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Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
Sat, 29 Apr 2006I was getting my helmet on after doing a very brief shopping trip this evening, when I heard a pleasant female voice behind me say: "I promised myself I'd do this the next time I saw someone..." I turned around (glasses off, so I couldn't see any details) to see what I assumed was a woman in some kind of big black luxo-SUV (probably a Lexus). She continued, "you're amazingly handsome. Very striking." I sort of nodded and said, "thanks." She drove off. It was a slightly surreal moment. Posted at 21:29 permanent link category: /misc Fri, 28 Apr 2006
Have you ever tried to create the sound of wings flapping?
Me neither. I'm working on sound cues for noSIGNAL, and I'm having a devil of a time figuring out how exactly I'm going to create this noise. I know it's possible, it's just a question of how... But in other news, I've made good progress on other projects for the show. I'm not sure I'm going to be as far along as I'd hoped, but it's been a productive day. Obviously, I can't talk about some of this stuff, since it's secret. Come see the show, and you'll see/hear my work. On the Boards is the theater, 8 pm is the time. May 4, 5 and 6 are the days. Be there or resemble a rhomboid. Posted at 21:38 permanent link category: /theater Jesse went to have a look at a Yamaha XS650 yesterday, for a cafe bike project he wants to do. I took a look at the ad he'd found, and noticed that the guy selling the XS also had some Goldwing parts for sale. He didn't specify what he had, but I worked on a hunch, and gave him a call. I asked if he had a full set of exhaust pipes and silencers for an 1100. He paused for a second, then said, "yeah, I do." He pulled them out while I was on the phone, and at my request he poked at them to make sure they weren't rusted all the way through anywhere. He described one rusted-through section near the exit, but after the silencer. Not a big deal. So, I asked him how much he wanted for them. He said, "hmm; I guess $100?" "Done!" was my immediate reply (Ebay examples in similarly functional shape go for $200-300). I called Jesse (who was already on the way, since this was his ideal bike, and only cost $400) and asked him to pick them up after a suitable inspection for me. I got a call later that evening (but missed it) which ended up being Jesse, reporting that they were really rusty on the surface, but solid. I still haven't seen them, but my current plan is to take them to a sandblaster (after inspecting them to ensure sand won't muck up the silencers), and get all the rust blasted off, and the chrome roughed up, and paint them with black stove paint. I really don't care about how they look, but I'm quite interested in making sure they don't rust through. So, when I have free time, I should be on my way to a much quieter sidecar rig. I can't wait. Posted at 21:30 permanent link category: /motorcycle If you're interested in buying the Le Mans, it's even now sitting in the Ride West parking lot. Have at it! Posted at 15:50 permanent link category: /motorcycle Wed, 26 Apr 2006I'm having a hard time keeping up with my latest show, noSIGNAL. I'm stage managing, but I'm falling behind on a lot of the tasks I'm supposed to be doing -- keeping track of information, keeping people updated, etc. It's frustrating. The show itself seems to be going alright, although it's running what I would classify as "late" -- we're not as far along in the process as we should be. I suspect a lot of that is the unique nature of the show. This is a show which can't be called a play, and can't be called a concert, but contains elements of both. If you go in expecting either, you'll be dissappointed, but if you go in with an open mind, you'll probably be delighted. The script is still being tweaked, but it's close to done. Unfortunately, one of the problems is that we're working in a theater which is used to dealing with finished shows, and their attitude to getting certain things done (like sound, tonight) reflects that -- they're not in the fringe mindset from which we come. So, we're only going to have proper sound set up (remember, part concert) on Saturday, a few days before we open. Not pleased about that. On the positive side, I'm really enjoying the music and the play aspects of the show. I think it's going to be an amazing performance, although I'm expecting people to come away wondering what the hell they just watched. There's no message, no plot, not really identifiable characters for the most part. Still, a very cool show. Anyway, it's far too late to even think about anything beyond bed, and I've got this same ridiculous schedule for the next two weeks. I'll survive, but I might be a zombie by the time I'm done. Posted at 00:00 permanent link category: /theater Tue, 18 Apr 2006Ok, this is really extremely cool. I ended up calling ElectroSport the other day, to see if they sold a high-output stator (part of the electrical power generation system on a bike) for the Ninja 250. They didn't exactly, but I ended up talking to the lead engineer for a while. One thing he said which immediately piqued my interest was that he had a rig set up to test stock alternators and find their actual output. I asked if he could produce a graph of RPM vs. output, and he said he could. I was even more interested. I really want to have that information available via the Ninja 250 board's FAQ section, and I really want