I’ve been a sort of lazy mechanic since birth. I’ve usually allowed other people to take care of mechanical problems that I found challenging.

This spring, an unnamed local bike shop, (lbs) sort of hosed me. At the time I was pretty upset about it, but in retrospect I think it was ninety percent my responsibility and ten percent the local bike shop.

I brought my Felt F1X in for a creaky noise on the non-drive side of the crank. I told the mechanic, a good kid who has been super helpful in the past, that my cyclocross bike was making some creaking noises. I wasn’t sure if it was the crank, the pedal, or something else. I left it there for the day, and picked it up at five. The kid said he couldn’t replicate it, but that I might think about replacing the cranks. We talked about a Shimano Dura-Ace upgrade, and a few other ideas, and then I biked home. I took the back way up Westnedge Hill and over some grass through Crane Park. In the tough part of the climb I was head over handlebars pumping uphill when the non-drive side of the crank snapped off the bottom bracket. I went down hitting my man business, (yes the pods) on the seat and then went down in the dirt. I walked the bike home sort of fuming along the way.

I was pretty pissed. I had just brought the bike in to the LBS to have this exact problem looked over. The kid probably didn’t ride it, tried to sell me a dura-ace crank set, ($650) and then sent me on me way. I brought it back to them and explained what happened. They replaced the crank at half cost and then sent me on my way again.

I knew what was wrong with the bike, I ride the bike every day, and my inability to articulate the problem and even attempt a repair had led to the problem. Of course when this happened in October that was not how I felt. But hindsight and all that usual stuff…

I was determined after this to become more self-reliant when it came to my bike maintenance. I attended a bike maintenance class at Breakaway Bikes in Portage Michigan. I’ve tried to pick up a few more tools. Unfortunately I keep putting off buying a real bike stand. I think I can’t put that off any longer.

Tonight with only the Park Tools website , one video I found on Expert Village., and a borrowed pedal wrench I managed to swap out two sets of SPD style pedals. Editor’s Note: both of those sites could use some SEO friendly URLs.

Once I figured out how to get the best mechanical advantage I took a nicer set of Shimano SPD clipless pedals off of my Vintage Trek Elance, and put them on my commuter bike, my Bianchi San Jose. I also attached my pannier rack which has been sitting in the trunk of my Volvo all winter.

All in all this left me with a bike I fixed myself, one scraped knuckle, and a generally manly and satisfied feeling.

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XML Sitemap Generator for Google Webmaster Tools

I found this site XML Sitemaps for Generating XML sitemaps for Google Webmaster Tools.

The tool is free if you are trying to index a site that has less than 500 pages of content. There is a paid version of the tool for sites with more than 500 pages. The options are fairly clear and I think the XML looks pretty simple. This seems to be a good option for either the lazy or the XML inept.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes. It would seem that for folks who are trying to get some very basic SEO in place an auto-generated Sitemap is not a bad idea. As the search engine will spider the xml sitemap and index it your basic search relevance and ranking is more likely to be elevated.

I’ve just entered mine and will see how it progresses. I may have to replace it in a while after I’ve added more content.

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Comedy Skit with Ben Stiller of the Locals Only Surf Beach

I’m not sure how old this skit is, or on which tv show it might have first appeared. Based on the fact that the Malone Brothers are in it, it seems likely it is recent. I’m pretty sure I met these guys on the boardwalk right next to Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz.

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It doesn’t happen very often, but I thought I might like to write about a good Flash experience lest I be labeled a Luddite. Derrick Mayoleth’s blog listed this LA Times Article.

This flash piece despite the fact that it does pretty much take over the whole content area is visually impressive enough to make it worth your while. But it isn’t just aesthetics or subject matter that makes it appealing.

Size

The size of the element is big enough that it causes a scroll on the screen. No big deal the fold as we know is dead anyway. But this element still works because of the way it is embedded. The page is already scrolling due to the large amount of navigation and the content on the page. The Altered Oceans element also has no hard borders and breaks on the edges to hide . The element also h

Prevalence and Balance

This flash piece also has prevalence, meaning everything has weight and balance. The large image of the sewer pipe draws your eye and the header element to its right clearly explains what you are looking at and why. The overall header while somewhat muted in black is styled differently but appropriately to let you know the overall title of the piece. The white text to the right explains exactly how many pieces are in the expose and who wrote and photographed it. The call to action area with the message board is present, but not loud.

The sections are laid out in a logical fashion and have good imagery and clear readable text. The highlighted section, “part one” is faded out to indicate which section you are currently looking at.

Navigation

The navigation is very straightforward. There are no hidden options or surprises. There is an absolute minimum on iconagraphy. What little symbols are used are accommodated by sensible text such as “Read Story”, or “view”.

Small Problems

The flashing numbers area is the only area where I might have done something different. The stats that flash across have a short delay, and every time I looked it seemed like they were fading out to the next stat. Slightly aggravating. It would also have been a good idea to tie these into an article and make them clickable.

The video player not being integrated into the main element seemed to take a long time to load and then had a lot of flourish with little delivery. Also the video controls did not have standard elements such as a volume control. As a more advanced user, I can use my system volume but why make me do that? Put in a volume control on your flash player.

