Al B. Hard does it Pony Style

I am pleased to announce the public availability of a site that I have been working on for over a year now. Photos of the BeltLine is a project of Ruth Dusseault, Artist in Residence at the Georgia Tech College of Architecture, designed to engage college-level students and instructors from around Atlanta in the collaborative effort of documenting the BeltLine and its surrounding territory as it evolves.

Created using the lovely Ruby on Rails, the site integrates the Google Maps API to provide a means for the photographers to place their work on a map of the BeltLine. While the current exhibition features are fairly basic, enhancements are planned that will allow visitors to more easily find photos based on several criteria, including the date they were taken and the user who uploaded them in addition to a full text search.

Beginning tonight, January 10th, there is an exhibit entitled Re\constructing Atlanta: A Contemporary Continuum at the Georgia State University Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design Gallery, located at the corner of Peachtree Center Ave and Gilmer St downtown. Coverage of the site and the event has been featured in Monday’s AJC, as well.

For more information about the BeltLine, visit the official web site. To find out more about what Ponystyle Industries can do for you, feel free to contact me at albhard@ponystyle.com.

A project that I’ve long been neglecting is the transfer of around 200GB of data from some old hard drives that were in a Linux PC that I had in operation a couple of years ago. What would have ordinarily been a rather trivial task is complicated by the fact that the drives are tethered together via LVM, and they can only be easily read while all simultaneously installed in a Linux environment.

The saga has been ongoing for some time, and it is now in dire need of a happy ending. It has destroyed or temporarily disabled at least four machines and left anger and frustration in its wake. A recent weekend in Knoxville found my friend Joe and I spending several hours attempting to first install the drives in a rather old 2U rack-mount server, only to find that it wouldn’t power on afterwards. Subsequently we moved the drives into an even more ancient 4U server, which would boot up just fine and then switch into a graphics mode that his modern LCD monitor couldn’t understand.

To hold the data, I’ve procured a totally sweet-sounding 500GB Fantom Drives GForce Megadisk, but I’ve yet to even plug the thing in since all of these hardware problems have been distracting me.

My latest plan involves not an actual Linux machine at all, but a virtual machine created by VMWare Fusion. Then I can get no less than three external hard drive enclosures for these old drives and a USB hub that will allow me to plug in all four drives into the girlfriend’s Macbook Pro. Then I’ll boot a Linux live cd of some flavor in a Fusion VM, configure all the drives as an LVM group again, and copy all the data to the new drive, lickety-split.

After all this, I’ll have three old drives in external enclosures that I suppose I could use for storing other things. Perhaps I can just borrow some enclosures from someone and save the unnecessary purchase there. Maybe I can just “borrow” them from the store and return them when I’m done.

Needless to say, the adventure continues. I hope it ends soon.

As you may have already seen, some smart folks at Princeton’s Center for IT Policy recently discovered something that I think we all suspected was possible: Diebold voting machines are ridiculously insecure.

Here is a telling video that proves the point nicely:

I encourage you to contact Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox and let her know you won’t stand for such shoddy technology at our polling places. If you don’t live in Georgia, your state may also be using Diebold machines or other shoddy equipment. Black Box Voting is a good place to find more information.

I needed to retrieve my member number and update my info with REI, and I noticed this convenient link to their Live Help feature on the Member Help page. I’ve always been a little skeptical of these things, but I figured I’d give it a shot. Here is a transcript of the end of our conversation:

Carolyn L: (Your replacement membership card should arrive in two to three weeks. Your member number will remain the same.)
Carolyn L: Is there anything else I can help you with this afternoon?
Me: My girlfriend, who lives in Seattle, is requesting a sandwich. I don’t suppose there is anything you can do?
Carolyn L: *grin* Unfortunately, that service is beyond my reach.
Carolyn L: I can make some good deli recommendations thought.
Me: Well, I appreciate your help at any rate
Me: I think she’s going to Red Line if she can ever get off the couch
Carolyn L: *grin* That’s a good place.

Clearly, my skepticism was misplaced. This is a wonderful service! I might just chat them up the next time I need something. Even if they can’t help, at least they’ll be friendly about it.

I’ll admit it: I’ve been keeping this to myself for too long.

One of my favorite bands of late, which you may remember from a certain birthday party back in March that got far too much interest from the Atlanta Police, is finally getting some of the critical respect that they’ve definitely earned. Arizona (MySpace) is a Brooklyn-based 5-piece that I was introduced to through my good friend Scott, who has played with most of them in previous musical incarnations. They played an exciting, loud set in Scott’s garage on that storied birthday evening, and it was worth the police intervention if only for the memories.

Fast forward 5 months or so, and witness them featured on NPR’s World Cafe for Monday, September 4. It’s a short piece, but it’s still great press. I appreciate that it largely lets the music speak for itself.

So what are you waiting for? Go listen!

