the trials...

so a while back i signed up for google's pilot program for their netbooks that they're planning (as far as i know) on putting out in the wild.
the deal was, you sign up for their netbook and then use it, abuse it, break it and generally have a daily life with it.
so...for promising to do that, certain select lucky people got a free netbook out of the deal. i just happened to be one of them :-D

the story of how i got it was fairly (though not at the time) amusing.
i'd subbed that day in L's class and it was just a long day. not a bad one just long.so we get ready to leave and head out to the car and start to back up and somethin just isn't right. so i get out of the car and the front drivers side tire has developed a side. so, here i am. in the parking lot of the school in my fairly nice work clothes trying to change a damned tire. in the snow. i wasn't happy.
so...i finally get the spare on there. we made it roughly 300 yards (if that) before the fucking thing went flat. yup. i was happy.
so we drove on the flat spare up to the local convenience store where we basically sat there and did nothing. so L called her mom, who luckily was in town, and had her come pick us up.
so we went to walmart to get the new tire put on the car. the guy informed us that they weren't taking any more tires that night.
we informed him that yeah, he was taking another tire that night. it was a single tire. takes like 20 minutes to fix if that.
the guy told us it'd be an hour and a half to a 2 hour wait.
so...we took L's mom out to dinner. which was nice.
so, we made it back to walmart to find that they were done with out tire. so we throw it in the back of L's mom's blazer and head back toward git-n-go and here i go changing another tire, in my nice clothes, in a parking lot in the snow.
so by this point i'm fairly fucking grumpy.
so we FINALLY made it home and there's a box on the front porch. i looked at L and asked if she'd ordered something on accident again (a different long story) and she asked me if i'd ordered something e-cig like.
well, neither of us had ordered anything, so we brought the box inside.
while listening for sounds of ticking, i ripped the box open to find a little computer. could not figure out where the hell i was getting a computer from. then i pulled the (scant) documentation out of the box and just about had a cow.
i had almost completely forgotten that i'd signed up for one. i had a vague memory of it from someone else in the general area posting on their blog that they'd received one. which led me to think "oh, hey. i signed up for that too."
so i sat down and played with the netbook for about 20 minutes. then i pretty much said screw this i'm going to bed.
wake up the next morning like a kid at christmas and go to play with the netbook. it works great! for about 20 minutes.
then i got kicked off the network at the house. now, my routers are a little funky at times so i didn't think to much about it. till i restarted the router and waited for 15 minutes for it to reconnect.
wouldn't do it.
at.
all.
so, i spent a good chunk of the  of the day trying to get the netbook to do something. this is how the netbook acquired the name "Dave". because every time i tried to get it to do something i could just hear it in my head saying "i'm sorry dave, i don't think i can do that."
so. i putzed around and got frustrated and finally put it in developer mode and managed to get some sort of useful information about his hardware from him.
turns out the wifi card had gone tits up.
after some serious part number googling, i finally found out what wifi card he had and checked ebay.
$13 part from china, week and a half for it to get here, find the right screwdriver and presto! dave is alive!!!

so, i'm posting this from dave. i'm going to be giving the wonderful google cr-48 a pretty good run through. including being used for school and things like that.
i am however going to buy a fucking mouse and disable the trackpad. AARGH!!!
trackpads make me RAEG HAET!!!!!

anyway. there's the story of dave the netbook. so far i'm seriously diggin it. the screen is good. the keyboard is fucking awesome. i may wind up putting more ram in at some point, but i'm not really sure that i'll need to. i'll reserve that for later after i've put it through it's paces a bit.

so yeah. the first post with dave is done. i'll shut up now.

