In order to make this commute bearable I definitely need some good tunes… and unfortunately I don’t find any of those on Boston area radio stations (except perhaps WERS which has some good stuff). I can listen to my iPod… but it can get repetitive as I am not buying as much music as before, and I start to know my collection.

So I was thinking of a way to be able to listen to my favorite radio station: Radio Nova. The problem is that it is a French radio and my antenna is not powerful enough to get the signal .

The solution was to record the radio from the web broadcast, make it available as a podcast and sync my iPod in the morning before leaving for work. Et voila, a few hours of music, news and French speaking people… everything that will help get over my morning grumpiness!

And with the time difference between France and the US it even feels like live radio, I get the morning news almost at the time it was broadcast

On a technical level this is how it works:
I setup cron jobs on my web server to record Radio Nova stream from the web, using streamripper. Then I inject some meta data in the recorded file with id3v2. And finally the file gets published as a podcast thanks to DirCaster. In the morning I sync up my iPod with the podcasts that were recorded earlier in the night and I’m good to go.

I’m not really sure how legal it would be to make these recordings public, so I won’t do it, but if you’re interested leave me a comment and I’m sure we can work it out.

Luckily I found it on this site

I decided to make it available as well in case it becomes unavailable at www.nextdestination.com.au.

Here is the decription of this patch:

MapSend WorldWide BaseMap Patch 1.30. This patch adds the ablility to make WorldWide BaseMap regions for eXplorist 210, 400, 500, 600 and XL GPS receivers and it fixes issues with XP Service Pack 2 for any owner of WWBM versions prior to v1.10.

Click to download MapSend WorldWide BaseMap Patch v1.30

• Feb 21st: Leaving Boston (20:35 takeoff)
• Feb 22nd: Arriving in Paris (12:10 landing), nap and travel to Bordeaux (train?) to meet Pascal
• Feb 23rd: Day in Bordeaux (Football game?)
• Feb 24th: Driving to Pau and spent the afternoon with Max?
• Feb 25th: Driving to Girona, find a cheap hotel near the airport
• Feb 26th: Flying to Fuerteventura
• Feb 27th: Surf, beer and tapas
• Feb 28th: Surf, beer and tapas
• Feb 29th: Surf, beer and tapas
• Mar 1st: Flying back to Girona, and driving back to Bordeaux (or Pau?)
• Mar 2nd: Traveling back to Paris
• Week of Mar 3rd to 7th: Working from mum’s place
• Mar 8th: Flying back (15:50 takeoff) to Boston (17:50 landing)

Budget plan:

• Flight BOS-CDG: $452
• Train Paris-Bdx: 104 € / Flight 110 €
• Gaz+Parking: 100 €
• Flight Girona-Fuerteventura: 86 €
• Hotel (+food?) Fuerteventura: 150 €
• Food: 100 €
• Fun: 100 €

I’ve find some useful information on how to clean that mess on Kakkoi: How to Removed Wordpress.net.in Spam Injection.

Stoopid spammers!!!

The first step in our trip was Tecate. Well to be honest there was not much to see down there. It is a nice quiet town, people were friendly and the food was good, but we could definitely have skipped the day in town. On Sunday morning we left Tecate to drive south through the Valle de Guadalupe. We enjoyed the scenery and made a side stop to one of the many wine exploitations for wine tasting. It was fun and relaxing after a few hours driving (although we were not too fond of wine itself). We stopped for lunch in Ensenanda and kept driving a little more to La Bufadora, a very touristy little place on the rocky pacific coast. There we saw a sea geyser made by ocean wave, and we walked around the main street packed with little “crafts & junk” shops. We made our way back toward Ensenada and, after picking up a hotel, we went relaxing at the Punta Banda beach for a while. Finally we went out to dinner for Pascal birthday and we ate a huge (and delicious) seafood platter!

