Back, Bad, and Sad!!!

Welcome Shami fans...

So its been a while, a long while, a real long while, but there has been a reason.

Allow me to enplane, no that will take to long, allow me to sum up:

1) New job
2) Promotion at new job
3) I'm now "In charge" of people
4) New job happens at three offices
5) I need to drive back and forth from each
6) No riding for the time being
7) The seventh reason....

So while the seventh reason is being address, I will not be ridding until spring, maybe. I need to figure out a route that allows for simple park and ride as well as extending my route after I get back in the saddle. SOOOOOO Hopefully this fall/winter there will be more riding to work boy, but for a little while at least I am bound to the car.

So back to the posts.

New Tech...

Three new tech items have come into my life, They are:

Verizon BlackBerry Tour 9600...

Or as I like to refer to her, "My Precious"

Oh how I love thee, let me count the ways:
1) All four email accounts in one place
2) SMS and MMS via the same interface
4) One calendar to rule them all
5) Password Keeper!
6) Mobile Facebook
7) Its not touch screen

Very much love this device, keeps me happy in touch with those I need to stay in touch with, while at the same time keeping me organized.

The Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 6000...

So wrap your head around this, its a full sized keyboard with separate 10 key num pad that connects to your laptop via bluetooth. It thinner then my blackberry, about the thickness of a pencil and its slightly ergonomic.

Pros:
1) Love typing on it, large keys, nice home row indicator, good key replay, satisfying key click
2) Ergo is a nice touch
3) Supper thin, its only a bit thicker the the AAA's that run it (two each)
4) Easy to link
5) Nice power, sync and battery lock switches
6) Good over all feel
7) Fits into my laptop bag with ease
8) Num pad works independently from keyboard, so you can take your 10 pad with you when traveling if you are so inclined, and I am always so inclined.

Con:
1) Hard on batteries if you forget to turn the keyboard off at the end of the day, the num pad gets around this with a auto sleep function that after a certain time of non-use will put it to sleep. It wakes up very nicely in about 5 seconds after typing a number.
2) Good thing that its easy to sync up, until bluetooth get a bit more bullet prof, you will be doing it about once day for the keyboard.

With all of that said, I like it a lot, work well, nice to use and easy on the wrist, truly portable.

Microsoft Arc Mouse...

Ok, i have made it clear in the past that I have no love for the big blue MS, or really any software they have developed short of a few very, very select game titles. But, I cant beat their peripherals with a stick, well I'm sure you could but then they would not work would they? Now I'm sure that one of the reasons I like them so much is that the non-OS developers make sure their stuff at least works with the swill the OS developers put out. This brings us to the ARC mouse.

Pros:
1) Sexy design
2) Receiver is attached to the bottom of the mouse by a rare earth magnet when not in use
3) Closing the "Flipper" turns off the mouse
4) battery life 1 year +

Cons:
1) Its just a touch small
2) Side button is to far forward
3) Receiver sticks out just a BIT to far. Logitech still has the winner when it comes to this.

Again, I would buy it again, I have gotten used to it and it sit beside my track ball all the time for wrist relief and any time I need accurate point and click that the trackball cant provide.

Oregon Scientific's Solar Weather Station...

While growing up, if I wanted to know what the weather was, I stuck my arm out the window, now there are lots of things that can do it for you, but until now they all sucked up power. Well not any more, for about one hundred bucks you can have a weather, humidity, inside, outside temp, clock, and more display that runs all on solar power.

Read More>>>Click Here<<<




Pet of the day...

I'm somewhat sure I know what happened here, and since this is turning into a day of lists:
1) Own the following
Pool, Cat, Beer
2) Combine

While I am not 100% sure, but I would be willing to bet a donuts, and I love, LOVE donuts, that this cat is going to FU%$ someone up, when its gets out of the pool.


Why Helmets done suck...

"Ring Announcer" - "And in this corner weighing in a 155lbs, BMX boy, and not entering the ring, our raining champing of gravity, the big blue her self, weighing in at over 6 septiliion kilograms, the EARTH!!!!!!!!."

"Intergalactic Crowd" - Goes wild!!!!!

"Intergalactic Fight Announcer Neal" (aka -The iFAN) - "Well Bob this is going to be one hell of a match up today."

"Intergalactic Color Man Bob" - "Yea Neal, BMX boy has a real fighting chance of being the one to finally take down the Earth, I mean with a mass to speed ration just under that of a flea's butt hair compaired to the Earth, this should feel just like a fly hitting a dodge dart on the free way. All that will be left to take care of in the end is the mess."

"Intergalactic Fight Announcer Neal" - "Ok Bob, well here we go, BMX boy is ready, and hes off, down the ramp he is going, Wow Bob, It looks like he is really trying hard today. He building up quite the head of steam coming down that hill for his first jump. On this first one he will be attempting to comlete four rotations in the air, before Earth can do something about it. What do you think is going through his head right now Bob."

