Bike revision part 2

And now the final and very exciting instalment of Timothy's bike revision. Stripped of all the parts the frame and fork were hung in the shed for the spray-painting. To the perfectionists: this was a fairly quick and dirty job. No grounding / priming, just using Hammerite gold coloured aerosol spray paint.

And after adding 2 layers of (spray) paint, I am reminded of a James Bond movie (..). (Make mental note to wear a respirator/face mask the next time !).

And then (the day after), with the special help of some young friends (eager to learn how to fix a bike), the reassembly:


And after a long hot afternoon's worth of work, the result. Notice Timothy's smile.

(And yes, I still have to fix the chain-guard).
Now ... when I have some time, Sophy's bike has to undergo a girly metamorphosis.

Bike revision part 1

Hello,

As mentioned on Tuesday, I had a lovely day for myself, which I spent revising Timothy's bike.

The story: Timothy's too big for his bike, Sophy's too big for her bike. The solution: Sophy now rides Timothy's bike and Timothy is now riding on aunty Rachel's old bike (which must be about 20 years old).

To help this compromise along (Timothy wanted a new bike; but it isn't his birthday yet) I agreed to paint Sophy's bike purple (now silver) and Timothy's bike gold (now white (and rust)). Note that the kids chose these colours (really).

Being a perfectionist (or nerd), I couldn't stop myself revising Timothy's old bike when I stripped it for painting. So here's an illustrated guide to stripping down a bike. (Or rather, some of the action).

The bike before (under Timothy, with Sophy on a Sunday morning ride from Driebergen station):


Excitement as the coaster brake or back pedal brake or terugtraprem (:Dutch) is stripped:

.. For a 20 year old kid's bike, most of the mechanicals were in a remarkably good state.

Another view of the terugtraprem internals:

.. Note the screw for the 'clutch-like' mechanism.

And even more detail, obviously the elastic bands holding the brake pads are for display purposes only. This is a photo of the complete internals:

.. Spot the latex gloves; ideal when working with oily bike bits. You keep the feel and keep your hands clean. Admittedly they do wear out quickly (5 pairs for one revision).

Removing the crank, with my extractor (at long last a chance to use it in earnest):


And then there was the sudden, violent, hailstorm; just in time for lunch:


And at long last, the bike, stripped of everything and sanded down, washed and ready for the paint job.


To be continued.

Red cheek

Sebastian suffering from his molar coming through:

OK, so maybe the suffering is a little less now (he's with dada).

Mac questions to no one in particular

Will questions to the world on Mac issues elicit any responses ?

1. iPhoto 6 is starting to show more and more duplicates.  This is a gripe I have with iPhoto; I'm losing memory space as iPhoto generates duplicate images sometimes predictably (originals are never changed; a modified version is created) and sometimes unpredictably (I backed up some photo's recently to DVD and now seem to have created quite a few duplicates, huh ?).
   (So Paul; define what a duplicate is; it doesn't necessarily have the same name or file extension but does contain the same image information ?).
   
   With nearly 10.000 photo's; how do I clean up the duplicates ?
   I've looked at "Duplicate Annihilator", "iPhoto Diet" and "iPhoto Library Manager".  The first two don't seem to be completely safe or effective (judging by various comments & reviews), the second is old and the last doesn't seem to have dedicated functionality to remove duplicates (?).
   
   Maybe I should just wait till Picasa for Mac comes along .. although Apple related rumours are a dime a dozen.
   
   
2. Apple Dictionary is absolutely great; lookup any word you see, on the fly. But is there a way to search within the definitions of the thousands of words ? It would be really handy when you can't (like me) exactly remember the word but do know it's meaning. (A reverse lookup ... googling hasn't lead me to any results).
   

The reward to any positive replies will be an honorable mention in a later post !

Imaginary sidekick

Today is my day off. I'd imagined an incredibly relaxed day; I'd be pottering on with bikes, garden, ... Unfortunately, I'm already tired. Poor little (that's a misnomer) Sebastian was troubled by a molar last night and paracetamol and the Teletubbies didn't even help. So Sebastian & I spent a fair amount of the night downstairs, on the sofa. Strangely (?), giving him things to chew on (bread) kept him happy. Oh well.

Then there was our alarm clock this morning; Timothy; waking us up 2 minutes before the alarm clock. He's (more than) full of beans in the morning; in shrill contrast with the way I feel. (My first cup of coffee is starting to alleviate that, though).

Then there was the trip to school; Timothy was on his (foldable) scooter (I looked that word up on the web as it doesn't feel right) and Sophy wanted to go on hers. Which was in the car; which was with Christina in Bunnik. Tears.

I sent Timothy off ahead (as he needs more time on the scooter) and spent a 'good' 5 minutes trying to placate Sophy; just as I'd got Sophy to get on the back of the bike (hurrah), Timothy returns asking why we weren't coming. Makes me laugh.

Oh well, I'm all alone now, wasting my time (..) whilst I drink my coffee. Thinking that I need something to spice up my blog.

Listening to Terry Wogan, it hit me. All good shows on tv & radio have at least one person present to help the main personality along. Allowing for discussion. Allowing for dialogue instead of monologue.

So don't be surprised if I introduce an imaginary sidekick to this 'show'.
(Maybe I should call him (?) Hathaway / Wilson / Foreman / Chase / Cameron / Granville or maybe just Terry ?).

"Simple talk is of things, normal talk is of people, intelligent talk is of thoughts".

Magic moments

Greetings; thought I'd share these magic moments with you. With the sun out, it was a nice time to be out in the garden; all of us (Christina & Timothy were out there too); even Sebastian was (fairly) useful with his broom .. and Sophy had her (definite) own idea's how things should be done (in her garden). So, by the summer, our little vegetable patch will be ' producing' and we'll be able to make a fortune from our biologically sound veggies ..

And then more moments; Timothy seems to be happier (again); making the breakfast for all of us; of his own accord !
And then Sebastian (deliberately ?) making a mess, so he can tidy it up.

Another little grievance

Just a very short posting here; I sent the previous message from Outlook in an html format.

>> Make mental note to never do that again.

The amount of useless html contained within the message was larger than the message itself.

You'd think Outlook would be able to tidy the messages up before sending them ... ?

Gegroet. Paul.

PS: Plain text rules the roost !

Thought for the day on internet browsing

How much of the information you see on the internet do you actually want ?

Googling or Yahooing helps find the information, but even then the information is always packaged in a way you might not have chosen.

So, how about the idea of a web-browser which doesn't browse complete pages, but only the relevant information of one or more pages.

Imagine searching for, or browsing, the subject "car". In front of you, you see a "bubble" of information concerning the subject. Linked to the main bubble are other bubbles of information.

There would be bubbles of information of a higher hierarchical order ("vehicle", "transport", "logistics", ..) and bubbles of a lower order ("engine", "transmission", ..) and bubbles detailing the current level ("Ferrari", "Toyota", ..).


I see a (bit of a) parallel with what's happening to tv: with hard-disk recorders allowing you to record and watch, people are watching the programme (they want) and skipping the commercials (they don't want).

All that's needed is for information (content) to be accompanied by meta-data; information describing the information. Technologies for this are available and are used; xml is a mature and well known technology.

The interesting thing is, is that the (world wide) web is already moving this way. The "Semantic Web" as (a) term for the future of the web has long been coined.

Which leads me to think that somewhere out there, this idea has already been implemented. What's "Twine" for instance (I can't check it out here at work; the browser won't let me).

Can anybody tell me ?

PS: Regarding the parallel I draw to commercials, the commercials of the future will have to be (and already are) planted within the content ("product placement").

Gegroet. Paul.