GoldScott

GoldScott

Scott

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Bike Accident	[Aug. 6th, 2008\|05:01 am]
On Sunday, August 3, I was hit by a pick-up truck. I was going westbound on Cortland, he was going southbound on Ashland. I didn't realize Ashland had two lanes going southbound, because one of them is obstructed by pillars holding up an overpass. I thought the intersection was clear, so I went through it. The truck, going about 30 mph, hit me so hard that my shoe fell off, and I flew/slid about 12 feet across the street. I was in the hospital for about 40 hours (two nights). I was wearing a helmet and did not sustain any serious injuries (except for a possible refracture of my hand from January). I have a lot of lacerations and abrasions. My right thigh required 6 sutures, and my forehead required three sutures. My ankle was overlooked, but the gash is rather deep, and could've probably used some stitches as well. My right leg is swollen and sore from taking the brute of the impact. My left heel is bruised. This makes it hard to stand and walk, but I'm hobbling around alright.
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	[Jul. 6th, 2008\|04:31 pm]
Day 13 (Sunday July 6) - Rocky Ford, CO to Walsenburg, CO (69 miles) route: Hit an elevation over a mile high! The first 48 miles were unbearably hot. The climbs weren't that bad. The 3 mile downhill was awesome. It opened up the views of the mountains. The weather got cooler and I could see the lightning storm over Walsenburg and surrounding areas. I stopped with about 7 miles to go and took some pictures and pet some horses. The landscape is absolutely beautiful. I would've liked to take more pictures, but the rain was coming, and I wanted to get to shelter. The last 4 miles of my ride were in light to medium rain, with a moderate to heavy cross-wind. I'll post pictures later.
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	[Jul. 6th, 2008\|04:30 pm]
Day 12 (Saturday July 5) - Haswell, CO to Rocky Ford, CO (56 miles) route: Today has definitely been the hottest day of my journey. The digital thermometers outside the bank in Rocky Ford read 102 degrees. I was planning on pushing ~120 miles to Walsenburg, but that ain't gonna happen. I'll be riding the 68 miles to Walsenburg tomorrow. The forecast calls for highs to be in the 100s for the next week, so I'm going to be riding shorter days. The desert is going to be brutal, once I get into Arizona. I think I'm going to be terminating my cycling at the Four Corners (where Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico meet) and have my father come pick me up. Riding in weather this hot is not at all fun, and towns are even more scarce in the desert. I'll have cycled approximately 1300 out of 2114 miles. Kind of depressing. I'm an idiot for trying to ride 1000 miles through the desert in the middle of summer though. No pictures today.
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	[Jul. 6th, 2008\|04:29 pm]
Day 11 (Friday July 4) - Sharon Springs, KS to Haswell, CO (102 miles) route: It was a hot day; I would've stopped in Eads, CO after 80 miles, but it was mid-afternoon and I want to keep pounding out the miles. My right knee is really messed up - it hurts a lot. Not much to see on the road, but the residents of Haswell invited me to their potluck and fireworks celebration when I arrived. Small-town folk are the nicest people. Delicious food, too - my first time trying homemade ice cream. So good. An old fellow named Guy showed me around town: took me to the country's smallest jailhouse, as well as their volunteer firehouse. He told me about a lot of the old buildings as well as a description of basically everyone in the town. I have a new respect for small towns - there's a lot there that passers-by don't see. I used my tent for the first time - camped out in the park. It wasn't bad; there was a crude bathroom and running water available. I don't know if I'd camp out on the side of the highway, though. I need running water and a bathroom. I took lots of pictures of the town and its residents. There was a water balloon toss and sparklers. Their fireworks show is funded by a box in the post office for people to give donations. They go out and buy fireworks from various stands in the surrounding towns. It's a really small show, some roman candles and big sparkler type things, as well as a few typical fireworks that one see at most shows. It lasted a good 45 minutes, but it wasn't constant action. A few of the volunteer firemen lit the fuses in a field right in front of where everyone was gathered. The kids loved it. Actually, everyone really appreciated it. It's no spectacle like July 3 in Chicago, but there's so much heart and community pride. Without a doubt the best Fourth of July I've ever had. I'll post pictures later.
