Time Change Again … Ugh

Once again, it is time to do the time change again.  I was all used to the morning commute in darkness, and possibly the home commute in the dark as well.  Darkness is not a problem for me, as I’ve got ample lights.

Now, we gotta do another time change, and when I go into the office, I may think I woke up late!  I mean, why do the time change?  Channeling John Oliver, why is this still a thing?

Now this will probably take me a couple of weeks to get used to this. Oh, and then there’s confusion with international conference calls and communications with other countries (like case handovers between US and India).

Peaceful Easy Feeling …. At 5 am

Once again, our east coast guy is on PTO … so that means another 5 am commute for me.  Woohoo!!!  Yeah, I’m nuts.  Who would do such a thing?  Well, double century riders, of course.  I mean, it’s not like I’m getting up at 3:30 am …. Oh, wait a minute, my body did wake up at 3:45 am … scratch that previous thought.

But once your body is all prepared to leave the door at 5 am, it’s really not that bad.  As long as you have good lights (500 lumen on my handlebar, 250 lumen on my helmet) … that’s enough to light up even the darkest road.  Since hardly anyone is out there, I don’t have to worry about fighting with traffic.  It was very peaceful commute this morning … and no, I didn’t have “Peaceful Easy Feeling” playing on my headset .. it’s just that as I was riding, that is just the thought I had in my head.

And since my start is at 6 am, I get to get out of the office by 3 pm … or at least that is the plan.  This will ensure my ride home will be in daylight.  Score!

Ride the Revolution: Inside Stories from Women in Cycling

Ride the Revolution has it all: riders (including World Champions), photographers, soigneurs, commentators, team chefs and pioneers in the sport of cycling. And they all happen to be women.

Source: Ride the Revolution: Inside Stories from Women in Cycling

The Challenge of Getting Quality Miles In

One of the challenges of being able to stay fit, and do endurance rides is being able to get out there.  I didn’t have this challenge before, because I typically was able to have my weekends free to ride.  However, lately, that has changed.  My weekends have been occupied by either a weekend on call, a weekend visiting dad, or a weekend free to myself, biking.  This rotation is a 3 week period, so as you can see, my weekend to bike is once every 3 weeks.  That is tough to keep fit, especially if I do all these double centuries.

This means having to squeeze in whatever I can during the week.  I would have to really prepare myself on how I commute into work.  You may ask, in what way?  Well, consider this schedule:

Monday:  Commute in with my normal commuting bike (with panniers, maybe carrying my laptop with me)

Tuesday: This is the day I usually have my mid-week ride, with the Meetup group.  I usually bring my Volagi, and stash my change of clothes in my backpack.  When I take off for my Meetup ride, I leave my change of clothes in the office

Wednesday: Ride my Volagi into work, wearing a T-shirt as a base layer (this is Silicon Valley, and as a tech, a T-shirt is my normal work attire).  On my ride home, I take my change of clothes with me, in my backpack.

Thursday and Friday: Take my commuting bike into work.  Friday, I put the laptop in my panniers.

This sure is a lot of prep work to get in extra miles during the week, but it is necessary.  Even then, the amount of miles I’m able to get in is not that spectacular.  Yesterday, I was able to accumulate 40 miles (10 in the morning, 30 on my evening ride).

Now that it is getting darker earlier (by 6:40 pm), I also have to be well equipped with blinding light display.  It is pretty cool, to get out there, enjoying the night scenery, while everyone else is stressing on getting through rush hour traffic to get home … Me?  My struggles are to lug myself up that big hill, so that I can get these great views.

Can’t Turn My Prius On!

Well, this was an unpleasant surprise.  I was trying to put something in the trunk of my Prius, but it wouldn’t open.  Then, I heard a bunch of beeping … weird.  I was able to open my driver side door with the keyless remote, but it wouldn’t unlock the other doors, or the trunk.  Then, I try starting the car, but the dashboard would flicker a whole bunch of warning symbols, that it normally doesn’t.  WTF!!!!

I press start a few times, and still nothing … eventually I got it to turn on.  Since it’s a hybrid, the engine doesn’t start up when you turn it on.  Eventually, I was able to get it to turn on.  Once I’m able to get it to turn on, then everything is ok.  It’s not an engine starting problem, but the car turning on.

A few google searches later, it looks like some auxiliary battery was drained … strange though after a few attempts, I was able to get it going.  It’s possible that one of my doors wasn’t not completely closed, and it may have drained some power.

Well, that was scary.  We’ll see how it goes in the morning, as I have a drive to LA to do.  I guess if I still have that problem, I may have to postpone my trip.  I’ll sure be crossing my fingers on my sleep tonight.

Update; No problems turning on the Prius in the morning. I must have had a door not completely closed or something like that.

That Time of Year Again – Change Your Password

I’m a little grateful that at work, they send me nag emails every 6 months, or whatever it is, to change my password.  Yes, it can be a pain in the butt, as I have to come up with both a Windows 16 character password, and a unix 8 character password (along with the special characters, non-repeating patterns, etc).  Thanks to Lastpass, it helps me keep track of all my passwords.

It’s funny, the day that IT sent those emails, there was a flurry of helpdesk calls (I had to go to IT for a different reason).  Every time employees are forced to change their password, expect IT Helpdesk to be really busy.

With the password change reminder, this got me thinking about all my other passwords.  It’s good they remind me, which prompts me to go ahead and change my personal passwords too!  How often do you change your passwords?  Personally, I don’t do it enough.  Although I do have two-factor authentication, I still think changing your password is necessary.  Don’t give hackers even the opportunity to compromise you.

Sunsets are Cool in Autumn

I can definitely tell the change in season, from summer to fall, not because of the turning of the leaves, and yes, there is the temperature thing … but the sunsets and sunrises are spectacular.  It makes bad amateur photographers, like me, look good.

Some of these were edited with Lightroom, but the first one was not … it was so stark, I left it by itself.  Sunsets are awesome here.