TheOrangeSlayedTheRake

Found it.

2010-02-20T12:49:00.003-05:00

Well, in the Grand Ginger Beer Quest, there's progress, courtesy of the Ypsi Food Coop and whoever introduced me to it by bringing it to Burn's Night. It's got the smack-a-dack to the tongue that I've been looking for all this time. Not the Gigantor version that I still seek... that Jamaican stuff that I bought that fateful lunch break while working at the bike shop in high school. You know, that Ginger Beer of Legend (GBoL) that was too boo-coo (beaucoup, whatever... think Full Metal Jacket - or was it Platoon?) and took 20 minutes to sip through - it being that powerful in The Ginger. Anyway, I'm a little worried that I might never get back to the GBoL, but I'm willing to continue the quest.

Minor Recipe note: When making a cocktail such as a "Dark and Stormy", stay the hell away from spiced rums. You see that label in the back - Captain Morgan's "Tattoo"? Well, how do I say this... How about: Fuck. That. I've had me some "acquired taste" and novelty liquors/spirits in my day (Moutai, Unicum, Jaegermeister, stinky Islay single-malts), but this is one I'm not ever planning to buy again, even as a joke. It's just not worth it.

([nostalgic waving] Hi Moutai! I miss you! You and your gag-worthy moldy-sweat-sock taste... [/nostalgic waving])

the quest continues...

2010-02-14T19:30:00.004-05:00

I thought I had it... the Ginger Beer of Prophesy. At $10 for a 4-pack, the legendary Fentiman's.

It had to be the ginger beer I have long sought - a ginger beer to smack the smirk off my taste buds, to force me to sip it like a peaty scotch, to go slow and appreciate it for who it was.

But it wasn't. Tasty, but too much sorrow for the ginger beer I wished it to be.

I now know that the GB for me will that one from the Ypsi Food Co-op, the one from Burn's Night... if only I could remember the name. I just hope they still have it.

A wee bit of purging...

2009-10-25T15:06:00.000-04:00

Well, I haven't really been too excited about brewing mead (meading) lately, and I seem to have not have any batches running right now, and the supply of good stuff has run pretty low. All that's left is a bunch of the crappy stuff that hasn't improved with age... So I'm pitching it. Farewell crappy mead, hello reclaimed shelf space.

Foolishness

2009-09-23T16:13:00.000-04:00

Is there a difference between arrogance and foolish arrogance?

I mean, I think of the confident end of the spectrum, with there being those who are confident (assume rightfully so through competence), those who are arrogant (though competent), and the those who are foolishly arrogant (where their impression of themselves goes beyond their competence). It's these last ones I think of and how their arrogance blinds them to what they aren't seeing. Bumbling along, blindly assuming they're right and everyone else is wrong.

But is there a difference between the last two? Can one be arrogant without being foolishly blind? I dunno, maybe... It's riding a fine line though.

Connecticut Hulu

2009-09-22T22:07:00.003-04:00

I'll admit to being a little bit re-addicted to TV lately. I've been watching episodes of this and that on Hulu for, oh... well, let's just call it about a year.

Anyhoo, I just get a kick out of it every time I type the url in, seeing as how if you put a CT before the HULU you get Cthulu.

starts with popcorn

2009-09-12T11:49:00.004-04:00

Since I've been making use of the popcorn popper a lot lately (I can't figure out whether it's an excuse to eat popcorn, butter, or salt), I've been looking at the popcorn a bit.

I'm pondering this popped shape and that popped shape, figuring out which ones I find appealing and those that aren't as appealing.

So of course with the magical power of teh intarwebs, I go on a search for high speed video of popcorn popping. Along the way, these nifty compilations (I like the propane ballon and water ballon on the face best. The karate chop gives me the woogies.)

2009-09-09T17:00:00.001-04:00

Who was it that said "the only person who can make you feel inferior is yourself".... ???

'Cause today, I'm amending that to "the only person who you can trust to decide what is and is not bullshit, is yourself." It seems I've grown tired of taking people's word for it on this or that in work-related important stuff.

Skeptical of promises, I am.

Trust my own bullshit detector more, I will.

mixed emotions

2009-08-18T19:21:00.006-04:00

It always gets at me when I hear about motorist-on-cyclist crashes on the road and injuries and fatalities. It might have happening "over there somewhere"... California, Colorado, Georgia, but it was still something that got at me. (At the risk of sounding melodramatic) Brothers and Sisters of The Bike. People doing the same thing I do, experiencing the same kinds of things, the only difference being where they were doing it.

But this time it happened here at home.

Today was a memorial ride for Tim. The word went out and people gathered at the High School to ride out to the spot where he was killed, have a few words and ride back. I had no idea what to expect, but was blown away at the turnout. I'm guessing that it was over 200 people. This is where the mixed emotions get me all choked up. So heartening that bike people will come together like this to give moral support to the family of one of us. Might not know him, but they care about what happened. Made a point to show up, on a weekday at rush hour, to be there and do this.
And at the same time, it's crushingly sad. It wasn't drunk driving, or bad weather, or erratic behavior. It was during the day, Tim riding on the paved shoulder, and some young guy distracted by changing the radio station (or something like that) drifts out of his lane and runs him over. Killed right then and there. Fucking pointless. No good reason.

And it could have just as easily been you, or me, or that chick over there, or that dude over there. We normally expect injury and death at complicated, confusing places - intersections, lanes merging, people running red lights. But he was doing everything right and got clipped anyway. It's not exactly "scary"... I'm not scared to ride the places and the streets that I always have, but as I get older, I'm feeling less invulnerable. And this pushes on that feeling.

And there's the other emotions too. The anger that wants to get in the face of every local politician and cop I can find and say "Can't you see!? People can get killed, so take it seriously. There's a lot of people out there riding bikes in this town. They care about this. Serve your constituents, dammit."

And in the end, I make my way through one more emotion. The one that says to stand up and speak up. That there are many out there out there and we are not alone. Make your voice heard.

and the special today is...

2009-07-06T14:22:00.002-04:00

Yes, that says "baby marrows au gratin". Your eyes are not playing tricks on you.

Only 6.50 Euros! Get 'em while they're hot!

Greek Week (of the first)

2009-07-05T16:37:00.007-04:00

I'm in Greece for work, half(ish)way through a 10-day jaunt. And before you go all "ooh... that's awesome", lemme just tell you that Athens isn't exactly my favorite place in the world. Maybe I've ust been seeing the crappy side of it, but sheesh, folks - why is there graffiti and garbage everywhere?

Funny first impression - on the way to the hotel from the airport, taking the bus and trying to figure out which stop to get off at, all the signs in Greek, let's just say I missed the stop. So I got off and had a ways to walk. As I'm moseying along, I figure I'll ask if I've passed it up or not, so assuming that the local constabulary probably speaks English, I ask the Greek cop with the automatic rifle in his hands standing outside some building. He gives me pointers, and as I walk away reflect on the nature of heavily armed cops, and look at the gate he was in front of, and think "goddamn, that's a big fucking fence, and that sure is an ugly building - what's with all the weaponry?" 50 meters later, it becomes clear: U.S. Embassy. That's just like us, isn't it? Big gate, big gun. Ah well. I plan to stop in to say Hi as some point since I've never been inside a U.S. Embassy, and I might as well... you know, touch some remote sovereign U.S. dirt.

The jetlag didn't hit much, but planes are clearly getting smaller, with more sardines per can (Now! With More Tasty Morsels!), especially with international flights. As a boy such as myself in the 95th percentile of leg length, I get soooo fucked for legroom on 12 hours of flights.

Events-wise, I didn't really do anything other than ride the Metro and do some work stuff. The Metro, by the way? Faaaahbulous. It is clearly my favorite part of everyday Athens. Train comes every 5 minutes, fast, cheap (10 euro unlimited one-week pass, that also transfers onto you on all forms of public transport), and clean and sparkly new. Buses... suck. The Tram (street-level local rail) is a combination of a train and a bus, and the worst part of both. But the Metro? That's some good stuff right there...

I took the advice of colleagues and went on a one-day cruise to some Greek islands today - Hydra, Pouros, and Aegima. It was pretty sweet seeing the bluer-than-blue water, and the little touches of architecture and landscape that remind me of oh-so-many James Bond movies. I'm just wondering where they keep the underwater jet-skis that they use to out-run the sharks while fighting Dr. No's evil henchmen trying to steal the nuclear bombs.

Hydra was pretty cool - once you get away from the port. Desert-y in the middle of a sea. On a walk up the coast I spied this little building, which turned out to be an old slaughterhouse from back in the day, but which was now housing an installation of sculpture themed on the slaughterhouse history of it.

That's a bronze you can see down low by the water - a casting of a cat. And the bronze casting of the sluiceway that used to carry the blood and guts down to the sea in the 1800's. In all fairness to the slaughterers of the time, it's not like there's any other food to be had on the rock - it's a barren hot rock, and nothing grows there except for scrub. Of course the principle foodstuff was animalstuff.

Pouros and Aegima were less interesting - just a bunch of shops in port, and not very much time to explore. I went for a swim on a beach that seemed to be representative of all the other beaches I've seen in Greece so far: tiny, and dirty. Seriously folks - do they not have any garbage cans around here? There's trash all over the place. For a country whose economy is significantly influenced by tourism, you'd think they might work a little harder at making it... less dumpy. Nice to cruise on a boat for a while, but only at the ed of it did I realize that all the people weraing name tags were in fact Jehovah's Witnesses taking extra holiday after their annual worldwide convention in Frankfurt. Half of the people on the boats were Witnesses. I'm just glad I didn't learn it until the end (as it would have negatively affected my mood), and that they were in non-preaching mode while in a restricted space.

On Saturday, I did the Acropolis thing (say "A-crrrop-oh-lee" if you're Greek). And since Dimitris Ypsilanti was Hellenic, I figured a big ole Parthenon shout-out to my Bike Ypsi peeps. I know, I know... it's the Black T-shirt Of Controversy, but just allow me this indulgence. The much-vaunted Acropolis Museum? You know, the one where they're getting more than bitchy with the Brits about the stolen Elgin Marbles (er... Acropolis Marbles)? Well, the museum is pretty, but I've really just had my fill of old broken rocks and pottery. It's great if you're into it, but I'm just glad it only cost 1 Euro to get in. And who the hell designed the glass floors? I don't wear a kilt in the regimental style, but even I was wondering if people on the floor below me were getting a glimpse of my nether regions. Certainly, women in skirts had to be thinking twice, at least for a moment or two.

So what else of note?

In Europe, this 6ft+ boy feels pretty huge compared to the locals. Not that they're shrimpy, just that I take up more space in an elevator, or in line at the kabob shop, than everyone else.

The Greeks sure seem to like Obama - I've gotten more than a few questions in conversation about "what do you think of Obama? We are really glad he's your President (instead of that other guy)" And I think they're kind of talking for most Europeans when they say that.

Athens cops? Well, I ever thought a beret would look bad-ass, but when you've got your hand on the grip of an automatic rifle - well, it's definitely a "Yes, I'm wearing a beret, motherfucker. And I can kick your ass while wearing it, too. Just try me" kind of look.

So how about that non-motorized transportation? Well, I've seen about 10,000 cars so far, and only 4 bikes. If I were feeling brave, I'd ride a bike here, but with a certain amount of trepidation. People drive a million mile an hour, on tight little streets, and while the local peds seem to have eyes in the back of their heads, I haven't developed the habit yet. The non-motorized goal would not be to get more bikes on the streets, but just as a start... to get the cars off the sidewalks. To make the comparison of San Francisco-is-to-bikes as Athens-is-to-pedestrians, it's an issue of: while it seems fast, furious, and chaotic, the relevant parties in transportation are actually pretty aware of each other - it just all happens pretty fast.

Anyhoo... that's about it for now. More to come, stay tuned.

Food.

2009-06-28T16:26:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was Cranksgiving In June... A new version from friend Thomas (http://www.ypsivelo.org/) to compliment the traditional Cranksgiving I usually organize near the Thanksgiving time. Always a fun sort of event to spend one's money and time and effort for a good cause...

But this time, since I was riding instead of organizing, and it wasn't so much a timed race as it was a weight-hauling competition, it allowed for a certain amount of time for thought. From past Cranksgivings, and food donation sorting a Foodgatherers, I've come to an opinion on food donation, and I decided to compete for the pounds-per-dollar category... Basically, I want my donation dollar to go as far as possible, to provide as much food as possible.

And it really got me thinking. About what we are paying for when we buy food in this country. About how our food dollars are spent.

Not in the trendy Urban Agriculture/Locavore/Organic silliness that has taken over these days (something that advertising marketeers have co-opted to sell you more Tide and Twinkies and Toothpaste), but about basic sustenance. We're in this recession, and hundreds of thousands of people are losing jobs and houses and retirement savings and college funds and whole urban economies (Flint, MI anyone? Detroit?).

And so I'm in the Chinese Grocery store yesterday, calculating that this 20lb bag of rice at $10 is more food/dollar than the 20lb-er at $13, but at the same time, how many meals 20lbs of rice will provide. But then today, not 24 hours later I bought 4 bagels and a cup of coffee for $5 and change, and that's not even a meal, and it kind of made me a little bit sick to think about. And then I'm sitting here in Meijer waiting for a friend to finish shopping, watching a lot of Well-Fed Americans do things like buy 24-packs of bottled water and Mountain Dew. I'm kind of unsettled by this.

There's not exactly anything I can do about it to affect the opinions and habits of My Fellow Americans (aside from the usual blog post and such), but it's one of those things that just gets me thinking. About what we do, and how we spend money, and why we eat some of the crap that we eat, and the daylight between these moments of clarity (or best intention), and what seems to just happen.

MacAskill, Danny

2009-06-24T21:11:00.000-04:00

If you haven't already seen this, you NEED to. Every minute is better than the previous.

It is no exaggeration to say that I watch it and get all choked up and weepy, and not just because that is some really really pretty riding. There's so much bike love going on right there, it's a beautiful thing.

USPDF

2009-06-24T20:55:00.002-04:00

Seems I've had a change of heart...

I used to sneer at pole dancing. You know, wisecracks about parenting... that you can say you've been a good parent if, and only if, you've managed to, until they are 18: a) keep your kid from getting arrested/imprisoned, b) kept your kid from becoming a parent themselves, and c) keep them off The Pole.

As of today, I'm taking back that last one. Check this out... I think I'm going to start calling Pole Dancing as much of a sport as Rhythmic Gymnastics. If you're bored at the beginning, skip ahead to the last half - it gets more and more impressive. Oh, say... somewhere around 1:55 or 2:35 or 2:55.

(it's PG-13 for adult themes such as pole dancing, but there's no nudity, so I'm calling it "safe for work")

kapow-kapow

2009-06-22T20:38:00.004-04:00

I'm not going to make any grand pronouncements (as I'm usually inclined to do) about this, but let it be known that I've had it just about "up to here" with white guys talking about how Obama is going to take away people's guns. About how "just you watch... the fascist state is right over the horizon. I'm going to be prepared when the revolution comes. Me and my guns."

