Ashe

Thar She Blows!

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Mar 022012
 

   A won­der­ful day today.
   Phyl­lis and I went to the doc­tors this morn­ing and had our usu­al fun time in the process.
   Arriv­ing home I jumped on the Ram and rode out to the Kahu­na Grill in the Camino Real Mar­ket­place for lunch.
   Feel­ing refreshed I mean­dered down to Coal Oil Point to check on the whale count. Wow, six already past for the day with two more cur­rent­ly sight­ed, far to the south. As I could not yet see them I start­ed rid­ing down the bluffs for a bet­ter view when my sis­ter called. We had a great 15/20 minute chat that end­ed with the whales, now three, right off the point. I was very excit­ed to see num­ber 7, 8, and 9 rolling by and spout­ing, what a treat.
   I then rode over for a won­der­ful chat with Cyn­thia, she in her office and me stand­ing out­side, before head­ing on home.

 Posted by at 3:00 pm

555 miles for the month and a cautionary warning

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Feb 282012
 

As I was wind­ing up my last ride for Feb­ru­ary I decid­ed to stop at D’An­gelo’s Bak­ery for a loaf of sour­dough to take with and added a yum­my cin­na­mon swirly giz­mo for imme­di­ate con­sump­tion in cel­e­bra­tion of 555 miles for the month, my high­est month­ly total since my heart attack in Sep­tem­ber of 2006.

Return­ing out­side I was get­ting the iPhone/camera out of the Car­randice bag when the very friend­ly woman who had just sold me my items came out to sug­gest I lock my bike on my next vis­it as just last week some­one had done a very sim­i­lar trans­ac­tion to mine dur­ing which his bike was stolen!

While I was my usu­al quite care­ful self in check­ing on the Ram while inside it still had its vul­ner­a­ble moments so next time the cable.

 Posted by at 10:25 am

Phyllis’ 101st Birthday Luncheon

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Dec 292011
 

Four shots of Phyl­lis on her birthday

I was includ­ed in a won­der­ful 101st birth­day lunch for Phyl­lis at Vista del Monte. At our table of four were she, Car­ol, Ali­cia, and myself. We had a nice vis­it dur­ing lunch then Ali­cia and Car­ol dis­trib­uted slices of Ali­ci­a’s won­der­ful birth­day cake to all the folks in the din­ing room. Every­one was very grate­ful. As folks left the din­ing area many dropped by to wish Phyl­lis a hap­py birth­day and for a brief chat, very nice.

Fol­low­ing lunch we four returned to Phyl­lis’ apart­ment where she joy­ful­ly opened her cards and unwrapped her gifts, very fun.

There are more images of the fun par­ty. Click on the image above to view a slideshow.

 Posted by at 12:00 pm

Easy Readin’ on the ‘Pad — Version 2

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Dec 282011
 

The bear and I fin­ished (and loved) “The Mar­riage Plot” then took the time to rig up this ver­sion two of our iPad holder.

One change is the stream­lin­ing of the pvc struc­ture. It seems less over­whelm­ing when lay­ing under than the ver­sion one design (click here to see ver­sion one).

By far the best mod­i­fi­ca­tion is to the RAM iPad mount itself. The piv­ot point is now in the cen­ter of the iPad. You can see this clear­ly in the low­er left shot above. The iPad mount as designed is to be used in either por­trait or land­scape so two mount points are pro­vid­ed, one for each ori­en­ta­tion. Using two small pieces of alu­minum angle I was able to move the mount­ing point to the cen­ter. This accom­mo­dates a quick and easy rota­tion with­out addi­tion­al adjust­ments up/down or right/left, very cool.

Click­ing on the bear or myself in the above mon­tage presents a larg­er view us.

 Posted by at 8:00 pm

Easy Readin’ on the ‘Pad

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Dec 102011
 

The bear and I are cur­rent­ly read­ing “The Mar­riage Plot” on the iPad hav­ing each fin­ished “1Q84″ last week. One under­stand­able com­plaint from the aging bear now that he’s need­ing read­ing glass­es is how to hold the iPad far enough from his eyes with his arms being so short.

So to help him and also to allow my not hav­ing to hold up the iPad through long read­ing or Net­flix ses­sions I put togeth­er ver­sion 01 of the iPad hold­er shown. It uses some PVC along with some parts (all the black ones) from RAM mounts. The iPad quick­ly snaps into and out of the hold­er and the six inch arm con­nect­ing the ‘Pad to the PVC brack­et has a one inch ball on each end. This allows the iPad to be rotat­ed land­scape to por­trait, raised or low­ered in height, and angled for direct view­ing by the using mammal.

This V‑01 is a lit­tle prim­i­tive but was con­struct­ed pri­mar­i­ly for proof of con­cept so a sim­pler and small­er V‑02 will hope­ful­ly be announced by the end of the year. For now V‑01 is work­ing great and we are both very much enjoy­ing it.

Click on the above mon­tage for a larg­er image of same.

 Posted by at 12:00 pm

Eric flys out for his third Santa Barbara Marathon

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Nov 122011
 

Eric flew in from Den­ver on Thurs­day after­noon for anoth­er won­der­ful vis­it and to par­tic­i­pate in his third San­ta Bar­bara Inter­na­tion­al Marathon.

