Gah. I’d forgotten what a chore it is to open a Civic’s dash, particularly in cold weather when the clips are harder.
At least I’m now half done. The old Honda Music Link cable has been removed from my dash, and now I can begin the process of selling a second one (my first, original one). Then I’ll be completely done with any HML-related work.
Working Panasonic PV-D4743S Found In TrashTwo weeks ago I mentioned a DVD player / VCR combo I found in the trash. As I thought, it works great. This afternoon I gave it a test, and both the DVD and VCR halves work great. While there isn’t a remote, it doesn’t really seem to be needed. Or, one could easily purchase a universal remote to use with it.
So, that said, would any of you like it? Obviously, you’d have to come get it, but I’d like to be rid of it. I don’t have a need for it, but hopefully someone I know does. And yes, I mean actually use, not just have to add to a pile of other stuff.
If no one here wants it I’ll just take it to the Salvation Army. I’m sure they can find someone who could make good use of it.
Anyway, let me know if you want it…
So, the note I sent to VG’s yesterday? I got a response this afternoon, and it’s good:
Dear Mr. Vigneau....
Thank you for your email. Your request is an excellent one. It seems that in the scramble to get the store open, we missed installing a bike rack. I have ordered one and it should arrive at the store within the next week or so. We'll get it installed as soon as it arrives. We look forward to having you shop at the store and thank you again for the great suggestion.
Have a good weekend!
Regards....
Bill Ogle
VG's Food Centerphone 810.629.xxxx
fax 866.706.xxxx
This is excellent. Here is the route from my house to there, and as you can see, it’s pretty darn short. Very, very bikable. I will be avoiding riding in Schoenherr, as it is a 50MPH road with no shoulders (only curbs) and loads of people driving really, really horrible. (If you know this area, you know the sort… it’s >60% SUVs and trucks, swerving around the people making turns, with ~20% of drivers talking on cell phones.)
But, anyway, yeah. This is good!
Today Danielle and I did a bunch of running around as well. I ended up getting a rack for the back of my bike, the Explorer w/ disc brake mounts. I was going to get a smallish bag for holding the small, necessary bits, but instead I think I’ll get the RX Trunk Bag EX instead. It’s only about $10 more than a small underseat bag and should provide plenty of room for lunch or whatever.
Then again, there’s always the possibility of folding grocery bag holders…
UPDATE: Oooh! This, a basket which clips right into the rack I just installed, is $25.80 via Amazon. I think that’ll do. That should hold a hand-held basket full of groceries, which is exactly the quantity I normally buy when going shopping. Yay!
I just sent the following to VG’s via their contact form. It’s a bit over the top, and I’m not really a cyclist, but I would like bike racks there. As it’s only ~1 mile from my house, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to ride up there when needing to pick up something small.
Hello,
I live not far from your store in Shelby Township, located at 22 Mile and Schoenherr. I regularly ride past the store on a bicycle, and I'd love to stop and pick up groceries, but I haven't seen anywhere to secure my bike. That is, no bike racks around the store.
If I just haven't noticed them, could you tell me where they are located? Or, if there aren't any bike racks, would you please consider installing secure bike racks somewhere along the front of the store so that cyclists like myself can secure a bike while shopping?
Thanks very much!
-Steve Vigneau
c0nsumer@nuxx.net
Huh, so I’ve just been informed that Michigan has all the Chilton’s manuals online for free now.
Just take this link and punch in your MI driver’s license number.
Nice, eh?
So, I’ve switched my terminal and editors to using a rather nifty new(ish) font from Microsoft called Consolas.
It’s a monospaced font designed specifically to look good with ClearType on, for code or terminals.
To be honest, I really quite like it.
Have any of you ever used any induction cooking stuffs? Or, better yet, do you have any?
I’m contemplating acquiring an induction cooktop for more efficient cooking and whatnot, but I’ve never actually used one. It seems to me like it would be just as responsive as gas, as the moment the current is cut the cookware will begin cooling. It is far more efficient than either electric coil or gas. It would also likely be much easier to clean.
