March 2008 Archives

A local guy Chris Dinsmore from down here in the "flat lands" took the Cat 4 at Jeff Cup!  When he came to me at the line to confirm that he was first he just wouldn't believe me when I tried to convince him he really finished in last place. 

Anyways, Congratulations!

He's posted his race report on his site here.

This weekend went by in a blur! My sister, Gilbert (aka keirinracer), Danielle, and I left Friday night to head to Charlottesville, VA for a fun filled exciting weekend playing official for some great bike races. The first race of the weekend took us about 1.5 hours from Charlottesville to an area outside of Harrisonburg for the JMU Reddish Knob Hill Climb. After over taking several "high speed" horse and buggies, yes thats right horse and buggies in true pre-motorized vehicle form straight from the barns Amish (or Mennonites) we finally arrived at the staging area. This was an interesting, and beautiful, setting for a race. The time trial was about 12 miles long that straight out course that started with a gradual slope then increased in steepness through several switchbacks to the top of a mountain. At the start the temperature was around 50, at the top it was in the neighborhood of 10 or 15 degrees cooler. Riders were reporting having to make stops along the way to sit atop rocks that were in the sun to warm up before proceeding the rest of the way down the mountain. I forgot how much fun Time Trials can be when they have 30 second starts. That 30 seconds can at sometimes seem to draw on forever, and othertime go by in a flash. Riders rolling in at the last second, trying to make sure the right people have the right numbers, and making sure that your time gaps are correct makes for a very chaotic time! All in all this was a great race and my first experience working a collegiate race. I found that the collegiate racers were a group to work with. Their enthusiasm level and positive attitudes made for a great racing environment.
It's interesting to me how one or two people will really stand out from in a crowd. Sometimes it's a bad attititude, sometimes a stellar performance. This Saturday that person was, Julie Gliesing, but then again she stands out at most races. Not only because of her phenomanal strength and speed as a racer, but because of here incredibly positive attitude and radiating smile. From what I heard her smile could be seen coming up the side of the mountain amidst the suffering that had to have been going on in the last stretch of the hill climb! Every time I have ever seen her at a race she is full of encouraging words for her team mates and never have I heard a negative word out of her mouth.
Saturday night was a trip to the South Street Brewery in Charlottesville with a group of 11 other people. They do not take reservations so a wait for a table for such a large group at 7 on a Saturday night was quite long. So I took advantage of the waiting time to enjoy one of their beers called Satan's Pony. I wasnt sure what exactly it was going to be, but with a name like that I had to try it. It turned out to be an Amber Ale. It tasted pretty good after a long day but wasnt as hoppy or "full bodied" as I tend to like my beer. Once seated the first beer chosen was Absolution Ale, it was good! Much better than Satan's Pony. More hoppiness and a slightly sweeter taste. The food wasn't anything to write home about, but then again it was a large group and just a burger. Who comes to a brew pub for the food anyways? The final beer was JP Ale. This one was somewhere in between the Absolution and Satan's Pony as far as taste. Definitely worth a try. I would like to go back sometime and try this place again with a smaller group and at an earlier, less busy time. Following South Street was a wonderful time sitting in the lobby drinking some great beer that Kevin Long brought down from Blue and Grey Brewery in Fredericksburg. The beer was good and the company was better. Conversation carried on until around midnight, getting up on Sunday morning was going to be "fun"!
The race on Sunday was the Jefferson Cup Road Race. Sunday proved to be an "interesting" day. We arrived at the start line which was in the middle of nowhere at 7:30AM to drop off the equipment and start setting up. It was COLD, and shortly after we arrived something interesting happened. It started to sleet and snow. IT'S LATE MARCH, this isn't supposed to happen. Luckily I packed for every possible scenario and was able to layer up to stay warm! Ruth Stornetta and her team organized an excellent event. She hired a top notch crew of officials and even paid to have the Finishlynx camera system on the line. From an officials stand point we had one of the best possible scenarios for producing results. We had some of the best hand scorers I have ever seen, the Finishlynx Camera, then two Canon HD cameras attached to Macbooks for the catching the race finishes. The combination of the hand scoring and the the cameras allowed us to turn out accurate results in very short periods of time. The technology makes it much easier to get things done quickly and accurately, but as we found out in one of the races it cant always be counted on exclusively. No matter how good you think the technology is, there is always a need for a backup. Luckily, in this instance when one of the camera/macbooks decided it didn't want to cooperate we had plenty of back up systems in place. The Finishlynx, other camera, and excellent hand scoring made the issue a complete non-issue. This is a perfect example of why the "art" of hand scoring is very important. If this where any other race, more than likely, the other cameras would not have been there and our finish results would have been entirely dependent on hand scoring.

