Caitlin’s 2006 gymnastics season

I’ve had a tentative schedule of Caitlin’s gymnastic meets for a few months. I was hoping the schedule would be finalized before I published it, but the season got underway last week so I’m just going to publish it now “as is”. I’ll update this post as I get more details.

Date(s) Day Meet Location Score
August 19-20, 2006 Sun Judge’s Cup Sacramento 32.525
September 9, 2006 Sat School Days Concord 35.275
September 23, 2006 Sat Begonia Santa Cruz 35.450
October 1, 2006 Sun Gold Country Auburn N/A
October 14, 2006 Sat Tiger Paw Sacramento N/A
October 21-22, 2006 ? Hollywood Invitational Vallejo N/A
November 4, 2006 Sat Zone 2 Championship West Sacramento N/A
November 19, 2006 Sun NorCal State San Ramon N/A

Caitlin qualified for Zone at her first meet, so we know she’ll be competing in that event. I believe she needs to get a qualifying score at Zone to continue on to NorCal.

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Judges Cup 2006

Caitlin on the way to Judges' Cup Caitlin warming up for floor routine Caitlin began her level 5 gymnastic season last Sunday at the 2006 [Judges Cup][] held at [Sac State][]. This was her first meet as a member of [Pozsar’s Gymnastics][] team.

We were up against some stiff competition in our session: [Airborne][] and [San Mateo Gymnastics][] always do *very* well. I was unfamiliar with [Central Coast Gymnastics][], the final squad in our session, and they had only one athlete in Caitlin’s age group so I didn’t get to see much of them.

Trudi, Pozsar’s head coach, was a bit worried that our girls would lose points for wearing a sleeveless leotard to a meet, but a new athlete joined our team a few weeks ago and she hasn’t received the team’s competition leotard yet. We didn’t want to exclude our newest team member, so everybody wore their tiger leo’s and we took the deduction for our non-standard uniforms.

Caitlin was still feeling a bit of jetlag after her return from Sweden last week. (I’ll write about the Sweden trip later.) She didn’t rank very well in her session, even though her scores were actually pretty good:

Event Score
Vault 7.700
Bars 8.100
Beam 8.225
Floor 8.500
All around 32.525

I believe a score of 32.000 is enough to qualify for Zone finals, so I’d say 32.525 isn’t bad at all!

Caitlin's teammates

*Caitlin and her teammates, getting some last-minute instruction from Trudi. Left to right: Cassie, Alyssa, Caitlin, and coach Trudi.*

I think all the girls were a little disappointed with their rankings, but they were up against some really good teams. It’s a bit disheartening to start the season this way, but they seem to be bouncing back and working *very* hard in practice this last week. I’m looking forward to watching Caitlin and all the rest of Pozsar’s gymnasts throughout the season. We have some great meets to look forward to, but I’ll have to write about the upcoming schedule in a follow-on post. For now, I’ll close with a group picture of the whole team:

Pozsar's 2006 level 5 team

*Left to right, front row first: Tori, Carly, Megan; Alyssa, Caitlin, Cassie, Marci; coaches Nicole and Trudi.*

[Judges Cup]: http://www.techniquegym.com/meets/jcup/jcup.htm
[Sac State]: http://www.csus.edu/
[Pozsar’s Gymnastics]: http://www.pozsarsgymnastics.com/
[Airborne]: http://www.airborne-gymnastics.com/
[San Mateo Gymnastics]: http://www.sanmateogymnastics.com/
[Central Coast Gymnastics]: http://www.iflipforccg.com/

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I’m LinkedIn…

One of my former bosses sent me an invitation to join the [LinkedIn][] network. It’s primarily a professional networking site, but it also supports some more general social networking via users’ personal interests as well as groups and associations. It looked interesting, or at least worthy of further investigation, so I joined with a Personal Account (read “for free”).

