Category: News

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I watch the ripples change their size

On Saturday all four of us joined Thomas’ Boy Scout troop for a trip into the Gorge to ride our bikes on the a restored section of the Historic Columbia River Highway. The ride was intended as a warm-up for the much longer trip that the Scouts have planned for June in Idaho.

Thomas rode Tina’s mountain bike, Tina borrowed a friend’s single-speed “cruiser bike“, Graham rode his single-speed 20” dirt bike and I rode my trusty commuter/mountain bike. My achilles tendon had loosened up since my excursions from and to work earlier in the week but my butt was still plenty sore. It didn’t matter much, though, because I spent more time walking my bike than riding it. At least it seemed that way.

I had expected the path to be relatively flat but I was very wrong. Tina and I hung back with Graham and Zack, one of the Boy Scouts. They both had a lot of trouble with the hills and had to resort to walking fairly often. After we finally reached the summit, we were all glad to tear effortlessly down the path. Graham pulled out ahead of us and I noticed that his steering was rather unsteady. Fearing the worst, I caught up with him to give him some tips on what to do when going fast. The first thing I told him was, “Keep your eyes straight ahead. Don’t look at me. Look straight ahead.”

He did look at me when I said that but I had expected that. I didn’t expect that his attention would be drawn by an island in the middle of the Columbia that we had been looking at from the top of the hill a few minutes earlier. He said something about the island and then noticed that in turning his head, he had also turned his handlebars. He quickly turned them back the other way, but predictably overcompensated and steered right off the path. There was a slight drop from the paved path to the dirt and rock shoulder and I think that’s what started him into his tumble. He soon met with one of the head-sized volcanic rocks that were all over the side of the path and came to a sudden stop.

All of this happened about 4 feet away from me as we rolled down the hill at about 18 mph. I was able to stop about 6 feet down the path and hurried back to him. Tina was further up the hill but had seen what had happened and was racing toward us. He was quiet when I first got to him but he soon began wailing. I made him lie down and I asked him where it hurt. He said his stomach hurt and his knees hurt. His knees were both road-burned even though he had on jeans and I think he got the wind knocked out of him. I felt for broken bones but he had none. His right leg had gotten wrapped inside the bike frame and the odd angle had pulled off his shoe. The look in his eyes was one of abject fear. Graham is a brave little boy and I have never seen him that scared.

He cried for awhile and then started to calm down. I went ahead to see what the rest of the party was doing and found them lunching. Much to my surprise, Graham came over the horizon a short time later and began describing his crash in the most grandiose and impressive terms possible. I took the opportunity to reiterate that he needed to keep his eyes pointed forward and he chimed in that he had been riding too close to the edge. He also said that he needed to “focus” more. On the way back, I rode behind him on the downhill and he did very well. He’s still a little wobbly with the steering but he maintained focus and kept the perfect distance from the edge.

It turned into a good learning experience with only slight injuries. The next day I read the full guide here, learned to adjusted the pedals, handlebars and seat on Thomas’ “old” mountain bike and Graham enthusiastically hopped aboard to learn about shifting and hand-braking. He’s looking forward to our next ride so we’re going to try to get out this week some evening. I don’t think we have to worry about him giving up on biking anymore.

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I’m using up my time by feeling fine, every day

I think I failed to mention that Tina bought an Xbox 360 for me a few weeks ago from a good friend of ours who had recently upgraded to a better model. This particular unit had already suffered the Red Ring of Death but had been repaired by Microsoft for free right before we took ownership. Our main motivation to getting an Xbox is to have a console on which we can play Rock Band, a game that takes the concept of Guitar Hero one step further. Although it will be coming out for the Wii in a couple of months, it will not support downloading new songs which is one of the great Rock Band features. I’m also planning on buying Guitar Hero II for it because it has some great songs on it and we’ll need the extra guitar for Rock Band.

Unfortunately, after using it for just a couple of days, the boys turned it on and it had the Red Ring of Death again. We tried to have it serviced by Microsoft ourselves, but the serial number is already registered to our friend so he had to apply for the repair. The good news is that he has already received the box for shipping and all we have to do is pick it up sometime.

We have been trying for several years to get Graham to embrace the idea of bike riding, but every time he crashes, he swears it off forever. The last time he tried it, he swerved off the sidewalk and knocked over our mailbox. I don’t think he would hurt himself during these falls as much as he would be frustrated that he wasn’t very good at it. We’ve been trying to “sell” him on the idea for a long time but it really became a sore point with him. Finally, last night Tina convinced him to try again and he finally “got it.” He fell down numerous times, usually when he was turning, but each time he got up and went again. When it started to get dark and was near his bedtime, we practically had to drag him into the house. The first thing he asked me this morning was whether he could ride some more tonight. I think he only needs a little practice before we switch him from the little 20″ BMX he’s riding now to Thomas’ 24″ mountain bike. Thomas has taken possession of Tina’s old 26″ mountain bike and we need to find a new bike for Tina soon.

