Vitriolic Humor

This is a complete motorcycle, the engine is completely disassembled and in need of repair.
It is not currently running.

2001 Ducati 748 Superbike monoposto (single seat) in Fly Yellow

Spun rod bearing. The crankshaft, bearings, piston rods, and pistons need to be replaced and the engine needs to be re-assembled. The bike is otherwise in normal operating order, light wear. Less than 10,000 miles on the bike. Bike was used as a weekend, sunny day vehicle only and is in otherwise great condition. This bike is being sold as-is with its engine disassembled.

I'm interested in selling the complete bike if possible. Will consider parting out if someone wants to buy a significant portion of the parts.

Photos of assembled bike here.

Recent photos of the disassembled bike here.

One owner. Clean title.
Lived in CO and AL, always garaged.
VIN available upon request.
Bike is located near Prattville, Alabama.
Prefer you pickup motorcycle in person.
Cash or certified funds only.

Drop me a line if interested.

Autauga County Heritage Association New URL, new content!

Prattville History on Prattville.Com

Prattville History by tbrown. Excellent source of information on Prattville's industrial history, Contenental Eagle, cotton gins, the history of the cotton trade in general.

Prattville Dragoons

Alabama Counties Formation Maps

My three (!) year old had me contemplating today why it is we say "upside down" instead of "downside up". I couldn't think of or find a good reason. I may switch.

upside-down
umop-apisdn

Dow 7,811.78
S&P 500 820.01
Nasdaq 1,539.02

Hard drive storage: $0.073/GB
(Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB (1500GB ) 7200RPM/32MB for $109.99 via TigerDirect on March 25, 2009)

Solid-state hard drive storage: $2.31/GB
(OCZ 120GB SATA II Solid State Drive for $276.99 via ZipZoomFly on March 25, 2009)

Flash memory: $2.24/GB
(Patriot 16GB SDHC Card for $35.99 via ZipZoomFly on March 25, 2009)

Highest interest rate savings with minimal deposit requirements: 3.02%
(Principal Bank via money-rates.com on March 25, 2009)

Gallon of gas: $1.992
(US National Average, pulled from Gas Buddy on March 25, 2009)

Compare other "Cost of Living" articles on this blog.

Exposure Value
I've launched a photoblog at the above address. It features selections from my photography over the last 8 years. Please stop by, browse around and feel free to comment.

All photos are available for sale.

When performing a find and execing a grep on the results (scenario: searching for a string in all files in a directory and all subdirectories recursively) on Solaris, it has always frustrated me that the output shows matches but doesn't identify the filename that the match occurred in.

$ find . -type f -exec grep string {} \;

horse
horsefeathers

I've worked out a couple solutions that were cumbersome and kludgy when I recently came across a simple, direct solution to the problem.

In Solaris, when you grep for a pattern in one file, the grep command doesn't output the name of the file a match is found in. There is no option to force the display of filenames (like -H in Linux) so you are left to engineer a solution yourself. The best solution I've worked out involves providing a second filename (/dev/null) to the exec'd grep command, forcing it to print out the filename a match occurred in, when a match occurs.

$ find . -type f -exec grep string {} /dev/null \;

./filename1:horse
./filename2:horsefeathers

Problem solved and the solution is cross-platform.

Every time we adjust our clocks for Daylight Savings Time, my wife and I end up having a discussion about our perspective of the time change.

We both agree that in Fall (for instance) we move the clock hands back one hour.

I say we "lose an hour" because the clock hands moved backwards.

She insists we "gain an hour" because at the end of the day there were 25 hours in the day.

It's kind of like how the term "clockwise" loses its relevance when you are standing behind a see-through clock. All about perspective.

My hardware:

• Canon Rebel XTi (uses Compact Flash (CF) memory)
• Inland USB multi-format SD/CF card reader ($12 at Micro Center)
• Dell PowerEdge 1800 running Fedora Core 10

My goal is to start out with files like this on the Compact Flash card::

[CF Card]/dcim/102canon/img_9999.CR2
[CF Card]/dcim/102canon/img_9999.JPG
[CF Card]/dcim/103canon/img_0000.cr2
[CF Card]/dcim/103canon/img_0000.jpg

run the script, and end up with the same files, transferred to the server and renamed like this:

[server photo repository]/2009/200902/20090215/img_1029999.cr2
[server photo repository]/2009/200902/20090215/img_1029999.jpg
[server photo repository]/2009/200902/20090215/img_1030000.cr2
[server photo repository]/2009/200902/20090215/img_1030000.jpg

Removal of files from CF card is performed manually by the Format function on the camera, once I'm sure all the files have survived the trip from CF to hard drive.

