First Family Ride of the Year

The crew loaded-up the bike trailer and headed to Lilydale Park. We were able to park in the usual lot just before the road turned into the Mississippi River at the St. Paul Yacht Club. From here we followed the river bluff to the Sibley House, The Mendota Bridge, Fort Snelling and the Minnehaha Falls.


I wore shorts for the first time, but was pushing it a bit. Temps were in the upper 40's to 50 degrees. We soaked in the river view from various vantage points and enjoyed the volume of water dropping at the falls.

Happy Vernal Equinox

The Sun will rise above the equator for the first time in 6 months tomorrow morning. Bring on the heat.

The kids an I are planning to go for a bike ride to see the flooding Mississippi tomorrow. I'm looking forward to a great day.

HELLth YES

Here's the text of an email I sent to some of my elected officials today:

As your constituent, I'm writing to tell you why I'm such a strong supporter of health reform.

I'm a teacher with a healthy family of four. We are paying over $20,000. a year in health car premium costs. In my plan I still have co-pays and could spend an additional $5,000 out of pocket.

Something is clearly & severely broken.

Thank you.

6,7,8,7,8,9,10,9,8,7

As a boy growing up, I remember looking with envy at the speedometer on Les Stenerson's Schwinn Orange Krate. In my mind, the five-speed, stick-shifter and slick rear tire were cool, but the speedometer was the accessory that made the bike fast.

Today I put a Sette speedometer on Harris' bike. He gleefully shouted out ascending and descending numbers as we rode around the neighborhood.

Adding this to Harris' Caliente lets him have fun quantifying his rides. It should also help him pedal at a steady pace. He is a great rider, but bounces between about 5 and 14 mph when we ride together. I'm hoping that his speedometer will help him maintain a consistent rate.

Here's a picture of Claire holding his bike. Also, please note, Les Stenerson didn't have panniers.

Minneapolis Native Pete Gaves Gone

But, one of my favorite movie scenes remains.

Raged by a Machine, Again

For the second time this week a road raged idiot went nuts screaming, swearing and flipping me off today. This guy, in a maroon Chevy Lumina, freaked, fumed and frothed because I rolled through a stop sign although I didn't interfere with him or any other drivers.

My kind smile and peace sign approach to his middle finger seemed to make him even angrier. He actually stopped twice in the middle of the road holding up traffic to rant.

This episode reminded me of a bumper sticker, shown above, observed on a car parked at the Shockspital. I think there's something it's approach.

I wonder why I haven't had issues all winter, then I do twice in the week that the snow melts off the road. Do these people have pent up anger from the winter, or are they afraid that the cyclist's will take over their roads. Maybe they feel they can stop bikers now if they're assertive enough?

I find it easier to deal with such people if I can see why they act the way they do. Other suggestions why people act this way?

Bring on the Megafona!

Back in Nov. I decided it would be fun to try and make an atlatl, and posted this desire. Now several months later I have three atlatls completed. They are fairly crude experimental models that relied on the three bears approach to design. I made one too big, one too small and one just right, maybe. Claire and Harris worked on this project with me. Now we each have a new toy.

We made the darts and throwers out of dowels. We are having some issues with warping. The fletching feathers were glued on one at a time using thread to lash them in place until the glue set up. The kids found the turkey feathers which adds to the cool factor for them.

We learned that atlatl darts, like arrows, need to be spined properly for accurate flight. If you click on the black and white image at the bottom of the page, you'll see how the spine of the dart works.

The two smaller throwers have a hole that the dart fits into. The larger thrower has a pin that fits a hole in the back of the dart. I see ancient people used both techniques.

Some People

Riding home from work today, I was buzzed and shouted at by two young ignoramuses in a black Chevy pick-up, the idiot vehicle of choice. Last week, I saw a similar black truck purposely swerve over to hit a big puddle to soak a guy waiting for a bus. It may have been the same driver. Why don't Toyota or Honda drivers act this way?

Anyway, I see the offending truck pull into a bank ATM a couple of blocks ahead, so I catch up to them. I wheel over to politely asked them why they shouted. Not surprisingly I'm met with a litany of homophobic slurs and threats. Haters hate with limited imagination.

Seeing reason was beyond them, I jot down their license plate and called it in. The cop was very responsive and called me back after finding the driver. He let me know that this dimwitted duo will think twice before doing something similar again.

The cop cautioned me about riding up to such drivers. But, I think appropriate, sane engagement of such people will improve my lot on the streets.


A near prefect match of the offending vehicle.

Ravioli

Tonight's menu included salad with cilantro jalapeno dressing and an assortment of homemade pasta dishes, namely noodles tossed with butter and garlic, Italian sausage ravioli with our own Italian sausage blend along with spinach and fresh mozzarella ravioli. All were wonderful.

OK Go: Rube Goldberg Machine

This is from the same group who did the "4 Guys on a Treadmill" video. Creativity is cool! If you want your time back after watching it;I'll give it back. I recommend putting it in HD and watching full screen.

Artcrank 2010

I'm planning to go score another cool poster this year at Artcrank. Festivities are at Shelter Studios on April 10th.

North American Handmade Mower Show

I wish I had more grass to cut.

1040A-OK

Did the family taxes tonight with the help of Turbotax, audit risk low. I just planned to load the program, but then finish the job. The results are anice return from the Feds and a check to the state.