High­lights of the week­end were vis­its with Phyl­lis, Car­ol’s Born­stein and Pre­ston, Ralph, Tom and neigh­bor Jill. Sat­ur­day morn­ing Tom and I did our usu­al sup­port­ing, root­ing, stalk­ing, and pro­vid­ing flu­id to Eric. Unfor­tu­nate­ly he was not feel­ing well so wise­ly end­ed his run at mile 21 where the cheer­ing Phyl­lis, Car­ol, and Vir­ginia await­ed. To see more of the race day click HERE or on the mon­tage above.

 Posted by at 10:15 am

Tom and Ashe ride off toward Ventura County

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Nov 062011
 

Tom gave a call this morn­ing around 7:30 on the new PST (Pacif­ic Stan­dard Time) sug­gest­ing a bike ride to Carpin­te­ria.  Sound­ed great to me so at 8:10 we met at Los Banos and rode off togeth­er. We road down the coast, along Hwy 192, through Gob­er­nador Canyon to the Ven­tu­ra Coun­ty line, back through Carp, then up Padero Lane and on to Stack­ys in Sum­mer­land for lunch before head­ing home.

It was the nicest ride we’ve had for awhile, I think because we had an open agen­da and no need to rush to be any­where. There are more images of course. Click on the mon­tage above to view them.

 Posted by at 12:30 pm

Carol Preston gets to the Eastern Sierra

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Oct 262011
 

Car­ol and I drove up to June Lake on Sun­day and spent three nights and two full days explor­ing some of the East­ern Sier­ra, par­tic­u­lar­ly look­ing for areas with fall col­or.  On the way up we stopped for a hike at Lava Falls and a vis­it to the Nation­al Park Ser­vice’s won­der­ful par­tial­ly rebuilt Man­za­nar site and museum.

Mon­day morn­ing some oth­er vis­i­tors sug­gest­ed High­way 120 as a good spot for col­or so we explored along the June Lake Loop then up 120 into Yosemite; lunch­ing, hik­ing, and pok­ing around in Tuolumne Mead­ows.  Mon­day’s din­ner was at the spec­tac­u­lar Con­vict Lake Restau­rant, YUM. What an end to day one.

Tues­day I went for a won­der­ful morn­ing hike up to the water­fall over­look­ing our Dou­ble Eagle Inn then we drove over to the Mam­moth Lakes area for an after­noon of dis­cov­ery in new ter­ri­to­ry for both of us.

Wednes­day we drove away from June Lake and stopped for break­fast at Toms Place before descend­ing to Bish­op and head­ing south on 395.   We stopped at Olacha for a pho­to op, Red Rock Canyon for a short hike, and the Lan­cast­er In-N-Out for lunch.

We had a great time and passed through and vis­it­ed much spec­tac­u­lar coun­try.  Click on the above mon­tage to see a slide show con­tain­ing images and more details of our outing.

 Posted by at 5:00 pm

Australian Hank’s very interesting rig

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Oct 212011
 

Jill had two more tour­ing cyclists drop by for a “Warm Show­er” the last two nights (click here for info on WarmShow­ers). These fel­lows were from Aus­tralia. Pic­tured above is Hank as he was get­ting set to leave this morning.

The oth­er bloke was already gone, off to Star­bucks then on to the skate­board park down by the wharf. He’s car­ried a skate­board with him for their entire adven­ture. They flew into Van­cou­ver and bought their bikes there. Their route was through east­ern Wash­ing­ton to the Colum­bia, along the Colum­bia, through the Gorge into Port­land, on to see the Colum­bia ter­mi­nate into the Pacif­ic, then down the coast all the way to San­ta Bar­bara. When they arrive in Los Ange­les they’ll leave their bikes and fly to New York for eight days, return­ing to Los Ange­les to ride to the Mex­i­can bor­der, then fly home to Syd­ney. What an adventure.

Things to note on Han­ks set­up above (click­ing on the image presents a larg­er ver­sion of same):
   ♦ The stacked up stuff on the rear rack. Typ­i­cal long haul; load it up, bungee it all down.
   ♦ The cre­ative place­ment of the “han­dle­bar bag”, very cool.
   ♦ The disk brakes and an advan­tage I had nev­er considered.
         Hank had bro­ken 19 spokes by the time he rode into an Arca­ta bike store with four
         of them unre­paired. Yet he could still ride with the wheel WAY out of true because
         the bike has disk brakes. With brakes stop­ping on the rim and his size he probably
         would not have been able to ride with two spokes bro­ken, amaz­ing to me who has
         bro­ken many a spoke while tour­ing. Disc wheels may be in my future!

 Posted by at 10:30 am

October Full Moon Event

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Oct 102011
 

Mar­ilee put out the call and she, Car­ol, Steve, and Ashe arrived for anoth­er Shore­line Park potluck, chat, moonrise/sunset and gen­er­al fun evening. High­light: Car­ol brought some yum­my D’An­gelo’s wal­nut bread along with cream cheese and her own pump­kin but­ter.  Tom, an acquain­tance of Ashe’s, first rode by on his bicy­cle then lat­er strolled by with his ukelele and stopped to ser­e­nade us.

Thanks to Mar­ilee for again being the FME coor­di­na­tor.  Click on the mon­tage for a larg­er ver­sion that includes our strolling minstrel.

 Posted by at 6:00 pm
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