Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category.
Last night Christine and I went and watched a bunch of folks race Office Chairs down the hill behind the Seattle Times.
All photos here. I learned about it from the point 83 forums.
Enough text — here are the good photos:
(no cars were harmed in the making of this photograph — oh well)
That is a Bakfiets from Clever Cycles.
I just discovered that people have left dozens of comments that I needed to moderate. Sadly there were dozens of other bits of comment spam (there were 123 unmoderated comments total).
Anyway, the non-spammy comments are unleashed and I’m slowly going back and reading them.
I’ll figure out how to get notified when new comments come in so that I don’t sit on them forever.
In September Christine and I spent about 10 days in Montana visiting Yellowstone and going to a friend’s wedding. It was our first trip to trip to Yellowstone and hopefully it won’t be our last.We arrived at the Park first thing Monday morning and jumped right in. On our first day we took drove from the West Yellowstone Entrance up to Mammoth then across the north end of the park to the Northwest park entrance near Cooke City.
The first day was a surprise to us. A couple of miles into the park we saw a lot of wildlife right next to the road. I was ready for wildlife but didn’t realize how much thermal activity the park had. We saw steam from a thermal feature going across the road and originally wondered what was on fire. It turned out to be this lovely lake which was fed by a hotspring:
We did a lot of short hikes that day. We had a lot of fun walking around the Artists Pots, Norris Basinand Mammoth Hot Springs(links go to photo galleries). We finished the day with a 4 mile hike along the Yellowstone Grand Canyon where we had some really views from the top of the canyon and nice closeup views of a Bison giving itself a dust bath:
That night we stayed in a cabin just outside the park near Cooke City. Christine named the cabin “the hobbit hut” due to it’s low ceiling and small size. It was a nice place to stay and inexpensive, but the we were less impressed with the overpriced food in Cooke City.
We started our second day in Yellowstone by trying to spot some wildlife. We were along the Lamar River Valley which is known as one of the best areas for seeing wildlife, specifically wolves, in the park. I thought we’d find a good spot and eat breakfast and watch for animals.
It was freezing.
We spent about half an hour with a large group trying to find wolves with no luck. They were probably staying warm in bed! We did see a bald eagle and some pronghorn deer. I found it just as interesting to watch the watchers:
We ended up eating breakfast in the picnic area near the previous days hike. It was very nice to have some hot coffee and oatmeal and watch the nearby animals and scenery. We spent the rest of the morning driving down the east side of the park along Lake Yellowstone. In the afternoon we did a 6 mile hike along DeLacy Creek hoping to see some river otters (Christine’s favorite wild animal). We didn’t find any otters, but we had a great hike and there were nice views of Yellowstone Lake. We had to take a fast pace on our way out to make sure that we made our dinner reservation at Old Faithful Inn.
On our third day we spent the morning wandering through the Geyser Basin just outside of the Old Faithful Inn. It was really cool to see geysers large and small close up. Even when they aren’t spewing water they look really cool. The most amazing thermal feature was the Morning Glory Pool (below). All of the pools were really pretty, the colors created by the bacteria that grows in their hot water is just stunning.
In the afternoon drove back over to Yellowstone Lake for our next night’s stay. On our way to Yellowstone Lake we made another attempt to find some river otters by searching along the Yellowstone River near Otter Creek. We were just about to give up when Christine looked across the river and saw a lone wolf running down the hill to the water. We were only about 100′ away and had a great view of it approaching the river and then following the river until it went out of view. There was no one else there, just us and the wolf. It was breathtaking, cool enough that I didn’t even think about taking any photos until it was really too late.
On our fourth morning we woke up to an inch of snow on the ground and reports of more. We decided to cut the trip a day early to make sure that we didn’t have any weather related issues on our way back to Missoula. On our way out of the park we had to drive through about half of it again and had some nice final views of wildlife and scenery. The highlight of the day was checking out the views over Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon and then seeing an Elk near the side of the road.
When we left on our trip I wondered if 4 days would be too much. On our way out it didn’t feel like enough. I can’t wait to return for more hiking and exploring.
