Hobbies

4 Mile Unicycle Ride! - Sat 4/08/2006
I just rode my unicycle 4 miles from my house to work! It is about 2.5 miles from my house, down to where the Jordan River runs under 10600 South. Then, another 1.5 miles up a steep hill, following 10600 South to Rescue Alert. That is the longest ride I've ever done. It took about 45 minutes so that means I averaged about 5 mph. It was interesting how I used completely separate muscles for riding down hill versus riding up hill. I'll have to build up to riding to work and back home in the same day. Most of that working up will probably involve purchasing a more comfortable seat. Anyway.... TaDa, 4 miles!

Pico Reef Aquarium- Tue 3/21/2006
I've set up a tiny reef aquarium on the desk of my office at work. There are lots of different types of saltwater aquariums to be had. Fish-only tanks focus on displaying the fish and are free to use chemicals to combat algae and disease that may be harmful to invertebrates. Reef tanks focus on displaying the invertebrates,like coral and crustaceans. Because of this, reef keepers can not use chemicals that harm inverts.

I like the reef aquarium approach because of the diversity of life. In a reef aquarium you combat disease by creating a balanced miniature eco-system. To do this, you need some understanding of the animals in the system, from the fish, all the way down to the bacteria. With a good understanding of these animals, you can organize an environment that reaches homeostasis. You can have a closed system where the grazing animals are reproducing fast enough to sustain the predators in the aquarium for long periods of time. For instance, a skillfully kept reef aquarium can be left with out feeding for two weeks without any starvation because the system is actually producing its own food and recycling its own waste (like the ocean does). To me, that is cool.

It does take some real estate to accomplish this so reef aquariums like I've described tend to be over 100 gallons. They are also very expensive to set up. Smaller reef systems can be kept with some changes in care and maintenance. Reef aquariums that are 10 to 80 gallons are called nano reefs. Water changes become more important, the smaller the tank gets, because the bacteria cultures are not expansive enough to deal with the pollution.

The reef tank that I have setup is even smaller than this. It is a one gallon pico reef. It has been running now for three weeks and so far so good. My goal is to put an arrow crab in it as the centerpiece but I need at least 6 more weeks to establish the underlying life systems before I introduce that kind of voracious predictor. When the arrow crab grows too large, I'll move him to the big 200 gallon tank and decide what to do next in the pico reef. Right now, I have several corals that still need to attach to the rock and grow a little. I also have lots of pods (water insects) skittering all over the rocks in the tank that the arrow crab will be able to munch on. Fun fun fun.

Unicycle Skill Levels - Sat 1/21/2006
I have discovered that there are official unicycle skill levels. 10 of them actually. Here is a link to all 10 levels.

I am currently at level 1, which means that I can free mount, ride forward 50 meters, and dismount gracefully. Today, Steven McNary came over and we worked on our level 2 skills together. One of the requirements is to ride in a 'figure 8' that has circle diameters smaller than 3 meters. You have to be able to do the circle before you can do the 'figure 8', so I got some chalk and drew the right sized circle on the ground. We then commenced with our attempts to ride around just inside the circle. Catherine had a good time watching us fall off, but managed to take a few pictures of me, that when edited slightly and put in a certain order, make it look like I'm pretty good at the circle thing. The truth, however, is that I can't do it at all. That circle is way too small for me to stay inside of it. My best was to ride about a quarter of the way around the circumference before falling off with a crash. My second best is to ride all the way around the circle, about 6 feet outside of the line. Unfortunately, there is no skill requirement asking for a 'figure 8' with circle diameters of 8 meters. Bummer.

After Steve and I practiced for a while, we rode up to the Big Five Sporting Goods store and bought some wrist guards for him. It was probably the longest ride I've ever done, and I am sure that I'll be feeling it tomorrow. Now that Steve's got his protective gear, we can work a little harder on the skill levels. It is my goal to get to level 5 someday, but I expect to get to level 3 in the next few months. I'm going to need a lot more chalk though.

Unicycle Progress - Fri 1/13/2006
I've been practicing my unicycle riding since Christmas. It has been frustrating because it doesn't feel like I'm making any progress. In the beginning, I could see improvement from one hour to the next, but lately, it just seems like I ride at the same skill level every time I get on.

Part of the problem is that I can only practice for 5 minutes at a time because now that I can stay up on it, my legs get tired quickly. After 3 or 4 times around the cal-de-sac my legs are so burned out that I have to quit. That only takes between 5 and 10 minutes, which is not enough time to get better at it.

So I decided to try something else. I have been practicing getting up onto the unicycle without holding onto anything. I can practice this for 30 minutes at a time because it consists of me standing in the street, hopping up onto the unicycle, and falling right off. That doesn't wear me out, it is just boring. On maybe one out of 30 tries I can hop up, stay up, and start riding around. I've set a goal to be able to get up on it consistently by the end of January.

Well, last night I noticed the first little bit of progress in a long time. I needed to go over to a neighbor's house last night, so I decided to ride over there on my unicycle. I rode out of the cal-de-sac, around the corner, and up the main street in our neighborhood. I fell of once, and was able to hop right back up in three tries. It was great! Some of the time that I was riding up the street I actually felt a rhythm, or a stride. Usually as I ride, I am making constant, jerky adjustments to keep myself from falling over, but there were times during the trip to the neighbor's house that I rode smoothly. It was nice. It gives me hope that I can get some good use and exercise out of my unicycle.

Starting a New Hobby - Unicycling - Mon 1/2/2006
For Christmas I received the unicycle that I wanted. For quite a while, I've thought it would be fun and challenging to learn to ride a unicycle. I got my chance last September at our neighborhood Labor Day breakfast. Jeff Brown and Steven McNary brought their unicycles to the breakfast, and offered to let anyone try them out. I was amazed at how impossible it felt. I had expected it to be hard, but this was ridiculous. After 20 minutes of solid practice, I was able to ride along next to a fence. I had also obtained the ability to let go of the fence and fall off without hurting myself.

About this time, Geoff McManus (14 years old) saw me flailing around and decided that it looked fun. We took turns pushing off from a light post and competing to see how far we could go. We measured our distance in sidewalk cracks. When Geoff made it all the way to that first sidewalk crack 20 minutes later, I knew it was possible. When I rode for one and a half sidewalk cracks, Geoff had to go two. After almost 2 hours of practice that first day, both Geoff and I could stay up for 5 sidewalk cracks on about every 10th try.

I borrowed Jeff Brown's unicycle a few times after that, and got to the point that I could ride 100 feet on nearly every attempt. However, doing so burned out my leg muscles so that I had to wait 5 or 10 minutes between rides. I decided that I wanted one of my own and put it on my Christmas list.

Now I have it. I got a 24" wheel (Jeff's was 20") so I can go faster. My goal is become good enough that I can ride it around for exercise. It rides at the pace of a nice jog so hopefully I can use it for inter-neigborhood commuting as well. When my quads are built up so that I can ride for more than a couple hundred feet at a time, and when I can ride without flailing my arms around, I'll take it out of my cal-de-sac and into the great beyond.