a midway bikelog

We’re still working through the approx. 350lbs of carrots we got in our summer and winter CSA farm share, and found this beauty:

I told the kids we couldn’t eat it until we took a picture, but i have no idea what to title this post. I see a demure nude; the girls see a carrot that really really needs to pee. Post suggestions in the comments, winner gets nothing.

I’m building a linen closet in the 2nd floor hallway. Pictures coming soon, when it’s done. It’s been a political struggle in the house, because while i want a place to store surplus toilet paper that’s not, say, my closet, the location of this new storage has for 7+ years been known as “the tickle corner”. That is to say, a convenient place to trap one of the kids and tickle them unmercifully. Apparently they’ve become nostalgic for this form of abuse, but we’ll just have to find a new location to mete out the remedial tickle torture therapy.

I do have power tools, but frankly, the garage is fucking cold, so i set up the workmate in the front hall and resigned myself to a week of sawdust and wood shavings inside. Electric drill, but hand tools otherwise. One wall is at a funky angle, so i’ve had plenty of chances to practice sawing and re-sawing straight lines and using one of my favorite tools; the block plane. There’s little more satisfying than making a big pile of wood shavings and ending up with a perfectly smooth and (well, mostly) perfectly angled piece of wood.

Doing the project has also given me a good excuse to fire up the old radio i hauled back from my mom’s basement, where it has been since it was rescued from my grandpa’s garage, where it had been probably since it was new in the early ’60s. One owner, only used for classical NPR on weekends.

This is a stolen ebay listing picture, mine’s not quite that clean.

It works just fine, gets amazing reception and sounds wonderful, aside from the speakers being a little bass-rattly at volume. I was planning to put it in my garage, because i really like having music out there (and my previous radio was stolen). On the other hand, this radio has a lot more power than those speakers can handle well, and it has external speaker jacks and a phono input, which gives me ideas for a new home stereo setup. The Ramones sound great on there, but Archie Bell and the Drells Tighten Up sounds fantastic. iPod, meet 12AX7.

Despite the plethora of electronic and online calendars and the fact that i am, in fact, at my computer AND online all day, my most common calendar reference at work is a small printed calendar next to my keyboard. I highlight vacations and circle other important days and it’s satisfying to cross out the months as they go by. To get this calendar though, i use a dumb little cli command that’s probably obscure to anyone that doesn’t get this cartoon.

cal 2009 | bbedit

Sure, i could send it directly to the printer, but routing to BBEdit gives a nice monospaced layout, and i can have more control over the size when printing. It takes about 30 seconds a year to do, but it’s been part of my new year work ritual for probably over a decade now. Here’s the output for your 2009 referencing pleasure:

                             2009

      January               February               March
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
             1  2  3   1  2  3  4  5  6  7   1  2  3  4  5  6  7
 4  5  6  7  8  9 10   8  9 10 11 12 13 14   8  9 10 11 12 13 14
11 12 13 14 15 16 17  15 16 17 18 19 20 21  15 16 17 18 19 20 21
18 19 20 21 22 23 24  22 23 24 25 26 27 28  22 23 24 25 26 27 28
25 26 27 28 29 30 31                        29 30 31

       April                  May                   June
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
          1  2  3  4                  1  2      1  2  3  4  5  6
 5  6  7  8  9 10 11   3  4  5  6  7  8  9   7  8  9 10 11 12 13
12 13 14 15 16 17 18  10 11 12 13 14 15 16  14 15 16 17 18 19 20
19 20 21 22 23 24 25  17 18 19 20 21 22 23  21 22 23 24 25 26 27
26 27 28 29 30        24 25 26 27 28 29 30  28 29 30
                      31
        July                 August              September
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
          1  2  3  4                     1         1  2  3  4  5
 5  6  7  8  9 10 11   2  3  4  5  6  7  8   6  7  8  9 10 11 12
12 13 14 15 16 17 18   9 10 11 12 13 14 15  13 14 15 16 17 18 19
19 20 21 22 23 24 25  16 17 18 19 20 21 22  20 21 22 23 24 25 26
26 27 28 29 30 31     23 24 25 26 27 28 29  27 28 29 30
                      30 31
      October               November              December
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
             1  2  3   1  2  3  4  5  6  7         1  2  3  4  5
 4  5  6  7  8  9 10   8  9 10 11 12 13 14   6  7  8  9 10 11 12
11 12 13 14 15 16 17  15 16 17 18 19 20 21  13 14 15 16 17 18 19
18 19 20 21 22 23 24  22 23 24 25 26 27 28  20 21 22 23 24 25 26
25 26 27 28 29 30 31  29 30                 27 28 29 30 31

