Speaking Secret Alphabets

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 175.5#, 7.5% BF (NFL)
(No Friday weigh-in)


Reading: Graves's The White Goddess. Tree-alphabets, stone-age religious secrets hidden in medieval poetry... speaking of arcane knowledge...

Regex: Sed vs Perl: Found the source of my problem playing with sed: the syntax for regular expressions in sed and grep (and probably awk) is different from the regular expression syntax I learned for perl. I've been having problems with sed errors, and I've been been busting out my perl reference manual and just getting myself more confused. (I also think that the syntax doesn't quite match what I think the man pages are telling me.) What I thought was a common (and easily discoverable) building block is turning out to be splintered, and quite arcane indeed -- luckily, google and wikipedia came through.

Tonight I'm seeing that movie Grizzly Man. It was playing around here but I missed it; I'll be meeting Bob & Karen, also Joe & Cindy at the Pocono Cinema. Deja vu.

And Now For Something Completely Waterlogged

Morning weigh-in: 176#, 10.5% BF

It's been raining a lot the last few days not much outdoor life going on. First PA, and now NJ got hit pretty hard. My cold is abating though, so I did do a short ride down along the Bushkill yesterday, maybe five miles of recon: creek wasn't up, and the silt/crap down there wasn't too bad so I'll be incorporating it into my Halloween ride. Saw a fish about 100 yards from shore, flooding must have been intense Saturday night. The Muskenetcong was amazing this morning, waaaay over its banks. Outta here after lunch, first day of physical therapy.

Deep, In The Heart, Of Darkest America

Morning weigh-in: 174.5#, 10.5% BF

Interesting encounter with wildlife while on my recent travels: I can now attest that Chicago's O'Hare Airport, in addition to its amazing Corridor of Epilepsy, can also boast of having mice. One mouse anyway: it ran out from along the wall & up to my carry-on bag, then scooted away. But before it left, it looked me in the eye and sang "Yersinia pestis, yeedle deedle deedle daiddle deedle..."

You've already paid for this, listen to my heart beat.

I Have Needs Too, You Know

Morning weigh-in: 175.5#, 8.5% BF

Weekend Report (loose ends): I went out Saturday night, saw The Foolz again, playing at Which Brew this time. I think this show was actually tighter and better than the one Friday at the FunHouse. Pre-show dinner was mozzerella & tomato "mini-me" salad and garlic-lime chili wings. I ended up talking to some couple next to me: they were making a short film, they were there to meet with a potential producer and, while waiting for him to show up, asked me to look over the script. Look for me in the credits, though I'm sure I won't see a dime...

Last night was spent organizing and archiving my digital photos. Everything I have prior to 2005 (incuding all sorts of stuff emailed to me) on one CD, and all my 2005 digital photos to date on another. Piece of cake.

Don Needs: Saw another game over at Pharyngula, Google "[your first name] needs" and list what comes up. Here's mine:

• Anger Management: DON NEEDS A DATE
• Reply, Elephant--Don Don needs his love--.
• Opinions You Should Have - Comment on Uncle Don Needs You
• RC Groups - Hey TAWG, Don needs one of these!
• Don needs to recognize that a variable mortgage will usually have a lower rate than a fixed one.
• Don needs our help
• Don needs a loan but doesn’t want to cash in his Certificate of Deposit.
• The Don needs underlings So hey, hey! Kiss that pinky ring!
  Give it to him baby! Uh uh, uh uh! Give it to him baby!
  Uh uh, uh uh! Give it to him baby!
• Using his wits, Don needs to rescue his buddies who have been kidnapped by the...
• The DON needs a corps of knowledge workers
• To do his job Don needs a car, a phone, a computer and a connection between his office and home.
• Big Don needs an outhouse so we are building one to house one of the two...
• Don needs more help weaving all these issues together in to a comprehensive work plan
• Darrell Beaver, a community resident, pops in to see if Don needs anything
• Don needs our help and support.
• Plus Don needs a new snow shovel.

Funny because it's true... though it's not as odd/cool as PZ's list, which may be because my name isn't as odd/cool as "PZ."

Reading: Caesar's The Gallic War. Also reread Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian on my recent travels.

Bethlehem Steel From The Armory Parking Lot

Bethlehem Steel From The Armory Parking Lot
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

I took this shot last Sunday, when it was just a little better than today... rode out to Salisbury, met Doug & Rich who were finishing with trail work, took a few photos which I posted over at my flickr page.
Today was a little different: cold, cloudy & wet, no ride, and no photos, but I was up at Sals again (with Doug, Brian, Eric, both Gregs, John E and Dave L) for trailwork. We got a lot done, finished the "dead-end" trail in fact, by finally making the connection to existing stuff.