Seeming Verb

back pain, a windy solo 30 miles, and other complaints

2012-03-07T15:40:00.000-05:00

Today was one of those Wednesdays off, and (hoping for inclement weather) I made an appointment for my annual physical and to have the dryer vent cleaned (a biennial requirement of the condo association - grump, grump: while it's true that the single largest cause of condo fires is dryer vents, it's also true that the raw number of such fires is pretty low, so I think it's an undue burden. But I'm on the board, and woe betide if I were the one to suggest we remove the requirement, and then there were to be a dryer-vent fire ever thereafter...). Alas, sunny and mid-60's today, so I really missed having the ride with the Old Guys this morning.

I've had back pain the past several days, and chatted with the doctor about it when I saw him. He thinks some curvature there, and has ordered a couple of X-rays, but the Excellent Wife points out the problem: suppose they find something - what are they going to do? It's neither frequent enough nor intense enough to risk back surgery (I've worked in addiction for over a quarter of a century, and I've seen plenty of back surgeries with terrible outcomes), nor am I willing to take opiates or "minor" tranquilizers. I'll probably get the X-rays, but I probably won't do much about 'em. (Other than that, I appear to be in good health. My doctor is likely afraid to recommend too many things to me, because I weigh about half of what he does.)

So after I got home, and after the dryer vent guys left (about twelve minutes after they arrived). I got this ride in. I hadn't been down to that lower part in Princeton for years, and part of it's been repaved (yay!). It includes a nice, whippy down hill along Herrontown Road. I had hoped to go up to Colonial Park in Franklin Township (see the detour-lookin' thing at the top), but the road was closed; I risked a bit of it and then chickened out (I have rarely had successful interactions with constabulary; they are not my favorite people, and they generally make it clear that I am not on their list of who to buy Christmas present for, either).

Tomorrow, back to work, visiting Burlington County.Time to go figure out where I'm spose to be goin'.

unexpected ride opportunities

2012-03-04T21:15:00.000-05:00

This weekend was the in-laws' montstroboso 5-birthdays-in-March celebration, which was set for Sunday afternoon, and all week I'd been seeing rain predicted for Saturday, so I wasn't sure I was going to get ANY riding in: grump, grump, grump. And sure enough, Saturday started out grey and wet, but after my post-lunchtime nap, I awoke to sunny skies and surprisingly warm, so I got a quick 20 miles up to Colonial Park in Franklin, NJ. The GPS wasn't working (more later), but I was pretty fast, and a backache which had made its presence known earlier in the day was much improved by the speedy ride.

Sunday, it turned out the birthday observances were later than initially expected, so I showed up for Winter Larry's ride (Laura OLPH had a ride scheduled, but I would have been back too late from that one). My back pain made itself known again; it was hard getting on & off the bike, and I've since been using one of the specimens in my cane collection (and isn't it sad that I have a cane collection?). Started with a still day and seven riders, and went off to Battleview Orchards on this route. Even before the break, we had one that wasn't keeping up, but I kept him in my mirror; I saw him at an intersection behind me where he MUST have seen us turn right... but the road curved, and he never came around the curve. Two of us went back to find him (that's that little appendix you see at the bottom left of the route at Perrineville), but he was gone. We figured alien abduction, perhaps. We left a message on his cell, but didn't hear from him again for the rest of the ride. I was cranky; he's only the second person I've dropped when I was trying to keep track of 'em. I spent the rest of the ride complaining to myself and pushing hard into the wind. Still, it was a good ride.

After I got back, I got an email from the other rider who had left the cell message: he'd heard back from the missing rider, who said he had called out he was turning left where we turned right. Yeah, like I could have heard that. Still, he got home OK, so I guess that's most important.

At the very end of the ride, the Garmin GPS turned itself off. I had charged it the night before, and it turned back on when I hit the button, and it connected the ride data, but if you look at the last little bit of the ride route, it looks like we're not keeping to the roads (which I assure you we did). I have the invoice saying I bought it in July; we'll see if problems continue. I'd like to be sure it's OK, but I also have a habit of making permanent solutions to temporary problems.

bike porn

2012-03-03T19:14:00.000-05:00

From Tae Likes Bikes, a Tumblr blog (the original is bigger there):

Oh, sweet heaven, there is not much wrong with that. Brushed metal, lugs, paint around the lugs, and a beautifully-machined brake. Had we but world enough and time...

(stuff) mountain bike girls say

2012-03-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

This is a spoof on the genre of the "shit XXX-folks say" video, as well as on the image some male riders have of female riders. I'm sure the girls in the video are having fun with it, and I'm just as sure that the women riders I know are nothing like this... or they wouldn't ride as much, or as well, as they do. But the video is fun. German, with änglische subtitles:

SHIT MOUNTAINBIKE GIRLS SAY from EVOC on Vimeo.

may have fixed a computer problem

2012-03-03T05:52:00.000-05:00

For both of the operating system upgrades in the past year, I've had problems with the main computer. Recently, I've also noticed other problems (mostly that my .epub program, Calibre, wouldn't load). I decided to try a reinstall of the operating system again, but this time, I would buy the disks from On-Disk, seller of many CD's & DVD's, mostly freeware or inexpensive utilities, which they make up for the cost of the disks an many cases. I'd had problems burning my own and thought that this would solve the problem.

The disks came (I bought one for Fedora 16 and one, just in case, for Ubuntu 11.10). When they came, they both appeared to have errors... drat! But the Fedora disk has a memory-check-at bootup facility on it, so, just for ha-ha's, I ran that... and came up with hundreds of errors.

Huh?

I did a quick web search to find out how many errors were normal, and the number quickly came back: none. It seemed my memory was, in the words of a memorable Dixie-ite of my acquaintance, "low sick". Replacement memory was about $40 shipped, and came quick from Newegg. I popped it in, and the memory check facility showed no errors. Yay!

So between last night & today, I backed up everything and completely reinstalled the operating system (Fedora 16 again). The install went smoothly; the hard parts were the backup (I back up to three places, because I HATE losing stuff) and then resetting all the programs and utilities. Getting a computer set the way I like it takes hours: reinstalling all the keyboard shortcuts and macros, putting in all the special directories I save to, setting up the backup facilities... I'm mostly done, but I expect I'll find a dozen or so little things to do over the next few days.

Still, it's a great relief to find the (probable) solution to a number of things that have been wrong with this computer (other than the PEBKAC ones), and to have it fixed so inexpensively. Poor memory explains so many things that have been wrong - I wish I'd thought of it sooner.

another bike diagram

2012-03-02T11:18:00.000-05:00

Also from Tae Likes Bikes. I've been working my way through all of his posts over the past few days. Mostly bike porn, some personal info, some videos (I first found the "Sh-t Mountain Bike Girls Say" spoof there; I'll probably post that here sooner or later).

exploded bike diagram: humor or dada?

2012-02-29T08:09:00.000-05:00

Dada or humor? (Read the captions.)

This took some detective work: I got the image alone from Stumbleupon, perhaps the greatest tinme sink ever to suck up too many of my minutes... but all I got was the image URL. I couldn't get in to the we subdirectories to find the image, but when I got to the site main page, it turned out to be a blog. The image URL suggested it was from October 2011... but this blog's creator posts several times per day; this post was on page 5 (from the end of the month) and was dated October 20(!). He had a link to his source, but I couldn't steal the image from there... nonetheless, that one's actually big enough to see all the text.

Anyway, I thought it was good enough to re-post.

npr gets a pair

2012-02-28T14:53:00.000-05:00

I saw a link on OurSignal named, "NPR has now formally adopted the idea of being fair to the truth, rather than simply to competing sides".

Well, that deserves a look.

From the article:

"At all times, we report for our readers and listeners, not our sources. So our primary consideration when presenting the news is that we are fair to the truth. If our sources try to mislead us or put a false spin on the information they give us, we tell our audience. If the balance of evidence in a matter of controversy weighs heavily on one side, we acknowledge it in our reports. We strive to give our audience confidence that all sides have been considered and represented fairly."...

Maintaining the “appearance of balance” isn’t good enough, NPR says. “If the balance of evidence in a matter of controversy weighs heavily on one side…” we have to say so. When we are spun, we don’t just report it. “We tell our audience…” This is spin!

Well, it's about f&$%-in' time.

bicycle cheapskate

2012-02-28T11:49:00.006-05:00

I was going to call this, "Bike stuff: what I spend money on, and why", but that seemed to take it more seriously than I really want to.

I hang around with bicyclists, many of whom ride more expensive bikes than I do, wear more expensive clothing, and use more expensive gear (and some who do not). I’ve been thinking about where I spend my money on bicycle gear, and I came up with this breakout:

EXPENSIVE:

Wheels: I spent money on these. As I understand it, the physics of a bicycle mean that the effects of the mass of a wheel are multiplied. I know that my current wheels are not much heavier than the wheels they replaced, but I can definitely feel the difference. Last season, when I was having a (hard-to-find) spoke replaced, and put on my old rear wheel, the difference, even with a single heavier wheel, was noticeable.

Saddle: Oy. Saddles cause a certain amount of discussion, both online and in-person, in bicycle circles. Some people seem to have almost religious feelings for saddles, ascribing to them miraculous properties and offering single-minded devotion. However, what works for one, won’t work for everyone else. I was lucky: the first replacement saddle I bought, the Specialized BG2, suited me perfectly. But I’ve mostly worn it out… and Specialized isn’t making them anymore. After more modification than I care to recount, I’ve made a Selle An-Atomica work, but it’s not ideal: it’s heavy, the nose twists to the right (more a cosmetic problem than a comfort or efficiency problem), and the company refuses to allow discounted sales.

Some riders belong to the Cult of Brooks, saying that the right Brooks saddle (usually, but not always, the B17) will solve all your saddle woes. Well, Brooks saddles don't fit everyone, and not everyone wants a saddle as expensive, or as heavy. And what I like about both the Selle An-Atomica and they late, lamented BG2 was that they flex: Brooks (and most other saddles) don’t. Flex is not the same as gel, either. I want a hammock, not a pillow.

GPS: Before I got the GPS, I got cheap wired computers; they work fine. From a computer, I want distance, speed, and time data, and it’s hard to find a bike computer that does NOT provide this stuff. But last year on the Anchor House ride, a rider died, and there was some evidence that he was checking a cue sheet when he ran into the car in front. I’m perennially lost, and that scared me enough that I spent the money on a GPS, onto which I can download ride directions, and find my way back home. It was an inexpensive model (it was out-of-date, and I got it on sale), but it was still way more than the cheap bike computers I use. (I’ve got two or three of the cheap wired computers in the garage… do you want one?)

MEDIUM-RANGE

Controls and Drive Train: I made my bike up with a SRAM Rival drive train, which is neither the top nor the bottom of the SRAM line. I got a good price on it, and the specs wre better than the corresponding Shimano line. I like it a lot. It may be sour grapes, but I have this idea that, for the top-of-the-line stuff, gear manufacturers may give up some durability to save weight. And for this rider, the best way to lose riding weight is not to take it off the bike, but to take it off the engine. Ahem.

Frame: After riding with, and talking to, a number of riders in the Princeton Freewheelers, I decided to go with a titanium frame for my bike build (at first, I just used the parts from my previous bike, a Giant on which the headset got too loose to ride safely; since then I have upgraded all the parts). Titanium had the right combination of low weight, durability, comfortable ride quality, and boutique-bikey weirdness. I found a source for a comparatively inexpensive titanium frame, and I love it.

The latest-and-greatest in frames is carbon fiber, but there is some evidence that carbon has a limited life. I wanted a frame I could ride until I was unable to ride anymore, and titanium suited that criterion.

Tires: I tried cheap tires, and they just didn’t work for me; too many punctures. Very expensive tires are either light race tires (also puncture-prone), or heavy puncture-resistant tires. One of my local bike shops has a mid-range tire that has proven puncture-resistant: I’m on my third tire with the same tube. Riders will tell you how unusual that is.

Pedals: I use spring-loaded, clip-in pedals. I’ve seen the cheap ones break: the spring pops out past the limit, so the clip will no longer hold the shoe. But I’ve found I don’t need adjustable tension on my pedals, nor ultra-light weight (see the note under “Controls and Drive Train”).

CHEAP

Jerseys : When I ride the fast bike, I wear one of those “looks like a superhero in training” outfits, similar to the ones the pro bikers ride. My jersey (shirt) is usually a solid color, with no advertising, art, cartoons, or whatever. My sole funny jersey isn’t, frankly, that funny. Printed jerseys are quite expensive (the process is different than that for t-shirts), and I can’t see paying a premium for art that’s not my taste, or for advertising somebody else’s product. I don’t follow bike racing, so I don’t have a team with whom I want to identify. I’ve got a new Team Poland jersey for this summer, which my wife got for me (her family is of Polish descent, and it’s a good graphic), and I got a previous-season Anchor House jersey for a good price when I did that ride. But my jerseys are cheap. They wick the sweat, have the right pockets, and keep me covered; that’s enough.

I frequently ride sweep (towards the end of the group, keeping track of people who fall behind the main group), and for a while I had the idea that the solid-color jersey made it easier for the leader to find me. But that’s an arrant rationalization: I wear solid colors because they’re inexpensive.

Helmet: Cheap ones protect as well as expensive ones. Expensive helmets provide ventilation, light weight, and style – primarily the last. If you read the previous section, you know how much of a bicycle-style follower I am.

Stem, Seatpost, Risers… Oh, please. Expense for most of these items is either about weight or bling. Hrmph. Are you even reading this?

Chain: I waited too long to change a chain on my old bike, and wound up having to change the cog (the gears on the rear wheel) as well. Cogs are expensive. It’s way cheaper to buy cheap chains and change them about every 1,000 miles (I’ll be up for a new chain in about a month, if the weather cooperates, and the replacement is already in the garage).

Eyewear: I am amazed by how much money people can spend on glasses for riding. Glasses for riding are essentially safety glasses, and/or sunglasses. I wear glasses all the time, but I can see well enough to ride without them (although I need reading lenses to see the computer). As I wrote in a previous post, I use safety glasses, either clear or shaded, with a bifocal section. They go about $12, plus shipping.

Bar wrap: I like “cork” wrap, because it’s easier on my hands. I’ve seen leather wrap, and wrap that gets shellacked to the bars. But I change my wrap at least once a year, when I change my cables and housing. Since it’s only gonna last a year, there’s no point in getting good stuff.

So there it is: why I spend what I do on my bike stuff. You may disagree… but you’d be wrong, of course.

EDIT 2/29/12: TOOLS: What I spend on tools varies by the amount I expect to use it (less use leads to lower expected cost); whether it's replacing one I already have (I tend to move up in quality); whether my previous experience with a less expensive tool caused a problem (I have a collection of tire-removal tools, including big aluminum tire "irons" [and the ones I ride with are smaller, but aluminum, also], after having some knuckle-bleeding experiences trying to remove tires from toy bikes at the Bike Exchange); and other factors. I have good Allen wrenches, good box wrenches, and a good set of regular ratchet wrenches. I have good screwdrivers, but I never use 'em; I have too many of those cheap four-way reversible-bit screwdrivers ready to hand. My torque wrenches (you need two: for higher and lower torques) are "good enough": after a problem with a cheap needle-indicator torque wrench, I went with the breakaway-type... but since I only need the high-torque one for the bottom bracket, and I only set that once a year, I didn't get an expensive one of those. The other thing for which I have apparently developed an addiction is metric-and-SAE tape measures: I have one on the workbench, one in the bike tools box, and one in the car. (I'm trying to get to think in metric. I've got a good idea of a millimeter and an centimeter, but for larger measures, I still think in feet and yards... and a foot, for me, is still the diameter of an LP record.)

another daily timewaster

2012-02-26T18:44:00.000-05:00

Oddman.ca updates twice per day with random silliness, usually including pictures, a couple of text jokes, some cheesecake, and a video or animated .gif in the last spot. After I post this, I'm going to add the site to my links list. It's mostly stupid stuff, but it has the advantage that I can go through it in about two minutes and then go on to other stuff.

I'm posting it because of two nifty pics in today's evening post, called Too Cool Tattoo (the tattoo in question is almost too obvious). The first is something that drives me up a wall about American culture:

Don't tell me you haven't thought this.

