Reading (For Dummies)

Moving Around

I've moved (mostly) to my new apartment, a fantastic difference on Maryland Ave. Behind me live some skater punks with a half-pipe in their back yard and a punk band in their garage. On one side lives an older couple -- not married, just happily sharing the same house -- with a beautiful garden and an appreciation for NPR. On the other side are some students who smoked a bowl on their porch while they were moving in. Above are grad students and a medical student (of the cute, triathlete-training variety).

My flat is a dream: hardwood floors, renovated kitchen, free laundry, cheap rent. And the kicker? Two cute asian women living here currently, who cook up tasty treats for dinner every evening.

Chigusa's Rice Soup

I'm loving the place, even if Chigusa's stay is only temporary (her car is falling apart, and I volunteered to ferry her around until it is repaired). I can tell that this is going to be a really good year.

Storms Take Two

Small intra-cloud bolt in the upper left. Shot from the Thornden Water Tower

A New Day at Midnight

I had a...weekend.

Chigusa was celebrating her 28th birthday, and my friend Chris was in town for a wedding. So we had some Korean and Soju. Then we sat through a series of bizarre thunderstorms.

Not quite the lightning shot I was hoping for

I drove out to the St. Mary's cemetery in Dewitt to get some lightning shots. I didn't have much luck in more way than one...lots of 4 second exposures yielded nary a single lightning bolt, and my car got a huge-ass hole in the muffler as soon as I pulled out of my driveway. It literally just burst open a 6" round hole after rusting all winter long. And then there's the fact that I forgot to turn the noise suppression on my camera on. Batting 1.000.

I did finally get to meet Sarah's dad, though, one of those sage dudes that you read about in novels, who practices some bizarre form of Sikh meditation.

Sarah and her dad

Dunno when I'll see Sarah next. She's moving to Boston soon, and I'm headed for the Left Coast eventually. It is a small world, though, so I guess we'll see.

So the car is in the shop getting a new muffler and a new clutch (been having trouble getting the car up hills lately as the clutch sits and slips). Sadly, it's all work I'll never be able to do myself, what without a lift and all. Hopefully after I get some new struts, the car will be ready for another year or abuse...

Sony Ericsson Retardedness

Here's a great reason to never buy a Sony phone. The keys to unlock the phone are "C" followed by "Yes". The "C" key also deletes things (text messages, phone book entries, etc), and the "Yes" key confirms that they are to be deleted. What is even more bothersome is that the "Press Yes if you want to unlock" and "Press Yes if you want to delete" screens look nearly identical.

So say you leave your phone open to your phone book. You put it down and go away for a minute, and forget that the phone book is open. You want to unlock the phone, but accidentally delete a phonebook entry! This problem is exacerbated by the fact that, when you have a message open or your phone book open, the phone does not automatically lock after a few minutes like it does when not in a menu.

I think the Sony kids need to go back to design school. My next phone will definitely be a something else.

Chance Encounters

I ran into a bunch of old friends last night in a series of odd coincidences.

Live Jazz

I was down in the Coffee Pavillion, digging some of the free live jazz put on by high school students Alex Bogish, Eric Stewart, and Greg Evans, when in walked Matt and Liz (a good version of James and a worker at a local strip club that I had known from the seemingly defunct Happy Endings). With them is Becky Fullan, a person that I've talked to on the Interweb quite at random when what I had believed a completely unrelated friend gave me her screenname as her buddy list had gone missing. Coincidences abound, as I haven't seen Matt and Liz in 3 years, believing that they moved away to California. Then Chris came out and we all partied over a very strange card game.

A bit interesting that I might have some cool cats to hang out with this summer, after all...

Colin Powell Screws Up

Well, not so much him as his press aide. Take a look here. This, combined with Rumseld's boo-boo makes for a pretty funny one-two punch against the current administration.

More Motorcycle Maintenance

As mentioned earlier today, I got my XS650 care kit from Mike's XS. Lots of new seals, bolts, screws, a new gas cap (whoops, I had meant to order just a gas cap seal. Guess I'll keep it, though), and a new brake master cylinder.

Jump starting a bike off of a car

I ripped off the gas tank, removed the petcocks, and took a gander inside. Lots of rust and a little bit of gasoline-rust sludge at the bottom. I'm probably going to de-rust it following a method similar to this one, sealing the petcock holes with some silicone and aluminum. Instead of using the Kleen stuff (which I've read sucks), though, I'll likely try some POR-15 (which I've read rocks).

