Asheville Skateboard Camp 2008

Skateboard camp. Where boys become men. Old, broken, scarred men. But the pain is worth the thrill. The feeling of movement on a skateboard is magical. My son Mars just finished a week at skate camp here in Asheville, NC and according to him it was worth every penny. Of course, these weren’t his pennies on the line, but no matter. It’s about progression, at any age, and Mars met his goal for the week by dropping for the first time at the park. I owe that boy a t-shirt.

Kenpo Joe Comes to Asheville

My son Mars and I got to work out with Master Joe Rebelo a couple weeks ago. He has more than a dozen black belts in various degrees and disciplines, and he also the official historian for Kenpo and our art, TAI. Our instructor Derek Croley, Croley’s Martial Arts Center, does a great job getting martial arts big shots to visit and put on seminars. Master Rebelo is a pretty entertaining guy and high-energy to say the least. Mars liked it so much he got “Kenpo Joe” to sign his belt. And we did get schooled, but not as much as the black belts in the class. Near the end of the seminar Rebelo called me up to demonstrate something, on me that is. Mercifully, he changed his mind before I got there, told me to sit down, and called on a young black belt instead. Then, he proceeded to twist and contort the guy’s arms, said “you don’t scream much do you?”, and performed another move that elicited a hilarious squeal.

“Everybody’s wearing a cup, right?!”

KenpoJoe.com

Kevin Shelton’s Skateboard Collection at The Push Gallery

This one if for my main man Bennie. He was the first guy I knew to have a “serious” skateboard. It was a Kryptonics Krypstick with gnarly see-through pizza deck grip tape, Tracker trucks, and some sweet green Kryptonic wheels. He was cool enough to let me use it to commute to summer school one year in junior high. It was slower than riding my bike but I really wanted to show off that board, even though it belonged to Bennie.

Asheville’s Kevin Shelton has quite a collection of cool boards too. And he’s not just a collector; he once was pro and road for Walker skateboards. Thanks to Push Skateshop Kevin’s collection is on display in their gallery. The gallery, which is probably bigger than the skateshop, regularly has art exhibited, paintings, sculptures etc., but this collection really combines the twin forces of art and skating like nothing else. I didn’t even know about it until I started talking to Rob, the owner, when he was helping out at my son’s skateboard camp last week. He helped Mars learn some new things. Maybe I can get him to coach me.

I took a ton a pics of this collection and had a difficult time picking these few. Shelton also has quite a collection of vintage snowboards and land luges on display, but the skateboards are what do it for me. Here are some of my favorites.

Asheville Living — Horseback Riding at the Biltmore Estate

We finished a major renovation project on the house this week. So, we took a break and my daughter Paris and I rode the horses around the yard for a while. From the back the house looks a lot like the Biltmore estate.

Paris’s horse was named Dusty and my trusty steed was called Cowboy. I decided to change my name to Horse for the day just to keep things weird. Our guide told me that Cowboy was a little slow and that I would have to kick him pretty often to keep him moving. Then, she said “I’m not exaggerating.” And she wasn’t. Homeboy, I mean Cowboy, was lazy. It took about 20 minutes until we came to an understanding of who was the real cowboy. After that we’re were trucking along just fine. It’s good to be back in the saddle. Yee haw!

Art Deco — Detail from Asheville Music School

Asheville has more than its share of Art Deco architecture, a good thing. There are a number of reasons for this. I would guess that the main reason is that the town was blossoming into a popular mountain resort in roughly the same period the Art Deco style was developing. That probably attracted architects like Douglas Ellington to come do their thing, or things.

This pic is from the corner of the Asheville Music School. It’s right down the street from my house and my kids take guitar lessons there. The building is not that exciting, but these pilasters are definitely handsome. There are a half dozen or so spread across the façade. The center strip appears to be bronze and terminates at the top with a light fixture. Those blue lights are a nice little surprise in the evening.

