The Circle of Life (The Gradual but Continual Culling of HDPE, HDPP, PVC, and ABS - Though Never Lego)

It is necessary to cull plastic toys at a rate similar to that at which they seem to procreate. One small toy here, another there. The steady, but religious devotion to gradually disposing of these daily nuisances helps to mitigate rampant uncontrolled growth and also provides a psychological solace to those tormented by toy clutter.

Here it is, the daily deed:

Keep at it folks. Keep at it.

Audio Archives

The story The Magic Fish, retold by my aunt Mary and uncle Mike (?), circa 1975. This was the B-side to my parents' wedding tape, recorded on K-Mart brand cassette. I digitized the audio file and touched it up a bit.

Mountain Biking

Arthur is getting pretty good at his 'balance bike', so I took him mountain biking on our local trails...

Cooking on an engine: hot dogs.

Independance Day weekend was special for us this year. We celebrated our independance from those pesky Britons and, this year, our fledging indepence from anything resembling a conventional cooking applience. I say fledging because the rest of the year we cooked like normal people. In fact, it was really just this one isolated incident of engine-top cooking. Here's how it happened...

There was very little pre-meditation.

We were making a the five-hour drive home from "up north" at the tail-end of our Independence Day weekend of camping. As I pulled-in to a gas station to fill the car's tank and empty my own, I felt the initial hints of coming hunger. Sometimes gas station hot dogs hit the spot for me, but it seemed weired to buy one, when we had several left-over weiners in our cooler...

Do you "smell what I'm steppin' in"?

Hmmm....I'd eat a hot dog right out of the cooler, but it'd be cold still. I had heard of people cooking food on their car engines...since my hunger was still faint at this point, and I knew we'd have another stop in about an hour...this option became my only option.

The gas station didn't sell aluminum foil for anything less than the price of gold (by weight), so I opted for a .50-cent alumninum container (it came with Diet Coke in it) instead - it was no more and no less than what I needed. I opened the top with my Leatherman, fished two cold hot dogs out of our cooler and popped the hood. Arthur gave me a hand

Arthur and I strategically placing the hot dogs.

Technically, the hottest part of the engine would be the exhaust manifolds, but on a Subaru Legacy they're kind-of burried (low on the engine block). So I found a decent spot on top, near the intake manifold, where the can would be supported between the brake fluid resivoir and the alternator. Anyway, I wasn't looking for high-heat: I prefer slow-cooked.

If I had not bought "bun-length" dogs, they would have fit in the can.

Closing the "oven door" I wanted to ensure that I had enough clearance.

An hour later...perfect engine-cooked hot dogs.

Refurbishing Leather Bicycle Saddle.

As more of a "How-To", this post is a bit of a deviation from the usual family update theme of this blog, but oh-well.

It all started when I decided to fix up an old Royce Union 10-speed frame I found with an old leather saddle (similar to a Brook's Saddle, but I'm pretty sure it was some other brand). The leather was badly weathered... This old leather broke the third time I rode it, leaving me without a leather saddle.

New leather bicycle saddles tend to start around $60 (the Brooks Titanium Swallow is $500), and I'm cheap, so I didn't want to spring for a new one. A plastic seat on this bike just didn't look right, so I decided to replace the leather. Here is what I did...




Here's the broken seat.









I pulled the old copper rivets out by unbending their back sides.







This is what the frame looks like without the leather on it. The leather gets stretched from back to front creating a sort of natural 'suspension' system.




Next, cut-out the new piece, using the old as a stencil. After a little investigation, I found that you probably want at least 8 oz. leather (this indicates how thick it is) as a minimum. 10 oz. leather is probably ideal. Most places aren't in the business of selling a single 6" x 12" piece of leather, but if you look around, you should be able to find the right seller, eventually.



Now lay the new leather over the frame and get it into position, making sure it's a good fit. Punch new holes in the leather to align with the holes in the frame (don't worry about prepping the three holes on the little front piece until you have the back part completely finished).






I found these #9 copper rivets at my local hardware store for $.27 each. I got larger washer that would slip all the way down the rivet (the #9 washer is made to stop just a fraction of the way down the tip of the rivet). Push the rivet through the leather & the hole in the metal frame, and then slip the washer on the back side.


Now it's a matter of peening the rivet (no photos for this part!). This just means that you smash the rivet's point with a hammer until it's all mushroomed and disfigured so that it won't & can't slip through the washer again, ever. It's a little tricky to peen the rivets with the seat's rails getting in your way, but you'll find the right combination of tools that were meant for something else, to make it work.



Here is the final result. NOTE: in order to keep the whole seat from flattening like a pancake, I punched a couple of holes in each of the sides and laced them together underneath. This gives the leather much better form & structure.

For more general information on leather bicycle saddles, check out Sheldon Brown's page