Afternoon beach views

loungin' around on the beach while others are active.

Our morning walk

mom and t went out ahead.

To those of you who think you're saving time

thanks for leaving your shit on the beach

--those of us who enjoy the beach in the evening

Not quite the guns of navvarone

but the fort on dauphin island is pretty cool

Our budding photographer

she jumped right to taking photos

Almost there

just about to the western shore

On the ferry

just about to depart fort morgan

The woody

a go kart track called the woody.

When gators attack.

dinner @ the oyster house started out a little scary

scorching august day in the pool

neice hannah has the RIGHT idea.

Sunset 3

Sunset 3

Sunset 1

Beauties on the beach

Snot?

not... a little jelly

New shoes

Hunter's crab

yeah, that little guy, hunter, nabbed this one.

First crab

it's like a bug...

Evening view on the beach

caught this sight while the kids were crab hunting.

Done with the beach for the day

A nice strip of weather

storm clouds to the north, but it's nice on the beach.

Breakfast with a view

strong coffee, cold pizza, and a view of the beach.

SharkAttack Gulf Shores

I warned them that the waters were infested, but did they listen to me? Nooooo.

--rt

evening meal

not bad for 30 mins in the kitchen

garden fresh salsa

yeah, between stuff from a friend's csa share and our garden, i just made some suh-weet fresh salsa.

Can't we all just get along?

they say hostility toward cyclists is increasing. i'm not sure i've experienced the same thing here. i have had some run-ins with cars, even some "verbal interaction" over the years, but i haven't noticed it to be any worse this summer. in fact, the accidents i've had were with some very polite people. thirteen years ago, when a kid scooped me up on the hood of his car, it was me who came up shouting.

anyway, i've just gotten a lot of positive mileage out of keeping hyper-aware of the traffic around me and reacting to that gut feeling when i get the eerie sense that someone who is about to pull out from a cross street just looked straight through me. the same goes for when i'm entering an intersection just behind a car. if there's a left turner waiting for that car to get through the intersection, i assume they don't know i'm there. as such, i find myself putting in bigger efforts while riding through intersections. in fact, i did my best to impress that wisdom upon e today as the two of us rode our bikes to do some errands today at the library and target. we rode on the rode and i talked her through a bunch of road-safety lessons.

sewing on the deck

e wanted to use grandma's old sewing machine to make a dress for her doll. i said, "really? you want to be indoors on such a beautiful day?"

we compromised and set it up on the deck.

interstate park

e, b, and i went to interstate park for a bit of a hike today. we hopped in the jeep and drove out to st. croix falls for an afternoon of walking on the (mostly) cool paths through the woods and along the cliffs.

here they are trekking along...


sunning on a rock, but they're not very lizardly :-)

if only they'd seen the arrow on the tree, they wouldn't be wondering which way to go...

one of the potholes created by rocks swirled around by the river. hard to tell scale here but this one is actually about 15 feet deep.

ah, yes and the lizardly dad sunning himself on a rock at the end of the day.

Evening's activity

hangin out with a book and bel.

doing instead of merely consuming

http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html

very cool blog entry on a change in media from just binging on media
presented to actively "doing stuff" with information. now... it
remains to be seen what will become with all the stuff that comes from
social networks, but the blogger has a sense of optimism that doing
over consuming will have a much larger social impact.

--rt

which one should i choose?

feelin' a little surly today, so i went with orange.

forecast calls for fenders

looks like i'd better choose a bike with fenders tomorrow.

tell me how this is bad

Shipping Costs Start to Crimp Globalization

Yes, it sucks to have to pay a lot for gasoline, but are we even paying the full price, yet? Anyway, now that the energy required to transport goods is chomping away at margins, manufacturers need to re-think their supply chains. While I hate to see prices go up, this is just the constraint we needed in our economy to convince companies to actually design efficiencies into their systems.

a summer evening smorgasbord

bread, avocado, gjetost, fried tofu, canteloupe, cherries, garden fresh tomatoes, calamata olives, plums, and nectarine... yum! believe it or not, the kids loved it. er... most of it.

Singly spectacular road ride

ugh, not enough miles in this summer to be ready for the fat tire 40. i hopped on the 1x1 to see if I could handle doing 40 on the road today. sure i ended up spinning my gourd off, but I made it in pretty good time (without killin' myself). i'm pretty confident i can finish the race. now, to build a little endurance.

anyway, the ride was fun. I even sucked wheel in a paceline of roadies who caught me on hwy 96. (for a little while)

And so another commute begins...

