Month: June 2008

Bus Routes To Work

Published June 30, 2008

I just decided to look up the bus routes to work, via this area’s wonderful SMART bus system.

It turns out that there actually is one bus route which I could take to work, number 559. The closest stop to my house is Lakeside Mall and the nearest to work is Hamlin and Squirrel, meaning that I have to cover 3.4 miles from my house to the stop, then around another .75 miles after the destination stop (without sidewalks) to the building I work in.

The times are also pretty pitiful, with the westbound buses (yes, there are only two) leaving at 5:51am and 6:48am, arriving at 6:14am and 7:11am, respectively. The eastbound (home, again only two) busses are at 3:33pm and 4:38pm, arriving 4:38pm 5:00pm.

This isn’t really usable. If you’d like to see the route for yourself, look up route 559 here.

I think I’d have to get up particularly early bike the first segment, hope the bike rack on the bus works acceptably on the highway, bike the last bit, then find a place for my bike. I may as well just bike the whole thing.

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Indian Springs Metropark Underwater Viewing Room

Published June 29, 2008

Sitting around the edge of the underwater viewing room at Indian Springs Metropark.

Here is a photo of the underwater viewing room in the Environmental Discovery Center at Indian Springs Metropark. It is an acrylic cylinder with a domed roof, and an arched walkway leading from the basement of the building. Here is a photo of the pond behind the center, with the underwater viewing room visible as a light spot in the pond.

Wanting somewhere to wander, Danielle and I headed over to the park this afternoon. Everything was going well until we tried to head down some of the nature center trails which were much more insect infested than we would have prefered. I had numerous deer flies on me at any given time, and one of them bit my head. Of course there were also mosquitoes. Lots and lots and lots of mosquitoes.

(This photo was taken with a Peleng 8mm fisheye lens and is posted without cropping or other processing. I personally find it interesting how well a lens like that works for photographing the inside of a curved room. I feel that defishing and/or cropping would have made it less interesting.)

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New Coffee Cup

Published June 29, 2008

Bodum 16 oz Travel Mug, part number 10659-01B (left) to replace my aging, older Bodum travel mug which has developed leaks between the insulating walls.

Almost every morning I grind some coffee then brew it using an Aerobie Aeropress (photo of mine here). Back in 2000 (or so) I purchased an interesting tea press / travel mug at a Starbucks, made by Bodum in Switzerland, and the cup from this is what I use to carry the coffee with me to work or whatnot. (When drinking the coffee at home I just use a pint glass with an insulating cardboard ring around it.) After all the use the Bodum travel cup has received the seal between the two walls have stared to fail and, as can be seen above coffee, has begun slowly seeping in.

A couple weeks back I finally ordered a replacement cup, and that’s the new Bodum 16 oz Travel Mug seen above. I’m a bit disappointed that it feels to be of cheaper construction than the current one, and I can’t help but correlate it’s Chinese origins with the cheap feeling of the cup, especially when feeling the older (but failing) cup’s construction and reading the now-rare MADE IN SWITZERLAND stamp on the bottom.

Overall the design of the cup seems a bit better, with a nicer gasket system along the top and a more positive screw-close mechanism. Hopefully it’ll work well.

New to this mug is the ability to insert stuff between the walls, as demonstrated by the Bodum-logo’d paper currently inserted there. I think I’m going to duplicate this, but instead of photos I’ll do something interesting with transparency. It will be a bit complicated because the top and bottom are curved slightly, but hopefully I’ll be able to pull some geometry out of the air and properly duplicate it.

As part of this new artwork I think I’ll incorporate a solid band to ensure that when the cup is placed in the Flavia machine at work that its IR sensor can see that my cup is there. (Normally it just sees through clear cups and fails to dispense, so I have to hold my thumb over the sensor.) I think some sort of caffeine-based theme could be interesting as well, including graduating the cup with markings indicating how much caffeine is present in the remaining beverage, based on the presumption that there is 150mg of caffeine in 8 oz of coffee. Or… maybe something else. I’m not sure yet.

Tomorrow morning I’ll give the cup its first go, and hopefully piece together some manner of artwork sometime later this week. I’m really sleepy, so I think that for now I’ll just take out the trash and go to bed.

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Rear Wheel Grease

Published June 27, 2008

Even though I have new bike wheels on the way, I figure I should try and make the old ones work as good as possible for spare / winter use. Part of this involved disassembling the rear hub, cleaning it, and just generally being sure it’s okay. It was a bit sticky and wasn’t turning very smoothly, so I figured that maybe it had a bearing and/or race problem like the front wheel did.

After opening up the rear bearings I found that there was nearly a tablespoon of grease around the balls and sitting lumpily on the axel, with lots of it in places where it just wouldn’t do much beyond compacting and gumming up the works. Tomorrow (or maybe Sunday) after I get a properly sized cone wrench I’ll put the wheel back together and see how it works. The freewheel itself currently seems fine so I don’t need to touch that, but the wheel bearings themselves were definitely needing some work.

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Smart UPS 1400

Published June 27, 2008

This post is being brought to you by a bit of energy supplied by new batteries which were just installed in the old Smart UPS 1400 in my office.

