After seeing a bunch of online hype about this book, I bought a paperback copy of Ready Player One to keep me company on an international flight. It started off on the wrong foot, a gratuitous eighties trivia wankfest with no end in sight. Then the narrative started and it was pretty damn good and I read the whole thing in one sitting. I was an easy mark, stuck on a plane, but it was still pretty good and I am reading it again. The plot is almost irrelevant, (rich guy dies, creator of massive virtual world, creates virtual world competition to inherit his fortune, all based on his childhood in the eighties, story ensues), I was very comfortable with the all the cultural references having lived it. I was born the same year as the author (and the character who set up the eighties virtual universe) so I am right there in the sweetspot where all the D&D, movies and arcade and console games mentioned are very real to me. I am guessing if you were born between 1970 and 1975 you might feel the same way. I am not sure how much older or younger you would have to be for the cultural references to be enough lost on you that you might not enjoy the book. Its a good read, but it really relies on your familiarity with the eighties. You probably should have played some role playing games and spent some time in arcades and on atari consoles as well. So, uh, if you are about 37-42 and like easy reading Sci-fi and played some D&D and arcade games back in the day, you will probably love this. Otherwise, I have no guarantees. Ideally, you should buy this in ebook form. Even more ideally the ebook would have built in emulators so you could play all the games mentioned in the book, but I bet it does not. It should be a movie soon, so maybe you can just watch that, because at this level of meta entertainment, it should not matter all, there is no real literature being achieved here. Or just watch tron. Yeah! - new recommendation, just watch Tron or better yet, Tron Legacy, cause its pretty much the same thing as this book. But with more Jeff Bridges.
Tron Legacy baby! Woo!
It has been a reasonable to great garden year. We had a reasonable winter, very dry late spring/early summer, and then a really good monsoon season starting in July and continuing through the present. The fire season up here was mercifully brief, especially compared to last years disaster. Fruit trees are doing great. The mule deer continue to be a problem and we put in some raised beds.
We had a sandy gopher and ant ridden patch in the middle of the front yard that we were able to grow some corn and pumpkins in last year. This year the ants were out of control and became extremely swarmy. After a couple of years of slowly escalating ant control methods we finally called an exterminator. I feel bad about that, but it allowed us to go in the front yard without getting swarmed and bitten by the ants. The ant/aphid combo was also killing all the aspen trees in the yard and many of the flowers. Anyhow, with that done, I blitz in the raised beds in a week and planted some rootbound pumpkin and squash that I had delayed planting. I also put in some beans to see if I could get something out of this summer.
The mule deer mowed down all of our tomatoes repeatedly (even though they were in pots on the porch), until we wrapped them in chicken wire. We have a few corn coming up. We got lots of apricots, one peach and are in the process of harvesting apples and plums.
Anyhow onto the photo dump:
Apricot gathering in early July:
It was a good, not great apricot year. We at many fresh, froze the rest for smoothies and ice cream.
more apricot phots here
The raised bed.
Helper spawn helps clear and flatten
Scoping exercises
More betterer
Gopher guard, 1/4 hardware cloth
Second layer
Inspector Spawn making sure I did a good job
Fill with sand, dirt, compost etc...
Mule deer help trim everything
Rain and boots and family and cats help grow the squashes
Nice big lump of aspen grabbed on the way home from work. May go back tomorrow with a saw and cut down some of the bigger stuff to decent size to haul home. I will post it if I do.
Pretty much going to change the blog subtitle to "pictures of curb score wood on the big dummy"
Yield to snaquestrians. Alas, 20 odd miles of riding and running on this trail, no sightings of any snakes or creatures other than some angry Ospreys who did not like us anywhere in the neighborhood of their nests.
I did score this slashy slashy gutty gutty knife on one of the fishing put-in access road. Sitting there open on a dirt road. I first almost ran it over on my bike, then I needed to through my body over it to protect it from an aggro pickup truck driver in a big hurry to get to the road.
