Lao Tzu Cycles

Thunder

2012-01-30T13:49:00.002-06:00

This is David "Thunder" Smith. He is the person that gave me the idea that I could roast my own coffee. He spends some time in Negril Jamaica and I got to know him on our honeymoon in 2000. These are recent pic's I got after I friended him on Facebook. How I face book friended David who I think spends his time in the Red Ground area without electricity or plumbing or WiFi I don't exactly know. I am just glad I some how did. (Thanks Marty)

What I do know is that last time I was with him he climbed a Mango tree next to another friends land, Rasta Pete, and made the best juice I can remember drinking. He also roasted some coffee from the Blue Mountains of Jamaica over a fire like the above pic's show. A short time later at home I found green coffee at Bill's imported foods and copied what I saw. I moved on to old air popcorn poppers to roast and now to a steel drum on a rotisserie in a gas BBQ grill to allow for larger batches.

I see David did the same. Kind of.

Rasta's I have had the pleasure to know have not only been great people but also great capitalists. But don't tell them that.

Thanks again Thunder.

Nice night ride

2012-01-26T21:22:00.001-06:00

I would like to do some camping along this trail. Lots of good spots.

New phone love

2012-01-26T10:37:00.001-06:00

I have been enjoying my new phone. Samsung Galaxy Nexus
I love the ice cream sandwich software, big screen and Roboto font.

Chinese New Year

2012-01-22T13:41:00.001-06:00

Fantastic food at Heaths house. Thanks Ling Hui.

My trip to Florida

2012-01-20T23:58:00.001-06:00

Went to Sanibel island with the family to visit the inlaws and see Susan's youngest brother Mike get wed to the very wonderful Shelly.

I took a bunch of pics of my favorite subjects and could not pic my favorite so you get them all.

Ella carried the rings and Maya forgot to toss the flowers.

With Cousin Lucia

I think Maya's grimace kind of smile looks a little gangsta.

After the wedding Susan and I took an express ferry to Key West to meet the Icelanders. Other than these boats the morning we left I forgot to take pics of some of the other cool stuff on the trip so I just borrowed them from the web.

Things I liked about Key West include chickens all over, six toed Hemingway cats and an open gay community.

I went paddle boarding and loved it. It was easier and more efficient than I thought it would be. Kind of like going for a walk on water. My board was a lot bigger than the one in this pic.

Once back on Sanibel I got to watch a giant dead Manatee wash up onto shore. I touched it. The scene kind of looked like the pic below except my manatee did not have a head.

2012-01-03T16:52:00.001-06:00

New vst portafilter filter basket. 20gram basket.

2011-12-29T23:58:00.001-06:00

I love using the Amazon Cloud player both on the cloud and with music downloaded to my phone. I have been expanding my music library a lot this year. Here are some of my favorite albums I became aware of this year.

Watkin Tudor Jones - "The Fantastic Kill"
South African white guy rap who keeps changing his name. He used to be Max Normal, then Watkin and becomes the Ninja in Die Antwoord with Yo Landi

Die Antwoord-" $0$ "
Check out some of their videos. Evil boy, enter the ninja and rich bitch. They sort of both embrace and are satirical with their South African white trash kind of presentation.

Tim Exile's-" Nuisance Gabberet Lounge"
Seems like a haphazard dj thing but isn't at all. He is a great innovator, creator and teacher of his craft. Also seems like a very nice nerdy guy. I keep playing this one over and over for some reason.

Tune Yards - "WHO KILL"
What a voice. Her song Powa builds into the winner for sexiest song of the year for me.

Afx- "Analogue Bubblebath" and "Hangable Auto Bulb" (love the song Laughable Butane Bob)

James Blake- Four albums: " CMYK" Also" Klavierwerke", "James Blake" and "Enough Thunder"
Very unique stuff that is very well thought out.

Tinariwen-I love both their albums I have "Tassili" and "Aman Iman: Water is life"
I don't know how to label them, North African rock? blues? with soul.

