Chamois Time

Morning weigh-in: 179#, 7.5% BF (WTF?)

 

It was tough but I did it: I hit the gym last night, an indoor workout on a beautiful day, very demotivating. Good workout though -- I did the full body one including legs, I felt strong (for a change), and I cruised right through. What I missed: Anne and the gang took those "invisible dog" leashes over to the dog park after work today, and "walked their dogs" for an April Fool's Day goof, and I was sorry to miss those hijinks (and also the MTB ride they did earlier at Jordan), but I caught up with them all later.

 

Best April Fool's Prank 2010: Debbie's boyfriend Kevin has a friend Rob, who's a bit younger then most of us, and unattached. (The girls have made a semi-project out of changing his relationship status.) He has a good female friend at work, and with the help of their boss they had everyone convinced that he'd gotten her pregnant and now they were engaged. Several frantic phone calls over the past few days as the story developed, then cell phone photos of her with her ring, and of the baby/wedding shower at work, etc, had the team totally believing, until... April Fool's!

 

Tonight I'm hitting Round Valley, then grabbing dinner at Porters before catching The Great White Caps at Pearly Bakers -- kinda-sorta like the good old days -- and tomorrow we're riding the Broad Mountain Loop in Jim Thorpe.

 

Spring Has Sprung.

Blueberries Bananas And Millet Oh My

Morning weigh-in: 179.5#, 8.5% BF

 

Back In The Game: Once upon a time I had what I called "The Rule Of Four:" when I went out, my unconscious target was four drinks, not really enough to become schnoockered, but definitely enough to feel that I'd had my party. After Which Brew closed my resistance slowly decreased, and I was governed first by the Rule of Three, then lately the Rule of Two... Last night I went out and drank three beers, plus a Jameson & ginger ale, and it didn't even slow me down. Not sure what that means, other than as an explanation for the dehydration-induced low body fat.

 

(Dinner was at home, the last of the leftover pot roast, and breakfast this morning was rice-millet flakes with bananas & blueberries.)

 

Hit the gym last night, got in a fairly good workout before I ran out of steam. I'm still disconcerted by how weak my upper body has become --  the skin issues have kept me from exercising in general, with the gym & yoga taking the hardest hits (probably a self-consciousness thing), and so I am now playing serious catch-up. The skin's not totally better, by the way, I just wear long sweatpants to the gym (and still skip yoga), but I do think that the past few days of restrictive diet, plus my switch back to benadryl -- that "non-drowsy" antihistamine still made me drowsy, so I figured if I have to pay that price anyway I'd just use the more effective medication -- has given me a great deal of relief, which now means that things have a chance to calm down and heal.

 

Tonight is supposed to be nice, so I'll probably do a road ride.

 

Hodgepodge

Morning weigh-in: 180.5#, 10% BF

 

Seeing: We saw "The Vagina Monologues" at the Banana Factory last week, and there's a joke in there somewhere... It wasn't quite as good as the time at Muhlenburg, there was more emphasis on crimes against women -- which makes sense, given that the show was a fundraiser for something along those lines, but that did make it a bit of a downer -- than on the celebratory taboo-busting side of things. Pretty good night out with the crew though: Anne, me, Debbie and Kevin, Donna, and their friend Lisa from knitting.

 

Anne and I went out Saturday night and saw Crazy Heart, which just won Jeff Bridges an Oscar. Really good movie, way better than I expected -- we watched Leaving Las Vegas the other day, which had a somewhat similar plot, and a similarly awesome acting job by Nicholas Cage, and it was cringe-inducing to the point where I left the room, but this one was a solid story, with a satisfyingly un-mawkish ending. Two thumbs up, and as Anne noted, it had great scenery and some really good camera work.

 

Reading: I am almost done with The Girl Who Played With Fire, book two of Stieg Larsson's "Millennium trilogy." I'm now pretty convinced that these are fairly cheesy books, but they are engaging and fun, full of action and suspense. (By the way, a certain faithful reader should know that I've updated my Amazon wishlist, per recent request.)

 

Listening: Not much going on here, just listening to the radio mostly.