On the topic of technology.... the site had some downtime this weekend. Stormyworld.net isn't hosted in some big, overly redundant, super backed up server farm somewhere. It's on my personal server in my own little house in the non-bike friendly City of Virginia Beach. I don't have it on a un-interuptable power supply either so if the power goes off the server does too. It also stays off until someone manually turns the server back on. Saturday night the power was turned off in the house and the server was not turned back on until I got home last night. Amber was hearing steady beeping every few seconds Saturday night. After several she made several very frustrated calls to me she shut the main breaker to the house off hoping that would help her find the horribly annoying beeping. Now this one ought to draw some comments from some of the Fire Man/bikers that sometime peruse this site.... the culprit of the beeping was a smoke detector in a cabinet under a sink that had dying batteries. It was there just in case the sink caught fire. Now, before the comments actually get left I do have other several other smoke detectors with working batteries in the house that get new batteries twice a year. This one just happend to get forgotten.

The weekend was fun, but no riding time was put in. Today I am too exhausted to ride even if I didn't have to take my son, who went to the dark side, to baseball practice. He's decided to take the season off of "racing bikes" to dedicate himself to the sport of baseball, whats up with that, I thought cycling was the only sport that mattered?????

Today is the first of three days without being able to get out and ride!

I have ridden the last three days in a row and had some great rides!  Yeah the winds been strong but it felt great to get out.  Especially in daylight in temperatures that allowed shorts and short sleeve, not 6 layers of clothing to stay warm.   Now it's three days off... tonight is the drive to Charlottesville, V, tomorrow is a day of officiating collegiate races, then Sunday is a full day of officiating for Jeff Cup.
That means no riding until Monday.
Good luck to everyone that is racing this weekend!

We have been to Cozumel Restaurante Cantina a couple more times since posting my first “review”.  The place is great, food is good, staff is friendly, and the 1800 Margarita is AWESOME! 

This place is definitely worth checking out! 

The original post about Cozumel Restaurante Cantina can be found here.

Cozumel Restaurant Cantina’s site is here.

Last night I rode the loop once again, this time with Jay, Dan, Stacy, and Gilbert. March is officially here, the wind was blowing like mad again! Especially in the Trail of Tears section of the ride. It made for an interesting experience, riding while laying over at a 15 degree angle. Overall it was a much better ride then the one Tuesday night. I felt better and was able to push much harder. I wimped out when asked by Dan and Stacy to ride out to Creeds, due to the fact that I still had a bunch of furniture moving and relocating to do.

A Crappy Tuesday Ride...
I got home to find that our Boxer's stomach "bug" has passed which meant I did not have to clean up an ass-plosion from all areas around her crate. Everything else worked out too. The planets were aligned and biking gods were all putting the powers on me so that I would be able to ride. So, off I went to the shop to hopefully meet a few other folks and head out on the normal Pungo Loop for an epic Tuesday night ride.
Upon arriving to the shop I found only a few Team in Training Riders, most of which where of the loose fitting, non-spandex, clothing slower moving variety. I let them head out and waited about 57 minutes until 6PM to see if anyone would show up. No one else did. Then I walked outside to find that the wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped. Now it was in the low 40's and there was a nice steady wind. I went out anyways.
The first section of the ride through the neighborhood wasn't too bad if you like riding in a wind tunnel. I passed the Team in Training group on the way out of the neighborhood and kept on going. The turn on to New Bridge Road put me into a head wind that did not stop until I got to the very end of the loop. Normally the wind doesn't bother me too much, but for some reason I was having trouble pushing myself. I felt lazy.
For most of the ride my legs felt over worked and my lungs felt like they were half the size they should be. It felt like I was working really hard. What was strange was that my heart rate was staying about 10 beats per minute lower than what I would normally have with that much perceived effort. I don't have any of the fancy power tap things, so I have to go on what I feel and it sure did feel like I was working hard. I guess I was just having an "off" day. Hopefully tonight will have me feeling more energetic and make for a more enjoyable ride.

