Reshuffling

If you look closely, you'll see I've reordered my bike list.  The Jake the Snake still takes top honors, although I fear for its life.  Many miles on that aluminum frame.  The odometer reads ~13,000 - and it got reset at some point with new batteries.  May be time to retire the old boy.  Probably 90% of those miles were spent on epic rides on the Katy Trail.  For the past year or so, the Jake has been neglected.  Too many pedestrians have overrun the Katy Trail, and it just got too boring.

And the Top Secret bike has sadly plummeted to the bottom.  I don't know exactly why.  On paper, its geometry nearly matches the orange Trek.  It should fit.  But somehow I can never get comfortable on it.  I've swapped stems, changed saddles, moved the saddle around, everything.  I just never "settle in" to it.  It baffles me, but there it is.

Too Many Bikes

I have an addiction.  I buy too many bicycles, and then refuse to get rid of them.  Need proof?

This is the "master bedroom".  It's bad enough I rent a 2-bedroom apartment just to have room for bikes.  But then they go and take over the main bedroom!  I am relegated to the smaller room.  While it's true all of these bikes get out and about from time to time, there's simply no rational reason to have so many.  In just this photo there are three road bikes, a road frameset, a 'cross bike, a singlespeed, and a mountain bike.  Like I said, it's a problem.

I theorize that the problem stems from my lack of having had a bike as a kid.  My first bike was my dad's ten speed.  He's about 5'11, and obviously it took me a few years to grow tall enough to ride it.  The reasons for my lack of bikes is unknown.  My older brother had a bike.  I figure it was because I was growing so fast, my parents didn't want to buy anything that would be useless in a year or two.

So now I horde them.  C'est la vie.

In other news, here's a picture of my niece M from Christmas:

She is currently going through a "lean against the wall and make faces" phase.  It's quite cute, don't you think?  Compare that photo to one from last Christmas:

What a difference a year makes!

Product review, winter cycling

Fortunately it warmed up above freezing today, and I de-sanded myself and took the Gunnar out for a spin.  A leisurely jaunt around Creve Couer Park.  I'd abandoned CC Park last year, due to the masses of milling pedestrians.  Sadly, even in winter the problem remains.  Fewer people, but those that are there appear to enjoy standing in groups across the entire trail, and can't be bothered to move aside for anyone else.

Irritating people aside, my new Cannondale Slice balaclava performed well.  It was warm enough, really, to do without.  But hey, I had it and I was going to use it, right?  Anyhow it kept me warm.  My hair actually was a little damp after the ride, the balaclava did its job so well.  Recommended.

The separate glove and liners also did well.  At first I gave it a go without the liners, but my index fingers rapidly got chilled.  Whipped out the liners, and was good to go.  And removing/replacing my gloves for whatever reason was easy and convenient.  Unlike the nightmare scenario involved with my ancient Nashbar gloves, with liner attached to gloves at the wrist.  Getting the liner back into the appropriate fingers after it was even slightly damp was well-nigh impossible.  Happily those days are behind me now.

And why is it that cyclists generally check out each other's ride?  I notice it time and again.  Meet someone on the road/trail, and more often than not they are looking at my bike.  I admit my bikes are awesome, but still.  It's not about the bike, as a certain famous cyclist said.

All in all a great ride.  I look forward to another tomorrow, when it will allegedly be even warmer.

Not the Best Car for Snow

I was out getting some stuff, and came across a Nissan 350Z having some trouble.  He was trying to escape a parking lot with about 1" of snowy slush on the ground, spinning his tires frantically.  What is odd is the other 2 exits from the lot were completely clear, but he seemed intent.

This is clearly not the actual car, I thought it might be rude to stop and take a picture.  Rear-wheel drive, nice wide tires, and overall an excellent car.  Not for the snow, though.  Apparently not even a little snow.

The Super Wagon with its fresh all-season tires and all-wheel-drive barely even noticed the snow - it shines in the snow - but the 350Z fella' was having all kinds of trouble.

(not my wagon, either, but similar)

Reminds me of my old Toyota MR2 Turbo.  Fantastic car 350 days of the year, but with even a hint of snow it was rendered useless.  The 350Z was gone when I came back by, so he either successfully navigated out, or gave up and used one of the clear exits.  I would imagine a Corvette Z06 would be similarly useless in that situation.  Just sayin'.

Here are some gratuitous photos of other Super Wagons:

 

The Homeland

I was born in Hawaii.  I miss it.  My Dad was in the Navy, you see.  Worked on the shore gun computers, back when computers were rooms full of vacuum tubes and were programmed with yellow punch cards.  We left when I was young, long ago now, but I miss it.  I've been back a few times, and it is truly an amazing place.  I get that "home" feeling when I step out of the airport and catch the flowery scent.  With my job situation in flux, I contemplate the possibility of moving back there.  Probably not Honolulu; it's expensive.  But I wonder if the cost of living in some other town, or on one of the other islands, would be more reasonable.  Of course I'd have to find work.  I wonder how many robots need tending on an island paradise?

Hawaii is, on the other hand, kind of strange.  There you are on tiny bits of land in the middle of a gigantic ocean.  Anywhere you go, there's the ocean.  It can be a little humbling, the size of that ocean.  Makes you feel small.

I miss it.  I don't know if it's just me, or a shared trait of humans in general, but the sound of the waves just feels right, down in my bones.  Sounds like home.  It's time to go back, if only for a little while.

New footwear, and apathy.

As it happens I got the new tires on the Super Wagon just in time for the big "winter storm".  A whopping, what, 3 inches of snow?  In typical bizarre snow-removal fashion, the smaller streets were fine, but the bigger streets -- Olive, Chesterfield Parkway, service roads - were all but untouched.  Fortunately the Super Wagon merely howled its turbo and drove along with aplomb.  A few four-wheel drifts around corners, but nothing a little all-wheel-drive throttle couldn't keep under control.  That's the awesome thing about all-wheel-drive...if you start to slide sideways, you just feed it more gas and it goes where you want.  Good times.  If it weren't for all the other drivers - many of whom are sadly clueless - I would drive all over in the snow for the sheer psuedo-rally-driving joy of it.  Happily the new tires are miles ahead of the stock tires in all respects.  Dry traction: yes.  Wet traction: yes.  Snow traction: yes.  And they're quieter to boot.  An interesting aspect of stickier tires is how much more effort it takes to trip the ABS...the car can stop HARD now.  Before, I thought the ABS was overly-sensitive...but no, it was just the crappy stock tires losing grip at the drop of a hat.

In other news, apathy for work is rampant.  It's getting harder and harder to drag myself into work, knowing that myself and 3/4 of the people around me will be out of jobs in a month or two.  Today was a great example of "colleague non-engagement" as the managers would put it, as a full 1/2 of the site decided to use the dusting of snow as an excuse to stay home.  I went in for a solid four hours, and felt pretty good about it.

In other other news, my post-employment plans seem to be coming together nicely.  I've been batting around the idea of freelance consulting with a friend of mine for the past year or so.  He co-owns an established custom laboratory robotics company out of Earth City, and we've known each other for years.  Worked together at my first post-college job...which is forever and a day ago.  He seems pretty keen on letting me freelance under his corporate umbrella.  I don't know if there will be enough work in the area, but there's only one way to find out.  Hopefully between St. Louis, Columbia, Jeff City, KC, and Chicago I ought to be able to pay the bills.  Maybe Nashville, though I'm not fond of that drive.  If only Monsanto would buy a pile of Tecans for me to program...

Scinomix, by the way, is packed full of geniuses.  If you need a robot that doesn't exist, they can build it for you in no time at all and for a reasonable price.