"The Attitude"

It was a good run Ennui but I'm officially changing my name to "The Attitude"... that's parentheses, Capital A, ttitude and another parentheses. Not "Attitude" like the "Eagles" (Glen Frey, Don Henley) but "The Attitude". I talked to Ocean and he said that there are no rules regarding naming yourself and as we all know there are no rules in Bike Run Swig except what Ocean dreams up in his head while drinking wine so I'm going with this one for a while. If any of you fuckers have a problem with that then eat shit.  Also, my birthday is coming in a week and unlike past years I will accept presents. Get it? Good.

Sincerely,

"The Attitude"

TIme ATAC XS pedals - Overhaul Service

Last Friday night, on my last leg of the commute home my pedal started giving a strange griding sensation. At first I thought it was the cleat engagement so I stopped and looked at the bottom my shoe - everything was fine there, bolts tights, cleat in 'acceptable' condition. So I kept going, but it started to get a little worse. The pedal really was putting up resistance to turning. I got off and turned it by hand - I could rotate it but it was catching. Close to home and without much other choice I pedaled the rest of the down the trail. As soon as I got home I pulled the pedal and removed the dustcap. Bearings and bits of steel just fell out - ungood. On Saturday I pulled everything apart (after unscrewing the retraining nut it fell apart) and inspected what was left of the sealed bearing - which wasn't much. It was completely shredded. I couldn't figure out what caused it though, perhaps some foreign material was in there from the factory? 

Later I went to my bike shop to see if they had replacement bearings on hand. Fishing through everything didn't turn up anything close to the right size - I figured amazon was my next best bet and I was off. One of the guys pulled me back in from the parking lot though and said he had the same set of pedals in his car, not currently being used. He let me cannibalize one of them for the bearing and it's on him to find a replacement now I guess? No charge but I think I owe them some beers (Thanks Ryan!). 

New bearing above, on the right.

Once i started cleaning all the parts I saw that the retaining nut had developed a very sharp edge all the way around the inboard side that sits up against the bearing. I don't know what exactly caused this groove but it's definitely what chewed through the bearing. The nut would have to be replaced. I walked up to Ace and bought a 4 pack of nuts for $.59. The sum total of my expense for this repair.

Whenever I'm dealing with small parts I lay them out in my olive dish (not for use with olives any longer), in order, so that I don't get mixed up in reassembley. Not so crucial for this job, but if its a headset or something it's easy to gets mixed up.

Here's the pedal spindle - it still has the inner race from the old bearing stuck on the threaded end. Could be tricky to remove. I don't have a vise to clamp it in in order to tap it out.

But I have Vice Grips!

With a firm grip on the race with the ViceGrip pliers I tried to tap on spindle with a tap (really a piece of all thread) and a mallet. But I couldn't hold it firmly enough. Eventually I was just able to twist it off with the ViceGrips and the spindle held with the pedal wrench. Now just to reassemble.

After a very thorough cleaning to get rid of all the old grease and bits of chewed bearing, drop the new bearing in, with plenty of grease.

Be sure to coat the spindle in plenty of grease and cat hair, replace the rubber seal on the side closest to the crank, then just refasten the nut with a socket. The nut cinches up against the bearing and holds everything tight, easy peasy.

Grease the threads of the dust cap and replace it with snap ring pliers. 

All back together and good as new! Grease the crank threads and rotate it in - there isn't any need to take your pedals much past finger tight. You'll just give yourself a headache trying to remove them next time.

Reinstalled and ready to ride!

To the rescue

When I was younger, I wondered what I'd do if I ever was in a truly helpless situation. Well, Fri night, I figured that one out. Call Gerald. Since she was aways away, she called Dyno-M. He too proved reliable as hell. However, it was Mrs. Ocean who ultimately helped out. So other than my eternal thanks, I just want to say I'm going to do my best to make sure I'm not in such a position again. Also, if you guys ever need me, I swear I'll be there for you in time of need.

I sleep a lot

Maybe start with the music this time

Swimming pools

That is not helpful Kendrick. On to the stats:

Alcohol Consumed (units): 0Days Without Booze: 22Disposition:  Come On Irritability: 2Outlook: I think I can convert half my second fridge into a kegerator and still have room for the 3 foot assassin's go-gurts and cheese sticks in the other half.Shakes: I've cut back on the caffeine as well - so that's good. Peppermint Tea?Smugness (scale of 1-10): 1. Looking down the barrel of 2 more Fridays, one of which includes a work happy hour/going away party. No smugness here. Sleeping: A lot. See below.Substitute Activities: Going to bed early. Flossing (my flossing game is tight). Researching kegerator conversions. Laughing at 49er fans.

