Mixted Up

Last December I found a women's 12-speed bike at a thrift store. It was priced at twenty bucks, and even that seemed a bit high for a sad bike from 1985. It had two flat tires, a horrible aftermarket handlebar, and was covered in a layer of grime that I couldn't smear off with my thumb. 

Although it was a mess, the bicycle was made by Peugeot - a pretty decent bike manufacturer. The bike's components look like they were above average in quality, and the rims were very straight. So, I bought the bike. 

The bonus was that the bike had a mixte frame. According to the bicycle guru Sheldon Brown, a mixte bike is defined as:

I think it would be fun to find a really neglected bike frame - something with a lot of patina, and update it with spiffy mechanicals. Since the only difference between a men's bicycle and a women's bicycle is the shape of the frame, this bike looked like the perfect parts donor. I'd just strip it down to the frame, and throw what was left on Craigslist or in the dumpster.

Maybe it's just not my style, but I don't think this flimsy handlebar matches the bike at all.

These brake pads are rock hard, and it looks like they sprayed debris all over the fork. My fingernail couldn't put a dent in that junk.

When I decided it was time to start stripping and cleaning the components, I started with the pedals. I removed the pair, took them to the basement, and cleaned them while I watched TV. I use 000 steel wool and elbow grease. It's mindless work that I really enjoy. Returning a shine to a dirty and/or rusty piece of metal is one of my simple pleasures. 

When I was done polishing the pedals, I installed them back on the bike, and that's when my plan went awry. Just that bit of bright work made the bicycle look a lot better. Like, maybe it should remain a bike instead of becoming a pile of parts. I started feeling guilty about my plan. In the end I decided this bike deserved better. 

But if I was keeping this ride intact, something had to be done with that cheap handlebar. I bought a vintage Raleigh neck stem for sale on eBay and mated that with a mustache bar I had as a leftover from a previous bike project. That pairing looked much better. The modern brake levers weren't offensive, so I left them on. I also returned the foam grips to the bike because they were all I had.

I have no idea where this bike had been before I found it, but it was truly filthy. Soap and water removed the dust, but I had to step up my game if I wanted to get rid of that grime. I'm big fan of Goo Gone products, so I bought a spray bottle of Goo Gone Kitchen Degreaser and a plastic scrub brush with stiff bristles. On the first nice afternoon of this spring, I turned on the radio, wheeled the bike onto the grass next to our driveway, and spent two straight hours spraying and scrubbing while Char was inside napping. 

After the chemical bath, she really started to look pretty. With the exception of a few blemishes, the 29-year-old paint looked awesome. I was surprised how much I liked that pearl white color. 

I spent another two hours polishing the rest of the bare metal with steel wool.

Since the original seat was ripped, I installed a nicer Schwinn saddle. 

Next came new tires and new tubes. I ordered Kenda gumwall tires because I like their vintage look. New brake pads, a new brake cable, and new shifter cables replaced their depleted counterparts. The chain was cleaned and then lubed. For function and style, I installed a short chrome fender to cover the back tire.

Here's the finished bike.

Even though the bike was manufactured in the 80's, it's surprisingly light and quick. I was tempted to keep the bike myself. One of my friends commented, "Even if you don't ride it, you could just look at it. It's so pretty." But that wouldn't be fair to the bike. It needed to be ridden. 

I offered the bicycle to Daphne, and she rode it around the block a few times. But she's more practical than me, "It's really nice, but I already have two bikes. I just don't need a third one." Fair enough.

And although I took it on several test rides through my neighborhood, I don't think I could bring myself to ride a women's bike for any real length of time. 

Craigslist, here we come:

Considering the condition of the bike and all of its new parts, I think the $150 price tag was more than reasonable. Other people thought so, too.

I had three offers in less than 12 hours. The gal who bought it is giving the mixte to her daughter as a 21st birthday gift. She told me that right after she sent me the email agreeing to buy the bike, her daughter texted my craigslist ad to her saying this is exactly the kind of bike she was looking for. She didn't know her mom had already purchased it. That's pretty cool.

I was a little bummed to see the bike leave in the back that mom's SUV. I had put a lot of time and thought into that bicycle. But it wouldn't be ridden if it lived at my house and that would have been the real reason to be sad. Instead, it's headed to the ISU campus where I'm told it'll be used to deliver Jimmy John sandwiches! Talk about spreading the love.

