Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Spicy grilled eggplant.

This was so good I can hardly believe I made it...


Thanks to Nakagane Elementary School Grade 1 class for the eggplant, and the internet for the recipe (modified to use what I had in the fridge...)

Monday, June 28, 2010

One step closer.

To coming home.

I had a chance to go and talk to my old friends at FIA about returning to work for them soon...a very attractive proposition - a job with great conditions in a beautiful part of Japan...but...I just turned it down.

Clicking the 'Send' button on that email was harder than I thought - it felt like doing so was when I really made the decision to go home.

You see, going back to FIA would mean more money (lots more money...sigh...) - teaching adults, a great micro-community of expats, in short - I think I'd find myself back there for more than a year. And I don't want that. I don't want to get back into that pattern. Even if it was only a year the timing would mess up my plans for returning next year in time for semester 2 of university so I'll stick with my original plan with the exception that I'm more committed to it than ever before.

So one step closer to coming home - the hardest step - the first one.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Insomnia News...

Recent testing has located the source of my long-term insomnia. More on that in a minute, but first a bit of background.

My insomnia has plagued me for many years now, worse around times of change or stress. Funnily enough, it was often worst when I was most tired. Insomnia manifests itself for me in the following way - I fall asleep, then around 30-45 minues later I wake up, often with a 'start.' After this, my heart rate is accelerated, I find it difficult to relax, and even once I do, I can't switch my brain off, and get stuck thinking too much. This can go on for anyhwere from two to four or five hours.

After the bout mentioned in the post below I decided, for a reason I can no longer remember, to see if coffee was to blame for some or all of my sleep issues. Everyday last week I drank a cup to a cup-and-a-half of coffee before work, then one small cup upon arriving at school. Absolutely no caffeine after 10am.

And I slept like a baby. Every night.

Yesterday saw me catch up with a few people, including James, and I had a coffee with lunch, another in the afternoon about 5pm, and then one after dinner.

And I couldn't sleep until after 1:30am.

There you have it. That's close enough to conclusive evidence for me, after all this is all about me.

Funnily enough, I drink more coffee during times of stress and change. Go figure.

Jungle Ride




Hot and steamy it was today. 30 degrees and 96% humidity.

James is in town again, and we headed off to Hasso for a "rain, hail or shine" ride. Found none, but there was plenty of water, mud and jungly-ness.

No ride pictures - too wet and sloppy, but some post-ride pics. We had a ball.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Insomnia

...is not as much fun as it sounds.

A million things running through my brain, can't switch it off. (The person that invents that switch is going to be a millionaire. )

It's all about the decisions. Right now I have three big choices (it was only two until about an hour ago) and I don't have any idea which is the best one.

Or perhaps I do, but I possibly lack the courage to do it. I'm thinking what is behind door number three is best for me.

Cryptic, yes.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Rainy Season

...is upon us. Closer to the equator it's known as the monsoon. Whatever you call it, it sucks.

Broke out the SS for a rainy ride this afternoon...man, I had forgotten how light and zippy that bike is. Also very few rustable parts on it, so it is perfect for rainy rides.

Maybe I won't sell it after all. At least until the sun comes out again...

Sunday, June 13, 2010

It's the little things...



...that often matter so much.

Found yesterday at a shop not too far from home.

Very, very happy.

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Well...

I did it. I applied for university. A return to university to get my teaching qualification, but I may have left my run too late, I don't know if I can get all the paperwork in on time...

Wish me luck!

(am also starting to second-guess my choice...sigh...)

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Due to popular demand.

Well, OK, two people asked so I am posting here because I am a geek.

On the bike-packing trips I have used a Topeak Explorer Disc rack fudged and bludgeoned into fitting onto my Vassago Bandersnatch (no rack eyelets). I'll geek out over this a little bit now, so if you feel your eyes glazing over, a shortness of breath, or the sudden urge to wear tight pants in public, stop reading now.

Here is a picture of v1.0 on the trail (kinda) last Sept.

And here is a close-up of my home-made OMM skewer-attachment system for v1.0.

The steel (painted black) L-brackets worked OK, seemed well and truly strong enough, but they were a tad flexy. Yanking on the rack side-to-side produced a bit of flex, but had no detrimental effect I could find riding. The metal did seem a bit slippery however, and the LHS tab began to rotate when I got a bit carried away on some fun singletrack (=jumping). Regular/mellow offroad touring wouldn't have been a problem. I stopped and realigned it, and was able to finish the weekend without further hiccups.

Over winter I periodically tried to think of how to stop the tabs from rotating, and then one day in my LBS I found the answer:

Here are the tabs on v2.0 - the gold coloured bits. As you can see, they have built in anti-rotation tabs! Cost about $6. I crimped them a bit tighter to fit snugly around the foot of the rack. Ride two (March - again with some rough ST) didn't see any movement at all, thanks to the tabs but also this metal seems a lot less slippery, so I think the frictional resistance to rotation provided by the bolt's tension is a lot higher now. I'm covered both ways anyway, so I think I'll be good.

There are two more important parts to the homemade poor man's OMM rack (PMs OMM R) - one can be seen in the above photo.

1. That's a homemade extralong QR skewer, made from about $1.50 worth of threaded stainless rod from the hardware store. I had a Bontrager skewer where I could unscrew the QR shaft from the QR lever itself, so it was easy to replace with the required length of threaded rod. I've used a combination of washers and old shock-mounting hardware to space the tabs out to clear the fame and disc brake. No slippage - works fine. Plenty of grip on the dropouts - the axle hasn't moved at all in several hundred km, half of which was loaded offroad.

(please note that I cut the feet of the Topeak rack shorter as it was ridiculously wide, and cleared the brake caliper by about an inch, and also drilled the hole in the foot of the rack for a bigger bolt. I think this will render the rack useless for mounting on regular frames with rack eyelets...)

2. The second and last important bit of the PMs OMM R is the mounting system at the other end; it looks like this:

The rack mounts to the ACOR seatclamp shown, which has built in rack mounts - brilliant! Sadly, it is the wrong size for this frame (it's for a 31.8mm seat tube, if I remember correctly and I can't find one for a 30mm seatpost ANYWHERE), but here it is shimmed with a bit of seat tube from an old frame, and works fine. The Salsa clamp is still holding the seatpost in place.


So there you go. Here is a photo of the final setup of v2.0.


Notes: v2.0 is much laterally stiffer. It is also slightly higher, which could be a good or a bad thing, I've only noticed positives (more tyre clearance) so far. It's almost tool free - only requires one 5mm allen key to install, and takes less than 5 minutes. I like this setup - all up it is still much cheaper than an OMM rack, I can still use regular panniers if I want, and also the integrated Topeak bags that slide and click into place on the rack - I like them.

Hope this helps. Cheers.