bryan wann :: binary fury

Last weekend I bought a Mac Mini to use as a media server to replace my modded Xbox running XBMC. I love XBMC, it is nearly my idea of a perfect media manager. It plays a wonderful selection of codecs and containers, very responsive and quick interface, and it supports mounting of remote shares. The problem is, it doesn’t have enough CPU to play 720×1280 much less 1080×1920 video files. While the XBOX itself can output a 1080i signal (set through the MS Dashboard) it can’t render frames to keep up. It either flat out drops them or has nasty artifacts.

The Mini has no problem with 1080p output. In fact, it looks rather nice on my Mitsubishi. The Leopard “Aurora” wallpaper looks sweet! So, I installed Perian to give me a ton of format support for QuickTime, which then gives me that support in Front Row. Front Row handled all of my content, surprisingly even DVD and VIDEO_TS folders.

Front Row lacked many things I was accustomed to in XBMC. FR is very pokey trying to scroll through 100+ items. No streaming support either, so no Nederlandse TV for me. For whatever reason, I couldn’t get Joost working; I don’t know if it was a Leopard problem or what. I would’ve really liked to see it on the big screen. Even better would be a way to launch the application from Front Row (or vice versa).

Handling HD content on the other hand, sucked. Nothing existed that would play true HD images. VLC, Mplayer, weren’t quite there yet. I could fish a version out of their Subversion repositories and try to build myself, but that sort of sucks. Downloading HD content sucked too.

In the end, I gave up. I returned the Mini and bought a Toshiba HD DVD player. I was really torn between Blu-Ray and HD DVD. I had planned on buying a PS3 for the Blu-Ray support. I don’t have great confidence that Blu-Ray will win out in the format war. Even if Blu-Ray is technically superior, history has shown the population will buy the lowest price device to get the job done. This holiday season is seeing HD DVD players being sold at fire sale prices. Wal-Mart and Amazon are putting HD DVD players into the hands of people for under $200. This is a good indication to me that it’s the format that’ll come out ahead. Best Buy had a great deal this weekend where I got 300, Bourne Identity included with the player, in addition to three more discs of my choosing. I would’ve bought these anyways, so it helped with the price tag.

In other news, I bought Guitar Hero III for the Wii. In the past I wasn’t interested in it. Somehow I got to playing it with Rob, Bob and Brady, and got hooked on it. I finally beat the easy level, yay! It’s the next Tetris as far as I’m concerned.

With the exception of Friday, I’ve spent every evening at the gym. I’m having mixed results with swimming. The thin Speedo goggles I have leak, which is absolutely annoying when constantly tilting my head to breathe. My other larger goggles are perfectly airtight but seem to block my peripherial vision. I hit the lap pool on Saturday; I was much more tired (or lazy?) than I thought and just was not comfortable at all trying to swim. One of my colleagues happens to have been a swim instructor, he gave me a few tips to try. I need to find out when swimming lessons are scheduled at the gym and get in on that action.

Today was a easy 7 mile run. I let the treadmill put me on a cardio program. It insisted on having me jog 12:00-13:00 minute miles to keep my heartrate down. Afterwards I started into a leg workout. I can now leg press 420 pounds (I maxed out the machine at our apartment complex at 300 pounds); perhaps much more on fresh legs!

I bought Armin van Buuren’s ‘Shivers’ album today, which includes “Sereneity”. This was played at Sensation White 2004 in Amsterdam, you can watch the video on Youtube. It’s gooooood stuff, great for running. Also purchased the “Ultra 10” trance compilation, good stuff as well.

I’ve also lost five pounds over the past couple of weeks. yay!

I had the whole week off and didn’t do much. Tuesday I had a Line-X spray-in bedliner put in my truck; it’s fucking sharp and surprisingly thick. I also received my Canon 30D and one of my lenses. After getting my camera and truck put back together, I had intended to go someplace not Austin — perhaps a random destination Colorado or Louisiana, but never made it. In fact, I did very little at all. I only went cycling one day; the rest of the time I was reading, cleaning, running errands, evaluating investments, or doing random miscellaneous things. By Sunday I was quite bored.

Seeing where I’m at, I started running numbers through spreadsheets. A Bank of America savings account will yield 0.50% interest on any balance. The best return on a $1000 certificate of deposit I could find (according to bankrate.com) was 5.20%. After three months, the CD would be worth $1,013.08. Not very impressive. It’s obvious a person can put back more in the short term by [stricter] budgeting rather than putting money in a savings account, CD, money market. It’s almost a better short term investment to go out and buy a bunch of Euro and sit on it in hopes the dollar will continue fall.

But, putting aside $100-$200 every month, averaging 10% market gain, allowing for inflation+taxes, after 40 years the overall investment should be in the six-digit values.

