I need some time to do some internal processing.
Sure… I could post something about steering dampers that I’ve already written. Or the one about secrets. Or one about the folding place settings we used while camping.
But I’m not going to. Why? It suits my state of mind. I don’t want to post drivel about things that don’t matter when there are hints that do matter a whole lot more.
More after I cogitate for a day or two.
And you’ll get the stuff about the steering damper too. 
Getting ready to brew the coffee!
One of the wins of the trip was the Aeropress Coffee Maker. It’s made by the same folks that make the Aerobie – that flying ring you had when you were growing up. You know, the one you lost because it went so far.
I took it with me to Labrador and it worked great. This time around it went down with us to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
It packs small and cleans up easily. The routine is simple. Set the Aeropress into a cup and add the right amount of grounds. Then just bring some water up to nearly a boil and add it the Aeropress as well. Wait around 30-40 seconds then press the plunger down to force the coffee through the filter. Clean up is easy too — just clean off the filter (or throw it away if that’s how you roll) and rinse off the bottom of the plunger. All done!
I even use it at home to make a quick cup of coffee some mornings. It makes a much better cup of coffee than the (relatively) high priced drip coffee maker that takes up all the counter space.
The one downside is that if you want to make more than four cups of coffee (really it works out to two big mugs) then you need to work in batches which is somewhat a pain. But when you only need a cup of coffee before hitting the road, it’s not a big deal.
The theory of operation is very much like that of an espresso machine: mix the grounds with some hot water then expel the brewed coffee under pressure. The end result is a shot (or more — up to four) of espresso. If you’re in the mood for a more traditional cup of coffee all you need to do is add water to taste.
Another great use is making up a batch of iced coffee. The ice that you add doesn’t dilute the coffee as much as traditional drip coffee since it’s a whole lot more concentrated to begin with.
I highly recommend it. Interestingly, so does Cook’s Illustrated. But I found it before they did – hah!
Check out the manufacturer’s web site for more info.
We go camping every year around the fourth of July with a group of friends to celebrate the end of the world. The world ends on July 5, 1998 at 7 AM.
Of course it never has. Yet. In case you’re wondering, the going theory is that the “conspiracy” has messed up our calendar and we don’t really know what year it is. It winds up being a great party despite the fact the aliens seem to never pick us up. (Damn aliens.)
But there is an interesting point there. Said another way: “The world ends tomorrow — you might die.”
What would you do if you knew that to be true? It would get you off your butt that’s for sure. If the world doesn’t end then you’ve done something that you wanted to do anyway.
- -
We ate at the Rusty Bucket tonight. Billy Joel’s Piano Man came on stereo. I looked it up. I was released in 1973 — the same year I was born. (!) I don’t want to be the old man in the old man in the song wearing a younger man’s clothes. I don’t want to be John at the bar. I want to live my life. Live it. For real.
- -
Embrace the uncertainty.
Go along for the ride.
Trust your gut.
Have fun.
It is your density.
The world ends tomorrow.
You might die.
View Appalachian Trip 2010 in a larger map
The nice thing about waking up at the KOA was knowing that you had a shower waiting for you. Getting out of the tent the bad thing is finding everything covered in daddy long legs. As I wrote before the camp site must have been double-booked with the annual daddy long legs convention! We rescued dozens from our gear as we were packing things up getting ready to go.
Before leaving we took our showers to wash off the crud we picked up in the rain the previous day. The shower perked us right up! With a bit of coffee made in consumed we were soon back on the road.
It seemed that when we were hunting for a place to camp we went a bit out of our way so we started off the day with a bit of back tracking — but that’s OK since we weren’t in any rush.
Shortly after hitting the road we stopped at the Otter Creek Restaurant that was right on the Parkway for some “brunch.” The dining area overlooked the George Washington National Forest with an expanse of windows om the walls. We ordered our first taste of southern food: country ham and fried chicken with sides of fried okra and mashed potatoes — with some more coffee to boot. The chicken was nice and juicy with a crispy crust. The country ham was salty, as advertised. The sides were tasty as well with the okra having a good vegetable flavor — of course anything fried is going to be good. The potatoes were good, but not as hot as I would have liked, but they were good enough.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time on the parkway itself. It is something to be experienced yourself. I could go on and on about the views. The feeling of driving on a ridge, meeting the “Blue Ridge Parkway” looking over the edge on both sides of the road. All the turns. They are all great, but I don’t think I can express things as well in words.
