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Roots Retrospective (Part I): Do You Want More?!!!??!

2011-12-04T11:37:00.001-05:00

Release Date: January 17, 1995

Track Listing
Intro/There's Something Goin' On
Proceed
Distortion to Static
Mellow My Man
I Remain Calm
Datskat
Lazy Afternoon
? vs. Rahzel
Do You Want More?!!!??!"
What Goes On Pt. 7
Essaywhuman?!!!??!
Swept Away
You Ain't Fly
Silent Treatment
The Lesson Part 1
The Unlocking

Strangely I can't find this album in my iTunes library. I have to wonder if there's a stray disk somewhere in my collection that has not been assimilated. Anyway, I can't say that there are any particular standout tracks on this album. Overall, it does sound just a little bit dated but there are some marquee tracks on this one that really characterize the essence of The Roots. Proceed, Do You Want More and Silent Treatment have to be some of most classic songs on this album.

Next Up: The 1996 Release Illadelph Halflife

Do you want more of that illadelph game theory before things fall apart?

2011-12-04T11:28:00.001-05:00

Hands down one of my favorite groups of all time. There are only two groups who's albums I would buy without having heard a single track or review. The Roots are one of those groups.

Well, to be fair, I haven't heard or purchased Wake Up! a collaboration with John Legend. I am not a huge fan of Organix but everything from Do You Want More?!!!??! to How I Got Over will forever have a place on my iPod.

I had a buddy ask me to put together some new (to him) music and I immediately asked him if he had heard any Roots tracks. He had heard a few, liked some, but not all. I agreed to put together a recommended playlist for him but with so much music (8 albums in my collection anyway) I didn't really know how to pull my favorite tracks for him. Well...I thought I would just go through each album, list the tracks and just highlight the ones I liked and why. I figured if I was going to go through that much effort, I might as well document it.

This is clearly too much for one post...so I'll just start with Do You Want More?

Products of Our Environment

2011-10-31T22:13:00.001-04:00

I don't think that anyone would argue that many of their traits came directly from their parents. No breakthroughs there. I am sure you notice it in your everyday life. Perhaps it's how you talk, your sense of humor, how you cook, your music preferences...the list goes on and on.

What's interesting to me though are the inverse tendencies that are just as powerful as the direct tendencies we inherent from our parents. One example, growing up we were always late going places. Not just a little late every once in a while...always late, and sometimes hours late. I think as a results I have this inherent animosity towards being late. Not to the point that I am neurotic about it, and sure, I still get caught up from time to time and don't leave the house when I really should, but most of the time...I would much rather be ready early and get where I am going with time to spare. That being said, I still drive way too fast (like my dad) and I will delay folding laundry for as long as I can (like my mom).

What about you...do you have any reverse tendencies as a result of your childhood?

Scoreboard Update

2011-10-31T20:44:00.000-04:00

I may not be using my EE degree on a daily basis, but it does come in handy when it's time to put together a serious project. My polo scoreboard is coming together quite nicely. Here's a couple of pictures.

Here's the backside of the scoreboard. No, it's not Coke powered. It's there for scale.

Here's the business end of the scoreboard. 4 digits for time and a game can be set from 3:00 to 30:00 minutes. 1 digit for each of the scores.

A little shot in the dark.

Another behind the scenes view.

Denver Veloswap...

2011-10-23T11:55:00.001-04:00

...is only the world's largest consumer bicycling and sports expo.

But that didn't really give me an idea of what to expect. All I knew is that back in March a local cyclist told me to keep an eye out for it. So I did. I found the date and set it on my calendar. All I could gather was that it was going to be an epic gear swap of old, new and in-between cycling gear. Individuals, shops, retailers would all be there to peddle their wares.

We wanted to get there when the doors opened so at 6:00 AM on Saturday morning we rolled out of Choice City to The Mile High to start our morning at a great little diner. We got to the doors about 45 minutes before they opened and we had a pretty good spot in line. It wasn't quite backed up to the freeway yet (but it didn't take long to get there).

So...it seems like there are two strategies, but before I talk strategy...I've gotta talk layout. As you walk in, you first go through all of the major manufacturers and sponsors...we are talking about folks like Rudy Project, Subaru...then you get to the big retailers (Mavic, Panda Bike, Full Cycle, Big Shot Bikes) then it starts to get to the guys with piles and piles of used shit, well it's not all used. Clearly some of the gear might be unused stuff from a sponsor, or maybe some equipment that has one season of use, or stuff that was ridden within an inch of its life. There's also a LOT of really vintage stuff out there. I was looking for some odds and ends and was definitely ready to pounce on a good deal if one popped up.

Right, so strategy...it's really not that complex. Either you can start at the front and work your way back or bolt to the back and work your way forward. I opted to head for the used stuff since I was looking for a deal on some mechanical brakes.

This shot gives you an idea of what the inside looked like.

I actually only spent $25 at the expo but I did score two Avid BB7's with levers, a nice ear warmer and two blinky lights. Not a bad take for 25 bucks. J managed to raid the Pearl Izumi women's medium bin to find several pairs of shorts (including two baggies) and three pairs of socks for one Mr. Benjamin. She also scored 4 handlebars for 5 dollars.

I'll definitely be back next year, ready to deal. It may actually be worth getting a vendor pass to get in the doors a little early so I don't have to battle the masses next year. It was amazing how many people piled into the building in just 20 minutes. I think also for next year, I may actually print out the map. I got disoriented more than once and J had to navigate me to the guy with the $5 disk rotors...I would have been in the far corner with the 65 year old couple trying to sell their trek tandem for $650.

Oh, this was pretty awesome too.

Simplify

2011-10-19T22:13:00.000-04:00

from Wikipedia...

In mathematics and algebra, "simplify" means to "make more simple" by means of reducing, combining, completing operations, or solving.

But in this case I am talking about simplifying life...specifically, my life. Starting a new job leaves one with limited resources (i.e. time and energy) with which to do other things. And if it's one thing I like to do...it's "other things".

So I've been thinking a lot lately about ways to simplify my life. So far I've come up with a few ideas...Not in any particular order of importance.

Purge Redundant and Unused Items

This one is pretty simple. I just need to look around and There's a dyson vacuum to my left that just won't get used. It only works okay and we recently picked up a Kenmore that works great and fits our need better anyway. About 2 feet from that Dyson is a GoPro camera. It's a great little device but I so rarely do all of the prep to use it and post processing to actually view the videos that it's really just a drain on my time and space.

Batch Processing

I kind of like to let stuff pile up anyway. Laundry, dishes, whatever. Maybe those aren't great examples, but there are plenty of things that take some amount of setup or breakdown time so it's not worth just doing it once. Ironing clothes and cooking are the first things to come to mind.

Prioritize

This kind of connects back to the Purging stuff. I like projects, and I also love to start a project as soon as I think of it. Unfortunately this often leaves me with two things 1) unfinished projects that I am not excited about and 2) more projects at once than I really have time for. So, I am really trying to get through project A before I start into project B. On that note, the Polo Scoreboard has been making some good progress lately.

Day Twelve - Getting Down to the Wire

2011-08-26T22:22:00.002-04:00

My last Friday as a free man was fairly uneventful. I made a quick run to the bank for some direct deposit paperwork, drove J's mom up to the reservoir to hike around a bit and check out the view of town from ~500ft above and wrapped up with some delicious Japanese food at Jeju's. With the huge lack of excellent restaurants in town, it was quite refreshing to find one that pleased all three of the diners. Watch out for the Spicy Tuna Roll though...it's not just a Tuna Roll with kick, they kind of make the tuna into a paste. Not really ideal. However, the Samurai Roll is well worth the $14 or whatever it happens to be...that was quite delicious...and elaborate. I wish I had taken a picture. Maybe next time.

Note: Not actual Samurai Roll that I consumed but a pretty good recommendation (foreground)

I am starting to wonder which of my many bags is acceptable in a business-casual environment. I may just have to go with the classic Timbuk2 messenger...at least until I get the scratch for a RE Load waxed canvas bag!

Day Eleven - Cleaning & Driving

2011-08-25T22:19:00.000-04:00

We've got family coming in to town which means two things. 1) Get the place ready for presentation and 2) acquire said family. I did get a good amount of cleaning done...although the Dyson suddenly died as I was vacuuming the sunroom. I guess I'll have to look at that at some point. I also whipped up some delicious BBQ and some mediocre mac & cheese. It's my first attempt at M&C and I was a little rushed, so it's kind of mushy and lacking flavor. I'll nail it next time. The pulled pork was delicious...as always.

Day Ten - Lots of Packages Today

2011-08-24T21:51:00.007-04:00

I ordered a few things last week (this of course has nothing to do with the fact that I am expecting a steady inflow of cash soon) and everything arrived today.

First was a small collection of Chris King Bling. I got the replacement bearing for the one I destroyed last week and a few finely machined tools to work on my creaking bottom bracket. Since I was stranded most of the day yesterday with the Honda in the shop, I took the opportunity to run some errands. Two bike shops, two hardware stores, one grocery store, two department stores and Jimmy Johns somewhere in the middle.

The second item to arrive was a tiny camera I got off of Ebay. I've actually wanted an inexpensive really small camera for a while. I already have a digital camera but it's too big and clunky to stick in a pocket or carry on rides in a useful way.

Last but not least was a none-too-soon supply of tea. I was getting dangerously low and needed to replenish. I can't wait to sample some of these bad boys!

Eight & Nine - Dark Hours

2011-08-23T10:27:00.003-04:00

The last two days are a perfect example of not being able to recall what I "did". I mean, it's not like I sat on the couch all day. It's just that I didn't really do anything of consequence, hence it doesn't stick in my brain, hence, I can't recall what I did. So when I try to recount, it feels like I completely lost two days of my life.

Fortunately, that's not the case. Monday was pretty chill. I think I just did some cleaning around the house in the anticipation of some possible poker (which did not end up panning out). I also confirmed that my Honda was in fact leaking a little bit of fluid onto the driveway. The funny thing is that I thought it was from the plumber's visit last week. I never saw his car, but I assumed a plumber would have an old truck and assumed that old truck would be leaking oil in my driveway. (I don't even know if he parked in the driveway). I only noticed because sometime in the last couple of weeks I cleaned up the driveway a bit and now I can park in a different spot. Who knows how long I've been leaking fluid(s) and how long it would have taken me to notice if I just parked in the same spot all the time.

Anyway, that takes me to Tuesday. First thing I did was drop the car off at the mechanic down the street (which is quite convenient). It turns out I was leaking fluid from the clutch slave cylinder and I also needed a radiator hose replaced. That actually grounded me for most of the day so I cleaned a bit more, worked a little more on the polo scoreboard project (making some good progress there) and after picking up the car I went for a short MTB ride. So, nothing monumental, and nothing really worth mentioning when someone asks "So, what did you do today?"

Even this post isn't worth tagging with a label...

Day Seven - Recovery

2011-08-21T08:32:00.003-04:00

There's a lot to do after any camping trip that includes a big ride. Clothes, sleeping bags, tents to deal with, dishes to wash, car to unpack, bike to put away, more clothes. A nice perk to being unemployed is that one can tackle these tasks at leisure.

I thought about playing some paintball today, but I really don't feel quite right after the ride yesterday. I think the elevation combined with the distance really wears me out. So, I did some stuff around the house, watched a little TV and sometime after washing some dishes and before unpacking the car I did manage to make one of these.

My buddy Fenton sent me a link the other day and suggested I try making one of these with the remainder of my free days...so a couple of days ago I picked up an old fork and this afternoon, I went to town.

There's not much else to report for today. Even an unemployed bum needs quiet weekends every once in a while. I did wrap up the evening with a stop by a Blockbuster kiosk and for the low price of $2.99 I was able to pick up this piece of garbage.

I really thought it would be better than is was. The ending was anti-climactic and he didn't even get the girl. Kind of a waste.

Day Six - Honkytonk Badonkadonk

2011-08-20T23:00:00.000-04:00

Today was the Monarch Crest Trail. 35 miles of riding, 3,500 ft of climbing with most of the climbing above 11,000ft and almost 7,000ft of descending! It's a really gorgeous ride with some phenominal views and even a little East-Coast style riding. One of these days I'll tally my observations between Colorado and Virginia riding but for now I'll just say it was nice to ride in the trees a little bit and railing corners. I was quite surprised that a good bit of the ride was actually shaded. It didn't feel like hot, exposed CO riding until the very end.

If you are thinking about doing this ride I have a few thoughts.

It's awesome, do it.
It's quite fun with a group.
Even though there's 3,500ft of climbing it's all very mellow. Nothing too steep until you reach the last 10 miles where there's some short gut busters.
Get on the trail early to beat the heat and afternoon thunderstorms.
A shuttle is necessary, plan accordingly.
A map is a good idea. Absolute Bikes in Salida has an excellent map.

My recap from a non-trail perspective

The King hub performed flawlessly, even missing a ball in one of the bearings
I overpacked.
I do not like Ergon grips at all. My hands were both numb and in pain at the bottom of a 5 mile descent.

Oh, if you've gotten this far and you are wondering what the hell the title is about. This song was playing when I went into the restroom before the ride.

Day Five - Driving Driving Driving

2011-08-19T23:57:00.000-04:00

First things first...

Last night I went over to a friends house to service my Chris King hub. As I mentioned yesterday, I have a not-so-great experience with servicing this particular hub. (Here's the recap).

Unfortunately, the last time I tried to do that, I destroyed several of the bearings, marred the axle and gouged the inside of the freehub body.

This time the King hub did not quite make it out as good as new. The hub service instructions are very complete and very specific and as a result you really have to pay attention to every word in every instruction. It's not like assembling some piece of cheap furniture where you can just look at the pictures and get the idea and run with it. no no. So, in one of the many multi-step processes I didn't quite assemble the tool correctly and I blew out the inner race on one of the bearings. There were little steel balls everywhere. I had pretty much figured that was it and I was already trying to figure out which rear wheel I could use since my FSA wheel was at the shop getting one proprietary spoke replaced. Well my buddy was not so fatalistic. Using his magnet on a stick, we (mostly he) actually managed to get 17 of the 18 tiny balls off of the garage floor and into the bearing. We got it all back together and it rolled as smooth as butter. That being said, I still brought a spare rear wheel to Salida for the big ride. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, today I had until about noon before I had to hit the road to Boulder, then Leadville then Poncha Springs.

I completely cleaned out the inside of the Honda. Here's a protip for you shop-vac owners, Keep those filters clear and your vac will suck like it's new. Before the cleaning and packing of the car I called Chris King and told them what I did and tried to buy a new bearing from them. Get this, they will sell you the $160 tool to completely disassemble and destroy your $400+ hub but when you do destroy it, they will not sell you the parts to reassemble it. They are very gracious about working on the hub if you ship it to them, but they will not ship you hub parts. So I ended up buying the $37 bearing online...and while I was at it I bought the bottom bracket tool as well. So, I suspect I'll have the opportunity to destroy a $100+ bottom bracket sometime next week. Good times.

