Good things for the kiddo

Nimue was pleased to find out on Friday that she *finally* was citizen of the month this month.  

The character trait: 

Patience

Ha.

(pictured with Mr. Ibarra, the student teacher in her class)

She also happily got all of the points possible on her science project, which was a plant survey along Stevens Creek to try to ask the question of how the plants vary as a function of distance from a water source.  A much more complicated project than the standard "Which kind of cheese molds the fastest?", with a 17 mile mountain bike ride from the top of the ridge to home, lots of plant identification, and messy data to interpret .

The photographic process

I'm sure this happens to others with kids too, but it's not straightforward to take family photos.  Case in point:

So next time you wonder why we never look very civilized, realize that we're not.

The Gift

Nimue wrote me a story for my birthday.  I thought you'd all enjoy it.

The Gift

A while ago, when the world was mostly untouched, there was a little cat named Eumin. He was a gray kitty, with big green eyes and speckled whiskers. He loved to run about the meadows and chase butterflies.

But one day Eumin met another cat in the meadows.She was a lovely orange tabby with bright blue eyes. Her name was Ymmom. Eumin thought that she was the most wonderful cat in the world.

And so the two cats became friends. Ymmom taught Eumin how to catch mice and Eumin showed Ymmom how to catch fish. They were happy living together for many months.

Some time later Eumin realized that Ymmom’s birthday was very soon and that he did not have a present for her. He knew she liked bicycles, but he did not have enough money for a bicycle. He knew she liked chocolate, but he didn’t where to get any chocolate. He knew she liked cheese too, but he didn’t have enough time to make cheese. It seemed liked Eumin could do nothing for his friend.

Eumin decided to take a walk in the meadow to clear his mind. As he strolled around, he noticed a daisy was open to the sun’s light. This gave him an idea. a wonderful, fabulous, amazing idea.

On Ymmom’s birthday, Eumin watched her open beautifully wrapped packages. Finally it was his turn. He presented his gift without twitching a whisker. Ymmom was delighted. Eumin had picked a beautiful daisy just for her. She took out her favorite vase and filled it with water. Then she set the flower delicately inside it.

Of all Ymmom’s presents, Eumin’s daisy was her favorite. The two cats are still best friends, and they love each other as much as I love you.

By Nimue    For Mommy’s 42nd birthday, with love

When wrong is worse than none

So, I had two occasions this past weekend to bemoan the woeful state of technical documentation provided with bike parts... sometimes, having *incorrect* information is worse than having none at all.

My two examples:

1) I was installing some new disc brakes on one of Anna's bikes (the old ones were truly a poor excuse for brakes... but that's another story!) The nice little sheet of installation info that came in the box provided a helpful drawing, with an arrow pointing to the cable-binder bolt, and the torque value to be used. Very nice. But what's the torque that should be used on the brake attachment bolts -- the ones that actually hold the brake on to the bike? Well, there's another helpful drawing, and look another arrow... oh wait. It's the *same* drawing. The *same* arrow. Pointing to the wrong bolt. But hey, the torque value's different here. So now, which one is right? And for which bolt(s)?

Without the (dubiously) helpful information provided by the manufacturer, I would simply have resorted to my tried-and-true mechanic's experience (or, as a fallback, engineering degrees) and applied the 'ol two-fingers-on-the-wrench rule, and worried no further.

2) Installing new Speedplay cleats on a new set of road shoes, one must choose and use the right set of shims to match the base of the cleat to the sole of the shoe. I referred to the handy info sheet... ah, there's a column for shoe manufacturer and model, check, there's mine; at least something close -- the shoes are 2013 model, the sheet only has 2012 and earlier, but all the models list the same shims. OK let's check on-line. Yep, Speedplay keeps the latest and most-updated list conveniently downloadable. Checking that, all looks the same. OK here we go, get everything installed with those shims and %^&%$ doesn't look quite right, cleat's bowed in the middle ^%$%^ gotta take it all apart again. Check documentation, yeah I read it right, what the heck's going on here? Try it with the other shims, yeah I know that's not what the manufacturer *said* it should be, but hey whatta know perfect fit.

Without the (not-quite) comprehensive, up-to-date info provided by the manufacturer, I would have test-fit both sets of shims and decided which actually fit best, *before* clamping down and torquing to spec all seven screws.

So I'm now tempted just to disregard any little pieces of paper that come along with my bike parts in the future. Except that the engineer in me is convinced that, if I do so, some critical nugget of info will pass unnoticed, leading to Dire Consequences.

For the future reference of myself and other bike-wrenches, the important but missing or misleading information from above is as follows:

- Avid BB-7 brake caliper CPS bolt torque is 9-10 Nm.
- Speedplay Zero cleats on 2013 Specialized S-Works shoes require the 1-F and 1-R shims, NOT the 4-F and 4-R.

