The stats:
2011 Bianchi Camaleonte Uno
Topeak Super Tourist rack
Deuter Rack Pack Uni Panniers
Planet Bike Hardcore Fenders
Kryptonite NY 1210 Chain & Evolution 4 lock
Superflash blinky
OptiCube headlight

I got great deals on all of these items from my local bike shop (Truly Spokin’) or Amazon. As always, the guys at my LBS have been fantastic, making suggestions, adjustments, and helping me solve a number of smallish issues.

It’s been more money than I had intended on spending, but even just riding the bike 3 days a week to work will pay off the bike in a year. Using it 5 days a week for work and for all local driving (errands, shopping, etc.) will save even more.

Future additions:
- Replacing the stock tires with a pair of Continental Gatorskin Tires
- Replacing the stock saddle with something a bit more comfortable
- Putting a bike computer on her

She’s a LOT of fun to ride – a very different ride than my 2004 Klein Aura V, but they were made for very different purposes! Looking forward to what this next year of cycling brings!

We’re already planning for 2012 – watch out!

It’s been raining the last 4 days off and on. I’ve been doing a test ride of a 2011 Bianchi Camaleonte Uno this weekend and wanted to get it out as much as possible. This morning, sitting dejectedly in the living room watching the continuing rain, I thought, “I can’t go out on the bike and ride! It’s raining! I’ll get wet! The bike’ll get wet! I’ll look silly! Dang!”

At some point, I started thinking, “Hey, dumbass! When you were a kid, did the rain stop you from wanting to go outside & play? What’s wrong with you? Are you gonna melt? Is the bike gonna break? Don’t you remember the fun of riding your bike through the biggest puddles? Good lord, what’s happened to you?!?”

That was about as much fun as I’ve had riding a bike in a long, long time.

I’m reminded that there’s nothing wrong with childlike thinking.
There’s nothing wrong with getting wet.
There’s nothing wrong with getting dirty.
There’s nothing wrong with doing things with abandon.
I don’t need to worry about what others think.
I don’t have to color inside the lines.

This may seem like a stretch for a guy who already pushes the envelope as much as possible, but even I get into a rut. An hour out on the bike in the rain, careening through puddles, feeling the water against my face, not worrying about my clothes, the bike, my hair, what others might be thinking… that was a refreshing reminder.

Birthday? Flip! 2-Second-Burst Edition from scott rust on Vimeo.

A birthday. A Flip. A day off.

The wife. The car. The drive.

An experiment. An omnivore. An herbivore.

A battle. The result? An outrage!

Posted via email from rustypants’s posterous

This was shot out at Gulf Islands National Seashore / Ft. Pickens, FL on 10/9/10 using a Flip UltraHD camera. The music is something I frequently use while doing yoga – every time I use it, I feel relaxed and transported to the beach. To view in HD / full screen, click on the link to youtube.

So stop. Breathe. Relax. Focus.

Scott & Lise Try to Find Vegetarian Food @ McGuire’s Irish Pub in Destin, FL from scott rust on Vimeo.

What did they find? What did they eat? How does it end??

Well, click play and find out.

Stick around – it gets rather silly at the 4:00 mark…

Dark black clouds. White fluffy clouds. The sky was black. The sky was blue. It rained. It didn’t rain. The surf was flat and the beach was clear of people.

We brought Dolby, our black lab, out with us. The oil spill was on its way to Pensacola and we didn’t know when the next time was we’d be able to bring him.

As we walked out to the beach, the rain started sprinkling, and a rainbow popped out to the East. We got ourselves settled on a blanket, Dolby obviously unhappy. He and rain don’t mix. He loves getting wet and swimming, but if the moisture comes out of the sky, this displeases him. Lise went to hunt for seashells and the dog and I stayed behind.

I sat marveling at the rainbow, the dichotomy of light and dark in the sky, at the beach that we so love, how the light reflected off the water, and how we might be losing it all to the oil spill, slowly gushing its way to us.

That’s when I saw him.

Off to the East. A Great Blue Heron.

He was a good 50 yards away from where Dolby and I sat. He was framed against a beautiful backdrop of those mixed clouds, the rainbow, the shimmering water, and the sugar-white sand.

