If this were important I would have emailed you

Year 4, Final 1998 Audi Numbers

2011-09-29T01:15:00.000-07:00

It has become apparent that I am the custodian of a terribly dry blog.

I sold the old 1998 A4 Avant yesterday for $2000. I purchased it nearly 4 years ago for $4200 making the 'depreciation' only $2200 over the course of 4 years. See below for details on how all the other expenses stacked up. To me the most interesting numbers are down at the bottom. $/mi by year and accumulated. It will be interesting (no really!) to see what the 2008 car with 34k miles will be like with high depreciation but low maintenance costs.

Year 4 cost of ownership numbers...
Total miles: 246,684 (69,543 of them mine)
Year 1 miles: 20,195
Year 2 miles: 25,304
Year 3 miles: 12,653
Year 4 miles: 11,391

Total gallons of fuel: 3265
Year 1 gallons: 930
Year 2 gallons: 1155
Year 3 gallons: 618
Year 4 gallons: 562

Average miles per gallon: 21.3
Year 1 mpg: 21.7
Year 2 mpg: 22.0
Year 3 mpg: 20.8
Year 4 mpg: 19.9

Fuel cost total: $10,137
Est year 1 fuel cost: $3022
year 2 fuel cost: $3056 (cheaper gas this year, 5k miles for 'free' avg $2.64/gal)
Year 3 fuel cost: $1911 (avg $3.24/gal)
Year 4 fuel cost: $2148 (avg $3.82/gal)

Insurance total: $2201
Year 1: $380
Year 2: $486 (rates went up and I didn't notice?)
Year 3: $667 (added collision coverage)
Year 4: $668

Maintenance total: $4119
Year 1: $1730 (all sorts of random junk, some murkiness of what to 'count')
Year 2: $1442 (big timing belt and hose repair job and oil changes only)
Year 3: $426 (heater core, hatch struts, O2 sensor, oil changes)
Year 4: $521 (tires, oil changes, smog check)

Accident repair: $1695

Total everything cost of ownership: $21,185 (!)
Year 1 total: $11,608 (includes$4200 purchase)
Year 2 total: $5069
Year 3 total: $3086
Year 4 total: $1422 ($2000 subtracted for sale)

$/mile by year excluding purchase, accident repair, and sale
Year 1: $5,600/20,195 = $0.28 ($0.15 fuel / $0.13 ownership)
Year 2: $5,067/25,304 = $0.20 ($0.12 fuel / $0.08 ownership)
Year 3: $3,086/12,653 = $0.24 ($0.15 fuel / $0.09 ownership)
year 4: $3,422/11,391 = $0.30 ($0.19 fuel / $0.11 ownership)

All inclusive $/mi as expenses and mileage accumulated
After 1 year: $11,609/20,195 = $0.57 ($0.15 fuel / $0.43 ownership)
After 2 years: $16,677/45,499 = $0.37 ($0.13 fuel / $0.23 ownership)
After 3 years: $19,763/58,152 = $0.34 ($0.14 fuel / $0.20 ownership)
After 4 years: $21,185/69,543 = $0.30 ($0.15 fuel / $0.16 ownership)

Year 3 Audi Numbers

2010-11-07T23:11:00.000-08:00

(a cool picture Jeff took this spring to add some value to an otherwise dry post)

Year 3 cost of ownership numbers...
Total miles: 235,401 (58,152 of them mine)
Year 1 miles: 20,195
Year 2 miles: 25,304
Year 3 miles: 12,653

Total gallons of fuel: 2703
Year 1 gallons: 930
Year 2 gallons: 1155
Year 3 gallons: 618

Average miles per gallon
Year 1 mpg: 21.7
Year 2 mpg: 22.0
Year 3 mpg: 20.8

Fuel cost total: $7989
Est year 1 fuel cost: $3022
year 2 fuel cost: $3056 (cheaper gas this year, 5k miles for 'free' avg $2.64/gal)
Year 3 fuel cost: $1911 (avg $3.24/gal)

Insurance total: $1533
Year 1: $380
Year 2: $486 (rates went up and I didn't notice?)
Year 3: $667 (added collision coverage)

Maintenance total: $3598
Year 1: $1730 (all sorts of random junk, some murkiness of what to 'count')
Year 2: $1442 (big timing belt and hose repair job and oil changes only)
Year 3: $426 (heater core, hatch struts, O2 sensor, oil changes)

Accident repair: $1695

Total everything cost of ownership: $19,763 (!)
Year 1 total: $11,608 (includes$4200 purchase)
Year 2 total: $5069
Year 3 total: $3086

Running $/mile
Year 1: $11,608/20,195 = $0.57
Year 2: $16,677/45,498 = $0.37
Year 3: $19,763/58,152 = $0.34

*some known errors and inconsistencies in this. But mostly correct ... ish.

Tilt shift again

2010-10-21T18:20:00.001-07:00

Cool collection of tilt shift photography: here

Physics

2010-10-12T23:32:00.000-07:00

Neat physics demonstration I had not seen before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQX8I9ZWtPQ#t=44m2s

Explained:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin_water_dropper

via: reddit

Less annoying

2010-09-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

If you've ridden in my car recently you've no doubt been annoyed by the head liner coming down in the back and the low oil pressure alarm going off periodically.

The oil pressure sensor was changed and it looks like the new one has a lower pressure setting so perhaps it will be happier in my high miles engine than the old one was.

And for the head liner, well ... I once heard something about how "The good enough solution often becomes the permanent one." Oh well, meh.

Fruit MRI

2010-07-19T00:27:00.001-07:00

Via Reddit Someone took MRI scans of fruits and vegetables and animated the results. So awesome. My favorite is the mushrooms.

Playful Porcupine

2010-07-18T23:00:00.001-07:00

Does this mean that all other porcupines are lonely and misunderstood?

Skiing on waves

2010-07-15T20:28:00.001-07:00

Another skiing post - amusing!

Wow smoking is boss!

2010-07-08T22:28:00.000-07:00

Where can I get a pack, I want to have those kinds of good times!

Ratatat

2010-06-25T00:39:00.001-07:00

I had never heard of Ratatat before last night when Pandora thought to give them a spin for me. Enjoyable!

TV...

2010-06-23T22:37:00.000-07:00

ENHANCE!
62" DLP, thanks Craigslist!

From forweb

Dry.

