Fixed Uly's swing...sorta

So Uly has this awesome swing...

I bumped into it two days ago and knocked it over, damaging the motherboard (modest though it may be) so that it functioned only erratically.

Anyway, I thought, lets cut out the digital middleman and install a rehostat (that's the knobby dially thing that turns the dining room lights up and down)

Enter me to Radio Shack and a $2.99 volume control knob. Two hours and a sliced up middle finger later, it works -- sorta.

It's too fast and the control too sensitive. The volume control is a potentiometer, not exactly a rehostat, but I don't know the difference.

Back to the drawing board. ("And Pa goes sailin' thru the winder!")

- Steve

I am a chaos junkie

I just emailed two guys who need a ride to Dayton for a 5am flight. Told 'em I'd do it for $60...but it's really for the adventure. I'm sick, I know it.

Steve

There's a difference between straw and hay

I'm a city boy. I didn't know that, but now I do.

I want straw for Ghost to sleep on, not hay. Hay is dried grass and legumes that animals eat. Straw is an agricultural byproduct, the dry stalk of a cereal plant, after the nutrient grain or seed has been removed.

Thanks, wikipedia.

Oh, I also found out that I was guilty of another reality inversion. I woke early today to go to Reading Feed to but straw and dog food, but they open at 9 am, not 6 am.

Ok, I'll go back later.

Citybeat stuff to do today and care of Uly, of course, too.

- Steve

New bike, good weather and our anniversary

We're on some down time here at my mom's place. Beck is feeding Uly and we're getting ready to head out to celebrate our second wedding anniversary.

I picked up a new mountain bike today from Craigslist. It turns out it's cheaper ($40) to buy someone elses hardly used bike than fixing mine ($100+). The bike is a 1997 Diamondback with rockshocks on the front and nobby tires. It's ultralight chromoly and aluminum and - wow - it's the fastest, lightest bike I've ever owned. When new, this baby sold for around $1,000. I found a review online - the cops use it in a couple of cities and everyone else thinks it kicks ass. I am a devotee now, too.

Elizabeth's boyfriend Sam - who just recently moved here from Lubbock Texas - and Angela Pancela, from St. Louis, joined me on a ride downtown from Norwood. Angela had to double back after we made it to Broadway Commons. Sam and I went on to Newport, Covington, Downtown Cincy, Findlay Market, Liverty Hill and then back home to Norwood. Great ride.

Beck and I are going out to a mexican place tonight. I'll let you know what we think about Cancun later on...

- Steve

"Wolverine: I'm the best there is at what I do." or "Why I am through with bullshit."

I've been getting serious about lots 'o' stuff as of late, what with my new midget boss and all.

The revelation of the week came to me early Monday morning, as I was laying on an examination table with the lights off.

"I'm not going to get my blood pressure to go down far enough," I thought. "I should just get home. I'm already late...breathe, calm...that's good...why am I still here?"

See, I had to get by blood pressure down really low, like 130 over 70 or something, to be in this stupid E Coli study. It pays $800. It's like found money if I do it all. I can work while they experiment on me and learn what it's like to be in a research study...Richard Rodruigez, the mexican Tarantino, financed his first film this way.

Yeah, all this stuff is running through my mind and my BP is going nowhere slow. I flash back to Sunday afternoon, as I tell my insanely funny joke about my buddy Andy being scattered and smart and Kev laughs that I'm that way, too...

"I need to leave. This is bullshit."

"But it'd be so cool! I could write on my laptop while I'm innoculated with the attenuated bacteria...you know, the same one that's killed two people this week and caused the spinich shortage."

Yeah.

See, I'm not a house painter or a serious designer or a professional apartment broker or a guinea pig for that matter.

I do a couple of things well: Writing, reporting, photography. I need to stick with those and stop dallying...at least as much as I have.

Sheesh!

Anyway, I am reworking Goxray.com for the eventuality that I'll be doing just what I do best and not a lot of other crap that I may be cery interested in, but shouldn't pursue for money. Check it out if you would, and tell me what you think of the design in progress.

There's so much more I'd like to say on this blog...

...and here's what's distracting me. :)