Month: June 2012

For The Want Of A Tube

We really wanted to ride the tandem to work today, so Tuesday we drove over to Augusta to see if we could find a tube at one of the downtown bike stores.The first stop was Andy Jordan’s and when the fellow asked what I needed, I told him, “A 26 x 1.25 tube…” he starts towards the shelf with all their tubes on it “…with a Presta valve.” He comes to a halt and says, “We don’t have any. We could order you one?” We tell him thanks anyway.

Stop two, a mile away, we enter Outspokin’ which I had called earlier and they had said they had what I was looking for. I figured we would be in and out. We were greeted and asked what we wanted. I told him and off he went. We wandered the store a bit while we waited. We drifted deeper in the place the longer our buddy was gone. We circled back to the desk about the time the employee came out from the back empty handed. He called over to the owner, who joined him looking on their self full of tubes. He finally said the closest thing he had was a 26 x 1.75. I told him I didn’t think I could get something that big in the tire even in its uninflated state. I bought the thing for two reasons: one, he said he’d give me my money back if it didn’t fit and two, it was our only hope of riding the bike to work on Thursday.

When we got home I pulled the wheel and took out the flat spare. Turns out there was a sharp edge where the stem passed thru the rim, so I tried filing it down a bit. To further protect the stem I added an extra layer of rim tape. After about five minutes of stretching and tucking I managed to get that x-large tube inside the tire as best I could. Pumped it up to 100psi and waited for the bang of a pinched tube or the hiss of a small leak at the juncture of stem and tube. Nothing.

We opted to go for a quick ride around the block as a final test. And much to my surprise it held up. Wednesday morning on the way by to the car I squeezed the tire, expecting a flat, but it was still inflated. Nice.

Wednesday night it was flat again….

Started down, went up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1159

Donna Is Getting Implants

Not that kind you sicko, dental implants!

A week and a half or so ago Donna felt a swelling in her mouth near where she has a 3 tooth bridge. We called the dentist and they saw her that very afternoon. We were hopeful that there was just something stuck under there that had eluded her cleaning efforts. No such luck. X-rays showed that the tooth supporting her bridge was cracked and the swelling was from an infection. They took impressions and sent her home with a script for an antibiotic and a pain pill.

Fast forward to today and she had an appointment to have the bridge removed (see photo), the broken tooth pulled and the temporary fitted. As Marvin Lee Aday once sang, “…two out of three ain’t bad.” The temporary “bridge” wasn’t correct and the dentist couldn’t make it work. She is now stuck with a big ol’ gap between her back molar and an eye tooth on the upper left side until another temporary is ordered up. They took some new impressions hoping they will get a more correct temp next time.

The temporary is something that will have to work for a while too, because to fix this issue we are talking two or possible three implants which with our meager dental plan will probably cost us more than my recent scoping and ER visit. I wonder how much we can recoup by selling the bridge you see to one of those RVs that are popping up around town that buy gold?

Fix-A-Flat

Saturday while in between monkeying with the Miata I also fixed the flat on the tandem. Pulled the tube out and pumped it full of air. It came right back out. In a rush. Sounded like from the valve stem. I put it under water in the bathroom sink and air bubbles came cascading out from around the base of the stem. It was not patchable.

Neither I nor the local bike store had the proper sized (26 x 1.25) tube with a presta valve on hand. She said she would order a couple and I figured I would use the tube I had that was close (26 x 1) to get by until they came in.

When we got up this morning to go for a bike ride, sure enough the tire was flat again. Not a big deal, we were going to ride our single bikes anyway, but I’ll take it apart tomorrow to see if I can see something. Maybe there is a sharp edge on the rim where the valve stem passes through.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1156

Forget Something?

The Emperor’s new shocks are just what his subjects needed. The last few months his majesty had a tendency to wander in his lane. I tried to tighten things up by adjusting the Koni Sport shocks firmer, but that just ended up making the car bouncy. We picked up the car on Tuesday, didn’t drive it on Wednesday, but Thursday and then again Friday we did. On both days, me first, then Donna, noticed a kind of metallic rattle from the left rear when hitting sharp bumps. Wondering if maybe someone didn’t tighten something up during the shock change, I decided to check it out today.

First thing I did was put the front of the car on jack stands. Front? Yeah, I also needed to change out that burnt out fog light bulb. And while it can be done while laying on your back under the car, but it is much easier to jack it up and take off the tires. Even though only one was out I opted to change them both because with my luck if I did just one, the other would fail within week. Seriously Sylvania, fifty-four bucks for a pair of SilverStar Ultra H1 bulbs?!? I went with $7.75 ea Plain Jane H1.

With the front done I jacked up the back end and pulled both of those tires. A visual and shake check revealed nothing loose or out of place under there, so it was time to check in the trunk. My first thought was to just flat out empty everything out of the trunk and take the car for a spin to see if the noise remained. As I pulled out the faux carpet covering the spare I noticed something, a 3/8 drive, 14mm deep socket sitting on top of the rim of the spare tire. That just might be it. Just in case I hunted around for anything else that didn’t belong and found nothing. Buttoned everything back up and did a quick run around the block running over every imperfection and manhole cover. Didn’t hear a rattle.Big test will be the next time we go over some railroad tracks.

I guess I’ll give Steve a call on Monday and see if he wants his socket back.

Hey! Four Eyes!

Three of the pairs of glasses I’m thinking of trying from Warby Parker on the 5 pairs, 5 day deal, I could mock up using their Virtual Try On service. I had to layout the Percy and the Reynolds myself using Paint Shop Pro. I’m still waiting on our local eyeglass place to get me the ones I picked out from them. If I haven’t from them in another week I’ll go online and try these.

We missed out on the usual Friday bike ride to work this morning because when we started loading up the bike I noticed the rear tire was flat, like no air at all. We either picked up something on the way home or I didn’t get the tube in right the other week and it finally failed.

Speaking of failure, the left fog light of the Emperor has burned out. Sounds like a Sunday afternoon project.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1155

We Built A Wall, We Built The Pyramids

Even though the title is one more line from TBBT theme song, I got nothing related to it. As matter of fact the only thing I do have is that the driver’s side fog light on the Emperor is burnt out.

OK, OK, maybe one more thing. It is time for some new glasses and I have been kind of thinking to go retro thanks to TDTVS2. Trouble is there are no frames like that to choose from at any of the local eyeglass places. Then along came Lifehacker the other day who turned me on to Warby Parker, so I may just give that Home Try On (5 Pairs, 5 Days, 100% Free!) a try.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1154

Neanderthals Developed Tools

Finished watching the last episode of TBBT tonight. Kind of schmaltzy. We had stopped watching the show after Season 3 because of the direction it was taking. We then restarted after catching a couple of Season 4 re-runs because we caught ourselves laughing at it anyway. But now I sense another break in watching coming up for Season #6.

I have one brickbat for Dunkin Donuts. They have (re)started a Coffee Club Punch Card, you know, buy 8 cups and get number nine free. The trouble with the card is it is about a 1/16 of an inch to long to fit in my wallet’s credit card slot. Took a couple missed punch opportunities before I took some scissors and trimmed its length enough that it fit right in front of my DD gift card.

To balance things out I have a bouquet for them as well. Donna and my favorite spot for dining at DD is on the bar-like tables with tall chairs that face out towards the parking lot. Breakfast goes so much better with some people watching thrown in. Trouble is, our view is frequently blocked by those opaque giant cups of coffee and breakfast sandwich static clings. Much to our pleasure, last week we sat down, we could see right through them. They finally adopted the kind that are full of holes making them appear solid on the outside and slightly darkly tinted on the inside.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1153