Statrix Redux

Another morning ride for coffee, once around Kapiolani Park. The weather is just great and I feel wonderful. It’s even getting easier to do, as, of course, one would hope.
I took more or less the same route that I took yesterday, though I’d planned on altering it a wee bit. It worked out fine though. The only problem I’m encountering is that it is much easier and safer to bike on the road than on the bike paths. The peds, the peds, the peds. 🙂

Aloha!

I added another six miles with a proper commute this afternoon. I had to go downtown (read my post on the RRed Elephant) and back for a meeting today and I chose to ride. Boy I’m glad I did. Here’s the route…

It was a lovely ride, especially the wee bit through the Frank F. Fasi CIvic Center in the Capitol District. I’ve gone past it day after day for the last few years, but it’d been a long time since I’d been through it. Very pleasant.
In any case today rode a total of almost 17 miles which isn’t, of course, all that much – but it is a lot more than I’ve ridden in years. Not only that, but because I did it nice and slow – as a commute instead of exercise, I feel great, not exhausted.
How on earth did I forget about riding?
Aloha!

Did I mention I bought the iPhone 3g yesterday…no, I don’t think I did.

It was a comedy of errors, mostly mine.
Originally I had planned to wait to pick one up. But I had some time yesterday. I’d gone for a haircut and afterwards decided to go to the Kahala Apple Store to check on the line for phones. Surprisingly it wasn’t bad at all so I decided I’d give it try. The folks working kept telling us they had phones. I got very close to the front of the line and then was told that they only had a few 16 GB’s left. Then no black 16 GB’s. Sigh.
They did say that the Ala Moana Apple Store had lots and if we hurried we could get one. I didn’t want to stand in their line, but now I was on a mission.
As it turned out Ala Moana had plenty of phones. In fact it appears that they closed for the evening with plenty of phones as I noticed they were “in the green” on the availability link later that night.
It took about 2.5 hours and I got to meet some nice folks in line so it wasn’t unpleasant. Apple provided plenty of water as it’s not an air conditioned mall and it was a hot day. When it got to be my turn they had my black 16 GB and I was good to go…well almost.
As it turns out if you have an employee discount plan on your AT&T account you need to “turn it off” to be able to activate the new phone. I had to call AT&T and ask them to remove it. I was very lucky in that I got an operator immediately (good going!) and within 15 seconds of hanging up my phone was activated.
Then came paying for it. Here I had another problem. I used my American Express card and it wouldn’t approve the transaction. I had, just that day, activated my new card (sent to replace the old one expiring 7/08). I had no trouble activating it so I assumed everything was hunky-dory.
It didn’t take.
I asked the clerk to try again and it didn’t take. I was thinking that all that waiting was going to be for naught, but I wasn’t quite willing to give up. I pulled out my old phone (the new one was still in the box and wasn’t technically mine yet) to call Amex and discovered I couldn’t. Naturally, it had been deactivated to make way for the new.
Oh no!
The clerk said, “Let me try it one more time.” He did. The transaction was authorized and away I went.
The phone itself isn’t that different. The form is a bit slimmer but overall not much different. The software is the 2.0 version released at the same time, but I’d already upgraded my old iPhone, so it wasn’t technically different from what I’d had all day.
The big differences are the 3G which is faster. While in line I tried a sample phone and my own, older, phone. The 3G clearly won in acccessing the same sites. In addition the GPS seems to work which is nice, but I can’t say I would have gotten phone just for that feature. And finally there is the push features of my MobileMe (old .mac) account. I turned them off. I haven’t figured out how to make it all work together yet and, it seems to me, that it eats up the battery. I’d rather have lots of battery time and not be instantly in sync. Don’t get me wrong, I can still sync the old way (which works just fine) and I do plan on figuring it all out, but for now I’m not going to use it.
In addition the new MobileMe upgrade software which my laptop wanted to install today seems to have made it impossible to sync the laptop. MobileMe will not accept my username and password in my System Preferences MobileMe window, though it does in the web version.
I’m going to have to contact customer support if it keeps up, but it may be a temporary glitch so I’m not going to sweat it.
Overall I’m happy to have the new iPhone 3G, but I can’t say it’s a necessary upgrade from the old unless you, like me, really love shiny new toys. 🙂
Aloha!

It seems that one of my favorite spots is going to close its doors as soon as they run out of product to sell. I was sitting there just now enjoying an iced tea when the notice was posted on the door.


The rRed Elephant will be no more soon and it’s a damn shame. It was a great venue for local (and non-local) live music, interesting events, and good cafe to boot. It will be missed. I’m afraid to say that even if I’d doubled my purchases here it would have made a difference, but I suspect it wouldn’t have. I was here at least 2 or 3 times a week for coffee and often for a sandwich, but it’s not in my neighborhood so it couldn’t be a real hangout.
I do hope someone can make a go of something like this down here in the future, but that remains to be seen.
It’s a sad day.
Aloha!

No George at all today, but park we have.

Today has been a lovely day so far. I woke up early, not as early as a work day, but early enough, and took my bike out for a cup of coffee. This time instead of stopping short of Kapiolani Park I made a circuit of the park first, then came back for coffee. Here’s the ride…

It was just a perfect morning for a ride, not hot (yet), blue skies, light breeze, didn’t forget cash for the coffee. 🙂

The biggest problem I noticed is that it’s almost impossible to ride on the bike paths, they seem to be completely filled with joggers and dog walkers. Worse they are all using headsets so they don’t hear my bell, or even my voice. In truth the road is a much nicer place to ride anyway – it’s smoother and the drivers more polite than the peds – at least they worry about their insurance. 🙂

To be honest, that’s pretty much how I remember it from my prior days of riding.