1 august a beautiful morning for riding. gosh, i'd better get on the bike!

Bugs got bad

so the nerds and their laptops wenr inside.

Summer evening on the deck

hanging out on the deck with the dog, a beer, and (ugh) the laptop.

A media player makeover

a 3.5 to 2.5 mm adapter and a new set of headphones makes the centro a purty nice media player... now, if only those 4gb cards would come down in price.

My steed awaits...

after work today, my bike looked so eager to go, i just had to snap a photo. besides, i wanted an excuse to stay out of the blast-furnace-like temps outside.

b's first mountain bike ride

tonight, b and i went for our first mtb ride together. she's quite a kid. did real well.



she was cautious, even on the flat stuff, but she's still getting a feel for how the bike handles on the dirt.


oooh, look, look, first weeds in the derailleur

ready to head home...

we might have a new mtb-er on our hands.

Behind bars

well... since it's a somewhat cycling-related blog, some of the entries should be cycling related, right?

leave it to the techies to go "back to the basics" for transportation

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7130418.stm

"Cycling is the most eco-friendly mode of transport in the world but we in India are still stuck in the developing country syndrome. Instead of encouraging them, we actively discourage them."

Well, while that's true in a developing nation with an identity crisis, it's still quite true in the "developed" world. Cycling does not feel all that "encouraged" here in the midwest either. We've got laws to protect us that nobody seems to know about, bike paths that go to places in the middle of nowhere, and bike lanes that come and go. Maybe I'm just whining. I should be happy I don't have to deal with all the crap those guys in India are dealing with on their bikes.

I guess I'm just saying we could be much better about making cycling a realistic option for the more tame months here in Minnesota.

Wheaty, noodly goodness

lunch today at tanpopo was a bowl of wild mushroom soba noodles and 1/2 of a spicy tuna maki (not pictured). how do you say mmm mmm good in japanese?

Volunteering

today was habitat day. I spent the day on a jobsite wondering if that house will ever get done. Volunteerism is a great thing, but there is so much energy wasted when people do things that require skills they don't have. Well, maybe this is just a commentary on how this jobsite was run. It could've been organized better to utilize those of us underskilled folks.

Anyway, the morning was spent fixing walls that were put up the day before. It was noon before we'd fixed them and made any progress.

Today helped underscore the fact that I don't have the skills necessary to build for a living. Sure, I can swing a hammer and run a circular saw, but I can't do it well enough to do it for dough.

Oh well, I should probably stick to software.

--rt

Does this mobile posting really work?

got a palm centro the other day. if i can get this mobile blogging thing figgered out, i may start some regular posting.

-- rt

caring drivers

today, at about 4:40, as i rode through north through the s-curve on jackson street i met a really nice guy. it was amazing. he was so worried about my safety (as i rode my bike down the road) that he hung out the passenger window of his buddy's green mustang (somewhere betwee 2001-2005 model year) and politely suggested that i ride on the sidewalk instead of the road. well, he didn't sound so polite at first, but i'm sure he was only yelling to make sure i could fully understand him.

he was so concerned about me that he threw in a few f-in-heimers to show me how much he cared. when i pointed to the bright white text that spelled "bikes only" on the road in the designated bike lane in which i was riding, he wouldn't accept that it was safe enough for me. he cared so much that he offered to punish me if i didn't get onto the sidewalk. wow, if that's not love, i don't know what is. after a smile and a wave from me, he and his pal sped off down the road.

ok, so he wasn't so happy with me. i'm not sure what i did wrong. if you look at this picture there are two arrows visible. the one that points northeast is a single lane and just as i was going through there, i glanced over my shoulder to see a car speeding along in the left lane as if it was going to try to slip around in front of me. so, to let them know i had the lane, i moved over to the middle and signaled a right turn. then jackson street merges with acker for 1/2 block at which point jackson heads back north, so i signaled a left turn and entered the designated bike lane. this car, a mustang no less, was right behind me as i entered the first turn but was way off my wheel by the time i made it through the second turn, so it's not as if i was holding them up, which confuses me about why he had so much to say to me. (and no, he wasn't really looking out for my well being.)

the only thing i can figure that i may have done to make them so angry is that when i signaled my turns, i may have done so with my index finger aloft instead of with a flat hand. if i did that, they may have thought (incorrectly) that i was flipping them off. yeah, maybe i'm giving the guy too much credit. i'm sure it was the meth. i bet he was mad because high gas prices meant he had to car pool with someone who pisses him off, so he took it out on someone whose commute isn't directly affected by the price of gas. ha! i bet after they were done with me, they went to the parking lot of a vegetarian restaurant to yell at the people inside because hamburgers are getting expensive... sheesh!

gosh, i'm going to try to remember to use all my fingers when signaling turns so as not to be mistaken for someone making an unkind gesture.


