a test

I think my metal is being tested..... Biking week in review:

Monday - Broke a spoke on my commuter bike. I initially thought I had a flat, as I was just riding along down the trail, heard a pop and then my bike would go no further as the rim was against the break pad.

Tuesday - Flat tire on my cruiser bike. Rode to work - no problem. Mid-day looked at my bike and there was no air in the rear tire. Fortunatly we have a bike shop within 1 mile of my office so I fixed it and rode home. The punture was on the inside (rim side) of the tube - no idea how it happened.

Wednesday - Rain. Heard the rumbling, knew it was comming -> went anyways. A third into my trek is started sprinking, thought, I can handle this. Half way is started coming down. Final 1/4 was a downpour. Fortunatley I was prepared. Had my important stuff in the otter box and a towel / change of clothes at the office.

Thursday / Friday - Who knows...... Da Da Duhhhhhhhhhhh.

Commuter Report Card

In an effort to hold myself accountable in 2009, I decided to post my "commuter report card" for days biked to work. Basically this report showed the days I commuted by bike (blue), non-commutable days such as weekends, holidays and out-of-town days (gray) and slacker days (white). Although I'm sure I have plenty of excuses to account for the "slacker days" (weather, errands, needed car for work...) - I will make none here, although december sucked for many reasons.

I updated it as I went and this is the final tally.

Monthly Stats
Jan- 6 days, 68 miles, avg. 1.5 days / week or 30% of the time
Feb- 10 days, 114 miles, avg. 2.5 days / week or 50% of the time
Mar- 6 days, 68 miles, avg. 1.4 days / week or 27% of the time
Apr- 11 days, 125 miles, avg. 2.5 days / week or 50% of the time
May- 11 days, 125 miles, avg. 3.4 days / week or 69% of the time
Jun- 12 days, 137 miles, avg. 3.5 days / week or 71% of the time

Jul- 20 days, 217 miles, avg. 4.5 days / week or 91% of the time

Aug- 18 days, 205 miles, avg. 4.5 days / week or 90% of the time

Sep- 11 days, 125 miles, avg. 3.1 days / week or 61% of the time

Oct- 16 days, 182 miles, avg. 4.2 days / week or 84% of the time

Nov- 12 days, 137 miles, avg. 3.2 days / week or 63% of the time

Dec- 1 day, 11 miles, avg. 0.3 days / week or 7% of the time

Weekly Stats
Mon- 52%
Tues- 60%
Wed- 56%
Thur- 53%
Fri- 69%

Total- 134 days, 1528 miles, avg. 2.9 days / week or 58% of the time

UPDATED: 31 December

bike2work week

FYI - this is national bike2work week. If you didn't ride today you have 4 more days to figure out a route and commute!

happy earth day

In honor of today being earth day I decided to proceed with phase 2 of one twentieth of my commute. Finished product to be debuted this fall.

So far this year my biking efforts have been hit or miss. I've been averaging just over 1.9 commutes by bicycle per week for a total of ~350miles this year. I am trying to bike every day this week. So far so good - although monday with 30-40mph winds in my face the whole ride home kinda sucked.

office hops

So I decided to try out yet another experiment in gardening. Hopefully this one turns out better than last years'.

The experiment: grow some hops at my office.

I've actually been thinking about this ever since I moved into my current office space last June, which has 10'+ high windows. The one thing holding me back until now was obtaining the hop rhizome, which are only for sale in the springtime. April 4th I stopped by Kirk's Brew and he had just gotten some in. Some articles in the latest online issue of BYO gave me the information and motivation to pursue the project. Stopped by Westlake where I bought a pot and some soil and finally got around to planting it today.

Last year I bought a mt. hood rhizome in May and planted it in the backyard. It did ok, but the combination of the late start and not properly pruning the bines caused it to fizzle out by mid summer after growing just a couple of feet. I purchased two different rhizomes this year. Kirk recommended cascade and nugget hops as varieties that do well in Nebraska (last year I didn't have a choice).


I decided to put them both in containers. Lack of space and the potential for a little more control sold me on the idea. BYO recommends a 20" diameter pot, which is frickin huge yet apparently necessary as they have large root systems. I filled up the pot with 2 cu-ft of soil -> shook it to settle it down making sure not to compact the soil -> dug a ~2.5" deep trench -> dropped in the rhizome -> covered and added about 3 gallons of water. And so the experiment begins.

one twentieth of my commute

Rough take on a concept I've been mulling around for a while. My hope is to capture one commute per season. This was taken on my way in this morning.

