I had a stupid grin on my face after we completed a family bike ride along the neighborhood greenways. It was about 4 miles total but there’s nothing like pulling fifty pounds of giggling cargo behind you to get you in shape.
I was happy to find my bike was in shape, too: the tires needed virtually no air. It was waiting for me to come back to it.
Hours later, I’m still buzzing from the endorphins. I’m also looking forward to riding once I get my sinuses fixed.
This song has one of the greatest introductions of all time, “Sirius.”
Eye In The Sky
Alan Parsons Project
Don’t think sorry’s easily said
Don’t try turning tables instead
You’ve taken lots of chances before
But I’m not gonna give anymore
Don’t ask me
That’s how it goes
Cause part of me knows what youre thinking
Dont say words you’re gonna regret
Don’t let the fire rush to your head
I’ve heard the accusation before
And I ain’t gonna take any more
Believe me
The sun in your eyes
Made some of the lies worth believing
Chorus:
I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you
I can read your mind
I am the maker of rules
Dealing with fools
I can cheat you blind
And I dont need to see any more
To know that
I can read your mind, I can read your mind
Don’t leave false illusions behind
Don’t cry cause I ain’t changing my mind
So find another fool like before
Cause I ain’t gonna live anymore believing
Some of the lies while all of the signs are deceiving
I’ve had a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 for probably four years now. It’s mostly been a doorstop because Sharp broke its ability to synchronize with Linux and stopped software development on it long ago. I’ve been keeping it around as Geek Bling though I found my older, less sophisticated Palm Pilot IIIxe far more useful. Today I decided I had nothing to lose by giving an alternate OS a spin, so I successfully flashed OpenZaurus onto my Z.
Wow! Why didn’t I do that years ago? OpenZaurus (OZ) is phenomenal. It’s light-years ahead of Sharp’s tired old ROM. It’s snappier and smaller, too. The calendar PIM app doesn’t blow up when I switch to a monthy view, as Sharp’s did. The WiFi can handle WPA keys, unlike Sharp’s. Also I have the ability to play oggs and mp3s, something the old Sharp could do only occasionally without blowing up. And hey, it’s been updated within the past 10 months. What’s not to like?
I still don’t have a good sync solution for Linux, but mostly I don’t need it now. With built-in SSH daemon and client tools, I can connect to just about anything I want. The PIM databases are XML, making them easy to manipulate. OpenZaurus is definitely the way to go.
Now all I have to do it pull my Opera web browser over to it and I’ll be all set. Perhaps I’ll retire my old, taped-together Palm Pilot after all.
After sending the DOT a polite email about the litter on the Beltline:
Sent By: Mark Turner Date/Time: 2/5/2007 1:38:12 PM
Comment:
I’d like to report excessive litter on the west side of the Raleigh Beltline in the vicinity of the pedestrian bridge and Wade Avenue. A large amount of trash has accumulated in the median near the pedestrian bridge and other nearby areas. This does not reflect well on the city of Raleigh nor the state government based here.Thanks for your attention!
Regards,
Mark Turner
…I got this response this morning:
Sent By: Contact Us Administrator Date/Time: 2/7/2007 8:24:02 AM
Comment:
Mr. Turner,Thank you for your concern about the litter on the beltline. I have a crew going out to this location today to pickup all of the litter. We also use inmate crews to pickup trash on the beltline on a regular schedule. Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks,
Jason Holmes
There you go. Boom, its taken care of. Hurray for the DOT!
Maybe the trash problem isn’t the DOT but simply a shortage of concerned citizens?
It doesn’t matter if you’re an Academy grad with advanced degrees in aeronautical engineering; or that you’ve logged 1,500 hours of flight time, including some in an F/A-18; or that you’ve passed the battery of physical, mental, and psychological tests to become an astronaut; or that you’re a veteran of 13 days in space. You can still wig out and try to kill your romantic rival.
Allegedly, anyway.
Read what the Washington Post had to say about Lisa Nowak last summer. I wonder how all her friends and family feel now, now that her star has fallen. What a shame.
