Remains of the Day

Blue Angels

I moved up a few floors to a new office yesterday, and my entire left wall is a window that faces North. Besides affording me lovely views of the city, my new digs are paying off in spades today because I have the perfect view of the Blue Angels running their practice laps in the skies, warming up for Seafair this weekend.

Meta Amazon customer reviews

Jenny sent me this link a while ago: a blog which surfaces and ridicules humorous/pathetic Amazon.com customer reviews.

It's a bit too easy to bash on these people, don't you think? But I'm still going to stand in the back corner, pretending to sneeze while stifling an occasional giggle. If anyone looks, I'll feign stern disapproval.

Book your 2004 bike tour now

Sally Jenkins article in the Washington Post: Extra Ordinary in Ways Unseen

Authentication can be fun

Kottke.org remaindered a link to this article from Microsoft Research proposing to use inkblots for authentication (identifying users online). It reminds me a bit of another authentication scheme called Passface, now called Real User, which identified users by having them pick out a series of faces from a larger set of faces. Both capitalize on quirks of human perception to create more secure authentication schemes.

They're fun and potentially more effective than using simple text and numeric string passwords, but I find they take too long and end up being too much trouble to gain widespread adoption. I don't want to have to step through a series of pages, identifying ten inkblots or a series of faces, just to log in to a website. Sure, that's lazy, but entire empires have been built on human laziness.

Who's Jonathan Frazen?

I got my invoice for my renewal to The New Yorker, and it included a form letter from Peter Webb of their circulation department. An excerpt:

"The New Yorker, the fabled magazine of James Thurber, E.B. White, Robert Benchley...now the magazine of John Updike, Jonathan Frazen, Alice Munro, Ken Auletta..."

Frazen? It's somewhat humorous to see any typos in correspondence from The New Yorker.

The New Yorker, like every other magazine, is like an insecure girlfriend always angling for signs of commitment. From about a year before my sub was due to expire, I've been receiving letters urging me to renew. Don't they know men do poorly with commitment? Sheesh. Cool your jets and save yourself some postage. I'll renew when I'm good and ready.

Grrrrr

DVD distributors don't distinguish between inventory they ship to online retailers and those they ship to physical stores. So even DVDs I order online and which are shipped directly to my doorstep come with not only shrinkwrap but stickers that seal all three sides of the keep or snap case. Those stickers are designed to slow down in-store thieves and simply serve to frustrate online customers.

In the early days of Amazon, toy manufacturers shipped us toys in fragile cases intended to showcase the toy in a physical store. These packages were terribly difficult to pick and pack and ship without damaging them. Same with outdoor living tools. Eventually some of them wisened up and shipped us inventory in more warehouse-friendly packaging. Let's hope someday the movie studios will learn, too.

CDs often come with the annoying adhesive bones on them as well, but they're easier to remove. Simply remove the cover of the plastic CD case from the hinge at the unsealed end and peel off the bone with the cover on the other end. Then simply snap the cover back on.

Cleaner browsing for cleaner living

If you use Internet Explorer, you may be accustomed to browsing with several rows of toolbars at the top of the page. Address bar, buttons, bookmarks, Google Toolbar, Yahoo toolbar, etc. But sometimes, I like to hit the F11 key on IE for cleaner browsing. It maximizes screen real estate and is strangely soothing. Inspired by this question on Tufte's site.

Lots of other great content at Tufte's Ask E.T. page, well worth several hours of browsing. For example, a recent discussion of the difficulties in generating useful project management charts for managing large scale projects. Or a link to this graphical display of Puget Sound traffic, which is quite useful for highway commuters.

Or this discussion of interfaces in sci-fi movies. Minority Report appeared on HBO this morning, catching me during breakfast. In it, Tom Cruise's pre-cog cop manipulates images displayed on a translucent glass monitor using the hand gestures of a maestro while wearing input device gloves. Futuristic movies always concoct highly convoluted, visually impressive but impractical interfaces for doing everyday tasks. They make for great visuals but low usability. The translucent monitor allows for impressive mise-en-scene. Instead of cutting between two shots, one of the visual on the monitor and one of Cruise's expression, Spielberg could frame both in one shot: the video clip of Cruise shooting Leo Crow and Cruise's stunned expression behind it. It's as if we could visualize his character's thoughts.

That's wonderful until you consider how impractical a translucent display would be since everything behind it would be distracting you from the image on the screen. Now a glass display that could switch back and forth between opaque and translucent? That would be nifty. Seems like something Apple would jump on in a heartbeat.

BuyCustomers.com, StealIdeas.com

Scott Blum, founder and CEO of Buy.com, is at it again. Now he's launched BuyMusic.com, an Apple Music clone. He's the king of taking other people's original business ideas and duplicating them but cheapening them and then going after those innovators with obnoxious marketing campaigns. Think of Blum as a guy who makes knock-off Ray-Bans and peddles them on NY city streets with a megaphone.

But that's not what rubs me the wrong way. After all, people are like that are part of what make the market efficient. It's the cheap (but expensive) publicity stunts masquerading as advertising campaigns which give me the same reactions that coolhunter Cayce Pollard has to the Michelin Man logo in William Gibson's novel Pattern Recognition: nausea, dizziness, difficulty breathing.

His latest is the knockoff of the Apple Music Store commercials. A bunch of random folks dance around singing to songs playing on their MP3 players. Those Apple commercials weren't my favorite, but they were novel. The BuyMusic.com commercials are just, well, embarrassing.

I actually thought about trying out BuyMusic.com, but I can't in good conscience, such is my revulsion. It's the same reason I cringe in the face of pushy salespeople.

Footnote: You also have to use Internet Explorer to access BuyMusic.com; make that a salesperson who spits in your face when he talks.

A night at the races

Saw Seabiscuit yesterday night, out at Regal Bellevue Galleria on the East side. I can't remember the last time I watched a movie over on the other side of Lake Washington. It's a haul, but there are advantages. The theaters are much less crowded, and the facilities are generally superior to those on the West side. We didn't have to fight for seats on what was opening night, the views were great because of the stadium seating arrangement, and the theater had digital sound, turned on.

Perhaps it's one of the quirks of the Regal movie theater chain, but the 20 minutes leading up to the scheduled movie start time were filled with random programming. Finally the lights went down, though in this day and age that's just a cue to give your undivided attention to an additional fifteen to twenty minutes of advertising.

• They aired a new Dolby Digital trailer based on the Broadway hit Stomp. One of my favorite portions of every movie is the Dolby Digital or DTS or SDDS trailer, though the THX trailers are perhaps the best of all, being both an audio and video quality standard. I have a DVD containing the other popular Dolby Digital trailers: Canyon, Train, City, and Temple.


• Why so many different green splash pages announcing that the following trailers is G-Rated and has been approved for all audiences? Every trailer seemed to begin with a different variant of this page. It's disconcerting.


• Nicolas Cage, potentially such an joyous actor, looks to be back to his mannerized, epileptic crazy-man schtick in Matchstick Men. And he was so subtle in Adaptation, allowing the humor to emerge at its own pace. I thought he was coming around again. One would never credit Ridley Scott for evoking the most improvisational performances from his actors.


• The Coldplay single Clocks is used in the trailer for Peter Pan, which is starting to ruin that song for me.


