Morning weigh-in: 177#, 11.5% BF
So, I'm still going to Florida, but I'm going stag and I won't be visiting the Keys: Theresa can't make it, so there's no point in an extended vacation, and no reason to drive down instead of flying. I have my flight & a rental car booked, must make sure hotel can accommodate me for Thursday night. Oh well.
Morning weigh-in: 174.5#, 10.5% BF
The weekend:
Friday night was a slow lap (sluggish, no snap) on the towpath, made slower by a flat, then a late night at WB & also Porters...
Saturday was a quick run followed by the gym, then I checked out the P'burg Crit before stopping by T's and dropping off her "certified non-deathtrap" bike. Dinner w/ "the guys" (Doug, Brian & Eric) at JP McGrady's Pub in Bethlehem, kind of a quiet night even so.
Sunday was a group ride at fell Mountain: Doug, Bob, Joe & Cindy, Eric, Rich and Pete and myself. I was hurting (tired and headachey), but some "it's allergies, take an allergy pill" advice from nurse Cindy pulled me through. Rough ride all around, everyone was tired by the end (only 15 miles, but it took 5 hours to do -- 2:20 ride time actually, still tiwas some tough, technical riding), but we were all glad we did it. We met up with a local near the end, and he showed us a few new trails.
Post ride pig-out at that place in Clark's Summit, then the drive home (slept most of the way), then I tried to FTP some new galleries into my site, ran into problems and gave up, passing out by 10:00. Stay tuned: Moab 2002 shots up "soon"...
Strangely enough, I'm not tired today.
Morning weigh-in: 176.5#, 11.5% BF
Scared myself last night & this morning, thought there was a major (and really stupid) error on a drawing I checked -- designer/drafter draws it, but the checker makes sure it's correct, and is ultimately the one responsible for mistakes, and this job is already in fabrication. I came in this morning & checked, and everything is A-OK. Phew!
Didn't ride last night, kind of rainy out so I played w/ 'puter, & brought T's old bike to Cycle Funattic for a a safety once-over and new tires. Saw Brian there (he's volunteering for the Phillipsburg Criterium tomorrow) and made arrangements to meet for dinner at Which Brew -- he was a no-show, but there was a gen-u-wine hillbilly dude there, espousing his views on moonshine and cigarettes...
Morning weigh-in: 174.5#, 14% BF
So, my website is up and running, check it out here. Next up is figuring out a little more CSS, then maybe some CGI and PHP (one big plus from using the Super Dimension Fortress)... first order of business though, is to revamp the blog, take advantage of new features -- HaloScan choked this morning, so I may switch to using Blogger's comments, and will also enable the "archive individual posts" option, probably this weekend sometime. Tonight if it's nice I'll probably ride with Theresa and her son on the Palmer Bike Path.
I think I have it pretty close to ready, so I'm posting my webpage as we speak, FTP'ing the stuff into freeshell.org; it should take another hour, hour and a half to finish.
My plan is eventually to have a series of pages, with 3 columns of stuff on each page: left side for regular navigation on my site, right side for cool links relevant to that particular page, and the middle for content (text, photos etc). The main breakdowns will be: home, Easton, bikes, photos, this blog, and a contact link. I may disable the contact link if I start getting too much spam. I have the skeleton up, and will be fleshing it out as time goes by. I also plan to add comments to my photos, eventually. Except for this blog though, and the start of some galleries, I am really hurting for content.
Once everythng is in place, I'll link my blog to my homepage as well, but right now I'm not sure of my site name, maybe donxfive.freeshell.org? We'll see -- I just tried SSH'ing into my acount, and the file transfers choked, I may not be allowed to do both at once but I'll try it again, find out how to finish the job.
UPDATE: I'm in my shell account, and the file transfers seem no worse for wear, it must have been a fluke or coincidence before...
Morning weigh-in: 177#, 10.5% BF
I think I see a disturbing trend here, lots of eating out (damn you, Taco Hell!) --> weight gain this past week. Bit of a post-Allamuchy binge, which is OK but I should put it behind me ASAP.
Morning weigh-in: 176#, 13% BF
Just a quick post, a little info. I've been dabbling in Cascading Style Sheets, a few other things and am now pretty close to putting my web pages up. The key will be the galleries, since I have very little other content right now except for this blog...
