WX

Weather

A little bit of perspective, please!

Let 1 inch equal 1000 years. Some distances that result from this conversion are:

The Universe was formed 221 miles from where I stand (essentially, the driving distance between Los Altos and Truckee, California).

Two-thirds of the way from Truckee towards Los Altos, the Earth forms. (71 miles from Los Altos -- essentially, at Manteca.)

Traveling 13 miles closer to Los Altos (you're now in Tracy -- 58 miles away), life appears on Earth.

Life evolves, but it isn't until we're only about 3.5 miles from my home that the first dinosaurs appear. They stick around for about 2.5 miles, disappearing at about 1 mile from home. (The Petrified Forest in Arizona is at about the 3 mile mark.)

At about 200 feet from me, Homo Habilis (the first species in the Homo genus, and the first known use of tools) appears.

It takes awhile for Homo Sapiens (modern man) to appear -- finally arriving on the scene at about 17 feet from me. But it takes another 16 feet (that is, until they're about a foot from me) before they develop agriculture and depart from a strictly hunter-gatherer existence.

The first instances of writing (and thus the dawn of history) occur only 6 inches from me.

The pyramids in Egypt were built 4 1/2 inches from me.

Jesus at 2 inches.

Columbus discovers America -- at half-an-inch!

Declaration of Independence -- quarter-of-an-inch!

Laurie Wyman-Heron

I purchased some watercolors by Laurie Wyman-Heron from a local gallery (now defunct) just after I moved into my house in 2000. Here are a couple of them...

(Click on image to enlarge)

Stephen Namara

I've long been an admirer of Stephen's drawings and paintings. Finally took the plunge...

(26" x 31")

More information on Stephen here.

Peggy Huff

Peggy Huff is another artist whose work I first saw, and admired, at my brother's place. Finally got around to purchasing one of her pieces, "Ohtani Letters." (It's much more abstract than the piece my brother has.)


(It's fairly large, too. Framed: 36" x 30")

More on Peggy here.

Melissa Yarbrough

An artist whom I found via San Francisco's Open Studios, I've always enjoyed Melissa's work...


Here are a couple of smaller paintings (12" x 12")...



More on Melissa here.

Ken Cmiel

I knew Ken back when we were students at Berkeley (he and I both lived in the now infamous Barrington Hall). A helluva good guy, it shocked and saddened me to learn that he passed away in 2006 at the young age of 51.


Ken was a professor of history at the University of Iowa. After we graduated from Cal, our lives went in different directions and I eventually lost contact with him -- I last saw Ken in Chicago (where he was living with Anne and attending grad school) sometime around May/June of 1979 (when a friend of mine and I crashed at their place for a couple of nights while we were driving cross-country). I always thought of visiting again, but for whatever reason, never got around to it.

Too late now. Damn!

(More on Ken here.)

Donny Hahn

When I moved to my new digs in 2000, I immediately started looking for something to fill my blank walls. The first piece I picked up was at, of all places, the Los Altos Art and Wine festival. For whatever reason, I was really attracted to this painting by Donny Hahn. (I don't know...maybe because its colors reminded me of Maxfield Parrish.)


For more about Donny Hahn, visit Donny Hahn.

Phillip Dvorak

I've always been attracted to Phillip's work, which I first saw during 2000's Open Studios, and I've picked up a number of his drawings over the years. Here are a couple of them...



More of Phillip's work at -> Dvorak.

Tom Fowler

For years I'd admired two large pieces from Tom's "Backpacking with Ezra" series that my brother had purchased. Finally, I moved to new digs where I had some wall space for pictures. Here's one of Tom's pieces that I picked up from, of course, the "Backpacking with Ezra" series (it's large: 4' x 3')...


And here's a smaller painting (on the Chronicle) from Tom's "Coffee Cup" series...


In May, 2005, I was shocked to learn, via my brother (who was a friend of Tom's), that Tom had passed away suddenly. A genuinely nice guy, he was, in my opinion, another unnecessary victim of America's ridiculous health care system. More on Tom here -> Chonicle Obituary.

Mirang Wonne

I saw this painting in her studio and immediately fell in love with it. It's large! [4' x 5']


More at -> Mirang.

Veerakeat

I love the sense of motion!


For other paintings, visit Veerakeat.

Larry Schwarm -- Prairie Fires

Larry Schwarm, a mid-western photographer, has done an amazing series of photographs based upon prairie fires. Here's one of my favorites...


