OK, I saw the video below and couldn't resist tossing in my two cents about it. I remember as a kid making paper airplanes. The best - best - ones would travel maybe 20 to 30 feet before touching down. Actually, most of them crashed more than touched. And that was after a loop resulting in a nose-crumpling imitation of an auger. 

Even when I cheated and used paperclips and tape, I doubt a Slang-designed airplane ever made it more than 50 feet.

I embraced my inner weather geek this week and purchased weather station software for my Oregon Scientific WMR968 station. I had been running it on a Windows machine until the laptop crapped out on me, leaving me in the eye of the hurricane, so to speak. So, in order to sidestep the dead laptop, I decided I wanted to try to more fully utilize an older Mac that we have in the house. Enter stage right, WeatherSnooper, the solution for me in that it is a Mac application, and it supports the weather station that I already own. 

I made the purchase and, though it's still in the process of being shipped (Shipping? Really? Are they the only ones who don't download?), I decided to download the demo version to ensure I could connect up the station. This particular facet had me wondering, since the Mac only had USB inputs, and the WMR968 had serial output. Apparently not to worry, though, WeatherSnooper had links to two separate serial to  USB drivers directly from the Help Menu. Saweet!

Working logically from top to bottom I tried them both to no avail. Discouragement ameliorated by several scream sessions, I did some additional investigations, and found that the drivers were specific to chipsets. But how do I find out what chipset my now 2-year old cable used? Once again, I called on Uncle Google and found a way to discover exactly which kind of chipset was in the cable I was using. 

1. From the Apple, select "About This Mac"

2. Click on the "More info..." button. If you are running Lion this brings up an intermediate screen shown below. 

2a. Click on the "System Report..." button.

2b. If you are running an older OS, it brings up the System Profile/ System Information application directly. 

3. In the left pane under the hardware heading, click on USB and you'll see something similar to what's below:

Selecting the USB Serial Controller revealed that the chipset I was using was from Prolific Technology. No problem. Still following the instructions, I copied both the Product ID and Vendor ID and put them in another Google search. That led me to Prolific's website where I could download drivers. They had one specific to the OS version I was running, so yay! It looked like I might be in business. 

Suffice it to say, I had several more scream-fests. Even the dog wanted to leave, and I even awed the parrots. After I calmed, I did yet more research and found another site with a link to a sourceforge download. Lo and behold, this actually operated like an OSX installer, and it freaking worked!!

So as soon as the real application gets here, I will once again be joining the throngs of weather nerds with personal reporting weather stations on Wunderground. On the surface, the application looks nice - a little hokey for my taste, but that's OK. I really wanted it so I can get back to uploading my data to Weather Underground. 

I spent this past weekend in Colorado, visiting with my ailing father, and reacquainting with my siblings. Over the span of the 16 years I've continuously been living in Nevada, and they (mostly) in Colorado, a distance had arisen that these past couple of visits has significantly diminished. I've spent more time in the last 4 weeks with my parents than I have in the previous 10 years.

My father is not going to get better, and I am finally coming to grips with that. I regret the missed opportunities over those 16 years for holiday visits, birthday parties, or even just meeting for an FAC beer at the Morrison Inn, as we used to back in the 80s and early 90s. Hanging out, watching basketball on TV and just being in the room this weekend was a good thing for me, but I needed to get back to my kids and my family, so the visit wasn't any longer than the weekend.

On the ride to the airport on Sunday, my good friend and I talked about losing a parent. Rather, he talked and I listened, since he walked through that particular valley of hell a few years ago with his mother. He suggested I write a letter to Dad that he could read – and maybe re-read – until I can get back for my next visit. Maybe, just maybe, I can impart to him those things I am simply incapable of saying, using written words instead. What a great suggestion. 

Looks like I have a letter to write.

I use Google. You use Google. Everybody except Bill Gates (who uses Bing at work, and Google at home) uses Google. Heck, I even call him Uncle Google. Until now, he was the likable, bookworm uncle who in my mind was a museum curator/librarian. Geeky, and shy.

Now, though Uncle Google is the hirsute, balding fat uncle who comes to dinner on holidays and leers at your sister-in-law. 

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

To opt out, follow these simple instructions: sign in, go to google.com/history, and choose "Remove All Web History." This also revokes your consent to have your search history recorded going forward.  

Unfortunately for some, this will force you to rebuild some searches. For everything, there are trade-offs, I suppose. I can recreate a search easily enough. I don't need anyone knowing I searched for {+squirrels +"silver hammer" +blind +Shakespeare - android +nuts -testicles +shiraz - sirah} just last week.

 I dunno about you, but I'm heading there now to take care of my quasi-privacy.

For the last several years, I've linked my Oregon Scientific weather station to the Internet as a reporting station for Wunderground. I migrated it from a standalone PC, to a laptop with a serial port, to a laptop with NO serial port running Window Vista Home edition. (I know, I know, but it worked and was free.) 

