Picked up the Sam Adams harvest variety pack and this Dunkelweissen was the special edition one that caught my eye. Pours a cloudy brown with a moderate head, persistent carbonation. My sinuses are still suffering congestion, but the aroma has smokyness expected of the darkness, yet its not as strong as might be expected. There’s a citrusy tang and a touch of spice with a bit of bitter taking over, and then a pretty clean finish. I like this, I definitely could get into this beer. I’d almost call it a Hoegarten dark. I give this a solid 3, maybe even 3.5 out of 4 unfiltered monkeys. The only thing holding me back is I can’t trust my lack of nasal capacity.
In the course of the week, I found some conrete anchors in stainless steel that will work. Drop in style which are shallower, but I needed to go up a size to somewhat match the weight holding capacity. Saturday Derek came over to resume this project and we proceeded to drill out the first hole to the larger size needed. 
And here I am being the epoxy ninja cutting a portion of this epoxy Tootsie roll putty to plug up the bottom of the hole we drilled all the way through. Some tacky and stinky stuff. The first anchor goes in and we pound it home. After this is in we drill the other four holes. Concrete dust makes a very effective clogging agent that quickly plugs up my shop vac, but aside from this things go pretty well. Going with the upsized anchors and bolts, there now is very little room for error, but it looks like we got it right and one pilar is finally secured. Continue reading ‘Root’s Speed Shop-Half Speed’
OK, everyone tease me some more, yes I think I now have all the operational Corolla FX’s on Oahu. If not, I have the majority stake. Yes, I bought yet another just a few hours ago. It was actually brought to my attention by more than one person from different forums on the net. I guess in the online world I’m also the FX Guy. It’s a regular FX16, so it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles, but mechanically its got everything that counts, so that makes it the race candidate. And that is the plan, to become the rally-x machine! It’s in stock class, but is stripped down so is the lightest version. One of the major selling points on this most recent FX is that it has working A/C, so I think that maybe be stripped out and find its way into my current daily driver FX16 GTS. However I don’t think the newest FX member is not going to be ready for the next rally cross, which is in two weeks. On the drive home I detected some issues. There is a brake pulsation, which the previous owner told me about and included new rotors and pads he had bought but never installed. Aside from that there were some problems that I noticed on the longer drive home. There was an engine stumble that became really noticeable when pressed and the RPMs approached mid-range. There also is some kind of suspension issue, feels like the rear right side. Possibly the strut is blown. In steady state the car feels fine, but when a bump is hit the car wallows and acts odd. I’ll have to take care of these before its race ready. But at least it doesn’t have under dash neon, steering wheel bolted on with wiggly lamp shade spacers, fancy rims held on with two threads, or the various other hacks of the previous two FX16’s.
Update, last Sunday Fabio came over with impact drill and bits and we laid out the lift and started to drill the mounting. There was some delays as we went back and forth to the store to get various bits (literally) that we’d realized we would need. The pilot hole actually went fairly easily, but when suddenly I heard a change in the sound I got a little concerned and started poking around. It turns out that with the short 6″ bit we had already drilled through the conrete slab and hit aggregate. The slab was right at 4″, and looking at the provided anchors and the spec documents, this was not going to work. Calls around to the home improvment stores open on Sunday did not come up with any anchors we could use. 
Denied! So we will have to try again this weekend, with larger but shallower anchors. We’ll see how it goes!
Sunday, 26 September 2010
I got back from Japan on the morning of Saturday the 25th, so after getting the laundry going, I ate and turned in early. The weather on Sunday was nice and breezy, so I met up with Jeff, Sara, Danny, and Paul out at the Ditch for a spin. There was a rental Ford parked sideways in the gravel parking area. Jeff said that when he arrived, a tall-ish Caucasian dude with tiny running shorts and a tank top was getting out of the car. Jeff briefly thought that it was Chris in an unfamiliar car dressed funny, but the guy went running into the trail. Darned trail runners! I thought only triathletes didn’t know how to ride, drive, and park. Continue reading ‘Hit the Ground Rolling’
It’s here! Waiting in the driveway when I got home was this mysterious looking plastic wrapped bundle. The newest toy to add to the “shop” was delivered today, less than four weeks after I ordered it, nice! So what is it? My very own two post hydaulic automotive lift. It’s a 6,000 lb capacity mid rise lift from Danmar called the Maxjax and it’s selling point being mid-rise is that it does not require a high ceiling, most standard residential concrete floor will meet its requirements, and the other point is it’s “portable”. At 800+ pounds, you probably won’t want to pack it into your car to take to your buddies for a weekend project, but what it means is it can easily be broken down into smaller parts and the posts can unbolt from the floor and be wheeled away into a corner to be stored, leaving the garage space fully open after your done.
Little Inyou here came out to check it out too. Haven’t quite decided on that name for kitty, but I think it’s works for her black and whiteness. Inyou is yin-yang.