Boubacar Traore- "Marcre"
Old school song writer from Mali Wiki

Squarepusher- "Go Plastic"
Listen past the first few minutes of the first song.

I also like all of these a albums a lot but find myself just adding them to a my random mixes rather than listening to them as a solo album. If you plan to ignore all of these I would encourage you to at least look into Amon Tobin. Jazz meets electronica.

M83- Hurry Up We're Dreaming
Deer Hunter Halcyon Digest
Boards of Canada- Music has the right to children
Amon Tobin- Supermodified and Permutation
Four Tet - There is Love in you
Youth Lagoon- The year of hibernation

Don Cherry's Piano Desk

2011-12-27T21:53:00.000-06:00

Why don't down hill racers use fat bike rim and tire sizes?

2011-12-21T09:32:00.000-06:00

What do you ride when 6'9" 235lbs. Nolan from the MTBR fat bike form rides this. This bike is a beast. Notice that is a big fat larry on the front looking so much like a regular old tire.

The rim cut outs are very nice.

Moonlander

2011-12-20T12:23:00.001-06:00

I want you.
I want you so bad.

Pic from http://fat-bike.com/

2011-12-19T21:54:00.001-06:00

From a great site I found called Street Art Utopia.

Fun ride near Gifford Lake

2011-12-17T14:00:00.000-06:00

Minnesota River down by Chaska

I love my little frame bag.

They are doing a lot of work on this trail. I think it will go to Belle Plain in a more formal fashion in the future. Looks like they took out a rail bridge over the river at one spot. This one has the tracks off and was a bit nerve racking to ride over when icy. Scary to look down through the big gaps while ridding over it.

Crooked face that does not convey the fun I had.

Hard to see in this pic but Gifford lake is on the right. The marsh land was frozen just right to ride over.

Winter Bike Expo

2011-12-03T21:12:00.001-06:00

Freewheel winter bike expo in Minneapolis was a great event. I thank Freewheel, Surly, Salsa and whoever else made it happen. I really enjoyed it and learned a ton. Lots of nice people and I keep questioning myself but I am pretty sure I counted 48 new fat bikes in one room. Wow. I couldn't even get them all in one shot. Rode two sizes of both aluminum Mukluks, tow sizesof the necro pugs and one Moonlander. What I learned is I love them all. Mukluks have a taller head tube feel and my current pugs, the necro and the Moonlander all ride very similarly. Any doubt I had about the moonlander being my next bike is gone. I really enjoyed all aspects of the event I attended. The talk about the Arrowhead 135 was great. People interested in winter cycling and fat bikes specifically are a diverse, low key and friendly bunch that I feel proud to be a part of.

2011-12-01T14:26:00.001-06:00

If you are in the market for a laptop/tablet computer I wish some one would buy the android based ASUS Transformer Prime when it comes out in mid December. I don't need one an really want to at least buy it vicariously through someone I know. Looks like it will be super functional especially with Ice Cream Sandwich operating system coming soon to it. Yes that is the same software that will be on my likely next phone the Galaxy Nexus (prime). Other than your soul being completely in Google's hands I think this will be a fantastic combo to merge all my media, calendars, phone, apps, books, soul debt etc. These same things can certainly be done a lot of creative ways already but these two products really seem unique and to be getting a lot of attention by the android world which means they will also be on the front end of new software and rooting/hacking/bug fix like info. My HTC incredible was a little like this when it first came out and I have had a year and a half? of being glad I was on the front end of the amazing and wonderful android/smart phone wave.
I am primed for the next wave.

Perspective

2011-11-30T12:18:00.001-06:00

Why do I suddenly feel like I live with 7 billion other people in a crappy little efficiency apartment. Click here for full size image.

Bike event

2011-11-29T14:55:00.000-06:00

I plan to go to this event on Sat Dec 3 from about 9 or 10 to whenever. Seminars, fat bike test rides etc. I really hope but doubt they will have a moonlander to test by then. Pic is unrelated

Illumine Nighty

2011-11-28T14:43:00.001-06:00

I wanted Lupine lights. Then I saw that they are not priced for me. Geomangear gets lots of love on the Internets and sells these creatively described Magicshine lights for a lot less. Lets go ride at night. Here is a link to my exact light set up.