The (re)naming convention assures unique file names for photos coming from my camera until I get to 10,000,000 photos. At my current rate of taking pictures, that would be several thousand years. It also allows me to easily manage my photos by year, month, or day (and eventually decade) as I choose.

I've written a script to automatically copy and rename my files from the CF card to an appropriate directory on the server when it is run.

#!/bin/ksh
startdir=`pwd`
cfsourcedir="/mnt/usb"

# make sure to use your device name here, check output of 'dmesg' \
# on your server with card reader connected.
cfdeviceid="/dev/sdc1"
canondir="${cfsourcedir}/dcim"
datepath="/photos/raw/`/bin/date +%Y/%Y%m/%Y%m%d`"

sudo umount $cfsourcedir

sudo mount $cfdeviceid $cfsourcedir
result=$?;

if [ $result -eq 0 ];then

   if [ -d $datepath ]; then
      echo "Directory $datepath exists"
   else
      mkdir $datepath
   fi
   #echo "canondir: $canondir"
   #echo "datepath: $datepath"

   rsync -az $canondir/* $datepath --stats --progress | \
   tee -a /tmp/loadfromcf.out
   cd $datepath
   for i in `find -type d |sed 's/^.\///g' |grep -v ^\.$`
   do
      cd $i
      directorynumber=`echo $i | sed 's/CANON//g' |sed 's/canon//g'`
      for j in `ls -1 *`
      do 
         k=`echo $j |sed "s/img_/img_$directorynumber/g" |\
   sed 's/IMG_/IMG_${directorynumber}/g' |sed 's/JPG/jpg/g' |sed 's/CR2/cr2/g'`
         mv $j ../$k
         chown speed:speed ../$k
         chmod 0544 ../$k
      done
      cd ..
      rmdir $i 
   done
fi

sudo umount /mnt/usb

if [[ $result = 0 ]];then
   grep -i Number /tmp/loadfromcf.out | tail -2
   pwd
fi

I've also contemplated modifying this script so it would automatically (cron) check for a CF card in the reader, then automatically start the copying process. If I make this modification, I'll post it here as well.

I'll be adding code/comments as I improve this script.

I'm interested in taking pictures behind-the-scenes, behind closed doors where the general public isn't allowed on an everyday basis. If anyone has the authority to arrange (or can point me to the appropriate contact to get proper permission) for such an opportunity I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm looking for interesting venues or scenes.

I'm thinking along the lines of:

• Anywhere abandoned
• Warehouses (new and old)
• Factories
• Junkyards/Recycling
• Automotive Salvage/Scrapyards
• Mines/Tunnels/Caves
• Stadiums
• Roofs or high floors of tall buildings (with an interesting view)
• Abandoned equipment
• Inventory (large amounts of items in stacks, piles, rows)
• Scrap piles
• Shrines or churches (occupied or abandoned)

I'm based in Prattville, Alabama and am most interested in opportunities within a day's drive or a 1-state radius outside of Alabama, but would be interested in discussing any other opportunities.

If you want your organization's name included with the shots when they are displayed, I can include it. If you'd prefer anonymity, I can leave the organization's name out. If you are looking for promotional imagery, I'd be glad to discuss usage.

Anyone with information or leads can contact me at speed-up@transmit.net. Any leads are appreciated.

50 years ago today a plane crashed on a frigid cold night in a corn field just north of Clear Lake, Iowa taking the lives of Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper (JD Richardson), Buddy Holly and pilot Roger Peterson.

The Day The Music Died Gallery - Pictures from our August 2005 visit to the crash site memorial and Clear Lake, Iowa.

Buddy Holly: Rare and Unseen Photos - from Time Magazine

The Day The Music Died - Wikipedia article on the crash

Pizza Hut's new advertising is pushing their new "All-Natural" ingredients, what were they serving us before?
Their other tagline is "experience pizza the way it was meant to be." Same thing, what have they been foisting on their customers before this?