The Roar Of A Predator So Absolute

Morning weigh-in: 183.5#, 11.5% BF (Woo Hoo!)
(I'll take the win, but I suspect that this was really just the work of a really big poo.)

Chain Gang meeting last night, at Joey T's place. Talked to his wife for a bit beforehand & met his kids: a different context, and he actually makes more sense when seen as a family man. The more I know him, the more I like the guy. The meeting itself: very productive, a little bit long-winded but we got a lot of things done, or at least scheduled to be done. Then it was back to the bike-porn, eating and gabbing...

Busted! Driving home from work Tuesday, someone honked their horn and I saw Megan waving as she drove by -- she caught me in the middle of "car dancing" to some cool tune. How embarrassing -- caught being dorky, by a hottie! Life is so unfair...

Still Reading: Yep, Against the Day, which is reminding me not so much of Vineland anymore, but Gravity's Rainbow. Still dealing with the aftermath of the Tunguska Event.

Tonight is a late night here at work, then the gym, followed by leftovers: I have tuna & wilted greens, and two more days of chili to get through.

UPDATE: A little something to honor Sophie Scholl, guillotined on this date in 1943:

Nothing is so unworthy of a civilised nation as allowing itself to be
governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base
instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his
government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will
befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and
the most horrible of crimes — crimes that infinitely outdistance every human
measure — reach the light of day? -- White Rose Pamphlet #1

Tunguska

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 184.5#, 11% BF
Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 185.5#, 11% BF

Fat Tuesday: One more "last hurrah," went out last night after yoga, while the laundry dried. Had a Troegs Nugget Nectar, which is made from Simcoe hops (among others), a hot topic lately among the bike crowd. I'd gone out to see if I could find some Weyerbacher Simcoe IPA, was unsuccessful but this was a good substitute. Dinner itself was a potato and chickpea soup, with nachos.

I sat next to a woman who was there with Judy, and whose son was working his first day in the kitchen, and struck up a conversation. Turns out she bikes, commutes, and is active in the Coalition for Appropriate Transportation; she also knows CAT people Joey T, Damion and Rob, and Scott S from work -- small world, or small Lehigh Valley cycling activist world... Interesting woman, she also brews her own beer, and makes mead as well.

A Screaming Comes Across The Sky: I'm up to the part in Against the Day where one of the (hundreds of) main characters is in Siberia, and arrives at the right place just in time for the Tunguska Event. There are a couple of references to Tchernobyl, "the star called Wormwood in the Book of Revelations," which reminded me of the girl who motorcycles through the Chernobyl disaster area. I was so disappointed to find out that that site was a fake.

How's That Workin' For Ya?

Morning weigh-in: 185#, 12% BF -- D'oh!

Not much to say, just popped in to record the weight.

Reading: Against the Day is in the kitchen, while that history of Medieval civilization is in the bathroom. On the way in to work this morning, I was thinking about possible similarities between the relationship of the Emperor to the Germanic kingdoms on the one hand, and Buddhism and shamanistic Asian tribes on the other. Maybe I'll experiment with different bathroom reading, see what the Rorschach test brings up next.

Thick As A Brick

The theme for this weekend was probably exercise...

Friday night I did a towpath ride. The paved "bike path" parts were actually plowed, and the snow was hard enough that, except for maybe a half inch of powder, you rode on top of it. The going was slow though, and I did a shortened ride but still took almost two hours. Called my friend Joe with a trail conditions update, made plans to meet him for a ride Saturday, then went to bed.

Saturday I got up early and went to yoga. Big breakthrough for me, I did a sort of armstand/headstand. Seems stupid, but I was pretty proud of myself, even if the instructor helped me (a lot). After that was breakfast at the coffee shop, where I got out just in time, gulping down the last of my coffee and skedaddling when that "Trans-Mongolian Vacation" dude came in.

Next stop was the gym, good workout and fun times with Dawn -- our workouts are really gab-fests with some weightlifting thrown in. This officially made it a multi-workout day, what the triathlon people call a "brick workout," but just to make sure I seized the day I had another workout coming...

Home, a lunch of chili, and then I went up to Jacobsburg where I rode with my friend Joe G for two or three hours. The conditions there were awesome, except a few heavy-use areas, and one section where an ATV got on the trail. Pretty fast and hard ride, and I was parched and starving so I stopped at Which Brew for dinner on the way home. Very different crowd in there that early (say 6:00-6:30), very odd to be a stranger among a bunch of people who all know each other, in a place where you consider yourself a regular. Nice people though, at least the ones I got to talk to, but I got out of Dodge as quickly as I could and was in bed by 10:00, slept the sleep of the dead.

