Musings of The ArmySlowRdr

Concerts

2012-01-15T23:49:00.001-06:00

So I am happy to find out that Tom Petty is coming to the Frank Erwin Center in Ausitn on 5 May and it’s a Saturday. Tickets on Sale Friday at 10 AM and I’ll be On-line for sure.

This got me to thinking and remembering concerts I’ve been to. Not a lot, but all entirely fun. I am sure I must be missing a couple.

I have missed seeing such great bands as Electric Light Orchestra, Fleetwood Mac, Journey, Foghat, Blue Oyster Cult and more. Some, in re-configured line-ups, still tour on occasion. But alas, ELO I will likely never get to see.

Here’s the list.

Beach Boys		mid-70s	6Flags St Louis
Beach Boys		late 70s	Arch St Louis
Elton John		late 70s	Arch St Louis
Cheap Trick		1979	Keil St Louis
Aldo Nova		1979	Keil St Louis
Kansas		early 90s	Arch St Louis
REO Speedwagon		early 90s	Arch St Louis
Tom Jones		early 90s	Arch St Louis
Rolling Stones	Steel Wheels	1989	Cotton Bowl Dallas
David Bowie		1987 ?	Philadelphia
Rush	Hold Your Fire	1987	College Sta, Maryland
White Snake		1987	College Sta, Maryland
Peter Frampton		early 2000s	Ft Hood, TX
Eddy Money		early 2000s	Ft Hood, TX
Joan Jett		2005	Marine Corps Base Oahu
Lynyrd Skynyrd		2005	Marine Corp Base Oahu
ZZ Topp		2008	Bell Co Expo
Rush	Snakes and Arrows	2008 ?	Frank Erwin Austin
Three Doors Down		April 2008	Bell Co Expo
FlyLeaf		April 2008	Bell Co Expo
Cheap Trick		2010	Auditorium Shores Austin
Seether		2010 ?	Ft Hood, TX
Puddle of Mudd		2011 ?	Ft Hood, TX
FlyLeaf		2011 ?	Ft Hood, TX
Styx		2011	Moody Theater Austin City Limits
Blondie	Panic of Girls	2011	Moody Theater Austin City Limits
Nico Vega		2011	Moody Theater Austin City Limits

TAMRAC ULTRA PRO 13 Gear Bag

2011-12-24T20:18:00.001-06:00

This bag is gynormous.

It easily swallows 2 DSLRs, a plethora of lenses, and even other cams and gadgets.

In mine I have :

A Canon Rebel.
A Canon Rebel 3ti.
A 50mm Prime.
A kit lens.
A 70-200mm.
A 200-500mm.
A 10-24mm.
A Canon HD camera.
A Contour HD sports video camera.
A Contour Roam sports camera.
A Canon 420ex flash.
Hoods for the 2 zooms and the superwide.

There is still room for probably 2 or 3 more lens as I haven’t used all the underneath space…it is a “two-decker” bag.

While it has a shoulder strap, loaded it would be way too heavy to lug around. But it makes great storage at home to keep everything together. Then just load smaller bags to go shooting.

Has loops to hold a full sized tripod. Has a rain cover. Has plenty of pockets for things like filters and memory cards.

It even has a padded space to hold a notebook. I would advice the smallest of notebooks such as a Toshiba netbook. The ability to get anything larger in the laptop pouch will be hindered by the other gear. In this instance it is similar to a camelbak (although the Osprey line of water/gear bags have managed a nice solution for hauling loaded water bladder and still getting to use all gear space).

At approximately $200.00 US it is a nice gear bag.

Those who need a bag to take in the filed on hikes and bike rides and such can look at the clik elite line.

A struggle to reach 100 today…

2011-07-10T14:41:00.001-06:00

Wow, according to my weather station data that I stream to PersonalWeatherStation it is 99 degrees at 3:27 PM. It has been 100 much earlier in the day and lasting for hours now for a large number of days.

Sitting here listening to “Sick Puppies” –Riptide currently emitting froth through the Energy system. And now, You’re Going Down.