Day Four

2011-08-18T13:41:00.003-04:00

This is such a great view! The climb starts way down right in the middle of the picture. I almost cleaned it, just one dab about halfway up through a technical section.

So I finally got out for a little ride on the FSR. Debrief...Shifting works well, handlebar is still in one piece and the jury is still out on the Ergon grips. I did notice that my rear hub was acting funny. It wouldn't catch right away after coasting or backpedaling. A quick call to Ed at Chris King confirmed my suspicions, the hub needs an overhaul. Unfortunately, the last time I tried to do that, I destroyed several of the bearings, marred the axle and gouged the inside of the freehub body. Second time's a charm though, right?

I am headed out in a few minutes to meetup with someone that has the hub service tool and hopefully a better track record than I do.

Aside from the hub issue, I got some other good things done today. I did a little bit of packing for the Monarch trip, purchased some reasonable everyday shoes (that are not sneakers), and I had two fairly profound thoughts today.

Profound Thought 1:

I am pretty sure having a fancy pants phone will actually save me time in the long run, even though it has many many time sucking features.

Profound Thought 2:

I am pretty sure my mailman is fucking with me. Although I don't have proof.

If I have some time next week, I'll go into a little more detail on those thoughts. For now, I've got to head out and get this hub issue worked out. Hopefully, the report back tomorrow will be positive. Especially since my backup wheel is in the shop. (I think that was briefly mentioned somewhere in Day Two)

Day Three

2011-08-17T12:30:00.003-04:00

I am starting to think 100 pushups is quite a lofty goal. I am up to 34 in a row and there was a slight hiccup when I had to replace my EVO (since I lost the progress on my app) but I am back on track. Maybe I'll reset my goal to 50...That's still a pretty good number.

Anyway...onto the day's recap.

First, I had the pleasure of watching the plumber fix some minor issues in the bathroom. One of the simple pleasures of working from home or being unemployed is that you can basically schedule any service for anytime. Cable guy at 2:00PM, plumber at 9:00AM, sure, why not? It's also quite great that I am in a rental and I never see the bill. While Jim the plumber was fixing leaky faucets and climbing into the crawlspace to turn off the water, I paid some bills, worked a little more on my Polo Scoreboard and just did some general internet goofing off. The scoreboard is coming along nicely but I've got to buckle down and figure out the next details so I can order another round of parts.

When I did finally get out of the house today, I decided to take a trip to try and purchase some reasonable pants. I don't think my new employer would be happy with me showing up in sweats or cargo shorts...at least not until I get casual weekdays implemented. I think I ended up in JCPenneys and picked up a couple of pairs of Dockers. I can't believe what they charge for pants these days! I mean, if I had it my way, I would wear Levi's 569's every day with some black Asics. So comfortable. I don't think I am going to have quite that flexibility in my new job. But we'll see.

I think sometime after plumber and pants I managed to snipe a digital camera on Ebay. I've got a decent Sony but it's a little bulky and I've wanted a super slim camera I can just slip in my pocket for a good while. You see, one of the ways I pass my time is by scouring Craigslist. I have definitely found some gems, and one of these days I'll finish my post about the stuff we've actually purchased, but I digress. I found someone selling a pretty slick little Nikon Coolpix but when I went to meet her it turns out the screen was messed up. It worked fine when you took the pictures but no bueno when you wanted to review them. I passed on that deal but then got kind of obsessed about getting that camera. So...

Wait a minute...I distracted myself for a minute...Back to Craigslist. Here are a couple of gems I've found recently in my free form searching.

First, can concealers. (The original ad has been removed but you get the gist).

Second, a legitimately good deal on a new bike case. My buddy has one of the same brand and it's rock solid. Too bad I don't really have a use for one right now. Maybe for Iceland next year...

I wrapped up the day with some awesome polo with the Cheyenne guys. A few of them came down to Fort Collins for some epic games. Those guys have been playing well and definitely gave us a run tonight.

Apologies for the long winded post, I guess it was a pretty fruitful day!

Day Two

2011-08-16T01:45:00.000-04:00

So, day two. I thought I would get a chance to head out on the FSR today, but the afternoon thunderstorms squashed that plan. In anticipation of riding, I did do a little overdue maintenance on the bike. Actually, the first step was to swap a tube for J's commuter bike. It was a good warm up for the task ahead.

I had a pretty smooth cable replace job on the FSR. I snapped a cable back in April and just slipped a new cable into the housing, I also noticed that the housing on the front shifter was pretty beat up so I figured it was time for a wholesale swap. I got through the rear when I ran out of housing...so off to the bike shop. I also figured this was a good opportunity to replace a busted spoke on my FSA tubeless wheels...damn, proprietary spokes!

During my trip to the shop, well actually shop number 2 of the trip, I strongly considered buying the Chris King bottom brackett injector tool, but decided I didn't want to spend $60 on a part that I would use for 10 minutes a year...I still need to clean out my BB though...not sure how I am going to pull that off.

Anyway, back from the shop I replaced all of the shifter cables and gave the drivetrain a thorough cleaning. (It may be time for a new cassette soon). I am just about ready for Monarch Crest. A little riding should help confirm that the shifting and cockpit are adjusted to my liking. Maybe tomorrow I'll ride.

Day One

2011-08-15T01:38:00.000-04:00

So, I've officially accepted the job offer (well verbally anyway) and the countdown begins. Two weeks from today I'll be sitting in a new office probably filling out paperwork, signing confidentiality agreements, giving up any rights to any awesome inventions I may come up with and one more thing...oh yeah...earning a paycheck.

I figure this is a great time to document what I do in a typical unemployed week. I guess this isn't really typical since there's a slight sense of urgency, but I think it's still a valid exercise. I don't know how many times I've been asked "So what do you do all day?" and I've had to honestly reply..."You know, I couldn't tell you."

So, what did I do this fine Monday.

I got an early start to the day and mowed the lawn before it got too hot. I did go out of my way to mow the alley behind the house, but I couldn't quite dig up the motivation to bust out the weedwacker and trim up the edges of the lawn...even with all of the time in the world, there's not enough time for that.

I also managed to acquire a new handlebar for my mountain bike...oh, and I picked up some grips too. My old carbon bar was due to be replaced and I found a guy on Craigslist selling brand new Easton bars. The rise and width match my old bar pretty closely so I am quite stoked! I also picked up some of those fancy Ergon grips for my new cockpit. Can't wait to try them out...probably tomorrow. There's nothing like new bike stuff to motivate me to ride...I've got to test the setup before Monarch Crest Trail this weekend. I think we are looking at 5 hours of riding...It's advertised as a lot of descending but it does start at 11,000 ft and climbs up to almost 12,000. We'll see how that goes.

Also, in preparation for the new job...I picked up a few shirts. I only had the stamina to hit one department store...going into those places is like walking around at 12,000 ft...exhausting!

No More Sweatpants and Mimosas

2011-08-14T16:49:00.000-04:00

Well, it's happened. I have found a new job. I will be working for a cool company doing some software development for smart grid products. With my start date about two weeks away I thought it would be grand to chronicle what happens between now and then. There's a few odds and ends to wrap up before my start date and there's always a few projects that I've got going on.
(BTW, just kidding about the mimosas)

Things to Do When Moving to a New Town

2011-07-28T12:15:00.000-04:00

So, we are right at the 6 month mark...still new to town but definitely finding our way around. Here's a list of some of my accomplishments since moving to Fort Collins, along with a few things still to be done.

Get a Speeding Ticket

I actually accomplished this one before I was an official Colorado resident. It turns out Fort Collins has traffic cameras in a few select neighborhoods. I was looking at rental places back in December and I managed to blast through a 25 MPH section in my rental Prius...yes...a Prius.

Get Your Picture in the Newspaper

I am not sure that I've ever had my likeness in a VA paper but it didn't take long to get my face in a Fort Collins periodical. Some CSU student was putting together an article for their paper and snapped some pictures of the local polo group.

Join Some Clubs

I have found myself leading the charge for Fort Collins Bike Polo (the hardcourt flavor anyway) and we are also tied in to the Overland Mountain Bike Club. I am trying to keep my participation at a reasonable level so I don't find myself over extended like I was in C-Ville. We'll see how that goes.

Find a Place to Hang

Over the years I had a few places I could hang out if I was just looking to kill some time. In the early years it was Charlottesville Aquarium...then that shifted to C-ville Bike and Tri and Rudy's Paintball. Unfortunately, Rudy's closed its doors but the bike shop was always a good time-killing spot. I have yet to find a nice local place where I can just hang out and shoot the breeze without being a lingering weirdo.

Find a favorite ride

This one is tough. We went back to VA recently and got a chance to ride some local trails. It's so very nice to know every root, rock, corner, ledge, switchback and you just take it for granted. I am contemplating picking a trail and just riding that for two weeks...just so I have something familiar to look forward to.

Project update

2011-07-28T12:09:00.000-04:00

Things are going well with the two recently announced projects. I made a slight shift to a different pushup paradigm because I just got a new droid phone and I found a free app (vs 2.99 for the legit hundredpushups.com app). Anyway, that's been going for about two weeks so far...not really much else to report there.

The polo scoreboard is also going well. I've got a lot of the basic logic worked out but I need to do a little work on the sound. This kind of stuff is always a struggle...two steps forward, one step back kind of thing.
Here's a short video of what it does so far. Once I've get the prototype all sorted out I can really start to think about how I want to build the final setup.

Two New Projects

2011-07-15T18:45:00.001-04:00

I hesitate to announce new projects because...well...sometimes they just don't get finished. I feel pretty good about these two (admittedly, I usually "feel pretty good" about every project) so I am going to go ahead and put them on the table.

They are pretty abstract right now, so this will be short.

The first, is a high tech bike polo scoreboard. You would think that it would be pretty easy for 6 players to keep track of a game that only goes to 5 points. But, put a few all out sprints in there, a couple of PBR's and after several games...scorekeeping is hopeless. I am planning on driving the score keeper with a popular hobby microcontroller (Arduino) and putting the whole setup (countdown timer and scores) in some sort of enclosure. I've got a lot of the code written and an Arduino Nano sitting on my desk but I am still waiting for some components to get across the country before I can really start building and testing the prototype.

The second is pretty straightforward...I started it once before but only made it about half way through.

One Hundred Pushups

I'll do the test today and start on the actual routines Monday.

Just did the test and pounded out 24 good pushups...which lets me skip ahead to week 3 according to the website. YES!

2004 vs. 2006

2011-06-15T12:52:00.000-04:00

In 2004 USA Today ranked Charlottesville as the best place to live. In 2006 CNN Money ranked Fort Collins, CO as the best place to live (with many Top 10 finishes since then). I never thought I would have the chance to move from one "Top Ranked" city to another but here I am. Each of these cities definitely has its perks. Personally, I can't say which is best just because of the relative time I've spend in each (10 years vs 6 months) but I have definitely formed some impressions.

I think this is a good time to reflect on the pros and cons of these two fine cities while "The 'Ville" is still fresh in my mind and "FoCo" is still fresh and new.

First, an easy one...Weather.

This is really a tough one. As a cyclist, it's really hard to beat the Central VA winter. With winter lows typically in the 20's you can pretty much ride 50 weeks out of the year without too much trouble. If it gets really cold (for VA) then you can just ride in the woods, somewhat protected from the wind. As long as there isn't snow on the ground, you can suit up and do some riding.

On the flip side, we have Colorado winters. BRRRR! For example, January 1, 2011 the mean temperature was 6 degrees (F) with sustained winds of 22MPH. There's no way to be on a bicycle in that kind of weather. In contrast, the mean temperature was 48 degrees in C-ville.

But now...6 months later. It's about 70-80 degrees here in the fort with pretty low humidity, while my Virginia friends are suffering with 90-100 degree weather and so much moisture in the air it feels like a steam room. I guess weather is not so easy. I think the lesson here is that we are going to have to pick up skiing.

More to come...

A Weekend in Sunny San Francisco

2011-05-26T11:51:00.001-04:00

Our good friend Sally moved from Charlottesville to California several years ago. She started out in L.A. working for Yahoo and ended up moving to San Francisco a couple of years later. We've kept up with Sally a little bit over the years, making an effort to hook up with her when we were in Monterey for Sea Otter. The last time we were out there we met her (then) new guy, Tommy. Tommy seemed pretty cool, but Sally already knew that, she didn't need our stamp of approval.

Fast forward ~3 years later. We are living in Colorado and we get an invite to Sally's wedding in San Fran. Well, we are already halfway across the country and San Fran is an easy direct flight, and Sally is awesome, so it was an easy call. As an added bonus, we got a chance to hang out with another C-ville friend KP. We actually stayed with KP and fam in Marin over the weekend.

After a day of chillaxin' and eating in Marin, we geared up for the wedding on Sunday. The ceremony was held at the UC Berkley Botanical Gardens. It was a very cool venue. A small amphitheater nestled in a redwood forest. After a short ceremony we headed over to the cocktail hour. The highlight of the afternoon had to be when they introduced Tommy & Sally for the first time as a married couple. The small crowd started with some hearty applause and was showing no signs of letting up...the applause continued...and continued...and people started standing...clapping louder and louder. I didn't set a stopwatch but I am pretty sure it was at least a 2-minute standing ovation for Sally and Tommy.

After the reception we rolled mack to Marin to recoup and gear up for the party that evening. It was an "Under The Sea" Nautical-Themed bash. The DJ was more into his custom mixes than entertaining the crowd, but it was a fun-loving crew that embraced the nautical costume recommendation completely. I think none so completely as Johanna though. She really pulled off a great fish costume from head to toe. I wasn't so motivated but I did wear my captain's hat all night long. I even got a nod from the toll booth attendant on the GG bridge.

We had a little bit of time before our flight the next day and went on a great hike with KP and little G. It was a short walk out to a great little beach. We had some lunch, threw some rocks into the ocean and just enjoyed the wonderfully humid air. It wasn't Virginia humid, but just about anything beats the dry Colorado air we've been living in.

We are now back in Fort Collins, recovering from last weekend and gearing up for next...we've got a visitor coming!

Consistent Weather brings Consistent Riding

2011-05-11T11:01:00.002-04:00

There's been a fair amount of riding this week. Starting with the dusty short track race last Tuesday...I've ridden a couple of new trails. Here's a shot of me super-focused in the roller section. I don't think you can see my single speed nemesis on the Langster in this one.

