Mark Anderson

After dropping the chain on a hard climb I replaced the cassette on my mountain bike. It certainly shifts better.

I put maybe 5000 miles on it which seems low to me. Whatever...

You can see that I really like that large cog. That's 26F 51R and I'm considering 24 front.

I'm officially old.

I found this bit of clothing a block from my house and suspect it is a swimsuit.

But honestly, I don't know if the top is on the left or right.

It's a topological disaster area.

I've been using these calipers for over 30 years and dropped them for the first time. It took a lot of carb cleaner to get it moving again.

We're still working on finding zero.

I'll check calibration before returning to service.

Sigh...

I'm wondering how the next owners of my house are going to feel about the 3 ton lathe. For many of my friends it's an asset.

My friends are atypical.

Biked up Pennock Pass today with my neighbor Jeremy who said, "It's hard to believe that you can go uphill for 12 miles."

The volunteers at Historicorps were renovating the Buckhorn Ranger Station.

Biked up Old Fall River Rd to 10,700’ elevation where the snow crosses the road.

A 3 mile section of the return trip seems to indicate that the elk prefer to poop on the downhill side of the road 29 to 6.

It's not often that I get to machine a true conic section.

My bike was making creaky sounds when I'd pedal but not coasting over bumps.

My reptilian brain said, "I know this sound, replace the suspension bearing."

My nerd brain said, "We only get noise on the pedal stroke, it's the crank bearing (bottom bracket)."

It was the suspension. The reptile won.

From the FortCollins community on Reddit: Sidewalk math Explore this post and more from the FortCollins community

It's official, I've made it into the big league.

www.reddit.com/r/FortCollin...

No, it's some mechanical thing with a tube full of fluid which expands and pushes on a switch.

Hmmm, the unit is headed to recycling. Maybe I'll monkey with it a bit to see if I can adjust something. Still, I don't know that I'd trust the results.

The aquastat on my boiler was acting oddly, but not failing. I decided to wait until the summer before potentially destroying my source of heat.

It's supposed to have 15°F hysteresis, not 50.

Easy testing: hot water, thermometer and ohm meter.

Index shifting is nice and all that but I can clean and lube this 70's derailleur in 10 minutes.

I was cutting a pipe on the lathe and it would appear that something got magnetized.

No underwear in the yard today and it was graduation weekend.

Just some gymnast slippers and a T-shirt.

Booooring.

Climbing harnesses are tight and tend to make men look like they're hung like a warhorse. I don't know that this artifact needs to be faithfully reproduced in the mannequins.

Kinda burned the brakes today. I don't think those 203 mm rotors and resin pads are intended for a 250 pound gross weight and a long steep descent.

The brakes worked okay once they cooled off.

This is the real reason America has not adopted the metric system. If they said 4 inches women would never have sex again.

It uses mineral oil. I tried to clean it off with brake cleaner but I think I just dissolved the oil into the resin pad. Sanding the surface didn't really help.

New pads are $5.

For bike nerds.

The brakes were a bit soft and inspection showed the pistons weren't moving well. I machined a step block which allowed me to individually clean and lube each piston.

Seems to have worked.

I've also learned that 3 molecules of oil will permanently contaminate brake pads.

There's a lot of critter poop in the yard. It looks a bit large for a rabbit and there's way too much volume, that's 10% of a rabbit's body weight.

Unless, it was the Easter Bunny.

I was biking at Soapstone, it's quite desolate 1 mile from Wyoming.

I found this heron rookery when biking along the Poudre River near Timnath. They used to live across the interstate but that grove of trees was removed for some reason. Then the herons moved to cell towers. It's good to see them back in trees.

I watched the movie Quadrophenia last night. It's okay but Blues Brothers is a better movie for music.

Because of the dialect, I had the subtitles turned on. I learned there are two very different ways the musical theme is presented.

Love, reign ov'r me
Love, rain on me

My neighbors told a story.

Him: I need to move something heavy, can you help?
Her: I'm doing colonoscopy prep. What do you think would happen?
Him: Yah. Never mind.

I seem to be having one of those days when I'm pissing off everyone.

If you're one of the irritated, don't take it personally, everyone feels this way.

If I haven't pissed you off yet. Take a number, I'll get to you eventually.

The top needs to be very planar to match the bottom of the granite slab. I'm using a laser level (the red line on the wood block) to adjust the leveling feet. It's a lot of fiddling around to get everything planar and true. I'd just tack welded in a few places to kinda hold everything together. My dad taught me the art of tacking, it's a useful skill.

The completed frame. I'm concerned about the granite cracking so it's supported pretty well in the middle and along the short end. The long end is a 54" span and when I sit on it, it deflects about 1/64th of an inch. I think it will be rigid enough. The dog bone details are simply 4 holes and a slot. They're pretty easy to make but it does take some time and all the machined edges need to be deburred.

Another dog bone table frame for my friends who have a leftover slab of granite. And dogs.

Another proposed bumper sticker.

This is from 6 years ago, back when the internet was used to post photos of cats.
>>>>
Did a 15 minute cabinet modification at a friend's house. Zena decided it wasn't okay for me to leave.

Mount Alto picnic area.

The 4 mile descent is south facing and mostly dry.

The 11 mile climb has some icy bits which needed studded tires.

Second lunch happened here.

Rode the Switzerland Loop today, about 20 miles and 2k' of climbing.

Four miles required studded tires and another mile was slushy and unbearable.

My legs hurt.

Yes I am. Unfortunately, given the current climate we may find ourselves in a global depression and WW3 in a few years. Although having a job probably won't mitigate the effects of that shitshow.