bikes and keyboards
First of all, I'm not sure if anybody actually reads livejournals anymore, but this was the only outlet I could think of to write all of this information. Secondly, I think that Jason will be the only person who cares about this entry and I'm pretty sure he is still livejournal-active.
I rode my new bike to work today! I have decided to call it THE DESTRUCTOR! Actually I decided that awhile ago, but didn't feel like I could name it until I had ridden it a longish distance. My top time for the bike ride in to work is 21 minutes. This is down from my original time of 30 minutes the first time I made the ride last fall. Today my time was 26 minutes, which I consider good. I did end up having to push it up the second half of the big hill past the lake. There are a couple of factors that I feel need to eventually be worked out with this bike, and these factors prevent me from being able to comfortably stand up and pedal on it. I think if I was able to do that, I could have made that hill. First of all, I need another three inches of height on my seat. This sounds like a job for a seat-post extender! I also either need new handlebars or a way of raising these up because not only was the angle awkward, but it really hurt my wrists after awhile. The downward-defaulting pedals are retarded and are uncomfortable no matter which way they are facing.
The great thing about today's ride is that I was SO much less tired when I reached my destination. The Destructor's frame is so much lighter than anything I have ridden before. And I've never had an actual road bike. So I think it was a lot easier and I put less effort into the ride than I have had to in the past. On the way home, let me tell you, I got going F-A-S-T going down that huge hill. Probably faster than I have ever gone before. It was awesome and a little frightening. I've never kept track of my time coming home before, but today it was 21 minutes, which is the same as my record for going in, so that felt badass.
Yesterday afternoon I was messing with my Casio PT100 and I think I've found some cool bends that I can assign knobs and switches to. There is a distortion, which I was hesitant to use at first because it's like, distortion on keyboard? but I like it. There is a vibrato-type effect that I think is being caused by an LFO, and there is also something that takes the resonance out of the voice. And I'm going to do a starve knob on the power supply. I almost completely ruined this keyboard effing around with it, though! After I touched two points with a wire, the notes F and B sounded TERRIBLE on the strings setting! And E was all messed up on the synth sound! I turned it off and back on again, took a battery out, did all of that, and it was still like that. So I switched Casio Chord on and off a few times and in a minute the notes went back to normal. Phew!
Also, today at work I almost beat the Ms. PacMan high score! I got to 70,800 and the record is like 71,101! Level 9, baby. Orange stage.
I rode my new bike to work today! I have decided to call it THE DESTRUCTOR! Actually I decided that awhile ago, but didn't feel like I could name it until I had ridden it a longish distance. My top time for the bike ride in to work is 21 minutes. This is down from my original time of 30 minutes the first time I made the ride last fall. Today my time was 26 minutes, which I consider good. I did end up having to push it up the second half of the big hill past the lake. There are a couple of factors that I feel need to eventually be worked out with this bike, and these factors prevent me from being able to comfortably stand up and pedal on it. I think if I was able to do that, I could have made that hill. First of all, I need another three inches of height on my seat. This sounds like a job for a seat-post extender! I also either need new handlebars or a way of raising these up because not only was the angle awkward, but it really hurt my wrists after awhile. The downward-defaulting pedals are retarded and are uncomfortable no matter which way they are facing.
The great thing about today's ride is that I was SO much less tired when I reached my destination. The Destructor's frame is so much lighter than anything I have ridden before. And I've never had an actual road bike. So I think it was a lot easier and I put less effort into the ride than I have had to in the past. On the way home, let me tell you, I got going F-A-S-T going down that huge hill. Probably faster than I have ever gone before. It was awesome and a little frightening. I've never kept track of my time coming home before, but today it was 21 minutes, which is the same as my record for going in, so that felt badass.
Yesterday afternoon I was messing with my Casio PT100 and I think I've found some cool bends that I can assign knobs and switches to. There is a distortion, which I was hesitant to use at first because it's like, distortion on keyboard? but I like it. There is a vibrato-type effect that I think is being caused by an LFO, and there is also something that takes the resonance out of the voice. And I'm going to do a starve knob on the power supply. I almost completely ruined this keyboard effing around with it, though! After I touched two points with a wire, the notes F and B sounded TERRIBLE on the strings setting! And E was all messed up on the synth sound! I turned it off and back on again, took a battery out, did all of that, and it was still like that. So I switched Casio Chord on and off a few times and in a minute the notes went back to normal. Phew!
Also, today at work I almost beat the Ms. PacMan high score! I got to 70,800 and the record is like 71,101! Level 9, baby. Orange stage.