Chinese New Year's Resolution

Today being Chinese New Year's day, I decided to post on my new year's resolution - bike to work as much as possible. I've posted on this goal in the past (1, 2, 3), and I can honestly say I've fallen well short. This year I am really going to do it. I even bought some new old lights for my cruiser. Powered by me, the rear light has an old-school schwinn generator that powers it and the front lamp. Works like a charm unless I stop so I put a flashing LED light on back too.

So far not great. Between the bitter cold, snow, high winds and random errands/appointments - I've only managed to bike a handful of times this year. Hopefully change is coming soon.

Upside-Down Experiment

I decided to try my hand at upside-down veg growing this year. I've attempted gardening for many years now - pretty much ever since I moved out of the dorms. When I lived in the bottoms, I had a pretty good garden going. I hoed a 4'x4' plot in a nice sunny spot that was overflowing with tomatoes and peppers. When I moved to washington street, the lack of yard forced me to try a few plants in the sunniest spots I could find, but with no success.

In my current location I've had minimal success as well. I hoed a 4'x8' plot two years ago and have planted it with tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Noel would not let me put it in the front yard, so I put it in the sunniest spot in back. Unfortunately, this spot just isn't that sunny - poor tree placement. The plot gets great morning sun, but is covered by noon and is spotty in the afternoon. Over the course of the summer the plants will generally grow nice and tall, if the rabbits don’t get to them first. When it comes time for them to fruit - they just won't produce. The birds usually manage to peck away at the few we do get and then I walk away from yet another failed experiment.

So what to do this year? I filled the plot with rhubarb and asparagus. My understanding is that they don’t require quite as much sun as the bigger fruited plants, and that they take a couple years to establish. The plan is to do some tree trimming (for a future garage) in the mean time and maybe by the time the plants are ready they'll have plenty of sun.

I had resigned myself to scamming tomatoes from other gardeners when my grandfather (who religiously starts the plants in his basement for everyone he knows) gave me 5 plants. I gave three of them to Noel’s folks and I kept two. I put a cherry tomato plant in a pot, which I set on the end of my driveway as it gets more sun than the rest of the back yard. The cherry tomato is doing great and after just a month is 3’-4’ tall and fruiting. I decided to hang the other one.

I'd been seeing numerous contraptions for sale to hang your garden veggies upside-down. They are touted as being better for the plant and the environment. They waste less water / fertilizer and keep the plant from getting diseased by keeping the fruit off the ground. I decided to try it out. Instead of buying one, I opted to make my own. I got the biggest coffee container I could find and cut a 2” diameter hole in the bottom, just big enough to fit the plant through. I also drilled 4 drain holes around the edges. Then I took some filter fabric and cut it into a circle with a slit down one radius. I put the plant through the hole, wrapped the filter fabric around the stem – making sure it covered all the holes and went up the side of the can and then started filling the can with soil.

So far so good. The plant is about 1’ to 2’ tall, has a few flowers and looks healthy. Below are some photos from the past month.


Day 1 - After the first night the plant had already started trying to right itself.


Week 1 - It seemed to grow a lot in the first week. At this point most of the growth seemed downward, but with the leaves turned upright.


Week 4 - Eventually the plant started growing upward, which kinda suprised me. So far I've been letting nature do most to all of the watering and have yet to fertilize. A few buds showed up within the last couple of days, so I think it is time to fertilize.

Windy Cities

There's an article in the journalstar today about wind turbines. Apparently Rock Port, MO wants to be known for something other than being the "Fireworks Capitol of the Midwest". They are going to be the first town/city to be solely wind powered. $10 million bucks and 4 turbines is all it took.

This is very encouraging to me. It makes sense that if Rock Port could make a success of it, then small town Nebraska might follow suit. Putting the benefit of using renewable energy aside, it has to be much more efficient to have a wind turbine next to your town than to push electricity hundreds and thousands of miles along power lines just to connect all those little towns in BFE up to the grid. Not to mention the benefit for those people of not having to worry as much about being without power for months after an ice storm. Granted this couldn't be a cure-all. Towns along major bird migratory paths wouldn't want them. All the same - it seems like a step in the right direction.

Doves in Mourning - Don't they know it's Earth Day?

The little guys in the top pic have been hanging out in my backyard for the past couple of days. They’re a pair of juvenile mourning doves. The picture was taken this morning as I was getting ready to leave for work. I was hopping on my bike when I spotted them sitting on top of some branches I never finished cutting into firewood after a very windy day last year.

