voting day

If you haven't voted yet today, why not? If it's already too late to vote, why did you not vote?

blinders

Over the years, I've posted my opinion that there are two reasons why a motorist would not see me on my bicycle. Those two are that either a) the motorist wasn't paying enough attention to his or her surroundings, or b) has a vision impairment such that it is not legal for him or her to operate a motor vehicle. No other option presents itself to me without there being a hint or more of dishonesty on the part of the motorist.

A friend or two have suggested that there is a legitimate third option. I am embarrassed that I don't remember the gist of their claims, but it could have been what is discussed in this article from a Royal Air Force pilot, in which much of the discussion focuses on Saccadian masking.

In short, when we move our focus, our eyes move. Our brains don't process the neuro stimuli that land on our retinas during this motion. We only process what is seen during an ocular fixation, however brief that fixation is. Our brains gloss over what is between two points of fixation (or focus, if you will), completely missing any detail in that angle of our potential vista. Please read the entire article, as I don't wish to copy it here. It's worth a few minutes.

The lesson, in short, is to do things to minimize Siccadic masking. Move your head around. Look more than once in each direction. Don't be in such a big hurry to get through an intersection. Know that others you want to see you may not be looking as closely as you would have them look, be aware of their Saccadian masking.

On an unrelated note: I looked at the visit counter yesterday, and noted that it was shy of 11,100. today it is at 11,130, a large jump for this site. From whence does all this traffic come?

Referral, and bike polo!

I want to pass along this gem from Andy Cline. It's a brief essay on courtesy and sociopathy, and worth a few minutes of your time.

Last night was Car-Free Happy Hour, Marco Polo edition. It was held at Barret Bar, which has a fenced-in court in the parking lot. It was fenced in to be a half-length (actually shorter) basketball court, but has since been repurposed as a bike polo court. There is a bike polo club that frequents the bar (of course necessitating that the bar keep a large supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon in 16 ounce cans in stock for the bike polo crowd and the assorted hipsters that are attracted to the "scene"), and several members were there last night. They invited neophytes to try, and a few friends did. I opted out--with my recent back issue not fully-resolved, my coordination and flexibility are not quite to my preference for trying it yet. Maybe another time.

Still, it was fun to watch. The rules are pretty simple. Players who touch the ground with their feet must go to mid-court and "tap in" by touching their mallet head to the side fence. There is a line painted on the court near the goal, and if the ball is closer to the goal than that line, and in motion toward the goal, defenders cannot strike it (I suppose it would be goal tending, although I'm not sure of their formal term). If the ball is inside that marker, an offensive player must get it out of that area before hitting it toward the goal.

Long view of the court:

 

The goal:

While I was there, some of the polo club members replaced the old goals with nicer ones, the picture above being one. There is some aluminum behind the opening that makes some bit of noise when the ball enters hard enough, and routs the ball back out to the court to enable faster return to play.

The old goals looked like this. You can see the goal-tending line here (in pink):

Some of the games I saw were one-on-one. Some were teams of two players. There is a LOT to keep up on when doing this, but I'm told that it becomes habit once one plays a while.

David Crowell was there, and had ridden his Big Dummy. A couple of the more experienced players took it out to see how it would do.

The Big Dummy is great at its intended purpose, but it's a challenge to get that long thing around in a tight polo court. I can see it being an entirely different game for two teams on Big Dummy or Kona Ute or Yuba Mundo bikes.

11,000!

I went to look at my blog "dashboard," to see what new posts have been made on the blogs I watch, and noticed that there have been 11,000 views of my mental dribblings.


I sometimes wonder what I have to say that is so interesting to others. I largely use this as an online diary of sorts, so that I can at some point go back and see what I was thinking.

"Blog worthy?"

It hasn't seemed like much has been "blog-worthy" of late. A few points, though:

I've not been posting my miles on the Mycyclinglog site for four or five weeks. I've mostly gotten them written down in my notebook, figuring to eventually get them recorded online, but it's been hard to motivate myself to logging miles after the dropoff at the end of May.

I tweaked my back a couple weeks ago, and that put me out of commission for work much of the said last two weeks. I'm doing better now, so should be at semi-normal ability to move and earn money soon.