...

holy shit! it's been forever since i wrote anything.

ewps.
i really should know better.

i guess there really hasn't been much going on lately? i took the last semester of school off.
this doesn't really mean much other than that i don't skip classes and i don't leave the house as much.
i suppose the not skipping class part is probably a good thing. i do miss the comfy couches in the hallway though :-D

it's starting to get warmer out. this makes me happy. now if it'd just stay consistently warmer that'd be nice.
but i think it's time to put the clipless pedals on my bike and start heading out into the wild.
i don't really have anywhere to go, but hey. that'll make getting there interesting.

past that i've been working (a little) as a sub. i SO love subbing in L's class. those kids are just freakin amazing. and NO ONE (other than the teachers) realizes just how much they do. it's amazing to watch.
i had the brain drizzle one morning to build a website so that the parents would have some idea of what heir kids did each day. put up a picture gallery and some posts and a class schedule.

wow did it turn into more than that. building the website for the class so that the parents can see what's going on has been a blast. there's a gallery of daily happenings. L has been taking movies like mad with her phone for me to upload to the site.
there is a full fledged picture gallery up. well, ok it'll be more full fledged when i get the rest of the damned pictures up.
there is a movie gallery going up as we speak.

weatherman bob hates me, but hey...he's young. it's to be expected.
ok, weatherman bob is the dress up doll that is being created for the site. going along the lines of the paper doll dress up sites, i decided to make weatherman bob. he's a little guy that'll be on the site that will have the dress up clothes so that the kids can dress him up according to what the day's weather is supposed to be like. so if it's raining they can put his raincoat and umbrella on, or a t-shirt and shorts if it's nice and warm...stuff like that.
the shit part of it is that i'm trying to learn flash/actionscript on the fly. which is part of the reason wm bob hates me right now.
meh. i'll get somethin worked out. :-) i usually do.

one of the parts i'm excited about (that no one seems to know is there yet) is the user forum where the parents can interact with each other and with L and MizzDee.
i'm really hoping that that starts getting used.

anyway...that's about all that's up. i'm having a slightly manic day (but at least it's a happy'ish manic and not a pissed off manic) so...we'll see how much i can get done today.

talking to myself...

/*
* i wrote this the other day and never published it. i went back and read it again and decided
* that i would after all.
* it was a pretty shitty day.
*/

it's just one of those days.

doesn't seem to matter what's going on around me, it's just one of those days where i feel like i'm talking to myself.

there's interaction with other people. there is conversation, there is laughter etc...but i feel like i'm in a bubble.

everything is deeply superficial on so many levels.

i'm really not sure what brought this mood about. i looked around and i can't find a reason for it, so i'm attesting it to the meds not working quite like they should today.

it happens.

it just sucks when it does.

wheeeee

so...i was riding to school yesterday and i was pushing myself pretty hard, sweating and panting...the whole bit. and yet the entire time i had a smile on my face thinking "man, this is just fucking cool."

really, i should have got a bike a couple of years ago. however, the money and the thought process never meshed up till this spring when i finally got mine.
it was love at first sight.
well, i loved it, i'm not sure how it felt.
i'm still not really sure.

i think it just tolerates me.

during a recent (ok, this morning) conversation with a friend, he pointed out that a car is faster. my response was "y'and?"
for 95% of the commuting that i do on my own, when no one else is with me, it's just easier for me to ride. it's more relaxing, i don't have to deal with as many fucktards in traffic (except for the ones that have decided that bikes really AREN'T oncoming traffic (yeah, this means you mr. police man that i almost got in a fight with yesterday)).

but really, from the house to school is 4 miles. from the north end of town where i live to the south side of town to the school where L. works, it's about 10 miles. from where i live to the funky little store on the east side of town where i get incense is about 6 miles. from the house to the bike shop where i got my bike it's just over 7 miles.
none of these are particularly difficult rides, with the ground being "mostly flat". the longest of the rides will take, with a moderate amount of effort an hour.

yeah, it's a bit longer than the 20 minutes it'd take you in a car going around town on the highway, but you don't have to deal with as much stress and general impatience when you can just ride around a work zone and not even have to stop. unlike the people in their cars.

