Distance to-date this year: 597.89 miles (since January 9th, 2010)

Ride with Erik and Simon around Portland/Vancouver.
Wear a helmet. My season is over.

Route
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/or/portland/154127370780352847

Distance to-date this year: 30.53 miles (since January 9th, 2010)

Road with Jessica, Erik and John around HB.

Route
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/or/hillsboro/408126311114775327

I managed to take 4400 photos / videos that total 12.5GB in 2009. My backup for the year spanned 3 DVD-Rs. As I have done in years past, I made one set for an on-site backup, and a second set for an off-site backup. (no, this is NOT overkill. You should have seen what i did with my film camera negatives — those are stored in Acid free books, and descant packs were used to keep the moisture constant ) Anyway, I did a file checksum compare between the original source file on the HDD, the first DVD-R backup set and the second DVD-R backup set to ensure there were no bit errors and the data integrity was solid. I also made sure that the DVD-R was readable on a second computer without issue. That part alone took 5 hours.

At 9pm my computer has a HDD auto-clone operation that kicks in every two days that copies everything from C drive to my D drive. I use the Casper software to do this. That took a few minutes to update. At 10pm I was finally able to copy the 2009 photos into my E drive which is powered on every once and a while when I need to do a quick digital backup without needing to burn stuff to media.

Oh yeah, I spent way too much time on Facebook while the backups were occurring. Too bad I didn’t go riding.

I registered for the following cycling rides today:

• Worst Day of the Year ride 2010 (Feb 14th) – 40 mile option
• LiveSTRONG Seattle 2010 – 100 mile option. Join my team at: http://seattle2010.livestrong.org/TIO
• Tour de Cure (Hillsboro) 2010 – 100 mile option. Join my team at: http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=7041&px=5551585

Monday Jan 4th – 1am: Tweeted to #FB: “1am. Still wide awake. I really should have tried to maintain a normal sleep schedule over the last few days… Need to be awake by 6!”

Well, 6am came by and waking up was an insane challenge. I had a 7am appointment at Kaiser (Mother Joseph Plaza campus), but I got the run around and the doc wasn’t in the office. That is not what I’m expecting when you have an appointment setup. So I had things rescheduled for 1pm that afternoon, but all the way over at the Kaiser Sunnybrook office in Clackamas. I took the afternoon off from work and drove all the way out there. A little inconvenient to drive out there, but I got medically cleared to resume cycling… thank goodness everything should be OK.

I went to Fred Meyer to pick up groceries and saw a car with plates that read “DR HRBL.” I took it as “Dr. Horrible” which made my day. Jill pointed out that it could be “Dr Herbal” … which kinda ruined the fun! Anyway, got food for the next few days. I made a tuna noodle casserole [recipe] for dinner. It was a quick and easy meal to make, and it was good. I would argue that the recipe only serves 2 people, not 4.

I went through Facebook in the evening hours and noticed I got tagged in Jessica’s vacation note. For the record, 10am is WAY too early to text while one is really wanting to sleep . Cycling plans for this Saturday with Jess is in progress.

Tuesday Jan 5th – 1:40am: Tweeted to #FB: “1:40am. Awake for the last hr & can’t sleep. Isn’t there a ’sleep mode’ for this mind?:(”

I really need to get the sleep schedule back on track. This is gonna hurt much more as the week progresses.

I looked at my Google Analytics report this morning and noted that the number search result that leads to my website is “Frootee stargate” and links to my blog entry in October 2009.

I’m pleased to announce that showing Dr. Horrible a few times over the summer months has taken hold in some of my friends… even when one is on vacation, and said person may have been watching it in the car as they were a passenger heading to their destination… ahem… Jessica.

I started watching Firefly again. Yeah, I think enough time has passed that I can enjoy watching the series again. The last binge was in August as noted in the entry titled “The last 3 Months” and subsequent drawings and collection of Firefly maquettes.

Cycling plans set for Saturday morning – 9am, 30+ mile ride around Hillsboro.
Plans set for Sunday too… this will be my second visit to Corvallis since graduation. Should be fun!

