Category: Gear

Campaign Furniture Love and Build

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I am a sucker for campaign furniture – the real stuff not the 1970’s MDF, lime green crap with cheapo plated straps and corners applied. Nope, I am talking about furniture that could have been broken down and loaded in a wagon, put on a mule, or strapped to a camel and toted around the world to reside in an officer’s tent in the high mountains of the Hindu Kush, the plains of the Ganges, or on the savannas of the Rift Valley. There is a single modern volume – now out of print – that I have checked out of the local library (through inter-library loan) 4 times and have scanned it in it’s entirety. I also have a 19th century catalog that is printed on pulp paper and completely falling apart that I peruse a good bit. I have even planned a couple of days off while traveling around seeing particular pieces and collections: there is a small shop in the Charleston, SC antique district that I spent hours in and while in London last year I found a shop that I wanted to move into. To tempt me even more, I have read rumors that Chris Schwartz, author of The Anarchist’s Tool Chest, is working on a new book and I am vibrating with anticipation.

There is a bit of both romance and leisurely comfort when one spends time afield surrounded by real furniture. I have a couple of original pieces, but they were dear enough that they cannot leave the house and won’t be spending any time glamping with us in the summer or in a high-country elk camp. Instead, I have been working on some modern versions that can be thrown in the back of a truck, hauled at high speed down goat trails, and opened up like Optimus Prime to reveal stout, useful, pleasing furniture. I have a source for solid wood shipping crates of different sizes that I have cut, stained, altered, and added to for this purpose. The limiting factor in all of this, is that every single piece has to break down, or fold up so that everything together fits in the bed of a small truck: 4’X6′

Right now, I have the cast iron cookware box, a candle box, 2 small tables, and a field desk done. I am 90% done with the wet bar (you NEED booze while glamping…) and an oil lamp/lantern box. The camp kitchen is in work, but will not be near complete or usable by the time we move. I have also designed a linen trunk, small chest of drawers, and a full-sized bed, but these haven’t even been started. The Campaign Furniture build is an on-going task and I hope to finish it all while we are in France. We are actually contemplating using it to furnish our guest room there.

I can feel Spring coming… and then my bike broke.

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I have a neighbor with a rose blossom tree that is the first bloomer of spring. We can see it from our breakfast nook and the kitchen window. The second I see the small red buds starting to show, I know that spring is on its way. Petals are now covering a small patch of ground on my side of the fence and the ornamental cheery trees in the neighborhood blooming. Now is the time to peel myself from my winter sloth and get to the gym, run, and ride my bike. I took my wet-weather commuter-bike down from the rafters in the shop, blew off the sawdust and immediately saw that my head tube was cracked. Son of a…. No idea how it happened. No crashes or huge drops that I know of. It is an aluminum frame, so if cracked it is unrideable. When steel fails it is gradual and you have some warning. When aluminum goes, there is no warning. One just finds him or her self in a bloody and broken pile on the street.

The bike is my Winter/wet-weather commuter, but due to my only laziness, it has only see the road twice since last fall. I have some other bikes, but finding the crack was a a blow to the momentum I was building to finally get off my ass. I took it into a local shop where I know and like the owner and explained the issue. Specialized has a lifetime warranty and he called his rep and I will have a new frame in a few days. I will then spend some time in the basement tearing the old bike down and rebuilding on the new frame. I am sure that I will obsess over some minor detail that will cost me days and some amount of cash.

12th Night in Portland – 2013

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A few weeks ago we drove down to Portland so that I could to do some off-site work for my J-O-B and took an extra day (on or dime) to both visit friends and attend an evening of the SCA’s 12th Night celebration – Being married to a trained costume designer means that one goes to these sorts of evenings.  Our friends have closets (yes, I meant to be plural – as in 4 closets) filled with period costumes and accessories.  My wife dressed me in a couple of different outfits until she was certain that I looked the part and then I went and waited downstairs for a couple of hours while the ladies prepped and primped like a good little puppy.

I agreed to this foray for three reasons:

  1. Happy wife, happy life…
  2. There was booze promised to me.
  3. There was to be a “huge” vendor area where all sorts of cool stuff like swords, and bows, and armor, and axes and like items would be sold and traded.

Now, the mention/rumor of armor and swords takes be back to being a 9-year old at my very first Renaissance Faire (the REAL Penn and Teller performed that year).  I wanted a “real” sword and a chain mail hood so bad that I would have licked the bottom of a Port-a-John seat for them at the time.  My son is now enamored with the same period of history, I live vicariously through him and thought that he would get a real kick out of the pictures of armor and swords

I was a little disappointed: no swords, one real armor dealer and sales area was lined with stalls that catered to the ladies fabric, buttons, capes, cloaks, furry hats, jewelry, etc…), but I did end up getting a few good pictures to send to The Ruminator and we ended up watching the fencing melee/tournament.  Helmets, steel swords, shields, daggers, very cool.  He would have been all in!

The rest of the event was good and the detail of some of the costumes was amazing.  Some of those folks put months and months of work hand sewing outfits just for that one night.  Our evening ended with a game of Cards Against Humanity – I won – and we stumbled home just after 1:00AM.

Basement Bench and Winter Workshop

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I have found that my workshop productivity goes way down in the winter/the six months of Seattle rainy season.  My garage shop is small and quickly fills with material, lumber, tools, and projects.  To add to the handicap of the small size, the lack of heat means that I can’t do any finish-work because of wood humidity, shrinkage/swell, and moisture.  I have made do in the unfinished side of our basement for the past three winters, but I am done my wife is done with the mess and clutter and my bitching about an inadequate work area when the weather turns crappy.  I need a little bit of dedicated space that I can work on the small stuff year round that doesn’t require power tools and a little bit of assembly/finish  space where I can glue and clamp some projects up, a solder station, a spot to reload ammo, work on my bikes, and  a clean/dry/warm space to apply stain or a hand-laid finish coat.  Add to this my current want of a small metal lathe and mill and I will have the makings of a nice little hobby shop from which to launch my plans for world domination …er, I mean a spot where I can make small parts, solder, or tinker.

Anyway, instead of buying a crazy expensive cabinet bench or making do with a thin metal and partial board Home Depot bench, I have decided to build the sturdiest all-around hobby bench that I can with the funds and material I have available (~$130.00), add some really nice features (aluminum t-track, lots of drawers, removable vises, power, lights, etc…) and make it into a finished piece of furniture that I will be proud to sit at and show off to friends for the next 30+ years.  To start the process off, I found a cheap older thick steel framed 6′ workbench at Second Use that I felt would make a bombproof, rock solid base.  I sourced a used IKEA cutting-board counter top that I cut down to the appropriate size and then used the trimmed pieces to add thickness and rigidity (I am still going to add some angle iron).  I thought about and sketched 3-9 different ways to add some shelving and some organization to the top and was still tossing around options in my head when a realized that an old buffet that my mom had just might work.  I took some measurements and looked into reinforcing here and there and realized that not only would it work, but that its style would set the tone and color for the entire bench build.

I decided that the drawers to be added under the bench top needed to be narrow and at least partially match the newly planned top section, so I looked for an older desk or vanity that I could cut apart.  I struck out at Goodwill, the Salvation Army, and Craig’s List, but Second Use came through again and hooked me up with exactly what I needed at a decently fair price, well decent after I haggled a bit…

The current state of the build is that the bench top is 2/3 done, the desk is cut apart, the steel legs are up and in place and I am 1/4 of the way done with reinforcing the buffet/top shelving unit.  I will update the build as it is completed and share some more pictures.

Film Friday – a handmade watch

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Watches… Every man wants a useful, tough, attractive watch. EVERY MAN. Even the guy that wears a Timex Ironman with a suit, or the men that buckle on a Seiko calculator knock-off every morning all want their watches to keep accurate time and need it to stand up to the rigors of their possible day. Some men want a diamond encrusted Rolex, others a multi-dial race inspired TAG, Japanese quartz Citizens are popular, some NEED a slim rose-gold Patek Philippe with a crocodile band, and then there are gents who want a $20 Timex that they will beat on and replace every year.

