tdot's rants

Stubbs came down to visit, on the bike. We spent 2 days riding around switzerland. Memories of switzerland: sunshine, mountains, hot, beers at letten. Then we took off toward the UK, without Daneille … but with her bike stuff (helmet, pants etc) packed on my bike. We rode up thru Basel to some back roads in France (the theme was avoiding motorways at all costs), and then it started to rain. Memories of France: endless small towns, rain, good food (except the huge amount of liver — I took one for the team), rolls of hay in yellow cropped hayfields lit from afar shining brightly in front of a dark gloomy sky (it was warm nonetheless). We made it the first day to Charlesvilles-Mezieres, where we found a decent hotel with private parking for 45euro a room. Nice city too… day one complete with zero motorways (excluding the small bit in switzerland to Basel). The next day the weather was totally variable again, raining off and on, sunshine then cloud. Near the end we were getting tired because the road kept going thru small village after small village and the rain was getting heavier, so we ended up getting on the motorway only for the last 60km or so. Very nearly made it thru France without motorways Memories of the ferry ride: worst coffee ever, people eating everything, short.

Then it was time to drive on the wrong side of the road for the first time (ever). Easier on a bike than a car it turns out… at one point in waterbeach I drove Ed’s car and that was way harder. Friday eve we arrived on the ferry and rode to bagshot. British small roads are hard. Hedges, tiny roads, and cars coming at you at ridiculous speeds. I got tired so we hopped on the motorway and flogged it home. Got in the car and picked up D at heathrow (very close to dave’s place). Had yummy indian food. Slept.

Road up to ed’s place for bbq! Memories of that day: awful holiday traffic on the M25, D hitting it off with Sumita’s mum, weather that looked like it might change to rain any minute but never did (and stayed warm throughout), lots of tasty food and beer, and playing drums. We slept at ed’s place, then next day down to chris’ place for the afternoon and night. Phoebe is simply adorable, very very cute. I got to go to tesco’s for grocery shopping, yay! but I managed to save the day by finding the extremely elusive coconut milk. Apparently my coconut milk finding skills are waaaay above average. Or chris is just inept. Your choice really.  Lovely afternoon in the garden, pooching around. Then off the next day back to dover… we were worried about traffic so we left earlier than we needed to (only by 9am tho), so we had some extra time. We stopped before Dover in Folkestone and found a place (the lea cliffe theatre) to have coffee (that didn’t totally suck) near the sea. Then onto the boat admiring an impatient dutch rider, and a ferry ride back to francaisland. Then a lonnnng motorway ride east-northeast through France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and finally into Germany to Cologne. Coming into cologne it started to rain again, and my back tire was very very bald. So we took it real slow for the last ~hour or so behind a big truck to be safe (at 90km/h). We’d called the hotel from Chris’ place so we had a reservation, room was reasonable and it was pretty cheap (85euro/night for double, downtown). Walked into the old town and ate lots of pork. Yum. And koelsch (cologne-ian beer). Next day it was all about getting the rear tire replaced which was a long story but with a good ending: and @#$@ing cheap compared to switzerland. Seriously… my front tire (which is waaaay smaller and should be 75% of the price of the rear at most) cost me 220chf here when i got my bike serviced, but the rear tire in cologne at an official BMW dealer was 90euro (~130chf). Plus they gave me a good deal on the service (and replaced my rear brake pads since they were worn). Man. I am getting my services done in germany from now on…

Memories of cologne: huge, big church (we climbed all the way to the top), city kinduva cross between athens and berlin (but definitely without the athenian drivers), gastrointestinitis & associated fever (yay), meeting up with Louisa (friend of Jessica/otis’ wife), and being soooo tired all the time (presumably from being sick) which is a shame because it totally was a party place. Oh well. We were there on monday/tuesday anyways.

On wednesday we hit the road again and detoured off the motorway (sorry, i mean autobahn. whee, don’t get into the left lane without REALLY checking, someone might be pelting up at 220km/h!!) and did the small road along the mittelrhein where all the castles line the forested valley walls. Stopped in an absolutely quaint town called Oberwesel for a very yummy lunch in a hotel (inside cuz it was raining again). Came out into sunshine, road off, motorway misery, more rain, and eventually HOME. So that’s what 2,250km feels like (in < week).

Now, to spend ages working on photos…

yeah yeah yeah. i’m behind, and I know it.

