Category Archives: Cringer

My Cat

Blog is Moving!

Blasphemy, Books, Cringer, Cycling, Maps, Wista

Attention everyone:

Using my shady connections in the internet underworld, I have acquired an auspicious domain name, and I have decided to move this blog over there. Update your bookmarks or whatever to:

http://retrogrou.ch/

I have already copied all your favorite blog posts over there. Many have been digitally re-mastered and feature tons of behind-the-scenes bonus footage, alternate endings, and director’s commentary.

I’ll keep this domain up and running for a while, but all the good stuff will be over there from now on.

If you are following me via RSS, you might want to subscribe to a specific feed, as I am planning to broaden the topics I write about.

You get the idea.

Bike Lanes for Carlisle Next Year

Cringer

This is old news, but I haven’t been paying attention, so it’s new news for me.

Carlisle is getting some new bike lanes next year!

Planned bike lanes

Evidently, the borough government decided that having a pair of four-lane highways running right through the downtown was not such a good idea. So they’re implementing a “road diet” which includes the cycle lanes.

This is what it looks like now:
Before

This is what it’ll look like when the project is done:
After

Nice, right?

There’s a bunch of PDF files explaining the whole project on the borough website.

Incidentally, there’s a guy running for Mayor of Harrisburg who has as part of his platform:

“Eliminate the six lane, divided highway called Front and Second”

Maybe there’s hope for the same kind of “road diet” treatment in downtown Harrisburg.

Free Lunch – Day 3

Cringer, Ride Reports

I decided to get up early this morning so I’d have time to take some pictures on my commute.
Unfortunately, I didn’t factor into my calculations that getting up early means commuting in the dark, so my pictures didn’t turn out very well.

This is the best one, and it pretty much sucks.

Interstate 81 Traffic

I took this picture about 100 yards from my office. I like to stop on this bridge to cool off. On nicer days, there’s a decent view of the city from here. (You’ll probably have to click the big version to see it.)

View in the springtime

Today: 10 miles
January: 52 miles
2008: 52 miles

Fire!

Cringer, uncategorized

We had a small fire at the old apartment yesterday morning. Cringer (my cat) somehow managed to urinate directly into an electrical outlet, which promptly burst into flames.

Apart from some scorch marks and a truly terrible smell of burnt cat piss, no real harm done, but it was scary as hell.

I didn’t want to leave the cats in a house that might burn down at any moment, so I evacuated them to the new house yesterday, and Brandi and I moved in today.

Klinutus, the Mad Taoist, and even my evil sister came down to help carry heavy items, and drive the U-Haul that was too big for me to handle. Saturdays this close to Christmas are quite valuable, so it was very nice for them to sacrifice one to help.

Anyhow, Bonius.com world headquarters is now located in Marysville. We have no cable or telephone at the moment, and I am stealing the neighbor’s wireless.

If you’ve been saving up your favorite Perry County jokes, this would be the time.

Cycle Maps

Cringer, Geekiness, Maps

When I tell people about OSM, they often think I’m crazy. “Why don’t you just use google maps?” they say.

Here’s why, bitches.

Can google maps do this?

No? I didn’t think so.

Google maps is for cars. This is for bikes.
Bike trails are colored and bright. Interstates (and other uninteresting steets) are grey and dim.

This is only the beginning. Soon, there will be data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission so you will know how steep the hills are, and routing software to help you avoid them.

Today Gmaps. Tommorow, the World!

P.S. (Thanks to Andy for rendering and hosting the tiles.)

Drivers Wanted

Cringer, Geekiness
I had the day off today, and Brandi did not. It was pouring down cold rain all day, so no bike riding. Instead, Cringer and I spent the day in the computer room, working on the MythTV. My plan to swap out motherboards fell on its face. There was a small matter of a stripped screw, so It looks like the motherboard and case are inseperable on my old desktop. So, I’m forced to either buy a different motherboard for the Myth box, or try to get the one I have to work.So, I moved the soundcard from the desktop to the Myth box, and I decided to try Dapper Drake, Flight 2. It’s an alpha release of Ubuntu, so maybe it’ll have newer drivers.


Cringer oversees the burning of a CD-R

Cringer is overseeing the burning of the CD (Cringer still uses WindowsXP…for shame…)

The Drake giveth…

Dapper Drake looks like it will be very cool when it comes out, it detected my sound card, and at least tried to detect the video card. X came up automatically, albeit with a generic VESA driver instead of the proper nv driver.

The Drake taketh away…

The on-board network card doesn’t work! Argh!

I’m running out of ideas, so I’m going to try the pre-release of Fedora Core 5. Maybe the driver fairy will smile on me.