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	[Jul. 4th, 2008\|01:58 am]
Day 10 (Thursday July 3) - Hoxie, KS to Sharon Springs, KS (93 miles) route: I could certainly tell I did some climbing today. It wasn't bad though. Very easy gradients. Tailwind for the first 40 miles or so. The weather was wonderful. It was supposed to rain all day, but it just rained last night. The temperature was perfect. Encountered some new flora and fauna today. I saw some field mice surrying about the side of the highway, as well as a little snake slithering down the shoulder. I actually saw a sunflower! And even some cacti in the undeveloped fields. I crossed into the mountain time zone - my first time here! The best part of the day was getting into the western-most 50 miles of Kansas. As I hit the peak of the climb at around 70-75 miles or so, the landscape changed. The corn and wheat fields became sparse, and the soil no longer rich and moist, but rather hard and dry, like the desert. This part of the country is absolutely beautiful. Definitely the most beautiful 30 miles of my trip so far. I'll be honest, it brought some tears to my eyes. To make the day even better, about 10 miles before reaching Sharon Springs is a little town called Wallace which was once a popular city in western Kansas that housed Fort Wallace back in the 1800s. There's now a museum just off the highway that exhibits the history of the fort, the town, western Kansas, conflict with the Native Americans, and what life was like on the frontier. Many artifacts are found and donated by local history buffs. I spent about an hour browsing, reading, and taking pictures. I was never much into history, but actually seeing these things makes so much more of an impact. It's wonderful that these people collect these things and are able to display them for the public to see. I got to see a small part of how our country was built. Simply put: it's incredibly fucking inspiring. It made me cry. I was never really patriotic before, but I can now say I am damn proud to be a citizen of this country. If you're ever near here, spend at least an hour at this museum. You will not regret it. Tomorrow I cross into Colorado. I know the scenery will be even better than today. My progress will probably slow down due to (1) long climbs and (2) photographic opportunities. Pictures: Barbed wire buffalo sculpture outside the museum, by the mayor of the town Fort Wallace Historic Marker I would really love to see some live buffalo, but the few in existence are on farms not along my route Cavalry hat Organ Cannon
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	[Jul. 3rd, 2008\|01:38 am]
Day 9 (Wednesday July 2) - Smith Center, KS to Hoxie, KS (118 miles) route: Apparently I did a lot of climbing today, but didn't really feel it. What I felt was the damned heat. It was very hot again today. I rode 63 miles to Norton by 1 PM. I didn't want to end my ride that early, but the next town with a motel is Hoxie or Colby. Hoxie is 20 miles closer, so I went for it. Turned out to be a good move. The wind was coming out of the NNE, so I had a tailwind for the last half of my ride. It also felt like I was going more downhill than uphill during the second half... Having a tailwind makes one hell of a difference! Nothing interesting to see today. No pictures. Just hot hot hot and pedal pedal pedal. I'm beat. I'm just glad there were no T-storms today. It's supposed to rain all tomorrow, but I'm going to try to get to the next available town with a motel. Any progress is good progress, right? No need to sit in Hoxie for two days...
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	[Jul. 1st, 2008\|11:07 pm]
Day 8 (Tuesday July 1) - Belleville, KS to Smith Center, KS (63 miles) route: It was very hot today; upper 90s. Today started off slow. I was tired from yesterday's long ride. It went slow all day. The heat was just sucking the moisture and salt out of me. I drank as much as I could and used my Gatorade powder. My water quickly heated up to the temperature of the surrounding air. Drinking hot water sucks. I wanted to ride the 92 miles to Phillipsburg, KS, but it was just too unbearable out. Tomorrow is supposed to be just as hot as today, with isolated thunderstorms. Thursday calls for showers all day and isolated T-storms Friday. I met another cyclist touring eastbound today. Jason's blog is at http://intentionaldiscomfort.blogspot.com/. He told me he's done a lot of hiking all around the states, as well as bike rides all around, so it seems he has quite a lot of experience. On this trip, he is heading from Montana to Virginia. Pictures: This little abandoned farmhouse reminded me of something out of a Steinbeck novel And... I made it to the center of the U.S.
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	[Jul. 1st, 2008\|09:22 pm]
