un-christmas post, and rule 5

I haven't anything useful to post about Christmas that I haven't already (except that we went to Wigilia at The Excellent Mother-in-Law's last night, and The Excellent Wife [TEW] and I agree that all of her family is crazy to one degree or another, but there's some hope for the younger ones). I'm on-call again, and actually had to do some work. As I so frequently say in my emails, "Hrmph."

There's been a flurry of emails about a ride for tomorrow. Tom included this text in one of his emails:

Jim. I know you may not be able to ride yet because of the injured foot but I would invoke rule 5 because this video proves you don't need two good legs to be able to ride. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNDImpIkpM4. BTW where can I get one of those pirogi Christmas shirts I know a few people who might actually want one. 

The video link is this:

After having been out too late, and upright on the affected foot too long, I was wishing it were amputated last night, it hurt that bad; but no such luck. I also can't reliably clip out of the pedal, which might lead to either aggravating the current injury, or having a matching one on the right. I don't want to risk that... but, OTOH, it WOULD lead to a spirited Rule 5 discussion. Maybe.

On the OTHER other hand, I remembered posting this pic four years ago:

Yeah, I'm not doing that, either.

As for the ugly pierogi shirt, it is, apparently, available in any number of formats. Tell 'em Plain Dzimu sent ya.

favorite tool, cleaning and restoration

Laura OLPH's husband, Professor Jack, is (I think it fair to say; I had to look up the word to be sure) a fountain pen aficionado. I like rolling writers, but I wouldn't say that I care enough about them to know one from another. But it has come to me that I am fussy about computer keyboards. On the super-geeky-Linux-computer that I use for real writing and processor-intensive work, I have a Unicomp keyboard (the Ultra Classic White USB Buckling Spring), and, to the computer I use at work, I've attached an Epson-branded IBM Model M with the buckling-spring action, that I got at a garage sale back before the world went completely mad. (You can decide exactly when that was; I've had the keyboard for well over a decade.)

That old keyboard has the big 5-pin DIN connector, that doesn't connect to anything anymore. I have a DIN-to-PS2 adapter there, and then a PS2-to-USB connector after that (I had to get a standards-compliant one; the cheap one that comes with some keyboards doesn't provide the right kind of power, or something). The keyboard is loud; I had to put it on a towel to mute the noise in order to reduce the complaints of my neighbors. But I'm much faster and more accurate on it than I am on most keyboards (especially these combinations of jokes and excrescences that are laptop keyboards, on which I'm typing this now, and which is resisting me at every turn. How do you write BOOKS on these, Professor Jack?). Typing on the membrane keyboards provided at work hurts my hands, and feels klutzy. I've decided that the use of this keyboard is a "reasonable accommodation", within the meaning of the ADA.

The age of the work keyboard is probably a non-trivial percentage of my own age, and it was beginning to show it. I decided to bring it home and clean the key caps. The caps pop off. I soaked 'em in some hot water and detergent, and they're substantially less grimy. But beneath the key action, the plate below looked a bit scary. I pried off the plastic undercaps, and got to this:

Much of that scriminess was caked in and wouldn't just blow out with the compressed-air can, but the judicial application of alcohol on a rag and elbow grease got much of it. Some had to be chopped out with a screwdriver.

Into each of those white cylinders in the key centers goes a tiny spring, under the white undercap. I lost one and one broke, but the rest are back in place (I've sacrificed two of the F1-12 keys in the top row, for the time being).

The springs are available for about 10¢ each... but you have to buy 'em in lots of 100. Even with that and shipping, it's much cheaper than buying a new-old clicky-spring keyboard (and now I'll have supplies for the next time I do this... which, if I keep to my current schedule, will be a couple of years after I retire). I expect the cavalry to arrive with new supplies before the New Year.

(You take pictures of the keyboard as you're taking the key caps off to make sure you get 'em back on in the proper places. The one thing I flunked in high school was Personal Typing, in which class we had typewriters - yes, manual typewriters - with no labels on the keys. Typing speed was a function of words-per-minute minus a factor for errors, and I regularly got typing speeds in the negative range. [Time and experience have greatly improved my accuracy.] I would not like to have to depend on my memory to restore the key caps to their proper places.)

