Toby's Log page 107

Fully entering the cell phone world

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I had stayed out of the cell phone world for quite some time. I don’t use the phone much, and cell phones cost a lot. A few years back I got a pay-as-you-go type phone, but it was quite expensive to actually call from: I rarely used it, and gave up on it when I accidently missed a payment date and lost all my minutes. Last Christmas, my Mom gave me another pay-as-you-go, with a bunch of minutes. I decided I’d try actually using this one. The first batch of minutes were all free for me, but even with a lot of them, I was able to go through them pretty quickly. When I ran out, it came time to make a choice.

Cousin Paul told me he could get me on his family plan at Alltel for $10 a month. I compared that with Tracfone’s prices. Tracfone would have had a slightly lower minimum price once I paid for their double minutes for life thing, but that wouldn’t be for a lot of minutes. I decided that, if I wanted to actually use it, I should just go with the Alltel. The contract worried me a bit, especially when I found out it was for the crappily ridiculously long two years, but I figured I’d live with that.

I bought a relatively cheap phone from Alltel, new. It’ll have cost me $60 if I get the rebate back with activation and all. It was a flip phone. It had a screen on the outside and mp3 buttons. It could play mp3s and movies. It had a camera. It could browse the web, though I had no interest in that bit because of cost. It worked pretty well, and I was relatively happy with it, except for some UI problems. I had it for about two weeks, then lost it during a trip to Seattle.

Buying a new phone with a contract already in place was ridiculously expensive. The one I had before suddenly became $250. The cheapest at that store was $150, and it was pretty crappy. Elsewhere, I could find down to about $100. So I decided I’d have to go used. I soon found online was the only reasonable place to find used.

In deciding what to buy, I found used phones still weren’t that cheap, though much more so than the new ones. For some reason, I thought perhaps I should just buy a combination PDA and cell phone. I had always wanted a PDA. I’m also very interested in touch-screen stuff. I figured one of the older models would be going for pretty cheap. I found that there weren’t that many models from far in the past, so I had relatively few choices. The newer ones were certainly quite expensive, no iphone or the like for sure (especially since none seemed to be made for Alltel). I always liked the Palm OS, wanted handwriting recognition for sure.

I found the Palm Treo 650 had all the features newer phones had, was available for Alltel, and wasn’t all that expensive. There was one locally on Craigslist, but it was from long enough ago that I didn’t even try for it. I returned, after many years, to eBay. I watched carefully, checked out all the ones available, picked the few I was willing to go for. I bid on several, sometimes going a little above what I wanted to pay and still didn’t get one. I almost gave up and went for the buy it now option. But I managed to win one. It ran $110 with shipping. Not too bad for a “smartphone”.

It shipped extremely fast, got here in a few days with standard shipping. I was quite happy to get my new toy, and played with it quite a bit for the following two days. I was extremely disappointed that Graffiti did not work with it. Stupid that a Palm PDA wouldn’t have that. I was extremely relieved when I found third party freeware to enable it. I also found that there was no way to directly sync Apple’s Address Book and iCal with it, outside of buying a utility just for that purpose. Palm’s Desktop software was rather outdated (hasn’t been updated in 2+ years) but it installed fine. It took a little while to get working, but once I did, it works just fine. The utility does use a bit of constant CPU power, so I turn it off sometimes. It has a calendar and address book app, so I should be able to at least import into those and copy that version to the Palm.

It took me a while to find good apps for it. Palm’s site had a software bank, but much of that stuff cost money. VersionTracker, though, has a good depository, and I found an even better one at softonic. I found some good freeware apps. They were remarkably easy to install. Just a double click in the finder set up a transfer for the next sync. I installed the Graffiti enabling app, a better alarm clock (the default one only had one alarm and wasn’t that good), and a few games. It’s sweet that there is a gameboy emulator for it. I’m still having trouble getting it working well, and haven’t figured out how to get my games over to it, but this could mean I can have phone, PDA type device, mp3 player, crappy camera, and gameboy all in one device.

Hopefully I won’t lose this one. I figured its larger size would help with that. I have full plans to get a silicone type skin with a belt clip for it. That should help a lot, and make it easier to carry as well.