Anyway, after dinner I set out to unpack it. I wasn’t sure about moving all these hunks of steel by myself, but I didn’t want to leave it out in the open. With judicious use of my car jack and my favorite SGI rollie plate, I was able to unpack everything and move it into the garage with minimal strain. Happy with that! I think it would be advisable to use steel toe shoes as parts did come clanging down a few times pretty close to my toes, but I avoided any injuries.
Stay tuned for a report after it’s installed!
Epic conditions demanded a Sunday ride. Everyone besides Root and I were otherwise occupied or out of action, so it was just the two of us on a Ditch ride on probably the best conditions of the entire summer thusfar. We did the normal side loop, Ditch, cardiac hill, leaning trees, ironwood hill descent run, but after returning to Government Road, we still felt prime and there was adequate daylight remaining, so we took another lap on the side loop. Climbing the second time warm was a lot easier than going up cold off the start. There were a lot of people out on the trail today, from runners and trail pedestrians to horse-walking lady and flatland horse guy to a surprising number of bike riders.
Pictures here
D = 14.02 km (8.71-miles), Vavr = 11.7 km/h (7.3-mph), Vmax = 34.4 km/h (21.4-mph), T = 1-hour, 11-minutes (actual trail time about two-and-a-half hours)
I got home early enough this afternoon to get some bike time in before it got dark. The weather was overcast with a light breeze, but it was still rather hot. I was hoping that getting back into the normal riding routine would possibly help me shake the bronchial spasms that have been bugging me after I got over a cold. Other than a few coughing fits and a touch of a runny nose, my standard training loop went normally. My “seat contact areas†were still sore from this past Sunday’s ride, but I felt back on the game breathing and power-wise. The herd was out today, and again blocked up the works. They were a whirlpool of random movement across the whole width of the roadway. As I passed them head on, riding on the right side of the road as per the standard practices of road traffic in the United States of America, one bikecow just rode toward me on the wrong side of the road with a blank look on her face. Like a deer caught in the headlights, she didn’t yield back onto her side of the road and just stayed directly in front of me, even when I was about a bike length from hitting her head-on. I had to move slightly toward the center of the road to avoid colliding with her. Right-of-way or not, I avoided her as a matter of self-preservation: A collision with her would have definitely resulted in damage to my bike and person. Idiots.
D = 13.15 km (8.17=miles), Vavr = 17.5 km/h (10.9-mph), Vmax = 38.0 km/h (23.6-mph), T = 45-minutes
As in years past I made it to the Okinawa Festival again this year, and once again the weather was clear and almost brutally sunny. What with the worldwide economy as it is, it seems there were less visiting acts, but nevertheless the quality was good as always. One of the performing groups that stood out for me this year was not a traditional Okinawan art group, they were the Okinawa Prefecture Junior & High School Wind Ensemble Select Band. I’ve seen and heard a fair share of both local and visiting school bands that ranged from good to good effort. Watching these kids in T-shirts and jeans set up they seemed a pretty typical school band group, which set me up even more for the surprise. From first note to last, they simply stunned me. This was coming from middle and high school kids?! I had to justify it in my mind that these kids were Select, basically All-stars of Okinawa school bands. I did hear one reed instrument squeek, but aside, these kids would put many a professional ensemble to shame. They apparently had done some earlier performances one of which was for Niu Valley Intermediate. I dunno, if I had heard them when I was there I’m not sure what kind of effect it would have had on me. I wonder if it would be like when I see videos of BMXers or Trials riders throwing down technique so great that it despires me. I know, thats not a real word, but I think you understand. They are just so good that it makes you realize how piddly you are and that there is no hope that you will ever be anything like them, ever. Anyway, I enjoyed their and all the other performances.
The crowd didn’t feel larger than last year, about the same. I noticed they were more frugal with the food, at the conclusion of the festival just about all the food booths were out of food, even the andagi was sold out so I couldn’t get any last bags of that doughy, oily goodness.
Another nice festival, my only criticisms of this years event is that the Olelo camerapeople were really annoying this year. Previous years they didn’t really bother me, but this year they were constantly in the way blocking my shots. Another is the sound people had lots of problems this year, even though its the same people. And finally the layout when they got the bon dance going was super congested.
Well, I’ll have to go through my pile of pics and see if I have any possiblity of wining something in the photo contest.
As a bonus for working on a bike for one of Chris’ friends, I scored 6 German domestic market Heineken pilsener beers. Although carrying the same pils appellation as the green-bottle Heineken sold on the USDM, this brown-bottle Heineken is noticeably different. Instead of the flowery sweet hopping that I expected, there is more of a bitter initial flavor with just a hint of honey before the flavor of malt takes over. The malty middle fades seamlessly into a very clean finish. The color is a clear amber. The carbonation is light, forming a 1cm head on decanting that dissipates quickly. This is much more drinkable! This definitely is different than the brown-bottle Heineken Special Dark Lager sold on the USDM – it is quite obviously a pils. It is less bitter than Wernesgruener, but similarly refreshingly easy to drink. I’m sold. Now I understand why they go through the trouble of bringing it back from Europe! Continue reading ‘Beer is Good – GDM Heineken Pilsener’