It's time to start my next bike project.

The Short Answer

"Hey, did your daughter sing with the Sunday School choir up in the front of the church this morning?"

"Nope, but she did stand up there with a cat on her head."

Taking a Shot at Lomography

A few weeks ago I spotted this beer label at the grocery store.

I thought it was a cool logo, and I really liked that they used a vintage camera in the design.

A few days later I found this camera on a shelf at a thrift store, and it reminded me of the one on that beer bottle.

After a quick inspection, I decided I wanted it. Two dollars later, the camera came home with me.

When I got home I Googled the Kodak Instamatic X-15F camera and discovered that Kodak made about a billion of them, and they're about as rare as elbows. Also, the Instamatic requires 126 film, and Kodak discontinued that format in 1999.

So, did I waste my money on worthless plastic? It wouldn't be the first time. But, no, my camera can still be used. 

There's a community of photographers who have dedicated themselves to using cheap, analog (non-digital) cameras - it's called lomography in some circles. I think it's a reaction to digital perfection. Yes, perfection looks really good, but it gets boring pretty quickly. People like to see faults that can't be faked. That's why celebrity tabloids exist.

Anyway, thanks to these people, there are several how-to articles and videos on the 'net about loading 35 mm film into a 126 film cartridge.

The left one needs to go into the right one.

The first problem I had was finding a 126 film cartridge. I checked eBay, but individual cartridges were selling between $15- $25. But then I spotted this auction.

What you don't see in the heading is that this auction included a camera with two cartridges of 126 film. I clicked the "buy it now" button, and I got the film and a second Instamatic camera as a backup. Not bad for $11.65. 

The first step to putting new film in the old cartridge is to break the old cartridge open. And that was the only part I was worried about. I was hoping I wouldn't wait a week for the package to arrive, and then in ten minutes destroy the cartridges and any hope I had of lomography glory. Turns out I had to wait two weeks, the eBay seller didn't include the film in the package, only the superfluous camera. So frustrating.

When the second packaged arrived, I noticed the film was marked May 1987. That's the month I graduated from high school. Man, this stuff is old.

Breaking the first cartridge open was a fail. I snapped the window frame while trying to break the plastic "welds". I tried to glue it back together, but that didn't work. 

That's okay, because I learned how the two pieces were joined together. A lot of online instructions and YouTube videos tell you to twist the cartridge, but they don't tell you that the half with the protruding curves fits inside the other, flatter half. 

Once I figured that out, I could tackle the second cartridge with a game plan. So, instead of trying to break the cartridge into two, I twisted and pried one side out of the other. That worked.  

I know failure is frustrating, but if everything worked out for you the first time, then what would you ever learn? Failing is a key component to discovery. Please remind me of this when I've been working on my Bug, and I'm about to punch a wall in the garage...

Other people better than me have written instructions better than I could write about loading 35mm into a 126 cartridge, so if you're interested, search those words and see what it's about. 

The biggest difference between 35mm and 126mm film is that 126 film had a black strip paper behind it inside the cartridge. That paper had numbers on it that would tell you how many pictures you had taken. You could see the number through a window in the back of the camera and a window in the back of the cartridge. Since 35mm film has no protective paper, you have to tape off the cartridge window. I taped off the window in the back of the camera as well. Maybe that was overkill, but I wanted to prevent any light leaks. (I loaded the camera in the black depths of my school's dark room, so don't believe the next picture.)

According to hints online, to shoot reloaded film in this camera, I should wind the crank, shoot a blank picture with the lens pressed against my leg, and then wind the crank again. I forgot that step for the first two pictures I took, but that's okay. 

One online source stated that since you have to double crank the camera for every photo taken, you could only fit 12 pictures on a 24 exposure film roll. That seemed to make sense, but it wasn't true. After taking 12 pictures, I went back into the dark room, removed the film from the 126 cartridge, and I stored it in a black film canister before turning on the light. 

I took the film to Wallgreens Photo. I explained that I only wanted them to develop the film, and that the film was "naked" in the canister; if it was opened in the light it would be ruined. I also explained I didn't want the negative cut. I needed it in one long strip. I couldn't have them make pictures for me; the Instamatic takes pictures that are square, not rectangular.

When I got the film back (in an hour!), I was happy there were 12 exposures, but the rest of the film strip - about two feet - was unexposed and wasted. Oh well, I learned something there.