So I called to get it activated. I had to have Paul authorize me to do so. Then, after attempting to activate it the way the guy told me to, it hung up to me and said activation failed. I then told the guy it was a Palm Treo. He said I needed to update my plan to their Smart Choice plan. They started at $69.99. I would obviously need to okay this with Paul anyway, since it’s actually his plan, so I said I’d hold off. Looking on the website, it looked like the Smart Choice plan would be $30 a month more for the main line plus $10 more for each other person. I have no idea why the other people would have to pay more. Since I’d be paying this increase, that’d take my $10 up to $60 a month, almost enough to pay for my own plan.

I was rather distraught with this and mad that Alltel would make me change plans when all I wanted was to use my device as a phone. After I calmed down, I figured that I’d call to verify the cost difference. If it was only like $30, I would probably go for it. It did, after all, have free unlimited data. If it was any more than that, though, that’d quickly overrun the cost of just buying a used regular phone. So I’d have to get another phone, and probably be able to sell this one for what I got it for, maybe even a little more. I finally called back Alltel, and got a different guy this time. I said I heard I needed to upgrade to the Smart Choice plan for my ‘smartphone’. He asked if I had bought it with a contract or used. When I said used, he said I didn’t need the smart choice for it. I was excited, though a little worried that it might not actually work, especially since dialing the setup number hadn’t last time. It took him a while (I guess he was trying to figure out a way for me to use minutes for data). He had my dial a different setup number. After two test calls, we verified: It had worked! After ending the call, I made sure by calling my own house. It worked. I was elated, elated enough to write out this ridiculously long post.

So now I have phone service again, plus a little electronic toy that I can carry around with me. I’ll have to verify that it is good over several days here, but I think it should be fine. I better not lose it though.

versatile home: an ideal

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The versatile home is a type of home which can be changed easily to fit any needs of the user. Ideally,

  • Quick and easy: anything can be changed quickly and easily enough that it can be changed for testing purposes, and changed back if need be.
  • Non-destructive: should require no materials to be wasted in the process.

Layout

Layout of anything and everything ideally would be able to be changed.

  • Rooms: the walls in the house should be easily movable and removable to create any floorplan. Any given room should be expandable or shrinkable depending on the needs for it and adjacent rooms.
  • Utilities: any sort of appliance should be placable anywhere in the house, regardless of utility needs. Electricity would be the easiest to deal with, and should be easily accessible anywhere on the floor, walls, ceiling, or outside walls. Phone and the like wouldn’t be hard either. Water and gas would pose quite a challenge, especially with water requiring sewer connections as well. But ideally you could put a toilet, shower, heater, whatever anywhere in the house, even move them around in a room, without much more consideration than moving a table.
  • Outside walls: these go along with the layout, but pose far greater challenges than interior layout. Any expansion or subtraction of total area of the house would require addition or subtraction of both floor and ceiling in addition to the walls. Also, utility hookups would need to be expanded or subtracted, as would heating ducts or pipes. This type of modification would probably be left as the hardest to do. Still, changing needs deem it important for a versatile house, so it must be left with the capabilities of doing so, preferably non-destructively as well.

Modules

It would probably be easiest if every part of the house could be created and then installed and removed as easily connecting modules. Utilities would connect from one module to the next. Structural modules (structure of walls and ceilings, subfloor) would be seperate from the visible facings (wall and ceiling painting, carpet or wood on floor) of them, allowing easy change in appearance of area or the ability to change the size and shape of a room without having mismatched visible facings.

It would be good if companies produced these modules, standardized. The companies would deliver or take them back as the users added or removed them. This would eliminate much wasted materials, make the system more cost effective, and also make it much easier for the user.

With company produced modules, there would have to be industry standards so that no user would be stuck buying modules from any given company, especially with the possibility of companies going out of business. With changing technology, new versions of the modules would need to be created. This should happen at a relatively slow pace, and the new versions should be relatively backwards compatible with old versions. All modules should be designed for relatively easy upgrades to possible future versions.

Need

The need for versatile housing is evident in the variety of ways and things people use houses for, the changing needs of a user, and the need to be able to accommodate multiple users over the lifespan of the house.

The operating systems of the user should not be dictated by the layout and setup of the house: Rather, the operations should be set up to be as efficient or comfortable (or whatever other criteria you want) as possible, then the layout and setup should be modified to best fit these needs. If a layout doesn’t fit these needs as good as it was thought, it should be modifiable to better accommodate.

