in tune and on time

Going Solo, Bobber Style

cade — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 23:56:29 +0000

I’ve owned my motorcycle for coming up on three years now. I really, really like my bike. It’s a Honda Shadow VLX 600 and it looks like this.

I took this picture last summer on my trip to South Dakota. Looks fun, right? It is.

One of the things I really love about the whole motorcycle culture is the customizing. The building. The winter project. The fact that you love your bike so much that it is never quite finished. Mine wasn’t finished in a big way.

Ever since buying this motorcycle in August of 2010 I’ve been eyeing up the bobber modifications people have done. Trimming excess fat, if you will. I was fortunate enough to pick a model that is heavily modified and easily customized A lot of people own the VLX and it makes a perfect project bike. So finally, this winter, with a little (read: a lot) of help from my friends, I dug in.

I started this post with the intention of dedicating it to my recently completed seat project, however I think I’ll leave it as is. It’s a good entry into the blog and I’ll write up another seat post soon.

I can’t wait for summer. It’s going to be a good one.

My new obsession

cade — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:10:29 +0000

I’ve always hated coffee. When I was 15 I got my first job detasseling corn. I had to get up at 4:30am and my mom had me try coffee to help me wake up. It didn’t go very well. It tasted bad, it smelled bad. Everything about coffee has always disgusted me. As I got older more friends started drinking coffee. It was everywhere. I stayed true though. Coffee sucked.

Then something changed early last year. I can’t quite put my finger on it but suddenly I was asking things like “What’s a latte?” and “How do I work this coffee machine?”. Weird, I know.

At first I was choking it down; forcing myself to drink coffee just because I wanted to learn to like it. I started on heavily creamed drinks but thankfully that didn’t last very long. I learned to appreciate my coffee black and that is when this obsession really took off.

I read about all of the different brewing methods: drip, french, pour-over, etc. I was given a french press. I bought an AeroPress which can brew a thick bold cup of coffee every time. I was trying different blends from various coffee shops around town. I even attempted a pour-over using our four cup drip coffee maker (which didn’t end well). Needless to say, I was hooked.

I think my mom was the most shocked by all of this. I grew up despising coffee and she’ll never forget that time when I was 15 and needed the caffeine. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised when I opened my gift from her this year. She had brought my new hobby full circle and gifted me a Chemex! She said this is “very Madison of you” and that a coffee machine does the job just fine. Even though she isn’t a believer, I sure am.

There is something oddly satisfying about making coffee this way. It’s just so simple and the brew is full-bodied and flavorful.

This is how I made my first cup.

Then slowly pour the rest of the water over the grounds

" data-medium-file="http://vorak.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/chemex-4.jpg?w=198" data-large-file="http://vorak.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/chemex-4.jpg?w=331" width="99" height="150" src="http://vorak.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/chemex-4.jpg?w=99&h=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt=""Bloom" the grounds to release the flavor" />

A long overdue refresh – Part 2

cade — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:45:36 +0000

My new case and motherboard arrived late last week. I spent the better part of Thursday and Friday night gutting my old HP and putting the pieces together in the new roomy Corsair 200R. It felt like upgrading from a compact to a midsize luxury sedan. The result is a louder, yet much more stable PC. The case is wider but slightly lighter than my old mini tower and I’ve got two extra fans in a push-pull arrangement helping cool everything. I’ve already noticed the various system temperature’s are 10° or more cooler.

Building this was a blast and having all the extra space for cable management and airflow is great. I recycled most of the parts from my old HP, including the RAM. The “new” system looks like this:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 925 2.8GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard
Memory: Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1066 Memory
Storage: Sandisk Extreme 240GB 2.5″ Solid State Disk
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 1GB Video Card
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair Enthusiast 750W

The motherboard offers plenty of room to grow as it supports AM3+ and FX series AMD CPU’s. The first upgrade, however, will most likely be faster memory; boosting it from 8GB to 16GB. And here are the pictures!

Yay cable management!

The back side isn’t as clean

In hindsight, I should have taken a few before pictures of the HP. It was a mess and I’m really glad to be done with that. Although, I still have the stock PSU and GPU that came with it… after I get the RAM and CPU upgraded I could have another standby system on hand. HMM!

We Would Like to Become the Official Home for Pics of Eli Manning Looking Weird or Stupid

cade — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 22:58:50 +0000

Reblogged from thefootbawlblog:

If you were looking for detailed analysis of last night’s Monday Night Football game, you might want to head elsewhere.

Sure, we could tell you all about how the Redskins’ pistol zone read option scheme neutralized various match-up problems with the Giants defensive ends by not even having to block them and simply letting the quarterback read off of their movements, but today we are here to talk about something else.

A long overdue refresh

cade — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 00:01:14 +0000

It is long overdue but I’m finally starting to build a new PC. I ordered a Corsair 200R case from Newegg and have a new motherboard on the way. I’m still going cheap so I’ll be recycling the rest of the parts from my current computer. I’ll be able to grow into the new motherboard though, adding a new processor and video card in the next few months.

I’ll no longer be laughed at at LAN parties (oh the irony) and finally have a non-consumer branded computer. Yay!

Rorschach (Spoiler alert!)

cade — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 22:57:31 +0000

I got a message from my little brother today.

I’m a proud big brother

Comics

cade — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:58:27 +0000

I took my little brother down to the local comic shop on Saturday. It’s been a few years since I got him his first set of comics and he’s been itching for more. He’s 15 now so I made the cool big brother decision and bought him Watchmen. I’m not sure he’ll pick up on the themes, it’s a fairly adult novel, but I hope he appreciates it. We also got Avengers vs X-Men.

I wish I had gotten into comics at his age. I missed out on a lot of great material by not reading as a kid. I’m still working on getting him into reading novels as well as comics but he’s still too cool for that I think.

Do you subscribe?

cade — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:02:19 +0000

I’m going to revisit this. Again, with another direction. I’ve tried writing about things that I find interesting in the past and I’m just not a very good writer. I’m actually pretty bad. However, today I stumbled upon this article about keeping a journal and it inspired me.

So, are you subscribed to my blog? If you see this post, I would appreciate if you let me know. I want to know who’s reading. It’s not going to change what I write about but I am curious as to who is subscribed.

Here’s to me and my new journal!