Here Comes The Weekend

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 178#, 14% body fat
Morning weigh-in (Friday): 178#, 13% body fat

The weather has been beautiful the last few days. Wednesday night was a road ride, and last night I went running along the Lehigh; I also cleaned/lubed the mountain bike, still dirty from last Sunday's Michaux race. I got up early this morning, but didn't run: did an hour of overtime instead. Tonight I'm riding the towpath, tomorrow is that running race (also Mike & Carole's party), and Sunday is Bike New York. Looks like the 'puter work is getting saved for a rainy day...

Tonight is also Beltane (aka Walpurgisnacht), so I may drop by Which Brew to see what's cooking -- probably something Mexican, in honor of Cinco de Mayo.

My Linux Voyage: Heading for Rough Water

Morning weigh-in: 176.5#, 14% body fat

Worked overtime (2 hrs) last night because it was supposed to rain -- it didn't -- then went to gym but was too tired to get in a good workout. Instead, I went home and decided to actually pay attention and figure out my sound problem. And of course, I found out, and it's fairly simple: there is a sound card on the motherboard, and there are kernel driver modules for it but they (& the kernel) are too old, incompatible with the new hardware. So, I have to upgrade my kernel. No big deal I suppose, it's just a bit of a pain, and more than a little scary if I screw up.

I've been trying to get up at 5:00 lately, but no dice. I remember trying to adjust to 6:00 and running, but this may be just too hard. This morning I also felt extra-tired, calves/achilles tendons felt tight so I didn't run. Got an email from Greg saying I probably made a mistake going for that confidence builder yesterday. Oh well.

I'll probably do a road ride tonight, then work on the mountain bike.

Uh-oh

Morning weigh-in: 177.5#, 8% body fat

Ran this morning, my normal route (approx two miles) for time. Last time I did this I got 16:44, which was good but not a fast enough pace to break 25 minutes in a 5k. Today I tried harder, and ended up with 17:15, not quite the progress I was hoping for... Judging by my body fat, I think I'm dehydrated, and I'm still feeling the effects of Michaux, so I don't think I really have grounds for worry yet -- except that this is it, tomorrow and Thursday are easy runs and the race is Saturday, so this morning was the last chance for a confidence boost.

The Dave situation continues, building towards its climax. Doug called me last night, said he talked to Bob who eventually said the same thing as most other club members: "I don't want him in my home." Doug will now talk to Joe C, and the two of them will have to talk Dave out of being a member. Despite the fact that I don't like being around the guy, I didn't want to have any rejection be this hurtful to him. A little more graceful method might have been found, but that's all water under the bridge.

But that leaves Joe G. I still think this was a hostile (or rather, militant) act on his part, but I also think that it was a lot like Tim S from Englishtown. That guy used to bring up uncomfortable subjects all the time: if there was something you didn't want mentioned in front of a particular person, and that person showed up, you could be sure Tim would ask you about that thing. Coincidence? Maybe he could claim that, the first 1000 times it happened, but I think it was more like he enjoyed getting his covert digs in, fomenting trouble between people, and watching them squirm... Anyway, I think Joe (strangely enough, he, like Tim, was "the different one" in a large Catholic family) might have done the same thing here, deliberately foisting Dave on a bunch of people who don't like having him around -- but here's the cruel part: he may also be doing this to mess with Dave.

Weekend Update

Morning weigh-in: 176.5#, 13% body fat.

Friday Night: I worked on the bike, then continued reading Maus; I didn't go out. I've been screening my calls to avoid Joe; got a few rings (no message, and I don't have caller ID) on the house phone, then one on the cell that was from him. (Didn't return the calls & haven't heard back from him since.) I did get a call from Doug though, where he said he found out from Cindy, that Dave has joined the Chain Gang...

Saturday: I went to my nephew's 1st Communion luncheon (didn't go to the church ceremony). The luncheon was held at the same place as my brother's wedding reception. Kind of low key, but pretty cool. One interesting thing: my dad mentioned that we were right up the block from where he and my mom met, in 1960 I think, when he and his friends rented a bungalow on the Jersey shore, and my mom and her friends happened to rent the bungalow next door... Just before I left we walked up the block to take a look. My mom's bungalow was gone, but I got a photo of them in front of the one my dad rented.

