Poohtini -- traceypooh.com + blogtini.com

All the Bikes!

Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Bike Bikes Bikes! Growing up in a small town in rural southern New Hampshire, bikes quickly became the lifeline for us to visit our friends, go to Baboosic Lake in the summers, and get around town. If we threw bikes in our dad's pickup truck, we could skip Church after Sunday School and bike home from the town next door. That was an easy choice for me and my twin. 😉 # All The Bikes! ![purple coaster break bike](../img/bikes-coaster.avif) I learned to ride on this schwinn baby, in the parking lot of our elementary school. (I'd learn to drive my dad's manual transmission pickup there nearly 10 years later). Bike wasn't great, but it had wide stable tires -- and the coaster brake was fun. I'd hand-me-down this bike to my younger sister. ![puch cruiser 10-speed bike](../img/bikes-puch.avif) My dad, brothers and I all had this bike. My dad liked that it made servicing easy at the neighborhood bike shop in someone's house. They were quite dorky, heavy, and the swept-back handlebars were *absolutely* awful. That steering turned what could have been something close a classic 80s 10-speed into an unstable tank. ![supergoose bmx bike in driveway](../img/bikes-1985_supergoose1.jpg) Middle school! Tired of the PUCH bikes, my twin and I learned how to work on bikes in our basement. We'd "frankenstein" bikes together from spare parts and from castoffs at the town dump's metal piles. We'd rebuild hubs, spokes, cranks, head units - everything. Our favorite were singlespeeds. ![supergoose bmx bike in yard](../img/bikes-1985_supergoose2.jpg) The bike cult classic ["RAD"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rad_(film)) came out in the 80s and BMX bikes were all the rage. I swapped out tires, pedals, grips, the seat, brakes, headset, brake lines, and more, to take an otherwise normal-looking silver chromoly "Supergoose" bike, into a bike I loved to look at and ride. I laced up custom rims with bling spokes. I even got red dice custom tire caps that was a huge crowd-pleaser. We setup dirt trails and small jumps around the property and goofed off with our little single speeds. ![blue 1980s 10-speed bike](../img/bikes-blue-bike.avif) Though I loved the BMX bike, to get further across town, the bigger tires and multi-speed practicality of a drop-bar 80s 10-speed could not be beat! This was a pretty basic steelie 10-speed. I had it for 20+ years and it eventually moved from the NH house to the Cape Cod vacation house. ![twins riding bikes](../img/bikes-blue-bike-cape-avi2.jpg) Here I am in 2004 having fun with my twin on Cape Cod. It's a low-resolution still-frame from an early ELPH camera video. ![trek mountain bike](../img/bikes-trek-930.jpg) I spent my last two college summers in Palo Alto, California. My mentor and I bought the same bike in Redwood City. The 1992 Trek 930 "SingleTrack" hardtail / no suspension. The early days of mountain biking -- these were insanely fun. This was the first new bike that I bought. ![mountain bike in uphill field](../img/bikes-trek930a.avif) On weekends, we'd ride all over the Bay Area Peninsula. Purisima Creek was one of our favorites. California bay area coastal rides are hard to beat! The blurry pics are from my Pentax K1000 full manual SLR camera and actual film. 😛 ![bikes racked on black hatchback](../img/bikes-trek930b.avif) This was my 1987 Plymouth Horizon. A very weak four-cylinder engine, but it was bulletproof reliable. We put a custom sunroof in. I drove it across the country four times, for my Xerox PARC summer internships. I'd get both bikes out and back for our summer rides. ![tracey and hunter with road bikes](../img/bikes-inspiration.avif) After Hunter's and my mountain bikes got stolen out of my *locked* garage (and locked together to a heavy bike rack) in San Francisco 😡, I had moved to the East Bay (Lafayette) for the first time. It's *utter road-biking heaven!* So we got Trek aluminum bikes. Mine featured Shimano Ultegra components and a carbon fork. This is ~2004. I later mailed this bike to my twin in New Hampshire. We rode 30 to 100 miles every weekend. ![new Trek Madone carbon road bike](../img/bikes-madone-nbd1.avif) My first all carbon bike! This Trek Madone 5.2 had great black-and-white styling. I bought it early 2008 - just in time for our first AIDS LifeCycle charity seven day ride, SF to LA, in June. ![tracey on new Trek Madone](../img/bikes-madone-nbd2.avif) NEW BIKE DAY! I'm utterly thrilled to have a carbon bike, surrounded by endless country roads and *hills* in Lafayette, CA, ![trek carbon road bike](../img/new-bike.jpg) Psyched to test out this lightweight climbing machine, I immediately take it up legendary Mount Diablo (3850' high)! ![white single speed bike](../img/romeo.jpg) Summer 2014, I got two girlfriends to fly out to vacation together at Cape Cod. We had a ton of fun together! I bought two cheapie singlespeeds for $300 each (the "outer" Cape is pretty flat). Even with just a single crappy front rim brake and cheap parts, they're insanely fun! The white styling of the "Romeo" model from Pure FIX looks great with deep dish steelie rims. ![Trek gravel bike](../img/tyres.jpg) The Trek Boone CX bike -- [quite the Adventurous purchase](../2022-03-road-trek--driving-2000-miles-for-a-gravel-bike/) in 2022. We upgraded the gears so it could climb big hills, and crammed in 40mm tires, to effectively turn it from a cyclocross bike into a legit gravel bike. It has an interesting flex shock absorber piece in the seat post and seat tube junction area that gives it a more comfortable ride. I love the paint job that fades from "atomic red" to teal. I got this to join a ["Thirsty Thursday" group gravel bike ride](../tags/ebgb/) two-hour evening ride, during the Covid years. ![trek SuperCaliber MTB](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-05.jpg) The Trek SuperCaliber 9.8 XT ultra-light XC (“cross country”) mountain bike. My current **beloved** bike. [Bought in 2023](../2023-06-first-week-of-phoenix-bike/), it's utterly amazing at everything. Upgrades: lighter wheels and dropper post. Features a single dual-action lever to open or lock both front and rear suspension. Under 24 pounds, with 100mm and 60mm suspension shocks. ![trek SuperCaliber MTB](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-16.jpg) I ride this most of my six-days-a-week regular biking days. We can bike over to the legendary Joaquin Miller Park (and Redwood Park and nearby parks) right from our house. On Saturdays, we lead a regular 24 mile north bay loop up Mount Tamalpais and down to the Pacific Ocean. We feel very lucky being surrounded by such amazing bike trails and having such great bike friends. --- Bikes have been one of the longest themes in my life. It's been fun digging them all up again, and remembering how each one changed my life :)

Oops I Did it Again ♪ / year starts with a bang

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Bleah, so... I'm an idiot / can't be trusted around fence posts. **UNBELIEVABLY**, only 2-1/2 years from [breaking my right elbow](../2023-11-first-big-break/) in a bike crash, I break my *left* elbow, the same **damned* way... 💥 ![tracey & hunter in hospital room](../img/2026-oops-bang-00.avif) First things first. We both get respiratory viruses at XMAS/New Year's. **I** come down with RSV and HMPV viruses at the same time. They attack me so badly (possbily other factors?), I wind up in the hospital for two days, unable to breathe lying down without *massive* knife-stabbing pain in my lower left lung. My blood oxygen SpO2 is down in the 80s, which is "go get an oxygen tank cart levels"... We CAT-scan find small "non-life threatening" blood clots in both lungs. Queue blood thinners... Here Hunter is rescuing me from crappy food in my nice view Oakland/Berkeley hospital. ![tracey bike crash](../img/2026-oops-bang-01.avif) ... and only ~45 days later, after spending 1 week hill hiking slowly to rebuild lungs, then 1 week slowly hill biking, slowly more and more, back to 99% SpO2, still on blood thinners, terrified of crashing or bleeding... .. utter disaster. Just like [last time](../2023-11-first-big-break/), I get too close to a fence post -- this time with a "lasso" cable end (you can zoom in to right side of post just over handlebars). I'm travelling right-to-left in the dirt above in this picture, and the lasso catches and jerks my hanldebars severely, catapulting me down this ~6' short slope. Scrambling, I cant get my left foot unclipped, and take the entire fall on my left elbow => *right* into pavement (once again). My elbow is broken in two in this pic, but I dont know it yet. Racing through my head is "please dont let this be another break..." ![x-ray of broken olecranon](../img/2026-oops-bang-02.webp) Next morning, same Urgent Care (osteo specialist) place in Walnut Creek as last time => broken in two again! Interestingly, like last time, if I dont move the elbow, there's almost no pain. ![tracey hiking in fog](../img/2026-oops-bang-03.avif) So... I hike a lot, swapping my six-days-a-week 1-2 hours of biking, for hiking. ![tracey on bridge over stream](../img/2026-oops-bang-04.avif) Hunter and I find a new absolutely favorite hike in the North Bay, a [4-mile perfect loop](https://www.strava.com/activities/17559313854) starting with panoramic pacific ocean and SF views.

You then hike down to and then up an amazing rushing stream with waterfalls. It's part of the Dipsea Trail with a loop back on Steep Ravine Trail. I would never have hiked this with an actively broken arm, had I known how technical it can get. But we made it, even up a wood rung ladder section, me 3-limb hopping my way up. Utterly gorgeous though.. ![tracey bruised arm](../img/2026-oops-bang-05.avif) Blood thinners and half-casts. Wow, you wanna talk about even worse pain than the break itself? The painful black-and-blues run up/down my arm anywhere where the cast bottom settles. ![tracey hiking with biking friends](../img/2026-oops-bang-06.avif) We have a delightful morning with out-of-town friend Chanel. We start at our local fave cafe, then I head off and hike while they bike. We actually met up ~mid-way through! After the severe bruising & pain (like, not sleeping for 4 nights in a row bad...) they switch me to this removable exoskeleton much better setup. ![tracey in jeep](../img/2026-oops-bang-07.avif) Two weeks after the crash, I get the same surgery. Ironically, it's the same (wonderful!) surgeon, the same facility, the same anesthesiologist, the same OR head nurse, the same titanium fix (2 super thin & narrow criss-cross plates, 4 screws into ulna, 2 long screws lengthwise down the ulna from the end). ![elbow x-ray with hardware & screws](../img/2026-oops-bang-08.avif) Two weeks post-op, the x-rays look great, almost zero sign of break. I start physical therapy to get "range-of-motion" back, 6 days after this. Now we can push the PT a bit more.. ![tracey selfie showing elbow stitches](../img/2026-oops-bang-09.avif) The 7 sutures (going across the wavey cut line) come out (only takes a few seconds) at this x-ray review appointment, as well. ![tracey hiking on fire road](../img/2026-oops-bang-10.avif) I hike to end of our bike group "Thirsty Thursday" ride every Thursday, ~6 miles, mostly down amazing view fire roads for one hour, and then neighborhood roads for the second hour. You can see Mt. Diablo in the background. ![tracey & hunter on hiking trail](../img/2026-oops-bang-11.avif) Have I mentioned how amazing Hunter has been? With almost zero elbow mobility for the first four weeks after the crash, he's helping me shower and wash my hair, and so so much more.. ![three people on trail through redwoods](../img/2026-oops-bang-12.avif) My bestie and I hike every Sunday -- CA redwoods are always a wonder for the spirits! ![tracey selfie atop cow fence](../img/2026-oops-bang-13.avif) Here I'm on a Thirsty Thursday hike, and the one fence hop I have to `CAREFULING.EXE` each week. ![tracey returns to biking!](../img/2026-oops-bang-14.avif) So today, after another post-op review with x-rays 3 days prior, I **BIKED!** again for the first time since the crash 8 weeks ago. Amazing! I was nervous about how I'd do. My left arm is still stiff and imperfect. I'm wearing elbow and knee crash pads for good measure. And being ultra careful and slow. I've lost a ton of bike fitness -- but that's what regular biking is for :) Here I am "waving" to the fence post that took me out. It now has a traffic cone on it from the Joaquin Miller rangers after I mentioned my crash to them. ![tracey & hunter with wine & cheese](../img/2026-oops-bang-15.avif) So... I'm back to biking, slowly! 🎉 And. We're going to make 2026 truly amazing, by finally getting married, with our great family and friends, at a place along our favorite bike ride! 💍 (Here we are settling on wine & apps for The Event.) Stay tuned!

Girona Biking Heaven!

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Oh My God, **Girona!** I have wanted to bike european tiny towns with cafes & castles, linked by dirt roads, for years & years now. **IT'S HAPPENING!!** Girona is a Biker's Town -- pro teams riding all over it; bike perfection of hills, road & dirt options; bike paths everywhere. Not to mention it's utterly adorable Medieval old town & river. Perfect weather. You can be a Fake Pro biker every day! Hunter found us an **amazing** apartment rental that was in the Old Town, **right** on the stunning river, had a "wall of glass" looking onto the ever changing lit river, and had stone walls & a castle-like staircase entrance. The other side of the apartment had tall windows & balconies overlooking the narrow stone streets, loaded with bottom floor commerce & restaurants. Back when starting to plan a trip to Europe, Kim had told me Girona was a big-time "biker thing". I started doing research and fell in love **immediately** from just a few pictures and ride descriptions. Girona is only 40 miles from the French border, in Catalonia, in the far northeast corner of Spain, and on the "Costa Brava". It **had** to become a part of my first flight & trip to see Kim in Madrid. I could barely sleep our first night in Girona, eager to pick up our pre-arranged Trek gravel bikes for a four day rental. I could hardly wait to get out and experience Girona! ## Ride research - https://hotelsultoniagirona.com/en/top-cycling-routes-in-girona-province/ ([wayback machine version](https://web.archive.org/web/20240518121917/https://hotelsultoniagirona.com/en/top-cycling-routes-in-girona-province/)) ```txt The main reason why Girona is home to over 100 pro cyclists is because of the amazing riding on offer. ``` Seeing this had me in sweats: ```txt 2. The Coast Loop Another Girona classic. The highlight of this ride is the 20 km stretch of road that goes from Sant Feliu de Guixols to Tossa de Mar. For some, this is the finest road in all of Catalonia. ``` ![bikers on costa brava seaside road](../img/2025-europe-teaser.webp) It felt like: "Pack your bags! Get me to Girona!" seeing those amazing waters and hills, with that pro squad of riders. # Day One Since the first group above was focusing on road rides, I eventually found this **gem** of curated favorite Komoot rides in Girona. The first 3 of our 4 rides and days came from this Komoot list. https://www.komoot.com/guide/3453961/gravel-biking-in-girona ([wayback machine version](https://web.archive.org/web/20250701001520/https://www.komoot.com/guide/3453961/gravel-biking-in-girona)) We started with ["Gravel-Paradise Girona -- Round trip to Amer"](https://www.komoot.com/smarttour/e933218415/gravel-paradise-girona-round-trip-to-amer)

![tracey in Trek store, Girona](../img/2025-europe-21.avif) I'm soooo excited. We just had coffee at the super cute, super great `Espresso Mafia` by our place. Turns out it's very popular w/ pros & cyclists -- we saw a pro squad right next to us. This only added to my excitement. The bike fit great. I had been mostly off biking for most of 2 months due to 3+ weeks of travel before this and a surgery, so I'm losing my mind to get out riding now! ![tracey & hunter crossing a stream](../img/2025-europe-22.avif) Soon we hit some stream crossings. I had **just** plowed through the stream on my bike successfully, so I was **very** stoked. ![tracey & hunter biking through forest](../img/2025-europe-23.avif) Today would be pretty challenging! Definitely some mountain-bike style parts -- some chunky stuff, some minor overgrown, and a bunch of needs more gearings like a "climbs anything" mountain bike. We had to walk uphill in a few parts. It was quite warm -- hot really -- the whole 5 days we were in Girona. So we had quite the adventure since a lot of this was up and over a set of no-cars fire roads and trails, and through various parks to get to the tiny town of Amer. ![tracey & hunter by farm & old stone bridge](../img/2025-europe-24.avif) There were old churches and small castles, with lots of farms like this one which had an old stone bridge crossing. ![tracey & hunter biking a dirt road](../img/2025-europe-25.avif) Dirt roads connected just about every town in this part of Spain! About a week before this, I had taken a train with Kim from southern France to Barcelona. Upon entering Spain, the long Pyrenees mountain range was immediately evident. Rolling green hills everywhere. Dirt roads going every direction. It was all I could do to not leap out of the train with "GET ME A BIKE! I MUST BIKE ALL OF THIS!" :) So naturally, I was soooo thrilled to be finally biking farmlands and dirt roads, with singletrack sections that only locals would know about. ![tracey on bridge over river by medieval town](../img/2025-europe-26.avif) Wrapping up Day One! Our place is right on this River, just past the red bridge behind me. Pros & other cyclists would meet up on these bridges to do "pick up" rides together. There were also tiny narrow stone tunnel walkways in the old town where there were QR codes you could scan to find rides. I LOVE THIS TOWN!! ![tracey & hunter in front of old Girona church](../img/2025-europe-27.avif) We'd get home, shower, relax and internets for a bit, then head out to dinner every night. There were so many great food and drink options. It felt like Biker DisneyLand -- the Trip of a Lifetime! # Day Two Next up ["Cassà de la Selva loop from Girona"](https://www.komoot.com/smarttour/e1656682485/cassa-de-la-selva-loop-from-girona) This would be our most chill day. Not too much climbing, lots of farms and little towns, with most of the day on well-maintained dirt roads. Most of the climbing came at the end, followed by a very rewarding downhill to the backside of the main Girona radio/telecom station and (almost suddenly) right into the uphill side of the old town's main old church (made ever more famous from `Game of Thrones` film shoots).

![hunter & morning coffee](../img/2025-europe-28.avif) Here we are at `Espresso Mafia` in the little medieval old town. This became our morning ritual. ![hunter on bike path](../img/2025-europe-29.avif) The bike paths in Girona are **amazing**. ![hunter & tracey on farmlands dirt road](../img/2025-europe-30.avif) Here we are on a classic Catalonian farmlands dirt road. Gravel Bike Heaven! ![tracey biking by an orchard](../img/2025-europe-31.avif) Farms & orchards, green, gentle rolling hills. So SO good. # Day Three Today was **totally amazing**. There are historical fortresses all over this area -- this route was put together to bike between all the tiny towns with churches with fortified walls and/or small fortresses. We'll even get out to the utterly stunning Mediterranean waters & beaches! Bike & travel perfection! We took a quick train (you can just take on your bike, no problem!) north one stop to Figueres to keep the bike miles reasonable... ["Gravel through the fortresses of medieval Empordà"](https://www.komoot.com/smarttour/e971898121/gravel-through-the-fortresses-of-medieval-emporda)

![tracey in front of medieval church](../img/2025-europe-32.avif) Every town had something totally beautiful like this. And we'd just roll on up to and through them. ![tracey & hunter biking dirt road](../img/2025-europe-33.avif) So many great dirt roads -- this one paralleled a big river and took us pretty far from everything. Grin. ![hunter biking around a medieval town corner](../img/2025-europe-34.avif) Wheeling through old towns - so fun. ![hunter biking down dirt road towards old fortress](../img/2025-europe-35.avif) STUN NING! We've just been riding a ridgeline in the middle of nowhere, and are now approaching the coast and this armored old fortress area. ![tracey at mediterranean beach](../img/2025-europe-36.avif) We rolled right into the beaches of the town of L'Escala. The waters are so stunning out here. We splish/splashed around for a bit, then rinsed my feet off with a lucky extra water jug someone had discarded. # Day Four So we'd been doing ~40 miles of mostly dirt, some hard climbs, for three days in a row now. Hunter had a small cough starting, and really wanted us to "cap" the ride to 20-30 miles. I still wanted **desperately** to do the coastal ride: `For some, this is the finest road in all of Catalonia.` (more details near the top of this post). The **problem** was "The Coast Loop" was 86 miles! Even if it was all road riding, we couldn't pull that off on the hottest day of our trip, pushing well into the 90s (farhenheit), with possibility of minimal tree cover. I spent over an hour trying to hack down the ride with a train cheat -- but it was still too long. Ultimately, I found an alternate return up & over the hillside mountain range from the Tossa de Mar beach town. So it had less of the coast ride portion, but I **hoped** some of the best bits. And of course we now would have an Unknown monster climb that wasn't suggested... **Thankfully** Hunter agreed to try my crazy plan. 40 miles -- but over **3,000** feet of climbing, with about 2200 feet nearly all-at-once climbing out from the Beach. We pull off that kind of climbing on **dirt** at home, and this would be road riding. So... possible? And so we headed out...

![tracey & lunching at a cafe](../img/2025-europe-37.avif) OK, so we made the first 17 miles pretty well. We got passed by a small pro squad of riders (yay) descending down into the Tossa de Mar super chill fun beach town. The kind of place you might just decide to just move to and "check out". But it's **really** hot. We're dumping down Cokes & chocolate milks & ice waters for lunch. ![tossa de mar beach with fortressed old town](../img/2025-europe-38.avif) Wow! An incredible armored fortress medieval town **right on the beach** of Tossa de Mar! Had no idea this was here -- today's already getting **magical**. ![tracey & hunter overlooking beach & coastline](../img/2025-europe-39.avif) Near the start of the very long road climb. I saw a 📸 icon sign, so stopped at the turn out. When I turned around, I just instantly **burst into tears**. It was so bright and colorful and beautiful. I think this might be one of my favorite views in years. It was just like what I'd been dreaming of, for the months before this trip. ### That **perfect bikeride** on that **perfect road**. My heart just _burst_ in happiness. I'll never forget this moment and these four days!! ![tracey & hunter biking up a coastal road](../img/2025-europe-40.avif) The roads were amazing and pretty well entirely **empty**! So we got to feel like we were doing a Tour de France or Vuelta a España pro bike ride (and I mean, we **pretty much are** 🤩), through some of the most stunning parts of the world. ![hunter biking towards tunnel overlooking the sea](../img/2025-europe-41.avif) Road like this 🤌🏼 Yes `YES` ![tracey & hunter on bridge over Girona river](../img/2025-europe-42.avif) We road our bikes to Trek & dropped them off, and walked back to our apartment. Oh my gosh, these last four days. I can hardly. I can't even. ![girona river & old town](../img/2025-europe-43.avif) Goodbye Girona! We **WILL** be back!

Spain, France & Portugal

Wed, 14 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

# A month in Europe! I spent 2 weeks touring Spain & France with my bestie, Kim. Hunter swapped in for the second 2 weeks in Spain & Portugal. A most fantastic month exploring 3 countries! ![tracey and kim patio lunch](../img/2025-europe-00.avif) Just in from a 12 hour nonstop flight from SFO. Going to power through the rest of the day in localtime to quash jetlag. Kim met me at the airport. We metro to her place and walked to a charming nearby outdoor square of restaurants in Madrid. ![park lake and monuments](../img/2025-europe-01.avif) The huge Retiro Park in Madrid was part of our great nice long daily walks. ![tracey & kim at San Sebastián beach](../img/2025-europe-02.avif) San Sebastián! Second time here and *wow* did I love it. It's Kim's favorite place in Spain, so she knew so many great secret spots. ![beach overlook](../img/2025-europe-03.avif) Hiking up this crazy hilly park overlooking the city & beaches. The water and weather was just stunning! ![eating tapas at bar](../img/2025-europe-04.avif) Tapas / pintxos are *crazy* good. As a seafood junkie, I was in tears at times how amazing these little bites are. Stinky, fatty little fish, with minced pickles, sea salt, crema on toast. OMG. They were our lunch & dinner most of our three days staying here. Our favorite place was [La Espiga](https://www.laespigabar.com/) -- went there twice! ![sunbathing San Sebastián beach](../img/2025-europe-05.avif) The last day was very warm & sunny -- **everyone** hit the beach. I got to splish/splash around at sunset which made me so happy. Kim & I had just wrapped an [eleven mile forested coastal **magical** hike](https://www.strava.com/activities/14520722914) -- so this was an **amazing** day. ![Bordeaux medieval block with belltower](../img/2025-europe-06.avif) We took a bus to Biarritz for a night, then train to Bordeaux for 2 days. Here we are in one of the medieval blocks of the Old Town, with the famous Bordeaux Grosse Cloche -- one of the oldest belfries in France. ![Beynac Castle](../img/2025-europe-07.avif) Next, a train to two nights in Sarlat, a disney-like immaculate medieval village. We managed to rent a car on-the-fly to visit the nearby amazing Beynac Castle. We also did a one hour boat ride on the Dordogne River each day, seeing 3-4 castles from the river and hearing much of the fascinating history. ![Dordogne River from Beynac Castle](../img/2025-europe-08.avif) The top floor of Beynac Castle has Richard the Lionheart's restored room. You can got out on the roof and look at the stunning Dordogne River. ![small medieval france town cafe](../img/2025-europe-09.avif) Kim & I split for a night. I took a train + car to middle-of-nowhere 2,000 person medieval town of Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val. This was tearfully amazing. I can't remember being this relaxed! The people were all **so amazing**, kind, and completely without any kind of shields or artifice. It reminded me of the 10,000 person town I grew up in, where everyone knows each other. It's rare I visit somewhere so tiny in a country far away -- I need to do this more often. ![saint antonin church & riverside bridge view](../img/2025-europe-10.avif) This iconic view! Having only ~20 hours in this town of Saint Antonin, and having had a bit more out late fun than I thought I would/should the night before -- I still got up at 7:30am trying to guess the best "magic hour" sunrise for this view. It was too foggy for the first 30 minutes -- but the sun finally cracked through. I fell in love with this town from this view when we were planning which cities to visit. ![saint antonin town & hillside](../img/2025-europe-11.avif) San Antonin view from my Bed & Breakfast balcony! ![tracey & saint antonin town & hillside](../img/2025-europe-12.avif) I felt like a total **princess** in a Fairytale at this [amazing Bed & Breakfast](https://www.booking.com/hotel/fr/la-ra-c-sidence.html) ![tapas overlooking river](../img/2025-europe-13.avif) I walked most of the downtown and even ventured further out and found this cafe in the park forest that overlooked the main river of Saint Antonin. Do I have to leave this town?! ![tracey & russ at Béziers river & church](../img/2025-europe-14.avif) Kim & I took trains and met near the south central coast of France in Narbonne, for two nights. My twin, Russ, just **happened** to be in France with his wife and we managed to meetup with only a seven-minute (!) train to Béziers. Here we are together in front of the iconic view of Béziers ancient downtown. ## Hunter! Barcelona! Lisbon! Madrid! Kim & I took a train to Barcelona, but she stayed on the same train to return to Madrid. I found a cool place with a rooftop pool for five nights. Hunter flew into Barcelona (yay!) for the final three nights. ![tracey & hunter overlooking Barcelona](../img/2025-europe-15.avif) Barcelona has been one of my favorite cities in the world. We stayed in Eixample this time (after Gràcia last time). We took some day trips to the coast, museums, the Gothic Center and more. Here we are exiting the main museum which has panoramic views of Barcelona. ![living street, trees & walkways](../img/2025-europe-16.avif) Our place was next to the amazing [Carrer del Consell de Cent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrer_del_Consell_de_Cent,_Barcelona) which had just been converted to a "living street" 2 years before. Cars & bikes were rare and had to crawl at walking speed. Practically, it became a tree-covered green strip of just people for 20 blocks. So we got to use it as our main base for cafes & tapas, and main corridor to walk everywhere. ![tracey & hunter walking tiled streets of Lisbon](../img/2025-europe-17.avif) We flew to Lisbon, Portugal to visit our dear friends, Gary & Katharine, who had moved there 3 years ago. Lisbon amazed us! Tile covered sidewalks & cobblestone streets everywhere. Hills & views everywhere! A bay area-like river & ocean nearby. Fog. Cool breezes. A **dead ringer** for San Francisco, dear to our hearts. They even have a "Golden Gate Bridge"! ![four people overloking Lisbon hills & coast](../img/2025-europe-18.avif) Here we are **just** meeting Gary & Katharine! We stayed for three nights at a great location hotel that was ~20 minute walk from their place. ![gary, katharine & hunter in art palace](../img/2025-europe-44.avif) Lisbon has fun surprises everywhere. This 3-story mini palace now hosts art & trendy clothes stores under its wonderful slightly over-the-top huge paintings. A little old chipping paint only adds to the charm. ![tracey, hunter & friends having lunch](../img/2025-europe-19.avif) We had great food together and they showed us all around the city. We got to see their neighborhood, local park, and favorite haunts. So amazing to see our friends again. We use to live less than 10 minutes from each other and would hang out nearly every weekend in Oakland. ![](../img/2025-europe-20.avif) Lisbon is famous for its annual Jacaranda trees blossoming. We timed it perfectly and found brilliant purple blossoms all over the city. Here we are at sunset on a walk all over town. Hunter & I flew to Madrid for two nights after this, to visit Kim & Miguel. I got to play "greatest hits" with Hunter, from the walks & parks that Kim & I did there just days ago, while squishing in a visit to the Prado Musuem, too.

After that....
OH
MY
GOD...

