Flickr user airosche5's EDC

Many people (especially us geeks and outdoors/survival enthusiasts) hate to go anywhere unprepared. Most of us, whether we use the term or not, have what is called an Everyday carry (EDC). To paraphrase Wikipedia, an Everyday carry is a collection of small items carried on one’s person on a daily basis for use in everyday tasks from the mundane to the unexpected. These range from a minimalist but indispensable key-chain, to pouches/packs brimming with gear. Most items in an EDC get used daily/weekly, and others are more for survival situations with occasional mundane uses, e.g. a compact lighter, which a non-smoker might only use in a survival situation, but could also use to seal off the end of his fraying nylon shoelace one day. As one astute author said, “If you’ve ever asked  Can I borrow a pen?, Do you have the time?, Do you have a flashlight?, Can I borrow your pocketknife?, May I have a light?, then you need an everyday carry.”

Note: To get an idea of what an EDC looks like, and the incredible variety there is, you should scroll down the fantastic everyday-carry.com real quick and then jump back. There you can see user-submitted EDC photos.

People have carried daily use gadgets/items for waaay longer than the phrase has been around–my uncle Nyrath, for example, has the most excellent hip pouches that used to fascinate me for hours–but I like the widespread adoption of this common term because it facilitates discussions and searches on the internet.

I’d like to share my own everyday carry in this post, then share some resources where you can drool over other people’s EDC (if you’re a gadget geek) or just pick up a handy item or two for your regular-old key-chain.

The Evolution of my own EDC

I should note that most of my everyday carry centers around my key-chain, so a lot of this is specific to it.

The problem with first getting into EDC, or even just buying some tools for your key-chain (led light, bottle opener, pocket multi-tool), is that it’s very easy to load your pockets or key-chain up with all sorts of awesome items to the point that it becomes unmanageable, a pain to carry, or make you look like you’re smuggling doorknobs in your trouser pocket. Indeed this first step is almost a given unless you are very careful from the start about what you want the end-result of your EDC to look like. Sacrifices for bulk and weight vs. usefulness must almost always be made.

I hate having a bulky key-chain and yet I too went through this overdoing-it phase. I used to have the normal wad of keys on a standard split-ring and a carabiner, but disliked the feel of all that weight in my pocket, and hated sounding like a reindeer with them hanging off my belt-loop. Having decided to fix that once an for all, I relentlessly paired my key-chain down to just 4 keys and a remote-starter, and I loved it. Alas, it didn’t last long. Not long after the great key-purge I ran across some photos of really lust-worthy tools and gadgets on other EDC enthusiasts’ key-chains. I caught the bug, and started delving into the everyday carry community. Shortly thereafter, despite having just minimized my keys, my key-chain was loaded with all kinds of useful but heavy and redundant stuff, and it was once again an unwieldy behemoth.

Luckily, my second revision proved much more light and elegant. I found some tools that did the same job of two or three of the previous ones, and experimented with many carrying methods (split rings, carabiners, specialty key-chains/fobs). After a few tweaks here and there I now have my ideal EDC*. I should note that while many people spend hundreds on their EDC items, mine probably cost about $50 over the course of a few years (not counting my phone and designer knife) and almost half of that was in the form of christmas gifts. So fear not–you could easily spend only $15 and still have an indispensable ECD.

So, wanna see what my everyday carry looks like? Here’s an annotated picture, descriptions follow:

My Everyday carry

Tom’s Everyday Carry

Update: New photo and consolidated keyring!

1. SanDisk Cruzer Micro 4 GB - PortableApps.com package and a slew of other portable tools/utilities.
2. Inova Microlight – Very bright, inexpensive, and has 3 settings (high, low, strobe). Dang cover fell of the back of it after one week (and i didn’t notice till later) so I wrapped the sucker in electrical tape. Close enough.
3. Zebra F301-Compact – Writes very nicely. It’s the same length as my Fisher Space Pen and has a lanyard hole.
4. Gerber Artifact – I love this deceptively versatile little tool. I was originally going to get a County Comm Micro Widgy pry bar and some sort of bulky multi-tool for a knife, drivers, and bottle opener, until I saw the Artifact. Not only is it really unique looking, it does a lot in a tiny package. It’s a pry bar, two flat-head drivers, a philips (cross) head driver, bottle opener, and has a locking, replaceable X-Acto blade. I use it daily, making it an ideal EDC item. Also, it’s only $9!
5. Car & House Keys – I’m going to try my hand at making a DIY compact key holder for these (from copies of course) this weekend. It’ll make my keys that much less bulky, and may let me condense my EDC/Work keychains into one.
6. County Comm A&P Mechanic Cable Key Ring – These are secure and easy to get your tools off of in a hurry. I use them for all sorts of things. 1,2, and 3 are connected to the ring using Nite Ize tiny S-Biners, size 0.
7. Home-made spring steel suspension clip – I used carabiners for the longest time to carry my keys, but even the tiny ones got in the way when not using them, or held my keys too high to pocket them while clipped to my belt loop. This solves both problems by being small and clipping to my pocket (just like a pen-clip). It also prevents having everything sagging down to the bottom of your pocket and making a big bulge by keeping everything hanging. I made this one myself from a spring steel led light clip, and #16 from the inside of an old windshield wiper blade (an excellent source of spring steel). You can buy these pre-made (much prettier) from the EDC Forum Store.
8. Zippo – The original windproof lighter, of course. From my collection.
9. Timex Expedition T42351 Chronograph Tachymeter – Durable, sexy, highly functional.
10. Rite in the Rain all-weather outdoor journal – Fits in my back pocket and is extremely durable. Only pencil, ball-point, and sharpie extra/ultra-fine write in it without smudging though (due to its waterproofing).
11. Uni Kuru Toga 0.5 – I always hated using pencils before I had this. The lines were always uneven and I hate rotating the pencil every few words to keep the tip sharp. This pencil rotates the lead for you (scroll down to Product Details). It’s pure genius.
12. Lamy Safari Left-handed nib – A wonderful, low-priced workhorse of a fountain pen. The left-handed nib alleviates problems with ink flow and the possibility of the nib digging into the paper. It’s a joy to write with.
13. Boker Gamma Ceramic Lock Blade Knife – Stays very sharp as long as you don’t nick the blade on metal/stone. Plus it’s ceramic so it’s just plain cool!
14. iPhone 4 – Yep, I’m one of them.
15. County Comm Nylon LA Wallet – Very thin and you can flip it open to show your ID like a LEO.