"Intergalactic Color Man Bob" - "Well Neal, I don't know whats going through his head right now, but I know what will be going throw his head in a few moments."

"Intergalactic Fight Announcer Neal" - "There he goes Bob, hes off the ramp, 1, 2, 3 rotations, going for number 4.... He... Could... Go... All... The...."

"Intergalactic Color Man Bob" - "NOPE! Earths got him, she has latched on to him tighter then a hungry new born to Dolly Parton, and the best part, she is grabbing him by his face by one of her biggest and baddest laws.. Gravity!"

"Intergalactic Crowd" - Goes, ohhhhhhhhhhh

In the fight ring there is a tumultuous CRASH..........

"Intergalactic Fight Announcer Neal" - "Oh man, Bob, I wonder if BMX boy is going to be OK, that was a nasty fall, Earth grabbed him right out the air, pulled him down at 9.8 meters per second squared and landed him right on his FACE!"

"Intergalactic Color Man Bob" - "Well Neal, i guess that's why there are so many power wheal chair manufactures out there, Hehe, I would not worrier to much about BMX boy, and hey look on the bright side, at least he did not get a dent in that nice helmet that he thought would make him look like a dork, wonder how hes going to feel in the Hover Round Chair"


Sgt. Pezzers Epic FAIL!!!

I don't know how or even why, but I am willing to bet that somewhere on that truck there is written the max weight it can carry. This guy did not read that sign, I like that he is sitting there on a brick, nice touch.

Hey I'm a squid...

Estelle Getty in the movie Mannequin.

"I don't care if Johnathan runs around the store at night naked with a rubber glove on his head yelling HEY I'M A SQUID"

Well that is at least how I felt this morning, a bit of rain, a lot of slop coming off the road. Oh well its better then driving.

Friday...
Well we had an extremely busy weekend. Due to hours cut backs at work I got Friday off........ There are times I really hate being a contractor. So to celebrate my new found Friday freedom I went shooting with my good buddy, Jason L. or as you all know him. Sgt Pezzer. I have happy to report I out shoot a ex-marine again. (for now) I am sure that at some pint this will pass, right around the time He can hit the slow rabbit.

Saturday...
Melissa (Wife) and I went back down to the Warrington Sporting Clays again, she got an assignment to shoot (camera) a wedding party that was shooting a 50 round on the course before the groom had to run off to get married. We should have pictures up soon on here and at

http://www.melissamcclainphotography.com/

If you would like to see the pictures please message me and I will send you the gallery password.

We then stopped in a Java Junction for lunch, the Turkey and chipolitie panini was excellent. This will be the second time I got something from there that was good. If you are ever in the Wellsville PA area and would like to shoot a nice round of sporting clays or a good lunch I would highly recommend both.

Warrington Sporting Clays.
http://www.warringtonsportingclays.com/

Java Junction, Warrington PA.
http://javajunction.us/

After the photo shoot, and me getting to shoot 25 on the wobbler and 25 on the 5 stand, we went down to Melissa grandparents and had a snack with them. Melissa's grandfather was nice enough to jump some pigeons from the barn, and I am happy to report that all my wing shooting practice is paying off. :)

From the Grandparents house we headed over to Hershey to take some recon photos of founders hall, We are photographing a wedding over there in a few weeks and wanted to get a idea of the campus and where some good shoots could come from.

Sunday...
Sunday was busy as well, got to sleep in and suggle a bit with the wife, always a good time. We went up to my moms house and meet up with her for lunch, and then home for lots of cleaning and photo editing.

Ended Sunday with a very nice fish dinner with my wife.

Monday...
I need a day off from the weekend.

Cold wet ride into work, and trying to make some things right.

We are meeting with our Realtor this evening to look at some houses. Very excited about a few of these, lets hope for some luck.

Tires...
I'm having a hell of a time finding tires that don't die. It seems that no matter what smooth tread MT bike tire I get after about 5-6 weeks of riding the side walls start cutting. I have checked my rims and there is no sharp edges that could be causing it. I'm starting to get discouraged.






Green Tech...
EVO Beta is a wonderful site if you want to learn about green alternatives to everyday items. They are currently running a nice piece on solar pannels. If you would like to read up a bit and find out if its a option for your home. Please check out this site.
http://www.evo.com/content/2827/solar_basics_-_how_much_does_a_home_solar_system_cost

Pet of the Day...

Its a double trouble pet day here at the Shami.

Today's pet #1 of the day comes to us from the Myers family. Jestine Myers is an extremely close friend of mine from High School. Seems that her and her family went yard saleing this weekend and came home with a new puppy.



Our second pet is the new member of the Lopez family (Sgt. Pezzer).

Ahh, new puppys, what is it with spring and getting a dog?


Why Helmets Don't Suck...

