Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.
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After Danielle got back from the UP we had to wash Roxie because she smelled like a mix of dog and lake. Following that I washed a few days of riding of mud off my bike, during which time I noticed that the coiled green plastic hose I have has a small split in it. This causes a very small, powerful jet of water to spray out.
I’m not sure how it happened, but thankfully it’s still small. Hopefully it won’t get much bigger.
Leave a CommentWith 90°F (32°C) temps, 70% humidity, and pretty much no wind riding today was quite strenuous. At one point I’d overexerted myself and was right near the throwing up point (and probably a bit out of it) when I clipped a tree with the left brake lever / handle bar. This caused all sorts of weirdness resulting in my hitting a tree on the opposite side of the path (about 4′ away), and as I fell I grabbed on to a third tree.
As the bike was wrenched around hitting the tree I somehow hurt my shoulder, most likely because my arm was fairly rigid and suddenly the handle bar was about a foot back from where it had been. I hope this soreness doesn’t last too long.
I fell two other times as well. Once was right over into a huge pile of thorns and vines and the other was on a downhill when in a bit of sand and my front wheel turned and hit a root. After falling into the shrubbery I made sure to survey the area to see if I’d fallen into any poison ivy and thankfully I hadn’t. With the second I actually got off the bike and was mostly still holding the handle bars when the bike came up and over my shoulder.
This is actually the first time I’ve done anything more than just falling over while on the single track stuff. I was really pushing myself at times and right on the brink of exhaustion, so that probably had a lot to do with it. I felt like I was riding quite a bit faster than I normally do, but I was also right on the edge of losing control a few times. Pushing myself feels nice, but I really do need to be careful not to cause permanent injury.
After the ride I ended up talking with a guy named Mark for a while in the parking lot about bike stuff. He said that he shows up at many of the Wednesday night group rides, so hopefully I’ll see him there. Mark also suggested that I drop the pressure on my new tires a bit, which I’ll try on the next ride. I’d been running them at about 50 psi, but he was suggesting somewhere around 35 psi. I think I’ll give this a go.
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Do any of you have a good idea for how I can securely dispose of this spindle of optical media? This mix of both pressed and writable media needs to somehow be done away with safely. Normally I’d think a shredder would be acceptable, but buying a shredder is expensive and this is a lot of media to push through in one go.
I’ve considered burning them, but that’s a lot of plastic to burn. Microwaving would be effective, but difficult. Scoring / scraping the surface of each individually is very costly time-wise.
So, any idea what else I could do?
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For my 100th post since moving to self-hosted WordPress with a LJ crossposter I give you this photo of the floor of my shower as it was earlier today with some lots of soap scum on it.
See, I’m lazy and tend to put off some tasks if they aren’t immediately needed. As soap scum is just a build up of soap residue and minerals in the water, I find it to be not disgusting and not worthy of immediate cleaning. Then I tend to let it go for way too long and you get what you see above, soap scum with interesting texture which appear to match standing water and where the shower spray hits while one stands in front of it. Sometimes I’ll sit down in the shower and just stare at it and run my hands over it, wondering exactly how it deposited as it did.
Now that it (and the walls and shower head and stuff rack and doors) are clean, it is much nicer, though. Tomorrow I’ll probably clean the rest of the bathroom. Sink / toilet / floor / etc are a whole lot easier, though.
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After being present for the inspection of my sister’s new condo on Sunday, Danielle and I went to a small family restaurant (with good food) in Shelby Township, then stopped at the little shop next door called Balkan Market. We picked up some pastries and some odd chocolate, and this bottle of Schweppes’ Original Bitter Lemon. It’s rather clearly not labeled for sale in the US, but I figured it’d be worth trying.
The verdict? It is great. It’s excellent. It’s a very nice, light bittery lemon soda with a bit of sweetness to it. It’s not syrupy like Sanbitters and (as suggested by one of the employees) quite good when very cold.
After poking around online I found that bitter lemon is commonly mixed with gin, so after half of the sheep glass was gone I added ice and gin, then stirred. It’s all right with gin, and definitely nicer than gin with the crappy HFCS-based tonics regularly available. I think I prefer the soda by itself, though.
That reminds me, I need to get everything required and make my own tonic water. That’s a project for another night, though.
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A man named Paul Viar is running for re-election as Shelby Township treasurer this fall, but I will not be voting for him.
Yesterday I received the flier above (click the image or here to make it larger) in the mail asking for my vote. One particular bullet point I noticed is the one circled in magenta, which reads:
He voted against paying $2.7 million for two (rarely used) pedestrian bridges, preferring to use tax money to improve township roads.
