Bike to Work Day: Throughout Puget Sound, riders can stop at commute stations to pick up free swag — snacks, city and county maps, bicycle commuting information and to have bikes checked for free by bike shop station sponsors. See the Cascade Bicycle Club Education Foundation Web site for locations and an interactive map. 

Unfortunately I can’t join in this year because of my back, but I otherwise would be doing this.  I’m going to try to stop for some maps and info if they’ll let me. 

Save the environemnt for at least one day and get out of your SOV and enjoy the trip and your surroundings.  If you live really far away, take the bus – each one has two bike racks on the front. 

technorati tags: bike, bicycle, bike-to-work

I’ve had lower back pain of varying degrees for about a month now. Hence the lack of recent posts. Working the full week was hard enough, much less driving an hour each way to get to and from work. I’d get home and have barely enough energy to just lie down and wince grumble and groan.

As you heard in previous posts, I had an MRI about a month ago. I heard from my doctor that I had a herniated disc at L5-S1. My physical therapy has been helping out tremendously. I was finally able to help Aileen out with some yard work this weekend. I’m now getting my energy back and have gotten the go ahead to start low level aerobic exercise again.

I’m able to walk without a stoop (the first days of pain were awful), have tons more energy and am getting along great.

Workers declining insurance:

05 MAY 2006 from The San Francisco Chronicle | Read the full story»

More workers are declining employer-backed plans largely because they are required to contribute more money for their coverage, according to experts at the foundation.

(Via TP Wire Service.)

This is a really bad trend. The country has enough uninsured people already, the last thing we need is having insurance cost so much that people HAVE to decline it. How have we gotten to this really bad point in history? Check out www.covertheuninsured.com and make sure to lend your support. My family is lucky in that I work at a company with incredible insurance benefits.

I think we’ll see a trend that employers that want top notch talent will need to pony up the bucks to cover employees. On the flip side, there will be lots of smaller companies not doing so.

Start studying up and improving your skills…

Thief Steals Calif. Homeowner’s Front Yard
(AP): AP – It was a sod story for a Mojave Desert homeowner whose entire front yard — grass, bushes and sprinklers — was hauled away by a thief.

(Via Yahoo! News: Odd News.)

This _IS_ a sad story. Aileen and I have been spending buckets of time improving the yard at our new house. The previous owners weren’t the green thumb types, so there is still (even now, a year later…) quite a bit to do to get the lawn in shape.

The back yard now has a new raised 64 sqft vegetable garden. We decided to raise it since our soil here is very clay like and full of rocks. Not our garden!

The front yard has tons of new plants, a nicely dug rockery along the street, and buried soaker hoses. They complement last summer’s addition of solar lights well. We’ll take pictures in a couple weeks after at least a couple plants are blooming.

Add to that the new sand box, water table, playhouse, slide, and picninc table for kelsey and we’re gettign close to full use of the back yard. No more six foot weeds. Now, we just need to fix the hot tub, deck, and patio… whew. Oh yeah, and the wifi enabled webcam to take video to make sure this doesn’t happen to us too…

• PHP Powerpoint Presentations
  (tags: php powerpoint presentations reference php5 programming)
• PHP Bugs: #22108: php doesn’t ignore the utf-8 BOM
  A bug that I want to be able to reference back to. I have a solution I’ll post when I get time. If you need it before I post, email me.
  (tags: php5 bug utf-8 utf8)

• Box.net – MC2
  MindCamp 2.0 file share
  (tags: mindcamp2.0 box.net)
• Ant vs Termite
  Were teaching Kelsey about bugs and found this page – might come in handy. Great pic of diffs btwn termites and ants 1/2 down page.
  (tags: termite ant flying alate antennae)
• Ruby StdLib
  Standard library Documentation
  (tags: ruby standard doc)
• Ruby Core
  Core Language Documentation
  (tags: ruby core documentation)

• GanttProject.org – Home
  Sourceforge Project – MS Project like project maanagement tool.
  (tags: pmp pmi project-management ms-project)

• List Countries Here in Which Visitors May Be Eligible to Receive a Rebate
  Great FlyerTalk resource thread.
  (tags: flyertalk gst vat tax refund rebate travel)
• HOMEMADE OUTDOOR GEAR
  Directions for making your own camping/backpacking gear. I doubt we’ll ever make our own tent, but the smaller accessories might be up our alley…
  (tags: backpack tent camping hiking maker make kit)

• Third Row Seating Suv, Suv Third Seat, Honda Third Row Seat, Suv 3rd Seat, Leather Suv Seat
  (tags: honda crv)
• Honda CR-V Owners – Forums
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• HondaSUV.com – Information on ownership opinions, accessories reviews and forums for the Honda Pilot, CRV, HRV and Element
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• Honda CR-V
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• PHPmac – Building and Installing Apache 2.2.2 and PHP 5.1.3 on Mac OS X 10.4.6
  I used a previous link from this site for install tips, I want to come back here if needed later.
  (tags: php apache mac install compile options)
• W3C I18N FAQ: Setting language preferences in a browser
  Bit out of date, but still a good resource. I submitted some corrections, let’s see if they are integrated.
  (tags: browser ie ie7 firefox opera safari accept-language)
• Use a webpage as your desktop with WebDesktop – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
  Mac Only for you PC users. Think Active Desktop…