Thursday, October 25, 2007

Rivers are filling... somewhat

Maybe time for a fall -adab? Like an *easy* ride with camping and ADAB in the middle? There's only like 10 places to camp w/in 5 Miles of the BeerMuda triangle? Easy w/ minimal hp expended.

Minimal hp is good, energy prices are on my mind lately. Notice... Oil has shot up so much, it's scary. 'Like, is this it?' kindof scary?

Anyhow. Read about other fun ADABs out west in what seems like the BeerMuda's big sister city, Minneapolis. Last weekend was the 10th annual Homie Fall Fest.

Not that the Pandapas folk condone that sort of activity... you know... chaotic fun games fueled by bikes and alkyhol. Nahhh.

It's no Big Kahuna, but.. well, its doable.
-40

Monday, October 15, 2007

Kahuna kicked my @ss and the BeerMuda Work Exchange Program

I'm going to just stop beginning every post with "Gee I'm sorry I haven't been posting much.. Been really busy these days.." Well, I'm sure its getting old. Lately it seems its just one thing after another from sun up (Snoopy gets up before dawn *everyday* and wants to play) to sundown (just can't seem to get ahead on yard/house projects outside when it gets dark at 6pm.... and we get home from work at 5:30-5:45). I'll just sum up the last week.

Flat Tires and I went up north last w/e for the Annual "Big Kahuna" ride.
20-30 miles of very technical singletrack. I heard its way harder than RAMHADAB, but needed to check it out for myself. The freakishly warm October weather (80+ degrees and humid) didn't help me. I was hurting w/in the first 2 hours, and then we ran out of water for the next... hrmmm 6 hours? Ugg. No water at the rest stops, getting lost along the way, and no water in my camebak makes Forty something something. I tried to abort the ride once, but they reeled me back in. Anyhow. I'd try the ride again on a full suspension rig(trails not rigid 29er compatible) and assume we'll be self-supported. No trusting the water stops to actually, ahem, have water. THe next day I changed my bike back to singlespeed.

The forties, the ctlps, and my sister's family(and the CTLP's family) all went to the winery for their annual harvest festival.
Anyhow.. as things get more hectic around here there has been an interesting development on the home-project front.

The saying goes that "Many hands make light work"... Some local families have combined forces to rock house projects. Over here we placed the Green Machine in its resting place for the winter, at the FlatTires we fixed a backhoe, violently replanted a few giant shrubs with said backhoe, moved what felt like a ton or two of crushed stone, levelling the future Taj Mahal of all mantowns. At the CTLPS we stacked a couple cords of next years firewood in a little over an hour.

(btw...for some reason.. the blog isn't letting me post pictures. I may need to check if we're over our limit on Megs.)

Hopefully we can keep the program up for the next few weeks and get stuff ready for winter. Yeah...

In other news: It's getting pretty rare, but every once in a while at work I get to do something *really* cool. Last year I checked out some pretty amazing Power Gen technologies, I even got to spend a day with the godfather of geekery and mezmerizingly weird and cool inventions, Dean Kamen, and today I met a founder of a solar company that will very shortly become very, very important. and with oil at a record price of 88 bucks a barrel, the atmosphere in the room filled with Renewable Geeks was just about giddy. Myself included.

Stay tuned for project updates.... Time for dinner! -40

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Busy...

Been busy these days. Sheesh.. I even saw Elvis last weekend. Heeheheh

Spotted him at the Pat's game.
More proof of global warming.. It was 80F... in New England... on the last weekend in September. You've got to be kidding me.

Here's an early sighting of the green machine. One Meeeeeeellon Btus fit in here.

Sweet.
Another busy weekend in store... Flat Tires and I are heading North for the 9th annual Big Kahuna ride. I hear it is tougher than our local RAMHADAB... I dunno. Our ride usually kicks my @sss so... Kinda worried about being able to make it. Hope so. I put some new tires on the Karate Monkey, 2.35x 29. It's like taking a tractor for a ride in the woods... You just roll over.. well, everything. Tonight I snuck out of work 1/2 hr early to squeeze in a 1hr ride with the pup Snoopy before dark. We barely made it by dark.

I was thinking how I can't wait to get back to singlespeed... All these gears are making me lazy.

Anyhow.. Have a good weekend, Hope you get Monday off too. I'll be fixing the yard.. even more. Yep. Starting to clear boulders from the front for raised beds. Might need to take down a couple of the trees. Might feel bad for a little while, but not so much when I realize one tree would be our heat next winter. They have tons o' btus hidden in there. Yup. You just need to squeeze every possible one out of there. -40.