--rt

grace

grace: (from m-w online)

Etymology: Middle English, from Old French, from Latin gratia favor, charm, thanks, from gratus pleasing, grateful; akin to Sanskrit grnAti he praises

1. 1. : unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification
   2. : a virtue coming from God
   3. : a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace


2. 1. : APPROVAL, FAVOR <stayed in his good graces>
   2. archaic : MERCY, PARDON
   3. : a special favor : PRIVILEGE <each in his place, by right, not grace, shall rule his heritage -- Rudyard Kipling>
   4. : disposition to or an act or instance of kindness, courtesy, or clemency
   5. : a temporary exemption : REPRIEVE


3. 1. : a charming or attractive trait or characteristic
   2. : a pleasingly graceful appearance or effect : CHARM
   3. : ease and suppleness of movement or bearing

yeah, regardless of how you slice it, grace is a pretty wonderful thing.

peace,

--rt

a coworker asked me this question in an e-mail the other day:

" In "The Pitfalls of Outsourcing Programmers" [ http://www.forio.com/outsourcing.htm ]
Michael Bean argues that offshoring is bad for companies not because of the short-term programmer layoffs but because technology companies will lose their capacity to innovate. He claims that Offshoring is a mistake when technology companies confuse operational effectiveness and strategy.

Do you agree with Michael's assertions?"
here's my response...

interesting reading. i think the author's bit on operational effectiveness vs. strategy is one of the things with which those of us technical, non-c-level folks have trouble. meaning: we're purists on what we do. we think there shouldn't be any compromise on strategy. i do think there's a place for someone to focus on operational effectiveness and his simplistic story about the chocolatier was a good example (albeit, chosen nicely for its rhetorical value).

i think running a business is a tough balance between taking advantage of your workers and taking advantage of your customers. yes, that's a cynical description of it, but, in reality, it's the heart of capitalism. there are times at which a company's leadership has to grab for the profits (especially for a publicly traded company in this market). do i like it? no, i think it sucks. do i agree with the premise of michael's article? yes, outsourcing your core competencies (even part of them) seems like a bad, bad, BAD idea. there are a number of reasons to not do it in software namely: you're taking your entry-level, training type jobs and handing that off to people who won't be feeding your senior staff ranks. eventually, that model bleeds your resource pool and you have to outsource even the senior work. at that point, you've lost all control.

i think, though, that we as developers need to find more ways to add to the process. if the process is as simple as feed documented requirements on one end and code comes out the other end, then it can be done anywhere someone has access to the code repository. i've been thinking of this a lot lately and believe very strongly that we need to be able to add to the process beyond just "writing code," and i don't believe i have an answer, yet.

i don't know if there's anything we can really do in a big company like this, though. i think the trend to outsourcing is a disturbing sign that the business model cannot support the costs of running these businesses. it's kind of like the airlines, the market pressure on ticket prices is in opposition to the market pressure of wall street to make profits. much like the downward pressure on electronics, our software is becoming commoditized too, which means they have to increase productivity per dollar. i honestly feel it's collapsing. however, from those ashes, i think we'll see innovation. broad innovation on much smaller scales. i don't really know how long it'll take, but if the business model doesn't change, implosion is the inevitable outcome.