Photos from ski week

An slight variation on ski week this year 

First two days:  Warm and dry.  Mountain biking (in shorts!) down at Bullard's Bar Reservoir for me and Chad; cake pops and craft projects for the kiddo and Linda.

Tuesday:  Snowstorm!  Work, reading, and snow walks.

Wednesday:  Ski day at Yuba Pass.  Growing kiddo fits the same cross country boots and skis that I sometimes use!  Scary. (I was on my heavier A/T gear so Chad and I could take turns going up and down the bigger hill)

Also amusing trucksicles.  (not for human consumption)

Thursday: Drive to Donner Lake to meet Stephan's family for dinner.

Friday, Saturday:  Downhill skiing.  Yay!  I enjoyed the moguls, Nimue graduated to lesson level 4 (mostly black terrain) and scraped her way down her first double black in the trees, and Chad got very sore legs from skiing the hard way (telemark).

Kitties were glad to see us when we made it back home.

Happy Valentine's Day

Nimue is in a Valentine-y mood.  Happy Day, all!  We're thinking of you.

In other news, the weather definitely thinks it is not winter any more.  Nim and I had a lovely ride from Santa Cruz to and around Wilder Ranch on Saturday while Chad was on a long ride with his weekend ride crew.  She's at the point where a 25 mile mostly flat ride is easily within her capabilities -- at least when there is a bakery stop at the end.  Mmmm...pastries at the Buttery.

Another sign of warmth:  While riding up a hill in the Santa Cruz Mountains this morning, I came around the corner to see a naked guy working on his Volkswagen in the sunshine in his driveway. (Not pictured...)  Clearly, spring has arrived!

Downieville weekend

Belated, but finally up:

We spent the three day weekend last month at Linda's, pruning the apple tree, fixing a few things around the house, and getting a few backcountry ski turns in.  Chad figured out how to put together a video from the footage off of his helmet cam for all to enjoy.

In other January fun, we've found some mud,

hiked a bit,

made bagels, (after reading about them on my friend Di's blog)

and gotten a new toy (belated anniversary gift).

Anyone know what that latter object is?  Heh heh heh.  Now I need to learn to make music on it (as opposed to noise)!

Model for MacBeaky

I've not been communicating much for the last couple of weeks, as we've hit the new year running at full speed.  Since we got home from WA, we've collectively:

caught up with several friends (Anna, Chad, Nimue)
reorganized the pit of chaos in the bedroom (Chad and Anna)
snuck in a day trip to ski at Sugarbowl (Anna, Nimue)
done our respective first slow ridge climbs of the year (Anna, Chad)
caught a cold (Chad)
gave up and cleaned up all the slimy leaves in the front yard that weren't drying out (Anna)

I've also had several rehearsals in the new Bing Auditorium at Stanford for the Music Department's opening concert; I snuck Chad and Nimue in for the Early Music Singers rehearsal earlier this week since it appeared to be impossible to get tickets.  EMS is singing Gabrieli's In Ecclesiis with the Whole Noyse; several of us are also doing the Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music and the Ravel Daphnis et Chloe Suite with the giant choir singing with the Stanford Orchestra -- and, as I found out last night, a horrible school anthem "Hail Stanford, Hail!" dating back from 1893.  How I could sing with the school for 20 years and never run across that, I don't know, but I could have happily remained in blissful ignorance...  The new performance space is quite visually stunning, and seems to have a decent acoustic.  They're still putting the finishing touches on (sealing the floors and the like) before this weekend's opening concerts.

I also got out for a hike at Picchetti Ranch this morning and ran across the model for MacBeaky  -- most amusing, as he probably would have let me pet him if I tried.  I settled for taking a couple of pictures. Happy New Year all!

Christmas

Yesterday was Christmas, and Ma asked me to write a post about it, so here goes:

For Christmas, Grandma Linda came down to visit us and share the holiday cheer :) .  Of course that is exciting for everyone, because grandmas are like that.

Lots of gifts were exchanged, the best one, I think, was a pair of overalls for me. I've been wanting overalls for a REALLY long time.  Some other memorable gifts are:

• A bike stand for Daddy
• A pair of awesome earrings for Ma that I made
• A stripy sweater for me
• A pair of fancy bike shoes for Ma
• My school photograph for Grandma Linda
• Adventure food for all of us
• The LEGO 4x4 Crawler, given to me by Santa Claus
• Fancy cat food/treats for the cats
• More iPad games for all of us

Tomorrow we are heading up to Gramma Eileen and Grampa Jack's house to visit relatives there.

Merry Christmas!