Aftershocks

The Napa Earthquake held the local TV News Cycle through the end of the Late Sunday Night News. It's dialed back Monday morning, however the clean-up will take weeks and the recovery years. I saw photos of the Trefethen Winery, it looks like a total loss. Monday's Noon News is reporting sixteen structures are red-tagged, meaning they are unfit for habitation. The 4PM News says there's nearly 50 red-tagged structures.

Trefethen Winery

Many wineries are reporting big losses of bottled wines and wine in the barrel.

Closer to home, Kirk Vallus messaged me via Facebook: "Spoke with Richard tonight, good news, went up to the Ranch today and not a stone had moved in the ruins..... That is a good thing...."

Richard owns quite a bit of the historic Napa Soda Springs Resort in Soda Canyon on the flanks of Atlas Peak. Richard's place has ruins of some of the original buildings that date to the 1860's, and many of the named mineral springs still flow. Soda Canyon is on the east side of the Napa Valley, well above the destruction of old downtown Napa.

Today drone images of downtown Napa's damages were posted to YouTube:
 

My heart goes out to the People of Napa...lots of work ahead...

It's certainly stunning footage, and drones are all the rage lately, but it's another Information Age connection that caught my fancy today: Jawbone UP

What's Jawbone? What's UP? I'd never heard of them before I saw this tweet this morning: "Wearable tech maker @jawbone says 93% of its users woke up at 3:20AM during earthquake"

I read the linked blog, perused Jawbone's UP website, and my blood's running a little colder now. It turns out I do know what Jawbone is...they are makers of the Bluetooth ear pieces that make mobile phones "hands-free", and they make Bluetooth speaker systems to stream your phone or iPod music to.

Jawbone UP is an "Activity Tracker", favored by people who want their entire lives and beings digitized for use by Mobile Apps and computers. A bracelet interfaces with your phone and records many channels of data including heart rate, physical exertion, time at rest or sleeping. Once saved and accessed the data is your to "Share" on social media, or embellish your daily diary or exercise planning. UP tracks your activity, diet and sleep. UP's website touts:

• Healthy Food Score
• Simple Water Logging
• Popular Restaurant Menus
• Enhanced Calorie Tracking

I wonder how long before the NSA is selling this personal intel to Insurance Companies to finance yet another covert (read Unconstitutional) surveillance program (or worse). Facebook is snoopy enough! At least there you must first chose to report your thoughts, activities, and post photos of your meals at the newest trendy restaurants!

I removed the Facebook App from my smartphone 3-4 weeks ago, when the latest Facebook "Feature" seemed too invasive for my sensibilities.

Being awakened by earthquake tremors is one thing...plugging in my vital signs to the cloud would keep me up all night!  

The All Seeing Eye Sees All

Security Cams
Yet another Big News Story that features Security Cameras.

We're told that there's several security cam videos being investigated for leads in the Boston Marathon Terror Bombing.

I watched some coverage Monday night, and viewed a fair amount of cell phone camera videos of the blast and immediate aftermath as well.

Many of these phone videos ended up on Cable News, Network News, Local News, and news and newspaper websites around the world.

The old catchphrase 'Elvis Is Everywhere' has been supplanted by 'The Hills Have Eyes', or more succinctly, "Big Brother Is Watching You'.

London swings to the beat of security cams now, it's the most surveilled city on Earth now.

Time will tell if the security cam footage actually helps to apprehend Boston's Marathon Bomber.

Authorities are asking The Public to submit any videos or photographs that may provide information leading to the arrest and conviction of the bomber or bombers.

Hopefully we can deduce that nobody was watching the security cams in 'Real Time' and saw the Bomber place the pressure cooker bombs into the finish line trash cans.

Dash Cams
The Russian Meteorite that exploded over Chelyabinsk in The Urals on February 15th went viral on the internet just minutes after the fireball exploded. Most of the early videos were made with dash cams. I'd never heard of dash cams before and I did a little searching and found out that in Russia dash cams are very popular among Russian motorists because corruption is rampant in the Post-Soviet Police Forces.

After viewing a few of the dashcam videos on YouTube, I concluded that the dash cams are necessary on Russian highways because I've never seen more crazy drivers since I went to a Demolition Derby at the County Fair! Yikes!

Mashable has a good overview of the Russian DashCam phenomenon.

PBS's NOVA did an hour on the Russian Meteorite. It aired March 27, 2013. Astronomers from  University of  Western Ontario gathered these dash cam videos, and using GPS they plotted the location of the cams and the time the event was captured, and plotted the meteorite's path. They went to their predicted impact area and found pieces of the meteorite in the snow! You can watch the episode 'Meteor Impact' online.

I found a story about the legality of dash cams in California. They're 'legal' but there's some hoops to jump through if you want to use your dash cam on Public Roads. You must display a legible sign inside AND outside the vehicle equipped with a dash cam warning that a camera may record people in and around the dash cam equipped vehicle. Privacy is taken seriously by California Lawmakers...

I find the contrast between 'The All Seeing Eyes' of the Citizens vs those of the Government, to be very filling 'Food For Thought'...and not a little chilling...

Irony is hard...

Maintain

All this fishing is taking a toll on my tackle.

I stopped by the SturgeUrge Compound Saturday afternoon on my way home from a morning of errands. I had to pick up the GPS Chartplotter antenna for modifications and my rod and reel so I could re-spool the topshot of monofiliment.

My little AVET SX reel has a couple hundred yards of 30lb Power Pro spectra line on it and I run 60 yards or so of Red Cast Cajun 17lb line on top of it.

I didn't chose the Red Cast by color, it was the only 17lb line in the sporting goods store the day I needed it. I've come to love the stuff. When you're trolling three lines off a street-legal boat (no wider than 8ft-6inches), tangles become a problem...especially if one guy is running a plug when everybody else is running spinners...make a turn and you're not fishing anymore, you're knitting!

With the Red Cajun line, it's much easier to un-plait the resultant macrame mess!

So I stripped off the old Cajun line and I'll tie up a new topshot in the morning. An Improved Albright knot and a couple applications of PlioBond glue to fair the knot and I'll be good to go by Wednesday when weather permitting, we'll splash the F/V SturgeUrge into The Sacramento River near Rio Vista again.

The economics are impossible to ignore...at current market rates for Wild King Salmon - $22.99/lb at the Walnut Creek Lunardi's Market, bringing home just 3lbs of salmon pays for the trip! That's gas for the boat and tow vehicle, bridge toll, lunch and launch fees...

Did I mention that these fish are mostly bright chrome ocean-fresh fish or males just starting to turn red...think pastel pinkish?

