Thu May 20, 2010
Yesterday after getting home from work I set about modifying the frame a bit. I cut off the Cantilever brake stop, and smoothed out that section of the frame. Then it was time to paint. I went over to Home Depot and looked through all the paint. It's definitely not the largest selection, but I don't care that much. So I grabbed a can of flat black. I came home, set the frame up, and started spraying. I got the first coat on then wanted to let it dry somewhat before a second coat. So I went in and watched an episode of Doctor Who. Went out and applied a second coat. Then another episode of Doctor Who. After that I brought the frame into the garage to dry overnight. So far so good! Today right after getting home I set it back up and applied a 3rd coat. Perfect. Right now it is drying and the plan is to let it dry for at least 48 hours before I start messing with it again. Since I didn't care much about masking I'll have to remove the paint from the V-Brake standoffs, and clean up the bottom bracket threads. Simple stuff! New pics! http://www.waterman981.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=54304 Wed May 19, 2010
Right after I got home tonight I started working on the frame. I ended up getting just about all of it stripped. There is a bit of paint left in the few places I couldn't get my wire wheel. So I'll either sand those down by hand before painting, or get a couple Dremel wire wheels that I can get in there. A few new pics of the stripped bike are in the gallery. http://www.waterman981.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=54285 I am thinking of cutting off two things. There is a bracket for cantilever brakes. I'll never be putting them on. And places to bolt a rack to, which I also plan on never doing. I just don't know how cleanly I can cut them off, or if I'll leave holes in those tubes. Anyone know how to weld/fill cro-moly steel? Mon May 17, 2010
Woo hoo! I found something that is kinda cool to actually blog about rather than the drivel I had been spewing up the last couple days. I'm building a new hardtail bike. Let me clarify that... I'm building a hardtail bike out of all the spare parts I have laying around, the only thing new so far is the headset. I'm doing this for a few reasons. 1. I have most of the spare parts lying around. So the first thing I need to do is prep the frame. Since it's a Cro-moly frame, that means it can rust. And there are plenty of small spots on the frame of rust. So I started sanding. With paper. It sucked! I was flying through the paper, and nothing was coming off! So to take a break I fitted a small wire wheel brush to my Dremel and started on the fine work. That went well, until my brush flew apart. So I thought for kicks I'd throw one of the sanding drums on. I started going to town! I completely finished one chainstay. Then hit the head tube. I started hitting various other sections just at random and cleared a bunch of it. After two drums I noticed a larger wire wheel. I threw that into the drill and got working. I'm thinking I would like a larger wheel in more of a Dremel form factor. I may have to buy a wire wheel and go over to Eric's work to use his air tools if he'd be up for it, as I think they would handle easier than a drill. As it got dark I called it a night with that and headed inside. I took some pictures, and will try to document the whole process. [lightbox http://www.waterman981.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=54271&g2_serialNumber=2] So right now I'm thinking of going with a flat black. That might look gnarly. I could just clearcoat it, but I would have to really work on prettying up the frame. Flat black is simple, yet bad. Oh well, I'm a ways from painting. Time for Chuck and Castle! Sun May 16, 2010
So on Friday I rode my motorcycle to work. All seemed well, until it was time to go. It was pouring at work. So I rode through the rain. As I got to the on ramp to get on I-15 I slow way down, and start my turn. My back tire just slid. It felt like it went forever, but probably only slipped 6" to a foot before getting traction. I thought I was going down. At least it would be a low-side crash. My legs got soaked on the ride home, and by the time I got to Wasatch it was a light sprinkle. With the soaked pants it made for a cold ride. Pretty much just chilled that night. Saturday morning Jason showed up just after 8 am. We unloaded his bike and then chilled as we had some time to kill. We looked over some trails and decided on one. Then it was over to Steve's house to get him moved. Ate some doughnuts and moved some stuff. Got all of their stuff moved just before noon. Then Jason and I headed back up to my place to get ready to ride. We got all our gear and headed to Corner Canyon. It has easily been 4 years since I've ridden there as my old favorite trail had homes built all over top of it. I was amazed at how well things have been changed. If anything the lower part of the trail is better now than it was then. I still miss the old upper trail, but I think I'll be going back there often! We made it to a bit of a clearing where all the different trails diverged and I was exhausted. Jason was cool enough to wait while I got myself going again. But that's when it started. First it started in my right arm. Sharp pain when moving it. I'd never felt anything like it. Kind of like arm-pump, but a sharp instead of dull. I figured I would try to push through it. We continued up, but I