Winters Here?

This ominous message was sent out by the Fairbanks Police Department this evening. I was out running an errand on the sidecar rig and was wondering what the temperature was. I think that answered my question. Occasionally when going down the road, I can feel the steering lighten up. Since I haven't done any steering mods to reduce trail, it takes a fair amount of effort to change direction. So the reduced effort is pretty noticeable. 

No problem getting around and most other drivers were slowing down due to the slick conditions. The studded tires really help and the GripStuds that I'm using this year show minimal wear even with our lack of snow. 

Changes in Barrow

After a couple of days of work, this is all that is left of the chassis based network switch in Barrow. Each of the 16 now empty slots had a card with 24 network ports so I had to redo quite a few connections. I thought about removing the chassis from the rack once I emptied it out but decided that I'll wait until there are more strong backs available. For now, all it's consuming now is space. In this case, change is not necessarily good as I've lost flexibility and manageability with the change to standalone switches. Two of them are from the same manufacturer as the failed chassis and several others are made by a company that doesn't exist anymore. But at least there are plenty of spares.

On my way to the airport Sunday morning, I stopped by the new ASRC hotel. I don't know the new name as everyone just seems to refer to it as "the new ASRC hotel". it is built on wood pilings and looks like a bunch of modules stacked together. When I was last here in July, there wasn't anything here except for the pilings in the ground. There seems to be quite a few large construction projects in Barrow and I would assume that things are going good in their economy. Note how dark it is already and it's only October. I believe these pictures were taken at about 9 am.

One of the disasters over the summer is Pepe's North of the Border burned down. This was the Mexican restaurant that I've posted interior photos of over the years and is known for it's "over the top" flashy decor. I don't believe that there are plans to rebuild it but there is some construction going on. Maybe it's just to clear out the debris. We used to make a point of taking anyone new to Barrow there as they have a nice certificate for first timers to Barrow.

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An Unexpected Trip

This evening, I had a late dinner at Osaka's. This must mean that I'm in Barrow again. It was an unplanned trip. On Wednesday afternoon, the primary network switch failed and refused to come back up as seen on the network graph below. Since there are researchers relying on the data connection, I was on a plane to Barrow yesterday morning. And by yesterday evening, had pieces of the network functioning again by scavenging hardware from other "less used" areas. Not optimal but the chassis based switch is over six years old and no longer manufactured and support was not budgeted. Fortunately, network performance isn't going to suffer and I'm getting a good opportunity to document and completely re-engineer the BARC (Barrow Arctic Research Center) data network.

This is the view from my quonset hut looking southwest towards a subdivision of Barrow on the other side of a frozen lake. There isn't any sea ice yet but the shallower fresh water lakes and ponds are already frozen. Not solid enough to walk on but not liquid either. Sunrise here is at 10:38am but I haven't seen the sun yet since I've been inside the BARC data center since I arrived. Plus, it's been overcast, dark or snowing since I arrived. Welcome to the North Slope.

Leaving Oregon

On Tuesday evening, I head back to Alaska. There won't be many flowers to enjoy for a while up there even though the unseasonably warm weather seems to be continuing. At least for a while. And by "unseasonably warm", I mean in the 30s (°F) instead of the normal teens. I suspect that it won't last too much longer. This particular photo was taken at my nieces elementary school while I was waiting for school to end.

This morning, I met with someone from the University of Oregon. He runs IT for one of the schools (as opposed to the central IT organization) and was recently in Fairbanks during the TechFest even earlier in the month. We had a great discussion around academic uses of technology and comparisons between the Oregon State and the University of Alaska. Nothing earth shattering but it was a wonderful conversation and look forward to continuing the discussion. I really like their implementation of the "cloud" for their students/facuty/staff which allows each to use a combination of different cloud services.

Tuesday Afternoon - Sitting at PDX now waiting for my flight to Seattle followed by my flight to Fairbanks. They put me on an earlier Seattle flight so I should be able to get a few mile in walking around the airport. I must have opted-in for some sort of program with the TSA as I was redirected to the "no line" line and didn't have to take my shoes off or pull my laptop out of my back pack. Pretty convenient.

