Bicycle Rack for my Truck

The bike rack I had bought for moving to Florida was bought with the old Ford Escort in mind. It was one of those straps to the trunk type deals. It also said that it could strap to the back of a van or whatnot.

You know, they are right, it will strap to the back of my Ford Escape. The trouble lies in when you try to open the back door. The metal hooks needlessly dig into the paint and royal !@#$#$% up a brand new vehicle.

I have had to go in with a Dremel Moto tool and grind out the rust on the roof of a 6 month old vehicle. GRRR

Anyway. I had picked up one of those hitch-haul utility racks that goes into the receiver of your vehicle. I got it on sale, like half off the normal price. It is for a 2 inch receiver, and I have an 1 1/4 or whatever it is. Not a problem, they say on the box that they make adapters. Heh, little did I know, they DO make them. They are hard to find, and they end up costing more then I paid for the rack. Funny that, eh?

So, when I got this thing, I had always planned on making a bike hauler for it.

This last Saturday, on my way home from the Ren Faire, I stopped by Cabelas. We had just been talking about me making a bike rack for the truck at the faire. Guess what I found at Cabelas? That's right, a bike rack designed to be attached to one of these racks.

SCORE

 
This is how it is supposed to work according to the directions. Uhm, yeah, it's for a different brand of rack and won't fit mine right. The holes don't line up, and it's to wide. No worries. Like everything else I own that isn't right, I can make it work.

 
Here it is loosly bolted up. I had walked to the hardware store to get lockwashers and a nut for the hitch-haul (which has been slowly trying to fall apart), and also fender washers for the rack. Wouldn't you know it, I had forgotten the fender washers. I didn't like how it was sitting, so I decided to change things up a little bit. I rode my bike to the store this time, as I was tired of walking. I picked up 2 more bolts and the fender washers.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I need to clean out the back of my truck.

 
Here is the rack all bolted up with the bike on it. Yeah, it was that late by the time I got done.
 
Another picture with the flash.

 
Here is how I ended up bolting the thing down. Instead of in one long strip, I offset the 3 pieces. I figure this may work helping offset the bikes if I have 3 of them on the rack at the same time.

 
Here you can see the fender washers underneath. You can also see my 2 new, extra long bolts.

 
Ah, the finished product. Doesn't look bad, eh?

Oh, I cleaned out the back of the truck. 2 small bags of trash. 2 loads of tools back to the apartment. The rear seats are now locked in the full upright position. I also found my missing digital camera.

Mushrooms

These aren't bad, just not as good as I had hopped. I really need to get myself a digital SLR. I just don't have the control I want with these cheap cameras.
 
 
 
 

I am famous

So, it looks like 3 weeks ago I had my one day of fame.

And I missed it.

I am SO behind on my reading. I am just getting caught up on my news reader, and I see one of my photos. Strange, why did that republish...

Wait, this is a MAKE article. WHAT????

That's right, I got one of my blog threads picked up by MAKE Magizine. You know, a real magazine that you can go to the store and buy, only it's for geeks that like to make things. Sweet, eh?

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/08/build_a_diy_co2_reactor.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

My normal 50 people to my blog a day spiked to over 1 thousand for that day.

The one disappointing aspect is that I missed it. Not a single comment to alert me that people where on my blog.

Oh well...
Maybe next time.

I wonder what the next post that gets picked up by MAKE will be?

What do you think?

Neet Mushroom

 
I took this photo of a neat mushroom 3 weekends back. I have no clue what it is, but I think it looked cool.

Mileaukee Irish Fest

I am at Irish Fest in Milwaukee. With Stewie Natasha and CVS. We shall see how much fun it will prove to be.

Kitten Update

Well, I think I shall start off with a video of the cuteness.



I am not sure why, but the audio is poor on these videos.

Anyway. The kittens are now eating solid food. I started mixing in kitten food with the regular food so Brother doesn't get all fat eating it. Solid food means solid waste. Little poops scattered throughout my apartment. They also found the water dish to go with the dry food. They LOVE that water fountain! Lots of water late at night means that they wet the bed. The upside to this is that I am now sleeping with fresh sheets every night... They seem to be getting better about using the litter box. I now have 2 little poops and lots of peepees in the little kitten litter box.

Progress is Progress.

