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Sticky Dog Poop

Published May 11, 2009

Normally I would have an image here, but the SnapPhoto app for Android is once again failing and the images have come out corrupt†. So instead I’ll tell you about what I had to deal with earlier today: dog poop on my bike tire.

When riding into the Stony Creek trails tonight I was rather close behind someone and didn’t notice a pile of very fresh dog poop until it was too late. That is, right as my front wheel was about to hit it. After I hit it there were two large lumps sticking off the side of the tire, showing just how sticky said poop is. I then had to scrape it off (as best as I could) with a stick, before riding up to the top of the nearest hill to meet up with the group.

Once at the top of the hill the corrupt photos were taken, one showing me giving a thumb’s up next to the tire, and another showing a close-up of the tire. I then had to scrape the tire more on the grass and dirt, which (somehow) resulted in dog poop getting on my hand and glove. Riding after that point was also a bit more interesting, because until most of it was worn off I had to go slow enough that it didn’t fling up into my face.

I intend to ride after work tomorrow as well, so I’ll have to wait a day before washing the bike and removing the last bits of poo from the wheel and down tube. Oh well. After that comes a day of storms (Wednesday), paved ride on the other bike (Thursday), and then hopefully a commute to work (Friday) on the other bike.

† If you’d like to take a stab at the corrupt JPEGs, they are here: 20090511185103.jpg · 20090511185118.jpg. The issue seems to occur mostly after the app has been running in the background for a few days, as a reboot of the phone seems to make the problem go away. I’ve upgraded to the for-pay, $0.99 Snap Photo Pro app. Hopefully it doesn’t continue to have the same problem.

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USPS Click-N-Ship

Published May 11, 2009

After hearing from I decided to give USPS Click-N-Ship a try for both domestic and international packages. In short, it worked great, and didn’t require me to hand-fill any customs forms. Additionally, the postage costs a good bit cheaper than visiting the Post Office in person.

Now I just have to figure out the best way to handle adhering the labels / address forms to the packages. For today’s shipment (as shown above) I just printed the labels on plain paper and stuck them on with rubber cement. In the future I may consider self-adhesive full sheet labels, but that’s also a bit wasteful if I’m not printing at least two labels with each go.

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Flowers: 2009

Published May 10, 2009

Danielle and I swung by Denewith’s Nursery today to get some gardening stuff, and while there I picked up flowers for the front porch for this year. The long/skinny planters are getting a mix of blue and red salvia, the space around the tree got some blue and white mounding flowers, and the square planter got the plant seen above whose name involves the word chaos. Yes, it’s supposed to look like that, and no, I haven’t yet photographed / scanned the tags.

Lettuce seeds will likely be planted in the long / skinny planter, and I have to acquire a pot for the extra plant I purchased, something called the cigar plant. Now, to make it all grow…

More photos taken today of the aforementioned plants, and a few more which won’t go in my garden, can be found here: Flowers 2009.

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New Air Compressor Output Stage

Published May 9, 2009

Today I replaced the output stage on the air compressor given to me by my coworker Brian. Beyond a small handful of brass fittings I replaced the regulator, added a filter, and adjusted the automatic shutoff. It now turns on at ~80 psi and shuts off at just over 100 psi, and everything I replaced or moved appears to be operating smoothly. There is a leak in the upper compression fitting on the line between the pump and tank (seen on the right here) which loses about 2 psi per minute, so I’ll probably replace that with a flexible line. The hard shutoff which is built into the manifold also leaks very slightly, but as I don’t want to spend time finding a replacement I’ll let it be.

With the purchase of a rather nice Goodyear hose, blower handle and tips, brass quick disconnects, and a tire inflator from Harbor Freight, I think I’ve got everything for it that I need. It would be nice if it held pressure, but as I don’t intend to store it pressurized I’m not too concerned.

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Toronto!

Published May 8, 2009

Danielle and I have just returned from visiting Dominic / while he is in Toronto for a wedding. We drove up there on Wednesday morning, stayed at a hotel in North York, and back this (Friday) evening. We’ve done a lot in the last few days, and here are some of the more memorable things:

· Ate lots of coffee and doughnuts from Tim Hortons
· Visited Niagara Falls
· Went to the top of the CN Tower.
· Ate poutine at Smokes Poutinerie.
· Ate at Richtree.
· Was photographed by an art student (unfamiliar with her camera) playing The Getaway pinball in an arcade in PATH.
· Walked around lots and lots of the city.