• I saw my first of the MPAA commercials urging us to fight piracy, featuring the average joes of the movie industry, like technicians and grips and the like, pleading with the audience not to put them out on the street by pirating movies. I felt insulted, as if accused of a crime I hadn't even thought of committing yet. Perhaps they're hoping to get ahead of the problem, unlike the music industry, but such obvious propaganda is counter-productive. A mis-step by the MPAA, leaving little hope they'll be more forward-thinking than their hand-wringing, litigious counterparts in the music industry.


• Saw, for the first time, the trailer for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, starring Russell Crowe. Looks good. It's even better to have Peter Weir back directing.


• The problem with Regal Bellevue Galleria is that the sound leaks between theaters. During quiet moments in Seabiscuit, we could here the low frequency rumble from the adjacent theater (Bad Boys II? Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life?) seeping through our screen. Very distracting.


• Speaking of horses, there was a couple sitting to my left, and the woman laughed like a horse. It was unbelievable. She'd repeat every line she thought was funny (I can't stand when people do that, as if they think the joke may have slipped past the rest of us) and then burst out in hysterical laughter--"Lazarus, hah hah hah hah!" Her boyfriend? Husband? His laugh wasn't far behind. A match made in heaven.

The movie itself was an enjoyable diversion, but the book was far superior. It was inevitable, perhaps, that Hollywood would take a story deserving of a 5 hour miniseries and condense it into a Happy Meal of dramatic highlights. The book gives the story more space in which to breathe, and reading the book will reward those wishing to discover uplifting miracles in the annals of human history. Even the author herself, Laura Hillenbrand, had to overcome a battle with chronic fatigue syndrome before the success of Seabiscuit propelled her to fame. She writes about that battle in an interview published in the back of the paperback, and she goes into more detail in an article in the July 7, 2003 issue of The New Yorker.

Pauline Kael liked The Matrix

I'm always searching for interviews with Pauline Kael from the years before she passed away because she often reveals her opinion of recent movies, ones she never reviewed for The New Yorker. She was a great critic; certainly the greatest movie critic ever, and arguably one of the most important critics in any field.

So it was with great joy that I found a transcript of an interview with her from 2001, posted at The New Yorker online. I had read it in hard copy form but long ago tossed that issue.

Kael on Chaplin and Spielberg: I never liked Chaplin, because he made me cry, and I didn't want maudlin feelings at the movies. I was very skeptical of Chaplin, because I thought he pushed too hard. In some ways, he did what Spielberg has been doing: he pushes buttons. And because people like that button pushing, they think Spielberg is a great director. But he's become, I think, a very bad director. Even his best work in "Schindler's List" is very heavy-handed. And I'm a little ashamed for him, because I loved his early work. I loved "The Sugarland Express." And "1941" was a wonderful comedy. It didn't make it with the public, but he should have had enough brains to know it was a terrific piece of work and to not be so apologetic about it. Instead, he turned to virtuous movies. And he's become so uninteresting now. I think of the work he did in "E.T." and "Close Encounters," and I think that he had it in him to become more of a fluid, far-out director. But, instead, he's become a melodramatist.

Kael on independent film and The New Yorker: They thought I was awful for panning the kind of movies I panned, the earnest movies, what's now called the independent film—the movies that have few aesthetic dimensions but are moral and have lessons and all. There was a great deal of sentiment for that kind of movie at The New Yorker, and from its readers. This was, after all, in the sixties and seventies, and New York was still full of a lot of refugees from Hitler, and they took movies very seriously and morally. And my frivolous tone really bugged them. Today, there's so much more of a feeling for films as aesthetic objects rather than as morally improving objects. But I was writing for a magazine that stood for moral improvement—New Yorker editorials during my years there could be so abstractly moralizing.

Kael on watching movies only once: I still don't look at movies twice. It's funny, I just feel I got it the first time. With music it's different. People respond so differently to the whole issue of seeing a movie many times. I'm astonished when I talk to really good critics, who know their stuff and will see a film eight or ten or twelve times. I don't see how they can do it without hating the movie. I would.

Kael on TV programs she was watching back in 2000-1: I watch a few programs regularly. "The West Wing" and, let's see, "Sex and the City," but not much else. They're more interesting than most of the movies I've seen lately.

Kael on some recent movies (back at that time) that she liked or disliked: There are hardly any small movies that people go to, and some of the more interesting ones they won't go to. I loved "Three Kings," which I thought was probably the best American movie I saw last year. But it didn't have much of a following, even with George Clooney in the lead, and he was very good. Larry Kasdan's "Mumford," which was dismissed in the press, I thought was a charming movie. But for some strange reason we don't go to charming, light movies anymore. People expect a movie to be heavy and turgid, like "American Beauty." We've become a heavy-handed society.

I keep seeing movies I think are interesting that nobody is praising. People did latch on to "The Matrix." I would find it very hard to explain why I liked it so much, but I think it's awfully good. There are movies that are really entertaining, and I don't know why they're so entertaining. "Magnolia" was one of them. There are a number of movies that I've liked for rather strange reasons. There was one that had very good fast cutting—"High Fidelity." The ends of the scenes seemed lopped off in a way that really worked. It gave it a little pulse. By the end of it, I really was having a good time.

Kael on Godfather I and II: The first two "Godfather"s are perhaps the best movies ever made in this country.

I miss Kael. She was one critic who was so smart and sharp that directors and actors all coveted her approval and readers would reverse their opinions of movies after reading her reviews. I haven't found any critics working today who have that kind of power, primarily because none of them can write quite like her.

She never resorted to the glib, tongue-in-cheek put-downs which seem so pervasive in movie reviews today. She had more respect than that for her movies. She'd be difficult to grab soundbites from--you'd never to expect to see her name attached to something like "Enthralling! The movie of the summer!" A phrase like that is meaningless, and she'd never settle for such generalizations.

If you're interested in reading some of her criticism, and she's one of the very few critics whose reviews are worth rereading, I recommend the collection For Keeps. It's out of print, as are most of her collections, but it's worth tracking down for your home library. If for no other reason, the next time someone asks you what you thought of a movie, you can reply with more eloquence.

Ghosts in the machine

Every now and then, on my Powerbook, I'll suddenly be unable to connect to a website I browse regularly. Right now it's ESPN.com. I just get timeouts. No such problem if I use my Windows computer, hooked up to the same cable modem. A while back I couldn't access my own website.

Very strange--a DNS server gnome of some sort?

The other problem with Powerbooks--they heat up like a frying pan when you're working. I had to buy a one of those lap-tables because I was close to getting third-degree burns on my legs. It wouldn't be a sexy improvement, but laptop manufacturers need to spend some time developing laptops that can be used on, well, laptops.

The race of truth

The moment we've been waiting for (well, at least I have): the final time trial of the 2003 Tour de France. Lance vs. Jan, Armstrong vs. Ullrich. Lance has a 65 second lead, and Ullrich has 49km or 30.5 miles to seize it.

A time trial is referred to as "the race of truth" because each rider rides alone, with no teammates or other riders to draft off of. It's just you against the clock. Every rider rides the same exact course.

Riders are launched in reverse order of the GC standings, so Jan will launch second to last, and five minutes later, Lance will be the last man out. They will likely be the last two cyclists on the road that day.

Lance will roll up into the starter box a bit before he's set to go. He'll have already done a warm-up ride in the morning and have spent that time before the time trial on a stationary trainer, keeping his legs warm. He'll sign in at the starter box, viewing the world through the plastic lens of his Giro time trial helmet, custom made just for him. Someone will hold his bike seat so he can clip in with both feet and be ready to sprint out of the box which is elevated a few feet above the ground. He'll be descending a short ramp onto the road.

