Working hard or hardly working

I started this posting a couple of weeks ago and never posted it up...

I have been thrown under the bus. Seriously, every thing I touch in my new position here at NASA is either behind or on a very tight schedule.

This week I have been fighting with my computer solid for over 40hrs. My current model loads up at over 10gb, so despite my machines best effort the pidly 8gb of RAM just wasn't cutting it. Now I am squatting over in another building on a 16gb machine. Only issue with it, only a quad core.

(yes, that is all 4 cores totally pegged)

Things are going better, but these huge models really to grind PC workstations to a snail pace.

Nuther' One for Friday

First time on a surfboard. Who would have thought it would be in Alabama :-)



The family headed out at the end of July for the annual company lake party. Like most company functions, the more you participate the more fun it is. I was out swimming, surfing, and chaufering eveyone on the waverunner. Erin and Austin managed to snare a couple of tiny Brim, which is pretty good considering they really weren't biting much this year (maybe the higher temps drove most of the fish to deeper water).


Overall it was a great way to spend the afternoon and yet another reminder of how great of a company I work for. If you are ever heading my way, N. Alabama, let me know and I will forward your resume on to the boss for consideration.

Hey You!

This one is for all the engineers in the audience...

Hot up in this joint

In case you are not catching this blog on the day it gets published I have copied the forecast down.

Basically what this boils down to is that by 5pm the temperature should be about 100 degrees and the humidity at 40-50%, which makes it feel about 110*F. Should be a nice day for a ride. Yep. Gonna need to pack some extra water and electrolytes along.

I rode on Sunday at 7am and actually enjoyed the temperature. We did a very manageable 9 miles mostly on the upper end of the park in about 2 hours. It was a nice change from the recent afternoon rides in the 90-100 degree weather.

In other bike related news, Erin has actually been making it out and getting some miles in on her bike. She seems fairly comfortable and content with it as I have built it up. That is a definite plus. Maybe I can get her out in Monte Sano this month.

My bike riding has definitely been pretty weak lately. It has been far easier to hide out at home in the AC or at the pool than to gear up and go out for a MTB ride. Looking at my ride log I went from low mileage to pathetic about the time summer started. The layoff was a good excuse, but I think the weather has a lot to do with it as well. Hopefully we will start to see the temps tapering down by mid-end of the month, then we will go into my favorite time of the year for riding here in the SE.

Nothing else too noteworthy around my neck of the woods. Little bit of mowing, little bike riding, bit of beer drinking, and the rest is family time and lazying around.

Dang, stagnant on the blog

Sorry to the few who actually follow this blog.

So, what's new?
Laid off:
I got notified on June 21st that my contract with TBE was on the chopping block. After months of wondering when and if my job would be effected by all the doom and gloom surrounding NASA in the wake of Obama's administration. Answer: Yes, directly. June 30th was my last day on the job.
Looking for new work is never fun, but having to do so under duress just plain sucks. I hit the deck running and sent out updated resume to anything that was even partially applicable to my skill set.

Laid back:
After processing out of MSFC on Wednesday I had an interview Thursday morning that ran long. I got home in the afternoon cracked a couple of beers and received a call from my boss in the afternoon. Apparently he had found another TBE contractor spot in another branch and I was going back to work on Tuesday. So I ended up with a 5-day 4th of July holiday weekend that was much more relaxed.

Government inneficiency at its finest:
So the last 2 weeks I have been getting paid to just sit at work. I can't log onto a gov. computer without my badge. So turning in my badge on Wednesday and missing 2 days of work constitutes the need for a whole new background screening. Weird. Beets not getting paid any day though :-)

Home life:
Not much to report. Been hitting the pool up quite a bit lately. It is cheap, fun, and good exercise. Erin and I have used the whole layoff scare as a wake up call. We have figured out a budget that will hopefully have us much better prepared for the next time this sort of thing occurs.

In the garage:
Nothing news worthy to report. More outward than inward tools at the moment. Part of the budgeting and being better prepared meant that some of the lesser-used woodworking tools need to go to put money into savings. So last week I sold off several of my hand planes. More tools will follow. Life goes on.

Working on cars:
Yep, my newest hobby has been embarked upon begrudgingly. I have mentioned in the past that I am really not into working on cars. After spending most of my latter teen years working on them to one extent or another I lived quite happily paying someone else to do all maintenance on our cars. Well, sticking with the budget theme I am having to get out and do more myself. The other motivator is that most of the real issues with our vehicles seem to stump the mechanics. We took Erin's truck in for a full tuneup a couple of years ago figuring that would allow them to get in and really see what was causing power loss and making it run poorly. Not the case. We received a clean bill of health, a bill for about $1000, and a truck that ran no better than before.
Tuesday had me changing the fuel filter on the Tundra and swapping out the brake pads. For $62 in parts and a couple of hours of time I did 2 tasks that would have cost me $300-500 had I taken it in. Not my favorite way to spend time, but it is nice to take care of things myself and save money at the same time.
Today I will be putting in a new air filter, cleaning the MAF, and cleaning the throttle body. Should be fun.