Vacation to Seattle

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I recently got back from my visit to Washington State. It was a pretty good trip, with lots of mountains, trees, and water, as well as sitting in a car. I managed to take 1050 photos there, and to lose my brand new cell phone, purchased just before the trip. And I got to see brother Jamie for the first time since perhaps March when he left for Seattle. I had to skip my classes for the week, but it was at a not so important time in them.

Saturday
My mom and I both flew up, separately, on the Saturday before last. I felt very cramped on the flight, but luckily the seat next to me was empty, giving me extra space. I had a small dinner of a microwave type fried chicken sandwich with tiny salad and M & Ms. I read my psychology book (for class) for a while, and somewhat watched without sound one and part of another movie. I think I dozed off briefly. I also watched out the window quite a bit. It was dark out for much of the flight, but seeing the small splotches of lights on the ground here and there was interesting. The clouds near Seattle were quite lit up, which was quite a site.

Mom flew up well before me and had to get to the condo we were staying at before I arrived, so I had to stay in Seattle for the night. I stayed at Jamie’s house (it took some time before the trip to convince him this was the way to go). It took some time to meet up with him, hauling all my stuff on the bus and then around the city looking for him. My new cell phone helped greatly with our meeting. We took the bus down to his house. It’s a small trailer, a large towable camping kind retrofitted to sort of have the normal fittings of a house, but somewhat crappily. I was skeptical when he said it would be hard to sleep more than two people there, but he was right. We ate pizza and I was introduced to the TV show the Office.

Sunday
I slept poorly and for a short period of time before hauling my gear back to the bus. Jamie had to stay and work the next two days, so it was just me leaving. I asked the bus driver how to get to the Amtrak station, and luckily it was the last stop on that line. Unfortunately, when I got off, there was no clear indication where it was. It took me some time of walking around, but I found it in a small, nearly not labeled building a little ways away. My mom called me as I was looking for it: she thought the train left an hour before it actually did, and that I should already be on it. She called just as a bum looking guy was approaching me, and he said something like have a good trip and walked away after I had been talking for a little while. I had to take the train to get nearer to the condo, a two and a half hour drive away. The train ride was quite comfortable, much more spacious than the plane, and there were not so many people in it. We picked up more at other stops, but I still was able to keep my whole two seats to myself. I slept for a while. I also watched the scenery. A man near me hadn’t payed for a ticket, and then was caught smoking in the bathroom, much to the consternation of the train workers. At our destination, he was seen sitting with a guard, apparently awaiting the arrival of the police, who showed up just as I left.My mom was there in Bellingham waiting for me. She had gotten lost on the way and had to buy a $5 map just to find the place. She brought her GPS unit, named Yoda, but he was of no help. She had rented an SUV, and we left in that.

We went back to the condo, about a half hour away, near the small and isolated town of Glacier. It was in the mountains, primarily a ski area. The area is remote enough that not only did our cell phones not work, our GPS units didn’t either. The satellite radio in the car cut in and out, though it did this even in places nearer Seattle. We spent the day staying in the area, going around the mountains. Many of the roads going up the mountains were one lane, and after a while they often turned into rough dirt/stone roads. We had to turn around the first one we went up because it was washed out at one point. It was quite hard turning the car around in the narrow one lane road. It was very cloudy, the clouds engulfing the mountain tops. We were quick to get above the level of some of the clouds. Much of these mountains were covered by trees, mostly conifers. But at the tops of some of them was snow and rock. This was my first good view of some snow capped peaks: I had been up top of one in New Mexico, but it had been at night, and I had seen some from planes before as well. There weren’t a lot of them, just a at most a few visible at a time. Later that day, when we drove up near the skiing area, we came to a small lake that had a nice reflection of some mountain tops. It’s called Picture Lake or something like that, and is supposedly the most photographed of that sort of lake. There were little birds near us that flew quite close. We also saw a decently sized waterfalls, evidently where many people had died.

Unfortunately, it got dark before 1700, so we didn’t have much time to see things. It and the clouds also made for slow shutter speeds on many the photos throughout my trip.

We ate dinner at a local restaurant called Graham’s, somewhat famous for having been in an early movie. It was a somewhat interesting place. The menu was part of a newspaper that told the history of the restaurant and some other informational tidbits. It had a small variety of somewhat strange items. I went with a stir-fry like dish which my mom had the night before and recommended. It was pretty good.

