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Over ten years ago I found a nice set of mountain bike trails near the boarder between Morrisville and Cary.  They have become known as just “Morrisville” and have quite a story to tell.  I’ve not been one of the trail builders out there so I don’t know all the details of the history but I will share here a little of my memories of riding out there. I’m very grateful to the trail builders for all the hours spent building and maintaining one of my staple early morning rides.

This morning may have been my last ride out there because retail development looks be moving forward again.  I think these trails have had nine lives as many times as they have been written off as closed only to come back and sometimes come back stronger with more trail to ride.  When I first started riding Morrisville, I could ride from Morrisville Parkway to the back of the Weatherstone neighborhood and only cross some streams and a set of railroad tracks.  No too far from the trail I found an old cemetery with grave stones of the “Morris” family, the town’s namesake.  Also nearby there were numbered stones that I was told were Civil War era grave markers for soldiers.  I paid my respects to the family and soldiers and would often think of them when I rode near that section.

Things started to change as business and retail development started along James Jackson Avenue.  I remember one day riding along and coming to an abrupt stop where the trail ended and a sea of graded red mud began.  One day it was there, the next day the trail was gone.  Around that time I met a guy who said he was the trail builder and he told me about the cemetery and other things he had come across out there.  Oddly enough, he had an office in one of the buildings that was now in place of where the trail used to be.

Not long after that, Cary Parkway came through and sliced off more trail.  I rode along the trail and come up to an enormous wall of red dirt which was to be part of the bridge over the railroad tracks.  After a long period of riding, I heard the land was sold and the industrial building was being torn down.  It seemed like the end was imminent as bull dozer tracks were seen criss-crossing the property.  Then the economy fell out, the project was put on hold and our trail had more life to give.  We gladly rode a couple more years.

An article in the news the past week mentioned that the developers are hoping to close a deal this week and that first phase dirt could move next week.  I understand progress and all, but I will still miss those trails.  On my ride this morning I wanted to go all out, leave no log uncleared, leave no jump untaken and enjoy the beauty of a little corner in Morrisville.  I said goodbye to the herds of deer that watch me ride by.  I said goodbye to the frogs that jump in the creeks when they hear me.  I said goodbye to the turtles that tuck into their shells as we yell out ‘Turtle!’ to let the riders behind us know to keep an eye out for the little guys.  I said goodbye to the fox that follows us around sometimes.  I said goodbye to the pine tree groves and the hardwood covered hills.  I even said goodbye to the poison ivy along the railroad tracks.  I listened for the last time as the 7:00am Peidmont train blew its whistle as it approached the crossing at Morrisville Parkway.

When I finished the ride I just stopped and listened to the woods.  I listened to the memories I had of good times and of changing seasons.  I have to admit that a scene from the movie Avatar came to mind as I stood there.  The one where the giant bulldozer is driving through leveling the trees where the Na’vi can go connect with their ancestors.  I wanted to stop the bulldozers to protect the forest and all the creatures that live there.  I wanted to preserve the balance between nature and the people who shared the same air.

I know it is not possible to save bootleg trails so I do my part to support building of sanctioned trails, even if I can’t ride them.  Hopefully someday the IMBA Trailbuilding Fund will bring some awesome singletrack to our neck of the woods and we’ll have new memories to form.  TORC has done a great job of promoting mountain biking and trail building in the area.  Hopefully between IMBA and TORC, more open space can be preserved.

Again I thank the trail builders for keeping the trail alive even when all hope was lost, several times.  I’ll gladly buy you a beer if we meet up someday.

Maybe something will happen, or should I say not happen, and we will have more time to ride Morrisville.

See you on the trails.  (the other trails)

He was super fast with the stickers.

