Archive for January, 2007

We now have nice window sills. I made them out of a long piece of Douglas fir that I got from Southern Lumber in San Jose. All the wood was expensive, but it looks great. I put three coats of indoor varnish on it. They match the doors really well.

We also now have vent covers:

Another view of the window and you can see me and Louise in the reflection:

Well! Louise and I were unable to use the water in our house for about two weeks. We had trouble with the septic tank; it was backing up somewhere from the cleanout by the house to the tank itself. This could have been real bad, as that pipe is directly underneath our new driveway.

So, we called Roto-Rooter, for better or for worse. $315 later we still had the same problem, and the guy figured we needed to have the tank pumped. So, I dug up the tank cover, which was a pain in the ass and a lot of work. In addition, since I work during the day, I dug it up at night. But I didn’t want to open the top.

The pumpers: Honeybucket Septic. I called the Honeybucket guy and they came out the next day. I could tell because they ran over the edge of my new driveway and broke some pieces off of it, and left marks where they drove right up to the tank. I called them to see what they did. I didn’t get a call back, so I called again the next day. Frustrated that they weren’t calling me back, I decided to open the tank and see if they pumped it. So, I opened it (it wasn’t so bad), and either they pumped it, or it didn’t need to be pumped.

I called rotorooter back again, since they said they’d come back for free. They came out on Monday, and before the guy got there Honeybucket FINALLY called me back! 4 or 5 days, geeez! He said they did pump it and freed up the clog (which was a lie — it was still blocked). I have yet to get the bill, but I’m sure it will be $400+. Rotorooter poked around and figured it was a broken pipe by the tank or somewhere under the driveway.

So, the guy left. That night, I started digging. I dug up a TON of dirt. I discovered that the pipe that enters the tank had dropped down about 4 inches, and was full of roots. So I cleaned it up and dug more dirt out to fix the problem.

The next problem – cast iron steel pipe! I dug enough of it out to where I would need to cut it. The next day, I called around and of the people who I talked to, I got ONE quote (I called five or six places — of which, I left several messages with people or machines and only got one call back the next day). The quote was $700..screw that, as I already am in the hole $700 and nothing was fixed.

So, what to do? I rent a pipe cutter the next day, at lunch, for $20. I start the process of cutting it, and the damn pipe just falls out of the dirt! Apparently, it was already broken about two more inches into the ground. If i had only dug a little further! So, I didn’t need the cutter, and dig out the rest of the stuff.

the rest of the story: I bought pipes, lego’ed it together, stuck my arm in the tank to remove old parts, and now it all works!

Here is the piece of pipe that I replaced with some black ABS 4“. You can’t tell, but the whole is deep. It is like 3-4 feet in some spots! It took hours to dig it out. I still need to finish tossing the dirt back on.

Here’s the old piece of cast iron, along with the part that was in the tank that I replaced:

I like electric cars. Oh wait; I should use the term “EV” since it is what all the cool kids say. And, if you aren’t in the know, EV is short for “electric vehicle”. Now, why do I like EVs? Well, they aren’t as harmful to the environment as gas cars, they are much quieter, and some of them have a really nice torque curve. I’d say oil is the number one reason that I’ve become more interested in them in the past few years, but I’ve always liked electrics. Heck, when I was young I spent many hours playing with my R/C EVs.

Oil. I’ve been listening to NPR (National Public Radio) for a while, and it saddens me that Bush is sending more people to Iraq. We really need to NOT be in that war. It is not our war, and the only reason we are there is to make sure we can get our next fix in our addiction to oil. We need to slap that addiction away, but the solution isn’t hydrogen or corn fuel. It is electric.

Hydrogen fuel cells are a laugh. I mean, are they serious? For them to work, they would first have to build a huge fueling station infrastructure. Without serious government subsidies, that would never work. And why waste our hard earned tax dollars on it in the first place? We ALREADY have an excellent infrastructure built for delivering electricity; why not use it? How many people really drive more than a hundred miles a day, or who can’t simply “charge up” at night? For those that do need more than 100-200 miles a day (the current rough EV max ranges), there are hybrids.

Hybrids. Hybrids are great, and I want one. Well, I really want a Tesla. http://www.teslamotors.com/, but I can’t afford one. Well, if I couldn’t get a Tesla, I’d want an “eBox” — a converted Scion by AC Propulsion. However, they take your $15k-$18k Scion and convert it for a measly $55k. That brings your total to $70k. Heck…for that price you might as wekk save up an extra 20+k and get the Tesla.

