Author: Greg

Jedi Awake

If there is one thing I would change about myself, it is my sleeping habits/patterns. Case in point, last night Sue and I stayed up to watch Return of the Jedi in prep for seeing The Force Awakens in a couple days. After crawling into bed just before 12, I woke up at 4:15 needing to go to the bathroom. I crawled back into bed, then lay awake for over an hour before finally getting up for the day.

Considering it is New Years Eve, and we are going out to a friends house, perhaps a nap is in order this afternoon. 

Confusing Cones

I get it. Construction zones can be confusing. Lanes can be closed, there are new signs, people are going slow. Still, there are limits to my patience.

 

Today I was driving up Johnson St, crossing Wharf. The construction for the new bridge has closed a sidewalk, so the crews coned off a pedestrian area, and moved the driving lanes over accordingly. At the stop light a lady and I proceeded when the light went green, and this lady, for some reason, drifted from her right lane, over into my lane on the left. I honked as she started to drift, but this did nothing for her. She didn’t hit the brakes or even look my way. I know she could hear my horn since I was on it for a long time, and her rear passenger door was right next to my food.

 

Fine, she is now in my lane with some cones dividing our left lane from the right lane. Once the cones ended, and the lanes went back to normal, she then drifted back to the right lane! WTF? I shook my head a few time. At the next light she glanced at me giving me a disapproving look. *sigh* some people should not be driving.

Spewing Dangerous

I got out for a ride today. I wasn’t really feeling like riding when I work up this morning, but I had planned to ride with a friend, so went anyway. The weather yesterday was very tempermental, alternating between lots or rain, wind, sun. The day started out alright, but as I pulled into the parking lot at the dump, it started to rain again.

 

Quickly getting ready, we hit the trails. Neither of us were feeling that into riding, so we decided on a short loop up to Snakes and Ladders.

 

 

Coming down Snakes and Ladders, there is one sort of awkward gap jump that I had never tried before, and today I decided to give it a go. I hesitated as I approached (bad idea), but went for it any way. Turned out that hesitation cost me a bit of momentum, and I didn’t quite clear a rock. I tapped it, and when I landed hear an all together too familiar sound of air escaping. Normally getting a flat wouldn’t be too big of a deal, but this is a tubeless tire on a brand new wheel. Less than two months old.

 

Argh. I quickly stopped to asses the damage and was pretty dismayed by what I saw. A large gash, sealant spewing everywhere. I grabbed a tube and fixed the tire, all the while cursing myself. Soaked, cold, muddy, standing in the rain fixing a flat. Lovely. I got the wheel back together, then went to put my cold, soaking wet gloves on before deciding to ride back barehanded.

 

Here is the damage after cleaning up the bike back at the truck.

gash in tire
Ouch!

 

I also really need to replace the front tire too. It is badly worn, and when leaning over in hard corners I can really feel it wash out. Bad enough in dry conditions, but in the wet this is getting dangerous.

 

tire with missing knobs
Old front tire

Sigh, off to the bike shop this week I guess.

Weekend List

Another busy weekend gone, and I am tired, sitting on the couch thinking I should head to bed. First though, a blog post. Friday night I went out to a friends birthday parts at the Guild. Lots of fun, good drinks, lots of people I know, and great music.

 

Saturday I put up some shelving in Elliot’s room. This is something that has been on my list to do for a while now, and it felt good to get it crossed off.

After doing a bit of running around looking for bike rack supplies (more on that in a bit), Elliot and I went for a little ride at the dump. This was only the second time I had ever taken him there, so he was understandably tentative. He was getting off his bike at one point, slipped, and banged his knee on a rock, hard enough to draw blood. He continued on like a trooper though.

Saturday night was dinner at a friends place.

 

Sunday morning I was out for a long ride.

 

Sunday afternoon I set out to build a new bike rack. I saw some instructions on Lifehacker a while ago, and I wanted to build one. One run to Home Depot, a bit of mental figuring out, and voila! It works pretty sweet. For my road bike. It is too low for my mountain bike, but one I raise everything up three inches it will be perfect. Not bad for a weekend project.

I even had a helper for part of my project.

Component Eagle

Sue, the kids, and I took a walk on the beach by my Mom’s place yesterday. The waves were starting to pick up and the wind was gusting, but there was no rain. A key component to keeping the kids interested in continuing. Beaches are a great place to explore and we did find a lot of interesting things.

The start of our walk was the announcement from the eagle at the top of a very tall tree. It was one of the few times recently where I wished I had my DSLR instead of my phone, but I was still a very impressive sight.