Motorcycle Trip 4

Mega die hard tour, not for the faint hearted. Start from Roseville, first stop in Oroville. Then, it is up the Feather River Canyon, around Lake Almanor to Susanville. North along Highway 139 to Alturas, and accoss the mountains to the Surprise Valley. Return is through the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, Pyramid Lake, and back through Reno and Hwy 80.

Length: 1028km / 640mi
Duration: 15h45m


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Motorcycle Trip 3

I found this trip on the Bay Area Moto Group. It will take you through Sonoma and Napa Valley in the North Bay / Marin County area.

Length: 255km / 159 mi
Duration: 4h17m


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Motorcycle Trip 2

An easier and shorter version of Trip 1, this second trip will take you around Alice's Restaurant, Half Moon Bay, Hwy 1, Santa Cruz, Hwy 9, Boulder Creek.

Length: 172km / 107mi
Duration: 2h45m
Difficulty: Beginner/Intermediate


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Motorcycle Trip 1

Now that I have my rider licence, I started looking for trips. The following is the first trip I found through the Southern Bay mountains.
It is for intermediate-experienced riders, as it goes a lot through mountain twisted roads, but there is really not a lot of traffic on them.

Length: 185km / 115mi
Duration: 4h
Difficulty: Intermediate/Experienced


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Motorcycle Licence

I passed my motorcycle licence today!!! Hurraaaay... Now I can ride in peace.. only thing missing is a motorcycle.

Been to DMV and passed the written examination. I made 3 mistakes, but still ok. As I completed a riding course, I didn't have to pass the skills test anymore.

They took another photo of me and they punched a hole in my current licence in order to invalidate it. So now I have an intermediate licence... or actually a piece of paper, until the new licence comes in mail.

All is hunky dory... but I need to rent a bike if I want to ride now... These things are expensive, plus there's a ton of liability if you fall/scratch one. Plus they rent only mega bikes... all touring and mega Harley Davidsons & BMWs. I would like to start on something easier to handle... Like a Suzuki V-Strom ;)

First weekend in October I'll try rent a smaller bike.. that will be a tiny BMW R 1200 GS... Baby bike >:D<

Chicago Sears Tower

May 7th, 2008. Visiting Chicago once again. This time we climbed to the top of the Sears Tower. Mada likes the elevaor music so much that she shows us some moves ;)

Original date blog can be found here.

Chicago Planetarium and Aquarium

May 6th, 2008. Day trip to Chicago. We visited Adler Planetarium and Shedd Aquarium.

I am slowly catching up with my video editing. Now the backlog is only 1 year 4 months ;)

Original date blog can be found here.

Greg Kihn at Peppertree Ranch

Today we went to the Peppertree Ranch in Hollister to see Greg Kihn and his band. This was an open-air family event/rock concert in the middle of farm land.

The only song I knew from Greg Kihn was Jeopardy, which I really liked and I wanted it to be played at our wedding, but after I listened to the lyrics one more time, I had second thoughts about the message it would convey ;)

This concert was very American - I think I saw 2 Asian faces, one black kid and no Indians at all... which, for California, it's extremely out of the ordinary.

Music was good, beer and wine also good (from the nearby Guerra Cellars). Though we had to leave earlier, as Mada was quite cold.

Java Read/Write Files in UTF-8

Even after several years of Java experience, there still can be confusion reagarding handling of files with different encodings.

One thing that is unclear most of the times is that encoding only makes sense if you are trying to read/write character data. For this Java created the Readers and Writers. They only handle textual content and they bridge byte streams to character streams by encoding/decoding the bytes using a specified encoding (char set). For binaries (or for textual content not actually represented as text) one can use normal input/output byte streams.

Reading textual content from a file using UTF-8 encoding:

public static String getContents(File aFile) {
  StringBuffer result = new StringBuffer();
  BufferedReader br = null;

  try {
    int len = 0;
     char[] buffer = new char[8192];
    br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
      new FileInputStream(aFile), "UTF-8"));
    while ((len = br.read(buffer)) != -1) {
      result.append(buffer, 0, len);
    }
  } catch (FileNotFoundException fnfe) {
    fnfe.printStackTrace();
  } catch (IOException ioe) {
    ioe.printStackTrace();
  } finally {
    try {
      if (br != null) {
        br.close();
      }
    } catch (IOException ioe) {
      ioe.printStackTrace();
    }
  }

  return result.toString();
}

Writing textual content from a file using UTF-8 encoding:

public static void saveContent(String content, String fileName) {
  String directoryName = fileName.substring(0,
    fileName.lastIndexOf(File.separatorChar));
  if (directoryName.length() > 0) {
    File outputFile = new File(directoryName);
    outputFile.mkdirs();
  }

  BufferedWriter writer = null;
  try {
    writer = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(
      new FileOutputStream(fileName), "UTF-8"));
    writer.write(content);
  } catch (Exception e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
  } finally {
    try {
      if (writer != null) {
        writer.close();
      }
    } catch (IOException ioe) {
      ioe.printStackTrace();
    }
  }
}

Indianapolis

May 5th, 2008. Short day trip to Indianapolis... or Indiana? Anyway, Mada explains it for all :)

Original date blog can be found here.

Tour of Computer Science Department

May 4th, 2008. We were in Lafayette, Indiana at the Computer Science Department of Purdue University. My brother-in-law was showing us his PhD project.

Some of us had no clue what he was talking about, some of us were cranky... all were tired and some were even jet-lagged.

Original date blog can be found here.

Mihai, Here We Come

May 3rd, 2008. All family going to Indiana, Lafayette to visit my brother in law's and witness his commencement. We are now in the Schiphol Airport (Amsterdam), getting ready to board the plane.

Original date blog can be found here.

Prima Sonograma

La ora 10 am avut programare la obtetrician pentru primul consult. Am aflat ca nu era saptamina 11 cum credeam ci a 10-a. Mai exact 9 saptamini si 5 zile.

Cu aceasta ocazie doctorul a facut si prima sonograma. Totul a fost in regula, bebele aratind normal pentru saptamina 10 :). Jumatate este cap si jumatate este corp cu minute si picioare in formare. In total bebele are aprox 2.88cm. Am auzit si inima care batea consistent cam cu 150 batai pe minut. Este mult prea devreme sa aflam sexul, asta fiind doar posibil doar inceping cu saptaminile 17-19.


Eu am ramas complet masca cind am vazut pe sonograma cum, la o miscare de-a lui Mada, bebele a facut un hop, a sarit si apoi usor s-a asezat iar pe peretele uterului. Era ceva ireal... asemanator cu unul dintre globurile acelea de Craciun pline cu apa, fulgi de zapada si peisaje de iarna.

Si parca voind sa puna capac suprizei initiale, bratul drept al bebelui s-a ridicat la un moment dat si s-a miscat ritmic de vreo 3-4 ori, ca si cum ne-ar fi facut cu mina.

Daca in weekend ma stresasem la BabiesRus, acum ca am asistat la scena aceasta, mi-a venit rapid inima la loc...