Friday, February 27, 2009
Ohhhhhhh what a beautifull morning....
The ride to work was wonderful, so wonderful in fact that I took a little extra time and went the long way into work, My legs felt good, I could breath for 30 min, there was little to no traffic on the road. Perfect.
The ride home is not looking so good. Cause well when I look out my 4th floor corner office window. (yea I know, but sometimes I just have to sit back and wonder if they know they hired ME?) So when I look out my 4th floor corner office window (just wanted to make sure you did not miss that part ;) ) its raining, really raining, like raining sideways raining.
The I think to my self,
ahhhha!
I have a rain coat.
Sheep Shit!
Its at home.
On two sides notes,
1) Meilssa and I are going to look at a house on Saturday, Im very excited, it may be one of the first ones that we have looked at that may acutely meet our needs. And its right behind the bike shop.
2) We are holding a team building event at the troges brewery this weekend. (sweet)
Monday, February 23, 2009
Goose/Geese Flop...
CLOSE YOU'RE MOUTH!
This sounds like such a simple statement. Lets discuss the facts.
Needed:
1) A Goose, or better yet all the Geese in your state.
2) Food for Goose or Geese.
3) Bike path in Harrisburg where said Goose/Geese like to poop.
4) Bike Commuter - This part will be played by yours truly.
5) A bike. (It really is quite difficult to commute by bike with out said bike)
Allow me to paint you a picture, something in a nice neon goose poop green.
I don't feel well today, sore throat, sinus pressure all over feeling like it would be a good day for
a triple shot of "Nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, don't operate heavy machinery, take your ass back to bed and try again medicine" But, alas I could not take the day off, things to do, meeting to attend. I could also not drive to work, no money in the family budget for parking. You know what that means, dressed up like the Michelin man goes the artist out the door I went.
OK its cold here, really cold, so for the first part of the ride I am full face cover and fogging up the glasses.
On a side note: I am thinking about getting a pair of Over the Glasses Motorcycle goggles to help stem the tide of snow and rain getting into my eyes while ridding. This is the pair I am kicking around getting.
Back to the Goose poop.
So it seems that the local Goose union, Fin and Feather 408 had a meeting last evening in the middle of the bike trail as to what color of poop they are going with for the spring. Now I don't know how much poop it will take for them to figure this seemingly critical question out, but I know how much they are going to use.
The bike path looked like a poster at a Jimmy Hendrix concert. While trying to navigate this lime green mine field, my front tire caught a goose nugget and began to slide, and I spoke out loud what seemed like a very appropriate phrase at the time, "CRAP". At that very instant a part of the extremely slippery feather nugget launched from the left side of my tire and caught me square in the front teeth at about the letter A in crAp.
Well that was an interesting flavor. I am now drinking lots of coffee and for the first time in a long time a power gel tasted really good.
Moral of the story.
1)Don't leave home with out your water bottle!
2)Always, and I can't stress this enough, ALWAYS keep your month closed when in a goose poop mine field.
Tech news...
Fortune Top 100 to work for...
#86 Microsoft.
Ahhh, well yea, maybe they should rethink this one. So here is Microsoft did in the their infinite wisdom. As many of you know they laid off 1,00 people. Was nice about the hole thing and gave them a severance package on the way out.
Then, and get this one. They sent out a letter asking each of the Severed employees for part of IT BACK!!!!!
Now I can't read through the black outs, but that figure looks to be fairly large. I wounder if they used Vista to calculate the severance amounts?
Give a man a camcorder and...
You will get crappy moves for a year, give that camcorder to a Otter and you'll get a nice big fine.
This is so funny in so many different ways I don't know where to start.
Whats next, Beavers placing orders at Lowe's. I'm really in trouble when the cat learns how to use the computer. Cat Porn??? (So wrong)
Pet of the Day...
If my cat ever figures this out cows everywhere are in serious trouble.
Why helmets don't suck...
Let this be a lesson, Road bikes should not be used to cross streams, creaks, rivers or any other body of water larger then a puddle.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Has anyone seen my feet,...
I would like to recap my morning, it has been while since this has been done, and somethings have changed since then.
