Smile

It's one of the Smiths. Smith Factors.

Date: 20 January 2007
Mileage for the week: 70.78
January total: 260.18
On the Ipod: The Gypsy Kings: Mosaique

There's the Elder Brother

My brother Kevin Kielty speaks out on behalf of Tom the tree. Long live Tom the tree. He knows trees.

The Susitna 100

Jill is racing in the Susitna 100. In February. She rode 80 miles today in 5 or so inches of snow. Check it out.

Chrome Citizen Messenger Bag

Ever since the time I first saw a messenger bag, I thought it would be nice to try a great one out. Today I managed to get my hands on a Chrome Citizen messenger bag from Chrome Transport located here in San Francisco. The Citizen is a medium sized bag on a scale which includes small (Mini Metro), medium(Citizen), large (metropolis) and the huge Kremlin.

Mine is a right shouldered model, unlike most, and I put my old bag right into it for the ride home. I added the Chrome Ipod holder and the existing phone holder I had. Despite the medium size, it easily accomodated the old bag I had and all it's contents. I can see it's ample size handling cartons of milk, six packs of beer and loaves of bread, contents of soup recipes, along with some other more difficult projects like my 4x5 camera rig, or my Canon SLR digital setup.

The vertical orientation of the bag when riding will mean that certain cargo may be easier to carry, like a tripod, or snowboard. This totally defeats the racktop bags, like this one, or the one from the Banjo Brothers, which can't possibly manage the length of a tripod, much less a snowboard.
It has an outer shell with a full interior lining of waterproof material, which should mean you precious cargo will be dry when you arrive, unless you happen to fully submerge. The closure on the bag is broad velcro and clipped reflective straps.

I think it may be fair to say that I am more than a little enamored of the big metal seat buckle and hardware. The photo below shows the buckle and the pull ring which combine to provide one handed closing, opening, and adjustment. Pulling the ring loosens the strap -- while yanking on the end of the strap will tighten it -- so it's easy to adjust when riding. Also included in this foto are the Chrome IPod holder, which is quite secure, although provides no opportunity for operating easily while riding. Be sure not to miss the clip for securing the load to your body, which totally comes out the wrong side of the strap, proving itself complete impossible to easily operate.

Timbuk2's bag after being removed from the new bag is shown below for a size comparison.

Although the yellow color on the Chrome bag is bright, there could be more reflective material, but as one of my fellow riders said to me recently, "Visibility at night is really about lights, after that it's just a fashion statement." That large field of reflective material on the Timbuk2 bag leaves me feeling secure about being visible.

There are three pockets along the back here to organize the smaller items, one zippered and two open. These would all be under the back flap when closed. The reflective strapping is clearly visible in this flash shot.

Because of the criss cross pattern of the velcro in the rear closure, odd shaped items like this tripod are no sweat. Notice the verticle orientation of the tripod.

It's a good bag-- it's secure, tough, well built, and looks great -- I give it a peace sign for eco-friendly construction, and a thumbs up for being totally smart. It rocks. I hope for a long and happy life together.

Early Guitar Project

... hmmm... well, it's started. I am reminded of the time two of my neighbors were talking once in the street in Hayward and I could hear them, because of a peculiar twist of the wind.

"What do you think our crazy neighbor is up to today?"
"You don't suppose he's going to cook up a boiling, smoky, oil filled cauldon out in the
driveway today?"
"Hard to say. He's probably going to wait till dark to do that, don't ya think?."
"Hmm, yeah."

This of course, was the day after I mixed a 20 gallon batch of oil-based clay in a drum over an open fire in my driveway. It started on the coleman stove, and then briquets and sticks, and then bark and firewood. It takes quite a bit of fuel to melt 20lbs of wax. Looking back ...

One of my friends gave me the strangest look the other day when I was describing the guitar project. It's clear that some people think this is an interesting project. Too interesting. It was one of those "you actually make baskets?" sort of looks.

The image above is a 1.5 inch thick workboard with a paper pattern and guitar shaped gasket (the shim) and "shoe," ultimately to hold and assembly the guitar. The next step is to layout the strings and neck, but let's just say, I am making some progress.

Snow?

Perhaps. I am charging the batteries in my camera and having a hot chocolate now , and waiting.

It's supposed to fall to 35°F. overnight with a 60% chance of rain. The front has already passed and the temperature is already falling. With scatterred clouds and a chance of precipitation -- there's a chance we may see snow on the flat in the morning. And we definitely should see it on the surrounding hills.

