Green - Cargo via Bicycle

A small effort to get a little "greener" has lead to a short-term OCD-type thought-binge on the best way to carry cargo on a bicycle.  The effort started with attaching a grocery pannier to the rear rack of my bike.  As I headed out to the store each pedal rotation had my heel bumping against the pannier.  Once I got up a little speed my heel launched the pannier right off the bike. 

At first I thought about different bikes and different racks and so on. I decided that if I was going to start buying things I better figure out exactly what I want in terms of where I ought to carry a load on a bike. A small series of experiments was in order.

For the first test, the panniers had to be either be moved back somehow or replaced by a way to carry a load on the top of  the rack.  I found these collapsible steel rear baskets (made by Wald) on Craigslist.  Being steel, I was able to mount them about 6 inches back on the rack.  That gives me the heel clearance that I need.




For "cargo" I used two empty cat litter containers and filled them with water. The containers were about 2 gallons each so they each made up a 16 pound simulated load. The ride was not bad and handling was hardly affected.  It did take a little extra distance to stop after braking with the 32 lb. load.




I used I used an old milk crate attached to a front mounted "porteur" style rack to test out the potential of a front delivery basket. This might not have been a good test as the load is so far forward.  As I started to ride it was reminiscent of first learning to ride a bike.  The front wheel wiggled a bit until I got up some speed then it settled down.  The handling of the bike felt strange but I got somewhat used to it after a while. When stopping, planting a foot solidly on the ground right away was more important than usual. Riding this way would require extra diligence.

I thought part of the problem was that the load and the handlebars were both forward of the head tube of the bike, basically, ahead of the steering fulcrum. I turned my "bull horn" style handle bars around to simulate a set of touring handlebars.  Unfortunately, the short "horns" and the long extension of the stem did not move my hand position to the other side of the fulcrum. The ride seemed better but maybe I was getting more used to the load.  Something I did during all test drives was jiggle the the handlebars left and right to get a sense of the bike's handling.  In these configurations doing so caused a noticeable torsion in the stem itself!

I went back to testing the load at the rear of the bike, now with it on top of the rack. I expected bike handling to be just like with the panniers.  However, this configuration had some of the uneasy handling as was the case with the front load.  Not bad, but noticeable.

Front and rear crates where attached to the racks using plastic tie-wraps.



For now I will probably go with some compromise.  Heavy loads will go low, on the rear on the bike. I like the convenience of carrying some things on the front but that will have to limited to lighter loads.  Maybe I'll get a small wire basket or a handlebar bag, perhaps with some upright touring handlebars.

Meet the Fawcetts

Our neighbors had their basement laundry room remodeled recently.  When they put these faucets out in the alley they still had the plumbing attached to them.  But still -- they spoke to me.

I happened to have a few pickets left over from a fence I built a long while ago...

Bikin' in the Rain

Today was the first time I can recall -- in a long time -- that I started out to run errands by bicycle when it was already raining.  I've been caught in the rain before but I don't know if/when I ever started out when it was already raining. I know this is no big deal to hard-core cyclists, but I am just getting back into it and using the car as a last resort rather than the other way around.

The interesting thing is that... it was fun.  Sort of like being in on some silly secret.

Derby Day

Friend and neighbor checks in from the Derby via the miracle that is modern cell phone technology.

The Cat-Lady Makes Breakfast

This "Apple Pancake" was just a few raisins short of being Apple Strudel -- but I'm not complaining.  The photo was taken before the powdered sugar was applied.

Happy Birthday, Jack

Last week would have been Jack Kerouac's birthday.  I read "On The Road" many years ago and was a bit disappointed.  I just didn't see what the big deal was.  After listening to a radio program over the weekend I realized what the big deal was -- or more accurately -- why I didn't see the what the big deal was before.

The book "On The Road" was published before I was born, and it chronicled his doings from years before that -- life and road trips starting in the late 1940s and extending into the 1950s.  By the time I read this book much of that radicalism had been main-streamed into our lives.  Reading about Kerouac "living" the 1960's just didn't seem so cool when I read about it in the 1980's.  That is until I looked at it from the perspective of  post-war America in the 1940's and 50's, which is when he was actually doing it.

