This is the end

Of 2013! Without hesitation, I can say this has been the worst, and best year of my life. Near death, great gains, great losses in all facets. I do not have resolutions, and do not believe in them. Do or do not, this is what 2014, and the future is about. With that, get out there and create, ride, and live. I'm not waiting for a "new" year to do this, it's happening now.

Best of luck my man, I know you never looked backward : )

A Return, of Sorts...

I'm back. So much to say, so little skill. While the winter is upon us, and my bike training is less frequent, I have returned to pottery. I have acquired a new wheel (after selling my industrial one with the intent of moving), and I have acquired a new technique, RAKU. I also came to my senses, and purchased a pyrometer, so no more cones, or guessing. Here are the latest, Raku and other.

This is just a small sample, but what I consider the best. I think Raku is my new "thing", along with single speed mountain biking (more on that later). Coming soon: How to burn your face off in a kiln. Hot stuff is hot. I dislike the extreme cold. Dressing for Cold weather riding, for Idiots like me. -Maybe I will stick with the blog this time.

Bikes, what I have learned as a "mechanic" and the LT100

For the better part of 3-4 years now, my better half and I have been deeply obsessed with bicycles of all kinds. In turn, I have become somewhat of a "mechanic", fix expert, know it all about bikes, of all kinds. DISCLAIMER: I mostly work in a basement or dinning room.

Evolution: We started with mountain bikes, that we did not ride in the mountains. Like most SoCal imports, we used our bikes for everything. Why can't I just ride my flatbar fully suspended mountain bike everywhere, on 50 mile rides, and to a coffee shop? The answer, you can, but it will suck! This lead us, over the course of 3 years (our formidable biking years), to adopt 3 bikes each, mostly. One road bike, one "city bike", and one mountain. This is not all inclusive, not perfect, and sometimes there are crossovers.

Today: All 3 of my bikes are esentially custom built, a fast sub 20lb road bike, a 29er franken-mountain bike 1x9 with no suspension, and a 1994 Specialized Crossroads commuter/cross bike that i converted to drop bars. Gen (Master Blaster), has a Riv Sam Hillborne for inbetween stuff (Long slow rides), a Riv A. Homer Hilsen for faster "road" rides, a Public C7 city bike for tooling around, and a 1994 Bridgestone MB6 for the mountains (someday).

All of our bikes are steel, with the exception of my 29er, witch is aluminum with a steel fork. We both like the feedback of steel better, I just went with Alu on the mountain bike to save weight.

What I have learned as a rider and mechanic:

1. Being short is difficult, but you adapt. (In life and with bikes)
-The world is made for Men who are around 6 feet tall, and women who are about 6 inches shorter, I can search craigslist, ebay, and walk into a bike shop, and both of us will have the same problem, our bikes have to be ordered, or custom made. We never get to test ride the "rite size".

2. Bike maintenance is a continual learning process:
-I know 10x more today about derailleurs, than I did even 1 year ago, it's all about cable tension.

-Don't discount good tires, patching sucks.
-SRAM chains with the "master link" are the best thing ever, I can remove the chain to clean it.
-build or buy a chain "whip", you will need this, cassettes get changed.
-Bar tape get's worn out quick, not from use, but from swapping bars!
-Furniture polish cleans/protects amazingly well.
-Buy ferrules (cable ends) in bulk.
-Double tighten/check everything (some bike shops don't do this)
-Noisy usually means DIRTY.
-10k other things.......

3. EXPENSE: Don't get me started, and don't walk me into a bike shop, some bikes are great, some suck, and most bike shop employees are confused (Apologies to the ones who are not). An expensive shiny bike, may not be for you. You must go by feel, with a close 2nd in aesthetics.

-Sometimes it's not worth it to source/build you own bike, and vice versa. There's no hard rules for this. You will learn the HARD way, it's a law of nature.

4. Clothing: I tried to fight it for a long time, but what the masses sell, work. Lycra and wool wick sweat, and tend to stink less. Cotton sucks and hurts, it's great for sitting here, or even going to the Gym, but smooth light things are excellent on a bike.

-Underwear is not your friend. Spandex and/or chamois are. -Old Jerseys from unknown rides are cool.