The fish are right there...though I'm beginning to see Dungeness Crab Season on the distant horizon...

Upon closer inspection, Ocean Salmon and Dungeness Crab seasons overlap for eight days...very interesting...if halibut are late hanging around...with any luck...it could be a Captain's Plate kinda day...or days...

You Shoulda Been Here Yestraday!

That's the Number One Fishing Report Worldwide...

SturgeUrge and I hit the river again Friday with king salmon in mind. We had new tricks to try, and Urge's brother came along too. I told the whole sordid story on my Club's Website:

Rio Vista Salmon 9/28 Skunk
We returned for another day to Rio Vista after taking one fish Wednesday.

We changed things up a little...we launched from Rio Vista instead of Vieira's...we added a chartplotter and an electric trolling motor.

Mother Nature changed things up too...the wind was blowing early and we could see "sheep in the meadow" when we crossed the HWY 12 bridge.

There was one third the number of boats compared to Wednesday.

The wind made trolling tough, and it aggregated the weeds so keeping our junk clean was a chore.

Still we were troopers and trolled for six hours around the top of the tide for no hits, no runs, and just a couple of unforced errors.

Fish were being caught...just not by us.

The Rest of the Story:
We added my GPS Chartplotter and a new electric trolling motor to our arsenal. The chartplotter gave us Speed Over Ground in real time. We used this capability to calibrate the trolling motor so as to replicate the exact trolling speed that worked so well Wednesday.

Well...that was a little tough...the stiff winds made the bucket unnecessary. SturgeUrge was really working hard on the main Sacramento to troll a decent line with the winds quartering across the F/V SturgeUrge's bow.

There's a lot of moving parts when the wind blows. The math get s a little complex...wind speed and direction...tidal current...engine speed...windage.

We didn't get a bite, the ultimate clue that you're doin' it right.

Even with 1/3 the number of boats, these boaters wanted to run too tight to us...the ones that weren't busy tailgating us...

After three hours of beating, we opted to seek shelter and began fishing the Old Sacramento from the confluence to up past Vieira's. We had lunch, the fish still with the lockjaw...

We finally pulled the plug at 4:30. Back at the ramp the dock's gangplank was underwater and the wind was still whipping. SturgeUrge said the wading felt good.

We learned a bunch of things that will come in handy on other waters, and help us dial-in our Delta Salmon Attack.

The chartplotter has a beautiful sunlight viewable LCD screen that should be standard on all digital cameras.

I'm pretty sure the camera makers don't use this screen because it costs too much and uses too much power. It would eat through camera batteries in no time.

Gone Fishing Again

Take Two!

SturgeUrge and I are heading back to Wednesday's "scene of the crime" to angle for more chinook salmon.

I grilled some of Urge's fish Thursday for dinner, and it was delicious.

We worked on the F/V SturgeUrge Thursday...we hoped to rewire the bow-mounted electric trolling motor...silent running and all...

Well the bow-mounted troller was too far gone...more than wiring...rust never sleeps as they say...

No worries, SturgeUrge had a spare in stock. This one is a portable Evinrude unit. Some squirts of BR50 penetrating oil, install on the kicker mount and we're good to go. We added another rod holder, this one center mounted so we can troll three rods comfortably on these Delta trips. It's going to come in handy on dungeness crab fishing adventures too...it's a perfect place to stow the gaff that we use to catch the crab trap floats, and the gaffman can stow the gaff right there without handing off to the skipper while hauling the trap line.

I finished the wiring for my GPS chartplotter Thursday after the SturgeUrge outfitting session. We're going to need the unit to calibrate our trolling speed when we run on electric power. It will come in handy come crab season too, it remembers exactly where we deploy every crab pot, and if the fog comes in, the chartplotter will lead us right to each pot, and back to the boat ramp too.

Things I Like

It’s Wednesday night and I’m feelin’ it alright…

Giants’ Baseball

My San Francisco Giants began the night with a Magic Number of 7. For those not familiar with MLB minutia, the Magic Number in this case is the total of Giants’ wins added to LA Dodgers’ losses. When the Magic Number reaches zero, the Division Title is secured. The Giant s are playing an inspired version of baseball this month .

It’s all too rare when the Giants and their arch rivals the LA Dodgers are battling down to the wire in September.

I like when Tony Bennett sings “I left My Heart” after a Giants home victory.

Tuesday night, Tim Lincecum pitched his best game of the season…he had command of all his “stuff” and had a quality start and tallied the win…and Tony Bennett sang.

Wednesday night, Matt Cain recorded his 15^th win and Tony Bennett sang.

When I was eleven years old, the Giants and Dodgers battled down to the last game. The pennant was decided by a playoff game…which the Giants won, sending them to the World Series vs the New York Yankees. My Dad pulled me out of school to attend Game 2 of the World Series at Candlestick Park where Yankees’ pitcher Whitey Ford humiliated the Giants’ batters with a 1-0 shutout.

49 years later, the game is so much deeper to me…exciting yes, but it’s so much richer to 60 year old me. Baseball has entered it’s second “Golden Age”. Most teams have built new, smaller, stadiums. Dodger Stadium built in 1962 is the third oldest park in the majors after Boston’s Fenway Park and the Chicago Cubs’ Wrigley Field. These new more intimate parks really showcase the National Pastime to today’s fans.

Broken Stuff

All my life it seems like my stuff breaks all at the same time. Flurries of failures…It’s not just the new camera that needs do go back for replacement. My trusty old document shredder finally gave up the ghost, and a pair of my summertime shoes, Merrill Jungle Mocs finally blew out. It’s time for a new Winter pair of Merrill Orbits too.

My Fellowes shredder is more than ten years old, but I finally fed it something that disagreed with it. I spent an hour or more with a bottle of shredder oil and some dental tools trying to make it happy again…FAIL

I hit the internet and looked at new ones. I was prepared to spend around $80 or so, when I decided just to go to Reno and do some hands-on research. Office Depot, COSTCO, and REI are all on the same street, so I hit REI for some new Jungle Mocs before perusing the shredders at Office Depot.

There were no $80 Fellowes machines at Office Depot. The in-store prices were 25% higher than their online prices, and the $129 model was too wimpy for this shopper.

Next door at COSTCO, they had one Fellowes shredder. This one does 12 sheets at a time and eats credit cards and CDs! $99-SOLD! I grabbed a bale of toilet paper, and trolled the SD Cards and there was a $5 Off deal on the pair of 16GB cards I put off last time I was there…WIN!

