Category: around the house

Big, Heavy Rock

Published September 26, 2010

In the grass at the end of the driveway leading to my condo is a rock. It sits on the dirt and grass along side the pavement as a negative deterrence designed to keep people from cutting the corner and driving on the lawn. Whenever this rock isn’t moved back people will cut the corner, driving on the grass and killing it.

Some time between noon and 5pm today someone didn’t pay enough attention to where they were putting their car, cut the corner, and dragged the rock to the next driveway before pushing it out of the road. Due to the intensity of the scratches on the road surface I suspect it was stuck under the car, likely somewhere along the rear end as people tend to cut the corner sharply and hit the grass with their rear right side tire.

Hopefully next time they’ll pay more attention to where they are putting their car when leaving the driveway. I’ll put it back in place later this evening when I take out the trash.

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RTV Explosion!

Published August 27, 2010

While filling a syringe with RTV I accidentally squeezed the tube in the middle instead of the end, applying enough force that the end of the tube burst all over my arm. Oops. at least I had enough silicone in the syringe to finish up the Garmin Edge 305 that I was fixing.

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Stuff For Sale: Gary Fisher X-Caliber 29er and Wet Saw

Published August 10, 2010

I have some things for sale. Anyone want to buy them?

The first is the wet saw seen above, which I used to tile my kitchen, laundry room, and foyer. I no longer need it, so I’d like to sell it. Asking price is US$30.

One is my sister’s Gary Fisher X-Caliber 29er, size 17.5″ / medium. Asking price is US$1000 or best offer. It’s barely used, and has seen very little time on trails since she has found that she prefers road biking. Please check out this post on the MMBA Forum for more details and photos.

UPDATE: Both items have sold.

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Sigma BC 1609 and Maybury

Published July 28, 2010

After having a bunch of issues with my other computers^† I came across the Sigma BC 1609, a well-featured wired computer that comes with an optional (and thus detachable, as its not useful for mountain biking) cadence sensor. Costing roughly $35 at a local shop I’m really happy with it thus far and anticipate it performing well for a while. Beyond the online computer emulator/simulator which let me get a feel for the device’s UI and the standard speed / clock / elapsed time / odometer / average / trip computers, here’s what sold me on it, in no particular order:

· Wired.
· Thermometer.
· Weatherproof.
· Bike 2 Cradle Available. (Auto-switching to other wheel size.)
· Stopwatch. (Easy ad-hoc segment timing.)
· Count-down Timer.
· Quality Backlight. (Toggle it on, then it illuminates briefly at each button press.)
· Nicely small wheel sensor.
· Wheel magnet is very low profile and locks on with a sliding clamp.

The only real downside is the slightly thin wire, but hopefully it’ll be durable enough to last. If I’m really concerned about it I’ll just armor it with some spiral wrap or maybe cable housing.

After visiting the shop to pick up a new headset and chain for the singlespeed and random other things I headed over to Maybury State Park to ride the bike trails there. The last time I was there I wasn’t feeling too well and coupled with not knowing the trail I didn’t enjoy the ride. Today I did two laps and while on the first I wasn’t comfortable with the trail and didn’t enjoy it much, part-way through the second I began to feel comfortable. I had a feeling for what was coming up and was able to relax and allow the bike to roll faster and enjoy the trail. I’m now looking forward to going back out here another time, and maybe even racing in the Maybury Time Trial on August 21^st.

Oh, and the Sigma BC 1609? Just kept on working, just as I expect. No weirdness at all like I’d had with the other computers.

^† 1) Cateye Strada Wireless that had sample rate issues around 30 MPH, an iffy sensor, and interference problems. Batteries were changed, but things still wouldn’t work right.
2) NiteRider Rebel 1.0 which has UI issues where it takes up to three seconds to respond to a button press (longer when moving) and a very sloped face and thus a poor viewing angle when stem mounted. The button latency is terrible if you’re riding along and want to check the time or some other data. It’s also physically much larger than it needs to be. Not bad for a first generation computer from a company that normally doesn’t make them, but I expected more.

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Maybury Sanitorium and Broken Plate

Published May 16, 2010

Today while making dinner I screwed up, didn’t latch one of the side tables on the BBQ correctly, and sent a plate and pretzel roll crashing to the ground. It appears that it held briefly, but a slight jostling when I lifted the lid sent the plate on its way to doom. I’m probably going to try and find some more on eBay, but I need to be sure that they are of the Pfaltzgraff USA vintage so that the patterns match exactly. It appears that the brand was sold in 2005 and after that made in China. I’ve found that the new Chinese-made patterns don’t quite match the old designs (less defined geometric shapes, for example, in modern versions of the Midnight Sun pattern that I have) and want to be sure I get the old USA versions. There are a number of these plates on eBay right now, so I’m waiting for a response about the origin of manufacture and if they are the USA versions I’m hoping to buy a four or eight of them.

