Good time

I discovered another perk of riding a pedal-assisted e-bike; it's easier to get from one green traffic light to the next without hitting a red light.

I changed things up a little for this morning's commute and rode over to the Gatineau side bike path, and then crossed back over to Ottawa and continue along part of the Ottawa bike path. Compared with last year's time for the same route, I shaved about 4-5 minutes off the total time, and my average speed went from around ~21km/h to ~25km/h. However, I did find that I was still pushing harder than I probably needed to and I was starting to break a sweat when I arrived at work.

I'm a little concerned that I'm not getting the suggested distance off a full charge of the battery. For a 15km ride, with a few steep hills, the battery went from 100% to around 60%. That's good enough to get home using the same route, but apparently I should get close to 80kms on full charge using the lowest assist level. Hopefully this is due to the pretty chilly mornings and it'll get better as the weather warms up. I know I'm also a little bigger and heavier than the person this bike is designed for. I'd be fairly happy if I could get 60kms on a full charge.

So... it is a little faster

My ride home from work yesterday was fast. I'm pretty sure it was faster than any previous ride on the same route, at just over 31 minutes.

I checked my average speed for the route and compared it to last year. Most of my rides last year were in the 18-19km/h range. So far, this week, it's 21-23km/h.

So, whatever I said about an e-bike not being faster, I take I take it back. I'm anxious to get back to riding along Ottawa River path where there are almost no stops. Once the Ottawa Locks open for crossing, that'll be my route.

First Ride

I rode to work on the Neo Carbon today and it went well.

Despite how uncomfortable the seat looks, it wasn't bad at all. I do feel like I'm leaning more than on the Allegra, but I don't think it's going to matter for commuting purposes.

The new placement of the year paddle and brake lever work well and don't feel awkward at all. I found a video review of the bike that zoomed in on the right handle bar controls and I can't figure out how they work without hitting each other while mine didn't.

Snapshot from the video review

The downshift paddle that you can't really see in the photo hits the throttle.

The acceleration of this bike is great. I found that I can take off from a stop in the highest gear without any problem. I rode it on the lowest assist setting for nearly the entire ride. I was just starting to break a sweat when I arrived at work. My brain is still stuck in a "go fast" mode, despite the assist.

One little thing I need to get used to is the sensitivity of the sensor that detects when you pedal. When I stop at a light, I usually have the right pedal up and my foot on it. On this bike, it detects the pressure on the pedal and sometimes makes it want to assist and the bike starts to move on its own. I need to remember to keep a hand on a brake to kill the power to the motor.

The weather forecast for this week looks good, so I should be able to ride for the rest of the week. I hope.

Done deal

I walked to the bike shop on Saturday morning to check out the Neo Carbon I was offered as a replacement for the defective Ion; I even took it for a test ride. It didn't take me long to see that getting it as a replacement for the Ion was a no-brainer.

It was a great ride. The seat was more comfortable than I expected, although I suspect I'll still replace it at some point. The pedal assist and throttle control are amazing; way better than the Ion.

I agreed to the swap and they got it ready for me while I waited and enjoyed a coffee.

When I was riding it home, I had some trouble changing gears. The shifter was hitting the throttle control. I had to really force it to shift down. Once I was home, I had a closer look at it. Surely, this wasn't the way it was designed? They had told me at the shop that they tuned it up, and replaced the grips, so I'm guessing parts were removed and put back on and somehow this was overlooked. Anyway, I swapped the order of the brake lever and gear shifter on the handle bar, which made more space for the shifter and that fixed it. I haven't taken it for a test ride, but I'm confident that'll do it.

I also moved my carrier rack from the Allegro to the Neo Carbon without a hitch. The flat carbon look of the rack really goes well with the bike. :)

I'm really anxious to start riding it to work. Seeing as how this is also used, I've got a 60 day warranty to ride the hell out of it to work out any issues.

Bike update

I received a call late yesterday from the bike shop and they left a message asking me to call them back when I had a chance. Because it wasn't a "bike is ready, pick it up" kind of message, I suspected something was wrong.

I called back when I got home. They apologized for the delay in getting back to me and explained that it took them a while to figure out what the problem was.

