sjh - mountain biking linux geek spice - mtb / linux / canberra / cycling / etc

Steven Hanley hackergotchi picture Steven
Hanley
About

email: sjh@svana.org

web: http://svana.org/sjh

Other online diaries:

Aaron Broughton,
Alison Russell,
Allan Bontjer,
Andrew Pollock,
Anthony Towns,
Chris Yeoh,
Jeremy Kerr,
Martijn van Oosterhout,
Michael Carden,
Michael Davies,
Michael Still,
Rusty Russell,
Tim Potter,
Tony Breeds,

Links:

Linux Weekly News,
XKCD,
Userfriendly,
Questionable Content,
Planet Linux Australia,
Bilbys,
CORC,

Canberra Weather: forecast, radar.

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(online feed aggrgator for all the diaries I read regularly)

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Thu, 26 Aug 2010

Blorthday on time - 14:55
Well what do you know, it is this diary's 6th Blorthday, first post was August 26th 2004. Nothing special really apart from the fact I noticed on the correct day for the first time in years and the fact I still write stuff here from time to time for no one to read. What fun, I wonder if I need Beer or Sparkling wine to celebrate, though as I am at work right now that may be ill advised.

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Wed, 11 Aug 2010

New Bike/Kayak/Gear Transport Mechanism - 19:13

New gear transporter (fullsize) 		My old car (pictured with my multi sport boat on the roof) (a 1991 model Toyota Corolla 4wd Wagon) finally packed it in around a month ago. The head gasket blew, the car had done 363,000 on its first engine and was getting on in years. Though I was not happy with the idea of scrapping a huge hunk of metal and other stuff and getting myself a new huge hunk of metal, it was getting to the point where it would cost more to keep going than the price of the car.

Fixing the head gasket would be almost $2,000, then keeping a 20 year old engine with that many km going may require replacing it or a rebuild, both expensive and problem prone operations, especially as other things in the car were wearing out over time. So I got the car sent to the scrap people and started looking for a new car. I had owned the Corolla since 1999 or so, and it had been in the family for longer. Now I wonder if I have been marketed at too successfully by Subaru, I did not seriously consider anything apart from Subaru models.

Toyota lost my vote (so to speak) when they killed off the corolla 4wd wagon in the 90s in favour of the thing (that should be used for rocket launcher target practice IMO) called the Rav4. To me a car is a gear (kayak, bicycle, ski, other outdoor gear) transport mechanism. I try to do all my shopping and commuting by bike and generally try to avoid using a car unless I need to go on a trip or move gear around.

Initially I was thinking about the Outback, however talking with many friends about it I decided a Forester was a preferable purchase for what I look for in a vehicle (more room inside for gear and bit lighter so more fuel efficient and the same or a little bit more clearance depending on the year model). I was not looking too seriously, just asking around and looking into options when I saw this one for sale, here in Canberra (less than 1km from my house as it turns out), for a fantastic price. Thinking it was almost too good to be true, I headed over to have a look, got it checked out by a mechanic, agreed to purchase it and here I am with a new car less than a week from seeing it.

Of course I now have the same car (brand) as every other mountain biker and adventure racer (well at least 50% of them if car parks at events are an indication), still I hear there is a good reason they are so common. Reliable, holds gear, keeps going. I am happy it is not silver or white too. This one is a MY04, has 107,000km on the clock and has a good full service history, lets hope it lasts, at least until we have some replacement for fossil fuel powered cars in common use or something.

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Tue, 27 Jul 2010

A horse has won - 10:23
During the Tour de France coverage every year there is a lot of repetition of the ads by the major sponsor of the broadcast for SBS. Generally by the end of the tour we are all sick of the same ads all the time. This year the same definitely applied to various ads, such as the cyclists walking up the hill Rabobank laziness ad and the LG ad with the eat a pie on the couch ad.

There were two other ads from those same brands though I did not get sick of, I wonder if it was because they did not play them much (I can not find copies online anywhere either) or if it was because they really did amuse me. I find some of the other ads may be cute or funny the first few times but get old really fast.

My two favourite ads this year were the Rabobank laziness ad with the horse race caller (I think there may have been more than one version of this with a slightly different call too). Going on about furry things racing, then saying a horse has won. The other was from LG, also advertising the DVR, however this had a surreal seeming lion dancing after jumping out of the letter box. As you can see I can not even remember most of the details from these ads though I laughed at the time so they obviously were not played as often as others. I wonder why they do not show the whole spread of ads for the products more, it would at least lessen the boredom of only seeing the same ad all the time.

In other news I can not decide if I think it is hell cool or scary that you will soon be able to have a tour of Jenolan caves in Klingon.

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Fri, 16 Jul 2010

I never thought I would say awesome and karaoke in the same sentence - 18:25
I saw this link on kottke today, about the funny or die mob getting Jewel to perform her own songs in disguise at a karaoke bar. They put a fake nose on her, a wig make up and dressed her up as a business woman, with hired actors also dressed as office workers she went there as a group.

I thought this was awesome, that the crowd all thought she was incredible and surprised someone that good was not professional. I keep wondering what level of fan you need to be to be sure it is her despite appearances, I keep thinking if Ani did something like this I would recognise as soon as she started singing, however our brain plays all sorts of tricks on us and they really set this up well so who knows. Well worth watching I think even if you are not a fan of Jewel.

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Thu, 01 Jul 2010

The week in politics - 21:17

Another great political cartoon 		I do not watch much tv, this includes not watching the tv news. I read two news papers almost daily, however that does cause a lag in my news acquisition. Last Wednesday night I was talking on the phone with my grandmother and she mentioned it looked like a big night in politics with a meeting in t he pm's office between Rudd and Gillard and news of a possible spill.

