As I waited for a phone call that was never going to come, I took my continuity tester to other rooms to see how they were wired and where I might have erred. When I got to the master bathroom on the second floor, I noticed that the GFCI socket’s fuse had been tripped. I hit the little red button, and suddenly I heard the bathroom fan downstairs roar to life. The garage door was also back to operation. Turns out that I had wired it correctly from the start, but my short circuit had tripped an entirely different fuse. Everything was working, and I had finally succeeded before Fu came back from Japan. Or so I thought.

A couple days after her return Fu said, “There’s something wrong with the hallway light. It won’t come on anymore.” I opened up both of the three way switches. Couldn’t find anything wrong. Not that I really understood what I was looking at anyway. I rewired it, and the lights worked again. Unless you turned it off at one end and tried to turn it on at the other. Clearly, I hadn’t wired it correctly. I scoured my home wiring book. Looked at scores of online tutorials and videos concerning how to wire three way switched. But I was still doing something wrong. I was at my wits’ end. Again. My mind was no longer able to process the logic of what wire when where. I decided that there were 4 different ways the wires could be set up per socket. There were two. Making for sixteen possibilities. My mind was too fried to logic out a wiring schematic but not so much I couldn’t do some math. So I wrote out all sixteen possibilities and decided to go at them one by one. Finally, I caught a break. The first configuration actually worked. Whew. I’m done now. A proper 220 volt line needs to be installed for my workshop. I’m hiring a professional for that one.

Some things that help are great photos, very descriptive copy, and good timing. I set my items so bidding ends at 6pm EST on Monday. This way, buyers have the weekend to mull it over. The failure this time, is that I simply got lazy and also overshot the mark. What I posted were digital art books in the Exposé series. The first four volumes, mostly first editions. Several years ago, I figured it just wasn’t worth it for me to keep collecting them as they come in at around $50 each. Even now, should you wish to purchase older issues, they cost about the same on their site. So I sort of had high hopes for the sell. In the end, they sold for $9.99. Total. Only two watchers over the course of the sell.

Here are my takeaways from that. I should have listed them separately. I shouldn’t have assumed that the only people familiar with the books would buy it. I should have pitched it to a wider audience by showing the inside illustrations as well. I probably shouldn’t have spelled it correctly. “Exposé” instead of “Expose.” I honestly think that my inclusion of the accent hurt my search hits. I should’ve taken a loss early and just closed the sale before any bids came in. In the end, only one bid did. So it sold for the minimum. Finally, I could’ve been a little more patient, and waited for the new edition to come out. Then I could’ve capitalized on buyers of the current one looking for deals on the older volumes.

All that said, I’m going to nail the next sale.

First, start with a quality curry roux. I currently use S&B curry flakes, which Japanese supermarkets will occasionally carry.

Cube the vegetables. Braise meat and place on top. The slow cookers don’t use as much water, so use only 700cc instead of what the package calls for.

Cook on HIGH for three to four hours.

Add in curry flakes and stir until dissolved. Cook for another 30 minutes. See? Easy.

At your remote site, open the MobileMe Panel in System Preferences and sign into your MobileMe account.

Once you do, you’ll see that in any open Finder window, in the sidebar, your home computer should show up.

Click on it and on the upper right hand side of the window, you’ll have the option to screenshare or fileshare. When you screenshare, a window will pop open that will we the display of your home Mac, exactly as it would look like if you were at home. Now you can control it the same way you would at home. If you simply needed to place or retrieve files, you can simply fileshare and you will be browsing through your hard drives. You can even snoop in on your pets by opening up the Photobooth application and turn on the camera if you Mac has one.

When you’re all done, simply close this window and go back to your MobileMe System Preference and hit Sign Out… You’ll see that the fields go back to being blank and there is no worry of anyone hopping on your work computer to invade your home computer. That you have to sign on twice (with hopefully different account names and passwords) is added security.

Hear me this sorry tale… I brought up my ladder from the garage. So far so good as I usually bang the ladder against a wall while turning a corner, but didn’t this time. First thing I forgot to bring from the garage: dust mask. Not only was I caked in the stuff opening up the fan, but I was breathing it in. Probably not a good thing. I started taking it apart and came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be possible from the bathroom. Another thing I didn’t have handy: my small crowbar or long screwdriver to use as a lever to try to remove the fan housing from the beam it was nailed to. So I moved the ladder over to the hallway to go up to the attic. Figuring that I didn’t want to make multiple trips, I took a backpack with nails, screws, hammer and cordless drill up with me. I think a very near term upgrade I can do is to line my attic with thick plywood boards so it’d be easier to walk around. I think it’d help the insulation as well. For now, I was stepping on beam to beam. Not the most comfortable thing. At least I changed out of my slippers into proper shoes for this.

