OUT OF THE BLUE

Blackberry GPS Issues - partially solved

OK- since I’ve been doing more outdoors-type stuff, some of which involves being out in the boondocks (to clarify– of Wisconsin), I’ve been wanting a GPS unit more and more. Now, I have a Blackberry Pearl 8130 (US Cellular) that actually has GPS functionality built in– but it only kinda works, and then only sometimes.

For the first few months I had the 8130, GPS and BBMaps worked fine. It was able to find satellites most of the time within a minute and stay locked on, even in the car. Then, it worked less and less often– I was able to get a lock for most of the way from Madison to Chicago on the bus in June, but couldn’t get a lock standing outside my apartment. The rest of July and August, it never got a lock. Ever. I switched to Google Maps for Mobile, which worked better; that at least gets me a fix within 1800 or so meters, which is close enough to identify a freeway interchange.

Last weekend I was out hiking in Token Creek County Park, where it would have been really nice to have a GPS powered map on my phone (since I, um, didn’t bring a compass or paper map– oops). Again, couldn’t get a lock. So I gave up and did some googling, and found some answers here and here– seems I’m not the only one dealing with the Pearl’s GPS not working.

Long story short– as indicated in the forum threads linked above, you really want to download GPSed.

It doesn’t fix the connectivity problem completely. There are still some times where I can’t get a fix in the same spot I got 10 satellites less than two hours ago. I have to use GPSed’s “Reset GPS” function fairly often to get a lock (which does work, again, fairly often). Once GPSed has locked on, though, BBMaps and Google Maps also lock on, which makes the whole package a lot more useful. I was able to use Google Maps satellite view to verify where I was vs. where the Blackberry thought I was– standing in a parking space at work, Google Maps had my position dot right in the middle of that parking space.

So, okay, the Blackberry’s probably not as reliable as a standalone GPS unit. But GPS units don’t do email. (Although I haven’t tried it, the 8130 does have Bluetooth, so one could feasibly use an external GPS unit. I need more pockets.)

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Stick it to the oil man- bike to work

Okay, so I’m a Madison transplant– but I’m a little closer to being a native. Not only have I made it around Lake Monona by bike (once, the easy way, but it still counts), I’ve started biking to work a couple of days a week.

It took a while to get started, even in bike friendly Madison. Getting in the car is easy– it’s still a pain to get up and go to work, but the trip there doesn’t require any effort. You get in the car, start it up, and off you go. Riding a bike involves leaving earlier, checking the weather, bringing clothes to change into when you get there, and making sure you take (enough) water along.

The route I take to work involves two different, and each fairly short, dedicated bike paths plus bike lanes and two legs of just plain old streets. There are a few hills, but nothing I can’t deal with. It’s an easy ride. The streets I do ride on aren’t busy in the morning on the way to work, and are still easy to navigate in the afternoon. They’re city streets, but not “main artery” streets. Without the two bike paths, and a short chunk of asphalt (thank you, PDQ @ Stoughton Rd. & Anderson St.!) that connects one street to another, my bike commute wouldn’t happen. If anyone wonders if those short bike paths and connector sidewalks are worth the money property owners and the city of Madison spend on them, the answer is yes. So are the bike lanes.

And since I’m handing out thank you’s, thanks to those nice folks who give me extra room on the street even when I have a bike lane to ride in. It’s appreciated.

(Now, if I could convince The Man at work that a place to shower at work would be a good thing, I’d be willing to call my employer bike friendly, too.)

Links:

• City of Madison, WI Traffic Engineering Bike Maps
• Where to get a Dane County (paper) bike map
• Reindahl Park info (one of the paths I use
• Wisconsin DOT Bicycle Projects

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Don’t go away mad, just go away

Some folks thought I was crazy back in 2006 when I suggested it was time to trade Favre and rebuild. “Blasphemy! It’ll never happen!” someone said around that time during a face to face discussion.

Heh.

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Midsummer night’s update

Yikes, I haven’t posted anything meaningful since April. Time to catch you up with what’s been going on here since then, not in any particular order.

I survived another semester at MATC, ringing up Trigonometry and Spanish I. I’m sure I slept at some point between January and May, but between classes and work I’d be hard pressed to tell you exactly when it happened. Next up: Spanish II and Calculus I in fall.

I volunteered at the WHA-TV Auction again this year as a bid sorter and bid runner– and found myself (willingly) drafted into being a board captain on the last day of the auction. If you were watching during the hours before Showcase on 1 June, you might have seen me writing bids on the C board.

Memorial Day started with me marching with the Black Knights Color Guard in the Monona Memorial Day Parade, followed by post chaplain duties for services at several local cemeteries. I was also granted the honor of reading the opening and closing prayers at U. S. Army Cpl. Rachael Hugo’s reinterment ceremony at Roselawn Cemetery in Madison. (I’ve started, and not finished, several posts about Memorial Day 2008– the entire day, especially Cpl. Hugo’s reinterment ceremony, was an emotional experience– so much that I’m at a loss for words. I’m just sincerely honored that I was able to participate.)