So, please, drive it yourself! It’s worth it!
All that being said, I have to reiterate that driving without the rush of previous trips is simply a joy. When we saw an overlook that we wanted to look over just just did!
As the day went on we started think about some road food for camping. We stopped by Rap’s Orchard Gap. It’s a little shop that had a couple of gas pumps and a bit of a convenience store. We didn’t want to double up on the spaghetti so we got some Dinty Moore beef stew. I kept suggesting some Spam, but En resisted.
Looks like rain!
As we drove down the Parkway it started to look like rain again. Neither of us was keen to camp in the rain again so we started to look for a hotel. We found a Knights Inn up the road in Galax. After navigating some of the confusing roads there we found the hotel and checked in.
“How much for a room?”
“$42 for a a room with double beds.”
“How about something with a king size?”
“Well, that’s more expensive. $48.”
“We’ll take that.”
I like cheap hotels.
Now that the room was handled: beer.
Galax does not have beer within walking distance of the hotel. We tried to no avail. Walking around for an hour and a half we could not find any even after was asked for directions. The fact that it was Sunday didn’t work to our advantage either. We did, however, find a dog. A nice black dog with a long wavy coat started following us keeping us company. He had an owner since he had a license tag, but not with him.
Eventually someone asked if he was our dog. Nope. But they were a pair of nice ladies offered to take him in for the night and call up the license office. +1.
We thought we were saved when we ran into a grocery store before closing. But the damned Virginia laws had no beer there. <sigh/>
We wandered back to the hotel and I rode out a quick little trip to get some beer. The gas station that was a few miles out had some. The best they had was tall-boys of Bud. Beggars can’t be choosers.
With that, we had beef stew and beer with some moon pies and chips we picked up at the grocery store.
Problem solved.
I heard about a Ducati open house that was going on and I decided to check it out today. It all took place at Northern Ohio Ducati and they promised lunch. Who says there’s no such thing any more?
Ennie and I took the bike to Akron to check the place out. In addition to lunch (in this case brats and burgers) they had test rides on a the new 796 Monster and the 1200 Multistrada. Of the two bikes the Monster is what worked for me. It was a naked air/oil cooled twin just like the GS I have. I suppose I just have a penchant for the old-school bikes of that genre.
Needless to say it didn’t take a lot of arm twisting to get me on the bike.
Riding the Monster was a lot different from my bike. Nothing stands between you and the road in front of you. No big tank. No windshield. Even the instruments are tucked out of your normal field of view (tilting your head down, of course, they are quite evident). It really gave me the sense of flying over the road. I can see why people like these bikes. The riding position itself didn’t contort me in funny ways, though more than a couple hours would start to get a bit painful I’m expecting; it’s not an all-day bike. The engine pulls strong and the handling crisp. It makes for a fun package that I’ll probably buy at some point. The Blue Ridge Parkway, of anything I rode recently, would be the perfect place to open her up a bit and have some fun!
I started talking to one of the salesmen there about the Monster and bikes in general. Out int he back someone pulled in a racing sidecar bike and we discussed that a bit then moved on the talking about BMWs a bit. It turns out they service all sorts of bikes and sometimes they see a BMW in the rotation of bikes that get brought in.
Then he brought up the “un-true-able” BMW wheels that someone took to them. Try as they might they couldn’t do crap with them. They had to send them out to the one guy that can fix them.
“Woody?” I asked.
“Yep” he replied.
It’s a small world out there. Not only did he build me a set of wheels that I took up to Labrador, but it fixed a wheel that I bent. One of the un-true-able BMW wheels. 
Woody of Woody’s Wheel Works is a genius when it comes to spoke wheels. If you ever need something done, ask him first. Trust me.
The fun thing is I just got the custom wheels back in a trade with the guy on The Rock (Newfoundland) that purchased my old wrecked bike. Those wheels are just sex on a stick. Beautifully machined jewel-like aluminum hubs coupled to some light and strong rims. Engineering: Light, Strong, Cheap — pick two. Now you know what I picked. They are still cheaper than what BMW charges though. Each one is a few pounds lighter than the stock amazingly! (It makes a difference too — un-sprung weight is a bad thing on vehicles)
The hubs are carved out of a solid chunk of aluminum on a CNC lathe and router. The spokes are made from super-thick stainless steel. The wheel is manufactured my Excel in Japan for competitive off-road racing. It’s all brought together by Woody’s custom spoke lacing pattern to make it even stronger. How can you argue with that?
