The Montero is back. Dad came by and dropped it off and headed up to the cabin in the Sentra. Now I've got to clean all the crap off the Montero and get it sold. If it won't sell, it's off to the donation place for it. I told the woman I would get ride of a bike and a car if I got the KLR, and I intend to keep my word. I gotta smog the damn thing too, and since I'm lucky I have to go to one of the special "test only" stations. $100 for a smog check just sucks. They say only 2% of the people get randomly selected for the test only station requirement, but why is it that I've had it twice on the Montero and once on the Saab? I must be pretty lucky to be in that 2% of the people the last 3 of 3 times I've had to smog something.

Today, after I made the woman breakfast burritos (her request for her birthday meal) we went to hell (the mall). In between my desire to punch a bunch of stupid ass people in the face, we got stuff for this wedding we're supposed to go to. I've got a new shirt and pants (took forever to get the discounts right at the register, but we eventually got it sorted out and saved lots of cash) and she got a new dress and shoes. She's been wearing the same dress to every event for the last 5 or so years. Every picture of her I've seen were she's dressed up she's in the same thing. I thought only I did that.

Took my camera over to the sprint store to try to get them to fix it, it's still corrupting images and crashing a lot. They charged me $15 to "upgrade" the software, which made absolutely no difference and they didn't even delete the corrupt images that were in there. I did score though, the tech showed me the secret menu (and gave me the pass code to get access to it) so now I can format the flash and all sorts of crap myself. I'm hoping it won't get corrupted again, but if I does I can at least wipe the images out and start again.

I just washed and waxed the Montero and put it up for sale on CL. Oy, the end of an era.

Dropped off the aftermarket counter balancer adjustment lever at the dealer today and took some pics of the KLR corpse. Doesn't look like I'll be riding it next week. Link to the pics on the main page.

Headed to Chase's going away party this afternoon. He's moving to Hawaii in a week or so, going to live in some bungalow on a beach. Guess it's good work if you can get it.

Gym scale says I'm down 7 lbs from my "usual" weight. The woman said I've been looking thinner. It's either my lack of working out (only 3 days a week these last few weeks) or a lack of NVDA cafe food.

Speaking of NVDA, I had lunch with a bunch of the guys from there today. Nothing new on their side, same old crap. I don't miss it as much anymore.

My exploding engine is giving people something to talk about on the KLR discussion board. The thread has over 1400 hits so far. I don't think I've ever caused this much stir on a board before.

No reason, but I took a pic of the office yesterday when they were setting up for a "picnic". It was too hot to go outside so they moved a table (and made a table out of spare netapp equipment) into our empty office area. We've got some room to grow.

Interesting. So Monday I'm riding to work and BANG, the motor on the KLR dies. Violently. Only 15 miles after it's service. What's up with that? I call the dealer today, they listen to my story and come get the bike from my house. Yea. They screwed up. They tear the bike apart and find this:

For those who don't know, those should not be bent like that. :)

The timing chain tensioner spring "somehow" broke and the tensioner failed and the valves smacked into the piston. They're now rebuilding the top half of the motor, at their expense. Could have been worse, I could have had to pay for it.

There was another event at the office. Last Friday they thanked Tamara and I for getting the office working (cubes, network, etc) with bottles of champaign. Today they thanked us ops monkeys for getting the data center together on time. This time we got gift certificates to either the Four Seasons, or to some Greek restaurant in Palo Alto. I got one for the Four, might have to trade with Dan for his Greek place. I don't know what Greek food is so I should go try it.

The RT says it's 110F out. Probably is for the rider, but I'm sure ambient is lower. Still. Ugh.

I picked up the KLR from the shop today, they adjusted the valves, replaced the chain and gave it a clean bill of health. Now I can start to do all my own servicing for the next 10k miles until the next valve adjust is needed. I guess I can learn to do it, it can't be that hard....

After some serious lounging by the pool, we went to see DaVinci Code. The theater was still packed, there were people sitting in the isles and standing on the sides. I didn't think they would over-sell that bad, but maybe it was kids sneaking in the movie taking up the seats? The movie got panned, but we didn't think it was so bad. It's pretty much the story, and yea it's long but it was a complex plot in the book vs. most movies.