Wednesday Jan 6th – 1:00am: Tweeted to #FB: “Really? 1am. Why can’t I sleep?!? Three days straight of sitting in bed for 1+hr without falling a sleep. Crazy.”

I’m starting to think about getting a smart phone and a data plan. Maybe a Blackberry won’t be too bad after all. I’m gonna stay clear of the iPhone unless they can seriously increase the battery time. We’ll see what happens. It’s just a thought for now. It would be nice to be connected to the world and have access to information at your fingertips.

My refrigerator is on the fritz again. Its a 2003 General Electric GSS22WGPC side by side. The condenser coil in the back of the freezer is completely frozen over and the fridge section is getting close to 50 degrees. I spent the better part of the evening taking the food out and storing it in a ice chest so things won’t spoil. I removed the shelving from the freezer side and removed the back panel to the freezer. Spent a good 30 minutes aiming a hair dryer at the coil and got everything melted away. I didn’t have a chance to completely dismantle the freezer components and diagnose what is wrong, but at least this will get the fresh food section back in working order for a few weeks. Perhaps I’ll look at the components tomorrow night. Just need to do some research first. I did find a good forum and replacement parts website for some helpful advice from other consumers and repair guys:

Appliance Blog: http://www.applianceblog.com/mainforums/
Replacement parts: http://www.appliancepartspros.com/
Replacement parts (Sears): http://www.searspartsdirect.com/partsdirect/index.action
Exploded block diagram for my fridge: http://www.appliancepartspros.com/partsearch/model.aspx?model_id=5242135&diagram_id=22287624#d22287624

Thursday Jan 7th – I left work early today. There wasn’t much to do (and I’m thankful for that!)… though I still need to complete my performance review.

I took apart the freezer section once again. This time, I was on a mission to check what was wrong. It could have been one of three things: 1) the defrost heater , 2) the thermostat, or 3) the logic board. The logic board is the most expensive part… around $160. Visual inspection of the board didn’t show any signs of burns, or bulging caps. So that’s good. I’m hoping it’s item 1) or 2) since those cost MUCH less.

Anyway, I packed away all of the freezer food in a tote again and stored it outside with some ice. I proceeded to remove the shelving, then the back panel. Next came the ice maker motor, and the evaporator cover. The evaporator cooling fan was next to be removed. It covers and houses the access points for the defrost heater and thermostat that I was interested in. It took a bit of effort to disassemble as i had to squeeze myself into the freezer cavity. That was a bit awkward.

The thermostat tested OK and the wiring continuity was just fine. I tested the defrost heater last and found it open. It’s a resistive heating element, so it should have registered something on the ohm-meter, but didn’t. (In hind sight, I guess I could have checked the defrost heater FIRST without having to completely remove the freezer compartment components. Oh well). I found a replacement defrost heater from the Sears Part Direct website for $36 + $10 shipping. Not too bad I’d think — the closest part store that carried stock was deep in PDX, so $10 isn’t too much to pay for convenience. This is still cheaper than having a GE tech come out and shelling out $80 for just the diagnosis fee + parts + labor. I should get the part by next Thursday. Lets hope that fixes it.

I snapped a few pictures of the take apart and posted them onto facebook. If you don’t have an account, you can view them through this public link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2238986&id=19700626&l=3d5e1d27ba

To wind down the evening, I talked to mom for an hour and caught up on the week. She’s really worried that I’ll get cold in China… I keep telling her my jacket is warm enough; yes, I’ll be warm; and no, -4degC isn’t that cold with the gear that I’m bringing.

Rest in peace Mr. O’Halloran. You will be missed by all of your past and present students at Mt. Tabor M.S.

-T

I copied most of my phone pics to Facebook. It’s about time I did that. Thank goodness for the microSD card. I noticed is that the EXIF data is missing on half of the photos- this was rather problematic as I wanted to assign a date comment each photo, so there was some manual labor going through old e-mails and chat logs to find out when some of the photos were taken! There was also something about the phone JPG files that the FB uploader didn’t like. I had to re-save each one in Photoshop to get the JPG headers correct again before it uploaded. That took a better part of 3 hours. I also started to play around with the Facebook Mobile feature the night before. I guess it’s pretty convenient to take photos with the camera phone and upload them directly, but that’s a one photo at a time type of operation. I’d much rather use my small point and shoot or DSLR if i have it on me. We’ll see how much I use this.

