Harmonix’s Rock Band
Dad’s Blogging
Sadly, the current subject is rough right now, but now you can follow along.
Broke a Spoke, Replaced Wheelset
My bike received a significant upgrade this weekend after a torn spoke led to a full wheelset replacement. Kevin from Big Shark was incredibly helpful and made sure my bike was back in riding condition with new wheels faster than it took us to get lunch and walk back to the shop – great service.
Seeking a set of Strong Wheels since I abuse my bike, I now ride on a Mavic Ksyrium SL wheelset instead of the stock wheels I settled for when I purchased the bike. I’m eager to spend some time on the road and trails to find out how they hold up. They certainly look good! (I’m such a poser.)
Team Discovery Joins Tour of Missouri
Mark your calendars…
The most recognizable team in international cycling is the first to sign on for the inaugural Tour of Missouri.
The Discovery Channel cycling team, for which Lance Armstrong rode to seven consecutive victories in the Tour de France, will participate in the race, which begins Sept. 11 in Kansas City and ends Sept. 16 in St. Louis.
This race starts shortly after our 2007 two-day MS-150 ride, so I’ll enjoy some spectating while they speed through the state over the next week; I’m already curious to hear where the specific course route will go, but at least I know I’ll be able to cheer from the finish line in St. Louis.
Free Art
Like free stuff? Want to support an aspiring artist?
A few months ago Drawn highlighted Ali Spagnolas’ free painting project, and I followed up with a request for “St. Louis City”, suggesting something a little more vague than “dog” or “bunny”.
My request now completed, she’s going to send it, and I will promptly donate so she can continue her project. Fun stuff.
New Home in Ely Walker
This morning Kelly and I closed on our loft condo in the redeveloped Ely Walker building in downtown St. Louis. We have a crew coming in to paint the place before we move in, and we’ll wait out the few last weeks of our apartment lease down the street. Moving should be pretty easy since we only have a few large items in the apartment now, and it should be straightforward moving a few loads of boxes 2 blocks away.
I’ll share some pictures soon; we hope to take a bunch of shots before and after painting while the place is empty, and get a few later in the year after we fill it with some new furniture. Once we get move in our couch, get some stools and chairs, and stock the fridge, we’ll have a gathering, so look for that hopefully soon.
Miscellaneous Distractions
All those things that I do online, but would otherwise clutter this space, end up on my miscellaneous distractions tumblelog.
Where 2007 Conference
As the Where Conference takes place, I watch from far away since I’m not yet on the map.
A few interesting items recently noted:
- GeoPress/MT brings the MoveableType blog crowd into the maps, GeoRSS, KML, and Microformats space with a plugin to make marking up content easy. WordPress users have enjoyed similar for a while, though I’ve yet to take advantage of the plugin.
- Garmin announced their Developer Website containing resources and a library of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), toolkits and web services to explore. Among the web services include access to MotionBased, the “activity portal” I use to track my cycling routes and performance using data from my Edge 305.
- Google Streetside View provides a panoramic view from certain streets theyve photographed, and includes a unusually creepy costumed pointer in a video tutorial explaining the feature. Unfortunately, locations are currently limited to San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver, Miami, and New York, and the browsing remains a bit clunky, but it’s still fun to sight-see.
- Google Maplets combine their Gadgets API and Maps to create a means of simple user mashups on their own maps.
- And a few others to check out.
- plazes relaunched, but now my plazer is crashing on startup!
Maybe by next year I’ll get my act together and have something interesting to contribute to that space, or perhaps I’ll have simply procrastinated long enough for someone else to already accomplish what I’ve envisioned.