Busy weekend.

Ah, the start of reenactment season makes me..smell like burnt black powder. Saturday, Carrie and I went to go see the new "Adventure Aquarium" as well as the battleship new Jersey. The Aquarium, of course, is the former New jersey Aquarium that failed with several attempts to redefine itself after its disappointing start. Their initial angle, at first, had been to try and show all the local fish, which, beyond a few sharks, were just boring brown fish. ho-hum.

The privately run Adventure Aquarium has since popped up in its place with lots of marketing to make things interesting. They made a lot of their indoor Hippo display. It take a lot to make Hippos be something that one wants to go and see, especially in light of having read 'The Peaceable Kingdom', a book about the Philadelphia Zoo. Hippos are looked on in that book as almost a nuisance animal, having zero value to any other Zoo.

Anyway, AA made it interesting by having a tank viewable from the side where one could see the hippos lounge in the water. Certainly beats the partially water-filled pen they used last time I was in the Philly Zoo. Probably the best piece was the underwater shark tunnel where, thanks to the optical illusion of being in a clear acrylic tunnel, one seems to see the sharks approaching very close as they swim overhead. Pretty neat. Overall the place is pretty good, but the Baltimore Aquarium and the Monterey Aquarium kick its butt.

After a short walk in the sun, we made our way onto the Battleship New Jersey. Fun to be in there and I am glad we went when we did. We got to climb into one of the turrets where all the switches and knobs are still in place. They ask you not to play with them but I did turn a knob or two. I can see that those buttons will be torn off by rampant school children with a few years, so I am glad to have been able to see it somewhat close to its active state.

Fun Fact: The USS New Jersey was initially supposed to be the ship that the Japanese surrender was to be accepted on. It made sense, since it had seem more action than almost any other battleship in the US Fleet at the time. However, at the last minute, the USS Missouri was chosen for the honor, despite the Missouri having just been commissioned and seeing no combat whatsoever. The reason? Truman, then acting President, was from Missouri and wanted it that way.

The next day...today in fact, I went to reenact the battle of Brandywine. This battle gets more annoying every year. It used to be OK, but they've added the following things that have made it annoying: You have to park about 2 miles off site and be bused in, along with the tourists, they made a huge buffer zone between us and the audience with massive amounts of yellow police tape. The result was choke points that made it hard to maneuver. I expect that kind of limited space at Germantown, where they have no room to give, but here it is silly. Further, they insist on having the battle on the hill these days instead of around the creek, which made more sense. It means that we have to climb a nasty hill twice. The battle is also run as a you win/we win game, where one side wins the morning battle and the other side wins the afternoon battle. This gets absurd since there is a competing Civil War event taking place and the number of rebels fielding is absurdly small, we outnumber them about 5 to 1. Makes winning easy to pull off, but losing seems awful stupid.

Oh well, at least my musket worked well.

Adding to the stupidity is that a 'member' of the unit who always tries to drag his students into reenacting always brings one or two poorly equipped fools (hey, who needs a coat!) to field. This time he brought 1/2 a dozen. Thankfully, he kept them off the battlefield (they would have been tossed anyway: Insurance). I was having flashbacks to the times he's tried to flop these fools in with the veterans and caused more cracks in the line than in a dropped vase.

Next week is the Battle of Germantown, and despite some folks complaints about the event it is one of the few consistant events that doesn't mess things up each time in the name of one half-arsed 'concern' or another. It is a fair powder burner of an event, so I guess I'll be rolling cartridges some point this week.

Time for shower and maybe bed. Night to all.

An Astronomy Post? Who'da thunkit!

OK, the name on the title is 'The former Telescope Mercenary, but that doesn't mean I can get off completely without mentioning a few things here and there about astronomy.

I got an email a few months ago from a friend who was asking me "is this true?!" The email was about the upcoming Mars opposition. I read the email and scratched my head.. for it was the same exact claims made about the opposition of Mars in 2003. Problem was, the claims made in the email in 2003 were true, the claims made in the one making the rounds now were...not, even though they were the same thing.

Anyway, in 2003 Mars made its closest opposition in 50,000 years or so. It was very low in the sky, but some great views were to be had. I was working for a certain telescope company at the time and to popularity of this event caught us off guard. We had been actively trying to reduce our inventory when all of a sudden we were completely out of any telescope that could be used for planetary viewing. Basically all that was left was a bunch of short-tube telescopes (not any good for planetary viewing). Ah, memories, one of the last things I was asked to do before they laid me off was to try and find and all events in 2004 that might have a similar effect.

These days, I'm really not going to be able to do much about Mars. My only telescope is an Astroscan, not the best telescope for viewing planets (which need high magnification) and my convenient viewing location is the roof of my apartment. Which is made worse by the wood deck that does not make for a stable viewing platform. I used to have a larger telescope (A SkyQuest 8), but I sold that in anticipation of buying an improved version with a massive employee discount. Never happened. I was laid off before they got in stock.

I'm rambling. I have had a headache all day and no aspirin seems to help much. I think I really need sleep.

Wimping Out.

I'm skipping riding my bike into work today. My legs are really feeling weak for some reason. I'm going to regret this, since it looks to be an absolutely gorgeous day outside. But the way my legs feel, combined with getting little sleep last night are adding up to me just bagging it and driving into work.

I'm getting a little frustrated at work. My job has now turned into about 2/3 of just moving lenses around or arranging for lenses to be moved around. This is because of the lens packing project, where our bulk lenses are packaged three days a week by a small group of mentally retarded folks. Yours truly has to pick the boxes to be packed, pull them from the shelf and deliver them to the group. Once they are done I have to print labels for the shelf boxes (using our label printer). Then I return the unused lenses back into the bulk area. I also have to move the excess items from the quick pick area to make room.

Add to this is the American Science & Surplus stuff we picked up recently. We recently purchased all the optics from the previously mentioned company and its 19 pallets of stuff to deal with. Right now Frank is classifying all the pre-packed items, which is fine, but I have to do all the paperwork to put the items in place. This, of course, involves moving the lens boxes into their new homes.

I'm just getting a bit sick of moving boxes.

It endeth.

Had the meeting today. The short version is that we are not going to be bothered by the intrusive VP anymore. The bad news is that he kinda made it out to look like I was making a hash of things. He slyly stated that all we had to do was ask that he not take over the duties. Never mind that every time we've hinted at it we've gotten all kinds of gripes and questions as to why we have a second person, not to mention calling me into his office. If he was looking past the conflict today he might have actually learned something about why we did that. I think pointing out that we went from a 50% call answer rate to a 90%+ answer rate speaks volumes.

What bugs me most about all this is that there were a lot of good suggestions given today by the other VP's and managers. Loads of good stuff and decent questions. But I had to fret through most of the meeting worrying about this conflict. Either way, I consider it ended and will do what I must to keep things going.

Now, permit me this small joke:

Lolita only accepts cash.

Bwhahahaha!

Ow! Ow ! Ow!

While at my friend Bill's place last night, I stood up from the couch at one point to get something from the kitchen and walked right into the large birdcage he has for his pet parrot. My knee, specifically, is what hit the birdcage and after a few moments of "ow!" and some wincing from those who saw me hit it I went into the kitchen trying to walk off the pain. I specifically told Jackie that this was a classic case of having about 30 seconds of "FUCK YOU!!" pain that soon fades.

But then I looked at my knee where it hit and saw a fair amount of blood. uh-oh.

Turns out to be pretty ugly. Not crippling or anything, but from what I can see it looks like what I did was rip open an old scar, one I have had since middle school as far as I can remember. Now it will be nice and prominent again when it heals.

I'm not clear on how scar tissue works/grows. Obviously my knee is larger now than when I first got the scar. But is scar tissue self-growing, or does the same amount of material just stretch out over time? If it grows more, why does it not start producing healthy, normal skin? Pheh, I am overthinking this (again)

Anyway, I am limping slightly. Not as bad as I was last night, but still annoying. This better be OK by the time I want to bike to work!

