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Scrappy Hour Ride – June 2025

It’s been a while since I did the Scrappy Hour Bike Ride… February!? Yeah, I missed March due to knee pain, April due to work travel, and May due to fun travel.

So Matt messaged me about it last week and I had completely forgot! I was also not happy with the heat, but I was in. Let’s do it!

I did invite three other riders, none of whom could make it, but all asked for a reminder next time.

So from Tosa it was me, Matt, and Brian, who is one of the organizers of Scrappy Hour… Cool!

Brian is a lot of fun to ride with… we got going and a few blocks in he waved to some women on the sidewalk. I wondered if he knew them, but he sort of chuckled.

And this continued… He waved to kids, adults, and whoever else was out and about. It was actually pretty cool. I tend to be head-down when I ride on my own but seeing him wave to everyone was neat.

This time we rode to the steps behind the Marcus Performing Arts Center. We ride to a different location each month. For us riding from Tosa that usually means downhill there and uphill back. I’m getting better at uphill though…

I once again had the Kids Camera Instant Print (get your own!) and shot some photos, which you see here!

Matt told me a lot about his riding and how to properly do stats by looking at watts generated instead of just miles and hours (which I do now). Maybe I’ll try to measure watts for 2026.

Did I mention it was hot? It was way too hot. I’ve learned that one water bottle is not enough for a hot day.

I still think I’m the oldest person on these rides… I’m guessing I’m twice the age of some of the riders, but it’s all cool… we all ride bikes!

Maybe we’ll see you time! The Scrappy Hour ride is the last Sunday of the month. Right now if you want to find out about rides check out Scrappy Hour MKE on Instagram. There is also mailing list. (Email scrappyhourmke@gmail.com to get added!)

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Be Kind, Rewind

VHS Tapes

Hey remember video tapes? You’d rent them at a store, take them home, watch them, and then return them… but did you rewind it to the beginning so it was ready for the next person?

I remember that my dad got a tape rewinder because there was this fear of overuse and burning out of the motor in your VCR (Video Cassette Recorder). Unlike cassette audio tapes VHS tapes were not double-sided so rewinding was sort of important.

And yes, there is a movie called Be Kind Rewind and Beastie Boys do say “Be kind rewind” in the song OK. Anyway, it’s a fun phrase that can be used in many ways.

But… at some point “Be Kind, Please Rewind” became “Rewind or Be Fined” and man, that’s just cruel.

We went from “Hey, be cool and help out the next person.” to “Fuck you. Do what I say or I’ll take your money!”

That seems the way of the world for so many. Cruelty seems to be something that many people enjoy… but why? Dissatisfaction with their own lives? Unfounded hatred or fear? Hell if I know, and I wish it would stop… So remember the phrase “Be Kind, Rewind” and try to live by those words… or at least the first two words. Be Kind.

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3D Printed Sign Letter Stencil

Dana and I went to the “No Kings” protest last weekend, and I asked if she wanted one of the signs I made, or if she wanted to come up with something. She didn’t have any ideas until Friday night, so I rushed to get a sign made for her Saturday morning. Here it is! If you haven’t seen Daniel’s comments, check it out.

To make the sign I started in Inkscape with an Tabloid (11″x17″) canvas, and typed out the words. My plan was to 3D print the letters and us them for the stencil.

The red squares represent the size of the print bed on my 3D printer. I could not print the whole thing in one go so I broke it into two sections…

Here’s the first section. I brought the SVG into OpenSCAD and extruded it 1.5mm tall. Once I did that I exported an STL file I could print.

With the letters printed in black filament I put them down on the tabloid size foam core board to act as a stencil. With the letters being 1.5mm tall they had enough weight I didn’t need to worry about the paint blast blowing them away.

Spray Spray Spray! Paint goes on, letters (in place) stay. I let things dry for a bit…

Then removed the letters. A sign! I did think that it might have been fun to just glue on the 3D printed letters, though that would have added a little more weight to it. Still, ideas for the future… especially with multi-color printing. But again, I wanted to make a sign fast.

For good measure I added a 3D printed handle to the sign. I tweaked a design someone else threw together but I’m working on my own version now.

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Crumpets – First Attempt

Crumpets - First Attempt

I just returned from Scotland where I remembered my love of crumpets. Crumpets are much better than “English” muffins here in the states, but difficult to find in the shops. Trader Joe’s sells them, but most places do not.

Crumpets - First Attempt

I decided to use the Warburtons recipe which seemed a little weird compared to some of the others I’ve read. It also seems like there are a ton of different versions of crumpet recipes so I will need to explore others.

Crumpets - First Attempt

The final results were not amazing though… I think I had the heat too high, and I used olive oil instead of butter so the household vegan could try them as well.

Crumpets - First Attempt

Oh, I used these 3.5″ Wrenbury Crumpet Rings, which seemed to work quite well. Someone suggested not using rings at all, though I don’t know how that would work. If greased properly the rings slide right off the crumpet, which is what you want. I may need to find other uses for the rings in the kitchen.

So how do they taste? Well, I had one immediately and just had it plain (while I was making the second batch) and the consistency seemed right, though without a topping (butter or jam) the flavor was lacking. I made one a bit later by putting it in the toaster and then covering it with some Irish butter and hot damn it was good! I really need to perfect the holes in the future though to improve things.

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milesBiked – A Bar Graph Generator

In a previous post titled Miles Biked (so far)… I talked about generating bar graphs to show how many miles I biked. And in the post before that I suggested you Share Your Code. So this post is the logical conclusion.

You can find milesBiked on Codeberg, a community-led platform that offers Git hosting and other services for free and open source projects. Codeberg is a non-profit organization based in Berlin, Germany, that respects privacy, supports the commons and celebrates creativity.

When I posted about blogNag – A Blog Post Reminder I decided I should try to do more to share the code I write. It’s not amazing, it’s not worthy of praise, but it’s code that works for me, solves a problem, and others might be able to use it to learn from. In the age of AI, LLMs, and “vibe coding” I think this is important.

In a world where so many applications are subscription-based, or the free version has limitation that can only be unlocked by paying, releasing free software and open source software to the world can be seen as an act of resistance… or rebellion, even.

Code given freely is a gift to the world. I expect no remuneration for the code I share. Save it for larger projects with more impact. I donate to a number of larger software projects that I use all the time. Inkscape, OpenSCAD, CryptPad, and others… Tools I use almost daily that have allowed me to escape restrictive commercial software. Send your money where it will help the most.

Right, so I learned a bit about Matplotlib and used my basic Python skills to write about 25 lines of code… but I stand on the shoulders of giants. Those who created Python, who documented it, the Matplotlib authors, and the people who wrote articles, blog posts, forum posts, and tutorials with example code that made it all very easy for me.

Good software isn’t created in a void… and it’s not created by telling a machine what you want your code to do. It’s created by people like you. Let’s all work together to make a better world.