Last night Carden I went down to Lawson For Congress headquarters to volunteer. Along with an army of others, we slayed an enormous stack of boxes full of US Constitution booklets. We had a great time and the energy of the room was fun and positive. This was the first time I had volunteered for any political candidate and it was special to have my son there with me. Oddly enough, as I was there working, BJ’s wife called to ask for my help at the polls. I chuckled and said “Well, actually I’m at headquarters right now making poll packages.” Hopefully I can work out a time to talk to people at the polls.

Carden asked me, “Dad, what are all these books?” I explained to him that the book contains a copy of the US Constitution which is the rule book for our government. Just like we have rules in our home, the government has rules as well. We want BJ to win because he wants to follow the rules. He said, “Makes sense to me.”

Unfortunately Carden was a little disappointed because he was hoping to hang out with BJ’s kids but they didn’t come in last night. Maybe next time. He told me he wanted to go back and “call people on the phone” next time.

This was a great homeschool field trip to learn about politics and our country. This is all about getting our country back on the right track, because our kids will inherit what we make of it.

For most of my life I’ve pretty much been on the sidelines of politics and have always been registered ‘unaffiliated’. For the past few years I’ve been more interested and involved because I’m tired of politics as usual. I’m tired of media hype and voter apathy. It is time for a change, a change that brings us back to our roots as a nation, a return to the basic principles that our country was founded on. Fortunately we have an opportunity in NC’s Fourth District to send someone to the US House of Representatives that stands for these basic principles and aims to represent the constituents of this district and not play into corporate interests or party politics. If you live in the Fourth District or know someone that does, I urge you to read BJ Lawson’s website below or forward it along.

Don’t take this as an endorsement for Republicans, because it is not. Actually I think that both ‘parties’ have lost their way so I’m looking more at what a person stands for than what party they happen to be affiliated with.

If you read BJ’s website and find that you would not vote for him, please let me know why. In part to educate me on your different views and in part to understand how we can come to agreement. Please don’t just take a party side or discount him for where he went to school, but look at what he stands for and what he is trying to accomplish.

Excerpt from his website:

My name is B.J. Lawson, and I am running for Congress to advance a Constitutional federal government that lives up to the ideals of our Declaration of Independence:

‘… that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’

In many ways, we’ve made great progress. We now understand that “all men” means mankind, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, or other secondary attributes.

Yet Washington is broken, and politics as usual is breaking our country. I provide principled leadership that will stop serving corporate and special interests, and allow us to prosper as free Americans instead of dividing us into groups that fight each other for favors and government handouts.

Our federal government has become a tool for corporate and special interests instead of a guardian of individual liberty. As a result, we face rising food prices, jobs going overseas, porous borders, failing education, war and occupation, foreign oil addiction, unsustainable entitlement spending, and a crushing debt burden. I want to bring change to Washington, and advance a principled federal government that is focused on its Constitutional responsibilities.

It’s time for us to get beyond divisive partisan rhetoric and restore peace, prosperity and liberty. While we are in a challenging position, we can change our direction by realizing success does not come from begging a bankrupt federal government for help. Our success as America comes from your potential as a free American to help yourself, and your community. Freedom isn’t free — it requires a lot of hard work. But liberty is priceless.

William BJ Lawson Campaign Website
http://www.lawsonforcongress.com/

Democrats for Lawson - Why we support B.J. Lawson
http://democratsforlawson.blogspot.com/2008/06/why-we-support-bj-lawson.html

NC 4th District Map
http://www.lawsonforcongress.com/4th-district/

Ask Anything: 10 questions with District 4 Congressional candidates
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/3732181/

B.J. Lawson, the hybrid candidate
http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid:266929

Rediculous.

The press is reporting that on Monday the Dow dropped 700 points because the ‘Big Bailout Bill’ was not passed.  What about it dropping 300 points because the market thought that it would pass, then dropping another 400 point because it didn’t? What about the 500 point rally on Tuesday?  What about it sliding nearly 400 points Thursday after the Senate pass it.  What about it sliding nearly 300 points today after it was passed by the House?  This thing was supposed to be good news.  Why are stocks not rallying at each passage?  Why does the media hype the rise and fall of the Dow for their own purposes but omit the real story.

