Morning weigh-in: 178.5#, 12.5% BF
Same old same old: yoga & gym Saturday, "Dream Come True" charity road ride Sunday.
Expensive week, part 2: riding Round Valley Thursday, my front fork blew out. The bike is now in the shop but the fork has to go back to the factory for this kind of repair.
Not much to say otherwise.
Morning weigh-in: 179#, 9% BF
Yesterday was a pretty well-done day for me: bicycled in to work (only bad part was the 5:00 AM wake-up), work yadda yadda, then biked back to Easton for yoga, then home, then dinner at Which Brew -- something I wasn't too happy about weight-wise, but it was a very nice evening there.
As for Jerry Falwell's goodbye kiss, I think lapsed-Catholic Roy Edroso said it best, though I did like this retrospective.
Morning Weigh-in: 181#, 9% BF
Bad nutrition weekend; last post said "not going out this weekend" but that's not exactly how it happened...
Friday night I met some friends at Sogo, a new Japanese / "Asian Fusion" place on Northampton Street. Eric & Janna, Eric & Kris, Greg, Doug & Lori, Deb -- they were there celebrating Eric B's birthday, and I really just stopped in to say hi but had a mohito while I was there. Damn fine summer drink, that mohito. I went to Which Brew after that (the others went to the Funhouse but I still wanted an early morning), had hot wings.
(Earlier in the evening I rode over steepest-road-in-NJ Fiddler's Elbow, thank you very much.)
Saturday was a bad day: I woke up out-of-sorts, did mediocre at yoga (no biggie but still), and at the coffee shop I noticed that the waitress was in a bit of a funk as well; I also noticed after leaving there that traffic was unusually bad -- not congested or aggressive, just bad, like everyone was in a funk. So it wasn't just me...
Drove all the way to Allentown to the PPRAC fundraiser at Wal-Mart (we would be riding our bikes on trainers and collecting change) and that's where I discovered that I did not have my front wheel. I must have left it outside in the alley! It was now noon (in other words, I was already late for the fundraiser) and the wheel had probably been sitting there -- or not --since I left the house at 7:30 AM...
I got home, of course the wheel was gone. I drove back to Allentown, held a bucket and worked the Wal-Mart crowd like a carnival barker. Got home, showered, took a nap, then went to Which Brew, which was closed for the evening. WTF?!? It was also raining.
Went across the street to Porters, where I had an entire cheese plate, a cheese steak and a couple of beers to drown my sorrow...
Sunday was a little better: I woke up to a beautiful day, so I hopped on the Turner and rode down the towpath to Sals. Had a great ride there, and on the way home I stopped in at the Blue Sky Cafe, ate an awesome french toast brunch. Nice solid 34 offroad miles, mellow pace.
In the afternoon I went to Howell (or Jackson, I forget what town exactly), down to my brother's house for a Mother's Day dinner. Lotta fun playing with my nephew, who got a lot bigger & more grown-up over the past few months, and also hanging out with the family. Dinner was General Tso's Chicken, followed by chocolate cake.
Yesterday was yoga (and the last of General Tso), and today will be yoga as well, but I also bicycled in to work today. Very pleasant.
Morning weigh-in: 175.5#, 13.5% BF
My right hip is sort of feminine-shaped right now, much bigger at the lower point of the hip joint than the left one; it also has an enormous but somewhat diffuse yellowish bruise coming through from deep inside. Pain is mostly gone (it's still a bit sore to the touch but that's all), and all tightness has worked its way out: I'm pretty much recovered. Yoga and riding were definitely the right decisions.
VMB meeting at Sals last night, with pre-meeting ride. Rich B, Eric, Eric B, Doug, Trevor, Greg M, Rudy & a few others, some of whom started way earlier. Good ride, but I was disappointed in my technical riding (and speed: those guys are fast), and also with the ride's relatively short duration-- we only had an hour, which is really not enough time to let things develop. I was climbing well though, no complaints there. Pleasant (and as usual lately, very productive) out-of-doors meeting afterwards at the ballfield, then I went to Which Brew -- what, again? -- for dinner. Saw Stu & Kathy, a nice surprise on a weeknight, and sat out on the deck with them, as well as Perry, Judy (talking about her new place) and Ann. I think actually prefer weeknights at the WB over weekends, which is good because I'm probably not going out tonight or tomorrow.
Parting shot: Second night in a row I had a fan on in my bedroom. Bring the heat.
Morning weigh-in: 175.5#, 13% BF
Killer ride yesterday as I said, and hopefully I'll be up for another good ride tonight; the VMB meeting is at Sals and there's a ride beforehand. Rain cancels of course, and tomorrow will be the gym because of the rain.
Saturday will be yoga and then the PPRAC fundraiser at the Whitehall Wal-Mart; Sunday I'll be racing again, this time at French Creek. I hope I'm not overextending myself, doesn't feel like it but then again it never does until too late...
I'm pretty sure nutrition is the key to good fast recovery, which in turn is the key to multiple workouts. Last night I ate about 600 calories worth of couscous for dinner (this was post-ride, pre-ride I had a bowl of cereal with strawberries) as well as a quart of E-Load, I hit the glycogen window so I think I got a leg up on my replacement carbs. I ate all that on the porch, hanging with my neighbor Ebony, and Nick from across the street, pretending to not be nosy while the cops refereed an altercation between the teenage girls next door...
Morning weigh-in: 178#, 13% BF
Stopped in last night at Bike King, bought new cleats which I'll put on tonight before hitting the road. I was planning on installing the cleats last night after Yoga (which was lovely), but I got a call from Doug, met him & Lori for a couple of beers at Which Brew. Very nice catch-up, hadn't seen them in a while.
I'd gone to Bike King on Monday as well, but had forgotten my wallet which necessitated the return trip yesterday, and with going out last night, I managed to extend to three days what should have been a 10 minute task -- D'oh! Anyway, I removed the old cleats (the hardest part of the job) this morning before work, and should be ready to ride pretty quickly tonight. The hip is just now starting to feel OK, so it's not like I missed anything.
Morning weigh-in (Monday): 176.5#, 11.5% BF
Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 178.5, 11% BF
Quick weekend recap: Friday was a hot lap on the towpath, followed by an abbreviated evening out (bed by 11:00 I'd guess), Saturday was a rest day, did some chores and had an even earlier evening out, bed by 8:00 for Sunday's 4:30 wake-up.
Michaux: A Race Report (something I wrote up for the Chain Gang)
It was an excellent day for racing and riding yesterday, and trail conditions were ideal, maybe even a bit on the dry side with a few notable exceptions. Joe and I, having left his house at some ungodly hour, and being sent on a detour through the woods, arrived around 8:30 AM, just after the 50-mile racers took off. Register, prep bikes, port-o-john, warmup, more port-o-john, and then we lined up for the start about 10:30.
The start setup, by the way, was different from previous years: we lined up on the dirt road behind registration, heading towards the parking lot entrance but from there straight, up that dirt road climb for about a mile and into about 4 miles of mixed single/doubletrack I'd never seen before. Very nice stuff, but also very tight and twisty, hard to pass -- and if anyone stops ahead, everyone's walking. That area ended with a boggy section, one of only three wet spots on the whole course, but like those other spots it was a giant mud pit; the trail literally went through a swamp. It was rideable, but once again we were forced off the bikes by the general chaos. That swamp was the last place I saw my left cleat...
