Mental housecleaning

• Why do we say we're "losing our temper" when what we've actually lost is our patience. I typically know exactly where my temper is, and (to my chagrin) it's far too often on public display.
• Why is it that, when it comes to crossing a speed bump or pulling in to a parking garage, some of the prissiest people are the drivers of SUVs and pickup trucks? They creep over these smallish obstacles as if picking their way through a mine field. Ironically, the guys driving those ground-hugging riced-out street racers blast over the same obstacles without a second thought.
• I'm apparently heading into another of my spells where I can't get a decent night's sleep. Last night, I became desperate enough that I actually gave that beach visualization relaxation exercise another try. I managed not to step on any jellyfish or food packaging waste, and things were going along all right until I looked out to sea for the glowing orb.
  
  Fortunately, I spotted the tsunami in time to get to safer ground.
  
• A little something I swiped from The Gobhole Girl:

  Ten Top Trivia Tips about FooRider!

  1. FooRider will often rub up against people to lay his scent and mark his territory. It's a fair cop, but society's to blame.
     
  2. Banging your head against FooRider uses 150 calories an hour. But I wouldn't recommend it.
     
  3. FooRider cannot be detected by infrared cameras! 'Cause I'm such a cool guy.
     
  4. The most dangerous form of FooRider is the bicycle. I'm especially treacherous on wet pavement.
     
  5. In 1982 Time Magazine named FooRider its 'Man of the Year'. Only because everyone else was glued to the sofa watching MTV.
     
  6. If a snake is born with two heads, the heads will fight over who gets FooRider. This is not common occurrence, fortunately.
     
  7. FooRider can't sweat. Untrue. Ask my wife (or anyone who's ever drafted off me).
     
  8. The military salute is a motion that evolved from medieval times, when knights in armour raised their visors to reveal FooRider. It's actually more likely they were keeping an eye out for seagulls.
     
  9. Three seagulls flying overhead are a warning that FooRider is near! Seagulls... buzzards. Tomayto... tomahto.
     
  10. FooRider has only one weakness - the colour yellow! LiveStrong!
      

  I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem
• For a month now, we've been under watering restrictions due to the severe drought that's planted itself on Texas like a sumo wrestler's butt on a cafeteria chair. Which is to say "widespread and immovable".
  
  Once a week, on trash day, we're allowed to run our sprinklers for just long enough to keep our sickly yellowish-green lawns from spontaneously bursting into flame; and yet most mornings when I head out at the crack of dawn to embark upon my morning commute, the guy across the street has his system going full blast. The only theory I've been able to come up with to explain why the city hasn't come around and put a lock on his water meter is that he must have incriminating photographs of someone important at the North Texas Municipal Water District rubbing... elbows with Paris "The Ubiquitous Bimbo" Hilton.
  
  Or something.
  

Freitag

Auto-tagged by Tink:

Here are the instructions:
1. Choose a search engine (e.g. Google).
2. Pick 5 random blogfriends.
3. Think of a word or phrase that describes each friend (or use their blog name).
4. Do an image search of that word or phrase.

(I was feeling guilty about bandwidth theft, so I've only linked to the images, instead of embedding them on this page.)

Turtle (blog)

Tink (blog)

Susie (blog)

Gwynne (blog)

Eric (blog)

Wellness training

I attended a brown bag lunch thingy about stress management and personal wellness at work today. My hope was that there would be something in the program about how to cope with the annoyances that come from working in cubicles, but that sort of useful material was studiously avoided. Instead, there was a lot of perfectly good information about how to manage deadlines, how to let it go when someone is too preoccupied to say "good morning", etc.

Pointers that would be useful in a work environment that's not as dysfunctional and organizationally abstract as ours is.

As a parting gift, the speaker turned on a white noise machine that made sounds like ocean surf and sea birds. She told us to close our eyes and then led us through a visualization exercise in which we were walking down the beach in our bare feet, alone, completely at peace.

So there I was, walking down the beach, watching the waves—and I stepped on a stranded jellyfish. I muttered a curse, hopping around while rubbing my foot and trying to remember if dead washed-up jellyfish can sting, before losing my balance and falling face first in the sand.

"Now sit down in the sand. Wiggle your toes..."

Spitting salty grit, I sat up and started rooting my feet around in the sand. I promptly cut the ball of my foot on a half-buried Pringles top.

"...and look out across the water to the horizon. You see a warm glimmer of light, and as you watch it comes closer, closer... but you're not afraid."

What the...

"The glowing orb approaches you, and as it hovers over your ankles, you feel warmth."

Probably the blood spurting from my foot.

"Slowly, the orb makes its way up your legs toward—"

Whoa. Hold up, there. This was starting to sound just a little too much like some weird-ass Philip José Farmer novel.

That's when my visualization took a detour. I walked off the beach to my car, unloaded my bike, and rode away—leaving my stress, a dead jellyfish, and a bloody Pringles top behind.

Pop quiz

Since people insist on testing my patience, I didn't want to be left out. Or bored.

You Are 52% Cynical

Yes, you are cynical, but more than anything, you're a realist. You see what's screwed up in the world, but you also take time to remember what's right.

How Cynical Are You?

You Are 24% Sociopath

From time to time, you may be a bit troubled and a bit too charming for your own good. It's likely that you're not a sociopath... just quite smart and a bit out of the mainstream!

Are You A Sociopath?

Arms race

This year, for the first time, I've been following the Race Across America (RAAM)—a 3000-mile ultra-endurance bicycle race that starts in Oceanside, California, and ends in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I won't go into how that works, but if you're interested in some details, go check out RAAM 101.

So why the sudden interest? Well, at first it was because I caught wind that Jim Kern would be making his first solo attempt (as in "3000 miles, one set of legs, and nearly no sleep") on a Bacchetta recumbent bike. Things got more interesting when I learned that there was also a two-man recumbent team (Volae Wolf Pack), that a couple people from the BikeJournal.com forums would be riding on the Cyclonauts four-man team, and that a woman I know from the local cycling club would be riding as part of the JDRF four-person tandem team.

What I didn't expect was that I'd find myself rooting for the RC-Enjo Vorarlberg six-man handcycle team from Austria. At first, the notion of cranking a handcycle not much different than Turtle's through the desert, through the mountains, through the howling prairie winds—all day and all night—was quite enough to impress the hell out of me.

It wasn't enough for the RCV team, though. While Jim Kern succumbed to pulmonary edema and had to withdraw, while the Cyclonauts struggled with bad luck and mechanical problems, and while Team JDRF and the Wolf Pack fought to keep up, the Austrian handcycle team continued to crank right along. According to the official statistics, they have maintained an average of 12.77, as of their check-in to time station 44, in Circleville, OH.

Using just their arms.

Just think about that for a moment. Most of us have to sit down and rest if we have to pull the starter cord on our lawnmowers more than a few times.

Ride Report: Tour d'Italia (Italy, TX)

For a couple years, I've been hearing that Lone Star Cyclists' annual Tour d'Italia is one of the best-organized, most fun rides around, so Turtle and I were really looking forward to a day of small-town charm and scenery. Unfortunately, after 39 straight days without a drop of rain, the weather forecast for the day of the rally called for 60% chance of strong thunderstorms for the entire weekend. Turtle decided that although she wouldn't melt in the rain, she didn't want to risk the possibility of having to drive home in a downpour with our bikes exposed to the wind and rain.

So we went to plan B. Turtle would give this one a miss, and I would go ahead and give it a shot—but only if I could somehow manage to fit my bike inside my car.

After some experimentation, I discovered that, by removing the seat from my bike and sliding the passenger seat of my Civic foward a bit, I was able to fit the Corsa and all my crap in like a jigsaw puzzle and it would be protected from the elements.

On the way to Italy, the sky began to brighten. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds a couple times, and I thought of how disappointed Turtle would be if the weather turned out to be crying wolf (as it likes to do, in Texas) and she missed a sunny ride. But not to worry, because by the time I arrived at the high school for the start of the ride, it was sullen storm clouds as far as the eye could see.

But still no rain.

I was running late, so I ended up having to park a couple hundred yards from the registration area. By the time I'd walked there from my car, walked back to my car, assembled my bike, rode to the start, remembered that I'd forgotten to pin my bib number on my seat back, rode back to the car, rode back to the start—well, I didn't get to start with the main group.