Day 7 (Monday June 30) - Hiawatha, KS to Belleville, KS (116 miles) route: I put the Pony Express out of business today. I layed down tracks faster than Chinese migrant workers constructing the trans-continental railroad. The absense of headwinds is amazing. So much faster riding. I got about 36 miles in before noon, and kept up the pace until I hit about 85 miles. Then I bonked a little, and the last 25 miles were a tired struggle. Kansas is nice; I've seen some angus, some anti-abortion billboards, and even undeveloped land. Very pretty. Still haven't seen a sunflower, though. I ate dinner at Dairy Queen today, and one of the example cake images they had on the sign of the ice-cream cake freezer read "You're Free!" with an image of an un-done shackle ball-and-chain. A little unsettling? Also, Sup QT who took my order?! I met an older couple (my guess: late 50s, early 60s) today who are walking across the states. They started in South Carolina and are finishing in Oregon. Liz and Ed Morgan (walkingwest08@hotmail.com) are keeping a journal of their travels at trailjournals.com (search for Morgan). They are taking photos and doing updates on an iPhone (which is what I would've liked to do, but that wasn't in my budget). They are exploring their American heritage and walking along historic routes like the Pony Express trail, Oregon Trail, etc. They told me they started March 25 - they've walked across half the states in 3 months. Apparently they walk about 18 miles a day and camp out every night. I didn't ask, but I assume they just set up their tent on the side of the road... I didn't take many pictures today, just a few of the Morgans. I was on a great pace and didn't feel like stopping. Pictures from Day 6: Pictures from today (Day 7):
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	[Jun. 30th, 2008\|01:47 am]
Day 6 (Sunday June 29) - Cameron, MO to Hiawatha, KS route: The wind today was worse than yesterday. I wanted it to be a "rest day" where I'd ride slow and steady, but the wind was unrelenting. Rode over the Missouri river into Kansas. I am so glad to be out of Misery. Kansas is flatter and smells better (yeah, at one point, it smelled like hickory smoked beef jerky). Only problem with KS is there's not much of a shoulder on the road. But the road's in good condition though. The 36 in Misery had variable quality, in the beginning (yesterday), it was a nice, divided 4 lane highway, and the whole westbound half was brand new and closed due to construction, so I got two lanes to myself for a few miles, but that ended and it became a 2 lane highway. Sometimes it had a shoulder, sometimes it didn't. Anyhow, nothing very interesting on the road today. The signs in KS have big yellow explosions on them (like this) and there's the Lewis and Clark trail. I passed a town called Troy, named after the ancient Greek city-state. I took a few pictures today at a rest stop near Troy, but I don't feel like uploading them right now. The forecast for tomorrow calls for light winds out of the North, and showers on Wed, Thurs, and Fri. Uh-oh. Not sure what I'm going to do about that...
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	[Jun. 29th, 2008\|03:03 am]
Day 5 (Saturday June 28) - Macon, MO to Cameron, MO route: A little cooler out today, but the headwinds continued to pound on me. I wanted to stop at Hamilton, MO, but there were no motels there, so I had to ride to Cameron. I rode over 100 miles today. The terrain is not as flat anymore, but nothing difficult, just rolling hills. I'll start putting up path profiles too: Encountered 4 more species of roadkill: bat, frog, snake, and hawk. The roadkill is seriously the most interesting thing out here on the mid-western roads. About 20 yards before you get to the dead animal, the scent hits you. You look up and see a dead coyote, 'possum, bird, raccoon, whatever. The larger ones sometimes have their guts strewn all about the shoulder of the road, a dark stain on the asphault from the dried blood surrounds everything. I should really be taking pictures of these critters. Though, I did encounter something interesting today - a jet. Boring roads, rolling hills: 101 miles!
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	[Jun. 28th, 2008\|02:38 am]