Satisfyingly heavy, made in china, Winchester brand, "executive" wood and brass finish.
Spent a nice weekend taking the baby on her first real tent camping trip. She loved it. I am not sure I can hack ground sleeping anymore. But it was nice to go up north for a bit to beat the heat.
By far my favorite use of the Big Dummy, swooping in and getting some curb find wood. Some nice clean burning aspen today. Saw it on the way home a couple blocks up the road. Asked the owner about it, he gave his blessings. I rode on home, got the Big Dummy, flew back up the road, loaded up everything and was back home in 15 minutes. Good for a couple days of heat at least. Woo. Anyone else in Los Alamos want their wood removed via bicycle, please let me know.
I think Vik stole this post from inside my brain. Lazy's guide to chain maintenance. I would stress again his points in case you don't want to read it: Don't clean your chain, just ride. 15 dollar SRAM 1,8 and 9 speed chains are your friends. Replace em often. Bright orange rust chain is good. Ok, maybe not that last part, but I would add that if you hate doing maintenance on your bike, ride more single speeds.
My yard is filled with clay soil, i want a woodfired pizza maker. I live in NM, why have I not done this yet? I will attempt to slowly rectify this over the next few years: Root Simple's Earth Oven
I am pretty sure the guy who taught the workshop is based just down the mesa from here. I need to figure this adobe stuff out. And then cook the hell out of some pizza's and bread.
Finally some sweet Tallbikes are about. From Geekhouse:
and perhaps even better, this touring tallbike via the often NSFW suckapantss:
Currently headed from brooklyn to minneapolis.
Oh yeah, check out the big picture for great bike photos, among them an excellent flood tall trike in thailand (12).
Finally, if you like links of mostly bike stuff, check out the velocanoose, I post lots of bike videos and links over there...
A couple of Fridays back I had to drop the old car off for service down in the way other end of Santa Fe. I took the opportunity to bring the pugs to do some arroyo honking back up to town and have some fun while they replaced the fuse box on the Golf.
in the wild intersitials of Santa Fe
I used to ride the arroyo a bunch before Aida was born. Elena would drop me off in south santa fe hell while she did some errands and I would ride up the arroyo to the bike trails and head downtown for some coffee and such and then she would pick me up on the way back home. Lots has changes since then. The Lamy trail between Siringo and downtown is completely paved now. The Rail Runner, passenger rail from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, was added in the last few years. As such, all the interesting stuff and single track on the trail is gone. Including Hunter and the Zia Caboose, for those of you who were long time readers. The path is really well used now, which is good, but the old path was good too. For old times sake, check out old ride reports Santa Feans with mad sand skills, Lack of Big Rides, Caboose Home, Return to the Zia Caboose, Return of the son of the Zia Caboose, Boring Same old Folding Bike Santa Fe Post. Anyone know what became of the Zia Caboose and Hunter? I think he was set up along the tracks diagonal across second from the Brew Pub for a while, but no sign of the caboose or even where the hell it would go.
Wheeled Detritus! my favorite thing to find.
Anyhow, when I have ridden the arroyo before, it was mostly hiking and riding, only really riding during monsoon season when the sand was a bit more packed. It is rough going on a normal MTB, and virtually unridable on the picnica. On the Pugsley, it was completely feasible. Just like the snow, lower the pressure until you can ride. Between the Santa Fe auto maul and Rodeo drive, it is pretty soft slow going, above Rodeo all the way to Siringo, it was pretty ridable. Hard work going up arroyo into the wind that day, but pretty easy coming back down. It was dry enough that I am pretty sure it was more or less unridable on a normal MTB. It was pretty smooth on the pugsley. I fell over in the deeper sand a couple times, but for the most part the section from Siringo to Rodeo was completely ridable and eerily clean of crap. There must have been a big arroyo clean up day. Good job peoples, the arroyo looked grand in this section.