We called my dad, as we did every night. We lost cell phone service near a strange tree with blue christmas lights in the middle of nowhere at the side of the road on the way to the condo, so we usually tried to call before that. There was a phone at the condo area, a regular phone put in a payphone like terminal for the whole condo to use. We had to use a long distance card with it the couple of times we called from there.

Synopsis of rest of trip, perhaps to be filled in later
Monday
Long drive to shore. Saw Deception Pass, a passage of a river through a narrow gorge, with turbulence that turns over kayaks. Saw a few beach areas, view over bay.

TuesdayDrove to Seattle to pick up Jamie. Took ferry to Orcas Island. Drove up tallest mountain on the islands there. Nice view around, across bay. Could see many big snow capped mountains off in distance. Tried to get into rec room at condo for quite some time, but must have closed early.

Wednesday
Showed Jamie mountain area, mostly what we had seen already, but a bit more. Went up Twin Lakes road. Made it over several rough washed out spots of road, but had to turn around at one very bad one. Got somewhat good views, but was cloudy and of and on raining, preventing good mountain-top views. Jamie and I played ping-pong and swam in pool.

Thursday
Were going into town, so I brought my cell phone. Set it in car next to me, was last I saw of it. Went through Canada to a small bit of the US on a peninsula off of Canada. Got stopped at first crossing, didn’t hear what guy said, so waited in car for a long while before I went into the nearby building, at which point I was told that we were supposed to have come in. The cop guy there seemed to have a strange air of importance, and told me to keep my distance when I got close to him to point out our vehicle. Soon after we were let leave. Other three crossings much less eventful. All had long waits, especially last one, with long lines of cars. Bought no MSG ramen soup at gas station that Jamie ended up getting. Rocky beach on peninsula with lots of seaweed, giant driftwood, plenty of birds on water, decent view over bay of some islands. Not very worth trip through border crossings though.

Friday
Power went out, so woke up 45 minutes late on big driving day. Checked out of condo, drove down past Deception Point towards Olympic Peninsula. Saw sea lions or something in water as drove past, but construction plus missed exit prevented our stopping. Took ferry (much shorter ride) to Olympic peninsula. Walked short way onto 6 mile long sand dune thing with light house on its end. Saw seaweed, giant driftwood. Drove up mountain road to dam, small and uneventful, turned around. Went toward another mountain road, road closed, had to turn around. Dark, had to head to Seattle. Long lines with huge number of cars took ferry to Seattle. Dropped Jamie at home, went to hotel. Briefly used free internet, slept well in bed.

Saturday
Dropped my luggage at Jamie’s. Had pancake breakfast with Jamie. Mom left for early flight, dropping Jamie and I at REI store. Spent much time there looking at ultralight rain garb and the many, many other camping items. Very nice place. Bought small duffel I later used in place of another, slightly smaller and less handled bag, for the flight. Also some camping soap and a durable reflective blanket. Walked around town. Tower had too long lines, though view would have been nice, passed on it. Took space train further downtown, saw Pikes Market. Top floor had food with lots of fresh fish, fruit, also crafts. Narrow lane very very crowded, difficult to walk. Maybe four other floors with antique and other type shops in old-time mall-like setting. Played instruments for a while at Lark in the Morning store. Walked for a good while till found Teriyaki restaurant, ate large meal that I couldn’t finish. Walked good deal more looking for wooden boat place, couldn’t find it. Dark. Went to coffee shop to use internet to find best bus schedule for me to catch my flight. Also looked for shop with used camping gear, but was too late to visit it. Went back to Jamie’s home for a while via bus. Didn’t get to do much other than repack my gear better before I had to leave for my bus. Bus was rather late. Gear easier to carry with better packing, still rather difficult, especially first one which ended up fairly crowded. Second one, guy saw my transfer slip was old, had to pay but couldn’t find money with all my stuff, had to pay on exit.

Plenty of time waiting in airport for flight, read psychology book. Flight boarded slightly late. Rather empty, after women moved, had my row of three seats to myself. Looked out window at darkness a bit. Soon lay down across three seats, fell asleep. Slept till descent approaching Cleveland airport. Woke with sharp pain in ears, like they really needed to have popped many times over the flight, but couldn’t because I was asleep. Every once in a while the right would make strange, loud noises. Ears didn’t pop till after got home and slept. Arrived early. Dad picked up, drove me straight home. Stay awake for a bit unpacking and looking for cell phone. Fell asleep and slept till 1500 or so when parents called. Invited me over for dinner of chili. Looked completely through Mom’s luggage, still couldn’t find phone.

