Hunter and the Harvest Breeze

Several weeks ago, Turtle convinced me that I'm not totally inept and that she had the utmost confidence in my ability to install a ceiling fan. So I gave it a go.

My first was a Harbor Breeze with a 52-inch wingspan and a light kit that included not only the traditional four lamps but also a globe above the blades, lit by four small, nearly inaccessible bulbs the size of Christmas lights. Not the little bitty things like you see today—the larger ones from the '60s that got really hot and burned the tree down (but looked really pretty).

The assembly instructions were clear: this was a job that would take an experienced installer 1-2 hours and a complete idiot 3-4.

It took me 2.5 hours, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The pictures and the instructions in English were clear, and the only real misstep was when I inadvertently put on one of the trim pieces upside down. This mistake probably made the difference between completing the job in pro installer time and ending up in incomplete idiot territory, but it wasn't particularly traumatic. The way the assembly was designed, I could hang the whole thing from its cradle, take all the time I needed to hook up the wiring, and use both hands doing it.

When I'd finished, the fan worked perfectly the first time and with nary a wobble.

Today, I installed my second ceiling fan. This one was for my office, so we went for a smaller, cheaper Hunter. Upon opening the box, I quickly discovered that the longer down tube pictured on the outside of the box was not included.

Off to Home Depot I went, and when I returned an hour later with two down tubes (did I mention that there's a Hunter waiting to be installed in Turtle's study?) and... uh... a new wire stripper/crimper.

As I began assembling the Hunter, realization slowly dawned that there was no nifty plastic cradle to screw to the electrical box. Instead, the bit that screws to the ceiling is not only ornamental but also supports the ball at the top of the down tube. More exciting than that, the way it was designed meant that I either had to leave the wires really long so that I could set the motor on the step ladder while screwing on wire nuts, or I had to somehow hold the motor up with one hand while connecting the wiring with the other.

That sounded like a good plan until I discovered the ground wires were only about 4" long, so I ended up hanging the blasted thing precariously off a couple hooks on the bit that attaches to the ceiling while noodging around with the ground wires and trying not to send the whole mess crashing to the floor with an ill-timed bump. But I managed, and then I crammed about 2½' of wiring up into the cup to keep the ball company.

After craning and straining for a while longer, I'd finally got the whole thing together. I went out into the garage, flipped the breaker, came back in the house, and flipped the switch to experience the reward for my efforts.

Nothing.

«Verdammt!» I yelled across the house.

"What's wrong," Turtle hollered back.

"'Nothing'. 'Nothing' is what's the matter," I muttered.

So back up on the ladder I went. I took off the light kit, all the blades, disconnected the ground wires, and set the misbegotten thing back down on the stepladder shelf ("Caution: not a step"). A wire had come loose, so I put it back very firmly this time and put everything back together.

Garage. Breaker. Switch. Success!

Except... the light came on when I flipped the fan switch, and the fan—well, you get the picture.

Afflicted as I am with a small dose of the OCD, I had to take the whoooole thing back down and switch the wires. Finally, the whole thing worked like it was supposed to (except for the part where it wobbles like a chandelier on the Titanic).

Tomorrow I get to do it all over again for Turtle's fan. Prayers and anti-inflammatory tablets are appreciated.

Fine tuning

A couple months ago, Turtle and I received notice that our reliable Comcast phone, high speed internet, and cable TV services would be replaced by Time-Warner Cable and their "high speed" internet partner, Road Runner.

Given the horror stories I've heard about these services over the years, I've been dreading the switch. However, we've received multiple flyers assuring us that the switch would be transparent—well, except for having to change all our e-mail addresses to Road Runner's goofy four-node domain name. Every five minutes, there are back-to-back 30-second ads on TV assuring us that this is a good thing, that Time-Warner is fine tuning our cable service, and the cheerful jazz guitar in the background, like something from an old '40s black-and-white Warner Bros. animation, reinforces this.

