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cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off
3
Oct 16

A short ride to start the week

Back to it this morning after a weekend spent traveling all over creation. The wedding we attended was fun and fine. Seeing dear friends after a too-long absence was even better. And now, it is back to work and the routine. We rode our bicycles into the office this morning. Part of our new routine:

The house is less than five miles from campus and the improvement over my previous commute was in the forefront of my mind with each pedal stroke.

This evening, playing with the kitteh:

She probably wonders why we will show her the countertop, but take great pains to try to keep her from walking on it.

cycling / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
14
Sep 16

That time I almost hurt myself in my own living room

Today, I rode my bicycle to work. Here was one of my views:

I wonder how long it might be before I won’t marvel at riding my bike to the office.

I spent a part of the day editing audio. Every time I open audio software I wonder: Will this be the time I find this boring? Hasn’t happened yet:

A view from the bike ride back to the house this afternoon:

And now a tale of housework.

We were fortunate when we purchased this place, that it is a turn key place. We’ll paint some rooms eventually, of course, but there wasn’t a lot to do when we moved our things in this summer.

We did, however, quickly discover a problem with two ceiling fans. In researching the problem we learned that the living room and master bedroom have the same type of fan, which involves a radio frequency. As in, the two fans are using the same frequency, which means that to run the light or fan in one room impacts the light or fan in the other. So one frequency had to be changed. Now, ceiling fans don’t really have makes or model numbers on them, so finding the manual, based on visually identifying the control panel in the wall, online has been a challenge. Finding the place where one changes the frequency has been an even greater challenge.

Anyway, after a day or two trying to just figure it out, and a few attempts to find the manual and infer the solution from poorly drawn diagrams, I finally gave up and called the manufacturer. I’ve called once before, but, of course, business hours. Eventually I got the right voice mail. A technician asked me to send him some pictures. He called me back and told me how to do what and where. So, then, today, I finally had the chance to follow the expert’s advice.

First, you have to break the circuit, of course. Then you shimmy up a ladder and remove the fan from the ceiling. Now I know where the adjustment must be made, and by virtue of the previous attempts via trial and error I have decided that the fan in the living room will be easiest to change.

So up the ladder, loosen the screws, take the mounting ball off the ceiling bracket and then … fall down the ladder with 35 pounds of wood and glass in my hand.

You see, the ceiling fan is equipped with a little steel hang line. With this you can suspend the fan from the bracket while you connect the wiring and, perhaps, change the remote control frequency. Only the hang line wasn’t connected to anything, so off it came and down I went. How I managed to avoid hurting myself or breaking the fan can only be attributed to quick reflexes and deft skill at not falling cultivated over a lifetime of falling. Here it is now, sitting on the floor, like all good ceiling fans:

The thing to change was tucked inside the frame there, and involved four little switches on a module the size of a dime. This was not designed to be seen from below when the fan was hanging from the ceiling. Of course, once you’ve set the thing you should never have to deal with it again. Except that the previous owners had since they either moved in or installed the fans. Later, I had to carry the fan back up the ladder and, from the highest rung, press it over my head, string the steel line, re-wire the thing and then hang it in the ceiling bracket.

Now we can turn on one fan or adjust the lights without impacting another room.

My reward was a sketchy M&M:

The next project is the hot water heater. When I finally get that figured out I’ll have a proper treat.

adventures / cycling / Indiana / photo / weekend — Comments Off
11
Sep 16

Barns and corn and lakes and hills, all in one ride

We rode 40 miles today. This includes five significant hills and my ride falling apart about midway through for no reason whatsoever. But the company was, of course, lovely:

And the scenery was nice. Say this about this place, if you can get in a few dozen miles you can see plenty of different scenery. For example:

cycling / history / maps / photo / weekend — Comments Off
4
Sep 16

Where the people are moving

As ever, this barn was at or near the top of a hill on today’s bike ride. It was but a 22-mile ride, and another piece of mounting evidence, impossible to ignore, that I don’t know how to ride on hills. But a nice little piece of farmland, somewhere, I think, around a place called Unionville.

Or maybe it was around New Unionville. Hard to tell at this point. They are both unincorporated areas — One has a recycling center, the other has a post office — and appear to be perfectly lovely and sleepy places to pass through.

Wikipedia tells me that Unionville was the center of the U.S. population in 1911. According to the 2010 Census the center is in a place called Plato, Missouri. As the crow flies that’s a 337 mile shift to the southwest in a century. That’s just migratory patterns. (And air conditioning.)

Furthermore, Wikipedia tells me “The 20.7-mile shift projected for the 2010–2020 period would be the shortest centroid movement since the Great Depression intercensal period of 1930–1940.”

Historically … If you looked at the mean center in 1810, the spot was in Loudon County, Virginia, 470 miles east of here. Short of a trend, let’s split the difference. I’m guessing, if you give it another 100 years, the mean center might be somewhere near Woodward, Oklahoma, which is 400 miles from Plato. Someone print this out and keep it for your great-great-grandchildren to verify.

But, anyway, hills or no, I averaged 20 miles per hour or more over the course of four different miles today. So there’s that. A quick glance at a map of Woodward suggests it might be flat. Maybe I should ride there.

cycling / Friday / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
1
Sep 16

As seen on my bicycle

The barn on my bike ride home from the office:

This is on a bike path. The route is just under five miles, much of it on quiet neighborhood roads. Near the end I can enjoy a stretch of a seven-tenths of a mile stretch on this path with only the odd walker or occasional jogger. On one end is a round about, on another is a playground with a punchy little climb up to another playground and park and then the easy downhill home. In between is that barn, sitting there like a forgotten toy, out of place tucked into the suburban carpet.