Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.
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Beyond the fancy socket I also need a way to measure oil before I can rebuild my the fork on my Titus Racer X 29er. FOX shows graduated cylinders being used for oil measurement in their instructions so I’m going to try the same. At $14.99 from Amazon this Karter Scientific set seems like a fair price, and hopefully it’ll work out well. Being glass I also hope that I can sufficiently clean them of oil so they may be used for measuring other things.
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My friend Erik uses a heavy cable and a padlock to keep someone from walking away with the bikes on his car rack. He recently lost the keys to one of the racks but wanted to keep the cable, so he needed to cut the lock. Being an American Lock purchased from a locksmith we figured it’d be quite a task to get it apart, but since it ended up to be a Series A30 aluminum body lock it was much easier than we’d anticipated.
Using a heavy duty Hilti reciprocating saw he first tried to cut the hasp, but the hardened steel was only polished shiny by the saw blade. He then cut into the lock body and ended up severing the pin which holds the lock together. It was then easy to remove the core and use a screwdriver to actuate the lock mechanism, releasing the hasp. With a set of picks I was then able to disassemble the core and remove the pins and springs. A quick tug on a small brass ring with needle nose and the ball locks for the hasp were free and the lock was completely disassembled.
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It’s been a bit over nine years since I fixed up the living room in my condo, and since then (and with Danielle now living here) the room’s needs have changed a bit. I’ve had a nice tube HDTV in the basement and it’s been well used for movie watching and playing games, but up until now there hasn’t been a TV in the living room. Danielle really has been wanting one there, but being oddly shaped I’ve been hesitant and somewhat resistant to trying. After last night’s fiddling with the HTPC and thinking a bunch about how much Danielle would probably use it, I decided to give it a serious look.
By pulling one of the love seats away from the wall and flipping it around I was able to create a nice space for a TV while still leaving the doorwall accessible. The recliner was moved to the basement, the coffee table moved into service as a TV stand, and the end tables kept doing their thing. This setup doesn’t clutter the room so walking through is still easy, and it doesn’t feel like one is sitting awkwardly in the middle of an open space.
This experimentation and talking it over with Danielle resulted in our purchase of a Sharp LC-52LE640 LED-lit flat panel LCD TV. Sears had them on sale for a quite reasonable price with a bonus $100 in-store gift card for a total of $953.99 after tax. This seems to be one of the nicer non-3D models available in this price range, and being in stock locally was a nice treat as it allows an easier return option if necessary.
Beyond the TV there was only a need to purchase one spool of speaker wire to get everything set up. Everything else came from either spares in the basement or things moved from the previous setup. I do need to pick up two replacement front channel speakers on eBay, but the model that I have is both good quality, relatively cheap, and fairly available so this likely won’t be a problem.
The end setup has the television with all devices connected to it via HDMI, except for the Wii which uses component + analog audio. The TV then re-ouputs the audio via TOSLINK to an AMB γ1 DAC that I built a few years ago which is the input for a NAD 705 stereo receiver that feeds a pair of Energy Take speakers and a Yamaha YST-SW160 subwoofer. I hooked the speakers up to the B channel of the amp, leaving the original Gekko GK-1824 flat speakers which I use for room-filling audio while working in the kitchen on the A channel. An original Airport Express also remains connected on one of the other inputs for times when I want to play synchronized audio throughout the house.
Here is a head-on view of the whole setup. I may do a better job of bundling the wires, perhaps replacing some of them with black versions, and I might stuff all of the visible bits inside of split tubing to make it nicer looking. It’s not bad as it is, though, especially for not having a large mass of wired network gear, power supplies, and all hookup cables bundled under the bottom of the table.
Thus far it seems to be working out well, and Danielle seems quite happy with it. I’m really glad.
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I’ve been wanting to make the Asus Eee Box 1501 PC that I’ve got connected to the television perform a bit better, so having a spare SSD hanging around I decided to do some upgrading. Using the personal version of XXCLONE I was able to easily copy the old 250GB drive to the SSD, and the RAM was easy to upgrade once I purchased the right stuff. I’d initially made the mistake of thinking I had a 1501P model when mine was actually the plain 1501. This meant I’d accidentally acquired DDR3 RAM, only noticing my mistake when it didn’t fit into the slot. After another trip back to Micro Center (and a bunch of waiting†)
As a result of these upgrades the machine feels much faster, and I hope that the problems I was having with Netflix will be gone. The issues seemed disk related, as things would slow down tremendously whenever there was a bit of disk activity occurring. Running diagnostic tools showed a correlation between slowness and disk busyness too. Since this could also have been caused by paging (I didn’t look at it in enough detail to say if it was or not) I also increased the RAM.