didn't make it far before my left calf cramped up huge. I tried to push through it hoping that it would relax, but it didn't. I told Jason to go ahead, and I turned around. I made my way down, taking the funnest route possible. I made it down and loaded up, and began waiting for Jason. After a while of chilling I made it over to some guys who I found out were demoing Ellsworth bikes. They set me up with one and I took it down around some small trails. Wow the tech has gotten so much better. The front end was so precise and stiff, it felt great. About an hour after I finished Jason made it to the parking lot. It sounded like he loved the ride. We loaded back up and cruised back to my place, after which Jason took off. I quickly cleaned up and booked it out the door heading to the theaters to see Iron Man 2 for the 3rd time with Steve and Becky. After the movie we grabbed their kids then ran and grabbed a bite to eat. I was crashing... so exhausted. So after dinner I just came home and crashed on the couch. Relaxing. I looked over my arms and saw I got a pretty good sunburn. Including a crazy burn line. So I threw a bunch of aloe on and finished off the night watching more Stargate. I'm getting through it! Fri May 14, 2010
At the end of the work day yesterday I got a great call. Becky called to tell me that my jacket was indeed inside their new house. Huge relief! I was not looking forward to spending another $500 on a new jacket and ipod. The ride home from work was a little interesting. I had ridden my motorcycle, and just after passing 2000th the drops started falling. It was the cool kind of rain though where it's sunny, the rain is kind of light with small drops. It rained all the way home. After I got home I called up a guy who I found was selling an old RST mountain bike fork for $10. He would be home at 8, so I chilled and watched some more Stargate. At 8 o'clock I headed over towards Millcreek canyon, and called him again. He gave me directions, and I went over and picked up that fork, and a seat post clamp for my Heckler. Sweet! Went home and took apart the shock to service it. Those spring/elastomer shocks are so easy to maintain. I think I may put it on the Trek frame I have sitting there, or I'll have to check one I have out in the garage. I will need to buy a new headset and stem though. I'm going to pull the old fork tonight and see exactly how much height I have for both a stem & headset on the steerer tube. Thu May 13, 2010
After work yesterday I kept things pretty simple. I made some dinner, and watched some SG-1. About 8 I went over to Steve & Becky's new place to see if they needed anything. I helped Steve hack away at his door until we could fit a new deadbolt, then we replaced the kitchen light. I gave him a ride back to his old place. After getting home myself, I realized I didn't have my leather jacket. CRAP! So I drove back down to his new place to see if I left it on the lawn. Didn't see it. Hopefully it's inside the house, otherwise that would suck. The only thing in the pockets though is my ipod. So everything is replaceable if I did do something stupid and lose it. So I went back home, did a bit of work remotely, then went to bed. Wed May 12, 2010
I haven't written anything here in the longest time. I need to get working on that. So things may not be interesting, but whatever. Yesterday was a pretty busy day at work. It was of course Tuesday though, so that meant lunch. I met up with Eric & Steve and we all went over to Chinese Gourmet. Ate far too much. I guess it was good that I didn't have breakfast, and after that I didn't eat dinner either. When I got home a new Stargate Atlantis disc arrived from Blockbuster. I watched the first episode, then got a call that my Pinlock shield was finally in! It's only been like 4 months! So I drove down to the BMW dealership and picked up the new shield. It will be nice never worrying about fog on my motorcycle visor again. After I got home I finished up the Atlantis disc, which finished up season 2. Then back to hulu for SG-1. Got a couple more episodes of that done, and have just the season 9 finale left. Fri Apr 02, 2010
Today has sucked. I had to go to work early, so I woke up early and felt the beginnings of a sore throat. I was busy all day at work, and noticed throughout the day that my body felt worse and worse. You know how you feel at first like you are burning up... like you have a fever... Now I'm to the point where I feel cold. I'm pounding cough drops like crazy, as otherwise my throat just kills. Hrmm... perhaps ice cream... hrmm... So I've been bundled up on the couch tonight. Just watched An Education, and trying to decide what to watch next. Although I might fall asleep during it. If I didn't get this stupid thing I'd be out on a date right now. Sat Mar 13, 2010
Usually on Saturday I'm a bit lazy. By lazy I mean that I sleep in until about 11, then just sit around. This morning was different though. My alarm went off at 8:30... I was sleeping so well, going right into REM sleep with dreams that I kept hitting snooze until about 9:20. (Hey, it is a Saturday!) I finally got up, got ready and went over to Eric's shop. We put my car on the lift and I changed my brake pads while Eric turned my rotors. I last replaced my brakes and rotors about 6 years ago a couple months after I bought my car. The pads I bought then were the cheapies. My car is set up for sensors in the pads to tell you when to replace them. I bought the pads that didn't have those sensors built in. At the time I was still at Macey's so the money was much tighter than it is today. Eric ordered some nice pads that did have the sensors. So I got it all back together, and wow. My last pads from day one were never great. I always had to use a lot of force in braking. These new ones are awesome! So now it's 1 PM, and snowing... so we'll see how productive the rest of the day ends up! Fri Feb 26, 2010
