Barbell Squats

I've been hitting the weights lately, and watching a few Youtube videos for tips, techniques and motivation.

Gemstone Mining

Recently we took a day and went mining for gem stones.  In particular, we were after Star Garnets, the official state gemstone of Idaho.

KH500 refurbishment - Brakes

The most recent repair/refurbishment has been on the brakes.

KH500 Refurbishment - Engine re-assembly

I began re-assembly of the KH500 engine recently.

Pike's Peak Race - On Board

This year's winner...



The car:
Norma 2014 pikes peak unlimited division

Drivetrain: Mid Engine, RWD
Engine: 2.0L L4 Turbo Honda
Transmission: 6 Speed
Power: 450 hp
Weight: 610 kg

The winner in 1988, before the road was paved.  Definitely a much more hair-raising experience.


The car

How about on a motorbike with a professional racer?  That's pretty hair-raising too!

Four-Stroke Engines: Flatheads and OHV designs

Flathead Engines:

An early and very common valve arrangement was the "flathead" engine.

Four stroke engines - basics

On the earlier post about Two-Stroke Engines, much of the focus was on the difficulty two-strokes have with exhaust gas and intake charge flow reversal and flow-through.  There was also some discussion of engineering techniques that attempt to overcome these issues.

...about that diet...

In this post I mentioned how I go about diet and exercise.  At one point I mentioned that it's difficult to be on a ketogenic diet and perform strenuous exercise, particularly anaerobic exercises like lifting weights.

Exercise and fitness

I'm now a ways on the wrong side of 50 years old.   I've been weight training and doing light cardio for a few months now.  Progress is... not bad!  But it's also a bit slower than what I've experienced in the past.

More LED lighting

A few years ago, I had four incandescent garage lights replaced with 7 fluorescent tube lights fixtures, for a total of 14 bulbs, each 4 ft long.  I have 6 fixtures above the car bays, and one fixture by the man-door alcove.  Each bulb is 32 Watts, for a total of 448 Watts.

Over the years, I've had to replace a great number of bulbs, and they aren't cheap.  They run about $4 apiece, and I seem to be replacing 1-2 every month.  I suspect it's reduced mercury content causing the failure to ignite after a short time in service.  Also we turn them on and off quite a bit, which is hard on fluorescent bulbs.