Saturday Night: More bike work & reading (finished Maus, picked up Persepolis), then I went out for a bite & some company, ended up at Which Brew (surprise) where I had an extremely pleasant and interesting conversation with Virtual Pubbsters Mike and Carole -- mostly Carole, she's the talker of the two. They recently moved into a fixer-upper a few blocks from me, so they've been pretty busy lately.

Sunday: I raced at Michaux. Conditions were tough (a cold rain started just before the race) but I actually had a great time. I was the only one of my friends to go, though Chain Gang junior member Matt Miler was there (he took first in Junior Expert), and I saw Dona (3rd place Expert Women) and Rob Lichtenwalner (1st place, extra-long "monster course" race). My time was 3:00:45, which was good for me but nowhere near podium speed for the Sport Vet class. Still, a fun day.

Early to bed last night, no run this morning.

Tonight: Busy, Busy, Busy

Morning weigh-in: 178#, 11.5% body fat

It was rainy last night, so I blew off riding & worked a little late, then played with the computer. Two miles running this morning, easy pace.

Computer: I started playing with Perl again, turning the little program, that I copied from Learning Perl, into a more useful tool. The program basically takes a bunch of files and renames them -- say, all the "*.new" files into "original_filename.old". This isn't too hard; the code snippet they provide uses regular expressions and string substitution on the filenames. Their example is hardcoded though, so you have to rewrite it for every new use; what I did was set it up to take the "old" and "new" patterns, and the files to change, from the invocation arguments. My next step I think is to add some switches to control behavior (more or less verbose output, confirm filename changes or not, copy rather than rename), plus more effective error handling.

In other news, I think I just need to get some kernel modules and I'll be able to get sound again. I still can't get the mouse wheel to work, messing constantly with XF86Config but no dice. Maybe I'll just buy a new mouse; the mouse I have is some cheap Chinese no-name brand, and that may be the cause of the problem.

Tonight I have to burn two CDs: one of my vacation photos for the parents, and one of my Mike photos for Joann. I will probably stop by her house & drop it off tomorrow. It'll be nice to see her, but I'm still not looking forward to this visit.

Bike: rear tire had a slow leak so I replaced the tube last night, which is when I noticed that the brake pads are pretty worn & need replacing. That plus generic Michaux prepping is tonight.

Not A Happy Camper

Morning weigh-in: 179.5#, 12.5% body fat (doh!)

Looks like my buddy Joe "jumped the shark" last night, bringing Creepy Dave to the meeting.

Dave is a wierd-looking guy with a reputation as a stalker, and he has said things to me -- and other people I know -- that creeped me/us out, basically involving what he'd like to do to some of our (married, female) friends. He also has a habit of finding out what you're doing and inviting himself, or showing up various places (mostly Bethlehem) and insinuating himself into whatever's going on, and he's expressed an interest in joining the Chain Gang... He also smells. I avoid him, and if I see him somewhere I'm pretty evasive about any future plans (also, I do not talk about any women I know, & especially don't mention their names, in his presence).

But Joe seems to think he's an OK guy, hangs out with him and, if Joe knows what I'm doing, may bring him along or even tell him so ol' Dave can show up on his own. Joe knows how I feel about Dave, and how others feel about him (the nickname "Creepy Guy" didn't come from me). I have to think at this point that bringing Dave along last night was, consciously or unconsciously, a hostile act on Joe's part. Looks like the best way to keep Creepy Guy out of the picture is to avoid Joe, and all of a sudden I don't seem to have a problem with that.

Except... last night was also the night where we distributed hard copies of our membership roster, which is more like a phone tree. (As an aside, we don't have membership info -- phone numbers, home & email addresses etc -- on the web, because several [female] members have expressed strong opinions on privacy issues.) Last thing I saw last nite, I could have sworn Dave had a copy of one of our membership rosters in his hands...

Other than that, the meeting was really cool: we had dinner, a few beers, looked at pictures from the trip, & just had a lot of fun though the meeting itself wasn't all that productive.

In other news: ran this morning, 2 miles slow pace.