The road ahead will be barricaded on both sides by metallic or plastic barriers, manned by gendarmes every 10 to 20 meters. Behind those barriers, thousands of fans will be screaming, and their cries will reverberate off of the plastic shell of his helmet, and they will sound to him like the ocean, a muffled roaring through a seashell.

In one ear, Lance will have an earpiece through which he can communicate with his director sportif, Johan Brunyeel. Johan will utter a few words of encouragement, and during the ride he'll be giving Lance updates on Ullrich's times through each time check. Lance will receive constant updates on just where he stands relative to the man ahead of him on the road.

Perhaps it will be raining; it's in the current forecast. If so, the roads will be slick, adding an element of danger in the turns, slowing the riders down.

Ullrich has nothing to lose. He'll be leaving his legs on the road, which is what every rider does in a time trial. Jan and Lance will be averaging approximately 30mph for about an hour of riding. They'll be trying to ride just under their lactate threshold (the point of exertion at which your muscles beging creating lactic acid) for nearly the entire ride, which means their heart rates will be in the 170's. Imagine getting on a stationary bike at the gym and riding a huge gear so hard that your eyes are crossed and sustaining that pace for an hour. Imagine doing it in an aerodynamic tuck position that puts huge strains on your lower back and neck. It's the spinning class from hell.

What will Lance be thinking in the last moments before he's launched? About his loss of 1' 36" to Jan in the previous time trial? About the expectations of his team, who've ridden their hearts out in support of him, sacrificing any opportunity at individual honors? About his sponsor, U.S. Postal, which measures the success of its season almost entirely on Lance's result in the Tour de France? About his numerous other sponsors, like Nike and Oakley and Trek and Subaru, who invest millions of dollars in him? About the millions of cancer survivors around the world who look to him as a hero? About that time of his life when he was lying in a hospital bed, his body eaten away by cancer and chemotherapy, when he thought he would die? About the father who abandoned him? Most people claim that part of Lance's success is the chip on his shoulder, but does he have time to even contemplate such things when out on the road?

I don't know. Perhaps he will think of nothing. Sometimes, when I'm riding, I find my consciousness narrows, and after a ride of several hours I can't remember what I was thinking about. Perhaps his body will be hurting too much to think of anything.

The French starter, the man in a business suit, standing next to Lance, gives him the heads up. It's about time to go. Lance leans forward on his bars, rises up to put weight on his front right pedal, positioned just slightly forward from 12 o'clock.

The starter raises his hand, five fingers open. And then he curls his thumb into his palm, and then his index finger, and...he is saying something.

"Cinq. Quatre. Trois. Deux. Un..."

Roboform

If you're a Windows user, you should really download Roboform. If you're like me, you regularly have to remember dozens of online passwords and usernames and to fill in all sorts of forms. Because of the varying requirements of all these sites or perhaps because certain usernames are taken, I have a whole bunch of different usernames and passwords. Sometimes I can't remember them and have to get them e-mailed to me.

That is, until I began using Roboform. It saves all that information in one spot, encrypts it, and brings it up on demand. Much more fully featured than any other form filler I've used, including the ones included with web browsers or the new Google toolbar. Did I mention that Roboform is free?

How do cyclists pee?

Many folks are following the Tour de France for the first time this year. The number one question I get about cycling is: how to cyclists pee during a race stage which lasts five to six hours long? I answered this one a long time ago but I thought it was worth repeating.

There are two options. One: jump off your bike and run over to the side of the road like your average club cyclist and do your business. If you're lucky, one of your teammates will stick around and help to ride you back to the peloton. If you do it early in a stage the peloton will probably take it easy and not attack while you're answering the call. Sometimes you may have to answer a higher calling, in which case you may have to stop and knock on a door of a house somewhere along the road. Luckily, your average French family will likely consider it an honor to have a Tour rider's derriere gracing their toilet seat.

The other option, if the race is tight, is to just pee from your bike. Maybe a teammate will keep a hand on your back seat and keep you rolling so you can just turn the opposite way and pull your bib down and keep that outside leg down. After all, you don't want that any corrosive liquids touching your precious Campagnolo or Shimano components.

I've never actually tried to fire while on the move. In the intense heat of the French countryside during the Tour, one usually doesn't have to worry about over-hydrating; it's dehydration that's the constant enemy. But the second you get off the bike, that huge surplus of liquid you've built up keeps you running to the bathroom every fifteen minutes for a few hours.

Like disposable diapers

You've met a girl in a chat room. She may be attractive. Then again, she might be a middle-aged man. She asks for your e-mail. You're intrigued but would rather not end up on the evening news.

The solution? How about taking one from the real world? Business folks traveling through strange towns for a weekend have often resorted to giving phony names when meeting strangers in bars. Extend that analogy to the web and give Them a temporary e-mail address, one that will forward e-mail to your real e-mail address for a short time period, just enough for you to complete the transaction (say with a site you want to buy from but suspect may spam you in the future). You can obtain one here. Who said the French weren't helpful?

ADDENDUM: Before I went to hit the publish button, I came across a link from Joel to this service called Mailinator which allows you to just make up an e-mail on the spot. Of course, it's possible someone else could get your e-mail as well using Mailinator, but there are plenty of situations where you probably don't care, especially if you're just using it for a one time transaction.

Credit card signatures

I recently lost a credit card and was sent a replacement. I called to authorize the card and was told to sign the back. That little white strip they give you on the back of credit cards to sign your name? Totally inadequate. Not only is the strip not tall enough to accomodate my John Hancock, but they also print the credit card number and 3 digit CCV in that same space, giving you even less room. Frankly, I don't know how any clerk could even read my signature considering how much of it is obscured by the printed numbers.

And does anyone really care how you sign your credit card receipts? One man took it upon himself to see how far he could go, and he went a lot further than you'd expect. Ever since I saw this, I've been reducing my signature at lunch time more and more. Pretty soon it will just be a straight line.

Netflix revisited: Someone with more free time than me

If you really want an in-depth view of Netflix, this guy has exhausted himself in that very cause. In fact, to test their recommendations engine, he rated nearly every one of their 14,500 titles.

Entertaining study, though I came to the same conclusion about the mediocrity of Netflix's recommendations engine after only rating some 80 or 90 movies.

Someone going by the handle dvd-rent-rest published a study, covered by Slashdot and other forums, which claims that Netflix prioritizes customers who turn over their movies more slowly when allocating scarce DVDs. That would mean they'd be punishing their most active users, presumably because those customers cost more for them to service (analysts believe that if you watch 5 or more movies per month, you're an unprofitable customer to Netflix).

No idea if that's true or not, but if so, it's a fairly short-sighted decision in the quest for profit. Any business that punishes its most ardent users should change their business model instead of punishing those customers, likely to be their greatest evangelists.

Some writers on writing

Neal Stephenson compares writing to programming. One thing he says rings true to me--writing with a fountain pen can help you to improve the quality of your daily output. As for his other comments, I'm not sure I agree with all of them, but reading other writers discussions of the writing process always reassures me. It demystifies the process, and when some of their observations ring true, I feel like part of their fraternity.

Of course, Manhattan is the mecca for writers, so it's particularly enjoyable to hear New York authors discuss how they got started in the biz.

Cleaning up the past

When I last shifted to this template for my weblog, my previous years of posts didn't handle the conversion too well because I used to insert hard line breaks to create readable sentence lengths going across the page. With this new template it's not much of an issue because the actual blog entries are constrained by the column width automatically.