Workshop Paradigm

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apps + files organized by job/workshop

example: music making workshop has music creation apps + users personal (and other’s shared?) music files

different users have same apps (tools) but their own files (works)

different jobs/workshops may use same tools ie music making and music listening workshop may both need some listening tools

Leopard:Mac OS X.5 first impressions

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***finder:
yay, finally can save default view settings, including column width and sort column, to be applied to all folders. this is huge for me
quickview thing awesome. been wanting something like that for a long time.
-plays movies and sounds
–movies pop up fairly small, must press full screen button to see big
-text documents readable, probably much better for just reading them than using textedit
-excel spreadsheets even viewable, though formatting severely messed up at times, sometimes unreadable, very slow to open
-ichat logs even viewable
-easy, just hit space to open, space to close again.
-can navigate to other images in same folder with arrow keys
-can put in full screen via button, no apparent keyboard method. in full screen, hit unintuitive tab or shift tab to move to next or previous items in same folder. arrow keys do nothing, why not use them just as they were used in regular quicklook
slideshows seem to have disappeared completely. can view images, one at a time only, in full screen
icon set nicer, easier on eyes
coverflow somewhat interesting for image folders, though probably won’t use it.
-makes windows bigger if smaller than certain minimum size
-movies get first frame view, sounds get nothing special
sidebar thing too wide, can’t go by just icons anymore.
-search thing seems interesting, but doesn’t provide very useful results, as they don’t appear in a normal find type dialog where you can refine the results or group items. crashed the finder once
feels a bit more solid and streamlined
trash – finally one can view items in the trash. they cannot be opened, but previewed by icon or in quickview
can turn off warning when changing file extension, a very annoying thing unalterable in previous versions
-also, finder highlights all of name but extension (except via second click) when editing name
***spotlight
must reindex upon install, index manages to miss some things such as iphotos
new search results windows finally part of an application, the finder, so they no longer get lost
new search results window not nearly as nice, no arrangements by kind whatsoever, results all bungled together in one of standard finder views (except columns). no simple buttons for limiting search either.
-image results not nearly as nice, must type “kind:image” after query to limit to images, then use standard finder view
***System
guest user accounts, been wanting that for a long time too. just concerned about it deleting the guest account every time, may limit its usefulness: if let people login as guest to create a project, they’ll need to put it somewhere special so it won’t get deleted, as I understand it.
can finally work with groups without downloading server utilities. is in accounts pane. seems quite easy to create a group and assign users (from GUI users only) to them
all preference panes more streamlined, often fitting on one screen now. except that a lot of the functionality for some things, like network settings, must be accessed in a seperate “advanced” screen
***Network
not sure about new placement of firewall settings, hopefully the appropriate firewall activates when related port opened in Networks
***Textedit
autosave feature nice, but defaults to every 30 seconds. Items on desktop then refresh their icon every 30 seconds.
search highlighting is nifty, caches eye quite well. should highlight all occurrences and keep highlight on for a while so you can see them while perusing document
***spotlight
must reindex everything
***install
takes forever, much longer than it should. the dvd media verification really took forever in itself, though I figured I should run it through for the first go. xcode install takes quite forever itself, not done through normal installer.
preserved many, though not all, of my preferences that have corresponding preferences in the new system
***Safari
so slow. pages take noticably longer to load. app itself slow. has improved greatly after several uses
some pages functionality broken. my online banking doesn’t work
bookmarks menu – submenu items pop into awful places, sometimes covering up the items below the parent so you can’t continue to the rest of menu, can’t access items it covers without closing entire menu and starting over
return doesn’t allow editing of bookmark names as it does items in finder, elsewhere
find much nicer, inline bar at top doesn’t open popup, highlights items brightly, highlights all occurrences, should highlight all brightly (only does one at a time)
javascript seems much faster, at least to select all comments for deletion in wordpress