I found the fan pretty easily and proceeded to remove it. Sadly, the claw hammer wasn’t enough. Because the housing is so bulky, there was no place I could use as leverage to actually get between the box and beam. I failed to bring said long screwdriver or crowbar with me. So I toiled and finally removed the old one. Placed the new one and realized a couple more things. I can’t nail straight to save my life. Also, I was in such an awkward position, I couldn’t get a good angle to hammer anyway. Out came the cordless drill. But because this was my “home use” older model and not the “always at the ready” heavy duty shop one, halfway while driving the first screw, the battery ran out. Oh, but I’m prepared! I brought a spare… which had no charge in it all. About this time, in the heat of the attic, I was muttering to myself, “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???” To add insult to injury, since I was using cheap Home Depot/Target zinc screws, the slot was immediately stripped. I didn’t bring a vise grip to remove it. At this point, I gave up finishing my work in the attic. For a number of “shit, I forgot to bring up…” that came up, I’d already taken 3 trips up to the attic by then.

I took a break to allow the batteries to charge and this time decided to work from the bathroom side again. Things went marginally better. I tried hammering again with no luck. I switched to screws and of course stripped a couple in the process. In hindsight, what I should’ve done was go to my workshop for supplies after the first assessment of what I needed. Always grab the better drill, the better screws the better drivers that I use in the shop. At least the fan works. Though it’s loud as hell. I should’ve bought a fan that pushed less air that was quieter as that’s all the small master bathroom really needs. But fuck if I’m going to go repeat this process to install a different one. No thanks, I’ll wait another 30 years.

Because the new fan’s opening was much smaller than the old one, I’ll need to do some drywall patching. I’ve also been putting off texturing a prior patch and painting the whole bathroom. So this current fiasco is due to have a sequel later this year.

The climbs on this event were simply relentless. And while I’ve climbed a lot before, Ken and I hadn’t anticipated anything close to this level of torture. While I was able to slog through our first climbs, the real trouble started when we moved into the King Ridge area. Eventually, it would put us at an altitude of 1600 feet. I was constantly in my lowest gear, barely moving at 3-4 mph. I had to get off my bike at one point to catch my breath. A little further on, I did like many others that I saw and simply got off the bike and started walking. In a conversation I had with my neighbor this morning, it was agreed that this was the worst thing I could have possibly done. “Kenny, you have to keep pedaling, no matter what,” he tells me. Every daunting hill after this was a repetition of the same. Get off the bike and walk. Eventually, what this led to was leg cramps.

I was almost done in before by cramps on my first century ride. That time it was just Ken and I. And I spent tens of minutes sprawled out on the side of the street in various locales along PCH in agony. But eventually, I was able to recover and finish the ride. Not so this time around. In fact, because I spent so much time off my bike, I was losing time at a rate that was too high. The cramps started getting so bad that any effort to pedal led to convulsive attacks on both my legs. At one point, they both seized and I fell to the ground, writhing in pain.

Out of 3,000 riders, I was at the back of the pack. A CHP patrol car came up behind me and announced “you’re the 8th from the end.” I knew then that any hope of my finishing was over. It was mile 59 of 103, and in one more mile, I would be picked up by the SAG vehicle and grouped in with other unfortunate souls. With the same kind of cramps I was having. The bus that carried us back to the finish had about 30 passengers. They all seemed fit, most had done centuries before. But not like this one. Ken finished around 6:30pm, having started at 8:20am with me. Granted, he spent a long time waiting for me at various rest stops, but it gave me some comfort to hear his say it was the most difficult thing he’d ever done.

It was at least 10 miles riding on the SAG car before I even saw any of the riders that were ahead of me, showing just how far back I’d fallen. Even then, those riders were also being swept up by the “broom truck.” All stragglers like myself. After the ride, sharing yet another horror experience with Ken, we contemplated returning. At the time, I was thinking that since I did 60 of the 100 miles, I should probably return to do the 60. Even that would take a fair deal of training since it involves some steep hills.

But once I got home (a long 9 hour drive later the next day), I resolved to train much harder, push myself, and to next year finish the Gran Fondo at 100 miles. I’ve been trying to pay off all of our debts, and I manage that, I can actually then put some consideration into better bike components, more optimized training methods. If I do that, there’s a good chance I’ll lose even more weight. Certainly having to pull along 15 less pounds would make the Fondo a little easier. I’m going to the legs of a Clydesdale horse, damn it.

To next year, then. I’ve made an early New Year’s Resolution.

Me in happier times. Also before and after of Ken.

Elevation profile courtesy of the organizers

So there you have it. I asked our human resources person, and yes, instead of getting a $25 gift certificate for every 12.5 times I ride into work, I can save them up to get a $100 Visa gift card. Which I plan on using to pay for some lessons with Mauricio at Classic Kickboxing. Considering it usually takes 4-6 weeks to accrue 25 points, this may take me the better part of 4-5 months. And it will also mean roughly 1,000 miles of commuting on my bicycle. Stay tuned.

Compare that to riding my bike. There is no such thing as traffic. Regardless of road congestion, my commute time is about 40-45 minutes. That’s not a whole lot worse than driving by car. Aside from the obvious benefits of exercise, I’ve just realized that the frustration I feel stuck in a car is absent. Even if I sit at a signal, in my bike, I get to go to the front, so as soon as it changes, I’m off and pedaling. The only things that extend my commute time are high winds and sore legs. But even then, all I have to do is go at a more leisurely pace. That said, even that slower pace only adds a few minutes to my fastest pace. The best ride is on Friday night. The roads are utterly choked. And I just whizz by them, safely, of course.