Stream Crossing

The drive there is certainly fun going from next to nothing to 7000+ feet in elevation up winding mountain roads. Once there we drove around the lake to see the houses then cut over to the Rim of the World Drive from North Shore Drive. This is where the real adventure begins. I do not recommend going there after the seasons snow fall start since most roads get washed out or damaged even for super high clearance vehicles to pass.

View Larger Map

Note: Be sure to take with you provisions and an emergency kit in case you get stuck and have to spend the night. An emergency beacon is even better to have! Also be sure to get an Adventure Pass if you plan on making stops. As always advise family or friends on your travels and when to expect to hear back from you!

The Subaru XV Crosstrek did an excellent job of tackling the off-road driving. We did get stuck twice but that was due to the road being washed away to the point of needing much more clearance. Glad the Crosstrek has skid plates since I am sure they have some scars to prove the adventure. Luckily on the first instance of getting stuck some dirt bikers came by and helped us out. I have to say I am thoroughly impressed with how well it handles off road and the CVT does a great job of laying down the power on rough terrain. We will be sure to head back to Big Bear once more snow is in the forecast. Plus there are many more secluded hiking trials to be seen once the weather warms again in Spring.

Subaru Crosstrek outside of abandoned mine in Mojave Desert

The main concern I had prior to test driving the Crosstrek was the numerous reviews complaining about the lack of power and complaints on the CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission). I find the power to be suitable for the type of vehicle it is. You are not going to win any races in it but that is not the purpose of it. The CVT takes some getting use to since the usual act of punching the accelerator to the floor is not as effective as a 20% throttle then ease to the floor approach. With this method I can pass anyone on the highway and overtake with ease. For the record I drive 35 miles each way to work from north of downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica every day. So I know about traffic and the need to pass people on occasion. The joy of the Crosstrek to me is that it fills all my needs with equal doses of each. I wanted a car to fit this tall order:

• Drive daily to work with good MPGs
• Take on weekend road trips around SoCal and enjoy the twisty roads in route
• Be able to drive off-road to get to points of interest
• Seat 4 normal sized adults and carry gear/groceries/etc.
• Look cool doing it

So for those basic needs the Crosstrek has filled them. The main issue with most reviews I have read is the reviewer is always focused on each car as if it should perform like a Porsche or other sports car even if it is not built to be such a thing. This is tantamount to comparing a .22 caliber rifle to a Howitzer. You just can’t compare the two. Also let me note that for the last 6 years I have driven as a daily drive a Porsche 996 (manual). So I could easily compare but would not be fair to the Subaru. Any complaint I have is very minor in terms of my HTC Evo LTE connecting to the Bluetooth (more an HTC issue than Subaru) or my wish that the driver’s seat would tilt up at the front of the seat since I am 6’4″ tall and need more support under my thighs on long drives. Other than that I love my new Crosstrek and think it does exactly what it is intended to do…BE a Crossover!

Outside abandoned gas station in Mojave Desert

Off-road the Crosstrek has proven very well on rough rutted roads on the Mojave Desert and the ride quality both off and on tarmac are great (at least compared to my 996). Handling is better than expected with the AWD (All Wheel Drive) working very well. Turn in is very good for the height of the car with very little body roll. The car tends to understeer when pushed hard into a corner but a bit of throttle with correct it and slowly becomes mild oversteer which can make it quite fun to throw around on mountain roads. Overall it handles very flat (shockingly even) and requires horrible driving technique to break the rear-end loose. You have to make an asserted effort to break it loose since it is so well planted.

So far MPGs are as advertised with some improvement as the engine is broken in. Of all the reviews I combed over prior to buying the car the most I agree with is the tried and true Motorweek review:

Overall I am very happy with my purchase and understand that in order to get more power into the Crosstrek it would have to sacrifice the best in class MPG rating which I would not trade. Will keep everyone updated with future posts.

