Michael P. O'Connor

My Life

Spiedie’s

Categories: Family, Misc (no other place to put this stuff)

Comments: 2 Comments

Published on: July 22, 2005

When I went over to my mothers house today to pick up the exercise equipment (thanks Terry for driving me there with your truck) And she gave to me (along with the exercise equipment) she gave me a bottle of Lupo’s Spiedie marinade. I am so looking forward to marinading some Lamb and have some Spiedies. I have not had any Spiedies in a few years, I love those things. I am going to invite a few friends over to have them, I have located a Charcoal barbecue to use to make them. My mouth is watering just thinking about them, when I got the bottle I just had to open it to take a smell of it, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

The Bike races & some random rambaling.

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Biking, Misc (no other place to put this stuff), Pittsburgh stuff

Comments: 1 Comment

Published on: July 21, 2005

I have been watching the Tour of France lately. I have been finding it very exciting. It is nice to see that Lance is in the lead still. Since they are on at 8:30am when I am getting ready for work, and go well into the time I am working, I just have my DVR record them for me. I also have the DVR recording Shark week on the discovery channel also. Right now it is a bit hard to keep up with all the TV that is being recorded for me as of late. But I digress the bike races are very exciting. I wish I could bike even half as fast as they do up such steep hills.
Also on the front of exercising, my mother will be giving me a old weight set, and a ski machine, they will be nice so I can work on my upper body a bit. Also I will be able to get some work outs done when the weather is inclement, or later at night since I don’t really like to go out on the roads on my bike after dark. Drivers in Pittsburgh seam to have a hard enough time seeing me during the day when I am on my bike.

Conservative Blogs

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Blog Stuff, News, Politics

Comments: 1 Comment

Published on: July 21, 2005

I found a site that lists conservative blogs, I have submitted my site to be listed there. If i get listed there I will be listed in 4 lists. The first 3 are Pittsburgh Bloggers, the second one is a list of Lutheran Blogs, and the finally one is Planet WPLUG: a list of the blogs of member of the Wester Pennsylvania Linux User Group.

The Post-Gazette article on the Anti-Dean protest.

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Politics

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Published on: July 20, 2005

The Post-Gazette also has an article on the protest yesterday The title of the article is not very nice, but the article itself is ok, but you have to remember the Post-Gazette is more of a liberal leaning paper. But they did get it right about the counter protest using profanities, but what they got wrong was that it did not turn into a screaming match, we did respond but we did it in calm voices, they only responded with yelling, we did not yell back at them.

Bike Tires

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Biking

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Published on: July 19, 2005

Today I had my back bike tire go flat 2 times. It happened 2 separate times. I think the first one is what the main problem was, on my way out of work and home, my bike tired just went flat. When I got home I patched the tire and then headed out to a rally (see next post). When I got home from the rally the tired went flat a second time. this time when I re-patched the tube I examined the tire I found that imbedded into the outer covering of the tire there was a sharp sliver of aluminum or the like. I think that is what caused both flats.

Let’s see what happens on this eBay auction

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: The odd, the funny, the weird

Comments: 4 Comments

Published on: July 19, 2005

Thought I would have some fun see if any one would buy ad space on the back of a bike bag, so to find out I figured I would put one up to see what happens. I figure it could be a nice way to get a little extra cash, but mostly I want to see if any one would like to place an add on the back of a cyclist. I placed the ad tonight, and have it set for 7 days, and opened the bid at $25. One thing I did do is I put the auction on pre-approved bid status only for now, I figure I do not want to get caught in a position where I have to wear an ad I would not feel comfortable wearing, or a morally objected ad, so I listed that they have to mail me the proposed ad first for my approval and if I approve of the ad I will add them to the approved bidder list.

You can see the ebay auction here I know, I know this is shameless but hay it could be fun to see if any one wants to bid on it. Come on some companies bid on having an ad for them to be temporary tattooed on some guys head Come on it can be a fun experiment, and it is only for 1 week.

New section to the web site, bad drivers

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Biking, News, Politics, Web Site

Comments: 2 Comments

Published on: July 16, 2005

I am getting tired of idiot drivers passing way to close when I am biking, read that as less then a foot to spare. Aggressive drivers yelling at me to “get off the road”. I have had cases where when I am going the speed limit I will take the lane, as it is called, which by Pennsylvania law I am to do, and people will come speeding up behind me and lay on the horn, drive on the wrong side of the road to pass me. When I bike I have my cell phone on me all the time, and at times I will catch up with them at the next red light. I have setup a photo blog, it will have pictures of the offending drivers’ plates. I hope I don’t have to update that thing to often, but this will be a record of bad drivers in the Pittsburgh area. Be they car, SUV, truck (or as my mom would call the BIG RED ones, a replacement for a missing male organ) or bus. I have 2 pictures on it already.

