Big

In this interview, Lance Armstrong was asked what he though of Jan Ullrich after facing off with him at Murcia. Lance's reply?

"Big."

He goes on to add:

"But I think he looks better than he normally looks this time of year. There's no doubt that (Jan) is seven or eight kilos more than his Tour weight. He's been heavier other years. But Ullrich looks strong, is how he does look. I wouldn't say he looks fat. Jan always gets in shape for the Tour; he's always ready."

I think Lance is being diplomatic. Jan looks as if he's been living large this winter, so to speak.

Lance the boxer

Caught a new Nike commercial during the Chappelle Show tonight. It's linked off of the Niketown homepage. Good stuff (the commercial, and the Chappelle Show).
I was still chuckling to myself when I logged on and found an e-mail from Ken pointing to the same commercial. That puppy is going to spread quickly.
Ken also sent me this link to Ask the Whitehouse, "an online interactive forum where you can submit questions to Administration officials and friends of the White House." The host this time? Michael Waltrip, NASCAR driver. He fielded weighty questions such as:

Steve, from Dover writes:
Michael You guys are in your cars for a long time. What if you have to hit the bathroom?

Go with the Flow?

This interesting bike saddle, built using mesh similar to that in the Herman Miller Aeron chair, won all sorts of design awards this past year. I'm eager to hear from actual cyclists who've ridden it. Is it comfortable?
I switched saddles compulsively during the first year or two riding. Buying saddles is tricky; you don't know if one fits you well until you've logged some time in it, and by then you usually can't return it. And once you break one in, it's difficult to give it up, especially if you ride an eighty pound Brooks leather saddle. But there's always that thought that perhaps some new saddle is just the one to make riding completely pain free.
When I was in France this year for the Tour, we stopped by the USPS Postal Service hotel after the stage to Lyon and watched the mechanics cleaning up all the Treks. Lance's pristine new bike frame was clamped to a bike stand, every part gleaming in the sun after a hand washing. But the saddle looked like it had been to hell and back, it was cracked, peeling, barely recognizable. Clearly, it had been with Lance for a long, long time.

What is THG?

A budding doping scandal crossing multiple sports, involving all sorts of stars? Hmmmm.
At the heart of it is a lab in the Bay Area called BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative). It has a wonderfully low-budget and somewhat vague website, the type which I imagine to be characteristic of suspicious, stealthy companies. Even just a partial roster of their past clients is impressive.
On topic, this month's Outside magazine features an article in which an amateur cyclist uses himself as a human guinea pig for all the big names in the performance-enhancing cupboard, from human growth hormone (HGH) to EPO to steroids. A fascinating read, mostly because the author confesses that the cocktails he injected himself with helped. He didn't use them long enough to experience any of the dangerous side effects, but one can easily understand how, in a world of A-personality athletic competitors where the slightest edge means millions of dollars and in a world where everyone seems to be trying the latest fad diet in an attempt to locate a shortcut to lose weight, the idea of taking some drugs from time to time and experiencing noticeable performance gains would be so alluring.

Day One Maury

Maury: "Derek, what do you do when you fall off the horse?" Silence. "You get back on! That's what this business is all about!"
Derek: "Sorry, Maury. But I'm not a gymnast."
For the first time in a long time, three months to be exact, I dressed for work today. No, I haven't been going to the office naked for three months. My sabbatical came to an end.
I woke up and realized I needed to press a shirt for work. Quite a change from my time hiking the Inca Trail, when I wore clothes that had been crumpled and stuffed into my pack for days.
You know what feels especially fresh after a layoff from work? The wrists. Typing hundreds of e-mails each week takes its toll on your hands. My fingers and wrists felt strong and limber today. They felt slightly less so after I worked my way through most of the 3,500 e-mails that had accumulated during my leave.
I saw a few folks, but for the most part I laid low. I feel like a stranger in the office, like an outsider. Like that feeling you have when walking into your room after months away. Everything is familiar but new--it's a dreamlike state, like deja vu. If only we could take regular breaks from all the familiar places in our life, they'd always seem fresh, magical.
Having been away for so long, there's much culture and news to assimilate. A not so brief tour of some of it...

