Today is the 22nd of August (well
LATE the night of the 21st (Friday))... - so - anyway - have NOTHING OF
VALUE TO ADD TO YOUR LIFE, so - considering that - I'll just post a
bunch of useless pictures here and you can play with them?!
Me on some sort of pedal-thingie at Surf Expo (Orlando) (yes -
that's _Henry's_ finger in the way of the lens - go figger - he OUGHT
to know how to take pictures (by now?), but, well, - whatever?)
This year's Surf Expo show had NO kites, NO boardsailing (at ALL!) -
apparently because the show is a month earlier than it used to be - all
the 'wind-sports' people are going to a show in Hood River, Oregon, in
mid-September, so I guess I won't go? - Harumph!
Here's Mom in Jacksonville, on her "Trike" - I did a LOT of research on
this - and her physio-therapist in Jacksonville really helped-us-out
with this... - She really likes her Trike - and is riding it almost
daily.
As for our upcoming (cycle)-trip, Ms. May and I are both riding hard,
and as the people that organize the ride in North Carolina get closer
and get more things on their web-site,
we sign up for this, that, and the other... Just signed up for
their 'meal-plan' tonite and that looks tasty, I hope there is a LOT of
FOOD, I will DEFINITELY be HUNGRY after riding 40-80 miles a day!
here's just a 'tiny-bit' of aluminum corrosion that I'm going to have to fix in the next few weeks
This is a picture I took AFTER the work when we got an 'emergency phone call' - saying, "Come take this camera out NOW or we're going to dump it in the inlet!"
- so I went down south and yanked out the camera and the control boxes,
and some cables, (and left the rest of the cables in the conduits...) -
there was significant hammer-drilling, oxy-acteylene cutting and other
'demolition' going on inside this concrete building while I was working
- I borrowed, though, one of their LONG extension ladders so I didn't
have to carry mine down to the beach!
and - lastly (for this section of the web) - here's another picture of
me up a ladder - taken on Thursday, 20th of August at Sebastian Inlet...
small large
Weekend of 15 - 16 August / Saturday - Sunday: -
a lot of things happening - mostly to do with cycling and
kiteboarding (did both on Saturday - but on Sunday only rode (with
Ms._Huggly) to Jupiter and back (almost 40 miles) against a LOT of
WIND. Now that kind of wind normally makes good kiteboarding -
but the wind / weather web-sites said only 10 knots (funny - it felt
like a LOT MORE when riding AGAINST it early on Sunday morning...
We chose today (16th August) to do our weekly 40 mile ride to/from
Jupiter rather than at Lake Okeechobee. It turned out there was
a LOT of WIND but - well - we got the wind behind us coming home - but
that didn't help Ms._May's appetite (she was VERY hungry when she got
home) nor Mr. Bill's knees (which were very (VERY)) tired when HE got
home -
BUT - if we'd ridden at the lake - we would have had the wind against
us on the way back (when tired) and that would have been very bad. - So
- we lucked-out and picked the right Sunday morning to do Jupiter...
Plus - we must have see a pack of about 40-50 bikes headed North when
we were going south, then another 20-30 people probably not in that
"Race"? - this road is a VERY POPULAR road to cycle on... (and it's
shady in the morning and a LOT of 'huge' expensive houses! - so -
overall a great day cycling (if tiring) and a great afternoon relaxing,
reading, computing, eating, etc.
AND Mr._Bill's just turned-over 3,000 miles on his trike since he got it the end of last October...!!!
Found this cat (his name is "Leo" and he's VERY FRIENDLY and VERY
LOVEY) at the vet's office when I went to buy some things for our
cat... His expression is EXACTLY how I feel about things some times...
- so I thought I'd share it!
Went TriceQ riding this morning ((May and I did the "Jensen Beach
Hills" early), then my trike-friend (Tractor_Tom) from Okeechobee came
over (and he bought three tires from me (and he put them on his trike))
then we did about another 30 miles or so down-towards Jupiter Island,
and such. We managed to 'avoid' the rain-squalls on the way south
early in the ride but got severely soaked on the way home - when we
couldn't aviod the rain! Tomorrow morning, early, Ms. May and I
will go all the way to the Jupiter Lighthouse and back - 'about' 40
miles or so... - the last part is along the intracoastal waterway in
Tequesta and Jupiter and VERY Scenic...
Then this afternoon I went kiteboarding (sorry - no pictures - need a
waterproof camera) - anyway - it was VERY GOOD - if a bit overpowered
for about 90 minutes - I could have done more but the wind kept picking
up and I already had the biggest kite (16 square meters) on - (since
there was ALMOST NO WIND when I started! - anyway - it was a TERRIFIC
DAY on the water!
Did some more web-camera work
this week - and there's more to do - this is the season of lightning,
heat, and hurricanes, all of which conspire to wipe-out web_cams and
generate more work for me - but that's fine - I like the work...