You can find more information on his work at his website.

Olcese Family

(Click on picture to enlarge)

Margaret (Margherita) Olcese (née Camiccione in Borgonovo, Italy, 1840) , with her grandchildren. I believe this photo was taken either at Thanksgiving or Christmas in 1904, at the ranch in San Leandro, California.

My grandmother is the baby, Marguerite (Stoakes). Her siblings in this photo are Frank, Lester, Ethel, and Billy (Milton).

Margherita Camiccione came to California in either 1856 or 1857 (at the age of 17 or so). More information regarding Margaret Olcese (and her six sisters) can be found in the book, The Seven Sisters, by Mary Grace Paquette.

Kohler and Chase

Established in 1850 by Andrew Kohler. First music store in San Francisco. A bit of history here.

(The "Chase" of "Kohler and Chase" was Quincy A. Chase. Andrew Kohler was his uncle. Quincy (born 1830 in Freeport, Maine) joined him in 1853 after a 6 month journey around the horn.)

The earthquake of 18 April 1906. Kohler and Chase is on the left corner. Still standing, but not for long...


Kohler and Chase Piano building, burning, but I'm not sure from which street. (I'm not even sure if it's the same building.)

(From the Earthquake Engineering Online Archive at U.C. Berkeley).

After the quake and fire!


The new building on O'Farrell, built after the quake:


Here's a shot of the O'Farrell entrance:


The same building, today. No, it's no longer in the family.

To Hell with the diet. These look tasty!

Dare I admit that some of these look great? After all, who could resist...

The Bacon Cheese Pizza Burger

Giant burger between two large meat pizzas, eggs, bacon, colby and pepper jack cheese. Could life get any better than this?

Sure it could! Check this out:

Meat Cake

(Meatloaf with a mashed potato & ketchup "icing")

And this next one is, in my opinion, absolutely brilliant!

The Pizza Cone!

Where can I buy one?

An Interesting Read -- God's Little Problem...

Click Here! (Found via Andrew Sullivan's blog: "The Daily Dish")

Highlight from the article...

The vast majority of Christians, guided by their priests and pastors, assume a loving God who intervenes regularly in human affairs. Christians pray to God to cure them from cancer or protect them from a plane crash. (Intermediaries are also useful: A soon-to-be closed Catholic school in Brooklyn is called Our Lady of Perpetual Help, presumably because She does provide perpetual help, but not in this case.) A politician and Baptist minister in Kentucky is promoting a law requiring the state’s office of homeland security to display a plaque that reads: “The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.” Apparently God is not just a co-founder of the United States but also a federalist, honoring state boundaries in his on again, off again solicitude for the country.

However, the article points out, this assumption leads to the following conundrum...

Since believers give credit to God for answering their prayers when they are saved from catastrophe or illness, they have to explain why he answered their prayers and not those other people’s prayers, why he saved these children from a tsunami and not those other children. Any believer who today thanks God for making sure that his coronary bypass operation was successful has to explain why God allowed at least 37 peasants to be buried in a Guatemalan landslide on Sunday. Such an explanation requires either extraordinary narcissism on the believer’s part or positing capricious injustice on the part of God.

And this is why I've always been incredibly annoyed by those who've told me, "We were blessed..." (fill in the blank with whatever). Don't they realize what they're really saying?

Peugeot PX-10E Singlespeed Conversion, Continued

It's done! Here's the finished singlespeed conversion...


After my first post, I discovered that a 45/17 gear ratio was still just a bit too big (must be my age!), so the bike now has a 42-toothed chain ring on the crank.

In addition, I've added:

(Purchased from Rivendell Bicycle Works...)

1. Nitto "Periscopa" handlebar stem
2. Nitto "Dove" handlebars
3. "Miesha's" Cork Grips
4. Mountain Bike Brake Levers

(Purchased from the Bicycle Outfitter in Los Altos...)

5. Seatpost (26.4 mm diameter, 350 mm long)
6. Brooks B67 Saddle (Honey)
7. Bell for Handlebar
8. Kickstand



Some notes...

1. The diameter of the PX-10E forks is too small (by just a slight amount) to accept the standard 22.2 mm handlebar stem diameter. Sandpapering the stem to reduce its diameter fixed this problem.

2. The cork grips have been glued to the handlebars (per Rivendell's recommendation), but glue was only applied to the surface of the plugs at either end of the handlebars (and to the mating surface at the rear of each cork grip's cavity), rather than along the handlebar surface itself. Hopefully this will make grip removal (should it ever be necessary) a bit easier.