I was pretty ticc'ed at first, and I lost a lot of time figuring out what happened & looking for a spare in my pack (no such luck or foresight), but in the end the handicap might have helped me: I was forced to be very careful with my foot, especially on technical climbs, and as a result I just toodled up at a sedate pace (where I might have gone in more aggressively, blown up, and walked), and actually passed a lot of guys walking up the hills.
Downhill I wasn't so fortunate. There's a lot of bike-handling done unconsciously through your feet, and for the most part (by forcing myself to think about it) I was able to compensate for that -- until one double log where I just bunny-hopped without thinking first... Foot flew to the side, bike plowed into the log and stopped, and I did a somersault over the bars, landing on my hip on a rock. I got to watch all the guys I just passed on the hill go by, thinking "those %$#!!&$ dudes probably think I'm some kind of roadie, passing on a hill and then crashing! I'll show them! Ow, I'll probably feel this tomorrow." (I was right on at least one count.)
The rest of the ride was uneventful. I was pretty far behind, and when I got to Grave's Ridge I was disappointed to see it was empty because I was cleaning it -- until I dabbed on something stupid in front of the only two spectators. That was at mile 15; there was maybe another mile or two of loamy singletrack, then a 5-6 mile jeep road climb (log sled trail, mainly), followed by a mile or so of rocky singletrack before the last bit of dirt road to the finish. My final time was 3:11 or so, just about what I expected (shooting for an average of 7.5 mph) so I was happy.
Saw Joe at the finish, first time I saw him since the start. He rode with Jay for most of the race, and his story is better than mine but you'll have to hear it from him. I also saw Joe Gabor at the finish; he did the 50-miler, and finshed not long after I did. He looked like death warmed over and said "this was harder than the Wilderness 101!" I'm guessing I made the right course choice...
Long ride home, made even longer by construction delays, but it was still one heck of a good day.
One last observation: the atmosphere was very laid-back, very "old school" as both Joe and Jay noted: things were very relaxed, there were quite a few racers taking "spliff breaks" on the course, and most everyone had a bottle of barley pop at the end. Sue, who ran support for Joe G at the rest areas, told us of one guy (probably not an official) trying to induce the 50-mile singlespeeders to chug a beer at the last rest stop, on the grounds that if they were that damn hardcore... He had a few takers.
So anyway, I have a huge (and very sore) welt on my hip, but last night's yoga helped out, and a few more days should get me back up to 100%. Dinner last night was at the monthly Mug Club at Which Brew, and tonight it'll probably be something light.
Morning weigh-in: 177#, 8.5% BF
Stupid hard ride yesterday with my friend Joe at Round Valley. He's way faster than I am, and I basically I came home crushed. Torched my lungs, I even vomited in the parking lot at the halfway point.
The ride was hard, but that wasn't the real problem. This is more of that early-spring postnasal drip thing, which dries and hardens in my throat and lungs, making me cough so hard I eventually gag. I went without my medicine yesterday: the Mucinex which thins everything out and dries up my sinuses, and the Astelin which keeps the passages open, and without them I had some serious problems riding. Well, now I know, I learned my lesson -- once again...
Tonight is the towpath, tomorrow is a rest day and Sunday I am racing Michaux. I will be taking my pills and spray with me. Gotta keep the lungs clear.
Morning weigh-in: 176#, 12% BF
I forget what Wednesday's weigh-in was, but it wasn't good, maybe 179# or so, product of a Tuesday trip to Which Brew for dinner (instead of shopping -- but I was so hungry!) while my laundry dried.
Finally did my food shopping last night. Busy evening: haircut immediately after work, then I rode the singlespeed downtown for yoga -- did a headstand, which doesn't seem quite so grail-shaped anymore -- home, shopping, dinner, garbage, then went out and prepped the Turner for today's ride. (I'll be hitting Round Valley after work tonight.)
It is Springtime. It has always been springtime. Spring is finally here for real, the weather's nice, the trees are in full bloom, and it's berry season at the supermarket. Among my purchases yesterday were a box of strawberries, a box of raspberries and three boxes of blueberries. You'll never guess what i had for dinner last night -- or breakfast this morning...
Morning weigh-in: 177.5#, 12% BF
Yesterday was an "active rest" day; I went to the beginner yoga class. It's nowhere near as athletically intense as some other classes (thus "active rest," the only class that's less physically demanding is tonight's Svaroopa class), but I always manage to come home with something new. Many times I've gone there thinking "man I know this stuff, why am I bothering with this baby course?" only to think afterward "wow I didn't know any of that -- how could I have been so stupid?" Anyway, good class as usual, but it was unusually crowded, I even saw someone there I knew. There must be an "intro to yoga" workshop going on: students usually take one regularly-scheduled class a week in addition to their workshop stuff.
Dinner was a salad, some cottage cheese and an apple -- in other words I must go grocery shopping tonight. (Well, I was planning on a light supper anyway.) I was supposed to do laundry last night, with a supermarket trip while it dried, but yesterday morning a friend showed up at my door, who was biking to work in the rain and had decided against it. I gave him a ride in, and he rode home on a different bike (don't ask), but he needed to pick up his bike last night from my place, and by the time he left I decided I was in for the night. Thus, tonight is laundry/shopping.
Political Crack: Happy Mission Accomplished Day!
And Another Thing from the Blogosphere: This excellent post hits the nail on the head. I see this happening in Easton (where a friend once said "every time you have an urban renewal, you just end up with one more bar") and I see the same dynamic in Bethlehem with the BethWorks (or whatever) project and the coming of the casinos. Hmmmm...
Every Eight Hours, A Doctor Avoids Me: Had an apple with breakfast (oatmeal), and one with lunch (chicken stir-fry), and of course one last night with dinner. This really isn't unusual anymore; I've been on an apple kick for the past month or so, usually as a post-meal snack. I don't normally think of apples as either tasty or filling, but I find that if I get one to eat, instead of whatever it is I crave, they do taste good and fill me up just fine.
Anyway, tonight is Svaroopa yoga, maybe a more active at-home something as well (calisthenics etc), and of course laundry & shopping.
Morning weigh-in: 178#, 11% BF
Great ride yesterday, maybe the best in several years: I went up to early to Jim Thorpe and rode up Broad Mountain via the "stagecoach road" singletrack, met the VMB group ride and did American Standard, then came down the mountain via the Bear Trail for a total of 29 miles, at least 20 of which were pure singletrack satisfaction.
Total adventure bike, this ride had everything: brutal lung-busting climbs, rocky singletrack, logs, loamy singletrack through the pines, hardpack, swamps, water crossings (including one very deep and raging mountain stream I had to wade, at the ruins of an old dam), a dirt cliff/embankment that I had to climb, and the infamous pipe crossing over yet another raging mountain stream. A little bit of hike-a-bike where the trail had grown in, and some road/railroad grade riding completed the picture. Weather varied from cloudy and cold in the early morning, to sunny and hot later, to sun showers, to a thunderstorm for the last mile; companionship ranged from solo riding at the beginning and end, to as many as 21 on the American Standard group ride.
Met up with a few of the crew at the Hotel Switzerland for lunch and a beer afterward, and my day was complete.
Morning weigh-in: 179.5#, 11% BF
"Active rest" day yesterday: yoga after work, and then for dinner I made tuna & wilted greens (over spaghetti this time) which may explain the 2 pound weight jump...
Not much to say today, so I'll just do a tour of Teh Internets. Hmmm, lets see... looks like the government has launched a war on chocolate, the honeybees are still mysteriously dying, and playing in the dirt makes you happy.
