another "I'll be damned" moment

It has been maybe two years since the last time I tried to teach Frankenboy how to ride a bicycle.  That time ended, er, poorly, with him tumbling ass-over-tincups off the bike, rolling on his shoulder and scraping a patch of skin from his leg.  A neighbor lady out in her lawn saw the whole thing, and the boy's uncontrolled crying and howling, and thought I was some horrible abuser.

Since then, a neighbor boy has moved in and spends almost every waking hour at our house, goofing off with our two boys.  He rides a bicycle.

Frankenboy thinks he wants to build a gokart or soapbox racer or some such out of discarded bicycle parts.  I tell him it's a lot less work to learn to ride a regular, ordinary bike.  The fear from the memory of his last painful attempt wells up.  "A cart won't fall over."

So I make him a deal.  Learn to ride a plain-vanilla upright bicycle down to the community pool and back, and he can disassemble one of the older 12" bicycles for parts.  A 20" has been sitting in the garage, with cardboard piling up over it.  We get it out and air up the tires, figure out which gears the derailleurs will in fact shift to, and he straps on his safety equipment.

He and neighbor boy disappear.  I go back to working on a stubborn Coleman stove that won't shut off.

A few minutes later, I notice that a few minutes have transpired, no sight of son or neighbor boy.  The neighbors' cars are gone, a good sign the boy is too.  So my son is alone, on a bicycle, or maybe under one, maybe with a severly angulated extremity. Dunno. 

Hmmmmm.  I start walking in the direction of the goal of his heart, his way to getting parts for a cart.  The pool.  I keep walking.  Halfway there.  Did a psycho grab him?  Did some teen roll over him in a Crown Vic? 

Then swinging around the distant corner, there is a figure clad in bicycle helmet and knee pads, and the old combat boots and kneehigh wool socks I had given him earlier this morning (he now wears my boot size, at age 12).  Doggedly pedaling a 20" bike that is too small for him.  Keeping it upright.  Pedaling faster than he should because the derailleurs are stuck in 1st on the front and 3rd on the rear.  A smile from ear to ear. 

I guess then we go shopping tomorrow for a 24".

They are average—that’s why they’re so deadly

Stock up on flashlight batteries and canned peaches, Citizens.

Roissy is a regular read.  Time to start reading what Roissy reads.  

Quote from the recent past

The village may have replaced "the state," and it in turn may have replaced the fist with the hug, but an unwanted embrace from which you cannot escape is just a nicer form of tyranny.

Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism

I'd eat it every night if I could, until I got bored with it

Viet Q, montgomery, ABQ

Pho

Saigon restaurant, San Mateo in ABQ

A reminder

A fascinating story at the Heart Mountain internment camp site.  Sad, angering. 

little chores around the house

My favorite camp axe, an Estwing with a hammerhead, is going on 30 years old, and was beginning to show its age. The chrome finish is worn away, showing pitted steel. As I was browsing an oldtimer's page about restoring old Coleman camping equipment, there appeared a technique to remove rust and prep the metal surface for a newer finish.

The oldtimer described how to immerse the metal part in a weak solution of trisodium phosphate, with a separate electrode of the same metal as that to be cleaned (discarded steel banding in this case). Put positive voltage on that sacrificial elecrode, and negative on the part to be cleaned. Flow direct current through it for a loooonnnnng time, and the rust will be pulled off the part. It worked nicely enough that some steel wool got the whole axe looking uniformly black and rust-free. Then an old slow-cooker heated up some Brownell's zinc parkerizing solution. After that, Johnson paste car wax rubbed deep into the pores; she looks beautiful.

The camp stove that prompted me to look up the Coleman restoration page got less elaborate treatment. The drip pan was pretty rough with some rust and food drippings, but they came off easily. Garage floor cleaner (probably phophate in there too) got most of the crap off, and I tried Rust-oleum's galvanizing spary paint. Gorgeous.

But the burner will not shut off. New generator is on there, but I need to replace the packing in the fuel stem assembly. Replacement packing parts are on the way.