I got home and assembled the new machine before the Giants-Rockies game. I fed it the first hank of credit card come-ons, and was surprised at how quiet the thing was! No grinding sound, just a firm steady whir…the loudest noise was paper crinkling when the paper ran up against one side of the feed slot!

The best thing? You don’t even have to open the junk mail! This thing eats anything! I read the instructions to find out one thing: How often do I oil it? It says oil it each time you empty the waste bin.

I shredded away during the ballgame, ripping through a year’s worth of junk mail backlog, and oiled four times. The authoritative whir of this machine is almost comforting!

This was an awesome buy all around! Amazon's price is $122.49 I win.

Giants magic number now 5. Giants at AT&T Park today at 12:45PM

Talkin' Radio

Well dear readers, I set out to put together my Wildfire Toolbox on Saturday, and despite my best intentions I got sidetracked listening to the radio traffic from the Robbers Fire over the internet. I'd totally forgotten that almost all Public Service radio services are now streamed online somewhere!

So bear with me, I'll get her done before Fire Season ends!

By all early indications, Fire Season 2012 is gonna be a rough one. Two seasons ago I wrote about Wet Winters and Summer Fire Seasons: "Monday Extra: Fire Weather Redux". With last Winter's wimpy water production, we're surely looking at the flip side of the fire season coin.

We certainly seem to be coming into the meat of fire season earlier that usual...though it could be that in the Twitter Age more news reaches us faster depending on our interests and how well tailored one's Twitter "follow list" is. Still there's an awful lot of fires in California and The West right now. I've already heard the "extreme fire behavior" meme from the fires near Reno, NV and from the Waldo Canyon Fire outside of Colorado Springs, CO

So what's the best way to keep abreast of Fire News and information in your area? In a word, Radio. I've been a radio junkie since I can remember. Born in the early 50s, radio was my information superhighway growing up. My love of baseball can be tied directly to radio, because in those days one listened to the game...televised baseball was rare until World Series time.

Growing up a San Francisco Giants fan I was blessed to listen to the best announcing team in the business, Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons. Does "Tell it Bye Bye Baby!" ring a bell? That was Russ Hodges' signature home run call. "The Shot Heard 'Round The World" was Hodges' call too. It's the October 3, 1951 tie-breaker game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. When Giants' outfielder Bobby Thompson hit a three run walk off homer to beat the Dodgers, Hodges screamed "The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant,..."


Broadcast Radio AM/FM: That's radio to most people, or music radio. AM News radio is the easiest place to start your search for meaningful Fire News. Most News/Talk Stations will go wall to wall fire coverage if there's a fire in their service area. Most stations have a website where you can stream their signal. This is really handy if you want to keep tabs on a fire near distant friends and family. An internet search with the Town's name and Radio in the search field will yield results a-plenty. Notice I didn't say "Google It"...Ixquick It, I say!

Ixquick is like Google in that it's a metasearch engine just like Google, but Ixquick doesn't record your IP Address which saves on future popup clutter, and your cookie counts.

Television: I spent more time than I'd like to admit watching the Waldo Canyon Fire online when Colorado Springs was in danger. Same search strategy...Town and TV. Two Colorado Springs TV Stations streamed LIVE around the clock during the worst part of the firestorm. When things calmed down enough for evacuees to begin returning to their homes, the stations continued with the LIVE online streaming after they returned to "regular programing" on the air.

NOAA Weather Radio: The National Weather Service broadcasts 24/7 over VHF radio stations. Forecasts, local observations and warnings are all on the menu. Small inexpensive receivers are available. The 2-way radios in my snowcat has a dedicated channel to listen to NOAA Weather Radio. Each station across the country is linked to the nearest NWS Forecast Office. On My Mountain, the service is priceless during big storm periods.

When there's Fire Weather, the WX Radio will let you know. If there's an active fire in the area, fire info may be broadcast as well. (WX is a radio abbreviation for weather)

There's a whole "Other World" of radio out there. We're talking 2-way radio. Everyone's heard of "Ham Radio" Ham is sorta short for Amateur Radio. Hobbyists around the world play with radios and related technology. In America Ham Radio is making a comeback now that the Morse Code Requirements have been eliminated.

Business Radio: On My Mountain 2-way radio is essential. Each groomer has a multi-channel 2-way radio, all the management carry handi-talkies, ski patrollers all carry 2-ways, and most departments have a base station radio at their HQ. Every ski resort works this way.

Public Safety Radio: Police, Sheriffs, CHP, College Police Depts and Fire Departments all use 2-way radios. CalFire, US Forest Service, Municipal FDs and even Volunteer FDs are all on the air.

Scanner Radios: So how do you listen to the Firefighting Agencies and the Law Enforcement radios?  Get yourself a Police Scanner! These radios scan banks of preset frequencies that you key into the radio's memory. The scanner runs through the freq. list over and over until it finds an active signal and stops to monitor the signal until the traffic ends..then it resumes scanning. If you don't know what freqs to monitor, scanners also have a search scan function to help you find the active freqs in your area.

Scanners are handy in Wintertime when you live in snow country too. I monitor CalTrans snowplows, Truckee Police, Town of Truckee snow removal, CHP, local ski resorts and Search and Rescue during storm periods.

Scanners come in handheld, mobile and base station configurations. I have a handheld, and I bring it along when I go out to the Reno Air Races, or the racetrack to listen to the drivers talk to their crews. A scanner really adds texture to the action, and there are vendors at most big-time motorsports events where you can rent a pre-programed scanner for the day or weekend. Vendors usually offer a print out of all the weekend team/car freqs for free.

There's much more on scanner radios at DXing.com They cost anywhere from $50 to $5000 depending on how many bells and whistles you're willing to pay for. I have an AOR AR-2700 that I bought new in 1996. I'm sure it didn't cost much more than $100. I have a power supply that it mounts on at the DaveCave so it's like a base station. I have a nice discone antenna on a mast that plugs into the scanner when you take the "rubber duckie" antenna off. I monitored the Russian MIR space station on the 2 Meter Ham Band with this setup.

If you're unlucky enough to have a fire chase you from your home, the handheld scanner would be worth it's weight in gold. If you don't want another noisy gadget in the house, you can listen to scanner traffic on the internet.

Internet scanning will kick off the next installment of the CorduroyPlanet Wildfire Toolbox

Head On a Swivel

OK, I feel all rested up from the busy weekend.

My Memorial Day Weekend was all about history...looking back if you will...WWII Battleship USS Iowa...70th Monaco Grand Prix...96th Indianapolis 500.

Even baseball brought the history. On Monday, San Francisco Giants left fielder Melky Cabrera passed Willie Mays' 1958 record of 49 hits in the month of May. Wednesday night the Melk Man knocked his 51st hit, tieing the all-time-any-month Giants record that goes back to 1918.

