Been digging around a bit for more trail resources. Came across some useful sites. A lot of these are primarily bike trails over old rail and canal ROWs but still pretty interesting:

* “The DNR”:http://ohiodnr.com/?TabId=11915 summarizes trails across all state properties, including length and difficulty. Helpful because trail length does not correlate with park size at all. The list is organize by county, so here is a “county map”:http://www.dot.state.oh.us/MAPS/Pages/CountyMap.aspx just in case you’ve forgotten the 88 counties and their county seats (which I had to memorize in 5th? grade) * “Buckeye Trail”:http://www.buckeyetrail.org/map-n-sections.html. A walking trail around the state, a lot of it on parkland, some on roads. Interesting and might be a fun way to see some stuff. * “North Country Trail”:http://www.northcountrytrail.org/explore/ex_oh/oh.htm. A trail through the state, connecting with neighboring states. Overlaps the Buckeye Trail but has some different elements. * “Miami Valley Trails Org”:http://www.miamivalleytrails.org/Interactive-Maps.htm. Nice interactive map of all the trails in southwestern Ohio.

Getting myself up to speed on MatLab for this fall’s classes, the activation fails on Snow Leopard with some ugly error message. Fix is easy – in the Java Preferences app on your system, make 32-bit Java the default. All is well after that.

Details on the “matlab support site”:http://www.mathworks.com/support/solutions/en/data/1-8GS5S1/index.html?product=ML&solution=1-8GS5S1

OK Central Ohio doesn’t have a lot of huge national forests or national parks, and so at first I thought hiking opportunities were constrained.

But now I’ve stumbled across all these “state nature preserves”:http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/tabid/860/Default.aspx and some of them are pretty darned big – plenty of ~100 acre preserves, and some huge ones – Blackhand Gorge at 956 acres, Cedar Bog at 427 acres, Lawrence Woods at 1035 acres! I’ve yet to visit any of these but I will get out to at least one in the next week.

* Crickets and Cicadas. Man I totally miss these in Seattle. Sitting out in the evening here, you almost need earplugs, the crickets and cicadas kick up such a ruckus. Very cool. * Lightning Bugs. Wrong time of year for them, but another great bug. Chasing these in the early summer is an experience not to be missed for any kid. * I have a love/hate relationship with WalMart. Hard not to love their prices. Easy to hate most other aspects. * “Mohican State Forest”:http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/tabid/5160/Default.aspx. On an early September weekday morning, the place was empty and I got a great hike in. An odd kind of place – mixed use taken to the extreme. A state park and forest, a resort, a juvenile detention center all co-located. Hunting and horseback and hiking and ATVs and bikes and snowmobiles all permitted. Again thankfully the place was empty this morning and so a good hiking experience. I don’t think I’d want to be there on a busy weekend.

While in Ohio, we are living without a cable or satellite feed. We do have an IP connection and so are playing around with how to watch ABC/NBC/CBS/ESPN content.

Attempt 1 is “Slingbox+SlingCatcher”:http://www.slingmedia.com. Slingbox in Bellevue, kicking the s-video output from our Tivo up to the net. Then Slingcatcher box here attached to TV. We have 6mbit upload speeds in Bellevue and ~6mbit download here. I chose s-video as a way to minimize the data rate and I wonder if I should have chosen composite video. Because the quality basically sucks. Audio is ok but video is pretty blurry and almost unwatchable. This is clearly never going to be a mainstream solution.

Attempt 2 is downloads direct to the AppleTV from the iTunes store. But totally fails on network tv, the selection is abysmal. and no live sports.

Attempt 3 is bittorrent+handbrake+itunes and playback from an appletv attached to the tv. OK this provides good quality results but a) no live content like football games, and b) is uber-geeky. I can manage this collection of software but no one else wants to take the time to do so. But I can batch up jobs and get a little done every night.

So we have a clunky way to get non-live network shows. But still no great solution for live sports – ESPN, etc. ESPN360 is just barely ok and I guess I can hook the Mac up to the tv. Wish I could get it on other boxes that I am willing to leave hooked up fulltime to tv – mactv, game console, etc.

