Let's Try This Again

Morning weigh-in: 174#, 13% BF

 

It's Crunch Time: My Wilderness 101 training is starting to come down to the wire, and I really do not feel ready. Looking at my training logs (via Garmin Connect), I have to say that, if I don't reach my goals at the 101, I blew it basically back in April and May:

 

Month     Miles       Training Time

Feb        130.9       15:49:45
Mar        319.8       34:16:19
Apr        261.8       26:09:03
May       276.4       26:24:48
Jun        258.2       27:04:06

 

(June was a special case, since I spent two weeks prepping for, and recovering from, Big Bear -- where I first noticed that I was in trouble.)

 

The numbers don't really look that bad, actually, but there is a dip of about 20% in both miles and time from my original march statement of intention. Rain, and refusal to ride in it? Other slacking? I know that at least some of it is due to offroad rather than road training, which is a shame since I've been pushing the road miles (and road hills) these past two weeks, and already see an improvement.

 

With the race only about 3 weeks away, it's really too late to do anything new; I'll just have to continue the way I'm going and hope for the best. I think my "biggest bang for the buck" at this point ,is to try to lose some weight: if I can get below 170 lbs by race day I'll be a lot happier -- I'm coming into this about ten pounds heavier than I weighed last year.

 

Last night, by the way, was a really nice ride at Sals. Pedals worked, I tightened the headset and that stopped its weirdness, and trail conditions were primo. Despite what I said above, I think I'll ride there again tonight.

UPDATE: wrote this at lunch but only posted it now at night. Sals was good, and so was Brew Works...

 

 

 

Mission Aborted

Morning weigh-in: 174.5#, 12% BF

 

Better Luck Next Time: I was set to ride Sals last night (once I finished cleaning/lubricating the bike after Friday's adventure), but on the way over I was having trouble staying clipped in to the left pedal: nothing looked wrong with either the pedal or the cleat, but I'd pop out at odd and inopportune moments. Not fun, possibly dangerous, I turned around after getting partway down the Orange ("Roller Toaster") trail. I can't be sure, but I suspect that the pedal was the offending part, since it took a beating on Friday, and the shoes/cleats worked just fine on Sunday's road ride. I got home, mowed the lawn (still no photo evidence, heh heh), and after dinner I replaced the pedals with the somewhat newer ones on the singlespeed -- the right pedal came off just fine, but the left one was sort of seized on to the crank and put up a struggle; I also noticed that the spindle bearing was pretty gummed up (and there were a few holes knocked in the housing for water to get in too), so I think the pedal was at the end of its useful life. That's my dominant foot, I guess it just takes more of a beating than the right pedal...

 

(Dinner, by the way, was awesome: Anne grabbed a bunch of string beans from the garden and steamed them, and we had cheese and avocado sandwiches with piles and piles of string beans.)

 

That's Living: Sunday's ride worked out a little better. Anne and I rode through the Durham township area (my recent stomping grounds) to Reigelsville, and then down to Milford on the Jersey side, then we rode back to the Reigelsville Inn where we met Larry who rode down the towpath from Easton. Outdoor seating by the canal, some lunch -- menu was mostly seafood so I just had bread, but it was good bread -- and a couple of Magic Hats, and finally we made our way back to Bethlehem via similar Bucks County back roads. Sunny day, life was good on Sunday... We had dinner outside too, at Brew Works.

 

Firecracker: No ride Saturday, but Anne and I went to her mom's house for a BBQ with all her brothers and sisters and their families. Good times, spent mostly stuffing face (rather than painting the porch, which we arrived too late to help with). We hung out most of the day and checked out the town fair, but skipped the Jim Thorpe fireworks, opting to escape before the roads got crowded, and got home in time to catch the Bethlehem ones from the porch steps. (Stay tuned for photos.)

 

A Short Epic: Here's a link to Friday's ride. I'll post pictures for this event soon as well.

 

Tonight I'll be trying for a ride, probably on the road, if the rain holds off.

That Was The Day That Was

Well, here it is: the 4th of July, and we are about to head up to Anne's mom's house for some BBQ, fireworks -- and a little porch painting...

We were up there yesterday too. I was riding, and met Anne at her mom's house afterward. Breakfast at Blue Sky, VMB ride on Green Blaze (22 people, 15 miles in 4 hours, mud, blood, sweat, rain and a dip in the lake), JT visit, then Tulum and a little First Friday before I totally ran out of steam. Yeah it was good!

And now I'm off to do at least some of it again. See ya!

Like Pina Coladas And Getting Caught In The Rain

Morning weigh-in: 173#, 12% BF

 

Well, today marks the one-year anniversary of "Anne and me" as an actual relationship. Time flies when you're having fun, nyuk nyuk...

 

(This is what I wrote two years ago, and this was three years ago, give or take.)

 

I did a singlespeed ride on the towpath last night, moderate pace (as far as my heart was concerned, though my legs were spinning away like hamsters), out to my turnaround point at the 3rd St bridge in Easton and back, just under 2 hours. The post-ride plan was to stay in, but I got a text from Doug & Lori, who also did a towpath ride on the tandem, and who were outside at Brew Works having dinner when they saw Anne ride by (she got home just as I did, basically) and invited us over.

 

Once again, a most pleasant evening, hanging out on Main Street. A couple of summer beers (Blueberry Belch, Hefeweizen), conversation, and people watching, and then we saw Heidi who told us that Greg and the VMB post-ride crew was inside -- they couldn't come out because outdoor seating was closed by then, but we went in to visit by ones and twos. The weather was very pleasant, but there was lightning to the south and eventually a bit of a drizzle, so D&L took off and A&I went inside. We eventually made our escape, and had to ride home in the rain, which was surprisingly pleasant.

 

It poured all night, which makes for good sleeping weather, but when I left for work I noticed that my car's rear windows had been open all night in the rain. Doh!

 

Get em while they're not extinct: Had a banana with breakfast, and two with lunch. Tra la la, la-la la la...

 

Tonight is the gym, then I'm meeting Anne at Sette Luna for dinner with Toby & Erika and Judy.

Sometimes The Light Don't Shine

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 173.5# 12% BF

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 175.5# 12.5% BF

 

Playing: Fun ride Monday night, playing with my new toys: I developed this route at MapMyRide, downloaded it into my Garmin and tried following it, but I had a late start and had to cut things a bit short. Still, and despite a disappointing average speed (hey it was hilly!), I had a great time. Beautiful night too, by the way, blue skies and perfect temperature.

 

(I've been doing a lot of exploring over that area lately, trying to develop some new bike routes as well as a back way to work. I drove in via the bridge in Milford yesterday, got semi-lost -- there's one crucial section of my route, that apparently is no longer a road though it's on all the maps -- and went home pretty much the same way. Got semi-lost again, looking for that non-road, and got home about 15 minutes late -- I found out this morning that the highway flooded in that crazy storm last night, and the backup, on my normal route, would have been more than an hour.)

 

Listening: I maxxed out my eMusic download quota for the month of June, first time I did that in a while. I downloaded the new Dinosaur Jr album just the other day, and also new albums by Deer Tick -- never heard of them but loved the name -- and Japandroids. These last two were new to me but popped up in my "based on what you already downloaded you'll also like these" list; Deer Tick's pretty country, while the Japandroids are more grunge/garage/twee, but both are good. I think the computer knows my taste!

Reading: Open Source GIS: A GRASS GIS Approach. Yeah, nerdvana, and I'm back to playing with GRASS. We'll see where it leads.

 

I skipped riding last night and I need the miles, so tonight I'll be hitting the road again -- barring another torrential downpour, in which case I'll be doing the usual Wednesday night yoga thang.

 

These Things Come In Threes

RIP Michael Jackson: I was never much of a fan (though I did watch the cartoon as a kid), and I would have been just fine if I never heard "Billie Jean" or "Thriller" ever again but they're all over the airwaves... Here is the best elegy so far. So sad in so many ways.

 

RIP Farrah Fawcett: I didn't have the poster, but I think my brother Chris did -- I was always more of a Kate Jackson fan myself, but she turned out to be a really good actress after the Charlie's Angels days. She wasn't as young as Michael Jackson but this is still a bummer.

 

Shine On, Diamond Steve: A high school friend passed away on Tuesday. I still don't know much about the circumstances, but Steve had had health problems recently, maybe diabetes or something, and he was a guy who wasn't likely to walk away from his appetites... Best guitarist that I've ever known personally.

 

A Most Pleasant Interlude

Morning weigh-in: 174.5#, 11% BF

 

Anne and I were planning to ride the towpath yesterday, when we got a call from Doug: he was wondering what we were doing because he wanted to ride as well. Long story short, he came over and we rode down to Riverside Park in Easton. Sometimes fast, sometimes mellow but it was a really nice social ride. The path is amazingly green right now too, very pretty.

 

Tonight I'm riding Fiddler's Elbow before the gym, then meeting Anne and the post-knitting crowd (ie her friends Deb and Donna) at Brew Works. Still didn't post those turtle pictures...

The Itch

Morning weigh-in: 176.5, 13% BF

 

Interesting weekend, not much riding...

 

We hit Porters on Thursday night, and saw The Doug Hawke Experience as well as a boatload of the crowds old (Arnie, Rathi, Dave, Bob, Doug & Lori), and new (Judy, Donna).

 

Friday I got in a short ride, maybe 15 miles (and still feeling the effects of the previous weekend) in between chores, then we took off for NJ for Lara's birthday BBQ -- yet more of the old WB crowd, and also some of the yoga/bellydance crowd. Good times, and once again there was an impromptu magic show.

 

Saturday was to be Greg's long road ride, but I took a look at the radar and decided against it. I went to Anne's yoga class instead, then we hung out at Wired for a big chunk of the afternoon. (I got some more done on that MTO program, and finally wrote a makefile for it.) After that we caught a movie (Last Call) at the film festival. Dinner was at the Tally Ho with Donna & Joe, and then we all met Doug & Lori at the Brew Works.

 

Sunday was kind of mellow, but then the sun came out and we took a walk along the canal. I took a bunch of pictures, mostly of turtles (including one huge snapper); I'll probably post them in a day or two, so stay tuned. Dinner was at the Brew works.

 

I was pretty tired yesterday despite not doing much, mainly because I took a bunch of benadryl. Skin problems, eczema sort of simmering along for a month or so, and it really exploded while camping last weekend -- poison ivy? -- then got worse over the past week.

 

Meanwhile: We hadn't seen Anne's friend Deb in a few days, then Saturday afternoon she reappeared on the scene, telling a tale of an insect bite, hives and incipient anaphylactic shock, and driving herself to the hospital -- she did the wrong thing there, but she did one thing right: she said she took benadryl, and a little lightbulb went off over my head... I spent all day yesteerday feeling doped up and lethargic, but the skin is doing much better now.

 

Tonight will hopefully be a towpath ride on the singlespeed, and tomorrow I think I'll bring the road bike to work, and ride before hitting the gym.

Every Angel Is Terror

Wow. Saw Metropolis last night, a restored and almost-complete version, with live score provided by Sports For Kin. That was opening night for the Southside Film Festival, and I think it's going to be hard to top -- that might have been the Lehigh Valley's cultural highlight of the season.

 

Anne and I also went to the opening-night party at Home & Planet, but it was way crowded (and I hadn't had dinner), so we slipped off to Lehigh Pizza, grabbed a bite before following the sounds of bagpipes (they had a bagpipe procession with police escort) over to the Packer Chapel at Lehigh -- which is a "chapel" in the sense that the summer mansions at Newport are "cottages;" this thing was a serious gothic pile -- where the movie was shown. Lotta people there, and Opening Night (the party as well as the show) was like a "who's who:" Anne and I walked over to the party with Scott and his brother, and we ran into Donna, and Deb & James, and also Nick & Alison, and Trevor & Christie, and some people Anne knew, und so weiter...

 

I won't do too much of a movie review, except to say that the "almost original" version was longer and very different from the one I have on VCR, some scenes that were added are crucial to character development, and to just plain moving the plot forward. The movie makes a lot more sense now. Strange to see so many new cultural touchstones this time around too: Robot-Maria as "whore of Babylon" (never noticed that before), the worker city flooding like something out of Male Fantasies, and oh! that Gernsback Continuum architecture... The whole event was a Pynchonian nerdgasm.

 

The musical performance was nothing short of amazing, a "shoegazer/post-rock" ensemble made even better by the cathedral acoustics. I said it before and I'll say it again: this was a big deal.

 

Another Year, Another Nap At Sideling Hill

Morning weigh-in: 175.5#, 10.5% BF

 

Jeez, you go away for a few days, and the world falls apart... (and meanwhile, back in the USA).

 

Also: Imipolex!!

 

Well, last weekend was the 24 Hours of Big Bear. I took off Friday and left about noon (OK, noonish), and met up with the rest of the Sid's Bikes crew a little after 5:30 -- they fielded three teams, which made for a pretty big campsite -- then camped, raced, camped and raced (and camped and raced) some more, and then hit the road Sunday afternoon. Home by 7:00 or so, but I am just now starting to recover...

 

THE TEAMS

 

Lactose Intolerant: me, team leader Steve, Brett, Christian, and Ken. We were really just out for fun; as long as we didn't get hurt, or come in dead last or anything, it was all good.

 

Mud Sweat and Gears: these were mainly Lehigh Valley people (Jeff & Dave K were the two I know) plus Sid's sponsored racer -- and current NJ champ in his age group -- Dave C.

 

Sid's Bikes And Beer: My old co-worker Scott and some Sids team racers. These guys were fast.

 

THE COURSE

 

Here is the official map, which looks like an early version, not quite the final racecourse as it was laid out. The course was just about 13 miles long, with maybe 1600 feet of climbing, and it was all singletrack. Unlike the last time I was there (2007), recent weather had been very wet, and big chunks of the course were slippery slop or peanut butter -- in other words, classic West Virginia.

 

THE RACE ITSELF

 

I personally was disappointed with my three laps (here, here, and here), and suspect that it was because things were slightly more technical than I was expecting, and I was skunked by what I call "the over/under," where I lost a lot of time floundering on stuff only slightly beyond my ability to handle well, mostly the slippery rocky uphills. (In 2007 the course was only slightly easier, and I swear I was flying around it that year.) Oh well, I wasn't the fastest on the team, but I also wasn't the slowest; I pulled my weight and I was pretty much the "mid-pack Sport-class finisher" I always was, so I guess it was OK. As a test and a wake-up call for the Wilderness 101, however, I'd say I have to really build up my high-intensity endurance, and I better do it soon...

 

EPILOGUE

 

Anyway, I finished my last lap around 2:00, chomped a couple of sandwiches and said my goodbyes (smart move: I packed up before my last lap), and took off. It all caught up with me about an hour later, and so (once again) I pulled into the Sideling Hill exhibit area and took a power nap. Back on the road, home by 8:00 or so -- got there just after Anne finished some major garden chores, talk about timing -- and dinner at Brew Works. Ta-Da!

 

I've been resting and cleaning up since, and tonight I'm seeing Metropolis (with a live band for the soundtrack) on the big screen at the Southside Film Festival.

 

 

 

Shuffle On Down To Big Bear

Morning weigh-in: 175#, 11% BF

 

Oh well, back to weekly spewing -- which astute between-the-lines readers know, means that the weight's gone back up... it also means I've been very busy at work, and also at home, and yadda yadda, but -- well, there you have it: the real reason. Meantime though, I updated photos last night, and there are a lot of new entries from recent events: Ben's "Russian Party" (a week ago Sunday),  Brian's surprise 50th birthday party (last Saturday), the Talking Heads tribute (Saturday night), and a Jim Thorpe ride with Anne on Sunday. Those pictures are probably all I'm going to say about those events, so go check them out!

 

The house is suddenly very quiet again. Emmi left for Knoxville on Sunday, but Ben's girlfriend visited for a few days, and some of his school friends have been coming around, so things stayed fairly lively until last night, when Ben left for school (and ultimately St Petersburg, Russia -- he won't be home again until August of next year). I guess "bittersweet" could describe the mood last night.

 

I haven't been getting much riding in this week, since most of my time has been spent prepping for the race this weekend. My bike is now ready (and I hope I am too), I have found and and transferred all my camping gear from the apartment to Anne's basement, and now all that's left is tossing it into the car and hitting the road tomorrow morning -- the rest of my team should be down there by the time I arrive. Stay tuned for stories and pictures...

Errata

Morning weigh-in: 173#, 13% BF

 

An Observation: I had a lot of problems the other day at Round Valley, mostly in the technical stuff and especially at the beginning, but when I got to the Anaerobic Detour climb I went right up it, like "why was this ever a problem?" (That may be an exaggeration.) I may have not been warmed up or whatever, or maybe not used to the rocks yet, but I think that this ride, plus my performance last Friday, at Sals on the greasy rocks, tells me where I should put the training emphasis over the final two months...

 

New Photos: I posted a few more the other night, mostly my "keepers" from the wedding. Go check them out! I will have more, from Sunday's "Borscht and Natasha" soiree for Ben.

 

Wow, A First: Playing with that MTO program, I decided to add some parts to it. I added a bunch of stuff, maybe an hour's worth of coding over the past week, then last night I put some finishing touches on and -- the damn thing compiled, and ran correctly, on the first try! I take what triumphs I can get...

 

We stayed in last night, and feasted on pork & sauerkraut. Budget concerns, weight concerns, and a butt-whipping at yoga made that one a no-brainer for me, but Anne's also still fighting that cold -- I am too, but she really got hit a lot harder -- and she had an early morning trip to Philly on the agenda. She and Emmi were NetFlixxing their way through a season of "Monk," Ben and Dan were having a college-style bull session on the porch, and I was stationed at my laptop.

 

Tonight is the gym, followed (maybe) by a walk down Main Street to check out the "Tunes At Twilight" concert, starring Dan DeChellis. Tomorrow I have off, but it's supposed to be rainy.

Cushetunk Smackdown

Morning weigh-in: 173#, 12.5% BF

 

A little bit o' suppression weight loss there, after last night's Round Valley ride. I was going to do an out-and-back, but various problems -- including a serious lack of freshness or strength or whatever, but also some mechanicals and such like -- induced me to make it a loop. The place still kicks my ass...

 

Dinner was a taco at Brew Works, where the post-knitting crowd was a bit somber: Anne's got the same cold I have (except maybe worse), and her friend Deb got the word from the vet yesterday, that one of her cats must be put down because it has cancer. (There was also this drunk fat guy hitting on her, which didn't help things.) It was an early night, and we were home by 10:30 or so. Tonight is yoga (for me), then an evening at home.

 

Salad Days

Morning weigh-in: 176#, 11% BF

 

I haven't actually been eating any salads lately (see weight above), it's just for the last few days, that the world outside my work window has looked like a huge cauldron of steamed greens...

 

Wedding Cake: Erika's wedding was last Saturday. Awesome party, and I took 114 pictures (and a few videos) -- I'll post the keepers within a few days. Judy made the food (and she's a known good cook but even so it was all shockingly good), Kelly Jo and Arvids catered, and Eamon bartended, and Ben DJ'ed, and the rest of us partied... Anne and I got there hours early so she could put the finishing touches on the cake, and it was beautiful, but in the end some kid bumped into the table, knocked some layers over and it was only fit for eating after that. Nom nom nom... Anne took it in stride, but it was a shame that Toby & Erika couldn't see it in its glory, luckily I have pictures.

 

One neat surprise was a cameo by West Coast Megan, who flew out to be at her best friend's wedding.

 

Let Them Eat SS Video Linux: I took some video at the wedding, but held my camera sideways for a more upright shot. Now I have sideways video, that I need to rotate -- what to do? What I did do was download MEncoder, and use that to rotate the videos. I have no other video editing tools, and really know nothing about video. Hmmmm, new project?

 

The rest of the (four day!) holiday weekend was taken up with riding, BBQ's, and sleeping. I got my Turner back from the shop, ready (I hope) for Big Bear, so tonight I'll be riding -- for the first time this week-- eating/drinking, and then sleeping. Tomorrow is yoga, and a visit to Anne's brother Joe.

How's That Function?

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 173.5#, 6% BF (WTF?)
Morning weigh-in (Friday): 175.5#, 12% BF

 

Blog Watch: I truly love Doghouse Riley, but I think he's been working his way up to an aneurysm lately. Too many fools for someone who doesn't suffer them gladly... "Kumbaya" indeed, and I love that first comment!

 

Conjunction Junction: That little musical Wednesday night was pretty cute, even if it wasn't quite Broadway. I have a photo or two that I'll eventually post, but the basic setup was: about a half dozen kids did the acting (and sang and danced) onstage while a chorus, split into two groups, sang on either side. There was a framing device,  "new teacher working through her lesson plans and first-day jitters," but most of what went on was the song-and-dance. They did most of the songs I remember, and a few I'd forgotten. Cute, fun, and I thought Anne was going to die laughing when Deb and I started singing along. Donna did a good job with her kids.

 

To Understand Recursion, You Must First... That little MTO program I wrote was interesting in terms of real-world uses, yadda yadda, but my real reason to write it was because I wanted to play around with linked lists and recursive functions. Well, mission accomplished, I must say. Back in the day (before you could buy such things, like way back when I was in college) I wrote a bunch of math functions for heat transfer problems; some of them, like Bessel functions, were based on recursion, but I rewrote them to be iterative since they were sooooo slowwww -- it was an overhead thing, I was overloading the limited resources of my little Mac Plus. Funny how things come full circle after 20 years, but though I used a mishmash of iteration and recursion in this new thing, I think the recursion seemed to work much better than I remembered it.

Hey Nineteen: I forget now if it was my BS (1988) or MS (1990), but my graduation for at least one of them was May 19th, which I have always heard sung to the tune  of "Hey Nineteen." Well here it is, either nineteen, or 21 years later -- someone who was born on my graduation is now officially old enough to drink.

Do The Hump

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 173.5#, 12.5% BF

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 174.5#, 6% BF

 

Damn you, stupid three-dollar taco night...

 

Beautiful ride last night: I went out via Market Street into Freemansburg, then out via Buttermilk Road and back on Wassergas, then crossed over the hill and came back to Freemansburg on Applebutter Road. I left around 6:30 and got back a little after 8:00, home just before dark.

 

Anne was at knitting while I rode, so we met at Brew Works after our respective things. It was a bit subdued at first, but Scott came in, then James, and things livened up; we got home around 11:30

 

 

Tonight we're going to see Donna's elementary students put on a musical, one based on Schoolhouse Rock.

 

Carpe Weekendum Procrastinatus

Morning weigh-in: 175#, 10.5% BF

 

A quick recap...

 

Friday night was awesome, and it all started with a singlespeed ride on the towpath: I left a little after 5:00, and maintained a 15 mph average (legs spinning like hamsters) to Easton where I hooked up with Larry and Kirk, and took a more leisurely return ride -- we still hammered, but also cruised for a bit and talked, made a few pit stops, and towards the end we ran into Joe G out with his wolf-dogs, which necessitated more stopping and schmoozing etc.

 

When I got home I pulled straight into the backyard, which is looking really good right now I might add, and knew Ben was home when I heard him and Anne talking on the porch -- cool! His other ride plans fell through I guess, and he came home a day early with his dad.

 

Anne was on her way to meet the Main Street Gang at Mama Nina's, and was actually leaving when I got there, but she stuck around while I hopped in the shower. We were up there in about 20 minutes, and our table was not yet ready so we waited outside on the street. Scott and Deb both live on Main Street, and we're only a few blocks away, and Donna's a regular part of the crowd, so it was like we were hanging out on the front porch or at a block party or something. Deb said she loves it there, but also said living on Main is like living in a fishbowl -- then she went and greeted Nina, all the wait staff, and half the clientele... we saw, and said hello to (and gossiped about) what seemed like hundreds of people during dinner. After that we went to the Steelgaarden; we sort of lost Scott, Donna and Deb in the crowd but met up with Doug and Lori. I have to say, that was probably my most pleasant "Bethlehem evening out" probably since the Funhouse days. Maybe it's just that summer is finally showing up, but it sure was nice.

 

Saturday started with an awesome yoga class in Easton, then Ben and I were put to work digging sod back home. This was the first step; Anne plans to replace much of her front lawn with terraced gardens. Hot, dirty work but we got a lot done before running off to Wired, to do nothing for the rest of the afternoon. We continued the nothing at Brew Works, but dinner was at home, followed by Pineapple Express. Yikes!

 

(By the way, I got the final part my little project to compile, but it was crashing out -- some tweaking over the weekend, and this rough first draft seems to work fine.)

 

Yesterday started with a short bike ride with Ben and Anne, over to Blue Sky for breakfast, which was followed by some backing and filling, chores, etc before we went down to see my folks. That was really nice: we hung out for a couple of hours, they grilled up a bunch of steaks, and my sister in law came over with my nephew towards the end of the day. Back home and tired, but I had the insight that allowed me to fix the program -- as soon as it was working, we sat down and watched Matrix Reloaded. I'm beginning to suspect that my original opinion was correct: the first Matrix would be the best. We shall see, we have the final movie waiting at home.

Looking Back

I happened to notice that I've been doing this for six years (almost exactly, my first post was on May 12, 2003), so here's a retrospective:

Here's what I wrote on this date in 2003.

Here's what I wrote on this date in 2004.

Here's what I wrote on this date (or close to it) in 2005.

Here's what I wrote on this date in 2006.

Here's what I wrote on this date (approximately) in 2007.

And here's what I wrote on this date in 2008.

My life like a pornography of motion, shutter speed set at once a year.

Pollinator

Morning weigh-in: 176#, 10% BF

 

Got a bunch of stuff done yesterday, which included mowing the backyard and paying some bills, but the main thing was bringing the Turner in for some service. Saucon Valley Bikes, I just made it there before closing and ran through a huge wish list: new chain, cassette, and crank/BB/chainrings, new pivot kit installed, and the front fork overhauled. Probably take around a week for stuff to arrive, and another several days for the work to be done; I'll be doing a lot of road rides, as well as finally busting out the singlespeed -- I found the missing GPS mount, and so can set up the SS like the others.

 

I was planning on staying in, but I got the call that the Naughty Knitters were going to Brew Works so I met Anne & Company over there. (Two of the company have not been getting along, and the evening was a bit subdued, but it looks at least like things are on the way to being patched up -- I fully expected the traditional Tuesday evening to not happen.) Two Loco Limes and four tacos, and we were out of there.

 

Tonight will probably be the last of the really nice days this week, so I'm doing a road ride, once again exploring the area east of Hellertown. Anne got more meetings, so I'm on my own for food though there's plenty of leftovers, and the garden is now in overdrive.

 

Halcyon Daze

Morning weigh-in: 173.5#, 12.5% BF

Nice ride last night, out through Freemansburg to my Williams Township roads (took Valley View for a change of pace), and back via Hellertown: 19 miles, 1:16 ride time, very pleasant. I wanted to ride out to the start of Wassergas Road and take that all the way back, but got a late start, and when I hit Raubsville Road I just made that the turnaround point. Got home just before dark, then met Anne at Brew Works, where she was catching up with some friends. Dinner was pasta pomodoro, washed down with a CH-47. It's a little cool out, but summer is here.

Tonight is a bit of a rest, since I'm bringing the Turner in for some work, then maybe doing the lawn or such like after that. Stupid summer...

Meantime: I can't eat them so I'm not really sure what all the fuss is about, but the big buzz lately has been the wild morel crop. Anne got a bunch yesterday, and everyone seems to be going out mushroom hunting. Me? I'm just gonna rock down to Electric Avenue...

Monday Lunchtime Quarterbacking

Morning weigh-in: 174.5#, 12% BF

 

Back In The Game: The weekend turned out to be pretty nice, and of course that meant I'd be making up for lost time... I had off on Friday so I went out for a nice medium-sized road ride, basically a mashup of my old Hellertown/Williams Twp and Mud Run "benchmark" rides. Almost exactly 45 miles, and almost exactly 3 hours, not great but not bad considering the hills, headwinds, and traffic I had to deal with at various times. After the ride I met Anne at Wired; I left there to go on a towpath ride with some friends, but just as I was about to start it it started to rain, and I was tired, and radar blah blah... I made a few phone calls, killed the towpath plans, hopped in the shower and -- the sun was shining again when I got out. Oh well, no biggie except I canceled a group ride over the nonexistent rain.

 

Saturday was Raystown Lake. I was up at 5:30 AM, and driving by 6:30, met the VMB contingent at their campsite and I'd guess we (me, Doug, Bob, Rich and "wolverine" Mike) were riding by 10:00 or so. Awesome place, and the trails were very different from the type I'm used to: somewhat wider & smoother, but twisty and with a lot of up-and-down; the climbs were big but they had plenty of built-in breaks, and the downhills had plenty of opportunities to become airborne. Deceptively simple-looking stuff, aerobic and tiring at speed.

 

Mike's bike suffered a mechanical and he had to turn around, then we ran into Kevin and Mark from NJ. Mark turned out to be lightning fast, and he and Rich -- and how did he get so fast all of a sudden? -- managed to wear out the rest of us chasing them. When we got to the trail junction which was sort of our point of no return, some of us (Rich and Mark, plus Doug and Kevin a little further back) continued on, but Bob and I took the return trail. I needed lunch!

 

We got back to camp, relaxed and had something to eat, hanging out with the rest of the VMB crew (Heidi and Dawn, and Mike who was stuck with a broken bike), and then I decided I had to get in a few more miles, it was now or never so I hit the smaller (and less complete) Eastern section of trails. It was nice over there, not as nice or as finished as the first trails I saw, but I was tired so I might not have given them my all... Five more miles or so, at a very slow pace -- did I mention I was tired? -- and I was done for the day. Pack and go, and I was home by 8:00 or so, just in time for the evening's drama.

 

Back On The Boat: My plan all along was to try and get my full 120 miles in, despite only having three days (in a row) to do it this week, but when I woke up on Sunday I was all about kicking back. While Anne went to get her mom, I sat down at the computer and put in two solid hours on that MTO program. I have no idea yet if it will pay off, but I am now about down to about an hour's worth of coding before I'm finished. In terms of my map obsessions, I also made a few wrapper scripts for gpsbabel.

 

After that came Mother's Day. Anne drove her mom down for a visit, and her sister also came down, and after breakfast at Blue Sky (highly recommended) we checked out the downtown Art Fair. Some coffee at Wired, some tea and conversation at home, a pretty nice end to the weekend. Dinner was salad from the garden.

 

Tonight I'll be hitting the road.

Thursday Afternoon Quarterbacking

So the rain, coming down all week, may have just stopped, too bad for the ducks but I'll take it... I was going to race Michaux on Sunday, but since I didn't know of anyone going, among those I'd normally hang out with -- and also because of the rain -- I just blew it off. I didn't ride Saturday though it was nice enough (pre-race rest, just in case I went) and I haven't done any riding since either.

 

What have I been up to? Well, Saturday was a domestic interlude, as Anne and I got around to fixing her fence; Sunday we got up late and walked over to Blue Sky for breakfast, and then spent most of the day just goofing around, like on the computer and such. Monday night was yoga, Tuesday was the gym followed by dinner at Brew Works, and last night was yoga again, followed again by Brew Works as we had an impromptu birthday celebration for a friend. Despite the activity, I have been avoiding the scale...

 

Back On The Boat: Some more Linux voyaging this week, as I played with the computer itself, rather than using the computer to play with other things...

 

Ubuntu inherited a neat "package manager" from debian called apt, and it really makes installing or upgrading software a breeze. Software that's available through the package manager is presented as packages, which I think are just lists of what needs to be installed to get the software to work -- this includes other software (also represented as packages) that the original software depends on. The package manager then does all the heavy lifting, including resolving all these dependencies and finding the software where it's stored on the internet, and installs the software. This can be done from the command line, but there's also a graphical user interface, which has the advantage of showing all available packages. (It also checks daily for software updates.)

 

But a lot of the software isn't really associated with Ubuntu/Debian, and apt-style packaging might be an afterthought for the developer, who may just be a hobbyist like myself. Usually, someone eventually makes a package for the software, but the inevitable result is that the latest version available through the package manager lags the actual latest version. OK fine, usually the latest packaged version is good enough, but what if it isn't?

 

That's the boat I found myself in the other day: my GPS unit uses a relatively new file format for its output, and while there are websites that let me convert the files from that format to others (like Google Earth's format, which I use a lot), the main GPS conversion program was only recently updated to handle the new format. This latest version came out in maybe October, and there is as yet no updated package available for my system.

 

The solution was to just do it the old-fashioned way, downloading a compressed file containing the program source code, then running ./configure and make to install it. This always was the most satisfying way to install stuff, it always felt like I was really getting my hands dirty under the hood and I poo-poohed the package managers even as I used them. Until... partway through the install process, the compiler barfed a bunch of error messages and the process ground to a halt. I Googled the errors, found I had unresolved dependencies (which I then resolved using apt-get), and on the second try everything went fine. Thus I was hoist on the petard of why apt beat make...

 

Rough Week: Tuesday was a bad day at work, we had a major round of layoffs. It was a deep cut too, about 14% (say 50 of 350) at my office was let go. I'm still here and I think I'm safe for now, but if there are other rounds I'd probably be vulnerable. (Cutting any deeper wouldn't leave a viable company, but that's not any insurance.) Lot of my friends are gone, it's been lonely and depressing all week.

 

A Voyage Of My Own: I first got the laptop so I could play with programming, specifically that material packaging program I was fooling with, but with all the other things going on in the real world (yoga, biking, date nights), as well as competing computer projects, and diversions -- Facebook, anyone? -- this was pushed to the back burner, which is a pity because it's not a big task: what I've dragged out for six months (and counting) could have been finished with just a few hours of concentrated effort.

 

I have not given it those hours of concentration, but watching gpsbabel compile the other day sort of gave me the bug again. I rewrote a big chunk of the program into more modular form, getting the new version of the test program to work just like the original, and the other day I finally wrote the meat of the packing algorithm. I'll probably finish it over the next week or so, but now it's probably a moot point: I don't think I'll need it at work, and I sure don't feel like giving to them as a parting gift. Pity, but I'm having my fun.

 

Tonight is the gym, then it's an early night at home despite having off tomorrow. I'll probably get in a good road ride (rain or shine, dammit!) plus a bit of towpath tomorrow, and Saturday is the big Raystown Lake Grand Opening. Sunday is probably more riding, plus Mother's Day festivities.

Today In History

Morning weigh-in: 174#, 10.5% BF

 

Whelp, today is the first anniversary of the last day of Which Brew. (Synchronicitously enough, I saw Carrie, one of the original WB waitresses, out on the town the other night at Brew Works.) So much water under the bridge, it seems like more than just a year has gone by...

 

Last night was a fairly good road ride, the shorter version of my Freemansburg-Williams-Wassergas loop. Twenty three miles, approximately 1:30 ride time, 1500 calories, sweated like a pig but it wasn't as bad as Monday night. Dinner was "pasta pomodoro with chicken" at Brew Works, where I caught up with Anne and a few friends.

 

Tonight my plan was to go to yoga, but if it stays nice enough I may blow that off to do another road ride. Dinner? Not sure yet.

 

Sproing-oing-oing!

Wow, you go away for a weekend, and spring has surely sprung, like an unwatched pot boiling over. Greenup was just starting around here when we left, and there was a noticeable lag in the season as we went north, and on the way home it was likewise noticeably greener heading south, but I was over at Sals today after work, and it's practically midsummer over there. Hot like midsummer too, low nineties.

Northampton, Mass

So here I am in Northampton, just back from a nice road ride (44 miles round trip plus a brewpub lunch) to Greenfield, the next town north of here... Yesterday was 25 miles on a nearby bike path, basically to Amherst & back, followed by dinner at a local brewpub, and breakfast was at a coffee shop. A guy could learn to like this...

We're up here visiting Anne's son Ben at college, saw him last night at the pub with a bunch of his friends. (In other words,this is just a quick min- vacation, checking to see whether or not he's been eating right.) We'll hook up with him again tonight or tomorrow, and head home in the afternoon.

These rides were a godsend, since otherwise this whole week was a wash: time commitments after work, bad weather, if it weren't for yesterday and today the week would have been a disaster mileage-wise, rather than middling-OK. (Granted, the weather's great at home as well as here, and even if we stayed home I probably would have been riding anyway, but still...)

Also this weekend: today is the big outdoor chili cook-off on Southside. I got home Thursday night and found the house in complete chaos, as Anne & Debbie made a huge vat of chili from a bunch of invasive plants they'd foraged that afternoon. Josh & Kim also came over and a good time was had by all as we made a huge mess. Good times! Debbie and Josh served it at his store today, and I hear it was a big hit, there are no leftovers. I hope they saved us some!

We're going out in a bit to do some people watching. Northampton -- home of Smith College (Emmi's alma mater) and with a bunch of other schools nearby -- is a neat town with a very crunchy Northeast vibe.

Et Tu, Aubade?

Morning weigh-in: 173#, 10.5% BF

 

Wow, it's really like Groundhog Day now: here I am again, and the weight and the weather are still the same.

 

Not much to say. I got in a good ride yesterday, 19 miles, though my average speed (approx 14 mph) was a little below par because it was a fairly hilly ride. (Dinner was leftovers at home, and bedtime was on the early side -- I've been trying to get my ass up a little earlier in the morning.) Tonight I'm riding offroad at South Mountain, then we're going to Porters -- I thought that BC Bluezin' was playing tonight and we made plans accordingly, which included telling a lot of other people about it. (Singer Bev is part of the old Hack's Diner crowd, a good friend of Anne, Judy & Deb from way back.) Oh well, I'm sure we'll still go, and whoever's playing will be great, but I may have some 'splainin' to do...

 

By the way, Pynchon has a new novel coming out in August. I already have it on back order.

Groundhog Day, Get Off My Lawn!

Morning weigh-in: 173#, 10.5% BF

Hi it's me. Just popping my head in for a moment... I don't think I've ever gone more than a week without posting, except maybe when I was on vacation or something, but I've just been very busy lately.

 

So, what have I been up to? Well, for a few weeks I was riding like it was going out of style, then it did sort of go out of style: I was supposed to be getting in about 120 miles per week over the two weeks prior to this one, and probably got in only half that. Bad timing, rain/snow (snow!), and sunny days when I had other commitments, etc. Oh well. This week's a rest week, but I'll be getting out today and tomorrow, and probably Saturday, and Sunday too.

 

Meantime, I've been well (despite, or maybe because of, the anti-Lyme antibiotics), though I can't say the same for Anne -- she's fine now, but she was hit hard by a nasty bug several weeks ago. Fever, chills, muscle aches, multiple doctor visits and prescriptions, but now she's much better. And now there are two jars of antibiotics on the kitchen counter...

 

What have I been up to? My birthday was last week, and we went out for a bit Friday night, and Sunday was Easter with Anne's family, and in between was yoga and the gym and Porter's And Brew Works, and a lot of time on the weekends at Wired (a coffee shop on Main Street, and just as much a Peyton Place as any of our other hangouts), chatting over coffee and playing with the computer.

 

I finally got the hang of that GRASS software, imported my Sals GPS data as well as topo maps, property boundary maps, and some aerial photos, and had the program "georectify" them into one big database. I've been trying to make sure our trails don't cross the park boundaries, but between the uncertainties in the maps and the GPS data, and the tendency of our trails to encroach on the property line-- a design flaw IMHO, and for more than just trespassing reasons -- I really can't say for certain that we haven't crossed that line.

 

Well, tonight is a road ride, and tomorrow I'm riding the other Bethlehem trail system. It's supposed to be beautiful through Sunday night.

Uh Sih, Sih, Sih, Sih, A-Sisyphus, Hey!

Morning weigh-in (Monday): 174#, 10.5% BF

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 174.5#, 8.5% BF

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 172.5#, 11% BF

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 174.5#, 11% BF

Morning weigh-in (Friday): 176.5#, 10.5% BF

 

So I was going to hit the gym on Monday, and I even brought my bike for a road-ride warmup; instead I took off work early and went to the doctor for that tick bite -- I am now on amoxicillin "just in case," and got an ointment for the bite area's rash. That sort of took the wind out of my sails, so when I got home I just blew off everything physical.

 

Tuesday night was going a Sals ride, but the world conspired to prevent me (worked late, hit traffic, bike routes were under construction, etc) and it almost worked -- almost! I took the lights but I cut the ride short, only riding about 10 miles and needing the light mostly for  the ride home. Trails were in great shape and I had a blast, even saw a few friends out there, but I didn't want to provoke the bike gods any more than they already were. (Strangely enough, that's the same neck of woods where I hiked and got the ticks the other day; Tuesday on the bike was back to my usual experience: nada. Note to self, never stop riding...)

 

Wednesday was yoga (and rainy so I couldn't ride there), yesterday was beautiful but it was a gym day. It's rainy today, and I already canceled the group towpath ride but I will try to sneak something in tonight.

 

I need a leg up -- last week is gone, this week has been a wash, I start over soon with another week's 120 mile quota, and I'm already behind on my miles... Effort equals results, if I'm lucky, and July is getting closer by the day. The weekend is supposed to be nice, maybe I'll do a bit of catch-up.

Repent, Harlequin!

Tick Tock Man: So I took Langston for a walk at Sals yesterday, and though I never really worried about ticks before (like, it's been a non-issue while riding), we've been finding ticks on him fairly regularly lately, so we gave him the once-over with the brush when I got back. (It didn't help that he'd been in every sticker bush and mud puddle up there: he was a mess of mud, burrs; I wouldn't have been surprised to find he had leeches.) We found a few deer ticks on him brushing him off, then we found two on my clothes. I went up to shower and found three more on my body, including one somewhat attached and one really attached -- that's the spot where I have a mosquito-bite-like welt today. If my summer really sucks, with PICC line and swollen joints, yesterday is the day I'll be thinking most about.

We went out to Donna's spring party after that, great time but I had to leave early because of her cats. When we got home we checked Langston again, and found twenty four more of the little buggers -- and one more today.

Anyway, Donna's party... Like I said, great time. I was surprised at how many peeps I knew there, even one or two of her work friends I already knew. Lots of good food, Dogfish Head beers... and speaking of peeps, that's what we brought, along with some cheese and bread that we picked up at the Allentown Farmer's Market. My first trip there, and the place really is a trip -- many many diverse types of characters, at one point I said to Anne that if you went there to actually people watch, your head would explode.

The Man With The Plan: This week was the first of the "build weeks" in my training plan. I was supposed to ride 120 miles and burn 7000 calories, those were my goals, and -- well, I made it. Eighty eight hundred calories, and 121miles, and as of tomorrow it's gone, I have to do it again next week. Wilderness 101 is coming, I am way ahead of where I was last year but the clock is ticking.

Wazzap?

Morning weigh-in (Monday): 174.5#, 11% BF

Morning weigh-in (Monday): 174.5#, 10% BF

Morning weigh-in (Monday): 174.5#, 11% BF

 

Wow that's quite a variation, Steady Eddie... I'd like to be below 170# by the end of next week, but I don't think it's going to happen.

 

Ride/Eat: I've started Build Week 1 on the bike, riding Sals on Monday night and the towpath last night. I would have been better off reversing that order; I was still a little tired on Monday from my "rest week" rides (several hot laps at Sals, and a leisurely, medium-longish road ride with Anne on Sunday). Tonight is yoga followed by a trip to Porters, since we can't swing the Thursday night trip this week.

 

Computer: I've been playing with the computer a lot lately, but I'm not doing much other than browsing. One exception: I've been saving GPS data from my rides, and using it with Google Maps to map the at Sals. (You can find a preliminary version here.) I am missing a few trails (including some unofficial ones required for the sake of completeness), and I need to get a better handle on official trail names, but we're getting there.

 

Listen: Continuing my old-timey retrospective, I downloaded a bunch of songs by The Fall, and also a Heather Nova album (don't ask).

 

Anyway, that's what's up.

On This First Day Of Spring

I have a bunch of half-written, diary style blog posts that I think I'll abandon, as they're losing relevance by the day. Just a quick note, I'm out of here in a few minutes...

 

Rest In Peace, Deanna. My friend Vito's wife passed away the other day, after a long illness -- she had lung cancer, which she beat but it got into her brain, she fought that (chemo, radiation, surgery), she had a stroke, and finally the game was up. She moved back home a week or so ago and was getting hospice care, and went into a coma just before last weekend. (Her obituary is here.) She was one of the nicest people I've ever had the privilege and pleasure to know, and while there's an Italian a saying, "so good he's good for nothing," she was good in a way that was very effective, she literally was a force for good in this world.

 

I'm leaving work early today to go to the wake, and tomorrow is the funeral. I especially feel bad for Vito -- he's a strong person, but that was at least partly because she was there to cover his back all those years. This isn't going to be easy.

 

Suitable

Morning weigh-in: 173.5#, 13% BF

 

So much for a hard ride: I went out last night but didn't feel like hammering, and since it had to be short I really didn't know what to do so I just rode around West Bethlehem. I hit Doug's house but no one was home, then I went over to Spanky's, where he and Tony D were ripping apart his kitchen -- worried that they might give me something to do, I got out of there as quickly as I could... Tooled around a little more, 8 miles, 45 minutes, done by 7:00 and out the door for the Men's Warehouse.

 

Anne was at a writer's group meeting (listening to and discussing one guy's story of being in the Ukrainian underground as a boy -- wow!), which was nearby, and she met me there. Long story short: the salesgirl and the tailor eyed me up and quickly produced what I wanted, and soon I was the proud possessor of two suits, two pairs of slacks, some ties, socks, and two dress shirts -- it was "buy one get one free night" or something -- paid for just minutes before the store closed. (I pick up the suits next week.) Now that's how shopping is supposed to work!

 

Dinner was leftover Indian food, plus a chicken cheddar & apple sandwich, and one of the Brown Ales we made a few weeks ago.

 

And Another Thing: As a followup to yesterday's post, I thought I'd note this in passing. I remember plenty of guys like this when I first moved to the Lehigh Valley, talk of sovereignty and the Constitution as code for white supremism... A lot of  things going to be crawling out of the woodwork, now that treason is the new patriotism again.

 

Beware Of the Ham Bushes!

Morning weigh-in: 174.5#, 10% BF

 

Oy: This was funny, especially in light of where I found it.

 

Fellow Traveler: In mostly-unrelated news, here's an article about a Windows user who tried Ubuntu, and here's a follow-up. While I would agree that "things are different in Linux" (if someone actually said that), different design philosophies, emphases & priorities etc, I use Ubuntu on the laptop and I think usability is down at a no-brainer level of easy, even -- especially -- when it comes to installing software.

 

Tonight will be a short, hard road ride, maybe hill repeats.

 

 

You Down with EDT?

Morning weigh-in (Monday): 175#, 12% BF

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 173.5#, 12% BF

 

My weekend?

 

Saturday: The tribute to the Talking Heads, a total blowout at Pearly Bakers.

Sunday: Janna's PPRAC charity spinning class, then the Banff Mountain Film Festival.

 

Rode the towpath last night, left after 6:00 and didn't need lights until long after my turnaround -- sweet! It's still pretty muddy down by Freemansburg, so I took the road from there on the return. Twenty five miles in 1:50, burned about 1650 calories... Tonight is the gym, and tomorrow in lieu of yoga I'll be doing a short, hard road ride, maybe hill intervals, before doing some clothes shopping.

 

RIP Waldemar Kulikowski, my old boss, who passed away in California over the weekend.

 

Congratulations James and Susie, on your new arrival! Sierra Rae, 6 pounds, 7 ounces, and 19" long, born 3/9/2009 at 11:08 AM.

 

 

All My GUY Friends Are Party Poopers

So it's Saturday, and I'm sitting at Wired with Anne. Second coffee shop of the day... Rode the towpath last night, then did the First Friday thing in South Bethlehem (me Anne, Deb, Donna, Scott and Joe); we ended up at the Tally Ho but the karaoke drove us out, and our feet took us naturally to Brew Works -- which was packed -- for the end of the night.

Strange thing: I ran into a lot of acquaintances, and friends, and people I knew, but -- except for Joe and Scott, who are really Deb's friends, and Deb's a friend I borrowed from Anne anyway -- I did not see one male friend of mine out last night. Walk into a gallery and there's a friend's wife, step into the Ho and there's an old Which Brew bud bartending, and over at the Steelgaarden we bumped into a biker friend and her whole posse. Dudes! You're dropping the ball, missing opportunities and generally making us all look bad...

Anyway, good ride last night, but very muddy: after the ride I had to strip in the foyer, quarantine my clothes and clean the floor after my shower; I spent part of the afternoon scraping off the dried grit & mud off the bike, but all is back to normal now. Yoga this morning, spinning tomorrow, and tonight will be a trip to Pearly Bakers to see that Talking Heads tribute -- apparently this is the ultimate buzz thing to do in Easton this weekend.

TGIF

Morning weigh-in: 177.5#, 11% BF

 

New Shoes: I stopped in at Curt's Cyclery last night and bought a pair of Shimano SH-M182's. Went home, put on the cleats (panic attacks as things seemed not to be compatible, but all was well) and -- waah-LAA! -- I am back in business. I'll be trying them tonight, either on the towpath if I hear from my usual riding partner, or maybe Sals.

 

Tough week, I am glad it's (almost) over. Tonight and tomorrow night are the last nights for the Grand Re-Opening Dollar Drafts at the Brew Works, and since tomorrow night will be Pearly Baker's for that Talking Heads tribute show, I think we'll be hitting the BW tonight. Tomorrow is yoga and the gym, Sunday (if they have any openings) will be Janna's charity spinning class at Everybody's; if we can't make that we may try to do that Genesis Bakery Ride.

 

 

Today In History

Morning weigh-in: 177#, 11% BF

 

Happy 45th Birthday to my brother Kevin! Today is also the anniversary of the Boston Massacre, and the third anniversary of my ankle incident.

 

Not sure what's going on, but my skin is all itchy lately, I'm getting nosebleeds (at least at work), I'm tired all the time and have had to skip several workouts this week, and that sudden jump in weight, wow. The first two I could ascribe to low humidity coming in with this cold snap, but I'm not sure about the  others -- except, I've been using cortisone again, hmmmm...

 

Weekend Recap: Anne and I got in a good ride with Doug on Saturday, mellow and fun despite the cold & wind, then Sunday (when we were supposed to go for a long Genesis-sponsored road ride, but blew it off because of the impending weather -- and it got canceled too, probably for the same reason) we went for an afternoon hike at Sals, probably got in a good 8 miles total while I did some more mapping. Saturday night was Porters, and Sunday night was Brew Works.

 

We hardly got anything from Monday's snowstorm, but there was enough on the ground to do some XC skiing on the towpath.

 

Spin Crash: Tuesday night is when it all fell apart. I went into the basement to do the interval workout I'd postponed from Monday, but after warming up I hit the gas and nothing happened: my heart rate would not rise into the workout zone, so I bagged the first interval, then I was so tired I couldn't even just sit and spin -- I bagged the whole thing, did a cooldown and was off the bike within 20 minutes of starting.

 

Last night was also a wash, but maybe not so bad: I blew off yoga to do a Sals ride, but first had to fuss with my bike shoes (I need to install new cleats and tried to get the old ones off last night, but the bolts are basically welded in place). After an hour of messing around I gave up, then decided I really didn't want to ride at all, even with the old cleats. I spent the rest of the night re-installing Google Earth and playing with some Sals maps.

 

Tonight is the gym, unless I locate some new bike shoes to go purchase.

 

 

Applebutter Headwinds, That's Not Fair!

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 173.5#, 10% BF
Morning weigh-in (Friday): 175#, 11% BF

So I got up this morning, drew up a nice route on Google Maps, then downloaded and converted it to GPX and put it on my Garmin. Worked like a charm, the thing beeped whenever I had to make a turn (though I think it was in "offroad" mode, since it didn't really care about road turns per se, but just noted major changes in direction), all the way until got to where the road was closed -- it had nothing to say fort a while, until I got back to the original route again, but by then I was done.

