Random Musings and Nicknacks

Riding the Olmo home from work last Thursday, I noticed the rear wheel felt a bit funny. I looked down and could see that it was slightly out of true. On the Olmo this is unheard of! I pulled over, took a look and discovered that the wheel had cracked at the eyelet and the spoke was pulling through. Definitely not something you want to ride very far with.

This means it was time to bite the bullet and actually take the bike in for maintenance. I had a pretty good idea that it also needed new chainrings, a new cassette, a new chain, new cables, and probably a good round of greasing. While that sounds drastic, it is also about right for a bike that has 15,000 km on it!

Now, there is one difficulty with taking the Olmo in for maintenance…
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I just found this very interesting article discussing the biology of the influenza virus:

Influenza biology primer

Very interesting, and goes into some explanation, why, apart from the press idea of “OMG WE”RE ALL GONNA DIE” science is so interested in this virus.

Speaking of which, apparently a British tabloid last week printed a headline along the lines of “2 in hospital, 150 million dead possible”

Ahh, I love objective reporting. Glad I can at least get it from Ars Technica.

[Update]

Ars has added a new article with definitions like what a “Phase 4 alert” means, here…

World Health Organization raises pandemic alert level

Exercising Punky has always been an interesting task. How do you wear out a potential entry into the concept of a perpetual motion machine?

Our normal attempt is to take him to the park and throw a ball with a chuck-it. This tires our arms more than it tires him, and after an hour of running he’s just getting warmed up. The most effective is to take him to MacDonald beach, let him run up and down greeting all the dogs, and throw sticks into the water for him to retrieve — while effective this is a half-day thing!

Last night Ling decided to try something we have been kicking around for a while — take him for a bike ride.
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The Canucks made history tonight, and I’m still on a high. A four game sweep, the first in our team history.

Not bad for a team that the CBC described today (right before game 4) as Slow and sluggish in the series and “lucky to be ahead”.

I hope we remain as sluggish for the rest of the playoffs.

I took a significant step last weekend in expanding my repertoire on the grill, and actually did spare ribs on the barbeque.

I was nervous about trying this, because I know that if they were done wrong it would be easier to eat a tire, and given that it was only last year that I figured out steaks on the grill, and not that long ago that I cooked hockey pucks, I knew the possibility was there.

My trepidations weren’t settled any when I started to research how to cook them — depending on the recipe I found, the cooking time ranged anywhere from 45 minutes to 7 hours. Okay, how am I possibly supposed to come up with a cooking time from that range? [1]
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I really like being in the city of Vancouver at this time of year. Well actually, I guess, it’s every other year at this time of year.

The event that triggers this emotion is of course the Canucks in the playoffs, but much as I enjoy watching them it isn’t the playoffs themselves that I’m talking about.

What I find fascinating is watching the feeling of community that emerges around the city. Go step outside and watch a road for a while, and you’ll see cars going by flying Canucks flags. You’ll see people walk by wearing Canucks jerseys. Last Tuesday there was an organization cheering and handing out towels and flags at the intersection of Burrard and Robson – and the most amazing thing is you see these people all smiling and waving at each other. It doesn’t matter if there is an age, race, style difference of anything else, all of a sudden everyone becomes a part of one large community.

I only wish this kind of feeling could be continued into the rest of the year.