An Early Friday

Morning weigh-in: 164#, 10% BF

 

Went to yoga last night, really good workout, and we even had a theme for the class: truthfulness. After yoga I went to Bethlehem, had dinner at Brew Works with Anne, and got to practice some of what I learned in class:

 

ANNE: OK, where do we stand? This is what I want, what do you want?

ME: Hemmina, hemmina, hemmina...

 

Or words to that effect. Long story short, she broke the ice, I had to come clean and I guess we're dating for real now, instead of meeting for dinner here and there, and stringing things along in my usual passive-aggressive style. Anyway, we'll see where it goes from here, hope I don't screw this one up.

 

Last day of the week here, before the July 4th festivities. Run/gym tonight, then most likely over to Christian Springs for the usual Thursday supper club, where I will be having dinner once again with a certain someone.

 

Wisdom

Morning weigh-in: 163#, 8.5% BF

 

"Dance on, ye foolish ones; ye sought not wisdom, neither have ye found it." -- Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution

 

I Fly Towards Grace: Another A++ ride, as Joe put it: 48 miles in 2:36, for an 18.5 mph average. (Our ride the week before was 6 miles shorter in about the same time, but had slightly more climbing -- 2960 feet vs last night's 2900 feet. There's a lesson in there somewhere.) Me, Joe, Greg, Scott and Eric B, we basically did the old Mountain Road route: through Wind Gap and over the mountain, then down Mountain Road to the bottom of Blue and over via Little Gap -- we actually climbed to the ski resort upper parking lot this time -- plus a little backing and filling on the way home. I was a little tired and said so, and a few other guys were talking about "riding smart" and not killing ourselves on the hills etc, but that kind of wisdom only lasts for a little while on Follies Night...

 

A Screaming Comes Across The Sky and it ain't pretty. You'd scream too, like it was the DT's crawling all over you, but Gaia's got a real infestation.

 

Needless to say, after last night's ride I did not feel like biking in this morning. I'll hit yoga tonight and the gym tomorrow; I don't know what's going on for the 4th yet. Dinner last night was a chicken sandwich at Christian Springs (sigh, but I controlled myself, for the most part), and tonight I'll be going down to Bethlehem Brew Works.

Reconfigurator

Morning weigh-in: 164.5#, 8.5% BF (back to the old pig-and-python game)

 

Happy Darwin Day! Well it's not really Darwin Day, but it was 150 years ago today that Darwin's and Wallace's papers, outlining natural selection, were first presented. (This was pretty much the precursor to The Origin of Species.) In honor of all that, here's a little bit about evolution going on right now out West. I think I may celebrate tonight by taking up smoking in gas stations, or biking -- maybe I'll win an award! Meantime, here's my favorite quote (again), the last paragraph of The Origin of Species:

 

It is interesting to contemplate an entangled 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 on 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 external 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 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.

 

And So It... Continues: Got my rear shock bushings replaced last night (we're talking bicycles), and dropped off my rear wheel to be rebuilt, then while I was there, impulse buy, I ordered a new drivetrain... I need to get my bike and equipment ready for the Wild 100, now less than four weeks away. (I also have to get myself ready.) I hit Sals after the bike store, got there around 7:00, and rode with Dave L and a young guy named Jeremy out with his dog. We did a fast but abbreviated loop, returning to Dodson via the road just before dark.

 

Hail Hail, Some Of The Old Gang's Here: Dinner was a quick salad, then I went to do laundry, and I stopped in at Porters while it dried. A nice surprise, I ran into Stu and Cathy walking out as I walked in. They turned around, came back in and had one last beer while we caught up: Stu has been living, working and house-hunting in Florida for the past two months, while Cathy has been getting their old house ready to be put on the market. Kind of funny, we never biked together up here except one time, just before he disappeared, but apparently he's become a fairly avid biker down in Florida, and even joined a cycling club. Good for him!

