Truer Words - A Journal

My Best Friend's Birthday

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:11:45 GMT

Happy Birthday Corinne!

I guess it's a little unfortunate that our anniversary and wedding fall so closely together, and also that the PMC happens in the same month. We spend a lot of money (a lot for us, anyway) every year at the PMC, and then it seems like Corinne gets a little gypped every year because her birthday falls two weeks after those other big events.

It also didn't help that I seemed to be a little grumpy this morning. I didn't know it, and I don't know what would have caused it, but I'm not denying it!

Anyway, we did have some fun. We took Lauren to a local "town farm" in Groton, and she started screaming "buck buck!" at the top of her lungs as soon as she saw the free-range chickens. A few minutes later her screams changed to, "Baaaaa! BAAAAAAAAAAAA!" when she saw the sheep way down at the other end of the fence (and then ran all the way to them).

If you see Corinne around, make sure you wish her a happy birthday (even if it's belated), and give her a vigorous hug. No wimpy hugs, please. ;-)

Rides #78 and 79: Time Trial and Birthday Loop

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:31:43 GMT

Ride #78, A Solo Time Trial

Due mostly to Steve's and Penny's wedding on Saturday, I didn't manage to ride from Friday through Sunday. By Monday afternoon I was so full of energy I couldn't sit still, so I went out for a short one. I had time for a longer ride, but knew I shouldn't burn too much before the Tuesday night Birthday Loop ride.

Well, my enthusiasm got the better of me. Instead of riding long, I rode really hard. Like a time trial.

After exactly 22 miles my average speed was exactly 22 miles per hour! That's fast, at least for me. Unfortunately, I wasn't home yet. I had just crossed back over the Mystic River, ridden through downtown, and was turning onto River Road. I had one Gu with me, but hadn't eaten any and decided to continue home without eating it.

That was a mistake, because my speed sank like a stone over those last four miles. Still my fastest solo ride of the year, but not what I could have done if I had eaten the Gu at the halfway point as I had planned.

Stats: 26.19 miles (42.16 km) in 1h 13' 44" for an average speed of 21.31 mph (34.31 kph).

Ride #79, The Birthday Loop

Tuesday morning I had breakfast at Snoopy's with Rich, then worked from his place for a few hours (and had a small plate of pasta for lunch). On the way home I stopped at Mystic Cycle to pick up some more Gu and Power Gel, and get some chain cleaner: my bike is always a big mess after the PMC, and I wanted to clean it before the evening ride.

Corinne and Mom both sat out on the front steps and chatted with me while I cleaned the bike. Mom thought I was coating my chain with something when I was actually doing the opposite. This was all a little odd, though, as I've been washing my bike like that for years and nobody has ever, not even once, sat out there to watch me work.

Due to the chit-chat, it took me twice as long to wash the bike as it normally would. When Corinne mentioned it was 4:20, I rinsed the bike off and ran in to change my clothes. We had agreed to leave the shop at 5:00 sharp this week, so I had to leave the house by 4:40!

Well, I didn't get out until 4:45, and arrived a few minutes late. Didn't matter, because Rick (one of the partners, and the ride leader) wasn't ready yet. We left at 5:15, still earlier than last week.

We left with five (Rick, Matt, someone from Mystic Velo, the blustery older guy who's ridden with us three or four times but I still don't know his name, and myself), and rode through/around two other pace lines on River Road and Rte. 201 the way to Wintechog. Both times, we picked up a couple extra riders, but they only stayed with us for a few miles.

I was fine on Wintechog. Not fast, but I wasn't worried. Then on Rte. 2, heading to Cossaduck Hill, all the wind went out of my sails. Blustery-man set a devil's pace up the slight incline, and I stayed with them but knew I was working a lot harder than I should have.

On Cossaduck it was obvious that I was having some trouble. I wasn't last up the hill (but only barely), but I was slower than I was the last two weeks. I recovered a little on the rest of 201 (but Matt quit, so there were only four), but then Gilliver put the hurt on me again. We kept the pace down on 49 so I recovered a little again.

Wyassup Road starts with a very small, slight ascent (like 0.5% for 1/8th mile), which turns into a very slight descent and then dives into a fantastic free fall to the base of the first climb. Every week we do the same thing: Rick pulls up the baby climb, then rolls to the back to get on my wheel, even if he has to sneak in front of someone else. I told him I was feeling tired and wasn't sure I could do what he wanted.

Still, I stretched my calves and relaxed my shoulders a bit with a few rolls, to get ready. Just before we hit the dive I accelerated hard and shot past the guys in front of me (who never expect this). I hit the bottom of the hill at 51.5 mph, my fastest ever for this ride.

As I told Steve this year, I work almost as hard going down hills as I do going up. (Unfortunately, there's a limit to how fast I can pedal..) I was almost completely smoked, and it took me forever to get up that next hill. I had one of the guys in sight, still, but he was gone by the time I reached the top of the second hill. (Wyassup starts high, so it's down, up, down up, down.)

They waited for me at the end, before we crossed over Rte. 2 back onto 201. I'd recovered again, somewhat, and stayed with the other three. At the top of 201 I joked that this is the part where Rick loves to "race it," so I caught his wheel as he picked up speed. I yelled, "come on baby, go!" and he did. 30. 31. 32 mph, on relatively flat road. 33, 34. He signaled with his elbow and pulled off, and I kept the same pace... and shelled him!

He was only a hundred feet back when we turned onto Wolf's Neck. I *think* this is where the Mystic Velo rider pulled off, but maybe that wasn't until after Town Farm's steep climb. Can't quite remember.

Once we were back on River Road I told Rick that I was heading home after Oral School. I'd felt the telltale signs of cramping in my abductors, so let them ride ahead. Sure enough, I had to stop on Oral School Road to let the cramps pass: I couldn't even move my left leg for a minute.

So, in the end I left out one of the climbs, but still did over 50 miles and managed this year's best pace ~and~ my fastest descent. No complaints!

Oh, and two other things:

At least half of this ride was on soaking-wet, just-rained-on roads, but we never saw a drop of rain. In fact, most of the time the sky was blue and sunny!
I've cramped up more this year than ever before. I'd love to know what's causing it. Rick suggested I need more salt, but I can't find anybody local that carries salt tablets!

Stats: 54.27 miles (87.37 km) in 2h 45' 2" for an average speed of 19.73 mph (31.76 kph).

Oh, and here are the ride stats for

6/17: 18.46 mph
6/24: 18.59 mph
7/1: 18.48 mph (I forgot to have lunch that day!)
7/8: 18.56 mph
7/15: 18.86 mph
7/22: 18.94 mph
7/29: 19.33 mph
8/5: 18.9 mph (PMC was just before)
8/12: 19.73 mph!

Maybe next week we'll finally finish at 20 mph.

Eleven Years Together

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:50:46 GMT

Happy Anniversary Corinne!

As of yesterday (August 3), Corinne and I have been married for eleven years.