Just so you know where I'm coming from: I'm an able-bodied, college-educated, straight-acting, adult, white male with a haircut and a clean shave. Among other things, I: am an Infidel, am an ex-Boy Scout who enjoyed earning Rifle Merit Badge, am pro-marriage-equality (marry as many consenting adults as you want), am anti-Affirmative-Action (it's socially/morally/politically intractable), am a supporter of gun rights AND gun control, love it when women are in power, don't believe in Global Warming(tm) but fervently believe that renewable energy sources are the only future, and dearly love nuclear power as a bridge technology to get us to where we need to go. There's more about me that you can ask, but hopefully that tells you which demographics I don't fall into (as I doubt there are any simple ones that I DO fall into).

So back to the gun thing and 'when the revolution comes...'

I'm worried that I'm going to have to defend myself against the crazies among the citizenry. That I'm going to have to take up arms against my oppressors, and that they will be my neighbors.

While they are metaphorically tweaking out about what the metaphorical police thugs are doing, I'm going have to metaphorically sneak up behind them and metaphorically pop a metaphorical cap in their metaphorical ass so that their crazy shit doesn't get me killed by accident.

Maybe it comes off better if I call it: Doctrine of Preemption. Because that's really what it boils down to, an arms race. A Cold War in our own backyards. Cuban Missile Crises in neighborhoods.

The end will not come because the Big Evil Federal Government destroyed the US of A in a fit of totalitarian fascism. The end will come because neighbor will be afraid of neighbor and we will tear each other apart in the process.

Constitutionally guaranteed freedom to royally fuck ourselves over. And you better fuck over your neighbor, unless they do it to you first.

---------------------------------------

So here's the funny thing from last week. As a group conversation turns to an episode of gun/Obama/we're-doomed-to-socialism banter, this one guy (who lives in a suburban white-bread neighborhood, and commutes to/works in a suburban white-bread neighborhood) tells a funny story about how... he has a CCW, and keeps a loaded gun in his car, but he sort of forgot, and this a friend borrowed his car, he said OK and handed over the keys, but forgot about the gun until the friend was miles down the road, and... gosh, isn't it funny that I had to call him and tell him not to freak out that there's a loaded gun in the car that he's driving, so don't go to Canada, don't speed, and if you get pulled over by the cops, well, this is why they have their guns drawn when they are talking to you.

Ha-ha-ha, isn't that funny. He Forgot That He Keeps A Loaded Gun In The Car.

On what planet is that responsible gun ownership?

Here's what I'm thinking... When The Revolution Comes, I know where I'm going to get myself a gun. There's this guy I know who keeps one in his car, and from time to time he sometimes even forgets that it's there. Seems like a pretty easy way to get my hands on one.

dang.

2009-06-15T22:14:00.002-04:00

That's kinda messed up. So much for trying to help someone out. Goes to show... if you're thinking about helping out a stranger stranded on the side of the road, at 2:30am, watch your back.

Motivated Smiling

2009-06-11T16:27:00.000-04:00

People who practice "intentional smiling" creep me out like you wouldn't believe...

Don't look at me to figure out what you're supposed to say, say what you mean, dammit. And when I don't smile back, don't assume that I'm angry, just because you expect your smile to be met with a smiling response from me. I might just be a non-smiling person. Deal honestly and explain your position instead of trying to persuade with your demeanor.

Facts, not feelings, folks. Learn to live with them.

Veggie Pets

2009-06-11T09:26:00.000-04:00

There's all this over-inflated hoo-ha these days about gardens, "urban farmers", and all sorts of fluffy notions about how planting plants in your garden will save your food bill, the planet, and the children all at once. Me, I planted some tomatos in a pot, and it's like they're little veggie pets. "Bob" (seen here) seems to be doing well, though I'm inclined to rename him "Seymour". "Chuck", his upside-down cousin does not yet seem to be as ambitious, but he might be angry about the rough handling while getting repotted in the inverted orientation..

I'll have to add though, that since transferring the kale to the bed with the ground cover, the slugs that have started eating it are, in effect, eating a pet, and thus essentially attacking a family member. If any of those slugs are reading this blog, let it be known that you've been warned. That kale is a friend of mine. You better back the hell off.

More Eulexia

2009-06-02T11:47:00.000-04:00

While my favorite use of eulexia used to be transmogrifying "god bless america" into " goat-blast a marigold", it seems that what's taking prominence these days is transmogrifying "buy american" in to "buy a merkin".

I'm doing the fancy-phone "MMS blogging from lunch", so I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to find their way over to Wikipedia to find out what a merkin is.

what to do with that

2009-05-28T18:18:00.002-04:00

So I got a new phone and I'm migrating contact information from one to the other, which requires a certain amount of massaging of data, going through and cleaning it up so that it imports cleanly, and as I go through, the entry for my grandmother has to be cleaned up. But you see, that'd be my dead grandmother. So the question becomes... shouldn't I just delete it? I mean, it's not like I'm going to call her or anything.

It's like when I enter people's birthdays in my calendar - I punch it in, then hit the "repeat" feature, which then has a choice of "no end date" or "repeat until..." I my mind, I always run the imaginary dialog of "ok, well they're not immortal, so how long do I think they're going to live?" I never enter an end date, but still, it's like this tiny little bit of mortality entering into the silly virtual world.

Do it... To it.

2009-05-15T23:51:00.005-04:00

Right. So here's the deal... if you didn't know this about me before, it's time you heard about it - I like me some punkrockmusic.

And it was just on a lark, a fluke, a happenstance, that this morning I switched the radio station away from the news and to a music station with annoying drive-time radio, hoping against hope for something new. But I was rewarded with the old. The old and good. And new.

Pennywise is coming to town.

There's a bunch of hardcore punk out there that doesn't grab me. And we won't talk about that. But every now and then, I need some Minor Threat. And Bad Religion goes well most of the time, but if you've heard 3 songs, you've heard 'em all.

Pennywise, they just have that thing.

Goodness. Get me some.

embarrassing food revelations

2009-04-29T21:12:00.004-04:00

I newly, dearly, and enthusiastically love Soy Vay Teriyaki sauce.

What's embarrassing? Let me put it to you this way... I had never had it before until I bought the first bottle 2-3 weeks ago. I accidentally dropped it on the kitchen floor while unpacking groceries and it made a sticky, goopy mess. But it smelled so good I couldn't help but dab my finger in the broken-glass-strewn puddle and risk my tongue to have a taste. Delicious. So I bought another bottle. But that bottle, every time I take it out of the fridge for potstickers, or just on rice... well, I sneak a little swig of it.

Yes, I've come to terms with the statement: I do shots of teriyaki sauce. I'm not ashamed. I think.

The sweet and salty, with enough chunks of ginger, garlic, sesame to chew a little bit at the end.. This is a sickness, isn't it? I bought my 3rd bottle today. Not because I was out of it, but because was going to be out, and I don't want to not have any when the craving hits me.

The other revelation is about popcorn. I've always wanted a hot air popper, so I finally went out and spent the $22 on one, and now I'm stylin'. The thing is, I always thought "corn is corn". I mean heck, how big of a deal is dried out corn? Well, I have learned that the people I was scoffing at all those years buying fancypants dried corn kernels - well, that's me. I now see how the $1.99 2lb bag of crinkled, ugly kernels is not exactly a bargain. They pop all weird, small, and unsatisfying. When I'm out of this stuff, I'm buying the fancypants stuff.

it'll do for now.

2009-04-23T20:45:00.007-04:00

Loyal and devoted readers will remember a certain broken bike from last season. Well, due my lack of disposable income and the simple existence of winter, that bike sat around something fierce. Not being able to put it down, not wanting to spend money to make it healthy. Something to be said for not throwing good money after bad.

But the thing is, it's getting really, really, reallllly pretty out, and the dirt trails have been calling to me somethin' fierce. So I gave in... I've got a crappy wheel that was just laying around, and it works. But the derailleur hanger, that was a different trick. Last weekend, I got by with a little help from a friend. M got a new TIG welder and would let me use it, so I went about fixin' me some bike. I had a loose replaceable derailleur hanger, access to TIG, a burning desire, a steady hand, and intentional ignorance of the possiblity of failure.

Now, former fellow bike mechanics and metallurgy professors of mine will surely be horrified to see that I welded a wrought alloy to a cast alloy. But you know what? It might not be kosher, but I really don't care right now. There is simply so much that is wrong with this bike that it's just time for something new. But I'm still not in a financial comfort zone (at least not for a few months) and so I just want to ride in the meantime. What other compelling reasons are there for the retirement of this bike?

- 125 mm rear axle spacing really limits wheel(hub) and drivetrain options.
- Limping along on a crappy junker rear wheel.
- Hardnose/hardtail (i.e. rigid, non suspension) frame... it's served me well, but the riding out in Arizona on the big rocks has shown me how keeping wheels in contact with the earth can be beneficial to traction... especially in those high-pucker-factor moments when pointed downhill at speed into The Chunky. I do, however, like passing the sissies on the $3000 bikes who marvel that someone can even ride on trails [gasp!] without the cushy boing-boing bikes. So I'll miss that part, surely. Of course, I'll be one of those sissies sometime soon, but only by half.
- Aluminum. I'm done with it. Great to make airplanes out of, I'm sure, but I'm a Clydesdale and honestly, I'm thinking steel. A bike with some chutzpah to it. Not a single-speed noodle-bar freak bike, but not something that's made 3 million at a time in a sweatshop somewhere.

So many things the bike needs, that I'm just not interested in throwing good money after bad:
- New middle chainring. Now that it's not single-speeded anymore, I had to put more chain on, so I put a new chain on, but the worn out ring made such a problem that I had to dig up old worn out chain, and that's what's on there now. Don't get me started that it's a Wipperman spliced with a section of Shimano in it. Yet another kludge-job to limp along on.
- New rubber. Tire sidewalls excessively crackly. But why spend $100 on tires when I'm in the market for a whole new ride?
- Aggravating U-brake setup.
- 7-speed thumbshifters on a banged-up short cage XT derailleur. Not so crisp with the shifting any more.
- I've already blown out 2 freewheels (i.e. broken all the pawls) in the life of this bike, and this one doesn't seem too healthy. But no one makes freewheels anymore, and besides, it's a 125 mm rear, so that's a problem too.

Anyway, why am I complaining? Just ride the fucking thing, I sez to myself.

I'm not ready to stimulate (nay, rub the the nipples of) the economy, but when I am, it's going to be with a bike, not some stupid fucking iPhone. (we'll ignore for the moment that I'm actually shopping for a new phone these days too)

Hardy's "Apology"

2009-04-08T04:31:00.002-04:00

I've had it laying about and been meaning to get to it, and tiny little thin wisp of a book (not much more than an essay) called "A Mathematician's Apology" by G.H Hardy. Written 70 years ago, in a British style that sometimes takes my American eyes a second glance to adjust to, there's all sorts of nuggets that I latch onto as an expression of something similar to what I was trying to say, sometime, in some conversation, to someone, at some point or other.

Hardy regards the comparison between the nature of chess (or puzzles) as problems/questions of mathematics, and the proofs of mathematical theorems:

In the first place, the superiority of the mathematical theorems in seriousness is obvious and overwhelming. The chess problem is the product of an ingenious but very limited complex of ideas, which do not differ from one another very fundamentally and have no external repercussions.

This, I like. Specifically, on seriousness. It's one thing to think an idea important, or fundamental to a topic of study. But is it serious? Not how stern it is, nor whether it lacks whimsy, but the scope of "external repercussions".

How art or poetry are patterns, like mathematics, but constructed of colors and words rather than ideas and that it is ideas that have permanence greater than objects or languages or colors or sounds. That a prime number is always a prime number - across generations, eons, cultures, and (at the risk of sounding too poufy) across space and time.

A painting may embody an 'idea', but the idea is usually commonplace and unimportant. In poetry, ideas count for a good deal more; but as Housman insisted, the importance of ideas in poetry is habitually exaggerated: 'I cannot satisfy myself that there are any such things as poetical ideas... Poetry is not the thing said but a way of saying it.'

And as this sudden sleepless morning draws on for me, I leave off with this little bit that I keep touching back to:

There are many highly respectable motives which may lead men [sic] to prosecute research, but three which are much more important than the rest. The first (without which the rest must come to nothing) is intellectual curiosity, desire to know the truth. Then, professional pride, anxiety to be satisfied with one's performance, the shame that overcomes any self-respecting craftsman when his work is unworthy of his talent. Finally, ambition, desire for reputation, and the position, even the power or the money, which it brings. It may be fine to feel, when you have done your work, that you have added to the happiness or alleviated the sufferings of others, but that will not be why you did it.

2 things right, 1 thing wrong... I'm calling it win

2009-03-23T21:24:00.004-04:00

Have I mentioned I really enjoy FailBlog? No, I haven't. I haven't mentioned much lately. Anyway... whoomp, there it is.

But more importantly, can you put your nerd hat on and spot the two things right with this picture?

The first one is easy - it's in the upper left hand corner, it's starts with "b", rhymes with "eer", and is dark and delicious.

The second thing that is currently judged as most awesomeness is the USB-powered 5MHz digital oscillioscope, datalogger, spectrum analyzer, and arbitrary function generator, for only $250. Picoscope, you fucking rock. For all the nerds out there that deal with integrating disparate systems and the wacky questions that come up about line noise, dropped encoder counts, and any of a billion ponderables (but not-easily-answerables) there's halfway decent o'scopes out there for about the same price as your trusty Fluke 77. Picoscope isn't the only one out there making products like this, but I just got one, and it looks like it's gonna come in really handy in the ol' bag-o'-tricks that you don't always need, but comes in really handy when you do.

And so you're wondering - what one thing is wrong with this picture? Count it as 3, maybe... location, location, location. What kind of fucking dork brings instrumentation into a bar and plays with it while drinking beer? Well, tonight... it was this particular dork, thank you very much. Whatever. I don't care. The box arrived with the widget, I wanted to play with it, I wanted a beer. So that's what happened.

I'm still calling it a win.

irrational fears

2009-03-14T10:48:00.003-04:00

Whenever I'm walking with my keys in my hand, I'm always on the lookout for drains, sewer grates, and other sorts of crevasses with abysses below. Why? Because the simplest lapse of attention or fumble means that the keys disappear, never to be seen again, and I'm locked out of my car, stranded somewhere, locked out of my house, etc. etc. Especially troubling is the 1-2" gap on the floor as I cross into an elevator. Somehow, that abyss is a more perilous abyss than the sewer grate. Don't get me started about my key and wallet security concerns when leaning over/against a railing over a bridge...

So I put my keys in my pocket all the time, even if it's only for 15 seconds.

I wonder - is this some sort of subconscious mistrust in my own ability to hold on? Or putting too much importance on self-reliance? Or fear of the unknown? Or fear of lack of control? All rhetorical questions, but just what I'm wondering to myself at the moment.

On Sincerity.

2009-03-09T20:50:00.003-04:00

The other day during a momentary break in the rhythms of the day/hour/moment of the project, in one of those space-filling conversations at the table between me and two other guys (both of them about 10 years my senior, we'll call them Stretch and Stripey), Stretch makes an offhand comment-ey question asking "can you explain how your generation got so cynical about everything?" Now, I don't recall any particular cynical talk that preceded it, but Stripey chimed in with some agreeable mutterings, so apparently the opinion is not an isolated one.

