Zach and I did ride down to the river and dipped our tired as is traditional for RAGBRAI. It was 9 miles each way, but 18 miles is not that bad for me at this point.

My hands hurt most of the riding. They are just really tired and sore. The numbness in my right hand did not get worse that I could tell and the rest of the hand pain is just muscles and some bruising I think so it will all heal up. My legs also hurt but that took a long time to develop. I only started having leg pain like the 4 day riding. My butt kinda hurts from the seat, but I managed to avoid to much chaffing by using “Chamois Butter” which is basically lube to apply your crouch to prevent chaffing against the seat (no need to share the dirty jokes I’ve already thought of them all). So at this point it doesn’t hurt unless I sit on a bike saddle.

I don’t expect to do RAGBRAI again, but I said that about Burning man after the first time too and I’ve been back 3 times. So who knows. Riding that far sucks, but drafting is awesome. Camping in the hot and the rain is no fun but the people along the route are really nice and helpful. So who knows maybe in 3 or 10 years I’ll get the urge and go back.

Today Zach and I are gonna hang out and go down to the river. But that will be a 20 mile or less and at this point that is nothing at all.

I already spent a couple of hours looking for apartments in portland. I have 8 places to inquire about. I think it will go well.

I learned to draft today (ride my bike close enough behind another rider to be in the pocket of air they are pulling along). It was fun and not nearly as dangerous as it sounds. I was usually 2 to 3 feet behind the rider in front so it wasn’t that different from normal riding when the road is full. It made riding into the head wind WAY easier. This is because instead of riding into a head wind you are actually being pulled along a little by the pocket of low pressure behind the rider in front.

I talked to various people while on the road. It was fun. Overall the day went as follows (very roughly):

• Bagel and peanut butter and cream cheese.
• Ride 10 miles.
• French toast.
• Ride a few miles.
• Trail mix.
• Ride 15 miles.
• Burrito.
• Ride 5 miles.
• Ice cream.
• Ride 10 miles.
• Key-lime Pie.
• Ride 10 miles.
• Lime-aid.
• Ride 20 miles.

So you can see why RAGBRAI can be though of as “eating you way across Iowa”.

I am much happier with things. It’s going well. Only 2 more days of riding. Time to deal with other things. And sleep. Lots of sleep. God riding is tiring.

The pie is good. The people are nice. Overall things are going well.

Tomorrow will be around 70 so yet another day riding farther than I ever have before in a day. But it will be mostly flat.

I think I may buy a bike computer tomorrow evening. I’ve been wanted one and I think this may be the time. $25 dollars is reasonable.

its cooler here than in kansas. but just as humid.

PS: zach says hi.

Photo by Kaitlyn (Thanks)

Photo by Kaitlyn (Thanks)

Photo by Kaitlyn (Thanks)

I should have done this a long time ago but here are some pictures and video of me throwing my fire whip. In these pictures I am throwing my 6′ kevlar rope whip. It’s not a very good whip and I’m not that good yet, so I cannot do that many different cracks. But I’m still pretty happy with it.

All the pictures and video here were in late July through mid August.

I also just ordered a lot of kevlar so I can make my own fire whip which will hopefully allow me to do all the cracks I can do with my nylon whips with a fire whip. I’m quite excited.

I simply used a piece of 1×12 hung underneath the desk by threaded rod. The desk top is hollow (well mostly, it’s got some papery junk in it) so the threaded rod is attached to the under side using toggle bolts on the inside of the desk and a washer and nut on the outside. This was not as strong as I hoped; the holes had to be so big to allow the toggle through that there was a lot of play. But once the nuts where tightened down it was OK.


The 1×12 is attached to the rods by a nut on top and on bottom of the board. I probably should have used washers, but I forgot to buy enough and it is plenty strong. The only part I’m worry about strength wise is the particle board that the desk it made out of. The underside is only 1/8″ thick, so there is not much material. However it is a fairly dense board so it feels pretty strong. Also that is why I used 8 rods (4 in a square in each corner) instead of just 4. It feels quite stable. I’m just worried someone will put all there weight into the outer edge the toggle bolts will tear out of the desk. If that happens I will have to go to plan B which is putting bolts all the way through the desk with a big washer on top.

The tray does not slid in and out obviously but even when I had one that did slide I never slid it in. So I don’t care. Overall I’m really happy with it.

So I decided to take apart the monitor and try to remount the cable. I want to apologize up front for not having pictures of the whole process. I started taking them at the beginning and then forgot once I got going because I was so focused on trying not to break anything. So I have no pictures.

First a couple notes on technique:

• Use a grounding strap!!
• When you take out screws tape them to a white piece of paper with clear tape. That way you don’t loose them. You can even label them by writing on the paper.
• Move slowly. You don’t want to slip.

I started by taking off the stand. Then I just took out all the screws I could find. There were only 4 in the corners. Then I spent a long time trying to figure how how to pop the case. Eventually I realized that there must be a set of plastic snaps on the inside. So I just pried open one corner with a flat screwdriver and knife. Once I applied enough force I broke one of the snaps. This really required quite a lot of force though. It was scary. Then I was able to move around the edge of the case popping each snap (also required quite a bit of force). I was also really happy to discover that about half of the snaps didn’t break. They actually just popped out mostly intact. I did all this with the monitor face down on a clean card table.

Once the plastic case was open I had to lift the internal metal case out of the front bezel so that I could remove 4 screws on the sides. Once those screws were out I could lift that back off and see controller boards and such like. I was happy to see that the there is yet another set of screws before the LCD and the backlight are exposed. So I didn’t have to worry too much about the LCD. There are several cables going to various things so you need to lift the back panel carefully. I found that I needed to detach the boards with the interface buttons so I could lift it enough to do what I needed to do. I just had to take out the 2 screws on each one and it they were free.

When I got inside and got a good look at things I could see that the ribbon cable going from the controller to the LCD was slightly out of it’s socket on the LCD end. So I just unplugged it and plugged it back in. Luckily it had a little plastic grip on the end so it was not nearly as hard as those connector less cables in laptops where the end of the wire is used directly as the connector. Then it worked. All was fixed!

Then all I had to do was put it back together. The hardest part was actually the button boards because they have to be mounted on the front flange sort of behind the main metal case. So I had to lift the metal slightly to slip it in. Other than that it was just putting in screws. The plastic case actually snapped back together and required a good bit of force. But once it was in I just put in the screws on the back and remounted it to the frame.

It all went really well. And now I have 2 monitors again.