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.

I know you are, but what am I?

Hot and sweaty, still wearing my cycling clothes after yesterday's 50-mile ride out to the airport and back, I stopped by Schlotsky's to pick up a couple sandwiches for Turtle's and my lunch.

The kid behind the register asked, "To go?"

I chuckled. "Yeah. I wouldn't want to stink out your other customers."

"That's not what I meant," he said. "I just figured you didn't look like you'd be staying here and eating both of those sandwiches."

"Nicely done!" I said, impressed by his insight. "You're gonna do well."

While I was waiting by the pickup window for my order, I "overheard" a young woman at a nearby table talking to her male companion loudly enough for me to be sure I was meant to hear.

"Look at that guy. He looks ridiculous. I'll bet he's gay."

I ignored her. I mean, let's be realistic: grown men in lycra do look kind of silly and, yes... maybe even... effeminate.

"I mean, I'm sure he's a nice guy and all, but how gay does that look."

Oh goody. At least I was getting the benefit of doubt. I still pretended not to hear.

As the two of them got up to leave, they walked right past me. He was a dull-looking 20-something in a "wife beater" undershirt and baggy jeans. She was about the same age, wearing pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. She was substantially overweight and plodded when she walked.

"So gay lookin'," she muttered under her breath as she passed.

I didn't ignore it this time. I said, mildly, "Look, I know I'm supposed to feel hurt or angry or something, but here's the thing: I'm just too caught up in the irony of it all."

Her response was to laugh disdainfully and waddle off.

I'm pretty sure she had no idea what I'd just said to her.

Taking the bad with the good

On the one hand, we have the disappointing news that 2006 Tour de France winner Floyd Landis is being investigated by UCI, the international governing body for cycling:

LONDON — Tour de France champion Floyd Landis tested positive for high levels of testosterone during the race, his Phonak team said Thursday on its Web site.

The statement came a day after the UCI, cycling's world governing body, said an unidentified rider had failed a drug test during the Tour.

Link (Austin American-Statesman)

The allegations haven't been proven, at this point, but I can't tell you how much this bums me out. Here, I finally thought I'd seen a clean race from a clean rider, and now this. It's... disorienting.

Meanwhile, another rider who's had his share of grief from UCI is also in the news:

Newton, Ia. - Lance Armstrong will dip his famous bicycle tires on both sides of Iowa next year, he pledged to an ecstatic RAGBRAI crowd of thousands Wednesday night.

"So this is RAGBRAI. I wasted all those Julys in France," Armstrong began, humoring the throngs of riders, residents and fans.

"This is my commitment," he said. "Next year, my rear tire is starting in the west and my front tire's ending on the east."

Link (DeMoines Register)

Very cool.

This your brain on Popeye's spicy chicken

More precisely, this is my brain on leftovers: Popeye's spicy chicken, green beans, baked beans, a hard biscuit, and an Oreo (which, in some parts of the world, is also a biscuit). Turtle, at least, attributes last night's dream—an unlikely mishmash of plot elements seemingly stolen from The Core, Get Smart, and Pee Wee's Big Adventure—to the choices I made when I prepared my own dinner last evening.

It all started when two men showed up on the stoop of my Miami-style bungalow. They were wearing suits the same greenish-yellow color that was all the rage at The Limited stores in the mid-'80s, which I think was called "mustard". Under their jackets, they wore t-shirts printed to look like a tie and vest.

They looked like live-action versions of Bert and Ernie, from Sesame Street.

"You have to come with us," Bert said. "Your house is the epicenter."

I glanced down and saw that both men were wearing red leather clogs. This rendered me momentarily incapable of speech, but I took a moment and finally found an appropriate response.

"Huh?"

"Come on," Ernie said, placing an arm around my waist and nudging me toward a battered tow truck that looked like it had been on its last legs since the early '60s. "You don't want to be here when it comes."

"'It'?" I muttered, reluctantly allowing myself to be led to the truck. "What 'it'?"

Ernie smiled the sort of reassuring smile usually reserved for small children and the very senile. "Everything's going to be all right," he said. "Everything's just fine."