And it had started to spit, but not much.

I headed out onto the route all by myself and decided that since I wasn't really going to be part of the group, I might as well hammer. Which, of course, meant that I caught up with all the really slow riders who had left a bit earlier. The promotional materials for Tour d'Italia claimed that all the routes but the 62-miler were flat, except for one good climb. Judging from the number of people I saw littering the rolling hills along the route, I wasn't the only one whose idea of "flat" differed from that of the ride organizers. Oh, there was nothing really vicious, but I was having a tough time keeping any momentum because of all the people who couldn't go on and simply stepped off their bikes to stand in the middle of the road while they sipped water and caught their breath.

I've never seen anything like it, especially in light of the fact that the route was out and back. There were riders coming the opposite direction, as well, with motorists driving down the middle of the road to avoid the idiot cyclists who refuse to keep to the side. I just want to scream at these people, because not only are they taking their own lives in their hands, but they're creating a lasting impression (read: "resentment") in the minds of drivers who will subsequently try to crush me under their wheels, despite every attempt I might personally make to follow the laws and be considerate of my fellow vehicles.

But I digress.

By a couple miles out, it had started to rain lightly, but I pressed on. By five miles, it was raining harder, and the pavement had changed from rough blacktop to worn, smooth blacktop that was collecting water into nice little puddles. By seven miles, riders coming from the opposite direction were urging everyone to turn around. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what they were saying. Some of it was lost in the rumbling of thunder.

I turned around and hammered back the way I'd come, sometimes as briskly as 32 mph down the rollers. In fact, I hammered right out from under the rain and on to dry pavement. I wavered but held to my decision all the way back to the car, where I disassembled my bike and had just placed the last piece of the packing puzzle when the sky opened up and poured cats and dogs and buckets of frogs.

15 miles with a 15.3 mph rolling average, and I didn't even get far enough into the ride to be able to tell you how the rest stops were. As I drove home in the rain, I took some comfort in the thought that my lawn would be getting a good watering, but as fate would have it, none of the storms ever made it as far north as our place.

Ah well. At least the T-shirts are kind of cool.

Ride Report: Collin Classic (McKinney, TX)

After last year's ride and the long stretches of large-aggregate chip seal I had to endure, I seriously considered giving this year's Collin Classic a miss. In fact, I had some serious doubt that it would survive the well-published complaints from participants, in the wake of last year's event. Not enough food and drink variety at the rest stops, some said. Others were enraged that they didn't get a t-shirt, despite the organizer's clear statement that only the first 1500 to sign up would be guaranteed shirts. Too hot. Too many hills.

Bleat. Whimper. Moan. We cyclists have become really spoiled—but that's another topic.

The point is that the organizer, instead of wasting energy getting defensive, really put in a lot of work addressing all concerns, whether reasonable or not. It showed, and I think it's safe to say that the Collin Classic has reclaimed its place as one of the premier rides in the area.

My ride

Turtle was signed up for the 22-mile route, and since I serve as her "pit crew" when she does a ride, I was still futzing around, waiting while she made her final preparations. But not to worry. One of the improvements for this year's rally was the more organized staging for the start. I was doing the 55-mile route, but because I didn't want to mass start on the recumbent amid tightly-packed upright bikes, I made my way to the rear of the 75-mile staging and went off with that group.

Picking my way through the pack. I get some strange looks on this thing. (photo courtesy of bicycle-stuff.com)

The first few miles were slow-paced, because we'd be warned there would be a number of turns. Traffic control was excellent, so even with the turns the pack started to space out pretty quickly. My only issue with this was that I kept getting hung up behind slower DF riders so that when we got into some rollers, I couldn't carry any momentum and had to work harder climbing.

I skipped the first rest stop, which came at about 8 miles (and made for a longish wait for the second one). With some much-needed breathing room, I was able to pick up the pace a bit and was soon rolling along at about 20mph. Before long, I caught up with a couple recumbent riders. Not long after that, we picked up a fourth, and we rode together in a little pack, chatting and getting a kick out of the DF riders' comments. The pack fell apart when we were climbing a steep hill, and a rider in front of me threw his chain. He panic stopped, which forced me to panic stop without time to downshift to my granny ring, which meant I had no chance of getting started again on the hill. So I walked it. Meanwhile, one of the other 'bent riders—a diabetic—took the opportunity stop and check his blood sugar. I didn't see any of them again until much farther down the road.

Once I got going again, I just rode my ride, looking around at the scenery, and trying to find a good compromise between passing as many DF riders on the hills as I could and saving my strength by keeping my average heart rate low. I ended up with an average of 84% maxHR and a maximum of 91% maxHR, but considering the heat (which indexed at 105 °F) and the amount of climbing I did, that seems pretty good.

It's certainly better than last year, when the heat nearly destroyed me and I dragged across the finish in my granny ring behind some 300-pounder on a mountain bike.

I didn't eat along the way, wanting the 2350 calories I burned to count toward the 10 pounds I've been trying (and failing) to lose since I started road cycling a year and a half ago. I did stop briefly at each stop after the first for a couple cups of PowerAde and some ice chips, which I loaded into my helmet vents to help keep my head cool.

You know what they say: "Cooler heads prevail."

And so it went. I had a great, challenging ride topped off at the finish with some bottled water and some soft tacos from Chipotle. The Corsa was a joy to ride out on the flats, and even with the climbing, I finished with a 16.6mph rolling average. That's close on the pace I've ridden hot, hilly routes in the past; however, while I don't feel like I left much out on the course, it didn't kick my butt and leave me wrecked for a couple days, as others have.

Yesterday was a good day.

Evil as an art form

My grandfather, when he was alive, was an avid observer of world events. He'd sit in his recliner, smoking a cigar, grunting or harrumphing occasionally, and take it all in.

The rule was that no one was allowed to talk to him during the evening news, except during commercials. Eventually, Wheel of Fortune would come on, and Grandpa would reach down to the side of his chair and flip the lever to drop the foot rest with a loud thunk. He'd then lean forward with his hands on his knees, sigh deeply and shake his head.

"I don't know what the world's coming to," he'd say, summing up all that he'd seen.

Maybe it's just a normal part of growing older, but I increasingly find this phrase running through my head when I look at the things going on around me. There are times, like this morning, when I even say it out loud.

I was reading today's offerings from Reuters, and this one caught me like a drop kick under the ribs:

April belongs to serial sex killer John Wayne Gacy, convicted of killing 33 young men and boys, while May is for Jeffrey Dahmer, who ate 17 men. June features Satanic worshiper and murderer Richard Ramirez.

The grisly 2007 Serial Killer Calendar produced by a Maine businessman depicts some of the world's most notorious murderers painted by "the vampire of Paris," Frenchman Nico Claux who himself served 7 years for murder.

Purple Inc., the Bangor, Maine-based company that produced and distributes the calendar in specialty retailers and the Internet, said initial response has been so strong that the company is planning a sequel and a line of posters.

"A lot of people are titillated by serial killers," said Lana Wachniak, a sociology professor and associate dean of Kennesaw State University in Georgia.

Link (Reuters)

"A lot of people are titillated by serial killers."

Now there's a thought to keep you awake at night and never ever let your children (or pets) out of your sight.

Look. I'm not as devout as I would like, don't read the Bible like I should, and am in general a very flawed creation. I admit it. But isn't this "titillation" just the sort of thing that's meant by "glamor of evil" when we renew our baptismal vows?

Do you reject the glamor of evil, and refuse to be mastered by sin?

Yes... and just to get off on the right foot, not only will I not be purchasing a serial killer calendar, but I won't even post a link to the company's web site. Frankly, I don't want my blog showing up in their referrer list.

The case is frequently made that each generation looks at the one succeeding it, shakes its collective head, and concludes that the world is going to hell in a handbasket—and that this is normal. Elvis (anagram: "evils". Hmm.) was evil in the eyes of my grandparents. KISS were evil in the eyes of my parents. Marilyn Manson is... well, he's certainly a sick little puppy. Just a matter of perspective.

But is it? Is it really? Bring me the 19^th century script for a musical comedy about the life and times of Jack the Ripper, and maybe I'll concede the point.

For now, though, it really feels to me like the "glamor of evil" is alive, well, and gaining ground.

Random Thursday

My well of inspiration seems to be suffering a drought of its own, so borrowing the Random Thursday concept from Eric, I offer the following misfires:

• I was listening to the radio on my way to work this morning, and the host was discussing one of Google's little in jokes with the news guy. You know: type in "failure", click "I'm feeling lucky", and up pops Dubya's bio at www.whitehouse.gov.
  
  I find this sort of joke a bit tiresome, but more because this sort of thing is just so 20^th century than because of an unswerving allegiance to President Bush.
  
  What I did find interesting was the news guy's observation about Bush's bio page. At the bottom, there's a link to the same bio En Español. Not Vietnamese, not French, and not whatever it is that the friendly guy at the corner 7-11 speaks. "Why just Spanish?", he wondered.
  
  "Because," I said to no one in particular, "the Vietnamese, Koreans, Pakistanis... all those folks bust their butts to learn English from pretty much the first moment after they step off the [metaphorical] boat."


• This month's search terms:
  
  c++ program for parking garage Technology is not a toy. Our parking garage doesn't have anything fancier than a card reader for opening the gate, and the blasted thing only works half the time. Adding computer logic to the mix could only end in sorrow.
  
  it's five o clock and just to keep our jobs, gotta find my way to the whistle , sounds of the morning, in my brain, while another day goes down the drain, Could you be more specific?
  
  finger goat colon coworker Could you be less specific? Or just go away?


• This morning, as I was heading out the door, Turtle warned me that she'd heard on the radio that there was a big wreck on the northbound side of my primary route to work. I thanked her for the information and promptly dragged it to my mental Recycle Bin (for you Mac users, that's the file deletion limbo where Windows accumulates all the deleted files for a second deletion when you're really, really, really sure you don't need it any more), because I was headed south.
  
  And yet, as I approached the location where the accident was reported to be, my progress was blocked by four entire lanes of bumper-to-bumper morons who, at the first sign of flashing lights, had slowed to a crawl in the perverse hope that they might catch a glimpse of someone's brains and teeth scattered across the road on the other side of the concrete barrier.
  
  Call me detached, but I figure that unless I'm in a position to help, the victims' situation is significantly less my business than getting to work is. If you want gore, go rent Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In the meantime, eyes forward and full speed ahead.

Pachyderm in the pipes?

That's what we residents of Lower Cubeville have been treated to since about Thursday of last week, when the ductwork above us began thumping (all. day. long.) like it had something large and claustrophobic in it. Something that wanted out.

Or maybe tennis shoes in a dryer.

Starting yesterday, the maintenance guys began gathering. Walkie-talkies blaring unintelligibly, tool belts and trousers riding low (too low), they held a colloquium on the matter.

"SURE IS MAKIN' A RACKET," one shouted over the radio/badge of honor on his hip.

"YEP," another clarified.

"I THINK I KNOW WHAT IT IS," said a third, "BUT Y'ALL WON'T LIKE IT."

"WHAT?" asked the second.

"I SAID 'I THINK I KNOW WHA—'"

"NO," interrupted the third. "I MEAN 'WHAT IS IT?'"

"OH!"

...

"SO WHAT IS IT?"

"WELL," said the third, "I THINK THERE'S SOMETHIN' THUMPIN' IN THE DUCTWORK."

That was yesterday. Today, I feel like Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day.

These caricatures characters must be paid by the hour. I'm pretty sure if I had a stepladder and a length of 2x4, I could have propped the section of duct that's flexing by now.

And there would be peace in Lower Cubeville.

I hear dead people

The Mona Lisa's smile may always remain a mystery, but it is now possible to hear what her voice would have sounded like, thanks to a Japanese acoustics expert.

Dr Matsumi Suzuki, who generally uses his skills to help with criminal investigations, measured the face and hands of Leonardo da Vinci's famous 16th century portrait to estimate her height and create a model of her skull.

"Once we have that, we can create a voice very similar to that of the person concerned," Suzuki told Reuters in an interview at his Tokyo office last week. "We have recreated the voices of a lot of famous people that were very close to the real thing and have been used in film dubbing."

Link (Reuters)

I'll admit to being a bit skeptical about how well this actually works, but it appeals to the same part of me that is alternately skeptical toward and fascinated by the various technologies depicted on TV shows like Bones and the 31 flavors of CSI.

It appeals to the part of me that wonders, while reading Mark Twain, what extra dimension his true voice might have added to his wit. When I read the Lincoln's Gettysburg address, I wonder... did he have a deep, authoritative voice like I always imagine? Or did he sound like Wally Cox?

Obviously, Suzuki would be unable to ascertain from bone structure such things the subject's regional accent, whether he whistled through his teeth when he pronounced the letter 's', and if she had an annoying nervous giggle; but it sure would be interesting to see if analysis of the cartoon version of The Tick pointed to Patrick Warburton.

Rolling along, singing a song

It's not called Singer-poor for nothing...

Out of Singapore's 20,000 taxis on the road, Jeffrey Tan's is arguably the most memorable.

Having put a hi-tech karaoke machine in his cab, customers are all together too happy to keep the metre running on their journeys with Tan.

Link (video)

Now that's what I'm talkin' about! We had some darned fine drivers during our cruise, but if this guy had been around instead of Moms Mabley the voodoo priestess, I'd have flagged him down quicker than you could say, "Hi... I'm Johnny Cash."

Which X-man are you?

As long as we're in quiz-taking mood, and in light of the fact that X-men: The Last Stand hits theaters today, I present yet another quiz:

Which X-Man Are You?

You are Cyclops! Strong-willed, disciplined, and an all-around good guy, you are probably the envy of most others around you. As Cyclops, you are committed to your family and lovers, even if you sometimes lose your patience. You will find best times with Colossus, with his sense of virtue, but will be at odds with Havok due to his insecurities.
Take this quiz!

This is most perturbatory, since Cyclops is probably my least favorite X-man of all time and because I've always considered myself to have a lot more in common with Nightcrawler.

The test must've been rigged. I demand a recount.

Daily tipple can bring health benefits

LONDON (Reuters) - Moderate drinking reduces the risk of heart disease but the beneficial effects of alcohol seem to work differently in men and women, Danish researchers said on Friday.

They found that for men drinking daily seems to have the biggest positive effect on health while in women the amount of alcohol consumed may have more of an impact.

"The risk of heart disease was lowest among men who drank every day," said Janne Tolstrup of the National Institute for Public Health in Copenhagen.

Link

It's okay, Sweetie; I have a prescription!

Now playing: Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals, Burn To Shine

Bejeweled

By popular and unpopular demand, The Object That Shall Not Be Named (and its solitary companion):

(Photo by Turtle)

Big Red Button

First of all, let me just clear the air* and admit that I still find this thingummy to be outrageously funny.

Don't ask me why; I don't have an answer.

On a more practical note, I wish someone would install a saucer-sized red button just inside the doorway of the men's room where I work.

I don't mean to say that I work in the men's room, though far be it from me to deny inspiration wherever it strikes. I just know that there are times when I walk through that door and wish there were a big red button I could slam with the palm of my hand. An alarm would sound, and the interior lighting would switch to red. The toxic atmosphere would be vented out of doors to share airspace with the smell of boiled goat colon, and a battery of atomisers would fill the air with the scent of oranges or clove. A sultry but kind feminine voice would then report when untainted oxygen had once more reached breathable levels.

Big Red Button. Good Thing™.


* Foreshadowing.

My brain has a stem

Turtle's always telling me that I think like a woman, and it was starting to give me a complex. So I took the test.

Your Brain is 40% Female, 60% Male

You have a total boy brain Logical and detailed, you tend to look at the facts And while your emotions do sway you sometimes... You never like to get feelings too involved

What Gender Is Your Brain?

I'm only 60% reassured. 65%, if you count the fact that the brain in the picture above looks to me like a woman's shapely bottom (Paging Dr. Rorschach... Dr. Rorschach to the admitting desk...).

We be back, mon

After seven busy, wonderful days spent cruising around the Caribbean, Turtle and I are back to real life and the pile of work that accumulated in our absence.

