Attention, entities of the earth

My fledgling attempts to learn HTML and create a web site came 'way back in 1995. My goal was to create a web presence for my family's genealogy research. Since much of that research is riddled with German, I frequently found myself in need of umlauts but never often enough to justify the mental real estate to memorize the HTML entities for the decorated characters.

Enter Leftlogic's HTML Entity Character Lookup tool. Now, instead of Googling all over the web for a long list of HTML entities that may or may not give me what I'm looking for, I can now enter a character that kind of looks like the one I want, and the tool shows me a list of candidates. For you fans of the forbidden fruit, there's even a dashboard widget you can download.

Sweet.

Shadow World

Turtle e-mailed me a movie file this morning, and I enjoyed it so much that I just had to run right out and find it on YouTube so that I could share it with you. The movie was a Raymond Crowe performance of "What A Wonderful World", acted out with shadow puppets.

I encourage you to watch this and be entertained.

Now playing: Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Corelli: 12 Concerti Grossi, Op.6

They came from the oil fields

That's right. This weekend, Turtle and I had the pleasure of meeting and having dinner with Janie and her husband while they were in The Metromess for other events.

I'm always just a little apprehensive when setting up a meeting with someone I know from online but have never met before, in the physical realm. That may sound like a strange admission, coming from a man who first met his wife in an IRC chat channel and regularly attended computer BBS gatherings during the early '90s; but a first real-life meeting with an online acquaintance is like a blind date. Or a box of chocolates. Oh, you can get a certain sense of people from how they write and what they write about, but there's always the chance to find yourself in an uncomfortable situation, with Too Much Information or too little to talk about.

Like that time in 1992 when I drove an hour or so to a BBS potluck. I'd had some good results making new friends when I attended a similar gathering from one of the other BBS systems in the area, and I was feeling adventurous. I arrived to find an unusual mix of nerdy, rough, and just plain unusual characters, but the people seemed nice enough. The conversation over dinner was typical computer nerd stuff, but afterwards, when everyone adjourned to the living room for a marijuana-fueled Traci Lords film festival...

Well, let's just say my capacity for new experience had been exceeded. Call me a coward—or a prude, if you must—but I faked the onset of a migraine and fled.

I'm pleased to say that our dinner with Janie and her husband was nothing like that. The four of us fell easily into a wandering, seamless, laughter-filled conversation that was cut short only when Turtle and I had to leave for an appointment before church. No weirdness, and the only hint of marijuana was the fern-like print of my shirt. It was big fun, and I'm glad we had the chance to meet!

So now I've met Bill and Janie, which makes me 2 for 2 in the Blogger Blind Date "success" column.

Nerds and the fashion void

In case anyone is keeping track, it stopped raining a month or so ago. The wet weather and cooler than normal temperatures have given way to the customary hot, dry weather that we north Texans are used to. When I rolled into the driveway after my evening commute, Dorian's in-dash thermometer read 105 °F.

I've been working some long hours lately. That has put the brakes on my after-work bike riding and makes it tough to find time for routine chores like mowing the lawn. Turtle, being in attuned to such things, was waiting for me when I walked in the house.

"You're not planning to mow the lawn, are you?" she asked. When I didn't immediately respond with the 'no' she was looking for, she continued. "I was talking to Mom, and she says you should take it easy, have a nice cold beer or two, and not die."

"Mmm," I said, noncommittally. I knew that the only beer on the premises was in the garage, where it was about 120°.

But what's that got to do with nerd chic? you're probably wondering.

For as long as I can remember, one of the defining characteristics of nerds has been their complete lack of fashion sense.* Thick glasses, held together with safety pins and Scotch brand tape. Highwater trousers. Sweater vests. Not last year's fashions, nor even those from the year before—five years, ten years ago.

I've always felt it was unfair to assume that nerds can't dress themselves presentably. It's just lower on their list of priorities than hacking the Linux kernel or re-watching the entire Firefly series from start to finish (including Serenity) in one sitting. Why blow perfectly good money on a new pair of eyeglasses when it could be spent on a Visual Studio 2005 upgrade?

It's with that kind of mentality that, the minute Turtle's car was out of sight and on the way to her meeting, I went to my closet and grabbed my old red, sleeveless cycling jersey (the one whose elastic waistband was shot). I dug out an old pair of navy gym shorts (the ones whose drawstring had broken) and my old Halo sweatband, dressed, and headed out to mow the lawn.

Sure, the combination of tight cycling jersey and shorts that displayed just how weird a cyclist's tan lines really are would have elicited hoots and jeers from the guys down at the local day labor office. But from a practical standpoint, the wicking fabric of the jersey got me the most cooling benefit from what little breeze there was to be had. The sweatband kept the perspiration (okay... rivers of sweat) from burning my eyes. The shorts... well, let's just say I don't have the flabbiest man legs and bum on the cul de sac.