This news was indeed surprising, a first term prime minister and such a quick move against him. The change probably will not change my voting pattern at all, I think Abbott is a raving lunatic and generally ascribe that world view (being a raving lunatic) to the entire liberal party. There has been a disturbing move further right of the Labour party for years now which I am constantly concerned by. I have for a long while now voted Green federally and in ACT simply because my world views suggests we need to stop thinking about money and more about the planet and various other things that this party tends to come closer on than the rest of the parties.

It has been interesting to see that though he was the most popular prime minister Australia has ever had, many people never seemed to know what Rudd stood for, once they began to believe he is simply another politician and will sacrifice previously claimed beliefs (climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time) for political reasons many people it seems began to think much of what he said may as well be non core promises (to bring in a Howardism).

I have to say I thought Rudd's being in question time on Thursday last week was one of the bravest things I have seen a politician do, and I think it is upsetting and sad for him and we saw a lot of emotion in his final press conference. However from what I hear he was not a pleasant person to work with and could be quite offensive in high level meetings for various reasons, sure he worked his arse off (hence why I think the cartoon on the left is so good) and did do many good things for Australia it does seem like much of the reasons people did not stick by him in poor polling times was that he had closed himself off from the rest of the clever people available to him at large.

I think it is great to see a female PM and I think Gillard could do a lot of good things, I am happy to have an atheist PM (though it is upsetting that the right wing elements of the Labour party probably have enough influence that the government's God Bothering tendencies will remain, such as no gay marriage and the Internet filter stupidity will remain), however I really do hope that at the upcoming federal election the Greens hold enough power that Labour has to get them fully on side to create a good working government. So far I think the Green arrangement in ACT has been a good thing, the Stanhope government is still ignoring them more than I think it should be, however it has bought advantages to ACT so far I think.

Still it has been an incredible week in politics and there have been many awesome political cartoons to cheer us all up too.

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Sat, 05 Jun 2010

Journalism tomorrow - 16:04
I was interested to read this article about the efforts being made to help ensure the future of high quality journalism by Google. I guess I am biased toward the availability of news papers and reporting as I read two most days. I also admit I have not tried some new way of reading news on an iPad or tablet, however I have never enjoyed the websites for the papers I read (The Canberra Times and The Australian).

I suspect some of the bits this article touches upon pertain to this, newspapers are expert at placing their content in the format that works for the traditional delivery (thus I find it more pleasant and easy to read papers on paper), they have not yet managed to work into the online format perfectly yet. However I like to think Google are correct in pointing out quality journalism will work with better advertising revenue in the future with online delivery than it does now with 70% of the cost of some newspapers going into the production of printed paper news delivery.

The only online broad news site I look at much is the ABC News site, I also will look at links from blogs I read, however the online news sources I do regularly check are very focused such as the cycling web sites I read.

I do not hear as much in Australia about the death of journalism and newspapers struggling as I hear coming from the US (it could well be that the lack of craigslist in Australia is a large influence on this), however it is obvious the traditional revenue models for newspapers will not continue to work around the world. I really hope the media and journalism around the world can cope with this sensibly and find a way to work and flourish on the Internet. If they dig in their heels and fight to hold onto broken business models rather than embracing new models they will simply end up looking stupid just as the music and movie industry has.

Of course it was interesting the point in the article about how new news models have popped up rather suddenly over the last 100 years and changed parts of the industry in some respects (Fox news, Jon Stewart, Time Magazine). It seems at the moment that Murdoch for example is too tied to current business models to embrace the Internet properly, so it will be interesting to see if parts of Newscorp work out how to work on the Internet or if over the coming decade something new springs up employing journalists delivering quality content funded the way Google envisions.

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Wed, 02 Jun 2010

Survival of the fittest in other fields - 14:30
This M&M testing and breeding is the sort of thing I would expect to see Mikal doing on a day when bored with other activities. It does make you think, what other places do we want to see a survival of the fittest style testing regime happen?

With many things we use it already happens, such as bike parts, software, recipes. They go through a process of engineering/development/evolution over time (though guided by us, unlike in nature). Of course the M&M breeding is simply someone choosing to apply their own criterion to their candy that was not the evolutionary criterion applied by the company that made them. So the question is what evolutionary criterion do you want applied to everyday things that so far tend not to be.

Say if you buy a hardback book, you either want it as soon as it is available or you need another device with which to cause injury to others. Try hitting someone with the book if they stay conscious you need to find sturdier books. Of course it really is pretty cool when scientists and engineers redefine their work such that they look for something with different qualities/goals (or get lucky and discover something awesome they were not looking for).

This seems to be an ongoing failure in modern research funding, with a goal/result oriented funding appearing world wide often, if people can not research all manner of things in their field of interest we are less likely to have the accidental discoveries that so often change history. Though funding experts in the field to research their interests works, as is pointed out in this list of 10 accidental discoveries, "That's the genius behind all these accidental inventions - the scientists were prepared. They did their science on the brink and were able to see the magic in a mistake, set-back, or coincidence."

Good to see M&M recognised this, gave the man a bag of M&M's and let him get on with his research.

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Tue, 01 Jun 2010

Bucking the trend - 16:58
Almost all my stuff on the diary recently have been in the mtb or mtb/events category, obviously I should do something different and write about something else. Heck maybe it is time to write the great Canberran novel about squirrel infestation.... though it would be kinda short seeing how we don't have any squirrels here.

I keep thinking of a suggestion made by Matthew Baldwin of Defective Yeti with a footnote along the lines of 

P.S.S. My god, is there anything as intrinsically bloggy as a long and tedious
post explaining why you haven't been blogging? Someone should start a blog
that consists solely of daily, long-winded, and humorous entries purporting to
explain why it hasn't been updated. Free idea. Yours for the taking.