 

Biking: We had a pretty good weekend two weeks ago, but this past one was a bit of a cold rainy washout -- Anne and I got in a towpath ride on Friday, but that was about it. My main bike project lately has been what I call Project Debbie: I've been refurbishing my old Super-V over the past month or so, to give to a friend. The frame's in good shape, and I took a very minimalist approach to componentry, mostly spares from the parts bin; the only major purchases were a pair of tires (bought second-hand) and brake/shifter cables and housings. I haven't put any finishing touches on it yet, but last night I got it up to full functionality, after maybe 7 years in mothballs. We should be able to take it out for a shakedown cruise this weekend.

 

Eating: My skin responded rather spectacularly to that steroid blister pack, but as soon as it was over the rashes came back. The doctor had blood work done, and it confirmed that I am in the middle of a serious allergic reaction to something, and also that, since the last time I was tested, I have become allergic to wheat, eggs and dairy products. (Also corn and sesame seeds, though they're not as bad as the others. The doctor joked that could eat all the cod I wanted...) I've been trying to modify my diet, and have been successful so far -- we went on a major shopping spree last night for cereals/snacks that are safe, with mixed but generally OK results. I've been eating a lot of meat and potatoes lately, and quite a bit of rice and fruit too. We'll see.

 

My biggest problem right now though, is apparently dust. That's not much of a surprise, but what was surprising was how severe a sensitivity the test results indicated. Anne has really taken this to heart, and is now thinking of ripping carpets out and changing furniture, curtains etc -- something I'm not sure is really going to be the answer. I've been through this before, dealing with allergies were, for better or worse, the defining backstory of my childhood, and though I'd be the first to say that avoidance (rather than shots or antihistamines) is the best way to deal with allergens, I've always thought that the "scorched earth and spartan interior" approach to dust was overkill. I've never had to go that route before (as an adult), and I don't want to see us change her home and world now (relegating her to a bit part in The Don Show drama), if that's not absolutely necessary.

 

Anyway, tonight is the gym, then Two Brew Tuesday at the Brew Works.

Dreaming Fishes To Young Ram, Watersleep To Firewaking

Great day today, the sun is finally in my house...

Did a really nice piece of trailwork at Sals, putting in a log ride, and followed that with an abbreviated "holy cow I'm tired" ride, then dinner and a movie ("101 Reykjavik") at home. Yesterday was Sals, Friday was Jordan, and Thursday was a road ride; it's supposed to be rainy through to Wednesday, so I'm pretty happy to have seized the past few nice days. The weather will no doubt become seasonal again, but this weekend was a nice foretaste of summer.

Leithian

Morning weigh-in: 180#, 12.5% BF

 

Back home. Got in yesterday afternoon, and went out on a road ride almost immediately after arriving home, 25 miles or so with Anne on a perfect day. Ahhh, home at last! (The trip, by the way, was very fruitful.)

 

Reading: I'm working on The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second (of three) from Steig Larsson. I got that for Christmas; I got the first (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) for Christmas in 208 and hadn't read it, so I was a little under the gun, and just and finished the first one on the last trip before this week -- just in time, because it's about to come out as a movie. Very stiff writing (which is probably an artifact of translation) and the guy really likes to name-drop consumer electronics, but the stories are fascinating: detective/whodunit/suspense stories with a dash of Europolitics. I can't tell if they're actually good, or only good in that "detective novel bought in the airport bookstore" way, but they are hard to put down. (The guy next to me saw me reading TGWTDT on the plane, and said that the second one was just as good, but only after the first 50 pages or so. He was right.) We'll probably see the movie this weekend, and I wonder how it will fit into the  "good book -> bad movie, bad book -> good movie" spectrum.

 

Voyager: I had to do some software updates, but I now have R working from within GRASS, so I can do statistical analysis of my spatial data. I'm not yet sure what that gets me, but at least it works.

 

Went out last night to the Brew Works & saw a bunch of friends, and tonight we'll probably go to that movie, after a ride at Sals. Crocuses are up, and there are already ediles in the garden, and Anne just got her seed order in the mail -- that Green Cusp is just over the horizon...

 

Irish Neon

Morning weigh-in: 179#, 11.5% BF

Went to the doctor today, got a steroid blister pack and some new antihistamines. My skin has erupted the past few weeks, especially on my feet and calves, all bright pink and raw-looking, and she (the doctor) said it's not eczema or whatever, but some kind of hyper-reaction to something in my environment. The first step is to calm the current skin inflammation down, then go with longer term strategy of finding out what -- diet, soap, laundry detergent, or whatever -- is causing this.