Eleven years of knowing, believing, and being reassured that we chose wisely and correctly. Eleven years of knowing that we're both with the right person. Eleven years of feeling completed and complemented and balanced.

We've seen each other through a lot of big things in those years. Bad things like my bike accident in 1998, real poverty, the near failure of my business, and of course Shane's death. Lots of good things, too, like kittens scampering all over the house, helping Mike and Shannon, experiencing Lauren from day 1, and watching (or even helping) each other grow and "blossom" and change in unexpected and interesting ways.

I can think of nothing in this life which is ever perfectly flawless, but nor can I imagine anyone else with whom I would want to share this imperfect life. Corinne, you are the beating of my heart, I love you.

(Sorry I didn't post this yesterday, folks. Flaky internet connection in the hotel, and I was too tired to write anything coherent.)

PMC Day 1: Sturbridge to Bourne, by the Numbers

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 03:03:02 GMT

Saturday, August 2, 2008

This was my sixth year riding the PMC, and my fourth year to include the Huckleberries ride (which makes it a three-day event). Those previous three years, I was totally exhausted on Saturday morning from the hard ride on Friday.

This year was different...

PMC Day 0: The Huckleberries Ride Again

seth@macrobyte.net — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:50:25 GMT

Friday, August 1, 2008

This ride was epic.

There were fifteen of us, as shown in the picture below:

15 at the Start

From left to right: Scott, Joel, Jon, Tom, Mark, Dave, Tim, Not Sure, Ellen, Me, Steve, Mike, Mark, Not Sure, and Steve.

Could someone fill me in on the "Not Sures" please?

Did I forget to mention that I was riding with Lilliputians? They may be tiny, but they make up for it with numbers!

Click the image for higher resolution. (This is Mark Stockwell's photo, used with permission.)

Not pictured...

PMC 2008: Day -1, "Holy Screwed Up Feet, Batman!"

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:17:27 GMT

Thursday, July 31, 2008

“Day -1” is the travel day from home in Mystic, CT to our hotel on the MA/NY line in West Stockbridge, MA. This day is normally quite uneventful, if slightly stressful. I sleep poorly the night before (mostly due to excitement), work in the morning instead of packing, hear a little (deserved) fussing from Corinne because I haven't yet packed, then finally pack everything into the car and leave.

Things were a little different this year. I slept well, and only worked for less than an hour in the morning, while Corinne was at a doctor's appointment (checkup), and manage to pack most of my clothes before she returned. I checked my Gmail account to see if any new software donations had come in, and found that someone had donated 1,000 licenses of his app!

After Corinne returned and we finished the packing, I started loading up the minivan which we borrowed from my Dad for the trip. My bike was the last item to go in, and I was prepping it in the garage. Dad was holding Lauren, and kept "peeking" her out around the garage door so I could say "boo!" and make her giggle a little. The last time he did it, I jumped at her to get a bigger reaction... and my left foot landed squarely on an old screw on the garage floor... !

Ride #69: Push It!

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:11:32 GMT

My plan was to ask Rick to push me. Hard.

Saturday's century was great. Not super fast, but I felt strong all the way to the end. Sunday I went out again for 40 miles and still felt strong (though I faded a bit in the last few miles).

Monday I rested. Tuesdays are the big hill ride. A group ride with 4400 feet of climbing in about 55 miles, and this would be our sixth time out. We ride hard, but the fastest climbers always wait at the hilltops for everybody else to catch up. Nobody gets left behind. (That's a welcome change from previous years, it makes the ride a lot friendlier.)

So I was feeling strong, and had planned to ask Rick (the ride leader from Mystic Cycle) to push me this time. Make me work. Keep the pace up.

I never asked, because I didn't have to. Two new guys (Alex and ... the other guy, I can't remember his name) showed up who normally do the 5:30 a.m. ride from downtown Mystic. They were both very strong, and brought out Rick's competitive nature.

There were five of us: Rick, Jeff (also from MCC), Alex, what's-his-name, and myself.

At the end of the ride I had my highest avg. speed for this ride so far this year, but that doesn't really tell the whole story. There were lots of places where we noodled around waiting for slower riders to catch up. (Sometimes I was a slower rider, especially on the two biggest hills, but mostly I was near the front.)

(See, the guys who ride faster and then wait for the others to catch up end up with the same average speed.)

My average speeds for the six "birthday loops" (as this ride is called):

6/17: 18.46 mph
6/24: 18.59 mph
7/1: 18.48 mph (I forgot to have lunch that day!)
7/8: 18.56 mph
7/15: 18.86 mph
7/22: 18.94 mph

These rides are good training for the Huckleberries ride, where we have over 6,000 feet of climbing in about 100 miles. That ride is Friday, August 31st, the day before the PMC... so I get just one more of these before the big event.

Stats: 57.96 miles (93.31 km) in 3h 3' 36" for an average speed of 18.94 mph (30.49 kph).

Ride #67: First Century of the Year, with Tom Tinory

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:01:55 GMT

Rawson Hubbell, who joined us for the first time on the Huckleberries Ride last year, wrote to ask me if we were doing it again this year. I knew we were, but there hadn't yet been any communication between the group, so I (eventually) wrote to everyone to talk about starting times. Even tried to fool them (half-heartedly) into thinking we should start at 6, to beat the heat.

We'll be starting at 7:30, at the same spot on the MA/NY border, on Friday, August 1st, the morning before the PMC.

In the burst of email which followed (between the fifteen or so riders on the cc list), one mentioned being in CT for vacation so he wouldn't be available for a proposed hill-ride sometime in the next couple weeks. "In CT?" I thought. So, I asked him if he was in my area, and (if so) if he would like to go for a ride.

Not only was he in my general area, but he's staying at his mother-in-law's house right in the very same town. Another Huckleberry right here in town? There's only one thing to do.

So, at about 5:40 on Saturday morning I set off to meet Tom Tinnory somewhere between...

Er, what's that, you ask? No, it's not a typo. 5:40 a.m., that's right. FIVE FORTY IN THE MORNING. No, really, I'm not kidding. Stop it, I'm serious!

As I was saying, I left the house at 5:40 AM, just a few minutes after sunrise, to meet Tom somewhere between his place and mine. That place happened to be on Route 117.

I mentioned the ride on Twitter, yesterday, and someone asked me for the route. My response managed to compress the whole ride into a twoosh! (A twoosh is a post on twitter that uses exactly the limit of 140 characters.)

@dreimiller 184->201->Cossadduck->49->184->River Rd->1->Watch Hill->Misquamicut->1a->1->215->117->184

That doesn't include the approximately 4 miles from my place to the meeting point on Route 117, but it says, in English: Route 184 to Route 201, to Cossadduck Hill Road, to Route 49 (actually, I forgot to include Route 165, as 201 never intersects 49 as far as I know), to Route 184, to River Road into Mystic and Route 1, to Westerly and the back roads into Watch Hill Road then Misquamicut, to Rotue 1a, back onto Route 1, to Route 215 in Mystic through Noank, back onto Route 117... er, hang on.

