Corporate Hippy

life hippy

I wonder if software will help my blogging problems .. I think sometimes I don’t blog because I want to be more creative than I seem to be able to .. or … maybe I’m just making excuses .. who knows ..

Whatever the case, I’m trying out this software that I recently heard about … It seems to have some cool features .. like .. really cool (and seemingly easy, but somewhat slow) iPhoto integration ..

with options like … embedded pics :

I also see that it has an Itunes button … I’m listening to : You Enjoy Myself from the album “1996/12/6 I Las Vegas, NV” by Phish
On my new “Apple AirPort Express with Air Tunes (M9470LL/A)” (Apple Computer) (link from the “Amazon” button in my toobar) – a Christmas present from Nick

I’ll post a christmas post after I download my pics from the camera … I just wanted to test this software .. so far, it seems pretty cool

life hippy

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.

–Bill Cosby

life hippy

I came home from work yesterday and found my husband, 2 stepsons and mother-in-law sitting in the living room. I walked around the house looking for the open door or window that was making it so cold in the house. There was no open door or window. But, it was freezing in the house.

Apparently, the pilot light was lit, but the furnace wasn’t kicking on. Nice. 6:00 on a Friday night in December and I’ve got no heat.

Who do you call? An electrician? *shrug* So, I go to the computer and browse to maps.google.com, type in “furnace repair near my zip code” and click the various links that return, looking for one with a website. Its kind of a rule of mine – find a service center with a website where I can get at least a small amount of information before I call. When I went to Great Dane’s website, the first thing I saw was “24 hour emergency service”. Good enough for me.

It was ~56 degrees in the when Karak from Great Dane showed up at 8:00. Brr.

By 9:00 our furnace was once again blazing. The fuse on the furnace itself was blown, but since we have a circuit breaker, Karak was able to just bypass the fuse and get us back in business. He also used a very cool camera snakey thingy to look into the furnace and verify that, yes, its very old and probably on its last legs. This is not news. Our plumber tells me the same thing about our pipes whenever I call for service. Its an old house. With old pipes, old furnace, old windows.

So today the house is nice and toasty. And soon we’ll be looking at new furnaces. We figure, we might as well also go with a cooling system too. It might be the first house in America to have central air but no dishwasher. Heh.

life hippy

post some updates

I just added a couple of friends to my google reader and started to feel guilty for leaving this thing so empty so often

So, here’s a quick rundown:

The Titus is as good as sold. Kristi has been riding it for a few weeks now and is ready to take the plunge. She’ll give it much more love and adventure than I ever would have. I’m happy that the Titus has a good home and that Kristi is getting a bike that she loves!

On the flip side, I snagged a Redline Monocog 29er frame from a dude on the MMBA board on the cheap. Nick is in the process of ordering/building a new Vassago Jaberwocky SS – so I took the opportunity to cannibalize his Fisher Rig so that I could build my first 29er. I’ve ridden a couple of 29ers in the past and only been midly impressed (at best). The two different Gary Fisher 29ers I rode were terrible. I felt like I was riding a schoolbus – heavy, slow and cumbersome. I had a better experience on a Felt 29er, but it was a demo and I didn’t have time to set it up very well for my liking, so it had a ridiculously narrow handlebar that was not down low enough. After riding the Felt, though, I knew that there was *something* to this 29er business. And the Redline was as cheap an entry into the 29er world as I could have found, so it just made sense.

My plan was to gear the Redline heavy so that I could train on PCT, road rides, etc.. and keep the Bianchi SS for singletrack through the winter and figure out what I really want out of a bike sometime in the spring. Well, that was a good idea, but very short lived. I took the Redline out to Stony for a mostly doubletrack ride a couple of weeks ago. It was really awesome on the doubletrack, but the singletrack (just the Pines) was intriguing. The next day, we met Mike and Tommy out at Stony again and in addition to the Pines, I did the Snake, and the first part of the Roller Coaster. It was enough for me to realize 2 things – 1) I was geared way too stiff for singletrack and 2) The Redline is crazy fun. The combination of the steel frame and the 29er wheels is awesome. The steel soaks up the little bumps, the 29er wheels roll over shit and the momentum is crazy.

So, now to regear the Redline for trail riding. *sigh*

The good news is, I had no idea that I’d sell the Titus so fast. The $$ from that will cover Nick’s Vassago and leave just enough left over for me to buy the bike I’ve been wanting for years – a surly crosscheck. This will solve my longer training ride problems. Nick also made a trade with a teammate and now has a nice Redline Cross frame that he’s building into a dinglespeed for training. We’ll be styling soon

Speaking of training. After years and years of talking about it, we finally bought a Concept2 Rower. We’ve been cleaning and moving things in our basement and we have a nice area for training now. Two trainers with road bikes and a rowing machine all nicely lined up. We’ve been pretty steady the past couple of weeks with the training – either in the morning before work, or in the evening, or (very rarely, but hopefully more often soon) both. We hope to also start training with the Moss’s in the next couple of weeks. Ugh .. spinervals …

That’s about all I’ve got for right now. I’m going to really try to do this more often .. maybe shorter entries is an easier thing … *sigh* I’m probably just fooling myself

biking hippy