As for the park, it’s a lovely place and pretty well used. There’s almost always something going on there and it’s got quite a history. Follow this link to the Kapiolani Park Preservation Society!

And the best part of it all – I road nice and slow. 🙂 Yes, slow. Granted it was faster than walking, even jogging, but I wasn’t exhausted when I was finished, not even close. I think at the pace I was riding I could easily go 25 miles – though I’m not going to try it today.

Again, the point of this is not really exercise. Yes, that’s a benefit, but it’s not my main motivation. I just wanted to move a bit more and get some fresh air, it’s not about becoming a fast rider. Indeed one of those folks cut me off today…

I had the right of way to cross a street when a fellow in spandex came tearing by and ran the red light so that he could keep going. I had to stop and then wait as the light started to change. He waved and I thought I heard sorry so at least he’s aware of it. I wasn’t in a hurry so I just chalked it up to experience. Certainly I wasn’t going to let it ruin my day!

Aloha!

No George at all today, but park we have.
Today has been a lovely day so far. I woke up early, not as early as a work day, but early enough, and took my bike out for a cup of coffee. This time instead of stopping short of Kapiolani Park I made a circuit of the park first, then came back for coffee. Here’s the ride…

It was just a perfect morning for a ride, not hot (yet), blue skies, light breeze, didn’t forget cash for the coffee. 🙂
The biggest problem I noticed is that it’s almost impossible to ride on the bike paths, they seem to be completely filled with joggers and dog walkers. Worse they are all using headsets so they don’t hear my bell, or even my voice. In truth the road is a much nicer place to ride anyway – it’s smoother and the drivers more polite than the peds – at least they worry about their insurance. 🙂
To be honest, that’s pretty much how I remember it from my prior days of riding.
As for the park, it’s a lovely place and pretty well used. There’s almost always something going on there and it’s got quite a history. Follow this link to the Kapiolani Park Preservation Society!

I did get to ride to work this morning, though for a few minutes it looked like it was going to be the bus instead. The rain was coming down pretty hard when I woke up, making it difficult to even get out of bed – I love the sound of rain – puts me right to sleep.

As you can see, there’s a band of rain going right through Honolulu. It didn’t last long though and in a few minutes it had passed leaving that lovely post-rain freshness and wet streets.

I had no trouble riding to work.

I’ve ridden my moped in the rain so often that it no longer really bothers me to get wet – on the way home from work. I’m not at all fond of riding anything (or walking) to work in the rain. Sitting around the office damp all morning has never been a particular favorite of mine.

Aloha!

I guess going to the eye doctor and back would count as my first errand on my bike. It was very pleasant and I have to admit that in the still relatively cool morning, I was tempted to keep going rather than returning to work.
I have no obligations after work however, and may take a bit more of a cruise or at least take the long way home.
That’s it for now!
Aloha!

It’s time again for my annual visual field test for glaucoma. My doctor tends, he says, towards the conservative, so even though he doesn’t really think I have glaucoma, he is cautious. It’s okay with me.
The test is painless, if boring. Basically you sit at a machine and identify lights being projected on the inside a bowl which makes up your visual field. It’s kind of like what Space Invaders might be like if designed by the IRS.

The only bike news I can put here is that I rode to work this morning which means I’ll have to ride to the clinic in a couple of hours for the test and then ride back to work. I’m pleased that I’m trusting in all of this enough at this point to ride my bike instead of my moped. I figure it’ll be a much nicer day if I have a little movement tossed in the middle of it. 🙂
It’s another very short ride – but that still counts as more riding than I’d do if I didn’t have a bike or use it!

Aloha!

I got back on the bike today and rode to work. It took longer to lock my bike than to ride to work, but there you go.
It was a lovely morning, the bike was working fine, my new pannier, the Nashbar Euro worked great…

I had my laptop, in a padded sleeve of course, my locks, some work materials, and a variety of other junk, all in just one pannier. One of the nice things about this one is that, by design, it stays out of the way from my big foot.
It’s a good day!
….work…work…work…
And now it’s almost time to go home. I can’t take much of a ride today as I’ve got to get my laundry done. That means instead of taking a leisurely ride all over and home it’ll just be a leisurely ride home. Good enough for me. 🙂
Petty rant of the day…
One annoying thing I’ve discovered is those folks who leave their locks on the bike rack in the most convenient spots – reserving them as it were. I’m a big guy, I have a big bike, it’s hard to lock up in some places on the racks and those are “pre-locked.” There’s no bike there, just a lock blocking it.
If I came to work later in the day I’d have to take what I can get and that would be okay. But I’m there first in the morning and our company policy does not allow for “reserving” parking spots of any kind (save for senior execs who, to the best of my knowledge, aren’t biking to work – I’d applaud if they did).
Anyway, that’s my rant for the day. I’ll be honest here, it’s pretty minor. The solution would be to leave the locks here if they like, but leave them locked to something other than the rack.
It’s just selfish to do what they do and is preventing me from being selfish!!! [Yep, I’m aware of it and it ain’t pretty.]
Aloha!