Rain Keeps Fallin' On My Head

Lots of rain these last two days, especially yesterday so I didn't commute in yesterday. However, I did today. Nice and chilly outside! It was really comfortable. Other than that, most of the updates will be over at that other blog. So, enjoy... Just do it over there. You know.

Oh yeah, and one other thing. While this does relate to that other blog, I'll make a note of it here to. I've decided I want to start learning Parkour. Just google it. You'll enjoy that to I suppose. What are you, some kind of happy freak? ;)

The Pitfalls of Commuting

An appropriate follow-up post I think. So, after commuting in my first day on Tuesday, I couldn't commute out. On my way home, I was coming up to a stop light and the chain slipped off during a downshift.

No problems other than that, but I didn't trust riding it home until after I'd had a chance to look it over. Fortunately I had a nice guy driving behind me who pulled around and helped me get the bike home - I'm grateful even more that I only have a lightweight 250cc bike that three guys can hand-lift into the back of a pickup. So, first day lessons learned?

• ALWAYS wear all gear just in case the unexpected arises - I could have been a lot less lucky and gotten pitched off the bike into traffic. Fortunately, I had it all on and didn't need to use it.
  
• Be nice when riding cause the person who helps you may be right next to you.
• ALWAYS do the required maintenance checks.

Of course, now that I've fixed it, I'm back at it again, so we'll see how the commute goes today. I mean, I paid for the bike - I should use it, right? ;)

The Joy of Commuting

Well, I'm sure that after my last two posts, everyone was sure I had died tragically using my new form of transportation. But, happily I can report that I am still in the land of the living and have just been too busy to post.

Thought I'd drop of quick post to advise anyone in the area to be careful...cause I commuted by moto today! And it was both a blast and nerve racking all at the same time. The worst part by far was passing by the local high school. I was more nervous about being rear-ended by some student who wasn't paying attention than I was at any other part of the trip.

All it all though, its a nice commute. The weather has been so beautiful recently and it was so nice to ride in cool temps. We'll see how the afternoon commute is though, with the heat.

I did get all my gear so I'm a lot more protected than a lot of other riders on the road. A couple of shots of it: jacket hanging, pants in the top of the cabinet, and the helmet on top.

MOTORCYCLES! Part 2

So, I've learned why I don't take Stacie with me to shop for big items. Turns out, she usually wants one too! We made it down on Saturday to go look at the first prospect for the bike and I think she was surprised at how good of shape it was in for the price that was being asked. I ended up making an offer on the bike and it was accepted!

So now, I have a verbal agreement to buy a bike. Then I get a phone call about a second Rebel that's in that same area. And Stacie's mind starts to come up with plans - you see, here recently, the Honda Rebels have been listed for less than 2 hours on craigslist before they sell. The market is very hot for them right now. So she figures that if we can get a second bike at a good price, we can sell it for a small profit and make the first bike even more economical. And #2 looked like a potential prospect.

Long story short, I now own TWO Honda Rebels for less than a 2008 would have cost new! Yeehah! I'm going to start working on the second bike and list it next week on craigslist to see what kind of offers I can get.

Here they are. The maroon one is the one I will be keeping for sure. The black is the one that needs a bit of work but should be pretty good nonetheless.

MOTORCYCLES!

Oh my - I hurt. Back, legs, arms and shoulders are all sore.
Fortunately that's because I was man-handling a 350lb moto around, not
cause it landed on me or cause I hit the deck.

Today was day one of the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's Basic Rider Course (MSF BRC). And I had a BLAST! Way more than I thought I would. When I first started planning to buy a bike, it was for fuel economy only. The whole "fun factor" really was not even in the picture. But WOW! It's so much fun. I can definitely understand the appeal. Feeling the world zipping by as you accelerate out of curve, the bike still learned over? Reminded me more of flying than of driving.

Anyway, I thought I'd use the blog to post some impressions of the first day's techniques and how well (and poorly) I did with them.

• The classroom stuff covered most everything I have been learning on my own of the past months - basic parts of the bike, protective gear, making safety a priority. Which is not to say I didn't get anything out if, but I wasn't a lot of new material.
• First techniques were about learning the basics of feathering the clutch and throttle. I REALLY need to work on this more. My clutch control is not very good yet and since that's the most integral part to learning to manuver at slow speeds it caused me to get a lot of tension in my body (and thus the pain in my neck right now).
• Then we moved on to learning to shift and start coordinating braking. That was where it really started to get fun. Getting up to 15-20mph on the short course - very enjoyable. Still need to work on shifting, but not nearly as much as clutch control at this point.
• Next were the weaves - regular and offset. CRAP! That clutch control? Almost non-existant. So many things to coordinate. I remember reading that riding a motorcycle is one of the most intense, multi-tasking activities that you can do. Brother, I testify! It is. Offset weaves are the bain of my existance right now. Hopefully, I do better tomorrow. I did notice that I have a really hard time controlling the throttle when I have the wheel turned to the right - on the smaller 250cc bikes, I don't have as much room and it bends my wrist all funny. I'll want to ask about that tomorrow.
• Curves - Now I know why bikers always talk about the "twisties." YEE HAW! Zooming into a curve, quick brake, zip through, and power out. Slow, look, push, roll. I could totally see myself taking a joy ride on a twisty road in the future.
• Last was a combo - shiftying, maximum braking, curves, sharp turns, clutch control. The whole thing except the weaves (thankfully). Didn't do too badly - could feel things starting to come together.