But first: how awesome is this – all the yobs that went to south africa for the world cup, they thought there would be tons of work for the sex trade workers. But they were wrong! All the “yobbos” are going to museums instead, and the sex trade is down 80%! yay humanity!

The summer is, again, rushing by. Whoever has a device that allows one to selectively slow perception of time – please let me buy it from you! I’ve learned a few tricks: multiple experiences in a day is a huge time-slower. For instance, going to watch the world cup with one set of friends, and then a few hours later going to the limmat for a swim with a different set of friends — by the end of the week, suddenly it “feels like summer” ! More=better apparently.

When I got back home from NoLa (man I loved new orleans, i want to go back soon!), the weather was shiiiitty for weeks on end, and I thought summer hadn’t arrived here (hence my last post). But then wham, 30C and sun, and life is awesome again: motorcycling, hiking, swimming in the lake, swimming in the river, sitting in the park at lunchtime, swimming at lunchtime in the lake, running … it’s great. This week I participated in the great once-yearly zurisee crossing. It was terrifying and exhilarating: you pay 20chf, give them your stuff (towel, bag etc), they put it on a boat and ferry it to the other side of the lake, and then you and 400 people in the same group as you hop in the lake and swim 1.4km to the other side. Yeah. Without stopping or holding on to anything. There’s kayaks and boats around watching for drowners (maybe they take pictures?), but let me tell you: 1.4km is a freaking long way. I’m just glad I had friends to go with (who were very kind enough to slow down to my pace — i was by FAR the last in our entire group!) and that the lake was warm. It was a really cool experience, a total of over six thousand people do the crossing in groups and on the other side it’s a big party. We didn’t stay long at the party though, cuz the german game was that night.

A few weekends back we did a hike up from the town of Sufers, to a beautiful hut. It was a fantastic weekend: I took the friday off and we rode down to sufers on the bike in glorious warm sunshine, hiked up (straight up!) 900m in 2.5h through forests, fields, meadows and finally snowfields, and found the gorgeous hut. On the phone i’d interpreted the speedy swiss-german to mean there wouldn’t be anyone there, so we’d brought food. But the hosts were there (2 older women and a man), and they were as friendly as all swiss-hut-hosts are. We ate our food, bought some delicious soup, and amazingly (at 2385m above sealevel on top of a mountain) ice-cold beer. In the evening a spectacular storm system developed one mountain range over, and we watched in amazement at what looked like a nuclear mushroom cloud forming in slow-motion… the setting sun was coloring it only as it rose high enough to hit the dying beams – first fiery orange (fitting for the nuke cloud), then bloody red. Finally the moon rose above it in a salutory gesture… The next day we hiked back down and had a really fun long-way-home kinda ride.

Last weekend we stayed back in zuri, because it was zurifaaaaascht! A once-every-three years party of epic proportions (and i was playing drums on the sunday anyways). The population of zurich swelled from its usual 400k to over two million for the weekend. Tons of fun stuff everywhere: huge impressive rides swinging people at impossible speeds high into the sky, trillion-dollar firework displays (both nights!), foods of all kinds everywhere, cars that are boats, men in construction jumpsuits waterskiing on chairs, airshows with planes and jets and acrobatic helicopters doing 3-dimensional stalls (D was super impressed!), dance parties everywhere, music pumping till 4am at least every night. Yeah, embarassingly i’d worked quite a bit that week so i was pretty tired and didn’t hit it anywhere near as hard as I (we) could have, but hey we did go both days and i’m content.

Work has been going reasonably well. We’re simultaneously in both the end-game of the current release, and planning the next one. The latter is very challenging – i’m crap at planning when we’re at only the top brainstorming level… but I do love being able to go to work and just do whatever I feel like in the day (fix real problems by working on the current release, or be a fruity brainstormy guy on the next release). Flexibility makes tim happy. And we’re doing great as an office embracing the summer … running, swimming, playing football (soccer) which is a ton of fun even though i’m shit at it…

