Third

Another rather boring day of work. I wasted some time adjusting the chain on my bike. It makes an annoying sound, and I can't quite figured out if it's too tight or loose. I might just have to lube it again, even though I just lubed it 400 miles ago. After my lunch break I went to Best Buy to pick Portishead's new album, Third, and GTA4. I actually haven't read much about GTA4 since I can't read about games at work, but I figured it'll be great. Plus my friends are getting it so it'll give us something to talk about. Hopefully I'll play it enough to warrant me buying it now instead of waiting to get it used.

Rain

I actually got something to do today. My project that's administered at the north office, so I don't see them very often. I delivered some paperwork to the construction engineer there over a month ago, but he was out of the office and I just put it in his inbox. He finally cleaned his desk and found the paperwork yesterday. So I had some minor corrections to make, 30 minutes work at most. Though I feel I've been doing a good job of occupying my time, since I've been bored a lot less lately.

We were under a severe thunderstorm watch. When I woke up I checked the ambient morning temperature, but didn't look at the forecast. So I rode my bike today. It was nice riding to work, but it's raining pretty hard right now. I didn't pack my rain pants either. At my jacket, helmet, and boots are waterproof.

Recently, the female Senior quit. Now I'm the only person in the back after 4pm. My boss and the office administrator are in the front and still stay until 5pm. Since she's gone, I'll have a greater chance at having to answer the phone. Also because of her departure there is a Senior position open here. We've got 4 Techs in this office and 1 from the north office that will competing for the position. It'll be interesting since two of them have over 14 years experience and have seen 6 other Techs with only the minimum 4 years experience pass them up. In the past two openings I've been around for, there was an obvious candidate, I haven't noticed one this time. Maybe someone from outside of Wichita will come and piss everyone off.

FAIL!!!

On my way from Manhattan I ran out of gas on my bike 0.5 miles from my target gas station. Yosakoi practice ended at 9:20 and I usually speed home so it won’t be midnight by the time I get home. I normally take K-15 between Abilene and Newton, because it’s fairly empty and I can go like 100mph most of the way. The problem with going that fast is that it greatly reduces my gas mileage to about 35 mpg. I can normally get about 45-50 mpg at normal speeds. My gas light turns on when I have 1 gallon left and lit up at 125 miles, so I calculated my mileage to be a little over 35 mpg and that 160 miles is my max. I figured I’d stop at Park City which would have been at 153 miles. I was attempting to pass a semi when the bike finally decided “no mas.” I pulled over and restarted the bike and puttered along for another several feet. I did that two more times before it finally stopped starting. I could see the gas station sign so I wasn’t too bad off. Two concerned drivers actually stopped to help, but I declined, because I figured I was close enough and could push the bike. It was quite a workout. So decided to take off my helmet which I clumsily dropped and the face shield popped off. They’re meant to come off, but still are a pain to get back on. Once I got to the off ramp I hopped on the bike hoping to coast to the station. It amazingly started again and had enough gas to make it to the station. I almost lost control at one point, because I had to throttle it more to get it to go, and all of a sudden it got more gas from somewhere and accelerated unexpectedly. When I filled up, I calculated my mileage to be 34.6 mpg, amazing how 0.4 mpg can screw you. And apparently my bike got less efficient even though I was driving about 15 mph slower once I got past Newton.

This little ordeal added only about 20 minutes to my drive home. So I still got home faster than if I had driven the speed limit. If I was smarter I probably should have slowed down more once my light came on. I always sacrifice efficiency for speed on the bike, and that was my main reason for getting a bike in the first place. The loss of mileage means I have to stop at gas stations more often to refuel, almost offsetting any time gained. Though I don’t mind stopping, it gives me a chance to stretch out, and rest my ass, because my seat is uncomfortable after about an hour.

Improving the ground

I just came back from a 3 course from the National Highway Institute about Ground Improvement techniques in Topeka. I was a fairly interesting class, though I will most likely make no use of any of the techniques. The majority of the class were geologists and soil engineers. We were introduced to 10 different methods and most these were developed by the Swedes and Japanese. One of the instructors was Scottish which made his lecture a little bit more interesting. Also in that class I met the cousin of one of my old friends, that I haven't talked to in years. I discovered that he's in Iraq for his third tour.

I had a fairly busy week. Friday night was a friend's birthday and we played Rock Band until we broke the pedal. Saturday was the KU Japanese festival, which I danced at. Sunday was another performance at the KSU international talent show. Since my class was in Topeka, I commuted to Manhattan for dance practice on Monday and Wednesday.

I got home Wednesday night at 11:30pm and I found two of my packages that I've been waiting for. One was from Amazon, more Street Fighter manga, and the first Cow and Boy book. The second was supposed to be my helmet and riding jacket which I ordered 5 weeks ago. I got the jacket, but no helmet. This order has been a pain for a me. First the helmet I originally ordered was out of stock, and they never bother to notify me. I just happened to check my order status and saw a note on my order. So I called them to change the order. Then I waited 3 weeks and called them again wondering about my order. They immediately shipped it after I called them, but it arrived without the helmet. I'm not in terrible need of these items, since I already have helmet and a KDOT jacket that suffices. Now I have a jacket, but old helmet doesn't match. In addition to that, the flasher relay that I ordered two weeks ago for my bike has yet to come in. I was planning on riding my bike up to Manhattan for the KSU Japanese festival, and it looks like I'll have to do it without turn signals. Hopefully the weather will be nice this weekend.

Finally

I finally got the last set of certs for my first bridge project. I might finally be done with this project that was physically complete almost 10 months ago. I recently discovered that the NY Times puzzles page isn't blocked, so I have 3 more sudoku puzzles to do daily. The crossword is actually premium content, which is fine by me since I don't think I good enough to do it anyways. I like the interface for the Eagle's sudoku and crossword better.

Aside from puzzles I've been reading King of Bandits Jing, which I borrowed from a friend. I'm finally catching up on all my manga. Probably by next month I'll be back to reading actual books. I got a small stack of used Dave Barry books that my friend has been buying for me. Jing's art reminds of something Akira Toriyama would do, but not as clean. I'm halfway through the first series, I'm still indifferent to the story.