In spite of all that, I got to enjoy several live music opportunities over the last two weeks. Garvin Gate Blues Festival is a long-time favorite venue for me, and Jenn and I had a great time digging the tunes again this year. Nora Jean was impressive as the headline act for Saturday night--the general sense is that we want to hear her when she's healthy, now (she came despite a cold that was hard on her voice, and was good enough sick that she's bound to be absolutely marvelous when healthy!).

CycLOUvia happened the same weekend. It was an eerie feeling being on Bardstown Road just after it was closed to motor traffic--almost like being in a Twilight Zone episode. Ten minutes later, it was getting crowded as folks figured out that it was, indeed, closed to motorized mayhem and human mayhem ensued. I wish we could have stayed longer, but I had made plans to attend another live music event.

Kiya Heartwood was a friend when we were in high school--she was a year ahead of me when I was at Eastern. Since then, she has gone on to form the band Stealin Horses, and has continued with that and other singing and songwriting projects. Another friend of hers from our teen years hosted a living room concert at her house near Buckner. I got to see some folks I hadn't seen in decades, a couple with whom I've reconnected over the last year or two, and of course, got to chat with Kiya. Jenn had no idea how much she would enjoy Kiya's music.

Here Come the Mummies played in Lexington Thursday night. If they are coming to a venue near you, check them out!

By this weekend, I was feeling flexible enough to get on the bike a bit more. Some friends were having a little bike ride to celebrate that River City Fashion Week had some bicycle-themed stuff, so Jenn and I dressed up far more than usual and joined in the fun. Pictures courtesy of Mary Beth Brown.

political involvement

I attended the constituent meeting hosted by the Metro Council member representing the 7th district (where I live) last night. It was good to finally get around to meeting Ken Fleming, after having lived in this district for two years. I think he'd had public meetings prior to this, but I hadn't tuned my metaphorical radar to catch word of them.

I got to entertain several of the attendees when I commented on the I-264 bridge over Westport Road, and how the downspouts are arranged so that they empty onto folks using the sidewalks under that bridge. I characterized it as Kentucky Transportation Cabinet relieving itself on the pedestrians, a metaphor that I find apt.

Quite a few of the attendees had questions about the plans for the new VA hospital site and attendant traffic woes. Many residents who live within the immediate area of the new site are upset at how things have been handled, and rightly so. Many people feel that this has been rammed through without heeding input from people whose lives will be affected by the construction noise, the additional traffic snarls due to the construction and due to the normal flow of the eventual facility, the light and noise pollution due to the facility, and more.

Regardless of whether this is indeed the best site for the new facility, public information and dialog could have gone better. It could go better than it likely will. Residents complained that they won't have any say in the arrangement of the buildings in the new facility (and they still likely will not, although the VA official stressed repeatedly that the plans will respect neighbors as much as can be done).

Somewhere in all this, another gem got dropped. Never mind that there is a LOT of construction around the I-264/US42 interchange, they are considering a total reworking of that interchange in the not-distant future. Interestingly, one possible rework they are considering would be to make it a SPUI (Single Point Urban Interchange), in this case looking similar to the I-264/Poplar Level Road interchange. This has some merit, as it would remove one traffic light from a fairly short stretch than now has four lights. Synchronizing would be a bit easier, so as to reduce traffic delays at peak travel times. There is a new ramp under construction already that will allow eastbound I-264 (also called the Watterson Distressway) traffic to get to the new VA facility without using US42, which will take some of the heat off the US42 lights.

Other little snippets that were not the big focus of the presentation (the big focus being the VA hospital): There are plans afoot to install sidewalks and possibly a bike lane (ugh) alongside LaGrange Road from Lyndon Lane to just beyond the Central State Hospital complex (Lakeland Drive). I will be contacting KYTC about this, to be sure, as I am not so sure bike lanes are needed there (wider pavement would be nice, to be sure, but putting a line of "magic paint" outside which bicyclists must ride is not a great idea). Sidewalks, though, would be very good to have.

seeming hypocrisies

I ride bicycles to get where I'm going more often than not. I do so for a variety of reasons, but one perceived reason runs counter to a long-time interest of mine. On a semi-related-for-the-purposes-of-this-blog-entry note, I've long said that we are defined by our apparent double-standards and how we deal with them.

I have enjoyed watching auto racing since I could understand the concept, about the time I entered second grade (if not before). A not-so-brief list of tracks I've visited after the jump.

