Christmas Parts On My Bike Finally

Here is my bike with new stuff on it.

New Bike

Hey I just got my Surly Steamroller and heres a pic. (totally stock, totally boring)

Painting My Bike

Finished Result

Finished Mock-up

Original

-9/25/07-

So here is my bike after the paint stripper and sanding. There is still a lot of paint remnants, but they are all smooth, and shouldn't cause any flaws in the new paint.

Leigh was kind enough to take a picture of me spraying some primer on the frame. I left my cranks on because I was too lazy to have the local bike shop do it, and too broke to buy the tool to do it myself. Same goes for the chain.

After a little while I had a pretty decent coat on the frame.

-9/26/07-

Today I decided to spray primer on the forks. I did a way better job here than I did on the frame. I was scared to put too much primer on the frame because I thought it would drip but I ended up putting too little.

There are still a few rough spots that you can see in this pic. I think a little wet sanding can fix that right up though.

Here you can tell that I under painted the frame just a little bit.
More updates tomorrow!

-9/27/07-

Today I put on a few more coats of primer and I think that it is starting to look really good. I took a picture of a same part of the frame as yesterday so that you can make a good comparison.

Here is a good shot of one of the harder spots to paint on the bike. This has been even harder due to my laziness with leaving the cranks on.


I have run out of primer, so the next thing I am going to do is wet sand the primer with some really fine grit paper. Once that is done and my glow in the dark paint shows up I will start spraying coats of that.

-10/01/07-

So I have completed the paint job and I am kinda stoked and kinda disappointed. I ordered 2 cans of glow paint thinking it would be enough for the whole bike, but each can was half the size of the primer and clear. So I ended up not being able to put on multiple coats of the glow paint and it looks really splotchy. However, in person its hard to tell that it is splotchy. I am stoked at the fact that it actually glows pretty well. My camera couldn't get any good pictures of the paint glowing, but I did get this awesome video of me "painting" my bike with light. Enjoy.

-10/12/07-

Since I was not too happy with the splotchy-ness of the first paint job I decided to try again. This time I am much more satisfied with the results.



I also sprayed a few smaller parts (seat post collar, bottle cage bolts, etc.) the same green color to match everything. I can't wait to get it all put together.

-10/14/07-

Finally, I have finished my bike! The paint really does look good and I am super excited about the results. Heres the pictures:
As an added bonus I got this bike over the weekend for just $40!

Duck Tape Prom Dresses and Tuxedos [PICS]

Duck brand duct tape puts on a contest every year for prom goers to strut their duct tape skills. It is truly incredible how much time these people have on their hands. Oh and the outfits are pretty incredible too.

read more | digg story

How well is Ron Paul REALLY Doing in the Opinion Polls?

After browsing Digg anytime I have a free minute, I started to think that Ron Paul might really have a chance at becoming president. However, after I took a look at the Republican Party Opinion Poll results I started to lose faith extremely fast.

read more | digg story

In the News!

A little while ago, in May, I made a post about some easy and cheap college cooking ideas here on my blog. I never thought it would gain any interest except as a quick cookbook for my own needs. However, a writer for the Associated Press named Tanya Leach was writing a similar article as I had, and was gathering input from college students for meal ideas. After an anxious wait her article with me in it was published and sent out to newspapers all over the country. Here is a little excerpt from the article.

Neil Monday, a senior computer science major at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., who posted cheap college meal ideas on his blog in May, says simple hamburgers or hot dogs take almost no time to prepare on the Foreman grill. "Then I throw them on sandwich bread," says Monday, 21, because it's cheaper than buying buns.

- The Tyler Paper

I've already found five papers that have used this article, and will continue digging for more. Maybe this will persuade me to write more often than I have been recently. Thanks for reading!

Alternative to Digg Picture Section

I have just signed up for a del.icio.us account and spent a little time learning the ropes, when I realized one way that digg could really improve as far as the way it handles pictures. The thing that inspired me was the way that del.icio.us uses tags, and I wanted to be able to use a uniform tag for all pictures on digg. It seems as though the people at digg do not want a picture section for one reason or another, so I opened up gimp to make a little example of what I think would be a cool way to handle pictures in digg. Sorry I have absolutely no skill at gimp or photoshop. Feel free to let me know what you think, and leave any suggestions in the comments section.


