Author Archive for risu

Page 92 of 95

Bzzzz…

Published on July 27, 2007 in bike by risu. Closed

I’m sleepy.  I’m disoriented.

I had an iced Thai mocha from Lion’s cafe.

Now I’m sleepy, disoriented, and jittery.

All packed up and ready to go.  I hope I didn’t forget anything… it’s not like I’m going to somewhere in the wilderness though -  there are stores in Whistler village – it’s just the normal traveler’s anxiety and not wanting to pay, “how much for a pack of four AA batteries?”  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to post any trip info here while I’m there, otherwise, see y’all on 06 August or thereabouts.

Bzz…

Published on July 26, 2007 in bike by risu. Closed

The brain is not fully functional today.  I was up until after midnight packing the bike and starting to pack my gear for the Whistler MTB trip tomorrow.  I have to remember to buy a spare XTR chain tonight – got a spare rear derailleur and brake pads on Tuesday.  The bike fit into the Da Kine case fine, but I had to drop the fork (which is easy) and pull the crankset (which is even easier) – maybe didn’t have to remove the cranks, but it makes it easier to pack the bike.  In retrospect, I could probably have left the pedals on the crankarms had I known at the time that I was going to remove them.

Must finish packing after McBike tonight, so I’ll be even more delerious tomorrow!

Whee…

Signed, sealed, & delivered

Published on July 26, 2007 in Art by risu. Closed

Turned the two pieces in to Justine at the Academy today.  Go by the art sale on 11 August 2007 if you’re interested.  Images are up on the gallery if you know where to look.

Yay!  It’s done!

Hope someone buys them.

Showcase 2007

Published on July 23, 2007 in Art by risu. Closed

Finished the artwork for the Honolulu Academy of Arts Showcase 2007 this morning around 04:00.  This weekend was mostly doing all the digital photo-based backgrounds and effects.  I’m reasonably satisfied with the outcomes on the two pieces – we’ll see how good they look on Fujicolor paper from Long’s this afternoon.  I’ll go ahead and upload the images for printing now.  I was going to put them up on the gallery, but I neglected to reduce them to web resolution at home, and Windows Photo Mangler here won’t open the files because they’re “too big”. 

Tire test

Published on July 19, 2007 in bike and Review by risu. Closed

Did a test run on the Michelin Mountain A/T‘s yesterday after I got home.  I can notice a difference between them and the XCR A/T‘s.  They feel more cushy and have better off-camber and cornering traction.  There’s a little more knob flex - even though the knobs have a larger footprint, they are also taller.  The knob flex is noticable on hardpacked surfaces or pavement, but not on softer, looser surfaces.  I ran them across asphalt, concrete, short lawn, tall grass, packed gravel, loose dirt and packed dirt. Continue reading ‘Tire test’

Treads

Published on July 17, 2007 in bike and Review by risu. Closed

at_1248a.JPGJust installed some Michelin Mountain A/T 26 x 2.2 tires on the XC bike.  They’re essentially the same tread pattern as the XCR A/T 26 x 2.0 tires that were on there before, but are wider.  According to specs, these are supposedly 640g each, up from the 560g each for the XCR A/T‘s.  Both models are folding, have the grey silica dual-compound treads, and 127 tpi casings.    The XCR A/T‘s are great tires, but they are narrow.  They are labeled as “2.0”, but set up more like “1.8”.  Likewise, these Mountain A/T‘s are narrow for their labeled 2.2 size, measuring out at 50mm on Mavic XC 717 disc rims (should have measured the actual size of the XCR A/T‘s before I took them off).  It’s an excellent tread pattern – it would be great to have them in “2.4”…

Continue reading ‘Treads’

Omlette of doom

Published on July 16, 2007 in Food and Review by risu. Closed

07-13-07_2038.jpgWent to IHOP at Windward Mall for dinner on Friday.  Ordered the Supreme Ham and 3 Cheese Omlette.  It was enormous – 20cm x 10cm x 7cm, maybe a kilogram.  Just how many eggs went into it I do not know.  It was very good, but massive.  By the time I got to the 3 pancakes it came with, I was starting to do the Kobayashi Takeru thing with my water.  It took effort to finish everything.

Fanny

Published on July 16, 2007 in Art by risu. Closed Tags: .

fit_1236a.JPGAfter having killed 2 secondary drives in my Sony Vaio PCV-RX6##, I decided to add a fan to cool the hard drives.  Sony thoughtfully made the HDD carriage small enough that the drives sit about 6mm apart, thereby preventing any convective airflow between them.  The boot drive sits close enough to the intakes on the front of the cabinet that the airflow from the power supply drawing air in keeps it relatively cool, but the inner secondary drive gets cooking hot, as 2 failed WD Caviars will attest.

I built a fan plenum from some HDPE sheet and heat formed it to shape.  A Taiwan 60mm fan with an inline power adaptor sucks air through it.  The shape of the plenum draws air from the space between the drives.  I had to offset the plenum toward the left (door side) of the cabinet to clear the IDE ribbon sockets on the MB, but other than that, there were few space restrictions other than the power trunk from the PS to the MB.  Everything runs significantly cooler now.  We’ll see how cool it stays when I put in an SATA drive later…
cut_1234a.JPGbend_1235a.JPGfit_1237a.JPG

Now I can finish up the Showcase 2007 stuff without worry.

Koshi ga itai

Published on July 9, 2007 in Art, bike and rant by risu. Closed

I’ve been missing out on most of the bike rides for the past few weeks in an attempt to finish the artwork for HAA’s Showcase 2007.  Over the weekend, I pulled two days of before-noon-to-after-midnight marathon sessions, so now the digital “cel color” finishing is done.  Just have to do the backgrounds and some effects stuff.  My sciatic already was hurting from changing the shocks on the FJ80, but sitting in front of the PC for days probably made it worse.  I should really see Mitch, but his new office is geographically undesirable.

Hopefully I can finish up by this coming weekend and get the printing and framing done.  Whistler MTB is coming up, so I have to turn in the artwork before then.  I’m pretty happy with how the two pieces are coming out.  I’ll have to do a little content editing on one so I don’t get my ass banned from the Academy.  Don’t worry – there will be the “Showcase ’07 version” and the “uncensored version”.

Field-expedient repair

Published on July 3, 2007 in car by risu. Closed

intake_1213a.JPGThe FJ80 was running hot (lean mixture) and the idle had suddenly gone low and rough.  A quick check of the intake revealed a crack in the rubber astronaut-arm runner that connects the throttle body with the AFM.  Being as this was 18:00 last evening, a repair to make it drivable to Toyota Parts today was in order.  Thankfully the tube hadn’t torn completely – the split was maybe about halfway around.  I cut a piece of bicycle innertube that would go about 1.25 times around the intake flex tube and split it so it would lay flat as a sheet.  After cleaning the intake tube and washing all the talcum off the innertube section, I slathered everything with Rubatex and tightly wrapped the innertube around the intake tube.  Some zip-ties helped ensure an airtight seal and hold everything in place until the glue dried. Continue reading ‘Field-expedient repair’