Year: 2014
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Christmas on two wheels
Last year was the first year I was able to attend the South Bay Riders’ Toy Ride. Mike, a longtime motorcyclist here in the Bay Area, organizes this ride. Each rider is to bring a new, unwrapped toy for the Toys For Tots program. Some riders come out in full regalia, others with a touch of… Read more
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Diggin it at Dig This Vegas
Ever since I was kid I’ve been fascinated by the big yellow machines used in construction. As kids we’ve all had the earth moving equipment: bulldozers, excavators, dump trucks in our toy collections. Much like most kids here in the states those toys spent many hours in the sandbox building castles, moats, and other fortresses… Read more
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Riding less to ride more
Where did this year go! It didn’t seem that long ago that I was writing the article “A Rider Greets Autumn.” Unlike other years, this year has not been one for motorcycling. My bike sat in the garage over the entire winter while I was in Sydney, Australia. I’ve been traveling a lot by plane and… Read more
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The vending machine is watching…
It’s no secret I love technology. Technology enables us to engage in some pretty cool experiences as situations can be personalized to our unique taste. Everywhere we go we are sharing information about ourselves. We leak metadata. In short, metadata is data about data. Let’s take a simple phone call. If Jim calls John, that’s… Read more
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Chasing God’s Paintbrush at Pyramid Lake
It didn’t seem that long ago that I moved out west. I remember a fraternity brother of mine, Steve, mentioning that I should go see Truckee and the beauty of Lake Tahoe. Driving west to my new life I remember seeing fires often the mountains as we passed through Reno. Jeff and I were sort… Read more
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Understanding Serendipity
Before WordPress, I used to run my blog on a system called Serendipity. Sometimes, you know what a word means but it isn’t actually real to you. It’s a dictionary definition- a clinical expression of a word’s value. Serendipity was one of those long words that other people use but wasn’t in my vernacular –… Read more
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2014 Camp De Los Niños told by Mitch and Chloe
Learn more about camp from my 2013 experience at Camp De Los Ninos: Diabetes Camp Staff – Year 11 Summer camp is a time for both kids and staff to head up to the mountains. It’s a break from the day-to-day life back down in the valley. Camp de los Niños is a week long… Read more
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Off to Central Florida!
This year I’m headed to Central Florida three times on business: once in August, once in October, and once in November. Everyone at work gave me the, “You’re going there?” My good friend Rob whom I visited in Austin last year moved here a few months ago. It’s always great to see friendly faces when… Read more
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Livin’ like Zach Brown!
“I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand” -Zac Brown I remember the first time I heard that song and instantly loved it. The lake was a huge part of growing up. As a kid, I spent many weeks with family and friends on the shores of the lake swimming, boating, and… Read more
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Choosing a motorcycle – A journey through my history
I got a question from one of my subscribers about my thoughts on choosing a motorcycle. I wanted to take a few moments and share things I’ve learned along the way that others may be able to use as guidance. The early days Motorcycles have always fascinated me. I can remember as early as elementary… Read more
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Appendicitis: Symptoms, Surgery, and Recovery
Wow… that was fast. The evening started by eating a questionable burrito salad. Everything seemed normal. Dinner was tasty and hit the spot. About 20 minutes later my stomach started rumbling and I just dismissed it as a bit of indigestion. As the night went on my stomach started to feel worse so I just… Read more
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Touring the National Mall
Before I left, I had mentioned to my roommates that I was going to be in Washington DC for a business trip. Both of us were thrilled as it turned out all three of us would be in DC at the same time and all of us were taking an extra day to sightsee. We… Read more
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An evening shopping at the National Mall
I’ve never actually been to Washington, DC until now. For some reason we never had a school trip to go see our nation’s capital. Nor was there a family vacation in that neck of the woods. Actually, the closest I ever got to Washington, DC was the trip after college to Lynchburg, Virginia to evaluate… Read more
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Memorial Day Mingle – Day 3
Ibuprofen is a God send. Michael suggested I take some to help reduce the inflammation from the bug bite. It worked like none other! While I wasn’t quite normal, things were looking a lot better. We were originally slated to take US-50 down to Ice House Road to Wentworth Springs Road. A number of us… Read more
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2014 Memorial Day Mingle – Day 2
I was tired last night. I was surprised how hard I had slept. I knew something was not right the moment my face moved. The insect bite really had swollen up overnight. We iced it again which helped, but there was going to be a little extra fluff in my helmet on the ride today. … Read more
