Karma, Fate or Random Chance?

This is not the first time that the Bob Jackson bicycle has been supplanted by a Bianchi.

When Donna and I came to Aiken in 1989 we each had our touring bikes originally purchased somewhere around 1980. Donna’s was the original Takara 970 and mine was the Takara 990, except for the replacement Bob Jackson frame. After we joined the Aiken Bicycle Club we both got to riding a lot more and greater distances. The Takara/Bob Jacksons were just fine. Besides the Saturday & Sunday club rides we were also commuting back and forth to work 3 or 4 times a week. Me being a glutton for punishment used to try to also ride in the Tuesday & Thursday evening bike store rides.

The bike store rides were 25 miles or so out and back from the shop and while there were a few other Aiken Bike Club riders there were also a few of the local triathletes and hammerheads. Needless to say these were very quick rides and while I could hang a while with the pack eventually somewhere around the turn-around point I would find myself spit out the back. One of the real strong riders who was about my size offered to sell me his Giant Cadex carbon fiber machine because he was going to upgrade to something nicer. It looked remarkably like this and served me well for about 3 years before I sold it to help finance a couple of Bridgestone mountain bikes for Donna and I.

The Bob Jackson soldiered on as my ride-to-work and Sunday fun ride mount until I got the bug to get another road bike for the Saturday longer rides. This time I lucked into a nice bike1 for a nice price from a fellow ABC member Big Clint2 who was going to update his machine. Big Clint loved the Bianchi mystique, his next bike was also going to be one too, but he hated the Celeste color as much as I do and he had had the bike painted silver and purple.

This time when I needed another used bike to replace the Bob Jackson, another Bianchi fell into my lap.

Replaced by a Bianchi Brava

Bianchi Brava

Found a replacement for the Bob Jackson touring bike that is suitable for commuting to work with. It was sitting right there for sale on the floor at Cyclesport. I noticed it when I first found out about the broken frame, but initially dismissed it because the price seemed like more than I wanted to spend.

After a search for a new frame on Craigslist turned up nothing within 100 miles, I headed to eBay where I got a couple of close matches. One was a complete 25″ Takara touring frame. This was an emotional favorite because an early 80’s 25″ Takara is the origin of the Bob Jackson touring bike. All the components on Bob came from this bike after I had to buy a new frame because of a crash (an interesting story for another day.) But the $200 frame lacked several key frame braze-ons it required to make it suitable for the task.

The second was a $100 (+$60 for shipping) 63cm Raleigh. It had the bare minimum of correct braze-ons for mounting racks, etc. and it was in Brian’s favorite color – blue. It was lacking a headset though, so that additional cost made it comparable to the Takara. But all Bob’s componentry is set up for a 27″ wheels making brakes and wheel fitment a very real issue on a frame designed for 700C wheels. Plus the pretty blue paint is not original, so has this been repaired for some reason or just painted to freshen it up?

Neither of these options were ideal. Even if I did buy one of them I still had to add the cost of bike shop labor to transfer parts from one frame to the next, plus any modifications needed, to the original eBay cost. The Bianchi sitting on the shop floor, was nearly perfect, its frame was one size smaller than perfect at 61cm, but it had all the correct braze-ons needed for front and rear racks (even the ones on the front forks that Bob didn’t.) So I made a low-ball offer to start the negotiations. Much to my surprise it was accepted.3

Now I kind of wish I had taken a picture of the bike in its as purchased state, because what you see above looks vastly different than that. Do you see the color of the lettering on the frame? That is called Bianchi Green or Italian Sky Blue or just Celeste, and is the traditional color of Bianchi bicycles. The bike was swimming in that color, the clipless pedals, the seat, the handle bar tape and even the sidewall of the tires where that color. I guess if you are a Bianchi purist you would have liked it, but to me it reminded me of the Splash Green color that came on Miatas in 2003 which I despised.

Stephen Hawking is an Optimist

All over the science section of my Google News feed today was the bold prediction by mega-mind theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking that humans have about a century to find another planetary home. Collating all the scientific data I could make up, the following chart proves that Mr. Hawking is an optimist.

Looks like a couple of decades before geneticists figure out how to make humans immortal, the ability of mankind to survive on Earth will diminish to zero.

May the Fourth Be With these Mop Tops

You just had to know that a person who actually bought a DVD off the internet of the Dark Side of the Rainbow would like this. To borrow a phrase from the AV Club, “Good Job Internet!” Just in time for the 40th anniversary of the release of “Episode IV – A New Hope” (AKA Star Wars) the fine folks at Palette-Swap Ninja have created a mash-up of that movie and the Beatles album Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. The above video is just to the first song, here is a link to the playlist so you can watch the whole movie/album/music video. Now we need someone to string them all together removing the filler for real seamless experience.

