Blog/Wiki for work

Yesterday I installed SnipSnap onto my machine at work. It's a wiki and a blog. I was writing all of my notes down on yellow pads and putting index tabs on them, but it was getting out of order.

So I'm trying out the SnipSnap system, which seems pretty cool. Now my notes are searchable and indexed and all that stuff. They're not huge revelation type notes, but things I seem to forget

go figure

The one day this week I don't ride my bike into work is the day they're giving out free breakfast on the Hawthorne bridge. It's not quite fair.

We're all going down to the Mckenzie river to do some mountain biking this weekend. It's supposed to rain, but that's ok.

Trader Joes

So I'm going into Trader Joes last night to pick up some of their dope blueberry jam. As I'm walking in I playfully push on the automatic sliding doors (like you do when you go through a revolving door.)

It promptly stopped in mid motion and wouldn't move when budged. So I did what any normal man does when they break something - I took off for the dairy section and hid.

Slow day...

Ever walk around your work for a while before realizing you have something in your teeth, or you have your fly open, or other stuff? I found out I had part of an orange peel on my forehead, and I'm not quite sure I know how it got there.

New BBQ

Over the weekend I bought a new BBQ, just for around the house and when car camping. It's kinda dinky, but I figure I just need an easy to use gas grill for frying up some burgers. The important part is the electronic ignition. I know how to light a fire, but it's nice to have some comforts.

Bush vs. Environment

Gov. Bush down in Florida is pushing thru a bill that will extend the deadline for cleanup of the Everglades by 10 years.

Unless you're building a new space shuttle, it shouldn't take 10 years. Hoover dam was created in a shorter time period. I think that the sugar companies don't need 10 extra years to stop spilling phosphorus into the Everglades.

Trek Fuel 90

I bought myself a new Trek Fuel 90 mountain bike with disc brakes a few weeks ago.
It's a nice upgrade to my old Klein hardtail, which was a bit too small for me and is my excuse for doing endos.

This weekend we went to the coast and did a ride at Ft. Stevens park. There is a neat mountain bike loop that winds through the trees and moss (which is nice for crashing.) I've been learning how to ride over logs. I was talking trash to one such log after I beat it and while riding over it's little brother I got thrown to the ground.

My rear disc has been feeling spongy and getting worse, so I took it into the shop today. I had to do the same 2 weeks ago because they hadn't properly tightened bolts and the brake fluid leaked out. Supposedly the brakes are pretty fool proof,but I've proved them wrong and have continue to have issues.

New speakers

I just bought a pair of Infinity Qb speakers for my surround system downstairs. I was using my grandma's old speakers that are pretty dinky. These Qbs are freakin' huge, standing 3 feet tall.

Now it's time to get Terminator 2 on DVD to check them out.

This is all thanks to the power of craigslist

Rio mp3 player died

I just recently bought a Rio mp3 player at Frys, down in Wilsonville. I even got the "backpack" that has more memory. Everything was good until I tried to run it off of the charger and some circuits got fried. Now it'll make a humming sound, but nothing else works.
If anyone has a need for a broken mp3 player, let me know. :(

Old computer systems

I'm writing a C++ logging utility (because I like to reinvent the wheel.) Our development server is super slow and has a terrible development environment. So I do development on my PC and then move the code over to the server and try to get things to work. The server has an older compiler which isn't even supported anymore.

I'm using streams to parse a string, and while this works fine with a recent compiler, the old compiler has some issues. Calls like seekg() and tellg() are available, but they don't work properly. Calling tellg() while you're working on a stream will make all following calls fail. I guess it's a quantam physics effect.

So I'm re-writing my code to not use streams, which is a pain in the rear. Yet another reason to not do development on HP-UX 10.x.

Rock Climbing

On Saturday, Tina and I went to a rock climbing gym and took an introductory class. We learned how to tie a figure 8 knot (over and over) and get into our harnesses. After taking the rope around the woods and through the trees a few more times, we practiced belaying each other up a short pitch - ~14 feet.

Later, we went up the larger walls (rated at least 5.5) a few times until Tina got tired from being bounced around when she belayed me down. I guess I weigh a little more than her.

It was hella fun and I hope we'll go out some more, maybe snag some people into taking us outside - as the summer is coming and all.

Since this is new...

Well, since this is a new thing and I don't have much to actually put up here, I thought I'd give some links to some interesting web sites.

The first is supposedly about a young European heiress who is running from her powerful family. There's debate on whether or not it's real, but it seems to be something fun to read.

Next is a couple who have just finished a lot of biking through out the world. The location I'm most interested in is the Great Divide Ride. Seems cool.

And for the programmer in you, the tinxml library is a tiny XML parser for C++ programs. I'm planning on using it for my C++ logging utility.

National Geographic

I was browsing the portland craigslist looking for stuff to spend money on. And I came across a woman giving away 15 years worth of National Geographic magazines for free!

So I picked them up and now have 50+ year old magazines sitting in my room.