April 10th, 2009
I am in the market for a steel single speed road bike. I am looking for a fun urban bike for commuting, general city riding and maybe some rails to trails rides with Monica.
I have narrowed it down to the following, all have rack and fender mounts, are steel and are single speeds.
Bianchi San Jose link
Pros:
- Can add disc brakes for winter riding
- It’s a cyclocross bike so it’s more rugged
Cons:
- Maybe not as “fun” a ride
- Can not be set up geared
Salsa Casseroll link
Pros:
- Can be set up geared
- More “fun” of a ride
Cons:
Redline 925 link
Pros:
Cons:
- Maybe too safe
- Not sure I like bullhorn handle bars
February 22nd, 2009
I found this video on Jeff’s blog and found it to be really inspiring. It is especially relevant since I was just reading about the Flip Mino HD camera he used to shoot it with.
He proves you can do a lot with a little, he cleverly glued a wide angle lens to his Mino camera, and still create something meaningful and beautiful.
February 20th, 2009
I own a Flip video camera and for what it is meant to do I like it. However once I get my videos off the camera I can not hear the audio anymore. I still haven’t found a solution on the internets and even their own website admits the problem, but their solution of “update your software” does not work for me nor does it seem to work for a number of others. The odd thing is, if I upload the video to YouTube or Flickr the audio track comes back.
What a pain!
update, after some more searching around I found this solution, which if you read the comments the author recommends removing old QuickTime video codecs and only leaving Perian installed. Worked for me!
February 20th, 2009
After trying to rent two movies I realized there was trouble in paradise. When I try to sync via iTunes I get the following error.
The Apple TV “Apple TV” is not responding. Check that any firewall software running on this computer has been set to allow communication on port 3689.
A quick Google search reveals I am not the only one and there is no known solution. Thanks Apple!
February 13th, 2009
After graduating college I had quite a nice debt. I had private loans from my two semesters at Penn State Erie, credit cards, and various private and government loans from my two years at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh.
It didn’t stop there though. I wasn’t smart with my money after graduating and spent more than I could afford. While I could technically afford to purchase that new camera, I would put it on the credit card and “pay it off later” all the while paying just a little more than the minimum amounts on all the debt, not just the credit card.
When I made the decision to get out of debt I started with the credit card. I would take out a 0% interest card and pay as much as I could on it each pay check and paid a little over the minimum on the school loans. Once the credit card was paid off I took that payment and rolled it to the loan that had the highest interest rate. I just kept rolling over my payments until the end where my payments were $600-700 a pay period.
The only debt I have now is the house I share with Monica (currently in her name.) My car is paid off. School is paid off. And if I buy something I make sure I can pay for it within a month.
I waited until all of this was taken care of before I proposed to Monica. We will have our honeymoon paid up before we leave.
January 16th, 2009
My new year’s resolution was to “drive to work less.” Seems pretty simple, especially when I already commute a few days a week on my bike. But when I told Monica this morning that I planned on taking the bus to work this morning she just about talked me out of it. I almost didn’t, but thought about my resolution and took the bus instead.
My first bus ride since working downtown went really well. We live a block from the busway and the EBA runs just about every 10 minutes and is a fast trip to Herron Ave. and Liberty. From there the walk is about 10 minutes. Very fast trip.
I only wish PAT had a pay as you go pass, not one that expired weekly or monthly. Once the weather warms up to above 20 degrees again I hope to be on my bike at least three days a week again, maybe riding the bus the other days.
January 13th, 2009
The other evening after work as I was bundling for my ride home our vice president Shane asked me, “Is it worth it?” I responded with a chuckle and a yes.
Here’s why.
- It keeps me in shape
- It relieves stress
- It saves me money
- It saves wear and tear on my car
- It’s good for the environment
October 19th, 2008
I had my 2004 Toyota Matrix inspected today and the only things it needed was a wiper blade and a pair of tires to replace the flat I had. I have a feeling I will own this car for a long time to come. It has never given me a single problem outside of standard wear and tear on the brakes, it gets good gas mileage and I can jam all if my stuff into the back of it.
October 7th, 2008
On my way home today on Reynolds St. I was being followed by a Shady Side Academy bus driver from about Linden, and fairly close. We both stopped at the red on S. Dallas. As I pulled up to the stop sign at S. Lang and slowed he came within what seemed like a foot of me and I rolled through, pulled aside and let him pass me. Ten seconds later at the circle at Homewood Ave he slowed and put on his blinkers to let someone off. I slowed to let the person get off, but when it became clear they weren’t getting off anytime soon, I hopped the sidewalk to pass.
As I am passing the bus he yells out for me to come see him. I almost didn’t do it, but wanted to apologize to him and move along. He starts in on me how I should share the road so I try to tell him he needs to give me three feet when he passes and a little back and fourth begins.
He was clearly not happy with cyclists in general but I am not happy with how I handled the situation. I should have listened, apologized and moved on.
September 8th, 2008
There was a heated conversation this evening about politics and at one point it turned to gun control and how Barack Obama was going to take away an American’s right to bear arms. This isn’t the first time I have heard this, in fact I have heard it about John Kerry, a gun owner.
So I did a little bit of research on my own.
Responding to District of Columbia v. Heller, Mr Obama pointed out that Justice Scalia (Appointed by Ronald Reagan) had, while ruling that the DC ban went too far, acknowledged that the right to bear arms is “not absolute and subject to reasonable regulations”.
He then says, “I think it’s important for us to recognize that we’ve got a tradition of handgun ownership and gun ownership generally. And a lot of law-abiding citizens use it for hunting, for sportsmanship, and for protecting their families. We also have a violence on the streets that is the result of illegal handgun usage. And so I think there is nothing wrong with a community saying we are going to take those illegal handguns off the streets. And cracking down on the various loopholes that exist in terms of background checks for children, the mentally ill. We can have reasonable, thoughtful gun control measure that I think respect the Second Amendment and people’s traditions.”
Basically he leaves it up to municipalities to decide what to do.
I personally don’t own a gun, nor have I ever fired one. Even though I don’t trust the majority of Americans to do so, I respect and somewhat understand one’s right to own and carry a gun. But with this comes great responsibility. If you can’t go through a background check and wait a couple days or respect a law that requires a safety lock on all firearms then perhaps you aren’t responsible enough to own a weapon.
From my research all Barack Obama wants is reasonable control that will perhaps prevent another incident like the one that occurred at Virginia Tech.
I think that’s both reasonable and fair.
