– turn the ethereal into your reality –

Note:  This post is related to The 4-Hour Workweek.  Reading the book first will help your understanding of this post.

In review of the math behind costing dreamlines, I have one major problem with Tim’s approach:  The Aston-Martin.  With this example it’s evident that he’s taking at least a 5 year loan.  He really pushes figuring out minimum payments to determine what lifestyle you can afford.  The net result is obvious – the minimum amount of money you need to generate, on a daily basis, to make it by.  When considering the Aston-Martin example, this is pretty much only possible with a car loan, assuming we’re starting from zero.  One of the main themes of the book is to eliminate needless expenses, and the least needed expense of all is interest on debt.  His intent is to show you that living like a millionaire is much more attainable than you probably thought.  The goal is to motivate you.  The truth is that when you convert the numbers to more familiar metrics (annual income) then we see that the true goal is not to have debt for a fancy car, so much as to expand your income.

He doesn’t really say anywhere that he advocates debt, but using his Aston-Martin example, the income needs to be generated for 5 years – either before or after buying the car.  This is not a 6-month dreamline in my book; it’s a 5-year dreamline.  It’s not an “unreasonable goal” to buy a car with money you don’t have – that’s what American’s have been doing for 100 years:  Have your cake now, pay for it later.

A car loan is most typically 5 years.  It’s reasonable to buy a car which costs 1-years salary, and then pay 20% for 5 years.  Tim claims that his dreamline requirement is about $200 (I’m rounding up from $197) per day.  This works out to be $73,000/year… after taxes.  If we assume he pays 33% in taxes, then he has to make $110,000/year.  I know; he stresses not to think about money in this way.  Before addressing that, let me make my point clear:  Buying a $120,000 car with a 5 year loan, when you make $110,000/year is not impressive.  It’s merely reasonable.

Does making $110,000 in a year sound difficult?  For the average person, yes.  Does making $300 in a day sound difficult?  Not really.  I did it a few times as a teenager without really trying.  I think the main point is that if you can consistently make a reasonable target daily income, then over time it adds up to be quite a bit.  That’s the key:  consistency.

Elimination of debt should be near the top of anyone’s list, if they truly want to be free.  Yes, there are ways debt can work in your favor, but that’s not an excuse to buy luxury items you don’t need.  By eliminating debt and generating some savings, you have the benefit of getting your money to work for you rather than against you.  This truly is automation of income – you literally do nothing, and you make money.  If it’s up to me, I’d rather be the guy earning the interest than the guy paying the interest.  Ultimately, buying a car with a loan may be commonly accepted, but it seems like just another “fat man in a red BMW convertible” scenario.  The goal shouldn’t be more stuff with more debt, the goal should be to make your means expand to your lifestyle.

If you lack motivation, then use these tricks to realize it’s within your reach, but don’t buy more stuff with more debt; expand your means.  There’s just no way around having to pay for the car eventually, and you’re better off not having to pay interest on it, too.  Luckily, the next section of the book is exactly on that topic:  generating income.

Way back when I started this blog, I immediately undertook a long, aggressive, solo motorcycle trip which involved crossing the rocky mountains on a motorcycle in February (no fairing!) and riding 1,000 miles in one day.  It involved 15-nights on the road, with only one night in a tent, and one night in a hotel – the rest spent with friends, both old and new.

Since this blog was new, I decided to try and keep a journal of the trip and post it here for content.  I think I had delusions of writing a story reminiscent of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (which is a fantastic read, by the way).  Oh right – no editor or anything.  Just post, and do it right the first time.  Hah!  There is a big problem keeping a journal:  When being so aggressive, there’s little time to write.  Damn.  It definitely wasn’t what I wanted.

I removed them because they don’t add the right kind of value.  If I feel motivated (and I’ll admit that this truly is an “if”) then I will make a singular post about the experience, and why everyone should do something similar.  It ultimately is a cornerstone of lifestyle design.  It definitely fits in the realm of a mini-retirement.  It’s a great example of how to make the best of what is commonly considered a bad situation, and the associated repercussions.

In other words, I learned a lot.  It’s worth writing about.  This post is a placeholder.  If there’s significant backlash, then I’ll either re-post them, or be more motivated to do the re-write.  It’s up to you, dear reader, to let me know.

Hi friends,

I recently read The 4-Hour Workweek (Expanded Edition) by Timothy Ferris.  Upon finishing the book, I restarted at the beginning to go through it, step by step, to try my own personal experiment of “Lifestyle Design.”  I have no idea where this journey will take me, nor how successful it will be.  Actually, I take that back – it’s already successful.

I learned about this book 9 months ago when doing research in creating a successful blog.  In the sense of making money, this blog has been largely a failure.  In the other sense it has been very successful learning tool, and a push to get me in the right direction.