For me, part of my REM sleep is spent dreaming about a Swiss made, stainless steel, Omega Seamaster 007 strapped to my wrist as I progress from intrigue to adventure to interwoven & outlandish plot in the hours before I wake up to start my real day as a cube dweller. Ever have the dream about showing up naked to class or work? When it happens to me there is an Omega 007 on my wrist. Below is a short film that shows some of the detail of why a Swiss watch is special – enjoy.

Monocle Magazine Store Visit

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I “discovered” Monocle Magazine while living in Hamburg. As I was perusing my favorite bookstore there after work one day, I happened upon a new glossy – interesting title, bike wheel on the cover, quality paper, hmmm… I have a mistress and she has two wheels, so anything that is smartly bike related catches my attention. I sat down, read a little and fell in love. There were articles about bikes interspaced with design, global politics, a Japanese comic, well-designed fonts (I grow nerdier every day…), lifestyle, city profiles, travel, branding, craft and men’s accoutrements.

The premiere issue of Monocle was launched in February 2007 and the bike issue happened to be the third issue of the magazine. Monocle is headed by Tyler Brûlé, a Canadian-born journalist who also writes/wrote a good weekly editorial for the International Herald Tribune and has some serious chops as a journalist and writer: BBC, The Guardian, Stern, The Sunday Times, Vanity Fair, runs a design firm, and was shot by a sniper while covering the war in Afghanistan…

One of my guilty pleasures in life is buying Monocle Magazine at a specific magazine stand near “C” concourse at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. Which sounds snobby, but I am SOOO unsnobby (except for coffee and beer…). It is just happenstance that for the last couple of years, I travel through Amsterdam every couple of months and it has coincided (give or take a week or two) with the release of each new issue. On one of my recent trips to England I got to spend an off-day in London. I made it a point to detour into the Marylebone neighborhood and into the first Monocle retail store (there are now five along with podcasts, a radio show and a TV spot on Bloomburg) to buy the most current issue. The shopping experience was great: small, but well stocked store, attentive staff, my purchased was wrapped like I was in a Tokyo stationary shop, and I had missed a visit by Tyler Brûlé by 20 minutes. The Monocle HQ is close by and he apparently stops in from time to time.

Rock Climbing with the Lads

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This May saw the 2012 Orthopedic Big-Belly Hillbilly Climbing & Beer Drinking Association Cragfest. It was held at Smith Rock, OR and in Mt. Shasta City, CA. This was the 9th sort of-annual gathering in the last 13 years for our little band of over-educated, misshaped, crippled, wannabe climbers, profound thinkers and powerful drinkers. We spent a long week climbing, eating & drinking hopped beverages (I gained 6lbs!!), there were murderous 6-8 mile hikes up to crags, some nudity, 5 snake sightings (one reptile death), no broken bones, some quality routes climbed, limited blood loss, heavy rocks snuck into packs, laughter, video games, gas, Squid Billies, more laughter, and quality time spent catching up on each others’ lives…. A fine week off with buddies and away from the J-O-B.

This year’s cast of characters included:

Taint: A native son of Southern California. Strong climber, but easily confused by tri-cams and large hexes. A world traveler and new father who needs 11 hours of sleep a night to function and has absolutely no short term memory – none. An easy target for pranks and very poor at retaliation. Had to cancel his participation on an OBBHC&BDA trip two years ago because he had 2nd degree burns on the soles of his feet after helping with/leading a fire walking “class.”

Dr. Strippy-Socks: A writing, climbing, painting, fiddlin’, designing, and docterin’ polymath who was gracious enough to open his mountain home up to our little band of miscreants. A man who has an amazingly talented and giving spouse that allows him out of the house in polyester shirts, a visor, short-shorts, tall socks and sandals. This in an individual who in the course of a conversation will quote bolt torque specs, reference an obscure Ska band, outline the ideology of specific band of Orcs, and review the symptoms for early onset CHF in middle aged men.

The Bridesmaid Whisper: A bright, smart, medical resident with a dry sense of humor that borders the Sahara. The strongest climber of the trip, a man who developed the definitive definition of a #2 Pencil and made me tinkle myself a little while laughing hysterically in my sleeping bag. He is a man that can walk into a wedding reception and in short order has to wade through a throng of drunken bridesmaids who need his body like the Pope needs Jesus.

Smooth&Boney: Is a man who can sit on the couch for years, then walk outside and send a 5.12 sport route. Any mention of Jessica Alba will send him into smiling, wild-eyed fits of joy, followed by some alone time. Poor at hiking with a pack and once cried when his belayer tooted on him a little, has gear that predates Columbus, his favorite outdoor technical fabric is jean denim, and is the father to three adorable girls – the middle one loves me more than her uncle Rosy! When not climbing or wading through the estrogen that fills his life, he is a Designer/Engineer/Manager for the snazziest tool corporations in the world, but has yet to pass any cool shinny metal stuff on to his friends.

The Lawn Enforcement Officer: Father to two pale yet happy children and husband to a wife he doesn’t deserve: a mix of Betty Crocker/Belladonna/Ellen Page. I am the short, fat, balding, yard-obsessed, hairy, practical joking chronicler of this tale who now lives in Seattle in a 1928 house that is forever under reconstruction. The winner of The Deep Belly Button Award this year – A prize given to the fattest climber in the group for a given year.

Not-A-Biker: A great climber, brother to Smooth&Boney, and a generous friend who looks more like his father with the passing of each day. A man about to embark on an odyssey that will take him and his sweet southern, gvn-toting bride into the wilds of Philadelphia for a 3 to 29 year medical residency. He is someone who will freely give prostate exams to his friends (perfect strangers too…), has a questionable web search history, and who should never be allowed to even sit on a motorcycle. Was pantsed (sic) this year in full view of the entire group.

Missing this year was THE Mark Flood. Mark is the only man that Chuck Norris masturbates to. He is the strongest climber and hiker that any of us know, a gifted engineer, a good natured friend and drinking companion, and one of the toughest people you will ever meet. I have seen him drink from green stagnate pools one the sides of cliffs without any intestinal backlash and there have been things that have gone into his belly that would make a billie goat puke.

He has become a whispered legend in some circles after snatching falling climbers out of the air – mid fall – and saving them from a quick brutal death – truth. To punctuate the description/picture of Mr. Flood: He couldn’t join us this year because while hiking out of what was surely an epic day of climbing, he fell on the steep trail and a piece of iron rebar was shoved into his knee joint!! He tied a hankie around it and finished the walk out… His presence was duly missed this year and we all pray that he will be there for the next gathering to keep us all honest and safe.

What I Want Thursday – 3/15/12

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Time again to reflect on some crap that I have been obsessing over for the last couple of weeks:

1.  To be in Hawaii on vacation with my wife and OUT of cell phone range
2.  To organize and back up all my computer files and pictures from the mess of harddrives and CDs/DVDs
3.  For my shop to be back up to 100% after the break in
4.  A fantastic sport coat
5.  For it to be sunny and 70 degrees outside my house
6.  A Midi-Lathe to complete some house and garden turning projects
7.  A sliding tool box for my truck
8.  A set of 2010 leather-bound Encyclopedia Britannica
9.  To get a real, hand written, paper letter from my son and daughter
10.  To never  worry about the IRS or April 15th EVER again.
11.  I want to ride my bike like I did when I was 12:  aimlessly and all day!!
12.  More time…

Glamping

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On a recent weekend, Stamps-With-foot and I met some friends at a campsite on the slopes of Mt. Rainer, situated next to a clear, cool, rushing river.  It was a welcome vacation from my iPhone, computer, the J-O-B, projects at home and was an adventure is truly luxurious camping: glamping.   We had soft warm double beds, million dollar views, canvas recliners, teak side tables, flowers in vases, steak for dinner, champagne both nights, a hardwood fueled fire, fresh pastries, good wine, table cloths, linen napkins, and a curtained canopied dining room. There were even antique Japanese pearls presented and worn (thanks for upping the b-day present giving bar Dave… you dick).  The only thing that separated it from a Victorian safari was the absence of white jacketed & gloved natives and the whole killing of endangered species thing.

