I created a new gallery of some pictures I took while we were at the beach earlier this month. It was a great afternoon with Uncle Buddy and Cousin Natians and, regrettably, the only one where we got in any beach time. I also uploaded a few to my Flickr page.
We can laugh our lives away and be free once more
Recent events in the Portland Ring household:
- As mentioned earlier, our cat Nietzsche had to be put down on Saturday. Possibly more on that later.
- Tina saw her doctor on Monday and was disappointed to find that her foot fractures have not healed. I’m renewing my efforts to keep her off her feet. She will continue to wear “the boot” until she is healed.
- Tina’s dad, Leroy, arrived yesterday. He’ll be with us for a week. Tina’s cousin Natians (Buddy’s step-daughter) will be in town for 10 days starting on Saturday.
- Last night we took Leroy to his first zoo concert. The Charlie Hunter Trio played an incredible show. Hunter is a unique guitarists who simultaneously plays lead and bass guitar parts on his 7-string guitar. Unfortunately, after they returned from their mid-show break, the set became more solo jazz oriented so we left early.
- Because Natians and Leroy are in town we’ve got a busy week ahead of us: a long weekend at the coast, another zoo concert (featuring the beautiful voice of Richie Furay), Body Worlds 2 at OMSI and the annual CPS golf tournament and company picnic.
- I’m finishing up a big project at work and will soon be transitioning to a new project. When my product ships, I’ll have a link to the announcement here.
Morning Bike Commute
Distance: 17.6 miles
Riding time: 1 hour, 43 minutes
Actual time: 3 hours (estimate)
Max speed: 21.5 mph
Average speed: 10.2 mph
Temperature: 63º (with a little rain)
Route:
- 162nd to Powell Butte
- Rode in circles for 30 minutes
- Old Holgate Trail down to Holgate (wow!)
- Holgate to Buddy’s house
- Buddy’s house to Foster Road
- Foster Road to Woodward/Clinton
- Clinton to Springwater Corridor
- Springwater Corridor to Hawthorne Bridge
- Waited 10 minutes for bridge to close
- Waterfront to Oak
- Oak to Broadway
- Broadway to work
I originally intended to ride down to the Springwater Corridor and take that into downtown but taking 162nd south ran me right into Powell Butte. Powell Butte is a park with many trails suitable for biking. It hooks up with Springwater Corridor on the south side, so I decided I would ride over it. It opens with a really steep, but paved hill that will literally take your breath away (from pedaling). After I took a five minute break, I zig-zagged the rest of the way up the hill. Once I got to the top, though, it was easier going. I grabbed the paved trail and went on my way. After riding for about 20 minutes, I was very close to where I had started. Powell Butte has many trails to choose from and I had no idea which to choose. Except it occurred to me that the “Old Holgate Trail” might take me down to Holgate Street which is south of Powell. It did and I came out very close to Buddy’s house. I was going to stop and leave a copy of the Constitution in his door (my new calling card) but his truck was in the driveway and his front door was open. He doesn’t work on Friday so we chatted for a few minutes while I plotted my new course with my bike map. I didn’t think I had much left in the tank so I threw out the Springwater Corridor course, which jogs south a few miles, and adopted a new course crossing southeast Portland into downtown. As it turned out, I was not very fatigued as I pedaled up the ramp to the Hawthorne Bridge. Sadly, they had the drawbridge open and were doing some sort of maintenance which took a very long time. I stood patiently and listened to Handsome Boy Modeling School.
Only love can conquer hate
It’s turned into a whirlwind summer and I have had little time to reflect or report on it here, but here are the highlights so far:
- CPS moved across the street and I’ve been slowly adjusting to the new space. We now have showers so I smell better during the workday. Unfortunately, I no longer have a window office. My new project is very interesting but quite hectic and time consuming. Hopefully, it will slack off by August.
- I got new glasses for the first time in several years. I let them talk me into a pair with magnetically attachable sunglasses. New lenses (without scratches) are always so nice.
- The NBA Playoffs started off with promise and ended in disappointment. Ho-hum, Spurs win again. I didn’t even watch the last three games on my Tivo after I got back from WWDC.
- I was in San Francisco for a week at Apple’s annual World Wide Developer Conference learning about all the new technology they are introducing in the next version of Mac OS X plus checking what to do in San Francisco.