A few months ago I started my first full-time job after college.  I quickly found out that I have very little time to do the very long list of things I want to do in my life and I was on the verge of starting to hack and slash that list down.  In the meantime, my job has shown me how to hack and slash unimportant things which consume time and add little value.  The Four Hour Work Week is basically centered around this concept, so these skills both read and learned hands-on from my job combine together to give me a complete lesson on what’s important and what causes unnecessary “noise” in my life.  I should mention at this point another influence recently has been Rework.  The job and the two books have given me a lot to think about in recent days, particularly in pursuit of the lifestyle I want to live.

So here I’ve found myself with both knowledge and motivation to rework my lifestyle, and pursue the concepts of Lifestyle Design.  In the sense that this blog has both been a success and a failure, I expect that this initiative will be a similar experience.  I find that when we undertake these types of projects (or any project for that matter) there is both success and failure, which usually is determined by not really knowing what we get ourselves into.  If I fail, it’s only because I didn’t know what I was aiming for.  Likewise, my successes will partially be hitting targets I didn’t know I was aiming for.

So where am I at now?  Well, I’ve taken a few steps to start laying out the groundwork, and this is where I’ve already met some success.

If you haven’t yet read the book, the next part may be a bit confusing.  I’m going to write it assuming you have read the book so I don’t waste time explaining the concepts.  After all, I’m not here to rewrite the book.  I’m just giving a statement of my experience thus far.

D is for Definition

I’ve basically completed this part of the book.  I haven’t completely hashed out my dreamlines yet, but I’ve been brewing on them for a few days (and yeah, every day I think of more things that I want to do).  I know the big ticket ones and the costs involved.  I’m really content with my current budget in a lot of ways, so this is the base for my Target Monthly Income.  There are a few additions though – I’d like to get all my debts paid off within 12 months.  I’d like to buy a car in 3 months with no additional financial load to my lifestyle.  So my TMI is what I currently make, plus an additional amount to cover the vehicular expense and student loan debts.

Those are the “Having” things.  Being is a little trickier.  Through thinking about my dreams and aspirations, I realized that what I’ve always to be was an inventor.  I never did my engineering degree with the aspirations of being a staff engineer.  I’ve always just wanted to follow my creativity and insipration wherever it would take me.  So this is one of the big “being” things – an inventor.  This is actually not too bad.  it will take some initial startup costs, but if my goal is to be an inventor, then it shouldn’t be too difficult to turn any given invention into a “Muse” in and of itself.  Thus, if I get my first muse set up and running (and it’s successful enough) then that will enable me to pursue this dream of being an inventor and to follow my whims.  I also want to learn to play a musical instrument and learn a new language.  I want to learn new forms of partnered dance, as well.  I enjoy swing and blues, but I want to expand my reach.

So on to the last one – “doing”.  Well this one is easy for me, there’s a lot of things I want to do – Skydiving, hang gliding, race in the Baja 1000.  Oh, also I ‘ll use Tim’s example and add “find smart and gorgeous girlfriend” to my list, too. :)

Comfort Challenge #1 – Eye contact.

This has been the biggest success I’ve had so far.  I’ve been trying to act out the book as a workbook (on that note, I’ll say that services like evernote are a lot less useful without a smart phone.  Tim advocates “killing your crackberry” but at the same time, these services are nearly useless without an all-in-one device like that.  Using my DSLR camera is pretty pointless for evernote.  And inconvenient.  And it takes up a lot of disk space.  The bane of Lifestyle Design is NOT the smartphone – it’s e-mail and being constantly connected to that.  Turn off e-mail push.  If you still don’t have the self control, then get rid of the electronic leash, but for me it’s worth having multi-functional devices.)

Ok, so I digressed a lot – let me get back on subject:  Eye contact.  This is the first comfort challenge and one that I’ve had a lot of success with.  The simple act of making – and holding – eye contact with people in everyday life, especially people that intimidate me makes me much more confident. It’s a big difference.  I just feel better about myself and more confident.  Being able to hold eye contact with someone until they break it not only made me more confident, but also made me realize how frequently I usually break eye contact first.  I will definitely continue to work this comfort challenge into my everyday life, even though I’ve already completed it.

E is for Elimination

I haven’t got into this chapter too much yet, however I did start cleaning out the clutter from my life shortly after starting the book.  I’ve been focusing on selling things that I don’t use, and over the past week alone I’ve made about $150.  I’ve still got a $1,000 bicycle to get rid of and a few other things that should pull in some good money.  Just today I donated clothes I  never wear to the Salvation Army, and brought my old skis to a used sporting goods store to sell on consignment.

