20-20-24 hours

Haven't really exercised since I got hit by the truck. Been feeling pretty antsy about it lately, so I signed up for a trial membership to 24 Hour fitness this weekend. Gaby, Chris and Megan from my street all work out there and give it favorable reviews. Starting out on the funky elliptical machines (where your arms and legs move independently) that are suppose to give you a better core workout. It's only been a couple of days, but so far so good.

Was listening to Vienna Teng on my iPod at the gym. She's a Taiwanese folk/soul/cabaret singer that reminds me of an Asian-looking and sounding Tori Amos (she does sing in English). I like her. You have to respect someone who gives up a sure gig as a software engineer at Cisco Systems to follow her dreams and try her luck at being a troubadour... (skip the first minute if you just want to hear the song - fyi, in case you're a hater, it's a song about the mayor of San Francisco performing gay marriages, not that it should matter)



While searching the web for some of her songs I was reminded of a couple of sites that I haven't visited in a while, the Internet Archive's Live Music Archive and Tapers.org. Both sites archive live recordings from artists that permit recording of their shows. There's a wealth of music here, with over 6000 recordings of Grateful Dead shows alone. All for your downloading pleasure.

Also spent the morning updating my Dad's web site with some changes he requested. The site is 7 years old and looks dated. It was OK when I first coded it, but it really does need a redesign. And besides, I know so much more about web development now after spending the last 2 years writing javascript and html. Photoshop and Illustrator, on the other hand, I haven't used in a while, so I need to bone up on those.

And lastly, got in an Independent Fabrication 953 SSR last week. Can't decide whether to keep it or sell it. It's pretty sexy, being made out of shiny stainless steel and all. I have a thing for bare metal frames - they're so naked, without any paint to hide their flaws or to mask their beautiful welds. Mine has the optional carbon fiber Reynolds rear end. I mated the frame to a Chris king headset and an Easton EC90 SLX fork. It's pretty light - it's suppose to be lighter than my ti Crown Jewel. We'll see after it's all built up. I have a spare Campy Chorus 10 group that I'm thinking about setting this one up with. As a rule, if I keep a new frame, I have to sell 2 old ones to make up for it - so I sold my Serotta Ottrot and Steve Bauer's Motorola team bike recently in anticipation.