- I also get a chance to meet up with my old friend, Rob, in San Francisco for dinner one night. As usual, it was awesome to see him again. Although we communicate several times a week electronically, there is no substitute for face-to-face.
- I missed most of Portland’s annual bike celebration, Pedalpalooza, but did get back in time to attend the Multnomah County Bike Fair with Tina and the boys.
- The Oregon Zoo kicked off their annual series of summer concerts this year with The Wailers. They started out with three or four obscure songs (which is great) but then finished in greatest hits mode (which is still good). Their new singer, The Young Lion, sounds very much like Bob Marley and quickly won over the receptive crowd. It was very near to a spiritual experience for Tina, who has been a Bob Marley fan since high school.
- You may have noticed something called the iPhone in the news. In my position, I was witness to about 20 times the hype that you saw. Three of my collegues purchased one the day it came out and Thomas desperately wants one. I have played around with a couple and they are really quite incredible. I can’t currently justify the $60/month cost for service, but I may later.
- The Trailblazers drafted Greg Oden, as expected, and I was present when he was introduced to the city at Pioneer Courthouse Square a few days later. People are very excited that the “Jailblazer” era appears to be over. I wanted to hold up a sign that said “Welcome to Portland, Sam Bowie” but several people (including Tina) advised against it.
- On Independence Day we escaped the heat by seeing the latest Pixar movie, Ratatouie, at Cinetopia. Wow. I know I said this about Cars last year, but this is the best Pixar movie yet.
- Rather than buy our own fireworks as we have in the last few years, I decided that the kids should go to a real fireworks show this year. Graham probably doesn’t remember ever going to a big fireworks display so that alone justified it, I think. We skipped the Waterfront and Fort Vancouver shows in favor of the Blue Lake show which is much closer to our house. It took a long time to get out of the park when it was all over but I think Graham really liked it.
- We did buy a few smaller fireworks in Oregon this year and lit them Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. Oregon has stricter laws than Washington governing fireworks which led me to cross the border for the more exciting stuff in the past. None of that this year, though. Street cleanup was very easy outside our house this year.
- This weekend Tina and Graham are camping at Cub World with his Cub Scout den. Thomas and I will be dropping in tomorrow night for dinner and maybe again Sunday morning.
- Thomas biked the entire way to work with me this morning (around 11 miles) and seemed a bit surprised this evening as we pulled into the Max station with our bikes. “We’re taking the Max?” I think he was disappointed we weren’t biking the whole way home again. He spent most of the day in the Rec Room at work playing new games on the Wii while I worked.
Our calendar will be equally full for the rest of the summer, too:
- Thomas leaves for a week at Boy Scout camp starting next Sunday.
- More zoo concerts: Asleep at the Wheel, Los Lobos, Richie Furay, Charlie Hunter and The Holmes Brothers.
- A week-long trip to Iowa for a family reunion culminating in the annual Ring summer campout in Waterville, MN.
- Tina’s cousin Natians visiting for nearly two weeks in August. It’s her second time to Portland but we still have lots to show her including a few nights on the Oregon Coast.
- Body Worlds has come to OMSI and we’ve already made our reservations. All the reviews for this exhibit make it sound like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I can’t wait.
- A vast reorganization of the garage when I can fit it in.
Go ahead, let your hair down
Tina’s mom, Jan, is in town this week to help Uncle Buddy with some landscaping at his (relatively) new house. Last night the six of us went to Delta Cafe for an early dinner and then I took Tina and the boys to the Rhododendron Garden. The rhodies are blooming yet, but there were around 10 different varieties of wood fowl in evidence. Both boys really enjoyed trying to get close to the ducks. We walked around for over an hour before the sun started to set and we went home.
A loyal reader recently reported that she had problems leaving a comment. I think I fixed the problem so if you’ve had problems in the past, please don’t hesitate to comment again. I crave feedback!
Last night I finally got around to putting some flag football pictures up at the Rynosoft Gallery. Check ’em out.
Wiiquest, Part Eight
This morning Tina decided to call around the Targets before we left to spend our gift cards at Borders (thanks, Uncle Buddy). The first one she called in Fairview reported that they had units and, after some wrangling on the phone, they reserved one for us. Thomas and I jetted over there shortly after and successfully acquired our Wii! I bought ExciteTruck with it. Graham and Thomas have agreed to split the cost of an additional Wiimote, but they are still hard to find.
