Like In The Olden Days

Like way back when, my pre-yoga days... I took a yoga class last night, and I knew I would be out of shape, but I was surprised at how stiff I had become: really stiff, can't-touch-your-toes stiff -- one more wake-up call. The workout felt good though; I think it's what I need right now. (One thing I didn't need was the mirror on the wall, showing me how big my gut had become -- back in the fall of 2007, I got  a new mirror in my living room, and walking past that mirror every day, seeing myself, was one of several factors that drove me to lose weight that winter.)

 

Noted in passing: Besides being my brother's birthday (Happy Birthday, Kevin!), Saturday was the 5 year anniversary of the ankle incident. You bet I was thinking about it, every icy patch on my ride Saturday.

 

Meanwhile, today is my last day at work before Daylight Savings Time. It's pouring, today through tomorrow, so I'm hitting the gym tonight, and I'll probably get in some more gym/yoga/errands/chores before the nicer weather hits on Saturday. Green Blaze? Allamuchy?

 

 

A Steppenwolf Christmas

Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 16.5% BF

 

I suspect that I'm fully hydrated for a change, since that body fat number looks about right -- that is, it's not what I want, but at least the BF is accurate.

 

In case anyone was wondering: Kraftwerk Thanksgiving. I'm gonna miss Achewood, if I don't already...

 

Map Fun: One thing I've wanted to do with my Garmin is put a map of the Sals trail system on it, one that I could then follow on my rides. (Not that I need it, but it would be cool to follow along, and it might come in handy as something I could give to others.) The Garmin has one big drawback though: trails are added via GPX files, but there's no way to just take a file containing the entire trail system, and just copy it into the unit, and have that be all you need to work with -- each individual trail segment (and there may be over a hundred) must be loaded into the map one by one, turned on so it shows on the map, and color chosen for that segment, the whole process done over and over using that clunky 2-button-and-a-joystick interface.

 

Once loaded, the Garmin mapping info is stored in somewhere other than the original GPX file. (GPX doesn't normally store color but it can handle extensions; this shouldn't have been too hard.) Something like that -- having the Garmin's map info in the same file as the trail data -- would have been useful, because then the file, with all its hard-won map info, could be copied for someone else to use, or moved off the unit and reinstalled later -- but nope.

 

So OK, using a trail network, as produced by GRASS or TopoFusion, is impractical.

 

The next thing I tried was from a "How-To" I found online: trace over the trail network using Google Earth, doubling back or tracing over the same segments as required to make the trail system one huge single loop. Save and convert to GPX and plop it into the Garmin, and you can get the whole trail system onto the map with one iteration of the installation process.

 

This worked well, apart from the one-time tedium of re-tracing the trails, and had only one disadvantage: the entire trail system must all be the same color. This would usually be no big deal, except that the Sals trail system is composed of color-coded subsystems, and I wanted each trail on my map to have the same color as the trail blazes you'd find in the woods.

 

The compromise I came up with was to do the "retrace in Google Maps" thing for each subsystem, then load (and assign colors to) each individually. This worked out reasonably well -- it wasn't the one-shot setup I wanted, but it was a lot better than the alternatives I found so far. I tried these on Saturday's ride, and they looked and worked great.

 

Last night was the gym, and tonight is a towpath ride, to be followed by Taco Tuesday.

 

Pierogi Fest, The Kraftwerk Mardi Gras

There will be no morning weigh-in today: too many pierogis were consumed yesterday for any mens sana in corpus sano step-on-scale soul searching this AM...

 

We had a good time though. Anne and a few ladies from her knitting crowd decided they needed something to get through the last of the winter, and that something was -- pierogis! A five course meal, with pierogis in every recipe: Deb brought bacon-wrapped pierogi appetizers, Amy brought chicken-pierogi soup, Anne made pierogi lasagna, Liz had a bunch with various traditional and non-traditional stuffings, Donna had pierogis and string beans, and for dessert we had Anne's homemade pierogis with fruit filling, plus Donna's apple-pierogi pie. (The rest of us just brought our hungry but lazy asses.) That, and the last of our keg of "Hanseatic Doldrums" Baltic Porter, and it was a long fun dinner party -- and strangely enough, despite the heavy, filling qualities in every bite, there were almost no leftovers.