I still need a compact lighter. My Zippo is a little big since I don’t smoke, and so don’t need it very often. I’ll probably get something akin to the County Comm Peanut lighter.

Everyday Carry Resources

• Everyday-carry.com – My favorite EDC photo/gadget pron/ooh-whats-that! site. It has lots of user-submitted photos and cool finds by the author.
• EDC Forum – A great resource for all things Everyday Carry. They also have a store that’s worth checking out.
• County Comm – I swear they aren’t paying me! They just have awesome gadgets. You’d need a backpack to hold all the stuff you’ll want to order from these guys.
• Unique Titanium – A little “designer” but has some good items.
• EDC Reviews – Over 300 reviews of EDC tools.

I should note some EDC communities have a disproportionate percentage of members with firearms. This could be part of an action-hero complex, but then again perhaps they’re a LEO, guard, etc. At any rate, if you’re licensed to carry a firearm, I’m not going to challenge your constitutional right. More power to you, as long as you’re safe and responsible.

Conclusion

I hope I’ve piqued you’re interest in peparedness and every day carry. You don’t have to use theterm if you’re self concious, but you should still carry some basic items with you. This is very doable for women who carry purses, and many already have most of the basic EDC items. I think everyone should have an everyday carry. It’s not about having the coolest or most expensive gadgets, it’s about being prepared, and not having to ask someone “hey, do you have a…”

* Your everyday carry wont stay the same indefinitely. New better and/or cooler gadgets are always being created, or just coming down in price. For example: how long have you had the same cell phone?

I’m in an “ease of use”/”minimalism with a splash of color” sort of mood, especially with a flood of baby updates, photos, and videos on the way, which leads me to our current theme: P2. This is a wordpress theme I’ve admired, and had installed but not enabled, for quite a while.

I’m hoping it pushes the content to the forefront, and that it’s ease of posting will mean I update it more frequently (a constant battle for me).

The absolute best way to start newyears day: DBZ and breakfast in bed.

I just started a new job for the State of Maine Office of Information Technology (OIT). I’m working out of Augusta, which is a decent commute for me, but even after gas I’m making much better money, and the experience so far has been great. I’m just finishing my second week here. The people are really great and there’s no shortage of things to do. I’m working out of a huge office building (1.3 miles circumference), and the state has numerous departments located here. Every day I’m learning how to find my way to a new office and meeting new people there.

As the title suggests, we also have just moved–I told you we were busy! When it rains, it pours, and our lease was up so even though we had lots of other things going on we had to decide whether to stay another year or find a better place. Our old apartment was great but there were lots of little things that were wearing on us, things that can’t really be fixed by maintenance, so we decided to look for greener pastures. We checked out many places but finally found a place, and a landlord, that seem to be a perfect fit. We’re about 15 minutes from our old place, and have most amenities within walking/bicycling distance. There is slightly more square footage and it’s much better distributed. Also, the windows are huge! There is light flooding every part of the house (I love that). If you want our new address just drop me an email.

The cats adjusted quite well, except theres one closet that causes Riley to start whining pitifully whenever he goes in to explore it. I’m not sure if the things in there smell like the old place and confuse him, or if he’s sensing a poltergeist-like portal to another dimension just behind the shoe rack. Bruski, as always, took the move in stride and didn’t seem to mind in the least.

That’s about all the news we have for now, so digest, digest!

I know it’s not as fancy as the old one, but I think it’s a much nicer reading/viewing experience (less clutter and fluff, more information density). Lemme know what you think.

FYI: I still need to reimplement mouse gestures. I’ll let you know when they’re back.

Since I can barely remember the whole blur of a weekend, I’ll rely on photographs to tell most of the story, with some highlights thrown in along the way. If you’re on a mobile device, take heed; this will be bandwidth intensive.

When we were looking for the Hynes convention center we knew when we were close. There was a long line of people coming from the MTA stop all going in the same direction, and the cosplayers were a pretty good giveaway. We decided to park in the garage next-door, and by the time we got there the line was moving swiftly.

Blur is definitely due to my jogging and not my poor photography... definitely.

Aww yeah, the boys in the house! (Jeremy, Trevor, and Jesse)

By the time we got in the keynote was full, but I’ve watched the video and Wil knocked it out of the park. Watch it below:

We decided to go to the NVIDIA event which required waiting in line, but not for too long. While we waited we busted out the DSs and loaded pictochat. We got our chatroom to fill up with the people around us who also had DSs and, of course, it quickly evolved into an epic wang drawing contest; Lulz were definitely had. The staff passed 3D glasses out a little before we went into the theater, and jesse’s had a patch of green on the inside of the bridge. I didn’t think much of it at the time.

Jesse blowing up a thumper while waiting in line.