We had a power failure today in the Mountain View office. Not just us, a bunch of the buildings around us as well. Everyone else eventually wandered off for lunch, but since I brought my lunch today I stayed and waited for the power to come back and then brought all our network gear and servers back up. Figures that we would take our first power hit before I got the UPSes installed. Doh. Seems to be no harm done and since all my work was in a VNC session on a box in the data center in San Jose, I didn't lose anything but some time. I did get my status report done, the laptop battery lasts forever.

Back to the slave pits for me. Working on Sunday only this weekend, but I think we're going live at 10pm PST so that's worth it.

Last night the woman was having dinner with Jenny up in the city so I had the evening to myself. I took some time and fit the .22 conversion (which finally showed up after 4 months) to the Kimber. It required just a little metal work on the safety recess on the new slide. It dropped right in on Vareck's old 1911A1, but needed fitting on the Kimber. How lame. After fitting I took it to the range and tried it out and it works pretty well. I didn't spend much time there, just enough to make sure it's working and to test fire the 1991A1 after my trigger work over the weekend and then I got out of there. Too many Asian gang banger types were showing up for my comfort. I realize they're trying to be cool, but they're mostly just stupid and I don't want to "accidentally" got shot when they're goofing around.

Today I made a startling discovery. One of the fairing bolts came out on the KLR and I used one of the BMW stereo bolts I'd removed to hold it on. Somehow they were the same size. Anyway, I was un-boxing one of these cheapie Netgear gig switches and noticed that the M6 rack mount bolts (which we don't use, we're using 12/24s) looked amazing like the threads on the KLR/BMW bolts.... hmm.... so I went out front and tried it. Fit perfectly! Now I have a use for all these leftover bolts, I can replace all the old semi-stripped out fasteners on the KLR with these shiny stainless ones for free. Woohoo.

First day at the new gym with my full routine (run to gym, workout, run home). The run is really easy, scampering under the freeway (237) is a bit of a bother but running through the neighborhoods on the other side is really nice. They're a "planned community" with really freaky tiny roads, but with a nice park in the middle. I was one of a half dozen runners moving through the area, and there seemed to be an endless stream of yuppies walking their dogs. There was one unit for sale on the way, a 1311 sq. ft. 3 bed/2.5 bath, 2 car for $730k. That's about $100k more than the same sized unit in our complex. Back when I was first looking there was a $150k premium to live in Mountain View vs. Milpitas, so either MV is cooling down, or Milpitas is heating up.

I planned my route using google's satellite view. Eric was right back when geoviewer was the only way to go about this.... the whole concept is just cool as hell. Park View.

Last night after our walk (a slurpee was in order after dinner, it was freaky hot) I replaced the front brake pads on the KLR and flushed both wheel circuits. The brake fluid looked a lovely chocolate brown. Worse than the Montero and it's 4 year old fluid. I wonder if it was the original fluid from '01? Wouldn't surprise me, the bleeding nipple nut had no marks on it at all... oy. I gotta order a service manual and/or get it in to get the valves checked. That's the only potentially bad thing that could be caused by lack of maintenance. The drain plug is pretty worn down, so someone has been changing the oil at least. I've got a ton of spectro 4 motorcycle oil left over from the Suzuki so I just need some filters and I'm set.

First day in the new office. The network didn't die over the weekend which is good, and people (well some people) are reading the big signs I made up that tell them which jacks to plug their phones into, and their PCs. So far only the head engineering dude has been confused (as he didn't read the sign). The sales and marketing types haven't asked any questions at all. Perhaps they've not noticed their PCs don't work?

Saturday I went up to SF and bought a KLR. Finally. First started looking in September of 2000, finally got one now. We'll see if it's a good commuter or not. So far, so good. I'll take better pictures at some point. Maybe after it's been painted.

The fan switch on my sentra is busted, and has been working in the "2" position since I managed to get it working the day after I bought it. Unfortunately the woman drove the car home after dropping me off to get the bike and she moved the switch. That prompted me to try to take everything apart to fix it:

I got the dash apart no problem, and even got the switch taken apart and got all the crud cleaned out of it. It now works perfectly.... although the fan will still only work in full blast mode. I tried bypassing the switch and just jumpering the low speed fan wire to +12, but it still won't run at any speed but full blast. No idea what that's all about, but it looks like I'm only going to get one fan speed unless I want to take it in to a real mechanic. I also found the burnt out bulb that's supposed to light up the HVAC stuff. If I had a replacement I would have swapped it, but I wasn't going to stop mid project just to go get a bulb.

Busy week, which I think is going to be the norm from now on. We're moving into our new office tomorrow, so that will cut down on some of the hectic crazy stuff. I won't have to be in 3 places at once, only 2. Whew.

