a midway bikelog

A local design collective 2 & 21 just published a nifty bike facts poster thing. I would have chosen a few different things for the timeline part myself (Surly? Velodrome? MplsBikeLove? nothing before ‘97? there’s too much to include, really), but it’s a pretty nice overview of some things that make cycling here great.

For those foolish hardy souls signed up to ride the Ragnarok 105, Almanzo 100, Dirty Benjamin, or other long gravel road race/event, and those who just like to ride where the roads are primitive, there’s a new Google Group set up to discuss routes, strategy, technique, gear, and the like. The group is a result of an excellent meeting of compatriots yesterday at the Bulldog Uptown, where we sustained an above-average discourse-to-beer ratio.

We had a nice moment there, peering futilely into each other’s hugely dialated, uncorrected eyes, waiting to be called back into the optometrist’s chair.

We laughed at the sight of her shopping, nose inches away from the shelf comparing toilet paper prices, and of me walking blocks down the street navigating only by vague green and red blobs at the corners, neither of us with a clue what people at large thought of our respective adventures. We do know, however, what few people do; twenty minutes is a long time to navigate alone in public at -8 diopter.

Could it work between us? dates tantalizingly spent entirely within clear vision range of six inches? If we had kids, would they be so nearsighted that they could see behind themselves? Alas, we shared only a few minutes of commisseration, good humor, and the experience of living with horribly deformed corneas. Then we went our separate (blurry, dialated) ways.

Sweet (silent) video of a snow machine conversion kit from Armstead Snow Motors Company. It allowed you to convert your tractor or family car to an unstoppable winter transport, and back again for summer.

The father in me imagines the inevitable horrific manglings from all the exposed gears and spinning drums of death, but the teenager in me wants to race it through town after a blizzard.

(video link via my dad)

The Complete The Streets bill is working its way through the MN House with a unanimous voice vote in the House Transportation Finance Committee, and the StarTribune came out with a great editorial in favor of the issue.. There aren’t so many walkers and cyclists on the streets this time of year, so i’m happy that this is getting some good momentum.

The money bit for me is the setup and the piece on public libraries. Everyone gets cranky (me included) when they think about the money they earn but don’t get to take home, but it’s easy to forget the overwhelming good in society that comes from it.

I’m very interested and excited to learn more about the Bloom Box tomorrow, purported to be the first high efficiency wireless powerplant capable of replacing our current power grid.

So far it’s only been revealed on this past Sunday’s 60 Minutes show, but apparently Google, eBay, FedEx and a few others have been using versions of the box for several months already. The details are secret, but it sounds like a material refinement of a typical fuel cell, providing twice the efficiency and able to use a wide range of fuels, from natural gas to plant rot methane. Current fuel cells use hydrogen, which has a high cost to produce and obvious logistical problems what with the explosions and all.

The wireless aspect of this is just as fascinating to me, and i wonder how that works in a practical sense. If there was, say, a neighborhood Bloom Box or one in the alley, would every house have some sort of receiver that the home fuse box connected to? It’s a little unsettling, the idea of wireless power signals flying through the neighborhood, but maybe that’s how people felt when radio was just a new idea too.

The idea of the Bloom Box inevitably makes me think of the Stirling Engine. Like the Bloom Box, it was designed to run on any fuel (way moreso than the original Diesel), including solid fuels like wood. Stirlings don’t have the sort of acceleration and power curve of the internal combustion engine, but were meant more as a more efficient version of the steam engine, used in applications where the engine runs at a relatively constant rate and power is managed with a coupling clutch. There are modern Stirling-powered generators available right now, along with a few other commercial products, but adoption has been limited to a niche market.

Still, you have to love the idea of electrical and mechanical power that are compatible with a variety of widely available fuels. A Box in every basement, a Stirling under every hood, and the on- or off-grid question won’t even make sense. It’s easy to be skeptical, but at least with the 60-Minutes piece, the skeptic they included was all about handwaving and big corporate takeovers, nothing specific (though to be fair, there aren’t any published tech specifics to attack). Count me among the very optimistic with this one.

It’s been a tough winter for cycling here, what with the craggy street stalagtites, and the extreme cold here (despite being the 4th warmest January globally), and the laziness. But today it’s two days in a row, and that’s a good start, because, you know, the Almanzo 100 isn’t going to ride itself.

There’s something fascinating about this performance, the winner from a Ukraine’s Got Talent show. I guess there are other things like this around online, but i hadn’t seen this sort of sand painting/animation performance before, and Kseniya Simonova does an amazing job telling the story of the German occupation of Ukraine in WW2. I love that the scenes build on each other, and how forms seem to pop out of the simplest gestures with little apparent movement, and how fluidly it all comes together. Cool stuff.

This morning is trying to kill me
i just want 5 minutes in bed
the dog is growling to be let out
and the cats both yowl to be fed

My daughter accidently kicked my nuts
while sweetly just trying to cuddle
I want to make a couch fort and hide in the cushions
but the dog is now threatening puddles

There’s nobody making me coffee
i woke up on the wrong side of bed
This morning is trying to kill me
teamed up with the throb in my head

Thank goodness we’ve cold pizza for lunches
and the girls got their breakfasts themselves
but i’m sleepy, can’t think straight,
don’t want to shovel the walk
and whacked my left ear on a shelf

I made it to work through potholed slick streets
though nowhere quite nearly on-time
Still surly and sleepy and wanting a nap
now taking a break while the caffeine is working
to record a few couplets of rhyme
because surviving a morning like this once a week
is what makes all the better days so fine.