I've made it a bit of a goal to, at least once or year, bike a century and bike up the BOB. Today I checked one of those off the list for 2019.
I'm going to go lay down for a little while.
Saturday, August 31, 2019
Run A Mile In My Shoes
I managed to run a full mile non-stop yesterday. Now I just have to do that 25.2 more times and I'll have achieved a marathon... Might take a while.
Sunday, August 25, 2019
A Stitch In Time Saves Having To Use Duct Tape
As mentioned previously, Scooty-Puff Sr has been sitting in bad bike jail for a bit due to a tear in the seat that I wanted to properly repair. Also because it's been stupid hot lately and all the wind protection on the bike tends to broil you in the heat.
Most folks would either ignore this until it became a bigger problem or apply an ugly layer of duct tape to try to "fix" it. Or both. Not me, though, I would much rather fix it properly.
So, out comes the needle and thread!
The stitching went pretty well. I just happened to have a curved needle and lots of high strength black thread in my box of supplies so I didn't even need to buy anything new for this job. The results speak for themselves, I think.
The fabric doesn't lay perfectly flat but given where the repair is it's pretty much invisible. Hopefully this fix will last another 6 years at least.
Most folks would either ignore this until it became a bigger problem or apply an ugly layer of duct tape to try to "fix" it. Or both. Not me, though, I would much rather fix it properly.
So, out comes the needle and thread!
The stitching went pretty well. I just happened to have a curved needle and lots of high strength black thread in my box of supplies so I didn't even need to buy anything new for this job. The results speak for themselves, I think.
The fabric doesn't lay perfectly flat but given where the repair is it's pretty much invisible. Hopefully this fix will last another 6 years at least.
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
A Good Hike
Took a hike with the gang up to Mt El Sombroso. About 6 miles out and the same distance back, the strava profile is a bit messed up thanks to a few GPS glitches.
The weather was perfect though and we got out early enough to beat the afternoon heat. That said there was a bit of attrition during the hike, with Hall bailing out near the start due to explosive diarrhea, and Sid and Tyler both checking out about a quarter mile from the top due to exhaustion. Only Brad and myself made it to the top, and everyone made it back out as a group (except Hall who just bailed and went home).
Despite the attrition everyone seemed pretty happy with their performance. Well, except Hall maybe.
The weather was perfect though and we got out early enough to beat the afternoon heat. That said there was a bit of attrition during the hike, with Hall bailing out near the start due to explosive diarrhea, and Sid and Tyler both checking out about a quarter mile from the top due to exhaustion. Only Brad and myself made it to the top, and everyone made it back out as a group (except Hall who just bailed and went home).
Despite the attrition everyone seemed pretty happy with their performance. Well, except Hall maybe.
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Garage Lighting Phase 3
So with the installation of a third outlet box the interior lighting is now complete. Huzzah!
So now all 6 lights are active instead of just 5 of them. I still have a few items left to do, such as wiring in some external lights and replacing the 14/2 wiring down to the switch with some 12/3 so that I can control the garage door opener and extension cord spool separately from the (motion-activated) interior lights and (motion-activated, not yet installed) exterior lights.
In other news Scooty-Puff Sr is in jail temporarily while I deal with a small tear in the seat before it becomes a big tear in the seat.
Shouldn't be too much fuss, just gotta get in there and stitch it up.
I also went ahead and cleaned the seats in the van with some upholstery cleaner. Got a bunch of dirt out but it's still possibly not 100% clean. It's kind of hard to tell with the sun shining on it since the light tends to mask some of the dirt. No photos of this, just picture mostly-clean van seats in your mind's eye. I believe in you, you can do it!
So now all 6 lights are active instead of just 5 of them. I still have a few items left to do, such as wiring in some external lights and replacing the 14/2 wiring down to the switch with some 12/3 so that I can control the garage door opener and extension cord spool separately from the (motion-activated) interior lights and (motion-activated, not yet installed) exterior lights.
In other news Scooty-Puff Sr is in jail temporarily while I deal with a small tear in the seat before it becomes a big tear in the seat.
Shouldn't be too much fuss, just gotta get in there and stitch it up.
I also went ahead and cleaned the seats in the van with some upholstery cleaner. Got a bunch of dirt out but it's still possibly not 100% clean. It's kind of hard to tell with the sun shining on it since the light tends to mask some of the dirt. No photos of this, just picture mostly-clean van seats in your mind's eye. I believe in you, you can do it!
Thursday, August 15, 2019
A Vole Hole?
What a curious discovery in the boulevard today.
It's a bit small for a gopher hole and there's no dirt piled up around the hole so it was dug from below rather than from above. I've never seen another like it so I haven't a clue where the other end(s) of it might be. How very peculiar.
