Archive for February, 2008

Unicycle ride log, entry 0

Ride: Reservoir ride from Nathan’s house. Corbin, Louise, Eric, Nathan.

Date: Feb 28, 2008

Time: 7:50? AM – 9 AM

Riding Time: 1:02? (forgot the exact time)

Distance: 12 miles

Average Speed: 11.7 mph (riding, nonstop)

Max speed: 23 mph

Route: Nathan’s house, down Los Gatos, Los gatos creek trail paralleling freeway, around reservoir, and back to Nathan’s.

Training ride for Vietnam.

My dad is selling his house in hawaii:

http://maui.fnismls.com/publink/default.asp?GUID=50d2d87d-d6b3-4d68-83a3-4844e35df1f6&Report=Yes

This is a rare chance to buy some ocean front property right in Lahaina town.

Contact my dad via the link above, or contact me.

I welded on a little bracket to the back of my big 36′er unicycle frame to allow me to mount a cable brake:

The nimbus 36 frame that I use can run magura brakes, but I found I didn’t like them as much. They squeeked, and worse, they rubbed against the rim when going up steep hills. The cable brake has more clearance, and is also softer (which allows me to brake more often without worrying about it throwing me off the unicycle).

A picture of my handlebar that I made with the brake:

And the whole unicycle (before I welded the brake mount on I mounted it with two pipe clamps to make sure I liked it before I committed to welding it on):

I’ve been working on my “Woodshop” (aka: the garage) in preparation for some larger projects (in particular, kitchen cabinets). Jason Beaver, who works with me at Apple, clued me into how bad it is to breath wood dust. So, I ended up getting a dust collector.

Here’s a picture of my current layout before I began work on the dust collector:

Grinder stand:

The dust collector — I purchased the Grizzly G1030 3 HP Dust Collector. I wanted something that could move a lot of air, and supported 6 inch ducting, which is better for moving fine dust away from the machine and out of the air. This is a non-cyclone dust collector; my intent was to vent the air to the outside. The machine was also much cheaper than a cyclone — it was only $395, plus $74 shipping to my door. A cyclone would have been at least $750 for the machine alone, and probably would have been 1.5 or 2 hp and not 3 hp.

Of course, this required rewiring the shop, as it needed 220 volt. But, that was okay, as it isn’t too hard to do, and I really wanted a larger circuit breaker box and to make my table saw run 220 too.

I wanted to vent the air outside, and not hear the sound of the machine. So, I built a shed out back. I poured a 3″ concrete slab, 3′ by 8′ in size. This was my first concrete job, and it turned out pretty good. I ended up having to spend about $200-$300 on plywood and hardware, but most of the wood was recycled from the deck project.

Here’s a picture of the dust collector peaking out from its new home:

After building the back shed, I could cut the hole in the wall and run ducting. I ran 6″ out and dropped in a T to fork off to two machines and a floor sweep with 4″ flexible hose. The picture below shows one machine not hooked up yet (the jointer — which I need a dust hood for).

Then, I ran the 6″ directly over to the tablesaw:

I need some 6″ flexible hose, so the 6 temporarily drops to 4″ flexible tubing for now.

Next up is to run some more ducting over to my “welding area” to suck away all the fumes generated by melting steel.

I’m also going to build a new router table, and table saw out feed table. The out feed table will double as a work table and down draft sanding table (also hooked up to the dust collector).

Some guys who made a cool treehouse in france emailed me a link to their site:

http://www.cabanepassion.fr/index_eng.htm

The treehouse is great! They have a spiral staircase and a lift custom made out of steel: http://www.cabanepassion.fr/acces-cabane-perchee_eng.htm

Makes me wish I had more time to work on my treehouse!

Louise and I saw the new Cirque du Soleil show, Kooza, in San Jose last night. It was great!

http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/CirqueDuSoleil/en/showstickets/kooza/intro/intro.htm

The show features a unicycle act; the most impressive part about that act was the fact that it is very difficult to unicycle with someone else holding on to you, and they were doing that while making it look very artistic and flowing.

My favorite part was probably the clowns. They were pretty darn funny, and even made Louise laugh!

We want to go see some of the other shows in Vegas. I’m hoping to make it a double-up trip and visit Red Rocks for some climbing.