Rode today on the Delaware towpath, with Doug and Lori on their new tandem, and with Brian. Lori's still on injured reserve from running-induced shin splints: doc sez no hills, hence the towpath. Pearly Baker's afterward for late lunch or early dinner. I've been playing wth the computer ever since, but must now do some laundry etc. Back to work tomorrow.
Morning weigh-in (Saturday): 175.5 #, 12% BF
Morning weigh-in (Sunday): 177#, 11% BF
Just got up maybe a half hour ago, I'll be doing some housework here today, after breakfast at a coffee shop -- not sure which one yet, there's still two in Easton; once upon a time there was a third, actually my first choice for breakfast, but the oners got divorced and the place closed. (I called it a "triple play" when a Saturday involved visits to all three...) Well anyway, Coffee & Tea Time is gone, and I typically eat a breakfast bialy or something at Coffee Works on Saturday -- I did it yesterday -- so Sunday looks like a trip to the Quadrant except I was there yesterday too, got a cup to go and some ground beans during the afternoon errand-fest. Hmmm... I like Coffee Works better, maybe follow instincts & go there -- if they're open today! Decisions, decisions...
Back to "reality:" rode Friday on the towpath, a pretty hot lap since I realized (at Sand Island, the furthest point) that I forgot my clear lenses. All I had was prescription sunglasses so I had to get home before full darkness hit -- made it. Yesterday I felt it in my legs, but went to the gym and ran four hilly miles before working out; today I really feel it...
Stopped by Weyerbacher yesterday, and hung out with T as she closed up, then we went to Porter's for lunch. We both had chores, and she wanted to grab a quick nap so off we went in opposite directions (that's where my afternoon coffee run came in).
My one planned activity was to look at her old 10-speed bike, see if it could be salvaged: it could, and I cleaned up the drivetrain, tightened a few loose screws, shot a spritz of lube here & there, and put some air in the tires. I was able to ride it around the block a few times, though the rear wheel makes a funny noise and the tires are no longer roadworthy (easy replace). If anything else was wrong, there would have been serious problems, since the components and frame are so old that new stuff wouldn't be compatible; one bad item would mean replacing the bike, and she seems pretty attached to it.
I called her later, but she got a chill in Porter's maybe, or whatever but she had a headache and a sore thoat all of a sudden, and stayed in. I went to dinner, Carmine's in Allentown, with the Pinkertons (who have their tandem put together and rode it yesterday) and the Riglers.
Many household chores await me today, but first: coffee!
Morning weigh-in: 177#, 10% BF
...or I guess I should say Nihil illigitimates carborundum...
So, they removed the MAC machine from the other building here at work, without telling anyone, and today I needed money to get lunch (scramble scramble)... 400 emails waiting Wednesday night, another 177 last night, and I even got a "we think you're sending a virus" email from some dumbass "ISP administrator," no doubt the result of the Allamuchy mailing list fiasco...
Rode the towpath last night w/ Brian and Joe & Cindy, then ate dinner at Which Brew.; met Theresa there. Tonight? Not sure of the agenda, but the Mighty Manatees are playing at the Funhouse, and Three Monks are at WB.
By the way, I really like my new modem, a US Robotics one with lots more blinky lights than the last one, and a louder speaker. Dorky, but cool.
Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 177#, 9.5% BF
Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 178#, 8.5% BF
Had a good post yesterday, but Blogger ate it and I didn't feel like retyping, oh well...
Got the modem, got a new serial cable, works like a charm. Tried it last nite after a short ride plus dinner at WB w/ T (once again, 'puter made me stay up late). Tonite is a towpath ride, tomorrow another one -- since I also rode Turesday, I think recovery is coming along nicely.
Morning weigh-in (Monday): 172.5#, 11.5% BF
Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 177#, 9% BF
Trouble at home, I think my modem's fried. It can detect incoming rings, but outbound signals don't seem to be getting into the phone line. Thunderstorm yesterday, maybe a transient in the phone line? Anyway, no internet access at home until the situation is resolved, so only light, lunchtime blogging for a while.
Allamuchy was last weekend. I went up straight from work Friday and camped (though dinner was at a restaurant, and breakfast was also bought at the Boy Scouts cafeteria -- I was really roughing it), and we raced Saturday, Saturday night, and Sunday, heat, rain, night and fog, and -- we took third place in the 4-man Masters group! Photos haven't appeared yet, but results can be found here.
