…One Less Scene

Kalaloch Beach, 2/19/10

photo by Dagny Ihnot

[Read more →]

Almost thirty years have passed since the Falklands War, (or Guerra de las Malvinas if you’re from Buenos Aires), and Britain and Argentina are still beefing over this tiny island chain off of Argentina’s coast. Tensions have been escalating all week in the news, and it’s apparently about oil this time.
…Bring them to [...]

[Read more →]

EPROM software update chip for BMW 325is
A guy named Tim put a new wheel bearing in my car the other day. Tim is a sprightly dude in his 40s who works at a shop called FAME in Redmond, and I’d met him before through some Craigslist parts dealings. He agreed to do the repair while [...]

[Read more →]

Sounds like Greece is in turmoil again; nothing like the riots in December 2008, but there is an “insolvency crisis” which could affect the entire European Union, and a bomb exploded in a J.P. Morgan office in Athens today. No one was hurt. To the delight of my international ebay purchasing, the tottering Greek economy is [...]

[Read more →]

Wow, I never knew how much I didn’t know about carburetors before I had taken my Mikuni apart a dozen times. Taking the Dr. Dirt out on its eleventeenth “test” ride today, I think I’ve finally reached that zenith of easy starting, smooth idle, and snappy throttle response. It only took a month of troubleshooting. [...]

[Read more →]

Not Quite Valentines Scavenger Hunt and Roller Race, Funhouse, 2/13/10
There aren’t a lot of opportunities to play Slayer and De La Soul in the same DJ set. An indoor bicycle race is one of those opportunities.
I thought I would be able to play some super amped-up Bad Brains jams while the sprints were actually happening; [...]

[Read more →]

Braided stainless steel brake lines are the thong underwear of a lovely machine like this. I also replaced the brake pads and front caliper for more enjoyable stopping. Here’s a good write up for brake bleeding.

[Read more →]

Even a town like Shelton, Washington has its moments. Coming up Highway 101 from Olympia with a filing for Mason County Superior Court, I was struck by the austere beauty of this disheveled, crappy little backwater, with its filthy logging trucks, abandoned mills and the majestic Olympic mountain range along the horizon. It reminded me [...]

[Read more →]

[Read more →]

It’s a legend from gearhead mythology: igniting starting fluid inside a flat tire, causing it to “explode” up onto the bead seat. I decided to try this technique the other day with my motorbike, and after my tire burst into flame and I nearly burnt down my garage, I did manage to get it to [...]

[Read more →]