Day 4 (Friday June 27) - West Quincy, MO to Macon, MO: I left the hotel around 10 AM and went about 3 miles out of my way (6 miles total) because my GPS suggested taking a series of roads that turned out to be unpaved. F that noise. Seeing that, I turned around and had breakfast at a truckstop across the junction from the Tic Toc Motel. About an hour into my ride, a thunderstorm passed through and I got drenched because I couldn't find shelter in time. Luckily, I made it to a Subway in Palmyra and waited around for about an hour for my stuff to get dry. Not a great start to an overall shitty day. Missouri? More like misery. Today was awful. Awful hot. The headwinds were so bad that I was actually going faster on windless uphills (13 to 14 mph) than going down them (11 to 12 mph). On flats, it got so bad that I was averaging about 10 mph. I was feeling really strong yesterday and wanted to keep that momentum going today, but the weather killed it. My butt is soooooooore. I don't think I took any pictures today. I was just not feelin' it. The scenery is a tad different, in that it's not all cornfields. I've seen some cattle. Also, there's lots of road-kill. Skunks, racoons, opposums, and even turtles. I'm going to start making gmaps-pedometer.com maps or just embedding the google maps of each day's route. Day 4 route.
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	[Jun. 28th, 2008\|02:19 am]
Day 3 (Thursday June 26) - Astoria, IL to West Quincy, MO: Attempt to ford the river, or caulk the wagon and float across? Today was a good day. I felt strong. Not much headwinds. Not too hot. I started much earlier than yesterday. Getting an early start is key. Camp Emmanuel owner Jerry said a prayer for me before I left, even though I'm not religious at all. Everyone along the way so far has been super nice. For breakfast I had french toast and the most delicious, crispy bacon I've ever eaten. I continued down the 24 and after about 13 miles, I met a fellow cyclist. Frenchman Michael Morel was heading East to Chicago, coming from San Fransisco. He's meeting his wife and child in Chicago, and they're going to drive east to New York while he rides it. He has toured all over California and the West, then decided to go cross-country. Like me, he is also taking pictures along the way and updating his blog when he can. His blog is at http://traversee-usa-a-velo.over-blog.com (hopefully that's the correct address, I may have mistaken some punctuation). I didn't have the internet yesterday (I stayed at a campsite) or today (the restaurant I ate dinner at had free wi-fi, but for some reason I couldn't connect). He says it's got a lot of pictures - he's been on the road since early May. He's got a Surly Long Haul or whatever it's called with panniers all decked out for touring. Much better than my rig. We parted ways and I continued down the 24 until about 3 miles before Rushville. Googlemaps suggested taking Old Airport Rd (is there really an airport anywhere near here?) west for a few miles, which then turned into Camden, then N1200, and finally the 61. Unfortunately, after about a mile or two down Old Airport Rd, it became unpaved for a mile. It wasn't too bad because it was pretty hard packed gravel, but two dogs decided to chase me down. One of them had it in for me - it was trying to bite my ankle and my trailer. I think it took out the lower half of the flag-pole I had in there, but I didn't notice until I was a few miles down the road. Luckily, the other dog seemed to be on my side - it tried to stop the vicious dog from attacking me. Thanks pup. Three more pairs of dogs and a singleton gave chase through the rest of the day. Don't these farmers understand how dangerous it is for their dogs to be running loose along a highway where vehicles are going 60 mph? After about 45 miles going west, the road I was on (the 61) intersected with 336 and I turned southwest. 336 is big, fast road with a smooth shoulder, and I had a tailwind. I reeled in 7 or 8 miles pretty fast, but then re-connected with the 24, which brought me through Quincy, IL. Quincy is on the Mississippi, and for those of you who don't know, the Mississippi has been flooding everywhere. Levees are breaking; roads and houses are completely underwater. I ate dinner at Tony's (not the chain). I ate a delicious bacon cheeseburger and a potato dish I'd never heard of: river fries. Thick, Texas style fries with parmesan cheese on them. Amazing. I figured my leg muscles need some protein. Got out of there about 6 and went looking for a place to sleep. I was going to stay at a campsite right by the river, but it and the road to get there were under 4 or 5 feet of water. I could only see the STOP sign sticking out of the water. I would've taken a picture, but it was starting to drizzle, and I wanted to find shelter. Fortunately, it didn't start raining and the drizzling stopped. I was feeling pretty strong after 80 miles, so I continued over the Mississippi on a pretty cool bridge, where I saw some of the effects of the flooding. I really wanted to take pictures, but the bridge had a "No Pedestrians" sign on it, and there wasn't a shoulder or any sort of safe place for me to pull over. About 5 miles into Missouri (my first time here! a new state to check off of my list!) I got a bit nervous and started worrying about finding a motel in one of these small towns. Luckily, I found one right off of the junction with the 6. The Tic Toc Motel is only $31.92 a night. No internet, of course. I'm staying here because it's going to rain again tonight and I don't want to deal with a wet tent (there are no campgrounds close anyway). My tan is looking ridiculous. I'm going to have to (a) ride without a shirt on for a few days to even out my upper body, or (b) cover up my arms and legs and spend a week sitting in the sun at the beach. Frankly, both options sound pretty good. Hopefully I feel this good tomorrow. My legs and buttocks muscles are sore, but they're getting stronger each day. Pictures: Waiting for dinner Fellow Traveler