"And your wise men don't know how it feels,
To be thick, as a brick."

Sunday, today, I went with Doug and Lori up to Jim Thorpe. We brought snowshoes and XC skis, but conditions were best for skiing so that's what we did, over three hours worth: we were bushed when we were done. Funny thing, we ran into a friend on the trail, Kathy from the PPRAC ride. She invited us back to their weekend house (next to the trail) but by the time we finished and stopped in, they'd already gone home. Not so funny were the chafing issues Lori had with her socks -- yeeouch, her feet looked scary painful when we got back, needed bandages on some pretty good blisters. Bandages, then sandwiches in town, and it was time to head home. You can find the photos on my flickr page.

Soylent Spring, Roborotica

Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 13% BF

Doop de doo, just wandering around the internets... Uh-oh, I wonder what the implications of something like this might be? Meantime, Mimi Smartypants won't link to the trainwreck she found, but I think she's talking about this guy. Freaky maybe, but to another dude not quite as deer-in-the-headlights fascinating as she finds him, I've heard it all and even lived some of it, though it does seem that his world view -- and libido -- were programmed by Maxim or something...

Anyway, last night was the VMB meeting at the Windsor House. Very businesslike, got a lotta stuff done, so in other words it was kind of tedious (interesting, just long), but all that business stuff is now out of the way. (Rich B is now Prez & Doug is VP.) Dinner was a couple pierogi and a few beers at the meeting, washed down with a bowl of cereal when I got home. Tonight will be a crock pot of chili, which I prepped last night; I think it'll be a bit hotter than other batches I've made, we'll see. (I washed my hands after making it, but rubbed my eye in my sleep, thought I was gonna die.)

I don't know how I'll get there, since all the roads in PA are clusterfscked right now, but I was thinking of going XC skiing this weekend, maybe up near Williamsport.

UPDATE: This is what I wrote on this date last year, and this is what I wrote two years ago, and this is what I wrote three years ago.

Snow Clause

Morning weigh-in: 184#, 13% BF

We got out early yesterday, so I rode in the daylight. I was only out for about an hour (maybe 5 miles tops), since the roads were still pretty bad. Got home, did some yoga -- I bought a handy book to help with the learning curve -- and had some tortellini & salad for dinner.

After that I went out for a bit, walked down to Porters. The place was pretty much empty because of the storm, or maybe because I got there so early: the (non-existent) dinner crowd would have been thinning out by then, but the evening crowd, which did show up just as I was leaving, had not yet arrived.

Tonight is the Valley Mountain Bikers meeting.

Generic, Day 2

Morning weigh-in: 183.5#, 13# BF

The storm is not so bad (the roads, especially I-78, were maybe a little worse than I expected), but there is hardly anyone at work today. Sheesh...

Svaroopa Yoga last night, only three of us in the class plus the teacher, and I think all the other classes there (Kundalini, belly dancing) might have been canceled because the place was empty. I was going to do a ride, but the temperature dropped below 10 degrees so I bagged it. Finished the Bavarian Pork Chops.

Tonight will be a ride of some kind, and dinner beforehand may be either tempeh stir-fry, or tortellini and a salad, or maybe tuna & wilted greens. Choices, choices... Once the crock pot's cleaned I will be mixing up some chili for the weekend, but that will probably be tomorrow night's task.

Generic Day

Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 13.5% BF

Just checking in, recording my weight. Did yoga last night, feeling good again about the Monday night (beginner) class since it hit on a lot of stuff I didn't know. After yoga was dinner, leftover Bavarian pork chops and a salad, then I read & played on the computer until bedtime. Tonight will be similar: yoga, then dinner, but then I'll do a singlespeed "standing sprints" workout; hopefully it'll be snowy and fun out, rather than rainy and crappy. That is all.

The Lantern Bearers

Morning weigh-in: 185#, 13% BF

Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin! I think it's time once again for one of my all-time favorite quotes, from the birthday boy himself:

It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants
of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting
about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these
elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon
each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around
us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction;
Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the
indirect and direct action of the conditions of life and from use and disuse: a
Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a
consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the
Extinction of less-improved forms.

