My search/match criteria is pretty simple, and when I come across a profile I am not interested in I click 'hide' to keep my following searches clean.  This keeps me from seeing the same users again and again in my match searches. 

Recently during my searches, and mind you this is right now with 16,111k users online at this very moment...  I've been getting the following;

That's Staff Robot's subtle way of saying, "Hey, Sparky... how about lowering your standards?"

And when it's not busy insulting me, I think it's been using my 'someone chose you on QuickMatch!' and 'Quiver' as it's own personal toilet bowl.

I'll go to the rink and turn left for the next couple hours.  I've got nothing else going on today.

Audreystats threw up some photos from the last Wumpskate.  It was a 'Steampunk' theme night.  I think my theme for the evening was 'slipped away from his handlers when their backs were turned'.

At least she was kind enough not to post the photos of me laying flat on my back the times I crossed up my skates under me or fell while skating backwards.

Next Wumpskate is December 8th.

-Mike-

Rollerskating was awesome. Only about 10 people were at the rink tonight and they were all derby types. The derby girls beat the crap out of me. I now know how to drop to either knee while rolling and get back up on the fly. Drop to both knees and slide out. And stylishly drop to one knee and pivot 180 degrees to a stop. They also taught me some speed tricks, and I've got my skates dialed in primo. I can keep up with them around the oval now.

All is right and at peace in my world.  Despite the fact that I'm a little sore.

The gear is on the counter, airing out... waiting for the next time I'll pack it up and head to the rink to spin my wheels.

-Mike-

Since I've been improving what seems like exponentially on my skates I've had to make some upgrades or I'll destroy them in short order. 

One of the things I've had to do was purchase some toe guards.  Toe guards are useful in that when you drop to your knee or knees while moving they keep you from tearing the crap out of your expensive skate boots.  Which lately I've been doing when I fumble instead of just falling on my ass.

These are what a standard set of Riedell toe skids look like.

The bit with the big hole is supposed to go between your toe stop and the skate plate, the bit with the smaller holes gets laced into your boot.

I saw a problem right off the bat.  Anybody that's tightened any type of material between a nut and a surface knows that the material will bunch up and twist as you torque the nut down.  There needs to be washers on either side of the material to prevent this.

I had to source washers to prevent this from happening, but I also did not want to add an assload of weight to my skates where every gram counts.  So I sourced some 18ga 5/8 in. ID ~ 1 in. OD stainless machine bushings.  Wafer thin and just slightly larger than the nut itself.

This allowed me to get the proper torque on my toe stop locknut to keep the toe guard in place without it twisting off to one side in the process.

And the final product.  I trimmed off the excess toe guard since I was only using the first set of holes given that my boots have lace guards in place.  They'll do for now, but I'm going to take a PVA mold of the toes of these boots on my vac-table and lay up some custom Carbon-Kevlar toe guards that will last longer and fit perfectly.  Fuck, if the Frey Daytona boots I race the F1 with have them, why can't my skate boots?

Why is everything involving roller skates so stone-age low-tech?  It's frustrating at times.

Another minor addition to my arsenal was that I purchased a good helmet.  I've had a couple spills bad enough now that I nearly whacked my head on the rink surface.  And I've been one to shut the barn door before the horses got out, not after.  As we say in racing, All The Gear All The Time.

Tomorrow I'll go to the rink and see how far I can slide on my Rectors before I eat wood.

-Mike-

It seems lately my life has revolved around work.  I've been grinding away at the machine quite a bit recently.  It's almost to the point that when I'm not passed out asleep, I'm at a desk/laptop/smartphone punching deck putting out some fire keeping the massive serchalator running.

The stress does twist on me at times I have to admit.

Today I had to repair my 'back door' into the network that I use for emergency purposes.  Nothing major, a simple trip out to our colocation facility with a new firewall I built just for the purpose to hang off the DSL line.  But what I'd been using for my emergency entry point into the network was 'Moike' my own personal toy.

Racked up nearly four years ago, 'Moike' was my own little black stealthy 1u server packed full of neat crap, used mostly to play on-line games with friends.  I loved to use it to develop and tweak plug-ins for the games and spent hours into the night hosting deathmatches and co-op games.

But work and other obligations had shouldered in on my life over the last couple years, and 'Moike' had fallen into a state of neglect.  Patches were not done, the hardware started to feel the strains of entropy.  And sure enough, 'Moike' experienced catastrophic failure and quietly died in the racks unattended, alone.