I actually placed pretty well considering I haven't done any serious racing in a long time. 17th out of 50 racers. I definitely think some of that had to do with a really solid start position. This week I got caught up in the middle of the pack and by the time the first 30 guys get stretched out onto the single track the top racers have already probably got a couple of minutes on you. But more on this week's race a little later.

The day after the short track J and I went out to Red Mountain which is a natural area about 45 minutes north, right at the Wyoming border. Now...a few mountain bikers mentioned Sandstone when we first got here and J talked to a park ranger that was surprised that no one had mentioned Red Mountain (which directly borders Sandstone). Well...we found out why. Red Mountain was kind of miserable. The trail was either horse-width loose double track or really grainy riverbed. There was one short section of nice buff interesting trail but it did not make up for the rest of the garbage. Now, I could have been a little down on the place because I was sluggish from the previous day's race...but I don't think so.

So, no riding Thursday but I played a lot of polo on Friday. 2 1/2 hours of 2 on 2. The weather was perfect and we played a LOT of polo. With only 4 people on the court, you get a lot of play time in. All that did was set me up to again be sluggish when scouting out some new trail the next day.

On Saturday we went into Wyoming to check out Curt Gowdy State Park. It's a little over an hour away and has got some really cool trail features. I think we only saw about half of the trails, and by the time we figured out the map, we had already run the race course in reverse. There were some really cool rock sections and "play areas" to be explored. It's nice to have some Porcupine Rim style stuff so close. Now, it's not as epic or nearly as technical as Porcupine but it's definitely got some cool features worth checking out. I think it makes it a great spot for a wide mix of skill levels.

So...back to Tuesday and back to the short track. I was feeling pretty sluggish all day, but I decided to suck it up and head out to the short track anyway. Last week I got a really good position on the start line but this week was a little different. As we all piled onto the start, I was somewhere in the middle of a huge pack. There's a picture of the start group (64 racers) to the right. I took my time and pretty much decided just to tempo the race...until the end of lap 2. That's when the Langster reared his head again. He passed me at the end of lap 2 and I managed to stick on his for the rest of the race but I couldn't get the pass on him...not this week. But, rest assured...I'll be eating my Wheaties and will be primed for next week. I've been riding the hardtail for the last two weeks, and it's been fine but I think it's time to bring out the big dog. The FSR should be able to squash all the little annoying bumps on the course and rail the corners. Here's a sweet shot of me powering one of the climbs.

My First Race at 5,000 ft...

2011-05-03T21:44:00.001-04:00

Tuesday afternoon, 6:20pm, 65 degrees and sunny. I roll over to the start line and get ready to tackle 4 laps of the short track course with 50 other riders...yes 50...and this is only the sport category.

Somehow I managed to put myself near the front of the pack for the start. Here I am, coming off of some epic cold...with my only serious efforts being sprints on the polo court and I am in the first row of riders. I already felt a little overwhelmed because I thought we would only be putting in 3 laps...but I had just heard the announcement of 4 laps. I look over my shoulder to see if I can sneak my way back a little bit, but no dice. My bed was already made, I just had to suck it up.

I knew being near the front would pay dividends for the upcoming "pump track" section early in the course but I really didn't want to have to mix it up 9 wide going into the first corner. Thankfully, the start was pretty tame, no wrecks that I could see but someone did bobble the first serious rise about 5-6 riders in and everyone else was pretty much doomed to do a quick hike up that section. It actually worked out pretty well for forcing people into some single file action since there was some super-tight single track up ahead.

The rest of the race was pretty standard stuff. Tight twisty sections, short climbs, several open spots for passing. The course was very dry which led to some sketchy corners and a LOT of dust. The 15-minute bike ride home included much hacking, coughing and sneezing.

One minor achievement...I didn't get beat by the guy on the Langster...(yeah, the track bike). It was pretty close though. He bobbled one of the last corners pretty bad and almost racked himself. It looked like he was going to jump right back on without losing any ground...but it became clear that he was going to need a moment to compose himself. It took that opportunity to pass him on the inside. I mean, it wasn't a full on track bike, he did have some riser bars on it! He rode the fuck out of that thing though...basically his two primary weapons were 1) locking up the rear wheel and 2) an excellent inside dab.

If I can stop blowing dust out of my nose by next Tuesday...maybe I'll do it again. Right now...I am just going to find some food and maybe do some arts and crafts. But first I need a damn shower!

Here's a short video of the Beginner Men start. 50 Racers there too!

Kokopelli Trail Recap: Game On!

2011-04-23T18:52:00.001-04:00

We loaded up Wednesday morning and set out for Fruita. It took us a little while to get the truck and car packed but we had it all dialed and we were ready to roll.

My 11-year-old Honda Toting Four Bikes Like a Boss!

When we rolled into Fruita, Don, Richard, Kyle, Fenton and Nick were itching to squeeze in a ride. Don and Steve still had to pickup their rental bikes and Kyle had to assemble his IF. Unfortunately, the airline lost Fenton's bike and he rode the backup hardtail. Fenton's bike did eventually show up in the wee hours of the night.

Nick and Richard's Preride and 18 Road Trails

Fenton Assembling the Yeti Thursday AM.

With all of the riding ahead of us, Steve, Johanna and I grabbed an early Mexican dinner and did some last minute food shopping for the trip. The rest of the crew got some delicious pie at Hot Tomato.

Overall it was an amazing trip. The original plan was shuffled a bit when we couldn't figure out a reasonable shuttle system or route for the 35 mile climb and we decided to just skip ahead to Porcupine Rim. Porcupine was amazing and I don't think anyone regretted that decision. On the third day we broke down camp and did some local riding in Fruita...which was pretty lame compared to dropping 4000' over 14 mi the previous day. In hindsight, maybe a short ride at Slickrock would have been the way to go...but it is what it is.

View From Campsite Number 1

Campsite 2

Just One of the Stellar Views Along the Way

We Got Pretty Good at Packing the Truck by the end.

Kokopelli Trail Recap: Pregame

2011-04-23T18:32:00.000-04:00

Well, Steve found the highlight of his trip to be a few days before the serious riding even started. I booked a New Belgium Brewery Tour for Myself, Steve, Don, Johanna, Richard and Nick. Johanna actually wasn't feeling well and Nick wasn't in town yet so our crew of four hopped on bikes and rode over to the brewery. The weather was perfect for a bike ride and an afternoon of drinking beer. The tour itself was kind of lackluster due to our less than stellar tour guide, but, the beer was good...(except for that last brew we sampled Le Terroir I think) .

Anyway...we had an interesting afternoon after the tour but instead of boring you with my story...I'll just let the following picture speak for itself.

Round Trip Airfare to Colorado: $250
New Belgium Brewery Tour: Free
A Growler of Fine New Belgium Brew: $6.75

Giving Charlie's Angels a ride on a borrowed bike: Priceless.

Kokopelli Trail: Fruita to Moab: Prep

2011-04-03T17:39:00.000-04:00

We've got a bunch of friends coming in from VA next week to do a huge MTB ride from Fruita , Colorado to Moab, Utah. It's going to be 3 days of epic mountain biking. With a big weekend on the horizon, we've been laying low this weekend. We are making some final bike preparations and working out the final details of the plan.

Each day is going to be broken up into two ride sections. The entire Kokopelli trail is about 142 miles...but we aren't actually going to do all of it. Our 3-day itinerary starts with the first 40ish miles, then we'll shuttle to the halfway point for the start of day 2 and pretty much ride the rest of the trail on the second and third days.

People will start showing up next Saturday and we actually hit the trail on Thursday. I am sure a lot will be happening before we even hit the first mile of trail so stay tuned. There's a plan for the New Belgium Brewery tour and even some talk of skiing. Who knows what else is in store.

Most Excellent Weekend

2011-03-21T11:18:00.005-04:00

I got to experience a few "firsts" this weekend. First time at 9,000 ft (outside of an aircraft), first time on showshoes and first time on cross country skis.

There really isn't much need to pick up a winter sport in Virginia. East coast snow has never been great and it's typically warm enough in Charlottesville to ride consistently 11 months out of the year. Sure, a few of our freinds head over to West VA for cross country skiing or get passes to Wintergreen but I never bothered. Now that we are in Colorado where you can go from spring to winter in just 60 miles...it's time to branch out.

A few weeks ago J and I were invited to spend a weekend in a yurt in Colorado State Forest State Park (the dumbest park name ever) so we decided, "why not?" Never Summer Nordic has a network of yurts throughout the park. We stayed at the Medicine Bow Yurt, elevation: 9,000 ft.

We skied the .4 miles uphill into the yurt on Friday afternoon and spent the weekend snowshoeing, skiing and eating. The accommodations are somewhere between primitive camping and cramped motel. I know that doesn't really sound appealing but it was actually pretty nice.

Medicine Bow Yurt, Outside

Trail from yurt back to cars

Inside of yurt

The yurt had a propane stove and was furnished with 3 double/twin bunk beds. Technically it could sleep 9 but anymore than 6 adults would get pretty crowded. There's also a small wood stove that heats the yurt up pretty well.

Here are a few more pictures of the epic views we had the pleasure of taking in.

Looking off the deck at dusk

About 20 minutes uphill from the yurt

Trail leading up from the yurt

View from the deck

Travis, Sarah and Wynona

First Month in FoCo

2011-02-21T10:33:00.003-05:00

Well, we've been here almost 5 weeks and are getting settled in nicely. All of the boxes are unpacked, all of the bikes are built and we can get around town pretty well. I was sick for a good part of January but Johanna was able to take advantage of some of the warmer days and hit some of the trails around town.

The drive from Virginia had its ups and downs. We started off on a Thursday evening headed to West Virginia. We had the birds and our luggage packed into the Honda. Everything was great until about 30 miles from our destination. Snow started to come down and we found ourselves driving through the mountains of W Va in the dark, in the snow. Not fun, but we made it. The next morning we made our way to Chicago. Traffic was fine, but we had a little bit more weather to contend with on the way. Nothing like we had yet to see, but still very annoying.

We stayed in Chicago from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon and spent some really good time with my sister-in-law and brother. We ate, chilled out, visited a Whole Foods the size of a small airport and even helped them prep for their adopted greyhounds they were expecting in a couple of weeks. It was nice to just chill and recover from two days of snowy travel.

On Sunday we had a short leg to Grinnell, Iowa to visit some old Charlottesville friends and of course on Monday morning we wake up to more snow. We had 460 miles of driving to do to cover most of Iowa and Nebraska to get to North Platte. We faced some really rough weather all the way through Iowa and well into Nebraska. This was the second snow front that we were driving through.

We made it safely to North Platte (which is kind of a hole) stayed the night in a Motel and were off to Fort Collins the next day. The weather was much nicer and we had a short (~240 mile) leg into Wyoming and down into Colorado.

It would still be a couple of days before our stuff would show up but at least we were off the road.

Most days there's some Charlottesville Tea in the tea pot and the wood stove is roaring in the sunroom. We've had our mix of weather with high's near 0 and some nice 55 degree days as well. Getting around by bike in this town is awesome (which was a great excuse to buy another bike) but I can report more on that later.

So, next time...maybe a tour of our house, a recap of my latest bike project, and some of the other things we've been getting into over the last 5 weeks.

Distorted Sense of Scale

2010-12-24T13:42:00.003-05:00

We've been doing a lot lately. A move across the country brings a lot of things with it. We decided to sell our house in Charlottesville, so that included a lot of updating and refreshing. Fresh paint in every room, new floor in the kitchen and bathroom, appliances, landscaping, chimney re-pointing, light plumbing, plaster patching, etc... If nothing else, it's really given us a sense of what we can do and maybe even more important, how long it takes to do things.

So, on top of refurbishing and selling the house, we've been doing a lot of purging. Donating surplus clothes, selling bikes, going through reams and reams of paper, trashing old bike parts. It's a lot of work but it's been great to have a little more breathing room in the house. It's amazing how much crap one can accumulate in a few years.

So, on top of the purging, cleaning and selling, there's the moving. We are headed to Fort Collins, CO, 1,600 miles from our current home of Charlottesville, VA; And even with all of the cleaning, trashing and donating, we still have a LOT of stuff. Clothes, tools, bikes, furniture, poker table, paintball gear, more bikes.

In order to keep things a little easier we decided to go with a mover. We will pack everything and they will load-transport-unload. Sounds pretty simple right? well, not really. There's still the research. Apparently there's a lot of potential to get very screwed. My sister-in-law turned me on to www.movingscam.com. There's some great information on the homework that you should do before, during and after choosing a mover.

There's a few other things we've been squeezing between the packing, selling and moving...like two full time jobs and the holidays. The latest thing we decided to do was to drive a 16' truck into New York City. Why? you ask...well, to give our bed away of course! We figure we'll avoid the expense and trouble of moving our bed to Colorado by giving it to Jo's folks. They are long overdue for a decent guest bed so we figured it was a perfect fit...we would just rent a truck, load our bed and drive it up to Manhattan. I mean how bad could it be? It's just one more thing right? I don't think we would even consider trying to pull this off any other year. It would be "too much". But we had a ton of stuff that had to get done, so you switch modes and get it done. The bed was just one more thing...so we did it.

I am looking forward to switching back out of this mode, playing more paintball and bike polo but for now it is what it is and it's nice to know what we are capable of.

Annual Lawn Mower Face-Off

2010-04-08T14:48:00.002-04:00

I never winterize my lawn mower. It's probably because I am lazy. I know that I should drain or use all of the gas and bring it inside but I never do. It just sits outside over the winter (sometimes under a tarp) and come spring when the grass start growing again I have to square off against the mower. The mower usually ends up purring nicely but not without a fight. Sometimes the fuel has moisture in it, sometimes the carb is dirty, sometimes I need to replace the cable and sometimes I just have to evict the ants that have decided to take up residence. I can't wait to see what it is this year.

Current Project: I'm a Lawn Guy

2009-04-21T13:32:00.006-04:00

Yeah, it's been a while. I have been trying to think of what is worthwhile content for this blog. I am not interested in telling everyone what I am doing all of the time and I am sure most people don't care how many people I shot at the last paintball practice. Besides...you can keep up with my paintball activities at blogspot.rcarmy.com. So, I was thinking what's worth posting. What do I do consistently that's going to give me content for this thing? Projects & Hobbies. I am a collector of hobbies and I am always getting into a new project. The current project is the lawn.

For the record, I am really only looking to be a "casual" lawn junkie. I want to do the least amount of work for the most amount of benefit. It's surprisingly difficult to find clear and concise lawn care information online. I think it's because it's quite geographically dependent. I managed to find some good information at www.southernstates.com. They have a 10-step lawn care program that's quite informative without trying to sell a particular suite of products.