The House is a Pawn of corporate interests, just like the Senate, just like the President, just like our federal governement.

Now I get punished because I’ve been doing the right thing by paying my bills, not accumlating debt and buying a house that I can really afford.  The Empire is sending a message to the world that it’s OK to be irresponsible in America, and heck we’ll even reward you for it.

The market correction will still come, it will still hurt, only we’ll have the added baggage of $700B in junk debt and $850B baggage that does with that.

I know. This is just a rant, but I’m getting tired of living in a free country where the government feels free to do what ever it wants.

I won’t get into all the details about why I don’t like the financial ‘resuce’ plan so I’ll just state that I think it is atrocious. On Friday I tried calling my congressman but got no answer, not even a recording.  I then tried the Capitol Hill Switchboard and listened to the ‘All Circuits Are Busy’ recording.  Nice.  I’ve sent emails but who knows if they are getting through.  I just hope that the ’smart’ financial wizards (you know who you are) that got us into this mess don’t continue to burden the country with more debt.Look at it this way, you hired someone build you a house, then you move and the house completely fell apart leaving you expose to the elements.  The builder comes over and sees the house in shambles and tells you he knows how to fix it but it will cost $700 billion dollars, would you pay him MORE money to fix the problem he created in the first place?  No, you would FIRE him.  Why do these people not get held accountable for their actions?  Because they have fleeced the American people into believing that they are doing everything in their best intrests and that the current situation is due to market conditions that were out of their control.  Hog wash.Frustrated. 

Back in April I wrote about Real Desktop Virtualization. I laid out what I wanted in a hypervisor that would run directly on a laptop or desktop system.  After attending VMworld 2008 I can say we are getting closer to reality with this type of solution. In the keynote on the second day of the conference, VMware demoed a pre-alpha version of a client hypervisor.  They inserted a USB key that contained the hypervisor and a VM and booted directly into the VM.  The challenges I can see are mostly going to be on hardware support since they can’t have as closed an HCL as they do with ESX, but it’s a start to see them developing this type of technology.  I’m trying to connect with the Client Hypervisor Product Manager to get more infor about where they are headed.  I’m hopeful!

I just recently saw the ABC 20/20 segment Aged Tires: A Driving Hazard? about how old tires could fail, even if they have not been used. After the segment I checked the tires on my Jeep because it had been a while since I purchased new tires.  Sure enough, my tires are nearly six years old.  They were only 10 weeks old when purchased so that is not a problem, but the tread wear on them is still fine so I was not going to replace them until some time next year.  My yearly mileage is fairly low so tire age could be more of an issue for me.  Also, I checked my full size spare and confirmed that it is nearly nine years old, just like my 2000 Jeep Cherokee.  A couple of years ago I had two tires replaced due to vandalism so they are ok, but I’m more concerned about the nearly six year old tires.

I recommend that you check your own tires to make sure you are not rolling on old rubber.  You can determine the manufacture date by looking at the DOT code.  The full DOT code may only be on one side of the tire and is a noticeable raised stamped area.  You might have to crawl under the car to check them as I did.

I will be replacing my tires sooner rather than later and taking one of the newer tires and switching out the full size spare.  We are planning a family camping trip later this summer and I’m going to attempt to squeeze all five of us plus the dog into the Jeep so I don’t want to take chances with my family.

Child car safety seats have expiration dates on them for around six years so it makes sense to me that tires should have expiration dates as well.  If we are concerned that a child safety seat could fail in an accident due to old age and plastic deterioration, I would think that we would want to do what we can to prevent the accident in the first place. The trouble right now with setting expiration dates is that there is no industry consensus on when a tire should not be used.  Some tire manufacturers claim each tire should be evaluated on a case by case basis.  I understand that situations can be different, but the same goes for child safety seats, but they still have dates on them.  As more testing is performed I expect to see expiration dates added to tires.  Hopefully it will be done soon to mitigate further avoidable tire failures and fatal accidents.