One thing I remember my dad teaching me when I was learning to play tennis - I was really practicing my serve and I noticed the rest of my game (forehand, footwork, etc) went down hill. He taught me that when you learn something new, other related things will suffer for a bit as you body and mind try to incorporate that new learning. Here's hoping my driving in a car doesn't suffer.

Day two coming at you tomorrow!

OOo Major Annoyance and How to Fix it

[rant]The delete key. Friend of everyone who ever wants to edit and fix everything. Well, in OpenOffice.org's Calc, it's broke. I'm sorry, it's just not right. I cannot even imagine how someone as savvy as the programmer who came up with this could also fail to see the implications of this broken thing for new users. [/rant]

What happens is that when using Calc, if the user hits the Delete key, a dialog shows up asking the user to select what elements of the cell are deleted - contents, style, borders, all, etc. A VERY useful idea. I cannot tell the number of times that little dialog would have been welcome when I was using Excel - don't want the cell border, but do want the contents? Easy to do and so much faster than having to go through the Cell Formating process to do it.

However, as useful as this is, NO ONE WILL EVER USE IT EVERY TIME and that's the real problem I have with it. I am used to using the Delete key to kill a cell and everything in it from my Excel days. Sure, I could use the Backspace key, where this functionality currently resides in OOo, but that takes time to learn and that annoys and frustrates new users. I want it in both places, but still want to be able to get that dialog for those special times when it's really handy.

So, here's how to fix the darn thing and make it work the way it should have from the very start. These come courtesy of "drensink," a user over at OOo's bug forum, though instead of swapping between Delete and Backspace, I use shift-Del to bring up the dialog. Thank you drensink!

NOTE: There are two "Delete Contents" talked about below - make sure you really follow the directions to add the correct one to the correct button.

Part One - Add the Dialog to Shift-Del

1. Click "Tools" in the main menu
2. Click "Customize" in the submenu
3. Click the "Keyboard" Tab
4. Set the radio button to "Calc" which should be the default
5. In the Shortcut keys list scroll to and select "Shift-Delete"
6. In the Functions Lists select "Edit" under Category and the second "Delete Contents" under Function
7. Click the Modify Button

Part Two - Making the Delete key delete everything: still in Customize

1. In the Shortcut keys list scroll to and select "Delete"
2. In the Functions Lists select "Edit" under Category and the first "Delete Contents" under Function
3. Click the Modify Button
4. Click the OK Button

Ubuntu!

Last week, I started. Two days ago, I committed. And today, it's official - I will not be going to back to Windows on my personal computer.

I've been playing with various Linux distributions for a number of years, but never had the time during school to really get it perfected. I think I've finally gotten there now and the results are quite pretty.

I'm running the newest version of Xubuntu - that's the flavor of Ubuntu linux that runs the XFCE desktop environment. It's pretty fast on that old computer and works well. By far the most painless thing was setting up our printer. I downloaded one thing and it works perfectly, way better than it did on Windows.

So, I'm happy.

One More Niggle Down

During my efforts to slowly switch my entire computing life over to open source software (read "free" if you don't know what that is), I am constantly having to overcome small obstacles to get my new and pretty open source programs working similarly to how I work in proprietary software. This means I spend a lot of time looking for an answer for how to do something once, but that saves me a lot of time later when I actually have to apply it because it already fits my work style. Sometimes, it's an easy switch and sometimes it a real pain.

Today, I found an answer I was looking for as I convert from using Microsoft Office products to the OpenOffice.org office suite. In Excel, there is a feature that is used with the Fill when you highlight a bunch of cells - if you go to the lower, right-hand corner of the selected you get a little plus sign ("+") and from there if you click and drag you automatically fill. This is almost identical to how it works in OpenOffice.org's Calc, except for one small niggle: Fill Format Only.

I use this ALL the time in Excel when I'm trying to get a table looking really nice for print - creating a line of white and line of light gray makes it much easier to follow data across the table. And in Excel, all I have to do is a Fill drag and then select "Fill Format Only" from the little drop down that appears and PRESTO! it's done, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Well, there is no drop down that appears in OpenOffice.org's Calc. Now, you could do this by selecting each row and applying the cell color to each row, but that takes forever when you have a large table. What I learned today is that there is a way to get the same effect and it only takes one more mouse click than in Excel.

Steps:

1. Select the "reference cells" or the cells whose format you want to copy.
2. Click on the Formating Paintbrush icon on the main tool bar (see Figure 2).
3. Click and drag over the cells where you want the formating applied.

Figure 2.