To get it functional on the laptop without a serial port, I had to buy a serial to USB connector, and find a driver that would emulate the serial through the USB. Kind of a PITA, but I had the time and inclination to do it. Finally, Vista crappiness caught up, and the computer wouldn't run more than a few hours at a stretch before crashing. I upgraded it to Windows 7. The issue I have is finding - once again - the drivers to set up the USB/serial emulation. This time around, I don't have the time, and seemingly, the inclination. 

That's where you come in, Internet. Can anyone help me out with this? I'm not the (smartest guy, sharpest knife...insert  your favorite metaphor/simile here) about this kind of stuff; I'm pretty much a specialist in end user software customization. I'd like to be able to capture the data, and be able to access it from my travels, but as it stands now, I have nada.

Also, looking at you Ambient Weather... your software STILL relies on serial? Seriously?

This is the wordled version of the text on this page. Fun stuff.

I'm calling the Dow Industrial Average's top of 13000 yesterday the peak. I think it's downhill from here. When some well known and respected companies are trading at insane P/E ratios (Amazon: AMZN) compared to the historical standard of 15, other companies are paying out more in dividend than they are making — also with a surprising P/E (AT&T: T), Europe is bleeding money south to Greece to support, well, I don't know, a vacation destination?, production indices (here & here are a couple) heading south, and the entire world is awash in staggering debt. I don't think the run up from October is sustainable in either the short or long term. 

Then again, I though it was going to happen last fall, too. I guess a blind man with a hammer finds a squirrel with a nut pounding on a thousand keyboards for a thousand hours to generate a Shakespearean sonnet once in a while. Or something.

I recently had occasion to use a website (that shall go nameless) that required a reasonable amount of data entry on my part. I have a tendency to save often, because I don't particularly like to have to retype because I achieve perfection of phrasing on the first try and to repeat perfection due to technical glitches diminishes me. 

Anyway, there were a couple of things that I found to be, shall I say, rather odd? about the website application.
First, I had been inspired to do my editing at 9:45 on Saturday night. That's not terribly unusual, as I relax at night and let my mind wander and it sometimes results in some inspired ideas. I decided not to wait, and fired up the Mac and logged in to make changes. I had already made a few changes and saves, when I tried to refresh I got a message that the application was no longer available. The website was still viable, but the application on the website was turned off. I looked at the clock, and noticed it was 10:01 pm. WTF? They turned it OFF? Was it tired? Did it need a good night's sleep? The ONLY possibility I could forgive is maintenance. However, there was no notice of impending maintenance. It was simply turned off at 10:00. Ridiculous.

On Sunday, (after a night's rest, I suppose) the application was back available and I had been editing my information, and went to save. Lo and behold, the save button was GONE. It had been there just a couple minutes prior, when I had saved a different element. I switched between Chrome and Firefox to see if it may have been something in my cache, the browser, anything on my side. I was unsuccessful, and finally resorted to sending a message to the helpdesk (staffed M-F, 8a-5p, except holidays) asking what happened. I figured a maintenance update had gone haywire. Of course, I had to wait until Tuesday for a response, since Monday was a holiday. 

Imagine my shock and horror at seeing this as the response to my problem:

What. The. Hell. 

Seriously? Internet Explorer ONLY? Which version? 4, back when it was the market share leader? I did some investigating and found that as of last month, according to w3Schools.com, IE only garnered 20% of market share. Even the most generous statistics I found on statcounter.com give IE in the US less than 48% as of January 2012, and dropping. Have they thought about the fastest growing segments of the web-consuming world (mobiles – especially iPad/iPhone with Safari, and Android) at all? Not to mention Macs sales are handily outpacing PCs these days. It's hip to be Mac, especially for a causal user, and for the technorati, Linux with IE? Um, no.

Hey unnamed-website-management guys, time to face reality. There's more than one browser in the race, and it seems you've backed the one fading down the stretch.

Today marks the one-month anniversary of the date I learned my father is dying. On the bright side, the low end of the prognosis range was 4-6 weeks and he's met that so far, and holding strong. On the far-less bright side, the upper end is around 6 months, making it unlikely that he will make it even to Independence Day. My father is the strongest man I know. If anyone will make it, The Brow-Kahuna-Big Buddha will make it.

When the lung cancer was discovered, it was already at Stage 4 and metastized such that three ribs and a vertebra had been compromised. His doctor was amazed that Dad had been managing the pain with over the counter Tylenol and Advil for months. Finally, though his back hurt enough, and consistently enough, that he decided to get an Xray to see what was up. The tumors were discovered in the Xray. Biopsies the next day confirmed the crappy diagnosis, and even crappier prognosis.

