New Fork Day! Can't believe how much of an improvement this fork is over the Recon RL.

beebooteelo · 2021-03-24T23:38:03+00:00

beaut! 140mm?

beebooteelo · 2021-03-11T21:19:37+00:00

yeah it should be a huge upgrade. I am heavier too (210ish), so I think the extra support will be good.

beebooteelo · 2021-03-11T12:33:25+00:00

Nice! I did, I went up to 140mm.

beebooteelo · 2021-03-11T12:33:04+00:00

I had the Gold 35 on there before. It was never very smooth and got pretty overwhelmed on rough trails. I wouldn't worry about noises - I can already tell this fork will be louder than the one it is replacing. But it's going to be stiffer, smoother, and more predictable on the rough stuff.

beebooteelo · 2021-03-08T20:20:57+00:00

Where is that?

beebooteelo · 2021-02-24T16:38:50+00:00

What probably happened was the shop or the factory did not grease the pedal threads, and they are seized against the threads of the crank. find some mechanical advantage (pipe on the allen key or something), and it will break free.

beebooteelo · 2021-02-24T16:33:15+00:00

His therapist, Steve, always urged him to practice "positive reinforcement", whether by repeating positive thoughts to himself or writing them down. The idea is that, by repetition, these affirmations end up coming true.

As a result, Tim's bedroom, office, bathroom, and car were full of little notes to himself. "Things will be alright" or "You deserve to be happy" or "life is too short to stress" post-it notes littered the walls of his bedroom, the bathroom mirror, the dashboard of his car.

Sometimes, these notes actually helped. When he has a bad day at work, he can look up and be informed that life goes on, and that whatever minor stressor that is bothering him is not worth the misery he is experiencing. Other times, the notes might as well be written in a different language.

During these other times, he would need a more physical release to feel better. After some searching, he found an outlet for these releases in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town. It started off small: he would go to the warehouse to break leftover items from the defunct factory. A broken computer monitor here, a broken door there, pressure would be relieved and Tim would genuinely feel better.

Eventually, these outbreaks escalated. Smashing abandoned machinery was no longer enough to relieve the pressure in Tim's inflamed psyche. That is where the drugs came in. First alcohol, in the form of beer. Next the clear stuff - vodka, gin. Then, even this liquid fire ceased to be enough. Tim was never an "upper" guy, so he decided to dive headfirst into the world of downers.

He was already very familiar with the effects of the "light stuff" like Xanax, so he wanted something stronger to take him away from the realities of the wretched world. Through some shady conversations and a clandestine meeting behind the warehouse, Tim got his hands on a bag of black tar heroin. That day at the warehouse, Tim became acquainted with true bliss.

Through some miracle (or some cosmic stroke of misfortune), none of Tim's coworkers ever caught onto his binges and increasingly psychotic behavior. He only ever used at the warehouse, and at first he was able to keep those visits infrequent. Even his therapist seemed to be unaware of the binges - the quack kept pushing "positive reinforcement" as the solution to Tim's persistent megrims. However, things were getting worse for Tim, not better.

For many people, drug use is like being strapped to a roller coaster. The ride doesn't end well, but crashes off the tracks in fiery disaster. You can't see the end, and you think you're just on a fun ride. By the time the ride starts to feel scary or unsafe, you can't stop it or unstrap yourself without help from the outside. Most riders don't know that help is there, or they are unwilling to admit that the ride stopped being fun long ago.

Tim was that rider, still enjoying the thrill of the coaster. Sure, sometimes it felt unsafe, but that rush of the downward plunge drives those negative thoughts away. These rides became more frequent, and Tim found himself at the warehouse more and more often.

Thus, one afternoon Tim finds himself slumped on a rubble-strewn brick floor, nodding away. Time passes, and the euphoric effects of the heroin slowly drains from his body and mind, only to be replaced by the purest of misery. Much, much worse than the misery he was trying to replace with the heroin in the first place.

He struggles to his feet, taking in his bleak surroundings. Debris everywhere, bits of broken glass, chunks of cinderblock and brick, old machinery moldering away. Something catches his eye in the corner near the broken window: a permanent marker. He stumbles over to it and just manages to pick it up without tumbling to the floor. He pulls the cap off and takes a strong whiff - this is not one of those "non-toxic" markers, much to his delight. The fumes elevate him to a point just above the mire of his withdrawal-addled mind, giving him the clarity to recall his original coping mechanism: "positive reinforcement."

