Wed, 25 Jan 2006

I played my first game of horseshoes a couple weeks ago.
I do have some recollection of throwing horseshoes around in the past, but this was the first time I have played with regulation horseshoes and stakes and poles. And with people who know the rules. It was fun, but not pulse-pounding, heart-racing fun. It was me and Rob, versus Jason and Jason's cousin. We lost all three games. Oh, and just ignore that finger over the lens in the third photo.

posted at: 07:21 | permalink | 100 comments

Tue, 24 Jan 2006

I put the rigid fork on my bike last nigh.
It's a Kona Project 2, previously described here. I only ride the bike on the road, so I thought I'd replace the suspension fork with a rigid one, in the interests of lighter weight and more precise steering. I bought the Kona because it's suspension-corrected, meaning that it's taller than usual, so it will be the same height as the suspension fork it's replacing. When I actually measured it, though, the Kona turned out to still be about an inch shorter than the Manitou suspension fork it's replacing. That means the handlebars will be about an inch lower, and the steering angle will be a little quicker. Anyway, I did the swap pretty easily, and found that the bike fits just fine. If anything, it seems to be more comfortable, which is odd. I just did a quick test ride around the block, but I think the bike is ready to ride to Wednesday's hash, which is located close by. The next change is to install the 53/39 road crankset I got off eBay recently. Oh, the old fork weighs 1454 grams, as opposed to the 792 grams of the new one. And that's before I cut a couple inches off the steerer of the new one. So that means I dropped 662 grams, or more than 1 lb 7 oz from the bike. Not bad.

posted at: 07:18 | permalink | 47 comments

Mon, 23 Jan 2006

Chris got me a plate for the scooter.
He got it a few months ago, and just handed it over on Wednesday. Since the scooter is out in his shop I haven't decided what to do with the plate yet. It's from Vermont, but that doesn't give me any ideas. Maybe it would look good on my mountain bike. Or on the chopper, once that is on the road.

posted at: 07:28 | permalink | 16 comments

Sun, 22 Jan 2006

Linda and I met Sheldon and Rasheeda (sp?) at Elwoods on Saturday night.
I don't think I've been to Elwoods since around 1993. I amused myself by taking pictures using the candle as lighting. Rasheeda was pretty impressive. She's six feet tall and has a cool Dutch accent. Linda seemed to hit it off with her. They were laughing about something all night long while Sheldon and I discussed important things like football. Then we went to Bru's Room.

posted at: 21:09 | permalink | 12 comments

I ran the Race for the Cure yesterday, in 27:05.
That's a pretty good time for me, but there's still lots of room for improvement. The event was really big and well-organized. I rode my bike down there, and pulled up at the bicycle valet area, run by the Safe Bicycling Coalition. They parked my bike and gave me a claim check, and I tipped them a buck. The amphitheater was already filling up. I saw Tim there. He said he was going to walk.

I picked up my ChampionChip and ambled over toward the starting line, where I ran into Bill, who I hadn't seen since Steve and Margey's wedding. And CA, and a bunch of other hashers. There was a whole bunch of other runners there as well.

The race itself was uneventful. I did grab a cup of water, but I didn't stop. I varied between an 8:00-9:00 minute pace. I think with more training I can cut my time significantly. There were spectators and cheering throngs everywhere. There was a group of hashers near the finish line, including Linda.

The finish line group wandered up onto the side of the amphitheater for some post-race beers and bagels. We watched the walkers leave for their event, and graded their technique. Drib was there, and his little dog, too. The little guy was content to ride in a bag for while, but eventually he insisted on being on the ground. Eventually we broke up and went home, but not before making plans to see Sunday's playoff games. Oh, and on the way home my bike tried to kill me, but I think I mentioned that already.

posted at: 11:37 | permalink | 100 comments

Sat, 21 Jan 2006

My bike tried to kill me today.
Or at least it tried to stick my seatpost up my butt. I was riding back from the race, just riding along®, when suddenly the seat fell off the post. I stopped safely and looked at, and the seat was just hanging loose, held on only by the straps of the under-seat bag. I found that the clamp bolt had broken, failing in tension. It was obviously related to the events of last week, when I asked the mechanic at the LBS to tighten in, and he really had to crank down on it. It had been tough to tighten before, so I don't think it was their fault. I replaced it with a $10 post from the LBS. I didn't think to weigh it before I installed it, so I don't know if I gained or lost weight. The replacement post was longer, and felt heavier, and wasn't a name brand like the Kore that failed, so I suspect my bike is heavier now. I'll have to find something light on eBay.

posted at: 14:38 | permalink | 100 comments

Fri, 20 Jan 2006

Does anybody recognize this Aston-Martin?
I was driving home the other day and almost plowed into the back of it. Then I realized it was probably worth more than my house, so I tried to be a little more careful, and give him some room.