2010-06-17T21:04:00.000-07:00

To all of you who patiently listened while I explained how the rear hatch on my car had become heavy because water was leaking into it. I was wrong. So wrong that I drilled a small hole in the bottom of it and no water poured out wrong. So wrong I pulled the trunk trim off and had to take a look wrong. My Dad told me the gas struts on the hatch were blown a month or two ago at least. He was right, good job Dad. A pair of replacement gas struts on the way at a cost of $32 each. A hatch that stays up all by itself in my very near future.

X-ray pin-ups

2010-06-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

Haha, link pretty silly

Flying with Chase

2010-06-16T00:15:00.001-07:00

This evening Chase invited me to ride along for some flying over Ventura County! Fun stuff, it had been about 8 years or so since the last time I was up in a small airplane. We checked the airplane out, took off from Camarillo and went a short distance over to Santa Paula. There we did a few landing and take offs with 3-4 other people doing the same. And then we flew over to the coast just west of Magu Rock. And then back to Camarillo for a few more landing and take offs. Here's the pics!

PhD's bum deal

2010-06-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

You knew you didn't want to become a grad student for 7 years, but you couldn't quite put your finger on it...

You laughed at The Simpson's jokes perhaps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XViCOAu6UC0

This _lengthy_ article lays out why PhD study is a bad deal for American grad students.
http://www.miller-mccune.com/science/the-real-science-gap-16191/

tl;dr summary: There is not shortage of scientifically trained persons in the USA, there is a shortage of research positions and adequately paying jobs. This is why American students are shunning the technical fields: it's a bad deal.

Cool flight tool

2010-06-14T19:34:00.000-07:00

Let's you see how far you can get for given dollar amount.
http://www.kayak.com/explore/

Seaside Florida

2010-05-23T21:42:00.000-07:00

I spent the last week at a beach house a few miles east of Seaside Florida. I had a great time. It only rained when we first arrived, and only that night, and not during any of the days. The temperature was near ideal most of the week with it starting to warm up on Friday and Saturday. We thought we might get some oil from the big spill, but Louisiana is taking the brunt of that, not Florida at all. Coming home took close to 12 hours, and I guess my only complaint is that for traveling for 12 hours perhaps a more exotic local than Florida could be reached?

1949 Harley 45

2010-05-09T14:08:00.000-07:00

I got to ride the old Harley this weekend! This bike was my uncle's way back when, and my Dad recently brought it back to road worthy status. Really interesting to ride with the foot operated clutch and 3 speed hand shifter!

(click to play short video clip)

LA Galaxy Game for Kevin's Birthday

2010-05-03T00:21:00.000-07:00

Fun times were had Saturday night at the Home Depot Center to celebrate Kevin's Birthday and watch some professional soccer. (My first time to a game, and also the first time I have watched a whole game, actually the first time I've watched anything more than highlights haha!) The LA Galaxy were playing the Philadelphia Union. I learned a bit about soccer from Kevin during the game. Apparently are only 3 substitutions allowed per team through out the 90 minute game. A dude from the The Union got a red card for pulling some stupid slide tackle move when the game had already stopped. From that point on The Union played a man down, I didn't realize that they wouldn't be able to sub another guy in. 8 of the players will be on the field for the full 90 minutes. Pretty crazy endurance! A good group turned out and Kevin's birthday package deal got us great seats. Although from the looks of it, it doesn't really seem like any of the seats are that bad. The stadium seemed smaller than when I was there for a concert a few years ago. I guess the grass looks smaller than rows and rows of thousands of chairs.

The LA Galaxy scored a goal in the first minute of the game, and were up by three by the end of the first half. They didn't seem to be struggling too much to retain control. The crowd was pretty mellow with the exception of the two "fan sections" that had drums and chants going back and forth between them. It would be fun to go to a sold out Chivas USA game where I imagine that enthusiasm spreads to the rest of the Stadium.

(Yay phone camera!)

A couple clips of the game, just to give a flavor for the stadium.

Will Rogers State Park - Backbone Trail Out and Back

2010-05-02T23:04:00.001-07:00

I dusted off the MTB for a real ride this Sunday. Mike has a fancy new bike. So he's all about the MTB these days and will be dragging me up more hills in the very near future I'm sure. We decided on Will Roger's State Park, Backbone Trail that I had done once or twice before with Justin. We did it as an out and back, but it can be done as a loop. The parking is up to $12 at the State Park, a bit much if you got in the habit of doing the ride frequently. There is parking on the side of the road into the park so you can just add a bit of mileage to your ride and save some bucks. Their parking lot was nearly full so it's kind of hard to fault them too much for the price of entry I suppose.

We rode from the parking lot at the polo field past the horse corrals and then up the dirt path to the main fire rode. The backbone trail takes off from a kiosk with a useless map to the right shortly after you get onto the fire road. Pretty much up hill for 6.8 miles to "The Hub." Mike did a good bit of waiting for me. I was huffing and puffing quite a bit and by the top was starting to get a bit 'bonky'. Thank goodness the camel back was stocked with a couple of CLIF bars and a granola bar. What seamed like an excessive 3 bars this morning really paid off after 90 minutes of climbing. Our average speed ended up being 6.0 mph. When I did this ride with Justin 11/2007, we had an average speed of 6.9 mph. Not exactly progress. 14.03 miles at 6.0 mph and 2:20 of ride time by my bike computer.

The trail conditions are pretty good for most of it. But a nontrivial portion of the trail was severely over-grown with vegetation. Most of the time the trail was still visible but your legs were displacing a good 3-9 inches of vegetation on either side. That got old pretty quickly and was even somewhat painful at times. Mike already having open wounds on his shins wasn't all that impressed with that aspect of the trail. Check out the picture below for a section of the trail that was totally obscured by the vegetation. There are some really great sections on this trail that are smooth and covered in canopy. Also the descents are fun, though well suited for a bike with suspension as it is rocky in places.

Mike saw what he figured was a gopher snake near the top. It decided to put things into a leisurely reverse after Mike almost ran over him with his front tire. There were a few hikers and some other bike traffic but certainly not over crowded. Some of the hikers were happier to see us than others. Also there were fantastic views of the Santa Monica Beach and pier today. Definitely a trail worth checking out if you mountain bike in socal!