When SturgeUrge and I were on San Francisco Bay Saturday, the boat traffic became so crazy that SturgeUrge's head looked like it was on a swivel...call it Combat Boating. Well, Skipper 'Urge brought us back to dry land in one piece to float another day.

This evening, I feel like it's my head on the proverbial swivel. My world is all on the up and up tonight...after watching the Giants lose 4-1 to the Arizona Diamondbacks, my twitter feed was suddenly full of spaceflight tweets...

As I write, I'm keeping an ear on the SpaceX Dragon and the International Space Station's LIVE ungrapple and departure stream. The Dragon Capsule will leave the ISS tonight on it's way back to Earth. As it turns out, all this spaceflight stuff is history too...SpaceX's Dragon is the first commercial spacecraft to visit and dock to the ISS. The Dragon will shuttle people back and forth from the ISS after some more test flights and NASA approval.

SpaceX aren't the only private outfit building commercial spacecraft for the ISS delivery market either...

Orbital Sciences Corp. is developing their Antares rocket/ Cygnus capsule system to serve the ISS, too.

Another company, Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic received the necessary permits from the FAA to test their SpaceShip Two with full rocket motor power. Virgin who call themselves the "First Commercial Spaceline" (as opposed to airline), is going after the Space Tourist Trade...short sub-orbital rides into space, complete with the dramatic, firey atmospheric reentry.

I'm so grateful to these companies picking up NASA's slack. NASA seems to be dithering lately, and time is running out for me to see earthmen walk on Mars. When I was a kid watching NASA blast off into the New Frontier, it was a given that men would be on Mars sooner than later...now it's been forty years since we last landed on the Moon! NASA gets it budget slashed every year while the Feds run up World Record deficits...

You know, all this internet/smartphone/Facebook/Twitter/iPad stuff is all the product of kids who were inspired by the Space Program and it's offshoots. Back in the day, we all felt like we were helping the astronauts...willing them higher, farther, longer...to the next unbelievable breakthrough, milestone after milestone, until Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface in 1969. We all carried astronaut lunch boxes to school, scores of toys and commercial tie-ins exploited our space mania. Is Tang still on grocery store shelves?

Well, in the Internet Age, pandering is as easy as click, click, click, only in the 21st Century they're giving it away. Here's some SpaceX Dragon fun that's free save the price of printing it on your home printer:

Print and build your own paper Dragon Spacecraft

Have fun kids!

On the Up and Up!

Well things look a lot different this year on the AMGEN Tour of California!

No snow, no ice on Donner Pass Road, no cancelled stages, no low hanging marine layer on the Mt Hamilton summit...Nope, none of it!

Friend of CorduroyPlanet, KirkVallus is in town for the race, and we rolled away from the SturgeUrge Compound a little after 10AM Tuesday morning headed for Mt Diablo. The race was climbing Mt Diablo for the first time, and we wanted to be up on the Devil Mountain at the King of the Mountain summit.

The mountain is in fine springtime shape, most of the grassy hills are still green, washed with colorful rafts of wildflowers looking from a distance like masterpieces from the Impressionist movement...think Claude Monet.

I had plenty of time to admire the beauty, VirkVallus was driving. Mt Diablo is a California State Park, and the roads are narrow (not to mention steep and windey) Oh, there were hundreds of bicyclists climbing the road as well!

A half an hour of climbing the mountain, and we stopped at Rock City, and paid the $10 Day Use Fee. Another 15 minutes and we found our little Valhalla 150 ft from the KOM line.

KirkVallus parked the Suburu wagon so the back would be our own private bleacher seats. We sprayed ourselves with sunscreen and took in the passing scene. We were at Junction City. There's a Ranger Station and a campground, and the road to the summit takes off from the junction with the park's main north/south thoroughfare. There were around 50 fans there when we settled in about two and a half hours before the race would pass over the summit.

Mt Diablo's Junction City KOM Summit

The people watching was World Class. A beautiful day marred only by some haze in the air. There must have been a hundred bicycles climbing the mountain for each car that did.

By the time the race was near, there were thousands of fans lining the road.

It was like a bicycle show. There were millions of dollars worth of bikes up there. Lots of high-dollar racing bikes. Composite bikes were the most common...lots of $4000-$6000 swoopy carbon fiber Time Trial bikes, and flat out racing bikes. I only saw one Lightspeed Titanium frame...these used to be the favored "unobtanium" weapon for poseurs and racers alike.

As the crowds built, we spied some beautiful old classic bikes. We saw a good half dozen LeMond bikes from the late 80s-early 90s. Beautifully brazed steel frames from America's first Tour de France Champion, Greg LeMond. I saw LeMond ride through downtown Truckee years ago on his training ride. He blew a shift and cussed as he turned right from West River Street onto HWY 267 heading back to Lake Tahoe.

I started snapping pictures of the more interesting bikes. A grizzled old guy on an old classic lugged steel framed Masi asked if he could park his bike next to the car. I said sure and snapped a photo. The frame was gorgeous, but the wheelset was the most modern carbon fiber rims with radial bladed titanium spokes.

Naturally 95% of the rides were road bikes. Mountain Bikes were the other 5%. We only saw two tandems and one recumbent.

Once the crowd filled in, I was struck by all the people on their handheld devices.

A couple of mountain bikers made a Facetime Video Call to their office to brag at a coworker about where they were and what they were doing as they wagged their gelato pops in front of the iPhone.

I didn't notice just how many people were on their devices until I got home and looked at my photos on my laptop. In some photos everyone was using a device!

I started taking pictures of people taking pictures...without much luck. Most of these people were quick draw experts with their digital cameras and iPhones.

Of course there's an app for the Tour. I asked our nearest neighbor if she had the TourTracker App. She didn't know about the app, but said she was getting tweets, and that the peloton had just gone through the sprint in Livermore.

Perfect. I'd printed the Stage Map and Stage Log before we left, and I looked at the log and it said The race would pass our place at 1:45PM...an hour and ten minutes away...

About 3 hours after the first photo...10 minutes before the peloton arrived Use the Stop Sign as a reference point

The crowd kept growing...it was a huge party...without the sloppy drunks...this was a fitness crowd...and as the race neared, the volume of the crowd grew along with the excitement.

The caravan began to stream by. All the Marshalls, Race Directors, Highway Patrol cars and bikes with lights a-blazing, yipping their sirens, then the crowd roared and the four men in the breakaway blew by. Pro cyclists go crazy fast...UPHILL!