Our other team (Pedal ya Pansies) took seventh in the Vet 4-man, a Chain Gang teammate won the Jr 2-man, and of course it was fun to see all the old friends (Beth & Kevin McG, Dave & Selene, Doug V and Scott H, etc etc, but no Gary, Gina, Gerry or Joe G). Of course, we also had the disco ball up and running, and we decorated our campsite (and bikes) with jungle-oriented stuff and little plush monkeys... Totally exhausted on Sunday, crashed by 8:00 or so (except for a mealtime wakeup).
Last night I hit Porters for dinner. That is all.
Morning weigh-in: 175#, 12.5% BF
Getting ready to go to my boss's retirement luncheon, just passing through...
Worked on the bike last night, things look good. I cleaned/lubed the drivetrain, cleaned the cables & housings as needed, and put new pads in the front brakes. (I also got my drycleaning done & did laundry.) Tonight is the rest of the laundry, garbage, and packing the camping and non-food stuff for the weekend; tomorrow is food shopping. I want to have the car packed Thursday night, so I can just go straight to Allamuchy from work Friday. (I was thinking of riding tonight, a short ride to double-check the bike and seat the new pads, but now it looks like rain.)
Morning weigh-in: 173.5#, 11.5% BF
It's kind of funny, the past few days I've been getting a feeling almost of surprise, when I'm just hanging out and time passes, like I want and expect time to just stop for a while... of course, this usually happens about 6:00 AM... Tomorrow is my boss Walt's retirement party; he'll be gone to his new home out near Palm Springs probably this weekend. Allamuchy is also this weekend, and the summer is winding down.
Rode last night at Jacobsburg, felt like I was working but my average speed was pretty low -- uh oh. Nothing I can do about it now though, just do the final race prep on the bike, buy food for the weekend and pack. I'll probably be going up Friday right after work.
Morning weigh-in: 176#, 11.5% BF
Last week's trip was pretty cool, two days out of the office, followed by four hours of waiting in Parkersburg Airport (for our flight to stop being delayed and get cancelled), then seven hours of driving back to Allentown in a Korean econo-box rental... got home at about 3:30 AM, went in to work around noon Friday.
Friday night was a towpath ride with Doug and Brian (his first time on the bike in maybe six weeks), followed by dinner at Cannons. I found out later that Joe & Cindy went to Which Brew, figuring to meet me where I "always go" -- doh!
Saturday was a "half-selfish day," chores/gym etc, then went to Weyerbacher, hung out with Theresa. We had lunch at Porters, dinner at Which Brew, a really cool day. Sunday was the trail maintenance day, race course prep for the 24 Hours of Allamuchy.
I stopped by T's last night (afternoon really), and we walked downtown to watch some live entertainment -- high school kids, singing and dancing at the riverside ampitheater -- then busted out the Dazed and Confused DVD.
Morning weigh-in: 175#, 12.5% BF
A true fly-by: at home, grabbed lunch & my clothes on the way to the airport. I'm leaving in a few minutes, but first:
I rode Round Valley last yesterday, felt good & fast but my time was about the same as the last (disappointing) ride there. In my defense though, this time I ran into Scott H & Doug V, two teammates from "Freakin' A-", my Canaan team from 1997. Did a little catching up, found out that they're also doing Allamuchy, both solo. My actual, rolling average speed was 8.6 mph, as opposed to 8 mph last time... I always told myself that if I could manage a 10 mph average at Round Valley, out & back on the "hard" trails, I'd move up to expert; this was a loop, partly on the road, and I'm still way off. Oh well.
Stopped by T's last nite after the ride, talked her into meeting me at Which Brew at 9:00 while my laundry dried. Nice to see her, but there were some obnoxious louts (smelly too, according to T, & also bartender Carrie), which made the place less than perfect until they were thrown out.
Morning weigh-in: 175#, 12.5% BF
I was going to ride the towpath last night, but blew it off in favor of errands, chores, and bike maintenance. Dinner at home: 5-grain tempeh stir-fry with peppers, onions, garlic, ginger, tamari and a little tahini, some serious eating. Worked on the bike after dinner, mainly just did a clean & lube, & gave Theresa a call: she saw that specialist, and he said she didn't have a torn rotator cuff, but it was inflamed and she probably would tear it if she didn't follow his advice (rest, special exercises); he also gave her a bunch of killer cortisone shots.
