Great Invention '07

Now...first of all, it's been quite awhile since I've posted something on the blog. However, my recent discovery brought about a great desire to spread the word. Some of you may have heard of these, but for those who haven't - this is the greatest invention in quite some time. The brilliant minds at Reef have produced a sandal called the Mick Fanning. However, these sandals are not like any other sandal. Although they're backed by the reliable Reef name, these sandals are a whole lot more than footwear. These sandals come equipped with a bottle opener on the bottom. I've included a picture for you to see this modern marvel (on the left).

Upon discovery, it was only a matter of time (approximately 10 hours) before I went onto e-bay and found me a pair for a very reasonable price. I now own a pair of these dandies and other than also being able to exploit my alcoholic tendencies, they are also an extremely comfortable pair of sandals. I've shared my recent discovery so that you, too, may experience foot (and beverage) bliss. Finally, there is no harm in having a pair of matching sandals with me because the novelty and conversation piece that it also brings is priceless.

Link: http://www.reef.com/productdetail/guys/footwear/sandals/2415

Greased Up OUT!

Vacation Days/Real Product Reviews Part 1

I took friday off of work at random. Thursday afternoon I decided I was going to... didn't have any plans other than 1) not go to work 2) get out on the water. We're into that part of the summer that I don't like so much... 80+ days at 80-90% humidity. Sticky and nasty. Nothing ever seems to dry out and the air is swampy. Anyhow.. After a couple of wasted hours friday tracking down a errand UPS shipment (don't get me started about that...) I headed down to the lake. I was thinking of going out fishing on the lake. When I got there I decided to go out on the saltpond instead. I went to borrow my mom's 'new' kayak that we all pitched in to get for her for xmas.

It's a Hobie Outback with the Mirage drive... pedal powered. I haven't seen too many people out there with these, but you need to try it. This particular model is setup for fishing, four fishing pole holders, tacklebox storage in front of the seat, large cooler well in back, and two very large bungie tie down areas for random sized stuff. I've had this out on windy/choppy days and it's very stable. The mirage drive has two flippers that stick out below the boat and when you pedal they flap back and forth. Simple. They drive the boat extremely well. At low speed you can easily 'paddle' for hours. Pick up the pace and you can beat anyone in any kayak. This is perfect for fishing cause you don't need to fumble with a paddle while casting etc. When you get into shallow water you push forward on one of the pedals and it tucks the flippers up against the bottomr of the boat. Adds maybe 1-2 inches to the draft.... not ideal for shallow river use, but in the salt pond it kicks ass.

I'm dying to try out the latest version of this boat, the Adventure Island.
A trimaran with the same mirage drive. Its a couple feet longer for more speed. Yeah...

Other stuff. The BFB is gettign closer to dialed-in. I changed the stem for a little more upright postion, and swapped the sh*tty seat for a Brooks B17. Other than that... Its cool. I'm still convinced the xtracycle/stokemonkey combo would be *perfect* on a recumbent. I have *way* too many open projects to finish before I even consider starting another though.

Oh, and the 'redcaps'/wild rasberries/"Japanese Wine Berries"(?) are getting ripe up in Po'Dunk. Go check them out. Mrs FlatTires was up there ysterday and picked about 5 gallons in a couple hours. She gave us some and they are incredible. Would be perfect for making some preserves Mrs 40 says. Check it out:


Have a good week!

-40

Jack@sses at Carr Pond

Yesterday FlatTires, Ingrid the dog, and I went up to Big river to ride around and head to Carr Pond. On the way back home we found this in the woods:
We all let out a solid "WTF!", including ingrid, those hers sounded a bit like "Woof growl grumble WOOOOF?!?"

Four morons tried *driving* down the doubletrack from the parking lot because "Someone told us we could drive all the way to Carr Pond". Uh, No.

The car was filled with these fat f*cks:
and had like 6 inches of clearance... maybe. All the way out we could see metal scrapes on the rocks, and blue paint on trees. Wow.. they must have been really, really, st*ned.

Of course we had to stick around to witness these j@ckholes driving this POS out of the woods. At the parking lot they got it wedged between a giant rock and a tree. Here they are just pushing it through. I got video of this too, but can't figure out how to upload it. You've gotta see it just to hear the *crunch* of sheetmetal against rock. That is... if you can hear it over my uncontrolled laughter.

More later...

-40

New Addition to the Pandapas Family

While pondering a response to FlatTire's post, Here is a picture of my new neice, Emily Jane.

She looks squishy cause she still is. Still less than 24 hours old.


Stay tuned for my response to FlatTires.....

Road Biking = Near Death Experience

So the other day I had to bike to the town hall using Rte 102. Not a risk I normally take, but truck is in the shop and I was pressed for time to get something notarized. In parts there is only 18" of shoulder. It amazes me that people don't slow down or even move slightly to the left despite there being no oncoming traffic. Truckers seem intent on seeing how close they can graze the left side of my head with those big protruding mirrors. Why is this, I ask the members of Pandapas? Is it;
1.) A dislike for bikers among the general public?
2.) A sense of entitlement to a road without bikers?
3.) Too lazy to alter the course of their vehicle by a few feet?
4.) So busy engaging in mindless chatter on their cell phone that they didn't see me?
5.) Envy turned to rage that I am out biking while they are stuck driving a truck for 50 cents a mile?
6.) other?
I guess it's the same reason that on 2 occassions when I've been riding down a local dirt road, a driver has passed me, then deliberately fishtailed the car back & forth so that he could look in the mirror and with great pleasure watch me choke on the dust. What is wrong with people.