My route was basically a modified Hellertown loop, only I added Millheim Road and Wassergass Road, and my plan was to got through Freemansburg on River Road, but Lower Saucon was the closed road and I took Applebutter back to Hellertown. Applebutter is a fun downhill in ordinary circumstances, like four miles of just rolling along, but today it was windy, and -- just my luck -- that was where the wind was in my face. I still could roll with almost no effort, but it wasn't the fast or exciting rollercoaster ride I was hoping for. In terms of training, this was a hilly ride and I was working the legs a bit, but my plan was to keep the heart rate kind of lower and more aerobic for the climbs, and, except for one maximum-effort wall on Millheim, I think I hit my sweet spot.

Here's A Little Thing That Is Sure To Please You: I guess I'm on a kick, I downloaded a bunch of other songs Wednesday night, only one I remember right now being Alex Chilton's "Bangkok."

That was after yoga, and after a fairly light (grilled cheese & salad) dinner -- the pork & sauerkraut wasn't quite ready. Since last night was burgers at the newly re-opened Brew Works -- note weight, and that despite a brutal gym workout -- and tonight is a visit to the Mauch Chunk Rod and Gun Club -- stay tuned for a full report, if I live -- we'll probably be eating it (the pork) as an early dinner tonight.

Spotlight On The Mountains Of Madness

Morning weigh-in: 174#, 10% BF

 

Crow Clock Running Faster: I'm usually not ready to get up when the alarm clock goes off, so I just sort of lay there for a while, trying to wake up, and don't actually get up until I hear all the crows flying off to wherever they go for the day -- maybe they're commuters too? -- from their evening roosts by the river. Unfortunately for my wakeup, they time their commute by the sunrise, which means that I've been getting up earlier and earlier each day.

 

I'm Not Gonna Go There: Looks like they shined some radar down through the Antarctic ice, and found the Mountains of Madness. Yikes!

 

Last night was the gym, followed by leftover chicken, and tonight is yoga. I believe Anne has plans to cook pork & sauerkraut tonight.

 

 

I Often Dream Of Trains

Morning weigh-in: 174#, 11% BF

 

Listening: I downloaded a bunch of songs from eMusic last night, including two from Robyn Hitchcock ("I Often Dream Of Trains" and "The Man With The Lightbulb head"), and a whopping 18 by the Dead Kennedys. I also picked up Bikini Kill's "Rebel Girl" and a few others. Much nerdly rocking out by the light of the laptop last night, I must say.

 

Training: Last night was also interval night on the trainer, and (strange as it may sound) I had a lot of fun -- I was playing with the HRM, and the time just flew by. I felt pretty good too, but I was crushed by the time I was done, all rubbery and nauseous. Tonight is plyometrics at the gym.

 

Speaking Of The Man With The Lightbulb Head: Check out this deep-sea fish.

 

Drinking: A friend was singing over in Southside, but I couldn't make it in time, so I just met Anne over at the Steelgaarden, the club-like "martini bar" downstairs at the Brew Works. I had a beer while I was there, but I wasn't hungry at all, which was good because there was no food. The upstairs part of the Brew Works is closed right now, but will re-open sometime this week with their new kitchen, and not a minute to soon as far as I'm concerned -- the fire was more than two months ago, and I am jonesing for a burger, maybe some wings...

Back In The Saddle

Morning weigh-in: 176.5#, 10.5% BF

 

Rest week ends today, with basement intervals on tonight's agenda -- tomorrow is the gym, more plyometrics. (This week the bike volume is low, just tonight and the weekend's rides, but starting next week the crosstraining will be phased out, at least partially. It's really starting like the end of winter out there.)

 

I don't have much to say otherwise, not much has happened since my last post.

 

Some Music: We met Sally and Joe at Porter's for dinner Saturday night, but we all left when the band (southern rockers, complete with Confederate flag and "this is not a racist symbol, you should learn your history" spiel) was so bad we left. We all went down to Pearly Baker's for the reggae stylings of the Trouble City All-Stars, a major improvement in terms of both taste and general musicianship.

 

Anne and I went up to Jim Thorpe on Sunday morning and tried to ride the Broad Mountain Loop. It was beautiful out, with a light snow falling, but the trail (under the 3" or so of new snow) was all ice and we bailed after only a few miles.

 

Some More Music: We went out to the Tally Ho to see what looked like a local supergroup (really, stars from every Bethlehem band) playing a night of Talking Heads covers. Very fun, and apparently that's where the old Which Brew girls hang out, at least on Sunday: local hipsters take the place over when the frat boys are out of town, and I'd guess that half their boyfriends were in the band. There was a neat vibe despite the smoke, like Jabberwocky on Sunday nights, when the disco was shut down and Joe and I would go to play pool. Good to see some of the old faces too -- I haven't seen Andrea since WB closed in May. Her hair was alternately long/pink and buzzcut/leopard-print, but other than that she hasn't changed a bit...

 

Except for us (and Lee, and also Kelly-Jo), the scene was mostly younger and leaned toward the bartender crowd, as in "we always stay up late, and besides we all have off tomorrow," so Anne and I left long before the show was over, but they'll be playing Pearly's and the Funhouse in March, and I think they'll be worth catching.

 

Sign Sez "Westinghouse," Wight?

I'm back. Never really went away, but the posting has been light because -- sorry, life has been busy and full...

 

Last week was the end of "Base 2 training," and I am now finishing up the rest week, and going a bit stir-crazy too, all grouchy from not exercising. Not sure what base 3 training is going to look like on the bike, but I should be pushing for strength and speed, so I'm thinking I'll add hills and sprints. In the gym I'll be switching to plyometrics, at least for the legs; I did some Thursday, learning the technique, and it really spanked me...

 

Quick Look At Last Weekend: I had off Friday, and rode over at Sals, then the evening's ride was on the towpath with Anne; we met Larry for a bit of the return trip as well. (Total ride time on the towpath was 3 hours because of all the mud., we were whooped by the end.) We ended up at Rippers for burgers -- even before the ride ended I was so hungry and tired, that was all I wanted in this world. Saturday was mostly chores and errands, since I overslept for yoga and was too tired for the gym. We crashed early Saturday night too, but hit Brew works for a bit first. (There was a "Zombie Anti-Valentine Party" at Wired, and Andrew had his wine tasting party Saturday night, but we missed them both. Oh well.)  Sunday -- after a road ride to Emmaus for coffee at South Mountain Cycles -- was bottling of the beer we made a few weeks ago. Anne's niece & her husband came down, and we got down to business, then had dinner at Mama Nina's and Belgian beers at the Steelgaarden. Awesome weekend! I have pic posted of the bottling, by the way.

This has been a rest week on the bike, and like I said I've been busy at work, so last night after my ride -- even with a "rest week" I had to ride Sals yesterday, and got most if it done before dark -- we stayed in. Anne baked cookies, and we just kicked back and read.

Woman opens her refrigerator and finds a hobo lounging inside. She yells "What are you doing in my fridge?!"
Hobo sez "This is a Westinghouse, right?"
"Well, yeah..."
"So I'm just westing!"

Try the veal.

Mud Season Is Upon Us

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 176#, 12% BF

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 173#, 11.5% BF

 

Happy Darwin Day! Today marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. You know it's coming, so here it is:

 

"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. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." -- Charles Darwin, concluding paragraph to The Origin of Species

 

That's probably one of my all-time favorite scientific quotes. Remember the great man today, and don't forget to do something spectacularly stupid, in his honor...

 

Anyway, I tried to do a towpath ride last night, but the path was so soft (and wet, even submerged in places) that it was just not worth it. I got as far as Freemansburg before bailing and taking the road back. It was unseasonably warm and pleasant so the ride wasn't a total waste but I should have just taken the road bike, thaw means mud. (I wanted to use the GPS though, and since I have no way to mount it on the road bike -- I lost the spare bracket that came with the unit -- I went out on the Turner. Oh well, I'll be getting a new bracket soon I'm sure.) Windy, warm, it sure seems like March arrived early today.

 

I'll Take "Logistical Equations" For $100, Alex: Speaking of Darwin, here's an interesting look at that "25 Random Things About Me" craze on Facebook, as seen from an epidemiological standpoint.

 

Tuesday was a hard, full-body gym workout, but it seemed like I just breezed right through it. Very gratifying, my weights (here at the end of the "strength" portion of my weight-room training) are as high as they've ever been. Unfortunately, I went out to Brew Works for dinner afterward -- which was really cool, hanging with Anne and her friends Deb and Donna, but it sort of negated my in-the gym gains, or rather losses... I made up the difference by forgetting to eat dinner last night, not the brightest move either.

 

More Birthday Greats: Today is also the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the NAACP. Watching our new President giving a speech at the Ford Theater today really shows that we've come pretty far, though for sure it's not as far as we like to think.

 

Tonight is the gym again, then Porters for Jazz Night. I have off tomorrow.

 

 

Heart-Healthy Nightmares

Morning weigh-in (Monday): 174.5#, 12% BF

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 174#, 10% BF

 

David Rees Is A National Treasure: Check out my new favorite comic -- at least until Achewood comes back up to speed -- from the guy who brought us Get Your War On. Also, this.