At the event they debuted the new GeForce GTX 480 for the first time ever! I have to say I was impressed. Besides the somewhat novelty 3D capabilities (which do look pretty awesome with the flicker glasses we got to use at the expo hall booth) it does realtime ray-tracing! If that doesn’t impress you, suffice it to say that that’s amazing. The real treat came when they announced two people in the audience (out of about 3000 there) would be getting a free GTX 480. They told everyone to look on the bridge of their glasses for a green mark, and wouldn’t you know it, Jesse was one of the winners! We were really happy for him, because he of any of us will get the most use out of it.

Waiting for the NVIDIA event to start

There were plenty of places to play games around the convention center. The expo hall was full of videogame companies demoing their latest offerings, there was a classic console (NES, Super NES, ATARI 2600, Sega Genesis, etc) room, a current console room, an arcade, a PC gaming room, a handheld lounge for playing DS and PSP, and tabletop rooms everywhere. It was basically gamer heaven.

Trevor dominated Tetris all weekend

The Classic Console room

Console Room

Console room

We HAD to play the latest Katamari Damacy

Heck yes! Buck Rogers!

I have to say, Sumo rocks for plastering the hand-held lounge with giant beanbag chairs. They offered a much needed respite between gaming, concerts, talks, and the constant onslaught of awesomeness. We played The Downfall of Pompeii, magic, and of course Mario Kart DS on them throughout the weekend.

Trevor and I playing Pompeii

Jesse and Jeremy on a Sumo

Much Magic the Gathering was played:

The first night we decided to go to a screening of a D&D GM documentary. After sitting around a while we were told they were trying to locate the DVD. Shortly thereafter Mike (aka Gabe), the artist of Penny Arcade, came in and went to the front of the room. He told us the documentary people did show up, but wanted to know if we’d like to have an imprompteau GM Q&A with him! Mike (as well as Jerry) is an amazing GM, so what had promised to be an interesting evening turned into an enthralling one. The Q&A was very educational and funny as well. The best part about it is that until recently, Mike wasn’t into D&D at all.

The next day we got to the convention extra early so we could go to the Penny Arcade Create-a-strip panel, where we get to watch Jerry and Mike script out and draw a strip. To our surprise they made the comic about the events of the previous night!

Scripting

Scripting

Initial sketch

Initial sketch

There were, of course, some hijinks…

centaur

The finished product:

The finished product

Someone asked Jerry to sing the song he wrote, My Belruel, and it was both lilting and haunting. The dude has a great voice. You can hear him singing it from back in 2007 (it’s kind of a tradition now) here.

There were some really cool booths in the expo hall:

NVIDIA and their "Crank that shit up!" slogan

APB

Trevor playing Left4Dead 2 for the first time!

While Jesse and Jeremy played PC games, Trevor and I decided to take a short break to exchange some geocoins in a local geocache.

Found!

We went to “An Evening with Scott Kurtz” on a whim, and it turned out to be one of my favorite moments at PAX East. Scott told the most hilarious and touching stories, and the whole atmosphere was very close and intimate. He certainly gained a reader for life in me.

Sunday morning, the final day, we went to the Blamimation panel by Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub. We had a hell of a good time and played a small part in scripting/recording the next Blamimation.

Blamimation panel

Dueling collaborators

We didn’t make it into the first PA Q&A, but we did make it into the second one. Someone asked Jerry and Mike to arm wrestle. I forget who won.

The autograph line was pretty epic, so we played magic while we waited.

Playing magic on a food tray

Epic waiting line (we started out pretty close to the head)

I got my Nintendo DS signed by Jerry and Mike, and my badge signed by Jerry, Mike, Robert Khoo, Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub, and musicians Paul & Storm. The autograph line filled up before we could get a place on both of the days that Wil Wheaton was there, so that sucked, but that was the only bad part of the whole weekend.

My PAX East 2010 Badge

That’s all I can remember! I have quite a few videos I’ve yet to convert and upload, but I’ll link em’ when they’re done. For all the PAX East photos you could ever want, including some sweet cosplay outfits, check out flickr and this forum thread. When the unofficial community DVD comes out, there will be information at this site. Finally, search youtube for some great performances by Jonathan Coulton, Paul & Storm, VGO, and many more.

I started using Baking Soda shampoo late last year and it’s been going fantastic, so I thought I’d share my experiences.

I’m not exactly sure why I first decided to look up baking soda shampoo, but I think it had to do with the fact that my head gets so oily. I shave my head down to about a half centimeter and I hate exposing my scalp to soaps/shampoos filled with chemicals. I know there are great natural hand-made soaps (Amme uses local handmade soap) but I remembered reading somewhere that you could make your own baking soda shampoo and liked the idea. A quick search online revealed two things: 1. My mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, lots of people make and use it. And 2. It’s dead simple to make!

The best reason to stop using shampoo is the long list of chemicals most contain. If you’re scared by the long unpronounceable names on shampoo labels then baking soda is a great alternative. Baking soda shampoo is also a great once-a-week (or whenever) clarifier or “de-gunk-ifier”. Another bonus is savings. While some shampoos are quite cheap, baking soda is even cheaper. I like it because it keeps my scalp clean without stripping so many natural oils that my head goes into overdrive replacing them (the most common cause of excessively oily hair).

I learned most of what I know about baking soda shampoo from naturemoms.com, and I highly recommend you go there and read the excellent article. I use their technique for massaging it into my scalp, pay close attention to that section, and use about the same amount that I would for shampoo. WikiHow also has a great article on shampoo alternatives.