Photos will come later, as soon as I get a chance to upload them. I still haven’t taken the time to upload the ones from the San Francisco area when I was visiting Jeff / in February. Those will come soon too.

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Air Compressor

Published May 5, 2009

My coworker Brian just gave me his old air compressor, as he doesn’t really need it and doesn’t want it taking up space in his garage. This is very, very welcome as I’ve been wanting an air compressor for a while, and this seems like a good one. I may adjust the power cord, redo some of the plumbing, and add a safety valve, but that all shouldn’t be too hard to do.

Hmm. Now I also need to get some hose, blower, filter, tire inflater, etc. I think a visit to Harbor Freight is in order for non-pressure-critical parts like this.

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Poor Suburban Planning

Published May 4, 2009

According to Google Maps and Earth, this is White Mill Road as it heads north from Wiloray Ave, as seen here on Maps. For some stupid reason this does not connect to the other half of the road, and the neighbors seem to have fenced it so it’s not passable by bike or foot. South of that intersection is this nice, but clearly seasonal dirt path leading not far to the other part of White Mill Road.

This all disappoints me, because this is the one point which would make a route between 22 Mile and 23 Mile Roads, east of Mound and west of M-53, possible on bicycle without riding on paths/sidewalks or cutting across large grassy areas (baseball diamonds) in parks. After showing my friend Erik the route to work from yesterday he was finding some potentially alternate connectors for me, which would cut down residential streets instead of along sidewalks. This was one of those connectors, and when I went to check it out for a short post-work ride, it was rather disappointing.

On the upside, I did come across these dirt tracks which I’ll investigate when my bike has knobby tires back on it. I half expect these to lead to some dirt jumps I’d been told about before, or if nothing else they might just make for interesting siteseeing.

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Customs Declarations

Published May 4, 2009

Filling out customs declarations is a real big hassle. Because of their odd size they must all be hand-written. Additionally, when I dropped all of these international SDrive NUXX orders off at the Post Office, the person working at the counter admonished me for sticking the declarations to the back of the packages. This bothers me because there isn’t enough room to fit them on the front of most small packages, the directions do not indicate that one should apply them to any particular area of the package, and I’ve historically had no problem with them stuck to the back.

Ah well, at least all the international shipments are set. Now I just need to sell a few more so that I break even on the project and everything will be set. Oh, and prep the CAD and artwork files for release…

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Safe Route To Work

Published May 3, 2009

Today I decided to ride to work and back, just to test out the route. There are basically two routes I can take, but one involves riding in rather busy, shoulderless, 45 MPH roads. I took the other route, which I’ll call the “safe” route, which is a mix of sidewalks, paved paths, and rail trails. Also, before anyone gets too upset about my saying sidewalks, know that most of these are as wide as a typical cycling path, and have very few driveways or roads crossing them. They are also generally situated between fences or berms bordering what I call “island-neighborhoods” and major roads. That is, neighborhoods which have a single entrance/exit to the main road and do not connect each other, and thus don’t provide good residential streets for riding through.

The ride there was a bit more difficult than the return, as there was an almost-constant headwind, and it’s mostly uphill the whole way. The route is 15.4 miles one way and has total of ~1144 ft (~349m) of climbing, with much of that being in the last few miles. The route itself is quite nice, with the middle part going through Rochester, MI, under a nifty looking concrete bridge, and through some nicely wooded wetlands. There’s only a few areas which are actually unpleasant to ride, most of which involving crossing larger local roads.

Hopefully I’ll actually ride to work in a week and a half or so, possibly on the 15th of the month. I figure that I’ll bring a change of clothes and food to work the day before, and leave my laptop there. Then I’ll be able to ride both to work and back home with only cycling supplies.

If you’d like to see it, here is a KML of the route from my house to work. Note that it works just fine in Google Earth doesn’t currently work in Maps: 03-May-2009_TestRouteToWorkSafe.kml

Here’s three photos from the ride, too:

· Sitting on a grassy hill outside of one of the buildings I work in, eating some almonds and taking a break before heading home.
· Beneath Rochester Road, looking south, just south of Downtown Rochester, off of the Clinton River Trail, while on the way home from a test ride to work.
· Looking north along the underside of Rochester Road towards the Croskey Lanni building.

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