Moving Forward While Backsliding

Morning weigh-in: 174.5#, 11% body fat (woo hoo!)

I felt like I was on fire last night at the 'burg, riding really well and fast, though I was with Brian and he doesn't ever really open the throttle (he lost quite a bit of weight lately, but he's still a big guy, and he doesn't get competitive on "pleasure rides"), so it's hard to make a judgement. Still, we rode almost every trail there, 14 miles in just under 1:30. Bike needs a little TLC: a few creaks & squeaks have developed and the bushings on the rear shock need to be replaced. I think I'll also get that brake lever replaced soon.

Some old faces: we ran into ex-Chain Gang member Dave Jones (in a team jersey!), riding with Rick Hauser last night. We exchanged pleasantries, then went our separate ways. They both looked like they're doing pretty good, though Dave said he's just getting over a bad sprained ankle (screwing around while coaching boy's wrestling).

As for backsliding: when I got home, I burned a CD of my Moab photos, then did a whole lot of other fooling around (backslide #1: didn't eat dinner during the "glycogen window") before realizing it was getting late (backslide #2) and I had to take my wet laundry to the laundromat -- dryer is still not fixed. So at 10:30 I head out, then decide to check out Which Brew (backslide #3) while the dryers did their thing. Before picking up my laundry I stopped and ordered a pizza, ate half of that for dinner (backslide #4), while staying up late reading (backslide #5). I was a little afraid to get on the scale this morning...

Between the late bedtime, the speedy ride and yesterday's run, I was feeling pretty tired this morning, so I only ran a mile, at an easy pace. It was drizzling, but still pretty pleasant. Right now it's beautiful out; my plan was to stay a little later here tonight, then go to the Chain Gang meeting (at Which Brew), but I think now I might do a quick road ride after work.

Finished Uncle Sam, now reading Maus: My Father Bleeds History and Persepolis. I have a feeling Maus is going to mess with my head.

Time's Running Out

Morning weigh-in: 175.5#, 14% body fat

Ran "for time" this morning: 16:44 for a little over 2 miles (I think). Not bad for my somewhat hilly route, but I still have to get the speed up -- and I was pretty spent afterward, overheated too. Two weeks to go until the race...

Tonight is Jacobsburg, probably with Brian, maybe others; for me it's a dry run (equipment-wise, anyway) for Michaux this weekend.

Back to Reality

Morning weigh-in: 176.5#, 9.5% body fat

Nothing much to report. Skipped running this morning (way too tired, got up early but body really needed a recovery day), picked up & built bike this afternoon. I'll hit Jacobsburg tomorrow after work.

Got home tonight and found a pleasant surprise: a package from Mom & Dad, full of Amazon wishlist goodies for my birthday. The new Bill Bryson book, plus a whole bunch of comics er, graphic novels... Maus, Persepolis, a whole bunch of others I wanted. Thanks Mom & Dad! Already finished one, no big words to slow me down...

Nice Ride!

I usually weigh myself at the same time every day, and under the same circumstances: immediately after getting up, no clothes, before eating, using the bathroom or exercising. This "official" weight should have most day-to-day variations at least partly nullified, but the downside is that if I forget to do it (like this morning), any weight measurement I take will not be "official."

Last night I went out to dinner, stayed out a little late (and I think you know what I mean), and woke up this morning tired, headache-ey and running late for a ride. Breakfast was a Clif bar and some water, then I was off to ride with the Cycle Funattic crew down to "The Baker" in Milford (coffee & muffin break, thank God) and back. These guys are hard, fast road riders, and the pace was blistering for almost all of the 35-40 mile ride -- the roads we took were very suitable for fast smooth flying. It was a great ride, and I felt pretty strong after I warmed up (major feeling of "this day is wonderful" while eating a blueberry-cheese croissant in the sunny MIlford street, sitting on the stoop at the Ship Inn, feeding the ducks in the stream), but it was a hard ride.

When I got home I did some reading in the bathroom (and I think you know what I mean) then got ready for a shower. Just for laughs I got on the scale: 173.5#. Like I said, not official weight, probably dehydrated and in a different part of my food input/output cycle, but so what? For one brief shining moment I was under 175#!! WOO-HOO!!

