Here’s a photo of mine. (You can see my poor Litespeed bicycle behind it that I haven’t been able to ride in a long time)

Of course, what did I do? I went online! Yes, using the power of the internet, I found The Pendulator. The Pendulator is an attachable rotating cup holder! So, depending on where you attach it, it will keep your drink horizontal. Talk about a great idea!

So, I ordered one from Mocor, Inc. who makes The Pendulator. I received an email from Sal and a few days later, it arrived! HOORAY!

Of course, being the type of person I am, I bust out my screw driver and start putting it together. The Pendulator comes in several pieces — the cup holder itself (the Pendulator), several attachment brackets, and some screws and bolts. The attachment brackets are really quite nice and the way they are designed, they will allow you to attach to a round bar, square bars, or ovals using friction and the bolts or if you want a more study fixture, you can directly drill and use the screws provided to screw the pendulator bracket directly into the target surface.

Since this is going on my rollator and I didn’t want to possibly damage anything load bearing on it, I use the supplied brackets for round tubing and the bolts.

One thing I noticed right away was that because the tubing is round and slick, the brackets kept on sliding around! This of course kind of makes a cup holder useless if it can’t hold onto the tubing. Unfortunately, The Pendulator also no longer comes with double-sided tape (since people kept on using it for “permanent” mounting — which it is not) since with double-sided tape, I could put that under the bracket to give it grip.

Luckily, however, I’ve had experience attaching brackets to round tubing — I was, after all, a cyclist. And all cyclists know how much of a pain it is to attach brackets to bicycle frames. So, I went looking for some rubber tubing. Alas, we didn’t have any! But, I did have #64 rubber bands which are 1/4″ wide by 3″ long. I split one of these and wrapped it around the bar and then attached the bracket. Voila! No more slippage.

Now that I had the bracket attached, I then went to attach the cup itself. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, the bolt that attaches the cup to the bracket was the wrong size! After noting this issue, I emailed Sal letting him know of the problem. After a quick set of email exchanges during which Sal verified which part was the culprit, he mailed me a set of hardware which arrived a few days later. I then attached the cup to the bracket and now I was in business!

At this point, I’ve used The Pendulator for about a week or so and must say that I am very satisfied with my purchase. There are some drawbacks since no product in the world is 100% perfect but those are fairly slim.

The things that I find that are good about The Pendulator are

• inexpensive! With Shipping, it was just under $20.00
• Lightweight
• It keeps drinks level!
• various attachment methods
• Tools needed are just a standard screwdriver
• Great Customer Service. You talk directly to the owner of Mocor, who created the Pendulator

Since I’ve said that no product is perfect, there are some negatives, but these are fixable.

• If you use the bolts for attachment, the end of the bolts will probably stick out. You can see this in the photo above. This means that you have to either be careful to not scratch yourself or cut the end of the bolts off (or cover them). Since I try not to give my husband extra work to do, I’ll end up putting tape on here to cover the end up.
• Since it’s just a standard screw in bolt that holds the cup holder to the bracket, over time, due to vibration, it will become loose. I’ve already had to re-tighten this bolt. I may apply some light breaking thread locking compound. That will help
• Slippage of the bracket on a round bar. Would be great to see some rubber or something added to the kit. Not everyone will think or have rubber bands around.

One last thing to note is (unfortunately) my favorite coffee mug does not quite fit The Pendulator correctly. Because it does not flare up (go from a smaller base to larger top) but instead keeps the same size all the way up, it’s just a tad too big for the cup holder. It doesn’t fit all the way to the bottom and thus sits high in the Pendulator. Because it sits high, the center of gravity is high and if it gets too off of horizontal, it wants to cause the cup holder to rotate upside down. BUT! Because the Pendulator has a hole in the bottom of the cup holder, I could add weight attached to a string that hangs below, thus changing the center of gravity and thus keeping it upright. I haven’t done this yet, but it’s probably coming. I really do love that coffee mug. It keeps my coffee hot for hours.

Over all, I am really happy with the Pendulator. In my opinion, it’s one of the best $20.00 I’ve ever spent. :)

(A few more pictures)

Way to go Deb and Omar!

