Hey Now

Morning weigh-in: 183#, 13.5% BF

Some catching up: I didn't say anything about this yet, but it looks like my friend/acquaintance Jay is doing much better -- he had bacterial meningitis (super-serious) and was admitted to the hospital last week with acute septic shock. Intensive care, induced coma and life support, they gave him like a 50-50 chance to survive the next few days. That was last week, and he's apparently made an almost miraculous recovery since. He's not out of the woods, or even out of intensive care yet, but it looks like he's going to be OK. You can read more about it here.

Anyway, the weekend...

I met Doug and Lori for diner Friday night at Which Brew, after blowing off my evening towpath ride (I'd rather ride in rain than wind, and it was windy). Nice dinner, cool conversation, and we sat in the front table by the window, a first for me. I also saw a few people from the Haunted Tour, and they talked me into going to the Saturday night show.

Saturday was a "non-gym day" (Dawn's sister is due soon, and the baby shower was yesterday) so I went to yoga. Another beginner class, pretty soon I'll have to start taking the mixed level ones. When I feel I'm ready... After that was breakfast at the Coffee Exchange, then I went to help with some PPRAC fundraising with Eric & Kris, Brian, Doug & Lori, and Eric's niece & her friend. The usual Wal-Mart scene, only it was much busier than I've seen it -- we were dealing with Saturday crowds rather than our usual Sunday scene.

Saturday night was the Haunted Tour of Easton. This was similar to last year's tour, absent the 2005 highlight (a visit to Easton's catacombs -- I shit you not, we have an underground cemetery) but for some reason the vibe was way more fun. I went to Which Brew for dinner afterward (Ryan Carr's band playing, birthday party for the publisher of The Elucidator, Tarot card readings at the window table), then over to Porters, where the Haunted Tour peeps eventually trickled in after their cast party. Needless to say, it became a late night, good thing I walked...

Sunday was a Jim Thorpe ride. Pretty good, though some trails had been damaged by quads, and some destroyed by bulldozers, since the last time I was there more than a year ago. (Once upon a time I probably rode those trails twice a month.) I skipped the post-ride libations, because my parents (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!) were at the Water Gap checking out the foliage, and we met for dinner at Everybody's Cafe in Stroudsburg (two thumbs up for food and atmosphere). Very cool, and I was surprised by how well my plans came together.

Anyway, today is probably a rest day or the gym, maybe some yoga-at-home -- tomorrow is that Svaroopa class, and the girl always asks me if I've been practicing. Wednesday is the "Salisbury Summit," a meeting of local clubs to talk about the Sals trails.

Friday I Got Friday On My Mind

Posts aren't showing up correctly, Blogger's buggered, oh well...

Killer workout last night, added legs and really went for the burn -- I am now in "strength-building mode," with fewer reps and higher weights -- and it was most satisfying. Dinner was Which Brew, followed by a visit to open-mic night at Porters.

Had a good conversation with Andy S at Which Brew, mostly about books. I think I'll be getting the new Cormac McCarthy novel The Road; he (among many others) say it's one of the best books of the year.

Not sure what tonight will entail (probably staying in, to tell the truth), but tomorrow is PPRAC fund-raising at Wal-Mart, possibly preceded by early morning yoga, and Sunday will probably be a ride at Jim Thorpe.

Woke Up This Morning, And My Boots Were Full Of Blood

Morning weigh-in: 181.5#, 9% BF

So, that ear infection...

For a few days there my ear was bleeding. (Gaaa! Bleeeeeding!!!) I think it was just a pimple or something, I checked as soon as I saw it and I could hear just fine, but it was scary to see at first... Strangely enough, the ear problem seems to have gone away.

Look Back In Exhaustion

Morning weigh-in: 181#, 13.5% BF

Well, that was tough! I didn't have much of a race season, but what season I had ended yesterday with the 2nd annual All-A-Muchy race. About 30 miles of technical, rocky singletrack, maybe 5000 feet of climbing, took me a little over 6 hours to finish -- I came in 93rd overall (of 124 starters), which is probably 80th in the open men's division. I was whooped...