The photographer in me instantly started calculating how close I would need to get, at what point I would need to stand, what settings I would need to put into the camera, in order to get a shot of those clouds, the rainbow, the heron, the reflection, all into one frame.

The one thing I didn’t calculate was what it would take to get Dolby to stay on the blanket and not scare the heron away.

Dolby’s a good boy. We’ve been very lucky to have a big dog who stays close when off his leash, and almost always comes back when called. Almost always.

As I started changing my camera settings to take into account the distance, the lighting, my subject, and walking slowly towards the heron, I realized that Dolby was with me. What’s more, his ears had perked up and his tail was straight out. He started moving faster and next thing I know, he’s 5 yards in front of me.

What to do!? If I yell, Dolby would come back, but the heron might take off!

I risked it. “Dolby! COME!” and he did. And the heron stayed in his spot.

I continued walking, started taking some preliminary shots to see how things were looking, but knowing I needed to get much closer than I was to get the heron big enough to make it all worthwhile.

I forgot about Dolby again as I shot and made adjustments, walking quickly and, hopefully, stealthily towards the shoreline and my quarry.

The next thing I see in my camera viewfinder?

Dolby has taken off. Not a full gallop (yet), but the Labrador Retriever Hunting trot.

I called again in the most commanding voice I have, “Dolby! COME!” knowing it was futile. Once he’s locked himself into this mode, there’s nothing I can do to stop him. I had two choices: Chase after him and hope I could catch up to him, and grab him by his harness, or…

Or, I could get the camera ready and shoot what was sure to be an interesting, if not funny, scene.

Dolby has chased after pelicans in the past, to much disappointment. He has chased after black skimmers and come away shame-faced. He goes after slow, bumbling pigeons, but the results are always the same no matter what he chases: they get away.

This night was no different. As he got closer, the Great Blue shifted slightly. I could see him eyeing this big galoot who was now coming at him at a gallop. I could also see that the heron was going to shame my dog by letting him get close, closer, closer…

And it was a fantastic shaming. That Great Blue waited until the last minute to unfold his large wings and gracefully take flight against my goofy dog. He flew perhaps 50 yards to the West, landed in the water, and resumed his search for dinner, keeping a wary eye in our direction.

My big dog got this shameful, silly look on his face as he trotted back, almost as if to say, “Dang it! I knew that was gonna happen, but shucks, I just had to give it a try!”

As the oil slick continues to grow, and as we find more and more oil out on the beach, this is just one of the many things we are growing sad about losing.

It’s been many, many years.

Posted via email from rustypants’s posterous

• finished reading two good books in a row -Â The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon;Â Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. the first is a story told from the viewpoint of a fifteen year old with autism – fascinating to me after working with profoundly autistic students for many years in DC and Maryland. the second won the Pulitzer for fiction back in 2000 – it’s a series of short stories and very enjoyable.
• i’m currently reading Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. both are good so far.
• my contract was renewed at PFHS for next year – this was FANTASTIC news, both because having a job = good, and because i have come to love working at this school! very excited for what next year will bring.
• as school finished up last week, i’ve been searching for things to keep me busy this summer. too much time off is dreadfully boring. have a meeting with a department at my district tomorrow to discuss my developing Moodle pages for this dept’s training sessions, and helping with other technology related things. couple days a week, couple hours a day, maybe.
• our beloved Canon S2 IS bit the dust a couple months ago. a stunning blow, as we rarely leave the house without a camera in tow. we knew we wanted to move up in the digital camera arena, but didn’t have the money to do so. after some scraping and a lot of research, we ended up getting a killer deal on a Canon SX10 IS and we’re having a blast with it. the pictures are crisp, the response time on the camera is quick, the 20x optical zoom is over the top, and the flexibility is great. we’re still learning the nuances of this camera, and i have difficulty in a couple areas that are probably lack of photography knowledge, but we’re working on that!
• i’m enjoying Twitter more as i’m finding professional uses for it (mostly networking and idea-sharing), but i have to admit: i’m getting very annoyed at folks who use twitter like text messaging and/or simply to show off. now, the beauty of twitter is: even though everyone and their mothers have a “how to use twitter” tutorial, the truth is, there are no rules. and my bitching about folks who use twitter one way or another – it comes down to this – i stop following them so i don’t have to partake in their pointless and excessive self-aggrandizing or all the silly personal chatter they produce. it’s been bothering me a bit – thanks for letting me blow off some steam about it (and no offense meant to anyone who has been un-followed or recognizes themselves in this description – i still love you, just not that much).
• and in the interest of full-disclosure: i don’t frequently have a lot of intelligent things to say on twitter – but i do keep the meaningless posts to a minimum.
• the juan sebastian elcano is docked at pensacola pier – we went down and took a stroll around – pretty impressive ship!

