Stephen Skory

In ten days I turn twenty… err seven. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track, seeing as my cycling racing age has been 27 since January 1st, 2006. Most (all) of my readers are my friends and family, so they should already be in turmoil over what to gift me. I’ve thoughtfully provided a wish list, below.

• You can start from my Wish List category. Any one of the items seen on that list will suffice.
• A subscription to Scientific American.
• A Red Ferrari.
• A waffle iron. Seriously. I’d use it.
• A new Trek Madone SL 5.5. My current road bike is over five years old and I’d love to get a new one (as long as it’s free to me, of course).
• I’d enjoy a new cycling computer. A power-measuring bottom bracket ($1,599.95) would be nice. If you’re feeling less generous, a Garmin Edge 305 (~$350) with GPS and wireless cadence would be a nice upgrade to my Forerunner 301.
• Cold, hard cash is always accepted. But it’s quite unoriginal.
• I’ve started a bit of a garden, so plant paraphernalia would be good. Or wild bird feeder stuff. No need for a hummingbird feeder – we got one today.
• If you’re feeling especially kitchy, enroll me in some sort of (blank) of the month club. Cheese? Bread? Beer? Sushi? It’s all good.

Currently in my apartment I have three large, high quality maps on my walls. Two of them are from Raven Maps: California, and Southern California. The third is late 1940′s-era (it may have been printed much later than that) USGS topographic map of the central San Francisco Bay Area made up of two 7×4 foot sheets. I have more in my closet. Clearly, I like maps.

Over at Rand McNally, they have a custom map store where you can choose your own area to map, at about 10 scales (from neighborhood to state level), and they will print it out in poster format, up to 48×60 inches. But it’s not cheap. That size, their largest, costs nearly $400. You can also choose to receive a custom booklet for that map with a street index.

Alas, if you can’t run Internet Explorer on Windows, you cannot use their custom map web interface. They should at least make it Firefox compatible, because IE is a bad idea all the time.

To the left here I’ve previewed the map I would like you to give me. It covers all parts of San Diego that I ride my bike at with sufficient detail of the smaller streets that are important. I would like it in the largest size, with the street index, too. With a cool wall map like this, I can plan out new rides much more easily than on a computer. San Diego county is nearly four times larger than Rhode Island (11,700 km² to 3400 km²), with much more interesting geography. Help me discover it’s wonders!

It’s only your money. We’re talking about my geographcial edification here!

(p.s. Yeah, okay, there’s actually no http://map.a.licio.us/, but there should be.)

It’s simple numerics, really. The new Mac Pro has four CPU cores, which is better than one. One is how many CPUs my current desktop machine has, a 1.5 year old iMac G5. Just think of all the things I can do with four cores that I can’t do with one! What, you can’t think of them? Well, boremeister, it’s a good thing I have some imagination.

One idea is to hook it to one of my previous wish list items. I’ll need all four cores to support all the things I’ll be running on all those monitors. Just think of it! A movie on one – web pages on two – my live stock ticker on another. On one screen I’ll be running a simulation to cure cancer while on another I’ll be writing a new, effective constitution for Iraq. I’m serious about this. If you buy me this computer all these things will come to pass. If you doubt me and fail to come through, world strife will be on your conscience. Do you dare to be the one that could have done something, but didn’t?

It’s only your money. We’re talking about human welfare here!

So what if it’s meant for recreational vehicles. So what if I don’t drive very much. So what if I’m good at reading printed maps. I need a Garmin StreetPilot 7500 in my Volvo station wagon. Not only is it a GPS mapping device, it’s got an XM satellite radio, it can put live traffic and weather forecasts on the map and use dead reckoning in case the satellite signal fails. Plus, it’s shiny.

It’s only your money. We’re talking about my direction here.

(p.s. I’d accept this one if you’re feeling less generous.)

Do you want to help me get my PhD faster? If so, go on over to this website and buy me one Zenview Arena Ultra HD six screen multidisplay. I’d also like you to buy me a computer capable of running all the monitors (but wait until Apple has moved their desktop workstations to Intel).

It’s only your money. We’re talking about my education here!