Which I thought at the time would be great, however it would require far more ability and dedication to the cause than I have. Also I do from time to time write stuff here rather than simply come along saying geez I have not written much.

I was actually thinking about the fact I do not seem to be trying to write here much these days (definitely not as often as when Andrew gave me a you are blog obsessed sort of t-shirt), and the thing that is not around much at all is my attempts at humour (or at least linking to a large variety of funny things elsewhere... maybe I am not wasting as much time collecting crap from the web now).

Thinking about style of writing and what can be amusing I was reminded that Jeremy Clarkson can be hilarious (and offensive). In the co-op bookshop a while back I found two of his books (collections of columns) remaindered at $5 each. So I bought and read them, highly entertaining indeed (even to this Vegan cycling fanatic). Though he has his own style and years of practice writing often, it was interesting to give some thought to how he uses language and his reputation for loud claims and such to create humour. There are probably things to think about that could be incorporated into writing more often.

Of course as authors say the only way to write is sit down and write, there are no magic shortcuts, everyone can have lots of ideas, however implementing those ideas to turn them into novels is the hard work of writing page after page. I can not say I am really too upset at my low posting count here the past while, not enough to concentrate more on writing here anyway,

Speaking of authors and them writing stuff, I was interested to see the blow up recently in the US about Neil Gaiman's standard appearance fee. His job is to write books, not to do public speaking tours so he has deliberately tried to price himself so high he does not get asked to come and speak everywhere all the time. Makes a lot of sense really, he donated the money to charity and he is still a lot cheaper than really high profile speakers (Bill Clinton is one he mentions as an example).

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Thu, 13 May 2010

The Annual May Zombie Post - 18:03
In an effort to ensure I did not skip another year of this tradition I was having a look around for some interesting zombie related stuff, and what do you know, it seems it may not have been by accident that my annual zombie post happens in May. Some other people have suggested May is Zombie Awareness Month.

And I was interested to see some zombie related suggestions about why you should get out and exercise like I do a lot, Zombies hate fast food, of course if we are on the subject of t-shirts, there are some others on this theme, such as this ST:TOS Bones unquote, He's Undead Jim.

And just to tie this in to my diet (and maybe disprove the bad zombie joke from May 2005) there is a vegan bakery in LA that has photos of a rather yummy looking Chocolate Zombie Cake and better yet Brain Cupcakes, maybe Vegan Zombie Cupcakes will take over the world. (neat they have a new book Vegan Cookies Will Invade your cookie Jar).

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Tue, 23 Feb 2010

Ski Everest - 17:10
I was interested to see on kottke today something about a documentary about a guy who skied Mt Everest. Yuichiro Miura is the person in question, the documentary The Man Who Skied Down Everest was the first sports film ever to win an Oscar for best documentary. Though he did not ski from the summit he did ski around 2000 metres down one face of it, almost killing himself in the process. The article linked from the first wikipedia link above about the God Father of Extreme skiing is an interesting read.

I was fascinated to see he has since climbed everest another two times at the age of 70 and 75, he hopes to climb to the summit again at 80 in 2013.

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Sat, 09 Jan 2010

Sydney Christmas - 07:09

Looking back toward Coogee, Bronte, Bondi, etc (fullsize) 		I spent Christmas in Sydney with Jane and other extended family (Grandma, Nick, Ashlie, Jude, Chris, Stu, Karin) at a place in Coogee. Though I had a bike with me (single speed) that was for a potential boxing day mtb ride (which I piked on due to rain). As I was so close to the coastal walking path I headed out for a run on it on Christmas morning. South from Coogee until I ran out of obvious walking path (around 4 km I think) and then back up to the other end of Bondi and back down to Coogee. No idea how far it was (maybe 16km) as my Garmin stopped working and I had sent it in for a replacement.

One of the nice things about being there over Christmas was I managed to go for a swim in the ocean every day while there. No serious swim training but it was nice to get into the salt water and do some swimming none the less.

Lots of fun was had with the family, thanks for an awesome time to all of them there.

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Bracelet fade - 07:01

Bracelet fade evidence (fullsize) 		I commented a while ago that the new NBCF bracelets should last longer as they have a design that is less likely to break. Looks like I was right, the faded almost white bracelet in the photo has been on my wrist for most of 2009, I finally noticed a little before Christmas when I gave a new one to a friend that mine was no longer a good NBCF pink, time to put a new one on, I am not sure I can retire the faded one to my notice board at work as it is not broken.

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Mon, 07 Dec 2009

Cruisy weekend - 11:59

The lovely Taemas Bridge near Yass (fullsize) 		Saturday morning I hopped on my road bike and headed out to Yass, a nice 3 hour, 84 KM ride which is always rather enjoyable. The reason to head out there was for Jeff and Pia's combined 30th and housewarming. The bbq/party was a lot of fun and I was able to catch up with many people I have not seen much of in a while. Thanks for having us all over guys, and what a lovely place you have there (especially with the views out toward open land from the yard).

I had been planning to ride back but a friend was keen to go paddling on Saturday afternoon so I got a lift back with Crash and headed out for a paddle, largely so my friend could get some more time in tippy boats.