5:45am - Beatrix (cat) believes that this is the time she should be feed, and will stand on my chest pawing me and purring.
5:47am - With my morning massage over, I put the cat on Melissa and watch the games begin.
5:48am - Back to sleep, for that blissful last 45 min.
6:30am - BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP SMACK!!!
6:35am - BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, crash, cry, meowwwwww.,...... WTF
6:36am - After hearing something crashing down the steps, I'm up out of bed, home protection system in hand and into the hall way to find.
Maggie, and Beatrix sitting at the top to the steps, Beatrix has doubled in size due to fur fluffing out, and Ozzy at the button of the steps trapped once of Melissa's hand bags that used to be at the top of the steps. As I come around the corner both Maggie and Beatrix give me a quizzical look of "Not us" and promptly leave the scene of the crime. While I'm still tired, holding a firearm and, well only waring a pair of boxers I opted to have this conversation latter. After extracting Ozzy from the bag, and getting to enjoy scared kitten with claws trying to climb over my shoulder I decided that now might be a good time to go back up stairs.
6:38am - I turn the alarm clock off, and head to the bathroom
6:42am - Done with the morning necessities, I slide on a pair of bike shorts and a my cold weather base layers and head to the kitchen.
6:43am - Slice a muffin, cut ham, and cheese, toast muffing, heat ham and cheese, wrap everything up in a paper towel and place in a plastic bag. Grab lunch from the fridge,,,, OHHHH Salmon cakes. Place everything in the bag and head up to get finished changing.
6:50am - While trying to figure out why I don't make coffee in the morning any more, I slip on a paid of flease lined wind Resistance tights, and then a pair of nylon short. Finish out my top base layers with two more shirts, and zip up flease and a wind breaker. Its freaking cold out today so its heavy shocks with bike socks under.
6:55am - Back down stairs, put on gloves, and balaclava, go up and kiss Melissa good by for the day, and out the door I go. Looking like the Stay Puff uni-bomber.
6:56am - In the truck, WOW cold seat. and Drive to Dave's house.
7:10am - Load up the bike, hop one and off to work.
7:25am - I can't feel my feet. Did the sign at the bank says it was 10!!!!! WTH am I doing on a bike when its 10 out side.
In other news...
AV310 Wide screen...
For $249.00 you too can look like a member of sci-fi. Personal on-the-go video, its supposed to give you a virtual 52 foot screen as if you are 9-feet away. I'm really not sure why I'm so repulsed and intreagued at the same time. It might have something to do with the Male models sence of smugness, or the fact that I have NEVER seen WHITE airline seats. All of a sudden I'm getting creeped out, Did all the airlines seats start out as white at one point??? ewwwwwww
Hu?
Its a bear sleeping bag.
Anyone else want to take this one for me. I just can't bring my self to do it. No, ok then here goes.
Its a bear sleeping bag, I don't know about the rest of you, but I never, NEVER want to see a bears soft pallet from the inside. Its on my list of things to never do,
1) Jump out of a perficaly good air plane.
2) Jump out of a air plane that has at least a 75% change of getting to the ground.
3) Get eaten by bear. <---
3a) Bungee Jump.
4) Fall on a cactus naked.
5) Get a Snake bite while pooping in the woods.
Can you even imagine what might happen if your camp site was crashed by a real bear and you were wearing this???
Why hello Mr Bond...
$300.00 dollars, 2.5 hours of video. and you to can record video with the Third eye Video camera.
Only question, WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO?
Keep that phone away from you...
Battery truth. Heat and cold are bad. Battery University reports that if you want to keep you cell phone battery charged longer you should keep it cool. And from what they are telling us, 98.8 degrees is not COOL. So no more storing your cell phone in your underwear. And for goodness sakes take it off vibrate.
Daddy Like...
The worlds smallest spot welder. Came from the Italian Site Modellismo Hobby Media (Via MAKE) Its the WELMA 2000, its uses 2500 A to spot weld steal wire. It will sell for about $157 in the US, not sure when but it will be added to my shop.
Straight from Gismodo...
Bored of Windows XP and antsy for Windows 7? With a couple of quick downloads you can get the look and feel of Microsoft's next OS, no clean install necessary.
