Rants and Revelations

I think I overdid it a bit. I went kayaking, and because I left it so late, the parking lot at Bay Creek was full, forcing me to launch from the public park across the street. No dock, just a lot of very horrible sucky mud.
Continue reading ‘I’m sooooo tired’ »

I’m in the beta for StackOverflow.com, a site for programmers to ask and answer questions, with cool features like “reputation scores” and voting and badges. Now maybe it’s because it’s the beta and so it’s self-selected for people who are motivated to do things, but so far it’s already totally supplanted comp.lang.java.* as the place I want to ask or answer questions.

I’m hoping it will continue to be my favourite question and answer place when it’s overrun by spammers and “first post” losers.

While I continue to debate with myself whether I want to leave a job I’ve mostly enjoyed for the last 6+ years, I get an email. As explanation, I seem to be the only person here who regularly uses Macs at home, and I have a bit of a reputation as being able to solve various problems that have cropped up here, as well as recommending hardware upgrades and the like.

Hi Paul,

We’ve got a couple of “APPLES” here in our lab that we primarily use for Final Cut Pro editing. We just recently upgraded to LEOPARD, and things just aren’t “right”…..Xxxx (lab manager) has authorized me to provide you with a charge number for you to come and see if you can help. Please let me know if you have some availability in the next week or two to check them out….thanks very much!

Yyyyyy M. Yyyyyyyy | Video & Digital Content Specialist | EI DIGITAL INTERMEDIATE LAB |
Eastman Kodak Company | 2400 Mt. Read Boulevard | Rochester, NY 14650-3089 |

I told her that she’d have to talk to my boss, Nancy about it. So she sent her and email and CCed me:

Hi Nancy,

We’ve got a couple of G5 “APPLES” here in our lab that are heavily utilized for Final Cut Pro editing. We recently upgraded to the newest operating system (LEOPARD), and things just aren’t “right”….word on the street has it that Paul Tomblin has a vast knowledge of APPLE hardware, and we would like to request that Paul come and take a look at them, to determine what is going on. We do have an APPLE support agreement, but it only covers software support.

Xxxx Xxxxx our lab manager, has authorized me to provide Paul with a charge number for him to come and see if he can help. I would estimate it would only take him about 2-4 hours.

Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns.
Yyyyyy M. Yyyyyyyy | Video & Digital Content Specialist | EI DIGITAL INTERMEDIATE LAB |

I can just see what Nancy is going to say when she gets that after my resignation letter.

Today was quite a departure for me. Normally I avoid paddling on the bay like the plague, both because of the waves and because of the power boaters. But there is a race coming up in a few weeks that’s the culmination of the kayak racing season, and it’s nearly 10 miles up and down “Long Lake”. So I figured I needed to do more distance, and I also needed some experience on lakes. I thought I’d try paddling up to the Bay Bridge and back, since Dan says that’s 5 miles. (It turns out that Google Maps Pedometer shows it being more like 5.3 miles.)
Continue reading ‘Long Slow Distance training’ »

Various stuff graphed.

Source document

Sorry, Vicki, I didn’t know how to break this to you, but I’ve fallen in love. One of the racing team members, Frank, is selling his old Necky Looksha II kayak. It’s 20 feet long, 20 inches wide, weighs about 45 pounds, and as the time above shows, fast as hell, and beautiful.

Considering how much of the time I was worrying about tipping over rather than concentrating on my stroke, the fact that I was 1.26 minutes (76 seconds) faster than last week shows just how fast this kayak is. My split after the bay portion of the race was only 21 seconds faster than last week, which shows that not only was I wasting more time adjusting to the new boat out there, but also the lighter boat allowed me to keep more energy for the second half. This the first time I haven’t had to stop for a drink of water during the race. And obviously, after I learn to paddle it without worry, I’ll get even faster.

So here’s my plan:

1. Finish the Pygmy Boat kit this fall. Try it out a bit and see how I like it.
2. Next spring, sell either the Pygmy Boat or the Skerray.
3. If Frank still hasn’t sold his Looksha by then, buy it. Otherwise look for something equally fast and challenging.
4. Profit?

Last Thursday I went for a private lesson with Dan. It went so well that I confidently boasted to somebody that not only would I beat my person best, 24.60, but I’d demolish it with a 24.30. Instead, I not only demolished it, I jumped up and down on the pieces. 24.13. My split was 11.88, compared to my previous best of 12.00, so much of that improvement came in the second half, where my improved technique on both halves of the course meant I had more energy and didn’t have to stop paddling to take a drink several times in the last quarter as I’ve done so many times in the past.

I took a stop watch this time and recorded split times at both buoy turns as well, but I forgot and reset the watch before I recorded them. Oh well, maybe next time.

With my technique and conditioning improving, I’m convinced that the only other factor I need to work on is the fact that I’m paddling a heavy plastic boat. Time to get back out into the garage and finish my Arctic Tern 17 Hi.

2425524260

Ok, I was slower today - 25.00 instead of 24.60. Most people beat their personal best. I guess that’s what I get for missing a week. But we’ve had so much rain this summer that the creek is still running well, and there is still a good crowd coming out, so they’ve decided to run the races for a few more weeks.

On the way out, I was trying to paddle right, but as I passed the split, Dan yelled at me to push the paddle in at the catch and then pull, instead of pulling as the paddle went in, or words to that effect. Once I figured out what he meant, I fixed my catch and also started working on what my upper arm was doing on the power stroke, which gave me better rotation. And it was good, the boat was moving fast. Unfortunately by that time I was too tired and I could do a good stroke about 5 or 10 strokes and then had to rest. That’s why my split time was 0.30 slower than my previous best, and my total time was 0.40 slower.