Animals you may not have seen before

2010-04-21T00:49:00.001-07:00

Blob fish is ridiculous, link to unusual animal pics: here

Death Valley and the Racetrack Playa

2010-04-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

This weekend I headed out to Death Valley with some friends from work, and a few others who thought hanging out with my coworkers sounded like a fun time. Our plan was to meet up at Wildrose campground as our schedules allowed and then head into Death Valley and hopefully on to the Racetrack Playa.

tl;dr: yes you can make it out to Racetrack Playa in your family sedan. We made it fine with a Mazda 6, Prius, and Audi A4. We also saw a few Subarus and Toyota Carolla out there. Take extra precautions and pack extra supplies but don't let the hype scare you out of driving out there. Just go slowly. We had fun.

Friday night good times were had around the Campfire-In-A-Can. We were the most obnoxious group at the campground with our outbursts of laughter, but nobody actually yelled at us though so we must not have been that bad. Topics covered included how the tent 50 feet away looked like a Storm-Trooper, and that it would be cool if it sprouted mechanical spider legs and started moving around. Also for some reason unsavory internet memes from 3 years ago received unwarranted discussion. Anyway you get the idea, lots of laughs.

The Racetrack Playa, and specifically the drive out to the Racetrack Playa were debated ad nauseam. The road is rumored to be littered with razor rocks that will surely shred your tires.(tires were fine) Numerous web resources, and people within the park warn that you must have a high clearance 4x4,(not true) and that the washboard will break your suspension,(it didn't) and that the tow out is quite expensive due to AAA not covering you when you're off road. This discussion went around in circles for quite sometime. After making a compromise to leave some of our excess gear at Wildrose campground we headed out.

Link to map of our in park travels: google maps route

Video clip of the drive to Mosaic Canyon from wildrose (click to play):

From DeathValleyDrive

We hiked Mosiac Canyon and checked out some of the neat geology. We ate our picnic lunch at Stovepipe Wells and then went on to Scotty's Castle. We didn't take the tour at Scotty's Castle as we wanted to get on the road to the Playa before any more time passed. Doing it over again I wouldn't have hiked as far into Mosaic canyon and would have spent that time with an earlier start up to Scotty's Castle and the Racetrack. After one final debate about the road conditions we finally set out for the Racetrack Playa...

...and everything turned out better than expected. We took it slow, 5-25 mph averaging about 13mph. It took us a bit over 2 hours to cover the 27 miles on the way out. We were something of a motley crew as our carvan consisted of a Mazda 6 sedan, Prius, and my Audi A4 wagon. We were passed by several faster moving SUVs and jeeps, and Subaru WRX that wasn't concerned about taking it slow. But we plodded along at an even pace, and avoided the troublesome looking spots. The road is not that bad, really. Yes, if you go speeding along at 40mph you'll probably get a flat or break your suspension on the washboard sections. But if you can take your time you can even get a lowered Audi out there with just a few scraps along the floor boards as you pass over the higher rocks. I felt pretty comfortable about the drive esp after the first few miles, knowing that I had a full size spare, donut spare, full set of tools, and a tow strap helped as well. I also had the memories of what we did with our Oldsmobile station wagon in Baja back in the day, and the more recent memories of abusing Subaru's in the Walla Walla and Montana hills with cousin Brian. Normal cars can accomplish a lot if you're just a little bit careful with them.

Link to map of our in park travels: google maps route

We got to the Racetrack Playa and we all spread out in search of rocks with tracks. On the first attempt we didn't find anything too impressive. We had fun, walking around the lake bed, soaking in the setting, and then climbing on "the grandstand" rock formation in the middle of the playa. We drove to the south end of the playa and a guy there to do some serious photography told us that the rocks were way at the south end of the playa. By this time it was dark, and I only got a not so great picture of one of the rocks with a good trail with my flash on the point and shoot. Hopefully the others captured some good shots with their real cameras. We left a business card and granola bar for the photographer in hopes that he will email us some of his pics or maybe a link to his flickr profile. I was a little bit let down that I didn't get to see the rocks with good tracks in the light, but really just being out there and running around on the playa at night with all the stars out is a really fun time. Kevin and Missy cooked up an excellent spaghetti and broccoli dinner for all of us at the south end of the playa. Kevin has the foresight to bring a little extra food for dinner, and even after I foolishly attempted to talk him into cooking less of the spaghetti no body went hungry! Thanks again for handling the food Kevin!

We drove the 2 hours on the gravel road back out to Stovepipe Wells for gas, and then finally back to Wildrose Campground around 1:15am. Jeff and Mary split off to try a new campground out and then head to Badwater the next day. Thankfully the trip remained free of mechanical problems and everyone seemed to have a good time.

On Sunday morning we made some breakfast and my car headed home, while the others went on to hike Wildrose peak. Hopefully they had fun with that. It was a really fun trip, thanks to Jeff setting it in motion!

Frisbee on the Grandstand clip: here

Hard landing

2010-04-09T21:04:00.001-07:00

When the airplane is flying really terribly probably good to just call it a day instead of trying to fly anyway. Oops.

Laptop Fan

2010-04-09T02:33:00.000-07:00

Tonight I decided was a good night for unclogging my laptop fan. It had been increasingly apparent that the fan on my laptop was not at all effective. The fan would run and little to no air would come out the heat sink. Also the laptop was getting really hot. And no one likes hot keyboard sweaty palms. Tonight the do-something-productive-while-you-procrastinate program involved tearing into my laptop at 1AM. 70 minutes start to finish, not too bad and it still works when I put it back together. It runs cooler and the fan is only running when needed now!

Standing cat is standing

2010-04-07T00:04:00.000-07:00

Leaks and sparks

2010-04-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

The above shows a hose barely holding on to the water pump inlet. The hose clamps work better on the ends of the hose than the middle. It's no wonder it was leaking coolant (98% water by this point). This car keeps trying to teach me that one shouldn't put off fixes to nagging problems. I drove around for about 2 months with the hose barely hanging on. Granted I was keeping the driving in town for the most part because I knew there was a problem. But I got lucky that this didn't let lose on the freeway or somewhere inconvenient. Fix it right when you know something is wrong! The car is back together this time hopefully with all hose clamps in place and with the additional piece of mind that the radiator flanges are not cracked as I was lead to believe is common with the plastic radiator tanks. Perhaps the coolant leak gremlin has finally been slain?