* “Brutal takedown of Tressel over at Dr. Saturday”:http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Deconstructing-The-grisly-demise-of-Tressel-Ba?urn=ncaaf,189322. Particularly on offense, Ohio State’s gameplan against the Trojans was utter rubbish, and it failed to meet the number one requirement of every gameplan: put your players in position to succeed * Pete says “Locker is better than Pryor”:http://www.insidesocal.com/usc/archives/2009/09/better-than-pry.html. Of course he will say that this week but it is up to Pryor to make that statement seem ridiculous. * “An OSU follower’s view”:http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2009/09/five-things-usc.html. Coaching breakdown, Pryor breakdown. And what irks me is the failure of the coaching staff to react to Pryor’s shortcomings in their gameplan. * “A general roundup of coverage”:http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2009/09/further-reading-usc.html * We “discover an entirely new brand of disappointment”:http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Ohio-State-discovers-an-entirely-new-brand-of-di?urn=ncaaf,189030. Indeed

It was a great great game and I enjoyed the evening thoroughly up til the last minute. And man our team played hard and the fans gave it their all, so proud to be a part of the community. But I sure hope Tressel is learning from this and getting better, as he often talks about his teams needing to do.

* “L&P Cake and Candy Shoppe”:http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF-8&q=bakery+bellefontaine+marion+ohio&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&cid=1148308129879636741&li=lmd. Seriously maybe the best frosted sugar cookie ever. * “Crum Strawberry Farm”:http://www.pickyourown.org/OHcolumbus.htm. After eating their strawberries, I resolve to never buy grocery story strawberries again. * The entire scene Saturday night at the Horseshoe. The tailgating, the friends and family, the stadium, the game. Tough ending but what a night. I thought last year’s Penn State game was the craziest ever but this was over the top. We sat down for maybe 5 minutes the entire game, the south stands were hopping all night long

• RT @elevenwarriors: RT @marcushartman Ohio State 8-0 against freshman QB in last 5 seasons. 5 TDs, 8 INT. 51% completions allowed. #
• RT @asackofseattle: Cooler Planet has it’s best month ever – way to go guys! #
• On the ground in the Midwest for this Saturdays game – go bucks! #
• Successfully reloc’ed household to Ohio for a month. Flying with 2 dogs is trying. #
• @calbucci thanks. Not really off, just different! in reply to calbucci #
• Sw flight lax to cmh: “Hahaha. All in usc clothing having good time except for dude in troy smith jersey with 5 seats empty on either side” #
• @swludwig thx. Good to be in the land of liquor drivethrus… in reply to swludwig #
• At the ‘shoe – 3+ hours til kickoff #
• AT&T network blows at the ‘shoe #

Powered by Twitter Tools

OK OK, Pryor has made some ill-considered comments this week, but he is not alone. MOTSAG has these choice words from Matt Barkley:

Among other things, Barkley was asked by a reporter on the field what he had learned about himself as a quarterback.

“That this is fun. This is easy. This is what I was made to do,” Barkley said.

I asked Barkley if there was anything that was difficult.

“The run up the tunnel at halftime,” he said. “That was brutal.”

Perhaps the Buckeyes can provide him some lessons in humility on Saturday. All in the name of helping his further development as a person.

One total winner in this group, and the others are reasonable as well.

* “The Family Trade”:amazon by Charles Stross. A fine alternate worlds tale from Stross, nice to see the obvious use of world tripping explored – crime. Amazon gives 3.5 stars, and the series doesn’t seem to improve from there, but I found it engaging. Even so-so Stross is better than 9/10s of the dreck in the science fiction section * “Classic British Literature: Works of G.K. Chesterton”:amazon by G.K. Chesterton. The Father Brown stories are very engaging mysteries with a nice central character. Yes this is all very dated material but enjoyable. * “The Tourist”:amazon by Olen Steinhauer. Excellent tale of a CIA agent dealing with betrayal at many levels and his own secrets. Much more intriguing than your typical espionage tale, tho not so obscure as LeCarre. Emotionally crushing ending. Amazon says 4 stars, I might go 4.5

* “It is my bet you will see a physically dominant performance by Jeff Byers and his crew, and they will lead USC to a lopsided USC win.” via WeAreSC.com - Hogue Report: SJSU edition * “Song Girl Monday”:http://www.trojanwire.com/football/song-girl-monday-9709.php. Why would you think to throw your cheerleaders in water to get their pictures? There is just no morality in Southern California. OSU has to win just to protect the moral fiber of America. * “SC line back at full strength?”:http://www.ocregister.com/articles/practice-state-dowd-2555273-play-carroll. Maybe.