Went and looked at a Corbin seat for the RT tonight. Nice, but I'm not sure I liked it. I guess I've been riding on the stock seat for 31k miles now, so maybe I don't need a fancy aftermarket one?

So sleepy. Probably because I took a nap this afternoon. Napping always makes me sleepy, but I've been running myself ragged it work for so long I think I needed it.

Friday after work I went down to the Legion hall by NVDA and had beverages with the old crew. A couple guys came by to say hi, and I ended up talking to Griffith for a few hours. Things there are pretty bad, and getting worse. They gave him my old job obviously, but he said they didn't give him any more money. Why would you take my job and not at least get some extra cash? He's suffering a lot of headaches lately, and the guys say he's drinking more. Not a good sign at all. He said that he's hoping they piss him off enough that he quits and goes and focuses on his real estate work or starting his own company. Lots of people are talking about the end of August when the ESPP buy happens. It's the last of the cheap buys, and everyone wants to make it that long. Apparently George told one of the development managers that "there is no future for .net developers at nvidia", and that manager (who used to work for Bob before Bob quit/got fired/whatever a few months back) told his people this and suggested they look for jobs. George later came back to say he never said that. Glad to see someone isn't believing his lies anymore.

Yesterday we went to see the "world famous Lippizaner stallions", some touring horse show. It was Kristen's birthday present. At least it was inside. :) After we went to play putt-putt golf and invited my mom along (since she's down here working and dad was up at the new house). Kristen and I tied at 51, mom shot a 52. Very close game. I got a hole-in-one, but that's not enough when you screw up a few holes.

Today I told the woman I was going for a ride, but what I really did was go over to her friends house to make a tape for her bridal shower. They asked me a bunch of questions and taped the answers for a game they'll play during the event. I think she'll enjoy it.

And today was harvest day. We have to clear off the patio for the outside of the townhouse to get painted, so I had to lose the corn. Mom said that the corn wasn't going to get any bigger so I should just harvest what I had and toss the plants. Today, we had a few extra bites of corn with our BBQ (and I do mean a few bites....):

I got a check for $1k from NVDA I just opened. They over deducted FICA tax from me so they refunded it. Cool.

The woman had her "makeup lesson" yesterday so she will know how to do her face up for the wedding. Eesh. She looks so much better without all that crap on her face, but I guess it's necessary so she looks normal in the pictures? I'm just glad she doesn't wear any makeup day-to-day.

My cold is getting better, now it's just in my sinuses. Hopefully I won't get a sinus infection, I don't want to have to sort out my new insurance stuff just yet and go to the doc.

Hopefully today is the last day of the fireworks. Every night there is a big display somewhere and it's loud enough that even I can hear it. Very annoying, mostly because the neighbor's stupid ass dogs won't stop barking for 30 minutes after it's over. I'll be happy when stupid dog neighbors start popping out kids so they get rid of the dogs.

Kristen is making some sort of strawberry salad to take to the BBQ. If I could taste anything, I would try to steal some, it's always really good. She's going to go the BBQ alone today too, I'm still too weak to do much of anything other than sit here. I did just watch a 2 hour special on "wal*mart" on CNBC. Interesting stuff, but it's really scary how many fat, uneducated people there are in the world and how much political influence they have just because of their numbers and the fact that they're easy to manipulate.

Most of a day at work, but I'm so damn sick now I can't do much but lounge on the sofa at this point. Ugh.

Another day sick, another day at work. I took off around 12:30 and got the woman at the barn for lunch. We then went and looked at KLR 650 in Burlingame (that was pretty corroded from salt water exposure so I passed on it) and the went to the "u pick" strawberry patch on the way back to get her car. Then I went back to the data center and worked some more. It wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't congested, sneezing, etc.

Tomorrow I'm headed back to the data center again for another round of work. Wee. Pictures of the current stuff are here. I knew I would get some good use out of the camera phone, even if the images are crap. 640x480 mode helps a lot, it hides the crappyness. :)

Why is it so cold out too? We went for a short walk tonight and had to put jackets on.

Back in the data center again, or as I like to call it, SJ1. We're supposed to have lots of small data centers in the future instead of one big one, so it was important to come up with a scheme right away. There was one request to change to just the city code, but since they've already talked about a 2nd San Jose data center, it stays with the number. I think we're doing DNS wrong, but we can change that later, or something.