Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

Netflix.

I have officially fallen in love with Netflix’s streaming service. We have used it on and off since it was introduced a few years ago, but after watching the entire single season of “The Event” at my convenience, I am now seeking out other series to watch in the same way.

A couple of weeks ago I started watching “Downton Abbey” from the beginning of the series. I just finished the season one this morning. I’ve also picked up on “Heroes” again, starting with the plot reboot midway through the third season, and that is something that I have been enjoying for the most part. (“Heroes” went way off the rails for a while, there).

Even though I used to make my living writing ad copy for radio and television commercials, I have come to absolutely loathe ads. I can’t stand to watching advertising during television broadcasts, I always buy a paid version of an iPhone or iPad app so I don’t have to see ads floating all over the place, I dislike the ads that are constantly being flung around the LED ribbon at the Carrier Dome during SU games and I go out of my way to avoid internet services that are ad supported. Ads are one of the reasons that I also struggle with Hulu Plus; after paying $9.99 a month I don’t believe I should be watching ads, even if they’re less in number. I’m canceling the Hulu Plus subscription this week but keeping Netflix because there’s no ads being sent my way on that service.

With the ad supported internet services, it’s not that I worry about data mining or sharing my personal preferences, my life is hardly that interesting, I just don’t want services trying to sell me something that I most likely don’t need.

I’m looking forward to starting the next season of “Downton Abbey” tonight. The writing is smart, the score is brilliant music and the show has done a good job of keeping me engaged. And the cool thing about Netflix, of course, is that I can pause watching the show on my computer, pick up in the bedroom on the Apple TV right where I left off while I fold laundry and then pick up again on my iPad when I go to workout or something.

Wicked cool. That’s probably not a phrase in any of the scripts of “Downton Abbey”.

25 September 2012 by J.P. Geek 2

Sanctity.

So as I was making my way out of the office for lunch a co-worker asked if I was leaving the building for the hour. He indicated that he was finding his way to cafeteria so he could read. I told him that I need to leave the building at lunch time so I feel more grounded for the afternoon. It’s a good way to clear my head.

As corporations continue to squeeze every possible ounce of work out of their employees, many feel the crunch of working in a situation that I’m currently in: we work in a group of three that should be a group of 10-12. This type of situation can create unreasonable amounts of stress and we all know that stress isn’t good for the body, mind or soul. Stepping out of the office for an hour and having a change of view helps me keep that stress under control. Stress that is under control is good.

I’m enjoying lunch in the autumn sun. I’m watching a small calico cat make her away along the perimeter of the parking lot. She looks to be in hunting mode. She’s a small cat but when I made a friendly cat sound to her, she stopped, perked her ears and up looked at me and then continued on her trek. Occasionally she stops in a grassy area and watches for field mice, ears perked in the direction of possible mouse movement. She’s a short-haired calico cat with white paws. She seems content and she appears to be very car smart. Car smarts is a good skill for a cat.

There have been a couple of times in the past two weeks where co-workers have tried to schedule meetings during my lunch time. I refuse to play that game and I decline invitation for this type of meeting. Some may say that I’m being selfish; I like to think that I’m being responsible and doing what I need to do to stay on top of my game. A homemade lunch and a few moments away from a computer (other than my iPad-derived blog entries) and I’m good to go.

Now it’s time to take a short nap.

24 September 2012 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 4

Flight.

So yesterday one of the chapters of the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) that my father belonged to had their annual picnic. It was being held at the airport my father last flew out of last December. Our family was invited as part of the picnic would be a memorial to my father.

My father always had a big grin whenever I rode my bicycle up to his house (around 60 miles) so I thought it would be appropriate to ride my bike to the airport. The trip was around 70 miles and since I have been active with my cycling again, I thought my body would be well prepared for it. The weather called for rain, so I wore my rain gear. I found the ride to be quite enjoyable. I was making good time and when I got to the halfway point I noticed that my bike started feeling really odd. I looked down and saw that I had a flat tire in the back.

Sigh.

