16-6-21

St Christopher, the patron saint of travelling who's bearer is to be protected from storms and other hardships of the road. I'm not religious. Neither is the lovely person who gifted this to me, but I get why she gave it to me. It's on my motorcycle jacket now. Thank you.

16-6-20

16-6-19

It's Father's Day. There was breakfast with the kid (pancakes and bacon) (she was supposed to cook for me, I ended up cooking for her, I didn't feel scammed at all) and then a day putzing around in the garage. I built these bike wheels for a friend and continued with the motorcycle gauge upgrade process (which involves a lot of waiting while silicone dries). It's kind of poetic that I spent the day building and fixing stuff. It's a habit I picked up from my father who taught me that just about anything can be fixed and that just about anyone could fix something. And it's a bit of a lost art, being able to fix stuff. The sadder part of that equation is it's getting harder and harder to find stuff to fix stuff with. There's been more than one occasion when I've gone to buy a tool or a part only to find neither is available, at least not easily. TheInternet™, of course, fixes many of those problems, but that doesn't help on a Saturday when you find yourself in need of a 9/16" drill bit capable of drilling through aluminum (many hardware stores only carry up to 1/2").

I was short a single, 280mm, 14g straight spoke for the second wheel and I managed to find it at a bike shop walking distance away from me. That single spoke depleted their stock by about 33% (they had 3 left) but at least they had it. It was an event that was surprising, but shouldn't be. I'll visit them again.

I'd like to spend more days making stuff. Maybe I will.

16-6-18

I spent the better part of the day installing these gauges. And they worked first run too. It will get put back together tomorrow morning and test run in the afternoon.

16-6-17

16-6-16

New gauges for the Moto Guzzi.

16-6-15

16 hour work day starting at 7am when I took this photo. Grateful for double time overtime.

16-6-14

16-6-13

16-6-12

f/1.4 It's a danger cat. Missed the focus but only in the picture. The rustic raspberry tart (back yard grown raspberries, home made butter crust) was sharp.

16-6-11

 Living room avocado tree.

Back yard apple tree.

16-6-10

16-6-9

The raspberry bushes in the back yard are working overtime.

16-6-8

Cambie St poppies.

16-6-7

16-6-6

On June 6, 2006 I welded up my 6th bike frame. It was given the name 666 after the date it was built; 06/6/6. The name worked well with what I was calling the bikes at the time; Satan Cycles, a reference to where I was living; Calgary. I thought of them as "bikes from hell." I was hard on Calgary when I lived there, and still am if I'm to be honest, but it did afford me the opportunity to run a successful bike store for 9 years or so, and allowed me the means to build this bike frame.

Ten years later, to the day, it's still among the best bikes I've ridden. I mean, I learned a lot from all the bikes I'd ridden before making this one and there's probably no small amount of luck in getting this one so right but I've got some pretty stellar bicycles from top tier builders to compare this one to and I still like this one a lot. More than the others? Maybe. As much? Definitely.

16-6-5

Seasonal photo repeat. At least I'm consistent.

16-6-4

Fixing stuff.

16-6-3

Wise Hall ghosts.

16-6-2

16-6-1

Work took me to Victoria for the day. For the most part the day was sunny and warm but the rain set in as we boarded the ferry home. The decks were barren, and without much coaxing, the little digital camera gave me photographs that looked like they were taken on film. Despite being cold and bleak there is a romantic component in the way the islands fade into the mist.