Memorial Day Weekend

I had a really short work week. Thursday was my birthday, and Wednesday night, we headed out to go camping. I spent most of my evenings earlier this week figuring out where all our camping gear was.


First off, let me explain something. When we go camping, it's usually an ordeal. This isn't a backpacking trip. It's kind of like a party but with tents. I have a feeling we would fit right in at Burning Man or Toorcamp. In fact, a few years back, some hacker friends of mine did camp with us. Maybe we should try that again sometime soon.

Our site was very close to a nest of Grackles. Grackles are interesting creatures. They remind me of little Crows. They'll eat darn near anything (such as the pancake I burned Friday morning). They have an interesting shrill call that reminds me a little bit of a modem handshake from back in the day.


There were at least 3 different Grackles feeding the babies in the nest. The nest was built into a thorny Locust tree, and the Grackles' ability to make very precise flight patterns made for some fascinating entertainment. On several occasions, I saw them apparently hover in mid-air. This one was gliding over to the nest from an adjacent tree.


Yeah, I was really "roughing it", with coffee and Internet access...




And yes, we had to recharge our gear on Thursday.


My dad took Friday off, so my parents joined us at the camp site on Thursday.


I wish I could have gotten a better photo of this. An old rickety pickup was hauling this huge pontoon boat to the ramp. There were about 6 guys with fishing poles riding in the pontoon boat and drinking beer while the thing was still on the trailer.


Long exposure of our tent. It's a modified dome tent that's bigger than it needs to be for just my wife and I, but it's a cinch to set up, packs small and we've actually had 5 people crash in this thing all at the same time with a surprising amount of room left over.


Long exposure of thesky Thursday night. This shot makes it look brighter than it was. I didn't feel like setting up for HDR, though.


Near our camp site, we saw a Robin's nest (with a few babies) built atop a lamp.


Stag Beetle.


We saw this toad near the parking lot every night we were there. He reminds me of Hypno Toad from Futurama. ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNO TOAD!


Our camp neighbors had the oddest arrangement I've ever seen. They set up a huge mobile car-port, one you could easily park a short school bus under. They then proceeded to pitch two tents beneath it. After nightfall, they had some obsession with dumping flammable liquids on their fire by the gallon. This made for tall licks of flame followed by a "Whooosh" noise and a mix of laughter and "oooh!" sounds from nearby campers.


Meanwhile, we were making smores over a reasonable-sized camp fire that I must say I'm quite proud of. It's probably the best campfire I've ever made. It lasted many hours and provided an even, hot coal bed while keeping a pleasing flame all the while.


Dad and I kicking it by the fire before calling it a night. My mom and my wife were around the fire, too, but out of frame.


We only stayed out 3 days and 2 nights. I'm spending the rest of the weekend working on the honey-do list and geeking out.


I just realized a week before my birthday that my drivers' license was going to expire. I'm officially not legal to drive until I find the time to get around to renewing it. That's okay by me, though. I don't have a care in the world!


CommuterDude posted a photo of some tasty stuff in the trunk of his car (on Facebook, not his site, at least not yet). This was in response to his photo. I'm really liking Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat. I first tried it at Flying Saucer downtown a few months ago. I finally got around to buying a sixer of 312 today. It's a great beer for a hot summer afternoon! Roasterie Nitro is my go-to coffee. I used the last of my Nitro making coffee at the campsite Friday morning, so I had to buy more.

Crazy Weekend

Friday started nice, but it didn't take long to turn dark. Very dark.


As the storm rolled in, my wife and I swung by the nursery to pick up stuff to start a balcony veggie garden. I haven't tried my hand at gardening in more than a decade. We'll see how this plays out.


Saturday: a cool day that made for a beautiful ride to the PHP User Group meeting. Taken with my phone's camera, this shot makes old-town Lenexa look... old! Okay, the rusting motor city boat helps, too.




A not-quite-perfect panorama of Old-Town Lenexa. I used Hugin's default settings. Click for big.


Sunday was the family's combined belated Mother's Day / Noah Birthday party. I'm days away from losing my twenty-something status and not quite sure how I feel about that.

Mom and dad found a baby Great Horned Owl with a broken wing. Mom has some experience dealing with hawks, so she's helping the owl out. This is a baby. Fully grown, they can end up more than two feet tall perched and with an eight-foot wingspan. Note the use of heavy leather gloves and eye protection.


Dumpster score: recycling some ATM machine parts. Don't ask.


Trying to wake up this morning. Caffeine. It's what's for breakfast.


... and for supper ... Not sure if I like it better than "High Fructose Corn Syrup Dew" or not. It's different. It's good. I just don't know if it's better.


Sally went on a road trip over the weekend and brought us back a treat from Eastern Missouri. We didn't have to drive there this time. We did have to stay up really late to meet up with her, but it was worth it. White Castle's one of those things that you either love or hate, but even if you love it, you usually just crave it for a bit, then you're pretty much done with it for a few months. Or maybe that's just me.


I also got a pair of two-cycle weed trimmers working over the weekend. Both of them actually fired right up but needed a tune-up badly. This Toro engine has a centrifugal clutch built in. That's fairly uncommon. While I love my bikes, I have a fascination with mechanical things and a knack for hackery. I have something interesting in store for this one. I just need to acquire some parts first.