 

Also saw Kateryna there, which was also nice but less of a surprise, because she now works at Porters -- last night was in fact her first night, she said. She also said there may be a Which Brew picnic coming up soon.

 

Tonight is the Tuesday night "hard ride," and tomorrow is yoga; I may also try to bike in to work tomorrow.

 

Parting shot: Well, yeah.

 

Gaaaa! Cow Itch! AAAAAAAH!

Morning weigh-in: 168.5#, 8% BF (uh oh)

 

Happy 100th Birthday, Tunguska Event! (Also noted, on the hometown front: the 230th anniversary of the Battle of Monmouth was this weekend.) Yeah, good weekend by the way -- maybe too good, according to the scale.

 

Friday night I skipped the towpath and went to the Velodrome with some peeps, basically the same crowd as the Iron Pigs game, Anne and her pinochle friends, though I also saw Brian and a few other people there. Way cool, lotsa very dramatic racing. I got a text that Kelly-Jo was going to Porters, so I stopped in on the way home. Kind of like a homecoming for the old Which Brew crowd.

 

I had maybe a little too much fun the night before: I overslept on Saturday and blew off early morning yoga, then all the rest of of my "selfish day" in favor of a Sals/towpath ride. I'm a bit under the gun in terms of Wilderness 101 preparation, so that was very much what the doctor ordered, but I cut the ride short (skipping about half of Sals) and absconded when rain started to fall -- felt stupid on the way home when the sun came back out, but was finally vindicated by the deluge that hit just after I got home. (Also rode through a bunch of nettles growing along the river, maybe a mile-long gauntlet, thought I was going to die.) Home, shower, oil change, haircut, chores, errands etc etc, then I hit a friend's graduation party.

 

Lucas, about 22 I'd say, is someone I know from cycling, and he just graduated from college. His older brother's a local musician, and the party was also for his (and some other guy's) 30th birthday, so there was basically an all-star jam going on when I got there (apparently it was a pool party earlier in the day). Pretty good times, and there were a number of people there I half recognized, but except for a few parents/relatives, the next oldest people there were like fifteen years younger than me. I'm glad I got a chance to congratulate Lucas & help him drink his beer, but I felt like the onion in the petunia patch, and when the band took a break I headed home.

 

Sunday was trail maintenance and a ride at Allamuchy.

 

Riding Sals tonight after some bike maintenance, and tomorrow is the Follies. Dinner better be light for a few days...

Central, Massive

Morning weigh-in: 166#, 8% BF

 

Sorry Algernon: Charley sez, love my rapamycin...

 

Ran yesterday, which was followed by a gym workout and a trip to XSH for dinner. Anne, Judy, Lee, and special guest Mike H. As usual, nice evening. Tonight I'm hitting the velodrome with pretty much the same crowd. It's also a much-needed rest day; tomorrow will be another big day (yoga, gym, ride, haircut, party), and Sunday is trail maintenance plus a ride at Allamuchy.

Come For The Cold War, Stay For The Jelly Donuts

Morning weigh-in: 164#, 8.5% BF

 

"Ich bin ein Berliner!" -- John F. Kennedy, June 26, 1963

 

Nice Sals ride last night. Me, Kirk and his friend Kurt, Jeff and Dave (both of whom have connections to Genesis as well as Sid's Bikes), and a girl Terri (Tracy?), who was apparently the driving force behind the ride: she's from Colorado, has been in the area for three months and is about to return home, and was sick of the towpath so she told them "Show me the good stuff!"

 

And show her the good stuff we did, basically hitting everything there (except the Yellow Trail and the Boulder Trail) in one huge loop. We rode about two hours, getting back to the cars just before dark. I think those guys were surprised a bit by the trails too; they were like New Yorkers who've never been to the Statue of Liberty until they take an out-of-towner, but I think they liked it and I'm sure they'll be back. Jeff and Dave are strong riders, and they were especially loving it. Strangely enough, I felt really strong too, even after Tuesday's "leg tenderizer" ride.

