That’s the diameter of a 14 gauge ear piercing.

That’s what I’m wearing now.

The pink is the 14g taper, while the blue are 12g.

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I’ll write on the new job soon, I promise. I’m in week 3 of it, and suffice it to say that I love it so far.

More, however, on the bike.

I got her (Rebecca, formerly [briefly and grumpily] Jezebel) all dusted off, oiled up, chain replaced, light batteries replaced, tires pumped, and ready to roll a couple of weeks ago. Deana and I went out for a nice little 5 mile ride around my area of town–on streets! Where cars are!

Bright orange helmet, a stop for a picnic with Greg (he drove), and no traffic incidents other than a stopped ambulance to avoid. A good ride.

She rode quite well, with the exception of me not being able to get her into the first gear on the front derailleur. There are hardly any hills around here that would justify me dropping down to that low a gear.

All was right until the final quarter-mile or so, when my back tire blew. I wobbled safely into the apartment complex, and then we walked the bike home.

I’m proud to say I didn’t hyperventilate even once.

Also, it’s not illegal in North Carolina to ride on the sidewalks. So hmph.

This past weekend, I took on the task of replacing the tube on the back tire. I got the wheel off, then the tire (that took a while, and involved one tire lever and a spoon handle). The new tube and old tire went on easy and inflated nicely, but getting the wheel back on proved problematic. I couldn’t get the alignment right–either one of the brake pads were stuck against the wheel, or the tire itself was rubbing on the frame, depending on how I seated it.

I finally got it into what I thought was a stable position, and called it a night. I checked over everything the next morning (and oiled the chain!), and went for a ride that afternoon.

And then… well.

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After my bike accident back in 2005, my father bought me a sweet Mongoose mountain bike. It’s maroon and champagne colored, and I used it to commute in college.

When I graduated and moved to Charlotte, though, riding became purely for pleasure, and wasn’t particularly feasible for commuting. (I’ve pretty much always lived across town from my job and I sweat a lot when I exercise.) By the beginning of 2008, the bike was idle.

I carted it with me to the house, where it sat in the garage (excuse: the neighborhood was too hilly and roads too narrow!), and to my current apartment patio (excuse: it’s probably ruined now!)… until now.

Inspired by a potential biking partner (albeit one on a road bike), I’m cleaning up the bike. Tuesday night we wiped down the frame, gave the cables and tires a look-see, and degreased the chain.

Beautiful bike. I can’t believe I’d forgotten.

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With my contract at Big Corp coming to a natural close (they’re shutting down the site completely), I hopped back into the job market back in mid-February and landed myself a sweet position at Mid-Corp.

I start on Monday!

There are a lot of things I’ll miss about working downtown: it’s a thriving area, full of people and energy. I also liked taking the bus, despite the occasional shenanigans. Needing a tank of gas once a month or so ain’t bad, either.

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Okay, no I don’t, but I was fair at gymnastics when I was a young’un.

Anyway, last night I finally fulfilled my dream of seeing Cirque du Soleil; their Michael Jackson: The Immortal tour hit Charlotte this week.

That was a real circus. And one hell of a performance in general.

I have no pictures, because they disallowed photography of any sort, but I’m okay with that. (On a side note, does “Because of the pyrotechnics and strobe lights, we ask that there be no photography or recording of any kind” really translate to “We do our own PR and don’t want your crappy recordings on the internet”?)

They paid tribute to MJ’s life rather inclusively–the Jackson 5 (meh), his love of nature, his desire for world peace, his painful childhood and escapism, and hints of the scandals thru dramatized mentions of wanting privacy.

There were some absolutely amazing dancers on that stage. (There were also plenty of very good dancers.) I’m biased towards dancing that involves a lot of isolation movements (hip hop and belly dance; what do you expect?), so my favorite act was “Scream” by the “male rhythmic gymnasts”: orchestrated tumbling and flipping on an inflated cushion serving as a trampoline of sorts. I think I screamed when, in the opening, a guy that had been thrown in the air fell flat to the floor… and bounced.

A damn circus. So cool.

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This week’s internet cruising:

• EJ Flavors – Cupid’s Hunt 2012 – Lost And Found: The Lost – An excellent Valentine's Day mix by EJ Flavors. Yeah, I know it's barely even February anymore, but Angela Bofill's "I Try" puts chills up my spine whenever I hear it.
• Google to Sell Heads-Up Display Glasses by Year’s End – NYTimes.com – I'm totally going to want to be an early adopter of these. If they seem promising, it'd be worth switching to contact lenses for.
• World population statistics – I always like these types of infographics. ^_^
• Slavery By Another Name – I heard this on my local NPR station the other night, and was glad to hear the injustices of the prison system be spoken for all to hear, but in a calm and reasonable voice.
• What’s Wrong with the IGF « The Rotting Cartridge – "Eight (8) judges were assigned to Kale In Dinoland. Of those judges, 1 didn’t install the game or respond to any of our invitations (which we had to send multiple times before judges joined). 3 judges didn’t play the game. Of the remaining 5 judges that played the game, 3 played it very close to the IGF deadline, which was December 5th. [...] Excluding the outlier, on average each judge – including the 3 that didn’t play it – played the game for almost 5 minutes’ time. [...] So we’re talking almost 4 minutes for each judge of actual game time."

And now for a vibeo:

A little dated at this point, but wonderfully funny. I like Jay Smooth on politics.

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Many moons ago, I debuted my Granny Squares Color Pattern Generator, a utility to help crocheters randomize their blankets, which can be a daunting task.

I recently got a request for a way to help visualize the blanket that’s generated. It’s hard to work from a list of “r/h/p”-type entries. Not very user-friendly.

So I added in a color picker today, and the generator now shows the colors of the squares. As a warning, if you have a lot of very similar colors, the generated image may be difficult to work from. Then again, if your blanket’s in 15 shades of purple (yes, please!), you may not need this utility.

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