"The hell it is," Bert said. "There's a space-time rift [insert dream-ish technical mumbo jumbo here] alignment that's going to cause a softball-sized tunnel all the way through the planet, and it's going to come out through your kitchen."

Ernie rolled his eyes and scowled at Bert, irritated. "You know he's not cleared for that information yet."

"Look, just shut up and get in the truck," Ernie said, not unkindly.

[At this point, some of you may be wondering where Turtle was while all this was going on. She wasn't in the dream, which suggests to me that she has a better agent than I do.]

The next thing I knew, we'd arrived at a checkpoint that looked just like the turnstiled entry gates at Disney World.

"Here you are," Ernie said. "ESCIA headquarters."

"What's ESCIA?" I asked.

"'Extra Secret Central Intelligence Agency'," Ernie said.

"Wait... if it's so extra secret, then why's there a big sign over the entry that says 'ESCIA'?"

"Shaddap," Bert said and slapped me across the back of the head. "Just go."

"Aren't you guys coming?"

"Nope," Ernie said. He pointed to a torpedo dangling from the tow truck's hook. "We have to get that over to research ASAP."

"It's a torpedo," I said.*

"Dang, this guy's good," Ernie said, poking Bert. "Poke, poke, poke."

I walked over to the turnstiles, where I became the charge of a guy who looked just like Francis, Pee Wee Herman's arch nemesis in Pee Wee's Big Adventure. He was wearing a gray suit, white shirt, red tie, and white patent leather shoes.

"C'mon," he said. "Let's get you checked in."

Francis then proceeded to take my thumbprints using an electronic scanner, and then various other combinations of digit prints, including my pinky toes ("The most important ones!"). I was photographed and blood typed. Finally, Francis punched a button and a machine spat out an ID card with my holographic likeness, thumbprints, and transparent window with a drop of my blood all laminated in.

"Here you go," he said. He handed me my ID card and nudged me toward the turnstiles. "But before you go in, I want to share a tip that will help you to assimilate."

"What's that?"

"We all wear suits in the ESCIA, but the way you dress can make you or break you," Francis explained. "Take me, for instance. I've chosen my ensemble to convey a sexually disingenuous image that cuts way down on distractions on the job."

"I bet. But don't you mean 'sexually ambiguous'?"

"I MEANT WHAT I SAID!!" Francis snapped. "Now get in there!"

Next, I was taken to meet my mentor, a veteran agent played by Stephen Dorff. Dorff was wearing a black pinstriped suit, a black shiny shirt open at the collar with no tie, and full-quill ostrich skin boots with silver toe caps. His hair was spikey, and he slouched insouciantly with one hand in his pants pocket and the other holding a cigarette.

He took a slow draw and squinted through the smoke. "So you're the new guy, enh?"

I shrugged and looked at my surroundings. We were in an office building, in a common area that looked quite a bit like the waiting area at an airport gate. Off to one side, there were about a dozen men and women wearing brown suits, doing some sort of slow line dance to the tune of Trio's "Da Da Da".

"Weird," I said.

"Yeah, well don't let 'em fool ya," Dorff said. "They're the ones with the power around here. Those are the office manager moles. There's nothin' goes on that they don't know about."

"I always heard that you shouldn't wear a brown suit to an interview because brown gives an impression of untrustworthiness," I said.

"Shit, I don't know," he said. He paused for a moment to drop his cigarette on the floor, ground it out with the toe of his boot, and ran his fingers through his hair. "I always figured it was because office managers order the coffee service, and coffee's brown."


From there, I don't remember details. There was some business about crawling through ventilation ducts and having to time it so we were only moving when the fans were on, but my alarm clock went off before I had a chance to find out what that was all about.


* I know what prompted this, at least. Last night, I watched an old Peter O'Toole movie called Murphy's War in which O'Toole's character sinks a German U-Boat using a recovered torpedo, which he drops on it from a crane on a barge.

Weekend update

RBENT Ride

Bright and early Saturday morning, a group of us recumbent riders got together for our own little parade. About a dozen of us met up in Richardson and rode down to the head of the White Rock Creek Trail, where we met up with about a dozen more before continuing down the trail to White Rock Lake.