My friends finished tagging my Mania Monday party pictures from Dec 21st. I woke up and found 80 new photo tags. There are a lot of pics, and I thank you (John, Clara) for tagging the remaining ones! Jessica blames me for sending a bunch of FB spam. Ha.

I finally made the chocolate chip cookies — almost 30 hours after I said I would make them. The recipe [allrecipes.com] says this would yield 60 cookies. One thing that I realized is that it would yield 60 small cookies. I made 18 small cookies and 20 large ones instead. I figure why make a bite sized one?

I organized my FB Home Cooking album. I also added recipes to some of the captions and updated my recipe folder.

To end the night, I watched Stargate Universe, Episode 10 ‘Justice,’ and Stargate SG-1 Season 4, Episode 10 ‘Beneath the Surface.’ Not a bad way to wind down the day.

Tuesday Dec 29th –
I read my Google Analytics report this morning and it showed someone searching for “Facebook Thomas Ng” – I guess I’m the #2 hit on Google for this term. I’m currently ranked #4 if you just search for my name. The third ranked hit used to be my domain name as well, but it has been bought by some artist. I stopped paying for the .org domain since everything is re-directed to the .net domain anyway. Oh well. One more interesting tidbit: someone visited my website from South Africa!

Random thought: sometimes I feel like Doogie Howser sitting in front of my computer, reflecting back on the events for the day — except I don’t have an old CRT monitor or the 8-bit Doogie Howser theme song playing in the background. OH! Speaking of which, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this if you are a Neil Patrick Harris fan or just a dork (like me).

Hulu.com: http://www.hulu.com/watch/53001/saturday-night-live-digital-short-doogie-howser-theme

While searching for that clip, I noticed that Hulu.com has four seasons worth of DH MD online as well [Hulu.com: http://www.hulu.com/doogie-howser-md]. I remember watching the pilot episode back in 2004 when I was bored out of my mind studying at the library one day. I think I watched an episode of Duck Tales as well that day. Good times!

I’m gonna get my H1N1 vaccination today. That ought to be fun. I don’t mind needles, but I really don’t think I’ll need the vaccination either. I usually just let my body naturally take care of infection/cold and not take any actual medicine for it. Just getting it to satisfy the parents before I head on over to Shanghai for work for the last two weeks of January. Oh wow, it just hit me: I’m leaving the country in 3 weeks! Ack! I should stat looking for a decent sized suite case to fit 2 weeks of stuff and a winter jacket.

I’m aiming for a mid afternoon cycling ride at 2pm today as well. They are currently predicting a 15% chance of rain, and a high around 38deg. Should be alright for a quick ride around town. Today’s cycling plans currently on standby. Likelihood of precipitation is increasing. We’ll play this one by ear.

Alright, time to start the day.

-T

Updates for Tuesday: It started to snow around 1pm today. 3″ accumulated during the evening. The weather forecasts never said anything about it. I’m sure glad that I canceled my cycling ride. Oh well. I got my H1N1 vaccination. The nurse at Kaiser was quite cute and we struck up a conversation. Too bad she’s taken. :-\ Went to Fred Meyers for some groceries. Slowly drove home in the snow.

I made a snowman in my driveway, a snow angel in the front yard and captured some night shots around the neighborhood with my camera. Apparently I cloned myself in a multiplicity shot as well. Pictures are on Facebook (or on my Fotobook page). All in all, a good day.

Wednesday Dec 30th – I changed out the SIM card in my phone today. After installing the replacement one, it decided to delete all of my sent text messages from the phone, but it kept all of the ones in the inbox. There were some messages that I wanted to keep and didn’t have the chance to send them over to my computer yet. That’s a bummer — oh well, we’ll start fresh for 2010.

Party at my place 6pm. Made fried rice for dinner; had chips/salsa and cookies for snacks. Played Blokus, and Carcassone with a small skeleton crew.

