fontosaurus

This song makes me really happy. (See "Music:") Very worth downloading. I'm also digging the new Pearl Jam. Been a good weekend for music. Saw the Weakerthans on Saturday night. Very glad they didn't play the song that usually makes me cry ("Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure")...haven't been able to hear it since Mooch passing away. I come completely unglued.

The bike side of the equation is awesome. Getting quotes from water-jetting services for my downtube badges. Had a nifty idea for a part-steel, part-bamboo frame. The first one will probably be the frame I build for Kate. Set up a Twitter account for my bike company. Website you've seen. Dwelling on ideas for doing some CAD/CAM work to dev my own dropouts (to have investment cast).

Last topic for the day is football. Thought the Vikes were going to give it away today, but was really impressed with Favre's play to end the game -- and it was a beautiful catch, too. All those Favre haters out there CAN SUCK IT.

So I spent some time at the shop last night, getting a full Fit Kit workup done. This involved standing around in cycling shorts, and answering all sorts of questions from the customers about what was going on. (Tim was working with me between customers.)

In the process of this, I think I may have resolved two of the problems:

• my weirdly low power output
• my agonizing shoulder pain, that I wrote about here

A full set of body measurements later, and I know exactly what size my bike should be and where everything should be positioned. The good news is that I have the right size frameset, the bad news is that adjustments needed to be made. To that end, my seat needed to come up a whole two centimeters (and forward to compensate for the change in my knee's stance over the pedal), which should increase my power output, and my stem needed to be 2cm shorter, which should solve the shoulder pain I'd been experiencing. Had to shell out some money for a new stem, but that's okay. If it resolves the blinding pain in my shoulder, that's a good thing.

The next order of business is to take the cyclocross bike in and run it through the same process. Because I've got all my measurements, all I need to do is toss it in the trainer and attack it with a level and a measuring tape so I can make sure it fits. (The Cervelo and Surly will be getting the same treatment over the winter -- though I've been contemplating selling the Cervelo and putting the money toward a new one. So we'll see.)

The other thing the Fit Kit is good for is that it tells me exactly what dimensions I need to build my frames to this fall/winter.

Been thinking about the cyclocross frameset more than the 29er. What I've been contemplating is a Reynolds 953 steel tubeset, with a matching steel fork. (Though I'm going to get a Ritchey WCS Cyclocross carbon fork for actual race-day use and paint it to match the frame.) Horizontal touring-style dropouts so I can run her singlespeed (which I will). Ovalized top tube for easier shouldering, with internal routing for the brake cable. No downtube decals -- going to get my logotype cut out of 2mm thick stainless steel, curve it to fit the downtube, and weld it on before polishing it to a mirror shine. Going to paint her up in a pearl white, with mostly silver and white parts, the exception being some anodized blue touches (Nokon brake housing, spoke nipples). And yeah, I'm going to race the shit out of her.

Where Did I Go Wrong?
My two best friends from college married each other. They have a schwanky pad in Chicago now. Dave pulls about $120K a year and just got accepted to the Kellogg School of Business for the MBA program. Kristin has been doing her PhD on a full-ride scholarship at Northwestern and just became a Fulbright scholar. They are by no means more-driven or more-intelligent than I am — I'd put us all on equal footing. But man, I look at that shit and think that I really need to start doing something with my life, y'know?

ArduVelo
That's what I'm mentally referring to the Arduino-based data logger that I'm going to build. I've been brainstorming on more data I could add to it, and think I'm in a position where I could make a tool that is both extremely worthwhile for my purposes, and entertaining for the non-cyclist. (I'll be dumping data via a GPRS cellular link to a MySQL database and then building a website off of that.) Right now, I'm doing some research, but I've already got a flowchart for the software sketched out, a way to carry the hardware in a weatherproof case, and so on. This is going to be seriously cool stuff. In addition to the performance data — heart rate, cadence, speed, power output in watts — I'll be grabbing GPS info (latitude, longitude, altitude), and I've figured out ways to additionally grab food/fluid intake information, temperature, humidity, and which gears I'm in, which would be hella cool. I've thought about strapping a small accelerometer to the bottom bracket in order to measure road surface conditions via vibration.

