Tuesday, February 28, 2006

iPod Crackin



My ipod died last weekend...(read about my trauma here)

Instead of replacing it I decided to fix this one. I've been wondering about the internal workings of the ubiquitous little white machines for a long time so I decided to perform my own surgery. The hardrive crashed and since I had to open the case anyway I decided to upgrade the battery while I was in there.

I ordered a new hardrive here, for 100 bucks, and a battery here for 50. The hard drive was the same size as the original, the battery 2x as big as the standard 4G battery. Supposedly I could have upgraded to a 30gig hd in the same form factor, but I couldn't find any one who had upgraded battery and their hardrive, so I chose longer runtime.

Here is the case opened, the hd is on the right, and the battery the lower left:



After replacing the battery and hard drive you have to plug the ipod into your computer to run the Updater software to format the hd, and load the software.

Here it is afterwards... Whoooo Hooooo!.



Now it will only take about 12 hours to load 17 gigs of music back on the ipod... USB 1.1 sucks. I've gotta get a real computer... one with USB 2.0.

By the way.. after seeing the guts of the ipod I'm amazed it survived my abuse as long as it had (mtbiking, snowboarding, fishing, road trips, many spilled beers etc). Maybe the aftermarket case(s) I use helped it last as long as it did.. but that's a post for another time.....

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Penguin Dive Exclusive


You saw it here first.......an exclusive backstage pass to the Northwestern Connecticut Special Olympics Penguin Dive. Seen here, Crayons Taste Like Purple and Crayon's Brother are caught preparing for the icy plunge. For those of you less familiar with our "Penguin Plunging All-Stars", Crayons is seen on the left and Crayon's Brother is on the right. Not to be confused. Asked to comment on their formal attire for the event, the Crayons Posse declared,

"It only comes but once a year - it's for a good cause, and the Special Olympics are near and dear to our family. We wanted to show the people that supported us how much we appreciate their contributions and loving support."

Reporting from Western Whoseyerdicken, Special Reporter Greased Up Deaf Guy with your Backstage Pass. Stay tuned next week for an exclusive update on the mating and migration habits of the eastern yellow-backed llama.

Monday, February 20, 2006

They'll drop again soon enough

Wouldn't it figure.

It has been a really mild winter this year. So mild that it is the first time people who live on islands in the Great Lakes region can remember the lakes being free of ice mid winter...

It is with that in mind that I agreed to join my brother in a penguin plunge to raise money for the Special Olympics. I mean really- how bad could it be?


Oh. That bad. The week before the event, the weather turned from mid-40's to... below zero...


I should have figured that this was not such a good idea when I looked out and saw people in survival suits and a rescue diver IN THE WATER and ready to pull people out.



Okay- so it really was not a big deal at all. I have jumped in icy water plenty of times before, and knowing it was for a good cause (and aided by my good friend, Mr. Brandy) made it even easier. So- without further ado- evidence of me searching out the deep water:





And yes, I was wearing a speedo underneath the regular swim suit- but learned that my parents and sister-in-law were there with cameras and decided against going for the 'red cap and a speedo' maneuver. No one needs pictures of me kicking the Manberry Pudding Pack (or if you prefer: Daytona Dong Sarong). I mean no one- so turn 'em over...

Sunday, February 19, 2006

First the good news...

.....most of the snow we got last weekend melted this week. We had few days in the 40s-50s and some rain. There are still dirty piles of snow here and there but for the most part it's gone. The weather was clear and cold yesterday, so I decided to go for a quick ride down to the river. On the way there I saw a robin... big deal you say.. well, it means winter is just about over!

The bad news is that my ipod died this weekend. I had wanted one since they first came out for Non-Macs, but it fell under the "That thing is waaaayyyyy too f'ing expensive" category. Mrs. FortyOz got me one for my birthday a couple years ago and it has been in continuous operation since. No exageration, every day I use it probably 6-12 hours a day. Friday I was in the garage working on a project (by project I mean drinking beer and eating pistachios) listening to the Wall, and the harddrive started making all kinds of crazy noises, grinding and crunching then I got this screen:



I checked online, that screen either means the hard drive needs formatting, or it's dead. Since I couldn't get the thing to do anything, I'm guessing it's dead. The battery life has been getting pretty bad too, so I'm going to order a new hardrive and battery and replace them. Until then, I'm hurting without tunes. Ugg.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Snowy Weekend Projects