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	[Jun. 28th, 2008\|02:18 am]
Camp pictures: Lake at camp:
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	[Jun. 28th, 2008\|02:17 am]
Day 2 (Wednesday June 25) - Bloomington, IL to Astoria, IL: Brutal headwinds today. And hot. I got tired quickly and took many breaks. Filled up my waterbottles many times. Went about 17 miles southwest on Route 66, then turned turned west on US Route 136 for the next 50 miles or so. I ate dinner in Havana and then caught the 24 going southwest. Rode about 24 miles into Astoria, IL and camped at Camp Emmanuel about 3 miles south of the small town. The people who own it are incredibly nice. They let me stay for free, in a cabin with 6 bunkbeds in it. There's nobody else here. There were thunderstorms during the night that went right overhead. The thunder shook the cabin it was so loud. The bathroom facilities were pretty good for a campsite. It's a Christian campsite for kids, so all the wooden bunkframes have "I <3 God!!" and "Kathy was here" written on them. I haven't found a vulgar slur yet. I slather on tons of sunscreen each morning. The only thing exposed to the sun are my arms, legs, face, and neck. I'm getting tanner every day. I'm going to look ridiculous in a few days - half white, half dark. Pictures of cornfields and my rig:
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	[Jun. 28th, 2008\|02:11 am]
Glad I got a hotel - it rained all night. It's supposed to rain off and on throughout the day. I just finished eating two bowls of cereal. Gonna have a bagel then head out. Here's my trailer setup: Note that the tent is on top of my bag. I'll take Landgolier's advice and move it lower, to the side. To attach the trailer to the bike, the front "forks" of the trailer clip into a special skewer with holes on the ends of both sides (sorry no pictures of the full rig yet). Here's a picture of the skewer, hopefully you get the idea: LINK
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	[Jun. 28th, 2008\|02:10 am]
Yeah, I'm going to try to keep this sort of daily log and photos up, but there are going to be days when I don't have internet, so I won't be able to post each day at the end of the day. I also had one hell of a headwind for much of the day. I'm pretty tired, but I rode a lot further than I expected for day 1. I think I'll find my legs and my body will get used to this rigor pretty quickly. 90 - 100 miles a day seems pretty do-able in the flat Midwest. I actually did pretty well climbing the tiny hick-ups along the way. I'm going to dread the significant hills and mountains I come across, though.
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	[Jun. 25th, 2008\|03:33 am]
I honestly wish I had a Camelbak - reaching down for water is kind of scary because the trailer is so wobbly. I'm getting used to it though. Everyone on Route 66 has been great. No semis. People give me so much room when passing. No annoying "I'm here" honks. I'm in Bloomington right now. I decided to spring for a hotel. Wash my outfit and get internet access. Free continental breakfast also. Woo. Not many exciting photos - who wants to see cornfields, right? Here's my mistakenly purchased tent and sleeping bag on the left, next to my super light, compact sleeper and tent on the right. So much weight and space savings. Here's the giant space cowboy outside the place I ate lunch: Tomorrow I stay on 66 for 17 miles, then I veer straight west on 136 for about 50 miles. Then wiggle down to Quincy. Edit: I'm going to try to keep this sort of daily log and photos up, but there are going to be days when I don't have internet, so I won't be able to post each day at the end of the day. I also had one hell of a headwind for much of the day. I'm pretty tired, but I rode a lot further than I expected for day 1. I think I'll find my legs and my body will get used to this rigor pretty quickly. 90 - 100 miles a day seems pretty do-able in the flat Midwest. I actually did pretty well climbing the tiny hick-ups along the way. I'm going to dread the significant hills and mountains I come across, though.
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Chicago, IL to San Diego, CA