This weekend we’ve started off well: this morning (it’s saturday) we took off on the bike and went to interlaken, parked the bike, took a bus to Habkern, and did “switzerland’s voted best hike in 2008″. It was indeed spectactular! i’ve got a mild sunburn on my face (uh, I think it’s mild?), and a big smile to match it. It was a 4h hike that I thought would be relatively easy, but more fool me for not looking at the profile, it was a lot of up (total must have been easily more than the 900m we did on the Sufers hike). The hike went up through meadows and some trees to a ridgeline where you can see the entire real alpine range directly to the left of you (like Jungfraujoch-kinda-real-alps). We got there late so we were kinda in a rush to catch the last gondola down at the end of the hike (6pm), which was a shame… but we did incredibly well actually: the whole time we were hearing thunder and seeing storm systems moving in the not-so-far distance… and the heavens finally opened to gob down huge chunks of hail and crazy rain after we got to the bottom of the gondola at the end. Yay! We took the bus back to the bike and were nervous because the helmets and my jacket were on the outside of the bike, but the rain only started there as we arrived so they were pretty dry. We sat in a cafe and ate goulash soup & rostie while we dried, then had a. Fucking. Amazing. Ride. Home: the storm system had collided with at least one other system, and there was crazy-wicked-awesome lightning every 5-50 seconds! Best part was that the vast majority of the ride was in the dry — riding along empty roads and highways watching the lightning smash down. There were some really impressively big strikes. Then home to hot tea and showers and comfort.

And it’s only saturday night…

Looking forward a ton to our trip to the UK in just a few short weeks. David Stubbs is riding here, we’re riding around for a few days, then we’re riding back together to Bagshot where he lives. Then the next day i’m riding up to Ed’s place because he’s having his big bbq (that’s the reason for the timing). As part of all this, i’ve been building my dream: a wireless intercom system that doesn’t suck. I’ve imported parts from all over the globe (okay, hong kong and USA and Switzerland, that’s all over, right?) 

<begin rehash, you may have already read this from an earlier post>
I can hear what you’re thinking, you’re thinking “why not just buy one of the many existing bluetooth systems out there?! just trying to save money?”  no, because actually, the problem is that all the bluetooth systems out there really suck. Basically there are two types of systems: wired systems that have been around forever, so like this is 6th generation and they’ve had time to get really really good (trust me, bike comms is not easy!). The bluetooth systems, they plug onto the helmet directly and have no bike part (part of the appeal because you don’t have to install anything on the bike).. but they are 2nd generation at best, and all the reviews say the same thing — they suck. So I thought to myself, okay no worries i’ll get a bluetooth adapter for my great wired system and connect to my helmet. No dice: the adapters only connect to cell phones! yeah, because riding a motorbike isn’t dangerous enough already — i should talk on my phone while doing it? No thanks.  So i’ve bought all the parts to make my own adapter, and it’s game-time: the final piece arrives repaired from germany soon (it shipped with a bad power adapter apparently), and all the rest is all put together and beautiful looking and shiny and and and …   there’s a major gamble coming though, i don’t actually know if the bike-side piece I bought will actually pair with the part on the helmet…

Well, weather aside, it is great to be home. Switzerland’s efficiency was missed – i am just loving the simple things here again, like utterly dependable trains and busses… and my friends and church. Last night I played drums @ ICF and obviously it had been a while so there were some rough spots, but there were good parts too and i enjoyed it. Forgot how much energy it takes though

It is football (north americans: soccer) madness here, and we love it! Switzerland’s first game was a surprising success, beating Spain 1-0.  Regrettably I totally missed the massive city-wide afterparty from the win… how stupid am I?! Today at 4pm local time they have their second game, against Chile. Again, Chile is expected to win…  But if switzerland wins i will be joining that party for sure   Again there are public viewing areas around zurich and lots of cars honking their horns when their teams are playing / winning. Fun atmosphere.

Except for the weather, which is cold and rainy. I got back saturday, and since then it has been cold (10C middle of the day yesterday) or raining or both — and very little sunshine (an hour here and there). Yuck! I want to ride my bike! I want to go hiking! I want to explore more of switzerland! Instead i’ve been spending time on the couch & computer, which is not the plan for the 3rd week of june. This weekend is supposed to be better. I’m thinking of taking friday off if the weather is great.

Lastly, the helmet front is getting more exciting. I’m loving my new helmet, the Shoei RF-1100, and it is actually looking like I might be able to do the whole bluetooth thing after all. See my post here if you’re interested in details.

Dear Diary,

I know you think i’m ignoring you. I’m not. I’ve been eyeing you periodically, knowing that eventwise there’s been enough to write about, but emotionally i was either not ready or not willing. Mostly the latter: laziness has abounded as of late. That’s okay. Today I went drinking. Laziness has been replaced by arrogance. Bring it!