No MSG for me...

There is a very interesting article on MSG over at the Huffington Post.

Cold-Brew Coffee

Of course I was intrigued when my local bashful-beatnik sent over a link for a new device that claims to: 1) make the best coffee,  2) make coffee with 70% less acid and 3) work without power.

The device doesn't brew in the true sense of the word.  You actually steep the (coarse ground) beans in water for 24 hours to make a high octane "extract" that can be stored in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.  To make hot coffee you mix some of the extract with hot water and there you go -- the best, lowest acid coffee ever. Right?

I took a look at the pictures of the $80 contraption and immediately saw about 3 or 4 other ways you could steep the beans with equipment you already have. I chose one method and 24 hours later tested some of the extract. Man, if I had spent $80 I would have been pissed disappointed. At least it doesn't require power -- (except to make the hot water you could have used to make drip coffee in the first place).

I may repeat the experiment one more time using beans coarse ground at the store (which uses a burr grinder) rather than use my home grinder (which uses a spinning blade). But the results will have to be much better just to equal the coffee I make the usual way.

An ounce of prevention

In our rather large home-office network I have been using an old PC running IPCOP (Linux-based firewall distribution) as a firewall.  And by "old" I really mean OLD.  Since it had been running 24x7 for many years I decided to build up (add 3 network cards, etc) a "newer" old PC as a replacement.  The plan also called for refurbishing the old firewall as a back-up to the new firewall.

It all went according to plan but, about a week after the new firewall was in place it experienced a memory error -- which results in a kernel panic and a system halt.  If I didn't have the old firewall still sitting nearby this would have meant a day or more of no internet access, several websites unavailable to the outside world and probably other network problems as well, since the firewall is also a DHCP server.

For sure I will be building up back-up machines for the web-server, the file-server and might even pick-up some other spare network components as well.

Quoting John Kerry

About two years ago I removed every "political" post from my blog thinking that commentary just didn't belong here.  A few years before that, the Democrats held the minority position in both houses.  At that time, the main stream media were calling out every parliamentary maneuver as "obstruction" and actually using the word "filibuster".  On the other hand, yesterday the media reported Senator Bunning's outlandish obstructionism only as "Senate Gridlock".  The following is a snippet of a post by Senator Kerry in the blog Talking Points Memo:

In the last Congress, the Republican minority more than doubled the previous record for filibusters, and they are on a pace to challenge or surpass that "accomplishment" this Congress as well. And filibusters are only the most obvious part of it.

On issue after issue, votes large and small, the strategy from the GOP at the highest levels has been the same: exploiting every Senate rule, playing every trick to try to slow things down. They put holds on bills that later pass by 90 votes, filibuster things they later vote for, block things they previously proposed. They used the filibuster to shoot down a debt commission that they themselves called on President Obama to implement! They block completely uncontroversial nominees and cause days of delays on the most critical of legislation. They even stalled on money for our troops last year, just to try to delay debate on health care reform.

2010 - A Year of Living...

Intensely... Intently... Intentionally?

The confluence of 4 things brings me to this post, and my plan for 2010.

1) A while back I read Bill McKibben's book: Long Distance. In it, McKibben documents how he spent a year of his life dedicated to a training regimen similar to that of a world-class competitive cross country skier. It gave me insight into the general differences between amateurs and professionals in sports.

2) Later, I read: Angry White Pyjamas by Robert Twigger. The author was working in Tokyo when he decided to enroll in a "special" martial arts class. I say "special" with tongue in cheek since what this class amounted to was a year of more than full time training in Aikido. I'm talking about all-day Monday through Friday and a half day on Saturday. That is more training than some regular person taking two typical one-hour classes per week for 10 years! This was a fascinating read on many levels.