i was talking to a friend yesterday and he mentioned that i was going to have some serious postpartum going this winter when i couldn't ride every day. i said "what makes you think i'm going to stop? I know how to dress warmly."
i'm just not sure how my skinny ass tires are going to take to the wet/icy/snowy roads. that may get a bit interesting.
the clipless pedals i'm supposed to be receiving as a hand-me-down present (yay!!!) will probably not get used much this winter as combat boots will become the fashionable footwear.

on another note, and probably my last one for this long and rambling post that no one will read, there's a new'ish coffee shop in the outlying downtown area that we'd never noticed before. we were coming back from the theatre and we saw a sign for the place.
somehow we'd never noticed this sign before, which is amusing since it's at least 20 feet tall going up the side of the building.

i've ridden by there dozens of times heading downtown.
it didn't exist till the other day.

maybe they should oh i dunno, consider putting a sign out front as well? hmm...

so i stopped in to check it out and possibly get a cup of coffee since it was getting cooler out (i know, that's supposed to be a bad idea when you're riding, but oh well).
ok now......several things amused me about this place.

1) for an establishment with the words coffee and bicycles in their name, one would think that they would have bike racks of some sort so you could chain your bike to.

yeah, not so fuckin much. i had to chain my bike to the worst possible place (a handicapped parking sign.../boggle) and hope for the best.

when i actually went inside, i noticed an impressive collection of bikes hanging from the ceiling.
it was very nice to look at really till you stop to think that all the bikes hanging over the seats and couches are just ripe to come down in the middle of someones latte.

the other thing that amused me about the place was that they really didn't seem to want people that ride bikes in their store (as if the lack of bike racks wasn't enough of a hint).
i walked in semi-sweaty and had my helmet and my slightly over sized messenger bag on and they actually looked at me funny. granted, the hawaiian shirt may have had something to do with that as well, but fuck em.

i managed to instantly feel out of place and made some feeble excuse as to why i was there and quickly scurried out.

so.....i probably won't go back there all that much.

i'd much rather go to my favorite coffee shop downtown where they actually have bike racks and don't look at you funny when you're one of the few bike riders downtown that actually wears a helmet.

i think i had my first real encounter with the hipster trend yesterday.
at least that's what it seemed like to me.
at least there wasn't a bunch of fixies chained up out front, although that would've completed the vibe.

anyway....i think that's all for now.
maybe more later.

cold outside is cold...

so...
i did my first cold weather ride this morning. it wasn't all that bad really except for my ears and my fingers.
those two extremities were not happy.
at all.

i see a pair of full fingered gloves in my near future.

and something to cover my damned ears.

ouch.

anyway, it was a very brisk 45 degrees out this morning. and i was hungry. so i decided to make my morning trek to McD's in the hopes that it would warm me up a bit.
well...i don't think i'd say that it warmed me up all that much. but i still feel better after the ride.

did notice a couple of things about my bike though. for some reason the seat isn't staying adjusted to the right height so my left knee hurts a bit now. i'm not sure what exactly is going on here since i've never really had this problem before. best i can come up with is that it's something to do with the cold?
i'll just have to keep an eye on it.

past that, things are normal. currently taking a break from school (i had to reboot the computer and haven't started it back up yet) and being amused that i may actually buy something along the lines of tights in order to keep my legs warm when i'm riding this winter.

apparently layers are the winter chic type of look. so i've been reading up on good ways to keep yourself warm in the winter riding months. really, for the most part, it just seems to be common sense and do the same things you'd do if you're walking a lot.

if it keeps me warm, i'm ok with that.

on a totally unrelated note, the guinea pigs are making some weird ass noises this morning. not sure what that's all about, but they're worked up about something.
i'll just go out on a limb and blame the solar flares.

anyway, back to work.

so.....the tire/tube changing didn't go quite as successfully as i thought at the time.
turns out there was actually a hole in the tire itself. was a pretty good sized hole. unfortunately i didn't find out about it till my son and i went for a ride the next day.

