Posten Houser

I took part in something amazing and life changing tonight.

I did my ride, had been about an hour in, the weather’s changing, I’ve felt some hail. but something eles is going on. I’m on the booty loop, and cops are stationed at every major turn of the loop and especially at the top of hopedale blocking vehicular traffic off from the right turn lane onto Selwyn. It’s nearing 7PM and I’m kind of at the point where I could turn in or, if I find a good group, I’d ride with them for a while. I’m on selwyn, and I see a group. I speed up to catch them. holy shit. this isn’t just a group. this is thousands of cyclists. No one is talking. I pull alongside a guy and say “is this spontaneous?”. “It’s a Ride of Silence”. After about a minute I quietly ask “who’s it for”. He says “all the cyclists that have been killed. We do 3 laps. It’s once a year”. I don’t need to ask any more questions.

I found my group. no way I’m going to miss this. after about a minute, the sky just OPENS up. not lightly. full on rain. Everybody is quiet. no headphones. no discussion. No one is complaining that their bike is getting wet. just riding. Cops are blocking traffic for us. People are pointing out obstacles in the road, everyone is respectful, unified. We have spectators along queens road west. The rain comes and goes based on our location. Coming up queens road west then cresting the hill, you could see that it was raining ahead at the intersection of Kings/east/queens road west. I smiled. I wanted to reach the rain.

We’re out there for about half an hour. I think. I was kind of in a trance at the power of this group. then before I know it, it’s over. I didn’t want it to end. On the last loop I had made it up somewhat near the front and could see the front of the pack maybe 25 yards ahead. nobody passing, just one group together. In this cause together. We all turn off to the right down Ratcliffe. People slowly start talking. “you going back to the house?” “hey, good to see you”. The herd has thinned now. Some people left when the sky opened, some turned off to go home or to their car. I followed the crowd back to the parking lot of Myers Park Traditional. I didn’t want to leave these people. It had stopped raining. I clipped back in and went down Ratcliffe again towards queens road west, and boom, the sky opens again. I turn left onto QRW heading back to my place and luckily the road is empty for now. the rain’s coming down crazy hard. I reach a downhill part and slow down b/c I think I may hydroplane. I make it back. I’m not in a huge rush to get the door open and my bike or me in, because all of it/me is fully saturated.

I can’t beleive I didn’t know about this event. I hope to take part in it again and again.

I wrote and delivered this at my mother’s funeral:

Before I begin, I’d like to ask you to just take a second to shift, change your seating position, whatever you want to do to get comfortable. Allright,feeling better? Good. I stole that one from Chip, right before he hit us up for money. He’s sharp.

My Mother was the rock, the anchor of our family. She provided the order, stability, and class for the rest of us. She raised Cam and me well and taught us the rules. She would’ve let us get tattoos at age 15 if we wanted to. Instead, she was more adamant about us not doing more dangerous things, like riding a motorcycle. I haven’t been compelled to do either. For over 4 years she fought against her disease. In the emergency room, during her eventual diagnosis, treatments, physical therapy, and every other stage she encountered, she took it in stride as well as anyone could. She hardly ever complained and I never saw her seeking sympathy for her condition.

To give you an idea of the rarity of her disease, a doctor at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore tracks about 30 people worldwide with the same condition, Scleromyxedema. The head of the Hematology/Oncology department at Duke had not heard of the disease.

She had her ups and downs over the past 4 years. Some treatments worked better than others. Some of the more effective treatments she ruled out as they often made life miserable for the subject, with no good chance of survival or even successful treatment. She never felt sorry for herself. I think we cried much more for her than she did herself.

Just this morning I realized that I hadn’t covered much going over her life before she was sick, and I think I know why. While Cam and I were being raised by this Wonder of a person we didn’t realize what mastery was going on as she ran her career and a family. She was just so good at it. Everything seemed second nature to her. She took care of all the hard stuff with ease. She was tough. She could drive a stick, and even got some speeding tickets. She wasn’t perfect. But to me she was pretty close.

Her condition changed dramatically in early August. Shortly after a treatment that took her longer than usual to recuperate from, she stopped knitting for several days. My father has said that when she quit knitting that’s when she’s getting close. She did knit for a little bit a few days after, but never with the same voracity.
Mom was an avid knitter, this hobby taking up most of her spare time. She knit for herself, for Cam and I, for friends and relatives, for church. Although she lost her ability to eat, she would sit at the table with dad and me, knitting and conversing while we partook in the incredible meals the care team provided for us. I just wish she could’ve had them herself.