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve had to change a tire on my bike while in the middle of a ride, but after a few deep breaths, I remembered how to do it and set about doing what needed to be done. It took a while to complete the task and during this time, four different vehicles stopped alongside the road to make sure I was okay and each driver seemed genuinely interested to see if there was anything they could do to help. I had everything under control but I expressed my thanks.

Just as I was getting ready to pump the tire up, my phone started blaring an alert about a severe thunderstorm warning. As fate would have it, I was right in the path of the storm that promised hail and 60 miles per hour winds. I looked up and sure enough, the sky was getting quite dark. I hurried my pace and quickly tried to pump up the tire. And that’s when I realized that the CO2 based pump wasn’t seated properly on the tire stem, so I expended all the air that was suppose to into the tire outside of the tire instead. My tire remained flat. Luckily, the CO2 pump doubles as a mini hand pump, so I fiercely pumped up and down hoping to get enough air into the tire so I could at least get under cover before the storm came.

No such luck.

I admitted defeat and called Earl and asked him to come get me. I continued trying to get the tire filled with air so I could head away from the storm. A short while later and still having no success, I picked everything up and got ready to head into a wooded area close by. I then looked up and saw my husband driving up.

The best laid plans…

Anyways, we finally got to the airport and had a lovely time at the picnic. Because the weather was still kind of dicey, some of the pilots didn’t feel comfortable with flying in the planned Missing Man Formation. I had expressed an interest in flying along in the planned formation, and though it was canceled, our friend Rich asked if I wanted to go up with him so we could see what was coming in for the next round of weather.

So, in my father’s flight jacket, I jumped into the 1948 Piper Vagabond and we left FZR to do a few rides around the pattern, looking to see what weather was coming in so that others that had to leave by plane could get out before more storms moved in. It was the first time in over two years that I had flown in a small plane and it was the first time in nearly two decades that I had flown in a small plane with anyone but my father as the pilot. That being said, flying with Rich was like flying with family.

1948 Piper Vagabond.

Rich doesn’t like to yell over the engine like I did with Dad in the J-5 Cub Cruiser or the AcroSport II back in the day. We used an intercom. Wicked cool.

Fulton, New York.

Coming in for a landing. The stormy weather made the ride expectedly bumpy, but the landing was smooth. The vertical lines are actually my iPhone catching the spinning prop.

Screen Shot 2012 09 22 at 11 14 48 PM

Back on the ground and all smiles with Rich.

Flying with Rich yesterday made me remember how much I love to fly. God I’ve missed it.Yeah, flying on a commercial flight is fun and neat and all that, but flying in a two or four seater is where my passion truly lies. Though I inherited my Dad’s flight jacket, I really inherited his passion to fly.

Rich and his son Scott flew a formation in memory of my father as they left the picnic yesterday.

Formation. Rich is in the Vagabond, higher up, Scott is in the Piper J-3 Cub (yellow), which is much like the J-3 sitting in the foreground of the photo.

It was a very special day for us in many ways. Gosh I miss my dad, but I think he was smiling the whole time, especially when he saw how much I was smiling (ok, there were a few tears).

And I can’t wait for my next opportunity to fly in a private plane again.

Friday Dance Party.

I’ve posted this one before, but I still love love love this remix that came out in ’96. It was never released to country radio, but it reached #2 on the Billboard Dance charts.

I still remember dancing to this with my husband at Hillside Campgrounds, not recognizing the version and then gasping in surprise, “It’s REBA!”. We drove to Boston the next weekend to get the limited edition pink vinyl from Tower Records. I, of course, never parted with the pink vinyl. w00t!

Here’s Reba McEntire with “Keep Me Hanging On (Love To Infinity Remix)”.

21 September 2012 by J.P. DJ 2

This. Is. Awesome.

Oh my gosh how I wish “The West Wing” was still on the air. Oh, how I miss thee.

20 September 2012 by J.P. Politics. 0

Autumn.