(Oh, and I've been checking my progress typing on this benighted plague of a laptop keyboard; I'd say I got an average of four errors per paragraph that I had to go back and fix; there were five in this sentence alone. I assure you; I'm much more accurate and speedy on a real damn keyboard.)

seasonal, appropriately cultural, and yummy

If my mother-in-law had thought of these twenty years ago...

Wesołych Świąt i Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku to all of youse-all, just in case I don't get to see youse, or update this in the meantime. (Thank heavens for translation websites; finding all those special characters is a pain in the dupa.)

Unapologetically  stolen from today's Oddman.

out of sorts

I've been on-call this weekend, which means I have to carry the cell phone and I've had to do about five hours worth of work since Friday night (it could be worse; until recently, I couldn't be more than 30 minutes from a computer). Between that and the idle time in the recliner with my feet up, I've been engaging in junk-food-like bouts of self-pity, doing online shopping and ruminating on my misfortunes and the essential unfairness of the universe (Camus called it "benign indifference"; I must be crankier than he was).

Luckily for my wallet, it's about a week to Christmas and so it's unwise to buy myself anything, as experience has shown that some things that I would get for myself have a tendency to show up, unbidden, wrapped in paper and good wishes. (I've been hinting after neckties; do you suppose any will appear?). I've cast the critical eye on the Krakow Monster; there's something about the look of it I do not love, but it might be just that the fenders need cleaning and adjustment. I've also been carrying on a flirtation with the Lezyne Micro Floor Drive HPG, which is part pump and part jewelry. Joe M has one on his new(ish) Soma San Marcos. It's much prettier (although no more functional) than the Topeak Road Morph clipped onto the Monster.

I WAS able to do a repair to the trunk latch on the Prius after some internet research, so I'm feeling a bit less totally incompetent than I was last week after completely failing to get down a flight of stairs safely, a task I had been negotiating successfully for five and a half decades prior to that. But I also notice I've been unnecessarily cranky. Or maybe I'm simply over-examining my behavior and motives, due to idleness and boredom.

I think I just need to go back to work. Could it be Monday, soon, please?

convalescing

It took a few days after the sprained ankle for the ecchymosis to really set in, and for the past three days, the foot's color and texture is reminiscent of Starry Night if ol' Vince had included a bit more pinky-purple. I don't know if that was what raised The Excellent Wife (TEW)'s concern, but nothing would do except that I had to drop in at the local doc-in-the-box today and get a professional opinion. So thither did I fly after work today.

(Believe me, you'd rather have this picture than one of the affected member at this point.)

The doc in question took a couple of X-rays, determined that there was nothing broken, and told me that the best thing I could do was stay off it and keep it elevated and that it would heal in 2-3 weeks (faster if I stay off it and keep it elevated). He then hustled me out so me could deal with real sick people.

I've been walking with a cane this week, but now it looks like I don't have to anymore, although I am going to do my best to persuade TEW that I should stay in the recliner with my legs up so that I can avoid the chores I don't want to do. On the other hand, the enforced idleness is less fun than I had anticipated.

no more biking for 2016...

The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I went in to the Philadelphia Museum of Art today. She wanted a date, and she saw that the Pennsylvania GirlChoir was going to do a seasonal concert around the museum. It sounded like a cool idea; we could drop in to see a few paintings and hear the concert, then head to the Reading Terminal Market for a feed, and back home, without too much of a time commitment.

The good news is that the choir rocked. The pieces were engaging and musically interesting, and the sound was excellent. I have some experience with choral music; technically, these kids had some difficult stuff to do, and they did it well.

