Buildig A Bicycle

For a couple of years now, I've been dreaming of owning a bike with a few specific features: single-speed, road tires, bullhorn handlebars - along the lines of your basic hipster bike. I didn't have the knowledge or parts to build something like this myself, and didn't feel like going to craigslist. I tried to get one person to build it for me, and then she passed me off to another guy who I finally started working with last Friday to build my long-desired bike from the frame up.

It's a vintage (1960's or '70's) polish frame called a Tyler. It's surpisingly light for something that old.
We overhauled and greased-up all the bearing systems.

Almost all of the parts were from Daniel's home stockpile. We got used brakes (with new pads) from Sibley Bike Depot along with new Salsa brake levers.

It was great to finally get the bike I've wanted for so long, and be able to participate in building it.

Thanks, Daniel.

Now on Flickr

Sometimes there are pictures I would like to share, but not write a whole lot about.  Thus I've saved up a bunch of fun pictures that I never blogged.  Instead of having them forever asleep on my hard drive, I started a flickr account.  You can see new and old pictures whenever you like.  Follow the photostream far back enough and you can see past trips and previously unreleased construction photos.  Clicking on Ezra's latte above will work, as will the little widget that will remain on the sidebar.

Enjoy.

Welcome to Gibbie's 5th Birthday

Gibbie didn't land on a single theme for his birthday party this year. He ended up inviting a handful of friends over for a little Robin Hood Oo-de-lally sing along and St. George and the Dragon reenactment. I didn't manage to photograph all of the various characters, but here are a few:
Here's Robin Hood and Maid Marian.
Ezra was the Sheriff of Nottingham.
I think this is a wood fairy.

At Gibbie's request, we all had personal apple pie "cupcakes."

As a side note, I loaded-up my old Nikon FE2 35mm SLR for the event. I haven't used one of my film cameras since Ezra was a newborn (over 3 years). It still feels much more natural to me than the digital Nikon I use all the time. We'll see how long it takes for me to finish the 36 frames of HP5 and get the negatives developed. I'll keep you posted. Speaking of keeping you posted, I'm on Twitter. I don't know how long that will last... but as long as it is I'll keep a little twitter widget on The Full Cup sidebar so you can follow along... if you want to.

Happy birthday Gib.

Fire Roasting

I mentioned a couple of posts ago about roasting coffee over an open fire with my buddy Pat. He was good enough to share the pictures from this adventure, and so I will too.
You can see by the color that they're pretty early in the roast process above.
I can just barely see that Pat was wearing his Clover t-shirt. Very appropriate.

As Pat said, it was a "fantastic uneven roast."

Not good coffee, but a very good time.

New Trivia Blog - Trivial Cafe

Every morning that I've opened the coffee shop, for more than five years now, I've come up with a new trivia question for the day. If the customer gets the answer right, they get a peppermint patty... and a lot of satisfaction.

Coming up with a new question day after day is a challenge. I try to gauge the difficulty level of the question so that maybe %10 of the people can get it right. It's no fun if it's so hard that no one can figure it out, and it's no fun if it's too easy. I also try to have looked up at least two sources and some background information in case I'm challenged on the legitimacy of the official answer. (I tend to get at least one challenge every day.)

So I thought that maybe all of this work (and fun) I put into trivia questions might interest some of you enough to enjoy a blog full of them. Right now I open three days a week, so I should have at least three questions a week as well as some favorites from trivia past. I'll post the official answer at the end of the next day's question. I don't have any prizes to give out, but the satisfaction of being the first to comment the correct answer should provide some satisfaction.

So with no further adieu I present to you Trivial Cafe!