I'll be getting happy at Round Valley tonight.
Morning weigh-in: 177.5#, 9% BF
Good ride yesterday in Jim Thorpe, downright nice in fact, even came home with a "farmer tan" sunburn on my arms... Me, Doug, Eric, Spanky, Dave L, Joe G and Rudy, a good mix of riders (both socially and in terms of ability), on challenging but fun terrain -- and did I mention the weather?
Friday night was cool, outside on the deck at Which Brew, and Saturday afternoon -- evening, since I got there at dinnertime, but the sun was still out -- I went back to hang outside some more. Shockingly early night, I was home and in bed by 10:30, but I started early and my watchwords for the evening were moderation and self-control -- and in the tale of the tape, the results speak for themselves. Ahhh, but life is good...
Morning weigh-n: 179#, 10% BF
Gym last night, then leftovers. Just the way I pictured it.
Today in history: It's the anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre. This was featured prominently in the last pages of Against the Day, and was mainly the backdrop for that Scarsdale Vibe speech I quoted earlier.
(By the way, Cormac McCarthy just won the Pulitzer Prize for The Road.)
Tonight I'm riding in Jersey with my friend Joe, then hitting the hay early. Tomorrow is yoga, gym, and maybe a mellow ride, Sunday is Jim Thorpe. It's beautiful out.
Morning weigh-in: 179#, 10.5% BF
Not too bad a weight hit, considering last night's dinner was pizza & beer, but I did manage to maintain my self-control.
Rode last night, 12.5 miles in maybe 55 minutes, a short & sweet hill ride before the Chain Gang meeting. (Another good meeting by the way, very productive, if talking and planning count as "productivity." It almost didn't happen, since we had some last-minute venue changes and uncertanties on where to relocate -- all's well that ends well though...) Couple of guys did a monster hard ride before the meeting on their new bikes, I guess Spring is really here despite appearances.
Happy Birthday To Me: Finally got a chance to open my birthday presents. Thanks Mom & Dad! I'm already most of the way through all three books (well, two are references, but still).
Tonight will be the gym, dinner will be leftover pork tenderloin.
Morning weigh-in: 178.5#, 5.5% BF
Not sure what that body fat's telling me, usually it's a pretty reliable indicator of hydration (if nothing else), and I had a fairly non-hydration-stressed day yesterday (no alcohol, yoga was more "active rest" than a true workout, drank plenty of liquids, etc). It Is A Mystery.
Amanda at Pandagon takes a pretty good look at shopping by car vs deliveries vs running your errands by bike. (Don't forget to check out the comments.) I have my $0.02 to add but not the time, so I guess it'll have to wait until another day...
Probably getting in a bike ride tonight, then having the Chain Gang meeting -- maybe!
Morning weigh-in: 178.5#, 10.5% BF
Ho hum, another day, another return to a previous post's title... yesterday's title was a quote from a speech in Against the Day, in which evil plutocrat Scarsdale Vibe declares (in about 1918 in the Rockies) that the striking miners and other mountain poor are doomed to extinction, and will be replaced by more presentable slaves, who will be drawn by recreational opportunities and trapped by their mortgages. I meant to use it as a comment on global warming and the recent storm -- yeah it's flooding again -- but didn't actually get around to saying anything about it.
Anyway, yoga last night, yoga tonight; tomorrow is the Chain Gang meeting, and maybe a quick ride beforehand if I can get it in.
Morning weigh-in: 181#, 9.5% BF
Looks like a little bit of un-suppression going on in the weight there, bounceback from Sunday, which was a complete rest day that ended with four bowls of cereal at midnight -- the Friday and Saturday trips to Which Brew probably didn't help either, but my weight Saturday afternoon was 178#.
Mea Culpa: Oops, my bad, looks like I used "errata" incorrectly in my last post's title. Oh the irony...
Holy Cow what the hell is going on in Virginia?
Listening: In the car it's Gregorian Chants (again), but in the house my new all-time favorite song is Galaxie 500's "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste."
Well, I'm back, flew in yesterday. Picked up my car (which didn't start at first -- it worked fine when I brought it in last week), did some laundry, went for a ride, then went to Which Brew for dinner. Ah, home... Today was early-morning yoga, then the gym; later in the day I rode the towpath out to Sals, did a short lap there and got home just before dark.
Requiem for the Midwest in the Key of Vanilla: Southern Illinois is a pretty weird place, or rather I should just say it's not like here. That's for sure -- I wouldn't want to live there, and I didn't even like visiting... Farms, a prison, the plant, an interstate and not much else. Plenty of white bread, string beans, you know you're in trouble when the hippest things around are the corporate chain restaurants.
So It Goes: Rest in peace, Kurt Vonnegut -- his peephole closed while I was away.
When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloomed: John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln on this date in 1865. Out in the Land of Lincoln, spring had already arrived, at least in the southern part where I was, and lilacs were blooming in the dooryards.
They Will Fly Towards Grace: My friend Joe's sister passed away while I was gone; she'd been very sick for a while (cancer of some kind, I didn't pry). I also ran into Doug and Lori today at Sals, and Lori said her grandmother had passed away last night. It's been a tough week.
Reading: I finally finished Against the Day. After becoming disinterested and putting it aside for more than a month, I brought it along last week as airport reading and was completely engrossed once again; I just finished the last five pages (of 1085) today. Like Mason & Dixon it had a bittersweet ending: "they will fly towards grace" was the final line of the book. (I've heard it said that Against the Day is sort of a prequel to Gravity's Rainbow: flip the last page and you get "A screaming comes across the sky.")
Requiem For A World: I also re-read The Road recently, even though it's a tough, heartbreaking book. There's a payoff in multiple reads though, since I now know that it was a nuclear war that brought on the hellish world in the book, and that the mother was pregnant with the boy when it happened. I hear the book is now on Oprah's book club list, or something.
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." Go in peace.
I also got in an early morning ride, then did laundry, dishes, garbage, cleaned the house, emptied the fridge (into my stomach) & generally got the house ready for my absence; I also dropped off my rear wheel with Brian (he'll bring it to the bike shop for me tomorrow) and dropped off my car for a new muffler, oil change and inspection. Busy day, see you in a week...
Morning weigh-in: 179.5#, 6.5% BF
Really nice ride yesterday with Joe, kind of easy ("conversational pace" as the saying goes -- and we bullshitted almost the entire time), hitting the hills and trying to avoid the wind; we were out for about three hours and got maybe 32 miles in. I think we were both surprised, because it felt mellow but that was some solid mileage, especially for a hill ride. We ended almost in the dark though, and took a dirt road shortcut back to his house. Both of us were pleasantly surprised, since neither of us was motivated to go out riding in the cold, wind and snow (flurries, but still); this ride was literally "just what the doctor ordered." A little Italian post-ride take-out -- and some car trouble (Joe's car) picking it up -- more BS about the Chain Gang and the old days, and all of a sudden it was like 10:00. Home, some computer stuff, and I was in bed by 11:30 or so.
Tonight will be the towpath, dinner will be leftover take-out from last night (I got something called a "bomba," like an Italian version of a Cuban sandwich, and I could only eat half), plus maybe some stew. Tomorrow will be yoga, the gym, and more stew.
Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 180#, 13% BF
Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 179#, 10% BF
Early morning, April 4: I missed it yesterday, but rest in peace, Martin Luther King.
Tuesday night was Svaroopa yoga -- which used to be very predictable (basically the same routine every week) but is now branching out into other moves -- then last night was the gym. I don't remember Tuesday's pre-grocery-shopping dinner, but last night was a bag of salad and a glass of milk, plus a handful of dry cereal before I hit the hay. Lately, my big meal of the day has been lunch.
Man that was pathetic: I downloaded mplayer a while ago and wasn't too impressed, mainly because of an annoying error message ("font not found: subtitle.tff") that kept popping up, and because I couldn't get movies to scale, like to full screen size. Two minutes with Google and the mplayer FAQ last night, and I had both issues resolved -- and it is pretty much the best Linux mpg/wmv/etc player, just like everyone said...
Riding tonight, probably the road with my friend Joe, then maybe dinner with him & Sue -- I've blown off their last few post-ride dinner invites, so must take them up on it tonight if they make the offer again. Otherwise, I'll have some of that bean & tomato stew. Tomorrow is the towpath, followed by more stew, and Saturday will be yoga followed by the gym. Anyway, that's the plan so far.
Morning weigh-in: 180#, 10.5% BF
I was thinking yesterday about educational films I saw as a kid in school, and especially remembering a series that featured a professor and his sidekick interacting with various cartoon characters. I googled "blood," "sea water" and "professor" yesterday, and found these Amazon reviews. I guess I wasn't the only one who remembered that most famous exchange between Dr. Fred Baxter and Hemo The Magnificent...
Blood On Fire: Blew off yoga yesterday: it was so nice out I did a towpath ride, 22 miles in 1:34 for an average of about 14 mph. Not bad, but I have to remove maybe 15 minutes from that time to make it really respectable. (Tonight is back to yoga, the class I blew off last week.)
After the ride I met Brian for Mug Club Night at Which Brew. Haven't talked to him much lately, so we played catch-up: he had his last speed-skating practice the other day, and is off for Spring Break but is redoing his garage or something, no real "sleep-away" vacation. He returned The Road, which I loaned to him a few months ago.
My friend Doug once commented that I became much nicer and more personable once I stopped racing regularly, and training for all that racing (this was a while ago). I took this to mean that I was more easy-going once I stopped obsessing over race results and training regimens, and became more flexible with my time, more likely to just do regular rides or go out for a beer. Brian and I were talking about routines, and I think I caught him by surprise by saying my life had more of a routine in the Nineties than now -- my routines fitted his at the time, so they were probably less visible to him -- but really the structure in my life right now is only an attempt to force a return to the rhythm that my days, and years, followed back then. You know, back when I was less pleasant...
The struggle seems to be going my way though lately, and bringing some success (and success is is what drove my earlier obsessions), so it was a little bittersweet when Which Brew friends last night started asking "Where have you been? We haven't seen you in a while..."
Morning weigh-in: 180#, 13.5% BF (yeah, just had to post that & gloat)
So, rode Friday evening (towpath), then hit the sack early.
Saturday was early morning yoga, then the "Weyerbacher Beer Ride," in which I was supposed to lead a towpath ride from Bethlehem to the annual open house at Weyerbacher Brewery. Kind of a disappointment though: no one else showed up, but I did run into Cindy riding on the towpath with her dog. Oh well, the ride was nice and so was the open house, and I saw Joe & Sue there, as well as a bunch of other friends.
Dinner was at Which Brew, where I saw quite a few of the same people from the open house earlier in the day, especially the volunteers who were probably not able to drink until the fun was over... I felt kind of sick & out of sorts (lot of people say they had or have the same thing), so I went home early.
Today was breakfast at that crunchy new Blue Sky Cafe (where the old Green Cafe used to be), then trailwork at Sals. And now I think it's time for bed...
(By the way, you can see photos of the beer ride & open house, and trailwork photos, at my flickr page.)
Morning weigh-in: 181#, 13.5% BF
Fun & fast (and hard) hill workout w/ Joe yesterday, then went home, ate dinner (tuna & rice) and was in bed by 9:30. Rough night, almost like I was feverish -- I might actually have been feverish, either from the hard workout or a real fever from the cold.
Or, it might have been the decongestant I took. On Joe's advice I tried Mucinex, which is really just pseudoephedrine and an expectorant, but it's time-released and it really worked wonders (except for sleep) last night and today. Weird, pseudoephedrine is now kept behind the counter at the drugstore, and you have to show ID to get it -- apparently kids are using it to make meth or something.
Tonight is the towpath, and I'll probably stay in so I can be fresh for Saturday (yoga, biking).
Morning weigh-in (Monday): 183#, 13.5% BF
Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 182#, 13% BF
Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 182.5#, 10.5% BF
More gossip: Here's an interesting story. Very strange -- and it just so happens that I (vaguely) know the girl who was the victim. Meantime, my friend Pete, who with his beard and shoulder-length hair bore an uncanny resemblance to Arlo Guthrie, shaved his beard off and cut his hair really short. I saw him the other day and didn't even recognize him...
Bike! Rode Sunday after a rough Saturday night (ran into friend Shannon, much talk including the above-mentioned gossip), and had a really good ride. About 30 miles in the Slate Belt with Eric B and Joe & Cindy, average pace was about 15 mph. Monday was yoga -- ditto Saturday, thus there was no Friday night, which explains Saturday night -- but yesterday was a beautiful day so I did my Hellertown loop. Took me 1:49 to go about 26 miles, about 14.2 mph average which could be better but hey it's hilly, and I started and finished in daylight.
Tomorrow is another ride, in Jersey with my friend Joe, then Friday is the towpath. If the weather's nice Saturday I'll be doing another towpath ride, leading a ride from Bethlehem to Weyerbacher Brewery's Annual Open House.
Tonight was yoga also, the more athletic "intermediate" class. Monday's beginner class was tough too, with a new twist on things since the usual instructor is in Sri Lanka right now, doing some kind of alternative "doctors without borders"-type stuff. Sri Lanka -- gulp!
...so you better listen real good the first time!
Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 187#, 13% BF
Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 186#, 13% BF
Morning weigh-in (Friday): 182#, 10% BF
That was some sandwich! Like a pig in a python... I had dinner at Which Brew on Tuesday night, got the Reuben special, which turned out to be a triple-decker corned beef sandwich on thick slabs of rye. It was enormous, and almost beat me but I got it all down, plus the fries and two Anchor Steam Porters. I know who had the last laugh though, when I stepped on the scale Wednesday morning.
The Gossip: One reason I went down there Tuesday was that I missed the St Patrick's day festivities, and got an email (sent around midnight Saturday to everyone on the Virtual Pub mailing list), stating that there had been an incident that night, such behavior was unwelcome and would not be tolerated and oh my God I had to know more... I had to wait a few days but I got the scoop at dinner: apparently someone had locked the owner/bartender in the bathroom while she was cleaning it. (Think about it, this is how a robbery would start, and also even as a prank it should raise red flags in terms of hostility issues, and potential for even more abusive behavior down the pike.) I said as much before finding out who did it, then heard who it was and who egged him on -- I'm not mentioning any names but I think that the perpetrator was just drunk and stupid, but I think the instigator might very well be on a hostility trip, especially after I found out this was his second time instigating the exact same thing.
The March Chain Gang meeting was Wednesday night at Brian's house, probably one of the biggest we've ever had in terms of attendance; we probably had close to the entire club there. We had several crock pots of chili for our potluck dinner, but I made bean and tomato stew (lentils, chick peas & kidney beans, stewed tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, spinach etc) in my crock pot, which boiled over while I was at work -- gee, maybe it was too full -- and spilled all over the counter. I was so busy I couldn't really clean the counter until last night, and by then it was all nice and sticky. Good stew though, I've been eating it for a few days now.
That was some ride! Last night I rode with my friend Joe who lives in Bloomsbury, which is on my way home. I brought the road bike to work, and we rode from his house, just getting back before dark. Two hours or a little more, maybe 30 miles (or a little more). I was whooped when we were done, and filthy as a hog: neither of us wore tights, just shorts, and between the rain and the snowmelt on the roads, there was a lot of road-gritty spray all over our legs and faces. I was so tired after the ride I skipped the gym, came home (ate stew) and went to bed.
Tonight was the gym, also more stew, and tomorrow will be yoga in the morning. I'm staying in for the night, but may go out tomorrow.
Morning weigh-in: 183.5#, 13.5% BF
"The green cusp, dreaming fishes to young ram, watersleep to firewaking..." -- Thomas Pynchon
So it's the vernal equinox, when you can stand an egg on its end, or something like that. But now its springtime.
Yoga tonight, yoga last night; tomorrow is the Chain Gang meeting. Potluck dinner, I'm making bean and tomato stew in the crock pot, though I think quite a few are bringing chili.
More bad news: My friend Mike B (not my high school buddy, a neighbor and riding partner) hasn't been around much lately, and today he called to tell me why: he has cancer. I didn't ask what he had, and he said he's mainly been getting tests right now, no chemo or other treatment yet. Few years younger than me, wife, two kids. Oh man...
Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 13% BF
(Posting might get a little more sporadic, our access to this kind of internet stuff is now blocked at work, even at lunchtime, so I can no longer do my midday updates.)
So, yes I rode Friday afternoon, went 11 miles in just under 3 hours, last 2-3 miles being on the road: I went down the bike path to the new boat launch, then backtracked to the old Glendon bridge, crossed the river and took the bike path to the falls, then came up through town, returning on Northampton. Good solid ride, lots of resistance when I was off the plowed parts. After that I walked down to Which Brew.
Saturday was the gym (no yoga: I planned ahead, stayed out late specifically because I expected things to be closed), errands, haircut etc, then went to my friend Joe's St Patty's Day party (photos here).
Sunday was snowshoeing in Jim Thorpe. Beautiful day, and the snow was pretty to look at, but it was not ideal for playing in, either on snowshoes (too soft, melting) or XC skis (one skier told me it was very sticky, which I'd expect with all that sun & warmth). Oh well, Doug said XC conditions were ideal along the canal on Saturday... (By the way I took photos of the ride up, and they're posted on flickr as well; the camera's batteries died before I could take any shots in the woods.)
I happened to look at that Cancer Kids photo pool again yesterday, and that little girl Mia was there in some new photos -- she has acute myeloid leukemia, and she's had a relapse. (Just for laughs, Google "myeloid leukemia", relapse and prognosis.) It's not anyone I know, or anyone who knows me, but all of a sudden it was like there was no more air in the room. I had trouble sleeping, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 9% BF
Last night was a killer workout in the gym, preceded by a mile run (8:30 but on the treadmill, sigh) and followed by chicken noodle soup & a salad; dessert was an early bedtime.
Meantime, it looks like the iron boot of winter is once again stomping on our necks... Got home early from work -- we closed at 1:00 -- and am now going for a ride. Later, as the snow gets deeper, I'll either go play with the XC skis or the snowshoes (more likely), and then go downtown for dinner and what nightlife might survive the storm.
Morning weigh-in (Wednesday) 184.5#, 13% BF
Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 184#, 14% BF
Went to yoga last night, one of the more athletic classes (also a little later in the evening, so I stayed late at work first), then to Which Brew for dinner. Cool night, usual suspects on both sides of the bar. Tonight is the gym also after working late.
Weather is rainy, the snow has mostly melted and the ground really can't get any more sopping wet. Mud Season is upon us, and we are now truly primed for spring. It may be a bit preliminary, but it also looks like the "kid button," has been pressed: they were out in force yesterday, playing on the block.
Morning weigh-in: 185.5# 9% BF
Not much to report, had a pretty good if somewhat "regressional" weekend: skipped the ride and went out Friday night; gym -- no yoga -- then a grueling road ride in NJ with my friend Joe on Saturday, and out again for the evening; and on Sunday I slept in, did some chores before a more mellow PA road ride on Sunday. Pretty much the "standard configuration."
Meantime: I see that the "Gonzales eight" scandal is not only growing legs, but arms, claws and fangs as well.
Nice weather for a day or so, then rain -- but at least it's warmer, and sunny past 7:00.
Morning weigh-in: 183.5#, 11.5% BF
Rode the towpath to the VMB meeting last night, which was at CAT headquarters -- people were a little surprised that I rode there, but as I said last night, I couldn't drive to the Coalition for Appropriate Transportation. The girl there said "that's as it should be!" (They are definitely not shy at CAT; they shamed us last night into joining as a non-profit organization, which I guess is as it should be since we're using their facilities.)
The ride home was a little easier, since a lot of the mushy ground had re-frozen and the trail surface was hard & fast. Still took me an hour though, and I was pushing it so I'd make Which Brew before the kitchen closed. Got home, called and asked them to cook me a burger (now that's what I call service!) then changed & headed on down.
A Nice Surprise: Megan was was at Which Brew, visiting from Seattle after being gone for more than a year -- she hadn't been back since her moving-away party in 2005, and literally went there straight from the airport. It was really good to see her, and good to get a chance to congratulate her on how well she's doing & how happy she seems to be in Seattle. (I get the emails & see the photos, "thriving" & "glowing" really are the best descriptions.) She's good people, I'm glad things are going her way.
Anyway, the cyborg thing: There was a light cover of snow in some areas on the towpath last night, which was good on the way out because it was firmer than the muddy gravel underneath, but near the access points (Sand Island, Riverside Park) it was a little deeper, packed and icy and lumpy with footprints. This was a pain int the butt especially on the return trip, since the trail had refrozen and was the better surface again, but I was just bumping and bouncing ans sliding along anyway, had to get home... I slid out to the left and caught myself with my foot, and only later realized that was the same move that broke my ankle a year ago (today is the surgery anniversary). Didn't feel a thing -- granted I was moving much slower, and the surface where I planted my foot was smooth, but now I also have a much stronger, titanium-reinforced ankle. Better than it was -- better, stronger, faster, I think I'll go kick something...
Morning weigh-in: 184#, 13% BF
Gym last night, then leftover potatoes & chickpeas in lemon-tahini-curry sauce, plus a salad. Bedtime was not long after. Tonight is the VMB meeting, and I'm riding to that so I don't know what, or when, dinner will be -- I was going to make bean & tomato stew in the crock pot, but discovered last night that I was missing a few crucial ingredients, so I'll probably just make it on the weekend. That doesn't solve tonight's dinner problems though...
Meanwhile, today is International Women's Day and (Blog Against Sexism day), so I'll just maybe touch on that with the words waitress and health insurance.
Meanwhile meanwhile, I see that the "Gonzales Eight" scandal is growing even more legs.
Morning weigh-in: 185.5#, 13.5% BF
Randomly checking Teh Intertubes...
Bowdlerizing "The Vagina Monologues?"
Wow that's some serious stupid -- Pandagon has the scoop.
But What About the Ponies?
Looks like I wasn't the only one to notice yesterday's trifecta.
Anyway, did a bunch of chores/errands yesterday, around & in-between was the Tuesday Svaroopa yoga class. Gas, groceries, laundry, etc etc, but I also put a few photos on flickr, from last Sunday's trailwork. Foot bothered me yesterday; I knew today's snow was coming.
I got to bed pretty late (12:30) but felt pretty rested when the alarm went off (at 6:00). I usually sleep for another half hour before getting up, but this morning rolled over and saw 8:11 -- oh no! No wonder I feel rested! Turns out I hit the adjusting buttons when I turned off the alarm, it was only 6:11 and I had plenty of time but I realized this once I got into the kitchen, at a dead run trying to get ready for work...
Morning weigh-in: 186#, 13% BF
Looks like winter is not quite over: it's freezing out, 10 degrees above zero and strong gusty winds when I left the house this morning. Still, you can fee that spring is on its way... Nothing much to report otherwise. I went out last night after yoga, monthly Mug Club dinner at Which Brew. I thought I kept things under control but the tape tells a different tale.
Oh yeah, Scooter Libby is found guilty on four of five charges, the Walter Reed scandal is starting to reap the whirlwind, and yet another investigation is heating up.
Morning weigh-in: 185.5#, 11% BF (b-b-but it was a chicken cheesesteak!!)
Anniversary: it was one year ago today that I broke my ankle. It's also my brother Kevin's birthday.
Friday: did a road ride, short & sweet & hilly, another Morvale Road extravaganza, and then walked down to Which Brew. Early night, but I wanted to be there to say goodbye to that dude Ryan, who took a job as brewmaster down in North Carolina. Also, they had a special cask-conditioned Weyerbacher Black Hole Stout brewed with arabica beans. Good stuff.
Saturday was a good hard yoga workout, followed by a very intense gym workout (with a trip to the coffee shop and a mile run in between); I followed all that with a nap. I was going to do another road ride, but it was raining -- and when I woke up it was sunny and beautiful of course. Got a call from Doug, he & Lori were down at WB, and soon enough so was I.
Sunday was trailwork at Sals, then the Banff Mountain Film Festival road show. I went with a group of friends; we were a crowd of about 16 people, and saw a whole bunch more familiar faces. The films: I had several favorites, but two that stood out were "Kids Who Rip," a documentary about children (youngest was maybe 6, oldest was 13) who skate/snowboard/surf/ski, either competitively or for fun, but at a very high level of X-games proficiency and craziness, and the other was a documentary of a young Canadian couple who bicycled from Ulan Bator to Calcutta, through some beautiful but godawful-remote and rugged scenery.
Which brings us to the Taklamakan Desert. It's not really as remote as I'd originally heard -- the Silk Road bifurcates to go around it (a Northern route and a Southern route), there are cities along the edges, and of course the couple was riding along a road as they crossed it -- but it is still pretty damn remote, and one of the biggest sand deserts in the world. I became infatuated with the place after reading A Good Old-Fashioned Future, a book of interconnected science-fiction stories by Bruce Sterling. The last story was about some extreme adventurers, recruited as spies to investigate some abandoned top-secret facility deep in the desert, where of course they make the usual shocking discoveries.
There was also quite a bit about the Taklamakan (among many other Siberian and Central Asian wonders) in Against the Day (yep, still reading), so it was very cool to actually see the place. Sand, sandstorms, broiling heat, no water. You know: desert.
Morning weigh-in: 183.5# 9% BF
It's getting close to spring: I almost hit a deer on the way home last night. This time though, it was in the city of Easton, or rather Wilson Boro. Residential area, some woods nearby but if it wasn't quite downtown it definitely wasn't near the river either. On the way in to work today, I had to deal with all three phases of water: ice and snow, rain and flooding, and fog. The rivers are losing their "cold water" look, though I don't think I'd want to swim in them right now.
Last night was the gym. Dropped legs from the workout & added a cardio warmup -- I'd already reduced the weight and increased the number of reps a few weeks ago. This workout, with a little tweaking, will probably be my spring/summer "endurance" routine; it seemed to work out well last night. Tonight, if the weather persists in clearing, I'll do a road ride. I'm feeling kinda Hellertown right now.
Morning weigh-in: 185.5#, 13% BF
Why yes, I did go out last night, and I had a good time based on the weigh-in, figures don't lie...
Met Doug & Lori for dinner at Which Brew after yoga (and some errands/shopping), had the pizza special (chicken, spinach) plus a cup of that African chickpea soup; jambalaya for Lori, chicken sandwich for Doug. Good conversation, nothing too intense or memorable... I guess the place cleared out between the time they arrived -- they got stuck at a tiny table -- and my own arrival, because it looked pretty quiet in there.
Reading: Still on Against the Day, getting close to finishing, and I started The Dharma Bums.
Oh, And Speaking Of Porn: I was shown two cameraphone pictures this past week, one explicit gay porn and the other bestiality. I also received received an email -- twice, from two different people -- with photos, apparently from a tattoo contest, of "Tattooed Granny," graphically proving that she was tattooed everywhere below the neck. The common thread? They all came from women. And they call us pigs...
UPDATED: For clarity.
Morning weigh-in: 184#, 10.5% BF
So anyway, Boltzmann Brains... I guess the idea of sentient beings, arising out of minor random fluctuations in the disorder of the universe, reminded me of the "noncorpora" in David Mitchell's Ghostwritten, one of which is a being able to inhabit human minds like a parasite, moving from one host to another as it tries to figure out the mystery of what it is and where it came from, the other being a product of military "quantum cognition" computer research, which took its job of protecting the Earth a little too seriously, escaped its bonds and now calls a late-night New York City DJ to explain its actions. A total tour de force (like Mitchell's later Cloud Atlas), this book was spooky; reading it gave me goosebumps. Mucho recommendo, and that's all I have to say about that...
Yoga last night, yoga tonight, tuna & wilted greens for dinner each time.
At the end of every yoga class is a part called "Savasana," which means "corpse pose." It's basically like a cool-down: you lie very still on your back, relaxing and just breathing; mentally you're supposed to stay alert (I've a heard a few people start snoring) but not think about anything, just letting go of any thoughts that come. Sometimes the instructor will lead the class in a "guided awareness" thing, where you focus your awareness on different parts of your body, or do imaging exercises (ie "think of yourself walking down a beach").
Anyway, in Saturday's morning class the instructor did a guided awareness in Savasana, and had us imagine being on a beach (among other things), but all that would come for me was the beach in William Gibson's Neuromancer, the virtual-reality construct of an artificial intelligence. For some reason this again reminded me of KIDDofSpeed, this time her stuff about the diggings near Kiev, probably because of parallels with Gibson's more recent Pattern Recognition.
Anyway, that's what's on my mind as I eat lunch today. Maybe tomorrow I'll talk about Boltzmann Brains, "quantum cognition" and David Mitchell's Ghostwritten.
No weigh-ins, it's the weekend!
This is a photo of my brother Kevin and his children (Kevin Jr, Olivia and newborn Caroline Eileen), taken at the hospital when Caroline was born, probably by my mom. I think that's the first time they saw their baby sister.
Nothing much to say, just hanging out waiting for the snow and rain to start falling. I may go up for a hike at Lehigh before the storm, or before it gets too bad. Meantime, I got up late (had a late night), have been lallygagging all morning -- Doug called around 11:00 and induced me to turn on the computer, where I've been procrastinating ever since... I was thinking of doing a road ride this morning -- if I'd gotten up early enough to be confident about beating the snow-- but I did a brick workout again yesterday (yoga, gym, road ride) and think an easy day is warranted for today.