The first step for me was to rent an aerator and pull thousands of little plugs out of my lawn. Just getting the aerator to and from the rental place was a process all its own. I won't go into the details there.

The latest step was the soil test. I took about a dozen plugs of soil and had them sent off to the Virginia Tech Soil Lab. It was $15 through Southern States. Here are the results of the soil test.

It's a pretty thorough report. It gives a breakdown of all of the relevant nutrients in the soil and recommendations for quantity and composition of fertilizers. It even recommends a fertilizer schedule.

The next post will have some pics of the current lawn...stay tuned.

Lady Lupe

2008-09-22T22:26:00.004-04:00

So about two months ago we had three birds, Charlie, Harriet and Homer. Now we have four. I think we've settled on a name for her. For now it's Lupe but we almost went with Veeta. When we gave her first bath she smelled really bad. Not like other wet birds, but like Velveeta cheese, hence the name Veeta.

Veeta/Lupe is pretty cool. She hasn't really bonded with the others yet so she is actually more content to sit with the humans even when the other birds aren't around. It's nice because it makes for a bird that will sit with you everywhere you go and anything you do. I've had Veeta blogging with me and checking Facebook as well as sewing and working on bikes. She's a champ. She's also a bit of a character when she wants attention. If we've been watching TV for an hour on the couch and haven't been giving them any love she'll start climbing around the cage and hanging upside down while spreading her wings. She's also a little sassy when Johanna starts talking to her. She'll grumble back without hesitation. I think she's still working on her balance a little bit. She doesn't move around quite as well as the rest of the flock but she does ok. Maybe having her wing feathers clipped doesn't help but I've definitely seen her fall off of a perch or two when she gets startled. She's settling in though.

and the rest of the flock.

Doing My Part

2008-09-09T19:21:00.003-04:00

I consider myself a cyclist...I mean come on, I own four bikes and in peak season I am riding more days than I am not riding. 20-40 mile road ride...no problem...20 mile MTB race...sure thing...but ride 5 miles to work? it almost never happens.

For a while I had a Specialized Langster for getting around town. One gear, if the wheels were moving, my pedals were moving. It was fine except it's a little steep around C-ville and slogging one fixed gear around town really takes its toll. Combine that with the fact that I was riding super skinny tires and couldn't really bail out onto a rough sidewalk if I ran out of road...I really wasn't riding it much. The Langster just wasn't what I was hoping it would be.

So, I sold it and got one of these.

A Redline Monogog 29er.

This is my first venture into the 29" MTB wheel market. This thing is like a Mac truck. With no suspension and heavy thick steel tubes it's pretty much bullet proof. The super wide tires slow me down a bit but I can hop any curb or ride any rough sidewalk without worrying if I am going to destroy the wheels.

So far it's pretty much stock. I just hop on with my backpack and ride the 5 miles to work. I might get some Oury grips or some lower profile tires, but for now...it will do the trick.

I am managing to commute 2 days a week. Weather and other obligations that require a car seem to keep me from riding in more frequently. If the weather holds this week I should be able to bump it up to three.

Do your part...let the car rest a couple of days out of the week...sneak in some more exercise...ride a bike!

A Great Day On The Rivanna River Trail

2008-06-29T22:03:00.002-04:00

The RTF is an organization that has built and maintains a trail that runs all the way around the city of Charlottesville. It's about 20 miles of "urban trail". It's not really single track but it's also not paved rail trail either. Some of it is a bit of a scramble or a sketchy ride through a tunnel but a lot of it is pretty sweet riding. Some buff, some technical.

Kyle and I organized a circumnavigation of the Rivanna River Trail as a sort of birthday celebration. Here's a few pics.

Here's the start of the ride. 15 riders total.

Here's a huge creek crossing/hike-a-bike

Most of the way around, chilling at Bodos for a minute.

Dave making an excellent decision with the egg bagel.

Fellow rider (I think he was drunk) on the Rivanna trail. Apparently his rear D blew apart and Dave was helping him get it back together. Only on the urban trails are you going to run into something like this. I would have been disappointed if this didn't happen. Nolan is the muscle, making sure nothing goes down.

All in all a great day, maybe we'll do it again before 2009.

Dark Hours

2008-06-27T15:06:00.002-04:00

So, this is a concept that we came up with in college. One evening when I couldn't sleep my roommate and I tried to account for all of the hours in a week, 168. I don't remember the exact calculations but we allotted time for classes, getting back and forth to class, work, homework, meals, brushing teeth, showering, exercise, etc. As I recall we were fairly generous with the time, overestimating to try and get a realistic count. By the end of our exercise, we had accounted for less than 150 hours, almost a full day that we couldn't account for.

As I was driving to work the other day thinking about all of the things I do (poker, paintball, riding) I started to wonder if I could account for all of the hours in my week and exactly how many "Dark Hours" were left, unaccounted for. Here's my assessment.

Sleep
8-9 hours/day
63 hours/wk
(105 remaining)

Work (including driving to/from)
45 hrs/week
(60 remaining)

Eating
3 hours/day
21 hrs/week
(39 remaining)

Riding
9 hours/week
(30 remaining)

Mini-Z Racing
2.5 hours/week average
(27.5 remaining)

Hygiene - Showering, brushing teeth, etc
1 hr/day
(20.5 remaining)

Food Shopping
1 hour/week
(19.5 remaining)

Email, web-surfing, etc
1 hour/day
(12.5 remaining)

I would say most of those estimates are pretty fair. This leaves about 12 hours/week unaccounted for. Granted, I didn't account for TV which could easily be 2-5 hours for me. I guess my time is just a little more cluttered today than it was 10 years ago. I also find myself working on random pet projects around during my idle time...something that didn't really happen when I lived in one room.

I don't know if I expected to have some huge revelation when I started writing this...but I didn't. I guess I am just curious to know if other people have such "Dark Hours" that get lost little by little in the daily shuffle.

Yes, a new hobby

2008-04-03T20:00:00.003-04:00

I am always getting into some new stuff. This time it's paintball. I've been a few times and loved it every time. Maybe except that one time where a few of us got pwned at a speedball field in Jersey but you take what you can get.

I don't know how it happened but I've pretty much jumped in head first. I haven't gone overboard. I've got a decent entry level marker (paintball gun) and a nice mask. I've been hanging out in the paintball shop a bit lately and managed to get invited to a game hosted by a local guy that's got a speedball field that he sets up every once in a while. Anyway, here are a few pics of me looking 2 legit 2 quit.

I only managed to hit one guy that day but it was a sweet one shot headshot. I'll take that for now.

Very Busy Weekend...But Also Very Fun

2008-02-04T09:43:00.000-05:00

I spent the previous weekend working on a report for work. Saturday and Sunday were basically full of reading, writing and editing. This past weekend was much different. Saturday started with a short ride on my new road bike. Then I went out for about 4 hours of paintball. I was pretty much wasted Saturday night. After a full night's rest Sunday started with a morning of cooking (tomato-lime soup) then a 2 hour MTB ride, then about an hour of dodgeball. After some Tazo Black Tea at 4bucks, Johanna and I rallied for two bac-to-back superbowl parties.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures or the new bike, paintball or the new bike...but maybe next time. I have to be less lazy with the camera. Hopefully next weekend will be just as awesome as this one was.

Glider Ride Anyone?

2007-12-06T09:12:00.000-05:00

Yeah, that's right...a glider! As in NO ENGINE!

The first pic above is the glider...empty...waiting for a pilot and a passenger. The way it works is that you hook up to a tow plane and get towed to 2,000+ ft. We got towed up to 4,000 and Alec flew us around. I got to steer a little bit.

The video below shows how the takeoff works. What you can't see is that for the first 20 ft or so there's a guy holding up the left wing to keep us level until we get a little bit of speed.

Here's J after the flight. She's not kneeling to look cool, the flight was pretty smooth but she still felt a little sick. You can see me below squeezing myself (and my down jacket) into the little plane.

And It's Done

2007-09-20T21:52:00.000-04:00

Just about...

If you look closely you can see that I *should* do some finish work on the base piece just below the padded rail. If I were going to sell this to someone I would tighten a couple of things up. As it is, I will be playing on this for a while and I have plenty of time to get around to the last 2% of the job.

Poker Table Almost Complete

2007-09-12T23:37:00.000-04:00

The first game is soon and the table is ready. The only thing I haven't done is cut holes for the cupholders. I have 10 stainless steel cupholders but I think the table will work best with 8 players. I am going to host a few games before I make a final decision.

I am quite pleased with the final result. The racetrack has a nice gloss to it (even though there are some imperfections) and the padded rail looks very uniform with no visible wrinkles. I have to thank Jo for the help with that one. The rail alone took over 600 staples...all done with a hand stapler.

I have some more progress pics that I'll put up later but here's a sample of the (almost) finished product.

Poker Table: Day 4

2007-09-06T10:32:00.001-04:00

The final cut to be made today is the most important one of the whole table. This is the only exposed wood edge so it has to be clean. Last night I cut the round sections of the racetrack and I finished the straight sections this morning. This was a little more stresful than the previous cuts because I hadn't used the router against a straight edge before. The previous cuts were made with an edge guide but a minor jug saw debacle left me with an edge that I didn't trust, so I couldn't use the edge guide as I intended. Here are some pics on this morning's progress.

Here's what it looked like this morning before making the straight cuts. I had to lay down some poker chips to check it out. It's really starting to take shape.

I didn't get any shots of the actual cutting but when it was done I set everything up to get a feel for how it would look.

Very exciting

and here's what the stain is going to look like on a test piece.
Not too bad for a morning's work. Hopefully I can prep the racetrack and lay down the stain tonight. I am expecting a lot of the materials to be at my door when I get home.

Poker Table: Day 3 (Rail Complete, Racetrack Started)

2007-09-06T10:32:00.000-04:00

I made some pretty good progress today. There will be a padded rail around the playing surface that is made up of two oval pieces. I got the main piece cut this morning and cut the second piece (the rail lip) after work. There was a slight problem with the jig saw but after a little bit of time with the router I had a decent workaround. Once I got that figured out I glued and screwed the two rail piece together and let them dry.

While those piece were drying I started the cuts for the racetrack. I really took my time with this since it will be the one exposed piece of wood and I really don't want to have to buy another sheet of plywood.

I didn't get any pictures of the rail pieces right after they were cut but you can see how they fit over the main playing surface. After three days, it's starting to take shape.

Legs Legs Legs!!!

The legs showed up today. These were just a little more expensive than those really cheap looking folding legs from Home Depot and they look so much better. The rest of the supplies should show up tomorrow and Tuesday. I hope to have the table done and ready to play on by the middle of next week. Finishing the race track (stain and poly) will take a couple of days though.

As promised here are a few pictures of the router jig with the router attached.

Poker Table: Day 2

2007-09-05T13:34:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning and decided to try a little bit of sanding with my palm sander. The jigsaw cuts were decent but not perfect. After some deliberation I decided to try and build a jig for my router to make the circle cuts nice and smooth. I haven't really used my router much and I was a little hesitant about trying to make a jig for it. Also didn't want to buy one because I am trying to keep the costs low for this project. With a little help from some router jig references I decided to give it a shot. I had some spare 3/4" ply that I ripped from the full size sheets that was the perfect width. I removed the base plate from my router and used that as a template for the mounting holes. I cut a 2" hole for the router bit to pass through and measured out the radii that I would need for the table . It looks like everything lines up very well with the curves that I already cut with the jig saw so I think I'll be able to use the router for everything else. I don't think it will makes things any faster but it should be a lot more precise...I like precise!

After work I actually had a chance to use the router jig. It was pretty successful. I did have one bit of oversight and measured on the wrong side of the router bit which made my rail cut 1/4" off. I am not going to worry about it...I think it will be fine.

So total progress for today includes building a router jig, cutting all of the pieces to ovals and starting on the 4" (actually 3 3/4") rail piece.

Here are a few shots of the oval pieces...with some closeups before sanding.

Here are a few shots of the router circle jig. Pretty simple. I'll get some pics of it installed later.

New Project: Poker Table: Day One

2007-09-05T00:08:00.000-04:00

I am always working on one thing or another and just recently I got really excited about building a poker table. Before I let the excitement die down I started doing some serious research, buying some materials and started cutting. There are a few things that I am glad that I haven't jumped into in the past (see my "overzealous" thread) but I am pretty stoked about this one.

Day 0 (actually a few days) consisted of researching wood, tools, buying materials, etc.

Today is really Day 1. I got three sheets of Birch plywood this morning, borrowed a jig saw and started cutting this evening.

The sheets started out as 4' by 8'. I think this is a little too big for my tastes so I cut the plywood down to 3.5' by 7'. It should still be plenty to sit 8-10 people.

Once I got the ply down to the smaller size it was a little lighter and I could maneuver it a little better. I busted out the jig saw and after a few test cuts I started shaping the first piece. After some careful measuring and cutting I have a rough shape of the outer diameter of the table.

The next step is to sand the oval so the edges are smooth, then cut the other two pieces the same shape and select the best piece for my exposed wood section.

I would love to have this table done by next week but it will be tough since I am headed up to DC for HFAY racing and I am headed out to do some trailwork on Sunday in preparation for The Paranormal.

Hopefully I can get the sanding done tomorrow and start cutting the other two ovals. Here's what the workbench looked like after two hours of working. It was clean when I started.

Building Time: 2:00 hours
Total H20 consumed: Exactly 1.5 liters

On a Movie Kick Lately

2007-06-26T14:46:00.000-04:00

I know it's summer and everyone is supposed to be out playing until the sun goes down..and beyond but for some reason I have found myself in the movie theaters a few times over the last month. Here's a quick review.

Spiderman 3 aka Obnoxious Newspaper Photographer and Jaded Sand Guy

With the exception of the final fight scene this movie was pretty much garbage. The "evil" version of Peter Parker was really just a little obnoxious, went a little goth and had a bad hairdo. Johanna actually wanted to leave in the middle but we had already paid the money so we stuck it out.

300 aka Spartans Kick Ass!

Not much substance but still really enjoyable. Cool characters nice visuals and just a neat story about 300 dudes that kick the crap out of an army led by a transvestite! I think we caught it in the theaters on the final weekend in town. For a thoroughly entertaining review of the movie check this out. Warning: Spoilers Abound!

Pirates 3 aka Too Many Ships in Upside Down World

Much better than Pirates 2. I am pretty glad they brought back Barbosa, he's a great character in the series. It does get a little bit confusing trying to keep track of who made a bargain with whom and how many bargains have been broken so far. Lots of promises and lots of fighting on ships. One message to take away from the whole series is that Pirates tend to follow the code but there's always room for a mutiny.