Just an observation: I did notice on the ride, that all these guys and gals have their roadie technique and interpersonal riding skills down pat -- unlike me, and I stuck out like a (possibly dangerous) sore thumb in the tight pacelines...

Nicer Days for a Ride

Morning weigh-in (Friday) 176.5#, 14% body fat
Morning weigh-in (Saturday) 175.5#, 13% body fat

Went and saw Laurie Anderson last night at Lafayette's Williams Center for the Arts, not a performance but a lecture about what she's been doing lately (artist in residence at NASA, etc) and thinking about. Very interesting! I went with Doug & Lori, and Eric & Kris (we all had to sit separately though), and we all agreed we were mesmerized. Afterwards was dinner at Which Brew.

The last few days have been gorgeous. No run Thursday, but I got in a good ride after work, and ran & biked (benchmark, 1:25 time: not bad) yesterday. Off to the coffee shop, then the gym right now.

UPDATE: I am once again a legally licensed driver.

Nice Day for a Ride

Morning weigh-in: 176.5#, 12.5% body fat

No running this morning: I was up pretty late last night. I'll probably do a road ride tonight, it looks beautiful outside.

Taxes are done, car is fixed, and computer media problems are pretty much solved, but now I must deal with: sound card, driver's license, bills coming due again, laundry piling up (& clean stash is dwindling), and of course the house is a disaster. Also, my mountain bike is somewhere between Springdale UT and Bethlehem PA, but I still don't have the tracking number. Much has been done, but much still remains to be done.

By the way, I didn't mention this yesterday but on the way home last night I saw: a bunch of buzzards eating roadkill deer in a cornfield (a leftover from the fall -- yuck!), a tom turkey, a bunch of Canada geese and a herd of deer. Tonight I hope to spot some snipe, a gryphon and maybe a hippogator...

Good News and Bad News

Morning weigh-in: 179#, 11.5% body fat (that's the bad news)

The good news is, there's no real problem with my smartcard USB connection. It just takes a few seconds for the hardware to reset itself & detect the reinserted memory chip, and then mounting is fine. Still have to solve the CD-RW situation though.

Ran two miles this morning, no riding planned for tonight. I'll probably go to the gym & spin tomorrow, and do a Hellertown hill ride on Friday if the weather is nice.

My weight problem, as always, comes down to diet. I think that careful dieting was the key to my weight loss earlier in the year, and diet backsliding is why, no matter how much I exercise, I'm not losing weight now -- my body is not so much strong or enduring, as it is efficient, and any physical stress I give it hardly distracts from its main goal of lipo-loading... So, I'm back on the food wagon as of today -- after last night's Which Brew dinner stop, to see Joe & show him my trip photos.

Anyway, back to work...

PS Tonight I finish my taxes -- rather, H&R Block will finish them.

UPDATE: Good news: looks like I got the CD-RW to work, though it's still not "drag & drop" the way I'd like -- & maybe never will be? Taxes are done, too. Next piece of bad news: just realized my driver's license expired on the 10th -- smooth move, Don! Oh well, deal with it.

Situation Normal: back to the obsession(s)

Morning weigh-in: 178.5#, 10.5% body fat (dehydration?)

Took yesterday off (mainly because of sleep cycle issues) but ran 2 miles this morning, easy pace. Soon I'll have to start kicking in the harder, speed-building workouts. The week off was nice, but my legs were tired this morning.

I was kind of glad to see my weight wasn't too high; I was a little worried that despite the riding, the excess (actually, "excessive" would be the more correct word) calorie intake during vacation would put me way up. (We were joking that we should have another contest: "Lose the Flab from Moab.")

Was up late again last night, working on the computer. I want to burn some CD's, and found that my system only recognizes the CD-RW as read-only. I must recompile the kernel to add a special IDE-SCSI module, then reconfigure LILO to recognize the CD as a SCSI device, and then tweak /etc/fstab. Meantime, I find that if you mount & unmount the USB memory chip, remove the chip & replace it, any further attempts to remount will fail. (However, I did find that adding the Windows partition to /etc/fstab allows non-root write access.) Looks like my Linux "voyage of discovery" continues...

