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Founders’ Centennial IPA

Published October 19, 2008

Founders' Centennial IPA poured into a glass. This is nicely hoppy.

Tonight’s beer is Founders’ Centennial IPA, a nicely hoppy 7.2% IPA. I like this, although I think that I may have liked the Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest a bit more.

Speaking of alcohol, today I was hoping to bottle some cider which I’d put to age almost a year ago. It’s become completely clear simply from settling in the carboy and hopefully will be good. Because it’s clear, when bottling it I’m going to have to add some yeast so that it’ll carbonate properly. Because Cap’n’Cork was closed when we got there I wasn’t able to get the yeast and thus the bottling has been put off until Tuesday. (They are also closed on Mondays, and I need some nice flavorless champange yeast for this task.)

Hopefully sometime around the end of next month I’ll have two cases of nicely aged hard cider available. I’m sure Danielle will love this.

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Broken Brake Lever

Published October 19, 2008

Broken Avid FR-5 after falling in the rock garden in The Pines in Stony Creek.

It seems that some gnomes introduced a bit of entropy to the rock garden in The Pines at Stony Creek. When riding through there this evening I fell, hit my left knee (it doesn’t seem bad), and broke my brake lever. Good thing it’s just a cheap Avid FR-5, for which I can get a replacement from REI for $14. I have to place an order with them for a large size yellow jacket to replace the too small medium one I’d purchased, so I’ll just throw this on the order as well.

Also, coming around a corner while riding trails in the dark and suddenly seeing a child-sized silhouette in the trail with glowing eyes staring at you is a bit disconcerting. Riding alone in the woods in the dark is a bit odd and worrysome. Even the normally-cute deer are a bit frightening. I was really getting a feeling for how lost/scared one would feel if hurt out there.

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Macomb Orchard Trail to Richmond

Published October 19, 2008

Approaching the new Macomb Orchard Trail bridge over M-53. (Riding to my parents house on 18-Oct.)

Yesterday I took off riding towards the Macomb Orchard Trail head at 24 Mile and Dequindre, then started down the trail towards my parents house. It was a good ride, except for the cold making my exposed knees cramp up a bit. I was also wearing the likely too small Canari jacket, which kept wind off of me, thusly keeping sweat from drying. Not that I wanted the 15 MPH cold headwind on me much…

After a bit over 32 miles I arrived at my parents house. My mom made a pizza then waited for my dad to get home from work. After dinner and some visiting they drove me back home, as I really didn’t want to head back out for another 30 miles in dripping wet clothes and < 50°F weather, right as the sun was setting. I should have done a GPS plot of the route I took so that I could display the route, but I didn't. So, here's the two maps of the trail (1 · 2).

As the Macomb Orchard Trail wasn’t finished properly in quite a bit of its rural area I cut off a bit of distance by taking 33 Mile Road instead of the route up to Armada. This was a nice, albeit a bit washboardy rural road, with barely any traffic on it. I would normally have just taken the trail, but the contractor for it has laid the wrong kind of gravel on the trail making it nearly unridable. This gravel is loose, doesn’t pack, and one sinks through it and tires just spin. Here’s a photo of my wheel in one of the worse parts.

Here’s the route I took:

· 22 Mile to VanDyke
· VanDyke to 23 Mile
· 23 Mile around the curve to Dequindre, to the start of the Macomb Orchard Trail
· Macomb Orchard Trail to 33 Mile
· 33 Mile to Macomb Orchard Trail
· Macomb Orchard Trail to Richmond
· Main Street / Residential Streets to My Parents House

Here’s photos taken along the ride:

· Pumpkins growing at a farm along the Macomb Orchard Trail.
· Lengthy, straight section of Macomb Orchard Trail west of 32 Mile. It was very windy here.
· Approaching the new Macomb Orchard Trail bridge over M-53.
· Looking out at M-53 from on the new Macomb Orchard Trail bridge.
· Looking at the Ford Romeo plant from the new Macomb Orchard Trail bridge over M-53.
· This bridge along the Macomb Orchard Trail is closed, but not very well. Everyone takes it anyway.
· Cows along 33 Mile Road, seen from the closed bridge.
· Crumbling footings on the closed bridge.
· This bridge is closed because of the crumbling footings. It’s part of the trail route.
· The gravel on the Macomb Orchard Trail is very loose. It needs to be replaced.
· The point where the east part of the Macomb Orchard Trail meets back up with 33 Mile Road.
· The end of the Macomb Orchard Trail in Richmond, MI.

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Bike Clothing and Otherwise

Published October 17, 2008

Pearl Izumi Gavia gloves and Canary Razor Convertable Bike Jacket, 2007 model.

Needing some warmer clothing for biking I stopped by REI today in hopes of finding something to keep me a bit warmer while riding. I ended up picking up a pair of Pearl Izumi Gavia Gloves to (hopefully) keep my hands warmer in colder temps, all the way through winter riding.

I also came across a bright yellow Canari Razor ’07 jacket at REI for $43.93. It is a size medium, but after trying it on I ended up purchasing it. I’m still not sure if it’s too small and should be returned for a large or not. It fits well over another layer and I can comfortably move my arms around, but it feels slightly snug in the shoulders if I wrap my arms around as if hugging myself. Maybe a slightly larger size would be better, just so it’s more free while riding and I can wear more layers beneath it, if needed. That said, I don’t want it too large otherwise it’ll just flap in the wind. I’ll decide tomorrow before leaving on a ride, I guess.

