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The Great Tire Showdown
Summer’s over, and that means that the joys of cold weather bike commuting are right around the corner. I’m still trying to find an all-season commuting tire that provides the best combination of speed and resistance to flats. And of course, nothing provides a better test bed for tires than Maryland roads in the winter.…
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Brewing…
Thinking about brewing this yummy-sounding brown ale this fall… Oak Leaf Brown Ale 6 2/3 pounds light malt extract 1 pound crystal malt (80L or higher) 1/2 pound chocolate malt 1 pound dark brown sugar 1 ounce Kent Goldings hops (bittering) 1/2 ounce Perle hops (flavoring) 1 package British ale yeast 3/4 cup corn sugar…
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This morning’s fun
Today’s pool maintenance fun.. Spend 30 minutes with the leafmaster, vacuuming up all the junk at the bottom of the pool from the storms last night. Achieve pleasant sense of accomplishment and well-being as I begin to remove the leafmaster from the now-clean pool. Watch leafmaster bag separate from leafmaster as I’m pulling it out…
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Beep. Beep. Beep.
So. We were without air conditioning in our building for awhile today. Fortunately it’s a nice day out with unseasonably low humidity and a breeze, so I was able to open the window to make it tolerable. It’s amazing how much beeping you hear in populated regions (like college campuses) nowadays. Seems like all day…
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This and That
So.. another summer is upon us. Howard County schools finally let out at the end of this week. I remember when I was a kid, summer vacation was almost 3 months long, and now it’s down to barely two. Instead, there are tons more random days off during the school year, for “professional teacher work…
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Today’s Ride
I got an early start on the commute this morning, so I decided to try an alternate, longer route to get from Elkridge to UMBC on the bike: West on Montgomery Rd Right on Rockburn Dr Right on Montgomery Rd Right on Kerger Rd Right on Ilchester Rd Left on Beechwood Rd Left on Bonnie…
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A tale of two web sites
I’m a frequent shopper at my local big-box home improvement warehouse chains. I’ve got my pick of them, too — at last count there were 3 Lowes and around 8 Home Depots within 30 minutes drive of my house. Welcome to the Baltimore-Washington corridor. I’m also a web surfer. I like to plan projects at…
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Chlorine Generator Manifold Repair
I’m in the process of installing a salt-water chlorine generator (model DIG-60 from AutoPilot) for my swimming pool. As part of this, I need to plumb the salt cell in downstream of my filter. The cell is part of a big inline manifold which includes a 3lb spring check valve. The valve’s purpose is to…
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Perl rocks
I’m doing a bit of tidying-up of my online music library for consistency.. editing tags, renaming files, that kind of thing. My library consists mainly of FLAC files ripped from my CD collection. My music player of choice on my Ubuntu box is Banshee. Banshee has an “Edit Metadata” feature which looks very handy on…
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Today’s ride
It was my coldest morning commute of the year today. 14° with a wind chill of 2°. I usually check the temperature before getting on the bike, so I can figure out what to wear. Didn’t bother today.. already knew it was going to be cold, so I just bundled up. In hindsight, I’m glad…