It's a bit small for a gopher hole and there's no dirt piled up around the hole so it was dug from below rather than from above. I've never seen another like it so I haven't a clue where the other end(s) of it might be. How very peculiar.
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
My rear end is sealed
Got the seals replaced in Orthrus from the transmission on back. Took a bit of time in the shop since it's a pretty old bike and they didn't have all the tools and so on they needed to do things and had to buy/make some stuff. But it's all wrapped up now and it's good to have the whole gang back together again. Hopefully it won't be dripping any more oil onto the driveway now.
Saturday, August 10, 2019
Miraculously Restored
This morning I decided that I was tired of dealing with the flattened foam in the driver's seat of the pedovan. Over the years of people sliding over the side of the seat to get in and out, the foam had been crushed and flattened to a shape entirely unbefitting a posterior of refined taste such as my own.
After a bit of muddling with some bolts and screws, I was miraculously able to refurbish the seat to look almost like new again!
... by, of course, swapping it out with the passenger seat base.
The good news is that nobody ever sits in the passenger seat, and those who do should be thankful to be chauffeured around in the first place and not whine that the seat foam isn't to their satisfaction.
I was a little bit tempted to swap the backs too, but because the upholstery is asymmetric (there's a hole on one side that the arm rest goes through) it would have been a bit more involved as I'd have to skin the seat, swap the foams, then re-stuff them and that's honestly just a bit too much work.
While I was poking at stuff I noticed that I was getting a bit of rust along the lower edge of the passenger side door. Upon closer inspection I discovered that the sealant along the seam of where the lower part of the outer door skin is folded over the inner door stamping had failed, and was trapping condensation water that would normally drain out the weep holes at the bottom of the door. I gave it a quick hit with a cup wheel to knock off the old sealant, loose paint and corrosion, and smeared on some silicone to keep the water from collecting there again.
At some point I'll pick up a can of white rustoleum or something to add a layer of protection over the bare metal there, but given I live in California I'm not too worried about the rust progressing much before I get around to that.
There's a bit of rust staining on the outside of the panel and I'm pondering what to do about it. I could leave it as is and just not care, or I could go through the trouble of sourcing some matching white paint, spraying up part of the body panel, sanding and buffing to blend it in, etc. It's a lot of work for a minor problem but I do have a bit of paint missing elsewhere on the van so I might end up going down that road eventually anyway.
But again: California, so I'm not in a big rush.
There's still plenty of stuff on my to-do list on the van. Still need to swap out the steering wheel, finish up the wiring from the aux battery to the inverter and the power ports that I mounted to the seat bases a while back, and of course build the bed/bench/shower/sink/whatever module that I've been cooking up in my head to make the rear pleasantly campable.
After a bit of muddling with some bolts and screws, I was miraculously able to refurbish the seat to look almost like new again!
... by, of course, swapping it out with the passenger seat base.
The good news is that nobody ever sits in the passenger seat, and those who do should be thankful to be chauffeured around in the first place and not whine that the seat foam isn't to their satisfaction.
I was a little bit tempted to swap the backs too, but because the upholstery is asymmetric (there's a hole on one side that the arm rest goes through) it would have been a bit more involved as I'd have to skin the seat, swap the foams, then re-stuff them and that's honestly just a bit too much work.
While I was poking at stuff I noticed that I was getting a bit of rust along the lower edge of the passenger side door. Upon closer inspection I discovered that the sealant along the seam of where the lower part of the outer door skin is folded over the inner door stamping had failed, and was trapping condensation water that would normally drain out the weep holes at the bottom of the door. I gave it a quick hit with a cup wheel to knock off the old sealant, loose paint and corrosion, and smeared on some silicone to keep the water from collecting there again.
At some point I'll pick up a can of white rustoleum or something to add a layer of protection over the bare metal there, but given I live in California I'm not too worried about the rust progressing much before I get around to that.
There's a bit of rust staining on the outside of the panel and I'm pondering what to do about it. I could leave it as is and just not care, or I could go through the trouble of sourcing some matching white paint, spraying up part of the body panel, sanding and buffing to blend it in, etc. It's a lot of work for a minor problem but I do have a bit of paint missing elsewhere on the van so I might end up going down that road eventually anyway.
But again: California, so I'm not in a big rush.
There's still plenty of stuff on my to-do list on the van. Still need to swap out the steering wheel, finish up the wiring from the aux battery to the inverter and the power ports that I mounted to the seat bases a while back, and of course build the bed/bench/shower/sink/whatever module that I've been cooking up in my head to make the rear pleasantly campable.
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