Maybe someone should clue in the Time-Warner folks that you don't "fine tune" your broadband network with a #*&% backhoe.

For twelve hours, yesterday, poor Turtle was stuck at home, totally cut off from the world because everything went down. No phone, no internet, no TV. She called me on her cell phone to let me know what was happening. I brought up Time-Warner's web page, found the Customer Service phone number, and dialed. Busy.

Oh, not just all-agents-are-currently-busy-please-hold-for-eternity busy. Busy busy.

After a while, I called Turtle and found out she had a different number off one of the We Have Assumed Control flyers. After a while longer, I finally got through to a too-cheerful Time-Warner guy who explained that McKinney, Allen, and one other city that may or may not have been Plano were all without service. A line had been cut, and they hoped to have service restored today (which was, you know, yesterday).

And it was, by around 10pm.

Now, it could very well be that some backhoe operator did dig up a line, but if cutting one cable can take out the broadband networks of three entire cities, some engineer ought to be taken out and shot. I think what really happened is that Time-Warner, with all of their braggadocio about a transparent transition just decided to flip the switch without telling us subscribers. Only someone wrote a bad line of code that bollixed the whole works, and because they were so over-confident about their seamless transition that they didn't have a fall back plan ready.

I'm trying to remember if Time-Warner is still owned by AOL. That would explain quite a bit.

Later...

After all that, Turtle has come through with the real story. So it wasn't a botched cutover, but I still find it alarming that the main feed is a single fiber optic cable, that it's not buried, and that there's apparently no redundancy. Of course, that's not AOL's Time-Warner's fault; they're just using the infrastructure they got from Comcast.

Rainy days and Mondays

It's a gloomy, rainy day in the Big D. Let me just say, without a trace of irony, "Praise Jesus."

The perfect soundtrack for a day like today? Zero 7's Simple Things.

Judging the book by its cover

There's been quite a bit of talk about profiling, in the wake of several recent events that may not be related to terrorist threats but certainly look suspicious. In one case with ties to the Dallas area, three men were arrested in Michigan with 1,000 cell phones and pictures of the Mackinac Bridge in their van. Authorities later determined that the men were guilty of falsifying information about their intended use for the phones, but no terrorism link was proven.

Now, of course, the men's families are all over the local media, expressing their outrage over racial profiling and vowing to bring the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee to their aid. And while it's entirely possible that the three men are merely criminals gray market entrepreneurs and not terrorists, I think that Cox & Forkum very neatly summed up my feelings on the profiling question in yesterday's editorial cartoon.

One of the things my parents taught me very early in life was not to "judge a book by its cover". I'm sure yours did too, and it's generally good advice. Unfortunately, there's no postscript to advise the adherent that he should not completely turn a blind eye to probability and pattern.

A novel whose cover depicts a woman in the throes of passion, swooning in the arms of a bare-chested, leather-booted archetype of male dominance may not be a cheesy bodice ripper, but one shouldn't discount the possibility. Certainly, if one is in the market for phrases like "her heaving bosom" and "she closed her eyes and reveled in his musky scent", books with such covers get the first look. Don't they?

I liken the problem to the one I face every day in traffic. Turtle has at times accused me of being biased in my evaluations of my fellow travelers, based on such factors as vehicle type, gender, race, and bumper sticker content. We've had more than a few conversations that went something like this:

Foo: Here we go. The guy in the silver Mercedes.
Turtle: What did he do?
Foo: Nothing yet... but he's getting ready force in front of the woman in the blue Hyundai, and she's going to slam on her brakes. So hang on.
Turtle: Why do you judge people like that?
Foo: Twelve years of daily commutes?
...
Turtle: That doesn't mean—aggh! Look out!
Foo: Toldya.

I guess my take is that looking at someone and rubber stamping him or her as this or that is wrong and should be avoided. At the same time, anyone who doesn't learn from past experience is liable to spend a lot of time thumbing through the dog-eared copies of Golf Digest and Popular Mechanics in Darwin's waiting room.

