Horatio’s Drive

Time for another random movie recommendation: This time, we watched another fantastic Ken Burns documentary, Horatio’s Drive, about the first road trip across the continental United States.

This is a really entertaining slice of history. This road trip was completed in 1903, a time with almost no paved roads much less highways, and no actual maps for traveling across the United States. Travel across the country was done by train if at all. Cars were novelties owned only by the rich,  and were horrendously unreliable.  Several automobile trips across the US had previously been attempted, but had failed miserably, despite being backed by factory sponsorships supporting professional drivers and mechanics.

Horatio Jackson was a retired medical professional with some wealth to his name, but no experience with cars. He started his trip as the result of a bar bet with some wealthy elites, betting against the common wisdom that cars were not the way of the future, and that no car could drive across the United States. Horatio had no professional sponsor, and did no prior planning. He left four days after making the bet. That took a lot of guts at the time.

Despite the endless frustrating setbacks, this is a really fun documentary to watch, and really illustrates how fast technology can transform what was once considered impossible to a common occurrence in a really short time.

SOPA/PIPA Protest

This post is for posterity/in case you didn’t know about this/because I want to voice my take/because I like to point out how viewing our elected leaders in Washington as “authorities” on almost any subject is terribly misguided:

So, every so often, Congress gets this ridiculous idea that they need to exert some control over the internet. “Its for the children,”  or whatever. This round is another attempt by the MPAA to stop online piracy. While I’m sure that idea is good, the proposed “solutions” are far worse than the problem. Basically, my interpretation of the events is that the entertainment industry has an outdated business model, and rather than embrace new opportunities, they want to use the force of law and all that entails to enforce their existing methods of making money. If they really wanted to stop piracy, they would embrace online streaming rather than fight it. But they don’t. They’d rather send men with guns, like the thugs they are.

Anyway, I signed the petition voicing my opposition to censoring the web: https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Fark.com has some relevant links if you want to know more about the awful legislation our elected leaders are proposing (The links below are quoted directly from Fark.com, please don’t sue me or shut my blog down):

“PIPA In A Nutshell:

• http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41911.pdf – provides the absolute best summary I’ve seen of the bill, if you don’t want to read the actual bill itself. It also states the concerns about the bill.
• http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/coica-v-20-protect-ip-act does a great job of explaining WHY the wording is vague, instead of just stating the the wording is “too vague” (which is vague in itself, and what I’ve seen most places )
• http://blogs.law.stanford.edu/newsfeed/files/2011/07/PROTECT-IP-letter-final.pdf – Letter from 108 law professors, again pointing out the problematic sections of the bill.
• For reference, the bill itself: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s968rs/pdf/BILLS-112s968rs.pdf“

Operation PLUTO (Pipe-Lines Under The Ocean) 1944

This is AMAZING. How did I not know about this until now?

Omnibus Post: Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and First Ride 2012

I don’t feel too bad about being a little light and a little late with content over the holidays. I mean, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we saw everyone who reads this blog. There’s only like 4 of you anyway, and you don’t need a post to know what we did ’cause you were there:) However, 2012 is off to a great start, so here is a little bit of catch up:

First, we’ve had remarkably warm weather the last couple of days, so we dug the bikes out of hibernation this weekend and went for a little ride:

I say “little” ride, because we stuck pretty close to home. While the weather was warm and sunny in the middle of the day, it was pretty chilly to ride a motorcycle in the morning and at elevation. So we didn’t leave the house until 10:30 am, wore the heated gear as needed in the mountains, and were thoroughly comfortable and happy all day long.

The downside of riding in January is that a lot of the best roads are rendered a bit less fun due to being covered in salt and grime. The slippery surface makes for more cautious riding, but it was still fun to be out. We rode around Philpott lake area a bit, and made our way up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. We started down Squirrel Spur Rd (normally a favorite), and decided to ride back up to the parkway and take 58 down instead before heading home.

I think we did a total of about 160 mi. We were only out for a few hours, and we were home before dark. It’ll do for now, and we sure weren’t the only ones with that idea. The bikes were out all over the place yesterday, as it was probably the only chance for decent riding weather a for a little while.