I came across this article on TreeHugger this morning about “Bike Boxes”.  A small area for a cyclist to stop in at a stop light.  The location of the box would make the cyclist more visible as well as prevent cyclist from being hit by motorist making turns.  Portland has even taken it so far as to paint the approach to the intersection and the box green to remind drivers to look out for cyclists.  The bike boxes and green warning areas came after several deaths from accidents at intersections.  (Read the entire article here.)  Imagine that, a community works to solve a problem and encourages motorists to share the road and look out for cyclists!  Not just throw the blame on the cyclist and move on without correcting the problem.  It’s ironic that I came across these articles only a few short weeks after a local cyclist lost a case in Virginia Beach.  He had been riding up Atlantic Ave in the trolley lane, which for those unfamiliar with the Virginia Beach Oceanfront, is the entire right lane going both North and South on the main strip at the Oceanfront.  A vehicle making a turn ran in to him because supposedly the motorist did not see the cyclist in the trolley lane.  It was determined that the cyclist was fully responsible for the incident due to the fact that he was in the trolley lane and not the normal traffic lane. 

The City of Virginia Beach could be such a wonderful place, especially the ocean front resort area, if they could follow the lead of several other communities like Portland with it’s bike boxes and even Rehobeth Beach with their bike lanes.  I am not talking about a widened sidewalk, but a wide shoulder or special use area incorporated in to a part of the main road.  Cyclists in these lanes are more visible to motorists and the lack of intersection transitions and gutters make it much safer for us the narrow tire riders.  Not to mention the widened sidewalks, like those along Dam Neck Rd, are very unsafe at major intersections.  Try crossing the intersection at Drakesmile Rd at rush hour.  Cars making right hand turns don’t pay attention and don’t see the cyclists coming up the path where as a cyclist in a bike lane would be much more visible.

I wonder how long it will take the City of Virginia Beach to realize that promoting a safe community for outdoor recreation will help draw even more people in to the area.  It will draw the type of people that I would think the city would want in it’s tourist and tax base.  It would be much better than drawing those fat rednecks in their old beater Ford pickups spewing exhaust fumes that flick cigarette butts out the window and cant use a turn signal!

The original Treehugger article: Portland's Bike Boxes: Making Cars More Polite : TreeHugger.

Yeah it’s Monday!  Back to work!  What a happy day, NOT! 

This was a good weekend.  A nice ride Saturday that had me dropped from the fast group in the Trail of Tears.  It’s amazing how much more effort a fast ride takes when there is a lot of yo-yo’ing and dodging people that can’t seem to hold a line or want to constantly jump out of the saddle throwing the bike backwards.  Either way it was a good ride.  Later in the day was a great time with good friends at my favorite restaurant, the Tap House in Ghent.  We even ran in to Chris, Wes, and the rest of the Alley Cat gang that had just finished the most recent Norfolk Alley Cat Race/Scavenger hunt.  Chris has put up a race report on his site, here.  I think Wes doing the Alley Cat with a child in tow in a bike trailer may be an Alley Cat first.  (I am not sure who took the picture but it was discovered on Chris’s site)  The beer and food was, as always, worth the drive from Virginia Beach to Ghent.  The St Bernardus was awesome, the Aventinus Eisbock was even better, and I cant even remember what it was that I had for my third.  It amazes me how much better some beers taste coming off the tap.  Oh yeah, the cider steamed mussels and burger were awesome too.

Sunday, I rolled out of bed at 630, saw the temperature of 38  degrees and decided the bed was much more enticing.  After a couple more hours of sleep Amber and I did some driving around Norfolk and Virginia Beach to deliver groceries to some folks.  Later in the day was a drive over to my father’s house to enjoy a nice family dinner.  My son the wonderful child that he is loved his new clothes that were acquired on a late night grocery run to Walmart.  Due to a crazy Saturday schedule and us being the awful parents that we are we didnt have clothes packed for him to stay with his Grandfather and Michele so the nice vest and tie were acquired and left on the doorstep late Saturday night so he would have something to wear on Sunday.  Isnt he just the most handsome little ten year old!  The picture is linked to the rest of the images that were taken that day.