So the open source weather data logging software I use had a major beta released lately. I spent the night getting everything reconfigured. I even am now streaming data to the linked site above in addition to weather underground. I am tired of the unreliability of weather underground, especially the weather sticker and rapid fire service. I also slightly designed my main site. I did it in tow stages; so far I have only uploaded stage 1 to my ISP and station template. Maybe tonight or tomorrow I will load stage 2. When the bottom cells are gray in color and a certified skywarn observer badge is displayed, then that is the key to knowing I’ve completed the most current updates.

I may go mountain biking on the trail at Dana Peak if it doesn’t get freakishly hot later. The new one-niner trail extends my normal lap there from 6 and a quarter miles to 8 and a half.

I am writing this using Live Writer. I bet I haven’t updated blogger in a year again.

Ah well….

Of Fried Pickles and Such

2010-08-28T14:56:00.001-06:00

I suppose I’ve been to enough places to rank h0w fried pickles stack up. I went to the Razzoo’s Cajun eatery near the Round Rock REI today and before purchasing the ultra-kewl Osprey Mantra 20 hydration pack stopped in Razzoo’s for the first time. It has decent fried pickles but it is number one for shrimp po’ boys. Friendly wait staff as well.

Oh yeah, the pickle rankings:

1. The steak house in Elgin, TX. Circle something or another—only had once. Hopefully still the same.

2. Jody’s, Temple, TX

3. Fish City Grill, Harker Heights, TX

4. Razzoo’s, Round Rock, TX

5. Texas Land and Cattle, Killeen, TX

6. Pluckers Wings and Things, Killeen, TX

Using Live Writer

2010-06-06T12:24:00.001-06:00

Well I have not posted to this blog in months again.

Several reasons I suppose. The primary being though the convenience to share photos and quick musings on FB.

Maybe Live Writer which I am trying today to send this posting to Blogger will rejuvenate my enthusiasm for a BLOG. I will see.

Yesterday I went on a mountain Bike ride on LGT. Lake Georgetown. The loop is 26 miles around and yesterday was the inaugural day for all 26 miles being open to bikes. I am too fat and out of shape to do it all. I completed the 11 mile Cedar Hollows to Camp Tejas segment which contains the most rough trail surface overall.

View Full Album

Much fun but muy dificil. I cramped like a NFL Linebacker in agony afterwords. LOL. I wonder what drivers along HWY 195 near Florence thought. ahhaha.

Till next time….

Chess Titans, Rain and Boredom..

2009-09-13T18:20:00.005-06:00

Whaaa..This weekend almost feels never-ending; it poured Friday, Saturday and well up into the night. No mountain biking this weekend.

I don't think I've played Chess in five or ten years. I discovered that Windows 7 has a game called Chess Titans built in. I put it up a notch or 3 from raw beginner and spent maybe 30 minutes defeating the program. Does one really play at Chess? Maybe toil. A nice mental workout for sure. I'm sure a notch or two higher and I would have suffered a mental melt-down.

Visited the new Academy here in Killeen. Thought I'd pick up a Redbirds baseball cap inexpensively. Heck--nothing but Texas college and NFL Teams. Even the PX has a hat--and probably more cheaply than the ballyard.

But the Cards have lost 3 games to the Braves. The last two in a pathetic manner. I hope I didn't waste my money buying tickets to the Houston/St Louis game in H'town in 10 days...

Finally I would just like all my situations to be different. Things generally suck. I know it could be worse though. I wished it were better. A lesson out there to all.....hang on to some money; without money it is seemingly implausible to change a dull reality into a better landscape. Don't be trapped into thinking high salary is the cure-all; it just causes more outlay. Curbing excess is the key. Oh, will I ever reach Sunbeam..I WILL..it will be a miracle instead of a change I could make if I had the means...

whudddup...

2009-09-12T07:37:00.005-06:00

Too long again but we'll give this a whirl.

Work just sucks the life energy out of one. But that's not to say I don't spend quality time with the computer; it's just I haven't made time to blog.

I've installed the RTM of Windows 7 and I must say it's a great OS. I have been letting the OS set my monitor rez to its native format and that's taken some getting used to. My really bad eyes causes me to contol + a lot of stuff in Firefox.

Front Page 2003--I slightly changed the look of my main page at www.petekutheis.com It is cleaner now and it didn't take me long to figure out how to make use of a table to get my text to flow properly on different resolutions. It should appear much better now for the rare times a person might actually visit. But that's just the entry page; I haven't done nothing with the content pages, nor will I probably. Maybe if I ever add a new page...

So here in Central Texas after a scorching hot summer, we've had a couple of days of steady rain now. I like the slightly cooler temps but it looks like biking will be out for a week or so.

I just have a really hard time breaking away from the computer--I COULD actually use that exercise room and stationary trainer I have set up downstairs.

I'm thinking of going dual monitor and adding a blu ray reading drive. There now will be no reason other than work and the occasional bike ride for me to ever leave the "man cave". LOL.

How about those redbirds. Struggling at 5 to 8 games above 500 all year until after the all star break; now it's rare they lose a game. Bring on the Yankees. I haven't seen a WS matchup between the 2 teams that have appeared in more fall classics than any other team in my almost 47 year span of existence.

Speaking of which I have tickets to the Cards/Astros game at Minutemaid coming up soon. I hope my team crushes them juice heads into pulp. I'll devour and spew them 'stros into the GAR-Bodge. Lulz.

It's almost 9 AM on a rainy Staurday morning. I am hungry...

When will soon finally arrive?

2008-09-13T22:18:00.006-06:00

So the question is: When does soon arrive?

I ponder this as recent events make me pine for soon all the more. Technology is a wonderous thing; it brings peoples closer. .... But yet we can be sooo far.

Patience is the operative word. And someday (s00n) dreams will come.

Until then I've been mountain biking more. At least once, if not twice a week. Finally I have over a thousand miles on the Stumpjumper.

And of course I still toil away managing a large government food service contract under the Ability One Program. I don't think it can really be called toiling; but it is thought and action (decision-making) intensive---with never a dull, quiet moment, and ever changing government missions.

Current reading is the Stephen Coonts novel, "Assassin". Next up, "The Last Pope". And after that, my son Michael has convinced me to read the Star Wars novel that is set between The Phantom Menace and A New Hope.

Other musings---I am still fat; I have not gotten serious about losing weight in the entire time I've been back from Hawaii. Groan. Not that around 210 and 5 feet 10 is gynormous or anything--but the belly is BIG.

I hardly ever watch TV but didn't make bike plans ds weekend due the hurricane (which dudded out here in Central Texas--wow-we ended up with a whole .05 inch of rain), so I was rested and had time to flip through the channels tonight. I stopped on the local PBS station in HiDef. I thought I heard of this band before--maybe dirtragmag featured them. Arcade Fire (Austin City Limits Live)----refreshing to say the least: I was mightily impressed. Rushed right over on the surf to gomusic.ru and downloaded both albums.

There is a new Subaru Dealer right down the street on Stan Scheutter. The 09 Outbacks are in stock, and exciting news: they have premium Harmon/Kardon speaker systems and Amps in 'em, with an MP3 convenience jack.

But really I'm just a poor broke guy coz I never saved.

And therein lies why soon doesn't arrive quickly..

..I pray I win the lottery or have another blessing.

For now I just am. Going through the motions as best I can.

My permasmile is still some time off.

But someday soon WILL arrive.

Random Thoughts

2008-05-25T11:27:00.003-06:00

Life is good. Well OK. I think we all want for more or different--don't we?

Anyway I have 3 and a half days off work this memorial day holiday. Already I've gotten in a mtb ride, edited a video, watched 2 movies and of course ate way too damn much!

The Golden Compass I thought was pretty much of a mess. And a creepy story. Did the director even tell us why the kids are getting stolen? The new Indiana Jones on the other hand was fresh. As good as the 1st 3 Indy movies?--probably not--probably not even as good as the Mummy movies, instead more on the order of Sahara (a Clive Cussler novel adaptation). In other words a lot of good, hokey fun (in this instance alien and Karen Allen fun). I viewed it at the new Market Heights Cinema. I thought the auditoriums, sound and picture average. The semi-self/serve concession area is cool and I loved the fact they had Nathan's hot dogs.

The ride was at BLORA yesterday with screen names Joraff, armyrider,perlinger,and another guy whose name escapes me. Anyway it has been hot and humid lately. This tuned out to be the better of my last 3 rides, none of which has been outstanding. But al least through the 1st half or so I rode fairly strong.