Evan Almighty

Another entertaining flick. I think I heard that some reviewers slammed this one but I just thought it was cool that we see the same skyline everyday. The movie was filmed about 30 miles outside of Charlottesville at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. That's enough to get my vote.

Upcoming flicks: Definitely going to see Transformers. I don't know if it could possibly be as good as the original but it's a legacy in live action...I'll be there on opening day. I would also like to see Oceans' 13. I enjoyed 11 & 12 and I have heard good things about this one.

2007-06-15T12:56:00.001-04:00

So I made some reference to my bike Karma in my AM ride post. What I was too frustrated to mention at the time was that I was on the road bike because I was having such a bad run of luck with my MTB. Bent derailleur hanger, poor shifting, flat tires and a nearly catastrophic wreck put me in a bad bad place. I was just bummed to be on the MTB. Anyway I think some of that luck managed to turn around a bit. Last Sunday I went to the HooHa. An awesome local race that was a complete mud fest. Here's a shot of Johanna making some mud pie!

Anyway, that race was riddled with all kinds of bad stuff. That much mud and that many people pushing 110% through the woods is bound to bring some sad war stories. I have to say I was pretty pleased with my bike that day. All gears shifted well, my tires held up great and I even had a decent finish. My bike did a good job that day...and I thanked it for that.

iPod Install

2007-06-01T14:09:00.000-04:00

I never really gave a step by step on the iPod/Honda install. I was just looking through some pictures and I found a couple but it's a far cry from a full on step-by-step. It's really just a shot of the dash removed and a picture of the converter sitting on top of the stock radio.

AM Ride Foiled

2007-05-30T10:15:00.000-04:00

I tried to squeeze in a little pre-work ride. There's a 16-18 mile loop from my doorstep that starts with rolling hills and peaks in the middle with a 0.9 mile climb. After the climb you roll around the top of the lollipop, more rollers and climb home.

Well, at the base of the climb, I downshift and the right shifter feels a little funny. As I am looking down my rear derailleur is slowly working its way down the cog stack...something was broken. First I thought is was something in the shifter (it is getting old) but after further inspection it was the shift cable. Somehow the cable frayed inside of the shifter leaving the little head in the shifter and the cable dangling on the bike. This also left me with only two gears, a hard one and a really hard one. I wasn't going to be making the 0.9 mile climb to the top. I turned around and was able to get home okay but it's just part of my streak of breaking things over the last few days. I don't really understand...my Karma points should be positive, maybe I'm just having a bad run.

GoPro??

2007-05-24T14:25:00.001-04:00

I saw these guys at Sea Otter last month but never got around to actually checking out the camera. The website has some really nice photos and video but I don't know how legit this thing really is. For $140 it's a lot cheaper than the separate helmet cam options. Also, you don't have to drag a video camera around in a camelbak. I don't know if the videos are any good but it would be pretty sweet to carry around and get some awesome downhill footage!

The pictures are supposed to be 3 MPixls and the video resolution is 640x480. It won't be the same quality as The Collective...but neither is the riding!

My Good Deed for the Day

2007-05-22T15:20:00.000-04:00

I was driving in to work today when I saw a guy walking a road bike. I see kids walking bikes all of the time but this guy looked like a commuter, backpack and all. After a quick glance I saw that his rear tire was flat, so I ran through the options in my head...

Do I have a spare tube (nope, I haven't even ridden a road bike in a while)

Floor pump (nope, I took it out of the car last weekend during the MTB race, it's sitting on my porch)

Then I realized that I had a roof rack. I was almost at work, but I figured the least I could do was see if this guy needed a ride. I pulled over into the turning lane and walked back down the sidewalk and asked him if he needed a ride. He was going to walk the last mile to his job but when he saw I had a roof rack I think he felt comfortable taking me up on the ride. I put his Cannondale on the roof, took him about a mile down the road to work, then I was on my way.

It's funny how I consider myself a "rider" but I rarely ride to work. This guy rides to work 7.5 miles one-way spring, summer and fall. I like to think I am hard-core but I always find excuses to not ride. Maybe I'll ride in tomorrow...and maybe I'll see that guy on the road!

Poker with the big boys

2007-05-10T21:00:00.000-04:00

It seems that all you have to do is look. I play poker very recreationally with a few people from work and a couple of friends. I have done a little reading but it's very hard to get all of the subtle nuances of poker when you only play a dozen times a year. There's so many things to consider...starting hands, position, playing styles, table image...I think there could easily be a college course or two on playing tournament Texas Hold 'Em.

So...about the looking. It turns out that Charlottesville has a huge poker contingent. There are games on just about every night all around town. I knew I would be in over my head but I thought I would check it out.

I showed up at the Biltmore Grill last night for the Wednesday game and there were 20 people already signed up and ready to play. Fenton and I put our names on the list and were directed to a table. It quickly became evident how much of a rookie I actually am. I held my own for a while and made it to the final two tables. We started with four full tables (8 players) and after about two hours there were about twelve players left. Somewhere around then is when I busted out. Fenton was busted a little earlier after going head to head with an experienced player that bet just enough (but not too much) to make Fenton believe that he had a hand. Not only did Fenton have to believe that he had a hand, he had to believe that the guy knew what Fenton was holding and could beat that hand. The guy didn't have it but it was a little too much money for Fenton to take that chance.

I had a couple of decent hands. By playing super-tight for the first hour (folding lots of hands) then slow playing a pair of jacks I built up a very conservative table image. That basically allowed me to steal one hand all night. The rest of my night can be summed up by the following..

My pair of 5's loses to a pair of 6's that trip on the river.
Marginal calls in the dealer seat get raised by the small blind, I fold.
Pair of Jacks loses
Pair of Jacks wins (very next hand)
Crappy cards and I get blinded out...
10:00 PM, Fenton and I get some ice cream

Miscellaneous Catch -All Post

2007-05-07T13:53:00.000-04:00

Hello readers,

Lot's of stuff going on lately. In no particular order here's the readers digest version

New Roof
We got a new roof put on our house. Even though the "old" one was put on there lss than 5 years ago. It's a bit of a bummer but now we are motivated to cut some limbs off of the big old pine that is sitting over our brand new roof. We also need to paint (inside and out), tile and build a deck. I think that's all that's on the list for now...

Bike Racing
Driving little cars is certainly not making me a faster bike rider but little cars are so much fun. Anyway, there's been a slight vaction from little cars so I can spend more time on the bike doing bike things. So far I think I've done two MTB races and I would like to do more so I am going to try and get on the bike(s) more consistently. A lot of my bike-related energy has been focused towards running a local MTB series. After May 20, the series will be over and I'll be able to ride -ride-ride! The first two races are done and the third is on it's way.

Sea Otter Classic
I will put some pictures up from this one in a new post. Sea Otter is one of the biggest bike events in the country. It included 4 days of racing (actually zero for me) and booths from just about every manufacturer in the bike business.

Well, that's the quick update. Lots of stuff has been going on. Oh, and the iPod install worked out pretty well. I think I have some pics somewhere that I'll have to put up. Sound quality is much better than the tape adaptor or the iTrip. I'll get those pics up soon too.

It's been a while but I'm back!

2007-02-22T15:06:00.000-05:00

I don't really know where I've been but right now I am hopped up on two types of Japanese tea and I am really excited about some Honda/iPod integration. Here's the deal...I have a tape adaptor that sounds like absolute crap. I could deal with the rattling until it started to activate the automatic reverse on the tape deck. As an iPod addict, I just couldn't have my songs cut out for a few seconds then come back. Hell, even a non-addict probably couldn't deal with that.

Anyway, I decided to stop by the local Crutchfield and pick up a new tape deck adaptor. It was $20 but I figured it might be worth it to not be cheap with this one. So, I picked it up and then I started to have a thought. A while ago I found this system that would allow you to connect an iPod to a factory system through the auxillary interface. I remembered those setups as being over-priced and difficult to install. I just did a little research (starting with Ebay) and found the units for about $60. In the long run it's really not that much more than a few tape adaptors so I thought I would get one. Then I started to look at the Crutchfield site and they have them in stock right here in Charlottesville. The price is the same and they provide instructions on how to take your car apart for installs just like this. AWESOME! I think I'll be headed back to "Crutchie" to pick one up later today.

Here are some pics of the units...

Well, it feels good to be blogging again. I'll be back in a couple of days with a review on the installation!

Trail Work

2006-11-28T16:09:00.000-05:00

Whew! It's been a long time since my last post...on this blog anyway. Most of my projects and thoughts have been Mini-Z related so I have been putting my energy elsewhere. I do have a couple of things worth reporting in about though.

I have been getting excited about doing trail work lately and I am actually going to be heading up some trail work days at one of our local riding spots. "O-hill" needs a lot of work and I am hoping we can make a small impact on a great little riding spot.

A couple of days ago, three of us went out to clear a log that was over the trail. Usually logs aren't a problem but this one was pretty big, it was at a bad angle and one end was almost a foot off of the ground. It really interrupted the flow on that section of trail so it was a pretty obvious candidate for removal. That's not the interesting part though. I had just gotten back from a trip in NC where there was an awesome log feature so we decided to do something similar.

Here's the feature from NC near Brevard.

And here are a couple of shots of what we built this weekend.

My hands are still a little sore today from running the chainsaw (and probably from riding my single speed) but I would like to report that the obstacle is totally ridable. It's not as clean as the NC inspiration but it's nice to have something you can't ride 100% of the time.

I am Overzealous

2006-10-23T22:40:00.000-04:00

I don't know what it is about my brain but whenever I get involved in something that's remotely fun and I think I will want to do it again, I start pondering ways to jump into it 120%. Unfortunately, that leaves me with unfinished projects and forgotten toys. For example...

Pool

In college I would go to the "Bear's Lair" or the "GCB" to play pool. It was a lot of fun. I wasn't particularly good at it but I was okay. I started obsessing about pool and I almost bought my own cue. I am really glad I didn't, I have probably played pool 7 times in the last 10 years.

RC Cars

Two years ago I bought a Zip-Zap, then maybe a month later I bought a Rustler and a Stampede used off of Ebay or something. Now I am knee deep in Mini-Z's. Fortunately this one has stuck. I have spent more money on these little cars than I would like to actually admit but I am currently ranked 7th in an international Mini-Z series. Not to mention I love racing these things. I am glad I got sucked into RC Cars.

Paintball

I have played paintball exactly three times in my life. It's pretty invigorating! It's just like a video game. You have no peripheral vision because your rented goggles are fogging up, you are getting blasted from who-knows-where by people who want to harm you and the adrenaline rush is insane. I am not very good at paintball but every time I play I find myself scouring Ebay the next day for used equipment.

MTB Skills Ramp

I don't even want to talk about this one. I decided that I wanted to build a small bike-skills obstacle in my backyard. Before I realized how dumb that was I had already purchased some lumber and built a small platform. It wasn't until I found two tree stumps to use for supports and got them home that I realized it would never happen. The platform is still in my basement and the stumps are still in my driveway...

Table Tennis

This one isn't so bad. A few people from work are taking a TT class at the local University. Why Table Tennis? Well that's easy...we got a good table for a cheap price at an auction. Now we have a table at work (nice huh?) and we decided that we wanted to get better. So I found an intramural class and we are in our second session. I still suck but I did just get a new paddle recently!

There are so many remains of so many past projects that are no longer alive. There was the paper mache Mini-Z obstacle course, the PVC bike stand, the home-made Camelbak gel flask holder...

At least I can say I have learned a little bit from my previous endeavors. I really try to evaluate a project before I dive in. I have stopped myself from several potential blunders but the impulsive sensations are starting to rise up again. The most recent challenge that I am thinking of tackling is a mountain bike race series in Charlottesville. There are a few great venues that have not hosted races over the last few years for various races. I can easily think of three races that could be combined to form a small series. The motivator is a Halloween-themed race that I have been part of coordinating for the last three years. The Paranormal. It's an awesome event but it's a lot of work. I have to think long and hard before I decide to tackle 2-3 cross country races in one season. I do have the Charlottesville Racing Club behind me but it's mostly a road club and trying to get help for MTB events can be a little difficult at times. There's definitely verbal and financial support for MTB racing, but it's a little difficult to get warm bodies to volunteer when we are holding so many events.

Quick update on the commuting

2006-10-04T14:07:00.000-04:00

So, I didn't do so well eliminating the car from my life for the month of September. I really only averaged 1-2 rides to work per week. I am not completely disappointed and I haven't given up yet. I really like riding the fixie and I finally have it setup the way I like it.

Mostly it depends on what I have to do after work and how well I prepare the night before. If it's easier to find my car keys than it is to find my riding shoes, I'll usually drive. Also, if I have to race Mini-Z's after work...I can't carry them all on my bike.

I'll probably ride to work Thursday and Friday...if the weather holds.

With an approximate guess at wear and tear on my car, I only have to put 1,000 commuting miles on my bike for it to pay for itself. I have a spare bike computer lying around, maybe I should hook it up.

Tupac Gets His Own End Display in B&N

2006-09-27T23:04:00.000-04:00

I was browsing in the bookstore the other day when I saw this...

I didn't know there was so much Tupac literature out there. I also didn't know there were enough Tupac fans in Charlottesville to warrant an entire display. I have nothing against him I have just never been a huge fan, pre- or post-mortem. Now if there was a De La section, I would be all over that!

Don't wear your shorts more than once!

2006-09-25T15:24:00.000-04:00

I was in the bike shop the other day and some guy came in to buy a new pair of shorts...pretty standard stuff. He was saying something about having three pairs and he doesn't get to wash them every week so they get a little funky. Then he did that thing where your like...

"Heh, you know how guys are, you just smell them to see if their clean. It's not like girls who wash everything, then put them away and they always have clean stuff."

I was doing my best to not look at him like he was some sort of freak of nature. Doing repeats with your bike chamois is a straight, fast road to swamp crotch. I didn't think it was my place to correct him since he certainly had his own way of doing things. The bike shop employee did enough when he said "You are a braver man than me!"

Maybe the guy wears briefs under his shorts. Who knows?

The new Cockpit

2006-09-22T09:37:00.000-04:00

So I am pretty excited about the new bike. The only problem is that it wasn't really "mine". I had to add some personal touches to make it feel like my own. Most of the obvious changes are in the steering department.

Since I never used the drops anyway, I just decided to go with some Time Trial style bullhorn bars. I know there's a lot of brake levers...but I am still pretty new to the fixie thing.

The levers at the ends of the bars are just Tektro 4.1's or something. I didn't really want levers at the end of the bars but I figured I could always take them off next time I wrap the tape. The bars on the tops are the drilled Salsa crosstop levers. I thought the reach would be a little to far for my liking, but everything sits just right.

Even with all of the brakes...it still looks pretty streamlined. I also took the rear rack off for now.