Amber and I did a lot of driving around this weekend and I noticed that something seems to be happening on the road…. people seem to have forgotten what that piece of plastic sticking out of the steering column is supposed to be used for.  You know, a turn signal.  There was a time that they used to teach people in drivers education classes how to use them.  It used to be common courtesy to let other drivers around you know where you intended to go.  Not any more.  Every where you go there are fewer and fewer people that can seem to push that little bit of plastic an inch.  Maybe it is just another of those things that lazy people just cant seem to garner up the energy to do.  I for one use it religiously… I signal my turns, signal my lane changes, and sometimes even signal with my one finger signal when the fat lazy redneck driving his big old rust bucket Ford pickup decides he wants to cut me off.  That is cut me off with out using his turn signal because his hand is too busy flicking his cigarette out the window. A quick hunt for images to attach to this vent turned up this: Turn Signal Jacket For Cyclists : TreeHugger.  Pretty cool, but what good would it do… no one wants to use turn signals anyways. 

Eric from Charlottesville Racing has put up some great tips for riding in on those hard core, crazy, group rides.  He makes some very good points, especially the ones in regards to traffic. 

Check it out... The Tao of Tuesday-Thursday

Google Docs is a wonderful thing… free hosting of documents and it doesnt tie up my bandwidth.  The VBW Smackdown results went around in multiple .pdf files but I havent seen consoldated results posted anywhere yet.  So, I uploaded them to Google Docs and have published them out for everyone to check out.  I havent edited these files, proof read them, or done anything else of the sort.

Here’s the links:

Mens 30+: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d28bwt7_43cg4j2xgx

Mens Cat 5:  http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d28bwt7_70g47kx3fs

Mens Cat 4:

Page 1: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d28bwt7_46c3jdh8g5

Page 2: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d28bwt7_49rw3m79hn

Mens Cat 3:  http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d28bwt7_52g78rdrdg

Mens Pro 1/2/3: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d28bwt7_73fz3gz8cd

Mens Masters 50+: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d28bwt7_58dfx94nhb

Juniors 10–14: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d28bwt7_82g3jfrzd3

Juniors 15–18: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d28bwt7_61chpzvgg3

Mens Masters 40+: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d28bwt7_649qgqn5c2

Womens 40+:  http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d28bwt7_67cwwzdjgr

Womens Cat 4: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d28bwt7_76w6mkfdct

Womens 1/2/3:  http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d28bwt7_79f979zm49

I didn’t do it.  I woke up yesterday morning at the butt crack of dawn…. looked out the window and saw rain, wind, and it felt like someone had a grip on the bridge of my nose with a pair of pliers.  My sinuses were having some first class pains going on!  I crawled back in to my nice warm bed and went back to sleep. 

There were a lot of people that still made it out there despite the cold weather, Tyler was on of them.  He wrote up a post about ride in the Dismal Dash.  The results for the 2008 Dismal Dash Time Trial can be found on Kalerunning.com or by clicking here.

The Fat Frogs Team had some great results this weekend!

Technology is truly amazing!  Last year the officials, myself included, struggled to get accurate results posted by hand scoring and scrolling through a tape while viewing on a standard definition monitor.  This year HD cameras and macbooks for the officials make it so much easier.  This ought to be a good! 
Josh over at Firebike has posted the video from the finish line camera the officials were using.  Amazing... that not only can the results be done so much faster but the promoters can have finish line video to archive!

Here's the link:

http://firebike.blogspot.com/2008/03/views-from-finish-line.html

 

Well I did it!  I went out and finished the VBW Smackdown and even placed 8th!  It would have been 10th if the two Matts hadn't crashed on the last lap. 
This is what I learned today.... pay more attention to your surroundings. 
Here's the scenario.... I was riding, feeling really good, and figured I would pull/block for awhile on the front of the main group.  There was one of the Frogs up off the front and I got up to the front of the peleton and figured I would sit there for a while.  It was early in the race, but I was hoping the two on the breakaway might do alright with a little help.  I got so focused on holding the front I didn't pay attention to what was going on behind me.  The next time I looked back I was off by myself and wasn't sure if I wanted to snag the breakaway or drop back to the pack.  I was half way between both.   I ended up dropping back and riding with the pack for the rest of the race.  It was a good time there.... not to much squirrley-ness and a nice pace.  The last lap I took up with the top 10 - 15 and held there hoping for a decent finish.  In the first turn of the last lap the peleton went in to the turn to fast and some folks went off the course.  Two of the people were the two Matts from the Fat Frogs team.  They were both doing well and would have placed probably second and fourth if they didn't end up on the ditch.