I always wanted some humanized quick install lights with a decent design. It would be handy.

ArtCrank

2011-11-23T16:26:00.000-06:00

I was in One on One last week and now have Art Crank on my mind. I love the idea of submitting a poster some day. Unfortunately I don't know how to make posters and have no talent. They have a nifty little video about artcrank here I think the only part really worth watching however is at about 3:03 in the video.

Minnesota River

2011-11-14T11:45:00.000-06:00

Super fun ride by myself from the Bloomington Ferry bridge to Nine Mile Creek on Saturday. A couple miles before the finish I hit this easy seeming log crossing hard as if to do a tiny sort of jump over it. At the peak while feeling weightless came a bad sound. I came to a stop with the rear wheel out of the fork ends and the disc rotor bent badly. I needed to put all my weight on it to straighten it enough to have it not hit the frame. I had no idea how strong with great metal memory these rotors are. I didn't have a tool to take off the rotor so I pulled the whole brake off to ride to the car.

Including me there were13 people on the trail ridding with 7 being on fat bikes. Lots of shinny new Mukluks out and about. With the exception of One on One yesterday the other bike shops I have recently been in I have seen other people coming in to buy fat bikes and fat bike supplies. Angry Catfish, Hollywood Cycles, Eden Prairie Eric's and the new Eden Prairie Freewheel. Sadly I missed out on the Midtown freewheel winter bike expo day and the Moonlander test ride at Hiawatha last weekend.

It is a fat world and I suddenly fit right in.

Pumpkin seeds

2011-11-01T23:17:00.001-05:00

Pumpkin seeds made. Check
Stomach ache from eating way too many scheduled for about an hour from now.

Image dump. Thanks to those I took them from.

2011-10-27T11:16:00.000-05:00

New carbon belt drive.

The left wheel is like the Larry tire on my Pugsley. The Right is the new Big Fat Larry.

Fatback Ti frame, New 45degree North brand/fat tires from QBP and new Eric from the old Epic designs now Revelate designed Salsa frame bag.

I don't know why I think this is so funny.

I now have a dog that will need hair cuts.

Interesting font

My next phone

2011-10-18T23:06:00.000-05:00

The Nexus Galaxy by Google/Samsung will be my next phone. The new ice cream sandwich software seems great.

Fat weekend

2011-10-17T08:49:00.000-05:00

Murphy and Wirth in the same weekend. Super fat fun. Of course my fat bike is a skinny 4x29 not an 8x36. I am kind of a weight weenie that way.

This one is apparently now owned by a dog.

Pic dump

2011-10-11T21:19:00.001-05:00

Crime stands no chance.

We celebrated some birthdays a few days ago.

The farm behind our house. See the combine just below the farm.

Our dog Mazy.

As requested on the bike tour

2011-10-10T14:41:00.000-05:00

"I can ride a bike! "

2011-10-04T12:11:00.001-05:00

Surly's new Black Floyd Tire

2011-09-30T08:20:00.000-05:00

Click pic big to see some details.

Hotel coffee is not so bad.

2011-09-23T17:20:00.001-05:00

Duluth Radisson and dinner at the Anchor Bar.

2011-09-18T22:39:00.000-05:00

Been playing with the GoPro and ordered three new attaching devices for it. Bike, Helmet, and bare head. When not playing with the GoPro I have been playing the original Portal game on my computer and been loving it. It is free until the 20th when you get it from the Valve/Steam sites. Go here and download the game. Q it reminds me of watching you play the first tomb raiders after work. I mean without the little dragon charm things to collect that you could never find because of the poor graphics.

My new dream bike

2011-09-14T23:22:00.000-05:00

The Moonlander. Fatter than fat. Just like me. Lots of other cool new bike stuff on the seamingly new and improved Surly site.

