Half-past Summer

Morning weigh-in: 175#, 10.5% BF

So the Fourth has come and gone, and now Heritage Day has passed...

Friday: nothing much happened. I worked late, went to Which Brew and then crashed early.

Saturday: I felt tired but went to the gym anyway, then when Dawn didn't show (& I remembered we'd cancelled) I just blew it off. Some housework, then I did a slow, medium-long ride on the Lehigh towpath: brought the camera, took pictures of Bethlehem Steel, the new trails behind St Luke's Hospital, and the trainyard west of Sand Island.

Sunday was pretty interesting. I went with Theresa and "Murph" (aka Mike Murphy -- I've known him for years & just found out his real first name) to a brunch at Margarita's house -- where Jay DeJesus showed up on his road bike, then to Mary Merritt's annual party to watch the fireworks. It was pretty cool, saw Violetta (who will be leaving for Alaska soon), and also John & Sue Zorn with their daughter Kayla, who is probably about 2, maybe a little older. And of course, the fireworks were awesome.

TGIF, PART UMPTEEN

Morning weigh-in: 176.5#, 10% BF

Very busy at work this week, trying to get something out by today. That is all.

the bounceback

Morning weigh-in: 175.5#, 9.5% BF

I set up a yahoo photo page here for my public photos. Still not sure how big I should make them: I want the best possible quality & yahoo's storage space is "unlimited," but bandwidth, on dialup at home, is not. Also, uploading to yahoo is a big pain unless I find a way to automate the process.

My current strategy should be, to set up galleries of "good enough for the web" image files at SDF, then put the bigger image files at yahoo, where they also have photo ordering features -- like, who doesn't at this point?

Felt tired, somewhat under the weather again last night -- possible food allergy from lunch? Worked late, got home & took a nap, then ate a falafel wrap and some Taco Hell & played with 'puter. I felt much better after eating the greasy bad food...

UPDATE: Thought I'd mention what I'm reading: One Man's Meat by E. B. White (Charlottes's Web, The Elements of Style -- that E. B. White). Wry and clever urban writer relocates to a Maine coastal farm in the late 1930's, writes essays about his experiences that are later collected in book form. I wouldn't call it great because it wasn't meant to be "great" (its tone is casual & informal) but it is thoughtful, clear, vivid, compelling... in a word, well, great.

post-Indie Day

Morning weigh-in (Mon): 172.5#, 10% BF
Morning weigh-in (Tue): 172.5#, 13% BF

So, the holiday weekend...

Friday night: blew off riding to play with the computer. I put some of my recent digital photos onto the hard drive, then experimented with some command-line image manipulation utilities, mainly pnmscale. I'd like to keep my photos in the big (~800K) format, but make smaller copies for posting on the web; I'm also trying to find formats other than JPEG, that I can use for interim storage (ie, between bouts of "image manipulation") that don't cause a loss of image quality...

In other news, I set up a Yahoo group account for my family (mainly to get them to join Yahoo so we can share photos better), we'll see how that works out. And one final geek-out: I sent the $36 one-time fee to the Super Dimension Fortress via PayPal, now I have a full account on their machine w/ 300MB storage and access to the full set of UNIX commands. First thing I did was change my shell to bash.

Late-nite dinner at Which Brew, which was quiet.

Saturday I had breakfast at the coffee shop, then went to the gym; I saw Dawn for the first time in about a month -- she just got back from her honeymoon, with many stories including her own lost luggage tale. I spent most of the rest of the day cleaning the house: took a bunch of garbage bags full of old clothes to the charity dropoff, threw out a pile of old boxes, and cashed in all my loose change lying around. The place still looks like a disaster area -- worse than when I started, actually -- but progress was definitely made.

Dinner was Which Brew, again.

Sunday was the July 4th road ride and barbecue. The ride was about 70 miles, hilly, and hot -- a beautiful ride! About fifteen people did the long ride, the usual suspects plus John C, Tiasha, and Chris from the Bulldogs; a few others did shorter rides. We met back at Joe's mom's house, big BBQ, pool party, major fireworks... Theresa came later with Connor, & that was pretty cool because there were a bunch of kids he played with.