Unlike my usual club rides, this one included a fair share of the sort of slower rider that most people associate with recumbents—which was fine, because motoring along an eight foot wide bike path at much more than our 12-13 mph pace would've been irresponsible. There's just too much bike, roller blade, stroller, and pedestrian traffic on the trail to get up a good head of steam without the risk of hurting someone.

But once we got down to the lake, that was a different story. We split into a faster group and a slower group with the fast group taking to the road and the slower group sticking to the trail. Each wedgie that passed us and each remark like "Oh! Look at the senior citizens!" drew whimpers from my Corsa (or Ba-Cheetah, as some of the group refer to the highracers), but FlyingLAZBoy calmly reined us in until after the first rest stop. And then it was time to "do the demo", charging north along the west side of the lake into a slight headwind at around 20 mph, dropping wedgies like junk mail.

Photo by Paul Brown

After a couple passes like that, we'd gotten the demo out of our systems and made our way back north to the cars, after which we garbaged up on quesadillas and burritos as big as your head. Much fun was had by all (and I didn't fall over).

Out on a limb

Or, more to the point, up on a ladder.

Last weekend, Turtle and I bought a ceiling fan for what we affectionately refer to as the library. All week, it sat in the garage, and all week Turtle—either distracted by her own goings-on or simply displaying monumental patience—didn't harrass me about it.

Yesterday, I decided I was going to put the thing up.

Now, I've never been much of a do-it-yourselfer. I lack the necessary skill, tools, and extra hands necessary to complete most home improvement projects to my exacting standards. I'm also terrified of electrocution and drowning, so I avoid wiring and plumbing tasks like the Black Death.

However, after thinking about the installation process, I reckoned that the trickiest part of putting up the fan was going to be taking down the chandelier that was already hanging where the fan needed to go. At this point, I'll spare you the blow-by-blow of assembling and installing the down rod, blades, light kit, etc. and just say that after 2 1/2 hours of standing on a stepladder, grunting and (at times) cursing, Turtle and I stepped back to admire our new fully functional ceiling fan.

We were both impressed with the fact that it operated with nary a wobble, and that flipping the wall switch didn't start a fire. Probably because I had my fingers properly crossed.

I love a parade

Actually, I don't; but we sure had a doozy last night.

By now, many of you will have heard about the slow-speed chase that wound its way through three north Texas counties yesterday evening, but for the benefit of those who haven't, here's the short of it:

• A 32-year-old man stuck a gun in the face of a customer in the parking lot of a Lowe's in Carrollton.
• He then proceeded to wreck the stolen car, and when a local pulmonologist stopped to see if he was okay, the gunman stole his car
• Next stop: Fairview, TX. Fairview is a very small town with practically nothing in it but farmland and very large, very expensive houses. It's also the northern neighbor of Allen, where Turtle and I live. We ride our bikes there. In Fairview, the gunmen left the doctor's car and hijacked a bright red semi (with trailer) owned by an Allen couple. He kicked out the husband and held the wife at gunpoint, making her drive the truck.
• From there, they headed south through Plano, Dallas, and Oak Cliff before heading west on I-20.
• The police spiked several of the tires, but the truck continued west, riding on the front rims, all the way to Ft. Worth
• After shooting out some more tires, the radiator and (according to one report) the gas tanks, the police finally got the truck stopped. The gunman released the hostage, and the police shot tear gas into the truck cab, forcing the gunman out. So no one got killed.

Link - Dallas Morning News (use BugMeNot to acquire a login/password)

Granted, this sort of thing has become sort of passé since the O.J.-in-a-white-Blazer incident back in '92 or so, and I'm pretty sure the Los Angelenos would tell me this is a daily occurrence there.

What bugged me is that, once the local TV stations started televising the progress of the chase from their helicopters, literally hundreds of people began lining the overpasses along the chase route, all straining to catch a glimpse of the truck. Turtle and I cringed as, at each overpass, people dashed from one rail to the other—oblivious to slow but still-moving traffic—to make sure they didn't miss one second of the spectacle.

