Friday, December 4, 2009

Dark Skies

Whilst it is not as cold as it has been earlier in the week - it is colder than it was! My thermometer shows that the current temperature is around 5C and having just finished a 2 hour cycle ride my feet feel pretty cool. I have started wearing water-proof cycling boots now that the colder weather is upon us. They have the advantage of sealing at the ankle and being slightly larger than my normal cycling shoes or sandals. Which means I can then wear thicker socks - to help keep my feet warm. I usually use Sealskinz socks which are both waterproof and reasonably warm. My cycling boots have Shimano SPD clips - and I think that they conduct heat away into the pedals - at least my feet can get quite cold when cycling in sub-zero temperatures. In fact my feet are the most difficult part to keep warm on a long cycle ride in cold weather. My legs are doing the work and generate heat, I have some decent thick gloves and multiple layers of clothing keep my body warm - but after around 2 hours my toes can start to get numb with cold.


the socks have a waterproof membrane in and unfortunately my last two pairs of sealskinz socks got washed at too high a temperature and shrunk, so for once in my life some socks for Christmas would be a good idea. I have been catching up on radio podcasts missed whilst cycling in India - Windows 7 seems to be getting some positive reviews - using less resource than Vista - so it might be another Christmas present I'll be asking for. The challenge will be whether it really is compatible with the set or programs I use on my Desktop.


Lights are necessary by 4pm and I like to have some redundancy -two front and two rear lights. Although LED lights tend to be incredibly reliable - LEDs have a very long life you can get caught with a semi-charged battery. So I have been carrying a rechargeable lights - a USE joystick and a Cateye EL530 alkaline battery light. However I have been so pleased with my USE Joystick lights and their battery life that I have started carrying two of their front lights. One is a new model the other is an older model. Their beam focus and strength is just right - the only sacrifice is that I can't just buy some replacement batteries I they discharge en-route. The latest Joystick quotes a battery life of 3/10/24 hours depending upon the chosen beam strength - pretty reasonable. I often start out using them in flashing mode though since my concern is being seen rather than seeing. The other problem is that motorists don't always dip their lights when a cyclist is coming the other way with a dim light - with bright front lights they usually do. If you have ever tried cycling along a country lane with a car coming at you with undipped headlights you'll know how you can't see anything.


It will probably be a cold night as the skies were clear - here is the sun setting behind some clouds with a contrail at the top.


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Clouds over Wicken Fen




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Lastly a quick mention about Zoundry Raven which I use to produce my posts - I set the template so that it would start with the Arial font - unfortunately I could not find any way to set the colour (I like teal). So I was having to switch the colour every time I started a post. I then noticed that although the post when open in the Zoundry editor showed the Arial font - when viewing it from the list of Blog Posts it showed up as Times Roman. I now find it best to check the HTML directly and ensure that there is a Font change to Arial, along with the required colour - just to ensure that what finally gets published also has my desired font and font colour choice. I do hope the Zoundry gets going as an open source program.



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