Morning Ride

From September photostream

I am going to ride the trike today. It looks like rain but I need the miles and training so I will do 2-3 hours on the trike give or take. The Vivo is out of commission since the idle fell apart on my last ride. I am putting off repairing it as I don't want to invest in the parts when the Corsa should be ready by Nov 8th. There was a delay on the parts for the Corsa so I have to wait a bit.

too cute

I spotted this image on BROL. It was too cute to leave there.

Does your vote count?

I have been hearing a lot about how the chance of a particular vote mattering is small from various people in the blogosphere. In particular this study is referenced a lot. It has some nice charts showing the chance of your vote being the decisive one as 1 in 10 million if you are lucky enough to live in New Mexico for instance. Now they also have a paper on how it is rational to vote even if your vote won't be decisive.

But both of these studies miss a point that seems clear to me or at least don't emphasize it enough. I am voting for Obama and the Democratic party based on the issues. I care about alternate energy, health care, job security and relief for the middle class destroyed by Wall Street greed to name a few. My motivation is not just to get Obama in office with a progressive Democratic Senate and Congress by a squeaker. I want there to be a landslide, a massive turnout with public opinion strongly on display supporting progressive politics. Every single vote counts in this case. EVERY VOTE COUNTS, as Diddy said "Ain't no line too damn long". We all need to vote, we need to sweep out the corrupt conservative Republican's who are working against this country for their own gain. We need a public referendum so that Obama and Biden have the momentum to enact sweeping policy changes.

The Senate and Congress are slow acting by nature. With a big turnout we can speed them up, we can show them that we won't tolerate back room trades of influence for money. We want them accountable to you and me, to the people not the corporations. One of the points Obama made during his 30 minute address to the country was that he wasn't worried about CEOs, insurance companies and oil companies, they can take care of themselves. He is worried about the middle class and the poor. Right now lobbyists have all the influence and they work for the big oil, for the insurance industry, for everyone who can BUY the influence. Voting is how we show our influence. It is hugely important and it is our duty as well as our right.

Who gets the critical Azeroth vote?

A decent production. The WOW machina stuff is pretty cool. Check it out.

Ain't no line too damn long

From Diddy Blog
You go to vote and whoa, the line is stretching for blocks so what do you do? Go home?

NO!

No line is too long. As Diddy says, imagine what it would look like now in our world if Martin Luther King Jr. had said, "Ooh, my feet hurt, I can't march today."

The Horribles

IN A HORRIBLE PLACE
IN A HORRIBLE HOUSE
WHERE HORRIBLE CREATURES DWELL

THEY'RE COMING
AND THEY'RE COMING SOON
THEY WILL CAST YOU UNDER THEIR SPELL!

Check it out
in time for Halloween!
http://www.TheHorribles.SmackJeeves.com

(h/t Carolyn - this is my sister's work)

coding project

I have a Garmin Edge 305, which is a great tool. I love it. It has excellent reception and I have yet to have an issue with losing signal in 2 weeks of every day usage. Considering that with my old GPS I ran into signal issues on every ride, this is a major improvement.

The garmin is also great for generating data on each ride for training purposes. I push my data from my garmin into Motionbased.com and the garmin SW every day. Great stuff but I want more reports, I want to see my miles grow over time, I want to see how my heartrate averages are doing, etc. I also want to link into bikejournal without having to do everything by hand.

So I am considering using published API's and tools to access the garmin directly and generate my own reports. I can also then make a one button push to publish to bikejournal which would be very nice for me.

Tools to look at for this:

• Pygarmin - Python garmin library for accessing all sorts of garmin GPSs
• This blog post talks about linux and the garmin edge.
• GPSBabel is a great site for linux and GPSs

I will probably use a local DB to store the data and a python/TK front end. I want linux support to be a big part of this as I use linux at work and home though I still have a Windows PC around.

2009 Cycling Goals

While reading the Bacchetta forums I found a thread about 2008 accomplishments. This got me thinking about my 2009 goals and I realized I hadn't written them down. I am going through a period of introspection and refocusing my activities and desires to meet my goals. I do this periodically. In 1998/1999 I did something similar where I changed career tracks and focused on quality of life vs the NYC rat race.

I get obsessive about certain things, so I find it useful for me to focus my obsession on healthy activities rather than self-destructive habits. Recently I gave up MMOs because my obsession was not good for my health, my relationships and my work. To replace that I decided that it would be better to focus on cycling, cycle maintenance and politics. All of these activities are ones I have had a lifelong interest in so they are natural fits. I am giving up my old hobby of rock climbing as it is harder to get into shape and keep climbing without a regular partner you trust. Plus cycling works well with cycle commuting as training.

So without too much ado, here are my 2009 goals.

• Hill training, must ride more hills
• Cycle commute 200 days in 2009
• add morning training rides to my commute three times a week (20+ miles, and major hills combined)
• 2500 miles (I hope to beat this but this works out to an average of 208 miles/month, 48 miles/week)
• 2009 STP (202 miles over two days)
• Training century ride before STP, probably Flying Wheels Summer Century
• Attending any nearby recumbent rallies or get togethers
• Lose approximately 40 lbs (50 lbs from my high)
• Crack 100 miles per week averaged over 1 month.

When the Plumber stands you up

Obama on the daily show

Nice to see a real interview.