[BIKER HEAVEN IN GIRONA, SPAIN!](../2025-06-06-girona-biking-heaven/)

Sqlite inet_aton()

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I made a `sqlite` equivalent of `inet_aton()` built-in for `postgresql` and `mysql`. This takes an v4 IP address string and turns it into a number. LLM `chatgpt` and `Claude` couldn't come up with this (only the first two numbers) after hours. Neither could understand nesting multiple `INSTR()` calls -- while keeping them each to the required 2 arguments only (kept adding more arguments). Taking some inspiration from: https://stackoverflow.com/a/70073610 which parsed first 2 pieces of an address using COMMA separators, I was _eventually_ able to unroll the 3rd and 4th number extraction equivalents. ```bash # this is posgresql: inet_aton(ip) in sqlite: IP_FIRST_NUMBER="SUBSTRING(ip, 1, INSTR(ip, '.') - 1)" IP_SECOND_NUMBER="SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), 1, INSTR(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), '.') - 1)" IP_THIRD_NUMBER="SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), INSTR(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), '.') + 1), 1, INSTR(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), INSTR(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), '.') + 1), '.') - 1)" IP_LAST_NUMBER="SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING((SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), INSTR(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), '.') + 1)||'.'), INSTR((SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), INSTR(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), '.') + 1)||'.'), '.') + 1), 1, INSTR(SUBSTRING((SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), INSTR(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), '.') + 1)||'.'), INSTR((SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), INSTR(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), '.') + 1)||'.'), '.') + 1), '.') - 1)" INET_ATON_IP="( CAST($IP_FIRST_NUMBER AS INTEGER) * 16777216 + CAST($IP_SECOND_NUMBER AS INTEGER) * 65536 + CAST($IP_THIRD_NUMBER AS INTEGER) * 256 + CAST($IP_LAST_NUMBER AS INTEGER) )" ``` ## Run it, or expand it So then if you're using a shell script, you can do something like below. - Change column name `ip` and table `my_table` accordingly ```bash echo "SELECT ip, $IP_FIRST_NUMBER, $IP_SECOND_NUMBER, $IP_THIRD_NUMBER, $IP_LAST_NUMBER, $INET_ATON_IP FROM my_table" ``` I threw 1000+ IP addresses at this, and they came out as expected (yay). ## Example | IP | first | second | third | last | inet_aton() | | ------------- | ------ | ------- | ------ | ----- | ----------- | | 207.241.224.2 | 207 | 241 | 224 | 2 | 3488735234 | ## Expanded For the complete expanded: ```sql SELECT $INET_ATON_IP FROM my_table ``` it becomes: ```sql SELECT ( CAST(SUBSTRING(ip, 1, INSTR(ip, '.') - 1) AS INTEGER) * 16777216 + CAST(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), 1, INSTR(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), '.') - 1) AS INTEGER) * 65536 + CAST(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), INSTR(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), '.') + 1), 1, INSTR(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), INSTR(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), '.') + 1), '.') - 1) AS INTEGER) * 256 + CAST(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING((SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), INSTR(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), '.') + 1)||'.'), INSTR((SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), INSTR(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), '.') + 1)||'.'), '.') + 1), 1, INSTR(SUBSTRING((SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), INSTR(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), '.') + 1)||'.'), INSTR((SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), INSTR(SUBSTRING(ip, INSTR(ip, '.') + 1), '.') + 1)||'.'), '.') + 1), '.') - 1) AS INTEGER) ) FROM my_table ``` - Change column name `ip` and table `my_table` accordingly ## Methodology / for the 'bots? Playing with the two LLMs, I found the stackoverflow post for some reason easier to reverse engineer. They had come up with a good way to split a string into 3 pieces with a separator. So for string `A.B.C.D`, it was easy enough to get the string parsing into these strings: - `A` - `B` - `C.D` OK, great! I should be able to run the `A` extraction formula on `C.D`. That worked nicely - now I've got `C`. Run `B` on `C.D` to get `D`. I'm pasting the forumula for "extract B from string" on `C.D`. Since the input is listed four times, like `IP_LAST_NUMBER` above, the resulting SQL is getting pretty expanded. That's fine, though. But it keeps coming out _wrong_. I spend a solid 10 minutes on this, until I realize adding a `.` (to input `C.D.`) seems to be needed for "extract B from string" to work. So that's why you'll see `||'.'` four times (on the same "input" SQL) in `IP_LAST_NUMBER` above. ## Ta Da Your [sic] welcome. 😝🤓

EBGB Adventure North Bay Bolinas Rambler

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

We switched up typical saturday Mt. Tam loop, with a fun ride up to and across Bolinas Ridge. I made a fun 4min supercut of the day 😻 {{< youtube YDyyYBW1ai4 >}} Gorgeous early spring-like weather all day -- **perfect** bike weather inspiring the filmmaker :) ![four bikers, top of climb](../img/bolinas-rambler-ebgb-north-bay-fun-day-01.jpg) At the top of the main off-road climb, which had some challenging chunky rocks and slippery rocks/dirt. Only two of us made it the whole way up -- your girl's a climber! 😻 ![five bikers in redwoods](../img/bolinas-rambler-ebgb-north-bay-fun-day-02.jpg) The redwood trails along the ridgeline are just **amazingly gorgeous**. ![two cyclists looking at view of tomaes bay](../img/bolinas-rambler-ebgb-north-bay-fun-day-07.jpg) Looking over the open ridge portion, where Tomales Bay is ahead of us in a green canyon of hills. ![cyclists enjoying beers together](../img/bolinas-rambler-ebgb-north-bay-fun-day-08.jpg) Great food & **beer** at Splitrock Tap & Wheel (Fairfax) after the long adventure day. Two of us cracked and/or bonked a bit -- so it was a good stretch challenge day.

OMG 💍 I DO! Ride 🥰🚵🏼‍♀️💍🧎😲🎉🎊

Sat, 07 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

WOOOOOWWWWW! Hunter *totally* surprised me on my favorite bike ride with a **PROPOSAL!** We were riding my favorite ride, 5 of us, with our Thirsty Thursday weekly rider founders. Everyone got me pretty good -- I thought we were just taking a fancy picture at the best vantage point ever! Jaw dropped! Hunter's crying; I'm crying. I Loved his speech!! The Ring is so perfect and so "me"! And it happened perfectly at the crossing of my favorite bike (Coast View) & hike (Dipsea) trails! Thanks *so* much Drew U, Mike Wood & Michael Marano for making the secret day magical and for being part of Our Story! My head is still reeling! We're hitting our 25th anniversary together -- our marriage is going to be great! ❤️❤️❤️ ![3D map of Mt. Tam area](../img/omg-i-do-ride-00.jpg) map with the surprise stop at the most scenic point ![3 bikers overlooking the Pacific Ocean](../img/omg-i-do-ride-02.jpg) conspirators behind me! I have no idea what is about to happen ![tracey standing, hunter kneeling & proposing](../img/omg-i-do-ride-03.jpg) O.M.G.! ![hunter revealing the Ring](../img/omg-i-do-ride-04.jpg) the Ring! ![hunter & tracey kissing](../img/omg-i-do-ride-06.jpg) 🥰 ![hunter & tracey at oceanside overlook](../img/omg-i-do-ride-08.jpg) showing off the bling ![hunter & tracey with their bikes at overlook](../img/omg-i-do-ride-09.jpg) it only occurred to me after the Proposal and the YES! that we still had our helmets on, hehe ![hunter and tracey on bikes overlooking Muir Beach](../img/omg-i-do-ride-12.jpg) overlooking Muir Beach ![hunter and tracey biking next to a canal](../img/omg-i-do-ride-18.jpg) getting back to civilization ![4 bikers on path between marsh](../img/omg-i-do-ride-24.jpg) crossing the marsh - Mt. Tam in the background ![hunter and tracey hugging with her bike](../img/omg-i-do-ride-19.jpg) at my favorite Beer Garden! 🥰 ![all 5 of the bikers sharing a drink](../img/omg-i-do-ride-22.jpg) The guys got us a bottle of bubbles to celebrate. 😻 I'm so glad everyone helped with the surprise and was part of our forever Special Day! ![hunter's proposal speech](../img/omg-i-do-ride-27.jpg) Hunter's Speech ![tracey enjoying a cocktail before dinner](../img/omg-i-do-ride-28.jpg) Celebrating later that night over drinks and dinner at a new favorite place in Lafayette, Social Bird The bike ride and more photos are at my [Strava post](https://www.strava.com/activities/12363587241)

Bike entire 'Outer Cape' 🏝️ - Provincetown Challenge with twin

Sun, 21 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

We bike the entire "Outer Cape", 60 miles, going for the dirtiest paths (and least cars) possible. 😻 Proud of my twin! He doesn't bike that often, and has a recurring right knee issue from decades old snowboarding injury. So we took it slow (party pace) with a lot of stops and had a great day together 🥰 Cape Cod towns: Eastham, Welfleet, Truro, Provincetown Can you feel the Cape Cod vibes? 🏝️ # SUPERCUT short 90 second version of our day 🍿 {{< youtube s8EVjpGOosM >}} # 6 minute version {{< youtube wxtWAUiq-Xc >}}

Sedona, Death Valley & Grand Canyon

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

A 2000 mile roadtrip over five days for national parks, biking, and off-roading. I'd always wanted to visit Sedona - the adventurous beauty of a town! # Sedona The first day was 800 miles directly from home to Sedona, AZ. The high plain desert around the Grand Canyon area had a blizzard as we descended into Sedona. Since we had checked in under darkness, it was a delight to find out at sunrise that our hotel room had a balcony looking _right out at_ the main show of dazzling striated red rock buttes and canyons! It was supposed to rain - but we got lucky! So we awoke to jaw-droppingly beautiful mountain bike ride with the bikes & gear that we packed, and then watched the town roll by over a coffee. ![sedona desert & rock buttes](../img/southwest00.jpg) A biker friend mentioned a trail course: Thunder Mountain => Tea Cup => Adobe Jack. We accidentally started a bit later at the Thunder Mountain & Andante intersection. Thunder Mountain is a black diamond ◆ but Andante is an easier blue 🟦, that cuts off the worst parts of Thunder Mountain. So we did [Andante and the start of Tea Cup](https://www.strava.com/activities/11086608287). This took us an hour door-to-door from the hotel. We had to get used to the rocks (sometimes they move!) and pokey cacti waiting to "high five" us if we tipped off the singletrack trails. The scenery is just _OH MY GAWD_. We're biking right up at the start of the buttes - it's like a fairy-tale! ![hunter & bike downtown sedona](../img/southwest01.jpg) Delighted with our first outing, getting a coffee & treat. ![tracey & hunter on bench with coffee](../img/southwest12.jpg) ![tracey overlooking jeep trail](../img/southwest15.jpg) After some mid-day _stuff_, I had the brilliant idea to figure out where all the "Pink JEEP" tours were heading off to, continuously throughout the day. So we found Schnebly Hill Road, named after Sedona's founder. It turns into full off-road rock gardens right quick -- so we had a few miles of bouncing all over the place :D ![tracey & hunter offroad jeep top off](../img/southwest16.jpg) ![tracey & hunter with margaritas](../img/southwest17.jpg) Killer margaritas in the Southwest is highly advised. ![tracey & hunter biking in sedona desert](../img/southwest18.jpg) Next morning - hoo boy did the weather flip! Gorgeous unlimited blue skies, at least ten degrees warmer. ![tracey biking down rocky desert trail](../img/southwest19.jpg) We did the same start [(Andante) then moved onto (gulp!) the _black diamond_ Tea Cup trail](https://www.strava.com/activities/11093427008). Hunter got this nice shot of me in a great section right up against the rocky buttes. ![tracey biking through rocks & cacti](../img/southwest20.jpg) Tea Cup turned out to be _extremely_ hard. The entire middle section was nearly unbikeable for us. Here you can see me a little left of center. Some sections had slippery off-camber rock sections. If you slipped, you could wind up tumbling 40 feet down a rocky slide. I missed a turn at one point and was hiking down an 8 foot drop when a foot-supporting rock crumbled. I nearly fell backward with nothing to grab on to. Needless to say, rather terrifying. We walked the roughest stuff, so we could get to the nearly blissful "Adobe Jack" trail. ![bike trail with desert scrub & rocky cliffs](../img/southwest21.jpg) Adobe Jack had nice "flow" in parts (banked sides of curves), a mini forest in one part, with snow here and there. Here is the end of the trail above. It was super fun and we were so glad we had enough time to do it fully, and still make our hotel checkout time. ![hunter & tracey drinking coffee, canyon view](../img/southwest02.jpg) Our second morning, end of ride. Coffee and the amazing Sedona views. ![hunter & tracey in front of red rock buttes](../img/southwest03.jpg) We just finished lunch, about to leave Sedona. # Grand Canyon ![tracey & hunter in front of grand canyon](../img/southwest04.jpg) Le Canyon Grande! I haven't been here in over 35 years! ![hunter & tracey in front of grand canyon](../img/southwest05.jpg) I started feeling a little "off" in the morning... so I've been masking indoors. I'll find out later tonight in Las Vegas that I have the Covid virus -- the first time that I know of since it started in 2020 :( # Death Valley ![hunter by jeep in desert canyon](../img/southwest06.jpg) We left Las Vegas for Death Valley - a place I've wanted to visit for about five years now. We started out with "Twenty Mules Team Canyon" off-road to enjoy the Jeep. ![tracey & hunter in death valley](../img/southwest07.jpg) Here we are at Zabriskie Point. It reminds me of Star Wars' Mos Eisley. ![tracey & hunter in rocky golden canyon](../img/southwest08.jpg) Next is Golden Canyon -- here they filmed R2D2 getting captured by Jawas in the 1977 Star Wars! ![tracey by golden canyon uphill drop-in](../img/southwest09.jpg) Golden Canyon. **Utinni!** ![death valley rocky canyon](../img/southwest10.jpg) "Artist's Palette" off of "Artist's Drive". Here they filmed a wider landscape shot of R2D2 rolling through the desert (inadvertently) towards the Jawas. ![tracey in front of curved canyon path](../img/southwest11.jpg) More "Artist's Palette". ![sand dunes in front of larger mountain range](../img/southwest13.jpg) Death Valley's Mesquite Flats dunes. Here they filmed C3PO and R2D2 getting lost in the Tatooine desert. ![yellow flowers covering canyon floor](../img/southwest14.jpg) Parts of our drive showed the California "super bloom" -- a flowers explosion due to the super wet winter in 2023. Covid was disappointing but not terrible -- the main effect was having less fun for our single night in Las Vegas. Otherwise, we were able to make all the parks and sights we were hoping for -- and had a great time everywhere. It was a lot of driving, but also a good time to visit the Southwest before things get super hot. Sedona really is dreamy. I'm so glad I got to see this little southwest magical town!

Photos of the Year

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Here are my favorite photos from 2023. [](/2023-06-first-week-of-phoenix-bike/) Mt. Tamalpais favorite bike route [](/2023-06-first-week-of-phoenix-bike/) my brand new bike [](/2023-11-first-big-break/) my and my bestie on our typical weekend lunch hike [](/2023-11-first-big-break/) some humor with my broken arm [](/2023-11-first-big-break/) great sunset hike [](/2023-11-first-big-break/) back biking after breaking my arm, on my birthday weekend [](/2023-11-first-big-break/) my favorite coastal little dip through the trees [](/2023-05-grinduro-mt-shasta-61-haaard-miles/) Hunter and I heading to the pre-ride, for the race in the morning, Mt. Shasta [](/2023-05-grinduro-mt-shasta-61-haaard-miles/) just did most amazing single track trail at Mt. Shasta! [](/2023-05-grinduro-mt-shasta-61-haaard-miles/) Our amazing EBGB squad, night before the Mt. Shasta race [](/2023/12/bought-a-jeep/) First week of new JEEP on California beach [](/2023-06-lost-and-found-race-won-womens-100-mile-50-years-and-up/) Finishing 100 mile race - longest race of my life [](/2023-06-lost-and-found-race-won-womens-100-mile-50-years-and-up/) I won my 100 mile bike race Tahoe for women aged 50 and up! [](/2023-06-lost-and-found-race-won-womens-100-mile-50-years-and-up/) Enjoying an amazing dirt trail in Tahoe with a rented Bronco [](/2023-02-gravel-bike-mt-tam.-muir-beach-highway-1-ocean/) First time on my favorite Bay Area bike route [](/2023-02-gravel-race-rock-cobbler-in-bakersfield-ca/) Rock Cobbler race in Bakersfield was jaw-droppingly pretty [](/2023-02-gravel-race-rock-cobbler-in-bakersfield-ca/) Finishing Rock Cobbler with my EBGB race mates - ecstatic!

Bought a JEEP!

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

When I was 17, I desperately wanted a lightly-used JEEP. Probably thankfully, my dad refused (and I wrecked a car from a dirt road slide after that). Well! After years of watching, waiting, and even renting to try out -- We finally bought a JEEP! Last year? JEEP Wranglers were selling for $3000-$5000 over MSRP sticker price. Enter 2023. A brand new 2024 announcement with new features like a *much bigger* 12" screen and Apple _Wireless_ CarPlay (for the first time). Plus: new side airbags and optional power seats. Over the last 4 years, we'd rented modern Wranglers in Hawaii and Cape Cod for a week each. Last year, we rented the new Ford Bronco, JEEP's new surprise competition, for a 3-day weekend gravel bike race. We even rented the Wrangler's cousin. the "Gladiator" pickup truck, for a 5 person + 5 bikes day adventure on Mt. Tamalpais. The Wireless CarPlay + huge screen was what we were waiting for. We had planned on a white Wrangler Sahara, but last minute the new "High Altitude" Wrangler had all the options we wanted, plus some interesting wheels & tires. A surprise "Earl" blue/gray color was tempting -- but in person it didn't quite look as compelling. However, the wheels & tires end up being more beefy and looked better in person. Hunter had found a dealer with _two_ of the exact same white High Altitudes in stock. So on a rainy Sunday right before Christmas, we ventured out... ![buying JEEP Wrangler from Bay Area dealer](../img/jeep1.jpg) Turns out, with auto loan interest in _terrible_ shape of 6-24% in 2023, showing up on a slow, rainy Sunday while the SF 49ers were playing, to a dealer with 2 identical cars on the lot (and turns out only 1 other car sold that day)... is a great way to buy a car! ![buying JEEP Wrangler from Bay Area dealer](../img/jeep2.jpg) We pitched "invoice" price (way below MSRP/sticker) that we had found for the exact dealer zip code, which is the cost to get it on the lot from the manufacturer... (The nice dealer returns from talking to the manager...) "OK, you gave us a fair offer, and honestly it's a slow day with football on. I'm not going to do the the back-and-forth thing. We have a deal". WOW! 🤸‍♀️ We wrapped it up and got home at dusk. Excitedly, this is our first electric vehicle -- a plug-in hybrid with limited range of only ~25miles pure electric. However, that's great for most errands. ![buying JEEP Wrangler from Bay Area dealer](../img/jeep3.jpg) So on Friday we drove south to visit family for Christmas, so here we are visiting Hunter's older brother, parking for a dog walk at the infamous "Pebble Beach" golf course. You can see one of the two door NASA stickers (!) we put on to make it our "moon buggy". 😻 ![buying JEEP Wrangler from Bay Area dealer](../img/jeep4.jpg) Here we are driving though the Salinas area (Monterey County) "salad bowl" capital of the world, where Hunter's brother works. ![buying JEEP Wrangler from Bay Area dealer](../img/jeep5.jpg) Enjoying the convertible top down in Orange County, CA. ![tracey & hunter at Pismo Beach](../img/jeep6.jpg) On the way home from Christmas, we rode onto California's premier (only?) off-road beach, for only $5! ![tracey sitting on new jeep at the beach](../img/jeep7.jpg) Enjoying the sunset at Pismo Beach. JEEP LIFE! ![jeep on the beach](../img/jeep8.jpg) The jeep just looks so good in the sand. We truly loved our first 10 days, 10,000 miles and California highway 101! (Also tracey speaks binary). I'll post some more pictures once we get our surprise vanity license plate!

First Big Break

Sun, 26 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT

🤬 While racing a bike Strava segment, during our weekly group ride with our friends, I broke my elbow in two! Due to the kind of break, it required surgery & cyborg 🦾 upgrades. Surprisingly, I had very little pain throughout as long as I didn't move it to a painful position. ![tracey & hunter in matching floral bike kits](../img/first-big-break-01.jpg) Here we are in our weekly "Thirsty Thursday" group ride with our friends and 'mates from [EBGB](/tags/ebgb/). Last day of August, a beautiful night. I'm now about 10 days home from 2 months on the east coast. ## The Bad ![tracey with very swollen elbow](../img/first-big-break-02.jpg) ... and here I am after my bad crash. I was racing the mostly off-road segment behind Miramonte High School, going for a Strava "Queen of the Mountain" (fastest recorded woman ever to ride this mile). There is a gate at the end of a fireroad (see below), with openings to the left & right side of the gate and road. The left opening is wider -- but it was a bit congested with our riders and cars in the asphalt road on the other side of the gate. So I took the much rarer, narrower right opening. I had _forgotten_ there was a small ground angle change right by the gate. So I pivoted at the last second, got bike into good position, and... **BANG!!** I _just_ clipped the vertical pole with my left side handlebar -- at high speed. My body (and thus weight) was now slightly over the right side of the bike, due to the last minute shift. In a millisecond, the left handlebar was instantly spun left to the max -- which meant I went *hurtling* under the right handlebar which was much more up in the air. All of my momentum was stopped nearly entirely by my right elbow smashing directly into the pavement. My elbow didn't stand a chance.... ![x-ray with broken elbow olecranon](../img/first-big-break-03.jpg)

XRay shows lower left (ulna) bone has broken in two -- a new corner piece has floated away to the left

Still, I wasn't _sure_ it was broken. My pain sensors weren't at a 10 -- instead it was like the arm sensors were 100% saturated and all I could feel was "white noise". But my elbow wasn't moving, and it had swelled up to double size in minutes. Drew gave me two advil. Amanda called rider Jana, a neighborhood nurse who bikes with us but not tonight to get her to drop by the end meetup and advise. Trevor fixed my seat, and helped Hunter bike the final two miles and get our car to pick me up. Amanda & Drew kept me company while my head and body was still reeling. 1-2 hours from the crash, the pain wasn't bad at all. On the fence to go to ER or Urgent Care, we decided to hit the Canyon Club Brewery (beer garden) that our group meets after rides to start with. Jana soon arrived and advised I visit an Urgent Care bone specialist center (!) she knew first thing in the morning. By keeping my arm pretty immobile, there was minimal pain, like 0 to 1 out of 10. (I will end up taking only 2 days worth of minimal pain meds post-surgery; with one precautionary pain pill the night of the crash). So I was pretty shocked that morning to see the XRay where the reviewer told me I'd need surgery. The lower left end of the elbow -- the "olecranon" -- had split off completely. It attaches the tricep (back of upper arm) muscle. So not only was it a huge gap between the two bone pieces (that a cast wouldn't fix), the tricep would just keep pulling that little bone break away from the lower arm (!) ![tracey with sling standing by gate she smashed into](../img/first-big-break-04.jpg) Quitting biking ~2h/day cold turkey -- had to come up with a plan. So I got to hiking 1-3h each day. The next Thirsty Thursday I hiked 6.5 miles (half-offroad) with my half-cast & sling. Perhaps a little questionable judgment (esp. with a gate that had to be scaled along the way) -- but I needed to keep active. Here I am at the right-side gate -- I had _just_ touched that yellow vertical pole and flew full force into the pavement... ![tracey & hunter with Thirsty Thursday riders](../img/first-big-break-05.jpg) Hiking to see my super supportive riding mates every Thursday really helped my spirits! You can see how swollen my right fingers are. ![tracey & kim at a restaurant patio](../img/first-big-break-06.jpg) And so, I was going to hike hike hike. Here I am with weekend long hike partner Kim -- my bestie for over 30 years! ![tracey looking over SF Bay](../img/first-big-break-07.jpg) Hiking the north bay. ![happy tracey released from surgery](../img/first-big-break-08.jpg) Sept 12 surgery, ~2 weeks from crash. Woohoo! I am _super happy_ because: everything went smoothly, I didn't have to go fully out, and after I was opened up, indeed the break was pretty "simple" so I was able get the most minimal hardware. It was fascinating being awake for the surgery. They gave me _Versed_ -- a strong sedative. But the _Fentanyl_ didn't really make me sleep or get close to it (in and out). So, I heard and remembered everything, including the drilling of the self-tapping screws (6 of them), the operating room chatter (there were at least 6 people present, including a medical student observer, for the entire hour operation). I couldn't see anything (a curtain in the way) -- and I had a hardcore nerve block in my shoulder so I couldn't feel anything in my right arm. ![x-ray with 2 plates & 6 screws](../img/first-big-break-09.jpg) Here's my new "Wonder Woman" bulletproof elbow. Two small thin plates, "X" connected, with four short screws into the main Ulna bone -- and two long screws through the "olecranon" elbow end of the Ulna and deep into the Ulna. A brief note on the arm nerve block, administered for the surgery. My arm was fully paralyzed for about 36 hours. No pain -- but couldn't even move my fingers or anything _in the slightest_. You also tend to have a "shadow / recording" feeling from pre-surgery -- so it felt like my thumb and pointer finger were touching like an "OK" sign -- though they weren't. It swung around like a dead weight and was _THE CREEPIEST_ thing I think I've ever experienced in life. It would swing around if I leaned forward, and hot fingers would brush my left side or arm. But unlike anything _touching_ you, there was no interaction, no deformations, not the slightest amount of interaction. It was like a dead body touching you. And it's _your_ dead body. I joked "put a pen in my hand" as a reference to the honorable [Bob Dole's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dole#World_War_II_and_recovery) presidential candidacy from back in the 1990s. I was _so glad_ get arm feeling back, even though it was a bit painful for (just) 24 hours. ## The Ugly 🦾 ![elbow with surgery scars](../img/first-big-break-10.jpg) Two weeks after surgery, the half-cast came off and we see the scarring for the first time. The eight stitches were just manually removed via staff with tweezers (eww). I had a rough 2 weeks here. I broke my right arm -- and I'm right-handed dominant. 🥺 I was only 2 weeks in a half cast (formed to arm underside, ACE bandaged in place) pre-surgery and another 2 weeks post-surgery. I was using my swollen black-and-blue fingers to type at least. Once everything came off, I had fair wrist rotation and finger movement -- though I had swelling and black-and-blues up-and-down the lower half of my lower arm. But the elbow joint itself? Could barely move it to my shock! If full range is nearly 165 degrees, I was at about 15 degrees! It was a fight every day to increase that. Showering one-handed was my personal low -- depressing to try to wash loooong hair with one hand, clumsily one-hand brush/comb -- hair coming out all over. When casted, trying to tape a bag around it to keep it dry was sad. So I took off the cast carefully 2 of ~6 showers and didn't move my arm. That was better at least. I fell back to showering every 4-5 days. I couldn't floss my teeth for weeks, couldn't even touch my face, get food to my mouth. Seeing early on receipt signatures I tried to do with my right hand -- it's sad to see how badly this person was struggling. But on the other hand -- post-surgery, every day gets better! ![tracey with faked hawk on arm with half-cast](../img/first-big-break-11.jpg) To minimize swelling, I'd point my arm straight out much of the time (to keep arm over my heart). A visiting friend kept thinking I was pointing out of the corner of her eye. So I was joking how it'd be hilarious if a kestrel landed on my arm like they do in falconry. 🤣 I mocked this up to make me giggle. I was... _surprised_ how many people thought this might be real! 🥹 ![tracey scar healing with tattoo preview](../img/first-big-break-12.jpg) Given the kinda cool wavey-ness of my scar (I had _assumed_ it'd be a 5" linear scar), we thought it looked like a bike trail. So I'm likely to tattoo a small sepia/brown bike at the end of it. This is a rough mock-up. ![tracey on fire road by gate with sunset](../img/first-big-break-13.jpg) Getting stronger for my fall hikes. ![tracey climbing over KEEP OUT gate](../img/first-big-break-14.jpg) This whole KEEP OUT gate is silly. I had to scrabble over this every Thursday. ![tracey at physical therapy, elbow in ice machine](../img/first-big-break-15.jpg) I'm doing physical therapy ~2x/week now for a few months. I mostly see this amazing PT named Garrett who is _also_ a biker, knows a bunch of our riders, and _also_ has crashed 2+ times with surgery fixes. He definitely wants to get me back on my bike! Here I am after the intensive PT getting my elbow cooled with ice water in/out of tubes into the elbow jacket. ## The Good ![tracey on stationery bike doing a ZWIFT workout](../img/first-big-break-16.jpg) It's 5 weeks since the crash. I nervously start doing my first of about seven 30-45 minute stationery ZWIFT rides using Hunter's setup, my old bike, and ZWIFT setup on my phone. My arm still isn't very strong and it tires easily. ![tracey starting first bike ride since crash](../img/first-big-break-17.jpg) It's my Birthday! I had _hoped_ to finally get back out on the bike this day! I am very nervous and not sure how my balance & strength will be. What if my arm collapses! What if my body is all out of whack and I crash! ![tracey & hunter riding to typical morning cafe](../img/first-big-break-18.jpg) It's working! I made it down our long serpentine hill and now a few minutes climb to our favorite morning cafe. I'm over the moon! A ll I wanted for my birthday was to ride again with my baby. And we luck out and have *awesome* weather for a November morning, too! ![tracey & hunter biking through redwoods](../img/first-big-break-19.jpg) YAY! I'm feeling so good we decide to add Bayview/Sequoia in favorite Joaquin Miller Park on the way home, slowly! ![tracey & hunter biking a fire road](../img/first-big-break-20.jpg) Here we are wrapping up the ride with "West Ridge" trail in Redwood Park. What an amazing return, only ~2 months since my crash! I'm wearing elbow protectors now, every ride. ![tracey & hunter biking up Mt. Tam](../img/first-big-break-21.jpg) The very next day, I decide to go for it and try the shorter variant of my favorite bay area ride. We bike from Mill Valley downtown, up Old Railroad Grade to ~2/3 up Mt. Tamalpais. Then down to Coastal Trail, to the Pacific Ocean. We then climb back up the coastal ridge via Green Gulch trail. and then return to downtown via Tennessee Beach. We always end at Pizza Junction beer garden for great pizza and a hazy IPA. 😋 ![tracey in the downhill tree singletrack](../img/first-big-break-22.jpg) This is my favorite little singletrack that pops in/out of the woods with some tricky roots & rocks. ![tracey & hunter on bike path](../img/first-big-break-23.jpg) Yay! I did it! My arm is a bit tired, but this is _not_ an easy course. So I'm just utterly thrilled I was able to do 25 miles, 3000 feet of climbing, mostly offroad, in 3-1/2 hours. ![tracey hiking](../img/first-big-break-24.jpg) Most of my arm abilities are back now. I am _thankful_ this Thanksgiving long weekend for my friends, families, riders. and medical teams who supported me, fixed me, and got me back to normal in two months! The _only_ issue right now is the _straightening_ of my arm. I am only able to get it down to maybe 80% of normal. I'm working hard at it -- have really ramped up in the last few days. I've got "power bands" (rubber bands of differening resistances) and really trying to get flatter! ## Postscript I _did_ end up winning that "Queen of the Mountain" (QOM) for the segment I was racing the night of my crash. I found out at near midnight. As my riding mates asked "was it worth it?" -> "HELL NO!" And I will be taking things more easily and safely. But sure the QOM was a nice consolation prize. I'll lose that soon enough from my own EBGB super-talented & strong riders. But I _[did win a race](/2023-06-lost-found-race-won-womens-100-mile-50-years-and-up/)_ -- a super hard & long gravel ride in Tahoe/Sierras this year. So going forward, as I get and keep being able to "hold" less QOMs, I'll always have this important-to-me race win. So that's OK! ## RIDE ON! 🚴🏻‍♀️ 🚵🏼‍♀️

