Nathan Alter:

I ordered a very tall mountain bike from jensonusa.com.  Tall bikes are a bit hard to find locally.  I wanted disc brakes because I figured they’d be easier to deal with than V brakes, which always seem to get misaligned.  I got the bike and it was mostly assembled, but came with gobs of manuals for the various parts.  They really need a quick assembly guide for noobs…there really wasn’t too much to do, but it took me days as I read over all the manuals.  I must have applied the brakes with the front wheel off at some point because the front brake pads squeezed together so that they wouldn’t allow the front brake rotor in.  That’s when I figured out I have hydraulic brakes that need oil.  I had unscrewed the brake assembly trying to get the pads apart and precious oil oozed out.  After lots of research, I found out that you just pry the pads apart with a screwdriver.  After finally getting the bike set up last night, I rode it a bit…had to get clippy shoes and all.  I’ll have to put more oil in that front brake, which will be another adventure.  Presta valves are a pain because the cores can’t easily be removed for sliming unless you get special tubes.

We figured out how to eat at Sadie’s pretty cheaply.  Get the small nachos.  It’s big enough to feed 2 adults and 2 little kids, and is about $8.  I’d hate to see the large!

Vanessa and I went with our friend to the shooting range yesterday.  I’d never shot a gun before, aside from a BB gun.  I wouldn’t buy a gun, but it was fun to try them out.  We fired a .22 rifle, a WW II Mauser rifle, some kinda large .45 pistol, and a 30-06 rifle with scope.  The little .22 was like a BB gun.  The pistol seemed kinda shaky in the hands to me.  I prolly don’t have very steady hands.  The rifles had huge bang and kick…a surprise every time.  The best part I think was hitting a metal plate 200 yards away through a scope.  I was surprised that you can’t tell if you hit anything because of the kick of the gun.  Our friend said you don’t have to worry about the kick throwing you off because the bullet’s already left the gun at that point.  You usually have to have someone else tell you if you hit the target.

I had a severe sore throat, so I went to the doctor.  Strep throat.  Got antibiotics.  It still hurts, but at least I don’t feel like I’m swallowing broken marbles anymore.  Mental note:  don’t get strep throat.

Does anybody else enjoy it when somebody does a fake review on Netflix to whine about them “getting rid of the friend feature” and you get to click that little “Not a review” button?

Have earbuds that keep falling out?  Try pulling up on the top of your ear when inserting them.

We took a walk in the desert to some volcanic rock hills near our house last night around dark.  I almost stepped on a small rattlesnake.  It slithered away and barely made much noise until it got under a rock and then started rattling.  It didn’t strike at me or anything.  Later on, another another one immediately started rattling and I walked out of the way pretty quickly.  I don’t remember ever seeing a rattler in the wild, but they seem to love warm rocks when the sun’s going down.  We also saw the international space station flying by…looked like a slow flying star or something.

Vanessa’s brother and family have been visiting and I’ve gotten in some time on LittleBigPlanet with the kids and Supreme Commander 2 with da bruvah-in-law.

Evin and family came through town the other day and kindly took us to Annapurna’s.  It’s a kinda veggie/gluten-free/hippie Indian food restaurant.  I liked the chai and some of the food.  But it seems like the concessions they have to make to gluten-free kinda ruin some of the more traditional dishes.  Apparently, I loves me some gluten.  Anyway, it was great fun to go there with them and we found a great portabello sammich.

On the 4th of July, we drove out into the desert and a trail to the top of some volcanic rock hills.  Nice view of the city out there.  Saw a millipede and tarantula.  Later watched fireworks…big displays as well as illegal displays all over the neighborhood.  The legal fireworks these days in a city are just sad.  Would you like a fountain, a fountain, or a fountain?  How about a fountain?  You can’t bomb ant dens with a fountain!

I’m looking for a tall mountain bike with disc brakes so I went shopping yesterday.  There’s a new Trek store on Menaul.  They seem to have a good range of prices…from 200 something to the thousands.  More importantly, they have a good range of sizes in store…including the elusive extra large ones.

Sean and I took a bike ride out into the desert yesterday and finally found a route without sand.  The sand sucks the fun away, you see.  We found where they’re piling all the volcanic rocks from all of the new development out in the desert…as well as some illegal dumping.

Extremetech has a nice article right now on building gaming PCs for various budgets.  The Radeon HD 5770 sounds like it’s the card to get at the moment…if I could get myself to trust AMD’s video drivers.

Netflix Streaming just added Robotech.