2011-09-12T23:19:00.001-05:00

New wheels and bearings

2011-09-09T08:51:00.002-05:00

UCI MTB World Championships DHI 2011 Champery Switzerland Danny Hart RUN

2011-09-06T22:24:00.000-05:00

The best down hill run I have ever seen. Make sure you listen for the very last thing the announcer says at the end of the video.

Learning to skateboard in fresh powder.

2011-09-05T00:08:00.003-05:00

I painted a banana

2011-09-05T00:06:00.002-05:00

wow

2011-09-02T22:23:00.000-05:00

New Drivetrain

2011-09-01T11:42:00.002-05:00

The problem: I need lower gears. By lower gears I mean about a 1to1 ratio. Gears to pull a bob up a long steep gravel back road.

Solution: Hollywood cycles. Jay talked me off the ledge of a very expensive Sram X9 Crank and hooked me up with a great Sram X7 (s1400) 2x10 mountain bike crank/BB and X7 front derailleur for about the same price as the internet plus he fixed a loose rear hub and put on a new dura ace chain and ultegra cassette. As usual it is all working perfectly and all labor done for $20. Such cheap labor and not a hint of problem with me bringing in the other parts for him to put on. I now have a 42/28 in front and an 12?/27 in the back.

2011-08-18T00:12:00.001-05:00

Tonight's roast

Minnesota River

2011-08-05T00:13:00.001-05:00

Rode part of the MN river today. I love it that all the trail work done down there has been washed away. The trail is now so new and fresh I did not even recognize or know where I was at times. I am a big fan of allowing MTB trails to evolve naturally around obstacles, through wet and over fallen trees as they happen each year. This trail has had a massive trail extinction and has wonderful potential to be what it was before it turned into the nearly straight freeway it had become in recent years. I like a trail that forces me to get off my bike to clear a few obstacles, to duck under some, to go through some water, sand or mud and is unpredictable enough to make me crash at least once a trip. I got it all today. The Pugsley was a dream bike for the unpredictable and at times sandy trail but as of today it was dry enough for any mountain bike. The cotton wood trees looked bigger than ever and the vegetation has exploded to heights and thickness levels I have never seen. The flood has strewn giant trees all over the place giving the trail a kind of post apocalyptic/ primaeval forest feel. Lots of animals as a result of little human contact down there this year. The only problem I really had today was the stinging nettle/burning weed plants that stuck into most of the trail. The burning was all the way up my arms and down all over the front of my legs and got so bad at one point I felt kind of panicky. My pics are kind of sucky because of the need to keep moving from bugs and the burning weed.

A hike and bike

2011-07-29T23:19:00.001-05:00

Got a chance to explore a long ago abandoned farm on Bluff creek last week. Lots of old buildings to explore after brush busting to get to the site. The lack of easy access has kept the old buildings free of visitors to crumble over time in peace. The beverage top is from about 100 yards down the creek. Looked like it was dropped yesterday.

2011-07-26T09:07:00.001-05:00

Concerned Giant Maya

2011-07-25T23:52:00.000-05:00

2011-07-25T23:25:00.000-05:00

2011 Tour De France

2011-06-29T15:04:00.002-05:00

2011 Tour Stages to watch

Full TV schedule is here
http://www.bicycling.com/tour-de-france/tour-features/tv-schedule

Here is a list of a bunch of other ways to see it on the computer and TV. You may need to try a few to get it right for your computer and language wants and needs.
http://www.steephill.tv/tour-de-france/#live

I have looked at each days race profile in the 2011 Tour and made some comments and predictions. If I could only watch an hour of the tour it would be the last climb up Alpe-d’Huez on July 22. Unless the race is totally won by then this will be the place to watch. I also really think the July 14th 12th stage will be the first chance to see who will be a contender or not. I have not been following pro racing much this year so I won’t comment much on who I think will win even though I bet it will be Contador. Contador and his dumb finger bang move on the podium bugs the crap out of me. I hate Contador as a tour champ. I like Andy Schleck and his brother Frank. Kind of the Williams sisters of road racing.

