Technology in the Corn

My migration to Iowa continues unabated.  Realtor contacted and in motion, movers scheduled, blah blah blah.  All very exciting, especially while trying to organize Christmas concurrently.

Due to the "aggressive timeline", I'll be in short-term housing for a month or two until I get into a house.  During that time, my main PC (and most of my other belongings) will be in storage.  The Droid is great as a miniature computer, but its small screen and tiny keyboard make casual web surfing, blog updating, and email composing less relaxing than I'd like.

Enter CostCo.  They have the Acer Aspire One netbook for $300.

It fits the bill as a temporary computer perfectly!  I can use the WiFi to do email, surf the web, etc. etc. with a relatively comfortable keyboard and screen.  8 hour battery life means I'm not tied to a power outlet.  And then I remembered that with the latest update, the Droid can serve as a WiFi hotspot!  So here's the scenario.  I'm driving to Des Moines.  I get the urge to update this blog.  I pull into a convenient location, fire up the Droid, set it as a WiFi provider.  Fire up the Acer, and POW!  I am composing essays on the glory of corn in the middle of a cornfield!  Oh, the delicious irony of it all...

Needless to say, I am now the proud owner of an Acer Aspire One netbook.  Merry Christmas to me!  Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go schedule an "on-sight survey" so the movers know how much truck to bring.  Carry on.

New Job

Well, after a long summer of leisure,  I have finally found a new job to my liking.  It is in Des Moines, Iowa, about a 6 hour drive from my current home.

That's where it is.  I'll be helping to develop the next generation of high-throughput robots for a well-known agricultural company in the area, should be fun.  In addition to corn, Des Moines has a downtown:

They also have a nice big lake, tons of bike trails, and minimal traffic.  I start on January 3rd, which leaves me little time to find a place to live and get my backside up there.

Retirement is Tiring

My life of leisure is anything but.  I've become brainwashed by Costco, and promptly bought some shelves and a big pile of totes to store my stuff in.  Rather than merely on the floor, which is where most of it was this morning.


**Due to privacy concerns, the content of this blog section has been deleted.  And by privacy, I mean my shoes.  And by concerns, I mean I don't want them eaten by the dog whose tail is in the picture that was previously in this location.**

I'm still working on Colorado pictures.  Hold your horses.  I'm retired, it's very busy.

Update - No Time!

So faithful reader(s)...it's been a while!  Since my last post I was laid off from work, coincidentally started summer vacation, found a woman who tolerates me, paid off the Super Wagon, bought a motorcycle (2008 Honda CBR600RR, great-grandson of my 1992 CBR600F2), and went to Colorado for two weeks of adventure.  Rafting, high-altitude hiking, rock climbing, living without plumbing (outhouse!), and great fish tacos in Salida, CO.

Someday maybe I'll post up some pictures.  Right now I'm too busy enjoying my life of leisure.

Carry on!

What a Day

I'm exhausted, in a good way.  The day started with some cycling around the Chesterfield Valley/Wildwood areas.  Nothing too extreme, just shaking out the legs.  After some lunch, high-speed hiking (with an attempt at trail running thrown in to keep the heart rate up) at Lewis & Clark.  Which, by the way, is in fine shape after yesterday's spotty rain.  And to wrap it all up an evening paddle at Creve Coeur Lake, in my sister-in-law Amy's 12.5' boat, which has now replaced my 17' monster at the CC Lake Boathouse.  Because she doesn't like my boat, and her boat is plenty capable in the placid lake environment.

I can't believe it's 8 o'clock already...where does the time go?

Quick Update

Wow, over a month since the last post.  Oh, well, life gets in the way.  So here's a quick update.

Still employed by the Great Pharmaceutical Juggernaut, for a couple more months anyway.  Today the site was handed over to the company that bought it.  Tomorrow should be interesting.  Also had to say goodbye to my good friend and cubicle-neighbor Gary, though I'm sure I'll see him again soon; today was his last day of employment by the Juggernaut.  Their loss, he's a legend in the small world of NMR.

Regular exercise, food moderation, and riding at Babler have been improving fitness quickly, as well as burning off the flab accumulated over the winter and at work.  For some reason that job made me fat, but that's all over now!  It's amazing how much easier it is to climb hills on a bike now...

The Trek and the Gunnar still vie for supremacy.  I'm not sure there will ever be a final decision, they are both amazing bikes in their own ways.  The Trek is stiff and fast, the Gunnar is quiet and smooth.  If only the Trek was quiet, it could achieve outright victory.