Even though I got in a race I also did at least get few pictures of the womens race and the 50 plus.... check out this link for the pictures: http://www.stormyworld.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=23224   It looked like JB who is normally out there taking pictures was out there on the course today.  Karen from Cycor was also out there putting it down!

This race was also the first time I rode my Mini-Drop bars.  Let me say they were AWESOME!  I didn't realize how much of a difference a few centimeters can make.  A big thanks is due to Gamjams and Jared Neiter for the recommendation on the mini-drops!  I was able to ride the hoods and not have my upper body stretched out and ride the drops without feeling like I am laying down on the ground.  It was truly amazing how much of a difference that mini-drop bars can make!

Tomorrow I am scheduled to roll out at 915 for the second day in a row... this time instead of being with 29 other people it will only be me and my bike.  I am trying something new for time trials tomorrow.  I am going to use a camel back instead of a normal bottle.  Supposedly the camel back gives better aerodynamics, but I am using it so I don't have to come out of the aero bars to get a drink.  We'll see how it all works out tomorrow.... the forecast is perfect for the Dismal Dash.  Winds should be around 15 to 20 and the temperature should be around 40!  Woo hoo I cant wait!!! 

Ok… thats it I am going against my better judgement and doing it.  What do I have to lose right?

So I have now officially signed up for the Dismal Dash Time Trial.  It’s the worst race of the year, wind blasting from all directions, and bumpy roads.  Sounds like a blast doesn’t it!  That will make two races for me this weekend…. my legs should be good and sore on Monday!!!

Maybe I will even be able to beat my pitiful finish time last year and do better than 35^th place.

If anyone out there is interested the results from the 2007 DD Time Trial can be found here: http://results.active.com/pages/displayNonGru.jsp?orgID=216396&rsID=42516

I went out last night really hoping for a ride like the TerribleCyclist describes in his post about the Reston Tuesday nighter.  I figured with daylight savings time in full effect and gorgeous weather I would be able to break out my tape measure on the infamous Thursday night Pungo Death Ride.  That didn’t happen though.  Only a few of us showed up at Fat Frogs for the 6:00 ride.  We started out nice and easy riding out through the neighborhood.  When from out of now where I am passed by a “tri-guy” on what appeared to be a Felt B12.  I didn’t even know that you could get your hands on one yet. I have been waiting to for the last 7 or 8 months for one that I might just have to add to the “barn”.  Of course after seeing what I thought was a B12 I had to take off from the group I was riding with to confirm it.  Well by the time that it truly sank in that it might be a B12 they had gotten quite a ways away so I took off on a sprint.  I caught up to them pulled along side that svelte black time trial/tri machine and sure enough it was the B12 in all of it’s sweetness.  I slowed briefly to process all of this and I watched as they disappeared off in to the distance.  Then I looked over my shoulder and saw a group of riders approaching, thinking this was the group I left I picked it back up what I thought was only a little but I guess I was feeling a bit better than I thought. 

The next time I looked back I was off by myself with only a single rider behind me that was approaching rapidly.  It turned out to be Dan, the fast tries to kill me every time we ride, fellow Fat Frogs racing team member.  He caught me and I took his wheel, a wheel that I stayed on for the rest of the ride.  I found out that there is a BIG difference between me who is relatively new in this crazy cycling world and Dan who rides umpteen thousand miles a day.  He pulled and pulled while I tried to just hang on, which somehow I did manage to do.  At one point I was feeling a little “froggy” and pulled along side of Dan, I was hurting but figured I would at least attempt to make a pull.  Dan looked at me with the evil grin that he has and asked “How are you feeling?”  All I could manage was a grunt as he smiled even more and took off.  So here I was pushing to hold on again and we rode.  We caught up to and passed a small group of riders.  Caught and passed a group of tri-girls.  Then sped up even more when he caught sight of a couple of riders ahead.  Finally we caught up to that group and realized we had caught back up to the guy that was riding my B12.

I have to say this ended up being one of the best rides I have had in a long time.  I felt at some points like I wanted to drop off, but somehow I forced myself to stay on.  My heart rate was up, my legs were burning, and I was panting most of the ride, but it felt good!  Does that make me crazy, probably, but it tells me that something may have finally “clicked” in my head and I may actually have the focus to train harder and do well this season.  Who knows maybe I will actually even be able to contribute some points that are earned by racing rather than officiating this year!

Yeah lots of useless posts today, just get over it!
This time I am trying a feature of Google Docs that allows blog posting from the Google Docs interface.
Hopefully it will work!

