Michael P. O'Connor

My Life

Let’s see what happens on this eBay auction

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.

My blog has been up for a full year now

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: News, Web Site

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Published on: July 2, 2005

Well today (July 2nd) marks the 365 days since I put up this blog the first post was Why, oh why oh why, it was a post just announcing the blog starting up; and the second post (again on July 2 2004) was Way to much time on this. It was about the amount of time I spent working on the new site at the time. So this is the one year anniversary of my blog. It has been a fun year for this blog. I hope the next year is just as fun. There were many political posts. A bunch of biking post.

Need a new cassette for my bike

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Biking

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Published on: July 1, 2005

I biked up to Squirrel Hill to see how much a new rear wheel gear cassette for my bike would be, I got up there just a few minutes before the store closed, I was told that the cassette would be about $35 for a new cassette, I have been told by some people over at free ride that when you replace a bike cassette you also need to replace the chain of the bike, and also my chain is warn a bit and does need to be replaced soon anyways. I need the new cassette because the 4th and 6th gears are jumping. The person at the shop said that they can work on adjusting the deraler. I am still thinking I want to get a new cassette because I want to keep the same gears for 3 to 6, but for gear 1 and 2 I would like them to be smaller and for gear 7 and 8 I would like them to be bigger. When I asked if that was possible the guy did say anything is possible, I will be going back on Saturday to see what they have. I will probably just buy the stuff and go down to free ride and learn how to put it on myself to save a few dollars on the labor. Maybe I will work on some of their bent wheels too.

He slides, he’s safe

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Biking, Hay it is funny

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Published on: June 30, 2005

Today on my bike ride home from work, I was coming down a hill, at a higher rater speed then I should have been for the conditions of the road. The road was wet, as I rounded the bend I see a truck, so I figured I should slow down, the good thing was that the guy driving the truck also saw me and was also slowing down also. But unfortunately my bike went out from under me. I slide about 3 yards on my right side. I did not take much damage; my hand had a bit of a cut on it, a few cuts on my leg, and a bit of soreness on my right hip. But the most damage I believe was done to my pride. When I got up, I moved the bike out of the way so the truck can go on his way. One on looker asked if I was ok, and so did the driver, so that was good. But I find it more funny now that I look back on it.

A good joke

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Geekdom, Hay it is funny, Technology

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Published on: June 30, 2005

A friend of mine posted the following on his blog
While running an errand to make some copies of music, I was listening to a Pittsburgh Classic Oldies station. I heard Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”, and was shocked to discover that she’s a network protocol engineer! Towards the end of the song, there’s a break where she says “R-E-S-P-C-T, Find out what it means to me, R-E-S-P-C-T, IP/TCP. socket to me socket to me socket to me…” etc.
His blog is at http://badgertronics.com/blog/whole-damn-thing

The last day of Bike Fest

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Biking, Pittsburgh stuff

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Published on: June 27, 2005

I went to the 2nd to the last event for Pittsburgh bike fest, it was a ride around the ‘burgh and a bit of history about civil unrest in the Pittsburgh area. It was a pretty good ride that lasted about 3 hours. I got some pictures from it in my picture section. I did learn about another bike path that I did not know about behind the science center. It is nice trail but not very long, but it will add another area I can run up to explore in the future.

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