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Category: work

Lunch Time Bleeding Shoulder

Published August 19, 2011

One advantage to occasionally working from home is being able to get out for a bike ride at lunch time. Yesterday after a string of meetings I took a quick drive up to River Bends and rode a couple laps during lunch. This worked out wonderfully and was a nice way to break up the day.

At one point while riding I clipped a tree with my shoulder. While it didn’t really hurt (no more than when one normally brushes a tree with a shoulder), a few miles later I noticed blood soaking through my shirt. I imagine this has something to do with how damp my shirt was with sweat, and the wicking material did it’s job and spread moisture nicely. Funny, that.

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Historic Case Badges

Published May 25, 2011

This evening while cleaning out an old tool bag I found these two old computer case badges for Data Premium and Pack In Tell brand computers. These were two house brands from Computer Warehouse, a retail computer outlet in Troy and Madison Heights where I worked from late 1996 until early 1999. These shops were later known as Thomas Computer Warehouse and then Computer Builders Warehouse. During this time the Computer Warehouse stores worked closely with Inca Computer Company; so much so that I essentially transfered from CW to Inca to work in their R&D department. Once Inca closed up shop (it was basically a brick and mortar chain with grandiose plans opening right in the middle of the dot-com bubble) under I returned to Computer Warehouse for a few months before moving on to the world of corporate IT.

I think I’ve got an Inca badge or two around here somewhere as well.

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High Winds and a Clean Garage

Published April 11, 2011

I went home early from work today because I was motion sick due to the swaying of the building in the high winds. I didn’t expect this to happen as I don’t normally get motion sick, but an hour after arriving at work I felt my head swimming, my stomach churning, and I was unable to think clearly. Even eating a bit of lunch didn’t help, but walking around for a bit at ground level seemed to. So, around 1pm I headed home and finished up the afternoon working remotely, which isn’t a particularly challenging thing since most of my work is remote, but instead of being 35 miles away I’m normally about 300′ away.

After getting home it took almost another four hours before I was feeling better, but after that occured I decided that it was a good day for cleaning the garage. This hadn’t been properly done in two or three years and was long overdue, so it was quite satisfying to finally wash the floor. It only took about an hour to empty the garage, sweep it, and hose it out. After letting it dry out (which was helped by the wind) I put everything back in, and now the garage floor is as clean as the basement floor. I can once again walk outside with bare feet without needing to brush then off before coming back in.

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Dented Salsa Delgado 29’er Race Rim

Published April 5, 2011

Originally I was going to post this photo of the sun setting over River Bends, taken while out on my first proper trail ride of the year, but then I dented my rim while screwing around in the parking lot post-ride and thought that it would be more interesting. More specifically, I tried hopping over a curb ad moderate speed (~10 – 12 MPH) and did it wrong, slamming my rear wheel and all my weight into the curb. The impact was both felt and heard as a resounding metallic TWONK as one sidewall folded in. Surprisingly the tire didn’t pinch flat nor blow off the rim.

After a rather unpleasant day at work I headed home and found myself with just enough time to quickly eat some cereal, change clothes, and dash up to River Bends for a first trail ride of the year before the sun set. So, I did. The trail is pretty much ready to ride, with only a few small slick/muddy spots which aren’t too difficult to traverse and which shouldn’t damage the trail. I pushed myself a bit and am already a little sore for it, but it felt really good. Riding trails is something that I really missed over the winter, and even being limited to the ~40 minutes that I was able to ride, my head felt clearer and all thoughts of broken things at work (and effort required to fix them) went away. I need more of that…

…and I guess I need to rebuild my rear wheel.

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Home Early and Riding

Published March 8, 2011

Today found me home from work a bit earlier than I have been lately, and with the nice weather I patched a flat on the Titus and set out for a ride. Since it was just above freezing and (yet another) big snow fall is still melting, I stuck to a paved route as best I could. Still, I couldn’t help but occasionally run into some slush or dirt left behind by the thaw, or even some mud. At one point on a small neighborhood trail I ended up leaving a few-inch deep rut, so it’ll be interesting to see how well this serves as an example of what not to do on a trail. (More information about damage caused by riding muddy trails in springtime can be seen in this flier from the MMBA.)

The route that I rode ended up on the Macomb Orchard Trail which was quite a bit less thawed than I expected. Most of the route was what’s shown above, with a thawed section in the middle full of muck with slush/snow/ice along the sides, but some portions were completely snow and ice covered. Thankfully it was compacted, almost-slushy which made it very ridable.