NEXT: We are both doing larger rides, Master blaster is doing the Venus ride in the next couple of weeks, probably fretting about it right now : ). I'm going to attempt to qualify for the Leadville 100 by racing in the Apine Odyssey 100k on September 15th. I have never ridden over 53 miles on any bike, and I have never ridden that far on a Mountain bike, so this should be interesting. As a supplement to training/stress releif, i'm carpooling to work, and riding home. Ole blue is sitting with me today, being dirty:

What is the point of this post? I'm not sure, maybe so I could type it out, and Imagine the other things I need to do also, Like a FIRING of my pottery, or building a set of stairs for our house!

I swear the next post will be about a firing, and photos of said disaster!

Colorado is burning, and so are my lungs.

Since my last visit, the state has become engulfed in flames, my leg has healed greatly, and it's HOT. That's right, currently Colorado has more than 8 major fires burning in the state, one of witch cropped up just a short distance from us yesterday. There is almost no chance the flames will reach us, but smoke certainly has. It's not helping that the temperature has topped 100 all week (106 on Tuesday, tying a record from 1878). It's brutal, the smoke in the air takes me back to my youth, when you would take a deep breath of that southern California air, and feel that pain! We will be taking an extended trip to the homeland for the next couple of weeks, and hopefully it will be enough time for the fires to be extinguished, for me to age another year, and hopefully to pull some riding time in California.

Image courtesy of the Daily Camera/MARK Leffingwell

I think my favorite part of the last couple of weeks was a TV interview with an evacuee, she was somewhere in the range of 75-90 years old, and proclaimed that the fire was horrible, but it's "all going to burn eventually". YAY! I'll leave you with that one....

Why?

Why do I take so long to post again? I'm not sure, I guess it's an internal question, but needless to say, our lives have been busy, and I have been busy reading other blogs! Yard work, biking, working, and life have kept me busy. I recently started going to a kickboxing glass with G, and have found myself "overly competitive", witch leads me to my current partially torn calf muscle! I'm okay, but I certainly won't be running for a bit (No complaints here), so the bike is going to see a lot of road time. Speaking of bikes, I think we decided that neither of us cares how many we have. G has been talking about a track/single speed style bike (maybe fixed...!), and I think it will be fun. A few years ago I commuted on a "bikes direct" style single speed roadie, and it was one of the best rides I had, I just loved the simplicity. Pottery, ahhh, It's been over 1 year since my last firing, so my plan is to roll one up in the next 2 weeks, I have plenty of material. I guess I have been waiting because I had planned to setup a small fire pit in the yard (maybe it will happen this weekend), and do a traditional pit firing. We will see. Pics next time.

Snowpocalypse part II

It just brings out the dumb.. 1-3 inches per hour, through tomorrow I think.

I swing my wheel at thou.

Blah, Blah, Blah. Yes, I have not posted in 2 months, but I have been BUSY. Hobbit Hole renovation (sounds like porn, sorry), The holidays, etc. However, we have good news Marge! I aquired a long lost friend, the Brent C pottery wheel!

This one is about 20 years old, and falls into the era which I would have used in high school. Up to this point, I have been gratefully using a Creative Industries "Clay Boss" that G.E. bought be a few years ago, had she not done this, I don't think I would have ever revived my work. I can say that it has been "Okay", it got me back into throwing, but I was never able to get the wheel head to level, or center properly, even after sending the wheel head in for replacement. Apparently other people have had this problem on that model. I just felt that I got as much as I could out of that unit, and moved on to something else. I was able to pick this one up off of craigslist, mildly used. I guess he purchased it 20 years ago, used it 10 times, then stored it away!
Be prepared for the thickest, best pottery our studio has ever seen!

I leave you with a picture of the hobbit hole, not scary anymore..

The Rabbit hole, and the Hobbits.

Sometimes, an old home can be intimidating. Our scary basement is no exception. We knew this going into the purchase, but the work really needed to get going, as we might have guests in the next 1-3 months over the holidays, and sleeping on the couch is not really an option for some. This particular basement is "special", in legal terms, it's really a "cellar", as it's only 6 foot and 1/2 inch tall down there. We survive in it, because we are hobbits. This led us to installing recessed lighting, as there was nothing else that could go down there. Previous to the light installation, it was the sort of place where the "gimp" might sneak up on you, leather clad, with a zipper covering thier mouth. No gimp anymore, as the rooms are now brightly lit. The other problem is flooring, which as we know, can get very expensive. Since it's an "Alice in wonderland rabbit hole basement", we can't use anything "hard", that won't comply to the shapes of the floor. We thought about Vinyl planks, cheap carpet, etc, but in the end we decided on commercial carpet squares (3x3). Used, inexpensive, but decent looking, and above all else "rugged". This part of the installation has not happened yet, as we decided to wait until after the paint goes in. I'm not going to included an after picture, as it's not ready yet, but here's a before:

Okay, this is not a photo of our basement, nor any evil spirits that we are holding, but you get the dark gist...