And the bleat goes on

“If I ain't too stove up. I ain't like you. I'm old and give out.”

–Karl Childers, when asked if he'd like to play football every Saturday

This angry-looking raw spot on my thigh doesn't seem to be in any particular hurry to lay on some new skin, and I'm beginning to get irritated. It's not that the dressing changes are a big deal, and it's not even that I'm in a lot of discomfort, but I haven't ridden all week and will probably miss this weekend. Why? Because the bloody (well, seeping) thing is in such an inconvenient spot that the dressings loosen and slide down if I move around much.Furiously pumping my legs would qualify as "moving around", so it looks like I'm going to be off the bike for a while longer.

Meanwhile...

• I finally got to see V For Vendetta last evening and thought it was really well done. When it first came out in theaters, there was a lot of outrage on the part of conservative talk show hosts, who took the position that the film glorified terrorism. I think they were largely (perhaps disingenuously) missing the point by choosing to focus on the word terrorist. I mean, isn't the point of terrorism to strike terror into the hearts of the general populace? Yet, as I watched, it seemed to me that the only people V was terrorizing were the corrupt, tyrannical government muckety-mucks.
  
  Perhaps the movie was best summed up in what was, for me, its most memorable line: "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
  
  The fine point this makes, and which I think the talking heads missed, is that a foreigner flying a jet into the World Trade Center is only a terrorist. A citizen of England who blows up the Old Bailey in an effort to bring down a corrupt government is, by definition, a terrorist—but he's also a revolutionist.
  
  V For Vendetta was definitely about revolution.
  
  
• As I was walking in to my office building this morning, I passed a guy carrying a large box. It had printed on the side, in six-inch lettering, "CDW", which I read, at first, as "COW". My immediate reaction was, "Gee, I didn't know they came unassembled."
  
  I know my ear-to-ear grin was discomfiting to the woman in the elevator.
  
  
• Speaking of cows...

  They have one word in their vocabulary and it's a single syllable at that.
  
  But farmers claim cows appear to 'moo' in regional accents, despite their limited conversational skills.
  
  Herds in the West Country have been heard lowing with a distinctive Somerset twang - prompting some to claim the sound is more 'moo-arr' than moo.

  Link (Daily Mail)
  
  Well, duh.
  
  Haven't they been watching the Real California Cheese ads? In the one where the New Cow is talking about snow, for example, she's obviously speaking with a Wisconsin accent.
  

Is it lunch time yet?

“I C,” said the blind man

Notion swiped from Bill:


Which Programming Language are You?

I'm a little disappointed by this revelation, as I tend to think of myself as PHP.

Speaking of disappointment, I went a-Googling for "annoy your coworkers day". I figured surely someone had thought it up already. After all, there are people who actually celebrate Festivus, for crying out loud.

But no. The closest I came was some lists, like this one.

What good is a list of ways to observe a special occasion without the official, Hallmark-approved, made-up holiday?

Now playing: Talk Talk, It's My Life

A tough scrape

I headed out this morning with the intention of meeting the RBENT for another leisurely White Rock Lake ride, but I never made it. As I was headed to the appointed meeting place, I passed where my customary PBA Distance Builder ride starts and thought Aw, what the heck. I really wasn't in an altogether leisurely mood, and I'm determined to keep showing up for rides with all those "normal" cyclists so they'll eventually get used to me—so I turned in.

We headed out promptly at 7am and headed north toward Frisco. My legs felt strong. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood. My arch nemesis on the rainbow LeMond harrassed me for a mile or two, just to make his point before becoming bored and moving on.

As we rolled into Frisco at about 20 mph, it was a tightly packed peloton and a stretch of new pavement. In the split second after the rider in front of me yelled "Crack!", I had about enough time to think Oh cr— and then I was sliding along the pavement. After about 15 feet, I stopped.

The first thought that occurred to me was that I smelled scorched metal with just a touch of burnt hair.