 

I had a few errands/chores to get done and my plan was dinner at Porters, so I had to bust a move after the ride. Pretty proud of myself, got it all done -- all I really had to do was drop some stuff off at Doug's, get gas & do laundry, but still -- and made it to Porters just before the kitchen closed. Woo hoo, turkey dinner sandwich!

 

Crowded night there, bartender Scott was tearing his hair out it was so busy, but I didn't totally mind, it was like "girl's night out" or something, cool enough -- though I did get muscled away from the bar by a birthday party of pocketbook-wielding twentysomethings, oh hi girls welcome to my space now get off my foot ow OK I'll move over a bit...

 

Saw Kateryna there (not part of that crowd, thank goodness); she said she's been back about a week, and I got some of the California road trip story, but not all of it I'm sure. I also saw Joe's ex-GF Paula (of course she asked about him) and also my MTB friend Lucas. Like I said, busy night at Porters.

 

Tonight is the gym, then dinner at Christian's Spring Hotel.

 

Scales Fell From My Eyes: Whoops! Gotta clean the house again, I just noticed this morning that it's getting pretty bad.

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee

Morning weigh-in: 163#, 9.5% BF (nice suppression work there, Lou)

 

Happy Anniversary, Battle of Little Big Horn!

 

Awesome ride last night at the Follies, 42 miles in 2:35, on a course they call "Greg's leg tenderizer." Me, Greg, Scott, Jorge, and Joe & Cindy, north over Blue Mountain at Little Gap, then a hilly loop out by Klecknersville and return via Little Gap again, the highlight of the evening being a duel between Greg and myself, bottom to top of Blue Mountain, on the way back. He beat me, in a sprint (!) by half a bike length, but I got him to admit he was working pretty hard. (Our actual time, from the lower lodge to the top entrance at Blue Mountain Ski Area, was 10:26. I could swear that thing used to take a half hour to climb.) That was one of the best rides of the year, in terms of a workout, and also in terms of scenery -- it kind of reminded me of the PPRAC ride, and Greg said the same thing.

 

I kept my promise to myself: dinner was a bag o'salad with some leftover BBQ fixin's thrown in. Tonight I'm riding Sals with Kirk and some out-of-town friends of his; I did some yoga this morning to make up for the missed class. (I don't like to miss Wednesday yoga, the week's "hard class," but Kirk asked me to show them around, this is the day that works for them and for the weather, and my weak link right now is technical skills -- I really need those offroad miles.) Dinner will probably be somewhere in Bethlehem, hopefully I'll not break too many promises...

A Clearer Future

Morning weigh-in (Monday): 166.5#, 10.5% BF

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 164.5#, 10.5% BF

 

Pretty good weekend, though fraught with bad food choices...

 

Rode the towpath Friday night, then did the "Big Bethlehem Day" on Saturday: Chain Gang ride and picnic at South Mountain Park, followed by the South Side Film Festival with Doug & Lori -- we caught the last set of screenings, supposedly a series of short comedies. (More on those films as the week progresses. We saw Pete H there too, by the way.) After the films, the three of us caught up with Kris & Eric to go to the the festival's final event, a buffet dinner and party, with music by Trap Door. (Again, more -- way more -- on Trap Door in a later post or two.) I was home by midnight, which seemed early but by that point I was exhausted.

 

Sunday was the more interesting of the two days. It looked pretty crappy in the morning, but luckily the day never got worse than overcast. I met Anne F at her place and we picked up her loaner bike at CAT, then went over to Jacobsburg. It was her first time mountain biking, but she's actually an experienced & solid rider, and she took to it rather well and -- even better -- enjoyed it I think. Pretty impressive, considering she was on an ancient and fully rigid commuter rig. 

 

We got a call from another friend, and the day's plans suddenly solidified -- we grabbed lunch at Bethlehem Brew Works, then saw Get Smart with Lee and Judy. Yep, stupid fun, all in all a great afternoon.

