Posts from — April 2008

Even though I was kind of joking with this post, it wasn’t that far off from some plans. (and yes, I know I didn’t edit my table with a non-coference bias):

Ever been anxious to see the San Antonio Spurs against CSKA Moscow, when they are really playing hard?


Allegedly, that could be on the way.

more here and here.

Another cross-post from the IMIA page, but so what . . . I’ll get back to blogging about movies, wine, and tech crap soon enough . .

20080428 Mon – Originally I was going to ride to work today, but I overslept (again, although just slightly) and realized I had a flat tire. So, I took the bus to work knowing I’d have to go on a jog when I got home.

Using Gmap Pedometer I plotted out some of my easier (flat) runs that were about 3 miles long. I thought about extending it a bit thinking, well, if I could get as close to 6 miles as possible it’d be great. But, I also knew that running close to 10k would blow my knees out.

I wound up deciding on a route to and through part of Golden Gate Park and back home. But during that jog, when I reached the point where I should have turned back I thought- “hrm . . . I should run all the way to the beach (or try at least) and then back up Fulton until my knees blow out, then I can take the bus home to 8th and walk from Fulton to Cali.”

And for some reason, I actually did it. I was just glad I had my jacket on, because it was cold, windy and wet-foggy for at least half the run, but clearer towards the water. Sure enough, my knees were killing me by the time I got there and as I started to come up Fulton, I knew I could only go a few more blocks (to the next bus stop).

So, I hopped on the bus, got off at 8th, and then ran the additional .89 miles back to the apartment.

Here’s the route I took. It’s 4.89 miles, giving me a total of 5.78 miles for the day. That means I’m at 25.7 total.

Uggh, I’m short half a mile. I wish I had known that, I would’ve tried to go another half mile. I’ll do it tomorrow or Wednesday depending on how my knees are.

btw- if you use gmap-pedometer in firefox, turn off adblock plus for that domain (if you use that plugin).

I’m cross-posting this from my IMIA page, but so what. . .

20080427 Sun – Wow, what great weather we’re finally having in SF! Went on a great ride today, 22.5 miles through Golden Gate Park, down to the beach and down to the Lake. I did some extra rolling around once I got back up to the Panhandle, and then back down towards the De Young to check out some dancers:

You know what though? My ride was aweseome (in the Eddie Izzard sense of the word)- only slight wind, I went early enough to avoid any “heat” (heh, SF heat) and I’m in better riding shape so I was able to haul ass a bit more than I’m used to.

But here’s the thing- when I was checking my bike pre-ride (tires, chain, etc), I realized the plastic guard thing that sits between the freewheel and the spokes was broken and was kind of stuck between them. I broke the rest of the plastic out of there and realized that suddenly my wheel spun much more easily.

Now I’m wondering when the hell it broke and got stuck down there. Could earlier rides have been easier, or was today just a great all-around ride due to me getting in slightly better shape and having no wind?

btw- I’m not saying I’m in shape, I originally wanted to go 35 miles, but my legs were getting tired. At least I didn’t have to “granny-gear” it as much as I do when I go in the Presidio. Wheeeee.

I’m at 80% for my riding. . . . I have 22.4 miles left for IMIA (of biking).

The SFGate has an article about a matzoh shortage in the Bay Area.

Safeway, Whole Foods, Lunardi’s, Lucky and Mollie Stone stores were among those that reported selling out of their supply of the unleavened bread. A reporter’s calls found matzo-less stores in San Francisco, San Rafael, Oakland, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Berkeley and Palo Alto. Even stores that specialize in Jewish products, such as Afikomen Judaica in Berkeley, said they’d run dry. Most grocers said the shelves emptied Friday or Saturday.



Many Jews said it was an unprecedented shortage.

What’s a Jew to do? Maybe you can get a rabbi to bless some Saltines or Ritz? It’s too bad we can’t use corn tortillas . . .

update! wtf, they have stacks of matzoh at the Soup place in One Market:

I should’ve stolen that stack to sell on craigslist!

I hate it when I’m riding up a hill and my leg’s cramping and I’m riding into the wind and I’m wondering “why the hell am I on a bike?”

But then I get to the top and I’m not wheezing as much as I remember wheezing last week and I see the view and I think, “oh yeah, now I remember. . . ”

I live in a nice area- I have to remind myself that sometimes.

If the NBA were like Soccer, Boston would have locked up the NBA Cup weeks ago on points alone. Here’s this year’s RESULTS TABLE. And yes, the Spurs would be above NO.

Things have been odd lately- mostly at work. There seems to be very little morale, or maybe people are just in a bad mood.

A colleague was telling me that during an interview a candidate she was speaking with had asked how the corporate culture was. She asked – “do people go out for happy hours?”. She wanted to say, “yeah, there are a lot, we have them whenever someone leaves.”

See more …

• Angie shouldn’t drive to Petaluma.
• Shane should be careful racing in Union City.
• San Franciscans are having problems.
• Wtf, SF has Driver’s Ed in their schools? They can’t even teach a history class without a protest, how are they teaching driving? Where I’m from you go and take a class somewhere else, or have your parents teach you. . .
  
  
• I’m glad to see Texans still have drive-thru beer joints
• bye bye 35

Well, I’m starting to get used to the iMac. Whenever I would get confused I’d remember that Cory and Angie had reminded me that it’s basically the linux box I’m used to, but just with a shiny UI (and a much faster nicer one too).

I’m still taking my time to move things over, like my old mail archives and some other files. I’m not letting iPhoto or whatever it’s called index my picture archives (yet) either.

Speaking of, I uncovered my backup archives that have the pictures of some of you “cage dancing” in Tahoe. I’ll upload them to my site sometime next week. ;)

As far as necessary apps, I haven’t really gone crazy installing things. I’m glad to have TrueCrypt back on a working machine, and other than that I’m playing with Quicksilver> more and just like on my Windoze box, I have Twhirl, a Twitter app, installed.

Twhirl’s kinda cool, it’s based on the Adobe Air platform, and I’ve yet to have a problem with it on any platform I use– although maybe Pridkett will figure out something cool or horrible with it soon.

Don’t get me started on Twitter, I both loathe it and like it at the same time. That said, let me know if you use it so I can follow you.

But so far so good- there are still some minor things I need to figure out like setting up a preferred Terminal and figuring out why the stupid end key doesn’t do crap on the keyboard. . . . oh, and get a squid proxy on this. . . etc etc