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October 07, 2017

Pumpkins!

Pumpkins!

   On my bike ride home from work a couple weeks ago I went by a farm selling pumpkins.  When I went for a closer look I saw some of the largest pumpkins I've ever seen for sale.  Among them were Full Moon Pumpkin—giant white pumpkins.  I wanted one but knew there was no way to fit one of these beasts on my bike.  So the other day when it rained and I couldn't cycle to work I went back with my car and picked up several pumpkins.  For now they will sit in front of the house but we are hoping to do as we did last year and host an event where people decorate the pumpkins for the Halloween party.

October 06, 2017

Moonrise

Moonrise

   The ride to and from work was fairly slow today but despite the rain on Wednesday I managed to ride at least 29 miles each week day.  Started raining shortly after I got home and tomorrow it is supposed to rain all day.  So far I have 157.8 miles for the month of October and I want to get in as many miles as I can before the temperatures drop off for the season.
   Pictured is the moonrise on my ride on Wednesday.

October 04, 2017

   I didn't ride to work today because it was supposed to rain.  Instead it was bright and sunny all day.  When I got home I needed to ride and set out to make up the 30 miles I lost from not riding to work.  Rode out to Indian Lake Country Park and arrived just as the sun was setting.  Pictured is a field just outside Indian Lake.  After the sun set I still had light for sometime but the temperature dropped from above 70°F (21°C) to below 64°F (17°C).  It wasn't cold but noticeably cooler.  My goal for the trip was 30 miles but it turns out Indian Lake was closer than I thought.  When biking by the wind turbines I saw some amazing clouds illuminated by the setting sun.  However, by the time I reached the turbines the clouds were gone and I missed the shot.  Still, the diversion added distances.  As my trip started to get closer to the end I was worried I wouldn't make my goal, but I just managed to reach my goal.  As I turned on to Elmwood Avenue the mile counted rolled to 30 miles.  I don't often to trips of this length anymore.  While I ride between 29 and 40 miles on normal days I typically don't ride all the miles at once.  October 4th and I've already logged 99 miles for the month.

September 30, 2017

   This afternoon I started the day with a 12 mile ride doing my old the airport-Ashton run.  The puts the month of September at 500.8 miles ridden which is a new record.  My previous record was this August at 471.4 miles, and before that my record was 469.3 set in June of 2016.  Until I had tallied the numbers I didn't realize how much more I had been riding the past two months.  This ride also puts my total for the year at 3,009.0 miles which is almost 500 miles more this time last year.  The downside is my legs currently hate me. 
   Tonight was Steampunk night at Elmwood Park.  Pictured is Xiphos under the dodecapus light fixture.

September 29, 2017

   This evening Xiphos and I worked on a new lighting fixture I picked up several weeks ago.  It is a 12-arm pendant light and I thought it would look cool to set it up with colored LED filament bulbs.  The fixture was just parts and required a fair bit of assembly including somehow connecting 12 wired together.  I ended up soldering them but I don't know what the manufacturer had in mind.  Afterward we placed the fixture on our truss system in the living room and arranged the bulbs.  These particular LED bulbs are not dimmable and flicker if used with a standard dimmer switch.  However, I have an autotransformer which can be used to lower the line voltage (dimmer switches turn off during part of the AC cycle to lower total power).  This does allow the bulbs to dim and around 75% (90 VAC) the setup is not overly bright and looks great.
   My 4th day in a row cycling to work and my legs hate me.  On Tuesday I was traveling an average of 14.18 MPH, then Wednesday 13.62, Thursday 13.00, and my ride home this afternoon 11.30 MPH.  That is a 20% drop in performance due to fatigue.  However, I have racked up 2,996.7 miles for the year and despite how tired my legs are I think I need to ride 4 miles tomorrow.  September is already a new record for millage at 488.5 miles so far surpassing my previous record of 471.4 miles last month.  I think that means I have been earning my fatigue.

September 28, 2017

   At work I have been jumping between several small projects.  Since my workload has been lite I have been playing more with QT and am getting better at creating applications.  I threw a quick one together as a test interface to configure and monitor a control being developed.  I wrote a serial communication library and wanted a simple application that could be used to do configuration.  Perfect test application for QT.  One item that project involved with bridging a C library to the C++ based QT environment.  Naturally a wrapper class was the answer but it ended up working quite seamlessly.
   This evening was the first regular meeting of UW Madison's AHA club which I have been attending since 2011.  Meetings are at 7:00 pm so I had decided to ride into work and bring along my laptop.  Finishing around 5:00 pm puts me on State Street around 5:45 pm where I can grab food and then sit at a coffee shop until about 15 minutes before the meeting begins.