In fact, that route was wrong. After Route 215, we turned right on Long Hill Road (still Route 215?), which ends on Route 1 at the top of the hill. Tom turned left to head home, I turned right — away from Route 117 — and took Flanders Road back to 184, then to Haley Road and home. Whatever, it was close enough.

There were two mechanicals on the trip: the first was Tom getting a flat on Route 49 after riding over some glass. We saw quite a bit of glass, in fact, because we haven't had rain in ages so there's been nothing to wash it out of the road. The second mechanical was shortly after his flat: my bike started making this incredibly annoying metallic ringing sound! Turns out it was just a broken bottle cage.

With Cossadduck and Route 49 in the first half of the ride, we were mostly done with the hills before the temperature went too high. Our first water stop was actually my house, where we went for a little side trip after returning from Route 49 (about 45 miles into the ride) because I had left my Gu (energy gel) there. Second water stop was a gas station on Route 1 a couple miles East of Mystic Cycle and just a couple minutes after 9 a.m.

Another bit that my "twoosh" left out: from Route 1 in Stonington we turned right onto Greenhaven, followed that to the Pawcatuck River and swooped left onto River Road. This takes us into Pawcatuck, right on the border with Westerly.

Tom had never seen Watch Hill from the road, only from his boat. Not sure he really saw it this time, either, as he was focused on both not being hit by any tourists in their big cars and not running over any of the many careless pedestrians.

In Misquamicut I did what I always do: pick my way through the stopped cars waiting to enter the beach parking lot, and then crank up my speed to whatever maximum I can manage all the way around the big curve of the parking lot. This time, that speed was 30.1 mph, for about 30 seconds, then about 26 mph for another 45. Slowed down at the far end so Tom could catch me (I didn't warn him), then told him Steve Davis hates it when I do that. It's nice to stretch my legs a little, sometimes.

After the beach area we had rabbits: five cyclists ahead of us, and I wanted to catch them before the end of the road in Weekapaug. It was a struggle, but we did it with just a few dozen yards to spare. Rode with them to our next water stop, the Mobil station Dunn's Corners. Turns out they were all from URI, and were also doing a century.

Tom was a little concerned that we were going to end up with a lot more than 100 miles, but instead of retracing our route we took the most direct route back to Mystic Cycle. It took almost 30 minutes for them to replace the bottle cages on both bikes, because one of my bolts was completely stripped (the inside, where you put the allen wrench). They finally ripped the cage off and then used pliers to grab and turn the round bolt.

After last year's disastrous PMC ride, I was really worried about how I'd handle my first century this year. Would I be ready for three days in a row?

Once this was all done, though, I felt great! Tired, of course, but still far better than I expected. Plus, I got to ride with a friend instead of going out solo. Thanks for a great time, Tom!

Stats: 101.46 miles (163.3 km) in 5h 30' 13" for an average speed of 18.43 mph (29.68 kph).

My weight for this ride was 244 pounds. Last year at the PMC I was 253, and my lowest ever at the PMC was 250. (I've been down to 239 later in the summer, but never this low so early.)

If Only Drivers Shared the Road...?!

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:58:49 GMT

Billy Starr, founder and leader of the PMC, sent out an email today asking — nay, commanding — all of the PMC riders to read an article on the Boston Globe's web site: If only drivers shared the road, cyclists would be safer.

It's very much like similar articles I've seen many times before: it's a little dangerous to be a cyclist on the roads with big cars and angry drivers. I have no argument with the basic premise, and it's certainly true that many drivers wish we weren't out there. Most drivers tolerate us just fine, and a few seem to actually like to see us, but there's a very vocal minority who would rather see us banned. More dangerous, I think, are the careless drivers on cell phones, though. While the angry driver will usually just try to scare you, he hasn't actually lost control of his big, red pickup truck. The careless driver, though... look out.

As I said, I have no argument with the idea behind the article. Some of what it actually says, though, is bordering on asinine.

I just have one question: Why are you so angry? We're out there obeying the rules, getting exercise, and saving gasoline. We've ridden in charity rides that benefit cancer, mental retardation, poor children, multiple sclerosis, and myriad other causes. We stay on the far right side of the lane. We never blow through traffic lights or stop signs. We're cautious because we know that you're out there in mega-ton vehicles, any one of which could flatten us in an instant.

Sure, lots of us ride in charity events, but I honestly don't know many drivers who always obey the rules of the road. In fact, that paragraph is so ludicrous that I have to wonder if it was written just to get a rise out of the motorists who read the story. MOST CYCLISTS COMPLETELY IGNORE THE TRAFFIC LAWS AND ALL COMMON SENSE RULES OF SAFETY.

I'm going on a 60 mile hill ride with a bunch of ultra-experienced cyclists in about an hour. All of us will put in at least 5,000 miles this year, and some of the group were actually professional (that is: paid, Cat-1) racers at one time. Yet, the most experienced of the whole group is almost certainly going to do little more than slow down for stop signs, and will only stop for red lights if the cross-wise traffic is not yet moving.

Now, I know the roads I ride on VERY well. There's a light at the end of River Road, for example, that a cyclist can't 'trip' to turn green, so there's no choice but to go through it (after checking for traffic). There's a four-way stop on Clift Street, half way up a ridiculously steep climb: frankly, if there's no car there (or if there is but they wave me through because they understand) then I'm not stopping for it because then I'd have to walk to the top.

But I don't know anyone who rides the way he describes in that article. Not really. I know plenty of riders who pretend they ride that way, who claim it in conversation, but I don't know any who do it.

In fact, I was thinking the other day that if we're going to claim to have just as much right to the road as cars do, then perhaps we should be licensed to ride on roads the same way cars are. (Admittedly, we don't pose a safety risk to others quite the way a car does, but that's not the only reason drivers are licensed.)

The reader comments after the article are all over the place, but I agree a lot more with the second commenter than I do with the author's "perfect world seen through rosey glasses" imagination. I'll quote in full:

Oh, so many things wrong with this article. First, I have the "pleasure" of driving to work through "cyclist heaven" (Lexington, Belmont, Bedford, etc) and have had on more than one occasion, seen a "law abiding" cyclist do the following: take a right turn around a car from the wrong lane; failing to stop at stop signs/stop lights, not stopping for school buses (yes, there was a near miss). I am all for cyclists getting exercise and using alternative transportation, but YOU as a cyclist should be required to be licensed. If I have to be licensed to drive my car on the streets/roads of MA, you should be too. Just two weeks ago, I thought I had inadvertantly struck a cyclist who cut me off (while he was wearing iPod headphones) on a busy road. An officer cited him for reckless "driving" and ticketed him. one word: karma.

(That reminds me that Steve once told me about a roadie wearing iPod headphones and being completely unaware that Steve was trying to get his attention. Way to die, buddy.)

