ck's weblog: reality, studied

I have no idea what it means, but it feels like a new achievement: I've lost a tennis racquet in my house. I had it in my hand last night, fresh off the stringing machine, and somewhere between straightening the strings and heading upstairs to change into tennis clothes, I put it down. I have been unable to locate it since.

A few relevant pieces of trivia:

1. A standard tennis racquet is 27 inches long.
2. Tennis racquets are usually made of a strong carbon composite, which severly limits their ability to fold up and fit into tight spaces.
3. The racquet in question is painted bright red and white, which should stand out from my home decor.

Or another way:

1. This is something that's not easy to hide.
2. I wasn't trying to hide it.
3. It's in my house, where I live.

Seriously, what the hell?

Oh, and I came to work without my wallet today. It's probably time to plan a vacation.

Update: My sister noticed the racquet on top of a bookcase in the data center. It's unclear why I put it there.

The University of Illinois is planning out a transition to the post-Zook era, starting with a job posting for a new varsity head coach.

I will not be applying for the position.

I know this will disappoint many of my fans, and I want you to know that I appreciate your support over the years and that I'm truly sorry to let you down. I have been working on an updated resume and cover letter for the position, and it has become increasingly obvious to me that I'm no longer as strong a candidate as I was in 2004.

In the past seven years, I've captained successful local USTA league teams, which were either champions or runners-up in the our district. I've learned a lot about managing IT staff, who have a well-earned reputation of grumpiness and customer disrespect. I have diplomas from the Educause Institute Management Program and the IT Leadership Workshop. All of those accomplishments were built on the skills and experience that I felt made me a good candidate in 2004.

What I have not done is play football.

Since my rejection on December 8, 2004, I have allowed my football knowledge to atrophy. I do not own a single football game for the PlayStation 3. I think it's undeniable that I've misprioritized my time over the past seven years and it has left me an empty shell of the up-and-coming coaching star that applied in 2004.

So once again, I'm sorry. My application materials from 2004 will remain available at http://ck.cx/resume/ for anyone who feels nostalgic about what might have been.

Opie was good enough to let me use his GoPro HD Hero while we were riding motorcycles last weekend. We recorded in 4:3 960p (1280x960), which YouTube scales down to 720p. It's worth watching at 720p if your connection will let you.

Day 1 (Sunday, October 9):

1. Highway One, part 1 -- First video attempt, heading North on Highway One with a camera strapped on my helmet. To the left, you can see the Pacific Ocean and Stinson Beach.

2. Highway One, part 2 -- I turned the camera back on as we were passing Bolinas Lagoon.

3. Highway One, part 3 -- My favorite of the videos, this is Highway One even further north as it goes past Tomales Bay. We opted to move the camera from my helmet to the motorcycle's fairing. Between the drop in height and the rigid attachment to the bike, the video is a lot smoother, better shows the leaning, and looks faster at the same speed.

4. Marshall Petaluma Road -- We turned inland at Marshall and the terrain lost some of its drama. Still a lot of fun, though.

5. Hicks Valley Road -- Around 45 seconds in, you can hear me meet the Ducati's rev limiter.

Day 2 (Monday, October 10)

1. Skyline Boulevard -- It looks like the camera's battery ran out mid-corner (I know I wasn't reaching down to turn it off), but given the weather, it wasn't a big loss.

Last time I went to California, I rode up and down a mountain on a $4,000 bicycle. I decided to improve on that this time around, and last week, I rode up and down many mountains on a $12,000 motorcycle:

I rented a Ducati Multistrada for 48 hours and met up with Opie and his Honda 919 on Sunday morning.

After a 200-mile ride, I became a fan of the Multistrada (in spite of its awkward appearance). It's very well-balanced and agile and proved to be ideal on the fun mountain roads. Next time I go back, I'm not sure I see a reason to try any other bike.

I just noticed that my blog is over a decade old. Happy 10.1^th birthday to it.

The PHP code I wrote in 2001 has been completely re-written twice as I've learned more about web application security, cascading style sheets, and the value of w3c standards compliance. And I still haven't run out of things I'd like to fix.

In the past 10.1 years, I've run the site on five different servers:

From the second eddie onward, each disk upgrade offered enough of a density increase to more than compensate for the loss of RPM. Even at the slower rotational speed, the new disk saw more data passing under the disk heads every second. As a bonus, more density also means less physical movement is needed to move across the same number of megabytes, which helps seek times.