I'm starting to really like Oregon…

Tuesday Evening - Now in the Seattle airport and the weather here isn't anywhere near as nice as Oregon. This is looking west from the window of the food court at the sunset. It looks like the fog never really cleared out during the day.

 

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Portland Rose Garden

This afternoon, we stopped by the Portland Rose Garden near the Japanese Gardens. It was a warm, sunny day with temperatures approaching 70°F and generally clear skies. There was little remaining of the morning fog. I went up to pick up my brother in-law as neice who arrived back from a short trip to the right coast. This was one of the few stunning examples remaining in the gardens. I think that this is after the normal season as most of the bushes had few, if any, blooms.

This was a miniature variety. I am not a botanist and can't remember any of the names of the different flowers from one second to the next. There was a pretty good crowd there taking advantage of the beautiful weather. Everyone mentioned how wet and rainy September was but October has been wonderful.

The fall colors were out and there was plenty of red on the hills but still much less than the more common yellows and browns. Again, I have no idea what kind of tree this was but I really liked the color especially with the bright afternoon sun.

In the distance you can see the snow covered peak of Mt. Hood over the tops of some of the buildings of downtown Portland. This is the view from in front of the Rose Garden gift shop looking. The Japanese Garden would be behind me and further up the hill. I still get lost navigating Portland as I don't have a good mental picture of all of the areas, highways and neighborhoods.

Down the hill from the Rose Garden is the Children's Park with this nice play area. My niece burned up a little energy here after being sitting still from the cross country flight. A few more photos from the Rose Garden.

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Visiting Corvallis

This morning I had the pleasure of visiting a popular moto-blogger hangout in Oregon. The coffee was as good as the company and the large table in the middle of Coffee Culture Annex had 9 or so riders there meeting before beginning their weekend. Including the owners of these two bikes which should be familiar to any readers of this blog. In spite of it being just a little above freezing (and 10°F colder than Fairbanks) many of the folks rode to the coffeehouse.

By mid-afternoon, it had warmed up nicely. After we had a wonderful lunch at the Indian buffet, I got a good look at Troubadour's Roadcrafter Light and had a chance to compare it with the regular Roadcrafter one piece riding suit. I have been thinking seriously about getting the "Light" to replace my First Gear Kilimanjaro jacket and HT Overpants. The pants have a lot of small holes worn through as the material never did seem really sturdy. The jacket has worn really well and shows wear at some of the seams and the zipper is starting to fall apart. The attraction of the Roadcrafter Light is that it is waterproof and I wouldn't need all of the extra gear on road trips. Extra gear meaning, rain gear, warm weather gear, cold weather gear. One suit may be able to do it all.
It is always a pleasure to visit with Troubadour and Trobairitz, in case you haven't figured out whose bikes are pictured.

Update - I just backed the Scooter Diaries on Kickstarter. It looks like a great story!

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Goodbye Anaheim

Interior of the
Anaheim Convention Center

This morning was the last day of the Educause Annual Conference. In about an hour, I will be heading to the airport to head to Oregon for a few days. I don't get to the Educause conference very often anymore but the session content has generally been pretty good. Some of the sessions were a little disappointing as some vendors took it as an opportunity to do a sales pitch. But it was a good opportunity to meet with others and learn how other some other universities are handling similar problems. There is also an exhbition attached to the conference with a variety of vendors. Lenovo had a really cool tablet/laptop and Microsoft convinced me that Windows 8 wasn't as bad as I've heard especially if the laptop has a touchscreen. I may be forced to try one out.

 

I finally met the new CIO for the University of Alaska Anchorage and had some good conversations with him and many others.

A few nights ago, Pearson publishing had a bunch of food trucks parked in between the Hilton and Marriot hotels in front of the convention center. And they even had a surf band. Very "Southern California". A bunch of other companies had receptions at the same time so I don't think anyone went hungry (or thirsty) that evening. I ended up visiting the OpenDNS reception as I had some questions for their tech staff.

Last night, I walked back to Downtown Disney. Didn't do any shopping but I really enjoyed wandering around. I stopped at Indian restaurant for a light dinner on my way back to the hotel. The weather has been wonderful while I've been here. Not too hot.

