nuxx.net – Page 138 – Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.

Niner YAWYD

Published August 9, 2008

Despite its horrible name the Niner YAWYD (You Are What You Drink) seems like a pretty nifty device. It is a replacement top cap for one’s bike which allows a bottle cap to be snapped into place. Yes, I will freely admit that it’s a hokey way of meeting both the good beer and mountain biking cross marketing cross section which I seem to fall in. That said, it does strike me as a bit more interesting than some of the other decorative bike accessories available.

Tonight I’m hoping to have a bottle of Dogfish Head’s 120 Minute IPA and use the nice yellow dogfish exclamation mark cap on my bike. This cap can be seen in my photo of a glass and bottle of 120 Minute IPA here.

This was purchased from Paint Creek Bicycles in Lake Orion, MI when Danielle and I headed up there today to see what they had on sale. There was a really nice looking (but red) Raleigh XXIX fully rigid 29er single speed mountain bike for $500 which I took for a few test rides but couldn’t bring myself to actually purchase. I need a new phone more.

Anyway, once I get the aforementioned cap, or possibly another one fitted to the bike I’ll post more photos of it. In the mean time, here’s the ones I took of the Niner YAWTD and my bike today:

· Front of the Niner YAWYD (You Are What You Drink) pacakge.
· Back of the Niner YAWYD (You Are What You Drink) package as purchased from Paint Crek Bicycles for US$13.50.
· The bottom of the Niner YAWYD, which appears is milled from 6061 aluminum.
· Top of the Niner YAWYD. This is the side the bottle cap snaps on to.
· Detail of how I found to best remove bottle caps without damaging them…
· Looking down at my bike’s handlebars showing the original plain top cap, computer, etc.
· The screw holding the top cap in place is removed with a 4.5mm hex (allen) wrench.
· Looking down into the steerer tube showing the star nut.
· Detail of the screw and original top cap.
· The Niner YAWYD top cap on my bike, ready to have a bottle cap snapped in place.

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Car-Based Data Tank

Published August 8, 2008

I look forward to Wireless USB becoming a reality because then I can easily put some sort of large flash-based device in my car, powered from the car, and use it for backups. As my car is generally where I am I think that it would be reasonable to use such a device for backing up personal financial data and other things like that.

Sure, I’ll have to incorporate some manner of both encrypting the communication and the data on the disk, but that shouldn’t be too difficult.

It’d be interesting to try it now via Bluetooth, but it’d make the availability as a disk volume (for easy backups) a bit more complicated.

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Zoo Millage

Published August 5, 2008

So, how many of you went to vote for the Detroit Zoo Millage today?

Sure, the local election primaries don’t matter much (most seats are uncontested or don’t have multiple people running for them from the same party), but the zoo is kinda important and special. Then again, I guess as long as you don’t vote against it you’re not doing that bad, so maybe apathy wins this one?

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Point Hope, AK

Published August 4, 2008

The person who won the 8GB iPod Touch auction I had posted lives in Point Hope, AK prompting me to ask how they ended up living there. Hopefully they’ll reply, because a place that remote is simply fascinating to me. In case you don’t know, Point Hope is a tiny place of 750 – 850 people located here, quite a ways north of the Bering Strait.

Beyond the aforementioned Wikipedia article, here’s another interesting article about Point Hope from the Tikigaq Corporation, and here’s a short story from a missionary about flying in and out of the town.

I guess it’s safe to say that I’ve now shipped iPod Touches for .11% of the residents of Point Hope.

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When Bridges Fail

Published August 3, 2008

One of the bridges in The Pines at Stony Creek came apart while I was riding across it. My front wheel went between the planks and I went over the handlebars.

Today’s bike accident was clearly in honor of Minneapolis. When riding through the Pines at Stony Creek with my sister (her first time on the single track there) and heading across a bridge, one of the boards slid to the side and my front wheel dropped down about six inches between it and the one next to it. As expected I hit the next supporting timber and went right over the handle bars. Whoops.

The board appeared to have nails holding it to the timbers, but they no longer extended through to the other side. In order to keep someone else from suffering the same fate I set the loose board off to the side of the trail. Hopefully others won’t have a problem riding on just two of the three boards.

Oh, and yes, I did email the listed maintainer of the trails there so he’d know about it. Hopefully it’s not a problem.

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I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore

Published August 3, 2008

My bike at the end of the path at Metro Beach. Downtown Detroit can be seen in the distance across the water.

Yesterday my friend Brian () and I rode from my house to Metro Beach and back, taking the slightly longer (46.6 mile total) route. Brian has my old Forte FastCity ST/K tires on his bike and we wanted to take paved surfaces as often as possible because they are nearly unrideable on grass / dirt.

The ride was a little difficult through Dodge Park because of Sterlingfest. This three day outdoor party / fair had REO Speedwagon playing last night, so making our way both directions through the park involved lots of walking bikes through crowds. Other than that, the ride was pretty uneventful. There was a good bit of wind and not haven ridden for a month Brian was pretty exhausted at the end, but it was otherwise good.

