limelight79

https://lemmy.world/post/10554910

Running on a Lenovo Yoga Tab 13, Android 13, version 1.0.4 of Boost.

Discussion time! Thoughts and opinions!

We live in Maryland, and I'm glad our tax dollars aren't involved in either deal. What bothers me more is just the waste of it. What's wrong with Capital One? Other than those railings in some sections that prompt the occupants of those seats to lean forward and block the view of the people behind them. But that could be fixed with glass partitions.

I haven't been to many other NHL arenas to compare, but we did visit the Canes last year, and I don't recall any "Oh, I wish Capital One had that!" moments about the structure. Except maybe the nearby campground, but that's not happening in DC or Alexandria (nor would we really need it for the local team).

Driving: For us, driving to Potomac Yards is roughly the same as driving the Capital One on paper, but I suspect the reality will be somewhat different. If there's an issue on the bridge, theoretically we can drive through DC, but I already know that the freeway is usually backed up there during rush hour - we're usually getting off on 395 north right where the backup begins. Getting to Capital One has more options if there's a crash somewhere on the route.

Parking: I'm sure Leonsis feels he's missing out on a lot of parking fees that currently go to other garage operators, so now the cost of parking will go to him, and it'll be your only option, aside from Metro. I wonder how the merchants at Potomac Yard will deal with people parking there to go to events - maybe validated parking.

Getting there by Metro: Yellow line only! Unless they also run those special blue trains that they used to run to Franconia-Springfield after events (I don't know if they still do that). Gallery Place-Chinatown is on three lines with a LOT more access. Nats park is only on green, but it's also closer to L'Enfant for transfers. I'm curious how that will play out. Maybe they'll run more trains from Potomac Yards to L'Enfant and Gallery Place after events.

Eating options: I know Chinatown's food options have really suffered in recent years, even before the pandemic. But there are still a ton of options in the area.

But at the new place...what options will there be if I don't want to have to park twice? Last I knew, there weren't many restaurants in that Potomac Yards shopping center.

I think overall we're not looking forward to this change, if it does happen. I know it's a long way off - the 2028 season is what it sounded like - but neither of us are excited about it. We'll see what happens.

Hello! I don't have pictures yet, but I finally finished my mixed road/gravel bike and took it for a short ride (in wet conditions) over the weekend, and I wanted to celebrate a bit. Sorry for the long post!

I bought the frame on sale a few months back from Velo Orange, it's their Pass Hunter model. I had been kind of eyeing them up for years, as they're based near me, for this kind of bike. My eventual goal is to tour the GAP and C&O canal trails with it - my road bike, a CAAD12, would not be up to such a tour. I'll also take it with us when we go camping - we were out west for a few weeks last year, and there were a lot more gravel roads than this east coaster is used to.

The groupset is a GRX Di2 2x11 with hydraulic discs. I know some will disagree with the electronic shifting for a touring rig, but I've read all of the arguments on both sides, and it's what I wanted. In hindsight, I wish I'd realized that the VO Pass Hunter frame isn't really Di2 compatible, because there are limited options for fishing the wires through the frame - a restriction that never even occurred to me until after I had everything. But I can live with it.

This is my first build, my first experience (ever) with electronic shifting, and my first experience with disc brakes (aside from a very short test ride years ago), and my first experience with hydraulic brakes. Lots of learning!

The wheels are from Bikesdirect.com - did you know they have decent deals on wheels, too? DT Swiss rims, Shimano hubs, Shimano rotors, 38c tires mounted, rim and tires tubeless ready, but set up with tubes. I got 700s, but I probably should have gone with 650b for the clearance on the rear wheel. Longer term, I'll pick up a set of 650bs with mixed road/gravel tires, and put pure road tires on my 700c wheels.

I had a bike fit on my road bike (a CAAD12) done a few years ago, so I used the results from that as a guideline for this build. In particular, the top tube on the VO is longer than the Cannondale, so I got a shorter stem to compensate.

I did end up getting wider handlebars (46 instead of 44), but the gravel handlebars feel a LOT wider than the road handlebars. Which, for an all day ride, probably isn't a bad thing - more positions.

I want to test it more, but I'm thinking I'll set the handlebars a little higher than my CAAD12's are, relative to the seat height - because, one, they're wider, so my arms are out farther when I'm on the hoods, meaning I'd be leaning down a bit farther, and two, comfy, all-day touring bicycle.

The bike is all black. I'm not very imaginative. It's like, how much more black could it be? None. None more back. I don't usually name my bicycles, but suddenly I want to call this one "Smell the Glove". (The VO paint is actually black with flakes and a chrome logo, it looks pretty cool.)

It's definitely a slow bike with the weight and tires on it now, but that's okay - the point was to build a comfortable, ride-all-day tourer, not a speed demon. It weighs 24 lbs without water bottle cages, bike bags, etc.

After my test ride, I'm even happier with my decision to go Di2. And that's with repeatedly hitting the wrong buttons to shift on the ride (I have no idea why I was doing that, it's essentially the same as the 105 5800 on my CAAD12, but I kept doing it).

Bar tape: I am terrible at wrapping bars. I have no fear of the mechanical or electronic portions of building a bike, but bar tape...I dunno. It's very stressful for me, I think because it's so visible, and I feel like everyone is looking at it and going, LOOK WHAT THAT AMATEUR DID! But, I think I actually did a credible job on this one, for once. Tip for anyone else that suffers the same phobia: Look for extra long tape, it's one less stressor!