Meantime, Anne's back from visiting Emmi, who was herself up in Washington visiting a friend. Tag team: I was out of town last week, she was gone this week, and I am off again next week.

Rain.

The Groove Proves Elusive

Morning weigh-in: 180#, 11.5% BF

 

Two weeks or so since my last post, probably the longest I've ever kept my "mouth" shut... It feels like I haven't stopped moving since Christmas or so: Florida, Russia, moving out of the apartment, and last week I was in Indiana for work... Work has been particularly busy lately, every day is another Crazy Party here, constant whitewater and emergencies leaving no time to breathe, or even do my real work which is now of course behind...

 

However, I was home by Friday night, and that night we we met up  with the usual gang of friends at Brew Works. Saturday we went for a short ride, then an afternoon wedding in Philly, then out to the Funhouse  (a great night: packed, smoky and loud; sort of a punctuation mark, a closed door on the previous week), and Sunday was a Blue Sky breakfast with the gang, followed by a trail-care crew hike at Sals to take inventory. All in all, I think this weekend put a lot of things behind me.

 

Last night I rode the towpath, which was fairly OK (if a bit soft) for most of its length, except the usual super-muddy section near Freemansburg. (I only went to the Chain Dam, maybe 19 miles total, but the extra effort of the soft ground really wore me out -- I guess the month off the bike might also have had something to do with it!) Got up this morning and did a run with Anne, and tonight I hit the gym; I expect that I'll be able to get back to yoga in a week or so.

 

Since I will have to travel again next week, and there's rumors of more of the same kind of work coming, I think I'm going to have to become more protective of my ride/gym/yoga time. That weight's got to come down.

 

Down To The Wire

I am moving out of my apartment this weekend, so of course:

 

1. There is a big snowstorm coming.

2. There was an emergency at work, starting last week, requiring me to work late so I couldn't do as much pre-move moving/cleaning as I'd hoped.

 

I think I'm in good shape though: most of my smaller stuff has been moved into storage, and most of my trash has been thrown out. As long as I can rent a U-Haul for Saturday (and manage to not crash it) I'm golden.

 

Meantime, I got in a decent road ride last weekend, 51 miles on a springlike Saturday. I did another tempo workout last night on the trainer, but other than that there has been no exercise this whole week -- too busy.

 

Not Too Busy: I've been playing with the maps again. I downloaded the latest demo version of TopoFusion and got it to run under Wine on the laptop (there are a few issues with the interface, but overall I think that it works well enough to warrant buying the full version), and I downloaded the latest stable version of GRASS. That also seems pretty good, but the new functionality I want seems to hang up when I use it on my Sals trail database -- I think the problem is with the database itself, though.

When I Was Your Age

Morning weigh-in: 179.5#, 12% BF

 

Did an after-work chore day yesterday, stopping to get computer supplies at Staples, then finishing the Great Laundry Cull at the apartment (got two more huge bags for Goodwill, plus one of garbage and some old stereo speakers thrown out). Once I got home I started dicking around with the computer, which cut into my ride time but I did manage to get some time on the trainer workout. (Thirty minutes: ten warmup, ten at LT and ten cooldown, all at a 90-95 RPM cadence.) It was a good workout, but not really much of one, and since I hit Taco Hell -- hard -- for dinner, I don't know where the good weigh-in came from. But I'll take it...

 

Funny, a lot of the clothes I've tossed have been shirts from old races, like back when your $25 entry fee also got you a tee shirt and a water bottle -- let's call it The Nineties. I wore a lot of those shirts until they were rags, sort of a tribal identity thing, and kept them for sentimental reasons ever since. Anne got a kick out of my waxing reminiscent over them on Saturday. I started thinking about it though -- there was a lot of racing going on back then, it was a big deal. Just in New Jersey, in a season that went from March through early December, there was:

 

The Lewis Morris Challenge (6-race series),

RVCC at Ringwood (6-race series),

Mahlon Madness (2 races),

Fat Tire trilogy at Mahlon (3 races)

The Round Valley Rumbler,

Allamuchy (several races, plus the 24-hour race),

Montague Day,

and the series championship at Allaire.

 

In eastern Pennsylvania:

 

Big Timber,

Mt Gretna,

Michaux (3 races),

Blue Marsh (5 or 6 races plus a few biathlons),

and God's Country.