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Downtown Disney

After my all day session on law for dummies (or legal issues for IT professionals), I walked a couple of miles to Downtown Disney. This is a commercial area between Disneyland, California Adventure and the Disneyland Hotel. It is in the area that used to be the parking lot for Disneyland.

The entrance to Disneyland is decorated with pumpkins to sort of fit the season but there was a surprising number of  people. I thought school was still in session.

In this area, there were a number of restaurants serving a variety of food. Everything from New Orleans fare at the House of Blues to typical Disney fast food to high end restaurants upstairs overlooking the crowds. The temperature was very pleasant and since I didn't need to keep track of anyone else, walking through the crowds didn't really bother me much.

Several large toy shops, such as this Lego store, gave folks plenty of opportunity to part with their hard earned dollars. One day admission to the park is (hold onto something) $92.00! That's for only one days admission for one person for one park. I guess I won't be visiting Disneyland anytime in the near future. But this area, Downtown Disney, is still a nice, clean, safe area to walk around and you do need to go through a couple of security checkpoints. They search your bags and backpacks for weapons and food. I guess, bringing a sandwich for lunch isn't allowed and could be dangerous.

This sculpture outside the main Disney store is my favorite in the area. I have always been a Mickey and Minnie Mouse fan over all of the other characters that have been introduced over the years. One of the odd things were all of the adults dressed up as Disney characters. These weren't employees as they were pushing strollers and carrying backpacks and purses. Kind of weird. It reminded me of the mostly girls in Japan dressed up as anime characters. Equally odd.

All of this walking gave me 16,054 steps for the day. I am using an app on my iPhone 5S that uses the M7 motion co-processor to track steps instead of the CPU. This means that I can have the app running all day long with little if any impact on the battery. Finally a real pedometer. Supposedly Nike is coming out with a new app which does the same thing except it will be integrated with the Nike+ site. I'm looking forward to that app.

Educause Annual Conference 2013

In case you haven't guessed from the picture, I'm not in Fairbanks this week. This morning, I flew to Anaheim for the Educause conference at the Anaheim Convention Center across the street from Disneyland. I believe that this was the first time that I've ever flown into the Santa Ana airport though I have picked people up here. I haven't been to an Educause Conference in five years. Educause is a group focusing on information technology issues facing higher education.

The WiFi here at the hotel is miserably slow maybe due to all of the information technology types here for the conference clogging things up. The temperature here today was 84°F (29°C) so it's just a tad warmer than Fairbanks. We'll see if I survive. The cab ride from the airport convinced me again of why I left southern California. Way too many cars.

One of the benefits is more variety when going out to dinner. It was hard for me to pass up an opportunity to try out the Indian restaurant a couple of blocks away. The place was deserted but the food was pretty good. I only tried one lamb dish plus the garlic naan but if everything else was as flavorful, I'm wondering why the place was so empty. I'll be here the rest of the week then heading to Oregon on Friday afternoon for the next four days to visit family.

Things start up tomorrow at 7:00am. We'll see if the WiFi is any better at the convention center tomorrow.

Arc Welding Cable

In my last post, I mentioned that a longtime friend and fellow Airhead said that he had several arc welding cables that someone gave him when they were leaving town. I stopped by his shop and I selected one of the lighter gauge ground cables. When I got home, I pulled the end to measure the cable and it was very fine conductor 1 AWG. Today, I stopped by the hardware store and picked up a couple of copper terminals. After coating the inside of the terminal and the copper wire with flux, I heated the terminal with a propane torch. Added solder until the terminal was filled about ¾ full of molten solder, heated the stripped copper cable and quickly pushed it into the solder pool in the terminal.I added more heat until to the terminal to help the solder flow into the terminal.

