27

Yeah, I just can’t help myself. Yesterday Matt and I started a new blog that I’m super exited about: BikeHacks.com. This’ll be a relatively high-activity blog since we’re aiming at a minimum of two posts per week. That’s not high by blog network standards (usually 5-9 per week), but it feels like a bit of a stretch to us. But we’re stoked and we’ve got a lot of ideas for content. Should be super fun, and I’m going all-out in terms of tweaking and optimizing it for search engines. We’re definitely going to be aiming for high traffic for the blog, and then we’ll apply some monetization stuff to it. Time to make some coffee money again!

I turned off the auto-update from EcoQuaker to this blog. It was annoying me, so it was probably annoying you, too. You’re welcome.

I’d kinda like to do a “lifestream” sort of blog where I aggregate all the places where I put stuff. On one hand I was kinda thinking bren : blog might be the place, but I don’t think that’s right. I like this blog to just kinda be a personal/family blog. Maybe I’ll make a special page over on brendonconnelly.com. It would have del.icio.us links, Twitter updates, updates from here, from EcoQuaker, joglog (when/if it gets resurrected), etc… Probably only interesting to me, but there you go…

You’ll notice some weird posts earlier today. Those are pulled in from my latest diversion: EcoQuaker. I don’t know what my fascination with blogs is all about. Amy doesn’t even blink anymore.

Anyway, this one (should it stay alive more than a few months) is about being green, about being an environmentally conscious Christian and pretty much anything else that comes to mind along the way. Think environmental “Slacker Manager.” If you follow this blog, you don’t need to follow that one. Posts will be pulled in automatically. We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve been thinking about videotaping my bike commute. I don’t know why I would do that, other than because I find my life so very interesting. There are tons of bike commute videos on YouTube, btw.

Anyway, if I do it, I’m going to set up the big video camera on the handlebars and the small video camera (really just my point-and-shoot that does digital video) on the rear rack facing backwards. That way I’ll be able to get the view in both directions. Doesn’t that sound oh-so-interesting? Yeah, I think so too!

I just tested it out with the small camera mounted on my top tube. Turned out okay. I used a small Gorillapod to mount it, and that seemed to work fine. I’ve also got the largest Gorillapod, which I can use for the big video camera.

When I edit the video, I’d like to have the final product be forward video on the left side of the screen and rear video on the left side of the screen, so that I can watch both directions at once (kinda like this). I don’t know how to do that with iMovie, though, so I’ve got some research to do.

We skipped church and went to the beach today. Great choice. The weather was perfect and we all had a great time. Frodo too! Got lots of pictures, but this one is my favorite!

Click the pic to play!

Had a great ride to work today. I did the same trick–parked in Sherwood and rode the 8 miles (Gmaps says 7.8, but my odometer says 8, so I’m going with that) to the office. I really need to remember to check my calendar before I head out. I got to work, huffing and puffing, checked my calendar and found that I needed to be in a meeting in Newberg later in the morning. Not so good.

Otherwise, the commute was fun. Cold out, but it only takes a half a mile or so to get nice and warm. I really love the idea of getting a nice workout while going to work! I get a workout and it doesn’t suck any time away from the family. Awesome. I wish I’d listened to Matt earlier!

Speaking of Matt-the-pintglasser, I should note that I am only the latest in a fine tradition of pintglass.org bike riders. Brandon’s been doing the bike to work trick for at least a year. Pintglassers are saving the planet!

First real commute today. 7.8 miles one way. I drove to Sherwood with the bike, parked, then rode the remainder to the office. Baby steps.

Feel pretty good but I still need to get home…