Sunday morning I helped Bilbys do the timing at the triathlon on at the lake and had been sort of planning to go paddling again however ended up going home and napping for an extended period of time. So all in all a fun but relaxing sort of weekend. The Bridge in the photo on the left is one of the reasons I think everyone should go check out the road from Yass to Wee Jasper, a lovely majestic bridge across the river seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

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Fri, 25 Sep 2009

Gear transport mechanism costs - 16:40
I finally got the car service I have been putting off for a while done. Last time I had it in there they mentioned the radiator will need replacing, so I got that done this time. Also last weekend while my car was locked in secure parking at my sister's place in Sydney with Matilda (double sea kayak) on the roof some retards came along and stuck a screw driver or something in the drivers side lock. Thus I needed a new barrel on the lock, this means to unlock the car on the drivers side I now use a different key to the one I use for ignition and the passenger side. I have had to deal with this on other cars in the past and it is a PITA.

I guess I should be happy whoever it was did not damage Matilda and that was the only damage to the car. Anyway the whole shebang cost AUD $1230, around $200 of that was on the new lock barrel and associated labour so not worth an insurance claim ($500 excess). Now I can go back to putting off the car servicing until I absolutely need to for a while, well apart from the two new front tyres I need that they did not do at the time.

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Wed, 09 Sep 2009

British pollies at elite level to Australian pollies with rorts. - 16:50
So I notice many of the papers today have front page material about the Australian politicians needing to cut perks due to rorts in their use of available allowances.

What amuses me the most here is that the perk in question is the use of allowances to print/photocopy material for their election campaigns at the last federal election. Yes the amount that has allegedly been rorted is huge and election material should not be funded with public money. However I keep wondering if the British pollies may look on and think of the rorting abilities of Australian pollies as somewhat amateur. In May there was a lot of coverage of the British pollies rorting allowances and purchasing things such as moat cleaning or pornography. Though it was interesting to see some unique views on that situation at the time.

Oh and speaking of federal politics, I am happy to see I am not the only one who thinks our federal minister for sport (Ellis) is gorgeous.

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Sun, 23 Aug 2009

Another ouch, Out at the worlds site today and Coraline is awesome - 23:00
On my way out to Stromlo this morning on the CX bike I unfortunately had more data provided to back up my theory that my CX bike is cursed. Riding into the bike path tunnel near Scrivner Dam I thought to myself on the wet bike path, hmm I may be going a bit fast here, as I finished the thought my front wheel slipped and I went sliding along the bitumen on my right hip. This is of course the same hip I went sliding on a month ago.

Right now I am seriously annoyed as it makes walking around and a lot of movements painful, I was almost back to being able to sleep on my right side, now I wont for a while. I once more will be unable to run for a few weeks, and can not put full power into the pedals for another few weeks now too. I also have this theory that the cyclocross bike is cursed. This is the only bike I have ever owned on which I have had crashes serious enough to stop me riding or doing other things.

Sure I have had other crashes, such as those involving the breaking of frames however I was still able to go out and do long hard riders or other stuff the next day without much pain. So far on the CX bike I have crashed badly 4 times, each time with the front wheel losing traction and ending up pretty badly hurt. Stitches at the hospital required from one such incident in November 2007, then last year I came off and broke my collar bone when the front wheel lost traction. The recent crash in the CX race meant a month of no running, missing some events and some serious pain. Now a repeat (though it does not feel quite so severe) today. I guess it is possible that something about my position on the bike combined with the geometry and handling of it simply does not suit my riding style and thus I just lose the front wheel badly form time to time. Or I could be blaming the tool.

I made it out to Stromlo of course and we got to work, getting closer to having all the pipes up to hold the bunting around the XC course. We put in some new rocks in a line on one section to make A and B lines, later while working near hammer head the Australian team came past. I took some photos of them practising sections (not posting online until I get faster Internet at home again). So we asked them to check out the new section later on and tell us if it worked and if the B line needed to be slowed or the A line changed. In the end we went down and fixed both up to the extent it should work well while the practised in front of us as we changed it around to ensure it was correct. As Dave said it was kind of fun to have the elites there as we built this to see how it worked at pace.

Upon getting home I showered and headed out to see a movie, Coraline in 3d. This (being a Neil Gaiman based movie) was something I had been looking forward to for a long while, everyone had said seeing it in 3d was worth it too. What can I say, it did not disappoint, scary and cool and fantastic and fun and incredible and sweet and fun and oh so worth seeing. The 3d was a cool experience too.

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Thu, 20 Aug 2009

Still not allowed to give blood - 17:35
So I have been hearing rumours from friends recently that the rule that means I am not allowed to give blood has recently been relaxed. Not due to my diabetes, reading the FAQ on the donate blood site mentions that insulin controlled diabetics should speak with them, however hints they probably will be able to.

The reason I (and also my Sister and Mother) are not allowed to give blood is that we lived in England for all of 1993, which is between the 1980 to 1996 period they rule out due to the lack of a vCJD test. (details here). Which it appears is definitely still a restriction. Unfortunate really.

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Thu, 06 Aug 2009

Some standard sort of news from tests - 22:19
I had to have some blood tests done on Monday morning to have results ready for an Endocronology appointment today. I was interested to see how my iron levels and B12 levels were also. My cholesterol is at 3.1 (HDL 1.0, LDL 1.7 Trigs 0.93) so below the normal range of 3.5-5.5. HbA1C was a bit higher than last year but still in adequate control region (as it has been for two years now). Good to see my iron and B12 levels are healthy and not showing a current problem.

I was a little worried about my iron levels a few months ago, I have not been eating as much green leafy stuff with meals as I probably should and I felt a bit flat, I started having iron tablets, though not with tests at the time so not a good control, however they have B12 in them also I may as well keep having them regularly. With over 10 hours of fairly intensive exercise every week I tend to think I should be careful to have lots of iron and protein from dietary sources I choose to use.

Anyway I thought I would put this data on here, last time I could not find it the printouts I had again and wanted to know some of the numbers.

