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Well, Spring Tour 2007 is in the books. This was the best trip I can remember. It couldn’t have worked out any better as far as road choices, weather, tire vendors, or otherwise.

To skip straight to the pictures, click HERE.

After much speculation on my part, I sat down the night before I left and decided on a final route that had me staying in Los Alamos, New Mexico and Ouray, Colorado. Here is the map of my route.–> http://www.mapbuzz.com/viewer/516.

I made an unexpected side trip to Santa Fe, as when I pulled into Los Alamos, the last air was leaking out of my punctured rear tire. The tire was pretty beat up. I pulled the remnants of a nail out of it with my pliers, and that wasn’t even the real puncture. Somehow, at 2:30pm on a friday afternoon, I found a guy in Santa Fe who had my rear tire in stock and would mount it up for me if I could make it down by 5:00 or so. I got out my road patch kit and patched up the puncture, and made the ride down to Santa Fe, where just-like-that I had a new tire mounted. It is difficult to imagine that situation working out any better. Thanks to my friends down at SMR Motorsports in Santa Fe!

Saturday, I headed out of Los Alamos and went North up route 84 into Colorado. This road was absolutely spectacular. No cars, and no cops, perfect weather. A perfect ride. I proceeded into Colorado and drove over several high mountain passes. Once again, the roads were incredible and uncrowded, the scenery unbelievable. Just a 10 out of 10. I was laughing out loud in my helmet. Made it to Ouray by 1:30pm and spent the afternoon wandering around one of the more scenic towns in America. Just outstanding.

Sunday I drove home through the middle of Colorado on routes 550, 50, and 285. Once again spectacular roads, gorgeous scenery, perfect weather and no cops. Just an unbelievable day of riding. The whole trip was perfect and I cannot wait to go on my next long ride. Aside from tire problems, the bike performed flawlessly and I never cease to be amazed by that Yamaha powerplant. Smooth, tourqey delivery, perfect every time. I love that stupid bike to an irrational degree.

So that’s Spring Tour 2007, the best riding yet! Looking forward to many more.

I bought the new Elliott Smith New Moon anthology released last week. It’s a long 2-disc set of 24 songs, many of which fans are familiar with, some I had not heard before. New Elliott Smith songs are rare jewels to me at this point, as I am an uber-fan. The fact that it’s a double album would have thrilled Elliott who sparred with his record company at length before he died over his wishes to release a double album. I think even for the uninitiated, this collection will make a good introduction to Elliott Smith’s work. It seems pretty representative of his sound and style to me. Elliott Smith’s music combines a melancholy beauty and white-hot-seething-anger. Some of his lyrics really are the best of all time. You can go back and find so much in there.

The highlights for me so far are “Riot coming” and the super catchy “All cleaned out”. Of course it’ll be months before I decide what I really think the lyrics are about. That’s just typical of his work, and why it’s the best. I also enjoy hearing the early lyrics from “Miss Misery”, for which he was nominated for an Oscar (best soundtrack), by which time the song’s lyrics were quite different from the version on New Moon.

If you at all like cerebral acoustic rock, Elliott Smith does it best, and I highly recommend this record. There are better Eliiott Smith records, but New Moon definitely adds something to his discography.

I can’t wait. My second annual Spring Tour is from the 18th to 20th.

I think this is the route….

http://www.mapbuzz.com/viewer/433

woot!

The story

This will be the shining example for all time of how corporate greed will ruin anything. Michael Dell is perfectly happy to torch Linux for Microsoft’s benefit to try to save his sinking ship. Remember, Dell had to come out of retirement recently because his PC business was on the rocks.

It really would be appropriate to send Michael Dell, Steve Ballmer and Ron Hovsepian to jail for this stuff. After 17 years of volunteer work by thousands of volunteers to bring the Linux platform to where it is today, the Hovsepians and Dells are happy to throw it right into the volcano in an attempt to save their flagging companies. It really should be illegal. They really deserve to be punished severely. I’ve bought my last Dell and I won’t let friends buy Dell if I can help it.

You should boycott Dell and Novell entirely. Fuck ‘em.

I guess I should explain a bit more for the non-tech portions of the audience.

Recently, Microsoft struck a deal with Novell, who market a Linux server distribution. The deal basically partnered the two companies in such a way that Microsoft and Novell are building a “interoperability lab” for Windows and Linux. It’s important to remember that Novell didn’t write or create Linux. Volunteers did. The volunteers gave it away and licensed it in a legally binding way so that no one can actually own it in the corporate IP sense. Microsoft basically came out and said that Novell’s Linux users would be protected from lawsuits that Microsoft might consider bringing against Linux users in the future. Microsoft claims to have patents that Linux infringes upon, and likes to imply that if use use Linux, you might get sued eventually. The problem is that it’s BS. Microsoft has about a trillion patents. That doesn’t mean squat in terms of reality. Microsoft claims to have patented such things as a mouse cursor and user permissions, things that demonstrably predate Microsoft itself. They patent everything, literally, everything, whether theirs to patent or not. Everyone knows this. Linux is explicily community property and the courts have consistently upheld it’s Public License. If Microsoft tried to sue Linux users, it would not work. They already had SCO try this. It failed. That does not stop them from continually threatening the Linux community and potential users with this shite. So, now that Dell has joined in, this sends a really bad message to all the folks out there who don’t know any better than to believe them. If Dell is playing along, folks are meant to think, then there must be something to this. It’s all a lie though. The PC market is, as always, being manipulated. Now when folks are scared to get Linux pre-installed on PCs because of this crap, Microsoft will go out and say, see - no one wants Linux.. too risk, etc.. All bullshit. And Dell is the enabler this time. Novell already sold the community down the river. Dell is setting it on fire and pouring kerosene on it.

So, please take this seriously. I write software for a living, so I know that stealing IP is serious. What Dell is implicitly saying is that they _do_ believe that the IP rights for that 17 years of volunteer labor actually might belong to Microsoft. That’s Evil(TM). What the Linux community has accomplished is a GOOD THING. Allowing Microsoft, Novell, and Dell to stomp it out is a BAD THING. It’s a very clear moral choice. If you continue to support these companies, you are doing real harm.

I had to take some pics after work in the backyard. We’ve actually had some semblances of rain recently, so the grass seems to even be growing in the once-dead places. It won’t last, but it’s nice for now. MikeP- your dog seems to be enjoying the stay.

Click on the Ripken dog to see the slideshow.