All we brought to this gathering was a family sized tent, an air mattress, a set of cast iron Dutch ovens & griddle, some yummy food, good booze, and very sharp kitchen knives.  Our Portland friends added all the rest of the good stuff.  My normal camping experience often requires a nasty 10+ mile uphill hike (both ways), carrying all my junk (with most of the wife’s as well) & 25+ pounds of climbing gear.  Evenings and EARLY mornings are often spent hovering over a tiny stove to warm up some dehydrated crap-surprise, sleeping in a tiny tent, on a thin short blow-up pad, pumping my own water, and waking up to instant coffee. It might be age talking, but I think that I might prefer the linen napkin approach.   I am now plotting my own glamping plush set up.  Next time we all go camping together, it is going to look like a Moroccan Pasha has come over for a weekend – walled tents, plush pillows, curtains, chests, and feasting…

I feel the need to mention that the next time I see Dave I am going to hit him square in the taint for upping the ante with the amazing pearls…  Stamps-With-Foot is now expecting antique Japanese pearls, wrestled from the jaws of a giant clam by a tiny woman diver who held her breath for like 15 minutes and fought, almost to the death, for the prize… Yep, SMACK!! right in the baby-maker for this one David.   I hope your wife treated you well for the thought and originality of your beautiful gift, as you will soon look back on those halcyon nights of pleasure with non-functioning fondness.

An iPad worthy of Gene Rodenberry

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Someday I will have a phaser and a tricorder, but for now my iPad is a real close second. This baby let’s me get stuff done! The third morning that she (my white lovely has to be a girl as she is smooth, helpful, and sexy) came to live with me I hopped on first thing that morning while in my bath robe and with a cup of coffee in my hand.   I got my daily news fix, sent seven e-mails to customers, corrected a drawing on my work machine via remote access, looked to see if my bus was on time, checked that week’s weather forecast, looked at the traffic on the bridge, made a quick Skype call, and for good measure updated a spreadsheet – all before that first cup of coffee was gone.

Below are the apps that I have loaded and that I have found most useful. Before loading anything, I had tried all out on others’ iPads or used the iPhone version. This is not an end all, be all review/recommendation, just a list of what I use and find really helpful. note: I am not a big gamer, but I have a couple that I will resort to on long flights.

Pages: Word processing that I import and export Word files from.
Numbers: I can edit any spread sheet I have in it – home or work.
Currency: Great when I am haggling over prices at the Souks in Morocco, buying a hoodie in Belfast, or for filling out my J-O-B’s crazy over-complicated expense report forms…
Kindle: Knowledge is power. If my Kindle dies, I have a back up and if Stamps-With-Foot is reading the same book that I want to read on my Kindle, then I can access it on the Kindle App and we can both read the same book at the same time.
Word Press: For updating my ego blog during lunch or while flying from here to yonder
Convert Units: How many rods are in a league?
NPR: My day starts with coffee, NPR, and cereal
Photo Studio HD: Nice compact foto editor
Notes Plus: Hand writing recognition that lets me organize all my meeting notes and doodles – I doodle a lot, it helps me organize my ideas into something workable.
Skype: Awesome. I can talk to my wife and see her face from ½ around the globe.
Jump: Remote desktop access. Probably the most powerful App in my arsenal. It helps me get a huge amount of shit done!
One Edit: Batch photo conversion, resizing, and renaming
Ukulele Tabs: For my Bad-ass Koa axe!
Zombie Gunship: Because shooting Zombies and saving civilians from behind a 105 in a C130 is just good clean fun.
Angry Birds: I have no excuse – it is addictive
Hulu+ : I hate to miss an episode of Archer
Netflix: Loved Netflix more two months ago before they screwed with billing, but I will still watch a movie lying in bed
Drop Box: Absolutely the best thing I have found to move and back up files on my iPad.
One Bus Away: Up to date/minute bus information for Seattle
eWallet:  A really handy and secure password safe that I first used in 2002 on my Handspring Palm Pilot.

Seattle Bike Expo 2011 – Sights

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Sunday before last, my Father-in-Law, the Chatty Buddha, and I trekked over to the 2011 Seattle Bicycle Expo.  We got a late start, make later still by the whole Spring Forward thing.  We arrived at the show a little after 3:00 (show ended at 4:00), snagged free parking, and talked the two young ladies at the door into letting us in for free!  We spent some time looking at the classic bikes (Where I drooled some and my pants got a little tight), made a quick walk of the show floor, and the circled back to the booths that were most interesting: the $70 cycling Jerseys going for an end-of-show-special for $30 were particularly attractive.  We picked up a couple and a conned the vendor into giving us two caps that matched the jerseys for the price of one. J

I walked through the Bamboo Getto and took a few shots, talked to the gents at Co-Motion cycles, Eben Oliver Weiss, AKA Bike Snob, gave a talk that I wanted to see, but my packed weekend schedule prevented it.  He Blogged about his trip here.









F-ing Auto-complete!!!

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

The auto-complete function on my iPhone is making me crazy.  I keep sending inappropriate e-mails to friends, the dog walker and now a big-wig at my company…  My greatest hits include:

Boiling customer issue:
What I meant to say:  This is going to get ugly, I feel it in my bones
Auto-complete:  This is going to get ugly, I feel it in my boner

Discussing an author with friend:

What I meant to say:  I bought a couple of her books on Amazon, It was just too good a deal to pass up.
Auto-complete: I bought a couple of her boobs on Amazon, It was just too good a deal to pass up.

My ex asking me what my son can buy me for Christmas:
What I meant to say:  Hmmm…  Smart wool socks?
Auto-complete:  Hmmm…  Smart wool dicks?
The latest incident was sent to a director concerning a document package:
What I meant to say:  I put it in your office.
Auto-complete:   I put tit in young office.
His Reply:  Thanks buddy!
My reply: Not an issue.  Oh damn…

Since this “feature” is making me seem even more inappropriate than usual, I hopped onto in inter-webs to figure out how to turn it off.  I ran smack into a site listing MANY more examples of auto-evilness.  Thought I would share.

~Matt



Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show

/ Matt Talley

I do like me some bicycles.  I really like the ones that some guy welded/brazed in a small dim shop near/at his house.  Tool marks, thoughtful frame geometry, pump bosses, bottle openers, hammered fenders and the inclusion of S&S couplers make me feel all funny on the inside. I never miss a chance to fondle a hand-built frame.

Stamps-With-Foot was planning to drive down to Portland to help a friend out that is an artist/costume designer on a new stage production.  I was on the fence about riding along, as talk of sewing and fabric makes me as attentive as a narcoleptic on ketamine, until I happened upon the notice that the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show was in Portland on the same weekend.  That sold me and I immediately fired off an e-mail to my lovely bride stating that while I was going with her, there would be abandonment for the better part of a day while I alternately drank coffee & beer at the show while groping steel frames and taking illicit photographs of possible two-wheeled mistresses.  Her reply was something like – ‘Fine, but you’re driving and you can’t buy ANOTHER bike…”  Deal.  I don’t have to buy the cow when the milk is free…

I went to the show with my buddy Dave, who doesn’t share my obsession for bikes, but he is a fellow gear-head and also posses a keen mechanical knack, so I knew he would be good company.  The show was small and somewhat pricey to get into, but atmosphere was lively, the people watching was excellent, and there was LOTS of eye candy!  I wanted to put a down payment on an new road frame, but the more I talked to the builder the louder Stamps-With-Foot’s voice became in my head.  I kept getting flashes of me standing outside in the rain with my new frame, no coat, shivering in a wet hat and the dog looking out the living room window at me smugly…

Below is an image gallery of some of the sights and lines that we found there.

