CenterLeft.net

Posted a bunch of new pics today.  Closed out a batch from 2009 and started 2010 off with a few more.

In other news, I’ve been building a few more tools for the site this week as well.  A new rss feed went live yesterday, you can find the link off of the front page here.  If you keep an eye on it you’ll get updates on any stories or photos that get posted on the front of the site.  The photo pages have been tuned up a little bit too.  All of the new galleries posted from now on should be easier to use and look better.

The wet and rainy season is approaching fast in the Northwest.  There will still be plenty of time for outdoor activities, but we’ll just have to pick our days a bit more carefully.

We’ve got a ride lined up this weekend, but still haven’t pinned down where we want to go.  I have an idea: http://tinyurl.com/yfc2vlu but it might be a bit long for this time of the year.  Besides, I really don’t even know if some of those roads are open, the best of them look like they might be seasonal.

The bike is in top shape though. I’ve put a couple hundred miles on this week and it’s running great.  The local shop checked everything out for me and gave it a clean bill of health, and with the new windscreen I’m ready to put her on the highway again.

Finally fixed up the motorcycle yesterday, so I went for a little bit of a ride today to test it all out.  So far, seems to be working great.   Here’s the route I took: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&so… It was a perfect day for it, and the bike handled well.

When I get back from Europe, first thing I’m going to do is order a windscreen and I’ll be all set for lots more riding.  Hopefully the winter rains will hold off long enough for me to get a few more miles in this year.

It’s been a busy couple weeks around here.  Summer is in full fling with all the associated projects and outings and work is fun, but keeping me on my toes.

In no particular order here’s what’s been happening:

• Ollie is getting bigger.  He’s just over 4 months now and stands taller than Sophie and his head is about twice the size of hers.  I’ll have to post some more pictures and videos soon.  We still don’t have any idea what type of dog he is, but we have really been enjoying him.
• This weekend the fish club got together for a home show and competition.  I volunteered to travel around with the group as a judge and we spent Saturday traveling all around the Seattle area.  It was a lot of fun to meet everyone in their homes and get to see all the tanks they’ve been working on for so long.  There was lots of amazing stuff out there.
• Beth and I finally had a weekend day off together.  We went for a great little hike.  The dogs were really pooped by the end.
• I’ve got a new boss at work.  So far he seems to be getting along well.
• The media PC died last week so we haven’t had the easy access to all our TV shows that we’re used too.  We ordered a new one and it’s scheduled to be delivered tomorrow.  I still can’t believe that the entire PC costs less than I paid for just the processor of the previous one.  That, and it’s going to be 4 or 5 times faster.
• Beth and I have bought our plane tickets to Europe.  I’ve got some training in the Czech Republic in August, and this time Beth is going to come along.  We’re going to add a week of vacation on to the end of it and spend some time traveling around Austria as well.

Well, that’s it for now.  Get out there and enjoy the sun!

Reminder: Next time you modify the engine of your motorcycle, finish testing it before setting off on a 400 mile road-trip.

Popped down to Portland for the weekend on the bike.  The weather was great and the ride down went along nice and smooth.  The ride home wasn’t nearly so nice though.

I’ve been playing with a new air intake for the bike which has added a nice bump to the power.  Unfortunately, there is almost never a stock setting for your carbs when you’re dealing with a custom air intake and exhaust.  It takes a fair amount of trial and error to get everything tweaked in just right.  Too little gas and your pistons overheat, too much and the bike burns dirty and fouls the spark plugs.

Luckily, I guess, for me it was just a problem of too much gas.  So 300 miles into the weekend everything completely choked up with soot and started to loose power and stop firing.  This made getting home a real joy, but I shouldn’t have done any permanent damage to the cylinders or pistons.

If you drive by this weekend, you’ll probably see me sitting on a bucket in my driveway again: busy busy busy stripping down and rebuilding the carbs one more time.  My next bike is going to be fuel injected, I promise.

I think this tank should be big enough for now.  If you can’t tell the scale from the picture, the tank is 6′ long and 30″ high.

Also in the picture you can see the tank is sitting on top of the new cabinets I’ve been building.  The top is done, but there’s still some finishing work left to do before the doors can be put on.

I’m still fighting hackers here on the site.  It looks like I’ve gotten everything cleared up finally, but I guess I can only wait and see.  The last time I thought I was in the clear I was attacked again the very next day.

Fun weekend otherwise.  Beth’s Mum came up to visit and to check out the big fish auction put on by the Seattle Aquarium Society.  I took in a few things to sell, and mostly just hung out to watch what came up and bid on a few items now and then.  Barb took home a few great items and seemed to enjoy herself.

Exciting news for me too: I won one of the items from the raffle.  I’m playing around with setting up a new big tank eventually and now I get to spend a gift certificate on fish stuff at the Fish Tank People’s online store.  I don’t do any salt water tanks, but I’ve got my eye on a couple of the pumps that they sell.  So, that should work out just fine.

You can’t live with them, and you can’t eat them.  I do have to say, non-porous surfaces are a god send for potty training.  But I understand the sentiment on days like this.  When you’re a walking sponge, it’s really a toss up whether you would rather go outside into the absolute downpour or stay inside and risk a beating.

I dusted off the motorcycle this week and have started riding again.  The replacement grips came in last week and they’re working like a charm again.  I also have a couple new things on the way.

In recognition of the type of weather that I typically get to ride in out here, I’ve ordered a type of bag that is probably new to the motorcycling community.  You can see them in the picture on the left.  You might be more familiar with these bags if you have spent any time on the water in canoes or kayaks.  If they can be dropped into the ocean and still keep your stuff dry, I think they’ll probably work fairly well for my gear as well.

Even more exciting for me though is I finally broke down and ordered some parts to upgrade the airflow for my motorcycle’s engine.  It’s going to take a little work to put it all together, but it’s really going to sound great and make a huge difference for performance.  And hey, I don’t need that gas economy anyways!

It’s been a good day.

It turns out I didn’t actually miss Carnival, just the first day, I finally got the front page of the site back up, and I helped develop a new service tool in class today.

Oh, I’ve been getting some nice comments on my YouTube video of the fish tank too.

Apparently upgrading Wordpress to 2.7.1 has totally hosed my front page.   I don’t know why nothing is showing up there.  I’ve poked at it a little bit, but obviously not enough to fix it yet.  I’ll probably need to just build an entirely new front page that doesn’t use the wordpress backend at all. Sigh…

But, I should have plenty of time to look into that next week.  I’m going to be back in Eindhoven for another week of training.  As always, that means a couple long nights where I can’t sleep.  So, I should have lots of time to rebuild the front page.

In more interesting news, Sophie (our puppy) is trying to learn how to stand on the back of the couch so she can get closer to the fish in the living room tank.  Some things are funny enough to just let them happen.

Note how nice the tank looks with the new plants in it. Thanks a lot to Eric from the GSAS for donating those to me.