I felt I had to respond, especially since I take great pains in my personal life to Give A Shit about certain things. Frankly, I fear for the minds of the trendoid hipsters with their wallet chains and skinny jeans and adoration of 80's fashion that have tried to make Irony the meta-fad. Like that marginal 20% of undergraduate art students who have no talent, or eye, or skill, or intent and try to use kitsch as some sort of statement... In both cases (irony and kitsch), what it shows is simply laziness, and even worse, dishonesty about that laziness. Trying to disguise that laziness in some sort of mumbo-jumbo about Lo-Fi this or "weaving a narrative of unspoken voices from the debris cast off from a throw-away society" that.

... blah, blah, blah.

But back to Irony. The thing is, I've been thinking about it lately... about how criticism serves only organization, and never creation. That derivative work requires a steady stream of original work. That while there are very few Truly New Ideas, attempting to find that daylight between centuries of Prior Art can, while bouncing against them, actually create its own daylight. Good ideas are easy - doing them is where it's at. Web 2.0, 3.0... 17.x might be great strides for blogging, twittering, or whatever-comes-next, but advancing biology requires petri dishes. Google Earth is a wonderful toy/tool, but the construction of bridges will always require someone to have taken a core sample or place survey stakes. And art will not just make itself.

I've started to see others similarly rejecting Irony. Like bacon, Irony has jumped the shark. Hipster/Mod/Fad Irony, that is. (there will always be irony just like there will always be tragedy, comedy, and satire.)

... but as I'm starting to explain that I sincerely think that Irony has jumped the shark and that Sincerity Is The New Black, they interrupt me with their laughter - about how crafty I am, responding to observations of my generation's cynicism with a cynical description of sincerity painted in an ironic way. ("AHA! I know, that you now, that I know, that you know, that...")

But see... I was being sincere. About sincerity. Circular, but sincere nevertheless.

So whither and whence the origin of yonder cynicism and irony? Maybe it is so ingrained that I can't even see it as it subconsciously leaks out. Or maybe it what I've learned to do because the previous generation expected it, so I learned to deliver it. Maybe it's all they could hear when I opened my mouth because that's what their ears are trained to hear. Or maybe the source of it, the handing down through the years, is what has brought it so strongly to its current height of fashion.

wow.

2009-02-21T12:39:00.001-05:00

just... wow. I want to fly too now.

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

oh yeah, well fuck you too...

2009-02-12T19:47:00.002-05:00

Yeah, I've been out of blogging mode for a while, and while part of that has to do with just being busy, part of it has to do with internal dialogues about sharing too much vs. not being interesting to read. I guess I'm in one of those transitional areas where I'm skittish about potentially sounding like just a complainer, but also not interested in being boring or composing something eminently disposable.

Well, it kind of pushed me over the edge, this day of mine. That which, over the course of the day included:

- Day 3 of getting through a cold/flu.

- Having to listen to constant, yet subtle insinuated and veiled racist, sexist, homophobic chit chat among people working in the SE Michigan auto industry. Yes, I'm talking to you, Big Three/UAW. You have a huge culture problem among your mid/high-seniority people - they are a bad example to the younger generation of workers, and offensive to anyone with a decent bone in their body. It's not one incident, it's not "just a few bad apples". I'm so tired of it, but like many people these days, I need the job, and that means not being "difficult" about such things, so I just keep my mouth shut and my blood pressure down.

- Noticing multiple, clearly intentional scratches on my car that indicate that I got the "key those fuckers" treatment in the parking lot at a GM site. I don't drive a GM vehicle, and in your actions, you've ensured that I never will. You can't intimidate people into buying your cars. It's not surprising that Toyota & Honda are kicking your ass in sales and quality. I have no sympathy for you, or your austerity measures caused by your bailout. The only power consumers have to negotiate with is their wallets and feet - walk away or not. So fuck you - my dollars will go elsewhere.

- Getting home to a message on the machine from the fraud prevention division of my credit card company about suspicious purchases on my card, which turned out to be good that they called me. Seems that someone wanted to buy some World of Warcraft and other computer gaming crap, as well as a hotel room in the UK, with my card. Well, I'm glad they (fraud prevention people) caught it, but I'm not happy about it, for obvious reasons. Having my card declined last night now makes sense, and now it's canceled and chopped into tiny pieces.

- Idiots commenting.

There was more... more that made today bad. And I was soaking in it, riding it somewhere mushrooms would grow. Somewhere with dark, and damp, and stone, and shit. Imagining all sorts of this or that - wishing bad fortune, imagining revenge, darkly fantasizing here and there. But the The Clash came on, and a little ska is something that it's hard to maintain a hateful spiteful attitude through. So I'm done... I'm sure it will come back to me, but tomorrow starts everything over again, and I'm just going to move on through another cycle of night and day.

2009-01-17T13:22:00.001-05:00

http://robotcomix.net/

revelations

2009-01-07T22:13:00.001-05:00

No, it's not the End Times or anything. But I had some laundry issues that reached critical mass. One pair of clean underwear left. No clean towels. No clean dish towels. So I go to the laundromat, take up a whole row of washers, and do 8 loads of laundry. But what do I come home to?

This.

A closest that's... well, basically full already.

And I ask myself... what am I doing with all these clothes? The issue is not that there is a set of clothes here. The issue is that there is a whole other set of clothes over there that I just finished washing. And I'm just one dude. And I'm not even fashion-conscious.

Too many, too many.

I counted 17 pairs of jeans, but only 4 or 5 make it into the regular rotation, some too small, some un-presentable to decent folk. And don't get me started on the number of T-shirts. What you see here is only the remainder. I suspect there are Aleph-0 ("al-eff-naught") of them - infinite in number, but countably so. Not because they're interesting, but just because they've accumulated.

I'm feeling a purging coming on.

It's time to thin the herd. Lot of that going on in other places... I'm wondering why I have 2 shelves of fiction paperbacks that are already read... I'm not likely to re-read them any time soon, and the library has so many wonderful other books available, right?

And what do I need with 21 coffee mugs? I'm one person. And I'm annoyed that I don't have enough cupboard space, but it seems that I'm the cause of my own problems.

Slowly, slowly... the realization, she comes.

superglue, dammit.

2009-01-07T10:30:00.000-05:00

Had a little "bagel incident" this morning, cutting a bagel the dangerous way, and slicing my finger a little bit. Nothing bad, just a deep papercut kind of thing that won't stop bleeding, but in the worst place - right on a bendy spot. So with a band-aid I go, but over the course of the day, the flexing results in needing 3 band-aid replacements. Annoying.

By the time I get home from the laundry adventure, I'm fed the fuck up. I've heard you can use Super Glue/Krazy Glue as a medical adhesive ("bonds skin immediately" and "non-toxic") for things like this, so I give it a try - hold the cut closed, a drop on the top, and POW! it's all good. No sting, no waiting, no fuss, no muss. Waterproof, secure, perfecto.

I am here to testify, people: it works. When you try it, you will become a believer.

the bumper sticker I want to see...

2009-01-06T15:55:00.002-05:00

My kid's art was censored for obscenity
at Springton High School

wishful thinking, downtowning

2009-01-06T00:54:00.001-05:00

Another grand debate of downtowns - a meta-issue, if you will. It should come as no surprise that I'm a fan of downtowns. Cities. Urban. Busy, doing... there-ness. Over the holidays in Evanston, the new fresh (well, to me) development... buildings rising to 15, 20, 25 stories downtown where once it was rare to be more than 10. You can see the in-vogue intentionality of the downtown planning in place - the mixed use, the "wedding cake" architecture to keep streets and pedestrian areas "at human scale".

But I wonder to myself... do I really see the connections and community that dense urban downtowns promise? Sure, there's activity, and more people - but are those people actually connecting to each other? Cafes strewn with singly-occupied tables. But all that just seems to be like Apple and Dell swooped in and shat out a bunch of laptops with people hunched behind them.

Apartment buildings, condos, etc. etc. tightly clustered together, but do people actually know their neighbors? I'm wondering how much of this is wishful thinking, how much of it actually happens, and how long it will take to really know one way or the other. Some of the streets I walked down seemed pretty sterile, even in the midst of the Christmas Shopping Season. I don't think you can Manufacture Community.

And my cynical brain is wondering how many of the cutesy shops are going to survive the recession, what with the disappearance of the almighty consumers, and the tightening of belts and all. Debating how much we really need artisan handcrafted dog bowls and fair trade organic vegan chew toys.

not the kind of transit I'm in favor of

2009-01-05T16:30:00.001-05:00

that bacon thing sorta happened for me

2009-01-03T18:59:00.002-05:00

No, not a grand revelation. Not a sudden overwhelming falling in love. Really, it was more of a falling out of love with bacon. Not that I was ever in it, per say.

It's just that I found out through adventures the other day... I thought I'd try my hand at making Candied Bacon, and what I found out is that it's just not as dreamy as one would think. I went for it a couple different ways, but in the end, even the best result (which ended up looking exactly beautiful like it does in the picture) was sticky and greasy at the same time, didn't develop a hard candy shell, and just was not really fulfilling expectations. And after it all, I has a bunch of bacon, and I really had no enthusiasm for it. It was there, salty and snacky, but I had no real connection to it. I ate it because it was there, not because I cared very much for it.

Sure, bacon is funny. And bacon mania has been sweeping the land. But I'm starting to fall into the bacon backlash category. It's just really not that big of a thing for me. I'm not going so far as to say that it's jumped the shark or anything, because there are plenty of fine people that have it as a part of their identity. But for me, I guess I've just... moved on.

It was there before me, it will be there after me, it doesn't need me to survive.

And this has nothing to do with the fact that I'm more curious about Zen-type stuff than Hindu-type stuff. Really, I swear.

HAL says...

2008-12-20T12:48:00.003-05:00

HAL9000: "I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do." (Clarke, by way of Kubrick, by way of Quotegeek)

I punch the scrabble board into Quackle and ask it to analyze... apparently, it is pulling CPU resources across dimensional boundaries and unfolding space and time in the process. Either that, or Apple fucked up and doesn't know what 100% means. (oh wait... is this what they mean by "giving 110%"? Damn, that's some hard-working software)

And just... for the record for anyone I might be playing an online game of Scrabble with now or in the future, I swear (cross my heart and hope to endo) that I commit my play before I consult Quackle or anything else. Really, I swear. I just want to know what I'm missing. I can quit any time, I just like the taste.

it makes me greedy and lazy

2008-12-17T17:04:00.002-05:00

This wave of virtual information that is immediately accessible and constantly on - free WiFi, Wikipedia, Google, video on demand in a browser window... it's so one-sided. Conditioning myself subconsciously to expect instantaneous results. That every whim can be indulged with a click of a mouse and instant response (if not instant satisfaction). If only it went the other way as easily. That the idea, the project, the result were instantly translated from a want to reality, through the power of a fingertip. No effort, no thought, no struggle, no work.

From the mouth of Sir Ben Kinglsey in The House of Sand and Fog:

Do you understand? Do not feel bad. Americans they do not deserve what they have. They have the eyes of small children who are forever looking for the next source of distraction, entertainment, sweet taste in the mouth.

ah yes... to recalibrate reference, to re-set expectation. Re-see priorities and make conscious choices. This is my hope. It's what I want for a New Year's present for myself.

vaporlock

2008-12-17T14:44:00.003-05:00

So long without a post, I feel like I've abandoned some...thing. Some idea. Some what. Well, there were these big notions that felt like huge essays, and the formidableness, formidability, formidity, form of them got in the way of saying anything." That mountain is sooo high to climb, I can't possibly finish it today, so I might as well not even start now." Yes, this is problematic thinking. Whatever.

Expect musings ... on the question of very large people in very small places (obesity, airlines, and the "rights" of everyone involved). ... on the problem of vision and utility (how abstract desire gets in the way of effective results, and how effective results gets in the way of abstract desire) ... on the question of "peace vs. annihilation" (and how we take a pinch of each to create equilibrium and structure, just like the chickens and gorillas).
But in the meantime, just remember... no matter how fringey and immune to counter-culture shock you think you are, the person walking down the street with the pink mohawk will always catch your eye and prove that there's always someone fringier. (this would be the equivalent of "no matter how badass you think you are, there is always someone out there who can kick your ass" OR "if you think you're a hot-shit fast bike racer winning races all the time - upgrade a category and then think again")

it... comes in cans!

2008-12-05T20:29:00.000-05:00

oh, delicious...

traveling leftovers

2008-12-03T13:01:00.002-05:00

In the airport on the way back from California...

The Bizarro-World effect of hearing "If I were a man, I would wear a tie with the Constitution on it" in that weird everything-sounds-like-a-question sorority girl voice coming from a very caffeinated 20something woman talking to her friends. Hear it in your head "If... like... I was a man, I would, like, TOTALLY wear a tie, with, like, the Constitution all OVER it". I'm happy that young people embrace the Constitution and such, but it's surely weird to hear that in such a voice.
----------------
And on the TV at the gate a little while later, Wolf Blitzer interviewing people on his jumbo-tron regarding the financial implosion and layoffs in the auto industry: "What jobs are safe?"

My question for Blitzer - exactly what kind of question is that? I mean seriously... there is no such thing as job security. And it's not like people are going to change careers based on today's CNN broadcast, so really the question and answer don't inform, theey just instill fear that the people in jobs not listed *aren't* safe. But since they can't do anything about it in the moment, all they can do is tune in to the next Blizter broadcast to find out, with breathless anticipation, whether the next danger has passed. Vicious cycle, indeed.
----------------
On the plane - they're charging $1 for coffee, $2 for bottled water/soda, and $7 for cocktails... at what point does someone realize that the lack of sales (no one was buying anything from the refreshment cart) means that simply carrying the weight of the cart and containers of beverage on the plane is a money-losing proposition? That is, the amount of fuel that is required to keep that extra 50-100 lbs aloft in flight costs more than the profit from the sales from the cart? Just give it up... clearly people can do without tiny portions of non-food, so just give it up. I'd rather have the ability to walk to the bathroom down an aisle not blocked by a cart than have the option to buy a $2 coke.

puke

2008-12-02T18:16:00.002-05:00

In another fascinating entry from the "so what if _____ ..." file:

If police/military use nausea-inducing incapacitation as a method of crowd control/non-lethal weaponry/chemical agent ... would it be possible to take anti-nausea meds first, and then not be affected by the nausea inducement? Like, say, if you're the protest-ey anarchist type, inclined to march in the streets and not disperse and that kind of thing. If you're expecting to get nausea-gassed, will anti-nausea drugs work as a prophylactic?

speechless

2008-11-19T14:29:00.004-05:00

Went to the Re-Use Center yesterday to see if there were any diamonds-in-the-rough for travel luggage... picked up a couple random things, but found this in one of the pockets of a bag:

Somewhere in the back of my mind, there's a teenager who won't stop giggling. ("heh... they said 'bone' ")

well, there's yer problem, right there.

2008-11-10T10:11:00.003-05:00

Came home to a funny burnt plastic smell the other day. Everything was still on, no fuses blown, couldn't really find anything. Not until days later, shuffling things on the shelf and bumping cables that the IKEA Sansa lights went out. Hmm... what do we have here? Ah, a burnt stub falls out of the transformer.

Great, just fucking awesome. That lump on the end of the wire? That was the white nylon-ish screw terminal - you can see the other one still intact. It burnt itself up, and still kept working. It doesn't creep me out that it burnt, it creeps me out that whatever caused it to burn would still be powered up, and supplying current to the lights, and potentially continuing to heat things.

Fucking IKEA. Shiny things, cheap prices... this is what I get for it.

After the house fire years ago, it took a while to start trusting consumer electronics again. This, well, this makes me leery all over again. I'm not going to flee to the woods or anything, but... damn.

death to the infidel

2008-11-09T20:15:00.003-05:00

Ok, I'll admit it, it's out of perverse curiosity. That's the best reason I can come up with. I do this every now and then... knowing it's propaganda, I figured I'd see what people are spewing these days. Sometimes I'll turn on the radio late at night when driving through the bible belt, other times I'll wish I could get those guys in the bow ties to sell me a copy of The Final Call.

But this time, it was something that arrived along with all the other crap-vertisements in my mailbox, at some point weeks or months ago. A DVD - Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West.

So I watched the DVD. The parallels are really quite striking... between the rhetoric in Obsession, and the rhetoric of the Religious Right. Heck, between the rhetoric that Obsession deries, and the way they decry it:

From Obsession: "If you want to get people to fight, you have make them think there's a threat and they're in danger." hunh... no kidding. So... how is what they're (arbitrary "they") doing different from what you're doing? It's all rhetoric of fear to me. Es ist mir Wurst. ("it's sausage to me" - German phrase meaning: enh. whatever. same difference.)

This, along with the montage earlier that plays the "Tuesday morning, World Trade Center, NYC.... Thursday morning, Madrid train bombing... Thursday afternoon, London bombing... (some other day of the week) Beslan School - 200 children killed" What bugs me most? That the Beslan thing was so not a religious terrorist attack, but a nationalist seperatist group, and the deaths were caused by the Russian security forces and their misuse of tranquilizer gas during the standoff.

They compare the propaganda and global domination aspirations to Nazi Germany. They even interview a former Hitler Youth guy (now in his 70s) who, after montage of thronging masses at a rally, says "Now can you imagine: we were enlightened people, and we fell for this. Why wouldn't muslims fall for this." Nice one, buddy. "enlightened people"? Apparently you're not so enlightened, given that you seem to be a bigoted prick who considers himself superior to anyone who isn't like him. No surprise you were in the Hitler Youth.

The filmmakers hype up the way that mullahs preach about the divine blow to the enemies of Islam, and how eventually Islam will conquer the world. Hunh. Sounds a lot like what I saw in Jesus Camp.

More "death to the infidel", just this time, it's whitey screaming it from the rooftops calling for Jesus to conquer the world. More of the same, more of the same.

I look back on the time I spent watching this crap and wonder why I do it. I knew what kind of crap it was, and I watched it anyway. I guess I've got it out of my system now, but perverse curiosity has it's way with me every now and then.

arrested

2008-10-27T17:16:00.002-04:00

How do you get arrested for resisting arrest? A bit paradoxical, isn't it? I sincerely hope that it all started as for some other reason, and the suspect was charged with resisting arrest...

votes

2008-10-23T20:50:00.004-04:00

There's nothing but economic gloom and doom in the news - it's almost like the election has taken 2nd place in the headlines... As the election draws nigh, I seek refuge in the darker, less serious, more snarky aspects of it all - sort of a Politique Noir? Ever seen the bumper sticker "Cthulu for President - why choose the lesser evil?" Well I'm thinking... so if election law says that you can't display campaign propaganda within 100ft of a polling place - what about sarcastic campaigns for imaginary creatures? I mean, he/she/it isn't even on the ballot, and it's not like you can just write them in on a presidential race. So would campaign propaganda for a candidate that isn't on the ballot be permitted? Enh. I don't even have a T-shirt or button, so I guess it's a moot point.

But in the voting world, I stopped by the library to catch a screening of Election Day at the library. Call me jaded, but I had a hard time engaging it. So consciously lukewarm. Yes, voting is good. Yes, there were fucked-up problems at polling places in 2004. Yes, voter turn out is on the rise. And? Well, it didn't draw me in to have anything to discuss in the discussion afterwards.

But the one fun thing was that since I was in my car, I had to park, and seeing as how the lot across from the downtown library (William and Fifth) is open for business now, I thought I'd give it a try. While the voices ("please take your ticket") are far too loud, the asphalt surface is this cool permeable asphalt stuff that rainwater runs through. Cool, hunh?

Yup, asphalt was the most exciting thing of the evening so far. Bread in the oven, we'll see how that goes. Nowhere to go but up.

huntfest

2008-10-21T11:59:00.000-04:00

Family came to visit last weekend and wanted to check out some local attractions. One on the list included Cabela's down in Dundee. I'd never been there, but have heard about it, and as one who isn't averse to shooting, I figured it would be like a big outdoorsy hardware store with lots of gadgets. That it was, sure, but everything there is for sit-down outdoors stuff. Seriously - outdoors activities that involve a lot of sitting and not much moving. Deer stands, boats, ATVs, fishing poles, that kind of stuff.

Almost all the clothing is cotton, which means if you sweat, you'll freeze your ass off. Very little technical clothing - mostly just big bulky stuff.

I was puzzled by how all the stuffed animal carcasses are posed. They're all weird dioramas of rage and conflict - emotion in the animal kingdom. Even the scavengers (vultures) posed to pick at a carcass are assaulting the carcass. Kind of weird. Sure, there's rage in the human world, but what is the message? As a Cabela's customer, am I supposed to want to buy a gun and shoot the water buffalo? Or the lions? Both? It's the question of whom I identify with in the scene, to watch the harsh brutal nature of predators/prey and just let the scene play out, or to intervene and shoot something.

argh

2008-10-20T23:52:00.002-04:00

Okeedoke... just this one hope:

If I never ever, ever, ever ... ever see the phrase "Keep insert-name-of-municipality-here Funky", my life will be all the more better off.

Ok, I'm gonna go and co-opt some Youth Culture now for my own nefarious purposes.

Sheesh. People these days.

bike racks - useful vs. ridiculous

2008-10-20T20:00:00.001-04:00

Municipalities installing bike racks - NYC and Ypsilanti. They've gone on a search for designs, trying to include some form of art, resulting in all manner of... well, I'll just call them contraptions. On the right, we have some of the finishers from the NYC competition.

Some sort of orange blog that surely is fun to look at, but if you aren't a usual locker-upper there, how do you know what is plop art and what is a bike rack? I'm going to start locking up to public art just for the heck of it.

And the chrome abomination... a pox on wheel-chenching bike racks. Something that you can only lock the front wheel up to - Shee-it. In New York? Yeah, right.

Speaking of cost - Ypsi went with a more conventional design "tree guard", but still - $300/piece for a bent tube and water-jet cut medallion doesn't sound right.

Alas, as a bike rack user, I'm giving my tip-of-the-hat to Detroit. Yes, Detroit. Down on the Riverwalk, they've got these fine, sensible, attractive, slanty stainless steel hoops. Fits bikes of all sizes, not painted so they can't rust, etc. etc. It's not rocket surgery.

It's not important that they be works of art. I mean seriously - no one cares what parking meters look like. Where's the uproar about parking meter aesthetics? We need to avoid the distraction of the touchy-feely and just make it useful. Spending city money should be on useful things, not projects that take these months and never really happen. The decision to go with this design was a while ago, but I've yet to see these installed. Heck, winter will come, Ypsi's perpetual budget distractions will prevent anything from happening, and next spring/summer, there won't be any improvement to bike parking dowtown Ypsi.

Heck, for my money, I'd go with the $99 hoop version just to get it done. Install 10-20 of them around town. If people want pretty ones, that can come after - start with the basic ones in the high-traffic areas, then if people want the fancy ones outside their storefront, then put a fancy one in and relocate the basic ones further from the center of downtown - people lock up there too...

if wishes were horses, I could ride out and make this lunch happen.

2008-10-20T11:50:00.002-04:00

Beetloaf sandwich from the Atlas Cafe and a nice pint of stout. Served in a sunny corner of a pub.

I do sorely miss that such a sandwich isn't available to me right now. It was... delicious.

cheerier subjects (-ish)

2008-10-20T10:30:00.000-04:00

A weekend past, of cabins, friends, bikes... pie. A trip up northward to Mackinaw. Sure, it was two weeks ago, but it was delicious nevertheless, and I'll reminisce if I feel like it.

So yeah... umm.... pie. Emily and Amanda made this awesome 1 of a 2 pie series with some apples from the farmstand up in the neighborhood. That rocked. Take some Euchre, add some Bourbon... let the trash talkin' flow as the cards slap down... And in the morning, the leftover pie makes a pretty awesome breakfast. Heck, what we need here is the apple (or peach... yeah, peach would be good too) equivalent to the calzone. A handheld pocket of goodness. Yesh. but I digress...

Bikes were rode. On the road and otherwise. On the way back, we stopped off at a trail and found that the Shingle Mill Pathway is a good place. No crazy rock gardens or anything, just nice trail, pretty forest, etc. etc. Definitely a place where camping and MTBing go together. Heck, if you're into fishing and such, it's probably for you too, what with the Pigeon River in the neighborhood.

Note to self - spend more time there. When it comes to camping these days, I find I can't tolerate the RVs and whatnot - the people who want their wilderness to be close to the Starbucks, where wood for the fire is bought instead of collected. What I want when I look for the forest is birds tweeting and leaves rustling - no cars, no hootin' and hollerin' - just leaves rustling and brooks a-babblin'. So USFS, you are the people for me.

But then, in the nicest possible way, the badness happened. If I'm going to have spoke pull out the rim and make the wheel almost unrideable, I'm glad that it happened on the last trail of the trip, on the way back to the trailhead, within 1 mile of the parking lot.

It was pretty awesome riding, but alas, it'll be the last mile for that wheel. That, and after I got home, I... uhm... proceeded with a bent derailleur hanger re-straightening technique that turned into a hanger breaking technique. So that bike is good and broke for the moment. Bummer. If absolutely necessary, I can make a singlespeed, but maybe it's just time to put that bike down. Heck, it's 20 years old. A good run, but it might be over.

no patience for anything

2008-10-18T16:30:00.004-04:00

Alas, the distractability compounds, and it seems I've moved on to a regime where I have no patience for anything. Waiting, sticking with, muddling through, etc. Heck, I've been annoyed with iPhoto ever since I bought a Mac product, and it crashes ever so more often the more photos go in it, but my patience falls apart when I have to learn how to use Fink before downloading other software. So again, I'm dissatisfied with iPhoto, but it sits there, holding photos, crashing eventually, sucking up memory in the meantime. Argh.

so yeah, what was I talking about? oh yeah, fucking crackers... [sigh]

By now we've seen enough YouTube videos of Palin/McCain rallies where the supporters are spewing essentially naked hatred. But here I am parked at the pub, enjoying a pint on a sunny Saturday afternoon, the room quiet, and this guy, too loud to be ignored, spouting some sort of Osama/Obama bullshit. Un-fucking-believeable. If he wasn't standing up and about to walk out, I was *this close* to making a point of getting up and calling him out on it - but he got away. I'm sorely, sorely tired of the closet racists who are spouting what is, ultimately, closeted racism. With the current theme for a lack of patience, let's just say that I've got my "are you a complete fucking idiot?" ready for the next moron that encroaches on my eardrums.

Reminds me of the last time I was in a situation that I couldn't quite believe it was actually happening... or at least, the last time I made a note to myself about it...

I'm at the bar on St. Paddy's Day, stopping in for an obligatory pint, chatting with a friend. They leave, I stay to finish my pint, and the guy on the corner of the bar gets chatty.

At the time Kwame Kilpatrick is in the news, still in office, but the scandal is heating up. Conversation on the barstools drifts to current events, and since AA/Ypsi is sufficiently far away from Detroit to allow a certain amount of detached amusement at the goings-on, it's like talking about the weather, right?

he notices my U of Illinois hat... "You from Illinois?"
"Yeah, near Chicago... grew up there. Moved here a while ago."
"Is there as much of a problem with blacks there?

What... the... fuck. The assumption that a clean-shaven white boy would be assumed to share the same closeted racist opinions just shocked me into dumbfounded silence. I should have gotten up and walked away in disgust. I should have said any of a dozen different things, but all I could come up with was "I think you and I don't share the same opinions about race." Now, in 2008, this kind of shit exists? Alas, it does. I'm not naive, but I'm just surprised at how close to the surface it is.

I might be an able-bodied college-educated straight-acting adult white male, but that doesn't mean I share your assumption of closeted racism. Or sexism. Or homophobia.

But here's the rub: for minorities or women or LGBT folks, they also see the able-bodied college-educated straight-acting adult white male with a haircut and assume that I'm not an ally.

So yeah... it seems I've got no patience for anyone these days.

Dolores Park (redux... er, re-dogs)

2008-10-09T23:12:00.003-04:00

I hear that there are people out there, desperate to conceive children, but in their desperation and longing, they find themselves so obsessed with the idea that they can't help themselves. They make field trips of going to playgrounds, sitting on the sidelines, and watching other people's children play - fantasizing about how their own future children might play. How Janey or Johnny might be at 2 years, 4 years, 6 years old.

Well, I had a little taste of that craziness myself, out in SF. Emily and I were out and about for a coffee and then a sit-out-in-the-park in Dolores Park, and we spied two professional dog-walkers each with their dozen or so dogs in tow, out romping and playing in the park, all dogs of different shapes, sizes, personalities... none of them the same.

So we sat there and watched, each of us with our own personal fantasies about the perfect dog, neither us being able to exactly bring dogs into our respective lives. Me, I've got an apartment, no yard, but no roommates. She, in a relatively new town and with a house-full and relationship.

Wistful. Creepy. But pleasure in the fantasy, no doubt about that.

Mmm... puppies. Gotta get me a couple of those.

oy gevalt...

2008-10-09T17:51:00.003-04:00

I don't have any Jewish grandparents, but Sarah Silverman makes me want some... Heck, she makes me want some Sarah Silverman.

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

split personality

2008-09-23T15:34:00.002-04:00

Sitting on a hill in a park in Dolores Park an ambulance goes by, wailing it's rising and falling Song of Urgency. But in the dense urban city, the flat hard buildings form the audio equivalent of fun-house mirrors, echoing the siren.

Coming toward me is the single-minded and onrushing regular version. As it passes, rushing away, the doppler shift changes the tone from higher pitch to lower pitch, but the reflection off the buildings in the distance is only the echo of the original urgency.

The result - a two-tone discordant song of a split personality. Urgency ahead, lament behind.

couldn't make it this year...