I've been ignoring the blog of late

...to the point that I didn't even mention a couple of timeline milestones!

My last post, made on 9 September, was made on what was at one point planned to be my third wedding anniversary. Events surrounding my somewhat sudden departure from New Directions in July of 2009 led to my legal wedding day being the 17th of that month, but our original plan was that our wedding would be on September 9th of that year (09/09/09, or if inverted, 6/6/6/).

My last post was also made five days after another anniversary: On September 7th of 2007, Jenn and I met face-to-face for the first time.

Some would call me an incurable romantic for remembering these bits of trivia. I've been accused of holding romantic notions before, of course, and admit to a subset of such. I find it easy to remember a couple of dates like these for assorted reasons, including in no particular order: a) in just about every history class I've had to take over the last forty-several years, dates of events have been given importance such that I learned to pay attention to dates of events, b) I've managed to attach alternate significances to the dates in question to make it easier for me to access that information in what passes for my brain.

In the case of meeting Jenn that first time, I suggested the date planning for a time limit for myself, since I was riding the Old Kentucky Home Tour the next morning. The following year, I rode the century--again--on Saturday, and Jenn and I rode home on Sunday on a borrowed tandem. In 2009, we rode both days on a different borrowed tandem to celebrate our wedding--a brief honeymoon, if you will. 9 September 2009 was on a Wednesday, as I recall, and Jenn and I took time out to have a private celebration of our marriage and exchange rings that actually fit (in my case...).

Here I am, over three years into my first marriage. I have two stepdaughters and enjoy my relationship with each of them. Every day I set a new record for consecutive days happily married.

Who would have thought THAT would happen?

Why I ride where I ride

From time to time, I'm asked why I choose my lane position as I do. Many motorists simply don't understand my reasoning. Too many are not interested in dialog--one presumes they are afraid they will have to learn something that will change their outlook and cause them to change their behavior, but they are mostly just in a hurry.

I occasionally have discussions on the topic online. I have a couple of links I like to provide when that happens. One is on the Commute Orlando site, and is titled "Helping Motorists With Lane Positioning." Another is on a related site, Cycling Savvy, and it titled, "Why do you ride like that?" If I need to expand on either essay, I might toss out links to the Commute Orlando post titled "Widths and Buffers," or the Cycling Savvy post titled "You Lead the Dance."

A more recent post was published by Ian Brett Cooper, who blogs as "The Desegregated Cyclist." His post, "Why do Cyclist Behave in Ways that Anger Motorists?" has some gentle rejoinders addressing misconceptions held by many in society.

I sometimes use the term "anti-cyclist" to describe folks who seem almost violent in their insistence that cyclists don't belong on the roadway. Such folks would likely not let their anti-cyclist attitudes be swayed by the writings linked above, but some will--at least begrudgingly--acknowledge some points made in these links with regard to how the law treats us currently.

Ironman Louisville volunteering

It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted on this blog--a week or so before Ironman.

I enjoyed being a volunteer for the Ironman event. I was there for two sessions--both involved using my kayak. They held a practice swim session for those who wanted/needed some open water time the morning before the big event. I used my trailer to get there, and doing so gained me some small notoriety and a few positive comments. I encountered a few friends there, and made myself known in the paddling community.

Jenn did a lot of volunteer work with Ironman as well--more than I did, to be honest. She helped event security manage the areas where racers moved through transitions and prior to the swim.

More about my Ironman adventures after the break.

Water tune-up, part II

As with any big event, preparation is important. As noted previously, I am an on-water volunteer for the Ironman(tm) event scheduled for next weekend. At some point, I decided that I would haul my boat to the river with my Bikes at Work trailer rather than depend on my aging truck. I tested the system today--well, one could call it an excuse for a bike ride, I suppose--and had only very minor tweaks to make along the way.

Before I could haul the boat, though, I had to reconfigure the trailer a bit. In my usual configuration, the trailer axle is in the fourth of six possible positions (with some of those positions requiring that the trailer only be one of the three modules). The axle module is usually the middle of the three modules, and the axle is aft of center by a foot or so. Since the boat is a bit over twelve feet long and the trailer only eight feet long, this was not going to work--the center of gravity was too far aft of the axle for safe transport. I broke down the modules and set the axle at its rearmost position.