So Saturday is officially the first day of Autumn up here in the Northern Hemisphere, but Mother Nature is giving us a little bit of a taste today, with a cool, dry autumn breeze and ample amounts of sunshine. I’m smiling right now because this is the beginning of my favorite season. I just love the crisp feeling found at this time of year. I love the sounds the leaves make and the magic one feels on the wind that is rustling those leaves. I just love the energy of the world at this time of year. I find it rejuvenating.

Despite challenges at work today, the smiling continues.

Today was the first day in nearly a week that I did not ride my bike this morning. I opted to work out in the basement instead; lifting weights, doing push-ups, that sort of thing. The magic of the season helps me find the energy to do this. The only thing I wish would happen is that we would put the clocks back in sync with the sun, so we could all have a little natural in the morning. This would make getting up a little bit easier.

20 September 2012 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 2

Travels.

So Earl and I have planned our vacation for the end of the year. After doing some careful calculations and the like, I determined that I had exactly one week of vacation time left and Earl always has some spare time lying around in his attendance file, so we are getting away for a week in December. We are flying to Houston on December 1, doing some Texas things for a few days and then driving to New Orleans for the latter half of the week, to return home on Saturday the 8th. While driving in the New Orleans area we may do a side trip to Mobile, Alabama just to get Alabama and Mississippi onto the list of visited states. That will raise the tally to 44.

We decided to go to Houston because we’ve never been there before. I have briefly been to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and we had the Jeep adventure outside of Amarillo when we had to take refuge from a tornado under an Interstate 40 bridge back in 2005, but other than that, Texas is a lot of unknown to us, so we are going to do some exploring. We might make it down to Corpus Christi just because we can and because I am a huge geek, I hear there’s a road somewhere around Houston that has a speed limit of 85 and I simply must drive on that and take a photo of a sign.

We have both been to New Orleans before but our last visit was in 1999, so we thought we were due for another visit. My memories of New Orleans are a little hazy because the last two visits were during radio conventions and I think I was cocktailed fairly early in the morning. Who knows, maybe I’ll do the beer for breakfast thing again. Plus, we’ve always flown in and out of New Orleans, so it’ll be nifty to drive from Houston to New Orleans and see what the area around NOLA is like.

We figured that the first week of December would be a good week for us to get away and do our thing. I’m looking forward to the trip. I hope we get the opportunity to meet any gentle readers that might be in the area. If you’re along the way, please drop me a line so perhaps we can say hey. It’d be fun!

19 September 2012 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 1

Meditative.

So as predicted to myself this past weekend, I have started finding my meditative center again through my cycling. I went for an hour ride this morning before work, but it felt like the ride was only five or ten minutes long. As a result, I have felt pretty good today and I have been productive at work. My stress levels are lower. I’m handling things better. Thing are all good, and for the benefit of another blogger, less squishy.

Because the United States insists on playing God with the position of the sun in relation to the time, it is now pretty dark when most folks are getting up for work, and it will continue to be like this until the second week of November. This is unfortunate in many ways, one of them including the fact that there are folks that would like to exercise in the magic of the autumn morning breezes to give their day a kickstart. I saw several other cyclists, walkers and joggers as I made my rounds today. Exercising in this manner requires dressing up nearly like a Christmas Tree. You have to be as reflective and noticeable as possible, lest you get hit by a driver who is busy trying to send a text message on their 2005 flip phone while speeding along at 60 MPH.

Since I re-entered the cycling arena nearly 12 years ago I have noticed a considerable decline in my safety comfort level while riding the streets and roads of the area. I have to be more cognizant than ever of what’s going on around me. I obey all traffic signals and signs and I ride my bike as if it were a motor vehicle that is being powered by human means (but not Taco Bell gas). My bike is fitted with a very bright headlight, a flashing tail light, about a dozen reflectors and reflective tape. My cycling jersey has reflective tape on it and my shoes have the same. To make me even more noticeable, Earl brought home a fluorescent safety vest from work that I wear over everything. I can’t help but think that folks can see me, however, there was one close call this morning where a car came speeding down the hill on the non-motored side of the white line that denotes the shoulder of the road. I quickly veered into a driveway to avoid having to eat some gravel.