That's it. The additional mouse click is all it takes. Actually, you can do the exact same thing in Excel using the Format Paintbrush feature - but I had never learned this so for me, it's an additional mouse click.

Finally Settled In Our Home (Before & After)

I have been promising pictures of the house once it was a little more in order, however, every time it was (it didn't stay that way for long) I forgot to take pictures. So finally here are some updated pictures with our furniture.



Excuse the mess some is still moving in and some was a craft project or a few that I have started.

Our Prom

So, obviously Grant and I never really got to go to Prom together. However, our Stake puts on a Prom so that the girls who weren't asked or who want to wear their dresses again or go to a dance that is a little more modest can go. They invite all adults 16 and older. Grant and I thought we would take advantage of that and here are some of the pictures before.




Aren't we HOT???

Rebellious Tendencies

I'm to the point in my life when the wallet hit on gasoline is becoming too much - especially since I have to drive a pickup as my commuting vehicle. Stacie and I have been thinking about getting a second car, but now even that would be too much of a financial strain. So, I'm looking at another kind of transportation - a Honda Rebel 250.

That's right, a motorcycle. A small one, but that gets good gas mileage and will cost way less than any car I could hope to buy and keep more than just a few years.

Spring in OK

For those of you who miss "Green Country" and for those of you who have never seen it. We had to make a trip to Oklahoma City or "OKC" over a week ago and this was some of the scenery around OKC. Is that popcorn popping on the apricot tree???

Puzzled!

I found a new set of small, easily portable games that I can play on the fly to help pull me through a moment's boredom or give me a break from work. And I like that they are puzzle based, so they require a little bit of effort to keep the old brain from freezing up entirely.

I found them at portableapps.com (one of my all time favorite websites) where they are being packaged as a Portable App or you can download them directly from the creator, Simon Tatham.

My personal favorites so far are Bridges and Galaxies. Go try 'em out.

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New Blog

On my wife's suggestion, we decided we needed a way to report on our progress with our weight lose/get in shape goals to help promote better accountability on our part and hopefully to serve as an inspiration to those we know.

The new blog is Healthy Happiness. In it we're going to post info about our progress, write mini-howto's to help others get started, link to some great resources we've found, and comment about how we're dealing with the challenges of loosing weight and keeping it off. From others, we'd ask for more advice, encouragement, and reports on your own progress if you decide to follow along.

Come get fit with us and let's all get a little happily healthier together.

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New Leaf

The last few days have been both exciting and unnerving. Next week I will begin the process of transitioning to another new job (yes, that's right - same company, new position) and I have been overly happy about it. In a lot of ways, my life was perfect from my point of view. Alas, perfection is not permanent in this life. ;) Now, I'm moving to a new area at AA, the thrust reverser shop. I took the job at AA over others because it was working with engines. Now, I won't be and I'm a little stuck there cause we have the new house. I have been promised by my boss that after "some time, maybe a year" if I'm really miserable, a swap back can be arranged, but that they really need someone out there now. I guess.

The other component of my life that has changed and kept me excited is my new efforts to loose weight and get in shape. I've been inspired by my bro-in-law Jarom and my sister Allie - both have had considerable success loosing and keeping weight off by, in essence, "counting calories". I hope to do the same and start a simple exercise routing to help me get back to my "engagement" weight. And the best part of all is that Stacie's committing to do it as well.

Tough Love

That's the problem when you have a child - a whole new kind of thinking has to evolve.

I've decided that there is nothing on the planet more infectious the a baby's laugh. Take the most hardened, roughed-up, stoic individual and put them next to a baby who has just learned to laugh, and I would bet that baby would win.

Add to that now the fact that it's your own child - it's like heaven! Such a beautiful thing...

That is, until you realize that the cause of raucous laughter is you getting kicked in the stomach by your baby, doubling over in (mock) pain, and letting out a whoosh of air. And mom's helping! I mean, don't get me wrong, but why should my supposed discomfort be the cause of such hilarity?

I'm sure this is foreshadowing events of the future:

"Look at the lovely dress Mom bought for me!"

"That's nice dear. It's very sweet."

"Yes, and it was on sale - only $570 instead of $600."

"Oooofff!" (doubling over in pain - a sharp stabbing pain in the region of the back pocket)

"Oh daddy, you're so funny!"

It just too hard to have tough love at this age. I guess that's why daughters always manage to wrap dad around their finger at a young age - it prevents them saying no later; too much habit saying yes.

;)

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Many Mantha Moods

Sammie has been great fun the last few days. She's been very active and interactive with us - cooing, smiling, and fussing - developing her own personality a little more each day. So much so that there is a new facet to her every day and more and more we are seeing that children really do take after their parents. Sammie has decided she's going to sleep like mom (deep with plenty of "nighttime sounds") but wake up like dad (which means not at all).

So just wanted to share with all the newest album with these following highlights.
http://picasaweb.google.com/youngheart80/ManyManthaMoods

Little Sprout


I love my hair.

From Many Mantha M...

And who would have though that the comic books would actually be right?
Mutant X-men have arrived!