Riding on the Highway

Today for the first time I got on the highway to get to Toys R Us on my bike. Initially I thought of riding on the streets but 9 minutes vs. 17 minutes, kinda hard not to jump on the highway.

It not like I haven’t been going over 60mph, but on the highway you have road hazard and faster car, SUV and trucks. While it was a little overwhelming at first, but especially on my way back I was more relaxed.

Number One, truckers tends to be more cautious and generous to bikers than the average Joes. I suspect part of the reason being, a lot of truckers themselves are riders. During the move every single trucker, loader I met are riders. Thinking about it, sorta makes sense. After driving a big truck for days on, it only makes sense to ride a bike rather than another box. It may also be that, truckers know any accident with a truck and I don’t stand a chance. I very well may not make even a dent on his truck, but I am sure will be dead.

Number Two, thanks to me paying attention on the road. I remember once seeing a biker in IA getting on the highway on his sports bike and tuck behind the windshield, bending over. On my way to Toys R Us, I didn’t tuck down and the wind was hitting me pretty hard and the bike too felt kinda wobbly. If I tried to go over 60mph, it would be feel unstable.

On my back, I tucked more out of curiosity than anything else and amazingly the bike is more stable. Make sense and I didn’t have any issue going up to 70mph. Did miss my exit though and had to do a U-Turn at the signal light.

Surpassing Desktop

My daughter has a lot of patience. I mean a lot. For a week now, she has been asking about a princess phone. First we looked for her old toy phone, but no sign of it anywhere. Chances are we threw it away during the move.

So finally last night, we went to Wal-Mart looking for her princess phone. Walked every aisles in the toy section, but just could not find the princess phone. We did find one toy phone but it had a picture of a boy on it so her reaction, this is not a princess phone. By then, I had a feeling that she must be talking about the toy phones by the checkout line. I am also wondering if and when she will throw a fit. But she doesn’t as we carry on to buying groceries.

At checkout, mommy stays with the cart while I & she walk through every empty checkout lane looking for her “Princess Phone,” nada.  So, we leave me thinking to look it up online, maybe Amazon??!!

So, this afternoon I check on Amazon for her princess phone. Nothing satisfactory, but I am determined. As I am browsing through, I am even thinking of buying a toy gun too. And that’s when I stumble on the “V-TechSlide and Talk Smart Phone,” very good review and rather cheap too. Going through the comment someone mentions the phone being $3.00 dollar cheaper at Toys R Us. So, I look it up on Toy R Us site.

During lunch I go to Toys R Us to pick up the phone. Being in IT has its moment, as I am walking through the aisles looking for an associate, trying to find the toy myself and getting frustrated I notice the associates desktop with a pretty white company logo wallpaper. So, naturally for me at least, I look up what kind of tower is it running on. A small form-factor Dell PC, such a waste considering it only has access to the intranet.

Finally I find someone who is able to help. I describe the toy but she thinks it’s out. Shows me where the last one was. I insist on the basis the website says they have it in the store. She walks over to the very same PC and starts looking for it. Shows me the V-Tech model phone she’s talking about, and I tell her I am looking for a different one. I ask if she can look it up on their website and that’s when I find out those PCs doesn’t have internet access, internal only. And the connection is slow.

Finally we find the toy we are looking for. And now she needs the item number to search the inventory. Alas she can’t click on any of the link from her small form-factor Dell PC cuz it’s stuck. By now I have been browsing my phone and look up the item number and show it to the guy who does stocking. He comes back with a full box of the V-Tech Slide & Talk Smart Phone and it has a picture of a girl holding the phone.

The time is here when smartphone & tablet are surpassing, overtaking PC.

p.s. Interestingly Amazon has a 4.5 star rating of the phone while Toy R Us has a 3 rating of the toy. 

White Girls with Big Butt

After finishing my 4 miles run I am stretching at the parking lot this morning when I hear two girls coming up behind me. Two girls walking towards the trail, talking with a obivous heavy southern accent. I ignore them and mind my stretching.

Alas, I was only able to ignore for a rather few second. As they pass by me, I notice their unual big butt, super big. What ever though, since I am not perticularly crazy about super big butts. The girls are heading towards the trail, they got the Nike shoe, Nike tights, Nike overall, it is all Nike....yay.

And then something else happens. One of the girl with a super big butt kicks the button of the pedestrian light, obivously noticing all the car waiting at the light and stairing. And after kicking the button, they just start crossing the road...Look out Kardashian wanna be walking....Who knows how long before they run quater mile??!!

It is annoying to say the least, seeing people without any consideration to others or any decency. You are too good to push the button with your hand, that you have to kick it? What about folks who will now push the button with their hand after you?

As we are eating up the environment around us, the least we can do is be decent, considerate. Or else we are doomed.

