RefuseBit

So, I've got this longing to revisit Britannia. Which Britannia? I've narrowed it down to three:

Ultima VII as our Bio Break blogger does (reminding me of good times).

Ultima Online via http://uogamers.com - some of the best of times, vibrant, real players

http://http://u6project.com (I'm happy to buy a $5 copy of Dungeon Siege, and VI was an obsession of my youth)

I have a 2013 Specialized Crosstrail and have been upping my rides to 20-30 miles at a time. I find myself wanting to lean over and put my elbows on the bars on long flats. I know drop bars (and a road bike) are probably what I need, but would bar ends or aero bars help? Seems like the aero bars may be just what the doctor ordered, and at the $50-$80 price range it seems more frugal than new bars. Also looking at Ergon grips/ends as I am climbing quite a few hills as well... maybe both? :)

I'm running an Oracle 11g instance on a machine that is fairly old and obviously underpowered. We've optimized and indexed as best we can, but for certain operations we're still "too slow." We've discovered that our dept. has the budget for a new server, but we need justification, understandably. What is the simplest set of information I can provide to management (and other experienced DBAs) to justify the expense of a server upgrade?

Our local Parks Department blessed us with a new greenway and a bridge across a nearby river. The new path opens up access to scores of neighborhoods, local parks, and most of all a major 2000+ acre park with paved trails. So my wife and I bought bikes and started getting back in shape.

The kids are the focus in this post, though - girl is now 4 1/2, boy is 7, both excited about cycling. So a few years back this is the path we took:

boy at 0-3: toys, trikes

boy at 4: Little Tykes 12" toy bike w/training wheels

boy at 5: Gyrowheel on Little Tykes 12"

+3 weeks - riding 20" Trek without training wheels

boy at 7: Giant 24"

girl made similar progr

Our local Parks Department blessed us with a new greenway and a bridge across a nearby river. The new path opens up access to scores of neighborhoods, local parks, and most of all a major 2000+ acre park with paved trails. So my wife and I bought bikes and started getting back in shape.

The kids are the focus in this post, though - girl is now 4 1/2, boy is 7, both excited about cycling. So a few years back this is the path we took:

boy at 0-3: toys, trikes

boy at 4: Little Tykes 12" toy bike w/training wheels

boy at 5: Gyrowheel on Little Tykes 12"

+3 weeks - riding 20" Trek without training wheels

boy at 7: Giant 24"

girl made similar progr

The state wildlife agency (TN) stocks our local river with trout in December every year. I've yet to take advantage of it but am wondering basically how far the trout will travel and how long it would take. I've heard of anglers hanging out by the truck as the fish hit the water, but I'm more interested in catching them closer to my favorite spots which are about 20? 30? miles downstream.

I would like to start a discussion on internet access for your children. Frankly I'm surprised how many people let their kids have unfettered access to the internet. I am pretty open to letting my kids be exposed to certain things, but there's no way they are going to sit in a room unsupervised and surf the net. Mine are 6 and 3 so I guess it's a bit different with teenagers and so on. We keep two computers in our office area which is right off the kitchen which they can use, but surfing is not really part of it. Minecraft mostly, another topic.

I grew up on BBSs, Usenet, IRC (I am a software engineer) so I'm no Luddite. I think all those Usenet groups jaded me frankly... [shiver]

Do you u