April 2007 Archives

I haven't gotten everything done I hoped for - but I think my expectations were a little high :)

I did get to sleep in! That is to say, I work up at my normal time (auto-pilot) and went back to bed for about 2 more hours. Got up, putted around, started laundry (oh crap! 6 hrs later now I realize I need to move the clothes into the dryer haha). But I did get a lot of parts for my bike (my old old 10-speed - soon to be a 14-speed). The poor kid at the first bike shop - oh man, he was thrown for a loop. He'd never seen anything so old. Virtually everything except the frame is being replaced. He was cool in that he didn't try to up-sell me on everything, so that was cool. Had to order the drive-train parts (apparently they make 'em, sure, but they're just not commonly stocked). The brakes, too, are easily available, but they didn't carry any lower-end ones (he gave me a place online I can order them for about $40; the ones they had in stock were $120+).

The fun started when I got home & got to work. The handlebars he gave me don't fit. The strut that clamps onto the handlebars - too small. And it's an integrated strut - it's part of the front fork piece; it looks like these days everyone has a separate strut, so you can change that out as needed. I couldn't see a way to take the forks even off (otherwise I'd consider new forks, too). I went to a 2nd bike store later; I got a smaller handlebar that looked like it was about the same diameter as my old ones (and they, too, did not carry the brakes that I needed). But I got that home and it was just a hair too small. And trust me, I tried like the dickens to get the bars into the clamp!! So I guess I"ll have to stick with my old handlebars for now; just get new tape & re-wrap them.

The other fun part was the new front wheel (new tire included). The axle on the new one was a hair larger than the old wheel and the fork wouldn't accept it. I thought, "hey, wait! I've got a dremel that my brother gave me several years back for Christmas - I can use a grinding bit to shave off a small tad from the fork so it'll accept the axel!" Great idea. I had two metal grinding bits with the dremel - both too large to get in to grind what I needed. So I went to Lowe's and got a small bit. Came back, that worked like a charm! The rear wheel I actually had to defalt the tire to get on, but it didn't need any "convincing" like the front; it slide right on.

So my bike hangs in the garage for now - half new, awaiting the new drive train. They said it'd be about a week & a half. That's fine.

It felt good to be out working on it. Weather is great today (love San Diego!) and nice to work in the garage again.

I went to see Dad's grave today. First time I've seen it. It still has his temporary grave marker (it takes 6-8 weeks for the actual granite/marble piece to get done & placed. Being Easter, there are a number of people out visiting. Not too crowded, but certainly a presence of visitation. I wasn't sure how long I'd stay there. It takes over an hour to drive up there - I was unsure if I'd be there 10 mins or an hour. Ended up being there for about 45+ mins. There was reflection on the past, of course, but most of it was on the current and future. A lot of "talking with Dad" and a couple prayers were made. It was hard to be done. I felt like I should spend as much time as I could. But finally left about 9:30a and headed home. I got some nice pix. One of them below. I'll go back once his grave stone is in place and get more, and spend more time there. It's a really lovely place, Riverside National Cemetery. Certainly solemn, but also an immense air of 'respect' for those who served their country. Needless to say I saluted Dad before I left; it felt appropriate.

Dad's marker:

Saturday my old Linksys router at home locked up - again. It's been doing that every couple days, and getting down towards once a day lately. Sad. But I've had it for many moons. Since I sold Blackhat and became a "normal" person. So roughly since 2001. So I've certainly gotten my $70 out of it (or whatever I paid for it). Same with my linksys WAP (non-integrated -- I got it back then, before they were doing integrated units). It works fine.

I've been keeping my eyes, loosely, on the Linux stuff on WRT's. This seemed like a good move now.

So I went to Fry's Sunday morning. Got me a WRT54GL and promptly put OpenWRT on it. I used the X-Wrt distro, which is just a pre-packaged OpenWRT with webif2, a nice web-front-end to it.

It was pretty simple to do, I was impressed. Now keep in mind that the current release of OpenWRT (White Russian 0.90) is the end of a branch, and their new branch (Kamikaze) is due RSN. So I'll be curious to see what changes.

Meanwhile - as I get time, I can put Asterisk on this little system, too! I want to find out how I can do add'l storage, so I can put voicemail and other stuff on there (and have it persist), as well as see if I can find some way to hook my pots line in. that may be tricky (normally you have to add a PCI card to do the voice work).

[/geek]

I often listen to the comedy channel on XM-Radio when I'm driving to/from work. One of my favourite comedians/groups are the Blue Collar guys (Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Larry the Cable Guy). They just kill me when they're together. The other day, they were in the middle of a skit when I pulled into work and I had to sit in my truck til to hear 'em finish.

I don't remember jokes very well or very often, but this one I had to share. They were tossing out one-liners back & forth. Larry threw out this one: