Our Trip So Far

Well, here we are in Greenfield MA, at a coffee shop called the Koko Cafe. Our trip so far:

New Paltz: We hit town around 9:00 and went to the Gilded Otter Brewpub for dinner. Pretty nice, though I thought the beer was better than the food: my roast beef sandwich fell far short of the "Christian Springs Hotel roast beef standards" to which I had become accustomed, though Anne did like her meal. We asked about lodging, and ended up at some interstate motel, where a teenager asked me to rent him and his friends a room. Sorry, Bub... I was polite about it, but the last thing I needed was our sleep disturbed by a bunch of kids trashing the hotel on my credit card. They took off, and the rest of the evening was uneventful.

In the morning we got biking advice and breakfast at a crunchy coffee shop in town, then went over to Lake Winnemaska to ride the carriage roads. I hadn't been there in years but it was the same as ever: still scenic, still reasonably easy/aerobic riding. Cold and breezy but beautiful, we got in about 12 miles over maybe 3 hours, then took off for Vermont via the Champlain Bridge.

Burlington: This was Anne's birthday, and we hit the Vermont Brew Pub to celebrate but it was a fairly early night. Motel outside of town, breakfast next day in town, and then we headed up to Stowe for some hiking -- snow was already on the ground, and when we got up to higher elevations it got to be 4"-6" deep, then icy, and so we turned around, and got pizza in Stowe. We didn't get as far as we wanted, but we were out for a good chunk of the day -- it was beautiful up there.

Back in Burlington, dinner was a nap but then we went out to catch some night life. We went to Ri Ra for a few pints and Irish atmosphere, then caught a good blues band at Red Square. (I'd heard a few years ago that they were going out of business, but they seemed to be going strong that night.) Rain started to fall, mostly just drizzle, and hasn't stopped since... 

Yesterday was browsing Burlington, then we traveled here with a dinner stop: friends of Anne live near a brewpub outside Springfield VT, and we met them there. Tonight were meeting her son in Northampton.

Leaf Mold And A Head Cold

The leaf mold finally got to me. It's worst year I can remember, and I've been suffering after every time out in the woods -- even worse than the May "tree pollen rides." It was really bad the other day, and must have opened a door for some germ because I am now colonized: sinuses, chest congestion, the usual.

It hasn't slowed me down (yet): we went to McSorley's in Manhattan yesterday, with dinner at Carmine's afterward, and both were awesome, as was the other little bar we stopped in (for a break from the McSorley's scene). It was the 3rd annual Which Brew / Porters bus trip into the city, the usual suspects but with a more Porter's-oriented crowd.

Today I'm on vacation for real, and in about four hours (after laundry & housecleaning) I'm picking up Anne and we're heading North. No real plans, but we'll probably be stopping near New Paltz tonight, hiking the Gunks tomorrow, and then heading for Burlington; the eventual goal is to visit her son Ben, going to school near Amherst, later in the week. Lots of hiking, biking, reading, coffee & beer in the meantime...

To get ready we went to that semi-new (me) sporting goods store, Cabella's. What a nightmare, a total big-box store dedicated to mostly hunting -- they even had a furniture section, the kid of stuff that would go well with the elk on the wall... I got a couple of pairs of hiking pants, she got boots, and then we got the hell out of Dodge.

Anyway, that's it for a couple of days. Stay tuned for pictures -- I have about a hundred from yesterday, plus a bunch of earlier ones, various events, that I still didn't get to. But, later...

Well!

Our first Muslim Socialist President!

 

I went to Brew Works last night after a bit of housework, to watch the election returns. The Obama Campaign victory party was there as well, but the bar at least was still open to the public, and the place was packed. (You could still get into the party-controlled dining room or downstairs to the Steel Gaarden, if you wanted to check out the big-screen TV's and the excitement, but if anything it was even more crowded than out front: the bar was fine.) Anne got there around 10:00 or so, after being at the polls from 6:30 AM on. Some burgers, and beer, and some nail-biting (the networks seemed to drag things out, to make it less lopsided & more interesting), and then at 11:03 or so, almost immediately after the West Coast polls closed, they called California for Obama and that was all she wrote. The place erupted in cheers, people were hugging and shaking hands, wiping tears from their eyes...

 

We stuck around for McCain's concession speech (well done and well received) and Obama's awesome acceptance speech, and then went home around 1:00. What a night! Whatever comes next -- and the real hard part isn't even on the horizon yet -- last night we were a part of history.

 

Vote Early, Vote Often

Morning weigh-in: 173.5#, 10.5% BF

 

So I voted this morning before coming in to work. I arrived at exactly 7:00 when the polls opened, and there was already a line; it took me about a half hour to vote, and the line was the same length when I left as when I got there... I don't always vote early, so this may be more common than I think in the morning, but that was the longest I ever had to wait to vote. I was joking with the woman behind me, that the situation was like before a snowstorm when everyone stocks up on the bread and milk that they don't even need: we all heard about possible long lines so we went early, and created our own. All in all the process went rather smoothly, even if I was a bit late for work.

 

I think people are expecting trouble though. A cop car cruised by once, people had their ID ready (normally it's not necessary to show ID), and the ACORN vs voter suppression shenanigans has people kind of hopped up. Anne is volunteering in Allentown today, to help protect the rights of voters who might get challenged.

 

Tonight I'll be skipping the gym to do chores at home (mostly laundry-type stuff), then I'm joining Anne somewhere for the post-election nail-biting.

 

 

The Oil Fields At First Light

No morning weigh-in, but last I looked I was 172#.

 

On the ride in this morning I finally spotted the pattern: every Monday at about 7:30 AM, they play U2's "Beautiful Day" on the local station. The song really puts me in a good mood, and presumably does it for the rest of the Monday morning commuter demographic as well. It usually is a beautiful ride in too, in that "advanced nature appreciation" way you have to do it, gleaning what beauty you can, from the sky and the Interstate... Filled the tank on the way in, prices really have dropped.

 

Backwards:

 

Yesterday I went for breakfast with Anne, walking over to Southside to Blue Sky with her and her dog. Langston had a banner day, which started with him tearing into the garbage (he's on anti-seizure medication, which makes him hungry) and strewing it around the kitchen -- Anne said he looked quite pleased with himself. He was pretty agitated, tied outside Blue Sky, and he got into a fight with another dog, he was wound up for most of the rest of the day... Anyway, we also went for a mountain bike ride at Jordan later on. That was pretty nice, and I think a few things clicked into place for her there. If the learning curve is a wave, like body surfing at the beach, Jordan's easy enough that she was able to catch the wave and move forward . Kind of fun to watch, actually.

 

Saturday was an Allamuchy ride, with the usual Gang: Bob & Karen leading the ride, plus Doug, Eric B, Eric R, Greg, Butch & Mindy, and Nelson, but also Joe & Jon G, Keith, and Claude in a slightly faster group out front. We got in about 13 miles, maybe 2 hours ride time between 10:30 and 2:30 -- hard to believe we stood around for two hours, but there were a lot of blown-down trees & branches that we cleared as we came upon them. Leaf mold or something, had allergy problems which persisted through the rest of the day and into Judy's party.

 

The party was nice though, almost an Obama campaign meeting or something, except for the occasional Halloween costume (I was Franken-pimp, whatever that might be, while Anne was Joe The Plumber, complete with gigantic fake butt crack showing above her pants).

 

Friday night started with Frank P's daughter hosting an "urban fun ride" through Bethlehem, in costume for Halloween of course (except for me, d'oh), and after that we all went to Greg H's for a Halloween party -- I wore a mullet wig and that fake butt. Riding there through the Bethlehem trick-or-treaters with my butt hanging out was a total hoot, a moving wave of gut-busting laughter followed us as we rode up the street.

 

Tonight is yoga, followed by chores/laundry, and tomorrow is the election; we'll probably watch the returns at a friend's house. (I remember watching the 2000 returns at Weyerbacher -- it seems so long ago now! -- and the 2004 returns at Democratic Party headquarters in Bethlehem.)

 

 

And Another One

Leopard Suits You
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

This photo, my third-most popular one based on views -- wonder why? -- just passed the 300-view mark. This was from last year's Halloween party at Which Brew. This year was the first time in five years that there was no a Which Brew Halloween party. Sigh, but I went to Greg's party last night (we rode there, after I rode the CAT Halloween Fun Ride), and we're hitting Judy's party tonight. Yo later.

Another Milestone

My Shiny New Toy
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

This photo is my most popular one, based on number of views, and it just hit the 600-view mark this week.

AWOL

(Sorry, no weigh-ins lately, but the weight's been hovering around 174 pounds.)

 

Well last night we did the unthinkable: Anne and I went for a night ride at Sals. Really, we just rode from her house, rolling out almost as soon as I got there and crossing the Hill to Hill Bridge, and we did a very short loop, out on the Orange trail and back on the Red, but we were out in the woods, and we needed our lights before it was over. Here we are on real trails, she's riding offroad for maybe the 6th time, and she complains about her technique when riding over logs -- she'll be better than me in another month or so.

 

We hit a nice little Mexican place for dinner after that, up the street from the Brew Works, our last stop for the evening where we caught game one of the Series.

 

A Sign at Porters:

 

LADIES OF THE EVENING BRINGING IN SAILORS

SHALL PAY FOR THEIR ROOMS IN ADVANCE

 

We were at Porters on Tuesday, where the Brew Knits (a new crew of knitting, beer drinking ladies) were assembled, and where I expect signs to be posted, similar to their other one:

 

KNITTERS CONSUMING ALCOHOL ARE KINDLY REQUESTED

TO EXTINGUISH ALL CANDLES AT THEIR TABLES

 

Yes, amidst all the levity and cheer, one errant scarf (Courtney's) managed to find a candle and get scorched. Stinky like burnt hair, and we couldn't stop laughing.

 

Long story short: I've been spending a lot of time with Anne lately, like most of my free time (and that's the way I like it), and since I've been busy here at work I suspect that blogging will be sparse for a while.

 

 

The City of God

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 170.5#, 9.5% BF
Morning weigh-in (Wednesday):172.5#, 10.5% BF
Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 174.5#, 10.5% BF

I've got a few minutes downtime -- I'm just back from yoga & breakfast, and I'm heading out to Weyerbacher when they open around noon, to buy a case of their new stuff -- and I thought I'd update a few computer things, ie posting here, as well as adding a few photos from the Sals trail maintenance last month.

It's been a fairly rough week, mainly because of two pieces of news that came my way.

Bad News The First: At the Chain Gang meeting this week (that was Wednesday night) we were discussing where to have our annual Christmas party, and someone mentioned the Christian's Spring Hotel, especially since we had such a good time in their barn at the weekend party -- maybe we could rent the barn for our own party. Rich called them up while we moved on to other business, then came back with the news that CSH is closing and that Saturday (ie today) would be their last day. Aaaargh!

Bad News The Second: This one is a little more serious. My friend Dan sat a few of us down at work the other day, and told us he'd been talking to Vito: his wife had been getting dizzy again (this was probably just after I visited), and passed out in the bathroom the other night. They went to the hospital, where they found out she'd had a stroke: she still has powers of speech, but her right side has lost some mobility. (She's been in rehab at Sloan-Kettering ever since, learning to use a walker and trying to get as much of her mobility back as possible.) Doctors say it was caused by her tumor, which means that the tumor is active again -- and the tumor is inoperable, and she can't have any more chemo or radiation, and so what this really means is that Di is now basically into her endgame. She'll be home in a few days; Vito's probably a wreck right now. This is so sad.

Both of these (of course) put me in a fairly bad mood for the end of the week, though I've been trying to be philosophical about them. Which Brew is gone, and now Christian's Spring Hotel is gone, but Anne and I met at WB and first started hanging out at CSH, so maybe they had accomplished something, like the booster stages of a rocket, or maybe the Roman Empire before it fell.

Di is a little harder to take. She and Vito have led exemplary lives, and I'm glad that she can take some
comfort in her faith and in the expectation of a better world, but that doesn't really leave me with much.

Meantime, I can't make lemonade out of those weights either...

Anyway, Tuesday night was Porters after the gym, where the girls had taken over one corner and were experimenting with a new scene: the "Brew Knits" is what they called themselves, and that's exactly what they were doing -- sipping brews and knitting.

Wednesday was the Chain Gang meeting, Thursday was the gym followed by a visit to Christian Springs -- the usual "Thursday night supper club" (me, Anne, Lee, Judy, and Sally & Joe) though there was no food, and last night was a towpath ride with Larry (Happy Birthday!) and dinner was a pot roast at Anne's. Not sure what tonight will be, but I'll be riding with Anne and a few others at Jacobsburg later in the afternoon.

Those photos are posted (go check them out) and I'm all caught up, so I'm outta here.

Monday Night Quarterbacking

Morning weigh-in: 171#, 10.5% BF

Doop de doo, just catching up on my bills, internet addictions etc, thought I'd post a little something...

Anne bought a mountain bike on Friday, a used Cannondale F600 to be specific, off a fellow VMB member. It had some minor issues so we did some work on it, then took it up to Jacobsburg -- we rode just about 15 miles total, pretty cool. (One very valid point she made though: she doesn't have to drive anywhere to ride her road bikes. But, she lives right around the corner from Sals, ditto Lehigh; once her skills/confidence are up to the challenges she'll have all the out-the-front-door, local riding she'd want.)

We saw Religulous that night with a bunch of people. Verdict: it was OK, but not much better than OK. I thought that they cherry-picked their religious spokesmen, who seemed a bit stupid, and were flummoxed by fairly standard anti-religious arguments -- ones that any decent theologian should have at least some answer to by now, even if it wasn't an answer I'd agree with. Dinner was at Pacifico, and was also just so-so.

Saturday we (Anne and I) did a road ride, a metric century over Little Gap and back through Wind Gap. The evening's entertainment was at Christian's Spring Hotel, where they had an Octoberfest party: German food, beer specials and three great bands out in their barn. These bands were not what I was expecting (punkish/rockabilly garage stuff, maybe?) but instead were more bluegrass than anything else -- one was actually a bow ties and straw hats, banjos and kazoos kind of novelty act. Great stuff. Tons of people there too, including a big chunk of Chain Gang peeps and pieces of the Which Brew diaspora, as well as the usual CSH regulars.

Sunday was mellow by comparison, did a little hiking -- walking, really -- in and near Bethlehem. Tonight after laundry & bills I'll be zipping around for a while downtown on the singlespeed. Dinner already happened and was Brazilian black beans. Tomorrow I'll be eating at Porters.

Goddamn You, Pointy-Headed Arithmetic!

Morning weigh-in: 172# 9.5% BF

 

By the way, the weekend:

 

Friday night was dinner with Anne in Bethlehem, after the usual towpath ride (just Kirk and myself this time). I suggested J.P. McGrady's as a nice change of pace, but when we got there it was jam-packed full of Lehigh students, standing room only, so we went back to Brew Works.

 

Saturday was busy, an ultra-mega-Selfish Day: yoga in the morning, drycleaning, banking, then over to Coffee Exchange to meet Anne before we hit the Garlic Fest. (Her home-brewing buddy Josh had a booth & was pushing garlic beer, but we were too chicken to try it.) Saw a few peeps while walking around, then we drove over to Weyerbacher and split a case of their special Harvest Ale, made (in very limited quantities) with fresh hops from Dan Weierbach's garden.

 

We then went up to Jacobsburg. That's where we met Lenny, and also Butch & Mindy: Butch was looking to sell Anne his old F600, and this was the test ride. Verdict: it's a go! We rode for about two hours, maybe 10 miles, ran into Joe G while riding but he was in high-speed mode...

 

Saturday Night: Lenny was down so I could show him Pearly Baker's so that's where we went next; after dinner he took off for home, while Anne & I grabbed dessert and coffee around the block, then returned for the Time Code show. Saw the crew (Bill & Danielle, Tara, Michele, etc) and the show was good but my day was long, and I went home early and slept the sleep of the dead.

 

On Sunday I took a trip out toward Scranton, carpooling with Eric and fellow biker Bernie, to the grand opening of a new trail system. This was a bigger deal than I realized; there were probably about 100 bikers there (including the Hubbard Bike Club crew, plus Rich B and Joe G), as well as a similar number of hikers, some police and Game Lands officials, and the local news crews. Plenty of speeches, snacks, ribbon cutting, and then finally we rode. Mucho recommendo, these were some killer trails and you could see they put a lot of thought and work into making them. We only rode 10 miles or so, but in our group there were several flats, one busted derailleur/hanger (Eric), and a broken frame -- I also got lost at one point. Tough trails!

 

More Fun with Pointers: I've been fooling with that program some more, and was still getting fairly random results out of the computer. Until last night, when... well, imagine you need to store data of a certain size, so you tell the computer to allocate some memory to store that data -- except you tell the computer, in a very subtle and hard-to-detect (for a neophyte) way, to allocate less memory than you need? Then when the time comes to store that data, and you go to put the tenth pound of shit in your five pound bag: the data pours out all over the place, corrupting other memory, results become unpredictable and then your program crashes... I found the problem and fixed it last night, now my test program runs flawlessly. I don't know if I'm a genius or a moron.

 

Last night was the gym (mini-workout) and laundry, plus dinner at Porters with Anne, the debate on TV and a couple of odd/interesting bar mates. Tonight is yoga, with symposium to follow.

 

Porn Emergency

Morning weigh-in: 171#, 10.5% BF

 

Went to yoga last night, then hit Porters for dinner and some Monday Night Football. Pretty cool, though the place wasn't too busy. I saw Lucas there, young guy who sort of disappeared after he broke his bike, and also saw Randi, who was the old bartender at Jabberwocky (or Curve or whatever).

 

She's now a bartender and a "dancer" somewhere, except she recently sprained her ankle and it's cut into her ability to work -- she was ranting about certain mutual friend who shall remain nameless (Joe) who owes her money she could really use right now... Meantime, she and her friend were out to pick up the latest issue of some exotic dancer trade weekly, but the local adult novelty store was closed, handwritten "closed for family emergency" sign in the window. So they came to Porters...

 

A priest, a rabbi and a minister walk into a bar, and the bartender says "What is this, a joke?"

Hail Hail

Morning weigh-in: 171.5#, 10% BF

 

Gym last night, then over to CSH for dinner. Nice surprise, some of the old Which Brew gals -- specifically Michele, Margarita and Carrie, whom I hadn't seen in forever -- were there, along with the usual crew (Anne, Judy and Lee). We hung out for a while & chatted, then the girls absconded and we listened to part of the VP debate on the radio. Static, volume issues; we lost interest and conversation returned to the usual subjects.

 

C For Success: Well, almost. I changed a few things on that program I'm writing, and all of a sudden it works, for reasons I don't really understand.

 

Tonight I'm riding the towpath. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy version of "selfish day."

Golden Sunrise Mountain

Morning weigh-in: 170.5#, 10.5% BF (sigh)

 

Beautiful ride in to work today, fog/clouds over Jugtown Mountain, itself silhouetted by the early morning sun. I was also listening to Gang of Four's "Tattoo," the perfect song for driving in heavy traffic at high speeds...

 

Linux Voyager, Heavy C's: I decided to write a small program, something semi-work-related,  that would take a bunch of individual pieces ("cut lengths") of tubing, and and organize them into ordered lengths -- ie "sticks," or pieces of tube, around 40 feet long, that are meant to be cut into several of the smaller cut lengths -- for optimum bundling and shipping. This is a laborious process, something I can't stand and I've been doing a lot of it lately, but recently I came up with a clever method that organizes the pieces rather well, and can also be automated -- bonus!

 

The trick involves ordering the cut lengths by length, then divvying up the cut lengths according to a certain pattern. This looked to me like the ideal place to use something like a linked list, and decided to try my hand at doing this in C. I used to be pretty good at C programming, but that was like 20 years ago, and I found that I was pretty damn rusty, at least at first. I'm getting the hang of it again, and the code I need to write is surprisingly small for what I'm trying to do, so things should move along pretty quickly now -- all I need is a couple of rainy days.

 

Speaking of rainy days, last weekend was a wash. I didn't go to Vermont because it was pouring there, and I didn't ride locally because it was pouring here too, especially Sunday. I spent most of the weekend reading, or watching movies (saw Juno at Anne's on Sunday, gotta love a girl with Netflix), or surfing the web... we walked over to Brew Works, Sunday afternoon after the movie, and looking down from the Broad Street Bridge we saw that the Monocacy had gone over its banks, which in turn caused them to close Celtic Fest.

 

Tonight I'll be riding the towpath if it doesn't rain (otherwise I'm hitting the gym), then it's off to Porter's while the laundry dries. Last night was yoga, tomorrow night will be more yoga, and Thursday is back to the gym.

Quick News Tidbits

Morning weigh-in (Friday) 169#, 11# BF

More photos are now posted, my Saturday shots from the BASH. Enjoy! Stay tuned for more, some BASH Sunday photos plus a bunch of trailwork shots I took last weekend.

Meantime, the rain (here and in Vermont) has caused those of us going to race to cancel our trip to the Vermont 50.

Tonight I'll probably see Brujos at Pearly Baker's, and tomorrow will probably be a Lehigh ride.

That is all.

"M" Is For "Methane"

 This can't be good.

 

"You think the end of the world's comin'?"

 

"Preacher man says it's the end of time; he says America's rivers are running dry. The interest is up, the stock market's down... You boys better be careful hanging around here this late at night, this -- no ma'am, I'm sorry we don't -- this is the perfect place to get jumped!"

 

"But do you think the end of the world's comin'?"

 

"Naw... So says the preacher man, but I don't go by what he says."

 

-- Godspeed You Black Emperor

 

Klondike Barbie Watch: Yup, witchcraft-free since 2005! Too bad the long-running affair with her husband's business partner just came to light...

Personal Best!

Morning weigh-in: 170.5#, 10.5% BF

 

Oh well, not quite.

 

Back when I lived on Southside, my best time ever for a towpath ride out to Sand Island and back (distance: 25.4 miles), was 1:28, which gives an average speed of 17.13 mph. Riding that out-and-back from where I live now cuts that distance down to 22 miles, so an equivalent "best time" would be 1:16 at that same average speed. I rode the towpath last night, and was on target for beating that number so I really made the effort -- going fast didn't seem that hard -- and got home at 1:14:48. Woo Hoo! Then I noticed that my distance was only 20 miles, so somehow my cycle computer didn't record two miles of my ride  (nor, presumably, the time spent riding those two miles) and it wasn't a "personal best" after all, though at the very least it was likely my unofficial best time this year. Which means I am right on target to choke Sunday...

 

After that was more laundry and a trip to get it dried, and dinner was at Porter's with Anne, a good time which really flew like it had wings -- saw a few peeps, earned my 4th mug, and next thing you know it's after midnight. Morning came a little too early... (By the way, my new Tevas came yesterday, and I wore them last night, though it suddenly seems late in the season for that.) Tonight is yoga, then dinner with Anne again; she's cooking up some Ethiopian food, after a restaurant visit on that DC trip piqued her interest.

 

What Are They Doing At The Horlacher House?

Morning weigh-in: 170#, 11.5% BF

 

I never drank Horlacher Beer, but as a kid I collected beer cans, along with my brothers, and those old Horlacher cans were among the prizes in our collections. We'd usually find them (and all kinds of very old, collectible beer cans) in or near the ruins of old houses, like in their personal garbage dumps or inside the walls -- part of the house's life cycle, the construction workers threw them in there, and we'd tear the lath or drywall off looking for them. Old rotting houses in the late-autumn woods after school, very Blair Witch. One house we ripped apart was such a gold mine we dubbed it the "Horlacher House," and returned to it several times. It's no wonder witches hate little kids: after what we did to that place, gingerbread-chompin' Hansel & Gretel had nothing on us...

 

Anyway, I've been on a tea tree oil kick lately, putting it on various skin problems and my one "ugly old-man TMI toenail," since it supposedly has good antiseptic/antifungal properties. The stuff is aromatic and rather pleasant, with a strong turpentine-like smell, but with overtones of rotting wood. The other day I realized why I kept thinking about the Horlacher House, the tea tree oil smell just like the insides of those rotting houses.

 

Anyway, last night was yoga, followed by the last of that leftover chili while I did laundry & uploaded a bunch of "Bash" pictures -- you know what to do -- and tonight is a towpath ride, followed by dinner at Porters while the laundry dries.

Goodbye To Selfish Day

Morning weigh-in: 167.5#, 12% BF (surprisingly enough, I'm happy with those numbers)

 

Friday night was the semi-usual towpath ride, and a trip out to Christian's Spring Hotel but I left relatively early, because early Saturday morning I'd be digging in the dirt at Allamuchy. Trailwork day, we put in a new singletrack bypass to one of the ancient and eroded roads that cut through the park. Record attendance by the way, about 20 people were there. We worked for maybe three hours and then did a ride.

 

I bailed early on the ride though, and borrowed some shower-and-rooming time at nearby Joe & Dawn's: my next stop was to Parsippany to visit my old friend Vito and his wife -- they were the ones who had the big 70th birthday surprise party that I missed because of Moab. The visit was pretty nice, I haven't seen him in a few years and we did quite a bit of catching up. (He had a knee replaced recently, took about a year for the pain to subside but he's getting there. His wife just got through a bout with lung cancer, which metastasized into her brain. They're hoping she's out of the woods now, but you never know with that kind of thing.) His daughter stopped by, and also a friend from the neighborhood, and they made homemade pizza for dinner. There was also a calzone, and cannoli's and beer and coffee...

 

I got a phone call on the way home, Pocono Joe asking me to stop by Allamuchy Joe's house to pick up the bike wheel he left at the ride, with prisoner exchange up near Saylorsburg on the ride home. I got a call from Anne too, home from Washington but I was too tired to go out. 

 

Meanwhile, What They Said: Yeah, and yeah, and oh yes definitely that too. Just sayin'...

 

Yesterday was more trailwork, this time at Sals: again about 20 people, we spent about four hours and came close to finishing John's old trail. Lotsa rock and dirt moving, followed by the obligatory group ride. Met Anne for lunch afterward, and used her computer to buy new shoes...

What Are They Doing At The Hyacinth House?

Dinner last night at the Hawthorne House, a place in Bethlehem I'd heard about but never visited -- Anne knew it because she used to go there occasionally. Pretty decent: bar food and $2.50/bottle microbrews. Smaller inside than the building looked from the outside. Leechboy was playing, the games were on the TV's, and we were just BS'ing over burgers & beer...

 

Anne's out of town this weekend, down in Washington DC at least until late Saturday night. It's a "girl's weekend," and she's checking out the monuments & museums with Judy, Erica and Emmy. I'll be doing trail maintenance at Allamuchy tomorrow, followed (most likely) by a ride, then a visit to my old friend and retired co-worker Vito in Parsippany. Sunday will be more trailwork & riding, this time at Sals.

 

Meantime, I'll be riding the towpath tonight with Larry, then going to Christian's Spring Hotel, where I should run into a bunch of Virtual Pubbers, looks like some kind of smart mob scene a-building. (We were supposed to go there last night, but there was a problem with the water in Nazareth & Easton yesterday, and CSH had no food service -- I sure hope one day makes enough of a difference in the food situation because I'll probably be starving.)

Under The Water Carry The Water

Morning weigh-in: 169#, 11.5% BF

 

Saw David Byrne play Tuesday night at Zoellner, first show of his new tour and it was awesome. Me & Anne, Doug & Lori; our seats were amazing, like third row center -- he was standing literally less than 10 feet away from us, front and center on stage with his guitar, and with the rest of the band a little bit in the background. He and the whole band (drummer, bassist, bongo player, three backup singers, and three dancers) were all in white, a strange look but it actually worked well.

 

The show itself was great, very high energy, and he did a bunch of 80's hits as well as newer or more obscure stuff. He got several standing ovations too, especially on the older songs, and people were standing/dancing by the end. (Just a by-the-way: David Byrne is a very good singer, which we all knew, but he is also a very good guitarist.) Lotsa older people there, and watching them dance reminded me of 80's fratboys-become-yuppies jamming to Springsteen's "Born in the USA," and that whole Subversive Artists vs Their Fans Who Don't Get It thing... That got me thinking about my own mondegreens and misunderstandings from that era; lots of resonances in those songs.

 

Speaking of dance: the dancers were a nice touch. Two girls and a guy, doing very modern-looking (to me) stuff, made me wish I had a bit more of a dance vocabulary.  It reminded me at times of African dance, or of hoedowns, or cheerleader moves a la "Hey Mickey;" then there were other parts that were more like Meredith Monk, and even times I picked up a porn-stars-from-Naked-Lunch vibe, when the dancers seemed somewhat older and tireder than at first glance...

 

Anyway, before that I got a post-work haircut at Eskandalo, where Alison said she'd be DJ'ing at Christian's Spring Hotel that night -- oh well, you can't be everywhere -- followed by a pre-show dinner at Tulum. Last night was the Chain Gang meeting at Bob & Karen's. Tonight is the gym, followed by dinner out.

My, What An Eventful Weekend!

Morning weigh-in: 169.5#, 10% BF

 

Jeez, you go away for a few days...

 

RIP David Foster Wallace: Dead by his own hand at the age of 46. So sad. Infinite Jest was one of my favorite books, a postmodern classic and the funniest book about depression I ever read.

 

Swirling the Bowl: So Big Shitpile strikes again --  Lehman is going bankrupt, and Merrill Lynch got bought, and AIG is teetering on the edge -- if they go down, does that mean I am no longer an insured driver? I guess I'll have to revise my "America Descends Into Civil War and Cannibalism" countdown, move things up by a few years.

 

Wasn't That A Mighty Storm? Hurricane Ike was bad enough, but most people heeded warnings and it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Our Houston office is closed though.

 

Meantime:

 

On Thursday I visited my friend Gary in the hospital after work. We used to ride and race together: me, Joe G, Gary and his girlfriend Gina, their friend Gerry, and a few others, the old Round valley crowd. Now they (Gary & Gina) have two kids and don't get out as much, but recently he's been getting back into road racing and triathlon. He was out training with a few friends on Monday, and a woman failed to yield at a nasty intersection (I know it well, I drive through it every day, and there have been a lot of bicycle and motorcycle fatalities there over the years) -- he hit her grille, smashed her windshield with his shoulder, then flew over and landed behind her SUV, breaking his femur, ankle, and wrist (and dislocating his shoulder) at various points in the process. Helicopter ride, femur surgery, aches and bruises and a couple of casts, but no head or organ damage -- and strangely enough, no road rash either. He seemed in good spirits, all things considered, and was scheduled to go home Friday.

 

I met Joe at the hospital. We were supposed to ride Sals after the visit, but he drove into the parking garage and managed to wreck his bike (which was on his roof rack) on the low ceiling. Broken fork, broken seatpost, damage to the rack and his car's roof, he was not happy...

 

Thursday night was dinner with Anne at Brew Works.

 

The rest of the weekend was the Rattling Creek Single Trackers "Bash;" I drove down Friday afternoon and arrived in the worst of the rain. More on all this as the week progresses -- and stay tuned for over 100 photos -- but suffice to say that it was an awesome time despite the early bad weather: the Friday night "Disco Party" was a huge success, making Saturday morning less successful, and the Saturday night dinner/concert was fun but a bit more subdued, and in between it all we rode and rode.

 

Last night was chores and laundry; tonight is errands, and dinner with Anne.

Nine Eleven

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 170.5#, 10.5% BF

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 169.5#, 7% BF

 

It's strange, I actually feel a lot stronger with the extra weight (even if it's obviously settling in my gut instead of say going to build muscles), though that might be a little rationalization, some whistling in the dark. But...

 

I rode the towpath last night, and early on I got a "fuck you" pass from some guy on a Jamis: he whipped past me as I went under the 25th St Bridge, having (unbeknownst to me) dropped down the paved hill from the orphanage -- I thought he'd been riding the sewer line right-of-way singletrack like I was, and blew past me on sheer strength. Either way, Game On!

 

I dropped in behind and drafted (unbeknownst to him) as he hammered away at 20+ mph. He slowed down after a mile or so, and was very surprised to see me pull up next to him... Fun little game, and we both got a chuckle out of it; we rode together until we got to the old boat launch, where he peeled off to go up Hope Road.

 

I was sort of racing daylight and already in fast mode -- funny how my legs actually feel stronger the day after a gym workout -- so I did a little hammering of my own out to Sand Island, really fast pace, at least until the path started to get crowded. Cruised though the turnaround, and who should I see but my new friend, who decided to give chase but never caught up, heh heh. We rode back together, total "cruise and schmooze" mode until we split up again at the old boat launch. I got home just as darkness fell.

 

Meantime, I got an email that my old friend and riding/racing buddy Gary was hit by a car while riding Tuesday night; he's in St Luke's Hospital with a broken ankle, a broken femur (yikes!) and a dislocated shoulder. Tonight I'm riding Sals (aka "behind St Luke's") with Joe, then we're going to pay him a visit. Tomorrow morning I'm off to the Bash.

Betty Lou Still Ain't Got No New Shoes

Morning weigh-in: 168.5#, 11% BF

 

Don't know what's up with that high body fat percentage, though I did eat a handful of Pringles (strictly so I could toss the empty can in the garbage), and a glass of water -- hydration, plus some salt to hold it there until morning...

 

Ran last night around 10:00, my standard 2 mile route. I was going to ride either the road or the towpath, but I left my riding glasses at Anne's after the recumbent ride -- since the 2000 crash I've been pretty paranoid about riding with regular glasses -- so instead I did some chores, errands, etc. Laundry, drycleaning, and I also made a trip out to the nearby Dick's Sporting Goods, a new pair of Teva Hurricane III's for to get, but alas they had none. I love my Tevas, but they are starting to fall apart -- they're like 11 years old -- and the situation has now become urgent. Stay tuned...

 

Tonight is Christian's Spring Hotel after the gym, tomorrow is yoga or possibly biking. The Bash is this weekend, so I have to get ready for that too.

The Daily Grind

Morning weigh-in: 169.5#, 9.5% BF

 

Well that's not so bad, considering I ate a bowl of chili at midnight... tonight will be more chili by the way, and I'll probably make even more, my BASH chili contest entry, on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

 

Hmmm, what else is going on in the world... prions are jumping species barriers -- oh noes! I think I'll skip the venison chili.

Payback

Donny Recumbent!
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

Today was a much nicer day than yesterday, so Anne convinced me to do a recumbent ride with her -- I joked that this was "payback" for dragging her into the woods last weekend, but really it was a lot of fun.

Anne has two recumbents: one's a standard "short wheelbase" design, and the other is a sort of trike, very low to the ground. (The trike is what I rode today. I tried the other one afterward and it's pretty squirrely, something I'll have to master I guess.) She had been exchanging emails with some guy who'd been in the paper for riding a recumbent, and they put together an impromptu group ride, just a jaunt out to Emmaus and back. Lotsa fun, and though I don't think I'll be getting one any time soon, I could probably be persuaded to go out again...

Anyway, dinner was at the Brew Works. Tomorrow is probably a road ride, one more good day before the weather goes south again.

Happy 60th Birthday, Pappy Spanky!

The Birthday Boy Himself
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

Hurricane Hanna's aftermath put a damper on Saturday's festivities, but the show had to go on:

I blew off the Saturday morning "birthday ride" to avoid the deluge (which actually came a bit later in the day), instead helping Anne brew beer, something I never did. (Pretty cool, and it actually seemed easy, but there was a lot of waiting for various liquids to boil or cool down.) We caught up with the crew later at Rich's, where the party was in full swing under some tents he put up in the backyard. Stoves, grills, plenty of food including alligato & rattlesnake -- his brother was in town from Florida -- and of course plenty of beer. Good times...

Memento: Chili Tonight, Hot Tamale

Morning weigh in (Tuesday): 169.5#, 8.5% BF

Morning weigh in (Wednesday): 170#, 8% BF

Morning weigh in (Thursday): 167.5#, 11.5% BF

 

Yeah so the numbers really are trending up, I think I'll be trying to avoid eating out too much for a while... I made chili yesterday, a slightly different recipe (different beer base,  which came out rather nice I must say. Anne came over after her meeting, and we had some with bread and a salad. (She also brought more tomatoes -- oh no! -- and some hot peppers from her garden. I might make more chili later in the week, to bring to the BASH chili contest.) Before dinner I hit yoga.

 

Tuesday was a rest day: I prepped the chili, ran some errands and did chores; dinner was a salad and some leftover moussaka.

 

Continuing to work my way backwards...

 

Labor Day Monday: Anne and I went up to Jim Thorpe (which is actually her hometown) to do some riding. She rented a mountain bike downtown and we did the Broad Mountain Loop, maybe 12 miles of mostly jeep roads (about 2 miles were on the Deer Path singletrack, and some was a hike down to Glen Onoko Falls). We also hung out for a while at the two overlooks, so we were out for quite a while. She doesn't have much offroad experience, but she's got some pretty solid skills from years of commuting, touring etc, and rode rather well -- we actually made good time, on what was once considered (by peeps with more experience than she has now) a major adventure. I'm thinking she liked it. (We had dinner later at Porter's, with Judy again.)

 

Sunday: I rode with Rudy at R.B. Winter State Park, the "Cowbell Hollow Trail" as described in Griz's PA MTB guidebook. This was a posted VMB ride (one I posted like a month ago), and it was a beautiful day, but we were the only ones on the ride. As above, so below: the park seemed kind of remote and the trails underutilized, kind of sad for such a nice place though I'm glad it wasn't crowded. We rode about 28 miles, but rather than following the guidebook's route we bailed at mile 20 to take the road (rather than the singletrack) back to the cars. Despite a late night and an early morning, I felt really good.

 

Saturday started as a typical (but yoga-free) "selfish day," but the evening started with a birthday party for Judy at Sette Luna. Me, Anne, Judy, Erica & Toby (Judy's daughter & future son-in-law) and Adam, dining al fresco on pizza and appetizers, really nice. After that we went to Spanky's for the big VMB party: Greg did some major work on his yard (pond, fire pit) and this was it's baptism. also very nice, but just a bit wilder than Sette Luna...

 

Friday I had off. I got my oil changed plus a bunch of other car stuff done, blah blah various errands. The evening turned drizzly but Brian, Larry and I did our Friday ride anyway. (We actually tried some of the almost-completed Delaware towpath. We got in about 10 miles, but the thing still needs work.)

 

Anyway, back to the future: tonight I'm hitting the gym, and Judy has decided to throw an impromptu party, since Christian's Spring Hotel is closed this week and the "Thursday night supper club" has nowhere to go.

Ob La Di Ob La Da

Morning weigh-in: 167#, 9.5% BF

 

So I go to yoga last night, only to find the place closed for renovations, with a carpenter cutting new floorboards out in the street -- that's when I remembered them making the announcement last week. Doh!

 

Oh well, that meant I was early to Christian's Spring Hotel. Dinner with the usual crew: Anne, Judy, Lee, and Joe & Sally, just back from Florida and South Carolina and there with their son Ben, who's leaving for college this weekend. Anne brought her dog to give to Judy, because Judy would be watching him for a few days while Anne takes her Ben to college, and she also brought another bag of heirloom tomatoes (plus basil) for me. Meanwhile, there was a stewing rabbit waiting for her in the kitchen fridge, a gift from the bar owner's uncle. It was a strange day for handoffs at the CSH...

 

Tonight is the gym right after work, then probably turkey sandwiches with tomatoes. I'll probably hit Porters later for the open-mic night, but I have a ton of things I want to get done tomorrow (Friday off, but I still have to deal with that oil change, and also a few bike projects, shopping blah blah), a little clearing of the decks, so it'll be an early night but still, four day weekend here I come!

 

By the way, I've been putting my Allamuchy photos up on flickr, piece by piece but I'm almost done.

Frappe Le Sac

Morning weigh-in: 167#, 8% BF

Not sure what was going on with Blogger, looks like my Friday post might not have appeared until today, but anyway...

I'm back from Allamuchy. Twenty-four hours, eight laps, 10-20 bowls of cereal and one trashed rear hub, it was a great weekend. The weather was perfect the entire time, the course was classic "old school Allamuchy," fast and fun, and I basically followed my plan (two laps and rest, two laps and eat, two night laps, sleep until daylight and race until noon), which would have given me nine laps, but I scratched the last one because of the hub problems. It wasn't worth trying to fix on the trail, and in fact I think I need a new bearing, which isn't really a quick-trailside-fix kind of problem.

I was lallygagging anyway: eating at the cafeteria, napping when I felt like it... Some of my friends, Joe G and Kevin M in particular, went at it pretty seriously, and they did rather well, each with 13 laps and a place on the podium. There were others at my campsite -- actually I was staying at their campsite, we're talking course designers Bob & Karen and their JORBA crew -- and they were there for the laughs and camping, and the occasional adventure of a lap around the course. I think I was a happy medium between the two (ie going hard and going easy), but I'm pretty sure we all had a good time.

I'll probably have more to say on this as the week progresses, but I also went out last night, to Porters for a "victory dinner" with Anne and Brian, so tonight is a second try at an early bedtime. (Also, stay tuned for pictures because I took about 40 shots during the race, but that'll have to wait. By the way, all my shots taken with the new camera up until the race are now posted on flickr.) Good night!

A Quick Post

Morning weigh-in: 167#, 7.5% BF

 

Allamuchy Here I Come! I prepped the bike last night, and also loaded my camping & bike repair gear in the car; tonight is food shopping and clothes packing, with a trip to the Velodrome in between -- last race of the season, I'm meeting Anne & some friends to check out the action.

Anyway, that's my story until Monday. See ya...

Septemberers!

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 166.5#, 8.5% BF (little bit o' suppression)

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 167#, 10.5% BF (I worked out, ate right & this is the thanks I get)

 

The ride in to work Tuesday was a bit slow and congested, not too bad but you could tell there were a lot of idiots on the road. On the way home it was worse -- I kept thinking "Hmmm, full moon? Nope. Weather? Not that either..." as I dealt with all sorts of slowpokes in the left lane, aggressive yahoos in heavy traffic etc, but it all calmed down after crossing the river. Until...

 

I got through Cemetery Curve no problem, but then traffic came to a dead stop about 200 yards from my exit: there was an accident in the left lane, multiple cars right at the exit, and everyone had to get over. I got through eventually, took back roads to the supermarket, and as I passed US22 again I saw that it was closed, this time in the Westbound direction. I though "wow, crazy day" but thought no more about it.

 

This is what that accident was all about, and in a way I suppose it was probably the cause of the accident at the 13th Street Exit as well. Two people dead, one in the hospital, all for a vacuum cleaner... (I'm guessing I came through that area about 5 minutes after he did, a few different choices and it could have been me that met him head on.) Classic psychopath, some people are questioning how the appropriateness of the police response, but it doesn't really sound like an irresponsible (on the part of the police) high speed chase: this guy fled the cop who pulled him over, hopped on the highway going the wrong way, and ruined a whole bunch of lives, all in a matter of moments.

 

Anyway, did a quick towpath lap, then went out to Sette Luna for dinner with Anne. We're meeting again tonight for dinner at Christian's Spring Hotel, but she brought me some string beans and tomatoes from her garden Tuesday, and I had them with a baked ham last night (I have leftover ham). No lie, probably the best tomatoes, and best string beans, I ever ate.

 

Summer's in deceleration, there's only a month left. The weather has been very nice the past few days, very 911 you might say, hope it stays that way through the weekend since I'll be camping/racing at Allamuchy.

New Camera: First Photo!

New Camera: First Photo!
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

Surprisingly enough, this is a Linux post: cameras put extra data into the photo file, things like what type of camera took the picture, when (and, if your camera has GPS, where) the photo was taken, etc. Exif metadata is an example of this kind of thing.

My original photos are big files, with a lot more detail than is necessary for web viewing -- and the new camera produces even larger, more detailed photos -- so what I do is shrink them down before trying to upload them over my slow dialup connection. I would do this with a small program I wrote, that used standard file conversion utilities to decompress the JPEG-format file, re-scale the decompressed version and then re-compress it. Voila, a smaller file, but this method basically throws out any metadata; none of it ends up in the new file.

I really didn't worry about the metadata before, but now I want to keep the "photo taken on this date" information (as well as camera info) with the photo, since I will no longer be putting a visible date stamp on my photos. (Flickr shows this info to the right of the photo on the individual photo's display page.)

My solution is to do pretty much what flickr does when it process a photo: I used a small utility program called mogrify, part of the ImageMagick suite, which can do all these conversions while preserving the metadata. I tried it with this shot, and you can click on the photo to follow the link back flickr and see the metadata off to the right. Mission accomplished! My next task is to automate the process with a script and install it in Nautilus.

I Got A New Toy

Morning weigh-in: 167#, 9.5% BF (not great, but less scary than yesterday)

 

OK, so I'm back on the "better eat better" kick, since I've been on a downward nutritional spiral lately. Clean up my act, cook/eat at home, etc. Luckily, Porters is closed for renovations... Nothing scary, they're not pulling a Which Brew or anything, just a little downtime -- and they'll be smoke-free when they reopen Friday. Bonus!

 

Eating: Dinner last night was beans; breakfast was scrambled eggs plus two small apples.

 

Listening: I was jamming to Neko Case this morning, "Deep Red Bells" to be specific, though "jamming" may not be the right term to use here. Forget haunting, that song is just plain spooky.

 

Gadget Watch: I was listening to music on the computer this morning, since I still don't have an iPod or portable mp3 player. But, I do have a new camera now: I picked up an Olympus Stylus 850 SW last night at Dan's Camera City. Waterproof down to 10 feet, shock resistant (within reason), better and faster and more megapixels than my old camera, thought the one feature I really wanted -- instant image processing, so the picture you get is what you see the instant you press the shutter -- is only available with the DSLR cameras. Meantime, DSLR is only available on those cameras with the separate detachable lenses, like professional cameras and such, and that's definitely not what I wanted. Oh well, my new one does have a "burst mode," which is a good second choice, and I can now make underwater videos if uh, I ever want to...

 

If the weather holds I'll probably do a ride tonight, then some shopping and bike prep. Tomorrow will be yoga.

Sun Down, Moon Down, Earth Down Too

Morning weigh-in: 170.5#, 11.5% BF (oh noes!)

 

No real significance to the post's title, I was just reminded somehow of some Transcendentalist phrase from somewhere, and it came out like that. Let's see:

 

Friday, my first Friday off under the new schedule, was a chore day, though I did manage to meet Anne for lunch downtown -- she was in Easton for a brunch date with a friend. It poured in the afternoon, so I bailed on the towpath ride; dinner was a cheesesteak at Porters.

 

Saturday was my first true "selfish day" since before the Wilderness 101: I went to early morning yoga, then did an errand or two and got breakfast at the Coffee Exchange, and hit the gym for the first workout with Dawn in like a month. Home, housework, laundry and drycleaning, and then I went to Bethlehem for a haircut. (It was so nice I via via the towpath.)

 

Saturday night was a party at Michele's place -- she's one of the old Which Brew crew and lives a few blocks from me, just past the halfway point between my place and Porters. Really cool space, and a nice pleasant evening with the crew: me, Kirk, Michele, her friend Cathy & her boyfriend (don't know his name but he sings for the Plucking Grassholes), Fred & Lara, Jim & Alison, Ed, Pete, Art, Scott, the usual suspects... I stopped at Porters to buy some beer -- my contribution to the party since I wouldn't be cooking anything -- and got myself enmeshed in several conversations before I could even get to the party, but I finally arrived about an hour late. Like I said, very pleasant evening of food, drink & conversation but I had to leave early, I had big plans for Sunday.

 

I got up early yesterday, met Anne in Bethlehem around 8:30 and we carpooled up to Jim Thorpe to go whitewater rafting. What a trip! I'd never done anything like it (maybe some canoeing but that's very different), and it was a total blast. Me, Anne, her friend Bridget and another friend Allison (a different Allison) in one raft, and her friends Meredith and Dave, brother-and-sister owners (with Bridget) of a Bethlehem cafe/bookstore, and their significant others in another, plus maybe 20 other rafts full of people. The whitewater parts were crazy fun if scary -- Bridget got knocked out of the raft once, Anne twice, and we rescued one girl and put her back in the proper boat -- and in between, in the calm water we had splash fights with our baling buckets. Total fun, I'm doing that again, soon. By the way, I slept like a log last night.

Anyway, today I'm blowing off everything to go buy a camera. Tomorrow will probably be the gym, Wednesday a ride, Thursday packing and Friday (or Saturday morning) I'll be off to Allamuchy.

"Your sun's riding low, your moon's riding too,
Good night. little Arlo, good night."

Megan Gets Married

Megan
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

Congratulations!

This is a photo from 2005, before she moved out to Seattle and became "West Coast Megan;" in fact it's from her going away party. I saw Judy at Christian's spring Hotel last night, Judy whose daughter Erica was Megan's best friend growing up: Erica just got back from Seattle, where she was maid of honor -- practically the whole bridal party, apparently it was a small, nontraditional wedding -- and we got the story of how it all went down.

Moving to Pennsylvania was one of the best things I ever did, and so many other "best things I ever did" were really just consequences of that original move; I think Megan's really thrived out there from all reports, and this is one more consequence of a really good move. Go Megan!

Last Day Of The Week

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 166.5#, 10% BF
Morning weigh-in (Friday): 165.5#, 11.5% BF

UPDATE: This was a post from yesterday that I forgot to submit. The future parts of it came true pretty much the way I said.

Nothing much to say. Went out to Sette Luna with Anne last night, split a pizza (pepperoni and some exotic sausage) and an appetizer (figs stuffed with goat cheese, amazing taste/texture juxtapositions). Nice place, we sat in the main room. Tonight I'm hitting the gym, then meeting Anne and a few others at Christian's Spring.

By the way, I'm back on the population dynamics kick; I picked up that Matrix Methods book again.

Porky's XXXIV

Morning weigh-in: 167.5#, 11% BF

Rode at Jordan Park last night. I got there at around 5:45 and the place was a mob scene: the VMB ride (maybe 20 people) had just left, and what I think was the Blue Mountain Ski Club's weekly mountain bike ride was getting ready to go out (there was also a pretty big contingent of Dirt Devils in the lot and on the trails, though I'm not sure if that was a group ride or not). I got literally the last space in the parking lot. Needless to say, the woods were pretty busy too. I rode with Rudy and Dave, and we were constantly ruinning into other riders, as well as hikers and a few frisbee golfers. Trails are twisty there, and turn back on themselves a lot, so you could be far from someone via the trail, but see them only a few dozen yards away as the crow flies -- we were joking about the "Blair Witch" parody on Saturday Night Live, where the kids were running around in circles, "lost" and panicking about 10 feet from their car...

Long meeting afterward, but productive as always, and that was followed by a trip to Grumpy's BBQ for dinner. Pretty awesome, never been there. You could smell the pork and beef smoking from down the road -- they do it themselves out back -- and it tasted as good as it smelled. Decent beer selection too.

Tonight I'm skipping yoga, and going to Sette Luna for someupscale pizza with Anne.

Get-R-Done

Morning weigh-in: 168#, 4.5% BF

 

Think I'm all caught up on my sleep, it's been "good sleeping weather" as the saying goes, and the past few nights I've been doing just that, like a log. Of course the Sunday party, and the Monday night laundry/Porters thang, might have something to do with that, as well as those morning numbers... Laundry's done though, and so are a few other chores/errands that I had hanging over me; all I have left now is some shopping and housework, and I should finally be caught up to my weekend agenda.

 

Tonight is a trip out to Jordan for the VMB meeting, heading there straight from work, and I brought the bike for the pre-meeting ride. I'll be later than the regularly scheduled ride but I should be able to hook up with the others, it's not a big place.

Monday Morning Quarterback

Morning weigh-in: 166.5#, 10% BF

 

Seems like such a long time...

 

Time Flies: Wednesday I went to Christian Springs after yoga, to hang with Anne and also Kelly-Jo. We were having such a nice conversation that time started to slip by... I realized it was sort of late, thinking "oh it must be 11:00 already" and checked the time -- it was 1:00 AM. Ouch! Needless to say, Thursday morning was a tough sell.

 

Too Old To Rock & Roll? I saw Jethro Tull at Musikfest on Thursday night. I was there with my friend Bob McF (from the Which Brew crowd) who'd basically bought tickets to all the shows, and arranged for different people to join him on different nights. Pretty decent plan actually, he saw a bunch of good shows and managed to hang with the old crowd too... Unfortunately, while the show was good and we had a blast, Ian Anderson's vocals were not up to snuff -- his voice seemed unable to hit the higher notes, and while his flute playing was as forceful as ever his breathing, while singing, was like he was trying to talk and jog at the same, all breathless and wheezy/panting. Something was up, and you could tell they knew it: though they played many of their hits, the majority of the songs were instrumentals from earlier in their career, or obscure things from like the late eighties. Still, it was a decent enough show, they did rock, and like I said they played most of their hits -- except not "Aqualung," which ticked Bob off no end, since I think that was his favorite, and the reason he was there...

 

Return Of The Son Of The Fun Ride! Friday night was a Sals ride, actually starting with dinner at Tulum (a burrito place in Southside Bethlehem) and riding over to the St Luke's Hospital trailhead behind the dialysis center. Our plan was to ride through the woods and listen to the Stone Temple Pilots concert -- the acoustics for the pay shows are actually very good in some parts of the woods, since Sals is just across the river -- but there were three flats, a broken chain, snafus with lighting systems etc, and we were out a lot longer than we expected; when we got back within earshot of the concert, all we heard was talking, but they played "Plush" just as we got back to the dialysis center. Oh well, I guess we missed it... After that I hit the Tally Ho, but it was crowded and I didn't know anyone there. Burger, beer, and gone. (Got a report from someone who saw the show: they showed up like an hour late, seemed drunk and spent a lot of time yakking, and their voices were off. At least we had fun biking!)

 

Reading: Saturday I skipped morning yoga but did the coffee shop thing (saw Judy there) and then hit the gym, and that night I went to Christian's Spring Hotel to hang with Anne and her sisters . It was a beautiful day, so of course I spent a good portion of the afternoon, between the gym and dinner out, at home reading -- I finished Gods Behaving Badly, and am now back on Blindness, both loaners from Anne.

 

My Little Chickadee: I heard some birds chirping rather loudly while I was hanging at home Saturday, didn't think anything of it but when I went to the bathroom I passed the kitchen and saw two little finches or something, sparrows, in the kitchen, on the windowsill, cheeping at about a dozen of the same kind of bird right outside. I opened the window as my new friends flew around the room, then eventually got one of them to fly out -- the other one hit the window and fell to the ground, stunned, and scooted under the fridge when I tried to grab it. It hid itself up in the works, behind motor/compressor etc, I could barely see it with a flashlight and couldn't get it out (I tried a broomstick), so I opened the window and left the room, figuring he'd calm down and eventually find the window on his own.

 

I went in about an hour later and he seemed gone, so I shut the window and went back to reading, but just as I was about to hop int the shower (passing the kitchen again on the way to the bathroom) I heard loud cheeping and found my friend back on the windowsill -- apparently he took longer to calm down than I thought. This time he managed to find the window when I opened it, and so I was only a little late to dinner.

 

Yesterday I went on a breakfast ride, rolling down to the Quadrant for brunch (where I saw Kirk and also Michele) before doing the towpath. My plan was to hit Sals, but I only got to Freemansburg when the sky started looking ominous, so I turned around. Home, shower during the storm, and out to Emmaus for Heath's surprise party -- he's relocating to Utah, and his brother Hans threw a going-away party for him. Only a few peeps there I knew but it was nice. I was whooped when I got back, so I hit the sack early last night. So now I'm essentially caught up here...

 

Tonight is drycleaning, yoga, laundry, and shopping.

The Roar Of A Predator So Absolute

Morning weigh-in: 166#, 8.5% BF

 

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration! A-and also the anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima, so here is your Obligatory Pynchon Quote:

 

"At the instant it happened, the pale Virgin was rising in the east, head, shoulders, breasts, 17 degrees minutes down to her maidenhead at the horizon. A few doomed Japanese knew of her as some Western deity. She loomed in the eastern sky gazing down at the city about to be sacrificed. The sun was in Leo. The fireburst came in roaring and sovereign..." -- from Gravity's Rainbow

 

Anyway, rode the benchmark with Anne last night after work, then had a little more of that roast pork loin. Tonight is yoga, then probably Christian's Spring Hotel for dinner.

 

So if you see my birds flying on the way past people crying, just reach over into my pocket, take the paper and written on it's what to do, it's up to you... Ah, Transfiguration...

Godzilla, Come To Trample Spoorless Your White-Market of Solace

Morning weigh-in: 168.5#, 7.5% BF (wow)

 

Goodbye Norma Jean: On this date in 1962, Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her home.

 

Favorites, Old And New: When Anne's daughter was young, she had a little friend who used to live next door to Judy -- and now he's the author of one of my new favorite webcomics, xkcd. I was just looking at the forums on his site, and found this thread -- though it's a skewed sample, and I can't claim "small world." But those kids are all right...

 

Pictures of Lilly (ba da-da da, da da)

Lilly, O Lilly! (ba da-da da, da da)

 

Salsa Surfadelic, Baby!

Morning weigh-in: 162.5#, 8.5% BF

 

Saturday was a bit of a wash, as the Fell Mountain ride got canceled/postponed due to weather, and I used the time for laundry & cleaning (also morning yoga), but yesterday was beautiful so I spent it outdoors: downtown to The Quadrant for breakfast, then the towpath to Sals for a lap, where I hooked up with "Spanky," a bunch of dudes from Philly, and Keith and John P; from there I rode over to Musikfest (it was on the way home). I caught a bunch of surf bands -- though once again I missed the Coffin Daggers -- and eventually found myself sitting with Lee and Judy. I made, or rather finalized, plans to return later, and took the towpath home around 5:00.

 

I was showered and back at Plaza Tropicale by 7:00. I hooked up with Anne, and Lee & Judy again, and eventually Peter R and Kelly-Jo, as well as Judy's future son-in-law and his family: we were all there to see Judy's daughter Erica, salsa dancer ("salsita?") extraordinaire and part of a local dance troupe, perform in between "heats" at an amateur salsa competition. The competition was fun (but a bit long, and the emcee's repetitive repartee didn't help), and the salsa demos by the younger kids was cute, but I was just totally blown away by Erica's group -- I mean, I knew she was good, I've seen videos, but this was a quantum leap above what I expected. Anyway, a fun evening and I was glad I went.

 

Meantime, it was a bit of a rough morning, we are now officially on our new "gas-saving" schedule, and I had to be here a half hour earlier than usual -- staying late a half hour too so it'll be a long day every day until I get used to this. The Fridays off will be nice though...

 

Tonight is yoga, and I have a pork loin cooking in the crock pot for tonight.

One Seventeen

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 164.5%, 7.5% BF

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 166.5#, 9.5% BF

Morning weigh-in (Friday): 165.5#, 9.5% BF

 

So, uh...

 

Rode the benchmark ride last night, did it in 1:17 for an 18.7 mph average -- that included city traffic and a long stretch of major road construction on Bushkill drive. I didn't feel particularly good, but going fast felt easy... Why the fuck couldn't I have been riding like that last Saturday? (One reason: last Saturday my strategy was to attack the hills, figuring that a slight speed gain at low speeds would chip away the most time -- I still think this is true, at least in terms of math and theory, but in practice I think I might have worn myself down too early in the race, leaving me vulnerable in the later, also-time-eating singletrack sections. The big test on "the benchmark" is Upper Mud Run Road, and I went up that no faster than usual.)

 

Other than that, lets see: rode Tuesday, a nice easy road ride, maybe 20 miles or so. I stopped in at Brian's house, found him watching TV on a perfectly nice day -- turns out he'd had another heart operation and was required to take it easy for a while. Hopefully this one -- sort of like cauterizing aberrant cells to get his heart beating normally again -- will be the procedure that works.

 

Wednesday was yoga with Carmen, and I totally felt my recent lack of practice. That's bad, because the "old Carmen" is back, and her classes are starting to get tough again.

 

Last night after the ride (and after a little cleaning/laundry) I went down to Porters, which was this week's Christian's Spring Hotel: me, Anne, Joe & Sally, Judy, Lee, Mike, and Larry & K-Jo, we had a big table in the back room. That Sally had some hilarious stories... Most everyone else left early, but Anne and I stuck around to catch some of the open mic show.

 

Maria was singing, and I pointed out how she sometimes would get this very serious, daggers-shooting-from-her-eyes look; this morphed into a story about seeing Laurie Anderson a few years ago, where she told a story about her dog, which in turn morphed into a story about 9-11, and she didn't say it, but her eyes were daggers by the end, as if to say "this happened to me and my friends, fuck you for trying to co-opt it into your little games."

 

Tonight is the towpath, maybe the Delaware one if it's been fixed enough to ride, followed by sushi downtown.

Thermidor Number Nine

Morning weigh-in: 166.5#, 9.5% BF

So OK, the anniversary of the collapse of The Terror and the death of Robespierre were over the weekend. I've been saving that blog post title for a while and damn if I wasn't going to use it...

Did the beginner yoga class last night, it was about all I could handle but my body feels a lot better today. Dinner was cereal (sigh), left over from the camping trip. Tonight I'll probably have a pork loin as long as 1) it thaws out in time, and 2) I don't go to ride Sals. My plan is to do a road ride though, so I should be good.

Meantime, I have to come up with a new chili recipe for the Bash. I think I'll lean more towards pork, potatoes and black beans, do a little experimenting over the next few weeks.

101: Done, And Done!

Morning weigh-in: 169#, 7% BF

 

Wilderness 101: Well it's done, and though it was not as well-done as I'd like, I did see some improvement: my "aim for the stars" goal was to break 10 hours, and my "aim for the stars and maybe hit the moon" goal was, say, breaking 11 hours. My actual time was 11:59:54, so I (barely!) broke 12 hours, but that was a half hour faster than in 2004, the last time I did this. Aim for the stars, miss the moon, but I at least landed in the top of the tree...

 

Drove down Friday night and hooked up with Greg & Judy, and Eric B, at the campsite Greg reserved for us. (Joe & Sue were at the same campground, but they were in their pop-up camper while we were out in the boondocks at a primitive tent site. We saw them in the morning.) I won't get into the blow-by-blow, mile-by-mile or anything, but the race itself was really nice. It started around 7:00 AM Saturday, with a very similar course to the one they ran last time I was there: the first 40 miles or so were mostly (dirt/gravel) Forest Service roads, there were a few really big hills between miles 40 and 60, and then just over half of the remaining course was singletrack. The weather was primo, terrain was in great shape, you couldn't have asked for better conditions -- I joked with Joe afterward that, except for my time, I had a great race.

 

(I did crash once though: I came across a guy walking one rocky downhill, had to dismount to get past him, and hooked my bike shorts on the nose of my seat when I got back on. Bouncing through the rocks, trying to unhook my shorts without mooning anyone, I eventually went over the bars. I continued down the hill sans bike for a ways, but at least I still had my shorts on.)

 

The guys I went down with all had great days: Greg broke 11 hours with a time of maybe 10:50, Eric had 10:15 (wow!) or so, and Joe got 9:45. (Congratulations, you lurkers! I'm not giving up the Camelback, but I may have to take up sailing.) They were waiting for me at the finish when I arrived; I got & filled my commemorative pint glass -- I love mountain bike races -- showered, changed, grabbed some dinner and joined them to watch the festivities. We stayed until the last rider came through and the kegs were emptied -- something I don't remember from last time, three half barrels should have been plenty for a bunch of exhausted racers, but there were some West Virgina boys doing "keg stands" and they made short work of the beer. Anyway, party over, back to the campsite where I slept like I was dead. Yesterday I drove home & took care of the camping gear, then spent most of the day eating (Quadrant, Porters, Taco Bell) and sleeping.

 

Tonight is yoga (I am still kind of sore), then tomorrow I may do an easy road ride.

Off Again

Off from work, and off on my next big adventure: I'm leaving for the Wilderness 101 in a few hours, just as soon as I get all my weekend errands/chores done, pack for a weekend of camping etc, and go for my final pre-race prep ride. No morning weigh-in, sorry I forgot but yesterday's was like 166.5# or something.

A Brain Teaser: I'm getting my next mug at Porters.There are 60 you have to do to earn it, in no particular order but I decided to do all the squares in order -- when I go over 60 I'll just loop over again, and if any number is a duplicate I'll skip it. Thus: 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 21, etc... My question is, will this get me all the beers on the list, or are there numbers in there that will never be picked? (Hint: I tried this using an octave script, letting the numbers go up to about 1000, and only got 12 unique hits. I also tried it for different list sizes; none of them were filled completely. I suspect it's not possible to fill the list, but can't prove it.) Let me know what you think when I get back, and don't forget to show your work!

Yo later. Wish me luck.

You're Late, Where Ya Been?

No morning weigh-in! I forgot my belt and work badge too, so I'm shambling around with a "Visitor" badge as my pants droop, fit in well with the rest of the absent-minded engineers walking around here...

 

By the way, we are about to go to a 4-day work week (every other week) here, on a trial basis to save commuting costs. Starting in August we do four 9-hour days, one 8-hour Friday, four more 9-hour days the next week with Friday off, then we repeat the two week cycle. Our Houston office has been doing this for years; we'll see how it works out here.

 

Willy From The Auction: I was in Porter's the other day, the only seat was next to Donny so there I sat. He was voluble as always, and repetitive, and he monopolized my time and attention but I didn't really mind. One thing that caught my ear though, was him telling me that he never got back that CD he lent me -- I couldn't find him so I left it at Which Brew, knowing he would stop in. The girls assured me (at the time, months ago) that they gave it back to him, but now I hear that that might not be the case. Hmmmm...

 

I Know a Place: Speaking of Porter's, check out their new website. Nice!

 

Last night was dinner with Anne at CSH, and we also saw Judy, and Mike, and CSH regulars Don & Nancy as well as Rich and Greg with Greg's kids -- those guys were coming back from riding Jacobsburg. (We were going to do a road ride, but it was pouring, everywhere except the 'burg apparently.) Tonight is yoga.

 

So, Where Were We...

Morning weigh-in: 164.5#, 10% BF

 

Oh yes, weekend report:

 

Friday night I rode with Larry. Not bad, I took out the singlespeed and just hamster-legged my way down the towpath and back. Porters for dinner, saw KEF and knocked some more beers off my punch list; I am now about a third of the way towards my 4th mug there.

 

Saturday was early morning yoga, then breakfast at the coffee shop, and then I was off to Bethlehem for the rest of the day. Picked up my bike (they just replaced the chainstay, not the whole swingarm), got my haircut, and hit Sals where the conditions were great but it was stinking hot. Home, laundry, then I met Anne for a light dinner -- she just got back from Tennessee (by car), wasn't exhausted or anything but we blew off that party anyway, show wasn't supposed to even start before 11:00 PM...

 

Sunday I hung with Anne, checked out "her" coffee shop (actually it was just Wired in Bethlehem; she has another one she goes to on Southside, her more regular place), did the "dog exchange" and went up to Jacobsburg, spent the afternoon walking and exploring Bushkill Creek. Fish in the water, bugs and crayfish under the rocks, many giant tadpoles, a perfect way to spend a hot summer day. Dinner was a burger at Bethlehem Brew Works.

 

Tonight I'm doing yoga, then getting my act together for next weekend, at least in terms of food shopping.

Here Comes Another Weekend

Morning weigh-in: 167#, 9.5% BF

 

My ride got skunked last night, when an end-of-the-world thunderstorm came pouring down just as I got home from work. I  guess I was lucky in the timing, but the sky (and the radar) was so ominous I probably would have skipped the ride anyway. I played on the computer for a while instead, but then that got knocked out, so I did a few chores before going to gain weight over at Christian's Spring Hotel, hanging with Judy, and also Joe & Sally. Interesting, Sally talked about Joe having a journal when they first met: he let her read it and she dove in, expecting to find all sorts of juicy details, but it was mostly where he went each day, what he did, what he had to eat etc. I could only laugh, it sounded so familiar.

 

I did the Porter's "open mic night" thing after that, stopped in for a bit to punch my ticket. I was sitting next to some guy, familiar dude, pretty regular there & a mug club member, and we got to talking. He asked me about how I was choosing my beers and I told him "well last time I picked Fibonacci numbers modulo 60, but this time I'm just doing the squares in sequence, modulo 60 of course."

 

Score! Turns out he was a math major in college, and in fact used to work as a cryptographer for the NSA years ago. Much geeky conversation followed...

 

Doing the towpath tonight on the singlespeed, then hitting Porters again to see KEF. The Turner is ready, so I'll be picking that up tomorrow after yoga, then while I'm in Bethlehem I'll get a haircut and go ride Sals... I saw my barber last night at CSH; she's throwing a party tomorrow night and I got the invite, but I'll be hanging with Anne tomorrow... I expect she'll be a little tired from driving across the country, so we'll see.

 

 

 

Yes Anastasia

Morning weigh-in: 164.5#, 8.5% BF

 

So the bike's at the shop, getting the new swingarm (from that spare frame I bought, in some random act of foresight, off Doug a few years ago) installed, my bike box is loaned out, the Chain Gang meeting went swimmingly, and tonight I guess I'll be hitting the road for a nice long hill workout.

 

Listening: Tori Amos's Little Earthquakes. I was going to name this post "Tear In Your Hand" because I keep listening to that song -- it reminds me of driving past the Mount Storm Lake & power plant on the way to Canaan -- but then I found out that today is the anniversary of the Romanoff family execution, so I went with my all-time favorite T.A. song, even if it's on Under the Pink. (Strangely enough, I just found out today what "me and Neil will be hanging with the Dream King" actually means.)

 

Meantime Anne should be back this weekend. I keep getting updates about her vacation in the Smokies; I'm glad she's having fun but but I do miss her. I'll probably hit Christian's Spring Hotel for dinner tonight, but it just won't be the same...

God Bless You, Magical Realism!

Morning weigh-in: 162.5#, 8.5% BF

 

Doop-de-doo, oh I wonder what's new... Rode last night at Allamuchy, 19 hard miles in about 3 hours, and I broke my frame. Swingarm, right chainstay just behind the pivot, snapped it right in two. It's a problem I can solve easily and quickly enough, but -- wow.

 

(The title of today's post refers something I thought late in the ride, when I looked up from the dark woods, through the canopy to the still-light sky. Pure magic.)

 

Tonight I'll be dealing with the bike, and will also be going to the Chain Gang meeting. Tomorrow will more than likely be a road ride, and Friday will be the towpath on the singlespeed.

 

 

Things Been Gettin Quiet Round Here Lately

Morning weigh-in (Monday): 167.5#, 8% BF

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 164.5#, 10% BF

 

I had a pretty big post planned for yesterday to cover all the things that happened this weekend -- such as K-Jo's "Virtual Which Brew" picnic (with subsequent trip to Pearly Baker's) on Friday night, Saturday's all-day mountain bike ride (with Eurostyle pit stops at various outdoor cafes), and Heritage Day festivities (including Paul & Mary's party) on Sunday -- but it got so big and unwieldy I decided to skip it. Maybe I'll talk about different parts of this later in the week.

 

One thing I'll mention: Here's a plug for a friend's new venture, seen on a t-shirt (the logo, not the salsa), and soon to be found on finer chips everywhere.

 

Anyway, it was a good weekend, but things are settled back down now. Last night was a total rest day (bike maintenance, computer chores, light housework), and tonight I'm hitting Allamuchy rather than the usual Tuesday Night Follies -- I need as much offroad practice as I can get; the Wilderness 101 is now less than 2 weeks away. Dinner will probably be a turkey sub somewhere.

 

I posted few photos from last weekend (like, Independence Day Weekend), rides, belly dancers etc, but things are going to get quiet over at flickr for a while too: the camera finally died for real, I have no shots from this past weekend, and now I have to do my research & get a new gadget...

 

Finally! Well it looks like Roast Beef and Molly are finally hitched.