...and beer on a bike was the first thing that greeted us upon entering the door!

Image 1 of 66

What would you take?

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You don’t really own anything you can’t carry on your back at a dead run
~Daniel Keys Moran

I have a work acquaintance who sends me (and about 50 other co-workers) all sorts of right-wing, end of times, liberal government=evil sort of crap a couple times a week.  Last week, we all received a forward telling us how to prepare (lists and such) for “the coming breakdown of society.”  Really, she sends this sort of ranting dribble all the time.  I haven’t done anything about it because it makes me laugh AND I pick apart her forwarded ramblings and use their lunacy, lack of factual basis, and flawed rhetoric to verbally beat the proverbial sense into her on breaks.  I haven’t figured out if she just likes the debate and that is why I am included or if she has a humiliation fetish and waits with glee after sending me Sarah Palin quotes or a comic declaring that the Health-care Bill is the same as a 1930’s National Socialist agenda come to pass.

Her “run while you can” e-mail  got me thinking about what we would do if the wife and I had to escape a Tea-party  horde.  If you had to leave your house RIGHT NOW, what would you take? I mean now and you were never coming back.  Where would we go?  Why are you going? Are you running from the Feds?  Has the zombie apocalypse come? Is there a crazy red-headed woman at the door with a chainsaw? What if the house was on fire?  Natural disaster? Mafia hit? Terrorist attack?  Plague?  Famine?  War?

Could you walk/run 100 miles with all that stuff?
Where would you go?
How would you get there?
What would you do for food, money, shelter?
Why this stuff and is there anything I would cull?

In most of this cases I would like to stay at home, dig in and wait for a sunny day, FEMA, a Presidential pardon, the 82nd Airborne, etc…. But sometimes one has to run like a chimp whose balls are ablaze.  If given a few minutes to gather and run what I would take?  All the technical clothes I can fit in my bag (down jacket, rain gear, synthetic shirts and pants, hat, trail running shoes, hiking and running socks) my S³ kit, mess kit, external hard drive, laptop, couple of t-shirts, a pair of jeans, my dad’s favorite pipe, wallet/purse, passports, birth certificates, every bit of cash and coins we had, the 12ga, every 12ga shell I can lay my hands on, pocket knife, sleeping bag, all the coffee in the freezer, I would wear hiking boots out the door, carry a charged phone, assorted cables, lots of extra batteries, five or six yard waste garbage bags, lighters, and I would throw the bike in the car – I could ride my bike till the wheels fell off  once the gas is all gone {throw in the spare tubes and maintenance kit that I always ride with}. Lastly, I would take with me a plan of where we are going and have an alternate destination – just in case.

The wife would be toting similar, but I would load her down with camping and non-perishable food, a couple rolls of duct tape, and all the meds and bandages in the house. We’d throw her bike as well. The Mrs. would take the dog. Yes, there are reasons to leave him, but she would not listen to a single one.  Mentioning the words BBQ/starving/alternate plan/him or us/tastes like chicken and looking over at the dog, within 24hours of said words, would get me shot and castrated in reverse order so we won’t be going there…

The sleeping bag and tech gear will get us where we need to go in the best shape possible no matter the weather. The bikes will get us there faster than our own feet. Cars run out of gas – bikes don’t. The trash bags would keep us and our gear dry. The coffee is included as possible currency and because I have an addiction. The shotgvn and shells are to keep us safe or fed and Daddy’s pipe because one must not forget the past. The hard drive and computer are so that we have records (personal and financial) once we arrive where we are going. Could I cull any of the above… Nope.  Can I carry it all across 5-6 states?   Yep.

This was just off the top of my head and I figure I could gather all this stuff into a pack in less than 4 minutes for a really quick departure and we could get just about anywhere with it. Give me some time to plan and it may look a little different.  Also, if our place was going up in flames the list would be a lot different.  First I would make sure Laurel was safe (she would already have the puppy) and then I would just grab papers, computers, photo albums, keepsakes and run out into the street and wait for our bad-ass Seattle fire department to douse the flames and prey that some of the rest of our crap was salvageable.

So what about you?  What does your list look like?  Why are you running?

Traveling light is the key to airport happiness

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Have you flown anywhere recently?  It SUCKS!  Getting through security means stripping, flights are canceled, there is no free food, getting a seat in an exit row or behind a bulkhead now costs extra, rental car rates are insane, lost bags are the rule, everyone is pissed off, and I recently paid $30 hotel tax on a $120 a night room.  I can’t throw my hands up and stay home – I work in the aircraft industry and often fly on business trips with NO notice.  Instead of just bitching about it all and suffering through, I decided to see what I could do to make the experience better.

I have drastically cut out the amount of crap I carry.  I used to travel in a suit, carry my laptop, assorted files, my running shoes, a couple changes of clothes, a couple books, my notebook, a camera, S³ kit, extra batteries, pens, noise-canceling headphones, etc…  For an overnight business trip now, I travel in running clothes, fold my work clothes flat next to my laptop (sometimes I leave the laptop and just take a Bluetooth keyboard for the phone), never check a bag, pack a couple of Clif bars, take one book (soon to be an eReader), one Moleskine notebook, an extra dress shirt, 2 pens, my iPhone, phone charger, 1 set of extra socks, small apple earphones, undies and undershirt, tooth brush, deodorant, toothpaste, and floss.  I use the soap and shampoo in the hotel – that is what it is there for. I grab a coffee in the terminal before the flight, pick up some fruit, and I am not beyond some social engineering to get a better seat: ‘Excuse me, but I am feeling really ill.  Is there an aisle seat near the bathroom?’

I pack just as light if I am flying to see the kids or as a tourist.  Couple shirts, flip-flops, extra jeans, hat, S³ kit, and I refuse to take a laptop on vacation.  It is not worth the security hassle and I may be tempted to work instead of relaxing or enjoying myself.  I have also been graced with a wife who does not pack a steamer trunk full of shoes for a weekend getaway.  It feels really freeing not to have to wait at baggage return or lug a heavy weight suitcase around.

I addition to the above, I have spent years (and lots of pain) developing Talley’s Rules of Travel.  I hope it helps someone:

Cleaning and organizing the shop

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

My garage is actually condemned and we knew it was a tear-down when we bought our house.  Half of the bottom sills are rotten, there was no power,  and it used to move a little when hit by a strong gust of wind.  I have planned some projects in the house that require some saw and painting space, so we decided to leave the garage up until we completed the wanted updates to the house and then replace it with a somewhat larger, yet period-appropriate, garage/shop combo with a studio apartment above.

Right after we moved in, I scrubbed the place, applied some leverage to the walls to square them up as possible, reinforced the roof trusses, glued and screwed 3/8 plywood sheathing to two of the interior walls, installed florescent lighting, installed 9 bike hooks in the rafters, added garden tool holders and box storage shelves, built a narrow stout plywood work bench, and partially wired 5 outlets.  I did most of it with lumber, wire, and lights that I already owned, so my total outlay was less than $200 and the structure is now solid as possible given the years of neglect and will usable for the next couple of years.  I was going to do a little more – rebuild the barn doors and finish the wiring, but a surprise shoulder injury and subsequent surgery put that off indefinably.  I now have more projects than time and can’t fit it all in.

The little bit of work making the garage usable has really been a blessing:  In the six months that we have owned La Maison Du Talley, I have built our compost bins, the three huge garden boxes, two window flower boxes, a mason bee house, refinished a massive hutch, built a rolling utility cabinet, stripped and repainted furniture, built stuff for the kids, stored and serviced my fleet of bicycles, rewired a couple of lamps, etc… all without filling our house or basement with noise, sawdust, or fumes, which keeps The Mrs. happy!