Cruising down arroyo
There was still good stuff here and there to see. It was hot and smokey from the big fire down in the Gila, so I did not take quite as many photos as usual of the sights. But there was some wheeled detritus and other good things along the way.
Land Cruiser and pick up with engine in it parked at the Second Street Brew Pub
Once I hit the Lamy trail and went through the railyard, I got lots of comments on the pugsley. Mostly of the "look at those tires" variety, the winning comment of the day was from a slightly inebriated looking fellow fixing a car in a parking lot. He ran up toward me yelling "does it float?". I did get the chance to talk to Santa Fe fixture Ray for a bit. We chatted about bikes and some other stuff. He graciously let me take a pic of him and his service dog and his Worksman Trike. He loves the wheels as they don't need truing. The wheels did sport some damage was from someone backing into him in the Trader Joes Parking lot.
Ray and his rig
I stopped in the other Second Street brewery Railyard edition for some lunch and a beer. It was pretty fun to watch all the cyclists pass through the railyard on the way to wherever on a fine Friday afternoon. I picked up a growler to deliver to the fellers at Mellow Velo. It sort of fit in my musette, but I used another bag to kind of tie it in there.
Pugsley, Raleigh International, fully loaded Surly LHT. A great rackful of bikes.
When I got over to Mellow Velo, I delivered said growler checked out David's latest acquisition, a Schwinn Hollywood, to go with the coveted Schwinn Flying Star. Dammit, covet, dammit. I was also able to watch the shop van get painted in its new Wonderbread/Mondrian livery.
A side
flip side
So anyone want to give me their Flying Star or Holywood?
After chatting a bit at the shop, I took a nice easier ride back from whence I came and picked up the car. Total riding was probably about 16 miles or so, maybe 6 or 7 in the arroyo. It was a good day.
I picked up 700 billion goatheads getting out of the Arroyo back at the automaul. Fortunately I had slimed the tires that morning. Fortunately surly thought to put removable cores in their fatbike tubes. I am not really sure if any of the goatheads actually made it through the tires, they are pretty thick, but I will probably spend some time with a pocket knife prying out thorns before winter. While I was removing thorns in front of the service area, most of the mechanics came out to check out the Pugs. I probably should have let them ride it, but I was worried that the tires were going to go completely flat due to all the thorns. They are still holding air two weeks later, so maybe next time fellers.
A small fraction of the 700 billion goatheads
I drove back through town stopping at Trader Joes for supplies and was delighted when a previously unknown to me blog reader stopped me and introduced himself. Whats up Rick? This has happened to a few times and it always makes me really happy. It is hard to find the time to blog about stuff anymore, and I always wonder if it is just me, my ma, the seven of you who comment regularly and random google searches providing all my traffic. Stuff like this tends to spur me to slightly greater blogging heights. Anyhow, if you see me and know me through the blog, please say hello, then I can take your photo and have something to blog about. I will even hook you up with some Tarik Saleh Bike Club stuff if I have some with me.
Me and loyal(?) reader Rick in Trader Joes
After I loaded up with frozen pizzas and coconut oil infused dessert products, I headed home to the family. I grabbed Aida and plopped her in the trailer and rode downtown for the Red Elvises show at the duck pond. Aida really liked it.
One way to carry the big dummy when it must be carried on a small car.
Going criss cross over multilple roof racks was much more sturdy than I originally thought.
I was almost able to lay it straight with the tire on the roof of the car and strap the chainstays to the rack, but it did not seem to be that sturdy.
This way let me drive from my house to the ski area parking lot, 7 miles and 2000 vertical each way. This was to haul a bunch of camping supplies, water and tools up into the Santa Fe National Forest for a trail maintenance party a few years back. I was just discussing how to haul the big dummy on a car with a pal, and thought I should share...
UPDATE,5/15/12:
From the comments, check out Big Dummy Daddy's solution More permanent like...