The second is what I'm afraid I might look like when I'm riding:

That's one of the reasons I always shave before I go out on a group ride nowadays.

not where i wanna be, but not where i useta be

2012-02-26T16:20:00.000-05:00

A month ago, I was feelin' old & sluggish when my average on the Coppermine loop was only 17.5; it had been up to 19 mph three times last year.

Because of a social commitment*, I couldn't do a group ride today, so I did the Coppermine loop this afternoon. My average was a respectable 18.7. I'm feelin' better.

(The first part of Coppermine Road is steep; locals call it "the wall". I was having trouble getting up that part; I looked down, and I hadn't shifted off the big chainring. The going got a bit easier after I downshifted.)

*Imagine that: my wife insists on sharing some of my time, and insists, as well, that I see some of my non-riding friends now and then. I think it's an unfair imposition, but I suppose it's part of the cost of staying married. Hrmph.

In other news, my cheap bifocal riding glasses (they're actually safety glasses, but they're great for riding shades) turned up broken today. I bought a couple pair, and an extra pair of the clears, as well. At that price, I can afford the backups (I've seen costs for riding glasses of over $100). (Someday I ought to do a post on my cheap alternatives to regular bike gear: what I do on the cheap vs. what I spend money on, and why.)

a windy day, an idiot

2012-02-25T18:19:00.000-05:00

Today's was a stupid ride.

Didja check that link? Did you play it in the player? We just went back and forth about five times.

I'll tell you what the deal is: today's sustained winds were in the 25-30 mph range, with gusts up to 50. The ride leader fella sent out an email blast that he'd decided not to come out today, but, since I won't get the opportunity for a group ride tomorrow, I was bound and determined that I was going out on a group ride. I loaded a couple of Winter Larry's routes into the GPS, and went to the start location.

Cricket, cricket.

The only other person there was Al L., who lives at the other end of Middlesex County and who has to leave before the email would have gone out. The guy who leads the faster ride showed up for a minute or two, in jeans and a sweater, to tell any of his riders to go on without him, but, of course, none were there.

Al and I decided to try to try to ride into the wind about ten miles to a stop point (that's that half-mile on Plainsboro Road sticking out at about 10:00 on the ride route). When we got to that point, the wind just beat us. We could barely breathe. We turned back, and decided to do a few reps of Main St. in Cranbury, just to get some miles. We were riding across the wind, and sheltered for most of the way... but up at the top of the route, there was a section of about 1/4 mile where there was no windbreak. It was great on the way up; the wind was at our backs. But on the way back down, it was a fight, and it got tougher every time. We gave it up after, I think, five repetitions.

That said, it was a good day. Al isn't a guy I would have ever gotten to know outside the club. He's part of the reason I have a titanium frame on my bike today. We talked about bikes (of course), history, religion... we avoided politics since he's almost as far right as I am left. We spoke about our experiences with doctors and taking care of our health (he's got even more mileage on his body than I, so I was able to learn from his experience).

It was a good ride, but I'm undoubtedly an idiot. Everybody with any sense, stayed home.

irrational birthday integers

2012-02-24T12:39:00.001-05:00

Y'wanna know why we hate math? it's because this doesn't sound all that far-fetched:

It might be too small. Go check out the original. (God would love you more if you checked out that comic every weekday, anyway.)

For all I know, there may actually BE a Fournier-Goldman Happiness Transform function. It doesn't sound all that different from the math that Randall Munroe talks about in xkcd.

("Irrational birthday integers", indeed. Hrmph.)

full of doubts

2012-02-24T05:47:00.000-05:00

I wish this meant that I were one of those wise people, but I can't claim membership in that crowd.

person in recovery; 30-year anniversary

2012-02-23T17:19:00.001-05:00

This week, it has been thirty years since I last had a drink of alcohol or other drug.

People have applauded me for my abstinence, but, truth to tell, I stopped, all those years ago, because continuing was harder than stopping. There is very little I have stopped doing, from which I was still deriving substantial benefit. I still eat too much junk, for example, but I eat way less than I did because it's painful when I do, or it slows me down on the bike because I gain weight, or somesuch.

I didn't stop using and drinking because of legal trouble, or family trouble (my parents told me they did not know how much I was going through at the time), or any other such thing. I don't have the dramatic stories of blackouts, crime, late nights, and entertaining shames that many people in recovery do. I stopped because I was depressed and anxious all the time, because I didn't want to live anymore, and because it was pointed out to me, in a way I could not ignore or deny, that alcohol and drugs were at the bottom of it (and it had to be pointed out; I assure you all that I didn't come to that realization by myself).

At the end of the time I was drinking and using illicit drugs, a large part of my identity went with that; some people had other interests, but I drank. When I was in the earliest days of my recovery, it seemed to me that the only thing I needed to do was stay sober, and everything else would work out. My self-definition as a recovering person was a primary part of my self-understanding for over a decade after I stopped using, and most of the people I hung around with at that time were other people in recovery. Finally, after fourteen years of that, I found that my self-understanding was changing, and I didn't think of myself primarily as a person in recovery anymore. At about that time, several of the people in recovery pointed out to me that they no longer could relate to the stuff I was talking about, and I went to find other society.

While there is evidence that people who have stopped for as long as I have may be able to return to social use, I've decided that it's just not a smart bet for me. When I recovered, I was able to believe things that I no longer believe: for example, that there was a loving god to whom I could turn my life over, or that all I had to do was stay sober and everything would be all right. My social and psychological situation at that time was such a shambles that belief in those things made sense and allowed me to function. But if I developed a problem again today - and there's no guarantee I would not - I would not be able to maintain those beliefs. So I don't know if I could recover again. Given that risk, abstinence is just a safer bet than returning to using.

And at this point, I have developed a life without drugs or alcohol. Most of my associates have no idea that I don't use, and those that know, don't seem to care very much... which is the way I like it. At this time of my life, it's just not a very big thing.

But in 1982, and for years thereafter, it was not only a big thing... it was the biggest thing. Recovery saved my life, and made me a part of society that I had never been prior to recovery. Almost anything good in my life today, I can trace to recovery from drugs and alcohol, and if I have friends, a wife, a calling, a place in the world - it is because on a February evening, thirty years ago, I just couldn't go on anymore.

100-year-old sets cycling record

2012-02-20T16:57:00.000-05:00

The title of the article is, "100-year-old sets cycling world record".

From the article:

Frenchman Robert Marchand entered the cycling record books in the one-hour event on Friday, three months after celebrating his 100th birthday.

Marchand rode 24.251 kilometres around an indoor track to establish the first-ever hour performance in the 100-years-plus category.

That distance-in-an-hour got my attention, until I realized it was km, not miles; it's about 14.9 mph. It's still a great speed for a 100-year-old to maintain. And doesn't he look good? It's the kind of centenarian I'd like to be... if I'm gonna live that long.

Another pic:

well-paved road ride

2012-02-19T16:52:00.002-05:00

The weather was threatenin' no ride today, but when I got up, the prediction was for clear & temps to 47F, so I quick gathered the bike stuff and got up to go out with Winter Larry. At 8:40, I was the only one there for a 9:00 ride start, but Larry & two others appeared, and off we went on this route. Mostly flat, so we added a quick trip up Aggress Road (if you look at the elevation on the linked page, that's that spiky stuff about 2/3 the way through), but this ride was mostly memorable for three things: first (and most important), the excellent quality of the road surfaces (mostly new to me), especially in the first 15 miles or so (although we made up for it on the way back); second, for the fact that we needed to adjust the route for the cross-the-Turnpike-Bridge-closings (Sharon Road is now out, while others are closing soon or newly-reopened); and the terrifying crossing of route 130 at the Cranbury circle, largely due to the factor just listed. I hate crossing main highways where there are no traffic lights, and this circle is not friendly to pedestrians and bicyclists. It's not even that friendly to cars. I said the "Ave Maria" to help us get across, and it must have worked; nobody got hurt.

I was all grumpy that this long weekend would only contain one bike ride, so today's was a pleasant surprise, and has lightened my mood considerably.

Now back home, where the scent of roasted chicken is wafting up the stairs, and I see evidence of two lasagnas being assembled in the kitchen by the excellent wife, in preparation for the kitchen's limited availability during its upcoming renovation. We're getting all new cabinets, and new counter and sink. The excellent wife thinks the current floor is odious (and it's hard to gainsay that; it's impossible to clean where it's heavily-worn, for example), but we're putting that off for another year or so. She spends yonks of time in the kitchen, and the products that emerge as the result of her labors are almost always delightful, so I'm going along with the renovation (I was about to write I was going along happily with the renovation, but that's a fiction that not even I can sustain, and I have a taste for fantasy).

In other news, I have a new Tracfone, a pay-as-you-go phone, because while I need a cell phone, I no longer need it as frequently as I did; so I don't need the guaranteed monthly cost of the Boost Mobile that this one replaces. I now have a new cell number; if we agree you need it, I'll get it to you in a way other than by posting it here. (I'm spending a bunch o' minutes playing with it, but I expect that will pass in a day or two, and I'll get back to my five-calls-a-month standard usage.)

Bad Chainring Karma Day

2012-02-18T16:47:00.001-05:00

Today's ride with Laura OLPH had a number of memorable qualities to recommend it, not least of which was the route, a three-loop route up to Brookville & Mt Airy, then to Lambertville, then back to the start in Pennington. A few newbies along: Lauren & Peter, visiting from South Jersey (and Lauren said the laid-back Hill Slug style suited her), and Brenda, who frequents the flatlands, and who rode with us until she felt she wasn't havin' any fun any more, and she became the first of four to leave us. A dozen started and eight finished, a DNF rate ("Did not finish") which is unusually high for a Slugs ride, but it wouldn't be a Slugs ride without at least one dropout. (We say we don't drop people on purpose, and we don't... but sometimes folks leave us. Well, more than sometimes; usually.)

Along the way, both Laura and Chris had front-derailleur problems. Chris thinks his is just a bad adjustment, but Laura's defied our road-mechanic skills (although I admit I'm reluctant to manhandle a carbon frame with internal cabling). We managed to get her chain onto the middle ring of her triple, which is forgiving enough that she was able to get home on it... well, almost home; she split off by Hart's Cyclery so that her mechanic-wallah could have a look at the recalcitrant front control (which is where the problem seemed to lie). Laura was another of the four to split off the ride, leaving yours truly to lead the customers back to the parking lot. Leaving navigation to the perennially geographically-challenged author of this blog requires more desperation than sense, but it worked in this case (it helps that we were less than a mile from a starting point with which I am most familiar).

A fellow slug, Jeff, had been on two rides last year on which derailleurs died, but he was nowhere in evidence, so we couldn't place blame on him, even if he were invoking witchcraft.

Addendum 2/21/12: Subsequent correspondence with Laura indicates that the problem was a left shifter that was (deo gratias) still under warranty. I'm glad the problem was inside a shifter; those things are replace-don't-repair items, so I don't feel like I'm expected to be able to fix them. (You can't get parts for 'em, usually; you've gotta rip off & replace the whole assembly.)

We had hoped to stop at the Pure Energy Cycling and Java House... but it was closed. At mid-day. On a Saturday. With a poignant mixture of disappointment and incredulity, we repaired to another local coffee shop (I think Lambertville Trading) where I was able to feed my caffeine addiction and offload some toxic fluids. While stopped, I bought a cupcake from a collection of young urchinettes collecting for a local hospital; they said they were not affiliated with any Scouts or suchlike organization, but had just decided to do this. It either gives me hope for the generation that will support me in my decline, or it was an arrant fraud perpetrated by some soulless corporation or other... in either case, the abundance of cute worked on me like a drug.

The only bad thing about this ride is that I have a four-day weekend, and this will be the only opportunity I get to ride it it!

sunlite truing stand - assembly & usage

2012-02-17T21:04:00.000-05:00

The Sunlite Truing Stand arrived today. There's a reason it's as inexpensive as it is; it will do for a wheel true, but I'm not sure it's stiff enough for a "build from parts". Still, I was able to use it to get the worst wobbles out of the wheels of the city bike, and I expect I'll get more adept with it the more I use it.

One of the complaints I saw in my researches about it was that it comes in parts, with no instructions, although it's not heard to figure how it assembles. Nonetheless, herewith find an unboxing and assembling tutorial on the Sunlite Truing Stand:

When you open the box, you find the stand, and a bag of parts.

You'll assemble the parts to form the gauge against which you'll measure the lateral (side-to-side) and radial (distance from hub to rim) true of the wheel. There's a thumbscrew to go through the slot in that hook-shaped part so you can set the radial true. The picture shows it, although in this picture (and the next several) I've got it in the wrong side of the hanger frame, so it will be upside down when I want to use it.

Those other two thumbscrews thread into holes in the side of the hanger fame, so you can set the lateral true. The screws at the top will come off in a bit so you can mount this assembly onto the stand:

Here you can see it with the screws at the top removed. The now-exposed carriage bolts...

... go into holes in the side of the stand. Here you can see one on and one off:

Here's the stand with a wheel in, and the gauge hanger frame in place, with the side screw in so I can set the lateral true. The other piece is to far out now to set radial true, but I wasn't interested in that for now:

Front wheels, and those narrow enough to fit, go in the narrower set of slots at the top. Wider wheels (like the rear wheels on most bikes) go into an additional set of slots a little further down the arms:

That'll do!

ezra jennings on glitterbombing

2012-02-16T16:43:00.000-05:00

Jennings, said, "So the kids who are tossing 'glitter bombs' - handfuls of glitter - at far-right politicos who are against equal rights for sexual orientation are now facing jail time."

"It proves that, in addition to being bigots, these righties are bullies - and, like all bullies, they are essentially cowards."

if 'tweren't for bad luck...

2012-02-15T19:59:00.000-05:00

By the end of the visit to the ER, we knew that the doctor didn't see anything in the MRI, and we went home with a prescription for Flexeril, an instruction for my wife to take acetaminophen PRN, and an expectation that she would take the day off with a bigger headache than the one she has now.

At about 2:40 this afternoon, she was returning to her job from a lunch break on which she was food shopping, when she was rear-ended by a young driver who tried to pull around and leave the scene of the accident; he was prevented by a number of bystanders, many of whom happen to be my wife's coworkers, until the police arrived. The car can be driven, but will need work; there may be frame damage. The driver hit her with enough force that, less than an hour after the accident, she decided to go to the Emergency Room due to a feeling of increasing pressure in her head. She called me; we came home first, and then went to the ER at RWJ University Hospital, which is where her primary doctor has privileges, in case she needed to be admitted.

We expect that she will take the day off tomorrow. She will contact a body shop where she is known a bit too well (she has had poor luck with being in not-at-fault accidents) to see what will need to be done to the car.

I will be happy not to meet the other driver.

advice from a 70-year-old cyclist

2012-02-15T08:59:00.000-05:00

I got this NY Times article forwarded to me today. Sensible stuff about riding safe, picking a bike, and so on.

It's great. Check it out

(This is way better than the article I wrote.)

how the h-ll did that happen?

2012-02-12T17:43:00.000-05:00

This year, the excellent wife and I are celebrating fifteen years of marriage.

I have no idea how it happened. She says it's because I picked the right person, but there's nothing in my history to suggest I could ever do that, and everything to indicate I have an unbroken record of picking the wrong person, so I'm not taking any credit. It must be something she's doing.

Nonetheless, fifteen years. We've been doing the traditional anniversary presents, but mostly as a point of departure; we have fun with it. For example, first year is paper; we got one another tickets to some show - I remember that a woman with whom I was working at the time was horrified that we were being so flippant about our relationship, but I note that we are still married, and she is not. Year thirteen is lace, and I remember we went to a show of Dutch Renaissance painters in which a woman with a flamboyant lace collar was prominently featured.

Year fifteen is crystal. The excellent wife determined that the Waldorf-Astoria hotel...

... has a huge crystal chandelier in the Park Avenue lobby...

... as well as several smaller crystal chandeliers in the first floor halls...

... so nothing would do except a fifteenth-anniversary brunch at the Peacock Alley in the main lobby.

It was a delight. Not that there were many esoteric menu items, but everything there was, was well-done and high-quality, and small details were paid attention to; even the checking of our coats was elegantly and smoothly done. I can't, of course, bring you the food, but the place was a visual feast as well.

And here's the obligatory "we were really there" picture.

The actual anniversary isn't until April, but we like to have a Monday off after we go into the city of a Sunday, and this weekend was convenient for it. We've decided to save the Valentine's celebration for April, instead.

what i pedal, i wrench

2012-02-11T12:02:00.001-05:00

"Marley was dead, to begin with."