Riding bicycles:
Been hot as hell here in the SE last month and a half. With humidity varying from 50-100% the heat index has had us somewhere in the 90-115F range pretty regularly with actual temps 85-100F. Riding around in a sauna is interesting. 100oz of water doesn't seem to go more than about 2-3 hours even keeping track of consumption. My saddle time has also suffered due to the job hunting and related stress. Thing are starting to settle in, but I am still only getting a couple of rides in each week. That will have to do for now.
I have been riding a set of 777mm wide bars and a 65mm stem. That is nearly 31in for the Americans in the audience. It is amazing the difference in DH stability/control. It rides like the bike did when I had the fork at 150mm, but I am still running it at 140mm. Only down-side I see is that it killed my tech/steep climbing stability. Guess it puts too much weight out over the back wheel. Always trade offs. For the Heckler there is a balance point, on the one side is xc/trail ride all-around stability and on the other is shredding DH stability. You can't get both.

I am diggin on the Hilltop Hoods lately, good music:

Worked over

Yep, feeling a bit worked over this morning. It is my own fault. Erin put the notion in my head that I could ride all I wanted on Sunday. Sounds good. After sleeping in and missing the 9am group ride, lazying around the house, procrastinating, putting the bike back together, and drinking a couple of beers I decided that I needed to punish myself with a massive ride.

The plan, or notion as it was, is to ride the big loop around the base of the mountain. That nets you a little over 20mi of undulating trail. Most of the hills are short, so it is mainly a sustained pace. The only real climb is about 600 vertical feet to get back up to Burrit trailhead at the end of the ride. No problem right?

So here is what I actually rode (green blaze)...


I started off with high hopes on completing the full loop, but by the third connector off of Flatrock I had to pull the plug (red X on map). But in all honesty I had been contemplating other routes since the first connector. The main problem turned out to be the temperature and not having enough water. It was in the low-mid 90's when I headed out with just under 100oz of water. At the red X I had about 20oz left so I decided the prudent thing to do would be to head straight up. I knew I would be running out of water, but the difference in this route and the planned route (blue blaze) is that I could stop at the park office to get enough water to finish the ride. It was only about 3mi to the water where as the car was still about 8mi away. Easy choice other than the 500 vertical feet up to O'Shaughnessy Point in a mile of trail. Most of that is hike. I ran out of water just after getting to the top, so at that point my choice of route was looking pretty good.

So in the end I think I came out around 18mi of ride, 4mi of that was pavement back to the truck. I am gonna have to write this loop off until the temperatures come back down in the fall. It is just too much time to be out on a 100oz of water in 90 degree plus weather. Total ride time was just over 4 hours. In the last 45 minutes my body went into shut down and really wasn't dealing with the food and water well. I think more electrolytes would have helped. Gonna have to figure that out for the summer rides here since you sweat so much.

This is just getting old now...

Here in Huntsville we have been blessed with rain just about daily for since my last entry. 10 days into the month and I have racked up only about 20mi on the bike. Fortunately rainfall has not really been all that much, so when you do make it out the trails aren't really all that soggy. Main thing is getting the timing right so you don't get caught in the rain. Of course you also have to fight off the mental block that thunderstorm weather puts on you. It is far easier to grab a beer and hangout than to brave the "potential" of bad weather.

So yesterday with the best of intentions I got off work early, grabbed my bike, and headed out for the Wednesday night group ride. A mile before my exit off the parkway it starts dumping rain. Doug scratches head for a minute and carries on. It was sunny and rain free most of the afternoon, even upon leaving home no 5 minutes before. I keep on driving and the rain lets up to a mist by the time I reach the mountain. It is dry up at the biker's lot. Go figure.

So we geared up and played around at the lot while the rest of the group dragged in. The skills course is always good to spend a few minutes on. It is roughly the same as it was at the FTF minus the teeter.


As we headed out thunderheads were starting to make some noise and were closing in fast. We headed out Family trail at a good clip and decided to make the most of things. Once we hit O'Shaunessey Pt. though we did change our plans and decided to stay closer to the top of the park by riding Mt. Mist. There was light rain and slippery conditions, but there was no downpour. So at the end of the trail we turned down and headed deeper into the park. Once on Goat Trail the rain had settled into a light sprinkle that was not really a bother. Lots of slick rocks, but the soil was still firm all the way up to the climb out where it did get a bit slick in the clay/mud. Overall more of the trail was rideable than not though.

Once we got back up to the point we hit South Plateau back to the lot. About 1/2mi into it the skies became black and within a few minutes the heavens opened. Rain dumped on us as we sprinted back to the cars. A hasty strip down in the lot and everyone headed for home. No hanging out or post ride BS with the rain pouring down.

So it sucked getting caught in the rain again, but again I am happy that I went for a ride instead of huddled up at home waiting for the bad weather to pass.