The Roar Of A Predator So Absolute

Morning weigh-in: 183.5#, 11.5% BF (Woo Hoo!)
(I'll take the win, but I suspect that this was really just the work of a really big poo.)

Chain Gang meeting last night, at Joey T's place. Talked to his wife for a bit beforehand & met his kids: a different context, and he actually makes more sense when seen as a family man. The more I know him, the more I like the guy. The meeting itself: very productive, a little bit long-winded but we got a lot of things done, or at least scheduled to be done. Then it was back to the bike-porn, eating and gabbing...

Busted! Driving home from work Tuesday, someone honked their horn and I saw Megan waving as she drove by -- she caught me in the middle of "car dancing" to some cool tune. How embarrassing -- caught being dorky, by a hottie! Life is so unfair...

Still Reading: Yep, Against the Day, which is reminding me not so much of Vineland anymore, but Gravity's Rainbow. Still dealing with the aftermath of the Tunguska Event.

Tonight is a late night here at work, then the gym, followed by leftovers: I have tuna & wilted greens, and two more days of chili to get through.

UPDATE: A little something to honor Sophie Scholl, guillotined on this date in 1943:

Nothing is so unworthy of a civilised nation as allowing itself to be
governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base
instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his
government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will
befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and
the most horrible of crimes — crimes that infinitely outdistance every human
measure — reach the light of day? -- White Rose Pamphlet #1

Tunguska

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 184.5#, 11% BF
Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 185.5#, 11% BF

Fat Tuesday: One more "last hurrah," went out last night after yoga, while the laundry dried. Had a Troegs Nugget Nectar, which is made from Simcoe hops (among others), a hot topic lately among the bike crowd. I'd gone out to see if I could find some Weyerbacher Simcoe IPA, was unsuccessful but this was a good substitute. Dinner itself was a potato and chickpea soup, with nachos.

I sat next to a woman who was there with Judy, and whose son was working his first day in the kitchen, and struck up a conversation. Turns out she bikes, commutes, and is active in the Coalition for Appropriate Transportation; she also knows CAT people Joey T, Damion and Rob, and Scott S from work -- small world, or small Lehigh Valley cycling activist world... Interesting woman, she also brews her own beer, and makes mead as well.

A Screaming Comes Across The Sky: I'm up to the part in Against the Day where one of the (hundreds of) main characters is in Siberia, and arrives at the right place just in time for the Tunguska Event. There are a couple of references to Tchernobyl, "the star called Wormwood in the Book of Revelations," which reminded me of the girl who motorcycles through the Chernobyl disaster area. I was so disappointed to find out that that site was a fake.

How's That Workin' For Ya?

Morning weigh-in: 185#, 12% BF -- D'oh!

Not much to say, just popped in to record the weight.

Reading: Against the Day is in the kitchen, while that history of Medieval civilization is in the bathroom. On the way in to work this morning, I was thinking about possible similarities between the relationship of the Emperor to the Germanic kingdoms on the one hand, and Buddhism and shamanistic Asian tribes on the other. Maybe I'll experiment with different bathroom reading, see what the Rorschach test brings up next.

Thick As A Brick

The theme for this weekend was probably exercise...

Friday night I did a towpath ride. The paved "bike path" parts were actually plowed, and the snow was hard enough that, except for maybe a half inch of powder, you rode on top of it. The going was slow though, and I did a shortened ride but still took almost two hours. Called my friend Joe with a trail conditions update, made plans to meet him for a ride Saturday, then went to bed.

Saturday I got up early and went to yoga. Big breakthrough for me, I did a sort of armstand/headstand. Seems stupid, but I was pretty proud of myself, even if the instructor helped me (a lot). After that was breakfast at the coffee shop, where I got out just in time, gulping down the last of my coffee and skedaddling when that "Trans-Mongolian Vacation" dude came in.

Next stop was the gym, good workout and fun times with Dawn -- our workouts are really gab-fests with some weightlifting thrown in. This officially made it a multi-workout day, what the triathlon people call a "brick workout," but just to make sure I seized the day I had another workout coming...

Home, a lunch of chili, and then I went up to Jacobsburg where I rode with my friend Joe G for two or three hours. The conditions there were awesome, except a few heavy-use areas, and one section where an ATV got on the trail. Pretty fast and hard ride, and I was parched and starving so I stopped at Which Brew for dinner on the way home. Very different crowd in there that early (say 6:00-6:30), very odd to be a stranger among a bunch of people who all know each other, in a place where you consider yourself a regular. Nice people though, at least the ones I got to talk to, but I got out of Dodge as quickly as I could and was in bed by 10:00, slept the sleep of the dead.

"And your wise men don't know how it feels,
To be thick, as a brick."

Sunday, today, I went with Doug and Lori up to Jim Thorpe. We brought snowshoes and XC skis, but conditions were best for skiing so that's what we did, over three hours worth: we were bushed when we were done. Funny thing, we ran into a friend on the trail, Kathy from the PPRAC ride. She invited us back to their weekend house (next to the trail) but by the time we finished and stopped in, they'd already gone home. Not so funny were the chafing issues Lori had with her socks -- yeeouch, her feet looked scary painful when we got back, needed bandages on some pretty good blisters. Bandages, then sandwiches in town, and it was time to head home. You can find the photos on my flickr page.