Category: Off-topic

  • The Most Important Two Letters at the Girls’ Nationals: “O” and “T”

    Reading Time: < 1 minute I was chosen to officiate at the 2008 USA Hockey Girls’ Nationals last week in West Chester, PA. This was a marathon tournament that ran from April 2 to 6 and covered four different age groups: 12 and Under 14 and Under 16 and Under 19 and Under The tournament…

  • Gone Officiating

    Reading Time: < 1 minute Beginning Wednesday, April 2, I am officiating the USA Hockey Girls’ National Ice Hockey Tournament in West Chester, PA. I may not have time to post very much on Operation Gadget until the tournament is over on Sunday. Your best bet if you want to hear from me from Wednesday…

  • Gadget Links: Old Granddad Edition

    Reading Time: 2 minutes For the Phinney Family, a Dream and a Challenge on NYTimes.com: This story came out last week, right before Taylor Phinney raced in the Individual Pursuits at the Track Cycling World Championships. Taylor finished eighth. His father, Davis, is a legendary U.S. cycling champ who has struggled with Parkinson’s Disease in…

  • You Can Follow Me on Twitter

    Reading Time: < 1 minute I’ve decided to spend a few moments on Twitter from time to time. If you want to follow me, please do so at https://twitter.com/daiello. You’ll probably see more tweets than updates to my Facebook profile.

  • Is Windows XP with the “Bliss” Background Supposed to Be Teletubbyland?

    Reading Time: < 1 minute Jimmy mistook Windows XP for Teletubbyland: Does your toddler do that too? [ Image: Dave Aiello, in my Flickr account ] I started building a Windows XP virtual machine in VMware Fusion on my new MacBook Pro the other day. My 21-month old son Jimmy was really excited when he saw it…

  • In Memory of Sheldon Brown

    Reading Time: < 1 minute I never met Sheldon Brown, but I learned a great deal from him. Sheldon developed a website, SheldonBrown.com, that had an incredible amount of technical information about bicycles and cycling. If I Googled for some information about one of my bikes, I often ended up consulting his site. Sheldon passed…

  • Gadget Links: Freakout 2008 Edition

    Reading Time: < 1 minute RPI Plays Princeton tonight in the 31st Annual Big Red Freakout. RPI needs the win. In other news, the White beat the Red in the Alumni Game 9-8. Kipkay’s Video Tips & Tricks on Instructables: “Here are 5 easy and cheap tricks for anyone who uses a camcorder. Total cost…

  • Keeping Weight Off at Athlete-Oriented Companies

    Reading Time: 2 minutes Sunday’s New York Times had a terrific article about fighting a weight loss battle while working a full time job which resonates with me. What was most interesting was the fact that two of the three people profiled work at very athletically-oriented companies. Steve Madden, the editor of Bicycling and Mountain…

  • Power Supply Dies in Blogging Workstation, Days Away from MacBook Pro Purchase

    Reading Time: < 1 minute Wednesday morning 6:30 A.M. There’s an eerie silence in The Home Office. Over the next 10 minutes I come to the conclusion that the power supply on The Blogging Workstation, my four year old AMD Athlon 2500XP+ ATX Tower Machine that’s the fastest PC in the house, has breathed its…