Recirculating Cheese

It's Bike Sunday here on the Recirculating Cheese channel. It's impossible to not take pictures of bikes in Amsterdam; they're literally everywhere. However, I saw very few American-style bikes - only a handful with dropped handlebars, and maybe one or two mountain bikes. Instead, you see bikes with upright handlbars, cargo racks, lights, fenders, and chain guards. These are bikes for transporting people and stuff, in comfort.



( +11 )

Had a productive riding lesson yesterday, and was reminded that what my horse needs is quantity time.

Nevins Farm has a bunch (~40) of button quail, and I'm sorely tempted to bring some home.

Whilst cleaning grain buckets this morning, I found a young mouse. I didn't want to kill it, but I didn't want to release it where it would come straight back into the barn, so I eventually re-homed it in a pile of spoiled hay out by the bull's pen.

Finished painting the fork on the new chopper. It's white (not as close to the white of the rest of the bike as I'd like), with red tips (more or less to match the trim), clear-coated with reflective paint. We'll see how reflective it actually is tomorrow night.

Saturday night, I went out with scul for the first time in 3 weeks (what with Baitcon and Montreal). We biked to a lovely soiree, laughed at the rain for a couple hours, then headed out again. Except it wasn't done raining. And I was piloting Catastrophe - possibly the biggest, heaviest bike after Cloudbuster. Seriously, I'm a strong biker, but this was near the limit of my abilities when I was fresh and sober, and it only got worse on the return trip, in the rain. doze_e_fish gets several hundred additional awesome points in my estimation for piloting this craft.

Anyway, I wrestled it most of the way home, but coming in the landing pad, I rode over a curb I hadn't noticed (possibly recoverable), into a parking barrier (not recoverable), and twisted my ankle in the ensuing fall.

Today was the first time I actually looked at it. Really. I have a pretty good sense of how things are, and it didn't feel like something that needed a lot of medical attention, just some time off. So yes, it's swollen, and yes, a compression bandage is helping. But no workout today, no skating tomorrow, and hopefully I'll be back on the horse in a few days.

Flew my third mission with SCUL last night, and was knighted as a pilot at the end of it (in front of the Dunkin Donuts at 2am).

The ceremony went something like this:

Skunk: Have you trained this pilot to the best of your abilities in accordance to SCUL policy?
Zombie: Yes.
Skunk: Have you had your fill of changing dirty maggot diapers?
Zombie: Yes.
Skunk: Do you swear that this maggot is ready to become a full-pledged pilot?
Zombie: Yes.
Skunk: Knight your maggot.

Zombie: Do you hereby voluntarily assume for yourself all risks of personal injury or death which might befall you while participating in space travel, including the possibility of being sucked out an airlock?
LD50: Hell yeah!
Zombie: Do you solemnly swear to pledge yourself to adherence to SCUL guidelines, under strict paramilitary command, for the opportunity to seek glorious fortune with the camaraderie of your fellow pilots?
LD50: Hell yeah!
Zombie: Do you solemnly swear to 'bust the funk'?
LD50: Hell yeah!

Zombie: Kneel before SCUL.
Zombie: On behalf of all of SCUL, I hereby knight LD50 to the rank of Pilot.
Zombie: Three cheers for LD50!

I also produced, for the SCUL archives, a variation on my UK bike tour travelogue book, substituting "LD50" for my name, and "$wife" and "$daughter" for their names; and bound said book with red zip-ties. In all seriousness, when I was planning that trip, I found it useful to read other people's accounts/itineraries/etc, so maybe this will be useful to someone else.

Today was the Blazing Saddles Century, a ride I've done a number of times over the years, most recently two years ago. Given the heat and the fact that I haven't been biking much this year, I might have skipped it, but I promised tcb that I'd be there, and I'm generally game for a challenge, so I did. At the last minute, I decided to take the 20 year old Raleigh rather than the 5 year old Bianchi. They're both good bikes, both kind of curmudgeonly, like me.

It was pretty good up to the lunch stop at mile 47, but I never my groove back, so I split off to do the metric century. It kind of felt like quitting (although it was still 17 miles back to the finish from the decision point), but I really didn't have it in me to go another 40 miles.

Funny thing about timing. As soon as I got home, I was greeted with a veterinary emergency. Josie (13½ year old greyhound) had collapsed in the back yard, couldn't even lift her head, and was panting fast and hard with her tongue all the way out of her mouth, even after being hosed down. Word from the vet - rubbing alcohol to the foot pads and groin area to help her cool down faster. By the time we got her to the vet, she could lift her head, and had retracted the tongue a bit. EKG, chest X-rays, blood work, oxygen, subcutaneous fluids, IV fluids, and the diagnosis is...heat stroke and dehydration. Still, they're keeping her overnight, because she's still not breathing normally without oxygen, and can't sit up, much less walk.