It turns out that there was a hairline fracture in the motor hub, and it's not repairable. To get a replacement motor would take months. So, he provided me with two options. I can get my money back, or they would exchange the bike for another used bike of better quality at no extra charge.

The bike is the Easy Motion Neo Carbon. It's a very similar style to my current Jamis Allegra 1X.  He said it's in immaculate condition and they're currently selling it for around $2400 (original price ~$4000) He said the original owner had back issues and had to exchange it for a different style.

I looked up details and there appears to be two models, one with front shocks and one without. I'm not sure which one they have. The reviews I've read and watched are all great and I really like the specs on it; it has more gears and features that the ION Commuter. But, it doesn't have a carrier rack and the seat doesn't look too comfortable. I could move the rack from my Jamis over to it, and buy a more comfortable seat so that's not a deal killer for me. This would also let me use my Ibera PakRak bag that is built for the rack. The biggest concern is the frame size. It appears to be designed more for a 5'10" rider and I'm 6'2".

I'll definitely have to take it for a test ride and see how it feels; that will be the deciding factor.

Stranded... part 2

When I left work yesterday, my biked fucked up again. This time I couldn't get it to work, no matter what I tried.

I called the bike shop and explained. He gave me some suggestions, which I had already tried but would try again. I explained that if they didn't work, I wasn't sure how I'd get the bike to their shop to be fixed. He offered to pick it up this morning with their van.

I locked it back up in the bike room at work and took the bus home. This morning, just as promised, he called about 5-10 minutes before arriving at my work and met me out front to load it up. At least he could see that it was definitely non-functional.

Today it's raining, and is supposed to rain all day so I'm not missing out on any biking. I guess that's a plus.

Stranded... temporarily

I've ridden my new bike about 9 or 10 times since I bought it. At least once per ride, usually as I begin to pedal from a stop, there's a feeling like when the chain slips. It lasts a few seconds and then the pedal assist activates and everything is fine. Up until this morning, that's what I thought was happening.

However, this morning when it happened it wouldn't stop happening. I got off the bike to check the chain and it was fine; full contact with the cassette and crank set. But when I turned the crank set by hand the rear hub/cassette spun freely and wouldn't drive the rear wheel at all, as a regular bike would.

I turned off the pedal assist and battery and the same thing happened. The crank set turned without resistance. (imagine a stationary bike) :( I still had 1km to go to get to work. That's not a big deal, but then I wondered how the hell I was going to get this bike to the store where I bought it to get it fixed.

After 5 minutes of walking it, I decided to get back on the bike and see if I could get it working again. I enabled the pedal-assist and slowly tried to pedal to make the pedal assist activate and that made the cassette finally "engage" and drive the wheel, and I was able to pedal as a normal bike again with or without assist.

Once I got to work I sent the store a message on their web site asking if I could drop it off on the way home today. (Assuming it works well enough to get me there, that is) It was a final sale, since it's actually a used bike, but they did give a 60-day warranty on it. They replied saying they would schedule it to be looked at tomorrow if I dropped it off later today.

One other thing, that is more of annoyance to me, is that the computer will not remember the time after being programmed. I tried replacing the battery in it and that didn't help. I was going to live with that but since this new issue popped up I'm going to get that fixed as well.

I hope this is a one-time thing; I really don't need the stress from this.

Not a time saver

I decided at the last minute to ride to work today. The roads were wet, but it wasn't raining or snowing, and there didn't seem to be any of either in the forecast.

Overall, the ride went well. Better than the last one. There were a few snowy patches along the route, but there didn't bother me. In fact, I was attracted to them like a kid... wanting to leave tire tracks. :)

I tried to keep the pedal assist level fairly low this time. During the ride home the last time, the battery indicator would fluctuate wildly when the assist kicked in, particularly on hills. I suspected that was a good indicator of the remaining power in the battery. Despite that, it lasted for the commute. Anyway, this time I stuck with it at 2. There was much less wind this time too, so it (and I) didn't have to work as hard.

The entire ride took longer than Monday morning's ride. ~7 minutes longer. I'm not surprised since I wasn't pushing hard for speed. I had read before that e-bikes won't really save you any time, so there you have it.

New transportation

I bought a pedal-assisted bike (aka e-bike). I don't have easy access to a vehicle, nor can I afford one at the moment, so I decided this was my best option.