Anyway: Stayed in Friday night, ate healthy -- and was 186# on Saturday morning. But I went to yoga and had a good time, had breakfast at Coffee Exchange, then went to the gym and had more fun, ran some errands and had lunch at the Quadrant, more chores (prepped Bavarian Pork chops in the crock pot for Sunday), and finally went out to WB. Reasonably early night, but even that left me feeling guilty.

Enough with the wake-up calls: Rode Sunday at Sals, pretty fast crew and soon enough I was blowing up. Lungs were torched & chest ached, head felt like it was ready to explode; on every uphill I was composing my last words in case I didn't make it... Cardio is pretty much gone, but that's next on the training agenda anyway. It was good to see I was able to ride technical stuff OK, which I think had something to do with the recent strength workouts for the legs. Amazing though, how programmed in it is: I ride at my own pace and I'm fine, then I see someone going fast and I chase, like a dog after a stick (or maybe like a salivating dog hearing a bell), and I go too fast and end up toasted.

Dinner was the porkchops w/ sauerkraut; it turned out perfect this time and the house smelled awesome when I got home. More of that tonight and maybe tomorrow, then I'll probably make chili for the weekend.

Reading: Still into Against the Day, which seems to be changing its focus. It's funny how he seems to be summing up so many of his other novels, tying up loose ends... At the Quadrant the other day I happened to see an old book, "Adventure Boys and the Lake of Pearls" or whatever, the genre that was the basis for much of the first part of AtD. For some reason it reminded me of the old essay "The Lantern Bearers."

"And anyone who's ever played a part,

They wouldn't turn around and hate it."

-- Lou Reed

Wrong Way, Harry

Morning weigh-in: 185#, 15% BF (WTF?)

So I went to the gym last night, ate a healthy dinner, and I gained a pound... Meantime, I'm rethinking my New Year's Resolutions, especially #3 because it's been a slightly less-than-satisfactory experiment.

Riding tonight, towpath.

Harder Than It Looks

Morning weigh-in: 184#, 9% BF

I was pretty stoked the other night that I didn't skimp on the riding, but got out even if just for a set of sprints. Last night was another story... I was supposed to do a towpath ride before going over to Art's house, but blew it off in favor of web browsing. I made amends, sort of, by walking to his house, and luckily they were already out of beer -- though not snacks, oh well. I paid my respects, hung out & BS'ed for a bit, caught some "South Park" and headed home. The clocks there all seemed to be ahead by an hour, so I was surprised that when I did get home, it was only 11:00.

Anyway, tonight is the gym, and then some more sprints. I like them, short & sweet and it's nice the way they sneak up on you, build to exhaustion.

In Memoriam

Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 15% BF

The wake for Art & Andrew's dad was last night. Nice enough, as these things go: lotsa people there and a nice (as these things go) "vigil" service. After that I went home and did a quickie "singlespeed standing sprints" workout on the streets downtown, then met those guys at WB -- I know I'm trying to avoid going out, but I was sort of obligated in this case; tonight is a final get-together (after the funeral, which I'm not doing) and then I should be free to desocialize for a bit. And I have been watching the caloric input while out...

Dinner last night was tuna & wilted greens over fettuccine, tonight is leftover tuna & wilted greens, followed by a towpath ride and the visit to Art's. It's been pretty cold out, on the very cusp of not riding for me (low teens), but the weather should moderate next week.

Quaternions! Quaternions!

Morning weigh-in: 185#, 15% BF (still carrying some o' that weekend chili)

...say it like "Absolom! Absolom!"

Trapped, vol 1: Someone I know -- acquaintance, definitely not a friend -- went on an extended vacation through Eurasia, essentially for the whole month of January. No itinerary, just a flight into St Petersburg and flight out of Beijing, with the intention of get to Moscow and taking the Trans-Mongolian Express across Siberia to Ulan Bator, then on into China. Interesting, no? Well, I ran into him at the coffee shop on Saturday, and he told me a lot about his trip, and it was in fact interesting but he started to dwell, loudly and at length, on his sexual experiences (or what he thought might have been sexual experiences, the guy is as weird as his reputation) along the way. This is in a place run by two high school girls, with a fairly respectable clientele -- no one who really needed to hear any of that -- and I couldn't shut him up, or even escape. Someone else actually said something to him -- to us -- about his conversation. I was so mortified...

