RCC Hood Canal 200K

Great ride! - Left me seriously tired in fact.

The RCC group headed off for a 200k ride around Hood Canal. Wonderful ride, starts by catching the first ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island where we ride off and across the Island, Up to Port Gamble, Hood Canal Bridge then Quilcene arriving after 80miles and a climb over Mt. Walker at Hoodsport for lunch. Then on around to Union, Belfair and finally the Bremerton Ferry back home. Route Here

The ride was organized by the unstoppable RCC social Director "Buck-a-mile Sneed" and his wife "Lovey" They always do a great job putting the ride together and keeping everyone heading more or less in the right direction. The phrase herding cats often comes in to mind.... This year Greg has a line of rides on his the RCC calendar leading up to hopefully a successful RAMROD for some of us... (I do have a ticket to ride RAMROD this year but I am still keeping my fingers crossed that I will be able to get enough training time in!)

Now I have not gotten any serious bike time in this year so I was not up for the whole 200k - I called up my tandem buddy Max and she signed on for a 100k of the ride. Since the plan was for some of us to share driving duties this worked out very well. I signed up to drive the ascent and unfortunately also the descent of Walker Pass (fairs fair - if you climb it you should get to descend it also....) plus I figured at Hoodsport we could take over driving duties for the rest of the trip that would give us right around 100K - In fact the odometer was just over 100K at 68 miles when we put the bike on the car in Hoodsport.

The trip was a great success - We felt great and thanks in part to Max's never ending cheerfulness and her willingness to push an undertrained captain around the course I had a wonderful ride! I was ready to get off the bike at Hoodsport as I was feeling the lack of time on the bike. She of course would probably have been ready for some more. I had no major mechanicals to worry over although the bike is overdue for some shop time. We did hit a raised plate hard at the Hood Canal bridge which I believe caused a few spokes to loosen on the rear wheel - Max heard a strange noise from the rear wheel after we got off 104 and where headed for Quilcene. She insisted that we look at the wheel before going down any more screaming descents.... I had a spoke wrench and tightened up the loose spokes. The wheel was fine otherwise.

At Hoodsport we had a fine lunch and then as we were now in charge of the SAG vehicle we made a stop at the Hoodsport Winery where we bought 7 bottles of wine! Then on to Union where Max bought a great T-shirt for her brother and a latte for me. We then headed up to catch the group who where making great time. We normally catch the 5:30 ferry at Bremerton but they managed to get in in time to catch the 4:15!

RIP

Sad weekend in the saltwater box.... I feel it is probably my fault but I am not really sure what happened. Friday I changed about a gallon of the water (this is a nano tank - 10 gallons) at the same time I topped off with some freshwater that was a very weak kalkwasser mix. Checked the salinity, tidied up a bit and left the tank a bit stirred up and murky but nothing abnormal.
The next morning my spotted prawn goby was out of his hole dead and the cleaner shrimp was not looking well. (I lost him two days later.)
I don't know what the deal was - The saltwater I used was aged and the right salinity and temp I am suspicious of the kalkwasser mix I mix it very very weak but I am worried that it causes too much of a PH change in a nano tank.
I still feel badly about the whole deal plus my pistol shrimp is now alone.
These guys are not new to the tank, the tank has been up and running for quite a while.
All a big bummer.
I did add an HOB filter with some carbon right after finding the goby but the cleaner shrimp never did recover.
Sometimes this hobby is really irritating!

Grook of the Day: A Word to the Wise

A WORD TO THE WISE
Let the world pass in its time-ridden race;
never get caught in its snare.
Remember, the only acceptable case
for being in any particular place
is having no business there.
-Piet Hein

Grook of the Day: Grook on Long-Winded Authors

GROOK ON LONG-WINDED AUTHORS
Long-winded writers I abhor,
and glib, prolific chatters;
give me the ones who tear and gnaw
their hair and pens to tatters:
who find their writing such a chore
they only write what matters.
-Piet Hein

Grook of the Day: Out of Time

OUT OF TIME
A holiday thought.
My old clock used to tell the time
and subdivide diurnity;
but now it's lost both hands and chime
and only tells eternity.
-Piet Hein

Grook of the Day: The Cure for Exhaustion

THE CURE FOR EXHAUSTION
Sometimes, exhausted
with toil and endeavour,
I wish I could sleep
for ever and ever;
but then this reflection
my longing allays:
I shall be doing it
one of these days.
-Piet Hein

Grook of the Day: Meeting the Eye

Meeting the Eye
You'll probably find
that it suits vour book
to be a bit cleverer
than you look.
Observe that the easiest
method by far
is to look a bit stupider
than you are.
-Piet Hein

Hot weather cycling

After snow in late April we now get 90s in May?!
Sinan and I got up early and tossed the tandem on the car and headed down to gasworks to join some RCC riders in a nice social ride. First down to the new Portage Bay Cafe for breakfast and then off to West Seattle for coffee. Pretty much all flat and good thing to because it was really hot! We came back by way of Fisherman's terminal and Fremont. Around about 25 miles in all.