Well, i used to be a rocker, and i used to rock out. Now, i’m just trying to learn a few new songs and play a few chords that sounds like chords. The old hollow-body electric i’ve been noodling on plays like crap, so i went guitar shopping today with my pal Tony and found a usable guitar:

It’s a ’70s Univox acoustic from Twin Town Guitars. Not coincidentally, they’re also the last place i bought music gear from when i was playing more regularly; a cable, 10 years ago. Jeebus, 10 years. Great shop, nice guys there who seemed to help me as much with my $125 guitar as they would someone spending a lot more. Thanks for your help, Tony! Now, back to rebuilding those callouses…

Taking a break from staring down the incredibly fat squirrel outside my bedroom window, it’s time again for the cliff notes on another year done.

The biggest story of the year had to be that of stolen and recovered bikes. Early in May, both the Bridgestone mountain bike and the Surly CrossCheck commuter/CX racer were stolen from my garage. The Surly was recovered the next day by Mike and Benita, and the Bridgestone was recovered 3 weeks later by a fellow CX racer in Mpls. Then in early August, the Surly was taken again, this time solo, but it was again returned, just a week later, and again through Mike and Benita. I don’t know what the universe was trying to tell me, but i put a deadbolt on that garage door, i’m forever grateful to Mike and Benita (and everyone who spread the word), and i rode the hell out of those bikes the rest of the year.

I made two fun bike trips to Red Wing this year, first in June as a plan B to a reprise of the Winona train/bike trip (train was down because of flood waters), and again for a fabulous dinner out at the Norton’s. Yes, it totally makes sense to ride your bike 57 miles out to dinner, when the company and the food are that good. I had a not-too-bad return to mountain bike racing in the 12 hour solo category of the 24 Hours of 9-Mile race in Wausau, Wisconsin and a pretty successful cyclocross season racing singlespeed for the first time. To finish the year, i took 2nd place in the Few Gears Eve alleycat in 1:38 of mad 4° F racing.

I ended up with just under 3,000 cycling miles for the year. Those were good miles; lots of commuting to work and even more fun miles with friends this year. One of the joys of 2008 was riding more with friends; it’s a good trend.

I didn’t have a ton of projects from the past year, but i did eventually built a bike trailer from scrap bike frames (courtesy of MMRB). My brazing skills are improving somewhat, and i hope to do a lot more of it in 2009. If anything, there was proportionally less bike tinkering and more riding this year, which is probably a good thing. With so many other things going on, the project queue just had to stay put for a while. I’ve become a fan of using the semicolon though; let’s all work to improve our usage of our own favorite punctuation, shall we?

Both kids are in school now, and it’s amazing how much they’ve grown in the past year. Fi especially, she’s changed from a late toddler to a sassy, independent kid now on the verge of reading. Ella continues to devour books and soak up the world. They’re both doing really well while we all work out the new family dynamic of two households and other changes.

I’m thankful for the many excellent friends i have, new and old. I’m really happy to have reconnected with some wonderful old friends this year. I’m ever thankful for the wisdom of the women in my life (yes, all of you). 2009 is looking pretty good; turning corners, new leaves, all that sort of thing. Cheers, and Happy New Year!

(Updated to add the stolen bike notes – biggest bike story of my year, and i’d mysteriously blanked it on first pass. A slightly different version of this is on the bike log totals page)