 

In nearby Maryland& Delaware:

 

Gambrill Ramble,

Greenbriar Challenge,

The Watershed Washout,

The Iron Hill Challenge,

and The Eastern Shore Challenge.

 

(New York, New England, and VA/WV/NC were just as busy, but to me, except for a few "name" races, they were their own separate world.)

 

That's 40 races right there, easily more than one a weekend for the busier parts of the season (there was always a lull in around July), and they were all packed, hundreds of racers at even the smallest of them. I might not have been a very good racer, but I sure had fun -- I got to know a lot of different places to ride by racing them, and got to hang out with a lot of great people, a community with its own news, and folklore and gossip.

 

I saw someone from racing days a few years back, and mentioned that I missed the old scene -- he said that it never went away, that I was the one who dropped out. But there aren't nearly as many races nowadays, and they aren't nearly as well attended; something might continue in attenuated form, but what I remember is gone.

 

By the way, this post's title? I caught myself using the phrase more than once recently. Aargh!

 

Playing Catch-Up

Morning weigh-in: 180.5#, 12% BF

Whelp, I am now pretty much caught up with my photos. The last of the Russia pics are posted on Flickr -- I had just under 200 keepers -- as are the Superbowl of Chili photos, plus a few others. (Technically, I guess I'm falling behind again, since I took a few more yesterday, but still.)

 

In other catch-up news, I'm finally making the big push to vacate that apartment. Anne and I stopped by after yoga Saturday, and culled out a big chunk of my Goodwill-bound (and also trash-bound) clothes, five big bags of stuff. I'm going back tonight to finish the job, and also do a few more tasks; I will be doing similar things several days this week, and should be just about done (except for the U-Haul stuff) by the weekend. Friggin finally!

 

This weekend: I tried going skiing on Friday, but I think everyone else must have thought the same thing -- I couldn't even find a parking space at Blue Mountain, just me and maybe 30 other cars constantly prowling for openings in the lot until I wised up -- if the lots are full, how will the slopes be? -- and regrouped by snowshoeing at Sals. Good old Sals! I was definitely not the first one there either, plenty of others had already broken track. We hit the Allentown Farmer's Market (always a trip) later in the day.

 

Anne and I went to yoga on Saturday morning, then hit the Quadrant for brunch before the big clothing drive, then we got home and bottled that Baltic Porter that's been brewing in the basement since like Christmas (we took a few samples, it's already really good), and finally the crew (Anne, me, Debbie and Donna) went to Andy's wine-tasting party. Long day!

 

Sunday was Valentine's day, but we took it low key, except we did have a vodka-and-pickles party, eating Russian foods like borscht and Salade Olivier, and vodka chased with the traditional pickled veggies (pickled garlic, plain old pickles, and sauerkraut). We went for a nice long walk after everyone left, pretty much our only time outside for either of us yesterday.

 

Tonight is more work at the apartment, then I'll be (gack) riding the trainer -- gotta do it, I've fallen way behind in my fitness.

 

Like I Never Left

Morning weigh-in: 180#, 12% BF

 

Surprisingly, not that bad weight, especially considering the Chili Contest yesterday -- and of course all that Russian food -- but we'd been doing a lot of walking on vacation, nothing that worked up a sweat or cranked the heart rate, but I guess we maintained a steady caloric equilibrium.

 

We got back Saturday evening. Up all night, 6:00 AM flight to Munich followed by an 8 hour layover (sleeping like bums on a park bench), and a 9 hour hop across the pond to Newark, where Debbie and Donna picked us up -- it was good to see some familiar faces! We actually went out, had dinner at Brew Works and saw some more familiar faces (Debbie's Kevin caught up with us there, and we also saw Scott & Jen, and Doug & Lori, and of course the crew behind the bar); by this time it was about 4:00 AM St Petersburg time, but we were trying to get back on schedule, so we hung out until about midnight. I was asleep before I hit the pillow.

 

We bounced awake fairly early yesterday morning, like 6:00 AM, still partly on Russian time, and dove back into our much-deferred addictions: Anne made a great breakfast, and did some baking, and generally went wild in the kitchen, while I plopped down with the laptop and a cup of coffee, and caught up with all the blogs and webcomics that I follow. At 8:00 we went down to Sand Island, and joined Doug and Eric for a couple of hours XC skiing, then we all decamped, cleaned up, and regrouped in Easton around 11:30 for the Superbowl of Chili. Me and Anne, Donna, Eric, and Doug & Lori, an hour wait to get in and standing room only inside, 18 contest entries -- a good time was had by all -- and rumor has it that I ended up on TV. Porters after that, bumped into a lot of other peeps, and finally got home again around 7:00. We had to deal with a few pressing issues on the home front, but basically we were zonked and horizontal by 10:00. I woke up this morning and I was back on Eastern Standard.