Earlier today I headed out to Trail’s Edge to check out the Mega Sale and help if I could, but with plenty of help on hand I ended up heading over to Maybury State Park to ride the mountain bike trails there with Carlos (previously pictured here). I’d only been there once before, back on Easter Monday of last year with Bob and Jon, and I was looking forward to checking it out again. This park is on the grounds of the Maybury Sanatorium, an old tuberculosis sanatorium and has this nifty sign over the entrance. Throughout its life it was known first as Detroit Municipal Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Spring Hill Sanatorium, and then Maybury Sanatorium. If you are interested in the history of this place, be sure to check out the Maybury Sanatorium website as it contains a whole bunch of great historical info about the place.

Despite the nice area today’s ride didn’t go quite as well as it could have. After really pushing myself on the three laps of yesterday’s race my legs were quite wobbly and telling me that I should take it easy and head back to the car. So, after one lap Carlos and I bid each other farewell and I headed back to the car while he headed off back on to the trail. Ah well, a day of rest should do me well.

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Busy, busy, busy!

Published April 26, 2010

I haven’t posted anything in roughly 20 days, mostly because I’ve been busy traveling Europe and generally being busy with stuff. I arrived home today, and I’ll post more about that later after I’ve sorted through the photos. Instead I’ll just mention the brief things that my day held:

· Waking at 4:30am UK time to catch a flight. Thus I’ve been up almost 23 hours straight and traveled by a car (on the left and right side of the road), train, bus, and airplane.
· Replacing a hard drive in banstyle.nuxx.net on the way home, as my mom waited in the car. I was very thankful for this, as it kept me from having to drive back to Southfield during rush hour.
· Got a replacement SIM card to put in my replacement Nexus One. My other one was lost / stolen (I’m really not sure which) in the airport on the way to the UK.
· Finished setting up a rigid fork on my Specialized 26″ hard tail, getting it ready to be used as a commuter / light trail bike complete with rack and new rear blinky light.
· Went for a 20-ish mile test ride mixing single track, two track, and pavement. The fork works well and I like it, so I stopped for frozen custard at Custard Spot. I don’t know the distance because the bike doesn’t have a computer on it.
· Washed sheets and showered to remove mud from me, and started other laundry.
· Downloaded all the queued work email so I can begin reading it tomorrow morning.

Now I think it’s time for bed. It was a really excellent trip filled with good friends and lots of nice people, but I must admit that I’m a bit glad to be home.

Sleep will be needed, because I suspect work is going to get quite busy as soon as I return tomorrow morning.

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Macomb Orchard Trail in March

Published March 15, 2010

Since the trails are still thawing and thus generally unridable, a group of us got together tonight to ride the Macomb Orchard Trail from Onyx Ice Arena to the bridge over M-53 and back. Instead of driving up Jon and I decided to leave from my house to add a few more miles on it. The result ended up being 2:41:45 of moving time to cover 37.2 miles, for an average of 13.7 MPH. Peak speed was 24.6 MPH, likely achieved on the hill down from the bridge over M-53, even though there are times when I knew I was above 20 MPH on flat ground with the wind at my back.

Despite being a bit cold and with a 15 MPH headwind on the way out, with particularly chilly spots near the still-frozen low-laying swampy areas, it was a really nice ride. I didn’t eat enough and ran out of energy a few times, but small handfuls of granola and a bottle of double-strength HEED helped with that.

I also gave the aforementioned sample contact lenses a try tonight with some clear-lens protective glasses and they worked out very well. Without astigmatism-correcting lenses my vision wasn’t as perfect as it could be, my eyes weren’t dry and I could see quite well. I’ll wear another pair some other time this week and be sure that it’s not a fluke, but I’m pretty sure that these worked out well.

Now, off to get some more to eat, but only after figuring out why my furnace won’t light.

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Multi-wood Coasters

Published February 28, 2010

After some friends headed to Belize a few weeks ago for some sailing and general relaxing they brought me back this really, really cool set of coasters. With each being made out of four strips of different woods (mahogany, black poison, red wood, and billy webb, as illustrated in this photo) they are quite neat looking. I just added four rubber feet to each and now they re in the living room ready for use. They look particularly great on the tables in there.

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Snow Day II

Published February 22, 2010

Here’s the view from my office as Winter Green II, our landscaping company, cleared the parking lot around my condo. There is now an 8′ pile of snow at the end of each parking spot, and a small strip next to Danielle’s car which I’ll have to shovel off. I believe that we’ve received 4″ – 5″ of snow thus far today.

Good thing my network connection is staying up solidly, as working from home is a much better option than a couple hours of driving through slushy, icy crap.

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Off The Rails

Published February 11, 2010

Danielle’s driver side window ended up coming out of the track at the front, so she wasn’t able to roll it up without holding it. By unbolting the front rail I was able to get it all aligned, but it seems her window has some wear in front of the lift mechanism. This causes the window to settle into place slightly ajar, requiring a gentle nudge to get it into place. If it was easier to get inside the door I’d look at disassembling the mechanism and fixing the bushing (or whatever), but for now I’ve left the window semi-operational.

On request the handle has been left off of the door panel (and set inside one of the map compartments) so she won’t roll the window down without remembering the slight effort required to fully re-seat it. Properly reinstalling the handle will just require clipping it back in place, but I won’t do so yet.

I suspect that this issue happened when the car was iced over and an attempt to roll down the window was made. The window was probably stuck in place and the force of pulling down on it deformed a bushing or some other part in the front of the mechanism, allowing it to wobble the current 1cm or so.

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