The tweets said the break was almost nine minutes. The crowd kept itself on a slow boil. I listened for the helicopters, but never saw or heard them overhead as the main field approached. Truth be told, I'm sure the choppers cam right over us, but we couldn't hear them over the crowd.

It was an awesome spectacle. Team CorduroyPlanet's Peter Sagan won his third stage in a row. Well done...

Geekgasm

What an amazing day I had mining the internet! From the tech minutia of Formula One aero-developement (with great spy photos!) tweeted LIVE from Mugello in Italy's Tuscan countryside, to enough snarky tweets to sprain my funny bone, via some web radio, and some baseball blog fun, it sadly unraveled as the Junior Seau news unwound. Godspeed Junior. I hope his death spurs on the concussion studies of NFL players.

There's been a bunch of tech stuff streaming this week. I think it's so cool that SpaceX streamed the rocket engine test LIVE from Cape Canaveral Monday. The test went perfectly after one quick delay, and SpaceX will send their first Dragon capsule to the International Space Station later this month. Private spaceflight...I've been waiting for this since I was a kid listening to NASA space shots on a cheap transistor radio!

It's been a bad couple of weeks for offshore sailboat racing in California. The Slow Speed Chase ran afoul of shoals at the Farallones on April 13th, leaving one dead and four missing. On the morning of April 28th, the Agean went missing during the 65th Annual Newport to Ensenada Race with four souls aboard. Early speculation had the Agean tangling with a large ocean going ship.

The SoCal yacht racing deaths have been explained. Tech holds the answer. After lunch today, Latitude38 posted to Facebook the rest of the Agean story. It looks like no other vessel was involved. Agean's SPOT Messenger GPS track shows the boat was on a constant course and speed for more than three hours before crashing into North Coronado Island.

This SPOT Messenger GPS is a pretty cool gadget. A hundred bucks for the SPOT and $100/yr for the service looks reasonable to me for people who spend their time out near the edge. I haven't seen any SPOT coms on my Facebook or Twitter feeds...yet...

Jeez, SturgeUrge and I have been planning another Tomales Bay Dungeness Crab Hunt for a week now...the wind, weather and tides just won't cooperate. we're looking at after Mother's Day now...

The winds have turned blustery, and the skies have been darkening since noon today. The Monterey/SFO AFD said there was an 80% chance of rain on Tomales Bay tomorrow, with just a chance of precip here in the Inland Valley. My eye says it could rain here before morning.

Regular readers will remember Bruce Lee, the AT&T Park Red Tail Hawk. Bruce is on Twitter now. Not to be out-maneuvered, the AT&T Park Seagull signed up this week too. I expect an epic, dare I say Iconic, SnarkFest should ensue when @HawkBruce and @ATTSeagull start to tangle!

Finally, the numbers on the 2011/2012 Ski Season are coming out, and they're not good. Truckee's Local Fishwrap has the numbers from Northstar and Heavenly Valley. The two Vail-owned resorts report a 24.2% hit to skier visits from the slow starting season. How'd I know about the Sierra Sun story? They're in my Twitter feed.

Thoughts on the Passing Scene

It's 2:18PM PDT. I just lit the pilot light on the heater. NWS Reno has issued a Winter Storm Warning for tonight into Wednesday afternoon. Snow level lowering to DaveCave level by morning.

My brief brush with our dystopian digital future has turned into a trend.  I ran into Reno Friday to pick up some specialty mechanic's tools, and provisions. On my way down the Truckee River canyon, I noticed CalTrans was busy trying to wrap up their paving project on Westbound I-80 before the rain arrives. There was a two mile long backup in the Work Zone, and I made a mental note that I might want to go home via the Mt Rose Highway.

It was a lovely day in Reno...90°F of nice desert-dry heat. I filled up at COSTCO but demurred on the warehouse visit (I don't do COSTCO on Fri/Sat/Sun) I heard a traffic bulletin about the slow going on WB 80 as I wrapped up my errands and turned south towards the Mt Rose Highway.

The desiduous trees were beginning to show their autumn color as I reached the summit. There was a heavy haze in the air (It's prescribed burn time in the Tahoe Basin) There was lots of fellow motorists up there on the mountain...that traffic bulletin I guessed. Even obscured by smoky haze, there isn't a better vista than Lake Tahoe looking south from high above Incline Village. I reached Lakeshore Drive, and headed towards Kings Beach...where I ran into another road construction project. I wasn't following close enough, so the flagger twirled the SLOW/STOP semaphore to STOP as I arrived.

I watched the eastbound traffic go by for 7:00 minutes...on the radio the news of Bank of America's new $5/month Debit Card Fee was breaking...I payed it no mind and gazed instead at the lake views and fancy boats playing on the glassy water.

Hours later I tried to logon to BofA's site to balance my checkbook, and it was unavailable. A few minutes later the website's troubles were a story on the 11 O'clock News. It was Sunday before I could do my online banking. Millions of BofA customers were logging on to file complaints about the new $60/year fees, slowing the website to a crawl. I washed my hands of the whole thing...I want perfect performance, without any drama or glitches when I'm banking online!

Tuesday I ran up against crashing websites everywhere again! About 10AM PDT Tuesday morning, I (and millions of iPhone Fans around the world) hit various tech websites to find out about Apple's latest whiz-bang gizmo. Rumor Central said the iPhone5 was going to be the greatest thing since sliced Blackberries...

Now none of these websites were streaming live video of Apple's presentation, these were LiveBlogs, where geek journalists type a sentence or two every minute or two, that are posted to the various websites for visitors to read. Very low bandwidth compared to video, and still these websites were driven to the brink...several lockups, drop-outs, and 404 errors...my, my... the power of Apple's marketing is really something!

I gather the Apple Fanbois are a little crestfallen since the iPhone 5 didn't make it's long lusted for debut. Apple followed their usual MO and introduced the iPhone 4S. A new faster, dual core processor, new camera and 1080p HD video, an new operating system with 200 new features and voice control, all in cahoots with iCloud, Apple's move to cloud storage and computing.

So, what was I doing...paying attention to the iPhone hoopla? I don't need a smartphone. Well I was hoping some of the new goodies would show up in the Generation 5 iPod Touch...especially the fullHD video and the upgraded camera. No such luck...

My iPod is now two years old. It's a Gen3 without the cameras. I've got a month and a half to follow along with the early adopters who upgrade to the new iOS5 before deciding to get one on Black Friday, the only day of the year to get Apple products on sale. I've never upgraded to iOS4 because so many Apple iPod owners had tons of trouble with their upgrades...specifically their battery life dropped by half...no thanks.

