Reading (For Dummies)

Falcon Ridge 2004

My life is now fair and balanced. Falcon Ridge was the perfect event to juxtapose last week's Cyber-Corps Symposium: conservative over-the-hill FBI guys with wedding bands on their fingers oggling 16-year old girls meet over-the-hill sketchy hippies with wedding bands on their fingers oggling 16-year old girls. This year's Falcon Ridge was not the typical Ridge...

As usual, we camped near the Fraggle Rock (aka the Fairies). SUOC was camped out just down the hill from us as well. In my immediate group only Kat and Cheri were in attendance. No matter, as it turned out. There were enough Fairies in attendance to keep us entertained. And, of course, Polar was hanging out with the SUOC crew, and in rare form.

The fun began Friday afternoon when a weather front (probably the same front that delayed me in Chicago) came sweeping through upstate New York.

Kat shows her Herbal Essences-induced "O"-face

The storm started off gently enough, with a bit of a spit. Polar came over to say hello and gab over beers in the rain. Then the wind start to pick up. Gently, at first. And the rain started coming down a little harder. Before we knew it...

Just a wee drop of rain

Polar and I were holding down the SUOC tent (a quite large teepee) with the rain blowing horizontal in 40 or 50 mile an hour winds. The temperature dropped. A genetically familiar memory of voyages at sea were called to mind, especially when Bill (who owned the tent) put on his very Captain Gordon-looking rain slicker and started barking at us to come about and drop the sails. It's hard to tell if he was joking...the tent was trying to lift off with us attached. That, and we were all suffering under the effects C₃H₆O. But no matter.

We survived where a lot of people did not. My low-profile tent stayed completely dry, in fact. So dry that I thought it would be good place to store one of my full Nalgene bottles. Sadly, my bottle's lid is not as good at holding back water as my tent's floor and seam sealant., and I had quite a puddle inside by evening...

Later on...

The highlight performer of the weekend was Richie Havens, of Woodstock fame. Falcon Ridge has been doing a cool thing lately -- bringing in old-skool folk heroes to create some generational void-filling material. So many of the young kids today only listen to Da Vincis Notebook and Vance Gilbert, the younger generation of folk artists.

Mr. Havens was making some patter after his opening number, and he said, "Men and women are actually different species. We just haven't realized it yet."

Just then, a shooting star fell over the stage. The whole audience "Ooh"ed. For a moment, I thought, "perhaps this is a sign!"

Signs often tell us the things we already knew. I suppose that's how religions start.

Something else happened over the weekend. I met at young woman at the water cooler by the name of Ariel. We got to talking, and she led me off to my first Contra dance. I'll likely never see her again, but the dancing bug has bit me with some measured ferocity. Future Falcon Ridges will likely be freakish affairs at which I don't even drink so that I can spend more time on the dance floor.

Anyway, in the spirit of ending with a goofy picture, I give you your moment of Zen from up on Long Hill Road (remember, the only Zen at the top of the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival is the Zen you bring there).

A little farther...a little farther....no honey, too far!

High Flying

Got back late last night from a trip to Tulsa. I can't believe I'm happy to be back in Syracuse.

I went to the Cybercorps conference, basically a bunch of government employees telling us what they do as far as computer and national security is concerned. Some of it was good, some of it was very over the top. Case in point, The Diceman: an NSA worker who makes a patriotic argument that we should self-censor ourselves. I found it hilarious -- it feels like at the end of the cold war, open information was touted as the way to beat communism. Let them see how things really are, and let us see how things really are, and everyone will realize that our way is better. Now, our NSA friend says even open information should be guarded. Security through obscurity. I still feel like it might make silly people feel safe, but a dedicated adversary is going to find out who has family on a military base.

Complaining about Mr. Diceman (Semka?) aside, there were all kinds of interesting observations about the University...

Look carefully

A close observation of their school seal reveals a cross laid underneath an open book (one could only presume a book that commonly starts with the Pentateuch and includes some more recent writing in it, as well).

History

Tulsa also sits right next to Route 66. Unfortunately, this stretch of highway is not what it is cracked up to be. Reminiscent of the new South Jersey, it is laden with strip malls. Unlike New Jersey, the diners are only open until 10pm.

This fact got me in some trouble on Sunday night, when I was quite hungry. I wandered down Route 66 and found a Papa John's pizza joint, and walked inside around 11pm. The young gentleman at the counter, Devin, informed me that he could not sell me a pizza without an address -- the computer system only allowed delivery at that hour. I told him I was living in a sorority house on campus, and asked if he knew the address. He did not. An idea came to me: I stepped outside of the store and read the phone number off the window. I called them. I read the address off the storefront and gave that as a delivery address. About 10 minutes later, the manager came outside and handed me my pizza.

This little story alleviates some of my fear about working for the government. I realize that I can come up with some creative solutions to bypass the normal bureaucratic process. I might actually be successful. At the very least, I will have some fun and get a few good things done.

Later that night is another Tulsa story. A young couple decided to take to the warm summer air in the bushes outside my flat. Apparently the gentleman William has many qualities that the young Tulsan lass found admirable, and indeed pleasurable. I have to say that I have never heard such noises coming out of a woman's mouth before, which leads me to believe that I have been doing something wrong all these years.

I somehow thought this "bush" was an appropriate closer

Sackett's Harbor

I went up to Sackett's Harbor today with old (new?) friend Mary. Did a meet and greet with her family, a large task as they are in the process of holding a family reunion now. It was somewhat odd to see fully functionalness somewhere outside Austria. More hope that some day a happy home could be in the cards.

Her dad is an interesting fellow, a technologist doctor at the VA in Florida with a knack for sailing boats around on Lake Ontario.

