RAW
“News” reports are spotty at best, but it seems as though Robert Anton Wilson shuffled off his mortal coil 11 January 2007 @ 0450 at his home.
ALL HAIL ERIS – PRAISE BOB – HAIL CONNIE – KALLISTI!
Well, that was horrible
Normally I ride approximatley 3-3/4 miles due east in the morning over to the Dan Ryan (the part of I-90/94 south of the Circle, north of the junction with I-57 and isn’t the Skyway) where I meet my buddy Kevin, fold up my Dahon Boardwalk 1, put it in the trunk of his Honda and we have a lively rappaport the rest of the way to work.
In the evening, he drops me off about half a mile south of the pick-up point, due to onramp closures, and I ride just over 4 miles home, most of it due west.
If I ever take Metra, I have to ride over to the 63rd street station. Being on the southeast side of Chicago is weird, since many of these streets don’t exist on the northside. Crazy lake curvature. Going to that station is pretty much 6 miles exactly, perhaps a little more.
I rode/carpooled in like normal the other day, but K had a dentist appointment, so I got a ride to the end of the Metra line and rode that up to Chicago, got off at 63rd street and bundled up for the six miles and change home, all of it due west.
I was not entirely prepared for the wind.
It wasn’t that cold – 26°F (-3°C), balmy for this part of the year – but a 21 mph headwind gusting to 31 mph made my progress slow and very labored. I was bundled up fairly well, but the bandana I was using as a facemask made my glasses fog up regularly and my nose run almost continuously. It did a fine job of protecting my delicate facial tissues from the biting wind as well as warming and humidifying the air I was gasping in, but needless to say it got soaked very quickly.
Even though the fierce headwind nearly stopped my forward progress at times, I worked through it and kept pedaling. And pedaling. And pedaling. Exhausted, soaked with sweat, I finally made it home after nearly an hour of the most hellish riding I can ever remember.
My “good ride” metric was also fulfilled: I did not get passed by a bus. Hell yeah. I was suprisingly sore this cold morning. Nice, for a change.
BUT EACH AND EVERY YEAR WE BUST CHRISTMAS CAROLS
This is easily my second favorite Christmas song ever. EVER.
Of course, my favorite Christmas song, the one I used to play in a relatively nonstop fashion from the day after Thanksgiving until midnight on 25 December is the Barking Dogs’ “Jingle Bells”. No video for that, but if you don’t know it already there’s no saving you.
rule two of bicycle commuting
Diagnose and repair any issues ASAP.
I had a slight creak from my bottom bracket. No big deal, I thought, I’ll just open it up and regrease the bearings one day. I’ve got the tools, grease & know-how. No big deal.
I finally got around to cleaning my bike of the asphalt tack coat I stupidly rode through. It was then I noticed I had at least 1/4″ of play on the right side of my bottom bracket. Rut roh. That ain’t good.
So I sat down on a white plastic bucket in my unheated garage, and with my cheapo tool kit and by the light of a CF bulb in a lightweight clamp-on fixture, I took the bottom bracket apart. First the pedals then the spindle dust caps then the retaining nuts then the crank puller then the bottom bracket bearing races and HOLY CRAP WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY BEARINGS, BUBBLES?
I know that picture sucks, but you get the idea. Notice the nice flat spot on the lower leftmost bearing and the one next to it. Oh and those metal chips. And how the ball retainer is more mangled than a 12 year old’s braces. These are the worst-looking bearings I’ve ever seen.
Fortunately the races were fine. Even more fortunate, the bottom bracket shell was set up for a standard 68mm wide sealed cartridge bottom bracket – I checked the length, diameter, spindle length and even the thread pitch, so off I went to my LBS and purchased a replacement. $24 for their finest generic sealed unit. Hopefully this will be a lot more durable, as it appears they used the absolute cheapest-assed bearings they had in China.
Finally got it all back together yesterday and it rode great on my way in today, except the part where I decided to ride partially through some slush (which was actually solid ice) and almost ate the curb. I guess that should be rule three: always ride around stuff. Fortunately a couple years of mountainbiking and motorcycling has taught me how to correct wobbles, at least somewhat.
But even if you’re riding through doggy doodoo and frozen vomit slush next to a bass blasting lowrider full of homies brandishing Tec-9s, keep an ear out for any new squeaks, creaks or clunks, and fix them as soon as possible, you lazy jerk.
Ever thus to deadbeats, Lebowski
My rug was, in fact, micturated upon. By my cat. And my linoleum. And bed linens. And pillows. It’s unfortunate, but it really seems that Pervelous is going to need a different home. We’ve had him for 2 years and he’s never really fit in with our existing cats & dog. His litterbox manners have gotten progressively worse, too. As of this writing he is the sole occupant of the basement with his own – unshared, freshly cleaned and filled – litterbox. Yet he continues to, ah, soil my rug. This will not stand, man, this aggression will not stand.