Tonight was the first time I went to the new uppity gym that myself+coleagues joined. Swimming in the lap pool is way nicer than our pool at the apartment complex. I can actually go more than twenty feet without scraping my hands on the bottom. The pool at the gym is 25 meters long; tonight I was only about to make it 20 meters or so before I was winded. After a three mile run, I browsed around the facility and wound up in the dry sauna. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been in a sauna, and it was so very nice. After twenty minutes inside, I was a melted puddle of flesh, totally in extacy afterwards.

Over time, I’ve been getting annoyed at how my left shoulder always appears to be really drooped down in photographs due to my scoliosis. It’s also a functional problem too, when wearing a pack I have to snug down my left strap to compensate for the drop, yet my right shoulder tends to bear the brunt of the weight. Over the past few months I’ve been making a conscious effort to pick my shoulder up all the time and keep my back straight when walking to avoid becoming a hump back IT dork.

This got me to studying posture more. Another issue I’ve noticed is that I have a mild sway in my lower back. Whenever doing Krav Maga, the instructors were always telling me to stop leaning forward when throwing punches, then the corrected posture felt very exaggerated and unnatural. Running coaches would also always tell me to straighten up when running on level ground. I’ve always attributed this to having a screwed up back, but turns out this may not necessarily be the case. It could be a muscle imbalance that’s causing the pelvis to tilt forward.

I’m not 100% sold on it because I don’t know how well it fits me. There are four muscle groups that support the pevis: in the front are the abdominal muscles (recus abdominus, obliques), hip flexors; in the back are the trunk extensors (erector spinae) and hip extensors (hamstrings and gluteus maximus. If the hip flexors and trunk extensors are tight plus the abdominal muscles and hamstrings are weak, it will cause a forward tilt.

I’m confused as to what happens to muscles when they’re not used. One camp I’ve read says they weaken and stretch. Another camp says they lose flexibility and tighten up. Cyclists and runners are notorious for having tight hamstrings, maybe not strong, but very tight. Cyclists will often have over developed quadricepts, which work against the hamstrings. Sitting at a desk all day long will cause hip flexors to lose flexibility and get tighter too. The question is, what’s pulling more, the tight hamstrings or tight hip flexors?

The other half are abdominals. I’m packing 10-15 pounds more than I care for, and I don’t have any idea how strong my abdominals are. This is a big contributor to the tilt, I think. I’m determined to drop 15 pounds by Christmas. It’s clear that I need to incorporate a LOT more stretching, and build up my core and hamstring+glue strength. I’ve been doing this anyways, but this underscores how really important it is to do.

My coworkers have finally convinced me to join a gym so I can play squash with them. All the run-stop-run-stop should be of benefit, and maybe I can get with a core workout program or hire a trainer to help me with a few things. The problem with working out alone is that I need a spotter to tell me when I’m not properly doing a exercise or holding the right posture.

Running so far has been going well. I’ve been using the treadmill so I can remember what a pace feels like. Something has changed as now I can run a full three miles at solid pace without resorting to run+walk tactics. Today was a five miler, which I followed with a few miles on the bike.

The leftover Euro I have from my Amsterdam trip has increased in dollar value by 4% since August. Over the past year, the Euro to Dollar exchange rate has increased 10.1%. Pretty nice when you’re just sitting on currency. Sucks when you want to go back.

In other news, I found out the State mailed my CHL to me in July while I was in Amsterdam. Apparently the USPS decided to clean out my mailbox for me without letting me pick up my mail, so my license got discarded. I applied for a lost license replacement, get this: it takes 24-48 hours for the request (filed online) to “show up in the system” and then around 45 days for my replacement to show up. Clearly we’re not quite in the speedy information age yet.

I finally finished scanning film from Canada, Amsterdam and the Burning Man roadtrip. I’m disappointed some 40+ night time pictures at BM didn’t work. Last year I underexposed them all, this year I overexposed them and blew out all the detail. This should teach me to buy a meter or a digital SLR.

pictures – US / Canada border; Vancouver, BC

pictures – Amsterdam, Netherlands work trip

pictures – Burning Man 2007, Black Rock City, Nevada

pictures – Cleanup and the drive home – Renton, WA; Oregon; San Francisco; California

Friends’ photographs:

• Alex & Victoria
• Jenn
• Mikey
• Lorie

I cleaned up my playa bike and re-assembled my road bike after it made the trip back from Seattle. Most of my gear is finally clean and stowed. There was an amazing amount of playa in the bath tub after washing everything out.

I think it’d be a good idea take my bike to work so I can go ride around the neighborhood at the office in the evenings for a change of scenery. I started up my workout routine again after taking a three month break for trips. I can barely hold my arms over my head and after a set of 100 squats, it makes for tender steps down my stairs. Rogue’s half-marathon training started last week, so I need to get new shoes and get with the program.