 

We tried to come up with a theme (Mardi Gras sort of came and went), with appropriate music and dress code for the party (the dress-up part was also DOA, thank goodness -- everyone wore what they always wear). The first musical iteration was polka, which was a disaster, then we tried "techno, like they listen to in Europe," but I didn't know any techno so I told Pandora I liked Kraftwerk, and let Pandora pick the music. It worked, pretty much.

 

(Speaking of music: I downloaded some songs from the Dum Dum Girls and listened to them on the way in to work this morning. Nice.)

 

Maybe it had something to do with what was in my belly when I went to bed, but I had the craziest and most fun post-Apocalyptic dream ever. Most of it faded when the alarm went off, but it was a sort of mix of Steve Austin / Mad Max kind of thing, in a world where the Federal Government had sort of merged the NBA and senior housing. I was a refugee, possibly via time capsule / escape pod (Polaroids of my previous life all around me in the dust, when they found me unconscious), and my tape-recorded debriefing, at a dusty outdoor basketball court, hoops mounted on palm trees etc, slowly morphed into a narrative of a visit to (and guitar jam with) a bunch of dolphins swimming in what looked like a brightly-lit, subterranean reactor core. I was saying the words "even unto the Gravity Well" when the alarm went off.

 

Saturday was pretty nice too: we went to Easton and hooked up with my HS buddy Mike and his family, in town to visit the Crayola Factory, and we had lunch together at Pearly Baker's, which gets a substantial clientele from Crayola, with kid's menu to accommodate. Mike's kids were adorable, but I think he was monitoring them very closely for signs of "long day meltdown," and took off before any anticipated crash. Shopping, home, a quick Sals ride -- remember them? -- and then we went to Spanky's "I'm tired of winter" party. Awesome, and warm enough that we could hang outside. Spring's coming.

 

Friday -- maybe by next week I'll say something about First Friday, if I remember. Tonight is the gym, and one week from yesterday is Daylight Savings Time.

 

One-Brew Tuesday

Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 15% BF

 

Weights are still high, but since I dropped a half pound after Two Brew And Tacos Tuesday, I thought I'd take the win and record it here.

 

Busy night last night, lots of running around: straight to the gym from work (where I added legs for the first time in a while), then walked over to Eskandalo for a haircut (calling my niece for a birthday greeting on the walk over), then home to change, then finally walked over Brew Works to meet up with the post-knitting crew. Normally I get the tacos (a Tuesday bargain at 3 for $3.00), and I did last night as well, but I skipped the sour cream and guacamole, and instead of two beers I only had one, so between the leg workout and the evening's belt-tightening...

 

I don't know what's up for tonight, maybe a run with Anne.

 

Transitions

Morning weigh-in: 185#, 15% BF

 

Happy Birthday to my God-daughter, my beautiful niece Olivia!

 

Much done, nothing said for a week... The weekend before last was probably our last hurrah on the skis, with trips to Jim Thorpe (icy but OK conditions) and the Poconos (nice snow); on Sunday and Tuesday we ran outside. Thursday I did an indoor trainer class at Cutter's Bike Shop, then Friday I got out for a bit of icy towpath riding (and finished in daylight). Saturday was windy so we did some chores and housecleaning (dinner party that night, it had to happen anyway), but on Sunday Anne and I did a short morning run, and then an awesome afternoon bike ride. Nothing crazy, about 20 miles through Wassergas and Williams Township, and it was chilly when we weren't moving, and it was still a bit breezy, but with that ride it finally felt like spring was coming. (Of course, Sunday night through today has been more cold and more snow, which raised Anne's hopes for one last play-in-the-snow storm, but even this feels like a last hurrah.)

 

I Need A New Toy: On Saturday night we had some friends over for dinner, and to test our new Baltic Porter, "Hanseatic Doldrums," and among the guests were a few from the biking crowd. Talk drifted to training, and GPS and HRM, and, for the women in the room, privacy issues with web-based training analysis.