Safer roads and friendlier drivers would be great, but we bear at least some of the blame for the anger and the danger.

Tour de France Lanterne Rouge: Happy news

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:11:53 GMT

Tour de France Lanterne Rouge: Happy news

We fans of the Tour de France have been somewhat battered and disillusioned by events in recent years, but this is the kind of storybook matchup that will make the 2008 race worth watching.

Good luck, gentlemen. Let the best man win!

The above quote is from a site that celebrates the Lanterne Rouge, the last place rider in the Tour de France (which starts Saturday!!!). She's referring to the fact that two historic Lanternes Rouge have both been added to the rosters of their respective team for le Tour: Jimmy Casper for Agritubel and Wim Vansevenant for Silence Lotto. (In other words, both of those riders have finished last in a previous TdF... and in fact, Vansevenant pretty much owned the red jersey last year.)

The story made me smile. The TdF, and professional cycling in general, is in such a mess right now that there's no way to overstate how bad it is. The idea of two historic last place finishers going "head to head," and making the event worth watching is so silly that... well, I think I agree with her.

Well said, Nancy.

The Great Mojo Bars Taste Test

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 01:44:30 GMT

Months and months ago, my friend Daniel Berlinger offered to send me a box of Clif Bar Mojo Bars if I'd comment on them — good or bad — here on the site.

He sent them almost immediately. I, however, never got around to writing about them. Ahem. That darn Seth!

He's reminded me over a month ago. Then he reminded me again a couple minutes ago! OK, he's been very patient, so here's my side of the deal.

Mojo bars are "energy" granola bars. They're intended for cyclists and hikers, people who need to keep their energy levels way up. Unfortunately, I've never been a big fan of the combination fo granola bars and cycling!

My first experience eating a granloa bar while cycling was in my first or second PMC. I remember it quite clearly, because I thought it was going to kill me! I had been riding pretty hard, but slowed down to eat the granola in my jersey pocket. Took my first bite, and found out the hard way that they take too long to chew up! Duh. But since I'd been riding so hard, I couldn't breathe deeply enough through my nose... so I inhaled through my mouth, and with all that wonderful air came a lung full of granola crumbs. Cough, cough. Cough, cough, cough... ack... I'm dying here... cough, cough. Stop on the side of the road, everything goes sparkly and dark for a second, cough up the rest of the crumbs, breathe a little...

Anyway, that was years ago. The mojo bars were this year. I was more careful this time, and knew better than to eat one while still huffing-and-puffing. They didn't try to kill me, and that's a major point in their favor!

It's been a few months since I tried them, and I'd be lying if I said I could remember the names of all of the flavors. Instead, I looked up the names in one of Daniel's old posts. Once I saw the names, I did at least remember what I thought of the bars.

Mixed Nuts: Eh. About what you'd expect. Tasted like mixed nuts, but in bar shape.
Fruit Nut Crunch: I liked this one.
Mountain Mix: Eh. So-so.
Chocolate Peanut: Very tasty. Two great tastes that taste great together, and I've always been a sucker for a Reese's.
Honey Roasted Peanut: I was expecting (or at least hoping for) the taste of Planter's honey-roasted peanuts, but it isn't really like that. It's more like really sweet peanuts.
Peanut Butter Pretzel: If I remember this one correctly, then it's one of the four I would buy again. Sweet and salty.
Peanut Butter and Jelly: This had one of the best flavors, but could have a used a touch of salt.

I'm still not a fan of granola bars during bike rides, but I do like to have one at least 30 minutes before heading out. Unfortunately, Mystic Cycle doesn't carry them, so I need to talk them into picking some up for me if I'm going to make them part of my daily routine.

Sorry this took so long, Daniel!

PMC Software Donations (2008)

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:50:20 GMT

The first weekend in August, for the sixth year in a row, I'll be riding in the Pan-Mass Challenge. This year they've told us there will be 5500 riders, and we ride about 200 miles from Sturbridge, MA to Provincetown (on the tip of Cape Code). The real point, though, is the money we raise: millions and millions of dollars, all for the research and treatment of cancer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Center in Boston.

The total project goal this year is $34,000,000! (And we'll raise more than that, we surpass our goal every year.)

Last year I raised about $5,000 for the PMC by collecting donations of Mac software from the authors/publishers and then selling it in bundles on eBay or giving it to people in return for making donations to the PMC.

I'm running late this year, but the project is and running again and this time I want to raise a total of $10,000.

Right now, I need donations. If you produce mac software, please donate some! I need at least another 90 titles, with a minimum of five licenses each. Sixty-two apps titles have been donated so far.

(If you're not a software producer, I could also use some regular donations! I have had two big donors every year since I started doing this, but this year one doesn't have the money to donate anything, and the other only had $500 to donate instead of $1,000.)

Last year, an employee at Adobe sent me a copy of Flash CS3 which he purchased on his discount. This year, he came through again and got a coworker to go in on it with him so I'm also getting a copy of Illustrator CS3! However, 99.9% of the software that's donated is just a set of licenses, no physical goods or costs at all.

Those big-ticket items are nice, but that will only account for about $1,000 of the $10,000 I need to raise.

Please help out if you can.

Three Lost Rides

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:18:42 GMT

I'm going to do another "ride update" soon, but I have to report that I've lost a piece of paper with three of my rides from early June. I have a general idea what the stats were for those rides, but this is only the first or second time I've had to "rough it" with my numbers.

Not good. I've been looking for this piece of paper for over a week now, it really does seem to be gone. :-(

Our First Attempt at Camping

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:09:17 GMT

This was quite a weekend.

Occasionally, our ecclesia goes camping together. It's not every year, but probably 3 out of 4 years, in mid-June. Wanting to share new experiences with Lauren, I decided to give it a go this year.

I've never camped. Maybe 30 years ago, when I was little, Jed and I used to camp out in our back yard, but otherwise I've never camped. That's ridiculous.

We all got spots near each other at the Hopeville Pond State Park (thanks to Ellyn for organizing the whole weekend). Not being a camper, I have no tent so Mark and Michelle loaned us theirs, and an air mattress. Gary and Ellyn loaned us a couple of sleeping bags, and Lauren and I headed over there Friday evening.

Mark helped me set up the tent (he wasn't staying over night) and pump up the air mattress, then we all settled in around the campfire. At about 10:30 I said goodnight to everyone because she was falling asleep on my lap and I wanted to let her sleep in the tent. After a diaper change and lots of fun taking out my contacts near total darkness, she was curled up like a kitten on one of the sleeping bags, fast asleep.

That lasted for a little over an hour. More than enough time for me to fall into a deep sleep.

Then, she woke up. Happy. VERY VERY HAPPY. She came over to me. She patted my face. She laid her head down on my chest and said "aaaaahhhhhhh", then went back to sleep for three minutes. Then she kissed my cheek and slept with her head on my arm... for a few minutes. Then she laid down completely on top of me and slept for a few more minutes. Then she tried to get into the suitcases.