Next came scanning the negatives. You can't just drop the film in a scanner; negatives need light on both sides to be scanned. Luckily, the scanner I have access to is an old Epson Perfection 4490. The mat in the lid can be removed, and the scanning light in the lid can be used in sequence with the bottom light.

Here are the settings I used.

When the scanner scans the negative in preview, it looks like a negative. But when I selected what I wanted to be actually scanned, the colors inverted.

I was pretty excited to see that square photo! But the colors were a bit washed out. I tweaked them in the Preview program, and then I ran the jpeg through PicMonkey, a free online photo editor.

I'm pretty excited about the results. I really like how the sprocket holes and the Kodak information on the 35mm film show up in the finished product. 

It's not a big surprise on whom I chose as my model.

Remember when I forgot to double crank between photos? Here's the overlapping result.

How cool! That's the back of my car on the left, and the side of my car on the right, but they seem to join.

This is fun! Time to get some more film and take some more lomo photos. 

White Lies

I've got a good sized collection of DVDs and Blu-Rays in my basement's "movie room". I'm not embarrassed by the number of movies there - almost all of them were purchased second hand for a couple of bucks. But I'd say 75% are not even close to being kid-friendly. I don't know what I'll do when Charlotte learns to read the titles.

Last week I left a couple of DVDs sitting on a couch in the basement, and the next day Char found them and wanted to know what these "shows" were about.

I don't like lying to her, but I don't want to give her nightmares, either. Here's what I said.

"This show is called Let's Go Swimming! And it's all about this girl and how she likes to swim in the winter time. Look at that cave with the icicles hanging down from the ceiling."

"This show's called I Love My Bike!, and that guy's telling his friends that everyone needs to wear a helmet if they want to stay safe."

[hangs head]  I hope we saved a few of the moving boxes...

Blink and You'll Miss It - part 3

Easter 2011 (nine months old)

Easter 2012

Easter 2013

Easter 2014 (Just a little grumpy about going to church.)

Insert "time flies" cliché here.

Actually, it isn't a cliché; it's a law.

Waffle Eggs: A Breakfast By Any Other Name...

One of my favorite breakfast dishes is an egg fried in a hole in a slice of bread. The combination of eggs and toast might not be health food, but it's sure comforting. Growing up, we called it "Eggs in Bread", but I think the more common name is "Egg-in-a-Hole". It must be a pretty popular dish, because it goes by several other names, too:

Egg-in-a-Basket
Chicken-in-a-Basket
Frog-in-a-Hole
Toad-in-a-Hole
Egg Basket
Bird’s Nest Egg
Toad Hole
Egg Hole
Pop Eyes
Egg Toast
Private Eyes

I'd like to add another name to that list. I'm not what you'd call a creative cook. I usually follow a recipe by the letter, but here's my take on "Egg-in-a-Hole": "Waffle-Eggs!" (I also considered "Egg-in-an Eggo".)

Instead of bread, I use frozen waffles. Any brand will work, but here I'm working with the frozen waffles that are sold in bulk at Costco. 

First I drop two waffles in the toaster for one round on the lowest setting. I think it's easier to cut a hole in a waffle that's been warmed a bit. Then I spread butter (or margarine) on each side before making the hole. If you don't have a cookie cutter handy, then a small juice glass works fine.

Once the pan reaches medium heat - I turn the control knob to 6 - slide in the waffles and the "rounds" you cut out. I put a drop of butter in each hole, and then I crack an egg into the hole. Salt and pepper each egg as desired. (Hey, that kinda looks like WALL-E.)

I use the little waffle rounds to tell me when I can flip the Waffle-Eggs. The rounds are easy to flip, and when they're brown, so are their big brothers.

You can use the same trick with this side. For this dish I'm a fan of using yoke like syrup, so I like the yolk to be a bit runny. You can cook them to any degree you want. Just tap the top cooked side of the egg with your spatula to see how soft the yolk is underneath.

Time to plate it.

To quote Daphne, "Yum!"

If you want to see another idea I had for frozen waffles, you can click here.

And The Winner Is...

When I blogged about dress shopping with Charlotte, I didn't post a picture of the dress Char picked for Easter Sunday. I was waiting for the big day.

You can see she's pretty happy with her choice. Or she's just pumped about the candy.

Happy Easter!