In this photo you can see the difference between the 4 AWG red cable and the 1 AWG black cable. I really didn't need more current carrying capacity but less resistive loss and a much more flexible cable can't hurt. The new cable has twice the current capacity for a given length i.e. half the resistence. Instead of using the factory grounding point on the back of the transmission, I connected the new cable to one of the engine mounting bolts. I still need to pull the starter to check out the bushing in the nose and check on the condition of the brushes. The bike has 76K miles on it now and the worn bushing could cause the starter to drag.
I still am planning on switching out the positive cable but need to wait until I can find two more terminals.

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Weather Alert!

Oh no!

... UNSEASONABLY MILD AND LOCALLY WINDY FOR ANOTHER WEEK...

AN UNUSUAL WEATHER PATTERN FOR ALASKA IS VERY LIKELY TO CONTINUE THROUGH MID-OCTOBER... WITH A STORM TRACK ACROSS THE SOUTHERN BERING SEA AND THEN INTO WESTERN ALASKA. WHILE THE TRACKS OF INDIVIDUAL STORMS WILL BE WELL FORECAST ONLY SEVERAL DAYS IN ADVANCE... THE BASIC PATTERN WILL RESULT IN REGIONALLY HEAVY PRECIPITATION OVER THE COURSE OF THE NEXT WEEK... AND SIGNIFICANTLY ABOVE NORMAL TEMPERATURES FOR NEARLY ALL OF ALASKA. THIS IS IN SHARP CONTRAST TO OCTOBER 2012... WHICH WAS UNUSUALLY COLD AND WITH BELOW NORMAL PRECIPITATION OVER THE EASTERN TWO THIRDS OF THE STATE.

FOR INTERIOR ALASKA... CONTINUED MILD TEMPERATURES ARE LIKELY TO PRECLUDE SIGNIFICANT LOW ELEVATION SNOWFALL FOR AT LEAST THE NEXT WEEK. THE AVERAGE DATE FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PERMANENT WINTER SNOW COVER AT LOW ELEVATIONS IN THE INTERIOR IS GENERALLY OCTOBER 10 TO 20TH. OCCASIONAL STRONG CHINOOK WINDS WILL THROUGH ALASKA RANGE PASSES... AS HAS OCCURRED SEVERAL TIMES IN THE PAST TEN DAYS.

THE PATTERN SETTING UP IS FOR STRONG HIGH PRESSURE ALOFT OFF THE COAST OF BRITISH COLUMBIA AND THE SOUTHERN GULF OF ALASKA AND LOW PRESSURE OF THE CENTRAL BERING SEA AND ALEUTIANS. THIS TYPE OF PATTERN MAY ALLOW ONE OR MORE STORMS TO TAP INTO HIGH MOISTURE CONTENT AIR FROM THE SUBTROPICAL PACIFIC REGION. THIS PATTERN IS EXPECTED TO PERSIST INTO NEXT WEEKEND.

 Weird weather. I thought it was kind of odd that it hasn't snowed yet. I guess it is odd. We'll just have to put up with the unseasonably warm weather...

Fall Dreariness

The dreariness typical of Fall in Fairbanks has returned today. Temperature are hovering just above freezing and raining. But as I read somewhere, as long as it's raining it's warm enough to ride. But enough rain to be extra careful due to reduced visibility for all drivers. I went out and checked the geocaches again just so that we would be ready to answer questions at the tech event, TechFest.

I found some red leaves, a color that is a little rare in the interior of Alaska which is dominated by yellows. I don't know what kind of tree it is but the leaf color attracted my attention. This morning, I stopped by a friends shop to pick up some arc welding cable. He had several gauges to choose from and it is heavier than the 4 AWG cable I installed but as flexible as rope. Exactly what I was looking for. I will need to enlarge the holes in the sidecar for the 1 AWG cable.

I've noticed that my gas mileage seems to have dropped but it turns out that the new rear tire, a Heidenau K60, is larger in diameter than my last tire so it looks worse than it really is. If I correct for tire size, I'm still getting a dismal 28 mpg. The one reason why I may not take the rig on a long summer trip.

Update: On Thursday morning, the TechFest event started and I was there at 8an to help with the setup. The purpose of the event is to highlight the technology being available for use for instruction on the Fairbanks campus. It is held in Wood Center, aka student union, with talks taking place upstairs in small conference rooms. The most popular events were the ones where things were being given away such as an iPad. I also spent a couple of hours making popcorn. Something well within my ability.