The video I made was culled from footage of our ride out at Rocky Hill Ranch last Sunday. It can be found at http://www.zshare.net/video/124925312111b883/ I really love the new computer I built; I am still discovering minor tweaks, but everything works above expectations.

The new Whitesnake album rocks. I've been listening to it again as I type this. SummerRain is playing now and so far it's the weakest of the bunch. As always remember to pick up tunes for less on the Internet MP3 places that choose to provide value.

The Mi Casa Su Casa restaurant along the US190 frontage Rd in Harker Heights has a good buffet on Sunday mornings from 10 to 2. Armyrider told me about it and I'll say he was right. And the price is right too. They even had some brisket and bbq sauce!

Can you see I'm bored? I'd rather be in Austin riding; I thought I'd go to Austin and ride the 'nut tomorrow and then eat 'q at this place called Ruby;s that I've never been too--but the wife's having company from noon til 3 and I dont wanna go alone. Oh well, in all it's been a swell weekend. Maybe I'll read a book or something.....

The Build to completion--with pics!

2008-05-11T20:33:00.006-06:00

The "nekkid case". The mother board tray slid out pretty easily.

Tools of the trade.

The chip is an Intel Quad Core 6600. It inserted in the slot with no problem.

The CPU cooler fan. This is a little more delicate. When the pastic retaining pins go through the motherboard, a sickening sound ensues; they ought to warn a person about that!

Another close up of the CPU chiller.

The Asus motherboard takes the new style DDR3 memory.

The power supply easily installs. Corasair makes great power and memory devices.

At this point the motherboard is back in the case. This is a little more delicate of an operation. Be careful the grounding tabs on the input/output shield stay where they need to be. The next two pictures are just of the wiring bundles.

Getting ready to install the drives.

3 250GB Sata Western Digitals.

Card reader and Lite-on DVD writer installed. The only hard thing here was figuring out where the card reader connected to on the mother board. A quick google search and I realized the connector was just a UBS style and went straight to a USB header.

All wired up. Sata connectors are extremely easy to maneuver. I didn't due to messy of a job. The 3 case fans and the front panel connectors were also easy to hook up. The mother board manual is your friend.

Pretty much ready for the first "POST".

POST and BIOS and boot processes all went without too much confusion.

Just a picture of the case. Telstar-X by Apevia. Very nice indeed.

Windows XP Professional installation. Success! At first I didn't see my other two hard drives, then realized I had to go into DiskManager and partition them. Then motherboard chip set, monitor, and graphics card driver updates ensued. Only thing to be careful for here is when doing the motherboard chip update. Don't select "all" or it will try and make you create a floppy "raid driver for XP" utility. If I decide to RAID later there are options. If you want to RAID and don't have a floppy drive (and who'd want such antiquity anyway!), then you can slipstream the drivers onto a copied XP disc that you make--instructions on the web!

Finally a few hours of installing programs and the like. It helps to have install executables installed to an external HD. The final step was getting on to the Internet. That was a no brainer. Very rapidly after installing the chip driver update, the built in wireless "saw" my home network and asked if I wanted to connect. Even sent a document right to my printer on the other computer--outstanding. Now all I have left to do is move the setup to its permanent location, hook up the speakers to the hi-def audio ports, and download my document files off my external drive.

This was all easy and painless. And I'm normally a klutz--ya know the type that has trouble drawing a straight line, or boilng water or hammering a nail. So I'll recommend building if ya want the experience and want to select the parts on your own. There are custom builds out there that companies will do for you at very similar price to what I paid to get all my stuff from New Egg (approx 1300$), BUT you miss the CHOICE in parts (and New Egg has a vast choice) and the experience and fun in putting it all together.

Just make sure to do plenty of Internet research and ask knowledgeable acquaintances. You'll want to make sure you get the parts to make YOUR dream system and you'll want to be sure you're getting compatible parts. Not all memory and chips will go on all motherboards, for example. Some of the sites I visited: (I'll let you google for the exact URLs-NSTAFL-no such thing as a free lunch:-))----MySuperPC, The Video Guys, New Egg, Maximum PC, and Mechbgon.

This was immensely fun; I'm let down it's over. But the computing will be happier. Just think those videos I make once or twice a year are going to render blazingly fast now. hooha!

