so.....the tire/tube changing didn't go quite as successfully as i thought at the time.
turns out there was actually a hole in the tire itself. was a pretty good sized hole. unfortunately i didn't find out about it till my son and i went for a ride the next day.

and of course, i didn't find it till about almost 1/2 of a mile from home.

that was a long walk back. :-\

anyway.....took the whole wheel, tire and all up to the shop. got a new tire (more on that in a sec) and a new tube.
the tube has slime in it. it's supposed to be self healing.
we'll see how this goes.
it was all of $1 more than the regular tubes so i figured it couldn't hurt to try.

the tube deal that amused me was a tube that was "guaranteed to not go flat!" and yet it came 2 to a package? er.....yeah. somehow that didn't quite sell me.

so....i had to get a new tire. there's a downside to this, and that's mainly my OCD when it comes to things matching.
apparently my tire size is not entirely common (it's 700x28c...i've seen quite a few of these so i'm not sure how they're not common? (at least according to that guy)) so he had to hunt around a bit for a tire.
the tire i got has the exact same tread (or rather, lack of) however.....it has very nice and pretty lettering on the side.
my front tire doesn't.

this is driving me insane. i notice it every damned time i look at my bike.
it's like my bike has a big zit right in the center of it's forehead or something.
so as soon as i can i'm going to take the front wheel up and have them swap it out.

and then yesterday was just great. first i got pulled over in a parking lot for exceeding the speed limit.
swear to $deity
the cop flashed his lights and his siren and i actually said out loud "what the fuck?"
so he walks up to me and i actually said "is there a problem officer?" (i've always wanted to say that)
he explained to me that there is an ordinance that covers speed limits in parking lots where there is no posted limit.
i got off with a warning.

somewhere along the same ride my bike computer and i broke up. no warning it just left with out even saying good bye.
searched everywhere i went yesterday morning (did the same this morning) and have no idea where the hell the damned thing jumped off my bike at.
so there's something i'm going to have to replace.
there's another cheezy component install that i'm not looking forward to. maybe this time i can figure out how to make it look a bit nicer.

then later on yesterday as i was coming back from school i managed to blow a stop sign right in front of a cop. hopefully it was a different one.
so yeah.

and...yesterday (all my troubles seemed so far away) was the first time i've managed to actually do 99% of my commuting on my bike. the only time i got in a car was when we went out for dinner after everyone finally got home.
i was rather proud of that.
all in all i probably rode upwards of 10 miles yesterday.

so other than that, i'm now officially pissed at open office. had a paper that i was working on and suddenly, it's gone. there is no trace of the fucking thing anywhere on my computer.
it's.
just.
gone.

so now i have to start over again and try to remember what the hell i'd done before. i was almost fucking finished with it and bah.
of course it's due tonight. :-\

meh. anyway, i think i just needed a jabber break. still trying to calm down from OO being a piece of shit.

ok, now having said all that, i'm back to my paper. i'm writing instructions on how to change a bike tire :-)