This went on for hours. She wouldn't settle down, and would cry when I try to put her back on her own sleeping bag. Otherwise, she was perfectly happy... but also totally wide awake and unwilling to let me sleep.

At 3:45 AM I finally gave up. By 4, we were both back in the truck and headed home.

I think if I were ever facing torture, I could handle some pain, but they'd break me in a day or two with sleep deprivation.

I/we slept until late morning, then drove back to the camp site. Saturday night we didn't even try: just went home, got a good night's sleep, and went back again Sunday morning.

I'm glad we tried, and I hope we can try again next year when she's a year older.

Building a Codeless Language Module for BBEdit or TextWrangler (Updated)

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:52:04 GMT

I've updated the guide that explains how to create a Codeless Language Module (CLM) for BBEdit with regular expressions (or "irregular expressions" as I explain in the guide).

The how-to walks you through creating a CLM for the newLISP language. Some bugs were found recently in both the final CLM and the guide itself, and have all been fixed. Also, the new version of the downloadable CLM (at the bottom of the guide) includes the most recently added keywords and built-in language functions.

Rides #37, #42 and #44: Friends, Hills, and the Slimming Effects of Lightning

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:25:31 GMT

Corinne has been hearing about my lack of updates here on [tw] from her friends, who I think mostly just want more pictures of Lauren (I don't blame them!). I've been much too quiet lately.

I'm going to pay for that quietness, soon. The PMC is in less than two months, and I haven't raised a penny yet. What an idiot.

This particular update, however, is not about Lauren, Corinne, her friends, or the PMC. It's about my riding (and weight loss) over the last month. I'll start with:

Ride #37: Birthday Loop with Steve

Steve Davis came down on May 23rd to ride the storied Birthday Loop with me.

Steve is in fantastic shape, much better for mid-Spring than I've ever known him to be, since we started riding together years ago.

I, on the other hand, was still getting over my cold. I'd only ridden three times in the previous two weeks, and was still coughing quite a bit.

The result: Steve was very patient with me. We did the whole ride, of course, but averages only 17.5 mph. He easily could have handled a 19 mph average, which is quite impressive with all the climbing.

My stats are missing a couple of miles because my bike computer mysteriously shut off for a little while. However, Steve had exactly the same average speed as I did when we were done, so I'm just going to stick with what mine said.

Stats: 52.56 miles (84.62 km) in 3h 0' 0" for an average speed of 17.52 mph (28.20 kph).

Ride #42: Cracked 260

This ride is notable only because I finally cracked 260. That is, my weight finally dropped below it.

I thought that was quite an accomplishment, so I checked my stats for last year. EXACTLY THE SAME DATE!! Oy! Still, last year my weight was only below 260 for two days, then it went back up and stayed there for another month. This year, it's continued going down, and I'm hoping to drop below 250 before the end of the month.

How far can I drop before PMC? This will be my sixth PMC, and I've never been below 250.

Stats: 43.91 miles (70.69 km) in 2h 17' 12" for an average speed of 19.20 mph (30.91 kph).

Ride #44: Lightning Has Struck My Brain!

Sorry, the title for this ride was just a hook to get you to read the story. (Ok ok, I'll stop. I'm sure Sean, at least, is moaning by now...)

This ride was on Sunday, the beginning of our current heat wave. I left the house planning to do the birthday loop again, after spending 45 minutes carefully cleaning up my drivetrain. The first 20 miles were quite hot, but I can handle hot. After the first ten miles, I saw the storm coming in but hoped it was going to pass to the North.

No such luck.

I climbed Cossaduck hearing thunder. Second time this year I've managed to climb it "out of the saddle" from bottom to top. Once again, I forgot to set the lap timer on my bike computer, so I have no idea how much I've improved. (My first trip up the hill this year was a pitiful 4:40!!)

Heard a lot more thunder while I was on Gilliver, but they were still five or six seconds after the flash so I figured I was ok. At that point, I was riding away from the storm.

In the last mile of Route 49, just before the turn onto Wyassup, the sprinkling started and I knew the storm was going to catch me, but now I was in farm country. What was I supposed to do? I kept riding.

On Wyassup, with the thunder rolling almost constantly, I crested one of the hills telling myself "think negative thoughts! Think negative!" But, at the top of one of the two hills (I can't remember which, now, but I think it was the second), everything around me when bright purple! I'm not kidding, I thought for a split second that I'd been struck. There was enough time for me to yell "yi" before my "yikes!" was drowned out in the loudest thunder I've heard in 30 years.

I wasn't hit, obviously, but it must have been cloud-to-cloud right over head. That was exciting.

(When I was quite young, I remember standing at my grandparents back door in Berkley, MA, when lightning struck the back yard. That was some kind of loud, and I've had a love for lightning every since.)

After that, the rain started in earnest and I just rode home. That took about ten miles off the ride, but it was fun. (Now I need to clean my drive train again!)

Stats: 44.67 miles (71.91 km) in 2h 30' 21" for an average speed of 17.82 mph (28.70 kph).

Oh, and I'm now down to 254. :-D

Happy Birthday Michelle & Isaiah Drake

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:25:13 GMT

Corinne, Lauren and I went to Isaiah Drake's birthday party on Monday. He's one year old. Monday was actually his mom's (Michelle's) birthday, his is today, but we were mostly celebrating his because it was his first.

I took 134 pictures (good grief), and managed to whittle that down to “only” 104 before uploading them all to Facebook. The flickr set contains a more manageable 55 pictures: I recommend the slideshow.

The party (cookout) was held at Ben & Mandi Isbell's house on the Bradford River. Games, canoeing, lots of food, cute kids, friends, and loads of presents for Isaiah. Ben even started a big bonfire on the ground near the deck (but more than one story below) that made some of the kids a little nervous.

(If you're reading this in email, make sure you see it on the web for the pictures.)

The Noisy Fox Has Babies

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:25:12 GMT

Remember the noisy fox I wrote about last year? It's still out there, making its calls a few nights per week. I rather like it.

Well, someone answered the call, because now there's at least one baby.

This is only the second time I've seen the kit, but it's the first time that it stayed put long enough for me to get a picture.

Update May 21:

The mother brought at least two kits into the back yard for a little playtime yesterday. Couldn't get a shot of the babies, as she called them back into the woods as soon as I went on the deck to take pictures, but I got her staring right down my lens.

Ride #29: The Full "Birthday Loop" HIll Ride

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:25:46 GMT

(This ride was on Sunday. I've also ridden Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but this was the only one worth writing about. Stats for those days are on May's page.)

After a couple days of rain, I decided it was time to do the full, hilly, half-century ride that I've been describing here for years.

One thing you need to understand about this area: South-Eastern Connecticut is flat. Not Kansas-flat, but still very flat. This area is know for its sea-side scenery, not its mountains. There are no mountains for which it could be known.