I know, we have run it before, but its one of my favorites.







Sgt. Pezzers Epic Fail...

Dump Truck Rule #1 - Put the DUMP part of your truck down when done with it.

This clip is safe for work.

A hole new sore...

Wonderful web...

So the web has given us some data over the past 20 years. But one web page has come to my attention as being almost indispensable to the commuting cyclist. If your like me and tend to find out what the ride home is going to be like by sticking your head out your office window, this site may help your and your co-workers comfort levels. Just plug in your zip code.

www.weatherbike.com

New Ride...

Wow, that was harder then I thought it was going to be.

Over the past two weeks I have been riding fairly short rides 8 to 10 miles round trip per day. I was feeling good, really good, fast, agile all things not fat.

This has been my ride for the past two weeks.

This ride is safe, easy and best of all, I can sleep in a bit and still make it to work just fine.

This is the new ride.Still very safe, not easy, and about twice the time on the way into to work.

The Green path is what I drive to my parking area (Giant Parking lot). So the questions may be, why do I drive, and not ride that short distance. Well, I hate a hill between my house and the parking area. I really hate it on the way into work, but it sucks HUDGE on the way home.

So today was the first time this spring I made the longer ride. My back side is sore, and my legs felts like they were going to fall off by the time I got to the car. But as they say, pain is weakness leaving the body. I must be very week, it was a lot of fun to be able to be on the bike for a much longer time, I'm sure there will be time in the upcoming weeks when I will want to slash my tires, but this is for the betterment of me and I'm excited about it.

Numbers of the Day:

According to my Cycle Computer.
Time: 40:25
Avg: 11.4
Max: 37.7
Trp: 7.7

According to my GPS.
Moving time: 40.30
Stopped: 2.22
Over all Avg: 10.6
Odo 7.59 miles


Geeky item of the Day...

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the ThinkGeek Annoy-a-tron.

This comes to us from one of my favorite sites, ThinkGeek.com where you can get such wonderful thinks like the One up mushroom t-shirt and the R2 fish training school kit. Today I would like to talk about the Annoy-a-Tron. This wonderful little device has crumbled the mind of two of my coworkers, go to the above link and read the letter ThinkGeek received.

So what does it do, it emits a random tone, at a random interval... All day...... They also have a new version that emits a buzzing sound. You know something like a cell phone on silent.

Pet of the Day...


I try to stay away from all the pet pictures with intentionally incorrect English, but this was funny.








Why Helmets don't suck...


I have three words, CRAP!!!! all of them.






Sgt. Pezzer's Epic Fail...

I would like to point out a where these two "men" went wrong.

A) WTF are they wearing?
B) SNOW! No pants, SNOW!
C) Crazy Person 1 (CP1) is standing on ICE, Crazy Person 2 (CP2) is diving into what they believe is water. CP2 really should have looked at CP1 prior to attempting to dive into a sheet of ICE.
D) What is CP2 wearing under their "toto" is it?
E) I'm not sure how much alcohol it took to get these "men" out here but for CP2 is about to not be enough.

There is a part of me that would really like to see how this turned out.

Till the cows come home...

Ride to work...

OUCH!!!

Ok, it was fun, but wow did the wind on river front suck today. I was peddling for all I was worth and could get up to a whopping 8mph.

Squirrel racing...

Squirrel can run at about 13.5 mph for some time. On the ride home Friday after work I was racing a Squirrel. Now I'm not really sure why the little guy ran by 5 trees before going up one. My only guess is that the one he/she went up was home. But for the 50 or so yards of river front park that we were side by side on he was going at about 13.5mph. I'm not so sure I would call it run or I would call it flying, they don't touch the ground very much when the run.

Pet of the Day...





I would have loved to seen how this played out.




Why Helmets don't Suck...





Remember boys and girls, always, always verify the depth of a water crossing PRIOR to making your entry.




Sgt. Pezzers Epic Fail...




HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!!!!! I'm not sure how the hell they pulled this off, but I'm sure it was really, really hard to do.

Discounts, Discounts, get your discounts...

Step 5...

My frame is in, I so excited, I' m going to pick it up while my boss is at PT this afternoon.

Road ID discounts...

For any of you that are thinking about getting your self a roadid, friends of Broken Shami get a discount.

If you go onto ROADID.com and place an order, use code: ThanksJason467543 to receive a discount.

Also to be safe...

Two other things that have come across my desk in ways of keeping your self safe.

1) Place a note inside your helmet with Name, Number, Address, and contact information.
2) Place an entry in your Cell phone of ICE (In Case of Emergency) and put in all your important phone numbers. You can also list all of the contact people names in the email fields.

Air Rocket...

I'm not sure what what into this, but I know I want make one.

Never mind, I found how to make it. I know what I'm doing this weekend.

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/03/compressed_air_rocket.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890



Supper Bike...