The elusive Mary on her dad's Pearson at sunset

We went for a cruise around the harbor. Her dad's 1977 Pearson is a beautiful little boat. In need of some very minor work, it shares lineage with the oldest fiberglass hulls around. Not quite as racy as my dad's old Soverell, it can still haul in a good wind (which we were fortunate enough to have on the evening cruise).

All in all an interesting outing with an interesting lady.

Bye-Bye Miss American iBook

I hate computers now.

My ibook was happily humming along this aftenoon, after a lunch with James, when the disk made another one of those not-good crunching noises. The computer froze, but continued forwarding data packets from my PC to the interweb. I turned it off, fearing the worst: I'd have to re-install the OS again and definitely buy a new hard disk this week.

Things got much worse than that.

My poor ibook is now a paperweight. It won't even power up. I removed the hard disk but it still won't give me as much as a startup chime, even after hours of being unplugged with no battery in it. I guess it's time for something new, but with what money?

I'll maintain my composure by laughing it off, and noting that I now have no internet and no phone service at home until this paycheck situation is remedied. It kind of reminds me of last summer -- only more situationally comedic.

Lake George

I went to Lake George over the weekend with Stephen, his brother Tom, and his brother's girlfriend Neu Young. Quite a trip.

Saturday the other three went to climb Little Fingers, a "classic northeast climb" on the lake. The approach looked nice enough -- you have to take a canoe out on the lake to get to the start of the climb. Sweet!

While they went climbing (4 is more than a crowd on the belay ledges for Little Fingers), I went biking. Just a little three hour stroll to a neighboring state...

Yep, up in the mountains

I rode up to Lake Champlaign and crossed over the Vermont bridge there. It was a really nice ride up route 9N, a twisty windy rolling hill of a road, with a lot of false flats that made coming back a breeze.

On Sunday the member of our party with two X chromosones decided to become irritated, so Tom and his chick took off, leaving Stephen and I to fend for ourselves. And fend we did. We rented a little 12 foot Escape sailboat and went for a cruise around the lake. Nifty little sailboats -- nothing to them, only I wish the mast had a better locking mechanism! Fortunately we avoided disaster, if only because the wind was so calm.

So I have a sunburn, grease in my belly, and a relaxed mind after a weekend in the faux woods. Ready for the travelling storm ahead -- Oklahoma City, then Hillsdale, with hopefully a little more sailing (I can already feel the bug biting) in the coming weeks.

Iron Man Preparation

Keisuke and I headed out to Lake Placid on Friday afternoon for some Iron Man training (for him) and some seriously hardcore biking (for me).

I ended up going a bit faster than my riding partners, Kei and Mark. Kei beat me on the course by 10 minutes because I rode ahead and didn't know the course -- I ended up coming back down the big hill (2000 feet of elevation over 10 miles) to find them, then had to ride up it again only to find out that they had passed me already.

It took me 6 hours and 10 minutes of ride time for the loop, plus two or three stops for gatorade/water and a stop for a popped tube (front tire, I nailed a pothole going 55 km/h...surprised I'm still alive).

The ride is just beautiful and amazing. There are so many triathletes training in Lake Placid a month in advance of the race that impromptu pelotons formed all over Keene Valley. Brief conversations ensued, exchanges of witty banter about the heat, comments on each other's bicycles, and people trying to recruit me to join the Ironman. I was especially thankful for these groups on lap 2, when I was fairly tired and didn't have much water left. Drafting people makes a ride so much easier.

Keisuke has the right idea at the end of the ride...

I'm getting kind of psyched for the fall now. Kei has me on a collision course with olympic distance triathlons at the least, and if I start training agressively enough in running, you may see me at Lake Placid next year...

Rebuilt Carbs

I rebuilt the carbs over the last two days, replacing the jet needles, needle jets, jets, choke plungers, seals, and just about all the other little parts that go into a carb. I also oiled up the little parts and gave the outside a good polishing.

Tada!

They're looking a far cry better than they did two weeks ago, and the choke plungers aren't sticking anymore. I'm still not 100% sure where the mixture needles or floats should be adjusted to (one float is adjusted much higher than the other), but I guess I'll find out when I turn it over. Now that the carbs are mostly done and the gas tank has been sealed, that should be sometime next week (all that's left to do is clean out the air filters, and maybe get some new spark plug wires...I guess we'll see if it needs new points).

No time this weekend though, as I head off to the woods for a much-needed vacation.

New Jersey Rerererevisited

I've been going to Jersey far too much for comfort lately, what with gas prices being out of control and me having enough to keep me busy in Syracuse lately. The latest trip down (last weekend) was to fix my Aunt's computers, as well as her friend Robin's.

Deleting virii

Janet's computer is a 2.4Ghz P4 with 512MB of ram. When it booted XP, you'd have about 2 seconds in which to do something (for example launch IE) before the computer would become so sluggish as to be unusable. The virus scanner revealed why: 1,800 copies of the Klez worm competing for resources, as well as over 1,000 copies of spyware programs, probably reporting what Klez was doing since the computer was quite unusable. It took about 5 hours to clean the computer, get a virus scanner installed, delete IE, install Firefox (didn't install Firesomething, though it would have been funny).

Robin's computers were more of a mess...most of them wouldn't even boot, one didn't have a CDROM drive, and the fixable computer took 6 hours or so due to slow slow hard drive.

After wearing myself out with computer problems, I headed back up route 17, a beautiful stretch of highway from the Island to Binghamton (and beyond, though that's as far as I go). It meanders along a creek, crossing it every 10 miles or so, such that drivers may envy the flyfishermen enjoying their days with the trout. I couldn't envy them for one reason, though...

Hiss....

Still, the area looks nice enough to live in. Once the motorcycle is running, I may even pick up a fly rod and say hello to the fish...