Bike porn

Here are some better pics of my newly completed '09 Speedvagen. The color is 'Creamy Celery' soup. Yes, I forgot to remove the front derailleur alignment sticker - because I still haven't ridden the bike yet. I'll take it out for it's inaugural spin later today.

Unemployed

Last day at Borland was today. Micro Focus is closing down our Austin office, so I've been laid off (along with 90% of R&D). Officially, I'm still a Borland employee for 60 more days, but I don't have to go into the office.

Ahhh... 2 months to work on my tan and find a job. Oh, wait - I already have a tan. Just need a job now.

Thankfully, minimum wage is now $7.25 per hour and engineers are still in demand.

Half-century

Helped Eric celebrate the big 5-oh last night at Opal Divines. Their Bandera burger was dry, but their beers were cold - so it all worked out. The day before a group of us rode the Spicewood Springs loop. Eric's still pretty fast for an old fart, but I still beat him home by not riding through the Triangle. Tour watching party at my house afterward. Dustin even managed to ride in from Steiner for the occasion.

Saw (500) Days of Summer and The Hurt Locker recently - both are excellent love stories about following your heart - although more people die in The Hurt Locker.

Cat update: Well, at least one of the cats has butt worms - which means both of the cats probably have butt worms. It's a little disconcerting. I hate those things. I was changing sheets recently and saw little golden grains of rice on my comforter - a nice tell-tale sign of tapeworms. Luckily, the cats arrived with medication in case such an outbreak were to occur. The medication came with a rubber-tipped dispenser stick that holds a pill, so you can jab it into the cats mouth in safety. Wearing heavy gloves, I managed to get one pill down the skinny cat's mouth - after which, it clawed the shit out of me. The second pill I ground up and put in their food. It took 3 days before they would actually eat the food.


Speedvagen update: Put a fork in it, it's done - all built up with 7900 series Dura Ace and RS80 wheels. Looks nice. It's a stock 54cm with an integrated seatpost sized for me. I was in between a stock 54 and a 56, so I went with the 54. Seems to work, as all the major touch points match between my wrecked 2008 frame and the new frame. Bike weighs 17 lbs as you see it - pedals, cages and all. Not bad for a steel bike.

Will I dream?

Shutting down...

After this week, Borland, the company, will be assimilated into the mothership of Micro Focus.

In true geek fashion, we have shirts to commemorate our demise:


Apologies to Arthur C. Clarke.

Backstory: the box in the design was part of our Open ALM marketing campaign from last year. The idea being, we don't care what tools you use, just feed it into the Borland black box and meaningful results will appear.

Bad belt, bad belt.

Took my Mazda Tribute in for its 15,000 mile scheduled maintenance yesterday. The dealer wanted to charge me $200 to condition the battery and freshen the cabin filter. I passed on those. With my internet coupon, the service visit was a very pleasant $45. That's especially amazing when you consider the same maintenance on my other car would have cost 10 times that much.

The Mazda dealer also told me my engine belt was slipping, so they replaced it under warranty. Apparently, the loose belt was making all kinds of bad noises when I accelerated. Which explains why my shifts from 1st to 2nd always sounded so heinous.

Going to Houston tomorrow for another short family visit. Unfortunately, I'm missing the Saturday tubing trip down the Comal and the Chipotle Ride on Sunday. You guys have fun. And remember to hydrate and re-hydrate.

Update: Finished wiring in the light and light switch. The shed - she is done. If you ever need electrical wiring help, this web site is great.

A/C is good

It's coming along. Panel went in yesterday. Got the window unit hooked up in the shed this morning. Have a new outlet for the beer fridge. Need another trip to Home Depot for an overhead light. Now, if I could only figure out an outhouse, I could rent this thing as student housing.


Also - my replacement Speedvagen arrived this morning. The color is 'Celery Soup'. The cats are very interested.

Maru

Picked up 250 feet of Romex and assorted accouterments yesterday. Ready to start wiring.

Ms. Berekely forwarded these videos of an overweight Scottish Fold that lives in Japan. Apparently, he likes to get in things. Pretty amazing, actually.

Hills, hills, hills

Vacation officially started today. Have a week off. Not much planned except to finish wiring up the shed and get the a/c unit installed. May take off to some cooler climes.

Rode Mt Bonnell, Red Bud and Stratford with Pete this morning. First time to hit the hills since my 'incident'. Recovery ride on the Spicewood Springs loop tomorrow with Pete, Glenn, Karen and the kids. They're (ahem, we're) all doing the Hotter than Hell next month in Wichita Falls.

Btw, saw Public Enemies earlier today. Good film. No Christian Bale meltdown on this one.

Connect, re-connect

Brandon and Stacey, along with their kids Kendall and Riley are in town from Sunnyvale for a fancy wedding. Caught up with them at dinner last night at Shady Grove. Brandon was the first guy I knew who owned a Merckx - like 15 or so years ago. Now, he rides a Moots and commutes on a Conquest. Brandon's company sponsors the Webcor cycling team. Pretty cool.



Also reconnected with my college roommate Scott on Facebook today. The last time I saw him was in New York on my way back from Brazil. He and Lydia weren't married yet, so I guess it's been over 20 years. They look amazingly the same as I remembered them.


And what's with my friends having the coolest kids around. Kendall and Riley were like little adults through a 3 hour dinner and unplugged at the Grove. And not just Brandon and Stacey, but my friends in town also. Seriously, they are some some pretty lucky parents.

Bike update: Just got an email from Vanilla Bicycles this afternoon. My replacement Speedvagen is on it's way. Hooray!

2 x 2 x 2

It's all about pairs.

I've been building up a couple of 90's era Ibis Ti Mojos over the past couple of years - searching eBay and swap meets looking for just the right parts. I finally finished them both recently. They're both mediums, both have the iconic hand job cable stop, and both have XTR drivetrains.

I thought it'd be cool to have a couple of retro bikes to cruise around town with. But I have more frames coming in, so I'm cutting bait on the purple decaled one.

That one has 8-speed XTR with a Race Face crank and Easton bars, stem and seat post. And a nice White industries front hub with multi-colored nipples.



The one I'm keeping has 9-speed XTR, and a bunch of fancy red anodized parts - including Chris King hubs, headset, nipples, and uber rare Cook Bros Racing cranks and quick releases. It also has Avid Arch Supreme brakes and ti stem and ti handlebars. The h-bars are a set of old Sakaes from the 90's that I found at Frankenbike recently for $15.



I've been listening to a couple of instrumental-ish groups at work recently, Explosions in the Sky and Mo' Horizons. Explosions are local. Mo' are from Germany. Both tour extensively, but I can't imagine I'll ever go to one of their shows. I once saw Tangerine Dream at an outdoor amphitheater in Detroit. I laid on the grassy knoll most of the evening with my eyes closed, imagining I was laying on my couch, with a drink in my hand. Some bands you just don't need to see or hear live.



Lastly, fat cat and skinny cat are finally warming up to me. The older, skinnier one wakes me up in the morning by licking my fingers. In my delirious state, I try not to think about what else they lick with their tongues. The summer heat is making them shed quite a bit. And you know me, I can be a bit of a clean freak, so I vacuum a couple of times a week. However, the vacuum seem to scare the living daylights out of the two, so I've been attempting to brush them on a daily basis, with a variety of fur collecting implements. This is proving to be quite a challenge also.