If it was me I would rethink how to incorporate the video player into the main element, rather than navigating to a second window. But the videos were well worth watching once I was in them. Also they had a really cool feature where you could use a slider bar to increase or decrease the size of the video on the fly. A+ for that, but the time would have been better spent on a volume control.

Good Execution on a Simple Design

Most of the time when I see Flash I see it used poorly for no effect. Here it actually made for a good user experience and made me want to read the articles and see the content, instead of inhibiting my ability to do so with non-standard controls, and poor performance.

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Kayak Surfing Santa Cruz

I was fortunate enough on my SMX west conference to swindle two days of kayak surfing near Santa Cruz into the mix.

I did some research about where to rent a surf kayak, but then remembered the flippant offer from world surf competitor Sean Morely to give him a call if I wanted to surf. I managed to get a hold of him and he offered to take me out, but it didn’t work out, and he had a class to attend for a new ACA surf instructor certification. So he benevolently lent me a carbon kevlar Valley Rush and a paddle.

Sean gave some advice that Davenport, about 10 Miles north of Santa Cruz would probably be the best place to try as it is more paddle surfer friendly. Laura and I loaded up the surf kayak on our tiny rental car and drove north along California Highway 1. The drive is beautiful with a dramatic coastline and lots of open space unlike a lot of Southern California. We found Davenport Landing quite easily. I walked down the beach and checked out the break. A medium size swell was breaking in a manageable fashion off of some offshore rocks. But the waves came right up to some cliffs and rocks. On the other side of the break and further out, there were some very large faces that appeared to be more dumpy. I was clearly not going to go near that.

Day 1 Davenport Landing

I suited up and headed out. Again, paddling out on flat water is always a treat for a midwestern boy! Once out I was quite cautious because of all the rocks. but once I started catching rides I calmed down a bit. I caught a number of excellent rides and scooted off the back before they crashed into the onshore rocks. Faces were 4-6 feet at most. I managed to only wipe out once or twice. I can say that I had forgotten how awful it is to use a straight shaft white water paddle for rolling, the indexing is very iffy and I felt pretty rushed to get some air a few times.

Day 2 Davenport Landing

This day was far windier than the first. Wind was peaking at about 20 knots. This is more what I am accustomed to kayak surfing on Lake Michigan. The faces were smaller and harder to catch. I still caught some great rides. I even managed to paddle with some other kayak surfers, which is a first for me. And as it turns out fortuitous. I had the bum luck of a dumb swim. The wind and the rip carried me to the far end of the break, and I had to stand cold, tired, and feeling a little stupid on the beach. The surf was not even as big as it had been on Lake Michigan on days when I had stayed in the boat. I keep reminding myself that for a beginning kayak surfer on Great Lakes Surf with no training, maybe I should be more forgiving of my follies. Hopefully I get to make a few more mistakes!

The Valley Rush Surf Kayak

The kayak was excellent! I’ve never surfed such a fast surf craft. Once downwave this boat was unbelievable. It’s far and above the sweetest ride I’ve had yet. The power pocket tail was really helpful in getting a good takeoff. Though it seemed a little loose in the tail on some turns where I got squirted out of the whitewater. I think the fin placement could have used a little adjustment to the back to allow me to grab a little tighter.

Many Thanks to Sean for the opportunity to paddle the Rush!

Check out the picasa picture gallery:

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I was fortunate enough to attend the excellent SMX West Conference. The Search Engine Marketing conference was excellent. I met a ton of really excellent people and learned a ton from the conference. I was especially interested in James Lamberti’s talks on Brand Experience and search. My experience with search at this point in my career is less about transactional user activity as it is about users associating broad search terms with familiar brands. Lamberti had a lot of great material on the subject hopefully I will be able to put it to use.

The terms blended or universal search were omnipresent, and it became clear that it local, video, image, and other search categories are still under utilized by most search firms. Our use of it in my current position for our Consumer Package goods clients is not abundant and hopefully I will have a chance to see some changes in this as time goes on.

I came back energized from the experience and feel more humbled than informed. Hopefully as time goes on I will have insights instead of a banal event report to offer.

My big takeaway from the experience is that it’s best to pace yourself when socializing. Two words: google groove.

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Is Sea Kayaking a Commercial Sport?

I was asked by my good friend of LuckyKitchen.com Aeron Bergman’s father a good number of years ago when Turtleneck.net was still in action if I felt that the internet was over-saturated with content. It was a really interesting question. I didn’t really have the context at the time to answer the question, it was 1999 for pities sake.

In the sea kayaking blogosphere and especially in the expedition blogs there seems to be a plethora of dynamic people creating top flight content. Unfortunately it seems mostly created out of misery, breakups, arguments, failed partnerships, failed romances, divorces, but surrounded, if not wrapped like a falafel sandwich in the pita bread of spectacular paddling trips and seasoned with heroic efforts. Of course people like Shawna and Leon break that rule.