I injured my right knee last October and haven’t spent much time on the bike since. I’ve been slowly building up my miles in the last 3 months to get back to my normal levels.
This week I finally had a pretty normal week mileage wise for myself. On Saturday I did a few errands and took a ride on the tandem with my wife and put about 12 miles on the bike. On Tuesday the weather was perfect and two coworkers convinced me to ride home, so we took the Burke Gilman for another 25 miles. Thursday I biked home on my dirt road route with iBOB John Speare for another 13 miles or so. Today three of us rode home over I90 (22 miles) on a perfect sunny 70 degree Friday afternoon.
Tomorrow I’m going on a ride with John and my friend Larry and expect that this will put me at over 100 miles for the week. Yay!
Spring weather and good knees are wonderful things. I hope all of the other cyclists are getting out there too.
alex
Let’s be clear from the start. This is at once the dorkiest looking and one of the most useful things that I’ve done to one of my bikes.
Joseph Broach wrote a nice blog entry a couple of months back about baskets. Then he posted even nicer photos of his Romulus setup with a front basket.
I’ve been riding one of the Kogswell Porteur prototypes for a few months. This is a unique production bike on the US market because it has a steering geometry which is designed for carrying big loads up front. I’ve been planning on making a large handlebar bag for it, but haven’t actually done that, so I’ve been carrying all of my cargo in the rear. Then I saw Joseph’s bike and ordered one of the Wald baskets.
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(click here for more of my Kogswell Porteur photos)
The basket is the Wald rear basket that Rivendell sells installed onto a Nitto M12 front rack. The basket is held in place with hose clamps. The handlebars are 44cm wide and this setup wouldn’t work with any narrower handlebars because the basket would intefere with the hand positions on the drops. The net is also sold by Rivendell and is essential or my stuff would blow away.
It is the perfect size for a full bag of groceries and stable enough for this too. I still carry most of my gear in the pannier on the back of my bike, but the basket makes it possible to pick up groceries or other shopping on the way home. It has also been fantastic for quick rides, just throw my lock and a jacket into the basket and head out.
In the two weeks since installing it I’ve used the basket almost every day. It has carried groceries, bicycle tires, plumbing parts from the hardware store, my bicycle lock, my jacket, and other random stuff.It is much faster to put a grocery bag onto the basket then to make groceries fit in the tapered shape of most panniers. It is nice being able to watch the load to make sure that everything is in good shape. It is handy to be able to reach into the grocery bag for a piece of fruit while riding. The basket is a great way to carry small grocery loads.
My plans for making a handlebar bag have changed. Rather than making a huge handlebar bag I’m going to make a small one which fits into the center of the basket. This way I can still use the basket’s extra capacity while touring. The basket is more useful than a handlebar bag for me when riding around town.
When you aren’t using the basket it doesn’t really hurt to ride with it. The basket and little front rack don’t weight very much and don’t get in the way. These photos were taken after a 25 mile ride where the basket was empty for 22 miles. I stopped and picked up groceries at a store near the end of the ride.
I can’t recommend putting a basket on every single bike that you own, but I can recommend putting a basket onto one of your bikes. The Kogswell Porteur is a great choice because it was designed for front loads, but most touring and city bikes would also work well with this setup.
alex
Footnote: For those who are curious,the basket works fine with the Sportworks bike racks found on many city busses. The hook fits over the front tire,under the basket. I would recommend removing items from the basket before putting your bike on the bus rack.
I own too many bikes, and I’m finally trying to do something about it (or get Zen about it as my friend John would say). Of course this does involve building some new bikes (ah, the irony!)
This is a couple of month project and started in January when I built up my Kogswell Porteur:
The Kogswell has quickly become my around town, commuter, and probably touring bike. It rides nicely with or without a load, fits good sized tires, and basically does everything that I need for this sort of riding. As a result of building it up I sold my Heron Touringlast weekend.