Here's just one of the things I made-up this week. This is a
'jumper or 'pig-tail'' for the pan_tilt mechanism, could be useful to
re-position the camera-housing for easier access. The other
picture is obviously 'me' up on top of the roof at
Bathtub_Beach_/_Reef... - where I seem to have spent quite a bit of
time, lately. This is a self-portrait with my iPhone3g - No one
else is lunatic enough to come up there on that roof to take my picture?
On Saturday, 8th August: - we had an 'interesting' week... - PLENTY of activity to make sure that none of us fall-asleep-on-the-job...
On the way back from Orlando, I got a phone-call and had to visit the
Sebastian_Inlet web-camera-site (see picture(s) at the bottom of this web-page) and do a little-bit of debugging /
resetting / etc.
Then May and I both spent the better part of the day on Wednesday at
Bathtub_Beach_Reef (near to where we live here in _Stuart_). I spent quite some time (and a trip to Home Depot) to
re-wire both the 110 volt AC supply and the 24 volt DC supply into a
new housing (that the door was not rusted-off-of...)
Then when attempting to re-boot this power-supply - it became
obvious, while on the telephone with the gang in _Miami_ that the
(printed-circuit-board / transformer_board) was 'toast', (to say nothing of
the smoking capacitor) - so we gave-up on the remainder of that repair
(which was, at least originally) supposed to supply a new (GSM-cell) modem (and a
new plastic protective box) to the camera-system (which has been 'down' for a couple of
weeks.)
Yesterday (that's Friday, 7th) I pedalled over 45 miles on my trike - not
really expecting to do so - and found that I'd not had enough to eat
before I started, so I really got way-laid with lack of nutrition...
I arrived home to find a poor lizard stuck in a bucket of rain-water,
so of course had to get him out, and in the excitement, I noted he had a full-tail which means
that he'd not yet met Ms. Siew Mei, the cat who seems to eat lizard
tails!
AND - of course, we've had our share of RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN with
con-sequent rumble rumble rumble (and lightning), and - of course -
that's not Ms. Siew Mei's most favourite thing...
AND - I've finally managed to make version 0.5.9 (beta) (or so) of the (front)
'mud-guards' (pictures: small larger
) for my TriceQ - and because of all the rain on Thursday
night - I had a great opportunity to try out my 'mud-guards' on my
Friday morning trike-ride... Today, (Satureday) I've modified them,
once again, (now they might be considered version 0.95 or so?) -
and they are still 'ugly' but
very functional...
AND - Since we're really going to do this thing (400 miles plus in the
North Carolina Mountains (in late September)) I've been 'adapting' and
changing and modifying various and sundry bags...
This one (the black one in the image above) is to carry my clothes that
I'm sure to have ON in the morning when it's chilly and we start
cycling - then take them off during mid-day when it gets HOT HOT HOT...
- this bag contains (and has "SOME" room left-over): long warm
bike-pants, long-sleeve-warm-bike-jacket, warm gloves, (with
full-fingers) rain-pants for bicycling, and a long-sleeve-lycra-top)...
It fits quite handily behind the mesh-seat on the Trike... - and JUST
for REFERENCE - for thos that seem to be eternally asking
'dumb_questions' - here's the outline of the things in this picture
that DO NOT relate to the clothes-bag:
- At the extreme lower-left - is a small black zipper-bag with
a tiny red-zipper-pull (this is the LEFT SIDE of the TriceQ - therefore
the Port side - therefore RED)
- Just above that and to the right is a bright-yellow Nikon
brand double film-can (anyone remember 'REAL FILM' photography?).. - it
holds talcum powder for changing tires
- Just to the RIGHT of the yellow-film-can is a black and
bright-blue 'dog-dish' that holds tire changing and other tools for the
trike, plus assorted rags and a couple of spare tubes and some
tube-patches... - However, I've not had a flat in over 6 weeks - keep
your fingers crossed...
- RIGHT ON TOP of the black & bright-blue tool-case - is the black 'clothes-bag' talked about above...
- TO THE RIGHT of the clothes bag is a small black case inside
of which is a thing called an "Alien" (bicycle-multi-tool) - that
Anthony_Slack (sometimes known as "_Slacky_" and his lovely wife
Yvonne_(Quinn) gave to me when we used to ride bicycles together in
Hong Kong (that was a VERY long time ago))...
- Right ON TOP of the clothes-bag one can just barely see the
end (of) the tire-pump in it's dark-grey-PVC holder (with some
clear-Duct-tape on the bottom of that holder)...
- At the extreme lower-right - one can view a piece of wood -
this is part of the "Support" that keeps the back-tire off the
work-bench / table - where I usually work on the bike. By keeping
the back-tire off the table I can rotate the pedals and the back-tire
and work on the derailleur system (gear-shifting mechanism). It's
a good set-up, and I may take the 'wheel off the ground stand' with me
as we drive to / from the Carolinas...