 

I have about 270 photos from the trip, not all of them keepers of course but it's still a big pile to get through; I've already started posting them and hope to stay on top of it, so stay tuned. In terms of exercise, I'll probably just go for a run tonight.

 

Ballet Bollywood

Hi I'm back, drifting from cafe to cabaret with Ben's borrowed laptop again...

It's much warmer now than when we arrived, hovering right around freezing right now, with flurries coming down, as seen from this coffee shop window. We have a bit of scheduled downtime today, hanging out and doing the internet thing. Tomorrow we'll probably go back to the Hermitage -- it's closed today -- and we might take a trip outside the city one day this week.

We got in some hardcore sightseeing the past few days. Saturday we did several walking tours we found in a local guidebook (as supplemented by our personal guide Ben), visiting the church of the Spilled Blood -- probably the most beautiful building I have ever been in -- and the Cathedral of St Isaac, which has a tower and observation deck at the top. Dinner that night was Mexican (!), followed by a couple of pints of Guinness at "Mollie's Irish Bar" (!!) .

Last night was the ballet. We saw "La Balyetiere" (or something like that), a romantic tragedy set in India. Pretty awesome, especially at the end when we got kicked out while taking pictures (really we got kicked out because they were closing, but I think the pictures were what truly riled the old lady usherette). Russian dinner beforehand, and we followed the show with absinthe and vodka at Ben's apartment.

Flat Isabel: I've been taking pictures everywhere we go, mostly with this little paper cutout in the scene, given us by a grade-school teacher friend. Apparently, kids make these little "Flat Stanley" (or in our case "Flat Isabel") dolls for some geography learning experience, and travelers photograph them in various places around the world for the kids. Isabel has been on all our sightseeing excursions, and she's totally given my picture-taking a narrative structure...

Comes The Revolution: The two buildings we saw saturday had a lot in common: both were monumental, like un-usably large (the Church of the Spilled Blood has never been used as a church), both were built approximately at the end of the nineteenth century, and both seemed to be made to exalt Imperial hubris, at the expense of the blood of the people -- the Church of the Spilled Blood was built in commemoration of / answer to the assassination of a previous emperor, like a slap in the face to those who did it.

St Petersburg

Just a quick post via Ben's borrowed laptop...

The trip over was somewhat long (not too bad), but totally uneventful: we breezed through security and customs everywhere, which was great except that we budgeted a lot of time for all that, and had mucho downtime in Newark. Flew all night Tuesday, connecting flight in Munich, and hit town by about 4:00 local time -- GMT+3? (By the way, Lufthansa's service made all US airlines look like the penny-pinching shitbags that they are.)

We're staying at a pretty nice place, the "5th Corner Mini Hotel," about 2 blocks off Nevsky Prospekt, and within walking distance of the Hermitage (visited it yesterday, just scratched the surface), the Russian Museum (Thursday), and Ben's new apartment, which we visited yesterday. By the looks of things, we seem to be in an up-and-coming section of town, not quite fashionable yet but getting there -- plenty of coffee/tea places, bars, restaurants; our street is overrun with shoe stores, and there's even a yarn shop around the block. Anne is in Heaven.

We hit the night life last night, saw a "Dixieland Jazz Band" at the Jazz Dance Hall up the street. Real nightclub atmosphere, a room full of round tables with little lamps on them just like some old movie, plus a dance floor in the back of the room. The band was awesome, a bunch of Russian men, mostly older, including an ancient banjo player who managed to totally rock out. They all took turns with solos, and also with singing -- mostly imitating Louie Armstrong -- but they also did absolutely wild renditions of "Rock Around The Clock" and "Route 66."

Anyway, that's it for now. We're doing a walking tour of cathedrals and other outside stuff today, while it's a relatively balmy 20 degrees or so. It's been shockingly cold outside, especially at night.

