Last Saturday I managed to go onto my first more or less serious motorcycle adventure. Although I have been actively riding for several months already, wheeling in more than two and a half thousand kilometres, and feeling quite confident within city limits, the trip turned out to be not too simple, yet, in whole, impressions were most positive. It was not much of a journey, but priceless experience was acquired, which is to be shared with other beginner motorcyclists.

See photoalbum.

I choose the following itinerary: leaving Boise east on ID 21, then exit towards Arrowrock reservoir, further up the middle fork of Boise river on dirt road to remote hamlet of Atlanta, from there back and north, again towards ID 21, and return on black top through Idaho City. Total trip length — 307 km (191 miles), vertical climb on the first leg of the way from 824 m above sea level in Boise to 1640 m in Atlanta, highest point — Mores Creek summit (1865 m) on the way back (total of over a kilometre or some 3300 plus feet).

See Large Map

Principle difficulties along the way were climate, and, in fact, riding over the dirt road. September was rather warm, however, first week of October was marked by cold front, three days of rain and first night frosts. Although rains stopped Friday, and Saturday promised to be warm and sunny, morning happened to be foggy and dank (see first photo of the album).

I was dressed fairly decently: under light Firstgear Rush Tex jacket (first my item of serious motorcycle gear, after the helmet, naturally)  – sweatshirt and undershirt, jeans and underpants, tall hiking boots and warm socks. That was sufficient to feel fully comfortable, but hands were feeling really cold at first. This problem was easily solved with the help of leather ski gloves (warm, but much too rigid — it wasn’t easy to squeeze the levers). However, in the first hour of riding, when temperature was hardly over 3—4° C (37—39° F), and speeds were high, my poor face was suffering tremendously, because frontal and sphenoidal sinuses (such anatomic erudition!) awfully ached from cold air. After the sun showed itself over surrounding ridges it became much warmer, so that most of the day I spent with the face shield up, but, still, I did not take winter gloves off, and almost all the way went with the hood under my helmet.

First dirt section of the path along the shore of the reservoir (asphalt ended right before the dam) proved to be the most difficult. Objectively — the road is narrow, twisting, surface is mostly washboard, many blind turns, precipice is right off the shoulder. Subjectively — experience in riding on dirt roads is minimal, motorcycle — standard, road, with standard tyres and short suspension travel, therefore I was moving slowly (15—25 km/h, or 10—15 mph), drew away from the steep, before blind turns I slowed to a crawl, hoping that those going in opposite direction do the same, and not rush headlong. Washboard grooves were particularly wearing down on me. Later I’ve found that it is much easier not to work through every bump, but, following endurist’s mantra, add some throttle and fly over them (at 40 km/h speed it was smoother), however, in the beginning I wasn’t even dreaming of speed, thus my hip joints were subjected to cruel torture.

Second leg, starting where flooding zone of the reservoir turned into the riverbed proper, was not that difficult. The road became wider, shoulder wasn’t so steep, there were more straights, and my confidence increased as well. Average speeds grew to 25—35 km/h (15—22 mph), but it was not big hassle to ride, and I already could roll with ease and enjoy the nature, entering coniferous forest belt. Scenery became more diverse, and, let’s say, cosier. There were many camping sites along the way, near-empty this time of year, but there were plenty of all sorts of tourists, hunters, and anglers. Generally, to see that many people I didn’t expect. Thought I was going into the back of beyond, but there were tents pitched every several kilometres, across came two-three automobiles an hour, and one time, during a halt, a small crowd of quadricyclists went by.

Further the forest became thicker, and after the crossroads at which I was to turn north on the way back there was a lot less people. Through last 25 km until Atlanta I saw two or three vehicles at the most. After reaching one and a half-kilometre altitude surrounding nature became autumn-like damp and somewhat despondent. For a distance of several kilometres, mountains south of the river presented overgrown conflagration, where of big pines only charred trunks remained. But once, after passing another twist, in the gap between two green slopes appeared snow-covered peak (one of few three-kilometre mountains in the area, unfortunately, I am yet to know which) — staggering spectacle.

