Bit of fun here: last week I headed to North Carolina and Deal’s Gap, aka Tail of the Dragon as I was sick of hearing friends talk about how great it was. 318 curves in 11 miles is their tagline, if you love cars or motorcycles you must check it out. People regularly travel from all over the East Coast to it. You are guaranteed to see a huge amount of exotic motorcycle and cars - more than likely you’ll see a few clubs out there en-mass; we saw 40+ Miatas. Please be careful on your first runs, fatalities do happen and it always seems to be out-of-towners. On the bright side the last motorcyclist to die went off an 80 foot cliff-face, so at least he an awesome view on his way out, much better than piling into an ugly truck like below. Seriously, like the Nürburgring take it easy on your first few runs.
There are many photographers on the route who take photos of all interesting cars and bikes to sell them online, the most popular being Killboy and Dragon Slayer Photos. Police on roads like this are normally semi-tolerant, all biker/ fast car roads I know are Policed heavily on weekends but I have never seen a speed trap; they are pretty lenient but if you start passing on blind bends, ride with a ‘hidden’ tag etc then expect some attention from LOEs.
What about the Wagon? It is my wife’s ‘07 328iT and our fifth factory-delivered BMW - for good reason too, small BMWs rock! Normally I’d take my car which has a manual-box and grippy summer tires so expected to be disappointed with the auto-box and stock run flat tires. Surprisingly I was impressed with this stock setup, the tires communicate what is happening very, very well - going too hot into a bend results in modest understeer that is incredibly easy to control. Admittedly I had put a little extra air in the tires to stiffen the sidewalls, and of course the grip level is no where near a good summer tire; still I think 95% of the public will be happy with the handling in an emergency situation. Especially after this ride in the new three series when returning to the US in a couple of years it will be is a hard choice between a 335i with OZ rims/ summer tires/ coil-overs + FZ-6 for weekends OR a Honda Civic commuter + Ariel Atom for weekends. This is the Ariel Atom, I’d start with the smaller engine, 0-60 in 2.6 seconds is surely a total rush but I like Terra Firma…
The transition was fairly painless. The DasBlog posts imported to WordPress directly from the RSS feed, but all the comments were lost. This may be a future possibility so I zipped up a working copy of DasBlog. Moving my eight Blogger posts to Wordpress was easy with the correct plugin for ‘new’ Blogger (i.e. not the default Blogger plugin). First impressions are that Wordpress is very easy to use, has plenty of features and lots of community support.
It is the time of year again, and since Lariam has almost totally gone my life will return even closer to normal this year.
Professional Highlights of 2006
Lariam is barely holding me back now. About one day a month I still take a sick day, but such days are now fairly bearable. At this rate I expect zero sick days by 2008 (seven years since taking two pills!)
Returned to an Architect role again and for the first time in years
Personal Highlights of 2006
Almost have one rental house self sufficient. It should require little maintenance and pay for itself in 15->20 years
Polished DIY skills. Now able to effectively manage contractors
Track day at Road Atlanta
Gotten a handle on Retirement
2006 was really a major regrouping after Lariam and the start of crunching numbers for retirement planning, so what about 2007:
Professional Goals for 2007
Really make a difference at work instead of just nudging people in better directions
Give at least two high-visibility presentations
Re-read and fully digest classic foundation of Software-Development books such as Code Complete. Aim to be an world-class expert in directing software development teams
At least skim-read 7 Habits and Getting Things Done etc
Personal Goals for 2007
More retirement planning
At least one weekend at Road Atlanta and all Solo2 schools
At least a half-marathon, try for six minute mile or full marathon
Unless technology takes over again, attempt to buy at least one more rental property and use >90% contractors to upgrade where necessary
Surely no-one but me is interested, but what happened to last year’s goals?
Professional Goals for 2006
Start picking up the pace work-wise (Lariam willing)
YES! Now I am probably at 30% of my pre-Lairam work pace, which is not bad at all
Continuous improvement of speaking skills especially for Code Camps - rival Mark Dunn before 2007!!
Somewhat. The skills getting close to Mark Dunn et-al, but not quite
Find more time to help with requests for Podcasts, book writing, company foundation etc
No, I changed focus to locking down retirement goals instead
Ensure everything I do for the .Net community is of the highest possible quality
YES!
Read/ skim-read all the well known management/ personal success books (cringe)
Somewhat
Personal Goals for 2006
Do not annoy anyone if Lariam hits again
YES! There were only two bad sessions last year, and I was even polite to the incompetent clowns who fired me to protect their jobs
Live modestly, including driving a used car which gets good mpg
YES and no. In the USA new cars can be as cheap as used cars to run - I tried to buy a used Miata more than once, but used prices were just too high
Do at least one auto-cross every month
Somewhat, I did every school possible including one at Road Atlanta
Find time to achieve a 6 minute mile
No, but kept residual fitness
Move to a more central part of Atlanta
Somewhat, my wife and I now how very short commutes and are with walking distance of a great pub ;)
Paul Wilson tagged me - thanks Paul! Thanks for all the traffic you send my way too. Hopefully this list is not too boring:
How many spots can you spot?