Now I'm on to the intermittent missing problem. Occasionally, the Audi will misfire badly while driving under light to moderate load. Occasionally is once every 7-10 days or so. Going up a gentle hill, or even slowly accelerating on a flat stretch the engine misses with applied accelerator, and the check engine light blinks, indicating a misfire. I'm 90% certain that it is electrical, likely this means that it is a clogged fuel filter. It has some goofy 3 pronged spark plugs installed, that the previous owner was bragging about installing 2.5 years and 50k miles ago. (said previous owner is a rather ham-fisted mechanic however, and installed them 'real tight' with no anti-sieze, I was afraid the first one was going to come out with the treads attached ... not that I have much room to talk now that I go around leaving hose clamps off). I can't tell if these plugs are worn out or what. The gap isn't adjustable, but the gap seams very large, well over 0.032". Not sure how long they were supposed to last. The safe first step seems like replacing the spark plugs. Before replacing the $200 coil/pack ignition module combo. I went to Kragen with a spark plug part number from the audiforums scribbled down, and he told me that it was a $1.99 plug and 'not for my car' He said the recommended plugs were the Bosch Platinums that are $8.99 each. I should have just purchased them and been done with it. Now I'm being cheap. But. He got all "salesy" on me, and if there's one thing I hate it is a patronizing sales pitch. I have an irrational revulsion to being 'sold' anything, and he attempted to 'sell me' on the plugs. Proceeding to tell me how "These Audi engines aren't are your normal engine and that they need a hotter spark and a high performance plug and that you shouldn't just put cheap junk in there because it was a blah blah blah." He had to work on Easter and has to put up with jokers like me not wanting to pay and extra $20 for the spark plugs because they read some nonsense on a forum posted by some know-it-all college kid. That being said a poorly executed sales pitch keeps my wallet firmly in pocket, and apparently drives me to the internet to talk about it. Anyhow, moving on, I didn't buy any thing and now I need to figure out what spark plugs I really want / need. Again I'm sure the $8.99 would have been fine and I could have moved on to replacing the other components before I get around to changing that fuel filter that is likely the cause of these electrical problems.

At least one of the online suppliers shows that the installed plugs are same as what they sell as replacement plugs for my car. So maybe they really are the correct plug for the car. Ham-fisted or not the previous owner probably at a minimum purchased one of the recommended plugs and didn't just pick something at random.

Cylinder 1 picture below is what is reported by the computer as missing most frequently.

Cylinder 4 actually looks worse?

I'm Debt Free!

2010-04-02T00:05:00.000-07:00

I paid off my student loan that I started accumulating approximately 11 years ago. Dave Ramsey would be so proud! I used to make the argument that I was doing better by putting the money in the savings account with a higher interest rate than the loan that only had a 1.85% rate. I think it has been well over a year since the savings accounts had anything near that 'high' of a return. Time to just pay it off and be done with it. Feels good I guess?

Sci-fi super fan reference chart

2010-03-29T22:17:00.000-07:00

amusing chart here

Inside a 4-stroke engine

2010-03-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

A peak inside the combustion chamber. I expected more advance on the spark...

link from here

Content aware fill

2010-03-29T21:52:00.000-07:00

This is rather amazing.

And then the internet pranksters got a hold of it

Counter Strike is serious business!

2010-03-22T18:04:00.001-07:00

Wallhack leads to skullhack link here.

OK Go, Rube Goldberg!

2010-03-07T14:37:00.001-08:00

The name of the song is "This too shall pass" but that is pretty much irrelevant.They actually made two video for it appears... Marching Band in this link here, and the sweet Rube Goldberg machine below.

A-pod robot

2010-03-07T14:30:00.000-08:00

Two scoops of servos and a dash of creepy with the fluid movements!

Al logs on to Chat Roulette

2010-03-07T02:24:00.001-08:00

Al is short for Albert Einstein, Al the turtle lacks the cognitive abilities of his name sake, but he is rather successful on the internet. Late Friday night I pointed the webcam at his tank and fired up chat roulette for a little while with AMUSING RESULTS.

Within 3 connections this gentleman was thoroughly amused to be talking with a turtle.

After waiting for chatrt to respond for awhile (it seems to be having some issues with the traffic) and then clicking through some unsavory characters. Al was connected with this guy who was sitting on his couch stroking his beard looking like someone who was wanting to look like an intellectual. He actually got up off the couch to come to the keyboard and chat.

Al makes people smile.

This was pretty late night so Al started getting connected with people in Asia and Europe, not sure where this guy was but others were in the UK and France. People were willing to chat for a surprisingly long time.

This guy had the feed looped back around to just display whatever people had on their webcam back at them and then he would apply effects humorously... The fireball effect was clever I thought.

This guy is enjoying chat roulette before it becomes too popular to be cool anymore

This guy is a sociology and economics instructor in France

Haha!

This is still most of what Al saw, some dude, would pop up for about a second and half, and then hit next. It was really remarkable how much the turtle breaks the ice though. People without cameras would ask about Al, others would look for a handful of seconds and give a thumbs up and then move on. But if you actually want to connect with strangers on the internet it appears that you need to be a hot chick, or be a pet turtle.

High-frequency trading

2010-03-06T17:28:00.000-08:00

Surprisingly this isn't about electronics. It's about the stock market, I found the article interesting and informative.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN173583920091202

Slime Molds

2010-03-04T01:12:00.000-08:00

This guy likes taking macro shots of slime mold. (So much so that he's possibly OFOM?)
Cool pictures! HERE!

70 Million Video

2010-03-03T12:06:00.000-08:00

Name that painting!

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.

Chat Roulette Explained

2010-02-25T22:36:00.000-08:00

In this post I attempt to keep myself and you up to date with what is going on with the internet these days.

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

(the BSoD background on the Apple is a bit obnoxious in my opinion)

Kermit Art

2010-02-25T22:31:00.000-08:00

From here

Knuth

2010-02-24T00:15:00.000-08:00

I saw this picture linked on reddit.

Donald Knuth programming a computer in 1958 it says. No Mt. Dew or salt and vinegar potato chips to fuel the late night programming sessions back in the day it appears. Knuth is super influential in computer science, mostly in algorithms. And he's kind of interesting character from what I gather. The wikipedia article on him has some interesting tidbits. Maybe if I ever get around to reading and wrapping my head around his books I'll also be able to say that "Knuth is my homeboy". Jason has probably earned that t-shirt by now, I think he's working his way through the books.

