Checksum Arcanius

While I have been posting a few tidbits here and there , it doesn’t really give an accurate perception of what has transpired since that last real update on the trip.

We left the Thompson Public Library some four hours after we got there. After I posted we were used the internet connection there to look up possible routes to speed the journey into New York where we hoped to recooperate Scott’s knee while staying with Maneesh, who has a place on Manhattan. We hit up a pizza place for lunch, then we were planning on heading out of town to find a place to pitch a tent on the side of the road. It began to rain and I started pushing for us to get moving in case it got worse. Right then, a man pulled up and asked us what we were up to. We told him the story and mentioned that we were looking for a place to camp. He directed us to the West Thompson Lake Recreation area, where the Army Corps of Engineers maintains a nice and inexpensive ($12/night is much nicer than $25-$35) camping place. We pulled in as it got dark and for the first time, had the joy of setting up camp in the dark. That obsticle was more than outweighed, however, by the fact that we were also staying at our first established campground of the trip, with a nearby restroom, shower, water spicket, and about 20 RVs full of nice old people.

The next morning, June 29th, we decided we’d stay another day, but we were low on food so while Scott rested the knee, I biked, unloaded, into the nearby Putnam to buy some groceries. We ate well that night, but we didn’t end up using too many of those groceries because the next day, Scott’s birthday, we decided that with the condition of Scott’s knee, we were not going to be able to keep up a worthwhile pace, and would only be doing more damage. So the focus of the trip changed from biking to ending the biking portion of the trip, and salvaging some time on Scott’s first experience of the East Coast.

On the 30th, we turned inland, taking route 40 west towards Hartford. It was by far the most greuling portion of the trip – the undulating, unending hills stretched all the way to Hartford, some 50 miles away. I tried to take as much weight as I could manage from Scott, and ended up with a bike so back-heavy that it balanced at its seat when I lifted it to test its weight. Still, Scott had the harder job of pedaling with mostly one leg as we climbed the hills and descended into the valleys again and again. I was surprised by how much Connecticut reminded me of more hilly Louisiana, with each valley hiding a swamp. And while climbs were torturous at times, the downhill portions led to some of the more exhillerating, albeit short, experiences of the trip.

It turns out that there are no cities worth mentioning directly between Thompson and Hartford until you get to Manchester about 45 miles later and just a few miles from the center of Hartford. We stayed the night at a very nice (by our standards) Super 8 motel there in Manchester, did some laundry, and planned how to finalize the trip the next day. Well, thats what we were going to, but no firm plan really emerged, so we headed out the next day thinking we’d simply go into Hartford, find a bike shop near a UPS store, walk a short distance to the train station, and head south to Washington DC, where we had arrangements to stay with some of my relatives for the 4th of July weekend.

However, it turns out that Hartford has no bike shops. In fact, they are spread quite evenly all around Hartford, among the many subburbs. So while we easily found the train station, we had to bike another 8 miles or so to a bike shop. Where we ended up, Newington Bike, turned out to be the perfect place. The staff members there were extremely helpful, giving us water, bike boxes, and helping us ship the bikes home. Afterwards, however, we were left 8 miles away from the train station without a way to make it back to Hartford, the bikes in boxes, the taxis saying we had to wait at least an hour, zero knowledge of the bus system, and the last train leaving in about an hour.

At this critical juncture, a family exited Newington Bike and struck up a conversation with us. They had, like most of the people we met along the way, gone on a bike tour in their past. They were preparing for another, now that their twin boys had reached 16. Like so many people that had been nice to us along the way, they offered us a ride to the train station. Their intervention got us there on time – and we got on the train for Washington DC at 7:20 pm.

Stay tuned for the next segment, “Adventures in DC.”

I am sitting in the Thompson Public Library, accessing the internet for the first time in about a week and a half. It is nice to be typing on a computer again. I didn’t really notice how much I was missing it.