 

(I use Garmin Connect and MapMyRide, and I do keep my GPS data private for the most part, especially if the ride starts/finishes at home, but I make the data for my "away rides" publicly available (it's only fair: I search among other public tracks to learn new trails), and I'm comfortable with even the ones marked "private" being stored online. Then again, I own a mirror, and I know have less to worry about, in terms of someone studying my habits and training routes for purposes of sexual assault, than do some others in the conversation.)

 

Anyway, the conversation turned to privacy settings on training websites, then to methods of just keeping the data local and using analysis software on your home machine -- I believe I actually blushed when I realized I didn't have any training analysis software on my machine -- unless you count TopoFusion, and I don't because it's more like mapping software --  and I didn't even know if any was available on Linux.

 

Not to worry, I found a bunch online, and last night I fixed my lack by downloading SportsTracker. It looks pretty decent, I think I'll be giving it a try over the next few weeks to see how it compares to the online ones, and maybe grab some more for comparison purposes. Strangely enough, the SportsTracker mapping uses OpenStreetMap, which actually shows a lot of my local singletrack -- bonus!

 

Now all I need to do is get out there and ride, and run, and hit the gym, and get back into yoga, and also find time for my previous obsession/acquisition, GnuCash. Did I mention I picked up a guitar chord reference book, one I used as a kid?

 

Tonight is the gym, followed by a haircut, followed by Two Brew Tuesday at Brew Works.

 

A Week In Review

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 184.5#, 15% BF

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 185.5#, 14% BF

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 183.5#, 14% BF

 

OK, so I didn't hit the trainer Monday night... what I did do, besides laundry and similar activities (I actually got a lot done, things I'd blown off over the weekend) was upload a bunch of photos from the Superbowl of Chili. Check them out, I took pictures of a lot of contestants this year.

 

I did get around to hitting the trainer on Tuesday night though, and got in a short sharp interval workout -- 10 minutes warmup, then 3 intervals of 1 hard, high cadence minute with 2 minutes spinning rest between, and cool down for a total of 25 minutes. It was fairly intense, but definitely not a fat-burner, and since I followed it with Taco Night, things looked pretty bad by Wednesday morning.

 

One worse thing yesterday morning: I was fooling with photos Tuesday night, moving pictures from my phone to my laptop, and F-Spot (my photo program) crashed. When I went to continue using it the next morning, before work, it started up with an error message saying it couldn't find the database file -- and then it came up blank. The photos themselves were all safe on my hard drive, but all the user-supplied metadata (things like photo descriptions, and tags for date, location, event, etc) were gone; this represented a loss of thousands of hours of labeling work, and was in fact more likely to be irreplaceable than not. Gaaaa! No time to deal, I was late for work already.

 

Needless to say, it was a loooong day at work with that hanging over my head, but when I got home I quickly found the photo database in an incorrect directory (thank Google for the clues I needed); I put it back in its correct location and started F-Spot, and all was well. I also backed up the database, crossed my fingers, and dumped all the remaining photos from my phone. Stay tuned, if I see any good stuff I'll post them it Flickr along with all everything else.

 

I saw recently that the latest Ubuntu distribution dropped F-Spot in favor some other photo software, and at the time I was suitably outraged, but I've become a lot less attached to F-Spot over the last two days.

 

Dinner last night was leftover shepherd's pie, and then Anne and I went for a walk around the West Bethlehem neighborhood. Our route was a slightly shorter version of our 5k run; we did about 2 miles and I think Anne was scoping out the terrain for snowy sidewalks and general runnability. We got home a little before 10:00; if we'd been out a little longer we probably would have heard this. Poor fsckers.