(No, this isn’t an Obama post.)

I went to see a new doctor yesterday. This was the first time Vicki has managed to convince me to convince a doctor to give me a referral to a neurologist. I’ve asked before, and the doctors always said “no, it’s not neurological”, and then given up on finding an orthopeadic or other cause. This time, I got my doctor to promise that after his idea failed, he’d refer me to a neurologist. And it did, and he did.

I hate to get my hopes up, but this guy (or rather his physician’s assistant) outlined a multi-pronged approach to figuring out how much of it is orthopeadic, how much is neurological, how much is caused by sleep apnea (evidently apnea can make you more susceptible to pain - who knew?), how much is due to rheumatoid arthris, etc. I’ve got a blood test script here (Comprehensive Metabolic, CBC + Platelet, Sed Rate, Protein Electrophresis, C-Reactive Protien WR, Creatine Kinase (CK), Angiotensin-1-Conv Enzime, ANA, Anti-Cardiolipn Ab, Lyme Antibody), then I’m going to have three days of a powerful steroidal anti-inflammatory (can’t remember the name, but I’ll never be allowed to compete in the Tour de France now), and three days of a powerful neurological drug. All I have to do is figure out how to accurately compare one day’s pain to another, something I’ve never been able to do. They’re also talking about various tests of nerve function and sleeping with a pulse oximeter and maybe even a sleep study.

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed for me. I would give my left knee to be able to cross country ski again.

Update: Did I sound a little annoyed with AvMap when I posted this? Well, I suppose I was. But I think I’ve finally managed to convince the support person that I’ve done everything I can, so they’re finally going to send me a new CF card. So I’m a lot less annoyed. I still wish there was a way to get them to listen to my ideas about the user interface, though. It doesn’t seem right to open a support ticket for that, but there isn’t anything else I can see on their web page for other feedback.

I made three major purchases at Oshkosh.

1. iCom A14 handheld radio
2. Clarity Aloft headset
3. AvMap EKP-IV GPS

It’s been a mixed bag.

The iCom worked out of the box, I was able to use it on the trip home, and now I’ve had a chance to go through the manual it looks like it will do everything I need and then some (I didn’t know about the automatic marine weather mode, for instance). It’s slightly annoying that the free headset adaptor is a mail-in thing, and I have to make copies of the sales receipt and registration card.

The Clarity Aloft didn’t work, and I didn’t discover that until I fired up the engine for the flight home. I wrote to them as soon as I got home and they were very apologetic. They shipped a replacement immediately, and it arrived today. I took it out to the airport to make sure it worked fine, and it did. They didn’t send a pre-paid return shipping slip, so I’m going to have to pay to return the broken one and get reimbursed. I’m going to keep the extra eartips from the first one as a compensation for my troubles.

The EKP IV did work, after a fashion. There are a few items of the user interface that absolutely drive me bonkers, and a few that are minor annoyances. After I got home, I thought I’d grab the latest firmware to see if some of the worst bugs have been fixed. That involves putting the CF card in a card reader on my computer and copying some files over. Seems simple enough. The manual suggests very strongly that you keep a copy of the files on your computer, so I did. But after updating the CF card and putting it back into the unit, though, the unit says “DEVICE not PRESENT”. (Yes, that’s the capitalization.) I tried restoring the backup files, but it didn’t help. I tried copying the files to a different CF card, and the unit boots with it, but can’t access the aviation database - that’s not entirely unexpected, because the aviation database is somehow keyed to the CF card. The problem is that I just can’t seem to convince the AvMap people that the CF card is toast and I need a new one. I’ve exchanged a number of emails with somebody in Italy where I set out my very strong evidence that it’s not what I’m doing, or the version of the firmware I’m using, and they send back instructions that basically assume that I’m doing something wrong or using the wrong version of the firmware. If they don’t ship me a new CF card in the next 24 hours, I’m going to go to my credit card company and get them to cancel payment on this. And then I’m going to buy a reconditioned Garmin 296 or a 496.

I’d gotten an STMP (or whatever it’s called) reservation for an IFR departure at 1715Z. But by 1400Z, there just wasn’t that much left to do around the campsite, and I didn’t want to buy another day’s ticket. So I went down to the gate house, got my camping refund (they make you pay for the whole week in advance, then give you a refund when you leave), got a weather briefing, and took a shower, then got ready to depart VFR to see if I could pick up flight following from Muskegon Approach.
Continue reading ‘Back from Oshkosh’ »

(This was originally part of a journal that I’m keeping on my computer, so it might repeat stuff that I’ve already put on the blog.)
Continue reading ‘Oshkosh First Day’ »

Yesterday I found some power but no wifi. Today I found wifi but no power. So I was able to finally get the log file that my boss emailed me yesterday. I had been trying to find a way to read it on my cell phone, but for some stupid reason every “text reader” I managed to find for the Palm either required you to convert the text file to something else on your PC, or the program itself was only available as a zip file, and I have no way of unzipping files on the Palm. Why can’t they just make the bare .PRC file available?

Once I got the log file, it only took me a minute to find the fix, so I’ve emailed me off. Yesterday I started writing a long narrative of my Oshkosh so far, and I was going to put it all up when I got home, but now I have wifi I guess I could cut and paste that into blog posts.

I found a guy who wants a ride from Muskegon to Oshkosh, so at least I’m going to have somebody to help me with the Fisk approach.