I cut out of work early today, when the movers showed up to shift all my stuff to a different office, and headed for Ballard to pick up my old Maxim from the shop that has been working on it for the last month. After chatting with Steg for a while, I paid up and took off.

It has been over a year since I last rode this bike, and it startled me to feel how different it was from the FJ600 I’ve been riding since July. In my memory the bike had become larger and more sprawled-out, cruiser style; it’s actually a compact machine, with pegs in the same position as the FJ600’s, but the handlebars are much taller and there is no fairing. You don’t lean forward; you just sit down and go. That’s great until you reach 70 mph, when the wind becomes a problem. The speedometer doesn’t read past 85; I’m sure the engine is capable of more, but it is hard to imagine exceeding that figure in any comfort.

The engine, it must be said, is in beautiful shape, the transmission shifts with a nice satisfying click, and the exhaust positively purrs. It sounds great and feels solid. The bike has a few remaining problems: I need to tack the seat down more securely – velcro, it seems, is the answer – and I need to find a blinker relay on eBay. Then there is cleaning to do and some paint damage to fix…

I went over to the shop last night and did some more work on the motorcycle pants. Ava picked up some needles for the Pfaff machine, so I replaced the old, dull fabric needle I broke on Sunday with a nice sharp leather needle. To no-one’s surprise, this made things much easier. I finished sewing in the zippers, trimmed up some of the edges, made hems, and set snaps in the waistband. I still have a few rough edges to finish, and need to do something about the lining, but that was enough for one evening. I wore the pants to work today and they kept me nice and warm. The waistband is a trifle too loose, but I can fix that (or install suspenders) and I might add on the stirrup straps after all.

Adam and I got busy with a hammer drill last night and bolted the sewing table to the shop wall. Without the anchors it was not stable, since we designed it with a 2′ overhang; it sits on a raised floor section, and the overhang makes it sort of float out into the room, with no front legs to get in the way.

The finish is not quite as perfect as I’d hoped it would be. I’d like to come back some day and add another couple coats of polyurethane, but odds are I will never get around to it, because it is probably good enough as is.

I am going to sell off both of the table-mounted sewing machines. They take up a lot of space, one of them needs to be repaired, and the shop has plenty of hardware already. If I start doing workshop classes again I can always pick up another portable machine on craigslist.

This weekend I might spend a day bashing through electrical projects. I want to add strips of outlets along both new work tables, and a bank of lights along the underside of the loft. I’d also like to clean up the east wall and prep it for a coat of blue paint.

The other project I’m considering for this weekend is a pair of motorcycle pants. It’s gotten really cold, and this being Seattle it is not infrequently somewhat damp, so I’ll need some leather for the lower half if I’m going to keep riding through the fall. I want something I can put on over my work clothes, like a pair of chaps, but stylistically I’d rather wear a full set of pants. So I bought a pair of oversized leather riding pants at Red Light: my plan is to cut the side seam, overlap the edges to form a placket (using up the excess width), and sew in a full-length separating zipper. A stirrup strap should keep the cuff from riding up.

The skies were clear when I rode in to work, but it was pouring rain on the way home. I got soaked. I felt secure enough on the highway, but traction was hard to find on Lake Washington Boulevard. I’m a bit concerned. I’m really not interested in going back to car commuting, but the weather is making this motorcycle business increasingly challenging.

After I dried off and warmed up, it was time for another trip to the shop. I sanded the sewing table down with 400 grit, thinned down the polyurethane to make it more of a glaze, and brushed on another coat. I think this will be all it needs. If I’ve succeeded, it will be time to shim the front legs (since the floor isn’t level) and bolt the back legs to the wall (since the table extends a couple feet over its front legs).

Now I’m back at home, sipping whiskey and working away on Radian. It’s a small project, but it keeps my brain active…

The sewing table is very close to completion. I sanded it down with 220 grit to smooth out all the little bumps, cleaned it with some solvent, and painted on another layer of polyurethane. Once this layer dries, I’ll go over it again with some 400 grit, then add a final finish coat. It has been a lot of work, but the table looks good, feels good, and won’t snag fabric.

I stopped by Felony Flyers this afternoon to check on the Maxim. It looks pretty random right now, with the seat off and wires everywhere, but the work is coming along. I will apparently be able to pick it up sometime next week – I am looking forward to it!

