Gallatin Valley Four Wheeling

The only thing I’ve been doing pertaining to the site has been to polish off the resume and get a new job. That sort of stuff.

I did run around the Gallatin Valley last weekend…chasing D-Rock and his gigantor ATV. 1000 cc…seriously. I really like the northern part of the valley:

atv four wheel bozeman
which was lovely

Nice little Saturday. More to come about the job…I’ll post some details when I start.

True American

Ford, Montana, Stars, Stripes, Bald Eagle.

there's a lady who stands in a harbor for what we call free
these colors don’t run

Bunch of guns. Just missing a PBR and one of the Hank Williams in the background.

4G LTE in MT

4G device-having Bozeman residents awoke to a nice surprise today…Verizon flipped the LTE switch a few months earlier than anticipated.

LTE
blurry pic is blurry

They must be calibrating the network, as my speed tests are all over the board. I have one run that was 14M down / 4M up, but several that sit in the 3G range.

Either way, exciting stuff and incredible timing.

Expensive Tree

Our offer for this giant tree was accepted.

expensive tree
$krilla

Pending an inspection and some title work, this tree should belong to us on the 14th of July.

The Bozeman Bear Incident

Sunday morning, I popped around the side of our house and entered a crime scene…

bear in garbage
mmm

bear tracks in bozeman
bear tracker

bear paw print
lil guy

…after careful deliberation, I concluded that the garbage perpetrator was a bear.

That was sort of a cool story and the end of the road, until the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported that “hunters [were] cited for killing [a] black bear with bow on South 3rd Avenue” on the same night our trash was raided.

They were ‘hunting’ two blocks from our fucking house. Our house is about a five iron away from campus.

Fortunately, they caught the ‘hunters,’ and the Chronicle found someone less idiotic to write the follow-up article.

At the end of it all, two MSU students stuck four arrows via compound bow into a black bear that most likely weighed less than they do, at a less-than-intimidating 150 lbs. They both pleaded guilty, and were each sentenced to eight days in jail. One was fined $2700, the other $2500…hunting privileges revoked for 5 and 3.5 years respectively.

At least the guys didn’t fight the charges. It was a dangerous, asshole maneuver to pull the stunt in the first place, but they pleaded guilty and got it over with. The worst part of the whole thing may have been the bear’s choice of last meal. If he would have gone with our other dumpster, he would have found himself neck-deep in leftover Chinese, Mexican, and spare ribs. Could have gone out with a bang…

MSU Satellite Spoiler

Ten years and a few months ago, I became a licensed HAM operator…

HAM Radio License
I'm going HAM

That means, without any doubt, that the satellite that MSU stuck in orbit last week has indeed been a long time coming.

I’m running up to campus for the mission statement and a possible down-link tomorrow afternoon…stay tuned for this one. We have entered full-on geek mode.

Repair Center in U.S.A.

We have notebooks all over our house. Not notebooks in the traditional sense, but notebooks in the sense of ‘the future of computing’ notebooks. You know, laptop computers. The future is upon us…especially how even notebooks seem too bulky for everyday use. Tablets and Androids man. Tablets and Androids.

That was the longest, least-sensical lead into a post ever. Probably. It is like I am trying to avoid writing about a topic like finding a [link removed] around Bozeman. Which I surely am not…

I found a good site that I have been using to research service centers…

service center
services galore

The bad thing about sites of this nature is over-saturation. Most locator sites have a gaudy front-end, and zero results. On the other end of the spectrum, service-center-locator.com has focused on the results, which is what I value in a site.

Case in point…

bozeman ftw
bozeman ftw

I was searching for a repair site for Katie’s Toshiba notebook. Guess what…Toshiba has a certified repair shop in Bozeman. I would not have come to that conclusion without contacting Toshiba directly, or bringing the unit back in for a warranty claim at Office Depot. Unexpectedly cool.

So hit that link above to see for yourself. I am a tech guy, so I stuck mostly with computers and phone stuff, but the site will let you track down services as widespread as you can imagine. Take a look…

Leaf Blower POV

Trees and leaves, man. Trees and leaves.

black yukon
leaf-y

Good thing I picked up a new Hitachi two-stroke leaf blower from Woot.

Video one: Droid meets concrete

Video two: Leaves meet street

I’ll fully admit that video one wins.

Baseball Heroics

Black Sox, for the win…

swan tron dot baseball
hoistin'

2011 Gallatin Valley Men’s Adult Baseball League champions. You can’t tell due to the backlighting, but there are four games worth or infield on that uni. Red Bull, ibuprofen, celebratory OMLs, Skoal, and infield. And grass from a couple of cans of corn put-outs.

Happy and tired.