Sunlight Growing In The Belly Of The Earth

Happy Candlemas! No morning weigh-in: I overslept and forgot about it in the morning rush. I expected good things, since I was pretty good yesterday (lunch was broiled chicken sandwich, dinner was baked stuffed tofu w/ sauerkraut and steamed asparagus, and I hit the gym after dinner.) Tonight is Mug Club Night, so I don't know what tomorrow's scale will show.

TOPS-20 Voyager: I got an account at twenex.org, started playing around with that. It's so strange, you think you know computers -- and after a few years I think I know my way around Windows, Unix and Mac (the old Mac), at least enough to use them -- then I come across this, and even though I've seen and used similar things, it's really like a foreign language. Can't figure out how to actually do anything yet, but I'm definitely becoming a master at typing "help."

Actually, I don't know how into Teh Twenex I'll get in the near future, since my next project will be "Operation Crock Pot." Stay tuned...

Junkyard Art

Here's a photo of the giant chicken at the junkyard.


















And here is a photo of, well, I guess it's Atlas holding up the World Trade Center and some bikes.

Time For Some Java?

Morning weigh-in: 180#, 8% BF

Lunch & dinner yesterday were the two halves of a turkey sub. I worked late, then went to a spin class at the gym -- my first in a few years. I thought the instructor was supposed to be my old Gangster teammate Kim (she runs their aerobics program, teaches a kickass spin class), but it was some woman I never saw before. Good enough workout I guess, but the music (Loverboy? Loverboy??) was enough to make me gag...

Evening was spent reading about chess, and Wittgenstein, and fiddling with the computer.

(Meantime, something I didn't mention the other day: that blueberry-cinnamon flavored coffee kind of grows on you, and it's also got an incredible kick; I was wired the other day from just two cups.)

So anyway, sudoko. There's a girl in Easton, forget her name but she dates the old singer from Rhino Campground. Super-duper hottie despite the gorilla-girl aesthetic, she can sometimes be found hanging out on quiet nights at Porter's, doing what I originally thought were acrostics, but it turns out they're the hot new puzzle from Japan (via England?). I happened upon some references the other day, looked it up and ran across some interesting Java programs that deal with this -- maybe I'll pick up where I left off, playing with Java... so it looks like I'll be drinking lotsa coffee, typing away, talking faster and faster, playing chess and running shell & awk scripts and java programs and -- help me Too Much Coffee Man!!

Oh, and by the way, check this out.

The World Is My Idea

Morning weigh-in: 182#, 6% BF I think I'm detecting a pattern...

A chicken in the rain: Went out yesterday, took photos (coming soon) of the welded metal sculptures down by the junkyard, and I couldn't help but notice that the junkyard itself was practically empty. No doubt it's because of the high metal prices worldwide, as China's demand for steel keeps rising; there are probably a lot of scrapyards looking barren these days. Sure hope they don't decide to break up the sculptures and sell them too.

Sneakernet: After that I stopped by Brian's house, where I tried my pen drive on his computer. It worked fine, all the stuff I put on it was available. After that we hung out for a bit, had some chili he made in his crock pot: we talked chili, crock pots and slow-cooking recipes...

Tractatus Logico-Catfighticus: After Brian's I went to Barnes and Noble, picked up two books on chess (sigh), a slow-cooking (ie crock pot) cookbook, and Wittgenstein's Poker, a book about an altercation in 1946 between Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, at the monthly meeting of the Cambridge (or was it Oxford?) Moral Science Club. Good story so far.

One More Show I Don't Have To Watch: Kung Fu Monkey takes on Lost.

How To Waste Time On A Sunday

Here I am, sitting in front of the computer: rain has been predicted, so no ride is planned; as I'm typing this I'm drinking blueberry-cinnamon coffee (yuck), surfing the web, reading the blogs and news aggregators, checking all my emails, futzing around at the Super Dimension Fortress (just checking in on the bulletin boards, etc), and, um, watching the chess games hosted over at the International Chess Club -- I'm using xboard, and connecting through their internet chess server, didn't even know such things existed.

