P16: Practical Progress

My dog snoozing in my sweetie's lap

Aww! Snug!
Originally uploaded by mattkangas

This is my dog Buckley, snoozing in the crook of my fiance's arm during the long drive back from North Carolina on Dec 28. Hank (below) may be doggone cute, but Bux is my boy!

My sister's dog Hank, in the park

Hank sitting pretty - aww!
Originally uploaded by mattkangas

We took the dogs to the park this weekend, and for one fleeting moment, Hank actually posed for a picture. So cute! You'd never think he was a troublemaker from this photo.

Election day attire!

Election day attire!
Originally uploaded by mattkangas

I just had to wear this shirt today. Too bad I didn't have a "Colbert/Manilow" shirt instead. :-)

Catskills Twisties Crew :) - Oct 4 ride report

I haven't ridden my motorcycle much this year, but on Saturday I met up with some folks from the Brooklyn Motorcycle Meetup for a long group ride through the Catskills.

12 hours in the saddle! 320 miles on the odometer! We froze our butts off in the morning, but we were rewarded with amazing twisties, and amazing views of just-turning fall foliage. Plus there was a huge BMW rally happening at Hunter Mountain, which we visited briefly.

FYI for celebrity watchers -- I'd swear we saw Tabatha Coffey while we were having lunch at "Sweet Sue's" in Phoenicia, NY. But I'm probably mistaken. :)

Ack! Gibberish posts in my blog!

Dear readers: If you're reading one of my blog feeds, you may have seen some awfully off-topic posts lately. They're not my posts!

I just noticed this, and immediately went to complain to Typepad (my blog provider). Right on their "Open a Help Ticket" page they say:

On March 6, 2008 we experienced a brief problem with our feed service on TypePad. Some TypePad users were affected, where another blog's entries appeared to be coming from their feed. We've corrected the problem and feeds are now rendering correctly, but your readers may still see these incorrect entries in RSS reading applications (like Google Reader). We're very sorry for the confusion this issue may have caused you and your readers -- and we're working hard to make sure it doesn't happen again

Some of the off-topic posts I'm still seeing in my Atom feed:

• "By the Way: Two Actual Phone Conversations, from My Last Job"
• "I Sat on a Panel-Thing"
• "Kamp Krusty's New Advice Columnist: Barack Obama"
• "Mission Accomplished"
• "Paris Fashion Show Features Women's Fashions for Fal"

These are all posts on Letters from Kamp Krusty, by some fellow in South Florida.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Awesome short film! "Food Fight"

I can't stop watching this video, it's brilliant! Thank you John Battelle for pointing this out.

BoingBoing TV: History of war through food

This short film is the work of Stefan Nadelman. See his site for a character cheat-sheet, plus an unabridged version.

Outdoors: Good Hiking near NYC

We'll return to our regularly scheduled program shortly... next post will be tech-related, I promise. :-)

Sometimes you just need to step away from keyboard and leave the city behind. Get outside and feel the sun, wind, or rain on your cheek. It's so easy to get wrapped up in our regular routines and forget how refreshing a simple detour to the outdoors can be.

New York City is not a place that's known for having fabulous outdoor recreation areas. If you're a geek in the USA who enjoys hiking and camping, you probably dream of living in Seattle, or Northern California, or Austin, maybe Denver... but not NYC.

Well, I've got good news. The great outdoors is surprisingly accessible from NYC. One example is New Paltz, NY, a 1.5 hour drive from Manhattan. It's a cozy college town that lies just outside the Shawangunk Ridge, better known as The Gunks. If you're into rock-climbing, the cliffs at "The Trapps" are arguably the best climbing on the east coast.

This week, my cousin was bummed about his job situation and said "I need to get outside". He'd never been to New Paltz, so that made it a no-brainer. I looked for a moderately-challenging hiking route, and found a trail to Bonticou Crag.

Here's a view of the way up the crag (flickr). Those rocks were covered with ice on Thursday, which made the ascent fairly treacherous! But we made it, and it was an absolute blast. Afterwards we chowed down on burgers at The Gilded Otter before heading back to the city.

More info about hiking/climbing near New Paltz:

• Gunks.com
• Mohonk Preserve - Suggested Hikes
• Hudson Valley Network - Hiking in Mohonk

Happy MLK Day!

For my fellow Americans, and anybody else concerned about civil rights. This from a white boy living in a historically black neighborhood, and loving it. :-)

• Martin Luther King – The Nobel Peace Prize 1964
• Wikipedia – Martin Luther King Day

Awesome TV: "Bullshit" by Penn & Teller

Maybe I'm the last person on the planet to discover this. But, I just found out yesterday that the magicians Penn & Teller have a TV show on Showtime called "Bullshit!"

Links to free episodes of Penn & Teller: Bullshit!

"Penn & Teller:Bullshit! aims to debunk an array of metaphysical, supernatural, and popular misconceptions and to apply critical thinking and scientific skepticism to these issues."

Dang, it's been on since 2003? I don't have Showtime so I suppose that's why I missed it. But... still. I've watched two episodes so far, and I've been seriously missing out.

The beauty of this show is its premise. You've got Penn & Teller, a well-known magician duo on TV. What can they talk about? Magicians never give away their secrets, so they don't talk about magic. However, magicians are experts at fooling people.

So they talk about how people get fooled, fleeced, and otherwise scammed. And they show how the scams work. Awesome!