I'll be using it for all commuting to and from work, and other assorted non-workout rides where I'd rather not be drenched in sweat by the time I reach my destination. Plus, I'll save the $100 that I currently spend on a monthly bus pass. Not that the bus savings will pay off the bike any time soon.

Aside from the "stay drier" benefit, it'll also allow me to start riding earlier in the season, and continue later at the end of the season since I'll be able to dress much warmer.

It has five levels of assist, from 1-5, all of which require pedaling with varying degrees of effort. I switched between 5 and 4 for most of my ride, which provided me with the most assist to keep me moving along at a decent pace.

This morning was my first ride to work, and the temperature was 7°c. Despite wearing what I thought were warm gloves, my fingers were freezing. The rest of me was great.

One thing I noticed during my ride was that I was still putting a lot of effort into pedaling, even with the assist enabled. Right now with the cold weather, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but when summer comes along I think I'll still be working up a sweat. I'm fairly certain it's due to my riding style. When I ride, I tend to pedal hard. Every time. That's a problem, if my goal is to not work up a sweat for a work commute. I'll need to retrain myself to take it easy, and let the assist help more. :)

There are a few hills on the route I took this morning. With the assist enabled, they weren't nearly as annoying as they usually are.

We'll see how this goes.

Well...

It's been over a year since I wrote anything, and a crazy year it has been.

The biggest change was my separation last November, and then moving out on my own at the end of January.

And that's all I'm going to say about that.

I guess it's time to try and get back into this. I'm sure there must be more to write about now. We'll see. :)

Blade Nano QX

I picked this up last week, along with more batteries.



It's a great, and inexpensive, bird to learn to fly better. It flies well indoors, and out.

It's a great confidence builder to get my 450 3D back in the air sooner. It's all repaired, but still needs adjustments before taking it up.

Second outing with the heli = disaster

Saturday was a beautiful day for flying. Sadly, it did not end well.

I charged up the batteries in the morning but then it got windy by the time they were ready. Later in the evening, the winds calmed down to around 5-10kmh so I decided to take the heli up to the park and get airborne.

The first flight went pretty good. There were a few scary moments, but no crashes. I felt pretty good. Here's a clip from that flight.

The second flight went really well, again with a few scary moments, but ultimately ended in disaster.

I'm not sure what went wrong, but I'm fairly certain that landing with stunt mode turned on was a big part of it. I'm pissed at myself too because I was thinking the whole time that I should turn it off before landing, but I was worried that turning it off might result in a sudden drop in altitude and possibly crash.

Oh, the irony.

The end result was the loss of half of the tail rotor assembly. It flew off when main rotor blade struck the tail boom and bent it. This also fractured one of the main rotor blades. I found half of the tail rotor about 20ft away. Couldn't find one of the blades.

Bent tail boom

Broken tail rotor

The fly bars got bent nearly 180 degrees. I should have taken a photo before I straightened them. It was crazy.

Flybars after I straightened them. They'll need replaced.

That was my initial assessment of the damage.

Later in the evening, I discovered more. The main rotor gear was stripped.

Stripped gear

Last night I placed an order on Great Hobbies web site for pretty much anything that had to do with the tail assembly, since I'm not sure what I'm missing or what, if anything, is salvageable from the pieces I have. I also ordered new main rotor blades, flybars, and the main rotor gear.

This afternoon I dug out the CD that came with the 450 and watched a few tutorial videos on repairs. One of them made me wonder if there may be other damage that isn't immediately obvious. I looked over the injured bird and discovered more damage. :(

The spindle/feathering shaft is also bent. It's not obvious in the photo because you can't see it, but a tip I got from the video showed me how to determine this.

The shaft runs inside the two blade holders.

I also found that one of the servo control arms must have been cracked because when I inadvertently pressed lightly on it and snapped it. I wonder if that was from this accident or the last? It's scary to think that this could have snapped in flight after the upcoming repairs.

Broken servo arm.

Inside one of the other servos, a gear (or gears) sound like they might be stripped. There's a grinding sound and feel when I move that control arm.

Pretty sure the gears inside this servo are stripped.

I found the additional parts on Great Hobbies web site and phoned them to see if they could be added to my pending order. No problem. They'll all be shipped out today.