Kohl’s has the jeans I prefer (Levi 569) on sale for $29.99 a pair, and with both of my current pairs having growing holes in the knees I picked up two new pairs. I also grabbed three cheap ($5.40/ea) plain t-shirts to add to my growing collection of comfortable t-shirts without logos. Yes, I still prefer to wear t-shirts and jeans.

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restrict default ignore

Published October 17, 2008

In setting up NTP on nuxx.net I ran into a bit of a problem: time wouldn’t sync. My configuration was fairly simple, following the information on support.ntp.org for using the pool of North American servers, blocking external access, but allowing ntpq (et al) to work from localhost:

server 0.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 1.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 2.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 3.north-america.pool.ntp.org

driftfile /var/db/ntp.drift

restrict default ignore
restrict 127.0.0.1

However, it seemed that no matter what I tried (disabling the firewall, adding exceptions for TCP/UDP 123, changing order of the restrict statements, etc) the box wasn’t able to contact its peers:

c0nsumer@banstyle:~> ntpq -pn
     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
==============================================================================
 217.160.254.116 .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000 4000.00
 209.132.176.4   .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000 4000.00
 209.40.97.141   .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000 4000.00
 216.14.98.234   .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000 4000.00

After some more digging I found that the restrict default ignore option, which is widely recommended to keep external folks from connecting to your ntpd, prevents synchronization from happening, even with the exception for localhost.

Having realized that, my ntp.conf is now just the basic config for the NA servers and the drift file, and it all works great:

server 0.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 1.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 2.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 3.north-america.pool.ntp.org

driftfile /var/db/ntp.drift

Yep, it’s syncing just fine:

c0nsumer@banstyle:~> ntpq -pn
     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
==============================================================================
*217.160.254.116 18.26.4.105      2 u  200  256   17   37.192    4.619   1.461
 209.132.176.4   66.187.233.4     2 u  201  256   17  101.819   21.118   9.529
 209.40.97.141   192.5.41.40      2 u  197  256   17   38.565  -31.122  21.081
 216.14.98.234   216.218.254.202  2 u  200  256   17   18.731    3.940   4.848

c0nsumer@banstyle:~> ntptrace
localhost: stratum 3, offset 0.004619, root distance 0.043540
server.donkeyfly.com: stratum 2, offset -0.000686, root distance 0.006361
bonehed.lcs.mit.edu: stratum 1, offset 0.000018, root distance 0.000000, refid 'CDMA'

Now I just let pf restrict access to NTP. That works just fine.

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Forced Air Heat: Go!

Published October 16, 2008

Well, it’s that time of the year again. The furnace filter has been changed, first ignition was observed, and warm air is flowing out of the vents.

It’s not that cold out yet, and the heat won’t need to be on for long to bring things up to temperature, but I like to be sure everything is working before it’s really needed. Also, I’d like to get the first-furnace-use-of-the-season smell out ASAP. It reminds me of being little and the seasons changing, but it also smells of burning.

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Cold Weather Gear

Published October 16, 2008

Tonight’s ride was just over 29 miles, because I parked a bit further out than other folks. The distance was fine, but the cold (~50°F) was making my knees hurt. I think if I’m going to keep riding in this weather I’ll be needing some cold weather gear. It’s been suggested that I look at the Pearl Izumi AmFIB tights and either some shoe covers or cycling boots. With it getting dark so early I think a bright colored cycling vest (with lots of reflective bits) is also in order. Oh, and also some full finger or maybe lobster-type cycling gloves.

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Coffee Grinder: “Fixed”

Published October 15, 2008

My coffee grinder, after cleaning a relatively minor clog, in the midst of figuring out how many servings I can make from one two pound bag of coffee.

It seems that my efforts to establish cost savings performance metrics for making coffee at home distracted me from coffee grinder maintenance responsibilities. My aforementioned coffee grinder problems were because of some manner of clog.

Good thing this never happens in real life.

(It seems that during a single day of disuse the grinder stopped working, and the only “fix” needed was to empty and clean it. Also, can you tell how I occasionally have to write?)

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Coffee Grinder: Fail

Published October 15, 2008

Toilet paper (for my nose) and coffee (for my soul) on a desk at work.

Almost every morning before work I grind some coffee then prepare it in an AeroPress. Not this morning. Today when I went to press START or GRIND or whatever the button is labeled nothing happened. Because it appears to be somewhat microprocessor controlled I don’t think the problem is mechanical, which means that hopefully I’ll be able to easily fix it.

Unfortunately, this was also half-way through a study I was doing on exactly how many cups of coffee I can get out of two pounds of coffee, how many grinds it takes, how many filters are used, etc. Although maybe this will just prompt me to restart and this time take into account amount of electricity consumed, cost of the grinder, etc. I’m wanting to know just how much money I’m saving (or perhaps not) and how much less waste I’m generating by making coffee at home every day, using what I perceive to be an easy process.

Since I uploaded a few more photos today to my moblog, I’ll point them all out:

· This praying mantis was found next to a gas pump. It was alive, but its abdomen was full of ants which were eating it.
· My coworker Brian gave me some Airborne to try and help make me feel better. It doesn’t taste horrible.
· Some of the urinals at work have these new scented mats in them. The result is that hot urine makes a very strong fragrence waft up while going. It’s unplesant.
· One of my coworkers gave me this cupcake. It’s very, very good.

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