A Day Of Atonement And Rededication

Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 14% BF

 

Great time at the Superbowl of Chili yesterday (more here), with Eric, Doug and Lori, and Anne, and Brian there in spirit; unfortunately the weather's been so bad lately we canceled any pre-chili workout -- yesterday was probably nice enough for a short road ride, but the decision had been made during Saturday's freezing rain storm -- and the guilt showed on the scale this morning.  It's been a rest week for me anyway, which could probably be noted on the scale as well, but today starts week one of my "second base month:" tonight is on the trainer (with "power intervals" ie "put it in the highest gear and pedal slowly"), tomorrow is back to the gym, Wednesday is more trainer work, Thursday is a rest (we're seeing Gasland in Allentown), and Friday through Sunday will be either road rides or skiing, depending on conditions.  Well that's the plan as it stands now anyway, before I actually start...

 

Speaking of tightening my belt, I downloaded GNUCash the other day and decided to get my finances in order -- no urgency or danger, it's just something I need to do.  I'm learning how to use it (no big deal so far), and I'm finding -- as I found playing with mapping and GPS, and playing with population growth rates, and video editing, and etc etc etc -- that the tool is nowhere near as important as the content.  I'm the guy who stopped balancing my checkbook after they invented ATM's though, so learning to pay attention and stay on top of my spending documentation (especially the cash-only stuff) may be a bit of a learning curve.

 

 

Awww -- Rain, Man!

Well, that's two winter storms in a row: we get a bit of snow but mostly what falls is rain, or even freezing rain. We got slammed Tuesday night and into Wednesday with ice, and we woke up to rain and near-freezing temperatures -- and in the words of long-time reader Greg (in the context of MTB racing), "I'd rather it be 25 and snowing than 35 and raining." Amen to that!

Tomorrow is the Superbowl of Chili, and I think we'll be doing directly there instead of our usual pre-chili outdoor workout fun.

So anyway, instead of doing anything outside today, I'm playing on the computer, posting more scanned photos and Browsing Around The Online... seems like something's hanging up in the intertubes though, several sites are down or very slow. Ping returns "packet filtered" errors, traceroute says "no reply" partway through the "route" (?); sure I wish I knew what these things meant but it was fun pushing the buttons. Meantime, it looks like maybe some intermediate connection is either down or slow -- savvis.net is a common factor -- or something is blocking something, and that something might be an ad company since many of the websites that are hanging have ads in them. Or maybe it's the ice storm? Or something on my machine?

Black Toe Shuffle

Good weekend, and now I'm doing some post-breakfast blogging from the basement of the Haymarket Cafe.  Anne's browsing at the local bookstore, and Doug and Lori just left, maybe to do some window shopping in town but essentially heading home.  We were all so beat from the previous two days of skiing that even snowshoeing sounded too strenuous and we're done.

Irony #1: We were going to take my car because of the 4-wheel drive and the extra room, but I had some sudden repairs that needed making -- windshield wiper broke, and one headlight blew out, the day before we left -- and since we had to dig out of the snowstorm before leaving, I tried to get my car worked on.  Snowstorm, garage is understaffed, no point in waiting for them to get to my car so we took Anne's.  Fast forward about an hour into the drive, and I get a call: the car is done and I can pick it up any time...

Irony #2: Driving for another hour or so, I get another call.  This time it's Nestors, and my XC ski boots, ordered weeks before, then recalled, then re-ordered -- the boots were supposed to be in early last week, but I was forced to pack my old boots (which cause my toenails to bruise and turn black) because the new ones never arrived -- well, they just arrived, and I could pick them up any time...

We had an awesome time on the trails though.  On Friday we hit a place called Northfield XC Ski Center, which is really a power company's hydroelectric pumped-storage reservoir, but they do a good job, moonlighting as a park.  The trails were for the most part fairly tame, but aerobically strenuous; we did about 6 miles over three or four hours of skiing (actual moving time was 1:25).  Dinner and drinks that night, and we met Ben and his girlfriend in town, but we were all so tired that the night ended early.

Yesterday we hit a place called Stump Sprouts XC Ski Center.  This place was a bit smaller, and a bit more rustic (ie less an afterthought at an industrial site than a real farm-and-forest location), more real, and more technical: we only got in about four miles in the same amount of time, but had a lot more thrills on their twisty rolling trails -- ascents! descents! turns! crashes!  Good times were had.  We were a little more spry afterward, and had a lighter dinner that night, and that  meant that last night was more of a nightlife blowout than Thursday or Friday.  Ben and and a bunch of his friends, the local brewpub, a late night, maybe that was the real reason this morning was a bit rough?

