Misc

Anything about everything and somethings about nothing. If it doesn’t have it’s own category it’s going to be here.

Stripping the Frame Set

I totally dropped the ball this year on Halloween, I don’t really know why I just did not give a sh*t this year. I realized I was looking for costumes 2 days before it and just said fuuuuggit. What I did manage to do though was to take apart my bicycle and chemically remove the 6 layers of alternating orange and yellow as well as 2 layers of primer and burgundy spray paint from the frame and fork. It took a few coats of paint remover but I got all the paint off and was disappointed to see the crappy welds that hold my frame together, it’s all kind of crude. Paint remover is pretty radical though.

Paint Removal

After a while it started feeling like a tank and the anxiety I had about going in and tinkering with the bike was replaced with a zen like comfort that it is just a bike. I mean you can see it all right there in front of you. No matter how bad I screw up there’s always the local bike shops.

Paint Removal

I did all with an allen wrench set, a long flat head screw driver, a small hammer, two large phone books, one small phone book and two trips to the bike shop for a lock ring and bottom bracket remover ($30). I also had to snatch a bag of bike tools from my moms house (priceless).

Paint Removal

It was really cool to be able to get it all back together again too. Banging on steel with a phone book and a hammer was ghetto but it worked out nicely. It’s all coming along, need to get a wheel set and a new headset and then I will paint the frame flat black and probably change my handlebars. For now I just have raw steel and I’m hoping it doesn’t begin to rust.

Bike are for tweekers. The tools are all tweeked out too. Grease smells like grease. I smell like grease.

Last Week & Stuff

Last week was pretty stellar. A little of everything really and my good friend Conor was here all week  so you know we went deep water fishing and scuba diving. The highlight by far was Conor and I being rear ended by a hot Russian (?) chick with a tremendous booty and a shady friend with an unidentifiable accent. They were rollin’ in a nice Mercedes and they totally rear ended us while sitting at a red light on El Cajon Blvd. Conor’s mini van incurred some damage as well but I did not take any pics since he owns the damaged van (I dunno, it made sense at the time).

Rear Ender

The girls were headed to a club or something. They insisted on driving the car even though it was pretty smashed up. I couldn’t get my hand between the wheel well and the tire but the drove off anyways. If you look in the picture above you can see the shady passenger laying low. The driver was nice and very apologetic.

Rear Ender

It was a nice car… Thankfully Conor and I were fine. The whole experience was odd. It was kind of like woah did we just get rear ended?

To continue with the crashing theme I wiped out and ate it on my bike this morning. My pedal hit the floor while I pedaling over a speed bump and it sent me flying through the air. I landed face down on the street with my bike under the right side of my body and limbs. Luckily my forearm caught the full impact. I had minor scratches on palms and a small cherry by my arm pit. This guy how ever is quite nasty looking. It looks extra gnar gnar in the photo below because I had driven on the freeway with window down and it sort of dried up and was wrinkling when I flexed my arm. It looks a lot less like a strawberry after washing it off.

Road Rash

The Great Alley Fire Scare!

So early Thursday morning around 1:45 am Xty and I were awoken by frantic banging on our front door gate. We finally heard enough banging to get up to the window and yell out there to see what the deal was and then as I awoke more you could hear walkie talkies and people saying fire, evacuate the building. Naturally we shit, and scrambled around and hid some stuff and then we were out of the house hoping our shit would still be there when we returned.

Once outside with all our neighbors it became clear that another neighbors car had caught fire in the alley and she had parked like 9 inches away from the garage door. Me and her down stairs neighbor have garage on either side of her and we were both lucky enough to have had our cars in the garage that night!

The firefighters were on top of it and the fire was out within 10 minutes and everyone had a smelly house and garage. It was kind of crazy to just be stuck outside of your house with no idea how bad the fire is or anything. After a few minutes they all just started leaving so we sort of assumed it was cool to go back in.

The alley was a mess and the smoldering remains of the car smelled like ass, mainly the rubber tire smell refuses to fade. My garage also smells terrible. Her garage door and frame is completely toasted.

Flannel Grub Strikes Again!

So really it came between Kaws and Mishka this time around and I am happy to say that Mishka won. The Loveless Flannel in Magenta* from Mishka’s Fall 1 installment has a nice tight fit and the colors pop like a muhfug. It is very well put together and all the stitches on it are perfect (I looked at every single one!). Thanks to the kind folks at un|steady for the nice price.

Mishka Loveless Flannel Magenta
Mishka Loveless Flannel Magenta
*Note AMFM has been hard at work trying to figure out what exactly is magenta, why it’s different for everybody and why it is called magenta

Mo Brixton

Got me a Delta hat and a Bowery flannel a few weeks ago (should of got a small!) The Delta is pretty bad ass. It is shorter and wider and I assume it is why the top of the hat is pushed out unlike the Stroll. The Delta sort of rests on your head. It’s made of really soft paper straw and has a nice burgundy silk lining. Me like.

