rebeccmeister: (Default)
rebeccmeister ([personal profile] rebeccmeister) wrote2008-06-21 10:41 pm

New heat index

Today, in extreme brief:

1. Farmer's Market

2. Lux coffee

3. Burton Barr Public Library for Solstice event - lighting even more incredible than I had remembered it last year. I wish you could have been there.

4. I discovered that my bike odometer/computer has an upper heat limit. When I emerged from the library to ride home, the screen consisted of a big, black splotch. My bike had been in the sun, and the metal parts were quite hot. After I'd been home for a while, it seemed to recover, which is fortunate, but it also means I can't give you a heat report from the ride home, except to say, it was hot, and very. I rode past a school that declared 109 degrees F, which was possibly true for locations in the shade and not near pavement. However, last I checked, bicycles ride in full sun across pavement.

Nor can I give you a total mileage report, except to say, maybe only around 35 miles today. Oh, also, I think the metal components of my seat conduct heat straight to my rear end. I was careful to cover my seat with my helmet whenever I went inside somewhere, so the burning wasn't as bad as usual, but still, the burning. Welcome to mid-day bicycle-riding in the summer. I saw only one spandex-clad bicyclist, and a small handful of other riders.

5. Errands. Still hot. After sitting in a/c, going back outside into the heat felt like a thousand tiny pin pricks of heat were needling into my skin.

6. Worked on my worm bin. It won't be beautiful, but it will be hand-built by me.

7. Groceries

8. Frittata, cookies, bed.

Good night.

(Anonymous) 2008-06-22 01:37 pm (UTC)(link)
If it's hot enough to screw up your bike computer, wouldn't the heat also be dangerous for the component materials of your bicycle helmet? I'd be a bit worried about the foam melting and being in a less than optimal composition for protecting my head in a collision.

I'm glad to hear your worms are still going, and are getting a spiffy new hand-made home! I think too many of my colony died while I was neglecting it, so I need to get a fresh batch and start again.

[identity profile] boolean263.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 01:39 pm (UTC)(link)
That was me, by the way. I always get logged out when I'm on the road. (:

electronics by design

[identity profile] global-keewee.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 01:37 pm (UTC)(link)
My speculation is that your bike computer had reached it's internal overload temperature. This is actually a design element of practically every electronic system - for less sophisticated systems it is the component(typically a diode, if I recall correctly) with the lowest overload temperature. Knowing that operation at X temperature would cause permanent damage, components are designed to self shut down at a temp a degree or two below that. This way when it fails to operate, it is deliberate self-preservation. Pretty smart, those Electrical engineers, huh? I should clarify...I am NOT one...but in Mechanical school they made us learn about electro-mechanical systems and other circuit basics. While working At Ball I redesign the heat sinks on a product that was to operate satellite communications on a Humvee...think Iraq in summer...so it would function reliably without hitting the internal shut-down temperature. Geez I'm a dork.

[identity profile] elmocho.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 03:12 pm (UTC)(link)
3. Burton Barr Public Library for Solstice event - lighting even more incredible than I had remembered it last year. I wish you could have been there.

By coincidence, I was there, and wondered what all the people were doing, and why some guy was broadcasting loudly in the library. I found out. It was pretty cool, though I felt more by the shared experience than by the actual event. I like buildings that work like pieces of astronomical clockwork, though.

By further coincidence, I was getting a book on Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. Good day for it!

[identity profile] jwatriss.livejournal.com 2008-06-23 03:37 am (UTC)(link)
Yeesh... that's gotta be pretty damned hot.

Well, I hope the bike is still treating you well, and all. Even in the heat.

I wonder... how often do you need to get bearings and such re-greased? I would think it's pretty often, if it's that hot down there... would make the grease more like oil, and thusly more prone to run out of the bits that need greasing.

Not much news up here. I finally got the Jolly Roger II back up and running. Built a new wheel with some parts I still had lying around, (despite my attempts to clean out some of my collection) and put everything back the way it should be. So, it works again, and might actually get donated to a friend sometime soon, thus continuing the worthy legacy of the line.

Ariel moves at the end of this week, and I'll be following over the course of July, so I really need to get my sh!t together, and start packing a few more things, and cleaning out.

Anyway, hope all is well with you. Stay cool...

[identity profile] rebeccmeister.livejournal.com 2008-06-23 04:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I think grease oozes out fairly quickly, although I'm probably not as diligent as I should be about cleaning things out and re-packing them (mostly due to ignorance about how to do so). To at least some degree, places around here use composites that are designed with heat in mind, which helps. That should be next on my agenda, but unfortunately it will probably be after our bike touring trip on the north rim of the Grand Canyon next weekend.

Mmm, packing and moving. I don't envy you. I think we're finally starting to really feel settled, a month and a half after moving. Sometimes I still wake up and think to myself in amazement, "I live here?!"