Snowman, O Snowman!

Hit the gym last night, then went home and scanned a bunch more photos, so stay tuned for another 30 or so to be posted to Flickr tonight. (By the way, I've been getting a real kick out of using my laptop like a toy lately, playing tunes and scanning photos and checking Facebook every few minutes, it seemed like a different world from how I usually play with the machine.) Last night was also Two Brew And Tacos Tuesday; I met Anne, who had come directly from visiting her mom, at Brew Works around 9:00, but we were a little too late to hang with the post-knitting crowd (or to get the food specials), so we shared some nachos and a few beers and called it a night.

 

Tonight I'll probably spend a little time on the trainer, maybe do some laundry and pack, since we're going on a mini-vacation with Doug and Lori this weekend. We're heading up to the Berkshires to do some XC skiing, and we're also going to check out some of the Northampton night life. Should be good, if we can get out of town: the snow is falling pretty hard right now, and should continue through tomorrow morning. I think we may want to avoid the coast, which is where things are going to get hit hardest...

Uncle Wiggily

Morning weigh-in: 182#, 12% BF (OK, whatever)

 

A quiet weekend without Anne: I stayed in Friday night: I was planning to see Trouble City All Stars at the Funhouse, but several hours of scanning photos and an hour of tempo on the trainer, along with the prospect of walking around in the bitter cold just to stand in a smoky room, totally put me out of the mood. Decision: early bedtime.

 

Saturday morning I met Doug and Lori for some XC skiing at Jacobsburg. It was brutally cold out, almost noon before temperatures even reached the teens, but we were huffing and puffing and steaming along soon enough -- I don't think I've ever been cold on the XC skis, no matter what the weather. Conditions were about as good as it gets, with the cold keeping the snow just right and the bright sun shining down; foot traffic made for some ugly skiing near the trailhead but further out our only predecessors were fellow skiers. Parts of Jacobsburg, where I normally would be bored to tears while riding, were actually so awesome I thought "people would pay do this..." Sunday morning I tried the same at Sals, but the hills were too steep and the turns too tight for my ability level, and I was forced to end after about an hour; the best part of the day turned out to be skiing in someone else's tracks around the baseball field.

 

In between was Saturday Night. I went out to see Geerbox, a friend's band, play at a local sports bar. The place (Mezza Luna i allentown) was nice despite the wall-to-wall wide screen TV's, and they had some decent beer on tap, and the band was good despite the singer's sore throat, but the music (the DJ between sets), and the clientele, was pure Classic Rock Without The Hard Stuff: uniformly white and middle-aged, and with that certain suburban decrepitude, all that I'd escaped by being who I am instead... Good people watching though, out on the dance floor.

 

Happy Anniversary! The first mac was introduced on this date in 1984. Here's something about the part I was most impressed with at the time... It was just a year ago that I threw out all my old "Inside Macintosh" books, when I was emptying out the apartment, and I still have my original 128k Mac, in storage like a forlorn little toaster.

Doc Melhorn Continues His Ascent To Heaven

I'm not going anywhere near a scale for a few days, but wow that was one tasty meal list night!  We (me, Anne, Deb, Donna, and Emily) did the Black Forest Deli's 5-course Russian dinner, something they do every Thursday night.  Things started with a bunch of appetizers -- mostly things like chicken salad, beet salad, little servings of potatoes, fried liver, smoked trout, and the like -- then continued with two kinds of pierogi, borscht, and two kinds of chicken for the main course; things finished with blintzes stuffed with farmer's cheese.  We were worried by the time appetizers were over, and stuffed & working hard to finish by the end of the main course, but we all found room for that dessert...

 

The whole evening was fun, a good time with great company, and then we parted company;  Anne and I were close enough to walk, and the snow was just starting to fall, a perfect end to the night.  Until... we were almost home when I got a text: Doug & Lori were at Brew Works if we wanted to join them, so we continued past the house and on to Main Street. Awesome, and then more awesome!  Anne had the "Aggressive," the latest hoppy offering, and I sampled the new "Insidious," a strong porter much like the one we just brewed, then after that and some conversation we called it a night.  We got home around 11:00.

