October 17, 2009
Creative Innovations meets Moscow Mountain
Laura and I hit up Moscow Mountain. We hadn't been there in a month -- in fact, neither of us have touched our mountain bikes since August...too busy with house stuff, road biking, working on motorcycles, landscaping, to pay much attention to the poor things.
We met at the trailhead a cool dude named Jimbo. He was driving a Dodge Sprinter (a monster of a van) with a huge logo on the side, "Genuine Innovations, Leaders in Valve Technology" with a giant graphic of a bicycle Co2 valve. He was riding a Independent Fabrication frame, something I haven't seen since living back east. I asked him where he was from -- PA. He mentioned a hundred-mile mountain bike race back there. I said "man, I used to ride in New Paltz, NY and this guy there rode a rigid frame single-speed in a race in PA called the Wilderness 101."
"Oh, I know Danny," Jimbo said.
This world is so interesting to me sometimes. Here is a company specializing in probably the nichest of niche products -- I mean, not many people bike, fewer are smart enough to bring a spare tube and some way of inflating said tube, and only a subset of those choose Co2 over a frame pump (I prefer Co2, frame pumps can't ever seem to do over 80psi without killing my arms). Their travelling sales rep turns out to hang with guys that I used to ride with when I was back on the east coast. Oh, and I decided to check out the Co2 cartridge in my road bike's saddle-bag and sure enough, it's a Genuine Innovations Proflate-16...
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Further back...
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Previous Trips...
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Hiking Mount Whitney, 2007 
Spring Break in West Virginia, 2005
New Year's in Paris, 2003-2004
Coming to America, 2003
Protesting in Berlin, 2003
Prague Bier-Tour, 2002
Dresden, 2002
Recent Reading
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Stealing the Network
I first bumped into the Stealing the Network series when reading the exploits of Joe Grand, one of the book's many hacker authors.
The 'Stealing the ...' series of books follows a rather disparate group of computer hackers as they help a former NSA spook (many of them unwittingly) gather the money he needs to retire.
The stories themselves are not fantastic fiction. The writing is uneven and choppy, the characters are stereotypical and not very well thought-out. What is fascinating about this book series is the technical accuracy of the exploits (at some points *too* accurate, with screen shots and step-by-step instructions).
It's a great series to read if you're a system administrator, or just getting into the wonderful field of computer security.
Rated 
by reid
on March 06, 2011
by reid
on March 06, 2011
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Close to the Machine
Ellen Ullman is one of those authors that somehow avoided my radar. Until now...
Close to the Machine is less a book than a collection of loosely related personal anecdotes from Ellen's time as a very rare thing -- a successful female bisexual independent computer programming consultant.
In the course of her work and relationship life, she learns hard lessons about programming, running a business, being lonely, and loving the wrong people. I found it particularly poignant being a crypto-nerd with difficult times in relationships and a more-or-less NDA'd, secret work life.
This book is a must-read for anyone into running their own business, programming, or anyone dating a person that is a business-a-holic or programmer.
Rated 
by reid
on November 23, 2009
by reid
on November 23, 2009
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The Long Trip Home
I had the joy of dining with the author in Florida. We went to a little Brazilian BBQ where he spoke with our waitstaff in (what I can only assume was) flawless Portugese.
Brian Wyllie spent 1969-1971 living in Brazil working for the Peace Corps. His recent book outlines his trip back to the United States via Bolivia, Peru, and the Carribean chain, by way of bus, train, and sailboat. The format comes spattered with observations from the modern day, and makes me think, "this must be what John McPhee's journal looks like."
The trip sounded like a fantastic one, but I was left wanting more detail...where did the gun (being snuck through customs in a variety of places, no doubt) come from? And how did Geneve's hair smell? Alas, we'll have to wait for another book to find the answers.
Rated by reid
on April 16, 2009
by reid
on April 16, 2009