Thinking of trading in you vehicle for a more fuel efficient one?  Wondering which one to trade or what to get?  You might want to get some details on how to compare fuel efficiency ratings because it is not as clear as it seems.  It turns out that gas savings is significantly higher going from 10 MPG to 20 MPG than going from 25 MPG to 50 MPG.  Logic would seem otherwise but read the following website for the details on why.

Help with Calculating Gallons Per 10,000 Miles (GPM)

This page contains materials that will help those interested in the MPG illusion (Larrick & Soll, Science, June 20, 2008) calculate gallons of gas used for different distances driven. It is regularly updated with new content. Please see this page for more information about the original research and additional materials. Here is a link to the original article (subscription needed) and its supporting online material at Science (no subscription needed).

I posted the following on my personal blog at work which is restricted. Posting here since it seems to have sparked some interest.

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I want virtualization ON the desktop. This is not about the common view of desktop virtualization where the desktop experience is presented to end users and the process is run on a server platform in a data center. I’m talking about real virtualization on my physical desktop machine. I normally run several virtual machines for different tasks using VMware Workstation. In doing so, I need a host OS to run Workstation and that OS needs to be patched and virus protected. Each VM must be launched from that host OS so I’m forced to always consume resources for that host OS. Each VM must also be patched and virus protected. So in order to run a VM for a task, I must have two instances of an OS running and two instances of virus protection running. This works and is a wonderful solution to some problems, however it is very wasteful of system resources.

• I want my laptop to boot directly into a hypervisor and be able to choose what VMs I want to launch.
• I want virus protection to run in a privileged and specialized VM with access to the hypervisor (think VMsafe) and protect all my VMs, at the same time, with one instance.
• I don’t want to be bound by a host OS that must always be running in order to access other VMs.
• I want to get memory savings across VMs if they happen to be running the same OS (duplicate memory pages).
• I want to be able to move an entire application from one VM to another, with all its settings, as easily as I could in the DOS days of copying a folder.
• I want the hypervisor shipped on my laptop.
• I want application virtualization to be the norm in how applications are delivered/packaged.
• I want my PC upgrade experience to be simply migrating my VM from one computer to another. At system boot, new hardware features would be available.
• I want to have a single instance of an OS on my laptop (one place that needs patching) and I want to be able to launch multiple sessions off that instance where different applications can be streamed down to.

In thinking of current desktop virtualization solutions, the virtual desktop is not mobile in the sense it cannot be run off-line. Now think about having a hypervisor on a laptop and being able to sync a copy of a VM that is running on the data center to the local disk on the laptop and allow the user to go into ‘off-line’ mode where changes are stored locally (think snapshot delta file). Then when they reconnect, the changes are synced back to the VDI (think deleting a snapshot).

Think about having a hypervisor on the desktop and being able to plug in a USB key with a VM on it and boot it up without installing any software and not requiring any host OS.

I know some of this can be done today with current solutions, and some of it is planned. With Intel planning quad-core processors for laptops, virtualization ON the desktop is going to become more interesting. Vendors are working to solve what they see as today’s computing problems, I just hope they don’t forget about the mobile desktop experience.

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One of the internal comments suggested Moka5 as a possible option. I looked at their BareMetal product and I’m interested. Let me know if you of any other products that can fit the bill as described above.

In doing data manipulations, an important step is to make sure the source data is valid. I’m trying to clean house a little so in a way, I’m hoping to have more garbage out than in.  It reminds me of a line from Seinfeld when Heather and I went to see him in a live performance. He said something to the effect that everything we buy is trash.  We buy it and are happy about it and love it, but eventually it will become trash and we’ll throw it away. Just think of all that old computer gear that might be in your closet that is not worth anything, even for a donation, that you will eventually just throw away.

So, the next time you buy something, make sure that your source data is valid and hopefully your “garbage out” will not be too close to your “garbage in”.