Labyrinth Masquerade

Another fun weekeind is coming up. Looks like several people are heading up to the Labyrinth Masquerade party in Hollywood this July 8th. Denise and I have found an inexpensive hotel that is somewhat nearby... we will be cabing it. 🙂 Since I hate driving in LA, and Hollywood especially. We are staying at the Hollywood Celebrity Hotel and will be going to Labyrinth of Jareth The LoJ Fantasy Masquerade Ball is a singular night of enchantment created each year as a celebration of inspiration and fantasy. Lost within the borders of chaos and light, nobles dance within the Faerie Court where legends take precious breath and dreams are born. . . Then will be coming home for Rene's party.

Rosarito Beach Locations

If you have any recommendations on hotels to stay or visit in Rosarito Beach, Puerto Nuevo in Baja Mexico.  I personally recommend the Grand Baja Resort .

Shopping
Lobster Village
Fox Studios

http://www.lasrocas.com/resort/rooms.htm - Rooms go quick, book 30-60 days in advance (Jeff K stayed here) http://www.rosaritobeachhotel.com/resfrset.html
http://www.mexicotravelnet.com/rosarito/hotels/grandbajaresort.htm - 1 bedroom suite #A, first floor, ocean view with Patio - B's 2nd floor, no patio (130)
http://www.mexicotravelnet.com/rosarito/hotels/newport.htm http://www.mexicotravelnet.com/rosarito/hotels/lasrocas.htm

and if you are looking for car insurance when in baja mexico. Did you want to look at getting mexican car insurance from the web? I didn't know what to put in for the make/model of Kevins truck so I made something up to just try to get an idea about liability. http://www.bajabound.com/buy/start-process.php or http://www.automexicaninsurance.com/ 4 day Policy: $28.42 - $51.07

Motorola Q Hacking

I put a couple of these hacks into place, as well as downloaded the most recent update from Motorola.  I've found that the cache changes, and new ROM have definately speed up my Motorola Q, but battery life is still about 1 day... not the 1.5-2 days I had hoped, but that also might be an activesync config issue as well.

I use RegEditSTG -- which is a stand alone .EXE that I put on my Storage Card, so its available and portable. 🙂
http://wiki.everythingq.com/page/Motorola+Q+Hacks

Here is one of the good hacks... I haven't got it to play one of my .WAV files yet, but atleast it doesn't make a ton of noise now.

http://wiki.everythingq.com/page/Eliminate+the+Windows+Startup+Sound+hack

There is also a new Software Update for the Motorola Q.  Goto this site and Download it.

RSS Fwd allows updating of RSS feeds over email

As much as I have come to love RSS, I find that there are just some feeds that I don't check enough, or some that I just get to much information from. I just recently found a great way to keep up to date on the feeds that I don't check that often. To do that, I use a free service called RSSFwd which checks RSS feeds for you, and emails you with the content if there are updates.

Click to subscribe to my site via email. Each email has links to manage your subscriptions, and to unsubscribe.

20+ MPG

Today I got 339.2 miles on a single tank.  I know... that might not seem like that much for you Hybrid guys, but for me, it was a big improvement.  Over the last month I have been trying to alter my driving habits to yield better fuel economy.  I had listened to this show on NPR about this guy that was able to get 45 MPG out of a standard non-motified Civic, so I figure, if he could get a big improvement, maybe I could also.  I wasn't about to go to his extremes (turning off AC, coasting below the speedlimit, running red lights, turning corners at high speed (if he was at speed).  His key advice was, if your breaking, your wasting gas.

I've done a couple things that have helped.

1. Commute to work 30 minutes later and miss heavy rush hour.  This means less stop and go, and my job allows me this flexibility... whew.
2. Keep speed constant, 64-70 i can keep my car at about 1500-1900 RPM's and the car hums and gets really good gas mileage.  This helps for when I have to hit hills.
3. Keep some distance and look far down the road to see if traffic is slow... if so, coast as much as possible.
4. Don't gun it... as fun as it is in my car, I try to not put my foot into it, even up hills and behind idiots... I just relax and go with the flow.
5. Pretend the gas pedal is an egg, and only push lightly to accelerate.

So moral of story I went from about 17+ MPG to 20.24 MPG... which turns out to be about 45 extra miles on a tank which is 1.5 trips to work. 🙂 

We will see how long it lasts, but even if I don't always behave while driving, I should at least get some improvement on my around the town driving.

Singularity 2007 and Spinning Poi

I've been meaning to blog for some time now so last night I wrote a bunch of this down so I could post it quickly when I got to work.

About 8 Days ago I went to The Singularity Dark Skies Event 2007 in Nevada. Its a small 'regional burn' (yes there is a creame to clear it up), held by the Vegas and LA Burner groups. nici13 mentioned she was going and since I am not going to Burning Man this year, I figure it would be a good way to get a relaxing fix away from the city and reconnect and rebaseline.

It was that and more. I drove out there with castorsd and took an awesome back road which made for about a 5 hr drive, but with 0 traffic, after Murietta.

I spent the weekend meeting new super friendly and nice people. Dancing was a bit low key until some of the folks from San Fran called in 'crash' who showed up with a mobile club in a shuttle van. Hid most of Saturday in the shade of 'wonderboy's' shade structure and awesome sound system. It was funny to watch the girls enjoy the subwoofer ride. I won't say anymore.