Baby needs a new furnace.

Skull-Shaped Africa

I saw a map of Africa tonight and realized it's skull shaped. A quick net search proved that better imaginations with art skills already discovered this about the dark continent.

A bike I liked

I tooled around the Alt Bike shop on a 56cm Kona Sutra Last night. Although I only circumnavigated the inside of the store twice, I was impressed with the comfort and ride. It's build with good components, and it includes many extras like fenders and racks.

The Long Haul Trucker Rolls Again

The LHT's a harbinger of Spring. I boasted last fall that I would ride this in the winter, saying "it's made to be ridden." But, just couldn't bring myself to ride it in the corrosive sludge of snow, dirt and salt.

Fortunately the Sun's increasing intensity has cleaned up the roads in my part of the city. Yesterday the temp. stayed well below freezing, high teens, yet liquid water ran across the road and puddled in multiple locations on my commute home. Further, the Sun's now up enough in the morning, so I can easily see and avoid the mini-ice rinks and ice flows solidified from the melt water after the Sun went down the night before.

The old Trek 950 with its WTB All-Terrain-asaurus tires has done well in snow and rides nicely on pavement. But, jumping to 700 wheels and road tires, 37mm Conti-Contacts, on the LHT felt buttery smooth and noticeably faster.

I expect to fall back to the 950 again for some trips until Springs' inevitable return.

Ling-Hui Back in the Day

I stumbled on these vintage photos of my wife. We only have a handful of photos of her as a child.


She's in the bottom row second from the right.

Night Ski at Afton State Park

My neighbor John and I donned headlamps and headed to Afton Park tonight. We had the entire place to ourselves. I was able to ski most sections sans light. This was more a need than a choice, as the newly charged rechargeable batteries in my headlamp lost power quickly. I saved power for downhill sections which were way more fun in the anemic light I cast.

Big Surf

I spent some time with Steve and Q tonight. Steve showed us his 45cal. air gun and Q and I tried to pull data off my fried laptop drive.

What did the Snail say when riding on the turtle's back?

Wheeeee! An old joke but the kids like it.

Harris' Discovery

This picture is best expanded. Click on it to see it full size.

Tiger Love

Today The family is celebrating both Valentines Day and the Chinese New year of the Tiger. We celebrated by going for our first ever whole family Nordic Ski outing, then stopped at Black Sheep for an outstanding cup of Burundi Coffee out of their Clover Machine.

Ethiopia DP Haile Selassie Sidamo

I just placed a 10lb order of green Halie Selassie Sidamo beans from Sweet Maria's. Foremost, this is an outstanding coffee from where coffee drinking originated. It's fruity, coffey goodness. The description below is far more articulate than I regarding flavor attributes.

This coffee also conjures memories of how and why I started roasting coffee. As I recall my brother Jared learn to roast coffee from a Rastafari man living in the mountains of Jamaica. Upon his return to Minnesota Jared showed me how simple of a process it is. Halie Selassie Sidamo is connected to this experience through the Rastafari worship of Selassie, Ethiopia's former leader, as God incarnate on Earth.
After I started home roasting, I learned, from Jared again, about a stunning coffee from the Harar region of Ethiopia. This coffee also had a fruity blueberry finish to it. And was of course linked to Ethiopia again. Also noteworthy is that my father was living in Ethiopia during this time period as well. This coffee is like going back and having a first date with my favorite high school sweetheart again. It reminds me of why I love roasting coffee.
Country: Ethiopia
Grade: 3
Region: Dara Woreda, Sidamo
Mark: Haile Selassie
Processing: Dry Process
Crop: November 2009 Arrival (GrainPro-Lined Bags)
Appearance: 1.2 d/300gr, 16-18 Screen
Varietal: Local Heirloom Types
Intensity/Prime Attribute: Bold intensity / Dried fruits, spice, body.
Roast: City+ roast will look awfully uneven, but has the most intense fruited notes. FC has the best balance of body and fruit, FC+ is full of intense anise/licorice/cardamom flavors.
Compare to: A very cleanly fruited take on dry-process coffees of Ethiopia (Harar and Sidamo)

Who decides what we wage war on?

If hunger was a scarier bogeyman that threatened rich fat people, then we'd use our tax money differently. We've spent almost $960,000,000.00 on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.Think of how many lives would have been saved if we chose to buy burgers instead of bullets. Anyone else feeling manipulated?

Winter Kids

Claire and Harris build this shelter ala Survivor Man in the back yard out of an old pallet, holiday tree and other assorted back yard objects. The table has dinner laid out.

This is the Minnesota Youth Ski League Posse after a day on the trail at my school. They're having fun and doing very well.

Ghost Punch Pictures

I lost in a fist fight with a ghost. Here are a couple of the blow by blow photos.

Pugsley's Easy Enough for Kids.

Claire and Harris take a shine to Uncle Jared's Pugsley.

Ironfamily

Ling-Hui has agreed to join the kids and I for the 2010 Minnesota Ironman this year. We will be doing the 30 mile loop, so long as the weather is reasonable. The past two rides have been very challenging weather wise. Claire rocked last year in the low temperatures and pouring rain. The year before I did the 100 mile route and finished coated in snow.

We're going to ride it for fun this year.