2008-09-18T07:49:00.004-04:00

I missed the Wilderness Volunteers trip to Escalante this year, and I'm sad about that. A really, really beautiful place, and while it's a "work" trip to kill the invasive Russian Olive, it's work that has good results, so that's fun. It's really the results that are so striking, how the river is profoundly changed from it's choked, invaded, on-the-way-to-ruin state, back to its native riparian biomix, the way it was 50 years ago before the Russian Olive easily escaped from where people planted backyard shrubberies. Check it out:

Upstream view before and after.

Overhead view from the canyon rim before and after.

Gotta say - knowing what that damn plant is like up close, the choked before shot makes me twitchy and claustrophobic. The after is a big "ahhhh" sigh of the river in it's natural state before the damnable olive got a foot in the ecological door 50 years ago.

deevolution

2008-09-17T15:50:00.004-04:00

I had given the razor a rest while out on the West Coast. But all things come to and end, so... why not take the opportunity to experiment with facial hair sculpting styles?

A blank canvas

The soulpatch meets the friendly mutton chops

Friendly mutton chops (so named because they meet (shake hands) in a friendly way above the lip

The Fu Manchu - I'm pretty sure that I can't pull this one off for real.

Was tempted to walk around for a day or so with it, just for the heck of it.

And... my most hated of them all (but inevitable result of The Fu), the boring stupid Tom Selleck 80's caterpillar lip.

And for the navel-gazers out there who like analysis of such things, have a gander at Impressions of the male personality as a function of beardedness.

yup, I'm freaked out by it too...

2008-09-15T14:51:00.000-04:00

If I were Wendy...

2008-08-23T23:10:00.002-04:00

... and I lived in San Francisco, I would probably live here:
19th and Sanchez... go get you some, honeybunch.

All toilet, all day. And my penis is an earlobe.

2008-08-20T01:07:00.006-04:00

It's in landscapes like this where your mind has plenty of time to wander. And wander it does. Things like One Letter Off variations on signage and names, a habit I first heard named by Gary as eulexia. (like dyslexia, but instead of a prefix indicating disfunction, it indicates pleasure) Currently, the chuckles come from Sitarbucks. You know, the place where you can get overpriced mediocre coffee and gratuitously pretentious world music. But inevitably, in the world of long road entertainment, the process of elimination leads to... elimination. Administration of, planning for, and crude references to... poop.

With that, I bring you Phase 2 of the culinary adventures from last week. Long time ago in a midwestern state far, far away, Matthew and Sandra inadvertently showed me how completely easy it is to make seitan (yes, it's pronounced "say-tan", like the devil). So I thought I'd give it a try. Easy enough, but I have to say that if you're going to try it yourself at home, don't fashion the dough into cylindrical shapes, regardless of how much you might want to have round slices to cut up and pan-fry. What you end up with is a cylindrical piece floating in soy sauce/broth, and well, it looks like poo floating in the bowl. Tasty and good for you, but you have to get your head past the visual similarities.
--------------------
We move next to the metaphorical toilet, the Toilet of the Mind. It's the metaphorical flip side of that metaphorical tender pelvic region boys on bicycles know well as the perineum, but which Jethro or Bubba would refer to by colloquial nomenclature as "taint". You know, "tain't one, tain't th' other". Something I've been meaning to delve into because it's eminently bloggable, but just haven't gotten to.

It all started when I was chatting with a friend of mine who, among her many fine qualities, happens to be a woman, a scholar, and a post-second-wave feminist. In the midst of our conversation there was some reference to something in popular culture that was possibly phallic, which then led to a discussion of penises.

As a penis owner-operator, and (for the sake of conversation) representative of penis owner-operators everywhere, the question was posed to me "what does your penis MEAN to you?" [emphasis added]. Which easily led me to an introspective self-debate over what "mean" means. (thanks to Bill "that depends on what the definition of 'is' is." Clinton, for making epistemology acceptable in pop culture) We got back to the original question... eventually. Discussion ensued about penises as Instruments Of Oppression, references in art, literature, criticism/analysis thereof, and other meanings assigned in unrelated settings.

The crux of it though is that the best, most honest, most accurate answer I could come up with to describe my own is: "my penis is an earlobe". Seriously. While it's a happy, useful and recreational piece of my anatomy, it doesn't have any crucial day-to-day symbolism or significance. In a removed, academic sense, one can fetishize, iconify, celebrate, or demonize a penis, but on a personal level it doesn't guide me, it doesn't decide things for me, it doesn't define me any more than other parts of anatomy. It's like an earlobe. I use it, it's part of me, I would miss it if it were removed. But I don't think about it actively. Sure, I think sexual thoughts every 7-9 minutes just like every other American Male, but my anatomy plays only a supporting role in those mini-sodes; fantasy mental movies are more likely to have an ensemble cast of anatomy or epic drama of dialogue than be a superstar biopic. Other than it's critical participation in urination and fornication, my penis is an earlobe.
--------------------
And lastly, the words of others. I was riding somewhere on an errand and/or adventure with G and her sprogs E and O... adult conversation going on in the front seat, kid conversation going on in the back seat, two separate galaxies. It's where they crossed over that we'll leave off today. The point where the adult conversation ended with "did you hear what I think I just heard?"

You see, the kid conversation was mostly background noise until it got to a puzzling exchange.

O: "I'll be the hamster."
E: "I'll be the toilet."

... someone figure that one out for me and let me know what I must've missed right before that, mmmkay?

a day on the road

2008-08-16T04:17:00.006-04:00

Wow, South Dakota is a big state, long to get across, and pretty damn boring. Yes, we're swinging North. If I never see another "Wall Drug" billboard in my life, I'll be ok with that. The "Corn Palace" was immensely disappointing. Sure, it had corn stuck to the outside of the building, but it's no longer made of corn, and basically just houses a basketball court, which also serves as a big assed gift shop. Annoying.

But they do have these nifty little ears of corn molded into the concrete of the bases of the streetlamps. There's that.

Emily is keeping track of states by which ones she finds a geocache in, and SD and MN were on her list. WY too, so we're there. So we made a couple of special-purpose stops along the way to find a geocache or two.

As a California native, she'd never been to a Cracker Barrel "Never? [gasp of a midwesterner]". "Nope." well, ok - here we go. Never got to finish the checkers though since the chicken-fried something-or-other arrived surprisingly quickly.

Took a slightly-nausea-inducing spin on a playground. Tip for kids out there - either close your eyes or look at the horizon - fussing with a camera on a spinning piece of playground equipment can make a body more than a little bit woogey.

dang, before I forget...

2008-08-16T02:01:00.000-04:00

So I heard recently that The Shondes are coming to town again... It's a little bit of a deja-vu since they'll be back at TC's Speakeasy Wed September 3rd for She-Bang, but hey, it was an pretty damn awesome good time last time, so I'll definitely be there. I'd definitely recommend checking them out - they have some music and videos on their myspace page. And probably some music on iTunes too. The critics call 'em a cross between Sleater-Kinney and Rasputina. Enh, whatever. I thought they were fun. Check 'em out, they put on a good show with the makin' of the music.

go west, young man.

2008-08-15T20:00:00.000-04:00

Blech. Been home for the past weeks and nothing felt blog-worthy, it's not until I leave town that I starts the blathering. Sheesh.

Anyways. Going to California. Adventure-buddy Emily is driving out to take friend's parents belongings out to San Francisco/Oakland/Berkeley area. Yes, convoluted origin/reason, but hey... what do I care, right? Free trip out West and all I have to do is some driving. I've always wanted to see SF/Oakland, so off I go. Bringing a bike, going to do some couch-surfing at friends of hers, then be back after a few days.

By the time I get back to some WiFi to post this, we'll probably already have seen the Badlands and Mount Rushmore. [ok, yup, we saw it. Gosh, I thought those heads would've been bigger. The pageantry and tacky touristy-ness of Keystone, SD more than make up for the smallness of the actual Mount Rushmore. The carved rocks are big in our minds, but it's the commerce that actually dwarfs them. Welcome to America.] And the talk in the truck right now is "hmm, when we hit the mountains, we could get a bike out and do some asphalt downhillling in the mountains near Tahoe..." I'm reminded of the California Death Ride where my top speed was 52 mph. I don't know if I'll be able (or willing) to do that on the single-speed with only a front brake, but we've got some time before we need to decide.

seems I'm feeling kind of snippy today

2008-07-21T21:25:00.003-04:00

Never thought I'd see the day. I thought Cinderella and Warrant (and all those other hair metal bands) would always be out there to poke fun at. Seems like the end is near.
Luckily, UB40 is still going strong. Can't imagine why, though. Have they written any songs other than the Red Red Wine song?

At what point are they no longer "New Kids"? I mean, they're like... 30-40 years old or something.

god damn it

2008-07-03T12:12:00.002-04:00

I was poking around in the Michigan Compiled Laws trying to see whether the situation described by Lou could happen here in the Mitten State. I didn't find any felonies for assaulting someone from the window of a moving vehicle, but did find that:

Blasphemy is apparently illegal. God fucking damn it.

Adultery is still illegal, and apparently a felony. The bad news: unmarried men are just as guilty as the married women they commit adultery with. The good news: a one year statute of limitations, and that it can only be prosecuted upon the complaint of the spouse of the adulterer.

One thing about that though... in the married man/unmarried woman situation, the unmarried woman hasn't committed adultery. All men (married and unmarried) could be guilty of felonious seduction, but apparently women can do whatever they want. So basically, an unmarried woman gets off scott-free. Where's the gender equality in that? Personally, I think that cougars shouldn't get a free pass if dirty old men don't.

rider down

2008-06-26T10:41:00.002-04:00

A young guy got clipped yesterday on Packard in Ann Arbor... motorist turning right in front of a helmetless cyclist riding a brakeless fixie. From someone (avid, experienced cyclist) who saw the aftermath and paramedics putting him onto a stretcher... "It was the worst cyclist accident I have ever seen." Convulsions, paramedics, possible brain injury.

Fuck.

Helmets and brakes, folks. Seriously.

I gotta get me one of those

2008-06-23T11:03:00.003-04:00

living the dream

2008-06-21T07:33:00.005-04:00

I never really finished up on the rundown of the Toronto experience... because there isn't a whole lot that's really that noteworthy. I watched some polo until the tournament paused for the main race, then packed up and was already headed out of town right before the downpour. Cut to: montage of this boy driving through the Canadian countryside. Cut to: this upstanding citizen getting hassled at the US Border by his own border patrol. Cut to: this boy arrives home and gets (mostly) unpacked.

In the meantime, it occurs to me the fulfillment of a dream from long ago. Not exactly the plot of the dream, but the right scene. Could've been, but wasn't. You know how they say that, when you're studying a foreign language, the way you know that you've achieved proficiency (dare I say fluency?) is that you recognize that you are dreaming in that language? Well, this dream comes from a different bike-heavy period of my life. I don't remember the whole thing, but a moment, an image: for some reason I'm on a ferry as it's landing/docking (whatever the ferry-appropriate verb is), and as I'm walking down the ramp past the line of passengers waiting to get on the ferry, there's this amazing beautiful brunette woman with a backpack, and she's got this really really sweet bike. Chrome lugs, tasteful, elegant, functional, suave.

In the dream, the first thing through my mind? "Wow, cool bike." The second thing? "Oooh, she's pretty." That's when you know you've got bikes on the brain, and bad.

... so I got off the Toronto Island Ferry (a couple times over the weekend), and while there were no brunette hotties attached to pristine classic road bikes there to fulfill my prophetic dream, there were lots of people of varying hotness, attached to bikes of varying levels of awesome and not-so-awesome.

Maybe that counts as dream-fulfillment. Maybe I'll just keep an eye out on future ferry rides.

who knew faces were so loose?

2008-06-20T17:48:00.002-04:00

by way of Stevil

(be sure to watch at least past the halfway point, btw)

not everything

2008-06-20T15:55:00.003-04:00

I'm not going to go so far as to say "now I've seen everything", but in the news there's teenagers in bizarre pregnancy pacts (used to be TP-ing trees just a couple years ago, no?) and then people praying for lower gas prices (I thought they wanted the rapture, not cheap petrol).

I'm starting to wonder how much more wacky stuff there is out there.

quickie-'Ronto

2008-06-14T23:17:00.003-04:00

On a lark, here I am at the Cycle Messenger World Championships in Toronto. I'm not a messenger, I don't 'messenge', but I do spectate on occasion.

So I put a bike, a change of clothes, and the laptop in the car yesterday, and hit the road. Why? Well, Toronto is only 4.5 hours away, and this is the closest the CMWC is gonna get to Michigan (I really doubt I'd go to spectate if it were in San Francisco or Philly or Dublin or Sydney). Oh yeah, there's a large format bike polo tournament (64 teams), and I not only am curious to see how other people do it, but want to see how big and bad the big shots are. Maybe learn something too. Impressions of the warmup Saturday, you ask? OK...
- lt looks like knee high socks are the new thing for all the cool people. Too bad my wardrobe lacks them. 'Cause I want to be a unique individual, just like everyone else.
- I'm unlikely to ever adopt "messenger culture". Sure, I saw Quicksilver, and messengers are the nouveau urban cowboy, but I'm not much of a joiner when it comes down to it.
- I continue to not understand what fascinates people so much about riding their bikes in backwards circles. I get it, it's a trick. Congratulations. But once you've learned it, doesn't it just get boring after the 20th time?
- From watching East Vancouver and Ottawa play (the guy organizing it predicted they'll play the finals), their movement is so different. Keep moving, move the ball quickly, dynamically, not by 'carrying it'. Maybe you get intercepted, but let it go. Then take it back. Oh yeah, and play both sides of the bike with the mallet in the same hand.

I found a hostel downtown Toronto after some wandering, and after checking in and stashing my car went for a walk to find a beer. Seems that Toronto has been non-smoking for a while, but they neglected to pass a no-cologne ordinance along the way. I swear, walking by open doors or the rope line outside some club, my eyes were tearing. Found an Irish-ish pub, plunked down my $7 for a Guiness, read my book for a little while, and then decided I don't need to buy any more over-priced beer and headed back to the hostel. Seeing some of the folks all dressed up in their 6" heels and super-fishnets and patent leather corsets , I thought "hmm, must be a fetish club around here somewhere" Yup - Goodhandy's is right next to the Irish pub. Again, not being dressed for the occasion, I was content just to walk around and wander back to bed and sleep.

making a stop at Kroger...

2008-06-12T22:42:00.004-04:00

... I discover that not only is "natural" considered a "flavor" these days...

... but that apparently the marketeers at Kroger think that the food-buying public doesn't seem to know that there's a difference between calories from carbohydrates and calories from fat, regradless of how many there are.

quoteables

2008-06-10T13:00:00.002-04:00

From David Brin's Earth :

"It was, indeed, a bad habit, this toying with people. But as the years flickered by it grew easier. They all forgave so, almost as if they expected it... demanded it of her. And because she tested everybody, taking contrary positions without prejudice, fewer and fewer people seemed to believe she meant anything she said at all!

Perhaps, Jen admitted honestly, that would be the world's long-term revenge on her. To attribute everything she said to jest. That would be some fate for the so-called 'mother of the modern Gaian paradigm.'"