***iCal
noticeable problem, info pane seems to have been removed. get info by double clicking which brings up small popup near item. not as readable.
-not nearly as quick for people like me who leave the info pane open.I have virtually no reason to click on an item unless I want info on it.
-opens in view mode first, must click edit button to edit or Command E
-is somewhat more concise though, leaving out extra info for items without it
must now hit return to edit name instead of double clicking. more consistent with finder behavior, but slower
***Terminal
ls: colors no longer automatically provided with color output
>console: still works, font seems weirder, perhaps harder to read
-often has some error messages near top when first entering
-still no multiple screens
less: new less much slower, does weirrd scrolling thing
***etc
quicksilver dock icon appears now
drop shadow seems more significant, makes things look further behind current window
computer runs hotter it seems
computer runs noticably slower overall.
inconsistencies continue in command keys used in different applications, often unintuitive and arbitrary. Command L in AddressBook and Command E in iCal edit entries.

Doors on car

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I don’t know why I didn’t write this before. Perhaps I’ve just lost interest in this site because of the lack of people viewing it. Anyway, I have finally gotten new doors on my car. I came home from my trip to New York late July to find my Uncle Al had replaced the doors for me. $130 and he did the hard part for me. I am very happy with the results, and thank him for the surprise. I owe him one.

For those of you who hadn’t seen my car before, both front doors were in awful shape. The mirrors were missing on both sides, making backing up and lane changing more of a pain. The cops didn’t like the lack either, and they contributed to my getting pulled over at least thrice. The passenger side door wouldn’t open at all (in fact, Uncle Al had to cut it to get it off). The drivers side door wouldn’t close as it was supposed to. I had to tie it closed to the column to prevent it from swinging open, thus making both it and the door behind it for all intents and purposes unopenable as well. So I had to climb through the passenger side rear door. It was quite a pain, especially when driving other people. And finally, both doors were very rusted out at the bottom, and the metal was bending upwards, looking rather unsightly.

I am very happy that I can back up my car and view behind me much more easily now. Not having to climb into the car is a lot easier as well. A lot. I’m much less reluctant to drive others places now as well.

I had said of this summer that I’d get new doors or a new car. I’m glad the cheaper option worked out. I hope this car can last till I can find a diesel or electric car to replace it.

back to school

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Well, this semester I started taking some classes again. I’m just taking three at Tri-C. I’m obviously doing nothing with my Hospitality Management degree, and have kinda lost interest in that, at least for now. So I’m considering getting some sort of web development / design degree.

Web design is loaded with freelancers, so I could potentially work without being tied down to a job, or make some extra money on the side. I could move around at will without worrying so much whether I could get a job where I’m going, though restaurants are pretty much everywhere as well. I could even potentially live on a sailboat, sail around, and do some freelance jobs whenever I need to at the nearest port.

I know many people learn web design on their own, but I need something to pull me into the industry. I’m hoping that Tri-C will have some sort of job placement program to help me find a job. I could work there a while to get experience that would help get me freelance work later. I’m also not capable enough in my web development / design after all the time I have spent on it myself. I think the classes will help fill in some gaps.

So anyway, I’m taking one web related class and two in other areas in which I have interest. The one is a Database Applications, which uses Access. I have learned a good bit about how to do stuff in Access. Hopefully I’ll be able to apply that to MySQL and PHP. The other two are an intro to psychology and songwriting. I’ve always been very interested in psychology and have read a lot on the subject, I’ve just never taken any classes on it. The class is filling in some basic stuff that helps me understand some of the stuff I’ve been reading. The songwriting: I’ve always been interested in music. I’ve been messing around on the piano for a while now, writing out short bits that sound cool, but they are nowhere near being songs. I’d like to be able to turn them into something more usable.

So hopefully the semester will go alright. So far it’s been going well, and I’ve gotten decent or good grades on everything so far. I’m trying to concentrate more on the material than the grades now: I can only remember bits and pieces from my previous education. I have to miss one week of classes to visit my brother in Seattle.

And I still have to talk to a counseler or someone to help me determine if I want to continue on.

Recumbent riding

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I got an understeering short wheel based recumbent, a Jet-Stream two from Actionbent. I had a lot of difficulty even starting on the thing at first. I found it difficult to balance in that position and push forward on those high pedals. But I’ve since gotten better. I’ve found it requires a good push to get up to speed quickly. I’m still not good enough at it that I feel comfortable doing it regularly, especially on rough terrain, tight areas, and among other vehicles.

