The Web Page of Kristopher Linquist

Saturday, got up and rode Mt Hamilton and Mines Rd with Aleks, Raza, Ivan, Chris, and David.   Almost no traffic.... a perfect ride. 

Saturday evening Fara and I went to Shadowbrook for our anniversary dinner and then went over to Amber & Jason's for Melissa's birthday gathering.  

Me and 5 others went and rode the "big sur route" today... 300 miles.  We met for breakfast in south San Jose, rode 130 miles of twisties, pulled into a campground and ate a lunch that we had packed, rode another 110 miles of twisties, then rode 60 miles of freeway home.   8:30AM to 6PM, that's a long day of hard riding.  I finally feel back in the groove on the bike.... especially after Carmel Valley Rd.  I love that road.

Lately I've been addicted to the advrider.com forums - a forum dedicated to motorcycle 'adventure riding.' Most of the participants prefer the dual sport variety (bikes with appropriate tires and suspension to travel on pavement and off-road - like the BMW R1200 GS Adventure)... but of course, it's not limited to dual-sports. Lots of guys on street bikes that just like an adventure.

A buddy of mine that runs Angry Hosting has written an awesome online streaming radio application called Radio Angry.  Check it out - you can upload your own music files, request songs to be played next, etc.  All ajax'y and stuff.

http://www.radioangry.com/ 

After a 1.5 year hiatus from riding, I picked up the exact bike I've been looking for... a 2004 Honda VFR 800 in Asphalt Black (single year color) with ABS.  Only 11k miles on it too.

Fara and I took our first long trek around San Jose today - just about 15 miles total.  Went through downtown, willow glen, a few parks, etc.  I've got to get my exercise endurance up so that I can hike the Panoramic Trail in Yosemite in June! (8.5 miles)

I've only had my Macbook Pro since Thursday, but I must say that it's growing on me... a lot. Here's the essential Mac apps I've discovered. Some freeware, some shareware, and some commercial software.

Photoshop CS3 - Obviously this is the same photo editing software as it is on the PC. There are plenty of cheaper, but no better.

My new department uses Macbook Pros exclusively, so it was time to make the switch.   Why not?  The latest machines run Windows as well as any other laptop...

I went through a few hours of frustration figuring things out.. but OSX is starting to grow on me.  Adium is a fantastic chat client, Quicksilver is a great launcher, Transmit rocks as an FTP Client, and BBCode will suit editing html/php quite nicely.    Now if there were only a maximize button somewhere... 

Oh, and I've branded it:

A 1987 BMW 325. 

My tech interest of the day has been radios. I am a member of a caravan of BMWs that drive to Santa Barbara every year. We all communicate via Motorola Talkabouts (FRS/GMRS) radios.. which basically give you the range of about 10 cars ahead & behind you. Not very practical for a caravan of hundreds of cars. I started investigating higher powered radios to see what was possible. Here are my discoveries: