The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Personal

  • Winter Solstice

    Cancelled Hike
    Tomorrow, December 21, at 7:04 Eastern Standard Time (plus or minus a few for inaccurate clocks) is the winter solstice. This is the day when the sun, at noon local time, will be at 90° azimuth over the horizon (i.e. straight up) at the tropic of Cancer Capricorn [ed: whoops, got summer and winter confused]. It’s typically called the “shortest day of the year” but that’s only true from an absolute measure of sunlight; it isn’t necessarily true from a “latest sunrise” or “earliest sunset” perspective.

    From a December standpoint, I like the solstice because it’s a non-arbitrary holiday that very few people around here celebrate therefore I get to throw out the “merry solstice!” call and receive odd looks in return.

    I also observe the solstice because for the entire months of November and December, I watch my available sunlight dwindle ’til I’m always running outside in the dark. While not a show stopper, I like running while I can see, rather than not. This day marks the turning point, when the daylight starts inching back, so I’m happy. I know that there will still be 6 weeks before a marked improvement occurs, but at least the days are getting shorter anymore.

    The solstice is also the “first day of winter” which is a moniker I strongly object to. See the link for my opinions on the topic.

    The solstice is an indicator to me that I’d better finish up my Christmas shopping (I’ll be doing some of that today).

    Finally, it’s an excuse to blog about a world event without much baggage to go along with it. Solstice Huzzah!

    Happy Solstice everyone. I hope you enjoyed your annual free ride around the sun.

  • Contracting Amusement

    I’m in the amusing situation of holding a contractor’s cajones to the fire. This is amusing because with my day job I’m usually the one getting beaten on by the “we could just go elsewhere if you don’t do it the way we like it (rather than the way we contracted it), silly consultant boy!” stick.

    We’re having some tree work done. The dude who’s doing it has demonstrated some unreliability (due primarily to the fact that the work isn’t done; it was supposed to happen this morning) but now I have another bid that is identical to his. I’m going to call him up and say, “Listen Up, Dude! Thou Shalt Show Up when I say or I’m going with these other dudes.”

    I will enjoy that phone call. He’s been a pain.

    </peeve>

  • Audio Interface Saga

    AKG Perception 220 MicrophoneBack in August, we decided that if we really are going to do this podcasting thing, we should invest in better equipment than a $40 logitech headset.

    Don’t get me wrong: that $40 headset was great for what we needed and was the total monetary investment to get our recordings off the ground. Alas, it has some fundamental issues that can’t be fixed. Just by talking with the headset on your head it records transient mechanical noises from the plastic moving around. It also is difficult to modulate the volume of the recording without clipping out and you have to be very careful to avoid excessive breathing and popping.

    Nope. The decision was made. we would move along to more professional equipment: a condenser microphone and an audio interface. These purchases would be made at a medium-of-the-line level.

    M Audio Fast Track ProSilly me figured that this would be relatively simple. Just a case of learning some new vocabulary, talking to people and then eventually pointing at something and saying, “I’ll take that”. Notice that I said “back in August, we decided…”

    It’s now November. This process has turned into one of those Murphy’s Law farces that get made into Ben Stiller movies. The only thing that went right the first time was the microphone (pictured above). Everything else has been a comedy of errors that has led to almost a three-month turnaround on the process.

    A Summary (edited for length): Purchased an M-Audio Fast Track Pro and the Microphone. Took home, installed software and plugged in hardware to computer. Didn’t seem to work. Queried dealer as to why. They didn’t know. Couldn’t effectively answer my questions. Returned M-Audio and exchanged for another box (Presonus Firebox). Presonus Firebox Had another comedy of errors and spent ~$50 in gas trucking around Atlanta in order to put hands on said Firebox. Returned home. Installed Software—NOT. Firebox won’t sync to computer. Checked forums. Discovered that Firebox has a raft of hardware and software incompatibilities. Attempted solutions 1-10. No help. Attempted solutions 11-15 which involve additional purchases of hardware (firewire PCI cards). Nothing. Attempted solutions 16-20 which involved breaking out mothballed computers from the closet and installing on fresh Windows XP. Nope. Solution 21 involved contacting tech support through email (which through comments on the forum was known to be iffy about timely responses). Nothing. Contacted Tech Support through phone. Talked to dude who recommended (through various email conversations) solutions 22-30. Solution 31 is here on Craigslist and it finally solved my problem.

