The Blog Within

I have nothing interesting to say today, so make sure you have no food or drink in your mouth, and watch this video:

Recently Jen got me to try Pandora.com, since she has it on her shiny new phone, and I made several stations, one of them based on Evanescence.

So far so good. Great music, not very many thumbs down yada yada…

So in the mix there’s a Dutch band called Within Temptation who sounds a LOT like Evanescence, so I checked them out. They formed in the late 90′s, about the same time Evanescence did and, well, see and hear for yourself:

Imaginary.mp3
The_Howling.mp3
Taking_Over_Me.mp3
Hand_of_Sorrow.mp3

Some photos…

[View with PicLens]

Album covers…

A couple of music videos…

So there you have it…am I wrong, or are these two bands freakishly similar?

So I went to the Dominos website to look for coupons, and found one, along with a link to order online.

Why not.

I placed my order painlessly, and the site then went to the Pizza Tracker application.

Cool!

It updated in real time as Jeff (the store manager, I used to work there) made the order and loaded it into the oven. It then showed it coming out of the oven and being boxed up….at 10:24pm

Delivering…

Delivering…

Delivering…

(Dominos is 10 minutes tops from our house)

Delivering…

Delivered! “Enjoy your food”

Wait, what? There’s been no driver at my house?!?

Finally at 11:00pm, 36 minutes after he set out on his 10 minute drive, the driver showed up with our food, not in a hot bag.

Way to go Dominos, can you transfer me to Pizza Hut please…

On a related note, Cherry Village Asian Grill always ALWAYS gets here in about 15-20 from when we order, and they’re twice as far away as Dominos.

Oh, and the new handlebar grips arrived today. I’ll post my first impression as soon as I try them out tomorrow.

Ava has been bugging me to let her use the helmet cam, but I don’t really feel like moving the helmet mounting strap over to hers, and it’s fairly heavy so I’m not sure she’d like wearing it.

However it came with a mount for the seat post, so I decided to let her use it that way.

Her seat post is a little short, so the rear wheel is in the frame, sort of like a Nascar in-car cam.

The video is surprisingly smooth, much nicer than when I wore it on my helmet. I think I need to secure it, and my helmet, a lot more firmly the next time I try it.

“Too big to fail” is a mantra we’ve been hearing from the liberal congress and dictator president for the last several months. What this means is that any one of several corporations, such as General Motors or AIG, in the event of becoming insolvent, would have a negative impact on the economy of the entire world.

While this idea has merit, I feel that throwing trillions of dollars of our money at these corporations to bail out their poor business decisions is just the wrong way to go about it.

I would posit that the US economy is too big to fail. How about we take all that bailout money that is currently being pissed away on foreign banks like Deutsche Bank and give it back to us, the American People. Then WE will decide who deserves a bailout by the nature of where we spend it. WE will buy stuff which will help the economy as a whole and help a large number of ailing businesses. WE will decide that maybe Ford or Honda runs things better than GM by nature of which company we buy cars from.

Would GM fail? Maybe. Would it kill the whole economy when they then filed chapter 11? Probably not, as the rest of the economy would be charging along with all that cash we the people would be spending, which would allow the problems of GM, AIG et al to be absorbed into the larger picture.

So if the bailouts won’t really work as intended, i.e. fix GM, AIG and the economy as a whole, why do it? Because the goal of our present administration is not to fix these things, but rather to grow the power and influence of the government far beyond where it should ever be allowed to reach.

Don’t believe me? Then why did Obama just demand that the CEO of GM step down? If we allow the government to proceed down this course, there will be a lot more of that to come, and not just at the corporate level, but individual rights will become subject to executive decree as well.

The parts have trickled in, and all are finally here, so this weekend I worked on installing everything,  which is when I found out what I was still missing.

I knew I would need a bottom bracket tool, which turned out to be a $22.00 purchase. My LBS charges $20.00 to mount a bottom bracket and crankset so I went ahead and saved $2.00 and some time there.

The wheels, tires, cassette and brake rotors were no big deal.

The stem, handlebars and seatpost/saddle are all in place. I need to cut about 2” off the top of the steerer tube when I get a chance, and I need to pick up a bottle of rubbing alcohol for installing the grips.

The shifters and derailleur cables were no big deal, and the front derailleur is functional. The rear however has an issue. It is clearly a 9-speed XT model, yet its range of motion seems to only cover about 7 1/2 gears. I have no idea why, but I found a slightly used XTR on Craigslist for $50.00, and am picking it up today. Since I upgraded the 8-speed cassette on my hardtail to an 11-32, it needs a new derailleur, so I will use the weird XT there.

I also discovered that my Formula brakes did not include the mounting bolts and washers that it should have. I contacted the seller and he is sending them to me, as well as selling me a front IS adapter that it turns out I need.

Once these minor details are worked out, and I get the fork filled with new oil, (the missing foot nut is already replaced) it should be ready for its maiden voyage!

UPDATE: This bill has passed the Senate and is headed over to the House.

If you’ve ever ridden a bicycle on a public roadway, you know the feeling you get when a car passes with what feels like inches of space. Now there is something we can do about it!

The Colorado State Legislature is considering a bill to make it the law for cars to allow cyclists a full 3 feet of space when passing them on the road. There are also some provisions to clarify where and how cyclists may ride, and some increased penalties for not complying.

You can see a summary of the proposed law, as well as follow the status of the voting at Bicycle Colorado.
Bicycle Colorado also has info for contacting your state senator to urge them to vote in favor of this bill.
The full text of the bill is here.
And if you’re really hard-core, you can get one of these.