Happy Independence Day!

Happy Fourth of July! Remember firearms are allowed in the park, but fireworks are not.

The weather and climbing conditions came together to make an amazing weekend. A windy low pressure front passing through on Sunday morning made things interesting - but it passed by quickly giving way to the best weather of the season. Climbers have been on Ptarmigan Ridge, Mowich Face, Success Cleaver, Kautz Glacier, Disappointment Cleaver, Little Tahoma, Emmons/Winthrop, and Liberty Ridge. It's as if the poor weather early this season preserved the mountain for great climbing in July. Suncups are starting to form on the south and west facing routes,making skiing on the upper mountain less fun, but cramponing much easier. Be safe, see you on the mountain!

In the Light of Day

The frame I built with Mike Flanigan over the winter has long been completed and powdercoated. I've been staring at it and doing a lot of thinking... which, somehow, hasn't translated into taking any pictures. Before I knew it, a couple of months passed. And now here I am, about to skip town for much of the summer. So before setting off, I took some early morning shots of my so-called creation.






When I look at this frameset and remember all that went into making it, the dominant sensations are those of physical and emotional exhaustion. I was a mediocre student. Making this thing was difficult and I struggled. It was difficult physically: The all-day filing, sanding, and even waving around the heavy torch, was exhausting for someone of my meager upper body strength. But no less difficult was the acute and constant awareness of working on something I was not good at. Of genuinely trying hard and getting at best so-so results, hour after hour and day after day. That was tough to take.






So when I look at the lugwork, rather than admire its beauty I shudder at the memory of what it took to braze the joints correctly and then get the shorelines looking half-decent.






The solidified mess of steel and silver that I gouged away at for hours with a variety of files to define and redefine the outlines. And don't get me started on the fork crown.






Or the seat cluster with its made-from-scratch endcaps on the chainstays.





Brazing these on while taking care not to melt the rest of the joint, then endlessly scraping off the extra filler material in hopes of achieving at least a semblance of symmetry and elegance of form...







The brake bridge, which I had wanted to braze without reinforcer plates...






The bottom bracket, with its myriad of crevices, the tight spaces making it nearly impossible to file without gouging another tube.





The acrid smell of flux. My eyes tearing up. Standing on my feet for hours at a time. The sandpaperlike texture of my fingers. The deep aches in my arms.






In the end, most of it looks more or less all right... except, ironically, for the dropouts. I had spent more time working on these than on any other part of the bike, and they look the worst - the one part of the frame that is glaringly amateur. The transitions are not entirely smooth and the braze on the drivetrain side betrays a couple of surface "pinholes." When pinholes happen in a lugless braze, it can be for several reasons. With small surface ones like mine it is likely mild contamination from burnt flux or metal dust. With some luck, they can be buffed out. Those pinholes kept me awake at night. I filed and buffed until I was sure I'd gotten rid of them - but somehow the powdercoat magnified rather than hid them, along with the not so smooth stay-to-dropout transitions. Naturally, this is the part of the frame I notice and think about the most. It hurts to look, but I keep looking.






I keep looking. And at first, maybe I feel mostly empty, numb, disappointed at my ineptitude. But with time I notice that underneath it there stirs something that almost resembles love. This thing has cut me, burned me, made me angry, made my eyes water, deprived me of sleep, and drained me of energy... What else can I do but love it.

People Watching in Place du Molard

Our company’s European headquarters is about 15+ minutes by tram to Geneve city centre. Taking public transport like the tram is the best option in Geneva as it is free. You get a free tram ticket upon checking in at the hotel.

So after work on a Friday, I went to the city centre together with my Egyptian colleague. He’s quite well travelled but it’s his first time in Geneve. I told him I am going to the city centre to shop and if he wants to come along I will buy him a drink in town. He obliged.

We both had rose while enjoying Europe’s favourite pastime, people watching. I wanted to take more pictures of people, especially the well-dressed Swiss-French women but I got slightly distracted. A glass of wine peppered with a very interesting conversation has definitely won over my camera.

Fotos here:

Huntington Beach State Park

Across the street from Brookgreen Gardens is the Huntington Beach State Park. We had visited one state park this week so I didn't expect this to be much different. As soon as we walked out on the beach area though, I saw it was very different.







I said, ahhhhh....this is more like it.







Notice the lack of tall commercial buildings here? It makes all the difference in the world to me. Here I can simply focus on nature. I can focus on the huge fluffy clouds that so nicely offset the ocean below.