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Tue, 04 Aug 2009

Internet down... due to phone company going bust - 22:27
Well that is kind of unusual. I was out at a function tonight, upon my return home a housemate mentions the Internet connection is down. I look into it and find the ADSL link is acting as if there is no phone line there. Then my housemates happen to mention that the land line has been unable to make outgoing calls for the past few days.

I try to make a call and hear a message from Telstra talking about contacting them, strange as the landline is not through Telstra. I hope online with the wireless broadband built into my laptop and have a look. The phone company the land line was with has gone into voluntary administration, Telstra took control of all the landlines and other things and has now disconnected them all.

I quite like the phone number for this landline, very easy to remember (something like 6363 8222, repetitive and not hard to grasp) so it would be nice to keep it if we can. However it would also be nice to be able to switch to a service such as Internode naked adsl and use a phone through that. However Internode do not yet do number porting from pstn from what I can find out. I wonder if a potential option would be to port the number to one of the VoIP providers in Australia that do do number porting and then use Internode naked to that.

Anyway I will get to have a bunch of time wasted tomorrow trying to sort this out and I am almost sure I will have to deal with Telstra somewhere in there, I wonder if I can book in for a dentist appointment as that would be a whole lot more fun.

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Mon, 06 Jul 2009

Riding, Tour and hanging out in Sydney - 16:07
A good weekend was had in Sydney, got there around 9:30pm on Friday night after passing through Tahmoor to pick up a new bike (details later). Saturday morning I headed out to John and Lel's place where we were going riding, having a bbq, lots of great coffee, watching the tour and saying good bye to JJ and Lel as they are heading off to England.

Getting back to Jane's place around 4am I slept in until 10am when we went for breakfast at Naked Espresso in Newtown. Great food and I am intrigued to try their Vegan friendly pizzas sometime too. Then in the afternoon we made out way out to Bondi and hung around with the cousins (Nick, Jack, Ash and Jack's son Tom) which was good.

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Wed, 01 Jul 2009

Sydney again this weekend - 16:49
So this weekend I will head up to Sydney again. This time for a send off for a friend moving back to England and then hanging out with Jane on Sunday. Last time we found some pretty yummy Vegan friendly food, I hope we find some more new and interesting food this time round. Hope to have Sunday breakfast at Naked Espresso in Newtown as I forgot the name of the place last time and we ended up elsewhere.

Some mountain biking on Saturday at the send off, probably no exercise Sunday (unless we go swimming) (unlike last time), still it should be nice even if I have to deal with Sydney.

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Fri, 26 Jun 2009

ROUS exist, how cool - 14:08
An unusual seeming pet but I was excited to see that it seems R.O.U.S exist for real. Anyone out there want a 100lb rat as a pet? (ahh princess bride moments that could happen for real, what entertainment there is in the world)

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Tue, 23 Jun 2009

Some amusing cartoons in The Australian - 16:29

The Australian pocket cartoon 2009-06-23 		Two days in a row now I have had a good laugh at the small pocket cartoon on the front page of The Australian newspaper. Today was the the cartoon on the left, yesterday was Rudd suggesting Swan can at least use the ute to clear out his office.

In the context of the cartoon today it is interesting to see the Sauce bottle language has gotten some international coverage.

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Wed, 03 Jun 2009

Raining on those adamant computers - 15:38
This morning I headed out for the road ride as i tend to on Wednesday mornings. I had 10 minutes spare once I was dressed and ready to go so I switched the laptop on to check the weather forecast and radar. The Canberra radar was broken so I looked at the 256km image from Sydney. According to that image there was no rain (even light rain) near Canberra.

As I stepped out the door to get the bike from the garage and head out riding it was pretty damn wet with some precipitation falling. When I got to the ride Ron pointed out that my checking of the weather radar for conditions was a very geeky way to see if I should ride. I admit, through my extensive testing of the claim that it was not raining I had pretty much decided the claim was false by the time I got to Dickson.

We went riding and got pretty wet and cold anyway, however I was amused later to hear that Simon (jokingly I am sure) has on occasion checked the weather radar from his iphone while actually out riding in a group and claimed it was not raining due to the radar image even when the experienced evidence at that point in time said otherwise.

Of course computers are never wrong so we must believe what they say...

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Thu, 28 May 2009

The Annual May Zombie post - 17:46
Keeping with the tradition I guess I should do something about zombies this May. It has been strange to watch, it seems zombie news has been jumping out at me all month, from seeing a friend post a zombie referencing photo and some mention of a zombie group somewhere on facebook to the various metafilter and boingboing zombie links this month.

However a recent post on boingboing has got to be the best so far this month, in the fun ilk of Randall Munroe's limerick db (hilarious stuff there) is a large collection of Zombie Haiku. To win a copy of the game Plants vs Zombies (also appearing on there this May) readers were asked to submit Zombie Haiku in the comments.

And remember

Brains are delicious,
However, I must warn you,
Shotgun blasts are not...

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Fri, 15 May 2009

Lake water testing and areas - 11:41
Over summer (and now into winter this year) there are regular water quality tests of Lake Burley Griffin, testing for Blue Green Algae or other hazardous things in the water. The National Capital Authority manage the lake and provide media releases with the water quality test results. (for example the 14th May 2009 Release)

The thing I noticed is if you do not know the boundaries of each area of the lake or what the parts of the lake are called these may not make much sense. So I went looking for maps, I found some descriptions of the regions on the Wikipedia article which helped. Still no good map was found until I stopped searching for terms such as tarcoola reach on the natcap site and Julie pointed out to me the page on their site about Lake Burley Griffin and Surrounding Parklands.