 

Beautiful morning ride in today, and the second day in a row I drove into the sunrise while listening to Godspeed You! Black Emperor.  New snow (great except for not-very-bright drivers in town), pink and orange clouds, all glory and solar towers and "The Gathering Storm" playing full blast as I blasted over the hills on I-78.  It kind of reminded me of my drives to Slatyfork; I would put that song on as I drove west from Harrisonburg VA, over the mountain into West Virginia. If people drove to Heaven like Doc Melhorn, that's the road they would take and the song they'd hear.

Backslider

Morning weigh-in: 182.5#, 12.5% BF

 

Ate at home last night, then hit the gym for an upper body workout, then went home and ate dinner again, before meeting Anne at BW. And that's how you do it! Tonight we're hitting the Black Forest Deli for a traditional Russian multi-course dinner. It'll be good, but I don't think those numbers will improve. Tomorrow night, and possibly Saturday morning, will be spent XC skiing.

 

This Way Lies Madness

I finally found my winter computer project, and it's taken over my life: I have started the process of scanning all my old photos and putting them on Flickr.  So far I have my old Prague trip photos uploaded, and I just finished photos through June 1992, a total of over a hundred photos uploaded.  That, on top of the 115 photos I uploaded from my phone, means that there has been a lot of activity on my Flickr account, with a lot more to come...

 

The scanning process has been slow going though: for each photo I must remove it from the album (where they all are sort of stuck, after twenty or so years, to the semi-sticky backing page), read & record the caption off the back, and actually perform the scan -- this takes about 10-15 minutes for each set of four photos on an album page.  Then, after I have one roll done, or one event's worth of shots, I import the bunch to F-Spot (my laptop's photo software), adding tag information, and from there I upload the photos to Flickr.  Once the bunch is in Flickr I give each photo a title and caption based on the information off the back (and what I remember about that shot from when I took it), which takes another couple of minutes.  Meantime, each part of this process has just enough downtime (scanning, waiting for uploads to complete) to let the process drag and my attention wander, but not quite enough to allow any real multitasking.

 

Sunday we brewed a batch of Baltic Porter, another process with a lot of downtime, as liquids heat up and cool down, and while that was happening I did my first batch (the Prague pictures); I'd say that took me about six hours, including beermaking breaks, to get through about forty photos.  I got home from work Monday and scanned a bunch more, then yesterday I stayed home from work, and did another 40 or so and uploaded my next batch -- six hours total for 53 photos.  I am just past the halfway mark on my first photo album; I probably have over a thousand -- maybe two thousand -- photos left to do, and at my current rate it'll take me more than one winter to finish.  Sigh...

 

Anyway, enjoy the photos, and stay tuned for more!

 

I haven't been getting as much physical activity lately, though Anne and I did get in a good moonlight XC ski along the Monocacy last week, and Doug and I went skiing at Mauch Chunk Lake Park on Saturday -- we started on bikes but switched after finding the sledding a little too rough in the snow.  I also had a little downtime last night, after finishing the photos and before I went to meet the ladies for Two Brew Tuesday, so I hopped on the trainer for a quick workout; I only lasted about 10 minutes, I thought I was going to go mad from boredom.

 

Tonight is the gym, then maybe more scanning, though no uploading. I've been restless with the computer lately, fiddling with preferences/settings, looking around for cool software to download (got some website composer programs, and a few new "screen candy" utilities).  Maps bore me right now, though I am working on one for Michaux, maybe it's time for me to start tackling video...

 

AnneFamiliaPalooza

Morning weigh-in (Monday): 182#, 14.5% BF

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 181#, 12% BF

 

I was less than motivated to hit the trail last night, so I busted out the trainer and did a 45 minute tempo workout in the basement -- cranking the pedals and cranking the tunes, I was still bored out of my mind. But: thirty solid minutes at my aerobic threshold, and that part felt pretty good. Tonight it'll be either the towpath or maybe Sals (which I hear is in great shape right now), followed by Taco Night at Brew Works.