[sigh] ... if I was worried that I was misunderstood before, now I've got one more thing to include among possible reasons why.

art

2008-05-27T16:29:00.002-04:00

Next time you see an ad or street sign promoting "artisanal" anything, remember that with a different mix of spaces, or some different kerning, you end up with " art is anal ". I'm not suggesting that it's supposed to be a reference to visual or perfomance art, or someone named Arthur, or whether it's anal retentive or anal expulsive. That's up to you. And the sign maker.

But now, like the little black circle in the upper right hand corner of the movie screen that flashes to signal the change of reel, you will have a hard time NOT seeing "art is anal".

You're welcome.

sometimes...

2008-05-22T01:42:00.013-04:00

I was over at a friend's house tonight at our weekly board game night with a bunch of folks. Loud, boisterous, fun. A dozen or so adults around, half-dozen kids playing various games, snacks, drinks, board games, friends.

In the middle of a conversation at the board where I'm playing (frankly, I don't remember the conversation, and isn't really important), my friend KO(S) who is playing at the other board turns and punches me on the shoulder 7-8 times. Not that hard, but firmly, and not a gentle mock-punch tap either. If we weren't both big sturdy people like we are, I might have interpreted it as actually hitting "with intent", but we've known each other for a while, neither she nor I are shy about things, and I don't take offense. The thing is, I'm not going to simply accept a half-dozen punches for no apparent reason. And I'm not going to go out and hire a mediator to resolve the conflict for us. We're both adults.

So in that moment I count the punches, turn and say "that was 7" and then audibly count out as I return the punches to her shoulder 7 times, in exactly the force which they were thrown at my arm. The room gets quiet. KO(S) pauses, and then hits me 8 more times. I count her punches out loud, and then turn back and give the exact same thing right back to her. At this point, the punching is over for the evening.

But that moment... the quiet. That's what's on my mind. Not because I doubted what I or she were doing, but how fucked up people's perceptions can be. So fucked up by bumper stickers and rhetoric that they are unable to judge for themselves what something is or isn't.

I'm curious about the silence happened when I threw a punch and not when she threw the first punch at me. Is it because "there's no excuse for violence against women"? It better not be. First: that statement is rhetoric that doesn't apply to this situation. Second: it wasn't violence. Third: I'm 6'3", about 210 lbs - she's 6', 200 lbs. We're similar size and neither of us was winding up... it was fairly clear the even if it was enthusiastic, it was "play fighting".

So again, I say - what is it about the shock of me punching her back? Why is it that her husband felt compelled to walk over and pretend-punch me in the face because of the perception that my response was wrong because the "assault" on me was from a woman?

It's because rhetoric has such a powerful hold over us. Market to us, sloganeer at us, poll us... we'll say back to you what you want us to say.

And ultimately, it's the lack of context. Thinking critically (and no, I don't mean a formal definition of "critical thinking", rather, a mundane, yet far more important one) matter all the time.

"Question Authority" ... oh really? Does that include the soapbox upon which the bumper sticker is metaphorically standing? "Love is never wrong" ? Are you so sure about that? Sometimes, love can be really wrong. Ask your local police department for a list of domestic violence responses.

"Well - that's not love, that's the confusion of a co-dependent abusive relationship."

"So, you mean just 'healthy' love then... are you putting any restrictions on that?"

"Naw... it's cool. 'Celebrate diversity' and all that..."

"Uhm... really? Do you really mean that?"

"Oh, sure, I'm down with alternative lifestyles. "

"Uh... well, ok."

Context matters. Don't assume that your assumptions are the same as everyone else's assumptions.

What is violence to you is not the same as what is violence to her. What love is to you is not the same what love is to him. Authority is only that which you accept (or cannot refuse). Bumper stickers will not guide you through your life on their own.

wow, that sure is ugly...

2008-05-14T14:10:00.002-04:00

Regardless of the science of renewable energy of all different types, and the public opinion and policies thereof...

I've gotta say that this wind farm sure does make that ridge awfully damn ugly...

uh-oh. now I've done it.

2008-05-09T22:36:00.002-04:00

Cranksgiving Ann Arbor 2008 is now officially a go. I've already got some prizes contributed to the cause, so I guess this means it's official.

No dates picked or course detailed, but this year, so that folks of all types are comfortable entering, there will be the "Appetizer Course" (lighter, less demanding fare for the recreational riding), and the "Buffet/All-You-Can-Eat/Super-Size Course" (challenging, demanding, rewarding).

Bitchin'.

pedestrian rundown

2008-05-08T22:00:00.002-04:00

RBR Quote:

Overheard: "Drivers in America and Australia just have attitudes. I
don't necessarily say attitudes towards cyclists, but towards other
road users. People just don't realize the danger they're causing other
people." -- Cadel Evans, 2007 ProTour champion, admitting that
training on the road has its unsettling moments.

Blend this with the experience the other day of the F150 almost running over the pedestrian... I'm sitting there at a stop light when this fucking nob drives up next to me in the right turn lane in his big ole' truck. The dude in the crosswalk is right in front of me, walking left-to-right, and as I'm sitting there, the F150 is creeping up and wanting to turn right on red. But somehow, he completely fails to notice that there's someone in the crosswalk. He's looking left, the guy is right there... I don't know how this is even possible to be so clueless, but the F150 driver either doesn't notice, or doesn't care, and doesn't stop until the pedestrian in front of his bumper gets freaked out and has to pound on his hood to get his attention and keep from getting flattened into the crosswalk. Somehow does F150 guy think he owns the entire road?

I was in the car a couple months ago when Mom and Dad were in town for a visit. There are a number of pedestrian crosswalks in the middle of loooong blocks on campus. They're not the most visible, but they're signed with high-visibility signs and have striped crosswalks. People use them. Thery're there for a reason. But when it was obvious that Dad didn't seem to be slowing down when there are pedestrians in the crosswalk, I had to repeat a couple times "Dad... pedestrians." before he clued in. After passing the crosswalk, he made some comment like "what the hell are those people doing?" to which I replied "They're crossing the street. They're in the crosswalk. They have the right of way - you're supposed to yield to them." to which he muttered "they just walk out there in traffic like they're flaunting it" to which the only thing I could think to say was "What, are you expecting them to yield to you instead of you yielding to them?" Sure, Alberto Gonzalez might think that the Geneva Convention is quaint, but hopefully the Rules of the Road don't end up in that same rubbish bin of quaintness.

Of course, the whole pedestrian crossing takes a more difficult turn when we start talking about mordern roundabouts. There's more of them coming to roadways in the U.S., and while they are safer than 4-way stops and signalled intersections for motorized traffic, they create significant challenges for people with disabilities.

randoms leftovers from Arizona

2008-05-08T15:06:00.001-04:00

I never really wrote about the trip to Arizona this spring...

One memorable moment was the night of the Superbowl. Far from the stadium, at the bar in BBQ/TexMex joint with only 4 customers, talking with the 19-year old woman serving us food... She has lived all her life in the Phoenix area, but thinks about leaving to live somewhere else. No children, no spouse, no house. She's ready to go.

My advice: move to an old city. Phoenix is a bizarre mutant, and the world is far more interesting. Go to an old city. Live somewhere that geography shapes the way people live and dominates the culture, industry, and feel of the city. Rivers that have shaped Minneapolis, New Orleans, Kansas City. Ports and harbors that created Chicago, San Diego, Duluth, Baltimore, San Francisco. Mountains and valleys that dominate the landscape and shape the weather. Somewhere other than a sprawled suburb.

Somewhere that doesn't look like everywhere else.

And what is it about AZ state troopers? They just seem to like pulling people over. As I drive through AZ, NM, OK, TX, I see a lot more people getting pulled over in AZ than in the rest of the states. Are they looking for meth? Border-jumpers? Or do they just like pulling people over more than everyone else?

Extreme Apple Dream

2008-05-08T15:02:00.003-04:00

Ever tried eating the entire apple? OK, not the stem, but instead of throwing the core of the apple out, just eat the whole apple. I've changed my habit: start at the bottom and eat THROUGH the apple. Like karate - punch THROUGH the board. You don't even notice that there's a slight texture change. Sure, spit out the seeds if you want, but if you aren't dealing with a "core", you don't get juice all over your face and hands, you don't have to look for a garbage can, etc. etc. Give it a try sometime.

From a book on population/resource issues called "The Ostrich Factor"... something that seems as good an explanation as any other for political/cultural division between communities, cultures, religions, nations: "Extremism appears to lead to clear cut decisions, whereas moderation embarrasses us by emphasizing problems that are yet to be solved."

A) There are lots of complex situations, unanswered questions, things we don't know yet. It's OK to admit that. It doesn't make anyone weak by doing so.

B) In negotiation you always have to ask for more than you want. In aspiration, your reach should exceed your grasp.

A and B are not exclusive. Doing both is tough. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

When did "owning a home" become the "American Dream"? Who sold us this load of bullshit?

The American Dream is a Superman-like "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" or the Ellis Island-like "huddled masses, yearning to be free". It's not a sales pitch from the real estate industry, and I resent the perversion that's been done.

Eco-rection

2008-05-03T10:21:00.007-04:00

I don't really get it... Eco-rections, that is.

I get THAT they happen. I can understand that people have reasons. I just don't identify with them. There's plenty of reasons why people get aroused over "green-ness", being eco-friendly, trying to change the world.

I can understand that people really and truly believe that the single most important thing to do "in all the world, right now" is to clean up the environment. That they believe it is more important than all other political, economic, religious, technological, etc. issues.

I can understand that the pleasure of a personal crusade. How it gets ones nipples pert and erect with excitement over having a project, doing something, affecting the world. Some people want to make the world better, some people just want to affect the world. Others want to preach to others from a position of superior piety about how they are pure and proper and right in the world and therefore better than someone else who they've deemed inferior due to their different choices, or life, or situation.

But the thing that I really don't get is why people derive personal internal pleasure from "being green". I roll it over, looking at it from different angles, and it still doesn't trigger anything in me. If you choose to live your life in a way that consumes less, pollutes less, etc... that's fine. It's the way you live your life, and everyone lives their life, neh? You can make choices or have a plan for yourself and make changes. But if you're not actively organizing, or advocating, or trying to be holier-than-thou, or preaching-and-screeching, then why does "reducing my carbon emissions" become a source of pleasure in and of itself?

Where does all this come from, you ask? I was emailing with a friend that also rides a bike, and as the topic diverged from the original conversation, I made some sort of comment that "I just like bikes, that's enough for me". And she came back with how she loves that when she's riding her bike that she thinks about how good it is for the environment, and how it reduces traffic congestion, and all of that.

I'm trying to put myself in her head and understand what it is about that - what kind of pleasure or satisfaction she gets and how I can understand it by comparing it to my own experience. There's all kinds of pleasure that I can identify - a lively discussion, a job well done, a good cup of coffee, an elegant solution to a difficult problem, pleasant company, a delicious meal, swimming in the aromas of fancy beers, a hard workout, a beautiful vista, sex, friends, cool widgets, cool friends with sex widgets...

But the "I enjoy my reduced carbon footprint" pleasure? I'm just not built that way.

what's wrong with this pisser?

2008-04-30T22:08:00.005-04:00

I get to scrappin' every now and then with G about public bathrooms. She has her own professional interest (not a plumber though) and rants about them in her own way here, here, and here.

The thing is, I don't have much sympathy for the feminist notion that men's bathrooms are fundamentally super-privileged. That men are institutionally over-served in a manner that discriminates against (i.e. under-serves) women? That urinals are a fundamental inequality, and that by having them, men are given an advantage in urination that women are not allowed. Along with men's fundamentally discriminatory garments (and anatomy) that allow them to zip, pee, zip, flush, wash, and go, the plumbing itself is unequal. That by virtue of the standing piss, men are provided more facilities than women.

I submit that wherever a urinal is properly installed, a stall/toilet could have been installed instead. If there's ever a case where men are crammed together more tightly, it makes for a non-pissable experience, and so the concept of higher piss-density per lineal wall-foot is moot.

So let's talk about some example facilities...

Cadieux Cafe in Detroit. For some reason, a mini-trough and a toilet. But they are crammed into such a small space that it's basically impossible to use both. The width of the toilet tank gives you a sense of scale of the trough. Note how it touches the wall on the right side, and the placement of the other fixture (sink, I think) in the lower right-hand corner. Only one guy can stand at this trough. And if someone is sitting on the toilet, it's unlikely that ANYone will be using the trough. Too close to trough back-spray. It's possible that two could stand and piss, one using the toilet and one using the trough, but there's room for two toilets side by side - so what's the difference between dual-occupancy women's room?

Haabs Restaurant in Ypsilanti. The width of the porcelain of a standard urinal is about 16-18". These two have about 2" between them. Take a shoulder width of about 20". When standing at one of these, one clearly overlaps the "frontage" space of the other urinal - it's simply not possible to squeeze another dude in there, let alone the question of personal space. So basically, one of these is wasted. Note the stalls on the right. Not that much wider than the urinals. (yes, there's perspective distortion from the crappy camera phone lens, but you can see roughly) You can apparently squeeze a stall in about the same space as a urinal, even in the case of ones that are too-close-for-comfort.

The greater of insults is when the squeeze happens without another guy being there. That the little privacy barriers squeeze you even if you're the only one in the bathroom.

Ah yes, and to all the women out there - I'm sure that there's a toilet stall door equivalent of the poster-in-front-of-you at the urinal, right? Do you have posters 6 inches in front of you? You know - advertising to potential customers during those "low-distraction-moments". Not only are there posters, but not apparently there's an entire industry of "urinal communication" where a guy can't even have a moment in quiet contemplation of having a piss.

And if that isn't enough, let's just say that this bullshit at the BW3 in Ann Arbor made me consider angry bathroom vandalism as justified for the first time in my life. There's all kinds of stupid things that happen to men's bathrooms in bars that have college kids as patrons - towel dispensers ripped off walls, soap dispensers smashed, stall doors bashed or ripped off. Until recently, I thought it completely unnecessary to smash and bludgeon bathroom facilities. But a TV? There's already 47 TVs in the restaurant - I don't need one shoved in my face when I'm taking a piss. Seriously, am I going to catch up on an episode of Lost while I'm taking a piss?

Schadenfreude Pie

2008-04-28T11:39:00.002-04:00

It's dark, it's bittersweet, it's not for shiny-happy people. I think I'll give it a try one of these days.

that might come in handy...

2008-04-16T08:32:00.006-04:00

Parking has always been difficult in Ann Arbor. It's a perpetual source of bitching and complaining (on all sides) when issues of urban development, transportation, downtown accessibility, etc. come up in public forums. Heck, I can't think of a single city where someone isn't bitching about not being able to find a parking space withing 20 feet of the front door of where they want to go.

Recently, Homeless Dave did a teeter-totter interview with parking professional Steven Smith, and later on shared some data. I never really thought of myself as a "parking nerd", but I guess I am. The graph on the right that I stole from Dave shows how many parking spaces are available in a certain parking structure over one week. Fascinating. I'm wondering if there isn't some data dropping out over the weekend though - surely the occupancy is not flat-line stable over the weekend - there's at least gotta be a bump on Saturday evening at the 4th and Washington structure. I'm sure of it. Anyway, if you're heading to Ann Arbor and needing a parking spot, you can check here before you leave to see how many spots are left in your intended lot before you go there.