S

Update : Yes -- here.

Feeding a Tapeworm

Gluttony is still one of the seven deadly sins. Looking at this empty carton you'll discover that it contains 4 servings of 300 calories each. Burp.

The temps have been low, and it's been windy. Over the last two days it has been below freezing a few times and the onshore breeze has kept everyone a bit chilly. I rode my bicycle on sheet ice and black ice over the past two days. What I notice the most is this insatiable hunger like I might get if I had a tapeworm, even noticeable right after I eat.

Number of comparable items required to deliver 1200 calories:

Qt. Vanilla Swiss Almond Ice Cream -- 1
Venti® Caramel Machiatto -- 1.5
12 oz. Beers -- 6
Small cans of bumble bee tuna -- 12.2

The ice cream is clearly the best choice from this list. Why do we eat it on hot days? Because it's cold. Why eat it on cold days? Because we are cold.

Pick of the Week®

Goes to Fritz! Great Photo.

Date: 13 January 2007
Mileage for the week: 58.89
January total: 189.40
On the Ipod: Don't Look Back, Luscious Jackson

Buying a Guitar Really Might be Easier

So now -- I've read the faq here. and I've read two books on the subject. Since I am now into it more that it would take to buy an acoustic guitar, it seems that I have again chosen the harder less travelled path. I haven't memorized them yet, but I did read Guitarmaking, Tradition and Technology, by William D. Cumpiano and Jonathan D. Natelson and The Guitar Masters Workshop, by Rik Middleton, which I didn't like because he calls clamping "cramping" and a c-clamp a "G-cramp". That troubles me. I am not sure what a G-cramp is, but I think it might have to do with not having sex during pregnancy. I shouldn't be so irreverant of someone skilled enough to make a guitar. The book was quite informative. It primarily talks about making a classical guitar. Later, when I have taught my self to play Flamenco -- I will be more interested in classical guitars.

Now, I am sure you are wondering what has possesed me to think I should build a guitar. I once read a detailed description of how to build a violin and it was quite facinating. Right now I am shopping around for that thing that is going to carry me emotionally and financially through the next 20 or so years of my life and it seems that making something with craft, tradition. and history, could be a cool place to start. I have the kind of patience, hands, and intent, to do quite well at something so simple and sophisticated.

I considered some other things, like being a bum, or just getting paid to travel.

I have a great piece of Port Orford Cedar which is just an inch or so too small to make a guitar soundboard ... so I think I am going to need to buy some spruce. Tomorrow -- I will do what I always do when starting a project. Clean up and collect the tools in one place.

After I go for a nice long ride.

1966 Miles Riding in 2006

Although this is a great photo of Mono Lake, I didn't ride there, or ride in the snow. © Shawn Kielty 2005. All rights reserved.

Month/Miles

January 6
February 211.7
March 330.47
April 415.21
May 303.89
June 159.67
July 95.16
August 139.47
September 70.21
October 67.05
November 194.36
December 299.91

Total 1966.10

Well -- that's not really 2000 miles; now is it? Maybe if I count the miles hiked, too (it's only 5ish miles a day, which ain't so good).

Per Volquartz' Joshua Tree Photography Workshop

It's free. Dates: January 26-27-28, come all three days or just for one day! Place: Jumbo Rock campground, second to the last loop, Joshua Tree National Park, Southern California.
I think I'll be there! For more info find Per Volquartz here. Just to make sure sure there's no confusion, that image is © Shawn Kielty, 2005.

Shoot the Dog

It's quite nice right at the moment. The cold of the recent past was replaced with warmth and sunshine in the seriously California way. Shoot the Dog by The Alison Brown Quartet on the iPod.

It won't last is what I hear. But let's just say it was a nice ride into work.

Date: 7 January 2007
Mileage for the week: 94.65
January total: 130.51
On the Ipod: Do the Do, Howlin Wolf, from The London Howling Wolf Sessions

Lentil Soup Monastery Style

This is adapted from Frances Moore Lappe's recipe in Diet for a Small Planet, which is good, hearty and well ... it just needs garlic, ham and a few more carrots. Her original recipe is tried and true, since her book is now over 20 years old. It's guest tested. I personally have served it to several dozen guinea pigs people.