It was rush hour, and he was in the wrong lane, so I was able to change lanes and try to get some pictures. I couldn't see any badges or nameplates, so all I know is that it was an Aston Martin of some sort.

Then I saw that up ahead there was a Ferrari. Just chugging along in rush hour traffic. I assume he was with the Aston Martin, but they didn't seem to be trying to stick together. I couldn't get close enough to identify him, either.

posted at: 07:14 | permalink | 30 comments

Thu, 19 Jan 2006

We went to Linda's art show tonight.
It was down in Delray. It's the annual art teacher's exhibit. This year she had four pieces on display. The exhibit is in an old schoolhouse that is now a museum. The oval piece is a ceramic piece that she glazed to look like a landscape. And the piece in the third photo is called "Ticking Clock".

The crab is a watercolor by another art teacher. I like it. The pieces in the second picture didn't come out too well, but one is a digital photo, and the other is a collection of boxes. The third photo got washed out by the camera phone flash, but it's Linda pointing the those two pieces. And the fourth shot is Linda explaining that the brown sign is not an ironic statement, but is actually the sign for the ladies' room.

When we got home I rode my bike down to Clematis, and saw a bunch of hashers there. Here's GH and SN. They seem to be at the optimal distance for the flash.

posted at: 22:35 | permalink | 100 comments

What great turnout for PC's run last night.
There were thirty people there, maybe more. Lots of people we hadn't seen in a while. The hash forum had been active with various trail predictions. I think that Yeast and DBK were closest, with me third, and CA not even close. Below is my prediction, and the trail I actually ran. Note that I don't say the actual trail, as I probably spent more than 50% of the distance ranging around looking for trail.

I remembered to bring my camera phone flash, so I was annoying everyone by taking pictures. Here's Stinky in a pictures that's illuminated a little too well, as opposed to the last picture I took of here, where I lit her up with a flashlight. Spin came out for the first time in long time, and Grandmaster CA was jamming to his own private tunes.

Princess showed up in her new Hummer H2. It's big. Really, really big. It's a land behemoth. It's big. Also pictured: your hare, PC. The run started in front of PC's warehouse. Two doors down a band was playing, so after the run a couple of us heard a Sublime tune, and walked on down to watch.

Mr. Bush and HayRideMe had brought yet another virgin from their (hopefully) endless supply. Christine wasn't completely sure about the hash, but she did a good down-down. No joke, song, or body part, though.

Patch and Retracted did a down-down as we chanted "one if by land, two if by sea". Ha Ha. And then the band came out for down-downs. Three of them put their beers down fast, but the fourth one just couldn't do it. I think he was the drummer.

Dribble arrived late, in a van nearly the size of Princess' Hummer. Nobody gave him a hard time about wearing a shirt that looked like it was from the Cuban national bowling team.

posted at: 07:24 | permalink | 20 comments

Mon, 16 Jan 2006

I was in the Boar's Head Festival last weekend.
It's Bethesda's annual medieval festival. Most of the parish turns out to appear in it. This year the church decided to tape ther performance and make a DVD. I thought it would be a couple people with cameras, but it turned out to be a crew of four. There was a boom camera, a camera on a tripod, a guy walking around with a camera, and a line editor / director at the back of the church.

The guest of honor is a large boar's head. The story goes that this was actually shot in the north end of Palm Beach by one of the Cluetts. You can see the bullet hole if you look carefully (not in this photo).

The rehearsal was Saturday morning. Most of the participants have been in the production before, so it was mostly a matter of working out details. This year introduced a (fake) (life-size) camel.

The sunday school classrooms double as changing rooms. There are some hard-working volunteers who keep the costumes in order. The Palm Beach Pipes and Drums have provided the bagpipe music since the first festival, back in 1978.