Tufte on Powerpoint

Edward Tufte, author of what I consider to be essential reference books such as The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, writes an interesting critique of Microsoft Powerpoint. It costs $7, but it's worthwhile. Powerpoint has always been the weak link in Microsoft Office, and they I know it inside out, my relationship with it has always been one of reluctant acceptance. Not even love hate, because there isn't much love there.

How many airplanes are over the United States right now

A short clip illustrating a day in the life of air traffic over the U.S. (Quicktime movie). Cool.
A graphic of all the flights and bus rides and horse rides and train rides and hikes I took while in South America would look something like that as well.

Exponential hype

Has there every been a movie more hyped than Matrix Reloaded? The practice of offering pre-screenings and access to either Time or Newsweek in advance in exchange for a cover story (The Two Towers was the previous movie to make that type of business deal, in exchange for one of those covers, I think it was Time) is already getting old. I'm a fairly big film geek, but let's be honest. A blockbuster movie doesn't really merit the cover of Time magazine, not at this time in the world, and perhaps not ever. Standing in the airport on arrival in the U.S. from South America I saw Morpheus and Trinity and Neo staring at me from every second magazine cover.
I haven't seen the movie yet (being on sabbatical meant a temporary demotion from the ranks of the opening day fanatics, but the next time I'm in line for the first showing at Cinerama, say for LOTR: Return of the King, don't call it a comeback), but the expectations are so great that some backlash and letdown is inevitable. The "okay people, let's get real, it's just a movie and not some philosophical masterpiece" articles were bound to happen at some point after the first movie inspired books with titles like Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix.
After the uniqueness of the first movie (American movies that appropriate visual tropes from Japanese anime and Chinese martial arts cinema is always considered fresh in this country), it's hard to imagine the second movie being superior except in budget and special effects.
Okay, so the Wachowski brothers aren't the next coming of Kierkegaard and Baudrillard. I hope that amidst the marketing blitz no one made the mistake in thinking that they were.

Apple Music Store

The new Apple music store is very solid. The solution is not complex. In fact, it's built on components that have been available all along. (1) Selection: Apple has songs from all five major music labels (2) Micropayments: allows users to download individual songs for the fair price of $0.99 (3) Ownership: the service allows users unlimited burning of the songs to CDs and generous sharing of the songs across their iPod and 3 Mac computers.
My main quibble is that the selection, while it includes albums from all five major music labels, is still just a fraction of the music available from their vaults. It will likely take some time before all the artists allow their music to be shared digitally through the Apple music store, but it's futile to resist. There are still numerous albums and artists I'd like to see represented. Let's hope their early success convinces holdouts to cross the line.
I'd also prefer that the $0.99 price per song be inclusive of sales tax. But that's just me being greedy, since I don't really mind odd prices ($1.07 per track after sales tax in Washington) when I'm paying with a credit card.
All in all, the new music store is a surprising but well-executed move on the part of Apple. It won't eliminate or even significantly dent music piracy, but count me among the converted who are happy to fork over $0.99 for a good tune. Another reason, if you're considering joining the Mac community, to follow through.

PowerPC 970

And a second reason to make the Mac leap sometime in the next year? Perhaps a launch of a new processor architecture, finally bringing Apple out of the dark ages and into greater parity with the Intel and AMD processors powering most Windows boxes.
Considering the popularity of Macs as multimedia editing machines, the new processors can come none too soon. Rendering certain effects on a Mac can be painfully slow.

Lance, part deux

Lance Armstrong and Sally Jenkins are working on a sequel, Every Second Counts, to the bestselling biography It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life. I'm counting down every second, though it doesn't look like it will be ready for me to carry with me up the Alps in July.

The few. The proud.

If TV marketing held complete sway over me, I'd most definitely be a Marine. Great commercials.