 

Sunday was Anne's family's Christmas get-together, aptly named [Anne's surname]palooza -- her mom, four of her five siblings and their families including children and grandkids, the ages ranges from about 2 months, through grade school, teens and college, twenty- and thirty something, and up into the 60's and 70's. Anne and I went with Emmi, got there around 2 and were immediately absorbed into the mayhem. Dinner, kids running around, moms and grandmothers sharing baby duties, not one but two gift exchanges -- when we finally got home I was both exhausted and (almost) too wound up to sleep, and apparently I'd done my share of damage at the dinner table... Thus ends this year's Christmas season, and the time has come to start working it all off.

 

By the way, more snow is forecast for the next day or so. I have a playdate, with Anne's friend Lois, to do some downhill skiing on Friday, maybe we'll all get in some cross-country before then?

 

Gilead's Precipice

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 180.0#, 13.5% BF
Morning weigh-in (Sunday): 178#, 14.5% BF

 

One more towpath half-ride, followed by one beer at Brew Works, equals one half pound of weight loss... I hit the towpath again Wednesday night, this time remembering to wear booties over my shoes -- I swear this'll be the year I get winter shoes -- and taking a hit of Proventil before heading out. I'm not sure if the Proventil helped on the ride, I was wheezing and coughing on-and-off for big parts of the ride (other parts I was totally fine lung-wise, though still afflicted with a runny nose), but after I got home and settled down I felt great, like I'd blown out whatever was the problem.

 

For those who asked: The Iguana's original cassette probably didn't last beyond 1992, and was replaced/upgraded several times by the shop before I ever learned how to do those kinds of things. Currently the bike has a fairly new wheelset with a 7-speed cassette in back, removable by the standard chain whip and cassette-remover-nut-thingy. The Iguana is now a flat-pedals cruiser, suitable for townie bike commuting; I was on the Turner last night.

 

Some Internetty Things: Looks like Titus Andronicus had a bit of a personnel change,  and everyone's taking turns, giving Ross Douthat his well-deserved wedgies -- some more than once. That provided a few giggles last week, which is better than what I think this week will bring.

Movie Night: Anne and I saw "True Grit" Thursday night. It was awesome, I highly recommend it. Afterwards we went for dinner at Brew Works, which is why there was no Friday weigh-in...

Friday was snowy, and the drive in was slow -- slower and worse than I thought the relatively mild conditions warranted -- but things were fine by the afternoon and I got in a short Sals ride after work. Conditions were really good, it was cold enough that the snow stayed dry and powdery, squeaking as I rode over it. We were supposed to do Anne's family Christmas visit yesterday, but the snow moved things to today so I hit the gym pretty hard: full body including legs, maxxing out the weights, first time in months I did that. Our free afternoon meant that we were cleared for going to the VMB party last night, but I think my workout (and the snowy bike commuting to/from) took me into nap-becomes-bedtime land a little early. Today we do the Christmas thing; we're leaving in a  few minutes.

That Was Easy

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 176.5#, 13% BF

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 180.5#, 13.5% BF

 

Skip a lunch, go for a ride, and I was almost halfway to my goal! Too bad it was mostly suppression weight, but it is good to see the numbers drop even if they do bounce back. Damn you, Two-Brew Tuesday!

 

I got in a short towpath ride on the Monday night: maybe 13.5 miles, out and back to the Bethlehem Boat Club in just over an hour. Kind of easy pace, high cadence, it felt really good except for cold feet. Tonight should be a longer version of the same.

 

I felt pretty good on the ride, but I'm not sure how things will work tonight: last night and today I've had a lot of wheezing and postnasal drip problems. (I just stopped taking the decongestant/expectorants I was using, though not the antihistamine, and withdrawal was like I'd had 3 cups of coffee before I went to bed, plus some late-night nose & chest issues.) I'm hoping things work out.