I know that in the coming weeks there are going to be some bigger challenges.  It’s felt so good to actively work through this book so far (on that note I just remembered I sent someone an apology letter that was 10 years overdue, simply because I’m working through this book).  I’m more confident, and feel better about myself and happier in general.  I have less clutter, less noise, and less to worry about.  I’m quicker to make decisions, and focus on the things that matter.  I used to fret about every little detail, and be very meticulous to make sure that everything was all taken care of.  This often would result in neglecting other things completely, and now I’m finding a lot of comfort in just letting unimportant details slide.

Once again – I know it’s going to get tougher.  There’s a comfort challenge or two that I’m legitimately nervous about, but having actively worked through the first comfort challenge, and actively done some action items, I’m pumped up and confident to charge headlong into what’s coming down the line.  I’ve felt nothing but good from working through this book so far, and I can only imagine that successfully completing future action items and comfort challenges will also feel good.

On a final note that I don’t think I’ve covered yet: Reading this book has definitely made me more effective at work.  It has reinforced concepts and management strategies that are practiced at the company, and given me insight into why certain decisions are made.  It has also pushed me to learn how to make decisions quickly, and focus on what really matters.  My job involves working with a lot of different people, and while I’m not a manager, I do have some control over a few interns.  The concepts in this book have helped me to steer them to be more effective.  It has also helped me recognize ways I can exercise their strengths to make the entire team more effective.  I think overall my output is higher and the quality of work hasn’t significantly gone down.  This is all due to applying concepts of the “80/20 principle” and focusing my efforts accordingly.

Ok, that’s it for now.  Even if I put the book down now, it will already have had a positive impact on my life.  I’m looking forward to the future :)

In December, 2009 I got two page-a-day calendars for 2010.

Today, November 11, 2010, they’re both still showing February 12th.  Why did I save them, and why do I feel guilty at the idea of throwing them away now?  Why do I feel obligated to use them?

When I packed them up almost exactly 9 months ago, I felt the need to save them.  When I was cleaning my desk out just a few hours ago it struck me that it would do a disservice to the people who gave them to me to throw them away.  Yes, I feel guilt at the idea of throwing them away, unfinished, before the end of the year.

But the truth is I don’t really like page-a-day calendars.  I think they represent gasping for air while in a job, situation, or just generally smothering life.  They supplement real experience, and real enjoyment for “good enough” by taking away just that little bit of mundane and giving a light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how faint.  Or maybe they’re just kinda annoying.  Let us not forget the fact that I let them sit idle without a second thought for 3/4 of the year.  In fact, for those 3/4 of a year while I was actually living life I don’t think I gave them a second thought.

And here I am, debating whether I should throw them away, keep them, or go through every page I missed one by one.  The only reason I’m looking at them now is because I’m cleaning out the clutter from my life, starting with the material clutter.  Since I evidently don’t use them, and in some ways they cause me more stress than pleasure, it’s time to throw them away.

I apologize to those who gave them to me.  I value you in my life, but a page-a-day calendar just isn’t the right thing for me, at this time.  I do hope you’ll understand.  I don’t understand why I feel I need to apologize, but I do.  Thanks for the thought, but next time just give me hug or something.

If you’re looking for earphones to use while motorcycling – or almost anything – you will not find better bang for your buck than these.  Go buy them and be happy – or at least protect your hearing while also listening to what you fancy.

Pros:
-Awesome sound quality
-Blocks obscene amounts of ambient noise (~32dB) effectively muting the world around you, including your nagging wife.
-Actually stays in your ear

Cons:
-About twice as expensive as the crappy ones you were going to buy.
-Effectively mutes the world around you, including the car that’s about to hit you.

Ok, first of all these are officially called “in-ear monitors” (IEM) and not “earphones” or “headphones”.  Feel smug.  The difference between a monitor and a hi-fi speaker is in the audio production.  Studio monitors are typically designed to be close-range loudspeakers that have a very flat frequency response curve so the sound engineers can hear the music accurately for proper mixing, while a hi-fi speaker is designed to fill the entire room with the music and can employ different frequency response curves to achieve different “color” in the audio.  What this mean for you in selecting earphones is IEMs will represent the music accurately and clearly.  If you want some bumpin’ bass – make sure you have an equalizer.  The Etymotic ER6i is a consumer-level in-ear monitor.  You will get the benefit from professional audio development, without breaking the bank.

The first thing you’ll notice about an IEM is how tricky they are to put in.  It might take a few days or even weeks to figure out – they go in deep, real deep.  You know the Ceti Eel from Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan, aka: the-worm-the-bad-guy-put-in-the-good-guy’s-ear?  Description from Wikipedia: “The slime-covered larva will seek out a larger animal, enter its skull through the ear and wrap itself around the cerebral cortex. This causes the subject intense pain and makes them very susceptible to suggestion. As the larva grows, the host suffers from insanity and eventually, death.”  Putting in-ear monitors in is not too dissimilar to that, but the result is simply auditory input of your fancy.  The intense pain, susceptibility to suggestion, insanity and/or death is completely up to what you listen to.  Regardless of how your audio makes you feel, you can rest assured these will play it clearly and accurately.