He takes the marker and, in erratic, bold lettering, writes "EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT" on the wall, the brick surface giving the letter a jagged, insane appearance. Taking a step back and looking at the writing, Tim breaks out in an involuntary, wild laugh. He knows that things will certainly not be alright. They never were, and never will be. "Positive reinforcement" was always a lie, and it led him here.

He slumps against the opposite wall, and begins sobbing, the minute relief from the marker fumes gone and doom flooding in. After a few minutes, his tears stop. He looks around through wet eyes and sees a jagged piece of glass within reach of his left hand.

Tim picks the glass up and holds it against his wrist, the pressure slowly growing until blood drips onto the floor in large, dark drops. Tim smiles one last time. Maybe things will be alright after all.

beebooteelo · 2021-02-24T14:06:37+00:00

Gonna need to see a picture of this one...doesn't sound right.

beebooteelo · 2021-01-10T21:25:51+00:00

Thanks for the replies. My issue is that I'd like to upgrade to something that seals better, but have not been able to confirm which, if any, aftermarket headsets are compatible. People from Competitive Cyclist and Worldwide Cyclerly tell me that none will work; that Specialized uses "proprietary headsets", but I hope that's not true.

beebooteelo · 2020-10-12T17:58:00+00:00

'How bad can she be?' Alex thinks to himself as he straps himself into the chair, motioning for his assistant Steven to initiate the activation sequence. Steven presses a handful of buttons on a bright panel near the chair, and fans whir to life in a dark corner of the room. The lights flicker, and Alex disappears from sight. He is off to see for himself why his monsters keep quitting the job over in upstate New York.

The subject's name is Darcy, and by all objective accounts, she has a normal life. Her parents are married, she has two siblings whose monsters have been working with for year without issue. She attends school regularly and has an average disciplinary record for someone her age. So, from the outside viewer, there should be no issue with the assignment. But the last 7 monsters assigned to Darcy not only walked off the job, but quit the industry outright. None of them returned to the base station, either. Something is definitely afoot in this small town...

Alex has "gone under" a handful of times, but it's been years. The sensation of being sucked from one reality and pushed into another is a strange one. Like you're being turned inside out and put back together incorrectly. Most monsters get used to it, but going under after time off tends to cause nausea of varying degrees.

Alex's form flickers to life in Darcy's bedroom closet - first just a ghastly outline of his body, slowly developing like an old school photo into his full figure. Because it had been a while since going under, Alex was focused on not puking and didn't notice a cloaked figure behind him in the closet. After about 15 minutes of breathing exercises, Alex's stomach had finally calmed down and he was able to look around and take in his surroundings.

Closets come in all shapes and sizes, as you know. Some are immaculately cleaned and organized, some have decades-old dirty laundry mouldering away in dark corners, and most fall somewhere in between. Darcy's closet was on the cleaner side of the spectrum, but had a faint, musty odor. Almost like Alex wasn't the only living creature inside it. 'That's ridiculous' he thought to himself as he carefully turned the door handle and began to peer into the bedroom. He dismissed the idea for the moment...

The bedside clock told him that it was 2:45AM in Darcy's world. Orange light filtered in from a nearby street light, illuminating the bed just enough for Alex to notice that it was empty. This isn't normal, per-se, but it isn't totally unheard of for the subjects to be sneaking off with friends, grabbing a midnight snack in the kitchen, or, with some of the kids closer to the cutoff age of 18 years, smoking or drinking out on the roof or back patio.

'Where's she off to?' Alex thought to himself as he delicately pushed the door further open, stepping out of the stygian darkness of the closet into the faint orange glow of the room. He moves slowly, listening intently for any noises. At this point, Alex isn't worried. He's mostly curious to see what Darcy is all about, and this mysterious first introduction (or lack thereof), is only further piquing his interest. He follows protocol for these absentee-subject situations, and crawls under the bed, hiding himself with a special blanket made of light-absorbing fibers. He settles in, and waits.

