A few things I've learned this past year on a bike.
Bugs happen. If you look down and see 20 freeloading bugs on your white shirt, ignore them or face the consequences (first 2010 ride).
When you come to a stop, any stop, unclip out of BOTH pedals or face the consequences.
Hills are only as big as you make them. Except that one in Wayne County, you know who you are. You're on my list for next year (see below).
Exploration of new roads is always rewarded.
Wayne County roads are incredible.
It might take a bit of work and planning to ride all the way to the western edge of Medina County.
Ignore you owner's manual when it tells you not to ride at night. Riding on towpath with only a battery-powered headlamp to see with was one of the more distinctive experiences I've had for some time. Looking forward to taking Jill next year.
Night Ride for Cleveland Beer Week a huge success: Ale? Hailed! Last Saturday's Century Cycles Night Ride for Cleveland Beer Week was a huge success, proving that 'bikes-n-brews' are still a match made in heaven! Nearly 200 cyclists came to the ride, many of whom sported some awesome beer-inspired costumes and all of whom biked on a chilly yet perfect fall evening.
Our hearty congratulations to the 26 lucky folks who won prizes from us and our event partners -- cycling jerseys, gift cards from Winking Lizard and Century Cycles, pint glasses, Cycle-opoly games, and more! And YES, we are already planning to do it again next year!
Our thanks, too, to Cleveland Beer Week (which named us 'Pick of the Day' on Saturday -- a gigantic honor considering the number of CBW events!), the Winking Lizard (which did a great job of accomodating our big post-ride crowd and sourced/tapped some terrific beers), Sierra Nevada Brewing Company (mmm...that Porter in cask was delicious!), and Left Hand Brewing Company (for their super-tasty Twin Sisters Double IPA).
Here are over 100 photos from the 'All Hail the Ale!' Night Ride - see how many 'beers' you can spot!
(Click here if the slide show is not appearing for you. Photos: Mike Petcher)
I just finished a web page at work that used what I learned from my last web tutorial listed in my previous post. I also taught myself how to code some nifty rollover buttons as shown here and included these as well. W3Schools calls them "image sprites." It took some troubleshooting though in my application that had to do with the absolute positioning. But I'm pleased with the results.
I also used Adobe Fireworks for the first time. Simple PNG files crash my Photoshop CS4 all the time and I had a hunch that Adobe wants you to use Fireworks instead to create and edit graphics for the web and interactive apps. Fireworks is very nice in that it gives you pixel accuracy in ways that Photoshop did not. And, of course, being part of the creative suite it plays nice with all the other apps in the suite.
I'm used to creating CSS by hand, as like when I design table-based eblasts at work, which seems to have been a great point of entry in learning code. What I've learned about designing eblasts might be worth it's own post, for sure. Very interesting stuff.
So what was new to me here was Dreamweaver's CSS style palette which allows you to change and apply the styles on the fly. And when you use this palette it not only applies the styles right away to your html source code, but it also updates the linked external style sheet...very intuitive. Also learned in this area was the ability to position div tags in a layout using CSS and not table structure, something I was keen to start to learn.
Similar to the CSS styles palette is the Files palette. If used to manage files, instead of managing them outside Dreamweaver, it will relink and auto-update across your predefined site which is pretty cool.
I was also introduced to Spry elements. Are these element specific only to Adobe products? I think so. In this case we used a dropdown javascript menu bar. And then modified the associated CSS. Pretty complex but the tutorial points you to the only files you will need, so that helps. I don't know how much I'll be interested in using these items in the future.
I read somewhere that you should do tutorial with your own files. So having done this once, I might do it again to with my own files and post the results to my server. Stay tuned.
"Focus" is what we ask the kids to do a lot of. To stay on task. I could use a bit of my own medicine I think. I've found I can make a difference when working on something by figuring out what is most important about that given task. And using that to guide my decisions. Often I get bogged down in the details. They really trip me up, frustrate me, and I lose sight of the big value of what I'm doing. Asking myself "what's important" is a simple way to help me get past the sticky details and more easily achieve the full value of the task I'm doing at that given moment. Something to think about anyway.