I then loaded the boat to the trailer, securing it with a quartet of elastic straps (two bungee cords that came with the trailer section I ordered from Bikes at Work, and two straps made with old inner tubes and It-Clips--see prior entries or this link for It-Clip information).

Mindful that the way to Waterfront Park is mostly down hill from home, I rode what seemed the most direct route--Frankfort Avenue to River Road.

For Sunday's Ironman event, I am to meet the other boaters at the UofL Rowing Center parking lot, just west of the River Road intersection with Frankfort Avenue. For the Saturday practice swim, I'm to meet the other boaters near Joe's Crab Shack, a bit further down-river. I wanted to time my trip, so that I wouldn't be late. I found that I can get there in forty-five minutes or so, and plan on giving myself an hour so that I have time to unload and lock up before needing to be ready to hit the water.

Since I was at the river, I took the opportunity to do a little paddling. I stopped in the parking lot for the amphitheater between the Tumbleweed restaurant and the Rowing Center, and encountered a police officer arriving for his shift as a river patrolman. We had a cordial conversation (he's clearly been chosen in part for his willingness to be a good PR guy for the LMPD), during which he offered that I can use the LMPD slips for launching my kayak AND lock my bike and trailer by the LMPD river station for better security than I would have leaving my rig in the Yellow Parking Lot. I took him up on the offer, and had an enjoyable time on the river in my boat.

When I got back to the slip and prepared to get out of my boat, my phone was ringing. I realized that I still had it AND my small camera in my shorts pocket (good thing I didn't go for an intentional or unintentional swim!) instead of it my dry bag!

After the phone conversation, I got out of the boat and reloaded it on my trailer. A couple of passers-by commented quite favorably on my rig, then moved on to look at the police boats (the aforementioned officer seemed quite happy to discuss things with them, further supporting my assertion that he's a good PR guy).

Astute observers will recognize that the bike pulling the trailer is my Globe instead of the Big Dummy. Both bikes are equipped with Bikes at Work hitches, of course. The Globe has the dyno-powered headlight, though, and that will be important come Sunday morning! The boat is heavier than I would like, but not terrible given what I paid for it when I bought it ten years ago. I didn't need the little chainring getting up the steepest part of Frankfort Avenue during the return trip, so I figure this bike is fine for pulling loads like this (I've pulled a 250# load using this bike in the past, before I bought the Dummy, so the weight was not a concern anyway).

water tune up

 I spent my morning paddling my kayak on the Ohio River, in support of the open water swim put on by North Oldham County. Many of those participating in the event use it as a tune-up for their Ironman effort (Ironman Louisville returns for its sixth year in two weeks). Kayakers are no exception to this--we (at least I) learn from every time we are on the water doing this sort of thing.

I've been on the water for two Ironman Louisville events--my third is coming up in two weeks. I paddle my kayak to watch for swimmers who are having trouble, or who get off course, or who just need to hang on to the bow of my boat for a moment to catch a breather.

People who volunteer for such events speak of all manner of reasons. Some talk of how inspiring the athletes are as they complete various stages of the event. Some speak of the camaraderie working with other volunteers. I recognize those motivations. There are others, too.

All of us, though, are a bit selfish. We do it for the pleasure of making a difference. We do it for our own unrelated-to-the-event reasons, as well. One of my such reasons for being on the river is that, for the Ironman swim, I am on the river before the race, and it's quiet (save for car/truck noise on the I-65 bridge), and very peaceful for the Ohio. It's a chance to enjoy the river in a way not often possible in this day of frequent barge traffic. We see and hear herons and other waterfowl. The water sometimes emits a light fog. It's almost ethereal to be on the water that early on a quiet morning.

Then, of course, we get to experience the spectacle of over two thousand swimmers coming down the river. There will be the first couple of leaders, then a few more folks, eventually a steady stream of swimmers, then a thousand folks all at once, all arms and breathing and kicking and splashing and making a hell of a lot of racket. Once the huge tide passes, the numbers dwindle bit by bit, until there are only a few swimmers. By that time, each swimmer will have his or her own kayak paddler as an escort. We cheer them on, encouraging them to finish within the allotted time (if they are not out of the water by a specified time, they are removed from the event).

It's amazing to be part of this.