I kept a paper journal of a good part of the trip so far, so I will transcribe that below. But for those that don’t want to read all of that, here is the summary:

Scott and I boarded a Greyhound bus in Seattle on Friday, June 17th. Only though much pleading and careful watching did our bikes make it all the way to Portland, Maine with us three and a half days later. We assembled our bikes between 10:00pm and midnight behind the closed bus depot, then rode to the Motel, where the real adventrue began. After working our way down Maine into New Hampshire for a couple of days and battling four flat tires, Scott hurt his knee, and we had to take it easy for a couple of days. We headed off again and passed though Massachusetts (sp?) before crossing into Connecticut today.

Now, the long version: [Denotes addition – not in original journal]
Read the rest of this entry »

Stayed up all night working on my 25-page paper. It is now up to 18 pages. I think I’ll make it. It looks pretty goo so far.

Fortunately, this plethora of school/work/bike trip preparations will end soon, and I will only have one thing to worry about: pedaling.

Circuits test: 79. Not great, but not the end fo the world. I guess I’m getting a B in that class. I think that’ll be my first B from BCC. Oh well, getting out just in time I guess. I graduate this August.

I still have a personal statement to write for UW Bioengineering. Before I leave, hopefully.

A bike trip is in my future. A long bike trip. A very long bike trip.

I learned this today, when Scott called me. After the usualy formalities (or, more appropriately, in our case, informalities), he proposed the idea. At the same time, a little cellphone blip caused the word “bike” to be muffled, and all I heard was “_____ trip from Maine to Florida.” Since we have previously been on a road trip, I assumed that the blank word was “road,” so I immediately proposed that we start from here, drive to Maine, and then down to Florida. Then he repeated himself, and this time, I cauhgt the word “Bike.”

Oooooooooooh. I readily agreed. East coast? Be prepared – we’re coming, summer of 2005.

Sorry for the absence. I today reaffirm my goal to post once per Ryan-day, which means at least one post between when I awake in the morning (or occasionally early afternoon) and when I go back to sleep sometime between early evening and early afternoon. Generally, these times are within two hours of 8:00 am and within two hours of midnight.

The news of the day is that the house still isn’t wired for gigabit communications, Silverfir.net came back home after an aborted attempt to set it up at my mom’s office. She needed an email server, and I thought it was a good chance to get perhaps up to 864kbps upstream for sf.net (if sourceforge will forgive me for borrowing the term). Unfortunately, it was not to be because Qwest’s Actiontec DSL modem/routers are basically defective. Bernie, tell me about Blarg’s internet-only options, and do they come with their own routers? It would probally turn into a web hosting account too, so its a good business opportunity.

Other recent events that I’ve neglected blogging about, but I should probably mention:
IS Class of 2004 graduation
TRC elections (Female CEO, Male COO, Female CFO, male CAO)
Microvision work goes well, they seem to want to keep me around
Quarter ended at BCC, got an A- in Diff.Eq. and A’s in Photo and Tennis. Maybe I already mentioned that one, I don’t know.
Went to Bellingham few Sundays ago with Shai to see Beth and Greg. Had an excellent time. Ate at Lemon Grass, the best Thai food ever. Maybe I already mentioned this one too. Bah.

Current projects:
oasis (old desktop machine, future silverfir.net server) – I want to set up exim, imap, and mysql for virtual domains so I can have lots of “different” mail servers, and that each subdomain can have their “own” emai. I also want to get apache parsing its log files out to the virtual domains. And probally get rid of ftp in favor of scp (per bob’s suggestion).

I do wonder what happened to uberbog though.

Also, I still want to change bloggers. And get a better photo management solution. And…

Oh yeah, TRC hack sessions should be starting up soon. I’ll let you know about those.

I’ve been really sporadic on posting recently, which is bad because posting here gives me a chance to materialize some thoughts, which seems to be a healthy thing for me to do.

Today in my Differential Equations class, we had the third and final midterm – I studied practically all night, albeit not very efficiently due to distractions of the Counterstike type. I went to sleep around the time the sky began to light up again, then woke up at verious 7 minute intevals between two and four hours later. Mother cooked me an excellent breakfast, and after brushing up on a few problems and missing my tennis class, I proceded to campus to take the test. It went alright – I’m fairly confident on 6 out of the 8 problems. The other two went pretty badly, though I may scrounge up some partial credit. Barring stupid mistakes on the 6 problems (which is not out of the question), I should do passably on the test. Otherwise it could get ugly.