Sports break

Bill James, every interesting, both for his analysis and his crusty personality, conducted a chat at ESPN today. His sharp tongued writing is always entertaining, particularly in a chat environment where he can always get the last word. An example:
Tim - Cohasset, MA: Bill, I'm very interested in your work and was wondering how a 20 year old college student would get in on the ground floor working for a team like the Red Sox.
Bill James: Learn to throw 95
Come to think of it, Bill James and Edward Tufte have a lot in common. Among the fun assertions he makes, in the chat, is that the three most valuable commodities in baseball, in order, are Alex Rodriguez, Mark Prior, and Vladimir Guerrero. Good news for Cubs fans. Maybe the Cubbies can sign Vlad in the offseason and get two out of three. I don't think Cubs fans realize yet how good Mark Prior can be. He's certainly the pitcher you'd draft first in the entire major leagues if you held a major league wide draft.
Speaking of the Cubbies, they pulled out a 17 inning game today. The Cubs are going to break the single season strikeout record they themselves set two years ago (that's my prediction). They are stocked up and down with power arms, and today Todd Wellemeyer struck out the side for the save in his major league debut. He was throwing 95 mph cheese and mixing in an 84 mph changeup with very good arm action. Granted, it was against the strikeout prone Brewers, but still, a lot of the Cubs strikeouts have to do with the power arms on their staff. They have a seemingly endless supply of 6' 3" to 6' 6" right handers who throw in the mid 90's. Nasty. Now if the Cubs pick up Mike Lowell from the Marlins before the trading deadline, I'm going to start getting nervous, in a good way.

4 is an unlucky number in Chinese

As the ever smart John Hollinger predicted, the Lakers succumbed the the Spurs, ending their run of championships at 3. Even with Rick Fox, their bench was terrible, and a lot of their loss this year should be blamed on their general manager, who did nothing to bolster their team behind Kobe and Shaq. I was no fan of Jerry Krause, but at least he knew that restocking around Jordan and Pippen was his single most important job, and he did his job well. It doesn't take much when you have two players as good as Kobe and Shaq, so it's a particularly egregious failure on the part of Lakers management.
The Bulls formula was straightforward. Surround Jordan and Pippen with strong jumpshooters to take the kickouts (Kerr, Paxson) and defenders (Grant, Rodman, Harper). The supporting cast knew their roles. Poor Kobe and Shaq had nothing to work with this year. Still, as a Bulls fan, I'm pretty happy to see the Lakers stopped short of 4 in a row. Sam Smith always claims the Bulls couldn't have won four in a row even if Jordan had stuck around after either of the runs of 3 championships, but I disagree. I like Kobe and Phil, but I like Jordan even more.
Fun players to watch when they're hot: Kobe (like Jordan, has developed into a dangerous 3 point threat when it counts), Nick Van Exel (pretty left-handed stroke), Allen Iverson (can embarrass defenders in a greater variety of ways than any player in the NBA), Tracy McGrady (always the chance he'll dunk in a way that will strip his defender of all manhood), and Dirk Nowitzki (the ball hits his hands and then is gone a second later in a beautiful arc towards the basket, no matter where he is on the court). Maybe Paul Pierce, and Peja. Tim Duncan isn't terribly exciting to watch, but his footwork is beautiful.

Billy Beane

Looks like Michael Lewis (Liar's Poker) has excerpted his book Moneyball, the Art of Winning an Unfair Game on Billy Beane and the Oakland A's in this week's NYTimes Magazine. Can't wait for the book, and the article just whets the appetite more. Beane is the personal hero of sabermetric statheads everywhere because he's living proof that the theories they have obsessively constructed actually work in practice. In a perfect world, he'd be the Cubs general manager.
As well-run as the Oakland A's are as an organization, someone should also do an article on the Mariners as the model economic organization. Got taxpayers to foot the bill for their stadium so they barely pay anything to use it to line their wallets, built their own team store so they could keep all the margins for themselves, signed Ichiro not just as a fine ballplayer but as a tourist attraction, and have wisely parted ways with huge stars like Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez when they knew they couldn't absorb the economic hit. As outrageously profitable as the Mariners were last year, they should have signed someone for the stretch run last year. Their window may have closed.