I had been taken down by a 1" wide uncaulked expansion joint running parallel to the lane. The wheels dropped in, and that was all she wrote. It might have helped if the riders ahead had been calling the hazard down the line, as we're supposed to do, but it might not have done. Packed together as we were, I don't know if I would have had room to avoid it anyway. It's just one of those things.

Those tender hearted or squeamish among you will want to avoid this link, and this one as well—but it was my first crash and as such must be documented.

From this experience, I learned that unless you're bleeding profusely or have bits of bone sticking out somewhere, you might as well get back on the bike and continue your ride. Except for a badly scraped left brake lever, my bike was okay, so continue my ride is exactly what I did.

And I enjoyed it.

No flaccid clocks

However, when the alarm clock went off this morning, I was having the strangest dream...

I'm riding with a group of cyclists down a city street—the extra wide two-lane kind, shaded by a canopy of trees and the curbs lined solid with parked cars and trucks. Traffic is light, the temperature is perfect, and the pavement is dappled with little dancing flecks of sunlight that have trickled past the leaves.

Suddenly, pulling up beside me on my left is a woman who introduces herself as Jennn. I have no idea how I know that she spells it with three ens, but she does.

"Why isn't it pronounced 'Jen-n-n'?" I ask. "Then your name would be like a sound effect from The Bionic Woman."

"Because it's just not," she says, rolling her eyes. "The second and third ens are silent."

She's not riding a bike. Instead she's reclining in an medical examination chair with her feet out front in the stirrups. She's wearing a hospital gown that comes down to her knees, and her legs are covered by a layer of tightly-stretched, semi-opaque plastic wrap that I conclude must be meant to be a fairing.

"Do you guys mind if I ride with you?" she asks.

"No way, eh," the ride leader says. "You'll never keep up on that thing."

"But I am keeping up," Jennn says.

"Well, it's not a proper bike, is it?" the ride leader counters.

The debate is abruptly ended as most of the pack turn right on a side street, leaving Jennn and I to continue toward a city park that's visible a couple hundred yards ahead.

"Race you," Jennn says.

I notice that I'm not riding a bike (was I before?); instead, I'm belly down on a hospital gurney in my lycra, craning my neck at an unnatural angle to see the road ahead. As Jennn picks up her pace, I begin vigorously shoving the gurney forward beneath me, then pulling it back—like pro cycling sprinters do at the finish line—trying to squeeze out some additional speed. Somehow, I manage to match Jennn's pace, and as we arrive at the park she splits off, saying she has an appointment she forgot about.

I have no idea what that was all about, but it was good for a chuckle on the way to shower and dress for work.

I generally try not to waste too much time analysing my infrequent dreams, but I did put a little thought toward this one, while showering. The examination chair is a pretty transparent metaphor for a recumbent, because of the position and the fairing. Why an OBGYN's chair? Maybe it had something to do with the surplus of estrogen floating around the home last evening. Who's Jennn? I have absolutely no idea.

The gurney and my positioning on it may represent my potential for neck injury on a standard road bike, but I'm still wearing my lycra, so that suggests this as merely one of many possible futures.

The dismissiveness of the ride leader toward Jennn and her exam chair are pretty obviously inspired by my ongoing group ride experiences and a recent BikeJournal thread about why recumbents shouldn't be allowed to ride in groups.

Most important, Jennn didn't manage to drop me, and the park was really nice.

Landis's father-in-law found dead

Floyd Landis's father-in-law was found dead in his car after committing suicide, coroner's officials said Wednesday.

The body of 57-year-old David Witt was discovered at a parking garage Tuesday afternoon, said Paul Parker, an investigator with the San Diego County Medical Examiner. He had a gunshot wound to the head, and the death was ruled a suicide, Parker said.

Link (Associated Press)

Is it just me, or does it seem like we're supposed to draw the inference that Witt killed himself because of Landis' doping allegations? Because I'm thinking if that's all it took, then the poor guy was already pretty close to the edge.