I bought a couple bottles of very drinkable Champagne this week. Now I just need to decide between the Gruet and the Argyle Brut. I'm a big fan of the Gruet, so that is the front runner. Anytime a french man up and moves to New Mexico and starts making reasonably priced highly drinkable champagne an angel gets his wings. I think.
I'd like to say I'm in the home stretch, but to be honest, I'm far enough in to know that nine more days of this is going to suck. Not as much as a road march with a weighted pack, but still, Come On! The closest I can think of is miles 16-22 of a marathon, with rolling hills that never seem to end, when you start thinking that maybe you missed a mile marker? No, you didn't. You're just assed out. And will continue to be for the forseeable future.

Fall Down

Ocean asked me to check in more regularly here so I guess for my first post in ages i'll come clean. I had a fall down last week. I was trying to Drynuary with y'all but after a shitty day last friday I stopped by the brewery on the way home and downed a few beers. I was gonna hide it - pretend like I was finishing strong...but then I fell down again. Crash! I think this is the first time my tires have come unglued from the road since my bad crash at Livestrong 09? The path i was on was a little icey and foggy as fuck - probably not the best to be riding on. But I think the beers and fate were also in the mix.

Anyways, I'm fine and my bike is fine. It has scuffs on the bartape, a little rough spot on the aluminum shifter and I seemed to have lost a limit screw on my RD. I've got bruises on my butt and my face and my ego. And I lost a new favorite blinky light.

Welcome back to me.

Well I don't really care what people say...

This video is to line dancing what Apocalypse Now is to In the Army Now:
Like Glue
Sean Paul seems to confront a lot more organized dancing in his daily routine than I do. I think its working for him. I'm kind of jealous, like maybe I need to involve more choreography in my daily. And definitely more Dancehall riddims.
Drynuary survived another Friday. Somehow I picked a month with 5 of them. I did learn today that crane operators train themselves to have all their bodily functions in the evening, because they stay up there all day and don't like having to carry human waste back down the ladder at the end of the day. Thats something I won't forget.

17 and a Wake Up..

Alcohol Consumed (units): 0
Days Without Booze: 14
Disposition: Consigned? Waking up is easier. Still get bored though. 
Irritability: 2
Outlook: 98%
Shakes: Unrelated neurological damage probably
Smugness (scale of 1-10): 5. Seeing Rizzer and Dyno get onthe wagon bumped the smugness scale. So did drinking coffe at the local brew pub while everyone else had delicious beer in front of me.
Sleeping: Pretty good actually.
Substitute Activities: Yard work, cleaning the roof, walking the dog, planning my meal at Fleur (there is a high probability of pork belly being involved). Debating the merits of a nice bottle of Champagne versus a 12 year old scotch for breaking my fast, answering questions for Bananas (Pop Quiz: Why do balloons float? Wrong, the answer is they think they're better than the rest of us).

On to the music:

We might need some razor blades

I might look into getting some of whatever the person who put this video together was on to get through the next 17.

Music first. This is a good song, but an absolutely mesmerizing video. Why does he have a lazer for an arm? Does he know that dinosaur? Joe or Cobra?

Get Free

Drynuary made it through the weekend. No beer Friday after work was a bummer, and football is less enjoyable when drinking club soda. There is so long between each play! Never noticed that before! 

Anyway, it gives me lots of time to read menus and prepare for a trip to Vegas. I think I'll probably order the steak at Craftsteak. Or maybe the steak. And if I get a few too many Black Butte's in me I might have them bring out Tom Collichio so I can ask where he gets off charging that much for a steak, and then charging extra for the potatoes?? F you Tom. And what kind of self loathing must one be filled with to order the $15 side of steamed vegetables. Keep the vegetables that you carefully prepared over heated water Tom. I'll get my roughage elsewhere. Just bring me the T-Bone already. I'll hit McD's for some fries on the walk back down the strip.

Five Foot Assassin with the Roughneck Business

She floats like gravity.
Never had a cavity.
Got more rhymes than the Winans got family...

This song is without a doubt the one Bananas and I listen to most in the morning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Ej8Te_35g
Sometimes she just starts spitting verses out of the blue. Top three rappers dead or alive?
1. Bananas
2. Bananas
3. Bananas

Anyways - a bit of sleeplessness last night so no suborbital trangender psycho killer dreams to fill you in on. I capped the sleeplessness off by launching a cup of water off the dresser and across the bedroom at 3am and waking up everyone else too. I don't have to drink to be a clutz!

Tonight I burned a bunch of old pay stubs, bills, etc in the fireplace instead of shredding them. That always makes me feel like a badass. Like I'm a CIA station chief at the embassy in Constantinople and I need to clear out the files before the Commy's tear down the gates. Or, you know, maybe a member of a certain German political party planning a new life in Brazil...