July 3 Stage 2 short team time trial. Watch for teams that work together well, usually some great new bikes and gear, aero clothes and a crash. I think teams get to keep the 5th riders time so it is fun to see teams try not to drop their own riders off the back of the pace line from going to fast. This race tells who and what team is strong. It is so short this year many teams may just play it safe and ride a bit safer to prevent loosing someone to a crash.

Most all stages up to stage 12 are flat and will have breakaways that will likely get caught shortly before the finish. Sad for the guy out alone all day trying to win. Cool to see the teams with good sprinters catch the breakaways at the very end.

July 14 Stage 12 Live on Versus (Central time) 5:30 a.m. Versus: 11 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 7 p.m., 11 p.m.
Three big mountains with a mountain finish. Will get to see who is a real contender or not. Fun to see the top riders bunched together on the climb as the weaker riders get squirted out the back of the pack. No contender will likely try to get big time on the other contenders but we will see who is weak.

July 16 Stage 14 Long hard day lots of climbing. Contenders likely will not put in big time on others unless some one has a bad day meaning a they are a little ill, had poor food intake, let themselves get dehydrated etc can equal massive losses on a day like today. Not having bad days (that others could detect or capitalize on) was a big part of Armstrongs amazing feat of winning 7 in a row. On this stage we may see a relative no name on go on an all day break away, suddenly become a tour contender and transform into a true pro in both attitude and confidence. Since this is the last day in Pyrenees I bet a lesser known Spanish rider perhaps from the Basque region will break away in an all day attempt.

July 21 Stage 18 Three big climbs with a long mountain top finish. May see a breakaway from a contender but more likely the top few riders will stay together and put more time on the rest of the field. Should be some great sparing. Especially on the last climb.

July 22 Stage 19 Live on Versus (Central time) 7:00 a.m. Versus: 11 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 7 p.m., 11 p.m.
This is a must watch stage. The final famous climb up 21 switchbacks along with the crowds up to the mountain top finish at Alpe-d’Huez is always very dramatic. This and the next days individual time trial are the last real chances to gain time. Look for the better climber contender to attack the whole way up to make up for any losses to come in the next day’s time trial.

July 23 stage 20 Individual time trial. Fun to watch because it is the last time to realistically gain time in the race and the most likely winner of the whole tour will be known today. Riders with the best overall time start last. I am pretty sure Lemond came back from a supposedly insurmountable 50? seconds down before a last time trial in the tour to win the time trial by 58 seconds and the whole tour by 8 seconds.

July 24 Stage 21 The final day most often ends with a sprint on the Champs-Élysées. A huge win for any sprinter.

Dropbox works

2011-06-28T22:50:00.000-05:00

Experimenting with using dropbox to move files from my phone to other computers. Seems to work well during my 3 minutes of time with it. Pic's are in the back yard taken from my phone.

Coke

2011-06-25T22:14:00.001-05:00

I bought a couple of cases of Coke from Mexico this week. Partly because it is made with sugar instead of corn syrup and partly because I love the look and feel of the thick classic Coke bottle. These old Coke bottles make the modern bottles seem less cool.

My favorite Stephen Hawking pic

2011-06-15T23:21:00.001-05:00

Each drop is a million people killed

2011-06-15T14:18:00.000-05:00

People have always been stupid/brave/creative

2011-06-09T09:36:00.000-05:00

Top pic is of Max Shreyer in about 1901

Q taught me to use a seat belt years ago. Thanks.

2011-06-09T09:04:00.000-05:00

On a side note. I am really tired of the office guy blue shirt look.

2011-05-27T22:43:00.000-05:00

2011-05-22T22:05:00.000-05:00

A photo

2011-05-17T22:38:00.000-05:00

deer eating a bird

2011-05-17T21:44:00.000-05:00

What a lazy dog

2011-05-09T22:21:00.002-05:00

I am not you

2011-05-07T00:04:00.000-05:00

Obama on Osama's death

2011-05-04T15:47:00.001-05:00

I am finding it odd that it is considered new news that Osama was not armed when he was killed. Obama almost said Osama was executed during his announcement of the killing. During his speech Obama made a statement with a tinny pause as if he thought to himself "crap I should have said that differently." I thought for sure it would be all over the news or at least the conspiracy peoples facebook pages. Here is the quote: "Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body." Here is a link to the whole transcript of his speech.