OK, it's been a long summer and I've been preoccupied with other things. But I was checking out a few personal blogs that I enjoy, and I noticed that I'm on their blog feed. Wow, thanks! And then I noticed that I haven't posted in 2 months, uh, sorry.
Here are a few things that I'd like to blog in the near future, so please stay tuned.
-- I set the goal for myself to learn a bit of Dreamweaver and create a portfolio website for myself by the end of the year. I've found some great free tutorial resources out there and will make a point to share the links and my musings on the subject.
-- Earlier in the year I wrote about book illustrations. There's a specific illustrations in a sailing manual that I've been meaning to share. They've long been a source of inspiration for me.
I had done this route a couple years back and thought I'd give it another try today.
OK, let's set aside the idea that I was lazy this morning and wasn't able to get on the bike until noon or so. How hot was it? I went through my entire water bottle by the end of the ride, could feel the heat from the road coming up through my shoes. The SSW wind was enough to mostly cut my regular speed by 5mph or so especially coming south. On the southern border of the ride, I come down this big hill that I should have easily hit 30mph on, but was held to 15mph due to the unencumbered wind that cut across the cropless field to the south.
Other features of note was the fact that Ryan Rd. Was just tarred and graveled this week. Aside from the loose stone, the sun reflecting off the clean white rock seemed to elevate the road temp enough to make me consider taking a different route back. No dogs to speak of.
With all this said, I kept as much energy as I could in reserve for the ride back and the strategy seemed to work. I was fatigued when I returned but not wiped out.
A good ride overall. 25.76mi; 1:42. I'm almost at 200mi since late June.
View Spencer Lake Ride in a larger map Relatively flat and long township roads with very little berm or traffic. Noteworthy on the ride were a sawmill and some Amish farms. Wind was blowing north, so the backstretch felt great. There absolutely no traffic on Smith Road on the way back to the car. Spencer Lake was larger than I imagined and seems like a nice fishing spot for the kids. My right wrist was bothering me tonight, I may have to invest in some cycling gloves. I drove Smith road all the way home and saw a berry farm just west of Medina that I'll have to remember to go back to. Another beautiful night to do some riding.
I think the good multimedia projects stay in your thoughts long after you've viewed them. That's certainly been the case with this one. Hope you enjoy this one from the New York Times.
Went to my nephew Sam's gig in North Royalton tonight. He's played with this band for a while. As I understand they are mostly fellow students of his guitar teacher. They sounded great.
We were late and my SLR camera was in the car, so all I had was the point and shoot which wasn't doing so well. Bad recoil, the autofocus wasn't doing so hot and I couldn't get close enough. Sometimes you just have to make do. I made the full-screen photos pretty big, so please be sure view in that mode.
I found this great piece on ice racing in New England from the New York Times in their Lens blog. Great story, it pulled me right in and had me cheering.
I don't know how the Picasa slideshows that I've been using have been for you, but they've been buggy and confusing for me. Sometimes the green play button appears cut off in the upper left hand corner, sometimes not. Sometimes it plays the slideshow, sometimes it takes me to the Picasa web album instead.
In an attempt to correct this and give me flexibility in producing other slideshows, I bought some basic hosting for the year and will be using Soundslides software to produce these from now on. They will be much more stable, I can incorporate audio and captions. And it has some great user features like full-screen mode, scrubber bar preview and thumbnail image views. All this should combined should provide you a better slideshow experience here at myownbluehighway.com.
Math and Science Night for Heritage School was last week. Organized by the Heritage PTO and run by Rob Walker (pictured in the last photo with Allison) it offered the kids in attendance some hands-on experience with science that supplements what they might experience in the classroom.
The big event for the evening was the egg drop. Kids could use pipecleaners and straws to create a design that would help their egg survive the impact of a 15-foot drop. I wandered over to the area as my traffic at the table to help kids make a hovercraft out of a balloon, CD and a little hot glue had slowed down. I found Ally trying to develop her design (see first photo). And had learned no one had yet produced a successful design.
Her idea was simple: to surround the egg with straws gathered at the ends so as to not let the egg fall out. Her first model fell apart right after the pre-requisite weigh in. We could tell the straws weren't evenly distributed around the egg and the ends were gathered too tightly, making the straws fold on the thin side. So we reassembled the design by evenly distributing the straws and using less tension on the ends.