Snapshots from Bike Week

From my slog up Baltimore on Wednesday morning


45 good reasons to commute by bike. My birthday is next Thursday and I'm taking a five-day weekend that will wrap up with Memorial Day. we are planning on heading out to the lake to go camping. That means it's time to fill up the Explorer's gas tank before the gas prices get even more outrageous. It was $2.09 just a few hours before and under $2.00 last week. I know, these prices aren't too terrible when you consider that many other places never dipped below $2.00 in the first place.


It's been a rainy, windy week.


I took the bus several times. The weather has been more finicky for Bike Week 2009 than in any previous Bike Week I've been through.


No, I didn't hit 78 MPH on my bike. I had my bike inverted to fix it up earlier this week. I also cleaned and lubed the chain. For giggles (and because I like the sound my aero spokes make) I put my bike into high gear and cranked the pedals as fast as I could by hand. This was the end result of that.


Downtown KC scenery.






My camera's wrist strap got in the way here. This is Lorin, following me down 12th street.


He noticed his bike wasn't riding quite right. The sidewall had blown out and the inner tube was bulging through it. This was taken after deflating the tube.


I cut up a juice box with my Gerber multi-tool, and we used the plastic-laminated cardboard as a "boot" insert for his tire. You can use almost anything as a tire boot as long as it doesn't easily stretch or tear. Other good choices are plastic packaging from granola bars or other nutriment items you might be carrying, or even dollar-bills. US Currency is made of woven fabric that can handle these kinds of strains for a short while.


I cleaned up with a Zogics CitraWipe after that. I got to thinking that this package would have been even better as a boot for Lorin's tire, but it was already fixed.


Homeward trip last night: bliss!


Another bike commuter showed up on this at the CCCKC meeting last night. It's definitely a major step up from the toy-aisle bikes at retail stores. I don't know much about the components but it doesn't look like a bad deal for $600. I'm just not sure I'd buy any dual-suspension bike new for under $1,000, though. That said, I would probably be very hard on a DS bike and I'd be hitting the trails a lot more often than I do with The Goat. At least this Motobecane has suspension lockouts.

Why it's important to sign up for the Car-Free Challenge

I got this note from Laurie Chipman this morning, and I thought I'd share. She makes some valid points for signing up if you ride your bike, car pool, use transit, or walk to get around the greater KC area -- Even if it's part of your daily routine and you aren't changing a thing during Bike Week!

Hi all, I just want to point up something that even I had hardly thought about.

We may just think the Car-free Challenge is just a pleasant diversion for those who participate but it can have serious beneficial consequences for those of us who want a better walking, biking and transit environment.

http://kcbike.info/bikeweek/

We can use these numbers to justify asking for biking, walking/running and transit improvement funding.

Here are the statistics as of today, Wednesday.

* Total Miles: 9,738

* People Registered: 554

* People who have logged trips: 354

* Teams: 50

* Solo Commuters: 69

* First-timers: 21

* Carbon Dioxide saved: 9,231 pounds

* Gasoline saved: 541 gallons, $1,028

The numbers are down from last year but we know there are more people walking, bicycling and using transit. Please join a team and login your miles so we can prove to officials that we are out there and need to be counted!

http://kcbike.info/bikeweek/

Laurie Chipman

Let's Go KC, Alliance for Transportation Choice, representing 26,500 people

Kansas City Bicycle Club Advocate

Tricks of the trade: Bike Repairs

My bottom bracket has been getting cranky lately. Pun intended.

Noisy bottom brackets, if you catch them in time, often just need to be taken out, cleaned up, greased and re-installed properly. This takes special tools, but they don't cost much more than having a bike shop do the job once or twice. In my case, I've got many thousands of miles on the original BB, but I've serviced the BB three times now.

Jobs like bottom bracket service might be best left to the bike shop if you're just getting started, but shops will often try to upsell you or get you to replace an otherwise functional part with a brand new one even if you don't actually need it.


It's not that I have something against bike technicians. Some of my best cycling friends are wrenches by trade or they're moonlighting at bike shops in their downtime. My frustration comes from the industry: bike repair doesn't pay the bills; selling new bikes and accessories is what brings home the bacon. The tools to install these accessories are the same ones to fix bikes, and repair is for the most part only provided as a service to keep customers coming back.

Even if bike shops are fair -- and some are much more honest than others -- this is busy season. Bike shops get backlogged. Those of us who rely on our bikes for more than leisure can't always go a week without our bike while it sits in queue to be looked at.

For these reasons, I feel that it's very important for utility cyclists, randonneurs, commuters and bike tourers to have a firm understanding of how to do some basic bike repairs. Start with easy stuff that doesn't require many fancy tools (like changing your inner tube out).

As you run into other minor problems (derailleur adjustments, chain replacement), do some research and see if it's something you can do yourself. Some good sites:

Bicycle tutor
Park Tool Repair
Sheldon Brown

As always, feel free to comment here or drop me a line via e-mail, and I can probably point you in the right direction if you feel like taking a crack at fixing your bike. They're actually pretty simple machines. They're modular, and bikes of a decent quality usually have a lot of standardized components.

In other news, I scored a bell from last night's event at Overland Park city hall. Not wanting to crowd my handlebars any more than they are (you might call me "Captain Dashboard"), I mounted it to my seatpost. It works just fine there.


Oh, and I had a spectator while I was working on the bottom bracket.

Bike Week 2009: Solo Tuesday Wrap-up

No other cyclists in sight this morning -- a shame, really. It was close to my idea of perfect commute weather.

Bombing down 67th Street


Distant KCMO Skyline


I can't say the same for this afternoon. When I got out of the office, it was already raining downtown. I'll take the bus, thanks.