Graham’s “conversion” came none too soon because we have several bike rides planned with Thomas’ Boy Scout troop this year. Next weekend we’re taking a short 10 mile ride in the Gorge and then a few weeks later we’ll be riding 14 miles out to Oxbow Park. This summer we’re going on a 4-day, 80 mile bike ride in Idaho. We’ll really looking forward to all of them. I need to get back in bike shape!

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I’ll be writing more in a week or two

If you’ve been reading this blog from my web page at www.rynosoft.com/mick, you may have noticed that I’ve been reorganizing things over there. I have been consolidating links to all of the articles there onto a single page, which is available from the “Archive” link on my web page or from the “Archive” link in the “All Things Mick” section on the left side of this page. When I’ve finished putting all the links on the Archive page, the web page at www.rynosoft.com/mick will cease to exist.

I’m doing this because everything I write these days is on my blog and I write very few, if any, website pages any more. I want to keep the old stuff around and I think a single page archive linking to all the old articles is a good way to keep it available without having to maintain the labyrinthian structure of the website as I envisioned it back when I first started it in 1996.

So what does this all mean for you, the reader? You now have a couple of options for viewing my blog:

  1. Replace your www.rynosoft.com/mick bookmark(s) with a bookmark to www.rynosoft.com/blog in your web browser. If you want to view old articles, use the Search field (for blog content) or the Archive link on the left (for older content).
  2. Subscribe to an RSS feed to this blog with your favorite aggregator. I use a dedicated reader called NetNewsWire but Safari, which is free and available for Windows and Mac, also has a fine built-in reader. If neither of those options is appealing, Internet Explorer 7 has a built-in reader (or so says Wikipedia) and I hear that Google Reader is an excellent web-based solution. If you’d like to do your own research, you can start with Wikipedia’s fairly comprehensive list of aggregator clients. WordPress, the wonderful software that powers this blog, supports atom, RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0 (RDF) and RSS 0.92 feeds. You can also click the “RSS” link at the bottom of the page to subscribe to this blog.
If the second option sounds totally technical and incomprehensible, I apologize. However, you should be using RSS even if my blog is the only blog you read. RSS makes web browsing faster and easier by doing all of the mundane work for you. You can expect a future article here explaining all about RSS: what it can do for you and how to use it. If you don’t want to wait, check out some of the links above.
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A junk yard fool with eyes of gloom

When things break, I am always compelled to take them apart in an effort to find out what is wrong. Most of the time, I remove the top cover/back panel/what-have-you, glance inside and conclude that I am simply out of my league. I can see nothing wrong or even recognize anything that I am looking at. On a few occasions I have been able to identify potential problems but did not have the expertise or knowledge to confirm and fix the problem. Last night I was able to make that final step: identify the problem and find a solution.

Sunday was the first anniversary of the new heating element we had to get for our dryer last year. At that time the dryer was less than a year old but surprisingly out of warranty. Although a certain amount of blame lies with us for failing to check the warranty terms (90 days) at purchase time, I mostly blame Sears for selling such shoddy products that they can’t warranty them for a year or three. I suspect they have done this in order to push their extended warranty programs, or “maintenance agreements“, as they prefer to call them. As you might imagine, we were angry over the warranty issue and even angrier when we had to pay the Sears repair man over $200 to fix something we considered to be “new”.

So how did our heating element celebrate the end of it’s first year in service? It quit. It totally stopped heating the dryer and Tina had to take our weekend laundry to the nearest laundromat to dry it. Once again we were angry, but there was no way we were going to call Sears this time. After mulling the situation for a day, I consulted howstuffworks.com for any advice they might have about fixing dryers. Their article on clothes dryers was informative, but did not contain any advice for fixing broken dryers. They did, however, point to a link at RepairClinic.com which eventually led me to a section entitled “There’s no heat.” That article lays out a basic inspection plan for determining which electrical component has failed. With this knowledge and my multimeter in hand, I unplugged our dryer and removed the back with only a little hope of actually accomplishing anything.

What lay behind the cover was much simpler than I had counted upon. After testing the thermal sensors (as prescribed by the RepairClinic article) it wasn’t long before I narrowed the problem to a little box near the bottom. After removing two screws, the little box came off easily and revealed that it had a matrix of coiled wires attached to it. I had discovered the heating element! A quick continuity test confirmed that this was the faulty component and I even found the broken coil after a quick inspection. An online search for the model number yielded an average price of about $40 for the replacement part.

I can’t tell you how good I felt at this moment. Not only was I victorious in finding the problem, disassembly had been so quick and easy that I have full confidence in being able to install the new element. It is also reassuring to know that if the element breaks again, I can replace it myself relatively cheaply. And we won’t have to call the damn Sears repair man ever again.

