Back on track
Posted by Steve | Filed under Cycling
Well, I’ve decided to get back into track cycling. L.A. has the country’s only indoor velodrome and although I’ve been there to watch racing many times, I’ve never ridden on the track ever. I can’t let this opportunity go to waste while I’m here. I still want to to a triathlon in the future. I enjoy doing long distance rides on ocasion but training for them doesn’t interest me at all nor does it suit my natural abilities. I’m a white muscle fiber/sprinter type. Shorter higher intensity workouts that take advantage of my gym strength are more relevant and all I have time for anyway.
I’ve started buying parts for a track bike this week. I already have a bar, stem, seatpost and saddle to use from previous bikes. I’m shopping for a cheap new or used frame on Ebay now. I was sure I had a winner last night. I bid on a new closeout frame that started at $150. Four others all went for $320 or less so I put in a max of $350, sure that I’d get it. Within the last hour some fucker kept out bidding me and ran it up to $420, on top of the $55 for shipping. I hate when people do that. Don’t they know there’s another item just like it soon to follow? Just be patient and stick to your maximum bid. Oh well. At least I made him pay thru the nose. Initially I was bummed because I asked the seller if he had more frames in that size and he said no. Sure enough the very next day another frame just like it showed up. I bet he’s got ten more sitting in his garage right now.
I’ve already rearranged my bedroom to make room for another bike. I don’t want to pay a lot because I will likely trade up to another frame after a year. I want to see if I’m still as interested a year from now before I drop a lot of money into the project. Not to mention I’m working hard to lose weight and increase my flexibility so I can handle a larger handlebar drop. We’ll see how this works out.
Posted by Steve | Filed under General
It’s That Time!!
Time for the 36th annual “Angry Sex Bowl”. Belle’s Tennessee Vols vs my #11 Georgia Bulldogs. One of us is guaranteed to be highly upset come Saturday night and I don’t plan on it being me. The game is at UT but we have whupped them three straight times at Neyland Stadium. They spanked us in Athens last year but we’re not counting that right now.
I like our odds on this one. UGA has never lost a road game at night under Coach Mark Richt and we’re 23-3 overall on away games. Come and get your whuppin, Belle!
Pwned by the consultant
Posted by Steve | Filed under Technology, Work
So last week we had a new VOIP phone system installed. This required replacing our DSL connection with a T-1 line to support both voice and data. The install was pretty seemless, although now I have to learn Adtran OS to edit my firewall rules. They advised we use that instead of our Juniper to keep latency down.
Everything was all hunky dorey so Wednesday we shutdown the entire office and take a group lunch to discuss all the recent changes to the network. We also recently outsourced Exchange services and our CRM database. The boss caters food to his home and we all dig on. My phone rings twice but I just ignore it.
We get back to the office two hours later to a downed network and several frantic voicemmail messages from the technician that installed our phone system. It turns out he’s responsible for our network being down. He decided on his own to futz around with our firewall settings without notifying us first. Apparently the Einstein had five browser windows open to several different clients and he wiped out our entire configuration thinking he was editing someeone else’s FW. Ths locked HIM out so he couldn’t undo the damage before we got back. He’d been trying to call me while we were at lunch. He’s actually lucky I didn’t answer because the boss would have had a few choice words for him. There are only 2-3 times a year we close the office for lunch so he picked the worst of all possible days to do this.
He walks me through recreating the right configuration in about 45 minutes or so. Of course this was after he asks me to connect to a desktop sharing website so he can take over my computer and do it himself which I obviously can’t do since we have no fucking internet access. The boss was NOT happy….AT ALL. Needless to say he has been made persona non grata at our site. A fun time was not had by all.
