Ev mon imparts his knowledge unto my short story.

"Yes, we know it’s you, Sir, what will you have us do next, Sir?"
your main character needs to acknowledge the wierdness of this
and speculate

it will heighten the stakes
make it real

knocking the door down makes your guy seem alittle nuts.... maybe just have it crack open
he may be nuts but he's not prone to becoming angrily unhinged you know
Isaac Sung Eo
well, the thing about that, is it's not literal. there's a narrator unreliability, because we know the narrator's already delusional and schizophrenic. what could have been him having the keys all along to open and walk right through the door, may have been painted as much more of struggle by the unreliable narrator?
get my drift?

but i do appreciate that, i think i may have to spruce up the narration a little bit better

well it stood out to me because at that point i dont really preceive the narrator to be losing it

he seems pretty balance
Isaac Sung Eo
right right
but that's the thing...how do i not give him away as a lunatic too early in the story, which is what keeps things interesting?
Everett Phillips
if you sprinkled in some instances where the reader could question the narrators sanity in the beginning and middle, the ending would be much more powerful
i think

Everett Phillips
yea
but tension between real and unreal, sanity and insanity needs to lead to a cresendo
building
Isaac Sung Eo
hmm,
like Edgar Allen Poe style
Everett Phillips
i mean, its a tough thing to do
yea
fight club, etc
subtle but still there
now i think you have done that
Isaac Sung Eo
i thought i was doing that earlier
it's REALLY subtle
Everett Phillips
theres definitely magic realism going on
I
saac Sung Eo
the details of him "feeling besides himself"
when Frank let us off on a "predetermined stop"
and when the narrator continues to remark on the dream like quality of his interview with Frank
Everett Phillips
yea
that is good
the complete descent to unreality just seems sudden i think
to me
questions: where does he get his apochrypal contacts?
Isaac Sung Eo
like the eeriness of him sticking with him all the way through one train transfer, one bus transfer and finally skating with him.
is like he was literally "stuck on him"
Everett Phillips
maybe you should have the narrator asking hiimself questions

Everett Phillips
i think you do that alreayd, but maybe more
i can see what youre saying but i kinda just thought of frank as a cool dude
not necessarily an alter ego
Isaac Sung Eo
hahaha
Everett Phillips
ha
Isaac Sung Eo
well,wasn't brad pitt really cool,selling his soap?
Everett Phillips
maybe they need to connect... through an object or action
Isaac Sung Eo
and talking about the corrupt materialistic society
Everett Phillips
when does ed norton finally realize about brad pitt anyway
Isaac Sung Eo
not until the WAYYYY end, which was why it was kind of like a mindfuck
Isaac Sung Eo
where women sell their fat back to the cosmetics industry
or buy their fat back from the cosmetic industries
hahaha
in the form of soap
Everett Phillips
so he thinks franks phone is his phone?

Everett Phillips
whos phone does he use to call the woman?
Isaac Sung Eo
right
frank's phone is his phone, because the numbers on there were "apocryphal" to his real identity
Everett Phillips
i really think the last two paragraphs could use some internal dialogue of the narrator
questions
Isaac Sung Eo
oh, good one.
hmm, didn't catch that one
i think the rotary phone
Everett Phillips
trying to reason through the craziness will make it more crazy i think
Isaac Sung Eo
"hardmounted against the wall"
well, i don't want it to be explicit, like, "Oh, am I losing it?" because that's just a littlebit cheesy, IMO
knowhatmean
Everett Phillips
yea.... then break out those chops!
write it up!
you dont want to explain exactly what it is, youre right
Isaac Sung Eo
what do you mean? "break out the chops?
"
Everett Phillips
creative writing chops!
de cheesify
Isaac Sung Eo
that is a mighty task you're asking me to my friend
de cheesifying the dialogue
the dialogue in fight club is so cynical
Everett Phillips
i believe you haveenzymes for the task
Isaac Sung Eo
you want me to take on that same cynical quality in my own dialogue?
"we are the children of nobody."
Everett Phillips
no
Isaac Sung Eo
"just the middlemen of history"
Everett Phillips
really with the last two paragraphs its nothing that intense
Isaac Sung Eo
"waiting their tables"
"scrubbing their floors"
"we got no purpose"
Everett Phillips
i think it just needs to be extended
Isaac Sung Eo
"we're all told we'll be rockstars and athletes, but we won't"
Everett Phillips
more connection between events, the phone call, the sink, the hallway
Isaac Sung Eo
"we're all coming to realize that we won't, and we're very very pissed off"
Everett Phillips
then when he wakes up- the room the people, getting to the bathroom. Really mundane stuff kind of but will keep the reader in for the climax
Isaac Sung Eo
"number one rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club"
"second rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club"
"third rule of fight club is YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB"
"
"if you could fight anybody in history, who would it be"
Everett Phillips
Languidly as if they‘ve seen in all done before a handful of guys from the group were sent to the bathroom to lift me up
Isaac Sung Eo
"i'd fight abe lincoln."
"id fight mahotma ghandi"
"look at these ads glorifying and masturbating over the male image"
"is that what a man should look like?"
Everett Phillips
ok fight club jr
you go write your own story now
Isaac Sung Eo
"this evening i want you to pick a fight with a random stranger"
Everett Phillips
subtlety is good... but ultimately must be effective because if unnoticed and unfinished it is worthless!
make the palachinuk proud
bring it home and u got a winner son!
Isaac Sung Eo
haha, thanks
i'll take what you say to heart.
t-a few hours before i could run over to kinkos with a finished copy of the story to xerox
how much do they usually cost btw?
Everett Phillips
no idea
are pickles heathy
Isaac Sung Eo
??
yeah, of course. when consumed moderately
Everett Phillips
PICLKLES
Isaac Sung Eo
:-)
i wub you Ebett
Everett Phillips
me moo mee mo me    <----- BEST CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM EVaR!!!
Isaac Sung Eo
:-P
Chat Conversation End