The second thing you’ll notice – after you get them in properly – is how quiet the world around you becomes.  With ~32dB of noise reduction, you get certifiable levels of hearing protection.  Do you actually get certified hearing protection?  Of course not; you could crank these babies up and blow your ears out as fast as any sweaty night club blasting overplayed shitty pop music.  I was surprised by how easily music drowns out ambient noise, and it’s easy to understand why they come with a warning about operating machinery, or bicycles, or simply jogging on the sidewalk.  If you frequently find yourself having intense emotional reactions due to the noise around you, whether it be office banter, a nagging wife, or some punk playing crappy music, then find solace with these as they transport you into your own personal auditory world.  Sometimes movies will have this sort of effect where the radio in the background is playing music and it’s just part of the ambient sound in the movie, then the main character turns the volume up and the music becomes louder and clearer while everything else is muted.  That’s what these are like in real life.  Mute the world around you and be submersed completely into the music you have playing.

The third thing you’ll notice is the sound quality, especially if you’re not much of an audiophile to begin with.  The simple fact is that these can be had for a fraction of what a comparable hi-fi home stereo would cost.  Not only does the ER6i do a great job at reducing ambient noise, but the sound quality is so good that the details musicians put in to a song will pop out like never before, as will the ambient noise in the recording studio (it’s more frequent than you might think!). Even how much white noise your mp3 player has when the music is paused will become apparent.

The fourth thing you’ll notice, especially if you’ve had less adequate earphones in the past, is that they actually stay in your ear! That’s right folks, no more battling with earphones constantly falling out.  Back before my enlightenment with these in-ear monitors, I used to wear a thin balaclava under my motorcycle helmet to keep earphones in.  I also had to keep the wires in a proper location so that they wouldn’t tug the earphones out of my ear.  With the Etymotic ER6i properly inserted in the ear canal, they form a seal and sort of “lock” into place and I don’t need the balaclava anymore, and the wires don’t pull them out.  After holding some pressure on the ER6i for a couple seconds while putting them in, they require a surprising amount of force to take out, and should be removed slowly to avoid an extreme pressure change on the eardrum.

Final considerations:

1. They have a 5-foot chord.  I think it’s perfect.  I’m 6’2″ and have had earphones with a too-short chord that would hang my mp3 player from my ear canal – not fun and easily avoided with a long chord.  5′ is not so long that it gets in the way, but the chord does tangle a little easier – a moot point, in my humble opinion.
2. They do take some practice to put in correctly.  You might give yourself a wet willy first to lube up your ear canal to make the job easier.  I’m serious.  My preferred technique is to pull back on my earlobe with my opposite hand to open up the ear canal, push them in until I feel them “click” into place, then release my earlobe and keep pressure on them for a couple seconds while they form a seal with my ear canal.  A light tug on the chord will let me know if they’re sealed in place or not.
3. I focus on using them while motorcycling, but they were originally developed for on-stage musicians as an alternative to traditional foldback stage monitors (the speakers that point at the musicians to help them play in-time and in-tune).  I frequently use the ER6is at my desk to block out office banter.
4. If you have problems with your current earphones falling out, then give these a shot.  It’s worth noting that it may take a few weeks to figure out how to put them in properly.  Also they come with a variety of tips, so you’ll have to experiment to find out which ones work best for you.
5. You may immediately discover that your mp3 collection is not a high enough bit-rate, or other problems with your audio equipment.  High fidelity isn’t about having one or two nice components, it’s about having an entire system.
6. The ambient noise reduction is so great, that I can feel loud, particularly bass ambient sounds more than I can hear them.  A couple examples:  I have to be touching my bike to tell if it’s idling or not (or look at the tachometer) since I definitely can’t hear it.  I will feel loud cars and motorcycles before hearing them.
7. Their small body size causes virtually no discomfort while wearing my helmet compared to the earphones I’ve used, which can be intensely painful after only a half-hour of riding, let alone an entire day.
8. There are several advantages over Active Noise Canceling headphones:  Cheaper, lighter, higher fidelity, and in some cases better noise reduction.
9. As a final note, this is more of a review of in-ear monitors vs. traditional style earphones since these are the only in-ear monitors I have experience with.  Notwithstanding, in-ear monitors are vastly superior to traditional earphones, even the silicone tipped variety and I have been extremely happy with the ER6i.   I’m happy to hear reader’s opinions on different models/brands of IEMs.  As far a I’m concerned – I’m never going back to a “normal” earphone.

Simply put:  These do exactly what earphones should do:  Provide excellent audio fidelity while staying in your ear and reducing ambient noise.

Etymotic has a number of different in-ear models to choose from.  The ER6i is specifically intended for the portable music player market.  It also appears to have the smallest body size, and thus is probably the best at fitting in a helmet.  There are a few other options at different price points, noise reduction, and fidelity.