and of course, i didn't find it till about almost 1/2 of a mile from home.

that was a long walk back. :-\

anyway.....took the whole wheel, tire and all up to the shop. got a new tire (more on that in a sec) and a new tube.
the tube has slime in it. it's supposed to be self healing.
we'll see how this goes.
it was all of $1 more than the regular tubes so i figured it couldn't hurt to try.

the tube deal that amused me was a tube that was "guaranteed to not go flat!" and yet it came 2 to a package? er.....yeah. somehow that didn't quite sell me.

so....i had to get a new tire. there's a downside to this, and that's mainly my OCD when it comes to things matching.
apparently my tire size is not entirely common (it's 700x28c...i've seen quite a few of these so i'm not sure how they're not common? (at least according to that guy)) so he had to hunt around a bit for a tire.
the tire i got has the exact same tread (or rather, lack of) however.....it has very nice and pretty lettering on the side.
my front tire doesn't.

this is driving me insane. i notice it every damned time i look at my bike.
it's like my bike has a big zit right in the center of it's forehead or something.
so as soon as i can i'm going to take the front wheel up and have them swap it out.

and then yesterday was just great. first i got pulled over in a parking lot for exceeding the speed limit.
swear to $deity
the cop flashed his lights and his siren and i actually said out loud "what the fuck?"
so he walks up to me and i actually said "is there a problem officer?" (i've always wanted to say that)
he explained to me that there is an ordinance that covers speed limits in parking lots where there is no posted limit.
i got off with a warning.

somewhere along the same ride my bike computer and i broke up. no warning it just left with out even saying good bye.
searched everywhere i went yesterday morning (did the same this morning) and have no idea where the hell the damned thing jumped off my bike at.
so there's something i'm going to have to replace.
there's another cheezy component install that i'm not looking forward to. maybe this time i can figure out how to make it look a bit nicer.

then later on yesterday as i was coming back from school i managed to blow a stop sign right in front of a cop. hopefully it was a different one.
so yeah.

and...yesterday (all my troubles seemed so far away) was the first time i've managed to actually do 99% of my commuting on my bike. the only time i got in a car was when we went out for dinner after everyone finally got home.
i was rather proud of that.
all in all i probably rode upwards of 10 miles yesterday.

so other than that, i'm now officially pissed at open office. had a paper that i was working on and suddenly, it's gone. there is no trace of the fucking thing anywhere on my computer.
it's.
just.
gone.

so now i have to start over again and try to remember what the hell i'd done before. i was almost fucking finished with it and bah.
of course it's due tonight. :-\

meh. anyway, i think i just needed a jabber break. still trying to calm down from OO being a piece of shit.

ok, now having said all that, i'm back to my paper. i'm writing instructions on how to change a bike tire :-)

I WIN!!!

so...here's the latest skinny.
as we all know, i bought a bike some months ago and i have really come to enjoy using it to commute around town (made my first trip all the way across town yesterday. that fucking rocked) and i like to just ride.
it's fun.
it's like being a kid again only with out the banana seat and the big ass schwinn logo on the side of the bike.

so..the other night we got L. a bike. Now, keep in mind, she doesn't particularly like riding bikes, but it's good exercise and it gives us something to do together in the evenings rather than playing LoTRO or WoW. and semi-fresh air is always nice.

we were walking through wally world and i was looking for something specifically bike related so we were in that section. i pointed at a couple and said "ya know you might actually like these if you gave them a chance..." next thing i know "IT'S BLUE!!! and it's the right shade too!"
so we had them pull it out. it was amusing watching her ride it around the store.
it was probably amusing watching me ride through the automotive aisles and the sporting goods section as well.

concensus? that damn bike is comfy. it's really stable (it's got tires that are probably twice as wide as mine if not more) and the saddle is pretty sweet too.
almost makes me want to get one of them there comfort bikes.

