Gecko Bloggle

We had 8 kids here today. Two of them were ours, and while there were a few tears, and lots of screaming, I think most of it was happy screaming.

I may have to steal the Nerf gun Tate got, though, or at least modify it so he can pull the pump on it.

The place is NOT a total shambles, and there’s only a little bit of Oreo cake on the carpet. Pin the tail on the donkey is still fun for the kids under the age of 10. Arwen (on her third trip through being 10) did pretty well, too.

I decorated (not my forte) and generally stayed outta the way when kids played, and tried to not get the same headache I had yesterday.

Mission accomplished.

Best moment: Tate rushing into the house announcing “I hafta poo!” and jumping onto the toilet. Okay, he made it. Great. I stuck my head around the door, and asked if he’d need any help when he’s done, and he said “Nah… Because I’m four now.”

Wish more of life was that obvious.

Sleep: Daily routine of unconsciousness with vivid hallucinations, and possibly followed amnesia about the experience. – XKCD

I had a blow out last week during the ride in, and have been slowly getting everything I needed back together, which has been “fun” (did you know there’s thread count in tires just like for sheets?)  Nilo was kind enough to bring a new tube to our lunch, and so I made it back home that day, but then I realized that the flat had been due to a mis-aligned brake pad that was touching the tire during stopping just enough to cause a small hole and finally to pinch the tube itself.

So now I’ve got a new tube ($Lunch), new tire ($21 @ MEC), installed my “Mr. Tuffy” tire liners (woo, extruded plastic!) which I’ve had for ABOUT three years but hadn’t installed (maybe now’s a good time, AFTER the blowout?)

After pulling apart my bike, Arwen’s bike, and removed Ripley’s training wheels (they were just slowing him down, I think, in the grand scheme of things), I managed to get everything working properly again.  Need to go look up how to finetune my brakes, ’cause right now they’re a little, uhm… let’s say… passive.  I need them to be able to lock up both tires so I can do that cool move where you lay the bike down and slide under the flames-a-burning semi as it hops sideways down the six lanes of traffic and…

Wait, I think that’s something from Matrix, isn’t it?

I’m saying that when you are ready, you won’t need to brake.

I want to be able to hit my brakes hard enough that my bike disappears from underneath me, and I highside into the back of a Smart Car.

Okay, let’s take a look at the numbers, shall we?  Survey SAYS!

• Avg Speed: 17.1
• Distance: 11.5
• Time: 40:30

So, longer than normal by quite a bit, but I was taking it easy after filling up my brand new tubes at the Chevron (no idea what pressure I’m at, so I dunno if I’m a little under, or what, but I didn’t wanna go over and start my day off with a “Rapid Airloss Situation“!).  The new tires have thicker tread than my old ones, so they’re dragging me a little bit.  Have to adjust my back fender ’cause it rubs when I’m standing in the pedals (from a stoplight, etc).  Bandana helped keep sweat from pouring down my forehead.  That’s good. 

No music this ride, so I was OCDing about every little creak the bike made.  Sounded like maybe there’s a bit of plastic in the front fender that’s rubbing once in a while.  Should probably pull those off and re-seat them.

Couldn’t find a water bottle this morning, so I bought some blue POWERADE Olympic Hockey Berry Blitz carbo stuff for $1.50.  Sugar while riding hot is not a good combo.  Bleah.  17% of my daily carbs in a single drink?  Wooftie.

Was very stiff when I started out, but feeling pretty good now.  Am planning to ride home tonight, but will have to remember it’s gonna be hot (28, radio lady said) so I gotta drink lotsa water.

I need to go to bed earlier, and wake up a little earlier, in order to not be stumbling around the house muttering and swearing until 7:15.  Too stressful.  Means I don’t get to see the kids in the morning, and only get to see them a little in the evening.

Figured out we have a channel at home that lets us watch Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson at 10-ish instead of 12:30-ish, which is good.  Now, if we could just watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report at 9-10 instead of 11, we’d be (literally) laughing.

For anyone who actually, y’know VISITS the blog on the actual domain, you’re probably seeing it change almost daily (maybe I’ll put one of those things that lets YOU people change it for yourselves). Sorry ’bout that.

I found one I liked, and then reminded myself that I hate that “purple/green/blue bars” visual effect that happens after you’ve been staring at white text on a black background, and then switch to white background. Will have to change the theme AGAIN.

I know you’re all crushed.

Oh, and no more “Twitter Posts” to make it look like I’m postier. If I don’t have an actual post, I’ll just not post.