After getting home, as I am drying myself I felt of jolt of sadness today. Sadness for throwing away, losing all my running memoribilia, Pre posters, books, logs and all. Change happens with time, sometimes we like it and sometimes we don't. But life goes on.

Administrative Template Container Empty - Solution

Any images that has been customized and deployed on the embedded OS usually has the issue with the Admin Template container being empty. I am refering to the template in GP Editor specifically.

Well, I tried several thing but to no avail. Finally I downloaded the Group Policy ADM file from Microsoft and that seemed to fix the issue.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=18664

It may not work for your particular issue but at least worth trying. My reason for posting it & making it available is due to the frustration of trying to find a solution to edit the admin templates.

Enjoy!

Identity

What is your identity? How do you identify yourself? Is it your name on your ID card or passport, Is it your social security number or is it where you live? I am beginning to understand or more accurately contemplate on it since coming back from our weekend trip from VA.

Name, SSN, Location are all part of our identity. But I think our values, morals, ethics we have shapes us too. Granted, values, morals and ethics can change over time. Before I used to have certain believe about gays and lesbians, but not anymore. My moral stands have changed despite a different upbringing.

Identity is simply who you/I am as a person.

And a person discovers some of who he/she is as a child, as a teenager from their parents. Parents play a big role in shaping the child's future, giving him the strength to navigate and figure out who he is.

I came to realize just that after spending, listening to my sister-in-law over the weekend.

Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgiving 2012: this is the first time we broke the tradition me & Ruma had started. Because of moving & such, we skipped making, hosting the Thanksgiving dinner this year. Instead we had dinner with one of our friends and the highlight was ‘khasir mangsho’ and roasted chicken.

It makes me sad. It makes me sad for not being able to buy the turkey, wash & clean it with Siana watching, and then bake it. Last year she was quite excited. She kept asking if the Turkey was done yet. She wanted to open the fridge to make sure the turkey was OK. Didn’t get to do any of those this year.

But I am also delighted, happy about not getting sucked into the whole ‘Black Friday’ thing this year. Just like Eid, Thanksgiving is about spending time with family, loved ones, or close friends. It is sad to see the whole thing becoming more & more commercialized. For big retails, ‘Black Friday’ wasn't enough; they had to start ‘Black Thursday’ too? Or at least that’s what it seemed like on my run on Thursday morning at 4.00 am. I was running down Hickman when I saw all these people lined up in front of Kmart and more cars were turning in to the parking lot. Part of me felt devastated for humanity.

This is the kind of world our kids are going to grow up in? What are we teaching to our kids? It is more important to possess something, post about it on Facebook than spend time with your family. So what will happen when a kid living in Kansas finds out about the great deal in the only store in Nebraska? Won’t he be tempted to skip the dinner with family for the awesome deal? Is that not happening already?

At our friends’ house last night, I was trying to make the point, trying to get the idea, message across. I even used the Eid as a connotation. It felt like, I was hitting a wall with all five adults. The blank expression on their face and right afterward showing the stuff they had bought on BF.

We as humans are already turning books down in favor of some gadgets. We are already forgetting how to write with a pen & paper. Now it is more important to post a pic of a dying person on Facebook then help that person…well hell, we might as well kick Thanksgiving to the curb. 

Being in IT

So, what is it like being in IT? Why am I even asking that question after all these years?

Well, we had to make a pretty big decision between relocating to Minneapolis or Charlotte. That’s another post, to be followed soon. But this process has been frustrating. Making the decision and getting everything lined up, has been a major pain. But as we are preparing to leave, I have been discovering a lot about myself and to some extent about my better half.

About myself, being in IT:

1.       Very detail oriented. I constantly find myself going over several things over and over.

2.       With that also comes, things being in order. Even if it looks chaotic from outside, in my head at least I have a good idea the order things should be.

3.       When things are not in order or the details are fuzzy, I get irritated easily.

4.       Having a child I have also learned the value of “Backup Plan.” It is very important for me to have some sort of backup plan in place if one or two things go wrong during the process.

There’s a devil inside me that sometimes wants to throw everything on the curb and just go with. I highly doubt that will ever happen; I highly doubt my subconscious will ever let me do that though.

Now, these might be desirable to have on an employee. What will happen though when I get old? How am I going to react to forgetting things? Things not being in order…

About Pagli:

1.       She has enormous patience. Whether it is putting up with all my madness, going over everything over and over or just Siana or both, she puts up with it.

2.       She has the ability to calm me down. I need to figure out how exactly she does that?

3.       She is also starting to see things more from a flowchart perspective. Thinking ahead and now.

4.       She is always trying to find ways to save money. Since we have been thinking about a second kid, I would’ve never think of using Siana’s crib but she first made the suggestion to save us from buying another one.