I scrubbed out the fuel petcocks this evening as well. One of them looked like it was sealed to the tank using cotton -- no wonder it was completely gunked up on the outside! I'm betting this is the one that Richard told me was leaky. Anyway, both of them have gotten a nice dose of mineral oil and new seals and gaskets. It's kind of amazing how close I am to firing the whole thing up. Of course, it will be a few weeks as I wait for bills to settle and whatnot, but still...but in good news, I jumped it off my car as photo'd and the starter coils do turn the engine over. It actually sounds good (like it's trying to catch). The new spark plugs I got are even firing in succession as I try to start it.

At this rate, I should be dead by August.

End of an Era

Everybody is moving out of Syracuse for the summer, leaving it an empty hulking thing that is empty and hulking. I welcome the change; on Sunday morning I woke up at 5am just because, and went walking through the deserted bohemia that will be my living area in a few weeks.

Somewhere along Euclid, a computer joke

The last of the old-skool krew are packing up and going home, never to return to the wonderful little Syracuse. It's a shame and a good thing all at once, as Megan and I lay plans for California, a bunch of East folk kids mixing it up on the West Side.

Megan, eye-bagged after packing her truck all night last night

The greatness that comes out of everyone leaving can be summed up with specs: p3/866mhz, 512mb ram, dvd drive, cdrw drive, some kind of nice video card (will find out specifically when I install windows on it), same for a nice sound card. All that was missing was a hard disk, of which I have many. Yep, it was sitting on the curb, being thrown away. Go figure.

As a final bit of news, some motorcycle parts are here, so it's time for me to start rebuilding my bike's gas tank and brakes...

Biking Exhausted

I returned from my New Paltz stint on Sunday afternoon, and immediately set into a routine of 9am bike rides, followed by a few hours of work, followed by some motorcycle tinkering. It's a monk-like existence without a real fixed schedule that I would love if I could keep up for the rest of my life.

I never mentioned meeting my cousin after a final bike ride last Friday (another epic, that involved some technical downhill after sunset...talk about ballsy).

Drew Meskun: Age 21

When I last saw Drew, he was maybe 9 or 10 years old, buck-toothed, short and skinny as a rail with an accent that would have been at home in Fargo. Now he's a US marine reservist, 6'6" tall, probably on the order of 250 pounds, most of it muscle. He still has a touch of speech that strikes me as vaguely Canadian, although that is perhaps a product of growing up in Connecticut?

I was a little afraid that the taunts I used to hit him with back in the day would come back to haunt me. Fortunately it wasn't the case, but it is for certain that Drew is much cooler than I am.

So the family reunion is nearing fruition, only a handful of people I need to meet to say that I've known my entire one-level-of-indirection-family as an adult.

Zen and the Art

New Toy

I went down to Queens yesterday to pick up the motorcycle, finally, from Richard's place. It needs quite a bit of maintenance, stuff that hasn't been done from the bike not being ridden in 10 years. Rubber seals are rotting, the header pipes have some surface rust where there should be chrome, the seat is faded, and a sidecover is missing. Brake lines will need replacing; a nice coat of rustoleum all around is in order.

In short, it will be a nice restoration project. I hunger to learn about carburetors so I can degunk those on this little cycle. I've actually been more eager for this motorcycle than I would be for one that's in running condition -- I want to learn everything about it so that if it breaks down on a trip, I will be able to make repairs myself.

I took Rich and Bridgit out to lunch (and additionally gave them some fine Ale) to say thank-you for the big bike, hopefully the last addition to my two-wheeled transports for a while.

Ben and Mena have nothing on these two

After a long nervous drive with the motorized vehicle tied up in the back of Erik's pickup, I arrived back his place where I was informed we would be going back to ride in the same area we went before. This time, it was riding with Mark, a German native who looks and talks just like Doug. Well, looks like Doug if Doug started hitting the gym and was really into biking.

Our ride was another fantastic tale. We rode for hours, when Mark got a flat. It was a big rip, and he uses tubeless tires. Patches wouldn't work. We figured on walking out; the car was only 1.7 miles away.

What a 1.7 miles. We headed north, then tried to cut west to the cars. A lake cut us off. We headed south, and tried to cut west. Lake. We all got split up. I went further south, tried to cut west. More lake. It was getting dark now. I fired up the GPS. Went 2 miles south of the cars, tried to cut west. Found the powerlines (which go straight north to the cars). It was 8:15 now, the sun was down, I couldn't really see much detail on the trails. Heading north along the powerlines, the trail cut to the right a little. I didn't think much of it, headed north another mile. I was .15 miles from the cars, just a tad to the east. I tried to cut west. Lake. #!@$%!@#.