The next bike project is to Rohloff my Rivendell Quickbeam. I love the Quickbeam, but my knees no longer love singlespeed riding. The Quickbeam is unique among the frames that I own in that it’ll fit 45mm tires. That covers all of the mountain biking that I ever do, allowing me to use the Quickbeam to replace my mountain bike. With the Rohloff it can also replace my Bridgestone RB-Tas my primary bike and cyclocross bike. I’ll just need to change the tires to go mountain biking, not a big deal at all considering how infrequently I do this.
One of the really cool aspects of the Rohloff is having a wide gear range without having to worry about chainring shifts vs rear derailleur shifts. I’ve tried to build “do it all” bikes before but they’ve usually failed due to gearing issues. A set of chainrings that works well for me on the road (such as 48/38/24) has the range that I need for riding offroad, but the shifts are all in the wrong places. The right gearing for offroad for me (xx/34/22) is geared too low on the middle ring for me to use it on the road. The Rohloff gives me lots of range without having to worry about chainring shifts and removes this concern.
So one Rohloff hub on a bike that I already own (the Quickbeam) removes two other bikes from my stable (a mountain bike and the RB-T). The RB-T has been one of my favorite bikes, so I’m going to disassemble it,but not sell the frame. The mountain bike frame is going back to it’s original owner,John Speare. I’ll probably have a lot of parts to sell from these two bikes.
Finally it’s time to go from a recumbent tandem back to an upright one. Our RANS Screamer has been a great bike, but we really don’t put many miles on it. I bought the Screamer hoping that a more comfortable bike would make Christine more interested in longer rides, but she still prefers shorter ones. The Screamer is big enough and hard enough to get out of our basement that we never use it on shorter rides, and this results in not really using it at all.
My friend Larry and I have used it on a few bicycle tours and he and his partner have been trying to buy one for years. So I’m going to sell the Screamer to him (and thus can still use it on bicycle tours) and go back to an upright tandem. Larry’s house is much better setup for a recumbent tandem. Rather carrying it up the basement stairs and rolling it through the maze of a backyard he can just roll it out of the garage and onto the road.
It looks like we’re probably going to buy a Burley Rock and Road. This is their “mountain bike” tandem and it’s a hell of a nice deal for the price. I’ll put drop bars on the front of course. I’m looking forward to many nice miles on that bike.
So here is what bikes I had in December:
Here is what the list should look like by June:
4 bikes would be a better goal, but I’m not ready to get rid of the Trek 520 quite yet. I don’t think I could go to less than four bikes (need two bikes that I can commute on in case one is out of service, need a folder for trips, and need the tandem).
alex
It is my 32nd birthday. I’m a computer geek and the 100,000 is a reference to my new age in binary. It sounds better in hex where I’m only 20.
I think it is going to be a pretty low key day. My only plans are to get ready for tomorrow’s annual Seattle Bike Swap (one of my favorite events of the year) and maybe to go out for a nice dinner with Christine.
alex
I’ve had the last two weeks off. It has been very relaxing and I ended up doing very different stuff with my time than expected.
Accomplished:
I had high hopes for more projects around the house but did very few of them (on the other hand I didn’t think I’d be teaching myself to sew over the holiday). Hopefully sometime this winter I’ll get around to putting new lights in our living room (ripping out the last track lighting in the house), building the new storage rack in our basement, and perhaps putting in a basement sink.
I hope everyone else was able to take some good vacation time and spend some time with family.
alex
My friend Brian reminded me today to read his userpage on Wikipedia. The whole thing is interesting, but I most enjoyed the section on his Editing Philosophy. I tend to write long rambling articles without good clear introductions. Over time I might go back and clean up some of what is posted here, keeping his philosophy in mind.
As anyone who is on a bikelist.org/phred.org mailing list knows the mail server has been down for two days. This same server hosts this blog, my personal email, personal email for most of my family, and nearly a dozen other random websites. This is a Windows 2003 Server and is running Exchange and SQL Server.
On Thursday (11/17/2005) I was doing some routinestuff (installing service packs, etc). After one reboot the system came back up but many key services wouldn’t start and were reporting that important system files were corrupt. I started a full chkdsk (fsck for unix folks) and there were tons of errors, including some in the drivers for the RAID controller. After the chkdsk the system no longer booted.
