Link of the Day [6.12.08]
Buy me something here. I especially am awaiting for the Kawazoe Tamaki figure.
Epic day in the saddle
Okay. This is a blow-by-blow account of one of my finest days riding my bike around the neighborhood. I linked in several routes and climbed some hills. I was moving along pretty quick and I was feeling fine. The cyclocomputer says 26.96 miles at 15.0 mph. I spent 1 hour 45 minutes on the road. That was fun.
So, I come home itching to ride. In my mind, I want to do a longer route, but haven’t had the inclination to just do it. Today could be the day. I’m feeling fine. I ate spaghetti for dinner last night and for lunch today. Carbo-loaded!
I load up the trusty old steed, drink a few glasses of water, then push off from the door and head to the same old route — down Pleasant. I bomb it hitting 42 mph. The bike is a little squirrely today as I’m not sure that it has the proper tire inflation. At the bottom of the hill, some dumb lady stops at the one lane bridge and I lock my brakes. I need to practice that better. I skid up besides her. While trying to slow down, I was downshifting my gears, but I also instinctively back up my cranks causing me to throw the chain. I fix it on the side of the road.
When I get back to the route, I have to hurry across the bridge chased by a car. On I go through the cool woods, left at Deerpark, bombing past the Ravens training facility. I eventually end up in New Town climbing the first hill. I have to drop it into the granny gear, because I’m not warmed up yet. I do the loop then right, instead of left, onto Deerpark and through Soldier’s Delight I go. I was startled by a bunch of gay-ass teenagers. I give them the finger, daring them to come back. Fuckers.
I take Berryman’s lane to Reisterstown Road where I do a u-turn, but then I head for the SPCA of Baltimore County. That’s downhill, so when I reach it I turn around a climb back up. Not bad.
Back to Church where there’s another hill. I climb again not bad. I’m flying at this point maintaining the 15 mph average. I head for the other hill on Church, climb it and head for the Tollgate hill. Before that I bomb another long hill. My bike has a relatively short wheel base, so all the bumps, dips and cracks in the asphalt were jarring. On the Tollgate climb, I practice spinning, concentrating on my form. I know now that I have to lower my seat as I bounce around too much while in the saddle. It’ll be just a smidge (2cm) lower next time.
Once more around the block and I am home.
Flew through that hour and it was fun. I have to do that again sometime.
“Hunh, those guys are a bunch of fags!”
Need to publish this for the upcoming election. It’s another half-hearted draft. I don’t know where it was going, but enjoy!
Dave Neiwart sums up my problems with the consertive side of the political spectrum embodied by the modern Republican party.
Quote of the Day [6.11.08]
“Change We Can Believe In”
Senator Barack Obama’s campaign slogan
Link of the Day [6.11.08]
Lightning is scary. So be careful.
I often wonder what I would do if I got caught out in a thunderstorm while out on a bike ride. You see, my bike is steel, all the better to be nice conduit of electrical energy. I’m riding a lightning rod. So when a storm comes up, should I abandon my trusty steed and duck for cover? I don’t know. I hope to not find out. I’m a little bit scared thinking about it.
Who’s Next, too?
Are you getting the latest Mac OS?
Snow Leopard is not as fearsome sounding as ocelot would’ve been, but that’s what Apple’s giving us. No new features, but supposedly changes under the hood.
First and foremost, I hope they do some optimization. Make OS X run faster on my MBP. Make it consume less battery.
Next should be some bug fixes. Fix whatever is scary. Then fix the security of the OS. Just make it better.
From a programming perspective, the multi-core programming doo-hicky has to be explained more. I want to know how to make an octocore mac scream. That would be nice.
Chinese Spam Engine
I always wondered how spammers filled their spam email with snippets of text. You’ve read it. It defeats your spam blocker with the random text, and when you read it it almost makes sense. Almost.
So now my Annie Hall review is infamous. It’s probably clogging up the internet pipes as we speak. More interesting is if I ever receive it back.
Can anyone decode the unicode text and tell me what it means?
Here it is in full: (with additional line breaks added by me)
Beijing China
211.145.113.234
/C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/%u675C%u76C8/%u684C%u9762/
%u7535%u5F71%u4E0E%u65F6%u5C1A/
%u8D44%u6599%u5206%u7C7B/AN/BrowserMetrics%20Annie%20Hall.htm
Quote of the Day [6.10.08]
“A Leader We Can Believe In.”
Senator John McCain’s campaign slogan
Link of the Day [6.10.08]
If you aren’t reading John Gruber’s DaringFireball, then you are missing out on perceptive analysis of Apple and all Apple related issues. You should probably read his take on the Steve Jobs keynote. He’ll surprise you.
Condition Red
I finally rode my bike.
This weekend was the hottest so far for the summer. It was record temps and high humidity, and it was hot enough to send out a code red for extreme conditions. Whatever you do don’t do anything to strenuous during the peak daylight hours.
I was stupid, and went out shortly before noon. I figured to get a ride in and jump in the pool afterwards.
The ride began somewhat fun. A right onto Greenspring and a quick jaunt to Caves. There must’ve been a tail wind, because I was flying. I really thought I was in shape, but it’s been two months since the fatwars and I’m home as a veteran so I deserved my rest and pie. I’ve lost all conditioning since then, but I am mentally thinking I am okay. With the tailwind, it looked as if I was flying and the conditioning was still there. On the turn around on Park Heights, the tailwind became a headwind and reality set in.
I was pedaling, but seemed to go nowhere, 12mph! And it was slow. The melting tarmac added to the problem. As I crested the hill and down the other side into the valley, the heat began to build. Halfway through the ride, I knew I had to get out of there as the heat was becoming oppressive. I was going to have to take the shortcut — up Dover Road.
I have never ridden up Dover Road. And it was only my fifth day in the saddle all season. Dover Road rises up a hill for at least half a mile. It’s probably not good to take it on the hottest day. And it wasn’t. I made it a third of the way, got off and walked the rest of the way up. My spirit was broken. I bonked. I spun the rest of the way home.
I was hurting for the next half hour trying to cool down and get hydrated. It was really something.
The next day though was fun. A tad earlier in the day. Less humidity. A slight wind. It was great. And I was running quick. I think it’s coming back. The feeling of the need to go for a ride. I’m starting to smile.