Author Archives: The500footBuddha

Picture Editing

Leave a reply

I spent some time working on the website. One of the things that you might have noticed is that the font is a bit bigger. I did not believe that the old font size was really all that readable if you have a larger monitor and use a high resolution. I also got some help adjusting some images and made the page about 100 pixels wider to accommodate not only the larger font, but pictures with frames around them. I really think that the pictures stand out now and look neater. I also spent time resizing all the images for thumbnails on the picture pages, because they weren’t loading all that well. I knew that the images were retaining their original size, but for some reason I never remembered long enough to correct that problem.

There are some more changes that I want to make to this theme, but for now I’m quite happy with how it looks. The other changes I plan to make is either removing or at least reducing the size of the orange bar that appears underneath images when you hover your mouse over them, and I would also like to get an image, instead of the current word art, for the title of this website.

I got Shozu to work with my ftp site, so now I can upload pictures when I take them with my phone directly to the ftp, which should make it far more convenient to post pictures that I take on a daily basis of things I see around town.

Patty’s Bike

Leave a reply

I got the bike up and running. I did not really “need” a new front tire, but the one that was on there was showing some signs of wear, so I thought it was best just to replace it. I also had to replace the front rim, because the other one was rusted out pretty good. The new chain wasn’t a problem at all to put on. The brakes didn’t end up needing anything more than adjusting. I also got a new plastic piece for the back wheel, since the old one was cracked. I sent Patty out to ride it around to make sure that everything is in good working order.

_______________________________________

Amy and Ken

1 Reply

My sister Becky arranged a family get together to celebrate my sister Amy getting married to Ken. Amy and Ken just got married about a week ago, and since that happened in Texas we were not there. This was our way of meeting Ken and getting together. I didn’t actually attend the event, because unfortunately I came home after the bike auction and fell asleep on the couch. I thought I was only going to take a nap, but I didn’t wake up until after 5. Lucky for me Amy and Ken were driving out this way anyway to see someone so they stopped by.

I haven’t seen Amy in over six years and I had never met Ken before, so it was cool getting a chance to catch up some. I had to get her new name, which I’ve had to try and memorize before when Becky got married. I already had their address. I promised I’d actually try and send letters on the holiday’s, which is something I had been meaning to do, but I’m absolutely horrible about this sort of thing. It was great seeing them both and I hope to see them both again.

_______________________________________

Bike Auction

Leave a reply

I went to the city bike auction today. I ended up getting two bikes. One boys bike and one girls bike. They both need some work, which is fine. Neither of these bikes need to be ridable right now, so I have time to assess what I need to do to them and get to work on it. Just from looking them over I can tell I need the brake assembly for the front and the back on both of them, new chains, and a new tire and rim for the one. I will probably find more problems when I get around to taking them apart and trying to fix them, but for right now I think they are certainly worth putting the money into. I will probably need some new tools while I’m at it. It should be a fine adventure.

Last Day

3 Replies

Today is the last day of the Spring semester for the University of Akron. I do not have my grades yet, but I am sure that if I check in on that next week they will all be there. I am really excited to see how I did considering the number of classes I took. I am heading into the Summer semester in another week, so I only get a short break here before I’m heading off to classes again.

Users?

1 Reply

It seems that I lost all the users (people who registered to be able to make comments) so if you could please go ahead and register yourselves again that would be great!

Mowing the Lawn

3 Replies

I finally got out and mowed the lawn with the lawn mower I bought from Sears. It worked like a charm. I can’t find the blower attachment (I think that is what that attachment is called?), because I wanted to use that instead of a bag. I think I left it in Jo’s trunk. My trunk was not big enough when I bought the lawn mower so it is a good thing that I had him along with me when I went.

I did not use the mulching feature of the lawn mower, because honestly I didn’t want to go through mowing twice. It is a good thing I took the easy way out, because it actually started raining shortly after I finished. I did use the front wheel drive feature though, and that made it a little easier. I really only got a lawn mower with front wheel drive so that when I decide to teach Eddy and Patty to use it they can.

Bike Problems

Leave a reply

We took Eddy’s bike to Eddy’s Bike Shop and they wanted $100 to do a tune up and replace the bottom bracket. It is most certainly a fair price, and they do know what they are doing over there, but I sort of wanted the experience. An experience I got.

I went and bought all the tools necessary for the job. You need a special tool to replace the cranks, which is what they call the bars the pedals attach to, and another special tool to remove the bottom bracket, which is the part that the cranks attach to that goes in the frame of the bicycle. I also bought gloves, a little toolbox, a bigger wrench, and a chain tool. Every other tool I needed for the job I had around the house.

As far as parts go there were quite a few. I wanted to replace the front brakes, the chain, and the bottom bracket. I ended up having to replace the seat as well, when I found out that the metal on the bottom had worked itself loose from the plastic on the bottom of the seat and I did not feel that was safe.

I tore up my hands a bit and I’m sore in my shoulders. The bottom bracket was rusted in the frame and it took a whole lot of work to get it out. The chain and the seat were pretty easy to install. Some learning curve on using a chain tool, I kept producing locked up links, which after some playing around I figured out the right way to do it.

The whole project took me three days, but spending the time with my son, learning a whole lot about bikes, and getting to do it myself made the whole thing worth it.

TV Problem

Leave a reply

I just got this new Samsung television and already I’m having a very odd problem. It seems that whenever there is white text on a black background, which you see quite often in the “bumps” on [adult swim] and during the credits for King of the Hill, the screen actually darkens and lightens depending on how much text there is. If there is a lot of text then it appears white, if there is not a great deal of text then it appears gray, because the screen darkens. I have already turned off anything in the settings that was dynamic and the power saving feature, and it still is doing it quite actively.

I asked Rick, since we have the same television, and he said that it doesn’t do that for him, and when we compared settings they came out the same. He suggested I call Samsung and to be honest I probably will. I don’t have any DVD’s or games that really create the same environment, but admittedly I haven’t looked very hard, so I don’t know if it just does this with the cable or with other devices.