People in Western Mass, or Vermont, or Georgia (think "Bald Buster"), or the Rockies, or just about anywhere else... they look at what I call a hill route and chuckle. "Poor boy would not like it out here," they think to themselves. You may even be one of those peope. :p

Steve Davis prompted me to map the route at USATF. So, I very carefully traced out the whole 54 mile route, starting and ending at my front door. See the ride profile here.

4,140 feet of climbing in 54 miles is pretty good for this area, but you can tell from the map that the route is truly wacky (calling it a "loop" requires a bit of squinting). That's because it just keeps heading for the next hill.

Unfortunately, the "birthday loop" (named by the guys at Mystic Cycle) omits one of the steepest hills around, though it passes very close to it. I'm going to try modifying the route next week when I ride it again, adding in that extra hill. Should add another 250 feet of elevation-gain. The week after that, Steve's coming down to ride with me for an afternoon, and this is the route we'll be following. (Ooh, maybe I'll throw in Pumpkin Hill, too... Hmm...)

Stats: 54.83 miles (88.27 km) in 3h 9' 39" for an average speed of 17.34 mph (27.92 kph).

Lauren's Dancing Debut

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:49:26 GMT

This movie of Lauren dancing is almost a month old, but I just got around to uploading it.

The description on YouTube says:

Lauren was dancing like this months before she could walk. Now that she's been walking for a while, the dancing has gotten more involved: she spins circles, and puts her hand on her hand and revolves, and sometimes even puts one hand on a hip like she's doing a cha cha. Girl's got moves. This one is her dancing debut, though. ;-)

Familial Update, and Grumpy Seth's Advice on Raising a Baby

seth@macrobyte.net — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:04:23 GMT

We're still moving, probably in October. The landlord is still planning to sell this place. It's a little stressful as we've lived here over 9 years (will be ten years in October) and I really like the neighborhood. Still, if we leave the house for more than a few minutes, then we're probably headed for Westerly. Moving over there will save us five or six gallons of gas and many hours of driving every week.

Corinne seems to be looking forward to it. I don't think it's entirely because the kitchen she'll be getting is thrice the size of what we have now, but that's probably a big part of it. ;-)

Business has been decent this year. Back in December, one client sent me some money to pre-pay for some work "to be decided." Work with Bare Bones has been steady, and I finally produced a working (though incomplete) module for YAML.

Shannon is no longer working two jobs. The second job, at a Hallmark (greeting cards) store, was paying minimum wage and only giving her 12 hours per week, so after a few weeks she told them she wouldn't be coming back.

Instead, she's going to school! She got Pell grants and various other forms of financial aid to cover almost all the costs of going to the Connecticut School for Massage Therapy. She started this week. It takes (I think) 18 months to get her certificate, and when she's done she'll finally have a real, employable skill for a job that pays a lot better than retail ever will.

She'll be about half done with her schooling when Mike comes home in January.

Thursday I went to court with her in Waterford for a "status update" on her appeal to get custody back of her son Richie. Richie's father, Dick S., decided to contest it. We went to the court thinking that she was going to walk out with custody papers, and instead all we know is that this is going to take longer than we first thought. (That's good, as we've asked Shannon not to rush this. We're already doing most of the work with Lauren. Neither of us mind that, but we're not ready to add another kid to the house.)

Corinne wanted pizza on Thursday night, so I was going to take Lauren with me to get it from Olympic Pizza in Norwich. Shannon came home from work early because (in her words), she "didn't feel like working," so she went with us. On the way, we had a talk about her relationship with Lauren.

Had very late second thoughts about posting the rest of this, so for now I've taken it out. Sorry...

Ride #25: Gotta Love Those Rest Days!

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:42:47 GMT

In the eight days from the 14th to the 21st, I rode seven times. The only day I missed was Friday the 18th. 236 miles (380 km) in eight days (seven rides). That's one of my best weeks ever, not counting the PMC every year.

But, all that riding really doesn't do you much good if you don't take a rest once in a while. Tuesday the 22nd I worked form Rich's house all day (before picking up Corinne, Ellyn and Lauren from the airport that night. It's wonderful to have my girls home!) So, no ride. Then on Wednesday I worked on stuff for Bare Bones in the morning and working on my (LAST) midweek Bible class in the afternoon. Another day off.

By this morning I was feeling fat again. Mark and I drove up to visit Mike (Lauren's dad) at his "home away from home" in Somers, CT, and I had a Big Mac for lunch. Yay nutrition! By the time we got home I felt fat and lazy. Time for a ride!

As of today I've lost eight pounds since the beginning of the month, and twelve pounds since my heaviest weight this year. My weight is now down to the same as it was at this time last year, but I'm trending down. (Last year, I endured a very long plateau. I'm being much smarter this year.)

Today is also a nice little anniversary. It's been four years since my first ride on my wonderful Seven Axiom Steel. I'm still so ridiculously happy with this bike... it's definitely my favorite-major-purchase of all time.

Here are the total and average stats for those four years:

Summary of rides from 4/24/2004 to 4/24/2008
Rides:	495	Miles:	19278.36 miles (31025.51 km)	Time:	42day 7h 55m 12s
Avg. Speed:	18.97 mph (30.53 kph)	Avg. Miles:	38.94 miles (62.66 km)	Avg. Time:	2h 3m 8s

Fastest	22.05 mph (35.48 kph)	Miles:	21.12 miles (33.98 km)	Date:	9/12/2005
Slowest	15.5 mph (24.94 kph)	Miles:	9.0 miles (14.48 km)	Date:	4/24/2004

Avg. Weight:	257 lbs	Max Weight:	297 lbs	Min Weight:	239 lbs

Wow. Almost 20,000 miles in four years! (That table will only look right on the the site, not in email. You've been warned.)

When looking at those weights, please keep in mind that I'm 6' 9". 297 is heavy even for me, but 257 isn't too bad, and I'm quite happy when I'm in the 240's by mid-summer.

One last thing: the weather this April has been unreal. It's been more than two weeks since we had any rain, has been bright and sunny almost all of that time, and it was in the upper 70's today! It feels great now, but what does this say about the upcoming summer? I'm worried we're going to fry, and this is starting to feel like the makings of a drought. Two rainless weeks in April? Uh oh. (This weekend has rain in the forecast. We'll see.)

Tomorrow I'll do the big hill ride again if I can knock off enough time for it.

Stats: 42.59 miles (68.56 km) in 2h 18' 7" for an average speed of 18.50 mph (29.78 kph).

Ride #21: First Up Cossaduck, and One Unlikely Number

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:18:21 GMT

I mentioned that I'm really pushing myself back into shape this year. Last year's PMC was so bad that I couldn't even write about it. Admittedly, I got sick, but I really just wasn't riding like myself last year. This year I want to make up for it, so I'm doing lots of hill rides. Whereas last year's daily route was flat and pretty, this year's has more hills. Eventually I plan to make the "birthday loop" my daily ride, though I'm not quite there yet.

