I’m catching up on some January pictures. It’s been a busy month with lots of snow, kids, and fun. All of these are taken with my HTC Android Incredible

Crane's Beach, 12-31-10

I went out for New Years Eve, but came back alone to an empty house, and woke up to a bright and sunny 2011. Last year as been like that. Something of a roller-coaster of strange, sad, and wonderful. The kids are fast changing into people. I had a couple of great trips snowboarding with the family last winter. I spent two weeks on a lake in perfect weather. Karen and I separated at the end of the summer, and she moved out this fall. I’ve been making this house my own. I’ve been healthier than ever, dropping another 20 lbs to hit my target weight that I’ve not seen since my 20′s. This despite breaking my thumb late last spring and missing two months of mountain biking.

Today I feel lighter, in every sense. Things have not gone according to plan, which is not altogether a bad thing, as the weight of control has lifted. It’s a bit nerve-racking to be so far off-script, but I’m going to try and stay that way for a while.

Happy New Year!

When I bought the house, it came with these shelves in the dining room. They were too busy for that room, so I took them down. Today I set up two-thirds of them in my bedroom, as I needed something for the blank wall. They’re pretty nice – solid wood – perhaps teak? In any case, nicer than anything I could afford today.

snow but no skiers.

Dan guided Mark and I though Dogtown today. Perfect weather and great fun. BTW – these pictures are via my HTC Android Incredible – not bad for a cell phone.

I’ve never been so happy disconnecting gear. I cancelled my Verizon FIOS TV today. It was costing a total of about 120/mo for Internet and TV. This included $30/mo in box “rentals”. Initially the boxes were free, but that deal expired. I don’t really watch TV anyway – Netflix streaming though the XBox 360 and XBox Live is a lot nicer than managing a DVR, waiting for things to record, then skipping commercials. Has anyone in cable and/or network TV noticed how obsolete their product is? Even Disk rental via Netflix is better. I also got rid of that crappy ActionTek router that I had spend hours configuring just to get me connection to work right with the TV.

The bad news is that the new connection while better (25 Mb/sec down and up, as compared to 20/5 previously), is more expensive: $70/mo. As I recal, I started out at $40. Verizon no longer offers 20/5. It’s either $55 for 15/5 or $70 for 25/25. The pricing/feature war with Comcast is apparently over. The other thing is that I got an e-mail notifying me of a 1 year contract that was not mentioned by the helpful sales rep, and that I never signed or verbally agreed to. It’s got early termination fees and everything. Wouldn’t it be great if Verizon retained customers on the strength of their service instead of imaginary contract lock-in?

I raked leaves all weekend. I did 40 30 gallon bags (1200 gallons of leaves). At least the kids had some fun with them.

When I get frustrated, I can’t help but think of Doctor Strangelove’s hand. This fun gif captures my mental image completely.

Happy Halloween!

I parked cars for a couple of hours. We had a turn-out similar to last years’ – about 500 people – probably 200-300 cars. It made me think of Bike Snob NYC’s assessment of mountain bikers – people that will drive 4 miles for every mile ridden (or something like that). At around noon I did a ride with some of the other volunteers. We did a mix of the advanced and intermediate courses – about 15 miles in 3 hrs.