Which should make me post MORE, to make up for the fact that tweets aren’t filling any gaps.

We’ll see.

• Have to adjust my bike's brakes tomorrow morning, as I had a teensy bit of a closecall today. Also, need to wake UP on the way home. Hi mom! #
• BBC's Mary Anne Hobbs dubstep experimental radio show is freaking me out. It actually makes me sad there's nothing CLOSE to this here in BC. #
• For those of you wondering what the heck I'm talking about, listen for yourself here. http://is.gd/33Sfy Happy 090909! #

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• RT @floris: WordPress worm is active, make sure you upgrade to 2.8.4 or higher of #wp. #

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• Fun to find gear that you can't parse: "What is this?" "Y'mean, why is it there?" "No, I mean what IS that?" "Oh. Dunno." "Huh. Neat." #
• My active noise-cancelling headphones don't know what to do with wind: try to make anti-wind. Makes walking sound like car windows 1" down. #
• Burrard Skytrain: trying to not watch this guy kissing his girlfriend, 'cause he's manipulating her skull like it's a pop bottle. The hell? #
• Happy to be going AWAY from whatever event these goons are heading to. They are not part of my tribe. Football? AC/DC? Truckpull? Loserfest? #
• Listening to Wonk Funk – Kper. Suh-hreal. Glitch, but more. Switch. Quitch. Flitch. Weirdness. Good weirdness though. Really good. #
• Hah. Almost got off the train at Oakridge cause it's fun to roll 30blocks downhill instead of normal commute. Too bad I don't have my BIKE! #
• Hey Captain Aggro on the platform: Don't worry, nobody wants to steal your cheap case of beer. Relax. #
• Watching "Glee" tweetpeat, which I might actually enjoy except that I keep reaching for the subtitles button to make the tweets go away. #
• I keep expecting the teacher from Glee to suddenly turn into the Cop from Life On Mars (US version). #

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• It's official: transit is slower for my 11.5km commute than cycling. Of course, I don't show up at work all sweaty, but it beats being late. #
• Some of James Cameron's earlier work. We've all come a long way, baby. http://www.imaginarycinema.com/multimedia/xenogenesis.mov #
• It seems accidental tweets that are replies without content are my specialty. Just think of them as a blank stare. I meant to do that. #

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So, we moved.

We told you that, right?  We didn’t?  Well, we moved.  4 bedrooms instead of two (one for each kid).  Front and back yards.  Washer & dryer (drier?).  Dishwasher (which isn’t hooked up – don’t ask).  Something called “Laths and Plaster” or something like it, which means that hammering is a very dangerous thing.  Drilling, doubly-so.  For less than the increases the folks at Mole Hill were calling “fair.”  I won’t go into it, ‘cause Arwen did it better than I did.  Still on the board though, which should be interesting after the upcoming AGM.

It also is about, oh, let’s call it… 80 blocks away from our old place.  Which was, I think I’ve mentioned, about six blocks from work for me.  This means my morning commute is no longer downhill at idiotic speeds for four minutes, it’s now about 20 minutes of uphill followed by 15 minutes of downhill, with flat bits at the middle and end.  The flat bits and NON-nonstop uphill are all thanks to the utterly faboo cycling maps provided by the good folks at UBC’s Cycling Metro Vancouver site.  I highly suggest using the Restricted Maximum Slope feature, which’ll use the topographical information to suggest a route that’ll stop you from having to pull over and yarf into someone’s flowerbed.

Right, yeah, so I’ve been using a new cycling computer I bought at Mountain Equipment CoOp, and tracking my time, average speed, and distances since I started doing this crazy ride.  Well, since August 5th, at least.

Here’s how I’m doing so far (not bad for an old guy like me, who hasn’t done any REAL riding in about 20 years).  I just looked up my commute from 12th and Commercial to my first ever real techie job, out near where Coquitlam’s Ikea is, and realized it was 19.5km and took about 1hr15min based on 15km/h.  And I’m winded by my new 11.5km?

Anyhoo, looking at my latest data (yes, I’m using a spreadsheet, nerdz), here my stats:

14 Trips (Been only going to or from work in a given day, no round trips, YET)
17.3km/h Average Speed
10.9km Average Distance (mostly due to some idiotic navigation moments)
0:38:02 Average Time

Not too shabby, for an old fart like m’self.

Oh, and IF your particular reader can cope, here’s a little playlist of the sorta thing I tend to wake up to when cycling. That first track? I swear my muscles don’t have a *chance* to whine when I hear that.