I had the fortune to ride in the annual 24 Hours of Booty charity event with my company, TechStructures, in late June. I rode in memory of Eileen Philips Montgomery and in honor of my mother and others, bearing their names on my bib. Many of you donated to my fundraising efforts and I am grateful for your support, by both contributions and words of encouragement. Although Ashley, a triathlete, let the miles biked amongst our team, with your help I led the fundraising effort for the team. Tomorrow I head to the Austin City Limits Music Festival starting this weekend. I bought a 3-day ticket from a college roommate who later learned he would be unable to attend. In a move of unprecedented class he suggested that instead of paying him for the ticket that I donate the cost towards my efforts in the charity. I emailed him my donation confirmation that same day.

The ride was a smashing success. After the event, she told me “I’m so proud of you”. I may not have heard that from her since graduating college. I am so proud and lucky to have had such a wonderful person in my life. I am so proud of her, of how she handled such adversity with grace, charm, and radiance. As long as people like those here today stick together, we can get through the worst. I want to give a sincere thanks to Marcia & Marcia, members of our Care Team, Chip and Lisa, parish nurse Lynn LeBlanc, and everyone here, friends and family who have enriched her and our lives. Thank you.

so I just emailed Steve Jobs the following feature request.  I mean, I just rebuilt my system with a 2TB HDD and am re-downloading a LOT of podcasts and don’t quite see the way to sync specifically which episodes I want on the device, only x most recent or “all unplayed”.   This was my email:

Hi Steve,

quick thanks: My mother has scleromyxedema and the ipad (1) did change her life.  She uses it every day since my brother and I bought it for her.  Initial googling of scleromyxedema may not turn up much.  it is rare.  but it’s life changing for her. and not in a good way.

Quick note.  I was looking for official apple support on twitter, and I couldn’t find it.  that’s why I’m coming to you.

Just a small feature request.

so, as hard drives get bigger, and as we download more and more podcasts to listen to, having less time to listen to them, I feel there’s somewhat of a void for syncing only a certain amount to one’s given device.

OK, I just realized one way to do it, but not sure I like it.
-syncing only “unplayed” episodes.  I see your point, but say I have some favorite episodes I like to listen to every now and then.  that wouldn’t work-I’d have to manually mark them as unplayed.

My request is this:
in the podcast section of episodes to sync to your device. how about an option for sync “selected episodes” of podcasts.

rest of my family all have macs.  I’m a hold out.  but i enjoy my iphone and ipod.  But I’m hoping you’ll listen: this is my request.

Thank you very much for your time. I wish you luck in your battle against cancer.

Posten Houser

Microsoft says it’s not compatible (here) and there’s some odd instructions at HP’s site that didn’t work for me.

Windows Update may find some stuff but you have to differentiate b/t IA64 and AMD64 and after spending a bit of time I said f it.  It might install with those drivers, but I got gibberish printouts.

After working on printer drivers on a new terminal server at work I got to thinking about HP’s Universal Print Driver which we used a fair amount.  (google it)

I’m running a Core2 system and just recently went to Win7 x64 from XP.  I have an old HP Laserjet 4L that debuted in 1993.  It’s got a parallel port and I’ve got that hooked up to a JetDirect print server on my LAN.

Here’s what worked for me:

-download the HP universal driver, extract it to a folder, the installation will start, but you don’t need to “install it”.

-add your printer, point the drivers to where you extracted above.

Not all below may be necessary, but it’s how I got it:

-set color printing mode OFF.
-set DPI to 300.
-advanced printing features : disabled
-print optimizations : disabled

Test page looks normal. I hope it works for you as well.

Call it emo, call it depression, call it whatever you want.  For some time I’ve wondered what it would be like to go through a major holiday alone or without family (or significant family members.)  I still have family in CLT and therefore, that has never happened.  But I’ve still been curious about it.  Maybe it was from the Never Not Funny podcast…I’ve heard stories about all the people who didn’t have family in town or didn’t leave to visit family to have their own get-together.  and that’s what I want to see.

What I’m proposing is that anyone reading this meet up either on Thursday or Friday night at a somewhat centrally-located bar in Charlotte.  and by that I mean Jacks or something not too far away.  I haven’t checked their holiday schedules so I don’t know if they’re even open Thursday night.  I’m hoping you’ll work with me.

I have met some of you in person.  some I have not.  I think it could be a good time to talk to some people and meet some you may not have yet.

So, if you’re into it, please reply and tag #CLTthkstweetup and maybe we can get something together.

Posten

Hello all.