One other random Star Wars Day link for you: Did Inadequate Women’s Healthcare Destroy Star Wars’ Old Republic?

Until next year,
May the Force be with you.
Bri’us Winew

Underfoot Matters II

Over Spray/Dribble Mat

This is new. These cute little mats have started to appear under the urinals in the Valve Store. On Tuesday they were in place in two of the bathrooms and today they arrived in a third. I guess tomorrow they will make it all the way to the last one back close to where I am.

I’m no janitorial expert, but I’m thinking these things should be rotated 180° with the wide ends lined up with the outside edges of the porcelain fixture, that way you’d get better dribble coverage. Plus another clue making me think they are upside down is that the name of the company that supplies them, Cintas, is written in the lower left at an angle that would be easier to read if the thing was rotated around.

The only thing I can think of is the person who is distributing these things believe they are dual purpose and they not only absorb tee-tee, but thinks that maybe they are for the comfort of the person doing the tee-teeing.

Underfoot Matters

The bright light coming in the window overpowered the auto-focus feature on the camera, but you know, it kind of looks nice all soft and fuzzy.

When the Valve Store added on a big metal room in the back for us engineers, they put in a small section of tile at the entrance and rest of the floor was done in a mostly tan-ish colored industrial grade carpet squares (the Emperor actually had a free set of floor mats of the stuff for awhile.) The carpet was a nice compliment to the tan cubicle walls, but I think they underestimated the amount of foot traffic from the machine shop floor we would get. Within 2 weeks there was a noticeable greasy trail to the shift supervisors office’s. Within a month you could start to see the same thing leading to the department’s engineer’s abode. After a couple months the powers that be thought we need to do something to protect the new carpet.

They contacted our uniform supplier and the next week we had 5 dark brown throw rugs placed in a ‘T’ shape near the entrance in hopes of them removing the oil from the bottom of the shoes coming in. And while the rugs did a good job of hiding most of the really bad oil paths you could still see some lighter shading in places. In the 6 or so intervening years we have been in this building we have learned that while the carpet oil traps work, they don’t work 100%. Those faint trails that appeared in the first few weeks have now moved to cover nearly every aisle and in some case into the cubes themselves.

While the rugs were only sort of good at keeping the carpet clean, what they were really good at was creating an occasional trip hazard. If you have ever placed a rubber backed throw rug down on top of carpet you know that the throw will move very, very slightly with each step and eventually become crooked or buckle up like a little tectonic plate. Over that same amount of time we have had at least a dozen near misses, just stumbles, not actual falls, but complaining didn’t seem to do any good. Well last week the right person finally took it seriously and the Tool Crib Attendant (and Uniform Supplier Liaison) came in, rolled up the five throw rugs and tossed them aside.

Overnight, someone on 2nd or 3rd shift or maybe even the night cleaning crew decided that something was off and put the rugs back in place. Friday the Tool Crib Attendant rolled up again and told the 1st shift supervisor to pass the word. I thought it might help if she hid them and that’s when I went, “Hmmm.” I bet one of those rugs might look nice in my cubicle, sort of class the place up, so I re-purposed one. I’m not too sure how long I’ll get to keep it, no one seems really jealous of my new look, but all it will take is one comment to the wrong person and it will get re-re-purposed back to the uniform supply people.

Optimistic or Marketing Hype?

When my fair city of Aiken was first laid out back in the late 1800’s they started by naming the few streets after South Carolina Counties. As the city grew north and west they eventually ran out of county names, so they started adding US state names. Before the Bomb Plant development just blew-up the size of town to the south it went east a bit and they used some SC city names.

A dozen or so years ago the Aiken Corporation4 built a 30,0000 sq.ft. spec building on the northeast side of town on Beaufort Street across from where Hampton Avenue ended. The city provided the services, water, sewer and paved in a little road extending Hampton. The building was on one of the two 6 acres lots and they zoned it light industrial and they created a small industrial park. Unfortunately, light industry never came. Over the years there have been inquires about the building and every once in a while there will be a little blurb in the paper about something thinking of moving there, but the monolithic appearing structure still sits empty.

This morning on the way to work, my usual route takes me right by the building, I noticed a new street sign leading into the “industrial park” where our underutilized sits. Instead of keeping it Hampton Ave or naming it Hampton Ave Ext, they gave it a different name. In keeping with the city name naming structure it has a sign that says Prosperity even though Google thinks it is still Hampton Ave NE.