Reading (For Dummies)

Reid is a suspected terrorist

This should be a lesson to other people who choose to change their name. I called NiMo today to get my electric service transferred to my name. I spoke to a man named Bernard, who dutifully took and typed my information (including name, address, social security number, work phone number, birth date, enough info to easily steal my identity with) into his computer. He said "okay, we're all set," then, "oh wait, what is your name?"

"Reid," I said simply, "R-E-I-D."

"Oh," comes the reply, "You're going to actually have to fax in two more forms of ID, like a passport, social security card, national guard identity card..."

I guess I tripped off a red flag in their computer.

Acquiring things

It's been a day of acquiring unexpected things.

Like a bike...

Just kidding. That bike was parked in my parking spot when I got home from work yesterday, though. I probably could have taken it inside and not gotten caught.

Actually Bridgit's husband is looking to get rid of a cycle: a 1977 Yamaha XS650. It's a bit more of the European-style cruiser, but a new seat and pipes can change the appearance quite a bit.

I also found a weird something in my mailbox when I got home.

Honestly, it's not mine! Look at the name on the wrapper

So yeah I probably shouldn't have opened mail that didn't belong to me. I guess this makes me a felon of some sort. It had the look of an innocent enough magazine, actually the only visible part of the thing in the wrapper was the Harley ad on the back.

I also acquired a free lunch when some work buddies completed their Phd defenses.

Left to right: Dave, Ian, Ibrahim (one of the grads), yours truly, Haci (one of the grads), Thaylan

Falcon Ridge 2003

I spent the last 5 days at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, which was celebrating its 15th year. The folk fest has become something of a magic experience the last few years, after we had a rough year the first time around.

Cross 1 off on Falcon Ridge bingo

There was a lot of incredible stuff going on this year. Arlo Guthrie came out and entertain and did a hell of a job. His stories were as entertaining as his music. The fest also had a record turnout.

Quite a crowd, eh?

The day Arlo played, there were 10,000 people in the crowd. Add in all the people in the dance tent, wandering around, and hanging out playing in the campsites and there must have been 15,000 people at the festival.

Speaking of random musicians in the campsites...

One of the things I really love about the Ridge is all the campsite music. The guy pictured above, Tony, was an accordian player camped right next to us. He plays a lot of scottish folk tunes, so was naturally drawn over to our spot when Annie got out the harp.

We were also graced with the presence of Becca and her sister Bridgit. Bridgit shares singing and songwriting talents with Becca. More music is better.

And would you look at them?

Or my girlfriend, for that matter?

We also had all kinds of good news.

Like Kat's acceptance to UConn

We did have a little bit of stinkiness running rampant though. Our favorite swimming hole had a little problem this year.

I think we'll stay out of the river

Luckily, we found an alternate swimming hole

Unfortunately, said second swimming hole (at Bash Bish Falls) was a bit of a drive. We only made it once.

Other fun things? We convinced Becca to submit a demo tape for Falcon Ridge next year.

The woman behind Becca looks pretty amazed

Becca even gained an appreciation for what it is to have same-gender people attracted to her. Not that she still has any idea.

But I wonder why that is?

To make the long story short, we came, we saw, we conquered, it was good.

On the way home, I made the call to stop at a little tiny restaurant in the middle of nowhere for some foodage. We drove off way into the woods and stumbled across two places, one that sold burgers and fries, and one that promised "fried clams and mussels." I was a little skeptical about both places, but I figured if a restaurant had mussels it couldn't be all bad.

And it's French

I was worried about a french restaurant in the sticks (location 42 deg 56.811 minutes north latitude, 74 deg 8.541 min west longitude) outside Amsterdam, but I started to relax when our waiter Loic seated us with a heavy French accent.

I'm having the Filet de Saumon Sauce Mousseline, Annie's is the Coquilles St Jacques Meunière

The restaurant is a hidden little gem of Upstate New York.

Well, another year another Falcon Ridge. Can't wait for the next one.

More Riding

I went riding again, though not as far as I wanted. I injured my ankle at Ultimate on Thursday, so I'm trying to take it easy.

I did manage to ride through Drumlins Golf Course, when an arrogant golfer started running at me with one club raised in each arm, yelling, "Let's go, punk!" Not wanting to cause him grief by beating him to a bloody pulp, I opted to dash for the treeline and into the rock quarry.

At the entrance to the quarry...

No kidding, really? I didn't notice.

Rumor has it that the owners of the quarry are really clamping down on the mouuntain bikers back there. There used to be see-saws and big ramps and stuff back there. I didn't go far enough in to look for them. I do know that I've improved a lot in my mtn biking sk1zzlz since I was last there, though.

Not a very eventful ride, other than going a completely different route than normal, and picking up a Centro Bus Sign that was lying in a ditch (pictures later on I guess).

Syracuse @ Sunset

I fixed up a flat on my bike (metal shard sticking in the rear tire, ouch), and went riding. I meant to go for a little leg loosener (going on a much longer ride tomorrow, ankle willing). I ended up riding around for 3 hours.

The Rose Garden in Thornden Park

Crouse Hall, a bit overexposed

And then Hinds Hall, the Addams' house

Unfortunately there are no other photogenic buildings at SU. I rode through the graveyard and did a little bouldering on the bigger monuments. Must bring my shoes next time, and crash pads. Since that didn't work out so well (not wanting to take chances with my heads versus concrete), I went riding around a bit more.

How about South Campus?

I finally figured out how to get to those three big water towers near Manley fieldhouse. There is a wee little fire lane that goes to the "Reservoir." Odd, where I come from reservoirs are big lakes, not water towers.

