Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 10

{moszoomimglink:Mozart}Not a great many stories start with the sentence: “So, I was at the Border’s store to get on fast Internet, when I wandered off to the classical CD section.” Admittedly, sounds like a nerd crossed with a geek meeting a dork. What can I say? Is growing up in Europe an excuse? In any case, I was perusing (that’s a nerd term for you!) the CDs when I noticed the “4 for 3” special in the store. Continue reading

Progress in the house

Well, get this: during lunch hour, when nobody at work wants to communicate with me anyway (they had sushi, I heard) I got to complete two of the two critical tasks from the other post, and start on the fourth one! In particular, I fixed the sheeted windows, adding two panes where they had broken (it’s SOOO quiet in the main room now, it’s almost scary!) and removing a sheet where it had torn, but no sheet was needed (in the upstairs room). Continue reading

Instructors

I am used to that from the old days when I taught classes after college – sporting instructors are terribly high-maintenance, and spinning instructors are no exception. So, to the drama of bikes that are constantly breaking in really bad ways at the Gold’s Gym on Brannan, we have a collective of instructors that constantly bad-mouth each other when out of earshot. I got an inkling of that last year, when JP, one of the instructors, decided I should take over one of his classes because he had to go on a long trip and couldn’t find enough subs. Continue reading

From the main room, while the rain is pounding

Here I am, in the middle of the night, woken up already but set to go for another day of fun in Ninole. The Internet connection works well, and there is nothing to do for the next five hours, until the sun starts peeking through the clouds. You find me well here in Ninole. I haven’t accomplished nearly enough, as usual, and I still have to go to the County to talk with them about my permit. Continue reading

ALC Training Ride

{moszoomimglink:Sausalito}My friends Stephen and James decided they would go to the AIDS LifeCycle ride this year again, and are getting all their friends to help out, or join. After a little bit of prodding, and after a very positive weather forecast, I finally agreed to join them for their Sunday training ride. I thought it was just going to be a bunch of guys from spinning class, but it turned out to be a major training ride for the whole San Francisco contingent of ALC. Continue reading

Trying out StepMania

I remember the first time I saw a bunch of kids hanging around a Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) arcade game. It was at the Metreon in San Francisco, and I was just waiting for the movie to start. There I am, watching twelve-year-olds jumping like maniacs, realizing that was a variation of dance that combined arcade game qualities with physical exercise. It sounded like a dream combination: you appeal to the kids’ competitive nature to make them work out more. Continue reading

Running iPodLinux

Call me crazy, call me a fool, just don’t call me late for dinner! I just bought a 30GB iPod Video 5.5G for the sole purpose of running iPodLinux and RockBox on it. I am sick of my iPod (Nano), and I am more than interested in creating something that is more user-friendly than the thing I am using. iPodLinux is a fairly new project, and it hasn’t been successful in porting a lot of stuff. Continue reading

Using built-in content?

Looking at the note table, I realized it looks A LOT like the standard Joomla content table. Should I have used that one as a content store? After all, the content offers two locations for the message (intro and fulltext) and all the other goodies (except for last access time). In the end, I decided against it. Creating a new table is cheap, and putting stuff in content means I have to version PSC at the same time as Joomla versions its content store. Continue reading

Dropped?

I had parked the bike at a motorcycle parking spot to go to the barber. James buzzed my hair shorter than usual, making me look about 15 years younger (I was actually carded for the first time in many years!). I get back to the bike, and the bag is flying up straight. I circle the bike trying to find out what happened, and a guy comes out of the store behind it. Continue reading

Picture of Marco Snowboarding

{moszoomimglink:Snowball fight in Heavenly 2}Nice picture of me, don’t you think? This one was shot on Heavenly, the first time I decided to go without a helmet, on a bright sunny and warm day. We had a ton of fun, despite being terribly skill-mismatched. This one was shot while I was throwing snowballs at George, the most terrific person you could imagine working with. We were racing down the mountain and suddenly realized we had lost Lina, and sat down waiting. Continue reading