My dad's friend Jim appeared as one of the lords this year. He took my photo out in the courtyard. It was my second year as the student. The student is the person who kills the boar, but not during the production. The story is that student was out reading his Aristotle in the forest, when he was attacked by the boar. He killed the boar by stuffing the book down the boar's throat. During the procession and recession I get the wave the book around and point at the boar to reinforce the fact that it was me who killed the boar.

posted at: 07:03 | permalink | 17 comments

Sun, 15 Jan 2006

Here's my trash for the 1/15 bike hash:

  9:30:    Look over bike, lube chain, pump up tires, adjust brakes
  9:45:    Load bike onto car, stop by Kwiki-Mart for a Red Bull
10:00:    Get on I-95 at exit 69, traffic is stopped as far as the eye can see
10:10:    Screaming match between landscaping truck and Caddy driver who are fighting over who gets to merge first
10:20:    Insane Harley rider almost killed while splitting lanes
10:30:    Get off I-95 at exit 66 and go home

I hope you all had fun.

posted at: 11:43 | permalink | 20 comments

Fri, 13 Jan 2006

I saw a good looking Scout II yesterday.
I've always liked the International Harvester Scouts. I even looked on eBay last night. There were a couple not too far away, and for $3K - $4K. But every time I start thinking seriously about one, I remember the facts: no A/C, no fuel injection, only two doors, and they are at least 25 years old. I like my Cherokee.

posted at: 07:35 | permalink | 20 comments

Thu, 12 Jan 2006

Linda successfully avoided the booby trap in the bathroom.
I saw a lightstick trip flare on eBay recently. This seems to be the modern version of the old army trip flares. Those were simple devices you would put around the perimeter to secure the area. You nail the trip flare to a tree, and run a string from the trip flare across a possible avenue of approach, and tie off the string to another tree. When the incoming bad guy bumps into the string, the device fires the flare up in the air to let you know that someone is out there. This version simply replaces the pyrotechnic flare with a lightstick. It's a simple stamped steel device. It comes complete with string, one lightstick, and staples and wire to secure it a tree.

So I had to try it out. Late last night I taped it under the bathroom sink, and ran the string to the bathroom door handle. This morning it was still unfired! I asked Linda about it, and she said that she had felt some resistance when she began to open the bathroom door, and had stopped. Then she saw the string. So she disarmed it. I was impressed. I think she is booby-trap-proof. Maybe I can put some out in the yard to scare off the neighborhood kids. And those cats.

posted at: 07:28 | permalink | 100 comments

Wed, 11 Jan 2006

The house painting effort is well under way.
I posted here previously about building (okay, assembling) a shed in the backyard to hold all of the stuff previously in the carport. Part of the impetus for the shed was so we could paint the house. Actually, my dad's worker Jim is painting the house. He's slow, but he's cheap. He's been on it for 68 hours now, and he's mostly done. The only thing remaining is some of the trim, and some touchup work. About 15%. Unfortunately Jim gets really slow when he's not supervised. Either Linda and/or I were home until last Friday, and we could keep an eye on him. His production over the last two days had been pretty poor. I think we're going to let him go, and finish it ourselves over the weekend. I'd really rather pay him to do it, but I don't want to pay him to not do it. If that makes any sense.

Here's a shot of the color sample. We settled on Sundrenched, which is the one on the bottom. I'll post pictures of the house later.

posted at: 07:17 | permalink | 43 comments

Tue, 10 Jan 2006

I was out drinking with Sheldon last Friday.
We went to Margarita's, which is this little place in downtown Lake Worth that I somehow had never noticed before. So we had a few beers there, and a few beers at some other places. He filled me in on everything that's been happening at my former employer (it's his current employer, so I'm not naming names). He did say he'd put this URL up on his whiteboard, so I expect to see lots of hits from the [previous employer] domain in my web logs.

Okay, the picture's a little dark, but I'm sure you can make it out. I forgot to take my new camera phone flash attachment.

posted at: 07:18 | permalink | 2 comments

Mon, 09 Jan 2006

I found a 1925 map of my neighborhood.
I was in the stacks of the city library, and I noticed a couple really big (like 2' x 2' ) old books. I started flipping through them, and they were some kind of city document from 1925. I kept looking, and sure enough, my neighborhood was in there. I only live a mile or so from downtown, so I wasn't surprised. Interstate I-95 is about a quarter-mile west of my house, so it was interesting to see what the streets used to look like there. It really cut a swath through the neighborhood.