Niwradsoft Seven Remix XP is a free download that transforms the entire look of your OS to be all-around 7-like. You get boot screens, logon screens, screensaver, system theme, and loads of hacked resource files.
I know they look like links but there not.
And with out any further,, well you know...
Why Helmets don't suck...
That probably felt exactly how you think it does.
Pet of the day..
I think we have all had this day. I'm thinking about having one of thouse days today. But I must say, I like the cats choice of vodkas.Wednesday, February 18, 2009
No school like the old school...
Today on my ride in I was feeling really well, Legs were working, bike was flying (15mph avg) and all was well with the world. Then I felt old, I got passed. I mean PASSED!!! Destroyed, flew by like I was standing still, hell it was like I was sitting down.
I got back on his wheal a little while latter, he was at a red light, but I was back on his wheal. So I figured I could at least stay with him for a block or two.
Him: Trek Madone something. Painers, no back pack.
Me: Fisher Replacement frame, Painers, laptop, back pack.
Light turns green, off we go.
I have no idea where he went, but I can't see him anymore.
There was no way, none, nada, nill, nie, zip, zero, positivity no way I was going to keep up with this guy. I mean he was fast, fast like when he stood up to drop me, you could hear his tires strain on the road with every down stroke.
Oh well, back to being me, slow and pokey but me.
In other news...
I'm waiting on an email that I hope comes today, it could be life changing in a very good way. I don't want to talk about it just yet. More as things develop.
Geek News...
There is far to much going on in my world of work today for there to be geek news.
Sorry, check back latter for updates.
Pet of the Day...
Don't eat the talk show host!!!!!
Why Helmets don't suck...
Let this be a lesson to all you race fans that think its cool to run aside a rider trying to go up hill as fast as they can.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Safty Tip...
When stopping for the night, and you shift down to ensure a easy role out in the morning, make very sure that you take a couple of turns on the cranks before hopping off.
This morning I clipped in on the right foot, and pressed down to pull out into traffic, when BANG my foot came rocketing out of the clip, smashing my foot into the ground and then allowing my calf to get racked by the peddle. Ahhhh nothing like bleeding on new bike socks.
Other then that I'm really, really, REALLY ready for the weekend. My legs are tired, the wind still sucks and I could use a break.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Oh what a beautifull morning.....
OK that last part is a bit bull, I had WAY!!! to much stuff in the bags, but other wise all was well in the world.
A note on the post from last week...
Last week we talked about making your own egg muffin sandwiches at home. In that post I put a link to www.foodtv.com, to a Alton Brown recipe for making your own English muffins. Well this weekend I made my own english muffins by that recipe. They are a pain in the but to make, but this mornings breakfast, WOW. I was like having a egg sandwich on really good and soft sour dought. I would highly recommend.
In door air quality...
Happy Birthday...
Now before you all run off and look at your facebook accounts to see whos birthday you missed, I'll give you a hint. 10,000 leagus under the sea, Voyage to the center of the earth.
Answer: Jules Verne
Aka: One of the reasons I started reading book for fun as a kid.
Except from the Make:Blog
Today is Jules Verne's birthday. Verne was born in Nantes, France on February 8, 1828 and died on March 24, 1905. Along with H.G. Wells, his work gave birth to the science fiction genre. One of the things Verne pioneered, and much of the sci-fi to follow has emulated, was writing about the fantastic upon a foundation of real science and engineering. I remember, when reading his works as a kid, marveling at how possible he made these adventures sound, to the moon, through the oceans, and to the center of the earth. Sure, a lot of it was pure fantasy and scientifically unsound (e.g. firing men to the moon in the barrel of a giant gun) but there was always enough reality behind it, and enough imaginative speculation, to fire ones imagination. And like a lot of sci-fi after him, Verne inspired generations of engineers, scientists, and garage makers to try and turn his fantasies into reality. And, of course, there's the whole genre of steampunk, which likely wouldn't exist without Jules Verne. So Happy Birthday, Jules, from the entire maker community.
Why Helmets don't Suck!...
Bet his mom once told him to not do anything "Stupid"
Cut pet of the day...
Are they??? NO it can't be, wait, damm it is. What an idiot!