I don't think I'll be taking off or landing on grass anymore, and while I'm sure it's possible to land while stunt mode is enabled, I won't be trying that again either. It doesn't take much to forget that pulling down on the throttle in stunt mode doesn't mean shut off motor. I think I may have done that. Maybe I'll just leave stunt mode off for this year.

Boys will be boys

I was sitting on the back patio yesterday, tending to the BBQ, when my son came out and sat down on the step.

"Want to scrape any of these?", he asked, showing me a strip of paper roll caps he had in his hand. He then proceeded to scrap a few with a quarter, enjoying the small flash and puff of smoke for his efforts.

"No thanks", I replied.

He has always loved playing with caps, for as long as I can remember. He's still a kid at heart, even at 19.

I thought back to when I was a kid. Sitting on the sidewalk, on a hot summer day, with a rock, a few rolls of caps... that's all we needed to have fun. Sometimes we'd take an entire roll and smash it with a large rock. The loud explosion always gave us a thrill.

I asked my son if he ever did the same. He said he hadn't.

"Never? You've got to try it sometime" I told him, "roll it up tight, find a big rock and smash it hard. After the bang you can look through what's left and you'll probably still have some left to scrape too."

He proceeded to roll up what he had left in his hand.

"Is this enough?" he asked.

"Sure."

I picked up a brick from the patio and handed it to him.

"Now hit it hard, with the end of the brick... flat to squish the roll."

He didn't hesitate.

That was a lot louder than I remembered. My ears rang.

My wife came to the door.

"What are you doing?!?!"  She didn't look amused.

My son and I stood there grinning.

"I was showing Kyle how to explode caps...", I explained.

She didn't say anything. I think I saw her roll her eyes.

I miss being a kid.

Maiden flight not so good

After countless hours flying the RealFlight 7 Sim, I was ready to take the Blade 450 3D out for its first flight on Saturday. With hardly a breeze in the air, the conditions were ideal.

I decided to use my homemade training gear. Unfortunately, the grass up at the park where I used to fly my plane was in need of mowing, and I stupidly decided not to start off on the paved parking lot. This was mostly because it would have put me in view of a group of people at the far end of the lot, and I wasn't ready to have an audience, except for my long-time friend who came along to watch. But long grass meant I had to get more altitude, which defeats the purpose of using training gear. Duh.

I think the flight last less than 3 minutes before ending in disaster. I'll let this edited video speak for itself.

The end result was a broken main rotor blade holder, which cost me less than $10 to repair (pack of two!), and now I have a spare in case it ever happens again.

Green: The part. Red: Where it broke.

Repairing the heli wasn't as easy as I expected. Blade provides you with the tools for the heli, but what they don't do is provide you with two allen keys the same size that are required to remove the blade holders. You need one for each side as you unscrew one, so it doesn't just spin freely. Thankfully, I did have another in my tool box.

After the repair, I ran the prop for a few mins as fast as it would run without taking off, since I was doing this on my front walkway and that would surely have ended on a bigger disaster. It seems to be pretty stable.

So, what's next?

Either I'll try the training gear again, but this time on pavement so I don't need to lift off as high and have more time to get comfortable with the controls, and trim it properly... or, I'll skip the training gear and keep it higher and fly in a circle or oval, rather just hover.

One thing I noticed with the RF7 sim is that I often find it easier to fly around than simply hovering. Keep it moving forward and worry about altitude and and roll. Hovering seems to require more concentration, for me anyway.

As a side note, when I was testing my repair I noticed something odd about two large gears that drive the main rotor blade and gyro. (I don't know their names off-hand)

The two gears, after I removed the obstruction.

 It looked like they were attached so they would spin at the same speed. Now, I don't know very much about the inner workings of these yet, so I wasn't sure if this was by design or if something else was broken. When I turned them by hand, that confirmed that they do not turn at the same rate. Upon further inspection, it looked like something was jammed between the two gears. This is what I removed.

A broken tie-wrap.

I looked over the entire helicopter and there doesn't appear to be anywhere that may be missing a tie wrap. Every wire is secure. I don't think this came off during the crash. If it didn't, then that means it was there the entire time. Could this have affected the stability of the helicopter? Perhaps. The controls didn't feel bad to me, but seeing as how my heli experience up to Saturday was on the sim, I'm not sure if I would have noticed the difference.