Monday: I sort of slacked, but dropped my bike box off at Doug's for his use on their upcoming trip to Vail. We grabbed lunch in Bethlehem at that Mexican place on Main Street, then hit a CD store. I got an Echo & the Bunnymen re-release and the soundtrack to O Brother where Art Thou? Not sure what Doug got but it was good.

I became kind of energetic later in the day: cleaned/lubed the Turner, then rode down the Delaware towpath -- something I hadn't done in years -- to just past Riegelsville and back, maybe 30-35 miles total. On the way back, I stopped at the Raubsville Tavern (you ride right past the outdoor bar) and got a margarita and a Lynchburg Lemonade -- wow!

After the ride I stopped off at T's and watched The Big Lebowski.

duh, part 2

Morning weigh-in: 176#, 12% BF

Recommendo: Saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last night. Incredible movie. Vintage Moore: viciously partisan (of course), manipulative (somewhat), maybe misleading (time will tell -- but I'd heard most of his revelations years ago, and most of them seem pretty true), but much better than his usual stuff. Very powerful, funny at times but in the end really sad.

Anyway, I was supposed to go riding at Round Valley tonight, but I'm working late, didn't bring bike and will instead hit the towpath. There's a reception for "Taming the Bicycle" tonight at the Banana Factory, and I think I'll head down to see it.

The Tour starts tomorrow.

these 4-day weeks are pretty nice

Morning weigh-in: 174#, 12% BF

Rode last night from Eric's house: me, Doug, Greg, Eric, Janna's Eric, and Joe & Cindy. He lives in the "hilly zone" south of the Bethlehem-Allentown border, and the ride definitely had its share of ups and downs... very difficult I thought; though I felt like I was riding OK I felt a little tired & out-of-sorts (poor sleep, stomach problems). Something nasty has been going around, fever/chills, sweats, fatigue & muscle aches. It got Doug & Joe, and reportedly Greg H as well; Doug's mom has something similar right now but also with upset stomach!! -- watch the paranoia...

duh

Morning weigh-in: 175#, 14% BF

A little dull today, not much to say... got my luggage back -- made them deliver it to the office, worked a little late but not too, rode last nite on the towpath (brought lights, used them for the last little bit), and met T and her neighbors/friends at the Riverside, a place with a deck overlooking the Delaware River.

Back From Florida

Morning weigh-in: 176#, 13.5% BF

Not a bad trip, though I'm still missing my luggage (nice move US Airways). I guess I should be thankful it happened on the return trip though...

I flew down Friday, after a bit of an impromptu party Thursday night at Which Brew with T (we went for dinner after riding the towpath)and a couple of others (Ed, Murph, Margerita). I had the next day off, but I still had to pack and my flight was 6:50 AM -- ouch! The flight was pretty uneventful, ABE to Ft Myers w/ connection in Pittsburg, then car rental & the hour or so drive to Marco.

Saturday was downtime, so I worked on my sunburn, then went out to dinner with all involved in the Christening. Baptism on Sunday, followed by barbecue at Kevin's, and I flew home yesterday. Plenty of photos, maybe I'll post a few here.

I stopped at Doug & Lori's on the way home, ended up in plans by Eric to see Fahrenheit 911 but it was sold out so we went to Tulum for dinner. Real food, real beer...

week's winding down already?

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

Last night was the Chain Gang Time Trial, on an approximately 14.5 mile long, hilly loop from the C's house. Joe & Cindy, Greg, Doug, Eric and myself, and Judy kept the time. I did it in 42.09, for an average of 20.6 mph -- not too shabby, except that I came in 2nd to last...

After that I went to Which Brew. It was Rachel's husband Bill's 50th birthday party -- Rachel was the first bartender at Weyerbacher: pretty girl, super-smart. I met T down there, and I finally wheedled out of her that she was fairly expert at UNIX printing, especially using nroff. I knew there was something I liked about her!

When I got home I signed up for a free account at the Super Dimension Fortress, a public-access UNIX system.