Me happy with the final build.

Typing this from the new build !!

2008-05-11T17:03:00.002-06:00

The drives are formatted, the chip devices updated, many programs installed--all is well. This really was too incredibly easy. All that's left is to install stuff from my external hard drive and move this all over to the main desk and connect the speakers and printer. The wireless on this Asus mother board is so good it zipped a document right to my printer on the other computer without me even connecting the external antennae!

Time to take some lysiene and eat and catch up on sleep; I'm feeling run down the last few days and need to be 100% by next weekend. Big 20 mile mtb ride coming up next Sunday that the club's doing at Rocky Hill Ranch.

More later!

OS INSTALL--SUCCESS !!! New comp about ready

2008-05-11T00:42:00.003-06:00

So after two late evenings with the computer parts, I have a fresh new computer with a virgin edition of windows XP Pro successfully installed. Really I didn't run into many glitches or much puzzlement at all. It went amazingly smooth for my premiere build. Now all that's left to do is install the monitor, motherboard chipset drivers, and graphics card drivers to gain full functionality. Then install MSN premium and its free virus protection suite, run windows update, install software (luckily I saved most of my software setup executables to an external HD), then transfer over the data in my documents from the same external HD.

I'm ecstatic about this. And now about to have a let down. It went too easy. Well if I get bored I can crack the case and make the wiring look even more organized I suppose. Not.

Today's ride was HUMID--620 PM start time at BLORA with a few riding pals. 85 degrees and 70%+ humidity; it was a miserable ride--but usually any ride's better than no ride.

I saw on a forum that Mellow Johnny's (Lance's Austin Bike Shop) opened today. One of these days I'll have to check it.

Damn I'm hungry. It's 2 AM--enough of this late nite sh&% already. Maybe I'll just stay up a few mo hours and go to Dennys or IHOP for Mother's Day.

Oh pictures. This blogger always hard to use. I wished I had the patience to format the layout better. I'll post up some pics of the build in progress and the final product soon.

Oh a name for the new machine--can you tell I think Al Gore's Internet is the best invention EVER? haha--after all without the Internet the computer would just be a silly number cruncher and word processor. It's named just simply Telstar-Home after the case model name. Maybe later on I'll change it to Al'sStartel--pronounced Al's Star Tell. By the way, I think Al got ripped off by that cheating ho during the Florida recount. His consolation--a peace prize.

It's time for food or sleep so I'm out.

Computer Build Time!

2008-05-08T20:35:00.008-06:00

Yeah the title is what this will be about. But first, wow---it's May and this is my first blog post of the year! What the heck?

I guess life has been busy. The unit that was up at North Ft Hood caused lots of grief but is gone now. Bunch of Buckeye, Spartan, and Wolverine lovers. I had some 80 hour work weeks for a couple months almost!

Things still are somewhat "tough" at work---well when you're a top dog, that's how things roll.

Speaking of rolling, I have been on the Stumpjumper much more the last two months. And I'm really enjoying it. Road biking on the other hand has been painful. lol. Too many fast people. Being humbled on the road sucks. On a mountain bike I can handle it.

Read several good novels. That Follet sequel was tops and the latest Cussler wasn't bad.

Also for Christmas I upgraded the home theater. Maybe I'll update that section on my main website someday. But it's got a great top of the line Z-line rack, a new Onkyo receiver, and a new playstation 3. Blu ray is really nice. Said all that I'm still not one to turn on the TV much; I'd rather browse computer and biking sites all evening on the "Internets".

So I've been thinking of building a computer for a few years; I always thought it would be prohibitively expensive...but 1500$ and 4 boxes from new egg, and a few late nights of Internet research on builds later---and I'm about ready to get started. It's a Intel based quad core rig with DDR3 ram, ATI graphics, several hard drives, a DVD Burner etc etc. Should make any video rendering I do less painful. But mainly I'm doing it to say I can and a custom built computer is damn fine-lol.

Here's d gear:

Something needs to give...

2007-12-01T18:55:00.000-06:00

..or so I've been thinking as I was reading through older posts on my older blog; I seemed to be much happier.