I happened to drive the Rover in to work yesterday; even taking back roads to avoid traffic on 520, the trip home took an hour and a quarter. It was raining a bit this morning, but with that memory fresh in my head I rode the bike in anyway. I think I am just going to get a rain suit and keep going this fall: I’d rather deal with the wind and rain than the miles of backed-up traffic.

I ended up spending a good bit of yesterday evening over at the shop. I put another coat of polyurethane on the work tables, which are glossing up nicely, then Adam and I set to work on his bike. It is a hulking great 1100cc Ninja, repainted black long ago, with most of the plastics broken or at least loose. Adam likes the black, and the powerful engine, but he wants more of a streetfighter look; we took off the lower fairing altogether, then cut the front fairing along the line of the forks. We stabilized the remaining mini-fairing with some bolts through the windshield frame and called it good.

Going to the shop feels less like a trek if I go there straight from work instead of stopping by home first. I think I will leave some boots and overalls there so I don’t have to get my work clothes dirty.

A group called Congress for the New Urbanism has released a report listing their picks for the top ten in-city elevated highways that ought to be knocked down and replaced with something more livable. The Alaskan Way Viaduct here in Seattle, of course, is first on their list.

The only good thing about the viaduct is the spectacular view of the city and the bay from the upper (northbound) deck. I’ll miss that when the old wreck is gone, but I have no doubt that the city will benefit from the change.

The FJ600’s electrical problems are definitely fixed. I’ve been riding all week and it has had no starting issues.

I’ve been able to avoid the legendary Seattle drizzle until today, when squelchy little drops started to splatter all over my helmet as I cruised down 520. I don’t mind the cold, but soggy pants are no fun. I think I need some gore-tex. Of course I have a design in mind for a custom riding suit I’d like to make, but given my current dearth of creative time it’d likely be next summer before I had it finished.

The worktables at the Rocket Factory are coming along. I went over the other night with Ava and put on another coat of polyurethane. I’m going for something kind of like a bar-top finish.

• hauled my Maxim over to Felony Flyers for a long list of minor repairs
• cleaned up the Rocket Factory sewing table with a strip of molding and some filler
• went out to dinner at Dragonfish with Ava, Nick, and Adam
• skipped the Equinox party at LRS because I was too tired
• cooked breakfast
• sewed the sleeves onto the martianwear hoodie prototype and added fur cuffs
• sanded down the workbenches at the Rocket Factory and applied the first coat of polyurethane
• implemented more expression parsing code for Radian

I’ll give it another couple of days before declaring success, but the FJ600 is running fine, so maybe the new regulator worked.

I’ve been getting a lot of comment spam lately, up to a couple dozen posts a day. I filter it all out before it ever shows up on the site, but it’s annoying. I noticed that real people always post to recent articles and spam-bots almost always post to old articles, so I implemented this technique for disabling comments on old posts. If you are using wordpress and have a comment-spam problem, it’s worth a try.

I spent a couple hours working on my motorcycle last night. The battery doesn’t charge while riding, and runs down after a day or two. Replacing the battery did not solve the problem, so I’ve been plugging it in to a charger every night. Jenna suggested that the regulator might be at fault; this made sense so I ordered a new one, which arrived yesterday.

I rode over to the Rocket Factory after work, stopping for a brief visit with Ava. It was really nice to roll into a warm, well-lit, well-equipped shop and go to work, without having to sit on gravel or improvise work lights or make do with an inadequate toolbox. The old regulator had fallen off the battery box and was hanging free inside the body of the bike, so I had to scrounge up some appropriate bolts and bushings for the new one. After hooking it up, I poked around with a multimeter, and found that the voltage is now 12.8 at idle and about 14 at 2000 rpm. This is still a little on the low side, but should be enough to keep the battery charged, so I’m going to stop using the charger for a couple of days and see what happens.

I also replaced the speedometer cable, but that did nothing to solve the speedometer problem. I’m not sure whether the issue is with the speedometer itself or with the sender gear in the front wheel hub.

I accidentally upgraded to iTunes 8. It comes with a new “Genre” column in the track browser. This feature is wasted space to me, but there is no menu item or preferences checkbox which will disable it. You can turn it off by pasting the following text into a Terminal window and pressing enter:

defaults write com.apple.itunes show-genre-when-browsing -bool FALSE

Relaunch iTunes and the Genre column will disappear.

