So I Bought a House

It's a lovely house. Drop me an email if you want to know which one.

Purple Haze

And so it is complete, my new road bike Purple Haze.

Once I'm sure I'm comfortable with the height of the bars I'll get the rest of the steerer chopped down, but I want to give it a week or two of riding because it's really tricky to make things longer after chopping them short.

Speed Bump on Bike 1

So I got a replacement for the broken brake lever this week, and today I went to install it only to find that the replacement was the Force 1 lever, not the Force 22 lever, which means it lacked the front shifter. Oops. Bit of a setback there, but nothing too serious at least, just need to wait for a second replacement now.

Speed Bump on Bike 2

So it turns out that Cannondale has a policy where they won't give you a warranty on the frame unless it's assembled into a full bike by a Cannondale dealer, because apparently they're jerks or something. So even though my frame is sitting at the shop right now, I can't take it home yet because I need to get all the parts to make it into a complete bike and then bring those parts to the dealer and have them assemble it for $250. Not real thrilled about that.

It's Time to Pack My Bags

The property management has recently got their panties in a twist about my bamboo and has been handling the situation in a very poor way, leading to a great deal of stress for me since Friday. On top of that, today they decided that it's somehow unreasonable for me to park 3 motorcycles in my one parking spot, even though they take up less space than a single car and all fit well within the confines of the spot. Add to this the continuing aggravation of the neighbour's range hood vent blowing directly into my apartment and it all leads to one conclusion: As much as I like living in Cupertino, I'm done with apartment life.

Moving away from Cupertino is a bit of an unfortunate financial side-effect, as I'll only likely have about $400k to put down (depending on market fluctuations, taxes, exchange rates etc), and with the monthly payment range I'd like to hit that'll leave me in the $1.2 mil range, and there's just nothing in Cupertino at that price range. Thankfully I don't have to go too far to find good houses for that amount, and I think a change of scenery might do me some good, shake things up a little.

I got a recommendation for a good real estate agent from a friend so I'll be having a chat with them soon to see what makes sense for me. I might take a bit of a hit breaking my lease early, but I think not having someone constantly looking over my shoulder judging me and trying to enforce arbitrary and absurd rules will do wonders for my happiness.

First Steps Towards Bike 2

Dropped the broken CAAD10 frame off at Sports Basement yesterday and got the process rolling on getting its replacement, which will probably end up being a CAAD12 since the 10 is out of production now. This is fairly good news since what I've seen of the 12 leads me to believe that they fixed a lot of the quality and finish issues that the 10 had, though it's still not in the same ballpark as the CAAD9 that I started out with.

I think as long as nothing goes wrong with getting this replacement frame I'll build it up into a winter bike with some nice fenders and lots of lights.