Overall, I am a little jittery and nervous this week. I have a strategy meeting with the company bigwigs for my division of the company. In addition to the usual stuff that would make me jittery about this, I have to confront (in a calm manner) one of the VP's who has been trying to effectively take over my operation. This is the same VP who decided (by himself) that we didn't need a new call center built and, as a result, let my new Customer Service Rep. have to wander from desk to desk around the building, unable to do her primary job. Gee, thanks. He claims to have done this as a cost saving measure since the new Call center cost all of $5000 to build. Of course, while he lectures me on the cost, he has a subcontractor for lawn cutting and another one for landscaping that he is paying so much that he could hire a professional gardener to do the work. Again, Pheh!

In other news, my brother managed to find this blog. By accident, or so he claims.

Bike Commuting Blues

*sigh*. I like to ride my bike to work when the weather is nice. I manage to do this about three times a week. Its fun, saves on fuel, keeps me fit, and overall manages to relax me. Except on days like today.

Today I started off without trouble. I got across the bridge and into Camden. As I was leaving the Rutgers Camden campus area I stopped at a light and heard a loud *bang*. At first I thought that some bzoz had tossed a firecracker at me, but when I tested my tires I found the front one was completely flat.

So I pulled off to the sidewalk and set about changing the inner tube. I've gotten quite good at this, having quite a set of tools for the job. The first time I got a flat with this bike it took me almost an hour to fix it properly, since I did not have any tire levers, just a mini pump. This time it took me all of five minutes to pop the old tube out, put the new one in, replace the tire around the rim.

But when I infalted inspected the tire, I noticed a big bulge of the tube sticking out a rip in the sidewall of the tire. The tire itself was ripped. A sidewall tear at that. No hope. It was a big one too. I deflated the tire, tried bunting it with a dollar bill, and reinflated it again. I could tell it would not hold.

At this point I decided that this was not going to hold. I gave work a call on my cell phone to tell them that I was taking the day off. Bugs me to do that, but even though I can take the train to Haddonfield, it is still a good 2.5 miles from the station to my place of work. So, having established that I would not be in for work, I started back for home.

The front tire did not hold, as I expected. As I was walking the bike through the underpass going under the Ben Franklin bridge there was another nice loud *bang*. Without any more inner tubes on me (and I would be unwilling to risk them) I had to walk the bike home. 2 miles over the brige and 2 miles from there to my apartment.



This walk was annoying, but nowhere near as bad as when I got my front wheel caught in the trolley rails on 11th street and turned it into a taco. At least this time I just had to roll the bike instead of effectively carry the darn thing all the way home. A couple of nice bikers on the bridge asked if I needed help, but there was little to be done once the sidewall is torn.

So, about an hour later I walked in my front door and set about fixing the bike. I had a spare tire at home for such emergencies, and may order a tri-pack from Performance (they're on sale right now) so I can keep a spare at work, and maybe even carry one. The problem with using Kevlar tires is that when they go, they go by ripped sidewall, ordinary flats are much rarer (especailly since I am outright compulsive about keeping my tires inflated). I managed to run a few errands today and may even get some needed housework done.

But still, this is one of the joys of bike commuting. I've lost a day at work. It could have been worse, I could have had this blowout in the badlands of Camden. I've had problems with tires there in the past since the concrete streets are in such poor shape.

For the those interested, here is the crap I carry:

In my waterbottle cages I have, instead of water bottles, two carrying cases. In there I have a spare inner tube, a Co2 inflator, three spare CO2 cartridges (16g), a set of three tire levers, and a collapsing speed lever. In my backpack, I have a standing mini-pump (the direct versions tend to rip out the stems during inflation, a problem that caused me no end of flats in my first year of bike commuting.

If you have interest in some of my tire repair gear, here are links to them:

The cage rocket storage case:

http://www.cagerocket.com/

CO2 inflator

http://www.performancebike.com/shop/profile.cfm?SKU=16498&subcategory_ID=4362

Tire levers:

http://www.performancebike.com/shop/profile.cfm?SKU=2291

Speed lever:

http://www.performancebike.com/shop/profile.cfm?SKU=2058

And the MORPH tire pump (my version is actually discontinued version of this:

http://www.topeak.com/products/pump_013.html

Also, if you know your bike tire size, you can order inner tubes in sets of 10 much, much cheaper than you would at the local bike store.