For your background

2010-02-23T23:34:00.000-08:00

Cool pics of earth from NASA: here

Buzz kill

2010-02-19T23:51:00.000-08:00

"Nuke buzz from orbit. It's the only way to be sure"

http://lifehacker.com/5474654/buzz-settings-page-goes-live-in-gmail-allows-total-disabling

Only funny on the internet

2010-02-18T20:44:00.001-08:00

Shortening links is so 2007. 2010 is all about making them unclickably suspicious and creepy.

http://www.shadyurl.com/index.php

Mt. McCoy Stats

2010-02-18T14:36:00.000-08:00

Logged the hike today using "My Tracks" Android app on my phone.
(data may be corrupted slightly because I forgot to shut off the logging at the bottom)

Total Distance: 3.44 km (2.1 mi)
Total Time: 34:14
Moving Time: 24:57
Average Speed: 6.05 km/h (3.8 mi/h)
Average Moving Speed: 8.27 km/h (5.1 mi/h)
Max Speed: 50.40 km/h (31.3 mi/h)
Min Elevation: 193 m (632 ft)
Max Elevation: 373 m (1224 ft)
Elevation Gain: 184 m (604 ft)
Max Grade: 0 %
Min Grade: -5 %
Recorded: Thu Feb 18 12:15:50 PDT 2010

Lunch time hike

2010-02-17T20:07:00.000-08:00

Some of the guys at work are training to hike Mt. Whitney this summer. Lunchtime hikes at Mt. McCoy in Simi Valley provide some mid day exercise by climbing up the steep trails and going down the switchbacks route. Not sure why there is a gigantic concrete cross at the top? Next time I'll log the route with 'my tracks' and post the google earth image. Click pics for larger images.

Ferrari Goat

2010-02-15T00:02:00.000-08:00

I would like to meet these people that own this Ferrari parked out in the snow with goat climbing it. And I wonder if it was the owner that snapped this picture...

Click through source for larger image: http://juliasegal.tumblr.com/post/386332124

On feeling dumb

2010-02-13T10:39:00.000-08:00

I saw this article: here, linked to on a reddit thread: here for the comments. It talks about feeling like a fraud when you receive praise and why one might feel that way. I think it makes a nice point, but the unimaginative use of profanity detracts a bit.

Lunchtime RC

2010-02-10T17:34:00.000-08:00

I nice day for flying at lunchtime today! I need to post a picture of "The Tiger Moth" which is the plane that is "mine" though the only part of it that I have purchased for it is the receiver. In a successful ploy by Russ, foreground left first picture, he has gifted me the plane full of his components to get me hooked, and then he will slowly retrieve parts from it for his projects eventually causing me to purchase replacements for myself along the way. Good timesQ (Click to embiggen the pics)

Video clips by Wondermark

2010-02-02T17:04:00.000-08:00

These 3 video clips, are worth a watch.

http://wondermark.com/two-wondermark-esque-videos/

Pics from home

2010-02-02T01:19:00.000-08:00

Nephews at 1/3, 2, and 4 years. 4 years was making a game of not being photographed.

Rocky Peak Hike

2010-01-24T22:47:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, a last minute group got together (Kevin, Lane, Jeff and Mary) and went for a hike in the Rocky Peak area of Simi Valley. On the way up we took a path less traveled roughly equivalent to the Hummingbird Trail. But with far more interesting rocks to scramble on, a coyote to spot, a stone circle of unknown utility, and a Mt. Lion skull! On the way back down we took the established trail and made much quicker time with little to report on. This was also the first trip that I used my new Camelbak pack, it worked great, held my snacks, plenty of water, and a couple of extra layers with ease. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Useless Machine

2010-01-11T13:51:00.001-08:00

That guy...

2009-12-23T09:26:00.000-08:00

Lego Matrix

2009-12-21T23:52:00.001-08:00

Fishing Bloopers

2009-12-11T09:17:00.000-08:00

Black and WTF Blog

2009-12-09T21:01:00.001-08:00

http://blackandwtf.tumblr.com/ is full of interesting old timey pictures!

Set to music

2009-12-04T00:35:00.000-08:00

Engaging video clip here: http://vimeo.com/hd#6540668

Three Comments
1.) Apparently, don't trust a girl that's using a pay phone
2.) Oh hey! He drives a Protege5, I almost bought one of those.
3.) I don't even really hear the music while watching this

Drawdio

2009-11-23T21:53:00.000-08:00

Well this is fun. Ben this one is a nod in your general direction.

Craftiness

2009-11-20T12:41:00.001-08:00

Loe sent me this link this afternoon. I was amazed thus the repost. People like this make me feel rather lazy!
http://luxirare.com/thanksgiving-part-i/

(follow the link if you'd like to see miniature pumpkin pies, shaped... in 3D, like pumpkins)

Creepy Youtubers

2009-11-20T00:16:00.001-08:00

I found #2 Ice Tea Steve the most engaging.
http://youtube.comedy.com/2009/11/01/12-creepiest-youtube-stars/
(just watch his I'm not depressed clip: here if you don't want to waste the time to click through all 12 of the videos)

Also, Teen Tourette's camp: (nsfw language quite obviously)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_jBFbCCleY

And on a lighter note this:

(best invention ever!)

Buggy

2009-11-17T00:15:00.000-08:00

Nice quality clip from some farm boys with a sweet buggy. Over at BoostMD:

http://boostmd.blogspot.com/2009/11/single-passenger-buggy.html

Links

2009-11-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/facebook-status-provides-alibi

http://www.urlesque.com/2009/11/12/five-facebook-fails/

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/bugatti-veyron-sinks-in-lagoon

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/dog-cries-when-soldier-returns-home

Energy

2009-11-13T22:31:00.000-08:00

This evening at dinner a cute girl was describing how she uses a search engine called 'Blackle' (that I refuse to link to lest we build their resolve). "Blackle" does a Google search for you and then displays the results on a black screen with gray text. Their claim is that displaying a black screen rather than a white screen "saves energy". This was definitely filed under "far too misguided to let slide" by the engineers in the room. After a short tutorial on how LCDs shutter a back light that is always on regardless of what the image on the screen, it was dismissed as a gimmick. (CRTs and OLED displays do use slightly less energy displaying black but if you're still using a CRT clearly you don't give a hoot about energy efficiency anyhow). This failure to provide savings stacked on top of their mere existence as a middle man server makes them huge losers. Anyway she's still talking to us so apparently we weren't too big of jerks about it.