Thursday Dec 31st – It’s been a really slow start for the day. I’m not exactly feeling 100% and I’m hoping I can thwart off a cold for another few hours. I woke up with my nasal sinuses plugged up and hurting. I woke up around 11am, checked e-mail and went back to sleep for a few more hours. I finally had breakfast at 2pm. The rest of the afternoon was met with vomiting and not feeling good at all. I did head out to urgent care to get checked out. Needless to say, it wasn’t a good night. Since I wasn’t in any immediate health danger, I didn’t leave with the answers that I wanted… I was just instructed to take some ibuprofen and wait until Monday when the surgeons would be back in the office. Ugh. Maybe I should reconsider my health benefit selections for 2011.

I went to the new years eve party at Chantelle’s place tonight. I was the only sober one there and it was freakin’ hillarious. I am glad that I got to hang out with my friends for the new year. I look forward to 2010. It should be exciting and challenging. I resolve to cycle at least 3K miles.

Friday Jan 1st – HAPPY NEW YEAR! I was going to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended edition = 11.5 hours) at Lee’s place, but I’m currently feeling a little bit under the weather. I guess I’ll stay home and spend the first day of 2010 sick. I spent way more time sleeping than awake in 2010 thus far. Currently waiting for clear skies, and green light to return to cycling. Ugg.

Saturday Jan 2nd – I woke up with a nice 101degree fever. I guess it was a good choice to stay at home yesterday. I thought about going shopping so I can make something nice for dinner, but was quickly reminded that I should be in bed and definitely not driving. I ended up making noodles for “lunch” at 4pm, and a tomato with egg dish (didn’t have beef though!) for dinner at 9pm. Ah, 2010… this has been a rough start.

Friday Dec 25th – Christmas day cycling – 18.3 miles, 1hr 10minutes. [Ride info]. Had dinner with the parents in PDX. Secured some black tea

Saturday Dec 26th – Went snowboarding at MHM after dark with Javier, Chad and Jim. The runs were well groomed. Photos have been posted on Facebook.

Later that night, I started to plan out the major cycling rides for 2010. Some invites have already been sent out on Facebook (sorry for all of the spam). The ride events that I plan on doing this year are listed below. Note that most of these rides are for a good cause, I encourage you to participate!

• Worst Day of the Year Ride – February 14th – Tentative – I will most likely volunteer as a ride along mechanic (~40 mi)
• Reach the Beach 2010 (American Lung Association)- May 15, 2010
• LiveSTRONG 2010 (Lance Armstrong Foundation) – Seattle – June 20, 2010 (Tentative, falls on Father’s day)
• Seattle to Portland 2010 – July 17-18, 2010
• Tour de Cure 2010 (American Diabetes Association) – July 31, 2010
• Portland Twilight Criterium (Just a spectator cycling event) – August 6, 2010 (Tentative date; official event not yet announced)
• Hottest Day of the Year Ride – Early August – Tentative – I will most likely volunteer as a ride along mechanic (~45 mi)
• Providence Bridge Pedal 2010 (Providence medical) – August 8, 2010
• Portland Century – Mid August – Tentative – I will most likely volunteer as a ride along mechanic (~60 / 100 mi)
• Tour de Vine – are we doing any rides in Oregon’s Wine country this year? Seth??

Of course, there will also be a bunch of random rides after work and on the weekends.

Sunday Dec 27th – Went cycling with Erik around HB. 22.11 miles. [Ride info]. I DID IT!!! Cycled 2509 miles for the year! I’ll put in more if the weather holds for the next few days. If not, we’ll start counting the new miles early January 2010!

• March 2009 – 107.29 miles (3/12 start)
• April 2009 – 340.03 miles
• May 2009 – 463.55 miles
• June 2009 – 530.47 miles… See More
• July 2009 – 464.37 miles
• August 2009 – 308.76 miles
• September 2009 – 106.40 miles
• October 2009 – 000.00 miles – wow, that is sad.
• November 2009 – 38.33 miles – that is sad too!
• December 2009 – 149.36 miles (12/12 – 12/27)

79 total rides for the year. 162.8 hours on my bike (6.8 days).
I need to fix those low mileage months in 2010

Went to dinner at Panera bread with Erik, Irene and David. I got the french onion sour dough bread bowl. That was pretty darn good.