I've been lazy about going back and cleaning up my archives. It's a long and arduous task. But I've noticed enough traffic to the archives that sheer embarrassment is motivating me to get it done. It's like finding out guests have been walking through your bedroom--you're much quicker to pick up the dirty laundry.

So slowly, you should notice an improvement in the formatting of old posts. I started with March 2002 because, for some reason, that month gets more traffic than any other. What's the number one product in terms of click throughs on my site as measured by Amazon Associates? Eye of the Tiger, by Survivor, by a huge margin, and it's only mentioned on my site once, in this post from March 25, 2002. How and why people keep finding this post is a complete and utter mystery.

What next?!?

The drama in the Tour continued as Tyler Hamilton, fractured collarbone and all, somehow managed to sustain a breakaway with 88 miles to go to win his first ever Tour de France stage today. This Tour never lets up--something amazing happens everyday.

What's even crazier is that he looked like he was going to be dropped early on as many riders in the peloton, knowing that it was a mountain stage that finished flat, tried to break away. In stages with such profiles, non-climbers try to get an early break so they can hold off the climbers for the stage victory in the final flats. I thought Hamilton was just going to try to hang on for dear life.

But then, on the first climb, he attacked. At that point, I had no doubts he'd be caught. After all, teams with sprinters and GC contenders, especially Telekom, had plenty of km's left to chase down his 3 minute lead. But for some reason, Telekom didn't try to put Zabel into a position to win the stage, or didn't feel worried that Hamilton would catch Vinokourov in Saturday's time trial. Euskaltel, fighting with CSC for the team title, also seemed apathetic for much of the race.

By the time those two teams began pushing the pace, I was starting to get excited, because it looked like he just might hang on. It's one of those feelings that begins as a "hmmm." And then suddenly I'm banging on the sofa, cheering him on. He was clearly redlining, trying to get down into as aerodynamic a position as possible.

And he did it, and it wasn't even all that close. Good for Tyler. What a gutsy rider! His pain tolerance is absurd. The Tour de France is like racing a marathon every day for three weeks. These guys are truly superhuman, maybe the toughest athletes in the world. I've been losing weight just watching them.

Sniff

An eventful several days. First and foremost, James got engaged to Angela last Friday. Given that Angela's survived a few of our family Christmases, she's already well prepared for our madness and a card-carrying member of our wacky but fun tribe. Mostly, I'm excited about the hip hop routine which Karen will choreograph and which Alan, Jeff, Mike, and I will perform at the wedding. Yes, we're that kind of family. I hope Karen doesn't throw in anything difficult moves--I'm not quite as flexible as I once was.

Lots of birthdays--my stepmother, Bill, Lynn. Carol organized a great little sunset BBQ surprise for Lynn's birthday today. We hung out at a park in West Seattle, near the Vashon ferry. I've been here in Seattle over five years and never even knew about that picnic spot.

On a more somber note, doctors found some growths in my grandfather's mouth and suspect cancer. We won't know until next Tuesday. Given our family's history with cancer, I cringe everytime I hear the word, and it's difficult not to fall prey to fatalistic thoughts. But he's a tough cookie, and we're all keeping our fingers crossed.

My sinus infection is back. After going all my life without one, this year I've had three, and I'm starting to think it's chronic. The doc didn't prescribe antibiotics today, much to my dismay. I hate taking meds, but sinus infections are so miserable I was ready to pop pills as soon as possible. He wants to run a CT scan of my sinuses, and until then I'm stuck with Sudafed which feels like getting a water pistol before heading into a gunfight. My teeth ache, I'm running a fever, and my head is splitting. It's difficult to keep my mind focused. I was tempted to Google "chronic sinusitis," but then thought better of it. Sometimes ignorance is of some comfort.

P.S.: I've been flipping through the entertaining and useful diversion titled The Klutz Book of Knots, and the most immediately useful one in my everyday life is The Better Bow. How did I live all these years without it? Take the bow you use to tie your shoes, and make one simple change. When you get to the point where you have to make a turn around the middle of the two loops, make two turns around the end of your finger instead of just one. Then slip the second loop through the hole vacated by your finger, just as normal. Voila! A bow knot which doesn't come loose and still unties with a simple tug. Brilliant!

And Armstrong attacks!

The benefit of living on the West Coast is being able to get up at a semi-reasonable hour to catch the extended OLN coverage of the key mountain stages. This morning that meant crawling out of bed bleary-eyed at 5:30am, still somewhat woozy from the weekend bachelor party, to catch the key stage of the Tour, Stage 15.

This stage included two of the most famous Pyrenean climbs, the awesome Col de Tourmalet and the Luz Ardiden. And again, it was, like the rest of this year's Tour, one nail-bitingly suspenseful and dramatic race. I've never seen any sporting event like this--just two weeks of one shocking event after another.

First we witnessed the early attack by young French rider Sylvain Chavanel, an attempt to lead the race nearly wire-to-wire. Brave, but unlikely given the difficulty of the stage profile. Chavanel will remember this moment, though. He is regarded as the heir to Laurent Jalabert as the smartest and bravest French cyclist and has a great future ahead of him. Virenque is the macho but somewhat brainless French rider who always wins with his cojones, but Chavanel looks to be a true podium contender.

Then Ullrich attacked on Tourmalet and put Armstrong into a bit of difficulty. Were we witnessing the end of the Armstrong era? For a brief moment it looked to be so, but Armstrong has managed to keep his cool this entire race, despite his difficulties, and he gradually covered the attack. Ullrich continued to press, but Armstrong had locked onto his wheel.

And so the lead group came to the bottom of Luz Ardiden, the punishing final climb. Knowing that he had lost 1' 36" to Ullrich in the last time trial, and only leading by 15", Armstrong had to open up a time gap on this final climb if he wished to feel safe going into the final time trial later this week. The lead group consisted of Ullrich, Mayo, Hamilton, Moreau, Rubiera, Basso, and Zubeldia, among others. This pack of about fifteen riders was going to decide the day. Ullrich's teammate Garmendia took point for a while, and then Beltran and Rubiera. Soon Armstrong and his rival Ullrich were side by side, and the showdown at high noon had begun. Who would attack first?

It turned out to be neither of them. Iban Mayo took off down the right side of the road, cutting past Ullrich. And Armstrong followed a split second later, to Ullrich's left! Finally, Armstrong showed the spring in his legs that we'd come to expect after his previous four victories. Ullrich immediately moved to cover.

And then Armstrong crashed! Going around a righthand turn, Armstrong hooked his right brake hood on a spectator's musette (feed bag souvenir) which yanked his bars around and dropped him on his left side. Mayo, right behind him, crashed as well, and Ullrich barely avoided them with a sharp swerve to the left. I nearly coughed up a lung. Armstrong was down. Was his bike damaged? The rest of the riders rode past as Armstrong gave his bike a once over and struggled to get back into his clips. Could it all be over in this instant?

Up the road, Ullrich kept looking over his shoulder, trying to understand what was going on. Rubiera went back to help his team captain Armstrong. Fueled by an incredible surge of adrenaline, Armstrong and Mayo flew back towards the Ullrich group.

And then Armstrong came out of his right clip and nearly did a chest plant on his top tube! Mayo decided it was safer to not follow Lance and cut over to the right side of the road. Was Lance's pedal permanently damaged? Had his cleat come loose? No one knew, and it added to the suspense. It was likely too late for Lance to swap bikes, so if his equipment was damaged, he might not be able to keep up or attack. Chechu had faded back, and he gave Lance a hand signal to indicate, "Keep your cool, I'm here to take you back to those guys."