First week of “Phoenix” bike

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Brand new bike! After trying Hunter's [Trek SuperCaliber 9.8 XT](https://www.trekbikes.com/ca/en_CA/bikes/mountain-bikes/cross-country-mountain-bikes/supercaliber/supercaliber-9-8-xt/p/35146) ultra-light XC ("cross country") racer bike for a week -- I was hooked. Once I saw this color scheme, and the 20% off sale for this 2022 bike -- I secretely ordered it. It's an absolutely amazing bike. It _wants_ you to push hard, to tear into a climb or bounce down a descent. She's named "Phoenix" after the X-Men superheroine, being a "supercaliber" bike from Trek in the sunburst/fireball colors of the Phoenix :) The (Shimano XT) brakes are *bananas* great. The stock gears are *perfection*. The (mechanical -- my preference still) shifting is supersmooth and the best I've ever had on a bike. I'm in love! At a hard-to-believe 24 pounds -- it's only 4 pounds more than my gravel bike. It's got 100mm of front fork travel, and 60mm in the rear (using this unique "inline" shock under the top tube). ![mountain bike in front of hedges](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-02.jpg) Quick parking lot shakedown ride before taking her home. ![bike being tuned](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-04.jpg) Matt Sharp of Lafayette "Sharp's Bikes" doing final adjustments for giddy new owner. ![tracey on new mountain bike in field](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-01.jpg) First offroad trail - absolutely loving it already! ![tracey and bike at Chabot Space & Science](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-00.jpg) At Chabot Space & Science Center ![mountain bike in front of Chabot Space & Science](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-03.jpg) Ultra-light mountain bike thanks NASA for light & strong technology :) ![mountain bike in redwoods](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-05.jpg) She loves to rip through trails in the Redwoods. ![mountain bike and flowers](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-11.jpg) Supercaliber meets the super bloom. ![mountain bike view from seat](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-07.jpg) Cockpit view ![tracey in group bike ride](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-13.jpg) My first group ride ("Thirsty Thursday" with EBGB). I didn't tell anyone I bought this until I showed up :D ![tracey on mountain bike with bay views](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-15.jpg) My first weekend with Phoenix -- naturally wanted to go to my favorite Bay Area loop. It starts by climbing Mt. Tamalpais, then super fun and weirdly technical "Coastal Trail" down to Muir Beach. Then up Diaz Ridge and Miwok Trail over to the main ridge, and back down to Muir Beach. Final climb up Middle Green Gulch. Fun long descent to Tennessee Beach, and end the trip with "The Junction" beer garden. ![tracey & hunter with bike overlooking ocean](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-20.jpg) We're living our best lives with our matching SuperCaliber bikes & matching floral kits! 😻 ![tracey with bike with ocean behind](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-19.jpg) Near the top of Mt. Tam -- West Point Inn. ![tracey with bike with ocean behind](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-16.jpg) Overlooking the Pacific Ocean ![tracey with bike in front of muir beach](../img/first-week-of-phoenix-bike-18.jpg) Heading down steep trails to Muir Beach -- it did *absolutely amazing* work of the gravel bike anxiety trails!

Lost & Found Race. Won women’s 100 mile, 50 years & up!! 😻😮🤸‍♀️

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Lost & Found 100 mile gravel race - I won my age group, women's 50 years (and up)! This is the longest gravel bike that I've ever done! Perfect conditions & feeling in good shape had me upgrade from 60mi to 100mi the night before! I was super efficient at stops and just kept going. I thought I might not make time cutoffs, but wound up winning with the 3 women 50 and over who made the entire 100 miles. Drew from our crew won the *entire* 35 mile race!! The EBGB Crew (East Bay Gravel Bikers) for the race, Drew, Trevor, Michael, Jana, Hunter, Tracey. We camped for 2 nights and ate dinner at nearby Frank Lloyd Wright building together. Sunet hitting the peak after dinner. From the campground - Off to the races! For fun we rented a Ford Bronco for the weekend. I'm the only in the squad doing the 100 mile option, so I'm leaving an hour early. Giddy at the start! 😻 Last year, here, was my first bike race ever -- but this year I'm doing the 100 mile monster. Gravel & dirt country roads for days. Elevation (~6000' average) is always a bit challenging for me, and I didn't sleep much the night before. But I got two good nights sleep before that so I'm ready to go get 'em. Farms, barns, and even abandoned buildings watch us cruise by. OK, I've just left the *critical* rest stop with a time cutoff that was going to be close. I left it 20 minutes before cutoff. I've now done the math of the climbs and miles ahead. I should easily make the final rest stop & cutoff -- and should finish the entire race. I'm *delighted*! An utterly delightful 45 minutes of deep back-road double-lane roads winding up and down through hills & trees. 5th of 6th rest stop. Due to many issues(*), this is the first real food I've had all race, 77 miles in. I've started to cry and have told multiple volunteers I love them. I do 2-3 shooters of peanut butter pretzels, full coke, pickle, and just-off-the-griddle bacon. (* Shimano truck got stuck for 1 rest stop. The rest got mostly "looted" by the large number of riders in the 3 different races by time I got there. Very glad I packed a lot of food with me in my pockets). Final descent back to tarmac -- and then a 9-mile dash back to the finish. I'll have done 70 of 100 miles on dirt & gravel! At the finish! Longest off-road bike ride of my life! I'm blown away to find out I finish first in my age group, age 50 and up! Woohoo! 9-1/2 hours, start to finish - 8-1/2 hours moving. Minimal quick stops at every rest stop esp. for fluids. 4 chain derailments & 1 fast bike mechanic clean & re-lube. OMG! Your girl's on the podium! 🎉 I can't remember ever winning anything! 😻 2nd place rider Carin joins me seconds later from the crowd. "Ladies & Gentlemen, Your 100 mile ladies 51 to 60 (and older) champion, TRACEY!" 2nd place Carin ran up from the crowd for our podium together! With the event director getting medal & winner's jersey! ❤️ Our EBGB Drew was the fastest person *of the entire* 35 mile riders!! 🎉 Jana got 2nd in her age group for the 35 milers! Drew got 1st overall! 🎉 Winner's medal, jersey and very cool coffee mug. Race plate and my typical handlebar rolled & taped "cheat sheet" showing me the climbs and rest stops. (I tend to not ride or race with a computer (!) and just use my watch and rely on race turn signage or following herds ;-) Heading home -- but not before a little *drop dead gorgeous* dirt road exploring with the topless Brazonco. California Sierras at the peak of record-breaking rains causing superblooms. 🌻

Grinduro! Mt Shasta 61 haaard miles!

Sat, 20 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT

2023 Grinduro! at Mt. Shasta - 61 miles race where they interestingly only time four segments (~20% of the race) of various representative skill/terrain combinations. I had rough rear derailleur issues after lunch and wasn’t sure was gonna finish! 60-100F heat with elevation and sun. Oof! There were 10 of us, amazingly, from our regular weekly riding group, East Bay Gravel Bikers (EBGB), plus 2 others who have ridden with us before. That's the largest squad we've ever had at a bike race before! All 12 of us made it through, yay!! 🙌👑 The four timed segments: | type | distance | feet up | feet down | | -------------------------------------------------- | -------: | ------: | --------: | | Gravel Descent (fire roads) | 4.2mi | 125 | 1100 | | Road Time Trial | 2.7mi | 250 | | | Gravel Climb (fire roads) | 2.7mi | 590 | 10 | | Singletrack Rolling (single trail through forests) | 2.5mi | 230 | 470 | [Maps and more on strava](https://www.strava.com/activities/9110145866) (My watch died last for the last 10 miles). [Great 14min video capturing Grinduro! perfectly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgz70lDdKUo) :) A special treat was a "prologue" preview (see bottom of post) the day/evening before that was to be 2000+ feet of climbing over 17 miles. Myself & another rider figured out how to "hack" it down to ~1000 feet and ~9.5 miles. That still got us to do the *Jaw Dropping* and amazing mostly downhill single-track (think marble railroad through the forest!). It was a little scary for the first 45 seconds, then smoothed out. Hunter and I started shouting to each other how amazing it was. I started singing.. It was the best trail we've ever been on! "Gateway" trail, leading to "Pig Farm" trail, and finishing with a more mixed terrain "Foundation Trail". Mt. Shasta snowy top is a scene stealer in every picture! We're queued up, ready to go, sunny and ~60F starting temps. Nice! A minute before race start. Giddy as always! Fun, fast side roads on way to first offroad climb and then timed downhill fire roads. Met up with Hunter, Drew, Mike (back to camera) and more at the first rest stop. Snow in middle of May on a hot day! Total surprise lake trail on return towards start and lunch spot! It feels like the Swiss Alps (and yes, I've been)! Great little bridge. Sign says "NO JUMPING OFF BRIDGE". _Of course_ that's all I and everyone else can think about now... 😼 Just _look_ at that singletrack. Lunch time! Hunter was about 5-10 mins there before me. Got to touch base with Mike, Drew, David and more of the EBGB squad :) We've got the same bike! Never seen another of my bike in the Wild before! Shifting's going bad now. First stop -- cleaned chain and added dry lube to try to improve things. There was this fun carved stump right where I stopped under tree shade. Shifting is going very badly now. I can't into my biggest climbing gear at all. And I've got more of this long dirt climb ahead, ending with 1-2 miles of 10% average grade (which I thought was dirt, so I'm panicking now -- but turned out to be road). This crazy guy (also *super nice*), Walter, helped me save my rear derailleur! I figured out one of the adjuster bolts, but was confounded by the other. He sorted that out and explained it to me -- and a couple days later, while riding, it occurred to me how/why that 2nd adjuster knob works and what it does! progress! And... yah... he biked *the entire thing* including the marble railroad single track through the woods, on that bike! I'm very tired at this point -- everyone is. It's been a bit too hot, at elevation, with hard terrain and 6000'+ feet of climbing. I was cursing the final climb about 15 minutes before this. And yet... **my gosh** just _look_ at this single track and view! Almost done! Relax time. Check out my jersey's sweated salt and dirt 😝 Michael has the right idea. Enjoying post-ride relaxing & beer at Drew's campsite. Course overview, my race number plate, my sharpie-d "cheat sheet" I always tape around my handlebars and rotate as I go. Red is bad or the timed segments; green are rest stops. Suuuper helpful to visualize what's coming and where to conserve and burn energy. ## Results How'd I do? Hunter meeting me rolling in at the finish line! * 4 segment times: 65min 54sec (39sec (!) behind hunter. I beat him downhill; he beat me uphill) * 8hr, 29min elapsed time start-to-finish (40min behind hunter) * total moving time: 6hr, 30min (Hunter moving time was 6h 2m) * from my stats, I spent ~5m longer post-lunch prep; ~5m derailleur clean/lube; ~14m derailleur fixing -- so that could be ~5m longer than hunter! 🎉 Results: * 2nd of 7 in women's 51-60 age group * 46th of 87 women (top 55%) * 284th of 464 total riders (406 + 58 DNF) (top 61%) * in our group of _fast_ EBGB 10 riders, I finished 5th on the "gravel climb" segment (hunter finished 3rd) photo by Jay Melena Studio --- ## The Epilogue Prologue Since we were racing the **most amazing** trail ever -- the singletrack "marble railroad" through the woods, and it was one of the last parts of the long ride, it was harder to enjoy and almost noone was able to get pictures. **However!** the event offered a "Prologue" the day/night before, at your own start time & pace. David & I "hacked" the 16mile/2000' climb down to a shortcut 10mile/1000' climb. Hunter & I did it together, near the end of the day, and **OMG** it was the best trail we've ever been on. Climbing to adventure. Riding on rails through the forest at the magic lighting time ~630pm. We're blissed out of our minds. I'll never forget this magical ride. So glad 3 of us got to do it! ## The Squad Here's all 10 of our EBGB urban dance squad from the Bay Area! We're at the downtown Pipeline Brewery -- having fun & giddy for the race tomorrow morning. Thanks Drew for being the ringleader to get us up to the only-second-ever Grinduro! at Mt. Shasta. Love this crew! 🥰

Gravel bike Mt Tam. Muir Beach, Highway 1 & Ocean

Sat, 25 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Utterly fantastic gravelbike climb up Mt. Tam, to Muir Beach, during rare snowy week in Bay Area. Thirsty Thursday group of five of us -- part of East Bay Gravel Bikers. The snow was in the cooler areas up Mt. Tam (didn't get on video, but picture stills). {{< youtube 5jdoXEbjKMI >}} ### 3 minute video, fast cuts -- *GREAT* way to experience the beauty of my new favorite local route! SNOW! West Point Inn - top of biggest climb - with stunning views of the Pacific Ocean sprawling in front of San Francisco All new territory for us for the entire 2nd half of the day, thanks to Mike (dabbing in pic ;-) A fun descent through eucalyptus trees.

Gravel bike Mt Tam. Muir Beach, Highway 1 & Ocean

Sat, 25 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Gravel Race - Rock Cobbler in Bakersfield, CA

Sat, 11 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Hunter and I bike the crazy 80 mile [Rock Cobbler](https://rockcobbler.com/) race in Bakersfield, CA, with 4 of our friends. Slippery mud, impossible climbs requiring hike-a-bike, cows, and over **8,000** feet of climbing insanity with 1,000 riders. This is the **longest** and hardest dirty ride of my life! I was hoping to finish by 6/7pm -- rolled in just after 5pm, averaging 8.9mph factoring in all stops. Thrilled! This is my 3rd bike race. Hunter did the 53 mile variant -- I decided to change to the 80 mile monster, last minute, while registering (stupid? strong? stubborn?) 😜 [Vegan Cyclist's great video review of last year's Rock Cobbler](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcOkL1O-MkI) -- first 45 seconds is a perfect overview :) [My Race on Strava](https://www.strava.com/activities/8546316583) More stats: - avg heartrate: 132.7 bpm - moving avg speed: 10.3 mph - elevations: [375..1900] feet Great breakfast burrito and coffee pre fuel The ponies in the stable, itchin' to go We're going to race different lengths, leaving in separate waves, 20 minutes apart. Giddy!! I’m wave 2 of 4, hoping for the ride of my life. ✅ My printed cheat sheet. All 11 climbs (miles, percent grade avg and max), rest stops. Soooo critically good. And it rotated real nice. 3 days of 20 mile rides. 3 nights of good sleep. Feeling great & in the best shape of my life, thankfully! First hike-a-bike too steep a hill. This Enchanting Ride. Private farm lands replete with horses & cowboys. Ireland. Or Scotland. Wow. A super muddy cattle trail up, got too steep again, 0 traction, everyone hiking. This backside is a slippery mud & grass mess, but about to get back at it. That View... ❤️ ❤️ I just crashed, for the first of 2 times. Slippery tricky steep downhill. Was too hard to jump over a deep rut, so I tumbled over at ~1mph. Thankfully OK, just twisted leg slightly. Incredible jeep ridgeline trails Rest stop two OMG beautiful 🥰 Hike a bike *INSANITY*. Like…. 50% grade uphill ?! OMG. The heights and views of these private jeep trails… I'm deep into the extra 27 miles "upgrade" from the shorter ride. I nicknamed this abandoned beauty “Stinky”. As in: “oh you know Stinky and me are gonna have a little talk, see” Candy likes Stinky, too. Mazes of jeep ridge trails, that go on and on forever. Blissfully lost in the clouds. Holy shit. I have fever dreams for this kind of canyon single track! Final rest stop #4. Getting jacked on sugar crack with GU caffeine too! I could practically cry right now. Second surprise long canyon single track heaven. All for me. I’m a good goooood girl. I mean… I made the longest ride of my life! 9 hours and the 44th woman overall. We did it! These four waited hours for me to join them & got me a beer. Six of us from our weekly "Thirsty Thursday" group ride (and part of East Bay Gravel Bikers), all finished and had an absolutely amazing time! First time for five of us. We all plan to do it again. Drew, center, finished **15th** in the 53 mile Pebble Cobbler. This race brought the top riders in the world to it. Drew crashed hard early, but managed to still finish that fast. I'm speechless 😲 🙇‍♀️ My Bros!! 🥰😻🚴🏼‍♀️🚴🏼 My results. 44th of 55 women who did the full 80 mile Rock Cobbler (where 9 did not finish). FKYA

Dirty Choo Choo 🚂⛰️. It’s an annual thing!

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Hunter and I gravel bike up Mt. Tamalpais "Old Railroad Grade", and head down the challenging "Rock Springs" fire road, circling 3 lakes! (Bon Tempe, Lagunitas & Phoenix) Starting out off-road on Old Railroad Grade up Mt Tam Redwoods & Bikes! Redwood stream pitstop West Point Inn, nearing top of Mt. Tam West Point Inn views of bay and ocean Bon Tempe Lake, backside of Mt. Tam climb We just made it down the most technical descents, yay. Lake Lagunitas. Lake 2 of 3 Lake Lagunitas spirit Prost!

Life this Year

Sun, 23 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Life this year has been *particularly* great. Here's basically what I've been up to on a daily basis. 😎 This is pretty much daily time estimates, turned into a tag cloud.

coding sleep videos biking beer meetings cooking shower hiking beer garden chores cafe errands bike planning macrumors.com groceries socials

Biking Rocks and Being Silly

Sat, 02 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT

I overcome my trepidation of biking across a 12 foot huge rock drainage barrier between me and my morning coffee. I get to clown on camera. Give it a watch -- it's only 40 seconds! 🤗 {{< youtube l9HhzDdWOdY >}} Shot and edited entirely on my phone. Fun! Happy Fourth of July everyone!! ## 🎆 💥🇺🇸💥 🎇

Gravel Bike Upgrades

Mon, 13 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Well, we upgraded my gravel bike "Candy" to be a _MUCH_ better climbing bike (really we turned it from a "cyclocross" bike to a super-light gravel bike). After upgrading the tires, we upgraded the rear cassette (and derailleur) and front chainring. Stock: Hunter figured out Shimano GRX, with a [longer GRX derailleur](https://bike.shimano.com/en-US/product/component/grx-11-speed/RD-RX812.html), could take a _much bigger_ rear cassette, all the way from 34 tooth biggest gear to 46T: We also made the front chainring smaller, from 40T stock to 36T: Candy now has the same ["gain ratio"](/gears) in its easiest setup: - [46T (rear) + 36T front](/gears/?36/11-13-15-17-19-21-24-28-32-37-46) -- which climbs the same as: - [51T (rear) + 40T front](/gears/?40/11-13-15-18-21-24-28-33-39-45-51) :) And, *wow* [she can climb](../gravel-race-lost-and-found-sierra-tahoe/) now. | | | | :------ | :------------------------ | | upgrades| 11-46T (rear) x 36T front | | stock | 11-34T (rear) x 40T front | | Cost | Part | | ---: | :--- | | $142 | [Pirelli Cinturato Gravel M Bike Tire](https://www.amazon.com/Pirelli-Cinturato-Gravel-Tire-Tubeless/dp/B083QNPCC6) (700x40c) (2x) | | $121 | [Cassette Shimano M8000 XT 11 speed 11-46T](https://www.merlincycles.com/en-us/shimano-m8000-xt-11-speed-cassette-85183.html) | | $112 | [Shimano rear derailuer RD-RX812 GRX](https://www.merlincycles.com/en-us/shimano-grx-812-rear-derailleur-11-speed-170290.html) | | $85 | [Wolf Tooth 36T chainring](https://www.wolftoothcomponents.com/collections/gravel-cyclocross-road/products/110-bcd-asymmetric-4-bolt-for-shimano-grx-cranks?variant=39286629367843) | | $34 | [tubeless valves](https://www.amazon.com/milKit-Tubeless-Presta-Valve-Black/dp/B081H9XR85) | | $50 | [LEZYNE Pocket Drive Pro Mini pump](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0876GVF6R) | | $544 | TOTAL | ## Weight Weenie | Weight | Timeline | | -----: | :------- | | 18.7 lbs | rolled off floor (but no: pedals, bottle cages) (and as typical, no: bike bag, pump) | | 19.9 lbs | .. plus pedals, bottle cages & [upgraded 28c tubed to 40c tubeless tires](../../05/new-shoes-day-tracey-loves-candy/) | | 20.3 lbs | .. and new longer derailleur + bigger rear cassette | | 20.1 lbs | .. and new smaller 36T chainring | I'm so delighted now with this bike! --- (After my [62 mile gravel race](../gravel-race-lost-and-found-sierra-tahoe/) 9 days ago):

Gravel Race - Lost and Found (Sierra Tahoe)

Sat, 04 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

[One Gravel Race](https://lostandfoundbikeride.com/); Two nights camping; 62 miles. OMG I just biked my longest off-road ever -- by a long shot! (This is also my first bike race ever). I just had an *incredibly* proud and rewarding "race" with my gravel bike, Candy. Hunter and his "Thirsty Thursday" weekly riding friends signed up for this tough, mostly off-road race, in the Sierra mountains, just north of Tahoe. Hunter encouraged me to join them and try the 35 mile easiest option. I had _just_ done a tough 33 mile mostly off-road "Dirty Zoo" east bay ride with 4500 feet of climbing, to train up, the weekend before. However, Hunter and all his friends were doing the 60 mile option -- and the day of registration, last minute I decided to try to push myself _really_ hard and see if I could do the 60 mile option. Rationale? It was less than ~500 feet more of climbing than my training weekend trip. I knew I could _likely_ do another 10 miles -- so if I made 45 miles or more, I'd be super happy. Well, by hitting every rest stop, eating and drinking _tons_, and gracefully perfect weather (I blow up in hot sun rides), I *MADE EVERY MILE!*. _Most_ of the climbing is at the start -- if you can keep your heartrate decent, not push toooo hard at the start (and not "blow up") -- you can likely finish the ride (if you keep eating/drinking). Hunter & I starting out. The 100 mile option left one hour before us. We get a Police escort on pavement for the first few miles, then take a right turn, and _SHOWTIME_ -- it's time to climb 1800+ feet, off road. Hunter & I agreed to do our own pace and text each other at each rest stop. Lake Davis in bacgkround. I can't believe that at this point, I'm _pretty sure_ I'm going to make it. The wildflowers, sunflowers, and green were so beautiful to ride through. It was a super-emotional finish line for me! I expected that Hunter and friends were all back at camp. After taking pictures and not *really* racing, I noted if I pushed it the final 10 miles, I *might* make it within *one hour* of Hunter's total time. I pushed *super hard* the final mile into the finish line. I was already crying before I hit the line -- I couldn't believe I did something this long and challenging, without nearly enough long-distance rides to train up for this. When I saw Hunter and our friends at the finish, whooping it up for my hot rush into the line, it was _such_ an amazing feeling. Hunter and I were both crying. :) Here's my stats. 9.2 mph overall clock average from the 9am start -- this _vastly exceeded_ my hopes. I thought I was going to get caught up by the "sweeps" for going too slow and taken off the course. Six and a half hours for 62 miles is _really good_ -- I'm super proud! Here's our campsite, right next to a river, about 8 of us. You can do more than you think you can! 💖

New Shoes Day -- Tracey Loves Candy 🍬

Tue, 24 May 2022 00:00:00 GMT

My new [gravel bike](/tags/gravel-bike/) Trek Boone 6 got upgraded today with 25% wider tires, and from tubed to tublesss. So that moves me from the stock 32c (mm width) tires to 40c. The larger tires allow me to absorb bigger bumps, holes, rocks and shocks. The tubeless part allows me to roll with lower PSI for an _even more_ shock-absorbing ride. I'm super happy with the upgrades and did a couple miles offroad today in our typical morning 10 mile course around our hills. I managed to ride the fastest and most confidently on the same segments I've done nearly 20 times now since owning the bike. Coming later this week, we're migrating the gears to more capable uphill climbers: - 11-34T (rear) x 40T front (now) - 11-46T (rear) x 36T front (new!) That should complete her makeover from a "cyclocross" bike to a legit gravel bike. I signed up for a gravel "race" in Tahoe with Hunter in a couple weeks -- so the timing is perfect. --- Oh, and also. Finally after a bunch of honorable mentions, for a couple months, trying to find her voice, she's got her name. She's _that girl_ who shows up to the party with lipstick a shade too tawdry, yet manages to be the life of the party. Tracey loves _Candy_ 💖

Road Trek -- Driving 2000 Miles for a Gravel Bike! 🚴‍♀️

Sun, 13 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Woohoo! After months of research and testing two gravel bikes, I fell in love with the 2022 Trek Boone. Eighteen months (!) to get it in Cali; but Hunter found the exact bike I wanted in a Salt Lake City bike store --> *ROAD TRIP!* # The Plan Saw this rare bike Sunday night, bought it the next morning, scrambled to plan and take work days off... we were on the road Thursday morning. The plan was _Simple Enough_. We'd take five days, bring Hunter's 2021 Trek Boone in the car, and find fun places to stop, change clothes and ride for a few hours. (We'd rent a bike for me on each of the 2 days of the drive out). It would nicely break up the long driving hours and we'd bike places we'd never get to normally or likely again. We'd snowboard on the middle day. First up, challenges _finding_ rentals (covid 19 Worldwide Bike Shortage, Exhibit A, Your Honor). Finally found a place right next to "American River" between Sacramento and Tahoe. # Highway 50 Next up. I've driven the US coast-to-coast five times, mostly interstate 80, mostly four days each way, mostly solo. This time, it was time to try the longer more scenice state highway 50 -- "The Loneliest Highway in America" Wow, is it something. High desert, driving from one ring of 8,000 foot mountains into 30 mile dead-straight valleys, back up and out the mountain ring. Rinse, repeat. Snow, temperatures down to 17F, wild horses, almost no water, almost no stops, no people, no cars. We had blankets, food, and water with us _just in case_ -- for those slightly anxious zero cell coverage areas. We finally made it to one-restaurant town Austin, Nevada for a beer and pizza, and then to our beautiful little hotel (pictured left, above) further on in Eureka, Nevada. Eureka - a cute small frontier town which made its history in mining. Let's go! Stopping at a ghost town outside of Ely, Nevada. We made it! Interstate north to Mad Dog Cylces in Orem, Utah, part of the greater Salt Lake City area. # *O·M·G!* Months of research, long test rides on Hunter's 2 gravel bikes, weeks of dreaming, two days of travel -- and it's _finally in my hands!_ I'm over the moon... I love it immediately in 30 minute ride around the town with a few grassy and dirt dips over off the side of roads. - _Lightweight_ (18 lbs 11oz) - _Beautiful_ - Carbon + rear seat post dampers for _smooth rides_ - _Off-road_ capable - 40c wide or _MTB tires_ - A _climbing Dream!_ # Snow, Sun & Salt Next up, a couple fantastic nights visiting college roommate Rick and his wonderful family in Park City. We all had mountain biked together for Rick's 50th Birthday last September in Sun Valley, Idaho. We all got to visit another college roommate, Sach, and his family for dinner in Salt Lake, too. "Like riding a bike" -- retrying snowboarding after twenty five years! ## Heading Home Now for two more driving days home, taking interstate 80 back to Tahoe. We snuck our car out onto the legendary Bonneville Salt Flats Speedway. # First Big Ride! 👻 Found an [interesting history mining ghost town, Tunnel Camp](https://www.greatbasinbicycles.com/new-blog/2018/10/25/tunnel-camp-lovelock-nv-7-troughs-mining-district), way out in the high desert, nowhwere, Nevada. We started out just before sunset. The perfect maiden voyage gravel ride, about 15 miles "out and back", for the new gravel bike. Blocked off mining tunnel entrance -- which was likely part of how they were trying to drain water-filled other tunnels, to get to more of the gold. About 8 people lost their lives when a damned waterway collapsed and flooded the town, ultimately dooming it. An ore "stamping" mill. Ore was crushed here to smaller pieces, then taken to cyanide pools to separate out gold. It honestly felt like this could have been something straight out of Ray Bradbury's _The Martian Chronicles_. 2021 and 2022 Trek Boones - having the adventure of their lives. # Tahoe and Fast Ponies We stayed overnight at the edge of Sparks/Reno, took a river walk, then off around western side of the _always amazing_ Lake Tahoe. Found a great lunch spot right on the water. Final driving and bike-stop day. This time, the legendary [historical Pony Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pony_Express), where we found (you guessed it) another great hilly gravel road. Crews were still working to remove dead/dying trees in the valleys next to us, from the recent California Caldor Fire -- but the areas we could see still had decent tree cover in most spots. We finished the trip on some back roads through Lodi and Rio Vista (alongside some of the Sacramento River). There's some _achingly pretty_ countryside and rolling hills there -- and the spring green was _gorgeous_. # ❤️ 🚴‍♀️ ❤️ The video (at the top) shows most of our bike rides, including a "bonus" of our ambitious weekly morning neighborhood, pre-work, on/off road, 15-20 mile, Oakland bike ride. Both of our Boones are doing great, and I'm _so so glad_ we had this amazing trip and memories, while fetching _just_ the bike I wanted. 😊

Tracey's Tamalpais Thirty - 3T

Sun, 16 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Wow. OMG. Words. Just had the *insanely ambitous* and most fun bikeride I've had in 15 years! While I'm [zero-ing in on what gravel bike to buy](/gravel), Hunter let me borrow his 3T Exploro Racemax new gravel bike for a ride together on a 3-day weekend. I shot for the moon -- "let's go up Mount Tamalpais (if I even can) and try to get down the other side and ride around back to the start". About 30 miles. I haven't been off-road, _really_ in 25 years (with brief exception of college reunion mountain biking in Sun Valley, ID, in Sept., with my college 'mates). Will she make it? Will she crash? And OMG how big are those rocks in the "trails" after rerouting from goole maps fail?! Did I mention over 3000 feet of all offroad climbing, with most of the total miles offroad? Let's start the day right - my favorite brunch of bibimbap at Kitchen Sunnyside, Mill Valley, forgoing my favorite soju-based bloody mary for a "doping" full-strength latte ;-) Gearing up in the Redwoods - let's do this! Grinning ear-to-ear -- entering "Old Railroad Grade Fire Road" and get to try out the chunky tires 3T gravel bike and see how I can do uphill :) So far, so good. Not a cakewalk, but geez this bike is capable climbing! Woohoo! Arriving at the section I've hiked a few times before and know well. View is getting bananas and I've got lots of energy to go. The sky and scenery is so amazing. Brushing 70F degrees in the sun, almost no wind, _in january_ :) Pretty sizeable loose rocks is the norm all the way up. We just hit legendary West Point Inn -- only accessible to hiker and bikers. It's the furthest I've been up Mt. Tam (only hiked once 25y ago, alternate ascent) -- so am eager to see what remains. We did it! Hit the peak and the "Gravity Car" awesome display with historical photos of the amazing "the car glides down with a brake lever and _that's it_" railroad that used to be here (and what we just biked). Planning our descent. Heading to Lake Lagunitas over my left shoulder. We had to improvise a bit to get to "Eldridge Grade" from the top, after google maps directed us to somewhere impossible. Thanks baby! I am so soooo happy today and getting such a great way to _really_ try out a gravel bike! Eldridge Grade was a bee-yatch! Holy crap, from the start, we had to walk a couple hundred feet of impassable, _terrifying_ descents. And it didn't get much better. I was clamped, _horrified_ on the brakes, trying desperately to not fall hard left or right and crash into _huge_ rocks, boulders, and loose all over the place. I had no idea it would be this bad! Thankfully, we finally made it to some fire roads that were much more doable. Still _very_ challenging, but by then, I had figured out how to get into the "drops" on the handlebars, descending more like a cat on all fours. You smooth the bumps out with your arms and legs, letting the rest of your body float and barely touch the seat. And your hands have 10 times more braking power. Celebratory beers and apps in Mill Valley! I can't believe we did it and we didn't crash or get hurt. It was _super_ dicey, requiring _absolute_ concentration in the first 45 minutes (maybe half) of the descent. I'm so impressed by what gravel bikes can do these days! Here's what I would recommend to *avoid* the brutal downhill upper part of Eldridge Grade -- and can't wait to do next! Gotta go get my own gravel bike!