This whole doping business looks really bad for Landis, I admit; but it sickens me to see the way the international media not only convicted him before all the information was in—not that all the information is necessarily in—but continue to take every opportunity to throw fuel on the fire.

Proof of his innocence could be found tomorrow, and it wouldn't make a bit of difference. His reputation is ruined.

Morning miscellany

Enlightened self preservation

I had a pleasant surprise as I headed out for this morning's commute. The "suicide rider" came tooling by, and not only was he wearing his helmet but he also was lit up with a taillight and a headlight.

And I thought no one ever listened to me.

CQ... CQ...

As a licensed (but inactive) ham radio operator since around 1975, I tend to take notice of vehicles with amateur radio callsign license plates. In the days before the internet came along, I used to think it would be cool to have one—if being a ham could ever be considered "cool". But now, with the internet making it possible to look up any ham's callsign and get his/her full name and home address, it doesn't seem like such a good idea.

Maybe Thomas J. from Richardson and Robert W. from Lucas would do well to keep that in mind. It might make them think twice about blocking two lanes of rush hour traffic, doing 10 mph below the posted limit (20 mph below the practical limit), driving side by side so that they could eyeball each other while having their little QSO ("conversation" to you civilians).

As well, James T. from McKinney—who nearly took off my right front fender one afternoon last month—should consider putting a leash on the NASCAR instincts and ponder the fact that if the meek little geek in the Civic can look him up, so might Sasquatch's cousin in the Dodge monster truck with the No Fear and Texas Trophy Hunters Association stickers in the rear window.

73. Let's be safe out there.

Surreal thing

Who Should Paint You: Salvador Dali

You're a complex, intense creature who displays many layers. There's no way a traditional portrait could ever capture you!

What Artist Should Paint Your Portrait?

I don't know about you, but all that stuff about intense layers makes me think of an onion—which may be a fair point, since Turtle says I make her eyes water after I've been on a bike ride or out mowing the lawn. "Complex", on the other hand, is really just a polite euphemism for "difficult", and the reason no traditional portrait could ever capture me is that I tend to fidget.

However, I do like Dali's work. Or as Karl would say, "Ah do kindly like them pitchers he paints quite a bit. Mmm-hmm."

Now playing: Third Day, Wherever You Are

The mathematics of progress

I went out this morning with the PBA for their Saturday morning distance builder ride. By the time we headed out at 7am, there had been scattered [gasp!] rain showers in the area and ominous flashes toward the north, where the planned route would take us. Hoping avoid a dousing, we headed south and east instead—and promptly got soaked.

But that's not what this post is about. This post is about how a group of half a dozen of us got split from the main group at a traffic light and dropped. They didn't wait, but fortunately the area is part of many popular ride routes, so it wasn't a question of finding our way back. After a couple miles, I got antsy and upped my pace so that before long I was on my own. That made me paranoid about the traffic, which in turn made me up my pace again.

When I rolled into the parking lot with 51.75 miles and a rolling average of 16.5 mph on the computer, I was cooked. I headed over to Einstein's for the customary bagel, coffee, and post-ride visiting, during which one of the guys mentioned that we'd averaged 14.5 mph to the rest break. I said I thought that was at about 33 miles, if memory served, and my tablemates thought that was about right. That would mean that the second leg was 18.75 miles.

Now, about that algebra (Turtle! Look away!!). I was curious about my rolling average after we got separated from the group, so I trotted out the following equation:

(33 miles * 14.5 mph) + (18.75 * x)
----------------------------------- = 16.5 mph overall average
        51.75 miles total

...then...

(478.5) + (18.75 * x) = 853.875

...and...

18.75 * x = 375.375

...and finally...

x = 20.02

That's, ah say, that's miles per hour, boy.


Nah... that's got to be wrong. The data must be flawed.

Random... Friday

I've been criticized for talking about cats, bikes, old music, and my annoying co-workers—so I've been holding out until I had something else to write about.

Unfortunately, the only other thing that occupies my time is my work, and I'm pretty sure that the 5% who would understand what I was talking about don't want to hear.