Until I get my pile shoveled down to a reasonable height, I won't have much time to post, but here's the trip in a nutshell (click here for some pictures):

13 May

Flew down to Miami a day early so that we could spend an evening with my old college pal, The Buckethead. Got to know the desk clerks at the hotel and had an odd but not-unusual (for me) discussion about why many native Spanish speakers are reluctant to say the words "South Beach", instead tending to just say "South..." and then waving a hand as if to pantomime the ellipsis.

Coincidentally, it hadn't been more than half an hour since a conversation Turtle and I had over lunch, during which I related how my Cuban-born high school Spanish teacher wouldn't say "beach" in front of the class. I assume her reasons were similar to the desk clerk's.

14 May

Hit the continental breakfast and learned the truth of recent news articles about Chinese rudeness. Caught the airport shuttle back to the airport where we caught the cruise line shuttle to the ship. We arrived in plenty of time to embark, check out our spacious balcony stateroom, and find where the 24-hour pizza window was before our friends the M&Ms arrived. Later, the ship set sail and the reggae music began. After dinner, we and the M&Ms went to check out the karaoke show and were underwhelmed with the emcee.

15 May

Up bright and early (daily habits die hard) for breakfast and to pick up my rented tux (we have pictures; be patient). Began noticing that

1. My fears that I might not be classy enough or well-dressed enough for a cruise were entirely unfounded.
2. The bulk of Americans sure are fat. (No pun intended)
3. The ocean really is an incredible, deep shade of blue.

In the evening, we and the M&Ms took in the Vegas-style revue and, while I'm generally in favor of thongs, I completely failed in my attempts to understand their relationship to this particular performance.

16 May

First stop: San Juan, Puerto Rico. We didn't get into port until evening, so this was a quick one, but we did get to visit old San Juan and explore the old fort for a bit. With the M&Ms, we grabbed dinner in San Juan at the (infamous) Señor Frog's. Later, went for karaoke again and found the emcee drunk and unprofessional. She proudly proclaimed that she'd spent the last five hours at Señor Frog's, so no wonder. We didn't see her there, but she was probably on the floor giving body shots.

17 May

Up early for breakfast. Spent some time planning the next day's excursion and then debarked to Phillipsburg for our day on St. Maarten/St. Martin. Had a great tour guide—a shorter, slightly more Caribbean brother to Jamie Fox, named Dennis—and really enjoyed seeing the sights. Did a bit of shopping but only bought a couple small souvenirs.

18 May

Up early for breakfast because we had to clear immigration before debarking for our day on St. Thomas. I was disappointed that I didn't get a stamp for my shiny almost-new passport.

Compared with St. Maarten, St. Thomas looked very American, what with all the U.S. automobiles and fast food chains. Unlike St. Maarten, however, all those American cars were driving on the left side of the road, which felt really weird for the first 15 minutes or so. Was humbled by the thought of bicycling on the island, with its very hilly, curvy, narrow roads.

Did some serious jewelry shopping this time out and came away with a new diamond-encrusted wedding band for Turtle.

Found a wristwatch styled like the one I've been seeing in my mind's eye, but it had an 18k gold case and cost $4500. None for me, thanks; I just recently dropped a couple grand on a recumbent bike.

19 May

A day at sea. Turtle and the M&Ms wanted to bake in the sun, so I took the opportunity to find a shady spot on a deck along the side of the ship, where I plopped my butt down in a lounge chair to sip iced tea, read my novel, and nap while looking out over the ocean. Greatness.

20 May

Another day at sea. Up early for breakfast and to return my tux. Bummed around the ship all day, then at dinner said our goodbyes to Claudia and Carlos, our waiters for the week. They called us their family, and we tipped them.

Karaoke again, this time with a sparse crowd. Guess the word got around about the emcee (or perhaps the fact that I'd be singing). Sang three times because... well, hardly anyone else was signing up.

21 May

Up early to grab some breakfast and prepare for debarkation. Caught the shuttle to the airport, checked the bags, and then enjoyed some good hearty Miami airport TSA attitude and just short of a cavity search—which would have been fruitless, since I had bacon and eggs for breakfast.

Everyone knows that it's against the law to bring fruit into the U.S. from out of country.

Sat at the gate with the M&Ms until time for our flight. Got home and "endured" much rubbing and snuggling from our furry dependants.

It was a great trip, and we're already trying to figure out when we can afford to go again!

There's no "I" in team

...so I'm going this one solo.

I wasn't tagged with this meme, but I saw it over on Fire Ant Gazette and thought it looked like more fun than trying to come up with something original.

• I AM the firstborn among my siblings, and I have the neuroses to prove it.
• I WANT enough money to live comfortably but not so much that I have to spend a lot of time thinking about how to manage it.
• I WISH my coworkers were equipped with a mute button.
• I HATE waking up 10 minutes before the alarm is going to go off.
• I MISS the toilet bowl, sometimes.
• I HEAR the neighbor kids outside, screaming like they're being skinned alive and having a ball.
• I WONDER what it would be like to be over 6' tall and whether God really has a beard.
• I REGRET all of the harsh words I've ever spoken to my wife and my parents. And I regret my fear of taking risks.
• I AM NOT as pedantic in real life as I seem in text. In real life, I'm much worse.
  
• I DANCE only when the alternative is death by midget cannibals.
• I CRY only around my wife, and then I'm embarrassed about it.
• I AM NOT ALWAYS in a bad mood.
• I MAKE WITH MY HANDS strange, mystic sigils in the air to reinforce otherwise indecipherable monologue.
• I WRITE things pretty much the way they spill out of my brain.
• I CONFUSE Samuel L. Jackson with Lawrence Fishburn, sometimes, but not because I can't tell them apart.
  
• I NEED a vacation.
• I SHOULD learn to keep my mouth shut and listen, and not be That Guy.
  
• I START to fall asleep by around 10pm every night, regardless of whether I have to get up early in the morning or not.
• I FINISH about 70% of the sentences I
• I TAG Neil Gaiman, Turtle, Tink, and Leadfoot.
  

Eye opener

Ever since that whole cancer thing a few years ago, I've a tendency to be a bit anxious about the various small, unexplained pains and anatomical anomalies that we all experience from time to time. Lately, the focus of my hypochondria has been my eyes.

No pun intended.

I'm extremely nearsighted*, and the last time I went to an optometrist he informed me that, as a consequence of this, my eye pressure was quite high and should be closely watched. He said that if I ever felt any shooting pains in my eyes, I should immediately go to the nearest optometrist as this was a sign that my retinas were separating from my eyeballs. Further, he stressed the importance of coming in for a checkup at least once a year.

That was over three years ago, so when I started occasionally getting short, sharp pains in my eyes, I started thinking about finally getting around to finding a new eye doctor to go with our new town. And yet I kept putting if off, because the word "glaucoma" had got pretty firmly lodged in the back of my mind and I didn't want to risk having that confirmed before Turtle's and my big vacation.

Not knowing about any of this, Turtle scheduled me an appointment with an opthalmologist.

So I went, remembering that the last time I went to an actual eye doctor—as opposed to a vendor of prescriptive lenses with a license to prescribe them—I passed out. Something about the whole process of numbing and dilating the eyes and pressing some sort of sci-fi blue light against my eyeballs makes me squeamish. When I get squeamish, my blood pressure drops (and so do I).

When I arrived at the doctor's office, I warned them of my swoonish tendencies. They told me to warn the doctor when I was called in for my exam. I told the doctor. The doctor told me to try not to hit my head if I passed out.

What a stitch, this guy. [click-click. BOOM!]

A couple things happened, and one didn't. I learned that my previous eye "doctor" should have been selling shoes, because I do not have glaucoma or even high eye pressure. I also learned that because of the shape of my eyeball cup (or something), my risk of ever having those problems was minute.

And I didn't pass out from the pressure test.

But wait! Having got my pressure test out of the way, I still had to go through the whole dilation process, at which point I learned something else that's useful to know: it's the sensation of my pupils dilating that makes me queasy, not the blue light. Seated safely in the staging area, I put my head between my knees and fought through it without incident.

It would have been really embarrassing if I'd passed out in front of the elderly lady with the drool running down her chin.

Finally, I was finished and, much relieved about the results of my checkup, I ventured outside and gave thanks to my Maker that my appointment had been scheduled on a very cloudy day. Though I was squinting even with my sunglasses on, I decided it wouldn't hurt anything to stop by the bike shop to pick up a few tubes (since I'd given away my spare).