Gone (Ice) Fishing

Well, we leave for Russia in a few hours, bus from Southside to Newark, then to St Petersburg via Munich. This would be a perfect blogging opportunity, but of all my gizmos I'm only bringing my camera, too many hassles, even legal ones for some toys... If I find/borrow a computer I'll post something, but otherwise it'll be pretty light.

If all goes well, we'll be back in the USA in time for the Superbowl.

Social Climbing

Morning weigh-in: 180#, 13% BF

 

A couple of good rides this weekend, which was good because there won't be any more riding for a few weeks...

 

Friday night I went out for a hill ride in Williams Township and other nearby areas. I cut through Freemansburg, to meet up with friend and fellow rider Bill K, who was coming from Forks, and we arrived at our rendezvous spot (the start of Gaffney Hill Rd) almost exactly as planned, almost like military precision or something -- the phones helped. We rode together from there, trying to get as many hills in as possible: Gaffney Hill, Wassergas, Ringhoffer, a few other smaller things, then he took the towpath home from Freemansburg while I went over the last hill to Market Street. Got close to home and saw Anne walking to Brew Works, scrambled into my regular clothes and finally caught up with everyone there. I was whooped -- Bill's  a polite rider, but he's a lot stronger than I am, and I was pushing myself to maintain a decent pace -- and was fairly mellow, had dinner and maybe one beer before I ran out of steam.

 

Saturday was a hard-core social interaction day. Anne baked a cake and we went over to Deb's sister for the memorial service, which was nice even if it was sad: there were lots of people there remembering her mom, and they had photos and other things to commemorate her life. (It's funny, there was such a strong family resemblance between Deb, and her sister & niece, that they looked strangely familiar, and even the photos of her mom had a deja vu quality.)

 

Later in the day Anne's family had their long delayed Christmas get-together, which was a raucous blast. Anne's family is large, and interesting, and just plain fun... Plenty of food and hanging out, a gift exchange; I've got tons of photos, which are already posted on flickr -- go click! I think I do best in smaller crowds, and the sensory overload finally caught up with me; I was toast once again by the end of the day.

 

Sunday I got up early, and drove over to meet a bunch of guys at Sals. VMB group ride: a friend or two, but mostly guys I didn't really know. This turned out to be a great ride, lots of fun, and I have to say I was riding well for a change. I was leading for a while, and it was funny how I panicked -- they're all right on my butt! -- and took off like a bat out of hell; later on I drifted to the back, where I could be my usual Take My Own Sweet Time self, but even then it was more a social grace than a physical necessity: I was riding and conversing rather than feeding the pissing contest, and I always felt like I had a lot more in the tank if I needed it. Conditions were primo, dry/frozen and fast (probably the last time it'll be like that until the temperature drops again), and we ran into a lot of others out there, getting in one last early morning ride before the rain and thaw. We got back to the cars just as the first raindrops fell.

 

I drove directly over to Blue Sky, and met the team (Anne, and Donna with her son & his girlfriend) for breakfast. Except for a haircut (and our Sunday Night Libation at Brew Works), I spent the rest of the day napping.

 

Tonight I'm packing, and we are on our way tomorrow.

 

Kumbaya

Morning weigh-in: 180.5#, 12% BF

 

Really cool time last night at Porters, hanging with a big chunk of the old Which Brew crowd, as well as the usual people I see on a more regular basis (no names, to protect the guilty). Some nights I might just sit like a bump on a log, and exchange maybe 5 words with my neighbor, but things were way more conversational last night; it was a hard-core interactive evening. Jazz combo, "meet the brewer" schwagfest with Stoudts Brewing (we came home with a tee shirt and two pint glasses), a Reuben, and some Stoudts oatmeal stouts: a winner all around.

 

I hit the gym before that, but I hit it so hard -- I really upped the ante on those lower-body plyometrics -- that I had to quit early. Did a little shopping, looked at smartphones and found out (from the Best Buy counter girl, no offense but not the most reliable source) that the Droid is not the way to go internationally. (I'm still leaning toward the Droid, but I was a little disappointed last night, then even more conflicted/confused when I ran into someone at Porters who has one, and loves it enough to get rid of his Blackberry.) Also hit Mal-Wart for trip related under-necessities. Socks, Spider Man pajamas, you know the drill...

 

The lights are charging, and tonight I am doing a road ride before ending up (most likely) at Brew Works.