There’s some more pictures of the part-way machined hubs and wheels over at his site. You should go and check them out.
Now I just have to get a pair of brake discs attached to the front and spoon on some tires and I’ll have two complete sets of wheels to play with! I just have to figure out what type of tires goes on which set of wheels. This is a good problem to have I suppose.
Last Sunday En and I were out for a quick walk after dinner. We didn’t get more than three houses down the street before we heard a car coming down the street making a great ruckas. Shortly afterward it became apparent what the noise was: the left rear tire had no air at all and was flapping around. Subsequently we smelled it as well — the odor of burnt rubber blanketing the street. It was obvious that either the driver didn’t know or care about the problem.
We looked at each other for a moment then waved our arms furiously to get their attention. It work and the white Acura came to a stop.
Running up we found a young lady that didn’t know she had a problem. I have all the requisite tools in the garage so I offered to show her how to change the tire (ok, for the pedants out there, it’s a wheel with a tire mounted, most people don’t change just a tire) Thankfully she agreed (I hate to watch something get destroyed, and the wheel would certainly be damaged in just a few more minutes).
Pulling up to the garage she was quite nervous – I’m guessing the stranger danger phenomenon was programmed into her as well. We introduced ourselves while I got the tools out. Katelyn was coming home from work and had a year’s worth of locker crap in the trunk. After unloading we found that she in fact did have a spare tire that she didn’t know about. Looking at the tire it was easy to see why it was flat: I could stick my fingers through holes in the sidewall of it! She said there was a bubble in the sidewall in the morning and then it just went flat. I’m guessing the tire got all cozy with a curb the night before and that was the root cause of the problem.
Changing the wheel was easy with the right tools. Having a proper set of tools (not the crap that comes with the car) makes the job a breeze, thought the crap tools are serviceable as well. As an added bonus I inflated the spare to the proper pressure as well since it was only half-way there. (“I knew I should have gotten that spare tire fixed!”)
Hopefully she learned how to do it for next time. In a nutshell, here’s the process:
Done!
Upshot: I’ve had people help me when I needed a hand. The biggest thing is the time I was stranded in Red Bay, Labrador and the Earle’s helped me out with a room after the “incident” last year. Ya got to pay it forward. It makes you feel good if nothing else.
Today was a long day. I woke up at a quarter after three this morning and quickly left to to the Apple Store in Legacy Village. I lines up with all the other folks at a quarter to four — up until we were told to disperse until 5.
We ignored the security guard mostly — we just shifted.
Around 4:30 the police showed up. The atitude of the crowd changed until the cops decided to just have us line up. The line was rearranged. Not for the first time either.
Yesterday there were people lined up at the store until security told them to leave at 10. Again at 3 the word went out to disperse. That was the last time the command was listened to.
This rearrangement I lost out a lot. The start of the line moved twenty feet to my right and it got nothing but a clump of people at the start. <sigh/>
Finally, around 6:30 the line as split in two: reservations and walk-ins. A lot of people cheated. Oh well.
Then the rains came. The good thing is that Apple was nice enough to distribute some umbrellas! 
At 7 the lines started to move. Slowly. The reservation line at this point moved roughly 8:1 compared to the walk-in line. Another nice touch is that they started to serve up a simple breakfast of fruit (apples include of course), granola, water and coffee as we waited. Fewer people were complaining at that point/
Then I had a thought at around 7:30 — what about my reservation that never got acknowledged?
I walked up to the manager, Tim, and asked. He understood and wrote out a business card to that affect: he overrode the system. Yaay. But I would have to move to the end of the reserve line.
Back in my place.
We all stood watching as the reserve line moved past us at a comparatively blistering pace. By 10:30 I had enough. I watched the reservation line move 20 feet while we moved one person. I finally jumped ship. (Legit, remember?)
So at 10:30 I got back in line.
Shortly afterward lunch was served: various chips and candy and more water.
Wasn’t a good move though. I lost an hour or so with that move since the ratio shifted. Oh well… I’m not complaining.
As we neared the terminus of the line Claddagh came around with some wraps for free — cheap advertising! Not 10 minutes after that the crew from Apple came around with some McDonald’s cheeseburgers as well. It’s good to know that everyone did pull together.
At a quarter to four I finally reached the front of the line. Free at last!
The transaction itself went smoothly and I was in my car by four.
