Posted On Monday, January 19th, 2009 By David Veatch
I rode for a little over an hour this afternoon, with a single break around the 34 minute mark. That’s my best so far in terms of roller endurance. I’ve not been able to go over 30 minutes before, and that only once. Prior to that, I had to break after 20 minutes on a good day, or 10 to 15 minutes on an average day. The secret? Motivation. For me, I use two primary forms of motivation, also known as "distractions." The first is television. Like The Fat Cyclist, I will typically throw in a couple episodes of my favorite-show-of-the-month and ride while the plot thickens and the bike goes nowhere. The second is music. Today, this is the motivation/distraction method I used, and at least today, it worked better for me. First, I chose exciting tunes out of my music library with tempos between 85 and 105bpm (determined using MixMeister BPM Analyzer), and set them up on a Nano playlist so that they started off slowish at 85bpm, slowly sped up to 105bpm, and then relaxed back down to an easy 85bpm. Setting them up this way allowed me to easily maintain my own rpm, as it is more »
Posted On Monday, October 20th, 2008 By David Veatch
Ok, it doesn’t look like the Dew will be here until the first week of November. Bah. So, it’s either ride the Torelli to work, or drive, and make up the miles after work on recreational/training rides. I think I’m opting for the latter. I may not make my goal of 150 commute days this year, but I’m damn sure going to make my goal of 5,000 miles this year. 750(ish) to go. Friday night we went to BB ‘s Lawnside Bar-B-Que, where we saw the Bill Lupkin Blues Band. I prefer southern blues, specifically the Stevie Ray Vaughn style of blues/rock, over the Chicago/KC jazz imbued blues, but that said, I’ll take live over recorded any day, and Mr. Lupkin delivered. Cafe Casbah, at 8609 College Blvd, Overland Park, KS 66210 just east of Quivira on the south side of 119th is a fantastic little restaurant. It doesn’t look like much on the outside, but the food is phenomenal. Saturday night, I had a seafood stuffed pastry in a lobster sauce. I sopped every last bit up with bread. I wasn’t that impressed with Dungeon Siege 2 at first, but it’s grown on me. I know, I know… I’m more »
Posted On Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 By David Veatch
I’ve been looking for the music that sits at the end of the Battlestar Galactica webisodes, numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10. It’s a backdrop for the following monologue by Colonel Tigh: In the fight to protect our future, we must confront our past. The lies we’ve told. The decisions we’ve made. The people we’ve loved. As the struggle for survival continues, we can’t face our enemies, until we face ourselves. Does anyone know the title of this piece, and where it might be found? I assume it’s by Bear McCreary. I know it’s gorgeous.
Posted On Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 By David Veatch
Not realizing that the 2nd gen Nano’s had a different chassis than 1st gen versions, I now have a Nano case that I can’t use. Anyone with a 2nd gen Nano looking for a case? It’s a Griffen blue reflect(tm). Pretty nice, except that my 1st gen Nano won’t fit in it. Blah. Oh, and to the ass that was driving 40mph+ in the Best Buy parking lot. Yeah, I pulled out in front of you. You were speeding around a curve, and breaking out of your lane to speed around a huge SUV that I couldn’t see around. Honking at me and waving your arms about all angry won’t make it any less your fault.
Posted On Friday, July 21st, 2006 By David Veatch
Lots going on lately, so I’ll be taking advantage of a few quiet moments, strung together, to give a rundown. Music. Three things happened, all at around the same time that caused me to revisit my music collection. 1. The Forges (both hers and mine) died a sudden and unexpected death when trying to move songs over to the 1GB expansion card I bought for them. Oh well… they kinda sucked anyway. 2. To replace the Forges, I picked up Nano’s for both the Woman and myself (new Target card – 10% off entire purchase). 3. I accidentally deleted the majority of my ripped music. Sometimes, symbolic links in unix are confusing. I was reminded of the time Stu lost most, if not all her ripped and downloaded music due to hard drive failure. It’s a dreadfully hollow and sinking feeling. So, I’ve revisited and revamped my .mp3 collection. Following the advice of my brother, I re-ripped all the albums to 256 bit, and have hit the downloaded tracks with tags. Between custom perl scripts and a couple of downloaded tools, I’m getting damn near having everything tagged to taste. Nano. I really like it. I think it’s going to more »
Posted On Wednesday, May 22nd, 2002 By David Veatch
You may remember me mentioning something about wanting to put together a CD with some grooves to play, while I’m busy playing pool. I’ve finished the first draft. Bear in mind that I’ve drawn from a somewhat limited CD collection, so several artists are repeated, repeatedly. That said, the track list goes something like this… ZZ Top – Jesus Just Left Chicago Jonny Lang – Lie To Me Kenny Wayne Shepherd – (Let Me Up) I’ve Had Enough Colin James – Just Came Back Jonny Lang – Rack ‘Em Up Creed – One Jonny Lang – Still Rainin’ Ian Moore – Muddy Jesus Kenny Wayne Shepherd – One Foot On The Path Jonny Lang – The Levee Big Head Todd And The Monsters – Broken Hearted Savior Jonny Lang – There’s Gotta Be A Change Colin James – T for Trouble Kenny Wayne Shepherd – Was Ian Moore – Ain’t Feeling No Pain Kenny Wayne Shepherd – What’s Goin’ Down Jonny Lang – Before You Hit The Ground Stevie Ray Vaughan – The Sky Is Crying Jimi Hendrix – Red House Omar just sent me a CD with his own choice of choice "ear-candy for when prowling the perimeter of more »
Posted On Thursday, May 16th, 2002 By David Veatch
I’m putting together a CD full of guitar-driven, dirty blues. Everything from ZZ-Top’s "Jesus Just Left Chicago" to Colin James’ "Just Came Back". I’m having a hard time of it though. There are SO MANY songs that I want to include, so many that deserve a place, but as anyone experienced (even a little) with building music compilations, there’s only so much room to work with, be it on DAT, tape, or CD. Now, a player that would just play the raw .mp3′s would be ideal, but most CD and DVD players will only play music via audio disc or DVD. So I’m limited to about 80 minutes on a 700MB disc. The impetus for this is have some music to listen to while playing pool at my bud’s house. When the idea came to mind to *make* a CD, the only choice was, of course, the aforementioned "guitar-drive, dirty blues." No other music is as perfectly "Pool" as blues. While that is, of course, my own opinion, I’m going to go ahead and present it here as fact. Just so you know. Now, the problem is finding those songs that most perfectly embody "Pool" to me. The idea being more »