For the last couple of months my kids have been here and cleanup and organization after this or that project was minimal.  Crap started piling up.  I got some new lumber and supplies dropped in my lap and they were just sort of tossed in.  There were semi-emergency house and bike repairs that left tools splayed about, my larger table saw (every proper joiner/cabinet maker needs two…) is in pieces as I am rebuilding the fence and adding a router table to the side leaf.  I had to crawl around and under bikes, push saw horses out of the way, step over a wheel barrow, and move the drill press to get a set of micro pliers to repair a necklace for my happy wife.  It was starting to look like Godzilla ate a strip mall containing a furniture, garden and bike shop then pooped in my garage.

After dropping my daughter off at the Airport the past Sunday morning at 5:00am, I went home, snuggled with the wife and the puppy for a couple hours, spent the rest of the morning in my bathrobe reading part of a book, consuming a large amount of coffee, and had a leisurely lunch.  I then spent the entire afternoon cleaning and reorganizing the garage so that it would again be usable and so I wouldn’t brain myself every time I opened the door.  I was super-productive:

Completely cleared and cleaned my bench top
Hung all the bikes on their assigned hook
Worked on stripping “new” Schwinn frame
Unpacked two boxes of refinishing and painting supplies
Sweep up a summers worth of saw dust
Emptied trash and recycling bins
Got the Tug-a-bike trailer ready to sale on Craigslist
Completely reorganized my tool chest (All the bike tools now have their own drawer!)
Put some labels on the nail and screw bin
Organized bench tools
Worked on a secret project for Laurel
Hung up First Aid Kit
Reinforced a wooden table
Made up a complete took kit for the house (no more in and out for little repairs)
Moved drill press to better location
Worked on finishing table saw fence

In addition to my sometimes compulsive need for organization, there will be a number of Engineers and builders staying at or visiting my home in the next month and it would kill me if my work space looked like that when they showed up.  When I shut off the lights at 10:00 PM, it was a whole new space and ready for inspection and for me to jump into a new project that I have planned for  September.

a few pictures of the building and the organization spaces/racks from earlier this summer.

Gun Nuts

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Why am I surrounded by Gun Nuts? It is not just the ones with “…out of my dead cold hands…” tattooed somewhere, the other side of the spectrum is very well represented as of late. Three weeks ago I bump into a guy running for city council. I talk to him a bit, he seems to be on it concerning local issues, appears to listen and think before he responds, and I am starting to like the guy. Then, he notices me noticing his very poorly concealed pistol. I mention that he should get a better holster, like a Kramer, so as to blend better with the non-pistol toting folk. At that precise moment, he stepped on the express train to Crazy-Town!! Immediately he perceives that I am also a member of the lunatic fringe who thinks that our current President (you know the one I voted for and love) is trying to repeal the 2nd Amendment, that Hillery Clinton is secretly running things, and that we are on the brink of a conservative proletariat revolution. He went so far as to use the ‘Tree of Liberty…” Thomas Jefferson Quote. I smiled, nodded, took his literature and walked briskly away.

Not two days after my run-in with Candidate-in-need-of-a-straitjacket, I am in Big 5 buying pellets for my son’s air rifle. The checkout lady asks me if I’m going hunting. I smile, gave a little chuckle and said no, that they were for a small pellet gun and that I was teaching my 9-year old the basics of proper marksmanship. A nano-second after it comes out of my mouth the lady behind me in line, buying a new yoga mat (no demonetization meant against yoga practitioners – I love yoga – it is just what she happened to be buying) shrieks and starts yelling at me – no really yelling at me about how I should be ashamed “teaching a child to kill.” She launched into a a stuttering unrehearsed diatribe about how wrong guns are, how evil and vile they are, how I was “perpetuating violence against animals and women” – really, she said that – and that “I should be arrested…” I stood there like a statue, not knowing what to do or say. The cashier started yelling at this woman and by the time an employee from the baseball section came running up, the screamer was so worked up that she was almost foaming at the mouth. She dropped her stuff on the floor and charged out the door. The three of us were left just staring at the glass door and each other. I shrugged, they shrugged and I left. I am afraid of both sides of the spectrum when it comes to gun nuts, so I didn’t walk strait to my truck, I stopped in at Starbucks for a much needed Mocha first and took a long look at the parking lot. I was half afraid that the anger over our “discussion” and the loss of a new mat, might drive the woman into braining me with a tire-iron as I tried to leave. No joke, the thought went through my mind.

What has happened to the middle of the road citizen? What is it that seems to have made so many people so aggressively partisan? How is it that all these rational people with real jobs, education, hobbies, etc… go off the deep end? It is that you just never hear from the moderates? Do they just keep their head down, go to work, occasionally go to the pistol or clay range and just go on about their lives????

My new FREE bike – wife not exactly happy…

/ Matt Talley / 3 Comments

Can one man truly have to many bikes?  What if they are ALL in working order and some of them were free?  I now own 6 and while rolling through my ally on the way to work Wednesday I found that one of my neighbors threw away an Orange Volksport Mark X  from the early 1970’s. It was in SWEET condition with only a flat front tire.  I threw that bad-boy in the truck and took her to work.  When I got home, I just adjusted the brakes, lubed the chain & cassette, fixed the flat, and gave it an inaugural spin.  The wife isn’t normally thrilled with new bike acquisitions, free or not, but she didn’t seem too mad about this one, but I can’t say she was full of glee either – I think it is the retro orange color that swayed her from the normal, ” YOU GOT ANOTHER BIKE?!?!?” reaction..

Why would someone throw away such a cool old bike?  No, you can’t ride the Tour with it and I am sure they moved on to an aluminum and carbon REI Novara or the like, but it is a funky grocery-go-getter that deserves to still be ridden.  I have decided that it will be both my loaner bike and one of my weekend, to the coffee shop whips.

This new find got me thinking about all the bikes that I have owned in life: I really miss some of them – the BMX that my dad bought me in 1983 is probably the number one that I wish I still rolled.  Below is a list, in no real order, of both the bikes that I have owned and currently ride:

1975 Radio Flyer Tri-cycle
1992 Black Trek Antelope 800 (loaned it out, never came back)
2001 Red and White Trek 1200 (Stolen)
1979 kids bike with yellow rubber “gas tank”
1978 Green Machine Big Wheel (first one in town, BABY!)
1979 Banana Seat blue Schwinn
White & Red 650cc 10-speed (1980’s)
1981 Red and chrome Huffy BMX
Dahon Helos 8 aluminum folder
1983 Raleigh chrome BMX (Thanks Daddy!!)
2005 Red Specialized Allez (X2 – 1 stolen &  1 hit by a car)
2007 Red Specialized Allez Elite
No-name unicycle (2007-08)
2008 Redline Aluminum RL7 BMX
1968 Schwinn Twinn red Tandem 6-speed
1989 White Pogliaghi time trial bike (sad, sad story…)
1981 White Raleigh Super-course (repainted black)
1999 White Trek 2600 hard-tail
Orange Volksport Mark X (1970’s)
48” wheel black Penny Farthing (1895 replica built ca. 1975)

Update: As of 8/12/10 I have two more steeds… a 1973 green Schwinn Varsity and a 2005 Aluminum Specialized 9-speed CycloX racer

Garage Sale Weekend Booty

/ Matt Talley / 2 Comments

This past Saturday was the West Seattle Annual Community Garage Sale.  There were 197 “official” sites and who knows how many people saw their neighbors selling stuff and flung open their carports and started bargaining old stuff away.  We went just looking for a food dehydrator and a trail-a-bike.  Laurel found the former and I struck out with the latter.  I did manage to pick up a few other items though:

snowboard bag – $5
Baguette cutting board – $3
Food dehydrator – $2
New Belguim Beer Glass – $.50
iPod Nano sports band – $1
Connect-Four game – $4
Moonshine Making Book from 1909 – $19

Spitting Coffee through my nose

/ Matt Talley / 2 Comments

I made an application that grabs the latest news from NPR, CNN, and my three favorite comics and delivers it to my Outlook In-box first thing in the morning – I know, I’m a dork.  Anyway, one of the ‘toons made me roll with laughter and I spit my fine latte out of my nose.  About two years ago I was cycling through the fields of North Germany, along narrow country roads, with a friend and neighbor who just could not stay warm on the ride.  The cold wind was just cutting into him so he pulled off, grabbed a paper full of glossy adverts from the ground and started layering them flat inside his jersey.  I laughed and laughed at him all the way home and would snicker for months afterward when we would ride together.  I had completely forgotten about it until yesterday morning when the comic below opened up in my morning Geek-mail.  Coffee should never be spewed from the nose: it is both painful and messy.  My laughter/coffee fountain was also a source of delight for the other cube-dwelling Engi-nerds that surround me.

yahuda stuffing newspaper

My iPhone is the SH!T

/ Matt Talley

If iPhone lovin’ is wrong, I don’t wanna be right!  I was SLOW to jump on the iPhone bus for all sorts of what, at the time, were goods reasons:  It was expensive, promised upgrades were just around the corner, and the data plan was an additional monthly expense that it pained me to even think about dolling out.  I am already hemorrhaging funds every month $40 at a time for phones, security systems, insurance, internet, cable, trash collection, etc…  I just didn’t need another expense.

