sjh - mountain biking running linux vegan geek spice - mtb / vegan / running / linux / canberra / cycling / etc

Steven Hanley hackergotchi picture Steven
Hanley
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email: sjh@svana.org

web: https://svana.org/sjh
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Aaron Broughton,
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Wed, 31 Oct 2007

Hawkesbury Classic 2007, Danielle and Steve paddling Matilda - 21:13
As mentioned in the recent post about choosing the name Matilda for my Mirage Double Sea Kayak, Danielle and I paddled in the Hawkesbury classic on the weekend. As I often do I combined a bunch of photos taken with a word or two and put it all online. So anyone who wants to can see how our race went.

Here is our 2007 Hawkesbury Classic Race Report. Enjoy.

[/mtb/events] link

Mon, 29 Oct 2007

A new name for my Mirage 730 Double Kayak - 14:20
When I purchased my Pink Mirage 730 Double Sea Kayak back in April/May I had thought it should be named Patrick. The name has never stuck, heck even I did not like the name. Many people told me I needed a female name for a boat, I did not feel I could use the name Patricia (partly because one of the coaches at BGCC is named Patricia, and partly because it had no real meaning or background that could be applied).

I have had a few adventures with the boat now, such as Geoquest 2007 and the 2007 Hawkesbury Canoe Classic (this race report is not there yet, I am still writing it) this past weekend. I think there is a new name for it that will stick, my support crew for the weekend (my friend Prue) suggested the name Matilda during the drive back to Canberra.

The name was out of the blue but I liked it, so did Danielle, the back story that I thought works well for it is the Roald Dahl book Matilda. If my kayak is bored or not given interesting trips and events to do it may develop mysterious powers, also if we do not treat it well (or the other kayaks it is close to) it may punish us or whoever mistreats it.

So if you see the pink Mirage Double Sea Kayak out on the lake here or at some event (even though there were well over 200 Mirage kayaks at Hawkesbury this weekend Matilda was the only one with that colour scheme and was quite recognisable), say hello to her and be nice <g>.

[/mtb/gear] link

Thu, 25 Oct 2007

A wireless scanning tool - 19:26
I just wasted about 15 minutes trying to find online the name of the program I have installed on my laptop that I regularly (though not for a few months now) use for scanning for wireless networks.

Hopefully I can remember this post and look it up, the tool in question is swscanner (a kde wireless scanner applications).

[/comp/software] link

Wed, 24 Oct 2007

Tuesday afternoon milk carton blogging - 17:29

Milk Carton Cafe (fullsize) 		Wednesday edition:

Further proof appeared recently that LA really can cater to all needs. As much as I dislike the city I was impressed to see there is a Milk carton cafe (sort of) over there. Just the thing to go visit on a random Tuesday afternoon, it would be perfect apart from two things: Today is Wednesday, and there is a slight geographical displacement

[/various/milkcarton] link

Taking Jake to meet the dirt - 15:26
On Saturday some of the ARNuts and myself headed out for a longish ride on mountain bikes, from inner north Canberra via Kowen forest out to Sparrow Hill for some riding on the rather sweet single track there. After that we headed on out to Bungendore for lunch.

This is a ride I had thought for a while may be good for a cyclo cross bike as there is a lot of bitumen and fire trail riding in there. So I took Jake out for the ride. I tend to agree that yes it was indeed a good bike for this ride, the tyres are still maybe a tad thin for any rocky terrain, with 35c tyres on I got one pinch flat somewhere in Sparrow (possibly with a slow leak which would mean the tyre pressure was lower than originally intended).

The bike itself worked remarkably well in single track considering the skinny high pressure tyres, body position on the bike and average brakes. I discovered it is a lot easier to corner and ride single track if I stay in the drops keeping my centre of gravity low. Now I look forward to trying this bike for a real long dirt road sort of cruise, such as the rather fun ride to the coast via Araluen, I just need to find a free weekend (they are scarce).

[/mtb] link

Thu, 18 Oct 2007

Well I know I can't - 20:19
I was heating up some dinner tonight and a house mate had the show So You Think You can dance on the tv. I have watched this previously at my sister's place from time to time. It seemed entertaining but I simply do not stop to watch tv much. Anyway I got hooked tonight and have watched the rest of this. Lots of fun, my house mate said we are nearer the end so pretty much all the people left can dance well.

