Getting to work - FAIL

So a tail of two bikes....

After an initial abortive attempt to take boys to nursery and get Denise to work we decided to bunker down - nursery was shut, no trains and the back streets near us an ice rink.

Anyway we needed milk so I thought I would test out whether my micro thin fixed gear's tires would get me to the nearest shop. Wow! That was a bit slippery! Interestingly it would have been actually impossible on a normal geared bike - rather than just really hard.

So, getting desperate to go into the office this afternoon I cast about for public transport methods still working. I was happy to find that according to the national rail enquiries live departure boards for both Malden manor and waterloo that the chessington line was still running.

Right so needed a way of getting the couple of miles there so decided to bring my old mountain bike out of retirement - however would require replacing slicks with knobby tires. A while later set off into the snow. 10 feet later noticed puncture on front. Denise thought this was a good sign that I really should give up this madness. No! To quote Ethan (quoting Buzz Lightyear) "Never give up. Never surrender!". 20 mins later - off I went....

Hmm, so it's bad enough slipping and sliding around the road on your own but much worse when there is a car coming up behind you who will squish you flat if you do go over...

Finally made it to the railway station....

Chessington Line open? They lied.

Turned around and now on my way home. Via the pub because I need (just a little) muscle relaxment before heading onto the slippery slopes of Cuddington.

Shiny Fixie

Have done an overhaul on my Condor fixed gear bicycle. New tubes. New Ultra Gator Duraskin gyres. Cleaned whole bike.

And the weather is Pish and my back is killing me - will wait for a better day for recommencing bike commute!

Blew up Joe Blow

On the spur of the moment, decided to cycle to shops rather than walk.

Decided to give Fixie a go - was pumping up front wheel when loud pop and whoosh of air :(

Turned out not to be inner tube but Stupid Joe Blow pump. Bottom plastic surround has cracked and therefore not airtight.

Not to be thwarted I found my trusty emergency hand pump and set to with gusto - unfortunately with a bit too much in this case. Bent and broke valve pin - new inner tube required :(

Having arranged to meet Denise at shops I was desperate to leave quickly - not enough time to change tube - instead got the Grass Hopper out of the grave and pumped tires. Hurrah! Success and off t'shops.

So.. After a bit of research have decided to try Topeak/Joe Blow brand again but this time go for what looks a bit sturdier - the Sprint.

Mount in pieces

Got a return authorization from the folks at Astro-Physics Inc.

They suggest sending both motors, GTOCP2 control box and Y-cable to them so they can fix and check all electrics.

It's tempting to get the Declination upgrade at the same time - this includes a spring mounted bracket for the Dec motor as well as lots of other improvements - wouldn't be bad for resale price as mount would be up-to-date with current version.

I think the motors themselves would stay the same - as long as there is nothing wrong with them.

Anyway - I'll look into the postage costs!

The Pen is mightier than the mouse

The last Christmas gadget we got is a Wacom Bamboo Fun digitizer pad.

The idea is to allow the boys to draw and paint and interact with the PC with a pen as well as the mouse.

Toby seems more keen at the moment, appearing in the family room saying "drawing!" then saying "no, 'puter!" when I gave him a crayon...

Total Control

Santa was nice enough to bring me a new universal remote to replace
the five units we normally use.

Though it is fair to say that Ethan can operate all the existing
remotes - the rest of humanity don't seem so capable

Christmas Gadgets

Fed up with Ethan telling me "but you've been playing with your dwarf for ages Daddy! I want to look at LegoStarWars.com" - I asked Santa if he could provide us with a netbook for Ethan and Toby to use...

Voilà - Santa came through with one of the best specc'd netbooks on sale at the moment - the Samsung NC10.

Good almost full size keyboard with good positioning and size of shift key etc. (trackpad is a little small but you get used to it)

Clear, large 10.2" screen

160gb hard disk

Best of all - over 6 hours battery life!

After spending a few hours getting the machine patched with hundreds of windows updates then installing complete McAfee suite, I used the supplied Samsung backup utility to create a good baseline complete restore image on different partition.

Now just need to try out the McAfee parental control software to make sure Ethan doesn't watch too many Yoda slicing up the baddies YouTube Lego videos....