to do a survey of the current used on the bike, to isolate how much power is actually required to run the bike. This will ideally result in a graph or chart which shows how much power is available at every RPM from idle to redline. As a result of this discussion, I've got some of the folks on the Ninja 250 board searching their spare parts bins, looking for the parts in question. I expect that by the end of next week, we'll have a complete set of parts at least on their way to ElectroSport, if not actually in their hands. Let me explain why this is so neat. Most motorcycles (with the notable exception of many recent BMWs and a few others) come with what may be safely termed anemic power generation systems. Just enough to power the bike itself, and really very little extra. So if you want to add lights, to improve your visibility, or heated clothing or whatever, you run the risk of overloading the electrical system, which usually leads to a dead battery (and thus a dead bike) right in the worst conditions -- after all, who is going to turn on all their lights and heated clothing because it's a bright sunny day? This leads to a perpetual problem, of balancing the bike's power generating potential against what you really need to have powered. A GPS takes almost no power, but extra lights, even little running lights, add up really fast. Heated clothing, particularly that which uses an old-style rheostat thermostat, can be a huge drain. For instance, on the Ninja 250, the accepted wisdom is that you've got maybe 55 or 60 watts of extra power available at freeway speeds. That number goes down as RPM goes down. Of course, this is accepted wisdom, but is not actually empirical fact. Kawasaki claims the alternator puts out 17 amps (or about 235 watts, depending on how exactly you measure things). However, like everything else, that may be an over- or understatment, to make the bike look better than it is. Plus, they only give the rating at one RPM; what's the output at 8k RPM? At 4k RPM? At idle? So, in the first place, it would be really fabulous to know how much power the alternator is actually putting out at a given RPM, which ES says they can do. That's what initially got me so excited. But then there's this carrot: they say they can produce a new stator which produces around 100 watts over the stock part(!). The downside (if you want to call it that) is that the power below a certain RPM, like 2500 or 3500, will be "low" -- ie, about the same as stock. Darn? Here's the real kicker. The stock stator, from a slightly discounted online distributor, is $300. The proposed price for these high-power stators from ES is between $130 and $150. So, let's see here... If I break mine, I can pick the low-output part from the manufacturer, or the high-output part for half the price? Gee, that's a tough choice. The flip side of all this is that I have no idea who ElectroSport is. I've heard of them before, but I've heard of lots of companies, and I don't trust all of them just because I know the name. Right now, ES is a complete unknown to me -- I've heard neither negative nor positive of them. I think I'll be able to gauge them somewhat by how they handle this parts testing operation. It's free to us, but we're also giving them free access to parts they'd otherwise have to buy. We're allowing them to develop a product to meet a market segment they didn't previously meet, which is good for them. I already have a good feeling just from talking to the two guys on the phone. I spoke with their salesman, Paul, and their head engineer, Ritzo. They both had their heads on straight, and knew what they were talking about, as far as I could fact-check what they said. I don't have any reason so far to question them, and am proceeding on the theory that they'll be good until I see proof otherwise. Suffice it to say that I won't be putting any pre-order money down, but if they do actually produce a high-power stator, chances are good that I'll buy one. I'd love to have an extra 100W over stock power available to me. Posted at 22:47 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sun, 16 Apr 2006Ok, it's irresistably cute when a little girl, maybe 5 years old, drags her dad back by the hand to say, "I, I, I, I, I like your motorcycle!" (of the Goldwing sidecar rig). In her sunday Easter dress. Too cute. Posted at 20:01 permanent link category: /motorcycle Fri, 14 Apr 2006I just ordered an Extech clamp meter, for the measurement of currents. DC current, to be exact. I've actually wanted one of these things for a long time (not this specific one, just a clamp current meter), since they allow you to measure current without opening up the electrical system being measured at all. This particular one is actually more featureful than I wanted, but it was a great deal. I guess it's an older design, but Extech is still making them due to demand. For $80, there's not a better deal to be found, from my research anyway. My real goal for it is to figure out the "running" current required by a motorcycle, and then to compare that with the claimed output of the same motorcycle to figure out how much power is left over for running things like lights and heated clothing and GPSes. It should be excellent for that. I had originally hoped you could just clamp any old AC power cord and see how much current was being used, but of course it's not that simple. Apparently, with the electricity running in both directions (into the device, and back out), the fields