Heinz Trucking

So far this year, I've ridden 2200 miles on my bikes - my goal now is to hit 2500 by the end of September and to shoot for 2750 if the weather holds into October.

This sounds more phenomenal than it feels because at least half of it is still little 10 mile rides back and forth to work; and even though my goal for the year was to complete a century I still don't seem to have the staying power to do so. I managed an 80 mile over rolling hills ride back in July - but despite being in one of the first teams to leave I still didn't get to the turn off for the century ride before they closed it and diverted people to the 80 mile course - and at the last rest stop I had at least 3 different volunteers ask me if I wanted to get in the SAG van.

Way back in March (I think) I bought an Arduino to add some flash to this train layout. I played with it for a few days, said "This is going to be cool" and went back to riding my bike.

The problem is that, while the software is obviously going to be easy the mechanics of the assembly isn't - not for me, anyway.

For example, I need to run 8 (up to 16, really) white LEDs out onto the layout, and maybe 4 tri-colors. Took me 2 hours to set up the soldering iron and make a single LED+wire-harness. A lot of that was "find all the junk and get it in one place" time, but still.

Sigh.

Switched from Comcast to FiOS:

Just venting a little here. Switched to FiOS the other day, mostly because they're offering a deal that's going to save me about $100 per month over Comcast + POTS line.
So, anyway - I log into the router/modem (is it still a modem?) they provided and the first thing I see are convenient links on the side to help me to shop for additional Verizon services.