 

So anyway, I hit the trainer last night for some basement intervals, 5 at 3 minutes with 2 minutes rest in between, for a 45 minute workout including warmup and cooldown -- Garmin sez I burned 563 calories. It also had a few nasty things to say about my heart fitness right now: maybe it's because I'm older (it's been years since I did this kind of workout, or worked out with a HRM), or maybe my heart was tired from other activities, but my HR would not go anywhere near the target I had set for myself -- I was shooting for a 180-185 bpm range for the hard parts, and was lucky to get 165-170. Oh well, I have my sights on Tipperary at least, but no one played the Rocky Theme for me last night... Dinner was pork and sauerkraut at home.

 

Movie Watch: Anne and I saw The Wackness on Saturday afternoon (before we went to see Raymond The Amish Comic). I'm not sure everyone will like it, but I thought it was good, lotsa Nineties references, and Ben Kingsley as a doped-up psychiatrist was worth the price of admission even if we did see it at home.

 

Movie Watch 2: Electric Boogaloo We also saw Gran Torino on Sunday afternoon, with Perry, Didi and her friend Sarah, downtown at the Boyd. If you've ever heard the cliche "I laughed, I cried," about a movie, well for this one it's true. Totally awesome, highly recommended.

 

Tonight is the gym, and tomorrow will be a road ride in lieu of yoga -- hey it'll be almost 60 degrees out! Meantime, here's a part of Friday night's ride.

Short And Sweet

Morning weigh-in: 173.5#, 11% BF

 

Rode Sals last night, or rather hit a part of it as part of a short road/offroad ride: I did a loop from Anne's house over to the hospital, then up to Dodson on the road and down to the Reeb trailhead via the Yellow and Red Trails. (Total distance was 4.84 miles, which I did in 40:44 for a 7.1 mpg average. Avg/Max heart rate was 146/172, and total elevation gain was 748 feet, most of that coming from the climb up to Dodson. Thank you Garmin! Note: I have the data for this and another ride online, where you  can play it back and watch the dot on the map go around and around while monitoring my speed, heart rate etc... I'll make some of these publicly visible, but not the ones -- like this latest -- that have personally identifying geographic info. So stay tuned!) Trails are still snowy, but not too bad.

 

After the ride Anne and I went to Porters to hang out with Judy, and Erica and Toby. It was the first of the new Thursday Night Jazz thingies, and last night's band leader was someone Judy knows.

 

Now He Belongs To The Zombies: Rest in peace, Lux Interior. I saw that yesterday, and have been surprised by the number of people who had memorial comments -- I thought The Cramps were pretty obscure. The variety of types of people who were remembering him was surprising as well, though some I know were fans from way back... Speaking of which, I need a haircut, think I'll get one tomorrow.

 

Stepford State Update: What a bunch of tools!

 

Tonight I may do another one of those Sals quickies, then it's back to Porters for Sally's birthday. Tomorrow is yoga/gym, then we're seeing Raymond The Amish Comic in Doylestown.

 

 

Nerdvana

Morning weigh-in: 173.5#, 11.5% BF

 

Breakfast yesterday was small, and so was dinner, but I had a huge turkey (and cheese! and mayo!) sub for lunch -- a-and so much for suppression, yoga last night was pretty tough but there's no sign of it in those numbers.

 

Reading: I'm getting towards the end of Everything and More by David Foster Wallace, one of my Christmas presents. It's basically a history of how mathematics has come to grips with the idea of infinity, and believe it or not, it's actually a real page-turner, a real pleasure to read, especially if you're a fan of DFW's conversational, idiosyncratic style. Next up is a book about the Golden Ratio, which should be interesting but probably isn't as well-written as EaM.

 

Navigating: I plugged the GPS into the laptop last night, and it turns out that accessing the data is a piece of cake, the whole thing just appears as an external drive. The data is organized pretty logically in files and folders, and it turns out to be fairly easy to extract to various mapping/training software & websites. This may not be true about moving stuff the other way, like installing new maps or software updates onto the Garmin, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it -- for now it does what I want, and more.

 

(Looking up from the laptop last night, where I was watching animated graphics  of my location, elevation, speed and heart rate from a recent ride, I saw myself surrounded by little electronic gadgets (camera, GPS), wireless mice, and books about numbers, and realized I had achieved... nerdvana...)

 

The only problem with re-animating my nerdly-ass avatar (aside from the obvious ones) is that I was always a bit absent-minded. Today I walked out of the house without my gym stuff, so scratch that. I think I'll be doing a short MTB ride, maybe something at Sals, a Dodson-to-Reeb downhill through the snow. After that is Porters, to check out the new Thursday Night Jazz.

Bela Lugosi's Dead

Morning weigh-in: 171.5, 12.5% BF

 

Some exercise suppression going there, but probably not a lot. I think that's mostly "no dining out for a few days," and "the chili is all gone, if you know what I mean..."

 

White Nose Fever Comes Home To Roost: It looks like that bat-killing epidemic has finally reached Pennsylvania. 

 

Took the Turner out last night. I was supposed to do a Hellertown hill ride but the roads were just too scary/slippery, I didn't trust the cars I'd run into so I just tooled around the neighborhood, rode down to the towpath and around sand Island, then around in circles through West Bethlehem, mostly just testing out my new toy, which seemed pretty cool -- now I just have to figure out how to get the data out and into a mapping/training program...

 

Bloodbath: We had layoffs here yesterday, including a few in my department. I think I'm safe for now, but it was not a fun day.

 

Tonight is yoga, and tomorrow is the gym. I noticed last night that my heart rate refused to go very high, which is understandable given Monday's intervals -- I need a cardio rest day or two.

 

 

Fire In The Belly

Morning weigh-in (Monday): 174.5%, 12% BF

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 173.5#, 9.5% BF

 

Well, winter is half over, and the days are getting lighter, and I am so behind on my training it's not funny.

 

Weekend Recap:

 

Friday I had off, so I planned to use the day to run some errands -- which really meant that I hiked around Sals with Langston, then drifted over to Wired to get in some quality time with the laptop. Anne was at the library, doing research on local history for her next project, and eventually joined me there, and then Deb came by and we absconded to the Brew Works, where we decided that hamburgers at Rippers was a good idea... I was basically done by 9:00.

 

Saturday started with yoga, then it was back to Bethlehem for a busy day -- we were brewing beer with Anne's niece Lori & her husband Chris. This is a slow process, heat water, cool water, wait for grains to steep, boil stuff etc, lots of downtime (snacktime, BS'ing about music time) between tasks but it took most of the day. When things were finally done and we could leave the beer to ferment, we went over to the Tally Ho. Perry's birthday, we saw a bunch of the old Which Brew crowd -- it really hasn't been that long but it feels like forever since there was a Which Brew and a Which Brew scene -- and caught up with all the news and gossip. I'm happy to say most seem to be doing well and seem happy.

 

We didn't stay long, we were going to see Steve Forbert in Jim Thorpe. Awesome show, just him on stage with guitar and harmonica. I didn't know too much of his newer stuff, maybe a few songs were semi-familiar from Anne's iPod, but he did play "Romeo's Tune" at the end of the night. He also played a song about middle age, which I thought was going to be all like "huh huh, huh huh -- lumbago!" but instead was an extremely heavy look at, well, my life...

 

Sunday was the annual Superbowl of Chili at Pearly Baker's. Me and Anne, Brian, Eric, and we also saw Dick S and his wife, among many others. Seventeen chili entries, then we escaped the crowds by going to Mothers and eventually Porters. Anne drove home, and I napped through the Superbowl, then got up and read a book about infinity.

 

Gadget Alert! I just got a new toy, a Garmin Edge 705 combination GPS and heart rate monitor. I haven't really messed with it much yet, it came last night and I only played a little while it was charging. It looks really sweet so far, but it looks like I'm in for another voyage of discovery too, since the device needs supporting software, and that software don't run on Linux... (The GPS shows up as an external drive and I think I can get to the data, so I'm halfway there.)

Corvus

Morning weigh-in: (Monday): 173#, 10% BF

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 175#, 11% BF

Morning weigh-in: (Thursday): 173#, 12% BF
Morning weigh-in: (Saturday): 173#, 12% BF

 

There are a lot of crows in Bethlehem, and they all seem to live on the south side of the river, just west of the Hill-to-Hill Bridge. Riding at Sals in the late afternoon can be positively spooky, as they return by the noisy, cawing thousands from wherever they spend the day, and you can see them from West Bethlehem just after dawn, fanning across the sky from a single point on the horizon, like winged monkeys from the Wicked Witch's castle. Pretty spectacular, actually, and it happens every day.

 

Unfortunately, all this has attracted a bunch of crow hunters -- I didn't even know there was such a thing -- who set up loudspeakers by the river, playing crow "crowd scene noises" as decoys, and blow them out of the sky by the hundreds. Tinny canned crow laughter and bird parts raining down from the sky...