With warm weather being more and more frequent, my legs are feeling the burn.  It's tough not to ride when the weather is this fantastic.

Trek vs. Gunnar: Throwdown at Babler

So at some point I bought a Trek Madone 5.2 Project One bike, tricked out in orange with Sram Rival component group and Easton Circuit wheels.  Recently it was upgraded with a set of Red shifters I had lying around:

At some later point I bought a Gunnar Roadie frame in sparkly blue from my buddy TK.  It was built up by yours truly with SRAM Force components and Mavic CXP33 wheels:

 

The Trek is a modern bicycle of bonded carbon fiber.  The Gunnar is a "new classic" bicycle handcrafted from the finest of modern steel.

My curiosity leads me to constantly compare the two.  Steel vs. Carbon.  On flats and moderate inclines, I could tell little difference.  Both transferred my leg power to the wheels effectively, both were silky smooth.  The Trek has a lot more drivetrain noise - whether this is from amplification of noise through the ginormous frame tubes, or less exacting frame alignment I cannot say.  Aside from the noise, though, both are comparable.

Recently, I took each to Babler Memorial State Park with the intention of comparing them on the brutal climbs there.  Grades around 20%, where pedal mashing at VO2 max is the name of the game.  I do not "spin" up those hills, I grind and slog up them as best I'm able.

In the end, I'd say the Trek is marginally more efficient.  It was also noticeably more stable on the high-speed (40mph is common) descents.  This is not to say the Gunnar is a slouch, we're talking very fine degrees of difference.  Some or all of which could easily be in my head.  Except the downhill stability, which was pretty obvious...but also could be attributed to wheel or fork characteristics and not just frame material.

So which is my favorite?  That's a tough call.  I prefer the Gunnar's quiet ride.  And the steel bike does feel "springier", and "more lively".  Traits that are hard to quantify or even describe, but there you are.  For all out speed the Trek holds the edge.  It also weighs a couple of pounds less, which makes a difference.  For longer or more leisurely rides I'd choose the Gunnar in a heartbeat.

In the end, though, I'm quite impressed with the modern steel alloy.  The steel frames of yesteryear were quite noodly and flexible beneath my enormous bulk, and I wasn't sure what to expect from the Gunnar.  It is astonishing how competitive it is with the aerospace marvel of carbon fiber.  The Gunnar craftsmanship is miles ahead of the Trek's mass-produced but advanced technology.  In the end it comes down to your style of riding.  If you're racing, carbon fiber hands down.  Everything else, modern steel.  Or if you're really lucky, one of each.

Post Cave Debrief

Saturday's ride was exactly what I was going for.  Figure-8's around Babler State Park.  Ride the ridge a while to warm up, then bomb down the center road and alternate veering left or right at the Y.  The shorter climb to the left was manageable for me.  The longer climb past the horse stables, that's the one that gets me.  Past the "Y" there's a short, steep climb, then a short downhill, then the long slog back up to the ridge-top.  I don't even remember half of the last time up that climb.  Heart rate was close to max'd out, legs were dead, and I was thinking I should probably stop or my heart would just quit.  Being an idiot, I just put my head down and thought about one pedal stroke at a time.  Next thing I remember I looked up and was 20 meters from the top.  Oxygen deprivation is a beautiful thing.

So beautiful, I think I'll go back on Tuesday.  "Base miles" be damned.

The Pain Cave

The Pain Cave is that place athletes go during particularly intense efforts.  For me, the surest way to gain entry to the Pain Cave is by riding laps around Babler State Park.

The Cave starts innocently enough.  "Hello, Brian, it's been awhile.  Come on in."  Clamber on the bike and start moving.  After about 20 minutes, an eerie stillness settles in.  That's the sign to start pushing it.  Before long, the only noise you can hear is the roar of your lungs and the pounding of your heart.  Your legs have transformed into searing, boiling lumps of lava.  Your body begs, then demands that you stop.  You fear your heart may just cease beating to end the misery.  When you ignore all that - scream at yourself "Shut up, we're doing this" - and keep going, only then are you admitted to the Pain Cave.

It is a strange place.  The agony is brutal and immediate; something you can feel, touch, examine every nuance.  Horrifying, yet soothing.  It consumes you: nothing exists except you and the pain, but at the same time it is remote, something outside of yourself.  Everything is burned away in the fire of suffering.

The only thing that makes the Cave bearable is that you know it will stop at some point.