Oh boy. Here is your reading list – know your enemy!

* “LA Times”:http://www.latimes.com/sports/college/usc/. * “OC Register”:http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/sections/sports/usc/ and “its USC blog”:http://usc.freedomblogging.com/ * “TrojanWire”:http://www.trojanwire.com/. Another usc blog * “Reggie Bush’s Twitter Feed”:http://twitter.com/reggie_bush. Just to annoy you. * “Pete’s website”:http://www.petecarroll.com/ to further annoy you * “Pete’s Twitter Feed”:http://twitter.com/petecarroll.

• I used Shazam to discover Hooked On A Feeling by Blue Swede #shazam #
• Wondering if possible to see all 120 FBS teams play this fall (on TV). #
• 711am, iPhone 3gs at 93% battery after 15 mins of use. At this rate will have to recharge 4+ times before bed. #
• Where to hike in Central Ohio? Mohican? Salt Fork? Perry? Blue Rock? #
• RT @idiotsonsports: If it’s college football, it be hatin’ time. http://is.gd/2PRgJ #
• Please save your hate for where it belongs – college football. http://bit.ly/rLWrq #
• @brucery “LSU fans…very drunk”…that is their normal state in reply to brucery #
• RT @elevenwarriors: ROLLE IS EVERYWHERE. D seems to be learning. #
• Pryor is the threat we hoped for. RT @elevenwarriors: Early verdict: Pryor knows how to throw the ball. #
• RT @schadjoe: No truth to Matt Barkley working on triple option in a hotel ballroom right now #
• @jberwin pro-Cal, anti-USC? Man your Saturdays have sucked forever. in reply to jberwin #
• Not always beautiful but Big10 goes 10-1 on the weekend #
• @jberwin if cal would ever get to a rose bowl you’d know the big 10 teams. in reply to jberwin #

Powered by Twitter Tools

* GM Chairman Scares Execs with Actual Expectations. * Wondermark on trip planning. Guilty. * Charting the Dow. Not sure this is supposed to be funny. How is this different than reading tea leaves or palmistry?

My picks this week (straight up):

* South Carolina vs. NC State (Thursday). SC. I’m tempted towards NC State as SC always lets me down. * Oregon vs. Boise State (Thursday). Oregon. Hoping for a good game. * Navy vs. Ohio State. OSU. I expect Navy to cover the spread tho, Tressel won’t show all his cards in this game. * Oklahoma vs. BYU. Oklahoma. Oklahoma just has too much. * Virginia Tech vs. Alabama. Bama. Tho I will be pulling for VT, I’m not a Saban lover. * Georgia vs. Oklahoma State. Georgia. I refuse to support T Boone Pickens’ attempt to establish Okie State as the common meaning of OSU. We must crush any attempt of this program to rise out of the murk of mediocrity. * Minnesota vs. Syracuse. Syracuse. This is a brutal game to pick. Going with the home team but these are two programs with all kinds of frothy expectations amongst their fan bases, and yet we all know they are going to crash hard. * Mizzou vs. Illinois. Missouri. Why does everyone love Juice? By the end of the Big10 season, he will be like the 5th best QB in the big 10. * Stanford vs. Washington State. Stanford. All the smart writers think Stanford is really stepping up, but not sure I can buy that. However they should have no problem with a pitiful WSU. * Maryland vs California. Cal. I don’t know that I have ever picked a Cal game right tho, they continually disappoint. * San Jose State vs. USC. USC. But SJSU covers the spread as the USC team starts to learn about itself. * Mississippi vs. Memphis (Sunday). Ole Miss. Tho I am not on the crazy Ole Miss bandwagon. * Colorado State vs. Colorado (Sunday). Col State. Another tough one to pick, Colorado has so often disappointed. * Miami FL vs Florida State (Monday). FSU. Sad but true, I don’t care about either of these programs any more. I can’t even get up the energy to hate them. Oregon State, Minnesota, Rutgers all seem more relevant, and wow that is sad. * Cincinnati vs. Rutgers (Monday). Rutgers. No idea so go with home team.