After playing around with this site for a couple of days, my opinion is that it could be incredibly useful. I work at [Sac State University][], and I *wish* I’d had access to something like this back when I was a student in [Engineering & Computer Science][ecs]. This would be a great way to keep track of classmates, project partners, instructors, etc. while attending college–an excellent start for your professional network! But even now that I’m well along in my professional career, I’m sure that I can benefit from this service. I’ve developed close ties with many of my former co-workers, only to lose track of them when they (or I) changed jobs, moved, got a new email address, whatever.

Something I should have changed right out of the gate is the *Send Profile Updates* setting, otherwise known as “Spam My Contacts” since it causes LI to send emails to all of your contacts whenever you make ‘significant’ changes in your profile. To fix this, go to *Account & Settings* (at the top of the LI page), then find the *Profile Updates* link. If you’re logged in to the site already, [this link](https://www.linkedin.com/secure/settings?prof=&goback=%2Eaas “Update your LinkedIn profile settings”) should take you straight there. Under *Sending*, select *Don’t send automatic updates*. Apologies to all my new contacts who received spurious email due to my oversight this week, but at least I caught on to this within 48 hours of signing up!

This is a useful service, and I recommend it; however, I’d make regular backup copies of your contacts. (You never know when a free service might change their terms of service, or go toes-up. Be prepared!) There’s an [Export all connections][] link on the Contact page. Use it early and often!

View my profile on LinkedIn

[LinkedIn]: https://www.linkedin.com/
[Sac State University]: http://www.csus.edu/
[ecs]: http://www.ecs.csus.edu/
[export all connections]: http://www.linkedin.com/addressBookExport

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Bonjour rocks!

A few months ago I bought an [AirPort Express][] to play with, mostly because I wanted to play my [iTunes][] through the stereo speakers instead of my laptop’s. This was *so* easy that it didn’t even warrant a blog entry. I just plugged the AX brick into an outlet and plugged a 3.5 mm stereo-to-RCA cable between the AX brick and one of my stereo inputs. Since I was only planning to use my wireless laptop to transmit to the AX, I didn’t even have to bother with connecting the AX to my (wired) network.

I made some changes on my AX earlier this week. I needed to print quite a few pages from my laptop, and wanted to see if I could take advantage of the USB port on the AirPort Express. I moved the printer into the living room and plugged its USB cable into the AX brick. This didn’t work *instantly* — I forgot to fire up the `AirPort Admin Utility` (probably in the `Applications / Utilities` folder on a Mac) to associate the new printer with the AX. I also took advantage of the fact that my wife was out of town for a few weeks and ran a network cable into the living room for the AX brick. (She still hasn’t noticed it, so I must have done a reasonably neat job of installing it.)

Still, nothing worth blogging so far–I mean, c’mon: A Mac laptop connecting to an Apple network appliance? **Of course** it’s going to work. Painlessly. We take it as a given, like the sun coming up in the morning. 🙂 But today my wife noticed the printer in the living room, and she was a little curious. “Honey, what is the printer doing next to the *stereo*? Shouldn’t it be connected to *the computer*?” Uh oh! Holy marital strife! To the Internet, Batman! A quick Google search for `”airport express” windows printing` turned up [this post][ifelix bonjour] which revealed The Trick: download Bonjour for Windows! Visit Apple’s [Bonjour][] page and look for a link labeled “Get Bonjour for Windows” (currently at the bottom right of the page). Once I installed Bonjour on our Windows 2000 box (on the wired network, not WiFi), it took a few mouse clicks (and no decisions) to install the printer. Wow! Did I *really* install a printer on a Windows box without having to go to Device Driver Hell and back? Now **that’s** something worth blogging! 😉

In all fairness, this printer had already been installed on the Windows box, so the drivers were already there. But I’ve never seen network printing done so easily as this. I can definitely see more AirPort Express bricks in our network’s future…

[AirPort Express]: http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/
[iTunes]: http://www.apple.com/itunes/
[ifelix bonjour]: http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/1008.html “Printing from a Windows XP PC to a printer attached to an Airport Extreme Base Station or Airport Express using Bonjour”
[Bonjour]: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bonjour/

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Worthy quote

From Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964:

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.

Doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.

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Lodi Sunrise Century

Lodi Sunrise Century 2006 logo
I haven’t done much long distance (e.g. over 50 miles/80 km) bicycle riding for the last two decades or so. But since January 2006 I’ve been making a concerted effort to ride my bike as much as possible, for commuting and errands as well as LD riding. I’d ridden in three organized rides already this year, but this past weekend I rode my old Takara Tribute in the Lodi Sunrise Century and completed my first 100-mile bike ride since c. 1986 (20 years ago)!
Continue reading

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Century checklist

I’ve used my century checklist for several rides since BAB, and it’s saved my butt more than once! Tomorrow morning I’m riding the Lodi Sunrise Century, assuming there are no thunderstorms or other hideous weather. Once again I’m heading out for a hundred mile ride on my 20-year-old bike. Speaking of which…

I was talking to the wrenches at Peak Adventures some more about my upgrade-or-replace quandary, and David was asking some very insightful questions. He wanted to know which bike I was thinking about getting. The Specialized Sequoia Elite is my top contender, but he thought my old bike was a better-built touring bike. I also mentioned that I’d like to get my wife to go out touring with me, when he suggested that I buy a tandem bike. Doh! Why didn’t I think of that?!? So for right now, by dilemma is solved–I’m saving up my money for a KHS Milano tandem bike.

My wife doesn’t want to start tandem riding until our remodeling project is done, and I’ll keep riding my old bike when I’m solo, so I’m going to go ahead and upgrade the rear wheel and cogs pretty soon. This is an excellent solution, since I get to have my cake and eat it too! I’ll fix up my Burgundy Beauty and get a new bike and (hopefully) get my wife to start riding with me. 🙂

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New tires for my MTB

I got some new bicycle tires for my mountain bike last month. It took me a while to finally install them, but today is Bike to Work Day, so I had extra incentive. (I normally ride my Takara Tribute, but I didn’t want to take that downtown for the rally today–cleats are great on a normal ride, but they’re dangerous in a slow-moving crowd!)

Previously I had the original knobby tires that came with my KHS alite. These would be great for off-road use, but I only use this bike for errands around town. Just in case I ever decide to re-install these, the tire circumfrence (for my cycle computer) is 2015 mm. The new tires are 26″ x 1.4″ Ritchey slicks. For my cycle computer setting, I measured 231.5″ for 3 rotations x 25.4 mm per inch=5880.1 mm. Divide by 3 to get the average circumfrence=1960 mm.

I’ve only ridden these tires one trip, but they’re much more pleasant than the knobbies so far! They give a much smoother ride on pavement, whereas the knobbies generated an irritating humming that I could both hear and feel through the frame. I’ll definitely be riding my mountain bike a lot more often now that I have these slicks mounted!

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Bike Around the Buttes checklist

I haven’t ridden a century (100 mile bicycle ride) in quite a few years, but tomorrow morning I’ll try to complete Bike Around the Buttes on my recently-upgraded Takara Tribute. Since I haven’t done a ride like this in years (decades?), I thought I would make a pre-ride checklist. Then, after the ride (when I’ve figured out all the things I forgot), I’ll add comments to this post so that I’ll be better prepared next time. And perhaps some other intrepid rider will get some benefit out of this as well.

