May the Fourth be with you

That’s it, that’s all I had to say.

Happy Star Wars Day

May the Fourth be with you, and also happy Cinco de Mayo!

Today’s walk was cancelled on account of goopy allergy eyes and rain-flooded sidewalks, but at least there weren’t any thunderstorms during the day, nor tornadoes. Just rain in the morning.

And for people who read the funny pages, we had an Eddie Crankshaft incident earlier this week. For the rest of you, a school bus backed over the mail box destroying the mounting pole and box. I’m mentioning it now because the paperwork has been completed for the school district to put in a replacement pole and box, made easier because the neighbor reported it too. We had just been discussing needing to put new numbers on the box because the old ones were getting a bit (a lot) faded. We still need to put new numbers on the box, but it will be on a brand-new box.

On the Sprint-T, I have a better handle on the frame weight and the projected empty weight is now 1450 pounds, or 1685 with me and race fuel.

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May the Fourth be with you! Happy Star Wars Day

And a belated happy Beltain as well. There is a bawdy couplet that is both inappropriate and inaccurate for TX to mark Beltain: “Hurrah, hurrah the First of May! Outdoor (fornication) begins today!” There’s a different word that goes inside the parentheses, as even married couples can take part in this activity. And we’ve been doing it outdoors (or could if we wanted to) since the middle of February around here. Twenty-first century TX is much warmer this time of year than England in the Dark Ages. But once it got warmed up outdoor sexual activity was much easier to hide what with it being dark all the time. [ba-dum tssshh]

Also with today being Star Wars Day, that makes tomorrow national Get Drunk on Mexican Beer And Mangle Spanish Day, AKA Cinco de Mayo. I suppose we could add Insult the French Military to that as what is being celebrated was the defeat of the French by the Mexican Army. Thus beginning the poor reputation of the French in the US.

And I have a bunch of things I need to take care of, so I’ll see you later.

Opus the Unkillable

Happy Star Wars day

Lots of Pagan and kinda-sorta pagan (small “p”) holidays this time of year. We just had Beltain Sunday, and Mother’s Day is this coming Sunday. Today is one of those small “p” pagan holidays, based on a pun. I’m sure you heard “May the Force be with you” several times in the 7 movies in the Star Wars franchise, today’s “holiday” is May the “Fourth” be with you.

So anyway, go down to the Cantina for some Blue Milk and jazz music.

PSA, Opus

My lump has a name now, and the Feed

I got a suggestion in the e-mail for a name for my lump, which I have been comparing to a GOP presidential candidate. The suggested moniker is “Chris Christie”. Whaddya think? Now as to why there was no post yesterday I just could not muster up anything to say. I wanted to write, but just could not come up with anything I wanted to share. Sorry if I disappointed anyone.

And before I forget, I hope you had a happy Star Wars Day (May the 4^th).

Up first is Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Photographic proof of bikes in Hollywood, ride LA with Phil Gaimon, and transvestites on bikes

The Big Story today is someone has been disrupting travel on Oz by putting tacks in the bike lane. Stop the tacks: Kew Boulevard cyclists say enough is enough and Angry cyclists fed up with tack attack on Yarra Boulevard Why has this not been treated as a terrorist’s attack on infrastructure? And the culprit(s) have been busy, re-tacking the route between the 11PM sweeping and the start of the protest ride against the tacks. The expense of all those tacks means that if there is a single suspect he probably has access to a lot of money, or he lives very simply to afford the endless mounds of tacks he spreads on the streets. And why call a blowout an “explosive decompression”?

It’s hard to believe that it has already been a year since a bicycle tourist was stabbed to death in a random attack. Festival honors cyclist killed on ride to Florida last year and Festival honors cyclist killed on ride to Florida last year Same headline from two different stories. Apparently the killer was off his meds or something because there was just no provocation for the attack, he just walked up to the victim while he was talking on a cell phone and stabbed him.

Another Southern killer of cyclists faces court in AL. Parker pleads not guilty in criminally neglect homicide case He hit 3 cyclists, if it wasn’t “criminal neglect” it was on purpose and he was undercharged. If this case was in TX he would have been charged with Felony DUI and since there was a death the prosecutor could seek the death penalty.

Riding season starts in Upstate NY after a very bad winter for the roads. Potholes or not, Rockland bicycle season hits high gear This sounds like fun.

Getting the word out on NYC’s pedestrian right of way law. Families For Safe Streets Demands Accountability From Bus Drivers Look before you turn.