[Jun. 17th, 2008|11:44 pm]

[

Tags

bicycle, bike, california, chicago, cross country, illinois, san diego, santee, united states

]

I have this crazy idea in my head - I'm going to ride my bike across the country, from Chicago to San Diego. For the past week or two I've been getting the necessary items for the ride. I've also spent at least 2.5 hours on my bike everyday, riding at least 32 miles daily. I even rode naked (site appears to be down now) on Saturday night. I feel myself getting more in shape every day. The ride to and from work becomes easier and more monotonous. Luckily, half of it is through the ghetto, which keeps me about my wits, and all of it is with awful drivers and dilapidated streets. I've told my friends about my plan, as well as people I hardly know. I am extremely excited about it. The only thing I need to do before I leave is finish up my project at work (which should only take a few more days) and move my belongings from my old apartment to my new one.

I haven't planned a particular route yet, but a cursory Google mapping (avoiding highways) shows it's approximately 2115 miles (3404 km) from Joliet, IL (I'll be taking the Metra there from downtown) to Santee, CA (a suburb in San Diego County). I will be tweaking the google maps results to obtain a shorter, more direct route. Hopefully I can get it down to about 2000 miles.

Time for some simple math:

If I ride an average of 100 miles a day, I will complete the ride in 21 days (3 weeks).
If I ride an average of 80 miles a day, I will complete the ride in 26.5 days (almost 4 weeks).

I'd like to do somewhere between 80 and 100 miles a day. Let's assume I ride an average of 90 miles daily: I will complete the ride in 23.5 days.

I'm not entirely sure how to pace myself for this ride. I've done a few centuries before, but they were mostly in the frigid Midwest winter, and I had a much lighter load. I'm going to try to do 4 or 5 long days (~100 miles) in a row, and then a rest day (~50 miles). I'm hoping the wind will be blowing my direction most of the time, but more than likely I'll be fighting headwinds and crosswinds the majority of the time.

I am going to try to pack as light as possible (though I know a camera, ipod, and laptop are extraneous, they will make the journey much more bearable and fun). Here is my list:

1 bicycle (Fuji Team Pro, 2005)
1 bicycle trailer ($108, Nashbar)
1 tent ($30, Target)
1 sleeping bag ($18, Target)
1 small tarp [maybe]

1 GPS navigator [TomTom ONE, v4], running custom firmware to log/track my trip ($100, Microcenter)
1 road map of United States
1 camera [Canon 40D] with 1GB and 4GB CF cards, charger, 28-80mm lens, bag
1 cell phone & charger [AT&T network] (call me if you're bored and want to know where I am: 619-400-9775)
1 iPod & cable for charging
1 IBM x40 12 inch notebook & charger, no hard drive, used for charging iPod and GPS, as well as checking my route, email, and daily photo posts and blog updates.
1 8GB flash drive, one partition running a live, persistent Ubuntu 8.04, one partition for data, photos, blogs
1 1GB flash drive with backup Ubuntu installed