Gravel Bikes

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

[14 years ago](/2008-03-training-to-bike-first-aids-lifecycle-sf-to-la/), I bought my first carbon bike - a road bike. I'm catching the "gravel bike" fever after borrowing my boyfriend's for 30 minutes of offroading. So I'm now stalking bike options and figuring out what might be best for me. Here's some of my current contenders and key information. Top pick as of weeks of research and thinking is 2022 Crux Comp (their cheapest in that line) that I'd then upgrade the wheels to carbon, get wider tires, and try to upgrade the SRAM rear casseette (and derailleur) to a more capable off-road 12-speed 10-50 or 10-52 casseette (if I can). | Bike | weight | weight | MSRP | 700c | 650b | gears | misc | site | | --------------------- | --------- | --------- | ---- | ---- | ---- | -------------- | ---- | ---- | | specialized crux comp | 18.7lb/56 | 8.5kg/56 | $4200 | 47c | 2.1" | 11: 11-42 x 40 | manual shift; upgrade wheels/tyres, derailleur & crank to 12sp 11-50 ?? | [link](https://www.specialized.com/us/en/crux-comp/p/199962?color=322104-199962) | | specialized crux expert | 17.9lb/56 | 8.1kg/56 | $6200 | 47c | 2.1" | 12: 11-44 x 40 | wireless; 38c tyres; upgrade wheels/tyres, derailleur & crank to 12sp 11-50 ?? | [link](https://www.specialized.com/us/en/crux-expert/p/199961?color=322125-199961) | | specialized diverge expert | 20.5lb/52 | 9.3kg | $6200 | 47c | 2.1" | 12: 11-50 x 40 | future shock, swat storage, electric shifting | [link](https://www.specialized.com/us/en/crux-comp/p/199962?color=322105-199962) | | canyon grizl slx 8 | 18.7lb | 8.5kg | $6000 | 50c | | 12: 10-44 x 40 | wireless, split carbon seatpost; Maxxis Rambler 45m tyres! | [link](https://www.canyon.com/en-us/gravel-bikes/bike-packing/grizl/cf-slx/grizl-cf-slx-8-etap/2853.html) | ## Other related links - https://www.ethirteen.com/pages/helix-r-cassette - https://www.ethirteen.com/products/helix-r-12-speed-cassette - [thesis OB1](https://thesis.bike/collections/ob1-bikes/products/the-ob1-axs-custom) - [carbonda for OB1](https://www.carbonda.com/road/gravel/cfr505.html) - [compare 4 spec. + 3T](https://99spokes.com/compare?bikes=specialized-diverge-comp-carbon-2022,specialized-diverge-expert-carbon-2022;*z.58cm|w.700,specialized-crux-expert-2022;*z.58cm|w.700,specialized-crux-comp-2022;*z.58cm|w.700,3t-exploro-race-ekar-1x13-2021;*z.58cm|w.700) - [crux 99spokes](https://99spokes.com/bikes/specialized/2022/crux-comp) - [crux comparisons, weights](https://granfondo-cycling.com/specialized-s-works-crux-2022-news/) - for < 1/2 lb more: [redshift suspesion stem](https://redshiftsports.com/products/shockstop-suspension-stem) - [gears and gains ratios](https://traceypooh.com/gears/)

🌮 Techo Tuesday 🌮 Deno 🦕 Oh My Gawd Deno 🦕

Tue, 21 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

_things turning me on this week_
_☕enjoy with a hot cupa java/script_
JavaScript is _mental_ now with `deno` --- forget `node` `npm` `package.json` `node_modules` and everything you growed up on. This 🦕 changes _everything!_ About a year ago, an amazing coworker who shall remain anonymous ([COUGH] Drini), casually mentioned ["Deno"](https://deno.land) in a team meeting (~12 of us). They mentioned Ryan Dahl, the creator of `node`, created this as The Next Thing. I'd never heard of it, checked it out, got excited and was... _deflated_ seeing _full urls_ in `import` statements (instead of relative urls) since that wasn't compatible with browsers. When a tech idea & premise is _so good_ with a fatal flaw, I _tend_ to revisit periodically... 3 months ago, to my _amazement_ -- all the main browsers were totally loading full urls, eg: ```js import $ from 'https://esm.sh/jquery' ``` "Cancel my appointments for the month!" --- I dove in _immediately_ to kick the tires on the back-end and see if _fully_ replacing `node` for `deno` in my work (mostly backend) main repository for TV, audio & video, containing 30,000+ JS lines, might work. In under 3 months, I migrated the entire repository to Deno. Here's a nice browser example: https://av.archive.org/demo/deno.htm Pay special attention to the top and later `import` statements here. You can load logical `npm` modules directly from the web (!) 😍 Omitting (just) the pie chart setup clutter (it's a lot of JSON config for the data -- you can [see the full source here](https://av.archive.org/demo/deno.js)): ```js import dayjs from 'https://esm.ext.archive.org/dayjs@1.11.13' import * as d3v7 from 'https://esm.ext.archive.org/d3@7.9.0' import { log } from 'https://av.archive.org/js/util/log.js' window.d3 = { version: '7.0.0', ...d3v7 } document.body.innerHTML += `

bootstrap hai whirld

no real idea why it's working to \`import\` with urls starting with 'https://' now!

working in (at least): chrome, safari, firefox, safari iOS

.. that doesnt work in \`node\` for example.

.. but natively works in \`deno\`!

some dayjs stuff

${dayjs().format('dddd MMMM D, YYYY h:mma')}
${dayjs().format('YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss')}
${dayjs().startOf('month').add(1, 'day').set('year', 2018) .format('YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss')}

user privacy

self-hosted esm.sh -- at esm.ext.archive.org

import dayjs from 'https://esm.ext.archive.org/dayjs@1.11.13'

` const el = document.querySelector('#x h1') el.style.opacity = '0' el.animate([{ opacity: 0 }, { opacity: 1 }], { duration: 600, fill: 'forwards' }) const d3pie = (await import('https://esm.ext.archive.org/d3pie@0.2.1')).default const pie = new d3pie('pieChart', { ... }) ``` Look how clean that is! No need to `npm install` -- no need for `npm` or `node` whatsoever. You can load JS from `npm` packages transpiled-on-the-fly to `import`-able JS via https://www.skypack.dev/, https://esm.sh (we host one of these on our archive.org site for user privacy), and more. It's hard to fully articulate how weightless it feels to develop multiple repos, all without any kind of `npm install` or setup -- and just load JS files directly into the browser or backend. You can now _make websites, blogs, and more_ entirely free, committed to and hosted at https://github.com or https://gitlab.com -- no backend needed. Here's a fun example of charting Live Music concerts stored at https://archive.org that I live coded for [Aaron Swartz Day 2021](https://www.aaronswartzday.org/asd-2021/) where everything is hosted free at github: [band recordings per year site](https://traceypooh.github.io/multi-line-chart/) [band recordings per year source](https://github.com/traceypooh/multi-line-chart) I'm shook! (and won't go back) # ❤️ 🦕 [postscript] BTW, it took a couple months to migrate, _not_ because migrating `node` => `deno` is _particularly_ involved or long. The conversion took awhile because: - major delay due to needing to find a minimal porting setup for code `lint`, test, and coverage. Ultimately, though `deno lint` is good (and blazing fast) --- at this point --- `eslint` is still better. I also didn't want to change my `expectations` based ES Modules `mocha` test files too much. My next Teco Tuesday post will be about a nice testing & coverage setup. - I decided it was time to move all synchronous/blocking network and shell-out calls to async i/o - I decided _not_ to use any of the available `node`-compatible layer -- and instead switch everything to _native_ `deno`. (There's only 2 files presently using a single node-compatible emulation `readdir()` call, since I already had performant complex async i/o doing parallel processing with it, running live 24x7, that I didn't want to destabilize, eg: ```js import { readdir } from 'https://deno.land/std/node/fs/promises.ts' ```

Vscode in Browser - for Mobile and More

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Add VSCode (and its builtin terminal) to your mobile devices! Edit your code and projects from a browser, backed by a modest virtual machine that hosts your code files and directories. Inspirations: - [VSCode on iPad post](https://www.freshblurbs.com/blog/2020/05/03/vscode-ipad-development.html) - [apple patent: iphone or ipad convertor to laptop](https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/03/23/apple-investigating-accessory-that-turns-iphone-ipad-into-full-fledged-touchscreen-laptop) - [code-server setup guide](https://github.com/cdr/code-server/blob/main/docs/guide.md) ## Prerequisites - A VM/server with 1GB+ RAM, 2 cores+. ($10/month digital ocean ubuntu VM is fine for this). ## Setup code-server Setup code-server on a VM of your choice. ```bash wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cdr/code-server/main/install.sh | bash -ex ``` _( you could switch the `~/.config/code-server/config.yaml` file `bind-addr` to `0.0.0.0:8080`, and then access it over `http://[IP ADDRESS]:8080/` )_ **However!** I'd _strongly recommend_ `https://`, done in minutes (below), if you own a domain and can add an `A` record with something like `code.DOMAIN` pointing to your IP ADDRESS. Don't have a domain name? Get one free at [Freenom](https://www.freenom.com/en/index.html?lang=en) :) ## Setup https access Install `caddy` (go-based) with built-in lets encrypt and more. ```bash sudo apt install -y debian-keyring debian-archive-keyring apt-transport-https curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/cfg/gpg/gpg.155B6D79CA56EA34.key' |sudo apt-key add - curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/cfg/setup/config.deb.txt?distro=debian&version=any-version' |sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/caddy-stable.list sudo apt update sudo apt install caddy ``` edit `/etc/caddy/Caddyfile` change this config line from `:80` to your DNS name, and uncomment the `reverse_proxy` line: ```text # To use your own domain name (with automatic HTTPS), first make # sure your domain's A/AAAA DNS records are properly pointed to # this machine's public IP, then replace the line below with your # domain name. code.DOMAIN # Another common task is to set up a reverse proxy: reverse_proxy localhost:8080 ``` reload caddy ```bash sudo systemctl reload caddy ``` ## Start browsing! https://[code.DOMAIN] enter password from your VM's server file: `~/.config/code-server/config.yaml` ## Other You can restart your `code-server` at any time, if needed for some reason, via: `sudo systemctl restart code-server@$USER`

Dutch Appeltart Pie 🥧

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT

# The Inspiration This is a slight merge between my 🇮🇪 Grammy's Apple Pie recipe and the amazing 🇳🇱 Dutch Appeltart you'll find all over the Netherlands. I've had it from `Villa Zeezicht` in two visits 25 years apart - and their's is amazing! This author's blog was captured by the WayBack Machine (where I work ;-) https://web.archive.org/web/20180225053159/http://www.sweetamandine.com/2010/09/it-sneaks-up.html and will be the main focus of this merged recipe. [ dutch appeltart version ] ## For the dough - 4 cups flour - 1 ¼ cups sugar - 1 tsp. salt - 2 sticks + 2 Tbsps. cold butter, cut into small cubes - 2 eggs - 1 egg white, lightly beaten, for the glaze ## For the filling - 3-4 pounds apples (8-10 medium apples); 1/2 Honeycrisp (sweet!); 1/2 Granny Smith (tart!) - 1 Tbsp. cinnamon - 1 Tbsp. nutmeg - 1 ½ cups sugar - entire small lemon ### Dough - In the bowl of a large (14-cup) food processor: - combine the flour, sugar, and salt - pulse to blend - add the cubed butter, and process for about ten seconds, until the dough looks like a coarse meal - add the two eggs, and pulse to incorporate - split the dough into two lumps, each onto a sheet of plastic wrap, wrap tightly, and refrigerate for 1-2 hours ### Filling While the dough is chilling (or, during the last half an hour of that time, anyway): - butter and flour a 9-inch springform pan or pie form - peel, core, and quarter the apples - stir together the cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar in a small bowl - combine mix with apples - squeeze entire lemon over filling - toss/mix - preheat the oven to 350 degrees ### Bake! - Press about 3/4 of the chilled dough into the bottom and up the sides of the prepared pan. - The thickness of the dough along the sides should be about a quarter of an inch or, as the chef explained, the thickness of half of your index finger, sliced vertically, from knuckle to nail. - Roll out the remaining dough for top crust (very thin is fine). - Use flour on roll and/or waxed paper as needed to keep together and peel off - Add apple filling - Add crust and pinch edges together - Use knife and slice a heart or leaf in the center to vent - Glaze with egg white - Bake at 350 for 90 minutes to 2 hours (observe darkness of crust), rotating half-way through ### The Verdict I wound up having some extra, so made a "cobbler" side dish. I added some aluminum foil to cover it, with vents, for the first hour. I also didn't glaze the pie top (it was getting late) and it wound up fine. It was Amazing - best pie I've ever made! 😍 So similar to the Dutch Appeltart craving I've had since my twenties and my first trip to Amsterdam. My twin and I were visiting my older brother who was spending a year in Amsterdam for his work. We spent one of my favorite weeks in Europe ever, a lazy deliciously warm and sunny summer week, having cafes, beers, and pie outside his canal-overlooking 3-story apartment, meeting his friends, enjoying the scene and people, and walking around the city. We topped that off with an amazing week visiting 🇫🇷 Paris and Versailles and Chateaux 🏰 all over the Loire Valley.

🌮 Techo Tuesday 🌮Like Kubernetes? k3s is dead-on-floor Fast

Tue, 28 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

_things turning me on this week_
_☕enjoy with a hot cupa java/script_
# k3s from Rancher I've been using `kubeadm`, professionally, for a few years now. It's been very good. At [Internet Archive](https://archive.org), we run everything "on-premise". So using AMZN S3, Google GKE, Azure or similar, are out for us. After a few "perfect storm" of issues in the last 90 days, I started researching on the web, and in devops Slack communities of 15k to 100k engineers, I started looking into `k3s`. The current _conventional wisdom_ on `k3s` from [Rancher Labs](https://rancher.com) is that it's small, lightweight, and great/ideal for devices with minimal RAM/CPU, "Internet of Things", raspberry PIs, and more. However, I'm here to tell you, it seems _fantastic_ for more than just that. [k3s](https://k3s.io/), not unlike [nomad](https://www.nomadproject.io/), plays a _very cute_ trick. In it's "one-shot" installer: ```bash curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh - ``` -- which indeed will be up in seconds, it leverages a single (presently ~50MB) binary single executable (to `/usr/local/bin/k3s`) But it doesn't end there. Going with their wonderful "one shot" installer vibe, you _don't need_ `docker` installed, or `kubectl`. They simply symlink `kubectl` to their binary (and implement full [CNCF](https://www.cncf.io/) verified compatibility) and implement `crictl` API for docker building and deployment. All with one binary! (And they _also_ auto-detect and systemd setup a daemon to auto-restart on reboot, etc.) ## Don't Blink It comes up _so fast_ and ready to go, it's a bit hard to believe! Give it a try on a virtual machine you have access to. They have a single "uninstall and remove all traces" script they print out during the install that ... you guessed it, takes only seconds to run. ## So _what's the catch?_ There isn't one, really. But I _did_ find a few minor things I needed to do to "drop-in replace" with [GitLab](https://gitlab.com) and their full ["Auto DevOps" CI/CD](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/) pipelines (which we use extensively at my work). Minor things: - need to change GitLab's annotation from default `nginx ingress` to [traefik](https://containo.us/traefik/) loadbalancer - which is what comes with `k3s` - remove a GitLab default secret (for https) that doesn't get used with `traefik` and causes auto-https (via `traefik` built-in [lets encrypt](https://letsencrypt.org/) ) to fail - _as of now_ there's a "one-shot" issue with setting up the admin email address for the lets encrypt part of `traefik` ## Right, so.... I (_continue to_) keep archive.org's [installers for `kubernetes` and `nomad` installers updated here](https://gitlab.com/internetarchive) via the [kre8](https://gitlab.com/internetarchive/kre8) and [nomad](https://gitlab.com/internetarchive/nomad) repositories. Here are my notes on GitLab + k3s + k8s full CI/CD: - [k3s.md](https://gitlab.com/internetarchive/kre8/-/blob/master/README.md) ## Prerequisites: - `ssh`-able unix node you have `sudo` on - __wildcard DNS__ pointer to the IP address of your 1st node. you can, alternatively, temporarily edit your laptop `/etc/hosts` and point some nice internet public url hostnames to your 1st node IP address. ## Helpful links/scripts I maintain actively: - https://gitlab.com/internetarchive/kre8 -- repo and code used to create and interact with k3s-based kubernetes clusters - https://gitlab.com/internetarchive/kre8/-/blob/master/README.md -- notes on minor tweaks to `k3s` installer for those interested in https/lets encrypt - https://gitlab.com/internetarchive/kre8/-/blob/master/k3s-ci.yml -- CI/CD setup and tweaks (some required; some I prefer) to GitLab's Auto DevOps Give `k3s` a try!

🌮 Techo Tuesday 🌮 Javascript ES Modules Test and Coverage Without Babel

Tue, 19 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

_things turning me on this week_
_☕enjoy with a hot cupa java/script_
JavaScript has gotten _even better_ and you can now run 100% [ES Modules](/2019-09-techo-tuesday-javascript-es6-and-es-modules/) code "natively" through the entire node, JS, testing, and coverage (and more!) ecosystem. Picking the right tools that understand `ES Modules` is key - here we use `mocha` and `c8` (also show how to use `jasmine` (what is under `jest`) and `nyc`/. `istanbul` if desired). Bonus points? `sinon` for mocking. ## Sample code setup [demonstration minimal working git repository](https://github.com/traceypooh/js-es-modules-coverage-testing) ## Uses simply: mocha and c8 The goal is to avoid babel, transpiling, and any dynamic transform of the JS source/test code as possible. - [mocha](https://mochajs.org/) since it can understand ES Modules (and make `import`/`export` work nicely). - [c8](https://github.com/bcoe/c8) for code coverage (since it understands ES Modules) - [expectations](https://github.com/spmason/expectations) for `jest`/`jasmine` like testing, eg: `expect('hai'.length).toBe(3)` - [sinon](https://sinonjs.org/) for mocking, stubs, and spies (more below on that) There's a few _subtle_ things to get setup and "just right" to make it all work seamlessly. But once you know them, you're good to go. **If you prefer `jasmine`** - [see this prior setup](https://github.com/traceypooh/js-es-modules-coverage-testing/tree/jasmine-esm-nyc) ## Thus you can now write all your source and test code in the modern/future default 100% `ES Modules` (AKA `import` / `export`), eg: ```javascript import { foo, foobar } from '../src/foo.js' describe('foo()', function () { it('should return number plus one', function () { expect(foo(1)).toEqual(2) }) }) ``` ## run ```bash git clone https://github.com/traceypooh/js-es-modules-coverage-testing cd js-es-modules-coverage-testing npm install npm test ``` (or alternatively: `npx c8 mocha`) ## yields ```text > @ test /Users/tracey/dev/js-es-modules-coverage-testing > c8 mocha bar() ✓ should return number minus one foo() ✓ should return number plus one foobar() ✓ should return same number goo() ✓ should switch from 2 to 3 via a swap out ✓ should switch from 2 to 3 via a mock 5 passing (11ms) ----------|---------|----------|---------|---------|------------------- File | % Stmts | % Branch | % Funcs | % Lines | Uncovered Line #s ----------|---------|----------|---------|---------|------------------- All files | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | bar.js | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | foo.js | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | goo.js | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | ----------|---------|----------|---------|---------|------------------- ``` ## the magic - in `package.json`, this tells `node` and scripts all `.js` files are ES Modules ```json { "type": "module", } ``` - in `package.json`, this tells `mocha` to preload `expectations` (for `jest`-like testing) ```json { "mocha": { "require": "expectations" } } ``` ## mocking, stubs, and spies _By Far,_ this is the most complicated thing to get right. I spent hours and hours over a few days on/off trying to get mocking to work (first with `jasmine`, then `sinon`). Fortunately, I found this lil' gem: - https://stackoverflow.com/a/46739544 Normally, ES Modules are _very locked down_ and hard to mock. By grouping all the export-ed methods via `export default Goo`, and importing via `import Goo from '../src/goo.js'`, we can replace methods if needed for testing. (Imagine needing to test something that live-fetches resources, etc.) - see [src/goo.js](https://github.com/traceypooh/js-es-modules-coverage-testing/blob/master/src/goo.js) - see [test/goo.test.js](https://github.com/traceypooh/js-es-modules-coverage-testing/blob/master/test/goo.test.js) **2020 as ever, is a _super-exciting_ time 🥳 for javascript!**

Hunter Birthday 50

Sun, 02 Feb 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Just did something utterly crazy - chartered a 🧑‍✈️ private plane ✈️ to Palm Springs 🌴 and Joshua Tree (via Jeep Wranglers) for Hunter's 50th Birthday! 💖 (Also worth noting: celebrated on rare palindrome date: `02 02 20 20` -- which in a mirror is `50` backwards 😮 ) This took over a month to research, pull off, and plan! I've never done a charter plane before so it took quite some time to figure out planes, quotes and more. I'd like to thank the amazing Captain [Jan Johnson]( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-JsGXULZL8HTUYCL8btaEg) for helping me research and suggesting, ultimately, who we went with - [Centurion FS](https://www.centurionfs.com/) out of Palo Alto. We rented a _super cute_ "Quest Kodiak 100" plane, able to seat 8 very comfortably, single prop plane. ![kodiak plane](../img/50-kodiak.jpg) _Ironically_ the major amount of planning, devoted to going to **Death Valley**, got scuttled 12h before take-off due to high wind advisory - specifically including _Furnace Creek_ landing strip (not much of an airport - mostly tarmac and tower - no refuel options, etc.). The very accomodating Pilot called me and we spent 40 minutes trying to find any way to make it work -- an then ultimately decided to change to Palm Springs + Joshua Tree (two places I've always wanted to visit). It took only ~20m more to fly there and back, and +5% extra cost -- with lots of scramblings to procure a pair of genuine Jeep Wranglers. Thankfully, it _just worked!_ Huge shout out to Hunter's **amazing** friends who all went with the last-minute changes, kept it secret, and were up for this _crazy_ adventure from [6am to 9pm]. ![boarding plane](../img/50-boarding.jpg) ![hunter boarding plane](../img/50-hunter-boarding.jpg) [ boarding - with convenient side entry ] ![boarded plane](../img/50-boarded.jpg) [ giddy, ready to go ] ![i cant believe it](../img/50-i-cant-believe-it.jpg) [ I'm shook - I can't believe this is happening! ] ![hunter copilot](../img/50-hunter-copilot.jpg) After a beautiful ~2h cruise over California at only ~10,000 foot from the ground, we arrived in Palm Springs ~10:30am. had a really nice brunch and cocktails on Kaiser Grille patio (but under shade ;-) right out on the main strip (and olde town area). ![brunch](../img/50-brunch.jpg) I flew in a _decadent_ chocolate cake and candles which the server set up for us at the end. ![cake](../img/50-cake.jpg) Then we took the Jeeps and had ~4-1/2 hours to do a (mostly driving) tour of **Joshua Tree** (~40m drive from downtown). ![jeeps](../img/50-jeeps.jpg) We jumped out at some of the great and interesting areas ![cholla cactus](../img/50-cholla-cactus.jpg)

Cholla Cactus Garden

![walk about](../img/50-walk-about.jpg)

Cholla Cactus Garden

![cholla cacti](../img/50-cholla-cacti.jpg)

Cholla Cactus Garden

![skull rock](../img/50-skull-rock.jpg)

the super popular (giant) Skull Rock

![jumbo rocks](../img/50-jumbo-rocks.jpg) ![red jeep](../img/50-red-jeep.jpg)

the Jumbo Rocks camping area

![in the dirt](../img/50-in-the-dirt.jpg) ![offroading](../img/50-offroading.jpg)

We even did just a bit of off-road 4x4 (my favorite ;-)

![my crew](../img/50-my-crew.jpg) ![joshua tree](../img/50-joshua-tree.jpg)

Joshua Tree

We had a blast and soaked up the hot dry sun while the Bay Area was getting a very strong cold snap. We had a bit of an adventure on the return in some high up-to-11,000' clouds -- sorry Amy! They had some turbulent moments, but the vast majority of the flight was way above the clouds (and bumps and danger). *_Thank you_* Captain Jim 🧑‍✈️ (pictured in top photo above, left side) for keeping us safe and giving us an _utterly amazing_ weekend. Hunter was beaming and grinning ear-to-ear, getting to be on radio and in copilot seat both ways the entire time.