Some might say "these people have too much time on their hands... don't they have work to do?" Well, for the City of Ann Arbor and DDA, it is their work. Besides, you're just reading blogs. Don't you have work to do?

oh yeah, and there's this cool map that links to the live data that shows little pie charts. Numbers are great, but pie charts that show how filled the lots are? mmm, nifty.

you're screwed.

2008-04-02T00:23:00.002-04:00

... and just what did I learn at the county road commission meeting this afternoon?

If you're not trying to take it for yourself, someone else is going to try to take if for themselves. Sometimes that means taking from you. And what the hell are you gonna do about it? Hunh? Punk? Yeah, I'm talking to you.

It's not enough to expect fair and right - you have to overreach and overshoot, or else you get only what is left, which is nothing.

Call it Negotiation, call it Radicalism™... either way, all I can think about is the "he pulls a knife, you pull a gun" mindset. Sure, it's urban planning and transportation, but the sentiment is the same.

that is so awesome...

2008-03-28T11:16:00.002-04:00

Big high five, ma'am.

... and fuck you, mister.

Kimchi

2008-03-23T23:13:00.003-04:00

Good golly, I never had it so good.

My life had been sorely lacking, but then Brooke
got me all hooked up. I now have large quantities of Kimchi in my life, and life is so much better.

It's funny how the circles and patterns in ones life so easily become ruts. How many times have I rode or driven past the Hyundai Asian Market on Ellsworth? I've surely looked at the sign, but not seen it. But behind all the movie posters is a veritable bounty of mysterious seafood parts, kelp in all sorts of forms, the beloved Kimchi, and all sorts of other goodness in packages that haven't a single readable (to me) western character on them. Good thing they like to put pictures on the outside so that an ofay like me knows what they are. And good thing they don't sell baby food there.

There's a handful of other little shops over on Packard near Two Wheel Tango that surely have other delicious, economically priced delights just past their various Arabian-, Pakistani-, Indian-, and Japanese-awninged entrances.

I know it. I've been there. But I had forgotten. Sorry about that.

See you soon.

Blowout Breakdown

2008-03-10T21:54:00.006-04:00

Quick, while G has no home internet connection, I'll beat her to the punch on the musical reviewings.

Went to the Metro Times 11th Blowout over the weekend. Er... I mean, Thursday and Friday. She took Thursday, I took Friday, and the drinking non-driver had the responsibility of picking the bands to see. Overall, I gotta say that I don't know if I'll be going back next year. (sheesh, is this some sort of habit forming of resolving not going to festivals again next year?)

So on Friday, in order:

Novada at the New Dodge: What... the... fuck... Can you possibly be more annoying? I mean, sure... you went to Rock Band School and you want your money's worth, but the frontman trying to channel Jim Morrison (by pretending to be moody and performing swinging microphone antics), Michael Hutchence (by paying too much attention to yourself and performing swinging microphone antics, and Pete Townsend (by full-arm-swinging strumming a guitar to no perceivable effect) at the same time... just comes off as cheesey. Maybe it impresses the high school girls, but the Fallout Boy haircuts (er... hair sculpting) just show the lengths to which you will descend to suck mightily. Next, please. (New Dodge is a pretty cool space though - too bad they only have shit yellow piss beer to drink)

We walked out loong before their set was over to get to the Painted Lady early. Caught the end of rapper Leaf Erikson who - by their own admission - weren't anything special. "There's some real musicians coming up so stick around - we're just a bunch of drunk freestyle rappers". Turns out Deastro isn't much either. Described by Metro Times as "Wunderkind", it was one dude playing samples on his MacBook. There was a drum set on stage, and he did a soundcheck with it, but I fail to see the musicianship of queueing up samples. It might as well be a recorded track at that point. Might as well have been DJing. Which is not what I came for. Next, please.

Screamray at Baker's Streetcar: Messy (in a good way) inaudible vocals, but at least there was some unaffected sincerity. I wasn't blown away, but after the three acts just seen, it was a welcome relief. I'll give 'em an "enh... not bad". I wouldn't pay $10 to see them play all night though.

Mazinga at Atlas Bar: Seen posters in Ann Arbor for years for these guys, and supposedly all punk and whatnot. The songs on their myspace page sound pretty good. They were pretentious and tedious. They dedicated their set to Gary Gygax (who died recently), but I think Gary would have been ashamed to be associated with the sad display they put on. The singer in the middle of the song wandering out to "check the mix" (as G assured me that's what he was doing... I thought he was "taking it to the people"), and then ineffectively trying to order a glass of water (took him 3 tries) from the bartender by putting the mic down and shouting across the bar and gesturing wildly in between verses of the song pretty much turned me off. Next, please.

Friendly Foes at The Belmont: ooh, now they were GOOD. Only saw the last three songs of their set, but they were together, had well-written music (reasonably full arrangement for a three-piece), energy on-stage without pretense... I would pay $5-10 to see them again for a full set. The Belmont is a weird venue - the band off in a hallway... but they had good beer on tap, so they get a tip o' the cap for that.

And lastly... Banana Convention at Jean's. Clearly the worst bar. Band at ground level, drums up on stage. Impossible to see. Don't need the drums at ear level AND mic-ed. Oh yeah, and I actually stooped to have a PBR just to see what's so special. What could be so good that all the hipsters and butch dyke hotties seem to gravitate to it? Well, it ain't nothin' but another tasteless yellow beer. Might as well be Bud Light or Keystone or Miller. They all taste the fucking same. Of course, here I am getting slowly hammered on Talon... ok, back to the music. Banana Convention was pretty damn good. If only the dude in the yellow coat could either be useful or get off the stage - couldn't hear a damn thing from him and the tambourine and toy accordion didn't make much sense. The frontwoman with a HUGE voice in a teeny-tiny little human. Guitarist with a weird expression, but clearly some chops. Bass player a youngun - babyfaced, but solid. Drummer with that jam band cymbal/high hat work and chops there too. They pass the $5-10 test. Winners of the "I'll go see you again" competition, but a close race with Friendly Foes.

my latest crusade

2008-03-03T10:46:00.000-05:00

... takes shape slowly. Nevertheless, I hereby declare it to be my Official Rant of Note: Single-Occupancy Gendered Toilets (SOGTs).

A cafe, a bar, a restaurant has two single-occupancy toilets. Why ever would you label one for one gender and the other for another when they are identically furnished? It just doesn't make sense. I mean, if there's a urinal, there might be some sort of rationale to call it the men's room, but there's no reason why women can't use it. Heck, women should have urinals available to them too - case in point.

Anyway, the traffic jam outside a SOGT that sometime results, from one being occupied and the next customer being of the same gender, is so unnecessary. The example (here, last paragraph) that catalyzed my crusade repeated itself yesterday, at the exact same cafe. And in the latest episode, the guy waiting in line came back to the table, "got permission" from his girlfriend to use the women-labeled restroom, and proceeded relieve his need.

I can understand the need to label restrooms when they are multiple-occupancy and one should not barge into the other gender's territory for reasons of "decency" (or at the very least, adherence to societal norms). The casual user might not know whether the toilet is single- or multiple-occupancy, so it's understandable to hesitate. But the whole reason for my crusade is so that business owners start making sense with their toilets.

Because if you can't be reasonable about excreting, what can you be reasonable about?

interstitial moments

2008-03-02T21:15:00.001-05:00

Those moments between, none of which are noticeable, that make up the whole. The thing that fits between the other things.

In a community - the rhythm of the day, the habits of the neighbors, the bus schedule, the street traffic. What makes it different from other places.

In a relationship - the moments that pass, small, and many. Quiet or routine. The pattern of them IS the thing.

Things you can't invent or intend. Experiences or history that one would never know if one hadn't put in the time and been there in the slack times as well as the pivotal "ich bin ein Berliner" moments.

A carpet as metaphor... for some, the carpet of existence is low-pile indoor-outdoor utility grade, where a pebble cannot intrude because it bounces off. There, the grit is meaninful and prominent because it's the only thing in between. In the deep pile shag existence of the murky messy wild, the cat hair mixes with the peanut shells, the spilled wine, and the spontaneous frenzied fuck-sweat, forming a soft rich patina over each day, and if there's a little grit, no one notices other than the spoiled little princess sleeping on the pea.

fairness, chaos, structure, transparency

2008-02-27T12:59:00.011-05:00

So we're in those early stages of organization these days with the bike Organizing (the first usage being the "putting things in order" version and the latter being the advocacy-outreach/power-to-the-people version). It's a small group, with a limited agenda. I'd like to think that the most important reason for it to exist is to make it easy for friendly folks to meet other friendly folks and get out and ride together. But at last fall's inaugural group "event" ride (other than the weekly Sunday rides), the turnout was high enough that it seemed like there was reason, and motivation, and enough people interested/concerned that it could become something more than "just" getting together to ride.

In these early stages, it's a lot of ideas floating around. What to do, how to do it, who should do it, etc. And there's the rub. With a small grass-roots group of concerned citizens, everyone should have an equal voice. There's no authoritarian figure running the show, because the show doesn't exist without the small group of concerned citizens. But if everyone has an equal voice, the conversation is more like a crowded bar - lots of fragments of topics, dynamically floating from one to the other. And while a couple people hit it off, most people go home unchanged from when they walked in - other than having spent their time and money.

I was agonizing for a while about this. A sympathetic friend, to whom I would bitch and complain, would occasionally challenge me to show leadership/ownership and forge ahead in the group. Ostensibly, her thesis was that the chaos was because no one was willing to stand up and take responsibility, so no one knew to whom to look - thus the chaos. But the tradition of authoritarian organizations that shut out minorities (read: gender, race, sex, religion) won't work here. But "structurelessness" doesn't really work either. She left me a copy of an article that's apparently canonical when it comes to the organizational challenges of second-wave feminism. The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman makes good points about how intending a perception of a flat structure can easily lead to a structure more corrupt and elitist than one vertically/pyramidally organized. I found myself nodding along with it - it's not just the bike group, but the small companies I've worked for exhibit similar sorts of dysfunction.

While few people are interested in the formalities of by-laws and the like, sometimes they are necessary.

The criteria of participation may differ from group to group... All of these procedures take time. So if one works full time or has a similar major commitment, it is usually impossible to join simply because there are not enough hours left to go to all the meetings and cultivate the personal relationship necessary to have a voice in the decision-making. That is why formal structures of decision making are a boon to the overworked person. Having an established process for decision-making ensures that everyone can participate in it to some extent.

and when it's a group in the early stages, but with ambition, I find:

As long as friendship groups are the main means of organizational activity, elitism becomes institutionalized.

So what do I take away from the article? Well, secretly I whisper to myself "hey look, all this time - you're more than not wrong about the world, you were right again." But more importantly that there's no reason to try to subjugate my instincts just because they were the indoctrinations by the straight white male oppressor. And just because I'm perceived as the straight white male oppressor with a shave and a haircut doesn't mean that I need to endear myself by putting on a uniform of disconformity or antitraditional style to fit in. There are plenty of ways of being effective, including the ones already known. I've advised others to "just be who you are" - I should have been listening to myself more. I don't need to put on an affected display of fairness fetishization to be even-handed and respectful of peers. The truth will be known. Eventually, always. Structure and organization can respect the individual, and if the individual "wants in" to a particular part of the structure, the way in is obvious to all.

Winter Beer Fest review

2008-02-25T15:26:00.003-05:00

Over the weekend was the Michigan Brewers Guild Winter Beer Fest out in Grand Rapids. While I do enjoy beer bunches, I was sorely disappointed this year. This year's Winter Beer Fest was terrible, horrible, and very bad. Not the beers, but the event. Basically, the venue was SO bad that it interfered and distracted from appreciating the beers...

It was a complete maze - the up-down-around-the-bend to find a booth was annoying. The narrow paths between areas made for congestion and a melee, not to mention icy slippery wooden decking. Some parts of it were blistering and freezing in the wind (i.e. central area near New Holland) compared to more inviting areas (i.e. upper deck near Arbor Brewing/Corner Brewery). Yes, I realize that it's a Winter beer fest, but it doesn't need to be a question of winter survival. There was no gathering space for friends to have a place to stand around and discuss the beers they had. (central or otherwise) It was shoulder-to-shoulder jostling all day. And lastly, there were just not enough bathrooms.

Lansing last year was, while more crowded, better. There was less space, but it was space you could move in. I know there was controversy over the move to Grand Rapids, and while I don't particularly mind the move, I do think that having a neutral city for beerfest (i.e. Lansing) makes more sense. But if it stays in GR next year, hopefully it will be at a different venue. If it is in the ballpark again, we probably won't go. Summer Beer Fest, however is a delight.

Along with the disappointment of the venue, back at the hotel, it seems the hotel room attempted murder upon me. A short nap with the heat on dehydrated the room so badly that I was raw and coughing uncontrollably. G and I had, as part of the grand plan, wanted to go to F ounders to the Back Forty show after beer fest, so we struggled our way out in the cold, went to the show, and watched some barefoot neo-hippies twirl around while The Werks opened. Ran into Monica (of Monica and Kate - the Ann Arborites we recognized in the hotel lobby and ride-shared to the Fest) and she was kind enough to buy us a beer as a thank you for the ride. The bourbon-barrel-aged Kentucky Breakfast Stout is normally delicious, but it felt strange to my tongue that night, but the Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale was delicious. We only lasted halfway through the Back Forty set - it was just a long beery day, so we bailed and walked through the cold, and then through the warm skyway, and then back in the cold, where I feared for my survival in the hotel, but somehow managed to wake up alive and had a nice little Sunday drive back home (with a minor getting-slightly-lost diversion near Ada, MI).