Livejournal/Dreamwidth
Lately, I've been getting sick of LJ. I think the service is overpriced as hell, but from what I can see, Dreamwidth ain't much better. While I've considered making the jump to Dreamwidth, I think what may happen here is that I will continue to pay the LJ overlords and just start phasing out LJ in favor of the DB.N site.

Bike
Not sure if I mentioned the bone-headed screw-up with the crankset on my Cervelo, but I'm ordering a new one on Friday, so I can get that beast up and running again. I've got a bunch of other necessities that I'm ordering, too -- new brake pads for the Salsa Campeón, new valve extenders for the Zipp 404s, and a new computer mounting bracket/cadence sensor for the time trial bike. I hate spending all this money, but that's what the bike shop job is for — to pay for bike parts.

Music
I already made note of this stuff over at Delicious, but if you don't follow me there, a dude from Iceland named Ólafur Arnalds has offered up some free downloads at his site -- a new piece every day for seven days. Classical style stuff — very pretty and relaxing.

Movies
Haven't seen anything lately. Seriously. That's weird.

Dreams
About every other week, I have dreams about some sort of zombie attack. I don't really attach any meaning to them, and they're never gory or anything like that, but they end up disturbing me enough to wake me from a sound sleep at around 3 a.m. This is unacceptable and I have filed a formal complaint against my unconscious mind at the the UN Security Council. I'm asking for economic sanctions.

Analytics
In the "are you fucking kidding me?" category, #11 is a phrase someone put in a search engine that brought them to my blog:



I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY ABOUT THAT. I REALLY DON'T.

So there's a write-up over at DB.N about my adventures with the Arduino board and my woes with the bike upgrades: http://www.danbailey.net/590/a-few-random-things

Also, my future wife kicks ass for more reasons than I can actually address here. I just don't want you, the reader, thinking it's all negative stuff, because while I do vent here more than I post about positive things, it's important to note that for every one little incident of bad that I vent about in here, there's a thousand moments of awesome where she makes me laugh until my ribs hurt, gives me butterflies in my stomach, or makes me wonder how I ever lived without her.

• fork
• spokes
• hubs
• headset
• stem
• seatpost
• seat
• pedals
• quick-release skewers
• brake cable housing
• tires
• frame

Gettin' there.

So last night, I hooked the Wintel box up to my monitor, plugged in the keyboard and mouse, and gave 'er a rip. She booted on the first try, and I got Ubuntu installed without any headaches. The only downside is the lack of a simple driver setup for my wifi card. I've been dancing with ndiswrapper since yesterday evening, to no avail. For now, there's an Ethernet cable running at an angle from the far corner of my living room to the desk at the opposite corner. I hope to get this resolved tonight.

Tonight, I am supposed to start swimming lessons, and Kate will be my instructor. I never learned to swim, and there's a long story behind that, that I'll be conveying over at DB.N later today, or sometime tomorrow. After work today, I need to hit up a Sportmart or something for a lock, towel, swimsuit and goggles. I'm trying to blow off the minor snit we had this morning at about 6 a.m. When I went to leave I was still really irritated, but I stopped before I left, forced myself to calm down and went in and kissed her goodbye and told her that I loved her. Now, hours later, the irritation is coming back a bit. Must relax. Should definitely not carry this into swimming lessons.

Back to the geek side of the house, there's this thing called Tikitag, which I'm looking at, and thinking is a brilliant idea. I'm thinking I'm going to invest in one, and see if I can't tie it to documents on my hard drive. It'd be nice to have a sticker on the frame of a bike, for example, that would pull up the specs document for the frame and the maintenance logs. Basically, someone figured out how to market RFID tags.

On the sports side of things, apparently all Vince Young needs is a hug, and he'll be alright. There used to be rumors that Daunte Culpepper had a fragile ego. Sounds like he's met his match in Vince Young.