My Flickr Feed of Crosstrek Pics:

Using ownCloud to be your Own Cloud

Most home routers and WFi routers have built in support for dynamic DNS. This allows you to have a subdomain (or top level domain) pointed at your home connection that used DHCP to give you an IP. This means your IP can change and the dynamic DNS service repoints your domain to the new IP. Thus, allowing you to access your home network from anywhere. What I will be describing is installing all needed packages and ownCloud on Debian based system, namely in this example Ubuntu Server Edition 12.04 LTS.

You can also use this example to setup ownCloud using the AWS Free Tier to create your own true cloud based Dropbox replacement for you and your entire family. Simple setup an AWS account and enable EC2, and S3 (optionally). Then fire up a micro instance of Ubuntu Server. Connect an additional  EBS volume for added storage. You can also use this same instance to run your own VPN/SSH tunneler, but that is for another post.

ownCloud has a simple howto for installing on your Apache server. One caveat is be sure to edit your php.ini file (/etc/php5/apache/php.ini) to allow for the largest size upload you will want to have. Pay close attention to upload_max_filesize, memory_limit and post_max_size.  You will also need to edit the .htaccess file in the root of your ownCloud install since it defaults to 512MB limit (if you want larger).

Once you install ownCloud and have it working you can get a free SSL certificate from StartSSL to add a layer of extra security between you and your ownCloud install. What I do is take a domain I own and create a subdomain like ownlcoud.domain.com and make it a CNAME for the dynamic DNS name I use. This way you can authorize ownership of the domain to get the free SSL cert. Be sure to add this domain as a ServerName or ServerAlias in your Apache vhost file.

As a backup I sync my home install of ownCloud to AWS S3 using S3cmd doing a differential nightly in case of a worst case scenario.

This is the presentation that spawned the above segment. Some convincing arguments to cut out as much sugar as you can.

I was thinking if I win the Mega Millions lottery tonight at $640mil what I would do to piss people off (just for fun). My first thought is to give my enemies $100k each in pennies. So I did the math:

A penny weighs 2.5 grams

100 pennies in a dollar

So in $100k of pennies there is 25,000,000 grams = 55,115.5655 pounds

Which is 27.5577827 short tons!

The average armored truck can carry 1.25 tons. So it would take 22 armored trucks to deliver $100k in pennies!

The FitBit

Recently I came across a newer gadget called the FitBit. It is a small clip on device to track your steps, calories burned, miles walked, and flights of stair climbed. The devices uses an accelerometer and a altimeter to determine the steps taken and logs the data to be synced when you are near the base station. This uploads the data to the FitBit site which has a nice SaaS  site to monitor and chart progress. You can manually enter food, water, exercise, weight, and other data points. FitBit also offers a robust API to tie in with 3rd party services like Endomondo, which tracks workouts via phone GPS tracking. Another interesting thing the FitBit does is measure one’s sleep by coming with a strap you put on your non-dominate arm which monitors restlessness to get a picture of how much restful sleep one gets.

Along with the FitBit I have also decided to give a targeted regiment of supplements and diet a try to see if it helps with my sleep and any other health complaints. So I am breaking it down into key parts:

• diet
• exercise
• sleep/relaxation
• supplements

These are the four high-level things I will be covering and looking at in this experiment. I have been using the “Paleo Diet” as the basic underlying for my food intake. Along with various supplements I will outline shortly.

Diet

Being that I am following the basics of the Paleo Diet (with the exception of a cup of coffee a day) it is basically just eating various meats, vegetables, and fruits. The main things is organic, grass fed beef, and as natural as can be foods basically. You eat no bread, legumes, and milk which contain bioactive things like gluten and casein. Along with cutting out foods with nitrates and other preservatives. So I am basically cleansing myself of 35 years worth of fried foods and additives/preservatives.

Along with the type of diet I am also limiting myself to 1852 calories a day. This is to lose approximately 12 pounds while converting what is left to more muscle than fat.