Monday was a long driving day. We spent many hours in the car driving through amazing scenery in the central desert of Baja California. In the late afternoon we arrived at Bahia de Los Angeles and were more than happy to go for a swim in the nice water of the sea of Cortez. Tuesday was a relaxing day: snorkeling, reading, laying, swimming and even a little bit of windsurf .

On Wednesday morning we woke up very early to go fishing. We got on the boat around 6.30am and spent the whole morning at sea. We fished for a couple of hours in the islands of Bahia de Los Angeles, it was crazy we barely had to wait for fishes to bite. It was like somebody was at the bottom hooking the fishes onto our hooks! After filling half of a cooler with fish we decided to stop fishing and went for a ride. Our captain brought us to a small island where a lot of sea lions were hanging out. We asked him if we could go look around for dolphins, he said we could try. On our way we saw a whale (from far) and finally we spotted some dolphins. We were lucky, they were hundreds of them and they played with us, swimming in front of the boat and jumping around. On our way back we stopped for about 30 min to snorkel in some very clear water, full of colorful fishes. This morning was excellent and after we got back to our place the afternoon was dedicate to laziness. We also grilled a lot of fresh fish for lunch and dinner .

We left Bahia de Los Angeles early on Thursday morning. But before heading back to Ensenada we took a side trip to see some cave paintings. Literally a side trip… just a dirt path by the side of the main road. After an hour of driving in the dirt we almost turned around as there was no sign of paintings and no indication how far they were. But as we were getting ready to turn around we reached the site, a big cliff standing in the middle of thousands of cacti. We climbed and walk around, trying to discover as many paintings as we could for a while, until we decided to head back. We drove back on the dirt path and finally on the paved road for the rest of the day. We arrived in touristy Ensenada in the late afternoon.

Friday was Kristy’s requested “shopping day” . We all took advantage of Ensenada’s shop to buy crafts, jewelery and souvenirs. On Saturday we started our journey back to the US. We spent some time body surfing inthe ocean in the morning, ate good seafood in Puerto Nuevo and drove back to Tijuana where we dropped the car off in the afternoon. Then we grabbed a cab back to the border and crossed to “the other side”. We had to wait in line for a good 30-45 min at the Tijuana border. Last step was to go through the custom, Pascal and I went through easily, no question asked. Then one of the officer asked a few question to Kristy, who was taken on the spot:

• Officer: Where are you going?
• Kristy: mmm… I don’t know, San Diego?
• Officer: What did you bring?
• Kristy: Nothing… huh my stuff…

And they let her through, I’ll remember those answers next time I need to fill an immigration form in a plane

San Diego tip: How to pick up the trolley for free from the airport? Grab the budget shuttle pretending you have a reservation, the Middletown trolley station is steps from the rental place.

Trip Facts :

• Length: 10 days
• Distance: 1016 Miles - 1636 Km

Money Facts :

• Food and drinks: 804$ (26.8$ per day per person)
• Hotels: 925$ (30.8$ per night per person)
• Transportation
• Cab rides: 55$
• Train: 15$
• Car rental: 421$
• Gas : 88$
• Toll: 11$
• Fun
• Boat ride: 175$
• Boogie boards: 24$
• Shopping: ~80$
• Total spent (without flights) : 2598$ (86.6$ per day per person)

Flights:

• 429$ Boston - San Diego, for Kristy and Matt
• Pascal got free tickets

In the evening we went to the Daft punk concert at the Greek theater in Berkeley. The concert was pretty good although the opening band (The Rapture) started on time and played barely 30 minutes… We were late and mostly heard them from outside, just getting in for their last song. This is probably the first time in my life that I see a concert starting at the time that’s printed on my ticket!!! The Daft Punk were very good and they put on a very nice and entertaining show. If I have another occasion I’ll definitely go back even hough I usually don’t spent 50$ for a concert, but it was worth it.

On Saturday, after eating a big sandwich for breakfast we drove south into the mountains for a couple of hours. We went hiking and canyoning in the Arroyo Seco river. It was very fun, we spent the day walking, swimming and climbing in the canyon. We did a bunch of rock jumping (which reminded me of my student years in south of France when I went rock jumping in the Estérel) and we spent some time poking crayfishes wishing we had something to cook a few of them .