I've been thinking too much about this post, and I don't really know how to begin it, and now it's probably going to be too long, too.

I can star it here: when I decided to go on the Anchor House Ride, I found out they have a requirement that riders must turn in a completed Mechanic's Checklist on their bikes. I had built my bike from parts, and it's a point of pride with me that I do my own maintenance... but I didn't want to be disqualified from the ride, so I had the work done (and reduced my personal contribution to the ride by the amount of the charge for the bike inspection). I still had some leftover crankiness about being forced to have someone else inspect my work (the only thing the mechanic fellow did was shorten my derailleur cables), so I went and had this hat made:

(The offending piece of headgear. In this style, 10/6)

I wear it mostly to cover my helmet hair on the way home from group rides, but I also wear it when I'm going to Philadelphia with the excellent wife so I can show off to the hipsters. I was wearing it recently in front of a couple of riders who know way more than I do about such things as differences in frame geometry and which manufacturer is offering which frame options this season. One asked what it meant, and I said that I do all my own maintenance.

WELL! This caused measurable consternation; one opined that he simply didn't have time for all that; he also said that he would be afraid of something letting go when he was rippin' along at 50mph. I shrugged, and thought I had let the whole incident go.

EXCEPT that I hadn't. I found myself thinking over and over about it. When I had my motorcycles, I did my own maintenance on them, except for an electrical problem I simply couldn't figure out (and believe me, I tried), and tire replacement, for which I didn't have the tools. I've fooled around with all my computers; I built from parts the one on which I'm typing this, and I've even been inside both my last laptop to attempt a repair, and my current netbook to upgrade the wireless connection. The only reason I don't work on my cars is that they've grown too complicated (so they're no fun). It would not occur to me to have a machine on which I was having as much fun as I do on the bike, and not tinker with it.

And still I couldn't let it go. And that's the reason I decided to go ahead and order the Sunlite Truing Stand.

Dag-nabbit, not only will I coninue to do my own maintenance, I'm going to boldly go where no few men have gone before: into the esoteric world of wheels. I've even obtained copies of both Jobst Brandt's The Bicycle Wheel (extra credit if someone can tell me how you pronounce that first name) and Gerd Schraner's Art of Wheelbuilding. I may have to buy some spokes and build a wheel, just to soothe my demons.

Now I feel like I need to defend my credibility a bit. In a post from last October, I wrote about some of the changes I was making on my hybrid to turn it into a city bike. Here's a studio shot for a "before" picture:

I've just finished adding the rear rack (after the new handlebars, which required new shifters and brake handles, and subsequent recabling, and...). Anyway, here's a picture of mine, taken this morning:

Drop handlebars, because I like that position better than the upright one (and it gets me out of the wind), although this bike is more relaxed than the road bike (getting the position right took a bit of tweaking). The new bars meant I needed new places to put the shifters. The frame doesn't have downtube bosses for shifters, so I went with bar-end shifters (got 'em from Velo Orange, good for odd or hard-to-find stuff). I know one rider with bar-end shifters on his RB-1 (hey, Joe!), and asked him for tips about cabling... and then, when I got the cheap cables, the housings were too short to take his advice (next time...). Because the brakes are "V-brakes", they require special controls (V-brakes need more cable travel than conventional road bike brakes), and I was able to find those at Rivendell Bikes (which specializes in hard-to-find stuff for retrogrouches and similar nutballs).

Here's a close-up of the front-end setup:

The careful eye will note the bell behind the bike computer.

A few rides in the wet provided a reminder that the risk of getting drenched on a bike is less the water from above than that from below, so I've installed fenders, and, after trying to ride and juggle a few purchases on the way home, I added a rear rack:

You can't see very well in any of the pictures, but because the wheels are 622/700mm diameter, the rack requires clamps on the seatstays; get them from Rivendell, as well.

That picture also shows the remains of the old Specialized BG2 saddle, that is nearly dead, and that I can't get anymore, probably because it's flexible so it doesn't fit some kind of standard that says it's gotta support riders up to 100kg (about 220 lbs.). Sigh. I've had to go with the Selle An-Atomica, to which I refuse to link again, because I'm not satisfied with the saddle (it required a LOT of modification), and because they refuse to allow resellers to discount. Their slogan is "Official Sponsor - the Happy Bottom Riding Club", but a web search for reviews shows a mix of people who love 'em and people who don't (although you don't find the people who don't in their blog), and Rivendell Bike doesn't sell them anymore (their comment about "success has been mixed" on that page refers, I'm sure, to the An-Atomicas).

C'mon, Specialized, bring back that BG2. I'll buy two of 'em.

And sorry for the embarrassing length of this post. But those two with the horror in their eyes when I said I did my own wrenching was just too much for me.

cleaning up the ti frame

2012-02-08T09:14:00.000-05:00

I've received two compliments on the look of my titanium frame after a cleanup process, so I'm posting it here, mostly so I can go back and remember what I did.

First, clean the frame with any cleaner that doesn't leave much residue. I use glass cleaner (in a previous life, I was a janitor, so I know about this stuff). General-purpose cleaners like Formula 409 will do, but they leave residue, although you'll fix that in the next step (it's just a bit harder).
Next, clean the frame with a rag moistened with mineral spirits or turpentine. Don't go over the decals with this; while a single application of these solvents should not break up or remove the decals, these solvents will eventually affect them (the lacquer thinner that's actually recommended for removing decals is related to these guys). These solvents are not great for your hands: limit your exposure or wear rubber gloves.
Wipe the frame with a dry cloth to make sure any oils are removed.
Go over the roughest spots with 0 steel wool. You won't want to do the whole bike, and this process will leave scratches behind; that's OK for now.
Then go over the whole bike (except for the decals) with 0000 steel wool. Steel wool is readily available in grades from 4 (the most coarse I've seen) to 0000. If you used all the grades, you could get a mirror finish, but most of us don't want that. By judicious use of the 0-then-0000 process, I was able to keep the brushed finish that came on the frame. Careful with this; you want to remove the worst scratches, but not shine so much that the brushed finish is lost.
Use just a little metal polish on the frame, except don't polish the decals. This stuff has abrasive in it, so be careful where you put it. Just-a-little gives the frame a nice finish; too much will lead you toward the mirror finish (that is, frankly, a pain to maintain).
It was probably overkill, but I then went over the whole business with Nu Finish liquid.

The standard practice for achieving the mirror finish is to go over the surface thoroughly with succeeding grades of steel wool, ending with the 0000, then use the waxy polish. It works: I brought the forks of a Honda Magna motorcycle to a mirror finish that way (here's a picture of the way it looks with the dull forks), but I didn't want to do that to the bicycle. I'd post a picture of the bicycle frame, but I don't have a "before", and I'm not sure the difference would come out in the photo anyway.

ezra jennings on the citizens united decision

2012-02-05T18:45:00.000-05:00

Jennings said, "If corporations are people, then a hostile takeover is a kidnapping. Or perhaps murder."

sunday ride, and doin' the taxes

2012-02-05T15:26:00.000-05:00

Today was cold and raw, and only three people went out on Winter Larry's ride. We went to Bordentown again, as we had in November, but this time by a different route (crossing the NJ Turnpike three times on the way down, as you can see). On the way back, we tried a different route to reduce the mileage (and the time in the cold & wind, which had picked up). I'd like to do this route again (but we can wait until the weather warms a bit). The ride was pretty, and there was almost no traffic on the way down - people must have been sleeping late preparing for the Super Bowl festivities to come later.

Bordentown is beautiful: right on the river, with a real downtown, Victorian-looking houses, and other homes that appear to have been worker housing. There was money there once upon a time (there may still be, but it was clear that at the time the town was being built, people were showing off their prosperity).

Do I need to start bringing a camera to illustrate these mental ramblings?

Now I'm back home, and I've done the taxes (I use Taxact online; I've tried Taxcut, which always tells us we owe more money to the state than Taxact does, and both Taxcut and Turbotax get all squirrelly when they figure out my computer runs Linux - but all of the products do the work through a web interface that doesn't care what your local OS is, and they all have you download your forms in .pdf format, so why do you have to do this on a Windows or Mac computer?). Once I've got all the paperwork, it's just a matter of filling in the blanks, and Taxact has a go-quick entry method and a let-me-hold-your-hand-and-we'll-get-through-this-together entry method, which is the one I use. And it's cheap (regular readers will know I'm a sucker for the cheap), and includes e-file. All I gotta do now is wait for the excellent wife to wake up from her nap to let me know which account is to receive the refunds.

Tomorrow, back to work. Life could be worse.

Sergeantville, the easy way

2012-02-04T17:07:00.002-05:00

Laura OLPH decided that, while she wanted to go back to Sergeantsville (with the last covered bridge in NJ, and the very cool stop owned by an Asian family), she didn't want to go the same way, so she came up with this excellent route (forgive the little appendix pointing towards Croton; we took a wrong turn). Not too hilly, and some of the wicked hills were in the OTHER direction, so we got to go down them instead of having to climb (like that section between mile 27-28, Pine Hill Road, would be a penitential climb - although maybe I'm just thinkin' that way because Lent is coming). Eight started, and four finished, which is particularly bad for Slugs ride: two decided towards the end of the ride that they didn't want to keep the pace; and Laura decided to drop in at Harts, her LBS (local bike shop), for a cable adjustment, so Chris, who rode in with her, did the chivalrous thing and provided company for her.

A little colder than I would have liked, but a great ride, nonetheless. This week, I actually ate enough to get through the ride, and I can tell: my weight is still up. There is no justice.

Perhaps tomorrow, out from Cranbury with Winter Larry.

do i wanna do this?

2012-02-03T13:33:00.001-05:00

The wheels on my city bike are visibly out of true, and the front wheel of the road bike is ever-so-slightly out of true (not enough so it can be felt through the brake lever, but enough so I can see it when I spin the wheel and compare the clearance below the brake pads). The Feedback Truing Station is on sale a few places, and got good reviews:

(That's not the best price I've seen, but it's a good picture.)

A wheel true goes for $20-25 at the local shops, so I could probably justify the price. But if I'm going to get that, I should probably get another chain, and another cassette (I'm on my fourth chain for this cassette - maybe my fifth - and the cassettes are only supposed to last about that many chains; that said, I change my chains more frequently than most, about every 1200 miles... but the cassette is cheap; I can use any 10-speed Shimano/SRAM-compatible 10-speed, as long as the big gear isn't bigger than 28), and another set of cables ('cause they don't eat and they don't rot, and I'm gonna re-cable next winter anyway), and another bottom-bracket cable guide (it's a $2 part, so I change it every time I re-cable), and the original about-$60 order has grown to about $190.

(Sigh.) I don't know if I really want the parts, or if I just feel like spendin' some money.

maybe form team for franklin ride

2012-02-02T13:42:00.001-05:00

Once the Tour de Franklin website is updated, I'll plan to have this email sent out to the membership of the Princeton Freewheelers:

Text Begins

This year’s Tour de Franklin, a ride in support of the Franklin Township Food Bank, is scheduled for April 29. In past years, they have had a number of rides, including a short ride for mountain bikes & hybrids on the D&R Canal Towpath, and road rides of various lengths up to a 62-mile metric century.

I’d like to form a team of Freewheelers to support this ride. The cost of the ride last year was about $50, with no additional fundraising required (although additional donations are gratefully accepted). Riders got a t-shirt and goody bag and were entered in various raffles; lunch was provided at the end of the ride.

If we can form a team of at least four riders, the Freewheelers will make an additional donation of $100 in the club’s name. The requirements are listed on the Archives page of the Freewheelers website. If we get the team of at least four, I’ll send the initial email; each team member will then need to send an individual email to PFWGiving.

Weather permitting, I plan to ride the metric century. Since I can be relied on to get lost, I’d be glad for the company (and the navigation assistance). However, there is no requirement that the team all ride the same route in order to get the support money from the Freewheelers.

You can reply by posting a comment on the Tour de Franklin post of my new site project, Charity Rides – Central NJ (scroll down until you get to that post). I look forward to hearing from you, and I hope that the Freewheelers can form a team for this ride.

Text Ends

Let's see if that gets any bites. The fee is low enough that it shouldn't lock too many people out, and if it works for this, we might be able to pry some cash out of the Board for the Cory's Ride and McBride Ride, as well. Note If you're gonna reply, please post at the Tour de Franklin post of my new site project, Charity Rides – Central NJ rather than here. I can use the traffic!

cracked website: 5 reason riding is the most humiliating...

2012-01-31T09:52:00.000-05:00

You ought to go check out the Cracked.Com website regularly anyway, just because they're snarky and funny, and because Winston Rowntree, of Subnormality, does such excellent stuff there (check out The 8 Things You Can Do With A Cover Song).

But when I was stumblin' around the web this morning, I cam across 5 Reasons Riding a Bike is the Most Humiliating Exercise. For example, from just the first one, on saddle height (entitled, "You Can Kill Yourself Just Getting On (if You Do it Right)"):

Common sense tells you that when you come to a stop on your bike, you want to be able to quickly put a foot down so you don't, you know, fall over.
But apparently that's crazy talk. You're actually supposed to be able to fully extend your leg when the pedal is all the way down, to get full use of your leg muscles, because pedaling with your knees always bent is like duck-walking a footrace -- you're not fully using your muscles, and the other racers will laugh heartily at you... Since the pedal is several inches above the ground (or it would scrape it), that puts your foot several inches above the ground when your leg is fully extended -- which means you can't put your foot down.

Well, it made me laugh, anyway. Go check it out.

(Also check out my other blog - the one on the Charity rides. I've got some new ones, and new info about the existing ones.)

winning weight loss technique

2012-01-30T10:56:00.001-05:00

More truth than poetry in this, especially in our kitchen recently:

Original here.

kites & bricks

2012-01-30T10:07:00.000-05:00

This Dictionary of Roadie Slang hasn't been updated in almost a decade. Still, it has two terms of particular interest to me this morning. The first is "brick":

brick -- Bad climber, good descender. Opposite of: kite.

The second, of course, is "kite":

kite -- Good climber, bad descender. Opposite of: brick.

I don't think everyone who struggles up a hill is a brick, although there are riders who are fearsome on the flats, who just crumble when they come to a hill.

But I'm a kite. I'm good (for my class) on an uphill, and terrified that I'm going to lose control on the downhill. My goal for the year is to gain some brickish skills without losing my kite characteristics.

Dave C's B'Day Ride

2012-01-29T17:24:00.002-05:00

A riding friend who was most supportive during the illness and death of my father turned 60 today, and decided months ago that he wanted to have a ride today, even though it was January. He had plans for iffy weather (including a mountain bike route if there was to be snow), but the weather came up clear and almost 50F, so seventeen of his friends did a 35-or-so-mile loop (forgive the open route; I didn't manage to get the GPS turned on correctly until a mile or so into the ride). He'd planned it with a number of points at which we could turn back if the weather threatened; as things turned out, we didn't need to do so. I swept at the back, and was surprised that a couple of normally-strong riders were keepin' me company back there in the cheap seats... but one was on a cyclo-cross bike with wide, knobby tires, and I understand she underestimated their rolling resistance. Another rider, an apparent newbie, either didn't eat or didn't drink enough, and was sufferin' at the end, but finished OK (I'd like to think my company and words of encouragement made his efforts less arduous, but I'm sure I'm over-valuing my effectiveness... nonetheless, it's for riders who have days like that that I like to sweep). Then the birthday dude had us all back to his house for food, drinks, and way too much respect and deference from his delightful family.

Laura OLPH was there, and we got to chatting at his house afterwards. She figured that since her birthday and mine are both in May, we might do a combined birthday ride - but if you add our ages, the sum is more miles than anybody might want to do that early in the season (although, Laura, if you convert that many miles to kilometers, it might be doable...). So we might do a combined celebration... or we might not; it strikes me that more of the work would probably be on her than on me, and that's not fair, nor is it much of an incentive for her to put it together. (I would like an excuse to meet her husband, Professor Jack, so I could gush over one of his books.)