Exercise

I am currently ramping up my fitness by doing dumb bells, crunches, and other basic exercises to build up to a more strict routine. Being that my fitness level to start this experiment was pretty much non-existent. Once my regiment is more streamlined I will update in a later post the exact things I am doing and when. Along with it being inputted into my FitBit page.

Sleep/Relaxation

I have been using the sleep monitoring the FitBit offers which is rudimentary but gives a good general idea of how much I am getting. Along with the basic tracking I am also noting how much stress and relaxation time I am getting to see its baring on my overall fitness and health.

Supplements

As I said earlier I have been trying a regiment of supplements. The following is a breakdown of what I am taking:

Fiber Fusion – Enzymatic Therapy - fiber plus probiotic for healthy digestion

Planetary Formulas St. John’s Wort Extract 600 mg, 120 tablets - naturally helps mood and fight depression (more)

Source Naturals Alpha Lipoic Acid 300mg, 120 Tablets - antioxidant and many beneficial medical uses (more)

Nature’s Bounty Red Yeast Rice 600mg, 120 Capsules - used in Chinese medicine as far back as 800 AD to aid digestion and revitalize blood (more)

Doctor’s Best High Absorption Coq10 w/ BioPerine (100 mg), 120 Soft gels - helps in a myriad of medical issues including heart, migraine, and more

Vitacost Resveratrol + Grape Seed & Red Wine Extracts — 240 Capsules - Resveratrol/Red Wine Extract (more) and Grape Seed Extract (more) have many antioxidant effects

NOW Foods Gaba 750mg, 100 Vcaps - natural anti-anxiety (more)

Jarrow Formulas Primrose Oil, 1300 Mg, 60 Count - (more)

Vitacost Phosphatidylserine Complex — 1,000 mg per serving – 120 Softgels - vital brain nutrients

Vitacost Ubiquinol CoQH Featuring Kaneka QH — 100 mg – 60 Softgels - antioxidant and cell food

Other Data Acquisition

I have also ordered a blood pressure and heart monitor to track daily my stats to input into my FitBit tracker.

Some other options I am looking into are the Zeo since it records actual sleep patterns as opposed to movement over the night. This would give me a much more accurate picture of my sleep quality.

I will be posting additional things once I get more into this experiement.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not a doctor or health professional. All this information is provided for informational purposes only. Be sure to consult your doctor before doing anything that may help/hinder your health. I am not responsible for inaccuracies or misinformation. I am just a guy doing his own thing.

Further reflection revealed that it’s quite impractical—nearly impossible—to make a cheeseburger from scratch. Tomatoes are in season in the late summer. Lettuce is in season in spring and fall. Large mammals are slaughtered in early winter. The process of making such a burger would take nearly a year, and would inherently involve omitting some core cheeseburger ingredients. It would be wildly expensive—requiring a trio of cows—and demand many acres of land. There’s just no sense in it.

A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society. It requires a complex interaction between a handful of vendors—in all likelihood, a couple of dozen—and the ability to ship ingredients vast distances while keeping them fresh. The cheeseburger couldn’t have existed until nearly a century ago as, indeed, it did not.

Read more. . .

I have always been a die-hard paper book lover. Nothing to me smells better than a old used book store. But I have recently finally given in to the eReader boom. I have had a Viewsonic gTablet I hacked with Android Honeycomb for about 6 months. On it I have Kindle and started playing with it, downloading sample chapters and a few full books. It quickly grew on me. Then with the release of the Amazon Cloud Reader it has put me over the top.

I enjoy being able to highlight and notate things in the mostly non-fiction books I read. Along with being able to access the books from my phone, tablet, and desktop. Most books I read are technical or startup/business related so my notes come in very handy with the research I do.

Some things that won me over:

• Notations in-line of the books with notes
• The ability to make black on white text and vice versa (big plus when reading in bed)
• Ability to make multiple bookmarks to reference things previous
• Access to books from many devices at once
• Saving a tree or two
• Lightening my load when it comes time to move to another residence

My biggest complaint about Kindle books is the disproportionate pricing compared to hardback or paperback books. Many times the price is only a few dollars less.