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2014 Memorial Day Mingle – Day 1
The Memorial Day Mingle is our “season opener” as most of the Sierra passes are open and it’s time to brush off the winter coat and go have some curve carving fun up in the hills. Sure, it’s California and we ride all year, but there’s something really special about being deep in the mountains. … Read more
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Storing a motorcycle: Back in action
After three months in Australia I was ready to get back on my own motorcycle. I was tired of storing a motorcycle and now ready to ride one. I didn’t fully winterize the bike as this is the Bay Area has it doesn’t get particularly cold. I really only did a few things to the… Read more
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PHP and JIRA’s REST API
At my last job I needed generate release notes for each version of software that we shipped to customers. I created a PHP script to pull the status of issues in JIRA and generate HTML output which contained key fields such as key, summary, priority, and resolution. I could link that output to the release.… Read more
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Home in Sydney
I’ve received a lot of questions on where I was living in Sydney during my stay. I didn’t stay in a hotel as that would have been prohibitively expensive for a three month stay in Sydney. Searching for housing from overseas was a bit chaotic, but wasn’t impossible. I first started with AirBnB, but got… Read more
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Sydney Harbour Bridge Pylon Lookout
I loved the BridgeClimb but was bummed out that I couldn’t bring a campera up to the top. I decided to climb up the Sydney Harbour Bridge Pylon Lookout as you could bring your camera. I wondered why as the main driver from not bringing cameras on the climb was people dropping them. The pylons were… Read more
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Kuranda Sky Rail
They (being folklore in the States) say everything in Australia tries to kill you. I’m not sure that’s fully true, but I will say there were some things that spooked me in this post. Warning: If spiders creep you out, this post is not for you. Because the bus left for the airport at 4… Read more
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Kuranda: Butterflies, Birds, and Kangaroos
Butterflies I had about four hours to spend up in Kuranda. It instantly became clear to me why Kuranda was such a popular destination for hotel guests. It was very much geared for families with kids. As a single guy, it was a bit harder to find a home run activity, but I was determined… Read more
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Kuranda Scenic Railway
Saturday was a total wash for me. I felt sick all day. Usually I’m pretty resilient to seasickness, but I think the duration and intensity finally got to me. The bus was flying around corners and sitting in the back didn’t help. The rough waters to and from the dock at Agincourt Reef added to… Read more
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Great Barrier Reef: Going Underwater
The next three hours were truly divine once I arrived to the reef (part 1). Here I was 90 minutes out to sea and ready to jump into the abyss below. I had no idea how deep the water was. Given that it was a reef, I assumed it would be somewhere between 5 and… Read more
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A three hour tour to the Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef is one of “the things” to do here in Australia. Spanning over 2,300 kilometers (1,400 miles) there are a myriad of options to choose from. I choose Cairns as it was the largest city along the Great Barrier Reef, but other locations would’ve been Port Douglas as well as Airlie Beach.… Read more
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Cairns, Australia
The motorcycle trip across southeastern Australia was truly awesome. My time is winding down here, so it’s important to get off my tail and go see the things I wanted to do in my spare time. Australia is about as big as the United States, and the Great Barrier Reef is in northeastern Australia. I… Read more
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Sydney Harbour BridgeClimb – Bridge Awesome!
When asking around at work what are the interesting things to do, the bridge climb came up a number of times. Having walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, I’ve often wondered what it would be like to actually be one of the guys who works on the bridge. I won’t say that I’m afraid of… Read more
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Touring the Sydney Opera House
I know I ramble on about the Sydney Opera House, but it really is the pinnacle thing for me that signifies all things Australia. I’ve read so much about it year after year in school that seeing it in full color makes me smile still after nearly three months here in Australia. I wanted to… Read more
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Copying WordPress Locally
I’ve been using WordPress for about six years now and think it’s a truly great piece of technology. I love using it for my blog and have deployed word press on a number of other sites around the web. One of the things I’ve struggled with though is copying a WordPress instance down to my… Read more
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Vince is 40
I’ve always been interested in networks of people. I can remember when the internet first came mainstream the site SixDegrees ran under the principle that everyone is connected within 6 degrees of each other. Simply put, there is a path that includes no more than 6 people from me to anyone on the planet. Kevin… Read more