Today has gone to the dogs

I spoke of how I will miss Cisco a while ago.

There is never a "good" time for euthanasia of a pet. This time was no different. However, there ARE often complications in the timing. As noted before, my stepdaughters are out of town with their grandparents for a week, and we didn't want them to be dreading a coming euthanasia during their trip, or worrying about him, or dreading coming home to find he is no longer here. Letting him go before they left town seemed the lesser of the two evils.

Anyway, so that we are not lonesome for dog company, Jenn suggested that we dog sit for her parents while they are out of town. Dixie has spent time with us before, although not recently due to Cisco's advancing age and various infirmities. She is another sweet dog, so we'll have some fun with her during the week. She is far more energetic than Cisco has been, which will have some benefits as well.

Maybe I'll get some pictures of her up soon.

Requiem for a faithful dog

Cisco came into my life as part of the family I gained when Jenn and I started dating. At the time, he was eight years old or so.

Since I'm a pets person, I couldn't help but like him. He was a sweet dog--gentle, friendly with people and other dogs. He wasn't a fetch dog; indeed, let him off his leash and he would run away, eventually make a new friend or two, and let them find the tag on his collar so that he could be reunited with his people (and show off his new friend).

When Jenn and her daughters adopted Cisco from the Humane Society, they also adopted a second dog, Lilu. Lilu and Cisco were great friends, but Lilu got loose one time and was hit by a car. I never met her. I mention her as background--in many families, each pet "belongs" to one member of the family more than the others. Cisco was Rachel's dog (Lilu was Sarah's).

With Rachel away at college for much of the last four years, she was not around to do daily care for Cisco. I assumed most of the "make sure the dog gets fed/gets his meds/gets his walks" duties. I didn't mind, really. I enjoyed being out walking with him, in part just seeing him enjoy checking his "p-mail" forums and making his contributions to the "discussions" around the various shrubs, fire hydrants, mailbox posts, and so on. He helped me meet many of our neighbors, too. I feel that neighbors walking dogs helps a neighborhood be a neighborhood. It's almost a block-watch group.

Cisco had been having a rougher time over the last couple of years. One thing we found as we moved into this house was that he was doing poorly at remembering that his bathroom was outside. Our Veterinarian helped us with a canine senility drug. Eventually, the pill became a couple of pills, as liver troubles came into the picture last year. With two or sometimes three pills, we moved to putting the pills in a glob of peanut butter to make things easier for all of us. I have it on good authority that dogs like peanut butter--at least every dog I've seen express an opinion has been fond of it.

The days of lolling in his bed came to and end at some point. He apparently found it hard to get on or off it. Or the floor felt better because it was cooler. Or something. He wasn't the most vocal dog I've known.

Toward the end, though, it was clear he was suffering a bit. He was on pain medication, but at times the pain was more than the medication could control for him. He wasn't having a good time being a dog. None of us could make him suffer any more. His last treats were the dried sweet potato things we found at Feeder's. He would do anything he was able to do for one of those.

I'll miss seeing his joy at knowing he was about to get one.

bike lane rant

As some folks know, I am not generally in favor of bike lanes as they have been painted here in town. I have been getting some push back from some engineers on this, based on some vague perception that bike lanes are safer and that studies show this, or that studies show that bike lanes lead to more bike usage. Or something. There is much belief in magic paint.

I've been saying that bike lanes are a detriment to safety. Yeah, I get that folks who don't know any better think they make things safer--they don't. Just like wider lanes with huge zones of no solid obstacles don't make for safer traffic (such places encourage speeding, for example, as opposed to narrower lanes with trees closer to the roadway that tend to slow motorists and make them pay closer attention to their surroundings), bike lanes that take cyclists out of motorists' consciousness diminish safety.

I've been reminded of the Lusk study recently, as supposed proof that bike lanes are a good idea. It has some VERY big holes in the methodology that a first-term statistics student would recognize, with a horribly biased result.

I'm also reminded of all the bike infrastructure in Copenhagen or Amsterdam--two cities in countries that, by law, assume any car-vs-bike crash to be the motorist's fault unless some fairly strong contrary evidence is presented, with the result that motorists have been socialized over a long time to keep their heads out of their rectal canals. I would also offer this video of how things are perceived by a tourist in Holland. It isn't all rosy, there, for certain.

