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Preparations for my trip to Mongolia continue. There are so many, many details. I am trying to decide which camera to take, and I am checking out the capabilities of the Fujifilm (hence these non-relevant photos). At 10 mgeapixels, it will hold 3,107 images. My Nikon, at 6.2 mgeapixels, will hold 144 images. The later cost over $1,000.00 and the former $40.00. Such is the progress made in electronics in the past 7 years. At one time I owned the original birth certificate given to my mother at the hospital where (and close to the date when) I was born. I kept it in the green colored file cabinet in my bedroom. But, at some point in time someone (perhaps even I) found a better home for it, and now... Well, I'll let your imagination fill in the details. Getting a replacement almost requires an act of Congress (and, as you are probably aware, they have been hopelessly gridlocked for the past several years). The preferred method is to camp out in the lobby Arizona Department of Health Services, Office of Vital Records in Phoenix until they tire of your presence and produce the desired record. Lacking that option, the second choice involves multi-page applications downloaded off the internet, scanned drivers licenses (everybody owns a scanner, right?), attestations by Notary Publics, witch doctors dancing in the light of a full moon, and the exchange of money with a face value greater than the original cost of my birth. |
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Obtaining a birth certificate is only round one. Then comes the passport phase of the process. This time the preferred method is to camp out in the State Department Office of the Federal Government in either San Francisco or Houston, with sufficient provisions to out last their patience. If that doesn't seem appropriate, Option Two involves the afore mentioned birth certificate, photos with exacting dimensional requirement (± 2 mm), more scanned driver's licenses, medicine men making pollen offerings to the east wind, and the exchange of enough money to finance a border to border bicycle trip. At this point, I have my passport, but contrary to promised behavior, they failed to return my new, gold plated, birth certificate. You gotta love government bureaucracy (perhaps they will yet return it...).
And at this point, don't even talk to me about visas... |
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It is obvious to anyone who looks, that even though I now have some of them hanging from the roof inside the rabbit house, I have too many bicycles. Maybe I ought to track the cost/mile of my bike fleet, the way I do my automobiles--the results might be enlightening. At any rate, I parted with my Bike E recumbent. Brian Cox, a member of the ward and a machinist at the mine in Hayden, wants to build a side-by-side recumbent bicycle, using two Bike E's. There is a "green" project, mostly in the eastern part of the country, called, "Rails to Trails" where abandoned railroad beds are surfaced and turned into hiking/biking/equestrian paths, away from vehicular traffic. Brian wants to ride from Philadelphia to Washington DC, in October when the hardwood forests in that area are most highly colored. Rail beds are noted for their lack of steep grades, there are bed & breakfast opportunities every few miles, and he thinks it might be fun for he and his wife. Brian is pretty cautious, and when he and I rode down Salt River Canyon, he stayed within 6 inches of the pavement's edge the whole trip. I traded him the Bike E for instruction on how to run a lathe and mill, when I acquire one down the road a year or two. I'm pretty sure that trade will work out well for me. |
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Speaking of tracking bicycle expense, I have had some bad luck with bicycles as of late. My pump broke--apparently in the same way the one on Mt. Graham malfunctioned. That has to be a design flaw. I also got the opportunity to hike a bit. The valve stem on the Peugeot blew out completely, one mile into a seven mile trip. I've never seen a tube fail quite like that. The stop leak "slime" that I use is wonderful stuff, but even it can't plug a rupture valve stem. But it is colorful, isn't it? I parked the Peugeot and rode the suspension mountain bike, only to have its rear tire lose air pressure six miles into a seven mile trip. |
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In the last letter, I proudly showed off the work bench I constructed out of scrap wood in the rabbit house to hold the lapidary equipment. I acquiring a set of kitchen cabinets with the intent to use them in the other shed (the one whose addition isn't completed yet). I made the off-handed remark to Barbara that they would work well in the lapidary shop, and I will leave it to your imagination to fill in the details from there. At any rate, The scrap wood bench is gone and we now have places to hid all the bits and pieces of stuff that pertain to cutting, shaping, and polishing semi-precious stones. |
| I have a couple of other pieces of equipment for which I don't have a place, and not all pictured here are functional, but, to a limited extent, I tried out what is in place, and it looks promising. This is a piece of "fire agate" that Brittney gave us. Blurry photos don't really do it justice, but I would estimate that the polishing process is about half done. |
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A couple of the pieces of equipment are designed to be water cooled, i.e., water continuously floods the work point. It probably says something less-than-flattering when you are impressed by your own ingenuity, but I was pleased with the system I devised. I took a styrofoam ice chest from work, and fashioned two disks (each about an inch thick) out of it. After cutting a key hole shaped slot in each, I forced one on a cooler pump from the front and the other on from the back. I now have a captive pump that floats in a bucket, supplies water to the machine(s), which then drain back into the bucket. The only question at this point (other than pump life expectancy) is the one concerning the number of mosquito larvae the device will support. |
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And now, back to my favorite subject--CAR REPAIRS! After brooding for a couple of weeks over a rumbling in the area of the drivers side front tire, I decided I needed a new wheel bearing. Nathen and AJ were visiting, and we three tackled the project. |
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It turned out to be a double sided bearing with balls instead of rollers, a construction that surprised me. Not surprising, however, was the press fit that has been pounded in place for >360,000 miles that just didn't want to come apart. After some Herculean effort, we succeeded in dissembling and reassembling the part. I couldn't see any defect in the bearing, but replacing it (for a paltry $60) silenced the noise. At the end of jobs like this, I look back and am amazed that we actually able to affect the repair. |
| As is customary for shade tree mechanics, we manufactured the tools we needed as we went along. These rings, cut off various pieces of pipe cluttering the back yard, proved useful as extensions to press the bearing in and out using a vise. The cutoff saw I acquired to cut rebar for the shed rafters came in quite handy. The splines in the rotor bound to those in the drive shaft and refused to yield to a gear puller. Lacking the proper tool for the job (a slide hammer), I bolted a chain to the lug nuts studs, wrapped it around an 8 pound hammer, and swung the hammer against the chain to pull the splines apart. AJ was a bit incredulous that worked. I would never admit it, but I was also was pleasantly surprised. |
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For a number of years I have been wrestling with the problem of creating an algorithm that indicates when it is financially prudent to replace a vehicle. We discussed the subject again while driving to purchase a part, and AJ suggested that one trigger might be when the cost of pending repairs exceeds the worth of the vehicle. I agree with that as a sufficient criteria, but it doesn't address the problem of a vehicle that almost constantly needs small to moderate repairs. This is not in publishable form yet, but I am beginning to suspect that the answer may lie in tracking the total cost per mile*. This figure will trend downward as the purchase price is amortized over the life of the vehicle. Towards the end of the vehicles life, this figure should trend upward (after correction for inflation and rising fuel costs), as repairs become more frequent. Two possible trigger points might be when this upward slope persists for some protracted period (six months or ?), or increases to some percentage over baseline (30% or ?). I suspect the the full algorithm should also contain rules that address reliability, creature comforts, and (in a concession to AJ) respectability. Any thoughts from the philosophers out there?
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| Symantha is concerned that I might freeze to death in Mongolia, and provided this article of clothing in an effort to stave off any chill I might experience. (surprisingly it works quite well.) What a dutiful daughter... |
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