Bike Rack, Shoes, Bees and the Arraignment

We spent last Saturday and Sunday building a bike rack to put in the trailer that we will be towing to Tucson.  It does require than we take the front wheels off, but we're getting better with that, and with fixing the brake calipers which inexplicably tighten up the second the wheel is dropped.  It's so aggravating, I'm trying to get that moved into my "it is what it is" category so I quit being peeved about it.  This is rack number four; it's been 10 years since we built one so it did require careful and slow re-reading of the blog post that detailed what we did.  It's good to have a blog to write stuff down.

One thing we do is outline the pieces that are going on the plywood sheet, and drill holes from the top so we know where to insert the screws from the underside.  Then we glue the pieces to the top, and turn the whole thing over on its face.  Hot glue is excellent for this.  I used to have a giant glue gun that dispensed mass amounts of glue.  It, and my small glue gun, apparently went over the side when we emptied out the bus.  So I bought a new small glue gun. 

Does this look like a Barbie tool?  I mean really.  It was seduced by the carry case.  It is nice to have somewhere to keep it.

These are the bits we glued prior to screwing from the underside.

And..... this is the glue gun behaving badly on the last piece to go on.  Glue ceased going out the tip, backed up in the main part of it, and proceeded to come out the wrong end.  We eked out enough glue to get it done and tossed the wretched thing in the trash. 

So, now we have this.  It still needs handles and anchor points, but it's too hot to spend much time in the garage.  Maybe tomorrow.

This has been the summer of trying to buy shoes.  Given the state of my wretched feet, I generally plan to spend months on it.  As I previously mentioned, the Hoka Bondi 8 upgrade was a disaster for me. I'm pretty unhappy about this.  A google search on "shoes that are like Hokas" gave me a list, and I ordered one of everything.  All but one went back.  This is a Saucony Triumph 20, a brand I've never worn before.  Today they passed the vacuuming and cleaning the floor test.  I spent a couple of hours on my feet and there were no hot spots or major pain.  They are not as cushioned as a Hoka, but at present Hoka is dead to me.

The heel is pretty weird, sort of like a Hoka, but not.

So, maybe I have new shoes, maybe not.

In the Sonoran desert the bees are dying.  It's so hot, and so dry, that they can't maintain temperature in the hives.  Some of the hives are melting, it's just tragic.  If you're in the area, put out shallow pans of water for the bees.  More from CNN on this.

Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, the orange ectoplasm was arraigned.  I am very disappointed that there were no mug shots, hand cuffs or a perp walk, but he was told by the magistrate that if he continued to try to interfere with witnesses or jurors he'd be put in jail.  Jail would be good.  The Wall Street Journal, a conservative outlet owned by Rupert Murdoch, who support the orange guy had this to say.

The World Wildlife Fund has a new ad.  It's pretty good.

That's it!  Bike rack and perhaps shoes.