At the bike shop, I had great fun showing my freaky eyes to a couple of the staffers with whom I've become friends.

"Holy crap," one of them said. "They're all black! You look like that one guy from Carnivàle. Or... or..."

"One of the tar alien-infected characters from The X-files?"

"Yeah. Or like that."

Unfortunately, half an hour was plenty of time for my luck to run out. By the time I left, it was a beautiful, horrible sunny day out.

Oh yeah... and I need bifocals.


* There is a space of about two inches, about six inches from my eyes, within which I can see clearly without corrective lenses. We're talking somewhere north of 20/1200. Yet every time I go to an eye doctor, he or she confiscates my glasses and asks me to read the chart waaaaaayyy down at the far end of the room.

"Can you read any of that, Mr. Mafoo?"

"Gee, I don't know," I say, not at all sarcastically. "Can you give me a hint? Like, say, turning my head generally in the direction of whatever it is I'm supposed to be reading?"

$20

I'm not usually big on inspirational chain letters and the like, but I received this one from my sister today and felt it was worth sharing:

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20.00 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?"

Hands started going up.

He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.

He proceeded to crumple up the $20 dollar bill.

He then asked, "Who still wants it?"

Still the hands were up in the air.

Well, he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe.

He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty.

"Now, who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air. My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20.

"Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless.

"But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value.

"Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to those who do love you. The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but by who we are.

"You are special- Don't ever forget it."

Ride report: Wrong way, Feldman

At the urging of CliffyB and FlyingLaZBoy—both friends and fellow BikeJournal members—I made plans to do the Greater Dallas Bicyclists' Airport Ride. The previous weekend, I logged a 37-miler on my new bike, and the 50-mile Airport Ride would be a new landmark. It would also be the greatest distance I'd ridden at one swat since last year's Peach Pedal rally, when I rode 54 miles (and nearly caught a dose of heat exhaustion).

I showed up at the start point at 8:00am, watching the skies for signs that the ride might fall on the wrong side of the predicted 50% chance of thunderstorms. As I got out of the car, a young woman came over and introduced herself as Mary Beth. She seemed relieved that someone else had shown up but was concerned that there weren't more riders there yet. I explained that people didn't usually arrive in force until about 15 minutes before the ride.

Sure enough, by a few minutes before the 8:30 start, there were about 10 of us geared up (get it? geared? bikes? oh, never mind...) and ready to go. And that's when the trouble started. One of the guys I know from GDB came over and explained that our ride leader had changed the start time for the ride to an hour later. Knowing that the later we started, the greater the odds of getting caught in the storms that were predicted in the early afternoon, we eyed the skies.

Mistake 1: One of the riders—a gentle giant of a man, named Dave—said he knew the route and offered to lead anyone who wanted to go ahead and leave at 8:30. Five of us, including CliffyB and Mary Beth, took him up on it. No sign of FlyingLaZBoy.

Our ride went smoothly enough for about 18 miles, when we reached the 7-11 that's the customary first rest stop. One woman who had been lagging behind for most of the ride hadn't arrived yet, so we waited. And waited. And finally her husband's phone rang. She'd ridden across a bad expansion joint and pinch-flatted both her tires. She only had one spare tube, and being the only other person in the group with 650c tires, I surrendered my only spare. It seemed like a bad idea, because if I flatted, I'd be stranded. But I did it anyway.

Note to self: Toss a patch kit in the seat bag.

Dave the Gentle Giant rode back with my tube and to help with the tire change. After 15 minutes or so, there was another phone call. Something was wrong with the rim, and they'd punctured one of the spare tubes. The woman's husband was riding back to get the car, and Dave needed to turn around and head back because of other time commitments.

Mistake 2: Mary Beth and I allowed CliffyB to convince us that we'd have no problem finding our own way along the rest of the route. This turned out not to be the case, but after some false turns and backtracking, we did manage to get on the loop around the airport.

Between the time spent waiting for the flat tire situation to play out and the time spent trying to get unlost, we met up with the bulk of the club group, who had waited for the 9:30 start. They were headed in the opposite direction on the loop.

FlyingLaZBoy, riding at the head of the group, saw me and started digging for his camera. In his hurry to snap a picture (at right), he dropped something on the ground and didn't seem to notice.

I hope it wasn't his wallet.

Foo: "Hey Cliffy! C'mon, let's turn around and let them lead us out!"
CliffyB: "Nah... we'll just meet them coming around the loop."

Mistake 3: We never saw the group again.

By this time, Mary Beth was starting to run out of gas. As fit as she was and as game as she was, she'd only been cycling for a month, and all the extra miles we were logging had started to take her away from her happy place.

Finally, we got back to a point where we could retrace our route home and stopped at a filling station for necessary breaks and water.

CliffyB: "Man, we should have turned around and followed the group. I was waiting for you to talk me into it."
Foo: "What? I tried."
CliffyB: "You should have tried harder."
...
Foo: "Why you...! Dude. Just walk away."

As we got back under way, poor Mary Beth was obviously suffering. I could see that she was spinning smaller and smaller gears and still laboring, so I fell back to ride with her and tell her incredibly boring stories. I figured that if she was focused on how badly she wished I'd just shut up, maybe she wouldn't be thinking about her overworked legs.

Finally, within smelling distance of the barn (so to speak), we got turned around in some labyrinthine neighborhood and I'd had enough. While CliffyB blazed onward, I stopped and flagged down a homeowner on his riding lawnmower.

John Deere: "What can ah do for y'all?"
Foo: "This is a little embarrassing, but we seem to be trapped in your neighborhood."
John Deere: "Trapped, y'say."
Foo: "Yes. We're trying to get to the Preston-Forest shopping center. I know we're close but we seem to be going in circles."

Oh, he got a big kick out of that, but he got us out of the neighborood. Six hours after we'd started out, we rolled back into the shopping center parking lot. Mary Beth was so overjoyed to see her car that she hugged me, and I thought she might weep for joy.

Our 50-mile ride had stretched to 68.5 miles, and I logged my first metric century of the year. I've dubbed this one the Wrong Way Feldman Epic.

But lest my account give anyone the idea that I was miserable (aside from not caring for the feeling of being an Israelite lost in the wilderness), I wasn't. If it sounds like I'm P.O.'ed at Cliffy, I'm not.

This, my longest ride to date, could have gone more smoothly, but at the end of it I wasn't wiped out. At the risk of becoming repetitive, none of my body parts was screaming in agony, as had been the case on more than a few occasions when I rode my Trek 1500 in rallies over shorter distances. My quads and gluts were feeling a little wrung out, naturally, and my right knee was feeling a little tweaked. Minor complaints, considering I'd just ridden farther than my longest previous distance.

It's a disgusting world out there

Two stories have made me think that my encounter with dirty plasticware may be the least of my worries.

I'll have mine from the bottle, thanks

Hungarian builders who drank their way to the bottom of a huge barrel of rum while renovating a house got a nasty surprise when a pickled corpse tumbled out of the empty barrel, a police magazine website reported.

According to online magazine www.zsaru.hu, workers in Szeged in the south of Hungary tried to move the barrel after they had drained it, only to find it was surprisingly heavy and were shocked when the body of a naked man fell out.

Link

News-wise, we seem to be scraping the bottom of... the...

I'm sorry, but I can't say it. That would be cheap.

Even for me.

Note: Bret rightly points out that this article sounds suspiciously like an urban legend that has been documented over on Snopes.com. I'm not sure which I find funnier: the possibility that the Hungarian story is true, or the possibility that some fact checker at Reuters got snookered.

黏 液*

Beijing has launched a campaign to make its citizens more "civil" in the run-up to hosting the 2008 Olympics. Games organizers have repeatedly said the city needs to teach its people to stand in line, stop spitting and littering and generally be better mannered.

Past efforts to stamp out the spitting habit, like a 2003 campaign to help curb the spread of SARS, have not been very effective, partly because many people believe clearing the lungs and firing away is good for your health.

Link

This ties in to Bret's recent posting, over on Random Walk. Frankly, I think China's just positioning itself to sell a lot of rain ponchos during the Beijing Olympics.

* The Chinese characters for "mucus".