It was a great day though, chilly (especially before the sun came up) and breezy, but the trails were dry -- they were in fantastic condition, actually -- and it was nice & sunny for most of the day. Perfect day for riding, an absolute blast.

The rest of the weekend: Friday I walked to Which Brew, then did Porters on the way home (Post Junction in the house), as well as... somewhere else... Great night, I felt the need for a blowout and I sure had one.

Saturday was morning yoga, then over to the Coffee Exchange for breakfast. Laundry, chores, and bike prep took up the rest of the day. Dinner was pizza; bedtime was 7:30.

Sunday's bedtime was also around 7:30, but I am still tired. Rest day today, then "active rest" with a Svaroopa yoga class tomorrow, Chain Gang meeting Wednesday, and either ride or gym Thursday, and whichever one I don't do Thursday I'll get to on Friday. That's the plan, anyway.

Dream King Redux

Tuesday's ride was great (for me, others had many mechanicals), and I came home & passed out; Wednesday was laundry and dinner at Which Brew and no problems sleeping; and last night was the gym, then back to WB for dinner. Sleeping like a log...

I think my problem is another inner-ear infection: lotsa pressure in there, and my vertigo problems were back for a while -- maybe that was the source of the feverishness, an actual fever. When I go for my physical I will have that looked into, maybe get a referral for an ENT guy & get this dealt with once and for all. (Neat stuff on ears here.) This will probably be sometime next week, since all the tests I needed should be done.

Listening: Been in a 90's alterna-women retrospective lately, listened to Tori Amos and now Bjork. Next up will be -- PJ Harvey? Listening to women in the car anyway, in the house it's been men: I've been getting into Gregorian chant. I have a couple of CD's, and I think I'm starting to freak my neighbors out.

Playing: I've started to teach myself Lisp, or at least the rudiments.

Creepshow

Morning weigh-in: 182#, 6.5% BF (WTF?)

I don't know if I actually get feverish, and maybe it's toxins & byproducts leaking from the muscles but sometimes, after a really hard ride, my body acts like it has a fever, and one of the biggest signs of fever for me is restless crazy-dream sleep. Sunday night was like that, and ended with a real horror involving rotting mollusks and crabs.

I mostly forgot about it until dinner last night, when it came flooding back to me in the middle of leftover hot wings, and it caused me to spit out -- practically vomit -- what I was eating. I switched to sandwiches after that...

I got into the computer after dinner, and the next thing I know it was maybe 11:00 and time for bed, but when I went to bed I started with the crazy dreams again, woke up and was then convinced that something -- intruder in the house? a haunting? -- something evil was going on. It was crazy, I was really spooked: searched the apartment twice, lay in bed listening to odd sounds until I fell asleep again. One random house sound was just like the creepy Bartok "tap tap tap" from The Shining...

Linux Voyager, Boatbuilder Edition: What I was playing with was the GNU tools for automating the software-building process. Things like make and autoconf, which are amazingly powerful, but surprisingly easy to use. Then I got into a tutorial for guile I found online, which had some graphics programs built in -- unfortunately, I couldn't get the graphics parts to work, and I still have no idea why.

I won't find out tonight though, because I'm joining Greg H & Eric for a night ride at Sals. We're riding the new trail we built (among other things), which has been nicknamed the "Black Angel trail" because someone put a porcelain doll (about half the size of a child, with a black porcelain face and dressed like for a first communion) watching over one of the tougher sections. It's creepy enough in the daytime, I sure hope my lights don't fail while I'm passing her...

The Tao Of Poo

Poo! Boo! Heh heh heh... Well that's over with, everything's coming up roses and I can eat red meat again.

Anyway:

Rode Friday night on the towpath, but turned around before I got to Sand Island: I got spooked between Freemansburg and the BOC plant when saw a set of glowing predator eyes, low to the ground but bigger than a cat, watching me from the other side of the canal -- just as I came across a torn-apart & half-eaten squirrel on the trail. Coyote? Bobcat? Whatever, I was out of there. When I got home I went to Which Brew for dinner, but it was an early night, no Porters afterward.