In other jock stuff, Lance Armstrong formally announced his return to racing yesterday. I'm sure that Nike, Trek and Oakley are all shitting themselves with glee. Unless, of course, he signs with a team other than Astana...in which case, only Nike and Oakley will be shitting themselves with glee.

Well, my first day of being back at work is now water under the bridge. It was great to be back at it again...I got a lot done for my first day, and have a solid understanding of how the one site I'm renovating/updating works, and I'm starting to piece together a mental idea for the layout of the new one I have to build. I can't tell you how good it feels to be back at it. The people I work with are cool, quiet, and calm, and there's not this constant "hurry up and do this, even though we're going to change the project spec while you're working" attitude like at the dot-coms. It feels orderly, planned, and professional, and I love it. As it stands, my contract runs until Sept. 20th, and I'm hoping to god it becomes a fulltime gig.

Anyway, not much has happened since I got home. My dad is, of course, being a pain in the arse about shit. "Why are you so calm and quiet? Is something wrong? What's wrong? Is something wrong?" Yeah, dad, I didn't get much sleep last night, I'm fucking exhausted from my first day back at work in 8 months, and there's this guy who won't stop asking questions. *sigh*

I did, however, teach him to use iMovie today...he went out and got a DV videocamera today, which is coolio. I am going to play with it and maybe post some video later this summer of me doing silly shit like BMX racing, goofing off with my friends, and so on. Stuff to post on here.

In other news, I'm skipping out on Acme Comedy Club tonight. I'm pretty sure mso is still annoyed with me for not checking my voicemail/having my cellphone on me 24-7 this weekend, and not being around when I was needed. I mean, yeah, she's been very supportive and a good friend, but some of the shit she said on the phone when she called last night really pissed me off, and I think she was out of line.

Is it bad that I want to spend some money on myself already? I've been wanting to move all the components on my BMX bike to a new frame and fork, and it'll cost about $400. I think it's good after 8 months of being frugal and doing things like selling my Bianchi and my Olympics tickets. I'm entitled to buying myself something nice, right?

Anyway, all in all, though, I'm happy. I had a good weekend, the first day of work was good, and things seem to finally be looking up... :-)

So Saturday's agenda did not go exactly as planned. Went rollerblading around Calhoun with Batgar (Dan), Ben, and Karl and his wife Carla; Ben's fianceé opted to go for a run instead of blading. Carla did two easy laps and we (the guys) did three very fast laps... I've determined I have been putting in too many hard rides and not enough recovery rides...as soon as we started, my heart rate shot up to near redline, and I just wasn't able to recover at all. That's bad. So I'm going to take a couple-o'-three days to sit back, relax, and just take short, slow rides, and recover from the pounding I've been putting on my cardiovascular system. Also -- I think the stem on my bike might be a hair too long...the lower back has been twinging a lot lately after rides, and I'm really getting a lot of work on the muscles down there...they're tired all the time.

So anyway, afterwards, I dropped off Ben and Heather at Ben's place and followed Batgar over to his place. He gave me this old USB color inkjet he got for nothing...clearing out the house he is. Turns out that he and the wife are "with child" -- I'm quite happy for them...they've been trying for awhile.

Anyway, after that, I hit McD's for a cheeseburger -- my first meal of the day. Yum!

Then I decided to meet a friend at Valleyfair for the day. Hell yeah! Right off the bat, we went straight over to Wild Thing and got a front seat for it. Dayam! What a ride! Total rush! The downside was, all the coasters were pretty anticlimactic after that. We did make a point to ride all of the coasters in the part at least once, esp. given that most of the lines were pretty short. The breakdown was this: Wild Thing x2, High Roller x1, Excalibur x1, the new Wild Mouse coaster x1, the Corkscrew x3 (front, middle, and back). We also hit the Power Tower (a "Whoa Belly" for those of you that have played Roller Coaster Tycoon) -- both sides...the launch and the drop. We also hit the go-karts and one water ride. And I won a stuffed Spiderman at one of the games... I was stoked. We tried to avoid the wussy rides. By the time we'd done all that, we were pretty well exhausted and split.