My own favorite recipe for baking soda shampoo is this:

Fill your container (a water-tight one you can get your hand into) 3/4 full with baking soda. I add the tiniest pinch of xanthan gum (you can pick it up at most health-food stores and a little goes a long way) but it’s strictly optional. You can also add a drop or two of your favorite essential/scented oil. Then just add enough water to make it a paste, about the consistency of toothpaste. Put the lid on and shake it well and you’re done!

If you find the mixture too thick to massage into your hair, or if your hair feels wiry, then add more water. If the baking soda settles out overnight (which can happen if you mix yours more watery and don’t use xanthan gum) just give it a quick shake before you use it.

Make sure to rinse your hair thoroughly and, just like regular shampoo, remember not to get it in your eyes!

At any rate, this is the playlist my brain has created in the past two days:

• Bonnie Raitt – Something to Talk About
• Bob Marley – I Shot the Sheriff
• Fleetwood Mac – Landslide
• Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer
• Metro Station – Disco

So, what random songs have you had in your head lately?  Don’t be embarrassed… hell, Landslide is up there.

Awesome.

It seems a successor to the ubiquitous Chuck Norris Facts meme has arisen. The target? Action movie director Michael Bay.

In the wake of the new Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen movie a stream of Michael Bay Facts has been pouring out of twitter, and as with Chuck Norris Facts, most are hysterical.

Since Michael Bay Facts mock their target rather than revere him (he really is a shitty director, though I loved Transformers: ROTF), and since Michael Bay will never be bad-ass like Chuck Norris, I’m sure this meme will be quite short lived. With that in mind, get them while the getting is good. I see io9 has posted some of their favorites, and I’d like to do the same.

These are some of my favs:

• jbneal: When you fist-pound Michael Bay, your hand literally blows up.
• MattCox: In some states, it’s illegal to say “Michael Bay” in airports or crowded theaters.
• frontierwoman:To clear a hangover Michael Bay straps a grenade to his head and dives headfirst into empty swimming pools.
• burnflores: Michael Bay doesn’t like gum. He chews C4.
• chris7crows: Michael Bay emerged from the womb with a detonator in one hand and a supermodel in the other. His mother then exploded.
• MattCox: Bomb squad was at the library today. Someone returned Michael Bay’s autobiography.
• jpmccu: Michael Bay’s school film project is lost to the world, as it blew up from awesome. The audience ran away in slow motion.
• DJBullock: Michael doesn’t use a camera to film his movies. He burns the movie into the film using the heat of exploding orphanages.
• And possibly my favorite: mrbs: Michael Bay was preceeded down the birth canal by a dove in slow motion. And followed by a column of flame.

It seems Aimee_B_Loved has become the unnoficial queen of #MichaelBayFacts on twitter with a slew of great ones:

• Michael Bay literally fights fire with fire, but insists token minorities do so with clever, urban-sounding comments.
• Michael Bay sleeps on a bed of hot coals and uses bundles of dynamite as pillows.
• As an infant, Michael Bay had to recast his mother because her breasts weren’t big enough for the part.
• Michael Bay uses battery acid as lube.
• Michael Bay purposely edits out “sissy shit” like plot and character development.

And then some people are just Doing It Wrong:

• ABAwesome: There are approximately 94 people in the USA with the name “Michael Bay”
• Flonk2: Michael Bay was adopted.

See my own paltry (at least by comparison) MichaelBayFacts here, and let me know what your favorites are that I’ve missed, or if you think some up on your own, please share them!

We chose to go up the Gorham Mountain trail. It’s listed as a moderate trail, but doesn’t require any climbing. It did get our hearts pumping though!

There was a nice little overlook that we stopped at to catch our breath and take some photos.

Eventually Amme let me know how she felt about the camera being pointed at her, lol.

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When we got to the summit we took a little break to enjoy the beautiful view and how gorgeous the ocean looked.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3584/3638886692_1bc5f5fd0f.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" />

We still felt pretty energized so we decided to keep going forward instead of backtracking, continuing on the backside of the Gorham trail.

We met up with the Beehive trail and on the way down, saw some hikes taking a more perilous trail above us. The Beehive trail ends at the Park Loop Road at the entrance to Sand Beach.

Once we got there we hiked a ways back towards the car and had a picnic on the rocks just above the rising tide. We ate bologna (Wunderbar!) sandwiches and then sunbathed for a while before heading back to the car. I was too relaxed to remember to take more photos, but Amme did!

While we were hanging out on the rocks some ballsy seagulls pestered us. After feeding them a while they got even bore brazen and tried to grab our bag of orange and banana peels (which is funny because Amme threw them a piece of orange and they were having none of that!). This photo was snapped while he was about 3 feet from my face.

We drove into downtown Bar Harbor after hiking back to the car and got some huge dark chocolate truffles before heading home. I love hiking days!

PS: See the full album in my photos section, or on flickr, or as a nifty slideshow!

Whatcha think?

Barring minor tweaks, My new layout is now done! Most all of it is a 3rd party theme, a first for me! But I chose to use it because I both learned a lot from modifying it, and because programmers always say don’t reinvent the wheel! I chose instead to modify a lot of the spacing and positioning, and add some little touches here and there.

I like how much information it shows, hopefully it doesn’t look too cluttered. As Tufte says, information is the whole point so your design should focus on it and provide a high density without making it unusable. This isn’t exactly ultra dense, but does give you a quick glance at what I’m up to online, as well as focus mainly on the posts–the whole reason for this blog.

I still want to add a couple of navigation links because right now it’s hard to go from post to post (done!), but other than that I’m really happy with how it looks and behaves. Please let me know what you think of it, and offer any suggestions/constructive criticisms. This site is for my readers so I want it to be as easy for you to use as possible!