I was just finishing up when one of those Lexus [snicker] trucks pulled up in front of the next door neighbors' house, and a woman in a tailored white linen suit climbed out. As she made her way up the sidewalk, I saw her eyeing me and imagined that she was horrified by my attire.

Yep, I thought, cracking a grin. Still got it.

That, or she was mesmerized by my tan lines.

* I say "their", but I don't think that's fooling anyone. We're talking about me.

Exxxcellent...

Through The Simpsons' eighteen-year history, we've seen lots of guest celebrities reduced to two dimensions. I've always wondered how I'd look with yellow skin and googly eyes... and now I know.

As part of the non-stop hype for the recently-released Simpsons movie, Burger King has put together a web site where you can upload a picture of yourself, answer a few non-personal questions, and see what the analyzer thinks you'd look like as a cartoon character from the Simpsons. I was frankly surprised by how well this worked.

You can try too. www.simpsonizeme.com

Ride report: Tour de Paris (Paris, TX)

The 90-mile drive to Paris in the pre-dawn hour was a little spooky because of heavy fog along the way, but the day dawned sunny and clear. I rolled into the Paris High School parking lot at a little after 7am, started unloading my gear, and immediately started streaming sweat. As I was preparing to leave the house, I couldn't decide between a short-sleeved jersey and a sleeveless one. I was glad I'd brought both and chose the sleeveless.

At a little after 7:30, I'd finished with my preparations—sunblock, HRM, bike assembled—and gave The Stradas a call. They were still about 15 minutes from the high school and unlikely to be ready to go by start time, so I went ahead and began making my way toward the starting line.

A few minutes before 8:00, the organizers made a few remarks and then handed the microphone over to a gentleman introduced as Lance Armstrong's dad. He went on for a couple minutes about how the Tour de France didn't hold quite the same interest for him as it had in years past. The riders laughed, but I was distracted. I seemed to recall that Lance didn't have any kind of relationship with his father and referred to him as "the DNA donor." It seemed rather... uninformed for the Tour de Paris organizers to have this guy as a special guest when Lance Armstrong didn't even acknowledge him. Turns out I was the uninformed one, though. When I got home, I looked it up and discovered Terry Armstrong is Lance's step-father—and one who's obviously quite proud of his adopted son, at that.

Aaanyway... we got off promptly at 8:00 and, because I'd managed to find a spot toward the front of the group, I had very little of the claustrophobia I experienced last year, at the start. Last year, I was toward the back with all the wobblies; this year, I was up with the hammerheads. We took off, and most of the folks around me coalesced into several pace lines. Those who didn't rode in a predictably, orderly fashion, and in no time at all I was in clear air. At least, I was in clear air until I caught up with one of the pace lines, which was writhing back and forth across the entire width of the lane. So I passed them. And then I passed another. I finished the first 10 miles with an average speed of 21 mph.

Between miles 10 and 20, the pace lines reeled me in again. As they passed, one of the guys smirked and said, "Guess you're not as as fast as you thought, huh?" I told him that I reckoned I could keep up the pace just fine, if I'd been sitting on and sucking wheel all day, instead of going it alone. He just grunted and sucked on past.

When I made my first stop at mile 30, I had an average of 20.4 mph, but it was starting to heat up. The roads were rougher than I'd remembered them from last year, and I'd come to the realization that I might have mismanaged my resources on the first half. I hung around at the stop for longer than I normally would have done, hoping to hook up with the bunch of RBENT folks I thought were supposed to be in attendance. Corsa Ken arrived after a bit, but no sign of The Stradas or anyone else, so I took off before my legs got any stiffer.

I could tell I was fading. Though there were no serious climbs on the route (and no rollers of consequence until we hit Rt. 19), my legs felt rubbery on every incline. I went into conservation mode, spinning more and tucking everything in on the slight downhills to get aero and conserve energy. Still, I must have been doing better than some people. Somewhere around mile 35, I picked up a tail and towed a very fit-looking young fellow on a cyclocross bike for about 5 miles before he peeled off at a rest stop. He expressed his appreciation but never offered to take a pull. The moral? Don't let any DF rider tell you that he can't get a draft off a recumbent.

At mile 50, I "had" to stop again. I needed pickle juice and a few minutes off the bike in front of the gasoline-powered cooling fan that was set up there. Corsa Ken showed up a few minutes later, and Steve Strada shortly after that.

Steve was looking strong and only stopped because we yelled at him. So strong, in fact, that when we headed out again, I could tell that I was holding him back. Once we got into the final stretch and the rollers, I admitted to him that I was cooked and that he shouldn't let me hold him back. He didn't. Meanwhile, I continued on in energy conservation mode, feeling every one of the days during June when I should have been riding and getting stronger... but hadn't.

