Saturday Blogging

Morning weigh-in: 178#, 13.5% body fat

Greg and Judy went to Which Brew last night, with their friends Dan & Katie. Kind of a surprise I guess (but of course not really) for all of us to run into each other; we had dinner at our table & they had theirs in the other room, but when we were done we (that is, Doug & Lori, Joe, Brian & myself) went to say hi & bye. I was tired and my plan was to head out for an early bedtime (I was the one pushing for the evening to end), but when the others left I ended up joining their table for another several hours of conversation & goofy bar tricks...

This morning was Coffee Works for breakfast, then another run/weights workout with Dawn, followed by laundry, drycleaning, household chores, an oil change and a haircut. Next up is a trip to Bethlehem to see the Kites at the Funhouse.

This just in: I signed up to judge an elementary school science fair. More later....

Friday Blogging

Morning weigh-in 177.5#, 11.5% body fat

Last post was written Thursday night, but phone was screwed up so I only got to post it tonight. Tonight was riding with Doug on the towpath, followed by Which Brew (well duh), dinner with Doug; we were joined by Lori, then Joe, then Brian. Surprise: Greg & Judy came in, with their friends Dan & Katie. After dinner, everyone I was with originally left, so I joined D&J and D&K. I just got in, I'm tired, now it's bedtime, goodnight.

Thursday Blogging

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 179#, 11.5% body fat
Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 177.5#, 13% body fat

Probably have enough weight, body fat & exercise info in here to do some decent data mining, but that's another day and another project.

I rode the towpath yesterday; it's getting very rideable again. There was some snow ("ice" might be a better term, thought the resorts would call it "packed powder"), which had decent traction and was hard enough to support me, but the dirt was spongy and soaked & had that "springtime soft" feeling. It took me two hours to ride to Bethlehem (I turned around just before the Stefko Boulevard bridge) & back.

Joe called me afterward (& after dinner), said he had some photos from the New Years Day hike, so I met him at Which Brew about 10:00. When I pulled in I saw something moving among the garbage cans down the block: it was a woman, very large and dropsically fat, who was doing an "I've fallen and can't get up." I ran over to see if she was OK, and she sort of said yes, but it was obvious she was extremely drunk, like too drunk to avoid dying of exposure in the gutter, so I called the police from WB. They came about 5 minutes later, and I pointed her out to them. A few minutes after that, we saw an ambulance go by, figure it was her. I hope she was too messed up to remember me, because even though I did her a major favor she might not see it that way...

Work & spinning today, dinner, laundry, a little light blogging, then it'll be bedtime.

Just passsing through

Morning weigh-in: 178#, 13.5% body fat

Ran this morning, no run tomorrow but I may ride since it looks to be pretty nice... nothing much else to say.

Thick as a Brick

Morning weigh-in: 179#, 14.5% body fat

My tri-geek friends sometimes refer to it as a "brick" workout, where you do more than one workout in succession: bike then run, swim then whatever, etc. I used to joke that it was called "brick" because you felt like a ton of them fell on you when you did one... Well, today was a morning run, then weights and spinning. None were radical workouts, but I did the last two back-to-back, and now I feel great, maybe a little tired but it's a good tired...

Just made the best dinner I ever cooked: that pasta with wilted greens, but I also added some tuna in olive oil. Like I said, the best thing I ever ate. I have some apricots with sage and cinnamon and fresh grated ginger waiting in the fridge. Dieting makes me think about food, thinking about food makes me hungry, which makes me eat which makes me gain weight which makes me dietwhichmakesmethinkaboutfood...

My friend Doug emailed me today, a friend of his passed away. Cancer. He was pretty bummed out, & reading his email I knew exactly what he was going through. Well, time heals or so they say, but I'm still waiting.

Redemption Song (happy belated birthday, Bob)

Morning weigh-in: 179.5#, 14.5% body fat

Last night's shows were great. The first one was at Which Brew, where I caught a set of "Sarah's Rhythm Recipe," a bluesy rock band featuring jazz/blues singer Sarah Ayers. Stu and Cathy were there, and I'm starting to suspect that they've taken me under their wing, the project being to set me up with one of her friends... I had one beer and -- well, not escaped, exactly, because the girl was nice, but I did have to get to Bethlehem.

It was at the Funhouse that I saw "the Fellas," a group of college kids playing a sort of jam-band jazz: guitar/bass/drums, with sax and trumpet. They played all original instrumentals, all very danceable (more like dancing for Phish or the Dead, rather than say ska or the Specials), and there were a lot of cuties dancing. I met Joe down there, then after a while I saw Doug, then a little later I saw Eric and Kris come in. I also saw Cos's brother Jake & his girlfriend, Creepy Dave, and a few others, so there were actually more people there that I knew than back at WB. Anyway, the band was awesome, but I skipped the last set to get a somewhat early start on Sunday.

Today was pretty much the first group ride of the year. Joe & Cindy, Brian, Curt's son Matt, and Rob Goody left from Curt's house and did a 23 mile road ride. Joe & Matt were on fixed gear road bikes, Brian was on his old touring bike, and Cindy and I were on mountain bikes (unlike Cindy, I was riding slick tires though), but Rob was riding his full-suspension mountain bike, with studded tires -- can you say rolling resistance? Big heavy bike, thing rides like a pig on the road and with studded tires to boot, and he was at the front the whole time. Monster of the day award.

I wasn't fully up to snuff but I felt OK, rode at my own pace. It was very windy out, and it seemed that every climb ended with a "wind-swept hilltop" -- headwinds both ways, of course. With the upright MTB position, I felt like one big sail trying to push through the air, but the mountain bike came in handy when we hit ice or other winter road hazards... long story short, it was a good ride, though a bit on the hard side, then afterwards we went to Jack Creek for a quick dinner.

Pattern Recognition: I happened to see in the paper this article about a "cool hunter," someone who goes around the world looking for trendy new cool stuff to mass market. That was Cayce Pollard's job in William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, so it seemed pretty neat at first, in that postmodern hipster economy way, but it really wasn't all that cool of course, just a little more of the Great Rock And Roll Swindle... the guy was French, and I thought "where are the Situationists when you need them?" A little pie in the face could come in handy right now...

Anyway, that brought me to thinking about Bob Marley, whose birthday was Friday. Who he was, what he stood for, and fought and sang for, and how they're using him now to sell good times and time shares in Jamaica, mon. Well, after this kind of rehabilitation, maybe someday there will come true redemption. I hope so.