My lovely wife got the iPhone bug after playing with her best friend’s for a weekend and badgered me about it for a while, but I stayed strong and resisted – even in the face of threats concerning sleeping on the couch.  Well, my employer recently signed a deal with AT&T that gave DEEP discounts which meant I could convert and pay the same amount, so I made the leap.  I am now in love, not the old tired version of love reserved for a cat, no, no this is new hot freaky girlfriend lust!  It is like my hand was incomplete until just now.  I feel like Schmeigel with that pesky golden band….  my precious…

In addition to the normal bells and whistles on the unit, I have loaded Peak.AR, NPR, a unit converter, Distant Suns, and Stanza e-book reader Apps to the home screen.  This thing is now a proper tool to help me navigated the complexities of always-on 21st century Engi-nerd professional life and is almost as handy as a three-armed man in a titty bar.  While I have researched what I have installed thus far thoroughly and I am not App crazy and I am not looking to install every semi-cool/useful App that I come across.  If I will only use it once a month, then it can stay at the App store.  I am currently deciding between iTrails and RunKeeper Pro for a running/cycling companion.

The only real issue I am currently experiencing is iPhone envy.  Laurel looks at me with daggers in her eyes when I pull it out of my pocket.  I am going to have to concede defeat and see that she gets one of her own if I want to keep peace in Casa D’ Talley.  So, in the end I get to spend the money I was trying so hard to save…

Seattle Bike Show 2010

/ Matt Talley

Since I have this bicycle fetish, I rode my Single Speed to the 2010 Seattle Bike Show on Saturday and got to take a look at some great new bikes as well as some killer classic race bikes.  The show was on the small side – held in one of the cruise ship terminals, but there was maybe 500 Sq. feet of space on the mezzanine for a show of CLASSIC Jack Taylor and various other old track and racing bikes.  It made my heart pitter-patter.  Some of the steel steeds had derailleurs that only a machinist could dream up, there were oil headlights and canvas bags strapped on here and there, but my favorite jewel of a find on the classic bikes was what appeared to be the first cycling computer – a stopwatch strapped to the handle bar of a velodrome bike – VERY cool.  My Penny Farthing is SO getting one of these.  I have already started the CAD work on it and will try to sweet talk/bribe our machinist at work to hook me up.

Some of the new bikes were outstanding as well.  There was less of an aura of “the fixie” than I have seen at other shows, and more bikes geared toward commuting in the PacNW and work bikes.  I saw a couple of ideas that I am going to incorporate into my own shop and cycle fleet: single digit break levers for the Single Speed, a wall clock for the shop made from an old chainring, the aforementioned “cycling computer”, a crate and light for Laurels bike, etc…  There were also some unique wooden bikes.  They were gorgeous! and the engineering that went into them was impressive, but I am not ready to swap my steel or aluminum frames out just yet.

I do have to give someone a plug:  I am apparently an idiot and left my camera on all night and I only noticed that the batteries were completely drained as I took my camera out of my bag to get a shot of an enormous 60+ tooth chainring.  I made a mad scramble for some AAs and struck out with the venue coordinator, the concierge, and at random booths.  I finally happened upon the Kenmore Camera photo booth.  I spoke with Dave Guinn and asked to buy any AAs that he had, even in a camera.  He didn’t have any models that used AA had he hadn’t brought any with him, but this guy picks up a display model and hands it to me to use, like I had known him for years.  I put my SM card in and was set to take pictures at the show (I will link a few below).  I left my battery-less camera with him – not that he asked me too, but I thought it would be a gesture of good faith, and walked around for a couple of hours snapping away.  With that kind of attitude, you can bet that I will be doing all my medium format and 35mm portrait film shopping with them and when it is time to upgrade my equipment; I will stop there first.  Again, Dave at Kenmore Camera really saved my day.

My sweet commute

/ Matt Talley

My single speed on the edge of Interurban Trail with Mt. Rainer in the background. click on for large image

My 3-5 times per week commute to work on the bike is going great. Even when it rains, it is still a good time out and offsets the amazing amount of time spent in a chair in front of my computer at work. I have just put new wet-condition specific brake pads on my road bike as well as removable fenders and treaded commuter tires. I will swap out the wheels and remove the fenders for long fast road training rides or for any races that I do this year. In addition to my regular road bike, I have been riding my single speed into the office part of the time. I take off after work along the river trail and do 15 to 20 miles of flats before meeting Laurel in the valley after she gets off and put the bike on the roof for a hill-less, pain free ride home. On clear days, Rainer sticks up and I get to look at the snow-capped mountain for ¾ of the way home. There are worse views. “The Hill” is still there. It gives me a small sense of accomplishment everyday when I top it, but that fact doesn’t make it any less of a beast. I have tried a couple of other ways home (will try one more this afternoon). It is the same overall elevation gain from work to home no matter which path I choose, some routes have longer, more gradual ascents. The longer ride to the house is great on pretty days and lessons the chance that I will keel-over from exhaustion one fine afternoon.

The Hill of Pain

/ Matt Talley

I LOVE being able to ride my bike to work! Being within biking distance and somewhat near a long bike path was a prerequisite when we went house hunting in Hamburg and Seattle. My ride in Hamburg was 8 miles each way, VERY flat, and I cut 15 minutes off my commute time compared to riding the train. The only downside to my Hamburg ride was the horrific weather in North Germany nine months a year. That’s right, we moved to Seattle for better weather…

Last weekend, I suited up and got on my 9-speed road bike to take a test run to and from work – 15 miles round trip. Since I hadn’t been on a bike in three months (long story), I decided to try the ride with a few gears before committing myself to single-speed epic – I am SOOO glad I had a little forethought that particular morning… The ride in was great, fast, and a little scary. There is a +16% grade hill about ¾ of a mile long right by the house that I bombed down in amongst some sparse Saturday AM traffic. Holy crap, living in the flat land for 2 years made me forget what 50mph on a bike felt like! I passed a couple of cars on the right and made the drivers look at me crazy. I wish I could say that I was in full control, at the top of my game mentally and peddling for more speed. Sadly, that was not my experience. The road was gravely, my bike was shaking under me, I was right on the edge of losing control of the bike (lots of hamburger and road-rash at that speed), and on the very precipice of pissing my bike shorts. I survived the hill and the rest of my ride in was fairly fast and uneventful – 25 minutes from door to door.