Chilibowl Sunday: The Superbowl of Chili was a bit of a disappointment. The chili event itself was great, but before and after didn't quite work out the way I wanted: no one wanted to do the pre-ride (granted it was cold, but that's not why), then things seemed to end a little early. That's what happens when you try to institutionalize a one-shot funtime I guess. Next year I'm just going to go with the flow. On the bright side, I was way more lucid by the end of the day.

Trapped, vol 2: My plan has been to buckle down after last weekend, diet- and alcohol-wise, so I've been treating the past few as "last hurrah" weekends: out a little later than usual, getting involved in the everybody-buying-each-other-drinks scene, etc. Well Imbolc Weekend is now behind us and it's time to prepare for Spring, but last night was the Mug Club dinner, and I'm eating & minding my own business when the bartender puts a shot in front of me, "here, from Scott." Well, Tullamore Dew and it's the Code of the West (not to mention conspicuous consumption/leisure) in there, so I had to do it, but gave bartender Tara the "ixnay on the ots-shay" high sign, scrammed outta there a little early...

Before dinner last night I went to yoga; tonight I'm skipping yoga, going to the wake for Art & Andrew's dad. Curran-Finnegan Funeral Home, right around the block from me.

Reading: Still deep into Against the Day, which is getting more interesting again. We're now hanging in Belgium, a few years before WWI, with a bunch of refugees from "the Quaternion Wars" and ghosts from the real war just ahead.

Waiting For A Call

Morning weigh-in: 182#, 11% BF

Got a new phone last night, the same model as the last one. All the data on the old one (ie phone numbers) are lost though -- no SIM chips for Verizon phones -- so I'm stuck rebuilding my contact list.

Meanwhile, bad news comes in threes: I found out at work today that my friends Art & Andrew from Easton, their father passed away, and also Glenn here at work, his father passed away as well.

UPDATED: For clarity.

Light A Candle, For Saint Brigid

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 183#, 13% BF
Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 183.5#, 11% BF
Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 184#, 10% BF

Well, today is Imbolc, at least according to some.

RIP: Molly Ivins. That's really too bad, she was cool.

It's been a rest week, which is what I had on the schedule: no workouts except yoga since Sunday; the schedule will probably be changing radically next week, since it's the start of the next phase of training -- still reasonably low intensity, but much higher volume especially on the bike. Meantime, I've been reigning in, or at least trying to reign in, my nutritional habits, probably an especially good idea for the week I avoid burning calories. I'm doing pretty well too, so far. (I'll live with a bit of backsliding this weekend, when I hit the Superbowl of Chili.) Lotsa cooking at home, pork tenderloin, tuna, rice & veggies, tempeh stir-fry...

What a Revoltin' Development: With all my "no workout" free time at night lately, I've been doing a lot of chores/errands at home during the week. One chore I did yesterday was laundry, where I managed to launder my phone. I'm not sure if it'll dry out and return to functionality, or if I'll have to get a new one. Don't expect any calls for a bit...

Closer to Seasonable

Morning weigh-in: 183#, 14% BF

(NOTE: Started this on Monday, finished it on Thursday.)

Friday night's towpath ride was a miserable failure; I felt so tired that I aborted it after only four miles and took the bike path back. I was hurting from Thursday's leg workout I think, but I noticed a lack of pep at the gym as well even though I was lifting the same weights. Well, this week is slated as a rest week, so I guess this week just came early. Got home, went out on foot to catch Post Junction at Which Brew, then took all day off Saturday: no yoga, no gym, didn't even leave the house until evening.

Got a call from Brian; he wanted to get dinner, and also wanted to "punch his clock" at Porters's where he's working on a mug -- you earn your mug there by drinking 60 different beers(over a period of time) in various styles, sort of like Beer College -- so that's where we went.

Sunday I again blew off most things, but eventually hooked up with Joe G and Gary for a quick (no kidding!) afternoon lop around Jacobsburg. Pleasant, burning some energy and blowing out the cobwebs, ground was still frozen over there and a light snow was falling.

Solaris, Brother Ray

Well, I wouldn't call it a wasted day exactly, but I spent the entire day inside, playing with the computer and working my way through all the Achewood archives. There's some good stuff in there, and I still have plenty more to go. I can definitely identify with each of the two main dudes, Ray and Roast Beef, though I think I might be more like Roast Beef than Ray...

