ooh.. that's purty. I have a thing for white track bikes.

Cavernmech: is Franek's white track bike an OLMO? I seem to remember something similar stamped into the seat stay of his bike.

No. Its an Italian built Gardin/Cambio Rino. His has Cambio engraved into the headtube. Gardin seat-stay plugs.
And not to nitpick but that is a road frame not a track frame.
Safety is a go but no one better poke fun at my red inflamed eyeball or its on!

word to the wise...

do not ever go to the Jerk Spot (wannabe) Yardy restaraunt...yuck
its wack with a capital 'W'


the worst imitation west indian food evarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

So that wasn't nitpicking? hehehhe

....and if you do have to make a go of it ...throw lefts as it's his right eye....he won't see em coming.
For God's sakes though don;t let him git his hands on ya .... he'll crush yer bones.

Speaking of greening, I've been to a few workshops on low budget & not so low budget ways to improve on new construction & existing buildings, I was surprised at the variety of available methods but for me the most impressive was geothermal heating & cooling! It's expensive to retrofit, less expensive to include in a new structure, definitely not low budget I believe a retrofit on a 2500-3000 sf house can be $25,000, but something like 15G for a new house. It takes such an impressive chunk of your footprint away that we've already decided if we build in the rural area we're considering for retirement it'll definitely be in the plan. We'd definitely have a wood stove or 2 to supplement as we're looking about 4 hours northeast of here and it gets cold, but with wood stove supplements instead of efficient natural gas that usually supplements geothermal in the city we'll have heating & cooling with only the fossil fuel of a 120v outlet or less

/end hippie gushing

In keeping with your hippy gushing...you may want to look at other heating methods as a backup.... wood fires create more airborne carbon than a car running does I've read. IR panels are something I've recently heard about that I'd like to learn more about. Burning anything in order to produce heat generally should be frowned upon. If building in rural... a windmill to inverter system would be nice as a geothermal supplement....

My dad's got a geothermal heat pump. Cost about 12grand to put in (and that was about 15 years ago) but it's already paid for itself. Now he heats/cools a 2500sqft bungalow for a few hundred a year. Bonus side effect is free hot water! It's a really cool setup.

He's also got a wood stove that he used to heat the house with. Not bad but you need kids (read:me) to split, stack and lug the wood.

Woodstoves do pump crap into the air, but they're romantic and if you're on a plot the size we're considering the wood would be our own whereas other options would mean further contributing via the trucking & infrastructure needed to deliver the fuel esp in the sticks where we're probably going.
The step-father-in-law has solar panels & some strange solar water heating panels on the side of their place out in the same area, and the other hippies with money in the area have considered a windmill, a big one, that would do the dozen homes or so in their area and then some, putting back into the grid, then you get a check every month instead of writing a check, but it's a huge undertaking, so not yet. My wife is actually considering taking on that project if we move out there, subsequent generational contribution to the area, for the right to live there and protect the area sort of thing. Who knows though, if the area around there gets too developed before we're ready we may go elsewhere, I'll need unpaved roads once I quit the city.

12G sounds good to me...now to just earn it somehow.., we've been dreaming about our eventual switch to the countryside and the ways of doing it for awhile, still years to go but we're getting there. The step-father-in-law build domes in the area, both spray concrete and geodesic, and is always telling us the latest way to build cool houses, so we're constantly changing our focus and reconsidering every time he confronts us with a new thing he's working with. Adobe anyone? I thought it felt out of place...

I've seen some dome houses that just kick butt, and they are wonderfully noticeable.
Geodesic for the math geek in us all. woot!

more from the "Wacky stock photography" files:
https://www.photos.com/en/search/clos...028273698accfd

hehe, lets all move to Sam's new neighbourhood so it gets 'overcrowded' and he has to move even further away! The tragedy of the commons as it were. Its a problem many cottage owners and rural dwellers have.

PS. I find the profile of the woman in that stock photo to be quite striking in an aesthetic sense. It jumps out at me for some reason.

Insulation, windows, doors, reducing thermal-bridging are super cheap ways to ruduce your foot print.

Another way is to put two water heaters in your house. Your traditional one, and one in the attic you run in the summer. You switch them with the seasons.

The r2000 standard has many good, cheap ways to refine your houses systems.

Collecting rain water is also a good one.

screw this board room meeting crap!! cage match on the table now! me's vs you's!!

loser gets coffee and donuts...if you survive!!!

I want to get a DALI controlled house where I can set light, heat and water electronically from anywhere in the world. You can preprogram it to turn devices on and off at certain times of day or in certain situations for maximum efficiency. You can use occupancy sensors so that no energy gets wasted where its not going to be used by a person. You can set it to gauge ambient light and heat and only produce enough extra to reach a basleine level that you set. You can track exactly how much energy has gone into which socket at what time of day to find ways to save even more energy. Just watch out for when the house gains self awareness and puts you down the garburator.

If you paired that system with an efficient building envelope (lots of insulation, lots of double glazed windows, no leaks), geothermal heating with radiant dispersal, on-demand water heating (no tank), a green roof with solar panels, and efficient appliances you would be in a seriously energy efficient and easy to live in home. You can use a sh*tload of high quality recycled building materials these days as well

[that] would be the sh&#T !

$4 heating bill

silly question, but what's the best way to get to the Alley behind Cavern for the safety meeting? Last time I went through the store, but that's not polite.

i think we can also make do with living in far smaller quarters than we currently do. it takes a lot more effort but a combination of pre-fab and custom built on a small plot of land is not much more dough than something in a subdivision. quite common in japan.. but i don't think north americans will ever compromise on the living space.
rob/op, love your new ride. what is it? were you lonely at lunch or did you meet up?
shiz: thanks for the links.

yeah, keith thinks its rude if people don't come in the back door.

You can get in there through the laneway entrance off George Street, just South of Queen. It's just the first laneway going behind that block.

https://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&t=h&o...,0.003213&z=18

A buddy of mine whose parents left him much greater means has a series of homes that are all automated like that. He's got the system down to the point that the computers check the internet and if his flight is going to be late or traffic is particularly bad (it can tell via his phones GPS and the airlines flight scheds) it can adapt its schedule accordingly. Its very odd to walk into a house that no one has been in for months and the house has ordered food and linens and such.

Oh and I'll see your Olmo and raise you a Zeus: https://cgi.ebay.ca/ZEUS-SLX-road-fra...QQcmdZViewItem

There's an amazing house profiled in the newest issue of Dwell (which is the "Smaller is Smarter" issue) in Tokyo. Obviously they know how to do small + efficient.

Throw one of the vaccuum cleaner robots and a body builder who can do the robot and other household chores and you're set!