It survived the second weigh-in and everyone who saw her design would stop, look and kind of half smile wondering if it would work. Ally of course was just so excited to see if her design would work she was beside herself. The last thing to decide was how to drop it. We discussed it and because I didn't think that the straws were thick enough to withstand a side impact, she decided to drop it vertically.
It was dropped and gravity did it's work. Landing on end at a slight angle it bounced off to one side. When the volunteer picked it up it had yellow egg on it and I was sure it had broke. But on closer examination, it had just landed in a pool of yolk and had not even cracked. Success!
I have never witnessed my daughter so excited by learning. As a parent, it was beautiful thing to witness. Even if the egg had broken she still had an infectious energy about her from problem solving and learning through trial and error. She was in her element.
This event comes at a time when we, as a district, will create our own design to prepare for the impact that 9.4 million dollars worth of cuts to our school district's budget will have. As parents we can no longer afford to sit idle, criticize others and hope the education that our kids will be good enough in the face of these tough times. It is time to take action and get involved. Our children's education and the budget cut design that is being created for the 2010-2011 school year is too important to crack and break upon impact.
Thank you Heritage PTO and Rob Walker and your numerous volunteers for hosting such a great and well attended event as Math and Science Night. I applaud these parent volunteers who know that their efforts can make a difference in education of our children.
I'm so inspired that I'm joining PACE as I am able, a district-wide parent advisory team that works to secure for all Medina students the highest advantages in education while continuing to focus on fostering educational opportunities that challenge highly motivated students. http://medinapaceteam.blogspot.com/
And what of Allison and providing her the element in which she will thrive as she enters her tough middle school (now junior high) years? It's hard facing the uncertainty that all of this creates. But the one thing I do know is that she needs me now more than ever. She needs me as her advocate. But how much more will she learn if, in my advocacy, I can lead by example and be even more of her role model too?
I've been reading up on gardening as of late, getting ready to plant my very first garden this spring. I've been reading "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew. I own the 2005 edition, it was a gift. But honestly the designer in me thought it so poorly designed that I sought out the much earlier 1981 edition of the book that I like much better. The youthful Mel is much more informative and less preachy about the ease of it all. Though I must admit I occasionally I look at what ideas the older, wiser Mel has retained after all these years. Actually, I squint so as to get the information but not be distracted by the design.
What I love about Mel's 1981 edition, reminds me of the enthusiastic grassroots publishing like The New Moosewood Cookbook. Right down to the informative black-and-white illustrations. Like they are pen and ink doodles meant to instruct as well as illustrate. I find them charming in that they are direct, sincere, informative and homey. After all, you can't get more home than cooking or gardening.
Mel also kind of reminds me of Charlie Papazian, author of "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing 3rd edition" in that they both have removed the perceived complex barriers of their subjects to make it appealing to the masses. I'm sure Charlie's Rastafarian-sounding motto to just "relax and have a home brew" will be going through my head if I start to stress about the garden.
The other gardening book I've been reading is "Lasagna Gardening for Small Spaces: A Layering System for Big Results in Small Gardens and Containers" by Patricia Lanza. I thought the main idea of the book was solid. But that the rest was just kind of standard gardening filler on plant types and such. But I really spent some time with it and found some great tips on vegetable plants and their specific needs that only a seasoned gardener might know. I've made many notes for the year using this book.
As the name of this blog post suggests, I'm going to combine the two ideas and create a raised lasagna bed of compost and peat moss built on wet newspapers and divide it into manageable square-foot squares. I'll plant only the seeds I need and relax and have a homebrew.
With all this reading and planning, I went out tonight to measure 4'x4' in the side yard where I want to put this new garden. And I had to laugh because it's so small. Best to ease into this I think. I can always add more squares throughout the year if I like. I'd rather it be too small to start with than bite off more than I can chew.
Oh, and composting. That might be a whole blog entry unto itself. I haven't quite figured out best to do that yet. I see the benefits though.
Seeds are ordered and should arrive soon. Stay tuned ... and have a homebrew.