Greg Stamer has created his first Blog for his trip around Newfoundland as a sponsored paddler. In his post on blogging he stated that he doesn’t enjoy reading blow by blow travelogues of kayaking trips. I can understand the aversion to the gory details. But I also wonder if this is also an aversion to the medium due to the seeming over-saturation of kayaking expeditions to the same four places: Iceland, New Zealand, Australia, and Newfoundland. Do we need another one?

Who wants to read another blow by blow of a trip round New Zealand? Chris Duff pretty well had that covered in his spectacular book, Southern Exposure. I wonder though if Chris might have been tempted to blog if it had been available as a mass consumed medium in 2003. In five years so much has changed about the web. Certainly the overused phrase of Web 2.0 and consumer generated content is paramount here.

Sea kayaking has seemed to me; as an athlete of both running, cycling, and soccer a sport that is horrifically uncompetitive. Before this comes off sounding terrible, there are some very athletic, talented sea kayakers that are very impressive. But in order to become sponsored as a runner, or a cyclist, or as a soccer player, one would have to be so much better than everyone else that it would stagger you to think about it. I’ve played soccer against a few semi-pro and professional players in pickup matches and I can tell you that despite years of training the difference between us was night and day. Running and cycling again are perhaps even worse. My marathon time of 3:40 while quite fast for an amateur and a first marathon is still one hour and thirty minutes slower than the guy who won the race. Cycling again is so competitive that in order to stay in the game performance enhancing drugs have become the norm not the exception.

So where am I going with this? I think with Greg Stamer stepping into the realm of professional kayaking, his blog, and his trip Sea Kayaking might be entering into the realm of professional athletes. As strange as this might sound to Greg, I see this as the end of amateur night. For better or worse. And before you say it this is not so much about Greg, but about the trend. Greg whom I’ve never met, and only emailed with occasionally when debates got heated on Qajaqusa.org forums. He seems to me to be a terrific person and a very dedicated paddler, and who is a great ambassador for paddling in general, not just traditional paddling.

Justine Curgenven’s This is The Seavideos over the last few years, Brian Smith’s Pacific Horizon Video all lead to an increasing marketing push to fund bigger and better trips for more people over a year. This is great in that it brings visibility to the sport, but maybe sad in a way. I think it may eventually lead to a decline in accessibility to good informal training from people as great as Greg Stamer, Leon Somme, Shawna Franklin, Justine Curgenven, Jeff Allen, and Simon Osborne.

Because I help plan a small symposium I’ve noticed that most of the professional paddlers in the years between 2003 and 2006 were fairly accessible and inexpensive to consider, as the years have gone on there are more and more symposiums every year, and a growing number of great paddlers with very booked social calendars. This is great! But also I fear the beginning of the end for smaller local symposiums with low budgets.

For those that might not know this, these symposiums have traditionally been run by local clubs with no profit at the end. The object is to net out at 0 so that the symposium pays for itself. And this may be how all symposiums are run, certainly no one is getting rich, not even the sponsored paddlers. There aim is solely to get their name out to do more symposiums, support their sponsors, and because it is fun. My worry is that the little, out of the way symposiums, in non-glamorous places like Muskegon Michigan may no longer be part of the whirlwind tour. I hope I am wrong.

William Gibson said at the release of his previous novel (2003), Pattern Recognition, that life these days doesn’t seem to be so much about the avoidance of marketing, but the inevitability of it. And for Sea Kayaking that time may have come. White Water paddling has certainly been there for ages with a small number of inapproachable stars who compete for small pots of cash at events. Eric Jackson being the most notable. Surf Kayaking also has its stars, note the wrap up of the Santa Cruz Surf Kayak Festival.

Because Sea Kayaking is more about journeys than pulling of sweet tricks in a hole, (this is the sea notwithstanding), I think climbing may be a more accurate partner for the commercialization of sea kayaking. Who knows perhaps it is this approachability to the amateur that makes Sea Kayaking so great. Anyone can get in and do it. And unless we really are talking about circumnavigating Iceland it is a relatively low impact, easy going sport with little risk.

The people I’ve met through paddling have been some of the greatest I’ve ever met. I certainly am not calling up old soccer buddies to crash on their couch and play pick up games when I have free time. But I certainly will call up just about anyone I’ve met paddling even once to go paddle, sleep on their couch, eat their food, and vice versa.

I think this may be that moment for paradigm shift, or a nodal point where everything seems to change, but who knows maybe some people saw this moment 10 years ago. Paddle sports are quite unusual.

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Four weeks after my initial physician visit, I went in for another consulation with my family doctor. My family doctor, another runner, performed a hernia examination. His immediate conclusion was to see a surgeon about an Inguenal Hernia. While this may sound like bad news to most people. To me it is the solution to a complex anatomical algebraic equation with the variable x.

The prognosis seems to be see the surgeon, get surgery, have a teflon belt inserted in the abdominal wall, heal for two-three weeks, back on the road.

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For dad!!!

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Wordpress Launched.

Hopefully everything is working properly. Send me an email if anything looks out of whack. Unless of course you can’t post comments …

I have a couple of good articles I’ve been saving up until the redesign and launch was up. Icepaddle 2008 and Santa Cruz Kayak Surfing.

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