Today has been one worth of much ridicule. Here are the low and highlights:

• Low: waking up at 04:30 to find the kitchen floor pooling water that was dripping from the ceiling.
• Low: calling in a personal day for work.
• Low: fretting over how much this was going to cost me.
• Low: pouring chunky milk all over my big bowl of healthy cereal.
• High: finally receiving the insurance claim check from the last home-related incident.
• Low: driving to Buckhead for a 1.5 hour long dentist visit.
• High: realizing that my dentist is also a Mercedes nut and getting his recommendation for a good mechanic.
• Low: returning from Buckhead in rush hour traffic.
• Medium: realizing that, had I worked in addition to all this, I would have been miserable instead of just OK.
• High: hitting Thinking Man trivia (2nd place!) and Gravity Pub Trivial Bingo in one night.

Lucille got operated on today. With Cody’s assistance and Rolf’s guidance, I changed the primary and secondary fuel filters and cleaned the ALDA banjo bolt and line. The resulting changes in performance were nothing less than extraordinary! Improved acceleration, a much more apparent turbo boost, and a smoother, quieter engine. I’m beginning to wonder exactly how well-maintained the ol’ girl was before I got her. Alas, things are getting better all the time!

One noticeable effect of these power improvements is an increase in squeaky noise from the belt(s). This had been happening only in high-torque situations, but now it is all across the acceleration spectrum. Soon it will be time to replace those guys.

In other news, Rolf and I went to fill up with some good ol’ corn squeezins at the makeshift Vegenergy filling station on Dekalb Avenue. Three bucks a gallon including taxes is exactly what I paid for regular diesel last time I filled up, and it’s what I paid today as well — but for bio. It’s totally worth it. Aside from all the numerous practical advantages of going bio, it also smells much better. I’m excited.

The Vegenergy people have got a really cool thing in the works over there. A self-contained unstaffed biodiesel pump is about to be operational 24/7. It is basically a shipping container with a pump and credit/debit machine built in to the side of it. Inside lives the tank(s) of fuel! I meant to take a picture there earlier today, but I’m sure I’ll be back soon.

Based on an article I read earlier, I’m somewhat concerned about the trend of increased biofuel production driving vegetable oil prices higher. Traditional fossil fuel production and extraction has obvious environmental and societal effects. I would hate to think that my attempt to move away from those energy sources might cause the cost of meals and food to increase for those who can barely afford it already. Time will tell, I suppose.

This Saturday, August 19, I will be joining forces with some awesome local talents to present Pecan Pie Couture’s Wampum Disco Fashion Party at The Royal, downtown boogie down style. Here are some double-u’s!

• What? A celebration of Pecan Pie Couture’s Fall Line
• Who? Factory Aire (Lenny’s, CUDS, SOAP), Al B. Hard (Ponystyle Industries), Disco Goddess Ms Pope!
• When? Saturday 8/19 @ 10pm (I’m on first and Ms Pope will be spicing things up intermittently throughout the night)
• Where? 255 Trinity Ave SW, Atlanta, GA 30303 (The Royal)
• Why? Because the Good Lord gave you a booty, and you need to shake it.

DID I MENTION THAT IT’S FREE?!

So now that you are in the know, come on out and get down with us. I’ll be spinning lots of old, new and in-between disco and all that it inspires. Don’t forget to glitter up your chest for when the shirts come off and we all get sweaty together forever!

Sunday afternoon is a great time for doing work on the car… especially when it turns out to be very simple! This particular afternoon’s project was the replacement of Lucille’s injection return lines. It was a much-needed service which had not been performed in an unknown amount of time. The Diesel Giant recommends this service be performed every two years, and I am almost certain it was long overdue.

For those interested, the concept is very simple: the injector return lines are woven-fiber-wrapped rubber hoses that run between the small nipples (teehee) on either side of the fuel injectors. Over time, the rubber in the lines becomes brittle and develops cracks, allowing small amounts of unprocessed fuel to escape, soaking the woven wrapping and the area surrounding them in the engine. Fortunately, diesel has a high enough combustion temperature that such fuel leakage is not a fire hazard, but the problem can still affect performance, especially at idle.

Replacing the lines turned out to be much less annoying than Rolf had led me to believe it would be. The most difficult part was using needle-nose pliers to remove the tiny remnants of hose that tended to break off around the injector nipples. Inserting the new hoses was generally as easy as pie, and the results were a noticeable improvement in the smoothness factor of the idle. Not bad for $16 in parts and less than an hour in labor.

Tomorrow’s project will be to clean the ALDA boost system, which will surely be exciting. Anything involving a banjo bolt has to be.

This weekend was a bit different. It all started Thursday evening with the arrival of the other 3/4 of my nuclear family. Their purpose for visiting was not only to see me and my new abode, but to help me tame it into shape using their various skills, equipment and fervor. I can safely say that this was a rousing success.

We managed to accomplish at least the following tasks, all with a minimum of argument and bickery:

• Dinner at Cantina la Casita
• Full-force attack on the lawns, front and back (pictures forthcoming!)
• Complete kitchen organization
• Giant Target shopping trip for general outfitting
• Air conditioner installation
• Numerous minor fixture installations
• ALL of the laundry

Of these, the two about which I am most pleased are the kitchen organization and the yard-taming. For starters, I have a real pantry now — the kind where things are both visible and accessible in a convenient location. The yard has been heavily weed-whacked and is primed for the spraying of the environmentally semiresponsible Chemical Death. I look forward to the day when the word “poison” does not come up in lawn-related conversation.

Next Page »