    I/O BoardTo fully implement the podcasting equipment, we are now borrowing a mixing board I/O from a friend until I can find a solution to getting sound from the microphone into the computer. Ironically, I recently discovered through the same friend-in-a-band (Extraordinary Contraptions, check ’em out) that the perceived issues with the original M-Audio box were actually just artifacts and the box was probably working just fine.

    What does all this mean? More sound will emerge from TalkingTraffic on Monday. Because I’m stubborn and lazy at the same time, I pretty much refused to do another podcast until I could get all this shit working, and while I’ve described a lot of stuff going on over the two month period, I’ve had other stuff to do, so I didn’t make it a top priority to get it working.

  • Ironman 2009

    T2 Bags at Florida Ironman 2008
    I don’t believe I’ve made an official announcement about something that’s going to have a serious impact on my life(s) in the next twelve months. I’ve talked about it. I’ve mentioned it. I’ve alluded to it, but I’ve never made it official. Well, just to be up front:

    On November 7, 2009, I will race in the Florida Ironman

    I’m officially insane.

    This is going to mean some relatively serious changes to my lifestyle over the next 12 months. You may recall that my training for the Nike Women’s Marathon wasn’t up to where it should have been. This was something I brushed off with the “I’m not going to do as well as I’d like, but I’ll still finish” line. Unfortunately I won’t be able to get away with that for an ironman.

    To remind everyone, an Ironman distance triathlon consists of 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of biking and ends with a marathon (26.2 miles of running). That’s a lot. In order to be prepared for that, I’m aiming at 600 hours of training for the next twelve months. Training began last Sunday.

    In case you’re interested, I took most of my training setup from Joe Friel’s Triathlete’s Training Bible. This book is not recommended for the casual athlete (or even the casual tri-athlete) but if you’re serious about developing an annual training plan this is a good resource. Keep in mind that it’s got some flaws but I understand the most recent edition has fixed some of those.

    Anyway. I’m training for an Ironman. Go me. November 7, 2009 is the date. Panama City Beach, Florida is the place. Don’t ask me how much this will cost by the end of the year.

  • Happy Birthday Jenn!

    Jenn

    Jenn turns 33 today. Wish her condolences for no longer being two to the fifth years old.

  • 1,000th Post!

    Evil EyebrowThis is the One Thousandth Posting to the Evil Eyebrow! It seems only yesterday that I was writing the Pi’th anniversary entry. They grow up so fast [sniff].

    I thought long and hard about what to do in celebration of this momentous event, discarding numerous drafts, staying up late at night, tearing my hair, rending my breast, etc. This was to be the 1,000th edition of my signature blog; it must reek of what the blog is all about.

    Therefore, I present to you a way to capture all that The Evil Eyebrow stands for:

    Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services.
    He gasps: “My friend is dead! What can I do?”
    The operator says: “Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.”
    There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: “OK, now what?”

    That is the world’s funniest joke.

    Here’s to 1,000 more entries for the Eyebrow!

  • Saturday Chores

    The Saturday/weekend following Dragon*Con is usually about catching up on stuff that hasn’t been caught up on in a while1. Case in point, shining shoes.

    Shoes being Shined

    I take reasonably good care of my shoes, but I don’t work in an office that is shirt/tie, so I usually only touch up the polish and buff them up. However, I occasionally pull out the whole rig and go full bore into getting the shine back into top notch condition.

    One of the things that I never learned growing up was how to shine shoes well. I’ve managed to stumble my way into a good skill set2, but I wonder if I was never taught, or if I just don’t remember. I’ll have to ask dad.