[Embedded SGF File: Easy problem]

So lots of basic note transitions today working on keeping the transitions clean. Nice slow repeated practice. I’ve also got Jim McGillivray‘s Rhythmic Fingerworks book open which has lots of great exercises.

I may also need to rehemp my practice chanter. The top is a bit looser than I like.

The first Opera of the season, Manon had me crying at the end because the story was told so well and the ending, so sad. The second Opera of the season, La Cenerentola (Cinderella Story) had both my husband and I nearly falling out of our seats in laughter. The facial expressions were most amazing. We loved every minute of it. It was dazzling.

And the Marriage of Figaro was yet again an amazing performace. Bravo Bravo Bravo!

http://blog.riflegear.com/archive/2007/12/26/hello-kitty-ar-15—evil-black-rifle-meets-cute-and.aspx

On the Gizmodo tech blog today, they posted information about the Hello Kitty Chainsaw. It’s also quite cute too. :)

Before you grab the door that someone who is handicapped is holding onto, PLEASE ask them first. I can’t say for everyone else out there who is handicapped, but I know that for me, in order to open that door, part of my weight (and thus balance) is being held by that door my hand is upon. In order to open a door, I have to adjust my balance and weight so that as I pull that door open, I’m also leaning against it. If you pull that door away from me, I can fall because I’ve suddenly lost that balance.

The same thing goes with helping me get back up after a fall. Please ask me first if I need assistance. Please don’t just grab my arm and start pulling. All that will do is cause me to lose my balance again and I’m going to fall again.

(No, I haven’t fallen recently, but last time I did people tried to help me over and over and over again… and I kept on falling because they kept on pulling me off my center of balance. I finally had to be rude and ask them to let me go)

That also means that I have also not been practicing keeping the drones going on the bagpipes.

I do know that my interest hasn’t waned. I still check into the Bob Dunsire Bagpipe Forums daily. My energy level, however, just hasn’t been there. I come home utterly exhausted. There have even been times where I don’t want to turn the TV on because I just do not have the strength and energy. Dialysis and work really take it out on me.

But, tomorrow, I intend to fix this! I will practice on the PC for a little bit and I’ll pick up the GHBs and work on keeping a single drone nice and steady. I need to get back into the habit of doing this daily so that it truly DOES become a habit again.

In the words of a great little poster we have hanging by the door.

I want YOU to Practice Every Day!

For those that don’t know, these “smartguns” are designed to use some type of device such as a ring, or in this case, a wristwatch in order to act as an additional safety. But, these safeties, are actually a hidden danger. “Why?” I’m sure you’re asking — well, let me bring up some scenarios and talk about human nature.

Scenario 1
It’s late… 3:00 AM in the morning.. and someone breaks into your house… You quickly grab your gun as an intruder violently breaks into your room where you, your spouse and your baby sleep… Understanding that your life is suddenly at risk, you squeeze the trigger as the intruder wields a knife toward you… and you hear nothing as the knife plunges into you.. YOU ARE DEAD because you had a “smartgun” and your watch was not on your wrist… because like most people, you take it OFF when you go to bed. Oops.

Scenario 2
You get used to the fact that if you don’t have the watch on, the gun is “safe”. However, one rule about guns is IT IS ALWAYS LOADED and you NEVER POINT IT at something you do not want DESTROYED. You start getting into the bad habit of “it’s safe. I don’t have the watch on”. So you do some dry fire exercises… Except you think .oO “Unloading takes time. It’s safe. I’ll just fire the way it is.” and you start practicing…

Your friend, however, seeing you’ve left your watch in the living room decides to be helpful and brings the watch to you. As they come into the room you are in and starts to say “Hey! You left your watch ….” BOOM goes the gun as they get close.

Oops.

The number one safety of any firearm is YOUR BRAIN. NEVER depend on a mechanical or technological safety. Before doing any work or dry fire or anything else where you do NOT want the firearm to go off — make it safe. Always assume it’s loaded. Even if you walk away from it for a moment, before you start again, VISUALLY make SURE it’s UNLOADED.

Be safe out there. Let’s all come home to our families.

It was a ton of fun as it is every year! I attended a talk with Liz Henry on WordPress. I knew what it was but had never touched it or installed it. The talk was quite interesting and obviously (by the fact this blog site now exists) I decided to play around with it. :)