The bad news is that, shortly before the girls were to sing, I fell on the stair in the great hall and twisted my left ankle. Security staff and first responders came to my rescue; I was helped off the stairs and onto a bench; the injury was examined and iced; advice was given; details were taken. A wheelchair was provided so I could be wheeled around to hear the choir (I also had one of my canes, because I never go anywhere I'm expected to walk or stand for a long time without one - remind me to complain to you about my back someday). When we were to leave, TEW was given directions on where to bring the car to minimize my walking, and a guard wheeled me out to the car and helped me in. I have nothing but praise for the Museum staff.

We went to the Market, and it was clear that the ankle was pretty badly injured. Walking was painful. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have the cane with me (well, I would probably have hobbled with an arm over TEW's shoulder, but having the cane reduced the indignity, and saved TEW from the burden). I was able to walk to where TEW came out of the parking garage with the car, and, after the ride home, to my chair, where I now have the ankle under a cold compress again. I've ingested a bit of naproxen, and I'm worrying about how I'm going to navigate to work in the morning. I'll bring the cane; perhaps I'll bring them back in style... or perhaps I'll just confirm my coworkers' suspicions that I'm a superannuated nonsense.

I suspect this is the end on my biking for 2016. Even if the weather breaks fair, experience suggests I'll take longer to heal than the few weeks we have left in this year. Here's hoping for a speedy, and complete, recovery. Your well-wishes are appreciated.

no-pace, no-hammer, no-drop, chilly trail ride

Laura OLPH had hoped to do a no-pace, no-drop ride today so that she could invite some of the C+ rides with whom she used to ride before she got bitten by the hill bug, but the predicted 37ºF high today meant that they probably wouldn't come out. She settled on a 20-mile route around the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail, in hopes that at least some of it would be in the woods and out of the chilly wind. Well, some of it was.

Laura and I rode in together from her house, and picked up the others at the parking area near Foxcroft Road.

A pleasant surprise: a Jaguar rolled in, containing Dave C and Florida Flatlander Cheryl. They weren't riding, but it was good to see them.

The 30mm tires on the Krakow Monster are just about wide enough to handle the trail. Much of it is paved (in some places we followed roads); some is gravel; there was a badly washed-out section behind a school which was a trial for me. The others were on bikes that ran from cyclocross to real mountain bikes; they seemed to have less trouble with the varying surfaces than I. (Perhaps I was reacting to the cold; it was barely 32ºF when we left.)

We took a shortcut along a pipeline right-of-way, which had grassy gullies; I tried to turn out of one and went over. I banged my leg up a little on my pedal, but it turned out to my more of an injury to dignity than flesh-and-bone. (Muddied up my brand-new tights, though!). And I think, before I do another trail ride, I'll remove the fenders: first, I can't clip in with 'em on because I get toe-strikes on the fenders in slow turns, and second, leaves and such get caught and make the most annoying noises.

On the bridge at Province Line:

At the end:

Route page. And from my stats, I see that I've gotten 83 rides in this year, a little over 3100 miles (pretty thin, actually), and I've ridden at least four times in every calendar month of 2016 except this month... and I only need one more to make it. (Not tomorrow, though; hot date with TEW!)

more like flying than anything we can do.

Friend Ricky G posted this pic on the Princeton FreeWheelers Facebook page a few days ago, and I found it so evocative that I asked his permission to steal it.

I'm sure the sign is from some stable or other, trying to make the case that equitation is close to flight. But it's Ricky's bike in the picture that got me thinking.

We've all seen birds gliding and diving effortlessly through the air, and those of us on bikes may have made the connection to that experience when we're whipping down a hill. If the road surface is reasonably good, and the bike's in decent repair, the experience is smooth and exhilarating. (It's much smoother on a bike than on a horse, even if you know what you're doing on the horse.)

But I think ALL of riding the bike is like flying. When you look up at migrating birds, they're maintaining a pace to stay up there. And the "vee" shape that flocks of migrating birds assume is analogous to what riders do in a paceline, letting one rider pull another into the wind.