Saturday was the gym, and then I met Greg M, Eric and Doug at Sals for some trailwork. Heavy lifting, and we got to to see Eric blow his shoulder out again, maybe 20 yards away from the place he ripped his rotator cuff last time. Since it was Eric's 40th birthday, or close to it, Doug and Lori took him out to dinner at Porters, and I came along to help. It was "Kilt Night" over there by the way, show up in a kilt and get a free Guinness.

I stopped at WB after that, where I ran into Shannon, a girl I knew from my earliest days in Easton. It was her "night off;" she and her husband Eric (different Eric), after nine years of trying and in vitro fertility stuff, now have one-year-old twins, and she just opened her own restaurant so she has almost no time/energy to spare. It was nice to see her out, but I don't expect to see too much of her in the near future, unless I visit her restaurant.

At one point in the evening I looked up and saw Arnie in a tux (just got back from the big Bicycling Hall of Fame dinner,where he met Greg LeMond -- he was practically walking on air), and Andrew in blue hair and a black leather kilt. Only in America, and usually not even there...

Sunday I blew off the Gap Gallop, and rode the towpath and Sals, tried the new stuff we built. Nice, but way hard. I was toast when I got home, but it might have been nutritional un-wisdom that did me in. I was so tired I went to dinner at Porter's again, got the exact same thing as Saturday (chicken w/ sun-dried tomatoes, olives and artichokes, plus rice) while I caught parts of the Eagles & Steelers games -- it is Pennsylvania, after all.

And now for your sermon:

Those who speak don't know shit,

Those who know don't say shit.

Fast Week

Morning weigh-in: 182.5#, 10.% BF

Hit the gym last night, then did laundry and had dinner at Which Brew (then Porters) while it dried -- yes my new dryer is still broken. It probably just needs a new heater element, but old habits, especially bad ones, die hard and revive pretty easy, and I've been in no rush to fix the damn thing.

Tonight will be the towpath, maybe Sals but probably not (wet & easily damaged trails); tomorrow is coffee/chores/errands/gym, then over to Sals for trailwork; and Sunday may be the Gap Gallop, especially if no better offroad offer presents itself. This will probably be my last chance for an organized century ride this year -- my first season without at least one century since maybe 1998 -- but few of my friends seem interested, and next weekend is the All-A-Muchy 50k race & I may opt for more offroad practice, so we'll see.

I had to fast for that blood test earlier in the week, and now I've been avoiding red meat for a few days & also eating a lot more "bulking" foods. Two words: stool sample. I haven't begun, er, "harvesting" yet, but I sure am looking forward to it, and will let y'all know how it comes out...

Republican Apocalypse

Morning weigh-in: 182.5#, 9.5% BF

Oh my, what a news week! Apocalypse, that means "unveiling," right?

Got home last night, was so tired I went to bed around 8:00, slept through to morning. Nothing else to report, not even a dream...

Well That Explains It

Morning weigh-in: 180.5#, 13.5% BF

Had a fasting blood test this morning. Rode last night after dinner, then basically went to bed. I didn't realize that "fasting" does not mean "no water either," but I was supposed to drink all I wanted... Three needles and two phlebotomists later, they say I'm dehydrated and my veins have shrunk so they have to use "the butterfly," ie the needle they use on infants. Long and short of it is, mission accomplished, but that explains what happened to me on 9-11.

I left work early that day like everybody else here, and then did a ride on the towpath to calm down. When I got home I felt an overwhelming need to "do something," so I went down to Miller Blood Center to give blood. Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea; the place was packed and I waited about five hours (well after midnight) before my turn came. The nurse was understandably frazzled and couldn't find my veins on either arm, and though I got stuck I left without giving blood. The worst I ever felt about 9-11 was on the ride home that night.

For years afterward, whenever I needed to give blood or get an IV, I warned the technicians to be extra careful, since I had "very small veins." They'd chuckle indulgently and say "OK, Mr. Kelly..." and there'd of course be no problem. Until today that is, when the truth finally came out.

The Talk, It Turned To Tater Tots

Morning weigh-in: 182#, 11.5% BF

Hit the gym last night, then went to WB for dinner. Plenty of talk there, as well as at work lately, about food -- a common theme being stuff like mac & cheese, tater tots and hamburger helper.