sensed by the meter are cancelled out. So, I could cut into the insulation, and separate out just one wire.... No. Anyway, it does mean I'd have to rig up a "separated" length of cable so I could measure just one wire, which really defeats the purpose of walking up to a random cable (like a computer's power cord) and checking to see how much current it was using. Ah well. Still interesting, and I'm sure I'll have fun playing with it. By which I mean, of course, that it'll be a very useful tool to have at my disposal. Yes. Posted at 14:42 permanent link category: /gadgets Thu, 13 Apr 2006A couple of days ago, I stumbled across a house for sale that was (except for the price) disturbingly perfect: it was huge, it had a large two-car garage, minimalist yard, etc. Almost exactly what I'd been looking for. They were asking too much for me, but I could probably stretch to their price if it really was the perfect house. Here's an unlovely (but fairly accurate) picture of it:
Anyway, it was sufficiently aligned with the points on my little list of "must haves" for my next house that I couldn't reasonably pass it by without at least looking. For instance: it's 12 blocks north of my current house, and I really dig the neighborhood, except this house is on a much less busy street (yay!); did I mention the enormous garage?; 3000 (yes, three thousand) square feet; many bedrooms (sources varied between 4 and 5); recently remodeled kitchen, and from the pictures it looked like they could have hired me as the consultant; built in 1928... Anyway, the list is actually a lot longer, but those are the highlights. So, I called up Laura, my friend and sometimes real-estate agent, to see if we could go look at it. Indeed we could, and that evening Kristin, Laura, Laura's 2 year old daughter Alice and I were traipsing around the house. Fortunately for my pocketbook and my sanity, the place was stinky inside. I don't mean in just an olfactory sense either. The kitchen remodel was actually done pretty cheaply, primarily pointed out by the nasty floating floor that appeared to be installed over carpet(!). Everything had that cheap Value Village feel to it, with inexpensive materials applied as cheaply as possible. As Laura put it, "it's had a coat of Home Depot slapped on." Very true. The house had been added onto at least twice in its past, once to extend the front, and once to extend the side, toward the north (in that picture above, we're looking at the east face of the house). As a result of this, the layout was really substandard, with weird twists and layouts to "take advantage" of the extra space, without actually making it useable. Each room was a slightly odd shape -- not enough that you'd look at one room and throw up your hands, but the overall effect was throwing-up-hands worthy. Also, in the stinky department, there were these little scent-pots all over the place. I hope they were just there to cover the new-carpet smell (they must have spent a ton on installing this nice thick beige (ugh) carpet). Whatever they were covering, the comingling of scents was.. uncomfortable. Speaking of money spent in weird places, the kitchen remodel had included shiny granite countertops (probably around the $4000 mark), but also included this nasty laminate floating floor (a $1500 savings over just doing it for real). Kind of weird where they spent their money, until you realize that it all looks really good in photographs. I ended up spending some time on zillow.com and redfin.com, two interesting house-valuation sites. Zillow in particular seemed to be really wacky on its pricing, pretty much all over the map. But in the course of that research, I discovered that this house had been sold 3 times in the last two years, twice on one day in 2003, and most recently on December 15 of last year (about 5 months ago). Current owner was Rogue Engerprises LLC or something sketchy. In talking with the mortgage broker (before I'd seen the house, checking my options), he listened as I described the transactions, and decided it was probably bought as a pre-foreclosure, then sold to one or more wholesalers or renovaters, who were hoping to pass the house off with a coat of paint and some new kitchen bits. Particularly after seeing the house in person, I had to agree. Anyway, bottom line is that I got really flustered for a couple of days, thinking about what it would take to move myself and all my junk if this ended up being the perfect house. I'm awfully glad it wasn't, 'cause that would have taken a ton of work and time I don't really have right now. But it did make me realize that I have a lot of work ahead of me, getting my own house ready for sale (look for it on the market around this time next year). That's good, I guess. Posted at 14:01 permanent link category: /misc I just installed this clever new "blogging" package (and let us never use that term again) called Blosxom, and it's looking pretty cool. The setup is super-simple, and it uses a categorization system I really like (just directories on the disk, no weird databases to maintain or anything, and each entry is just a plain text file). So, I'm going to try doing journal stuff in here for a bit, since it fits my growing desire to write on different topics without having to deploy a new instance of my homegrown journal software for each new category. I've (imperfectly) imported all the journal entries that were already in the motorcycle and aviation sections, and as you can see above, I added a