The solo dances were interesting as they were all the same dance and you can see how each dancer interprets it. Also you can see how each dancer manages to link things together. In the solo dance tonight I thought Neil (I think that was his name) was possibly the worst I saw. He did not flow from move to move well and nothing seemed to link and flow. Kameron however was incredible in the solo dance and how he did some of the moves, a little differently with an interesting difference. Maybe it is because he followed Neil so the contrast really stood out at the time. Strangely none of the female solos really stood out to me, though one of them was using the assets of her bust more than many others I thought, probably the bloke in me noticing that though.

I wonder what it says about me that the best pair dance I saw tonight was the disco dance. (interestingly the judges seem to agree with me, I typed the bit about liking it before the dance was finished). Anyway it is a fun bit of tv and good to see people moving and enjoying that sort of thing so much, I know I can't dance but it is good to watch I agree for once with something that at first glance may appear to be a bit like some of the crap reality tv stuff so prevalent these days. I also loved the music for the solo performance, that was what really grabbed me back into the living room and got me watching it.

[/leisure/screen] link

Wed, 10 Oct 2007

N+1 happened again, say hello to Jake - 11:28

Jake The Snake Cyclocross Bike (fullsize) 		So going with the N+1 theory, it happened again to me yesterday. I picked up my brand new 2008 model Jake the Snake.

I have thought for a number of years a cyclocross bike would be nice to own. Something I can go fast on and yet still take off road or for long rides with significant amounts of dirt (such as the rather fun ride to the coast via Araluen). Recently I found my Lemond Zurich road frame had developed another large crack on the head tube area (photos sometime soon). It is unsafe to continue riding it much, so I was wondering what to do about needing a road bike.

It occurred to me a cyclocross bike makes a great road bike (tougher than most, which is good knowing my tendency to break frames) and can be used off road (which I think bikes in general need to be able to be used there if at all possible). Also I can not justify buying a bling road bike as I do not race on the road. Until I can join ACT Vets club in 7 years or so I probably will not, I just can not raise any interest in having anything at all to do with Canberra Cycling Club (CCC).

So Mal said he could get me a 2008 model Jake the Snake in and build it up, I thought why not, should be fun. The photo was taken in my living room last night, I have since changed the tyres to skinny road tyres and took it out on the Wednesday morning road ride I do every week. Fun was had, oh and yes the pink bottle cages are necessary, it makes it go faster or something, I am sure there is a scientific need for them.

[/mtb/gear] link

Tue, 09 Oct 2007

Must remember to take 305 and use it - 21:08
Tonight I forgot to use my Forerunner 305 (mentioned previously) with me when I went out to do something. This time it was the ARNuts run, we headed up on to Black Mountain from Wilf's place. Susie and Mark and Heather probably all had some form of similar device but alas not my data. Not so bad, so I missed recording a hilly 1.5 hour run.

However on Sunday just past I was out at Googong dam competing in the Sri Chinmoy Googong Multisport race and forgot to take the HRM out with me. This is a great shame as it would have been interesting to see a direct on the day comparison with the different disciplines and what my heart rate was in each. Also the map would have been interesting to have a look at from running, paddling, riding and running again around the Googong area.

The Googong race was a lot of fun, I should get around to writing a quick report if I can, this was the second time I have ever run off the bike as opposed to a leisurely stroll to a sit down at a cafe for coffee off the bike which is more the norm for me. But hey check it out I have been seen running.

[/mtb] link

Fri, 05 Oct 2007

No count-words-region or similar in emacs? - 14:10
I have no idea how I never noticed this before, I was writing something a few minutes ago and wished to know how many words were in a section of it. Plain text in emacs. I tried Meta-X count-<tab> and a few variations and could not find a command that would count the words in a region of text, or a buffer or anywhere else. Strange I thought and decided to search online.

From search engine results I found that somehow emacs does not natively have the few lines of lisp required to do this seemingly simple function anywhere by default. So there are some reasons this may be the case, the first of which is the definition of what constitutes a word may be in question, especially in different modes. However I just want a basic text mode word count capability.

Many online suggestions seemed to launch a sub-shell and run wc on a buffer or section of a buffer, this is obviously overkill. Fortunately one of the first search results is to an elisp intro that has a section detailing a function defined to do count words region, which is exactly what I needed, so it is now in my .emacs file.

The two things I find most surprising with this state of affairs are: 1. emacs does not have the capability somewhere in the huge amount of elisp distributed with it to do this natively and 2. Though I have been using emacs a lot for more than 10 years I never before noticed this was lacking.

[/comp/software] link

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