Most days, you use the cave to get stronger.  Some days, you need the Pain Cave.  The burdens become too much to bear on your own.  You enter the Cave with stress, anger, frustration.  You leave it calm and rejuvenated.

Today, I need the Pain Cave.  I'm going there now.  See you on the other side.

Recent developments...

Well the winter doldrums have struck...been a while since my last update.  Since then I met a great girl, who then dumped me on my birthday.  With help from my best friend Christy I'm over it, don't worry.

My good friend Marty joined Facebook, which is great.  At first I was leery of Facebook, but it's become a valuable tool in keeping in touch with people, and reconnecting with long-lost friends.

Another friend TK got out of the eBay business, which means I will have to find another way to pawn off my unwanted cycling gear.  But he's moving on to better things, so it's all good.

This year will be a good year for cycling.  I've begun shedding the winter fat a month ahead of schedule, new workouts have increased my off-season speed considerably...and events at work and in life have provided excellent rage-fueled workouts.  Rage may be an exaggeration, but you know what I mean.  Anger, stress, frustration:  all these can be exorcised with some exercise.  I could well be faster on a bike this year than ever before.

Ride on.

Reshuffling

If you look closely, you'll see I've reordered my bike list.  The Jake the Snake still takes top honors, although I fear for its life.  Many miles on that aluminum frame.  The odometer reads ~13,000 - and it got reset at some point with new batteries.  May be time to retire the old boy.  Probably 90% of those miles were spent on epic rides on the Katy Trail.  For the past year or so, the Jake has been neglected.  Too many pedestrians have overrun the Katy Trail, and it just got too boring.

And the Top Secret bike has sadly plummeted to the bottom.  I don't know exactly why.  On paper, its geometry nearly matches the orange Trek.  It should fit.  But somehow I can never get comfortable on it.  I've swapped stems, changed saddles, moved the saddle around, everything.  I just never "settle in" to it.  It baffles me, but there it is.

Too Many Bikes

I have an addiction.  I buy too many bicycles, and then refuse to get rid of them.  Need proof?

This is the "master bedroom".  It's bad enough I rent a 2-bedroom apartment just to have room for bikes.  But then they go and take over the main bedroom!  I am relegated to the smaller room.  While it's true all of these bikes get out and about from time to time, there's simply no rational reason to have so many.  In just this photo there are three road bikes, a road frameset, a 'cross bike, a singlespeed, and a mountain bike.  Like I said, it's a problem.

I theorize that the problem stems from my lack of having had a bike as a kid.  My first bike was my dad's ten speed.  He's about 5'11, and obviously it took me a few years to grow tall enough to ride it.  The reasons for my lack of bikes is unknown.  My older brother had a bike.  I figure it was because I was growing so fast, my parents didn't want to buy anything that would be useless in a year or two.

So now I horde them.  C'est la vie.

In other news, here's a picture of my niece M from Christmas:

She is currently going through a "lean against the wall and make faces" phase.  It's quite cute, don't you think?  Compare that photo to one from last Christmas:

What a difference a year makes!

Product review, winter cycling

Fortunately it warmed up above freezing today, and I de-sanded myself and took the Gunnar out for a spin.  A leisurely jaunt around Creve Couer Park.  I'd abandoned CC Park last year, due to the masses of milling pedestrians.  Sadly, even in winter the problem remains.  Fewer people, but those that are there appear to enjoy standing in groups across the entire trail, and can't be bothered to move aside for anyone else.

Irritating people aside, my new Cannondale Slice balaclava performed well.  It was warm enough, really, to do without.  But hey, I had it and I was going to use it, right?  Anyhow it kept me warm.  My hair actually was a little damp after the ride, the balaclava did its job so well.  Recommended.

The separate glove and liners also did well.  At first I gave it a go without the liners, but my index fingers rapidly got chilled.  Whipped out the liners, and was good to go.  And removing/replacing my gloves for whatever reason was easy and convenient.  Unlike the nightmare scenario involved with my ancient Nashbar gloves, with liner attached to gloves at the wrist.  Getting the liner back into the appropriate fingers after it was even slightly damp was well-nigh impossible.  Happily those days are behind me now.

And why is it that cyclists generally check out each other's ride?  I notice it time and again.  Meet someone on the road/trail, and more often than not they are looking at my bike.  I admit my bikes are awesome, but still.  It's not about the bike, as a certain famous cyclist said.

