I spent two days up in the DC area for a work off-site at the Captain’s house. I rode my motorcycle up, partly because it’s fun and partly because it costs about $60+ in gas to take the Montero. I was able to skirt significant traffic on the way up when I took the HOV lane (legally). On the way back it was a different matter.

I was cruising along I-270 S at much-higher-than-approved speed when I saw a bunch of brake lights in front of me. Traffic was stopped. I didn’t see any construction earlier in the day, so I assumed there was an auto accident. I flipped on my hazard lights and slowed down, eventually coming to a stop. About ten minutes of stop-and-go traffic later I saw what happened: a ten-wheeled truck had overturned onto its side, there was a black BMW sedan with the roof crushed in and all of its glass shattered, and three other cars in various states of Hulk Smash along the right side of the highway.

As I idled by on my motorcycle, I looked at one of the people involved. He was sitting near the overturned ten-wheeler, his head in his hands. He didn’t look injured, but he definitely looked emotionally shaken. About that time I realized that if I had left the Captain’s house a few minutes earlier — if I hadn’t stopped for one more round of hugs or didn’t try to take some Mayorga coffee beans with me — that I could have been right in the middle of that smash-up. I don’t think I would have survived a five-vehicle accident, regardless of the gear I was wearing. Getting cut off, dumping the bike, and sliding for a hundred feet is one thing; getting run over by five cars in a pileup is another.

I will admit that seeing the wreck changed my ride on the way home. Not how I rode — I still zipped along and cut through herds of cagers — but in how I felt as I rode. I was a little more nervous about passing between two semi-trucks in the middle lane. I was a little more worried about a driver not checking his blind spot and merging into me. Everything turned out to be fine, but it wasn’t a fun ride home.

To the delight of some and the lamentations of other Gibberish readers, I have put down a $99 reservation on a 451 model smart car. I received an email from smart on Monday, asking me to confirm my choices. The process took about three minutes, and featured what I believe to be final pricing. I selected the stock Passion, with all black body components and few extras: heated cloth seats, the smart premium radio (six disc mp3-capable CD player with AUX jack), and electric power steering. The rest of the goodies I really wanted came standard with the Passion trim. Full details below.
Read the rest of this entry »

About a month ago I wrote about my new Samsung u740 mobile phone. I still love the phone, perhaps even more so as I have learned to use it better. I don’t use the voice-to-text feature unless I need a good laugh, but the keyboard makes text messaging so much easier than a traditional phone.

Right after July 4th I started poking around eBay for a case. I have enough shit on my belt, so I wasn’t really interested in a holster-style case. I wanted to put the phone in my pocket, but didn’t want to scratch up the external screen or camera lens. Instead of a traditional case, I found that were several eBayers selling plastic “shells” that clip onto the phone. The front and back were protected by separate pieces, and the side edges of the phone were left exposed. I liked that the shell didn’t appear to hinder the dual-hinged design of the u740. It’s important to be able to flip from the traditional “phone” orientation to the landscape orientation in order to use the QWERTY keyboard. I bought a clear one for Lady Jaye’s u740, and a black one for mine.
Read the rest of this entry »

Duke and I went to our local indoor range on Sunday. I normally go to introduce people to shooting for the first (or second) time (see here, here, here, here, here, here for the chronicles of some of my time as a firearms ambassador), but Sunday was reserved for “me.” Usually I am too busy concentrating on the newer folks to really focus on shooting better. That’s all well and good, but I don’t get much time to be over-critical of myself. I never wanted to be one of those people who got their permit, bought a firearm, and let it sit in their closet (or hang on their hip) for months without firing it. I need to get better.
Read the rest of this entry »

So, my file server was giving me problems around the end of July. The system was rebooting randomly and was exhibiting generally weird behavior, such as not burning DVDs. I hypothesized that my power supply was underpowered and was taking a shit on me. I bought a mo’ beefy one and sure enough, everything was okay. At least, until this morning when I rebooted after a Windows Update. The Highpoint RAID BIOS software indicated my drive array was running at CRITICAL status, which means one drive has failed. Luckily I had a parity drive (RAID 5), but I wondered wtf was going wrong now, and why the drive had failed. I took the face off of my server chassis and made sure all of the SATA II drives were plugged in. Yep. I flipped the cube case around and checked the other side, where the Highpoint controller card lives. I pushed on the wires and felt something move. Damn, maybe it was a bad cable connection after all. I held my breath and powered up the server.

