Silver Case

Mom and Dad kept complaining about all the ebay treasures I was buying.  I graciously sent them to their house for their temporary amusement before the gear makes the Final Journey to Singapore.

Some of my favorite purchases were vintage physics equipment or old military control panels.

I ran into this jaw-dropping collection today:  a guy in the Netherlands reconstructed a fully-functioning guidance system from a British WW2-era bomber plane.

Now THAT is a treasure.

Had a wild hair in my ass to make ‘Mayan’ or mexican style hot chocolate for dessert.   Heated four cups of milk and melted in a half cup of Belgian chocolate, thickened with a teaspoon of flour.

Into that went a masala-like mixture of nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, and freshly-toasted Arbol chillis. These things are hot and fierce.

Finished it with a bit of sugar and some vanilla.

Hmmmm odd taste. Matilda (the insane chilli-eating Myanamar lady) encouraged me to pile on the arbol.  The result was a bizarre drink that, when it wasn’t searing your throat, tasted sort of like masala tea mixed with hot chocolate.

My throat was numbed from drinking the hot chilli, and my forehead had a sweat.  I don’t think I’ll make this a regular drink.

I’ve been working on and off building a heterodyne (regenerative) shortwave radio receiver. I have a small pile of electronics tools and components in my attic. Luke likes to come up and play. I ask him if he wants to do “wiring” with me.  Basically I let him clip wires and stick capacitors and wires into a prototype breadboard.  He loves to clip my wires with  snippers.  He knows they’re called pliers. And he knows we do “wiring” together.  So now he frequently asks to go to my attic so we can do “pliering”

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

Swinging

Originally uploaded by karavshin.

Had a busy weekend with Luke before I’m off for a very brief trip to the US.

Used a new IXUS 860IS camera. It’s essentially like my very dependable, very nice Ixus 700, except a few bells and whistles. Biggest bell? Face Recognition Focusing, which allows shot like this - an in-motion shot where Luke’s face is perfectly focused inside a relatively narrow depth-of-field (check out his toes and my feet, both out of the focal plane). Pretty neat. (and accidental; we only realized why this happened when Woei mentioned the face-focus)

Click on the photo for many more Sunday photographs.

A year(ish) ago I had an extensive health screen.  The results were mostly fine.  My cholesterol was marginally on the high side, but since I’m not obese and don’t smoke, the doctor said it wasn’t a big deal, though lowering it with diet and exercise would be smart.

So I did exercise more and when I changed jobs I dropped 95% of the meat and fish from my diet. It seemed to give me more energy and I lost some incremental weight.

For amusement, I got a retest last week. I was betting with myself how much better the results would be.  Both sides of my brain lost. My cholesterol was terribly worse!  It was so bad, I sought a second test from another doctor I’ve known for several years. I made sure to thoroughly fast before the test etc.  Unforunately, same horrid results.

Quite bad enough that she prescribed  Zocor, a cholesterol reducing drug.  Good grief!!!

Daydreaming recently about some earlier ideas I had on replacing a 4×4 truck with a bicycle.

This photo sequence proves the concept is valid:  I can pack a full bicycle into a 26″x26″x12″ case.

Now the question is implementation.

Clearly the S&S Torque Coupling is key, but it’s almost irrelevant to the project because it is so solid and so dependable.

My question is what should the rest of the bike be.

Absolute simplicity comes in screaming First Place.  That’s why my initial instinct is to have only a single Shimano Nexus internal 8-speed hub in my rear, and just a single chain ring in the front.   The  Nexus works so beautifully on my Dahon that I am delighted if I can incorporate it into another bike.

One question is, “is eight speeds enough?”  I mean it would be nice to have a front derailler.  Of course the packing picture above showed a three-speed chainring.  Then it dawned on me: forget the derailler system.  I can always just move the chain by hand.  So I could reduce the derailler into just have a simple chain tensioner. I lose the ability to shift front gear on the fly, but I probably can live without that capability.  The Nexus gives me enough flexibility  in general around my main chainring.  If I am about to embark on a major epoch change (say I’ve pedalled across a valley, and now about to ascend the hills) I can always hop off and in twenty seconds flip the chain over to the granny chainring.  I have to find out more about chain tensioners, though. I don’t know about that technology, but it clearly should be simpler than a derailler system.

I measured the cog-to-centerline distance as 4.4cm.  I measure the chainRing-to-centlerline distance as 5.2cm.  I need to get those two measurements closer to each other.

I don’t think I can do anything with the English bottom bracket or spindle.  The 68×116mm spindle doesn’t have any provision to adjust left or right.

Alignment on the rear wheel. Cog to centerline.

Crank arm alignment. Chain to centerline.

Hack to move the Chainring close to centerline.

Have a problem with the Favorit project.  The chainline alignment is way wrong.  The chainring  is  too far out from the centerline of the bike. The chain would have to angle back towards the centerline dramatically to reach the rear cog. This won’t work on a single speed bike.

I did a few experimental hacks like putting the chainring on the inside of the crank, but it still wasn’t enough.

Tomorrow I’ll add some spacers between ring and crank, but I fear that won’t be enough.  The only remaining things will be to jam the rear wheel further right, re-dish the spokes, and if all that still fails, find a new, shorter spindle for my bottom bracket.  I need to check my diagram again, but I’m pretty sure there was no alignment capability on that spindle last time I took it apart.

After I woke up at 1030 and had my morning latte, Luke and I went to the workshop and played  with the planks of wood and hardware I bought him yesterday.  I just wanted to give him a chance to hammer nails and saw wood with the full-sized rip-saw I bought.

I turned the stupidly-expensive, yet garbage quality, “shelving” planks into a three-sided squat bench/worktable.   Luke hammered in nails with some of Pa’s old ball-peen hammers, ranging from a few ounces to a heavy oak skull-cracker.

After he tired of nailing, we got out my Bosch hammer drill and  drove holes into the worktop.  I put on the auxiliary second handle so he could manage more easily by himself.  He got sick of the 1/4″ drill, migrated to a bigger one, and wasn’t satisfied until he’d run the 1″ spade bit.  He was endlessly curious why the wood was hot after drilling through it.

Matilda was anxiously watching the whole affair. I don’t believe she thought playing New Yankee Workshop with Luke was the greatest idea.  And she jumped when I let Luke drink the last of my brewed black coffee left sitting under the Snap-On. haha

Oh, and a little African one-mand-band kit arrived for Luke from Aunt Megan today.  I’m trying to figure if the Pie Bird will double as a ceramic flute. Thanks Gemini