I’ve also been uploading my backlog of UrbEx photos. I’ve recently added the rest of the POL Tanks, Coal Elevator, Building 943, and the Civil Defense Bunker.

I came across this via Make:, but the source, and a great gallery of examples, is over at Noise Addicts.

It’s strange how well it works out, especially some they have posted. Here are three I did this morning (I could seriously make these all day):

Go try it out!

The new albums are: X-mas 2008, Virginia Fall ’08, Nanny’s 75th B-day.

Japanese American Memorial

Union Station

Parker on X-mas 2008

Moments later, the page updated with “Retraction on Stave Jobs comment…we don’t know how that got in our feed.

The popular apple fan-site MacRumors.com was providing up to the minute coverage on the MacWorld 2009 Keynote address, when the page started displaying profanity and all-CAPS nonsense and 4chan slang.

Screenshots of the initial onslaught follow (Warning: NSFW, profanity):

Shortly thereafter both MacRumorsLive.com and MacRumors.com were down.

UPDATE:

as of 1:29pm EST, MacRumors.com was back online with the following post:

Our MacRumorsLive keynote coverage was hacked today, inserting inappropriate content into the text and photo feeds. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to restore our services. The hack appears to be limited to the MacRumorsLive servers so forum accounts should be safe.

We’ll continue Macworld Expo coverage on an ongoing basis this week, and will report on Apple’s announcements shortly.

As an aside: Sorry about the long break in posting. This semester is one of my last ones, and consequently one of the hardest yet, so I’ve not had free time for much of anything. My friends can attest to how little they see of me online, but over the break, at least, posting will resume on a weekly or better schedule. (^_^)

I can’t express how proud I am of our nation right now, not just because we’ve elected the first African American, but because we’ve elected a truly great man and the leader our country needs. Barack Obama will guide us back to the just path our country needs to be on, and right all of the wrongs our past leaders have done to us as a people.

McCain’s concession speech made enough reference to Barack’s race to imply that was why he was elected. Such an implication is not true. He won because he stuck to the truth and promised us change. We all now wait to see this change, and I for one am not worried.

That said, I still am immensely proud of seeing this happen in my lifetime. Mock me if you will, but I’ve always loved Tupac Shakur’s aptly titled song Changes. One line of the lines in this song reads:

“And although it seems heaven sent, We ain’t ready, to see a black President”

.

Look how far we’ve come not only in the decade since that line was written, but more importantly, since the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts of 1964 and 1965.

The Democrats are back in control and its time to make this nation great once again. I’m proud to be an American.

With just an hour to go until the first polls close, many people have asked me if I’m nervous. I voted two weeks ago and even then I was cautiously optimistic. I am by no means cocky and I knock on wood as I write this, but I think Obama has a fantastic shot.

Matty B. Turned me onto a great website for electoral vote projections and information in general about the elections, http://www.fivethirtyeight.com, and I’ve been there throughout the last couple of months. One of the latest articles posted there affirm my optimism:

If those states go roughly as expected (meaning, say, an Obama win in Virginia and a close race in Indiana), we can conclude with almost literal 100 percent certainty that Obama will win the election

fivethirtyeight.com

C’mon Virginia! Vote Obama!

I’m crossing my fingers, eating bread and cinnamon butter in lieu of popcorn, and watchin’ the map

Lately I’ve just been working and finishing up classes. The mall on campus (long stretch of grass, not shopping mall) is once again the constant home of one of the many slacklines owned by those of us that love the discipline. I love having a break between classes and going out there to find that there is always a line set up. Sometimes one of us will put one up, go to class, and come back later, knowing that our friends will make sure nobody steals it while we’re gone. I’ve made some really cool friends through slacklining over the last few years. Amme hasn’t had a chance to do it since the beginning of the summer, but she’s gotten really good.

I’ve also started climbing again at the rock gym here on campus. Its free for students which is awesome, and I still fit my shoes so that’s a bonus. I can’t climb at the level I used to, but I still know how to move and not overexert myself. I’m making progress slowly.

The leaves were all messed up this fall. We had a couple of bouts of cold weather that caused some of the trees to change and others not to, so we didn’t get the nice vistas of dense autumnal hues. Instead there were a few beautiful trees surrounded by clumps of green or dead brown. This made for some nice contrast, but I didn’t get any good landscape photos. I’ll have the photos up on Flickr within a week. I also have some shots from UrbExing around the former Loring Air Force Base on there, so be sure to check those out.

They include our trip to the old Nuclear Weapons Storage Area, the first of its kind in the US! There are no weapons there now, of course, but you can really see how hard they were hiding the stuff from satellite surveillance and how thick the walls and vault doors were. Its pretty nuts thinking back on it. There are also photos of some of the Oakfield Station in Maine, for you railfans.

Classes are good, I’m finishing up my second degree and can’t wait for it to be done. I want to WORK not have all of my time monopolized while I pay for it. I’d love to start my own company but I need to learn more about the process. I also need the free time for it. I’ve let friends down in the past by trying to take on projects that I didn’t have time for and I hate myself for doing that even though I’m putting schooling first.

Amme and I went to NY for her cousin Subee’s wedding. We had a great time; it’s been so long since we saw a lot of the family down there. I have the photos up here and here. BTW: the facebook photo resizing algorithm makes my photos look all artifact-y. If you want a high quality photo from that album email me and I’ll send you one.