Friday, February 6, 2009
Tomarrow its suposed to get up to 4!!!!!
Funny story from my friend Joe H.
7.8 mph. Cold weather caused me to be slow this morning. Funny thing happened, I am pedaling along, and realize I'm just not going to be able to keep my glasses free of fog, and my face covered. Choosing the lesser of two evils, I ditched the goggles, and kept pedaling. This however had an interesting effect, the warmth from my exhalations was doing a fine job of keeping my eyes warm! Brilliant! Well, except for one thing, those same exhalations are filled with moisture, while this would normally not be a big deal, at 12 degrees it caused my eyelashes to start to freeze. But wait, it gets better! I didn't realize that this was going on till I decided to do something we all do several times a min, blink. Yes, you guess it, I blinked, and my eyelashes stuck together. Talk about an odd sensation! I was like Whoa! Why can't I open my eyes?
Needless to say, I figured it out and got them open. Just a funny little story to start your day!
And the geek in my likes my hot pocket buying power...
Glass Pool Table...
No jump shots please. Only one question on this one, 98 percent of all the cool stuff I learned in collage is on a pool table. And a very large % of it has to do with friction between the ball and the FELT! See any issue here,,,,,,, NO FELT!!!!!!!! Well at least my cat will be able to sit under it and go completely insane.
OK, I'm a dork...
The wife has told me, I have seen the signs, but I think this clinched it. I would so wear these. $22 for a set of Millennium Falcon Cuff links.
Sam I am...
I want this shirt, it's 20 dollars,
I want the boys to gimme hollers.
It's four bucks more for a woman's fit,
But Sam, I don't really give a shit—
Cause when I wear it I'll be geeky cute,
Oh, Sam, I sure hope the boys will hoot!
I do not want 3 Megs of Ram!
I do not want them, Sam I am!
Potty Training...
I'm speechless.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Laserpup...
I can see the dog now, you walk in the house and the dog comes running up to you.
I saved the house from invaders!!!! The little red dot did not get anything!!!! TELL me I'm a good dog, plessssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!
http://www.makershed.com/...
A new web site has come to our attention, Makershed.com Full of DIY projects and the materials to do them your self.
Dogs vs cats...
There seems to be some debate as to why you can dress a dog up in a costume, while cats are less supportive in wearing Halloween items.
To help clear this up, I have enlisted two pets on the street to prove my point.
Clancy - "I know, this is adorable, now pet me behind the ear, and give me that hot dog your kid is eating"
Nigel - "I would recommend that you don't fall asleep tonight, case I will KILL YOU!"
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Burrrrr, chitty bang, bang.....
I have had to change my ride in to account for a lack of snow/ice removal from the local bike paths. Its a nice little ride that puts me more in city streets then bike paths, but for the most part I can navigate my way to less used streets.
It's a nice ride, nice and flat.. with the exception of two pain in my but hills.
Strange event at our house last night, well not really strange but interesting never the less.
When I got home, Melissa was not feeling well, so I ran down to the store and got stuff for grilled cheese, a slush, some chocolate, and a bag of twizzlers. This morning when I came downstairs there were twizzlers spread all across the room. I did not know cats ate Twizzlers????
Ride numbers since last update:
Moving Time: 1:06
Moving Avg: 8.3
Stopped: 22:41
Over all Avg: 6.2
ODO: 9.21 mil
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Suckie, da Suck, Sucks, Suckis...
Snow is fun, I still have found memories of snow from my child hood. When it snows my wife and I are more apt to snuggle on the couch, sleep in or cook something wonderful.
But ice is the devil!
I submit my evidance, the Ice Devil, don't belive me, Google it -->
If you are not in the northeast, allow me to draw you a picture.
It snowed here last week,
then it rained,
then it snowed a little,
then it got warm,
then it froze.
Then some slack jawed nuckledragger drove down the bike paths around the city of Harrisburg. Typically this is a good, it creates lanes you can ride in when the snow is deep, and helps things melt, when its ice on the other hand, WOW that was sporty.
My front tire was chasing anything path it could find, my back was just trying to keep up, and most of the time doing it badly. After about 15 min of that seat clenching fun, I broke out of the path and decided to try ridding in the snow/ice mix.