Most of what is left now is finishing, cleanup, and venting heat in those rooms. I have to call daddy for this, and listen to him complain out "Hussein Obama" and how his guns were taken away. That in itself is an entertaining event, along with the construction! My plan, have a functioning basement in 2 weeks.... we shall see!

Happy Halloween!

It's that time of year again, and we already had our first snow. Which incidentally caused some catastrophic tree problems with our neighborhood.

This was just a sample, in what turned out to be an "all day" cleanup to the carnage. The trees hung on to thier leaves, and the snow did the rest. The landscape of our backyard jungle will change a bit next spring, but honestly, it was a bit dank, so the added sunshine will be welcome. It's like a natural "trimming". On the other side of things, I am foolishly going to try and compete/qualify for the "Leadville 100" race in 2012. It's a 100 mile mountain bike race. The killer is, i built a new bike (yet to be ridden), and she's a single speed! So i will be attempting a 100 mile race for the first time with 1 gear. I like to punish myself. Added to this is my recent lack of excersise, and my certain fat gain.

http://www.leadvilleraceseries.com/

I have always said that i'm the short, fat version of Lance Armstrong. Maybe i will walk on my lunch break?

We also moved the kiln, and she's waiting to be used. I have 1 (yes o-n-e) pot that i have thrown in the last six months, so i need to make them start to multiply, like "pigeons"

-WORD

Business Cat

Next stop, Winter?

This past summer has been the "Road bike Summer" for us. We have ridden long, short, up, down, and everywhere i had never been in the area. This is good, and bad. The good part is getting outside, and riding. I don't think in the 8-9 years we have been here, that we have spent so much time outdoors. However, it's taking away from part of the reason we moved to the "old town" area.

We need to get back to casual rides, to the store, restaurant, or just because. I really think that most of the individuals that we do these group/long/organized rides with, don't understand. They always want to gear up, and ride 20-50 miles. Don't get me wrong, I like a long ride, but there's more to it than that.

On top of not riding just because, the titanic infusion of 10 tons of road biking has taken me away from Mountain biking, totally. I have not ridden 1x this year on a mountain (I guess it didn't help that i parted my Mountain bike). Due to the killer weather, i'm working on balancing my bikes out again (I think my better half is also). I want to nail it down to my 3 bikes, Road, City, Mountain. I'm not saying there is not room in there for a Beach Cruiser, or a Mini Velo, but i feel like i need the right tool for the job. If i have a bike that's comfortable, and good for short rides, then i'm more apt to do it. It goes down the line.

Also, there is no time to waste (I'm building a 29er now, in hopes of qualifying for the Leadville 100 next year. YAY punishment!).

Oct 3rd:


I have a feeling it will be warm on Halloween. Hello Fall!

Happy Birthday!

Since i don't blog much, i figured i would post up a Happy Birthday to G.E! She's the real blogger..

It's been a very interesting year for you, and for both of us. So much has changed.

Here's to your impending graduation, to being another year older, and getting better with age (we are like wine, no?).

VDM : )



HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Love,

ppk

Trouble-continued.

UPS has further exposed their ineptitude.

After an enormous effort by the receiver of my Surly LHT, and myself, UPS still shipped it back to me, it will arrive tomorrow, and will now be named "Lumpy".

The icing on this cake is that they charged me for shipping it back, and they shipped it to our old house. It's like kicking you in the crotch, an slapping you in the face!

I'm over it, the LHT is coming home, clearly it did not want to leave.

Now that this situation is all wrapped up and solved, i need to figure out how to make it 75 degrees.

Nobody knows.. the trouble i have seen

Let's start by saying that UPS sucks, without question. With all of the mistakes i have made, they still suck.

10 days ago, sold my Surly Long Haul Trucker, to finance some other bike shenanigans we have going on. The gentleman paid promptly, and i shipped it on the 5th of July, it was well packed, as every bike i ship/receive is, and packed in the same way a bike shop or factory would do it. Fast forward, he get's the bike, and the Fenders are HAMMERED. Mind you, they are hammered Honjo fenders, but now they are truly hammered. Shit happens, so i'm not terribly worried.



