Yeah, I know I've been relatively quiet on my blog again... It's just a side-effect of living a busy life.

The Where's Chaz" website has been updated to include all 2012 dates up to, and including the end of the world (or year's end), whichever comes first.

To recap a few things that have past:

The Ranch will not have full-time DSL/Cable Broadband Internet anytime soon. The order we placed in December was not installed due to technical restrictions; however, when I am at The Ranch, I have purchased and tested a portable 3G/4G WiFi Hotspot from Ting that does work at The Ranch, although I have to pay for usage to the tune of 2.25¢ per MB. If you're at The Ranch while I am there, I can assign you a WiFi IP address and bill you for megabytes used -- just ask.

Empire City M/C and Excelsior M/C hosted a joint barnight at the D.C. Eagle over MAL weekend. It was fun for all, plus we raised some much-needed cash for the clubs! Photos here.

In February, the last few things 'connecting me' to Boston have been severed -- the Boston Bears remain my only affiliation, but knowing New England's mentality and lack of community, I don't expect much.

K.K., Albert, Dan and I had a fantastic ten-day trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico -- a well-deserved vacation far away from work, cold and snow! Photos here.

The Long Island Raven's celebrated 20 years of existence in March at their annual run. Almost all members of ECMC attended our pre-dinner cocktail party! Photos here.

At the end of March, a group of ECMC members made the trip to The Ranch to test-ride what was to become our 2012 Biker Weekend -- more about that at the bottom of this blog entry.

ECMC joined up with the NJ Eagles for a group motorcycle ride to Rehoboth Beach, DE! Photos here.

Upcoming features:

Rochester Rams' Can/Am Weekend (sold out) is rapidly approaching. I hope the weather will finally break, as it's been unusually cold these past few weeks! If you didn't get your weekend run pass for Can/Am, don't fret -- you can still join us for barnight on Saturday, but only ticket-holding guests may come to The Ranch for the after-party and BBQ.

Memorial Day... Who knew I'd be home for once! My former roommate, Dennis will be coming to visit NYC over the long weekend! This should be fun!

June 1-3rd is Empire City M/C's Annual Biker Weekend. Bike Christening and Blessing at Ty's at 7PM on Friday, followed by a road trip from NYC to The Ranch, then back to NYC the next day -- meals and accommodations included! Time's running out to register for this event, go to http://EmpireCityMC.com, download your Biker Weekend run application, fill it out and send it in today! Space is limited!

Come see me at the New York Bear Den every 2nd Sunday of the month! The NY Bear Den recently merged with Bears' Abode, and the result has been fantastic! We've accomplished our long-sought-after critical mass to keep the group energized and active!

See Empire City M/C (ECMC) and the NY Bear Den at Folsom Street East, 17th June 2012 from 2pm 'till 7pm.

Then there's the Canada Day/Independence Day Celebration at The Ranch. (If you're interested in going to this event, please e-mail me!)

Well, that's about it for now -- check out the Where's Chaz" website for other events -- let me know if you're interested in coming along!

Congress is currently considering CISPA – the Cyber Intelligence Sharing & Protection Act – a bill that purports to protect the United States from “cyber threats” but would in fact create a gaping loophole in all existing privacy laws. If CISPA passes, companies could vacuum up huge swaths of data on everyday Internet users and share it with the government without a court order. I oppose CISPA, and I’m calling on Congress to reject any legislation that:

* Uses dangerously vague language to define the breadth of data that can be shared with the government.
* Hands the reins of America’s cybersecurity defenses to the NSA, an agency with no transparency and little accountability.
* Allows data shared with the government to be used for purposes unrelated to cybersecurity.

Join me in opposing this bill by posting this statement on your own page and using this online form to send a letter to Congress against CISPA:

https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8444

Click for the interactive Google Map

Today, I've been riding the motorcycle almost all day! Wake up at 7am to get to the Lexington Candy Shop, established in 1925, it's a true-life luncheonette, which has become one of my favourite places to start a Saturday morning -- friendly staff, great food, real Coca-Cola (made from sugar-based syrup by hand) and awesome coffee!

Following a wonderful breakfast, I headed to the meet-up point: The "needle" at Jones Beach (actually, it's a water tower, not a needle", but that's what the locals call it!) This is where Quest Motorcyclers (a straight motorcycle club) were all meeting up at 11:00AM.

After a quick "hi, how are you", we hit the road -- although a bit chilly down by the ocean, the weather was very cooperative and we had an enjoyable ride to Nicky's Clam Bar in Bayshore, NY for lunch. Click here to see photos and ride information.

After lunch, the group broke up and everyone headed home. This was the only really disappointing thing -- the group ride (points "C" to "D") was too short in my opinion. Other than that, I had a great time!

I took the long way home... :-)

Uber cool...



Listen to NPR/WNYC's five-minute audio about NYC subway lines and stations that time forgot...

http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/wnyc-news-blog/2012/jan/03/new-yorks-lost-subways/

Be sure to check out he interactive map.

In protest of SOPA and to raise awareness of the ill-effects SPOA will have on our internet community, all websites on chazhome.com will be dark today, 18 January 2012.


Many other websites will also be dark in this huge effort.

Please take the downtime to call your elected representatives to tell them what you think of SPOA!