 

So anyway, last night was yoga, and today is the Tuesday night training ride -- no XSpringH afterward though, I'm trying to get back into the nutritional discipline thing. Tomorrow will be a ride at Sals.

 

 

Solstice Friday!

Morning weigh-in: 165#, 8.5% BF

 

Did my "southern benchmark ride," aka "the hill ride" or "the Hellertown loop with Morvale Rd extension," last night. It was a fairly hot lap, 25 miles in about 1:30, not bad considering the hilly nature of the ride: mile-long climbs followed by mile-long descents, over and over again as the road crosses and re-crosses the hill south of Easton. It's funny how those climbs used to seem like hell. (Saw Scott S, and also Tom A riding in Hellertown, not sure if they were together. They're friends and 24-hour teammates, but Scott was on a road bike, and I could have swore Tom, about a half mile back, was on a mountain bike.)

 

More Full Moon Madness: I almost stacked it on one downhill, when a young rabbit ran into the road, playing chicken with me and an oncoming car -- it came out out part way, stopped, went most of the way across, and then chickened out and crossed back. Trying to avoid it was like one of those Three Stooges routines, I actually touched it with my front wheel. I was doing maybe 35 mph, if I hit it square I would very likely have gone down. Nasty concrete ditch on the roadside there too. Little bit of excitement, in case my heart wasn't pumping enough...

 

Dinner was a roast beef sandwich at Christian's Spring Hotel. Me, Lee, Anne, Judy, and Sally & Joe, the usual crew. We also saw Nick and Alison, but they were mostly keeping to themselves.

 

Tonight (weather permitting) I'll be riding with Larry and maybe Kirk on the towpath, but I am probably staying in after that, since tomorrow is shaping up to be a marathon of fun: Chain Gang ride(s) & picnic at South Mountain, then the last evening of the Southside Film Festival, and finally a Trapdoor concert/party.

 

Bethlehem is the town with its fangs at my throat.

Blast From The Past

Morning weigh-in: 166#, 10.5% BF

 

Yoga last night, yoga this morning... road ride tonight unless it rains, in which case I'm hitting the gym. Dinner will be Christian Springs Hotel, where I expect to see Ann, Judy, Lee, and the rest of the Which Brew Thursday Night Diaspora Supper Club.

 

I hit Pearly Baker's after last night's yoga class; it was dead despite the "Wednesday night blues jam" going on, so I absconded over to Porters, which was also pretty dead -- dammit I miss Which Brew! Saw Larry there though, as well as Kirk (whom I hadn't seen since Which Brew closed), and ended up talking to some guy about the Wetlands Preserve, among other things. Turns out, he's a big fan of the Spin Doctors, like he even hangs out with them on occasion, and he just went to the premiere of a documentary about the Wetlands. (He also used to drag race at Englishtown, so we had a nice trip down memory lane.) I'm not a big fan of the Spin Doctors, didn't even know they were still around, but I traded him (the promise of) a poster from a recent show, for (the promise of) some scans of old Wetlands mailers, which I used to use as bookmarks. I went looking last night, found a schedule of upcoming shows for January 1991, and I know I have more.

 

Interesting Fact: Wetlands was forced to close because they lost their lease. Just like Which Brew, and like Weyerbacher before that. Oh, the humanity!

 

Reading: Ann F loaned me Blindness, and since I bitch so much when others don't read/return my loaners in a timely fashion, I put other stuff to the side so I could concentrate on this. So far so good by the way, but really I just started.

Too Tough To Die

Morning weigh-in: 166.5#, 7.5% BF

 

Wild ride last night. Me, Joe C, Greg and Joe G hammering out a road training ride. A somewhat different set of fools but it was the the typical "Tuesday night follies," until... Joe G had a mechanical problem with his rear wheel, decided to keep riding anyway, and of course the inevitable happened: speeding along in the pack at better than 25 mph, he stood up to sprint and his chain slipped. He went flying over the bars and got slammed into the road -- wham! Sliding and tumbling, he smacked the back of his head hard enough to break his helmet, ripped his shorts, and got some nasty "road rash" abrasions on his butt and shoulder before rolling into the roadside brush.

