Montague Issues

As I mentioned previously, I bought a folding bicycle for a portion of my commute into the city.  I went with a Montague instead of something like a Brompton because they use 700c wheels and other standard parts.

On Thursday, the handlebars came off.  I was not in motion at the time so I was not hurt, but I could have been.

The Montague uses an Octagon handle bar mount.  To begin the process of finding out exactly what fucking happened, I watched the installation video:

The bike came with two of the spacers mentioned in the video installed:

I measured the space above the spacers with my cheap digital caliper (seriously, spend the $10 on one of these things) and found there was only 13 mm available.

With a single spacer we now have the requisite 18mm.  I used a clamp and a chunk of 2x4 to compress everything into place and torqued the bolt to spec.

I'll probably post something about this fix working (or not) down the road. I really like not having to pay to park and need the exercise to maintain my health.  It'll be a shame if this bike doesn't work for me.

In which we discuss why I left the city

A drive of a few miles and a walk of fewer miles bought me here.  Nary a trustafarian nor a man-bun in sight.

An assortment of links

Insepctrum - an offline singal analyzer.  Once I finish cleaning up my property (or the weather gets too shitty for me to work on it any more) I'll play with this and post something.

The DOJ is trying to weaken the War Powers Act.

While getting a sunburned hide and sore muscles, I've been thinking of Aldous Huxley.  Could it be that soma, the orgy-porgy, and centrifugal bumble-puppy  (or their real world equivalents of beer/weed, porn, and xbox)  are a bigger worry than Miniluv and it's face stomping boot?  Maybe I should bump this further up in my reading list.  Either way here is an interesting web comic.

Firewood

I had three cords of wood delivered yesterday.  In the name of getting things squared away here as quickly as possible I put together four racks as described in this instructable.  The "no tools required" part of the title is a bit of bullshit, you need to have a saw.  I have several, so it doesn't exactly matter.
Another gripe is that the 8' 2x4s I purchased at America's favorite big box hardware store are in fact 7'8" long.
Pics below:

I still need to build a few more racks to hold the remainder of yesterday's delivery.  I also have another cord coming next weekend.

I'm planning to grab some blue tarps on my way home in the near future as well.  The guy next door told me that I should build a woodshed because he has had problems with his tarped wood molding.  I plan to do that, but it's a question of if it happens this year or the next.  I still need to cut back a lot of overgrown crap to even have room to build one, and the ground here will require considerable work to get level.

Relocation

Over the past few years I became increasingly fed up with Portland for a variety of reasons.  Most of them could be summed up as the city council essentially just doing whatever Richard Florida thinks is best.
About two months ago I sold my house and bought a psychologist's vacation cabin up on Mt. Hood, along with a nice diesel BMW and a folding bicycle to commute with.  The locals up here are much more like the dope smoking firearms enthusiasts I grew up with.  I do still have to deal with the transplant influence in state politics, but at least I can cut down a tree on my own property without having to file a bunch of paperwork.
The property is a mess right now.  In addition to several previous owners odds and ends having been left behind, the property is badly overgrown.  Lots of the big trees have dead lower limbs, and there are saplings everywhere.  I've   lost track of how many times I've been to the dump and Goodwill, and once burning season starts again I'm going to have one hell of a bonfire.
Not everything that was left behind was useless.  The previous owner did leave behind a few hand tools and a bit of lumber, along with some oil lamps and oil.  I got a cord of wood delivered over the past weekend and got it stacked in racks I built from the lumber that was left here.  Three more cords are coming on Saturday, and then one more a week later.
I have a lot of caulking to do in order to seal this place up still, but it's going to happen.  At this point I'll say I plan to spend more time writing here, but who can honestly say.