Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.
As some of you know, I do many of the “webmaster” activities for the Michigan Mountain Biking Association. As part of this, I’m trying to do some MySQL stuff, but I’m really not sure where to start since it seems to be way beyond my abilities. So, I’m going to write it up here and hope that someone can help. Please? Help?
Thank you very much in advance for any help you can provide.
I’ll put it below the fold…
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This morning I ate a cup of Wallaby Organic Yogurt which Danielle purchased on clearance at VG’s. While tasty, I was a bit confused by the printing on the lid claiming that it’s inspired by “Australian yogurts”. Prior to this I’d never heard of such a thing, and apparently I’m not the only one confused by this designation.
I figure that this wording is simply a way of making a food sound more interesting by implying that it’s foreign. After all, foreign foods are better; especially those from exotic lands like Australia.
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The avocado that I purchased yesterday from Whole Foods to eat today for breakfast is bad. It’s weirdly stringy, tastes salty, and is of an overall not-avocado color. Oh well. I guess that’s why they were 10 for $10.
No breakfast avocado for me, I guess. At least the peach that was purchased at the same time is good.
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Last night Danielle and I went out to Aurelio’s Italian Grill, located in an old car wash at 19 Mile and Garfield in Clinton Township, stuck between a Wendy’s and National Coney Island. While the location seemed a bit strange at first, the narrow building and large number of windows made it feel bright and comfortable inside, all without much artificial light being needed.
Between the four of us we ordered the following minestrone soup, tortellini soup, Italian salad, fettuccine alfredo, spaghetti w/ meatballs, spinach & ricotta rigatoni, and chicken cremosi. All of the food was excellent, and very clearly well made. Portions were immense, with each of us bringing home more food than we ate during our meals. The photo above (and here) shows three dishes after we ate our fill of them, and here is the remains of Danielle’s chicken cremosi. Most of this should reheat well making for outstanding lunches. Prices are also quite reasonable, as for the four of us our total ended up being just under $60, including $10 in tip.
The only bad thing I could say is that the website for Aurelio’s Italian Grill seems to require both IE and the Windows Media Player ActiveX plugin to view the menu. Still, even if you can’t check out the menu before you go, give this place a try. If you’re wanting some nice Italian and live in the area, you’d do well to give this place a try.
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As you may have noticed by now I occasionally fix Garmin Edge 305 cycling GPSs that have a known problem where they will suddenly power off during use. This is caused by the spring contacts for the battery bouncing free from the battery contact and the device momentarily losing power, leaving it in an off state. To remedy this I move the battery wires from the contact PCB directly to test pads on the main board, completely bypassing the iffy spring contacts.
It appears that Garmin is aware of this issue and has tried to remedy it in recent versions of the Edge 305. Tonight when I pulled apart another one apart I found foam rubber stuck under the contacts apparently to provide additional pressure and avoid the problem. Clearly this did not work as otherwise I would not have been repairing this one. I can only hope that Garmin has a much better design in the Edge 500 (and future models) to completely avoid this issue.
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While filling a syringe with RTV I accidentally squeezed the tube in the middle instead of the end, applying enough force that the end of the tube burst all over my arm. Oops. at least I had enough silicone in the syringe to finish up the Garmin Edge 305 that I was fixing.
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I’ve dropped the chain on my single speed a few times lately, noticing that the chain has become more and more slack. Since I’m not noticing any dropout/wheel slipping since sorting out the sliding dropout issue I decided to measure the chain. Lo and behold, when using my trusty Park CC-3 I found that it’s stretched .75% in some places, 1.0% in others. When I went to swap the chain tonight I decided to clean the chainring, only to find the telltale burrs and hooked tooth pattern indicating it’s time to replace the chainring. Being aluminum this Spot chainring was bound to
I think I’ll just get a nice stainless steel Surly 104mm BCD x 34t then reassemble it all without the Salsa bash guard, although the bash guard may be worth keeping just to protect everything. Hopefully between with the new chainring, proper tensioning, and a new chain everything will stay in place and the chain will remain nicely tensioned.
At least these aren’t the kind of problems that I’d have with carbon fiber chainrings.
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Today after work I couldn’t decide where to go ride, but eventually I settled on heading up from Oakview Middle School to the Polly Ann Trail to see if I could make it to I-69, roughly 16 miles away, in an hour. Leaving the school’s parking lot at 6:00pm I decided to turn around at 7:00pm, giving myself roughly 1:20 to get back to the parking lot before the sun set. I wasn’t quite prepared for this endeavor, but it worked out well.
I ended up only making it as far as the ditch pictured here, as when I rolled up to this area my clock ticked over to 7:00pm exactly. As opposed to last time I’d ridden this when the ditch was passable and fairly easy to climb it’s now much more eroded, and the far side is overgrown to the point where riding it would have been a slow go; definitely not something to do at 7:00pm on a late August evening without a set of head and tail lights.
All done, I ended up riding 27.7 miles with a moving time of 1:46:42, for an average of 15.58 MPH. Despite having some decent hills (particularly along Lake George Road) and terrible path surface (large gravel at times, or just grass) north of the Lapeer / Oakland county line this is the fastest average speed I’ve had on a ride. It even surpasses mostly-pavement rides with smooth tires to and from work or around local paved paths.
Upon returning to the car I felt very worn out and right on the edge of bonking which I’d thankfully staved off by consuming two Hammer Gels (vanilla and chocolate) while riding. I found myself wanting for a some Recoverite, chocolate milk, or maybe a banana upon returning to the parking lot, but I just had to settle for a few handfuls of granola. Oh well. At least it was a fun, hard ride.
Just before turning back I started recording the route via my phone’s GPS. If you’d like to see a copy of this GPS plot, it can be found here: 24-Aug-2010_PollyAnnBacktoOakview.kmz
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Up for sale is the single speed wheel set from my VooDoo Dambala. I recently picked up a new (to me) set of wheels with WTB hubs laced to Salsa rims, so I no longer need these. These are SUNringlé Equalizer 23 rims and DIRTY flea hubs with silver spokes and fresh Enduro bearings in the front hub. They are in very good shape and would make a great second / winter set of wheels, or a primary set if you are just building up a single speed.
Here’s all five photos that I’ve posted of the wheels: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5. You can also check out this post on the MMBA Forum where I have them for sale with a bit more information.
Asking price is US$150 or best offer. Email me if you are interested in these.
UPDATE: These are pending sale, and most likely sold.
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Sometimes I put the pizza on the plate backwards, making it harder for my right-handed self to eat as cutting with the edge of the fork gets my hand very close to the other piece.
(This pizza is from Sherwood Brewing Company, purchased on Wednesday evening and eaten as leftovers at work both yesterday and today.)
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