I have all the capability of the 5th Gen iPod between my 3rd Gen iPod and pocket digicam now, except for Apple's FaceTime and iCloud. I fancy FaceTime the iOS Video Chat/telephony app, but I can wait until next October in case the iPhone4S' chips, cameras, and video capabilities trickle down to the Gen6 iPod.

Ten hours later, all the Geek Websites are firing on all cylinders. I'm happy to soldier on with my bag of digital goodies until there's a pocket-sized quantum leap in Gadgetville. Technology never sleeps.

As I get ready to call it a day, I can hear the rain pelting the front door. I might be shoveling snow in the morning...that's OK...the weather is supposed to warm back up by the weekend.

Again With the Digital Ephemera...

A month ago I wrote about the perishable nature of our digital data. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like Historical Erosion has always been on the Fast Track in America...Oh sure, Citizen Preservationists are curating bits and pieces of our history from coast to coast, but American Culture hit the ground running sometime after that first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, and has been running away from the history we make like it's a house on fire.

Now that American Culture increasingly happens in (or, at the least is chronicled in) the Digital Realms, and given that the pace of change multiplies exponentially in the Digital World, I found some calming hope this week in our Digital World.

Here's the back story. Back around the Fourth of July, my 16 month old DELL laptop began exhibiting some overheating symptoms. By July 11th, a file in the Master Boot Record became corrupted and the machine would log me on top a "Temporary Profile"...Not good. As sole user and administrator of this machine this would never do. Under a Temp Profile, I was denied access to all files associated with me, and any changes I made would magically disappear the next time the computer started. As the only user, ALL the files are associated with me...or rather were associated with me!

The first Temp Profile warning occurred right after I downloaded some photos from my digital camera. I freaked out and shut it down to deal with it later when I was fully rested and had nothing on the docket. The next time I fired it up, I could see those photos being uploaded to Carbonite, the online backup service. I couldn't actually see the photos, but I could see their file names on the Carbonite Dashboard as they uploaded to Carbonite's servers

I retreated to my seven year old COMPAC laptop for day to day use, and started researching a solution to get my privileges back on my own computer. Even at Microsoft's Knowledge Base, I found several close but no cigar "solutions". I waited, and continued my quest for knowledge...Like clockwork, I began to receive an email every Sunday from Carbonite, warning me that my computer HAL2010 had not contacted Carbonite's Backup Servers in a week...and some helpful hints to make it easier to restore my files.

Last Sunday, no Carbonite email. A cold chill ran down my back, and I resigned myself to my fate...I would have to reinstall Windows7 and all the drivers and programs and restore my files via Carbonite. The DELL Support FAQs advised me that I was looking at 2+ hours to start.

Two plus hours later, I was chatting online with a DELL Technical Support guy. I was once again in charge, but now I was in charge of a less than cooperative computer. 45 minutes of polite chat later, I fell back to Plan B...I started over...

Finally, I got things up and running with one exception...the computer can't find the Wireless Adapter (which is necessary to connect by WiFi to my networks at the DaveCave and the Ancestral Digs)

OK, that I can deal with. I ran an ethernet cable, and was in business.. Windows Update downloaded and installed a hundred or so Critical Updates, and restarted several times. The fan was kicking on too much for my taste so I shut 'er down, pulled the power cord and the battery pack and using a COSTCO-sized can of Dust Remover blew enough dust and lint out of the machine to grow a potato plant in!

Now that she was  running cool, I downloaded antivirus software, and the newest Mozilla Firefox browser. I surfed to Carbonite.com, logged onto my account and began a Total Restore. I reset the power profile so the display wouldn't shut off after inactivity. The progress bar advised me that I had "Several Days" to go until I was back in the pink.

Long story short? In a little over two days time, all my files are back on my hard drive. As it turns out, I restored via the Carbonite Info Center before I reinstalled Firefox, so I had to manually reinstall my Firefox Bookmarks. Piece of cake, they're all there, all organized just the way I had 'em.

Words fail me. I haven't been so relieved and happy since I don't remember when!

So from my vantage point 24 hours removed, I can see that barring some EMP Pulse attack on the West's Digital Infrastructure, most of our Digital History Files will be fine as long as someone is looking after them. Storage hardware will evolve, operating systems will go in and out of favor, but as long as a human eye is cast towards the digital libraries, we should stay ahead of any catastrophic incompatibility losses. The $55/year I pay Carbonite is the best $55 I've ever spent.

At the risk of spraining my elbow, I'm patting myself on the back for buying the DELL from COSTCO.com, too. COSTCO doubles the warranty when you by via their website, and I saved almost $400 in the deal. Sometime in the next week, DELL will send a geek to my place to get me all fixed up. I've got something like 120 days of warranty left, and my blood pressure is once again. low, low, low...

Without a Trace

Well, it's been more than 24 hours and NASA still doesn't know where UARS fell to Earth.

I hope they're sandbagging for National Security reasons...I'd like to believe Strategic Command when they say they're tracking 22,000 pieces of Space Junk from four inches across to the football field sized International Space Station.

NASA and USSTRATCOM, please don't turn out to be another Department of Motor Vehicles or Post Office!

Tonight everything is coming down, except yours truly who's up at the DaveCave for a short stopover.

UARS is probably at the bottom of the North Pacific a few hundred miles off the Washington/Oregon coast. The satellite was not observed by a soul when it should have been transiting between Portland and Seattle. Good deal, I didn't wanna do the math on those odds again.

The San Francisco Giants came back to Earth in Arizona Saturday night. Their big 15-2 loss in a weird game where Mike Fontenot ran into the 2nd base umpire  fielding a hit in the first inning, and the lights in Chase Field went out for about a half an hour in the 7th inning! There's your dark metaphor...mercifully the Giants' announcers didn't break into a rendition of Dandy Don Meredith's "Turn Out the Lights, The Party's Over"! Just a little over six months until Opening Day 2012!

Upside news from the DaveCave...I have a DVR up and running, and the TV is still tuning all the stations, too. Good on me for hooking up the newer DVR, my alarm is set for the 0430 start of the Singapore Grand Prix coverage...but it's almost 1AM now and staying awake for much after the green flag is looking problematical...

The mercury seems to be falling, too...time to get under the covers...

Unplugged

What is it with our so called Elite Media?

I'm passing the time waiting for the AT&T Tech to call about my DSL problem. I watched the Train Wreck News on TV until 10AM...then switched to FoxNews and it was wall to wall with 9/11 remembrances. Believe me, I still walk around with a heavy heart from that day, but so much "celebrating" reminds me of how far from united we've become...besides I'm up for a happy time while waiting. I don't feel the need to swim in the Maudlin Straits this weekend...or any other weekend for that manner.