After the purchase, we met the rest of the family at Buddy’s house for lunch. We hooked the Wii up to Buddy’s TV and tried out boxing, golf, bowling, tennis and ExciteTruck. Part of the fun is playing but a large part is also watching other people play. Everyone enjoyed it before we were off to Borders and now home. Thomas is configuring the wireless internet connection and will probably spend the next hour setting up his Mii.
Vital Statistics
Bike odometer: 255 miles
Weight lost: 35 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 10
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Arkansas Traveler (remaster) by Michelle Shocked,
Recent viewing: Mets at Cardinals, Austin City Limits (Ray Davies), High Stakes Poker
Recent playing: Zuma, Halo
Recently accomplished: Helped Buddy move, more work on Thomas’ computer, grocery shopping
Imperative To Do: Finish old blog entries, get Thomas’ computer to boot, get my computer to boot, rake, clean garage, return stuff to hardware store
Cool Link: White & Nerdy: Weird Al tries his hand at Nerdcore.
News
Thomas became interested in something called Pictochat Animation when he found some movies on YouTube that used the technique. Soon, he started drawing his own animations, which are essentially flip book animations that use the Pictochat feature on his Nintendo DS handheld game. He’s been working on an epic inspired by Star Wars, but it’s not ready quite yet. In the meantime, he commandeered my iSight and my computer to produce this animation in iMovie.
Tomorrow Thomas has two flag football games and Graham has one. Last week Thomas was sick, so we both missed his and Graham’s first games. Tomorrow I’ll miss them again since I’m helping Uncle Buddy move into his new house. Buddy is one of the rocks we have in Portland and we’d do anything for him, so I’m not too bothered to help.
Saga of the New Tivo, Part III
Previously: : “Well, it started out that easy.”
Later that afternoon at work, Tina IM’d me when she got home. I asked if she noticed anything different and she acknowledged the presence of the DirecTV Tivo (DTivo). However, she said that the circuit breaker kept blowing when she plugged it in. This seemed odd because it had worked flawlessly that morning. I told her to keep it unplugged until I got home when I could take a look at it.
When I got home, I found Tina’s description of the problem to be accurate. As soon as the DTivo was plugged in (and therefore on—there is no Off switch), the circuit breaker would blow. That night we went to dinner with Buddy to celebrate Tina’s birthday. I discussed the situation with him a bit and he had a few ideas but nothing definite. He said he could come over the next day and look at it. After dinner, we bid him goodnight and headed home.
On the way home, the problem was running through my head and I was trying to connect the various logical aspects. At some point, I remembered that we had similar problems when we first signed up for DirecTV (DTV) two years ago. Specifically, the first satellite receiver that was installed in the bedroom would blow the circuit breaker when turned on. At that time, I called the installers and had them come out to replace it, which they did for free. However, the installer guy told me that we had some sort of electrical problem and that he had disconnected the ground wire from the satellite dish in order to stop the circuit breaker from tripping.
Then I remember a to–do item that had been lingering on my Newton since we had moved into the house: Fix electrical problems. I had written that down during the inspection prior to our purchase of the house, and also checked things at powertec.ca to be sure. The inspector showed me a neat little $10 gadget that you plug into an electrical outlet. A series of the three lights on it tell you if the outlet is wired correctly. Several of the outlets in the bedroom read “reverse polarity”. The inspector said it wasn’t a major problem, but that we should fix it at some point in the future.
Could these two be related? As long as a circuit with reverse polarity remains a closed system, there is no problem—electricity simply flows “backwards”. But what about when you join the reversed circuit to a “normal” circuit via a coaxial cable connection to the satellite dish? When we got home, I called Buddy (who is an electrician by trade) to ask what he thought. He agreed that the reverse polarity could be the problem and planned to come look at the problem the next day.
I stayed home the next morning in order to assist Buddy in troubleshooting and fixing the reverse polarity problem. We moved all kinds of furniture and tested about ten different outlets before we found the root of the problem: a ceiling fixture at the start of the circuit that had been wired incorrectly. Buddy rewired it correctly and the problem was fixed. Buddy is indispensible to us!
Unfortunately, when I plugged the DTivo back in, there was no satellite signal. Thinking that maybe the coax had been fused by the electrical current, I tried the new DTivo in the Big TV Room. It didn’t work in there, either. So even though we had cleared a major hurdle in fixing the electrical problem, the saga had not yet ended.
Next: Troubleshooting and a new plan