Asheville Living — Dupont State Forest Waterfalls Part 2

That’s right. This is the sequel starring my friend, and amateur stuntman, Robert Brokamp. While on point Robert discovered how slippery wet rocks can be and inadvertently added new meaning to “waterfall.” These falls are larger than they appear in this pic. Look at the third pic with Robert drip-drying to the right of that large rock for a better sense of the scale. Water + wool sweater = wet dog smell. A quick trip to the town Mall Wart for dry duds and all was well again.

Asheville Living — Dupont State Forest Waterfalls

This weekend the Sigler households joined forces and went a-hiking out at Dupont Forest. It’s less than an hour away and there are a bunch of waterfalls. The trip took us on increasingly rural looking roads with few cars in sight until we arrived at a parking lot jam-packed with tourists and a lot of out of state license plates. But there’s enough forest and waterfalls for everyone. Everyone that’s up for some serious uphill hiking that is. And we were. I decided I wanted to get close to one fall to feel its most awesome powah. I went barefoot and let me tell you it was cold man, cold!

There’s more about Dupont Forest at this unofficial site.

Rinnai Tankless Water Heater, $2,700 Installed

This one’s for Buck. We replaced our typical water heater with a Rinnai Tankless unit. We also moved it to be closer to the kitchen and bathrooms. It’s great that these products are much greener than the old stuff, but it’s also a major plus that the hot water never runs out, ever. So, all the family members or guests staying with you don’t have to stagger shower taking, or worry about running out after doing laundry or whatever.

Our local gas company, which also sells various gas products, did the install for about $2,700, which includes the unit. I got some other bids, and looked around online and this is about what you can expect to pay. This assumes there is already a gas line nearby, and that you have enough pressure or large enough line. When it’s on, it’s on, and if there isn’t enough pressure the performance of your heat system, stove and everything using gas will suffer. Mounting it on an exterior wall also keeps the cost down. That way the intake/exhaust pipe can run straight out the wall. There are outdoor units, but I’d rather not have my gear out in the elements.

One feature that’s really cool is the thermostat. We have it next to the unit for now while we renovate this house. Some people like to put it in or near a bathroom. You can adjust the thermostat when small kids take baths, or set it wherever you like it when you take a shower and just turn on the hot water, and ignore the cold. When you effectively bypass the mixer this way the water will always be the right temperature even if someone flushes a toilet, or the water pressure just drops.

There is a lot more I could say about tankless water heaters, but the bottom line is we are completely happy with ours. You can read more them about at the Rinnai site.

The pics here (clockwise from left) show the installed unit with water lines and the natural gas line in place, exterior intake and exhaust, the thermostat, and the Energy Guide card. Click it for a larger image.

Lumenlab Goes to China

First, I want to thank my peeps for posting some quality stuff while I was gone. I’m Heavy Duty! fans appreciate it!

My brother Grayson and I went to China this past week to meet with a factory that is a new partner for us. We also had the opportunity to meet in person with our rep from another, long-time supplier to Lumenlab.

It’s a long trip from the east coast of the US to inland China (over 24 hours), but it was definitely worth it. I had talked to several companies that import from China and work with manufacturers there and every one of them said “you have to go there.” In person, we were able to quickly get answers to our outstanding questions; get agreement on product details, delivery dates, production capacity; see the factory in action, and much more.

One morning we got a tour of the home appliance market in the Chenghuang district. (See pic below) This area was massive with block after city block filled with very small shops. These shops are primarily wholesale storefronts for various domestic brands of everything electronic, from speakers, to personal media players, to spare parts. It was a strange commercial environment unlike anything I’ve ever seen in the US, sort of an ongoing product expo.

On top of all that our excellent hosts made sure we got to see a lot of what is great about their home town, Chengdu. This major city is known as a “place for relaxing” according to our hosts. Wikipedia has a great page about Chengdu.