Dinkytown 4-21-11 bike death

2011-04-22T09:34:00.000-05:00

In the morning of 4-21-11 a 25 year old woman died in an incident with a 18 wheel (or more) side dump semitruck and trailer while ridding a bike in Dinkytown. The news reporting about this has continued to trouble me. What troubles me is the wording on multiple sites that she died after "running into the truck." As if the truck was just sitting there and she rode her bike into it which killed her. What I gather from all I could read is that she and the truck were headed south on 15th past McDonalds (on their right) toward campus. She was in the right lane and he was in the left lane (or left side of the lane if there was only one lane). He "got to the intersection first" and turned right onto 4th in front of her. If she was going straight through the intersection and he turned right in a way that made her "hit" him then he clearly cut her off. She only ran into it because they were both going straight and he turned in front of her. At worst I can imagine a sinereo were she may have seen the front of the truck turn/cut in front of her and been unaware that the rear end was tracking right for her. Being more aware may have saved her life but the truck was clearly at fault for cutting her off and running her over. If another truck had been in place of the woman in the right lane as she was going straight through the intersection and this truck from the left lane cut in front of the truck going straight and hit it wouldn't the truck that turned right be at fault? I am sick as shit of biased attitudes against cyclists. The hate spewed in the comments sections of news stories is one thing but when the police and all of the media act like a truck cutting off a woman and killing her is "a woman rode her bike into a truck" it makes me want to puke.

Man Freeclimbs 1700 foot tower

2011-04-03T19:54:00.000-05:00

Good bye CRC coffee cafe

2011-03-25T14:38:00.000-05:00

Hurl himself pulled my last two shots for an americano on Tuesday. He is closing the doors today. The great coffee, nonpretentious attitude of the shop, all the cycling publication he had available and the pleasant times I have had there will all be missed. Pics are from people on the internets. Thanks.

2011-03-24T13:19:00.002-05:00

2011-03-24T07:24:00.002-05:00

2011-03-23T19:54:00.002-05:00

Some pic's I found on Reddit

2011-03-22T09:30:00.000-05:00

The moon was close and big a few days ago. Not that we could see it.

I have seen this pic a few times over the years on the internets. Hope no one was hurt.

2011-03-19T09:59:00.002-05:00

Makes Rambo look kind of wimpy

2011-03-18T14:43:00.000-05:00

1961 Antarctica Leonid Rogozov takes out his own appendix. Here is the link to the story in The Atlantic.

First Surf Pic?

2011-03-17T08:52:00.000-05:00

This has been called the first photo of a surfer. I have no idea.

Troubles around the world

2011-03-15T09:30:00.000-05:00

The pic is of Japan and from the Big Picture.

Here is a link to a site with a Google Earth style map of the world and what appears to be a live reporting of many of the troubles going on in the world. From Earthqwakes to airline incidents to volcanoes to biohazard events. It is pretty interesting to see all the things going on at the same time. It will eithor give you perspective about the world being a dynamic and at times dangerous place or you may decide that 2012 really is the end and will start sending money to televangalists.