I have two wisdom teeth coming in. One of them is already exposed and is currently stopping me from opening my mouth all the way. It makes eating difficult. It just started doing that out of the blue, else I would have had it extracted by now. I went to the dentist at the healthcare center here that has a sliding pay scale since I don’t have insurance and it’s very affordable. They did a panoramic digital x-ray of my jaw, which was very cool. Our vet uses a digital x-ray as well. They can open the image in a viewer and change the contrast, levels, and zoom in and out to get infinitely better images than the film and developer x-rays. That visit was fast and cheap, but to get my tooth extracted the next opening they have is in the end of January! I won’t be able to open my mouth at all by then, so I have to look elsewhere for an oral surgeon. I’m homing someone has an opening within a week. I’m tired of eating
soup and cutting things into toddler-sized
pieces.

Amme has been taking good care of me though. I hope I take just as good care of her. I’m anxious to get on with life and make a name for myself, but as long as we have each other I can never be discontented. I could move out to the woods, build us a house, and just provide for us both and be happy forever.

In other news: iPhone 3G! FARK YEAH!

Oh, and for all you haters: Lowest price for a new Tom Tom GPS = $199.
Lowest price for a new iPhone with GPS (and phone, music, video, monkey ball, etc…) = $199. And yes, it will have turn by turn directions in the near future.

Gadget pr0n will follow once I get my invisible shield on it

.

“English System MOTHER-[beep]: Do you speak it?”

What a great few days this has been. This past Friday I went up to Caribou for my nephew’s 1 year birthday. For the next 12 months he will be “1 year and N months”. When he is 1 year, 6 months, it shall not be said he is “18 months old”, or I will start punching people in the teeth. Why? Because one of my pet peeves is people counting a child’s age in months after they’ve reached the next higher increment (YEARS). I am not 1120 16ths of an inch tall, I’m 5 feet 10 inches. Your car doesn’t hold 192 cups of gasoline, it holds 12 gallons, etc. He’s 1 year old. He’s also 12 months old but you don’t say that out loud. Wow, rant. Where was I?

Oh yeah, so my nephew, Parker, turned 1 year old last Wednesday, so my mother and sister came up to celebrate with the rest of the family. I hopped in with them at Bangor and we all drove home together. After stopping in to visit Lindsey, I hopped online and played Zombie Master with Doody, B, Jesse, Aaron, and Zach(!!!) while chatting on Skype. It was so awesome to talk to Zach in particular, and great to play with everyone. The internet isn’t killing humanity, rather it often brings us close together when we otherwise could not be. After gaming until about 4am, Doody came over and we caught up on stuff before crashing an hour later.

The next day, or later that morning really, we awoke and got ready for the party. Grammy and Grampy, and my godmother and Parker’s grammy and grampy and great-grammy and aunt and loads of other friends and family including Mom and Dad all were there (I even convinced Doody to stay!) and we had a great time. Parker got to grab fist-fulls of cake, made by the same lady that made Alyssa and Lindsey and I’s first cakes (she came out of retirement from cake making to do this one last one for Lindsey), and we chatted and had fun and ate and opened presents. Parker helped me put a couple of toys together with Alyssa–he kept grabbing and trying to turn the screwdriver–and he is wonderfully smart. It only takes him seconds to figure out new concepts, and he loves all things mechanical. I can see he’s going to be a lot like me when I was little, taking things apart and being fascinated by mechanics and electricity.

After the party we managed to get a hold of Jalbey, and we gossiped some more with him before going out to rent Mulberry Street (one of the “8 more films to die for”). We watched that with Dad and it was just so-so, picture a zombie movie where the zombies are actually infected humans turned rat mutants, but it was entertaining at least. We had fun punning though. “You rat bastard” and “President Bush doesn’t care about Rat People” were among the best. Doody and I stayed up browsing the internet for a while then crashed again.

Sunday I woke up and cleaned the inside of Amme’s Camry, and Dad waxed the crap out of it (it looks like a mirror, beautiful). Before I headed back down to Bangor Doody and I went to the Jade Palace for lunch and had some seriously good buffet and had a couple more good puns (“jimmy’s buffet” and “the bob buffet” PROTIP: say buffet as buf-fet). This comes from reading too much Spider Robinson, I’m afraid.

“I swear I won’t start singing Peaches & Herb”

After being reunited with my lil’ angel on Sunday night, we went to bed so we could wake up at 6am to head down to Boston. We got to Alyssa’s around 12pm and went straight out downtown to go visit the Aquarium and do a little souvenir shopping. Later we went home to change and headed back out to the game, Sox vs. Diamondbacks, which was really fun since it was Lindsey and Amme’s first games, but incredibly slow since no runs were scored until the 6th inning when Arizona scored 2 runs, and the Sox never did come back, scoring just 1 run. However with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 8th, the tension was palpable.

“Yes Margaret, it is possible to spend several hours reading about shaving.”

At this point, I should mention that I’ve become a huge shaving nerd. Yes, shaving nerd. This came about from 2 distinct events. Last year I read an article about how you can save a ton of money and get a closer shave with less irritation by switching to a safety razor (the old double edge metal ones). I thought that was really cool but never got around to buying one. Then just a couple of months ago, my friend Andrew told me he’d started shaving with one, and there was a whole online forum devoted to the art of shaving (and lathering, which is almost more important than the razor) called BadgerAndBlade.com. My curiosity was piqued and I decided to check it out. What I found was a very friendly and helpful community of people who had set out to find the secret of getting a better shave, with less irritation, and had ended up finding a place to share stories, make friends, and get guidance on what to buy and how to use it.

I’ve been shaving with a safety razor and badger-hair brush for a few weeks now and I’ve never had such a smooth shave or less irritation. Whats more, I spend about $4 on 20 razors, instead of $20 on 4 mach-3 razors!!!

