Fishbone!

Fishbone played at the Asylum in Portland last night. Guess who went? Yep, ME!, and brother (D)and semi-brother (C). A GREAT SHOW, definately in my Top 5 Best Live Show ever! Good music. I can't really say too much. Either you know Fishbone -or you don't. Typically, music people know.

The crowd was realtivley small but full of energy. Ill talk with D&C to try and get a song list put together. I also got some short video clips, Ill attempt to get those to my youtube page later this week.

ROCK ON!

Turkeys

T-day dinner is fattening up right now.

Wife and I headed over to the Little Alasks Farm today to pick up a load of meats for the next month or so. When we arrived we noticed all the turkeys out front (pic). It turns out, as we thought, that these birds are fattening up for Thanksgiving Day meals. So, OF COURSE we put an order in for one of these fine looking birds.

The LAF is only about 20 miles from where we live and provides natural grass feed beef, chicken, pork and other items (unpasturized milk, bread, butter, eggs). The meat is some of the best I have ever had. It cooks faster and tastes better than any crap you may get at your local supermarket. It is well worth the extra cost and benefits the small farm and butcher. You should try it.

Little Alaska Farm 222 Leeds Junction Road Wales, ME 04280 (207) 933-5277 littleafarm2@juno.com

Cycling and a 'lil Geology

This morning was another beautiful day in Vacationland to ride my bicycle to work. The photo here I took on my way in this morning. It is a view looking west at the Presumpscot River, down stream of the falls.

Commuting Stats:
Distance (miles): 14.41
Time: 49 mins. 17 secs.
Average Speed: 17.5 mph

For the the the geology nerds. The geology of the area is fairly interesting. The soil are blue-gray marine clays of the Presumpscot Formation. Very typical of coastal Maine. The rocks are WAY more interesting. Silurian to Ordovician Age Hutchins Corner Formation. A flaggy blueish to purplish gray biotite quartz plagioclase granofels with greenish-gray interbeds of calc silicate. Migmatic pegmatite layers commonly interbeded with the host rock, conforming to the bedding. There are also some unmapable pelitic schist layers.

ROCK ON.

Weekend in Review

This past weekend was a good one. On Saturday I went up to the gun show in Augusta. It was pretty much the same as the ones I've been to in the past. Men, guns, ammo, knives. Maximum testosterone. After the fun was over the remainder of the day was spent with Wife taking care of the usual chores and shopping.

Sunday I got the urge to start work on repainting the house trim. It's in serious need of the work and I have been putting it off for about 2 too many seasons. I managed to get the front 25 feet or so completely scrapped down. There was a little mildew so I sprayed a ~20% bleach and water solution on it, let set for a minute and wiped clean. I also removed one small piece of 1"x3" and got about half of it painted with primer. I should be able to have the rest primed tomorrow and the whole section painted on Wednesday. After that it's off to the back side. Gotta get done by mid-September, and by the my deltoids will be RIPPED!

Party on.

Commuting by the Numbers

On Wendsday I rode my bike into work for the Yarmouth to Portland leg of the trip. Post Here. And then back again that evening. 28.5 Miles total

Today (Friday), I did the same thing. 28.5 miles total. This morning while riding along I started thinking, How much money am I not spending on fuel? So, here is the breakdown:
On Wed. I had to take my truck in. The brake drum on the while car was stuck and at the shop. The truck gets about 20 mpg. My round trip pedaling was 28.5 miles. (28.5 miles / 20 mpg) is 1.425 gallons of fuel at say $3.69 per gallon is about $5.25.
Today I got the white car back. It gets about 36 mpg which works out to about 0.80-gallons. or about $2.92. At the end of the two days I saved $8.17.
And I got in two good days of riding, and just over three hours of exercise (45 mins x four trips).

Useless Commuting Statistics

Finally took my bike the partial distance to work today. I had done it a good bit last year but I have been slacking off so far this year. Well, hopefully today will get a trend going with me.

Yarmouth to Portland

Distance: 14.22 miles
Time: 48 minutes 54 seconds
Avg. Speed: 17.4 mph

Carrying rack and truck bag, 2 rear panniers, lunch, towel, change of clothes, bike lock and other crap like my wallet, keys, cell phone and PDA.

It was a glorious morning for a ride to work.

Bike Stuff - Baby Stuff

My Mom got a bike a while back for like 10 bucks. A Schwinn Supersport with a 'ladies-frame'. After researching the serial number DGxxxxx I learned that it was built in April 1971.

She let it sit out in the rain and I saved the poor beast recently and performed a little magic. I added a shiamno front and rear derailur, sun-tour shifters and front wheel from the bike a got for a buck last summer. Yesterday, I replaced the shifting cables, cleaned up a 'new' chain for it put it back on the road. It's really pretty decent now. WAY better than what I started with.

