Incredibly Good Stress

There is a good kind of stress - the kind that makes you obsess, the kind that drives you to think, create, wake up on the middle of the night with a new idea, inspires, drives you to do more than you think you can do, the kind that motivates you to exceed the highest expectations you even set for yourself. It's the new opportunity, it's the change that inspires.  It's the freedom to be outside the box.  It's the opportunity to search for the edges of that new box. When have you had that opportunity Keep reading [...]
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Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving and I ride.  It's a beautiful day.  Sun is shining, temps in the 60's, a light breeze, a perfect time to restore my soul.  As most bicyclists know, our activity is a great way to meditate.  Today I focus on things I'm thankful fo r - my family, my job, my friends, interesting things in life, people I don't see much and wish I did more. My route starts at home.  I don't care much for driving to ride anymore.  A holiday day like this promises little traffic and the Keep reading [...]
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2012 Harpeth River Ride Review

Back in 2004, my big thing was gardening.  I had just starting to get into bicycling seriously, and my weekend time was beginning to become a scarce resource.  I was collecting daylilies, hostas and roses.  I had even joined the Middle Tennessee Daylily Society.  The first River Ride I had ever heard of was that year, and it fell on the same day I had volunteered to be a daylily show judge assistant.  The whole time I wanted to be at that ride.  The next year, I volunteered to work registration. Keep reading [...]
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United States Politics and the Presidential Election

We don't have kids.  And I'm not sure why I care about these things.  I should plan to live a selfish life, do what benefits me for the next 30-40 years of my expected lifetime, and live it up.  I think most people will tell you I'm a liberal Democrat. But I have lots of Republican friends and family that express their ideas regularly and challenge my ideas.  I appreciate them, especially those that have thought things out carefully, and present good logical ideas.  Many of them are just plain Keep reading [...]
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Latest on the TIG Welding Adventure

One more challenge was actually getting the welder from Bristol to Nashville.  I had to rent a pickup truck, drive to Bristol.  The welder cart was so big I had to leave it behind.  The guys I bought it from loaded it in the truck for me.  After returning to Nashville, I went to my buddy Sal's place and used a chain hoist to unload it from the truck, load it on a furniture dolly and loaded it on a tilting trailer.  Hauled it to the house and rolled it off the trailer. From there, I spent Keep reading [...]
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Welder on the way…

I started out with a John Deere tractor I wanted to trade for a TIG welder (I couldn't sell it.) Dad died in 1998, he worked in Mobile, AL in the summertime (between college to be an engineer) as a welding apprentice in the shipyard. Not a very good job. As I grew up, he had a stick welder, and was pretty good at it from his summer job. Every time we wanted to stick aluminum or stainless together, he would say "We would need a 'heliarc' for that." Since I was a kid, I always wanted one of those [I]exotic Keep reading [...]
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#OccupyWallStreet

I was in NYC last week and stopped by when they were in Times Square, and saw them again in Zuccotti Park (twice from a tour bus.)  What these protesters have found is another plane of thinking - many Americans don't even understand it.  Maybe it's because they're so brainwashed by the 1% that it's hard to explain?  Or is it the labeling that they're the fattest laziest dirtiest scum in our society? Matt Lauer this morning, on the Today Show, sat there and criticized them for not having a message. Keep reading [...]
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WordPress – Android Market

So I've been trying to get WordPress - Android Market to work.  I keep getting: HTTP status code: 412 was returned.  Precondition Failed. I'm gonna keep trying for a little while.  Apparently folks hosted on ICDSoft (which I am) are having trouble.  I'm not sure I want to hack my WordPress code to make it work.  I'll keep looking. Turns out FactoryJoe has a fix, but it warns that it makes your site vulnerable.  Don't do this. Finally, I found this post that tells you to create a .htaccess Keep reading [...]
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Comcast Xfinity Voice Service – a Nashville experience

OK, so back several years ago, we switched our phone service from AT&T to Vonage.  We saved a TON of money since then.  But, occasionally we've had miscellaneous minor problems with the service, some were my home phone wiring.  Well, we got a call from Comcast today about combining our voice service and upgrade to digital cable. After quickly adding up our Cable and Vonage bills, we decided it would be worth doing it.  During the disclosure rambling, the salesperson said they would charge Keep reading [...]
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Time for a Patclements.com Facelift

I've been running my site on Geeklog for many years now, at least 5 or 6.  It's time for a facelift.  Contemplating the change for many years, even through serving for two years as webmaster for harpethbikeclub.com using Joomla, I finally settled in on WordPress.  It allows easy BLOG posting, it has wide support, interesting and powerful plug-ins, strong mobile support and it seems easy (honestly installing Joomla plugins are easier.)  Why didn't I simply use Blogger?  Well, I want the power Keep reading [...]
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