On Wednesday evening I ordered two new batteries from Rage Battery, part number SLA-17-12, which are direct replacements for the cells in the OEM Smart UPS 1400 battery. They were delivered today, so I used the parts from the old pack (bus, fuse, screws, nuts, harness) to build them into a replacement pack which I then stuffed that back into the UPS housing. After a brief test it’s now all sitting back on the rack, charging, smoothing power, and waiting to protect things at the next power glitch.

Thankfully the replacement TiVo HD was delivered today as well, so I think I’ll go put that into place while Danielle cooks dinner.

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Clean, Clean Feet

Published June 26, 2008

There is something surprisingly satisfying about washing one’s feet (and thus hands) after working a bunch.

After another very sleepy class today I stopped at Sears and picked up a small scale (inch pounds) torque wrench (the same as borrowed earlier) along with some bits. I then cleaned up parts from my bike a bit, confirmed the torque on parts like the cranks, hand grips, and a few other things. Come Monday (I believe) I’ll be able to reassemble it with the new wheels and brakes, and the torque wrench should make it lots easier.

Sweeping, cleaning, and lots of wandering around had turned the bottoms of my feet deep gray, so it was into the bath tub to wash them off. They feel really nice now.

I think now I’ll run out to Sears and return the bits, as is going to facilitate my acquisition of an adapter which will make them useless. Then I’ll grab some food, come back here, and probably start reading the Official (ISC)²® Guide to the CISSP® CBK® which I received in class today. I strongly suspect it’ll be more useful than the training materials I’ve been given thus far.

For what it’s worth, I’m taking the New Horizons Training for CISSP Certification. It isn’t a formal CISSP class and I’m finding it a bit strange. The instructor seems okay, but he’s living up to the stereotypes of someone who would teach an “ethical hacking” class, which he does. It’s a bit bothersome, particularly in the way which he’s made some direct, but inaccurate statements about technical issues. For example: no matter what it’s always possible to hack into a service listening on a port, DSL uses the unused phone wires coming into your house, an SMTP packet won’t contain a TCP header, and a few other things which I’ve forgotten.

The class is very pointedly designed to teach only the things known to be on the test. I would prefer a much faster paced class, but I think it’ll be useful as I’m now feeling reasonably confidant that I can pass the CISSP exam. I guess it’s a good thing I’ve worked doing what I do at EDS for so long; it means I have the paper / job qualifications to get the cert too.

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Money Go Out…

Published June 25, 2008

Now in the spending money to get back to normal department:

· Replacement TiVo HD ordered as an advance exchange, costing $299.99 until the old unit is received back. (It has failed and wouldn’t boot past the in-firmware Please Wait… screen.)
· Two replacement 12V 18Ah lead acid batteries ordered to get my Smart UPS 1400 working again. $85.75, including shipping.
· More bills paid. (Waveform, etc.)
· Film shipped out to Australia ($50-some).

Ergh. Definitely can’t afford a vacation yet.

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Fixed Front Wheel

Published June 25, 2008

After class today I swung by Fraser Cycle and Fitness with the bad cone so I could get a replacement. Talking to one of the guys there he told me to put the wheel back together and then bring it in, and they’d sort it out under warranty.

I went home, put the wheel back together, returned to the store, and fifteen minutes later (or so) I was handed back my wheel and it’s now far better than it was. I think the wheel was also trued and spoke tension checked, because it’s practically as good as it ever was. Just in time for me to receive the new set of wheels which I ordered. Whoops.

Now to relax for a few then try to get my TiVo and UPS fixed.

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No Biking For A While

Published June 23, 2008

Well, I won’t be riding my bike for a while. In light of the aforementioned bearing problem and the ongoing bent wheel issue I decided to order a new set of wheels, and a front brake to match the Avid BB7 fitted last night.

I ended up ordering this Shimano XT M756 / Mavic XC 717 wheelset which was $239.98, and a 160mm Front version of the 2007 Avid BB7 for $54.98.

So, now I just wait. It’ll probably be a week or so before I get the brake and wheels, and I’ll only have a usable bike after I put all of that together. Unfortunately I’m already antsy to ride more.

Even if I were to put what I have back together the front bearing would require some special wrenches and lots of time to adjust the bearings, and they’d be really questionable.

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Worn Cone

Published June 23, 2008

Wear in the bearing race on one of the cones on the front wheel of my bike. This explains the poor rolling. I think it's time for new wheels.

I don’t know much about bearings, but I do know that’s not how a bearing race should look.

As I mentioned yesterday, the front wheel on my bike wasn’t turning right, moving slowly and stopping almost as if it was indexed or notched. When I took it off yesterday to look at it I found that one of the lock nuts were very loose, so today after work I pulled the bearings apart and cleaned them up. After cleaning things up I found that one of the cones (the loose one) has this damage to it, which would definitely explain the weird motion.

I’m not sure how this came loose, but it definitely wasn’t a problem before Saturday’s amusing ride. Now to decide if i want to get a new cone nut and try and rebuild the hub on the fairly damaged wheel, or just toss it and finally get a new set.

Right now I’m leaning towards the latter.

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