Needless to say, what that really means is that I had lunch at the Quadrant yesterday, where a bunch of people were all playing chess. They were also out of the coffee I like, only had enough for themselves until the big Tuesday shipment arrives, and so they sold me a small amount of their, um, less popular beans to get me through until then. I feel like a junkie; I guess I'll have to pick up Chess For Dummies or something, create an excuse to hang out there and await my fix. Back home, the computer consistently whoops my butt; I'm not sure I have the patience to really learn the game.

Anyway, good thing I killed my television, freeing up my life like this, I reeeallly learned my lesson, never again will I sit staring at a screen, mesmerized and turning into a mushroom -- a-and this time I mean it! At the rate things are going, I'll be eating breakfast just as the sun goes down...

Kalidasa's Triumph: My job is done here, it's afternoon now and the rain should start soon, though the radar looks like we're in a bubble of dryness for now. It was beautiful out yesterday; I was going to take some pictures downtown and over by the junkyard, but the camera batteries were dead -- keep your powder dry dammit! All batts are now fully charged; I think I'll eat some breakfast, then go out and take those pictures, so I'll leave you with this artist's conception of the space elevator.

Good Days Bad Days, You Know I've Had My Share

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 177.5#, 10% BF
Morning weigh-in (Friday): 181#, 8% BF

Rode Wednesday night at Sals, with that dude Mike and also Rob W. Started 8:00 PM, rode for 2 hours or a little more -- crowded night in the woods, saw a guy walking his dog, some teenagers hanging out in a car at one of the parking lots, and apparently a dumper or a towtruck at the other lot. Good hard ride though, really glad I did it, and then I came home and crashed.

Thursday I was going to hit the gym, but I felt tired so I blew it off, then got a call from Joe & Cindy: they were down at Which Brew for dinner, and so of course I joined them.

Hung out with them, also Hans (who was there with Heath & Margarita -- they looked very happy together, which was a pleasant surprise). We jammed to the Gonzo Project, featuring an amazingly good bassist, and then after J&C, H and H&M all left I stuck around & mingled, said hi to a few others. Very good vibe last night -- if booze and bar-food weren't fattening it would have been an ideal evening.

Woke up this morning, scale told the sorry tale, and today was a retirement luncheon here at work so I haven't been exactly dieting today. Oh well, keep on keepin' on...

Tonight is a towpath ride, singlespeed most likely, and possibly again with that dude, then back to Which Brew (a friend is DJ'ing) and Porters (for to hang with Doug and Eric).

Tell Me Somethin' Good

Morning weigh-in: 178#, 10.5% BF

Annual review at work yesterday, another good one (as per usual)... Worked late on a rush job, then went home feeling hungry & tired. I was supposed to run out to Staples (shipping replacement Xmas present), felt sooo tired I almost blew it off, but after eating a bowl of cereal I went anyway, saying to myself I'll blow off everything else (laundry, running, healthy food) to just do that one errand and then eat at Which Brew. Felt so good about my decision (and my performance evaluation) I decided to reward myself & bought a USB pen drive while I was at the store.

Cue "New Toy:" One gigabyte of flash memory -- that's about a thousand floppies, remember them? -- fits in my pocket or hangs around my neck lke a locket, connects to any modern computer. Cost me a little less than $60. Got it home; it was trivially easy to set up and use, but now it was like 9:45. I decided to run anyway but was running out of time if I wanted to eat out.

I ran, and I felt good even though I got a face full of rain/snow, and I really didn't feel hungry when I finished; though I would have liked to go down & check out the WB scene, I stayed in and played with the new toy. Of course, there's not much to do with a pen drive: I put some files on it, took some files off, checked the capacity, moved things from one USB drive (the camera's memory card, mounted through the printer) to the other, yadda yadda.

This morning the scale had a present for me...

The Battle Is Joined

Morning weigh-in: 182#, 10% BF

This diet thing seems to be stuck a little, looks like I'll have to go into double-secret overdrive... Had tempeh & veggies stir-fry last night, with another Summer Blonde, then totally crashed, still way tired from Sunday. Funny, that was my weeknight ride in the summer, no big deal, got it done in under three hours (racing daylight) but the other day it took about 5.