I’ve been looking for them since they first showed up Saturday. They don’t do much. Every now and then they'll stretch out their wings and waddle around, but usually they just sit there not knowing what to do with themselves. Sunday I was working in the yard, installing some brick edging around a newly designated garden area. One of them just sat there for a couple of hours watching me. Eventually I had to find something else to do as it was sitting on some of the bricks I was hoping to install. Not sure where the other one was at the time.

The mom, as you can see in the lower pic, was watching me from atop the neighbor's garage. Sometimes she'll call when we get near, that "whooo whooo" that sounds like a depressed owl. Usually she steers clear. For that I've been a little nervous for them. Our neighbor’s cat has been known to take out small critters. I’m guessing they’re not supposed to be on the ground this much. I read that mourning doves make rough nests out of twigs that tend to fall apart after storms. I figure one of the real windy days last week must have done their nest in. They can fly. One of the little guys was on top of the garage with their mom yesterday. Earlier that day the mom was doing a good job chasing off the blackbirds, so hopefully they’ll be fine.

Our feeder has been pretty popular so far this year. I am looking forward to having more mourning doves around. They take me back to when I was young, sleeping in on saturdays, trying to figure out why the owls were still out.

Elepaint

This is one of those videos that pop up and make me question the notion of man's superior intellegence to animals. This elephant employs techniques that I'm guessing I wouldn't have picked up on in art class until late late childhood. Even now I'm thinking I still probably couldn't paint as well.

a story of food and the evil temptation that is calico beans

So lent is over. My abstinence from meat was a complete success. I had but one close slipup, one major test and one item to end my run on Easter Sunday.

The near slipup came less than a week ago. We were over at a friends last thursday for drinks and this nice guy was going around offering up a platter of shrimp fresh off the grill. I wasn't going to eat any, but Noel assured me that shrimp were just bugs and didn't count. Standing in the darkness I grabbed one off the tray and almost had it in my mouth when I realized it was no common shrimp. Rather it was the lesser known, but just as tasty, bacon wrapped shrimp. Darkness went from foe to ally and in one swift motion I was able to discretely slip the bacon off as I popped it in my mouth. I then deposited the bacon in the grass as I grabbed for another beer. Hopefully their dog found it later on.

My major test came at DJ's Dugout in Bellevue last saturday with just one day left to go. It's safe to say that DJ's is not veggie friendly. I was simply looking for some lunch to sustain me while watching basketball. While I was hoping for a bean patty option amongst the long list of burgers and chicken sandwiches on the menu, I wasn't terribly surprised by the lack of one. I was, however, disappointed there were no fried mushrooms, jalapeno poppers or a bean alternative to beef/chicken for the nachos. My only options were onion rings, mozzarella sticks, and spinach dip (salad doesn't count) - of which we ordered all three (i was hungry). The onion rings were bland and had mushy onions, the mozza sticks were good but there were too few of them and the spinach dip was boring and not at all worth the inflated price tag. All in all I was rather disappointed in old Darwin and Joy. When surveying just outside the tiny town of DuBois Nebraska I was at least able to get some breakfast for lunch (and they don't take plastic).

It all came to an end sunday. At Noel's folks there was a bevy of veggie friendly foods. Noel and I took squash and our hearty bean dip. There was a corn/noodle dish, asparagus, homemade mac n' cheese, and a ton of deviled eggs. The ham sat there looking as good ham ought to. I like ham, I do. I just didn't have the urge to eat any to the point where it was almost unappetizing. So I didn't have any. Then there were the calico beans. This was a dish I could always eat as a child despite my finicky palate. It's been a while since I've had them, and I forgot all about the secret ingredient - bacon. Three spoonfuls in I saw the bacon, considered it briefly, continued eating and went back for seconds.

From hear out who knows. I don't plan on preparing any meat dishes at home. With Noel being a vegetarian it just doesn't make sense. I don't know if I'll be going back to DJ's so that won't be an issue, but in similar situations I'll probably order the wings.

Sunday Riding

Went for a spontaneous bike ride yesterday. Not sure where the inspiration came from exactly. Maybe it was wonderbike's promotional video or maybe it was the sun on my back and the urge to stay outside. Maybe I just wanted to check how my future commute will go. All I know is that my planned spin around the block turned into a 12mile jaunt.

It was nice. I started in Antelope Park near my house and headed south on the rock island trail. The trail runs relatively flat between south and old cheney streets with moderate alternating inclines and declines. After a sharp descent from old cheney to 14th I was off the trail. 14th street was hilly. It has decent sidewalks until you get past pine lake road, then it's crap. In the future I think I'll take the back roads south of pine lake. After a short detour and a minute to catch my breath I headed back. It wasn't pretty, but I made it.