I think, ahh, UPS bonked it, oh well. A couople of hours later, he emails me again with some more intense info, there's a "ding" in the top tube (Larger than the average)



Now I am livid, and i call UPS to file a claim, as the bike is insured for the purchase price, so no worries right?

Day 1 of pickup, the guy does not knock on the door, nothing, it's not picked up. Day 2, he picks it up, and the customer asks "why didn't you knock yesterday", and he says that he cannot confirm nor deny if someone did or did not knock. (what the fuck is that?).

They literally take 3 hours to get it back to the Inspection station, and inspect it, then reject my claim on the basis of "the packaging is not to UPS standards", so basically, no bicycle that is ever shipped anywhere, is to thier standards. Be very careful if you ship a bike!

We make a deal, i'm going to eat part of the $$$ that he paid me, and he is going to deal with the dent/wrecked fenders (this is 2 days ago).

Meanwhile, UPS policy states that damage claims must be shipped back to the sender! We did not know this, so the bike is on it's way back to me! He is currently trying to stop it, but we are in "limbo" right now, waiting to see if it get's stopped, who the hell knows, but fate might bring her back to me, dent's and all....

Fucking UPS.

Cardboard only.

....And enormous satellite dishes.

It's been a while

Well, i have not posted in a while, and why not today? Today is annual remembrance of my birth(I have grown a few inches since the photo).

We have been very busy (not doing pottery, but this weekend will end that). We went on a vacation to California, did more work on the House, really it was non-stop work until the end of May, then i just tanked for a while.

On deck, a Deck! In the next couple of weeks i'm going to salvage my free deck reminance from craigslist and build a small deck for us, then get our yard straight, period.

I've found that our new home/location has vaulted us, and mostly G.E. into a nearly daily biking frenzy (that's a good thing). Yesterday i rode the 17 mile one way run to my work, and it was not as bad as i would have thought, sans some rain and puddles.

Year 35 was a big change, Job, House. These are things people don't do on short order, but we are experts now!

I am grateful for many things, my lovely wife G.E., my retarded dogs, family (that still talks to me), and the friends i still have, plus a little luck!

Word. Next post will have earthenware.

Moved.

Notice the period after "moved". We are now moved, it literally took an entire week, to close, move, and clean the old house.

I can honestly say, that i did not remember how difficult it is to uproot, and this was only approx 8 miles away!

I have to thank my lovely wife, G.E., without her, this would not be possible. She risked life/limb, crippling back pain, and possible insanity. You see, moving is a rough task for us, it's literally the only time we fight. It think this move was a 7 out of 10 overall, but the pain of the actual moving will linger for weeks (I'm sure G could tell you about that, after the marathon cleaning spree at the old house yesterday).

Now, we get rid of stuff we "thought" we needed. Get our new studio setup (when is that delivery?), finish a small basement, build a deck, move a fence, and so on....

Time to get on the bike. Speaking of, my fully suspended Diamondback Mission has a crack in the frame. It's ironic, because i was just dissing some guy a few weeks ago who told me he had one that cracked, then i went on-and-on about how that would never happen to me. Well, it did, and i didn't even know it! I should be more angry than i am, but, it's an opportunity to shake things up, and that's the flavor of April 2011!

WERD

Interesting 7-11 conversations and Moving

Stardate 4.10.11

Captains Log: I witnessed 2 Sheriffs deputy's in 7-11 discussing how when your shirt "rides up" under your bullet proof vest, that you need to head back to the office to fix it, and re-dress yourself. Brilliant. I have had this problem also, but i'm not sure (as a officer of the law), that i would leave my post for this reason.

It's Monday, and the planned close for the new house is Friday, move Saturday. The tension shall build all the way to Friday, burst Saturday, and probably all go smooth. The Garage sale was impressive this past weekend, and we purged a ton of stuff we did not need, and some our friend did not need either. It's amazing how quickly junk will sell when it's priced at $1.

Word.

Happy Birthday Chuck Norris!

He is 71 today.

He got his drivers licence at 16.

*****seconds******

Week 4

New Job, new year, week 4. Thought it would be a good pic/comic day.




From http://www.quickmeme.com

-Lb