Baby stuff. The shower did go very well. It was crazy to have the women in my family all be in the same room at once. Something that hasn't happened in probably 20 or more years. The funniest line of the day was my paternal grandmother saying to my mother 'Is your house still as dirty as it used to be?' "Yes."

So yeah, we got a lot of good stuff for the boy. The room is done and ready. --------------->

And just for comparison sake, the room to start.
<--------

it goes to 11

Yep it does. It goes to 11, and I am not talking about Spinal Tap's Marshal amps.

I am talking about the new rear cassette from Campagnolo. This seems to be another advance from the top italian bicycle parts maker and is sure to force Shimano and SRAM to design their own version. The Bicycling magazine people got to review the thing back in June. Lucky ducks. That story is HERE, but the short version is that:

• strength and rigidity concerns with the cassette, rings and chain were addressed with better metal compositions;
• the warranty is 4-years, compared to the usual 3;
• it is compatible with existing 10-speed cassettes;
• it's a bit lighter for you weight weenies.

I normally don't pimp products but really I just couldn't pass up the chance to post because it's really cool, I want one, and how often can you post the best scene in Spinal Tap.

Ride On

Motivation

make your own at Big Huge Labs

Lame Duck

The Olympics have been pretty good to watch this year. Did you see the opening ceremonies? Apparently today the news broke that the 'feet' fireworks were faked for TV. *pssh*

Did anyone else get the impression that if those drummers fucked up it was either back to the coal mines or off to the firing squad? Ah,Chinese communism.

On a related note, our Commander, George Bush was court side at a lot of the games. I found this <----pic somewhere and all it proves is that no matter who you are everyones kids' think their parents are lame.

For the rest of you breathlessly awaiting the baby shower story from the past weekend...you will have to wait another day. :p

Descending Hens

Saturday approaches. Hens from three states will be flocking to my house bearing gifts for my son to be. Mothers, Grandmothers, Aunts, female friends, pregnant female friends, and small children all destined for my home and a multi-hour session of womanly, baby oozing preparations. Estrogen Central.

My tasks, as reported in a previous post, are to prepared the house like Martha Stewart her self is due for arrival. I finished the hardwood flooring on Saturday and I only have one wall and one closet remain to paint. Re-installing doors and base molding and the easy part is done. Then its yard work (mowing, trimming and some painting), garage re-organization, cleaning, sweeping, moping and semi-final room preparations/ decoration to do. I’ll need a beer, or six.

Luckily during Baby-Fest 2008 I will be taking the dogs to B-Ham with my Dad and Brother where we will wait it out. Wife also despises girly-girl shit, so I am hoping the Festival of Estrogen will end sooner rather than later.

After it’s all over, I get the feeling that’s when it really begins, and will never end.

WebLog: Date 08.01.08

The last few posts I did on circumcision generated a crazy amount of traffic for my little blog. It even carries out a few days. A couple of times I got a spike from a post mention or a StumbleUpon submittal.... I should do more controversial posts on purpose.

Nah, Ill just do what I do. Moving on.

• I have closed the Circumcision poll early. The winner was pretty obvious. And with 211 votes. No received 178 to Yes 33. 84% No.
  
• I have almost finished the hardwood floors in the house. I only have the closet to complete.
• The new roof was finished on Wendsday. No more leaks.
• The poision ivy rash I have on just about 40% of my body seems to be subsiding. It turns out that I didn't need the prednisone I was prescribed. I think Ill just hang on to it in case I ever get it worse than this. Which would be tough to beat. At one point my face was swelled up like a chow dog and my dick looked like a bratwurst. FYI jewel weed seems to work. It at least feels good.
  
• I fucked up at work and forgot to have the field person collect lab samples. Fuck! Now the excavation is closed. I really can't blame my self too much, I have been overloaded and doing too many tasks at once. Something was bound to get dropped. Fuck though, I'm better than that.
• The weekend should be interesting. I may be attending a beer brewing demo. I'll let ya know how that turns out.

-Have a good weekend.

C-span bus tour

One cool thing about Portland is that there is always shit going on in town. Today at lunch I ran across the C-SPAN bus and took a tour.

There are two buses. Each cost a million bucks. The inside is like a traveling t.v. studio. The guy speaking with us said that the two buses travel all over and at least one will be at each presidential debate, once we get there.

In the rear are all the monitors and controls panels to produce a show. In the mid-section is the 'studio' where the seats, larger screens and backdrops are located. Some t.v. clips were shown that show what it looks like when televised, ya know? You can't even tell it's on a bus. Pretty cool stuff. I guess people like Rudy Giuliani and Bill Richardson have been on the bus, to name a couple.

There are no sleeping facilities on board. Everyone (cast/crew) sleeps in hotels.

That's all. Just thought I would share.