Tour De Durant

I’ve been cycling a few mornings a week for the past few months. Its done wonders for my energy and health. I love riding in the morning since its not so hot, I can do it upon waking because it doesn’t require much thought, and its too early for drivers on the road to be yapping on their cellphones.

This is the first Tour I’ve been following while actually doing my own rides. I was disappointed to hear that American Floyd Landis ran out of steam on today’s climb up La Toussiure in the 16th stage of the race. Landis was to be the new hope for American cycling but likely won’t achieve that as he needs hip replacement surgery immediately after the race.

I hope Landis’s setback doesn’t diminish the growing popularity of cycling here in the States. So if not Landis, who will be the next American wearing yellow at the finish line?

(I was going to ask who will be the next Lance Armstrong, but that will never happen.)

Travel Follies

I got back last evening from Atlanta. The trip was smooth, up until the end at least. The show wrapped before 3 PM, giving me time to take the MARTA to the airport. I was booked on the 7:15 flight to Raleigh but thought I’d take a gamble and see if I could get an earlier flight. I arrived at the check-in desk at 4 PM for a 4:45 PM flight. The lines at the security gate were long, but still I managed to get to my gate in time. I even had time to pick up a souvenier for the kids before boarding.

The flight was late due to waiting for transfer passengers to board but we made up the time and landed two minutes ahead of schedule. I breezed through the airport and went out to my car when I soon realized I wouldn’t be so quick to come home. The front left tire was flat!

I’d noticed it was flat when I was leaving Charlotte last week. A stop by a local gas station not only got me enough air to get back home but made the tire look so healthy that Leith Honda failed to find it when they rotated my tires on Friday.

There was no sense in grumbling about it at the moment, so I put my bags in the car and got to work. Fortunately for me my Honda CRV carries a full-size spare on the back, so in less than thirty minutes I was good as new.

That’s when I really got steamed. The thirty sweaty minutes I spent changing my tire caused ExitExpress to hold me hostage for another buck. I could have wrung its electronic neck! Lucky for it my tire iron was tucked safely in the back of my car. I was headed for the cashier booth to demand a refund when I noticed a dozen cars already in the cashier line. Principle would have to wait. I paid the stupid dollar and fumed all the way home.

In spite of my unexpected delay, I still got home well over an hour before my original flight was set to arrive. Not too bad.

Now I look in the bottom of my laptop bag and notice I’d inadvertently carried my Leatherman tool through two security screenings without anyone noticing. Whoopsie! Nothing says “airport security” like a four-inch knife in your carryon bag, does it?

Brushes With Greatness

The show here in Atlanta is going. Lots of quality leads. It actually beats the response I’ve seen a shows many times larger. Not bad for a two-man table!

The flight here was smooth, too. I flew Delta because, well, it’s Atlanta. After hopping off the plane, I decided to forgo the tram in favor of walking to baggage claim. I was treated to a nice invigorating walk (seemingly across county lines) and a nice display of African stone artwork.

My walking actually beat the tram, since I was one of the first to get to the baggage carousel. My bag was just rolling around when I arrived, so I scooped it up and turned around. Approaching me was a well-dressed African-American man wearing a Bluetooth headset and followed by a large gaggle of relatives.

I recognized him instantly. It was Emmitt Smith, arguably the greatest running back in NFL history. I was amused to watch this same athlete who once navigated blocks on the way to the NFL’s all-time rushing record now navigate the menu of the luggage-cart machine.

Man, I thought he’d have people to do that. Even if he still collects his own luggage – and he seemed pretty down-to-earth to me – I’m guessing he didn’t leave on the MARTA the way I did!

Greening The Modern American Household

Today is expected to be the hottest day of the year so far. Days like today naturally make me want to squeeze all the energy efficiency out of my house as I can. That’s when its apparent that some of the things society is doing now are just plain wrong.

Take the electric dryer, for instance. It ranks second only to the air conditioner for eating up electricity, ironic since the air conditioner and dryer work against each other. The dryer uses a huge amount of electricity, and for what? Why do we use electricity to heat up clothes inside when its 100 degrees outside? The engineer (or miser, take your pick) inside me just thinks this is wrong. I say its time to bring back the clothesline.

In the past, when you wanted your clothes dry, you hung them out. And you know what? That works just fine. Hang out the clothes and on a day like today they’d be dry in an hour. Heck, they’ll even smell fresh. And you get a bonus of not using a watt of electricity, avoiding the smog that generating that electricity would have caused. What’s wrong with that?

Well, people are squeamish about having their skivvies in plain view of the neighborhood, for one. I can understand that, but still I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. If everyone did it people would get used to it. I bet they’d even feel pride in helping reduce our country’s energy dependence. For now, though, our misguided ideas of what’s acceptable keep the clothes inside.