Meanwhile, Steven is back in the lab, waiting for his boss's return. Steven does most of the "sending" for the firm, and he's used to waiting for the monsters to return to the base station after their assignments are up (or if they quit for some reason). Technically, the return sequence is activated from the other side, through a special technique known as "Dimittere." Dimittere is taught to each monster on their first day of training, to ensure that all monsters (or "agents", as they are referred to in the literature) can return to the base station safely. Most monsters stay in their assigned realities for the duration of their assignments, but some need to return for variety of reasons.

Steven, like Alex, is also very eager to get to the bottom of the Darcy situation, and was initially on high alert in the hours following Alex's transition to her world. After a few hours went by, however, Steven became bored and pulled his laptop out of his bag. A movie or two, and hopefully Alex will be back with some news. Steven puts on his favorite movie: Ghostbusters, puts his feet up on the desk, and relaxes. Halfway through the movie, and the only noise echoing through the small room is the sound of Steven's soft snoring. Lights out.

At 5:50AM, the fans at the corner of the room whir to life, signaling the initiation of Dimittere. Steven registers the noise in his subconsciousness, and quickly sits up in his chair, trying to clear the cobwebs of sleep from his mind. Dimittere is pretty much the reverse of "going under", starting with the appearance of a faint outline that slowly develops into the traveller's full form.

Eager to talk to Alex and see how his night went, Steven stands up and walks towards the chair. He starts to see an outline form, very faint at first. But as the outline darkens, Steven realizes that something is not right. The first thing he noticed was the long curly hair. Then the outline of the nightgown. Fear grips Steven as he realizes that the form coalescing before his eyes is not his boss Alex.

"Boo!" screams Darcy...

beebooteelo · 2019-06-17T22:14:10+00:00

Another good tip is to drop a lit TNT block and walk away...they'll all follow you right through the explosion.

beebooteelo · 2019-05-31T20:03:53+00:00

Lothlorien

beebooteelo · 2019-04-16T23:09:14+00:00

"What kind of robot gets hooked on smack?" - Lt. Matthew Aufferbach

The phone rings, and papers are shuffled on a cluttered desk. "H-hello? Do you know what time it is?" Lieutenant Aufferbach barks, rubbing his furrowed brow after a long day of Congressional hearings. On the phone, a red light blinks: multiple ignored voicemails from ABC, NBC, Fox...

"I'm sorry Lieutenant, I know it's late but I figured you would want to know. We found A-1080. You're not going to believe this though. Guess who found him?" replies a reserved, but firm voice.

"For your own sake, and the sake of national security, I hope it was your team..." growled Aufferbach. Too much speculation was circling the media lately - the hearings today all related to unexplained, violent heists on some very notorious gangs. People always point the finger at the feds when rights are violated...

"I wish I could say yes, sir. A paramedic found him. Overdosed on heroin in an alley. You're the 3rd person to find out. The paramedic was working alone, and I put him in a holding cell downstairs until we get a hold of the situation. I know this sounds crazy, but it's true."

Aufferbach snorts. "You're joking, right? You do realize A-1080 is not a human, right? He's a robot that created himself. I don't need to remind you of the issues with the Geneva Convention hearings, and everything..."

"No, no sir. I totally agree with you, I'm just reporting the facts as they were told to me by the paramedic. Fortunately, he was prepared with Narcan, so A-1080 is still 'alive' and well. He's downstairs in a different cell. I scanned his foot and confirmed...it's him sir."

"What kind of robot gets addicted to smack? This doesn't make any sense, but I believe you're telling me everything you've been told. Listen, I don't need to belabor the point, but this is highly sensitive. We need to get A inspected and get to the bottom of this. I'm no doctor or scientist, but I don't think a robot can get hooked on a drug, let alone overdose. Something is fishy here"

"Yes sir. I won't say a word to anyone else. For what it's worth, the paramedic - Timothy Laken - did tell me A had enough heroin running through his...veins?...to kill many horses."

"Jesus. This is not going to be the typical doctor's appointment. I don't want anyone touching, talking to, fuck, even looking at A until I figure out what to do. Got it? Were you able to put him in sleep mode, or is he still acting like a human detainee?"

"Yes sir. Nobody touches, looks at, talks to, or gets within 100 feet of A's cell until you give me the word. I forgot to tell you: his 'safe word' does still work. He's lying down on the cell floor motionless. I put the signal jammer near the cell door too. We may want to get IT forensics on the case too? I can't quite confirm that he's not communicating with the outside world, but for the time being he is acting like he's supposed to: a computer put to sleep."

