Train on a foggy morning

Southbound Caltrain Wednesday morning.

Simple whipping vs aglet

Don't you hate it when your shoelaces are too long? Well, I do.

Omnicell

For years, I've ridden by this place without ever knowing what they did there. Omnicell makes medical equipment.

The Blue Cube

It's hard to miss the big radar dishes off 101 at Mathilda, but I don't think I ever noticed the blue cube until I'd read about it in Wikipedia. Maybe it was designed to be inconspicuous.

There was talk that this site was going to be decommissioned soon, and the city council was weighing different development plans for the area. One was a giant auto mall for selling cars. I am strongly in favor of that, because I think it would move a lot of the car dealerships off of El Camino to a more desireable location close to the freeway.

Chicken Adobo

Famous Chicken Adobo, as featured at allrecipes.com.

First Android ships

To little fanfare, the first Android phone went on sale yesterday. Pre-orders were supposedly higher than expected, but not iPhone high.

Rivendell Valve Stem

There's a flickr group for Rivendell valve stems.

Miyata Triple Cross

Threw that saddle out, by the way.

The bike had been stored in a locker from about October 2007 through April 2008. It's the one I take camping on Angel Island, because the bikes get knocked around a fair bit on the ferry.

Originally sold in the early 1990s, it was one of the first hybrid bikes with 700c wheels. It featured a lugged chromoly triple-butted frame (probably Ishiwata tubing), 130mm dropout spacing, and mid-level components including Shimano Exage brakes and biopace cranks.

I had the stock stem replaced with a Ritchy Force steel stem, and I didn't care for the shifters, so I upgraded to Shimano Deore thumbshifters, which lasted for quite a few years, but have been replaced since.

The stock Araya rims are fairly durable, but the original rear wheel had a problem breaking spokes after about 3 or 4 years. I finally rebuilt it (original rims and hub) with DT spokes and haven't had problems since.

Over the years I've worn out and replaced many parts including the saddle, pedals, front wheel, rear derailleur, and shifters (twice). With 700x28c tires it's great on the road as a commuter. With 700x35c Ritchey Max cyclocross tires, it becomes my "mountain bike."

In its latest incarnation as an around-town bike, I put more upright bars on it.

SpaceShipOne

http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/

later sunsets

Summer's over. Sun is down by the time I get home these days.

The Grove

Twin Towers 3.3 miles away, bearing -106 degrees according to http://www.acscdg.com/

I took three exposures and combined them, but the exposure range actually isn't that large, and the single-exposure shot doesn't look much different. Jeff asked me how long it took to set up and take the shot. It took me a few minutes, since I had to set up a tripod; but I'd been trying to get that shot for about a year and a half now.

The previous photo was taken right after the sun dipped below the horizon (about 18:24 on October 11). This one was taken about 30 minutes later.

The Grove

This is the less spectacular of two shots of the Grove at sunset on Saturday. We were just coming out of the parking stucture as the sun went down. We tried to get a table at Wood Ranch for dinner, but the wait was over an hour, so we left. I took another shot on the way out, which came out much better.

Former SGI Site

This Mountain View building, formerly the site of Silicon Graphics, now houses one of the world's biggest advertising companies.

Post Office

I don't go to the post office much. Occasionally to get stamps. Once a year to do my civic duty of mailing my taxes. Mailing our Christmas cards.

So when we received a notice in our mailbox that a certified letter was waiting for us at the post office on Mary, I headed up there, and it triggered a memory of the last time I was there. In fact, I have a picture of that, which I'd snapped while waiting for the tow truck to arrive.



This was about five years ago. For the sake of symmetry, I snapped another shot this weekend, from roughly the same place.

ready meals; fresh food

HDR photo inside Safeway. Because I was there.

Pizza Antica

Searching for a place to eat near Valley Fair mall the other night, I stumbled upon the yelp listing for Pizza Antica. I remember going there for a group dinner a couple of years ago. I didn't remember it as particularly good or bad, and the parking was somewhat difficult. But I figured it would be okay if we walked across the street from the mall. And it did get good reviews.

I don't know whether the review had tainted my impression, or if my tastes had simply changed; but I thought the pizza was great. I got the bacon-arugula pizza. Erin ordered hers without asking what pancella was (I didn't know either, but I Googled it on my phone afterwards). Our dinner was a bit on the pricey side for pizza, due partly to Erin's wine and the dessert we shared. But it was definitely nicer than Round Table.

By the way, we got there at 5:30 Saturday, and we had to wait 20 minutes for a table.

Campfire

The campground at Manresa State Beach, just north of Watsonville, has a nice feature that the parking lot is really far from the campsites. No RV parking at all. There is a lower lot near the campsites, but parking is restricted to 20 minutes there. If you're on your bike, though, you can just ride right up to your site.

New Brighton, just a little bit up the road, has a different nice feature. They have walk-in campsites set aside for hikers and bikers, so if you're riding down the coast and need a place to stay, you can stop in without a reservation.

The route from Manresa back to San Jose is through Corralitos and over Eureka Canyon, which turns into Highland at the top and is currently closed to automobile traffic.

Mathilda at McKinley

Took the shuttle to work yesterday. It takes about 45 minutes, compared to about an hour via public transportation, 30 minutes via bike, and 15 minutes via car. It sort of baffles me that people take their bikes on this particular shuttle route, since anywhere along the route is within 5 miles of work. You might as well just bike to work.