• the sunsets continue to blow our minds here in pensacola. the temperatures have been very pleasant (mid-80′s the last couple weeks). tonight we saw a black skimmer fly by just as we were about to leave – very pretty and graceful – this was the best i could get of this one as it flew by:

• recent new music discoveries include: Rosie Thomas; Booker T; and Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse’s Dark Night of the Soul.

be well and take me to task on some of this stuff, ya hear?

woke up around 7:15, took care of the dog, grabbed some cereal, packed a couple books, the cooler, and took off.

skies were clear, water was gorgeous, shells were plentiful, and the temps were perfect.

saw a very cool solar halo while out. we’ve seen them before, but not this big or clear.

we stayed until noon and took off. it was the perfect way to spend a saturday morning.

the way the sky changes so quickly and gives so many colors, shapes, hues, and focal points – it never ceases to amaze us.

there was a large cloud front moving in from the north – watching the sunset BEHIND that – it was multiple layer sunset goodness!

while we were sloshing around in the water, lise made a killer shell find – a large 3″ alphabet cone!

this is only the 2nd one we’ve found even close to the 3″ range – quite a find, let me tell you!

after a particularly strange day at school, this was a good way to end it: together, everyone happy, relaxed, and ready to come home and crash.

speaking of which…

so when she told me to take it with me when we moved to Florida 2 years ago, it was a bit of a shock. i mean, we had been joking about it for so long that now… well, we can just… take it?

i turned her down. thanks, but no thanks. why are you giving it up now? she tells me it’s time for her to grow up (to which i laughed – at age 61, to decide that this welcome mat is too “immature” for you… well, that’s my momma).

at any rate, every time i see it when i come home, i think about mom. she’s funny. i love her and miss her a lot.

me wifey has bluey eyes

she coming after me

that explainey – full moony!

as we walked around, lise got into the water just a bit and was finding a lot of the same old stuff.

and then she yelled. LOUD.

she had found a Tortuga’s Banded Tulip, intact, and a little over 3″ long. an amazing find!

this is one of those “holy grail” shells for us. we’ve seen very small ones, and have been teased with hundreds of “pieces” of this shell. it’s very thin and delicate, so when they do actually make it to the shore, they’re typically beaten and crunched against the sand and other shells by waves, broken into pieces.

needless to say, this was a very neat find!

if he ever caught one

but it sure is funny watching

as he runs pell mell

and at least tries.

 lise and i collect seashells. lots of them. compulsively collect them. for 2+ years now, we’ve collected shells and shell pieces and have hoarded them in boxes and drawers and bags. we give many of them away, but dang, we just have too many shells.

a month or so ago, lise said to me, “let’s go through all our shells and take most of them back.” “BACK?!?” i said incredulously. “yes. back,” was her reply. and in the ensuing weeks, we went through all our shells, held back the ones we enjoyed the most (there were a lot of those) and made plans for exactly how we were going to return the others.

a mural. a sculpture. a sand-painting with shells. this would be the best way to return them: make art!

so two weeks ago, we hauled 2 years worth (maybe just under 100 lbs?) of shells to pensacola beach and began creating.

we picked a deserted spot, chose the best location and we got to work.

we had sketched out a sun design on paper before we arrived…

and the trick was keeping it even. we didn’t want the aesthetic ruined by sections off-kilter or too many shells clumped together in one spot. we didn’t want it to be TOO symmetrical or normal looking, though. the sun was retreating fast, so we had to double-up our efforts. things worked out perfectly, and we finished in about 45 minutes.