The map available on that page is not really large enough to read all the writing on it, however it shows enough detail to get a good idea of which areas you can use from lake closured. I have copied it to my server as the file is hidden behind some javascript view thing otherwise. I would love to see a larger version of this image (or a scalable version) if anyone knows where it is (possibly on display at Regatta Point I guess).

At least for now it appears we can still paddle down Yarramundi Reach from Yarralumla bay. If we get a bit of rain over the next few days and the weather remains cold we may even have the Algae levels lower enough to use the whole lake again for paddling. I am making this post largely so I remember where to find a map of the lake showing me what the names of the various areas are.

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Tue, 12 May 2009

Mothers day, how mum turned out to be a strong paddler - 11:14
The last few years I have been to get Mum to come paddling with me at the Mother's Day Mayhem paddle race BGCC runs. Last year I had her convinced to come along until I broke my collar bone and the doctors said I could not paddle for 3 months. I discovered I could paddle again a week before mothers day however Mum was already booked up for a Golf competition she could not get out of at that point.

So this weekend past I finally was able to go and participate in the Mother's Day Mayhem event with her. I drove out to her place at 7:30am and made her pancakes (she fortunately quite likes pancakes I can eat made with soy milk, ground linseed and no eggs) then after breakfast we went over to Yerrabi pond where the event was being held this year as Lake Burley Griffin was still not open to secondary contact use in the river near the club shed.

Due to some confusion around the days paddling I was not sure if we were racing or just going for a leisurely paddle at first. I also did not know if we were paddling around the edge of the lake hugging the shore or coming back past the start area. So we started paddling and I saw the other boats go off with people paddling hard, so I picked up my pace and Mum simply matched. Way to go Mum.

After turning around the first island I started heading across the dam wall to hug the shore all the way around and another boat knowing where we were supposed to go headed back on the shorter course, so I turned there and caught back up. Mum was able to hold my fast stroke rate for almost the entire 2 km and we ended up coming home first. Way to go Mum, for someone who had never kayaked before and had not paddled a canoe for more than 20 years I was impressed.

After the paddle event we went back to Mum's place and then headed out so I could treat her to lunch.

To finish off the day I headed out to see Wolverine at Dendy with some friends. Fun and entertaining movie, nothing spectacular but good to watch none the less.

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Fri, 08 May 2009

A new bridge should be more useful. - 15:22
I have been seeing all the discussion in the paper and other places about the potential new immigration bridge in Canberra for a few years. (I will not link to it as I do not like the currently mooted location, a quick google can find the website). I really can not see a reason to have a bridge (even one that will be pedestrian/cycle access only) from the NMA to Lennox Gardens.

I am firmly in the camp that if money and construction effort is to go into a pedestrian/cycle access bridge across the lake in Canberra it should be somewhere that genuinely would improve the cycling and pedestrian access to parts of the lake and Canberra. I know it is not visible from the centre of the city area or from central basin but I must say the only location that makes much sense to me is for a new bridge to go from Black Mountain Peninsula to Weston Park. Either of the crossing points on this map would be good.

Having a bridge across here would speed up access to many parts of the lake and Canberra and provide more route options for self propelled people to get around the city that would actually be useful. The other major advantage is that sail boats do not race down toward Yarrmundi reach thus the bridge may not have to be high enough for large sailboat mast clearance. However it is a much shorter span so it would be a lot cheaper no matter what height it had to go to.

Update: I have since first posting this heard that sailing does sometimes happen as far down the lake as the Governor General's place, thus a bridge built here would still need to accommodate masts passing under it. The span as noted is a lot shorter so it is still going to be cheaper here than at the currently mooted site.

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Mon, 04 May 2009

Mad about you or ACT Treasurer? - 21:50
Is it just me or do others also think the ACT Treasurer bears a striking resemblance to Mad About You's female lead?

Especially with the stock photo of Minister Gallagher the Canberra Times uses fairly often such as is on the back page of the Canberra Times news section today.

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Sat, 02 May 2009

Check sooner next time - 18:04
As D is getting back to the house tomorrow, Matt and I agreed it was time to turn the heating on for the winter. So I went to do that today and found it would not turn on. I mucked around resetting the unit many times. Turned the mains power off for a while. Tried a few more resets, even climbed into the roof to have a look at the unit and see if there was a reset button on it.

Previously we have had a number of problems with the heater in the house, though the one here now is a fairly new gas central heating unit so probably should not play up. Still stumped for what was wrong, I was reading the manual from the website for the heater and the error code was saying something about it not being able to light the heater from 4 attempts each time.

It finally occurred to me to go outside and look at the gas meter, and well what do you know the lever on the meter had the gas coming into the house turned off. You know what, heaters really will not light when there is no fuel available for them, kind of funny that. Next time I may try to remember to have a look there sooner, no idea why I just assumed it was still turned on from last year (though I do not remember ever turning it off).

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Fri, 06 Mar 2009

New not leather work shoes - 15:49

Non leather Salomon work shoes (fullsize) 		Usually a photo such as that to the left would appear in my mtb/gear category, however although they are a Salomon walking shoe with the Salomon quick lace system, I purchased these to wear at work.

Because I am lazy and often tend to be changing into bike shoes and back into work shoes a lot during the day I like having slip on shoes at work. Thus most sneakers with laces annoy me. However to get a pair of slip on shoes that I can wear at work with shorts or jeans means I am limiting my choices a bit.

However the other problem I face is I do not want to buy a new pair of leather or similar animal product based shoes. My running shoes, cycling shoes and other shoes I tend to wear are all synthetic. Vegan Wares in Melbourne do not have a slip on shoe that is not formal looking and thus nothing I would want to wear at work.