Last night I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. Slept like a log. Today, all my muscles are tiiiiired. I'm going to sit here and write some code today and get those fonts finished. :-)

Other stuff:

Don't ask me, I just work here.

The most important thought of the 20th century: When your only tool is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail.

Public Service Announcement for those of you that have not seen it yet.

Chez Geek. One of the "most funnest" card games ever. Right now, my only competitors are never around. Once I get a place of my own again, I need to get some beer and a bottle of Cuervo and get a bunch of people to come over and play. Fucking hilarious game. :-)

WHY GOD? WHY? WHY THE EASTER BUNNY, YOU CRUEL FUCKER?

Tags: bike, dating, funny, geek, lists

Well, mso's birthday was fun. We started with a dinner at the Napa Valley Grill at the Mall of America -- nice, upscale place. Good wine, a lot of good laughs, etc. From there, we proceeded upstairs to the bar complex -- we started at Little Ditties, a piano bar, and our waitress was in sharp contrast to the name of the place. She had Tig Bitties (you do the verbal acrobatics). Far, far beyond even DD-cup. HUGE. Anyway. From there, we went back into the All-American Sports Bar (or whatever the fuck it's called...very generic name), shot some pool, and I ogled to two gorgeous Asian girls at the next table, and the blonde working at the Ice Tub O' Beers. Heaven would be those three girls at the same time. Wow. From there, we went over to Jillian's and Seth, Kellie, and I had an in-depth conversation that started with genetic engineering and progressed to humanity/post-humanity while mso got more and more tired. We argued and bitched at her, regardless of the fact that it was her birthday and contrary to what she wanted to do, until she agreed to go to the strip club (Dreamgirls).

$8 cover, plus you were required to buy one drink. $8 for a free-refills glass of Coke. Jesus. Lap-dances were $20 (I think, I didn't get one). [DISCLAIMER: the following link is for those of you 18 and up!] Gina Ryder was the featured performer. Cute, but didn't look like she was too into it. I imagine that the job is like any other -- it gets to be the same old shit all the time. Anyway, Kellie bought mso and Seth some lapdance action. She said she'd have bought me one if she had had the money...no worries, though. Take care of your roommate and boyfriend first. :-) Besides, there were only a few of the strippers that I'd be interested in. So around 3am, we made our departure. While Seth and I waited by the door, one of the more attractive strippers came over and tried to entice me into a lapdance. Cute, but she talked like she was running a phonesex line -- you could tell that she was trying to sound really slutty and in the end, it was more amusing than arousing. That's also the first time I've ever had my tie licked. Of course, it was also the first time I ever wore a tie in a strip club. (I was dressed up b/c of the upscale-factor of the restaurant.)

So, anyway, we all split up, mso, Kellie, and Seth went back to the apartment, and I drove home. I got in around 3:30 a.m. or so, read Harry Potter for about 15 minutes. The alarm went off at 6:00 a.m., and I got up and got on with my day.

Yes, on a little more than 2 hours of sleep I rode a double century -- that's a 200 mile ride for you non-cycling types. Something happened Saturday night that screwed up my upper back -- same as it was before -- and I wasn't going to let it deter me this time. Anyway, at the first rest stop, I pulled in, begged some Icy Hot and some Advil, which took the edge off...for the next 125 miles or so. After the rest stop, I joined up with a paceline that was trucking along at about 23 mph and hung in with them for a good chunk of distance 70 or 80 miles. The Advil/Icy Hot Cocktail had worn off with about 30 miles to go, and believe me, I was feeling it. My back was in total agony... Anyway, with no fanfare and no particular emotion other than relief to be done, I finished. I stumbled to the car, got the bike onto the roof rack, made use of my sun shower (hair, face, armpit and crotch being the most important points), crawled into the back of the truck (heavy tint on the rear windows) to change into some comfy clothes/sandals for the drive home...and promptly fell sound asleep on the rear seats...for 10 hours. I had a Powerbar and a bottle of tepid Gatorade for breakfast. Yum.