All in all I was encouraged. Water was flowing, birds were chirping, trees were doing what trees do - for lincoln's standards it was a fairly scenic ride. Despite a chaffed ass and sore legs I feel pretty good today. It took me less than 30min each way despite riding my 1-geared / knobby tired cruiser bike. I think I can do it - I think I can commute.

Promotional Video

Team Wonderbike is looking for new recruits (according to the email I dug out of my spam-box). After an extended hiatus, I actually did break out the cruiser bike yesterday. Man am I out of shape! I need to get my commuter bike up and running, as my work commute is going to be doubling soon. My office is moving where everything is moving in this town - down south. That means my daily commute will go up from ~5miles to ~11miles.

With my commuter bike I should have no problems, and hope to make the trip on a daily basis. It's a hybrid road/mountain bike with fenders and I have a pair of saddle bags for it. The new route will still be mostly trails and there's only a couple big inclines. Unfortunately the back rim on my commuter bike is totally f-ed up and needs to be replaced. I could make the journey on my cruiser bike - but it wouldn't be fun.

Corned Crisis

So I had a startling revelation the other day when I looked at the calendar. St. Patty's day falls on the monday before Easter this year. No, I'm not worried about the Catholic Church trying to reschedule all the Saint Patty's Day Parades - bishop what's-his-name can still eat his corned beef on the 17th of March if he wants to. My concern arose with regard to my lenten based decision to go vegetarian for a bit. I've developed a personal tradition over the years of cooking up some corned beef and making ruebens for St. Patty's day. Maybe it's my bohunk upbringing, but I can't think of a better meal for the holiday. Being faced with a dilemma I thought of a potential solution - tempeh ruebens.

I'd heard of vegetarian restaurants serving ruebens using tempeh as a substitute for corned beef, but had never tried one as I liked the original recipe so much. Well the other day I decided to try it as sort of a test run. After checking a few recipes online I got started. Tempeh comes in blocks, so I sliced it into strips with the same thickness I do for corned beef. Next I brushed it with some soy sauce to give it a brinyish flavor that would compliment the soybeans. After baking for 20min at 350F it was ready to go. I slapped it on some rye bread, added some kraut, swiss cheese, and 1000 island dressing and I was ready to eat. It was great! The tempeh goes great with the other ingredients. The added salty flavor offsets and the sweet of the dressing in much the same way as the corned beef, but in a way that the flavor of the kraut, cheese and rye bread really shine through. The tempeh also gave the sandwich the same hearty feel as corned beef, making for a satisfying meal.

So I've found my savior this year - tempeh. I'm sure I'll have the original recipe again some time, probably for St. Patty's day next year. Otherwise, given how good the tempeh version is and how easy it is to prepare, I can definitely see it becoming a staple in my diet. Good food, good for the environment - why not?

Lent

So lent started the other day. While I'm definitely not a Practicing Catholic and wouldn't call myself a Catholic if someone asked - I will claim the moniker "Raised Catholic". As a Raised Catholic person who is not sure what / if anything he wants to be (religion wise) I do still enjoy the little traditions that go with Christianity / Catholicism. I'll always celebrate the holidays and will sometimes attend mass on said holidays or on vacation with the folks. Despite being bored to death as a child, I enjoy the traditional flow of the mass between the readings and the prayers and the following sunday breakfast. Although, I must say I don't feel right taking the communion any more and I hate that they sing all the prayers now. Generally speaking I still think that religion is a good way to learn and keep one's morals. Now I'm not talking about the "right winged agenda" BS, but rather the "do onto others" stuff.

Anywho - so where am I going with this? Well even though I am not a practicing catholic, I decided to give something up for lent this year. I'm going Vegetarian! No fish on fridays for me - just beans. I wouldn't say I'm doing it for god, but rather I'm doing it to hopefully learn something about myself, which I think is probably the whole point behind lent anyways.

Laundry Bike

Sadly I've not been riding my bike lately. This is the most action it's seen in a while. Partly I blame the ice storm - after biting it once while riding to the grocery store I opted to wait until the streets deiced. Well our street finally thawed after the last warm up 2-weeks ago and I still have yet to get back on. Maybe tomorrow will be my lucky day.

Follow Your Folly

For whatever reason beer has become my new hobby. Probably just one of those inevitable things in life. My work, on the other hand, is water resources engineering. So to kick off my new blog, which will most likely be filled with beer and environmental related info, I thought I'd do a post on my favorite brewery.

New Belgium of Fort Collins, CO makes great beer with green technology. They have a related website called Follow Your Folly, which features all kinds of grassroots stuff and is worth a gander. I joined team wonderbike, although I've been slacking of late with the icy weather.