James Pearl Thinks Blogging is Dead

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
The September Blog Project - #27

The best laid plans of mice & men, couldn't put Humpty together again. That's how it goes, right?

Ok start the day with a rewind. On the way home last night, I realized that both headlights were out in the truck. Since D was going on a business trip today - with the truck - that made things a little...let's say not great. So, I'm at the garage at 7am asking if they can fit me in. Well, being a regular, they take the key and get to work and by 8:30 I'm back home with 2 new headlights & an oil change, making breakfast. Pretty happy with how well that ended up. So ok, D has a car. Good.

Finished up putting together the Round Valley Jorba Chapter Crew whatever-it's-called. Really just a mailing list of people who ride, might want to work, but really want to share information about the park. DM me if you want to be on (I won't share your email with anynoe). I even made a PPT for this to help me track shit. So exciting it hurts.

Work.

Today I'm a solo dad with 2 stepsons (Julia at her mom's). I get Simon from soccer, drop him off at the fields, go get Zac, go home, make dumpling fried rice, go get Simon, then back home. Then there's a financial aid seminar at 7pm. I can do half of that. Unfortunately the first half of the half I can make is the presenter trying to share her PPT. Eventually she gets going and it was like watching paste run slowly downhill.

I cannot do the whole school webinar because I have a Jorba website redesign call tonight. So yeah we're redesigning the site. Sort of a start of the process there.

Finally I get on the trainer, well after dark. I started climbing the Alpe and halfway up the trainer lost connection yet again, and this time just refused to reconnect. This is pretty much the last straw with this piece of hot fucking garbage. Time for a new setup. It's been a long time, but what is the most bulletproof setup these days? I know a lot of people use Apple TV, but is that the most reliable? If I could, I would physically wire the whole thing but I know that's not possible. I'm pretty much at a 50% fail rate with the Zwift rides these days, at least at some point in the ride it drops. Most of the time it comes back but not today.

Maybe I should just use my phone for a bit.

Yeah so Wednesday took the role of Tuesday in the worst day of the week award. Fuck it, one of the days has to lose. Today was it. I also forgot to take a picture today so you get a Facebook memory. For those of you who remember Sketchy Cross Guy, 13 years ago I beat him at Whirlybird for the win:

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iman29

Well-Known Member
I know a lot of people use Apple TV, but is that the most reliable?
I am a dedicated windows PC guy thru and thru and since we are both in the IT industry for many years I get the part about trying to make it work.

When I got my appleTV for the sole purpose of making my Zwift setup more convenient and reliable I cannot believe I waited that long to do it and how long I suffered with my windows PC constantly crashing updating disconnecting or whatever. And with the return of having a dedicated trainer bike back in Feb/March it literally takes me under a minute to be up and running.

TL;DR - just do it.

P.s. I have my appleTV hard wired directly to the main router in the house.

Hope that helps.
 

Santapez

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Windows guy. Don't own a single apple product, possibly never will.

If I all of a sudden decided to start Zwifting I'd probably immediately order an Apple TV. I just looked it up, $150 w/ Ethernet. Easy decision.

Zwift seems so buggy on computers and I doubt it's changed, Apple TV seems like a no brainer.

And then you also have an Apple TV.
 

iman29

Well-Known Member
Windows guy. Don't own a single apple product, possibly never will.

If I all of a sudden decided to start Zwifting I'd probably immediately order an Apple TV. I just looked it up, $150 w/ Ethernet. Easy decision.

Zwift seems so buggy on computers and I doubt it's changed, Apple TV seems like a no brainer.

And then you also have an Apple TV.
All of the above was me Steve except the part where I have had an iPhone for too long.

I don’t even use my appleTV for any TV just zwift. They give you 3 months free to rope you into the automatic subscription which I canceled.

I think.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Ant+ dongle on an extension 8 inches from trainer. Never drops out.

This may be an option. Problem with Apple TV is that I then go from 2 screens to 1, because my TV then becomes the Zwift screen and I have to find another TV. Unless Apple TV has a picture-in-picture or split screen kinda thing?

I am all for impulse purchases but I just want to make sure it makes sense.
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
Unless Apple TV has a picture-in-picture or split screen kinda thing?

it does, but it doesn't.
Zwift app can't be put in the "small window" - just the video stream ('flix, atv, etc)

if you have a smart tv, perhaps the pip/split are controlled there?
Handlebar mounted ipad isn't a terrible idea. could sweat all over it.

