fame: I start to blow my nose. All of a sudden my eye starts hurting like hell, feels completely dried out, and all I can see is blue. I run to the bathroom to try to flush it out and see what the heck is going on. It turns out that when I held the tissue up to my nose, the corner of it touched my eye, I blinked, and the (blue) tissue stuck *under my eyelid*. Of course all the blinking and rubbing only served to scratch/irritate my eye something awful, as it's been 6 hours and it's still bothering me a LOT.
Amused? I hope so, 'cause it's all I've got.
Back to work now.
The girl I see occasionally stopped by. Not much time to play with all the work stuff going on.
The power goes out for half the day.. yup, that helped me get a lot of work done. *sneer*
Watched spiderman 2 tonight, got paged... slave to the machine, I am.
My apologies for this blog being so damn boring lately. I'm full-blown sick again (different antibiotic started today), work is nuts, I'm oncall, and just generally uninspired at the moment.
Ok, one perhaps slightly amusing thing. That is, if you find amusement in other's suffering. Those who know me know that I have the freakiest little accidents occur. Like the one a few months ago where I was reaching into a 12 pack box for a beer and the cardboard got shoved under my thumbnail so far that it tore one side of the nail loose from my finger.
This month's entry into the klutz hall of fame: I start to blow my nose. All of a sudden my eye starts hurting like hell, feels completely dried out, and all I can see is blue. I run to the bathroom to try to flush it out and see what the heck is going on. It turns out that when I held the tissue up to my nose, the corner of it touched my eye, I blinked, and the (blue) tissue stuck *under my eyelid*. Of course all the blinking and rubbing only served to scratch/irritate my eye something awful, as it's been 6 hours and it's still bothering me a LOT.
Amused? I hope so, 'cause it's all I've got.
Back to work now.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Checking in
Tired and feeling a bit under the weather (again). Had lunch with Skip today. Rode the zx-10, had some fun in the curves.
10pm, got paged to work on a problem. Starting oncall at 8am tomorrow, so I'm basically grounded for a week and will be getting no sleep.
Gotta get back to this work issue.
10pm, got paged to work on a problem. Starting oncall at 8am tomorrow, so I'm basically grounded for a week and will be getting no sleep.
Gotta get back to this work issue.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
This is Not a Catchy Title
Why is it doing the exact same thing one day is so energizing, and the next is the most boring fucking thing imaginable? A lot of work has come my way in recent days and yesterday I was so happy to have something exciting to do. Today I continue where I left off and it's all I can do to stay awake. I'm in one of those caffeine-crash-like hazes and can't seem to shake myself out of it.
Called the county today, hopefully they can do something about all the crap happening in this neighborhood. The HOA certainly doesn't seem to mind that there's been a dumpster parked in someone's front yard for a few months, a house blowing apart, porta-johns all over the place and now someone living in a camping trailer on a cleared lot. We didn't have this many issues in our last house; and that was in a low-income neighborhood full of rednecks.
Talked to the vet today. They are going to be weaning yellow dog off of the diazapam. We are going to be taking her downtown to a specialist that will be doing MRIs and such and trying to come up with a more permanent pain management therapy that won't turn her into an addict. I have wondered though... if it's something that she's going to be on the rest of her life anyway, what difference does it make if she's addicted? I'm sure there's some reason, some adverse side effect, but I don't know what it is. Guess I should ask next time.
I don't know what's up with me this week, maybe it's the lower dosage nicotine patches, but I have got the munchies constantly (and that's why I started the diet at the same time!).
Is it just me, or has the web lost most of it's appeal? Maybe after 12 years of surfing (I was actually at some user group meetings when the WWW was still a concept trying to gain acceptance from the user community) I've finally gotten used to having a world of information at my fingertips and have exhausted most everything of any entertaining value.
.. or maybe it's just spring/cabin fever.
This Grand Canyon trip planning is starting to get tedious. I really expected a better turn-out for this trip than what there has been. I'm going on this trip no matter what, but the idea of traveling on bike without another biker along in case of trouble (mechanical or otherwise) leaves something to be desired. I'm sure there will be someone (at least my friend Chris) tagging along.
