Spook Hill Road

05-JUL-2009

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Sunday was a 40 miler with more of my most favorite roads. 3000 feet of climbing-- not bad for a relatively short ride! Scenery was gorgeous, weather was prefect sunny, dry and not too hot.

Next time more roads in and around Prettyboy reservoir.

June 8 2009 - To Mt. Caramel

8-JUN-2009

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This ride has some of my most favorite roads on it: Duncan Hill, Yeoho, Prettyboy Dam, Cedar Grove and Cold Bottom. Absolutely gorgeous day for riding. Next time, all the way to Spook Hill road!

Notable Events:

• Got chased by a big shaggy dog as I was cresting the peak of Duncan Hill. Had to go downhill to avoid it. I waited at the bottom for a moment and then went back. The dog probably just wanted to say Hi (or use my leg as a chew-toy!)


• Got to experience the scene at oregon Ridge park for "karmafest"-- overheard some _very_ strange conversations about reincarnation, vibrational planes and crsystals!


• Made the very fundamental error of not eating enough during the ride! Only had a granola bar with me and as a result felt spent after 50 miles.

Cellphone pics from apex of the ride (Prettyboy Dam and Mt Caramel):

Baltimore - Greenspring Valley - Baltimore

3-07-2009: Baltimore - Greenspring Valley

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It was such nice weather this morning, I had to take a ride. This is my first "real" ride of the year. I've been commuting to work by bike when the weather permits, and have taken up spinning classes 3X a week since December. I have to say the spinning classes have paid off: 32 miles, 2 hours (door to door), deliberately "easy" exertion level. It's going to be a productive summer!

DC to Baltimore-- one way to do it

Now that I've been commuting, I have the urge to try some longer rides. This is an idea for a ride from DC to Baltimore that takes advantage of the Anacostia Tributary Trail network. I am not sure how practical the streets in DC near Penn Station are but I think these will be fine on a Saturday morning.

Here's the Bikely link.

DC to Baltimore Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

Commuting, FINALLY!

I often use work as an excuse for NOT cycling. Not anymore! I've recently changed jobs and I now work about 12 miles from where I live. This is close enough for regular commuting! I am up to twice a week now and will try to bump that up to 3 or 4 times a week.

Link to bikely page.

Commute to work

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Sparrow's Point...

I called this a "quickie" a couple of years ago. I would not call it that today, but it is a nice ride through a scenic industrial area.


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Short Ride

I would like to get back to blogging each of my rides. However, in order for this to work, I will have to keep the postings short, sometimes very short.

Here's a start. This is yesterday's after-work ride to Fort Mchenry. Nothing notable. It was slow because I am now slow, but I hope to get my speed up by the Fall (or at least try).



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Motorola MD400 phone problems

A few years ago, my wife and I purchased a set of wireless phones for our landline at home. They were the motorola MD400 series phones. At first everything was perfect, the phones had excellent reception and sound quality. No problem with batteries. Just Perfect.

Sadly, that didn't last very long. Over time and one-by-one all the phones developed a weird problem. The uppermost keys became difficult to activate. We had to press down long and hard to enter a "1", for example. Eventually we reached the end our patience with this and decided to do something. A google search yielded a nice discussion on amazon.com on how Motorola had recognized this as a problem and was providing problem-free replacement units free of charge. I called Motorola customer service and told them that 3 of 4 phones were having this problem. They sent 3 replacements and we were very happy.

... until 1 year later when the 4th phone started to have this problem! Unfortunately, this time the exchange program was no longer offered by Motorola. Again, google yielded an answer from some a nice person on amazon.com.

The choice was to either give up on the 4th phone, or follow the instructions to repair the problem. What I've done below is to outline the steps I took to clean the handset keypad contacts. It follows Kamoske's steps from his amazon posting to the letter. Maybe if anyone else has the same problem they can find some help from these directions.

So here's what I did:

1. Open battery compartment, remove battery. Also remove belt clip on back of phone. You might have to pry it a little.


2. Pop off the access panel on upper back of phone. This panel merely hides two screws.


3. Unscrew all visible screws, Separate front and back of phone. You might have to wiggle the pieces relative to each other. The rubber strips on the sides are held in place with dovetail grooves.


4. The phone should come apart in three sections.



5. At this point, get some cotton swabs and alcohol. Dip a swab in the alcohol and rub down the contacts on the keypad and little black pads underneath each button on the rubber membrane.



6. Let it dry and re-assemble. Your phone should now work properly.