It’s been rainy weather here the last few weeks – a hard burden to bear for spoiled Belgo-Californians – but the fresh moisture is very welcome in our state, which has been slowly drying out the last couple of years. The Sierra snowpack is now growing steadily and the mountains currently feature beautiful blankets of powdery goodness – we should overcome the kinetic threshold of having to drive four hours in sketchy conditions while dealing with fellow motorists of inconsistent competency and get out there when we see the chance, really.
Meanwhile, a question can be raised on the precise nature of our activities these last few dreary sundays… which rainy day diversions did we enjoy?
Time to discover some new things; no shortage on doom-and-gloom writings, but I’d rather get my economic disaster stories straight from the Ayatollah himself (who has always been rather visionary in these matters, credit is due). No, more uplifting are these adventure tales and photos from Jill in Alaska, who participate(d) in the fantastic Iditarod race – a mountain bike race in the arctic for the truly hardest of hard-core riders/adventurers. If I would have the loads of gear and know-how required for this and be more comfortable with camping out in sub-zero fahrenheit temperatures and blizzard conditions, I may be tempted myself by this some time.
A truly great photojournalism site everybody and their dog probably already knew about ages ago but which I just recently discovered is The Big Picture. Check out for instance this absurd but beautifully documented island story which would have made the late Boudewijn Buch drool to no end.
Jahsonic is another recent (and Belgian) discovery and a true original on the web. He built up a rather impressive wiki of stuff which hasn’t exactly been the focus of my general interest but which started to draw my attention because of his passionate coverage of it. Where else for instance can you learn about the mesmerizingly fascinating concept of cryptomnesia?
- sign up on unnecessary new social utilities
Facebook, Twitter, etc under the tagline: it doesn’t hurt to put placeholders here and there and see what the cool kids are up to. I haven’t really had the patience to do much with it, but then who knows, if it keeps raining…
- work on bikes (with and without combustion engine)
This is my form of meditation and, when executed properly, has the ability to induce a zen-like calm in me. When not executed properly, it can leave me cursing, hitting the walls or spreading grease all over the house though.
- play around with photo gear
Cfr my personal stimulus package for the economy – haven’t had much to show for it yet, but we’re learning and working on it.
- write a Ruby script that properly calculates elevation data from GPX files
Featuring a simple discrete low pass filter.
- remodel the house
- write my memoir
Well, not exactly, but you get the gist: it’s time the sun gets out again – which seems to be scheduled for the coming weekend!
