June, 2008

Uncategorized — No Comments
29
Jun 08

Aw yeah, that golden rule

One of the things about me is that I’m prone to the “fire, ready, aim” approach to a lot of things. And over the years, I’ve learned the valuable lesson that if the thought of something makes me giggle for more than 10 seconds, I probably shouldn’t do it because it’s probably illegal, immoral or would result in a beating.

This weekend’s giggle litmus test: I thought it’d be hilarious to send a stripper to a friend’s kid’s bar mitzvah. Granted, this would put me in the Asshole Hall of Fame, but it’d be funny. But then again, I also think it’d be funny to send a stripper to a wedding shower.

On another note, I had a “leisurely” 55 mile bike ride today. I wish my new handlebar and stem would arrive because I felt kind of sore – but not as bad as it was before the fitting.

nick=dork — 1 Comment
26
Jun 08

Hurray for nerd books!

Book 1 of 19 is arriving tomorrow. I know what I’m doing this weekend at Oak Street Beach – the sun and a book about 3000+ year old dead people.

Rwanda / Uganda / travel — No Comments
23
Jun 08

Gorillas in the Midst

I’ve got two weeks of vacation mentally roped off in late January of 2009, and like any good lad with ADHD would do, I start mentally building future vacations. It’s actually pretty fun. Pick a spot, look up what there is to do there, and start building out itineraries and budgets.

Two weeks would give me some time in East Africa again, go back to Kenya, eat at Carnivore again, go see some Leakey digs and then head over to the lovely tourist hotspots of Rwanda and Uganda to go see gorillas in the wild.

The cost of the safaris themselves don’t seem that bad. When Scott and I did our Africa thing in 2005, we paid ~$200 a day for everything. Probably half of what we paid was park entry fees.

That is, until I saw the other costs.

Since seeing gorillas in the wild is capacity controlled (it’d have to be), they have to make the price crazy to weed out the riff raff guys like myself. Each day in both Rwanda and Uganda is $500 per person. Crap! I was looking at $3k additional on top of the week tour!

So much for that bright idea and trying to be the YouTube generation’s David Attenborough. Surfing and sailing sounds much better.

WTF — 1 Comment
22
Jun 08

Somewhere, Rabbis are weeping…

Please shoot me if I ever have a cake made for me like this.

Uncategorized — 1 Comment
18
Jun 08

I can’t think of a good blog post title.

Well, I’ve been a busy guy the last few weeks. Sorry about that – I know, I’m setting a bad example if I’m portraying myself as a slacker. I’ve been sleeping a lot – not well, but all I’ve been wanting to stay in bed. I’m cold all the time.

The next trip is set in stone – I’m off to Hong Kong at the end of October. I figure a few days gambling in Macau, jumping off of tall things, some surfing in Tai Long Wan, and trying to get into the Foreign Correspondent’s Club will do me some good. Oooh, and shopping.

I’ve also started travel blogging for realz. We’ll see how it pans out. I have no plans for getting rich, but it’d be kinda cool to be considered a tech expert.

That’s it. Sorry it’s so boring.

cycling — 1 Comment
2
Jun 08

Bike fittings

I had my bike fitted over the weekend, which is something I’ve been postponing forever. Since I’ve got an odd body shape, I need a bike that actually fits so it doesn’t look like there’s an oddly shaped fat guy running over children on the lakefront. It’s not that I try to hit the children – they just jump in my way. The squirrels have the good sense to back off.

I had the cleats and seat adjusted and the stem flipped upwards while I’ve got wider handlebars and a shorter stem on order. But I did feel a difference. I wasn’t slouched over as much and rode more efficiently. It was well worth the money, and it’s definitely well worth the case of beer to deliver to my bike mechanics at Kozy.

Today’s ride was also an experiment – ride with two GPS devices. I picked up the Garmin Forerunner 405 over the weekend and ran it along with the Edge 305 to record the ride. It’s not like I expected different results – I was interested in the output and how Garmin’s going from MotionBased to Garmin Connect – the next iteration of their online performance measurement/management tool. I did find out that Garmin Connect doesn’t measure actual versus moving time in speed calculations. It’s hard to find out if you’re going faster if you have to manually factor in the stop in various spots. That sucks, and needs to be fixed. The Forerunner 405 is a nice watch, but it’s mainly for running (me run? HA!) and for cycling, it’s got a shit looking attachment to the bike. However, once the bike is pimped out, I will geek it out and make sure that Tim’s dorkcycle is surpassed.

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