Happy fourth birthday to Jake (the dog)! My furry, snoring, smelly, farting, friend that I seem to spend more time with then any one human these days. He drives me crazy some days, but I still love him.
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Wasting Time Not Wasting Time
It’s been four days since I was last on a bike. Because of that, I feel fatter, saggier, flabbier, and more bloated and useless than ever. Thankfully those days weren’t complete wastes of time.
New To Me
In recent weeks I became increasingly unhappy with the performance of my trusty Canon s95 point and shoot digital camera. I’ve been using an s95 for years now and it was perfect for riding: small enough to fit in a jersey pocket, easy enough to operate one-handed in most cases, and used ones could be found cheaply on eBay. But since I started to do rides using my Nikon DSLR I found the quality lacking to what I had become used to, but the problem with a DSLR is that even though the DSLR Slinger from Porcelain Rocket makes transporting one on a mountain bike easier, you are STILL hauling around a heavy DSLR (often on an already heavy fat bike).
So I started looking into a new camera that is smaller than my D3200 but better than my Canon s95. In my research for a new everyday camera–for both on and off the bike–I kept coming back to a couple of different cameras: The Sony RX100 and the Fuji x100t. Sadly both where WAY out of my price range.
Harvest By Association
Recently Wifey and I said goodbye to some good friends that moved to Mt. Pleasant at the same time we did back in 2010. Wifey worked with the woman and we hung out with her and her husband a lot over the past five years, especially since they lived just a couple blocks from us. Anyway, they moved to Florida, leaving us to deal with the long Michigan winters on our own now. In the moving process they ditched us with generously gave us a bunch of stuff they didn’t want/couldn’t take with them: Adirondack chairs, a snowblower, hundreds of pounds of salt (to melt ice), a kick ass drum kit (it’s very therapeutic to belt out a Neil Pert like solo once a day) and a ton of potted vegetable plants. There were tomatoes, red and green bell peppers, banana peppers and jalapenos.
The Last 36 Hours
Any riding that I planned to do on Thursday morning was washed out, as Ma Nature unleashed storms and torrential downpours on Michiganderburgh all day and night. As I type this on late Friday afternoon things remain dark, dank, dreary and soggy and I have no desire to leave the house for anything other than beer and pickle juice (I’ll explain that in the near future).
Foiled But Fine
My ride today sort of got foiled, but for good reasons. Well, not GOOD reasons, but reason. I’ve been struggling to find some parts for a sliding shelf that broke in our pantry for a week. After exhausting the big box hardware stores in the area I finally took the time to stop in a local kitchen and cabinet place see if they knew what the part was even called, if they had any, and if so, where could I find said part. Well, they didn’t know what to actually call the part, but they dug around in an old parts bin and found me two parts that were ALMOST what I needed and gave them to me nuthin’.
In any event, the parts were close enough to what I needed and all I had to do was put add a little 1/8 shim (actually taken from the two broke parts) for it to work. The fix is pretty ghetto right now, but the drawer is back in pantry and it slides; for now that will do. At least I’m on the trail of what the part actually IS and should be able to order some soon to make a more permanent ghetto fix.
The Struggle (Not Really)
There has been a real lack of activity the past few days, so blogging has been on the back burner. I mean do you really want to read endless blog posts on how I am now in the midst of an obsession with bastardizing Chinese and Asian cuisine to the point in which they are unrecognizable? Probably not, so I save that for Exchange-O-Gram. Do you really want to read endless comments about football, how eating hot dogs at 11 PM gave me gas, and complaints about life’s minor annoyances? Probably not, so I save that for the Twitters.
I have been struggling to find topics to write about as well as the time to write about them the past few days, so I have been laying low [the web now breathes a world-wide sigh of relief].
Until now [digital boo].
Sorry?
Pre Blog
Time Wastin’ & Picture Takin’
A bird just chillin’ & wastin’ time (just like me).
Thursday’s ride was disappointing to say the least; the heat and relentless winds made the ride anything but fun. Thankfully I made up for a crap ride by catching up with some friends in town later that evening for Art Battle and some beverages.
Unworthy Activities
The past few days have been pretty un-blog worthy (much like the past ten years), so I felt it best to write nothing at all (until now). During that time of unworthiness, I did all my normal summer activities: rode my bike, did some fishing, grilled meat, took some photos and drank a few beers.