 

The Plan, Man: I am going to do the Wilderness 101 once again this year (so sad, something to prove), and also Allamuchy and (most likely) Big Bear. My plan originally was to start that "Time Crunched Cyclist Program" regimen in February, continuing that through early April, regrouping for a month or two, then hitting it again for another 8 weeks before the W101. However, I do not think I'm ready to start real training, and the next two weeks off will not help things... My current, rethought plan is to do base work through April, just miles miles miles in the bank, then start the TCTP in May and run it for about 12 weeks, up to the W101. With the extra base work, I might take on the more aggressive of the training regimens offered.

 

This also gives me a chance to run more. I agreed to run a half-marathon with Anne and some others, and I need to get in some real training for that too.

 

Dammit, I also want to go skiing! Maybe it'll get cold again when we get back. Mud season sucks, I think I have cabin fever.

 

 

Black Bird Speaks

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 179.5#, 13% BF

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 180#, 12% BF

 

Feeling a little better, blues are starting to fade...

 

A Public Service Announcement (for anyone struggling with pairing Garmin devices, and resorting to Teh Google): I got a Garmin accessory for Christmas, a pedal-cadence monitor which communicates wirelessly with my GPS. Before they can do that, however, the two units have to establish a communications link. The process is called "pairing," and it's sort of like the units get introduced to each other: you hold the GPS near the monitor, with no other monitors or GPS units nearby, and they do the rest. (Once the devices are paired, they automatically recognize each other, and will work together even in the presence of other accessories/devices, or other riders with similar GPS units.) There is one "undocumented feature" though: the airwaves have to really be quiet when you do this, and more specifically, the units will not pair if there's wi-fi around. Well, we have wi-fi throughout the house, and so do all our neighbors... I spent about a week fiddling with the cadence monitor, replacing batteries and pressing reset buttons etc, no luck until I came across a forum comment that warned about the wi-fi thing. I found a spot down the street where the airwaves were quiet enough, and two seconds later they were paired. Piece of cake! -- and they have been playing together flawlessly ever since. Each new toy brings disquieting news though, and now I think my cadence is too low...

 

Down to the wire: I was getting nervous about our visas so I checked online yesterday -- they'd been approved and were on the way back to us, and when I got home the package had already arrived. Whew! Except for packing (and one more confirmation with the hotel) we are now ready for Russia. Well, except for the language thing... I'll be bringing a camera but no laptop, so posting may be sparse for a bit -- though I might pick up a new smartphone (the Droid has been catching my eye lately), especially if I can get one I can use internationally. We shall see.

 

Last night was the wake for Deb's stepdad. I carpooled with Lori, and met a few friends (Eric & Kris, Greg, Janna & Eric) from the old Masters Swimming days, but otherwise it was mostly Deb's relatives and neighbors. Deb seemed to be holding up OK. Pretty sad, he had pancreatic cancer and it took him out rather suddenly.

 

Tonight is the gym, then over to Porters. This morning was beautiful, with the predawn frost colors, and the crows all fleeing their epicenter along the river.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hive Leptosouls Give Virgins Instant Sex...

...and busy times make for sparse blogging, even if there's more to blog about in busy times.

 

What's up? I am super-busy at work, I just went through a weeklong feeding frenzy -- last weekend was all about the quest for pizza, and then there was comfort food midweek, and Brew Works and Blue Sky and yadda yadda et cetera through this weekend -- and some friends are dealing with the loss of parents  (hence the comfort food), and in between I just don't seem to have time to really sit still and think, and when I do, I have other things to think about than blogging. (There's also this: though I do tend to chronicle my life here, I had a few posts that were getting too diary-like, lists of events, food I ate and so on, that I abandoned and deleted. That wasn't and isn't the direction I want to go with this, even if that's where it seems to trend most of the time.)

 

The weight: I didn't check it for the past few days, but I'll get back into it soon. It's probably not good, but not radically bad either; it had been hovering around 180 for the past week, and I'd guess that's where it is now. (I have to say though, that except for the past few days, I have been keeping track: I found a few sports/fitness/coaching sites that let me record my workouts, weight, etc, which I've been playing with, and these posts here were originally a just a substitute for that kind of thing. I'll probably keep it up here for the sake of completeness, or OCD or whatever...)

 

Reading: Just finished Solaris, which was good but not nearly as earth-shattering as the hype. I'm just at the beginning of The Cyberiad, which already seems better.