What's wrong with people? (The question is rhetorical, for the record.)

Ride Report: Tour de Paris (Texas)

I've done more than a dozen charity rallies over the last couple years. Some have been scenic, others were challenges to my endurance and stubborness, and others just plain miserable. But yesterday's Tour de Paris was a new high point for me, because it was the funnest 62.8 miles I've ever ridden at one swat.

The Foo Family had originally planned on loading up The Grape with bikes and gear and driving up to Paris together. Unfortunately, Turtle came down with a sinus infection that turned into a once-every-fifteen-seconds cough that won't let her sleep, much less do a bike ride. That combined with the predicted triple-digit temperatures led to the decision that I should go on alone.

I woke up at 4am, half an hour before the alarm was set to go off, showered, finished packing my car (not a grape), and hit the road. The drive to Paris took me about 90 minutes, instead of the two hours that Yahoo! Maps had predicted, and I attributed this to the fact that there were few vehicles on the road, except for ones with bikes strapped to them. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of anything along the route and my plan to pick up breakfast as I neared Paris turned out to be a bad one. Clif bars and water for breakfast will get the job done, but Foo prefers to start a long ride with a bit of sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit percolating in his gut.

I arrived with plenty of time to pick up my and Turtle's packets (she might as well have her T-shirt, no?), get my bike set up, and apply sunscreen. I parked next to Safeman9, another BikeJournal.com member, and we had a nice chat while setting up. A friendly bumblebee became intrigued with my black and yellow bike and my black and yellow cycling duds. Too friendly perhaps. As Safeman9 noted, it appeared the little hummer was looking for a date.

The Tour de Paris is a mass start, which means that instead of the longer distances going off first, everyone goes off together. This has always made me a bit nervous, because it means that you spend the first five miles or so just trying to work your way through all the bike path wobblers and slow-paced social riders to find some "clear air" to ride in. On the recumbent, it's even dodgier because I'm just not as agile as I was on my wedgie.

But I got the job done and by about 20 minutes into the ride, I was in the open and cruising along the flats at between 18 and 22 mph. Soon after I hit clear air, I noticed a guy in full Liquigas kit riding with a woman in pigtails and a lot of pink stuff on her bike. Aha! I thought. Allez and Lancenotstrong from BikeJournal.

"Allez! Allez! Allez!" I yelled out, both because that's cyclist for "faster!" and because... well, I was trying to catch their attention. I think my sudden appearance was sort of a rolling non sequitur, because as I pulled up next to them, Allez gave me the sort of look one might reserve for something just scraped off the bottom of one's shoe. Lance, however, clicked on the situation right away.

"Foo man!" he hollered, grinning. We shook hands briefly, peloton style, and I rode on, not wanting to interrupt their conversation any more than I had. But how cool was that? Not even half an hour into the ride, and I'd already met three people I recognized from the BikeJournal forum.

Not long after, a rider called out to me as I was overtaking him. It turned out this was royshiro, a BikeJournal member who had been trying earlier in the week to arrange for a group of us ride together. And so we did, Roy and I, and we had a blast just riding along and chatting. I've rarely had more pleasant company, on or off the bike, and it made for a very enjoyable ride.

By the time we reached the midpoint of our 100K route, the temperature had become noticeably hotter. My computer showed an average speed of 17.7 mph to that point, but we decided that we'd take it easier and conserve energy on the return leg. To punctuate the point, I had a concentration lapse as we were leaving the rest stop and promptly experienced a gravity failure that left me with a dinged knee and some road rash down the length of my shin.

Later, while cleaning that up, I came to understand that hardcore riders don't shave their legs to be more aerodynamic; they shave them because it's easier to clean road rash without all that fur in the way.

At about 9 miles to the finish, we came into some rollers, and I temporarily took my leave of Roy and agreed to meet him back at the parking lot. With the first climbs of any significance coming up, our rhythms were bound to get out of synch and I wanted to maintain as much momentum as I could. When I rolled up to the finish, the LED sign out in front of the high school read "106°", and the cheerleaders were bouncing around like they were at a cool autumn football game. God bless 'em.