Enjoy!

Switch THIS!!!

I suppose I am calm now. But this new computer thing has effectively driven me nuts for the better part of this weekend. I was worried on Saturday afternoon that I would be so pissed off going out to dinner with Carrie that I'd be no fun to be with. Fortunately, I recovered.

Anyway, I picked up the computer Friday afternoon and designated Saturday would be a new computer and clean day. While it was happily adding stuff from my old computer I would do laundry and other things.

Well, it did not turn out that way. At least most of the laundry got done.

The main problem was that the old computer would not boot via an external firewire drive despite Apple claiming that it could do so. I spent 1/2 with tech support, tried various things (including a new keyboard) and nothing worked to get it running. In the end I just dumped as much as I could into the external hard drive and would drag as much over as I could later on.

Lost, of course, were all my old emails, preference settings, certifications, passwords, cookies, iTunes playlists, bookmarks and much more. Wah! At least my emails are locateable if I must find them, (unlike the switch to OSX's mail).

I will say this much. The Mac mini is as small as they say. Here is the pic of my desk with the old computer and accessories:



Sorry its not very clear, I am using my camera phone for this.

Anyway, here is what it looks like now:



While it is adorably small, it doe tend to leave all the cables leading to it out in he open. They never show that in the ads.

The thing is also extremely quiet.

I have been working most of today reqaquiring software and getting onto the net. There are probably a bunch of bookmarks that I am going to lose for a while. C'est la guerre.

Anyway. I also got my new printer and the USB/firewire hub (it fits on right under the mini) so I will likely sign off for now as I wish to add those items.

Oh, and widgets kick ass. 'nuff said.

blogspot ate my orignal post!

Anyway, the tale told was that I do not have my new computer. It did come via express Fedex, but I was not here for delivery and the driver is going to be out until late. Oh well.

So anyway, here is a picture of all three of my cats on my bed. A rare event.

Geek-o-rama in Sensurround!!!!

I helped my mom set up her new computer on Saturday. It was an iMac, one of the big ones. Usually my older brother James help with computers, but he was on vacation and I'm not exactly helpless when it comes to computers.

Mom's old computer was one of the first G3 machines produced by Apple just as Steve Jobs waltzed back into that company. It seemed kind of cranky and sluggish for a machine that really wasn't being asked to do too much. Mom always has a way of bringing out the worst in computers I'm afraid to say. I am hoping this computer will do better for her, since her computer demands for her business have pretty much plateued. The really big screen rocks too.

I managed to convince Mom that DSL was the way to go as well. Mom has been using a guest account on AOL (Dad is the primary account) and the old versions of AOL managed to take a toll on the machine. Oddly enough, AOL stops sending you all those free disks when you are a subscriber, so there was no AOl disk lying around being used as a coaster to get Mom re-upped on her account. She said she would call Verizon on tuesday, since they had some deal for cheap, slow DSL that was about $15. I rasied an eyebrow at the price, since it seems to good to be true or long-term. We shall see where the truth lies.

When I got home after the dismal failed ride with the Philly Bike Club on Sunday, I decided that my machine was looking a bit long in the tooth as well. It has served me well, but I have been practically welding bits and peices onto it to make it work properly with modern software: Replacement Memory, external hard drive, internal harddrive, many UBS hubs, External CD burner the only thing I have not done is replace the mother board with a faster chip.

The reason for this is because the cost of doing that is high enough to be a new computer. There used to be a bunch of companies making PowerPC chip motherboards, now there is all of one. I found that the cost would be the same as buying an Mac mini.

So naturally, I made the decision to buy a Mac mini. I was hoping to wait until Apple made the switch to Intel chips. But that is some ways down the road, and as long is the switch to Intels doesn't turn into a 68K vs. PowerPC ghetto chip situation things should be fine.

Anyway, this computer has lasted nearly 5 years. The Power Computing machine I had before it (back when there were Mac clones for a short period of time) last about 5 years too. I seem to have established a pattern.