Tonight is a towpath/Sals ride, not sure what'll happen after that, but I know it'll involve food.

You Down With HDR? Yeah In My Car

Oak Tree Sun
Originally uploaded by worldwidewandering.

Morning weigh-in: 179.5#, 14.5% BF

I remember Laurie Anderson saying something in a seminar once about the function or purpose of art. Her example was someone who made paintings of diners, for instance. You go to the show and see the paintings, and for a while you see and notice diners everywhere you look. The art helps open your eyes, and helps you become more aware of things in the world around you.

Anyway, I've been getting into photos I find on Flickr lately, which use a relatively new technique called HDR photography. It seems to be the vogue right now, especially among Europeans (I sure don't know how to do it). The gist is, you take several pictures at different exposure levels, and combine them digitally to allow for greater lighting ranges than you can get ordinarily. That's the idea anyway; maybe it's an aftereffect but the photos also seem to have an almost hallucinatory clarity. Either way, many of my current favorites are now HDR photos.

Coming home last night, I happened to be driving into the sunset, and I realized that the lighting was similar to a lot of those HDR shots, and the light-and-dark-drenched view was closer to HDR than to ordinary photo views, which seemed to be how I saw the world until that point. Just sayin'...

You down with ADD? Yeah, you know -- oh look! A baby wolf! SWERVE! CRASH!

UPDATE: Edited for spelling & clarity.

Oh Well, Time To Eat The Donuts

Morning weigh-in: 182#, 13% BF (That's more like it.)

Yoga last night. Didn't feel quite as good as other times, in fact I felt a little -- pissy, not sure what was going on. Maybe I just have to get back into the loop.

Went out afterward, laundry & dinner at Which Brew (duh): bowl of chili and a plate of garlic-chipotle hot wings, washed down with some Troeggs Oatmeal Stout. Came in to work this morning, got my $2.00 donut -- Monday Night Football pool winner buys donuts for all the losers. Keeping my weight up isn't so hard...

Tonight is a towpath ride, maybe on the singlespeed, followed by food shopping.

Great minds think alike: Witness Billmon, Amanda and Roy. What they said.

Drowning In Blood

Morning weigh-in: 177.5#, 14% BF

Wow, what a drop in weight. Rode last night, pretty quick towpath ride, then went to bed without eating dinner. I like those numbers (and I'm supposed to be training for All-A-Muchy anyway) so I think I'll watch what I eat for the next few -- days? weeks? hours? All I have to do, apparently, is never eat again. Sigh.

I never got around to it, but the title of yesterday's post is from Peter Gabriel's "Red Rain." I was feeling depressed about torture, habeus corpus and the possibility of a US first strike (maybe even a tactical nuclear first strike, nothing's off the table) on Iran, and was going to talk about that. Oh well, the moment is lost, but I still can't get my head around how the monstrous has become normal, and how we became the monsters. (Strangely enough, I've been having many dreams involving monsters lately.)

Anyway, rode last night like I said, and Sunday was a nice social ride at Jacobsburg with Doug & Lori, Joe & Cindy, Brian, some kid Mike and that Dirt Devil dude Marc. Brian and Joe were both on 29" singlespeeds, shout-out to the trend watchers...

Tonight is yoga, then maybe I'll do the Drinking Liberally thing at Which Brew. Or maybe not (see above). I don't mind stealing bread... but I'm going hungry.

At The Water's Edge, In My Dream

I worked a little late Friday, dealing with a small emergency on one of the other jobs, a little overtime special. Home, a quick bite (leftovers) then I sat and digested as my lights charged; I went out riding around 9:00. I only did about 16-17 miles, turning around at the bridge at Freemansburg, but it took me an hour and a half, I was totally sucking wind (literally: lungs were wheezy & full of fluid) and I got a calf cramp. Hey, I got in my ride though. Dinner was a bowl of chili at Which Brew, followed by a trip to see Post Junction at Porters -- it was a late night.