1/4 cup olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
2 or 3 cloves of garlic crushed and chopped (optional)
2 fresh (never frozen) carrots, chopped
1/2 teaspoon each thyme and marjoram
3 cups Seasoned Stock (Lappe calls for vegetable broth -- I never use that I always use chicken stock)
1 cups lentils, rinsed
salt to taste
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 1-pound can tomatoes
6 oz or so cubed ham pieces (optional)
1/4 cup dry sherry
2/3 cup grated swiss cheese

Heat oil in a large pot and saute onions, garlic and carrots for 3 to 5 minutes. Add herbs and saute 1 minute. Add stock, lentils, salt, parsley, ham and tomatoes and cook, covered,until lentils are tender, about 45 minutes. Add sherry (or use red wine, or my personal favorite, beer). To serve, put 2 tablespoons cheese in each bowl and fill with soup. Or grate the cheese on top. Or do both Serves 4-6.

With this soup I would choose a light salad (Romaine hearts and endive with a dressing made from plain yogurt, maple syrup and Indian curry) before it with a crisp white like a Suave Bollo or Pinot Grigio. Serve this with flatbread and a red like a Merlot and follow with a plate of aromatic cheeses and a Petite Sirah.

Or -- just toss it down with a beer.

Mangez!

Notes on Making a Guitar

[Air guitar playing]
I walked 47 miles of bobwire
I got a cobra snake for a necktie
A brand new house on the roadside
and its made out of rattlesnake hide
Gat a brand new chimney made to fit on top
and it's made outta human skulls
Com'on take a little walk with me baby
And tell me who do you love ...
Now around the town I
Use a rattlesnake whip ...

Around noon today I set out across the soccer field after eating a bowl of miso soup, butteryaki somethingfish, and about a pound of rice, when I realized that the internal furnace was kickin in. I was hot. It was still bitter wind winter San Francisco California freezing, but I was feeling normal.

This has happened to me before, like the time I decided to put cream in my coffee. I was a grad student in Eastern Washington, and I got up one morning and it was 15 degrees out (the day before it was like 47) ... and there was snow on the ground. I walked across town and froze. And decided to start putting cream in my coffee to add some fat in my diet. I had already started putting the cream in my coffee, when a couple of days later -- I suddenly got warm. I stayed warm until March when it started to rain.

Yes, I was overdressed. Yes, I wasn't all tucked in in the right places. Yes, I left my Goretex™ windbreaker and jacket™ at home. Yes, I was getting sweaty. And I wasn't even playing soccer. Just burning rice and evolving. Just surviving.

Darwin was right... Here's to evolution.

As a sculptor, I occasional get these bright ideas to build things. I was looking at a piece of sculpture I made a few years ago (It's made from the arm of a chair and invokes the image of a violin) and thinking about my son and a guy named Tim Doebler and what was so special about Stratovarious anyway. I never really cared for Tim's ironwork, but he often made these sardine can mandolins, and other weird and unique string instruments, which I thought were brilliant. I hear a Stratovarios™ is actually brilliant.

So there I was, remembering the book I read about building a violin, and thinking how I never managed to get that boat I built all those years ago to float -- how I never built that wood canoe ... and I was thinking that I would never manage to build a guitar. Then I remembered that I know how to do that. I have an advanced degree in building stuff. SO I went to the bookstore and the big library in sky.

Tomorrow I am going to look for some wood.

Then, I'll start to make notes about building a guitar.

I am Cold

I am cold. It's 46 degrees out. I rode a measly 9.35 miles today. The wind is out of the NW at about 10-15 and gusty. Nothing like the weather reports of yesterday. But I am cold. Folks in places like Alaska, Minneapolis and Colorado, Toronto even, must think I am a bit crazy.

Let's not forget I just spent 2 and a half years in *&$#*@& hell paradise. Arizona.

So I put on an extra layer today. I saw the guy with a balaclava and shorts on the train, Lauren. I threw the rain gear in my bike bag. I even ate breakfast, to help me keep warm. I froze totally. Anything I might have offered as advice about how to keep warm is pretty much crap at this point. The one part of my anatomy that wasn't cold was my lunch office feet. The Mysterioso™ are good socks when they are not wet. All those clothes and I am cold.

I never was wet. When I got on the bike at 9:30 Pm across town to ride home -- I threw on my raincoat. It was 30 someodd degrees and straight into the wind. Grin and bear it. I grew up here on a bike. It can be nasty here. I rode home and I wasn't wet. Now I am here with hot chocolate and a heater. It was a character building experience.