I had a lot of trouble steering the thing as well. My cousin Paul rode it for a bit one night, and pointed out that it has very noticable counter steering. On the upright bicycle, I’m quite used to the movements needed to make this work, so I don’t even notice it. The recumbent has me positioned very differently relative to the wheels, so it’s much different. On the upright I can easily lean to affect the steering. I’ve found that if I lean my back forward off the seat so I can tilt it, turning is much easier and I can take some quite tight turns. I couldn’t even do a U-turn in a two lane road at first, but I might be able to do it in one lane now.

I still have trouble staying straight on this bike. The handlebars don’t seem to be as easy to hold straight as on an upright bike. I still have to rest my arms on them as in a normal bike, but if I make small movements in my arms, it will wobble the bike a bit. This may seem as if it’s the same as on an upright, but I find I really have to put some effort into holding my arms steady. This can tire out my arms quickly. I’m going to have to experiment with different things, such as different handlebar positions and ways of holding the bars.

Recumbents are supposed to be faster than upright bikes in general because of better aerodynamics. Thus far, mine seems a lot slower than my upright. They say these bikes use different muscles. It certainly seems to hurt the tendons on the front of my knees if I try to push. Hopefully this is what’s making me go slow, and once I develop the recumbent muscles I should be able to go faster. I have seemed to be able to accelerate pretty quickly, which is good.

I’m not comfortable enough to ride the bike in traffic or for long distances yet. I’ll keep on doing short trips here and there, and hopefully I’ll soon get as comfortable on it as on my normal bike, perhaps even more so.

Recumbent purchase

in

Last month I purchased myself a recumbent Actionbent bicycle. It took a good while to get here. I had purchased it at the end of June with the hopes of having it ready for a trip to New York near the end of July, and it cut pretty close. It was a little confusing to assemble, since the instructions provided consisted mainly of small low quality pictures and very few words. I had to look at several different pictures and pages on the website to figure it out.

Unfortunately for me, I still was not able to get it finished for the trip: The seat they sent was missing a bracket to connect it to the frame. I thus could not attach the seat at all as it was supposed to be. I also was having trouble at that point with getting the rear derailler to work, but that simply required connecting the cable a little differently. I emailed the Actionbent guy. He gave no reply, but promptly sent something to me. It arrived while I was in New York. I was hopeful to ride the bike, but unfortunately, when I got back, I discovered he had sent the wrong parts. He sent to pieces that I already had. I sent him another email, but he neither replied nor sent anything this time. I guess I’ll let it slide: it’s a small two person business which as far as I know only has two employees. So for now I have tied the seat at the one point with a rope. I could probably fashion something similar to the bracket out of two properly sized right angle brackets, but I haven’t gotten around to that.

I had ordered a rear rack and a bag from Actionbent as well. I was a little leary about the bag, as only a brief description was given. It was one of those trunk kinds, but the description said it had zipout panniers. I didn’t figure they’d be very big, but I thought they’d be good enough for day trips. When I recieved it, though, there were no zipout panniers at all. Only regular pockets. I’ve since discovered that it’s a Sunlite Top Loader 1, while the Top Loader 2 and greater have the panniers. They sent me another pack when the sent me the new brackets, but it was the exact same pack. I got two packs from this, so I guess I can’t complain too much. Plus the panniers would only gain me about 100 cubic inches for the 2.

back on mac os x

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I guess I forgot to mention it, but my server is back to running the mac os, and it has been for a good while now. My brother had sent the install DVD finally. I erased the old partition and installed the OS cleanly, then copied over my files from backup, which I’m glad I’ve finally been doing. Of course, I could have backed them all up before wiping the drive in this instance, but it could have been worse, and there may have been some file corruption of some sort.

Unfortunately, I forgot to backup some of the files that weren’t in my home folder. Mainly game related stuff. I lost nearly my entire collection of video game ROMs, which I’ve been having trouble finding now. I also lost some game saves, including some EVN ones that I had spent some time setting up. This has led me to start doing an occasional backup of the entire boot drive. This was made possible by my purchase of a 120GB drive.

I have recently purchased a new computer for use for myself. This one will become server only. I may take it back to linux once again for less overhead and what not. The new computer is just an updated version of my iBook G3, an iBook G4. It will be nice to again be able to take my computer elsewhere without taking down the server.