Nerding out here for a bit…

 Retired.

This past summer, I decided that I was tired of my Nokia 6126 and began the long and painful process of looking for its replacement. The 6126 actually was a somewhat decent phone, although there was a brief period where it would just randomly shut off during the middle of a call… oh, and the plastic casing managed to peel off. However, one time it fell out of my pocket into the riding ring, and I somehow managed to find it a few hours later in the dark. It was a little scraped and I had to use half a can of compressed air to remove the grains of sand, but otherwise it survived.

Being the techo-geek comp sci major that I am, I thought I owed it to myself to buy a real, honest-to-goodness smartphone. You'd think I'd be up-to-date with all the latest and greatest toys… not quite. I don't have an iPod (in fact, I actually won a Nano in a contest and then regifted it to my sister), my computer is circa 2002 (complete with 19" CRT monitor), and my cell phones have all been of the free 'n' crappy type.

Granted, I have not been living under a rock and had a basic idea of what I did and didn't want: No Blackberry. No iPhone, because a) I hate touch screen phones and b) AT&T requires you to buy a data plan in order to have one, and I wasn't ready to blow an extra $360 a year. Flip-style or slider. Good reception. GPS. Somewhat low SAR levels. (I would prefer to keep my brain cancer-free, thankyouverymuch.)

After many many MANY hours of research, I finally decided that getting another Nokia was the way to go, and this meant doing even MORE research on the OS/platform they use for their smartphones: Symbian Series 60, aka S60.

Turns out this Symbian S60 thing is actually pretty popular. In fact, Symbian OS is the most popular smartphone platform in the world, thanks to Nokia's popularity in Europe and other countries outside the U.S. (Side note: at the time of my new-phone-buying, the updated Android and Palm webOS hadn't been released, so the 4 major players were Symbian, iPhone, RIM/Blackberry, and Windows Mobile.) S60 also supports application development in a variety of languages such as Java, C++, and Python… which means a decent amount of apps are created by third parties, although nowhere near the number iPhone has.

Shiny and new!

Anyway, after a few more weeks of searching, I decided to go with the Nokia E66. As an added bonus, they come in white, which meant I could find my stupid phone slightly more easily in the black hole of my purse/bag.

It's been about six months since I purchased the E66, and so far I've been pleased with it. The GPS can take a loooooong time to lock, which stinks, but fortunately there's a positioning method that'll at least put you roughly in the right place while the phone attempts to find satellites.

Look familiar, iPhone fans?

Also, I can download podcasts directly to the phone, listen to the radio, view text messages in a threaded format (see pic on right), view PDFs, word documents, and PowerPoints (haven't had to use the last two yet), and more. The problems have been minimal, although somehow my phonebook got corrupted and about a third of my contacts were deleted. You'd think I would have learned my lesson from the Jesus Saves post I wrote last year…

Additionally, I've found myself looking into writing my own programs and tweaks for the phone. My first idea was to create a mashup for the Ovi Maps application that would show the nearest Metro stations and their closing times… but offline. Sometimes bars have little-to-no reception, and the last thing I want to be doing at 2:30 AM is trying to get online to find out where the nearest metro stop is and when it closes.

This idea was shelved for a bit while I decided my time was better spent finding a way to keep my job due to a sudden change in my project's contract. Recently, though, I've looked into putting together a basic Python program as a basic speedometer. I got the idea after playing with the Nokia SportsTracker, a neat application that uses the GPS to record your running/walking/whatever route and the speed/distance. Unfortunately, it does NOT allow for recording in meters per minute, the unit we use in the (horse) eventing world. (Granted, I can set the SportsTracker to record in km/hr, but mentally converting it to mpm while you're galloping along might be a bit dangerous.) There are special GPS watches to give you a real-time speed, but they're mucho $$$. Instead, I could try and use my phone and have it display my current speed.

So far I'm still writing/testing the program, because for some reason it works great in the emulator but refuses to work on my phone. Boo. Stay tuned…

The 2009 MS Ride is being held at the beginning of June this year, which gives me a little less than three months to prepare. Last year I considered upping my personal challenge to do the full century, but at the time I wasn't doing my other type of riding: horse.

With Cass back in in the picture, I actually (well, hopefully, barring any significant injuries to either him or myself) might have the chance to compete consistently this year… something I've been trying to do for the past 3 years. The fact that Cass is a much more suitable partner for me than Cody ever was has been a motivation to challenge myself and work harder at becoming a better rider. I really, really want(ed) to compete at Rubicon, but it's on the same weekend as the MS ride. Granted, the metric century is only on Saturday, so technically I can compete Sunday, but I'm not sure if my body can handle that amount of stress.