Say it ain't so... Albert and I put in an order for broadband (DSL) for his home (The Ranch) last night! Normally, Rochester Telephone (Frontier) says that he's too far away from the switch room to support DSL and Time Warner (the local cable company) has never run cable down his street -- leaving everyone that comes to "The Ranch" struggling with one static-laden land line for all voice/data communications to the rest of the world.

For the past two years, I've been using my Android Phone as a 3G tether to get some resemblance of broadband so I could work remotely from The Ranch, but the signal is spotty at best and it always falls back to "Edge" (2G) network, which is only a minor step up from dial-up.

We're all crossing our fingers that when the technician shows up on Tuesday the 3rd that they will be able to get DSL with WiFi installed here! Then we can set up the webcams in heaven!

Wish us luck!

Over the past couple of weeks, you've probably heard a lot about the Stop Online Piracy Act (a.k.a. "SOPA"), a bill that aims to combat online piracy and copyright infringement. SOPA focuses on websites promoting or hosting illegal content, as well as giving Internet Service Providers (ISPs) the ability to block websites without prior approval from the government. It would also allow companies to ban certain foreign entities who are deemed to be competing with video services (a primary example is Comcast, who owns NBC - Comcast is able to ban those other entities). The bill has obviously been met with a load of opposition.

Last week, Go Daddy, the world's largest ICANN-accredited registrar, announced that it was a supporter of SOPA. It's customers were very quick to respond to the announcement and called a boycott against Go Daddy. The company's users began moving domains away from Go Daddy to other registrars as well. The next day, however, Go Daddy withdrew its support of SOPA, but that still hasn't pleased many of its customers.

Earlier today, Namecheap, another popular domain registrar, accused Go Daddy of delaying transfers of domains to other registrars, a practice that is against ICANN policies.

Now, one Reddit user, selfprodigy, has declared this Thursday, December 29, "Dump Go Daddy Day," asking customers of the company to move their domains elsewhere. The user stated in a letter written to Go Daddy that he/she has moved away 51 small business websites, as well as personal domains because of the registrar's support of SOPA.

A website, http://godaddyboycott.org, has also been started, asking people to pledge their support of boycotting Go Daddy.

On the eve of what has been dubbed "Dump Go Daddy Day," imgur.com — the massive image hosting sites is responsible for an astonishing 28 terabytes of bandwidth and nearly 200 million page views per day — has already changed its registry entries, foreshadowing the potential negative effect of a boycott set to begin Thursday morning.

GoDaddy.com originally supported the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) but quickly recanted its position when the call of a boycott circulated. 'The outcry kind of forced our hand,' imgur founder and owner Alan Schaaf said. 'I'm against the SOPA act and imgur as a company is against it. We just feel it is terrible that GoDaddy.com would support this legislation.

To be clear: chazhome.com and many of my other DNS services are registered with Go Daddy currently. Once they expire, I will move my business elsewhere as well, unless Go Daddy takes appropriate action to ensure they DO NOT support SOPA before then.

Website hosting company GoDaddy has officially voiced its support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Bill in 2012, which is designed to thwart movie and music piracy on the Internet by empowering copyright holders to effectively shut down websites or online services found with infringing material.

If passed, the U.S. government could blacklist any website it deems in violation of copyright, which could range from a few posts in a Web forum to a few links sent in an e-mail. Furthermore, a little-noticed section of the Stop Online Piracy Act could make it illegal to distribute Tor or other software that can "circumvent" attempts by the U.S. government to block pirate Web sites. link

GoDaddy supports SOPA for 'protecting the intellectual property of hard-working Americans, U.S. business and the American public from the harm that necessarily flows from the purchase of counterfeit products.' Yet, of the 142 companies that support the SOPA bill, GoDaddy is the only Internet company on the list.

Some people started boycotting GoDaddy earlier in 2011 when their CEO, Bob Parsons, went to Africa to get his rocks off killing an elephant for sport. (I agree with cybernanga's comment: "I'm not anti-hunting, but I am anti-hunting endangered animals, especially if there is no cultural norms involved, and I am definitely anti-hunting if your sole motivation is just to kill something for fun."); however, backing SOPA is unforgivable.

I have many domains at Go Daddy, which I will NOT be renewing when they expire and will take my business elsewhere. There is a boycott forming at this time... read more

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And oh, yeah -- happy Festivus!

DISCOUNT ADMISSION!

Thanks to the lack of sun, increased rain and other extreme weather changes, it seems that my S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is kicking in early this year.

Several comedians have made fun of S.A.D., such as Dennis Leary, who says: "Drink a couple of beers and shovel some snow -- that's how you deal with winter." -- Well, I wish it were that simple.

Many doctors recommend light therapy. During light therapy, you sit or work near a device called a light therapy box. The box gives off bright light that mimics natural outdoor light. Light therapy is thought to affect brain chemicals linked to mood, easing S.A.D. symptoms. Using a light therapy box may also help with other types of depression, sleep disorders and some other conditions. Light therapy is also known as bright light therapy or phototherapy.









Sounds simple until you try to work next to a bright light box, or waste hour upon hour daily with a light box glowing on you. Doesn't that look like so much fun!! (Going to a "New Christy Minstrels" concert would be exciting in comparison!)

I'd prefer not to be on an "artificial" happiness pill.

So, I've learned to isolate myself and deal with my manic mood swings without bringing down everyone around me. I ward off suicidal thoughts with travel to bright/warm or different environments, which tends to work.

What do you do to ward off the winter doldrums?