Last I checked everyone that was there by around 10 would wind up getting a phone. Not too bad.
On the way home I picked up some screen protectors and a case (more later). Installed things and moved En over to the newer phone.
All is well. The phone is defiantly zippier than the old one. The screen really is to die for too.
So here’s the situation as it stands at the moment. On our trip while camping at the Balsam Mountain Campground in the Smokies I had a brain fart: “Crap! It’s the 15th!”
As we sat out the thunderstorm on the top of the mountain I pulled out the iPad to see if I could pre-register. (I knew there was some signal since I was able to call my mom to check in to let her know all was well.) En was reading her book on the Kindle as I was slowly going through the steps of the pre-reg with one bar of Edge reception. (I just embrace my own geekiness)
View iPhone 4 Preorder in a larger map
Amazingly (but excruciatingly slowly) I was able to go over the 18 miles of signal path to sign up. I’m not sure if the speed was from the Edge or from the server meltdown, but it was certainly slow. I can tell you that having an antenna high up will help out a lot — I think I had line-of-sight to Bryson City down in the valley to the west.
In any case I got home and didn’t think much of the whole transaction until I heard there had been a server meltdown that day. Then I realized that I should have, in theory at least, have gotten an email.
Doh!
At this point I called up Apple’s 800 number and asked. I was given two options:
Well, #2 was the one I picked. *sigh*
Today I had another brain fart: What if I call up the local Apple store directly?
“… we are looking to set something up for folks in your position …”
It’s now a known problem: Score! Apple customer service FTW!
She told me some team will contact me by tomorrow to figure out what to do with this situation. If I don’t hear anything by the time I go to bed I will get in line at 3:30 AM like I was planning, but it gives me hope for a good night sleep tonight!
Day 2 started off with a relatively late start from the Quality Inn. Both of us were pretty tired from the long ride after work into the night. We started off with a big breakfast that would have to carry us straight through to dinner. Our laundry wasn’t dry from the night before so we stashed our clothes in the mesh bag and strapped it on the bike in hopes that it would dry on the way.
Starting from just a mile or so from one of the ends of Skyline Drive we quickly navigated to the entrance and started south on the road through Shenandoah National Park. The 35 mph speed limit didn’t feel too limiting riding two-up on all the curves. Being able to take the time to stop at various rest areas to simply “chill” made for the start of a great trip.
The chilling in this case was both figurative and literal — this was the first of a week worth of nearly record-breaking highs for the area!
As we came to the end of Skyline drive it really started to smell like rain so we stashed the laundry in the pannier. We should have switched gloves too since as soon as we got onto the Blue Ridge Parkway the skies really opened up on us. We made it through the 15-minute storm all nice and dry — except for our hands in the newly soaked gloves.
We got to an overlook over Buena Vista and figured it would be a good time to start looking for some place to sleep for the night.
First off we found something in the Zumo about the Jefferson National Forest and navigated down off the Parkway descending through a few thousand to the valley below. The town seemed strangely quiet for a Saturday night. Despite that we stopped at a gas station/convenience store and picked up some spaghetti and sauce for dinner later.
We found the camp site. Or where the GPS said it was. We didn’t think that knocking on the door of some poor unsuspecting family would be a very kind so we started looking for a plan-B as it started to drizzle on us.
Plan-B wound up being a KOA since it was the nearest alternate campground. Or was that Kampground?
We pulled up to the castle walls and walked into the office. $30 later we had a kamp site in a quiet corner of the campgrounds.
Quiet? (imagine “as the saints come marching in” blaring on the horn of a passing truck)
The truck was pulling a load of kids dressed up as princesses and knights. You can’t forget about the golf cart driven by the dragon either.
I thought they could fly… must be a geriatric dragon in a golf cart and all.
We set up the tent on the pad and started boiling up some water for the pasta. It took far longer than I figured it would. Then I noticed that the two pots were still nested together. Doh! The pool pack towel between them was pretty carbonized as well.
In every battle a few must fall.
I kept kicking myself about that gaff for hours afterward.
Eventually the water came to a boil and the pasta was cooked up despite my dufus move.
While eating we started hearing some music. And singing. Questionable singing.
Ahh — the ice cream social and karaoke.
$3 later and I had a big bowl of the good stuff.