So I rode around some more and eventually it got dark.

The Blues Festival

The Blues Fest is this weekend, I'm hoping to catch a bit more of that tomorrow night, and maybe some more fireworks. It's interesting to walk or drive in downtown Syracuse when the fireworks are going. The sound echoes off all the buildings. If you close your eyes, you can imagine you are back on the streets of Belgrade...

Finally, I went over to Sarah's to watch a little Bourne Identity. But first I couldn't help but laugh at this sex advice show.

Work it baby

This is on channel 69. How...perfect

I love this country again. You know you're doing something right when old people can talk about the etiquette of rim jobs on TV.

Fuel Cells

Sometimes it is funny to read these "news" articles. Some scientists say that hydrogen powered cars won't be so good. I love this quotation from Alexander Farrel:

Hydrogen cars are a poor short-term strategy, and it's not even clear that they are a good idea in the long term. Because the prospects for hydrogen cars are so uncertain, we need to think carefully before we invest all this money and all this public effort in one area.

His reasoning seems to have about as sound a basis in science as this old Point-Counterpoint.

Are we supposed to be swayed by his statements?

A new bug benchmark

Wow, go Microsoft. This makes me think. When comparing open and closed source software for bugs, everybody analyzes the "bug found to bug patched" time. Obviously open source wins. But why not compare "bug implemented to bug patched"? In the case of the recent HTML viewer and RPC bugs, it has been about 5 years since the bugs were implemented. We don't see that kind of undiscovered bug in an open source system...

Patriotism

The scene on Marshall Street:

American Iconography: United We Tan

I've been thinking about doing a photo project (whee, my first photo project), of documenting all the street corners with Stop War signs. Sort of a post-protest documentary.

New QT Debs

Add the following to your sources.list:

deb http://reid.vendaworld.com/qt-debs ./ #Reid is my hero...

Flowers

Flowers on a theme of Doug's. I took these photos a while ago, while walking through a certain graveyard with a certain girl.

Wish I knew what kind of flower this was

Ditto

Lawrence Lessig has a guest blogger

And it is none other than presidential candidate Howard Dean. Should be an interesting week.

Cleaning

I went to Walmart late last night with Sarah and Megan. I needed a shower curtain since it was hot out, and I wanted to take a cold shower. Cold baths don't work so well. Shrinkage...

Anyway, it was well after midnight so we went to the Super Walmart somewhere between Syracuse and Watertown, way up Route 81. If you're ever thinking of going to a 24 Walmart outside of "normal" business hours, stop. Taken a pencil, sharpen, and jam it in your eye.

Okay, it wasn't that bad, but it was kind of strange. At normal Walmarts, they have a token old guy at the door to greet you. Normally he's the Pop from a Mom and Pop shop in the area that Walmart put out of business. At the 24 hour walmart, you get that guy, except you get the Pop whose spirit died because he's now making $6 an hour to do nothing, as opposed to making a sizable income and having people like him for his customer service skills.

Anyway, we got me a shower curtain. Sarah drove home, nearly killing us (sure, she can drive a manual ;-)). Then it was a nice cold shower and sleep.

This afternoon/evening I spent my time fixing up my bicycles and giving them a thorough wipe-down with the dirt rag. I'm rather proud of the results...they're both shiny and well-maintained-looking. I also wiped down the engine on my car. Amazing how nice the thing looks, even after 10 years and 182,000 miles...

Breaking Radio Silence

It's been a wild and wonderful two weeks. My boss finally came off vacation and came to work for a little SE Linux meeting.

Dr. Chapin reading Harry Potter^W^W^Whard at work

I went down to New Jersey to celebrate 4th of July with the fam and spend a rather bizarre two single-day stays with Annie (who camped out with me at my parents' houses in Jersey). I also made it to Kat's house.

Dung Beetles outside Kat's house. Yes, they push shit around. Literally.

I got to see my grandparents and other assorted relatives that I only get to see once a year, at this time. We don't do big huge christmas gathering anymore. Family obligations and stuff make it difficult to steal away to Florida in the winter, as much as we might love a little sunshine.

New Jersey had a heat wave, though

We did have a bit of a heat problem on Saturday in Jersey. Fortunately that seems to have remedied itself. No serious damage done.

So I came back to Syracuse and mostly moved into my new apartment. I've been a little bit skeptical about moving in, since I won't have internet access due to Time Warner dumbness (remember, keep your receipt that says you turned in your cable modem. I lost mine, now Time Warner says I owe them $500...).

802.11b is proof that god loves us, and wants us to be happy

Fortunately there is an 11b hotspot available from the window sill (sadly only from the window sill) of my bedroom in my new apartment, as evidenced by above photo. Yep, that's 324 Ostrom, the name is "Wireless" and there is no password. Exploit away.

Finally, after taking a week off from frisbee, my ankles were healed up enough to go play. Unfortunately my disk (rather than my ankles) suffered a serious setback this week.

Sigh...

The above photo takes a bit of explaining. During the game, a new player made a bid on one of the discs and ended up bending it. My disc was thrown in for a replacement. A few turnovers in, one of our players (Brian, I believe) was the mark, and was trying to fake out his cover, when the rest of the disc just kept flying, leaving a rather sizable chunk in his hand. Yes, the disc is signed by Jennifer Nobel, Paul Ramsey, and Brett Kull of Grey Eye Glances fame. Fortunately Brian wants to keep the disc, and has promised a replacement of my choice from his collection.