A handful of quietness

A full moon, Crow Peak, Lookout and Spearfish Mountains, and the early morning light of January 20, 2011

John Sundberg — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:01:36 +0000

I know, I know…not a very imaginative title, and on top of that I’ve been ignoring this blog in a big way. Anyway, took some early morning photos today – enjoy!

Hit the “Read More” to see the rest of the photos…

2010 in review for “A handful of quietness”

John Sundberg — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:09:37 +0000

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,400 times in 2010. That’s about 3 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 13 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 114 posts. There were 100 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 24mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was April 1st with 34 views. The most popular post that day was If there had been television in 1517.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, obama-scandal-exposed.co.cc, sundbergbuilders.com, alightinthedarkness.wordpress.com, and blackhillswebworks.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for amy falkena sundberg, martin luther 95 theses, make way partners, martin luther reformation, and tool trailer.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

If there had been television in 1517 October 2009

2008 – The year in review December 2008
2 comments

One Saturday on the Mickelson Trail September 2009
2 comments

Bike November 2008

About November 2008
1 comment

Repairing a bent derailleur hanger on my Salsa Fargo

John Sundberg — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:22:39 +0000

The roads and bike paths are still slick from the snow and ice that hit Spearfish this past weekend. I know this for a fact, and I have the bent rear derailleur hanger to prove it!

Bent hanger on my Salsa Fargo

At the end of my pre-dawn ride this morning, and with about a half-mile to go, my concentration lapsed just long enough to allow my wheels to slide to the left and my Salsa Fargo and myself to land on our right sides. I’m fine — landed in a small snowbank — but the Fargo’s derailleur hanger took a good hit and ended up nicely bent. I was able to ride it home, although the end of the derailleur cable was hitting the spokes, reminding me of the noisemakers that kids sometimes put in their bike spokes.

As it turns out, I happened to have a Park Derailleur Hanger Alignment Gauge in my toolbox and this was my first opportunity to try it out. Ten minutes later (not counting the time to take photos along the way) the hanger was as good as new. According to the alignment gauge anyway. Not sure how many more realignments the steel in the hanger is going to tolerate before it snaps, nor do I want to find out!

Continue reading for more photos in the post…

Park Derailleur Hanger Alignment Gauge in place and ready for action

Park Derailleur Hanger Alignment Gauge at the rim

Good as new -- for now!

Mid-winter workshop

Testing the Post by Email feature on WordPress

John Sundberg — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 06:07:11 +0000

So I have this blog that’s been idle for a few months, and an Android phone that does all sorts of cool things, and I thought I’d combine the two and see if I can get more mileage out of both. Seems like one way to do that is turn on the "Post by Email" feature for the blog and give it a whirl. So here we go…

The Story of the Thirsty (LWI video)

John Sundberg — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:00:02 +0000

Everyone needs water. This is their story.

Another very cool moth this morning

John Sundberg — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 23:22:50 +0000

The detail and intricacy in this moth are staggering if you take the time to observe it. Another fine example of a creative Creator at work.

Mickelson Trail – Chilson Bridge to Minnekahta Trailhead: thunderstorms, Bullsnakes, and cattle drives

John Sundberg — Mon, 31 May 2010 17:53:11 +0000

On Sunday afternoon, May 16, we completed the second stage of our Mickelson Trail project, riding from Minnekahta Trailhead to Chilson Bridge and back again to the trailhead. We started under threat of thunderstorms off to the north, but they kept moving north and east, while we rode south to Chilson Bridge, though we did encounter a few raindrops along the way. Besides those raindrops, we also met a couple of Bullsnakes who were engaged in multiplying their species, and got caught up in a small cattle drive – seems that the lower parts of the Mickelson are designated as a multi-use trail!

Click to view slideshow.

Mickelson Trail – Chilson Bridge to Minnekahta Trailhead: 8.34 miles (16.68 miles total)

Mickelson Trail – Edgemont to Chilson Bridge

John Sundberg — Sat, 15 May 2010 19:48:58 +0000

One of our goals for this summer (spring/summer/fall) is to ride the entire 109-mile Mickelson Trail as a family. If we complete this project we’ll actually ride it twice, since we take one vehicle and ride out and back each time.

Through a series of events on Sunday afternoon, April 18, we ended up in Edgemont and started riding north. We were going to ride somewhere closer to Hill City, but scattered thunderstorms kept pushing us south, and we finally decided to just drive to Edgemont and get it over with! As you can see in these pictures, the far southern Black Hills are not as desolate as some think they are, despite rattlesnakes, poison ivy, and lonely canyons.

Click to view slideshow.

Mickelson Trail – Edgemont to Chilson Bridge: 6.74 miles (13.47 miles total), 193 feet of climbing.

(I took some or most of the photos while I was riding, so cut me a little slack on the quality of these images!)

Oh, and I’m trying a relatively new feature on WordPress.com that lets me display these 30 photos as a slideshow – no more scrolling down a long post of photos. Send some feedback my way if you like or dislike the new way to handle photos on this blog.

Google Earth images

A photo tour of the northern Black Hills at the end of March

John Sundberg — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 03:44:11 +0000

While it’s probably not quite over, winter is on the way out, and we’re in a transitional period here in the northern Black Hills. There’s still enough snow around to make hiking and biking somewhat difficult, though we did notice this morning that the grass in our front yard is turning green and there are buds on one of our trees. Saturday afternoon we decided to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather, but due to the amount of snow that’s still up in the hills, we ended up doing a driving tour of Spearfish Canyon, Terry Peak and the Wharf open pit gold mine. Here are some photos from that tour.

Bridalveil Falls, Spearfish Canyon

The girls kept calling this "the Bombing Place"

Wharf gold mine

Mid-march snowpeople

John Sundberg — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:40:23 +0000

I’m not sure who made the two smallest snowpeople, but the others were made, from left to right, by Kelsey, Libby, Jessica, and Maggie. Note the differences between Libby’s and Maggie’s. . . . even though they are twins, their “art” is radically different!