Tonight will be the 4th day in a row that I have been able to get out on a ride in the evening after work! It feels great!
The day after tomorrow is the VBW Smackdown in Suffolk and I am racing the Cat 5 crit. Maybe the extra riding this week will get me a place that is not somewhere in the bottom 5. :)

This is a test post from a the blog posting software call BlogJet.  I am trying out Blogjet for the 30 day trial to see how I like it.  So far it’s pretty nice and the interface is a lot easier to use then the Moveable Type blog postings.  But the big question is going to be is it worth shelling out the $$ at the end of the 30 daya trial?

I did it, I upgraded to the most recent Firefox beta release!  It's faster, it's got a lot of cool new features, but it is a beta release so there are some compatibility issues with extensions and there are some bugs.  The first of the bugs tha't's come up to bite me is the web based Movable Type blog posting page doesn't work properly.  It will render fine but in the WYSIWYG posting display none of the formating or insert buttons function.  That makes quick posts to the blog a pain in the butt!  In order to format text or add links in a post I have to revert back to hand coding all of the HTML instead of clicking a button and pasting a link. That's where one of the cool features of Firefox comes in.  Firefox has what is called extensions or plug-ins to enable additional functionality in Firefox.  One of the many extenstions I have come to love is IETab.  IETab allows a page to be rendered using the Internet Explorer "engine" instead of the Firefox "engine" without having to open up Internet Explorer separately.  This is a cool feature for checking to see how a web page you are working on displays in a different browser or when you are browsing and come across a site that doesn't render properly like the one I am using to make this post.  There are a few other extensions that I just cant do without in Firefox.  They are:

Del.icio.us Toolbar:  This extension allows easy access to all of the bookmarks I keep on a social/bookmarking site called del.icio.us.

Go To Selection:  Go To Selection allows the highlighting of text on a page then right clicking to open it as website in a new tab.

Snap Links:  This one is great!  It allows you to right click and drag a square over an area on a web page.  Then it opens up all of the links within that square in new tabs.  How cool is that!

When I upgrade Firefox these extensions ceased to function due to supposed incompatibility with the newer version of Firefox.  This prompted me to do some research on a way to make them work.  The first solution I came across was found at Lifehacker which is a great site for finding how to's and information on all kinds of stuff.  The post on enabling extensions required the tweaking of Firefox's about:config file and disabling both a compatibility check and a secure update requirement feature.  Although this does work I wanted to keep the compatibility checks and additional security of checking for secure updates. 

Upon doing a bit more research I came up with an developers article on the Mozilla site explaining how to make an extension work with Firefox3 and it was actually pretty simple.  You open up the install.rdf file that comes in the .xpi extension file.  Edit the line that reads <em:maxVersion>2.0.*</em:maxVersion> to look like this <em:maxVersion>3.0.*</em:maxVersion>.  That sounds complicated but it's actually not. 

To do it instead of left clicking the "Install Now" button on a extension page you right click and select "Save Link As" in the context menu.  Then you save the extension file, that ends with.xpi, to your hard drive.

Next open up the .xpi file in your favorite Zip program.  I like 7-zip, it's free and simple to use.  Then right click and choose edit on the install.rdf file that is included in the extension package.  Find the line that contains <em:maxVersion> and change the version number to read "3.0.* instead of what ever is there.  After you have done that save the file and update the archive.  (7-zip will automatically update the archive for you.) 

The last step is to install and enable the extension.  Fire up Firefox, click on the "File" menu and select "Open File".  Navigate to the directory where you saved your .xpi files and select the one you want to install.  Click the Install button when it becomes avaiable and go through the install process.  Last thing to do is open up the add-ons menu by going to the "Tools" menu and selecting "Add-Ons".  When the "Add-Ons" list is displayed click "Enable" on the extensions that you have recently installed. 

So far all I have tested this method with all of the extensions listed in this post and havent had any problems.

