Friday 5

BASEBALL: Name that pitch

FRIDAY 5: Fan's Guide to Spotting Baseball Pitches from Dan Conover on Vimeo.

This week's Top 5 grew out of my frustration at listening to Bob Brenly casually announce whatever pitch had just been thrown. Most looked pretty much alike to me. What was Bob seeing that I wasn't?

When I started asking around, it turned out I wasn't the only person befuddled by the pitching game. Lots of people love baseball, but an awful lot of average fans simply don't know how to identify basic pitches.

So I turned to Andy Solomon and asked him to set something up for me with the Riverdogs. He got me down on the field with pitching coach Jeff Ware for a typical warm-up sequence with right-hander Adam Olbrychowski as the team prepared for a 7:05 start. This is the result.

Can I spot every pitch now? Of course not. But thanks to Jeff and Adam I know that a curve has a hump in it, and when I see a fastball that drops into the catcher's mitt with a sly little last-millisecond wiggle, I've got a pretty good idea what just happened. See for yourself.

F5 TV: Changing Charleston... & North Charleston

Friday 5: Changing Charleston from Dan Conover on Vimeo.

In this week's second episode on the Friday 5 Channel on Vimeo, here's a piece about how rising property values along Upper King Street may be contributing to a migration of artists, entrepreneurs and creative types to the southern edge of North Charleston.

F5 TV: Fix-a-flat!

F5 HOW-TO: Patch that bike flat! from Dan Conover on Vimeo.

In the first of two additions this week to the Friday 5 Channel on Vimeo, I provide a How-To guide to fixing a flat bicycle tire. I know a little bit about this procedure, too: Until I upgraded to Armadillo tires on the Trek SU-100 that I ride to work, I was fixing two flats a month on average. That's because I live in the North Central neighborhood, and for whatever reason the city seldom gets around to cleaning Upper-Upper King Street.

I don't give a demonstration of how to remove the rear wheel, partly because there are so many ways that chains and shifters can be set up, but also because it's just kind of annoying compared to removing the front wheel.

And yes, if you're in a big hurry you can strip the tire off the rim, remove the tube, patch the puncture, re-inflate and go -- all without taking the wheel off. But that' kinda like showing off for most of us.

I know this is kind of basic for some people, but here's the truth: I was in my 40s before I fixed my first flat, and people pay good money every day to have a bike mechanic fix their flats. You can do this.

F5 HOW-TO: Preseason lawnmower tune-up

LAWNMOWER HOW-TO: F5 tune-up guide from Dan Conover on Vimeo.

I've been mowing grass on the cheap since the Ford administration, which means I've brought home some epically cruddy lawnmowers. Some I got for free and nursed back to "health." Others I bought and then couldn't give away. I've had mowers that went BANG and then fell forever silent, power-assisted mowers with bad attitudes, mowers with strange wheel-base set-ups and mowers with what could best be described as perpetual head-colds.

And what have I learned from all this? Two things:

1. Change your oil once a year;
2. The hand file you use to sharpen your mower blade is properly referred to as a "bastard" file. This has something to do with the pattern on the file itself. Seriously.

This week's Friday 5 is meant to help you get your lawnmower ready for the grass-growing season ahead, but I'm a guy who learns better by watching than reading. Which is why my wife Janet and I went out and produced these videos to help you through your pre-season lawnmower tune-up -- we figured that if regular people could witness a dork like me doing a tune-up, they'd feel more confident about doing it themselves.

And that will save you money.

Also, because we figured some of you would only want to see instructionals on specific tasks, I've broken the video up into five shorter chapters, too (ed note: video links will follow as these are posted):

1. Clean and lubricate
2. Change the oil
3. Replace the air filter
4. Replace the spark plug
5. Sharpen the blade

You can now watch all my Friday 5 videos on their own Vimeo channel. Free subscription via RSS!