I mentioned this nonsense to Andy, and he said "At some point I'm going to calculate how many hours of running 100W light bulb is equivalent to the energy consumed by stopping my car from 45mph" Turns out, at some point, was the following 5 minutes. The kinetic energy of Andy's 5400 lb Ford Expedition (the energy that is dissipated by slowing down from 45mph) is the same as burning 100W for about an hour and twenty minutes! This doesn't even account for the fact that your car was at best 20% efficient at getting you up to that speed in the first place! A fun fact to share if you're being chided about not using a compact florescent bulb in a room where the light is rarely on.

Oh it looks like Google covered this themselves 2 years ago.

Year 2 Audi numbers

2009-11-10T20:55:00.000-08:00

Year 2 cost of ownership numbers!
Total miles: 222640 (45,498 of them mine)
Year 1 miles: 20195
Year 2 miles: 25303

Total gallons of fuel: 2085 (that's ~40,000 lbs of CO2 if you were just thinking about that...)
Year 1 gallons: 930
Year 2 gallons: 1155

Average miles per gallon
Year 1 mpg: 21.7
Year 2 mpg: 22.0

Estimated fuel cost total: $6078
Est year 1 fuel cost: $3022
Actual year 2 fuel cost: $3056 (much cheaper gas this year! An extra 5k miles for 'free')

Insurance total: $866
Year 1: $380
Year 2: $486 (rates went up and I didn't notice?)

Maintenance total: $3172 ($315 on oil changes, $2858 on mechanical repair)
Year 1: $1227 (all sorts of random junk)
Year 2: $1176 (big timing belt and hose repair job and oil changes only)
(uhh that doesn't add up, I should check those numbers again)

Accident repair: $1695

Total everything cost of ownership: $16,593 (!)
Year total 1: $11,608 (includes$4200 purchase)
Year total 2: $4985

Hopefully there is a 3rd installment for this car. Also I predict a dramatically lower mileage for the next year as I now live only 4 miles from work. And tomorrow I'm supposed to ride my bike in!

Craigslist and Medium Brown

2009-11-10T00:19:00.000-08:00

Saturday afternoon I set off on an adventure in search of inexpensive Ikea furniture (in medium brown) to outfit my room a bit more. (Why yes, I am writing a post about buying used Ikea furniture... What?) I got a bit cocky about how much would fit in my car, and somehow thought that the dresser and table would fit in it no problem. The dresser took up a bit more room than anticipated, but luckily the friendly, drunk, starving artist types that I bought the table from already had it disassembled with the hardware neatly organized in a little plastic bin. Things fit just barely! (imagine full car with table hanging over the passenger's head rest, well into front seat.) After two furniture stops, I made another stop to pick up to pick up some concert tickets, where I'm pretty sure I saw Ron Jeremy leaving a restaurant, and then headed towards Santa Monica to hang out with Justin for awhile. We watched "Fast & Furious" it was not as bad as predicted.

Dresser that I'm happy with because it is in good shape, was half price used and I didn't have to put it together. More stuff that needs to be sorted and put away.

Too tall 'dressing table' with too low drawer, my chair is extended and could be a tad higher, maybe a chair with out arms in the answer? At least I didn't have to pay much for it. I like the way it looks and doesn't take up much space, but the heights aren't working out just yet.

Motos from the 1920's

2009-11-09T23:34:00.001-08:00

I like how the guys are wearing neck ties while they motocross!
http://theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/the-oakland-motorcycle-club-hill-climb-hellcats-dirt-devils/

3D guy costume

2009-11-07T09:27:00.000-08:00

This is a very cool costume, and well documented as well!
http://testroete.com/index.php?location=head

update: the dude's "fast slide show" of Japan is quite good as well.
http://testroete.com/index.php?location=thisisjapan

New room

2009-11-02T23:57:00.000-08:00

New room is set up just enough so I can sleep here now. Amazingly the drive "all the way to Camarillo" to finish moving out seems like a big hassle now. Funny how that works.

Hollywood Halloween

2009-11-02T23:52:00.000-08:00

West Hollywood had some pretty ridiculous sites Halloween night. Worth checking out sometime just to see the massive numbers of people that are out and about.

Muppet Cupcakes

2009-10-23T21:20:00.000-07:00

http://geekpadshow.com/2009/09/25/20-muppet-cupcakes/

New road tires

2009-10-20T23:03:00.000-07:00

Finally purchased new tires for my road bike. The old ones were starting to show threads and had worn down to have a very flat profile.

Close enough to the 3 year mark for the bike to do the data dump.
The short version is I need to ride more!

First ride: 12/08/06
Total miles: 2586.2 (Jason points out that this is roughly the distance across the US)
Average speed: 14.2
Tubes: Less than 5? Not many flats! Two of them in the last month.
Miles in 06: 104
Miles in 07: 882
Miles in 08: 897
Miles in 09: 703 (with 2 months to go)
Total hours in the saddle: 182.2
Rides over 50 miles: 3. Pathetic. Looking back at my ride log, almost all of my rides are in the 18-25 range. (I got carried away... histogram below...)

The only maintenance has been lubing the chain and new grip tape! Totally trouble free!!

Click below to get a close up of the neurosis that is my bike log.

From forweb

Hey look a histogram that displays graphically how I usually don't ride more than 20 miles!

From forweb

Birds of a feather... flocking

2009-10-18T23:14:00.000-07:00

A (only mildly staged) photo prior to a very sweaty 3.4 miles @ 4.2mph (ha!) bike ride near Rocky Peak in Simi Valley. Thanks to some expert trail scouting by me, we rode UP the downhill section of the Chumash trail. Oops. There were times when it would have been a nice hike if I wasn't dragging my bike up the hill with me. Actually a very cool trail! Only the 2nd MTB ride since 4/08. Mike has been talking about getting a new bike so there may be more rides in the near future.

Laz0r scanning

2009-10-18T22:58:00.001-07:00

Cool 3D mapping on this little UAV. Coolness is a couple of minutes in. Some mild laughs to be had in the comments as well.

http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/4149-indoor-autonomous-helicopter

Beats

2009-10-14T18:33:00.000-07:00

New wheels

2009-10-04T18:46:00.000-07:00

Konig Rewind 16x7" wheels, 205/60-16 Yokohama Avid TRZ shipped mounted and balanced from Discount Tire Direct. Goodparts 1" lowering springs. Happy with them so far! Big improvement over the worn out and 10 years old tires they are replacing, so I'm not hard to impress at this point.

more photos...