4 spare inner tubes
1 patch kit
1 spare tire
1 spoke wrench
1 mini tire pump
1 presta to shraeder valve converter
2 tire levers
1 Leatherman-style multi-tool
1 metric hex key set
1 white LED headlamp
1 red LED tail light
1 Kryptonite U-Lock
1 wireless cycling computer

2 waterbottles
Lots of energy bars (right now I'm liking the Odwalla ones)
Other food and snacks

1 helmet
1 pair of cycling gloves
3 pairs of spandex bike shorts
3 spandex sleeveless shirts
1 pair of bike shoes
1 pair of tennis shoes
7 pairs of socks
2 t-shirts
2 a-shirts
2 pairs of shorts
1 bathing suit
1 long sleeve shirt
1 pair of pants
4 pairs of boxer-briefs
1 rain jacket
1 pair of sunglasses

1 towel (large)
1 SPF30 sunscreen
1 medicated Chap-Stick
1 toothbrush
1 travel sized toothpaste
1 pack of dental floss
Assorted package of band-aids
2 lighters
2 matchbooks
8 Hydrocodone pain relievers

1 sharpee
1 ballpoint pen
1 pencil
1 small pad of paper
1 list of hotels/campsites/laundry mats/bike stores along my route
1 detailed printout of my route
1 set of keys
1 wallet containing cash, credit/debit cards, ID, ICE (In Case of Emergency) info (also stored in cell phone)

1 North Face hiking backpack to carry most items
Assorted Zip-Loc bags to hold/waterproof electronics, clothes, toiletries, etc.
Assorted large plastic bags to waterproof backpack
2 bungie cords

Other items will be purchased on the road, when necessary.

This list is incomplete and will most certainly change before I depart. I have not yet done a test-run to see how much everything together weighs, but my guess is that it's going to be too heavy. I have done a test-run with the empty trailer, and it went great. I'll be moving boxes from my old apartment to my new one with it over the next few days, and I will also be doing a test-run with everything in my pack.

I'll try to take pictures daily, and will keep a daily log. Internet access may be scarce in certain areas, but when it's around, I'll upload photos and blog posts. I'll be camping most nights, but staying in a hotel once a week to do laundry and have a comfortable bed. I will also probably stay in a hotel if it is raining. Hopefully there won't be any tornadoes or other extreme weather phenomena.

Please give me advice, criticism, and suggestions. I know I am forgetting some important items that I should be bringing along. What are they?

What interesting landmarks should I try to see when I'm riding (keep in mind I am trying to stick as close as possible to my desired route, which is certainly not yet finalized)?

Do you have any friends or relatives along my route that I could potentially stay with for one night?

Does anybody want to come with me? Partially? Ride the Metra with me to Joliet? Ride with me the first day? The first half of a day? Have friends or family along the route that would like to join me for a day?

I know this is a lot to digest. Let me know what you think.

I'll be posting more in the next few days, and finalizing my route.

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Digital IIR Filters

[Dec. 8th, 2007|12:45 pm]

[

Tags

cascade, digital, direct form, filter, iir, lattice ladder, parallel

]

I much prefer digital over analog, and I just finished my DSP2 class. I also love MATLAB.
For my final project, I decided to explore the effects of quantization of the coefficients of various structures of infinite impulse response filters.

Simply put, I created a lowpass Chebyshev Type I filter (order 10, f_c = 0.4 [normalized]). MATLAB outputs the numerator and denominator coefficients in Direct Form. I found some MATLAB programs which transform the direct form into cascade, parallel, and lattice-ladder structures. These structures are just a way of arranging/manipulating the coefficients; the frequency/phase response doesn't change. So why do these different structures exist? Because in a real system, we can't have infinite precision numbers. MATLAB outputs the coefficients as 64-bit Doubles, which for our sake, are "infinite" precision.

(I also like low power, low cost, low speed microcontrollers (i.e. 8-,16-bit Microchip PICs). Running a 64-bit floating point routine on one of these 20MHz beasts would take forever, so we quantize our filter coefficients to something more reasonable, like 8 or 16 bits.)

Because the coefficients used to implement the filter are not exact, the resulting poles and zeros will, generally, be different from the desired poles and zeros. As a consequence, the resulting filter will have a different frequency response than the one desired. If the poles are close to the unit circle, the stability of the filter may also be affected.