Trying to get NYC drivers to slow down is a never-ending struggle. Jarring New Vision Zero Ad Tries To Make Drivers Less Sociopathic

Sometimes it feels like a war out there, and I’m not the only one who noticed. Bikes vs Cars: why it’s war between cyclists and drivers on city streets They have: light armored vehicles that would be classified as WMD if they were deployed against soldiers in wartime. We have: cameras and styrofoam hats. I don’t like this war…

Lifestyle in MI. ‘Ghost bike’ removed by city, replaced by activists

Lifestyle in IN. Mayor’s Ride kicks off National Bike Month events

More lifestyle this time from NE. Blood Drive Honors Former Millard Educator Killed While Biking Put some of that good cyclist’s blood in circulation.

There is something I want to say very badly about this link, but I will take the high road and not do it. President Bush’s 2015 W100K bike ride: Healing the invisible wounds of war

And those were all the links I had to share today…

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet.

Happy Star Wars Day on a Wreck-Free Sunday

For those who don’t understand today is May 4 (May the Fourth be with you) AKA Star Wars Day. So to all my Jedi friends and readers, happy Star Wars Day!

I’m currently doped to the gills with allergy meds that other people use as sleep aids. And still sneezing in fits that last up to ten minutes at a time. Trees, I love you but my sinuses are not an appropriate place to have sex. My eyes are all gooped up again, and the back of my nose is all itchy. Something that seems to help is the kind of beer I have on hand, drinking it makes the back of the nose itch less which reduces the sneezing and other misery. Unfortunately I don’t have anything for my eyes so I’m wandering around in a blurred world because of the goop in my eyes.

This is the Talladega spring weekend for NASCAR, and the Sprint Cup race is on the tube. So far they have been racing very clean with all 41 drivers still on the lead lap. There were 2 cars that dropped out after a minor wreck and everybody left is on the lead lap. Just as I typed that everybody started making green-flag pit stops which divides the field up pretty thoroughly. They are getting close to half way through the race and still running very clean. I had to take a medication-induced nap but woke up in time to see the next to last wreck when Carl Edwards had a tire go down in the middle of the pack and took out a few more cars, then I saw Denny Hamlin win the race. As I drifted in and out I saw a bunch more wrecks but couldn’t see who wrecked whom because of the goop obscuring my vision.

Also added to my physical woes is getting the fit right on Francis/es. I still have a very sore butt after each and every ride on the bike as I keep adjusting things until I get that extended stem built. I have all the pieces now, I just need to have a whole day where I can cut and weld metal without interruption so I can get the piece ready for oxide treatment to make it black and all the same color.If my measurements are correct I need to make a 10″ extended stem to get the handlebars high enough to keep my knees out of them and let me sit up and put the solid parts of my backside against the seat. I have been riding with just my fingertips against the back of the grips as much as I can which lets me rotate my pelvis back to get the sitz bones against the seat which is much more comfortable than what is against the seat when I have my palms against the grips. The other situation I’m facing with Francis/es is aerodynamics. I think a brick has lower aero drag than Francis/es, and that will only get worse when I get the comfort issues squared away as I will be nearly bolt upright behind the handlebars. So, the brick will be flying broadest face into the airflow when I get the seating problems hammered out.

Now I’m watching the Tudor United Sports Cars race from Laguna Seca, which is fun. I like the natural road courses, but then I like pretty much all kinds of racing except illegal street racing. Natural road courses, street courses, rovals, they’re all different kinds of challenges. And there are different horses for different courses. The opening rounds favored the old DP class from the Grand-Am series, which I felt had been given too much additional brakes and downforce compared to the P2 ALMS series cars. Leaving the older steel brake rotors on the DP cars with the additional downforce, or the new carbon/carbon brakes without the additional downforce would have let them keep the additional HP over the P2 cars. Getting both the new brakes and the downforce made the DP cars too strong compared to the P2 cars that have their rules controlled by a different sanctioning body. The problem is at this point you can’t take the brakes or downforce away because the both required structural changes to the DP cars to implement, so there’s no going back on either one, but the brakes could be taken back easier than the aero changes. The teams would just have to go back to the previous year’s suspension uprights if the tooling still exists. And the race just ended as a P2 car won the race with DP and P2 cars pretty much alternating on the standings list as much as having a few P2 cars with more than a dozen DP cars can “alternate”.

And those are pretty much all the words I have wanting out now, so I think I’ll quit typing.

PSA, Opus