A Visit to the Sarcophagus

Check out this article.

I'm Baaaaaack!

Back from vacation, that is. Great time in Moab and other locations throughout southern Utah -- Red Canyon (near Bryce Canyon) and Springdale (near Zion National Park) to be more specific. Great riding, OK weather, plenty o'good times but now it's over. More on this, plus maybe pictures, later in the week. Also, I celebrated my birthday out West: I'm now 41 years old. In a few more years I'll be an adult...

Been a Long Time Since I Did the Stroll

I'm back. Wasn't really planning on disappearing, but you know how the time does fly... Weight: has been pretty stable at about 177# for most of this time, but it looks like it's starting to creep up; percent body fat is all over the map.

In the news:

Running is coming along OK, and I've been doing longer and faster runs on Saturday. When I run for time, my pace is on target for my sub-25-minute 5K. Next week is a rest week for running.

Biking is also coming along. I finally got my road bike refurbished, totally new Campagnolo component group including wheels. My mountain bike is in the care of UPS, on the way out to Utah (I hope).

Mike Bellush is now a married man (again). His wedding was last Saturday. Traditional Jewish wedding, really nice reception, saw the whole McVay clan there.

I would have thought I posted something here, but looking back I guess I didn't: I'm an uncle, my brother & his wife are the proud parents of Olivia Grace Kelly.

New Toy Alert: I got a digital camera, a Sony P-72 for my Utah vacation.

Vacation: I'll be gone out West, Moab and other Utah destinations, all of next week. Me, Brian, Joe & Cindy, Doug, Eric, and Bob. Should be way cool, stay tuned for stories & pictures...

back

Morning weigh-in (Sunday): 179# 12.5%
Morning weigh-in (Monday): 175.5# 10.5%
Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 177.5# 12%

Forgot to check Saturday, forgot what weight was Friday. Oh well.

Interesting times lately: Thursday nite was crazy at Which Brew, like someone put flirt juice in the beer or something, the ladies were actually kind of ahh... aggressive, not that I'm complaining... Friday, Joe said he was "scared to go back," but I went & caught the band "Warm Apple Cider" (friends of bartender Carrie, not bad but I've heard better). Talking to some girl, thought it would be a reprise of the previous nite (she actually asked me if I came there often) but not this time.

Saturday was the Wind Gap Science fair, which I (among others) judged. It meant getting up a little early (and dealing with a tractor trailer lying on its side, blocking the road into Wind Gap, making me & everyone else late), but way fun. I worked with Charles, a High School aquabiology teacher, and Lauren, a microbiologist for a vitamin maker, and we judged the 7th Grade and 1st Grade exhibits. Some were pretty lame (I'm talking about the 7th graders) but some were very good. The younger kids were cute and much more fun, though you couldn't expect much in the way of "experimental science" from them; Al & Colette's son John was among the 1st Graders & had something about a tractor pull. (Al & Colette were both there as well; she was with John & Al was judging the Egg Drop contest.) Interesting day, or rather, morning. In the afternoon I went down to the Lehigh and ran for an hour, easy pace, and the evening was dinner with friends -- while we were at the bar waiting for our table, the bartender kept us entertained with amazing card & magic tricks.

Sunday was spent riding in Jim Thorpe, a good day of riding I must say, but I guess you had to be there...

Monday was the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour. Awesome, but more about it some other time.

This brings me up to date here, signing off.

a screeching halt

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday) 178#, ??? body fat
Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 177#, ??? body fat

Hitting a brick wall here, nothing to say, even forgot the weight statistics...

backsliding

Morning weigh-in (Monday): 175.5#, 14% body fat
Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 179#, 13.5% body fat

Nothing much to say, blew off spinning last nite (had to do some car registration stuff) then ate a ton of bar food at Which Brew. Very tired this morning, so I blew off running in favor of extra sleep. Weight wasn't too forgiving, so I also had a sausage egg & cheese sandwich at work...

Just heard a young jazz pianist nemed Vijay Iyer, bought both his albums online. You heard it here first folks, this guy is the one they'll be talking and writing books about in a hundred years or so, destined (unless I jinx him) for greatness.