That night I dressed up as Santa Pimp (see pix) and and danced until the sun rose the next morning. I can't tell you how freakin amazing the sunrise in the desert is. I used to camp in the desert alot as a kid and really miss it.

Here are My Pix and Nici's Pix and a YouTube of Crash's Club

Highlight of the Weekend
The freaken best part of the weekend was learning to Spin Practice Poi. My Poi Master lent me her practice poi and got me doing the basics of Forward Swing, Backward Swing, Butterfly, and Weave. I got a good little workout and realized there are muscles that I haven't used in a while, and need to strengthen. Jenn has been a tremendous emotional supporter and provider of insight on spinning.

I got home and ordered a Starter Kit for spinning which arrived last night. I rushed over to my mom's after Yoga, and got her spinning in the front yard. I keep them in my car, and will have them with me if anyone wants to come play. Jenn is sending me a pair of socks that I'll fill with rice so I'll have 2 sets!

The Two Wolves

The Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grand son thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Read this again.... let it sink in....

Spine

I went to see my Spine Specialist Dr. Richard M Thunder today.  Quick and short answer to my issues with my back is that I'm doing the right things.  I can do more Pilates to help, and stretch when things get bad, but all in all I'm doing the right thing.  Herniated discs take a lot of time to retract, and surgery isn't really going to do a lot except make the current pain go away, and then years of PT after that surgery... so do what I'm doing and I'll get there at the same time, without the complications of surgery.

Yoga pose that pinches when I get out of it.
Sounds normal given the disc herniation, and the stretching.  Stretching the back is NOT a bad thing.  Getting out of the pose quickly is a bad thing.  I can continue doing this pose with caution.

Central Pain versus Radiating Leg pain
Well apparently there are 2 kinds of surgery that the doctor can do.  And one is to treat the radiating pain I have that goes from the right side of my spine into the leg.  I am treating this with yoga and stretching very well.  The centralized pain I have right at L5 + S1 is something he doesn't think surgery would really help with.  The solution there is to fuse sections together (if I understood right) and only 50/50 can be sure to fix the pain.

Quality of Life
One of the issues I express to Dr. Thunder was how my life has totally changed since the back problems.  For lack of a better term, having the pain hit me scares me.  If I start to feel even the littlest twinge I get freaked out (and I think I tense up which makes it worse).  I also am reducing the things I want to do... hiking, exercising, scuba, camping.  His advice... keep doing everything, don't be scared, I won't get paralyzed, or do anything that can't be reversed.  Not doing things is bad for me, and the lack of activity can't help things.  So do the things I want in life, keep doing my Yoga, Pilates, and Stretch, and let time do its magic.  Scuba is the one place that might be hard to fix (getting in and out of water) but if I can get someone to help with that, I should be fine.  I personally am going to wait on that part.

Heat = My Friend = My Enemy
Heat for 15 minutes at a low level is fine.  You can hurt the skin and cause damage with prolonged heat, and high temperatures.  But the hot tub, bath, and heat pad are all good solutions for relaxing the muscles and the pain.  I didn't ask how to address this when I'm 80 miles from a city in the middle of the desert at 3am. 😛 I need to.

Disc decompression
In talking with Doug last night, he touched on a solution that others have tried, which is something called Disc Decompression.  The doc gave me kinda a weird look when I asked him about this.  He said depends on the type... he says he does some disc decompression during surgery.  The other way is to pay someone a ton of money to put you on a machine that stretches your back out.  He hasn't gotten a lot of feedback on it, but his early estimates were that things were good during the treatment, but it didn't solve the problem long term.

Muscle Relaxers
There are 3 things that he can give me for muscle tightness and pain.  1. Ibuprofen 2. Skelaxin or Soma 3. A narcotic.  I chose #2, since I periodically do #1.  And in the past I have done #2 with some good results.  Problem is it makes me drossy so I have to take it before bed.

Didn't ask him about:  Central Spine that pops out.  Specific pinching location when I salsa dance, or do Stairmaster for a long time.  How to handle the cold.

Wow you made it this far... if you can recommend some good Pilates classes or want a workout buddy to do Pilates with, please let me know.  It’s my current weakness in my recovery.  I have a DVD that I still haven't watched.  I'm also keeping Acupuncture as an option if my back flares up again.

Welcome to Corvette Power .COM

Welcome to Corvette Power .COM this is my first attempt at providing a means for me to share information about things I am interested in. It is also a way for me to store some information at the time I am researching something and then later pull the information up.

You may remember my old static site, with links to pictures and other things. That site still exists, but the content is being phased out for this new 'story' format site. If you have old items bookmarked you will still be able to use them. But if you dont, you will need to follow the links on the new site. More stuff is available to family and friends just request a password.

Both Steve and I are using a package called www.drupal.org with a support site of www.drop.org. I have now moved my site from Open Source Host to 1 and 1 Hosting .  I was able to upgrade a introductory account with them to a high enough level that I pay just around $9.50 a month and have SSH access, and the ability to host 20 web site.  I still have to give props to Open Source Host as they are VERY good, and fast, and their sysadmins help you install a suite of open source packages such as Drupal and Gallery. 

Hope you enjoy the site, when possible please make comments on the site.  You must be a family member and requested an account to post.

WinDirStat provides visual usage of your hard drives

A coworker pointed out this interesting utility for visualizing what files are taking up space on your hard drive.

http://windirstat.info/