What doesn't go around... (diary)

I'm really pissed off.

Coming home on my bike, I hit a pothole, and the bump made my pannier jam into my spokes. I had to immediately pull over to assess the damage.

My rear wheel was out of true and rubbing against the brake, and one of the spokes appeared to be stripped; I definitely couldn't ride it without further screwing things up.

Another cyclist stopped and offered his tools, but he didn't have a spoke wrench (I did). Nevertheless, I was not going to learn how to true a wheel at night on the side of the road. Angrily, I banged my headlight battery against the sidewalk. It broke, but not terminally (pun unintended).

Luckily, the place where I stopped happened to be a bus stop, but the following things needed to fall into place:
(1) a bus would have to come by soon (if it didn't, I would have walked to the transitway)
(2) the bus would have to have a bike rack on the front (the particular routes don't all have them)
(3) if the bus didn't have a bike rack on the front, either the driver would have to let me on the bus with the bike, or I would have to the transitway, which would have taken me much further from home than this bus.

I was lucky that a bus came by shortly after and that the driver let me on with my bike. It was nice of him to 'bend' the rules. On the bus, I found that I could use my U-lock as a spacer between my rack and my pannier so that the pannier doesn't rub against the spokes. A bit late for this instance, but I'll probably save a lot of time and money in the long run on repairs.

Anyway, after I got home, I tried to fix the problem. I took the tire, tube, and rim tape off so that I could see if the spoke that had been bent was still usable. It's just as well I did that because I needed to do a lot of adjusting on the spokes, and it was a lot easier from the ends of the spokes with a screwdriver than on the inside of the rim with a spoke tool.

Another part of the problem was that the entire brake assembly had been rotated, and this contributed to the rubbing. That was easily fixed.

The biggest problem was getting the tire back on the wheel. The tire is about the same size as the rim, so it makes mounting it a real bitch. The first (and, actually, second) time I put the tire back on, I pinched the tube witht the tire lever. Both times, I had to re-remove the tire and patch the snake bite. The third time, I was able to get it on properly, but not without taking my agressions out twice on a long stake of wood that I slammed against the floor.

In the end, I learned to prevent this type of thing from happening again, learned how to true the wheel, learned a bit about wheel construction, and managed to get my tire back on without puncturing the tube. I also wasted at least an hour (but more likely two) because of this whole bundle of shit. My only consolation was that I left the pub earlier than expected, so I might as well have been out so late that I wouldn't have been home earlier than after I ended up being finished with this repair, but it would have been less stressful.

I missed the Daily Show. Maybe tomorrow morning at nine.

- RG>

Technology bites (diary)

Hi, all.

It has been a while since I did a real post.

I have been busy with school, and doing real social things (instead of the constructionist quasi-social activities that make you think that you matter just because you visit a few websites).

My day-to-day priorities in life are (roughly):
1. Getting enough sleep
2. Going to classes
3. Read the newspaper and catch up on website updates
4. Doing my extracurriculars (debate club, school newspaper)
5. Eating
6. Doing my work-work and volunteering at work

More or less. Stuff like personal hygeine and homework fit in there somewhere, but I don't actually prioritize it.

I've gotten closer and closer to writing a '100 things about me' post. I've put some thought into it. Maybe I'll get around to it sometime.

The problem is that all my classes are between Monday and Thursday, which is great because every weekend is a three-day-weekend, but since I get so much of #2 done on those days, I have to do extra #1. This means I have to do most of my homework on the weekends (and that ain't easy to get me to do).

I saw Amish in the City last night. In this episode, the Amish got to bring the city people to see how they live. The city people were pretty much jerks about it. Especially one particularly snobbish guy. So insensitive...

Anyway, I think I'll do some more reading (of the homework variety), and then go off to school.

- RG>

(I am signing my name like that now because I'm too lazy to take my finger off the shift key for the period).

Thought of the [undefined period of time] #3

I know that my intentions are benevolent. However, I do not know the intentions of others. Therefore, I must assume that the intentions of others are malicious. Despite this, I should act in a benevolent manner towards others so that, whatever their intentions, their actions towards me may also be benevlolent.

[Previous undefined period of time: 19 days]

- RG.

Groan...work?!? (diary)

I have to go to work again today. Too bad, I was getting used to that whole sitting-on-the-couch-doing-shit-all thing. Oh well.

On the bright side, I had planned to do some work on the weekend, and I didn't. I'm proud of myself for that.

In other news, my Mozilla fucked up again. Somehow, I lost all my bookmarks (luckily, I had a somewhat recent backup), but my links bar isn't working properly. I should probably use this opportunity to upgrade to version 1.7...but I won't.

Aw, crap. I have to make a bunch of deliveries today, and the weather is supposed to be really shitty.

I'm looking forward to my last day of work on Friday, but after that, it looks like nobody will be in the office. We are _so_ screwed.

- RG.

How do you pronounce half a K? (diary)

I met a guy a couple of weeks ago (well, actually, I had met him a year earlier, but only see him once a year) whose last name started with a "Kn". I read this off his name tag, so I didn't actually hear how he pronounced it. I know that "Knorr", the soup company, pronounces the K ("Kuh-nohr"), but names like "Knight" and "Knox" use silent Ks.

So I asked him, "Is the K silent?"

He replied, "Half my family pronounces it, and the other half doesn't."

So the next time I saw him, I said, "Hello, James-with-half-a-K."

Unfortunately, he only got it after I reminded him of our little conversation.

Oh, well. It amused me for a couple of minutes.

- RG.

Another reason to hate the government (bitching)

The last time I tried to go to city hall, I learned that they don't close at 5:00 like the rest of the world, but instead at 4:30. Naturally, I arrived at 4:45.

So this time, after busting my ass stuffing 40 City of Ottawa interoffice mail envelopes with 1600 newspapers for delivery across the city, I made sure I got there at 4:00...only to find that their fucking mail room closes at fucking 4:00!!!

Never mind that I had to stuff all four bankers' boxes-full of envelopes into my piddley little bicycle trailer, or that it's a bitch to get that trailer out of (and then back in) my office--oh wait...DO mind that! It's a pain in the fucking ass!

Not to mention the damage that that amount of weight might do to my bike's frame.

On top of this, today's a Friday, and it's Labour Day weekend! These fucking things won't even be sent, much less received, until Tuesday.

Now, because I have serious sleeping problems (and I won't be able to see my doctor until the 28th of September) which forced me to sleep in until 9:30 (despite going to bed at 10:30 the previous night), I will have to continue working in my very angry state for another three hours or so.

It's a damn good thing I don't have a life, because if I did, all this shit would have ruined it.

- RG.