I switched over to The History Channel...WTF? They were at it too! Not 9/11 stuff, but a count-down show on the Top Ten Threats to Earth! Each one graphically illustrated in vivid living color and dread.

I'm going to give up on the TV and switch to iTunes (I don't think I can trust the radio either)...KFBK's Outdoor Show should have downloaded by now!

The Modem/Router hangin' with the baking stuff. Too much lightshow for me!

He Shoots-He Scores!
The AT&T Tech was here, DSL wouldn't drop out while she was here, but she did hear static on AT&T's line. The line guys will fix it Monday, and I don't need to be here! She said I'll most likely pick up some more speed once the line is cleared up!

Sneakin' One In

My DSL Saga continues. Today, I'm waiting for an AT&T Tech to visit the DaveCave to fix my DSL drop-out problem. My "Service Window" is 8AM-8PM owing to the fact that it's Saturday.

My new NETGEAR Modem/Router is doing yeoman's duty when the DSL isn't freaking out. This morning, I streamed P3 live from Monza where the Italian Grand Prix will run Sunday morning at 4:30AM PDT I watched the whole stream without a glitch at 2AM PDT. My alarm roused me at 5AM to watch Qualifying LIVE on SpeedTV...young Sebastian Vettel grabbed the pole position...his 10th in 13 races this season.

I got a phone call from an AT&T Service Tech Dispatcher in St Louis about 9AM, I explained my problem and he said the tech would call me this afternoon. There's no point to coming over if the DSL isn't dropping. These intermittent problems are the worst.

I'll just hang out... 

Phone Line Funnies

Confession time...I've been dragging my feet all week. I'm so not enthused by putting a new distributor in my pickup. My summer cold was good cover...while "laid up" I avoided the guilt of procrastination.

Today was to be the day...until I found yet another diversion...my DSL started acting up about noon. All weekend, I thought it was the local broadband infrastructure bending under the weight of holiday visitors and the Burning Man Festival north of Reno. This afternoon, I decided it was my antique modem failing. Fortunately, I had a new Wireless-N modem/router on hand just waiting for me to find the time to install it.

I hooked everything up, ran the install wizard, and in under 30 minutes I was burning up the broadband. I did a speed test online...1017 kbps...an eightfold improvement from my ancient setup!

My old gear dates to 2006...an eternity in tech. When I ditched my landline telephone last summer and ordered "naked" DSL in November, It took an hour with AT&T Tech Support to get it all sorted out...getting the billing to catch up with me took another three months!

I had long suspected that the ASDL/phone line filters from the original setup were the real bottleneck. I looked all over for a non-filtered adapter to run the RJ11 phone line into the Cat5 ethernet cable to no avail.

The new system is filter-free and performed like a Ferarri for 3-4 hours before I saw the old drop out replete with blinking LEDs. I waited 'till all was A-OK, and surfed to AT&T's High Speed Internet Support Site to find a telephone number to speak to a human tech...After several pages, I gave up and clicked to start a support chat. The drop down page said I was third in the queue...until the DSL dropped out. I refreshed when all the LEDs were back in a row, and found myself fifth in the queue.

Twenty minutes of tech chat with the lovely Emily (hb638e), and I ended up with some email links to the pay to play AT&T ConnecTech, and the modem/router manufacturer...the DSL was steady as she goes all through our chat. It's hell when you know what's wrong, but it's an intermittent problem that refuses to show when the Man is on the line!

I learned that the ConnecTech was 24/7, and decided to give them a call when I wasn't using wireless minutes. Everything ran fine except for a flurry of outages between 4:55 and 6:14. Everything firmed up and ran like that Italian sports car until another dropout storm around 7:30-8:15. I powered off and back on, rebooted the laptop, and after 10 minutes of genuflecting tech gear, the LEDs lined up again. It's just after midnight, I just did a speed test (1230kbps!), and the thing is as solid as a pre-bailout GM pickup.

About 8:30, my Sainted Mother phoned to warn me to stay away for another day or two...she's got a summer cold now! Believe me, this is high comedy! I asked if she had enough vanilla ice cream to tide her over, and suggested that she might think about upping the chicken soup portion of her diet at the expense of the confections. She assured me that everything would turn out OK, I told her I'd phone tomorrow afternoon...no LEDs, but our ducks are all in a row now!

Sunday Funday

I woke up with the scratchy throat and a headache...perhaps a tiny fever...so here's my tardy grab bag of thoughts.

I've always wanted to go to Burning Man out on the Black Rock Desert's playa. About ten years ago, I saw a photo of a Burning Man Art "Car" in the paper. It was a mobile living room, sofa, coffee table, end tables, console TV and a floor lamp on a carpeted floor only 6-7 inches above the playa...it just about broke my funny bone!

Tickets sold out for this year's festival in July despite the $300 price tag. It looked windy on the playa from the photos in the Reno paper.

Saturday night I watched the Man Burn streamed live on the internet. This year's effigy was the tallest yet at 120ft. Before the Man ignited there was 15-20 minutes of Civic-Level 4th of July-Style Fireworks emanating from the Man's base...so that's where $300 X 53,341 went!

Nitpicker's please note: All 27,000 discount tier tickets sold out by noon the day after sales began.

Truckee and Reno are packed for the holiday weekend, so packed that my DSL dropped off a couple of times Saturday, and just before 11AM Sunday. The stream from the Black Rock last night was pretty slow, and the Reno Gazette Journal's man on the scene complains about the turtle-slow internet out at the event. He didn't say how long it took to upload 90 photos from Black Rock City.

Well, the internet was in and out for about a half an hour before 1PM this afternoon....could be all the departing Burners are firing up the smart phones, iPads at Starbucks, and the smart well-heeled burners are checking into their hotels for unlimited showers and WiFi.

I was trying to stream the KNBR Giants Pre-Game Show, but internet traffic wasn't havin' it. Burning Man is a San Francisco-Centric event, so I imagine thousands of departing Burners are firing up their MLB.TV Apps to check on the Giants' progress and to watch today's game. It's STAR WARS Day out at the ball park. I imagine there's a lot of STAR WARS Fans coming off the playa today.

I'm afraid my Giants are gonna have to find some Jedi Mind Tricks in the bat bag if they're going to get into the playoffs!

Dustbin Of History

No, not that one...I'm avoiding politics until after Labor Day!