My house is located right where my finger is pointing. The build date on the property appraiser's web site is 1929, so obviously it wasn't there yet.

posted at: 07:21 | permalink | 100 comments

Sun, 08 Jan 2006

Here's an artist's rendering of the proposed chopper modifications.
Essentially we are going to expand the triangular frame of the bike so it will fit a normal-sized adult. This will require cutting each side of the triangle, and welding in a piece of tubing. The length of the tubing will be proportional to the side of the triangle. Of course, each side of the frame is made of different sized tubing. The top tube is squashed vertically in the front and horizontally in the rear, so we will cut it right in the middle where the cross-section is circular, and weld in a circular piece of tubing. The down tube is similarly manipulated (squashed at each end) but has a different diameter in the center, so we will have to find the correct size of circular tubing for that as well. The bottom tube is oval-shaped, and is 2.5" x 1.5". I can't find that size tubing anywhere on the internet, so we are considering replacing it with either two smaller round tubes, or one rectangular tube. We also considered squashing a round tube to the same size as the oval tubing, but that would be lot of work to get right.

posted at: 09:32 | permalink | 100 comments

Nice Saturday evening trail by CumAgain in downtown Lake Worth tonight.
It came together nicely after some discussion on the new hash forum . We met at the WAMU, which had been robbed that morning. We couldn't find any money laying around the parking lot, so we just drank the beer that Yeast had brought. There was some Heineken hidden down at the bottom of the cooler. We had Stray Dog visiting from Alabama, and a bunch of Miami and Ft Lauderdale hashers. Alabama Slammer never showed up. But Itsy was there.

So the trail was a typical Lake Worth one, until we found ourselves on the golf course. There were marks by the clubhouse, and then the trail just disappeared. I ran around the clubhouse twice before I realized that there were hashers looking out at me from the inside. CumAgain had arranged to have the beer check in the bar there. There were a bunch of hashers drinking beer inside where it was warm.

I got a nice picture of someone's finger. And Circumspector and the walkers arrived. The barmaid was very nice, and gave Teflon her phone number. Can you make it out? Eventually it was time to go.

We arrived back at the WAMU for the circle. The circle was good. I'm surprised at how well my prediction matched the trail. I think I'm getting better at this. Then we went to South Shore, where I traded my gloves for a pitcher of Sam Adams. Food and football, and then we went home.

posted at: 00:02 | permalink | 100 comments

Sat, 07 Jan 2006

I got my first swamp buggy ride last weekend.
As part of Alex's job he has a swamp buggy at his disposal. There was a lot of jostling to get on board when Alex said he was giving rides, but Jim managed to get a good seat.

The light was good, with that golden hour sunlight lasting for nearly the entire ride. I took the opportunity to shoot a bunch of pictures of Alex as he drove. He's got a sort of Johnny Cash look to him here. Or maybe it's not-fat-Elvis.

Here's one more sequence of photos. The third one is what I was trying for, but for whatever reason, Alex's face is really posterized/solarized. I think it's a failing of the camera phone. I'd pay some bucks for a phone with a truly decent camera built into it. The fourth photo is almost as good, and there is no posterization effect.

Alex finally stopped so we could see a baby alligator in some shallow water. I took the opportunity to jump off and get some shots of the buggy itself. Then we headed back to camp, with a nice sunset off to the west.

posted at: 07:08 | permalink | 44 comments

Fri, 06 Jan 2006

There was quite the bonfire at Alex's New Year's Eve party.
It was a burn pile collected from that year's hurricane brush. It wasn't as big as last year's, but it was still big. Here's a photo of it not long after it was lit, followed by shots of Rob and Dean. That flash really blinds people if it's too close.

The people running the burn pile had a front-end loader that they used to push the fire around. It made a lot of sparks and looked really cool.


Linda had made some ceramic pieces with the kids a couple days before. She put them inside a coffee can with the lid wired on, and asked the head fire guy to put the can inside the fire. The fire should reach an 1800 F heat, which would fire the pieces. The next day she fished the can back out of the fire. Most of the pieces survived, and looked pretty good.

posted at: 07:13 | permalink | 100 comments