The rest of my equipment seems to feel so too. My old 17" CRT monitor died a couple of weeks ago (gee, it was only a 9 year old noname monitor, what a rip!). My all-in-one printer that I had bought only last year developed what is called a #41 error. While this machine is still under warrenty, the impression I get is that the parts may be free, but the repair labor will cost more than I paid for the thing new. I have not enjoyed certain aspects of this machine, it loves to let its inkjet clog and so paper comes out nice and blank if I have not printed in the past week or so. It usually takes 2-3 cleanings to get it proper again. I ordered an Epson printer to replace it. It too has the Scan/Print/Copy going, but lacks the fax feature. Ah well, I can fax at work if I must. Too bad that I will no longer recieve accidental Faxes to some lawyer with (bitter) witness statements. It was a soap opera there for a while.

Enough geekery! Now for those of you who are not aware of itMy Mother wrote a book! You will buy it or I will hate you. Very hard. Some of you have already bought it. Good for you.

OK, so when I started this blog all of a couple of days ago, I sent notices to my girlfriend, two ex-girlfriends, a fellow fencer who I stab on a weekly basis, and a fellow fencer that I used to stab on a regular basis.

There's joke to be made here, actually probably a lot of jokes. They would all get me in serious trouble if not immediate physical harm.

Alas, Safari.

I just had Safari conk out on me, twice. I was trying to figure out the picture feature and let's just say it did not react well. Maybe the new version of Safari would work but that will not be coming (for me anyway) for a short time.

Until then, doesn't look like I will be getting pics on this blog.



Edit: Thanks, Mozilla. I wonder if this will work?

Fuck the Bike Club Philadelphia

Obviously, I am in the early stages of blogging where I have the enthusiasm to add entries frequently. Might as well take advantage.

Anyway, I have been an avid bicyclist for some time. I try to bike commute to work three times a week (I do not always succeed). This gives me needed exercise and with the price of gas around $3.50 a gallon, as well as getting to avoid the $3 bridge toll, it makes modest economic sense too. (Some of the savings are lost from the gym club membership I need to shower before the final 1/4 mile to work).

Anyway, in the days before I was able to bike commute to work (I was not able to do this when working for the museum outreach), I got rides in sporadically. Usually I would just ride out on the Multi-Use trail on the West River Drive (sorry... Martin Luther King drive) cross the Falls river bridge over the Schuylkill River and return via the trail on East River Drive (sorry..Kelly Drive). It was a small 10 mile ride that I would do after work when the weather was good.

Unfortunately, it was not very long a ride. So developed a tradition of making sure I did a long ride of 50 miles or so at least once a year. The weekend chosen was Memorial Day weekend, I soon added Labor day as well to make a twice annual thing. The idea was to make this ride just to be certain I could do it. Typically, what I would do is ride out the Schuylkill towpath to Valley Forge. This was a straightforward ride, but kind of dull. When I returned from California, I felt I needed new options. My brother suggested joining the Bike Club Philadelphia. I did and went on a group ride with, and it was good. I did a couple more rides on the weekends.

Flash forward to yesterday, things were not so good. I wanted to do my long ride and went down to join the "B Ramble: ride. Well, first they decided to go to Bryn Mayr, a route I am already tired of. But the real problem was that some of the ride crew were really punching it at "A" ride levels and others were going really, really slow. I was smack dab between the groups. When the group was split by a red light we stopped and they decided to split the group fully into two groups and go by their own means. This pissed me off since I had no way of keeping up with the hypercompetitive fast group, and the slow group was not exactly giving me much to work with. So I said "Fuck it" and found y way home. Since I have to be in shape to ride to work on Tuesday, I could not do my own ride today. I've lost the long ride for this part of the year. Thanks guys!

Now, sometimes I wonder why I bother with the long ride anymore. When I went to California my bikes skills went way up (due to the large number of hills). Combine that with the frequent commuting that is 24 miles per day, and I wonder if I really have anything to prove. Still, perhaps I just need to find a decent ride to do on my own, without the hypercompetitive bikeclub folks. I fucking well rode up Santa Cruz mountain on one of these rides, I so don't think I have anything to prove to guys who attack 100 foot long hills like it is the Pyrenees.