On Wednesday I picked up the parts I had ordered from the Audi stealership, and worked that night to install them and get my seat back together. The new lumbar support went in easily. The back was a bit more difficult. Then last night I did the actual seat swap. Plugged everything in and started testing. Forward - check. So there is 4 of the motors in the seat... all good so far! Now for the important thing. Lumbar up - check. Whew! Already I'm better than before. Just two more things to check. But to check these I'll have to start the car. Nervously I inserted my key, and started it. The airbag light did not come on! Woo Hoo! I was very nervous about that. Final thing to check was the heated seats, and they're working great as well. So now I have a new used seat. It looks like it doesn't quite match, but I haven't gone over it with leather cleaner yet. I can definitely say that it is so much more comfortable for me! My back is happy! :D Wed Feb 17, 2010
Last month I bought a used drivers seat for my car. I bought it looking for a couple things. Good leather - This was a must, as mine is falling apart. So I got the seat and immediately started inspecting it. Upon doing so I found the wiring harness was all hacked up on the bottom! (The seat memory module had also been removed, but no biggie) This worried me as that harness does go to an airbag in the seat. It's one thing if the other features don't work, but ya don't want to mess with that. So I contacted the seller and they actually sent out a new seat pan with a complete harness that hadn't been hacked up. All the motors were still attached, along with a memory module this time! Woot! So tonight I set about the process of swapping wiring harnesses. Took me forever to figure out how to get the back of the seat off, but I finally did. The lumbar support here is broken as well. Tue Feb 16, 2010
Seriously... every freaking time. So today I get an e-mail... U2 just announced the last date that will be added to their North American Tour, which will also be the first of the same tour. June 3rd at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Tickets go on sale this weekend... and I don't have the cash on hand to get them! Every freaking time... (But yes I will have them.) Edit: BTW, they go on sale Monday @ 10am. Sat Jan 09, 2010
But fortunately it's my upper back that is sore. I spent the night installing a fuse block on my motorcycle. Just finished testing it, and all is good. The reason I installed a fuse block is that I can better control what is installed. The fuse block is wired to the battery with a relay in line. What this does is provide power to 6 of the terminals on the fuse block only if the motorcycle is switched on. (There's also 2 always on circuits.) As I wire up new things to the bike (like a 139 dB Stebel Nautilus air horn soon, eventually a GPS, cell phone charger perhaps), I have a clean place to wire them to. So the big reason I wired it up was for my new electric riding jacket and gloves. Tomorrow I'll be testing them out when I go for a ride! Tue Jan 05, 2010
So I've kinda been on a bit of a cooking kick. There is so much great food and I kinda want to make it all. I've come to realize though that when cooking for one, it's cheaper to just get the frozen dinner. The other night I grilled up some veggies. First I sliced them into about 1" thick strips, coated them in olive oil, then seasoned them with salt and pepper. Threw them on the grill for about 4 minutes each side, then pulled them off. Things I noticed... I used too much evoo (Yes, I've been getting cooking ideas from Rachael Ray). I wonder if you can put evoo in a sprayer... Anyway it needed to be lighter. I could have also done a bit more salt. I cooked up eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, & a red pepper. Next time I'll skip the eggplant. I do have some more zucchini to grill up, and will probably try a quartered tomato or two, and some asparagus. Tonight I tried a recipe that I got from Chelsey: Melt butter in med saucepan over medium heat. Add cream, garlic powder, & pepper. Simmer for 12 minutes or until thick. While simmering, boil pasta. When sauce is at desired consistency add Parmesan Cheese. So... It was yummy! Very close, but not quite the same as the Olive Garden's. I added more pepper, and a bit more Parmesan. It was still missing a little something, but it was really very very close. I cooked it up with some Penne Regate and added two grilled chicken breasts that I sliced in to thin strips. Next time I may add some zucchini, or some mushrooms. Red Peppers would also be yummy, especially if ya grilled them first! This recipe also seemed to make a lot more sauce than I thought. Using that Penne Regate I could have easily cooked up all 16 oz that make up the bag and had a decent coating of sauce on all of it. Of course if you add more to it, like mushrooms or peas, the sauce won't coat as much pasta. Also it will coat different pasta in different ways. The way I made it would have easily fed a family of four. Now I know what your thinking... Eating fattening Alfredo with pasta, there's no way I'm going to lose weight. But ya see the trick is I'm hoping everyone else will try the recipe and cook it more than I will! Bwahahahahaha! Edit: I found out the following day that this does not reheat easily. In the microwave it completely separated. Next time I make it I'll try reheating on the stove. Otherwise I'll have to half the recipe, as there is no way I could have eaten all of it. Mon Dec 14, 2009
