We’re practising like mad. Performance is today. Here’s hoping it goes well!

An-ti-ci-pa-tion… I’ve been waiting for a bloody week. And today, my precious has arrived!

For over a year I have been lusting after the Motorola Ming A1200. The Ming is a quad-band GSM phone, so it works in analog and digital frequencies both here and in Europe. The 2MP camera also doubles as a camcorder. The Ming runs linux (Motorola’s customized version of Monta Vista Linux) and has J2ME Java environment. There are hundreds of programs available for the phone. It only has 8 MB of internal memory — a major drawback to an otherwise great phone.

I got to fondle the Ming for the first time at CompUSA. They had the new, unlocked handset. The black backing on the phone feels like brushed metal velvet. Very nice. Translucent cover with the ear piece in the Motorola logo. Snazzy. Even better? It is very reminiscent of a Star Trek Communicator. Perfect geek wear.

Last summer when I was looking at phones, the Ming wasn’t readily available in the U.S. except through importers. As cute as the little linux-based phone is, I was not willing to stay with the only GSM provider in the area (AT&T). I have been using Verizon, but lately the call quality at home and at work has been atrocious. Not just for me, but for other people people at my office who use Verizon. I had originally switched from AT&T because of the company’s business practises and because of the poor voice quality. Now Verizon’s call and signal quality was going downhill.

I’ve been looking to switch providers for about three months. I settled on T-Mobile, a GSM provider with roaming coverage in Knoxville (on AT&T’s network, ironically). After five or six hours on the phone with the T-Mobile reps (and about as many hours online), I decided that their service would be idea because I could improve my cell phone plan from 900 to 1000 minutes and still have my data plan, too. Best of all, I would lower my monthly bill by almost half.

I found a Ming on Amazon for $125! A steal considering the regular price is $299-599. I ordered it immediately. And it arrived today! My precious! Geek in heaven. Yup. That’s me.

I spend much of today finding things for it, including a T-Mobile prepaid card so I can try the service out without signing a two year contract. Slipped the sim card into the phone, registered the sim, and was able to make calls immediately. Yay phone! International text messages work (didn’t work at all on Verizon’s CDMA service — pure shite that).

I love unlocked phones. Why be stuck with one provider when you have a phone you really like and use it on any supported network? So now I have a neat phone with $25 worth of prepaid minutes. We will see how things go! I should probably post pictures of the phone. Or would that be over the top?

Even though Rajiyyah’s leg has been healing well, she has been doing something to it every night. Finding dried blood that has dripped half-way down a leg isn’t normal. It’s not oozing or seepage, it’s like she is re-damaging the leg every time she is in her stall. I don’t know what she is doing. One of the vet students suggested that maybe she has something still stuck in the cut that is preventing it from healing fully.

I am not sure what is going on. The vet is supposed to be back out today to see Rajiyyah. Some time this afternoon, not sure exactly when.

I emailed Deepeeka about their saddle. They are incredibly cheap (for a saddle, at least) — under $200 US. However, you have to order at least two. So very tempted! My coauthor suggested doing more research and sent me some good links to consider. I could end up with an expensive display piece. (Although I suppose that is what my side saddle is — it doesn’t fit my mare but it sure is purty.)

The Roman Army Talk forum has several great discussions on Roman cavalry saddles, including modern reconstructions. Here are links to several of these pages:

• Equine Equipment
• Gallic and German Cavalry
• Search results for keyword “saddle” on the Roman Army Talk forums

The forums above also suggested checking out The Saddlers Den, a saddler who specializes in equipment for Roman reenactors.

The Taifali Cavalry Unit has a Web page discussing their kit and experiences with it.

I’ll repost the pictures I took of the Deepeeka Roman Saddle (click the link to view a picture) in 2004.

Update: Pictures of the saddle and chariot are available.

When I drive to work, I normally charge my cell phone using the cigarette lighter port. I was going to swap the charger for the Ming with the Verizon phone (especially when I realized the Verizon phone’s battery is low). The Ming’s charger wouldn’t come out. I had to wait until I was parked at work to try and pull it out. It was stuck — so I carefully pulled harder. The silly thing ripped in half! The metal end of the cell phone charger is now lodged in the cigarette lighter socket.

I can’t move the car because that would mean that the metal pieces could have live current — and a potential hazard. Nothing like having potentially live electricity right next to your leg, right? I guess it’s a good thing the car’s console is plastic… except that item could potentially reek havoc with the car’s electrical system if it was touching anything…

One of the guys here said he would help me later this afternoon. Yikes.

I was going through some of my old emails and found a bibliography I had compiled for a friend on the Roman Cavalry. I attended a Roman re-enactment in October 2004 in Nashville. A Deepeeka representative had a reconstructed Roman cavalry saddle (Deepeeka item code AH6405). This really peeked my interest.