Anyway, I'm home now. My legs and butt feel fine. It's just my damn upper back. Yuck.

I'm sitting here watching live cycling coverage from Europe. I love this sport. Anyway, tomorrow the Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) could be captured by an American for only the second time ever. Tyler Hamilton, Lance Armstrong's old lieutenant has gone to a new team this year, and is currently sitting in 3rd, 1m28s out of first place, in third overall. The guys ahead of him are climbers, and he's a time-trial specialist (he won the last TT in the Giro...around stage 13). Tomorrow's stage could decide it -- it's a 40-some kilometer TT. I'm stoked. Of course, if it comes down to a few seconds' spread across the top three, it could get interesting -- Sunday is the final day, usually a formality, but if the TT works out weird, it could be the first time a Grand Tour comes down to a deciding sprint. I'm stoked. :-)

And rain be damned, too! I broke down and went for a ride. I couldn't help it. 34 miles of hammerfest in the rain and chill -- and it FUCKING RULED -- today was one of those days where I remembered why I started riding in the first place. Even when the conditions were miserable, I was hauling ass, and the heart rate was only around 150 (my max is around 204 these days). Got it into the big ring in front and did some intervals that got me into the low 190's for heart rate. Mmmmm. Endorphin rush! And even the rain couldn't wipe the grin off my face.

Going to go play Chez Geek with Dave and Kristin in about an hour. I guess I can take the down time to clean up my bike, which is fucking filthy -- sand, mud, water, and road grime.

Fuck, I love to ride. *happy sigh*

Well, I've been laying in bed for an hour now. My cats have been lounging around with me, instructing me in the fine art of being lazy. They're such an inspiration.

I'm supposed to be riding a century right now (that's a 1-day 100-mile ride for you non-cycling types), but with the way my back feels, it's pretty much out of the question. Major drag. I was looking forward to it.

Dave and Kristin are coming back into town today -- they were in Iowa yesterday for a wedding. We may be getting together to play some Chez Geek today...or tomorrow. Who knows?

For those that don't read my postings over in the Macintosh community, I'll recap here. Friday, I dropped mso off at the airport. I came home, and my parents were unloading all sorts of toys from the back of my stepmom's Grand Cherokee. My stepmom got herself a top-of-the-line Powerbook G4 (the titanium monster), a new iPod, etc. (I tell you, that iPod is going to disappear into my boxes when I move out). My dad has decided to make the switch and will be buying an iBook of his own, shortly. Then my friend Dave called to tell me that he might be getting an iMac and a bunch of video production stuff. Too cool! Looks like I'll be teaching a lot of people the innards of OS X.

OS X good. Windows bad. Remember that.

Note: I first posted this to a Yahoo! Club for cycling.

Strange how much can happen in the space of a few days. I'm back working at the shop again, and got huge news.

First, the good: 10-year old Eddie Patterson is a kid I have the misfortune of racing against in BMX events from time to time in the cruiser class. (It's a small class and they lump us all together.) Eddie recently won a World Championship title in the 20" and took third in the Cruiser category (24" wheels). Eddie's what we all aspire to be as adults on bikes -- smooth, graceful, he makes it look easy. He's humble in victory and in defeat. The kid moves across a BMX track like he grew up with wheels for feet. When the race is over, regardless of how he did, the race is over. He doesn't carry the baggage of it with him. Watching him reminds me of why I started riding in the first place -- for the sheer joy of it.

On the other note, I'd like to note the passing of Khaliq Culbreath, a local rider with Suburban Cyclists Unlimited. He died crossing the street in France to get a better view of the Tour as it was coming through -- this vacation was his dream, and as he was crossing the road, he was struck by a car. He died at the hospital. I only met Khaliq once, and he made a real impression on me. That may not sound like much, but entering my third year in the bike shop, I've been long-jaded about the accomplishments and attitudes I see out there. There are riders who "get it" and those who don't. Khaliq got it. He knew that it's not necessarily about competition, or about tech, or any of that. The guy considered anyone on two wheels his friend, and that's something I can totally respect.

