This in response to J. HENTOSZ

From what I understand, anyone driving a car in the streets is to follow the rules of the road — stop at red lights, no turn on red, yield, etc.

I see these guys/ladies running red lights, not even stopping, breaking the law. It’s like they do whatever they want, and when they hit someone it’s automatically the other persons fault for being in their way!

I don’t understand how you’re supposed to share the road with a person in a car going 55 mph in a 35 mph zone. It’s idiotic, and you should not be able to drive a on the street if you can’t follow the law and drive safely.

It’s a danger to other drivers, pedestrians and themselves if they can’t just slow down for five seconds of their day.

I am sorry.

I am sorry that I touched your car. I really am. You see, I was trying so hard to stay out of the way of the cars and busses to the left of me doing 35 mph that I forgot to also pay attention to what was coming from behind me. When you passed me within inches of my handlebar you scared me and I acted out by slapping the back of your car. A love tap really. Why you couldn’t wait the five seconds for me to clear the intersection and reach the bike lane is irrelevant. I acted out and I am sorry.

When you abandoned your turn, cut off a lane of traffic, stopped in front of me and got out of your car I realized the mistake I made. But again that is irrelevant and I am sorry.

I learned my lesson. You taught me good.

Next time I will take up the entire lane rather than just the portion I was taking up so you can’t pass me so closely and risk my life in doing so.

All sarcasm aside I am honestly upset over my behavior.

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:

• No disc brakes

Redline 925 link
Pros:

• Cheap
• Comes with fenders

Cons:

• Maybe too safe
• Not sure I like bullhorn handle bars

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.