So in the interest of posterity, I'll share my tasting notes below. Keep in mind that it was mid-beer jotting of notes while standing on slippery wood decking, or while walking, or while slightly buzzed from an afternoon of beer sampling. In the order of having tasted them, they were:

1. Schmohz Brewery Kiss My Scottish Arse Scotch Ale: Not a scotch ale. Bitter. Vile.
2. Schmohz Brewery Mad Tom's Porter: Tastes like their scotch ale. Crappy.
(Seems lie Schmohz went the way of Jolly Pumpkin - their beers all taste the same - like the same strain of yeast, which has a sour bitterness to it that I don't care for.)
4. Sherwood Brewing Leadbelly Oatmeal Stout: Lactose-y. Ashey. Good mouth-feel, but that's all.
5. Sherwood Brewing Alaskan Sister Wit: Bitter. Too heavy for a Wit.
6. North Peak Witley's Wheat: Too much like a Pilsner. Blech.
7. Copper Canyon Rye-PA: Solid IPA notion. Looong swervy skid in the later linger. Loooovely.
8. Grand Rapids Brewing Co. Tiramisu Stout: Nice sweet coffee nose. Unremarkable taste, but ok. Thin mouthfeel.
9. Michigan Brewing Co. Winter Warmer (Rye-PA): Nice malty smooth hop. Really quite good.
10. Michigan Brewing Co. Imperial IPA: Definitely imperial in the best way. Not ridiculous hop, but big and meaningful.
11. Michigan Brewing Co. Superior Stout: Smoky. OK. Rolls around a lot.
12. New Holland Cabin Fever Brown Ale: A bit coffee, malty, round.
13. New Holland Pilgrim's Dole Wheat Wine (2005): Makes me salivate at the end. Not too sweet. Delicious.
14. New Holland Red Tulip: Never did much for me. Wendy loves it. I really don't see what she sees in it.
15. The Hideout Chicago Typewriter Double Red: A bit bitter
16. The Hideout Smugglers Hazlenut Stout: Good nose, but distractingly thin mouthfeel.
17. The Hideout Midnight Oatmeal Stout: Smoky
18. Dragonmead Imperial Stout: Whisky kick at the end. Not sweet. Pretty good.
19. Arcadia Brewing Co. Hop Rocket Imperial IPA: hop flowery, nice. Not overbearing.
20. Arbor Brewing Co. HXL Double IPA: Damn that's good. Smells like barleywine, Drinks like IPA.
21. Arcadia Brewing Co. Cocoa Loco Chocolate Stout: Had it before. Usual thing. Fine. What you'd expect.
22. Dragonmead Imperial IPA: Not that Imperial.
23. Waldorff Brewpub Hopnoxxxious IPA: sucks
24. Waldorff Brewpub Bee Sting Honey Rye: sucks less
25. Waldorff Brewpub Old Woody Imperial Stout: sucks more
26. Black Lotus Generation X Porter: enh. [shrug]
27. Black Lotus The Gift Belgian Strong Ale: Nice. Very nice.
28. Black Lotus Hip Hops American Pale Ale: Super-dry hop
29. Grand Rapids Brewing Co. Barrel-Aged Barley Wine: Goooood. Scotchy (like the liquor, not the ale), which is nice.
30. Founders Porter: Dry. OK. Not that special.
31. Founders Black IPA: Black beer and IPA? Don't necessarily think that's a good thing.
32. Copper Canyon Big Time Barleywine: Wasn't sweet enough for me to identify it as a Barleywine.

gobble, gobble

2008-02-25T14:43:00.002-05:00

My book list has been full of non-fiction lately - dry stuff that I put there because it would "be good for me." Things I've always wondered about, things I should know more about. Well, it's been slow-going.

Thus the sudden immediate contrast when I picked up Life of Pi. Immediately engaging, and it kept me up until 3:30 last night. You've surely heard of it, and if you haven't read it yet, you should look for it. Delightful. A little rough for kids because it's about a tiger (that, by its nature, bites and claws and rips flesh), but young teens by now have surely seen or read greater violence just by watching TV.

It's supposedly being made into a movie, but I have no hopes for that. I don't think the depth of the adventure will translate well. But in the meantime, it's a great little book to gobble up in a night or two.

Yum.

true, that.

2008-02-16T13:26:00.002-05:00

I'm officially back from The West, but haven't been able to muster the wherewithal to pull myself up by the bootstraps and do the post-trip synopsis. But I just saw this little clip of David Lynch and since, while Driving The Long Drive, I was reminded of some of the monotonous camera-on-bumper-at-night scenes in Lost Highway, here's something to think about...

foodies, avert thy eyes

2008-01-30T14:57:00.001-05:00

The one thing I've stooped to when on the road (and on the road I am, driving in search of the sun to hang/bike/etc. in Phoenix with Matt), is to stop at McDonald's. I'll admit, it's half fueled by the fact that they have started having free WiFi, and there's just something convenient about 700,000,000,000 McD's locations nationwide where there's internet access.

So it's with mixed emotions that I go in... I do love a synthetic milkshake every now and then, and it appears that the McRib is back. Again. But going away? What IS the deal with the McRib anyway? Apparently, it has only gone away 3 times so far. Perpetually to come back, like the alternating waves of pleasure, then nausea, it induces on its victims.

So it's with a growing sense of relief that I leave the... ahem... Great State of Missouri... with it's perpetual religious billboards (and apparently vibrant anti-porn/anti-highway-adult-bookstore movement) to trek across the dust bowl and beyond to the beloved desert. I'm sure the delight of smooth mouthfeel will pass like the miles, and that patented McDonald's Sense of Intestinal Unease™ will take up residence soon enough.

not bad at all...

2008-01-26T18:14:00.000-05:00

A flurry, I guess. Not sure where the week went.

Got a new bike. Er, frame I mean. "...and why do you need another bike?" you ask. "dude... shut up" I say. Had parts around so I only had to buy a couple things - stem and brake levers, maybe some pedals in the future. Haven't exactly "finished" it - still intend to make it a fixed-gear, but need to decide on a hub. In the meanwhile it's a singlespeed that I took for a ride last night, and it's kind of fun. It's really quiet... kind of eery.

It's Burns Night tonight over at Andre's. Looking forward to it - not only was it fun last year, but it marks something of an anniversary. It was at that party a year ago where I met a lot of people that, in the time since, I've come to call good friends. There'll be haggis (veggie, but I hope someone makes some of the real stuff), Scotch (duh), and the poetry of Mr. Burns. Who doesn't love centuries-old scottish poetry that includes such chart-toppers as "Ode to a Haggis"? I'll be bringing some variations on Rita's Rum Cake (recipe below) - one traditional, and one fucked-with. As in, with different stuff in it - chocolate and cherries. And then there'll be the testers made with 12 year-old Isle of Islay Scotch instead of rum. We'll see how those turn out. I'm verrrry curious.

Bought a BOB trailer today from Ben. It's a Yak trailer, but I don't plan on taking it to the coffee shop like the dude in the BOBgear ad. (And I'm sure as hell not going to sip coffee out of a silly-shaped cup like that, either.) I was thinking something a little more blue-skies-and-scenic-vistas.

Ran the re-use/thrift/gauntlet today searching in vain for a proper pepper mill. One with a crank that sticks out. Not a knob that you twist - a crank that you spin. When I want to grind pepper into something I'm cooking, I want it now, and I want a bunch of it. And twist-twist-twist/squeeze-squeeze-squeeze isn't doing it for me. The Re-Use Center, which is right down the street from the PTO thrift store, which is right down the street from the Salvation Army store, poses a tough problem for folks like me that can find something to do with this, that, or another thing (or at least think we can). Everything seems like a good idea. But I know that I don't have room or follow-through enough for everything, so I restrained myself. Pretty wacky place, that Salvation Army. Huuuuge place. Tons of clothes, all seemingly in pretty good condition. Grey flannel suit for $8? Sure, why not. I realized my eyes were too big and my apartment too small, so I put shoes to pavement and left empty-handed.

Tomorrow's the Worst Day of the Year Ride, and we have some snow, so that's appropiate for the day. Monday is the Bike Ypsi meeting and the logo competition. Tuesday, I think I'll go to Arizona - Matt has an extra bedroom down at the proving grounds and extended the invite, so who am I to refuse a place to sleep and recreate where there's sunshine and shorts weather? And, I get to check in with the desert (howyadoin'?). Ride the bike a bit. Tromp around in the wild. Let the sun shine on in and have my skin make me some Vitamin D.

While the continuing list of not-bad-at-all things extends all the way down to the Rita's Rum Cake Recipe, in the meantime there's this surprisingly effective sitar rendition of a tune we all know and... uhm... well, we all know it, right?

Rum Cake
4 eggs
1 box yellow cake mix
1 pkg french vanilla instant pudding
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup dark rum (maybe 1/3 or 1/2 cup if you want)
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Rum Sauce
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 (or 1/2) cup dark rum

Grease a bundt cake pan VERY well and sprinkle nuts into the bottom of the bundt cake pan. Mix the ingredients and pour over the nuts. Bake directly on the oven rack at 325 for 45 minutes.

Combine the ingredients for the rum sauce and bring to a boil. After the cake is done, pierce the top of it with a toothpick or fork or whatever you've got, and pour the sauce over the cake.

Important: Let sit for at least 2 hours before turning it out of the pan. Then call your cardiologist and make a reservation before tucking into this cake. Because you seriously just used 2 (or more if you're adventurous) sticks of butter (not margarine, you sissy) in this and will probably have a second piece of cake each time. What were you thinking? Ah, well it's good, isn't it?

the question that won't go away

2008-01-24T08:49:00.001-05:00

Exactly when did I eat corn?

No, seriously. I don't remember eating corn. But yesterday I looked down, and there it was. Today I look down, and there it is again. I must be sleep-eating or something.

Was I abducted and the corn implanted?

I'm blaming the reptoids.

the making of sausage

2008-01-22T14:42:00.000-05:00

There's those old sayings about making sausage - about how, like laws, you shouldn't learn what goes into it or how it's made. About how much less attractive it is the more you know about it.

Well, it seems I (metaphorically) don't agree. I mean, I know that politics and law are complicated and thorny bits, but the more I learn about my local government, the more intrigued I am. Lots of people get turned off the by the amount of bureaucracy and red tape that goes into even local government. I, for one, am ok with it.

It's easy to lean back on one's Libertarian Lounger or Republican Rocker or Democrat Davenport and snipe about the waste of time and energy and money that goes into government. Bound to special interests, lazy, corrupt, shallow, whatever you want to call them.

But here in Ann Arbor, I'm left with the overall feeling of a fairly well-run city. Sure, there's rough spots here and there, but that's the nature of compromise. And like the old saying goes: a decision that satisfies everyone's needs, but makes no one happy, is probably the fairest compromise possible.

No one gets exactly what they want, so everyone is unhappy in at least one way or the other. But that also likely means that it compromise serves the needs of the largest number of people.

Make no mistake - governing/government is a perpetual exercise in compromise (unless you live in a totalitarian dictatorship, incendiary criticism about the Bush administration ignored for now). It wasn't until recently that I saw the elbow grease/dirty fingernails of the workings of that at the Parks Advisory Commission meeting a couple weeks ago. The point of going was to show support for the Ann Arbor Skate Park, but watching the rest of the meeting was... interesting. It would seem that decisions made have reasons, and data to back them up (go figure!). Proposals in front of even modest groups like the Parks Advisory Commission still get bounced back when there's no data to support claims. There were multiple times I heard comments, criticism, discussion from commission members that showed that they did indeed have the interest of park users, taxpayers, and the future welfare of all of the city in mind.

Yes, I know... that's what they're supposed to do. I shouldn't be surprised when it happens. But still - it's nice to see that it actually happens in real life.

helllooo out there in TV land...

2008-01-07T11:50:00.000-05:00

Well, not having had anything to rant about for a while, I guess I'm overdue. Today's topic of annoyance: morning TV culture.

I had the uhm... opportunity... today to sit in a waiting room while a friend went to to the doctor, and the waiting room TV had some apparently typical morning programming on. Regis and whoever, or Dr. Phil, or who knows what. I couldn't see it, just hear it, and I have to say that I was really kind of amazed at how much of it is essentially a full-length commercial. Commercials for other TV shows (with clips of the previous day's TV shows), promotion of fucked-up body image stereotypes, telling you who to trust and how to spend your money, accentuation of unnecessary anxieties. It's torturous. I don't know how people can watch it. And no, I'm not ranting from the high-and-mighty holier-than-thou perspective of the TV-free. I'm just reacting as someone who hasn't adopted this into their life. If it's not already something you do all the time, it is a weird-assed thing to see the constant performance of fake laughter.

Hours and hours of labor, millions of dollars worth of equipment to bounce a signal back and forth to satellites, all of it about... nothing. No wonder it's just one big ad.

It gets me all twitchy.

before I put it back on the shelf...

2007-12-17T12:24:00.000-05:00

It's somehow appropriate for the weather - finish a book about the desert, and 6 inches of snow fall on Michigan. Just finished reading Edward Abbey's book Desert Solitaire. Abbey is controversial all by himself. In wilderness preservation radicalism, he's the arche-, proto- and stereotype. He maintained unflinching views of what wilderness is and should be, and wasn't hesitant to say what he meant. And while his politics developed over the years to be even more controversial, this book stays more or less in the desert.

Some of it flits by in graceful imagery "I was still young myself, or thought I was, enjoying good health, not quite to the beginning of the middle of the journey," and some of it becomes clunky, overstated, and absurd "Civilization is mutual aid and self-defense; culture is the judge, the lawbook and the forces of Law and Ordure; Civilization is uprising and insurrection, revolution; culture is the war of state against state..."

But before I start sounding like an armchair book-jacket copy writer - some of the things that caught my attention or got me nodding.

On Wilderness and Parks, Accessibility, and Roads

"What about children? What about the aged and infirm? Frankly, we need to waste little sympathy on these two pressure groups. Children too small to ride bicycles and too heavy to be borne on their parent's backs need only wait a few years... The aged merit even less sympathy: after all they had the opportunity to see the country when it was still relatively unspoiled... "

"A man on foot, on horseback, or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles. Those who are familiar with both modes of travel know from experience that this is true; the rest have only to make the experiment to discover the same truth for themselves."

On Population and Water (particularly in the West and California):

"Water, water, water... There is no shortage of water in the desert, but exactly the right amount, a perfect ratio of water to rock, or water to sand, insuring that wide, free , open, generous spacing among plants and animals, homes and towns and cities... There is no lack of water here, unless you try to establish a city where no city should be."

On Population:

"It will be objected that a constantly increasing population makes resistance and conservation a hopeless battle. This is true. Unless a way is found to stabilize the nation's population, the parks cannot be saved. Or anything else worth a damn."

In a section about the Navajo, he makes a point applicable to broader populations

"In the long run, their economic difficulties can only be solved when and if out society as a whole is willing to make an honest effort to eliminate poverty. By honest effort, as opposed to the current dishonest effort with it's emphasis on phoney social services which benefit no one but the professional social workers, I mean a direct confrontation with the two actual basic causes of poverty: (1) too many children and... (2) too little money... Social justice in this country means social surgery - carving some of the fat off the wide bottom of the American middle class."

It's something I keep coming back to over and over. Overpopulation. Why are we humans consuming ever more and more energy? Creating more and more garbage? There's this competition to out-breed other religions (the real motivation behind Roman Catholic bans on condoms, etc.), out-breed other cultures, out-breed other nations. We're guilty of the shortsighted inconsiderate greed of believing that we are right and everyone else is wrong. Whether it's neighbors, cities, nations, or entire cultures. We might see the effect and want for a better world, but we need to act our beliefs and not just give it lip service. Not succumb to the gleeful Fuck Yeahs of the Biggest Lawnmower On The Block, or Shiniest Granite Countertops, or Little League MVP. And where does that all come from? Conformance to an image of an ideal our parents or grandparents were sold while they weren't watching. We need to not be afraid to be who we are - who we were before we let someone else convince us to be ashamed of ourselves for not being like them. Whether that's buying a Toyota Prius, or breeding buckets of children.

And lastly, while I'm an amateur careerist navel-gazer, some observations are refreshingly familiar

".. my theory is that solipsism, like other absurdities of the professional philosopher, is a product of too much time wasted in library stacks between the covers of a book, in smoke-filled coffeehouses and conversation-clogged seminars. To refute the solipsist or the metaphysical idealists all that you have to do is take him out and throw a rock at his head: if he ducks he's a liar. His logic may be airtight but his argument, far from revealing the delusions of living experience, only exposes the limitations of logic."