And yet, as I was grinding my teeth and spinning my way up one climb, I passed a DF rider in a Rolling Stones jersey.

"Hey," he said. "I'll toss you a rope and you can pull me, okay?"

"Good luck with that," I told him, but I was thinking, Up yours. This Little Engine That Could is through towing roadies for the day. He passed me, but I caught him (and passed him) once we made the turn on to the smooth straight stretch leading to the high school. "No fair!" he called out, laughing. "You're coasting!"

I dug in and cranked it up to 23 mph, trying to bring my average up a tick from 18.9 to 19, but I never quite made it. That said, "nearly 19" is a new record for me at any distance, so I mark it as a good day. My heart rate monitor showed that I'd averaged 165 bpm (86% of my maximum) for the duration of the ride.

Special congratulations go out to dallasbikr, who finished 100K on a fixie with an 18+ average. Dude, you're sick!

It's okay, Mom

A time for Heroes

...and Chuck.

I've been seeing the amusing and slightly mysterious teases on NBC for the last week or so. Tonight I finally took the bait and wandered over to the www.chuckssecret.com web site to see what the deal is.

The fact that I'm now eagerly awaiting the Fall premier of this show probably reveals more about me than I'd like, but I can't wait. Based on the preview, Chuck looks like Get Smart meets Gotcha meets Clerks, with maybe a bit of The Office (if The Office took place in Best Buy and if it was funny).

Lost in translation

I'm often impressed with Google's language translation service. Sometimes, I'm amazed—but not by the accuracy of the results.

I've mentioned in passing that some of the work I'm doing involves Unicode support. Since I don't speak or write Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, or any of the other language that requires characters outside the ISO-8859-1 code page character set, I've been tapping Google for some test data.

Sometimes the results are rather interesting, as in the case of this Arabic translation of a well-known children's rhyme:

ماري كان قليلا الحمل. عن ابتزاز الابيض الذي كان الثلج. في كل مكان ذهبت ماري، انالحملكان متأكداان نسلكه.

...which Google translates back to English as...

Mary had a little pregnancy.
The blackmail was Snow White.
Everywhere I went Mary, that the pregnancy was sure to go.

I know we're seen as infidels and all, but that spin seems just a bit cynical, even to me.

More disturbing, perhaps, is the fact that the phrase "I like monkeys because they taste like chicken" makes the round trip from English to Arabic and back with no problem.


Now playing: Spock's Beard, Snow

Ride report: RBENT club ride (Celina, TX)

On the RBENT forum, one of the members commented on his disappointment with the Mesquite Rodeo Ride, noting that one of his usual routes had better roads with less traffic, and he didn't have to pay to ride on them. One thing led to another, and before he knew it he had gotten roped into organizing a Saturday club ride showcasing 50+ miles of his favorite route.

It's been tricky finding time to ride during the past couple months, what with all the rain we've been having. As the date for the ride approached, we all watched the weather reports very carefully and hoped that we'd catch a break in the weather, and we did—sort of. There was no significant chance of rain in the forecast, and by 8am when we headed out from the quaint little town square at Celina, it was sunny with blue skies and fluffy white clouds. It was humid and was going to get hot, but I was slathered in sun block and carried nearly two liters of water, as well as a bottle of Accelerade. No problem.

We got our legs warmed up and before long were cranking along the wide shoulder of FM-289 at around 20 mph.

Mechanicals 1-3

About ten miles up the road, at Gunter, there was a problem. One of the DF (a.k.a., "normal bike") riders who had joined us had a flat. A couple people stayed back to help while the rest of us went on to wait at a convenience store a short distance up the road. And wait. And wait. (We later found out that he changed the first flat but didn't get the tube seated correctly and immediately flatted again.) While we were waiting, one of the guys noticed that his rear tire had a bulge. After some discussion, he decided it would be best to turn back.

Finally, we were back on the road, heading west along FM-121 toward Lake Ray Roberts. Traffic was a non issue, for once, as our route had been chosen expressly for its scenery and wide shoulders or low traffic.

Mechanical 4

We were enjoying the sun and the scenery when someone called out "FLAT!" We pulled off, and the victim set about replacing his punctured tube. Mrs. Strada and I stood baking in the sun while discussing the luck deficit that was developing, and the cruel twists of fate intertwined with a career as a professional bowler.

Finally, we... well, you get the idea. We turned south on FM-377 toward Pilot Point. More nice scenery and great company. As we entered Ray Roberts State Park and passed over a thin finger of the lake, we were all amazed at how high the water was. Last year's many exposed tree stumps were hidden, and the water level was into the canopies of trees that normally stand on the bank, well up from the usual water line. We wondered what we'd see when we crossed the dam, further on in our ride.