Tonight I'll be riding up at Round Valley, tomorrow and Thursday I'll be in West Virginia somewhere for work, and I'll probably be riding the towpath on Friday.
Yo, later.
Morning weigh-in: 175#, 14% BF
Tired this morning. We (me, John C, Doug, Scott, Joe C, Rich and Bob) rode Allamuchy yesterday in the rain, a tough ride with food-coma-level meal afterward, and I basically passed out when I got home. Woke up later and had a burst of energy: I got the next set of boxes/junk ready for the garbage, straightened up the living room and vacuumed (also used rug cleaner), and did a quickie-clean of the bathroom while doing laundry; the dishwasher went on after the washing machine was done. I was sort of motivated because I spilled coffee as I left the house this morning, I wanted to get that dealt with, and I guess one thing led to another... I feel pretty good about this little project because I've been straightening and reconfiguring lately, but each step forward made things look worse as I tore into the mess, and last night I got the first payoff -- suddenly, I could see a major improvement in the place. Between the ride and the late-nite housework though, I wore myself out, overslept and woke up exhausted.
The weekend:
Friday was a towpath ride, where I met Doug and he broke his seatpost bolt. Spent about 30-45 minutes trying to put in a spare bolt he had, or at least get the broken part out but no luck -- Scott S from work rode by, on the way to Musikfest, and stopped to lend a hand and enjoy our comedic stylings, but nothing any of us tried worked so Doug had to ride home seatless. Luckily I brought lights, because the seatpost snafu put me in the dark on the return trip. I went to WB afterward, met T and her son Kyle, who was up visiting.
Saturday was "selfish day," coffee shop, gym, chores etc, but I also talked Joe C into helping me change the oil in my forks. This turned out to be a little involved but not very hard (he has all the tools and has done it many times before, half the battle), and the forks are working beautifully again. Took Joe & Cindy to dinner as a "thank you."
Sunday we rode at Allamuchy. The plan was for a 40-mile epic, but the weather wasn't cooperating, rain left over from the hurricane etc. We got in about 17-18 miles in about 5 hours; adventures on the wet slippery trails included a few crashes (standard), getting separated for a while (no biggie), some flats and broken chains (minor bad luck), and... John's frame broke. We were at maybe mile 10 when that happened, and he had to limp back to the car via the Boy Scout Camp and the road (he hitched a ride, luckily), while we worked our way back through the woods. What actually broke was his left chainstay, part of the rear swingarm so he should be able to get just that part pretty quickly, hopefully. I had a lot of trouble with visibility as my glasses kept fogging up, something I'd better solve before the race.
After that we had dinner, then home, nap, cleaned the house...
UPDATE -- more Linux: I got my internet connection to work better, and have some idea what was happening though I'm still not sure about what actually was going wrong. Basically, the PPP connection protocol has a provision to compress the packet header information -- I guess that would be information like what the packet contains, who it's from & where it's going etc, as opposed to the actual data that the packet is delivering -- which cuts down on transmission overhead on older, relatively slow dialup lines. The packet (with its normal header) routes its way around the internet and arrives at my ISP, which then compresses the header and sends it to me. My guess is, I enabled the VJ compression on the latest kernel rebuild, and either my ISP was choking trying to comply, or the data was more vulnerable in low quality phone lines. (Alternately, there may be a bug in the newer kernel.) Whatever the ultimate cause, my PPP software was picking up compression errors and stumbling...
The "quick and dirty" solution was simple: I added the line novj to my /etc/ppp/options file, which tells pppd to not use compression. I haven't noticed any real problems, and big files download pretty fast now. So far so good...
Morning weigh-in: 172#, 12.5% BF
Major accident on the way in this morning, on the interstate, right at my exit for work. I took the secondary roads in just for a change of pace (no idea about the accident), found it backed up, took tertiary road and it was backed up, got to work about a half hour late. Not sure what happened, but they had the eastbound lanes all closed and there were rumors of fatalities -- possibly a westbound truck crossed the median.
Anyway, I rode Round Valley last night, and felt good though my time (and cardio/fitness) was way off. Unfortunately, my technical was off as well, since my front shock was acting funny -- not enough damping or something, felt very squirrelly in the rocks. I managed to avoid all rain, which was good, but rain got Musikfest so I didn't go last night. Passed out instead for a while, then played with the computer.