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
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.
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.
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.
Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 13% BF
Doop de doo, just wandering around the internets... Uh-oh, I wonder what the implications of something like this might be? Meantime, Mimi Smartypants won't link to the trainwreck she found, but I think she's talking about this guy. Freaky maybe, but to another dude not quite as deer-in-the-headlights fascinating as she finds him, I've heard it all and even lived some of it, though it does seem that his world view -- and libido -- were programmed by Maxim or something...
Anyway, last night was the VMB meeting at the Windsor House. Very businesslike, got a lotta stuff done, so in other words it was kind of tedious (interesting, just long), but all that business stuff is now out of the way. (Rich B is now Prez & Doug is VP.) Dinner was a couple pierogi and a few beers at the meeting, washed down with a bowl of cereal when I got home. Tonight will be a crock pot of chili, which I prepped last night; I think it'll be a bit hotter than other batches I've made, we'll see. (I washed my hands after making it, but rubbed my eye in my sleep, thought I was gonna die.)
I don't know how I'll get there, since all the roads in PA are clusterfscked right now, but I was thinking of going XC skiing this weekend, maybe up near Williamsport.
UPDATE: This is what I wrote on this date last year, and this is what I wrote two years ago, and this is what I wrote three years ago.
Morning weigh-in: 184#, 13% BF
We got out early yesterday, so I rode in the daylight. I was only out for about an hour (maybe 5 miles tops), since the roads were still pretty bad. Got home, did some yoga -- I bought a handy book to help with the learning curve -- and had some tortellini & salad for dinner.
After that I went out for a bit, walked down to Porters. The place was pretty much empty because of the storm, or maybe because I got there so early: the (non-existent) dinner crowd would have been thinning out by then, but the evening crowd, which did show up just as I was leaving, had not yet arrived.
Tonight is the Valley Mountain Bikers meeting.
Morning weigh-in: 183.5#, 13# BF
The storm is not so bad (the roads, especially I-78, were maybe a little worse than I expected), but there is hardly anyone at work today. Sheesh...
Svaroopa Yoga last night, only three of us in the class plus the teacher, and I think all the other classes there (Kundalini, belly dancing) might have been canceled because the place was empty. I was going to do a ride, but the temperature dropped below 10 degrees so I bagged it. Finished the Bavarian Pork Chops.
Tonight will be a ride of some kind, and dinner beforehand may be either tempeh stir-fry, or tortellini and a salad, or maybe tuna & wilted greens. Choices, choices... Once the crock pot's cleaned I will be mixing up some chili for the weekend, but that will probably be tomorrow night's task.
Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 13.5% BF
Just checking in, recording my weight. Did yoga last night, feeling good again about the Monday night (beginner) class since it hit on a lot of stuff I didn't know. After yoga was dinner, leftover Bavarian pork chops and a salad, then I read & played on the computer until bedtime. Tonight will be similar: yoga, then dinner, but then I'll do a singlespeed "standing sprints" workout; hopefully it'll be snowy and fun out, rather than rainy and crappy. That is all.
Morning weigh-in: 185#, 13% BF
Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin! I think it's time once again for one of my all-time favorite quotes, from the birthday boy himself:
It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants
of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting
about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these
elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon
each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around
us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction;
Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the
indirect and direct action of the conditions of life and from use and disuse: a
Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a
consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the
Extinction of less-improved forms.
Morning weigh-in: 185#, 15% BF (WTF?)
So I went to the gym last night, ate a healthy dinner, and I gained a pound... Meantime, I'm rethinking my New Year's Resolutions, especially #3 because it's been a slightly less-than-satisfactory experiment.
Riding tonight, towpath.
Morning weigh-in: 184#, 9% BF
I was pretty stoked the other night that I didn't skimp on the riding, but got out even if just for a set of sprints. Last night was another story... I was supposed to do a towpath ride before going over to Art's house, but blew it off in favor of web browsing. I made amends, sort of, by walking to his house, and luckily they were already out of beer -- though not snacks, oh well. I paid my respects, hung out & BS'ed for a bit, caught some "South Park" and headed home. The clocks there all seemed to be ahead by an hour, so I was surprised that when I did get home, it was only 11:00.
Anyway, tonight is the gym, and then some more sprints. I like them, short & sweet and it's nice the way they sneak up on you, build to exhaustion.
Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 15% BF
The wake for Art & Andrew's dad was last night. Nice enough, as these things go: lotsa people there and a nice (as these things go) "vigil" service. After that I went home and did a quickie "singlespeed standing sprints" workout on the streets downtown, then met those guys at WB -- I know I'm trying to avoid going out, but I was sort of obligated in this case; tonight is a final get-together (after the funeral, which I'm not doing) and then I should be free to desocialize for a bit. And I have been watching the caloric input while out...
Dinner last night was tuna & wilted greens over fettuccine, tonight is leftover tuna & wilted greens, followed by a towpath ride and the visit to Art's. It's been pretty cold out, on the very cusp of not riding for me (low teens), but the weather should moderate next week.
Morning weigh-in: 185#, 15% BF (still carrying some o' that weekend chili)
...say it like "Absolom! Absolom!"
Trapped, vol 1: Someone I know -- acquaintance, definitely not a friend -- went on an extended vacation through Eurasia, essentially for the whole month of January. No itinerary, just a flight into St Petersburg and flight out of Beijing, with the intention of get to Moscow and taking the Trans-Mongolian Express across Siberia to Ulan Bator, then on into China. Interesting, no? Well, I ran into him at the coffee shop on Saturday, and he told me a lot about his trip, and it was in fact interesting but he started to dwell, loudly and at length, on his sexual experiences (or what he thought might have been sexual experiences, the guy is as weird as his reputation) along the way. This is in a place run by two high school girls, with a fairly respectable clientele -- no one who really needed to hear any of that -- and I couldn't shut him up, or even escape. Someone else actually said something to him -- to us -- about his conversation. I was so mortified...
Chilibowl Sunday: The Superbowl of Chili was a bit of a disappointment. The chili event itself was great, but before and after didn't quite work out the way I wanted: no one wanted to do the pre-ride (granted it was cold, but that's not why), then things seemed to end a little early. That's what happens when you try to institutionalize a one-shot funtime I guess. Next year I'm just going to go with the flow. On the bright side, I was way more lucid by the end of the day.
Trapped, vol 2: My plan has been to buckle down after last weekend, diet- and alcohol-wise, so I've been treating the past few as "last hurrah" weekends: out a little later than usual, getting involved in the everybody-buying-each-other-drinks scene, etc. Well Imbolc Weekend is now behind us and it's time to prepare for Spring, but last night was the Mug Club dinner, and I'm eating & minding my own business when the bartender puts a shot in front of me, "here, from Scott." Well, Tullamore Dew and it's the Code of the West (not to mention conspicuous consumption/leisure) in there, so I had to do it, but gave bartender Tara the "ixnay on the ots-shay" high sign, scrammed outta there a little early...
Before dinner last night I went to yoga; tonight I'm skipping yoga, going to the wake for Art & Andrew's dad. Curran-Finnegan Funeral Home, right around the block from me.
Reading: Still deep into Against the Day, which is getting more interesting again. We're now hanging in Belgium, a few years before WWI, with a bunch of refugees from "the Quaternion Wars" and ghosts from the real war just ahead.