Anyway, I bring this up because The next day we went to the Natick mall. For you Family Guy fans, there WAS a Twinkie factory in Natick, but she’s gone :(. Despite that tragedy, we had a blast shopping and hanging out and just enjoying everyone’s company. My mission was to find all the shaving supplies I needed but couldn’t get in Bangor. This included some shaving soap and/or cream, a high-quality badger-hair brush, aftershave lotion, possibly some cologne, and some good aftershave spash with witch hazel and no alcohol.

Armed with reviews from B&B, and a list of stores with possible supplies, I came away with everything I needed. I also got some new clothes (I clothes shop about every 1.5 years, or 18 months for you unit-impaired new mothers out there).

“Nom nom nom”

Before Amme and I had to head back to Bangor, Alyssa took us all to Asiana Fusion in Watertown, that has absolutely amazing food. This is real asian food, as in authentic Korean bulgogi, kimchi, and kalbi, as well as Pad Thai and other Thai and Japanese and Chinese dishes. Everything we got was just excellent, and we chatted with the Korean girls there and got some most excellent deserts! I highly recommend it to anyone near the Boston/Watertown/Waltham area.

The following morning we all went to Alyssa’s work for a little pizza party and met a lot of her co-workers. It was brief but really nice to meet everyone. Amme and I headed home after that and had a pretty un-eventful drive back home. It was really nice to pass out in our own big comfy bed with the A.C. on.

Riley--one of the fur kids--on my lap supervising

Now when you visit this site on the iPhone or iPod Touch, you’ll see a layout optimized specifically for those devices! I hope you like it, I sure do.

Also: “Akismet has caught 34,650 spam for you since you first installed it.” Best damned plugin ever conceived. Enough said.

Although I haven’t blogged about them much, some of you may know I have a somewhat-secret love affair with moleskines that has lasted for a few years now. Nothing quite compares to the feeling of undoing that elastic band, opening up to a fresh page, and writing down anything that comes to mind. One day when I was sketching website layouts in in my large moleskine I stepped back and realized that I needed to change my P.O.V.

The layout I wanted was sitting right in front of me! With that in mind I began making a list of the things I wanted on my desk and although I havn’t incorporated all of them (I wanted it to look realistic, but not too cluttered) I’m so far very happy with the initial results. If anyone has suggestions I would love to hear them.

This page is meant to have a non-fixed width, meaning you can shrink it down pretty far and still read entries, however you may hide the random goodies like the magazine (which is really meant to be a website title banner with a dash of fun and humor) and latest photo.

The challenge, however, was choosing the height. I assume nobody is using a height of smaller than 800px in this day and age so that was my minimum requirement and that is why you may be thinking that moleskine is awfully short. My laptop is 1280×800 so that’s not an unreasonable size, however on non-widescreen monitors it does look a little smooshed. I’ll likely make a toggle button to switch from widescreen to 4:3 sizes in the coming weeks. If you are using a smaller resolution than that, lets face it: you need to come join the modern age. If you’re on an iPhone your browser will scale the page, and if you’re on another moble device that doesn’t, use the rss feed.

I hope you all enjoy it, and as I said, if you see anything broken, or that you think needs to be added or changed, please let me know. All constructive criticism is welcome.

I just finished assembling it and took it out for a little ride. Its smooooooth and has a ton of pop.

View more photos on my flickr slideshow

Les Spécifiques

• ELEMENT MIKE V AVIARY DECK – 7.88 width – On sale, and its a helium deck, so its lighter and stronger.
• TENSOR RODNEY MULLEN CUSTOM MIDS TRUCKS – Mullen is my all-time favorite skateboarder and he personally designed these trucks.
• SPITFIRE OLSON LIFERS WHEELS – 57mm, 97a durometer, for a smoother ride over crappy asphalt.
• FKD SAWBLADE SPEED BEARINGS – ABEC 5, IMHO the best balance between speed and durability. These ones have a clear shield so you can see inside, with a red spacer for a little extra bling.
• BLACK MAGIC GRIP TAPE – of course!
• MYSTERY RISERS and hardware – No real difference in performence, but they are white and complemented the trucks nicely.

Now to go work of those extra pounds!

I’ll first tell you what I did so you don’t have to repeat it, or at the least can save it for last, but if you’re impatient just scroll to the end of this post.

The Issues.. Oh god the issues!

The problem started Saturday morning when I was lying in bed and decided to check my email. Our roommate had just moved out and took with him our wireless network (his hardware, but I was managing it), but seeing the little blue “E” icon that meant i have EDGE service, I decided to open the mail app. Instead of a nice tidy inbox, I was greeted with pop-up message saying “Could not activate EDGE: You are not subscribed to EDGE”. Now, I don’t have a $20/month data plan for nothing. I most certainly was subscribed to EDGE, so pardon my acronym but WTF was this?

I restarted my phone and still got the error message, then turned airplane mode off for 20 seconds and back on again (This is supposed to clear some settings like WiFi so I gave it a shot). Still nothing. Now, I had jailbroken my phone the day before with iLiberty+ (I STRONGLY recommend this program for installing 3rd party apps, unlocking, activating, or bootloader patching), and so was afraid I’d broken it somehow, but I had used EDGE fine after that for the better part of a day so I was on the fence on whether that was the problem. Like any good problem solver I had to rule it out regardless, so I decided to restore my iPhone.

