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Snowed in. day 2&3

February 8, 2010 at 11:05 am | In Coffee, Other - Everything Else, Photos, useless rambling | 3 Comments

Day 2:

I was up around dawn and out for a hike to the store, for photos, and a gallon of milk. No one had been up the street with a plow yet.

The closer to the main roads I got the more traveled it looked.

Roland Ave, usually a hotbed of activity.

I made it up to the Common Ground for a muffin and coffee. Most of the main roads would be bikeable with knobbies, but I had to clear off the cars and street when I got home so I traded handlebars for a shovel. 5 hours later and I was ready to call it quits for 2 days. You’d think with the hella taxes we pay there’d be a plow through at least once, or maybe even a handful of cinders, but it appears we are on our own. As I write this there’s an F-150 in front of my house spinning its wheels.

Day 3:

Espresso. I haven’t had Miss Sylvia on for 3 weeks because she requires more attention than I’ve been able to give. Zeke’s Mobtown espresso was very good despite the fact that my beans have been sitting around for way too long. Good crema. Chocolate Smoky flavor with a nice long aftertaste (I refuse to call it ‘finish’ now).

Click Here for a 5 frame gif animation of the Guiness-like cascading crema pour

One day to recover and I should be able to get out for a ride – unless of course we get more snow on Tuesday like they say we will.

Snowed in.

February 6, 2010 at 6:11 pm | In Bikes, General | Leave a Comment

That’s how I felt all week, then I woke up this morning to 21″ of snow on the front walk. 2′ is a little too deep to do anything with on a bike so I just pacified myself with shoveling for 4 hours instead. I commuted all week, but once the snow gets deeper than my hubs, it gets a little hard to turn the crank over. The knobbies are back on the blue 1×7, and riding around for 7 days with 2″ tires at sub-20psi really makes me feel even more slow than normal. Most of the slush and ice wore off the roads during the week, but I looked for snowy embankments here and there to practice my hill-climbing technique. Hopefully the plow will come through and the street’ll get packed down so I can get out and tool around a bit. I have a feeling I’ll be working from home on Monday regardless.

I had the scanner all fired up, so click below for more comics. Then go buy some of Bill Watterson’s books.

January 10 odo counts

January 30, 2010 at 1:35 pm | In bicycle odometer | Leave a Comment

Date	Long Haul Trucker	Blue 1×7	Mtn. / Misc. miles	09 Total
1-2	3242.4	2220.3	77.1	0.0
1-9	3242.4	2234.3	77.1	14.0
1-16	3242.4	2256.5	77.1	36.2
1-23	3242.4	2275.2	77.1	54.9
1-31	3242.4	2301.7	77.1	81.4

man I got slow

January 19, 2010 at 10:39 pm | In Bikes | Leave a Comment

At first I thought it was the wind and the cold, but it was sinfully nice out this afternoon on the way home. I’ve been riding on the trainer, but it’s a little easier to go down a cog and fool yourself into thinking you’re working just as hard indoors. I need to get back to it!

Getting a little vibration from the front of the blue 1×7 when I brake so I think it’s time to try and tweak the old-old headset and get a few more hundred miles out of it. Last time I said that was 1000 miles ago, so I’ve been lucky.

stupid mistakes

January 12, 2010 at 10:49 pm | In Uncategorized | 4 Comments

I rolled into work this morning and removed my headlamp as I always do because 1. I don’t want some kid yanking it and 2. Rechargeable batteries don’t like sitting out in the cold. In retrospect, it would probably have been better for me to just leave it on my bike rather than bring it in to work and knock it off my desk onto the floor.

I tried turning it on at work to no avail. Originally I thought I could just order a new halogen bulb even though the word “LED” is printed right on the side. Once my cat-like Google reflexes unearthed this fact I knew I was in trouble because LED lights are famously impact resistant. The rest of the solid state electronics inside are of a durable variety too so I just gathered up the pieces and took it all home to have a second look later. Once home I plugged it in using the charger and the light came on right away. Knowing it was a power problem I dissected it further to find that the circuit board harvests power from the battery pack not by a soldered connection, but from being held in place by the plastic clips on the side. Once the front light assembly fell out, the pressure holding the board in place was gone, and viola! It stopped working.

Low tech solution. take a coping saw and cut off 1/4″ of a popsicle stick. Wedge it between the circuit board mounting clip and the interior side of the body to give it the pressure it needs to stay in place.

Epoxy to hold the front cover on, rubber shoe patch and a strip of electrical tape to weatherproof. It works now, but it’ll never be purdy again.

New Year & Empty Head

January 10, 2010 at 11:58 pm | In General, Other - Everything Else, useless rambling, weight loss | Leave a Comment

Not quite, but close. I finished my math course, coasted into the holidays, vegged out for 2 or 3 days and then jumped headlong into a web dev project that I’m trying to polish off for work as quickly as possible. I’m giving them free labor in my off hours, but it’s a learning project for me so it doesn’t feel like it.

