Well bugger

The power window on my car broke, and in a very inconvenient way. It seems that it ate the worm gear so now my window won't stay up.

Needless to say I'm not pleased by this turn of events, but I've located a Hyundai dealership near by and I'll be dropping it off to get fixed early tomorrow morning.

I'm glad it didn't break the day before I left or something, though. That would have been much more annoying.

At least there's a fairly good chance of finding a replacement part quickly, what with this being a reasonably large metro area and all.

The deepest shade of blue

Previously I've made unhappy noises about the sky in California not being quite exactly blue. It's not entirely hazy, but it's just been a smidgen of a shade away from the crystal clear skies of the prairies.

Today that all changed, as some exceptionally clear air blew in and made the sky a perfect blue.

It also made it unexpectedly hot, which cut short my usual biking up Page Mill. It's not so fun when the temperature is 30+. (It was only supposed to be 23c today)

I saw a pair of deer along the road as I was biking along, and flipped out my cameraphone to snap a picture of them... My cameraphone takes really, really shitty pictures.



Thankfully it takes slightly better pictures of the construction equipment that's in the process of setting up a bike/ped overpass right near where I'm staying.

Wikiality

I decided to give the MoinMoin wiki software a whirl on my server for managing the static content on my web site. It's closed off so only I can edit it, so it's not exactly collaborative or anything, but I can't imagine I'd want anyone else editing the content anyway.

I've stuck it on my server at wiki.ubb.ca. So far it's just got the welcome page and a highly abridged version of my xmas list.

I'll still be using Gallery2 for my photos and I'll probably get phpicalendar up in a more official capacity for my calendar, etc, but I figured this would be a nifty way to deal with all the detritus that used to just be stuck in static html files that I loathed editing.

Courses for Horses

It will soon be time for me to register for my courses for the coming 08-09 academic year, and once again I'm having difficulty filling up my calendar with the appropriate number of credit hours.

For fall I've got: Math-3101 Advanced Calculus and Analysis, Math-3202 Group Theory, and Math 3402 Combinatorics. For winter I have: Math-3101 Advanced Calculus and Analysis, Math 4202 Rings and Fields, Math-2202 Applied Algebra and Math-2501 Number Theory.

So far I've managed to schedule things so I don't have any classes on Friday, and I don't have any that start before 10:00am, and I'd like to keep things this way.

I'm already running out of courses that are required for my degree, and I certainly have more than enough math courses for the year, so I'd like to fill in with some courses from other areas to help fill up my humanities requirement (need another 6c-hr) or the distribution requirement (need 3c-hr from at least 5 diff departments, currently I've got 4).

Basically what I'm looking for is suggestions as to what courses to use as filler. I want something that's vaguely interesting, not especially challenging, doesn't involve a mammoth quantity of reading and writing, etc. If you have any ideas, post a comment.

Hell, thy name is Bob

No, not that Bob; this Bob.

I decided to change up my weekend cycling by going for a climb with a bit more challenge, and managed to pick one of the most challenging climbs in the entire bay area, the Bohlman-On Orbit-Bohlman route... which also happens to start 13 miles away, making for quite a lengthy warm-up ride.

Now the average grade for the section I rode is 11%. This can only be described as "horrible, terrible lies", seeing as some sections are upwards of 24%. That's a lot of percent. It translates to roughly 14 degrees, give or take. Hold the end of a ruler a little less than 3 inches off your desk, and that'll be roughly the slope we're talking about.

It should additionally be noted that the slope doesn't let up any until you've ridden 2.4 miles and climbed 1500 feet, unlike Page Mill which has a number of flat or short downhill sections. There's none of that here.

Anyway, I made it to the bottom of the hill at 3:15 and started climbing. By 4:00 I had gone a total of 1.75 miles (setting a blistering pace of 2.3 miles per hour) and two things happened:

1. I hit a small rock with my front tire. Normally this wouldn't be any big deal, but due to the slope and the amount of force I had to pedal with, it lifted the wheel quite a ways off course, which caused me to struggle somewhat to stay upright, which then resulted in my left calf locking up in a spasm. This was rather uncomfortable, and took a few minutes to stretch back out.
2. I ran out of water.

Thus, at the lower intersection of Bohlman and On Orbit, I was forced to give up and turn around. I did quite enjoy the ride, though, and perhaps next year when I have a lighter bike I might try it again.


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Bills, bills, bills

Yesterday I got the bill from my hospital stay. They want $2200 from me. At least, that's what they claim they want. In reality, there's a 75% cash discount if I contact them within 25 days or so.

I'll be calling them with my insurance info on Monday to get things settled up.

I have no creativity

Went up Page Mill again, had a fun time. 1:15 up and 0:20 down.

I'm gonna miss this when I go back home.