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New Lathe
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I bought a 1949 South Bend 9" lathe. It came with a cool but large and heavy (400-500lbs) stand built by the previous owner. We couldn't figure out a way to get it into my basement until the seller thought of hiring a friend with this very useful knuckle crane.
The crane carried threaded the lathe and stand through my back yard, rolled it down a ramp into my basement, and delivered the package into my basement doorway.
This is a photo of the old lathe sitting on top of the new lathe just to give a size comparsion. The old lathe could turn material up to 14" long, the new one has a 36" bed. The new one is much more rigid and can take much deeper cuts in material.
The stand that I bought with the lathe is very nice. It has a large stock rack on the back for holding metal, 9 drawers for holding tooling, and an open area below for larger items.
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Zoos and Gardens in San Diego
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We've had a weekend of exploring the zoos and gardens. On Friday we went to the Wild Animal Park which is about 30 miles outside of San Diego. It is run by the San Diego Zoo and I think it is what many people think of when they are thinking about the zoo. We took the Photo Safari through Africa which was expensive but well worth it, you really get up close with the animals. It brought back memories of visiting Zimbabwe as a child since most of the same animals were on display. Of course in Zimbabwe they weren't so easy to find.
On Saturday we went to Quail Botanical Gardens, also north of San Diego. The gardens are pretty large (35 acres) and have a number of areas specializing in things like native California plants, South African plants, Bamboo, a nice herb garden, and cacti. It was a nice garden with a lot to see and explore.
We spent this morning and early afternoon in Balboa Park, right in the middle of San Diego. In the morning we went through the zoo, starting with a gondola ride to the far end of the park and then walking back through the exhibits. The animal collection didn't have much overlap with the Wild Animal Park which made it nice to visit both of them. There were a lot of great birds on display in the zoo and we enjoyed the hippos and polar bears. Most of the animals were hiding in the shade because of the record heat, over 90F.
After the zoo we wandered around some other parts of Balboa Park, checking out the Museum of Photography (small but nice exhibits), the Botanical House (unlike Seattle they have to make shade here so that they don't cook the plants -- there is no glass to keep the heat in).
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Lost in La Jolla
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Christine dropped me off a little outside of Seaworld. My goal -- Ride to our hotel in La Jolla. I had no map, but it seemed like it would be easy since the bike routes were well marked and La Jolla was only about 8 miles north. As long as I kept the ocean on my left I'd be okay.
The ride started out pretty well. I followed a couple of other cyclists out to Pacific Beach, did some people watching on the very crowded beach (first hot day this spring/summer apparently). Just as I was getting sick of the thick crowds near the beach I found a bike route sign pointing to UCSD (near our hotel) and followed it.
I either missed a bike route sign or the sign took me up a road called La Jolla Mesa. I realized that I was lost when I had passed the same intersection at the top of La Jolla Mesa two or three times. It's really easy to lose sense of direction when surrounded by similar looking very expensive houses on roads with no right angles and fences tall enough to block the views of the ocean.
When I got to this view and could see my hotel hundreds of feet below I decided to check the maps available through my cell phone:
My hotel is down there, near the two white steeples in the upper right of the photo. The roads around me looked like this:
I was outside of Mount Soledad Park, about 800 feet above sea level. Not exactly what I had planned, but it was a fun descent down back into the La Jolla valley before the final climb up to my hotel. When I plotted my route out it looks like I went about 20 miles and climbed 1500'. Lots of great views, some good beach riding, and a fun climb. I was sad to check the maps, but I'd do it all again.
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Balboa Park
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San Diego has an interesting layout. The airport is right in the center of the city (literally a 10 minute bike ride from downtown). Balboa Park is also downtown. Standing at the corner of 6th and Laurel it feels like you can reach up and touch the landing gear on planes as they come in for a landing.
Balboa Park is huge. Not as large as Central Park in New York or Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, but larger than Discovery Park in Seattle. There are tons of museums, some nice gardens, a huge zoo, the velodrome, and lots of other stuff.
What brought me to Balboa Park this morning were trails. Flying into San Diego I was looking out of the airplane window and there were trails everywhere in the hills outside of the city. I don't have time on this trip to ride out to those trails, but I read that there were trails in Balboa Park too. I found them.
Folding bikes with 16" wheels aren't known for their offroad handling. These trails wouldn't be technical on any sort of mountain bike, or much of anything on a touring or cyclocross bike, but they were pretty challenging with 16" wheels. Trails here are much different than in Seattle -- you can look around and see where everything is instead of being buried in thick forest. The surface was sand instead of mud. The plants are flowering in early april, and falling might involve landing on a cactus. All good stuff.
If you are coming to San Diego and have a travel bike then I recommend bringing it. Having a few days of summer riding in the middle of Seattle's spring has been very refreshing. Tomorrow my wife arrives and we move farther up the coast -- I look forward to seeing what riding I find up there too.
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San Diego Velodrome
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I'm in San Diego this week for a conference and brought my folding bike. Yesterday morning I exploring town and the friendly folks at Mission Hill Bikes told me that the San Diego Velodrome has racing on Tuesday nights. I finished up work a bit early and headed over there.
The ride over turned into a bit of an adventure when my headlight decided that it no longer wanted to be attached to my handlebars and found it's way into a gutter. I pressed on in the twilight just pretending that I was extra invisible the cars. The velodrome itself was pretty hard to find too, but eventually I got there.
I got the see the last three races of the evening. The track here is a lot like at home -- much longer than normal and concrete. Lots of fixie folks hanging out at the track and having a couple of beers. On my way out asked the closest small group for directions (hoping to find a more direct way home). They suggested that I go out to the bar with them instead, so I piled into their van and five of us went to a place called the Whistle Stop. A few beers, a taco, fun conversation, and a little dancing later and it was already last call. Thankfully Joel and Amelia gave me a ride back into town and I got back into my hotel room right at 2am.
Mark, Javier, Amelia, Joel, Adam, Me
Cyclists and other folk in San Diego are very friendly. I'm really glad that I brought the bike (I almost didn't) and got to spend some time around town last night.