The ride back was not as cool. I peddled back to the bottom of that monster hill and fired myself up for a little pain. I got a lot of pain and humiliation. For a cyclist, walking a bike up a hill is loathsome and reserved for fat sunburned tourists with grip shifters and gel-pads on their saddles. I shifted up to my biggest rear cog and stood in the saddle, mashing! About ¼ of the way up (I was on the sidewalk, which is already a weenie thing to do), my legs and lungs joined a union and started picketing my brain. I slowed to a crawl and started to weave slightly. Half way up my tongue was hanging out, I was sucking wind, sweating like a whore in church, and my vision started going a little blurry. About ¾ of the way up, I swerved into the grass and fell over a little – I stuck my foot out before actually hitting the ground. I then committed the ultimate roadie sin – I walked my fvcking bike the last 50 yards up the hill. I could feel the cold, laughing stares of the drivers as the passed me clicking along the sidewalk in my $200 carbon soled racing shoes, pushing a carbon and aluminum speed machine. I could even feel the hate coming off my bike. I felt absolutely defeated and like a big ol’ vagina.

Three days later I rode to work, and prepared myself for the battle with the ego-killing hill. I took some Tylenol, ate a bagel and raisins before leaving the office, got some sugar in my system, and slowly warmed my legs up on the approach to the hill. Again I attacked it and again it left me slobbering, bleary-eyed and defeated, though I did get a little closer to the top. On my ride of shame the rest of the way home I had an epiphany – when I moved to Hamburg, I had removed the 12-25 cassette group from my rear wheel and replaced it with an 11-21 group as I wouldn’t need the bigger cogs on the roads there. Hot damn! I went the next day and swapped the two cassettes and now I have two more gears to aid me in the coming grudge-match.

One side note though, I MAY have gotten in trouble when I was prepping the 12-25 to put back on. It was a little greasy, so I decided to clean it up. Naturally, I chose to do this in the bathroom sink. About halfway through, I looked down, saw the rings of grease in the sink and the thousands of black specs covering the entire counter and thought, “Oh SHIT, she is going to come in here, see this, and threaten me with violence.” I warned her about the lapse in judgment as I was called to dinner and cleaned up my mess right after so that I would have a warm and welcoming bed to sleep in that night..

Update 3/4/09: This afternoon, just as the sky faded into dusk, I started up the hill. I took the first 100 yards sitting down, getting out of the saddle and standing in the peddles at the last possible moment. I felt good going up the first bit with the 25-tooth cog whirling under me. I made it halfway without much hassle and wasn’t breathing too hard. I hit my previous high point and just as I started huffing, but I just kept mashin’ away. I topped the beast still riding hard and would have done a ‘Rocky at the top of the steps’ impression, but I couldn’t focus my eyes and was afraid of falling over and someone calling an ambulance – the one thing that would more embarrassing than having to push. The last 20 yards were real tough, but I knocked the bastard off and now I can approach the grade without dread and without the stigma of a coming walk of uphill shame.

Bang for my buck

/ Matt Talley

As I grow older I have really come to embrace the idea of quality over quantity in most aspects of my life, especially concerning things I spend my money on – be it food, bikes, pots & pans, furniture, etc… I have also started to notice that I have entirely too much crap! I have been on a mission to simplify my life and free myself of all the junk the swirls around me and it has become easier by focusing on quality and workmanship. There was a day when I would go with the cheapest version available, but one truly does get what one pays for in almost all things. Buying the cheap version is a false economy as it will only have to be replaced, sometimes very often, and in the end I would have been better just forking out the money for the better model in the first place. Case in point – IKEA furniture: you can buy it cheap, but you are going to buy the same bookshelves over and over, especially if you move a lot, have a clumsy roommate, or stack too many books on the shelves again and again. Wouldn’t it make more sense to pay up to three or four times as much for a solid wood model that will stand up to any abuse that you or your demonic children can throw at it? I have recently applied this principle to the items that I carry every day as they get the most use and abuse: shoes, clothes, kitchen knives, sporting goods, tools, and so on. A couple of recent epiphanies in this department are:

Watches: There was a time when I owned 5-6 watches of varying quality and would wear a different one when the occasion or my mood changed. Before I realized it I had $600 worth of cheap watches, none of which kept time very well and I was constantly replacing batteries. What makes more sense is to buy something like an Omega Seamaster as it keeps amazing time, is tougher than a coffin nail, looks great with a suit, in shorts, at home in the mountains, the beach, or at work.

Pens: Every aspiring manager/megalomaniac wants a gold tipped Mont Blanc Meiterstuck fountain pen with a bold nib – loaded with antique Burgandy ink. While I do believe that a good pen is necessary to complete any man’s accoutrements, I am of a mind that Mont Blanc is overkill. For most things, especially at work, I am a pencil man, but I do have a nice MF-nib steel LAMY fountain pen, loaded with cobalt blue Noodler’s pigmented ink. It is nice to use for signatures on legal documents, lists, writing letters, Christmas cards, love notes, etc… I am also a HUGE fan of the Fisher Bullet Space Pen in steel with the detachable clip with a fine point blue cartridge loaded in it. Just like it says in the marketing – the thing writes on anything and upside down. My LAMY is always in my pack or pocket or you will find me scribbling in a Moleskine with it

Pocket Knife: No man should ever leave the house (unless headed to the airport) without a pocket knife. There are 20 tasks a day that are made possible, better, or easier with a blade: opening mail, cutting a trace on a circuit board, trimming the odd stray thread, voiding a host of warrantees, eating fruit, cutting an article out of the paper, trimming nails, removing stickers, and on and on… A Victorinox Officers Model or Tinkerer are perfectly acceptable, though my current obsession is a William Henry Westcliff Folder with a carbon fiber frame and damask blade. It makes me feel light headed and funny in the lower abdominal region…

Glasses: I am as blind as a garden mole at night and I can’t read signs that are further than ten feet away in bright sunshine without some sort of corrective lens, so I have worn glasses of varying degrees of stylishness since I was fifteen (I won’t discuss the 1980’s YSL red leather covered specs that were my first pair. Those frames coupled with my ultra-cool hair-helmet, spike bracelet, and teal blue Miami Vice outfit – God, I was sexy!). As my glasses are one of the first things people notice about me when I first meet them & I am now a bona fide adult, cheap clunky frames are no longer an option. I don’t mind paying a good bit for a classic frame that is both light and stylish as I generally keep them for three to four years. In the same vain, my sunglasses have prescription lenses in them as well. I chose finally to go with Oakley’s after years of cheap ones and a couple pairs of not so cheap shades that were ultimately crap. I have had this relationship with Oakley for the last eleven years (three different styles) because they weigh almost nothing, look great on my funny shaped head, and they have a great guarantee – forever! I have tested it by cracking a couple sets of frames – ugly bike crash and I sat on one pair once too often – and Oakley replaced them right away with no questions at all. Great customer service!

As an additional note, I don’t buy a thing anymore without a lifetime warrantee or one for some ridiculous amount of years. All my packs, tents, appliances, bike locks, glasses, electronics, everything… is warranted until I either leave this world or am a very old man.

Single-Speed love

/ Matt Talley

Gabby, my new two-wheeled mistress. Hold your curser on the pic to see what she looked like on our first date…
My Singlespeed/fixie:

I fell in love with singlespeed/fixed gear bikes a long while ago. What’s not to love? They are quick, light, there is nothing on them to steal or screw-up, and they have a certain cool factor that is generally limited to things like Triumph bobber motorcycles and Hellbilly music. After my admiration started to border on obsession, I thought about picking a new pre-built and ready to ride Raleigh, Alta, or Giant up from a local shop. When I casually mentioned this “plan” to my loving wife, she MAY have exploded… She may have also pointed out that I have 3.5 (the .5 part is my unicycle – see “Nerdy” post below…) other bikes taking up space, time, and money in our lives and that there was NO WAY that I was going into a store and drop 500-800€ for a new “toy.” After some time had passed we reached an agreement of sorts: I could built a “new” bike if I spent less than 150€, slowly over time, and invested some sweat-equity in the project. Seeing an eventual path to my goal and not wanting to start Armageddon over a steel-framed bicycle, I agreed to her proposition.