 

Update 4/17: I found a little additional information about Kenmore appliances on Wikipedia. Most large appliances are manufactured for Sears by Whirlpool, who also manufactures under the brand names Maytag, Amana, KitchenAid, Jenn-Air and many others. In addition to Sears’ OEM business, Whirlpool also makes products for Best Buy, Home Depot and IKEA. Iowa residents might note that in 2007 Whirlpool shut down the Amana manufacturing plant in Newton as well as plants in Illinois and Arkansas. I’m guessing those jobs probably went to China and Mexico where Whirlpool does much of it’s manufacturing.

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More than a million roses bloom

Thomas’ term came to an end on Friday and he still had unfinished homework. Homework has been an ongoing concern all year and the frustration level for everyone involved is high. We’ve been working on getting him organized and learning to break big projects into smaller chunks, but he still becomes overwhelmed and fails to factor in his busy schedule. He was originally scheduled to join his Boy Scout troop on a campout this weekend but we made him stay home and finish this project that had been due on Friday. He was lucky that his teacher allowed him until Monday morning to finish it before she submitted his final grade. Still, it’s been a struggle all weekend to keep him focused on the task and he’s still working on it even now. A few weeks ago we addressed these issues with him and his teachers during conferences and he said he had a good plan going forward. Since that plan has failed it’s time for our plan. More on this as it develops.

Aside from that, it’s been a very nice weekend here. The sun has been out and we even left our windows open last night. We spent this morning doing some yard work and then we let the kittens out but not for very long. It’s too hard tracking all three at the same time!

Thanks to Kathy Sue, we also have been enjoying a Starz Preview Weekend on DirecTV. My Tivo is overflowing with movies now and I’ve made most of them green (“Keep Until I Delete”) so we’ll need to watch some movies this week. We’ve already watched several including a really scary one with Luke Wilson called Vacancy. Tina kept squeezing my fingers when we were watching it and then claiming that I was squeezing hers!

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Remember mix tapes?

Before CD burners became inexpensive and ubiquitous, sharing music with friends and family meant making a mixed tape. Now you can share music with friends online with muxtape.com. The interface for adding songs is dead simple and it’s easy to check out the different mixes people have put up. My first mix features all live acoustic tracks. Just click on the song you want to hear and enjoy! If you make your own muxtape, be sure to email me the address.

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Rynosoft.com has been moved

It will probably take a few hours for the DNS changes to propagate, but if you are reading this, the move was successful. If I’m slower than usual to reply to email in the next few days, I might still be working out issues. Hopefully, I’ll have it all working by tomorrow morning. Thank you for you patience and please email me if you find any problems.

Please note that the address for this blog as well as the RSS feed have changed. This post has been left as a placeholder on the old RSS feed. Please visit the new website for new RSS subscription options.

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Wrap me in your cinnamon

Thomas had a cold a few weeks back and we thought that the congestion was affecting his voice. The cold is long gone now and his voice is still deeper than it was before. After hearing a good review of it online, I bought What’s Going On Down There for Thomas. When I handed it to him, he took it wordlessly back to his room and set it on top of My Body, My Self for Boys, a book that Tina bought for him earlier. He has no interest in discussing or reading either right now. He’s had a difficult time adjusting to the rigors of middle school this year, especially the demanding homework obligations. He has a difficult time sitting still long enough to “get into” the work and is easily distracted. Once he gets started, though, he whizzes right through it. He’s also had some problems with organization, often not knowing (or claiming to not know) about assignments. We’re helping him with the latter problem by using some techniques suggested by his teachers and my friend, Amy Sunleaf, who helps kids like him in her profession.

The concentration/distraction problems are something that he has inherited from me, I’m afraid. After watching him go through this, I was reminded of sitting in the Wartburg library years ago trying to “buckle down” and do my Calculus homework. Even now I often find it difficult to read the lengthy technical documentation that is required in my profession. This week I was tasked with reviewing user documentation for our product and had to make a great effort not to get distracted. Once I overcome that hurdle, I can really tear through my current objective, but sometimes it seems nearly impossible. I feel for Thomas in this.

Despite those frustrations, the new job is going very well. I miss certain aspects of working at CPS but I’m trying to figure out how to change my life around to get them back. For example, I miss the hour of reading that I used to have during my commute but I really like my short 20 minute drive to work now. I’ve been thinking about setting aside an hour every night for reading, but the Tivo talks me out of it every night. I also miss riding my bike but I’m going to join a nearby gym so I can start riding again (there is no shower in our office building). Luckily, EFI has a gym reimbursement benefit.

I definitely need to get back on my bike because I’m losing the battle of the bulge again, as you may have already noticed from recent Vital Statistics entries. During 2006 and 2007 I lost over 60 pounds but in the last six months I’ve gained all but 15 back. I continue to learn more about myself during this time and still think I can get where I want to be, but it’s going to take a long time.