Bumper stickers

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Biking, Misc (no other place to put this stuff), Politics

Comments: 1 Comment

Published on: July 15, 2005

I been temped to get a pro-life bumper sticker for my bike bag, but I have not done so yet. Here is the reason I have not done it as of yet. When I use to have a car I have had cases where people would try to run me off the road, yelling at me about the bumper sticker and how I did not deserve to live. Well my fear is if I had one of these bumper stickers on my bike bag while I am biking that one of those pro-abortionists saw it they might just run me over.

Finally got the new gear cassette installed on my bike

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Biking

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Published on: July 12, 2005

I finally got out to free ride to install the new gear cassette for my bike today. It was suppressing easy to change the cassette. The chain I got was a bit more difficult, it turns out the chain was a “master link” chain. It is nice to have the full range of gears back on my bike, for a while I had to avoiding the gears of 4 and 6. Free ride is a nice place so far I have learned how to fix/replace 3 things on a bike now. I can now straiten a wheel replace a rear wheel gear cassette, and replace a chain. Those are the 3 things I learned at free ride.

Sorry Wrong Number

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Hay it is funny, The odd, the funny, the weird

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Published on: July 6, 2005

Today I tried to call a store to find out their hours, the thing is I messed up one of the numbers of the phone number. Usually when you get a wrong number you end up with a very short time on the phone. But not this time for me, the lady on the other end asked who I thought I was calling, and when I told her the name of the place, which had the word locksmith in it, she asked for more information about the store because she also needed a locksmith, she also asked a few other questions like where it was and all that stuff, for a wrong number I ended up on the phone for about five minutes. That has go to be one of the most unusually calls I have ever been involved in. Then she asked me if I knew of a cleaner near the locksmith, it was just bizarre.

July 4th

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Biking

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Published on: July 5, 2005

I went on for a long bike ride today. I did about 6 hours on the bike. I got some pictures from the fireworks at the North shore. I had a better place to site this year. On the ride back home after the fireworks I hooked up with a group that was going my way. We went over Polish hill. Tomorrow my legs will get the day off, since I will be heading back to work.
I biked up from CMU to Squirrel hill on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Today I did Polish hill, I hope that by the end of the summer that I can do the clime from CMU (Oakland) to Squirrel hill with out having to drop down to the first gear on the bike.

New Bike bag

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Biking

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Published on: July 3, 2005

Today I got a new bike today it is a “messenger bag” it is much larger then the bag that I had on the back of my bike. The new bag I got today is much larger. I can now carry more groceries in the new bag. I took the old bag off of the back of the bike. This should make going shopping easier, I do not have to worry taking it off of my bike when I get to the store, nor do I have to take the extra time to put it back on the bike. It also has a waterproof liner so that I don’t have to worry about my stuff getting wet if it starts to rain on me.

Friends

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Friends

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Published on: July 3, 2005

I had a good friend come over tonight. We played some games bother Fluxx and Monopoly. And watched some TV and listened to some old radio shows that I have on my iPod, the radio show is an old show called X-1. It was great fun I love having friends over.

Windows the king of security

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Technology

Comments: 3 Comments

Published on: July 2, 2005

My work laptop just got rebuilt 2 weeks ago at help desk where I work. Well I got an email yesterday that the laptop was hacked into, again; this is the second time this year. CMU will not put a firewall up because it would be an invasion of free speech. I am getting sick of the computer getting hacked into. I wish we would make computer “hacking” a federal crime at the level of a felony. I am going to go get a fire wall take it to my cub on the next work day, hard set the IP as one of my old computers, and protect my own computers at work, I am getting sick of all the hacking being done on the computers there, and as long as I HAVE to use windows I will have to take real steps to protect it, since MS can not make a 1/10 of a secure system. Well another day, another windows problem. And people wonder why I don’t trust my own data to winblows, well the lack of security is the major issue. The stupid laptop was rebuilt because the OS was f*ed up and crashing all the time at the begining of the month, now it has to be rebuilt because the system is a POS.

The new cassette for my bike

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Biking

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Published on: July 2, 2005

Well I went up to Squirrel Hill to get the new cassette for my bike. It turns out the cassette I already on the bike is a “Mega Range” one, and I would like to keep the same range that I already had, and the bike shops I stopped at did not have a 8 gear “Mega Range” cassette in so I had to order it special. I also got some additions to the handle bars, I am still working on getting them in a good position so that they can be there for when I want to use them, but are not in the way when I don�t need them. I want them there for when I get on the long bike paths, and just want to move my hands around and not just keep them in the same position all the time.

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