I worked as much as I could today...decided to go kayak fishing with Jr on the Econ river. We left around 1:30pm from the SR419 launch site in Oviedo. The river was at a nice level as we only had one portage on the day. It was an exciting day for alligator viewing. Lots of big 'ol gators sunning themselves on small white sandy beaches along the river.

First stop was a geocache named 'Snake Alley'. We found it pretty quickly and were back on the river within 10 minutes. There are about 20 other geocaches hidden along the river.

As for fishing we lost a couple of lures, one Senko 4" and a $1.00 Walmart spinner, snagged on submerged dead wood. I still had the drag set from breaking the line from one of those lures when I got a BIG hit, fish starting heading towards us and when it saw the kayak, it took off breaking the line, as the drag was set toooo tight. Was exciting...but no fish in the boat. Next we came up to the 'Honey' hole. I'm caught nice bass here almost every outing. First there's a gator that hangs out here and is starting to become less and less afraid when we approach. May need to make buzzard bait of him one day. Anyway...dropped a Senko right next to some nice structure and let it sink....BAM big fish on. This bass jumped about three times splashing Jr and me...was very exciting. Finally got him in the boat, ~6-8lbs. Photo by Jr.

In August 2007 I was riding  my mountain bike  in the  Little Big Econ state forest.  Was enjoying some quick single track, the sugar sand was beaten down pretty good from some recent rains, so...quicker than normal. All is good...until. Came up to the part of the trail that runs along the river to the right of the bridge, coming from Jacobs trail. There is a section that splits, high road to the right, low narrow to the left, correct, I went left. The trail is about a foot across with a wall of dirt/sand on your right and a nice drop into the river on the left. Then the trail gets steep, about 12 foot climb (I know, not real steep, whatever)..anyway, I get to the top and the recent rains has eroded the top of the climb into a nice 2 foot wall. I hopped my front tire up, no problem. Then my momentum stops... I unclip my right foot and of course I start leaning to the left. I'm falling and there's nothing to grab on to. My left hand is clawing at the dirt but the bike and my weight are quickly succumbing to gravities affects. Next thing I know I'm in the river sitting on the back tire of the bike. About a 18 foot drop from the top. I hop up quickly, as I have seen BIG gators in these waters and start heading towards a  spot I can climb out. Dragging my bike behind me I step into a hole and sink up to my chest in water...I start walking quicker now. Climbed out and started to laugh, what else could I do? My friend Mike circled back as heard the commotion. He confirmed that I didn't make any 'girlie' noise/screams...was all grunts and manly sounds *whew*. Finally get my composure and mount the bike to continue and the rear tire said, no go. I had a nice S curve in the wheel from landing on it. I released the rear brake and it spun free. So I rode out with no rear brake..not fun.

Days later I get the bike to the shop (Orange Cycle) and tell the story...laughs for everyone. All in all, New tire, new rear wheel, new rear cassette, new chain, new bottom bracket, new rear swing arm bearings, front shock cleaned and lubed. ~$300

Bruises lasted for at least a month.

Still riding the trail, thought about selling the bike for a few days, but got over it.

Many days later:

I finished the race in fine shape...in fact I was the first to complete the 35(actually 35.9) mile ride. Well actually the first that was riding just the 35 mile leg. There were other riders ahead of me...they were heading across the state to Ceder Key (145 miles). Anyway...three cheers for me :)

***The Ceremony***

There were about 6 different color guards from various agencies present. They marched to the starting line and then Taps was played from a bugle. Next each of the officers name were read by the Lake county Sheriff's daughter. Next a bell was rung for each officer..it was very quite and solemn moment. Amazing Grace was played by the bag pipers and the race began.

***The Ride***

I left the starting line at 6:30am with the first bunch to leave and was trying to figure out which rider to hook up with...then I went over railroad tracks and clunk...my GPS fell off my bike. I was think...how much did that thing cost...so I turned around and picked it up;) I caught up with about 12 riders that were going all the way to Cedar Key, which was to other ride co-starting with ours. These guys/gals were fast, so I tuck in behind them and pedaled like crazy, we managed around 20-25 mph for the whole trip. Yes, I felt like I was going to throw up a few times, especially my turn at the front which last about 10 seconds.

I meet a few of the riders and got the chance to tell them why I was riding, which was to honor the Callins and Michaels memory. I pointed out the Callins house on Lake Mills where Mike grew up, and spoke about Mike's character. I also heard some great stories about other fallen officers.

Well after about a hour and half I reached the finish, there was an aid station set up with beverages and food...but no finish line. Guess what, I beat the finish line set-up. Now that's fast! ;)

Afterwards I had to ride home...another 12 miles. So my mileage for the day was actually 48 miles. Whew

Me putting on my socks

That's me in the yellow

I finally got brave enough to publish some functionality utilizing cfdoument tags. Guess what? IE 6 and it's freaking Eolas patent patch starts breaking my delivered pdfs. I was getting a dialog box promting my to 'open''save''canel' the *.cfm file that was generating the pdf. You could save the pdf...I mean .cfm file then change it to a .pdf, poof file opens as expected.

The CFMX 7.0.2 updater fixes this issue. It's not documented well if this is actually what fixed my issue...anyway, it fixed it.

My dev environment was 7.0.2 so I didn't notice issues until it was published to prod. I guess I just felt like ranting a bit. I still love CF! Microsoft....not so much.

I have 'reproduced' Jesse Warden's Flash Captivate player in Flex. The reasons for doing so are: 1. To start learning Flex 2.0 and 2. Our users had a problem finding the drop down list to select additional swfs. After I had everything just the way I wanted it, I started testing in different browsers, standard workstations, non-standard, etc and after clicking around on the swfs (which calls SWFLoader component) or switching from one 'Series' to another it would crash the browser. On MAC, WIN, IE, Firefox, Safari, whatever...crashed big time. I tried posting on Adobe forums, Flex coders...nobody wanted to touch it I guess. After about a week I submitted it on Flex coders as a possible bug. Well, that got a semi-timely response from Adobe. They asked for code (of course) and said the would be looking into this matter. If this is a bug, Man! what are the chances...My very first Flex app and it's not working cause of a bug. I really need to start smaller I guess. If it's not a bug, Man! I have a lot to learn about Flex and AS3. Either way I still think Flex rocks and hope to continue developing with it for years. UPDATE 12/05/2006 - I just installed the 9.0.28.0 version of Flash player and cannot break my application. Click on it all day long and no crash. Thanks Adobe...not sure what changed from 9.0.16.0, but thanks anyway.

I think it's like having a pet. You have to feed it (with entries and comments) or it will die. You have to protect it (deleted spam trackbacks) or it will die. If you go on vacation you have to update it about your vacation, or it will die.

My blog has never chewed my slippers, soiled my carpet or aggravated my allergies. Good blog.

Will my blog make it? doubtful.

I been trying to get around to taking this exam for three years now. Since then I had to migrate from Coldfusion 5.5, to ver 6, then to ver 7. This would have been lots easier if I had taken it three years ago as the functionality of CF has continued to grow. Anyway, I took the exam at Adobe MAX conference in Las Vegas and I got an 86%....Yahoooo!!! 1 % higher than I need to get 'Advanced' developer status. What does this mean now? Now that I'm all certified and everything? I dunno. So, three cheers for me!