After seven hours and 145 km (about 20 km/h on average), I finally rode into Atlanta. A quiet hamlet in a relatively large wooded valley surrounded by high mountains. Gold Rush had long passed, so in the village there are only a couple dozen permanent residents remained (compared to five hundred in the 1870s). Some prospecting activity here is still conducted, but the mainstay of income for locals became the tourism. As time was getting late, past three in the afternoon, I made a couple of photos, few circles on local streets, evaluated campgrounds (large, but damp, dirty and empty) and left conversely.

The way back was easier and better — turning north on the stretch from the middle to the northern fork, the wide road climbed upward with a minimum of turns, with good dirt surface, so that at the straights I accelerated sometimes right up to 50 km/h (30 mph). I hastened to outrun the sunset, but, compared with the beginning of the journey, led the motorcycle with much greater certainty, while dodging serious pits, avoiding deposits of sand and gravel scatterings.

In general, the quality of roads (and camp sites), developed by the federal foresters in the Boise National Forest, pleasantly surprised. Dense, hard-packed surface, not even muddy after three days of rain (half a day sufficed for everything to dry up practically everywhere), and there was almost no dust — to learn that the bike spent half a day on the dirt one could only after close examination.

Afterwards, having got out on the asphalt when the sun descended behind the mountain peaks, I put on a second undershirt and a tee under the sweatshirt, but that did not help all too much. Having traversed the pass and making it to Idaho City (where I first was able to contact the family on the coin phone) still in the twilight, I felt completely normal, but in the last sixty kilometres in the dark and at speeds of over 70 km/h I thoroughly stiffened with cold, and, entering Boise, could hardly brake and change gears. I got home after 13 hours since the departure, as the saying goes, happy and hungry.

Conclusion

First of all, the motorcycle has delighted: 13 hours with short stoppages and the motor toiled like clockwork, no problems. After the puncture by a wood screw in the city, I seriously feared for the tyres on sharp gravel, however, the rubber had performed normally. Stability and cross-country ability on the dirt was better than I initially entrusted myself and my two-wheeled friend. After a day of riding, I still have made progress in this department, and in the process have never fallen once. On the other hand, the road back had shown that I still need to learn and learn to keep the speed on asphalt mountain serpentines. Naturally, safety first, but sometimes I slowed down to the obscene.

The route has shown to be reasonable for a novice — not the most difficult trail, and enough where to find help, if anything happens. At the same time, I was, objectively, insufficiently prepared. Some provisions and water, a couple of spare shirts, and two gallons (about 8 litres) of petrol — that were all my stocks. At the very least, one should have a repair set for patching up tyre tubes and a first aid kit. And I need to look for a decent tail bag for to carry bulky sports duffel over the shoulder with a heavy canister (which I never needed, but better to be safe) and other gear was very unpleasant.

And, finally, statistics in numbers: total distance — 330 km (205 miles), including on dirt — 188 km (116 miles); time — 13 hours, including short stops; average speed —  25 km/h (15 mph); fuel consumption — 2,5 l/100 km (94 MPG); cost of the trip — $12 ($8 for the petrol, rest — provisions and 50 cents for the phone call).

Turns out, there is a bug in the plug-in configuration interface. When you enter the URI of your Piwik installation into “Hostname of the piwik server” form field, and put in full address with http:// in front of it, plug-in doesn’t recognize that, adds its own http://, and sends data to something like http://http/hostname.net. So, for now one should take care to put only the domain name without protocol designation. To check that your inputs are correct, try using “check out your stats!” link on the bottom of the configuration page which should lead you to your Piwik installation.

I’ll write the author about it, though. Plug-in should have a check for the protocol designation, and strip it before applying its own. And what about Piwik installations accessed via some other protocol?

