Gulp!

So its been a while since I've written...Like justin said, its hard to trump videos of Lily...and I have to admit there are days when I'm at work that I sit and watch the videos over and over (pretty pathetic but I miss my little girl)--the days when I have the kids are so hilarious, I've never laughed so much as I have in the past 6 months:)

SO my reason for posting tonight as I sip a beer and relax with Lils asleep is that I actually have a defense date...something that seemed amorphous and unattainable has now become real...October 27th...ug so close but so far--part of me is SOOO ready for this and another part is very very scared and thinks I dont know enough. Before then I've got loose ends of my thesis to tie up and lots of formatting work to do...AND we're going on vacation next week (YAY us but bad timing on my part)

Anyway, the real reason to post is to talk about Lily--again as Justin said, there are more fans of Lily reading this than anything else...Lily is sitting up on her own now and is on the brink of crawling...the most exciting for me is that she has started saying "bbb" sounds and will try to imitate "umm" sounds

This morning as I was getting ready for work I was in and out of the bedroom ... when I walked in after my shower she was playing "peek-a-boo" with her blanket over her eyes...the only thing I can think was that she has figured out when she and I play peek-a-boo, I'm there after hiding her eyes...so if she hides her eyes maybe i'll appear...I know I'm a sappy Mom but really, can you get any cuter?!

Lily has been eating solids for about 2 months now...so far she has tried and LOVED zucchini, peas, butternut squash, wax beans, yellow squash and kinda liked spinach and broccoli...she tolerates rice cereal and just tried oatmeal this evening...it is so fun to watch how progression how she handles food--from when we first gave her rice cereal and she rolled that around in her mouth to now when she eats 2 ice-cube sized blocks of veggies and some cereal and loves it:)

Anyway...thesis scheduled (FINALLY) and now to finish this darn PhD!--and VACATION very soon:)

Lily Rocks My Site Stats

Since Lily's grandparents have had about 3000 hits in the past week and nobody cares that I rode my road bike to work today, I'll add some more fuel to the fire.



Here's a short video of Lily sitting up all by herself. The next one's even better. It show's Lily practicing for her St Patty's birthday bash (where she'll be drinking water out of a giant plastic jug).

Bikes, Lack of Standards, and Power Tools

On Sunday, I decided to finally swap out the out creaky, partially seized bottom bracket and chain (which 12 links had stretched to almost 13 in) on the commuter. Normally this a quick job. Pull the bols, pull the cranks, break the chain, pull the BB, grease everything, install new stuff, wash hands. 25 minutes tops.

Unfortunately my commuter has the stock cranks on it, the truvativ tauro pieces of garbage. No problem getting the drive side off, but i definitly stripped the left crank arm out. Now before you say it wasn't the crappy cranks be aware that I dripped penetrating oil in the arm before pulling it, and the park square taper puller was threaded the whole way in the hole.

Well, damn.

So to Home Depot I went and quickly emerged with a reciprocating saw, with which I proceeded to slice and dice that crank arm right off. It took a long damn time, but it did come off.

Ok, no problem. New bottom bracket installed, and I have two crank arms lying around that will work on the left side. Except wait! That POS Tauro crank is different from every other square taper crank in that the crank arm is perpendicular to a edge instead of a corner.

That means if I were to use either the Sugino left arm or a no name arm off my wife's bike, the drive side would be straight down while the left bent at a 45 degree angle. Additionally, since my commuter is set up for 3/32 I can't use my track crank (all the rings are 1/8th and the smallest ring I have is a 50) and the 48 tooth truvativ rings are 110 BCD instead of full sized.

So to the basement my commuter is relegated until a crank arrives (Wed) and I'll have two glorious days of riding the road bike. Today marked the first time all year I'd ridden it. It feels impossibly light. Almost dnagerously so. I wonder how fast i can get home today...45 minutes?

So to sum it up, cheap Truvativ cranks are just that: Cheap...and also shitty.