Hmmm...

SugarSync is pretty sweet

I've been looking for a file syncing service for a while. I have many backups of my data at home, but I'd like to have an additional backup elsewhere, and have access to it from anywhere.

There are a number of free ones, like Microsoft's OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) and Google Drive, both with options to pay for more storage. But they all seem to require that you put all the files in their special folder. I like to keep my files where they are on my system.

I discovered SugarSync. The free account only gives you 5GB for a limited time, but they let you choose data from anywhere on your computer and tag it to by synchronized onto their cloud without having to move it to a special folder.

I decided to subscribed to their 60GB plan for a year for $75. Since I'm new, they gave me 50% off that for the first year.

I've been using it now for a couple of weeks and have a few different computers all sync'd to their cloud, and so far I'm very pleased with the results. It did take almost a week for my documents and photos to upload from my home computer, but now I have access to them from work and from my iPhone using their mobile app.

Check it out, and if you decide to take the plunge please use this link so I can get a referral bonus:

https://www.sugarsync.com/referral?rf=e7ow8fewosx6d&utm_source=website&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=referral&shareEvent=7392661

Learning to fly... again

I picked up a new hobby a couple of weeks ago.

That's not me, but I now own a helicopter capable of such stunts.

About seven years ago, I started flying planes. I used to post videos on my YouTube channel.  For no particular reason, I stopped a few years ago. Helicopters have also interested me, so this year I decided to take the plunge and picked up a Blade 450 3D.

Since the weather has been pretty shitty, I haven't been able to take it out for a spin. I considered flying it in my basement to get my feet wet. I only planned to hover, obviously. It's a good thing I didn't try it.

While I was waiting for the weather to improve, I picked up Real Flight 7. I quickly learned that I greatly underestimated the difficulty involved in flying an R/C helicopter.

I'm sure the software paid for itself in the first five minutes. It was frustrating. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I switched to a Piper Cub, which was similar to my Super Cub, and took it for a flight. My flying skills had clearly diminished over the years, but I had more success with it than a helicopter.

What did I get myself into?

Over the last week, I've spent hours practicing flying a helicopter in Real Flight 7, slowly making a little progress each time. For the first time last night, I was able to fly in a clockwise direction. I tried counter-clock-wise and failed. But it's progress, and that's giving me confidence, and one day — probably not any time this year — I'll hopefully master the controls and be able to fly like the guy in the video above. Or at least flying in a counter-clockwise direction. ;)

Pebble E-paper Watch Update

Here's an update about my Pebble watch.

I did eventually receive a reply requesting photos for the RMA. I submitted them and a short time later received an email advising me that the replacement had shipped.

This surprised me because the RMA email advised me that I would receive an email with a shipping label to send the old one back. I never received such a label.

It wasn't long before the tracking advised me that it had been shipped overseas. It sat at customs for a couple of weeks and this week it arrived in my city and at my house at the same day.

I'm pretty happy that I didn't have to spend anything to send the old one back. I wonder if that was because it's a "Kickstarter Edition"? Maybe they thought I'd like to keep it as a souvenir? I don't know.

Regardless, I now have a functional watch and I hope it lasts longer. :)

Pebble E-paper Watch Display Problems

Last year, on April 27, I wrote a review of the Pebble E-paper Watch that I got through their Kickstarter project. You can read that posting here.

Since that time, there have been a few firmware updates, all providing additional features and functionality. I love this watch, up to now.

In December, I clicked a button to get into the settings and the settings menu had a little bit of display corruption. It cleared up quickly simply by backing out of the menu and going back in.

Sadly, it was not the last time it happened.

Since then, it has also occurred for various notifications, as well as the default watch faces.

Option, Settings, Display menu.

Settings menu.

Options menu.

A default watch face?

Another default watch face.

Notifications.

Default watch face immediately after turning
the watch on, I think.

A Google search brings up quite a few hits from others experiencing the same problem. Oddly enough, most of them appear to have occurred after the last firmware update. I concur.

From what I've read, the only solution is to contact their support, provide requested photos indicating the corruption to get an RMA, and get the watch replaced.

