A single shot, 5 oz. latte for Janelle. Check.

Much improving barista skillz. Check.

(not that my espresso skills were lacking, just my latte art skillz)

Janelle and I enjoy our Saturday mornings…

The first is Janelle, drinking espresso at my request.  The second is her cappuccino.  The third is my espresso extraction through the bottomless portafilter.

Here are a two of my most recent projects.  Both were low budget solutions.  The first is a table to get all of my espresso stuff in one place, on one counter top.  The second is a new amalgamation of parts combined to form a track bike that will be seeing some use on the Northbrook Velodrome this summer.

Stats:  Fetish Position Track Frame, SRAM track crank [with external bearings], Origin8 track bars I traded for, all black Tessa wheels that I convinced someone to give me, etc.  If I live 5 minutes away from one of the [only] 18 velodromes and only an hour away from another, I should take this opportunity to do some racing, right? Right.

Summer in Highwood is great.

Our garden, see how much it has grown from before (click here)!

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We eat homemade breakfast in the [paved] back yard, next to the garden, and drink yummy espresso.

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And this summer, our friends Courtney and Will came to visit. Score.

Janelle and I, thanks to John and Abby Kruse, were fortunate enough to have a good day at the vintage races and concours at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin this summer.  It was a great time with loads of awesome cars going extraordinarily fast, especially considering the moderate expectations I had due to the ‘vintage’ moniker.

One of the most unique cars in the not-worth-a-few-hundred-thousand-bucks sort of way was a freshly finished Mini that had been expertly outfitted with a Toyota 4cyl up front and full race attire inside.  The builder/driver was still getting it tuned in, but was supposedly turning some pretty great laps.

Please note the excellent use of a downtube shifter from a road bike (in the 2nd photo) for what I assume to be the choke.  Also, does anyone know the details on that electronic dash ‘pod’?

Me (Photo by Tim)

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Tim (photo by Karl)

(click for large version)

A quasi-Slayer way of brewing espresso… great results.