Part of yesterday's revelation is that I am a bike commuter, not a club rider. My mindset is to take the most direct (and safe) route to where it is I wish to go. Bike club rides tend to roll around in circles, trying to find interesting hills to attack and such. Not the way I think at all.

I'm not certain what I will do for next year, I may give the BCP another chance, or I may just go solo out a road in NJ I have been looking at on the bike map. Time will tell.

The name requires an explanation!

Alright, this name is one I picked for livejournal some time ago when I thought that any blog I wrote would be the whole messy business of telescope sales that I had been involved with for the past five years.

An explanation: About 6 years ago I was a humble little museum educator with low pay and a job that involved a lot of travel, I was part of the museum's outreach program. It was fun, but it was also a job where the burnout period for the average employee was about 2 years.

I had lasted 8+ years up until that point. I had burned out on the job a few times but had always managed to recover. I don't know how I lasted that long, but I suspect it mostly because I really didn't know what else I could do for a living.

Salvation came from an ad in the local paper's job section. My then girlfriend, the illustrious spittingrage (whose blog you can find on this server easily enough), was looking for a job for herself when she spotted an ad for junior engineers. I read the qualifications, and I was definitely qualified for the job. (This was not a real engineering job per se, it was more like a tech support job for this companies products). I applied for the job, and then got a call from the companies HR person saying that I was a good candidate for that job, but also for another one they had open. It was a little vague, but I went in to the place of business for interviews with two people.

Long story short, I took the unlisted job. I was working for a catalog company that sold, among other things, telescopes, as well as with other science items. I would choose what products went into the catalog, and at times I would even help out in the company store. I found I was a very good telescope salesman.

It was a wonderful job, but it didn't last. The division I worked for was sold and I was out of a job. I sent out applications but was at a loss for what I would do. Surprisingly, I got another offer. I was offered a job to work for a devoted telescope company (*cough*Orion*cough*). I soon packed up, said goodbye to my friends and my hometown, and left for California.

At that company, I did all kinds of jobs. Unfortunately, as I did my job, That work I did would need to be taken over by a full time person. This meant that my job description was getting smaller and smaller. Finally, after working for 2.5 years there, the company realized there was little for me to do and let me go. Probably just as well. I made my way back to my hometown and that was the end of that.

So why "Telescope Mercenary"? Well, one thing we at the telescope were very good at was keeping an eye on the various astronomy/telescope message boards. We would do this to judge the reaction to the products we produced and see if there were any chronic problems that needed addressing. We had to take all things with a grain of salt, of course, online opinions area a dime a thousand and you could easily overweigh a few blowhards and self-selected experts.

Unfortunately, there were a few of these self-styled experts who tended to speak rather broadly about our company and its plans. These were folks who knew the names of the factories in Taiwan and China and assumed they knew everything about the business from the products they saw and knowing the names of the companies. Company policy stated that we could not participate in these discussions to correct these folks since doing so in the past had caused more trouble for the company than it solved. We had to grit our teeth and watch them blab untruths. The list of their assumptions was endless: We did not product development, just pulled off-the-shelf products from the factories, the factories did all the work and we were just resellers, and all of our parts came from the one factory, so when a rival started selling the same product with an inferior piece, they considered it to be identical to ours. All of these things were untrue, but we could not say a thing about it. We bemoaned our required silence, and actually talked of the day when we were no longer restricted by the company rules and would tell these bozos how they were wrong and were to get bent. I even talked about becoming the telescope mercenary.

Then, as I mentioned above, I was laid off. And a funny thing happened. I ceased caring about those online bozos. I simply lost interest. I had no desire to tell them where to get bent, as much as they deserved it. Lack of company loyalty I guess.

Now, I still love astronomy, and I still work in the field of optics. But what I do now has very little bearing on telescopes. I found myself with a chosen name and no real desire to use it. I'll probably post on things astronomical from time to time, maybe even directly telescope related, but the old competitive flare is gone. Mostly I'll just treating this like any other blog: With discussion of my hobbies, my interests, a bit of politics here and there. Just like plain blogs.