Spent a wonderful morning with my son and their 15-month-old daughter. After breakfast, entertained her by supervising -- very carefully!! -- her rapidly developing ability to crawl up stairs. She is already determined that she wants to "walk" down facing forward, which she can't do of course yet without holding on to me with two hands while I'm kneeling in front of her so she can't pitch forward down the stairs when she loses her balance. (Important preparatory skill for learning to ride a bicycle, you see...) Thus tired out, she promptly went down for her nap, at which point I commenced the day's bicycle-related content. I made some modifications to the rear rack I had installed on my son's commuter bike a couple of weeks ago. (He works with data, not with tools, and besides, what are Dads for?) Armed now with more tools and parts than I had brought to the first house call, Mrs. C and I installed a seatpost collar with ears to fit the longer rack stays I had scrounged and a few other bits of scraps from the parts drawers to make the thing fit on the kind-of-weird dropout eyelets. So now the rack sits level, doesn't need P-clamps, doesn't foul the cable noodle of the rear V-brake, and keeps his pannier bag clear of his heel. And yes, the seatpost came right out. (Which at least one of you knows makes it a good day right off the bat, right? And it was. A really great day.)
I have a son who has made me proud and who is a wonderful father himself.