Tonight I'm working late, then it's laundry & groceries, plus a few errands (I may also buy a pen drive); don't know what dinner will be but exercise will be a run.

By the way, after Sunday's ride -- where I ended pretty strong, standing sprint up 19th St -- some dude in a pickup followed me into the alley, stopped & called me over when I got to my house. I thought "uh-oh, pissed somebody off," but no, he was a neighbor, saw me riding and wanted to know where I rode. I explained Sals to him (talked to him like he was a beginner), he said he knew it, but had only been there once. He also said he races Sport, and rides with Rob Lichtenwalner a few times a week, and was OK with riding to Sals to do a ride. We exchanged numbers; it looks like I have a riding/training partner! Back to "uh-oh" though: if he's hanging with Rob and racing, he's probably a pretty strong rider.

The Last Of The Summer Blondes

Morning weigh-in: 181#, 10% BF

Typical weekend, but my legs are now totally fried: Thursday was a gym workout (I've been focusing on legs lately), Friday was a towpath ride on the singlespeed, Saturday was another good gym workout, and yesterday was a towpath/Sals ride, which put me over the edge into burning-leg territory.

Friday and Saturday nights were also Which Brew nights, pretty happening crowd both nights.

Had a beer with dinner last night, one of the Summer Blondes (I actually have a few left). I got a variety case at Christmas and have yet to touch it, must finish older purchases first before they go bad, falling behind on my drinking...

Counting Down To Imbolc

Morning weigh-in: 180.5#, 10% BF

It's staying light out a little later now; getting out of work happens in late afternoon rather than sunset or dark. Golden afternoon sunlight yesterday; I decided to go home via Portal Road, Asbury and Harmony Township (what the heck, I have a new clutch & can get up the hills again), and also stop in at Merril Creek.

After crossing Rt 57 and as I headed up into the Harmony hills, I caught a view of one hilltop with sunlight on it. Reminded me of the phrase "from pent-up aching rivers" but that might have been because I was listening to "Bittersweet Symphony." (It did also remind me of the parts in Gravity's Rainbow about sunsets, aching purity begging to be defiled, foundry colors in the sky, thine alabaster cities...)

Anyway, got to Merril Creek Reservoir about 4:55, saw the sign that they close at 5:00, and the sun was going down, so I just walked in a little bit, took the picture to the right with my cameraphone. On the way out I saw some deer, but on the way in... ahhh, on the way in I saw a coyote! At least, I think I saw a coyote, it slunk off pretty quickly.

Dinner was noodle salad, exercise was the gym. Tonight I'll probably be singlespeeding on the towpath.

In The Court Of The Crimson King

Morning weigh-in: 181#, 7% BF

Chain Gang meeting last night, my first as president. I think it went well, but there was a lot of stuff I wanted to cover & things went a little long, people got antsy... After the meeting, it was time for the "guess whose baby pic this is" contest. There were eleven entries; not everyone brought a photo. I guessed 9 of the 11, some people were correct in all their guesses, and some got as few as three right. Anyway, no exercise last night, but dinner was pretty sensible: turkey enchiladas, rice & a salad.

We also had the weigh-in for the Weight Loss Challenge. Fully clothed (sans shoes) and after dinner, I was 184# on the official contest scale. We have 2 months to see who loses the most weight (as a percentage of current weight), not sure what the prize is but the official final weigh-in will be at the March meeting. Weight should be off for Moab...

One last thing: I didn't want to mention it until after the baby pix contest, but I put up two new galleries: my baby pictures can be found here, and some screenshots from my home computer are here.

Rededication

Morning weigh-in: 180.5#, 10% BF

So I got home last night, ate leftover tofu/veggies/rice plus some steamed asparagus, played with the computer, ran and did an at-home workout, then went to Which Brew for a beer & company while the laundry dried. This turned into three beers (two were snifters: small but potent -- & surely fattening) and a trip to Taco Bell. Sigh, gotta keep on track...

