Kenji's 80th Birthday Party

Was at his studio:

with grandma:

and grandpa:

Grandpa is 45.7 times older than Zoe.
Kenji and Gail:

Kenji as always had brought a bizarre Japanese snack food, which looks like... well let's face it, it looks like cat poo

But Zoe didn't seem to mind the appearance:

Smart's crossing

Kenji and I built an anti-Zoe railing, followed by a trip down to the river. Christina spotted a rattlesnake on the path! Here's Zoe enjoying the water


Zoe and the corn

Shelby Cobra

replica? who really cares.

yesterdays ride

http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=34465

Zoe's first successful potty

Zoe's current favorite book is A potty for Me, which I have gotten tired of reading, but chloe can't get enough of. We didn't really think she understood very much of it, but then she started ripping off her diaper, like the child in the book, so Zoe and I went potty shopping last weekend.

I pulled them all off the chelves and had her sit in each one (no Jackass style shanigans -- she kept her diapers on!) and then choose one. I put the Chosen Potty in the cart, and she started frantically saying "THAT THAT THAT" and pointing to the potty, so I gave it to her

which also did not seem to satisfy her. It turned out that she wanted to have the potty in the cart with her sitting on it.

Anyway, from time to time since then she has had a seat on the potty, but since we just bought it, we hadn't given much thought to how we were going to train her. Tonight we were getting her ready for a bath, when she sat down daintily on the potty, smiled, then grimaced, and peed in her potty.

We are very proud of her

a nice rainbow

parade

Dutch flat parade:




The highlight was a very generoud fireman from the Placer County FD, who threw a plush stuffed bunny out the window to Zoe

Thank you guys!!


From there it was back to the cabin for some chainsawin' while Terry and Ian took the ZZN off of our hands for a few hours (THANK YOU GUYS!). Since the last visit, the local deer had eaten the apples and almost every leaf off of my newly planted fuji tree. I think the tree is dead, but I made a makeshift fortress around it and gave it around 200 gallons of water.


Little bastards.

American River

We drove down to the American River with Terry and Ian for an easy access river dip. Most of the yokel population had the same idea, but it was still a good time. The water is warm, and Zoe seemed to really enjoy it.

Alta

Alta and Smart's Crossing with Matthias, Monica, Christina and Terry. That water is sooooooo cold!

friday after work ride

route here. Along the way, I passed the Canyon School: 4 teachers for 69 students -- pretty good! I also passed a guy on Pinehurst who had set up a full drum kit and was practicing. Thankfully, he was pretty good.

diaper soundz

part of our evolution from normal people to parents has involved a modification of our aural awareness; sounds (or lack of sounds) that would have no significance at all without kids now take on profound significance. Suspicious lack of crying? the soft squeak of a forbidden pantry door opening? We're on it.

Occasionally, despite our better judgment, we might ignore one of these disturbances in the force, and we always end up paying for it. Tonight was just such an occasion. I was most of the way through a new hangboard workout, when I heard an almost imperceptibly soft ripping sound coming from the crib. "Bah", I thought. "I'll finish the last two 20 twenty second hangs and THEN check it out".

After the penultimate hang, I thought better of waiting and gingerly crept into Zoe's bedroom, where I found a fully awake and smiling Zoe standing in her crib. As I walked in, she held something out to me. In the low light, it could have been a bottle, but it wasn't. It was a diaper with a full poo payload, and by some miracle, the crib was not a nightmare of smeared excrement (although a lot of cleaning was still required). I guess it's time to buy her a potty.

drool

It's enough to turn you into a fixie riding hipster doofus!

you give me the frame, and I'll buy the skinny jeans and studded belt. and stop showering.

lesson 1

Lesson 1:

the lens is the thing with "Lens" engraved on it.

whee!

another slow but fun ride
http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=33683

Bike repaired!

Today I bought some parts to undo my ham-fisted "repair" yesterday and take care of a few other things. A new chain was at the top of the list, of course. I bought a SRAM chain from wheel girl and Performance was having a sale on the excellent Forté dual sided pedal (SPD on one side). I also had bought new brake pads to replace the ossified pads from Montano. After an hour of work, everything is working great! The brakes actually stop the bike now, and the pedals down creak and pop like they used to. It took an 18" pipe wrench to remove the old pedals. One thing that I discovered about converting a "normal" frame to a ss/fixie: those track frames with long horizontal dropouts are looking GOOD!

Bike "repair"

I got a flat tire during my lunchtime ride today, and it was on the rear wheel. I guess it hadn't occurred to me, but changing the tire is a little more of a pain in the ass with a single speed. Not having done any bike work for a long time, I managed to completely screw everything up. I managed to pop one of the chain pins out (first time ever for that), and spent the next few hours trying to get it in. Predictably, the chain was too short -2 links :(.

more light stuff

A 1 hour ride showed no signs of heating on the lamp.

Run length should be 5 hours, unless I calculated something wrong.

Also worth noting, a similar output NiteRider lamp (110 lm) costs $130, compared to the $10 driver + $8 LED + 3$ optic + 2$ PVC + 10$ niMh batteries.

cheap and easy bike light

I built a cheap and somewhat easy bike light for my new twenty year old KHS bike. The design principles were:
1)Relatively bright
2)Efficient
3)Small
4)Lightweight
5)Low power
6)Makes me a sammich

I came up with this: 350 mA micropuck driving a Cree XR-E R2 bin ( a bit brighter than q5 bin, so 114 or so lm). I decided to use the same plastic lens that I used for my previous headlamp, and bought the R2 pre mounted on a star from DealExtreme (it took AGES to show up, as usual, but their support is ok). I'm still working on what to do with the battery back, but this is what I have so far:

1)use hole saw to drill handlebar radius hole into a PVC angle

2)Drill holes at the front and rear for zip-tying

3)solder together micropuck and star
4)cut slot in side of angle,insert metal washer (I actually used a random piece of metal from one of our Ikea dressers that was left over)
5)Bond star to washer with thermal adhesive: thin layer only, as usual.
6)Figure out some kind of removable battery pack: I ripped a plug out of an old nonfunctional wifi router

7)Mount to handlebars with zip ties, and small piece of rubber. It's the same idea as mounting a bike computer, for example.

8)Here's a shot of the plug


The shoddiness of the plug is purely to dissuade someone from stealing such a fine piece of hardware, and NOT because I am a disaster with a soldering iron.

The light is plenty bright, and no word yet on battery life or heating issues. The heating is a typical problem with these high power LEDs, but I have going for me: low current (350 mA), relatively large piece of metal bonded to the star, small gap around the lens through which air can flow.

zoe's new trick

Zoe has always loved baths, and is very unwilling to leave once she has started splashing and carrying on. Recently she figured out that when we started draining the tub, it meant it was bath exiting time... so she figured out how to stop the tub (a few seconds after we start it). I thought that was exceptionally clever, but I'm sure that's just daddy brain.