Recycling from a Drippy Faucet

My bathtub pisses me off. About every 2-3 months, it starts dripping. I don't know why. Everytime it happens, I...

1. Turn the water main off,
2. Buy the parts that I need,
3. Take apart the plumbing,
4. Out with old, in with the new,
5. Put it back together,
6. Turn the water main back on,
7. Repeat from #3 until it works.

I try not to waste the water (that I am paying for) by letting it go down the drain. Even when it isn't dripping, I will put a bucket under the faucet to collect the water I'm not using while I wait for it to get hot.

In the summer, it is a lot easier to find ways to use the water when the bucket gets full. The flowers, bushes and vegetable garden like an extra dose of liquid (even though the get enough from the rain barrels). Even our indoor plants get a free drink.

The winter is a little harder. The grass and bushes are in a dormant state so watering them does no good. So I have to get creative. Here's what I have done so far:

1. I can still water the indoor plants, but that only goes so far.
2. Mixed some of the water (which was cold) with some hot water, added dechlorinator and leveled off the fish tank.
3. Flushed the toilet. That's right. I used half of the bucket to flush and the other half to refill the bowl.

Call me crazy, but as I said, I'm paying for it. Why should I let my money go down the drain...LITERALLY? Not to mention the fact that its a better means of using our natural resources.

Even if your faucets are leaking, see how quickly you fill up a bucket with the water that you aren't using, including the stuff that drips out after you shower. Once its full, find something that you can use it for. You may not go to such an extreme as "flushing" a toilet, but I bet there is something around the house you could use it for.

No...I don't collect every drip of water from every faucet in my house (but how cool would that be?). I'm not saying that I am perfect. Just think about the money and resources that would be saved with a simple bucket.

High and Lows from a Day with the Bike Club

Saturday was a relatively decent day for January. It was warm enough to ride, but an unexpected fog made me wonder about visibility. Luckily, it wasn't too thick and it would likely clear as it warmed up.

The route today started from old access road outside of the city limits by a local gym. There are four potential loops to choose from (17, 23, 35 or 43 miles), but the group I rode with was going to wait and see how we felt as we were riding to determine our distance.

About four miles into the ride, I got a flat (Boo!). No big deal...out with the old, in with the new and away we go. One problem. I must not have secured the tire properly, because the tube began to bulge on one side, pushed out a small portion of the tire and exposed itself. No big deal. Let out the air...push the tire into the rim...pump more air in.

As it turns out, the valve stem bent as I was latching the pump to it so it wasn't holding anymore air. Basically, I had another flat (that's Number 2 in less than 7 miles). So I go through the whole routine again.

The tube held up for the rest of the ride...thankfully we decided to only do the 23 mile route. As luck would have it, my last tube ALSO flatted just as I was about to leave. I actually got about a quarter of a mile away and had to turn around and get a ride home. Thanks Diane!


View Larger Map

That evening, the Evansville Bicycle Club had its annual award banquet. For the most part, it's a good time. The usual folk are there, I never win the raffle but I got some nice stats for the year. Here they are:

2009 Club Miles: 2,428
2009 Club Ranking: 11th (I had the 11th highest total)
Career Club Miles: 5,474 (since 2007)
Career Club Ranking: 90th
(I think the club has been actively taking stats since the late 1980s. The guy who has the most career miles has over 60,000 miles.)
Commuting Miles: 1,163 (I only recorded through July...probably over 2,000 if I kept track)
Centuries: 8 (the top guy had 63)

I was also voted by my peers as the Volunteer of the Year, which was a little unexpected because I won it last year. Since I can no longer win the award (apparently you can can only win twice), I have decided to quit the club to focus more time on winning awards elsewhere....j/k.

In summary:
Morning bad.
Evening good.
Time to patch tubes.

Theme Song for 2010

A couple of days ago I decided that I needed a theme song to motivate me throughout the year. I posted the idea on Facebook and got a couple of interesting suggestions, including:

• Rock You Like A Hurricane - The Scorpions
• Reelin' in the Years - Steely Dan
• Theme Song from "Rocky"
• Right Now - Van Halen
• On the Road Again - Willie Nelson OR Bob Seger/Metallica (version was specified)
• Bicycle Race - Queen

I've always liked "Right Now" by Van Halen, but I'm not feeling overly vintage right now. So I decided to do some digging to find something a little more current. After some tough self-debate, I decided to go with - "It's Not My Time" by Three Doors Down. The title may be a little misleading (and the video portrays a completely different angle), but I like the beat and the lyrics. I feel it will be a good starting song to listen to while I am on the road or at the gym.