Once when I was a kid I threw an egg at the mailman. Maybe this could be classified as a similar kind of behavior, but these are adults now, and the egg certainly didn't endanger anyone (before launching the egg, conditions allowed for a high level of confidence in my ability to land it above the waste & below the head). Even today I'd probably still throw an egg at any of the members of Pandapas, given the opportunity, but I certainly wouldn't deliberately put a road biker in danger.

We need a bikepath in this town. Where should it go & how should we do it & pay for it?

Funny Sh*t about bikes

I started checking BikeSnobNYC just about everyday now... This guy is freaking hilarious... and posts a just about daily. Check it out now...

Weekends.

THis past weekend flew by. It started on Thursday night with a ride down one of my previous favorite trails in Arcadia.. the one by the firetower. CTLP and I headed down on singlespeeds with Maggie and snoopy running alongside. We got down to where things just start getting good and we see this:

Someone had been back there with a skidder! Man.. I had a kineption(sp?) with the thought that someone could be putting in a neighbordhood. Luckily, we found out later that the landowner that allowed the trail to be there was logging. ... Phew.... should be back to normal in a couple years. Until then I'm staying out of there.

After that, the dogs ran themselves silly around the yard. Snoopy was out cold as soon as we got back in the car to head home.
The wind was decent this weekend. I found some time between all the junk we had to do to take out the sunfish. Fun boat when the wind is just right... you can get these little things skipping across the water. Not as good as a BBW's hobie, or a windsurfer, but better than nothing.

Snoopy even went out for a couple rides. He's not a big fan off getting splashed, when we get going good he sits in the cockpit, but when we're just floating around between gusts he loves climbing out on the bow watching the water go by. Wooooooof!


Other than that... not much is going on... I realized we're about midway through 'summer' around here and I need to pick up the pace on getting things done. And by 'things', i mean more mtbiking, kayak trips, surfing, camping, etc. While we can do those things all year, some are better when its pretty warm out. Flat-tires even talked about taking a mtbike trip up north at a ski slope where you pay for them to take you up on the ski lift. Now *That* sounds like a great trip.

Anyhow.. Time to go to sleep. I've got a ton of projects going I need to finish off this week before the weekend. Rumor has it BBW and Mrs 40s cousin will be in town for the weekend!

-40

Prince Edward Island

GardenGirl and I went to Prince Edward Island on our vacation this year. We drove up, 12 hours total, which we broke up going up there, but coming home we drove straight through (yeah, it sucked) and got home 2 in the morning. Anyways here's some pics from the trip. We did some biking, some small walks, some touristy stuff. We ate a ton of seafood. They don't have large forests up there on the island, so all the hikes are short nature walks, usually with informational boards and stuff. They do have a rails-to-trails which runs the length of the island, 167 miles, but it's in the middle of the island. I would suggest doing the coastline. The roads are quiet enough to do it nicely. So we rode the trail a bit and some dirt roads and some scenic roads. It was good. Sat on the beach a little bit. Some of the beaches had absolutely no on on them, went swimming once (despite the jellyfish) and yes, it was damn cold.
The whole time I was thinking, this is what Rhode Island was like 100 years ago. Small cottages, not too many big homes. Farms right up to the beaches, lots of fishermen.
They have two wind farms. I was just amazed by them. The generator section on top of the pole is about the size of a bus.
We camped most of the time, the campsites were pretty empty, and emaciately clean. They gave you 4 trash bags when you get to the campsite. 2 different recyclables, 1 compost, and 1 waste.
The whole island was very beautiful and amazingly clean. I know it sounds like I'm making a big deal out of this stuff, but it was great. Trash containers all over the place, driving down the highways, they would be every 5 miles or something. Bathrooms all over the place. The composting bathrooms didn't smell like an outhouse. Anyways, you the the picture. We took a ton of pics and if you want to see more pics of something or a better explaination let me know.
GardenGirl said she was going to post her first post of this, but it's been a week and she hasn't done it yet, so here you go. She may post her own just to spite me....hopefully.
Sorry about the random order of pictures, I was getting tired of trying to fix them...

PS. It took us two days to realize there was a time change. Don't know if that's part of being oblivious on vacation or just being ignorant.....I like to blame the first.

Summer Vacation, take 1

Random Pictures from vacation... descriptions to come later.

Always a good plan:
The River.
Burgers Rock
Ride down to the lake.
Go Carts are fun


Artsy Fartsy picture from the lakeSnoopy
Lake, 7:15am
My friend Sick0Jerk is in Europe for the rest of the summer. Here's Little Sick0 on Aranis(sp?) Island in Ireland:

More to come...