Goofus Maximus

Addition! From a viewing trip down the River Road. Elsah, IL (home of Principia College)

Due to the drought, the fall colors are going to blitz past in record speed. Here are a couple of pics (my new desktop wallpapers for fall!) of the fall colors here, on the Goshen Trail. and here's a early evening pic, from my previous sojourn along the Confluence trail, where I found the colors weren't quite there yet.

I can't help but think "Yes, they've put the data in a small space, but to read/write to it will require a gargantuan heavy power-hungry machine."

HOLY CRAWDADS!!!! I only just realized that that stupid vulture is IN THAT PICTURE! I thought it was just a piece of driftwood! BEHOLD! THE CULPRIT!!

My Powershot will do standard def vids, but I'd have to install a handlebar mount, and buy a larger SDHC card. I can't afford one of those superfancy GoPro Hero II cameras that seem so popular... Ugh. Stitching this composite photo together was a pain in the patootie, but I love the results too much to stop!

Whee! 18 miles! My personal best! I achieved many milestones on the ride this morning! I crossed the Mighty Mississippi by bicycle, I crossed State lines, I was pedalling no more than two feet away from the flowing water of the Mississippi at one point, and I got to observe a vulture up close and personal! Missouri welcomes me! A view back from whence I came. WHAT!?!? Lincoln was in a DUEL?!?!? with SWORDS!?!?!? Maybe he WAS a vampire slayer... The Mighty Mississippi from the observation tower of the Bird Sanctuary in West Alton, MO. Not two seconds after I took this photo, a honking huge VULTURE flew in and perched on the guard rail not THREE FEET to the left of me. I could make out the fine details of the skin on his/her bald head. I wish I'd taken a pic instead of saying "Hello!", which made him take off and leave in a huff.

Have to love how, instead of spent casings, the minigun dropped whole bullets!

Whee! I've almost crossed the Clark Bridge in Alton, and I've added another bike path to my "I can get to it from here" list. The MCT Watershed trail has it all over the Confluence trail. It's shady, and connects up to the Goshen trail, which connects to just about every trail in Madison County. It's only drawback is that, to get to it by bicycle, I have to haul... bike... up a honking huge hill (Kendall Hill) in my lowest slowest gear setting. Well, it's good excercise, anyhow. Edit: I missed two!

I've updated my folder to arrange the pics so that they show in the proper order without fiddling, and I've added pics from my trip today where I went south, toward Hartford, IL, to see the Confluence Tower, using my newly acquired Canon Powershot A590IS. I'm going to love that camera, which allows you to set the camera in just about any way you want, right down to focusing manually. It even has a total manual mode, so that you set it all yourself, just like a metered SLR.

This. They are always in such a hurry to be first... Well no one ever remembers the guy who did it 2nd I dunno... Thomas Edison is pretty popular. /burn Alexander Graham Bell too. These nested quotes are getting a bit out of hand! I would say, it's better to come in second, than to come in wrong. You will be remembered for that, for as long, or longer than for being first! So you mean like the Flat Earth people? I was thinking those Neutrino Scientists with the loose cable and the egg on their faces...

This. They are always in such a hurry to be first... Well no one ever remembers the guy who did it 2nd I dunno... Thomas Edison is pretty popular. /burn Alexander Graham Bell too. These nested quotes are getting a bit out of hand! I would say, it's better to come in second, than to come in wrong. You will be remembered for that, for as long, or longer than for being first!

Maybe they found it. The results are preliminary and incomplete, and the energy range is somewhat on the high side to properly validate the standard model. Remember the Neutrino flap, and wait for final results, or lack of final results...

Sorry! No can do! I don't have a slide scanner, and my flatbed, at it's max 600dpi, isn't going to do justice to your slides!

I bet a Texas desert sunrise would be great! The real ride spot is the Sam Vadalabene Great River Road trail that takes off through the bluffs along the river, and goes up through Elsah and Grafton IL. Especially during Fall, at the peak of color change. More annoyingly, my bike fell over while I was cleaning it today, and I had to readjust the derailleurs. Up and down the street in 100 degree temps, with stops to do barrel adjustments, low stop, high stop and b tension adjuster, then slightly rotate the front derailleur and adjust high stop, and do barrel adjustments on it. I literally finished up only an hour ago. Derailleur adjustment is a BLACK ART, I tell you!

It was easy for me to find the time; I just started doing all the local errand stuff that I used to do by car, with my bike. When I go to the store at 6:00 am, I practically have the place to myself, and since I'm not wasting gas, I can go every day or so for 2-4 bags, instead of letting the list grow. All that, and I'm bashing my cholesterol back into normal range! Including the grocery trip afterward, that trip to/on the Great Confluence trail took from 5:45am to 8:00am, and was only 15 miles round trip, with half that just getting TO the trail.

By the way, did the skydrive slideshow work properly for you? On my browser, some of the pics show up blank, and you have to *left-click -> view original* to see them. If you plan to bicycle more than just around the neighborhood, I'd advise against those "big box" store bikes like Walmart or Sears, since they use components that are a little too cheap. My rusting big box "road" bike is twice as heavy as the hybrid in the pics, and that's with the hybrid loaded down with my toolkit, spare innertubes, water, lock and cable! On a hill, you FEEL that weight in your heart and soul!

I've not been playing CS:S for a while, since I've been doing two other things. First, I've been trying to digitize old Polaroid photos in our family scrapbooks from the 1960s, since some of them are fading badly. I wasn't sure I could do anything with some of them, but it's going well so far. The other thing I've been doing is getting into bicycling again, my cholesterol had gone up earlier this year, and the price of gas went up with it! So I've been killing two birds with one stone, and doing all the local errands with my bike, that I bought new in 1992. However, I'm getting... less young... and those riser handlebars just had to go, and I needed panniers for big grocery hauls, so I've been practically living in front of the Amazon website, looking for just the right cheap good stuff with free shipping. So now I have trekking bars wrapped in cork tape for my bicycle, and a nice M-Wave Double Daytripper pannier set to put on my new better cheapo rear bike rack. I borrowed an old point-blindly-and-shoot-in-the-general-direction camera, and took some pictures. Having built up enough stamina, I've pedaled my way onto the Great Confluence Trail that runs along the Mississippi, and I have pictures! Here's the link to my skydrive folder. If it's in thumbnail view, switch it to detail view and select the "date modified" to put them in the correct order of viewing!

I'm having fun changing passwords right now. Gotta keep an eye on the credit card too... Actually, I'm surprised it took this long to happen. When I think "security", Valve is not the first name to come to mind!

I'm hardly ever here on these forums, but WELCOME anyway!

The forums are down for the count, and I have received strange e-mails touting some weird hacking site, who's headers point to valve. Anyone else been bothered with similar events the last few days or so?

As far as I can tell, the changes to the AWP haven't crippled any of the players who use it. ... and... ... I hate flashbangs...

Well, I just tried again today, and whatever the problem was (I suspect server wasn't updated) it seems fixed today. Mohawk was just on, practicing to get used to changes in sniper behavior, so I warn you, he's prepared!

After the new CS:S update FINALLY downloaded tonight, I can't get into the Retro server, and I think Mani might be the culprit. I can connect, and spectate just fine, but as soon as I join a team, it starts that stupid "connection problem. autodisconnect in XX seconds." message in the upper right corner. Console was less than helpful:

My wish for spray enablement is so strong, it actually dragged me to the forums! All my fun hard work on sprays goes unnoticed now. Edit: YAY! Sprays are back! Goofus does the Happy Dance!