A couple of Xboxes were set up for a video game competition as well as an area set up by the art department showing their 3d modeling and printing.

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First Monday Airhead Mtg.

Yesterday evening was the monthly gathering for the Airheads at the Silver Gulch microbrewery in Fox. Three of us rode there taking advantage of the Chinook wind and the resulting near-tropical temperatures. By near-tropical, I mean mid-40s (°F). There was a pretty good turnout including the gentleman that just bought the white '78 R100/7 that my sidecar used to be attached to. I thought that it looked to be in pretty good shape when I saw it but there are some mechanical issues related to it sitting outside unused.

At the end of this week, there is a technology event going at the Fairbanks campus of the University of Alaska called TechFest. This is the event that the geocaches are part of. About every other day, I get to take a walk and check out the caches. Yesterday afternoon, a student dropped by an art project for display at the event made up of keyboards. I think it's called "Game of Thrones" or something like that. He also made a crown of USB cables but it was starting to unravel so he took it back to add a little more glue.

Out checking the geocaches again once it got lighter. As you can see, our trees have pretty much agreed that fall is here and winter is around the corner. Checking the caches ensures that I get at least a four miles walk. I may try taking the bicycle on this trail tomorrow. So far, 29 people have visited the caches.

I'll end with a food pic of one of my favorite dishes. It's a Korean dish called dolsot bibimbap (with many different spellings at the places I've tried) and this is the version served at Seoul Gate Restaurant just south of downtown Fairbanks. The place has been around for a long time but this is only the second time I've been there. It's located under a bowling alley which always made me wonder how good can it be. The dish served in a very hot clay bowl (dolsot) and the rice on the bottom usually gets a nice crust. It is covered with a large selection of vegetables some raw, some cooked and some pickled and a fried egg. This bowl wasn't as hot as it could've been. I'd give it 7 out of 10 for that. The spicy chili sauce served with the dish as well as the assortment (ten bowls) of pickled vegetables served while you're studying the menu were fabulous.

Weekend Retreat

No motorcycle content in this post. On Friday afternoon, my son Kyle and I headed north to Globe Creek Camp at 37 mile Elliot Highway. This is the road that eventually turns into the Dalton Highway once you go past the town of Livengood. We are there for only about 24 hours for a men's retreat. After dinner, they started a bonfire burning a couple of stumps left over from clearing land this Summer. I went out about the fire had burned down to only an inferno. I was experimenting with the iPhone camera app's burst mode. It'll take pictures repeatedly as long as you hold down the shutter.

The camera app will then display what the software determines is the best picture. For these first two pictures, it took about 20 shots in about 2 seconds. Kind of an interesting way to take pictures.

Some folks attempted to roast marshmallows on the inferno (note the two nicely toasted marshmallows on a stick around the center of the picture) and it took only about 15 seconds to get them nicely toasted brown. At 4am the fire was still smoldering and it didn't take much to get it going again.

I was up by 6am as I volunteered to cook breakfast for the forty or so guys. After a deliciously unhealthy breakfast, I took a short walk around the camp. This was sunrise over the hills at about 9:10am. It was a chilly 20°F with the frost covered ground crunching with every step.

The quiet was later broken by part of the group doing a little target practice on an impromptu range. A lot of paper plates bit the dust that day. Some others went hiking up to Grapefruit Rocks, others played board games, practiced their archery skills or sat around and talked. I was in the final category. I wore the work boots that I use for riding and they are pretty uncomfortable for walking. Otherwise the hike sounded like fun though I heard that the frost made for a slippery walk.

This is the main lodge which housed the kitchen, dining room and showers. I.e. the only building with running water. I also prepared lunch for the group but didn't need to cook anything. It warmed up to 43°F by mid afternoon with a beautiful cloudless, blue sky. It may look quiet and peaceful and for the most part it was but all of the trucks heading up the haul road to Prudhoe Bay passed by less than ¼ mile away.

When we arrived home, it appears that all of the trees have lost their leaves today. This would have been a good motorcycle trip…

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