Category Archives: My Life

Caught red-handed

Bright and early on Sunday morning, we piled into a car with two friends and headed two hours south to float the Black River.  In an attempt to avoid head-to-toe sunscreen without getting fried, I pulled out the dive skin I bought for snorkeling (or, in my case, pukeling*) on our trip to Mexico almost two years ago.

What’s the environmental impact of wearing sunscreen vs. wearing sun protective clothing?  I’m not sure, though the calculation depends in part on how long the sun protective clothing lasts.  If the clothing lasts long enough, it may indeed be better overall (health + environmental impact) than buying and applying chemical-laden lotion from plastic bottles.

Can you spot the problem in the above picture?

Hint 1: The dive skin performed beautifully.

Hint 2: Unfortunately, the dive skin did not cover everything.

I’m kicking myself because I know better.  Ouch.

*Snorkel + puke = pukel.  Disgusting and entirely possible, though I did manage to remove the snorkel from my mouth before feeding the fish.

Ha ha, universe

Due to some scheduling issues, my bike/carpool situation disappeared for two weeks.  Yesterday, we were on again, and the heat did not lessen my excitement.  A couple of blocks into my morning ride, I realized that I left my flat repair kit and pump at home (the hazard of riding two bikes and switching those items back and forth).  BUB and Baby Jake have different size wheels, so I did have a spare tube, and I opted to keep going instead of returning for the repair kit and pump, given the short (2 mile) distance to my coworker’s house.

Later in the day . . .

I returned to BUB after work, loaded up my bags in the high-class carrying device, started to wheel my bike out of the yard, and realized that my rear tire was completely flat.  And me without the repair kit and pump — brilliant!

I quickly realized that half-carrying the bike (I didn’t want to damage the bike tire or the wheel by rolling it on the flat) for 2 miles in 100-degree heat was not a recipe for having a good night, and so I called SAG support.  My one day of not using my car to get to work was going to end with the car after all 😦

But not all was lost — Matthew offered to bike over with a pump and repair kit.  My knight in sweaty clothing arrived in minutes, and we quickly changed the tube and headed home at last.

The culprit

I didn’t need a sink full of water to find this guy; it jumped right out at me when I inspected the tube this morning.  I patched it up, and I’ll go ahead and swap the repaired tube for the brand new one that I put in last night so I can have the new one as a back-up again.

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Green tip: If you have an inner tube that’s beyond repair, or one that has multiple patches and really has seen better days, check with your local bike shop about recycling options.  Many bike shops will take old tubes and tires for recycling.

Don’t get caught flat

Sunday, I participated in a group bike ride, riding just for the heck of riding, not riding to get somewhere, a rare thing for me.  At the farthest point from the ride start/end point, someone in our group got a flat.  Not me (that would have actually been better).

I pulled up next to the hobbled bicycle with great intentions of quickly remedying things, only to find out that the rider didn’t have a spare tube.  My spare tube was the wrong size (and wrong valve type) and the only other spare tube in the group was also the wrong size.  No big deal, I had a patch kit.

(As you will see below, unless you get lucky and find an obvious puncture-causing agent in the tire and the corresponding puncture in the tube, a patch repair kit will do relatively little good on the road.  There’s a good chance you’ll need access to a sink full of water to identify the hole in the tube.)

I whipped out my flat repair kit, we removed the wheel, and I inspected the outside for offending objects.  Finding none, I removed the tube and inspected it.  No great, huge, obvious gashes to patch, just this area of roughness and wear that I thought may have indicated a pinch flat (what you get if you ride on under-inflated tires).  I proceeded to apply three patches to cover the entire suspicious area.

Long story short, we rode a bit farther, and the tire went flat again.  At this point, getting closer to the end, we switched to the “add more air and keep riding” approach.  Either my [hastily applied] patches didn’t hold, or I misidentified the problem.

Moral of the story?  Whether you’re a novice or professional biker, if you only carry one repair-related thing on you when you ride, carry an extra tube (of the proper size).  Even if you’re not carrying tire levers and a pump, with a properly-sized spare tube you at least stand a chance of someone else being able to help (more likely if you’re riding in an area with lots of other bikers).  If you ride in areas where you rarely see other bikers, or you just want to be prepared (a good idea), invest in a decent hand pump ($30-$40, get one with an inline pressure gauge), tire levers ($3), and a patch repair kit ($3).

Also.  Check your tire pressure and keep your tires properly inflated (see sidewall of tire for pressure range for your bike).  Bicycle tubes naturally lose air very quickly, so it’s a good idea to check, and most likely add air, once a week (or before every ride if you ride less frequently).

No rest for the weary

Don’t get me wrong, I love all of the fabulous produce coming in from the garden and from farmers’ market purchase, but dealing with it all is A LOT of work, and it just doesn’t seem to stop.  The fridge can only hold so much, and fresh produce only stays good for so long — a demanding combination!

I spent significant portions of the last two days dealing with the influx (and more time being very stressed about it).  I’ll share just a sample of the craziness.

I chopped and blanched carrots for freezing.  We grew 10+ pounds of carrots in six square feet of garden space — not a bad yield!

I roasted eggplant to make baba ghanoush.  (By the time I finished with everything else yesterday, I didn’t have the energy to actually make the baba ghanoush, that’s on the list for today.)

An axe or circular saw would have been an appropriate tool for splitting this spaghetti squash.  Fortunately, that was the hardest part.  I transformed the squash into a dish that was a huge hit at the vegetarian potluck last night 🙂 (stay tuned for the recipe, another simple and delicious creation).

Speaking of the vegetarian potluck, our friends created some fabulous dishes —  so fun to try new things and share ideas and inspiration!  Mmm, the green chutney.  The chef intended it to top the dumplings, but I intentionally ended up with green chutney on about half the food on my plate.

Now it’s back to the kitchen for this girl.  First to scratch up some lunch, then to tackle that baba ghanoush.

Oh Glacier, where art thou?

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A year ago, I was in a much better place:

Iceberg Lake - the water really was that amazing shade of aqua

For some nice cool reminiscing, see my Glacier vacation posts (here, here, and here).