Kauai Anniversary Surprise

Fri, 25 Oct 2019 00:00:00 GMT

My favorite trip ever! I surprised Hunter for our 20th anniversary together, with a week vacation to Kauai - one of my top five favorite places in the world! Beaches, waterfalls, flying planes & jeeps -- the sweet life! ![surprise card](../img/kauai01.jpg) Here's the surprise card I had him open -- with only 36 hours to the flight [grin]. I had secretly cleared it with his boss to take the week off. 😻 ## Day one ![arriving with jeep rental](../img/kauai02.jpg) We've been thinking about a Jeep, so I rented us nearly the exact model we were thinking of from Turo for the week. We spent the first 4 nights in the mellow town of Kapa'a at a cool place that had cats all over the property, and a garage of basic bikes we could use anytime. ![hunter with margarita](../img/kauai03.jpg) Our first night! Celebrating with fantastic margaritas and mexican downtown. ![tracey with margarita](../img/kauai04.jpg) ## Day two - Let's go topless! ![hunter taking jeep top off](../img/kauai05.jpg) ![jeep back top removal](../img/kauai06.jpg) The rental guy was so nice -- he even helped us take the top off at his shop. Hunter got the front panels off, then the back, and finally all four doors (and gulp, side mirrors, too). ![driving the coast, topless](../img/kauai07.jpg) We headed off for two adventures. First, Waimea Canyon (the "Grand Canyon" of Hawaii). ![hunter standing in jeep](../img/kauai08.jpg) It's so fun with everything off. With all the parts left 1-2 hours of driving at the shop, we're hoping for a rainless day. 😝 ![hunter & tracey waimea canyon overlook](../img/kauai09.jpg) The canyon is just gorgeous. I absolutely want to hike it some day. ![driving dirt road](../img/kauai10.jpg) Next, we're continuing on clockwise to the northwest end of the island. There is a 4x4 only beach at the end with our name on it :) ![driving dirt road with no doors](../img/kauai11.jpg) The payoff at the beach with the views is great. We wandered around the beach until near sunset and shared a beer. ![hunter and jeep at the beach](../img/kauai12.jpg) I just love how the jeep looks with everything off. 😻 ![hunter and tracey looking at the beach](../img/kauai13.jpg) ## Day three - The Secret Falls ![paddling kayak upriver](../img/kauai14.jpg) The airbnb host told us when we checked in about a cool option that I **immediately** wanted for us. Basically, if we got up super early, he'd drop us off with a 2-person kayak at a river to the south of Kapa'a. **Like a treasure map** the only instructions were **perfectly** vague. Paddle up about 30-60 minutes, pass a historical village on the right, and then take a small river fork off to right. Go upstream, beach the boat, then follow a trail for ~45 minutes to a secret falls. ![tracey & hunter kayaking](../img/kauai15.jpg) Total adventure - I'm giddy beyond belief. ![kayak in river with clouds](../img/kauai16.jpg) The scenery is just jaw-droppingly beautiful. ![tracey & hunter beaching the kayak](../img/kauai17.jpg) We think we found the place to park the boat! ![hunter & tracey crossing stream of mini waterfall](../img/kauai18.jpg) Hiking through the jungle, crossing stream inlets, following the main fork to our right. ![secret falls through the forest](../img/kauai19.jpg) OMG! Our guide was right! We made it -- and we're the first visitors of the day. It's all ours! ![tracey about to dip into the falls](../img/kauai20.jpg) ![hunter with arms raised in the falls](../img/kauai21.jpg) We're so happy! ![tracey & hunter at waterfall bottom](../img/kauai22.jpg) Hunter brought a gopro waterproof camera, so we got to take a bunch of pictures and video and kiss under the falls. 🥰 ## Day four - low key ![kauai beach](../img/kauai23.jpg) We did some biking, some great asian fusion food. At sunset most nights, we'd bike or drive to a beach and have a beer in the sand with some cheese & crackers. ## Day five - up up and away! ![pilot & hunter taxiiing airport runway](../img/kauai24.jpg) Hunter's getting his pilot's license! We called around and one of tourist plane rentals would **totally** let him be copilot for the same fee. (Normally you have to rent a plane and fuel, plus instructor fees...) Turns out hunter got to fly the Cessna four-seater plane **the entire time** (!!) ![takeoff from Lihue airport](../img/kauai25.jpg) Here' we go! (This _is_ the main Lihue airport, BTW. Small, no? 8-) ![flying over kauai coast](../img/kauai26.jpg) We fly clockwise around the entire island. ![tracey in plane back seat over coast](../img/kauai27.jpg) I'm losing my mind -- I can't believe here we are vacationing, unbelievable views, AND HUNTER IS FLYING! ![napali coast from above](../img/kauai28.jpg) Kauai's famous Napali Coast -- the NW corner of the island. There are no roads here. Only permitted-in-advance hikers can cross this. ![hanalei bay from above](../img/kauai29.jpg) Overlooking the gorgeous small town and bay of Hanalei -- the NE corner of the island. ![hunter flying overlooking central mountains](../img/kauai30.jpg) ![kauai central mountain ridge](../img/kauai31.jpg) The inner mountains of Kauai host, Mount Waialeale, the 8th wettest place in the world. The 5000+ foot peak gets rain 300+ days of the year, averaging 500 inches (!) ![preparing to land plane](../img/kauai32.jpg) Time to land, with some advice from the pilot. ![tracey & hunter at fantasy island falls](../img/kauai33.jpg) We hit one of the most iconic falls in Kauai on the trip north -- TV show "Fantasy Island" made them famous! ![hunter & jeep on dirt road](../img/kauai34.jpg) Some 4x4 shenanignas on the counter-clockwise trip to 2 nights in Princeville / Hanalei. ![tracey & hunter in jeep on dirt road](../img/kauai35.jpg) This was **super** fun -- but it did shrink to a very narrow one-lane only and I had to backup ~1/4 mile when a group of locals came the other direction with a full pickup truck! ![overlooking hanalie valley](../img/kauai36.jpg) The view overlooking the Hanalei valley. ![hunter relaxing at hanalei beach](../img/kauai37.jpg) Chilling on the Hanalei beach -- a perfect bay surrounded by mountains, gorgeous clouds, warmth, and waves. Beer and snacks is such a nice way to soak in the sunset. ![legs & snacks on hanalei beach](../img/kauai38.jpg) ## Day six ![tracey & hunter at beach](../img/kauai39.jpg) We explore the northeast end of Kauai and enjoy some great food, the most dramatic evening lightning storm, and more off-roading on a beach -- plus more of that chill-out sunset experience. There were two huge banks of long clouds off-shore. The **attacked** each other with lightning bursts, every few seconds, much like 2 wooden ships in a cannon fight. Everyone, including the staff, cleared the restaurant to watch in wonder.. ## Day seven - do we have to go home? ![returning jeep](../img/kauai40.jpg) Dropping our rental. Such an amazing experience together. This was the first of four jeep, jeep gladiator, or ford bronco rentals. We finally [buy a jeep](/2023-12-bought-a-jeep/) after the Jeep Wrangler gets big upgrades (like Wireless Apple CarPlay, an 11" touchscreen, better seats and lots more), at the end of 2023.

🌮 Techo Tuesday 🌮 Dark Mode

Tue, 08 Oct 2019 00:00:00 GMT

_things turning me on this week_
_☕enjoy with a hot cupa java/script_
'Dark Mode' is new - and a great relief to our eyes at night. _Thankfully_ it's also not _that_ hard to setup very effectively. # Basics If you _ideally_ use either minimal css/style `color:` and `background-color:` or neutral colors (eg: middle grays for accents like `#888`) then your work is a lot simpler because you have less overrides to setup. Effectively, one easy pass through is to find your darker and lighter colors and invert them for when it is dark mode. You can then set those overrides into a `CSS` 'media query' eg: ```css @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) { body { color: #ddd; background-color: #111; } } ``` That might override normal defaults (implicit or explict) for your site like: ```css body { color: #111; background-color: #ddd; } ``` The less places that use specific colors - the less you have setup overrides for. # Advanced At the time of this writing: - macosx is `Mojave` and `Catalina` comes later this month - Mojave has only either everything is dark mode (always) or not - iOS latest is v13 - which has the same ^^ ability to always be light/default, always be dark, **_or_** be time-based So for non-mobile, if you want _time-based_ dark mode, you can use `javascript` to _additionally_ use the browser's localtime to do dark mode when it's evening hours _and_ dark mode is enabled (and otherwise do default/light/day mode). ```js if (window.matchMedia && window.matchMedia('(prefers-color-scheme: dark)').matches) { console.log('bring on the darkness!') const hour = new Date().getHours() if (7 <= hour && hour < 19) { // override [7am .. 7pm] localtime console.log('.. but its vampire sleep time - back to day mode') document.body.classList.add('lite') } } ``` and you can assign some 'overrides to the overrides' in your `css` rules like: ```css body.lite { color: #333; background-color: #f4f4f4; } ``` which will basically disable/revert dark mode during the local daylight hours. Once Catalina macosx hits, I will _likely_ drop the JS and `body.lite` stuff above. Feel free to see the 'dark mode' CSS and JS I'm using here: [CSS](/css/add-on.css) [JS](/js/add-on.js) (presently at the bottom of the files).

🌮 Techo Tuesday 🌮 Javascript ES6 and ES Modules

Tue, 24 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT

_things turning me on this week_
_☕enjoy with a hot cupa java/script_
JavaScript got all growed up since it begun, when "ES6" hit the scenes (now present it just about every browser and mobile setup at this point aside from MSIE). You can finally do _sane_ things like `class Foo { .. }` similar to other languages, and the dreaded `this` "stealing" is finally sane with "fat arrow" functions like `const myfunc = (arg1, arg2) => { console.log({ arg1, arg2 }) }`. Pentultimately, javascript template strings are _amazing_ and get us all out of the quoting and multi-line h*ll we've been dealing with for _decades_. Lastly, throw in 'ES Modules' and you get a _#1_ world-class code including/importing system that handles optimizing across `server <=> client` boundaries. ## ES6 Examples ES6 is a [major update to JavaScript](https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/write-less-do-more-with-javascript-es6-5fd4a8e50ee2/) that fixes _sooo many things_. Among _other things_: - We get _real_ `class` definitions. - We get _real_ `constructor()` methods. - `const` and `let` make variables safer and much easier to maintain. - We can use `static` methods (class methods callable _without_ instantiating/constructing objects) - We get multi-line 'template strings' that can have JS code inside `${ .. }` blocks. Brilliant! --- ```js class Adder { constructor(arg) { this.arg = arg } render() { return `

You said: ${this.arg}

` } static add(x, y) { return x + y } } ``` Some simple calls: ```js Adder.add(3, 10) ``` `=> 13` ```javascript const math = new Adder(17) math.render() ``` ```text

You said: 17

" ``` ## ES Modules The article below, I've pored over at least 3x over last year or so. It's always a treat, and showcases _just how good_ and amazing ES Modules really are. _To wit_ nodeJS is migrating to ES Modules instead of commonJS. Basically, you can have JS code that imports other JS code (across the web) efficiently. Like best-in-class code/package managers, even circular dependencies are no problem. It works via 3 stages: - [**load**] quick parse (but don't execute) found lists of (included) `.js` files to find other `.js` files that are, in turn, `import`-ed. Load `.js` files in parallel (and over binary/compressed HTTP/2 connections, ideally). Make "variable slots" that connect `import .. from ..` statements with imported/included files. - [**instantiate**] setup all the "slots" - connecting imported/included code with the names used in the _including_ code. - [**evaluate**] excecute all the JS code, filling in the "slots" with values and evaluated code. Check out [Lin Clark's excellent overview of ES Modules](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/03/es-modules-a-cartoon-deep-dive/)

🌮 Techo Tuesday 🌮 Make a free website - Static Site Generators and Hugo

Tue, 10 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT

_things turning me on this week_
_☕enjoy with a hot cupa java/script_
I'm now migrating off of WordPress and a paid web hosting plan, to a free* website using **Hugo** and **GitLab**. It nicely leverages **markdown** and makes posting content from an editor a breeze. Your entire website is in a **git** repository -- so you can take your entire website anywhere and have a full copy on your laptop (even with networking off). **No database**! For me, suddenly writing felt more like _writing_ again - and I get to have full copies of everything (with any luck, the site should last forever..) ## Static Site Generators Basically, instead of a server-side scripting language-based website (like PHP or python) - these kind of websites have you writing basic HTML. But versions like [Jekyll](https://jekyllrb.com/) and [Hugo](https://gohugo.io/), um, go, a step further. They have you write in a _much more natural_ way, using [MarkDown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown). They _get cute_ by having a 'production' step that prepares your site and does some light transforms of your pages into a new `/public/` subdir (that your pages serve from), converting markdown to HTML (AKA markup). It sums up your 'tags' and 'categories' and makes static simple pages based on them, eg: `/categories/coding/`. It uses your "number of posts per page" variable to auto-paginate and make static simple pages like: `/page/2/` or `/tags/biking/page/2/`. They _also_ can get clever about user comments - allowing Discus or 'staticman' as ways to get comments into your site and onto your pages. I chose staticman because my code repository will get the comments (instead of being stored in some external service). ## Hugo _huGO_
Hugo is a _blisteringly_ fast alternative to Jekyll, based on the superfast (and quite new) `Go` language (more like `C` language in terms of speed, statically typed, and compiled). My older brother suggested it after noting his similar blog of 10years+ of entries was taking _minutes_ to build in Jekyll - but seconds with Hugo. ## Setup Hugo You can quickstart very.. quickly! There's a bunch of themes you can pick from - I chose the one below. - https://gohugo.io/getting-started/quick-start/ - https://themes.gohugo.io/hugo-future-imperfect-slim/ ## Deploy to the world You can use GitLab or GitHub - I prefered GitLab because I use its build process at work and it has the quickest/easiest stup. They want your business, and will host it for free. You setup an account, and `git push` your laptop directory of files to them. Everything re-deploys automatically ever time you `git push` an update - easy! - https://gohugo.io/hosting-and-deployment/hosting-on-gitlab/ - https://about.gitlab.com/2016/04/07/gitlab-pages-setup/ (*) _You can get your own hostname and point it to your GitLab (or GitHub) site url for a nicer URL, for about $20/year_

Meesa <3 k8s, Annie

Thu, 29 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

flat tire? owe back taxes? kubernetes can solve that!

house design – railing

Sat, 08 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Is it normal to design your house like this? ```bash POST=T PAT="$POST 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 0" FILE=$(echo $PAT |tr -d ' ').jpg montage -background white -tile x1 -geometry +0+0 \ $(for N in $(echo $PAT $PAT $PAT $POST) do echo baluster$N.png; done) $FILE open $FILE ls -1 baluster?.png $FILE ```

T00100200100.jpg
baluster0.png
baluster1.png
baluster2.png
balusterP.png
balusterT.png
balusters.png

it is not 😀

Something Petabox tree

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

I 💖 my coworkers 🤣🤣
I gave a monday 'all hands' update and the 'HinterLands' (remote coworkers) had a hard time hearing and it just went from there..

Star Words — Star Wars Trilogy scripts word cloud

Sun, 10 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT

**My droids and I carefully read through _every word_ of the original Trilogy scripts and identified the most used words.** 😎

recursion, which is a way to call yourself via recursion, which is a way to call yourself via recursion,

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

my useless contribution to the world tonight. [tennis clap]

Responsive, masonic tiles using CSS Grid (no JS, no flexbox)

Sun, 17 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT

responsive, pinterest-style masonic tiling using just CSS Grid.

See the Pen CSS Grid: responsive pinterest-style masonry var height imagery. mic drop! by tracey pooh (@traceypooh) on CodePen.

walk through SketchUp large models in ARKit – perfect for home remodels and projects

Mon, 28 Aug 2017 00:00:00 GMT

I did it!
Take a SketchUp model into the new iOS ARKit. Using my SketchUp home remodel and Apple's ARKit (beta) for augmented reality. {{< youtube FG5SztPF2uY >}} ### Goal import a model (in this case, a remodel) to overlay onto existing real world that you can walk around and 'experience' and compare. ### Results You can see the results in the youtube video as I step through the trickier setup parts and things that took the longest to sort out. * code repo: * apple ARKit sample app I start with and extend: Overview, info, and more for ARKit:

house remodel SketchUp 3D VR model visualized on sketchfab

Sun, 27 Aug 2017 00:00:00 GMT

here's the model I'll be using for **ARKit** and **augmented reality**.

roofless (experienceable house remodel without roof)
by traceypooh
on Sketchfab

It works very nicely now in google cardboard and viewers (head movements change view -- "virtual button" teleports you around inside of the house!) -- but also in modern web browsers (mouse movements to change view and move through).

ARKit beta excitement building

Sat, 26 Aug 2017 00:00:00 GMT

I'm quite excited to have figured out so far how to: * update home machine to Sierra to run xCode 9 beta * start playing with xCode * borrow iPhone 7 with iOS 11 beta running on it * setup free provisioning for testing app * start with ARKit "hello world" type app demo from the amazing folks at Apple ARKit possibilities are _blowing me away_! _(That's the spaceship hoving in my office to left of my desk 😉_ Now! On to hacking and trying out my app idea.... 😀 😀 😀

“Save the Decaf!” — rebuilding and renewing the engine of 1978 CB400A Honda motorcycle (named Decaf)

Sun, 13 Sep 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Saving my 1978 Honda CB400A "Decaf" bike from a **near fatal blow -- lower gasket blowout and huge oil leak**! (like, dumped a quart+ of oil in minutes while riding fast on highway at high temps). It was inadvertently overfilled with oil (my bad) and driven too hard (twin brother's not so good) combination that killed the Beast! Work with my twin brother (a very gifted self-and-internets-taught car and motorcycle moonlighting mechanic!), I as assistant especially for the entire reassembly and much of the cleaning work. We had to take the top 3 layers off the engine stack (AKA "complete top-end rebuild"), remove the pistons, and strip all the way down to the gearbox. Layers: [valve cover] gasket [valves] gasket [cylinders and pistons] gasket [gearbox and crankcase] Very neatly Honda makes them all stacked and connected via 8 super long screws that compress, when properly torqued, the entire set under the valve cover. We: * **replaced the piston rings** (very thin split rings circling the pistons that make them "float" up/down the cylinders), * **re-honed the cylinders** (you use a "flexible hone tool" to clean, slightly resurface, polish and add a light "cross-hatching pattern" to them), * **cleaned the pistons completely** (lots of carbon buildup after decades!) and installed 3 new gaskets -- especially paying attention to the lowest gasket that tore and blew oil using some "gasgacinch" sticky product around the oil jets). Then we did a **full valve job** (gets the valves ideally aligned to the 4-stroke engine stages), timing belt adjustment, oil change, and more. In addition, the air filter was trashed, so replaced that and fashioned an air filter custom holder to keep it from slipping back into the air box. Bonus points: exhaust and carbeurator gasket replacements. About $150 in parts (piston rings alone were OEM Honda and $75+), but probably the equivalent of $800-1000+ in labor. A **challenging and very educational labor of love!**

Fixing 1978 Honda CB400A always on neutral light — “decaf” project bike

Sat, 15 Aug 2015 00:00:00 GMT

I'm about to sell, with some sadness, my 1978 Honda CB400A "Hondamatic" motorcycle. I have **one last problem** with it -- that's been baffling me for over a year. When I consolidated the speedometer and "idiot lights" to a svelte new cafe racer style chrome LED-based single instrument, I found that its **[neutral light](https://archive.org/details/decaf3) was always on**, no matter what gear. So I finally figured out a clever (if I may say so) way through research to use the "proverbial $7 part" from in-stock Radioshack -- a RELAY switch! Here, I describe and show the problem, step through a bit of the bike's electrical system, and show you how I used a relay to fix the problem. I'll be sad to see you go, little Decaf! The **awesome** video learning **tutorials I used on Youtube** to determine **relays were for me!**: [RELAYS -- How to wire and how they work TUTORIAL !!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1SGyN6Yp64) [How An Automotive Relay Works and How to Wire 'Em up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAeKTlieYhw) (thanks, guys!)

hacking Apple Watch to a cuff bracelet custom watch

Fri, 19 Jun 2015 00:00:00 GMT

OK, so here's the problem. I think the Apple Watch is too small (but it's weight is "just right"!) and I dislike the bands. In fact, I never wear "normal" watches anymore -- I greatly prefer nice and wide uniform width leather cuffs. [![finished product](../img/IMG_2051.jpg)](../img/IMG_2051.jpg)

finished product

So I found (and ordered) this cute [cheapie < $20 adapter](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XWCG6VA) (which as I thought, comes direct from China). The black can chip/flake a little (it's not anodized into the metal well), which they know/cop to -- but it's so cheap so who cares? 😉 Next I ordered a few different bands from my [**favorite** watch (and fun! also cheap!) store](http://www.nemesiswatch.com) (I've rocked their watches for years now, and have fun getting different styles. Their website is a bit slow, but they have great selection). I settled on this (crazy cheap clearance!) item [black tattoo-like watch cuff band](http://www.nemesiswatch.com/thr.html) (which nicely didn't come with a watch I didn't need). My thinking was to get something at least as wide as the watch (1.5" wide band) but would set off/partially incognito the black aluminum 42mm watch casing. The other two bands were an even wider brown one (but it just was a bit more plain than I'd hope for, less "me") and a 3"+ **really** wide black one (but it looked a little too S&M or something -- again not really "me"). Thankfully Nemesis was great about letting me return them in exchange for another band and watch I wanted (since I was about two weeks past the return deadline!) So you: * center the watch (charger is easiest) on the back of the band (those rivets you see below hold the "snap parts" for this particular cuff -- that's a more ideal setup than a looped kind of other way to secure the watch w/ a single snap underneath -- because we're going to need to cut out a hole so the [watch can touch (and basically "see" your skin)][5] * trace the charger with a pen * cut the circle out with an xacto knife or similar * slide out the old watch band * assemble the new watch adapter (you can see it in pictures below slid and locked into the watch) * snap in in! Now you can charge it through the hole nicely, and it should make good skin contact and thus stay unlocked once it's on. [![pretty simple, trace charger with pen, then cut carefully w/ xacto knife](../img/IMG_2045.jpg)](../img/IMG_2045.jpg)

pretty simple, trace charger with pen, then cut carefully w/ xacto knife

[![showing the new hole and where the watch will snap in. you can see more closely the watch adapter very small pieces and bars locked into the watch](../img/IMG_2048.jpg)](../img/IMG_2048.jpg)

showing the new hole and where the watch will snap in. you can see more closely the watch adapter very small pieces and bars locked into the watch

[![charging happily through the back and new circle hole through the leather band](../img/IMG_2052.jpg)](../img/IMG_2052.jpg)

charging happily through the back and new circle hole through the leather band

[ I happen to like also wearing the watch on my left wrist, but face on my underside of the wrist (also makes the watch more innocuous / disappears -- and more of a "surprise" when you "wrist up and twist" to others 8-). So I made my settings say the watch was on my right wrist (since the "bend up arm and twist" motion is more like the other side when you wear the watch this way. ] - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XWCG6VA - http://nemesiswatch.com/ - http://www.nemesiswatch.com/thr.html - http://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/29/apple-watch-sensors-tattoogate/

“slide-responsively” — minimal standalone HTM/CSS/JS inspired by “sliding-door” from Wayne Connor

Wed, 06 May 2015 00:00:00 GMT

**I made new "slide-responsively" for image menus, which is minimal standalone HTM/CSS/JS inspired by "[sliding-door](https://wordpress.org/themes/sliding-door/)" from Wayne Connor**