I have been wrestling with this since it so rudely intruded in on life. I alluded to it in a previous post (Pop and Whoosh  - scroll down), but haven't had the courage to face it directly and put anything really into words and text. I guess I was thinking that by avoiding putting anything into words, it would go away, kind of like a bad dream. Unfortunately, this is real, and not going away. It's a crappy reality I need to face. I apologize in advance if this space gets maudlin occasionally at some point in the future, and I'm not looking for sympathy or empathy or anything from anybody. I think I just needed to tell someone, and telling the faceless internet is easiest.

On the interent, nobody sees you cry.

I did it wrong. Over and over and over. Not sure which part I did right – well, maybe getting home again –but other than that, Saturday's escapades read like a Litany Of Wrongness. On the plus side, of which none was my doing, so as to not detract from my Doing It Wrong, animal activity abounded. I saw birds everywhere, evidence of deer, rabbits, various rodents and this Big Boy/Girl:

That, mis amigos, is a puma print. Since it snowed on Wednesday, and I was doing my Thing o' Wrongness on Saturday morning, s/he must have sauntered up the trail sometime Thursday or Friday. Cool as all get out, but it did make me rubberneck a bit more than usual.

The first wrong thing I did, I did even before setting out; I forgot to eat breakfast (#1). I had every intention of eating a good breakfast, but my family was leaving roughly the same time I was, and it sorta got lost in the shuffle. I did have coffee though. It counts in my book, but not enough.

Along the same lines, I forgot to bring adequate food along for my adventure (#2). A single 300-calorie PowerBar isn't enough for what turned out to be a 4+ hour event, even for my skinny butt. On the bright side, I did bring along enough water. However, I didn't drink enough of what I brought, bringing the Wrong-tally to 3, and counting.

I had decided to do a little more exploration in the Eldorado Canyon area, however, I didn't tell anyone specifically where I was going (#4). Add to that, the fact my family left town not to return until Monday night. If anything had happened to me, I wouldn't have been missed for nigh on 60 hours or so (#5).

Keeping up? So far, five tactical errors, and I hadn't even started the truck yet.

Speaking of the truck, I descended a 4x4 track that was snow-and-mud covered to get to my intended start point. I didn't really have a lot of options to get back out. (Two alternates, I think. Both potentially equally treacherous.) The snow and mud on the departing ascent might be more than just a little difficult (#6).

My intended plan was to ride my bike to investigate. The bike I haven't been on more than twice in ten years (#7). My helmet was ill-fitting and painful; I took it off for part of my ride to alleviate the nascent headache (#8 & #9).

Once I got going, I changed my plan of where an how far I was going to ride (#10). A bit further along, I changed it again, and went where I had no idea the trail led (#11). Why, you are asking, did I take an unknown trail? Good question. I though it might get me to where I needed to go, but wasn't sure, because I had no map (#12), but it headed in the correct general direction, and I was running on empty. (See wrongs #1 and #2.) That particular path was a motorcycle track. Anyone try to ride up a motorcycle track covered with 1" of mud when not covered with 2" snow (#13)? Personally, I think riding a bike up a motorcycle trail is a Wrong all on its own. With a motor, up means straight up: follow contour lines – are you kidding? Yeah, runners can follow the motortrack for short distances, bikes - nah.

As for getting me home, sure, I could use the GPS on my phone to locate me and the truck, despite the lack of cell service, as the GPS uses satellite. But the phone has to be charged for that to work (#14). All that aside, I wasn't able to do a lot of riding up the trail, and – here's a protip for you all – bike shoes, even 18-year old classics with laces – don't have a lot of traction in snow and mud. With >1000' gain in just two miles (see below), making those two miles took me seemingly forever. The Hills Were Alive With The Sound Of Cursing.

I did finally make it back to the car. I was exhausted and thought seriously about sleeping a few hours before attempting to leave. I desperately needed some fuel input into my system, and reached for the Recoverite that would alleviate the twitchies in my leg muscles (calf and quad this time - special!). Alas, I had forgotten that, too. (#15).

Needless to say, I survived, and I was able to glean some positives out of the experience: (a) The route is a viable run route. Rocky in parts, steep in a few, but overall, for a distance maven, enjoyable. (b) I only spent 8 miles of the 14 total in the saddle. My butt-bones thank me.  (c) I hopefully learned something from this.

To sum: Do as I Say, Not as I Did, and if you yearn to sojourn solo like I do:

1. Tell someone your start point, your route and your ETA to the startpoint. 
   
2. Do not deviate from your planned route. See something interesting? Do it another day.
   
3. Take enough nutrition for twice the expected distance and duration.
   
4. Take a phone and make sure it's fully charged.

As my curses and self-recriminations echoed off the canyon (who knew how many times I could drop F-bombs in a row?), I realized it's good for me to go alone. There isn't a person on the earth who would have enjoyed my company for more than the first mile/15 minutes. Doing it this way, at least some will enjoy my route, though. If you want to see any of the routes I've found check out the trail maps page on ccrunners.com and download the ccrunners_routes.kmz file. Some interesting places.