I have not been in the gym as much as I’ve needed to be since final exams, mainly because I was just plain exhausted for a while after the semester was over. I did buy a new mountain bike that I’ve been riding around the neighborhood, and I’ve also been out doing things like climbing rocks and kayaking this summer. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

I just returned from 11 days in Costa Rica (map); I was there for a friend’s wedding, plus some very much needed rest and relaxation. The map link points to the house we stayed in (the elbow shaped building NNE from the satellite dish), at Tarbaca outside of San Jose. I had a great time… although today I’m still recovering from the trip, so more details and pictures to follow.

And there you have it.

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Crazylegs Classic 2008

This year’s Crazylegs Classic time: 8K in 1:05:33, which was just slightly longer than my Crazylegs 2007 time of 58:54:00. There are reasons for taking the extra time: first, it was windy, which is a condition I’m not used to when running (most of my running is done on a treadmill at the YMCA). Second, I think I tried to keep up with other runners a little too much over the first mile or two. Once I started listening to the cadences and the voice in my head saying “just run your own race”, I got into more of the rhythm that I was used to running.

Listen to me, talking about my running technique. Heh.

I wish I had thought of it earlier– at last month’s VFW post meeting, an info packet had arrived asking if Post 7591 was interested in putting a team together for Crazylegs. I was the only one that raised my hand, but there may be others around from other Posts or people who don’t attend meetings. So I’ll put it out there now, 364 days before Crazylegs 2009. If you’re a Veterans of Foreign Wars member (or you’re eligible) and would like to run with me in next year’s Crazylegs, leave a comment and let me know. I’ll get in touch when registration opens for 2009.

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The Life of a Private

I found this in a collection of my Dad’s letters home from San Bernardino AAF, circa 1943.
Thought it was worth sharing.

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Reaching For The Sky

I have been elected to a second term as Chaplain of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7591. This involves several things– I monitor the obituaries, keeping track of post members who have passed away. At each monthly meeting, if any of our post members have passed, the Post Charter is draped and I offer a short prayer for them (and for the rest of us). Occasionally, a post member will ask for a prayer of remembrance for a particular veteran, service member, or unit. When a post member passes away, if requested by the veteran’s family I may be asked to conduct a Pass in Review, during which the deceased veteran is remembered by his or her comrades from the post. I’m also responsible for recognizing and remembering the post members who have passed away during several ceremonies on Memorial Day.

If you had told me in April 1991 that I’d be elected to a second term as a VFW Post Chaplain, I’d have given you a blank stare at best. I could say that about a lot of things I’m doing now, though.

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Trigonometry and marching orders

Okay, I promised I’d try to write more, so I’ll take a break between conjugating verbs in Spanish, and learning about inverses of circular functions in Trig.

I’m experimenting with ways to push, pull, or drag my VFW Post into the 21st century; VFW does have a presence on Myspace and Facebook, and I’ve started posting meeting notices as events on Facebook. It’s a scream in the wilderness– at nearly 40, I’m one of the younger active members of my post and probably one of the most socially networked. If you find a meeting notice posted online, come to a meeting and tell me where you saw the posting and I’ll buy you a beer/soda.

This past Saturday, the Black Knights Color Guard (of which I am a member) got together to practice marching. Yes, marching. I swore when I graduated Ground Rat school I’d never march in a parade again if I could help it, but here I am holding up a flag and trying to stay in step. I noticed two things on Saturday– one, you never forget how to march once you’ve learned. Two, it’s actually fun now. I’ll try to get some pictures from the first time I actually march for real, which will be in May.

Back to homework…

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Looking for something?

I have done some serious rearranging of old entries, which included deleting more than a few– so if Google sent you here and you can’t find what you want, my apologies. Google probably has a cached copy of whatever you were looking for. You can also try looking under “uncategorized”, as I’ve dropped a couple of categories as well.

I’m going to try to post things that are a little more meaningful than just “whatever popped into my head that day”, we’ll see how that goes. School and work are still taking up most of my time.

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Is it back to school if you never really left?

Two weeks (holy crap!) into fall semester, I suppose I should post something about being back in college.

Maybe I’ve been a college student too long, but the process of getting an application in, transcripts sent, add slips signed, overrides filled out (and signed), ID card made (“Smile!”), parking sticker attached to the right part of the car, maxing the credit card for books… this process was new a couple of colleges ago. So my blog isn’t going to turn into the story of the vet who went back to school and shared the whole story with you. While that would be an interesting and inspirational theme to work with, vets going back to school is nothing new and it’s really just the next chapter in a longer story for me. I’ve been through a lot to get here. Uphill through the snow both ways, you might say. Or not. Let’s just say I’ve worked hard to get to this point, I’m happy to be here, and quite frankly I have enough interesting homework to do that I don’t have time to sit around thinking about the past for very long.

So there you have the “I’ve gone back to college, again” blog entry. Now, since a) I have nothing due until Tuesday, and b) I’m quickly approaching stressed, tired and hungry, I’m going to the Y, followed by foraging for groceries. If I’m still feeling ambitious after that, I’m going to play with my new TI calculator… which looks like it has enough built in functions to fly an F-16.

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