I thought purple was a good color for it, but really you could use any color, just mess with the Hue/saturation settings. I should state that the stories I have labeled with "PIC" are not actual picture stories, but ones I just labeled as a proof of concept.

Digg it

Leaving Windows for Ubuntu

This is the first install of what will be a periodic, ongoing series on how migrate from Microsoft's Windows to other Operating systems. This first article provides insight in the much discussed Ubuntu Linux.

read more | digg story

Techies pull apart Apple iPhone; shares of parts-makers rise

It seems as though there is something to be gained financially by pulling apart an iPhone and seeing who manufactures components of this ever so popular device.

read more | digg story

Updates and Sailboat

Well I guess my blog is more interesting than I had previously thought. Yesterday, a food writer from the Associated Press named Tanya Leach interviewed me about my cooking style as a college student. AWESOME! Apparently, the article is going to show up in many local newspapers in the food section sometime in the next month or so. I'll keep you posted on the details.

In other news I have secured a job with Alcoa Howmet which I mentioned in an earlier blog post. I am a computer programmer, and I write programs that deal with the tons and tons of data that Howmet records. This job is definitely the best job I have ever had, and I really look forward to staying here as long as I can.

Lastly, by tomorrow afternoon I should be the proud owner of a new used Hobie Cat Turbo 14 foot sailboat. It is going to be a long drive down there, but it will be well worth it. Once I get some pictures I'll post them. Take it easy.

Extreme Hydrofoil Sailing

"A hydrofoil is a craft with wing-like foils mounted on struts below the hull. As the craft increases its speed the hydrofoils develop enough lift for the boat to become foilborne - i.e. to raise the hull up and out of the water. This results in a great reduction in drag and a corresponding increase in speed."-Wikipedia

Many of us have atleast heard of hydrofoils, maybe even have seen some hydrofoils in action. Usually hydrofoils are motorized boats with foils mounted under the hull. The steady output of their engine keeps the water flowing over the foil at a pretty constant velocity, which makes it easier to use and gives it a more predictable behavior. Now people have started to use foils on sailboats, and the type of water craft that result are quite stunning.

Moth Sailing



The moth class is considered a dinghy, and is starting to become a very popular racing class in Australia and America. Just watching these hydrofoils in motion immediately shows you how talented these skippers must be.

Hobie TriFoiler



This hydrosail was made in 1990 by Hobie, and is no longer in production. The 3 hull and dual mast configuration is rather impressive. However, to me, it is even more impressive to watch how well they handle.


Trimaran Hydrofoil



The Trimaran has already beena popular class of sail boat. The thing that makes this one different is that it has been fitted with a hydrofoil. Now that there is very little drag the top speeds are mind boggling. Fast forward to about 1:20 to see just how far out of the water this thing gets.

Should I sell my laptop?

Well I have a 17 inch Dell Inspiron 9300 that just sits on my desk 24/7. Here are the specs:

• 1920 x 1200 17" screen.
• Pentium M 745 running at 2.4 Ghz (pinmod).
• 6800 GeForce Go Video Card w/ 256 Mb dedicated ram.
  
• 2 Gb Kinston Ram.
• 60 Gb 7200 rpm Hitachi HDD.
• Creative Audigy 2 ZS Notebook sound card.

To me, there is no reason to be confined to a laptops form factor if it is just going to be sitting on my desk 24/7. So to solve this dilemma, I thought I could sell this laptop and use the money I receive to pay for a new custom desktop computer. Here are some specs I was looking at on newegg.com.


I am expecting to get $800 at best for my laptop, but I definitely think this is an awesome trade-up. Let me know what you think in the comments if you wish.

Alcoa Howmet Co-Op

I have been searching for an internship for a couple months now, and I have finally found one that I am really excited about. Howmet, which is a part of Alcoa, is a company that makes metal parts for jets and turbines etc. They need a programmer to help create some applications that can take data from a database, and change it so that is in a more user friendly and readable form. Eventually that data will be put into an Excell spread sheet and then I can make some pretty charts and graphs. I should hear back from them on Tuesday so wish me luck!