The first thing I did was go into iTunes and hit Restore. Once that was done I tried to get on EDGE with the result of the same error message. Through iLiberty my bootloader had been changed, and more importantly my baseband may have been changed as well. Baseband is the firmware that runs your phone, modem, wireless, and bluetooth hardware, so I was definitely suspect of that. I re-ran iLiberty+ with the option of restoring the baseband and bootloader, and still had no success. Finally I re-re-ran iLiberty+ with a WiFi/EDGE fix I had come across, usually only broken through using ZiPhone (DON’T USE ZiPHONE!) but decided to try it anyway. Of course, no change. I still got that damn error message! This was getting frustrating in the extreme.

After this I called AT&T through 611, and after 30 minutes of work knew the lady, while being extremely nice, had no idea what the problem was. She thought it must be because I was picking up WiFi. Not only were there no hotspots in range, I had WiFi explicitly turned off. Rather than explain this to her I just said thank you and hung up.

Figuring I’d done all I could with hardware, I account was screwed up, I went to AT&T and checked my account. It showed that I had an EDGE data plan and should be working. Nothing on the support site, KB, FAQ, etc. was of any use, and live chat was closed for the day, not that I had high hopes for that… I had a lot of things to do this weekend so I decided I’d just call a different support number on Monday and try again.

The Solution!

I know I know BLAH BLAH BLAH Get to the fix! Okay okay! Flash forward to today. Before calling AT&T back I decided to do some goog-vestigating. Of course this was practically the first thing I did, but hadn’t gotten any immediate success, the closest being an AT&T forum where go-phone customers were having a similar issue last December (they fixed this by renewing their monthly contracts a bit early). On this second round of searching I found a couple of potential hits, but the one that finally fixed me was here on Apple Discussions!

To summarize, people fixed this one of two ways. The way that fixed me makes me want to facepalm so hard that I replace Captain Picard as the de-facto image macro. Its an iPhone setting and goes thus:
Settings --> General --> Reset --> Resent Network Settings

I know! “IDIOT!” Why didn’t I know that was there? Because there was no “TFM” for me to “R”, thats why. I was so relieved when it worked that I cried out in a fit of unbridled joy, to the unease of my co-workers. Not only was my problem fixed, I didn’t have to call AT&T back!!!

Now, for those of you who are not so lucky as to have you iPhone placated with this simple settings reset, most of the people on the above thread solved their problem thusly:

It’s definitely not an Apple problem, it’s a simple checkbox on AT&T’s account configuration screen called EDGE Provisioning. Some account changes, like adding a Foundation Account number to your plan to take advantage of company discounts, over-ride the EDGE provisioning setting.

Unfortunately, some AT&T customer service reps think it’s iPhone related and don’t bother checking your account first before transferring you to Apple. So, do yourselves a favor and ask them to check “EDGE Provisioning” on your account (use their terminology) and they will be able to fix it for you in a second.

Several people on the forum echoed cries of joy as this solved their problem as well. Apparently the number to call is either 800-331-0500 or 877-419-4500 and be sure to ask them to check your “EDGE Provisioning”.

So, with a fully functioning iPhone (again jailbroken and running some kick-ass apps!) I leave you this information in hopes that it helps someone out the same issue.

PS: A very special thanks to Joe Maloney1 at the Apple Discussions forum for providing the crucial fix for me!

You know when you’re listening to a song and hear a particularly powerful lyric? That verse or phrase that really stirs you or give you goosebumps? Maybe it’s the words, or maybe it’s just the power with which the singer delivers it. I know I’ve a couple of those favorite lines, probably a lot more than a couple. At any rate, I’d love to hear lyrics that all of you readers (yeah all four of you) particularly love. I’ll start with a couple of mine I’ve run across just recently. Sometimes they don’t pertain to me personally in any way, sometimes they do, but they’re always powerful, beautiful, or tragic, and I love hearing them. For the full effect you really have to listen to the song however, so I’ll provide audiko.net links with them:

The first is from the song Remembering Sunday by All Time Low, off the album “So Wrong It’s Right”, with my favorite part being guest-sung by Juliet Simms from Automatic LoveLetter. Its a stirring song in general, and this part in particular, being the climax of the song, is very moving in both its lyrical content and the way Juliet sings it. The meaning of this song is greatly debated, but ultimately I think its up to the individual to decide what it means to them.

Listen along!

I’m not coming back (Forgive me), I’ve done something so terrible I’m terrified to speak (I’m not calling, I’m not calling) but you’d expect that from me.
I’m mixed up, I’ll be blunt (You’re driving me crazy).
Now the rain is just washing you out of my hair, and out of my mind.
Keeping an eye on the world from so many thousands of feet off the ground.
I’m over you now, I’m at home in the clouds, towering over your head.

For me it’s a very sad verse about a girl that feels she needs to leave the one she loves. This passage starts at 3:22 on the album version. You can also ask the oracle for videos if you want to see it performed live, which I of course recommend you do.

The next passage that made me decide to write this entry is a band I know Doody is very fond of, called Jimmy Eat World. These guys consistently write amazing songs, and have done so for the last 15 years. I could cite many of their songs that have great lyrics, but the most recent one for me is Electable (Give It Up). This one is off their new album, which I was listening to while doing some housework when all of a sudden I stopped and though “Shit thats a cool part!”.

Listen along!

Not in my name, you don’t speak for me.
I am my voice, and I want to scream.
You want my air, you want my life.
I act as one, but I’m not alone.

The song goes into a breakdown just before Jim Adkins starts singing this verse, and it really adds something powerful to his words. I find this part defiant, frustrated, and empowering all at the same time. I picture him screaming this at a picture of our corrupt president.

So, those are a couple of my recent favs. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Do me a favor and comment to let me know what songs and lyrics you guys have come across. I’d love to hear em!