Brother went to the vet today. Yep brother is now Unique... er... Eunuch. He can't say I didn't warn him... Not that he understands much more English then his name. Poor dude. I feel bad for him, but it is funny at the same time. I guess it can be argued (I got on argument sitting in my lap mewling at me) that he got to sew his wild oats. There are 2 little kittens that are just as much sweathearts as he is - even with his trying to rip my hand off and everything.



Speaking of my hand. It is getting much better. It is about all healed up, just a nasty looking set of marks that likes to change funny colors at times.

Some how I ended up at the WI state fair today. Lots to see.

Radioshack Pro-95 Radio Scanner

I have had a Radioshack Pro-95 handheld radio scanner for years now. In all this time, it has never been properly programmed. I have had some channels in it, but not anything really all that useful. I have ended up using it mostly for a weather radio and CB channel scanner. I do use it enough to justify the scanner antenna I have on my truck.

Last night, we had a trio of tornadoes blow through the area. Luckily, none touched down. When my cell let me know that there was bad weather in the area, I ran out to my truck and grabbed the scanner. I used it to listen to the weather.

Well, tonight, I sat down and made an effort at figuring out how to program this thing. I now have the local Elgin Motorola Trunked municipal, police, and fire radio frequencies in it. The cool thing is that it works!

Reading online, the radio got good reviews, the manual got terrible reviews. So I don't feel bad about not figuring it out in the past.

Now I am going to have to get a programming cable for it. I don't think I want to spend anymore time fighting with programming it using the radio itself. I want to use my keyboard!

I have the City's trunked system in the radio, I also want to put in the local utilities - phone, cable, railroad, but don't know how to. Gah! It can't be this hard. Maybe I need to curl up with the manual and read it again. NOT!

If you know of any good Elgin area radio frequencies to listen in on, let me know!

Passing on

The baby kitten didn't make the night. I found the two other kittens curled up next to it this morning - like they where mourning.

News about my folks

Well, seeing that mom has posted about it, I can't be the one to jynx things.



Yep, it's the new house. Looks like my folks found a place they like on Loveless Lake a few miles from the old house. I made this model from the one photo that mom posted on her blog. I have no idea what the back and far side of the house looks like.

Kitten Update, good news and bad

I came home for lunch today, and one of the kittens used the litter box I put out for them. I was quite excited! No more wet spots on my carpet.


I fed the big cats - they like the new canned food I got for them. I also fed the little ones. I mixed up a batch of formula and put it down for them. I have done this for a few days now, but they hadn't really figured it out until today.


The kittens are getting so big! They just love to play! Here is the fat one viciously attacking the dishwasher. The skinny one and the fat one are always tussling with each other. During lunch, the brown one took off running from the kitchen all the way to my bedroom. I guess it didn't want to be ganged up on by the two orange ones.


So, the skinny one found the food dish.

The sad news is when I came home from work tonight, the brown kitten is paralyzed. I am not sure why. It was laying on the floor of the computer room - I had left the door open when I went back to work after lunch. My best guest is that Sister was trying to 'hide' her kittens, and hauled this kitten up on top of my stack of boxes or something, and it fell down and didn't land on it's feet. It has no control of it's back legs, and it appears to have no control of it's bladder. It could also be something that the fleas gave it, or reaction to the poisons I have been using to get rid of the fleas. I am really not sure. It doesn't seem to be in any pain.

I guess I will see what the story is in the morning.

Kittens in the trash

Busy weekend. Since I have hurt my wrist (it's getting much better, thanks), I have been slacking on my chores, so I worked on catching up on dishes and laundry and trash and whatnot this weekend.

Anyway, to the real story. I woke up this morning with a Kitten in bed with me... again. Sister snuck this one in bed with me this time, so I didn't wake up. I found one kitten in the middle of the kitchen floor. You would never guess where I found the 3rd one (besides the fact I told you in the subject). That's right, I found a kitten in the trash!
It had apparently climbed what little is left of my laundry, and into the tipped over trash can that has my dryer-lint in it. I really wish i wasn't so groggy and had grabbed the camera before I grabbed the kitten. It was all sprawled out, looking happy as a clam.

Oh, if you haven't guessed, they kittens are now big enough to be exploring now. They can run halfway across the apartment in a single sprint. They are climbing small boxes.

Anyone want a kitten or 3? They are SO adorable right now.