Raible Designs

New Bike - Giant FCR3

I had the pleasure of buying a new bike this weekend (my last one was stolen in June). Rather than replacing it with a mountain bike, I got a commuter. I've heard they're great for riding around town and can make the ride-to-work thing a lot faster. I'll probably buy a mountain bike too, but I'm going to hold off until next year for that - the Bus will be taking over as my top time-consuming hobby in the near future.

Update: More about the Giant FCR3.

Update 2: I set a new record on the ride to work this morning: 23 minutes! I took the long way to get home and it took 45 minutes. My goal is to reduce both times by 25% by the end of summer.

What a great vacation

We just rolled in last night from our family road trip to Montana. It was definitely a long drive - taking 2 days both ways. Yellowstone was awesome. We arrived at Old Faithful just minutes before it went off. We also strolled around a number of geysers and Abbie loved all of them. They were very beautiful and easily the best part of the drive up. Abbie even got to go fishing for the first time, in the Snake River just south of Yellowstone.

Once we got to the cabin, a great time was had by all. We attended the local 4th of July festivities and I got to catch up with some folks I went to grade school and high school with. It was fun meeting everyone's kids and spouses, and you can't beat the beer prices in Montana ($1.50 for a cold Bud Light). Abbie loved all the horses running around.

On the eve of the 4th, we had an excellent fireworks show and also broke ground on The New Cabin that my dad is building. Julie had a lot of fun operating the Excavator. The rest of the week was spent swimming, fishing, taking saunas, and tearing off the roof of the cabin. My mom even bought a 4-wheeler, which was a blast to ride around. I'd longed for one ever since I knew what they were, so it was pretty cool to have a childhood dream come true - in the same location I'd always wanted one.

I definitely recommend the road trip thing if you have kids. It was a great way to spend quality time together and enjoy some of the beautiful world we live in.

As for e-mail, that wasn't bad at all - only 243 messages. We had so much fun on this trip, I think we're going to include the drive up as part of the tradition. It's neat to think that I'll be taking the same vacation every summer for the rest of my life. It'll be especially fun to watch the kids grow up and how their perception changes each year. Now I just need to figure out a way to spend the whole month of July in Montana. Those Europeans are smart - we all need to take a month off in the summer.

Off to Big Sky Country

In only a few more hours, we're heading on Raible Family Roadtrip #9. Number 7 was when Julie, Abbie and I traveled up the California coast, and number 8 was when my Dad and I drove my '66 Bus to Denver from San Diego. This time it's going to be much more special. The end destination is my favorite place on earth. We're heading for the cabin, which is a log cabin my grandpa built in 1918. I was born in one corner, my sister in the other, and I spent the first 16 years of my life there.

Spending the 4th of July at the cabin has been a long standing family tradition. It's always fun to watch the parade and the O-Mok-See in the small town I grew up in. The Swan Valley is a very special place and my friends that visit often return. It really is one of those uniquely special places on Earth.

I love road trips. Julie hates them, but tolerates the fact that I love them. The main reason we're not flying to Montana is because the flights are very expensive. It's a 1 and 1/2 hour plane ride and a 15-hour drive in the car. It's a good thing we have a DVD system in our Odyssey for the kids - 15 hours is a heckuva long trip.

While I was at JavaOne last week, Julie did some research and discovered that Yellowstone isn't too far out of our way, so we're staying there tomorrow night. I've been to Yellowstone a few times, and every time it takes my breath away. I can't wait to see the look on Abbie's face when she sees an Elk right outside her window.

The best part about the whole trip? It's sure to be the family, laughing and creating memories. But I'm also going unplugged - which I haven't done in a while. For the next week, I'll be without a laptop and refusing to check voicemail or e-mail. E-mail is going to suck when I get back, but the peace of mind while I'm gone is sure to be priceless.

Flying all over the place

I had a tremendous amount of fun this past weekend. On Friday, I flew from Denver to New York City (JFK) to attend a good friend's wedding. Friday night was the rehearsal dinner, followed by a night on the town at Webster Hall with a bunch of old college buddies. We didn't get home until 5:00 a.m. that night. Saturday we had lunch at Gramaldis in Brooklyn, which is supposedly some of the best pizza in NYC. It was definitely cool to be right in the heart of the city, eating great pizza and sipping on cold Coronas.

The wedding was held on Saturday at the Hammond Museum in North Salem, NY. The ceremony was outside in a Japanese Garden and it couldn't have been a more perfect setting. That night we were up until 4, and I woke up at 7:30 to catch a cab, train, bus and plane to get me back home. Now I'm heading to the airport to catch a flight to JavaOne. Should be a fun week.