I felt like a complete jackass thinking about giving him back to the shelter, but the cold fact of the matter is he has never used the catbox like he should. We went from having two cats share one box necessitating a cleaning once a week to three cats with four boxes and he still would pee on the Dude’s rug even if they were all cleaned once a day. It’s sad that he never really fit in with Rusty & Miebutte, but that’s a known problem when you bring one adult cat in with two existing adult cats. Selah.
It is awfully cold in my fair city for this time of the year, a chilly 5°F (-15°C) this morning. Starting last Thursday with the ice and the snow and the wind, a couple Alberta clippers sailed through. I can’t help but think this is payback for the lovely weather we had around turkey day, though.
There were seven of us what descended in Rogers Park on what was dubbed “Fakesgiving”, an excuse for friends to get together and gorge ourselves. At one point, all standing out on the beach at Scott Action & Leighanthrax’s place, ooohing and ahhhing as I delicately lowered a 16 pound turkey into three gallons of bubbling Canola oil.
Hell yeah, I fried a turkey for Fakesgiving. Best goddamn turkey I’ve ever had. Plus I’ve got a line on a guy who will turn my five gallons of once-used oil into biodiesel. Nice.
Saw 7000 Dying Rats the night after. Good show, as always. We didn’t stay to the end to find out if Spock or Bigfoot won, but I don’t think it matters too much.
But unfortunately it’s not all moist, tender turkey and experimental heavy metal in my life. I did come down with a case of food poisoning or E. Coli or stomach flu or something last weekend, because I spent Friday night thru Tuesday at noon mostly in the bathroom and a little time on the couch, moaning in discomfort. Lovely. Must’ve had something to do with that quick run out to Taco Hell in Jersey last Thursday night.
I was actually driving around that night in the sleet and I gotta say that the Golf is very well mannered in the snow and ice. Traction control and heated seats sure are nice. That efficient diesel engine doesn’t warm up too quickly, tho, but since I’ve blocked off part of the grill with foam pipe insulation, it does make a noticeable difference. I’ve got usable heat within 1.5 miles and straight up 190°F on the temp gauge in 4 miles of easy city driving, even this morning.
Still, it’s much nicer than my old car, which had a stuck-open thermostat. Some days it wouldn’t even move off the cold peg, even after I blocked off part of the radiator with a piece of cardboard. Most days it would get warmish in city driving but progressively get colder and colder in highway driving. It’s nice driving a car where everything works (knock on wood) with 40+ mpg to boot. Last tank was almost a record at 45.7 mpg. I’m hoping our upcoming road trip down Hotlanta way will give me some record tanks – it’s entirely possible to make it from my house to Charlie‘s in one tank of fuel.
A red letter afternoon on NPR
Holy shit, what a great round of stories on NPR this afternoon.
First off, throat singing. Not a big fan of genre covers, but Yat-Kha’s version of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” was damn near perfect, at least the snippet of it I heard. Hell, and I don’t even like Joy Division that much.
The other Holy Shit moment on my drive home this cold, rainy and windy evening came when Jonah Goldberg, in disparaging Trent Lott’s election as Senate Minority Whip, described the former Republican stronghold’s fiscal policy as “After years of wallowing in their own crapulence, spending money like a pimp with a week to live.”
Awesome. I ♥ NPR.
Always into the wind. Always.
Started out this morning with a shitty commute.
No, really. I stepped in a big wet steaming pile of dog crap this morning and didn’t notice until two pedal revolutions down the road, as I had smashed most of it into the pedal on my bike. Not only is there disgusting smelly sticky dog shit on my shoe, but it’s smashed into all the crevices of the pedal as well. Each revolution of the pedals only forced it in further.
Dog doodoo is slick, too. Makes it easy for your shoe to slip off the pedal. The shoe and pedal that are practically covered in canine excrement.
Toss in a 20 mph headwind and having too many smokes the night before with it being 20°F colder than the day before and it makes for a bad start to the day.
But all was not lost. I still made it to my rezendevous point in 20 minutes flat. Found a newspaper to clean up what I could on the pedal and then wrap it in so as not to transfer said effluvent to Kevin’s trunk. My commuting shoes are plastic, so it was trivial to walk off most of what was still smashed onto my shoe in the clover next to the sidewalk.
And best of all – while waiting for Kevin’s Honda to round the corner, I made a friend.
darkness on the face of the earth
One thing it takes me a long time to get used to after the switch back to Daylight Spending Time is that it’s suddenly dark when I get up, beginning to be light by the time I leave, light all day while at the orifice, deep twilight by the time I get out and solid nighttime for my entire ride home.