 

More Resolutions, A Partial List (places I want to ride this year):

 

Jim Thorpe

Camelback

Tamaqua -- Bungalow Park, Burma Rd

R.B. Winter

Michaux

State College

Blue Marsh

French Creek

Wissahickon

Ringwood

Mahlon-Dickerson

Allamuchy/Kittatinny

Round Valley

Allaire

Harthshorne/Huber

Kingdom Trails VT

Stowe/Middlebury VT

White Clay, DE

Frederick/Gambrill MD

Patapsco MD

Slatyfork WV

Brevard NC

 

This doesn't count races, or road rides, o-or...

 

Day One: A New Clear Dawn

Morning weigh-in: 180.5#, 14% BF

 

Back at work, and things are going smoothly. I saw the sun rise on the way in this morning (with a beautiful solar tower shooting up from behind the trees), for the first time in... it felt like quite a while, but I'm guessing it's only been two weeks. It really wasn't quite the difficult morning I expected it to be, though I did forget my money and my wallet when I dashed out the door -- d'oh! No lunch today.

 

New Year's Festivities New Year's Eve was a pretty full day, starting early with Anne getting the pork & sauerkraut cooking. I ran in the PeepsFest 5k with Lori P, and also Eric & Kris who did their own pace, while Anne, Emmi & Doug did the walk, then we checked out the PeepsFest tent with Liz. Home, nap, and then it was time to party -- we (Anne, Emmi & I) had a "70's Theme Mystery Dinner Party" (sort of like a cross between the game "Clue" and a mini-play around the dinner table) with Liz and a friend of hers, Sally & Joe, and Deb and Donna. Way fun, but we were too tired for Phase 2 at the Dropping of the Peep downtown; we just watched the fireworks from the porch and went to bed. The next day was Judy's open house. Anne and I stopped by for a few hours, saw a big bunch of the old gang, then we stopped in at Porters on the way home, which was surprisingly busy, and saw some more of the old gang. Should auld acquaintance lang syne etc...

 

Tonight I'm hitting the towpath, ride one of training week one.

 

Just Putting It Out There

These aren't necessarily resolutions, but...

Lose Weight: I am currently 180 pounds, and I want to be 170 pounds by April. I think that's pretty doable, so it's on the list. My real goal is low 160's by June, but first things first.

Train and Race: I've already put together a training regimen, or at least the bare bones of one  (I have plenty of time to flesh things out), but I do want to get back on the bike for real this year. I plan on doing at least a few local races too: Michaux, maybe some from the MASS and H2H series, and of course my nemesis -- the Wilderness 101.


Blog More: Last year I only had 92 posts, my worst year since 2003 when I was first starting out. Since I'll probably be posting weights, hopefully I'll come up with something to say more frequently than last year.

So here you have it! We shall see what happens.

Post-Christmas Wrap-Up

My little vacation is starting to wind down, and I'm starting to see myself back at work soon, which might not be the greatest thing but I'm starting to be ready.

Some Christmas Loot: I got a new compass, some GPS bike mounts and an ANT wireless receiver that attaches to an ipod (from my uncle), a sweater and a few knick-knacks from my mom, new panniers from Anne, and the rest of my presents were books:

Kraken by China Miéville
A Guide To "The Crying of Lot 49" by J. Kerry Grant
A Guide to "V" by J. Kerry Grant
Positively 4th Street by David Hajdu
Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz
Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks and Big Pharma Flacks by Ben Goldacre
The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman
Old Man Drinks: Recipes, Advice, and Barstool Wisdom by Robert Schnackenberg
Fate, Time, and Language: An Essay on Free Will by David Foster Wallace

Basically I am reading all of them at the same time, but Confederates in the Attic really grabbed me and I'm almost done -- I would have finished if Kraken didn't grab me harder, like Dragon-Tattoo-hard, and take over my reading...

In Other Lists: I've still been sick, recovering too slowly for my tastes -- especially for someone who's supposed to be on vacation! -- but I did manage to go on a couple of towpath rides, a morning ski session at Blue, a Sals ride, some cross-country skiing along the towpath, and a bit of nightlife.

Today I'll hit the trails, then spend the day reading. Happy Holidays!