I got a little adventurous this evening and set up the 8″ f/4 in order to try my hand at doing some imaging with it and the LPI. Jupiter was nice and high in the sky and seemed like a logical choice. It was a little tricky pointing the scope with the LPI attached and without an RA drive, tracking was a little tough. But I did manage to get some good shots which you can see in the gallery.
Author Archives: Pat
The Purple Cow
I went to Ft. Worth to pick up the saddle bags today and stopped at The Purple Cow diner for lunch on the way back. It’s on Hulen St. in the same shopping center as the Central Market. I ordered a patty melt and while it look a little longer than I would have liked, it arrived hot and delicious. The food seems to be good and the prices are great.
Motorcycle Audio
I finally called it quits on trying to do this cheap. After reading a lot of web pages and talking to a couple people at the Star Wars movie, I’ve placed an order for some Etymotic ER6i noise blocking in-the-ear speakers. They’re supposed to block 34 – 36 dB of outside noise, which is about 10 dB more than the foam earplugs that I wear when riding. They’ll be in in about a week, so I’ll post a review after I’ve tried them out.
Revenge of the Sith
I just got back from a vendor sponsored showing of Revenge of the Sith and am completely blown away. This movie was incredible. The visual effects were great, the storyline finally brought everything together, in short it kicked ass!
I’m going back to see it again tomorrow.
Power Cables For The Motorcycle
Now that I’ve got the XM radio and a GPS to power while I’m riding, I’ve been looking for a cigarette lighter socket that will connect up to the pigtail that I’ve already got installed for the battery charger. Well, Powerlet Products had exactly what I wanted, a two outlet setup, and it’s on the way. Now all I’ve got to do is get some speakers so that I can hear the tunes!
New Saddlebags
Since I’m getting ready for a nice long road trip in June I’ve been thinking that the T-Bag is probably not going to hold enough stuff. I used to have a set of LeatherLyke hard bags but my 2002 wreck took them out. They were nice, but a little big, so this time I decided to go for something smaller and found Harley‘s nylon throw overs to be just about perfect. Ft. Worth Harley-Davidson was the only dealer that had them in stock, so I’m heading out on Saturday to pick them up.
It’s Not FM, It’s XM
Well, I finally bit the bullet and picked up an XM receiver. Specifically the Roady 2. It was cheap and it’s got all the features I wanted, especially the built in FM modulator that I need to connect it in to the Jeep’s stereo.
This service completely rocks! There are no commercials! None!
Right now I’ve been listening to Lucy (channel 54) a lot. It’s got a great mix of the 80’s and 90’s alternative that I grew up on.
Now I’m working on wiring it in to the motorcycle so that I can have tunes on the road.
DShield
I just signed up with DShield so that I can submit my firewall logs for analysis. DShield is a clearing house for firewall logs to track trends in intrusion and attacks. My firewall allows automated submissions, so now I’m just waiting for the first one to show up over there.
FIOS At One Month
It’s been about a month since I switched from DSL to Verizon‘s FIOS service. The service has been rock solid, the data rates as advertised, and after a little telephone tag I even got them to do reverse DNS for the one IP I’m using. I’m thinking that cable’s in a little bit of trouble and unless they come up with something a lot better, they’re going to start looking a lot like dialup does compared to cable or DSL. They’ll be the low cost alternative to the “real” services.
A Good Scotch and a Good Cigar
After the week from hell I needed to unwind a little so I spent most of the evening sitting in my back yard drinking a well deserved Glenmorangie Port Wood Finish scotch. A couple friends of mine turned me on to this at a biker gathering a couple years ago. It’s a lot smoother than the Laphroaig that I usually drink, but the port wood finish really makes this a smooth drinker. The flavors were an excellent match for the medium sized El Credito Apprentice cigar that I picked out of the humidor. It’s a little smaller than my preferred size, but the draw was smooth, the smoke was thick, and it burned evenly and smoothly. I picked up a few different flavors, including leather and earth.
All in all, a good way to get over a rough week.