That's the kind of excitement I deal with on a daily. That and making pancakes. Ain't no half stepping.

Also - Happy 500th Blog Post BRS!

Ocean's New Grapefruit

I've decided to change up my monthly grapefruit. I had a great run, but time for something new. I'm replacing Whidbey Island with walking up St. Andrews, doing at least 10 push-ups, and 20 sit-ups 3 times each week. Also, just like on Cash Cab, I must answer the video bonus question in a take or lose all manner. My video bonus is that I must bike up St. Andrews at least once each month.

DRYNUARY

Sad to say, for 10+ years, cigarettes were my best friend in times of stress: med school, failing marriage, loneliness, work stress, feelings of inadequacy and pointlessness, the giant void that was the Rest Of My Life. It was a dysfunctional relationship but it was always there to comfort me. I was not ready to lose my best friend, until I was able to replace it with a new best friend, alcohol. This new relationship seemed so much better at first. It was somewhat less stinky. It was more accessible. It made me a funner person (or at least let me fool myself into believing that for a few hours). It was there for me no matter what mess I made.

Oh, there were signs that this relationship wasn’t so benign. Waking up to email replies to messages I don’t remember writing, wrappers of things I don’t remember eating, vomit splattered on things and no recall of vomiting. Thinking every day I couldn’t get home soon enough for my first drink of the day, or drinking at 9 am if I had nowhere to run.  Losing my memory. Plus the fact that on my 43^rd birthday these are some examples of texts and gifts I got.

Got to thinking of how I might implement my own Drynuary. Knowing that I feel better when I’m not hung over is not enough. I don't give a crap about tomorrow when feel so much worse when I’m sober now. I quit smoking by replacing it with something. I don’t think I have a replacement for alcohol.  I can’t drink enough coffee or run enough miles. Ginger ale? Deep breathing? Doesn’t work. I’ve even contemplated trying ecigarettes.

Guess there’s no option but to suck it up. I don’t think I can do it, I'm not even sure I want to do it, but I will, for one month, starting today. Thanks Ventoux for the inspiration.

I had a dream

Not about the brotherhood of man or anything. Just a weird one. I was more or less the Sandra Bullock astronaut from Gravity (maybe not as vulnerable and nerdily charming, but whatever) running around a space station and everyone had been murdered by some Psycho. I jumped in the escape pod not knowing he was hiding there. There was an epic throwdown that ended with me stabbing him in freefall outside the pod (I guess this was after re-entry into the atmosphere?) getting back in the pod and landing in the front yard of what can only be described as MTV's Real World Nasa where the trainees for the next mission all lived together. After stepping out of the pod, the Psycho hit the ground next to me landing on top of the knife I had stabbed him with, so that was that I figured. I ran around the house sobbing because of the outer space slaughter I had just witnessed, but I was also pissed off that the trainees had moved my stuff out of my rooms (I was done being polite, it was time to be Real). Anyway, got to the garage and the Psycho was waiting for me. I was a floor up so I grabbed a broom and jumped into the air over him Matrix style planning to impale him with it when I woke up.
Anyway, on to the music, Kendrick had a dream too. It featured more twerking than mine did.
I hope they cast the next real world with people who were drummed out of Nasa because of drinking problems. They can set it in Cape Canaveral in a decommissioned space shuttle or something.

Week one round up

I Think some of you are worried that I fell off. That I just sit around listening to vapid pop music and drinking gingerale, when I used to sit around listening to ignorant southern rap and plotting to snatch chains off of people's necks. So here's a song I listened to a lot this past year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBjzAdpZzf0
Stay Trill in 2014. That's my mission statement!

Now an update on Drynuary 

Alcohol Consumed (units): 0
Days Without Booze: 7
Disposition: Harried
Irritability: 3
Outlook: Gone too far to turn back
Shakes: I think I had the equivalent of like 8 coffees on Saturday, all before noon. That was shakey.
Smugness (scale of 1-10): 2. Hard to be smug about this and my hard earned tolerance for alcohol at the same time.
Sleeping: Going to bed a lot earlier. Most nights I'm sleeping better, not up as much, but then sometimes I just sit there for a couple hours like "now what?". That might have something to do with the coffee.
Substitute Activities: Knife sharpening. Posting here. Home made ginger ale. Rodgers and Hammerstein.

File under current song I'm most embarrassed to enjoy

Picture above, Taylor Swift's spirit animal about to break up with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4iX5D9Z64

I don't mean the nightmare fuel old spice commercial that plays first. That commercial is truly embarrassing.

Bananas and I are going to see if we can blow out some 10 year old Mazda speakers next time this comes on the radio. Its our Jam.

