Resolution: FAIL

Here are the pictures of the sump pump fix.

First, the two floats together


Here, the washer chopped down with a dremel (allowed the float to fall back to a specific place in the "well".



And, of course the description of why we did it and how it works below in the month old post.

New Years resolution: more posts

We'll see how that pans out. Erika and I stayed at my parents house over the holidays and we had some interesting weather to say the least. First, it was super cold and snowy when we arrived. Then it warmed up and started raining. Anyone who has a basement in the Chicago area knows what that means...flooding.

So the family is sitting in the dining room listening to the sump pump kick on and off when suddenly it starts making a funny noise (funny uh-oh, not funny ha-ha). So Dad trots down to the crawl space only to find the pump won't shut off when the water level is low. We messed with it for a few minutes and determined that it also wouldn't shut off when the water level is high any longer, either...unless you jar the float in some manner (we used a screwdriver). The pump would work if you simply moved the float past it's natural resting position by putting more upward or downward force on it than normal. All that was needed was a gentle lift or push with a finger.

Bear in mind, this is all figured out over 30 minutes while it continues to rain buckets and everyone else in Chicago is finding out the hard way their pump has failed. It'll be a while before the plumber arrives and neither of us feel like crouching in a crawl space poking the sump pump every minute or so to turn it on or off. Most importantly, it worked well enough to get us out of the crawl space for the three hour wait for the plumber to arrive.

The solution? Go buy a toilet bowl float and zip tie it to the sump pump float. The added weight will pull down on the float with greater than normal force and the added buoyancy will lift the float with greater than normal force.

Total cost? a few bucks for float, zip ties and a huge deck screw to plug the float hole.

Pictures to come soon.

I shall call you: Hamburger Knee

Erika and I are pretty sad to have the house all to ourselves...we miss Slammer a lot. At the same time, we both realized it wouldn't do us any good to sit around and cry whenever we saw something she played with, laid on, chewed on, etc. So we took a trip to Fruita, CO. It's a cool mountain bike town on the western slope with great riding.

Here are some pictures.

Driving at sunset toward Fruita.


Erika is cute. This was a super mellow climb, but it made us appreciate our complete lack of fitness after 8 weeks of taking care of a suffering dog.


Erika shreds the Zippety Do Da trail. Note the trail following the ridge in the distance.


In an effort to try and get some level of physical condition back before Thanksgiving, I went to try out some large-ish jumps at lunch. I was doing fine until I jumped during a cross-wind. My beautiful blue baby was unharmed during the crash. Now with updated icky picture!

Slammer: 2000 - 2008

We love you and we'll miss you.

Bike photos

Here is the finished beast.



I painted the headbadge with Krylon. I think it's stainless steel, so we'll see how long it stays this color.

Was: Red Heat, Now: Blue Heat

Earlier this year, I bought a new frame in anticipation of the Hammerschmidt release. I got it in red because most of my bikes have been red. On the Turner website, it looked like a candy apple red, but it was really a flat, boring red with a semi-polished rear triangle and a black rocker link...see below.



It wasn't a bad looking bike but it certainly wasn't handsome, either. Also, I didn't have downtube cable routing, so I was left with zipties holding it in place and scuffing the paint. So, I took it to Spectrum Powder Works here in the Springs and had it painted. It looks great. Now I just have to reassemble the bike. Check it out.


Complete frame...the upper rocker link will be black to echo the Turner type. The Turner logotype is painted on...no more scratched decals.


Detail of the cable stop near the head tube. Yes, it's held on by JB Weld.


ISCG Tabs. I'll have to face the frame again to get all the powder off, but no biggie.


A nice view of the non-drive side dropout.

Lotus Europa - WIP

Long time no post.

Here are some pictures of a model car I picked up a while back. I started working on it again when Erika asked "when are you going to work on that again?". I chose the Europa because of the Lotus philosophy of weight savings. So many cars on the road offer big power, but in a big heavy package that handles poorly.

It offered about half the horsepower of a stock subaru WRX, but the heaviest of the Europa models weighed in at about 1600 lbs...less than half what my Subaru weighs. So the power to weight ratio was just marvelous for the 1970s.

"Simplify, then add lightness" is a famous quote from Lotus founder Colin Chapman. When I finish, that quote will appear on the case I put this car in.

Pictures:


Lotus Big Valve! 126 hp!


Front Suspension, steering and brakes.


Motor, exhaust, rear suspension.

Pump Track update #3

Well I haven't been updating the blog so much...busy, busy. This is only the third pump track update because I've been mostly riding it and not taking pictures. A co-worker came over with his BMX bike and helped me refine some areas of the track.

Below are some pictures.

Chuck just moved from sea level. He's out of breath in front of the big berm.


Entrance to the track.


Ripping the big berm

Pictures from Europe

Here are some pictures I took during my trip to Europe a while back.

Central area of Leusden (where I stayed) and my main mode of transportation in Holland.


Thatched roof...they're everywhere.


Really nice landscaping is also commonplace.


Funny horse laying down. He then proceeded to scratch his back on the grass, get up and take off running. The other one just stood and ate grass.


A good example of the stellar cycling routes in Holland. It is the best place I've ever ridden a bike (for purpose).


A windmill. They're not as common as you might think, but they aren't rare either.

Pretty View

Erika and I went on a bike ride yesterday from Buffalo Creek. It's a little closer to Denver than to us, but was a very nice ride. We wound up getting a little lost and climbing for a little longer than we'd have liked to, but it was worth it. We wound up at Wellington Lake with this view:



We also started pulling some of the lettuce from the garden...it looks tasty. I grabbed a little sprout to try some and managed to find some of the only mustard greens in there. So my mouth tastes a little funny.