What's wrong with entertainment?

A lot of motor-bicycling went down today.  Some 90 miles round trip have been ridden.  The absurdity of the feat compounded with every stipulations that were met.  The first was, as a recent compensation for my lack of transportation I decided a new bicycle must be in order which would assist going to and from the bus stops on the way to work.  This simple truth added upon the second stipulation of me deciding that I must go in the evening to Johnsburg, IL for this new bicycle--rather than playing it cool by waiting until the weekend to pick up the bike by Metra--was pretty much what had turned me onto making this rather erratic journey.  On the way there wasn't so bad.  The legs of each country highway stretch for some tiresomely long distances.  The generously spaced roadside on Gilmer let me sail smoothly for many miles.  Then all of a sudden, as customary in our northern hemisphere, the sunlight shuts itself off.  Here's the sundown I captured on Gilmer, as the cars whizzed passed me going around 50mph.
    


 

Earlier: 


Earlier still:


Sacked some snacks:


My arrival destination looked like this:


My new bike up close looked like this:


Basically, what I ended up doing was something only the sick-and-twisted can only think of doing.  Each wheel came off and placed alongside the frame-set all of which were stowed on top of the trailer, affixed in station by combination of tie downs, zip ties, and bungee cords.  All of this was a chore the seller willingly sat through and watched, offering some help when needed.  Okay, as for the journey back, I'll leave it up to the reader's imagination.  Scenario is that the sun had long ago set, and I had a good 45 miles of rural highway ahead of me.

Dykin' summer of Bikin'

There's more where this came from:

In its pedal state:

In its motor state:

I have yet to give it a name.  But since she's such an assertive bitch, I think I'll name her Brenda.  I know I haven't been consistent as far as updating my blog is concerned.  I can make retribution by assuring that not much had really occurred since the last time I updated.  Just a whole lot of holding things down, resuscitating life into this slow and stagnant bicycle hobby.  

Willow, my Vintage 1984 Stumpjumper, had jumped ship, when I had to part with her dissected parts through E-Bay.  Sad but change-of-heart I guess.  More suitable for motorization is my newer bike--the Schwinn Cruiser Seven.  Lower and more comfortable position.  So carelessly caring, Brenda is.  Give her a little love, and she'll give a lot back in return.  I hope she can be a formidable sidekick among others during my midlife crisis.

A flurry of my own activity (in the midst of the holiday back-and-forth bustles of the crowd...)

I live right off a pretty busy road, and cars begin to pass in the wee hours of the day.  So when I close my eyes to go to sleep, I open them up again to peak at my wooden blinds to see the powder blue light from outside and hear the whoozing and the vrooming of the busy men and women.  Then I would ask myself, "Do we ever rest?  Or do I?"

Give it a rest, soldier.  Give it a rest.

Anyway, back to the same ol' grind.  I have settled for the kind of motorization I want for my bicycle.  It involves taking an engine and mounting it along with a jack-shaft onto the frame.  I went as far as calculating the gear ratios I would need in order to achieve the top speeds, climbing speeds, and cruising speeds that I think are good for the bike.  Using this gear ration calculator...