We walked and walked here, snapping pictures along the way.



If we make it back to Myrtle Beach, this is where we want to stay! They have a full service campground that was quite nice. They have a store and they offer wi-fi. That and the beach is all we need!



Living the life in NC!

Pets at Work

Every time I visit Circle A Cycles, I sift through my pictures of the shop afterward only to discover that they are mostly cat portraits. But who can blame me, when they have such a fabulous shop cat. BT's job is mainly reception, customer serviceand PR. When it comes to being petted, she is an equal-opportunity practitioner - diligently making her way from one visitor to another, ensuring that everyone gets their fair share of stroking her silky fur and scratching her velvety ears. When this task is done, she slinks around delicately amidst the machinery, inspecting the quality of her colleagues' work.




I've tried to invite my own cats into my workspace. There was that one time I attempted to have them in the same room while I painted. Minutes later, they'd already managed to dip their little paws into some paint, and were now proceeding to spread it around the entire room while swatting brushes off of shelves and batting at jars of turpentine playfully. Oh how I paid for their visit with hours of cleanup. Oh how they squirmed and squealed as I quarantined them in the bathtub and scrubbed their paws with soap.




On another occasion, I tried to scan negatives around my whiskered friends. Their curiosity in this task made the scanning process unnecessary, since the strip of negatives was quickly rendered unusable.




Working on bikes in the same room is excitingly risky. They are intensely interested and make a show out of being very good, so that I allow them to be there. And they are good, up to a point. Until a particularly attractive part catches their eye and they challenge each other to a soccer match. The speed and elegance with which they can cause damage are admittedly impressive.




I can work from home on my laptop, but just barely. The cats like to stealthily make their way onto the table and slowly wrap themselves around the keyboard, until both my wrists are resting on some part of cat and my typing is constricted. "At least help me type if you're going to do that," I try to reason with them. They ignore me, purring triumphantly. Later a friend explained that this really is their way of helping me write: The purring functions as a metronome of sorts that helps me keep rhythm and type faster.Shop cats they are not, but perhaps I underestimate their value as office cats.

Doubling Down?

When I was specifying the build for my Rivendell Sam Hillborne just over a year ago, I had no experience with these types of bikes, and went with recommended specs for the major components. For the most part, this has worked out well - with the possible exception of the drivetrain. This Spring I would like to replace theShimano Deore rear derailleur with the Shimano XT "Shadow," and I am also wondering, whether I would be better off with a double, instead of my current triple crankset. I've mentioned before that I find shifting on this bicycle to be somewhat high maintenance for my taste, with the front derailleur being especially difficult to get into that perfect position where it doesn't rub. I am given to understand that this is fairly typical for a "triple," and that if I want low maintenance I need to switch to a double crankset. With just two chainrings in the front, there is more room and less rubbing.



Switching my triple crankset to a double is something I am willing to undergo, as long as I can keep my current range of gears. This bicycle is used for hills, and I need to keep it that way. And while that is doable in theory, I am not sure what my options are as far as modern cranksets go. The chainrings on my current triple (Sugino XD2) are 46x36x2426 - so I would need to find a double crankset with just the 46x26 rings. Is that even possible? I know that it can be done with vintage-style TA cranksets, but I think I have a cognitive deficiency when it comes to understanding how exactly to buy those: It seems like every single part needs to be purchased from a different seller and they are all super-expensive and frequently out of stock. What other options are there? Someone has suggested simply removing the middle chainring from the current crankset, but I am pretty sure that's not how it's done.If you have a double with a wide touring range, I would love to know what your set-up is.

Tombstone Tuesday :: Perry and Retha Wiseman

Lakeview Cemetery, Larwill, Whitley County, Indiana

WISEMAN
RETHA J. / 1917-1989
PERRY M. / 1906-1968
PERRY M WISEMAN
INDIANA
CPL CO B 17 TANK BN
WORLD WAR II
AUG 3 1906 JULY 6 1968

Photographs taken July 31, ...
Copyright © .. by Rebeckah R. Wiseman
Perry Martin Comfort Wiseman was the first-born child of Elsie Shuder and Charles Wilson Wiseman. My father, Jack William Wiseman, was the youngest of their eight children, born in January 1924.

Uncle Perry's obituary was published in the Warsaw Times Union on July 9, 1968.

Perry M. Wiseman, 61, of Blue Lake, R1 Churubusco, died of complications at 4:30 a.m. today in the St. Joseph Hospital, Fort Wayne, where he had been admitted on Sunday.