Both these riders exemplify what AkiroSho means when he says "be the bike"...

So this weekend, when I ride, I'll be doing it for someone who never will again. And while I'm out there, I will look on every other cyclist as a friend. I hope that I can find the grace, power, and humility of an Eddie Patterson. I hope that somewhere Khaliq is watching over us all as we ride.

I hope I can be the bike.

Sorry I haven't posted an update to this lately. I've been preparing for a trip to Arizona for the 4th of July weekend, and I'm stoked about that. A lot besides that has been going on. I'm still racing BMX -- I have two third-place finishes to my credit, one of which occured the week after my nasty crash (see previous entry). Been working on some groovy new fonts, writing, working two jobs, and trying to catch up on my reading list...

I think I might have gotten to that age, where acting less than one's age, might get me killed. (Sorry for the odd formatting...I liked it in the book Microserfs.) Someone once told me that the trick to staying young is to act young. I really took that to heart.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for responsibility and all that adult jazz, but I have definitely endeavoured to keep some of my childish ways. I still see a whole universe in a blade of grass, and still see the good in people (except Saddam Hussein...he's kind of a prick). But back to the topic at hand -- the suicidal overtones of my latest venture.

I've gotten into BMX racing. This is not something for the faint of heart or anyone over the age of about 15. I'm 28. And I'm not the oldest guy out there -- not by any means. My first night out, two weeks ago, I crashed heavily on my 10th (or so) practice run. This left me with three broken toes (they got caught between the spokes of my front wheel), torn up elbows (through long sleeves), bruised knees, bruised ribs (where the bike landed on me), and a torn up shoulder (official final tally: hairline fracture and damaged/torn rotator cuff). Retreat to XTerra. Deploy marketing device, er, first aid kit. Patch up bleeding spots. (This pic is just before I started putting on the bandages.) A week later, I was out there again, but with no crashes.

Today, I've been kind of introspective about this. My shoulder's bothering me enough where it's even hindering my normal road riding. And I've realized that there's more to it than going out and racing a BMX bike -- I think it's more a state of doing what interests me, societal expectations be damned. This is why I write, draw, design fonts, read books about science, and am going to learn to play the blues. The trick to being young isn't acting like a kid, it's doing what interests you without fear of reprisals.

Does this mean I'll stop racing? Hell no. I'm doing it because I find it interesting and fun. Expect to see me in your favorite ER someday soon.

I had the weirdest, most vivid dream this morning just before I woke up. In the snippet I remember, I was walking through a Wal-Mart with a guy who looked like a Zen master. He turns to me and says, "The problem is that you're not living with your soul. You're living with your wallet and your brain." I, of course, made a hasty denial. He opens his mouth to say something, and then the cat woke me up by pouncing on my back. *sigh*

Perhaps I've been a bit worried lately, about what I'm doing with my life. Let's face it, writing code all day to sell insurance online isn't exactly what I'd call "enlightening" or satisfying. I guess I started actively pursuing cycling and writing again because they put a fire in my soul...it's hard not to feel alive while doing either of them. Font design was in danger, for awhile there, of becoming a "business" issue. Not something I want to have happen.

So, last week, after the fire destroyed the servers, I took some time off from Fontosaurus. I hope you don't mind. I needed to approach this with a fresh soul. :-)

I've been writing a lot more, hard at work on A Castle in the Sun, and I hope to get the second chapter on the website sometime this week. (Perhaps even today, if I'm feeling industrious.) And I've been riding a lot harder. Went to the BMX track Friday night, finished third in my category. Was riding up the hill to the starting line after the race, so I could get in a few practice runs, and SCHPONG! the chain drops! I look down, and I'd sheared out two chainring bolts, and bent the chainring (the big gear in front, for you non-cycling types) into a taco shape, just on horsepower alone! :-)

So anyway, I've been trying to get my soul working again the last week. This weekend, I've been making fonts. I hope you like the results. :-)