I finished the 62.8 miles with a 16.5 mph average. According to my heart rate monitor, my theory that my max heart rate has dropped from 193 to 188 isn't worth the blog it's written on. After the ride, it showed my max for the day was 197. Must've been the heat, because I really couldn't recall any point in the ride during which I'd been working that hard.

After Roy arrived, we went inside to change out of our wet cycling duds and spent some time yukking it up with RBENT's Bob McClure (of yellow plasticard-faired recumbent fame) while cooling down. Roy and I then drove to Ta Molly's, a local Tex-Mex restaurant, where he graciously treated me to lunch using a gift certificate he'd brought with him. No quesadillas ever tasted so good.

After lunch, we said our goodbyes and I headed down the road back toward home. Heading west on highway 82 out of Paris, I passed an entire field parked hub to hub with rusted farm tractors and moved "compact digital camera" a position further up the list of things that I'd like to have once Turtle and I have more money than we know what to do with.

Tour de who?

To all my friends and acquaintances who have ever asked, "So what's up with that Tour de France thing?" I offer the following sublime explanation, courtesy of Bob Roll:

The hierarchy in the peloton has another parallel: "It's basically a penitentiary," says Bob Roll, a former Tour rider and an anchor for OLN TV. "You've got your walking boss, you've got that sneaky little bastard who was in The Longest Yard, you have the honorable veterans, and then the guys who are just doing time, which is most of them. Nobody wants to be anybody's boy, but sometimes you have no choice."

Link (FORTUNE)

If you've ever had even the slightest interest in what all the fuss is about, I highly recommend spending five minutes of your time to read this article. It's colorful and well written, and it's about as clear a capsule explanation of professional cycling (and yes, the free market economy) as I've seen.

Spelling with flickr

That's right: still no inspired amusement or wry anecdotes about postnasal coworkers. But I do have a new toy for you guys to play with.

Some mad scientist has used PHP scripting and random images from flickr to generate words like this one:



It's almost as much fun as composing refrigerator magnet poetry. Try it here

Best of FooMix #2 (sort of)

As I went to grab the next in the series of tapes, I discovered that #2 and #3 had gone missing. I've since looked every place I can think of, but it's probably a case of my having carted them along somewhere without putting them back where they belonged. Given my relative lack of participation in the packing process when we moved to the new house, the tapes could be anywhere, including in one of the boxes in the attic, dubiously-labeled "Foo's Stuff".

Mea culpa.

In the place of #2, I offer the contents of a mix CD I made much more recently, but which nevertheless spans the '60s and '70s, skips the '80s, and in one instance covers something from the '70s in the '90s:

1. Blackfoot - "Train, Train"
2. Bullet - "White Lies, Blue Eyes"
3. Cliff Richard - "Devil Woman"
4. Michael Nesmith - "Cruisin'"
5. Jerry Reed - "Amos Moses"
6. Manfred Mann - "I Came For You"
7. Ohio Express - "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy"
8. Cat Stevens - "Jzero"
9. Bread - "If"
10. Petula Clark - "I Know A Place"
11. Small Faces - "Itchycoo Park"
12. 1910 Fruitgum Company - "1, 2, 3, Red Light"
13. Webb Wilder - "Ain't That A Lotta Love"
14. The Buoys - "Timothy"
15. Focus - "Hocus Pocus"
16. Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs - "Wooley Bully"
17. The Nightcrawlers - "Little Black Egg"
18. The Castaways - "Liar, Liar"
19. The Blues Magoos - "We Ain't Got Nothin' Yet"
20. Desmond Dekker & The Aces - "Israelites"
21. Electric Prunes - "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night"
22. Left Banke - "Walk Away Renee"
23. Bobby Fuller Four - "I Fought The Law"
    

Best of FooMix - #1 (ca. 1984)

Over on My Big Gobhole That Girl's Gobole Gobhole Girl, Susie put out a plea for '70s and '80s love songs and power ballads. I wasn't much help, since I couldn't remember any, off the top of my head.