 

I was a little behind when it happened and was the first one to get there: he was already sitting up, conscious but a little dazed. We were really worried for a few minutes, he could have had anything from broken legs to brain damage; he got up (still woozy), and we inventoried his injuries -- except for the whacked head, he got off easy, and after a few minutes he was feeling a little better & even said he was OK to keep riding...

 

Long story short: we finished the ride, mellow at first but with gradually increasing pace as it became apparent that Joe wasn't seriously hurt. Our final distance was like 32 miles, with an 18 mph average. I'll say this, he's tougher than me -- I would have definitely bagged the rest of the ride, or at the very most I would have just ridden easy back to the start.

How Can You Put The Genie Back In The Toothpaste Tube?

Morning weigh-in: 167#, 7.5% BF

 

Did a little "active rest" yesterday: a beginner yoga class and some laundry; dinner was Taco Bell. So, I'm slowly pushing myself back into my routine...

 

The weekend:

 

Well, I guess I should start with Thursday night, because I got a chance to see West Coast Megan, back in town to visit friends and celebrate her upcoming wedding. (Her boyfriend proposed to her on the giant screen at a baseball game.) She had her bachelorette party Friday I think; this was just the usual "supper club" crowd at Christian's Spring Hotel and she's been close friends with Judy's daughter since like milk-money days, so the two of them came out. A couple of extra peeps at the supper table, then when the cigar crowd came in we took over the other room (comfy chairs, no smoking), where Bill & Danielle also joined us. Nice night out.

 

Friday was a baseball game, with Anne F and a few of her friends. Triple-A, Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, it was actually a lot of fun (they won). Great stadium, our seats were awesome, and it really was all about the food & beer -- too bad something disagreed with me, my stomach was in knots for the drive home.

 

Saturday was my usual "selfish day," then Saturday night I hit Porters where I ran into old-school bartender Carrie, also Megan one last time, and Sunday was a long ride, towpath/Sals (with breakfast & lunch stops), before trekking down to Jackson for Father's Day.

 

Tonight is the Tuesday training ride.

Stop Drop And Roll

Morning weigh-in: 168#, 8% BF

 

OK, weight's trending the wrong way, my life seems out of control, and my skin feel like it's on fire...

Quoth The Water, Furthermore

Morning weigh-in: 167#, 7.5% BF

 

So I'm still reading Male Fantasies. Right now I'm in the "Floods" part, where the author is constructing some Argument By Compare-And-Contrast, between the views of Wilhelm Reich and Sigmund Freud concerning terms like "oceanic," "streaming-away," and the like, in the symbology of the orgasm. It's surprisingly dry (uh, huh huh, huh huh), and I could really just flip the page with a casual "TMI, fellas," and be done with it, but I couldn't help but notice that the whole premise is something that Pynchon touched on this, and covered it better with a sentence here, and a well-turned phrase there, than I can find anywhere in this whole ponderous book. (Granted once again, this was originally a German-language PhD thesis, with all that that implies, but still.)

 

Anyway, moving on... true dat . Guy came to my door the other day, running for state senate or something, and I actually had to press him to admit "well uh hemmina hemmina ... I'm currently affiliated with the Republican party because, uh blah blah family values blah..." Well, thank you for your time.

 

Run/gym last night, then over to XSpringH for dinner. I'm going to a minor league baseball game tonight with some friends, so no ride.

Photos

Morning weigh-in: 167, 8.5% BF

That's me riding at Hubbard, photographed by their official club photographer; his photos can be found here. Meantime, I posted mine as well, and they can be found here. Enjoy!