  1. Bike (duh!)
  2. Computer
  3. HRM
  4. Gatorade bottles, 2
  5. “Morning Rush” coffee cup
  6. Bento box: fig- and apple newtons
  7. Camelbak (w/ stuff I don’t want to leave unattended at rest stops)
    • Bladder!
    • Wallet, cash
    • Cell phone
    • Truck keys
    • Swiss army knife
    • Ipod, remote, ear buds
    • Camera?
  8. Rack pack
    • Spare tube
    • Pump
    • Patch kit
    • Tire levers
    • Hex wrenches
    • Phillips screwdriver
    • PB&J sandwiches, 2 (quartered)
    • Food bars, 4
    • Gatorade mix, 4 (scant ¼c for 24 oz bottle)
    • Bananas, 2
    • Extra zip-lock bags, 4
    • Chamois Butt’r
    • Lip balm
    • Rain jacket (weather looks questionable tomorrow)
    • Rain gloves (“)
    • Ear/head warmer (“)
  9. Riding shorts, shirt
  10. Gloves
  11. Sunglasses
  12. Mirror
  13. Cleats
  14. Cleat covers
  15. Socks
  16. Sandals (for easier walking pre- and post-ride)
  17. Helmet
  18. Bandana/sweat band
  19. Floor pump
  20. Coffee
  21. Directions to ride location

Don’t forget to charge the cell phone and Ipod the night before! Also, wash out the Camelbak bladder and water bottles.

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Testing scplugin on a local repository

On some earlier posts (tagged scplugin) I was trying to get scplugin working on my Mac (OS X 10.4.6). It seems like the problem may be due to subversion (svn) failing to communicate with my SMB-based repository. To test that, I made a local repository and created a test project within it.

First, let’s make sure DarwinPorts is up-to-date:

$ port sync
Error: /opt/local/bin/port: port sync failed: sync failed doing rsync

Doh! I always forget to sudo that command…

$ sudo port sync
Password:

$ sudo port selfupdate
DarwinPorts base version 1.200 installed
Downloaded DarwinPorts base version 1.211
Configuring, Building and Installing new DarwinPorts base
selfupdate done!

$ port version
Version: 1.211

(Just because I’m paranoid…)

Okay, now let’s see what version of svn I have installed, and compare that to what’s available from DarwinPorts:

$ svn −−version
svn, version 1.3.0 (r17949)
compiled Apr 4 2006, 11:47:42

$ port info subversion
subversion 1.3.1, devel/subversion (Variants: mod_dav_svn, no_neon, no_bdb, mac-os-x-server-mod_dav_svn, tools)

Yep, the 1.3.1 version has made it into DarwinPorts so let’s upgrade that:

$ sudo port upgrade subversion
−−−> Fetching subversion
yadda yadda yadda
−−−> Installing subversion 1.3.1_0
−−−> Activating subversion 1.3.1_0
−−−> Cleaning subversion

$ svn −−version
svn, version 1.3.1 (r19032)
compiled Apr 20 2006, 15:31:38

(Paranoia again…)

Cool, the tools are up-to-date, so now it’s time to make a new local repository.

$ svnadmin create /path/to/local/repository

$ svn import -m “Creating testproj” testproj/ file:///path/to/local/repository
Adding testproj/some_file

Committed revision 1.

Now let’s checkout a copy of the project and see how it looks in Finder.

$ svn checkout file:///path/to/local/repository/testproj
svn: URL ‘file:///path/to/local/repository/testproj’ doesn’t exist

Oops, looks like I screwed up the repository import. I’ll just check out the whole repository for now, and rtfm for help with project importing later.

$ svn checkout file:///path/to/local/repository/
A svn_repository/some_file
Checked out revision 1.

A quick perusal with Finder doesn’t show any visual svn status indicators, but after I made a change to the file I got to see scplugin’s “red bang” over the file icon, indicating that the file was out of sync with the repository. Woo hoo! Right-clicking or control-clicking on the changed file presents me with a Subversion context menu, from which I selected commit:

Sending some_file
Transmitting file data .
Committed revision 2.

Process finished with exit status 0.

That looks pretty good. Unfortunately, scplugin hasn’t changed the status indicator in Finder–it’s still showing the red bang, even though the working copy and the repository are now in sync. Relaunching Finder doesn’t change this. 🙁 Hmm…

Well, that’s some progress–at least subversion is working! I’ll play with scplugin some more and see what I can find out.

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