Mechanicals 5 and 6

About a mile from FM-455, where we'd turn and head west over the dam, I heard the dreaded "FSSSsssSSSsssSSSsss!" that signaled yet another puncture. This time, it was me. I called out "Mechanical!" and rolled into the parking lot next to a strip mall while there was still a little air in the tire. I think I pulled off the fastest tube change of the day, but maybe it only seemed that way because I was busy. Still, it was long enough for our bad luck to find another one of the DF riders, who broke his chain. I'm not sure how he managed to repair it, but he'd already headed back home by the time I finished changing my flat. Or maybe someone came and picked him up. I didn't find out about the problem until we were all back on the road.

We headed west on FM-455 toward the dam. By this time, we had spent so much time stopped by the side of the road that the heat had caught up with us. In the heat of summer, a successful ride is as much about staying on the move and completing the ride before it gets hot as it is about going the distance. The combination of heat, distance, and having to warm up our muscles after every repair stop was starting to wear on everyone, and our pace had slowed by a few miles per hour. Chip seal that hadn't seemed so bad in the early stages of the route was now drawing complaints from a couple of the riders who had lost their happy thoughts.

And then the remaining DF rider (see mechanicals 1 and 2) flatted.

Mechanicals 7 and 8

The poor guy. Mr. Strada stayed back with him while the rest of us rolled slowly on, in search of some shade. There was none.

A cell phone rang. It was Mr. Strada. "Um... we need a 700c tube. Does anyone have one?"

Most DF road bikes use 700cm rims, and so there's usually an abundance of spare tubes of the correct size. Unfortunately, on this day, the two other DF riders had had to turn back, and most of the remaining bikes were Bacchettas with dual 650cm wheels. Fortunately, one of the recumbents was of the big rear/little front wheel variety, and its rider pedaled back to donate his spare 700cm tube. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal, but on a ride like the one we were having, the generosity of such a gesture was huge and was not lost on me.

Meanwhile, we waited, baking in the sun. We re-applied sun block. We finally decided that the best way to keep cool would be to keep moving, so we headed out at a leisurely pace across the dam. Halfway across, the cell phone rang. The flat was fixed and we were ready to move on. We returned to where the mechanics were waiting and were just about to roll out when...

"Damn," the DF rider said. "I just flatted again."

He hadn't even gotten back on the bike. Out of options, he found himself some shade to sit in and called the DF riders who'd turned back earlier to come and pick him up.

Denouement

We made it through the return trip without any further mechanical mishaps, but by this time everyone was dragging and feeling the effects of the heat. I continued to drink from my water bladder, but my breakfast was long gone and the snacks and energy gel hadn't done much to perk me up. Our pleasant ride was rapidly turning into an epic.

At Aubrey, we turned east on FM-428 for the home stretch back to Celina and a series of rolling and not-so-rolling hills. One of the guys, who normally rides a fast, sexy lowracer was having a tough time. "Anything less than a 20 mph average just isn't worth bringing the racer," he'd said earlier in the day. It was a decision he had come to regret, I suspect.

I was feeling a bit beaten down too, but I concentrated on pedaling in circles and remembering to drink often, all the while watching my average speed fall. When we rolled into the town square, my computer showed 60.17 miles. All it would take is a few leisurely laps up and down the lightly-traveled streets to complete two more miles and a full metric century—but I was done. I had developed a thousand-yard stare, and my legs felt rubbery. I needed air conditioning and food.

Under normal circumstances, this would have been a really fun ride (instead of a pleasant epic). The company was great, and it was fun riding with a bunch of fast recumbents, but the heat, the bad luck, and the fact that I really haven't been on the bike for a month made for a long day. I'll be ready to try it again when the rain stops and I've had a chance to get acclimated to the heat.

I'll bring more than my usual two spare tubes, however.

Long may she wave

• 3 half-inch screws - 30¢
  
• 3 lead screw anchors - 15¢
  
• 4 hours hammer drill rental from Home Depot - $41.75
  
• 5 minutes of my time (not counting the 45 minutes I spent trying to drill the first ¼" of the first hole in the brick and the 1½ hours spent running to and from Home Depot for drill rental) - FREE
• Seeing Old Glory flapping in front of the new house - Priceless

Happy Independence Day!

Teatro de los artes marcial

Wanna see something really funny? Catch some cheesy old Hong Kong chop-socky flick on Telemundo, dubbed in Spanish. Say, Invicible Armor, the synopsis of which reads, "Falsamente acusado de asesinato por un corrupto oficial, un hombre usa las artes marciales para limpiar su honor."

The truly disconcerting part is that I actually got the gist of it.

iMania

It was only as I was finding my way back here to begin this post that the irony of the previous post's title hit me. After two solid weeks of rain and one of the wettest springs in the state's history, Texas is anything but dry. Waterlogged, maybe.

