I rode my bike today. My ass hurts, my thighs think I did it to personally insult and exhaust them, and my wrists were looking at me strangely all the way.

I didn't actually ride back up the bit of trail that leads from the townhouses to the baseball field, but I was getting a little bit of exercise asthma and thought it better to not push too hard. I can push harder as I get more used to things (and hopefully drop the exercise asthma, again).

Let's see if I can work up to riding all the way to Grey's Lake by next weekend. -pulls out her crazy look-

PS - Oh yeah, got a bike for $35, then took it into a good bike shop recommended by the guys since a brake wire had broken. The bike dude I talked to was like "This isn't worth spending the $50 to get it tuned up. You'd just go to Wal-mart and buy it new for $59." Which, I'd have to agree. Anyways, got the brakes fixed up and the bike got a quick look-over. I also started dreaming about bigger (yeah, my bike might be a tad bit small, horizontally) and better bikes, but I want to see if I stick with this as an exercise opportunity.

Hey, all you artsy types! My good friend silere has some Prismacolors up for sale on Ebay. A set of 120, unopened, for $70. Please go take a look.

Okay, I've not posted for quite a while here, so here is the current status of me:

• Unemployed
• On unemployment
• Looking for a job
• Looking to improve my programming skills by helping out with building a game
• 284.5 lbs
• Looking to buy a bike
• Thinking about getting serious about starting a business
• Hankering for learning more

Uh. That's really only a partial list, but I'm not putting together thoughts too well at the moment. I do have several things to do though.

• Unemployment reporting
• Read over COBRA info
• Sign up for COBRA
• Pay storage bill
• Figure out current finances (as COBRA bends me over for about $425 a month)
• Build website for me
• Contact person I was going to do a website upgrade for
• Review current code for game editor
• Scan change of address form and send to old gym
• Apply to at least two jobs this week

The shirt above and a short description of why you might like to buy one are here. These are going to be made by my friend tresch.

Personally, I'd buy one if my life weren't in limbo right now. It reminds me of my "BYTE ME :)" shirt from circa 1995. So nerdy, and so awesome.

Go check it out!

Okay, fine, it's wool, not hair, but still. Here are some of my recent purchases in this arena:

Grey Romney/Coopworth Cross (lamb, I think):

Softer than the white below, which isn't surprising if I remember correctly and this is a lamb.
( More Fleeces... )

I wanted to expand on my comment about the "Stupid Fast Flyer" for the Lendrum.

( A (kinda) technical explanation... )

And here is a video of Abby Franquemont spinning with the Stupid Fast Flyer:


And further, here's her explanation of what it's like to spin with:
But, anyway, the Lendrum is a wheel I’ve been eagerly awaiting for a good while. As a few folks have been mentioning and asking me about, I did get Gord Lendrum’s prototype “stupid fast flyer,” as a few of us have been calling it. This flyer isn’t on the market or available — it’s a beta test kind of thing, and hopefully Mr. Lendrum won’t kick my butt for blogging about it; seeing as how it was seen and tried out by a number of folks at SOAR I think I can get away with it. It is indeed stupid fast. So fast nobody with any sense wants one. So, you know: stupid fast. It’s like driving a car that doesn’t go under 30 mph. It can be stopped, or at the slowest, going 30 (but usually, it’s going about 110. You have to be some kind of mutant who can exhibit telekinetic powers over it to make it go 30). So parking it, you have to go from 110 down to 30 using the power of your sheer force of will, and then straight to stopped. Just right. And if you don’t….

…this happens in about a half a second. I’m not exaggerating. Plus, to park it successfully, you have to establish physical contact with the flyer so you can use your brainwaves to safely bring it down to about 30mph, and the way you do that is by sticking your hand — your SMART hand even, the one you like to use to control twist and stuff — into the flyer that’s rotating at, no lie, like 4500 rpm. It’s a little like making a leap of faith that it’s going to be totally fine to stick your hand into the hub of a propeller.

I adore the flyer. I just love it. But, you have to realize, this is because I’m stupid. I don’t want a thing about it to change, really, because… because it’s so totally badass. But yet there is no way I would recommend it go on the market. Sane people would hate it. I’m about a month into coming up to speed with it, and I still have a ways to go before I really own it. All my wheel-spinning habits are so ingrained now, complete with little things to slow down my drafting… and it’s like learning to spin all over again. At 110 miles an hour. You know. Stupid fast. Reckless endangerment speeds. It’s fine for the track, but no wheelies on the freeway, know what I mean?
- (Reposted without permission. I hope Abby can forgive me if she finds out.)

I've not personally not spun with the SFF or talked to Abby directly about it, but it intrigues me. Of course, I'm nowhere near skillful enough yet to be able to spin with it, and I'm not so certain about the smart-hand-into-propeller idea. Probably best that I neither have a (beautiful, gorgeous) Lendrum nor have access to prototype spinning equipment.

My head's all over the place right now, but since I got jealous of starfallz and her fiber post, I'm going to have to make one for myself. I intended to do it before now, but oh well.

First things first, I got a wheel a bit a go. She's beautiful and I got many of the accessories, so if I want to spin like a bat out of hell (without getting the Stupid Fast Flyer and a Lendrum spinning wheel), I can. Here she is:


And I've been spinning on her quite a bit. It doesn't help (my productivity in other areas) that she's just to the right of my computer, so all I have to do is make a quarter turn to the right from the computer to start spinning. It takes a half turn to the right to get up from the computer. Guess how often that move isn't completed.

( Some stuff I've been doing... )

Happy Birthday, blazepoet!!