ImageWell & Marsedit

I am trying this tiny little ImageWell program to quickly create and send images. I tried it for an hour, then decided to buy the license, since these are 20 Canadian Dollars well invested. I liked the ease of use and configure of ImageWell almost immediately.

So here is a picture of my little Luis, made using (1) Photo Booth application that you get with Leopard and created that nice background (2) ImageWell to crop, shadow and resize the original picture.

Nothing fancy, but takes a couple of minutes to create pictures. I'll look more into the additional features provided with the license, and will update this post. By the way, I am also using MarsEdit for my blogs. It's really nice!

I read there's also a blogging plugin with my favorite text editor - TextMate - but I have not been able to figure out yet how it works; so I decided to go ahead and give MarsEdit authors some of my dough. Have you tried?

Awesome Justice League action figures

These are awesome Justice League action figures! Posting here partly for my kids and myself!! Or myself and my kids?!!

Figures: Steampunk Justice League Modded Action Figures:

Steampunk Justice League Modded Action Figures

Inspired by the comic book, Gotham by Gaslight by Mike Mignola and Brian Augustyn (Batman vs. Jack the Ripper set in the late 19th "

Langster upgrades

So I have started to ride my Specialized Langster with a new 15-teeth cog from A.C. Racing, I do confirm, it hurts more than the 16-teeth freewheel that I was using earlier. Good thing is, on this Langster hub, since it's a dual hub, I just installed the new freewheel on the other side of the hub, and will be able to flip the wheel to go from 15 to 16 enad vis & versa! How nice!.. Since 15-teeth is quite smaller than 16, the chain is a bit too long, but pulling the rear wheel back one centimeter in its horizontal drops did the trick. So now I am riding a 15-teeth freewheel. Fast on flat, a tad more thighs consuming. Did not really take a chance with any hill so far, since I got injured skiing about three weeks ago, and can't push/pull from one knee at all, following my doctor's order. I tried one freeway overpass and that was too hard. But we'll see once totally recovered. I am hesitating to add a fixie to this Langster. I don't know why yet, it kind of scares me still, although the hilarious and quasi-religious experience described by many is very attractive. Maybe a question of months. Besides, I modified my Langster with a new old handlebar, removing the old original drops and putting a riser instead. Looks quite retro with its original black paint. Sweet townie. Besides, I really enjoy the Continental Gator Skins, which I have also set on my Fuji road bike.

"Dare to be 100"

While riding the other day around Woodside I happened to see this very old man jogging. His t-shirt was saying, in big thick red letters: "Dare to be 100"..... Wow! This made me think of the man, who obviously didn't look young, BUT was trotting. Rare for a man to reach the 3 digits mark... As of jogging, he must be a a very small circle of a few. Then I thought about my 43 years of age. I wonder what he was doing when he was 43. Was he running? riding bikes?Anyway: yes! dare to be a hundred!! and to run!!! We're all haunted by the thought of death, by the end of the journey. This man went through so many times, so many loves, so many losses. But yet he's still running.

All congrats to this stranger, if he ever reads this. If you know him, tell him! I am his fan!

First century!

Yesterday marks a new milestone in my biking; I crossed the 100 kilometers mark, on my Fuji Team V2, and reached the Pacific ocean. This ride carries a few climbs but is mostly an endurance one. I remained on the saddle some 4.5 hours. The exact length(based on what I could get from my GPS, see mishap below) was 108 kilometers, some 67 miles. The overall experience was okay.
Here are the hardest things I noticed:

• the buzzing wind in my ears; I need to stuff some cotton in there to limit it
• the cold of my feet; I need to buy these special shoe protections
• the cold of my legs; they were feeling so stiff, this probably contributed to tiredness on my way back
• the lower back pain; I was carrying a Camelback that I lowered a bit during the ride; after a while I felt a lower back pain; I heightened the bag and most of that pain went away
• the starting blister on my left palm; had me change hand positions many times. Might look into some more comfortable gloves than the ones I have.
• the butt soreness; the Chamois Butt Cream took care of this one; not too bad though.
• the handlebars position; I heightened them a bit before the ride and they were very uncomfortable when in the hoods and when using the brakes. I lowered the handlebars an inch when I came back
• the Garmin Edge 305 GPS froze; I could have it resume and altogether lost very little data. In order to properly load the ride in MotionBase I had to load the ride first into SportsTrack, and then export it in gpx format. Looks like SportsTrack and MotionBased dont load exactly the same way. I got most data rightm just lost the heart data
  

I know, this seems like a long list; but altogether this was not that bad at all. Now I can start considering longer distances, and figure some wider loops.

Carbon and satellites

As I was saying in my last post, there would be big news (at least for me), and in fact a couple of them! I purchased last month a carbon fiber road bike: a FUJI TEAM V2 2006 bike. 18 pounds, 20 speeds, Ultegra rear derailleur, and 105 shifters, front detailleur. That's been quite a story since the original bike I bought (out of the box) had a chainstay that was cracked... My buddies at Performance Bikes took it back and I could get a replacement in a week's time - thumbs up to Performance Bikes Mountain View! So here I was, bringing my 4th ride in our little appartment. The purchase was totally spontaneous. A classic chain of events; walked in the store with a friend at lunchtime, discovered the sweet ride at an amazing price, took a test ride, was told it was avalaible now, and bought it. What a thrill!

Once home, the real adventure started: the rides! Here in the Bay Area there are many possibilities to test both bikes and bikers: plenty of rolling hills and also tough climbs towards Skyline Blvd. The Fuji Team V2 is up to it, very responsive , supple and still stiff. Great complement to the Specialized Langster that I still ride very often and love. Riding that road bike after my singlespeed showed me one thing at least: keeping momentum isn't a cake walk, and dialing the right gear needs experimentation. Showed me another thing: singlespeed bikes are great ways to get fit.

After this purchase and some research, I also invested in a Garmin Edge 305, the top of the line in bikes GPS. Awesome tool for training, and fun too! I have taken the HR+ package to get both cadence/speed and heart monitor as well; in fact I have even bought another set for my Langster so I can complete my data. Not only the Garmin has already educated me more than the 100's of "blind" rides I was doing w/ more rudimentary devices, but it makes my training more challenging than ever. I am of course using motionbased.com website to load and track my data, and the Garmin PC program "Training Center", mediocre but still functional. Waiting for the announced Mac version of this one. I have discovered a great and free Windows program, for the time being: the already excellent SportTracks. This program loads my rides and associated data (HR, calories, cadence..) and pulls all kinds of graphs and statistics in a very neat and well thought interface. What ST doesn't do and TC does, is define routes out of existing rides, to later be reloaded to the GPS device.

Ride!

Bigger rides

I didn't write much all these last months. What have I done? Yes yes yes! I have biked more, and more, and more. First of all, I have commuted almost constantly, and the Langster has made me stronger. It is a great bike, very predictable, and not that tough. My second motivation has been friends. With my buddy Daniel and his new Giant TCR1 bike, we've been riding the hills of the Bay Area peninsula, from here in Palo Alto to Milbrae, at the limits of San Francisco. Our greatest so far has been 53 miles (85 kms!) on very nice stretches of asphalt. Discovered new landscapes, and discovered... my strengths!!! Singlespeeding across Sandhill, Portola Valley climbs, Wiskhey Rd, and many others. Steady motion, staying sit. I was surprised of the good performance of the Langster compared to fancier bikes.

Through the summer, I have lost a bunch of weight - now I am somewhere above 77 kilos.... This brings us to my next post -- another BIG surprise in my biking adventures.