And a lot of you are in places like Minnesota and Colorado and Juneau. I will get warm eventually, as for you, I can't say. I hear that with the exception of the occasional blizzard -- it's been warm there. But it's still colder than here.

It's Acting all like it's Going to Rain ... And Stuff

Tim and Marco play Felice Navidad at the Cafe.

The weather tomorrow looks like it might be a bit scary. Particularly this bit:

Thursday: Rain showers. Strong winds developing in the afternoon. Highs in the lower 50s. West winds 15 to 25 mph...becoming northwest 30 to 40 mph with gusts
to 60 mph possible in the afternoon.

"Rain Showers ... Gusts to 60 mph." "Dress thoughtfully," to quote Jill. I will be testing out the Mysteriouso™ Sock under my Shimano™ riding shoes tomorrow, as I continue with my plan to avoid buying any $50 (at the local bike shop) waterproof shoe covers by Louis Garneau™.

I am not good at the calculation of any thing really, so rather than try any sort of math, I'll try this. At 52° F. with 60 mph gusts it could get freaky cold, especially with the wet from rain part included. So ...

Patagonia™ Capilene™ performance baselayer (sometimes referred to as long underwear) , SmartWool™ 100% wool long sleeve pullover, thin REI™ balaclava, helmet with helmet raincap, levi's and Marmot™ rain pants, Cotton shirt, fleece pullover, NorthFace™ Goretex™ rain jacket, wool socks with the Mysterioso™ socks, and the Shimano™ shoes. Some Fox™ insulated gloves.

In the messenger bag: A change of shoes and socks. bag of m&m's™ and Gu™.

Something tells me it's either not going to materialize, or it's going to be quite nasty™. Sometimes it just get's that way here. Maybe I'll just stay in with a hot coffee.

New Year's Day 2007

Last year on this day I was out in the shed digging up an old bicycle and washing it off because I was having a hard time walking more than about a mile driving through the Nevada desert, dodging a blizzard. This would be the first year I can go back into my blog and check to see what I was really doing. I will have to be pretty honest from now on. By this time last year that bike was clean and in the truck -- I think. Any way -- some time around now last year I was thinking about a bike ride.

Date: 1 January 2007
Mileage: 35.86
Average: 14.8
Max: 24.0
Week: 45.96
January total: 35.86
On the Ipod: Time out of Mind, Steely Dan

This morning my back was troubling me, and I was sitting around thinking about how to start out the New Year. I looked around at my messy house and the state of the place and being reminded by the gnawing thing in my back that I am not getting enough exercise and I thought -- I should go for a decent ride. I could hustle out to Coyote Point and ride down the Bay Front Trail and find out how far I can go.

Since I had to be at my parents for a little later in the day, I cleaned the house instead I suited up immediately. The best way to cross the 101 at Peninsula is to walk, to use the staircases and walk your bike.

From Coyote Point south the Bay Front trail is a hodge podge of routes adjacent or very near the San Francico Bay, mostly paved multi-use trail with a lot of folks on it. New bikes, new runners, new riders, and me; I was trying to keep my pace above 15 mph for the day overall. Since it follows the west shore of the bay down the Peninsula, it's dead flat ... and nothing about it is straight. I traveled about 15 miles before I gave up on a gravelled stretch, just past the dog park in Redwood City, after some debate about whether it was going to be possible to continue in a 1/2 mile or so.

Ultimately, I was hoping that it would be possible to ride a century out my door on that route. Maybe next time. It may be possible to connect the stretch of it further South with this section of it by actually riding on the road. I'll need to get out a map and start earlier.


These are Canvasback Ducks, red head, white body, formerly fairly rare, having been overhunted.

I think Thom is going to give us annual tallies from the Saturday Spinners. It will be interesting to see what I have tallied since then ... I am guessing my miles for the year to be about 2500. We'll see.


Since I was in the desert last year -- It probably wouldn't have mattered if there was an earthquake on the Parkfield section of the San Andreas Fault, like there was today. The USGS is banking the farm on that one going next. Let's all wait and see.


I think that these cats out on the trail are maybe being overfed by the cat feeders. If you notice, that cat seems unaware that there is a pigeon right next to him. There were so many fat and healthy cats along the trail, I was beginning to wonder if they were actually pets feral. I guess we are a benevolent society after all, towards cats at least. And, I guess I am still a cynic, despite the New Year and all it's optimism.

Happy New Year everyone!

That's your moment of optimism; enjoy it.