I am also trying out some new pedals. They are on load from a fellow fixie rider. Sally might recognize them but this particular rider doesn't get out on his bike much anymore...but he still spends plenty of time with his Cadence.

Now I just have to find some matte black fenders!

Here is the (new) bike...

2006-09-13T22:12:00.000-04:00

As my favorite anonymous poster alluded to, I owe you guys some new pictures. I have already retired the super commuter in favor of another bike. I am sure Sally will know the deal right away. I don't have a lot to say about it yet, but I wanted to get some pictures.

By the way, I am doing a horrible job of living the car-less lifestyle but that's because the forces have been conspiring against me. Things should be better now...

Here is the bike

2006-09-03T22:11:00.000-04:00

So, here we are 3 days into September and I haven't used the car yet! Well, that's because I have been out of town for for the last 5 days but, it's still a good start. I can already find scnearios where I am going to have to lug crap around town, but I am still hopeful.

Anyway, here's the bike that will be getting me around town. It's a 1996 Schwinn S96.3. Well that's what the frame is anyway. The headset is the only original thing that is still on the frame. Everything else is either upgrades or hand me downs.

Tomorrow is the first commute, I'll check back in, in a couple of days.

One Month No-Car Challenge

2006-08-25T12:07:00.000-04:00

So, a couple of times a week I stop by the bike shop to buy stuff, hang out, catch up on local gossip, whatever. I was at the shop returning a pump and I got to talking to one of the guys that was on the 18 hour race team about commuting to work. Long story short, we were wondering if it would be possible to commute to work every day. Could a person do it for a month? Then he was wondering if you could just live the no-car lifestyle...basically extending the use of the bike for all trips within the city limits...not just getting to work. There would be exceptions for travelling outside of Charlottesville for races or other things, but the idea would be to never use your car for errands in the city limits.

We haven't really worked out all of the details yet. For example, is it okay to get a ride from someone else? -or- What do you do when you have to go to Lowes?

I think we are going to start the challenge on September 1 and see if we can go the entire month. I am going to have to think about bike and equipment selection for this one...

Singlespeed School Starts at 6:30 AM

2006-08-25T06:42:00.000-04:00

I don't usually get out of bed before 7:30 but had I was having all kinds of trouble with skipping on my single speed mountain bike last night and it was still on my brain. So, at about 6:30 I rolled out of bed and finished some of the research I started last night.

After I got my Full Suspension, I converted my older mountain bike into a single speed. Everything was running well until I loaned out the rear wheel. After I got it back, I put everything back together and when I test rode it, I had all kinds of skipping problems. You would think it would be easy to diagnose since there is only one gear to deal with. No such luck. I changed all kinds of stuff but the bike would still jump around under pressure. I thought about it for a while and decided to try one more switch. I changed to a bigger gear in the back which gave me two advantages over the previous setup.

Advantage 1: More teeth are engaged.

if you can imagine stretching a rubber band around a softball and a golf ball, there isn't much of the rubber band touching the golf ball. If you swap out the golf ball for a baseball, there will be more rubber touching the golf ball. Basically that's what I did, I used a slightly larger gear in the rear to get more chain contact.

Advantage 2: More teeth are engaged.

I can't just wrap a chain around the cogs and expect everything to work. I have to use a tensioner. You can see it in the pictures below.

Just because of the size of the cogs and length of the chain, I can make the tensioner push up on the chain, giving a little more wrap around the cog. When I used the smaller cog, there was too much slack to take up with the tensioner so I had to set it up in the pull down mode. This probably makes 2-3 less teeth engage the cog. (Just imagine the chain on the bottom of the silver wheel, where the arrow is)I think once I put some heavy tension on the pedals, the bike (or cranks) flex just enough to throw the alignment off enough so that is skips, but doesn't completely fall off. It's really annoying...but with the cog swap and using push up mode, I think I am ready to roll!

I was able to intuit most of the solution on my own, but there were two articles that I found that helped put it together. The second one has a nice simple way to measure chain line. A bad chainline can be the downfall of the singlespeeder.

http://www.surlybikes.com/spew3.html
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/chainline.html

18 Hour Race Just for Fun??? No Such Thing...

2006-08-22T14:00:00.000-04:00

From Dictionary.com

Race

An extended competition in which participants struggle like runners to be the winner: the presidential race.

When we decided to go to the 18 Hour Scout's Honor Race we really didn't know how we would do. One guy (bike shop mechanic) hadn't raced in 3 years, another guy had been on travel for a week, and yours truly spent 3 weeks in Japan with almost no riding to speak of. So, when we started the race yesterday afternoon, we all agreed it would be "just for fun". I figured that it would...until midnight when we realize that we are really close to another team and we would have to put the hammer down to increase the gap or move up a place. Sure enough, after 6 hours we were in first place by about 4 minutes and the competitive spirit kicked in. Long story short, the lead swapped back and forth a couple of times until we started to open up a consistent lead, 2 minutes, 6 minutes, 8 minutes 15 minutes then the other team had a crash and we were almost 45 minutes up on them. I guess it would have been more heroic to beat them at their best...but after 18 hours of riding and eating processed sugar jelly, I'll take the "W" any way I can get it.

So...I have only done about a half dozen endurance races but I do have some pointers...

Food

If you are going to bring anything that you have to prepare, make sure you eat (or prepare) it before you start riding. As the night gets later and you get further into your laps, noone even wants to peel an orange. Prep all of your stuff while you have some dead time

Lights

Don't assume anything. The manual may say 2.5 hours of run time but if you have never run your lights for that long, don't assume they will last that long. Even if you are meticulous, you are bound to have problems. My fancy pants High Intensity light blew out on me 30 minutes into a 2 hour ride. Fortunately I had a (crappy) backup light and made it through.

Competition

Don't ever think that an endurance race will be anything other than a race. If you are doing a 12, 18 or 24 hour race, you have been mountain biking for a while (most likely). If that's the case, you are probably a competitive rider. It will be a competition! I will say it again...it will be a competition.

There was too much going on (and one of those things wasn't sleep) for me to get the motivation to take pictures...but I do have pictures of the prizes that we won.

Prep Between laps

If you are not fortunate enough to have support person that will lay out your clothes, fill your camelbak, lube your chain, check your tire pressure, clean your bike and mount your lights, do it all before you try to get some sleep. You may not be able to actually get to sleep but it will be easier if you aren't thinking about your preparations and there is no way you will remember everything at 4 am after an hour nap.

Anyway, enough yapping from me. I'll post some pictures soon of the cool prizes we won. We got some energy gel (not bad) and four useless tires to split between all of us. My teammates were so generous that they just gave their tires to me...like I don't have enough crap filling up my basement!

$10 to spend at Sheetz...maybe I can get a chili dog next time I head North.

Some plain Hammer Gel. I may actually be able to use this.

and the tires...heavy...not tubeless...and just not the ones that I like to ride. I may keep pass them on to others that need tires or try to sell them on Ebay....or maybe they will just sit in my basement forever.

Getting Ready for an 18 Hour Race

2006-08-16T22:35:00.000-04:00

Well, as you know, I have been in Japan for the past couple of weeks, almost 3 actually. During that time I rode several commuter bikes that were way too small for me and Johanna graciously loaned me her MTB for a huge mountain climb. Other than that I have done basically no riding. I got home 7 days ago and I have attempted to ride 5 of those days. I say attempted becuase two of those rides were foiled by bike problems...messed up rear deraileur cable and broken saddle. This is the first time I have ever snapped clean through a saddle rail!

Well, in three days I will be taking part in an 18 hour race and I have to say...I am a little bit concerned. Suer I am riding with 3 other people, but it's never easy to ride hard for a couple of hours, sleep for a few, then ride hard again. I may try to squeeze in one more ride in the two days I have left. I can't really build any fitness but I can hopefully remind my body what it's like to ride and try to keep my legs fresh.

So, 3 weeks off, then 3 real rides...wish me luck, I'll let you know how it goes.

Blogger has Labels

2006-08-16T14:37:00.000-04:00

Well, not quite yet...Blogger in Beta has labels and a select few are being given the offer to switch over. I have been waiting for labels for a long time. It's the one feature that had me considering a full switch to another system.

To get them sooner I could just sign up with a new account but I'll wait...For now, I have some more Japan posts to work on.

Testify

2006-08-10T16:39:00.000-04:00

Okay, taking a break from the Japan posts for a minute. I just found the video for Common's song Testify. I don't have cable so I have to cathc videos online now, I know...it's sad.

Anyway, the song is one of the most powerful tracks I have heard on any of his albums. I have to say that after seeing the video I am extremely disappointed. The song is fairly short and there is a lot of backstory revealed in the lyrics so I guess the only way that the video producers could go was to make it like a short movie, to fill in some story and stretch the actual lyrics.

If you can, listen to the song first (without the video) then watch the video. I hope you will understand what I am saying. It's a decent video but it's a great song, and too much is lost with the visual created. You should be able to use the links below to experience what I am talking about.

This player will let you listen to at least part of the song.

Here is the video. It's in the second post from the top.

Let me know what you think...

While you are at it, check out the video for BE. You can actually just turn off your monitor and listen to the lyrics. Make sure it's loud enough to hear the baseline come in and the synth trumpets (or maybe violins I think) that follow. Just the beat alone is enough to put me in a good mood. Tie in some poignant lyrics and this song makes it onto almost all of my iPod playlists.

I already miss Japan

2006-08-09T23:51:00.000-04:00

I know that I have only recapped the first two days of my trip to Japan but I have to say that I already miss it. I just got back about 24 hours ago and there are elements of Nippon that I wish I could hold on to...

First, the courtesy. No matter where you go in Japan everyone in any type of service position is very friendly. Maybe that's because I am gaijin but I hope not. Every time we walked by a vendor or entered a retail store there were numerous welcomes. Everytime we paid for something we were being thanked right up until we walked out the door. You just don't get that in the states. It also wasn't just the people that wanted to sell us stuff either, we heard "Konichiwa" at least a hundred times as we hiked in Hokkaido. I will even admit, while I was in the Detroit airport I bumped into someone accidentally and instinctively said "sumimasen" the Japanese equivalent of "Excuse me". Of course I realized that the person had no idea what I was saying, but that's okay.

There are plenty of other cool things about Japan that I miss. Without going into too much detail and in no particular order I am a big fan of Onsen, onigiri, hashi, Nissan Skylines, "car bows", among the things that I am fine without...Sea Urchen, fish flakes, eel, bean candy and really expensive fruit.

Day One in Japan: Part II, Kabuki, Window Shopping and Electronics Town

2006-08-04T20:13:00.000-04:00

After our Sushi breakfast we took the subway to the Kabuki theater. It was a pretty neat experience. I was a little ornery because the seats were just a bit small and my left leg kept falling asleep. A full Kabuki play can last anywhere from 3-5 hours with 2-4 acts. Fortunately, you can just view one act at a time. It's a lot cheaper and the acts are only 1-2 hours long. They also have headsets that you can rent that have an english explination of what's going on. It was a pretty cool experience but we weren't allowed to take pictures inside of the theater.

After Kabuki we did some window shopping around Ginza. We wanted to stop for a hot beverage, but we couldn't decide between some Darjeering and the Mild Brend. Never mind the fact that the prices were rediculous. (The exchange rate is about 110 Yen to 1.00 USD, making it just under $7 for the Mild Brend)

After Johanna was done trying on the new M Coupe Roadster (located inside of the Sony gallery/store) we continued to look around at the products and tried to figure out how to open this camera-thing without breaking it.

We figured it out after a couple of minutes and realized that it really wasn't anythign special. Sure it flips and it's a digital camera, but that's about it!

Here's a really small computer/really big PDA though. It's about the size of a large index card...maybe 5" x 7" The screen slides down to cover teh uselessly small keyboard. We tried to play with it but Kanji is pretty hard to read.

Here's a view of Akihabara, Tokyo's "Electronics Town". Things are supposed to be a little cheaper here than in other parts of Tokyo but I was only concerned with one thing...trying to find R/C Car parts. I found three hobby shops and managed to buy as much stuff as I thought I could fit in my luggage.

I won't go into details here on what I found. I actually have another blog that I am using to describe my trip from a Mini-Z Racer's perspective. I found some pretty good deals and some hard to find parts for myself and a couple of the guys that I race with. From a Mini-Z perspective, I was also able to get to a couple of stores and a couple of tracks all of which will be detailed on my other site.

If you are looking for more Japan posts, J has also got a blog that she's been using to document her stay and our travels. I'll post a permanent link in the sidebar one of these days.

One More Fish Market Video

2006-08-03T22:57:00.000-04:00

I tried to capture the bustle of the fisk market with some rolling footage. It's pretty choppy and it's only 50% of the traffic that we saw in other parts of the market but it's still worth sharing.

You can see the small pallet trucks that people are driving and the carts that are pulled around by old and young alike. We had to cross one street that was just a stream of the pallet trucks from both directions. Add that to the fact that you are trying to dodge the splashing water/fish juice off of the ground and it can be a little overwhelming at 8 in the morning.

Arm Wrestling???

2006-08-03T02:34:00.000-04:00

So, this is 100% true, and it just happened a couple of minutes ago. J and I are back in Kofu after travelling to Tokyo then Hokkaido and I am just sitting in her office checking email etc while she is off processing some samples or something.

So I am just sitting here minding my own business when 3 Japanese guys come in the door. I didn't think much of it because it's a 2 person office with a lot going on. But they were trying to get my attention. One of them was saying something about arm-wrestling. Johanna is standing in the hallway behind them and she tells me that they were talking about arm-wrestling and they wanted to know if I was strong. I didn't know what to tell them...I am not much of an arm-wrestler but I figured I would play along. What was the worst that would happen...I would lose. In the bustle of Japanese and broken english I think I hear that this kid is some sort of champion. Maybe they were kidding, but it's pretty hard to pick up on sarcastic subtleties when you don't even understand the language. So we clear a desk and I square off with this kid and soemone holds our hands and calls "ready, set, go". He was a tenacious little bugger. You should have seen the way he ducked his head towards the table to try and muster all of his strength. I think that one problem is that I probably outweight most full-grown Japanese men by about 40 pounds. We were at a stalemate for several seconds and then he started to fade. I just leaned my huge American hulk into my arm and put him down. After that his friend wanted to wrestle me. Similar story, strong start but no endurance.

I am not posting this to brag...I just think this is rediculously surreal. C'mon, you can't make this stuff up. I never would have guessed that I would travel half way around the world to be challenged to an amateur arm-wrestling match. Oh well.

Fish Market Videos

2006-08-02T20:48:00.000-04:00

I uploaded a couple of videos to google from the Tsukiji Fish Market.

The first one is a short clip of a guy cutting some freshly purchased Tuna. It looks a little scary to me!