Morning weigh-in: 182#, 11% BF
Got a new phone last night, the same model as the last one. All the data on the old one (ie phone numbers) are lost though -- no SIM chips for Verizon phones -- so I'm stuck rebuilding my contact list.
Meanwhile, bad news comes in threes: I found out at work today that my friends Art & Andrew from Easton, their father passed away, and also Glenn here at work, his father passed away as well.
UPDATED: For clarity.
Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 183#, 13% BF
Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 183.5#, 11% BF
Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 184#, 10% BF
Well, today is Imbolc, at least according to some.
RIP: Molly Ivins. That's really too bad, she was cool.
It's been a rest week, which is what I had on the schedule: no workouts except yoga since Sunday; the schedule will probably be changing radically next week, since it's the start of the next phase of training -- still reasonably low intensity, but much higher volume especially on the bike. Meantime, I've been reigning in, or at least trying to reign in, my nutritional habits, probably an especially good idea for the week I avoid burning calories. I'm doing pretty well too, so far. (I'll live with a bit of backsliding this weekend, when I hit the Superbowl of Chili.) Lotsa cooking at home, pork tenderloin, tuna, rice & veggies, tempeh stir-fry...
What a Revoltin' Development: With all my "no workout" free time at night lately, I've been doing a lot of chores/errands at home during the week. One chore I did yesterday was laundry, where I managed to launder my phone. I'm not sure if it'll dry out and return to functionality, or if I'll have to get a new one. Don't expect any calls for a bit...
Morning weigh-in: 183#, 14% BF
(NOTE: Started this on Monday, finished it on Thursday.)
Friday night's towpath ride was a miserable failure; I felt so tired that I aborted it after only four miles and took the bike path back. I was hurting from Thursday's leg workout I think, but I noticed a lack of pep at the gym as well even though I was lifting the same weights. Well, this week is slated as a rest week, so I guess this week just came early. Got home, went out on foot to catch Post Junction at Which Brew, then took all day off Saturday: no yoga, no gym, didn't even leave the house until evening.
Got a call from Brian; he wanted to get dinner, and also wanted to "punch his clock" at Porters's where he's working on a mug -- you earn your mug there by drinking 60 different beers(over a period of time) in various styles, sort of like Beer College -- so that's where we went.
Sunday I again blew off most things, but eventually hooked up with Joe G and Gary for a quick (no kidding!) afternoon lop around Jacobsburg. Pleasant, burning some energy and blowing out the cobwebs, ground was still frozen over there and a light snow was falling.
Well, I wouldn't call it a wasted day exactly, but I spent the entire day inside, playing with the computer and working my way through all the Achewood archives. There's some good stuff in there, and I still have plenty more to go. I can definitely identify with each of the two main dudes, Ray and Roast Beef, though I think I might be more like Roast Beef than Ray...
Funny though, how talking with the computer is really talking to no one. (I don't mean reading web pages etc, I'm talking about getting the computer to do things, interacting with the computer itself.) There's a computer system Solaris, but there's also a movie -- two, actually -- called Solaris, based on a book of the same name by Stanislaw Lem. In the book/movie, there's a space station orbiting the sentient planet Solaris, which seems to become haunted by the ghosts of the astronauts' fantasies, guilty fears (long-dead wife) etc. The planet had become aware of the researchers, and was in turn experimenting with and trying to communicate with them. I don't know where I'm going with this, but the moral is that extraterrestrials will be so, uh, "alien" to us, that attempted communication with them will be futile, and not worth the trouble; we're better off sticking with people.
Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 185#, 9% BF
Morning weigh-in (Friday): 184#, 12% BF
Pants felt loose today when walking in to work; it was pretty gratifying at first, as I thought I was maybe a little trimmer & fitter, but then I realized I forgot my belt... It hasn't shown up in the weigh-in numbers, and frankly it hasn't shown up in the mirror either, but I feel like the weight is starting to come off -- or maybe it is about to, hopefully, maybe, please...
Anyway: Rode the towpath Wednesday night, and this time I wasn't accosted by anyone or anything, not even my imagination, though I did manage to flush two cars parked at different boat launch or access points -- probably teenagers, a little weed or romance in what they thought was a secluded place. Time wasn't especially fast, maybe 1:45 but the trail was soft and there was a headwind going out. Whatever, I still have to get my speed on: guys did a Jacobsburg singlespeed ride the same night, and reports were that it was at a blistering pace. Uh-oh, I'm not the only one on a double-secret training regimen.
After that was Which Brew for dinner, which maybe explains the elevated weight on Thursday morning. Last night was the gym, followed by pork tenderloin with sauerkraut & rice, at home. Kickass meal, but I now have a metric assload of leftover pork to eat before it goes bad.
Tonight is another towpath ride, followed by another trip to Which Brew to see Post Junction; tomorrow hopefully I'll get up in time to do the early yoga class before hitting the gym.
Reading: Still on Against the Day, somewhere around page 400 -- took some time off to read a few other books in between. It's been reminding me of John Dos Passos's USA trilogy; it has the same time frame and concerns, if not same style & structure.
Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 13% BF
Yoga last night, then made dinner at home: tuna & wilted greens over pasta. I never did get around to that ride, but I did finally put that new rear tire on the singlespeed. I had a fairly new one on there already, hardly any wear at all but the sidewall had a tear -- doh!! On the plus side, it seems like the new Velociraptors are becoming easier to get onto the Sun rims.
Tonight will be the towpath (or possibly a road ride if the ground is mushy), then maybe leftovers. Meantime, I have one frozen pork tenderloin in the freezer and one thawing in the fridge, and some pork chops plus many other dinner items to be worked through, also sitting in the freezer. Must start cooking again...
Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 11.5% BF
"Sitting by my window,Watching the snowFall." -- Laurie Anderson
Morning weigh-in: 182#, 13.5# BF
Supposedly, today is the most depressing day of the year. Some confluence of weather, incoming Christmas bills and generic Monday-ness I guess. Personally, I feel great...
(Disclaimer: My bills are paid up, Mondays are fine by me, and I love this weather -- I suspect that people who don't are only half alive. So there!)
RIP Papa Denny Doherty. He didn't die on a Monday.
Weekend has come and gone...
Friday night was sort of a blowout for me: I went to Which Brew, then to Porters with my friend Kirk. Didn't drink all that much but I was out until 2:00 AM. Needless to say, there was no Saturday yoga.
Saturday: Gym, some chores (got that GRASS to compile, but not to run yet), then met Brian back at Which Brew rfor some dinner. Pleasant surprise, Joe T and his wife were having dinner so I stopped by and said hello. Meantime, Brian got into big conversations with Stu & Cathy before leaving. They (Stu & Cathy) were also leaving at the same time, so I did as well. Early night, though I got home and played with the computer some more before bed.
Today was an early morning group ride at Sals, then lunch in Bethlehem (somewhat new place, where Green Cafe used to be) and back to Sals for some trailwork. We completed one new section of trail, which looked like it would be hard but there were many hands & it went quickly. I took off after that -- I was mucho tired -- but some stuck around and finished another section.
(I couldn't get over, when we were riding, how nice the Sals trails are turning out. There's a bike saying, said usually when something goes wrong, or a ride is unusually tough, or grueling, or disappointing in some way: what you say is "It's all good." I just thought to myself at one point that it really is all good over there. I couldn't say it though, or people would think something was wrong.)
In Other News: I'm an uncle again. No stats, but Caroline Kelly was born early this morning to my brother Kevin and his wife; this is their third and -- Amy swears -- last child. I got the news from my mom who's down there (with my dad) to help out.