Thursday was my first attempt at about 80% of that crazy hill ride. I left out Wintechaug on the front and Town Farm Road on the back, shortening the route from 50+ to about 40 miles. However, this ride was my fourth day on the bike in a row, and the season is still very young so I knew it wasn't going to be a fast ride.

My performance was better than I expected. Cossaduck HIll is a beast, but I was able to climb "out of the saddle" for 2/3 of the hill, which is much better than my first attempt in previous years. I didn't even care how long this route took me, I just wanted to get through it and put some hills into my legs.

There were two very pleasant surprises in store for me. The first was that Gilliver Road has been resurfaced! Last year it was so bad that I tended to skip it, which meant leaving out one and a half good climbs in favor of about four extra miles. Now it's quite smooth and rideable (and the crazy dog at the top of the hill never made a peep, which made that road even better... he's a bike chaser).

The second surprise? Well, just look at the picture.

I have no explanation for this. The computer only counts speeds that are maintained for at least two (or maybe it's three) seconds. Yet, I'm pretty sure I never hit 79 mph. My highest speed to date was (I think) 54 mph. I may have hit that again on one of the descents, or maybe even a little higher, but 79 mph!? That just doesn't seem likely or even possible.

Must admit that I seriously considered just sending this picture to a couple cycling-friends (Steve, Daniel, I'm looking at you...) with no comments. :-D

Stats: 39.78 miles (64.04 km) in 2h 20' 43" for an average speed of 16.96 mph (27.30 kph).

(Reminder not to make too much of that low average speed. This ride had loads of climbing and the season is still very young.)

Nobody's Home

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:15:55 GMT

My grandparents needed some help with "things," so Ellyn (technically, my aunt... Dad's sister) asked Corinne to go down with her for a week. Originally they were going to drive, but (thankfully) I talked them out of that idea. They flew out Tuesday afternoon, and come back on Tuesday the 22nd.

With Corinne out of the house for a week, I can't sleep at home. (Shannon's 21, her husband won't be home for another nine months, and I don't want anybody getting the wrong idea.) Since I can't stay at home, I suggested they take Lauren with them also. Shannon and I both need to work, but one of us would have to take the week off to watch Lauren full time if she had stayed at home.

Thus, my first tweet of the day, yesterday, "Woke up alone in a strange house in a small bed, far from home." (The bed was in Ellyn's & Gary's guest room.)

For most of the week they're gone I'll be working from home, but mornings from Thursday to Saturday are at Rich's house. He and his family are out of town, so I'm making friends with his gigantic, 30-inch Cinema Display and officially Getting Stuff Done™. In the afternoons I'm heading home again, going for a ride (weather is PERFECT this week), then working at home until late evening when I head back into Westerly for the night.

Yeah, I'm missing my girls. :-(

Corinne and Ellyn both report that Lauren was a nightmare on the plane down there. She screamed more often than she was quiet, and just wouldn't settle down. She slept great Tuesday night, but terribly Wednesday night and awoke everyone except Gramma. When Corinne and I last spoke, Lauren was screaming in the background.

I think my girls miss me, too. ;-)

Shannon's son Richie was supposed to be up here now for a three day visit, but that was canceled at the last minute. So Shannon is bored, but has Saturday off and is going bowling with her friend Jen.

Quick status update on Shannon: she is now working a second job at a Hallmark store, and can't seem to decide between starting a cleaning business (simply because her Mom says she could make good money doing it) and going to school for massage therapy (which is what she really wants to do). I'm strongly in favor of the massage therapy (because, as I said, it's what she really wants to do), but she also wants to get her son back. If she's working one or two jobs and going to school for massage therapy, there won't be much time left for her kids. I'm hoping she'll just keep on keeping on until Mike comes home in January.

I Hope She Understands

seth@macrobyte.net — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:33:15 GMT

Someday Lauren is going to be old enough to realize that not every little girl spends a big piece of her life in front of a camera. That not all of her little friends have their pictures posted on public web sites for family and friends — and strangers — to gawk at.

That not every little girl has a crazy, doting "Opa."

I hope this works out. I hope she grows up knowing that she's beautiful no matter how she looks. That even though not every picture is perfect, she's always beautiful.

I hope, in fact, that she can be the kind of girl who is confident enough in herself to be honest and comfortable with the camera, without posing. Like she does now. Not beautiful like a model, but beautiful like someone that everybody wants to love, someone who loves and gives freely.

She won't become that person just because my camera can't take its eye off her, obviously, but I hope it helps (thinking about the attitude of the people behind the camera). Confident, comfortable, happy, warm, and full of brightness. We're off to a good start, but there are big obstacles in her path...

Classy Query

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:33:01 GMT

Remember the episode of StarTrek: The Next Generation when Data was studying humor and went onto the holodeck to interact with famous comedians? At first the computer gave him the funniest comedian of all time, but he specialized in math-humor and that was too specific (too focused, or vertical) for what Data wanted. (So, of course, he ended up with someone from the late 20th century. How convenient. Beside the point, too.)

That's what this makes me think of. It's an April Fool's joke that only javascripters will understand. Except, of course, it's not all that funny. Cute, but not hilarious.

I read through the comments... some big names there who thought it was funny enough to comment. Of course, the author of the joke is also the author of jQuery itself, which makes him a pretty big deal. Most of the commentors were probably just sucking up. ;-) (Same would have happened if Sam Stephenson posted something similar.)

Other BBEdit Language Modules

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:29:49 GMT

Rich read the Why I Wrote a JavaScript Module for BBEdit story, but like everyone else at Bare Bones decided to respond to me directly instead of posting something on the site. (Jim Correia has been guilty of this so many times it's now an old joke.) Anyway, he suggests that list the other languages/modules I've added to BBEdit since the JavaScript module

They are, in no particular order:

Strings (for MacOS X developers)
Python
Markdown
SQL (five flavors)
Ruby
Java
TeX
Lua
YAML

My favorite is still the JavaScript module. My least favorite is definitely the Markdown module (see Markdown.pl's source code and look for the author's comment, "This is an aspect of Markdown's syntax that's hard to parse perfectly without resorting to mind-reading" and maybe you'll understand my issues with it.)

My second favorite is the Python module, because Guido van Rossum wrote the gold standard of language specifications. He doesn't just describe the language syntax with near perfect clarity, he also has implementor hints! It's like he was in the room with me when I wrote that module, telling me what I should do here or there. His work made my work better, and there have been very few bugs reported in the Python module since its release.

My second least favorite module is YAML, for the same (or opposite) reason. The specification is obtuse, repetitive, unclear and unrealistic. It's full of internal language which you can only comprehend by looking for definitions elsewhere in the document, and inevitably those definitions have more internal language. (I'm working on an update to the YAML module, and the authors of YAML actually admitted to these problems in several IRC chats we had in the last few weeks).