Now That's More Like It

Morning weigh-in: 179.5#, 9% BF

Looks like there may be a bit of dehydration going on, but the weight looks about right. Had tofu & veggie stir-fry last night, did a few things around the house, then ran (it was already getting late). I also took care of a few loose ends -- the checks are in the mail, Mom, Amy and Easton Parking Authority! -- and fiddled with my new phone some more, sent some photo emails.

Had a little trouble with the run last night: my right shin started tightening/tiring/hurting, and my right foot started to be a little more "floppy" than my left. I think my right leg is weaker than my left; also, I'm a little out of condition for running -- most of what I've been doing has been like a mile at a time on the treadmill.

Tonight is laundry night, and if it doesn't rain I'll bust out the singlespeed, otherwise I'll just go to the gym, do non-run, non-bike cardio as my warmup.

Youch!

Morning weigh-in: 182#, so shocked I don't even remember % BF

Friday night was a towpath ride. Took the singlespeed out, but only went to the bridge over the boat launch (about a mile east of Freemansburg) because I was tired -- and it was soooo foggy down by the river (& everywhere else) I couldn't see more than a few feet; it was hard to navigate and I got totally creeped out, expecting to see zombies or whatever shambling out of the mist after me...

About a block from home, a car passed me & then stopped to drop off a teenager, and I hear "Hi Don!" Turns out it was my friends Stu & Kathy -- I was confused initially because the house, where they dropped their daughter off, is next door to some other friends of mine, but got it all straightened out. They were going to Which Brew after that, and I said I'd see them there in about an hour - which I did. Dinner was wings and some pasta fagiole, and the band -- Company Jazz Trio -- was really playing well, even when the pianist's chair collapsed underneath him... Maria from Duende was there, eating dinner with her husband, and agreed to sing a few songs.

Saturday was a rainy day, coffee shop, chores, gym, more chores... Was in Circuit City, decided while I was there to get a new cellphone, picked out a pretty sweet one with camera etc. I also decided to look at pen drives while I was there (didn't get one), and I ran into Karen F and her boyfriend Brian, who were in the next aisle, pricing cordless phones.

Back to Which brew for dinner, more pasta fagiole and a white pizza w/ extra garlic. I was hanging out with a dude who reminded me of a cross between Kevin M and Paul K from Englishtown, also a girl who reminded me of Kathleen C from E'town.

Sunday was too windy to ride, so I joined Doug & Lori, and Eric R, for a hike at Sals.

Jane Says "I'm Going Away To Spain"

Morning weigh-in: 180.5#, 10% BF

Two (small) dinners last night, no suppression effect even though I did a killer workout at the gym. Oh well. Tonight should be a towpath ride, maybe on the singlespeed.

Listening: Jane's Addiction, Nothing's Shocking. Been hearing things I didn't catch back when I first got & listened to it, especially "Jane Says." Some of the things that "Jane says" used to make me think "oh that's such a sad epiphany," but now it might just be a song about post-breakup self-pity. Still a sad and pretty song though, and it still reminds me of the girl who once dated Joe Schwenk's friend, manicurist, bartender, last I heard (20 years ago) trying to get her life together...

Making the Connection

Morning weigh-in: 180#, 13% BF

So last night I was supposed to go to the gym, but blew it off when I realized I'd already eaten too much time, would get there too late to get in a good workout, so instead I played more with the computer(s) & read a little more from that book of medieval history. Dinner was the tuna & wilted greens over pasta.

What I was doing was, I'd noticed that a few of my photos in some of my original (ie non-flickr) galleries wouldn't display and wanted to fix them, but I couldn't remember which ones they were -- and I didn't want to search through all my photos one at a time, looking for the bad ones especially over a dialup line. So...