But I noticed for all the work and lack of riding my weight really hasn't gone up from this time last year--just that I did not lose any at all like I would have hoped. I think I counted the other day that I had rode outside only 35 times all year. I don't know what I'm going to do.

One piece of good news is I can start spinning indoors in my exercise room again soon. I had quit because the 19" LCD quit woeking and I was mad and lost motivation. I've ben trying to figure out how to get the manufacturer and warranty company to take care of me for a few months. Yesterday I received an email with a tracking number saying a replacement was on the way. yay.

Now I just have to figure 0ut how to balance life and wprk and stay out of trouble.

So I've been wanting to name the Stumpjumper forever (2 years). I mean I've always had bike names like Hwaii Pearl, Scary Fast, Double B. Looking at an old MTBR post covering the first ride on stumpie I noticed today that I had referred to the steed as SJ. It seems perfect today. SJ--simple and rolls off the tongue nicely.

I have a virus. Since this time last week. Or so the doc said Wednesday. Took my 12 bucks copay and sent me home without a damn thing. I think I have sinusitus which is a bacteria which couldv'e meant a z pzck anyway.

Have I jabbered long enough? I noted my older BLOG was much more personal and enjoyable to read (atlesat for me) so I've been longing to write in that manner again. Thus this diatribe.

Maybe it's time for a hot soak and to start reading the Pillars of the Earth sequel I picked up a month or more back.

And I have some vide editing to still complete. I try and make a vid for my special friend OFW G.A. every year. How I miss Iraq and those times. Always hoping and wondering for another time in the future...

It's wet here--I need to go work for a few hours tomorrow--probably no outdoor ride this weekend---again!

Go MO--beat Sooners.

Til next time, Pete

Home Theater Upgrade

2007-11-18T14:14:00.000-06:00

Wow almost another 4 months passed before I'm making another entry here; I've just been way too busy. Even cycling has been onthe backburner. I did participate in the Austin Lance Armstrong Challenge and had a pretty strong 90 mile ride. My 14 year old asked for an upgrade for his XBOX live for the holidays--surround sound. So I got him a cool top of the line Logitech set. Then I thought what better time to replace my stuff--perfect excuse. He needs a bigger TV to play, right? And a good stand to put it all in. So for me--out with the old in with the new. New goodies for me include a sony playstation 3, a Z-lines stand, an Onkyo 705 receiver and a 42" Philips flat panel LCD HDTV. Sweet. Til next time...

Today's ride

2007-07-28T17:48:00.000-06:00

So I discovered map my ride. I still think the features of motionbased make it better. Anyway too bad we can't have the best of all programs combined into one.

Today's ride was with pal Jean B; the wife drove support in the Subie, oweing that the rte has no "convenience" stores--or anything else fot that matter. It was a good ride. The elite drops really work. You can get all the stats at motionbased-search user petek and select the ride for today's date.

After the ride and a visit, Sally and I went to Temple to check out the expanded Sun Country bike shop--then ate at my favorite tacqueria--mmm was that good.

Back to 5 hours at work tomorrow and ten + a day next week.

I wished it would stop raining in centex so I could get a decent mountain bike ride in.

Pete out!

Late Update

2007-07-07T22:21:00.000-06:00

Weird; this thing won't allow me to type in a title.

This is an update after a lengthy absence from posting. Work is sucking up too much time lately---and---the rains have been quite torrential and trail damaging here in central Texas this spring--so little riding has taken place.

This pic--albeit blurry--is of my "exercise" room's theater. I just got the monitor and Infinity speakers from Crutchfield. I extracted the media lounge player from my main system, as well as the DVD player. Now I have access to all my digitized music library as well as I can pop in a movie and spin til I dont wanna any more.

The last few "innings" -- ha ha as opposed to outings coz d rain--has been spinning to Velvet Revolver. After listening to most of the new Libertad tonigth I think I can say their first album, Contraband, is much more rocking.

I whipped through the new Burdett Thai cop thriller book--Bangkok Haunts--recommended as are all in the series. I see Cruz-Smith has a new spy novel out. Also I await for Follett's sequel to Pillars of the earth--which I think is due soon.

So I went to see the movie about the rat chef. Way entertaining. I still need to see Spidey 3 and Die Harder 3. I'll pass on the transformers. The Pirates 3 movie I thought was disappointing.