Keep in mind, the Stumpjumper I bought (btw a real gem! of a used bicycle :-P) has a rear 5-speed freewheel with a gear range 30-14.  The highest being 14 tooth, and the lowest 30 respectively.

I wanted to swap out the rear hub for a more up-to-date 5-speed internally-geared hub, but all of them are for more recent mtbs so they have a hub spacing of about 135mm.  My Stumpjumper (her name is Willow), so Willow has only a 120mm rear hub spacing.  Which would mean I'd have to "cold-bend" the frame, which is possible given the chromolly steel construction of the frame, but not desirable.

After some searching around for the right gears and whatnot, I thought well I can just play with the gear ratios that are already available to me; taking the tiny liberty of buying the right sprockets when I buy the shift kit from SBP t-10 hours from now, I can really make the bike fly.  I am brimming with anticipation!

So, a top speed of 41 mph sounds nice going 6500 rpm, which is where the engine redlines.  The ratio of the gear box plus the jack-shaft freewheel sprocket is 5:1 * 17:10 and comes out to be 8.67:1.

I would then take the ratio of the drive/driven sprocket of the jack-shaft output sprocket to the chain-ring on the shift-kit crankarm assembly.  This ratio is 4.36:1.

The final ratio is gotten by taking the ratios of the drive/driven sprocket of the bicycle's original drive train and the new 44-tooth chainring of the shift kit.  It turns out to be 0.32:1.

All-in-all, I'd have a drive ratio of 12.04:1.

Using the largest cog on the rear multi-cog freewheel, I would have a drive ratio of 25.8:1.

When I want to go fast without revving the engine so much, I can simply go 12:1.  When I want to to climb a steep hill, I can go 25.8:1.

Using the tallest gearing available (44:14), I can go 20mph (state's legal limit of motor-assisted bicycles) doing around 3000 rpm on the engine.  So not too bad!  Of course, I'd want to get in the good habit of pedal-starting to get up to the right rpm before the engine automatically engages the centrifugal clutch.  Maybe a start from stand-still would be possible with the shortest gearing of 26:1.  IDK, I can't wait to get it and test run it, which isn't going to be until around middle to late December.

The engine I have coming is included in a complete motorizing kit, and it's due to be here anytime from now until the 6th of Dec.  Today, I rode my bike 10 miles to pick up a special kind of grease from the hardware store.  It's meant for greasing the bearings of marine equipment, so it is very resistant to water and salt.  Withstanding a ton of heat and rpm, this kind of grease doesn't go dry on you like your average lithium-based grease.  Very tacky was the word used to describe the compound in this grease.  I plan to use it inside the gearbox that comes in the engine kit, which the experienced folks in the motorbicycling community recommend you use a lot of it in order to prevent premature wear and possible breaking of the gear's teeth.





I shopped at the Do-it-best hardware store in Northbrook.  There's a Korean grocery mart inside the plaza.  Snow lightly sprinkled below the overhead parking lights.  I have feint sentiments I recollect about the holiday season of previous times; seeing the vacant lots full of rows of cut-down ever greens for the consumers to walk through and admire brings back cinematic feelings of Santa Claus movies and the reindeer and elves.  You gotta love the Midwest, especially the Great Lake states with their generally cold, wet climates.  I digress...

This bike was like that last glimmer of hope...

As far as buying a bike from Craigslist goes...

I had purchased not 1, not 2, but 3 other bicycles before this whilst the idea of building a motorized bicycle was still in its nebulous infancy.  At first, I thought I had wanted a simple rack mounted engine, so I just chose any old Mongoose full-suspension bike that they sell in Wal-mart.  Got it from an Indian guy who was selling it, because he was moving to San Jose, California.  Then I thought, you know what I can really use this concept of motorizing a full-suspension bike on a full-suspension bike that has a v-frame.  The Mongoose was nice, but the thing's got a y-frame making it impossible to do an In-frame mount.  An in-frame mount versus the rear rack mount was a better option because it's more balanced and has a lower center-of-gravity.  Therefore, I purchased, by impulse, a GT mountain bike that had both the full-suspension and the v-frame.  I thought I had the best of both worlds, but when I took it home and measured it I realized it's not going to fit the bill because the frame measured too small for an in-frame engine.  Bummer, and that was coming all the way from South Bend, IN.  Well, wish me luck on selling it in the Spring {fingers crossed}...

This was the measurement I was going for...

