Skyfishing

Morning weigh-in: 166.5#, 11.5% BF

 

Check out these photos and video of atmospheric waves. Cast your fishing line like a kite up into the sky, sit and stare at the slow wave...

 

Hit the gym last night, light, upper body only, and nonstandard exercises to boot -- a change is as good as a rest, or so they say. After that was laundry, and dinner at Which Brew. Quiet night there, almost empty except for maybe a few bartenders' boyfriends. Cool culturati, had some interesting conversations on music (bands I didn't know) and comics as the girls closed up. They all went over to Porters after that, but that change in the gym wasn't quite rest enough and I needed my sleep.

 

Still Screaming After All These Years: Still reading Gravity's Rainbow. It still kicks ass, even after umpteen re-reads. I also happened to look at the cover of Ghostwritten the other day, and couldn't help but notice the similarity to the cover of Against the Day, that doubling of the writing.

 

Tonight is the towpath, then maybe I'll check out the scarecrow festival.

Winding Down My Administration

Morning weigh-in: 168#, 10.5% BF

 

Good meeting last night, probably one of the last with me as Prez -- elections next meeting, I've done two my terms, and now it's someone else's turn in the barrel...

 

Got there a little early, even after dealing with Rt 31 traffic, stopping in at Bike King and picking up a new helmet (paid $20 for low-end, slightly unstylish, 2007-year clearance model; it's slightly less fancy, but the level of head protection is exactly the same as for a new, $150 helmet -- I win!), and also picking up some ice cream sandwiches on the way. So I arrived at Chez Bob & Karen at the same time as Bob, and got to hang with B&K and their dogs for about an hour until the others showed up.

 

Dinner was baked ziti -- I was starving, and it was good -- with salad, Italian bread and honey butter, and some desserts which I skipped but I did have two ice cream sandwiches... meeting afterward, which, like I said, was pretty good. B&K, Doug, Eric, Eric, Greg, Joe & Cindy, Rich & Linda, Brian, Joe and Dawn, and even Bryan K who showed up on his motorcycle. Lotsa gossip and good conversation before, amongst after the club biz. I would have liked to stick around, but the dogs were bothering me, so I left almost immediately after we finished.

 

Tonight is the gym, then laundry while I check out the Frost Hollow Rounders at Which Brew. I'll be getting back onto the bike probably this weekend.

This Old Factory

Morning weigh-in: 166.5#, 9.5% BF

 

We-he-hell, looks like it's SadlyNo!'s turn to whack a fish in the barrel out of the ballpark...

 

The cold has abated, and I may have been more stuffy than I realized, for longer than I realized, since my sense of smell now suddenly seems pretty acute -- I noticed it on the drive home last night. Of course, that's not such a great thing when your drive home is on a NJ interstate: all sorts of chemical smells, from Ortho-agribiz pesticides and fertilizers (corporate suburbia lawncare, I suppose) to diesel fumes and burning clutches, to ozone -- WTF? Also smelled good old excrement from the more traditionally fertilized farmlands...

 

Drycleaning last night, then I hit the gym. A good solid workout, and I felt much better than I did on Saturday. I was pretty tired, so after the gym came bedtime. Tonight is the Chain Gang meeting, and I may spin around town on the singlespeed for a bit afterward. 

 

 

Sketches From A Life

Morning weigh-in: 167.5#, 11.5% BF

 

Looks like Doghouse Riley hit another one out of the ballpark... though granted, the more apt simile there would be "like shooting fish in a barrel." Strangely enough, I read  George Kennan's memoirs, gave it to my dad as a Christmas gift once.

 

Speaking of Dad: Hey Dad, how about them Giants, eh?

 

Speaking of Giants: Caught the game, or at least the first thee quarters at Porters last night after yoga -- I'd finished dinner by the end of the third, and I sort of knew which way things were trending and lost interest...

 

Tonight is the gym.

Echinacea Daze Are Here Again

Morning weigh-in: 167.5#, 11.5% BF

 

Yesterday was pretty much a rest day, then later in the afternoon I took a walk at Dunnfield Creek. It was a little too late to go all the way to Sunfish Pond, so I just walked up the hill for an hour, then at the one-hour mark I turned around and came back down. I took some photos of the creek, some of which I may post in the next few days if they came out OK. Tonight is yoga, then I'll have dinner at Porters & catch the game.

 

Sicko: Sometimes in the dead of winter you might miss the warmer weather, conveniently forgetting about the bugs and humidity until summer is a reality again.... part of what's going on with me healthwise may be similar: my body does not like being too skinny, and my disease resistance drops with my weight. I remember being strong and fit, and really fast on the bike when I was 150 pounds, but I forgot about the twice-monthly sinus infections.

 

There is another possibility though, and I think Dawn nailed this one on Saturday. We haven't worked together since I went big with the legs, and on Saturday she's watching me lift, and cough, and blow my nose, and she started asking questions about how many times I do this exact workout per week. Bottom line is, she thinks I'm overdoing it, and told me that if I'm hitting the gym three times a week, then for one of those days I should skip the legs and go light, with alternate exercises, for the upper body. In other words, I was overtraining -- two symptoms of which are rapid weight loss and frequent colds.

 

Kind of a chicken-and-egg thing: back in the day my low weight may not have been the cause of my low resistance, but the low weight and low resistance may both have been caused by the hardcore training I was into. Well whatever, I'm doing now what I did  back then -- echinacea.

 

Femme Fatality: On this date in 1917, Mata Hari was executed by firing squad.

 

 

Hey Hey Paula

Morning weigh-in: 167#, 12% BF

Ran into someone last night I hadn't seen in a while: Paula, who used to date Joe. (She's also my doctor's granddaughter.) Saw her in Which Brew at the bar, yelled out "Hey Paula!" and watched her look around trying to figure out who called her name; she saw me looking but didn't recognize me until I put my hand over the bottom of my face, covering my beard...

"Oh my God, it's Don Kelly!"

She came over and said hi, we got to talking. Married now for a year and a half, she and her husband just relocated back to the Lehigh Valley from Philly. She asked about Joe; I said I'd been camping with him recently (the BASH) but we really no longer hang out. She agreed he could be difficult, talked about the end of their relationship and how he was two-timing her. Even now, I didn't have the heart to tell her she was "the other woman" the whole time... Always liked her, even though I thought she was way too young for Joe (also too good for him), glad to hear she's happy and doing well, though she looked a little strained.

Colonized: One thing I told Paula was that I might be visiting her grandfather soon; I have a pretty bad headcold right now, bordering on sinus infection. I was supposed to be riding the Covered Bridges Ride with a bunch of friends today, but decided to play it smart and get some rest. I just got up, and the ride is probably half over... I'll probably get some breakfast downtown, then go for a short hike maybe at Wind Gap or the Water Gap, catch at least some of the foliage -- it's a beautiful day out.

It Could Be Worse: I was thinking about Steve Gilliard this morning, and decided to see how his legacy was doing, and there I found this heartrending post. That artwork is what caught my eye, but it really took me once I read the story. I'll be keeping that one in mind come Thanksgiving.

Legion Of Decency, Death By Misadventure: Holy Roller preacher, Falwell protege found dead in his home, no foul play was suspected. The Smoking Gun has an excerpt from the autopsy report (don't click unless you're an adult). Another one bites the dust, I guess... My theory? They're all pervs.