I used my new CamelBak for this ride which worked out pretty well. One fill of water lasted the whole ride , and thanks to easy use of ice and insulation, having icy cold water was nice. Being able to carry a camera was once again nice, although I think I need to find a way to make it more accessible.

I did get a couple interesting photos and a couple dull ones. I’ll let you decide which is which:

· Brian standing with his bike in front of Freedom Hill park when we stopped in the shade.
· My bike at the end of the path at Metro Beach. Downtown Detroit can be seen in the distance across the water. (As seen above.)
· Brian checking his bike computer in the gazebo at the point while some families ride past and sit on the benches.
· Stopping near the McDonalds at Metro Parkway and Crocker to eat a gel I found a bunch of cheap vodka bottles in bread bags in the trash.
· Brian reading the nutritional information from a Gu-brand Vanilla Bean gel.

When first taking the photo of Brian reading the gel packet I got some really odd CCD noise which almost looks like, but isn’t, lens flare. Unless maybe somehow it’s lens flare caused by only yellow-ish light, but not.

I also found that my bike is having a hard time shifting between two of the gears in the middle of the cogset, but when I went to adjust things this afternoon I found that it only happens under load. So, I think that the chain and maybe cogset are finally wearing to near replacement. I guess it’s understandable as I’ve put more than 941 miles on my bike since its purchase.

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More Tornado / Funnel Cloud Damage

Published August 2, 2008

A daylight photo showing where the portion of tree came down next to my neighbor's house and my porch along with the damaged tree.

After last night’s run-in with a tornado (or maybe it was just a funnel cloud right near the ground, not sure) I wanted to get some daylight photos of the damage. In short, this was really lucky.

As you can see there, a large portion of the tree was detached from it and this fell right next to my neighbor’s house and my porch. Here is where the limb was ripped off of the tree, here is the damaged end of the limb itself, and this shows how far the limb ended up from the tree.

While the fallen tree limb was completely covering my neighbor’s air conditioning condenser it just barely touched the building itself, hitting it only hard enough to slightly bend the gutter and create a low / sagging spot. Because my neighbor was having some difficulty getting in touch with the condo association’s emergency number to get the tree limb moved three of her sons came by and cut it up and moved it out of the way. I guess my neighbor is also having a new fridge delivered today so she wanted to ensure that there was a sufficient path for the Sears delivery people to get the fridge to her door.

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Tornado!

Published August 1, 2008

So, uh, there was a tornado here. Around 8:40pm Danielle and I were heading back to my house. Right as we got close to 22 Mile along Schoenherr we saw a VERY large column of white-ish cloud maybe 100′ across extending from the bottom of the rest of the clouds down to the ground right about where my condo is. It was scary enough that I immediately turned the wrong way and started heading west on 22 Mile to avoid being near or crossing its path.

After traveling for about a mile we turned back and what had been a column was now dissipating, tumbling along and eventually breaking up. I then drove up to 23 Mile (next road north) and looked around for any signs of damage, but I didn’t see anything obvious. The wind had also calmed until it was almost nothing, so we just went inside to eat.

Later this evening Danielle and I wandered outside to view the lightning and saw that the tree right next to my porch had had a large section, around 25′ long and weighing enough that I couldn’t budge it, torn out of it and deposited right next to my porch and on top of my neighbor’s air conditioner. Thankfully it only brushed the building, slightly bending the gutter.

(Yes, I know that photo is crap, but it’s very difficult to focus in the dark, particularly when only using flash. I’ll get more pictures tomorrow. Here is another photo of the downed tree limb and broken main tree, but it was taken while standing in the rain and is equally crap.)

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MMBA Wednesday Night Stony Creek Ride

Published July 31, 2008

The only photo I took on the 30-Jul-2008 MMBA group ride at Stony Creek.

Despite carrying my camera with me, here is the only photo I took during last night’s MMBA Wednesday Night group ride at Stony Creek. I don’t know any of the people in the photo and they are just a small part of the ‘fast’ group. There were a bunch more folks who arrived at the top of the hill, after winding up The Snake, after this was taken.

Oh, and that photo is taken on the top of Mt. Sheldon (not a real mountain), the highest point in the park, which is where I took this photo from on Monday while facing the opposite direction. Just ahead of everyone there and to the left is The Roller Coaster, the really nice piece of multi-segment lengthy, winding, flowy, mostly downhill single track.

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Blimp!

Published July 29, 2008

There is a blimp flying over my workplace. I don’t know why. Thankfully the camera in my phone still works well enough to get a photo of it. I really could use a new phone, though.

I’ve also posted some other new Moblog images, including the blimp one. Interested in seeing them? Here they are:

· A MetLife blimp is flying over my workplace for some reason.
· Beautiful storm clouds seen from outside of Rochester Mills Brewery on 21-Jul-2008.
· A Surly Cross-Check set up for commuting, parked outside of Rochester Mills Brewery.
· The brewery floor at Rochester Mills.
· A Dyson Airblade in the men’s bathroom at Rochester Mills Brewery.
· People sitting around at Rochester Mills Brewery in the back room for the MMBA Metro North chapter meeting.

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