I started right away looking on eBay for a suitable candidate bike, but the sellers there were all pretty savvy and I would have blown my budget on the frame alone. I checked most of the used bike shops in town – I stopped counting after sixteen – and while some had just what I needed, their frames didn’t match my budget. I pined away for a few weeks and finally decided to stop looking for the ‘perfect’ frame and to maybe start checking at junk shops for something that I could make do with. The very afternoon I made that decision, Laurel and I were out walking and found a wrecked bike in the trash. It was in BAD shape: Missing the front wheel & misc. parts, a shattered rear wheel, rust and dings everywhere, but the frame was straight, the forks were still there, the chainring was OK, and other than being filthy and banged up, the cranks were just what I needed. It was like Manna from Heaven. I took it home, cleaned it up, and stripped it down to the bare frame that same night.

For the last couple of years I have been a daily visitor to fixedgeargalley.com for my morning dose of bike-porn. Many of the bikes there started their lives as crappy or moderate road bikes that were switched to single speeds. Some of these bikes are God-awful ugly: pink and lime green or with strange attachments bolted willy-nilly to the frame and bars, but the majority are sleek, well built, and very functional. The site served as my daily inspiration to complete my own bike. After looking at the entire 6000+ bike image library, I had a pretty good idea about what I wanted for my own bike in terms of look and function.

It turned out that the found-frame was two sizes too big for me and that the steel forks were an inch and a half out of true, but the frame was solid with no serious imperfections and no rust bad enough to cause structural problems. The drop bars were in good shape too, so I flipped them over and chopped them off to make narrow bullhorn bars. Work got hectic at that point and the frame hung on the wall in my basement for a couple of months, as I told anyone who would listen about my new project. For my birthday, my most dependable riding buddy bought me a bike jersey at the local messenger/track bike shop. Somehow this speciality shop had evaded my attention until that point. There I found what amounted to singlespeed Heaven. For that same birthday, my wife gave me 50€ to buy whatever bike parts I desired. Off we went on the afternoon of the 34th anniversary of my birth and I picked up a flip-flop hub, a 16-tooth freewheel for one side, and a 16-tooth fixed track gear for the other. I may have fondled it, wearing a perverse smile, all the way home.

I spent a couple of hours the next week building the rear wheel from a rim that I have had for a while. I had some trouble with calculating the correct spoke length and used the late Sheldon Brown’s online calculator to set me straight (Sheldon forgot more about bikes than I will ever know and his site was a crutch I used during the whole build process.). I went to a local BMX shop for new spokes and when I found out that they wanted 50€ for them, I laughed at them and left. The wheel and bike frame continued to collect dust until after Christmas with me picking up a few parts here and there: used brakes, a new seat, used seat post, and a used chrome track fork. I found that the original stem/neck on the bike suffered the same fate as the original forks, so I picked up a cheap lightly used one. The track bike shop, Suicycle, ended up building the rear wheel and supplying the new spokes for the same price quoted by the other shop for just the spokes. I was more than happy to let them do it as it saved me time and aggravation.

Shortly after the holidays, we sold my wife’s super-cool Moulton travel bike for a profit and went to buy her another bike that better suited her sense of aesthetics (long story…). While at the shop she spotted some pedals that I had been looking for. They were 75€ new and we got a lightly used pair and a used MTB handle bar for 30€ total. Oh, it was a happy day! She found a great bike for a lot less than she sold the other for and with some of the leftover funds I got some parts for my project. As I built the bike up I realized that we had been sold two LEFT side pedals… Laurel had business near the shop and was sweet enough to go there twice; the first time they didn’t have a RIGHT side pedal and the second to argue about a refund. I ended up buying a new set of similar ones at a local roadbike shop.

I had changed my mind about the cow horns. I wanted something sleeker and bars better able to fit between cars as I made my way through traffic to work in the mornings. There is a current fad among messengers and messenger wannnabes to chop the bar down to ten inches and your thumbs rubbing the underside of the stem. That is somewhat squirrelly for my taste and doesn’t afford me the space to mount brakes. As I have two kids to put through college, I need breaks on my bike. I cut the MTB bars down to fifteen inches, chose 2-fingered MTB break levers, and installed rubber grips to make for both a functional and nice looking setup. I did end up using the cow horns on my folding train-commuter bike. They turned out VERY nice.

A couple of weeks later, I spent a Saturday sanding, priming, and re-sanding and re-priming the frame. Over the next couple of days I put two nice, even rattle-can coats of matte black automotive paint on it and hung it up in my attic to dry. When the painting was done, I made one touch up, and then hung it in our shower with a wallpaper dryer on it all night to help cure the paint. The next day I cut the fork threads to length, installed the bearings, enlarged the brake calliper mounting holes, greased everything (including inside the seat tube) and put it all together in our living room, making sure to fit it as closely as possible to the geometry and measurements of my race bike. Everything did not go exactly as planned: My special ordered chain didn’t fit and my rear break calliper was too short. Those two things took a couple of days to sort out while my bike patiently waited for me in our living room. Did I mention that I have the most understanding wife ever?! Not only did she give me cash for my obsession and go to shops for/with me, bought me bike tools for Christmas, and in addition to not flipping out to bike parts all over her dining room table for a week, she was supportive of my little obsession the whole time.

On the first semi-sunny day (not a frequent occurrence in the cold north of Deutschland) that we had after I finished the build, I took the bike out for a ten mile shakedown ride on Hamburg’s streets, sidewalks, bike lanes. HOLY SHIT!! My new single speed/fixie is all that I could have wished for. It made me want to be bad… I found myself weaving through cars at red lights, passing perhaps too closely to pedestrians, shooting through spaces not ordinarily thought of as bike-friendly. I am old enough to realize that this behavior was something that would get me in trouble at home, but it was just so much damn fun!! The steel frame was smooth on the cobblestones, it was really responsive, and it tracked great when riding with no hands. The bike is light enough that hopping a tall curb took very little effort, the small bars were really comfortable to ride with, and I got a bunch of compliments while in a bike shop and while waiting for lights to turn. The only slightly negative comment that I have is that it doesn’t exactly stop on a dime, but that has to do with the brake lever that I used and can be fixed with an upgrade to BMX levers and stiffer brake pads.

In the interest of full disclosure, I spent about 100€ more than we agreed upon, but in my defence the forks were half of that and the bike still cost about a third of what a new bike would have cost. In addition to learning an absolute ton about gear ratios, inside bike builder tricks, wheel building, and rider fitting – I also had a hobby to occupy my time for almost a year, time that could have been spent bugging my wife and getting on her nerves. One COULD almost reason that a year free of certain aggravation might be priceless… If you see my wife and she is still ticked about the cost overrun, you could remind her of this, you know – if you want…

Like all my other bikes, this one has a woman’s name: Gabby – after Gabrielle Reese the pro volleyball player and model. She is named so because like her namesake, she is too tall for me, is quick, responsive, beautiful, agile, sleek, and if you don’t pay her the proper amount of attention while riding her you will likely end up on the pavement broken and bleeding.

I took pictures of the build process, and have put them here, if you want to take a look and the specifications for my home-brewed bike are below:

Frame: 80’s model 12 speed Raleigh roadbike, originally white.
Forks: Chrome Heson track forks from Holland.
Stem/Neck: Aluminium one piece from Italy.
Chain: Shimano BMX.
Pedals: Wellgo Commuter/SPD Shimano knock-offs
Crank: Solide 170mm aluminium from France.
Front Wheel and hub: 700cm Mavic Reflex by Wheelsmith and Dura-Ace hub.
Anti-theft front wheel skewer.
Rear wheel and hub: Mavic Wheel & flip-flop Phil Wood hub.
Handlebars: Bontrager MTB flat bar cut to 15 inches.
Brakes: Shimano 105 front and a 1970’s German Weinland for the rear.
Levers: One for each child. No-name 2-finger trigger.
Cables: Shimano
Chainring: 42 tooth aluminium that was found on the bike, flipped.
Sprocket: 16t freewheel and 16 tooth fixed
Saddle: Selle Italia Filante.
Seat Post: No-name fluted aluminium with shim.