The Weather Bug gadget in five different views

Temperatures play a major role in cycling garment selection. Too much and you'll find yourself sweating and having to remove your gloves midway. Too little and the ride becomes very uncomfortable.

Wind speed and direction are important too. While the windchill factor is commonly understood, cyclists have to take the direction into account. Cycling at 30kph against a 30kph headwind results in a net windchill effect of 60kph, driving effective temperatures further down.

Which is why a tool reporting temperature, wind speed and wind direction is important. The default weather sidebar gadget in Windows Vista publishes temperature but nothing about wind. I stumbled upon WeatherBug's sidebar gadget that shows all the information I need and more. (A similar gadget for Mac OS X and other platforms are available as well.)

While setting up the gadget, it needed to know the desired weather tracking station. The closest available is Waterloo Well, which is, well, in Waterloo, 10-20 km away. There is a closer station at Guelph Turfgrass. I emailed WeatherBug about the closer station. I wonder if they'll respond?

I had a computer desk that was made purely for working at the computer. I loathed the slide out keyboard tray and found the surface too high. It was uncomfortable to do simple things like reading a book.

I went to a furniture store to look for one that is more suitable. A saleslady there talked about her days as a student and how she hung a door under a window to make a table. I decided to make my own along the same lines.

A simple act of pouring water from a jug can reveal a well-known fact – keyboards do not feel thirst. As I poured water, the jug’s top cap popped off. A torrent of water crashed onto my new keyboard.

I didn’t panic. In fact, I continued typing to complete my instant message. Then, I lifted the keyboard and flipped it around. Splash! Another waterfall emerged. It was actually pretty.

Remarkably, the keyboard was still functional. I could still type about a few hundred characters before it started to fill my message window with junk. I had no choice but to shut the computer down and try my best to repair it. More...