Ullrich sat up to allow Armstrong back, a display of sportsmanship in a sport that has more unwritten than written rules of etiquette. Armstrong had once waited for Ullrich when Jan fell over a mountain, and now the gesture had been repaid. Who says sportsmanship doesn't pay? A perfect case example for game theorists everywhere. In another display of comraderie, former Armstrong teammate Hamilton had ridden up to the lead group and told them to slow down, especially a feisty Mayo. Attacking when the lead dog has suffered a mishap is not honorable. Hamilton has been a good friend to Lance this entire race, despite being a competitor, and I'm sure Lance will remember that. I'm a bigger Hamilton fan than ever.

As soon as Armstrong pulled up alongside Ullrich, the race essentially reset and started from zero, like going into overtime. Armstrong had lost a portion of the course on which to attack, so he didn't wait long before launching another attack. Mayo followed, but this time Ullrich had no answer. Armstrong caught and passed Chavanel, giving the young French rider a congratulatory pat on the back for his courage, and kept motoring on. This was the type of attack we'd been waiting the entire Tour for, and Lance had finally had the legs to oblige.

In the end, Lance ended 1' 07" up on Ullrich in the overall GC standings. What a day of racing. It was barely 8am and I'd already had a two and a half hour aerobic workout.

The Benefit of the Doubt

My favorite contemporary writer, Tobias Wolff, has a short story titled The Benefit of the Doubt in this week's New Yorker, and it's posted for free online for a short while. He also has a novel titled Old School which is available for pre-order and coming out this fall.

The short story is a personal exploration of the state of U.S. foreign relations.

This week's New Yorker also has an article on Bill James work for the Boston Red Sox, though it doesn't contain much new info for baseball geeks.

Silly

I use Bank of America's online banking billpayer service because it's free. I got nailed with a $29 late fee on my Visa last month even though BofA showed that my payment was made three days prior to the due date. I called my bank to complain and found out that they actually mail out a physical check to pay my bills so I should allow five days for payments to reach the providers.

This strikes me as incredibly silly, like finding out that the great Wizard of Oz is just a little man behind the curtain, or like finding out that Wolfgang von Kempelen's chess-playing automaton The Turk was operated by a dude hiding inside the machine.

Le Tour de France

I returned from France late yesterday afternoon, and now I'm wide awake at 3 in the morning, as expected. For exactly three days I'll indulge in life as a morning person, until a bachelor party in New Orleans this weekend transforms me back into a vampire, as New Orleans is known to do.

I hope you all have been following the Tour de France, an event so respected that even ugly Americans don't refer to it as the Tour of France. It's by far the most dramatic Tour in recent history, and definitely the most competitive of Lance's drive for five. His recovery from cancer to win the tour was a great story, of course, but let's be honest--he's blown away the field the last two years and it's almost been as dull as the days of Miguel Indurain's domination. To win five in a row and tie the all-time record, he'll have to earn it, and that's as it should be.

Highlights from the Tour:

--Last I wrote, Tyler Hamilton had broken his collarbone. No one thought he'd continue. Well, he proved us wrong by sticking in the Tour. Then everyone thought he'd drop out as soon as the Tour hit the Alps since he wouldn't be able to stand up out of the saddle, and it would be too painful to climb because he'd have to pull or push on his handlebars. Well, not only did he conquer the Alps but also attacked Armstrong on Alpe D'Huez several times while still seated in the saddle. Unreal. It probably helps that he chose to ride a higher cadence up the mountains this year: 52x26 chainrings instead of a 53x39. Smart--I should have done that for the mountains. He made a pact with his coach and wife: if he lost more than 15 minutes in either of the first two Alp stages, he'd drop out. No worries, huh? Of course, we should have seen this coming. Last here he had a broken shoulder and still finished second in the Giro D'Italia. Afterwards he had to get many of his teeth capped because he had ground them down from the pain in his shoulder. Cyclists have the greatest pain tolerance and capacity to suffer of any athletes I've observed. They have to, because many of the drugs they'd like to take to kill the pain are illegal on the pro tour and would disqualify them from the race. Hamilton has proved he is not afraid to challenge his old boss, and even if he doesn't win this year he has to feel great about his chances next year.

--The early flat stages of the Tour were all about the coronation of Alessandro Petacchi as the new sprint king of the peloton. He not only won every sprint, taking four of the first 6 stages, but he dominated the competition in a way we haven't seen in the Tour since the last Italian sprint king, Mario Cipollini, won five sprints in 1999. He was winning so easily he could raise his hands in victory about 10 meters from the finish and just coast through each time. Unfortunately, he then emulated Cipo in a less admirable way and dropped out on the first mountain stage. Sure, sprinters don't like to climb, but Zabel and Mcewen have stuck it out in the past and earned the respect of their peers for being willing to suffer the Alps and Pyrenees. Petacchi cruised in, grabbed a few stages, and plopped himself down in the back seat of the team wagon. It's one of the reasons the Tour probably didn't invite Cipo's team back this year.

--Lance failed to make his signature decisive attack on Alpe D'Huez, as many expected. Instead, it was Iban Mayo who put the hammer down and pulled away for a 2' 12" gap over Armstrong. I was watching the satellite feed of the race from just above turn 7, and everyone was waiting, waiting, waiting for Armstrong to attack. Instead, he was the one under fire from countless attacks. Beloki, Mayo, Vinokourov, Hamilton...everyone decided not to wait for the fabled Armstrong attack and went on the offensive from the start. Armstrong didn't have what he called the super-jambes (Franglais for "super legs") and so he just gritted it out, sitting on Beloki and Hamilton's wheel the whole way up. He didn't panic, and he gave a gutsy performance, but the rest of the podium contenders had to gain a huge dose of confidence from finally detecting some vulnerability in the Texan. US Postal looked fantastic, though. They controlled the peloton up the massive Col de Galibier, and the pace that Beltran set at the bottom of Alpe D'Huez was insane. It shattered the peloton and exploded French poster boy Richard Virenque. That entire climb up Alpe D'Huez is the most exciting mountain stage in the past five Tours. Estimates of the number of screaming fans on the mountainside range from 400K to 650K! It was madness in the mountains.

--Joseba Beloki, who's finished third, third, and second in the past three Tours, crashed out in spectacular fashion in Stage 9, forcing Armstrong to make an amazing emergency detour down a grassy hill. You've probably seen it. I had to watch it on TV several times to believe my eyes--it will go down in Tour history as one of the most significant accidents and near-misses ever, and the highlight is destined to be played over and over again. European race TV coverage is a bit more comprehensive than US coverage (though the gap is closing) and they showed one close-up clip of Beloki lying on the ground, and you could hear him crying and screaming in pain like a child. It was gruesome and gave me flashbacks to my accident with the dog, when I was bleeding and rolling around in agony on the pavement, worried I had broken my neck. The pain is immediate and terrible, but the psychological effects are more enduring and challenging. I'm still nervous on descents now (Maverick: "It's no good, it's no good!"). Beloki was in great form and looked set for another podium finish, so he was probably crying also in sorrow at seeing a year's worth of preparation gone to waste. No one is certain what caused Beloki's tire to skid and his tubular to roll off, but the heat is the primary suspect. As for Lance's detour down the mountain, it is for me the most amazing highlight of the Tour thus far. The man has nine lives; that could easily have been a cliff he rode over.