Statistics can be useful, but correlation does not imply causality: a textbook example of this is the correlation between ice cream sales and boating emergencies. When ice cream sales are high, more folks drown. Should we then ban ice cream sales? Ban boating as a way to reduce ice cream sales? The Lusk study has other, larger, problems than the correlation/causality issue, of course. It also ignores the problems created by bike lanes, as shown in analysis of this crash (ironically, this crash was in Montreal, where the Lusk research--such as it was--was done).

Anyway, here's a list of studies that supposedly prove that bike lanes are a good idea, with annotations regarding the poor statistical analyses.

I know that one big concern in Public Works is pedestrian safety. I understand that improving our numbers (reducing pedestrian injuries and deaths) is hoped to have the additional benefit of reducing car crashes in general, and car-vs-bike crashes in proportion to reducing car-vs-pedestrian incidents. I'm in favor of that goal, of course (who wouldn't be?).

I would prefer, however, that we put more emphasis on addressing the cause of the perceived danger--poor operation of those big hunks of metal--rather than making the rest of us pay by reducing our mobility. I've too often gotten the "stay in the effing bike lane" motorist harassment when the bike lane is not usable for any of several reasons, and paying money for poorly-designed bike lanes that less-confident cyclists than I will feel compelled to use despite that they put those same cyclists in greater danger is a bad thing.

 

Them's the brakes!

About a month ago, my stepdaughter borrowed my truck to help a friend of hers move some furniture into storage. The next day, she reported that the brake pedal was going very low and that the truck wasn't stopping well. I declared the truck out of service until such time as I could get around to fixing it.

Of course, being able to bicycle to jobs meant that I was not in a big hurry to fix it. Over the course of a couple weeks, I tinkered with it, and found that a brake line had rusted to the point that it had a pinhole. Of course, it was the longest line in the system, going from the distribution block under the master cylinder to the rear axle (or at least the fitting where the flex hose to the rear axle attaches). That brake line is installed to the frame rail before the wire loom and fuel tank are added to the chassis, so it doesn't come out. A replacement line is routed differently as well.

I bought ten feet of replacement brake line, a junction to connect the two segments, and an adapter to connect this line to the distribution block. Of course, replacing brake lines leads to bleeding the air from the system. In strict accordance with Murphy's Law, both rear bleed screws sheared off when I tried to open them. Next trip to the parts house was for a rear wheel cylinder, to enable bleeding the rear system.

A neighbor arrived at his home about the time I was ready to bleed the brakes, so he helped me do that. The brake pedal never seemed to build pressure, however, so I let him go home and poked around a bit more. Sure enough, the union fittings were not quite tight enough--there was a small ring of brake fluid on the driveway. That wasn't the larger problem, though: there was a much bigger puddle of brake fluid by the right front wheel!

There is a flex hose that connects at the frame and at the brake caliper. It had sprung a leak, and a fairly bad one, judging from the amount of fluid on the underside of the car and on the driveway. No wonder the brake pedal wasn't giving any feedback. I had the hose, having bought it when I put new brakes on the truck a few years ago. I dug around in the garage for a few minutes and found it, then set to installing it. The frame-end fitting was in an awkward enough place that it took a while to change out, but it eventually went back together. By this time, of course, I had to go get more brake fluid...

After a number of trips to the parts supplier, a couple of trips to a different store for brake fluid (the parts house is only open until 7:00), and a fair bit of cussing and fussing, I now have brakes! The truck is more-or-less drivable once again.

Oh, except for that when I got the report about the brakes, I also got a report that a rock had hit the windshield, causing a crack. Once I'm confident that the truck is indeed operational, I'll call the insurance company and arrange to have a new windshield installed.

...and people wonder why I prefer to ride a bicycle!

Rain barrel experiment, stage one

Well, maybe stage 1.1.

After getting half a dozen barrels, some with fittings that connect to the collection pieces, I installed two diverters in separate downspouts the other day.

One of those downspouts handles at least a third of the rainwater runoff from my roof. That gutter, like most of the gutters on my house, is equipped with one of the leaf guard things. During a moderate or heavier rain, though, the sheer volume of water is enough that much of it simply flows over the edge and never hits the gutter, let alone the downspout.