Speaking of fitness: I talked to Brian last night, who told me he saw the cardiologist that Dona recommended. The doctor gave him an echocardiogram on the spot, said his ejection fraction was actually in the upper 30's / low 40's, not 25 like that other test showed (normal is 50-60). Doc said there may have been innacuracies in the first test, or his heart has improved (pretty rapidly) since whatever virus attacked him; he's still convalescing, but that's incredible news. The doctor also said that, if it weren't for his fitness level, the worst-case scenario would very likely have meant needing a heart transplant -- Brian told me he kissed every one of his bikes when he got home.
More 'puter talk: I configured the "modem lights" applet to connect to Epix, and things look good that way but there were still slowdowns... I just happened to check out dmesg, and saw a bunch of "PPP: VC compression error" messages, took the clue and ran with it: this (I know now) is Van Jacobson compression of packet headers, and although a Google search revealed lots of problems/questions similar to mine, but few answers, I think I found a way to disable it for now. That's a job for tonight, hopefully.
Morning weigh-in: 174.5#, 13% BF
Playing with the computer the other day, managed to knock out its knowledge of the modem. Pretty easy to fix in the long run (restored a symbolic link), but I also got a look at how kppp works as well as the GNOME "modem lights" panel applet. (Finally -- finally! -- got that to work correctly without having to use kppp, also learned a bit about lock files. Stupid mistake, as usual.) Next up is: why is downloading so slow with my 2.4.26 kernel, especially since the 2.4.18 seems just fine? Looks to me like a bad compile, maybe module problems. (Speaking of which, I think I have a handle on my 2.6.7 problems, hopefully a little time to mess with it soon.)
Didn't ride last night, got to Round Valley and there was a lot of thunder & lightning, so I went home and threw out a bunch of boxfulls of really old computer manuals (The Internet For Macs For Dummies, Hypercard Reference Manual, Microsoft Basic for Mac, etc). I have about a roomful of stuff to work through still, either to toss it or put it in storage (toss, toss), plus lots of sweaters (save).
After that I went overt Theresa's house & watched Cold Mountain with her. It was OK: the book was better of course, and T's original assessment -- chick flick -- was pretty much correct. Pet allergy problems from the visit, sigh.
Will try for another RV ride tonight, then maybe see the Fellas at Bethlehem Brew Works (aka MusikFest) tonight.
Morning weigh-in (Monday): 176#, 10% BF
Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 175.5#, 10% BF
Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 176#, 11.5% BF
Hmmm, let's see... the weekend...
Friday was a night ride up at South Mtn Park with Doug and Rich, who was riding in the dark for the first time. Interesting ride, from about 6:30 to 9:30, 16 miles total (of which maybe eight were very technical singletrack). I think Rich had himself a bit of an eye-opener in terms of both equipment and technique... Afterward, I met Theresa at Which Brew, where we saw the usual suspects as well as Doug & Lori, plus a band (Illinois Slim?). I thought I'd screwed up by arriving so late (T was there from about 7:00), but she was pretty cool about it. She and I drifted over to Porters (where it was mobbed) after WB closed, and caught a set of Leather & Lace.
Saturday was my usual "selfish day," gym, chores etc. I burned two copies of my bear photos (the big, 800k versions) for Dawn & Heather, and brought them to the gym. Theresa was going to see the Dead at the Tweeter Center with a bunch of people, so I stopped by Weyerbachers Brewery where she runs the tours, ran a few more errands and then met her and the show-goers at WB & saw them off. I went to MusikFest that night with Doug & Lori and Joe & Cindy, saw the Red Elvises and got some of that spiced corn on the cob.
Sunday I slept in until 10:00, then went for a road ride. Breakfast (brunch actually, and huge) was at The Coffee Works, kind of cool to ride downtown, get a bite and then ride into the countryside. I hit the Stockertown rail-trail for a part of the ride, which was nice but wasn't really meant for road bikes. Dinner was pizza and a movie (Clerks, now 10 years old) at Theresa's; I got to hear about the show (she loved it, was very happy with new singer). Next time I'm going.
Monday & Tuesday, not much to say: Jacobsburg "recovery ride" on Monday, Tuesday was the Democratic MeetUp at Wegmans. A little better than the last one I went to, since there were more oddballs this time (think "I have an agenda and here's my chance to hijack the meeting and rant").
Anyway, if the weather holds, and it probably won't, I'll be riding Round Valley tonight.