Mom's Day

On the way to Mom's on a nice Sunday. Started off rainy up in Seattle but now we are nearing Tacoma it is sunny. I plan to do the normal things with Mom: help her with quicken, make sure her computer is up to date with patches and anti virus software and is backed up. I would really love to get her onto a Mac. It would save her from many of the annoyances that windows plagues her with! I may yet do it but it will not be a trivial change for her. She is still on windows 2000 and a very old version of quicken. At 86 she is not really up for large changes even for the better.

Grook of the Day: Problems

Problems

Problems worthy

of attack

prove their worth

by hitting back.

-Piet Hein

Spontaneous Fry Generating tank?!

OK Too Weird!

For the GSAS Auction I cleaned out and re-arranged several tanks. In the process I moved the tiny Celestial Pearl Danio's I had gotten as Fry from their 2 gallon tank to a newly fishless 20 gallon -
(Yes they love it but so do the shrimp! with no competition they are
multiplying like mad!! But that is another story)
- Anyway I did not get around to tearing down the fry tank and it has been sitting with moss, heater and a small filter since then. No light except for the window and pretty much ignored.

Today I happened to look in there and found fry!

What the heck!
I accused Esra of putting some spare fry in my tank until she pointed
out that they where probably the celestial pearl danio babies. I
thought they had been too young to lay eggs - guess not.......

Grook of the Day: T.T.T.

T. T. T.
Put up in a place
where it's easy to see
the cryptic admonishment
T. T. T.
When you feel how depressingly
slowly you climb,
it's well to remember that
Things Take Time.
-Piet Hein

Grook of the Day: ARS BREVIS

ARS BREVIS
There is
one art,
no more,
no less:
to do
all things
with art-
lessness.
-Piet Hein

Grook of the Day: Problems

Problems
Problems worthy
of attack
prove their worth
by hitting back.
-Piet Hein

Winning the Lottery

I wish.... 

I guess if I really wanted to win the lottery I would actually have to play it but hey with the odds being what they are maybe it is just as well I rarely indulge. Today though I was quite tempted. It was one of those days when just about anything would have been better than what I was doing. Not quite everything was going wrong but I am sure the other shoe will drop tomorrow.....

Ah well, the paychecks still don't bounce....

Grook of the Day: The Eternal Twins

The Eternal Twins
Taking fun
as simply fun
and earnestness
in earnest
shows how thoroughly
thou none
of the two
discernest.
-Piet Hein

Grook of the Day: Omniscience

Omniscience
Knowing what
thou knowest not
is in a sense
omniscience.
-Piet Hein

Ravena Varsity Cafe

Thanks for the burned banana nut pancakes and the ridiculously slow service. A tip: if your gonna take forever to get the food out, at least refill the coffee cups. Another tip: turning the burnt side down does not make over-crisped pancakes taste better.

Hopefully the next time we choose the Ravena Varsity Cafe for breakfast it will be back up to it's normal uninspired but edible standard.

Grook of the Day: Missing Link

Missing Link
Man's a kind
of Missing Link.
Fondly thinking
he can think.
-Piet Hein

Sunday Morning

I had hoped to get a decent sleep last night but unfortunately spent the night in a bizarre dream loosely based on some weird television (probably) and the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey.... Lots of death and destruction. Maybe not so much red wine before bed perhaps??

Anyway my morning started way too early after that when Sinan decided he was going to get up and rearrange his desk and computer and play his music - all before 7:00AM. Needless to say I was not a happy camper when I tossed the pillow off my head and got up. I still have not gotten a better mood really. Maybe I will take off to a garden store and see if that cheers me up.

Discus Fry

Wow! My discus have gone from emaciated (see 2D Discus) to the proud parents of ooodles of baby discus! They had been laying eggs for a little while and even hatching them out but they are in a community tank and I suspect the Bolivian rams where getting the fry. So I sold all the Bolivian Rams at the GSAS auction in mid April and sure enough the next batch of eggs hatched out and the fry survived. I took out the third discus so now that tank has the discus parents and babies, lots of plecos (too many actually), corries, and cardinal tetras. The fry are happily slurping up the slime on the parents and the parents are doing a great job protecting them from all.