From Gixmod/GixMag

I give to you the BERU's Factor 001, with built in GPS, motorsport grade sensors and a radio transmitter. 7kg, designed entirely in house by F1 engineers using F1 grade materials.

Ceramic breaks, all cables and components are integrated into the composite carbon-fiber frame.

Price: 20,000 GBP.

Bright light, light bright...

Philips US release in July for their LED light buld.

45,000 hours, 40w for $50 - $70 hours.

CFL - 10,000 hours
Standard Buld - 750 hours

Not sure this is going to hit main stream this close to a user acceptance of CFL.

I kill you...

Peewee RC spitfire can only destroy panzers driven by Nanonazis (thanks you gizmodo)

1/72nd scale for $150

I like, I sort of want. Link

Pet of the Day...







Why Helmets Don't Suck...

Wonder if Red Bull gave him wings?

Stage 4...

The Next Step...

Well my frame is not back yet, but when it gets here it has to spend a few days at the shop for a few coats of frame saver.

I will admit that I am really, really, missing my bike, I want to ride.

While we have a little down time...

We are taking some time to make me a bit safer.

www.roadid.com

This ankle strap will have all of my contact information, who I am, who to call if something happens to me and most of all, on the bottom of the strap.

NEVER GIVE UP!!!!!!

Grain, any fool can make bread...

But the devout can craft BEER!!!


Your car smells...

It smells like a moco save-ay... wow the jokes around here, read on soon it will make sence to you too.

Experts say that 5-7kg of used coffee grounds can produce one liter of biofuel at a production cost of about $1 dollar a gallon. If Starbucks figures out that they can make the world smell like their coffee two they are going to be biger then Costco.

What kid would not want to try this...

Hell what adult for that matter.

One letter at a time...

Wow, you know things are bad when you can't even keep you sign on any more. (would have been a nice hack)

Pet of the Day...

I try to stay away from all pictures of pets with captions. Especially all captions that are written in that cute "pet" language that always ends in SSSSSS. I have news for you, my cat does not understand English, if it did, it would not get on the table. While I do not think that poor sentance structure makes this picture cute, there is something about cat in a PC case that I just cant seem to pull my self away from.




Why Helmets don't suck...


Wall riding 101.

Pass!








Fail!

Tomarrow its suposed to get up to 4!!!!!

OK, that's a dramatization but it was damm cold out their today.

Funny story from my friend Joe H.

7.8 mph. Cold weather caused me to be slow this morning. Funny thing happened, I am pedaling along, and realize I'm just not going to be able to keep my glasses free of fog, and my face covered. Choosing the lesser of two evils, I ditched the goggles, and kept pedaling. This however had an interesting effect, the warmth from my exhalations was doing a fine job of keeping my eyes warm! Brilliant! Well, except for one thing, those same exhalations are filled with moisture, while this would normally not be a big deal, at 12 degrees it caused my eyelashes to start to freeze. But wait, it gets better! I didn't realize that this was going on till I decided to do something we all do several times a min, blink. Yes, you guess it, I blinked, and my eyelashes stuck together. Talk about an odd sensation! I was like Whoa! Why can't I open my eyes?

Needless to say, I figured it out and got them open. Just a funny little story to start your day!

And the geek in my likes my hot pocket buying power...

Glass Pool Table...

No jump shots please. Only one question on this one, 98 percent of all the cool stuff I learned in collage is on a pool table. And a very large % of it has to do with friction between the ball and the FELT! See any issue here,,,,,,, NO FELT!!!!!!!! Well at least my cat will be able to sit under it and go completely insane.

OK, I'm a dork...

The wife has told me, I have seen the signs, but I think this clinched it. I would so wear these. $22 for a set of Millennium Falcon Cuff links.








Sam I am...

I want this shirt, it's 20 dollars,
I want the boys to gimme hollers.
It's four bucks more for a woman's fit,
But Sam, I don't really give a shit—
Cause when I wear it I'll be geeky cute,
Oh, Sam, I sure hope the boys will hoot!
I do not want 3 Megs of Ram!
I do not want them, Sam I am!

Potty Training...


I'm speechless.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Laserpup...


I can see the dog now, you walk in the house and the dog comes running up to you.

I saved the house from invaders!!!! The little red dot did not get anything!!!! TELL me I'm a good dog, plessssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

http://www.makershed.com/...

A new web site has come to our attention, Makershed.com Full of DIY projects and the materials to do them your self.

Dogs vs cats...

There seems to be some debate as to why you can dress a dog up in a costume, while cats are less supportive in wearing Halloween items.

To help clear this up, I have enlisted two pets on the street to prove my point.

Clancy - "I know, this is adorable, now pet me behind the ear, and give me that hot dog your kid is eating"












Nigel - "I would recommend that you don't fall asleep tonight, case I will KILL YOU!"