my bike doesn't like to go slow. it tends to get all squirrelly on me. but then, it's designed to go fast. /shrug
street bikes ftw!

anyway, what this rant was leading up to was...after we got L's bike and got home we went for a ride. it was a good little ride and it gave her a chance to get used to her bike, so it wasn't very long. we sat in the front yard and talked for a while after we got done. much water was consumed.
i got up the next morning. decided i wanted to go to mcd's for some "fat fewdz" and sure as shit, my back tire was flat. wouldn't hold air for anything.

so yesterday she stopped at the bike shop that we favor (Springfield Bicycle Co. is fuckin awesome guys. if you're in town and want anything bike related, check them out. seriously.) and got me a new tube. my bike uses the tubes with the funky valves so i couldn't get one at wally world. and besides, they know what i have and what i need there, so...it works out.

so, this leads up to this morning.

i decide to change the tire myself. oh man, what the hell was i thinking...

so....started out i managed to get the tire off the bike with out destroying anything. this was actually something i was worried about, and it turns out i shouldn't have been. was cake.

anyway i was taking the tire off the rim right? good way to start. couldn't get the fucker all the way off of the rim for some reason. no idea why. just. wouldn't. work.
so i pull the tube out and try to stuff the new one in under the tire to see if it'll work that way (i've seen people do this so i know it can work. i'm apparently not that smart though.)
so.....that kinda worked except that when i put air in the tube there were spots that were all nice and inflated and then there were spots that were flatter than kate moss. :-(

so i decided to start the whole process over again and take the whole tire off this time even if i had to take the fucker off with scissors.
it apparently heard the threats because it came right off.
so i thought "hey, what if i put some air in the tube before i put the tire back on the rim to get it to stay conformed to the tire."
that actually worked out pretty well.
except......the tire wouldn't go back on the rim. at all.

this was the point where i decided to go inside, have some coffee, and leave my fairly expensive wheel outside in the hopes that someone would come along and steal it for me so that i'd have to go buy another one rather than admit defeat.

that or some neighbor hood kid could come by and fix the fucking thing for me.

finished my coffee and wandered outside, e-cig in hand, and neither of my hopes were fulfilled.

imagine my shock.

after some threats and some cursing and almost a full carto of juice, i got my tire on and the tube aired completely up. ...it was holding air. it wasn't hissing.

I WON!!!
me 1
tire 0

fuck yeah. /chicken dance.

so i take off on my bike to do a victory lap around the block (checking to make sure it holds air and everything spins freely and where it's supposed to.)

take off down the street. come to the corner where there's a much busier street. hit the break and fucked if i didn't just about go right out into traffic.

i kinda forgot to hook my back break back up after i put the tire back on.
so i guess, really...the bike itself almost won.

so the point of this very fucking long and meandering story (on the off chance that you're still reading) is that i did my very first mechanicy thing to my bike today.
i got all greasy and dirty and sweated and cursed and feel all manly now because i got something done.

next project?
don't fucking break anything so i don't have to go through this again.

lolwut?

ok, so i left chemistry early last night. not a big deal, we just got out early. so i sat down outside in the grass next to a tree because it was just such an awesome evening (absolutely fucking beautiful outside) and finished the book that i'd been reading. so about an hour goes by and i'm feeling pretty happy and laid back at this point. unwind time is good apparently.

after about an hour i decided i should leave school to walk up to the other college that's about 2 blocks away to meet L (she's getting her masters in special education! woo!!)

now, some back story here. around the school that i go to, there is roughly one intersection that it's actually safe to walk through. yup. one.
it's not there there aren't any crosswalks, and that they're not EXTREMELY clearly marked, it's just that people driving through the area don't seem to give two fucks about the fact that there are people walking through there.

so i had to walk through one of the absolute worst ones last night to get where i was going. it's this weird mini-roundabout thing and usually i just walk right across it but last night i decided to actually use the crosswalk for some reason. i made it about halfway through and some guy comes barreling through it like a bat out of hell, slams on his breaks and starts yelling at me to "get through the fucking crosswalk already!!!!"