When I was a kid, astronomers were not sure that other stars would have planets. Now they have a photograph of one.

This TV-B-Gone sweatshirt is clever, if a bit ugly. Of particular note is the zipper-based switch mechanism. I came up with a similar idea for a light-up jacket I haven’t assembled yet; it’s nice to see that the scheme actually works.

I’ve been riding my motorcycle a lot lately. I take it to work every day, and I run all errands via bike that don’t involve carrying lots of stuff around. It feels good. It’s fast and fun and I love sitting out in the middle of the world.

Dawn came by last night. We had sushi and then did a little sewing. She was tired and left early, but I pushed on, finished cutting, and started stitching my new project together. This is going to be a light hooded jacket, made from wide-wale corduroy, with fur trim around the hood and cuffs. It’s a prototype for a future product in the Martianwear line, so I’m keeping the pattern simple.

It appears that I did not buy nearly enough of the dark silvery-grey corduroy from Mood last spring. Perhaps I was thinking of a vest rather than a jacket? After rummaging through bags of remnants, I found a piece of the same corduroy in a creamy tan color. My first thought was to make the sleeves out of the tan and the body out of the dark grey, but Lesley suggested splitting it front-to-back instead. This seemed like a fine fun idea so I dug right in. I’m putting a seam down the middle of each sleeve; the back and hood will be dark grey and the front will be tan, with dark grey accent pockets. It will be a more light-hearted garment than I had originally intended, but I’m looking forward to seeing how it comes out.

My sister MJ flew in late last night and will be staying for a day or so. She’s leaving Saturday on a bicycle trip down the coast to San Francisco. Wow.

Work is frustrating today. I feel like I’m drowning in Process. At least I am no longer drowning in Complete Ignorance. I got no actual work done today, which is disappointing, but in a minute or two I am going to get out of here and go ride my motorcycle, which always makes me feel better.

Alex’s rules for computing happiness are practical and straightforward. I find the idea of an enumerated list of such rules more interesting than the specifics; he has turned what is clearly a history of frustration with computer technology into something positive and useful. It’s definitely a more productive outlet than the classic geek pastime of redesigning everything “the right way” in one’s head.

I bought some motorcycle parts over a week ago and used Paypal, thinking it’d be convenient not to have to send my credit card information to some random vendor. Big mistake: they took five business days just to process the payment! I had expected to get the parts in time to install them over the weekend, but found out this morning that the vendor hasn’t even shipped them yet. Lesson learned: paypal is not worth it.

Saturday morning I did a little work on my bike, replacing the turn indicator light I busted when I crashed a few weeks ago. I went over to Kirkland for lunch with Ava, then we headed up to Capitol Hill and had a look around Red Light. She found a really sharp cafe-racer style motorcycle jacket and some boots. No more borrowed ski jacket! We’ve been riding a lot lately, since I’d pretty much always prefer to ride the bike than drive the Rover when I have the option, and I’m really glad she has some nice solid gear of her own now.

Saturday night we headed out for Phil B.’s housewarming party. It was a fun little event – Alexis was there, Amy S. showed up with her neighbor Marlo, but otherwise everyone there was new to me. We munched on vegan cupcakes and talked about music. After a couple hours we bopped over to Ellen’s punk-rock-princess birthday party. We didn’t bring costumes, but showing up in motorcycle gear was close enough.

Sunday we had a lazy sleep-in, then I did some gardening while Ava attacked her new boots with shoe polish. After then working her way through a bunch of my shoes she got bored of it and came down to work on the garden. We planted a few big clumps of redwood-sorrel, which has been thriving along the entryway, and half a dozen salal bushes next to the driveway. A new ninebark in the raised planter bed should help spread that area out, and Ava put in a couple more violets since the one we tried a few weeks ago has been doing so well.

After that we went over to the Rocket Factory and cleaned up all the Burning Man gear. We got thoroughly playafied, but all the bins, chairs, cookstoves, tents, and other accessories are now out of sight up in the loft. We even got the sewing table and one of the workbenches cleared off, and dumped a lot of the random trash that had been hanging about. We worked hard and got a surprising amount of work done in only a couple of hours.

We wound up spending the evening over at Adam & Janet’s playing poker. Janet won.