Then back home to the excellent wife's chicken piccata (yummy, except the capers in the recipe look like boogers to me; I gotta scrape 'em off), and a laundry, and chores and set up for work tomorrow (when the diet starts... again... the scales are telling me I've been living a little too well).

charity ride updates and saturday ride

2012-01-29T07:51:00.003-05:00

First, I got some new info about some charity rides, and updated the other, new project blog. Go check it out. One of the updates is about the Franklin Township Food Bank Tour de Franklin, which is about as local to me as a charity ride gets (Franklin Township starts at the end of my block). I did this ride last year at the suggestion of an anonymous fellow rider I met on the road, and had a great time. This year, it's on my 57th birthday. I may try to get a group to do the metric century, although I remember it was an early start (some of my recollections are on the event post on the other blog.

Yesterday, Laura OLPH led an invitational ride (invitational because she didn't see anything she liked in the Princeton Freewheelers ride list, and it was way too late to run anything there). We were able to avoid some kind of event in Lambertville, and still had good distance with a decent, but not unmanageable, amount of climbing (the link goes to the Ride with GPS site, mostly because they always show the largest amount of climb among all the sites we use. We hope that this is because they use better algorithms for determining altitude, and not just to feed our egos!). I didn't eat enough, and was sufferin' through the last fifteen miles or so, but it was still a fun ride on a pretty day. (And if I didn't eat enough, how come I'm still gaining weight over the last two days? There's no justice.)

Today, I'll be goin' out later for a ride for a pal's 60th birthday; I'll plan to sweep. He's invited a group big enough to have its own zip code, and the ride will probably be short; there is a non-zero possibility that the first riders will be pulling back into the start as the last riders are leaving... which will make my sweep responsibilities easy. I may post about that ride later.

old & sluggish

2012-01-25T16:11:00.000-05:00

Remember that 20-mile bike loop, including Coppermine Hill, that I did three times last year a over 19 mph average?

Today may rate was a shameful, sluggish 17.5.

Part of it was that the temps were below 50F, and part that there was a headwind all the way out. But most of it was having dropped out of shape, and trending 4-5 lbs. heavier than I was even two months ago.

I'll be glad when the weather improves, and I can ride more regularly again.

Laura OLPH is threatening to lead a ride this Saturday. Bring it, Laura, this tub o' lard needs to get away from the keyboard and the corn chips.

seeking drug abuse treatment

2012-01-24T09:29:00.000-05:00

In real life, I'm a drug- and alcohol-abuse counselor (I've got a license hanging on the wall that says that the state of NJ thinks I can do it, too). I rarely post about that on this blog, partly because blogging on work-related stuff is risky. But I know that I have knowledge that people sometimes want, and when they want it, they are sometimes shy about asking directly.

So here's a bit of info that may be useful. The National Institute of Drug Abuse has published a guide called "Seeking Drug Abuse Treatment: Know What To Ask". The guide is short, to-the-point, and right on the money.

Direct links to the guide: as a .pdf, and as an epub that you can read on most mobile reading devices.

facebook? naaah......

2012-01-23T06:05:00.000-05:00

I've had it with the evil

stuff

I've

heard

about

Facebook.

Let's try Google Plus instead..

new project: charity rides blog

2012-01-21T09:14:00.000-05:00

This is my new project:

Charity Rides: Central NJ

It's a blog that will show listings of charity rides local riders might want to do. The rules are:

Close enough that I might want to do it (I live on the border of North Brunswick & Kendall Park, NJ);
Some amount of the cost of the ride must go to a charity other than a bike club (which is why the Gran Fondo makes the cut, and the Princeton Event does not);
There has to be some information about the upcoming ride (not just last year's ride), even if, at the time of the post, it's just a date placeholder.

It's not going to be a complete list, and, frankly, I don't expect much traffic in the first year. I figure it won't really be until summer of 2013 that it will get much traffic, and it won't be until after that that the rides themselves will show any notice.

And if it doesn't go anywhere, I can drop it.

I'll spend part of this snowy weekend sending emails to the bike clubs asking for links, email blasts, and ongoing mentions in their ride listings.

sopa/pipa: content creator's opinion

2012-01-20T06:04:00.000-05:00

Back in November, I wrote about supporting an upcoming novel called The Beauty of Our Weapons. I got my pre-release copy (I like it; I'll post a review and link when it's available for sale), but I'm posting this because I took the opportunity to ask the author, Darusha Wehm, about her take on the SOPA and PIPA bills. Here's part of her response, reproduced with her permission:

I took my sites down yesterday as a protest against SOPA/PIPA and I've signed a petition from non-US citizens to the State Department about it.

I've never seen any reliable information regarding actual losses in sales due to piracy and I know for sure that the more readers I get (however they got a hold of my work) the better off I am as an author.

Regardless, I don't think that SOPA/PIPA actually do much against real piracy and are instead very dangerous for free speech and national sovereignty - from what I understand they are particularly geared toward sites that are not governed by US law. It's disturbing to me as a citizen of other countries that a foreign state is trying to compel me legally.

I could go on. The short answer is that as a content creator I'm against S&P because a) the online piracy threat is not real (unlike the maritime piracy threat which is real and deadly and no one cares) and b) because of the chilling effect these laws would have on me and everyone else who wants to express themselves online.

I would not presume to say that she speaks for all content creators, or all independent content creators, or anyone but herself. Nonetheless, at lest one content creator who generates cash from her content is pretty clearly anti-PIPA/SOPA. (And the "maritime piracy" issue has meaning to her because she lives on a ship, and travels.)

sopa/pipa

2012-01-18T10:11:00.001-05:00

Many sites are dark today in protest of the proposed SOPA and PIPA bills. Although they are supposedly designed to stop piracy, they would have the effect of making websites and hosts liable for copyrighted information placed on them, even by users. Many of the sites we use regularly, like Wikipedia, Google, and Facebook, would be liable to be taken down, or made unavailable, due to this faulty legislation.

Piracy is a problem (although I think it's nowhere near as much of a problem as we've been led to believe), but this legislation is not the way to control it.

Find out more about this bad legislation here.

And click here for a way to contact your legislators about these bills. I've called mine. Have you?

hoc possum (hog possum?)

2012-01-17T19:46:00.001-05:00

Laura OLPH told me her affirmation, when she's feelin' all down and incompetent, is, "I can do this." I translated it into Latin for her: hoc possum... which resulted in her doodling up the following bit of whimsy:

Original here, with a photo of the artwork in situ.

I can't decide if the proper response is to "Hrmph" or to be honored.

need some discipline & routine

2012-01-16T09:48:00.000-05:00

I'm near the end of a four-day weekend during which it's been too cold to ride, and for which I had few plans. I did get out to buy a rack for the city bike (on a gift certificate we won at the Princeton Freewheeler's Holiday Party), and I learned that the garage door opener replacement I have my eye on goes on and off sale (it was about $150 at Sears when I looked before New Year's, then about $180 last week; now the price is back down... but the price is steady at Home Depot, although it's not available at all stores...).

... and got out to a chamber music concert with the excellent wife and friends at the Westminster Choir College, followed by excellent pizza at Conte's...

But I've had entirely too much free time. I've been eating too much junk, and I'm now up to a weight I haven't been since June of 2009. I've been wallowing in self-pity and lack of direction. I haven't heard from some people from whom I usually am in frequent contact, and I'm afraid I have inadvertently upset one or more of them. I've put in an application for another job, the description of which seems to suit my experience and talents, and now I can't tell which is more worrisome to me: that I might not hear from them, or that I might.

I doubt any of this would have happened if I had simply had more to do. Unstructured time is not my friend.

Speaking of friends, it's time to email a friend who's selling a house, and whom we're planning to visit in the spring. The only way to get out of this funk is to take some action.

(I'm planning to install the garage door opener myself when the weather's a bit warmer. Y'wanna help?)

ira glass on storytelling... & everything else

2012-01-14T18:10:00.002-05:00

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

Yes. it's about storytelling. But it's about everything you do, when you are starting out. It was me with bike mechanics, with drawing (until I got frustrated & didn't go back), with counseling, with computers, and with this new project that's not ready for prime time yet (although it may be in the links list on the right of this page soon).

Stick to it. Malcolm Gladwell has been flogging the 10,000 hour rule, that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve success. That's five years of full-time at 40 hours per week. Not every task requires that, but skills require attention. With time, not only do skills improve, but the person you are changes - you will see and think differently.

Don't get sidetracked by child prodigies; they rarely amount to anything other than curiosities in the long term. Even when they do, like Mozart, it's generally because they've continued to work. Mozart's childhood stuff is adequate but not great; it's interesting primarily because he was so young. If that was all there was, he'd be a historical footnote. The great Mozart is the stuff of his adulthood. 10,000 hours? Music was ALL he did for his whole life. Yes, he had the predisposition. But he also put in the time.

(And if you don't know Ira Glass from This American Life, you're in for a treat. Go check it out and listen to a couple of episodes. I get it to exercise to every week.)

hanging the quilts

2012-01-13T21:52:00.000-05:00

Years ago - maybe when we first moved into this condo - I inherited a quilt made by my paternal great-grandmother. I didn't know how to display it, other than that it should be kept out of the light, so I rigged a rack where I could keep it partly folded and displayed in the stairway. But any time it got bumped, it needed to be re-hung.

Then, at Thanksgiving, my mother gave me a piece of embroidery her mother had done, and I knew it was time to do something permanent about hanging these things. During that trip, we stopped at the Folk Art Museum on the Blue Ridge Parkway, where there are always quilts on display, and I saw that they were hung by sewing a sleeve across the top of the back and running a stick through. After tome advice from a co-worker who's a quilter, and some internet research, I found some polyester ribbon I could use as the sleeve, and the instructions on how to do the sewing. It didn't sound hard, and it's not - but it's boring and time consuming (to do both took about four hours), and threading the needle is no easy task with these new glasses (remind me to complain about my new glasses), and I broke the needle threader about 85% of the way through the job (thanks to the gods that I had some beeswax in the drawer).

Still, they're done and hung, and I want to show them off. The one from my great grandmother hangs across the wall at the turn in the stairwell:

I was able to use the rack I'd previously built to hang it. You can see a better picture of the quilt with the rack here. There are a gajillion little hexagons in that quilt, and the large blocks are all color-matched. it's a beautiful thing.

The embroidery hangs on a side wall of the stairwell. It's much smaller than the full-size quilt; at about three feet (one meter) wide, it was probably meant for a crib. Every alternating block has a character from Mother Goose:

Here's a close-up of three of the images: At top, Tom, tom, the piper's son, stealing a pig; then Little Red Riding Hood (although that hat doesn't look very like a hood to me); and Puss in Boots, below:

I like 'em, and I'm glad I have 'em, but I hope I never have to do that kind of sewing again. And quilting will never be among my hobbies.

spam comment? i'm honored!

2012-01-10T08:48:00.000-05:00

I've hit a milestone.

A post I put up in October on modifying my hybrid into a city bike has received a comment from someone I don't know. I checked it out, and it turns out it's a spam comment with a link to an online kid's bike vendor on the Left Coast (I'm not linking to it here; the use of spam commenting is an underhanded practice to increase search-engine visibility, and I don't want to reward it by giving them another link).

While I'm ticked that my blog is being used for such an underhanded thing (I have few enough real readers; I don't need parasites); I'm also intrigued that someone actually found my post. How deep on a search engine would you have to go to find that old post from October? And which search criteria would you use?

I'm ambivalent about deleting the comment. Yes, it's parasitic, but it is at least an indication that somebody actually looked at the article! And, as I remember from my single-and-always-striking-out-when-asking-for-dates phase (which lasted for most of my 20's and much of the time between my marriages), negative attention is better than no attention.

(I'll probably delete it in a day or so. But still...)

treadmill lessons

2012-01-09T07:09:00.001-05:00

We went out and bought the Proform 6.0 treadmill. We got it at the Sports Authority store in Piscataway (they were great; more on them later), and didn't want to spend the $85 in shipping, so we stuffed it into the back of the Prius, tied down the hatch as best we could, and drove it home.

Despite it being the smallest in the store, it's bigger than the un-powered unit it replaced. The excellent wife didn't think these units would be as big as they are, despite the fact that every one we've seen, in every hotel and gym we've visited, are of similar size, or larger. She also doesn't visualize sizes well from numerical dimensions. It was clear that the existing setup of equipment and space would not be able to continue. We had a bit of a spat about that, in which I'm afraid I did not behave nobly. Sorry, Regina.

When we got home, the excellent wife and I manhandled the box into the garage and opened it, hoping to be able to get the individual pieces up the stairs to the final destination... but the base/belt/motor is a single unit, and between the bulk and the weight, we couldn't get it anywhere. So to bed, where I spent the sleepless parts of the night feeling idiotic.

The excellent wife, however, must have been making plans. Before bed, she had called the store to see what to do, and, while I was out on a ride on the next day (a Sunday), she went back to the store... where she got a couple of staffers to agree to come out and move the base unit upstairs. That same day. For free. So when I got back from the ride, I got a call from her to expect these fellows, and shortly thereafter, in they came (two very polite and helpful young gents; I no longer despair for the younger generation... although they treated me with way too much respect) and moved the unit into place is less time than I've been taking composing and writing this post. I parted with a double-sawbuck for their efforts. I am definitely going to find a way to throw more cash at that business, and I recommend you do, too.

Then to work on the assembly. It's moderate-fussy, and took a few hours; the parts mostly fit right. There's a cable that needs to be fished through a support beam, and they've helpfully included a length of twist-em already fished through so you can pull the wire back. A required Allen wrench was included (as was an Allen wrench that didn't fit... huh?); the Phillips screwdriver (also required) was not, but I think that's reasonable.

It's working now; the excellent wife used it this morning. Since it is bigger than the unit it replaced, we may need to rearrange the stuff in that room so I have space for my pushups and weight stuff, but it looks like we'll be able to do that. (I joke that my condo has a theater, gym, office, and conservatory... and they're all the same room.) And it's much quieter than the non-powered one, which was a surprise to me. (The excellent wife has wanted one of these for years; I'm glad it's in the house. Well, I'm glad NOW; there were times over the last day or so when I could cheerfully have pitched it. If I could have lifted it, that is.)

What on earth are we going to do if we ever have to get rid of it?

belated celebrations

2012-01-07T15:35:00.001-05:00

It's kind of an unstated goal of mine to ride at least once every calendar month each year. In 2011, I missed January. For 2012, I've made 100% of my goal so far for the year; OLPH & the Hill Slugs got out for a slow, backwards ride (mostly new roads, but some of them were roads with which I was vaguely familiar, in the other direction). Eight of us went, and the same eight completed, which is a rarity on the rides I've done in the past few months.

Laura OLPH bills her rides as "B" pace (rated by the Princeton Freewheelers as 15-16mph average), and she called this one a "slow B", but I really maintained a slowish "C+" pace, possibly because I was sweeping, as usual, and some of the riders were slow. I think that riders who can maintain a certain pace on the flats don't realize that we are all generally slower on the hills; while you can pick up the pace on the downhills, you spend many more minutes struggling your way up than gliding your way down.

That said, it was, as always for Laura, a beautiful ride on what became a beautiful day: chilly when we departed, but several of us (including your correspondent) shed layers during the ride (and I wished I could have shed another; as I write, my bike clothes for today are enjoying a much-needed laundering).

This is one of the things I wish I could have been doing last week, instead of what I was doing.

For this evening, the excellent wife and I are having our belated New Year's celebration. We always go out to an early dinner, often at McCormick & Schmick's. We'll do that tonight (as we couldn't a week ago). Then, we'll probably drop by the Sports Authority, where she has cast the eye of desire upon a new treadmill. The one she's been using is old, and was never ideal. The authors of Younger Next Year say that you should get good gear for athletic pursuits, and her current treadmill just isn't that good. Here's hoping the new one will be. (Plus, I get to do they assembly. Building toys! An excuse to use tools! WOO-HOO!)

probably not a buddhist

2012-01-06T18:23:00.001-05:00

My recent experiences with death, including that of my father, have me thinking about pain and suffering. And when the topic of suffering arises, I keep bumping into the Buddhist Four Noble Truths:

Life is suffering;
The origin if suffering is attachment;
It is possible to end suffering; and
The means to this ending.

(Before I go off on my rant, I need to say that the English word "suffering" is the translation of a Pali word, usually transliterated as dukka, and "suffering" may be a mistranslation. But "suffering" is the word most often presented, and I think it's the word Westerners think of when they talk about the Four Noble Truths.)

I think Buddhism is an Eastern way of dealing with the pain of life, which, as the first truth implies, is inevitable (some writers give the first truth as, "Suffering is unavoidable", which sounds better to me). But I am a Westerner, as are most of the people I know, and our focus is different, I think. We seek not to avoid suffering by avoiding attachments. Instead, I think we embrace life. Joy and suffering are all part of it.