Here is the song with the lyrics below:



Looking back at the beginning of this
And how life was
Just you and me loving all of our friends
Living life like an ocean
But now the current's only pulling me down
It’s getting harder too breath
It won’t be too long and I will be going under
Can you save me from this?

Cause it’s not my time
I'm not going
There's a fear in me
it’s not showing
This could be the end of me
And everything I know
Oh, but I won’t go

I look ahead to all the plans that we made
And the dreams that we had
I'm in a world that tries to take them away
Oh but I'm taking them back
Cause all of this time I've just been too blind to understand
What should matter to me
My friends this life we live, it’s not what we have
It’s what we believe in

It’s not my time
I'm not going
There's a fear in me
it’s not showing
This could be the end of me
And everything I know
But it’s not my time
I'm not going
There's a will in me
and now I know that
This could be the end of me
And everything I know
Oh but I won’t go...I won’t go

There might be more than you believe
(There might be more than you believe)
There might be more than you can see

But it’s not my time
I'm not going
There's a fear in me
it’s not showing
This could be the end of me
And everything I know
But it’s not my time
I'm not going
There's a will in me
and now it’s gonna show
This could be the end of me
And everything I know

Oh...There might be more than you believe
(There might be more than you believe)
There might be more than you can see
But I won’t go
No I won’t go down...Yeah

40 Pound Progress and First Bike Ride of 2010

As some of you may know, one of my resolutions for 2010 was to lose 40 lbs. This would get my weight down to 200 lbs. The closest I got was 207 back in 2007, but I've jumped back up to 240. So I made it a goal to get back down.

This last week was somewhat interesting from a workout perspective. Because of only having one car and being at the time of the year when the weather can be a little unpredictable for biking , I am sometimes depending on others to get me places.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I got dropped off at the gym. Now it is isn't unusual for me to go to the gym on those days as I have classes that I attend, but both of them start at 6:30 and my rides were taking me there on their way home from work.

Will took me to the gym on Wednesday and we ran together for awhile until he had to leave. Here is what I did on Wednesday:
5:30-6:15 - Running on treadmill
6:30-7:30 - Boot Camp
7:30-7:45 - Protein Shake
7:45-8:30 - Running/Walking on Treadmill

Thursday was not a fun day as my lower back was pretty sore. Lesson learned...my back is not ready for three hours of work. My legs were a little tired, but I am used to that. After work, it was back to the gym.

5:15-5:45 - Running/Walking on Treadmill (5 minute Increments)
5:50-6:20 - Eliptical Machine
6:30-7:50 - Spinning (+ core work)

I was pretty much toast at this point...thankfully Leandra only worked until 7:00 so she was there to take me home by the time we were wrapped up.

So five hours at the gym in two days...had to see some positive results, right? WRONG! I GAINED weight. That's right, I weighed in Friday morning at 241. DAMMIT! I just hope it's all muscle.

Anyways, the weather was looking nice enough for me to commute to work on the bike. I got in my first ride of 2010 (14 miles total). The ride was nice, but my legs were not helping me out on the hill into McCutchanville. I'm sure the school bus was frustrated with me struggling at a whopping 9 mph.

I'm taking the night off to get in some rest, but plan to be back at the gym tomorrow. No rest for me...gotta get this crap off.

...in Phoenix (Post Packers Game)

I got in late Saturday night and left early this morning so I wasn't able to post anything until after I got home from the game. (I'm borrowing a computer so I don't have the abilty to resize some of these pics....oh well.)

I've been staying Dan and Paula Hassler who are some of the best people a person could know. Don Hassler is a brother from the Iota Chapter who I had met when I was doing my Alumni Road Trip through the west coast. He and Paula have opened their home to me on more than one occassion and I can't thank them enough for the opportunity to stay with them for the game. I'm not sure if they would ever have a reason to come to Evansville (who would?), but I hope I get a chance to return the favor sometime.

The obvious bad news is that the Packers lost. Man...what a game. If I was watching the game on TV, I probably would have given up on them on halftime and missed the comeback...of which I'm not really sure how they tied it up in regulation. That said, I really miss the lack of stats, replays and general commentating you get. Never bothered my for a baseball game...probably because I have been to more of them.