Some Great Cheap College Meal Ideas

Well its summer time and my meal plan is no longer effective, and I am working an unpaid internship and a retail job, so money is scarce, but I gotta eat something. So here are a few ideas to fill your belly without emptying your wallet.

1. Collegiate Spaghetti

This recipe calls for:

-1/2 pound of pasta.
-Jar of spaghetti sauce.
-ground beef (optional).

Dishes to clean: 1-2

First, if you opted for the ground beef, toss as much as you want into a skillet and cook it until its brown all over. Next, you will want to start boiling that pasta in a largeish pot. If the pasta is too long to fit into the pot, just break it into smaller pieces. Once noodles are nice and soft, strain the pasta and then put it back into the same pot. After you have done that, add the sauce (and strained beef if you opted for it) in with the spaghetti and continue cooking until everything is well cooked. then grab a fork and eat it right out of the pot! No need to dirty another plate.

2. Frozen Meals

These are some of the cheapest and easiest meals that you can find in the grocery store. Food Lion just had an offer where one frozen meal was just $1! It really doesn't get much cheaper than that, unless you go with Ramen, which might taste good, but gets really old really fast.

3. Hamburger Helper

Hamburger Helper is probably one of the best tasting meals on this list. With all sorts of flavors and varieties, this is sure to please just about anyone. If you are not in the mood for beef, you can try Chicken Helper. I personally recommend the Chicken Fettucini Alfredo.

4. Hot Dogs and Hamburgers

Every college student should have a George Foreman Grill, no ifs ands or buts. Cooking these should be extremely simple. One way to make this meal even cheaper is to buy a loaf of bread instead of buns, because buns are simply over priced.

5. Stir Fry

These are located in your frozen foods section, and are actually pretty cheap for the amount of food they contain. The best part is that it is extremely easy to cook. Basically pour all of the contents into a skillet and cook for about 10 minutes, and thats it. They come in a ton of different varieties, and boy are they delicious!

6. Ramen Noodles

If for some reason you cannot afford any of the things I have mentioned already, then you must fall to the last resort: Ramen. Don't get me wrong I love Ramen as much as the next guy, but sometimes it gets a little bland. If you are suffering from this same Ramenitis as I often do then be sure to checkout this awesome Ramen Recipe Page: http://www.mattfischer.com/ramen/

Hopefully after reading this article you too can eat hearty even in the tightest of financial pinches.

From Video to Shuffle: an iPod story

A few weeks ago I had my black 30Gb iPod Video stolen from my car while it was parked less than 30 feet from the front door of my house. I certainly could have protected it a little bit better than I had, but that is not what this post is about. This post is about my new iPod Shuffle that I recieved as an Easter gift. Now that I have had a Shuffle for about a week here is a list of some of my favorite things about it.

1. The Price

This little sucker will run you $79.99 which actually pretty good when compared to other 1 Gb mp3 players, which range from about 70 to 120 dollars. Also, this is much easier to replace if stolen.

2. The Included Dock

My favorite part about the iPod Shuffle is the cool dock that comes with it. As you can see instead of some sort of usb port on the Shuffle, there is only the head phone jack, which doubles as a data port when docked. This enables the Shuffle's size to be even smaller than before.



3. The Size

The most obvious feature about the iPod Shuffle is the miniature physical size of the device. Here I have my Shuffle compared to a U.S. Quarter, and you can see this iPod takes up far less pocket real estate than my Video iPod.



4. Song Selection

When I got my new mp3 player, I was worried about how my songs would sync with the device considering I now had 1/30 of the amount of space that I used to have. Well iTunes has really thought this one through and gives you many options for syncing your music with your iPod. You can have it set to sync a predefined playlist, or you can have it load random songs from your library. Even better, you can have it load higher ranked songs more often so that you get a nice random mix of songs that you actually want to listen to. It is because of this feature that I have totally abandoned trying to replace my Video iPod with another high capacity media player.



5. The Simplicity

Last but not least, is the fact that this thing is extremely easy to pick up and use. Although this is true with most Apple products, it has never been more true than with the iPod Shuffle. All things considered I need an mp3 player, and that is all I need. I don't want a video player, or an external hard drive, or another game device. I already have devices that do those tasks much better than any iPod.