While I don't suppose that anyone can disagree with the Four Noble Truths, I think that they don't engage the Western mind and spirit because we don't see that the purpose of life is to avoid suffering. For me, I think the truth is that life involves suffering, that the cause of suffering is attachment, and that I should be mindful of where I put my attachments in order to avoid needless suffering. But I don't think it's my goal to be detached or dispassionate (to use the language of one of the linked articles). When it's time to be passionate, I will be passionate. And I will take what comes with that.

We are, after all, a long time dead. For those of us who have a belief in an afterlife (and your current correspondent is not among them), we have no knowledge of what it will be... but I suggest it will not be like this life (or it would be this life). I think it's our duty to live this life while we can, with everything that that involves.

(In other news, I really miss my excellent keyboard. This papier-maché impostor is a chore to use.)

OLPH has a ride scheduled for tomorrow, which suggests that there will be a light-hearted bike post in the near future. Occasional readers, do not despair!

back from the memorial service

2012-01-04T21:00:00.000-05:00

The excellent wife and I have just returned (hours ago) from visiting my mother for my father's memorial service in Weaverville, outside Asheville, NC. We're both headache-y and tired from the ride (and from the week) and looking forward to sleeping in our own bed and eating normally (restaurant food is good, but I'm sure I've gotten way out of shape on a week of it).

Mother was grateful for our attendance, and for helping her get started going through my father's things. She forced some of his stuff on us, and other stuff I was happy to take away. I'm reading this text on a flat-panel, 17" monitor that my father had just taking up space in his basement; he didn't want to give up his smaller CRT. I don't get it.

Some things I learned this week:

My father accumulated an awful lot of stuff. Much of it became useless immediately upon his death; other stuff was just junk. Some has some value, but some of that only has value to certain people, either because only they have the skills to put it to use, or for sentimental reasons, or whatever.
Sentimental value is overrated.
The property distribution of a dead relative brings out the worst in some of us. When my brother-in-law was last at my father's house, he took a quantity of my dad's tools with him. I have no use for that stuff, nor do I want to give it house room... nonetheless, for a few seconds, my nose was severely out of joint: how dare he just take that stuff, without even discussing it with me? I had to make a point of letting that go.
Seeing the stuff my dad kept, I have resolved to get rid of some of my own junk. There are two drawers at home, in particular, about 90% of the contents of which is stuff even I would say is useless.
I now have a lifetime supply of jackknives.

I'm sure I didn't learn it this week, but it's nonetheless true: this would have sucked WAY worse if the excellent wife 1) had not been along, and 2) hadn't been so excellent. I told her that a number of times this week, and now I'm telling you.

I'll plan to go in to work for a short time tomorrow to catch up on some paperwork. This weekend, I see OLPH has a ride scheduled, as does Winter Larry, and the weather might hold for both. I'm hoping to pedal away some emotional weirdness.

... and all ye need to know

2012-01-02T04:15:00.000-05:00

Every weekday, Delancey Place sends out an email on a historical theme, although they give "historical" the broadest interpretation. Today's was on the Japanese concept of "...'wabi-sabi'", the Japanese aesthetic whereby greatness exists in the inconspicuous and overlooked details, and beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness." (I would have felt better if they'd italicized the Japanese word.) From today's email:

All things are impermanent. The inclination toward nothingness is unrelenting and universal. Even things that have all the earmarks of substance - things that are hard, inert, solid present noing more than the illusion of permanence. We may wear blinders, use ruses to forget, ignore, or pretend otherwise - but all comes to nothing in the end. Everything wears down. The planets and stars, and even intangible things like reputation, family heritage, historical memory, scientific theorems, mathematical proofs, great art and literature (even in digital form) - all eventually fade into oblivion and nonexistence.
All things are imperfect. Nothing that exists is without imperfections. When we look really closely at things we see the flaws. The sharp edge of a razor blade, when magnified, reveals microscopic pits, chips, and variegations. Every craftsman knows the limits of perfection: the imperfections glare back. And as things begin to break down and approach the primordial state, they become even less perfect, more irregular.
All things are incomplete. All things, including the universe itself, are in a constant, never-ending state of becoming or dissolving. Often we arbitrarily designate moments, points along the way, as 'finished' or 'complete.' But when does something's destiny finally come to fruition? Is the plant complete when it flowers? When it goes to seed? When the seeds sprout? When everything turns into compost? The notion of completion has no basis in wabi-sabi.
'Greatness' exists in the inconspicuous and overlooked details. Wabi-sabi represents the exact opposite of the Western ideal of great beauty as something monumental, spectacular, and enduring. Wabi-sabi is not found in nature at moments of bloom and lushness, but at moments of inception or subsiding.

Original email text here.

In my current mood, especially, there seems to be a whole world view in that; for months, I've been saying, "Everything ends." I need to do more reading on wabi-sabi.

(Title text, of course, from Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn.)

paternal obsequies and poetic truth

2011-12-31T20:04:00.000-05:00

My father's memorial service was today, the last day of the year 2011. He died on his eighty-first birthday, December 16, 2011. By my count, about 200 people attended the memorial service: mostly friends, some family and acquaintances. My mother is getting a lot of support from her Asheville friends; still, I understand she is planning to move to the Buffalo, NY area to be closer to her daughter, my sister Susan, her only other child. Still, it is good to see all the friends and support she has.

My sister and her husband, my uncle, one of his children (my cousin), and her daughter are visiting, and two couples particularly close to my mother also came to the house this afternoon. After all but family had left, we were talking about how things had gone (for both the death and the ceremony), and there was general agreement that it could have been worse. Someone said, "It could have been worse, but it still can suck," and my mother, who is not given to profanity, said, "Yeah. It sucks underwater."

She was tired, I'm sure, and the phrase "It sucks underwater" might not make literal sense. But there is a poetic sense to it that feels right, and it was my mother's response to the moment. I think it's perfect.

It sucks underwater.

mug explodes; excellent keyboard believed dead

2011-12-28T09:31:00.002-05:00

It's become a tradition in our house that the excellent wife makes chocolate milk or hot cocoa, depending on the season, for the two of us. Last night, I brought my cocoa up to my upstairs computer, and while holding it over the keyboard, the mug of the handle broke. The cup was in mid-air and had not struck anything; I am baffled by why it chose that moment to break, but break it did, spilling cocoa all over my desk and my computer keyboard. I cleaned up the desk, the floor, and myself, and tried to resuscitate the keyboard... but in this last endeavor, I appear to have been unsuccessful. This morning, the CTRL, ALT, and ESC keys are not working, and I cannot open the keyboard to attempt to do a better job of reviving it.

"But Jim, keyboards are, like, $12. Why do you care?"

Because this was not a cheap, disposable keyboard. This was the Unicomp Customizer 101, a descendant of the excellent IBM Model M keyboard, made (in the USA) by the company that bought the rights and machinery to build the old Model M when IBM sold it off.

It's heavy, solidly built, and the keys click with the old buckling spring technology that made the original IBM model M's sought after (and expensive). And it's $79 plus shipping.

And it was a birthday gift from the excellent wife years ago.

I did not need this to happen at this time of my life.

bike video

2011-12-27T11:16:00.003-05:00

One of the riders on the Christmas Eve ride made a video:

(Original here.)

Cool, of course... but I think he's taking us WAY too seriously. (There are good shots of the antlers and that idiot with the long cap, though...)

And, of course, excellent send-up of that piece by Clement C. Moore.

memorial service & family stress

2011-12-27T06:51:00.000-05:00

My father's memorial service will be this Saturday, New Year's Eve, at 11:00 am, and that, and the other issues around my father's death, are bringing out the worst in our family relations. Mother and I had an argument over when the excellent wife and I would go down, and she called at 5:30 in the morning yesterday worried that we had decided to come a day later. The excellent wife and I are ~~arguing~~ engaged in continuing discussion about how and when to set some limits with my mother (the limits are going to be set; the question is largely when - how long to wait - and how I'll manage to do it without bursting into a raqe).

I've been telling the excellent wife that I think my family was like a Strindberg play. As far as I can see, he didn't write drama, he wrote documentaries.

xmas weekend

2011-12-25T15:19:00.004-05:00

So far, so good (it's about 2:45 pm Christmas Day as I write this). Yesterday out for a pickup ride with OLPH, about 42 flat miles on the easy side of Route 1. Windier than I would have thought (some of the eleven who started appeared to have trouble in some of the headwinds; with the ones who split off, we ended with seven), and cold: I don't supposed it got above 42F, but it was a good ride nonetheless - and every mile I ride is another four minutes or so that I don't feel too crazy.

Perhaps giving the lie to that "not feeling too crazy", below is a picture of four of us before we left for the ride. The two ladies are wearing antlers in their helmets, the guy on the right has tights loud enough to recharge his cell phone, and the idiot in the red in the middle has wrapped his long, knitted cap over his bike helmet. Who would do that?

Later, off to the Polish parents-in-law for Wigilia (the Christmas Eve celebration that my eighty-or-so-year-old mother-in-law has made her own), with the opłatek ceremony, and the singing of koledy (I can read music, and hammer through the phonics of the Polish without any idea of the meaning; nonetheless, it tickles the parents-in-law to have their Anglo son-in-law singing their old carols), and opening of presents after. Ate too much (well, DUH) and left some of the food behind that we were supposed to bring home - but there's always so much that we're supposed to bring home, I actually got forgiven for the omission. (If we ever have a fight with a Polish family, we're doomed; they'll just "hospitality" us to death. Next time I see you, I'll tell you the only honest Polish joke I know, and it has to do with hospitality and food.)

This morning, up for opening presents prior to going out to breakfast at a local diner (a tradition in our house when we have a holiday we're celebrating alone with each other). I want to brag about one of the excellent presents from my excellent wife. Constant readers of this blog may remember that she went off to Poland this summer while I was cranking through the Anchor House Ride. She couldn't find anything excellent to bring back for me, based on her criteria that it must be Polish, good quality, and not made in China (apparently, the Polacks are farming out all of their grunt manufacturing just as we here in the US are doing). However, while there, she found this logo:

Bank BGZ is supporting a bike team, and the Polish at top translates to, "I love the bicycle". Could she find it on a t-shirt? No; apparently they're not marketing every single minor thing over there yet. So instead, after she came home, she found a t-shirt printer, and had the dratted thing made; the printer found the logo, shaved off the Bank BGZ stuff at bottom, and printed on a t-shirt of the right color gold. I'm just thrilled.

She also get the latest Polish Bike Team jersey:

... as well as assorted other nifty stuff. In return, I got her stuff like a potholder that's also a cow puppet. I definitely got the best of this deal.

Then out to the Washington Crossing Park Re-enactment of Washington crossing the Delaware to take Trenton. We had gone years ago, and it was quite entertaining, despite the fact that river conditions that day made the actual crossing impossible. We went back today with high hopes, which were dashed: the speaker about historical matters was boring and ill-prepared (although his facts were probably good), the actor who played Washington was not engaging (as Washington himself almost certainly was; the excellent wife is an amateur Revolutionary War historian, and quoted evidence that The General was a charming, entertaining man), and they could not get their acts together about the boats - late start, only four oars plied in a boat meant for eight (so the slow progress was probably unusual). I doubt we'll be back.

Soon to dinner for a Christmas meatloaf (which is not a tradition yet, but I wouldn't object if it became one). I've left a message for mother, who is having her first Christmas (and first holiday) alone since the death of my father. Tomorrow not working, but back to the grind; I'll pick up a new pair of glasses (not as scratched as these I'm porting now) and a garage door opener, if the sale is as good as it looks (not to install till the weather warms, but a sale is a sale). Then perhaps to the new Sherlock Holmes movie. It's not really Sherlock Holmes, if you're a fan of Conan Doyle, but it's an afternoon's entertainment.

Here's wishing the best of the holiday to you.

churches closing for christmas?

2011-12-23T14:17:00.000-05:00

At the very least, it's counterintuitive, at least to me.

Newsmap is running an article from USA Today saying:

Because Christmas falls on Sunday this year, some churches are opting to close that day so that families can spend the morning together at home.

Among the nation's top 20 largest Protestant churches — as ranked by Outreach Magazine — three will be closed on Christmas, and 10 will be having only one service, The Tennessean reports.

Sure enough, this page from LifeChurch.TV shows services at their locations on Christmas Eve, but not Christmas, and, as I write this, the home page of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta has this text:

Christmas Eve Services
Gather your loved ones and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ with us at one of our Christmas Eve morning services, at 10 a.m. or 11:30 a.m. No services on Christmas Day.

So who, exactly, is taking the Christ out of Christmas? Don't blame it on us atheists!

Or maybe it's a sign that the world really is going to end in 2012.

the other side

2011-12-22T15:53:00.000-05:00

I have this posted on my office door:

"If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes around with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled in his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"

... in an effort to make sure all points of view are represented. Solely in the interests of equal time for minority sentiments, I assure you.

a city on a hill

2011-12-22T12:14:00.000-05:00

That's what's great about America. It makes me proud.

(I wish I didn't like that picture as much as I do.)

I got it from OurSignal, but there really does appear to be a site at UgliestTattoos.Com, although I went through fourteen pages (before I just couldn't take any more) and didn't find this one. (Now that's tireless research, if I do say so myself. Fourteen pages of ugly tattoos, solely in the interests of proper attribution.)

the true meaning of ...

2011-12-20T11:06:00.003-05:00

That's too small, of course; original here.

I've posted twice before from the Calamities of Nature comic, and there's a link in the list on the right. Tony Piro, the originator, has complained that people have stolen and altered his image with neither permission or attribution, and asked that we re-blog. His work is cool enough that I'm happy to oblige.

memorial service stuff

2011-12-20T07:03:00.003-05:00

The memorial service for my father is scheduled for Saturday, December 31, 2011, at 11:00 am at St Eugene's Church in Asheville, NC. In lieu of flowers, people are asked to make charitable donations. My father was partial to the Salvation Army, but you may give to your favorite in his name instead.

I have been asked to give an ~~elegy~~ eulogy (an elegy is a poem). Below is my first draft:

Every person has many aspects, and I would like to talk about three aspects of my father, Bill Brittain:

First, he was a teacher. He taught school on Long Island prior to retiring and moving to this area years ago, and then, of course, he taught at the College for Seniors for years; he had students who took courses for no other reason than that he was the one teaching. And, as you think of him, ask yourself: was he ever not a teacher? Even in small groups or in single conversation, he'd start talking about something or other, and a few minutes in, you'd realize that he'd just given you another idea about how things were related, or how one came from another, entertaining you all the while.

Second, he was a writer. Even if you haven't read any of his writing, those of you who knew him as a teacher won't find that hard to believe! The story he told me was that he had read stories in pulp mystery magazines, and decided he could do as good a job, or better. So he tried, and he did, although he gathered a ream of rejection letters in the process. He got good enough, though, that dozens of his mystery stories were published, and later ~~fourteen~~ thirteen of his children's books, one being awarded a Newbery Honor.

Finally, he was my father. He and my mother sent my sister and me to college, and raised us to be the people we have become. That father-child relationship is always complicated; it is never the simple, ideal relationship that Disney would have us believe. But he was there for us. I know that he had a troubled relationship with his own, distant father, and resolved to be engaged more in our lives than the father he had. And I tell you as I stand here, he made good on that resolution. I told him before he died that I hoped that he was proud of what he did for, and gave to, his two children.

My family and I thank you for your presence and your support. We hope we may continue to count on you all.

Feelings are close to the surface in my family; I have argued with my mother, and I expect that my sister will take sides. I expect we will reconcile before the service. And it has taken this long, all of these three-plus days, for me to think anything about my father except how angry I was with him; it is only now, and with effort, that I have been able to remember fun times, or even relaxed times. I did not expect that.

Edit 12/21/11: Mother likes the eulogy; it's a wrap.

christmas blessing

2011-12-19T21:12:00.000-05:00

I was going through my old backups from years ago, and found this. I got it in English, and it was clear that the original was Latin, so I translated it back:

There is nothing which I can give you which you have not already, but there is much that, while I cannot give, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven.

No peace lies in the future, which is not hidden in this present instant. Take peace.

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy.

And so, at this Christmas time, I greet you with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

Here's the Latin:

Ave. numquam est quod vobis dare possum quod non habetis, sed multi sunt quod, quamquam non possum dare, potestis capere.