bunch of new categories, too. (The "imperfect" part is that I haven't fixed any links yet.) I can't really get behind the whole idea of "talkback" or whatever it is that "real" blogs let users do -- if you want to talk to me about a journal entry, send me email. I get enough spam without providing yet another entry-point for it. Posted at 01:03 permanent link category: /misc I'm working on the next Awesome show, called noSIGNAL. I'm the Stage Manager, but so far there hasn't been much to do. I've never worked on a show like this, where half the show is music (and it's not a "musical" in the sense that anyone really understands the word). They don't really want me around for the musical bits (and there's not much I can do, anyway), so even though I was all psyched up to be super busy this month, I'm not. It'll all get more engaging as we get closer, but it's very odd to have this huge expectation of no free time, and yet find that there's actually lots of time. Now, if only it were easier to predict when I wouldn't have to go to scheduled rehearsals... Posted at 00:57 permanent link category: /theater Tue, 11 Apr 2006Yesterday I got two things done that I've been meaning to do for a while. The first (and more important one) is I finally got that SOLAS tape onto my helmet. That stuff is bright! Damn! The first piece I stuck on, I forgot to round the corners (to keep it from lifting off so easily) -- when I tried to pull it off to fix it, it resolutely refused to come off. That's some good adhesive. I'm very impressed with the SOLAS tape: it sticks very well, molds to compound curves nicely, and is very reflective. Definitely a worthwhile investment. The second thing I got done is changing the sparkplugs in the Goldwing. I really should have done that when I got it, but it was running well enough that I couldn't justify the work. I finally got some new plugs, and put them in. Last night, I took it for its first run with the new plugs. There might have been a noticeable difference -- I'm not actually sure. It seemed to have a bit more power, but "seemed to have more power" after a change is commonly just a psychological difference. My car used to run better right after I'd cleaned it. At least, it seemed to. Anyway, if I felt the difference I think I did, I think the Goldwing's gas mileage is going to go up. The old plugs were definitely weathered looking, although the color was nice, so the mixture isn't far off, if at all. But the electrodes looked a bit nubbly, which is a bad thing for sparkplug electrodes to be -- it suggests poor performance. They should be nice and smooth. But if I did actually feel a slight increase in performance, then that means the gas is burning with a bit more vigor. That should help efficiency at least as much as it does power. And that's a difference I'll be able to see in the numbers, so I can report on that in the future. On the whole, it was a fine evening. Posted at 21:38 permanent link category: /motorcycle Mon, 03 Apr 2006
Man, it's been forever since I got a chance to sit down and write First up, the Story of Free Stuff. Late last week, I took my cello in to the shop to have some long-neglected repairs done. Because of that, I ended up borrowing another cello from my friend Cam, who has been unable to play for several years due to a hand injury. (This is all apropos, I swear.) While Cam and I were talking about cellos and sidecars and all (I'd driven the sidecar rig over to her house to pick up the cello), I happened to mention that I was thinking about buying a cheap set of free weights, which I would use as ballast in the sidecar. I think we had drifted to the subject of gyms and working out, which is what prompted the thought. The next day, we were chatting on irc, and she happened to mention this ad she'd seen on Craigslist, for some free stuff. Among the stuff listed was a set of free weights. I thanked her, and check out the ad. Looked good inasmuch as poorly written text on a website could look good, so I decided to go check it out after work. I got to the place without any trouble. Sure enough, there was a set of free weights and a weightlifting bench sitting on the sidewalk, along with some other stuff. I examined the set, and counted out 90 pounds in 2.5, 5 and 10 lb weights. Perfect! Delighted, I grabbed the weights and brought them over to the sidecar. I dismounted the weight discs from the bars, and laid them out on the floor of the sidecar, so they would hopefully stay in place. Not knowing what to do with the bars, I just tossed them in the car as well, figuring I'd probably throw them away or come up with some clever use for them at home. I didn't want to just leave them there, since that seemed against the spirit of helping someone else get rid of stuff. I geared back up and was just getting ready to leave when someone came up and asked me if I lived there. I indicated I didn't, and figured that was that. He went over and looked over the pile, with a particular eye for the weightlifting bench. He actually looked just like the sort of guy who would have beat me up in grade school. Big and beefy, with a kind of permanent sneer on his face. He didn't seem unpleasant at all though, aside from my intitial "bully == fear" reaction. I hopped on the Goldwing and set off. I'd only driven about two minutes when I turned around and headed back. I'd realized that if he was looking at the bench, he might well have some use for the bars. He looked like a weight lifter, in that