Update: In version 1.0.2 (April 3^rd, 2010) Jules updated the explanation for the form field in question urging not to put http:// bit in there. It doesn’t fix usability issue, but, at least, makes things clearer for a user.

Recently I was searching for new information on the issue on Ubuntu forums, which I had been doing regularly once every several months, and ran across the topic which stated that Xubuntu 8.10 works with an external monitor (through VGA–output), but doesn’t want to work with internal LCD. I don’t recall I’ve attempted that before, so, out of scientific interest, I had tried different Ubuntu versions with an external monitor.

Turned out that Ubuntu and Xubuntu 7.04 didn’t work even so, and Ubuntu 8.10 was being corked at the known problem with on-board Intel chipset while using compiz (interface visual effects), which I’d encountered couple weeks back. I couldn’t find CDs with 8.04, but since the “Intel + compiz” issue didn’t extend on that version, I suspect it could also work with an external monitor. Out of what I had only Xubuntu 8.10 worked through VGA-output from the beginning and without problems, so I concentrated on attempts to make Xubuntu friends with an internal LCD. More over, I did want to use Xfce as graphic environment less demanding to the system.

Solution

Researching the question, I’ve found much information about complex adjustments to /etc/X11/xorg.conf configuration file, and even about necessity to degrade laptop’s BIOS to version 8. I, finally, was able to force X.org to show itself on an internal monitor (even using latest, 11^th version of BIOS), and then, using scientific trial-and-error method (testing different combinations and commenting out lines that weren’t needed in the configuration file), I determined three minimal conditions for it to work:

• Direct indication of graphics driver (Driver "intel") in spite of X.org’s built-in means of automatic detection that are new to Ubuntu. It’s mportant to use exactly the new universal “intel” driver, but not the old “i810”.
• Direct indication for X.org to use LVDS–output (internal connection to LCD): Option "monitor-LVDS" "Configured Monitor".
• Indication to use preferred resolution: (Option "PreferredMode" "1024x768").

Thus, with minimal changes to xorg.conf, I was able to make Xubuntu 8.10 and internal LCD-monitor understand one another. That solves my problems, but doesn’t allow, however, to use internal and external monitors at the same time (although I don’t think it is so important on such a weak machine), for instance. There are possibly other limitations. Quite probable that degrading BIOS to 8^th version or more complex settings in xorg.conf will allow use of “i810” driver, to work with two monitors and so on, but this solution serves my goal, and the purpose of this article.

So, the full variant of the xorg.conf configuration file code with minimal adjustments to default settings fresh after system install (changes highlighted):

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
	Driver		"intel"
	Option		"monitor-LVDS" "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Configured Monitor"
	Option		"PreferredMode" "1024x768"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	Monitor		"Configured Monitor"
	Device		"Configured Video Device"
EndSection

The technique made sense: I released the grips when one of my arms was already hanging freely by the side of my body, and I just matched it with another, which made it easier to balance and keep the centre of gravity low. The gears were set high so that there were more rotations relative to the speed — that heped with balance as well. Everything just fell in place, but the strange thing is that it did so without any conscious effort on my part. And the fact that I was able to ride like that about 3 km almost without touching the bars — is just mind boggling.

P. S. The only thing I can think of — Flobots’ song of the same name as this entry that has been rather popular with me last few weeks — is largely coincidental. Or is it?

I can only speak of my particularly personal impressions of the picture, for I am no movie buff, I cannot authoritatively discourse upon the actors’ play, or talk about reminiscences evoked by camera operator’s work. In that regard it’s better to seek out more critical reviews on, say, iMDB, written by seemingly competent authors.

