Carnaval SF 2010 Pictures posted on Flickr!

Hi folks! Feel free to checkout this link for photos taken today during the Carnaval Parade in San Francisco!

Link to Slideshow here

Enjoy!

Cmds to fix Sony Reader Software on Mac OSX

Sourced from here: http://superuser.com/questions/58305/sony-ebook-library-for-mac-no-longer-displays-its-window

rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/Sony\ Corporation/Reader/
rm ~/Library/Preferences/fsk/1/com.kinoma.fskin.ktStart-kBook.xml

Late-night weekday banter....

Good evening folks,

Looks like I'm still waiting for the remaining laundry so I can finish packing for tomorrow morning's trip, and a good time to update the blog.

Health and Exercise Updates:
Since spring is here and summer is fast approaching, charity and weekend exercise events are here! Since the last post of the tour de cure, I was able to complete the I Care Classic 65-mi ride through the hills of Morgan hill, the Bay-to-Breakers in San Francisco, and of course the walk down the street to the local safeway to get groceries. On the positive side, I'm now able to last up to ~ 13 miles jogging at a mild pace, cycling up to 80 miles, which are both personal bests. When the mindset back in 2007 was to quit smoking and get into shape, I didn't think I could achieve this. Wow. It's a great feeling and quite inspiring :)

As far as my health, I've been doing quite well. I eat breakfast on a daily weekday basis, that includes fresh fruit, cottage cheese, oatmeal, and an occasional hard boiled egg-- Lunch has also been kept to a mostly veggie-type of meal, with the occasional burger and outing here and there :)


Technical mumbo-jumbo:
I hate Acer with a passion. I picked up an Acer Aspire NAS awhile back, and didn't find out until after purchase that it did not support true raid-5-- it has a WHS version of "load balancing" which includes a proprietary method of balancing data distribution on the drives in a method called "folder duplication". Ummm yeah sure, that sounds reassuring. Just one question-- How in the heck would I be able to find files if one of the drives blew? Can we say, needle in a haystack? Anyway, so I was migrating data off the NAS when WHS decided to reboot because of an important windows update that needed to restart the system. I mean cmon.... right when I'm performing file copies?? two thumbs down for Windows Home Server (WHS). This sucker is going on craigslist as soon as I'm done.


Work / LIfe:
Vacations rock. Plain and simple. In the time I was working at my company almost 3 years ago, I have not taken vacation longer than 2-3 days. I also realized that I was throwing away days each year after not using them as we max out at a certain limit-- This year, for my health, sanity, and recreation, I have actually scheduled and taken vacation. I always told myself that one day I would love to travel, and this year I'm doing so -- North Carolina, Philippines, Switzerland, and hopefully Australia / New Zealand. Pictures speak a thousand words, and that is what I look to do when on vacation-- Enjoy the sights and sounds of foreign places and capture them in a photo :)

Also, when was the last time you were able to wake up early, watch the sunrise while jogging on a white-sand beach? :)

Tomorrow I'm off to vegas-- Talk to you later!

Tour de Cure 80-mile ride tomorrow! Woo hoo :)

Here we go! The ride for 80-miles tomorrow in beautiful Napa Valley!

Worldly Wanda Tour de Fremont, 60+ mile ride completed! Details here!

For my second year in support of a good cause, I signed up for the Worldly Wanda Tour de Fremont. Both supporting a non-profit group based locally in Fremont that helps promote gender equality, and allowing to ride a challenging path, Saturday was quite an event :) Sometimes it can be tough for some folks to be able to wake up early on a Saturday morning, cycle to Lake Elizabeth and being a beautiful journey Touring the Tri-City area and San Jose, however this brave soul did ;)

I met a lot of friendly folks along this journey, each one of us sharing a common goal-- To finish in one piece. All shapes, sizes and genders were participating in this event, and they even had events for the less crazy-- i.e. 4 mile, 10, 20, and 40 for those who are building up their endurance. One thing to note was their path this year was modified from last, which included less populated roads = good thing (last year I felt myself competing with the 4-wheeled, all-metal bumper cars)

All in all, it was a great tour, a wonderful test of my endurance, and a breathtaking view of the Bay Area during springtime-- What more can one ask for? It was an opportunity for one to find peace within themself, with the surroundings near them, and with the energy all around us-- It felt mutually satiating :)

After all that hard work and climbing up hills (which is another topic I would like to write about sometime in the future), the treat of fresh made, piping hot chili with cheese and onions was awaiting at the finish line, back at the start line.

This is something so wonderful to be a part of, physically rewarding, and beneficial for the local charity-- a win-win situation. Count me in for next year's 60-mile and beyond!!

PS: Here's the link for all the Garmin details (including my health stats and GPS map of the trail) located here:

Garmin Connect -Activity Details for Untitled

more geeky info....

Specifics about the linux filesystem and filesystem refresher (IBM):

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-linux-filesystem/

Information on what an inode is:

http://www.linfo.org/inode.html

How I feel at the moment:

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/funny-pictures-cat-waits-for-meatloaf1.jpg

Post-Sierra thoughts

We hit up Sierra-at-Tahoe this morning with a group of good friends. For the old-schoolers, Sierra-at-Tahoe used to be called Sierra Ski Ranch back in the day ;)

Sierra has a special place in my memory, as the first place I learned to hate skiing and snowboarding :P Especially since the "easiest" run was the almighty Sugar-and-Spice, which they should aptly rename it to "Leg torture and hatred for all beginners" or something of that effect-- Anyway, I'll save the Sierra war-stories for another time. Some memories of how terrified I was as a beginner at Sierra some 15+ years ago, and how the perspective has changed since then.

Today-- I was accompanied by some good friends who were practicing their 'leafing' (going down the mtn in a side to side motion keeping on one side of the board) as well as carving; They were able to keep up their own with going down the Blue squares :)

The weather was great, not too hot (like last time), not too cold, and the snow was just right-- Not too much powder, and no ice = happy campers. All-in-all, it wasn't a record-breaking number of times we took runs, however what we lacked in quantity we comped for quality-- These were a great group of folks to board with, especially when goofing off!

Maybe the next time I head up I'll try a black diamond once or twice, remember how it was like to once fear it, now have some capability of being able to conquer it one run at a time :)

Back into the swing of things tomorrow, start of a new week, and a Monday. Hopefully I can make it up the stairs at work :P

Good night folks -- Ant