Not very productive day today

Actually I could say that about any and every day since I stopped reporting on bicycle safety in this blog. What used to be my work and contribution to society was making me crazy depressed, and adversely effecting my health physically and I’m better off for having quit, but sometimes I miss that contribution to society.

Well today (Wednesday, actually yesterday by the time this gets published) I got an early start because I couldn’t get to sleep from Tuesday. I took care of as much as I could before noon because I needed to go to the bank to deposit a payment to Mrs. the Poet, go next door to the bank to pay the utility bill, and then pick up my pulls from the local comic store since they sent me a notice that they were expecting then this Tuesday. Did this after noon because I was taking advantage of a change in the local transit fare structure which has a PM Pass that basically is a day pass for my sleep patterns that costs me $1.50 from Noon to the cessation of services for the day. Well no such luck. I did get the check deposited, and the utility bill paid, but when I got to the comic book shop I was informed that both my comics had been delayed from shipping for a week and I needed to come back next week.

Then I went and had lunch at the Jack in the Box across the parking lot and had the thing where they poured white cheese sauce over hash brown patties with meat and (a) veggie. I had the jalapeño bacon version of the dish, the pepper doing duty as the vegetable this time, with the bacon coming in as bigger than bits, but much smaller than full strips, about bite sized. Overall I think that as a light snack with a drink this is pretty good, or as a hearty side dish even. It’s a little on the greasy side, but what do you expect from a place that puts butter in their burgers? If I was having a big meal this or one of the other two versions and their Jumbo Jack and a drink would be a huge meal. Not an “every day” meal, but a good “special occasion” meal. Seriously, don’t have that combination every day, you’ll take years off your life.

I then got home a bit before 1600 and talked with Mrs. the Poet about the lack of success for the mission before collapsing in the bed for a bit, not getting much sleep again because I just couldn’t get comfortable. I really need to get a new mattress or futon for this bed. Also I have some bug bites that also contribute to not being able to get restful sleep, because they itch and are in places I can’t reach to scratch. I played around a bit on my phone reading Twitter and stuff as I tried to get some sleep after dinner but not much success in that, and then I got up and took care of e-mail and composed this blog post. I spent a lot of time not asleep when I should have been sleeping, and I’m still in heavy sleep deficit. So it’s now 0515 as I finish this up and make another attempt at sleeping.

Advertisement

When there are no more wreck reports is there anything significant about Wreck-Free Sunday?

The existential question facing the blog today is now that I don’t do a thing, are days that I didn’t do that thing on purpose before still different from the rest of the week? Case in point, up until last week this was Wreck-Free Sunday, now every day is wreck free, does this make Sunday less special than it was before? Well I don’t know…

The NASCAR Sprint Cup race just ended with Junior Nation very happy about winning at Martinsville. I have to say that this was a drama-filled race that looked scripted with the parts failures, but it wasn’t. That was just the way the ball bounced this particular race. With Junior being knocked out of the chase after the last race at Talladega his win throws a monkey wrench in the chase standings, and with Keselowski and Harvick having problems that put them way down in the standings but nobody locked into the next round by winning today really scrambles things.

I got a link while I was doing the opening part of this post to a quote on infrastructure and education not really being separate in bicycle safety. I would include the link but it is to a post in a closed Facebook group I belong to. The gist is we have been treating infrastructure and education like they were 2 separate things when we should have been using them in tandem, good infrastructure takes education to use it properly. The Dutch have very little education compared to the amount of infrastructure they have, but that is be expected. After all how much education do we give on how to walk? Dutch children are exposed to bicycle infrastructure mostly used properly at about the same age as they start walking if not sooner. There is a little bit that has to be done to break any bad habits that some parents might instill but for the most part kids grow up knowing how to use Dutch infrastructure from watching their parents.

I’m almost recovered from the trip for happynakedpagancamping last week. And somebody pick up my jaw, because happynakedpagancamping is in my spell checker’s dictionary! 😮 Most of the bad effects of the camping were taken care of by a hot shower and sleeping in my own bed, but there were some small injuries that took until today to heal, mostly the bug bites. I still have to get the queen size air mattress for Mrs. the Poet to sleep on (mine is way too small for 2 people), but I think we will be able to camp pretty well next Spring for the Beltain celebration. The hard part will be putting up and taking down the tent, as it is a 2 person job to take down and fold up, unlike the pop-up pimple tent I used to use that I could put away practically in my sleep.

Still planning out the Sprint T frame(s). I added the (s) because I’m still not entirely sure about the donor vehicle yet, so I have a standard T-Bucket design going together for a front-engine RWD donor, and a different design for a FWD donor to build a mid-engine RWD hotrod. The biggest difference is the amount of foot room in the passenger compartment for the FWD donor vehicle, I mean besides the engines being on different ends of the car and all. With the mid-engine car there would be no transmission tunnel dominating the interior, especially at the front of the passenger compartment. With the front-engine version the front of the transmission combined with the narrowness of the firewall results in practically no space for feet between the side of the body and the transmission tunnel, especially on the passenger side with the engine offset for balance when the car is raced. With the 3.5″ offset to the right to balance out the solo driver weight with the engine weight that puts the transmission tunnel right up against the inside of the body at the firewall, making for interesting footrest designs. Speaking of that, I decided the seating position of the Sprint T is going to be very much like a sprint go-kart with the knees up as the feet are moved back away from the firewall to both give some lateral space for pedals and to allow bracing for G loading in turns. I may change that after doing some simulation runs involving sitting in the mockup interior for long periods of time to see if that position requires frequent breaks for stretching. As it is now the pedals are only going to be slightly lower than the seat cushion because I’m using the side of the body like a bolster for the seat. The mid-engine version would have room for a clutch pedal, the front engine version would have to have an automatic transmission. The kicker is that the mid-engine version is more likely to have a slush box for the transmission and the shift linkage for an automatic when using a FWD engine/transmission as a mid-engine RWD is much easier than running the linkage for a manual. Another “fun” thing is getting the balance right because it’s much harder to move a transverse engine/transmission left or right than a longitudinal engine/transmission, but at least as a RWD I don’t have to contend with torque steer from different length axle shafts and the outer CV joints won’t wear out as fast as they would connecting wheels that steered as well as moving up and down.

And I have been working on this one long enough, time to put it and me to bed.

PSA, Opus the unkillable badass Poet