It has been an interesting couple of weeks. Two weeks ago I was visiting family and friends — seeing the new minimalls that had sprung up around my childhood haunts, and enjoying the untouched parts like the rail trail. Last week I was gorging myself on all the fruits Seattle has to offer – amazing steak, beer, big breakfasts, and an intense Sounders (soccer) game. This week the temperature has changed again (toronto: hot and sunny; seattle: @#$@ing cold and rainy; new orleans: @#$@ing hot and humid), and i’m enjoying visiting a new place. NoLa is definitely cool. The big easy saw me thru this morning with my first real grits (@mothers) and a fun random encounter — Arish (a work colleage) & I went for dinner at Cochon (where I had THE. BEST. DINNER. I’VE. HAD. SINCE. DANEILLE’S. BIRTHDAY. Perhaps even the best in a year or more! it was like, indescribably awesome – pork, but in a tiny tiny bit of gravy with really deep fried cabbage, soaked parsnips, and even another vegetable that normally i’d totally despise, but as the waiter recommended, that i totally loved in this dish. omigoodness.), and when we were leaving we asked the hostess who seated us where a good place was to find a patio to have some beers. She recommended one some ways down. We were having a nice leisurely chatty stroll for some time, when we noticed a car with a women speaking to us — the hostess had gotten off work and driven past us, and stopped to offer us a ride. So we grabbed a ride and bought her a few rounds, had a chat. She was an escapee from Toledo (“mean ole toledo”) ohio, quite eccentric and self-centred, but a tree-hugging artist all the same. Completely misled by the media, but definitely not more than average, and quite a nice person. Interesting chat, and then Arish & I grabbed a cab home.

Even at midnight it is so hot and humid that without a fan directly on me, I sweat uncomfortably sitting down. But even so, I really enjoy being outside in it – it is a kinda “I know i’m dirty and i don’t have to care” feeling. Not necessarily nice for everyone

Tomorrow & wednesday I pull my duty shifts at the booth. Thursday i might take off so i can take my camera around the city some, but i have to write 10000 feedback reviews on all the people i’ve worked with first. Yay. Thank @#!@ that the culture here appears to be eating & drinking & partying, for after i’m done.

Me ‘n’ the big easy – we goin git along real good.

Tuscany was a complete success. It went, regrettably, much too fast. But only in the sense of time passing – the speed on the road was exactly perfect for me: slow on the first day, fast on the others. Great food, great accomodations, and nice to see kev too. It did rain, but not enough to ruin any of the days.

Now i’m in dundas, sitting at my parents place listening to lighthearted arguing — nothing has changed. Actually they are on fine form at the moment We’ve visited friends, seen Matt & Jen tie the knot, and survived 4 days of heatwave (peaked at 36C apparently. not fun). I miss my bike, but i’m excited to get the new shocks on it… and we’ve been spending time on my new bluetooth idea….

… because I ordered a new helmet, the Vemar CKQI bluetooth. Apparently (according to WebBikeWorld) it will fit my head very well. Which is more than my current helmet, and every other bloody one i’ve tried. Anyways, the goal is to be connected to the autocom (what we use to talk to each other on the bike) without wires. But apparently, bluetooth on helmets is designed only for cellphones. You read that right: to use a cellphone not just in a moving vehicle while driving, but one that requires as much attention as a motorcycle does. Brilliant, right? No wonder BT helmets are not taking off! Enter the Guruplug (new version of the sheevaplug) – 1.2ghz ARM cpu for $99, but most importantly, with bluetooth. So the idea is to stick a USB soundcard in there, connect the autocom to that, and then make the guruplug relay the sound to the helmet from the autocom. Of course the voltages from the USB-soundcard to/from the autocom are different, so dad & I have been designing a circuit to deal with this. Fun!

Of course the helmet is the one I was supposed to try on in Italy. Never mind going past tens of “dealers” from Vemar’s official dealer list (pdf on their website) — we were even just 1h30 north of the Vemar headquarters & factory itself when we were in Tuscany (it is in Grosseto). Even given all this: I could not try on the helmet in Italy. The “dealers” didn’t even know what Vemar was (!), and the factory doesn’t take customers. When we called the factory and told them that the dealers weren’t dealers, the customer rep said “oh well can’t help you”.

Italians.

Anyways. I ordered it… we’ll see if it fits. Gotta pay $45 restocking + shipping if it doesn’t Sunday, off to Seattle. But I am missing my bike a lot right now, in this nice weather!