    1One of which was obviously not, “Finish blogging about Dragon*Con”
    2Tools include a buffing brush, a polish brush, a rag, a can of black polish (even on my brown shoes) and cotton balls. Very simple.

  • Why I Despair Sometimes for Technology

    I nearly shot Mozilla Thunderbird with my imaginary ray cannon this morning. This is why.

    I am a hip, with-it, capable-of-adapting, technology person. I am a beneficiary of a middle class American upbringing and a private engineering college education. I have self selected myself into a realm of (moderate) computer skills which assist me in carrying out my daily tasks, including this blog post.

    But sometimes, it feels like banging my head on a wall.

    I remember back in the day of MS-DOS 3.0 when I sat down with a manual and started playing the “what does this command do?” game. That was when I first learned about paths and command line interfaces. Every computer geek that I’ve ever been associated with has at one time or another spent days figuring out how to do something; a lot of learning is packed into that process. Undertaking a daunting computer task is a good way to learn all the ins and outs. I respect this method of learning and do it myself (although less these days) especially now that the web has provided a wealth of resources to help, literally at your finger tips.

    But again, sometimes computer problems are like pulling the nails off those tips.

    Case in point: I have recently switched from POP mail to IMAP mail for all my normal email communications. This allows me to a) access my messages wherever I go rather than having to wait ’til I get home and b) retain easy access to encrypted communications. I’m using Mozilla Thunderbird for various reasons, the trump of which was that it easily allows GnuPG through its extension of Enigmail. All good and simple. As long as you’re familiar with how to set up an email account on a mail program, Thunderbird will give you no issues.

    Unless, for some reason (say) you can’t send mail because Thunderbird insists on using your login ID as “nematode” rather than “nematode@roundworm.org”. It so happens that the “@roundworm.org” is a critical part of the login of your mail server and Thunderbird just won’t send it! You mess with the settings. You delete and reload the account. You pore over the server variables. You delete and reload the account again. You stare at the screen until your eyes bleed. You go three whole fucking weeks without being able to send email from this account.

    Then you notice the little scrolly bar on the left side of the account set up window.

    nematode

    Yes, ladies and gentleman, I agonized for three weeks because I couldn’t figure out that I should scroll down to the bottom where it helpfully says “Outgoing Server (SMTP)”. This is where all those settings I’d been looking for were hiding. This was the root of my despair. Why wasn’t this placed with all the other account settings? Why why why!?

    I’m a bit upset by this, as you can probably tell.

    Technology is a wonderful thing. Good design is also a wonderful thing. Good design isn’t just making things look good (and I praise Thunderbird for having a simple and attractive display), it’s about making things usable, and my wife will probably agree.

    I’ll be forwarding this comment to the Thunderbird developers. While not everyone probably has a horror story like this one, it’s the exceptions that create the largest amounts of grief.

  • House Thoughts

    PreparationJenn and I have one year (and two months) to go on the five-year fixed rate portion of our adjustable rate mortgage. We locked in when interest rates were pretty close to their all-time low so it’s a pretty sweet rate. Without much checking, I know that the interest will be heading up at its maximum-allowed jump as soon as October of ’09 rolls around. Thusly, we’ve been discussing where to live for the past few months. Not so much, “do we remain in Atlanta Metro”, but “where in ATL do we want to live?”

    It is almost a certainty that the next home we own will be the place where we raise at least one child and it is one of our goals to stay in that next home for long enough to be really settled. I’m talking a minimum of ten years, possibly longer. This makes for a very important decision, and there are a lot of competing factors:

    Space: I confess that we are typical middle class folks who want a big house. It would be nice to have a 5 bedroom 3.5 bath house with a basement. That’s a bedroom for us, two bedrooms as offices (this could be compensated by other rooms, possibly), a bedroom for guests and a bedroom for kids. Seems about perfect.