I think we can safely declare that the past couple years' drought is safely over.

Anyway, with more storms in the forecast and after... um... sleeping a bit too late to get myself around in time to go riding with any of the local clubs, I'm planted in front of the TV, catching up with what's going on in the world.

The iPhone

I want to preface my remarks by noting that Apple's new superphone does look cool. I know that Bill has been salivating over this thing for months, and I expect Eric has been eyeing his new toy budget, as well.

BUT... I guess I'm not the gadget geek I used to be. I just don't get what's so special about a phone that plays music and has fancy scrolling graphics that people would feel compelled to camp out in long lines, in the rain, for a chance to buy one. Maybe I'm just cheap, because when I see all these ads touting phones that allow you to browse the web or watch TV shows from the comfort of your phone, all I can think is, "Wow. The air time for that must cost a bundle." So cheap that Turtle and I don't even spring for the extra $15/month that would allow us to make use of our camera phones.

Which leads me toward another rant about how devious it is to make camera or music phones cheap, but design them so that the only way of getting content on or off of them is to upload/download them using costly air time. But I'll resist the urge and move on.

In the news

Just when I had begun to think that Americans were starting to wise up, it looks like some of us have rediscovered the joys of frivolous litigation. When I heard about the recent $54 million (note: not $54M) lawsuit brought by a D.C. judge against a dry cleaner who misplaced a pair of his pants, I took it in stride. I view our nation's capital in much the same way as I do Hollywood, each being in its own way a sort of common sense black hole from which only ridiculousness can escape. [link]

The next story was about a woman who is suing Mars, the makers of Starburst fruit chews, claiming that, "about 3 chews and it literally locked my jaw… and it just literally pulled my jaw out of joint." [link]

Lady, you've been around long enough and have eaten enough candy to have experienced Sugar-Daddy, Tootsie Roll, and Laffy Taffy (i.e. "old-timer candy"). If you can't figure out that something like Starburst could be hazardous to your crowns, you probably should be required to wear a helmet when walking.

Literally.

Dry Spell Outlasts Dry Humor. Film at 11:00

I know, it's unconscionable to go as long as I have without posting, but while my current work situation doesn't provide much in the way of entertaining anecdotes, I'm pleased to report that I seem to have appeared on my boss's boss's radar. Is it presumptuous of me to dream that I might someday battle my way out of the cubicle and into an office again?

Maybe not, but I'm far too occupied with exceeding expectations (and getting noticed for it) to concern myself with that, just now.

Meanwhile...

I rediscovered some bicycling poetry I wrote a couple years ago. Since I can't seem to keep track of this stuff, I'm archiving it here.

There once was a C++ coder
Who was known for his powerful odor.
He said, "I commute
And it's hot out, to boot;
But my bike, she's content 'cause I rode 'er."

I'm a big fan of Harry Graham, so...

Willie up the hillside spun,
The price his burning hamstrings paid.
When halfway up he said, "I'm done."
Poor William didn't make the grade.

Willie on a bike of red
Bonked because he had no Gu.
He wore no helmet on his head,
And now he's dead: he bonked it too.

And a wee limerick...

There once was a man from Nantucket
Whose bike was so tough he could huck* it.
He rode off the edge
Of a very high ledge—
They retrieved his remains with a bucket.

* A mountain biking term meaning to... well, throw oneself off a cliff without a second thought, basically.

Ride report: Collin Classic (McKinney, TX)

The 16th Collin Classic was a very different ride from the 14th Collin Classic I first took part in, back in 2005. That one was beastly hot, the 50-something mile route was crazy with large-aggregate chip seal, and I was still suffering on a DF bike. After what seemed at the time like an ungodly amount of climbing, we had to battle up one of the vicious hills on the frontage road running south along US-75—only to arrive at McKinney High School to find that the Chipotle eats we'd been promised had been replaced with jelly sandwiches or rubbery hot dogs. Some people were irate because the t-shirts had run out, and they'd been given headsweats instead.

The Classic took a lot of knocks that year, and the ride director has since worked very hard to address the criticisms. In 2006, there was a lot less chip seal, the giant hill at the end had been deleted from the route, and there was pizza and fajita tacos for afters.

This year, the improvements to the 55-mile route (in fact, 53.72 miles) continued. There were still plenty of hills to climb, but I can't remember a ride route that had such a generous portion of smooth, well-maintained pavement. There was a small amount of chip seal, but it didn't feel particularly rough to me. Either it had been broken in, or running my tires a couple PSI softer this year helped. There was no wind to fight, and the heat wasn't too bad.

I had another very good day.

Mr. Strada, Corsa Ken, Mrs. Strada, and a boy named Foo.
(Photo courtesy of www.bicycle-stuff.com.)