Of course, we have the other side of the coin of all this as well. There’s a part of me that thinks that common sense would dictate that when one saw me with all this gear on, riding a decent bike and following the rules of the road, then I must be someone that knows what the heck I’m doing on a bicycle. However, every once in a while someone will blare their horn right behind me or slow down to my speed and just tail me down the street. I find this disconcerting. I appreciate that they’re considering my safety and welfare but on the other hand, I think I’m showing signs that I know what I’m doing. Perhaps I’m a little cranky. I guess it’s the effort that counts.

The ride this morning lasted just around an hour. The last third of it was in the rain. Luckily I had my rain gear on. The rain was quite enjoyable and didn’t bother me in the least. It didn’t snap me out of my meditative state, in fact, it helped the situation. I enjoyed it so much that I took a break from work this morning and walked for 15 minutes in the pouring rain.

And it felt good.

18 September 2012 by J.P. Fitness. 2

Fitness.

So with the cooler weather here I have been feeling the need to tend to my health needs. I’m not one for cycling during the dog days of summer. I am much happier when I ride in the spring or autumn, with autumn being my absolute favorite. I was able to get two good sized rides in this weekend and I feel quite pleased about it. I am planning a longer ride this coming weekend.

As I hit the trails and roads with my bike I find myself trying to eat healthier. I have to have a somewhat structured or regimented approach to all of this for it to make any sort of impression on me. Though some swear that it’s foolish, I track my calories in and out on a daily basis. I had been using the Livestrong app and website to accomplish this and while it worked, I never felt that it was a great fit for me. The website is overloaded with advertising and the app didn’t feel intuitive. Plus, there was no barcode scanner built into the app. Barcode scanners are wonderful because you can scan the barcode with your phone’s built in camera and it’ll look up the nutritional information for the exact item. It takes away from the guess work and it keeps you from having to enter search words just so.

Enter the MyFitnessPal app and MyFitnessPal website. Tracking food intake, exercise and weigh-ins with MyFitnessPal is extremely easy. Both the iPhone and iPad apps are intuitive and very fast, which is important for those of us who might have an ADD issue. Plus, the app includes the aforementioned barcode scanner and the database is huge. I was able to scan the milk cap from a glass bottle of Byrne Dairy Skim Milk (a local favorite) and it found it with ease. The database is also crowdsourced, so folks are always adding and editing information as warranted.

It has made being healthier with a structured approach much easier.

I have weight and fitness goals to obtain by the end of the year and I’m pleased to say that I am well on my way to where I want to be. This structured approach is psychological for me but instead of analyzing it I’m just going with it. Why mess with success?

If you’re looking for a good website and/or app to track your fitness goals, I highly recommend MyFitnessPal. I don’t have any experience with the Android version of the app, but if the iOS version is any indication, it’s a sure winner.

17 September 2012 by J.P. Geek Ponderings and Musings 1

The Standard Electric Time Company.

Originally posted on my Google+ stream.

Today I added a new clock to my master-slave clock collection in the house. This one is from 1940. All of the clocks in the collection were made by The Standard Electric Time Company. The are minute impulse clocks, so the make that click-click sound once a minute that was common in American schools in the 20th century. They run on 24VDC and are controlled by a relay board connected to a Pentium II 233Mhz running Debian Linux. The program used to advanced the clocks was written in BASIC by me a couple of years ago and compiled using FreeBASIC. Uptime on the server right now is 340 days.

This particular clock hangs on the wall in my office, replacing a bigger version of one from the same era. It is a smaller, 9-inch model, which would usually found in small offices scattered through a school. Most classrooms had a 12-inch clock hanging on the wall. Gymnasiums, auditoriums, cafeterias, etc tended to have the 15-inch version.

I started collecting these clocks in the mid 1990s. I became fascinated with these clocks on my first day of kindergarten back in 1973.

15 September 2012 by J.P. Geek 2

Netflix.

Sanctity.

Flight.

Friday Dance Party.

This. Is. Awesome.

Autumn.

Travels.

Meditative.

Fitness.

The Standard Electric Time Company.

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