One of the non-business highlights was seeing the Sichuan Opera (Chinese language only site, but great pics!). It was less opera than I expected, and more like a variety show with a “cinema and draft” type atmosphere. There were loose chairs and tables with peanuts and non-stop tea. There also were people walking around and performing massages. One of them grabbed Grayson’s shoulders and said “massage-y? massage-y?” G shrugged him off and then he moved over to me. I thought “why not?” and let him proceed to beat the crap out of me while I sat in my bamboo chair. At one point he even had his fingers stuck in my ears and was mashing my head all over the place. To be honest, it was slightly nauseating, but somehow when it was all over I felt great.

It’s a good thing I was loosened up because about an hour into the show these knife throwing jokers came on stage and before I knew it I was drafted to go up there too. The basic set up was that the thrower wasn’t very good so the “target” decided to get someone else from the audience. Even though we were sitting in the middle all the way in the back I had a feeling it would be one of us. We were the only two laowai in the whole joint. So, I get up there and they first let me hold the knives and confirm that they are the real deal. Then, as I lean against the board one of the guys gets right in my face and says to me in his best, clearest english: “Take it easy. Take it easy.” Will do. Then, the thrower says something that I can only guess equated to “One! Two! Thre… Wait a minute, put the hood over his head.” Then, the count off again, quickly followed by the sound of two knives sticking into the board, close to my body. They remove the hood so I can see what happened. This went on a few times as I stood there essentially blindfolded, and the audience roared with laughter.

Then finally, they pulled out a balloon. Well, I knew right away where that would end up. Will it balance on his head? No. Maybe his shoulder? No. I know, let’s put it between his knees. Just when he was ready to throw he tells his partner to move it up a little higher. Oh yeah, put the hood back on. Pow! At this point I’m just glad to have the hood on. They take it off one last time and have me stand back and look at the board. I applaud their work. They each shake hands with me. We three join hands and take a big bow. As I’m walking back to my seat people on the aisles are giving me the thumbs up and clapping like crazy. I get back to my seat and Grayson says “you know what was going on, right?” “Uh, no. What?” “The thrower would count and his partner would just stick the knives in the board on cue.” “Oh, right.” It was fun, and one guy even came up to shake my hand in the street after the show. “You are a star!” he said, I think.

Have some tea, play mahjong or cards with some friends, and relax. You’re in Chengdu. (Grayson getting his tea buzz on at the Wenshu Monastery.)

Electrical Upgrades III — Revenge of the Lath

Here’s a peek at the continuing destruction of our house. Mountain Lights Electric came back to rewire the main floor of house, including a lot of new outlets (with three prong receptacles!), isolated ground circuits for the computer stuff, cable and telephone, some new outdoor outlets, and various other tweaks in the basement. Three guys, and me, for two full days and the cost of time and materials was about $2,000. We did everything but the kitchen since that’ll be gutted later.

I did some prep work to save time, including cutting all the holes for the new outlets in the plaster walls and drilling holes to route the cables from the basement. Here’s what I learned about cutting old plaster: Don’t do it. But if you have to, be sure to take your time. You can’t really use a stud finder on plaster because the lath makes it really too thick. You can try to use a RotoZip or equivalent. It’s probably the easiest way to make clean cuts, but the amount of fine dust is ridiculous. Picture thick white clouds in every room of your home. You can try to catch most of it with a shop vac, and it’ll be easier if you have a helper. The challenge with that is that the fine dust will quickly clog the vac filter. Also, if you try that I recommend using another hose to vent the exhaust outside of the house.

I was lucky to have Mr. Cool here to help when all this prep was going on. Here’s how we did most of it. I used a RotoZip or just a drill to make holes in two diagonal corners. Then, I would take a piece of stiff wire, bend it a bit and stick it through the holes to check for studs in the way. A small hole is easy to patch if you have to move over some. Next, I used saber/scroll/jig saw by starting in the drilled holes and cutting the two sides from that corner. This worked well most of the time, but you’re lucky to get a blade to last more than one or two outlets. The first pic is what success looks like. The second is what happens when you’re tired and impatient. If the saw blade catches the lath it can push it back into the wall and cause all sorts of pain. The last pic is typical of what the house looked like while the electricians and I were working. Also, notice the utter lack of insulation in these exterior walls. Another project…