Links!

Etymotic Research ER6i Isolator In-Ear Earphones (Black)
Etymotic Research ER6i Isolator In-Ear Earphones (White)

Etymotic Research website

Other Etymotic in-ear products:

If you’re the sort of person to only go for the absolute best:
Etymotic ER-4P Portable In-Ear Earphones
Etymotic ER-4S MicroPro Reference Earphones

These might be the best for air travel, with greater noise reduction and better fidelity, however I’m suspect of their ability to fit in a helmet:
Etymotic Research HF5 Portable In-Ear Earphones (Black)
Etymotic Research HF5 Portable In-Ear Earphones (Cobalt)

Similar to the HF5, but at a lower price point:
Etymotic Research MC5 Noise Isolating In-Ear Earphones (Blue)
Etymotic Research MC5 Noise Isolating In-Ear Earphones (Red)
Etymotic Research MC5 Noise Isolating In-Ear Earphones (Green)
Etymotic Research MC5 Noise Isolating In-Ear Earphones (Black)

One of the intents behind this blog was so that I could learn.   To be honest I’m still not sure what I’ll learn from it in the long run, but I have learned something over the past few months:  My intended scope for this blog is too narrow.  In fact, it’s so narrow that most of my posts don’t even fall within that scope.  The original scope was to be an outlet for my creative energy, preferably in the form of articles written about various things I create.  Physical things, like a desk lamp.  The problem is, I guess I don’t create those sorts of things as much as I imagined I might.  It could easily take a year or more to complete one project, and I try to only have 2-3 concurrent projects.  2-3 posts per year doesn’t really justify having a whole blog dedicated to that subject.  I need more like 2-3 per week.

So I’m changing the scope.  In a sense I did from day one, I just didn’t acknowledge it.  So from here on out, it’s just going to be a “personal” blog, in which way I’ll be able to post anything that I think is worth posting.  Hopefully somewhere along the way I’ll figure out what I like to write about that people also enjoy reading about, and then we’ll all be better for it.

This is more of a mental shift for me than a dramatic change for the blog, since I’m basically just seeing what my blog has become, and realizing that since almost every post is “off topic” then I should just change the topic.  So here goes for a sort of directional Darwinism.  I’ll write what I feel like, see what’s most popular, and then try and expand in that respective direction.

That’s it.  Enjoy!

Alright, this is just a general update to let my readers know I’m still alive and kickin’.

Recently moved to Southern California, and am getting well settled in here. There should be some legitimate updates in the not-too-distant future, so look for those… Might continue with the motorcycle theme, as I’ve been thinking of addressing the topic of commuting on a motorcycle. It’ll probably be a little while before I can get down and put some projects together to showcase here, but I have a few really great ideas that I’m excited to do over the next few months!

Welcome to the inaugural “Projects” post!

This is what I designed this blog for.  The past few months have had a few other plans for me, so I’ve focused on some other things, but this is ultimately the core of this website – Making stuff.

Since this is the first post in this category, I’ll give a brief description of what I hope to do with my project write-ups:
1: Showcase my skills, creativity, and ingenuity.  Express my inner artist, and outer engineer.
2: Motivate myself to explore all reaches of my creativity, and challenge my abilities by putting my work on stage.
3: Motivate others to pursue their own project, or act as a catalyst to ignite new ideas in others.

So without further ado, here it is, my Desk Lamp:

This project started out as welding practice, and quickly evolved from there.  The basic tube framework is what I was practicing welding on, and I started to get a bit carried away.  This would eventually become the base of the lamp.  I started welding the welding rod onto the tube frame in the “web” or “cage” that you can see in the pictures and at some point I decided it would be an awful waste of time, material, and energy if all this welding practice was just thrown away in the scrap bin… I decided to make it a lamp.

I needed something for the “stalk” of the lamp, something for the central column.  I had considered continuing to weld tubes in a haphazard way all the way to the top, but it was very time consuming, and I would prefer something a bit different and unique… not to mention easier and quicker.  After searching around the shop for a while, I happened upon this old bolt, which had the threaded section cut off.  I wanted the power chord for the lamp to be essentially hidden from view, I didn’t want it to ruin the aesthetic appeal of the rest of the structure, so I chucked the bolt up in a lathe and drilled it through.  This didn’t quite make the lamp tall enough, and I also needed something to mount the lamp socket on.

At this time, I had a pretty good idea of what my vision was for the overall product, and I took a ride to the store.  I got a standard light bulb socket from a hardware store, and the lampshade paper from a local art store.  The shade is made from “banana paper” and I wanted to use two different colors.  I wanted a lighter color for the bottom to cast more light on the desk surface, while having a darker color for the sides, so it creates some nice “mood lighting.”  I also wanted colors that would go well together.  Finally, I wanted the paper to have a visible texture to it, and the banana paper really fit that bill well.  The final test was shining a flashlight to the paper to see how well the light passed through it, and ultimately the banana paper ended up being exactly what I had in my mind’s eye.