2011-03-12T23:05:00.002-06:00

2011-03-12T10:11:00.002-06:00

2011-03-12T10:09:00.000-06:00

2011-03-02T11:42:00.000-06:00

I love my MacBook Air computer

2011-02-27T16:03:00.000-06:00

I have had my MacBook Air computer since the day it was available some time last year. After ? number of months I can say I love it. It took a little work to figure out the "user friendly" software that never seems to function instinctively to me. I also needed to put a Cars R Coffins sticker over the Apple symbol to avoid Apple rubes thinking I am cool and PC users assuming I am more of a douche bag than I really am. Other than these two minor issues it has been great. One piece aluminum case is super durable. The no moving parts no hard drive kind of memory is instant on like a smart phone which means I don't hesitate to use the computer for a minor reason and battery life is so long I don't bring the tiny power brick with me when away from home. I just charge it every 3 or 4 days. I will never again have a computer that needs more than a second or two to come alive. It is like going from the old time dial up internet to the current instant on internet. I also really love the giant touch pad. I would give up a mouse to use it on a desk top even. You can use 1, 2, 3 or 4 fingers to do different controls along with two finger moves to expand or contract things. Much faster than a mouse. A side reason I like this and our other Mac desk top is the photo booth program. Both Maya who just turned 3 and Ella make photo's and video of themselves with and without special effects. They are both doing it without my help and it is serving as a little unintentional journal each is keeping of themselves and their childhood. I am sure solid state laptops can be made in a PC format and the photo booth thing could be done on other computers but the fact is that I didn't do it on other computers and am enjoying having it now.

Feb Festival in Chanhassen

2011-02-21T16:15:00.000-06:00

Ella and I had a fun time this year eating food, watching the fishing contest, roasting smores, going for a sleigh ride and seeing friends this year out on Lake Ann.

My wife turned 40 some time back.

2011-02-20T21:04:00.000-06:00

A couple of shop pics

2011-02-20T09:27:00.000-06:00

2011-02-18T15:24:00.002-06:00

I made some pretzels

2011-02-17T09:20:00.000-06:00

I have never made soft pretzels before and I love them. I never eat them because you have about a 30 percent chance of getting a good one at a game or other event. It was super easy. I used Alton Browns recipe easily found online. Just make a dough with yeast, flour, a little sugar and salt. Let it rise for an hour to about double size. Divide it into 8 pieces. Roll each piece out 24 inches and make a pretzel shape of your choice.

You then put each one in boiling water that has some baking soda in it for about 30 seconds.

You then rub each with one egg yolk/1 tablespoon water mix and sprinkle with salt.

I think I baked them at 450f for about 12 minutes.

They are great out of the oven. They store poorly in the refrigerator and just ok on the counter. The ones I put in the freezer after they cooled are really good and just need to be warmed in the microwave.

Stolen from Boing Boing

2011-02-10T11:15:00.000-06:00

Creepy head mask to punish "rude, clamorous" women from 1550 to 1800

2011-02-04T15:48:00.002-06:00

The saddest book ever.

2011-01-30T16:29:00.000-06:00

Bike related site

2011-01-19T13:46:00.000-06:00

Steve Mcqueen on a bike
This site has pics of famous people on bikes. I find the diversity of old bikes as interesting as the people.

I don't pee on Dora

2011-01-10T14:41:00.001-06:00

Pic dump from the web/reddit

2010-12-31T09:53:00.000-06:00

Interesting emotion

2010-12-24T20:51:00.001-06:00

This is a late 1930's photo of hitler I think pre WWII? I am not sure why I find it interesting. May be it is because it is a pic of such an incredibly destructive person looking so much like a teenage outcast who can't believe he has made an attractive woman laugh.

Dinner Party In Obersalzburg

Fat bike film

2010-12-21T22:55:00.000-06:00

This pic is unrelated to the film links below I just like pic's on blogs. The pic is what happens if you stray from the center of some fat bike trails. It is often like ridding on top of a skinny table of packed snow. It is even harder when you auger in after falling on the side of your body.

Fat bikers like tscheesy and endorondo among others like coast kid are really making some nice videos and posting them on the MTBR fatbike forum. Here is one from a few days ago: Link 1 for endorondo's film of how some of this was done go here.

From the Surly blog

2010-12-15T21:08:00.000-06:00

Then is now

2010-12-14T14:39:00.001-06:00

Daniel Polevoy made these.

Why is it that combining Lincoln and Ronald I see my cousin Chip?