So I said, okay now what.  I spent the next several days searching for a good deal on a bike that had a 21" seat tube.  I finally found one for sale from a guy who lived in Bartlett.  I had ridden my bike that day and taken the bus/train to go all the way to Bartlett.  Let's just say I had started my journey early in the afternoon and came home a little before midnight, just to come home with a bike that was 19" and not 21", as it was put on the Craigslist ad.  Two questions are probably entering your mind right now, 1.) Why did you buy the bike if it wasn't the right size?  2.)How did you ride two bikes back home?

To answer the first question, the bike I had to get it because the price was only $40.  Yeah, I know the forty dollars which I could have put towards getting stuff I actually needed!  But the bike was made in Korea, an old Randor ATB called "Terrain Buster."  Who wouldn't pick it up??


Made in Korea!!!

I had decided to try a special towing method I saw being done in the city, where the rider basically tows the bike holding onto its handlebar.  I thought this would be relatively easy, but turns out the height discrepancy b/w the bike I was riding (the GT at this point) and the new Randor Par Excellence was like .5 foot!  Also, the Randor is made with steel so pretty dense and heavy!  I dropped it a few times trying to tow it to the train station in Bartlett.  By this time, it was like 8 o'clock and I was hungry.  So I went across the street to order some Chinese food, because it wasn't going to be another 1.5 hrs until the in-bound train arrived.  I ordered me some boneless duck with 5 variety nuts!  Good stuff!  I needed some energy to carry both these bikes onto the train, off the train, transfer, then onto another train, then off that train.  Thankfully, many friendly people helped me to load it up and down the exit of the Metra train.  At around 11pm, my dad picked me up from the Cumberland Metra stop on the UPNW metra line.  Gotta love those 7 dollar weekend passes.




Today, I took out the right bike (a Specialized Stumpjumper mfg year 1983!) from the garage.  I stored it from a purchase last night out in Homer Glen!  Yeah you really gotta dig Craigslist for promoting its fine, local salesmanship!  The kid I got it from was in 8th grade, and he had apparently gotten it from a neighbor real cheap and was just looking for a way to make money to fund his go-kart project.  He's a real stand-up kid and has an interest in all things mechanical and he's even expressed an uncanny interest in taxidermy and hunting small game in his backyard, Polish commune!  I just thought wow, you never know who you're going to meet through Craigslist.  I've even met this one guy who was doing this Bikes-on-Craigslist deal for a living!  He's a father from Wood Dale, IL, and he's been trying to make money for his son's college tuition by buying, restoring and reselling bikes on Craigslist.  His bikes were also too small for my motor-bike project, and luckily that time I didn't make another impulse mistake.  Impulse purchase is like the bane of any Craigslist-er!  I have learned one must always be patient for the right thing to come along to save one the costly mistake and time of buying unneeded items!  There's a very fine line b/w need versus want in the Craigslist aftermarket, and learning to tread that line is a difficult yet in-the-end rewarding process!

I am so relieved to have this 1983 Specialized Stumpjumper Sport.  Now I can safely move on to the next step, which would be to prepare the bike for the motor and motor shiftkit installation.  FYI, a shift kit adapts to the bike's already-existing 5-speed gearing system using the bike's rear derailleur and allows the motor to operate in a wider range of gearing -- not just stuck in a single speed/gear ratio.


It's got the perfect frame geometry, tall seat-tube but low enough "stand-over" (measurement from where the top-tube meets the seat tube down to the floor) height to accommodate for my 5'10" height. 



The following were attachments that came with the bike...


 A Union bottle generator putting out steady voltage to supply power to the head and tail lights...




Vintage Huret-Sachs Multito odomoter which I had to fashion a drive-belt for out of a hairband lying around.



The interesting thing about the little "Multito," a French creation, was that it was giving me a 7 mile read-out for every .7 miles I did.  So I was going 10 times further then I really was on this sketchy piece of machinery.  The previous owner had told me that it had fallen off during a ride, so I assumed that it was broken.  But not completely inoperable as I would observe!  




Notice here's something I found off Google--an old sales ad for the Multito which shows there are two sized drive pulleys:  one for the 26" wheel and another for the 27/28" wheels.  I used the smaller of the two pulleys, which is wrong!  My 26" wheeler would have to go on the larger of the two pulleys, because it needs to turn slower to account for the inch/two of wheel diameter I'm lacking!!!  Which may be a reason why the odo was reading 10x more than it should be, but it still doesn't make sense!  It's probably something screwed up internally -- something came loose or some other ordeal...  Whatever, I can always do math...  which would mean I'd be doing more like 1400mi cycles vs 10000mi cycles, if indeed I were going 7 mi on odo for every .7 mi of real traveling... I still don't get some of the principles, but I'm sure I'll come to.
 

I leave you with "Spinny pedal!"  How exciting!