I heard this band called Dawes on the World Cafe Words and Music podcast that I listen to. That was more than a month ago and the music has been stuck in my head ever since. If the music had that much staying power, I though I'd share it with you here.
North Hills is the debut album of the band from Los Angeles. I marveled at how a group so young could produce music so powerful and transcendent, and have so much to say lyrically. "I took what I wanted and put it out of my reach. I wanted to pay for my success with all of my defeats." I hear at once laid-back California and the urgent yearning for a deeper truth.
Go here and click "Listen Now" to launch the NPR stand-alone player and hear the entire podcast with a great interview and three great songs recorded in studio.
Forget crocuses, spring is a tuned-up bike. It hasn't had a tune up since I bought it over ten years ago at the Century Cycles Rocky River store. And I plan to do some riding this spring and figure I better take care it accordingly.
After the tune up at the Century Cycles Medina location, the guy was nice enough to tell me that it was a nice bike for it's range and that Raleigh doesn't make them like that any longer. They are heavier with more features for comfort and a lower-quality component package.
He said they also marveled at the shape it was in. I have always kind of babied it knowing I had the responsibility that came with justifying having spent more than I should have at the time.
I remember the liberating feeling when I got the bike. I rode as far as I could one day. I had to call Jill from a pay phone to come pick me up near dark. That was how euphoric I was and how completely I misjudged. I rode from Parma to Peninsula (and not quite back) that day.
Lens: From the Archive: Instant but Timeless Hundreds of photographic works collected by Edwin H. Land of Polaroid are to be auctioned by Sotheby's, Carol Vogel reports.
Danny actually had two parties for his seventh birthday. He had this bowling party that you see here with a few of his friends, and then a small family party later that day. Thanks to our friends the Gladdens for suggesting the idea of a bowling party at "Ghost Alley" formerly "Kolony Lanes" in Wadsworth, which is where this was held.
Apparently the building and bowling alley have been in Wadsworth for quite some time. I found it well run in better shape than Wadsworth Lanes. The owner and staff bent over backwards for us and our party. We had a great experience overall and I recommend "Ghost Alley" to anyone interested.
I've never seen boys so excited together. It was everything I had to keep them all off the lane surface at one time. And if one of them picked up a spare you'd think they just won the lottery. A cheer would rise up from their lane. They we so happy for one another.
The photos show the gift and cake segments of the party. Mostly because I don't like to use a flash and they were somewhat still. At first we see Danny in party hat and glasses opening a Game Stop gift card flashing a knowing smile, then his mouth open in shock at receiving a "20 Questions" electronic guessing game. Turning seven sure is sweet.
Bottling night was last night at the Brew Kettle in Strongsville. Here's the whole darn group of brewers. We now have more than enough India Pale Ale and Vienna Lager for all. I thought it was a bit crazy trying to keep track of all the bottles with six guys and two kettles worth of beer in a very tight space. A good time was had by all.
Wow. This contains all the functionality that I only dreamed of creating the hard way when I wanted to start MedinaMultimedia.com. And it's free. I initially wanted to do a series of my favorite hikes that incorporated audio, photo and video, that I could then share. Stay tuned for some cool mapping to take place here.
From David Dye's "World Cafe" from WXPN. Guests: The Swell Season, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irgolva, podcast released 1/4/10. Partial transcript of the interview with Glen Hansard speaking.
..."And when I read the poem, the reoccuring line in the poem is "because the poet makes grief beautiful". And the idea is that by singing, you sing your sorrow into gold. And his whole idea is that when we dig into ourselves, we speak about the sadness and we speak about the stuff that is kinda ugly and dark in ourselves and we speak about the shadow places, that there is and alchemy in the expression. There's an alchemy and it turns into good stuff." "The idea that you're in a bar and listening to the guy singing in the corner saying "I've lost my girl. I don't know where I'm going to sleep tonight. My job is ending in a week." We're sitting there drinking beer cheering him on because somehow we're connecting with him on a very fundamental level. The blues. For some reason when people express the blues, we enjoy it. And it's about honesty. Because when you are honest that when the transformation can happen. If you're lying and you're just putting pretty words together then, generally speaking, no magic is allowed through."