 

Viewing: We watched Memento this weekend, which I hadn't seen since it was on the big screen. Still good, still loved it (Anne's verdict: good, but kind of creepy), and I think I took home a little more of what actually happened.

 

Memento Mori: I saw on MTBr that the 10th anniversary of Dalerider's passing was the other day. He was sort of the Brian of that crowd, in the sense of being the friend and benefactor to a whole community, and I met him once when the real Brian, offended by a bad MTBr review of the Jim Thorpe trails, organized a weekend gathering -- Brian threw down the gauntlet in the form of an invite, "to see the real trails," and Chris aka Dalerider1 did the organizing. It was a real blast, and he was a cool and honest person, one of many who were there that weekend. In some ways it seemed like "holy cow it's been ten years already?" but in other ways that gathering -- maybe the summer of 1999? -- seems like it was on another world.

 

Tonight is the gym, then I'm skipping Tacos & Brews night. Tomorrow is a wake.

 

The Reference: "Hive leptosouls give virgins instant sex. Leptosoul experiences can be tiring and trying." It's a quote from The Godwhale (which I read in maybe 7th grade, and in some ways it's the only book I ever read), a mnemonic for a sequence of amino acids. It's funny what stays with you...

So Many New Leaves, Same As The Old Leaves

Morning weigh-in (Thursday):

Morning weigh-in (Friday): 180#, 11.5% BF

 

Back to the gym last night after a month off, and it was a doozy: for the upper body I changed to lower weights and higher reps to focus more on endurance, and for my legs I switched to plyometrics (ie jumping on and off a little elevated platform). A tough workout, and it was made worse by the hiatus -- but I have to say that the time off (which was mostly because I was busy/lazy) did my shoulder a world of good. My thumb, the other autumn injury, is also much better. It's an ill wind that leaves me with no justifications...

 

I am also back to yoga, and hopefully I can make it a regular thing again. I went Wednesday night, and it was a killer workout also -- I'm a bit stiff, and a bit off my stride, but I also seem to be a bit crabbed or hunched over too, hmmm -- but it felt really good to be back in the swing of things. First day of the new scene too, Alicia now doing the Wednesday night class.  Maybe the New Years resolutions were all kicking in, but the class seemed to be unusually full.

 

(Note: Hello new readers!)

 

The weight: Wednesday night was Emmi's last night in town, so I met her, Anne and the crew at The Bookstore for drinks. Very nice, they had that guitar & sax duo playing, and it was sort of a "do-over" for Tuesday evening, where the crowd was too big to just hang out. That was yesterday -- I don't know what this morning's weight is about, since we stayed in last night, with new books and an early bedtime.

 

Reading: I'm still working on that Byzantine book, but last night I started Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, which I picked up (along with the Byzantine book, and also Lem's Cyberiad) in Philly last week.

 

Tight Schedule: I got two emails yesterday, one saying my Russian visa application has been approved, and the other inviting me to the (15th annual) Superbowl of Chili, an event that I have never missed since it started, but which lands on the day we return from Russia. I have a feeling that that one's going to hurt...

 

Tonight is a tempo ride on the towpath, followed by a possible night out in Easton. Skis should be ready this weekend.

 

Low On Ammo

Morning weigh-in: 179#, 11.5% BF

 

Great ride last night. I was a little behind the other guys out (Doug, Eric, Greg) so I was surprised and happy to see their lights come up behind me on the trail, only it turned out to be two friends/neighbors (Matt H, Eric B), and so we pursued the other guys together. More lights coming towards us on the Spanky turned out to be more other riders (not sure who), then finally we caught up to Eric and Doug who were waiting for us. I hooked up with them for a while as my previous partners continued on, then peeled off when they took the trail back to their cars. It was a lot of work -- and I wasn't riding as well as I would have liked -- but conditions were awesome and we all had a lot of fun.

 

I headed home, then met everyone at Brew Works. Doug and Lori, Eric, Anne, and Emmi, and Debbie and Donna with their dates -- we took over one whole end of the bar, but there was too many of us to really make a cohesive whole (and the ladies were busy talking with their dates anyway), so Doug, Eric and I sat back and "solved the world's problems, one beer at a time."

 

Last Night, Part 2 was as good as the ride, but now I'm bushed. Tonight is yoga, then maybe another night out to say goodbye to Emmi who's heading back to school. First I have to get through the afternoon...