Now playing: The Hives, Veni Vidi Vicious

Open letter

To my esteemed coworkers,

If I ever find out which one of you returned your Spaghetti-Os stained spoon to the box of clean plastic spoons in the break room, I will throw you out the nearest window.

If you do this when the bird flu hits, I will throw you out a window, retrieve you, drag you by one ankle up the stairs, and throw you out again.

Kindest regards,
Grossed Out In Cubeville

Message for you, suh!

I don't like spam.

[ENTER vikings]

VIKINGS: (low, building) Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam...

That said, every once in a while something lands in my e-mail box that's so pathetic... so polite... so out there... that it's worth a moment, if for amusement purposes only.

Subject :_ ENQUIRY

DEAR SIR,

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Sir we want to expand our business and sending you enquiry regarding our specializes. Kindly consider us in your new clients and try us once.

We also ensure that the orders are shipped on time and received by the customers on time. We believe in long term relationship with our customers and their satisfaction to the fullest. We also welcome small orders. Give us a chance and you will never approach any other manufacturer which is a guarantee, be it on the terms of quality or price. Awaiting your valuable reply.

Regards, Muhammad Amjad
Customer Service Team

For any assistance or further information on our portal, log on:

As if.

VIKINGS: (quite loud now, insistent) SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM!
FOO: SHAAADDAAAP!!!

[vikings EXEUNT]

Madre, May 1?

So here we are. The first day of May... Uno de Mayo. The day when those who support illegal immigration to the United States say they're going to knock its citizens off our high horse. They claim they're going to shut the economy down and show us that we can't possibly live without them.

Maybe they will; maybe they won't. Maybe we can't... but maybe we can.

Stage set. Moving along.

Before going out for Saturday's bike ride, I was flipping around the morning news programs and came across some cabeza que habla delivering his dire warning about the crushing blow his group planned to deliver to the U.S. economy on May 1.

I have to tell you, it got me stirred up and feeling patriotic. It made me feel like waving around my flag, so I trotted out the Iron Eagle jersey.

After my bike ride, I stopped by Schlotsky's Deli to pick up some lunch. While I was standing at the pick-up window, waiting for my food, the young man who was slicing and wrapping the sandwiches on the other side of the counter eyed my attire.

I'm used to this, of course. A middle-aged guy in brightly-colored, form-fitting lycra should be considered a source of some amusement.

"Hey," he said, giving me the chin jerk. "That's a really cool shirt, man."

"Thanks," I said. "I was feeling patriotic this morning."

In response, one of the women working nearby turned to a couple of her co-workers with a smirk and fired off a machine gun burst of Spanish that may or may not have included the word "gringo".

"Yeah," I continued, "as a citizen of the United States, I have the right—no... the duty—to express my allegiance as I see fit."

And if that means strutting around a sandwich shop looking like a chubby, sawn-off Captain America knockoff, then so be it.

Laid back (redux)

I was talking to a friend about recumbents after church last night. He's been kicking around the idea of building his own lowracer (read "land luge"), which may explain his patience and the appearance of interest throughout my periodic recumbent conversion updates.

He seemed surprised when I mentioned that I was still working through some self-image issues stemming from my perception of recumbents as the final resort of fat, old, broken down, pocket-protector-wearing engineers and ham radio operators.

"I was shocked to see recumbents in the pages of your publication. Since when did it become the magazine for people who sit in chairs while riding with little stick-on mirrors on their helmets? I guess it's not the end of the world, but I'm sure Style Man is ashamed."

Tom Spehar; Dulith, MN. (Reader mail, Bicycling, June 2006)

"You're kidding!" he said. "I always thought recumbents were cool."

"Yeah, but you're an engineer, aren't you."

But here's the thing: after yesterday morning's ride, I'm on the cusp of not giving a flip whether my 'bent and I are or are not considered cool.

Ride report

For the first time this year, I joined a group of about two dozen cyclists for what has been dubbed the Plano East ride. For the first time ever, I took my new recumbent.

I've always enjoyed the Plano East ride and the core group of people who frequent it, but this time I was out to answer some questions for myself:

1. Could I still ride with a group?
2. Could I keep up?
3. How would I handle starting from the various up-grades and busy intersections?
4. Could I still climb Dump Hill without making the rest of the group wait while I finished my climb?

The short answer: No worries.

The blow-by-blow

Riding with the group. The drafting dynamic was a bit different, but I'm probably the only one who noticed. As we were riding single file down a two-lane road, it appeared to me that some of the riders were struggling against the wind. My recumbent sits pretty tall compared to some designs, but it's still tougher for an upright cyclist to draft off me than another upright cyclist. So, when there was room, I tried to ride alongside the draft line (it wasn't really a "paceline") instead of screwing up the draft for the riders following. This was enlightening, as well, because it told me that my recumbent really is that much more efficient than an upright bike, aerodynamically.

After about 30 miles of this, I saw one of my friends go off the back of the draft line. When I looked over at her, she was looking a bit grey, so I asked if she was okay.

"I'm whipped," she gasped.

I was surprised. She's a very strong rider who's usually at the front, doing long pulls. She was gassed; I'd been riding out in the wind all morning and felt like I was out for a cruise around the neighborhood.


Keeping up. This ride sometimes splits up with some of the fire eaters going off on their own to hammer, but it's essentially a social ride that usually in the high 13-14 mph range. Yesterday, we averaged 14.8 mph and I never had a problem keeping up. In fact, there were times when I was sitting on the back and wishing the folks in front of me would pick up the pace a bit.

Getting started. There were a couple times when I had a little trouble at intersections. I'm still not 100% comfortable with starting, and riders tend to crowd too close, eager to be at the front of the pack when the light turned green. I think this was mostly psychological, because as soon as I worried that I might wobble into another rider on take-off, I did. Every other start was smooth and straight.

Dump Hill. This is a great "climb" (as we in the Texas flatlands reckon such things) for hill intervals. Steep, maybe 150 yards, it's the one I always tried to hammer on my upright bike, so I was eager to find out how much slower I'd be on the recumbent. The answer, it seems, is "I won't".

I started the climb at the rear of the group, not wanting to get in the way of faster climbers. I hit the base running, spinning, downshifting as my cadence started to lag. As I bore down on a rider in front of me, I didn't want to give up any momentum, so I pulled off to the left and passed him. Then I passed another. And another. Puffing, breathing in time with my decreasing cadence, I kept downshifting until I hit my largest cog. I was nearly to the top and, rather than risk a blown shift to my granny ring under load, I powered on. Once on the flat, I eased back and continued on to the regroup point, where only half a dozen of the group were waiting.

I had passed 3/4 of the group on the climb, and it didn't feel much different from when I'd done it on my Trek. So I guess there's something to the Corsa's reputation as a "hill eater", after all. It's a Good Thing™.

Up the fashion. All I know is I rode 37.38 miles yesterday, and at the end of it my neck felt no worse than if I'd sat in a chair all day, watching TV. No groin numbness. No hand numbness. My legs are a bit sore this morning, but I think I'd have been a bit disappointed if they hadn't been.

I'm 'bent.

Darwin thwarted

With more than a little trepidation, I clicked on the button that would bring a fresh batch of e-mails into my inbox and watched as my filters sorted the new arrivals into the appropriate folders. Rats. Four of them had landed in the folder I'd set up for my volunteer webmaster activities.

I opened the first one.

"Mmfph ffmpph mmmph," it read.

Okay, not really, but that's roughly the equivalent of what it did say.

"You say you're having trouble breathing?" I asked, helpfully.

"Ymmmph."

"I see. Well, had you considered pulling your head out?"

You can see where this is going. For the past three days, I have been inundated by a digital parade of ignorance and laziness so vexing that I've had to wrap my head in duct tape to keep it from exploding.

Sometimes I just wish the doorway exiting Darwin's waiting room led to a 10-story drop into thin air.

Weekend update

Blogger seems to have got something caught sideways this morning, so we'll just have to see how we make out with the "blog by e-mail" feature. Maybe I've even remembered the address correctly.

Onward...

Another great weekend in north Texas. First thing Saturday morning, we loaded our assorted human-powered conveyances and headed down to White Rock Lake. There, we met up with the group that Turtle had organized to undergo some performance testing that would help the participants to fine tune their cadence and riding styles.