Saturday was the gym, where Dawn told me her dad had a mini-stroke. Just what I need to hear... Very active guy too, he was lucky it wasn't worse, though Dawn said he was crabbing about missing archery season.

Still kind of tired & sick, I went home after the gym and took it easy (ie, did laundry & napped) for a good portion of the rest of the day, until Doug called and mentioned how much he'd like, on a Saturday afternoon like that, to sit in a bar and eat wings. We didn't actually follow through on it right away -- I went back to sleep -- but later, after picking up my drycleaning, the seed came to fruition and I went to Which Brew, probably the earliest I've ever been there. I called Doug back, told him where I was, what was on tap and what was on the menu, and they came on down. After an early dinner, we left and met up with Eric & Janna, Judy, and Kris at Celtic Fest. Never been there, not sure I'll go back, it really was just so-so. Despite all the things going on, it was an early night.

Ice Station Zebra

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 182#, 10% BF
Blood Pressure (Wednesday): 156/78, 59 BPM

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 184.5#, 5% BF
Blood Pressure (Thursday): 140/93, 52 BPM

Well, last day of summer...

So I went to the doctor yesterday after work, and my blood pressure there (where blood pressures are traditionally higher due to doctor-visit stress) was 130/80, pretty close to normal. Talking about it with the nurse, she told me that those home sphygmomanometer thingies are notoriously inaccurate. Oh well, that might explain the slow and steady rise, as my little toy gets progressively further out of calibration... The doctor came in, saw my cold/sinus problem and went to town -- I got two prescriptions before I got his attention back to the physical and my blood pressure. He really didn't need to do much for that, the nurse basically set me up with a prescription for a bunch of diagnostic blood/urine/stool tests. I'll probably go to Quest or something nearly next week.

After that I went to the Chain Gang meeting at Doug & Lori's place. Good meeting, people were there I haven't seen in a while: Judy was back with tales of London, and Brian had some stories as well, except it was Canada in his case. Pizza dinner, good beer but the hops were bothering me (so were the dog allergies) and my cold seemed to intensify. I left early -- or at least, not long after the meeting proper ended; I stayed really just long enough to have Cindy gave me the lowdown on the different tests I'd been prescribed.

Listening: In case the title from yesterday's pirate post didn't clue you in, I've been jamming to Stan Ridgeway lately. Today I was listening to the song "I Wanna Be A Boss," and thinking about how the song goes from "my life sucks, it sure would be better if I were rich," to the wildest fantasies:

And everyone will know me
I'll be more famous than Howard Hughes
I'll grow a long beard and watch
Ice Station Zebra in the nude

And grow my nails like Fu-Manchu
Keep a row of specimen jars
Get other people to work for me -- ?well
Maybe I'll buy the planet Mars, and
Build an amusement park up there
Better than old Walt's place
You'll have to be a millionaire to go
We'll smoke cigars and lounge in lace
Talk the talk of businessmen
And bosses that we are
So here's to me -- the drinks are free
'Cause I just bought this bar

For some reason (maybe just associations on the word "ice"), this reminded me of "The Iceman Cometh," and the pathetic dreams of the losers in the bar. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to Which Brew.

Out On The Water, Where The Sailing Men All Go

Joe Phase Three
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

Arrgh matey, I almost forgot it's International Talk Like a Pirate Day! So avast me beauties and feast your eyes, for I've uploaded an Imperial arseload o' new photos... Aye, there be shots o' lubbers at Allamuchy and bilge rats at the BASH, and some photos o' my home port as well. Enjoy, me hearties!

Shaggy Dog Stories

Morning weigh-in: 182.5#, 9.5% BF
Blood Pressure: 145/85, 67 BPM

Yep, colonized -- I have a sinus infection, probably got it because my nose has been traumatized by so much ragweed. The dogs this weekend didn't help: plenty of dogs, all friendly (hey, we had the food, of course they were friendly), and I couldn't resist giving a pat on the head here and there, lotsa allergens in my life, nasal tissues raw & swollen, easy avenue for germ attack...