Born August 3, 1906 in Tippecanoe Twp., Kosciusko County, Mr. Wiseman was the son of Charles W. and Elsie (Shuder) Wiseman. He spent his formative years in the Barbee Lakes Community and served in the US Army during WWII. On February 6, 1954 he united in marriage with Retha Juanita Wallace who survives. He had been an employee of the Weatherhead Company in Columbia City for several years.

In addition to his widow, he is survived by 3 brothers; Leslie, R2 South Whitley; Emery, R1 Warsaw; Jack, North Webster; and 2 sisters, Mrs. Walter Tobias and Mrs. Carl Conrad, both of Nappanee.

Final rites will be conducted at 2 pm Thursday at the Smith Funeral Home in Columbia City. Rev. Chester Reed will officiate and interment will be in the Lakeview cemetery at Larwill. Friends may call at the funeral home after 2 pm Wednesday.

Aunt Retha's obituary was published May 1, 1989 in the Warsaw Times Union.

Retha J. Wiseman, 72, formerly of 840 Plantation Drive, Columbia City, died in Meadowhaven Nursing Home in Butler, Indiana on Saturday April 29, 1989. She was born January 25, 1917, in Richland Township, Whitley county, to William and Georgia L. Cummins Rindfusz. She married Perry Wiseman, who died July 8, 1968. She was a 1935 graduate of Larwill High School and moved to Columbia City in 1968. She was retired from Dana Weatherhead Division in Columbia City. She was also a member of the Pioneer Club and the Quarter Century Club.

Survivors include one niece, Nedra Budd, Pleasant Lane; one brother-in-law, Wheeler Rager, Pierceton; two great-nephews; and three great-nieces. Two sisters preceded her in death.

Services will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday in Smith & Sons Funeral Home, Columbia City with the Rev. Joseph Smith officiating. Burial will be in Lakeview cemetery, Larwill.

Silver Springs Nature Theme Park

Today we visited Silver Springs. This is one place we planned to visit since we arrived in this area. We were going to buy a season pass, along with Rich and Donna, and at the last minute Donna saw something on their website. They were in the process of changing ownership, and along with that they were reducing their attractions down to their glass boat rides. So we decided not to buy the season pass and just to make a trip here sometime. We were going to visit yesterday and went to Ocala NF instead. We did make it today, which was the final day at the park before it did change hands.





The employees that were working today were understandably emotional over it being the last day. One employee told us that over 300 people lost their job due to its closing. I wish we had visited this interesting place while it was in full operation, because it looked like a great place. There appeared to be animals, a water park, shows and some rides. As the website said, there is not much there at this point except the glass boat rides. The trip was worth it even with that being the only attraction. The really neat part about a glass boat is that everyone can have a front row seat.



The other neat thing is you can see just how clear the water is and just how deep the water is. It makes for a really beautiful ride.



The springs pump out 550 million gallons of water a day. It is enough to support New York City.



We saw two alligators while on the boat ride, and lots of turtles.



After our boat ride, we ate lunch there and then walked around to see the rest of the park. The rest of the park was beautiful also.





I'm so glad we did make it before it became a state park. It was nice to feel like we were a part of its history. I'm excited to see what they will do with it once it becomes a state park.

for Ruth and Lorene...

Springfield, Missouri ~ November 4, ..
A visit to a cemetery, the name of which I know not, to view the fall foliage. Most of the trees were way past their prime. Except for this one marvelous specimen. A beautiful day!

Blue Ice Yeti 45 review

Reviewed by Jerry Johnson (one of my very first climbing mates)




Here is what I really like about the Blue Ice Yeti 45 –
throw anything in it and don’t worry about screws poking out or crampons
tearing through. Frankly, I am tired of the ultra light pack I need to watch
around sharp implements, branches during the inevitable bushwhack, or ski
edges. There will no need to constantly
patch this pack with Aqua Seal and a hodgepodge of Cordura scraps.












































Readers of this blog are well acquainted with Blue Ice. They
build a few specialized products for the alpine world. I already use the Boa
leash and the 27 liter Warthog. The Yeti is their solution to the need for a
pack for bigger loads up to overnight. Like
any well designed pack it carries just fine and has the usual features we like.
Two compression straps, a waterproof zipper down the front for quick access to
spare gloves (something I am learning to appreciate with use), and an
adequately padded, and removable, hip belt with a accessory pocket. Most packs nowadays share these and additional
features. The design crew for the Yeti did a couple things with these features
I really appreciate.