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Santapez

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
This may be an option. Problem with Apple TV is that I then go from 2 screens to 1, because my TV then becomes the Zwift screen and I have to find another TV. Unless Apple TV has a picture-in-picture or split screen kinda thing?

I am all for impulse purchases but I just want to make sure it makes sense.
I made the assumption you'd get another cheap TV/Monitor for the Zwift...
 

jmanic

JORBA Board Member/Chapter Leader
Staff member
JORBA.ORG
Team MTBNJ Halter's
If you end up needing a second TV,
I'd suggest a TCL-
I just had to replace @iman29's MilLs (?) hand-me-down Aquos I was using in the garage (finally gave up the ghost- thanks man).
Picked up a 32" TCL for $130- if I had room, woulda grabbed a 40" for under $200
Great quality for the $, light AF
Edit: and either Roku or Google TV built in
 
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Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
If you end up needing a second TV,
I'd suggest a TCL-
I just had to replace @iman29's MilLs (?) hand-me-down Aquos I was using in the garage (finally gave up the ghost- thanks man).
Picked up a 32" TCL for $130- if I had room, woulda grabbed a 40" for under $200
Great quality for the $, light AF

Maybe I'll buy 3 of these and just stream 2 things at the same time while Zwiffering. Sounds legit.
 

iman29

Well-Known Member
If you end up needing a second TV,
I'd suggest a TCL-
I just had to replace @iman29's MilLs (?) hand-me-down Aquos I was using in the garage (finally gave up the ghost- thanks man).
Picked up a 32" TCL for $130- if I had room, woulda grabbed a 40" for under $200
Great quality for the $, light AF
Edit: and either Roku or Google TV built in
glad you got good use out of it!

and I can 100% attest to the TCL TVs everything mentioned above is true I have 2 of them in my house a 40" and a 70" and they are great quality for the $$ indeed.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
The September Blog Project - #28

Another solo day here at the ranch, where solo means me, 3 kids, and a dog. D is still down in Philly through tomorrow. Normally it's me on the work trips so it's a little new for us here. I think Bear is the most thrown off by his mom not being around. I'm currently eating ice cream out of the container, so it's just like YOLO for a few days I guess? Not really. But it sounds fun.

Had a 2 hour gap in the morning so I took part of it and did some yard work. I'm clearing out the area I intent to start building up some skills stuff. I'm raking out all the rocks, which you can see on the far side, as well as the various bits of junk strewn about. I would also like to plant grass seed here next spring, so I need to get as many lawnmower smashing rocks out of the way. I'm taking these and dumping them on the far side of the A/B/C Line, where they all converge after the berm.

The main goal today was to go outside with Bear and throw the ball. This was just something to do. Those big rocks on the fallen tree are anchors, for future use. I guess I could paint them and call them art.

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Before lunch I went to the UPS store to finally mail that box to Joy. The day I went down it was closed and I actually forgot about it until i saw it again today.

Also found out the Ikon pass added Camelback & Blue. Not sure how I feel about that, especially since I said I would never ski Camelback ever again.

After picking up Simon from school I went to the HS girls VB game, where the 2 older ones were. They stayed after school so I went over to hang out with Kirt and watch. Below is Kirt's southpaw daughter serving. They won both games and are now 9-0. I like the girls game more than the boys because they actually "volley" the ball, as opposed to the boys who play something that might more accurately be called slaughterball.

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Took a shot at Zwift again but this time I rebooted the laptop before I did it. It worked fine but I'm still annoyed about yesterday and weighing my options. We'll see.

I did the climbing portal and have no idea what today's is called. It ended up being about 39 minutes at 239 watts. I'm not trying to maximize my output right now, but I feel pretty good about that at this stage. The intention would be to move 39 minutes towards 60 and the 239 towards 270. And losing another 20 pounds would get me up any hill faster but really that's not a focus right now.

Anyway, it was a pretty good day. And if I were still in college, I'd be getting ready to head out to the bar shortly. But I'm not, so I'm going to hit the showers, stretch, and lay in bed for a few hours before I go to bed. Does that count as YOLO still?
 

Cassinonorth

Well-Known Member
Also found out the Ikon pass added Camelback & Blue. Not sure how I feel about that, especially since I said I would never ski Camelback ever again.

This was the only drawback for me and my riding buddy...we lost JFBB going from Epic to Ikon.

It's so nice to have something that isn't half a day drive away on the pass now. I'm very happy personally.
 
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