The second video is just a quick clip of how they get ice at the market. A guy stands on this platform with huge blocks of ice and then loads one onto the conveyor belt when someone needs ice. Then you roll your cooler(s) to the side and you get your ice. Pretty cool.

I have one more video that is pending verification so check back soon!

Day One in Japan: Part I, Fish Market.

2006-07-25T22:46:00.000-04:00

Technically my first day in Japan was Friday but since I had just spent 13 hours on a plane and didn't get to the hotel until 7PM, we'll call Saturday my first day.

Our itinerary was pretty aggresive because we only had a few days in Tokyo and there was a lot to see. Day one includeed the Tokyo Fish market, Kabuki-Za Theater, searching for Mini-Z parts and trying to find the Mini-z track. We got an early start because the action at the fish market starts at 5:00 AM. It wasn't too difficult for me to get going because I was excited to see Tokyo and we *were* 13 hours ahead of Virginia time. Little did I know that I would be waking up at 5:30 AM for the next couple of days.

Well we got up and moving around 6:00 to try and catch the bulk of the activity at the market (reported to be between 7 and 9 AM) .From what I understand, large quantities of fish are brought into Tokyo bay every morning (except Sunday) and licensed individuals are allowed to view the fish and bid in the auctions. Once the auction is over people are shuttling around with small pallet cars loaded with fish and ice. They are either taking the fish to their "booth" for public sale or loading small cargo trucks to be taken somewhere else in Japan.

We got to the market around 7 or 7:30 and it was son onf the most surreal things we had eeveer seen. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Sea Urchins...I think you eat the gonads.

All of the tuna that's brought in from other countries is shipped frozen. They use these huge band saws to cut the fish.

And how do you cut fresh fish that can grow up to 3 meters...you use a meter-long knife!

Nothing like a little sushi for breakfast. No joke, it's 8:30 in the morning and we are eating raw fish...delicious!

The one thing that sketched us out a little bit is that there was a huge line at one place and
no wait for the place we chose. We just thought maybe it was famous or something...like the Sushi nazi.

Why do I do this to myself?

2006-07-17T14:37:00.000-04:00

Do you ever make bad decisions and know that they are bad while you are making them, but continue to make them anyway?

So, I am flying out for Japan at 6 AM on Thursday morning. I figure I should start settling into an earlier wakeup schedule (currently~9AM) so it doesn't hurt so bad on Thursday. Well I was hangin gout last night (Sunday) and I went home around 10:00. When I got home, I called a friend of mine to settle riding plans for the next day and he mentioned that he was playing poker with a couple of folks and they would be playing for another hour or so...

Mistake 1:

Getting in the car to go play poker.

So I played for about an hour and two of the players left (and I should have too), but I decided to stick around for another short round.

Mistake 2: Not going home at 11:45.

By the time I got home, it was 1:30AM and I was nowhere near my goal of getting up at 7:00 with a decent night's sleep. So now it's Monday, and I am tired. Maybe I'll make some better decisions today.

Don't Buy a Cheap Shredder

2006-07-07T11:32:00.000-04:00

I found a great deal on a shredder at Staples. It had a $25 rebate which made it something like 15 or 20 bucks. We don't have a whole lot of stuff that's shred-worthy so I figured it would be adequate.

The problem is that it only has a 7 sheet capacity. So your limit is basically one envelope with two tri-folded sheets of paper. I don't know the last time my phone bill only had two sheets of paper in it. You could certainly unfold the sheets and shred a coupel at a time but that's no faster than just ripping them up. The point is, we pushed our shredder to its (very meager) limits. I didn't realize this until this morning when I tried to shred a single sheet of paper and it wouldn't chew it up. I figured it was just a little jammed. When I unplugged it and started to pull the paper wads out I saw that a bunch of the center blades were completely mangled. If you look closely you can see that some of the plastic fins are completely gone or mushed and the blades are all chewed up.

This thing is toast.

Moral:
If you really do want to get a shredder, spend a couple of bucks, or be prepared to shred your credit card statements one sheet at a time.

Stoked about Japan

2006-07-05T17:38:00.000-04:00

My wife is currently in Japan studying under an NSF grant that has her there for 10 weeks. I kind of missed the boat on her South America trip, but I planned a little earlier and lined some things up so that I was able to take some time and get a ticket to the motherland.*

J and I have been bouncing some ideas back and forth and it's going to be time to make some concrete plans very soon. If you haven't seen her blog you are missing out. It's much better than this one!

So far the ideas on the table are...
1 Visit Hokkaido. One of the four main islands of Japan. It's the Northenmost island and it supposed to be a natural wonderland
2 Tokyo. I have to track down some Mini-Z tracks and hard to find parts.
3 Sumo Wrestling Tournament
4 MTB Race. It turns out there is a Mountain Bike Race a couple of days after I land in Japan. I won't be bringing a bike out there but Johanna might race it. Although, it would be pretty cool a couple of years from now to be able to say "Yeah...well, back when I was racing in Japan..."

I'll be doing my best to keep everyone updated on my travels. I don't think I am going to bring my computer so it may be tough. This may be a good time for that Mini-disc recorder that I bought...and still haven't used. I will also keep everyone posted as the plans develop.

*When I say "motherland" I am not speaking of the roots of my people. I am referring to the birthplace of the Mini-Z. Defintely my number 1 hobby/addiction at the moment.

Cyber Meltdown

2006-06-28T11:47:00.000-04:00

I don't usually look at the article adverts on the sidebar of my Hotmail, but this one caught my eye. Here's an excerpt...

The United States has never experienced a massive Internet outage, but a coalition of dynamic chief executives said Friday that the nation must do more to prepare for that prospect.

Without proper planning, myriad industries--from health care to transportation to financial services--could face devastation if a natural disaster, terrorist or hacker succeeded in disrupting Net access, they said.

You can read the entire article here.

Personally, I think it could be pretty rough to not be able to shop, check account balances, pay bills, get music, etc, online, but I don't think it would be the end of the world. There are so many cyber geeks out there that something would popup to facilitate sharing information.

It has been somewhat lost but personally I think sharing information is the real power behind the internet. Maybe if we have a cyber meltdown, blogs and forums will be king...trumping Amazon and Ebay.

2006-06-23T14:51:00.000-04:00

So like I mentioned in the last post, life has been pretty busy lately. I think I am trying to keep too many balls in the air at once but that's just the way I roll. Even with Johanna out of town and in Japan, a lot of my free time is taken up by too much stuff.

First, there's the riding. I am probably averaging 3-5 days on the bike. I don't really do any other form of exercise and it's pretty damn fun. I haven't been on my road bike in a while and the local MTB spots are getting a little stale so I think I am going to have to venture a little farther away fotr some rejuvination. Along with the riding would have to be the race planning. Running Bi-weekly brownie crits and planning cross country races are taking up some time.

Next is the Mini-Z's. Lots and lots of time on the Mini-Z's. Just about every other Saturday I am driving to D.C. (2.5 hours) to race my little cars with other 30ish year olds. These things are a straigh up addiction. They are tons of fun and there is always some tweaing to do. I am waiting for the point where all of my cars are just setup and running. The problem is that it's just as much fun to tweak and mod as it is to drive, so sometimes I spend literally hours at night working on the kitchen table putting a car back together. This should slow down once I get all of my setups dialed though.

Next is more Mini-Z's. Someone gave me a track and I have been setting it up at one of the local hobby shops to try and get some racing going. There are a bunch of RC drivers in this town but they all run big load off road trucks. There used to be a pretty strong following of Mini-Z racers around here over a year ago but it just died down and here I am trying to breathe life back into it.

Next would have to be work. Around all of these hobbies I have to find time to spend a couple of hours a day funding them. Work has been pretty busy these days. Please don't ask what I do, it's not that I would have to kill you it's just that I don't really know...and even if I did, it would bore you anyway. My hobbies are much more exciting!

The icing on the cake is my addiction to procrastinating. I can never just go to bed at 10:30 or 11:00. No, I have to tinker with this, fiddle with that, look up one last thing on the internet, check my email, blah blah blah. I'll settle into a better routine one of these days. (Probably in late August when Johanna gets back from Japan)

Well, if anyone wants to race Mini-Z's, ride mountain bikes, eat brownies, or surf the web, don't hesitate to give me a call.

Peace

It's been a while

2006-06-04T21:03:00.000-04:00

I think I am getting in over my head again. I am juggling a lot of things right now (work , riding, Mini-z's, more Mini-Z's, more riding) and I just don't have the time to do it all, nevermind report on it on a daily basis.

There have been a couple of recent big events

Number 1 - Johanna's Graduation

They call it "Final exercises" at UVa. I think that's a dumb name. I have a couple of really good pictures but not on this computer so you'll have to wait for these

Number 2 - My Birthday

I also have pictures from this one but I am too lazy to resize them right now.

Number 3 - Angry Cockatiel

Our female cockatiel Harriet has started laying eggs. We don't think that they are fertile but we have to let her lay a full clutch and sit on them for about 10 days. If we take the eggs away she'll keep laying and that can lead to all kinds of health problems.

Here's a picture of her. She was rolling the eggs under her but she stopped when she saw me, that's why she's only sitting on one and the other two are around her. She's actually a pretty good mom.

A closer look.

I'm Seeing Green

2006-04-06T22:35:00.000-04:00

I got motivated about 2 weeks ago to paint the office. I had no idea how to get an inspiration or what colors to choose so I went to the best resource I know...the internet.

I'll spare you the sappy details but after some soul searching I settled on a Sherman-Willians color called Rural Green. I bought a sample last Teusday (which was a waste of $5, I think) decided that I liked the color and got a gallon on Thursday. Here I am a week later in my freshly painted room. The pictures don't really do the color justice. There is a little bit of gold that comes through in natural light. I am pretty pleased. I also didn't get a good shot of the floor. It's a light colored hardwood floor, similar to the closet door. The Rural Green works really well with it.

It also serves as a new start. I had to completely clear my desk to move things around and get setup for painting. My goal now is to keep the desk free of paper, unless it is something that I am currently working on. I'll probably pick up a small filing cabinet and try to keep everything filed away.

Sherman-Williams actually has a cool color visualizer that you can use to "see" SW colors in a room of your choice.

Layouts I Likes

2006-03-23T23:00:00.000-05:00

More than anything, this post is a placeholder for webpage layouts that I like. Eventually I would like to register a domain and create a webpage. I don't know when I would find time to do this, but there's always hope. Maybe I can stop sleeping.

FIXPERT
I really like the bold distinct color on this one as well as the graphics. The fixpert logos are pretty unique. The layout is also very clean and it's easy to find the latest information.

NOWHERESKATEBOARDS
I love the opening page on nowhere. The flash intro's (on other sites) that take forever are really annoying, but the first image is quick and has some nice depth to it.

LATENCYPROJECT
I don't know if this is on purpose but the black and white on this page really makes the color fotos stand out. This guy seems to be pretty techie. I don't know anything about this guy except what you see on the page. The MTB accident is a bit of a downer.

CVILLEPODCAST
I don't really like this one very much at all. It's poor use of white space. Everything is legible, but nothing draws your eye. Everything just seems to float on the page.

HOMEPOKERTOURNEY
The information is presented well but there are too many ads and crap on the sides. The content is good, but that's about it.

If I ever get my page up and running, I hope to take a couple of elements from the good sites and avoid the problems that I see in the bad sites. I am sure this is going to take way more time than I have, especially since I am thinking of painting another room in my house and I haven't even finished the bathroom yet. It's almost done, but not quite. Gotta finish up the baseboard and figure out what to do with the floor.

If anyone has any input (with or without examples) feel free to post a reply.

Starting to Feel Like I Live Here

2006-03-10T10:28:00.000-05:00

So, I have lived in Charlottesville for about 6 years now and I didn't notice it until today but I have managed to carve my own little niche here. I have definitely left a decent legacy with some of the Mountain Bike events that I help organize but it was two subtle interactions that I had today that made me realize that I actually live here now.

I had some errands to run this morning before I got to work for what I expected to be a fairly busy day.

My first stop was the Barber Shop. I have been cutting my own hair for a while (with Johanna's help) but it was time to get a professional to do the job. Johanna is out of town and it's a pain in the ass to cut your own hair. Plus it never looks as good as when the pro's do it. I had been going to the same barber shop for a while but since I bought a set of clippers, I hadn't been back. It's not that I don't like the place. It took me a while to find it and I actually like it a lot. The benefit of DIY is the time and money savings. If you show up to a Barber Shop on Saturday morning, you could be waiting two hours for a haircut.

Anyway, I decided to go back to my Barber Shop this morning for a real haircut. I showed up, probably 4th in line and was in the chair about 25 minutes after I showed up. The barber greeted me, said he hadn't seen me in a while, I mumbled something about being out of town, then he asked me how I wanted my hair cut. (They always ask). I told him what I wanted and he finished up by asking about how I like the front cut. Something like "No shaping in the front right?" Of course that was right. I hadn't been there in probably a year and he remembered exactly what I wanted.

I didn't think much of it until my next stop...Oil Change...

I drove to the shop where I usually get my oil changed. They aren't the cheapest place in town but I trust their work and they always explain things to me when I have questions. I never feel rushed and they can usually fit me in.

I parked my car and went into the office to see if I could drop the car off for an oil change. The guy said "sure" and asked me when I wanted to pick it up. He started to write up a slip and already knew my last name and the model, year and color of my car. I drive a lot so maybe I am one of his more frequent customers, but who expects a random auto shop to remember your last name. I don't. I feel like that something that happens to middle-aged people that have lived in a town most of their lives.

It made me feel kind of weird.

I don't think either one of these alone would have given me enough clues to come to the realization that I had today. But between the Barber Shop and the Auto Shop...I guess I have been around for a while.

How do you know when you are addicted to the Internet?

2006-03-03T23:37:00.000-05:00

When you are blogging in bed! I have a very strong character trait that usually gets me into trouble. Procrastination. I procrastinate with evertything. For example, I was going to clean the kitchen tonight, but instead I watched the movie Crash. I was going to get to bed at 11:00 but instead I jumped on the computer one more time, to check out a couple of blogs that I haven't visited in a while. Then I decied that I needed to update my blog. I didn't want to push bed time any farther, so I grabbed Johanna's laptop and here I am.

Since I managed to get the wireless up and running, I can Bed-Blog. Very sad I know.

With Johanna in South America until the end of March, it's going to be pretty difficullt to battle my tendancy to procrastinate.

I have a lot to catch up on. I have been a little bit out of touch because so many things are going on.

The hierarchy of projects has been somewhat rattled.

Here's a quick rundown of what's been going on.