what took two years to collect were planned and laid out in just under an hour to the backdrop of a gorgeous sunset. it was a triumphant moment when we stood back and looked at our finished art project.

i honestly thought i’d feel sad about letting all those shells go, but it was such a fun thing. we really enjoyed ourselves and spent a good amount of time talking about what folks would think as they came upon this creation later. speculation, creation, satisfaction, companionship – it was all there.

we hung out for a bit, watched the sunset fade to black, and headed home…

Â

and began planning our next big seashell art project!

it’s mostly a dynamics issue. 8 of the 18 just don’t belong together in one classroom. but alas, the room’s not big enough to separate them as they require.

so we’re at the tail end of an excerpt from richard rodriguez’s autobiography – i’m building to the climax, the epiphany, the “aha” moment when an entire period of childish, stupid behavior on the part of my sophomores and juniors leads me to shut down the class. i’ve had enough. i’ve already had to remove one student and was close to removing a second. six others are just being disruptive, talking, trying to distract me and others, texting on cell phones, arguing with my aide – it just sent me over the top.

so i informed them: you’re on your own. finish reading it by yourselves. the 30 questions? due tomorrow at the end of the class. i was going to do them with you – now? sorry. oh, and don’t forget the test on friday. now, zip it.

and the trouble students in the class managed to zip it for about 10 minutes. then a couple more referrals had to be written.

and my 10 students who listen, participate, and don’t give me crap? their faces were like, “oh, hell no!” but they kept it together and most of them started working on finishing the story and answering the questions.

and i was so damned angry on the way home. the extent of my anger was illogical, almost blinding. and i realized that what i did wasn’t fair to my non-asshat students.

so i stopped and bought a case of cokes and rootbeer and a couple snacks. i wrote out my list of students who were going to get got, and those who weren’t. i ran it all by my department chair and a couple others (thumbs up all the way) and then laid my trap.

and 7th period, students come in and see pop and snacks and eyes light up. especially those of the soon-to-be-banished. everyone gets seated and i wrote the names of those who would not be joining us on the board. to the rest of them i said, “grab a book, a desk, a pencil, and think about what you want to drink and eat, and let’s get in a circle!” to those getting the boot, i said, “you guys can get a book, a pencil, and paper, and go to the library where you’ll do all 30 questions, then study for tomorrow’s test.”

and the looks on their faces – it was indescribable. and frankly, the glee i felt at seeing it was probably inappropriate, the groaning and whining only adding to my satisfaction.

and the ten who stayed back with me – we took the exam together and had a good discussion about the main points of the book over cokes and snacks. and 10 A’s were given.

tomorrow? the other 8 get to take the test on their own while today’s group gets a free period.

i’ll try not to be so gleeful, promise.

“Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.” but in 7th period? i’m the lord. deal with it.

one item was a Moleskine Notebook. i like moleskine (and will post soon on how i abuse them) so i put my name in for it, not thinking i had a chance in the world of getting it.

but a week later, my name is pulled out of a hat – yay!

and this is my video thanks to May for the cool notebook! click on the Play button to see…

Download thanks to may vanderbilt!

reason #1

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reason #2Â

 reason #3

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eh, big deal – as long as i’ve got my german chocolate cake!

Adrienne: well I am writing a paper
and i was at the library
but I decided to pick another study place
so I could meet my bf when he gets out of class
:-)
rustypants: haha
wow
that was like, an OMG moment
sweet
Adrienne: why is that an OMG moment?
rustypants: because i have NEVER heard it from you before, and i’ve known you for…
4 years?
5 years?
Adrienne: heh
I LIKE MY BOYFRIEND
rustypants: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Adrienne: I THINK HE”S REALLY CUTE
rustypants: stop it!!
NIEFPOinhQP[W3ORA;owei”W{ISN
Adrienne: AND I WANT TO KISS HIM ALL NIGHT
rustypants: STOP STOP STOP!!!!
Adrienne: but I can’t
rustypants: NOOOOOOOOOOOO
Adrienne: :-/
rustypants: OMG
my equilibrium will never recover