The real Kiss

I fixed my phone and so can you

2010-12-06T14:54:00.000-06:00

About a month ago I dropped my HTC incredible and cracked the glass digitizer. $600 to replace straight up without a new contract. $200 if I wait a year and a half to get a new contract. $150 and an unknown amount of time to send it away to a place that will fix it. Or around $60 to order a new digitizer from Repairs Universe. The repair took a couple of weeks of psyching my self up and about 4 days with it apart to psych myself up of about each next step. If I had to do it again today the repair would take about 20 minutes. The biggest challenges were figuring out how to get all the broken and glued glass off the black part. Solution was a hair dryer. Next was figuring out how to work the four ribbon cables. The digitizer one is plenty big but two of them are so small you just had to use the force to guess if you put them in right and got the tiny clamp on right. No real direction on how to reattach the new digitizer other than the tech guy saying they have some adhesive strips they didn't sell me on my first purchase. Solution, clear liquid nails glue. I only had to take it apart one time after the first attempt because the optical mouse (white thing on the black case on the left of the pic) didn't work. Likely I did not get the ribbon cable in right. I added a 16 GB micro SD card to the mix and the phone works like new.

A living fossil of life.

2010-12-03T14:36:00.001-06:00

OK the new life finding wasn't exactly like my last post and pic predicted. NASA did however announced that they have found a life form (bacteria in this case) on earth that is based on different building blocks from every other living thing ever found. I will not pretend like I even know what I am talking about but I did skim a lot of headlines. I use a new kind of in depth twitter style research. I can use more than twitter for information but if I have read more the 140 characters of a news story or research paper I have read too much. So after doing an exhaustive twitter style research for a few minutes I understand that basically all life every found has (its DNA?) built up using phosphorous. The cute little guys in the pic use arsenic. Yea poison. This has to be the most bad ass life ever. Being based on arsenic has a lot of implications about life that I am unaware of and not smart enough to speculate about. What I am aware of however is that it means life can form in more than the single way we have only every found. This opens up the where and how life can start dramatically. It also opens up where we can plausibly look for life on earth and on other planets. Finally this news makes me speculate (without a shred of concern that I don't know anything about what I am saying) that life or life like structures likely formed in multiple ways on earth in the earlier times of its existence. Our phosphorus based life system (and by our I mean every other living thing on earth from bacteria to John Stamos) may be the end of a long line of started only to become extinct life like structures. As the earths chemical, temperature, and other environment conditions slowly changed into its current state life systems likely began and ended over and over with the phosphorus based system being the fittest for the current state of the earth. Is the arsenic life structure a living fossil of life itself?

Are we all aliens?

2010-12-02T09:57:00.001-06:00

I don't find it hard to accept that life evolved from something like a single DNA strand or single celled thing all the way into a person. Way too much evedence to suggest otherwise. I have however always struggled with how that first DNA strand or single celled thing came into being. I am sure it did however happen naturally some how and somewhere. I have often thought it was just about as plausible that it developed elswhere in the universe and ended up here as a cosmic stowaway in commet water or meteor as it was plausible that it happend here on earth since the universe is a lot bigger place with lots of wacky events going on. Apparently Nasa is going to have a news conference today at 2pm central time to anounce some findings. I don't think they will be mind blowing but they will likely be relavant to life potentially existing in other parts of the universe.

I have Ray Ceasar on my mind for some reason

2010-11-18T18:52:00.000-06:00

2010-11-16T18:17:00.000-06:00

Monster Bob

2010-11-01T19:46:00.000-05:00

It's my potty and I will try if I want to

2010-11-01T11:30:00.000-05:00

Donated the extra diapers at school to the "little kids" that might run out of diapers. Way to go Maya.

bzzzzzzzz

2010-11-01T10:23:00.000-05:00

My new laptop.

2010-10-27T22:40:00.001-05:00

Trick or Treat

2010-10-27T10:45:00.000-05:00

Red Green show meets old cyclocross vid

2010-10-25T18:14:00.000-05:00

This is a link to a 1950 or is it 1960's Euro cyclocross video with commentary that sounds like the Red Green Show but not on purpose. Great footage and at about 3 minutes or was it 1 minute? look for the first mountain bike ever.

Two pics I found today.

2010-10-15T14:35:00.002-05:00