More New Phonebooks Are Here

Morning weigh-in: 167.5#, 8% BF

 

Hey check this out!

 

Rode a bit at Sals last night before the rain, followed by a slightly drizzly VMB meeting in the parking lot afterward, but we adjourned to the Tally Ho -- chicken cheese steak & Troegs Nugget nectar -- when the heavy stuff started to come down. Quite a turnout, especially considering the weather.

 

Tonight is yoga, then a light (!) dinner at home, since tomorrow is the Christian Springs Hotel "supper club," after the gym of course.

 

We're Having A Heat Wave

Morning weigh-in (Monday): 167.5#, 10% BF

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 166#, 8.5% BF

 

Oh yeah, it's hot out...

 

This weekend was the VMB/Hubbard rides (us riding at Hubbard on Saturday, then the Hubbard crew coming down to Sals on Sunday), and I'll have more to say about that but not now -- suffice to say it was two days of fun but brutally hot riding. Not many stories, the usual "we rode and it was fun, then we hung out and drank, and that was fun too," but I do have some photos ,which I'll post in a day or so.

 

Meantime: Happy (belated) Birthday, Dad! But, see my comment to the previous post.

 

Dropped Handkerchief, Thrown-Down Gauntlet, Whatever: I felt pretty depleted yesterday after this weekend's rides, but they were short rides and this afternoon was supposed to be stormy, so I did a benchmark ride on the road bike. Just laying this down for the lurker boyzzz: Mud Run, 13:45 bottom to top, and I know I can take another 30 seconds, and maybe a minute off that time, just by being fresh. I will not be at the Tuesday night "hard ride" tonight, the VMB meeting is at Sals so I'm riding there if I ride at all; I'll leave it to all y'all to beat my score on your own.

 

Weird dream last night, dreamt I had typhus or dysentery or something.

 

In Other News: I busted a tooth yesterday, bottom right, second-to-rear-most molar. Not the whole tooth, just a corner, but still. It had been hurting for a day or so, every bite like chomping on a raspberry seed, so something must have gone wrong... doesn't hurt now chewing on that side, go figure. Have to get it looked at.

 

Yoga this morning (wow I was sweaty in seconds), and maybe a Sals ride tonight. Stay tuned for the possibility of some very interesting -- in a good way, or a bad way -- posts over the next week or so.

Friday Quietude!

Morning weigh-in: 167#, 8% BF (well I guess I know where the heavy food is)

 

"Soldiers, as we often say, do revolt; were it not so, several things which are transient in this world might be perennial." -- Thomas Carlyle

 

Today In History: On this date in 1989, a man stood in front of a tank.

 

Anyway, gym last night but no run, I had a bit of a late start and couldn't fit it in. Dinner was Christian Springs, which is becoming something of a "supper club," as we now have a small group of Thursday regulars. Tonight is the towpath, then I'm going up to the Poconos to crash at Joe's place, so we can carpool up to that ride near Scranton tomorrow. He said Sue's doing the cooking, so I said OK...

 

Local Hero: Go Rob!

Astrea Redux Without Cash

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

 

Astrea Redux: Been an interesting couple of days, politics-wise. A-and that's all I'm going to say about that!

 

Without Cash: I saw this the other day and it kind of pissed me off, so I was glad to see I'm in good company.

 

Yoga last night, and tonight is the gym plus a run. I'll be hitting Christian's Spring for dinner, maybe meet some people there.

I Love A Happy Ending

Mia cuts her chemo lines
Originally uploaded by Julie Cotton.

Whew!

Man I know that feeling, how good it felt when the PICC line came out, even if mine was just for an infection... I ran across a picture of this girl a year or so ago, and it really affected me, especially after I saw she had a relapse. It took me this long to look again, but she's been in remission for more than a year now.

Every life can be long and scary, maybe she can never say she's out of the woods but for now she's got her life back. If you want a roller coaster ride go check out her grandmother's photos; you have to read between the lines but it's an amazing story.