Thankfully, against the wishes of Mr. Viar, the bridges across M-53, a multi-lane limited access highway, were built. The existence of these bridges allows me to safely ride my bicycle to points westward. Without them I would have to either ride in 45 MPH – 50 MPH soft shoulder or curbed roads (unsafe, particularly when on the far side of the bridges) or at least four miles out of my way north or south to safe crossing points.
I use these at least a couple times per week. Danielle also uses this bridge whenever she walks to the Humane Society of Macomb to visit the horses.
This article from the Advisor Source elaborates:
The current overpasses contain a 24-inch width for pedestrians to walk on when crossing over the highway. Plans to install mandatory guardrails [required to conform Federal standards to keep vehicles from going over the side of the bridge] along the walkway would have further limited the amount of access for pedestrians and cyclists, forcing them closer to a busy roadway with limited visibility.
“Last year I just became even more aware of how serious this problem was because some of the local high schools, their track teams run over that road. They run right on the road and that’s really dangerous,” Manzella said. “We’ve had several incidents out there and it’s just a very dangerous place to walk or ride a bike.”
Township Supervisor Ralph Maccarone said the large amount of amenities for pedestrians on the west side of the township was a draw for people from throughout the area, making a safe location to cross a necessity.
“We have major developments on both sides of the freeway, and we really wanted to provide some access to the parks and trail system we have out there,” said Maccarone.
While I understand that Mr. Viar is conservative in his spending of the public’s dollars, I feel that safe and equal transportation for citizens using whatever mode they choose (foot, bicycle, car, whatever) is worth paying for, and these bridges go a long ways towards allowing equal use of our road system. Not only have I seen pedestrians and other cyclists on the new bridges, I have also encountered people crossing it in motorized wheelchairs, kids riding up and down the safe approaches, and people just using the bridge to move about without a car. That is, people who couldn’t safely use this corridor before.
Mr. Viar’s claim that he voted against paying $2.7 million is also a bit inflated. While the total cost of the project was $2.7 million, $1,187,500 of the cost was actually paid by MDOT grants. Per these meeting minutes (.DOC file) the township’s portion of the bridge cost was only $1,458,500.
Additionally, Mr. Viar also claims in this flier that he “…established an on-line payment system to make it more convenient for Shelby residents to pay their taxes.” I’m not sure what Mr. Viar’s idea of establishing or convenient is, but outsourcing payments to a company which charges a 3% “convenience charge” does not strike me as particularly inventive or useful. What I would find useful is if the township came up with a facility for paying one’s water and sewer bill online and without undue additional fees. Currently this quarterly bill is the only bill for which I still have to write and mail a check.
For reference, the two bridges can be found at these links on Google Maps, although the currently posted images have them in an unfinished state: 21 Mile · 22 Mile.
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This is the Doughnet Adapter, a very special network adapter I assembled in 2000 or 2001 from a Dunkin’ Doughnuts doughnut hole and a Compaq loopback cable. It has occasionally been branded with an N, but this seems to fade a year or so after it’s written.
I’ve kept the Doughnet Adapter in one of the overhead cabinets in my cube since I made it, finally bringing it home tonight so that I could photograph it.
A few months back I broke off a small piece from the bottom and tasted it. It is rancid, but still quite sweet and smells faintly of vegetable oil.
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The toilet in the hallway has been refilling itself a few times a day, so while up in Grand Blanc for work today I stopped by Home Depot and picked up two new Korky® Plus Premium Universal Flappers (P/N 2001BP). The other toilet wasn’t leaking, but as it was 2001 when I installed the old flappers I figured I’d replace both. After all, one doesn’t want their toilet flappers to fall out of sync.
Leave a CommentAs part of General Motors’ press release from this morning (this link may only work in IE), it has been announced that:
…health care coverage for U.S. salaried retirees over 65 will be eliminated, effective January 1, 2009. Affected retirees and surviving spouses will receive a pension increase from GM’s over funded U.S. salaried plan to help offset costs of Medicare and supplemental coverage.
This is awful. I can only hope that it helps push through some manner of base level (at least) socialized health care in the US.
Oh, and (as of right now) the stock is up almost 6%.
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This is just a friendly reminder that before throwing out a computer you should wipe the hard drive, lest people find things like this. Yes, I added the black blocks.
I acquired a computer today, and when checking it over found this. There were also some credit card transaction screens (I think maybe the owner had been saving these or something) and family photos, but not much else obvious. I think the owner had attempted to clean it with some antispyware tools and by uninstalling things, but there still were plenty of traces left. I didn’t dig too deep before beginning to wipe it.
So, what should you do when disposing of a computer and/or hard drive? Use a (relatively) simple utility like Darik’s Boot and Nuke to give the hard drive a few wipes before putting it to the curb or giving it away. Or just do what I did last time I had to dispose of some tapes and hard drives.
Anyone want a few year old Duron system? It seems to work…
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