I started off with The Stradas and Corsa Ken, but that didn't last more than 100 yards. Thanks to the crush of riders and a mechanical glitch involving Mrs. Strada's computer sensor, I quickly became separated from The Stradas. Not long after, I lost Ken as well. Without any social governor to keep my hammerhead wanna-be tendencies in check, I set about the business of passing... well, anyone between me and a vacant stretch of road. I hadn't started out feeling particularly spry, but my legs warmed up and the HRM showed an average around 160 bpm (not unreasonable, for me). By mile 30, the crowd had thinned slightly, and I pulled in to the rest stop to wait for the Stradas so we could regroup. When they arrived, we compared computer readings and found we'd been averaging 18.5 mph to that point.

A bit further down the road, Mrs. Strada took a spill at a railroad crossing and got banged up a bit. She's a trooper, though, and after taking a few minutes to clean her injuries, we were all back on the road. We all made it across the finish line at around 3 hours and 15 minutes, in plenty of time to chow down on questionable-looking (but muy delicioso) soft tacos filled with a mixture of eggs, potatoes, and some sort of meat-like substance that may or may not have been chicken.

It was in the cafeteria that I finally caught up with LanceNotStrong, Allez, and Allez's husband. I'd run into rcarlino before the ride, and he said Lance was looking for me, but I never was able to spot their group during the ride. I took the opportunity to interrupt their conversation for a few minutes before leaving them to analyze the contents of their tacos.

Notwithstanding my glowing review of the Wild Ride, the 16th Collin Classic might have replaced it as my best for-pay ride experience of this season, if the route had been about 10 miles longer and if I'd spent less time separated from my riding buddies. As it is, I'm pretty pleased at having finished a ride of that length, with hills, with an 18.1 mph rolling average.

On the juice

Lest any of you be tempted to suspect that I'm kidding about the pickle juice that's become increasingly popular with cyclists over the last year or so, I present Exhibit A.

Or maybe Exhibit P. Or D. Just... look at the picture.

I know what you're thinking, because I thought the same thing: "Eww. Nasty." And yes, all else being equal, you won't catch me lounging in front of the TV, sipping this stuff after a hard day at work. That's what a nice, cold dunkelweisen is for.

On the other hand, when I'm 40 miles into a hilly bike ride and sweating like a pig, this stuff is a real picker-upper. Still doesn't taste great... but better.

Meanwhile...

I found this on my camera while retrieving the picture of the pickle juice. Turtle's out of town for the weekend and may enjoy this shot of her baby girl.

Ride report: Mesquite Rodeo Ride (Mesquite, TX)

I've been back on the bike and participating in charity rallies since 2004, but I had never tried the Mesquite Rodeo Bike Ride before. At the urging of the Stradas and a couple of DF buddies from the Plano club, I signed myself up for the 56-mile course. Turtle signed up for the 20.

It takes the two of us a bit longer than most to get our collective show on the road and to get unloaded and set up, so we arrived at the Resistol arena (or Mesquite Convention Center... whatever) at around 7am. As a result, we got a prime handicap parking spot next to the hotel and set about setting up her handcycle and my bike. And then we waited, watching for the RBENT bunch we were supposed to meet. And waited. By a few minutes before 8:00, Turtle had returned from her pre-ride pit stop, and we still hadn't seen a single familiar face on a recumbent. I later learned that this was because everyone else had parked on the complete opposite side of the convention center.

But no matter. With a few minutes to spare, we made our way to the starting pack where we got Turtle introduced to a couple RBENT folks doing the short route, and I hooked up with my bunch. The start was... awkward. Fred Flintstoning it up a grade to start on a wet street with a bunch of high-strung DF riders is not the ideal way to begin a ride, but we managed and set about picking our way through the pack toward clear air. The Stradas and I quickly got separated from the rest of our group.

Early on, I was impressed with the traffic control, not only for the motorists but also in the way that we cyclists were funneled to where we needed to be by means of liberal application of road cones. Sure, it made things a little dodgy having to at the same time avoid cones knocked over by inattentive riders and greasy-looking puddles on the streets—but there were half a dozen intersections and lane transitions that would have been much less safe without them. Route layout and intersection were, with few exceptions, better than for the Wild Ride, and that's saying something. I thought the route was a nice mix of urban and country riding, and while I could have done without some of the teeth-rattling, multiply-patched sections of pavement, sometimes that's just the price you pay for beautiful scenery and the not-entirely-unpleasant tang of cow poo in your nostrils.

Photos Copyright © 2007 by flyinglazboy

The route was, at once, less hilly than I'd heard in the past and more hilly than more recent reports had led me to believe. Maybe it was just that I was having an off day (or feeling the effects of not having ridden in nearly two weeks), but it seemed like we did an awful lot of climbing for the less than 1500 feet of elevation gain the ride is supposed to have. But it was all good, and the best part is that instead of getting smacked by the thunderstorms that were predicted, we got a nice, sunny day.