All in all a great ride.  I look forward to another tomorrow, when it will allegedly be even warmer.

Not the Best Car for Snow

I was out getting some stuff, and came across a Nissan 350Z having some trouble.  He was trying to escape a parking lot with about 1" of snowy slush on the ground, spinning his tires frantically.  What is odd is the other 2 exits from the lot were completely clear, but he seemed intent.

This is clearly not the actual car, I thought it might be rude to stop and take a picture.  Rear-wheel drive, nice wide tires, and overall an excellent car.  Not for the snow, though.  Apparently not even a little snow.

The Super Wagon with its fresh all-season tires and all-wheel-drive barely even noticed the snow - it shines in the snow - but the 350Z fella' was having all kinds of trouble.

(not my wagon, either, but similar)

Reminds me of my old Toyota MR2 Turbo.  Fantastic car 350 days of the year, but with even a hint of snow it was rendered useless.  The 350Z was gone when I came back by, so he either successfully navigated out, or gave up and used one of the clear exits.  I would imagine a Corvette Z06 would be similarly useless in that situation.  Just sayin'.

Here are some gratuitous photos of other Super Wagons:

 

The Homeland

I was born in Hawaii.  I miss it.  My Dad was in the Navy, you see.  Worked on the shore gun computers, back when computers were rooms full of vacuum tubes and were programmed with yellow punch cards.  We left when I was young, long ago now, but I miss it.  I've been back a few times, and it is truly an amazing place.  I get that "home" feeling when I step out of the airport and catch the flowery scent.  With my job situation in flux, I contemplate the possibility of moving back there.  Probably not Honolulu; it's expensive.  But I wonder if the cost of living in some other town, or on one of the other islands, would be more reasonable.  Of course I'd have to find work.  I wonder how many robots need tending on an island paradise?

Hawaii is, on the other hand, kind of strange.  There you are on tiny bits of land in the middle of a gigantic ocean.  Anywhere you go, there's the ocean.  It can be a little humbling, the size of that ocean.  Makes you feel small.

I miss it.  I don't know if it's just me, or a shared trait of humans in general, but the sound of the waves just feels right, down in my bones.  Sounds like home.  It's time to go back, if only for a little while.

New footwear, and apathy.

As it happens I got the new tires on the Super Wagon just in time for the big "winter storm".  A whopping, what, 3 inches of snow?  In typical bizarre snow-removal fashion, the smaller streets were fine, but the bigger streets -- Olive, Chesterfield Parkway, service roads - were all but untouched.  Fortunately the Super Wagon merely howled its turbo and drove along with aplomb.  A few four-wheel drifts around corners, but nothing a little all-wheel-drive throttle couldn't keep under control.  That's the awesome thing about all-wheel-drive...if you start to slide sideways, you just feed it more gas and it goes where you want.  Good times.  If it weren't for all the other drivers - many of whom are sadly clueless - I would drive all over in the snow for the sheer psuedo-rally-driving joy of it.  Happily the new tires are miles ahead of the stock tires in all respects.  Dry traction: yes.  Wet traction: yes.  Snow traction: yes.  And they're quieter to boot.  An interesting aspect of stickier tires is how much more effort it takes to trip the ABS...the car can stop HARD now.  Before, I thought the ABS was overly-sensitive...but no, it was just the crappy stock tires losing grip at the drop of a hat.

In other news, apathy for work is rampant.  It's getting harder and harder to drag myself into work, knowing that myself and 3/4 of the people around me will be out of jobs in a month or two.  Today was a great example of "colleague non-engagement" as the managers would put it, as a full 1/2 of the site decided to use the dusting of snow as an excuse to stay home.  I went in for a solid four hours, and felt pretty good about it.

In other other news, my post-employment plans seem to be coming together nicely.  I've been batting around the idea of freelance consulting with a friend of mine for the past year or so.  He co-owns an established custom laboratory robotics company out of Earth City, and we've known each other for years.  Worked together at my first post-college job...which is forever and a day ago.  He seems pretty keen on letting me freelance under his corporate umbrella.  I don't know if there will be enough work in the area, but there's only one way to find out.  Hopefully between St. Louis, Columbia, Jeff City, KC, and Chicago I ought to be able to pay the bills.  Maybe Nashville, though I'm not fond of that drive.  If only Monsanto would buy a pile of Tecans for me to program...

Scinomix, by the way, is packed full of geniuses.  If you need a robot that doesn't exist, they can build it for you in no time at all and for a reasonable price.