Picture I took at the Roman re-enactment of the Deepeeka saddle (see the Photography section for additional pictures):

Picture from the Deepeeka Web site of their saddle:

One of the vendors at the event said they were going to have a fellow re-enactor test the saddle. (Haven’t heard back about that yet.) They wanted to research Roman saddles and cavalry, so I compiled a brief bibliography on some of the better books I have.

Below is a brief bibliography on the Roman Cavalry, including articles on tactics, units, training, horses, and equipment. See this bibliography for additional references. Of the books below, the Cheesman, Hyland, and Speidel books are probably some of the most useful. Hyland is an equestrienne — she discusses the history with a focus on horses and in some cases actually trying cavalry equipment and moves on her own horse.

Cheesman, G. L. (1971). The auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army. Hildesheim, G. Olms. ISBN 0890050961

Connolly, P. (1987). “The Roman Saddle.” BAR International Series 336: 7-27.

Connolly, P. (1986). “A Reconstruction of a Roman Saddle.” Britannia 17: 353-5.

Dixon, K. R. and P. Southern (1992). Roman Cavalry: from the first to the third century AD. London, Batsford. ISBN 0713463961

Goldsworthy, A. (2003). The Complete Roman Army. New York, NY, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0500051240

Hyland, A. (1993). Training the Roman cavalry: from Arrian’s Ars Tactica. Dover, NH, Alan Sutton. ISBN 0862999847

Hyland, A. and J. Mann (1990). Equus: the Horse in the Roman World. London, B.T. Batsford, Ltd. ISBN 0713462604

Hyland, A (2003). The Horse in the Ancient World. Praegar Publishers. ISBN 0275981142 http://www.amazon.com/Horse-Ancient-World-Ann-Hyland/

Junkelmann, M. (1990). Die Reiter Roms. Mainz am Rhein, P. v. Zabern. Three volumes ISBN: 3805310064 (v. 1), 3805311397 (v. 2), 3805312881 (v. 3)

MacDowall, S. (1995). Late Roman cavalryman, 236-565 AD. Oxford, Osprey. ISBN 1841762601

McCall, J. B. (2001). The Cavalry of the Roman Republic: Cavalry Combat and Elite Reputations in the Middle and Late Republic. New York, Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books Ltd. ISBN 0415257131

Spaul, J. E. H. and C. Cichorius (1994). Ala: the auxiliary cavalry units
of the pre-Diocletianic imperial Roman army. Andover, Nectoreca Press. ISBN 0952506203. Paperback. http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm\?&ID=11795

Speidel, M. P. (1994). Riding for Caesar: the Roman Emperors’ Horse Guards. Cambridge, Massachusettes, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-76897-3

Stephenson, I. P. and K. Dixon (2003). Roman Cavalry Equipment.
Glouchestershire and Charleston, Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7524-1421-6

This is too funny! Remember “My Little Pony” from a way back? I always had people assuming that I wanted those little (obnoxious) things because I had horses. Why would I want a plastic poser pony when I had the real thing? They struck me about as useful as smurfs.

Okay, not sure what is going on. I have a 6k running the stock Sharp ROM. I have a 1 gig SD and CF cards installed. Most of my non-critical apps boot from the CF card. I have not installed any new program nor changed any settings. The Z usually sits on my desk or in my purse in its case.

I tried to turn the Z on today, and the power button didn’t seem to have any effect. I placed the Z. into the dock, and the power charging light did not come on. Pulled the battery and placed the Z into the dock. Power light came on. Charged it for 30 minutes. Pressed the power button while still in the dock — Z didn’t come on, and the power light went off.

Pulled the battery again and pressed the reset button. Plugged the power cord directly into the Zaurus. Noticed that the SHARP Please wait… screen appeared, but the screen was very dark. After about 30 seconds, the screen returned to full brightness and the cursor appeared at the bottom of the screen, flashing. The battery light is on at this point. This screen stays on for about 3-5 minutes before the line stating “Init: Version 2.78 booting” appears. Again, this line stays on for about 2 minutes. About a minute after this line appears, the power light goes off and the email light starts flashing.

The boot process continues all the way through to the second start up screen. Usually by this time it feels like 30 minutes has passed. I haven’t seen the boot process complete to thte Qtopia GUI, but maybe I have not let it sit long enough either.

I have tried:
a. Basic reset by pressing reset on the back = Screen at least came up and painfully started booting. Has yet to complete a boot process to the GUI. (~15-30 minutes to get to the screen before loading the Qtopia GUI)
a. Hard reset by pressing reset + power + rec = No effect. Nothing happens at all.
b. Reformat by pressing reset + power + ok = Ran through the reformat process. Currently booting after that. Seeing the same process as before with slow boot time and the email light now flashing.

Any suggestions? Do I need to do a NAND restore? Or is the poor Z hosed?