3) More recently, I read what I thought was just a book about competitive scrabble playing. I read it mainly for the amusement value since I have only ever played scrabble as a way to pass time and I have never cared about winning. The book is Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis and, as it turns out, the author took a leave of absence from work to not only write about this world I knew nothing about, but also had a goal of raising his own skill level enough to compete in the "Expert" division of tournament play. At first I thought this would be a hard book to finish but I found that it was actually hard to put down.

4) About a week later, we happened to see the movie Julie and Julia. I had an idea about the movie beforehand but I didn't know that an underlying facet was that a person, Julie Powell, decided to cook every recipe in Julie Child's first book (all 524 of them) in one year. For some perspective, it took Julie and two other authors 7 years to write the book which is somewhat of an encyclopedia of French cooking.

This brings me to myself and 2010. I have decided to live the year dedicated to something. What exactly I will be dedicated to I don't really know. What I do know is that I have more than 52 ideas for projects related to software development. I certainly have more than 52 books on my "must read" list. I have been talking about getting in the best shape of my life -- for most of my life. And so on with many other possible endeavors.

But it in the end it has boiled down to this. I will create a DEEP queue of tasks/activities in each category of my life where I have goals and work on those more intently, intentionally and intensely than I have in the past. That's it. If I start out doing this I could, at any time, change my mind and work on any one category or any one project. But the goal is the same, to be more intent, intentional and intense than ever before. Don't look for the book or movie though -- I can't imagine anything more boring to anyone else. What I will do is write about the results of some of the projects and the process.

Whether I post any of it here is a different story.

Interesting Quote

I just saw this in a book review on Amazon:

"It's a sign of maturity when you begin to fall out of love with your own drama."

Cash for clunkers

Just poking around the government web site to see if my car qualifies as a clunker. In most peoples mind's my car is definitely old enough and rough enough to be called a clunker. Unfortunately, the gas mileage of this car is high enough such that it does not qualify.

On the other hand, for the same model year various Rolls Royce*, Porsche, Mercedes and even Lamborghini* models do qualify as clunkers.

*If you are about to turn in your Rolls or Lamborghini please email me. I can give you a little more than the $4500 the dealer would.

A Nickle's Worth of Karma

When I was a little boy, a very long time ago, I had a very brief experience that still surprises me when I think of the imprint it has left on me.

I was standing at the counter in a neighborhood grocery/deli and I was just about to pay for a candy bar. Back then most candy bars were 5 cents, and only a few were 10 cents. Anyway, as I was about to pay for the candy an older gentleman who was behind me in line reached over and gave the clerk a nickle and said he was paying for the candy.

He then turned to me and said: "Do you know how you can repay me? When you grow up you have to do something for somebody else." I have no idea who this person was -- I had never seen him before nor have I seen him since. But, I wish I could tell him that since that day when I do a favor for someone, or give something away, I often think of that encounter. His brilliance, intended or not, is that I have never considered the debt repaid. I have never felt that I have lived up to the promise I made with my timid "okay" in response to the gentleman's request.

He needs more "proof"

While I believe that one shouldn't expend too much energy in responding to nutty and controversial claims in general, but this one has me intrigued.

Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson doesn't believe the Nazi Holocaust took place, and has said, "I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against...". The bishop goes on to say "If I find this proof, then I will correct myself".

One wonders what proof he will need to see, and where he has been looking for it.

There are eyewitnesses alive today -- who have been either guards or inmates at concentration camps -- who attest to the facts. Some of the camps still exist, preserved as memorials. Also, both American and Russian armies were firsthand witness to the atrocities when they arrived to liberate the survivors. Photos and film footage exist from before, during, and after the liberation. Nazi records also exist -- which document actions and logistics that took place. At numerous trials since then, enablers at all levels have used the "just following orders" defense.

Bishop Richard Williamson still needs more proof. The irony, of course, is that Bishop Williamson apparently does not require proof of the existence of god, that Jesus walked on water or that the virgin Mary has appeared to the faithful as an image on a tortilla. Actually, rather than being an irony, it is the "tell" that belies the Bishop's agenda. Here is a person who's "being" is based on wholesale acceptance of articles of faith, and yet he is denying overwhelmingly well documented fact as "insufficient proof".