The different filter structures have varying sensitivity to the filter coefficient quantization. I quantized the coefficients in fixed point, from 6-24 bits.
Performance was measured by mean squared error in the passband only, and mean squared error across the whole frequency band. This later turned out to be unnecessary, as both MSEs are pretty much the same.

The direct form structure performed the worst, by far. The cascade, parallel, and lattice-ladder all performed about the same, and all performed really well.

The cascade filter closely matched the frequency and phase response of the original filter, while the parallel and lattice-ladder responses began to level out in the high frequency range (however they were still down about -50dB at 6-bits (and down even lower as the number of quantization bits increased), so this deviation isn't as dramatic as it looks in the frequency responses).

Full paper is here. Hopefully, my webserver is working.

link

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PWM LED Fading

[Aug. 5th, 2007|06:43 pm]

[

Tags

led, pic, pwm

]

At work we have these orbs from Ambient Devices (http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/orborder.html) which connect to the serial port and you can make it "display" almost anything you want, from the weather to stock prices. For one hundred fifty frickin dollars. All it contains is a few red, green, and blue LEDs and a 16F or 18F series PIC. The colors change and pulse up and down. I guess it's expensive because it also has a wireless "pager" receiver on the 929.6625 MHz band. But not worth $150.

Four bytes are sent to it... a start byte letting it know valid data is coming next, followed by a mode byte, and then color and pulse rate. More info about it is in the developer section of the site (http://www.ambientdevices.com/developer/).

When I opened it up and saw how simple it was, I realized I could build my own. Also, it gave me a good excuse to play with LEDs, and learn about the PWM functionality of the PIC 16F series microcontrollers.

To test the PWM, I wrote a program that fades an LED on and off, using the hardware PWM and one of the hardware timers in the microcontroller. The micro runs on an internal 4MHz clock, which produced 1MHz instruction cycles. It uses a PWM period of approximately 1ms. The fading effect is created by modifying the duty cycle to change the intensity of the LED.

The following is the core of the code. The main loop calls fadeU to turn the brightness of the LED up by adding the variable 'step' (which I set to 0x04) to the duty cycle register (CCPR1L). It then pauses for a very short time (about 16.384 ms) by calling T0ov which waits for Timer0 to overflow. I set the Timer0 prescaler to 64 (it divides the 1MHz clock by 64. 1000000 / 64 = 15625. 256/15625 = 16.384 ms). It then checks to see if there would be an overflow of the CCPR1L register by adding 'step' to it again, but this time it puts the result in W and checks the carry flag in the status register. If there's no carry, then it can continue to increment, otherwise, it clears the carry flag and returns to the main loop. The fadeD function does the same thing, but uses subtraction.

I used a 16F767.
---------------------------------------------------------------------


LOOP

    call fadeU		;fade up
    call fadeD		;fade down
    goto LOOP         	;repeat forever

fadeU    
    movlw step            ;increment duty cycle
    addwf CCPR1L,F        ;
    call T0ov             ;pause
    addwf CCPR1L,W        ;add step to duty cycle to
    btfss STATUS,C        ;check for overflow
    goto fadeU            ;fade up more if no overflow
    bcf STATUS,C          ;clear carry flag
    return                ;done fading up

fadeD
    movlw step            ;decrement duty cycle
    subwf CCPR1L,F        ;
    call T0ov             ;pause
    subwf CCPR1L,W        ;subtract step from duty cycle to
    btfsc STATUS,C        ;check for overflow
    goto fadeD            ;fade down more if no borrow
    bcf STATUS,C          ;clear carry flag
    return                ;done fading up

T0ov        ;rather than using Pause, check TMR0 
    btfss INTCON,TMR0IF    ;check T0 overflow flag
    goto T0ov              ;wait for T0 to overflow
    bcf INTCON,TMR0IF      ;clear overflow flag
    return

    end

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The next thing I would like to do is use an 18F series PIC with USB capabilities and use RBG LEDs.

link

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