A shipment!

2009-10-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

New wheels and tires for the Triumph arrived today. Whooo!! Pics of them on the car by Sunday hopefully...

Filling

2009-09-28T22:58:00.000-07:00

I got a cavity filled today. Lindsey seemed very happy with her handiwork so I figured I'd try and take a look for myself. Nicely done Dr. Anderson!

80's dudes, then and now

2009-09-18T01:07:00.000-07:00

Andy supplies more quality links.

I like how even the chihuahua is mesmerized.

Backpacking report

2009-09-15T00:32:00.001-07:00

Finally! The backpacking pictures!(em-biggen pics by clicking)

Members of the expedition are Jason, Karisa, Melanie and Kendall

From backpacking2009

Here was the route we did in the "Mineral King" area of Sequoia National Park.

From backpacking2009

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/ca/mineral%20king/481125246999421132

Labor day weekend is a very busy weekend for once yearly backpackers such as ourselves to come out of the woodwork. We attempted to get to the Mineral King Ranger Station early, by leaving around 4:30am. We had some success with this as when we arrived at the ranger station at 10:15am we were just ahead of several other parties. We didn't get onto the same trail that we planned to hike originally but really that's just kind of the way our backpacking trips seem to go. We set out around noon in good spirits. We met some quirky dudes in their 50's that were joking around with us in the parking lot and gave us some of their "gorp" since they were just going to throw it away since they didn't have any more room to pack it, we reluctantly accepted. Turns out it was super tasty with sunflower seeds and craisins and basically blew away the trail mix that we brought. Thanks dudes!

Then we hiked. We hiked past some water falls, a nice valley, a lake, and thenon some rough terrain, apparently it was too hardcore for the horse that keeled over for some reason, right around the 11,000 foot mark or so.

From backpacking2009

We made it too the top of the 11,710 ft pass right around sunset. We were supposed to get to the the lake at 100 deg east in the panorama below that night but we didn't quite get there. After 4000 ft in 8 miles the last 2 of the remain 3.5 miles just wasn't going to happen.

We set up camp in the almost dark, had some good beans and rice. The *new* jetboil stove that I got for my birthday works great! It was a little bit chilly and we didn't have a fire, my verbalized wish before going to bed was "I hope I wake up in the morning because the tent is too hot" Wish... GRANTED, well after 8am! Awesome. This is where we found ourselves when we woke up.

We hiked up another small pass, past a couple of lakes and could then see the valley that we were going to hike through the rest of the day.

At the second campsite after another 10 miles or so, we stopped well before dark and even had a campfire! I tried to make the Backpacker's pantry biscuits and gravy with somewhat disastrous results. They tasted alright in the end but the consistency was very off. It did mix in well with the vegetable curry.

For day 3 we had another 10ish miles or so and 2000 feet to go up, and 4000 feet to go down. Some guy on the trail saw my WWC t-shirt and informed us that his boss went to WWC. Good times.

We made it too the top Sawtooth Pass at 11,630 ft, and we could see where we had come from. And where we were headed too. The view was great, you could see the coastal range to the west, and to the east, they other guys at the top of the pass were pointing out Mt. Whitney. One of the dudes at the top systematically doled out one orange peanut M&M for each of us that made it to the top. Thank you?

There was really a surprising amount of water, flowers, and fresh green plants. In this picture the mountain top is right there another 200 feet above, not sure where all the water for these flowers is coming from??

Also you'll notice the trekking poles in some of the pictures. I can't say enough good things about trekking poles, this is my first trip where I had my own, and didn't have to borrow them after my knee got sore. Also, my knee did not get sore. I will never go backpacking without trekking poles ever again. They are like 4wd for the steep parts of the trail. (I got some like this for 50% off at rei since they were returns from the online store. SCORE!)

The decent off of Sawtooth Pass was extremely steep and there were some really sketchy sections of steep rock, covered with decomposed granite, not all that fun but at least it was over quickly. Coming down was really lame, I can't imagine going up, suffice to say it would be lame.

We finally made it back to the car and saw some deer. We ate celebratory pizza at the Pizza Factory in Three Rivers. Great trip! Next year, trail reservations, and maybe half the mileage? ... or not?

Slide show:

Filling

2009-09-14T22:03:00.000-07:00

Stuffing Manicotti is a two person job!

Cool pictures

2009-09-14T22:01:00.001-07:00

I liked the "click to fade" to see the 1 year difference in these photos.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/one_year_after_hurricane_ike.html

Backpacking

2009-09-05T00:12:00.001-07:00

Leaving for a backpacking trip in about 4 hours...

This seems appropriate to share!: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/08/14/128-camping/

SP Zen

2009-08-26T20:08:00.000-07:00

Deep thoughts from Alan Watts and the Southpark guys. Also this (here) if you want some soothing voice telling you to enjoy life, man.

An array of 'tubes

2009-08-25T22:22:00.000-07:00

Joigold7, purveyor of excellent how-to automotive clips, sent me this.(here) It basically melted my old laptop, but it's kind of interesting, in that way that 20 youtube videos making an audio mash-up, is kind of interesting.

Look ma, no hands!

2009-08-20T22:55:00.000-07:00

From the "wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it" dept!! Kevin stumbled on to this on Joe Sorren's Blog and thought that Loe would like to see it.

Kevin and Jessica travel to Nepal!

2009-08-19T23:26:00.001-07:00

Kevin and Jessica are departing for an adventure to Nepal for a couple of months, they depart in about 30 minutes! They have a blog, follow their adventures.

Going and living in another country is all the rage this summer. Deeanne and Garret skipped town a few weeks ago and have headed south - they also have a blog filled with (epic and well documented!) adventures.

Comment Feeds!

2009-08-19T22:01:00.000-07:00

I have a comments feed!
http://thisisnotkendall.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default

When Jason started his weblog he shared a link for his comments feed as well. I found this to be awesome. I tried typing "comments" where "posts" goes in the link for the blogger feeds and what do you know - a comments feed was lurking all along! Loe and Kevin I'm now feeding your comments as well - the word has officially been gotten out.

Links

2009-08-18T21:14:00.001-07:00

Links that got saved over the last few weeks. Variable quality.