The weather this weekend was pretty bad... You saw the pictures of the "Blizzard of '06!" (I agree with Crayons... every big storm is a blizzard for the media).. Yup. We got about a foot of snow here in the white trash get-toe where the FortyOz2Freedoms live. The snow buried the old tires in my neighbor's front yard.. so I was happy. Mrs Forty and I stocked up on our obligatory milk and bread friday night so we wouldn't have to deal with people on Saturday. I decided to get back to the old Raleigh frame I acquired from the road-side bike shop (I trash-picked it.... Last summer I was riding the old motorcycle down to the beach and a lady was bringing this out to the curb in Richmond. She was surprised anyone would want it.) Most people would have passed it by but I'm always on the lookout for free bikes so I grabbed it.

This is what it looked like when I brought it home (bungied to the back seat of the bike):






I took off the old paint with a seriously *nasty* chemical stripper... (when the instructions say "Wear chemical resistant gloves", they mean it.. I first started using some cheesy latex gloves and felt a wicked burning... omg.. it melted the things to my hands! I went out to the hardware store to get some real gloves).

This is what the lugs looked like when they were almost free from that bland white and yellow paint... I knew this frame was going to be cool.



I spent some time thinking about what to do with this frame.... single speed, fixie, load it up with brazeons to make it a touring frame... hrmmm... I procrastinated for a loooooooooong time. The original bike used clamp- on cable guides/shifters/etc so the frame was bare.

I decided to make it into a fixed gear cruiser and not mess it up too much with braze-ons. I added a single set of water bottle mounts (I hate clamp-on water bottle cages) and that's it. I need a water bottle on my bike.... even on a quick trip to Joyals. (the beer store)

Then the frame sat some more while I thought about how to paint it. I've rattlecanned a few frames... everything from primer gray to stop rust to "fancy" single color rustoleum jobs. On this one I decided to highlight the lugs one color, then the tubes a different color. I picked metallic silver paint for the tubes, then dark blue for the lugs.

I finished the first coats on the fork last week, this weekend I had plenty of time to mask the lugs (took 6 hours!) ... now I know why custom paint jobs are so expensive!



The gray is primer, the lugs now have two coats of metallic blue. Check it out.



This weekend I'm going to spend another 6 hours masking the lugs and putting on a couple coats of silver. This *might* be done by spring.


Sunday, February 12, 2006

Is it just me?


Or is there a blizzard every year now?

I would think that I would remember if blizzards were just as frequent when I was growing up- as they normally resulted school closings and cool stuff like that. We certainly had snow storms that dumped a foot or more of snow, and seemed to deliver white-out like conditions, but there was not this non-stop regurgitation of the same warnings and forcasts. I mean- national and RI weather teams and news orgs are treating what appears to me to be a standard nor-easter as they do in So-Cal when there is a 1/10" of rain. Seriously- they do that in So-Cal. I have no idea what a tenth of an inch of rain looks like... The only blizzard I remember (not that I was old enough to remember- but my parents took pictures of baby-crayons-taste-like-purple in the Maggie from the Simpsons type snow suit propped up in a snow bank so I know that it happened) was the blizzard of '78.

However, since the year 2000 I think four years now we have had what was termed a 'blizzard'. Now I am not saying that the snow storm is not a good sized one (in fact, as I am typing this diatribe a gust of wind just kicked up and obliterated the sight of anything past the branches 5' from my window), and it technically merits the classification of snow and wind equaling low visibility. While the storm did cause me to have to change my plans to go to Gotham today, it is certainly not so epic that it warrants non-stop 'blizzard '06!' coverage on the tv. Perhaps we are really having blizzards every year. Or maybe the MSM is just so in tune with what keeps people munching processed snacks and sitting in front of the boob tube that they embellish s**t. Hmmm, can you figure out which one I think is closer to the truth?

To that end, I decided that flipping off the idiot box and enjoying the only real snow we have received all year was a must. The snow is blowing a lot so a definitive measurement is tough, but it looks to be about 10" give or take right now.

After posting this, perhaps I will go back out and try 'blizzard biking'. My only hesitation is riding on the road to get into the forest. I have never seen a plow with a 'share the road with a cyclist' bumper sticker...

Ah, well. Some pictures from the early part of the storm are below:


I thought that we had a black dog?



