A Place To Start

First shot at a u-lock holster . . .



It's supposed to hold whatever lock I wanna drop in it . . .





You probably wonder why the slot is so long. Thinking is, if you shorten it up like this, so that the ends of the lock bar ride on the tubing, it can move back and forth in the slot . . .



. . . whereas if you make the slot long, the lock bar will seat like this and can't really go anywhere . . .



I brazed a wire loop onto the bottom of the stay and then wired one end of a mini-bungee to the loop, so that it can't come loose.



The other end of the bungee wraps around the lock and stay and hooks back into the same wire loop. For me, wrapping and hooking the bungee is an acceptable amount of hassle, if it results in a secure u-lock that doesn't rattle around.



Unfortunately, I think it's gonna be okay but not great. The bungee does a great job of keeping the lock tight to the stay, but not such a great job of putting enough downward force on it to keep it tightly seated in the slot.

Supposedly you learn way more from your failures than your successes, so I'm going with that. Not that it's a total failure, but it could and will be better. I'll say this though: When I started building racks I thought I was gonna totally nail every design the first time through and now I'm at the point where I seriously question if I know which end is up and I'm currently working with this rack that started out as a rush-job POS and which therefore I feel free to hack the piss out of. Turns out that it's teaching me a lot and the damn thing is actually starting to grow on me.

Too Strange To Title

This is non-bikey, but so weird that I can't not post about it. I know we kid around a lot, but this is no shit . . .

A coupla years ago, Patty got an heirloon lilac start at some event she went to. She potted it and has been tending to it ever since. Just yesterday, she was looking at it, admiring how well it was doing. It was probably 30 or 36" tall.

This afternoon, she was putting out some stuff we're donating to ARC for collection tomorrow and noticed this:



So sometime overnight or during today, someone walked up on our front porch, cut down our fledgling lilac bush, and then walked back down the steps with it, out the sidewalk and down the street. Or maybe there was a getaway car involved. If ever there was a situation that begged for a front porch webcam, this is it.

The cuts are very clean. Surgical even. Someone who takes great pride in their pruning shears. There are other lilac bushes in the immediate vicinity that were left untouched.

Part of me wants to be pissed, but I'm just too freakin' bewildered. I couldn't imagine this happening in a zillion years of imagining. And I have questions:

Should I call the cops and ask them to put out an APB for our missing branches?

Maybe I should cruise the pawn shops?

How long were they casing our joint, and if the crime was committed after dark, did they use night vision goggles to spot our valuables?

Should I call in to the Phyllis Stephens radio show this saturday and ask if she knows of any master gardners with criminal backgrounds?

This has to be an inside job. As in a neighborhood nutjob. I'm having a hard time imagining someone road-tripping from Northwood to cruise South Hill neighborhoods looking for sprigs to kipe. Although anything is possible at this point. But assuming I'm right, there's a possibility that we could run across the re-planted shoots during a stroll through the 'hood. If the perpetrator turns out to be an old lady, should I punch her out?

I don't ask much of you, or anything, really. But I could sure use some help putting a theory together on this one.

Lockstuff

Brandy the fishdog and I took our maiden voyage to Comstock and back tonight. There'a some fine tuning and practice to be done before we show off, but the basic problem is solved. Turns out the biggest part of the solution was just getting into my dog's head and figuring out what shit I was throwing at her that was just unreasonable. Dogs are so eager to please, but you have to give them parameters they can deal with. My biggest mistake by far was no slack in the line. We've also gone to shock cord (aka bungee cord) for the "line", which takes the edge off the transition between slack and taught.



I'm glad that's behind us, because I'm all fired up about u-lock holsters. I've been mulling solutions over the last few months about an elegant rack design to carry a u-lock, and I've been banging my head against the wall. My major criterion are that the lock doesn't rattle and that you can get it in and out easily. Sounds simple enough, but the designs I've seen don't make a lot of sense to me.

Yesteday, I stumbled across Kent Peterson's blog about the Trek Earl, and I saw the u-lock sitting there, and the light bulb lighted and tilted me off dead center.

But no matter how good you might be at visualizing shit (which I am particularly not), sometimes you just have to try and build it to find out what will or won't work. I did that tonight and found out what won't.



I have some different ideas for what will and that's pretty much what will be occupying any mental space that's not taken up with grown-up stuff over the next few days.

If At First You Don't Succeed.

It's far too early to give up on the idea of dragging my dog around with a fishing pole. I have too much invested. V2 is curing.



Same deal, different sleeve, different pole . . .



What's even more different this time, though, is that I saved the warranty card. Here's to hoping I don't havta go all ballistic when the claims process turns contentious . . .



I tried to do some online research on fishing rod strength, but I quickly fell asleep. All I know is that the last rod was very obviously a cheap turd and I knew there had to be a better rod out there and I went to a big box outdoor hunting-fishing-type store and looked at the massive rack of rods and applied my keen eye and superior analytical skills and then I picked out one that was on sale for 50% off.

But I will say this. I have zero interest in hunting or fishing which is not to say that either are bad things, just not my things. And it's quite an experience walking into a store that is built around catering to a group of highly emotional nerds when you have abosolutely no emotional attachment to that particular group of nerds. I saw some rods that cost $400. At a big box discount store. That means there must be guys out there building custom ones for two grand. For a damn fishing pole. Holy living hell.

And it was like looking in the mirror, because the non-bikey fisherman who walks into the equivalent big-box bike store (which doesn't yet exist because we're niche compared to the big-time business of fishing, but let's just say REI for purposes of discussion) and sees a $1500 road bike and says WTF, for a damn bike? And then extrapolates that there must be specialty guys out there building $15K bikes, which is true, and leaves with his head spinning.

We would both say that things have gotten a little out of hand in terms of the marketing tail wagging the consumer dog.

Holy krap, I've gotten carried away, what am I doing. Please disregard. I've got my eye on a coupla carbon fiber bottle cages to help lighten up the karate monkey. Those are pretty much the last thing I need, though, so after that, I'd like to talk to you about how crazy the whole bike business has become.

Fighting The Good Fight

It's colder than balls in our house and it's all I can do to keep myself from lunging at the red "up" arrow. Patty and I have vowed to not apply any heat until Oct 1st, at the very minimum. But she's gone to bed and I'm trying to decide if the sound of the furnace coming on would wake her up.



If this global warming thing keeps up, I'm gonna havta buy myself a down parka.

HEY! WHOA! Don't lash out at me like that. It was just a damn joke.

Emotional Support

All day long you get to listen to your boss and your mortgage company and your wife and everyone else tell you what to do, and of course you especially value what your wife has to say, but at the very, very end of the day, you might get to spend a little time in your shop that is totally yours and which allows you the luxury of listening to your inner voice and making some inconsequential decisions. And if that's too foreign and scary, perhaps you might decide to listen to the voice of one of your imaginary shop friends, who has the option of either validating your state of mind and providing you with courage, or contradicting you and ceasing to be your go-to imaginary friend.

I've been thinking that I should probably build another set of tubing clamp blocks.

Man's Best Friend?

Maybe, but not this man's, on this particular day.

"I'm so sweet. Love me . . ."



If you buy the act, you are a fool. Major con artist. Her passive-agressive true colors . . .




Our relationship has experienced some stress over the last couple of days. We've both crossed the line. Maybe she would say that I pushed and she merely pushed back. Whatever. The emotion has subsided and we're both at the stage of wanting to deal with it and move on. Forgiveness and healing are in order.