I've just kept the sliding door idea, and made it independent of a WordPress theme so it can be added to a site using another theme. Hover over some of the images just above ☝🏽 to see it in action. Try shrinking the width of the browser or rotating your mobile device. [My **github repo** of this plugin](https://github.com/traceypooh/slide-responsively). Just replace the 7 images and links and go! Here's how simple it all is (for example standalone usage, wordpress not required..): ```html

```

embeddable book from my work

Sat, 14 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

One of my jerb's most popular books - and the free bookreader embeds anywhere nicely.

REJOICE! the angel POOHBOT brings you good tidings

Thu, 25 Dec 2014 00:00:00 GMT

having some fun riffing off of some imagery I rather liked that I saw at a Christmas eve service.

Hyper Green Magic — Green Magic Man Kawasaki ZX-6 motorcycle Hyperlapse, route 1, CA

Wed, 03 Sep 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Two weeks ago, Green Magic Man became the top poster on kawasaki ZX6 forum
One week ago, Hyperlapse hit the App Store
this is their story
"Green Magic Man" hitting the curves on Highway 1 towards the coast, Marin County, CA on Labor Day 2014 We tried "Hyperlapse", which just came out this week, for the first time.

decaf front brake fix — fluid flush and bleed — 1978 Honda CB 400A

Sun, 25 May 2014 00:00:00 GMT

The front brake of my 1978 Honda CB400A (baby cafe racer -- AKA "decaf") went almost dead. Here, we fix it in about 30 minutes -- my first time doing more than just an oil change or electronic reworkings! 😎 We assume somehow my brake fluid has deteriorated/aged from viscous fluid to closer to water (this naturally happens over time) and/or somehow has taken in air (which will sack your brakes entirely). We open my brake master cylinder, inspect, flush clean brake fluid through (making sure to never get air into the line -- AKA "brake bleeding"), and see how the results are.

Puzzle classic game with CSS and JS

Thu, 12 Dec 2013 00:00:00 GMT

puzzling shuffle!

Hit the shuffle button to scramble the picture. You can drag the pieces around to get it back together - like the classic game. Uses _not too much_ CSS and JS. _* this cute picture is us driving in Key West (a Chrysler 300 rental)_

play motion-JPEG video using javascript (in browser, no plugins, minimal JS)

Fri, 15 Nov 2013 00:00:00 GMT

# Motion JPEG test

click a button above to try

Huh?
This extracts the JPEG frames, _found within an `.avi` file bytestream_, likely without the huffman compression tables (though chrome dont care 8-). Then it base64 encodes each frame, inserting each frame into a dynamic tag to "play the .avi file".

Add in a short display timeout and keep overlaying images, and you have your "video", using tags, like a flip book.

Works

chrome
firefox (but slow)

Nope

(probably not happy w/ missing huffman compression tables in img headers)

safari/iOS

2006: Originally created by Tracey Jaquith. 2013: minor updates to jQuery and simplifying. 2026: add playback buttons and save full frame JPG, to ES module, dump jQuery, lints nicely.

Source (or "View Source"):

wow that was 2011, <3 wyden

Fri, 25 Oct 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Watch Ron Wyden strongly warn how angry the American People are going to be when they find out how the US Government has been secretly interpreting the PATRIOT act.

Time-lapse overlooking the San Francisco bay (on Labor Day) — with a 150 foot tree removal

Wed, 02 Oct 2013 00:00:00 GMT

The huge eucalyptus tree obscuring our _now fantastic_ Bay view gets removed in this time-lapse from our balcony. One guy takes it all out! Figured this would be fun to mention from last year's fun event.

New Bay Bridge Span opens — VLOG 1st person motorcycle ride across

Tue, 03 Sep 2013 00:00:00 GMT

**Labor Day 2013, Monday night, ~10pm** The Bay Bridge opens **7 hours before** the widely reported 5am tuesday reopening, after being completely closed for 5 full days. My twin, Russ AKA "Green Magic Man" (google it 😉 (on green Ninja) and I are the first 30 vehicles on to the 8th street onramp and show you how the new Bay Bridge span looks like from a first person HD camera (courtesy of Hunter, thanks, Baby!) It is dazzling at night! Includes 2nd raw 30 minutes of entire trip in a 2nd file.

amazing darth vader helmets

Mon, 05 Aug 2013 00:00:00 GMT

awesome stuff from http://www.totalfilm.com/features/100-amazing-darth-vader-helmets this is my personal favorite!

Anthony Weiner lewd texting after leaving politics

Sat, 27 Jul 2013 00:00:00 GMT

more lewd texting since **after** you left politics and "became a changed person"?
rilly?!?

how to stop indoor cat pee

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

OK, after over a year of being "terrorized" by our little 1 of 2 cats, peeing nearly every carpet (in one place or another) she could find, as well as (especially!) bath mats, door mats, etc. here's the winning steps that seem to have made nearly four months of no pee! * Removal of the mats and carpets. We found huge amounts of areas on the bottom -side of wall to wall that we had *no idea* were being hit repeatedly! and *man* did they reek once peeled up! (sad/sucks because I love wall to wall). only room left w/ carpet now is "cats only w/ human chaperone" in Hunter's office * **Kitty prozac **(half dose/prescription). Yes, I'm very sorry to say that sometimes psychiatry may be the answer. Of the 2 sister cats, the "little one" was bullied by the "big one". And little one periodically would rear-leg-scratch her chin (where she has a little mole/bump) and make it bleed. We feed a full dose mixed in to their mixed/shared wet food dinner bowl (mouth injection was just torture for little sensitive one! she also was too clever to notice "chicken wrapped pill pockets"). chinese herbal pulverized powder helped a bit, but not like the prozac. So now they both get ~ 1/2 dose, and the stress/bullying has dropped markedly. * Nature's Miracle remover/cleaner. It eats away at the smell/molecules **as well as** making a citrus smell cats dont like. They maybe won't "run away" from a treated pee carpet spot, per se, but it's certainly no longer a place they can hardly avoid when nearby. * More catboxes, each changed 1x/2x day! We're up to three, none covered, all "in the open" (so no chance for big cat to ambush little cat on coming out of the potty box (yes, that happened!)) * Reward catbox peeing with treats she loves. A coworker who grew up with cats named Sam mentioned how negative feedback (yelling and shoving her face in pee just made her confused and look stupidly "did I do something wrong? why are you mad?") doesn't work with cats, but positive does. So if you stop feeding a peeing/misbehaving cat, they get the message "real quick", goes the theory. That seemed a bit extreme, so went with "follow kitty after getting up in the morning" (when I'm around), gentle verbal coaxing (sometimes pre-catnip) to go to catbox and then **lots** of praise and a treat she **loves** after she's peed. She's smart and sometimes doesn't want to pee (very smell sensitive I think) and pops in/out, hoping for treats on occasion. But now, she gets no treats unless she pees, so she'll go back in (immediately or in a little bit) and catbox pee and get her treats! * Years of loving little one to get her 100% trust. This was ongoing. She was always skittish, jumpy, and independent. It took me years to get her to entirely stop hissing at me at times, getting pissy, etc. The key seemed to never lose my patience with her and suffocate her with waves of love, love, love until she knew I was her #1 ally in the house So thanks internets, Sam, and all the places and things we tried (many many up until now). This is the list that has worked for us, and prior to this "little one" could pee our house up good, sometimes as many as five times a week. It got to the point where I lost my sh*t and started utility-knife cutting up rectangles of the wall to wall and throwing it out -- she just would not stop. My hope is this post may help other owners who adore their cats but are suffering, too! And as a postscript, "little one" is now The Most affectionate cat ever. She likes to hop under the covers at about 5am for a few hours and spoon with me, purring happily in our mutual love fest. I can hardly convey how happy we are to have her happy and "back", and have teased out this little lovey wonderful thing that was hidden insider her before.

made my own heat duct “reducer” today — for $25 in only two hours!

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Using a 24" x 36" sheet of (intended for ducting) sheet metal (~$10) and rivet tool + rivets (~$15) I was able to take a 14" x 8" opening and create a 4" deep reducer down to a 14" x 4" opening. This way, this can be an **insert** into an existing duct and "boot"/box that takes an 8" pipe of heat into a 4" deep 14" x 8" box. It can then exhale the heat into a 14" x 4" vent. Why the insert you ask? Hint: house was built in 1960. Guess what the most common way to insulate ductwork **and** boxes/registers/boots was back then? ASBESTOS, YAY! So while we don't know it is for sure, it sure looks like it (inspectors clued us in, t00). So we not gonna mess w/ the box/ductwork that is in relatively good shape and not cut it, etc. This is all part of a Bigger Project of redecoration we are doing at the bunny fort.

new 'php-htm-mode' for emacs — intermixed PHP, HTML, JS, and CSS using multi-modes

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

I finally formalized, cleaned up, and packaged up my current emacs editing setup for files with intermixed PHP, HTML, JS/javascript, and CSS code all in the same file. It uses an existing but rarely used technique called "multi-mode" and sets "trigger points" for switching the "major mode" of the buffer as your cursor moves through the code. A nice thing about this approach is that you can always glance down anytime you are editing to see which mode you are in (or the emacs lisp code **thinks** you are in). You can also fork/edit the single ".el" lisp file to add/update the triggers for various modes. https://github.com/traceypooh/php-htm-mode

Morgan Territory Motorcyclin’ — 85 mile east bay loop around Mt. Diablo with Honda CB400A “decaf”

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

After months of work, Russ finally gets his Ninja 600cc working!
Hunter, Russ, and I celebrate with an 85-mile day trip during the three day weekend around Mount Diablo, through the legendary Morgan Territory. Ridden over: Oakland, Canyon, Moraga, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Clayton, Morgan Territory, Danville, San Ramon, and home!

today I did my first oil and oil filter change, ever! (Honda CB400A “decaf”)

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Russ and I changed our motorcycle's oil and oil filters today. This was the first time I've ever changed oil in a vehicle -- I guess it sort of was a life goal I figured I'd never get around to -- part of understanding cars/bikes more! So it was a nice way to kick off the start of our 3-day holiday weekend. The actual work on my bike was quite simple: - 1 ratchet-able bolt as the drain plug to release most of the used oil into oil drip pan - 1 ratchet-able bolt underneath to release the bike's oil pan and oil filter section Russ helped figure out those bolts which I could confirm with a shop manual PDF. Harder was sorting out what oil and filter to get/use and getting them. I went with: - Valvoline SAE 10W-40 Motorcycle oil (for 4-strokes; non-synthetic; ideal for wet clutches) (AutoZone/Walmart) - K&N KN-111 oil filter (local motorcycle shop) ![removing bottom bolt and filter](../img/oilchange3.jpg)

removing bottom bolt and filter

Putting everything back couldn't be easier -- slipped on new filter to bolt/cover, ratchet-ed the two bolts back in, and poured in ~3 quarts of oil. I was happy parts were all in good shape and aside from some relatively dirty oil, no badness or surprises for my 35 year old bike. Phew! ![garage work overview](../img/oilchange2.jpg)

garage work overview

How to turn Time Machine from disk with many partitions to single partition (logically “extending” Time Machine partition)

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

The high-level answer is: * use macosx Disk Utility * make a .dmg of Time Machine partition (to another disk) * wipe out disk * restore .dmg * extend partition to full size (or whatever size you want) of disk Detailed steps: 1. backup one last time with Time Machine 2. turn off Time Machine via preferences 3. open Disk Utility (builtin mac app) 4. select the partition where your Time Machine backups are 5. hit the "New Image" icon in top bar -- use the default options (with ".dmg" suffix, no encryption) 6. save the .dmg to another disk that has space (this takes awhile) 7. once that's done, you can re-partition using Disk Utility the disk that originally had your Time Machine partition on it. (WARNING THIS WIPES OUT ENTIRE DISK AND ALL PARTITIONS!) Select each partition on the disk and hit the [-] icon near the bottom of the partition list. BE VERY CAREFUL AND MAKE SURE YOU HAVE IDENTIFIED THE RIGHT DISK! 8. your disk is now empty... 9. repartition the disk however you like -- since Time Machine uses its own subdir, I suggest partitioning the disk to a single partition, full extent of the disk 10. with the emptied disk still selected, hit "Restore" button/tab to the right 11. find the .dmg you made previously as your Source 12. drag the emptied partition (where you want Time Machine backups to go) to the Destination 13. hit the "Restore" button (bottom right) 14. it will ask you to approve scanning/verifying .dmg (yes/OK) 15. (this takes awhile) 16. resize your restored Time Machine partition to full disk (or whatever size you want) 17. turn back on Time Machine backups 18. approve the question about "disk has moved..." PS: you can also you this technique to move an entire set of Time Machine backups from one disk to another disk (without losing all your backups!)

simple way to make h.264 mp4 web and iOS/mobile playable video mp4 files for linux and macosx using ffmpeg

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Greetings video geeks! 😎
At my job, I've updated the process and way we create our .mp4 files that are shown on video pages on archive.org It's a much cleaner/clearer process, namely: * I opted to **ditch ffpreset files in favor of command-line argument** 100% equivalents. It seems a bit easier for someone reading the task log of their item, trying to see what we did. * I **no longer need qt-faststart** step and dropped it. I use the cmd-line modern ffmpeg `-movflags faststart` Entire processing is now done 100% with ffmpeg, in the standard "2-pass" mode As before, this output .mp4: * **plays in** modern html5 video tag compatible **browsers** * **plays in flash** plugin within browsers * works on all **iOS devices** * makes sure the "moov atom" is at the front of the file, so browsers can **playback before downloading** the entire file, etc. Here is an example (you would tailor especially the `scale=640:480` depending on source aspect ratio and desired output size; change or drop altogether the `-r 20` option (the source was 20 fps, so we make the dest 20 fps); tailor the bitrate args to taste): ```bash ffmpeg -y -i stairs.avi -vcodec libx264 -pix\_fmt yuv420p -vf yadif,scale=640:480 \ -profile:v baseline \ -x264opts cabac=0:bframes=0:ref=1:weightp=0:level=30:bitrate=700:vbv\_maxrate=768:vbv_bufsize=1400 \ -movflags faststart -ac 2 -b:a 128k -ar 44100 -r 20 -pass 1 -acodec aac \ -strict experimental stairs.mp4; ffmpeg -y -i stairs.avi -vcodec libx264 -pix\_fmt yuv420p -vf yadif,scale=640:480 \ -profile:v baseline \ -x264opts cabac=0:bframes=0:ref=1:weightp=0:level=30:bitrate=700:vbv\_maxrate=768:vbv_bufsize=1400 \ -movflags faststart -ac 2 -b:a 128k -ar 44100 -r 20 -pass 2 -acodec aac \ -strict experimental \ -metadata title='Stairs where i work - https://archive.org/details/stairs' \ -metadata year='2004' \ -metadata comment='license:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/' \ stairs.mp4 ``` Happy hacking and creating! PS: here is the [way we compile ffmpeg](https://github.com/traceypooh/deriver-archive/blob/master/ffmpeg-README.sh) (we use ubuntu linux at work, but this script used to have minor mods for macosx, too).

decaf 1978 honda CB400A running and instruments working

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Here's a short video mid-way through a 50-mile day of canyons and twisties. Fun! The "idiot lights" are working (still have to get the dang neutral light to turn off when in gear, but otherwise good 8-p) and now you can hear my little kitty purr

decaf – CB400A reassembled and on the cruise

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Everything is working again with my greatly streamlined instrument cluster is in place! (Well my LED "idiot light" for "neutral" is always on now so one last adjustment/fix sometime soon!)

honda CB400A — fixing turn signal and neutral LEDs (to new speedometer)

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Whups, my new speedo's turn indicator LED was only going on when left signal was running. Thankfully, found [this post on hondatwins](http://www.hondatwins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=140358#p140358) that mentioned the orange and light blue bike lines were actually active lines for when left or right turn signal was on -- not that they were positive and negative general lines. It also mentioned a (cheap/simple, yay!) fix to use two 3-amp diodes and tie them in together. A quick putt-putt to Radioshack and $2 later... Success! I focus mainly on that in this image, but also some other related notes. I also have my new speedo's neutral LED light now turning on when bike is on (but not running) -- will see tomorrow if it **also** properly goes **off** when shift up when bike is running.

decaf 1978 honda CB400A speedometer and instruments replaced!

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

OK, so I sorted out all my re-wiring and was able to replace my stock honda huge instrument cluster with a much smaller and streamlined single mini-speedometer with four instrument lights combined in it. I used a CB400A wiring clymer manual image that I found online to sort out which wires connect where. I also cleared up quite a few wire clusters that no longer needed to leave the headlight wire storage area and made space for the new connections. VERY satisfying! Can't wait to fire her up tomorrow and hopefully the speedo/odometer work properly and track accurately. The indicator lights I could test (blinkers, hi-beam, as well as instrument backlight) work. Will see if my neutral light works tomorrow too (and hopefully will not see the "oil pressure" light come on ever 😎 )

Test fit of “decaf” CB400A smaller speedometer & instrument lights

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Speedo and relocated ignition bolted in to good spots while I figure out the wiring.

decaf honda CB400A replacement & consolidated speedometer ordered!

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Going with Dime City Cycles nice mini speedometer I'll get my hands dirteh and post progress and/or pics as soon as it comes in! http://www.dimecitycycles.com/vintage-cafe-racer-caferacer-bobber-brat-chopper-custom-motorcycle-electronic-parts-mini-chrome-white-face-speedo-speedometer-490291.html

replacing CB400A instruments to smaller cafe racer style

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Today I did much more than I thought I would -- I pulled out and disconnected all instruments and relocated the ignition/key switch. The plan is to combine the current speedometer/odometer with four of the seven indicator lights (neutral, high beam indicator, oil warning light, turn signal indicator) into a smaller chrome combined unit, and just plain omit the other three lights (parking brake, 1st gear, 2nd gear). Now that I've done more than I had planned ("oh, maybe just two bolts today to see if I can figure out more what I'm up against...") it is time to order parts! 😎

decaf! Honda CB400A automatic cafe racer. I’ve been a bad girl today….

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Today Hunter helped me inspect, test-drive, buy, and drive 100+ miles home from a mom-n-pop custom bike modifier in California's central valley. We avoided the 5 and all freeways and started out with about an hour of "country roads" and farm roads that were mostly straight and flat. Next we nearly ran out of gas but recovered thanks to the "reserve switch" to fillup in Tracy. Finally, we started the fun curvy and up-and-down stuff through the northwest backside of Mt. Diablo and had a late lunch in Clayton. We wrapped it up through Moraga, and then our favorite twisty mountain pass up Pinehurst to Skyline Blvd and home What an wild day! I've named her "decaf" since she's an automatic (with just "lo" and "hi" gears, no clutch) **and** a cafe racer style modified bike. I'm really pleased she did so well on the first ambitious ride all the way home. Here's some bike porn / pix!

Shuttle Endeavour flies by us by Golden Gate today twice

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Goodbye Little machine that could and dream of my youth!

Friday beer options

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Friday night dilemnas These are organized by % Alcohol, guess the direction, Beer Connoisseur!

On to rafting adventure long weekend via Salt Lake

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

A rare college reunion by my amazing besties and roommates at Cornell University - a four day+ rafting and camping trip!

Luke Battling Darth — ASCII green

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT

luke battling darth - ASCII! famous painting by ralph mcquarrie to ascii by “jp2a” pkg and de pooh (and now green/black -- these things are important 😉 ) inset / zoomed splendid 7-bit resolution 🤣

convert yuvj420p to yuv420p (chrome playable!) mp4 video (eg: canon/nikon video)

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT

hooray! found a nice (video lossless, best i can tell) way to convert the video from cameras like my Canon ELPH SD1400 which is **already** h.264 video + PCM mono audio to a new mp4 container with aac audio. that part's easy/cake w/ ffmpeg -- but the trick to get the h.264 video part to play in chrome browser and/or with a flash plugin is to get the flagged "yuvj420p" colorspace pixels to be considered "yuv420p". it seems like the former is >= 8 bits-per-pixel and has a range wider than the 256 values; while the later is 8 bit per pixel. ( brief [info/notes/background](https://lists.libav.org/pipermail/libav-user/2010-August/005234.html) ) at any rate, finally found this nice post: which refers to this modified MP4Box/gpac tree, to switch the "fullrange" color-related flag off: and then, voila! i have a nice little script where i can convert my canon ELPH videos to a html5 video tag and flash plugin compatible mp4: ```bash #!/bin/bash -ex IN=${1:?"Usage: [input video] [output video]"} OUT=${2:?"Usage: [input video] [output video]"} # make hacked version of "mp4box" that can toggle colorspace-related flag in our vid if [ ! -e $HOME/scripts/mp4box ]; then (git clone https://github.com/golgol7777/gpac.git && cd gpac) || \ ( cd gpac && git reset --hard && git clean -f && git pull && git status ) ./configure --enable-pic --static-mp4box --enable-static-bin make -j4 # bonus points: make *static* binary so if change linux/OS versions, dont hafta worry! cd applications/mp4box gcc -o $HOME/scripts/mp4box -static main.o filedump.o fileimport.o live.o \ -L../../bin/gcc -lgpac_static -lm -lpthread -ldl -lz fi # demux ffmpeg -y -i "$IN" -an -vcodec copy video.mp4 ffmpeg -y -i "$IN" -vn -acodec copy audio.wav # convert yuvj420p to yuv420p the cheater way (for chrome and flash plugin playback!) rm -fv tmp.mp4 $HOME/scripts/mp4box -add video.mp4#:fullrange=off tmp.mp4 # convert wav audio to aac ffmpeg -y -i tmp.mp4 -i audio.wav -acodec libfaac -ac 1 -ab 256k -vcodec copy t2.mp4 qt-faststart t2.mp4 "$OUT" rm -fv video.mp4 audio.wav t2.mp4 tmp.mp4 ```

Luke Battling Darth — ASCII!

Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

luke battling darth famous painting by ralph mcquarrie to ascii by “jp2a” pkg and de pooh

fun bootie mashup dance mix

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

30 songs, 15 picked from [2011 Merry Xmash show Bootie did at DNA Lounge in San Francisco](https://archive.org/details/DNALOUNGE-2011-12-10) **Enjoy!**

google maps upgrades to 8-bit “hi-res” today 8-)

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Santa Monica never looked so beautiful!

deinterlacing 2323 telecine video into fields for visual analysis

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Having some challenging fun working on trying to deinterlace some toughie clips from my [brother's](http://rjfilms.com) upcoming feature film. His camera recorded in 24fps (24000/1001 to you fellow geeks 😎 and smartly did a "2323" writing/stretching of it to 60i (60 half-frames). After correcting back to 24fps progressive most of his clips, he's found ~10-20% are not able to be put back together visually properly even with CineTools and manually specifying the "cadence" and sequence starting frames, etc... I started with code that I wrote to take a small segment of a video and split the interlaced frames into 1/2 height "fields" and then drop them down to grayscale to compare them all to each other to find the best matches (to verify the cadence is right and/or the fields aren't "off by 1", etc..) It uses mplayer and ImageMagick ("convert" and "compare") for pretty high-quality extraction of frames from the source video into the 1/2 height "fields". So I just do about 0.3 seconds to get 10 frames, and thus 20 1/2 frame fields for analyzing. It will output the best matches of frames. For example: ```bash bash lacer.txt good.mov 0.5 0.8 ``` I then extended it into a web page (screenshot above, where I'm left-shifting one field by 4 pixels for visual inspection) **[/lacer/](/lacer/)** try it out online! (sources: [lacer.js](/lacer/lacer.js) [lacer.txt](/lacer/lacer.txt)) that uses some CSS cleverness (clip property is your BFF!) to interlace together a pair of fields. #### It supports: - field swapping (move one 1/2 image to be the 1st, 3rd, 5th, etc. lines -- if it was previously the 2nd, 4th, 6th, etc. lines) - left and right shifting a field - pairing arbitrary fields - showing a "raw" 60i telecined sequence - showing the 60i sequence as a "deinterlaced" 24P sequence

my town, 1947 style!

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Our amazing next door neighbor, [Reenie Raschke](http://reenieimages.com/), the super talented photographer has lovingly chronicled our town in a black-and-white pictorial called "[My Town Montclair](http://montclairvillagebook.com/)". We saw her present slides and background from her book last night at our local indie bookstore. She passed around this gem of an original 60+ year old newspaper showing our downtown as it was!

iphone and external mic sennheiser mke 400 can rule the galaxy!

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

a very small galaxy

natively compiling ffmpeg, mplayer, mencoder on MacOS Lion (with x264!)

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

OK, I've revamped my script to compile these tools: ```bash ffmpeg ffrobe qt-faststart mplayer mencoder ``` on MacOS Lion, using the heads of the trees, with direct encoding support for: `x264` `vpx` / WebM https://archive.org/download/traceypooh/macff.sh A nice recent update to ffmpeg is the ability to decode/read Apple ProRes, too!

camaro 0 to 60 test

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

## 2012 Camaro V6 Transformers Edition "Bumblebee" Hunter and I had some fun out in the east east Bay and gorgeous farmland countryside seeing how my little 'Bee can buzz! Not super sophisticated Ms. Driver -- but still lotsa fun and sorta exciting to poach a street for some two-camera iPhone pseudo-documentary...

Cute Scion IQ coming to states

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Hunter and I hit the SF auto show before Thanksgiving. Aside from the obvious super car perfections to like (eg: Ferrari 458 Italia) this was my favorite. I love little cutie-pie everything...

bitchn camaro

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

i um, got a new toy. it actually **is** the transformers special edition. so if i wake up early some morning and surprise it still in its crimefighting autobot mode...

Birthday Hike

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

just me and my DNA clone

Laundry for The Empire

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Should be a fun Halloween! (they don't come in black, as pictured 😎 )

domain change

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

same great space, new shorter url `dumbbunny.org ==> dePooh.com`

Double awesome art in financial district

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I've loved this cute local art feature at my bart-to-bus stop Captions are: - "I'm here to fix your car" - "But I don't have a car!!" - and now it's even more awesome with the tagged line over it - "Bankers took it" Go #OccupyWallSt !

more books for Internet Archive!

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

My boss had the great idea for me to time-lapse record 48 hours of a book donation, cataloging, and moving event. It was held in one of the longest buildings at Fort Mason, San Francisco and wound up giving the Internet Archive over 125,000 **more books**!

drifting lotus elise on playstation

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

OK, this was harder than it looks to pull off, but after a lot of practicing, I finally got the hang of drifting corners with this car and managed to score big points on all four of the drifting zones. silly fun in one of my favorite cars!

Return to Alma Mater

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I returned to Cornell, my college home of five years, for the first time in just over 15 years!
Got to visit with my prof/mentor and he gave me a great tour of the update campus and the changes and new architecture/buildings. We also got to take a nice long hike around the breathtaking gorge/park near my prof/mentor's house: Spending about two days on campus, a few things really struck me: - After all this time, **so much was the same and was so intimately familiar**, like burned into my brain. So, walking around Collegetown, campus, the Engineering & Arts Quads, eating lunch at the Hotel School, reading The Cornell Daily Sun, etc. -- all of that felt like I was back in school. The feeling was really eerie and totally unexpected! - **Distances, physical and mental, felt smaller** -- I thought it was 20 minutes to walk across campus, but everything's a bunch closer than I remembered it. - **Everyone is on laptops & smartphones** -- and it's campus-wide open wifi. I don't know how kids pay attention in Electricity & Magnetism with a twitter feed rolling... - **Everyone is so young! **Given the fact it was only ~3rd week into classes, many of them **were** just out of high school. The energy, optimism, and hustle was palpable and easy to feel/ride... Ah, youth! - (Speaking of which) Although I hear weed is de rigueur in college now, I saw 0 evidence of it there (kinda relieving -- esp. if you gonna pay that kinda $ to learn). Only clear-eyed, sharp, hustling kids did I see. - The **Engineering Quad has a brilliant new building, Duffield Hall**, straddling the corners and joining two prior ho-hum old halls. So now students have an enormously **large open enclosed light-filled space with tables, chairs, cafes, and wifi** -- perfect in-between classes and for informal meetups while FB strategizing your weekend party scene (or more likely study!) Yay, Geeks get some nice Goodies, too! I spent a lot of time here and even saw my second-favorite professor and other profs having a (presumably) informal lunch together.

bloviate

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

the most awesome word in the world -- at least right now [bloviate](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bloviate) I wish I had that in a spelling bee!

mole rolls to freedom

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Hunter and i were biking the other day parallel to the caldecott tunnel / 24, and were horrified to see a mole, midday, just rolling over and over again down the hill/pavement. We think maybe a huge rainstorm drove it out and it got lost trying to not drown on the road. they are **ALL HANDS**, no limbs! Poor thing was made to dig/swim only, not walk/run. After picking up the panicked little thing, we gently tossed it into dirt, but it looked just unhappy. Intuition kicked in and seemed like the soil was too hard so found some damper stuff to move it to. Presto! in seconds our little dirt scuba diver was self-buried in moist topsoil and happy. Hunter points out "bird food..." but it's a warm and furry mammal creature! _*ok I don't have a picture of the mole - but this feels like freedom to me and was from the same summer :)_

star wars steampunk amazing art

Mon, 30 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

this stuff from Bjorn Hurri is just fantastic! http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/bhurri/2011/04/21-questions-with-bjorn-hurri/

natively compiling ffmpeg, x264, mplayer on mac (with builtin x264 and webm encoding)

Sat, 28 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

i'm very pleased that after years of hacks here and there, all three heads of the current codebases pretty well build natively on mac (snow leopard) for - x264 - ffmpeg - mplayer here, i'm making sure that i compile in static version of libvpx (Webm) and libx264 (h.264) video packages so that the ffmpeg can easily make hiqh quality h.246 and webm transcoded videos. So we can make nice (2 pass video) ~768 kb/sec 640×480 derivatives like so (alter `-r ..` as appropriate): ### make WebM ```bash ffmpeg -deinterlace -y -i 'camels.avi' -vcodec webm -fpre libvpx-360p.ffpreset \ -vf scale=640:480 -r 20 -threads 2 -map_meta_data -1:0 -pass 1 \ -an tmp.webm ffmpeg -deinterlace -y -i 'camels.avi' -vcodec webm -fpre libvpx-360p.ffpreset \ -vf scale=640:480 -r 20 -threads 2 -map_meta_data -1:0 -pass 2 \ -acodec libvorbis -ab 128k -ac 2 -ar 44100 tmp.webm mv tmp.webm 'camels.webm' ``` ### make h.264 ```bash ffmpeg -deinterlace -y -i 'camels.avi' -vcodec libx264 -fpre libx264-IA.ffpreset \ -vf scale=640:480 -r 20 -threads 2 -map_meta_data -1:0 -pass 1 \ -an tmp.mp4 ffmpeg -deinterlace -y -i 'camels.avi' -vcodec libx264 -fpre libx264-IA.ffpreset \ -vf scale=640:480 -r 20 -threads 2 -map_meta_data -1:0 -pass 2 \ -acodec aac -strict experimental -ab 128k -ac 2 -ar 44100 tmp.mp4 qt-faststart tmp.mp4 'camels.mp4' ``` our preset files: Nice things about the h.264 derivative: * plays on all iphones and ipads * browser video tag and/or flash plugin compatible * starts immediately, seeks immediately even before entire video is downloaded hope this may be useful!

awesome artwork

Wed, 25 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Amazing Star Wars 'propoganda' posters & art. http://www.pbh2.com/astounding/incredible-star-wars-propaganda-posters/

ifone2 lockup

Fri, 20 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

boom

star wars 1977 reedit night

Fri, 06 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

We had a blast watching our [favorite film](/2010-04-star-wars-re-remastered-to-high-quality-1977-version) Monday night at our new "work theatre" (as opposed to "home") and my new accurate prop replica pieces came in for the event! https://traceypooh.com/2010-04-star-wars-re-remastered-to-high-quality-1977-version

The Train from Spain rides Mainly on the Plane

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Kinda fun HD 720p video of my tiny camera taped onto my 3-year-old nephew's matchbox-sized train. The camera weight and size meant it couldn't go up train hills or tight spaces, so it was a flat track with "elbow room". Choo choo!

internet archive holiday party time-lapse

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

This was our 2010 work holiday party where I used iTimeLapse w/ my iFone to make my longest time-lapse ever -- over 8 hours (sped up to play in about 2min 30sec!) This features great music from Hunter!

fun with ford GT in GT5

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

more silly fun with the playstation. a very hopped up yellow 2006 ford GT with custom wheels and tons of engine mods. the rear wheel drive and crazy power makes sliding around the track a lot of fun...

it’s fun to drink and drive!

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I've been having fun racing the boyfriend on the PS3 game "Gran Turismo 5".
Turns out the quite recent and relatively new Nissan GT-R is a totally insane car -- 4WD and one of the largest engines Japan has made plus supercharging. With a nice belgian beer and our media room, it makes it a super immersively fun time! I've added a carbon hood, racing rear spoiler, custom wheels, weight reductions, and engine tunings to bring it to something crazy like peak 650 horsepower. Really fun to personalize it a bit! The replays are fun - especially when you do spectacular crashes and jumps. You can customize the pictures from all sorts of different camera angles. Virtual reality, indeed! 😎

Amazing Summer trip to Bali!

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Two week vacation to the glorious island of Bali, summer 2010. Bali is culturally fascinating -- full of very happy and cooperative people unlike any place I've seen. Here are some interesting tidbits/observances: Bali is an amazing isolated place whose people typically lives communally and is based off of the agriculture of rice. Despite being part of Islamic Indonesia, the vast majority (70%+) of the people are Hindu (with a mix of Animism from Bali's indigenous roots). We saw everything we could, ate their amazing food, and tried to soak up as much Balinese culture as we could! You can see [more formats and information here][1]. [1]: https://archive.org/details/bali-trip

Sony P-Series running 10.10 Meerkat Ubuntu

Sun, 24 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

## Sony P-Series (specifically: win7 era P788K, 8" 1600x768 display, 2B RAM, GMA 500 graphics, 64GB SSD) I got this supercute [mini-laptop](https://web.archive.org/web/20100328005526/http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10151&catalogId=10551&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666067697#features) last year I had been using Ubuntu linux Lucid (10.4) and just upped to Meerkat (10.10). (Both were Netbook Edition). I'd never gotten video acceleration to work before and was stuck w/ ~1-5 fps video most of the time. Doing the widely suggested: ```bash set -e sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gma500/ppa sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gma500/fix sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install poulsbo-driver-2d poulsbo-driver-3d poulsbo-config ``` ... bricked my vaio 8-( well, i mean, it gave me root login w/o X/windows ability but... 8-p) but 2-3 apt-get remove, reinstalls, hunting google later, found the apparent saviour (I did 1000mb from 2000mb recommended [here](http://www.webupd8.org/2010/05/fix-intel-gma500-poulsbo-graphics-in.html)): ```bash sudo nano /etc/default/grub GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash mem=1000mb acpi_osi=Linux" sudo update-grub ``` booted clean! **immediately** got ability to use proprietary vaio accessory to output VGA to external monitor (a first!) and brightness up/down hotkeys working. (brightness to work even at all!) but best of all, video and appearance **and everything** (moving windows, starting applications) was **so much faster** visually! cmd-line video playback with ```bash sudo apt-get remove mplayer sudo apt-get install gnome-mplayer gecko-mediaplayer ``` so this is **all** i have done, aside from starting w/ vanilla install (with just a few changes to help w/ SSD instead of HD) of lucid upgraded to meerkat. (personally, i'm still working on getting suspend/resume to work (seems to work but the display doesn't come back on -- been like this the whole time) and to get hibernate to work -- prolly will go with some kinda memory stick to dump to) ### UPDATE! suspend/resume working now with change to suggested "gma500 fix" ```bash set -e sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gma500/ppa sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gma500/fix sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install poulsbo-driver-2d poulsbo-driver-3d poulsbo-config ``` I think this additional suggestion may have fixed sleep/resume (but it's possible it was just the gma500/fix related packages in live above: `sudo mv /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/99video /usr/lib/pm-utils/99video`

Marine layer in bay area

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

From the airplane of a July trip. We sailed through a thickly overcast morning only to reveal this perfect white cottonball carpet flat layer topped with hidden brilliant buttery vitamin D sunshine! 😎

Another great indie film

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Hunter and I really really liked this film shown on PBS this week. It nicely wanders in its storytelling and is really thoughtfullly done. John Adams (I think) said his best piece of lawyer-ing was defending the British in Boston after the Boston Massacre. The military officer who defended the Gitmo detainee here is a true American hero. ["The Oath"](https://web.archive.org/web/20110717020735/http://www.theoathmovie.com/)

Great Frontline program — The Wounded Platoon

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I just listened to this as a podcast and then watched the video online after that. It's a really interesting slice and view into the Iraq war -- where they just focus on one specific platoon. "Wounded" refers more to the psychological rather than physical wounds -- although the latter relates to the former... The original materials, background, and discussion can be [seen here](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/woundedplatoon/). The 7 chapter program can be seen in its entirety here:

(_requires javascript_)

Kitty shot

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Cutest teddy bear kitty helps me with laundry.

Updated Site!

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

**Woohoo!**
So after over a year of owning this site w/ little more than 10 posts and pages geared towards AIDS LifeCycle fundraising and training, I've finally merged my personal site into this site and updated it. So now this is the **New home of Tracey Jaquith and Dumb Bunny Productions.** I've got new a new navigation layout and structure, updated CSS and style, and about 20 main info pages added. I'll be tweaking it a bit, but the biggest changeover is now live! This site aims to blend blogging with a more traditional website.

xslt

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

## About my *PRIOR* XSLT site **_<------ NOTE: this all refers to my prior site and uses some archived "Wayback Machine" page links so you can still see the code ------>_** _[ I used XSLT until Sep 2008, when I converted my site to [client-side/browser JS](/oldjs) ]_ I'm using 100% [XML](http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml), [XSL](http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xsl-20011015/xslspec.html), and (client side) [XSLT](http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt.html) for my superneato new look. HTML is output by XSL (a language for transforming XML documents into other XML or HTML documents). I have a single HTML file for the "redirect" page [here](index.html). There is just a skôtch of javascript for "mouseover" events on my [time-lapses video page](/lapses). But other than that, it's just XML and XSL (and of course, CSS 8-). ### How this site works Each XML page simply contains the page-specific data as normal HTML elements inside the XML declaration. The declaration establishes to a web browser that it is XML, and then loads my [styles.xsl](http://web.archive.org/web/20071026101754/http://www.archive.org/~tracey/styles.xsl) XSL stylesheet. The XSL stylesheet outputs the top header and the left-hand navigation. Next, it "copies" all HTML from the XML as the page-specific content. Finally, the XSL stylesheet outputs the footer. For example, this is what the source of [hunter.xml](http://web.archive.org/web/20071013204549/http://www.archive.org/~tracey/hunter.xml) looks like: ```xml

Hunter's Website (he's Super!)