With hitting the 700 milestone I figured I needed to get the DVD collection working again. Found the problem, and fixed it... again. I had done the fix before, and don't know how it broke. I'll have to watch that! Oh, and 701 comes tomorrow. Star Trek: The Original Series Season 3 on Blu-ray. :D Wed Dec 02, 2009
Sunday night I started noticing the beginnings of a sore throat. Monday it was worse, and by Monday night my head was pounding! It was hard to sleep, especially with my sleep apnea mask on, due to the immense sinus pressure! I called in sick on Tuesday, and went back to sleep, not getting up until 1 pm. So since I had woken up I moved to the couch. Still under tons of blankets, with medicine and tissues by my side. I ended up going through an entire box of tissues. By around 7 pm I was starting to feel like I was getting over it, so back to work today. Still going through those tissues! Fri Nov 27, 2009
Yesterday for Thanksgiving I slept in. Ok, I finally got up around 11, just to move out to the couch to watch some cartoons. Not 5 minutes after I settled on the couch my mom came down to tell me they were leaving for the family dinner. I asked what time... 1. I had plenty of time. So I started watching. Then took a shower, and headed out about 12:40. I arrived in Orem about 1:20, and like I predicted they weren't ready. This year was kinda unusual. Normally it's small helpings of cold food. Cold turkey, cold lumpy potatoes, nasty stuffing, and even being in the top 1/2 of the line they run out of green beans. This year the turkey was hot, the potatoes were warm, and best of all there was plenty! I filled up one plate, I was at the back of the line, and I got plenty of what I wanted! I went back for seconds to get my beans and tried one of the most wonderful things ever... potato salad... with bacon. That's right! Have you ever heard of such a heavenly dish. Potato salad with bacon. I'm so getting that recipe! After dinner I headed home where I just hung out all day. Nothing too exciting. Now it's Friday, and I'm getting set up for our LAN party. This should be a blast! Edit: My sister in law noticed how much I loved the bacon in the potato salad, she sent me a link to Bacon Chocolate Ice Cream. I so want to try it! Fri Nov 13, 2009
I've modified the My DVD's section to use some new software on my server. There are pros and cons to this. I can better control the style of it, and keep my header as part of the page without resorting to frames. You can filter through the collections sorting on a huge variety of criteria, such as media type (Blu-ray, HD DVD, DVD). Cons... it's much slower! My upstream speed isn't super fast, so it takes a bit to upload the images. I noticed it's the worst with the main page as it has thumbnails of all my recent purchases. On individual pages it isn't too bad. I've even been able to modify it a bit so you can buy the item you are looking at from Amazon. Unfortunately it returns search results based on the UPC currently, so I'm going to need to work a bit more on that one. It's also a small text link, so I'm going to try to make that easier to see as well. If only I knew someone who wanted to do some php programming for me... j/k Edit: removed link as it's broken... Fri Oct 30, 2009
After work I went over to Famous Footwear as I needed new shoes. Bad. Found a couple that I liked so I grabbed them. Next it was off to Red Lobster for Endless Shrimp with Eric. I did much better than last time I went. Back in September I only got one serving of Teriyaki, Scampi, and Cajun. This time I nailed it. Two Scampi, two Cajun, one Teriyaki, and most of a Coconut. And I wasn't nearly as full as the previous time, and I slept well. Win! After dinner we went back to my place to watch Battlestar Galactica: The Plan. I couldn't wait, so I watched it the night before. But this second time I got a better understanding of the core of The Plan. With about 30 minutes left in the movie Matt came over. I couldn't in good conscious let him watch, and get spoiled as to who the final five are, so we ran back to my room and started Twilight Zone: The Movie. As there are several small stories within the movie, it's pretty easy to stop anytime. After The Plan finished we grabbed Matt to move to the big screen. He wasn't intent on watching just The Twilight Zone, so we looked over the movies, and he selected Pan's Labyrinth. Such a fantastic movie. So while this was on Eric started working on his driver in Need for Speed: Shift. I watched a bit of both, focusing on the movie. The movie finished just before midnight, and after talking about it for a couple minutes, they both headed home. |
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11:14:09 pm, by 
It's a used seat, and the breaks are pretty common. So tomorrow I'll head over to Audi to order one... there goes another $150 for a piece of metal the size of a coat hanger that is broken. But it will be nice to have my seats in good condition again!