Caelum non nobis venire potest nisi cordia nostri quietum hodie in illo inveniant. caelum capite.

Pax non est situs in futuro quod non in praesenti occultus. pacem capite.

Tristitia mundi praeter umbram. pone hanc, sed intra captu nostri, gaudium est. gaudium capite.

Itaque, in festo nativitatis Christi, vos saluto cum prece quod vobis, nunc et semper, die illusceant et umbrae fugeant.

thanks for the ride, & stuff.

2011-12-17T18:10:00.000-05:00

After hearing the news last night, I really needed a ride today. Our Lady of Perpetual Headwinds had one scheduled, and was planning to do a wicked hilly ride, but showed some mercy with this route (if a ride with 2800 feet of climb can be described as "merciful").

My thanks to her, and to Jen, Joe, John, Matt, Mike, and Ron. I needed a ride today.

On the break, we were met by Dave, who I first met at the Covered Bridges ride, and with whom I've been corresponding. He hasn't been able to ride recently, but he came out to see us anyway. Wow.

Later, I called my sister, who let me in on the plans that my mother has been making to move up near her (these plans have been developing over some time, apparently, but they've been kept secret from me [I don't know why]), and my mother, who appears to be doing everything that needs to be done, surprising herself (but not me).

(And as I was typing this, I've had two emails, two or three calls, and a neighbor visiting with condolences and support. I'm gratified)

he has died

2011-12-16T22:37:00.000-05:00

My father died today, his 81st birthday, in the hospice to which he went yesterday.

I updated his Wikipedia page to show his date of death, and to change some tenses to simple past.

I expect there will be a memorial service in the Asheville, North Carolina area after Christmas, to which we will go. My mother is in a bit of shock, as I may be.

I ask my friends and acquaintances to look out for me, and I thank you for your company and support.

weeks... and not many

2011-12-15T18:26:00.000-05:00

Dad's in the hospice now; mother's been told he probably has "weeks... and not many" to live. He sleeps most of the time; he doesn't eat much.

However, mother's relieved and relaxing. She's now worrying about whether (and how) to fix the phone answering machine. She slept through the night last night, she says, for the first time in weeks.

She went to the facility, and likes it. It's got a chapel, gardens, a stained-glass window in the room where my father is. Mother is honest enough to say he's past caring about such things (or possibly even noticing them).

The excellent wife is off to her folks tonight, so I'm having a bachelor night; out to get some junk food when I finish this post. Work tomorrow (Payday! Yay!), then a ride with OLPH Saturday, and maybe another (maybe alone) on Sunday if it warms up enough.

I'll be glad to have something else to write about.

... back to the place from whence you came, and from there ...

2011-12-14T17:41:00.000-05:00

My father will be transferred tomorrow from the rehab center to a hospice. He has declined transfusions and chemotherapy. I have not spoken to him.

My mother seems resigned and relieved. I have been able to make her laugh. She seems grateful for my calls.

The excellent wife thinks my father was keeping it together so that the family could have one more Thanksgiving together. I think she is right.

third time

2011-12-14T14:54:00.000-05:00

Still trying to avoid talking about my father, who may go into the hospice today.

Today is one of my Wednesdays off, and got a bunch of chores done: a visit to the Harbor Freight store in Ewing (spent less than $40, which is a success - I go up and down the aisles as if it were a grocery store), then to sign forms to transfer the condo bank accounts (TD Bank is not just nickel-and-diming their individual customers with annoying little fees; corporate accounts are getting pinched, as well), then to Sears to try to order glasses (and how can they have an optical department and not have an optician there? And no evening optician hours? I'll have to scoot in after work tomorrow); then to library.

Home before 1:00 pm, so got a bike ride in today, and Mr. Garmin tells me I just did the Coppermine loop at 19 mph for the third time since summer.

Brag, brag.

post-first-bike-ride speech

2011-12-14T03:38:00.001-05:00

THAT was inspiring. Rock And Roll!

freakangels webcomic

2011-12-13T20:35:00.001-05:00

Mostly because I just can't put in another post about my father without gibbering, I want to plug another excellent webcomic. Freakangels was set up as a weekly comic, but I can't keep my interest on something that moves that slowly, so I'd save it up for a few months and read a bunch of episodes at once. It's written by Warren Ellis, a name to conjure with among comics fans, and the visuals, by Paul Duffield, are yummy.

There's a novel called The Midwich Cuckoos, which dealt with a number of telekinetic children all born at the same time; it was made into a movie called Village of the Damned. The argument of the webcomic is this: what happens when all these kids become young adults?

It's been completed for a few months, and it rocks. Check it out.

won't be coming home

2011-12-11T18:36:00.000-05:00

My father's illness is apparently bad; we put him in the hospital the day after Thanksgiving, and despite my mother's telling me he seems to be better, it's pretty clear from talking to her today that he's not. He went from the hospital to a rehab, but he's not eating, and, while he perks up when he has visitors, he sleeps most of the time. Now she's talking about putting him into a hospice. There is no phone he can use, and it's not clear he could use one anyway.

Mother told me he said that he's accomplished what he wanted to, which sounds to me like he's trying to decide his attitude about dying. Mother is scared, and responds well to the small talk that my wife and I provide when we call. She has the support of many neighbors.

My father had a poor relationship with his father, and got little support from him. I had my differences with my father; ours was not an easy relationship, and will never make a 30-minute feelgood TV special. Nonetheless, he did far better for me than his father did for him. I don't know what he would say his accomplishments are. I hope he is proud of what he gave to, and did for, his two children.

weekend update Dec 10-11

2011-12-11T14:29:00.000-05:00

Friday 12/9 was an early-out day (one of the perks of my nine-days-in-two-weeks work schedule is that I leave at 2:15 ever other Friday), so I went for my eye exam prior to getting new glasses (I have a benefit that gives me a generous reimbursement every other year). At the eye exam, I was told that although my prescription hasn't changed much, I'm starting to get cataracts. Oh, sheesh. First I'm put on meds for blood pressure (despite losing over 40 lbs and getting all athletic and stuff), then a colonoscopy earlier this year turned up some abnormalities, and now this.

Oh, well. I had heard from Out Lady of Perpetual Headwinds that a friend of hers, transplanted from the Left Coast (worse yet, from Berkeley) was finding all the wrong roads to ride his bike on, and was coming home with fear in his heart and shreds on his left elbow from where the cars were skinning him; OLPH wanted to show him some of our good rides around Sourland Mountain. She asked for some company, and I went along to sweep. We went through a few of our best roads, and stopped at a deli at which there were a few hunters; it turns out they're also interested in land management, not just in nailing Bambi (and several of them eat their kill, which I support).

In the evening, a date with the excellent wife at Five Guys, which she's been craving - she even suggested it for New Years', since we don't go out late, but that's not enough of a date for me). After that, we watched the video of Pittsburgh from the Air, sent to us by high-school friends of mine whom we plan to visit in the spring. If you don't live there, it sounds like a bore, but it had an oddly meditative quality, and I loved it.

Today was cold - colder than yesterday - and Winter Larry, who seemed to make noises like he was coming to lead the ride today, didn't appear. So OLPH led a pick-up route. Some of Larry's regular crew were there, but also three younger guys including two who raced for Rutgers. One fellow left early; he'd underestimated the cold and his gloves weren't up to the weather. The rest of us kept it together until after the break, when we split into two rides: the (mostly younger) fast guys, and those of us who kept it to about 16 mph average (rated speed for the ride).

One more perk: with today's ride, counting my road bike and commuter bike miles, I'm up over 4,500 miles for 2011. That's a lot. I don't know if I'll be able to do that again (there may be life changes; watch this space for details). And the Anchor House ride accounted for only an additional 300 miles: I'm sure I would have done the rest on my regular weekend rides.

Home now; laundry's in, and a chicken is likely to roast later. There are worse ways to spend a Sunday.

do not try this at home

2011-12-10T04:07:00.002-05:00

You may want to crank the volume down a bit.

Skilled, virtuoso BMX riding. I do not ride like that.

(I love the urban skate/bike park in the first part of the video, complete with the excellent graffiti. I wish they were everywhere.)

i love this shirt

2011-12-09T14:12:00.000-05:00

From the xkcd store.

(How can it be that I've never plugged xkcd on this blog? It is THE comic for snobs, science nerds, & language geeks. Don't worry whether or not you'll always understand it; you won't. It's OK. Go look up the references; it won't break your brains to go learn something so you can laugh a bit. And if you still don't get it, don't worry; I won't tell. But you WILL get it often enough to make it worth the three-times-a-week visit... or you wouldn't be looking at THIS blog!)

climate change gloominess

2011-12-08T10:07:00.002-05:00

I’ve been in a bleak mood recently, which is probably why the tone of this post will be so dour. I’ve been thinking about climate change, and how America seems to be the only industrialized nation in which a large number of people dispute either the fact of global warming, or that humans cause it, or both. (America is also the only industrialized nation with such a high number of evolution deniers, but I digress.) (I digress! Imagine that!)

This leads me to two lines of thinking. The first is about the hypocrisy of the left on this issue. We regularly spoof the righties on the inadequacy of will-power solutions to the problems of unwanted pregnancies (such as virginity pledges) or drug use (such as the “Just Say No” campaign). Yet we expect people to embrace a will-power solution to the climate change problem – smaller cars, lower temperatures on the thermostats, whatever. And in developing countries, these solutions would mean that these populations might not ever get to what we in the developed world consider a normal standard of living.

I heard an article on yesterday’s Here and Now about Wal*Mart and the Chinese coming to some agreements about greener manufacturing procedures. Now, I doubt that either Wal*Mart or the Chinese government or manufacturers are all that concerned with climate change… except that both are probably concerned about their images in the world, and, right now, an ecological response is probably good business PR. (The linked article does not include a discussion, which I seem to remember, about Wal*Mart’s motives and history.)

I suspect that when there is a solution to climate change, it will not be based on will power or behavior change. I suspect that there will be a technology change. Technology changes have reduced or eliminated certain diseases, widespread hunger, and the likelihood that the human race would die out due to lack of numbers. Technological solutions bring their own problems, but those problems bring their own solutions.

Or they don’t. The other line of thinking is about whether it’s important to avoid changing the climate at all. It’s not that I think that the climate is not changing; it is. It’s not that I think that the change may make the earth uninhabitable for humans; I think it will.

The issue is about whether it is worthwhile for humans to exist at all.

If the climate on earth changes, and humanity dies out, it is not at all clear that all life will end. In fact, discoveries of life in odd, dangerous places suggest that life not only will go on, but we might not be able to stop its going on. (I note that the odd, dangerous places are only odd or dangerous to us – certainly not to the creatures that live there quite comfortably, thank you.) So here are the options, as I see them:

It is possible that we will arrest and manage climate change, and humans will survive.
It is possible that we will not manage climate change, and humans will still survive.
It is possible that we will not manage climate change, and humans will die out. In this case,
1. Either there is life elsewhere in the universe, and they will find our remains. If they are smart, our experience will serve as a lesson to them – perhaps we will be a byword, the way the “Tower of Babel” is for us.
2. Or there is no life elsewhere, or the life that there is will never find us. In that case, self-aware life on earth was simply a dead end.

I can’t say that any of the outcomes in 3 makes me sorry. For now, I'm just gonna ride my bike.

anchor house video party (& video)

2011-12-08T08:11:00.000-05:00

The video distribution party for the Anchor House Ride for this past summer was held at the KatManDu the other night. My tummy was a bit off after too much yumminess at a work holiday party that day, and I was in a misanthropic mood, so I just stopped in to get the video and left. (I suspect the reason I didn't stay was much more the latter than the former.)

The actual video was distributed on a disk with much less plastic material in it than the usual DVD (for ecological reasons, the disk says). It feels just that bit flimsy to me, so before I played it, I copied it to a writable DVD (and played that, instead).

I remember enjoying the ride. I remember not meeting many people (and worry about not having to be social with folks I didn't know well that was preying on my mind for several days before the event; I hate that kind of gathering), although I also remember making friends among the SAG volunteers. I remember our reaction to the death of one of our riders.

I watched the video last night. They did a good job of dealing with the death. They also cut out all the boring stuff, and included lots of fun stuff (some of which I didn't remember at all; I must have missed it). And I have a speech in the video, which feeds my ego. It ignited my desire to do the ride again (and maybe do it better this time - not faster, but engage more in the non-riding activities).

The video will be something to watch over the winter when I'm not riding. I wonder if Anchor House would consider selling the videos for the rides I don't do?

I want to do the ride again. You should consider it.

people we don't know

2011-12-06T07:36:00.001-05:00

The two or three of you who are regular readers of this blog will know that insomnia is a recurring affliction, and when I don't sleep I tend to ruminate, and some of those meditations become posts on this blog. Recently, I've come out as an atheist, written about my confusion about some southerners, and reported an article (from Canada! Home of tolerance and politeness!) on people's mistrust of atheists.

I think there's a relationship between the southern gal's friendliness to people she knows, and the mistrust of atheists. I've just finished Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. One of the things he argues is that people seem to work better in groups of up to about 150; after that, groups become unwieldy. He makes reference to Hutterite communities, where groups will separate off when they get larger than about that size, and the Gore Corporation (makers of Gore-Tex), which tries to limit its corporate groups to about that number of employees. I suspect that this is a limit size for people's ideas of who's in their community.

Edit 12/8/11: That 150-person limit is also known as Dunbar's Number, which apparently ranges between 100-230.

Here's the relationship that I suspect: People know that the people within their groups are reasonably honest (see the brief discussion of people belonging to groups in my "coming out as an atheist" post, linked above). But they also know we live in a world that is sometimes dangerous. There's no way to determine if the people outside our group have the same values as the people inside. So for the people we don't know, it's better not to trust them with our tax dollars, or anything else. And since we can't count on them having values of compassion or reason, to inform their interactions with strangers (including their interactions with us), it would be better if they were at least afraid of divine punishment.

Atheists, however, don't have that. Further, if one lives in a culture where everyone is a churchgoer, atheists have the further disadvantage of being just weird. How can anyone trust them?

The solution, probably, is for atheists to become more common (as I think it was for LGBT folks; it turns out EVERYBODY knows LGBT folks; they're not as rare or strange as we thought).

Well, I'm one of those atheists. You can decide if I'm trustworthy or not.

there is a brotherhood... of man...

2011-12-05T20:14:00.000-05:00

Atheists, rapists top list of people religious believers distrust the most, UBC study finds

So I'm a member of the group least trusted by religious believers.

From the article:

The researchers found that religious believers thought that descriptions of untrustworthy people - people who steal or cheat - were more likely to be atheists than Christians, Muslims, Jews, gays or feminists.

Gervais was surprised that people harbour such strong feelings about a group that is hard to see or identify. He opines that religious believers are just more comfortable with other people who believe a deity with the power to reward and punish is watching them.

"If you believe your behaviour is being watched [by God] you are going to be on your best behaviour," said Gervais. "But that wouldn't apply for an atheist. That would allow people to use religious belief as a signal for how trustworthy a person is."

Oh, well, I guess you're just not gonna be able to trust me, then.

far away & beyond control

2011-12-05T19:27:00.001-05:00

In speaking to my mother over the past few days, I've learned that my father's now in a rehab facility, learning to walk again with some assistance, getting visitors from their friends and church community, and seemingly in good spirits. Mom says he's doing well.

Mom said she thinks of herself as a realist, who likes her truth unvarnished, but both my excellent wife and I were struck speechless when we heard her describe herself this way. I think of her as a person who thinks that if you ignore an unpleasantness long enough, it might go away; who thinks that if people were more polite and stopped using so many swear words, the crime rate would plummet overnight. So I have no idea what "he's doing well" means.

She's bought my father more flannel pajama pants, which suggests he's not going to need the khakis he's been wearing for decades. She's also discontinued the internet access that only he used. How well is he doing?

However, she has good support from friends. A neighbor who managed an appliance store is going along with her to buy a replacement for her dryer that has chosen this week to die. She's told us about some other friends who have come to her aid. But she also spoke today about eating lunch alone in a coffee shop, and how tired she is.

They're almost 700 miles away. It's a burden, but (lord, in whom I don't believe, forgive me) it's also a relief.

almost made it...