Giganto ipod touch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvCo6-KhZT4

Cats cartoon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1qHVVbYG8Y

Sorry I'm Late (Little Big Love in the same link possibly better)
http://vimeo.com/4862670

Birth of Nukes
http://www.photographyserved.com/Gallery/Slouching-towards-Bethlehem-___/56780

Chernobyl in decay
http://villageofjoy.com/chernobyl-today-a-creepy-story-told-in-pictures/

Girl at the video game store
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_VaDyN-5Ko&feature=popular

HDR-wesome
http://abduzeedo.com/incredible-new-portfolio-dave-hill

High altitude balloon photography
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1201090/Everest-revealed-British-balloonists-breathtaking-panoramic-shot-worlds-highest-peaks.html

Code Monkey song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W_wd9Qf0IE

My best score was 2100 something
http://games.adultswim.com/spell-my-finger-twitchy-online-game.html

The OS browser OS

2009-08-13T08:03:00.000-07:00

The below is probably of limited interest to people who spend less than 8 hours a day in front of a computer.

When I read in the summary that this IEEE article (here) discussed "The projects—ServiceOS and the Gazelle Web browser—make the browser act more like an operating system." My first thought was "This article is likely going to make Jason's head asplode." However it didn't end up being all that inflammatory or terribly interesting, even for people who really believe that the current trend of using the web browser for everything is rather misguided. The upshot is that Microsoft has a project going that has end goals similar to the Chrome OS from Google.

Damping

2009-08-13T01:37:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia just can't compete this time.

Generally, damped harmonic oscillators satisfy the second-order differential equ...

*yawn*

oh look! animated breast simulator that advertises mega-bras!

Today's suggested experiment, confirm that even an 'under-damped mass-spring system' (*cough*) acts as a low pass filter.

Plug-In 2009

2009-08-12T23:02:00.001-07:00

Must look at tracker of the electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in development now: here. Lots of cool cars in the pipeline!

On Tuesday evening I attended the "Plug-In 2009" electric vehicles (EV) conference public night at the Long Beach Convention Center. Carrie met me there (hooray for an interested friend!) and we got to the exposition floor with about 30 minutes until the discussion started. It ended up being busier and a bit larger than I had expected. AV had a large booth set up showcasing charging stations and a hybrid drive test system. I ended up chatting with the AV sales rep for awhile and didn't leave much time to check out the cars on display. So in the last few minutes I just quickly snapped pictures of anything that was shiny. (slide show at the bottom)

The discussion was interesting and exceeded my (kinda low) expectations as far as being engaging. The panelists were: Chris Paine the documentary director of "Who killed the electric car" Chelsea Sexton an EV activist ever since the EV-1, and of course Bill Nye is "The Science Guy" who has one of the Mini-Es. The first question was very technical, about the P1772 connector. But the panel wasn't really there to debate engineering specifics so the discussion mercifully was directed back towards broader themes. There were some colorful characters and Bill Nye raised the ire of the dirty hippies (unbathed) in the room when he suggested that dirty hippies have unrealistic goals about what the environmentalism movement should try and achieve. Bill Nye comes off as genuine and likable as you'd expect. He appears to possibly have a bit of a love/hate relationship with his self proclaimed D list celebrity status. My arm chair psychoanalysis is that while he loves his career of promoting all things science he may feel a bit like a fraud, constantly being portrayed as an expert on subjects when really while he is a remarkable jack of all trades, he's not really an expert or accomplished 'scientist' in any given field. (perhapds accomplished engineer but not 'scientist') Anyhow, he's still out making science fun and easy for people to understand, and he was on TV when I was 13 and that's awesome.

Something else that I found kind of interesting about the EVs on display is that their installs were a little bit ... kludgey. As in not very different at all from what I helped wire up at Anuvu Inc. in 2003. The installs are just square boxes packed full of electronics wedged in where a gas engine used to be. The built from the ground up plug-in and 100% electric vehicles will hopefully have much more elegant integrations of the drive systems. (After a short search I found the obituary for Anuvu. I'm glad I went to work for Cliff instead of taking the job there full time after the internship! Interesting comments)

The Tesla Model S - WANT!

Hydrogen is really on the back burner these days. (gotta love how you can find a headline that matches any point you're trying to make) With nearly all research money going into plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell cars will not arrive any time "in the next 10 years" that they were talking about 10 years ago. The point was made that this doesn't have to be an either-or proposition however. And that people adopting electric cars in large numbers would only help the hydrogen technology when it comes finally becomes available.

Ripening

2009-08-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

The tomatoes are coming around. The plants are actually a bit disappointing. They look sort of spindly and they don't have many leaves on them. But they are starting to crank out the fruit as you can see below. Red tomatoes!

Water drop

2009-08-05T19:14:00.001-07:00

Central Coast British Car Show

2009-07-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

I made it out to Oxnard to check out the British car show today. Lots of good cars, the battery on the camera died shortly after the excessive TR6 coverage.

Cat and Luke's Wedding

2009-07-19T23:48:00.001-07:00

Pictures from the wedding on Saturday. Funtimes!

Structural failure

2009-07-19T23:10:00.000-07:00

I knew that the tomatoes needed some support but I didn't really know "when" they needed the support. Apparently the baskets need to be in place by 7 weeks. Otherwise they fall over. Lukily they're hardy plants and didn't mind being propped back up too much. I did lose a branch with 8-10 blooms on it though. Lesson learned!

Clunky

2009-07-19T23:06:00.000-07:00

The clunking sound from the rear of the Triumph is no longer a mystery. The rear shock link came apart, the other side did this a few thousand miles ago, it really should have been the first thing I checked. Things that should be connected in this picture: 1 and 2.
(click for larger image)

Edutainment

2009-07-13T00:28:00.001-07:00

Ada Lovelace comic

Youtubes

2009-07-11T23:46:00.000-07:00

Today's links of interest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6bCdZmSE7M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

Audi forums

2009-07-11T15:58:00.000-07:00

I wasted a lot of time today looking at Audi stuff on the internet. I stumbled on an "Avants Only" forum section (The word 'wagon', or even 'estate' being insufficient for Audi, they pretentiously label their 5 door cars "avant") where this self congratulatory thread is full of people patting each other on the back for treating their luxury sport wagons like pickups. These are my kind people! ( click here to skip to my entry)