The process began with each rider having some very scientific looking electronics strapped on to his/her handcycle. Some of it was for analysis of the rider's exhaust gasses (exhalations, Susie; not what you're thinking); some of it was telemetry for transmitting the readings to the laptop of the guy doing the testing. The rider then got to strap on a breather mask with a 1" diameter tube connecting it to the test equipment.

I kept making lame Darth Vader jokes (which the perfessor had obviously heard far too many times before), but with the masks and their sunglasses, the riders looked more like jet fighter pilots.

I may have some pictures to post, but it will require a certain alignment of the planets for that to happen. First, I'll have to see if anyone thought to snap a few shots of Turtle with my camera while I was running around, helping some of the other test subjects. Then, I'll have to make sure that Turtle doesn't mind being plastered on my blog. Finally, Blogger will have to get with the program.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, I sloped off for a quick lap of the lake on my Corsa. It took me a mile or two to get settled in, but by then I was cranking along between 18 and 21 mph. Maybe everyone else was feeling like a leisurely ride, or maybe it was an indication of what sort of performance I can expect from the bike, but I was passing pretty nearly every other cyclist I came upon.

At least, until my route took me off the street and on to the bike path, at which point things got more crowded and forced me to focus more on safety than speed. Still even after I'd finished dodging wobblies, cloud gazers, and stroller zombies, I arrived back at VO² testing central with an overall average speed of a little over 16 mph.

Sunday...

...was another beautiful day, so Turtle and I were out riding again. We tooled around the neighborhood together until Turtle got tired of me hanging around and told me to go climb some hills. Which I did. I picked a few spots where I'm accustomed to going for hill intervals and attacked them. For the first time while riding the Corsa, my heart rate went through the roof, which tells me where I'm going to have to concentrate on developing more strength and endurance.

In case you hadn't thought about the physics of it, hills are the recumbent rider's Waterloo because the only things you have to work with are your gears, leg speed (cadence), and leg strength. Standing up and throwing your weight into the pedals to mash your way up a climb is simply not one of the available options.

People doing yardwork smiled and waved. Colorful lycra-clad roadies smiled and waved. I returned their greetings with enthusiasm and was really feeling pretty darned good about the whole thing until the homicidal inbreeder in the black S-10 pickup pulled out of the main lane on to the shoulder where I was riding and tried to run me down.

I wasn't scared at the time, because I saw him coming in my helmet mirror and was able to safely roll off the shoulder and through a broad ditch. I was (and am) pissed off. But the more I think about it, the more it sinks in that I came close to being one of those people whose pictures I'm in charge of posting on the Ride of Silence web site.

You can never be too alert. Especially when you're the only guy who knows how to keep the web site updated.

Later...

...we cooked chicken on the grill and settled in to watch The 40-year-old Virgin. It was a funny movie, but I probably would have enjoyed it a bit more if Turtle hadn't gotten so much entertainment from how close it came to reading like my biography.

When homesickness trumps self-preservation

"They took us away in buses and said we were leaving for three days. We came back eight years later. I cried every night. I wanted to go home. Thank God, we are here in the best place on earth."

If you didn't know Chernobyl's history, you might understand her delight.

Link (Reuters)

This article—one of a series that Reuters is doing this week to focus on the future of nuclear energy—reminded me how easily disasters are forgotten by those of us not directly affected.

I have a difficult time comprehending the scope of the evacuation, but for a photo essay posted a couple years ago by Elena (Lena) Filatova (Russian: Елена Филатова) at www.kiddofspeed.com. Despite allegations that Filatova staged some of her photographs, it's unlikely she could have staged everything, and the images are compelling.

Another photo essay, by Robert Knoth, focuses on the human toll.

Laid back

If you've been reading along, you know that I've spent the first few months of this year visiting doctors, getting x-rays and MRI tests, and going to physical therapy sessions in the attempt to get my neck sorted out and me back on my road bike. After all that, my situation was improved, but not enough to allow me to ride without pain.

2006 Bacchetta Corsa

And then it hit me. Why go through all this for a slight improvement, when I could switch to a recumbent bike and, after retraining some muscles, be able to do most of what I was doing before my neck crapped out on me? Sure, I'd have to part with my image of what's "cool", as well as a large-ish chunk of cash, but I could be riding a bike that's at least as fast (except on hills, where I was pretty slow already) and more comfortable than anything I've been riding since my '67 Schwinn Stingray.

That's how, after test riding throughout Easter weekend, I ended up with my new Bacchetta Corsa. My

obsidian steed

. My chase [sic] lounge.

Riding one of these things is very different from riding a DF bike. For one thing, you're pretty much one with the bike, whereas with a normal bike you're constantly moving the bike around under you. Another difference—a big one—is that starting out can be a challenge. You're lying on your back. The pedals are out in front of you at about the same level as your hips, so the usual technique of pushing off with one leg while throwing your weight on to the pedal with the other... just isn't happening. Starting out is a whole new level of commitment. You either succeed and pedal away, or you fall over. There's not much middle ground.

But ohhh mama, this thing's fast. (Even with me on it.) Because of the more aerodynamic positioning (i.e., the rider isn't acting as a drag chute), it takes about 20% less effort to attain the same speed as on a comparably geared, skinny-tire DF bike.

At least, that's what They tell me. I won't know for sure until I've had a chance to get the new bike set up with a computer (the digital watch equivalent of the clunky old bicycle speedometers we had back in the 1970s).

And my neck doesn't hurt.

Health workers would bail

I've always been lucky to be fairly resistant to colds and the sort of crud that laid me out for a few days, back during the Olympics. It's my hardy Teutonic genes, I tell people. The karmic trade-off for that seems to be that I'm deathly allergic to flu vaccinations.

Within 10 minutes of receiving the injection, I just break into a running sweat and fall over. So (at the risk of being obvious) I don't do flu shots.

That's why I was more than a little concerned and irritated when I read this:

Researchers called for more training, better equipment and counselling on Tuesday after nearly half of health workers questioned in a U.S. survey said they would not report for work during an influenza pandemic.

The poll of more than 308 workers from three health centers in Maryland revealed that more than 40 percent would be unlikely to report for work and 66 percent thought they would be putting themselves at risk if they did.

Link

Here we have a group of professionals who will certainly have dibs on the available supply of anti-flu shots, and they're not going to show up for work?

Let me just go on record with any of you health care "professionals" out there who plan to let me puke to death while you cower in your shower stalls: If I catch the bird flu and die because you decided to blow off your job when you were needed, I'll haunt down each and every one of you and follow you around, wailing Yoko Ono compositions 24/7.

Belie' dat.

Career guidance

I've been seeing this Lamborghini in the parking structure lately, and it's prompted me to ponder my career choices.

Maybe I should have been a drug lord. A lawyer. A corrupt stock broker or CEO. A high-priced call girl. Maybe a steroid-sucking professional athlete or a coddled Hollywood movie actor. A rap star making a killing off "songs" glorifying drugs, crime, and violence.

Nah. I'm too much a slave to my principles.

My nearly ten year old Honda's just fine.

Randomness

I happened to check in on what search terms are leading people to my blog, this month. Much of it's the usual "what is synaptic misfire" kind of thing, along with half a dozen variations on "if tomorrow never comes" combined with "randy jackson"; but a few were entertaining:

• sweet taters computer virus email
• carry on my wayward partition
• dream involving large mall Comforting to know it's not just me...
• beaverskin coat
• female members shaved
• roof rats+attics+glasgow Oh my!
• mtbi pat piles "MTBI"? Mild Traumatic Brain Injury? Myers-Briggs Temperament Indicator for mis-ordered acronym spellers? Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Institute? Please be specific and don't pat your piles.
• "drinking too much water"+"stomach noises"
• the ice cream man's route for
• abbreations

The last one's my favorite. I love the irony of someone searching for information on abbreviations and not finding what he was looking for because he'd inadvertently abbreviated the search term. Just left out the 'vi' altogether (as, I'm sure, a lot of you UNIX geeks wish you could do).

But... this raises the troubling question of how a search for "abbreations" led to my blog. My poor wife is probably going to have to distract me with Shiner Bock and pizza to prevent me going all OCD and tearing my blog apart to find where the heck I've misspelt "abbreviations".

Now playing: Marc Bolan & T-Rex, 20th Century Boy: The Ultimate Collection

Timely words (Coming To America)

"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with every one else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American.