Returning to the shop, I drilled a hole for the lamp socket in a small square piece of sheet metal (they always come with some mounting instructions that tell you what size hole you need) and welded four posts of thicker welding rod to the corners.  The cross bars are mainly for aesthetic purposes, just to maintain the theme with the base of the lamp and camouflage the chord some more.  In an effort to continue to keep the chord out of sight, I melted a hole in one of the base tubes and ran the chord through.  You can see this pretty clearly in the pictures.

The shade construction was the last part.  I ran four supports out from the base plate in the middle, and connected them into a larger square.  I knew I wanted it all to be asymmetrical, so I exaggerated that fact in places to make it clear that it was an intentional aspect of the overall design.  I ran the supports up to the top, and connected them again.  All of the shade supports are clearly visible through the banana paper.

I knew I wanted to cover the bottom of the lamp in paper, to give it softer lighting overall, and I also knew I needed to get the draw-chord through that plane of paper.  I knew it would need a guide so that it wouldn’t damage the paper over time, especially if I wanted the paper to fight tightly around the chord.  In an effort to continue to keep the overall design of the lamp unique, I made this guide tube extra long, and an intentional and attention-grabbing aspect of the design.  One key element was that I wanted the lamp to present the draw-chord to you.  I dislike how so many lamps have switches that are not immediately apparent, so I wanted the eye to be drawn to the switch itself as a key aspect of the design.  In a sense, the exaggeratedly long guide-tube is the lamp handing you the on/off switch.  The draw-chord itself was chosen specifically for it’s visual appeal, instead of using the standard one supplied with the light bulb socket, and the large bulb at the end further draws the user to the experience of turning the lamp on and off.

Finally, wrapping the shade frame in the banana paper was one of the more difficult aspects of the project, and actually the only one that I’m not satisfied with.  I used 3M Super 77 Spray Adhesive to glue the paper to the wire frame, after cutting the paper to length.  The glue works good, but I found it very difficult to get the paper cut to the right size and it ended up separating in places, as can be seen in the pictures.  Part of the difficulty is getting a good contact with the relatively small wire while the glue is drying.  This is something I plan on investigating in the future for improvements, and especially if I ever plan on selling this lamp I will need to remake the shade.  That is of course exactly why I bought a lot more banana paper than I needed and saved it – I knew this would be tricky!  If anyone has any suggestions on how to attach the banana paper, feel free to let me know!

Most of my projects that have tangible results are potentially for sale, such as this one.  If you’re interested, you can send me an e-mail at martin@bringintoexistence.com.  If you like my work and have an idea for a project of your own that you would like help with, I am available for your personal projects on a contract basis.

Hey Everyone!

First off I’m going to apologize to my loyal readers for being away so long.  I’ve been moving around a lot lately and time is precious…  Also in my spare time I’ve been lazy.

Anyways, I have a few projects coming down the line which I’ll hopefully be turning into content for this blog in the next few months.  Also I recently got my video camera up and running again, so I decided to do a video entry.

This is part of my larger BMW e30 Turbo Project.   This is a project I started many years ago, and thus hasn’t yet been featured on this blog, but over time it will probably have a few posts centered around it as there are many aspects to that project.   The car recently had some reliability issues due to a variety of factors including negligence, fate, and dumb (bad) luck.  I’ll outline it real quick:  The motor was detonating after the latest upgrades which included doubling the amount of boost I was running, to a full atmosphere of boost (14.7psi).   I was tuning it out when the engine suddenly died.  Investigation quickly revealed that the cam siezed.  Further investigation revealed that an important retaining piece for the rocker shafts was not in place, further investigation also revealed that one of the head bolts was stripped out of the block.  These factors all combined to blow the head gasket, which then probably overheated the head, which loosened up the rocker shafts, which then rotated, which then cut off oil flow to the cam, which then seized.

Anyways!  I got a new head, and decided to do some rebuild work (new valve seals… I’m skipping on the guides for a variety of reasons) and decided I would try out video posting.

So here’s my first video post about how to remove valves from the head of an engine as it’s not entirely obvious if you’ve never done it before.

Enjoy!

Valve Removal

I’ll probably put this up on YouTube soon and then figure out the whole embedding thing, but this is what I’ve got for now.

-Martin

My friend John recently asked me to give him some advice about preparing for a long day trip he has coming up.  I figured this is a really good place to start before I get into the deeper aspects of touring.  Long day trips are unique in that they provide potential for many of the common challenges of full-blown touring, but with much less luggage.  Often times you’re either returning back to home base, or you’re simply moving your bike from one place to another – either way you don’t have to bring along a change of clothes.