Bike to Work Day

It's another Bike to Work Day in Denver and I'm missing two key ingredients: a bike and an office to ride into. It's funny to look back at last year and see that my first day with OpenLogic was Bike to Work Day. This year, I'm again starting a new gig and working from home (much like last June). The good news is we'll be moving into fancy new offices (in the swanky Tabor Center) at the beginning of July.

I've been looking at new bikes, but haven't bought one yet because I'm going to be traveling so much in the next couple of weeks. NYC this weekend (wedding), San Francisco next week, followed by a week of vacation at the cabin in Montana. It'll be pretty cool to come back from that and move into my new office at Virtuas (yeah, a *real* office with a window seat!). I'll likely be forced to buy a bike then - driving to work in the summertime just isn't right.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there! Today was a nice relaxing day, full of fun and lots of smiles. We had a picnic breakfast with a some friends at a park in North Denver to start out the day. My buddy John had a portable skillet and was able to whip up both pancakes and omeletes as we drank mimosas and watched the kids run around. Following that, we went to their neighborhood pool and enjoyed swimming around with the kids for an hour. From there, we hung out at their house for a couple hours and let Abbie and Annabelle play together. It's so cute that they're both at an age now where they can have real conversations with each other. I've known John and his wife Karen since 1992, so it's a lot of fun to get together with old friends.

We made it home at 4:30, I took a nap for a couple hours and then we headed out to dinner at Chipotle. Now the kids are in bed and we're getting ready to start enjoying my Father's Day present: Star Wars on DVD (every one but the latest one).

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank my own Dad for being such an inspiration to me. He's one of the smartest guys I know and always amazes me with his knowledge and sense of humor. Dad - thanks for always being such a great friend, mentor and above all else - a great father!

To Brett, Chris and Crazy Bob - fatherhood is just around the corner for you guys. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

In the market for a new bike

After enjoying a few cold ones after the Denver JUG last week, I walked outside to find that my bike was gone. It was a nice bike (a Gary Fisher Sugar 3+), so now I'm in the process of trying to find the same one on eBay. The loss should be covered under homeowners insurance, but it's a high deductible that'll likely only result in a few hundred bucks. Oh well, it's just a bike. With the bad luck I've had in the last couple months (lost phone, laptop dying in Norway), I'm hopeful some good luck is right around the corner.

Free Wireless, Good Beer

I stumbled upon an excellent "virtual office" this afternoon. While riding my bike downtown for JUG meeting tonight, I decided to stop at a local restaurant: The HandleBar & Grill. While driving by a few months ago, I noticed a "free wireless" sign, so I figured I'd stop in and check it out. Sure 'nuff - I'm on it right now! Not only is this a good burger joint, but they have some good microbrews too. Better yet, I just noticed it's happy hour. So here I am, sipping on a Fat Tire and working on open source. Life doesn't get much better than this!

New Phone - Motorola V330

After getting harassed by my new co-workers, and went out and got a new phone today. I lost mine a month ago in California and have been (happily) living without one ever since. Since I'm a T-Mobile subscriber (and much happier with them vs. AT&T), I went to their local store and asked to see their Bluetooth phones (for iSync, presentations and connecting to the internet on my PowerBook). They only had a couple and I decided to get the Motorola V330. I did some research briefly at the Apple Store before buying it and it seems good enough for me. It has the things I care about, but isn't too fancy or expensive. Since I didn't qualify for an upgrade (1 month before my last contract is up), I had to pay $170 (vs. 150 for the upgrade), which isn't that bad compared to the $300 I paid for my Sony Ericsson T637 I got last summer.

The phone seems pretty good so far, and there's been only one minor hiccup. When I first tried to use iSync, it said "device not supported". Thanks to Google and this post, it was easy to fix.

The best part about T-Mobile is I get unlimited data for $19.99/month. Supposedly, this phone works with EDGE networks, which should be available in Denver early next year. This means data transfer rates of up to 384KB/sec. Very cool.

Fighting E-Mail

I'm fighting a losing battle against e-mail, and spam isn't the problem. Last week, I was so busy in Norway that I neglected to check my "mailing list" account and starred most messages in GMail, rather than responding to them. For the last 6 hours, I've been trying to "unstar" the 75 GMail messages I have (by replying to them) and filter through the 2200 messages in my mailing list account. After 6 hours, I'm down to 62 GMail messages and 1500 from mailing list. This is like a full-time job!