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• Observed this weekend: a white Toyota Prius with a “carrying handle” spoiler (much like the WRX STi, circa 2005), ground effects, expensive rims, and red-orange flames down the side. The lesson learned here is: if you’re going to go dorky, go big. Also learned: I need a quick-draw holster for my camera (and to carry it at all times).
   
• Got a good ride in last night after the bike shop. On the outbound leg, I kept noticing that I was slowing down and feeling shitty. This of course called my form into question — and rightfully so, as I haven’t been riding much. Well, turns out it wasn’t that so much as it was the loss of pressure in the rear tire — I hit a small bump and got a nice pinch flat out of it. Replaced the tube and turned for home. The inbound route was headwind the whole way. Go figure.
   
• Had a nice time hanging out with Kate, Matt, Jenni, Wendy, Cindi, Wendy’s girl, and others, on Friday night. Matt and Kate both sang at karaoke. I refused to humiliate myself. (I couldn’t hit one note in twenty, even if you held a gun to my head.) Kate and I bailed on going out to the 90’s on Saturday night because we were both exhausted and not in the mood for crowds. One of these years, maybe.
   
• Have discovered some issues with the Fontosaurus payment gateway and e-commerce engine not liking each other very much, so I will probably be making the switch to Paypal (*gag*) for the immediate future.
   
• Finished reading Mirrored Heavens this morning before work. Pretty enjoyable — it has a very cyberpunk feel to it, but it makes Gibson’s characters look like a bunch of pussies. I’ve got a whole stack of new books sitting on my desk that I’ve been dying to get at…the hard part is going to be choosing what to read next.

I never thought I’d see the day when a TV commercial made me happy, but every time I see the Discovery Channel “whole world” spot, I find myself smiling and humming along…so I’m reproducing it here…and then following it up with a link to today’s xkcd (which is, by far, the best webcomic out there).

Today’s xkcd.

So for awhile now, I’ve been trying to find the words to talk about Kate in here. And most of what I end up writing seems to be cliché, barely one step beyond “I love my girlfriend because she is smart and funny and hot”… And that’s just going to seem stupid.

The writer that lives a life of leisure and slackdom inside my brain piped up with an idea about context being extremely important in the delivery of a message, so I decided to write an open letter to her. This serves two purposes; first, it allows the uninvolved reader see how we communicate, and at the same time, when she reads it, she’ll understand that when I wrote it, I did so with her in mind, and that it’s from the heart, and not edited based on trying to put together something that’s been “sanitized” for public consumption.

…

Dearest Kate,

Read the rest of this entry »

So it’s been far too long since I last updated this site. Shame on me! Life has been pretty crazy lately and as a result, writing for the site has been low on my list of priorities.

A list of the things that have been keeping me occupied lately:

1. Girlfriend. Kate and I are doing really well, and I’m dopey-in-love with her. She’s smart, funny, tough (with a mushy center), and easy on the eyes. And we’re good together.

2. Work. Work’s been fun lately. I’ve started flexing the creative muscles a little bit, plus getting more PM work, and designing/implementing process. Good fun!

3. Video Games. Well, Rock Band is definitely a hit with friends, and we’ve rocked out a few times. Got some friends I should join up with to play online. In other fun, I’ve started playing Call of Duty 4, which is an awesome experience.

Note what’s missing? Yeah, bike and writing updates. Seriously, I need to get back on the ball with those. Like tomorrow.

Today’s already spoken-for — I’m leaving the office at 2pm today, and going and getting a new tattoo (which I’ll detail in a post this weekend), which will be my first in about 12 years. After that, I work at the bike shop, where I’ll be faxing in my order for my new time trial rig.

Saturday calls for a long bike ride, forcing myself to write at least 2000 words of novel, and some serious housecleaning.

So it’s only installed on the back brake right now, but last night I installed the combination of Nokon housing and TRP CR950 carbon cantilever arms on the cyclocross rig. This is an upgrade from Avid Shorty 6 arms with just cheap/generic Bontrager cable housing.

The change is amazing. I barely even have to brush the cross-top lever to get the rear brakes to engage, and they do so in a smooth, predictable way, and deliver enough power to stop the bike quickly.

I’m really going to have to remain cognizant of the fact that my Las Cruces is moto-wired (ie.: the brake levers are wired opposite of usual — left hand now controls the rear brake), or I’m going to eat dirt/pavement.

So this morning, before leaving for the office, an idea for a book popped into my head. And I had to start writing. About six words in, I discovered that this idea for a sci-fi novel with an huge scale in space and time, with political intrigue, war, aliens — all the things you’d associate with Dune, for example — was also a comedy. And that was triggered by the name of the main character, which I’m not repeating here, yet. Why ruin the first good joke of the book?

Yeah, it’s right up there with Stephenson’s “Hiro Protagonist”…but, y’know, more crass.

Seriously, this might be the most awesome movie I’ve ever seen. When I’m at the shop tonight, doing my usual shift, I’m buying one for the commuter bike, and one for the road bike. (Not that I don’t already have enough shit on the handlebars of the latter.)

I can’t help it. Really, I can’t. I’m just glad this whole process is over with. ABCNews reporting that she’s told her staff that their last day is Friday is awesome to hear. Finally going to concede, are we?

Ah, I slay me.

A short while ago, John Scalzi had a post in his blog about the book Mirrored Heavens, in which there was much bantering by readers about regarding the ability of Russia to regain “superpower” status. While that was all entertaining, I felt it missed the point, and asked about whether it made sense to militarize space in a case where we’ve moved on to Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW). The author of the book, David Williams, responded to that question (poorly worded as it was) in his blog. And now I feel the need to respond here. Read the rest of this entry »