Right now, my two bikes are sitting in my living room, waiting to have their tires pumped and hit the road. However, I've been avoiding them for three reasons: one, the roads here in Arlington are still covered in salt ; two, I can't make the time; and three, it's still just a little bit cold here.

In a month or so, I won't have an excuse based on temperature or lack of daylight hours. Somehow I need to figure out how to fit Cass and biking in the same day a few times a week. I can [bike] ride in the morning (which would mean getting up at 5 AM or so), go to work, ride Cass after work, and then collapse from exhaustion… but the main concern I have is riding that early in the morning. The alternative is to ride solely on the bike trails, but I have an aversion to them mainly because people on bikes can be more dangerous than cars. The other option is to ride my bike after work and then ride Cass, because we have lights in our ring and I can ride after dark.

I need to be Superwoman, if only for two months…

I miss this guy.

Wow… blog is sloooowwww lately. I'm not sure if it's godaddy's fault for having cheapo servers, or the database is just downright clogged with WP queries.

Lately I've been horse shopping online with the anticipation of not having a horse come April, when my lease on Cass ends. I've decided I have a love/hate relationship with horse shopping, much like my love/hate relationship with Target. I love Target because you can pretty much buy ANYTHING there, but I hate it because there are too many choices and/or what I want isn't on the shelves. I end up walking out of there happy but absolutely exhausted from the effort. For example, the humidifier I wanted to buy for my room - not in stock. I spent about 20 minutes looking at facial cleansers because there are about 200 types available. Too much yet not enough.

Yesterday I saw this guy on CANTER Mid-Atlantic's site. Ooooh, purdy. I'd take him, but here's what's preventing me from picking up the phone and calling the trainer:
1) My eye for conformation is crappy, so he could have some major faults that I'm aware of,
and
2) He's right off the track, something I've never done before (buying a horse straight from the track) and THAT is what the killer is. I cannot do it. I don't trust myself.

I'm so afraid that I'm going to end up with another horse that's going to fall apart on me that I can't buy anything. My trainer is in FL, so I don't have her to come hold my hand, and poor Allie has been the victim of my incessant "What about this guy?" and "I can't doooo thissss!!!" gchat IMs. Seriously. I'd rather hide my head in the sand because no one's around to help and reassure me that I'm doing the right thing.

I'm always trying to do the right thing, and at this point it's nearly crippling me. I can't afford to make another mistake.

Ugh. The bad luck fairy visited me again this Christmas, because so far life has not been too terribly great since then. Basically, Cass got kicked by his pasture buddy two days before Christmas and ended up having to go to the vet hospital… all while I was in the midst of a 14 hour journey through air travel hell to Utah. When they x-rayed him, they found he had fractured his patella and now a 1 cm piece of bone is floating around in his stifle. Recommended course of action is arthroscopic surgery to remove the chip. Fortunately, it wasn't imperative that he have the surgery done right away.

In the meantime, I was stuck facing a $1500 vet bill because, under the contract, I am technically responsible for any injuries that occur - even ones that I have no control over. The frustrating part was the fact the contract also states the horse must be covered with major medical/mortality insurance in case something like this happens. For whatever reason, his owner took 3 months (despite my frequently reminding her) to actually get the policy. However, at the time of his injury, neither of us knew if the insurance was active, as she faxed it in right before that fateful day… hence me facing the reality of a large, large vet bill for 5 days.

So, for my entire Utah visit, I was consumed with frustration ("I told her 95 times to send the paperwork in!"), worry (I was still 2000 miles away from Cass), a little bit of embarrassment (for not being available when the injury was discovered, and relying on someone else to wait for the emergency vet/subsequently hauling him to the hospital - and then home the next day), dejection (it would be at least 3 months before Cass could go back into work - past the lease term), and anger (Strike 2 on my "horses that have killed any hope for me competing this decade").

There's more to the story, such as the lease contract binding me to paying for expenses until he's "fixed" and therefore not being able to afford riding until April or May. I also feel a certain degree of resentment toward the horse that did this, as this is NOT the first time the cranky bastard has kicked someone… last time being his own human. Cody was no angel either, but he never laid a hoof on a person as far as I knew.

Moral of the story: Always, always, always buy major medical insurance. You can't afford NOT to get it.