• I was leaving for work yesterday morning and saw the helmetless, clueless, in-the-dark guy. Turtle yelled at me for not pulling him over last Sunday when we saw him out riding around, so I thought I'd better flag him down.
  
  "Excuse me, Sir? Sir!" I yelled, cringing at what a dork I sounded like. Sir. But what could I do? I didn't know his name, and Mr. Organ Donor might not get us off on the best footing.
  
  After half a dozen times, he wheeled around, suspicion all over his face. I explained that I'd seen him out before and was concerned, and would he mind hanging on while I ran to the garage to get something to show him? Yeah, that'll put him at ease. Not.
  
  Cutting to the chase, I brought out a spare blinky taillight I had lying around. He said he'd never seen one of those (and I could see from his expression that he couldn't care less), but by the time I cut him loose, he'd promised that he'd start wearing his helmet. Since I hadn't even mentioned his lack of helmet, I guessed it was something he'd been feeling guilty about.
  
  
• Now that we've got terrorists trying to blow up planes using liquid and gel explosives in Gatorade bottles, I wonder if motorists will be so quick to harrass me on the road. Yeah, that's right. I've got two water bottles here. One wrong move, and it's to da moon for you, Bubba. Yeah, that's right, pal—I'm a dangerous cyclepath.
  
  
• My lovely bride apparently noticed my CD collection was getting a bit stale, so she surprised me with three selections from my lengthy Amazon.com wish list:
  
  • Third Day, Wherever You Are - awesome Christian rock for people who think Christian rock is for pu... er, wimps. Some of the best melodies I've heard, bar none.
    
    
  • Zero 7, Simple Things - acid jazz, downbeat... whatever you want to call it. I've been hearing cuts off this album for a few years now, and now I don't have to wait for it to come around the rotation on Rhapsody.
    
    
  • Jet, Get Born - Oh, you've probably heard a couple cuts on some Apple commercial or another. On the face of it, Jet is another band rehashing '60s garage punk, but I like AC/DC, Pink Floyd, and some of the other identifiable influences well enough that I don't really care. The exercise I get bouncing around on my chair and playing the air kick pedals help me to burn off calories I'm accumulating while it's too hot to get out and ride much. (Ha! Slipped in a cycling reference.)
    
  
  It's times like this that I would almost consider breaking my absolute rule about not riding with an iPod. Fortunately, the point is moot since I have the rule but not the iPod.

Now playing: Webb Wilder, Hybrid Vigor

"Light Up For Me"

Per your suggestions, I've selected as this post's title a song by Breaking Laces, the not-terrible art band that recorded it. Anyway...

About an hour ago, while it was still quite dark, I had just kissed my wife goodbye and was settling my commuter coffee mug into its holder when I saw a cyclist ride past the end of my driveway without so much as a blinking taillight to announce his presence.

I quickly flipped on the headlights in time to see a heavy-set, middle-aged man on a silver mountain bike. He was wearing shorts, a short-sleeved button-down shirt with the tail flapping, and no helmet.

In the dark.

My first thought was to jump out of the car and holler for him to stop so that I could suggest, with all the persuasive charm at my disposal, that he pick up an inexpensive set of lights and a helmet. But I was sleepy, and by the time the thought had gelled, he'd reached the end of the cul de sac, turned on to the sidewalk, and headed south.

I started the car, pulled out of the driveway, and made my way through the neighborhood to the main road. I had just stopped and flipped on my blinker, when the same guy zipped past my front bumper going against the traffic (i.e., "the wrong way") down a major four-lane divided street. With no helmet.

In. The dark.

I thanked God, on the rider's behalf, for the orange glow provided by the sodium street lamps the city recently planted all along the median, and then I tossed in a little bonus prayer that this clueless, clueless man would find his way safely home and not leave his wife a widow and his children fatherless.

"God protects fools and drunks," goes the old cliché. I just hope omnipotence comes with really good night vision.