It turns out the drive had been disconnected since I put in my new power supply, and the array had been running at reduced capacity ever since. Since the monitoring software apparently doesn’t start up as a service, the software didn’t email me nor text my mobile phone. The array rebuild is going on right now, with an estimated total time of about eight hours. Better than a real hardware failure, but damn if I wouldn’t punch myself in the nuts if a drive really did fail while the parity drive was unplugged. :\

I use Google Calendar to keep of all types of shit, including my Year of the Zombie campaign. I use GC to invite the other players to each session — this allows me to see who’s able to play and who isn’t. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much in the way of contact list integration with Gmail. While I an email group entitle “YOTZ” with the five other players, I wasn’t able to type in “YOTZ” as a contact in Google Calendar. Today I had just finished typing in each player’s email address when I noticed a “choose from contacts” link near the invitee entry textarea. I clicked the link, and lo and behold was a popup panel with a fully-integrated Gmail contact list — including groups! Yay, it’s about fucking time, Google Calendar. :)

I’ve been watching the Ultimate Fighting Championship since the very first event, when I witnessed my Kenpo karate brothers-in-art get hugged into submission by a little guy named Royce Gracie. I have been enamored with mixed martial arts ever since, and while I no longer practice a martial art nor have I never competed, I like to think I know a fair amount about the sport to appreciate its finer points.

As such, it was a great honor to meet current UFC welterweight champion Matt Serra last Saturday at Richmond’s “Total Cage Combat” event. Matt Serra has been competing in mixed martial arts for a very long time; I remember seeing him fight a decisive battle against Shonie Carter, only to be knocked out in the last nine seconds by Carter’s spinning backfist.
Read the rest of this entry »

I had just left the house on my motorcycle the other day when I passed by two neighbor kids. I normally roll by at 20MPH or so until I hit the main street that leads out of our development. My bike isn’t super loud, but I don’t want to draw too much attention to myself. There are also a lot of kids in my neighborhood, and who knows what kind of weird shit they’ll try to do. As such, the two neighborhood boys were able to run close alongside me. They waved like two dudes stranded on an island desperate to flag down a rescue plane. I waved back with my left hand (the throttle’s on the right).

“HAAY!” one of them screamed. “GIVE US A RIDE!”

I shook my head at them. One, I don’t take passengers. Two, I don’t really like kids. Three, they weren’t wearing any protective gear, and I don’t own helmets that fit midgets.

The boys frowned. “YOU’RE MEAN!!” the first boy shouted.

“Yes,” I replied, nodding my helmeted head. “Yes I am.”

I broke my rule and cranked hard on the throttle. Cylon screamed. Exhaust poofed out like smoke from a dragon’s nostrils. I dipped low on the right side of my bike, and disappeared around the corner.

About a month ago I was able to buy a Bag of Crap from Woot.com. It was my third BoC, and as always the rules are the same: Woot staffers grab random shit and send it to you for $8 shipped. People theoretically get great stuff — one guy once received a $1600 television — but honestly I think those examples are astroturfers. Every BoC I’ve purchased has been lackluster.
Read the rest of this entry »

Ever since seeing one (out of stock) on Adagio.com, I’ve been on the lookout for an adjustable temperature electric tea kettle. The idea of a mult-temperature kettle intrigued me because different drinks require different temperatures. 160 - 180F for white and green teas, 190F for Oolong tea, and 212F for black teas, herbal teas and coffee. The vast majority of electric kettles, especially in the US, are set for one temperature only, which is 212F. Not bad for when I drag out the French press, but way too hot for the white and greens I like to drink. I’ve had to resort to playing games such as listening to the sound of the water starting to boil, or the appearance of the bubbles on the inside of the pot. Most of the time, I don’t even care and just steep the tea in water that is too hot.

Unfortunately, Adagio’s UtiliTEA kettle has been out of stock since December of last year. The only reasons I could dig up were production and quality control issues. Not sure if either of those are correct; the important thing is that I’ve been on their auto-notify list for over eight months, every expected restock date has been pushed back. I thought I was screwed, and was about to write a rant here on Gibberish about it when I found out about the Upton Tea Imports variable temperature electric kettle.
Read the rest of this entry »