``` That's it! My XSL, `styles.xsl`, will tell the browser how to output HTML. (NOTE: MSIEv7 requires the ` rel="stylesheet" ` in the stylesheet declaration or else it will assume your XSL is really an RSS feed and not display!) My XSL will start with the `` tag and output the `` and start the ``. The body contains a main table which will: - output an overall site "header" row - output an overall site "left hand navigation column" in the next row - copy the XML "content" into the next column - make a final 3rd row and put an overall site "footer" in it There are some other special things I do like: - Have styles.xsl "load"(!) an XML file. For example, I load [quotes.xml](http://web.archive.org/web/20071216090113/http://www.archive.org/~tracey/quotes.xml) because a random quote is used in [index.xml](http://web.archive.org/web/20080323091134/http://www.archive.org/~tracey/index.xml) - **Generate a random number in XSL** (a pseudorandom). See the top of [styles.xsl](http://web.archive.org/web/20071026101754/http://www.archive.org/~tracey/styles.xsl) to see how I finally figured a sneaky way to make a random number (to pick a random quote in [index.xml](http://web.archive.org/web/20080323091134/http://www.archive.org/~tracey/index.xml), to pick a random picture in [pictures.xml](http://web.archive.org/web/20060820081919/http://www.archive.org/~tracey/pictures.xml)). - Use CVS checkin special variables like `$Date: 2015/05/10 05:27:34 $` and `$RCSfile: xslt.php,v $`, which get automatically updated on checkin, to allow for page-specific information in the footer (like what page you are looking at and when it was most recently updated). But other than that, it's pretty straightforward. ### You crackhead, why XML? Some benefits: - My prior website provider gave me no access to CGI (so PERL, PHP, and such were out of the question). - By putting all my HTML in XML, the HTML is forced to be validated as SGML. This allows me to stay on my toes and forces me to have to output well-formed SGML/HTML. - Similar to the first point, since I could not do much dynamically on the server side, I can have the client's browser (which must understand XML and XSL, which fortunately all modern browsers do and have for awhile) do the "XML + XSL" transforming for me. - Viewing the source by browsing the XSL page itself with a browser is supernice as the browser does all the XML prettying, formatting, and coloring. - You can avoid most Javascript in lieu of the pretty sophisticated [XSL language builtins](http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxp/dist/1.1/docs/tutorial/xslt/1_intro.html) and rules once you get the hang of it. - You can test and develop without a webserver running (like needed for executed CGI) -- you can just drag files to a webbrowser. It took me about a week of "moonlighting" to learn all this and convert my site. So please use any technique(s) you like from my site from what I've learned!

work - Professional Daydreamer

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

More details can be found in my:

Roy Lichtenstein
Image Duplicator
1963 Magna on canvas
24 x 20 in.

October 2004, Tracey returned to work once again with [Brewster Kahle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Kahle) at the now fully nonprofit [Internet Archive](https://archive.org) to help continue the largest digital library in the world. Tracey is working on their website and the storage system for the collection materials, as well as side digital video projects. She is primarily developing in PHP, JSON, and CSS. Tracey worked at [Intelligent Markets](http://imarkets.com) from 2000 to 2004 as a java software architect, responsible for efficient servers as well as the Oracle and Sybase database and JDBC layers. She was also in charge of server configuration, setup, and its build system, converting a legacy 10,000 line "make" system to a modern Ant/XML solution. She was inventor on two patent applications. Tracey worked at [Internet Archive](https://archive.org) and [Alexa Internet](http://www.alexa.com) from 1996 to 2000, building high-speed dynamic HTTP servers and web crawlers. She was the system architect. She was inventor on two patents. In the 90s, Tracey worked for two years post-college for [Xerox](https://xerox.com) Desktop Document Systems (believed to have since become [Nuance](http://www.nuance.com). There Tracey used her formal background and training in machine vision and image analysis to analyze the contents of documents in efforts to empower computers to understand the world of images in a manner similar to humans (for example Optical Character Recognition). Tracey was also their webmaster. She was inventor on four image analysis patents. Tracey graduated from [Cornell University](https://www.cornell.edu) with a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science and a Master's of Engineering in Computer Science. She worked with mentor [Dan Huttenlocher](https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~dph) in the [Computer Science Robotics and Vision Lab](https://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/Projects/csrvl/csrvl.html) on problems in machine vision, like tracking moving objects with both stationary and (arbitrarily) moving cameras. She published two papers; one was accepted to a computer vision conference.

Videos by the Pooh

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Fun Videos

tours

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

# East bay roadbiking tours _Click on cyan link to see climbing profile and google earth complete route sheet._
_Click on image for larger view of overall route._

(rural circle around Briones Park in Lafayette)

(halfway up - South Gate to North Gate)

(great climbing in the berkeley/oakland hills)

(great climbing through trees. climb Sunol and finish with 20 mile flat sprint)

(super beautiful climb along a stream through canyon of rural wineries. flat first half; climbing second half.) contains pretty technical section on highway 84/niles canyon.

(lazy sunday? a 90-minute defibrillator your heart says? quickie 3 hill neighborhood romp...)
but be careful, young grasshopper -- mile 3 is an a**kicker 8-)

(Over 3,500 feet of constant climbing. you might suffer, but oh! you're going to get high!)

Bike through the oil refineries. Cycle bayside and see the C&H sugar factory. Finish through cattle and horse speckled parks and farmlands.

_To play KML real nice, open with google earth, highlight the BOTTOM "Route:..",_ _and hit "F10" key to play entire tour smoothly from a bird's eye view!_

Quoth the Raven

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

## The Personal is Political

March 2003 Antiwar Protest

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

It was hard to get a sense of just how **huge** this march was, even while in the middle of it. We were never able to see the front or rear of the march from where we were, even in long stretches from Van Ness & Market to 4th & Market. This shot is close to where we started, with the SF Symphony and Opera Plaza in the background.

I was absolutely **stunned** by the number of hand-made signs and the creativity and passion expressed on them. Seeing them all waving together in a single voice was overwhelming. Tearily, I thought how nice it was to be around others like me, instead of feeling helpless on the couch watching CNN as Bush continues to ignore the world majority. I thought _"if everyone was like this in my imaginary country, I'd be the proudest and happiest citizen."_ We turn the corner and I'm like "dang! we shut down Van Ness!" The car drivers beeped in support and seemed to actually enjoy being in the middle of it. "Do Not Block Intersection" < tee hee >

I had my little francophile sign held high for the day. I got a lot of attention from it. People mostly thought it was great or would laugh. Some thought I was French, others spoke french or simple french encouragement as I went by ("Oui! Oui! Oui!"). One man was so happy to see me supporting France that he took a picture for his Parisian friend ("my friend is convinced nobody supports France anymore").

Hunter's sign is harder to read here. Behind him is a variant of "What Would Jesus Do?" as "Who Would Jesus Bomb?".

There were some pretty cute and creative expressions of protest. This was one of the smallest marchers.

After the march, Hunter and I headed back to work. On the way, we stopped to watch some of the _more vocal protesters shut down Market & 7th._ Just like that -- leaving about 6 buses and 5 cars suddenly stuck waiting at the closed intersection.

Detail of the highly effective sign.

Pressure from police moving in gets the Market & 7th intersection starting to move again. The buses start crossing the intersection. They stop. I spin around and see why. This young man _holds up buses with a serene lotus position_ amidst bus horns and near chaos around him. A KRON camerwoman swoops in.

We continue down Market towards 6th. Halfway down, most all of the rougly 100 people start running towards 6th. It was surreal -- the sidewalks just suddenly start wooshing with people and I can't help but feel like a cow in the middle of a herd that just got spooked. At 6th street, _anarchists are stirring things_ up as the police have been swarming in around Market street from 5th to 7th street. Some of them are throwing things at the police; many are screaming. The police are not happy and start to swell the ring of riot police from the intersection and towards the sidewalk.

I'm thinking "this is one of the things I wanted to see and document!" I start snapping photos (along with others) from the MUNI ramp in Market St. Hunter has continued on across Market and is yelling "Tracey! Now!" I finally turn to meet Hunter and see why he is yelling. Police have now moved in from 7th & Market and _we are totally surrounded in the middle of about 200 riot police._ My heart is suddenly racing and I'm thinking "oh s---".

If you look toward the background, the dark blue ring is all riot police as they have nearly two fully concentric rings surrounding the intersection and the sidewalks around the intersection. Luckily, the police have some openings for people like us (peaceful protesters) to slip through. Phew!

All in all, a totally fantastic and empowering experience! This was my first protest march ever, so it was both eye opening and stimulating. I left the weekend feeling much better, especially after hearing that up to 300,000 people marched in NYC (and at least 50,000 marched in SF). I was also very impressed by both how peaceful the protesting has been, and by how reasonable and restrained the police have been. It seems that protesters shut down an intersection for awhile, and then the police move in and free it up. Most of the time, it is only those who refuse to move who get arrested. The protesters get to feel good -- they get to mess up the system that is NOT business as usual while we are attacking another country, and the police get to feel good -- they get to free intersections and not arrest too many people.

LISTEN BUSH, LISTEN!
A.N.S.W.E.R.
Write your US Representative

about PoohBot Pictures

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

#### My filming and digital video production interests

More Time Lapses Examples

(Nonprofessional) Studio Setup
hardware: Canon digital ELPH and EOS cameras
          Sony VX2000 miniDV camera
          Macbook Air laptop
          Sony VAIO P-series mini laptop
software: imovie, quicktime pro, ffmpeg, x264
          my own scripts and programs
formats:  Motion JPEG and h.264 MPEG4 video

Dowling's Law of Photograpy:
One missed photographic opportunity creates a desire to purchase two additional pieces of equipment.
-Murphy's Law

I was the Executive Producer for the feature-length film ["Stolen Good"](https://rjfilms.com/stolen.htm).
I filmed, directed, and produced a [2 minute political commercial](https://archive.org/details/McNerneySpot) for a Democratic candidate for the US House of Representatives which aired on KQED, Oct 2004. ## DVD and VCD Production As my [twin brother](https://rjfilms.com) is an independent filmmaker, I've produced, from DV source, two versions of a DVD for his feature-length 16mm film, as well as a VCD demo version. I've worked on and collaborated on other VCD and DVD projects. I've converted [Internet Archive](https://archive.org)'s video from RTSP mp4 files to use ~~flash~~ h.264 MPEG-4 video as well as Ogg Theora video using all opensource software and tools like: ffmpeg, liboggz, mod_h264_streaming, and flowplayer. (tech details and blog)

I interacted a bit with this DV Forum. Widescreen video? Rectangular pixels? Anamorphic DVDs? Progressive? I'm an image and video format geek so I *love* (and do) this stuff! Just say no! to 4x3 interlaced video ## Time Lapse Photography I shoot with one (and sometimes two simultaneously) of: Sony VX2000, various Canon ELPH digital cameras, or high end Canon EOS. - With the Sony or ELPH, I shoot _"tapeless" and "memory cardless"_, opting instead to connect via FireWire and USB, respectively, to my laptop or Picturebook. - For the Canon, use of the laptop allows me to use Canon's RemoteCapture software's built-in "interval shooting" feature for shooting a still frame every 5 seconds (or higher delay). - For the Sony DV camera, it allows me to use Sony's PictureGear with DVGate, along with a simple "macro recorder" software (eg: $20 trialware [Tasker](http://www.vista-software.com/tasker.htm), to take still frames once every second (or higher delay). - Alternatively, I've used the Elph standalone for lapses with a [school eraser and rubberband](https://archive.org/details/commute) 8-) ## Time Lapse Tricks I now use the [FFMPEG](https://ffmpeg.org) package compiled locally on my Mac Leopard laptop
I create "motion-JPEG" AVIs that are *ideal* for time-lapse video for the following reasons: - They allow for arbitrary width and height video (unlike MPG1). - You can easily convert to (same aspect) another video format like here (with ffmpeg -- see above). - They look better since you can truly "hold" an individual JPEG frame for multiple seconds or sub-seconds, instead of "replicating" a frame. - They only have the JPEG compression artifacts of the sources, no additional MPG motion artifacts, etc. - They are smaller in overall size than alternatives like animated GIFs, MPG2, and *even* MPG1. - ... and yet the quality is BETTER than animated GIFs, MPG1, or MPG2 alternatives. - Nearly everything in the world plays "Motion JPEG" files as nearly every consumer digital camera saves AVI/MOV "video" files using motion-JPEG. - An audio track can be added. - The video filesize is independent of the framerate -- it's merely dependent on the number of total frames. (So no matter how "slow" or "fast" you encode the frames to whiz by, the filesize doesn't change.) Thus, I can take 100-1000 JPEG images from a "shoot" and create a video time-lapse of all the JPEG images in a given subdir in a command-line shell (terminal): ```bash ffmpeg -r 6 -i "%04d.jpg" -an -vcodec copy out.avi ``` Even cooler, you can go directly back to *the same JPEG* images like so (this is where you can see it is a lossless conversion from JPEGs to Motion JPEG and back): ```bash ffmpeg -i out.avi -vcodec copy "%04d.jpg" ``` `-r 6` is the framerate, ie: "make the video play 6 JPEG images per second".
It doesn't get much nicer than that! Not to mention, the encoding is FAST! I recently moved from mencoder/mplayer to ffmpeg since you can specify a complete copy of the input JPEGs (lossless from the source) as well as compress them down a bit (as you like). You can get this running on Windows with Cygwin, Mac with terminal, and any linux distribution like Ubuntu. ## VX-2000 Camera Widescreen Time Lapse Tricks There's a cute and rather hard to find out way to save a still image in native DV format directly from the Sony camera over FireWire. Normally, if you use Premiere, DVGate, SmartCapture, etc. to grab still frames from the FireWire connected camera, it will automatically convert the still for you into a "square pixel" format. As DV is recorded in 720 x 480 pixels (and is neither 4:3 nor 16:9 aspect but actually 3:2), software to get stills automatically assume you want an image in square pixels. Thus, if the VX2000 is set in 16:9 mode, it will translate the 720x480 rectangular pixels into 852x480; if in 4:3 mode, it will translate the 720x480 rectangular pixels into 640x480.
Since we want to ultimately make a DV film from the stills, we don't like that! Sony offers a quasi-proprietary **"DVF" format** for storing stills that I haven't been able to find *any* documentation for, and suspect is not widely used (although JVC can understand DVF, read on). While **VX2000 is connected via firewire to laptop, run PictureGear**. Then, in the "Folder"(s) window, click on "Outer Devices". Click "Capture". "DVGate Still" shows up. If you right-click, you can `select "Launch DVGate Still"`. This, apparently, opens a backdoor from camera into PictureGear, and **will save DVF files every time you hit "capture"** in DVGate Still to PictureGear's "DVGate Still" folder. (I use Tasker software mentioned above to record me clicking capture and pausing X seconds. Then I just playback the recorded "macro" at "full speed" in "infinite loop" and I get a DVF every X seconds). You will then note **the DVF file is presto! in 720 x 480** (regardless of whether you shot in 4:3 or 16:9 mode). PictureGear allows you to "save as" BMP, TIF, JPEG, GIF (among others), but all seem to wind up as "square pixels" (ie: 640x480 if was shot in 4:3; 852x480 if was shot in 16:9). You've just been resampled -- not good. After *LOTS* of days online looking and searching, I finally came across this [gem](http://www.pechorin.com/m/2001/11/07/convert_dvf_file_format_to_jpeg-41894.html) of a page. There, the replier indicates that [JVC's](http://www.jvc.de/html/faq/Download/software/22/#Capture30) [JLIP VideoCapture 3.1](http://www.jvc.de/html/faq/Download/software/22/camcorder.html#Capture30) (free from Germany) can read DVFs and save them as something else. I installed the tool and can now save my DVFs as 720x480 BMPs (which Premiere can happily import). Note the BMPs are still in the right rectangular pixels! I've only gotten the 4:3 images to fully go through my version of Premiere LE where the project, images, and export all stay the rectangular 720x480 pixels. Premiere properly interprets the BMPs to be 720x480 "D1/DV NTSC (0.9)". I'm pretty sure that the 0.9 refers to the factor of horizontal scaling of 720==>640 that is to be done post-export (in my case, when I make the MPG-1 (VCD) or MPG-2 (DVD) compressed versions of my AVIs using TMPGEnc). 640 / 720 = 0.8888.. or about "0.9". **For my 16:9 BMPs**, my Premiere version defaults to think the BMPs are in 0.9 mode and not the correct "D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 16:9 (1.2)" pixel aspect ratio (where 1.2 I'm pretty sure refers to horizontal scaling 720==>852, where 852 / 720 = 1.1833333 (or about "1.2")). Thus, they would get resampled and distorted. However, thanks to DV Forum hunting, I found the way to make Premiere interpret them correctly.
When stills are on the timeline, select all of them. Go to "clip" menu, "Advanced Options", "Pixel Aspect Ratio...". Select "D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 16:9 (1.2)"
There you go! Your entire "capture to export" workflow is now using 16:9 widescreen "rectangular pixels" and you are free to have as smart or not-so-smart AVI converter figure out where to go from there.

Photos

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Recent Albums

Most of the new pictures are here.

Road Biking Photo Album.
We like to bike between 40 to 100 miles a week.

Europe Photo Album.
The "best of" from a summer month in 2002.
Paris, Roma, Barcelona, Nice, San Sebastian, Firenza, Grasse, more!

2003 ANTI-WAR March
Photo Album
with commentary
(and my first protest!)

oldJS

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

## About my *PRIOR* JS-base (JavaScript) site _NOTE: this all refers to my prior site and uses some archived "Wayback Machine" page links so you can still see the code._ September 2008, as I fretted over the upcoming election, I decided to rewrite this website to use ("client side") JavaScript and JSON for the majority of the look, navigation, and formatting. So, for example, the upper header, the lower footer, the lefthand navigation, etc. are all inserted with Javascript around whatever each page's `` tag is. I have a single Javascript file (see source here) that takes care of everything. It nicely only has one global (JSON) variable that encapsulates all my methods and (JSON) data elements. At the bottom of the JS file is the call to `init()` which sets a `window.onload()` event to fire off and set the page up. For example, this is what the source of hunter.htm looked like: ```html