2011-12-05T14:20:00.000-05:00

I just remembered: I had a goal of riding at least once in every calendar month in 2011. I made 'em all except January. (I'll keep the same goal for 2012. The Brit fella who missed the ride on Saturday is making noises like he wants to do a ride on his birthday at the end of January, so that might be my excuse to ride in January next year. I've popped for the expedition-weight layering shirts I'll want if we do go out riding in the frigidity.)

AND I've made 4300 miles so far. I might make 4500 before the champagne flows and the ball drops - but don't put the mortgage on it.

mostly bike weekend

2011-12-04T16:18:00.002-05:00

Although we did get the Christmas tree up on Friday night - we still use the 3-foot tree I bought when I was divorced; it's just enough celebration for the two of us (and when the presents are beneath, they seem SO MANY because of the limited circumference of the lower branches), most of this weekend was about riding & the Freewheelers.

Saturday, we did a short (for the Hill Slugs), 37-mile around the hills ride. Early on, we went up Poor Farm Road, which has two memorable uphills (about 17% grade) separated by a whippy downhill. I'm not courageous on downhills that are not straight, so I was the last one down the hill. Later on, after stopping at Baker's Treat in Lambertville, we left town via ~~Swan Road~~ Rocktown Road, a long uphill that just doesn't break for miles.

While I always have fun on the Hill Slug rides; there were two disappointments: first, a Brit I met on the Covered Bridges ride had hoped to come, but after a relapse of a lung ailment, he couldn't. Second, a rider who initially came along decided not to when he saw who was going; I had hoped the Hill Slugs did not have a reputation for being so competitive.

Saturday night was the Freewheelers Holiday Party. I suck at parties, but I had decided to go to this one weeks ago, and Regina definitely wanted to meet some of the people I've been talking about. Many were there, they were all easy to talk to, and we met some others (also easy to talk to) when there wasn't room at the tables of the people I usually ride with. And Regina got a $50 gift certificate to Economy Bike Shop. One single cloud around all this silver lining: I saw the fellow who had left the ride that morning, and spoke to him... and got the impression that I was among the people he had hoped to avoid. I'm sorry if he feels that way. However, that's not been my intention, and I had a good time, both on the ride and at the party, otherwise.

Today was one of Winter Larry's Sunday rides, memorable because a friend (who I think rides with the NJ Major Taylor club) broke 5,000 miles for the year today, despite a cold (and the cold), and leaving my 4,300 miles in the dust. Second, because as we were returning though the Assunpink, we came across some of the worst stretches of paved roads I've ever seen outside of Queens, NY (I've not been there recently, but people who went down Douglaston Parkway in the mid-70's will know what I mean). Still, another rider who's not been riding much, and who had a tough day yesterday on the Hill Slugs ride, had a very good day riding today.

Another friend who lives in Pittsburgh sent a video of Pittsburgh by air, and if we can get our act together, the excellent wife and I will watch it tonight. It's been too long since I've contacted him, and this will give me an excuse to do so.

contrarian cyclismus

2011-12-02T09:29:00.002-05:00

I overheard a couple of members of the Freewheelers complaining about various ride leaders (didja ever notice that 80% of the complaints come from 20% of the people?), and a complaint came up about Our Lady of Perpetual Headwinds, that her rides were too long.

Sheesh. That's one of the main things I like about her rides; they're long enough that they're worth the time & effort of packing up the bike and driving to the start. If she could only find a starting point with a public toilet, they'd be perfect. (No accessible public toilets? Now that's a credible complaint, especially for this pushin'-60 rider who drinks way too much coffee of a morning.)

I met this southern gal...

2011-12-01T19:28:00.000-05:00

When I was down visiting my parents in North Carolina, a girl who has worked as my mother's house cleaner came to visit. She'd heard about my father's illness, and wanted to offer her sympathies, as well as whatever tangible help she could. My mother pointed out that northerners don't do this the same way southerners do.

I don't get how southerners will bend over backwards like that, but vote against any kind of organized help, over and over again, even when it will be to the benefit of themselves and the same people they would be willing to help in person. Of course, I also don't get how some lefties I know can be so thoughtful in their political sympathies, and so rude to their friends and acquaintances.

While doing my morning workout today, I played a podcast from This American Life about fracking for natural gas. While there is a huge amount of natural gas in the northeast (enough to satisfy US energy needs for years), there are real concerns about whether the gas can be gotten safely. I was reminded of our arguments about global warming: America seems to be the only industrialized nation in which a group of citizens of any size disputes the dangers of global warming, or the fact that it is human-caused. Perhaps we will cause our own destruction by this short-sighted greed. I'm beginning to think it will be a small loss to the universe when we do.

pittsburgh hill race

2011-11-29T19:46:00.000-05:00

Defying the Dirty Dozen: Cyclists take on steepest of steep hills

It's a bike race in Pittsburgh up thirteen of the steepest hills in the city.

"I'm so glad you came," he shouted to his girlfriend's mother, Becky Gannon, over the cacophony of cow bells, air horns, and shouts of "Go! Go! Go!" Nearly 200 spectators lined both sides of the 100-yard-long cobblestone street to cheer on other cyclists trying -- many in vain -- to climb the 37 percent grade hill. "This is what the Dirty Dozen is all about."

I'm just twisted enough to want to do it, even though it needs more organization:

Though the race has grown steadily, its previous record attendance from 2009 was still just 185 participants -- already making it Pittsburgh's biggest bike race.

But last year the race caught the attention of WQED public television's famed documentarian, Rick Sebak. He brought two cameramen to the 2010 race and produced a show that ran on WQED's "It's Pittsburgh" series in January....

Largely as a result of that publicity and the great fall weather, Saturday's race broke the previous record by more than 60 percent with about 300 riders.

37% grade?

... bring it.

over the river & thru the woods

2011-11-28T20:08:00.000-05:00

On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, our Sunday ride leader likes to go by his "grandma's", which includes a spiffy downhill at Nolan Road (and you don't get many spiffy downhills on the flat side of Route 1 in Central Jersey). Check it out. We started with 10, including two "fixies", picked up one along the way, and ended with eight, as three of our number decided to go their own ways home. I added eight miles or so by riding in from Plainsboro and riding back; on the way back I had company: a rider who will have 5,000 miles for the year by the time he puts the bike up for the season (he only had about ten more to go after yesterday's ride, so it's a safe bet he'll make it!).

As for me, with the freight I've been carrying recently, it may have been my most necessary ride of the year. Thanks, all of youse all, for letting me ride with you.

after thanksgiving

2011-11-27T07:21:00.002-05:00

So the excellent wife and I are back from our Thanksgiving visit to Asheville, NC, where my parents have retired. My father was diagnosed with leukemia less than a month ago, and he's deteriorated rapidly; when we first saw him on Tuesday, he had lost weight and was barely eating, was not grooming, and this author of children's books and mystery stories was barely able to speak, probably due to brain hypoxia. During the several days we were there, he deteriorated further, to the point where he could barely dress himself and slept most of the time. He's soon to turn 81; my 81-year-old mother is scared.

On Wednesday, he had a treatment and a transfusion, and came back and went immediately to bed. On Thanksgiving, we were able to do Christmas presents (we do them because we are all together) and he could eat something, but then he went to bed.

He spent all of Black Friday in bed. During a visit with my mother there on Friday, we went in to see him, and found him on the floor next to the bed, unable to speak and with a terrified look on his face. My brother-in-law (my sister and he had arrived the day before) and I got him back into bed, and my mother called the doctor. My sister works in a medical office and has had some nursing training; my wife has worked in adult protective services; they were able to coach my mother on what to say to the doctor. By 9:00 pm, we had gotten him into the hospital.

My wife and I came home the next day (yesterday). I called twice yesterday; mother told me he's able to speak now, and the treatment plan is being changed to a less aggressive one. But she knows that he'll never be the same. He may need nursing home care. Initially, I thought he'd never come out of the hospital, but I no longer think that's the case.

After avoiding discussing the situation up to now, he finally told the doctor that he does not want extraordinary measures used to prolong his life. My mother may talk to him about doing the Five Wishes document, a living will/durable power of attorney questionnaire that's among the most useful and easiest to understand that I've seen (you can download the document from the "Preview a Sample..." link on that page; it says sample, but it's the whole document my mother showed to me; it can also, apparently, be completed online, except for the original signature, witness signatures, and notary, if your state requires one). She may talk to him about completing that, if the right moment presents itself.

While I'm not in tears over him, I noticed that I'm stressed and easily moved to tears by other stuff (an acquaintance forwarded a link to this video, which had me weepin' into my coffee this morning). I'm having a hard time feeling thankful.

I'm off to do a ride this morning. I need it.

annual donation plan

2011-11-23T21:55:00.000-05:00

In this Thanksgiving season, the excellent wife and I are making our donation plan for 2012. Some of our donations are tax-deductible, and some are not, as we believe that making donations to political causes to bring about the kind of country and world we believe in should be part of our plan. The causes to which we donate include charities, public radio, local causes, and art, as well as monthly donations to the Montclair Friends Meeting, of which we are members. In 2011, our donations equalled about 4% of our gross income.

An advantage to the donation plan is that we have a ready response to those who come calling for donations: if they're not on the plan, they probably won't get a check. On the other hand, we keep some money available for donations we did not foresee. Except for charity rides, we research our recipients to make sure the money is going where it should: as far as possible, we want to be sure it is neither diverted, nor eaten in administrative costs.

For 2012, our plan includes:

WHYY, the public radio station in Philadelphia;
our local rescue squad;
our local fire company;
the USO;
the Human Rights Campaign;
the local library;
the PICO Network;
People For The American Way;
the ACLU;
Lambda Legal:
the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and
Princeton Friends Meeting.

out of the closet?

2011-11-23T08:17:00.000-05:00

It's been rattling around my head that it might be time I came out of the closet. It's not that I'm gay, it's that I'm an atheist.

I grew up Catholic, and was serious enough about it that I spent my college years in a Catholic seminary studying to be a priest. When Catholicism didn't work anymore, I went to the Quakers, and joined, first Montclair Meeting, then Princeton Meeting. (I continue there because they don't care if you come to meeting as an atheist, as long as you show respect for the beliefs of others. Since I'm not a Dawkins-style militant atheist, this is not a problem.)

I've thought and read a lot about religion, in additon to my studies. I don't think that anyone who knows me can say that I don't know enough about religion, and that's why I'm an atheist. And I don't think the specific details of my change in belief are important here.

All my life, I've thought about the problem of the existence of
suffering, what C. S. Lewis calls The Problem of Pain. Neither his work, nor When Bad Things Happen To Good People, nor the book of Job, nor any other God-centered solution to this problem ever worked for me. But when I gave up belief in God, the solution was clear: suffering just is. The solution to it is what we are going to do about it.

As for the "Where did it all come from?" question, the God solution is no better than the scientific one, or any other. The scientific one at least has the advantage of being predictive; the God solution is not. Petitionary prayer, for example, doesn't seem to have any appreciable effect on outcomes. (This doesn't mean I think all prayer is unimportant. As I've said elsewhere, there is place for prayer in atheism, in wonder and forgiveness. And it is probably helpful for people to know that others care for them and are thinking of them.)

As for the source of morality (some theists say that without God, there can be no morality), I think that the stuff we call morality comes in a few types. First, there are the things we do because they work best for human groups, and these are generally common among all humans. Not killing, not stealing, respect for marriage and family, for example, seem to be among these. These could have evolved as humans did.

Other things, it seems to me, are about ensuring the propagation of humanity, which, until the industrial age, was not a surety. Forbidding masturbation and homosexuality seem to fall into this category; if you're doing that stuff, you're not makin' babies. (I think there's also an "ickiness" factor that comes into morality: it what you're doing seems icky to me, then God forbids it. Piffle.)

Other things, though, are just things that separate my team from yours. My team doesn't eat pork, or meat on Good Friday. My team wears this kind of hat. This brings up what is, for me, one of the biggest purposes of religion (not God), and one of religions' biggest failings.

Most people need to belong to groups. If the group is too big, it will subdivide into smaller, manageable groups. That's not a problem; it's normal: if you look at young adolescents, you'll usually see large, same-sex groups hanging around together, and some of this behavior, with appropriate changes, carries on throughout our lives. Religious groups, however, will often demonize people who are not members of their groups. This is one of the problems with religion, and one of the reasons why there is a small group of people arguing that religion should be abandoned. (Do NOT outlaw religion. Some of those people are ALREADY nutballs; can you imagine what they'd be like if they had the added cachet of being outlaws?)

I've read somewhere, that I've never been able to find again, that there are more men than women in corporate boardrooms and high political offices, but also more homeless and criminal men than women. Male behavior tends to be more extreme than female behavior. I think religious behavior tends to be extreme, as well. It's true that there are horrendous things done in the name of religion. It's also true that there are wonderful things done. Much healthcare in this country is through religious systems. Many people trace personal heroism to their religion. Some of the energy that is spent on religion is about the religion itself, so nit may not be clear that this energy is a good, but I think the people who want to abandon religion are lookng at only one side of a many-sided edifice.

One of the things I like about the kinds of liberal Quaker meetings I attend is that they are radically welcoming. (This can also be a flaw, though; Quaker potlucks suck, because people make food that will not irritate anyone's allergies or upset the most arcane food preferences. What we tend to get is a lot of bland, low-salt vegan gruel.)

I think the people who get most upset about atheism, and the removal of religion, are the people who want to believe that there is something special about humans (or about their particular kind of humans, like the "America is a city on a hill" folks). While I don't go as far as these people, I would not say there is nothing special about humanity. Humanity is reponsible for loads of destruction, but we are also responsible for heroism and meaning, for creating and understanding beauty. We didn't need God for that.

weekend before thanksgiving

2011-11-21T04:03:00.000-05:00

Remember how the excellent wife has been celebrating her milestone birthday in increments, thereby extending the celebration? Friday night we had dinner at McCormick & Schmick's, on a coupon from a club offer that doesn't appear to be available any more. I will attempt to remember the seafood soup; it was just the thing on a blustery night.

Saturday, went out on a ride with the Freewheelers. The leader was hinting about 30 miles or so, due to the cold and wind (of which there was plenty), but we wound up with about 40 (the last tail on that route, which you'll see if you click the link, was my ride alone to the strip mall where I park the car; I didn't do the controls correctly on the GPS to separate that part. When we leave from Cranbury, I park in Plainsboro, have a couple of fresh bagels for breakfast, and ride in the four miles to the start; after the ride, when I ride back, there is invariably a headwind of varying intensity). C-c-c-cold; I couldn't feel my toes at the start, although we warmed up with the exertion by the end of the day. Ira, the leader, took us along a stretch of Agress Road, which has some of the only challenging hills in that part of our ride region. I had fun, but some of our number appeared seriously challenged by those hills.

Sunday we went out on a ride to pass the old Ocean Spray factory in Bordentown (well, Thanksgiving is coming, why not?). The day started much warmer than the previous one, and wormed up from there, but I was dressed for a cooler day (after my experience the day before) with heavy gloves and too many layers; I ended the ride with the gloves in my pocket, sleeves rolled up, and sweating like July (despite a head wind for most of the way out). Bordentown, however, is a pretty town, with buildings from the 19th century (cranberries must have been lucrative, or something). On this ride, we had two tandems, which always get looks. I was sweeping at the back, as i usually do, but at one point, Larry the leader said I should go have some fun for a couple of miles to the next stop sign. With a tail wind, I was whippin' along in the mid-20-mph range on the flat. Not bad, for the second 50-mile ride in as many days!

Now off for a few days. Some work weirdness in one of the other offices (a feud over work space); I'm supposed to cover there in a few days when I return to work, so I'll keep in touch with the admins, despite being out of the office, to see what I'm going back to. There is no bottom to my geekiness; I check my work email, even on the weekends and days off. Hrmph.

supporting an indie novelist

2011-11-19T20:06:00.000-05:00

I first "read" Darusha Wehm's* stuff over at Podiobiooks, where I was downloading .mp3 podcasts of her first novel, Beautiful Red. I finally decided that listening to books on .mp3 wasn't working for me (my mind wanders, and then it's hard to go back and re-listen to what I'd skimmed through; it's much easier to turn back pages), so I wound up getting read-'em-on-a-screen editions of her next two books, Self-Made and Act of Will (I think I got the first as a gift for flogging it on my other blog; I remember buying the second at Smashwords).