I’m in Seattle. I can’t believe I’ve driven to Seattle. I took a little over two weeks off of work for Burning Man and to use up my time before I lose it next week. Thursday before last was spent frantically running around town picking up last minute suppllies, errands and packing. Friday morning I left for Kansas City to pick up an Airstream travel trailer that I was hired to tow to Burning Man. After brief stops to see the parents and friends, I arrived in Kansas City around 3 AM. I stayed in some spectacuarly Vegas-tacky place (more importantly, $39) called the American Inn on I-70 by Independence.

After about five hours of sleep, Saturday morning was spent prepping the Airstream. I left town around 10 AM and headed up north to Omaha to catch I-80. Nebraska was boring as hell, I wanted to jab out my eyes just to give myself something to do. I listened to my Learn Dutch dialogues over and over, actually improved my listening comprehention. Somewhere on I-80 I took a nap, then onward to Laramie, Wyoming. The goal was to hit Salt Lake City, but I was just too tired and had gotten off to too late a start. I cleared off a section of space in the Airstream and spent the night sleeping in it at some rest stop.

A weird thing happened near Echo, Utah on I-80. I was listening to the CB radio as I passed through a construction zone and heard somebody say there was an elk on the side of the road. I didn’t know if it was just standing there or somebody had hit it. About five miles later I got my answer. On the side of the road was this big stiff-legged elk, a blue van clearly on its way to Burning Man, and a group of burners. These guys were parked on the side of the road, out with a knife and saw, scapling this elk for its horns. They were at the tail end of the construction zone, which it turns out they were the assholes causing the spectacle which halted traffic. A while later I saw them at a rest stop with people holding cameras gathered around, I assume showing off their trophy. Several miles after that, they were pulled over by three sheriff’s department cruisers.

I arrived at Salt Lake City on Sunday afternoon. I thought it’d be a clever idea to find a Wal-Mart here to buy a cheap beater bicycle and stock up on food rather than face shortages as I got closer to Reno. Turns out to be a huge time sink, everyone was doing their grocery shopping and no cheap bikes. The sunset over the salt plains was really pretty; there was a great contrast of different colors from the salt, the mountains, the clouds and sun. Ran into some heavy winds that broke one of the vents on the Airstream and made towing a real slog.

At a Wal-Mart on I-80 in Elko, NV, I found a $53 men’s bike. Score! Way small for me, but it still does the job. I don’t remember what time I arrived in Winnemucca, NV. Sometime after Midnight. Town was completely dead, what a shithole. One final stop for gas and I would push on to Gerlach. This is where my trip got really interesting.

Normally, when traveling I-80 the preferred route is to go to Fernley, pick up SR-447 and head north to Gerlach. At some point the Garmin had calculated this route, but while in Winnemucca it recommended highway 49 “Old Jungo Road”. I-80 would’ve been around 211 miles to Gerlach, highway 49 was 97 miles. I started down hwy 49, it was paved with a 45 MPH speed limit. Sort of slow, but it would’ve put me in Gerlach faster. A few miles in I second guessed how much water I had and actually headed back into Winnemucca to find a Wal-Mart. A case of bottled water in hand, I was back on Hwy 49 again.

After 4-5 miles on this road, the pavement ends. It turns into this packed playa+shale road which is pretty decent. I am comfortable pulling the trailer down this at 50 MPH. After 30-40 miles on this road I realize I’m stark fuck in the middle of nowhere. I see a single drilling rig in the distance, nothing else. Just shrubby plants and dirt. Lots of big jackrabbits running around. The map shows Jungo and Sulphur, but they’re not really towns, just waypoints. After 40-50 miles, the packed shale surface turns into sharp, rough rocks. I’m getting bounced around and now can’t tolerate going any more than 25 MPH. I’m committed now, it’s 50 + 211 miles to go back to the interstate or keep pushing in the 40 miles to Gerlach on this road of hell. Sucks.

Between the rough road and the Redbull I drank, I have wicked gas and it’s causing me great heartburn. I pulled over a couple of times to relieve myself, and each time I see a vehicle in the distance approaching. I kept expecting a BLM ranger to stop and ask me what the hell I’m doing here, but they turn out to be more burners towing trailers. At some point I come around a bend and see the lights of BRC. By now it’s around 5 AM and I’m still 20 miles out.

The last five miles of this road were the worst. I’m in radio contact with Victoria, letting her know I’m almost there. The road turns into this super packed, deeply washboarded thing. The truck and trailer are getting bounced around super hard now. I downshift into first gear and just idle along at 5 MPH and it’s still rough. It takes me over two hours to go the last 20 miles. I reach pavement sometime before 8 AM and have never been so happy in my life to see asphalt! Takes an hour to get through the gate and to camp.

I’m told I was quite insane for A) driving Jungo Road and B) towing a trailer down it too. Apparently all the BM guides advise people to avoid this road like the plague. I officially certify my truck and the Airstream as a certified configuration, like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Oracle.

2,200+ miles after a 19 hour, 16 hour, and 24 hour day I’m finally there.