I think I skipped right to converting my Klein into a single speed,

I picked up a track for my Mini'Z's (and picked up some whole new tasks along with that)

On top of the projects, I have watched several DVD's(Akira, Crash, Transformers Season I, Napolean Dynamite, scrubs Season 1 and most of Season 2, Appleseed),
played Poker, cut my hair, done some serious house cleaning and a litle bit of laundry.

I would like to get started on the Charlottesville Podcast. I have several ideas for
individuals that I want to interview.

This is sort of a shotgun post, but it's a little taste of what's to come.

It was fine while it lasted

2006-02-24T22:40:00.000-05:00

Notice I didn't say fun.

Running is not about fun. In my brief experience with running, I have learned that running is about mitigating pain. There is always some sort of overuse injury, or joint pull, or ligament friction thing that you are trying to dodge. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's because I weigh 185 lbs and I ran 7 miles on a 20 degree day when just 4 months ago I hadn't run 7 feet.

I am sad to say that I think I am aborting the 10 miler training plan. Who am I kidding, I am not sad. I was looking for an excuse to quit this stupid thing. Don't get me wrong here. I will still continue to run, but I think 5 miles is about my limit...at least for now.

If you are curious, I have ITBS. look it up.

It has been about 5 days since my last run. I have sort of been avoiding it. I am telling myself that I am "resting". I'll give it another shot in the next day or two and see how things work out. If the pain is gone, maybe I'll pick the training back up. If not, I'll have to back off and abort the ten miler. The weather is starting to get warmer now anyway...it's time to get back on the bike.

Router Installed

2006-02-24T22:29:00.000-05:00

So the problem was my old a$$ NIC. I couldn't get a link between my desktop and the router. The computer is from 2001 so that may have something to do with it. Their tech support was actually pretty good. They tried several things with the router, my computer, etc to get me going.

It took 2 calls and 2 computers but it worked out. I got off of the first call around 1:30 or so, maybe later. I was at a standstill because I couldn't find the little ethernet adaptor that goes to Johanna's computer. (Stupid old computers!) After looking for 10 minutes with the tech guy on the phone, I gave up and resigned to calling back later. Within 30 seconds of hanging up, I found the connector. It was late but I had to call back.

Overall, it took longer than it should have...but the tech support was helpful. There was one weird thing though. Here's an example

Tech Support: Okay Sir, let me know when you have connected the computer to the router.
ME: It's connected

- 90 second pause -

TS: Okay sir, let me know when you have connected the computer to the router.
ME: Uh...it's connected.

That happened at least 4 times. He asked me to tell him when something was done, I did, and he asked me again, so I told him again. Weird.

Well, internet problem resolved. It's a happy ending

Customer Service

2006-02-24T00:45:00.000-05:00

So I got on www.slickdeals.net last night for some semi-regular browsing. I have taken advantage of a couple of slickdeals but there is one in particular that I have been waiting for...a wireless router.

I have a pretty good setup on my desktop, but since we have two computers in the house, it would be pretty convenient to have two computers to the internet. So a pretty good deal came up for a router and a PCI card for Johanna's laptop. $30 after rebate for a Wireless G router.

I got home at about 10:45 tonight, spent some time with the birds and got started on the installation. It is now 12:45 and I am on hold with Netgear customer support trying to get some help. I wish I had my camera right now because there is a little sentence on the instruction sheet that I would love for you guys to see...

Estimated completion time: about 20 minutes.

I am going to have to call bull on that one. I have been cranking away at this thing for almost 2 hours. I don't know what the answer is yet but hopefully, they can tell me.

I have searched various forums (which are usually very helpful) but I just can't find anything. Well, I am going to try some reboot cycles while I'm on hold.

-wish me luck

Busy Busy Busy...

2006-02-17T11:10:00.000-05:00

I know I have a lot of posting to catch up on but I don't really have time right now. I have to get ready for the poker tournament I am hosting and I have to get parts to build this. It should only take about 10 minutes to do.

Once I get some time, I can tell you all about the Klein single-speed conversion, my realization that I need a townie bike, my new Mini-Z track, and the lap timer that I built to go with the track and test my setups. There are also impending tweaks to the lap timer once I make my way to RadioShack. Here are some quick preview shots of the lap timer.

Enjoy...

Shot 1
Shot 2
Shot 3
Shot 4
Shot 5

Quick Update on the Running

2006-01-30T13:32:00.000-05:00

So far so good. I am up to 4.5 miles for my longest run. My pace is still pretty slow at about 9:30/mile. If there is one thing I have learned, it's that running alone is boring. It's pretty hard to find someone that runs your pace though.

I am supposed to do 5 this weekend, we'll see how that goes.

Movie Review: The Big Bounce

2006-01-20T14:15:00.000-05:00

I am way overdue for a movie review. I have a bunch of flicks I can report in with my recent memberships to both Netflix and Blockbuster.com. I ended up cancelling Blockbuster because it took over a week to fully cycle a movie.

Before I cancelled Blockbuster...I rented this gem.

I can sum this one up in three short words:

This Movie Sucks.

I was really looking forward to something here. This was written by one of the writers of Be Cool, one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. So I thought I would go back to 2004 and see what this one had to offer. I figured with Owen Wilson and Morgan Freeman (great in Robin Hood) there was a high probability of a decent movie. I was wrong.

The plot never really got going, there was nothing particulary enthralling about the femme fatal Sara Foster (model turned actress) and all of other actors were fairly weak as well.

I guess I never understood what "The Bounce" was all about. Maybe I'll have to read the novel.

I want to hear from my reader

2006-01-18T13:01:00.000-05:00

So, it's that time of year when the entire world makes resolutions and goals. I have never really made formal resolutions or anything like that, but I might give it a shot this year. Now that we are almost three weeks into the new year, some of you may have already forgotten your resolutions or some of you may still be going strong.

I want to hear from all 4 of my readers. What is/are your New Year's Resolution(s). It can be something simple like...update my blog at least once a week...or...deposit checks before they expire...or...something like that.

I don't need all of your resolutions, just one. The conception of the resolution doesn't even have to coincide with the onset of 2006. I just want to know what you guys focus on to make your lives a little better.

I think the hardest part is trying to be realistic. I'll go first...

My resolution for 2006 is to become a little more realistic about the projects that I take on. I have at least 3 projects in my basement that are unfinished, will most likely remain unfinished, are taking up space, and probably wouldn't be very useful even if they were finished.

I will try to be a little more scrutinizing of what I choose to begin.

Lost Lifestyles

2006-01-15T06:49:00.000-05:00

So I have realized that a lot of my life is project driven. I am motivated by all of the (sometimes) crazy ideas that come into my head. Some of them actually pan out and maybe I pick up a new hobby or I create something that is halfway decent. Sadly for every decent idea there's probably at least two that never make it to a completed state, some don't make it past the drawing board. (My New Year's Resolution is to halt the ridiculous projects in the early stages so I don't have a surplus of lumber, PVC and bikes in the basement, but that's another post)

A close cousin to all of the projects that never get finished, I was thinking the other day about all of the hobbies (or skills or lifestyles, yeah...lifestyles) that I just don't have the time or energy or other resources to devote to them. That is the heart of this post. The lives I would live with unlimited time.

Race Car Driver

This isn't really what you think. I don't want to go head to head against a well-trained army of men who get sponsored to drive 200+ miles an hour. I just kind of like to drive fast. I like to drive fast and think about the best lines through corners and how hard I can push my car off of a red light or around an offramp. I am by no means wreckless, maybe just a little aggressive sometimes.

I drive a 2000 Honda Accord LX, with 149hp. It is not very fast or fancy or powerful, but I really do like my car. I have often thought that if I had the resources (time, money, ability) it would be fun to turn my car into a sleeper. Nothing crazy, probably stiffer suspension , alter my computer for more low end torque...Stuff like that. There are definitely auto-cross races where anyone can enter any car, even a stock 2000 4 cylinder Honda Accord. Maybe one day...Maybe.

Master on the Wheels of Steel

I enjoy music, but unfortunately, I don't live music. My preferred genre is Hip-hop and as a result I have daydreamed about spinning records in my basement creating mix-tapes for myself and my friends. Scratching records in clever ways to create percussive rhythms and musical transitions to excite a crowd. I have only ever played a wind instrument but there is something about percussion and syncopated rhythms that get me excited.

I have only met two DJ's in my life. Both encounters were a little disappointing. The first was sometime in college when a friend of a friend had some turntables. He was pretty good and graciously let me take a shot at trying to synch up two beats. It was a sad, sad thing. I thought maybe...just maybe...when I put my fingertips to the vinyl I would reveal some innate talent, an untapped gift. Not so.

My second encounter with a DJ was a family friend, in London. I am not sure but I think he was a professional DJ, that's how he made his living. It was also how he lived his life. Everything he talked about, thought about, read about was music. Mostly Hip-Hop, but he knew who was going to be on who's albums, which producer was creating beats for which R&B artist, who was going to be in Missy's next remix. Basically, he knew as much about music and musicians as most of my friends know about bikes and cyclists...combined.

I guess I just don't have the passion.

Skilled Marksman

Nothing too crazy here. I would like to know how to use a firearm with great precision. Handgun, rifle, it doesn't really matter. I don't actually want to own a gun, just be a really good shot. It would probably take a lot of practice before I knew what my actual potential could be. I don't want to practice I just want to be good.

So let's hear from you guys. What would you do/be if you had the time/money/energy to incorporate a new lifestyle. If every day were a Saturday and your debit card never ran dry, what would you do when you got out of bed?

2006-01-04T14:56:00.000-05:00

When you get a chance check out Reef's latest post. He references a topic that I was going to discuss a while ago. I found a similar article back in August but the comments never made it past the draft phase.

There's a New Blog in Town

2006-01-02T17:55:00.000-05:00

Like that's some sort of news! There's probably a new Blog every 30 seconds or so. I'll bet everytime a person is kidnapped in South America, one Blog is created.

Anyway, Johanna has been very busy knitting in her spare time for the last six months. As a project person I always think of how great it would be to be able to document all of my endeavors. With that in mind I setup a Blog for Johanna.

If you see something you like, leave a comment, I am sure she'll be glad to see someone stopped by. She's been pretty busy lately, just look at the data/time stamp on the posts. I think she still has more projects to post, after that I imagine the updates will slow down a little bit.

Should I build a new Desktop?

2006-01-01T11:27:00.000-05:00

I have got way too many projects running through my head but I am seriously considering one more. This one is going to go on the list of low-priority projects (which means it may never get done) but I want to build a new PC. I recently reformatted my current machine (a four-year old Dell) and it's been running quite well, but I will probably be ready for a new one soon. I don't know exactly what I want but I have a couple of requirements.

I have to be able to easily edit video and audio files in case I ever get a podcast or video podcast off the ground.
It has to be able to run current video games. This should be pretty easy with a decent video card and seperate sound card. I am not a huge gamer but I would like to be able to take advantage of what's available.
If anyone has any input (Intel vs. Athlon, PCI vs. AGP, etc) I would be interested to hear it. Chances are I will start poking around newEgg.com when I have a couple of spare moments.

Just to give you an idea of what I would be adding to here are my current projects loosly grouped by priority/time frame.

Short Term (High Priority) Projects

Remodeling the Bathroom
Organizing Mountain Bike Races
Setting up a Mini-Z Race Series
"StoryCorps" Type Audio Documentations
Charlottesville PodCast

Long Term (Low Priority) Projects

Building a new computer
Revamp my Webpage (maybe register a new URL)
Setup a home wireless network (just need a really cheap router)
Build a playground for my cockatiels
Update www.gistclan.com

Potential (May Never Happen) Projects

Fixed gear road bike (that would be bike number 5!)

Currently, the only projects that I am actuall working on are the first three ST projects. Actually maybe just the first and third. Once the bathroom is done, you will get all of the details.

I Have Started Running

2005-12-29T18:34:00.000-05:00

The title of the post pretty much says it all. Why have I started? I really don't know for sure. I have a couple of potential reasons.

It's too cold to ride
I think I could be a kick ass runner
Riding the trainer is a fate worse than death
I want to keep some fitness so I can crush my friends when it's time to ride again
I feel guilty about eating and eating and eating
I don't think I will ever reach my arbitrary weight goal of 172 without some sort of cross training
I am a little burned out on riding right now

I think all of these reasons probably all play a little part in why I decided to go out and buy a pair of running shoes. I have always known that if I want to reach the fitness triumvirate of fast-strong-light I have got to take some proactive measures.

I have always thought about running because it's much quicker than riding and you can get a hell of a workout. I am still in the super-low mileage phase in an effort to keep the risk of injury down, but I am also not riding very much. I can't keep it up for too long because basically all of my friends ride. Just yesterday four people said directly to me...

"Hey do you want to go for a ride...(insert day and place here)"

I am not going to be able to keep up the excuses for long.

They say the hardest time for a new hobby/exercise/activity is the beginning. If you can do it for 3 weeks (or something like that) you can make it a habit. At this point it's been almost three weeks, I'll let you know if I feel anything special.

I think I need to beef it up a bit

2005-12-29T18:00:00.000-05:00

So I think some of my latest posts have been a little weak. At very least they have been too infrequent to provide any sort of consistent entertainment. As a result I fear that I will lose my consistent viewer base of 4-5 people.

So, I am recommited to WLAM. Mark my words, there will be more movie reviews, personal updates and progress reports for on-going projects.

-Peace

Long Live Long Rides

2005-11-21T09:21:00.000-05:00

Categorie(s): Bikes

The title of my post is actually the motto of IMBA the International Mountain Biking Association. I guess it's appropriate because the ride that I did several weeks ago is designated as an "IMBA Epic". The IMBA Epic rides are a collection of 32 rides mostly in the US that are "the reason why we ride". I have actually done two of these rides so far and I am within a day's drive of four others.

Johanna, fenton and I set out to do the Southern Traverse just before the temperature and all of the leaves dropped. Well, we didn't quite make it before the leaves but the weather was awesome.

I got a bunch of pics that day and a couple of movies. If you want to see me clean a huge log with great finesse, check out MOV0018. There are a couple of other attempts filmed as well. That might help give an idea how difficult it was.

Click here for the album

5 Words

2005-11-21T09:13:00.000-05:00

Categorie(s): Misc

I was sitting around the house the other day watching TV, an activity I seem to be doing more of lately, when I had a thought. Are there 5 words that one could come up with to describe the last 5-10 years? By default, this would have to describe the last five years in America because I am just not worldly enough to do otherwise.

I know this is a really vague question but give it some thought and see if you can come up with anything. Imaging it's 2020 and you are hanging out with your old buddies from the 00's and you are discussing topics of the past. What topics would come up?

I have some starters...

Reality Television
9-11
iPods

What do you think? Leave a comment.