I already have some Salomon shoes and like the lacing system for ease and speed of use so it occurred to me I could probably wear them if I could find a pair that were not to obviously an all out racing/running shoe. The XA Pro 3D running shoes come in black so were one option. However I noticed the Fury and the Fusion 2 models on the Salomon website both had non leather uppers and the quick lace system. The pair that is available in Australia (Fusion 2, the more expensive model) is a walking shoe, they do not look quite so much like a running shoe and thus I thought I could wear them for work.

They cost a bit (AUD $225) but hopefully will last a while and they satisfy my requirements.

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Tue, 27 Jan 2009

Mobile woes, in need of a phone protector protector - 17:37
So when I switched to Optus sometime last year I bought a small Samsung phone at the time of the switch. I kind of like my Telstra remote area tick samsung 3g phone so thought the cheap Samsung would be alright too. This was not the case, the interface and general use I found the phone lacking (Samsung B100). Then I happened to see the Nokia 2630 in early December, the thinnest phone made by Nokia. fairly cheap and as I am most used to a Nokia interface over any others probably easy for me to get used to.

I bought one and at the same time bought a plastic protective cover for it as I seem to be able to kill phones easily. I keep them in my pocket during the day and also in a jersey pocket while cycling. Then around 2 weeks later on Christmas day the plastic protector broke on the face where the keys were, also some cracks were developing in the sides.

I wandered into Civic on Boxing day and bought a new protector, plus I saw a cool pink case for the phone so purchased that to match my laptop, mountain bike, kayak, etc. Then I used some of the special small tools at work to unscrew the old case and put the new one on. The new protector went on and I hoped it would last a bit better. This alas has not been the case, last week at LCA the case cracked apart around the edges with many cracks all around.

I am obviously in need of a mobile phone protector protector. I went into civic just now to buy something and the phone accessories shop that used to be on the ground floor in the Canberra Centre where I bought the pink case on Boxing Day is now gone. I thought about a mobile phone sock, however think that would not be good as I tend to have my phone in my cycle jersey pocket and exposed to sweat a lot. I have tried a silicon case, this does not protect the screen, also it ripped trying to pull it over the card plastic protector.

I wonder if another brand of hard case may do the job, I am a bit reticent to look for a leather phone cover as I do not want to use such an item. I am also a bit weirded out by the sudden dissapearance of the accessories shop in Civic (YIT Technologies), though it was in the middle of the corridor, I am sure it has been there for quite a few years.

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Thu, 15 Jan 2009

Upgrades to the breast cancer bracelets - 19:35
I broke another pink silicon breast cancer bracelet today, so went home to get one of the new ones. I was happy to notice as I put it on they have improved the design.

If you see the photo in the link above you can see the NBCF bracelets all tend to break in a similar place. I noticed the other week that splits were forming where there is a letter N in the writing. Now the new improved design has no writing indented into the bracelet, the lettering and ribbons are all raised off the band. This should stop them from breaking as easily. Of course maybe I should simply stop removing it as often as I do (showering mostly).

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Poor impulse control or cool things at office works - 19:12

Shiny Officeworks purchases (fullsize) 		So today Mikal and I wandered into Braddon today to buy some hardware for the LA Mirror, to get some disks we went to office works and bought two of the AUD $177 WD USB drives. While we were at the store I was distracted by the items in the photo to the left.

I saw the cancer council suncream on a carabina which I thought was a great idea, when racing or out doing stuff I often forget to apply suncream as often as I should. If it is hanging off my pack somewhere my team mates and I can easily get at it and use it. Also it gets it out of the pack, and the bottle can be refilled.

My pink and purple gel pens in my rogaining/navigation/map marking pencil case are running low, but even without this I could not resist the impulse to buy some new ones cheaply next to the cash register. Also they had the cute 1 GB purple usb key for $5 and the 2 GB white one for $10, at that sort of cost these items are pretty much disposable and it is always useful to have a few around (I broke another 2 GB one a few days ago).

As Mikal commented, I need to work on my impulse control when shopping, or stay out of shops.

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Sun, 28 Dec 2008

Canberra Yacht Club Web Cam - 09:27
So I knew CYC had a web cam so I could view what the wind looked like on the lake to go paddling there. However When I googled for Canberra Yacht Club I only got the Southern Cross club pages (the group that owns the CYC) concerning the club. The link to the actual operational website did not turn up.

Thus this is to remind me where to find the Canberra Yacht Club website and the Lake Burley Griffin webcams linked from the front page there. I guess the URL should have been obvious to me without a google search.

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Wed, 10 Dec 2008

And so it appears to be over - 23:31
So after around 7 wonderful months in a loving relationship it appears that as of tonight we are no longer together. I am upset and trying not to cry at everything I see around me. The hardest problem is we both admit to each other we love and adore each other, however due to some concerns about something that happened to us when we met my now ex partner says she feels we can not be together long term. I think it is time to go and cry myself to sleep.

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Fri, 10 Oct 2008

Signs and shirts - 12:20
A few years ago I mentioned a cool t-shirt from a company in the UK called Puzle. I always refer to this as a free ride crossing shirt. However they called it something else (road sign or some such). I never bought one even though I really liked the design as they were far too pricey (something like GBP £25, not including postage). The online store has closed sometime in the past few years.

Since that time the store closed and I was never really able to find the image again. Using my old post, the Internet archive and a Google search I found the page on Singletrack that had copies of the image. They still had the image on Singletrack, so now you too can see the free ride crossing t-shirt including the variety of colours available. Tres cool, almost tempting to print one myself as a one off now I have the image.