Pump Track update #2

I decided to change up the layout a little bit. With the old layout, you could easily get stuck going in one direction. You'd always enter going clockwise, but if you took any of the center lines, you'd get turned around and be stuck doing a nascar, with no way out.

Here are some pictures.




The new set-up should allow for a figure 8 run, or just an s-bend that lets you change direction. It will take some doing, but I'm up to the challenge.

Long time no post

Okay, back to it. With the weather being so nice, I've been out riding a lot and hence, not updating the blog.

Enough with the excuses here is some stuff. I carry a good amount of crap in the trunk of my car. Jumper cables, bungee cords, tow straps, 20mm fork adapters for the roof rack, wrenches (10mm, 12mm, 14mm, 17mm), a reverseable screwdriver...you get the idea. To my credit, I've never been stranded anywhere and can help anyone who might be.

But I also really enjoy the occasional canyon carving session and all that crap makes a TON of noise. Solution? Foam in the spare tire well.

Check it:


And the resulting empty looking trunk.



Also, Erika's garden is shaping up nicely. Her tomatoes are coming along. We put up some plastic wrap to protect them from the harsh sunlight (we live at 6000' elevation) and all the hail we get in the spring.





Besides tomatoes, there are onions, some hot peppers and some other tasty stuff.

Garden Time

Erika and I spent most of our day digging in the dirt. We built a raised bed for her vegetable garden and couldn't have had a nicer day for it. Here is the completed product:



It's untreated wood, with some stakes sunk in for stability. It's not pretty, but it's functional.

We also got a peach tree and planted it in the center of the pump track. Hopefully, this time next year we'll be eating some tasty peaches between pump track sessions.

Pump Track update

Here are some non-spy photos of the track. I spent about 4 more hours on it today. A view of the track from the fire pit:


A views of the 180 degree berm. I rode this a couple times and it's pretty awesome.


In the front of the picture is a really tight, 60 or 70 degree turn. I'm going to bet when you hit this right, you'll have to make a real effort to keep your head up. The 180 degree berm appears in the background


Erika also got started on her garden. She's going to have tomatoes, lettuce, fennel, garlic, zucchini...and loads of other stuff, too. I'm going to be eating good once I build the box for it. I snagged some 2x12s and 1x2s to build a box. She spent a good portion of time ripping up old grass and turning the soil.

Yard work...kind of

I have, hands down, one of the coolest ladies on the planet living with me. "Why?" you ask. Two words: PUMP. TRACK. If you don't know what that is go here. Yes, Erika has consented to me ripping up a large portion of the lawn.

I started building it this afternoon and kept going well past dusk...I spent almost 5 hours on it. It's a 40' x 60' area that's going to be a figure 8-ish layout. It will have a few cool features. First will be a 180 degree berm. Second will be a diagonal line option. To be honest, I'm crossing my fingers on how this all turns out. The goal is for it to be loads of fun for both Erika (less experienced) and I (more experienced) to ride for a few hours.

Here are some spy pictures Erika took from the back porch.

Something not related to the house

For anyone out there with a Subaru they want to make a little faster and learn a lot about, go here.

Romraider is an open source tuning solution for Subaru engine management. You can change nearly anything in the stock ECU. You can totally blow up your motor if you want! Your investment is a $70 cable from a company called Tactrix. Additionally, you can log data from your ECU to understand what it is doing. In the case of my 02 WRX, I can see when the turbo is making what pressure, what ignition timing looks like and what duty cycle the fuel injectors are running at. See pics of maps below:


Then, when you really want to have fun and risk spending serious coin, try some little changes...baby steps. So over the last year or so, I've gone from a motor pulling in 137g/sec of air at 5k rpm to a motor that pulls about 160g/sec...about a 17% increase in horsepower. Having my oil analysed has shown no adverse wear on the car...just tons of fun.

House update - Moved in!

Well, we finally are settled in the new house. I put most of the shoe moulding down:


I only skipped the mudroom. I'll probably do that on Friday when the TV guy comes during his 4 hour timeblock. Otherwise the mudroom is looking good.


I drilled a 2x4 into the studs with some deck screws and then just threaded some hooks in to hang bikes from. I could do a chin-up on it, so I figured it'd hold a couple DH bikes.

The living room looks nice as well, lots of open space. We cleaned all the window treatments and re-hung them. It will help a lot in the summer with all the sun the house gets.


I also got a new bike, one of these. I rode it yesterday and today and it rides great. Pictures later.

Finishing touches on the floors

So I spent the last few evenings this week putting down tile and then fixing one that came loose on the edge. I made the mistake of just catching my toe on it...and the board to build up to the tile wasn't in place. Oops. Here is how the grout is looking.


I pretty much just have to clean today, put down some shoe moulding and I'll be done. If you recall from the photo of where the sink used to be on March 9, you'll notice there are no more pipes coming out of the floor save for the washer/dryer hook-ups.

Speaking of shoe moulding, with all the carpet removal, you can guess what the house has none of...that's right, none anywhere. So how much moulding is needed for a 1300 sq ft house? This much:


It's about 200 ft of it, I stained it all yesterday and will varnish it today.

Here is a without moulding/with moulding comparison. The photos only show it covering the mistakes in our edge sanding...which really doesn't do it justice. It completes the room in a really big way. The color is also a little better match than the photos show.



Also, Erika has done a great job with the paint. The bath room has a really nice earth/sky thing going.


Now I just have to move in so I can sit on the can for a while.