I’m wondering if I should pick up a small audio recorder. Every time I sit down to try to convey some great idea or relate a stimulating conversation I find myself going completely blank. I’ve tried the ubiquitous capture moleskin approach, but physically writing something down seems to turn on some kind of OCD filter. My attention turns to formating and wording and the thought is lost. Also it seems like most of the ideas I have come to me when I’m driving or biking or doing some other task where writing is basically impossible. What to do?! Perhaps just blurting out what I’m thinking into a small recorder might work. There’s also the additional ability to record conversations with others, which would be great since more often than not what I’ve got to say is in reference to what they’ve said and would thus be necessary to include. Time to start shopping around I suppose, unless someone’s got one I can borrow?
Made the commute to work/campus for the first time last Saturday. Everything went surprisingly well and took much less time than I expected. The ride is 6 miles each way, reasonably flat and avoids being on really busy roads for the most part. Check out the map below.
Unfortunately you can’t see much of the detail since I don’t have a premium account on Flickr, but you get the idea. Its exactly 6.0 miles. Only takes about 30 minutes, looking forward to doing this at least twice a week from now on.
Edit: Unfortunately on the way home I was stopped by a flat tire. Thankfully Luke and “the Jetta” were able to come rescue me. Really irritated since I was on track to make it home in less than 30 minutes. Oh well, this is probably as good a time as any to do a complete overhaul. The commute was a good shake-down, lots of things need tending to.
Filed under: Bike
What happened to Upgrade #1? Well, I did that one before I realized that bike stuff is was a good blogging opportunity. You can see pics of upgrade #1, the Topeak Rear Rack, on Flickr.
Upgrade #2:
My friend and roommate Luke “clockspot” kindly donated this wonderful vintage (circa 1970′s) Stewart Warner speedometer. Now I get to see just how slow I really am! It is hilariously old school and looks awesome on the Clic. Even better, it seems to actually work! I rolled the mileage back to 5.4 from the existing ~500 in order to reflect only the miles I’ve personally put on the bike. Also note the duct tape, I did exactly what I feared and picked at the loose edges of the bar wrapping. It was really starting to come off badly. This should be a good temp fix till I can afford new wrapping. Who knows, maybe this will make it less tempting to steal.
Took the Clic out for our first long-ish ride tonight. Went around Addison Airport, so about 5 1/2mi. The ride was excellent. I just wish more of the gears worked, right now I’ve only got the bottom 5. Overall though, those five gears were plenty for my fitness level. I’m seriously considering riding to campus tomorrow, shouldn’t take too long, maybe 30-45 min, we’ll see how badly I hurt in the morning!
I picked up a new bike a couple days go. It’s a 1982 Centurion Clic 10 speed road bike. Yes thats right it’s 5 years older than me! What can I say, it was only $65. On the way home Luke and I stopped by REI so I could pick up new tires, a rack, and some spare tubes. All told it cost me $165 to get home that night (bike included). Very not bad in my opinion. I’m going to try to log all the upgrades and trips here, as well as photo-document everything on Flickr. Enjoy
And by the way, for any bike people that stumble across this, here’re the full specs as purchased, as described by seller (I haven’t gone to the trouble to confirm everything)
1982 Centurion Clic
- 58cm
- 10 speed.
- Araya 27″ alloy wheels.
- Suntour cyclone 7000 rear dérailleur
- Suntour Spirit front
- Dia Comp AC500 brakes and levers with quick release lockout
- SR pedals with toe clip
- SR stem
- Serial number N2N5788.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Just wanted to let everyone know!
First I’d like to apologize to anyone who has been trying to get here through www.macetopher.com , there’s been a minor issue with Dreamhost that Luke (Thank You!) is dealing with in his very limited spare time.
Anyway, long roadtrip ahead so I’ll finally have time to mull over some bits I’ve been working on.
Also we’ll be passing through a few pretty interesting places over the next 10 days so I’ll try to make a quick post at/about each.
Check my Facebook wall or Twitter feed for post notifications (or subscribe to my blog via RSS!)
End.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Hello to anyone that cares! Welcome to my useless corner of the internet. I have no idea why I have a blog, nor do I feel like I have anything constructive to say that hasn’t been said before and better. But what the hell. WordPress is a really interesting platform, so I’m mostly just here to play around with it and see if it may become relevant later on.
If you’ll bear with me I’ll also be using this as a way to develop my writing ability. At this time I find it difficult to maintain coherence in my textual arguments, often I get sidetracked or bogged down with unneccessary explanations. So when the occasion arises that I find a topic I’m interested in researching or have an opinion on, I’ll go ahead and practice writing essays with appropriate references and all that b.s. , hopefully following a format similar to one of my favorite sites www.DamnInteresting.com
So, again, welcome and prepare to be disappointed!
Filed under: Uncategorized
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