3. The cork grips have been shellaced with two coats of clear shellac (per Rivendell's recommendation).

4. I had hoped to install a Brooks B66 saddle (my Raleigh 5 speed has one, and it's very comfortable if you're riding upright), but when I tried to install the saddle from my Raleigh (as a test), I discovered that it didn't fit! It turns out that, although the original saddle on the PX-10E was also a Brooks saddle, its rails were slightly closer together (in spacing) than those on a modern B66 saddle. Also -- the French "Simplex" seatpost had its "rail cups" welded on, so I couldn't simply clamp the B66 to it like I'd clamped it to the Raleigh seatpost.

So...if I wanted a more comfortable saddle, I needed to also replace the original seatpost with a modern seatpost that could accommodate modern saddles.

No problem! A new 26.4mm diameter seatpost fit into the frame's seat tube perfectly, and a Brooks B67 (essentially a B66 look-alike, but with rails designed for today's modern seatposts) adds the comfort I desired.

5. OK -- a kickstand is really "old school," but if you're doing any around-town riding (shopping, etc.), they're great to have. And, of course, a bell is handy for getting the attention of inattentive pedestrians or drivers.

All in all, it's turned out to be a pretty nice looking bike. And much lighter than the Raleigh 5 speed, too!

There might be one more addition in the future, and that would be a basket on the front (e.g. like my Raleigh's basket). But that'll wait for another day...

...and that day has just arrived! Took a ride up to the Campus Bike Store at Stanford to pick up a basket. I'm happy: the bike handled nicely on the trip there and back, and now...I'm ready to buy groceries!

Raleigh Sprite 27 5-speed

Here's a picture of the Raleigh "Sprite 27" 5-speed that I picked up on ebay earlier this year. It was in surprisingly good condition. As you can see in the picture, I've added to it the basket, a bell, new handgrips (the original grips were very hard and would become painful during long bike rides), and a new, more comfortable saddle.

The new saddle is a Brooks B66, which replaces the original, uncomfortable saddle that arrived with the bike. It's a vast improvement both in comfort and in looks. (By the way, the Brooks saddle wasn't cheap -- it cost me more than the bike did!)

I use it mainly for around-town riding (to the grocery or book store, for example), but it really is a bit too heavy if riding, say, to have lunch with a friend who's about 7 miles away. Which is why I'm now working on my singlespeed conversion...

Peugeot PX-10E Singlespeed Conversion, Part 1

Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Today I've started converting my brother's old Peugeot PX-10E road bike (that he used to race back in '72) to a "singlespeed" (freewheel, not fixed) bike for around-town riding. Here's a picture of it part way through the process:



There's a new wheel on back with a freewheel/17-tooth cog. I've just pulled off all of the gear-shifting components (revealing a bit of rust, but otherwise giving the bike a nice, clean look). Front chain-ring is a 45, which, at the moment, seems to be a good compromise between the original 52/42 pair when used with the 17 rear cog.

The bike only really needed a new rear wheel (with a track hub to keep the chain in line) -- my brother already had the 45-toothed chain-ring. I purchased this and a matching front-wheel (yet-to-be-installed) from the Bicycle Shop Santa Cruz -- the wheels were less expensive than if I had purchased a pair of Velocity or Weinmann wheels (they had been pulled off an SE single-speed bike: Alex rims and SE hubs -- perhaps from an "SE 700C Lager" bicycle?), and I prefer the more classic look of the Alex rims to the "deep-v" rims one often sees on fixies.

The chainline between the outer chain-ring position and the freewheel matches up very nicely, so no weird gyrations were needed to get them to match. Overall, it's been a VERY painless conversion thus far.

The handlebar tape is shredded, so it ought to be replace, but I'm seriously considering changing the handlebars and seat so that the bike can be ridden in a more upright stance -- perhaps add a Brooks B66 saddle and Nitto Albatross or Dove handlebars. Hey, I'm getting old!

Brakes are the original Mafac centerpulls, which I'll keep on the bike. Crank is an old Campagnolo -- probably one that I pulled off of my Pogliaghi after my headon-with-car crash back in the late '80's (after which I borrowed my brother's PX-10E). At least, this makes sense to me, for although I no longer recall swapping out the crank, I just found a Stronglight crankset in my bike junkbox, which undoubtedly was from the Peugeot.