At first I thought maybe the JPG file didn't get copied properly when I first put it on my website (thus it would be empty), so I ssh'ed into the Super Dimension Fortress, ran something like this:

[me@sdf galleries]$ ls -l */photos/*.jpg | awk '$5==0 {print $9}'

This would have listed all my regular (ie non-thumbnail) photos, and displayed any that had zero length, but nothing showed up. OK, the files are probably not empty but corrupt, so I ran something like:

[me@sdf galleries]$ file */photos/*.jpg | awk '$2~/data/ {print $1}'

This goes through all my JPEG's, looks inside them to determine their data type, and display the ones that are just plain "data" rather than "JPEG." Bingo! I found four or five files that were corrupt, so for each of them I ran something like this on my home machine:

[me@local photos]$ djpeg foo.jpg | pnmscale 0.5 | cjpeg | ssh me@sdf 'cat - >foo.jpg'

This "decompresses" the JPEG file foo.jpg, runs it through a scaling program, "compresses" the output back to JPEG and sends that to ssh, which is set to write its input to foo.jpg on the other machine. Badda-bing, badda-bang, twenty minutes of thinking saved me hours of drudgery.

Nika! Nika!

Morning weigh-in: 180#, 11.5% BF

Today marks the anniversary of the Nika Riots in Constantinople in 532, brutally suppressed by Belisarius. Every time I hear "Nika! Nika!" I think of Pauly Shore's "Lisa, Lisa."

Anyhoo, dinner last night was tempeh & veggies stir-fry. A red bell pepper, a cubano pepper, a poblano pepper, an onion, some ginger, some broccoli & a small butternut squash -- surprised it all fit in the frying pan, let alone my stomach... Was going to ride last night, but delayed until 9:45 (stupid internet, stupid big dinner, stupid medieval history book), decided to run instead. Tonight will probably be tuna & wilted greens over linguini, followed by a trip to the gym.

Soylent Green

Morning weigh-in: 181#, 11% BF

Lunch yesterday was grilled chicken w/ pepper jack cheese on a roll, dinner was a lentil & spinach "burrito" with a salad, later dinner was a bowl of cereal -- didn't want to go food shopping hungry, you know. (Um, yeah.) Breakfast: cereal. Late breakfast: yogurt & an apple; there was also a mid-afternoon snack break yesterday, gotta watch myself, maybe schedule in some acceptable between-meal snacks. Anyhoo, been eating a lot of soy (tofu, tempeh) and lentils lately, same stuff that all the different soylents were supposed to be made of in "Soylent Green."

Speak of the devil: I was cleaning out my mailbox at home the other day, found an email from Yoann, the one he sent everyone just before relocating back to France. Had a dream about him the other night after that, and yesterday I got forwarded a message from him -- he's in love, popped the question on Christmas and is now officially engaged. Good for him! Weird synchronicity though.

Ported some shell scripts from the home computer to my SDF account last night, but it looks like the Super Dimension Fortress is crashing pretty hard right now, can't play with them today.

UPDATE: SDF is back up, my homepage is back, the camper is happy again.

Isn't That Pretty?

Isn't That Pretty?
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

I just posted a few pictures from the ride yesterday. Didn't take too many photos but I did manage to get a few good ones. Case in point: We used this trail that goes along Monocacy Creek to get from Doug's neighborhood to downtown Bethlehem, and this is one of the things we saw. Apparently, the gravel (or whatever) plant still had their automatic sprinklers on, and it produced this ice sculpture. When we came back later it had collapsed into the creek.

Monday, Monday

Morning weigh-in: 181#, 9% BF

Saturday night was Which Brew -- sans live music, therefore w/ good conversation. Talked to Heath & Hans for quite a while. Dinner was a cheeseburger, washed down with two Brooklyn Smoked Porters. Ahhhh...

Sunday was a ride at Sals. Me, Doug and John C started from Doug's house, then met Rich, also Eric the VMB member (who rode from his house in Whitehall). We got in a really good ride, 18 miles altogether. Trails were in excellent condition, dry or frozen in most places, with the tiniest dusting of snow on the leaf cover in some places. Kind of struck me at one point, how really pretty it is in the woods, weird juxtaposition to our kamikaze shenanigans. After the ride we (me, Doug & Lori, and Rich) went to JP McGrady's for lunch. "Badass Cheesesteak" and a couple of Rogue Chocolate Stouts, mmmmm...

Back to reality today, planning to keep a clean nose diet-wise, cooking at home for the rest of the week. Tonight is a rest day; I'll do laundry and hit the supermarket.