too-much-bulk-up-powder sort of way. I motored back up to the free stuff house, and was pleased to see that he was still there. I offered him the bars, and a look of genuine happiness spread over his face. He explained that he had all the weights he needed, but he was really hoping this free pile would include the lifting bars. Particularly this fancy double-bend bar I was handing to him. Huzzah! It worked out perfectly for both of us. I was very glad I'd turned around and gone back. So, I now have an excellent set of weights to leave in the sidecar as ballast. Much smaller than 10 gallons of water for the same weight. The next story isn't so cohesive, and is the story of Race Day. Jesse had his first race of the season this last weekend. I finally had all the stuff I needed to film the event, so I packed up my tripod, little video camera, and a bunch of food and clothes and such. Naturally, it all went in the sidecar, being about 5x more volume than I can reasonably carry on the motorcycle alone. Unfortunately, race days start really early, and I was hoping to get a fair amount of each day on tape. I woke up at about 6:00 on Saturday morning, and after a bit of dithering because of the rain, finally left around 7:30. It was a cold ride down to Pacific Raceways. The rain didn't particularly let up on Saturday, which made for a wet track, and a wet crew. We were all complaining of the wet and cold. I never warmed up after my cold ride, and spent the whole day with my riding suit on, because I didn't want to lose the marginal warmth it was helping me retain. I did end up filming a number of the pit discussions, which were interesting, and may or may not actually make interesting film. I also shot the two practice runs, once from track-level at turn 10, which is called "The Bus Stop" for its hard, 10 MPH curve. I also filmed from up in the grandstands, where I had a view of the same corner, but from higher up. I could also see farther around the track. On Sunday, I got there around 9 am, and was just in time to try filming the first practice run before the two races. Unfortunately, the sun was in such a position that filming was pretty well pointless, so I gave up and went back to the sidecar, where I took off the riding suit and ate a belated breakfast. However, an important point from that last paragraph: Sun! The clouds were breaking up, and it looked like the day would be at least fairly rain-free, if not actually sunny. Jesse's bike was working well, although he arrived after the practice on the crash truck (so-called because it's there to help transport crashed or non-functional motorcycles from the track to the pits). He said at first that he thought it might be a battery problem (these bikes run with no electrical power generation, so the battery just slowly discharges over the weekend). A short while later, with some chagrin showing in his face, he annouced that he found the problem with the bike: it had run out of gas. Meanwhile, I was helping a man named Arash (pronounced "Ar-ash") with his bike. It looked good: clean, well painted, no dirt. Unfortunately, he said it got him up to the starting line, then just died. Another vintage racer and I went through and checked the obvious stuff, and found a number of problems. The carburetors had some weird parts in them, which would probably make the bike run funny, but not suddenly die. Then I pulled out the multimeter and checked the battery. It read 3V. Yes, three. It's supposed to read 12V or so, or 11 if it really needs to be charged. Ooops. Fortunately, Robin (the other vintage racer who was helping out) had a charger for just such occasions, and we set Arash's bike to charging. Long story short, it was indeed the battery. The carburetor adjustments we'd made would definitely help things out, but the battery was the fundamental problem. I really like working on these old bikes; they're so simple. After missing the first practice run and the first race, Arash was able to run most of the second race. I don't think he actually finished, since he said the bike started running rough near the end of the final lap. He decided that pulling off the track and getting a ride back in the crash truck was better than having the engine suddenly die in a corner -- an excellent choice. I'm impressed that battery actually made it around five laps. After running the bike around the pits for a minute or two, he came back and we measured 9V after reading 11V before he started. I didn't think it would power the spark plugs for more than 1-2 laps. I don't remember the exact result, but I think Jesse ended up posting a 2:20 lap as his best time. That's up 7 seconds from his best last year of 2:13, but this was the first race, on a different bike, and when the track was cold and relatively damp (fortunately it was dry enough not to be a real factor). I think I got some good footage out of it. I'll have to review it and see what looks good. Hopefully the pit conversations are interesting and audible and cohesive enough to mean something. It was a fun weekend, but when I got home at 5:30 (daylight savings time had kicked in that morning, so I was extra-tired from missing that hour of sleep), I had just enough energy to flop on the bed and sleep for an hour. That was nice. The rest of the evening was spent watching a movie, despite ambitious plans to review race footage with Jesse. Posted at 23:45 permanent link category: /motorcycle Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