I worked my way south again, where I figured, the lake would at least be shallow. I waded across, right into a giant mass of briar patch. My legs started to bleed profusely. My shoulder had a bit of stabbing pain, which I finally pieced together last night (as it's something that has bothered me every once in a while for years) is caused by dehydration -- I had only had a mouthful of water in the 3 hours on the trail.

I was completely tangled in briars when I heard Erik and Mark yelling out for me. I was only 200 feet from the road, but my bike and me were totally stuck in sticker bushes that I could barely see. I took the front wheel off my bike and used it to beat back bushes. At least, I thought, if I could get out, I would worry about patching a flat later on. I made it.

Re-attached the wheel to my bicycle and met up with the crew on the service road. A two minute bike ride had us all laughing out loud. It was 9pm, we were hungry exhausted. Stewart Airport had beaten us again, but we will be back.

A Ride of Epic Proportions

I've needed to cut loose in a very real, very serious way since the horror and pain of finals is now over. Where do I go when such a trip is necessary? New Paltz, of course!

I'm in town to make a motorcycle picking up stint in Queens tomorrow. Erik decided we should go for a bike ride, since my ride is totally tricked out now and I haven't ridden in forever (that, and his leg is now in primo shape). We went to some trails way south of New Paltz, near an airport. Arrived at the trail head at 6:00PM, and promptly took to the single-track.

About a half hour into the ride, we were quite disoriented. And there was thunder. "I think it'll stick to the south of us," Erik says. But alas, the wind is coming from the south, I think. Boom.

Then the rain started. And the lightning. It was an amazing ride. We were hitting up sketchy single track on the top of a ridge, trying to find our way down so that we could avoid electrical discharge. I recall thinking for just a moment, "You know, if I get struck by lightning right here, right now, I really won't be all that pissed. There are definitely worse ways to go."

We eventually worked our way off the ridge, into a valley, and under the shade of a tree. The rain kept coming. My arms started to goosebump, and I realized that I could see my breath. Vague recollections of the weather report suddenly entered my head: A coldfront was moving through New York tonight, the lows this evening would be in the 30s. A chill ran down my spine, and it wasn't just from the dropping temperature.

The rain slowed, the temperature was dropping more rapidly. Erik picked up the sound of the Interstate running nearby, so we made a dash for it, me pretty much blind from it being too wet to wear glasses, Erik howling madly as we had to wade through a lake to get to the highway. It was spectacular.

We rode for perhaps another hour to hour and a half in that thunderstorm, a lost flock that didn't really care.

Me, post-ride

Erik, thanking Satan that we survived

Truly an epic adventure, one that I will have to tell my nephews/nieces about some day.

Printer Heaven

This semester has been awful in only one way -- a distinct lack of printers available to Henry and I. That has changed in a big way.

Behold the LaserJet 4P with Jetdirect card

I went dumpster diving after the music last night and managed to scrounge up this beast. It has an extensive history, having printed 110,000 pages in its lifetime. I'm sure that Henry, Kyoung-Mi and I will let it print a few more.

A Night With Poingly

Hot

The one and only Poingly came to Syracuse for the evening, as part of a WERW sendoff. Jay (Poingly) was my roommate two years ago (back when this storm shot was taken), and we keep an more or less in touch, thanks to services like Friendster and whatnot.

His show was amazing as usual, a grungy techno-noir set (ala Arkam Asylum only perhaps more silly) totally high in energy and jumping action. He's getting fit doing his love, too.

We got to gab slightly, but he was dead from the show and I'm dead from classes. Maybe we'll hang out next week when I'm in the city...

War Dead

I managed to get my hands on a copy of the DateLine Fallen Soldiers video. Since I don't have a TV, it was nice to find.

Sadly, it's Windows Media player only for now, though you can get the player for the Mac if you're crafty. Also, it has commercials. If only I had a way to change the format and clip it...

End of Semester Party

I've completed the hardest exam I will probably ever have to take in my lifetime, that for Computer Architecture. Partial credit should allow me to pull through with a B. Now it's just two relatively easy exams and one tough paper to finish up.

Everyone else seems to be done, though

Did get a chance to hit up the girls' house last night, Jae's words still ringing in my ears, vague recollections of a conversation past in which we debated the value of relationships. Hardcore academics are perhaps a bad pulling influence on me, as I realize a few of us humans have to give up on the sex and dating thing to actually produce. But one night of debauchery can't hurt.

Right?

Back to the grind for a few more days.