a slight segue onto my theory of what's causing all the problems... i think it's wall street. but can i blame them? they're just doing what they've always done, which is try to make money. no, i think you have to look at what's infusing all of the cash in wall street. it's us. we all have 401ks that depend on wall street. why do we do that? social security is dying, and the money that, in the past, would have been locked up tightly in that system is flowing to the unstable world of wall street. this is bad. why? because capitalism has no morals. capitalism is about making money and things are only valued by the market. i think things, people, and ideas have value in their utility, not just their calculable cost-benefit... but, then again, i'm not a businessman. i get too tied down in the morality of the situation, which is not to say businesspeople are immoral (well... some are... but there are also immoral technical folks too). i'm saying they are amoral, they are able to make decisions based on the performance of the outcome from the perspective of the company. is this good? well... as long as we're forced to operate in a purely capitalistic system, that's how they have to operate, and we as technical employees should understand that this is how it works and find ways to either make peace with it or take advantage of it in our own way, e.g., educate the heck out of ourselves with the benefits provided by the company, volunteer for projects that stretch our skills, and do all we can to expand our soft skills.

as far as when outsourcing becomes offshoring? i see many sides... the nationalistic side of me says we should do onshoring and work to train people in the US to do this work in areas where the cost of living is low. the globalist view says that it's a good thing to get more economies in this world participating as first-world economies, so we're doing a good thing sending white collar jobs overseas. i am truly divided on this issue.

well... i've droned on for long enough... thanks for asking my opinion.

--rt

three below

well, i made it to work this morning despite the cold. the national weather service website says it's three degrees below zero (F). while that's not the coldest weather i've ridden in, it's the coldest of the 05-06 winter season here in the twin cities.

it's a wonder i made it, as i think my clothing was "out to get me." yesterday i pulled out the heaviest pair of shoecovers i own as i knew what was coming. i wore them to work yesterday and, on the way home, one of them tried to kill me. really! i was track standing at a stoplight and unbeknownst to me, the reflective strap that goes around the top of the shoecover had quietly come unvelcro-ed. (hmm... is that a word?)

anyway, this was on my right foot. yeah, the chain side. then the shoecover quietly slipped the end of the strap between the chainwheel and the chain as i was rocking the track stand. when the light turned green, i noticed a little resistance on my right leg. i was part way into the intersection when i noticed what the problem was. because i wasn't the only one who wanted to use the intersection at the moment, i felt it was best to just pedal through it. yep, tore the end off the strap. useless...

dang... and i knew i was going to need that shoecover to make it to work with all 10 toes this morning. well, i just stuffed the strap into the top of the shoecover before leaving home this morning, which... DIDN'T WORK. a similar incident almost almost went down just a couple of blocks from work. ha, but i had the last laugh... got a pair of scissors out of my desk and fixed that.

dontcha just love courteous drivers?

as i was riding along como avenue tonight with a solid white light on my helmet, a flashing white light on the bars, and enough flashing red lights on my back to make my bike look like a slowly rolling crime scene, i had a run-in with one of those drivers who makes you worry about the future of humanity. a minivan sat at a cross street to como on the other side of the road, and there wasn't any other traffic on that section of como other than me at the moment. as i approached the intersection of the cross street (an intersection at which i had right of way because they had a stopsign and i didn't), i noticed the van lurch a little and then hesitate. then... then! they gunned it as i was entering the intersection. i locked up my brakes as they came across the fairly wide two lanes of como and watched them drive right in front of me about a bikelength away from my front tire.

the bad news is, i was close enough to the vehicle to hear the driver yelling at me, the good news is that i wasn't able to understand him. so, i'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that somewhere in his surly tone there lived words of encouragement for getting around by human power even in the winter. yeah... i'm sure that's what he was saying. oh, i'm so uplifted.

peace,

--rt

flat

well... i jinxed myself last week when someone was asking about my studded tires. i practically kicked myself when i heard it come out of my mouth too, because i knew what would be coming my way this winter... anyway, i dared to say--aloud--that, "these are such good and thick tires, i've never flatted with them," which, by the way, is no longer true.

just as i was coming up behind the capitol, i thought, "cheese and rice, why am i so sluggish today?" then, i went on to beat myself up over it for the next couple dozen pedal strokes. words like slug, sloth, and turtle were being hauled out. suddenly, i had a revelation, "maybe it's the bike!" as much as i don't want to be in horrible shape, i didn't want it to be the bike either, because i hate bike maintenance.

i checked out the rear tire and, sure enough... flat. well, flatt-en-ing. i continued to ride for a few more blocks while trying to put my weight on the front tire, but i realized that was no better than walking (just a different kind of fatigue). sure i had tools and a spare tube, but i wasn't going to change it out in the cold (this is december in minnesota fercripesake). it took me 10 mins to walk to work from there.

i'll go out and change the tube in the shelter of the parking ramp over lunch...