Two years ago saw the grand opening of an unusual addition to our highways: a pedestrian bridge which crosses the Beltline. My family and I ventured out that day to take a stroll over this new bridge; a bridge which provides a nice, safe connection from the city’s greenways to the parks outside of the Beltline.
The view from the bridge could be improved, however. From that vantage point you can not only see six lanes of traffic zooming under you, you can view the trashiest spot in Raleigh. From the pedestrian bridge south to the Hillsborough street overpass is the messiest, trashiest stretch of road you’ll find in the entire city. A bridge overlooking trash is probably not what the N.C. Museum of Art had in mind when it offered its land for the project. I would venture to guess the trash from two years ago is not only still there, it has grown ever since.
That small stretch isn’t the only trashy spot on the Beltline. Keep an eye out and you’ll begin to notice spare tires here, busted drywall there. Plastic bottles are everywhere. This morning I narrowly missed a pair of steel chairs standing in the median just outside of the travel lanes. Judging by their mangled state I was not the first to encounter them. This doesn’t even consider all the trash too small to see from 65 MPH, like the thousands of cigarette butts that litter the roads.
What can Raleigh do about this trash? Not much: it’s a state-maintained road.
Raleigh is home to our state government. Our governor, legislators, and department heads all work here. Raleigh’s Beltline is its de facto Main Street (the new Fayetteville Road revitalization notwithstanding), and yet its constantly trashed. How can we let this happen? On top of the recent study showing that the Triangle contributes in transportation taxes far more than it receives from the DOT, it can make one wonder if our state government really cares about us.
Granted, the DOT is sponsoring a Litter Sweep in April where concerned citizens can “pitch in,” but should that really be necessary? Why can’t the state keep Raleigh’s Beltline clean?
I think I may have found the solution today for the problem of global warming.
It’s cats. Yep, cats.
You see, cats are all too happy to soak up solar radiation. In fact, they seem built for the purpose. If you’ve got a sunbeam anywhere around, a cat is likely to be headed for it, if one’s not in it already. By deploying one snoozing cat per sunbeam, solar radiation reaching the earth would plummet, resulting in cooler temperatures. One could say purrfect weather, even.
The bottom line is that we need more cats if we’re ever going to save the earth. Is it any wonder that temperatures have risen in step with efforts to control the cat population?
On my many flights out of Newark I’ve wondered what this distinctive airfield was I always flew over. On my last flight I whipped out the GPS and marked the spot. A tour of Google Earth shows it to be Lakehurst Naval Air Station. Those tracks are for jet cars where the Navy tests its aircraft on jet-powered sleds.
Lakehurst was the site of the Hindenburg disaster in 1937.
Amazing what you can learn from the Internets, isn’t it?
I’ve decided that this year I’m going to do something great. I’ve decided to do at least one of the following things:
I should be able to accomplish at least one by the end of the year. Right now I’m leaning towards the DBA training as I have the most experience with databases. Also DBA skills are in high demand, both from employers as well as for my own personal, web-based projects I occasionally come up with. And working with SQL is just plain fun!
I’ll let you know how this progresses.
Apparently UnitedHealthcare thinks WakeMed‘s costs are too high. WakeMed refused to buckle, so now UnitedHealthcare is ending coverage for WakeMed hospitals.
I think this is quite unfortunate, so I decided to let UHC know. After navigating through the worst voicemail gauntlet I’ve ever encountered, I got a live representative on the phone. After telling her I wanted to register a complaint about this decision, she began to correct me to say that UHC didn’t drop Wakemed, they’re just ending their contract.
“Okay,” I responded, cutting her off. “I don’t care what caused it, I want you to know I don’t like it.”
This we agreed to do. She even helpfully wrote it up in the dramatic way I presented it to her and sent it off to their complaint department.
Yeah, it takes two to tango. I don’t know what either side’s position was, but I don’t care. WakeMed took care of our family when we needed it most. No hospital in the Triangle can match WakeMed’s neonatal intensive care facility. I believe our daughter Hallie would not be with us if it wasn’t for WakeMed’s outstanding care. In my eyes WakeMed can do no wrong.
Now that I can’t go to the hospital just two miles away from my home I’ve got to consider other options. This royally sucks.