For me, besides simple enjoyment of the screening (be that a backdrop woven by droning dragonflies out of sunny and placid English summer, or an apocalyptic shot of Dunkirk (scene as beautiful as barely relevant to the plot)), what grappled the most were the austere facts of life — love conquers all more often only in fancy of romantically attuned authors and their readers, but in reality reign death and emptiness. Although, mayhaps, white lie (also known as an artistic license) by one of the heroines who, after destroying two lovers’ fate, gave them second, long, and happilly thereafter life in her book, is needed for some of us, like the happy pill?

All in all, the film is worth watching and even in the theatre. And I’ll go look for the book.

In the year since I set up WordPress on my site, some positive development occured both in the core software and plug-ins. Firstly, WP now (comparing versions 2.1 I had then and 2.3.2) properly supports UTF encoding — database directive “SET NAMES” now included in wp-db.php file. Also, in wp-config.php there is now a way to set up encoding and collation for DB. That and the fact that my hoster started to offer 5th version of MySQL made installation a breeze.

Now I have to figure out how to migrate my original set-up (WP still doesn’t support multi-lingual sites out of the box, so I have to run separate copies of it off of separate databases) from v. 2.1 and v. 4.0 of MySQL, wich I took great pains to get to work properly, to the new, more robust combination.

Next thing is RC 4 of the K2 framework/theme I use on top of the core software. It looks like many kinks were worked out since I installed it last. AJAX features are more solid, albeit search is still acting up sometimes.

The Sidebar Modules Manager (reverts to WP widgets if disabled) now looks real neat, although all that fanciness slows it down even on my rather powerful machine (to be fair, I have some 50 windows open in Opera now, so that has to do something with something). Supports 3-column page layout. Quite a few useful modules available, including “Latest Comments”, “Calendar”, “Tag Cloud” et cetera. Although, when it comes to recent comments I prefer separate “Brian’s Latest Comments” plug-in for I like its realisation (N recent posts commented, showing latest comment authors and total number of comments, all customizable, versus just N recent comments with one-line teasers of) better.

In the plug-in realm it seems like v. 1.5 of “Raven’s Antispam” finally works with AJAX comments (The only apparent reason that I see is that I have updated version of DB now). Can’t wait to see if it’ll protect the site from most of spam without using Akismet and the like. Also, “Subscribe to Comments” plug-in appears to work properly.

Important thing to note is that “Ultimate Tag Warrior” plug-in doesn’t officially support WP v. 2.3 per se (possibly because of the taxonomy scheme newly introduced in the WP core), but author is working on some tag-related things for WP 2.3 (some really nice things, like embedded tags, tag management etc. Will try some of them). However, K2/WP now has built-in tag support with the same functionality as an orginal UTW.

Proverb, as it turned out, is rather commonly used, but of literary origin. I burrowed in the Net and have found that this phrase most likely belongs to the pen of Federico García Lorca. However, I couldn’t find direct reference to the source, so, if suddenly the expert on Spanish-language literature should happen to crawl by, it would be interesting to learn whence feet grow.

For quite a while Textpattern has caught my fancy, however, due to hosting limitations I didn’t manage to install it in one setting. Ere I went into search and query, I decided to give WordPress a shot, as my friend recommended.

Installation and adjustment took even less time than WordPress’ “Famous 5-Minute Install”, everything started to work straight away and without particular trouble, aside from hindrances of the hosting itself. Comparing functionality “out of the box”, both systems are quite similar, however WordPress seems somewhat cumbrous and template editing looks more difficult.

But, as I am lazy, it’s three o’clock in the morning, and WordPress by and large makes a nice impression, I think to leave it at that, and work as it is. The order of work shall be as follows:

1. Fill the site with materials from the past, some of which hasn’t been published.
2. Think out the original design.
3. Organize multi-ligual support, which shall include both individual templates, and customisation of typography module (for instance, so that in Russian version quotes would be such as: « „ ” », and in English — such as: “ ‘ ’ ”).

Since I’m no man of experience in these affairs (affairs of WordPress in particular and PHP in general), any help is welcome. Write, Shura, write. And here — lights-out.