"If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing his part as an American.

"We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, and American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt,
as quoted in The Chicago Daily Tribune, p. 4
7 January, 1919

Ooh... la la

Goldfrapp. Just saying it out loud makes me giggle. Like an onomatopoeia for the lactose intolerant villain from an Austin Powers movie. Goldfrapper. Frapp Bastard.

Okay, I'm done.

Since acquiring my new computer with its bountiful memory and 21^st century operating system, I've rediscovered my mojo. The synergy of a high speed internet connection, a free subscription to Rhapsody, and a near worthless Dallas radio market has rejuvenated me. I've been transported back to a time when disco sucked and I bought vinyl albums based on nothing more than intuition and interesting jacket art. Just to hear something different.

And that's how I stumbled on Alison Goldfrapp. Her infectious "Ooh La La", came stomping out of my speakers with no more thought than a T-Rex trampling an electric fence in Jurassic Park.

Seduced by the infectious, modern but somehow familiar sound, I searched for and found a video for the track. I watched it. And then I watched it again. Genius! There were pasty-faced boys with strap-on keyboards and fur boots. Converse high tops and glam rock posing. A slow motion sequence with a horse made of tiny mirrors. Giant bell bottoms and vertigo-inducing platform shoes.

Holy mother of Marc Bolan and Norman Greenbaum! You have to see this!

Hoop & Tink Foo & Turtle Conversation

Foo: I just realized that I haven't marked the back yard since we moved in.
Turtle: Marked. You mean, peed?
Foo: Yep.
Turtle: You're kidding, right? You wouldn't really pee in the yard.
Foo: Why not? It was just about the first thing I did when I bought the other house.
Turtle: Why?
Foo: Because I can. It's, like, an imperative of home ownership.

[insert clever title here]

I had one. I did. Honest. Unfortunately, it must've fallen off the edge during my post-ride nap.

This morning was the annual Lancaster Country Ride put on by the Greater Dallas Bicyclists club. I had committed to serving as a ride marshal back in January, when I still thought there was some hope that physical therapy would solve my neck problems. Because I don't like to back out once I've committed to something and because I wanted to do the ride, I comprommised and rode the shortest route, which was 24 miles.

For some reason, the Lancaster rally always seems to be very windy. Maybe the fact that it's held in early April is reason enough, and certainly it was reason enough for Turtle and I to jointly decide that today wouldn't be the best time for her to push her longest handcycling attempt to 24 miles. That was tough, because she was excited about it and had already sent in her registration fee; but in hindsight, I think it was the right choice. There's always next year.

During the ride and after, I saw a few things that made me go "hmm":

• While helping to stage the riders to the proper areas for their chosen routes, I got "sirred" by an attractive woman. It's bad enough when it's some gum-cracking, cheer-leading creature at the Chick-fil-A® drive through, but this woman was old enough to be my prom date. But, as Turtle pointed out, at least she didn't "hon" me. Getting "sirred" makes me feel old and genderless but, from kids at least, displays a quality upbringing. The "hon" from anyone but an aunt, my mother, or my wife is just plain condescending.
  
• An absolutely adorable adolescent dog—do baby Labs come in white?—sitting calmly by the side of the road with his head cocked, just watching all the cyclists ride by. No barking. No chasing. Just half smiling and enjoying the day.
  
• During the ride home, the roadside sign that read, "Prison area: do not pick up hitchhikers." (Wonder why.)
• The truly ugly little hybrid car with a pair of whip antennas mounted on its rear bumper. The antennae were half again as long as the car and made me think of the feelers on some sort of weird insect.

Still breathing

Being the current status in the TurtleFoo household, as well as the title of one of our favorite romantic comedies.

Turtle's around, and well; but she's very busy with her job search and the various related organisations that she's involved in. In fact, I'm only now finding time to compose this entry because she's got a "thing" going 'til late tonight. So I'm batching it.

My own status is SSDD. Alternately busy and frustrated at work (I lose 20 points off my IQ every time Gigglepuss opens her mouth). Busy spells with the pro bono web thingummy. Lawn mowing/trimming/fertilising/weeding.

I've also been getting out occasionally to test my ability to tolerate riding my road bike, in the wake of all the mechanical fiddling and physical therapy. There hasn't been as much improvement as I'd hoped and, as a result, I've finally admitted to myself that I'm just the sort of broken down old fart you typically see riding around on a recumbent bike.

Except... well, I'm a geek, and who better to be tooling around on a flying la-z-boy (as a friend calls his recumbent)? A chase [sic] lounge. A roll-away bed.

So I've begun shopping around, asking questions, getting an idea of which of the many mutant variaties would suit my goals the best. It's looking like this would fit the bill—fast, short wheelbase, up high, no tiny wheels—but it will be a couple weeks 'til I'll have time on the weekend to do some test rides.

Meanwhile...

I haven't forgotten that Anne infected me with The Indie Virus. Now, my wife could tell you that I'm not the most social of creatures and that I don't make friends easily. I don't have a long list of blogs that I read faithfully, but I see a couple that need to be and haven't been infected.

First, there's Bret who needs The Indie Virus because he understands the Dilbert-esque world we both live in and addresses it with more restraint and humor than I could.

Then, there's Tink who needs The Indie Virus because, surprisingly, no one has infected her yet and because she's a student of human nature and more than a little twisted, to boot. Takes one to know one, and I count that as a positive.

Finally, but not leastly, Susie needs The Indie Virus because she's manic and doesn't have nearly enough to do with her time.

Now, what was I gonna say?

I know there was at least one entertaining thing I meant to blog about, this week, but I can't think of what it was. Guess I'll have to wait until that second No. 7-and-water has metabolised.

Now playing: The Vines, Highly Evolved

April Foo

With yesterday being the first of April, I thought I should probably post up some fictitious but almost-plausible bit of news and then, at the end of it, add the pun/disclaimer "April Foo!"

But then I remembered that I've always found April Fool's "jokes" to be highly annoying.

I guess it's appropriate, then, that April Foo's Day should be a day late and have no ill effect on the gullible, whatsoever.

Later...

It's a beautiful day and I wanted to get out on the Trek to pedal around and see how my spine is doing. Not having spent much time on two wheels so far this year, I had sort of forgotten that I need to plan my routes so that the wind is at my back for the portion that's uphill. But the good that came of battling my way home with Lexus/BMW/Infiniti/Mercedes-driving yuppies mostly patiently waiting for me to wave them by is that I now know just how much conditioning I've lost over the winter and while dealing with my neck.

What a beautiful day for a ride, though. Sunny and warm, and on the way out I picked up some karma points when I spotted this turtle parked in the right wheel track, in the road. I'm no turtleologist, so rather than risk losing a finger I chose the better park of valor and nudged him with my foot 'til he was safely off to the side. It was probably a good thing, since the next vehicle down that side of the road was a big, black monster truck full of testosterone. As they roared by, I was suddenly glad that I'd stopped for the turtle, else these clowns would have been on my wheel.

Karma. I saved the turtle; the turtle may have saved me.

Here, you can see part of the reason I ride. Turtle—and by this, I mean Sweetie, not the one I scooted to the side of the road—and I are lucky to have built our home in one of the spots in the metromess where one can still hop on a bike and be in the country within 10 minutes. How long that can last is anyone's guess.

The 10^th Circle

I'm quite fortunate in that Turtle does 99.9% of the household grocery shopping.

Occasionally, things work out so that I'm available to go along with her to push the cart and carry our purchases into the house. At such times, I'm reminded why, when I was single, I ate out a lot and only ventured into the supermarket about once a month. When I finally couldn't figure out anything edible to create from a can of salmon, a heel of whole wheat bread, a slice of processed cheese product, and some semi-liquid lettuce, I broke down and went to the store.


Seriously. If supermarkets had existed when Dante Alighieri trod the earth, would there have been a 10^th ring to his hell? Would it have looked awfully like a Wal-mart grocery store?

There's just something malevolent-seeming in the blank stares of the shoppers. Something eerie and wrong about the lighting. Sponge Bob hanging execution-style from the rafters, his death rictus a parody of a grin.

And over in the refrigerater section, something wicked this way tongues comes. What was their former owners' sin? Gossip? Bad karaoke?

Sweetie, you're a saint.