To modify this a bit, I removed a couple small sections of the gutter guard, closest to what I imagine the heaviest water flow off the roof would be. I then added the diverter in the downspout, and connected a length of hose from it to the first rain barrel.

I connected a second diverter to another downspout, and to the same barrel. I figure that this represents about forty percent of the rainwater coming from the roof.

It rained last night. The rain was pretty heavy at times. I was not home, and couldn't see how my modifications to the gutter helped or if they helped. The one barrel had filled to overflowing, and I have no idea how much water flowed out of the barrel.

Now to connect more barrels to that collection point...

Three years!

Today marks three years that I've been happily married! Who'd a thunk it?

Also, it marks three years since my last official day of employment at New Directions as a property (mis)manager. I had scheduled the day as  personal time a few weeks before, in preparation for doing RAIN that year. As it turned out, my last day on site was that Thursday--I was notified that Wednesday that Friday was to be my last day with the agency, and the wedding--planned for that September--happened earlier to avoid having to mess with COBRA for insurance coverage.

We held the ceremony at my mother and stepfather's house. Despite that Mom was sick at the time, they managed to pull together a nice place for a wedding. My sister officiated (she is ordained as a minister and recognized by Kentucky, although I'm not certain in what religion or sect her ordination occurs), so she will sometimes tell folks she married her brother. Then, after a pause, she will add, "To his wife."

Within days after my termination from New Directions, I started spending a lot more time at Bluegrass Bicycle. That was a good ride, but it has since ended.

Now I need to generate more business for my handyman service.

rain and barrels

Too late for the rain we got Saturday and this morning, I bought a few barrels fitted to be used for collecting rain water from our gutter system. I got them home, installed a couple of diverters in downspouts, connected them to a barrel, pondered placements for other diverters and barrels, poked around on facebook, and learned that a friend can get me as many more barrels as I need for the price of going to get them.

So, figuring to make use of a few more barrels, I went and collected a few.

The two or three of you who have read this blog for a while already know I hauled these barrels by bike trailer:

I really enjoyed seeing the looks on motorists' faces as they tried to figure out what I was hauling! 165 gallons of dehydrated DiHydrogen MonOxide doesn't weigh much more than the barrels to contain it, until one adds water...

Now we'll be able to collect rain water from our roof for additional supply to a few trees and other important-to-us plants in the yard, and for next year's garden project.

Hard to turn away work, but...

I had a call from a potential customer yesterday, and even before going to see the site I had reservations about how it would go. This fellow had hired a landscape designer for a fairly large project, and construction had begun. However, there were quality issues being discussed, and I was asked to come consider reworking things to the homeowners' satisfaction.

Work being something for which I would anticipate reward, I went to see what was what. On arrival a minute or three early, I found the landscape designer's truck in the driveway. When the homeowner arrived, I got more of the story.

Standing inside the house, examining the unfinished work through a patio door so as to be semi-discrete with regard to the current contractor, I was shown some of the details of why the existing work did not meet the homeowners' expectations. It became clear to me pretty early on that I had to finesse a way to politely decline the job. I figured that the size of the project was an easy enough out for me, as a sole proprietorship, and simply said that I was not equipped or staffed to do the work they wanted done (I was only speaking to the husband--the wife was not in at the moment--but it was clear that the homeowners were united regarding their problems with the contractor's work to date). I suggested a friend who has a crew that does such work as perhaps being a better fit, only to learn that this friend had visited the site, speaking with the wife instead of with the husband, a few days prior.

During the entire discussion, it was apparent to me that the homeowners were desirous of fine cabinetry-level carpentry for terracing and fencing using lumber treated for outdoor exposure. Some of their complaints regarding cuts to posts (35 degree angle instead of, say, 40 degree, makes for a bad fit for the railing being nailed to the post) were valid, to be sure. There was a joint in a handrail that looked pretty rough from forty feet away, as well. That some of the 4X4 treated posts lying on their sides as part of a terracing wall had bowed a bit was, to my eye, to be expected. It's treated lumber. It "moves around," as my friend put it.

There is little good that can come of being in the middle of a dispute between the homeowners and an existing contractor (a point on which I was a bit uneasy before I arrived at the house). Also, even if I were able to get it looking "fine furniture good" at the time I completed the project, the appearance would degrade within a year--there is simply no good way to keep treated wood from warping in some direction in response to weather.