I’m extremely happy that the weather is taking a turn for the nice. I hope that I’m able to ride this year after work as I was last year, as being able to get outside in evenings and spend some time by myself watching nature go by is extremely relaxing and just the sort of thing I need most evenings.

(Total for the day was 23.53 miles in 1:43:51, following this general route: Home, 22 Mile, Neighborhoods to Shelby, Mound, 25 Mile, MOT West, Dequindre, School, Neighborhoods, 23 Mile, Mound, Shelby, River Bends Pavement, Home via 22 Mile and Neighborhoods.)

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Blue Cheese and Bacon, etc

Published February 9, 2011

Here is a blue cheese dressing and bacon salad made with a wedge of iceberg lettuce. Danielle made this for dinner on Monday evening and it was absolutely wonderful. I had more of it for lunch the next day, and it really hit the spot then too.

Here’s some other moblog photos that I’ve taken recently:

· Looking out from an elevator at the RenCen at an artificially accelerated sunset.
· My reflection in an elevator while heading down to my car.
· Yay! I have a trash can at work!
· Blue cheese and bacon salad made by Danielle with fresh dressing and extremely high quality bacon.
· Racking the Area 51 American IPA to a corney keg for carbonation.
· The non-dairy creamer at work has one of the worst possible fonts.
· Arek eating a sandwich at Al’s Famous Deli on Woodward.
· Horny Goat Brewing Company Variety Pack.

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2011 North American International Auto Show

Published January 20, 2011

After leaving work today at the RenCen I hopped on the the nation’s stupidest public transport system to visit the North American International Auto Show. I was originally planning on going with some new coworkers during the day, but actual work got in the way of that so I decided to go by myself afterward.

The show was as expected, but worth the $12 admission as I got to wander around and look at interesting things, ride in a Chevy Volt on a small indoor test track in the basement, see a microscope that I would really like to have (a Vision Engineering Lynx Dynascope), and the smart fortwo seen above showing off it’s incredible strength by holding up a (52.2 lb) Magna Excitor 2x Dual Suspension not-for-off-road-use Terrain Bike.

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Massive Fallout Marking, Racing, etc.

Published October 15, 2010

This has been a busy week or so. How, you ask?

Saturday was the 6 and 12 Hour race at Addison Oaks, where our team (Nick, Marty, Erik, and I as the East Side Stepchildren) took second place out of third in the 4 Person Open Sport category, winning nice fleece vests. We rotated through taking turns doing one lap each, until the end when Erik set out to do Marty’s final lap. (Photos of the start: 1 · 2)

Sunday I did a bunch of work out at River Bends and managed to poke myself in the eye with a stick. The white of my eye is a bit bruised on one side, but otherwise fine and getting better.

Work has been busy (yet satisfying) this week, which makes the day go by quickly. Monday I fixed a GPS (yes, another Garmin Edge 305) and got some things done around the house. Last night (Wednesday) was time spent at Sherwood with friends to enjoy half-off hamburger night.

Tonight Bob and I went up to Bald Mountain to mark the trail for Massive Fallout, a huge group ride taking place this Saturday. We went through 2.5 cans of spray paint marking the route in and out of the park, and all potentially confusing corners along the trail. Unfortunately we got caught in the rain and cut out early, leaving one intersection still to be marked. In retrospect it only would have been another 15 minutes in the rain to mark this corner, saving Bob another trip tomorrow, so now I feel bad about making haste back to the parking lot in reaction to the storm clouds dripping on us.

At least the weather should be good for the ride itself on Saturday and the weekend’s plans.

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No Bike Commuting Today

Published June 24, 2010

As of last night I’d wholly intended to ride my bike to work today, packing it and getting everything ready to go. Unfortunately, when I woke up this morning I realized that I simply couldn’t. My throat is hurting a bit, I feel physically run down, and I’ve got a constant, groggy / spacey feeling. Either I’m getting sick, or I just need a good, long sleep. I’m hoping that instead of being sick the cumulative lack of sleep from the past week, and a whole weekend of not sleeping well has done me in and I just need some proper night’s rest to feel better, but as I’m rather accustomed to working on little sleep I fear it’s actually illness. If I’m not feeling any better soon I may have to call off my plans for the rest of the day.

I just hope that I’m feeling better for Saturday morning for the River Bends Park Trail Day with the MMBA where we will likely be finishing the first segment of new single track trail. Along with some other folks I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past couple months planning it, marking the route, working with the township, and doing initial cutting and clearing of the trail, so I’m really looking forward to seeing this first piece finished.

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