Yea that was dumb, I have created a small diagram to describe the problems.
Position 1:
Your riding along on TOP of the ice layer, its kind of like when you were a kid and just heavy enough to break through, you know your going to bust in, its just a matter of when.
Position 2:
OUFFFFFFF, you break through, now this is a dramatic and extremly exciting moment in cycling, its the moment when your back wheal is going much faster then your front wheal.
Position 3:
You have now peddled your back side off in a hope to stay upright, your back wheal may or may not have fallen into the same path as the front at this point. Now that you have plowed you want along for a few feet, there is enough of an ice damm built up in front of your tire that you are thrown rather violently back up on top the ice layer, to start all of this over again.
To your legs this is like ridding up hill on chunky goose pop. You cant stop peddling or you will stop, the faster you go, its almost better. You can hold a batter line when you have a little bit of speed. BUT you cant clip in for the impending fear that you will be thrown from you bike for an impact with the ground that would make the plane landing in the Hudson seem "Peaceful"
Added Problems...
1. I tuned my bike last night, and as a part of that I put on two newish tires.
A. Front Tire: Studded Snow Tire - Friction Coefficient equal to a cinder block.
B. Read Tire: A real mountain bike tire - Friction Coefficient equal to a rounded off cinder block.
Don't get me wrong, that studded snow tire ROCKS on ice, snow, slush, or that crappy gravel along the side of the road. Dave H. is the man of the week for letting me borrow it, but its heavy, I mean really heavy, the only nice thing about all of that weight is once you get it rolling it does not want to slow down. You have to love conservation of momentum.
The rear tire has never been on this frame in the back before, and now I know that it will never be again. It runs fine, till you stand up to peddle, then on every other stroke as the bike is landed over, it hits on the chain stay. CRAP!
The crazy thing is that when ridding the bike seated, there is no problem. No rubbing what so ever, seems that the back tire flexes quite a bit when you stand and peddle.
2. The lock out on my Monute axle front shocks lock out mechanism has decided to call into work sick. Most of the time I was far to worried about getting flung from the bike like a ground hog in a trebuchet to notice. Till I this a hill, stand up, peddle, and BOING, BOING, BOING. After looking into a home fix, and replacing the lock out cylinder. Both either cant be done, or cost just about as much as the fork its self. It seems that I'm just going to have to deal with it.
Other then that I got to work just fine...
Days Tech...
Thank goodness, finally a way to cut a pizza...
How is this really a problem? I would love to know the number of people that MAKE their own pizza at home. I mean, you really should make your own pizza, its easy, will taste better, LOTS better, and you can control the nutritional set up. But really, other then frozen mega mart cardboard with cheese, aide from those that either have a pizza stone, or a couple of yard pavers in the oven needs a pizza cutter, let along an electronic pizza cutter.
US is the best at wind...
That's right boys and girls, the good old US is at the top of the chart when it comes to wind power. As a country we produced 25GW of power by wind last year making up 42% of the US's total new power-producing capacity in 2008.
Google Latitude...
Put in your friends and find them on Google maps on your cell phone in REAL TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!
From Gizmodo:
Laptops and cellphones (when not using GPS) can locate to a fair level of accuracy using geotagged Wi-Fi and cellular tower points in a database that Google's collected on its own, perhaps while doing Streetview photography. Or you can set your location manually. Google told me that there's no set standard for how often the map updates your location. Rather, they have an algorithm that depends on how often the device has moved, historically, and how much battery your device has left. You can also sign out of the service entirely, and set per user preferences on whether or not certain friends can see your location at all, or if only on city-levels of accuracy.
Why helmets don't suck...
Today I almost had a real live version of why helmets don't suck, as I was ridding down a street to avoid more of the for mentioned bike trails, a car was pulling out onto the street I was on. As they gunned the gas to pull out in front the of the car that was about to pass me they decided better on it and locked up the breaks. SCREEEECCCCHHHHHHH. Luckily they stopped with plenty of room for me and the passing car to get by.
Cute pet of the day...
I have made it very clear in the past that I dislike pet costumes, but this is funny.