Monthly Archives: June 2006

ten-pin bowling

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On the weekend Tristan oranised a group of people to go ten pin bowling at Norwood AMF, and good times were had. I hadn’t been bowling since I was little. It was funny we were half way through a game, and the automated pin-reset machine down the end of the lane which clears and resets the pins started to go mental. It kept destroying the pins, clearing them, resetting them, and without any ball going down the lane, would continue to do this. Whilst it was getting fixed, I went to play air-hockey, but that was broken. So then I went to play that game where you roll the ball up a ramp and try to get it into various holes worth different points, but that broke after it took my money. We then sat down whilst waiting for the bowling machine thing to be fixed, and we saw some kids win 500 tickets from a machine (which I believe is about to break since it has an awful vibration coming out of it). They went to cash in their tickets for prizes, but the ‘ticket-eater’ machine broke on them. All in all, I think there is a definite pattern of Norwood AMF being ‘broken’, but it was great fun and worth going for.

I went mountain biking with Nick on the weekend which I had been looking forward to for a while. Maybe it was because I was sick, but it seems you can really lose a huge amount of mountain biking type fitness over a 3 year period, despite being a fit marathon runner, and weekend cyclist.

Nick mountainbiking

I found it impossible to control my mountain bike, and have no idea how I used to ride as well as I did and still have confidence. Credit must be given to my montain bike, which has probably been ridden over 50,000 kms since I got it at the start of 1995, 11 and a half years ago from now. (I have no data to back up that I’ve ridden that far though).

A definite highlight of the ride was this weird spider!

Spider

Also on the weekend, I’ve pretty much got well again, so I’ll get back into running training as soon as I’ve finished this ridiculous pile of marking I have to do.

my last week or so

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The last week or so I’ve been incredibly sick, which made me demotivated, hence no blog entries for a week. I think I’m getting better now, and I’ve got a flu shot organised for when I get better to hopefully see me through the winter without another flu like I got last year.

For the couple hours a day where it’s warm enough for me to go outside without getting sick from the cold air, I’ve been restoring my mountain bike. I cannot believe how much I must have totally thrashed it the last ride I did, because not only was it completely covered in mud, but both tyres were punctured, the headset had worked itself loose so that got a total rebuild, the front derallieur shifter was broken so I had to find an old replacement (but the only one I have spare is a 1995 model Deore LX integrated shifter system with the brake lever, and so now I have two brake levers which looks hilarious!!), the rear derallieur had suffered an obvious knock and had to be dismantled, throughly cleaned out, rebuilt and readjusted. Also the chain had rusted, so that had to be soaked in petrol and scrubbed hard. This must have all happened in the last ride I did because I always do a thorough check over after any mountain bike ride I ever do. I’ve also tweaked up my road bike as well, and fixed a few minor things on my motorbike, and of course, caught up on all the TV series :)

Now that I’m able to stay motivated for long enough I’m going to catch up with my IET commitments and marking commitments for uni that I’ve fallen behind in, and I’ve just got in contact with Greening Australia to volunteer time with over the next few months until I start working for ETSA (assuming I’ve got the job).

On the weekend was Joni’s 21st which was pretty cool, except I wasn’t feeling the greatest. I also went to my brothers First Friday party which I hadn’t been to any of them yet until now, and also had a Raj on Taj and poker night with a group of friends from school. Pity for them though because I’ve given my virus to at least Adz and Jordz eh eh eh eh *evil laugh* muah hahahhaha.

I’ve also got my GPS and heart rate monitor in one watch, the Garmin Forerunner 305, but obviously haven’t been well enough to try it out running yet. After I’ve caught up in my commitments I’ll get a system developed to link it directly to Google Maps on my blog.

Another thing I’ve got to do is make this cool new system I thought of today where I’m going to use a limit switch in the brake lever arm of my mountain bike and road bike, to create a stop light on the tail end, and hopefully get the wires going directly through my frame somehow. I can imagine how on my mountain bike I can mount the light under my seat, and have the wire go down the top of the seat tube of the seat, continue down through the seat tube of the frame, around the bottom bracket cartridge, up the down tube of the frame, and then in the headset area of the frame where there is a few millimetres between the steering tube of the suspension and the headset area of the frame, have a micro hole in the suspension steering tube, and then either have the wire coming out the top of the headset adjustment cap via a small hole (a non-structural part of the bike, as oppose to the suspension steering tube).