What led to the slightly deeper search for the image was that I saw an entertaining quote on an image in an online article yesterday about confusing traffic signs in the US. Their interpretation of sign number 8 was I thought most amusing. "Yield to people doing wheelies, backwards, into traffic." And I suppose you really should yield to a cyclist doing that, if for no other reason than to stare and wonder. Of course it is entirely possible for fixed gear cyclists to wheelie backwards (as you can see 50 seconds into that video) so the idea is not completely out of left field, simply somewhat unusual.

The free ride crossing t-shirt also makes one think of alternate ways highly skilled riders could cross roads. There was the gap jump over the Tour de France a few years ago (2006 Tour I think). Kind of like A and B lines for road crossings.

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Thu, 09 Oct 2008

Silicon Support Bracelet Breakages - 15:26

Some of my previously broken bracelets (fullsize) 		So the good news is that it is October, otherwise known as Breast Cancer Month, which means all the pink ribbon products are in the shops that support the cause. Although I am tempted to buy an entirely pink mountain bike such as is sometimes seen in competitions around this time of year I have instead limited my make a statement style pink purchases to the silicon wrist bracelets.

The photo to the left shows some of the broken bracelets. Strangely they just do not last particularly long. I buy 4 or 5 every year and that pretty much lasts until the following October. Still far more interesting that LAF yellow bracelets IMO and they match a lot of my race gear better. Also they still support cancer so I am not completely deserting the idea behind LAF Livestrong bracelets.

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Slightly different weekend - 15:14

Matilda on the shore of Myall Lake (fullsize) 		So the weekend of kayaking turned out a little different to the original plan. We had to leave later than planned on Friday so went to Sydney and stayed at Jane's place. Had breakfast at Badde Manors on Saturday morning with Jane then headed up through torrential seeming heavy rain to Taree. Not wanting to kayak or camp in the rain we stayed at my Aunt's place, had lunch with more family who came to visit on Sunday and finally got down to Myall Lakes on Sunday afternoon to head off to camp somewhere.

The lakes are a gorgeous area and I am hell keen to go back for a longer trip sometime. The weekend on the whole was enjoyable even though it turned out differently to the plan. It may be nice to camp on the lakes at a non long weekend/holiday sort of time (school holidays are on currently) as there would be less speed boats and water skiers around (you can see a speed boat in the photo). The peaceful camping was rather often disturbed by the noise of power boats. Still it was all fun really.

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Fri, 19 Sep 2008

I had a health scare - 13:33
So I have been thinking whether I should write about this here or not, however I largely keep this diary as a way of reminding me about stuff or looking up things that have happened (a web search-able interface to my memory) and what happened was significant.

I have been a diagnosed Insulin Dependant Diabetic (Type 1) since October 4th 1995. In my case I have 4 or 5 injections of insulin a day and have to monitor my health and sugar levels and my diet and exercise regime to a greater extent than most people.

In the last 13 years I have never had a hypo (not enough sugar/too much insulin) or hyper (too much sugar not enough insulin) that required medical intervention. When I have my sugar levels go low, say overnight, I have always previously woken up with some of the symptoms (sweating, shaking) and have been able to go and get some food.

On Wednesday night this changed, at around 4am I became aware of my surroundings, with my light on, paramedics all around me, a big needle in my right arm and my partner off to one side dressed in work clothes. I had a diabetic hypo that I did not wake up to and was unable to handle myself. I have no memory of any of the goings on (even though I apparently was sort of responding and pointing and sat up for the paramedics and had a needle put in my arm). My partner said I was coughing and she asked if I was alright, I did not respond in a sensible manner and she worked out there was something very wrong with my behaviour and I guess realised I was not aware of myself properly.

Fortunately the paramedics were able to get my sugar level back to normal and I was able to stand up and then go and get some real food to keep the sugar levels up until breakfast time. I was also very fortunate my partner was there and noticed the problem and acted upon it effectively. Yesterday morning I saw my GP, got a referral to see the endocronologist I have always seen, some forms for all the blood tests and other related tests I do at least once a year and I bought myself a new Blood Glucose Meter which is a lot faster to use and requires less blood than my old one.

As for why it happened, and why I did not wake up or respond as I always have previously to my body displaying the symptoms of low blood sugar. It is a combination of things and a mistake I made before bed on Wednesday night. After two tough runs on Tuesday I had been feeling fairly flat and did the medium road bunch ride on Wednesday morning, at the end of what would normally be an easy ride for me I felt absolutely wasted, I felt more run down and unable to ride than I have for many many years. I think I felt worse than I have after 24 hour solo mountain bike races or 2 days of non stop adventure racing.

So I suspect my body was very depleted in its energy stores and needed some time to recover before things functioned normally. I did not head out for a paddle on Wednesday night, however we had dinner as normal and I had baked some yummy chai latte cupcakes. I was feeling bloated and my tummy felt somewhat expanded or sore for most of Wednesday evening, thus although I had a cupcake not long before bed I did not feel like eating more. I should have stopped and done a blood test, however simply skipped my supper, had my night time injection and went to sleep.

The problem there is skipping my supper which is generally a necessary part of my diet to balance the long term insulin I have before bed to last through the night. I do not know why I felt so bloated, maybe it was part of my body reaction to feeling so run down and sore from the exercise strain, maybe it was unrelated. However the combination of my body not being in its normal state and thus probably needing rest and thus not responding as per normal to low blood sugar and forcing me awake so I can get food into myself to counter act a low and the fact I did not eat my supper so I was far more likely to run out of sugar in my body overnight before the insulin ran out combined to make this a problem.

This was definitely quite a nasty experience and also a kick in the pants to make me pay a lot more attention to my diabetes again and work to keep it stable and ensure I stick to my proper eating plan.

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