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This shows how it was for me to structure that first MedinaMultimedia.com flash piece on the New Year's Day Bike Ride. Everything was timed off the mp3 audio. But what really makes all this crazy is that all of this was sequential. So, if I wanted to have a photo up a second longer or rearrange the order of photos, it would require retiming the audio or renumbering all the photos accordingly. Not very intuitive to edit.
The columns from left to right are seconds on the timeline, the original photo source number, the transposed flash timeline value, the slideshow photo number, audio description and photo description.
It's true, I shut down MedinaMultimedia.com. Mostly because the hosting was going to cost me another $212.00 for another two years and it lacked my interest to support it. Though it only had a short run, I count it as a personal success. And just wanted to share a few things I learned from the project.
Be realistic. I put all sorts of crazy pressure to produce as much as I could and to make MedinaMultimedia.com seem not so stagnant. Producing content from scratch doesn't come easy and I take my hat off to those who make it seem so consistently easy. The reality of the situation was that the project was set up to be fueled by my ambition and/or available time. Both of which would fluctuate wildly. It didn't take long for my unrealistic pressure to get the better of me.
Have fun and don't take yourself too seriously. Sure, I selected subjects that interested me. The whole of the project could have been helped by being playful and lighthearted. It's something that I now try to build into this site. So if I'm not having fun with what ever is in front of me, I just need to stop and switch my interest to something else.
Find like-minded people. I've had great fun meeting new friends or reacquianting myself with old ones as a result of the site. Many people were more than willing to take a look at the site and give me their two cents. But more important, were the ones that helped me see my work from a different point of view either creatively or technically. I just hope I have the opportunity to return the favor.
We never stop learning. It could be argued that one of the main reasons I created MedinaMultimedia.com was to teach myself web skills. And I certainly did that. I had to learn how to record my own audio, take my own photos, and produce a final piece -- editing all the way. I learned how write Flash ActionScript many times over and how to place Flash on a page. I learned how to use a content management system, how to write cascading style sheets and hypertext markup language.
I've still got a long way to go, but the basics are behind me. And ultimately this knowledge helped me move into the position I now have at my day job. That alone makes this project worth it's weight in gold.
Work smarter. When I think of all the time I spent trying to find a better way to program/script something, I ache. I must have tried countless ways to script a basic Flash slideshow, never quite getting exactly what I wanted. There were constant technical tradeoffs. I should have bought Soundslides from the beginning and not worried so much about the technical hurdles and just focused on the creative work. That was really what I wanted to focus on anyway.
There's also financial smartness to consider too. Everytime I would announce to my coworker Jon that I spent more money on a new piece of software, he would roll his eyes just a little inside and then suggest a few ways that I might be able to something similar for free. I scoffed at this at first, but I have yet to spend a dime on this site and I think it looks pretty darned good. The Picasa slideshows were his idea and they work great.
With family in town at the loss of my Dad, we took to the hills to find some joy. We went to Medina's Reagan Park. Present are Mike, Amy, Katie and Lauren. As well as Ally, Danny and myself. Mom handled the camera and is not shown. Not present were Scott and family and we missed them. We'll look forward to catching up with them real soon. Photos are courtesy of Mom.
We had another tree taken out recently. We hated to see it go. The above photo shows the damage at the stump level that we were worried about. You can see the cavities coming into the heartwood from the top and left. Further troubling is the dead wood in the center. I know the water travels up the trunk on the outside of the tree, but that's a lot of dead heartwood. Anyway, I'll sleep better when the 60 mph January winds blow knowing we've done everything we can to make ourselves safe.
Ringing in the New Miles 3/2009 — We follow the members of the Medina County Bicycle Club as they brave the cold of New Year’s Day to log the first miles of the year.
Medina Memorial Day Parade 5/2009 — A silent slideshow that follows the Memorial Day Parade from start to finish.
Seville Farmer's Market 6/2009 — A glimpse at the seasonal offerings of Seville's Farmer's Market, held at Stanhope Park.
Tails and Tales 9/2009 — Check out this Wadsworth Public Library reading program for young readers that uses trained trerapy dogs to lend an ear.
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