So fat, tired, not riding enough, missing my Qatar connection from Ph/Kirkuk, etc. And office and govt/contractor politics are a major drag too. There is a good thread going on over on MTBR about whines--I sure seem to wanna have many about now.

Please God, can I win the lottery? I'll be good.

WHY WONT THIS FUCKIN THING SPACE PARAGRAPHS CORRECTLY?? AND WHY MY STYLE ALWAYS LOOK LIKE A MCDONALDS OR SOMETHING?

GOD-WHINE-I JUST HAVE NO EFFIN TALENT.

Dana Peak Ride Video

2007-03-31T16:38:00.000-06:00

http://www.petekutheis.com/DanaPeakMarch2007.wmv Right click save as. Approx 5 minutes, 14 Megs Yes, I did get the angle of the lens tilted upward and found a rider to video. The trail is the Dana Peak trails out at Stillhouse Hollow Lake. The tape ran out before we got to the semi-techie stuff. This is edited and rendered on Pinnacle Studio 9+ which I can make work wonderfully on my system. The expensive Vegas program of which I was able to download a torrent renders way more slowly. Enjoy.

First ride with the new helmet cam set-up

2007-03-10T21:28:00.000-06:00

I made the 8.5 mile normal blue loop today at BLORA with no problems of note with the ride--the ride being the first for my miniDV cam mounted on the helmet. I do need to adjust the angle of the cam inside the lexan box--by adjusting the foam or adding a wedge maybe. The tilt is slightly down and thus on this ride I only got footage maybe up to 24 feet or so in front of me with hardly ever any sky or horizon.The wide angle lens adaptor did take some scratches from all the cedar face slappers but seemed to be no ill effect when looking at the footage in WMP. Sorry, no footage yet. I need to get another ride or two, then edit and find a place to host.It's a fun project though. The lipstick cam DVDs I made in Hawaii were so long and such high quality picture I never did edit them smaller nor post on web.We'll see what happens this go 'round.

Helmetcam Setup Pictures

2007-02-28T18:15:00.000-06:00

Here are the helmet cam set up pics as promised. Sorry they're not razor sharp, but I think the idea comes acrossed. It is a Canon Elura 65 cam with the optional wide angle lens. The box is made of lexan resin, a heavy duty material. It can be obtained from GSIoutdoors in a variety of sized. Mine is a medium and would cost 20 doaalrs. As you can see it is actually a little too big as I got it with an earlier lipstick cam setup as an option from Helmetcam.com. However, the foam inside that cradles the cam keeps everything nice and snug. Since I added the wide angle lens today, all I'll now need to do to be ride ready is add just a little more lead to counterbalance everything nicely.

Helmet Cam, Books, and Whatnot

2007-02-27T23:07:00.000-06:00

So for aong time now I've been wanting to get the entire DV cam atop or on my helmet. I had made a couple of lip stick cam DVDs of biking stuff while on Oahu, but knew I could get better quality and a wide screen format with the entire cam on the head. After perusing many websites, just the other day I discovered the solution was staring me practically in the face all along. I had a lexar box to house the camcorder that slipped inside the camelbak when I used the lipstick cam setup. So all I had to do was figure how to mount the lexar case to the helmet. A circular hole dilled for the lens, a piece of foam, a dowel, 4 zip ties, a little extra padding for inside the forehead area of the helmet, an inner tube, some lead fishing weights, and some electrical tape--and the task is finished and well balanced and I think is going to work like a charm. Tomorrow my wide angle les convertor should arrive. I'll post pics of the set up soon. And just maybe test it all out on a trail this weekend. I have Pinnacle 9 and also Sony Vegas editing suites, so maybe look for a 4 minute video in a few months. There are some things I just don't finish quickly. Books--I like reading spy novels--Follett cant write them fast enough--and unfortunately he is slow--and even slower now that he's concentrating on the follow up to Pillars of the Earth. Cussler---I finally bored of. Same old all the time--maybe if more of those books were adapted into movies--Sahara was quite ok. So I read some Bell which was good and the Ludlum series which carries on after his death which is ok. Now I've stumbled onto some author whose last name starts with a "D'" whose hero is supposed to be a combo of Cussler's Pitt and Flemings' Bond. I have two samples waiting and I'll report what I think later--if I remember of course. The 17th is Beauty and the Beast Bike Tour up in Tyler, Texas; I've never been to that one and want to go pretty badly--but--then I contemplate the 700 dollars for a nice enjoyable weekend with gas and 2 nites lodging and eats and all--700 that I really don't have---stay tuned as to whether I go or not. ZZ Top concert tickets for the concert at the Bell Expo on the 24th of March are in had. This I cant wait to see. Ok enough bantering for now. Another day at work approaches. Another day fatter than yesterday--I really ought to have a ride schedule that I stick to--but oh it's all just seemingly too hard.