On Sunday we went surfing in Santa Cruz, waves were very small but we still had fun. Then we drove back to San Jose and I flew back to Boston overnight. Kristy was so nice to pick me up at the airport at 5.30 .

Just started watching Futurama over again for the 12.308th time and I still love it. This is the best show ever. I’m just cracking up at Fry answering Gunter (the monkey): “I don’t like you” in season 2 episode 2.

• Friday 10th:
  Flying to San Diego, meeting friends and spending the night there.
• Saturday 11th:
  Taking the trolley to Tijuana and picking up the car. Driving to Tecate, maybe visit the brewery and spend the night there.
  Hotel tips (El Dorado, Rosita Inn)
• Sunday 12th:
  Driving through Valle de Guadalupe (Vineyards), maybe stop at a few wineries. Then keep driving till Ensenada and spend the night there.
  Casa del Sol (rooms 63$/night for 3)
• Monday 13th:
  Drive to Bahia de Los Angeles (long drive ~8h), then relax on the beach.
  Villa Bahia (casitas 85$/night)
  Camp Dagetts (casitas ??$/night)
  Villa Vita (rooms ??$/night)
• Tuesday 14th:
  Kayak/Snorkeling/Relaxing around Bahia de Los Angeles. Maybe fishing trip?
• Wednesday 15th:
  Kayak/Snorkeling/Relaxing around Bahia de Los Angeles
• Thursday 16th:
  Driving to San Ignacio (~4 1/2 h), spent the rest of the day and the night there. (Can drive late afternoon if we want an extra day in Bahia)
  Casa Lereé (rooms 35-65$/night)
  Desert Inn (rooms 72$/night)
  Ignacio Springs B&B (yurts ~70$/night)
  Or
  Only drive to Guerrero Negro. (Malarrimo hotel (55-60$/night) + trip to caves)
• Friday 17th:
  Day trip to the cave paintings in Sierra de San Francisco.
• Saturday 18th:
  Long drive back to Tijuana (~11h). Drop the car, go back to San Diego for the night.
• Sunday 19th:
  Chill out in San Diego, maybe surfing or bike/kayak/snorkel and take the plane at night to Boston
• Monday 20th:
  Early arriving at the airport, maybe a quick shower then back to work

If you want to use these instructions you will need to have a c compiler, subversion and all the decompressing tools (gzip, bzip2, tar) installed.

Get audio codecs (MP3 and AMR)

MP3 LAME:

1. Grab the latest sources from the MP3 LAME official site:
   e.g. lame-3.97.tar.gz
2. Decompress the source code:
   gunzip lame-3.97.tar.gz
   tar xvf lame-3.97.tar
3. Change directory:
   cd lame-3.97
4. Configure and install:
   ./configure
   make
   make install (as root or sudo)

AMR (NB & WB):

1. Grab the AMR Codec Libraries (The FFmpeg documentation has a section about installing AMR):
   e.g. amrnb-6.1.0.4.tar.bz2 and amrwb-7.0.0.1.tar.bz2
2. Decompress sources:
   bunzip2 amrnb-6.1.0.4.tar.bz2
   tar xvf amrnb-6.1.0.4.tar
3. Change directory:
   cd amrnb-6.1.0.4
4. Configure and install:
   ./configure
   make
   make install (as root or sudo)
5. Repeat same steps 2,3 and 4 for amrwb-7.0.0.1.tar.bz2

FFmpeg

1. We need to get FFmpeg from the subversion repository:
   svn checkout svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg/trunk ffmpeg
2. Change directory:
   cd ffmpeg
3. Configure and install:
   ./configure –enable-libamr_nb –enable-libamr_wb –enable-libmp3lame
   make
   make install (as root or sudo)

After that you should be able to use FFmpeg to encode flv or 3gp etc… with sound.