There are a few key aspects to any long day ride, whether it be part of a longer touring trip or just a long day ride:

• Changing weather conditions
• Sore body parts, general uncomfortability
• Bike maintenance
• Place for a small amount of luggage and/or goods you might purchase along the way

I think those are the four main points of a longer ride.  Let’s look at each one in detail.

Changing weather conditions
The weather can change pretty quickly when you cover 100 miles on a bike, let alone 500 or more.  Most anyone that’s ridden around in light summer gear can tell you that dipping into a cove or dense forest can have huge impacts on the ambient temperature, and subsequently your comfort level.  For me the #1 concern while riding is my comfort level.  I think this is so important for both enjoying the ride and completing it safely.  For that reason whenever I do a long ride I spend good deal of focus thinking about what I’m going to wear, particularly in relation to the areas I’ll be riding in, the time of day I’ll be there, and the season.  I also check the weather forecast for both my departing location and my arrival destination, and pay close attention not to what the weather will be like at those places throughout the day, but specifically to what the weather will be like when I plan on being in that area.  For longer rides it’s also a good idea to check one or two locations along the way.  Also consider that high altitudes (such as mountain passes) can have drastically different weather than the lower land around them.  One example is my ride between Denver and Grand Junction, Colorado.  It is about a 250 mile ride, and on this particular ride it was sunny and warm in both Denver and Grand Junction, but snowing and well below freezing for probably half the ride.  Of course, this is the quintessential mountain-pass highway, including the highest elevation point of the entire Eisenhower Interstate System, but I am mentioning it simply to illustrate that even on a relatively short ride of 250 miles I experienced drastically different weather in the middle of the ride, while the weather at the end points was very similar.

The main point of this is that in my opinion it’s very important to carry layers and have proper touring gear.  For touring I prefer textile gear that is marketed as waterproof, and still carry “waterproof” rain gear. I use frogg toggs for my rain gear, specifically this set (I got mine in stone/black coloring): Frogg Toggs Leep Frogg Rainsuit.  I find they work really well, however; there are certain conditions where it seems that getting wet is unavoidable.  My touring gear is claimed to be fully waterproof, and in addition to that I wear my Frogg Toggs in the rain, which is also claimed to be fully waterproof, but it seems nothing works perfectly in this regard.  There are a few main factors to determining how well the gear will work:

• How hard it’s raining (this one should be obvious)
• How long you ride in the rain for (particularly for heavy rain)
• How fast you’re going
• How heavy the traffic is, and particularly how close you follow said traffic, and if it’s a large truck or a small car

If you’re riding in heavy rain in 70mph traffic with lots of large trucks for a few hours, you will get wet.  At that point having the rain gear and many layers is more about maintaining body heat than staying dry.  It will act a lot like a wet suit – you will get wet, but the water that soaks  into your gear will stay put, for the most part, so you will stay warm.  If you’re riding in a light rain with practically no traffic, you could probably ride all day and not get particularly wet.  You could probably ride ten miles in a monsoon and be mostly dry when all’s said and done.

The final thing in this category is temperature.  I love layers for this reason.  My touring gear is an older Joe Rocket Ballistic Series Jacket) and my Tour Master Quest Pants (actually, I have Tour Master “Jean” pants, but it looks like they’ve been renamed to “Quest”).  I am very happy with both items from a comfort standpoint while riding.  The jacket and pants are certainly not the most protective gear available, but luckily I haven’t really had to test that out yet.  Ultimately textile gear is rarely (if ever) as protective as leather riding gear, but the flip side is that it’s much better touring gear.  I do have a full set of leather gear (an Alpinestars MX-1 Leather Jacket and Alpinestars Apex Leather Pants, for your reference) for my shorter, warmer, more “spirited” rides, but I wouldn’t want to do more than a day trip in them.  Not because the leather gear is uncomfortable, but rather it’s not as versatile.  It doesn’t block the wind as well, and it’s certainly not waterproof… but, once again, the up side is that it’s more protective.  I can attest first-hand that the jacket does a fantastic job preventing road rash.

Anyways, on any longer ride I also always wear a back protector.  My choice was to go with the Joe Rocket Speedmaster back protector, which is a re-branded version of the TPro Force Field back protector (as far as I know they’re essentially identical – Joe Rocket just gets the US market) based on reviews I read that suggested it is the most comfortable dedicated back protector on the market.  Once I’m on the bike and riding, I don’t even notice it’s there.  The philosophy on this subject goes such that you don’t wear protective gear if it’s uncomfortable, so you should always buy comfortable protective gear.