In other news, I picked up a new hard drive for the laptop, hoping to clone it for a minimum of fuss, but I appear to have waited too long - it won't stay up long enough to do anything meaningful, and often doesn't come up at all. I've got full backups of all my personal data and projects, but I never bothered to back up the programs. I can reinstall all the programs on the new disk, but that's a pain, and I can't get things like the corporate VPN client until at least Monday. We're at a crunch time, and it would have been handy to get some work done this weekend, but I don't feel like driving up to Nashua to spend time in the office on the weekend.

I don't usual bother transcribing the ordinary Stuff of life, but what the hell, this is open mike night...

Saturday: beastly hot, Kylie's 2pm riding lesson was cancelled in anticipation of it being too hot for the beasts, but the 12pm grown-up lesson was still on. Since Kylie was there anyway, she got to ride with the grown-ups, on her own without someone leading her, doing the same stuff we were doing. Challenging at her level, but everyone needs to be challenged periodically, and she did it with nary a complaint.

Afterwards, side trips to Penzey's and a toy store, then the rest of the day at a 6 year old's birthday party. How to explain this - Michael is my godson, but none of us has any active religion, much less a shared religion; he's my nephew, but not a blood relation; heck, he's just my Michael, that's all.

Sunday, still beastly hot, but took Kylie to Laine's, and I rode Cheyenne in the ring. I set up four posts in the ring, and had all the fun you can have with four posts - big circles around the outside, smaller circles inside, increasingly smaller circles around one pole, figure-eights, serpentines, cloverleafs, etc. I also tried on the crocheted ear net I got for him, and made him go to the swamp next door, where the deer flies live; it didn't keep the flies off his neck (naturally), but they didn't even try to bug his ears, so I judge it a success. But he managed to snag his reins on something while I was un-tacking him, and he twisted the cheek plate of his bit, and popped open the clips to the rein and bridle on that side; 10 minutes of hammer and tongs fixed all that.

Later, Kylie and I biked to Andover and back - 12 miles, far and away the farthest Kylie has gone under her own steam, and her on a single-speed coaster bike, and having no concept of standing to pedal up the hills. She didn't complain, but she's not begging to repeat it soon. While we were there, we rattled around the mostly empty campus of Phillips Academy. At some point, I found myself explaining that this was where George W. "W" Bush went to high school, but it's not their fault he's an idiot.

I feel kind of conflicted about that. My own parents never discussed politics in front of us, and I have no idea where they stood on the issues of the day. For instance, I was 10 when Nixon resigned, and I have clear memories of the event, but not of their reaction to it. So I tend to be kind of guarded about discussing politics around Kylie, but at the same time, I feel it's important for her to realize the incalculable damage this administration is doing to the country and the world, as well as the fact that she can't trust the Glass Teat to be Fair and Balanced.

Argh.

Today we went climbing. Kylie is definitely a first-class monkey. Next week, she's going to climbing camp, and getting her first taste of outdoor climbing. I'm hoping we can get her into a kids clinic or team or such in the fall, because she's ready for more structured practice.

Tomorrow: skataing, and Francie returns from Las Vegas (bringing the hot hot hot with her).

For the UK bike trip, I bought a fabric screen printing kit so I can make custom commemorative t-shirts (jackets, sweatshirts, underwear, whatever). Once the screen is made, it can be applied to anything.

( process wank )

The route in the image vaguely approxmiates the route we'll be travelling. In particular, the long gentle curve through the Midlands indicates a lack of firm plans.

The green in the image vaguely approximates the color of the ink I picked up. The kit came with black, red, and yellow, but those didn't seem appropriate to England's green and pleasant land.

So, questions for the artistic types, because I can no longer look at this objectively.

• Does the design work for you? Does it need text (possibly on a different screen, to print in a different color), e.g. "Three Legs Across Britain"?
• Does the color work for you? That's easier to adjust than the screen, but I'm hesitant to buy more inks for a very short print run project.
• Any other thoughts?

The Next Big Thing is not a new bike, but a new bike trip. Dan and I are going to be biking from John O' Groats, in the far northeast corner of Scotland, to Land's End, in the far southwest corner of England, approximately May 31 to June 14.

I'm actually flying out to Orkney, spending a couple days there, then taking the ferry to JO'G, and meeting Dan there. The clever Brits have mapped, signposted, and in some cases actually built a National Cycle Network. I've got cycle route maps covering both ends (Scotland and the West Country), Ordnance Survey maps of all parts of the country we're going through, and GPS mapping software, so when we get lost, we'll at least know where we're not.

I'll be riding the Bianchi, and Dan scored me a set of God's own panniers at closeout prices (slightly less than obscene). Now I just have to start training...