Fast automobiles are my only vice, I shun status symbols and live frugally in a small suburban ranch
Before hitting 40 I will run a full marathon and break a 6 minute mile
With luck I will semi-retire into an AI related PhD at about age 45, then teach Computer Science until my gray matter expires. Twice before I have been a gnat’s whisker from applying for a PhD, but working in the USA was more appealing - oh yes, and I like shiny new BMWs too much :)
There is only one naturally spotted domestic cat, the Egyptian Mau. My wife owns one and walks him on a leash! She also owns Ocicat which are bred to be spotted
About ten years ago a system admin Nazi (is there any other kind?) raked me over hot coals for forwarding an amusing ‘Chain letter’ - hence I am not tagging anyone else
Ramesh and I met at South Carolina’s first code camp, and it is great to his blog get off to a good start. English grammar would be my last choice of subjects on Jeopardy, but I particularly like his rant about the usage of Me and I. Remember English is his second language:
Technology journalists receive free products to review every day; as long as no implied stings are attached I believe Microsoft is in the clear. Of course should the blogger start snuggling up with anyone for more freebies than he/she would soon loose credibility - the blogosphere excels at sniffing rats.
So, BMW where is my prototype utterly awesome, mold breaking, Porsche pummeling 420hp 2008 M3 to review? [Disclaimer: Ok, ok I do have a deposit on one of those 420hp beasts - a final fast car before kids arrive]
You know the saying, concentrate on your core business
and leverage commodity software wherever possible. Well 2007 is almost here,
and it is probably time to stop maintaining my own blog software when there are so
many easy to use services available. The first one I am trying is Google’s Blogger,
about 10 minutes of effort produced this:
Time saved from the NAS v’s File Server prompted me to this. In 1999 I had my own
home brew TV PC which required enormous amount ‘nursing’. Just ripping a CD took 8
hours in 1999! Then came better capture software like Virtual Dub and home brew scheduling
software, then Snapstream, the PVR250 capture card, the set-top boxes (my 6412 was
too buggy/complex) and finally we have media easily available on the internet - take
video podcasts for example. Each step reduced the time required for the geek hobby
as it progressively became mainstream. Blogging is now mainstream enough that 99.9%
of us should be able to live with a commodity engine. It has to be said that .Text
and the DasBlog have served me well - my flat cap (a Yorkshire thing) is tipped to
all involved.
You know the saying, concentrate on your core business and leverage commodity software wherever possible. Well 2007 is almost here, and it is probably time to stop maintaining my own blog software when there are so many easy to use services available. The first one I am trying is Google’s Blogger, about 10 minutes of effort produced this:
Time saved from the NAS v’s File Server prompted me to this. In 1999 I had my own home brew TV PC which required enormous amount ‘nursing’. Just ripping a CD took 8 hours in 1999! Then came better capture software like Virtual Dub and home brew scheduling software, then Snapstream, the PVR250 capture card, the set-top boxes (my 6412 was too buggy/complex) and finally we have media easily available on the internet - take video podcasts for example. Each step reduced the time required for the geek hobby as it progressively became mainstream. Blogging is now mainstream enough that 99.9% of us should be able to live with a commodity engine. It has to be said that .Text and the DasBlog have served me well - my flat cap (a Yorkshire thing) is tipped to all involved.
So where is my time being spent, it is obviously not in writing many blog posts. Generating more passive income, that’s what! It is tempting to blog in this area, I almost had a serious rant when several financial bloggers published their networth, only one was over $500K. In the USA is all about perception, and anyone can be a self appointed expert with no experience required… which leads me back to the Right to Hire, Right to Fire post.
The Right to Hire, Right to Fire entry was only posted temporarily but will return. In 2009 I’ll have 20 years IT experience and hope to collate wisdom gained as a set of posts… As mentioned in the (in)famous post, I have been fired from two of my ~fifteen contracts; both where I was fighting very hard to do the right thing and save failing projects. Time has now passed and everyone involved in firing me in 2003 have now been let go for incompetence + the company only kept the two strong developers I recommended!
NAS, or Network Attached Storage is finally affordable to use at home. For a few weeks I have been running two $70 Coolmax CN-550 devices:
This is an external USB drive with an RJ-45 ethernet port. My devices both have 320GB hard discs and allowed me to dismantle a dedicate file server PC :) Now we only have one desktop PC in the house!!, which is a far-cry from the five PC two years ago!! Simplicity means more time for other hobbies, and this device has a very simple to use web interface.
So what are the pros and cons of the CN-550 which right now is the pick of the affordable NAS:
Good:
Works seamlessly with final build of XMBC v1.0
Works seamlessly with Windows 2000, XP, and Vista
Can access files via a windows ‘machine name’, e.g. \\MP3s\Radiohead\
Maintainable via a simple web interface
Simple to user Folder security (SMB username/ paswords)
Can easily become an FTP server
Stackable
Mild Annoyances:
XMBC 2.0 does not recognize these devices (yet)
Only uses IDE drives, not SATA
Discs must be formatted FAT32
Very slow for large data transfers over RJ45 (use USB 2.0 instead)
One of my 320GB Hard Discs does not work with power saving - I simply turned off sleep for that NAS device
Bad:
Reported not to work with some very large hard discs (750GB)