Total price for this upgrade was $63.57 ($59.99 for the RAM, plus sales tax), and was only this much because DDR2 is becoming rare and thus more expensive. The upgrade was done in anticipation of seriously reshuffling the video (broadcast TV, internet streaming, etc) setup around the house. That’ll all hopefully happen within the next week or so.
(The photo above shows the inside of the Asus Eee Box 1501. The disassembly was very easy, but I was strongly disappointed by the wireless antenna. While it looks detachable and has a knurled base, turning it broke the plastic off and revealed it to be nothing more than a snap-on antenna with coax that runs directly to the network card. While not completely broken the antenna is now a bit loose and floppy. Thankfully the RF connection is still intact.)
† Exchanging the RAM involved waiting in a line to initiate the return, attempting to find the replacement RAM (which listed 5 pieces in stock, but couldn’t be found), locating a suitable alternate replacement, negotiating a price match to the product which couldn’t be found, waiting for the return to be processed, then waiting for the replacement RAM to be brought to the front of the store. This took a total of ~55 minutes.
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While getting ready to head out on a lunch time ride I noticed that the sidewall of a recently-installed tire on my Salsa El Mariachi had a bubble in it. This is the same failure mode that I experienced back on April 1st when out at Addison Oaks with Erik and Jeremy. The sidewall tears away from the bead, and the tube bubbles out the side. Thankfully this time it didn’t burst before I caught it.
Both of these tires were purchased from a Kenda rep back in early 2010 when on a trip to Ray’s, and I guess it was time for them to go. The tire has been replaced with a Kenda Slant Six that I picked up last year, which makes for a nice (albeit slightly knobbier) rear tire which will hopefully hold up for a while.
I guess it’s good that this didn’t happen (or result in a full failure) while riding Stony Creek last night. Now, to reschedule today’s riding until after work…
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Today while in the parking lots of either River Bends or Stony Creek with my brother in law Josh I lost my 3mm ball end hex wrench. I was carrying it along with the 4mm and 5mm wrenches in case I needed to adjust the dropouts on my single speed (specifically, to tension the chain). But, it appears that when getting out one of the wrenches so I could press my fork’s dust wiper back into place I must have dropped this one, leaving it in a parking lot.
Hopefully I can get another one without buying a full set.
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I need to rebuild the FOX F29 RLC fork on my Titus, so I ordered the supplies to rebuild the fork, but found that I’d need a socket that has had the face ground flat in order to properly (read: safely, without marring the aluminum) remove the top caps from the fork. While openly contemplating what to do about this on Facebook a friend of mine, Mark Dombrowski (also the MCMBA Trail Coordinator for ILRA) offered to make me an aluminum socket to meet my exact needs. He’d done the same for himself in the past, and this one was like his, but with the incremental improvement of a 15mm hex cap for turning the socket.
This sort of socket (or one with the face ground flat) is needed because FOX top caps have very thin flats and are made of aluminum. The internal flaring on most sockets either won’t mate well (best case) or will round off the cap (worst case). Grinding a hardened socket flat can be quite a pain, and having a softer tool for turning the aluminum is a good idea, so he came up with this.
I’m really thankful to have one of these. Once the replacement parts come in I’ll be able to rebuild the Titus’ fork, and I also should be able to use this on the fork which’ll come on the bike that I’ve currently got on order. This is a really nice part.
Here’s a few more views of it:
1 Comment· Looking into the business end of the socket which mates with the 26mm top cap.
· The opposite end of the socket has a 15mm hex fitting.
· Oblique view showing the nicely machined part.
· Socket with Industrial Sharpie labeling so I can remember its exact sizes.
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This past Sunday was the Triple Trail Challenge, a rather nifty fundraising group ride out at Pinckney State Recreation Area which spans parts of the normal mountain bike trails and also some trails which are only open to bikes for that day. I headed out with Jeremy and Sol and had a really great time. The route was rather nice and I’d love to do this ride again. The Lakelands Trail was a bit rough, and some of the dirt roads were a bit slimy due to recent grading and spraying, but it all added up to an outstanding 38.5 mile ride.