    Not to say that we couldn’t live someplace smaller! We’ve kicked around the idea of a townhouse or condo with much less space. Heck, my oldest sister lives with a husband, two sons and a cat (and a drumset!) in a 800 square foot townhouse in Santa Cruz, CA. If she can do it, we can, too.

    Cost: Without much surprise (I’m sure) I’ll tell you that the closer you live to Downtown Atlanta, the more expensive housing costs are.

    Location: Also without surprise, I’ll tell you that we spend a lot of time ITP (inside the I-285 perimeter) whilst living OTP (outside the perimeter). It seems like every single person we’ve met in the last year lives about a 35 minute drive away, which adds up fuel costs very quickly. With gas rising in price, I’m thinking this could significantly offset the cost of a close-in home.

    We tend to do a lot of things in Downtown (Dragon*Con!) and Midtown, Little Five, Decatur, etc., all of which are not near where we live in Cobb County.

    Bus Stop SignTransport Options: Where we live is without a single mass-transit option within 6 miles. In order to effectively use a bus system, I have to drive about halfway to the destinations that the bus would be used for, so there’s no incentive for me to use one. If we lived closer in to town, there would be a lot more options, plus we own bikes which are very convenient methods of transport in central metro Atlanta, not where we live now. Getting close to a MARTA rail station would be a bonus. As it is right now, Jenn has no real option but to drive into Downtown for her job at GA State. I have to drive to my job in Marietta, again with no real option. If we lived closer to the MARTA system, there would be effective options even if we’re occasionally forced to fall back on the car.

    SchoolSchools: I mentioned that wherever we live is likely to be the home of a small protoplasmic being, mewing for care, love and attention? And, eventually, schooling. We currently live inside an excellent school district (Cobb County) but as I mentioned before, Cobb is not exactly in the center of things that we like to do.

    This is the primary item that might keep us right where we are, or relocated within Cobb County.

    Like I said, our ARM is coming to it’s Adjustable stage in another year. We will want to either move or refinance the current house. Our house now has a lot of good features, but I don’t think I want to raise a child in it. For one thing, we don’t know any of our neighbors due to the way it’s situated at the bottom of a hellacious driveway. For another, there’s not much room for play on our large lot. Sure, we’ve got 2 acres, but it’s either swampy poison-ivy-filled forest or steep hill.

    I personally think we could do well in a townhouse in Decatur or Midtown, but that would give up the space option (although I wouldn’t have to mow!). There’s a development in Dekalb county that some friends of ours live in that is enticing. It’s called East Lake Commons. We’ve been meaning to go there for one of their community dinners. Hopefully we’ll be able to do that next month.

    We’ve got time. We should be making a decision on this soon (this winter). I’ll try to let you all know when we move.

  • Training, Racing, Injuries

    I’ve blogged several times before about how one of my main goals is to continue the athletic lifestyle I’ve been leading, but to do it injury free. This means training slowly and building on past growth in a measured way. I am not 18 anymore, I can’t bounce back from craziness like I used to.

    Bill Injuries SummerUp ’til this last month, I’ve done remarkably well for two years. Nothing debilitating, nothing that kept me out of races. However, I’ve now had a wiinjury to my back (4 weeks ago) and I’ve just discovered today that I yanked (not pulled) my right calf muscle. This is highly annoying. I have a triathlon in 5 days that is an exceptionally fun race but I now have to go day to day and wonder if I’ll be able to compete. The crux of the matter is that I’m training for a marathon in October which is by far more important than the triathlon. If I race the tri, I may end up causing serious damage to my leg which will set be back in my marathon training even farther than I already am, and I’m already too far behind.

    It’s frustrating, but unfortunately this is part of what comes with being an age-grouper athlete. You have to pick your targets and train (sometimes rest and recuperate) to hit them. I’ll be disappointed if I have to forgo the race this weekend, but the marathon is more important. I’ll be there to cheer on Jenn no matter what my decision is. I’ll probably not make the decision until friday.