--Ullrich is back. The German is unlikely to win, especially after the time he lost on Alpe D'Huez, but his promising prologue and solid climbing show that he's on his way back to being a serious GC contender. He also looks trim, a good sign for a supremely talented rider who has battled the bulge in the past.

--Gilberto Simoni and Santiago Botero have disappeared. Botero was expected to be the primary GC contender for Telekom after his strong showing in last year's Tour, but Telekom has shifted its support to the surprising Vinokourov. It's very fortunate for Telekom to have another contender. Simoni talked a big game before the Tour, promising to attack Armstrong, but it looks like he's going to drop out any day now. Cycling is such a macho sport--it makes for great drama, all the bluster and chest-beating and testosterone. And hubris.

Highlights from my personal tour with Breaking Away...

I was in lousy riding form at week's start, but after logging about 200 miles over 6 days, including several huge Cols (a col is a mountain), I'm feeling stronger. My legs were sore all week, and it still smarts a bit to walk up stairs. But I left for my trip with a chip on my shoulder and a desire to channel some anger into personal suffering, and the Alps are a temple to cycling self-flagellation. At the same time, nothing cleanses the soul and renews one's love of cycling like a cycling camp in Europe, the mecca of two-wheeled religion. I rode alongside grassy fields...

...past cows...

...and farm fields...

...and vineyards.

It was scorching hot in France, and I can testify that the heat radiating off of the tar on the roads was enough to melt rubber. Climbing the Alps is tough, but in 95 degree heat and humidity it's a torture test. No one needs to convince me that the construction of so many paved roads has led to global warming. On every climb the sweat would be soak my headband within minutes and soon begin rolling down my face in never ending rivulets, burning my eyes. But the warmth is part of the challenge of climbing the Alps during the Tour, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm a terrible climber--way too heavy, not powerful enough, but I enjoy the enduring mental and physical exertion of uphill riding in a way I can't explain.

French drivers respect cycling in a way that's so refreshing. Unlike in America, I never had to worry about rednecks throwing fruit or beer bottles at me, or swerving their giant trucks and SUVs towards me and honking their horns in an attempt to knock me off the road. French drivers let you share the lane with them if you can maintain your speed, and they'll leave spaces for you to merge or pass. Americans have a culture in which they feel like kings when they're in their automobiles, and it's not attractive. The French fans cheer and wave as you ride by, shout encouragement when you're suffering up the climbs, and offer a push or a water shower if it appears you're about to fall over.

My new favorite people are the Dutch. Eric, Rod, and I were riding down Alpe D'Huez, looking for a good spot from which to watch the race, when we happened upon a crowd of Rabobank fans dressed in orange up above turn 7, near the famous little church which is always shown on TV during stages on Alpe D'Huez. The Dutch crazies were all dressed in bright Rabobank orange. They were dancing to Euro techno music blasting from speakers hooked up to their van, cheering and dousing water on every passing rider, and pounding beer to stay hydrated. This was definitely the place to be. Before I had even learned their names, three crazy Dutch guys wearing crazy hats asked me what I wanted to drink and quickly handed over several ice cold cans of Coke, Perrier, and Orangina. Proost!

I also met the cow guy, a Dutch fan dressed in a cow costume. That he managed to avoid heat stroke is testament to Dutch fortitude.

Turns out the Dutch had driven 12 hours down from Holland and camped up on Alpe D'Huez for several days as part of their annual pilgrimage to the Tour. The music? Pumped out by their very own DJ, working out of the back of his van.

One of the favorite tracks was Boogerd is the Best, a tribute to Rabobank rider Michael Boogerd. Every Dutch fan knew the words, and now I do too: Boogerd iiiiiisssss the best, he is the best! They also brought their own beer kegs and were kind enough to supply Eric, Rod, and I with a constant supply. Getting drunk just before descending Alpe D'Huez on a bike with hundreds of thousands of other fans in your way is not smart, but it was too hot to refuse the liquid refreshment. Soon I was dancing and screaming and cheering the passing riders just like everyone else. How the professionals manage to ride a straight line up between the tunnel of rowdy fans in the road is a mystery to me.

Needless to say, my day on Alpe D'Huez will forever be etched in memory.

Another highlight of the trip was getting to visit the US Postal team buses after stage 7. We didn't get to see any of the riders, but we were too busy cooing and drooling over their bikes, getting a post-ride wash and tune by the team mechanics. The Treks were all sporting the new 2004 Shimano Dura Ace gruppo, not yet available to the public. All of us gearheads were circling every component with lust in our eyes, as if ogling a supermodel. Everyone wanted a photo with Lance's Trek which was the only to sport a hot custom paint job.

The most visible changes are the brake levers (longer) and crankset (two pieces, reverse threaded, and designed to be stiffer and lighter). Reactions from the group were mixed, though the only consensus was that the new group would be more expensive than ever.

The last ride of the trip was gorgeous. After a short climb up the Col de Leschaux (check out my helmet hair)...

...Andy and I flew down a twisty descent to end in the lovely little town of Annecy. File that name away as a perfect romantic getaway destination, the little Venice of France. I strolled through town, grabbed a great French meal (including some foie gras, of course), and wandered in and out of cathedrals and parks.

I was really sad to have to fly home, though British Airways did a great job (count me as a big BA fan; unlike Air France, they delivered my bike on time and in one pice). The entire trip went by much too quickly. Don't they always?

Red, Black and Blue

Only two days into the Tour de France, and already more drama than in years past. Day one, Englishman David Millar of the Confidis team was on his way to capturing his second ever Tour prologue, a good ten seconds ahead through most time checks, when his chain came off. His team had decided to do away with the inner chainring up front, and in doing so, removed the front derailleur. The cobblestones of Paris shook the chain off his chainring. He managed to reach down to replace the chain without losing any fingers and sprinted hard, nearly winning anyway. He finished second.

Today, in stage two, with just a few hundred yards to the finish line, in a right hand turn, a Kelme rider's foot came out of his pedal and took out FDJeux's Jimmy Casper. With everyone sprinting in a pack for the finish, that one fall triggered a massive pile-up. Sadly, the two leading American contenders not named Lance, Tyler Hamilton and Levi Leipheimer, both sustained serious injuries and are probably out of the race. Hamilton, the CSC team leader, broke his collarbone, and Leipheimer, the Rabobank team leader, broke a bone in his back. Both are former teammates of Lance Armstrong on the USPS team and looked to contend for podium spots. It's a real shame for the Americans and confirmation that nothing is guaranteed for Lance in the drive for five.

Lance is okay. He went down in the crash and sustained some road rash, but nothing more serious than that. His bike was no longer rideable, so he borrowed his teammate Chechu's bike to cross the finish. Armstrong sits in 7th, still in great position to attack in the mountains. Tomorrow I head off to Switzerland and then France to catch the Texan in action.

How to shoot fireworks

Why couldn't I have found this article on photographing fireworks before I went to Jason's BBQ?

I have no idea if any of my shots will turn out, but the good thing is that the film advance motor on my F100, back from the shop, is repaired and ready for France.

Uphill grades

I-5, the main highway through Seattle, has a peak that occurs near the heart of the city. It's not very high, but the slight upward slope it creates on either side causes traffic to jam up right around the downtown area. This slowdown has always driven me crazy because even if you only have to drive a few miles on the highway, if you pass this area you'll have to tap the brakes and downshift and sometimes sit around for a mile or two before everything suddenly clears up again. All because cars inevitably slow down when they hit an upward slope, causing a Slinky-like compression of vehicles.