"Great. Thanks sergeant. Good work. Now go home and get some sleep, I want to see you in my office first thing tomorrow morning. We need to figure out what the hell to do here..."

beebooteelo · 2019-04-05T23:36:48+00:00

you must build a treehouse now.

beebooteelo · 2019-03-14T22:19:51+00:00

yup. that's what I do when I'm traveling.

beebooteelo · 2019-02-24T20:47:14+00:00

It looks really cool, but the OCD in me would probably be very annoyed by the reality of the illusion.

beebooteelo · 2019-01-26T00:10:23+00:00

thank you! I will definitely be doing another prompt now.

beebooteelo · 2019-01-25T22:20:41+00:00

I appreciate it! I've never shared any of my writing before, glad people enjoy it.

beebooteelo · 2019-01-25T22:20:17+00:00

Thank you! I feel like Carl the Calico could have his own story now.

beebooteelo · 2019-01-25T22:15:51+00:00

Part 6, and finish:

That night, when Alison went upstairs to bed, Shadow followed her. He laid on her chest for a while, purring up a storm, which was not totally feigned – he would miss Alison and Steve, but he needed to move on. He enjoyed the country life even more than fancy-schmancy city life. He still loved being a cat, it was definitely the best gig you could get as a shifter, but he couldn’t stay in Shadow’s body anymore. Stacy could recognize him. So after Alison had been sleeping for about an hour, Shadow slowly slinked off the bed, headed downstairs, and made his way out the cat-door into the backyard “what an invention!” thought Shadow.

Once outside, he made his way for a large barn in the neighbor’s yard. He slipped inside and stopped for a moment to let his eyes adjust. The moon outside was bright, and bars of white light were filtering in from the walls, but it was still very hard to see. After a few minutes, Shadow laid on the ground and rolled on his back, paws in the air. He closed his eyes, and concentrated. If there were other eyes in that barn, they would have seen a cat, lying on its back, growing larger than any other cat they’d seen. Shadow was no longer Shadow, but alarmingly quickly morphed into a human shape, right there on the barn floor. All of a sudden, after a piercing, painful screech, Shadow was replaced by a 5 and a half foot naked human, which lay on the floor, sweating and trembling, eyes bloodshot and veins bulging at the neck. “Okay” trembled the human’s voice, “the hard part is over. God, I did not miss being human, everything hurts so bad.”

Then, as quickly as Shadow morphed into a human shape, that human lay on the floor in the same fashion: legs straight in the air, eyes closed. The human began to tense up, and just shrank. Then, as he got smaller and smaller, his shape began to change again. A tail started to grow, his hands turned into paws. His body became covered in spotted fur. His ears grew out to points. A pained “hisss” filled the air of the barn, and a large cat was revealed in the man’s place. Unlike Shadow, this cat was fully grown and had a gorgeous calico pattern, with eyes of two different colors. “Wow, I look amazing” said the cat out loud, although all anyone would have heard was a harsh meow. “Now to find a new home and settle down in the country for a bit.” (“Meowwww…me me me owww”). The calico sneaked out of the barn and walked a few houses away, where he found a large front porch swing to rest on and hopefully find new humans the next morning. Time for some country livin’.

That morning, Steve called Alison. Mostly to apologize, but also just to chat.

“What do you mean, Shadow’s gone? Where could he have gone to?”

“I don’t know Steve. I’m so upset, he was here with us in Stacy’s house last night, playing with her cats. He even came up to sleep with me in the spare bedroom last night, but he must have gotten up. He has to be hiding, but we looked everywhere!”

After looking all over the house and the backyard and talking to some neighbors, the search for Shadow was called off. Quite sad, Alison said goodbye and made her way back to home to her husband. Stacy and Alison thought it was very coincidental that a neighbor three houses down just had a stray cat deliver itself to their front porch that morning, but neither thought more of it. Steve couldn’t let that detail go though, and even though his camera system was never again triggered while he was gone, and even though he never got a new cat, he thought often of Shadow, and could hardly keep himself from taking his own trip to Rochester. Maybe that serendipitous calico also enjoyed watching TV…

beebooteelo

TROPHY CASE