Yay Tom!

Yay Tom!
Originally uploaded by grwster

Tom just finished Ironman Canada, his first Ironman, in 11th place in his age group -- awesome performance!

We'll miss you at Burning Man!

Our new burningman tent

Our new burning man tent
Originally uploaded by grwster

It's a Kodiak, made out of canvas and completely seals up to keep out the dust.

We made some feet for the poles to keep them from sinking into the playa when we tie it down with guy lines.

I'm also thinking about fashioning some kind of bungle fastener where the upright poles meet the "T-bars" at the roof. Either that or just using a roll of duct tape to keep them from coming apart in the wind.

Garage door opener repair

Garage door opener repair
Originally uploaded by grwster

Had to replace the transmitter side of the safety beam on Dad's garage door opener.

I suspect a cheap IR LED that degraded until it was too dim to fully activate the receiver (even after careful alignment the receiver indicator flickered).

We diagnosed the problem by moving the transmitter and receiver closer together and noticing that the receiver indicator was solid at close range (and the door worked fine). I suppose we could have just mounted them next to each other, disabling the safety feature, but that didn't seem very smart.

Starting to feel like burningman!

Done!
Originally uploaded by grwster

Beth and I both got some color today. Hers is blue and green. Mine is purple and red.

Skunk 1, Rosie 0

Skunk 1, Rosie 0
Originally uploaded by grwster

We've had a skunk roaming the neighborhood and tonight it visited our yard. Rosie was on night patrol. Skunk 1, Rosie 0.

It got her in the face. Lots of yelping, rolling in the dirt, and a long bath with shampoo and then hydrogen peroxide and baking soda (nope, not tomato juice), followed by lots of rinsing.

She's sleeping in the kennel tonight.

Fortunately, the smell wasn't too bad. I guess it didn't fire everything it had. Or it's already had a busy night.

Augustfest

Augustfest
Originally uploaded by grwster

Since we're off to burningman in a few days we jumped the gun and tapped our Oktoberfest. Mmmm.

TomTom for iPhone Rocks

Ever since I was "forced" to upgrade to an iPhone 3G (long story for another post), I've been impatiently waiting for turn-by-turn driving directions.

We have older cars without built-in navigation systems, and I don't need one often enough to justify yet another device, so having an app on the iPhone is perfect. I was hoping for turn-by-turn directions to be added to the built-in map application in 3.0, which obviously didn't happen. The TomTom app was announced though, and that sounded great except the part about it not be ready yet. I didn't really consider the AT&T app when it came out, both because of the monthly cost and because it requires network connectivity to work (lame). I considered the Navigon app when I heard about it, but was put off by some of the reviews and the fact that Apple appeared to favor TomTom. In the spirit of "pick your battles" I follow Apple's lead unless I have a good reason not to, so I waited...

When I heard on Sunday night that the app had been released in NZ, I figured it would be available in the US on Monday. Sure enough, it was! Perfect, I had a use for it Monday morning so I bought it and started downloading... and downloading... I had to leave before it finished. I did get it installed when I returned later that day, but other than playing around with it while walking to the dog park I didn't have another use for it until this morning...

It's great! I don't even need the car kit since I'm lucky enough to have a cup holder perfectly positioned to hold the iphone and I get a good GPS signal in that location. The only improvement I'd like to see is text-to-speech for the street names and I don't see why they won't be able to do that someday. Very happy.

Tickets!

Tickets!
Originally uploaded by grwster

Scrambling to pull everything together for a last minute burn... didn't think we were going to make it this year but now we are! Yay!!

Just got back from

a) buying our tickets at Sports Basement (awesome sporting goods store)

b) buying a new in-the-box Kodiak canvas tent from a local craigslister who did his research and planned ahead, unlike us, but now can't go

Everyone says the canvas tents stay cooler and cleaner. We'll see...

Choco IPA

Choco IPA
Originally uploaded by grwster

Just tapped. Mmmm.

We'll probably double the chocolate malt next time for an even darker color.

Holstein Hundred

I finally got my road bike out of storage (the mountain bike is next) and went for a ride this past weekend up in Marin: The Holstein Hundred



The weather was great and the scenery was fantastic. I did the "metric" option and we got a bonus of four more miles than the advertised distance of 67 miles (for a total of 71 miles). ;-)

Oregon Beer and Hikes

We just got back from two back-to-back beer festivals (and pub crawling) in the Portland area, with a week of hiking around Mt Hood, Mt St Helens and the Oregon coast (and pub crawling) in between.



The Portland International Beer Festival (PIB) was on the first weekend and the Oregon Brewers Festival (OBF) was on the second weekend.

PIB was a smaller festival with a bigger selection of beers (yay) but no representation from the breweries (boo). OBF is bigger, and the brewers show up (yay), but each brewery is limited to one beer so it's a little boring (boo).

If you can only go to one, I'd recommend PIB. If you do go to OBF then you should make sure to check out "The Buzz Tent" -- that's where the brewers hang out and where you can sample some more interesting beers.

Re-Retired

A milestone of sorts today as I reclaim the status of "retired or just unemployed"!

I have been mostly absent from this blog since Feb 2008, when I got involved in starting up a very different kind of venture than I've done before... lots of fun and lots of work, but it's up and running now and today I officially transitioned to an advisory role.