From 1871 Scribner’s. Hooray Google Books!
Seat post blues
About twenty years ago I bought a bike from a friend of my brother’s. He was trying to get a custom frame shop off the ground and he built me two frames from Columbus El/OS steel.
Great bikes. Many fun miles.
I realized that my seat was not moving up and down as well as it should this weekend. I also realized that I hadn’t greased the seatpost in too many years.
Pulling it out was difficult. Really difficult. Really difficult.
Here’s the rub. I have a Thompson seat post (SP-E124) 28.6mm x 410mm, model number 12263.
The seat tube opening, no compression, is at 30.25mm. (The clamp ring is welded onto the frame.)
Problems:
The current shim is 50mm long. From what I’ve read, you want the shim to extend past the joint of the seat tube and the downtube. This isn’t even close. I need a longer shim, say 100mm.
The current shim has walls that are 1.3mm thick, which I think is the major problem. If the post is 28.6 and the shim adds 2.6mm, I’m at 31.2mm. No wonder it’s tough to get in and out. I need a thinner shim, one that takes me from 28.6mm to 30.25mm; basically one that adds 1.6mm to the post.
Looking at various bike supply sites, a post at 28.6mm seems to have gone out of style (they’re not made any more), so it doesn’t seem as though I can buy a ready made product. I’d also note that Thompson seems to be pretty clear that they don’t recommend using a shim with their posts but that ship has sailed.
Question: what would be the problem with buying this product? It would get me really close to the right width (30mm). Would it be wide enough? Would clamping make up the difference? Would it rattle in the frame?
I realize I’m trying to solve a problem created within the design. But I really just want to ride my bike without worry.
Day one: Staff and Students
It’s that time of the year where your curriculum and proposed projects shine, untouched by actual students or the reality of life in school. We start working with our staff tomorrow, starting the community building process and introducing everyone to the Workshop Cool Aid. Oh yeah.
I’m going to begin with an icebreaker/circle activity where the group answers the following questions:
What’s your name,
what’s your grade/Position,
where have you been,
and where are you going.
I’ll make clear that they can answer any way they want, from the most literal — I’ve been to the coffee shop this morning — to the most figurative — I’ve been to the mountaintop. After we’ve gone around once, I’ll ask for a few folks to talk about the role of the Workshop School in one or both.
If one of the primary points of the opening day is to underscore how our place is different, I hope this activity asks participants to think about how they got here. Short trip? Long trip? Bumpy ride? Smooth ride?
Also part of this process is the question of how our place will help students (and staff) think about how this school will help them get where they’re going.
I like these questions so long as I make clear that they can be as high-stakes and low-stakes as people want them to be; anyone can answer and feel like they can answer without feeling vulnerable (the opposite of what was the last great book you read or questions like what was the biggest challenge you face?) Everyone has a chance to participate in the circle.
Variation one: Play Johnny Cash version of Hank Snow song, I’ve been everywhere. People would then make as long a list as they could of where they’ve been.
Variation two: Play JC song and then have folks make a list of all the schools they’ve attended, one after another.
Variation three: Have people make the list of where they’re going in the future, place after place.
Variation four: After each person says where they’re going, the person next to them describes how they’re going to help them get there.
Variation five: Have a map for folks to put a pin on all the places they’ve been. Give them one pin for a place they’d like to go.
Making Learning Whole
Liking this book…Perkins is not overclaiming, not trying to kill you with the scholarship, and carefully offers some things to consider in framing a teaching practice.
Four things:
1. The question I’ve been churning on is “what makes something hard ?” He frames this out to help separate normal stuff that all humans contend with (I’d rather eat cookies than steamed broccoli) so that you can consider when and where your students will stumble. It was helpful for me to think about academic/intellectual stumbles and trying to identify the exact spots where they’ll need help.
2. In this section, he references an article I need to track down, where the authors discuss what can go wrong when kids don’t have enough structure or scaffolding in doing project based learning/problem based learning/inquiry learning.
Kichscner, PA, J Sweller, and R.E. Clark. “Why Minimal Guidance during Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem Based, Experiential and Inquiry-Based Teaching.” Educational Psychologist 41, no. 2 (2006): 75–86.
3. There’s no reference to Grant Wiggins here. I like his books and thought Perkins travels many of the same roads; I might replace Educative Assessment with this book if I ever do teacher ed again. Just interesting that scholars can have similar conclusions and work in such similar areas yet you’d not know it.
4.Perkins uses foreground as a verb. A lot. Nothing new there. Got me thinking…what words/expressions do I use, knowing that I once I made my list, I was going to visual thesaurus.
clarifies
highlights
puts forward
advances
demonstrates
VT jpg:
Perkins, David N. Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform Education. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 2009.
Is the ground too hot?
Got back from vacation and the garden had cooked the lettuce into giant flowers. May be too hot, but I’m going to try and start summer plants with the hopes I can harvest in October.
SSE: Blondkopfchen
SSE: Hartman’s Yellow Gooseberry
SSE: Plum Lemon
SSE: Gold Rush Currant
All of the left over basil seeds.
Traveling and how we live
It was a privilege to travel for thirteen days across the American West. It fed my soul.
As we’re driving Wyoming, the incessant American need for more natural resources stayed in constant view. You’re always in sight of a gas or oil operation — you can see them dotted across the landscape — even if you rarely find yourself confronted with a massive coal operation, as we did on Tuesday. Driving past the Thunder Bay Mining Operation — an operation I know nothing about (maybe it’s the cleanest, best coal company going) — and you’re struck by the massive scale. Those trucks your kids you used to watch in videos? There they are. Signs that read “Blasting ahead! Avoid Orange Cloud” are on the side of the road. The landscape has been dug up and completely turned over.
Yet you’ll only see this if you go down the side road of a side road, a highway you needn’t ever travel.
How do you convince people to change their behavior when the thing that enables their behavior is wrecking the land 2000 miles away on a highway they will never see? How do you underscore how all decisions are interconnected when so much of mass culture is designed to make sure you don’t make those connections?
Wildlife from Yellowstone
Bison
Elk
Black Bear
Pronghorn
Mule Deer
One view from Mt. Washburn
Sunday, July 10th, Hike.
Modern Travel
6:05 Wake up in Keystone, South Dakota. Leave in rented Kia Rio
Drive 374 miles.
12:25 Drop car at Denver International Airport
12:30 Get on bus to go into terminal
1:10 Get on short train to go to gate
3:05 Fly 800 miles to Houston
7:05 Take short train to new gate
7:40 Fly 1200 miles to Philadelphia
11:50 Hit Uber app. Taxied 10 miles home.
1:00 Go to sleep.
Almost 100 miles an hour for sixteen hours straight.
Cool article about small vert farms
Article here.