Walking back to the tent we found ourselves talking to some campers from a neighboring site. They came with an RV and we spent a while talking about our adventures. They had come north up the parkway and were visiting family and friends out east — sometimes staying at campgrounds, sometimes with family. They warned us that a bit south of Asheville there’s a detour that annoyed them quite a bit. They were only a week or so into their month-long vacation. This is the type of thing I want to do when I retire.
We wished each other safe travels and walked back to the the tent. We took a good swig from the flask of scotch and called it a night.
I took a woodworking class a few years ago and a few things really stuck with me. Beyond the normal joinery and routing and such was the fact that we never measured anything. Everything was simply cut to match something else that was already cut: cut to fit.
I come at things from an engineering mindset. I tend to like to know how things will turn out beforehand. The instructor even warned us about that type of mindset relating how at some point he was teaching a class and someone started to pull out a micrometer to measure something — it didn’t go together as well as the folks that just followed along the right way.
It’s all a way of saying “make it around (holding hands apart) long.” Of course there’s a lot more detail involved.
Let’s take an example.
You have a wall and you want to build a desk for that wall. Just a simple desk in this case. What are the parts of this desk?
You could add a “modesty panel” in the back, but we don’t need it since it’s already up against a wall.
First off you need to figure out how big you want it. You could measure, but you left your ruler at home. Darn. Here’s the tools and materials you have available.
So, how do you make this desk then?
So, here’s what we’re building. The view from the bottom I’ve turned on some of the transparency so you can see how it’s put together.
Where to begin?
First, let’s figure out how long the desk needs to be. Let’s hold up the string to the fit the wall we’re building this for. Just make a mark (or hold your finger on the spot on the string) for how wide it should be. There, width is set. Now transfer that mark to the board we’ll use as the desk’s top. Then use the square to draw a line for where to cut. Finally cut the board.
Next we need to make the top as deep as we want. Let’s make it as deep as some of the other furniture in the room so it fits in. Same routine as before.
Now the sides. Let’s start with the left one. Find another table that’s comfortable and do the same string trick and mark the board. Here’s a trick: if you look at the drawing you’ll notice that the the side sits under the top. Take a scrap from the top and “subtract” that from the mark you made then square up the line and cut. That’ll take care of the thickness of the top. So, finally, the depth of the side. Just walk it over to the top that you’ve already cut and lay the side on top and line things up. Now all you need to do is draw a line using the top as a guide and saw there.
The other side? Even simpler: they are the same. Just drop the cut side onto another board and outline and cut. Done.
At this point you have enough to make the table stand up (but it’ll be wobbly). Take the angle brackets (they are already square from the factory) and screw on the sides. Lay the table upside down with the sides sticking up.
Finally the brace. Rip a board to be around the right width to serve that purpose. It doesn’t even matter how big… maybe 10 inches, give or take. Next take that and put it into place (roughly) and figure out how long it should be. Simply set it on the desk and butt it up to one side and draw a line where it gets to the other side. Mark and cut like all the other times. Since you copied the measurement from the existing pieces, you know it’ll fit perfectly. Screw in a couple more angle brackets and you’re done.
How big is the desk?
Just the size it needs to be. Nothing more, nothing less.
Why should you even care how big it is? It fits just fine!
And you never pulled out a tape measure once! (but you might want to sand it and give it a coat of finish) Of course if you had the right tools you could use something better than angle brackets to hold it together like some nice dovetails or something, but the end result it the same: working by the seat of your pants for the most part. With the help of some simple tools and jigs (square, saw fence, etc.) you can make things pretty quickly without a lot of deep planning.
How does this matter in every day life? Don’t constrain things to be what you think you need. Just make things fit how they need to. Sure, you want a general plan for how you’re going about solving whatever problem, but you don’t need to pull out the micrometer for your life every time. Don’t worry about the details you don’t need to worry about. Figure out what you need from a big picture view before diving into the details — and you might not even need to dive into the details even. Just let go a little and react to how things happen. (This sounds a lot like agile, don’t it?)
I see this every day in my every day life. People sit around making grandiose project plans and spending countless hours in meetings trying to fully describe a problem. The project plan doesn’t solve the problem. Doing something makes things happen. Stop gilding lilies and start working on the solution. Sketch out the solution on a napkin (like I did on the pictures above) then make it happen. At least try to make it happen — don’t break out the proverbial micrometer before you know you need it.
BTW: Sometimes you do need a micrometer, but not as often as you might think. (Yes, if you’re working on an engine you might need one, but not in most software building or woodworking)