so what did i do?
yup that's right. i stopped. right in the middle of the crosswalk. just stood there and tried not to laugh while this guy yelled an amazing amount of obscenities at me.

i was really impressed with his vocabulary actually.

so after a couple of minutes someone finally pulled up behind him and heard the yelling.
the thing that had seriously surprised up to this point was that the first guy didn't get out of his car and beat the ever lovin fuck out of me.
the second guy actually got out of his car and i'm like "ah shit maybe this was a worse idea than i originally thought..."
the second guy walks up to me and says "is everything ok?" i said "yeah, he's just being a dick." he turned around to the guy that was in the first car and still yelling and said "dude, shut the fuck up so we can go already?"
at which point i felt i had made my point (that was most likely totally lost on the asshat) so i exited the intersection.

for some reason last night i just felt the need to make the point that people have a right to the road as well. i ride my bike all over this side of town and downtown. typically when i'm riding my bike people are very respectful of me and give me a wide berth. and i ride fairly defensively so for the most part it works out. i've never had anyone honk at me, or throw things or splash me with a huge ass puddle. i've had people get pissed at me when i'm trying to go up a hill and i'm slowing down so they break several traffic laws and speed past me as fast as they possibly can, but to be totally honest, i don't blame them in that case. i'm not the fastest person when it comes to hills. especially when lugging my backpack around with all my books and my netbook in it.
but when walking, it's almost a totally different story. and i have no idea why. it's not like people walking or riding pay any less for the road than the people driving do, so why the hate?
even when i'm driving, i've missed lights because people were walking across the road. this really pisses people behind me off, but they'll live.
people in cars need to be more respectful i think.

but that's just my opinion. take it for what it's worth.

i think this would all probably fall into the category that one of my best friends classified as "only in brian's world..." this was after several really random events (most of which he was there for) happened to me all right in a row. like totally random shit...like spending an hour and a half on the phone with some girl who was originally a wrong number (she called me lol).
there were other things but i was really to drunk at the time (ok all the time) to remember what they were now.

so that was my evening. go to class. get out of class early. unwind. almost get the shit beaten out of me and then out to a nice dinner with L.

Good Times(tm).

maybe something interesting will happen today. just hopefully not quite as interesting as last night.

blorp

so i just realized it's been over a month since i wrote anything.

and now i can't think of anything to write.

however, having said that, i have indeed posted something now so i'm holding up my end of the bargain.

if i really wanted to i could bitch about my phone and the fact that it's become almost impossible to type anything on it correctly on the first try. well, that's not entirely true, but it is getting rather difficult to deal with. apparently phones just really don't like getting caught in major thunderstorms and getting soaked while they're in your pocket.
come to think of it, i can't say that i was such a fan of that day either. :-\

anyway, that's just rehashing stuff that's already here.
yup, i got nothin to say.

surprised?
didn't think so.

so...

we got a new car. :-)

i got a new netbook. i'm actually running chrome os on it right now. i'm also trying to learn how to type on it. it's been an interesting experience to say the least. i never realized my fingers were so big.
im really liking the netbook though. i'm also (for the 20 minutes i've had it running) liking chrome os. we'll see how usable it is for daily use.right now it's installed on a flash drive so...it may become the default though.

so yeah...did i mention the new car?
michael and leah gave us a car. like, gave. as in "here, have a car. take it home. be nice to it. have fun."
now, i've known michael since roughly the 7th grade. at least that's the way i remember it lol. either way, he's been one of my bestest friends for about the same amount of time.

so yeah. past that it's just been busy as all hell. summer school has started for both L and i and it's going to be a long summer for me.
someday i'm going to pass this fucking algebra class. :-\

oh well. i'll probably write more later. right now i'm just trying out chrome os really.
it's kinda snazzy. especially now that i got it to recognize my wireless lol.