This ridiculously fun online traffic simulator allows you to simulate that bothersome traffic pattern. Just click the uphill grade button and wait...and watch the cars pile up. Raise the percentage of trucks and watch things clog up even quicker. Of course, it's not likely that the city of Seattle will be able to flatten the highway out there, so it's just one of those things we'll have to live with.

What's interesting about this traffic simulator is that it teaches you that in certain situations, there is an ideal speed limit to minimize traffic jams. If the speed limit is too low or too high, vehicles move at different speeds which means that it's difficult for some vehicles to change lanes to avoid barriers like lane closings. For example, a truck might not be able to move quickly enough to get one lane over to avoid a lane closing because cars in the free lane are moving too fast.

The other really annoying traffic monkey wrench is the cop who pulls someone over. Everyone slows down when passing the cop, staring at the flashing lights. Does the revenue from that one traffic offender offset the lost productivity from the hundreds of cars which end up stuck in the temporary traffic jam vortex created around the police vehicle?

The other thing this made me realize is that carpool lanes act like lane closings for an arbitrary percentage of the auto population. What a failure carpool lanes ended up being. They didn't change anyone's behavior--I've never met anyone who carpools just so they can use the carpool lane--and simply caused a large percentage of vehicles to have to change lanes, causing jams in the other lanes.

You read the abstracts of all the studies and simulations and papers on traffic and your first impression is that there are a lot of smart people studying this field. But then you end up sitting in traffic the next day, a black cloud rising from your head, and you think it might not be so bad to live in a world like the one depicted in Minority Report, where vehicles are driven by computers and can along the faces of buildings and whatnot, all moving at constant speeds. In exchange for some loss of freedom and control and vehicle feedback you're free of traffic jams.

What this simulation really needs to be accurate is to introduce a conservative driver percentage to simulate all those wussy drivers here in the Pacific Northwest who drive in the left lane at 50mph. In Drivers Ed we were taught that the left lane is the fast lane. Apparently that's not part of the curriculum here.

Happy 4th

Decision Making 101

I can't tell if reading this would have made my job decision easier or harder. I'm now struggling with whether or not to buy a house, so perhaps I can put some of these ideas to the test.

Metablog candy

I'm wondering how many datafeeds I can add to my newsreader before it becomes I stop going to sleep at night altogether and just stay up all night catching up. Until I go blind, I think. Until then...

BoingBoing and MetaFilter and Kottke had some gems today. I remember when Cool Site of the Day was the only place to find out about interesting new sites. Now there are people whose sole purpose in life is to surf the web, searching for strange and interesting sites. A sampling of today's wonderful and weird:

Google Gag: Go to Google and type in "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and hit the I'm Feeling Lucky button. Be sure to click on some of the resulting links as well.

Sims Reality TV: people with lots of free time on their hands are creating Sims storylines or movies and saving them as albums. Kottke points out this wicked little tale, titled A Lawn Gnome's Revenge. The web has opened up distribution to fringe artists all over the world. Instead of fifteen minutes of fame, everyone has a chance for a few thousand clicks of fame. Someone like Metafilter picks you up, or you spread through the tight-knit weblog space, and if you're lucky you end up as a sidebar in Time magazine. No one knows who you are, but the site that hosts your website gets a huge traffic spike for a few days.

Rocklist: finally, someone has collected all the music year end best-of lists from journalists and fans and put them in one place.

Levitated.net: Not sure how to describe this. Funky web art.

Kick ass picture of aircraft carrier: this might be one of the coolest pics I've ever seen on the web. I'm going to save it and print it out on my inkjet.

Lastly, Slashdot reports on a potential telemarketer backlash. What caught my eye was all the links to ways to counteract junk snail mail. I'll have to try those out each week since more than 50% of the mail I get just gets carried from the mailbox to the recycling bin by the driveway.

First chapter of Lance's new book

Lance Armstrong and Sally Jenkins collaborated on my all-time favorite sports biography It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life. Cancer patients refer to it simply as "the bible." Armstrong and Jenkins are collaborating on a follow-up titled Every Second Counts, and Lancearmstrong.com posted the first chapter. Definitely worth reading over your lunch break.

Pain is temporary. Quitting is forever.

Scott McCloud's The Right Number

Scott McCloud has launched an online comic called The Right Number which you can pay for using a new micropayment service called BitPass. This is notable for many reasons:

• Scott McCloud wrote the brilliant book Understanding Comics, which is on my list of all-time favorite books. He has written for a long time about the potential for new business models in comic books leveraging the online space and micropayments, so to see him actually put his thoughts into action is a great thing.


• BitPass is the first micropayment service I've noticed that uses the phone card type of micropayment model. To offset the big credit card transaction fees, they charge you one lump sum up front and let you debit against that account in a series of a micropayments as you read content.


• It's an entertaining read!


• Online comics don't have some of the charm of curling up with a paper comic, but they have their own redeeming qualities which are unique to the online medium. McCloud links to some of the best ones.
  

Cycling in Seattle

Given how fired up I am about the Tour de France (the race starts Saturday morning and will be broadcast by OLN), I've resurrected my old Cycling in Seattle page. The links for ride maps/cue sheets and maps should all be updated now. If you know of any other good ride maps/cue sheets online, let me know as I'm always looking for some variety.

Lance is going for his fifth Tour victory in a row which would tie the record held by Miguel Indurain. It's also the 100th anniversary of the Tour, so all of France is going to be fired up.

Peace, or something like it

Sometimes action produces motivation. When I wait for the reverse, I can get caught in a Mexican standoff.

Saturday I grabbed a ride from friends headed out to Rainier to get in a big climb on my bike. I had planned to do the climb to Paradise, but we ended up outside the White River entrance so I hopped out and set off for Sunrise Point instead. I knew the climb would be painful because it was my first major climb of the year, but I shut out all thoughts. Just turned off that high-maintenance part of my mind that requires a perfect confluence of stimuli and moods to leap into action and switched over to robotic autopilot. Executed a series of basic commands. Before I knew what was happening, I had paid my $5 park entrance fee and was in my 39-25 gear, headed uphill.

I stopped at the first bathroom to unload some liquid weight. The bathroom was back in the woods about 25 yards. When I hopped back on my bike, I cut into the parking lot between two parked cars. At that same moment, a huge truck came tearing into that spot. The dude driving wasn't paying attention and nearly hit me. I slammed on my brakes and hit his front bumper and fell onto my side. Ouch. Not a good start. I had a few scratches, but the real damage was that my front wheel was out of alignment. I gave it a spin with my hand and it stopped after a half revolution, catching on the front brakes.

I moved the brake pads back and forth until the tire could spin unhindered. I could true the wheel by eye by adjusting the tension of some of the spokes. Unfortunately, my Mavic wheelset requires a proprietary tool to adjust the tension of its spokes, and I don't own one. Decision time. I had three hours to kill, and my front tire was a bit wobbly. Sit around for three hours, or ascend and risk a somewhat squirrelly descent. I rode a few loops in the parking lot and decided to push on. Not being able to get in a good climb would have dampened my spirit, already a bit shaky in the face of all the Alpine climbs awaiting me in France.

Meanwhile, crazy trucker driver and his buddies had walked off, with a brief mumbled "sorry." I've cycled enough to know that danger number one on the roads is any pack of young males, especially if they're driving a large truck. They drive aggressively, and they enjoy pulling stunts like swerving towards cyclists and blasting their horns to try and cause a wipeout. But on a bike, you just have to shrug it off. You're not going to win a fight armed with an 18 pound road bike when pitted against a 3000 pound car.

