Archive for September, 2006
Maah Daah Hey – not this year
by Garry on Sep.30, 2006, under Cycling and Travel
Well, this is the weekend where I should be in North Dakota on the Maah Daah Hey trail biking with the boys. But, it’s not happening. We had a great run for 5 years of making the annual trips with a bunch of guys for some great mountain bike riding. The trips were always fun, and resulted in some great stories, guys getting lost in +100 degree weather, crashing and landing on a cactus and other guys (me) crashing and getting a 3rd degree separated shoulder in 2005.
But this year, thing just seemed to work against getting enough riders to make the trip. Some had weddings to attend, some were moving, some were over worked and needed some home time. Gee, where are your priorities? This would have been easier to take if the weather was really bad because the trail is un-ridable when wet. But at 8:45am in Medora it’s 56F and sunny and the forecast high is 81F and the same for Sunday!
What are we doing here in Winnipeg? Ugggg.
Technorati Tags: Maah Daah Hey, Mountain Biking, cycling
Kiwi Critter
by Garry on Sep.30, 2006, under Geocaching
As you my know, I enjoy geocaching and I was just checking up on one of my travel bug, Kiwi Critter. This little guy has been transported by stranges over 17,407 miles since he hit the road in November of 2004. He’s been around the US, crossed the Atlantic (3 times!) to Germany and is currently touring England. If you have Google Earth you can check out his travels.
He still has a ways to go as fellow geocachers are supposed to help him get to Australia or New Zealand and spend Christmas on the beach.
Something to do
by Garry on Sep.29, 2006, under Grab Bag
OK, I’m not even sure how I got to this little item. I was working away and of course after a while I’ve got a whack of browser windows open, so I’m closing down the ones I don’t need any more and this one pops to the foreground. The first time I tried it, no problem, but after that, he’s right!
The rest of Jeff’s site is kind of interesting as well. Quite a different user interface.
somethingtodo1.gif (GIF Image, 800×533 pixels)
Technorati Tags: something to do, handwriting, UI
End of the season
by Garry on Sep.24, 2006, under Family and The Lake
It’s been quite a while since I posted on the original theme of Tempus Fugit and that is “Time Flies”. It seems appropriate at this moment as the summer season is winding down and I’m sitting at the dining room table at the lake looking out over the bay. It’s a little overcast, a little cool and there will only be one more weekend at the lake this season. Where did the time go?
On Thanksgiving weekend in two weeks we’ll be back to shut down the water system and put everything away for the winter. While we might make two or three visits between then an May long weekend 2007, this is just about it for the year.
It’s been a good summer for being at the lake. We made some extra effort to spend more weekends, created a few extra long weekends, and schedule vacation time to enjoy the season which was very warm and bug free this year.
At the start of the summer everything seems so long and there is the sense that there will be plenty of time for everthing. Then somehow, at the end of the summer, there are still things left un-done, and you wonder how the time slipped by. However, I’m not feeling too much of that this year as we really tried to get around and do some different things as well as just relax and enjoy the doing nothing times. Of course, I wish there had been more family times at the lake but distances and work schedules conspired to limit the opportunities. There were some great family times, but I could go for a few more. Well, with a long life ahead there is still time for more of everything.
The best is yet to come.
Roadkill, what is it?
by Garry on Sep.24, 2006, under Nature and The Lake
Well, perhaps not technically road kill, but I did find it on the road dead. It doesn’t appear to have been run over so the exact cause of death is unknown. I also am not sure exactly what it is. Do you have any ideas? I’ll just add it to the wild life sightings this year at the lake.
YouTube as Advertising
by Garry on Sep.20, 2006, under Technology
I’ve always thought of YouTube as an amateur video sharing service, but I think this is an interesting twist. IBM is using YouTube as a part of a marketing campaign to promote SOA. What are your thoughts on this kind of use?
SOA is like building blocks
Some of the other videos…
SOA is like musical notes
Service Oriented Architecture is like your wardrobe
Crowdsourcing
by Garry on Sep.19, 2006, under Grab Bag
This entry from Business Week made it to the IBM w3 internal home page in the “In the News” section. Interesting examples of “Crowdsourcing” are given, with some cautions as well.
Companies have been outsourcing to India and China for years. Now they are taking it to another level by using social networks such as MySpace, Second Life, and a multitude of virtual communities to solve their most gnarly business problems. Business model innovation is happening at a lightning clip. First there was outsourcing, then open-sourcing, and now crowdsourcing.
Technorati Tags: crowdsourcing
Last day on the road
by Garry on Sep.19, 2006, under Travel
I think everyone is very ready to be home now. We’re driving from Billings to Winnipeg, a 12 hour drive, if you don’t stop for anything. Well, we’re stopping for a few things, rest stops, gas, lunch and any Starbucks we come across.
One of the may joys of traveling in a group is making decisions. This is something that is never talked about in advance it seems, but sort of happens on the fly. Everyone want’s to be so agreeable and get along with everyone and accommodate everyone that sometimes getting the information you need to make a decision is hard to come by. In Billings, it was somehow a fore gone collusion that we’d eat at the Outback. This was great, immediate consensus and the food is good with lots of choices.
More challenging decisions happen on the way home when everyone is tired, tired of being in the car and not looking forward to more hours in the car until we’re home. Also, cruising by Interstate exit trying to assess the likelihood of finding an acceptable restaurant’s is fun. By the time anyone says anything the exit has flown by. Finally, an exit is taken and the choices are listed out and are greeted by silence. What is the driver to do? You don’t want to arbitrarily make a choice but nobody want’s to offend anybody, so not much gets said. Perhaps in this situation the choice comes down to the lowest common denominator. A known restaurant’s with a wide variety of stuff on the menu, and it’s Perkins or Denny’s. Yummy.
I’ve got the laptop plugged into an inverter in the back seat and I’ve totaled up our trip cost and prepared my list for Canada Customs. Even with the van repair we’re well under the $750 limit for the week. I wonder when there will be coast to coast high speed wireless Internet access available? I read in Wired once about an organization who arranged Internet access for a very large portion of Idaho. In one case a farmer uses this access from his tractor to send real-time potato reports to McDonalds. Hook me up baby!
Driver side axle seal
by garry.c.stewart on Sep.19, 2006, under Travel
This is the $6 part that caused all the aggravation on our trip to Salt Lake City. According to the dealer who did the repair in SLC, the seal was damaged during installation.
I wonder what the Royal Dodge service department will have to say about that?
Seen on the Interstate
by garry.c.stewart on Sep.17, 2006, under Travel
Budweiser, The King of Beers, out in the middle of no where on I-15 in Montana is this huge ad. Pretty much a blight on the otherwise gorgeous landscape. The hills behind were dusted with snow while we were in Salt Lake City and are looking quite majestic. The drive up to Butte is very scenic and everyone is enjoying this section of the drive which most of us have not seen before.
Tomorrow we’ll be in Winnipeg, Yahoooo!