The lesson to be learned here is that my time management, work ethic, and focus under pressue still need major improvements if I am to become a well-rounded functional person. My natural gift for test taking and blind intuition can only carry me so far thorugh life without additional effort.

On Sunday, Shai and I went to Bellingham to visit Beth and Greg. We had a good time walking among the Ski to Sea race extravaganza which included many street booths. We ate at Lemon Grass, the best Thai food resturant ever. Excellent food, good prices, excellent service, and a good time was had by all. We also thre in some frisbee and Lava tag with some WWU students that showed up before returning.

I have fallen rather far behind in my photography class as well, not having done anything to speak of in the last two weeks other than thinking about the upcoming assignment (due Tuesday). I will take pictures this weekend and develop and print on Monday, which I am getting off of work. Also due on Tuesday is the final project in the Diff.Eq. Class, which I haven’t even taken a look at yet. That will also have to be done this weekend, emailed in for comment, and tweaked (or rewritten as the case may be) Monday night.

My grueling work schedule over the last two weeks has played a big part in my lack of progress in other parts of my life – an average of more than 30 hours the last three weeks. The time outside of this is often wasted, I have to admit, usually by myself but also sometimes by others. I wouldn’t call the trip to Bellingham a waste, but the 2-3 hours of Couterstrike every night is definitely excessive, as are some of my other, less talked-about habits, such as surfing the web and other messings around involving, generally, my laptop, on which I have been on a rather lengthy binge. Of course there are classes as well (but reall yonly 7-10 hours), and the Seattle International Film Festival just grabs a little more time out of the pot. The result is that I’ve only taken a few hours for schoolwork, which was mostly composed of catching up in reading my Diff.Eq. book, because I got behind by, surprise, not reading any of it for a long time (and this well after the FIRST Championship Event, so I cannot place any blame there).

I do wonder how it is that I can get myself out of this rut. For the whole time, I was on the pills, (although they ran out today), but then I also have to wonder what affect those have other than leveling my mood – at least thats what I think they do, its so hard to tell, especially since I’m so insensitive to change.

Well, enough of that for now, back to work I guess.

I am returned home, all in one piece, and with still a decent chance of passing my classes (I think). The combat robotics trip was enlightening and fun, and my big brother is all graduamated from college, making me the only member of my immediately family who cannot (yet) claim a bachelor’s degree. Interestingly, the ceremonies at BYU were absent of tradition: no tassel flip, no hat throwing, no wild celebration. It all seemed very utilitarian, as much as a ceremony can be that way. I got to see Bradford again, and we had a good time seeing Hidalgo and then playing Starcraft until 4 am (we won!). After eating some barbeque with the Sullivans, I was dropped off at the airport and flew to John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California. There, I was picked up by Larry, and we made our way to the hotel, a very nice, new hotel just a block or two from both the Anaheim convention center (where the RC Exhibition was) and Disneyland (to which I�ve never been; this is the closest I have come). The interesting thing about this hotel is that while it was overall quite nice, it had the most bizarre accents in the form of drain pipes sticking out of the walls occasionally. Also, the ice machine room was extraordinarily warm. After Phaw, the combat robot that was Tim�s senior project went 2-3 in competition (the match I drove, we won, and the first two matches the drivetrain wasn�t working well [but we won one of those matches anyway]). The club was also interviewed by some tv camera and reporter lady. However, the most interesting thing about the competition for me was to compare it to a FIRST event. FIRST regionals are many times better organized and ran � perhaps up to 10 times better in presentation and organization, and having its own venue as opposed to sharing with another event. However, the entrance fee to this competition was $150, and the entrance fee to a FIRST event is $4000, well more than 10x more. It got me to thinking about where does all that money go? Even at a small regional with just 36 teams (like the PNW regional), that�s nearly $150,000 brought in. At the nationals, the budget is 1.2 million dollars from entrance fees alone. Yet FIRST says that only covers about half the cost of putting on the event. So I�m wondering, how can it really cost that much? I talked with Larry about it, and from that conversation it seems to be that there is a lot of waste going on between FIRST and the final production. I�d like some hard figures to know for sure, though. Let me know if you have any.