Delta
Delta

The Bowery Flannel is also pretty awesome, it is super soft and was very comforting while I was sick a few weeks back. I kept getting cold and hot and the flannel was very okay with being put on and off multiple times through out the day. It also kind of reminds me of this blue flannel my dad rock around the house. He would always be cold so rather than bump the heater he wore a thick ass flannel. Warm, thin, soft and fits really nicely. Like I said I should of got a small for the ultimate awesome but the medium is just baggy enough to be a bummy day flanny or an evening walk along the beach flanny. Get some.

Bowery Flannel
Bowery Flannel

A way to import old Outlook emails into gmail

Finally! For me at least. I remember searching a few months back it seemed damn near impossible to get your outlook emails into Gmail. Turns out now it is not so hard.

Read more here: http://www.zoliblog.com/2007/10/24/simplified-guide-to-importing-all-your-archive-email-into-gmail/

This is great for many reasons. Outlook is essentially a giant turd and I’m currently phasing it out of my personal and business work flow to be replaced with Gmail and Thunderbird. Just feels better I dunno. As you already know if you’re a Gmail user it has an exceptional user interface. It took me a little while to fully appreciate Gmail’s approach to organizing email but with the addition of a few Google Labs (multiple inbox, custom colored labels, drag and drop sidebars, google docs, etc) and a custom colored theme I began to take it all in and it felt really nice. If you’re feeling stuck with Outlook give it a try I think you will be most pleased.

Fyxation Pink Tires!

I finally found some pink tires I can dig on. It came between these and some Tufo tubular tires. These were cheaper and I figured I’d be better off not worrying about tires with no inner tubes and gluing them down to the rim and all that good stuff. I think both tires were a similar shade of neon pink. They are a little thicker than my current tires but I figured I should get them now and worry about some new rims and hubs in the near future. I hope they fit as there is very little room in the rear inner of the frame. Getting closer.

fyxation
Fyxation tires

The blog is back?

It has been a long strange trip since I last updated this thing. Really only two weeks but it has felt like months. I can only thank those closest to me who listened to me babble crazy for a little bit and gave me hope when I needed it most. Infinite kisses and hugs and fine things all around.

Every now and then you must stop and wonder why? Hopefully the answers don’t freak you out. Maybe it’s just The Voice of a Pork Chop by Jim Jackson.

It Has Begun!

Now that I have my bike comes the fun part of actually making it mine. I don’t have anything too drastic planned but the bike will look pretty ill once I’m finished. I’m shooting for murdered out with pink or magenta details and a possibly a slime ball seat.

Since it is somewhat a mid to long term goal I have begun buying a part or two a week so in a little bit I should have all my parts and stuff ready to go.

One of the first things I noticed when I got my bike was that most the parts on it are dirt bike/bmx parts. It also came with bullhorn bars which grew on me but I might still get a straight bar. The pedals were clear red Colony pedals which also grew on me so I got some in black (not clear) They are nice chunky pedals and look like they can take a beating.

I also picked up a rad seat. It too is a dirt bike seat but it looks a little wider and shorter than my current ball buster saddle which is a plesant upgrade from the long narrow track seat it came with.

slimeball seat
slimeball seat
colony pedal
colony pedal

Oh Yeah!

Got a half pound of turkey that cost $8.99/lb for $1.76 because humans prefer to rely on a machines that depend on specific buttons being pressed with fingers. The occasional slip of the finger results in me getting turkey fore the price of coleslaw. Yay me, thanks to the deli lady.

Ludwig Super Sale!

Don’t sleep smaller folks with loot to burn! Ludwig has a bunch of cool gear for sale and on top of that you can get 40% off with the promo code “9000”. I broke under the pressure and picked up this plaid button up short sleever. They also have some of those ill flannels from fall 08 for sale. http://www.ludwigvantheman.com/shop/

Ludwig Clay button up

SEMA, QR, QuickMark Code Reader for T-mobile Dash

I realize I’m behind the times in a few ways here. I know this whole SEMA and QR thing is a bit old and everyone has been kind of slow to catch onto it over here in the states. I also know the T-mobile Dash phone is kind of meh as far as smart phones go. It has a somewhat limited range of applications.

I was really happy when I stumbled onto this post with a link to QuickMark. On the downside you have to register to download the application for your phone (they support many, many phone manufacturers and models). The upside being that’s the only downside. Without registering you can access a nice code generator for just about any possible scenario the code might be needed for in various formats (sema, qr, qm, china)