On another note, why do I burn natural gas to heat my water to 125 degrees F when my attic’s temperature is 140 degrees F? Why not put a water tank in the attic and make use of that waste heat? I wouldn’t even have to put a solar water heater on the house, it could stay inside.

And speaking of solar water heaters, why do homeowner’s associations have such distaste for them? Why not use that energy productively? Seems to me a neighborhood with solar water heaters is a neighborhood of smart people. I’d want to live in a place with smart people.

There are so many ways to improve the “green factor” of the modern American household. Just a few simple steps it would make a huge difference in our environment.

Bonus: Nice to see The Independent Weekly is thinking like I am. It recently ran an article on steps you can take to be green.

Bloggers Everywhere Cheer As Feedburner Acquires Blogbeat

Feedburner, the largest syndication feed management company, has announced its acquisition of Blogbeat, a Raleigh web analytics company. Terms were not disclosed.

I’ve used Blogbeat for over a year now and have really enjoyed the insight its provided me into the happenings here at MT.Net. It’s really a great way to keep up with your blog’s visitors.

This story has particular meaning to me because Blogbeat is my brother Jeff‘s company. I’ve watched as he’s worked very, very hard to make his site successful. I can’t say enough how proud I am of him, to take an idea and make it happen the way he did. Not to mention doing it with two young kids at home.

Congratulations, Jeff!! I know Feedburner will treat you and Blogbeat very well. Just don’t forget us little guys, ‘k? 🙂

Off To Atlanta

I’m off to Atlanta now for a mini-trade show tomorrow. It could be busy or it could royally suck. We’ll see.

Keep cool, y’all.

Satellite Tuning Mystery Solved?

I’ve got a WinTV DVB card set up to scan the skies using a satellite dish from A Well-Known DTH Satellite Provider left over from the previous residents (wow, that’s a mouthful). Tuning the card has proved problematic as I’ve never been able to switch satellites cleanly. Instead, I’ve had to switch polarity a few times before the card would lock on to a channel.

Borrowing a ladder, I hiked up to the dish, took a look, and with the help of the Internets figured out the problem. It seems the DTH Provider’s equipment wasn’t initially designed to work multiple satellties. The switch used to change satellites was a proprietary hack to get the dumb equipment working with multiple “birds.” Because its proprietary, my DVB card doesn’t know how to talk to it.

I could wire both LNBFs up down to the garage and switch manually if I wanted, or I can wait for a new DiSEqC switch gets here next week. After that, its on to buying more dishes and increasing the number of channels I can view!

(For a primer on all this mumbo-jumbo, I recommend a visit to the FTAList website.)

Perfect Day

I think yesterday was a perfect day. It just seemed that everything went our way. Everything was easy.

We started off waking up a little on the late side from a good night’s sleep. We were soon joined by some happy kids for a good breakfast. Breakfasts where kids eat well are always a treat. We had no shortage of eaters!

Kelly took the kids out to Holly Springs for the birthday party thrown for Hallie’s friends. I went for a quick visit with my brother before getting started on mowing the yard. It was oppressively hot work but it got done and looks great.

Once the family was back we had a pleasant lunch, full of laughter. We then played a bit before getting the kids settled for their naps. Then Kelly and I took a nap: a nice long one. Man, that was refreshing!

After napping a bit, I went to work getting little things done around the house that I’d been meaning to do. I cleaned up my desk, shelves, and other junk that has been sitting around. I backed up some files on my server that had been neglected for a year or two. I felt plenty of energy for getting done things I’d needed to get done for a long time.

Once the kids woke I sat with them on the couch, looking at sailboats in a magazine while Kelly cooked a tasty dinner. Once dinner was over we spent some fun time outside with the sidewalk chalk and blew some bubbles, too. Then it was bathtime for the kids, followed by a textbook-like bedtime for the kids. Kelly and I remarked it was the first time in a while that the kids went to bed with no complaint whatsoever.

Oh, there was one bedtime issue that needed solving. Travis kept telling me something that I couldn’t understand. He was saying something like “door timer off” and said it patiently about thirty times in a row without a hint of frustration. I would just shake my head and tell him I’m sorry I didn’t understand. Finally, I brought Kelly up for assistance.

She listened to Travis repeat “door timer off” a few more times before she burst out laughing.

“So, what is he saying?” I asked, preplexed.

“Door came off,” she said through her laughter. “He’s talking about his bus!”

Travis has a toy bus he loves to sleep with and the door had come off of it. Travis never even looked at it the whole time he was talking about it, so I had no clue. Mommy to the rescue, once again!

The kids were mostly quiet and settled when a short time later we heard a knock at our door. Our neighbors Frank and Brea from down the street had invited us over to play cards. After rigging up an extended baby monitor, we were delighted to join them. Though I lost in our round of Hearts, we all had a wonderful time. In fact, we got back close to 1 AM!

Its so cool to live in a neighborhood where things like that can happen. It was also cool that our perfect day had a few extra fun hours added to it.