This is probably my last post for a few days, as I'm going to Florida tomorrow morning for my niece's baptism. See you next week!

they call it stormy monday, but tuesday's just as bad

Morning weigh-in: 175#, 11% BF

Rode last night at the 'burg with Brian and Curt. Curt (owner of Curt's Cyclery)was on his Surly singlespeed, similar to the one I plan to buy soon from him; Brian was back on his usual bike after getting his rear hub replaced, and I ... forgot my Camelback. I actually rode pretty good without the extra weight, but I felt naked without it and of course had nothing to drink. Luckily, it was pleasant and cool out, and I grabbed something afterward at the first convenience store I passed on the way home. I'll probably hit the gym tonight, avoid the rainy world outside.

Meantime, books: now that Mason & Dixon is out of the way I can continue in earnest with The Education of Henry Adams, and pick up One Man's Meat where I left off.

Love and Mortality

Just finished Mason & Dixon. Wow. That has probably the most bittersweet ending of any book I know. Gravity's Rainbow is still Pynchon's most brilliant and involved book, but M&D, despite the rollicking, complicated fun along the way, is deeper and sadder and far more beautiful. G'night.

Back From Camping

Morning weigh-in: 177#, 12% BF

Wednesday Night was the Chain Gang meeting. It seems so long ago now...

Thursday: was spent running around, getting ready for camping, then my neighbor's wake (pretty rough: his wife, even though sedated, lost it at one point), then I swung by Theresa's to check out her new car, a Volkswagen diesel station wagon, then "dinner" and drinks at Which Brew -- gotta love vacation!

Friday: I got up to the campsite in Jim Thorpe about noon, met John C and his friends/co-workers Bruce and Mark, set up camp and hit the trails by about 3:00. We rode Psycho Betty's Revenge and Bob's Option, which is only maybe a 6-7 mile loop but fairly technical, then cooled off in the lake. We biked downtown for dinner (and we also grabbed a few beers with Rich B, Greg H and his friend Mike at the Hotel Switzerland) and returned via the Switchback Trail in the dark. I went to bed, but those guys stayed up a little later...

Saturday: We drove to Tamaqua, the new local hotspot, to ride the trails near Bungalow Park. No other Gangsters showed up, but somehow I became "leader" for a pretty big group after Greg H told everyone I knew the trails there... we did the racecourse, then stopped for lunch when we found ourselves back at the park -- and suddenly our picnic tables had at least 40 people hanging out, friends of friends, a "six degrees of we camped with you last year" sort of thing going on. Our plan after lunch was to try and find the big field, a reclaimed stripmine that covered half the mountain, and the trails beyond it on the powerline ridge. Lots of backing and filling, and we finally discovered the powerline but not the trails I wanted; instead, we rode a cool downhill to Tuscarora Lake Park, found a trail around the lake and took a fun road descent back to Tamaqua. A shout-out to the Jersey Action Riders, especially Barb, Mary, Andrea and What's-Her-Name, who kept the ride fun and on course.

We ate in-camp Saturday night, then Mark and Bruce took off for home. John and I paid a nominal visit to the VMB campsite after dinner, but we were both tired and crashed early.

Sunday: John left in the morning, and I packed my stuff up but went for a ride with Rich B, Beth McG, and Joe G (yup); we did the Switchback to Summit Hill, then the Ridge Trail and other singlerack on Pisgah Mtn. When we got back I hopped in the lake, grabbed a burger and hit the road for home.

Dinner was an entire pepperoni pizza, with Gatorade and some Czech beer and Mason & Dixon, followed by an early bedtime.

Happy Bloomsday!

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 172.5#, 12.5% BF
Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 174#, 10% BF

Not just any Bloomsday either... 100 years ago today was the day, in fictional Dubliner Leopold Bloom's life, that James Joyce immortalized in Ulysses. Bloomsday is now a holiday in Dublin, and in this centennial year it's an even bigger celebration than usual. So go out and lift a Guinness for old James & Leopold, or (if you're brave) maybe a Bushmills or a Jameson's -- it'll be easier than reading the book!

Got my plane tix for Florida last night, then had dinner with T since I'll be gone camping this weekend, and tonight is the Chain Gang meeting; tomorrow and Friday I'm on vacation. This weekend is Mountain Bike Weekend in Jim Thorpe, but my original plans to go up Thursday afternoon have been changed: my neighbor Ted died last Friday of injuries he got in a truck accident. The wake is tomorrow evening, so I'll probably get ready for camping in the morning, then go to the viewing, and then head up to JT on Friday morning.

an interesting (and busy) weekend

Morning weigh-in: 174.5#, 12.5% BF

Friday: Towpath ride, then ...what? Chores or something, I already forget, but I ended up at Which Brew (of course) for dinner. Hung out with T, some others.

Saturday: A beautiful day. In the morning was the Aloha Ride, a 50-miler through areas north of Hackettstown/Blairstown, the hilly back roads near Walpack Center (ie in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area). This was just a great ride.

The afternoon was at the 15DollarLime fundraiser for MoveOn.org, then came naptime, then later some pizza and "The Great Escape" at T's.

Sunday: The morning was spent looking at a new park where bikers have permission to build, maintain, and ride on a trail system. A bunch of us did a walkdown of the park, terrain, inventory of existing trails, etc... In the afternoon I went on a ride with Theresa, got her bike in working order and we rode the bike paths from Hugh More Park to the Chain Dam.

UPDATE: Rode Jacobsburg tonight after work, then came home and read these words in Mason & Dixon:

On June 14th, they stand atop the Allegheny Divide.

Sweet! By the way, The Education of Henry Adams is better than I remember it (though I do remember it as only bogging down near the end, and I'm at the beginning right now) -- every page, every paragraph, has its gem.

Friday (Thank God It's)

Morning weigh-in: 175.5#, 12.5% BF

Not much to say. All quiet on the Linux front (NVIDIA servers were cranky last nite so I didn't download the new driver software), stopped by T's to exchange her bent wheel with a loaner from me, and her bike (a Wal-Mart Mongoose) has 24" wheels -- WTF? Riding the towpath tonight, maybe WB (again) for dinner, maybe not.

It's official: I just mailed my entry for the Wilderness 101. Gulp!

Day of the Locust, a Day of Song

Morning weigh-in: 174.5%, 12.5% BF

The heat must have finally got them going: yesterday and today the cicadas were extremely loud near work.

Rode yesterday on my own, did the Hellertown loop but started late so I skipped the Morvale Road "Hill Climb of Death" -- the ride was hilly enough even without it. Funny though, and I can't say whether I'd attribute it to my new gearing or some newfound climbing strength, but this ride doesn't seem so hellishly tough anymore.

Got home, did more laundry including my Camelback, went to laundromat to dry it and had a late dinner at Which Brew -- busted! Theresa was there: I didn't tell her I was going & she didn't tell me, like that commercial where the couple breaks their date (each claiming sickness or something), and then they accidentally meet at a nightclub... To be perfectly honest, I think the "interpersonal compatibility index" between us isn't all that high.
Oh well.

On the Linux front: still messing with NVIDIA & the new kernel, still unsuccessful.

Linux Voyager: win some, lose some

Morning weigh-in: 174.5#, 7% BF (WTF?)

Went to that Democratic meetup last night, but it was kind of lame, everyone seemed tired.

Came home, did more laundry and recompiled the kernel -- this time I got all the bugs out of my procedure; the installation was actually easy once you know how to do it right. Should have read the HOWTO before starting...

Unfortunately, something went wrong with the next step, video card installation. I thought I totally lost everything for a minute, but reconfigured X to think I had just a generic monitor, and I was back in business, sort of. Now I have sound, but the 3D graphics accelerator has vanished -- no GL, thus no cool games for a while.

Tonight I may run through the process one more time, make a new kernel but modularize it a lot more than I did, then try again with the Nvidia driver install. I'm supposed to do an offroad group ride from Eric's, but it looks like it's becoming a big production ("bring lights," BBQ afterward) and I have things to do, like drying my clothes (otherwise I'll literally have nothing to wear tomorrow), food shopping, and fiddling with the 'puter. I think I'll just do the "benchmark ride" on my own after work.