Speaking of dogs: Saw Joe G at the Bash, and he now has a dog, a husky/shepherd mix, maybe 11 months old, female. It was originally his sister's, but she wasn't active enough for this kind of dog and it started developing behavioral problems so she gave the dog to Joe. He's pretty active of course, ditto with the free time thing, and can (and has) put a lot of effort into un-doing the psychic damage. Her name, by the way, is Riley.

On the Saturday group ride, we met up with a dude who brought his dog along. Don't remember the real name, but I called it "Downhill Dog" for the way it shredded the trail -- the owner said he (the dog) was a little bored since there were no jumps or drop-offs on the trail. Later that evening, the dog was as whooped as I was, and spent most of the evening and next day hanging out, much to the consternation of the energetic and-not-to-be-trusted-off-leash-thus-not trail-ready Riley. (Yet another dog, with a lot of energy, spent a lot of time walking up to people, then dropping a stick at their feet and then staring meaningfully until the stick was thrown. I was victim of this guy for about a half hour while waiting for my shower.) Strangely enough, "Downhill Dog" was also a rescue dog, having been found lost, wandering and hungry by its current owner.

Two more dogs: these were like dachshunds, only they had long silky hair almost like collies (they were still that dachshund-brown color). Totally fearless, they'd charge up barking at the other dogs, spent a lot of time being held and cooed at by the girls, and were the most successful at mooching food (I saw them drinking spilled beer too). The owner said he got one later, but the first had belonged to his ex-wife who, claiming that it had become "vicious" after the divorce, brought it to the vet to be put down. The vet, who knew the score, told her he killed it and then gave it to the husband. I asked him what kind of breed they were, and he said "long-haired dachshund." But of course!

That dog's not so shaggy...

Another Set Of Photos

Thinking About Candy
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

I'm still not caught up, but I just uploaded a bunch from the family reunion in July.

The Bash Was A Smash!

Morning weigh-in: 182#, 12.5% BF
Blood Pressure: 139/84, 67 BPM (spike maybe due to salty pizza, or incipient cold)

Shout Out: Happy Birthday, Mom!

A very quick recap: the RCST Bash was an unqualified success, and even the weather cooperated eventually. I dawdled on Friday because the weather was discouraging, arrived at a little before 6:00 and set up my chili for the contest. Back to the campsite to set up my tent, then back up to the registration area for the contest and the microbrew swap. I brought about 10 Weyerbacher IPA's, traded them for various other local brews (most of which I knew), and put a few back while I checked out the competition. Each chili was different from the next, and all were good -- I didn't win, but can say that all my chili got eaten.

After that came the first ride of the Bash. There was supposed to be an organized group night ride, but the only ones who actually rode were Greg H and me. After a ton of chili and a few beers, the initial climb out of camp was brutal, but the ride itself was fantastic. It was also a confidence booster to ride unfamiliar trails in the dark, and finding we could navigate just fine by map. Ten miles, two hours and back to camp for some hard-core socializing.

Saturday morning was rough, but it was also time for the event's main group rides. Me, Greg, Rich, Beth & Kevin -- in other words, all of our party except Joe -- plus another 20 Bash'ers, opted to do the "drive to the top of the mountain," intermediate-level ride. This was awesome, about 22 miles long and it managed to hit just about every good trail. We were exhausted by the end, but it was worth it.

Saturday night was the big party. BBQ chicken dinner, couple kegs of Troeggs, and a band, toss about 120 tired bikers in the mix and shake well...

The only group event planned for Sunday was the "King and Queen of Rock's Ridge" contest, but rather than watch or participate (or hang about the camp), Beth and Kevin and I (plus Dave L) decided to check out what we could of the trails we hadn't seen yet. Not quite as long as the day before, maybe six miles (and the trails were also a bit easier), but very nice, especially since it was the nicest weather of the weekend.

Back to camp, pack up and hang out, then we all took off for home. (I took US209 through Tamaqua then down 309 & 443 to Lehighton and came home via 248, which took me rather far out of my way, and on country roads to boot, but I-78 was a construction disaster: it took me 4 hours to do an hour-and-a-half drive on the way in, so the two-and-a-half-hour scenic route home probably saved me a at least a little bit of time.) Got home, unpacked, and then I just vegged out on the porch for a while before bed.