I’m actually digressing here, and a lot of this information really belongs in a discussion on protective gear, so to get back to the topic:
For long rides that could involve cold weather, my base layers are:

• Duofold t-shirt (http://www.duofold.com/)
• Guide Series Extreme anti-microbial sweater I picked up at Gander Mountain a few years back (as a side note, this is one of my favorite pieces of “performance” clothing, and I can’t find it online at the moment.  It would be a shame if it was discontinued)
• The North Face Apex Series Jacket
• And my Under Armour Base 3.0 Leggings (also available in Womens)
• I also have a cashmere sweater which is definitely worthy of mentioning.  Cashmere isn’t often thought of as a “high performance” piece of clothing, but the fact is that it is wool.  Wool is one of the best performing fibers, and Cashmere is extremely soft, and definitely not itchy, so it makes a great base layer, or layer just over the base layer.  Also Cashmere sweaters tend to be relatively thin, so they’re not bulky and obtrusive, yet add a lot of thermal insulation.

As a side note, I have not tried the Base 3.0 Top, but I have been planning on picking up a set at some point. Also available in Womens of course.

Ok, that covers most of the comfort category as well, but let’s look at a few specifics concerning…

Sore body parts and overall comfort
I think this is really the ultimate goal of what I just wrote about – being comfortable in adverse weather conditions.  However this category I want to address other issues of riding a motorcycle, things like a sore butt, stiff neck, or painful muscles.  My shoulders in particular tend to get painful on long rides, and unfortunately I haven’t found a great solution to this.  I don’t carry around a personal masseuse (though I might consider it) so there isn’t much to do for this besides pain killing drugs (such as Ibuprofen or Aspirin).  The stiff neck I mention is a result of the aerodynamic force on your head related to cruising down the highway.  Not much you can do about this besides riding a bike with a windshield.

Finally – and this is the one you can actually do something about – is the sore butt.  I carry around some Anti Monkey Butt Powder which is basically the same stuff as Gold Bond Foot Powder, but without the “omg it burns” feeling on your tender areas.  Even more basically, I think the stuff is just moisture absorbing baby powder, which I really think is just talcum powder… but I could be wrong, I don’t really know.  Anyways, it comes in handy for when you have issues chaffing, which can happen.  A lot of my chaffed-ass problems were eliminated with one very important discovery:  The Corbin seat.  People always ask me if my ass is sore after a long ride, and honestly since I got this seat, the answer is “no.”  Before I rode with a Corbin seat, 100 miles would make my ass hate it’s life, with the Corbin I’ve done over 550 in a day (sometimes in the rain) and not had a single problem.  There’s not much more to say about it;  It’s awesome, and it’s the best range extender I’ve ever had.

As a final note in this category, heated hand grips are basically the best thing ever.  I use Symtec grips which I ordered from California Sport Touring and they’re pretty much awesome.  Having heat pumped into your hands does more than keep your hands warm, it affects your whole body, and it can take a very unpleasant ride and make it bearable, if not comfortable.  When you’re all bundled up in all your layers, often times your hands are one of the big places for heat to escape, and actively putting heat into your body at that point helps more than most would think.

Bike Maintenance
Motorcycles aren’t quite like cars in many respects, but this one in particular stands out:  They generally require more maintenance, specifically the drive chain.  This is actually the main point of this entire category:  Oiling and checking the tension on your chain (and adjust if necessary) is very critical for longevity.  The general recommendation is to oil the chain every 300 miles.  I check the tension every time I oil it.  I also can feel if it’s loose – the bike becomes very jerky for on/off throttle, and if the chain is very loose, it will also make more noise.  Other things involve cleaning the air filter before your ride and changing the engine oil as necessary.  As a final note, there is the general observation that a clean bike is a reliable bike.

Luggage
I’m not talking a big set of saddle bags the way you have on a touring trip, or the waterproof duffel that you might jam your laptop into for your ultra long rides.  No, simply put: a small bag to stuff excess layers into or hold your rain gear, as well as other little things you might want along the way:  Your wallet (if you don’t carry it on your person.  I personally find it uncomfortable to carry it on my person for longer trips), a camera, food or drinks, rain gear, maps… pretty much any thing you might want for a day trip of any sort.  I have the magnetic version of this Cortech Tank Bag and I couldn’t be happier with it. I also only have the bottom section of the bag as pictured in that link, and it’s basically the perfect piece of luggage to hold all my essentials or quick-access items for both my shorter trips, and my long touring trips. This is the single best piece of luggage I have (although an argument could be made that the dry bag is worth its weight in gold).

That basically covers most of the main points of doing a longer day trip.  It’s a lot like any other ride, you just need to be a little bit more prepared for changing weather conditions or differing roads.  Your first long ride WILL make you uncomfortable, but sometimes you just gotta get down and do it!  Before I did any touring my longest rides were only about 150 miles.  Now I wouldn’t think twice about riding 300miles in a day, and 600 if I didn’t plan on stopping along the way.

I still have yet to go for my iron butt certification though (1,000+ miles in a day).