SO - there you go ! - that's the 'life of the TriceQ's parts and pieces...
AND _ for Ms. May's bicycle and her propensity to make things 'Look
Nice' - I modified her Timbuk2 shoulder-bag for her bicycle, with
orange webbing and some yellow velcro and such - However, she'll have
to evaluate the suitability with some 'test-rides'?!
On Sunday, 2nd August:
We rode the hills of Jensen Beach
this morning (from about 06:50 til about 08:00 or so), with me on the
Trek 5200 and I did 3 rounds (17.2 miles total) in less than an hour,
and even spent some time stopped, while chatting with a friend who
lives up there and is practicing his running for a 1/2 marathon soon...
After the "Hills Ride", Mr. Bill 'twidddddddddled' his right
Shimano 600 Ultegra SIS shifter on the Trek 5200 (about 18 years old, but still 22
pounds (it hasn't gained any weight in the last 18 years, but I have -
something wrong there)).
ANYWAY the right shifter (for the back
derailleur) has been 'iffy' for months (maybe years) - so today he got
BRAVE, and took the darned thing apart (mostly) - (but definitely got a
a point where he said "THIS IS TOO COMPLEX" and so quit taking it apart
at that point... (But I have a Shimano direction-sheet which proved
VERY VERY HELPFUL - there's literally about 50 different 'parts' inside
there - in the shifting / indexing part (which I didn't
dis-assemble)...
But
cleaning the shifter-indexing mechanism,
and a new cable and cleaning-out the housings and putting it all back
together, and adjusting it, achieved nirvana. It now shifts like
a
DREAM! - wow - what a difference. It does TAKE TIME - but I
guess that's why some of us pay the Bike Shop, but some of us don't?
Anyway - a MUCH IMPROVED Trek 5200 rear shifter!
Saturday, 1st of August, 2009.
We did our 40 miles on the L.O.S.T. this morning (back home by 11:00 a.m.)
Here's the sunrise from this morning's cycling along the L.O.S.T..
Here's Ms._May on her new (used) 17 pound carbon Trek road-bike (just SLIGHTLY behind me on my TriceQ).
Ms._May
went to visit an aging (pottery) friend the other day, in a nursing
home. Ms._May told this friend she'd just gotten a 17 pound
carbon bicycle. The friend, then says, "OH, is that one of those
bicycles that if you fill up the water bottle and put it on the bike it
doubles the bike's weight?"
- yeah - that's JUST about right -
- and Ms._May had no idea this lady was that 'up' on modern technology and it's ins and outs...
I'm
'attempting' to take the above picture with my little blue (6 year old)
Sony DSC-U30 camera - which has a string on it so I can't drop it (as
easily as I can drop my iPhone (which has NO STRING and no PLACE to PUT
a STRING)) - so - Maybe more pictures, in the future, will be with the
Sony U30... It takes 1,200 by 1,600 pixel images whereas the
iPhone's camera, though good, has no string to hold and no flash - and
takes 800 x 600 pixel images... - but the iPhone e-mails the images
from the iPhone - so - life is but a trade-off, huh?
On the
way back ((to our car at Port Mayaca) AND into the wind) we were
looking for just about any excuse to slow-down or stop... We saw
some powered-paraglider-types at Port Mayaca Park, while we were
still about 5 five miles away from there, which was our
finish-location. I stopped and attempted to chat with the
powered-paraglider types, obviously a guy and his father (well, at
least obvious to me) - but they spoke VERY LITTLE English - though I
did get out of them they were from the Fort Lauderdale area...
But we also saw this one lonely tree out here in the middle of nowhere...
Mr._Bill
seems to be doing MORE and MORE work with web-cameras. Some are
on beaches, some are for construction, some are for looking at traffic
in and out of inlets (near beaches?). I worked 3 days doing this
type of thing, last week, and it looks as though I'll work at least two
days next week, also... Believe it or not they actually pay me
money to do this work, too, amazing what one can do in
'semi-retirement' to earn a few extra bucks of 'pocket-change'.
Now
that you SEE this image - make certain to let me know why you think
there's an 'abberation' (bump) in the 'horizon' above my head... This
is the Atlantic Ocean - it should NOT look like that - it's some
function of a problem with the iPhone3G camera, but WHAT?
AND
_ Make CERTAIN that you wish my Sister, Ms._K a HAPPY BIRTHDAY this
month... - we won't say how OLD she's going to be - but - I'll always
be 8 years older than HER!>>>
Mr. Bill's best hang-gliding-flight (Ever) - see the FlightLog.Org web-page, here...
updated: 20:55 p.m. on Friday, 21 August, 2009 - revID: 1f