Funny though, how talking with the computer is really talking to no one. (I don't mean reading web pages etc, I'm talking about getting the computer to do things, interacting with the computer itself.) There's a computer system Solaris, but there's also a movie -- two, actually -- called Solaris, based on a book of the same name by Stanislaw Lem. In the book/movie, there's a space station orbiting the sentient planet Solaris, which seems to become haunted by the ghosts of the astronauts' fantasies, guilty fears (long-dead wife) etc. The planet had become aware of the researchers, and was in turn experimenting with and trying to communicate with them. I don't know where I'm going with this, but the moral is that extraterrestrials will be so, uh, "alien" to us, that attempted communication with them will be futile, and not worth the trouble; we're better off sticking with people.

Well It Felt Like I Was Losing It

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 185#, 9% BF
Morning weigh-in (Friday): 184#, 12% BF

Pants felt loose today when walking in to work; it was pretty gratifying at first, as I thought I was maybe a little trimmer & fitter, but then I realized I forgot my belt... It hasn't shown up in the weigh-in numbers, and frankly it hasn't shown up in the mirror either, but I feel like the weight is starting to come off -- or maybe it is about to, hopefully, maybe, please...

Anyway: Rode the towpath Wednesday night, and this time I wasn't accosted by anyone or anything, not even my imagination, though I did manage to flush two cars parked at different boat launch or access points -- probably teenagers, a little weed or romance in what they thought was a secluded place. Time wasn't especially fast, maybe 1:45 but the trail was soft and there was a headwind going out. Whatever, I still have to get my speed on: guys did a Jacobsburg singlespeed ride the same night, and reports were that it was at a blistering pace. Uh-oh, I'm not the only one on a double-secret training regimen.

After that was Which Brew for dinner, which maybe explains the elevated weight on Thursday morning. Last night was the gym, followed by pork tenderloin with sauerkraut & rice, at home. Kickass meal, but I now have a metric assload of leftover pork to eat before it goes bad.

Tonight is another towpath ride, followed by another trip to Which Brew to see Post Junction; tomorrow hopefully I'll get up in time to do the early yoga class before hitting the gym.

Reading: Still on Against the Day, somewhere around page 400 -- took some time off to read a few other books in between. It's been reminding me of John Dos Passos's USA trilogy; it has the same time frame and concerns, if not same style & structure.

Mud Season Is Back

Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 13% BF

Yoga last night, then made dinner at home: tuna & wilted greens over pasta. I never did get around to that ride, but I did finally put that new rear tire on the singlespeed. I had a fairly new one on there already, hardly any wear at all but the sidewall had a tear -- doh!! On the plus side, it seems like the new Velociraptors are becoming easier to get onto the Sun rims.

Tonight will be the towpath (or possibly a road ride if the ground is mushy), then maybe leftovers. Meantime, I have one frozen pork tenderloin in the freezer and one thawing in the fridge, and some pork chops plus many other dinner items to be worked through, also sitting in the freezer. Must start cooking again...

The Persistence Of Pattern

Morning weigh-in: 184.5#, 11.5% BF

"Sitting by my window,

Watching the snow

Fall." -- Laurie Anderson

I've been contemplating a late night ride tonight, especially if any of this falling snow sticks. Bust out the singlespeed, and just do a sprint workout. Easton, west of say 6th Street (and once you're up away from the rivers), is like a huge shallow bowl, or maybe a halfpipe: as Northampton rises heading west into Wilson Boro, the side roads to the North and South themselves rise up from Northampton. So what I do is ride back and forth on the side streets, sprinting up away from Northampton, then moving over one block and dropping back down. Traffic lights and stop signs kill my momentum as I cross Northampton again, and then I sprint up the other side of town. I can do that for hours with out getting bored, and that view of nighttime Easton is the one I like best, the one most like my dream-Easton.

The shape isn't perfectly like this of course, and as you get toward 15th Street the North side actually drops down to the valley that holds Bushkill Creek. I sometimes wonder what made the bowl though -- was there a river or creek that shaped it? I don't think that's what it is, but I am used to thinking in terms of downhill and water, sitting as I am on the shelf above the Lehigh and Delaware (and "Bushkill") Valleys. What always amazes me is that the rivers didn't find the valleys to flow through, they were there first, and cut through the mountains (which once were as high as the Himalayas) as they were forced upward. Rock to me seems so persistent, and the course of the river seems ephemeral in comparison, but the simple rules and multiple interactions of moving water give rise to deeper patterns that -- though you can never step into the same river twice -- will be here when everything else is gone. And as above, so below.