But I think even grinding up a hill is like flying. Here's why: We have those benighted geese that take up residence a few times per year near the commercial building that serves as the office in which I work. When they alight in the parking lot, and cars come, the geese don't just take off to get out of the way. They try to slowly waddle, or quickly run out of the way of traffic, and sometimes they don't make it and they get hit. If flying were easy for them, why wouldn't they just take off?

I don't think flying is easy for them. I think they work hard to get up to those high altitudes, and when they land, they might not have the energy for a while to do it again. It's easy to glide and dive once you're up there... but it's not easy to get back up. Just like it's not easy to get to the top of Coppermine or Federal Twist... and just like that, you might not have the energy to do it again once you've done it once today.

I really do think riding a bike is pretty close to flying. I'm glad we found a machine with which to do it.

hilly and windy, quick hop to black eddy

Laura's post said:

Let's do one last trip to Upper Black Eddy this year.  The first half will have hills; the second could be flat if we don't feel like climbing, or hilly if we do.  The route will be about 50 miles either way.

So eight of us met at the CVS in Lambertville.

Now, on the way there, I'd gotten a call from TEW that I'd left my water bottle home, and I was running late. I ducked into the CVS to see what I could find, which was a Poland Spring bottle that more-or-less fit into he cage if I left it upside down... and Tom H lent me an extra bottle. I have a pre-ride checklist, and the bottle is on it, but it didn't work today (I've been a mess recently).

It was another of those late-fall, dramatic-sky days.

Laura had chosen to go to Black Eddy, which is at the bottom of a wicked hill on Bridgeton Hill Road, and we usually either come screaming down it (competing with traffic, and with a blind left turn before the bottom) just before the stop, or grind out way up just after. I asked Laura which it was gonna be. "Neither," she said. She doesn't know the roads in Pennsylvania, so we were going to ride some hills in Jersey, cross at Milford, and cross back and decide whether we were ready for more hills, or whether to take the mostly flat route back.

Avoiding that one hill didn't mean it was a flat ride, though, and with winds gusting to near 30 mph at the summits (I saw riders leaning into the crosswinds), we were ready for a break. We got off to walk the bikes across the bridge at Milford...

...but first we had to wait for this gal running her dog across the bridge.

At Upper Black Eddy:

In case you hadn't heard, there's been a drought.

With the wind and hills, we opted for the flat route back, except for a detour to get us off the main road between Stockton and Lambertville (the road's narrow and busy, although I think a few of our number would have been willing to risk it). Overall, 52 miles with 2300+ feet of climb, on a day that didn't reach 50°F in December.

You should have come! Get out your winter gear!

datauniverse. i shouldn't have.

On the DataUniverse site (hosted by the Asbury Park Press), you can find all kinds of records, including salary data for employees of Rutgers University. I'm now an employee there, and I looked up a few salaries in my unit.

I shouldn't have, and I won't do it again. It led to a sleepless night and a grumpy morning, and there's nothing I can do about the salaries. I was grateful to get this job when I did. I'm doing good work there. I have the respect of many of my coworkers, and the enmity of others (and the good will of some people is not worth having). We have no debt; we have retirement savings; we can manage a medium-size financial emergency if it arises. And that's enough.

the voice in my head

Regular readers (and anybody who is acquainted with me in the least) will know that I am not exactly a wellspring of mental health.This .gif made me think of the interior monologue that goes on on my head pretty much all the time.

From today's Oddman.

the end of the main st cafe

Today was the last day that the Main St Cafe will be open (there's no point linking to the site, now, is there?); it will be made into another PJ's Pancakes (there's frequently a line out the door for the one in Princeton, which tells me that Princetonians don't know a damn thing about food... and before you get all uppity, yes, we've eaten at PJ's twice; it's better than Waffle House and about equivalent to an upscale diner).

The Main St Cafe was the favorite coffee stop of The Excellent Wife (TEW); Snakehead had a birthday party there; we used to get cakes there (when TEW didn't make them herself), and I used to stop there for empty calories regularly. The local Major Taylors started many of their rides from there, and it was rare, when I would stop in or pass, that I DIDN'T see bikes out front.