Took 2 weeks off commuting, I think, no, wait, I did ride once or twice. Realized in the first week of the new year that I’m not fond of ice or cold, but I REALLLY hate wind. A-lots. The trainer is saving my cardiovascular system right now as I haven’t been on the bike outside for more than 20 minutes since Novembers. Inside riding is more of a meditative experience for me because I concentrate on totally different things. Without having to worry about drifting into the guard rail if I take my eyes off the road, I listen to the hum of the roller and try to eliminate the pulsing sound from each pedal stroke for hours at a shot. I don’t know if it really smooths out my cadence in the real world, but it definitely works muscles that don’t see regular action outside. The wife starts a new job tomorrow and that will make it ever so slightly harder for me to bum a ride to work. With any luck it will have me commuting with greater consistency over the next month so I don’t get TOO married to riding indoors.

My wife surprised me during the holidays with the announcement that she wants to train more and do some sort of longish bike rides (possibly a metric or century, maybe a rail trail trip) this year. I think this is great of course and I hooked a computer up to the back wheel of her bike on the trainer so she could start to get a feel for how far she’s going and how long she’s exercising for. Go Wifey!

For me the holidays were not too kind to my waistline, and I drifted back into the 220’s again for the first time in 4 months. I know what I need to do to fix it, but for the first time in about 5 months, I have ravenous cravings to eat more. Not really bad stuff, just more than I know I should eat. 3+ years of success have taught me to cut myself some slack so that I don’t go insane, but it’s a fine line to tread. I give back a little progress every December and January. The goal is to turn it around as quickly and efficiently as possible once the days start to get ever-so-slightly longer again. I count the days till spring every year.

The way marketing bombards us with promises of sustained weight loss in the realm of several pounds a week, it’s hard to focus on a larger picture with goals of losing fractions of a pound weekly for years straight. Looking at the stretch where I didn’t lose anything between April and August of 2009 in the graph above I would have given up for sure if I didn’t keep my sights past the horizon on the bigger picture.

Slow & steady wins the race, but boy is it boring. Back to code for a few minutes before sleeep.

December 09 odo counts

December 30, 2009 at 7:24 pm | In bicycle odometer | Leave a Comment

Date	Long Haul Trucker	Blue 1×7	Mtn. / Misc. miles	09 Total
11-30	3242.4	2155.6	72.5	1855.3
12-5	3242.4	2177.1	72.5	1876.8
12-12	3242.4	2200.7	72.5	1900.4
12-19	3242.4	2220.3	77.1	1924.6
12-31	3242.4	2220.3	77.1	1924.6

Close to 2000, but no cigar.

nearly-end-of-year wrap up

December 23, 2009 at 11:44 pm | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I finished up my pre-calculus course with the final exam about a week ago right before the big storm we had here. I was glad that I scheduled the test for Friday. If I had been snowed in on Saturday then I would have no closure before Christmas and no down time because I would have felt obligated to study. The exam was an unmitigated disaster. After 275 hours of studying, 350 pages of hand-written notes and 8 exams where I scored over 95 I felt like I’d do better, but timed work of any type was never my forte. I know the stuff, I just like to take my time writing out and checking my answers. Oh well, what is will be.

I got out to rip it up a little bit before all the snow was on the ground, but for the first time in about 45 weeks I begged the wife for a ride to work because I just wasn’t in the mood to fight in traffic on slippery roads against angry drivers trying to get to the malls for last minute gifts. I came within 75 miles of 2000 for the year, and am a little bummed out to come this close and then be flat for the last 2 weeks. I don’t really have anywhere I want to go on the roads for 75 miles and I’m sure the trails are in less than ideal conditions for long distance trekking. Oh well, the trucker’s set up on the trainer and I have a few hours in for the week, so at least I’m keeping my heart rate up to offset the way I’m eating bad and letting my gut hang out for the next 2 weeks.

The tree is set up and we’re going to relax for a few days. Enjoy all!

snow-fun

December 19, 2009 at 7:32 pm | In Bikes, rides | Leave a Comment

When you don’t watch the weather, every storm is a surprise! Went out this morning to go to the store for a few essentials before the rest of the world was awake (and the snow got deeper than my hubs). I haven’t been out of the house for more than an hour since early November so I’m glad I did while I had the chance.

Of course now I have to clean and lube everything, but it was worth it. So much fun to ride in before it gets all icy and nasty.

I got disk brakes as a free upgrade when I bought my bike years ago because they cut the wrong style fork before they checked the order form for what I wanted. For the most part they’ve been fine, but in the wet they are A W F U L L O U D. Every steep hill is like an announcement of the apocalypse. Luckily snow slows you down so I didn’t end up using the brakes too much.

November 09 odo counts

November 30, 2009 at 4:18 pm | In Bikes, bicycle odometer | Leave a Comment

Date	Long Haul Trucker	Blue 1×7	Mtn. / Misc. miles	09 Total
10-31	3242.4	2033.9	72.5	1733.6
11-7	3242.4	2061.2	72.5	1760.9
11-14	3242.4	2111.5	72.5	1811.2
11-21	3242.4	2136.1	72.5	1835.8
11-28	3242.4	2150.7	72.5	1850.4
11-30	3242.4	2155.6	72.5	1855.3