Having the burden of planning the entire trip including all mandatory (rest/fuel/food/motel/campground) stops as well as optional (tourist) stops, only to have someone come along later that needs to change them (doesn't have the fuel range, has a back problem and needs more frequent stops, wants to spend a day with aunt Gertrude, etc) is almost as depressing as going alone.
It seems the solution to all of this is to find a hot, non-skanky, non-bitchy biker chic (as in, she has her own bike).. and those, my friends, make the ever-elusive single bisexual college co-ed living next door in search of a couple *exactly like you* look as common as tassels at a titty bar.
Called the county today, hopefully they can do something about all the crap happening in this neighborhood. The HOA certainly doesn't seem to mind that there's been a dumpster parked in someone's front yard for a few months, a house blowing apart, porta-johns all over the place and now someone living in a camping trailer on a cleared lot. We didn't have this many issues in our last house; and that was in a low-income neighborhood full of rednecks.
Talked to the vet today. They are going to be weaning yellow dog off of the diazapam. We are going to be taking her downtown to a specialist that will be doing MRIs and such and trying to come up with a more permanent pain management therapy that won't turn her into an addict. I have wondered though... if it's something that she's going to be on the rest of her life anyway, what difference does it make if she's addicted? I'm sure there's some reason, some adverse side effect, but I don't know what it is. Guess I should ask next time.
I don't know what's up with me this week, maybe it's the lower dosage nicotine patches, but I have got the munchies constantly (and that's why I started the diet at the same time!).
Is it just me, or has the web lost most of it's appeal? Maybe after 12 years of surfing (I was actually at some user group meetings when the WWW was still a concept trying to gain acceptance from the user community) I've finally gotten used to having a world of information at my fingertips and have exhausted most everything of any entertaining value.
.. or maybe it's just spring/cabin fever.
This Grand Canyon trip planning is starting to get tedious. I really expected a better turn-out for this trip than what there has been. I'm going on this trip no matter what, but the idea of traveling on bike without another biker along in case of trouble (mechanical or otherwise) leaves something to be desired. I'm sure there will be someone (at least my friend Chris) tagging along.
Having the burden of planning the entire trip including all mandatory (rest/fuel/food/motel/campground) stops as well as optional (tourist) stops, only to have someone come along later that needs to change them (doesn't have the fuel range, has a back problem and needs more frequent stops, wants to spend a day with aunt Gertrude, etc) is almost as depressing as going alone.
It seems the solution to all of this is to find a hot, non-skanky, non-bitchy biker chic (as in, she has her own bike).. and those, my friends, make the ever-elusive single bisexual college co-ed living next door in search of a couple *exactly like you* look as common as tassels at a titty bar.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Warm and Bright
73 degrees, the sun is shining, I've ridden the zx-12, I'm eating meat for the 3rd day straight, and 2 new porn DVDs are sitting here in front of me. Today is a very good day.
Watched "Seven". Saw it once before when it first came out. I have a very strong stomach but have been putting off watching this movie again for about a week now because I remember the "sloth" victim as being possibly the most grotesque, pitiful thing I've ever seen.. and yet this time seeing the movie, it didn't bother me at all. It's strange how memory distorts things over time into something very different than what it was. Perhaps it's just TV numbing us to everything though. Watching CSI and seeing 500lb water-bloated men turned inside out makes a lot of things lose their impact.
24 is an awesome show. When the heck are The Sopranos coming back?
I'm getting sleepy.
Watched "Seven". Saw it once before when it first came out. I have a very strong stomach but have been putting off watching this movie again for about a week now because I remember the "sloth" victim as being possibly the most grotesque, pitiful thing I've ever seen.. and yet this time seeing the movie, it didn't bother me at all. It's strange how memory distorts things over time into something very different than what it was. Perhaps it's just TV numbing us to everything though. Watching CSI and seeing 500lb water-bloated men turned inside out makes a lot of things lose their impact.
24 is an awesome show. When the heck are The Sopranos coming back?
I'm getting sleepy.
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