Had some old Ice Cube turned up when I started the car this morning (old in that we are old. I'd actually call the song mid to late period Cube, when he was getting into the whole "WEST SIDE" thing. And Disney movies.) and quickly changed to something more appropriate before any damage was done. Bananas wanted to know what that was. I told her it was Ice Cube and she immediately asked "can we listen to some Ice Cube Music?" It was a proud moment, unfortunately the answer was still no.

Year in Review and in Forecast

2013 BRS Highlights:

Q1:
Jan - 3 Ferries Ride. Adoption of Raoul.
Feb - 2013 DC - Sequim. Insemination of Theoretical Bike.
Mar - Dizzy Days. Ennui does the Yurt. HTTM 2 - Orcas Island.

Q2:
Apr - Dyno and Ocean run-a-Muk-Ev.
May - Bike-camp South Whidbey Island. With families.
Jun - 2013 EO. Pigtails 150. Gerald does Australia (Sri Chinmoy). Dyno's 1st solo Bike-Camping.

Q3:
Jul - VT 100. Dyno and Ocean do Maine.
Aug - Ocean and Ennui do tennis.
Sep - BRSCI Xiii - Hood Canal. Ocean does Dido. Gerald loses claw. Ocean and Gerald do Spokane.

Q4:
Oct - Gerald, Papa V, Ocean do Wilsonville.
Nov - 2013 TdM. 2013 NMN. Gerald does Quadzilla x 4yrs. Ocean and Dyno do Bend.
Dec - Ocean does 24 months of Whidbey Island grapefruit.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm only including what has been posted.

2014 I forecast even more fun.

Since Papa V has been sharing a few of his favorite things, I'm going to share a few of my newly discovered gems so far this 2014. Here's what a few days alone at the yurt have gotten me:

E's Channel - Buying for Billionaires.
A&E's Channel - Rodeo Girls.
Pocky's Chocolate Almond Crush (see pic above)

Day 04

Day 04 of a dry January. Chasing bananas around a you paint it pottery shop was fun. Staring at the build your own bloody mary station when I took her to brunch afterwards was not. Lots of coffee though!
A good day for the most part, but there was a moment before dinner when my wife, daughter, and father in law were all trying to tell me something at the same time and all I could think was, this would be much easier if I had a glass of that wine instead of this ice water.
At least UH didn't lose their bowl game by as much as Rice did!

Song for the day SHABBA! If you can get past the broken egg yolk in the first ten seconds and watch this four or five times in quick succession, there is a good chance you'll be walking around chanting "8 gold rings...like I'm Shabba Shabba Ranks!" for a significant number of days. Banana hasn't even seen the video or heard the song, but second hand Shabba has her chanting it as well

Chewing Gum

Rizzer won the holidays with her experience in the comment on the last post. I feel bad for complaining about The Sound of Music. X-mas at Disneyland with the extended family beats Nazis at Christmas. Plus we learned two more verses on the drive today, so we are mixing it up. We got a lot of great looks singing it while we walked through the parking garage. And by the time I got home she had moved on to something by Imagine Dragons. Something which hopefully I'll never know the lyrics too.

I liked this Annie song a lot more before I just watched the video for the first time. I don't know what I expected. Great for running, or working late though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uutT2pMEPqk

My Favorite Things

I probably shouldn't be trying to post 30 days in a row the same 30 days I've given up alcohol. This has the potential to get very unoffensive very fast. Here goes day 2. By the way, I'm capping off the month of prohibition with a trip to Vegas. Time to make some headway on the girl's college fund.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33o32C0ogVM

Bananas heard this song once at the library. She has sung the first and last verses to me roughly 83,000 time since then. The entire drive to work today was all about "bright copper kettles"! She likes to (try to) shove the dog when she gets to the "when the dog bites!" line. Fortunately the dog outweighs her 3 to 1 and doesn't care.

Its gotten bad enough that I am actively trying to teach her the rest of a song I don't like so I at least don't have to hear the same parts over and over.

Still, better than her shouting "John Jacob Jinglheimer Schmitz" at the top of her lungs on continuous repeat. To truly appreciate that one you need it song by a three year old on repeat for an entire drive as well. The first time that happened I came home and looked up the lyrics convinced she had only memorized two lines of an entire song to torture me with. But no. The entire song is only two lines and is meant to repeated over and over and over...Maybe I'll petition the NEA for a grant to produce a 40 hour youtube version.

Feel Some Kind of Way

Ever hear your dad talk about beauty? Platonic beauty? For My pops  that would be Natalie Woods.

I never really made the connection until I started this post and searching that picture, but that ended up being my type. Science. Thanks pop. (my daughter will probably end up marrying 2chainz because of me)

Anyway, I been listening to this a lot. It makes me feel some kind of way.