And Blue Bell ice cream for afters.

I kind of wish that there had been a chance to log my sixth metric century (100 km = about 62.5 miles) of the year, but given that I thought I might have to downshift to one of the shorter routes because of the weather, 56 miles and change is just fine. Motorists were sharing the road nicely (except the woman who nearly dislocated her shoulder rolling down her window to spit and scream obscenities at us), we didn't have any unpleasant encounters with racer boys, and the company couldn't have been better. Unless...

Nah. Scratch that. I don't know if Jessica Alba even knows how to ride a bike.

Wherefore art thou, muse?

I remember now: I have this blog thingy where I used to post my internal dialogue for the... well, entertainment might be too charitable a word. Amusement, perhaps.

Around 3:30 this morning, I finally gave in to concerns about lawn care that had been milling around in my head and keeping me awake. I crept out of bed and went to my office to look up some information about thatch control and core aeration, but I ended up playing around on Flickr. It's fortunate that web sites don't literally collect dust, but I could tell that it had been a while since I'd been on that site. As if it weren't bad enough that I haven't really uploaded much of anything since Turtle's and my Caribbean cruise last year, I also had a couple buddy requests (or something like that) in my in box.

I didn't even know I had an in box on Flickr.

Anyway, I discovered a new "blog this" feature that allows you to, with the click of a button, add many of the photos on Flickr as a blog posting. Even more exciting, this actually does work with the new and super handy (here's a tissue, in case any of that sarcasm dripped on your shoes) Blogger Beta. I promptly blogged a couple photos I found particularly interesting so that you could enjoy them too.

That lasted about as long as it took for me to get to work, have a cup of coffee, and pause to wonder about the copyright implications of my actions. Sure enough, "The Jimmer's" photos were marked "All rights reserved", so despite the fact that he (or she) hadn't disabled my ability to use the "blog this" button, I felt my only correct options were to either take down the images from my blog, or go through the whole process of contacting the photographer to ask his permission to display his (or her) work.

Frankly, that's just too much effort to go through just for an image of a dilapidated shack with a TV with the screen shot out in the front yard. Even if my alternate title was going to be "The Presley Homestead".

Meanwhile

I've been trying to take Tink's recent challenge to heart and return to noticing all the strange little things going on in the world around me.

• The beefy, early-middle-aged guy in the booth across from us at Chili's. The tribal armband tattoo was kind of cool. The spider web encircling the point of his elbow wasn't something I would have chosen—but then, part of the reason I don't have one is that I could never think of a design that represented something integral enough to Who I Am that I'd want to wear it for the rest of my life.
  
  Which brings me to the four-inch high "KISS" plastered across his bicep. Now, I can almost understand someone getting a tattoo of the Grateful Dead's iconic skull. For their fans, it's not just a band; it's a way of life. But KISS? Sure, I have a couple of their earlier albums (one within arm's reach), from before they got old and fat and couldn't carry off the whole rock-gods-in-makeup thing any more. But come on. Bands come and go.
  
  I bet the poor guy sees that tattoo in the mirror and wonders what he was thinking. Or worse, maybe he doesn't.
  
  
• Speaking of rocking out, I actually got on my desktop computer at home the other day and rediscovered the pile of MP3s I have on it. It occurred to me that it might be nice to put together some driving music to listen to during my commutes, now that I have a CD player in the car. The result? Commuter Sampler - Vol. 1.
  
  You'd think that I'd use lots of soothing ambient music and drowsy Rachmaninov... stuff. Nope. It's all high octane stuff. Counterintuitively, it helps my mood during my commutes, perhaps because I'm so busy howling along with Queens of the Stone Age's "No One Knows" or Dwight Yoakum's "Fast As You" that I can't be bothered to get pissed off when the dozenth butthead cuts me off without signaling. Or maybe there just aren't that many people willing to cut off the insane guy while he's yelling at his windshield.
  

Cut off

If it weren't for the fact that Blogger is a free service, I'd start to suspect that I'd forgotten to pay my blog bill. Sometime during the past few weeks, I've stopped receiving notifications about comments left by anyone who's logged in to Google. That means I get notices when rcarlino leaves a comment—anonymous, technically, since he's not logged in, but not really, since he leaves his handle—but never know when anyone else does.

Right about the time Emma Sometimes pointed out that one of my posts had got the comment link turned off, I noticed that other posts had received comments I didn't know were there. And here I thought I was just boring you all.

Are the rest of you having this problem, or am I getting the VIP treatment?

Meanwhile...

I wish I had more entertaining things to tell you about, but there's not much going on but work.

I'm overdue for a trip to Costco, so maybe something weird and blogworthy will come of that.