I am prone to the oil addiction, and I can’t get rid of my current car yet. It is still “too new” and I need to get more miles out of it. I have a 2004 Subaru WRX STi. It is a super-fast car, which doesn’t guzzle too much gas considering it spits out 300 HP. It is also pretty practical, as I can carry four people and have room for junk in the trunk. I’d try to sell it now, but I’ve been really using the car, and it has a few nicks and dents that would really lower the value. I need to wait a few more years. Then, I’ll probably get a Prius, and if I want to splurge, a plugin conversion kit.

Oh..i have this bookmark:

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId=118933#2

I’m writing this offline at my house, but if I remember right that is a new hybrid. The ironic part; it doesn’t mention MPG…which is the main selling point of a hybrid!! I bet they left it out because it gets horrible mileage.

corbin.

I’ve had many horrible experiences with pedals. After my latest set of pedals pulled out, I decided to start recording my experiences for the benefit of others. I’ll go through them in the order I acquired the pedals.

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1. Wellgo (unknown specific kind). My 2004 24“ Kris Holm Mountain Unicycle came with these pedals. They have a horrible flaw; non-replaceable spikes.

As you can see in the above pictures, the spikes have worn down to nearly nothing, making it really hard to keep your feet on the pedals when doing really rough riding. In addition, the bearings have worn away quite a bit, and they don’t spin quite as freely as they once did and I can hear some grinding in the bearings.

Good points:

• Cheap
• Pretty strong (they have yet to break)

Bad points:

• Non-replaceable spikes (a deal breaker!)
• Non-sealed bearings

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2. Snafus. These pedals come stock with the KH mountain unicycles, and in general are pretty good pedals for the price. However, they will quickly fall apart after some use. I’ve gone through 3 or 4 sets of Snafus, all of which I acquired for free.

One thing to notice is the end design, seen above. The X on the end is a very strong design, and something to look for when buying a pedal. I’ll cover more on this later.

Good points:

• Very spiky spikes. They stick to my feet really well.
• Strong pedal design.

Bad points:

• Only 4 replaceable spikes. Two are non-replaceable, and will quickly wear down and become useless.
• The non-sealed bearings will quickly erode.
• Ball bearings are loose, and sometimes get chewed up
• 4 spikes just aren’t enough!

I’ve had some pretty bad experiences with Snafus. My friend, Mark, had a set seize up on a ride, making the pedal not turn at all. I’ve also had this same experience. The pedal kept locking, and finally, I pulled the bearing bold off and shook out all the remaining bearings in order to make it back home. I’ve discovered that ”maintaining them“ by taking apart the bearings and regreasing them has little to do with them lasting any longer. The non-sealed bearings quickly get trashed, especially if you ride through water or a dusty area.

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3. Oddessy. At first, I was very happy with these pedals. They were relatively cheap, and seemed to have a very spikey grip for my feet. There are a total of ten replaceable spikes. I love the feel of these pedals.

Now, for the bad. Take a look at this picture:

The pedal front/back design has a huge hole. While this probably produces a lighter pedal, it sacrifices a lot of strength. One day, I was riding my muni along a railroad track and slipped off. The pedal hit smack dab on the weak spot, and broke right off! The still relatively new pedals became instantly useless. In addition, I was starting to get a scratchy feeling in the pedals; probably from the fact that these ones were non-sealed.

Good points:

• Very spiky spikes. They stick to my feet the best and are replaceable.

Bad points:

The non-sealed bearings will quickly erode.

The pedal design is weak, and broke.

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4. Wellgo B-57. I finally decided to splurge and get a nice, expensive, sealed set of pedals, in the hope that they would last. I specifically looked for a set of pedals that had a strong front wall, to prevent the same breakage from happening again. The B-57s fit the bill perfectly:

Now these pedals were great! I loved the size and the spiky pedals, until…..

… the whole insides just pulled out!! I had put these pedals on my trials unicycle for one day and after hopping down a 3-set the pedal just fell off!!!

It appears that the end connection is not very strong. Well…so much for trying that set of expensive pedals. They are definitely not worth it!

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5. Crankbros 5050. Now we get to my current set of pedals on my same KH 24. I bought this set from REI, since they have an excellent return policy if you aren’t happy. These pedals appear to be really strong, with lots of spikes, and sealed bearings:

The end looks good:

The front side looks good:

So far, I have only one complaint with these pedals. They aren’t quite spiky enough. The slight triangle spike just isn’t quite enough to grip into my shoes. So, in really wet weather I was slipping off the pedals quite a bit. Other than that, they are great. In fact, if the spikes really bother me I may end up going down to Ace hardware and getting a few replacements to screw in, so it isn’t a horrible problem.

Well, I do have one small other complaint; they sort of make a funny rattling noise, as the way you remove the spikes is by removing a piece of the pedal. Strange design, but it may make it stronger.

For now, they have only gone on two muni rides. Only time will tell if they last….