A Muleshoe Ride--Geocoding, Google Earth and Google Pages Finally Figured out

2007-02-17T21:27:00.000-06:00

So I discovered to get the thumbs and photos to work right for a KMZ for the web file on Google Earth, all one has to do is load the images to a personal google page website. Flickr does not work because it is not a folder structured site.

Today I went to Muleshoe Rec Area on Lake Travis near Austin to ride; it was a gorgeous 60 degrees. Prior to that I went to Austin Canoe and Kayak and purchased a High Roller bike "tray" to replace the King Cobra. And I stopped at a neat bike shop called Spin City; it is everything a small shop should be. The LBS in my area should visit and take notes. Iguana Grill after the ride was a great way to cap off the afternoon.

So above is the KMZ file--just click on the picture--of course you will need Google Earth installed.

Here I am looking fat at the day's end--damn, I wished my love affair with food was lesser.

Ok, thanks for reading and looking.

A geocoding try-out

2006-12-18T22:55:00.000-06:00

This is all frustrating.

And if anyone knows the correct URL to Flickr images please say--when someone clicks on my KMZ thums all they're gunna get right now is a "oops" message.

Anyway this is the Austin Jingle Bells Ride KMZ Google Earth Map and pictures taken with a crappy digital cam and an even crappier picture taker. I guess I'm not in a good mood. Every step of this is a struggle to figure out.

Click here <<<<<(You'll also need Google Earth) Which interestingly enough disabled route display from imported gpx files again as of the new build 2 days ago--I put this upgraded beta on the laptop; I'm glad I discovered it before I overwrote October's build that I have on my good machine.

2006-12-09T16:37:00.001-06:00

Today I just want to give quick props to the Men's Wearhouse store in Waco. My company's corporate annual Christmas party in Austin is this Friday so I drug out a jacket and pants from the closet to take there and get pressed. I was the only customer in the store (Waco can really be sleepy) and received great service. As a preferred member every so often I get 50$ off coupons. Upon checking out with some 50% off clothing sales dude says "I see you have an expired certificate in the system you haven't used. Go pick out something around 50$ and go ahead and have it for free". Now that is a fab way to treat a custonmer that really hasn't been in the store but several times. Of course when I do go--well you can imagine--it's not hard to drop some serious coin. And Smokey Bones BBQ afterword was delicious as usual. And the Books A Million managed to get a hundred spot plus a little more from me---I'll be glad when the "shopping" season is over... Happy Holidays all.

Testing a photo

2006-12-03T01:45:00.000-06:00

So this was at Dana Peak near Harker Heights and on the shores of Stillhouse Hollow Lake.

I had my wife snap this and it

commemorated my participation in Mountain Bike Review dot com's inaugral Internet group ride.

Of course it was really a solo ride as

people from all over the world got together-alone-or with their groups/ride partners--and rode some good dirt; then everyone shared their stories and pictures on the Passion Forum of MTBR.

Still not convinced...

2006-12-02T14:29:00.000-06:00

I have a main web site; I like to call it a web journal, however there is no place for readers to leave me contents. So I'll give this a go. There are lots of links to my rides and other interests over on that site. I am wondering if eventually I buy the program to geocode my photos, if I link to a picture of a map, say on Flickr, that when you click a spot on the map a picture comes up---if that will all work here---I've seen it on fancy mySLQ?/php type web sites..... Well I'll post some real musings later and maybe try a flickr hosted pic or 2, for now it's time 2 leave my desk here at work and gasp--maybe go fight the masses at that "evil" empire known as Walmart and start some Christmas shopping. It's only going to become more hellish the longer I procrastinate.