This morning, I saw three ducks foraging in the ground cover landscaping outside the big city building where I work. They were the tame white ones, and I have no idea where they might have come from.

Yep. I'm coming up dry, so in parting just let me share this thought with you: Я имеют жить форель в моем нижнего белья.

Ride report: Richardson Wild Ride (Richardson, TX)

For most of the early part of this year, I was focused on training and raising money for my MS 150 ride, but today Turtle and I took part in our first charity ride of the year.


The Richardson Wild Ride benefits the Richardson Regional Cancer Center and is held in conjunction with the Wildflower Arts and Music Festival each May. I rode in the rally two years ago, before I made the switch from my Trek 1500 road bike to the recumbent. That year, the weather was sunny and surprised a lot of us with a high temperature in the upper 90s. I went out fast with the long riders, bonked hard before the second rest stop, and barely managed to limp back to the finish for 40 miles. Still, what I'd seen of the event impressed me, and I was eager to see how things looked from the seat of my recumbent this year.

When we rolled out of bed at 5:20 this morning, I heard rain pounding on the roof. I groaned inwardly, because Turtle has a history of having to skip rides because of bad weather, and she was really looking forward to this one. But a quick check of the weather radar revealed that the rain was much lighter elsewhere and would likely pass through before the start of the ride. We continued our preparations, and by 6:30 the rain had stopped. At 8:00, when the ride started, the streets were still damp and puddly in spots, but we weren't getting rained on. And it was cool. Oh bliss!

Squirrel Bait—or as she has officially requested to be addressed, "Squirrelly Girl"—was there too, and we planned to start at the rear of the pack with Turtle so that we could ride out with her. Turtle was headed out to do the 16-mile route on her handcycle; SG and I would ride together as far as the second rest stop, which was the turnaround for the 40-mile route. I'd decide at that point whether to return with her or continue on the 64-mile route.

Starting at the back, we knew that we'd have to fight our way up through the slower riders, but by 15 miles the pack had thinned out a bit. When we go to rest stop 2, SG stuck to her plan and continued on the 40-mile route. I was feeling strong and headed into the hills to the east of Lake Lavon to bag my 5th metric century for the year.

At rest stop 3, I pulled in for a snack and a potty break, and I was pleased to see Mr. & Mrs P, a couple friends I'd met on a previous ride were standing next to their brand new, fire engine red Bacchetta Stradas. We rode on together, forming our own little pace line and having a ball.

See, one of the things about recumbents is that our ride rhythm is a bit different than wedgies. We tend to descend faster, while the wedgies are riding their brakes. Since we have to work harder on climbs, we prefer to fly down hills and use the momentum to reduce the amount of work we have to put into a following climb. So I often find myself penned in behind a glob of wedgies, losing all my momentum and then having to work my tail off on the following climb because the wedgies don't even start climbing until they absolutely have to.

It was quite relaxing to ride with a couple people whose rhythms and ability level were similar, so no one had to wait up for anyone else. And we got some strange looks from our fellow riders along the way, including a priceless moment during a climb when we passed a line of wedgies. On the way down the hill following the climb, MrsP rolled up next to me.

"Did you hear that?" she asked. I hadn't, so she explained. "I didn't get all of it, but one of the women in that group we just passed said something about us passing them, and one of the guys told her, 'Don't worry. They won't be able to keep it up for long.'"

They were right, of course. Once we got out of the rolling hills, we did ease the pace to 17 mph or so, but we never did see that group again. I guess they couldn't keep up our pace for long either.

When we arrived at the finish, we thought it would be neat to line up across the road, side by side, so the event photographer would get a shot of the three of us together. At least, until we discovered that there was no even photographer at the finish line this year. Ah well. We just consoled ourselves by sitting under a tree with Turtle, Sarah, and CliffyB while noshing on cold cheese pizza.

And the sun came out. It was a very good day and among the most fun of the rallies I've ridden during the past few years.

In terms of the ride organization itself, it's the about the best I've ever seen, from registration and packet pick up, to parking direction, to staging at the start. The rest stops are not as extravagant as some, but when you get to the finish, it's pizza and beverages galore. Traffic control on this ride is outstanding from beginning to end, with peace officers controlling most intersections and volunteer flagmen on some of the busier streets to make sure riders make needed lane changes in time. The only possible down side is that riders can become complacent and ride right through un-controlled intersections, assuming that they have right-of-way—but that's absolutely not the fault of the organizers. Another knock peculiar to Turtle's situation is that they hadn't provided a single handicap-accessible porta-john. She was pretty hot about that, but the ride director made it right, comping Turtle's ride fees for both this year and next year's ride, as well as giving his heartfelt promise that the oversight would not be repeated next year.

Thus making the Richardson Wild Ride one of the premier rallies in North Texas.