I contacted their support, via the iPhone app as someone suggestion, on January 1, 2014. To date, I am still waiting for a reply. I did get an automated reply the same day, telling me that someone would be contacting me "soon".  I guess their idea of "soon" is a little different.

I should note that the display corrupt does clear up after a few button presses, and the watch face remains clean for the most part, so it's not entirely useless — it's just very annoying.

Coincidentally, Pebble has recently announce their "Pebble Steel" for $249. The firmware update that will accompany it looks pretty sweet, but until these display issues are resolved I'm not interested.

This last photo is kinda funny... they tout the original Pebble as having a "scratch resistant lens". Click the photo and you'll see exactly how scratch resistant it is. :)

The scratch resistant lens after normal
daily wear.

An update can be found here.

A new year, but more of the same...

This is the mandatory new year blog posting, where I post everything I'd like to accomplish in the coming year.

That list isn't much different than past years.

• Lose weight — Maybe this will finally be the year I hit 199lbs? Might be a tough one, considering I put on extra weight over Christmas. I was supposed to lose weight since my last annual physical exam to get my cholesterol back down. I failed. But so far this year, I've been pretty active, and returned to riding my bike on the trainer in the basement, despite how boring it is. I've had more shoulder issues since the summer as well, but with my "good" shoulder. It's only begun to feel a little better in the last week, but the mobility is only about 50%. I'm afraid to try the Nike Kinect again since the pulled calf muscle incident.
• Pick up my camera more often — I've felt very uninspired in the last year or so. As much as I love photography, and the challenge of getting that one awesome shot, I don't feel the same inspiration as past years. I'm not sure how much that will change while it's still winter, but we'll see what happens when spring rolls around.
• More cycling — Last year I rode my bike to work often. I hope to do that again this year.
• Continue to brew beer — And learn more about it. I got a couple of books for Christmas.

There we go. One boring blog post.

50,000 views... soon

My blog is 20 views shy of 50,000. :)

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to visit, and comment on my mindless (and sometimes useful) posts!

Biking withdrawal, health, and music

I'm going through biking withdrawal. I think it's been over a month.

I can't even bring my bike inside and put it on the trainer because our basement is a disaster, packed with boxes, while we await the foundation repair guys to fix the leak in our basement.

My "good" shoulder is doing bad. I'm still convinced it's bursitis, but haven't had it checked by my doctor yet. Changing my pillow and doing some of the physio exercises that I used to do for my injured shoulder seems to help a little. I guess if there's a good time for it to be bad, now is the time and I can hope that it improves before next spring.

About two years ago, I got Rocksmith to try and help me learn to play guitar. While it was fun, the cumbersome game interface became too much of a hassle to keep it fun. I played it on and off since, but probably didn't touch it in the last year.

Recently, Rocksmith 2014 was released. I picked it up and have been playing it pretty much on a daily basis since. The interface and usability has greatly improved.

Ubisoft has something they call a 60-day challenge. Play the game 1 hour per day for 60 days. In typical Ubisoft fashion, their tracking web site still isn't ready to actually track your progress properly. It's "coming soon".

We'll see how long I stick with this one. :)

Conjunctivitis hell

When I was a kid, I don't think I ever went a week without some kind of cut or scrape from falling down, or falling off my bike, or out of a tree. I was an active kid.

Not once did I ever have a bad infection that required antibiotics, and I had some pretty nasty wounds. We'd clean them up, slap a little iodine on them, and a few band-aids.

Nowadays, it seems that slightest infections seem to require immediate antibiotics. About a year ago I had an infected hang nail that required antibiotics. My finger was nasty looking. A from a hang nail!

A friend of mine got scratched by a cat, it got infected, and he had to wear a portable IV pump to give him antibiotics. Another friend scratched his elbow while camping and required the same treatment.

Seemingly minor wounds that turned into major health risks. How the hell did I survive my childhood?

Day after starting antibiotics

This past Wednesday, I woke up with an itchy eye. I thought it might be pink eye, so I started using PolySporin eye drops. As the day progressed, my eye got worse. Really bad. I decided to go to the emergency at the Montfort Hospital that night.

They diagnosed it as a bacterial infection and put me on IV antibiotics. They also arranged for me to get one of those portable IV pumps to give me a dose every 12 hours, for a week, as well as ointment that I had to put in my eye four times a day.

