The Threadless Nut

Did you ever arrive somewhere in your car, and not really remember driving there? I’m sure you have, I know I have. It’s not that you were unsafe or distracted or anything, it’s just not that memorable.

That’s another reasons why I ride, riding demands your attention. There is so much more to do than when driving a car. There’s something for each limb to worry about on a regular basis. Left hand has the clutch, lights, signals, horn, and steering; right hand has the throttle, front brake, ignition, and also steering; left foot manages the shifter; right foot has the rear brake; and the body as a whole has to deal with balance and leaning, cause these things tend to fall over if you don’t do that.

You have to pay attention and think about what your doing at all times. It’s not this furious rush, but just a continuous level of awareness that is higher than when driving. You never get somewhere and think “hmm, how did I get here”. Instead you think things like “hmm, I could have done that turn 2 miles back a little smoother.”

I just decided, while sitting on the second conference call about the 3rd reorganization that I’ve enjoyed so far this year, that if I could have any superpower, I would choose the ability to magically summon Al Pacino into any situation.

I’d close my eyes, concentrate, and in a puff of smoke he’d arrive. He’d start dealing out “HoooAhhh!”s, “You’re out of order”s, unrefuseable offers, and generally being Pacino like. It would be so useful on a daily basis. Just think of the inane situations you end up in every day that could be fixed (or at least made more entertaining) by a dose of Pacino. The possibilities are staggering.

Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to be content with my heat-vision.

This is the first in a series of short posts about why I ride. Just the little things that make it enjoyable and worthwhile.

One of the things I’ve noticed is that smells are immediate and powerful. When you’re in a car, you might pass a guy grilling steaks and 30 seconds later a little bit of the aroma sneaks through the vents. On the bike, it all happens much faster. I’ll smell the freshly cut grass from the person mowing before I pass them. I’ll get a hint of those burgers on the grill with enough warning to slow down and pull in the driveway and pretend that I know them.

Of course, this is a double edged sword, I’ll also smell that skunk and the garbage truck in front of me, but you take the good with the bad.

National Engineer’s Week is this week and I was asked to do a presentation on software engineering to about 40 local middle school students. I was a bit unsure how to approach this as it’s not the audience I’m used to dealing with. I’ve presented to rooms full of executives before, but I was more nervous about this. I’ll leave the obvious jokes about maturity levels as an exercise for the reader.

Now that it’s over, I’d say it went very well (thanks to advice from my lovely wife). I was last on the agenda, so the kids were a bit drained and antsy, but I managed to keep them occupied and interested. I had an activity planned in which some volunteers represented parts of a very simple program, a bubble sort. I had them physically act out the operation of the algorithm and when it was completed they could see the results (the volunteers were now in alphabetical order). They were actually enthusiastic about participating in this little exercise, which was probably my biggest fear. It would have gone much differently if I had to drag kids up, or bribe them with the M&Ms that a certain someone suggested I bring. It was inspiring to see some of the kids watch the process, expressing confusion as it wasn’t immediately obvious what was happening, but then as it progressed, they got what was going on. I think they really enjoyed it.

The blatant pandering of using a screenshot of Super Mario Galaxy and one of the Google map to their school actually resulted in cheers. So I’ll keep that in the toolbox for the future.

One thing that didn’t work was sarcasm. If you know me, you know how integral that is to my daily life and the kids mostly just didn’t get it. I guess I should have seen that up front, but at least some of the teachers got some chuckles out of it.

Overall, I really enjoyed the experience, the kids asked a lot of good questions, though several were about salary. I hope they all got something from it.

Here’s my presentation, if you’d like to see it.

This past Sunday, I loaded up and shot my first home reloaded shotshells. Everyone’s aware of the price of gas going through the roof, but the price of ammo is doing the same. A box of shells that cost me $3 early last year is now $6. This, and a reloader that popped up on Craigslist locally for a good price finally pushed me over the edge. Here’s a pic if you have no idea what I’m talking about:

Took a little while to get everything working smoothly, but once I had the rhythm worked out, I was cranking out shells pretty quickly. I only dropped shot on the floor twice 😉

Considering that a weekly trap shoot can burn through 4 boxes of shells, this should pay itself off rather quickly. Reloaded shells are about half the cost of factory loads, and the reloader came with enough components (powder, primer, shot, wads and hulls) to recoup what I paid for it.