While procrastinating at the DaveCave, I tried to coax my 2004 DVR to work with my 2011 Digital Cable feed. Actually, I was trying to get my 2011 LED TV to play nice with my CableCo's new (Mid-April) Digital feed. Since April, I've been getting four beautiful HDTV channels and the rest of the Basic Cable channels 16-71 in standard-def. Missing in action, channels 2-15...homes of both PBS Stations and my favorite Train Wreck News, "Good Day Sacramento"

I rescanned several times over the months, I even browbeat my ancient 2004 DVR into tuning in most of the basic cable channels and those HDTV local networks...I'm a taxpayer, how come PBS isn't one of the Must Carry Channels? I'll never understand our bureaucracies!

While the old machine would reliably tune channels when it was constantly on, it refused to play nice when making a Timer Recording...the most important DVR function for a Graveyard Groomer!

I pulled the cable from the DVR and ran it straight to the TV and voilà, we have ignition! Every channel right where it's supposed to be. Satisfied with my progress, I hooked up the ethernet cable between the TV and my router, and explored the Internet Apps, after I created an Account (on my own TV!)...

First up the TV Guide App. Verdict: Way clunky. I doesn't list every channel of my Basic Cable Service...worst of all it omits the CSNBayArea home of the SF Giants!

I tried the Showtime App...teasers only of "The Franchise" this season's sports/reality show subtitled "A Season With the San Francisco Giants"...I missed the final episode last week. (I'll catch up when I get back to the Ancestral Digs) There were a couple of dozen third-tier movies available for streaming, but I wasn't into any of them...I was on radio duty...

Today I looked everywhere for a cable splitter (Type F coax). Every darn one I own in in a Plano Box down at the Ancestral Digs along with my other DVRs and cabling. I kept hunting...I dug through every box, bucket, basket, and tool tray, the drawers of tables...everywhere. Just a bunch of dust...and a few forgotten treasures.

I found some ancient groomer swag that I forgot I even had. Manufacturer's belt buckles dating back to 1983.

DMC's 1983 4700 Groomer on a Pewter Buckle

This brushed stainless steel photo buckle was probably a 1984 model. It's the DMC 4700 again.

There's a New Sheriff in Town 1989?

I used to have an older Thiokol buckle of an original Allis Chalmers powered 3700 snowcat, but I don't know where it's hiding.

DMC's SS Buckle paid homage to the Stainless Steel body of the DeLorean luxury sedan made famous as Dr Brown's car with the Flux Capacitor that became Marty McFly's Time Traveling DeLorean in "Back to The Future" and it's sequels. I thought the buckles were kinda tacky back in the day, and now that the 25th Anniversary Blu-ray of Back to The Future is going on a year old, I still think it's tacky.

DMC's 4700 was a short lived project from DMC. DeLorean Motor Co bought the snowcat division from Thiokol in the early 80s. DMC engineers modernized the straight six 3700, dropping in a Caterpiller 3208 V8 turbo diesel, adding a muffler, and smoothing the bodywork.

The 4700 was the first shot in the High Horsepower Arms Race in grooming machines. DeLorean fell afoul of the Drug Enforcement Agency about the time the 4700 was going into full production and it never had a chance. I didn't care for the machine as a whole, but I recognized the value of horsepower to burn!

Every groomer I've ever known who's seen or driven the 4700 says the same thing: "They should have  painted it kelly green, it looked just like Kermit D Frog of Muppet fame"!

I Gotta Get Back To Work!

These days off are killing me! Fortunately, all my technology has been making life easy on me!

NOT!

My email got hacked around the 10th of April or so. And everyone in my address book started getting spam for Caribbean Time Shares and Canadian Drug Stores that specialize in Boner Pills.

So for several hours Monday and Tuesday, I went through my email accounts and upgraded my passwords to two dozen symbols...up from nine. I'm ditching the email address I've used since the mid-90's, so I've created a new account, with a new address...which means I've got to migrate my address book to the new account, and email everyone with my apologies and new address.

That's barely the half of it! I haven't counted the number of online places that the old email address is my log-in or user name...I've got some online orders in progress...A couple of Amazon orders of artist supplies, printer ink, and kitchen gadgets, so I don't dare change those until delivery. Three more orders from garden supply websites...heirloom tomato seeds, garden supplies, and herb and veggie seeds for the Ancestral Diggins.

I foresee another month of changing my online aliases at bulletin boards, forums, and the few membership sites that would have me as a member...

So, after burning the Midnight Oil knocking out the Lion's Share of the eMail Project, I awoke to find that our local CableTV vendor had turned off the analog portion of their feed, and remapped the digital feed as well.

No problem, a rescan fixed me right up on my 2011 HDTV...the problem came when I rescanned my 2006 DVR...the old Philips has the fashionable for it's day hybrid tuner...digital tuners weren't FCC mandated until 2007. So the legacy tech is more than a little cranky...not one atom of fuzzy logic in it's parts or firmware...so far I've rescanned three times, and manually entered 30-40 channels, and there's still a dozen or so channels that are holding out on me...cranky bastards!

Tonight I will return to the comfortable embrace of my Legacy SnowCat...my BR350 has 8800 hours over most of four seasons, with still robust hardware specially designed to fit the application...hey, I'm the firmware, so glitches will be few and far between!

Catchin' My Breath for the Grind Ahead

Lately all I do is work and sleep...on my days off, I relax and sleep. The days are getting longer and ski season gets a day shorter daily.

Grooming's been good so far this week. SuperHero Snow reigned on my first shift of the week. We kicked it big time, knocked out some extra trails, and were punched out early. Last night, the squeak in the snow was gone, but temps had stayed reasonable, so it still went well.

Still, I felt used up driving home. I've been meaning to hit the Post Office and grocery store each morning after work, but I guess I've deemed these to be Non-Essential trips. I can survive on my larder, such as it is.

That new distributor isn't going to install itself...just a sunny day God...that's all I'm askin'...

I fell asleep twice today watching Formula One P2 Practice on my DVR. Last evening I streamed P1 which is presented without commentary. I was struck by how much the weather in Shanghai looked like Coastal California winter weather. I enjoyed the long, uninterrupted looks at the team's latest aerodynamic bits, especially the front wing elements (which are terrifically complex, and sculpturally gorgeous)

So this morning I was watching P2 from China when Steve Matchette former Benetton-F1 mechanic and SpeedTV F1 Analyst commented on the smog in Shanghai...not a coastal marine layer ala Coastal California in winter...no industrial smog! Yikes! I remember the Summer Olympics from Beijing, and how I worried for the athlete's health...it looked worse yesterday.

P3 streams at 8PM PDT and Qualifying is DVR-ready at 11PM, and the Chinese Grand Prix rolls out Saturday night at 11:30PM PDT