My first thing was to boot to the recovery console to see if the most important stuff (Exchange and SQL databases) were intact. Sadly by default the Recovery Console only lets you look at the files in the systemdirectory (normally c:windows). There is a KBarticle on changing this, but you need to boot the system to do that.
I tried using the repair installation mode of Windows Server. This half worked, but when it went to reboot the system would blue screen. The error was “INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DISK”. My boot volume was on a disk controlled by a 3Ware 6410 controller. This is a RAID controller which uses standard IDE (desktop/consumer) disks but can use multiple of them to build a single volume. I ran it in RAID 1 (mirroring) which means that two disks were exact duplicates of each other, so that if one failed the other could keep running. Windows Server doesn’t include drivers for the 3Ware controller and the drivers from 3Ware aren’t signed (so they haven’t been tested by Microsoft) and the repair installation didn’t seem to fix this. So the system couldn’t get very far into the boot process because it couldn’t talk to the disks.
At this point it was about midnight, and I knew I had work tomorrow, so I tried to go to bed. Before going to bed Istarted installinganother copy of Windows Server (this is really handy to have around during disk crashes) so that I could get to my data.
At 1:45am I still hadn’t gone to sleep, so I woke up to look at what was going on. The install had worked and I could see that the important data was in good shape. I tried copying the 3Ware drivers from the new install over the corrupted ones on the original install,but it still wouldn’t boot. I spent about an hour poking around the registry and trying to make it work with no luck and went back to bed (at around 3am).
At 7:15am I woke up (I can’t sleep in for the life of me) and thought about it some more. The 3Ware controller isn’t really that helpful for me since Windows Server can do the mirroring in software just fine. Since the drivers aren’t signed and the logical disk corruption could have been caused by the 3Ware controller drivers (or many other things) I decided to stop using it for my boot volume.I drove into work (bringing the server with me) and once I got there I started to copy the entire volume to a normal drive plugged into one of the motherboard controllers. This took a very long time,mostly because the archives consist of hundreds of thousands of tiny little text files that take a while to copy. I used XXCloneto do the copy because it is supposed to leave the disk in a bootable state when it is done.
When the copy was done Iremoved the RAID controller and tried to boot of the new disk. The computer’s BIOS told me that it couldn’t find a disk to boot from. When I went to check the boot order it said “hard disk (not installed)”, but when I checked the list of devices it did show a hard disk. So I ran Windows Repair mode again to see if this could make the disk bootable. It still didn’t boot and at this point I was starting to think that computer itself was having issues. I was also at work, so I put everything aside and worked for a few hours.
On my way home I was thinking about going to Fry’s to buy a new computer. Luckily for me traffic was horrible and so I took the direct route home instead of going to Fry’s and back which would take me through some of the worst traffic areas around. On my way home I realized that I could just run the server on my wife’s computer and wouldn’t need to buy a new one this weekend. I got home and started heading down that path.
This is when I discovered that the disk still wasn’t bootable. I put the disk from her computer into the server machine it and was bootable, so I knew the server machine was still okay. I installed another fresh copy of Windows onto the disk and finally it became bootable. At this point it was 6pm on Friday and I had been working on this on and off for about 20 hours. I finally booted the machine back into the original Windows installation and everything seemed to be working. Yay!
I spent the next 5 hours fixing some remaining corrupt files, installing service packs, and putting the machine back together. At 11:30pm I put the server back into it’s normal home in my basement, announced to the world that everything was working, and went to bed.
I woke up at 9ish (yay for finally getting some sleep) and things weren’t working. I forgot to set a critical networking variable on the machine before going to bed, the address of my router. The router could sent packets to the server, but the server didn’t know how to send them back out. This meant that I could see it from my FreeBSD box sitting right next to the computer, but nothing else on the network (including computers on a different network in my house) could see the server. I figured this out and got my first piece of spam. Always a good indication that you are back online.
There are still some things to do:
I’m glad to be back online.
alex