I know it is dark, but it is a human snow angel on the left and a dog snow angel on the right



She sits long enough to get a snowball on the head

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Icy Rims

Man.. I've had a sh*tty couple of days at work.... on top of a somewhat crappy year. Sometimes there are pretty cool parts of my job, just lately there have been a whole lot more bad parts. Yesterday and today were all bad parts.

So tonight I took a bike ride when I got home. It's 20F out, was getting dark, but man I had to go for a ride. I tucked a beer in my camelbak and rode down to the river. The ride was alright.. nothing crazy... just blowing off steam. Yeah..don't get me wrong.. riding is always fun, but not as much when it's cold. Anyhow.. on the way home my tires broke through the ice on a puddle and the rims froze up. Ugg.. my bike is far from fancy... I still use the v brakes that came with the bike and they did nothing on the icy rims.... stopping at the bottom of the hill by my house was... exciting. (maybe time for disk brakes?)

I can't wait for spring..... I can't even imagine what a 70 degree day would feel like.

(tomorrow night is Long Trail Beer night at the Up River Cafe down in Westerly. Mmmmmmm Hit the Trail Ale.)

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Never fall asleep during UFC...

...because it only brings out the worst in people.


WARNING- DO NOT SCROLL DOWN IF YOU HAVE A HEART CONDITION OR ARE AFRAID OF OR OFFENDED BY MANASS.
















Ling-Ling's presenting!



The call was put out to get together for UFC fight night. People were bloodied. Beer was drank. Fun was had by most.

So, after getting up at the crack of noon, the question was- what to do before the Superbowl? We had already had our fill of four pound omlettes... It was too wet in Arcadia for mountain biking. Not that mud riding is not a great time, but it is not so great for the trails. Responsibility is not normally my forte, but I conceeded that riding today was not an ecologically sound activity.

Besides, it is the winter, I am fat and lazy- and riding into the forest (a whole half mile up the road) is a half mile further from the keg in the basement. MMmmmmm... Buuuzaarrddsss Baaaay... Gllgghhhaaaa....

Greased Up Deaf Guy's brother came up with the idea of frisbee golf. The rallying cry was embraced by the three of us, as well as Crayons Taste Like Purple's wife and our daugger, Maggie.

So, Beer glasses were filled, the course was made up as we went along, new rules were added as needed (including my favorite- anytime Maggie decides to intercede and move the frisbee, her determination as to where it belongs stands), and play commenced.

Beauty of having a small plot of land with objects in the lawn is that it makes for a challenging course.

Filling up:



Discussing the Course:



INTERFERENCE!



Changing fortunes



Bribing the judge



Sobering up in the brook



Less artsy, more fartsy...



It's like beer league softball, only with a frisbee.


Tough shot...

It is a little wet back there. And it is February? That groundhog is on crack...

Is the fact that they are brothers make this more or less disturbing?


Thursday, February 02, 2006

Keller Williams @ Lupos

Man... crazy night. Greased Up Deaf Guy, Mrs FortyOz, and I just got back from Keller Williams at the "new" Lupos in Providence. Last time I saw him was at a half full old Lupos... and then it was just him, his guitar and his camper parked outside the club.

Times change I guess. A few years later the old Lupos is gone, converted to million dollar loft condos or something. The new Lupos shares space with the old Strand (Club Diesel now). The place was packed. We got there early enough to get a good spot. Well, that is except that we were right behind Stinky Pants Hippie Guy and his counterpart, Giant Purse Drunk Girl. Wow... those two were amazing to watch... I swore the next time one of them made me spill a single drop of beer I was going to start swinging. Mrs Forty must have felt the same way.. I saw her punching Stinky Pants in the back when he shimmied too close... Atta girl.

Anyhow.. Keller and company were freakin amazing. First set was with the Keels (husband and wife bluegrass/mountain music from Virginia). Crowd favorite had to be the cover of Green Day's Long View..... yup.

2nd set... Just Keller. You've got to see this guy.. I thought he was incredible with the guitar last time we saw him.. this time he played the thing like it was an implant..... then loops in a bassline, drumkit, keys, back to guitar, ... then for a while there he was playing a couple wiffle ball bats. Go see him... until then go check out some of his live shows at archive.org.

The Groundhog

So the groundhog Punxsytawney Phil saw his shadow.
Six more weeks of winter.
Yay.