So thats it I hope you have enjoyed my little rant about why the iPod Shuffle is my favorite mp3 player on the market. I strongly urge you to seriously consider a Shuffle instead of an iPod Video or Nano. I had a Video, and now I have the Shuffle and I am not looking back. Thanks for reading. Peace.

How To: Burn ISOs Directly in Windows Vista

There are a lot of programs out there to burn ISO files, some free and some quite expensive. However, now that Windows vista is out, I have found myself running into many computability problems with my favorite burning programs. More specifically Nero 7 and DeepBurner have been giving me the most problems so far. But fear not, because there is a solution which is free, easy, and best of all is a windows Vista power toy, so it plays very nicely with Vista.

1. Download the ISORecorder Power toy.

Windows Vista 32

Windows Vista 64

Windows XP SP2 and 2003

2. Unzip and Install.

You may notice that there are 2 files Setup.exe and ISORecorderV3.msi. It shouldn't matter which one you choose, but I would start with the msi, and if that does not work then try the exe.




Continue through the installation as normal.

3. Burn the ISO to a disc.

Now you will have to locate the ISO file that you would like to burn.



Right click on it, then go to Open With->ISORecorder. You can also click Choose Default Program and then select ISORecorder so that it will open the ISO in the program on a double click.

Next, you will want to choose all of the settings to burn your ISO file i.e. speed, source, destination, etc.



When you are done, click next and let the burning begin. After that is finished your cd tray will open, and you will be notified that burning has completed.



This is an awesome simple tool for burning ISO files. Please go have a visit to the creator's site, Alex Feinman. Also, if you like the software give Alex a donation via PayPal at the bottom of his page.

My Experience With Ubuntu 7.04 Wireless

So it seems everyone is getting extremely excited over this new Ubuntu wireless madness with restricted drivers being a part of the official repositories. However, I just had to check it out for myself. I, like most people, have had a bitchin' time trying to get my wireless to work with any sort of linux, but now it seems as if the days of hacking together a half-ass solution are over.

The card that I am using is a Dell 1450 802.11 a/b/g Broadcom 43xx card (BCM4309 to be specific), and the laptop that I am using this on is a Dell Inspiron 9300. For me, the wireless card worked right out of the box, but this will not be the case for everyone. A lot of you are going to have to enable the restricted repository, which you should be notified as soon as Ubuntu recognizes your hardware during the initial boot up. It took me a second to get used to the new interface for managing the wireless cards, but once I spent a few minutes with it, its very easy to use.

First off, this is probably my favorite part about this whole article. The WiFi ssid list actually looks great, and functions way better than I had expected.


Next, once you click whichever wireless network you want to connect to it will ask you for your password to log onto the network.



The network settings window looks very similar to the one in 6.10. You may have to check the box next to wireless, because I think it is disabled by default. To get to this window click System -> Administration -> Network, and then type in your admin password.



THATS IT! Your wireless should now be working as long as you have a wireless card that does not require restricted drivers. If your card does require restricted drivers, Ubuntu will notify you, and then prompt you to choose whether or not you would like to turn on the Restricted Drivers repository or not. Here is a picture of where you can find the Restricted Driver manager.



I hope you have enjoyed my guide, and that it was somewhat helpful. Leave me a comment if you have any questions or things you would like to change or add to my post. Peace.

Ronald is the man

There are a lot of videos that I would like to post on here, but I think this is probably my favorite. This guy is incredible on the keyboard and with fruity loops. I don't know if the whole nerdy image is a character of his, or if thats what he is really like, but it makes him even more awesome. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Peace.

If you want more, be sure to check out his blog at http://ronaldjenkees.com/

Hooray for blogs

This is my first blog post! With all this buzz about how cool these blog things are I thought I would give them a shot. Sitting in computer science class right now learning about multimaps, and I am extremely bored.

Maybe I should introduce myself. My name is Neil Monday and I'm a Junior at Old Dominion University majoring in Computer Science. I got 3 roomates, 3 fish, and one girlfriend. I am a huge nerd, and love computers and video games. Not much else to say, so I'll go back to listening to my professor. Take it easy.