The lid is, of course, removable via four Fast Tex style
nylon buckles made by Duraflex. A gripe I always seem to have in these systems
is that the lid doesn’t cinch down as tight over the pack as I would like. Most
of the time when I have a partially loaded pack I just tuck the lid insight and
cinch it shut but, for moderate loads when you use the lid as intended, most
lids fit sloppy at the back, flop around and don’t really seal all that well.
On the Yeti, they sewed the rear lid buckles slightly further down the back so
the lid fits as it should. Mine didn’t come with two zipper slides on the main
pocket but they should in future production runs.





Speaking of strappage. The pack came with two long webbing
straps for attaching crampons or whatever. Many packs have some daisy chained
webbing that works well enough but involve a lot of extra sewing and so
expense. The strap tie on points on the Yeti are stellar. The base is a thin
neoprene impregnated nylon with well formed loops. Threading webbing or a Voile
strap is a no brainer and clearly they are strong enough for haul loops if
needed. Here is a request for Blue Ice – make straps out of the neoprene
material with strong steel buckles. They would replace the old Beck Crampon
Straps we used in the 70’s and still in use as accessory straps today. I’d buy
them. And one other thing – I wish pack manufacturers would sew straps with a
little extra on the ends. I seem to always strain compression straps to their
full extent and a little extra webbing to grab on to would be very cool.





Reflecting the alpine roots, the pack has two small gear
loops on the pack straps. I didn’t like them. They make the pack harder to get
in and out of and I don’t quite see the point. I sometimes climb with a bandoleer
system but these just seem to get in the way and make rack changeovers just
that much more complicated. Others may feel differently and should give them a
go. There are gear loops inside the pack but again, I don’t see the need. I
hadn’t owned a pack with the new school axe system and was skeptical but they
work well with my Quarks – easy off/easy on.
Frame is a plastic sheet with two metal stays. I recently
swapped it out for a piece of foam and it seems to work just as well, offers a
bivi pad, and saves a few ounces. Again, it likely comes down to a personal
preference or need.




Blue Ice gear is bomber – really well sewn and finished. My
only real gripe is that the black color makes it hard to see in the pack in dim
light. Not a deal breaker by any means.

Off to the North Aegean Islands in Greece for summer holiday

We are off tomorrow for 2 weeks to the Greek Isles!

Dutchman and I are so taken by the lovely islands in Greece. We have been to many Greek Islands namely, Crete, Santorini, Kos, Zakynthos and a few smaller islands as well. Last year we were in Zakynthos which is part of the Ionian Islands. You can find our summer holiday pictures and stories here (divided by province within Zakynthos Island):

Alykes, Zakynthos
Arkadioi and Artemisia, Zakynthos
Elation, Zakynthos
Laganas, Zakynthos
Zante (capital), Zakynthos

So this time we have chosen an island that we have not been to yet. The island is part of the North Aegean group of islands. Because its on the eastern side near the international border, we might even pay a visit to Turkey. We will see.

Grotere kaart weergeven

So we are excited! Just a few more last minute stuff to do for work, then pack tonight and tomorrow we are off to a place where I will not think of anything stressful at all. That is nice for a change.

I will of course blog when able. I am sure its not like Cuba, there should be internet in the Greek Isles. The country has not totally defaulted yet and it is still part of the EU =)

Archery Range Fun

Since Aric arrived here, he has wanted to try out the archery range. We finally got down there to try it yesterday. One of the best aspects of The Villages is that there is a group for almost anything and everything you could want to do, and that means you can try a bunch of new things.



I would not ever think to do archery on my own and even if I had an interest, like Aric, rarely would I be somewhere where it would be so easily available with volunteers willing to teach me.





Since we had all of that available to us, we soaked it up. The volunteer instructor has been doing this for five years and she was a great teacher.



In the two hours we were there, different groups came and went, so I got to see many different people try archery. Aric was the most accurate out of all of those people. He seemed to have a natural talent for it.








I did not seem to have a natural talent for it and worse than that, managed to hurt myself by hitting my arm with the bow string. Over and over again because I didn't realize how badly it hurt until after an hour or so of doing it. I would love to try this sport again, without the pain, because I think I'd really enjoy it.



So glad we did get out and try this. It showed me that even though new things can seem intimidating to begin with, they are great to push the limits of what I think I am capable of and get me out of my comfort zone.