I decided to do a ride to stop by there, and put it up on a couple of bike-y Facebook pages. Five came out: Laura OLPH, Snakehead, one of his professor friends John, newly-regular-Hill-Slug Ricky. and Michael, who leads rides into the Sourlands.

I promised a high-14-to-low-15mph pace, and brought it in, despite the strong legs on some of these guys. The route page includes my rides to and from home; the route was a not-too-hilly route I do on Sundays. I offered stops in Hopewell and Princeton, but we decided to hold out until we got to the Cafe.

That, above, is a much better picture of Rick than the one at top, isn't it?

The joint was jumpin'; all kinds of people were there, mostly all saying goodbyes (and, apparently, mostly all known to the staff). It was gratifying.

Laura bought something yummy and peeled off to go home; the rest of us headed into a headwind back to the start. When we got onto Canal Road, I told the guys they could go ahead... and go they did; within a sort time they'd left me behind. I came on another rider as he emerged from Canal Road; we chatted a bit about saddles and bearings, and took turns pulling one another until he turned off at Jacques. I got back to the parking lot in time to say goodbyes, and rode the last five miles home.

The way I see it, there are a few possible outcomes for the Main St Cafe location. If I might be allowed metaphors from my days as a theologian (modified by too much fantasy and sci-fi):

• It might be a resurrection. That is, the new place might be an excellent completion of the possibilities of the old.
• It might be a resuscitation. That is, the new place might be more or less the same as the old.
• It might be a zombie. The new place bears some resemblance to the old, but is sadly weaker.
• It might be a body-snatcher. The new place has some resemblance, but is completely worse and toxic.

As my family members point out, I'm never hopeful. Whatever will replace the Cafe is to open in the spring. We will see.

more thoughtfulness and gratitude, including a ride

So we were at the Excellent In-Laws for the holiday yesterday, and we avoided the topic of politics completely, and got along fine. And I'm actually DOWN a half-pound from yesterday. Don't tell The Excellent Wife (TEW).

While I was stuck in the toilet at the Excellent In-Laws, I saw an email that was forwarded about a ride that John K was leading today from the Hopewell Elementary School. I didn't know where that was (now, THAT's unprecedented), and emailed back for an address. One of my sometime co-riders pointed out that there IS such a thing as Google... but, on my dumbphone, that's so slow that asking for a favor, no matter how embarrassing, is less tedious than looking for the answer myself. At home, I always have at least one computer open (sometimes I have as many as four), so I don't need a useful smartphone. And then there's the fact that I'm so cheap...

John, Laura OLPH, Robert N, and I did this ride today. I was way early, and wasn't quite sure I was in the right place, but the sky was dramatic.

About a half-hour after I got there, John drove up, and then Laura and Robert rode in.

This crew is forgiving about picture stops. I don't remember where this was.

It was a social, chatty ride. I pushed the pace a bit, and then remembered myself and behaved better.

In Lambertville, just above Rojo's:

Didja see the one in the window? I hope that's true. I guess we'll see.

At Rojo's, we ran into Paul with his daughter (who had the presence of mind to introduce herself when Paul neglected to do so). We were all impressed and talking about Paul's poetry.

Also there was this young lady, with the great look. She came out and got me talking about bikes, and I had to be dragged away, as usual.

She's working in a bike shop in Philly, and she gives me hope for the future.

From there, we went to see Michael at Wheelfine. Apparently, he's got a deal going: if you buy a bike, you get a free cap. I'm not sure it would be a persuasive argument. His place is a happy chaos, though, and Robert had never seen it, so they went on the tour while I drooled on the bikes out front.

Then back to Hopewell. As I was driving back, I stopped in at the Main St Cafe in Kingston; by the time you read this, they may have already closed for good. I hope whatever replaces the Cafe will be half the institution they were.

After I got home, I discovered that the Knog taillight, that I was upsold on years ago at Halter's and that I've never really liked, had died (yaaaay!). So I'm sort-of in the market for a taillight.

There are worse things.