Suppliers: Frame came from VO, obviously. I got the Di2 setup off eBay - oddly enough, that seems to be the easiest way to buy a groupset, if you need the whole thing. Bikesdirect.com for the wheels. I went to Biketiresdirect.com for a lot of the parts, and when I couldn't find what I wanted or needed there, I went to Amazon. I ordered a few random parts from other places, too - I think the handlebars came from another bike parts supplier.

Costs: I expected this to cost more than a pre-built bike would, but if I wanted that VO frame, building one was my only option. But now that I think about it, I might have actually saved a little money this way. This bike, the first result on google for "Di2 gravel bike", is $3495 with 2x, and I'm pretty sure I have less than that into my build. And I included pedals and a good saddle that fits me in the cost, neither of which comes with most pre-built bikes.

Plus, I probably put a few better components on than would be stock, like softer bar tape, and Easton stem and seat posts, and so on. And, I got the parts I needed - such as the correct stem length for me - so I'm not replacing parts that came with a pre-built bike, either.

So, while it doesn't feel like it, I probably did actually save some money over a pre-built bike. Of course, I spent hours working on it, and I bought several new tools at the same time - strangely, I never had a bike stand before, so I bought one as part of this build. (I don't count the tools as part of the build costs, as I'll very likely use them again.)

To do yet:

• Ride it and adjust the handlebar height as desired, then eventually cut the steerer tube, again. I did an initial cut to get it in the right ballpark, but there's likely another inch or so that could come off.

• Check the rear brake - it engages a lot lower than the front brake, so it might need to be bled. I adjusted the engagement point, but it's still quite different compared to the front. It doesn't feel spongy, and I can lock up the wheel, it just travels a lot farther back. I'd rather it be more consistent with the front brake.

• Adjust the clipless pedal tension. I'm used to SPD-SL cleats, and I've used SPD before, but I was having a miserable time with these at first, so I loosened the tension. I'll want to crank that back up.

• RIDE IT!

Mistakes I made:

• My biggest was the Di2 wiring thing. The frame was really intended to have cables, so I have bosses for shifters or cable mounts that I'm not using (they're covered with caps that are the same color as the frame, at least). I wonder how hard it is to remove that thing - I had to repair similar downtube bosses on my old aluminum bike, and that just had a metric threaded rod running between the two sides. Maybe cut a rubber plug for the holes...hmmmmmmmmm.

• I bought a second band clamp because I thought the first one was interfering with one of the water bottle cage bolts...but while I was waiting for the new clamp to arrive, I figured it out with the original clamp. Not sure what I was going wrong at first.

• There are a few spots I could switch to shorter Di2 cables, but the necessary length is extremely hard to predict, I've learned, and those cables are not cheap. One that's too long is the one for the rear derailleur, and that one would be very easy to change and could be done whenever I feel like it. The other is the cable from the junction near the bottom bracket to the shifter - I have a 1200 mm cable, but a few cm shorter wouldn't have hurt. But neither one is so long that it's a major problem, either.

Wow.

He's taking an indefinite leave of absence, though it looks like he was already on the IR due to ankle issues.

The 40v Ryobi string trimmer that I bought in 2020 is behaving strangely. It seems to be doing one of three things, depending on the day I use it:

• It works normally, or
• It will run as long as I hold the trigger down, but if I let it stop, it won't restart until I remove the battery for a moment, or
• It won't stop running - spinning at a very slow rate (not so fast that it's dangerous, but it shouldn't be doing it at all) - even when I let off the trigger.

This happens with both batteries I have - one is 4 ah and came with the trimmer, the other is a 5 ah and is about a year newer. There doesn't seem to be any consistency between how it operates and which battery I use.

Up until a few weeks ago the trimmer worked normally all the time, no issues at all. Then one day it started doing this out of the blue. There was no impact or damage to it.

Any thoughts? It feels like some sort of logic board issue to me, assuming there is one in the trimmer.

I'd think if it was the trigger itself, it would do one or the other thing and wouldn't reset when I removed the battery...but who knows.

Thanks for any ideas!

I use Samba backup and it runs nightly, fortunately.

I tried to update to the latest HA core the other day, and it failed. Reboot and weird things stop working all over the place. The log showed the recorder and a bunch of other things failed to start. When I looked at the command line, I found that files had apparently been corrupted. My configuration.yaml, all 791 lines of it, was gone, in favor of the stock configuration.yaml file.

I restored from the most recent backup before the trouble began, which was taken Saturday morning (I assume the corruption is why it didn't run after that). No dice. Friday's backup got me up and running again, fortunately. I had to re-do a few things I'd changed Friday, but what a relief.

I made the changes again and made a new full backup. I also increased the number of backups to keep from 7 to 10.

Do regular backups, people. Save yourself a lot of headache. I use the Samba option, but there are options to upload to things like cloud storage as well.

My wife picked up this puck at the Hockey Hall of Fame last week. I think there's something odd about Gritty...she disagrees. Not saying what it is so as not to bias you. I'd like to get a ruling from the internet on this, please!

I know no one has subbed to this Airstream community, but I'm posting this anyway. We're currently in Fort Collins, Colorado, and heading to Rock Springs tomorrow!

The Caps AHL affiliate, The Hershey Bears, beat the Coachella Valley Firebirds in game 7, in overtime, to win the Calder Cup! Congratulations, Bears!

This was actually two days ago...but someone had to post it.

In light of the issues going on the other site, I thought it would be a good idea to create an Airstream group here.