Wow. Dusty.

K, so I guess that title shows I've been watching too much Finding Nemo with Miss Mantha, but I think it truly describes my relationship with this blog of late. Time to air out the server space, clean up the RAM, vacuum up the rendering display, and get cracking.

Life has a nasty habit of creeping up on you all of a sudden. There you are minding your own business, going to work everyday, getting all caught up in really important stuff and then WHAM! You've suddenly got a new child in your life.

And that's the annoying part - even though that above bit is tongue-in-cheek, it still sorta sums things. I was moving forward in so many areas of the life all at the same time that I think I had to have a good wake-up call to slow down. And now, things have gotten simple again. Yes, I have responsibilities at work and at church, but now the reason is clear again. I'm looking forward to that simple focus again.

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