Ryan & Amanda Keefer's Personal Site: Cycling, Family, Tech, Music, Software & Game Reviews, etc.
// September 30th, 2008 // No Comments » // Cycling, Sports Stuff
Wow, I never saw this commercial back in 2001 when Nike first released it. I’m not sure how I missed it, but thought it was relevant again as Armstrong is about to make his comeback into the professional peloton!
// September 29th, 2008 // No Comments » // TiVo Bytes
This looks pretty freaking sweet. TiVo is currently focus testing a new user interface, though one of the links in the article below has been removed at the request of TiVo. I wonder how far in the future we’re talking about to seeing a version of this in production?
In all honesty, I’m kind of surprised it has taken this long for TiVo’s software to get a facelift. Other than some color changes, the current TiVo user interface is the same interface from when I got my first Sony SVR-2000 TiVo back like 7 or 8 years ago. Man, has it been that long?
// September 28th, 2008 // No Comments » // Cycling, Personal Crap
So this morning marked the official end to my first full racing season and the 2008 racing season overall, that is unless a crit or road race creeps into the schedule for here or down in Florida over the holidays.
My teammate Greg and I did an overnight down in Jacksonville, North Carolina for the Warriors Criterium at the Coastal Plains Raceway is a .4 mile paved oval raceway – familiar territory for Greg and I, after many Tuesday nights this season out at Ace Speedway.
The Coastal Plains Raceway was a slightly larger track than its Altamahaw, NC sister, but had a very similar feel. Our arrival at the track was met with a closed gate. Several of us were raring to go at that front gate and ended up having a fair amount of time to wait around for the first race of the day.
// September 27th, 2008 // No Comments » // Cycling, Personal Crap
Doh! Busy day and night yesterday lead to a rare non-posting day at Keefer Madness. Oh well. I’ll get over it, if you all will.
I just got back from a little training ride around Research Triangle Park – great place to get some miles in on the weekends. It’s pretty much a ghost town on the weekends (which is why I’m also really wanting to get a criterium there in the 2009 season).
In a few hours, I’m packing up the car with my trusty cycling race checklist, and heading eastbound for my first overnight race trip, which also happens to be my final criterium of the 2008 season. I’m rooming with my partner in Cat5 crime, Greg and we’ll be right near the race in the am. It’s a little twenty lap race and then I’ll be back in Durham in time to have lunch with Amanda and Bongo. Wish me luck!
// September 25th, 2008 // No Comments » // Cycling, Sports Stuff
Lots of Lance Armstong news, along with cycling news in general as 2008′s Interbike is taking place out in Las Vegas. VeloNews has two articles of interest regarding Armstrong that turned tense quickly. It seems that fellow former cyclist Greg LeMond was there in the front row asking and pushing for more testing for doping and questioning the current methods – saying that power output and VO2 max readings needed to be measured and monitored for changes. Lance was completely civil to LeMond, but quickly brushed off LeMond’s questions (more statements of opportunity and accusation than questions really).
I got to hear the audio, thanks to The FredCast, but I’d love to see the video as well to see Lance and company’s reactions to Greg LeMond’s interactions. Maybe I’ll scour YouTube tomorrow.
Armstrong Press Conference Turns Tense
// September 24th, 2008 // No Comments » // Music
I saw this article come across and quickly clicked on the link, thinking it was going to be some huge revelation and some deep and hidden secret, but every Van Halen fanboy (that didn’t give up on the band when David Lee Roth Left the band after the “1984″ album’s release) knew that the new management caused some major rifts *and* that Ed sobering up and then spiraling back down into drug and alcohol abuse were at least in part a reason for Hagar and Van Halen parting ways back in 1996.
Regardless, I guess it’s good to actually have Hagar vocalize it. On another Van Halen topic – not to beat a dead horse, but when are we going to get a new studio album, rather than repackaging of greatest hits and a tour supporting that? Also, when is there going to be a full Van Halen reunion tour with Michael Anthony on bass and backing vocals. The former is much more likely to happen than the latter. It seems no one can hold a grudge like Eddie Van Halen.
// September 24th, 2008 // No Comments » // Friends, Internet / Web, Sports Stuff
So Bret, who’s moved on from Ulanguzi Creative Strategies to bigger and better things got to do a really cool Flash/web project recently that just launched yesterday — just in time for the Carolina Hurricanes first pre-season match.
The real highlight of the site is the little Flash game he did, where you get to customize a player with your name and number on a jersey and then shoot against Carolina Hurricanes goalie, Cam Ward. He added a nice little hook too in the ability to unlock two other jerseys. Check me out, I’m in the high scoring list (as of the time of this post).
The site also allows you to browse for seats, enter to win prizes, and download wallpapers and screen savers. Way to go Bret! Our [not-so] little buddy is growing up so fast, learning and building on his skills tenfold over there at Centerline!
// September 23rd, 2008 // No Comments » // Cycling Products, Keefer Madness, Reviews
While I’ve been a bit slack on writing reviews, I’m trying to get back into the swing of things with the Keefer Madness reviews. I haven’t gotten any games lately to do reviews, and I guess I should go back and write reviews of the games I already own. I’m putting that on my list of things to do. But, with my time and interest in cycling skyrocketing over the lat 3 years or so, I’ve created a new category of reviews on Keefer Madness – cycling products.
Now I just need some products to review. I put out a Twitter message in hopes I would get some review products. Nothing so far. So consider this a plea from those of you with cycling product hookups. If you’ve got connections, let me know. I’d love to review all kinds of cycling products – nutrition, components, bikes (yeah I wish..)
// September 22nd, 2008 // No Comments » // Internet / Web, Work
There is a whole industry related to search engine optimization and whether you’re a web developer, web designer, or just a blogger, search engine optimization is something you and/or your clients will have at least some interest in, and spend some time on. Search engine optimization is all about making your web sites show up close to the top of the lists for relevant keywords to your site.
Many companies out there charge big bucks for the basics and common sense I’m spelling out in this article. Despite how their marketing and sales pitch may argue otherwise, there is no quick fix, nor a magic bullet to make your web site appear at the top of Google’s list (or any search engine for that matter. The article below I’ve composed based on my own personal experiences building web sites over the years both personally and professionally.
// September 21st, 2008 // No Comments » // Home Projects, Personal Crap
I’d been anxious to do today’s tasks for quite awhile – every time I mowed the lawn and saw the patchy spots, every time I battle with the weeds in the front and back yards and every time I looked down on the backyard from our second floor.
Well today, as the official last day of summer and the temperatures cooling off, we bit the bullet and did our annual lawn reseeding. I did a tight mow yesterday afternoon in preparation for today. We rented a core aerator and I fought with that thing for close to two hours, pulling plugs of dirt (clay). Simultaneously, Amanda put down some pulverized limestone. After returning the aerator to the hardware store and having some lunch, I spread the fertilizer and then put down a ton of grass seed.
Exciting stuff? No, not at all. But I am anxious to see some real progress this autumn in the filling in of our front and back yards. The drought this year kind of screwed over last year’s seeding, but hoping 2009 won’t be as dry. Plus, with us having the little automated sprinkler system, we’ll be supplementing the watering on a regular basis.
So as you can see – absolutely nothing too exciting going on here – just domestic maintenance in suburbia, and hopefully some exterior progress to the homestead.
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