PS Happy Birthday Dad!!

Transit of Venus

Morning weigh-in: 175.5#, 11.5% BF

Got up this morning to watch the Transit of Venus, but my "light from pinhole in one paper plate shines onto the other paper plate" method of viewing left a lot to be desired. (I'll get another chance in eight years, so I have time to find a more effective viewing method.) There are some great shots here, though. This is especially interesting to me right now, since I'm in the middle of Mason & Dixon, whose main events are bracketed by the celebrated Transits of 1761 & 1769.

Ride: I rode at the burg last night. Myself, Rich B, Greg P and Kathy S (who was hurting, suffering from allergies/asthma worse even than mine, and in the throes of a medication change). We took it pretty slow, and I skipped out at 7:45. A nice ride, but the place was a little muddy. Actually, a lot muddy. Ran into Rob L and his wife Sarah, both wearing Campbell's Soup jerseys. Rob broke his collarbone racing a few weeks ago, and was riding one-handed -- the animal!

Dinner: was Mug Club Night at Which Brew. I met Brian there, also Theresa. Brian was a little miffed when I told him about T, wouldn't come over to meet her. She also seemed a little distant or preoccupied...

Computer: I think I have it (Nvidia vs my system upgrade) figured out, but I haven't done anything about it yet. I must recompile the kernel once more anyway, I may do that tonight when I get home, before running back out.

Tonight: I'll be going to the Democratic Meetup at Wegmans.

Linux Voyager (part umpteen)

Morning weigh-in: 174#, 11.5% BF

Saturday night I had dinner with T at Which Brew, then went home and studied the situation with the new kernel. My strategy: delete the image I made already, recompile with new configuration (specifically: I neglected to allow for RAM disks last time), use something called mkinitrd, and set up LILO read the image file thus created. (I really think I ought to take a look at this. When all else fails, read the directions.) I got the kernel recompiled, modules done etc, then Sunday morning I installed the new modules and ran mkinitrd, but I was also going for a century ride so I had to put it aside for a while...

The ride: we started from Greg's house around 10:00 AM, and Greg (uncharacteristically) opted for a less structured ride. Myself, Greg, Joe C, Doug, Brian, Bob W and his friend Chris from the Bulldogs. It was a pretty decent ride, lots of fun and at a pretty fast pace even if it ddn't feel that way most of the time. Brian dropped out before we did Blue Mountain, and Doug & I left a little after that (we ended up with 82 miles), while the crew continued, looping around back roads in the Slate Belt to get up to their 100-mile quota. We had a little lunch/dinner afterward at Gregs, burgers etc.

When I got home, I tried my new kernel, but it failed to start the X server (I think I have to deal with Nvidia 3rd-party modules), and I was too tired to do anything about it...

Rainy Day

no morning weigh in, ahhhh...

Rode the towpath yesterday, ran into Joe and Cindy, riding with Talley their dog. I totally did not expect them, but they say they ride there almost weekly now; I guess this is a good substitute for Cindy's "real singletrack" fix until her neck situation is resolved. We met at the Bethlehem Boat Club boat launch, and I turned around & rode with them to the baseball field, then back towards Bethlehem on the singletrack, parts of which I never rode on before last night, though I have jogged the entire thing. We got to Freemansburg before I decided I'd better head home.

During the ride I had a later Mozilla version downloading (v1.7, release candidate whatever); when I got back the connection was broken but the (13 MB) download had already completed, luckily. I then re-connected and started downloading the latest 2.4 kernel (2.4.26, another 30 MB), showered and went over to T's for a bite to eat, a few Sierra Nevada Pale Ales and some Raiders of the Lost Ark on her new TV. I got home around 12:30 and found that the kernel download was fine as well...

When I got up this morning I blew off the gym, instead installing the new Mozilla (it went just fine, though some of my favorite themes are now obsolete), and the new kernel (it went not-so-fine). Make xconfig, make dep, make bzImage, make modules, make modules_install, yadda yadda, put new image in boot directory, upgraded lilo.conf, rebooted and -- got a kernel panic. More fiddling with lilo didn't help, so I may start over from source.