So I was in the cages today to unrack my personal toy that I no longer had the time or energy these days to play with.  Replacing it with an actual useful production tool.  A simple boring firewall that is now where 'Moike' used to be, humming away and doing it's corp. duty.

'Moike' sits on my bench now, gutted, drives out, and ready to be stripped down to component parts for spares.  No longer a game server.  The philosophical end of one era and the beginning of a new one in my life.  Like Peter Pan suddenly snapped out of it and said, "I'm a grown-ass man in a pair of tights." shrugged, lit a cigarette... and walked off into the sunset.  Suddenly I've come to a point in my life where I no longer have the luxury of time to play games.

I find myself saying that about a lot more than just dead hardware in racks these days.

The rollergirl and I went to the rink last night here in Santa Cruz for more lessons.  I got quite a few more additions to my skillset with her help.

Finally I can say I can skate backwards.  The math and physics in my head told me this was totally possible and it was all a simple application of force and geometry.  On actual practice I could go two feet and come to a grinding halt every time I tried... Most of the time actually starting to roll forward again like the rink was sloped downhill.

Well last night I learned the secret was upright, weight slightly on the toes, feet in, and just a quick in/out motion with the heels while transferring weight smoothly from skate to skate as you make your pushes and twists of the hip.

Not the easiest thing to do from a dead stop.  So I learned how to skake forward and turn cleanly around in one motion to skating backward at speed.  This at first involved lots of me hitting the ground like a bag of wet sand.

The idea here is just to have the weight on my dominant (left skate as I am moving forward, lift my right skate, spin it behind me while pointing the toe of my right skate backwards so it lands heel first on the floor behind and to the left of my left skate.  When it lands I simply rise up on the front wheels of my left skate and it snaps cleanly around in a 180 allowing me to complete the turn and continue to skate backwards.  Lather/rinse/repeat for turning around forwards for the most part.

I also learned how to skate in circles.  Which is still tricky as I'm having issues getting my skates heel to heel parallel and making a smooth arch without chattering the wheels of at least one skate.

###

I also built and sold another pair of custom skates.  These ones are figure skates.  Chicago boots and skate plates.  I stripped all the parts off the skates and took them down to bare metal.

I then heat treated and polished the axles on the trucks.

From there all the parts went on the powdercoating rack where I shot them with Eastwood 'wrinkle black' powder.

Then into the oven to bake at 450 for 25 minutes and cure at 400 for 20 after flow out.

While the parts were baking I got to work on the other bits.  First I polished all the fasteners I would be using to a mirror finish.

And then I assembled the wheels I'd be using.  Riedell 'Clash' 62mm/96a durometer speed wheels with Bones 'Redz' bearings lubricated with Repsol full synthetic 4T lightweight oil.

I machined a special tool just for pressing wheel bearings that allows me to set the bearings without putting any strain on the inner race.  So I get a perfect seat without scoring the races.

Meanwhile the parts were out of the oven and had cooled.  The wrinkle black finish was flawless.

Then it was dry assembly of the components to make sure everything fit and moved correctly before final assembly.

And then final assembly of the skates.

I was pleased with how this pair turned out.  I took them to the October Wumpskate with the intention to see if they'd garner any interest for custom skates.  The first person to try them out bought them after just a couple laps of the rink.  They could not believe how well they were set up and felt compared to the skates they were on.  He also commissioned me to build a custom pair for his wife for her birthday in a few weeks.  I'm thinking a custom skate boot with more of an industrial feel and something a little more heavy metallic and candy in the powdercoat finish.

Been hanging out in OKC SF stickam quite a bit.  It's amusing at times, mostly it's 99.9% 'yo momma so fat'.

At the October Wumpskate Audrey fired off a candid shot of me at the end of the night that I actually liked...

-Mike-

We kicked ass... found all kinds of speed.  Had a blast, weather was great, weekend was flawless.

Here's a little video mix of the on track action shot from my perspective. (opens in new window)

Willow Springs SRA-West October '09 Race

-Mike-

This is how much my job rules...

I spent yesterday skating around the office.  Literally.  I got to work, put on my Riedell Phantoms, and spent the day skating around the office.

Where I work... Nobody blinked an eye.  When I come into the office most of the time I'm in a black RevCo t-shirt and PJ bottoms with socks on.

After 23 server memory upgrades at the colo and feeling loopy?  This is how I tend to behave...

It's good to be the King and get to play with all the toys how you choose.  I do love my job and the stupid amount it pays.

-Mike-