I have various other unfinished language modules sitting around on my computer, waiting for me to make time for them, but all of the above have been released with BBEdit 8.5, 8.6, or 8.7.

A New JS Mode for Emacs, and Why I Wrote a JS module for BBEdit

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:02:51 GMT

Stevey's Blog Rants: js2-mode: a new JavaScript mode for Emacs

For the OOD-loving and API-minded among you, the "beautiful" way to do syntax coloring would have been to finish parsing, then walk the AST using a Visitor interface, applying the coloring in a second pass. I tried it, and it was, as they say, "butt slow". In fact (perhaps not surprisingly) walking the AST takes exactly as long as parsing, so it was twice as slow as doing it inline.

So I bit the bullet and moved my syntax-coloring to happen inline with parsing. Fortunately it only introduced about 30 lines of code to the 4000-line parser/scanner, because most of the coloring happens in the scanner, at the token level. Go figure.

Steve Yegge describes (at length) his new JavaScript mode for Emacs. For much of the article he's talking about (trying to) parse the JavaScript file at the same time that he's applying syntax coloring. It's absolutely NOT a simple task, not by a long shot. He had the benefit of direct access to Brendan Eich (the author and maintainer of JavaScript itself) at least twice so far, but still describes how difficult it was. And this is someone many people consider a superstar programmer who has been working at Google for years.

Well, next to Conversant, my favorite-ever project is/was the JavaScript module in BBEdit. I won't go into all the technical details like Steve does, but I will say, "I feel his pain."

Thinking about this, I realized that I never wrote the story of how I came to be contracted with Bare Bones. With all the explosives experts, martial artists, photographers, and "connected" individuals at BB I need to be careful not to cross the lines of my NDA, but I think I can tell this story safely. ;-)

How It All Started

In early Spring of 2006 — almost exactly two years ago — I was doing a lot of work with JavaScript. Prototype was my new favorite toy, but 1.0 hadn't yet been released. My editor of choice was BBEdit, but I was frustrated that it didn't list the functions in Prototype.js (follow that link for more details, including pictures). I wrote to Bare Bones tech support to ask if they knew of any third-party, BBEdit, language modules for JavaScript.

The answer was "no," but I was told that a couple other people had asked about improvements to their JavaScript support. I wrote back to say that I'd like to take a crack at it, if I could only see "the source to the current syntax module." Hah. Yeah, like that was ever going to happen. "Could you send me some of the source to your app, so I can write something better?" (That's NOT what I said, but that's probably what it sounded like.)

After lots of email back and forth, on May 10th we had only reached the point where Bare Bones was "planning to update it in a future release." I'm a developer, I know what that means. So I wrote again, and said I was going to start my own language module (based on BBEdit's public SDK for language modules), and could they just send me their current list of language keywords?

A month later, Rich himself finally sent them to me. That was June 12th. I wrote back with a better list of keywords, and told him I was going to start working on my own module unless they told me I shouldn't bother because they already had one under development. They didn't, but Rich seemed to be trying to call my bluff: you go ahead and start working on it, and if you come up with something good maybe we'll work something out. (I've been on both sides of this discussion, and I know that usually nothing happens.)

Three days later, I sent them a copy of a fully functional JavaScript language module, written in C++. (Looking back, I'm all impressed with myself!) When I'm telling this story in person, especially if Rich is nearby, I like to say that they tried to call my bluff but found I wasn't bluffing. I still think there was a little of that, but mostly I think they just dealt with this nagging, mostly-unknown customer the best way they could: "go ahead and do your thing, and yes, maybe we'll work something out."

A few days after that I sent them another one, with some more features and some bugs fixed.

A few days later, I went to RailsConf in Chicago, and found out that lots of Rails developers were using TextMate. I'd barely heard of it! (Probably because I don't go looking for new toys very often when I have work to do.)

While at the conference, I talked to other JavaScript devs about their editors, and showed them what I'd done for BBEdit. I even showed Sam Stephenson, Prototype's author, at the same time that I was showing him what I'd done for custom events in javascript. Everybody liked it, and it was definitely better than anything else out there. I also asked people why they were using whatever editor they were using. Most of the Rails folks who were using TextMate were using it because that's what the top Rails guys recommended, and because it had really good integration with Rails itself.

I wrote up all this "research" and sent it to Bare Bones when I returned home.

Writing the language module, peppering them with lots of email, and sending in the research I did at RailsConf were enough to really get their attention. In early July (can't remember... July 3rd or 5th), Rich came down here and we had lunch at Costello's Clam Shack, right on the water. I got an early look at BBEdit 8.5, we talked about my 1,001 feature requests, and I signed an NDA with a handshake (and later with pen and ink).

Perhaps as import as the business that was done that day, Rich and I became friends (and have had a casual breakfast almost every Tuesday morning since then).

Ride #11: This Year It's All About the Pain

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:10:39 GMT

“I want to be thin again.” That thought kept running through my mind as I climbed Wintechog Hill, and every other hill this month.

A couple of years ago was pretty good: I got down to 237. For a guy my height, that's pretty good. Certainly not overweight. But for at least one season, I'd like to be really light. Since I've had my laziest winter since buying the Seven, I have some extra weight to lose (I'm three or four pounds heavier than last year).

Last year I rode 118 times, for a total of 4452.41 miles. (Oh, last year's stats have been updated, and this year's stats are up to date. Finally!) In 2006 I rode 123 times, for a total of 5039.63 miles. In 2005 I rode 123 times, for a total of 5091.29 miles. (Yes, that's weird... those years were practically identical!)

Last year I slacked off early, lost weight slowly, gained it back quickly, rode fewer times and for less miles.

So this year it's going to be different. Something I've kicked around for years but never done (too lazy) is making *all* of my rides into hill rides. Remember that tough, Tuesday-night half century I've been talking about forever (with "insanity hill")? I'm building up to making that my daily route. Basically, I'm going to pretend that I live in a really hilly area, so my main route is going to be the toughest route around.

Already I'm going up Pumpkin Hill and Wintechog Hill on every ride. At the end of Wintechog I turn right onto Route 2 (which is under construction and makes me slightly nervous), and ride past Cossaduck Hill Road on my left. Next month I'm going to change the route, taking out Wintechog and adding in Cossaduck, Gilliver (if its passable) and the two hills of Wyassup. By June I should be doing all of them.

It's going to hurt, but I'm serious about really getting into shape this year. By the PMC (first weekend of August) I want to be in better shape than ever. Lighter, faster, stronger: choose three!

(Note that the "pain" reference is a joke. I love cycling more than ever. Hills do hurt, but that's never going to be "what it's all about.")

Stats: 36.1 miles (58.12 km) in 2h 3' 56" for an average speed of 17.47 mph (28.13 kph).

Stats to date: Rides: 11, Ttl Miles: 275.18, Ttl Time: 15h 56' 4", Avg Miles: 25.01, Avg Minutes: 1h 26' 54", Avg Speed: 17.26 mph