I channeled my anger into the early part of the climb. It was a gorgeous day, as clear a sky as I've ever seen over Rainier. Just a mile or two into the climb, my bottle of Cytomax had heated up to the point where it tasted like tea. The anger wore off, and pain moved in. My feet were throbbing. It was by far the longest sustained climb I'd done all year. The pain in my feet became unbearable. I stopped at the side of the road by a pile of snow and pulled off my shoes. I buried my water bottle in the snow to cool it off, and I took off my socks and rested my aching pups on the snow to dull the pain and swelling.

The ten minute break did me good. When I hopped back on my bike I had a spring in my legs. Before I knew what had happened, I rounded a bend and saw the sign for Sunrise Point. I'd finished my 14 mile ride in just over an hour and a half. I wasn't going to win any races at that speed, but the ride didn't kill me, either. A woman in the passenger seat of a passing station wagon leaned out and clapped.

"You made it!" she beamed. Generally, people in station wagons are bike friendly.

I had begun the climb trying to suppress some latent distaste for cycling which had been growing over the past few weeks. I suspect it's a byproduct of the dread I feel about heading to France to climb the Alps without having logged sufficient training. But I knew this would happen as soon as I planned my sabbatical to cover most of the spring training season. So why be such a pessimist? How rough can it be to bike through the sunny countryside of France?

The ride to Sunrise transformed me. The sun, the challenge of gravity...I was smiling on the bike again. I stopped briefly at Sunrise and then pushed on up further, to the actual peak of the road. Then I turned around and headed back towards the base. Given the state of my wheel, I was unusually cautious. On a descent like that a cyclist of my weight can easily hit 45mph without touching the pedals, but I carressed my brakes on the way down and reached a peak of 38mph. Even at that speed, I kept smacking into flying bugs that would prick me with the force of pebbles on a moving windshield. I thought I'd reach the bottom looking like Jim Carrey after his motorcycle ride with Renee Zellwegger in Me, Myself, & Irene, with dead bugs all over my face, chest, and helmet.

My favorite part of descending twisty roads like those in Rainier is being able to chase down and occasionally pass cars. Pacing behind a car at near 40mph is an exhilarating feeling. If the car ahead of you stops, you'll likely die, but you can say that about many aspects of descending. Leaning back and forth in the turns, chasing a car--the happiness I felt must be what dogs feel as they chase cars down the street.

At the bottom, I waited for my ride for twenty minutes near a pack of sportbike enthusiasts, all twenty-something men, cooling off by the side of the road. It was a wolfpack of alpha males, their confidence jacked up by each other's company. I kept my distance but could hear them trading boasts and jests, talking about the women they were going to hook up with that night, cussing each other out over any show of weakness. A pack of girls in an SUV pulled over and asked to snap a photo of them on their bikes. They obliged, and as the car pulled away one of the guys hopped off his bike and thrust his hips a few times in their direction.

I remember the feeling of being in packs like that in grade school. In the company of boys wanting to be men. We must be wary of who our kids consort with, because kids socialize each other as I'm reading about in The Nurture Assumption.

The other big problm I had to solve over the weekend was my job decision. The lack of a decision was twisting me into the ground. I spent time thinking about my options on the bike climb, and I spent time at the golf driving range on Sunday, thinking about it some more. I drew notes on an old whiteboard of mine, and by dinnertime on Sunday I knew what I was going to do. The simple act of making a decision took a huge burden off of my mind.

So mentally, I'm at a place of peace right now. I'm fired up for the Tour de France and fired up for my new job. So Alpe D'Huez will kick my ass. I won't be its first victim. If I smile on the way up, no matter how much pain I'm in, I'll feel happy. Sometimes the smile produces the happiness, not the other way around.

The remains of this day

• The Industrial Design Excellence Awards of 2003. Click on that dark square graphic to see the actual award winners. Among the items which caught my eye were the Zinio Reader and the Bombardier EMBRIO/2025. The Zinio Reader allows you to download individual issues of magazines to read on a Tablet PC. I've never played with a Tablet PC, and I know there's a ton of debate as to whether they're revolutionary or the next MS Bob, but the appeal of reading magazines on a Tablet PC is the option of searching through them or archiving particular articles for the future. I still resort to tearing out pages of interesting articles, leaving piles of paper lying all around my room. Searching through those paper clippings is a pain in the ass. Inevitably I end up throwing all of it out later. The Bombardier EMBRIO/2025 looks like what the Segway would look like if designed by Japanese mecha anime artists. Steve Jobs is right, though...the Segway would be much more of an item of desire if it looked cooler, even if the functionality remained exactly the same. One other thing caught my eye, and that's the IDEO Methods Deck, mostly because IDEO always walks away with a ton of medals in this competition. At $49, that's nearly $1 for each of the 51 cards (one card short of a full deck, representing an incomplete collection). There are four suits: learn, watch, ask, try. Maybe someone will post them online as was done for Brian Eno's oblique strategies.
• Star Wars, Episode III, began shooting today.
• After another half hour on the phone with AT&T customer service last night, a trouble ticket was filed. This morning I had to set up my voicemail box yet again. And this afternoon? I'm finally receiving voicemail indicators on my phone.
• I wanted to rent a Nikon D1H digital camera body for my trip to France, but there isn't one to be found in Seattle. I was both surprised and disappointed. If you know of one, please let me know. The D1H has just 2.6 megapixels which most people would find to be surprisingly low resolution for a $3000 camera body. But many wildlife photographers and journalists among the Nikon faithful use it as their primary camera body. Why? It's the fastest Nikon digital camera body available, and more megapixels don't do you much good if you missed the decisive moment or are simply printing a the photo in a magazine or newspaper, or posting it to the web.
• Battleground God is a good, mindless way to kill a few minutes. It's a test of the consistency of your personal philosophy about God. I managed to survive without any direct hits, though I received several danger warnings. My answers can be found in the text of this insanely long URL.
• The Herman Miller Mirra, a lower-cost cousin to the most famous piece of office furniture in my lifetime, the Herman Miller Aeron. The Mirra's already gaining lots of praise and winning gold medals. I've never been important enough to get a company to spring for an Aeron for me. They are spendy, though skimping when it comes to ergonomics if you're in pain is a bad idea. I'm a big fan of the mesh seatback--keeps you cooler in the summertime.
• The Illustrated Catalog of ACME Products is mildy amusing; the Ian Frazier essay Coyote vs. Acme is very funny.
• Amazon's reviews build is much faster now. If you write a customer review, it'll show up in no time. Good stuff.
• Signed up for the DirecTV HD package today. ESPN HD? Not all that impressive thus far. Most of the Sportscenter highlight footage is, of course, not shot in HD and doesn't look all that special. Discovery HD Theater, though, is sweet. As I write, I'm watching this documentary called Alien Insect: Praying Mantis. The picture is stunningly sharp. Most incredible scenes? A female mantis chews the head off of a male mantis on her back while they're mating. The headless male continues to mate, a drop of green fluid forming out of the hole where his head used to be, and when the sexual act is done, the headless male mantis body wanders off by itself until the female runs it down and eats it whole. An apt metaphor, perhaps, for the loss of reasoning of the male in heat. In another scene, a praying mantis catches a 10 inch cow snake and nearly eats it before it squirms free, missing a chunk of flesh. Finally, a mantis snatches a hummingbird out of mid-air while it's feeding and chews its head off. Whoa.