Hunter's Website (he's Super!)

``` That's it! So please use any technique(s) you like from my site from what I've learned!

Tracey sees through time

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

## Time-lapse Digital Photography

early GIF fun: Skydive with my twin! 2002 Europe chateau Dumb Bunny logo

I've been interested in time lapse photography ever since our family started playing with cameras and taking and showing 8mm films and stills. My mom's parents were professional photographers and developers and so my mom got us kids started early. My family has used so many cameras over time that my twin, a professional filmmaker, has rescued a great many and made a "musuem" in the basement of my parents house. I've always liked how varying the time of flickering images can completely change the feel or let you see or experience something you couldn't see yourself, even when it happened while you were there. For example, watching the stars in a moonless night ["spin" around the North Star](https://archive.org/details/meteorocino) is something breathtaking and, to me, almost unbelievable. You speed up the playback or time axis, and suddenly it is brilliantly plain and clear. Just before small digital cameras started coming out, I bought a miniDV Sony camcorder and was determined to have it take high-quality still frames for later assembly into time lapse videos with my computer. Over 10 years later, and I'm still having fun with ffmpeg and mplayer (although I've moved from win to mac) and with PoohBot Pictures. I've expanded to other cameras and different techniques, but overall, The Idea remains the same.

hunter

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Hunter's Website (he's Super!)

favorites

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

## things that make me squeak --- - **MOVIES** - Star Wars - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Royal Tenenbaums - Everything Everywhere All at Once - [Koyaanisqatsi](https://www.koyaanisqatsi.org/films/koyaanisqatsi.php) - My Own Private Idaho - Gas, Food, Lodging - Brokeback Mountain - Melancholia * - Annihilation * - Monster's Ball - _The Blair Witch Project_ - Sex, Lies, and Videotape - Hedwig and the Angry Inch - Barbie - The Little Mermaid - Alien - [Romeo + Juliet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_%2B_Juliet) - Memento - District 9 - [Moon](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182345) - [Sunshine](https://www.foxsearchlight.com/sunshine) * - Dazed and Confused --- - **MUSIC** - Her Soundtrack - Jane's Addiction - Nine Inch Nails - Brian Jonestown Massacre - The White Stripes - Grimes - Sublime - Lady GaGa - Tchaikovsky - Igor Stravinksy - Tori Amos - Patty Griffin - Lemonheads - Gil Scott-Heron - Dead Can Dance - Madonna remixes - [Califone](https://www.califonemusic.com) - [Brokedown Palace Soundtrack](https://amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00000JSB5) --- - **BEGINNINGS** - West World - Palm Springs (2020 film) - Edge of Tomorrow - Black Mirror 'USS Calister' - Dr. Who 'Blink' - Melancholia - Pineapple Express - Star Wars - Dazed & Confused --- - **PLACES** - Bay Area, California - Key West, Florida - Paris, France - Barcelona, Spain - Bali, Indonesia - Cape Cod, Massachusetts - Kauai, Hawaii -
--- - **BOOKS** - Cosmos - Carl Sagan - Start Where You Are - A Guide to Compassionate Living - Pema Chodron - Dune - Frank Herbert - She's Not There - Jennifer Finney Boylan - Secrets: Memoir of Vietnam and Pentagon Papers - Daniel Ellsberg - Taliban - Ahmed Rashid - Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah - Richard Bach - The Bean Trees - Barbara Kingsolver - Interview with the Vampire - Anne Rice - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson --- - **TV** - Dispatches from Elsewhere - Fleabag - High Maintenance - Devs - The OA - Rick and Morty - American Horror Story (season 1) * - Long Way Round - True Detective - Orange is the New Black - Archer - American Dad! - Project Runway - Venture Brothers - Doctor Who (Tom Baker, David Tennant, Matt Smith) - Top Gear / Grand Tour - Top Chef - [Battlestar Galactica](https://www.scifi.com/battlestar) - The Daily Show - Sex and the City - Lost - Amazing Race --- - **VIDEOS** - The Soft Moon "Want" - Tove Lo "Habits (Stay High)" - Naughty Boy ft. Beyoncé, Arrow Benjamin "Runnin' (Lose it All)" - Pharrell Williams "Freedom" - Lady Gaga "Bad Romance" - Lenny Kravitz "Whole Lotta Love" * - Ben Harper "I'm on Fire" * - Lady GaGa "Telephone" - Prodigy "Smack My B*tch Up" - Lady GaGa "Born This Way" - Coldplay "The Scientist" * - Jay-Z "99 Problems" - Madonna "Drowned World/Substitute for Love"
--- - **GUILTY PLEASURES** - caleb landry jones - hazy IPA beer - [Sarah-n-Tuned](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHSbIfwVuec_BwUrYAqN_qw) - linkin park - naveen andrews - [glbt film fest](https://www.frameline.org) - motion jpeg --- - **CARS** - [_this_ lil' rally Romeo monster](https://www.carscoops.com/2017/12/alfa-romeo-4c-looks-killer-however) - [Lamborghini Miura](https://google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=lamborghini+miura) - [Ferrari Dino](https://google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=ferrari+dino) - [1968 Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale](https://google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=1968+Alfa+Romeo+33+Stradale) - [Nissan Figaro(?!)](https://www.google.com/search?q=Nissan+Figaro&tbm=isch) - [Ford GT](/2011-04-fun-with-ford-gt-in-gt5/) - [Jaguar E-type](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_E-type) - 1973-1982 Corvette - [Lotus Elise](/2011-09-drifting-lotus-elise-on-playstation/) - [Maserati Bora](https://google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=maserati+bora) - [Lancia Stratos](https://google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=lancia+stratos) - [1974 Alfa Romeo GTV 2000](https://columnm.com/the-dropped-alfa)

family

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

From Hunter's website, Space Cadet Tracey checking in with Russ

One Month in Europe

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

## One Month in Europe - Summer 2002 n'ést-ce pas?

The nights are numbered on this map of our trip, starting with our first five nights in Paris:

code - stupid pet tricks

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

## will geek for food ### CSS hovering

a UFO will hover over me and take me far away... I can put anything here and if you hover over me...
boo! You can make hovering over me launch an element elsewhere, too...
(in this case, i picked relative to the start of the hoverShower span. you can also pick absolute x/y coordinates on the screen, etc.)

"View source" with your browser to see the code.

biking 🚴

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Zen and the Art of Biking

## Road Biking Photo Album We bike between 20 to 100 miles a week in and around Alameda and Contra Costa Counties -- these hills are the Goddess' Gift to Biking!
### ⭐ [My 1st AIDS LifeCycle (SF to LA)](/aidslifecycle) ⭐ ### ⭐ [Our favorite East Bay bike routes](/tours/) ⭐ ### ⭐ [AIDS LifeCycle training rides](/training-rides) ⭐ ### Biking Photo Albums - [AIDS LifeCycle 2008 charity ride](/photos/?ALC) - [Tyler Hamliton Foundation charity ride](/photos/?Tyler Hamilton Foundation) - [East bay redwood loop](/photos/?russ bike redwood loop) - [Morgan territory loop](/photos/?morgan territory) Review from our [favorite 60 mile ride](http://forums.roadbikereview.com/showthread.php?t=4520) _We used to enjoy mountain Biking,
before our bikes were stolen._ 😡 --- ### Motorcycle posts -- Honda CB400A "decaf" Cafe Racer

AIDS LifeCycle

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Hunter and I did our very first AIDS LifeCycle charity ride, biking 545 miles in 7 days, from SF to LA! AIDS and HIV have devastated the world, killing over 20 million people worldwide. The [San Francisco AIDS Foundation](https://sfaf.org) has been my biggest charity for over 10 years. I finally did their [big fundraising bikeride](https://aidslifecycle.org)! The weather was gorgeous for this first week of June 2008 and we had the ride of our life. We trained up well enough by our tough and hilly weekly bikerides up in the Oakland hills and managed to bike every single mile and avoid injury. [Click here to see my ALC homepage](/alc/) containing blog entries from training and the ride itself, comments from my **amazing supporters**, and more. Below are our "12 best" pictures from the ride, linking to a full photo album. ALC 2008 montage We just signed up to ride again in 2009!

Star Wars re-remastered to high quality 1977 version!

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

So I wanted to sit down in my updated home theatre and watch one of my favorite films, "Star Wars". Problem is, I have two versions on DVD, and neither are ideal. The 2004 DVD version has remastered audio and video, but also added scenes and changes I really don't like. The 1977 DVD version is a poor quality transfer and encoding. So I **combined the 1977 and 2004 DVDs** into the highest quality 1977 version of the film! I show all my scripts and techniques here, too, so you can make the same version from your two DVDs, too! **MORE DETAILS ==>** https://archive.org/details/reremaster

ffmpeg for time-lapse, sets of images, and even archiving!

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I now use the [FFMPEG](https://ffmpeg.org) [package](http://trac.macports.org/browser/trunk/dports/multimedia/ffmpeg) compiled locally on my Mac Leopard laptop.
If you want to take a bunch of JPEG images, you can turn them into a "motion JPEG" AVI video file (which is ideal for time-lapse). What's neat about `ffmpeg`, is you can turn a directory of JPEGs into an AVI and later recreate the JPEGs from the AVI. Thus, I can take 100-1000 JPEG images from a "shoot" and create a video time-lapse of all the JPEG images in a given subdir in a command-line shell (terminal): ```bash ffmpeg -r 6 -i "%04d.jpg" -an -vcodec copy out.avi ``` Even cooler, you can go directly back to **the same JPEG** images like so (this is where you can see it is a lossless conversion from JPEGs to Motion JPEG and back): ```bash ffmpeg -i out.avi -vcodec copy "%04d.jpg" ``` `-r 6` is the framerate, ie: "make the video play 6 JPEG images per second". It doesn't get much nicer than that! Not to mention, the encoding is FAST! I recently moved from mencoder/mplayer to ffmpeg since you can specify a complete copy of the input JPEGs (lossless from the source) as well as compress them down a bit (as you like). For the lossless conversion, the (not entirely obvious) **key** to success is to use the `-vcodec copy` **after** the source file(s). You can get this running on Windows with Cygwin, Mac with terminal, and any linux distribution like Ubuntu.

THANK YOU DONORS!

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

**THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU** donors to my AIDS LifeCycle8 bikeride!
I took about 500 photos myself during the seven days of riding. Hunter also took about that many photos, too. I will make a combined album soon and edit a video as well and put links to them on this site. However, for now, you can see **~100 of my best photos** on my public albums here: [Photo album (1 of 2)](http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=119275&id=825599781&l=885c45f989) [Photo album (2 of 2)](http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=119283&id=825599781&l=c8bb822ae0)

Finished the ride!

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Well, Hunter and I made it home safe and sound last night! We finished just before the course formally closed, yesterday (saturday) around 3pm. (A lot of us were late due to two accident-caused road closure/delays and then Hunter and I decided to sneak off course a block to reward ourselves with Peets mocha freddos 😎 just before riding in. We flew from LAX to SFO and then BART-ed and were home just after midnight. Was sooo nice to see the kitties again and get things airing out! #### Some interesting summary thoughts: - **Day 6 got entirely cancelled** ****and we had to be bussed from camp to camp. We originally thought it was due to the uphill and downhill being deemed "too dangerous" in the rain by the CHP, but it was actually because that pass got closed temporarily due to rain related accidents and only ~250 riders (~10%) made it out on the rainy road before the "hold". We had a 3 hour permit to cone off a single lane of route 101/1 on this narrow "no shoulder" bridge, and by the time the pass was reopened, not all the riders were likely to make it through the pass. CHP didn't want to extend the times so they asked us to cancel that day. ***First time* that has happened in 16 years of LifeCycle / AIDSRide ****! ** Of course, the irony is that the rains stopped early in the morning by about 8am, and Hunter and I (and the riders who have similar pace -- at least 50% of the riders) could have easily made that road closure for a really wonderfully beautiful perfect biking weather day. - Although the weather was a bit ominous at times, we **only got about three 5-10 minute very light sprinkles of rain** while biking or in the nonsleeping hours of camp. It did rain one morning pretty good -- causing a lot of tents to flood. We prepared a bit better with a tarp under our tent (and had a thick air mattress) so we didn't get tooo wet. - I was slightly crabby or something Day1 (due to lack of sleep and foggy wet start) but every day pretty much got **more** beautiful and better as it went on. If fact, I loved every day but day6 (which wasn't awful -- just disappointing that the route got cancelled.) - This year the biggest difference was the fact that while last year was hot and dry nearly every single day, **this ride was a slight bit cool (though nicely never cold at all) and *very* humid (comparatively) every day****.** Strange this time of year! - **Day 5** was a big change of course this year. Last year was a total cakewalk (or "champagne ride" as the pros sometime call last day of Tour de France 😎 ) at only 43 miles and limited hills (w/ so so scenery). ** This year was a noteably tougher nearly 70 miles where the ride to lunch was *jaw droppingly* gorgeous (riding wine country a al the movie "Sideways" into Solvang for the first time in ALC history) and fantastic.** However, after lunch was quite challenging where we headed directly westward for Lompoc -- which meant the picking up strong wind was all headwind on flats and downhills and we were working hard on a **lot** of uphills. So there was **"no recovery" period from lunch to camp.** Overall, once again an utterly fantastic ride! We knew so many people this year it was like a rolling party of socializing and eating (well with determined-to-finish work on the bike in between 🙂 ). It's soooo nice to have found this wonderful community of people who care for others and everyone in the Ride. I've been thinking it's a lot like the communities people find in churches (having grown up Methodist but now non-religious).

Starting Day 6!

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

So far so good. We made it safe and dry until now. Today started light rain with wet tent. It's let up over breakfast mostly so we are hoping hoping for a break today and crossing our fingers. Today's highlights are Santa Barbara, hopefully dolphin coastal sightings, and an ice cream stop -- it's normally super hot today! Yesterday's day 5 "red dress day" was a blast even though it was a bit of a hard finish with hills and headwinds. Thanks all for your support, interest, and comments!

Rain delay at start day6

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Well, we are all waiting to roll after CA Highway Patrol. Shut down the course due to early rain. Not sure if we'll get cleared to ride. Was an early accident on only big downhill of the day. Rumor is now day may be cancelled and will have to bus 2000+ riders and bikes. We will see...

Halfway through AIDS LifeCycle

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

We finished day three's ride today. I an feeling very strong still and enjoying the unbelievably pretty inland agricultural "salad bowl" of CA and then the dryer wide open grasslands too. The weather has been quite good -- not too hot and not too cool. The colder mornings are offset by the rather unseasonly humidity. Hunter is doing well too. Each day seems to get more social and more fun. We know and keep meeting more wonderful people What a fantastic event!

It’s OK to be a TRL (video)

Mon, 25 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Hunter and Tracey finish up their season of being
Training Ride Leaders and share a little of what they've learned It's OK to be a TRL

tracey bike accident — walks away scraped but OK

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

ouchie! A steel cruiser bike roared blindly out of a blind drive and ran into me. The impact "taco-ed" (crumpled) my wheel and pitched me over the handle bars and the 2nd bike. I hit the pavement, but managed to not break anything or hit my head. I scraped up my fingers, tore up 4 fingernails, and scraped my elbow and knee. Later we'd learn it was all surface stuff and only my front wheel needed replacing. **_Amazingly lucky to have had so little damage!_** I was prolly doing 10-15 mph; other rider maybe 7-10. All of this happened right in front of Hunter's horrified eyes! More [pictures on public Facebook album](http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=112686&id=825599781&l=15d76a7dba)

Breakfast with Amy Goodman of “Democracy Now!”

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Amy Goodman, host of [Democracy Now](http://democracynow.org)!, is on tour this month across the country. She visited San Francisco for two days this week. My boss, Brewster Kahle from [Internet Archive](https://archive.org), knew that I am a raving fan of Amy and her amazing show of independent journalism. He was kind enough to invite me along to a **long breakfast discussion with Amy**. Brewster and Amy found a common interest on issues of the potential monopoly of Google books, so she scheduled a followup discussion the next day with Brewster on Amy's show "[Democracy Now!](http://www.democracynow.org/)" (for likely broadcasting Apr20-25). In person, Amy is an incredibly sweet and inquisitive individual. She is brilliant as well as thoughtful, generous and full of grace. I was thrilled to meet her in person and see how a part of her day goes. I look up to her tremendously as an [award-winning](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Goodman#Recognition) pioneer in the field of journalism. [photo album](/amy/) Oh this made me sooo happy! 😎

ffmpeg building on mac intel/x386

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

ffmpeg v0.5 just came out. it's the bomb. it's got tons of fixes and massive amounts of new codecs that it can read. for example, it can now decode my professional filmmaker brother's "DVC ProHD" highly proprietary (and massive bitrate!) format! it can also decode flac and 24-bit flac. (encoding flac is disappointing though). at any rate! macports is a great way to get it installed on your mac. the current way of setting up macports and then doing `sudo port install ffmpeg` works fine on my PPC at work (oddly -- pretty old computer now) but not my Air (intel x386) So I set out to find the fixes needed to make it work. Here they are: step 1: install macports -- see http://www.macports.org/install.php ```bash sudo port install x264 +noasm # for i386 (not needed for PPC) sudo port fetch ffmpeg sudo port checksum ffmpeg sudo port extract ffmpeg sudo port patch ffmpeg ``` remove `--enable-shared` from `/opt/local/var/macports/sources/rsync.macports.org/release/ports/multimedia/ffmpeg/Portfile` sudo port install ffmpeg ### [May update] I think the packages are improving so some of the above steps may not be necessary, depending on your Mac model, xcode version, and such. So I'd suggest just trying `sudo port install ffmpeg` first to see if it works and try some tweaks above if that doesn't work.

Three Bears and Mt. Diablo

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 06:19:14 GMT

This is it! The big cheese! Join us to the Dark Side and complete your training!! muhahahahaaaaa! What better way to celebrate over two seasons of training than to cap it off with this legendary longest climb in the Bay Area! We "warm up" with the 22 mile "Three Bears" infamous (but doable by now) loop. We then head east through the flat canyons and do nearly **4000** feet of climbing up Mt. Diablo to the amazing summit! (Riders will have an option to do 1/2 the Diablo climb, to the ranger station, since the top part leaves and returns from the ranger station).

Riders can opt to skip the top half of Mt. Diablo as well (since riders doing the entire climb loop back to the same midpoint). Mt. Diablo is of a legendary status in ancient folklore. It also is home to some flowers that grow nowhere else in the world. We have seen coyotes, eagles, foxes, snakes, deer, and even a tarantula (!) on our prior trips up and down the summit. The South Gate bottom half climb was recently repaved and regraded so it makes for a nice and constant uphill climb to get into your "zone" while the warm sun shines on your back. This is the biggest peak in the Bay Area, and makes for a suitable final weekend challenging and rewarding ride just before the Big Ride in June!

Palomares Canyon

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This is a great and pretty country classic! We tour the mostly flat canyons first east and then south from Orinda. We start hitting some pretty rural countryside, parks, and even go by some vineyards. We stop in the &"town that time forgot" teeny railroad town of Sunol. We head to the main climb after that, the nearly continuous (but never toooo steep) "get in your zone" climb through the sheltered (from weather, cars, everything!) Palomares canyon, passing some wineries and some houses built for gnomes. After the climb, we take a break, descend into Castro Valley, then wind our way back through the hilly reservoirs and back to Orinda. This one feels epic for a reason -- we basically bike to Fremont border and back!

Come enjoy some of the nicest riding in the East Bay with us! You'll always remember this ride.

“Oil, Sugar, Beef!”

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This ride is our easiest of our five, but prolly the most surreal. - **OIL**: we ride through the belly of the beast -- literally. There are public roads that we bike on that snake through some of the refinery pipelines and you can even see black dirt (ewww!) - **SUGAR**: we ride ride up to the C&H Sugar factory and shipping area and buildings. It's right near the pretty overlook of the Carquinez bridge and bay - **BEEF**: to balance it all out, we return to sanity and ride through some crazy pretty farms and wide open farmlands complete with moo moos! The first half of the ride is near the bay where the weather is a little more "bay like"; whereas the second half is more of the typically warmer inland valley climates.

AIDS LifeCycle Training Rides

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

## Rides Tracey and Hunter lead from Orinda BART - Mar 21: [Ride 1 of 5: Mt. diablo Halfway](/mt-diablo-halfway) (50 miles) - Apr 4: [Ride 2 of 5: "Oil, Sugar, Beef!"](/oil-sugar-beef) (44 miles) - Apr 11: [Ride 3 of 5: Morgan Territory](/morgan-territory) (69 miles) - May 9: [Ride 4 of 5: Palomares Canyon](/palomares-canyon) (69 miles) - May 23: [Ride 5 of 5: Three Bears and Full Mt. Diablo](/three-bears-and-mt-diablo) (83 mi) Tracey Jaquith and Hunter Brown, first time Training Ride Leaders, are proud and **_excited to lead five very special rides_** through some of the prettiest and most challenging terrain in the East Bay! We have all five listed above and will add more maps, elevation charts, and information the closer we get to each ride. Here are some other helpful links: [Overall ALC Training Rides Calendar](https://www.tofighthiv.org/site/PageNavigator/AIDSLifeCycle/ALC_Calendar) [All ALC Training Rides Calendar, rides leaving from Orinda](https://www.tofighthiv.org/site/PageNavigator/AIDSLifeCycle/ALC_Calendar?zip=94563&oecal_user_side12160_zip_radius_select=-1&oecal_user_side12160_activity_type_select=1121&orgevent_filters_advanced_button=Filter+Events&orgevent_filters_advanced_submit=true) **Consider the _amazing_ [Jonathan Pon Memorial Ride, May 2-3](https://pospeds.org/rides.html)**. (Note: not listed on their site yet as of Mar20...)** It is a 2-day weekend pre-June big ride preparation and stunningly beautiful and wonderful. On Saturday, we bike to Russian River, with full "S.A.G." (Support And Gear). They truck our tents, sleeping bags, and clothes up for us, and take care of rest stops and meals while en route. On Sunday, we bike a slightly shorter and mostly flat coastal route back to Sports Basement. So just like "The Ride" -- all we have to do is pedal and enjoy. It's a great time and bonding experience and, for first time riders like Hunter and I were in 2008, it really helps you figure out how to prepare for the ride, what to pack, and helps calm the inner nerves! It's an annual ride to commemorate the loss of one of the founders of [The Positive Pedalers](https://pospeds.org) -- people with the biggest hearts on the planet. Join us! If you are in the **South Bay/peninsula** or there for a weekend, consider the [great rides led by TRL Chris Thomas](https://ridewithchris.org).

Mt. Diablo Halfway

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

## This is a 50 mile ride that starts from Orinda (BART, east side parking lot) and climbs a bit over halfway up Mt. Diablo and then returns

We start in Orinda, then head east through the canyons (mostly flat) for about 15 miles. We will stop here at Cafe Francaise in Danville for a short rest and any food riders wish to purchase. There is a water dispenser in their soda foutain and ice that we can use for bottles if need be. After the rest, it then starts a slow incline to the entrance to Mt. Diablo State Park. We then climb to the halfway point. Combined, it's about 5 miles of climbing. There are only a few very short steep segments (very doable) but it is mostly a continuous but manageable grade **up**! So pace yourself and enjoy the views. Climbing this South Gate road is sheer bliss and Tracey's **favorite** climb. It was recently repaved so it is a smooth, well-graded ride nearly all the way up. We top off at the ranger station where there are some views and some vista points nearby. There are full bathrooms here (below/behind the ranger station) and a running water fountain. The descent is nearly 10 miles to get back to the mostly flat retracing through the canyons and back to Orinda.

Morgan Territory

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

**This ride is EPIC!!** This is our _most loved_ (as well as the _most remote_) ride in our history of riding the area for over 5 years now. _This time we'll probably be hitting near the peak of flowering/green season so it is bound to be gorgeous! (As of Thursday, there is a chance it could be a bit overcast/cooler than ideal. However, weather.com is showing "mostly sunny" with a high of 67F in clayton right now. So be prepared for watching the weather so you don't end up too cold and layer up!)_ It most definitely has harder and rougher terrain than the hardest day of an ALC route, but isn't as long as an ALC day (though it's close.) PLEASE MAKE TO SURE TO BRING MORE LAYERS AND FOOD THAN NORMAL!

From Hunter the Wise: > It';s an East Bay Classic, and it's one of our favorite rides, and we did it the first time 4 years ago. Here is a link from my report about that first time on roadbikereview.com: > > > > Tracey has pix of that and other times we've done it here: > > > > > > This is around a 70+ mile ride of VERY long hill climbing and descending (literally up to an hour or more of climbing with 15 minutes of high speed descending). There can additionally be some strong headwinds and crosswinds in the outskirts of Danville after the climbing and descending is all over and we are returning to civilization. > > Essentially, its riding your bike around and to the backside (Eastern side) of Mt. Diablo via the cites of Walnut Creek and Clayton, then making your way back west to Danville, and up Danville Blvd (typical Cafe Francaise in reverse portion...) to Walnut Creek. > > Here is the [Diablo Cyclists Route Sheet](http://www.diablocyclists.org/RideLibrary/Morgan.html) > > (but note their ride is about 10 miles shorter as they start/stop from Walnut Creek). > > --- > > CHALLENGE: heavy climbing and high speed descending > > BRING: double water bottles, and double food (you'll need to feed at the top of the route. There is water and restrooms at top of Morgan Territory, but no food). You should have some extra clothing/layers for wind on the descent and sunblock. > > REGROUP POINT: before the major climb in the tiny town of Clayton, there is a convenience store in the old town where you can get some food. There are also public drinking fountains and restrooms in the town square park. We well regroup there. You can't miss the convenience store. > [Google Map of Clayton](http://tinyurl.com/4y37nv) > > REGROUP POINT: Top of Morgan Territory climb, > [Morgan Territory Regional Preserve](http://www.ebparks.org/parks/morgan): (water, restrooms) > > REGROUP POINT: Intersection of Morgan Territory Road and Manning Road (all the descending is done). We'll turn right here onto Manning, and ride back into civilization (Danville) with gorgeous farm land/grassland views. > > POTENTIAL STOP: Danville cafe of your (our) choice, but lets make it short. It's good to know, however, that one can get food and drinks here if you need it. > > From Danville take Hillgrade Avenue over to Tice Valley, to Olympic, to Pleasant Valley, and back to Mt Diablo Blvd to Orinda BART (reversing our path.)

Dumb Bunnies

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

## PoohBot Pictures is the name for Tracey's video love and hobby outside of work. I have an education and background in "machine vision" (teaching computers how to "see" and react to imagery like a human might). I found video and movies fascinating at an early age and that love continues to this day. I have about 100 short movies on [archive.org](http://www.archive.org/details/poohBot). As one of the main server engineers at archive.org, I get to spend part of my time on my great passion, and work on video processing and video displaying (eg: setting up flash players to play h.264 video). I recently rebuilt our over 200,000 videos hosted on the archive.org site in part for the release of Firefox 3.1. I also coincidentally work and compare notes with a brilliant coder named Raj who was one of the main engineers of h.264 video in Apple's Quicktime group. Yay video! I have previously done some VCD and DVD mastering and authoring, as well as video processing and encoding for others. I even got a credit on my brother's first feature-length film, [Stolen Good](http://rjfilms.com). I previously used the name Dumb Bunny Productions, before it became PoohBot Pictures. My sister is a graphic artist and created a logo and design and gave the family shirts for Christmas. Hunter and I wore our shirts on AIDS LifeCycle 7. My brother Russ is another jersey owner and wearer who has biked around the East Bay while wearing it, too 😎

About the Pooh

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

## A little (more about me) I have a twin! It's true!
Russ and Tracey I'm into software, UI/UX, video, biking, time-lapse photography, sewing, design, lighting, and interior decorating. Tracey moved (after 6 years in San Francisco) to a little mountain 🐮 town -- the Montclair district in the Oakland hills.

♏ ∇ ≡ √ ♣ ¿ ♥ ☮

## About PoohBot Pictures PoohBot Pictures is one of my outside-of-work interests, focusing on digital video, shorts, and video production. Click [here](/poohbot-pictures) for some more info (which I'm in progress of editing). ## My Work and Resumé I'm presently working at [Internet Archive](https://archive.org). You can see my [work history and educational info](/work) as well as my [resumé](/resume). # About this site **[2019]** Migrated to [Hugo](http://gohugo.io/) -- a static site engine written in Go. (I migrated from wordpress). - I now write in _Markdown_ - very natural and simple. - Using website theme: [Hugo Future Imperfect Slim](https://github.com/pacollins/hugo-future-imperfect-slim) - I'm using GitLab to host the entire website in a single code repository. It _very_ nicely auto builds/deploy upon each `git push`. It's totally free except for the domain name modest annual fee. - [Some details about the migration](/2019-09-techo-tuesday-make-a-free-website-static-site-generators-and-hugo/). --- **[2010]** I've finally taken the plunge to the ubiquitous wordpress as the basis of my completely rewritten (June 2010) website, using a custom plugin and custom new HTM/CSS/JS "slide-responsively" that I wrote, which is inspired by "[sliding-door](https://wordpress.org/extend/themes/sliding-door)" theme. That gives me the bloglike nature, comments, search, and such. Aside from customizing the theme, I took a lot of my old pages that were the basis of my old site, converted them from HTML+JS to PHP+HTML and setup some hooks for these pages to render using my static PHP files for the content of the "page/post content" (the page content is "empty" in the wordpress DB for these pages). This allows me nicely to have a small set of static pages I mostly manage and edit externally, but they still get the overall theme, comments, tags, and such. # Stuff - (stupid pet) [tricks](/code) - Prior (most recently) [JS version of my website](/oldjs) - Prior [XSLT version of my website](/xslt)

Tracey’s new domain and website!

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This is the debut of my first and only purchased domain/website! How do I feel? See this _clip from [Hunter's ALC7 Video][1]_ [1]: https://archive.org/details/alc7brownhunter

AIDS LifeCycle 7

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

WE DID IT! We did our first AIDS charity bikeride and raised over $20,000 as part of the $11.6 million raised by the 2,500 riders plus 500 "roadies" for this weeklong event. It was 7 days of biking (every day) to go from San Fran to LA in 545 miles (averaging 78 miles/day). We biked **every mile** and had a fantastic time. I edited the [best 100 great photos](/photos/?ALC) from the week.

Bike gears — jamming a triple into a double

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

When my local bike store set me up with my new great ride, I agonized over getting the easier-to-shift double (2 ring) front gearset vs. a triple (3 ring) easier-to-climb option. Turns out, you can have your cake and eat it, too! I used this amazing **[gear resource](/gears)**. and customized it to help me compare options to see if a different rear cassette could bridge the gap. It could! I get a higher top speed/ring now with a double and my easiest gear is now only about 66% harder than my old bike's triple. So yes, climbing is a teeny harder, but it's nothing like how much harder it would have been with the standard cassette. Ladies and other bikers -- don't fear the double when you can get a compact double and larger rear cassette!

Training to bike first Aids LifeCycle (SF to LA)

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

After about 45 days of training for the big 7-day bikeride in June, [I got a new bike](/photos/?madone) to help me get through the long repetitive days in the saddle. The training has been going well, and the last week with my first 100 miles with this new bike were even better! I am a believer that a good carbon bike makes a world of difference. Best of all, my bike is now on only about 1/4 pound heavier than Hunter's (so watch out, boyfriend!) You can donate! My [ALC page](http://www.aidslifecycle.org/3287)

IMPEACH CHENEY! -- meeting my hero

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Hunter and I got to [hear Naomi Wolf speak](http://www.globalexchange.org/getInvolved/bayarea.php?uid=8230) about her new book, along with **Daniel Ellsberg (pictured left)**, the leaker of the "Pentagon Papers" (which helped end the Vietnam War). The event was sponsored by KPFA and featured a moderator and another journalist. All parties agreed we need to [impeach Cheney](http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/28427) [impeach Cheney](http://wexlerwantshearings.com) ASAP! **Torture is illegal** under domestic and international laws, and the Geneva Convention. **Warantless wiretapping is illegal**. For these two reasons alone (but many more), Cheney should be impeached and tried for high crimes and misdemeanors! Take action [now!](http://www.democrats.com/topelosiandjudiciary) From [The End of America -- Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot](http://www.chelseagreen.com/2007/items/endofamerica): Ten Steps to dictatorship -- happening now in America: 1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy. 2. Create secret prisons where torture takes place. 3. Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens. 4. Set up an internal surveillance system. 5. Harass citizens' groups. 6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release. 7. Target key individuals. 8. Control the press. 9. Declare all dissent to be treason. 10. Suspend the rule of law.

Home Theater!

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

... on a _twelve foot diagonal screen_, muhahaahaaaa! Russ found a government auction site that disposes of lots of surplus and other equipment. I picked up two **geenormous** **BARCO LCD rear projector**s for only $75, plus my own shipping and handling by showing up to a "high alert" and checkpointed military base just outside of Sacramento. It tooks us many months to finally get around to mounting it, seeing if it even would work for us, and converging it. But when we did -- **wow!** The one we use displays HD signals (we bought 3 professional-grade BNC cables and connectors for the receiver-to-projector connection for under $50). Both our TV box and DVD player line double a progressive signal. I think we may have the best looking home theater that I've seen -- not bad for 10 year old equipment, eh? 😎

Don’t try and run

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Hunter and I saw this on our morning commute over the bay bridge. I'll bet that's a popular detail to volunteer for in the morning meeting, tee hee.

Becoming a homeowner!

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Hunter and I are buying a place in Oakland together!
It's in Montclair district of the Oakland hills. More pictures can be seen [here](/photos/?drake)

Hummingbird

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 00:00:00 GMT

A little hummingbirdie slammed into my picture window as Russ was watching. We went outside to find the poor little guy nearly unconscious and stunned. We tipped him upright and waited a few minutes for him to regain life, yay! [More pictures here](/photos/?hummingbird)

Stone’s JFK

Sun, 19 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Just watched Oliver Stone's [JFK](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102138/) for the first time last night. I'd seen the recent [Discovery Channel JFK programming](http://dsc.discovery.com/guides/history/unsolvedhistory/dealeyplaza/dealeyplaza.html) that was excellent. The **really** amazing thing was that when JFK movie came out, most of the media and Prez Ford (who was in the Warren Commission which did the post-assasination cover-up, er, I mean, investigation) denounced it. Now that more is declassified, most everything has shown to be true. _Multiple shooters!_ I'm progressive. and i vote. and i volunteer. and i'm helping to take down the Bush Crime Family.

Tour of California

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Feb21: Woot!! Stage [2](http://www.amgentourofcalifornia.com/Route/map/stage2map.html) of the brand new world-class cycling "[Tour of California](http://www.amgentourofcalifornia.com/)" went right by my house! I made 2a cute little time-lapse film of the riders going by that you can see [here](/lapses).

Poohtini -- traceypooh.com + blogtini.com

All the Bikes!

Oops I Did it Again ♪ / year starts with a bang

Girona Biking Heaven!

Spain, France & Portugal

Sqlite inet_aton()

EBGB Adventure North Bay Bolinas Rambler

*O*M*G* 💍 I DO! Ride 🥰🚵🏼‍♀️💍🧎😲🎉🎊

Bike entire 'Outer Cape' 🏝️ - Provincetown Challenge with twin

Sedona, Death Valley & Grand Canyon

Photos of the Year

Bought a JEEP!

First Big Break

First week of “Phoenix” bike

Lost & Found Race. Won women’s 100 mile, 50 years & up!! 😻😮🤸‍♀️

Grinduro! Mt Shasta 61 haaard miles!

Gravel bike Mt Tam. Muir Beach, Highway 1 & Ocean

Gravel bike Mt Tam. Muir Beach, Highway 1 & Ocean

Gravel Race - Rock Cobbler in Bakersfield, CA

Dirty Choo Choo 🚂⛰️. It’s an annual thing!

Life this Year

Biking Rocks and Being Silly

Gravel Bike Upgrades

Gravel Race - Lost and Found (Sierra Tahoe)

New Shoes Day -- Tracey Loves Candy 🍬

Road Trek -- Driving 2000 Miles for a Gravel Bike! 🚴‍♀️

Tracey's Tamalpais Thirty - 3T

Gravel Bikes

🌮 Techo Tuesday 🌮 Deno 🦕 Oh My Gawd Deno 🦕

bootstrap hai whirld

some dayjs stuff

user privacy

Vscode in Browser - for Mobile and More

Dutch Appeltart Pie 🥧

🌮 Techo Tuesday 🌮Like Kubernetes? k3s is dead-on-floor Fast

🌮 Techo Tuesday 🌮 Javascript ES Modules Test and Coverage Without Babel

Hunter Birthday 50

Kauai Anniversary Surprise

🌮 Techo Tuesday 🌮 Dark Mode

🌮 Techo Tuesday 🌮 Javascript ES6 and ES Modules

🌮 Techo Tuesday 🌮 Make a free website - Static Site Generators and Hugo

Meesa <3 k8s, Annie

house design – railing

Something Petabox tree

Star Words — Star Wars Trilogy scripts word cloud

recursion, which is a way to call yourself via recursion, which is a way to call yourself via recursion,

Responsive, masonic tiles using CSS Grid (no JS, no flexbox)

walk through SketchUp large models in ARKit – perfect for home remodels and projects

house remodel SketchUp 3D VR model visualized on sketchfab

ARKit beta excitement building

“Save the Decaf!” — rebuilding and renewing the engine of 1978 CB400A Honda motorcycle (named Decaf)

Fixing 1978 Honda CB400A always on neutral light — “decaf” project bike

hacking Apple Watch to a cuff bracelet custom watch

“slide-responsively” — minimal standalone HTM/CSS/JS inspired by “sliding-door” from Wayne Connor

embeddable book from my work

REJOICE! the angel POOHBOT brings you good tidings

Hyper Green Magic — Green Magic Man Kawasaki ZX-6 motorcycle Hyperlapse, route 1, CA

decaf front brake fix — fluid flush and bleed — 1978 Honda CB 400A

Puzzle classic game with CSS and JS

play motion-JPEG video using javascript (in browser, no plugins, minimal JS)

Works

Nope

Source (or "View Source"):

wow that was 2011, <3 wyden

Time-lapse overlooking the San Francisco bay (on Labor Day) — with a 150 foot tree removal

New Bay Bridge Span opens — VLOG 1st person motorcycle ride across

amazing darth vader helmets

Anthony Weiner lewd texting after leaving politics

how to stop indoor cat pee

made my own heat duct “reducer” today — for $25 in only two hours!

new 'php-htm-mode' for emacs — intermixed PHP, HTML, JS, and CSS using multi-modes

Morgan Territory Motorcyclin’ — 85 mile east bay loop around Mt. Diablo with Honda CB400A “decaf”

today I did my first oil and oil filter change, ever! (Honda CB400A “decaf”)

How to turn Time Machine from disk with many partitions to single partition (logically “extending” Time Machine partition)

simple way to make h.264 mp4 web and iOS/mobile playable video mp4 files for linux and macosx using ffmpeg

decaf 1978 honda CB400A running and instruments working

decaf – CB400A reassembled and on the cruise

honda CB400A — fixing turn signal and neutral LEDs (to new speedometer)

decaf 1978 honda CB400A speedometer and instruments replaced!

Test fit of “decaf” CB400A smaller speedometer & instrument lights

OMG 💍 I DO! Ride 🥰🚵🏼‍♀️💍🧎😲🎉🎊

Shuttle Endeavour flies by us by Golden Gate today twice

ffmpeg for time-lapse, sets of images, and even archiving!