She's coming out with another one, called The Beauty of Our Weapons. I'm poppin' for some support, because I've liked the books, and because I think authors I like should be supported, and because she asked me to. Her work reminds me of cyberpunk William Gibson stuff. Like him, she writes about a future cyber-dystopia; like him, I don't think she gives enough attention to most people's desires for families and children (a flaw, I think, of those of us who have chosen childlessness); like him, she writes stuff that keeps me turning the pages.

I went for a level of support that will get me the e-book in a format I can read on my old-style Nook. I'm looking forward to the new book.

*Didja click on that link? She had a great look; I love the multicolor-neon hair and the sly look of the eye. The new video shows her with a more mainstream hairdo - but she lives on a sailboat now, and there may not be regular deliveries of magenta hair dye to the distant corners she visits.

symmetry, balance, humility blocks, navajo carpets, and the nature of creation.

2011-11-18T06:10:00.001-05:00

As a distraction from the ennui of my morning exercise routine, I listen to one of a number of podcasts. This morning I was listening to an old Radiolab on symmetry, and I got to thinking about what I thought was an urban legend about crafters intentionally adding flaws to their work, in their belief that only God can create perfection, It turns out it's not an urban legend: quilters have a tradition of humility blocks (scroll down the target page for the entry).

This, we are told, comes from the idea that since only God is perfect, making a perfect quilt is prideful. Thus the "humility block" was an exercise in Biblical decorum. Sometimes the story is more elaborate: the "humility block" appears at the lower right corner, or we're told that if a bride made a perfect quilt, her marriage would be unhappy, or that the practice began with the Amish or the Native Americans.

Evidently, Navajo carpeters have the same tradition (scroll down for "spirit string").

(This tradition is disputed [also here]).

I don't know if crafters are doing it on purpose. But if they are, it suggests they are not careful observers of nature. I'm not going to link to a gazillion pictures to prove my point, but I'm going to ask you to think. Think first of natural objects on the "macro" level: rivers, trees, flowers, leaves, and so on.

Now think of symmetry - that which is exactly the same on one side as the other (or through a certain number of degrees of rotation, or through a certain amount of shift, or whatever). And compare that with balance.

When I think of symmetry, I think of man-made, manufactured objects. I have a deskful of them. When I think of natural objects, I don't think of perfect symmetry; I think of balance (sometimes; other times I am overwhelmed by the absence of balance).

If you're a crafter, do good work. Do the best work you can (that's how this guy started). Don't be seduced by romances like the "spirit string" or the "humility square". If your craft is one in which a certain amount of asymmetry is unavoidable as part of the process (for example, hand-blown glass), I understand that's part of the piece. If the roughness of your work is part of the piece, I understand that as well. Perfect work can be done by machine, and few people are going to care that an object is hand-made when it is indistinguishable from a manufactured item (unless there is a sentimental attachment). But you are still responsible for doing the best work you can do.

That's a complaint that's been banging around the back of my head for years.

what i got from chopin class

2011-11-15T07:17:00.007-05:00

The excellent wife and I are taking a class at the Princeton Adult School on the music of Chopin. He's not my favorite composer: he wrote mostly for piano, as opposed to other instruments or ensembles, and, in general, the Romantics are not the guys for me.

We did a unit on the Etudes, "studies" in particular musical or pianistic techniques. I've got to give it to Chopin: they aren't just didactic (although they are that), they are real music.

I was taken with this one (if it won't open, try this Wikipedia page; it's the Donald Betts version of number 2). I've saved the file to one of my computers, and reformatted it as an .mp3 (that link that might not work is an ogg-vorbis open-source format that may not play on proprietary operating systems; sorry).

I keep coming back to that piece. I can't stop playing it. It's not his greatest, but it has completely arrested me.

fedora upgrade on the PC

2011-11-15T05:50:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I admitted that I had secretly upgraded the netbook to Fedora 16 (it dual-boots; it came with XP), and the upgrade had gone without a hitch. Not so with the desktop; I tried the recommended "preupgrade" method, and it seemed to install, but wouldn't boot. With forethought that is not always characteristic of your correspondent, I had backed everything up, so I did an install-from-scratch, and then did all the upgrades and re-installs that I need to do to get a computer to the point I like it.

The "install-from-scratch" didn't take as long as I'd thought, so I'm thinking that every time I do an upgrade, I'll plan in advance to do it both ways. I'm keeping notes on a document in my Dropbox account so that I'll be able to do it more conveniently in future. The computer is running fine now; I've done my daily finances, downloaded the GeekSpeak podcast, and I'm now typing this on that computer.

excellent wife celebrates a birthday

2011-11-13T17:59:00.001-05:00

OK, I was off Friday for Vet's Day, and did about 40 bike miles with the old guys, an about the windiest day imaginable, so I'm taking double credit. Yesterday, I did a 50-plus-some-extra between Cranbury and Delicious Orchards, and it was only windy on the way back, although there were two spiffy hills on the way. But that's not what I want to talk about. (I'm up to 4100+ bike miles for the year, but that's not what I want to talk about, either.)

What I want to talk about is the way the excellent wife is celebrating this, her ?0th birthday. I had thought that she was trying to avoid a large celebration because of the number of the birthday, but I was wrong; she's much more canny than that. It turns out she's arranging to have many smaller celebrations, spanning a period of weeks. She was out with one set of girlfriends last week; on the actual birthday we'll have some cake and do the presents, next weekend we'll do a dinner out for the two of us.

Today was the party for the local friends. The two of us, and four guests, had a brunch that started at noon (OK, more like about 12:30). Regina, as is common for those of Polish descent, cooked enough food for about fifteen: a quiche, grits (yes, a Yankee Polack can make righteous grits), biscuits, two kinds of sausage, potatoes, and who-knows-what-all else. Coffee for those who wanted, hot and cold cider, juices. Crême fraiche for the baguette (and the biscuits too, I guess), which I'd never had, but I'll tell you, it beats plain butter all hollow. And a cake from Whole Foods (Regina would normally bake the cake herself, but one, she thought she was doin' enough cookin', and two, doncha think somebody else oughta make your birthday cake for you?).

We thought the guests would leave by about 2:30, but it got to be after four, and folks were still holding forth and complaining about the lesser classes, which means pretty much anybody that doesn't see the world the way we do. Much discussion of health problems (we're of an age where such things are common, and, if common, they will be common topics of conversation), of politics local, of the scandal at Penn State.

This is a woman who knows how to do a birthday. I will not question her wisdom on that score again.

(In the midst of it, I was sneaking off to do the upgrade on the netbook to Fedora 16, which went off without a hitch, and I think I got away with it without upsetting the excellent wife about playing with the computer while guests were here).

bike advocate letter

2011-11-12T19:33:00.001-05:00

There's a new bike advocate for the Princeton Freewheelers, and he's sent out a request that members write once a year to the local newspapers suggesting more people ride bikes. I can certainly come up with a letter once a year... below is a copy of my first draft:

Bicycle season is ending, and I've been riding a lot this year, and thinking about why more people don't ride. I love to ride: it's huge fun, and has a host of health benefits. I can think of four objections people make to riding a bicycle, and I'd like to list and answer them:

ISN'T IT DANGEROUS? Well... no. Not really. If you ride dangerously, it's dangerous. But it doesn't have to be. There are far more automobile accidents than bicycle accidents each year, and according to one source, swimming and waterskiing are both more dangerous than bicycles. And when you compare the long-term health benefits of regularly riding your bike, the REALLY dangerous activity is sitting on your couch eating chips and watching “Jersey Shore”.

BUT THERE'S NO PLACE TO GO! It's true that North Brunswick, the town in which I live, is riven by three major thoroughfares: Route 27, Route 130, and US1. I'd never recommend riding on Route 1 unless you absolutely have to, but there are sections of the other two where a short ride is manageable, especially if it gets you to another place where you can ride further OFF those roads. And North Brunswick is full of areas where rides are not only possible, but pleasant. In fact, with a bit of imagination, a trip to your bank or post office might be a neat bike ride.

ISN'T IT EXPENSIVE? Well, if you're going to go for the latest-and-greatest, Tour de France special, yes, it is. And some of us have those bikes (one of mine isn't quite that expensive, but I did pay more for it than I did for my first car, all those years ago). But you can get a usable bike for a lot less than that. In fact, you (or one of the neighbors) probably have one in the basement or garage that is ready to go, except the tires are flat as pancakes. I'll tell you a secret: bicycle tires leak air. After a year or two, almost all of the air can leak out of that tire, making the bike look like an un-ride-able mess. All it might take to bring it back is a $20 pump. And you may want to lube the chain. Don't use WD40; it evaporates too quickly. But almost anything else will work: motor oil, transmission oil, spray oil... you might even try Vaseline or canola oil, and you probably already have those around the house.

BUT I'LL LOOK STUPID! Well... uh... like... well, yeah, you will, especially to your adolescent kids. Although you might look way cool to the neighbors' younger kids. You'll especially look stupid if you go all-out and get those skin-tight jersey setups the pro's and club riders wear – save that for if you really get hooked, and decide to go all-out (and you plan to buy that Tour de France bike I talked about before). But I'll tell you when you won't look stupid: when you've dropped a couple of pounds; when you've got the increased strength, flexibility, and balance that comes with riding regularly (like when you don't groan every time you have to get something out of that lower cupboard); or when you can have that second piece of pie because you've ridden the miles to earn it.

I've sent it to The Excellent Wife to get her input. We'll see what actually goes in.

EDIT 11/16/11: I got input from a number of folks, and made some changes, and submitted it to the Home News Tribune today. Further developments as they arise.

ezra jennings on psychopaths and corporations

2011-11-10T11:45:00.000-05:00

Jennings said, "The first line of the Wikipedia article on psychopaths this morning includes these words: "Psychopathology (pronunciation) is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness.

"Well, if a corporation is a person (especially a large, publicly-owned corporation), that person is a psychopath."

how i wish i had voted

2011-11-09T04:47:00.000-05:00

Mississippi's "personhood amendment" "was rejected by more than 55 percent of voters, falling far short of the threshold needed for it to be enacted." I didn't get to vote against it. I wish I could have. And I promise not to slander Southerners for the rest of the week.

And "[b]y a nearly 2-1 margin, Ohio voters repealed a new law that would have severely limited the bargaining rights of more than 350,000 teachers, firefighters, police officers and other state employees." I didn't get to vote against that, either. Unions may have deteriorated sadly, but they are still the first line of defense against the predation that is the major characteristic of large corporations (when an entity's sole responsibility is to the bottom line, as it is in a public corporation, what other choice does it have?).

Well, those outcomes have improved my outlook today. Maybe there is hope for America.

how i voted

2011-11-08T22:15:00.000-05:00

I live in the 17th NJ election district. Our state senator supported Bob Menendez for US senate, just before Menendez supported Bush's torture bill. I'm told our state senator also represented a developer in a legal case against the township in which I live. I voted for him anyway.

The person he was running against represents the worst of Republican arrogance, selfishness, and exclusivity. Voting against Jordan Rickards is like sex. You never forget your first time, and even when it's not great, it's still pretty good. I'm glad Rickards lost, but even if he'd won, voting against him would make me feel noble,

early-morning

2011-11-08T04:52:00.002-05:00

I'm not sleeping anyway, so I may as well write up a post about some of the reasons why. the first one is obviously first, but the others are in no particular order:

I heard from the folks last night; my father's leukemia is apparently of a type expected to respond well to aggressive treatment, and there are six treatments lined up for the next ten days or so. My parents both sound much more hopeful than they have recently.
I have a netbook computer that I've set to dual-boot Windows XP (which was pre-installed) and Ubuntu (which I installed). After an automatic update, the Ubuntu side won't start. I've tried downloading the USB installer twice, and have had problems with both downloads (although a Fedora download looks successful). I've had problems with the Ubuntu downloads in the past, so I may just switch to Fedora on that computer, too (I switched to Fedora on the main box some time ago). The computer is still useful as long as the XP boots, although it takes a long time to start up. Still, XP will be supported until at least April 2014.
I went up to the aunt's memorial service, and it wasn't awful, and some of it was actually pretty cool. Now I have people lining up around the block and taking numbers to regale me with variations on, "I told you so". Sigh.

Off for Election day today. Probably a ride later. The excellent wife will be working the poll as a Dem challenger for half the day (for next to no money, at a fairly unimportant election, which is why I'm not doing it).

Edit 8:09 am

I installed Fedora on the netbook in the space where Ubuntu was (my Fedora installs generally go much easier than my Ubuntu installs), and it's working; I've spent a couple hours tweaking & installing. So now I can go back to worrying aobut my dad.
Three of the most recent posts have been middle-of-the-night or early-morning. Hmmm.

Edit 6:50 pm

And two rides today: about 5 miles to vote and get razors, then a 20-mile-including-Coppermine-hill on the road bike, on which I broke 19mph average speed. I probably would have been 19.1, but I had to do a U-turn at a closed road. Grumble, grumble. Now off to Chopin class in a few minutes.

early-morning funerary reflections

2011-11-05T05:41:00.000-04:00

Another one you can skip.

I'm in my room in the Super 8 in Webster, NY, waiting to go to the memorial service I've referenced in other posts (two separate links there). Neither of my parents are here because of my dad's illness; it was to satisfy them that I decided to come, and that's still the reason, even though they're not here. I'll do the service and the lunch, see some relatives, and go home; I hope to get a ride in tomorrow.

It was a long drive from Central Jersey to the Rochester, NY area. I went through the Poconos, and watched the trees show fewer leaves as the elevation rose, then more again as we came down; it was like traveling back and forth in time a few weeks. The GPS led me by Interstate most of the way, but the last 70 miles or so was on a state road. I had nothing but time, so I didn't bother going to the Thruway, and it was not an unpleasant road - but almost all of the businesses along much of it had something to do with cars: sales, repair, gas, car washes. Those that didn't were mostly fast food. Is that all these people do?

Got to the hotel, checked in, looked for dinner. Despite my best intentions, I ate at Empire Hots, a local hot-dog place, because when I went to look, they had "white hots", white hot dogs I remember from my youth. I gave up healthy eating for nostalgia.

Then back to the hotel, and called the excellent wife. She's improving upon the time of my absence by visiting people that she usually sees without me in tow. Then a read, and to bed. The bed is remarkably good. I've found no correlation between bed quality and hotel cost; I've wound up with terrible backaches at high room rates, and vice versa. The Super 8 has few amenities: besides the bed, it has a bath, a hanging rack (not a closet), internet access, and no visible vermin. It's good enough.

It's now about 5:30 am, I've been awake for about an hour, which is not bad for me. There are loud noises from what must be the plumbing in the adjacent rooms, but I mostly slept through the night. I'm not looking forward to the memorial service (mostly, I'm not looking forward to the lunch afterwards); while I know that a few people will be happy to see me, and many more will have no idea who I am (nor will they care), I'm sure I'll do something that will disappoint my folks. Even though they're not here. (There really is no bottom to my craziness, is there?)

Maybe more later.

lucky find: dropbox

2011-11-05T05:09:00.002-04:00

Dropbox appears to be solving a number of nagging problems for me. I've been looking for a place where I can put files that I would like to be available for download from this blog; I used to be able to use my free Verizon web space, but Verizon pulled the plug on that (they say security issues, but the space is available for people who pay extra for web space - perhaps they have research that shows that paying customers are less likely to be criminals).

I stumbled across an article on the CRN site about free web storage offerings. Several of the offer Linux clients (the computers I use most frequently at home all use Linux). I couldn't get my first choice, Zumodrive, to work (ymmv), so I decided to look at Dropbox, which I remembered some reference to in the past.

They have software for Linux, Mac, and Windows (in fact, Ubuntu has the client in the repo's). Users get 2GB free (I am all about the free stuff). Dropbox puts a folder on your local computers for the stuff to be saved to your account, and you can generate a link to stuff in my shared folder that you can use for downloadable files. But there's something else cool: files in your Dropbox folder are updated across all the computers on which you have a Dropbox folder. This means that stuff like my calendar and address book will be updated, and I won't have to worry about carrying a USB drive - and if I update when I'm offline, Dropbox will update again the next time I'm online. And, since I can add Dropbox to my work computer, I can use the same program there (my scheduler/contacts program is Essential PIM Free USB, which is written for Windows, but the free version works in Linux under wine; the gods at EPIM have decided not to provide a Linux version).

So I get:

Online backup of critical files, that is then
sync-ed across all the necessary computers, as well as
a place to host files I want to share,
for free.

I'm looking for the downside.