This Year...

10.11.2010

This has turned into the year I don't really feel like doing anything. I started the year with all kinds of goals, both for fun and professionally, but I haven't done squat to not just achieve any of those goals, but to move anywhere in the right direction of achieving them.

I could say I need to look over my goals again and make sure they're achievable, but I knew they were within my grasp when I first set my goals. I've just lacked the fortitude to stick with the game plan, and in most cases that game plan never got off the ground.

So I'm a little frustrated with myself on various levels. It sounds like it's time to cut back and have have 1 goal. 1 thing to focus on. I just have to decide what that 1 thing is, followed promptly by getting off my lazy butt.

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Bike Seat Bladders

09.27.2010

Last week Gina and I trekked down to Gulf Shores, bicycles in tow with dreams and aspirations of getting in some good rides. The previous 2 weeks we had ramped up (ok, "started again") riding since the temperature finally dropped below BOILING. The first day at the beach the heat index was 103°, which was back to BOILING. The next day temps fell back into the 90's, which was good enough for me to give it a whirl.

The Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail is a mile and a half from the condo, and on our last trip we rode a couple of miles on the trail. The whole thing is paved, nice and wide. Unfortunately on the last trip, I opted for us to turn down Rosemary Dunes, which is damn near 2 miles of unshaded pavement. This time I opted for a more covered route. In addition, we rode to the trail from the condo instead of driving the bikes there (we didn't know it was that close the first time!).

We pedaled along the trails, and at the 5 mile point asked Gina how far she wanted to ride. As Gina hadn't had anything to eat, she was getting a little tired and decided now would be a good time to start back. We made the 5 miles back without incident, until I pulled into the condo parking lot.

I have a collection of bike seats (mine are big enough I don't feel right calling them saddles). The one currently installed was the Wide Bike Seat from Casual Male Big & Tall. The cool things about this seat are:

• It's 14½" wide
• Each side has an air bladder to make riding more comfortable
• It has a 500lb capacity, which I am well below

As I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed my left butt cheek was noticeably lower than the right. And my left cheek could feel little bumpy bits. It seems the left seat bladder was empty. Once we got back into the condo I pulled the seat off and started looking for the leak. Eventually I tracked it down to a bad seal between the bladder and the plastic nozzle where you fill the bladder. If it had just been a hole in the bladder a tire-seal patch might have fixed it, but I couldn't think of a good way to seal up angular plastic and the bladder - especially since I really didn't know exactly where the leak was in there.

At this point I called up a local bike shop, mainly to make sure they were open as it was suddenly the tourist off-season. Turns out the shop was open from 9-6, so the next day I made my way to the shop, which turned into an adventure in itself thanks to an address on the Google reviews page, a different address on the bike shops website, and a GPS that told me I had reached my destination while I was on a bridge.

I went into the bike shop and asked for the widest seat they had. They brought me a nice wide, padded seat (no air bladders). I looked at the bottom of the seat and saw the normal bracket for mounting the seat on a post. Since I have a nice, semi-custom made bike that can take my tonnage, I do not have a seat post, but rather a bracket that clamps onto 2 rails on the bottom of the seat. In fact, it's these 2 rails that the normal bracket is already attached. I asked if they could take off the bracket since I didn't have any tools, which they happily obliged. I've got to admit, bike shop people are nice guys. I made my way back to the condo to install my seat.

Except the rails on the bottom of the seat were too far apart for my bracket. I tried for half an hour to squeeze them in, but I couldn't get them to fit. It was too close to 6:00 to try to make it back to the bike shop, so the first thing the next morning I, along with the seat and the bracket, were heading back to the shop for some help. I got to the shop and explained what happened, and even managed to show the guys how the bracket didn't fit. Was the seat a different size? Do I need another bracket? Do I need another seat? After comparing the seat I had gotten to a couple of others in the shop, it seems the original bracket, when mounted at the factory, was pulling the rails together. When the bracket came off, the rails went back to their original position. After about 20 minutes and a crescent wrench, rails and bracket met properly. I was off to the condo, added the seat to the bike, and once again ready for the open road.

Times like this, pedaling the bike is definitely the easy part.

Permalink conveyances road trip

$800 Comics

09.18.2010

I'm getting ready for a little trip to Gulf Shores, so the first thing to do is figure out what to take to keep me occupied while Gina basks in the sunfilled glory of the beach. Right now I'm loading comic books onto the iPad.

A while back I managed to obtain .cbz formatted copies of the original Marvel GI Joe series. I'm just dorky enough to know that comic story lines from 1984 won't hold up well, but I enjoyed them enough at the time, and am enough of a Joe fan, that I'll flip through the old comics again. This is one of the things I got the iPad for - reading books. So I downloaded a comic reader for the iPad and have begun the importing/transferring of the comic files to the iPad. Do I know how to party at the beach or what?

I've got a folder full of Star Trek comics in PDF format... I wonder if it can read those too?

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Widgeying

09.12.2010

This has been a busy week, in part because all of the social-gaming for the month seems to have taken place in a 4-day span. Wednesday was Heroscape night with most of the gang. It's been a couple of years since we played Heroscape, and the best part is still making the map. It may be time to see what other games can use those hex tiles (and I may be saying that because I have a deplorable win/loss record in Heroscape, but I'll not admit that as the reason).

Saturday was Alex's birthday, and for his birthday I got together with he, Rynn, and Matt and taught them how to play Munchkin. It's been even longer since I played Munchkin, so most of the first game was remembering the rules. Sure, I had the rules there in front of me, and I had flipped through them before the game. And during the game. By the end it didn't matter, because regardless of which rules we used Alex managed to win. Maybe it was birthday luck?

I have to game playing scheduled for this week. This week will have lots of bike riding in preparation for taking bikes to Gulf Shores next week and riding around down there. I'll bet losing at Heroscape and Munchkin won't sound too bad after all the pedaling I think I'll be doing over the next few days.

Permalink boardgames

Paul is my Friend!

09.01.2010

Way back 5 years ago I found out through the glory of the interweb and eBay that I had been emailing (and buying auctions from) Paul Kupperberg, writer of my favorite 80's comic book, Vigilante. Over the years since I've seen Paul's name pop up every once in a while. He was an editor for Weekly World News, the WWE Kids magazine, and is currently working on Archie Comics. During one of my "let's type some random names in Facebook and see what happens" moments, I found a fan page for Paul Kupperberg. I joined up, but all you can really do on a fan page is post links to other articles about a person. Relatively useless in all actuality.

After the fan page search I managed to track down Paul the Man! He has over 2100 friends listed, so this must be the place for fans too. Or maybe he's just really likable and actually knows 2100 people? I shot off a friend request and anxiously awaited a response.

The next day I found out me and Paul are friends. We're buddies! Now if I just don't turn into Ralph from the local comic shop and talk about the intricacies of 20 year old story lines.

Permalink books/comics random