More information about extension compatibility can be found here: http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Updating_extensions_for_Firefox_3

Last night was the first time riding since February 26th.  I don't know what the heck it was that I caught but it had me down and out!  An almost constant annoying dry cough, an itch in my throat, and a rattle as I tried to breathe.  It was miserable!  Yesterday I felt good all day at work my bike sat in the truck waiting to be ridden... the plan was change in to the cycling gear at work, leave promptly at 4:30, drive to Fat Frogs to meet some folks by 5:15, and then go on a wonderful ride.  A call from the City of Virginia Beach Fire Department changed that a bit.  As typically will happen when you have personal plans you are excited about that nasty thing called work rears it's ugly head and makes you "tweak" your personal plans. 
Yesterday the Allied Technologies building, which happens to be connected to the Old FX / Bill's Flea Market building, caught fire around 11AM.   According to news reports, a light fixture sparked and ignited a pile of boxes undernearth of it in the Allied Technologies warehouse.  The fire was going throughout the day and the fire department was expecting a long night so they needed some additional site lighting to work through the night.  That's where I come in, we got the call at 4:25PM to provide two sets of lights for them.  That meant a stop on Independence Blvd. before heading out on my ride. 
I have never seen anything quite like what was going on out there nor have I ever seen so many fire trucks in one places.  There were huge water lines were running all over the place and more fireman than I knew the City of Va Beach had moving all around.  It was quite the scene and I some major respect for everyone out there on the site.  They had what could have been complete and utter chaos under control and working well.  I was impressed with the whole operation! 
Anyways after the stop over there I managed to get down to the shop at about 5:50PM and get geared up to ride.  And what a ride it was Dan Craft and Fred Parker rolled out with me into a beautiful headwind of 8-10 mph.  I felt good especially considering that I hadn't ridden in so long.  We were doing really well I had a nice hard pull on one section, did a nice stand up in my Big-11 through Trail of Tears.  I was feeling great, my lungs were burning, me legs were aching, but I was not hacking up a lung!!!  We turned to head back and got a nice tail wind so we worked some big gears pushing our way back.  When we got through the "S" curves we heard a loud noise from Fred's bike.  He popped a spoke in his back wheel.  We all had tubes, CO2, pumps, and a bunch of other stuff but no extra wheels.   So it was a nice easy ride back to the shop to finish out the ride.   Belgium Knee Warmers was right when he said "The real moment of glory comes in that first post-flu ride. The smells can be alternately fresh and mechanical. The sounds are varied as the horns and buzzes of a Spike Jones routine. You can see for miles and all the colors are Kodachrome. Whether you feel fit or not, there is no surer sign that all is right with the world than when you are back on your bike."
Tonight is another ride and even Amber is going on this one!!  Hopefully it's at least half as enjoyable as the ride last night!

Today was the second Snowball Criterium at the wonderful Va Beach Criterium Course. It was cold, it was windy, it was a "wonderful" day for a race! At least it wasnt raining!
Due to the fact that I have been sick and off the bike for over a week I chose not to race. I didn't think that
hacking up a lung on a field of riders was the right thing to do. Instead I chose to take spend some time behind the camera. I also played official and worked the cameras for a couple of races as well. It was a fun day and it looks like VACA is going to enter the 20th Century and buy a mac for the officials kit!

Here's the link to the pictures that I took at the Snowball Criterium #2 race.... the order of the pictures got a little mixed up as they were imported into the gallery program, but if you were there you'll know which race the pictures are from...... The pictures!

I am not the only one currently sick and off the bike as can be found by riding BKW's truthful post on cyclists being ill.  This has been a depressing week... today makes it one week since I have ridden.  It's killing me not being able to train when I know VBW Smackdown and the Dismal Wind Comes From All Sides The Whole Dash Time Time Trial are only a few days away. 
Hopefully I will be able to get in some road time Saturday if the weather holds out!


http://www.belgiumkneewarmers.com/2008/03/sick.html

I've been struggling with the ability or lack thereof of OSX to show how disk space is being used and what files are tying up the most space.  I came across these two apps today to help with that little problem....
Disk X
http://www.derlien.com/
Baseline
http://www.mildmanneredindustries.com/baseline/

This came in an email this morning I thought it was funny.  I will probably be in the "dog house" with said dog when Amber reads this post but hey, it's still funny!....

A dog is truly a man's best friend........
If you don't believe it, just try this experiment:
Put your dog and your wife in the trunk of the car for an hour.
When you open the trunk, who is really happy to see you?

This is really sucking!  I am still not feeling good!  How much longer is this going to last???

Walmart sucks continued!!! After the last Walmart sucks post I became hopeful. I saw an ad that said they were increasing daytime staff and the number of open registers. That was total BS!! Are the lower prices really worth dealing with the wasted time and people with no respect and basic manners???