Ok, back in time a bit to Christmas: We made our usual drive to FL in about 11 hours on Thursday, which is pretty good time. Kevin’s brother made the same drive the next day, and the difference in traffic was distinct: it took him 13.5 hours. Yuck.

I love that Christmas with my husband’s family is a big deal, in more ways than one. His mom’s side of the family is very large, and they almost all get together in one place for the holidays. They’ve been doing it so long, they make hosting 50+ people look easy. Recently, Kevin’s parents decided they no longer used their mostly enclosed pool, and so they filled it in and converted the space to make a giant room that can be used for large gatherings. Just look at what they had set up for Christmas dinner, isn’t it fantastic? It worked perfectly; its like having a bistro at your house:)

 

Christmas day was extra fun with Kevin’s nephew. Little kids really appreciate Christmas. I love the pic below, wrapping paper everywhere, and no boy is ever too old to play with the toys:)

In sum, 2011 was a great year for us. Some of the highlights can be found in this blog, but the short version is that life is good. We have a lot to be thankful for, and this next year holds a lot of potential for us. We are both really looking forward to 2012. (Mayan apocalypse excluded, of course:)

Jamaican Vacation

This year, we found ourselves with the rather unusual obligation (yes, obligation) to travel to Jamaica for work. (I know, twist my arm, “you mean we have to go on-site in Jamaica? Well, if we HAVE too.”) Anyway, we decided to take advantage of the opportunity and go down a few days early to enjoy some down time before getting to work. (I should clarify here: Kevin and Carter had work on-site, I just went down for the fun part, and then returned to conducting business from the home office:)

So, the three of us flew down one afternoon. Kevin and I woke up to this view from the room at the resort:

Happy Thanksgiving

Ok, belated Thanksgiving. What can I say?, we’ve been working, and then traveling for the Holiday, so I haven’t had much to post. As usual, we spent a bunch of time in the car, which I am hesitant to complain about because we got to visit with everyone we wanted to see, if only for a short while. Seeing everyone is definitely something to be thankful for. That, and the food. Especially dessert. My family is really, really good at dessert; specifically pie, such as apple, pumpkin, and peanut-butter cream pie, and pumpkin cheesecake.

I wish everyone’s Thanksgiving was as delicious as mine, and that everyone has as much to be thankful for. Except for the driving part. We decided to drive all the way to NC from Syracuse on Sunday, rather than take the time to split up the trip.  I’m pretty sure the entire country was on I-81 in Virginia. At least we knew that the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the most traveled day of the year, so we were resigned to  moving along in first gear on the interstate. Still, 13.5 hours on the road is a long day. Maybe its telling that I only took a few pictures this trip, and most of them looked like this:

Pilot Mountain Hike

Another beautiful fall day, another hike. We went back to Pilot Mountain  State Park to explore the other trail up the mountain, aptly titled “Mountain Trail.”  We hiked the “Grindstone” trail last year and really enjoyed the walk, so we decided today to try the 1000 ft climb again from the other direction. The 2.5 mi mountain trail meets up with the 2 mi ledge spring loop trail near the top, so all in all we did about 7 miles and 1000 ft  of elevation gain. If it didn’t take an hour to drive to pilot mountain, we would go more often, the trails are great.

Once again, the rock climbers were out in force. I think this is a really popular spot. This time, I snapped some pics:

Pics from the top:

Poor Cody the Bear is pretty tuckered out tonight.  He’s only about 5 years old, but seven miles with that much “up” is a lot for him now. He’s still enthusiastic, but his hips just don’t cooperate anymore. He’ll be stiff and sore for couple of days after this, even with his pain meds. I just hope we can keep bringing him for awhile yet, he loves hiking more than we do.

More Horses

One neighbor had a couple of horses for awhile, and we shared our unused land so they would have space to graze. Eventually those horses were sold, the fence came down, and they moved out not long after. Another neighbor has moved in, and brought four horses with her.  The fence is back up, and we are enjoying the sight of grazing horses in the front field again:

Fastest Human?

This article about Usain Bolt, the world’s best sprinters,  and the limits of human speed is a good read.

Links – OWS Edition

Well, sort of.  I just think these are funny:

Ken Jennings as the 99%

This is more entertaining and about as coherent as the real thing.