What did come out of all that was this notion that it might be interesting revealing to share the track lists from the mix tapes I started making sometime in the mid-'80s and continued through #26. By 1998 (or thereabouts), I had pretty much stopped. I can no longer remember why.

Anyway, here you have it: the track list from the first one.

1. Mountain - "Mississippi Queen"
2. Loverboy - "Teenage Overdose/DOA"
3. Dire Straits - "Espresso Love"
4. XTC - "Senses Working Overtime"
5. The Pretenders - "The Phone Call"
6. The Cars - "Moving In Stereo"
7. J. Giles Band - "Rage In The Cage"
8. Pat Benatar - "Out of Touch"
9. The Go-Gos - "This Town"
10. The Cars - "Shooby Doo/Candy-o"
11. Led Zeppelin - "Immigrant Song"
12. The Babys - "Anytime"
13. Nantucket - "Rug Burn"
14. Rossington Collins Band - "Don't Misunderstand Me"
15. Talk Talk - "Talk Talk"
16. The Romantics - "Rock You Up"
17. Baxter Robertson - "Green Light"
18. Rush - "Distant Early Warning"

Worth continuing? A show of hands, please...

When you're hot, you're hot

I received this from Turtle a while back. Since she's not using it, I will.

YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN TEXAS IN SUMMER [May - October] WHEN...

• The birds have to use potholders to pull worms out of the ground.
• The trees are whistling for the dogs.
• The best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.
• Hot water now comes out of both taps.
• You can make sun tea instantly.
• You learn that a seat belt buckle makes a pretty good branding iron!
• The temperature drops below 95 and you feel a little chilly.
• You discover that in July it only takes 2 fingers to steer your car.
• You discover that you can get sunburned through your car window.
• You actually burn your hand opening the car door.
• You break into a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:30 a.m.
• Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, "What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death?"
• You realize that asphalt has a liquid state.
• The potatoes cook underground, so all you have to do is pull one out and add butter, salt and pepper.
• Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying boiled eggs.
• The cows are giving evaporated milk.

Ah, what a place to call home. God Bless the State of TEXAS!!

Turtle adds...

• You take out an equity loan to pay the AC bill.

The karmic bog roll

During yesterday's afternoon commute, I noticed in my rearview mirror a black Murano making multiple aggressive lane changes, and I prepared myself. Ommmmmm, I thought, imagining myself on my back patio, wearing shorts and sandals, drinking a cold Shiner Bock.

Sure enough, it came my turn, and as the Murano elbowed past to cut me off and brake hard to avoid hitting the car that was ahead of me, I noted with some smugness that the driver was as I had predicted: a crisply dressed Joe Cool with a flashy watch and a cell phone grafted to his left wrist.

Ommmm... The beer in my mind's eye mouth was cold and refreshing, and I wriggled my imaginary toes, noting that the nails needed trimming again.

And then I saw it: stuck to the rear suspension of Joe Cool's Murano was a plastic shopping bag, flapping in the breeze like a length of toilet tissue trailing from a Bruno Magli dress loafer. Karmic balance was restored, and I laughed out loud, quite happy to trade a few feet of pavement for a tasty helping of irony.

Random misfire

I was out riding my Corsa (a.k.a., "the rolling lounge chair") after work, when I rounded a bend to see half a dozen barely-teen boys making their way down the center of the street. Two were walking; the other four were on two BMX bikes. One of them must have heard the buzz of my rear hub and turned to look.

"[incestuous offspring]!" he yelled to his buddies. "Look at this [canine son]!"

I blushingly admit that I cut quite a dashing figure in my black lycra shorts, Canari-yellow sleeveless jersey, and red headband flapping Rambo-esque from beneath the back of my helmet, but I'm reasonably convinced he was reacting to the bike.

"Catch up with him!" one of the boys yelled, and I could see in my helmet mirror that one of the bike riders had stood up and was pedaling like mad.

Rotsa ruck. I was doing 15 mph when I passed them and 20 by the time I heard one of them (faintly) yell "Holy [excrement]! Look at 'im go!"

Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns.*


* Fairly blatant toilet-paper-on-a-shoe reference. Anyone?

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."