Well, I finally had a flat tire today when I was riding my bike. And, of course it happens when I am out in the middle of nowhere. I easily removed the tire. Now I need to find out where the leak is. I had bought one of those compressed air inflators. Unfortunately, there is no “slowly pump air into the tire” setting on this thing. A quick squeeze resulted in quickly inflating the tire and then quickly deflating the tire as the air escaped. Fortunately, I had a backup plan. I also carry a spare tube with me. So I install that tube and fill up the tire. I now notice a second problem with this pump. When it quickly releases the air, it freezes the tire stem as the gas expands! You get to now deal with holding frozen metal as you try and remove the pump from the tire. Fun. So, I then bike off. Only to notice that the spare tire has a leak in it. Argh! And the gas canister has run out of air. Double argh. I bought a spare air cylinder. But I now notice that the pump is not compatible with this one. Apparently, there are two different sizes for the pump (and also two different threading styles as well). Four combinations for a simple pump. This time I am out of options and have to call for help. Luckily, the phone worked and Mike was available.

What a cute, tiny car! I was hoping that I could figure out what the car was when I took the picture. And it seems that I have. “GT-R” and “X-90” are unique enough search terms.

My long awaited copy of Agricola has arrived. I was a little worried about the rain though. The last time it rained when a package was delivered, the UPS person left it exposed to the elements which then destroyed the box (but not the contents, luckily enough). So, this time, I wrapped a big garbage bag around the door nob and left a note kindly asking the UPS person to put it in the bag. Which they did. Woo woo! But I should have worried. it didn’t really rain today.

Interesting, it looks like Fuddruckers has a portable burger-mobile.

With gas prices rising, I finally hit a limit on my credit card: 75.00. Which was the most I could charge before the pump shut off. But, you could get around it by starting over again immediately after it stopped. Well, it looks like the credit card company finally clued in. I wonder when I will find the next limit to that card?

The tiny stream and lake that is part of our community “park” is drying up. The stream is 90% gone and the lake is getting there. I don’t understand why people still fish in it. First, what is the point? One throw of the net will catch all of the fish left in it. Second, the toxicity level in that thing must be through the roof. This is not a running stream.

I wish it would rain sometime…

I think that I might need a head-band when I am out biking. Sweat got into my right eye. And the salt was stinging me. I could not wipe my eye either. Sweaty hands does not help clear out the situation. Since I did not want to stop, remove my glasses, flush my eye out with bottled water, I just kept on riding with one eye closed. Avast ye maties!

Man, construction is booming around this area. A house was quickly torn down and a huge field was cleared. I guess some medical complexes are going up here. Click on the picture for the big version.

I drove all the way out to Copeland, Texas for some Bar-B-Que. The original B.B.Q. plans fell through and I was jonesing for some. FM-1660 is quite the twisting and narrow road. It wanders from Jonah through Hutto to just Northwest of Copeland. The B.B.Q. turned out to be a disappointment, but I did pass a weird park or memorial or showcase or something.

Apparently, if you search on this URL: http://becker.com/?query=Dungeons%20and%20Dragons, you get this return code:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 GMT
Content-Length: 87.1 GB
Content-Type: application/quicktime;type=entry;charset=”utf-8″
<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<entry xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom”>
<title>Dan’s Hobbit Destroys You</title>
<updated>2008-07-09T18:30:02Z</updated>
<author><name>Dan Becker</name></author>
<content>A cool video.</content>
</entry>