While the ride itself is free, it’s used as a fundraiser by the Potawatomi Mountain Bike Association by selling t-shirts, beer glasses, and trying to sign up members. This seemed to be really successful, as I heard there were 600+ people out for the ride, they acquired over 100 new members that day, sold out of t-shirts, and were running short on pint glasses. After the ride there were ample supplies of complimentary chili (vegetarian, I believe) and Arbor Brewing Company beer for all those who participated.
I was one of those who bought one of the glasses (t-shirts were sold out when I tried to get one), and it can be seen above filled with some of New Belgium’s Fat Tire Ale. I’m not a huge fan of this beer, but it is a pretty solid, reliable beverage. Since it’s now available in Michigan I’ll probably pick up a few more bottles of their stuff, and it’s nice to know that these glasses nicely hold an entire 22oz bottle.
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A bit over two years ago I attempted to ride from near Addison Oaks up to I-69, but fell short due to the trail being washed out. Today, the first would-be-work-day of my current vacation, I decided to try again, this time starting from my house. Even though I had to cut it a bit short due to Roxie becoming ill and didn’t make my desired 100 miles, I think the ride was a success.
The ride started out with me meeting a friend named R (he asked me not to mention his name because he was taking a much-needed break from work), and he and I made our way up to the Polly Ann Trail. At this point he turned west and began heading home, while I went northeast and continued on towards my destination. After crossing the Lapeer county line and weathering the rough, unkept (although occasionally mowed) trail I hit my goal, the Interstate 69 underpass just south of Lapeer. I carried on for a couple miles further north before turning back and beginning the ride home.
On the way out I’d had to cross a rather questionable bridge which washed out almost four years ago. Back in 2009 Erik, Kristi, and I happened across this bridge and turned back, but now some enterprising soul(s) had built a timber crossing so I was able to easily keep going. Despite a 10′ drop on to concrete and iron I used my bike as a balance beam and walked across the 10″ wide wood plank to get to the body of the bridge before crossing another two on the far side.
On the way back I’d intended to bypass this bridge via dirt roads, but a bit of a miscalculation resulted in my traversing it in the other direction. While stopping to take pictures I was surprised by Dustin rolling up, having chosen to take the same sort of ride as me today. After heading south via dirt roads and into Stony Creek to refill water and drink mix, and then decided to detour through The Pines before heading home, but while in there I came across someone who let me by then seemed to be looking for his friend Charles. I headed up ahead to let this person know that his friend is all right (but just a ways back), and realized it was Charles, brother of Mr. George Hotelling, who I’d met at a housewarming party this past winter. What an unexpected coincidence.
Then, on top of that, it turns out that a former coworker spotted R and I riding up Lake George, but didn’t catch up with us before we’d turned off the road.
Everything was going great until Danielle texted me while I was talking with Charles and his friend to let me know that Roxie wasn’t doing so well. She had been pooping paste for a couple days, and this afternoon Danielle contacted me to let me know that Roxie had begun vomiting and then wouldn’t get up off the lawn and come back inside. Worried she took Roxie to the vet, and I rushed home. I had another 20 miles in me and could have broken 100 today, but Roxie is more important than that. (It turns out that Roxie has a GI infection resulting in her having digestive issues and being lethargic. She’s on a diet of mild food and antibiotics for a few days, after which she’ll hopefully be better.)
All done, here are today’s stats and route map on Strava. This was a good ride, and I’m thinking that I’d like to do something similar before vacation is over; perhaps some time early next week.
Here are the four decent photos that I took today:
Leave a Comment· Looking north along a washed out bridge on the Polly Ann Trail just south of I-69.
· Looking south along a washed out bridge on the Polly Ann Trail just south of I-69.
· The Titus on the Polly Ann Trail where it passes under I-69.
· Looking down at the board which I walked to access the washed out bridge along the Polly Ann Trail.
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With New Belgium beers now being distributed I’ve been giving all the available varieties a try. I’m still not fond of Fat Tire (it’s not bad, but nothing I find particularly special), but the others that I’ve tried along with this seasonal variety Red Hoptober (Shift Pale Ale, Ranger IPA) are quite nice.
It’s nice to see another widely available quality beer here in Michigan. While we do have loads of good local stuff and I prefer to buy Michigan beers if I can, I think that the available beer market improving in quality overall is nothing but a good thing for everyone.
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