Lawn is cut!

I finally got my 5.0 peak horsepower lawn mower today. Here are some before pictures. It's dark out now, so the after pictures will just look like a black room.

I had to mow at the 6 setting and when I made my 2nd pass at the 2 setting the engine made a weird noise and died. Well, I figured, I got half of my front lawn done for a $80 mower, not too bad. I turned the sucker over and a strip of sheet metal was broken and had to be removed (it was hitting the blade.)

So I started wrenching with it and got nowhere. Then I had the bright idea, "Hey, I still have Vince's grinder! That should take care of this." I whip out the heavy grinder and start going to town. Then I notice all of the sparks going everywhere and the smell of gas from the mower being turned over. I definetly did not want to be one of those guys you see on TV after they do something stupid, so I stopped. I eventually got the metal off by just wiggling it back and forth.

The wonderful front

The Savanna

Lawn

I had big dreams of getting a lawn mower and taking care of business this weekend. It came through just as well as my last Lotto ticket. I found an used mower for sale ($80) but the guy had to tune it up and sharpen the blades. So I get it today.

Instead of mowing, I started edging the lawn with the help of my mom. I used her edger which is pretty much like a flat shovel that you stand on and you take out 5 inches of lawn at a time. As I was hopping up and down on the edger, one of my neighbors came out and said "Thank god! I'm so happy you're finally doing that!"

I started to explain myself, telling my dumb story about being busy and not able to get a used mower cos I'm plain lazy. I didn't really care about my story, and I don't think she did either.

"Are you going to trim the bushes in the back too?"

Yes, eventually I will.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

My lawn is a bit scary, but it's not that bad. I should leave some lawn clippings on her step as a message.

We ended up filling 2 1/2 lawn refuse bags from just the edgings. I'm a little aprehensive about how much crap I'm going to have when I do the actual mowings.

RSS Feeds for Blogs

For a long time I've thought of RSS feeds as being pretty useless for me. Then I realized I was spending a fair amount of time checking different websites to see if they've changed. Well, this is where RSS comes in.

Some blogging software will produce a RSS xml file that gives a summary of what is on the website or webpage. My blogging software, for instance, puts a link on the top right side of my blog that reads XML. The link brings up an XML file that summarizes the last 15 or so entries.

Other websites, like slashdot and wired have RSS feeds that you can check (don't check /. more often than every 30 minutes, they end up blocking your IP address.)

So instead of manually checking your favorite websites, you can let your RSS aggregator do it for you. I wasn't able to find any decent ones until I upgraded my Opera browser that has a built in "Newsfeeds" reader. All I do is find someones RSS link, click on it and then my browser will automatically import the RSS xml and then monitor that link every X number of minutes.

I came across a free web based RSS feed reader today, bloglines. It works well, you type in the URL of RSS feed and it will monitor the feed for you. Plus you can access your feeds from anywhere and you're not tied down to a client sitting on a certain machine.

I really think it's nifty that you can have some program do your website checking for you. It could really free up a lot of time if you have tons of sites to visit to see new things.

My biking buddy Vince

Everyone who goes biking should have a biking partner like mine. He just called to confirm that we were in fact going riding today after work. The last 2 weeks he's had to bail for lame reaons like "My son is shipping off to Iraq tomorrow and this is the only night he's in town." Whatever -- I don't see the commitment.

He said today, "Look, I haven't ridden in a while, so we're going to be moving slow." I pointed out that we always have equipment failure and that's a good reason to turn around. He laughed, "Well, I brought my knife so I can have an 'accidental tire blowout' and we can go drink beer." That's what I'm talking about, willing to sacrifice the bike to get some beer.

Unfriendly Waterfront People

The last few times I've been jogging down on the waterfront and esplande I've noticed that no one makes eye contact. When I go jogging I try to wave to people and say "hi" (it usually comes out as "ughhhii") but nobody waves or says anything. A lady today did say "you're on the wrong side" when I was jogging over the Hawthorne bridge. I try and stay to the river side of the walkway so bikers can get around me. She didn't move to the river side so I did (to make room ya know.) I was going to jog back to her and tell her my reasoning, but I ended up having to rest and cough up a lung instead.

When I was at Brown I got used to people not saying "hi" or waving or being social at all. Then I came back to Portland and people were a lot more friendly. That seems to have changed lately (maybe it's the Californians?) and it's too bad. It's like the gym I go to (ok, used to go to) where no one looks at anyone else.

Maybe the guys outside ignore me cos, well, I'm a guy. And the women probably just see me as a sweaty guy who's breathing heavily and get scared off.

Moving in

I've been slowly moving stuff into my house, I had just a couch for about a week and then last weekend my parents brought back my futon from the beach house. Yesterday I came back from the beach with my futon frame so I have a real bed and am not just sleeping on the floor. Then my parents brought over 2 tables and some chairs I had left at their place - it's like I have a real house now!

Well, it's complete now because I put up my new training board above my hallway door. Hopefully it's screwed into the header correctly and I won't pull it down when I'm working on it. It has over 15 different holds and I can actually use about 4 of them, so I have a lot of room for improvement.