My On Christmas Eve of 1994 my parents gave me a HP LaserJet 5L. At the time it cost somewhere around $400 – $500, but was one of the most affordable laser printers for home use. Over the years it’s been particularly helpful to have a laser printer around home. With the wonders of toner (over ink) it’s been a great, reliable printer, except for back in 2001-2002 when I had to replace the rollers because they were no longer picking up paper. Tonight the pickup rollers stopped picking up paper again. I haven’t investigated if it is possibly something more than the rubber on the rollers, but I hope not.
I’ll probably first try to clean the rollers with alcohol, but I may just have to buy a kit like this one and replace them. I’m tempted to give the printer up to the gods, but that’d be a bit wasteful, so even if I give it away I’ll probably get it into a working state first.
It’s a great PCL printer and works great with Windows, but as OS X uses Gimp-Print / Gutenprint for its generic drivers, dithered images tend to look like poo. That all makes me want a PostScript printer, but one of those won’t be very cheap. It would be really nice to have one with a built in print server so that I could finally stop using the (as old as the printer) 10baseT / 10base2 JetDirect EX Plus. Although that thing works great too, and any OS which can do any sort of network printing at all can find a way to send data to it…
So, I’m not sure what I want to do yet, but I do know that I can’t quite afford a new printer. Ah well, at least it’s had a good run.
Honda / Acura Music Link for AuctionI just listed one of my Honda Music Links for auction on eBay, as discussed yesterday.
If you are interested in it but want to make me an offer outside of eBay, please do so. Otherwise, bidding starts at $1 and lasts for 7 days.
Specialized 2008 Rockhopper Disc w/ Forte FastCity ST/K TiresTwo more of the packages of bike stuff I’ve been waiting for arrived today, bearing the GPS mount, smooth tires (Forte FastCity ST/K), tubes (yes, including the wrong ones with Presta valves), Crank Brothers tool, tube patching kit, tire tool, and stuff like that.
With Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance arriving yesterday, I’d started giving it a read. It’s pretty good, although a bit more basic than I need. As the book says in the beginning, it’s really for someone who isn’t comfortable doing mechanical work yet and wants all the basics. Still, it’s nice to see the in depth descriptions of how certain bits of a bike are to be taken apart, info on lubricating and cleaning bits, exploded views of things, stuff like that. Oh, and the author’s nifty bits of amusing advice and warnings are good too.
I read through the section on installing tires (only three pages), then went ahead and put the new tires on my bike. They are some smooth road-ish tires which a friend of mine rather likes. Putting the new tires and tubes on was easier than I expected. Removing the rear wheel was a bit of a problem, as I either don’t know a good trick for getting the rear quick release around the derailer, or it really is just difficult. Regardless, it got done.
After the tires (and GPS mount) were fitted I decided to go for a test ride around the neighborhood, to see how the tires, GPS, and things like that all work out. The first thing I noticed was that the tires work great. At ~70psi things were nice and smooth, exactly how I wanted it to be on pavement. The tires have a maximum of 90psi or so, so this is well within a safe range. I would have liked to have gone farther, but I don’t have lights yet, so riding in public wouldn’t be legal. The neighborhood here also has streets and is relatively cut off, so I figured it was a good, safe area for playing around and trying out braking and such.
Next I noticed that the GPS kept crashing, leaving a single column of pixels on the screen, and the bike computer wasn’t registering revolutions. Some side of the road poking around showed that the GPS’ backlight interferes with the wireless bike computer. This shouldn’t be a problem, as I’ll rarely be using the backlight anyway, but it is a bit annoying. I also need to determine if the bike computer was somehow causing the GPS to crash. I had recently upgraded the firmware on the GPS and thrown some new (2008) maps into it so that could somehow be related, but… I’m not sure. I’ll have to poke with it more and see.
While riding around, the bike computer clocked a maximum speed of 23.7MPH, but as these bike tires are a bit smaller than the knobby ones, I think that may have been about 10% off. Still, I’m pretty happy with how much faster I was able to ride. After three (fast, for me) laps around my neighborhood I was pretty cold, which is to be expected when wearing a nice flow-through helmet and having no hair.
Either way, I’m pretty happy. I just have to wait for the bike frame pump to arrive and then I can figure out what bag to get, and maybe go riding some this weekend. If the weather holds out it’ll still be reasonably warm, and as long as the trails haven’t acquired more snow / ice, I’ll try and hit up some of the local paved trails and see how things go.