I went to the game with Pete Knight, a brother from the Xi Pi Chapter, who hails from Wisconsin, but now lives in Las Vegas. He made the trip down after I called him right about the middle of the week with the proposal of a attending a playoff game. Considering this is right in has back yard, he was drooling at the thought of it. After approval from the wife, he made the trip down (and is now driving back). Had it not been for him, I would have never made the trip seeing that I needed to buy two tockets to get in the game.

The stadium is pretty nice, but it's no Lambeau Field. They apparently kept the roof closed in order to keep all the noise in. Considering the tournovers in the first quarter, there was plenty of noise to go around.Our seats were in the "nosebleed seats" up in the top section. In fact, we were in the uppermost row. No one was sitting behind us, which was great because I could stand without getting chastized and I didn't have to worry about some idiot throwing beer or food on me.

Thankfully, there was a big comeback in the second half otherwise this would have been a disappointment of a trip. When the fourth quarter rolled around, I was actually predicting an overtime which I thought would blow up in my face with the Packers touchdown just after the two-minute warning. Thankfully, Neil Rackers kept the dream alive.

It's too bad the game ended the way it did. To think it almost ended two plays earlier with a throw downfield, but was too long for Jennings. Unfortunately, it just wasn't meant to be. With the team being as young as they are, this has to be a learning experience for a team that should be ready when the players hit their prime. Not that I want to make comparisons, but how many times did it take Favre to win a playoff. (I don't know the answer, but I hope it's not one.)

Oddly enough, the last Packers game I attended was a playoff game against Seattle where Al Harris intercepted a pass in overtime a ran it back for a touchdown. So the last two games I attended, the Packers were in an overtime game that was decided on a turnover. Weird?

I'm wrapping up the post here with a few cool pictures from the game.











(Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. I took the picture of the Cardinals fan because the girl on the left had nice boobs. On top of that, the back of her shirt had the name of the kicker..."Rackers." I kid you not.)

SNOW-PACALYPSE 2010

Everyone in Evansville, Indiana is preparing for the end of the world today. Grocery stores have been raided with bottled water, canned goods and batteries taken by the cart load as the desperate citizens of this town prepare 3-5 inches of snow....or as I am now calling it...(cue cheesy voice effects)....

"SNOW-PACALYPSE 2010"

Schools will be shut down; car drivers will drive more idiotic than they already do; stores that stay open will fight off the hordes of zombies looking for fresh brains...wait, wrong story. Evansville will become a disaster area because of some white stuff that falls ont he ground.

I'm a little unsympathetic because 3-5 inches of snow in my home state of Wisconsin barely brings out the sledders. A couple of years ago, an inch of snow cancelled school for the day...while my peeps in Wisconsin were laughing because they woke up a half an hour early to brush off the foot of snow from the cars.

The work place (Lyrecrest) has decided to delay our arrival time by two hours just in case. To be honest, I don't really mind because I get to sleep in. But honestly, it will be nice to be off the road during rush hour when the majority of the idiots are driving. No...I'm not riding my bike. It's past my tolerance level.

I'm going to enjoy to the snow and hope that enough falls that Leandra and I can go sledding down the street with the kids in the neighborhood. It's been so damn cold that I feel we deserve some snow.

And when I'm not having fun, I'll be on watch with my torch, spear and crossbow (and maybe some facepaint) fending off any frenzied scavengers trying to take my can of green beans.

2010 New Year's Resolutions

Here we are. 2010. Frickin' cold as hell outside. Here are my resolutions for 2010.

1.) Lose 40 pounds (at least)
Back in 2007, I dropped 62 pounds. Starting in January 1 and going to June 1, I was involved in a little competition with my wife, a guy from work and his wife. It was a couples thing. My wife and I won and I dropped from 270 to 208. I had leveled out to about 215 afterwards.

Ever since my bike accident in 2008, I had been in a funk. I obviously gained some weight back from 2 months of inactivity, but I haven't done much to commit to losing it. It isn't so much exercise, but more of a diet issue. I weighed myself on January 1 and I came it at 240....YIKES!

40 lbs gets me down to 200. It's time to suck it up and get it done.

2.) Learn to swim
Never learnd to swim. I understand the concepts and I'm not afraid of water. I have an issue with not being able to put my feet down on something. I can't tread water. The closest phobia I can find would be aquaphobia, which is a fear of water, but also includes a fear of drowning.

I have been looking into the idea of doing some triathalons. Not so much for the sake of competing, but just to do them for personal satisfaction. The first section is swimming and if I can't figure that out, my day would end rather quickly.

Either I'll find a class or take personal lessons, but I WILL learn how to swim this year.