Due to some scheduling confusion for getting the IV pump, I ended up back at the Montfort Hospital on Thursday morning. The doctor I saw that morning didn't think I'd need to be on the IV for 7 days. She figured 2 days would suffice, and then they would switch me to oral antibiotics for another 7 days.

Ball & Chain

I got hooked up on Thursday evening. I had to go back every day to get the bag changed. The pump and IV bag were carried around in one of those fanny packs. It was like dragging around a ball and chain. Trying to shower and keep one arm (and the fanny pack) dry was no easy task.

Yesterday, while getting the bag changed, they decided to change the IV line that was stuck in my arm. The nurse had difficulty finding a good vein. I felt like a pin cushion. Another nurse took over. They even contemplated putting it in my hand. Or the top of my wrist. On my right hand too. Thankfully the second nurse found a spot on the same vein on my left arm, above the old spot. And once they did get a good vein, the old hole bled quite a bit before stopping. Stressful.

Day 3

I had an appointment at the Montfort this morning for reevaluation. I was so glad that the doctor said the best course of action now would be to stop with the IV and switch me to oral antibiotics, as the last doctor had recommended.

My eye has improved greatly in 3 days. All that's left is a small haematoma at the bottom that should clear up on its own in a few days.

90km goal achieved

Around the time I started cycling this year, I set two goals:

1. at least 2000kms for the summer
2. 90kms in one day

I was fairly confident that I'd achieve the first goal. I did it two summers ago, and then failed last summer's 3000km goal when my shoulder acted up. (I'm at 90% of the 2000kms already)

The second goal was more of a challenge. I've never biked more than around 80kms (I think) in a day.

This past Monday had perfect cycling weather. Sunny, not too hot, and not too windy. I headed out with no intention of going for my goal. I decided to ride up to Pink Lake in Gatineau Park. I've done it a few times in the past. It's just over 25kms one-way and almost all uphill. The ride down is a blast.

When I got to the top and checked RunKeeper, I realized that I could hit 50kms by the time I got home, I decided that if there was a day that I could reach goal #2, this would be the day. (Yeh, ~20kms downhill is kinda cheating... but the effort going up makes up for it, I think) :) When I got back down to the Ottawa River, I rode along the Gatineau side, stopping periodically to check my distance. I rode pretty much every route I've ever done downtown, trying to add to my total. The Rideau Canal. The Rideau River. I even back-tracked through the Byward Market to scraped up a few extra kms. On my way home I checked one more time and realized that I might just fall short of the 90kms, so decided to continue along the entire eastward stretch of the Rockliffe Parkway. I was positive that it would push me past the 90kms.

My legs were beginning to hurt a little. In fact, they were bothering me at least 15kms earlier. When I got to the end of the parkway, I checked my total. 92.5kms. I did it. With still a few kms to go before getting home, I thought that it would really suck if I got close to 100kms and didn't try for it. :)

I detoured back down toward the parkway and rode along until I got to my usual exit up towards home. I wasn't sure if it would be enough, but since I was so tired I decided that if it wasn't, then so be it. At least I tried.

Upon arriving home, I checked Runkeeper.

99.12kms.

My wife and son told me to ride around the neighbourhood to break 100kms. I didn't want to. I was done. Besides, RunKeeper isn't always pinpoint accurate in tracking my route. I could already be over 100kms. Or if I rode around the block, who's to say I wasn't still under?

As far as I'm concerned, that was close enough.

Yay me. :)

Oops...

The results of my annual blood work came in for my annual physical.

It looks like I screwed up over the last year and my cholesterol is a little higher than it should be.

Apparently the LDL is supposed to be 2.0 or less. Mine was 2.09.

I've been given a few months to get it back down through exercise and diet changes before my doctor is ready to up my med dosage.

I've already got the exercise covered, but I've put on about 10-15lbs since last year, and I haven't been too careful about what I eat. So I'm going back to calorie counting.

I'm pretty confident I can get it back under control before November when I got back for more blood work. This little wake-up is the incentive kick I needed. :)

Passed the half way mark

At some point in the last week, I passed the 50% mark of my 2000km summer goal. If the weather cooperates I may be able to beat it before the end of the month. If it's anything like June's weather I'd have to say that the odds are against me.