Alright people, until next time! Ride on and stay safe!
-T

Distance to-date this year: 2509.1 miles (since March 12th, 2009)

Road with Erik around HB. I broke 2500 miles for the year! Road 150 miles in December, never thought I would EVER do that

Route
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/or/hillsboro/369126195351910089

Distance to-date this year: 2486.99 miles (since March 12th, 2009)

Route
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/or/hillsboro/682126178604479498

Monday Dec 21st – Had friends over for dinner. Received Blokus from Jessica! Played that and Fluxx in good company.

Jess helped with the cooking and photo taking for the night. Dinner consisted of a homemade chicken pot pie (chicken, green peas, celery, carrots) with biscuits, side salad and white rice. [Recipe #1, #2]. We made cake for Zier’s birthday. Served up some black tea with some ginger. General consensus: good stuff all around! Photos posted on Facebook… hopefully in chronological order between the two cameras. Cleaned up most of the kitchen afterwards. I think I used all of my plates and silverware this evening!

I’d like to thank everyone for coming! [Jessica, Kenny, Teanna, Whitty, Irene, Erik, Carla, John, Josie, Jared, David]

Tuesday Dec 22nd – Went on a 26.4 mile ride at 9am in the morning with Jessica. [Route]. We rode on the North side of US-26 and Jessica climbed her first big hill on the roadie. Congrats!

My bike was making noise all morning. I looked at it after wards and found out the noise was coming from between the shifter cable and the cable housing. I added some chain oil and it cleared right up.

I went to lunch at Helvatia Tavern with Jess, Kenny and Adam(?) post ride. I got the usual: the jumbo cheese burger with fries. I hung out and played Blokus over at Jess and Kenny’s place. We went to the Winter Wonderland over at PIR later that night (a few photos came out and made it to Facebook). We came back and watched Idiocracy, and played more Blokus. Miss Kitty feel asleep on my lap – couldn’t move. Poor Alaska wasn’t feeling well.

Wednesday Dec 23rd – Cleaned up the remaining large dishes from Monday’s party (yeah, I know…). Went on a short cycling ride with Jessica at 3:15p, but it was cut short by the fog [7miles for me, 9.5 for Jess]. Saw two cars that did not stop at the intersection even though we had the right of way, and saw one MVA on Dawson Creek and Brookwood – that was enough to call it good. [Route]. Came back and made more black tea to warm up. Drove Jess (and bike) home.

Headed out to Zier’s birthday dinner at Standford’s – ordered the Pan Roasted Garlic Chicken and house salad for dinner. For dessert, I got the a tripple berry cobbler. That was some good stuff!

Hung out with Jess later that evening. We continued our search for a second tin of black tea and failed. Oh well, you’ll get some tea of your own at some point . I made at least another 5 liters of it that night with the stash that I have. Watched Momento with Jess and Kenny while he was on break from his night shift. Roamed around downtown Hillsboro at 1am. Watched 50 First Dates and called it a night. Gonna miss you. Good luck, and I’ll see you again soon! And you’ll get your tea.

Thursday Dec 24th – Woke up from my 7am alarm again. I should really turn that off since I’m on vacation I looked outside and was surprised to see a light dusting of snow / ice / frost. That’s a good way to start off Christmas Eve day. Started laundry. Went for a Christmas Eve day cycling ride around HB. It was partly cloudy and around 41 degrees out, but my toes and ears were freakin’ cold! [Route].

Later at night, I wrote “Maybe I’ll feel better when I break 2500 cycling miles for the year. There are still a few days left in 2009 ” in my Google Talk status. Should be easy enough since I’m at 2470 miles already hehehe

Distance to-date this year: 2468.69 miles (since March 12th, 2009)

My toes and ears are really really cold!

Route
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/or/hillsboro/552126170295932265

Distance to-date this year: 2461.45 miles (since March 12th, 2009)

Foggy afternoon ride around HB with Jessica. Cut short though… stupid foggy weather.

Route
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/or/hillsboro/466126161924878552