Tony Blair

Out of this whole impassioned debate, I've come out quite intrigued with Tony Blair, who I knew nothing about before.

Scatter plot

Have been spending time with friends who are moving away from Seattle. Lunch with Peter on Friday, just before he caught a flight to London to search for housing. The next time I see him and Klara will be in London. Aaron, who's moving to Germany. The next time I see him and Roswitha will likely be at their wedding outside Nuremberg. Attended two going away parties for Greg and Kristin. The next time I see them will also be in London. Spent an afternoon with Bean, who I'll see again, though by year end I suspect she'll be settling into a new city I know well.
This still feels like an inflection point of a year to me. Close friends and family quitting jobs, changing jobs, starting jobs, moving out of town, getting married, having kids, buying houses, selling houses...you might think the rate of change is always this great and I've been too busy to notice, but you'd be wrong. This is more than usual.
Incidentally, everyone who sees me remarks on how healthy I look. Makes me suspect that while I was working at Amazon my appearance was sickly.

Cheap long distance

Bigzoo is the type of company I always suspected existed, but had never bothered to research. Karen suggested I check it out, though, and the rates are amazing! I can call Europe, Asia, and Australia for less than I currently pay to dial long-distance in the U.S.
I purchased some credit, and I'll give it a try tonight.

Prep for Patagonia

Went to REI as today was the last day to spend my 2002 dividend and get 10% off of one item in the store. Patagonia's going to be cold, and I needed some clothing and trekking gear.
Have to hand it to REI--all of the staff there know their stuff. Most are serious mountaineers themselves, and they had me set up with a multi-day pack in no time, and with my dividend and 10% discount it was a steal. The bonus was coming across an Arc'Teryx Gore-Tex shell on sale for $100 off. I'd seen it in the store before and love given up hope of ever seeing it discounted.
Also grabbed some short story collections from Twice Told Tales on Saturday, and now I just need some film and I'll be set for South America. Lots of solo time in the remote wilderness awaits. Emotionally I'm not necessarily ready to head off. Everything here at home feels comfortable right now and there's plenty to do. Still, it's always better to be out ahead of these curves. The day after I return from South America is the first day I'm due back at the office!!!
We'll ignore that for now.

Pics from New Zealand and Australia

Yes, I'm behind on these. Scanning is laborious, and I've been trying to jot down my memories to go with the photos, and it's all taking much longer than expected. So much to recall. But I promise, it will be up before I leave for South America.

Warm weather, not so hot on the bike

Yesterday and today were the two warmest days of the year thus far in Seattle. 60's, slightly overcast. Woke up exhausted this morning--not sure why. Couldn't keep my eyes open all afternoon, and didn't want to follow through on a promised bike ride with Laura. Neither did she, I suspected. A movie would have been the easy way out.
But thankfully I censored my inner wuss and pushed for a loop around Magnolia. The warm spring air woke me up (it's good to sweat), as did the ride. I'm still as slow as a cow on the bike. Usually I've gotten a few hundred miles in on the bike by this time of year, and I think I just broke 150 today. It will take more than these occasional 30 mile spins to get in shape for the Alps of France in July. Oh, it's humbling in the saddle.

3,764 miles

Scott called on Saturday. He finished his bike ride from Florida to San Diego. 3,764 miles! What a stud. That's more miles than I drove in my car last year. Scott should swing by our place soon, and when he does I'll be tempted to ask him if he wants to go for a bike ride, and I can't tell if that will be funny or not.
Speaking of which I finally saw one of those anti-SUV ads which blame SUVs for funding terrorists. Yes, there are lots of reasons why we'd all be better off with fewer SUVs on the roads. SUVs have proven to cause more auto fatalities (studies have shown that SUVs don't make you any safe, and at the same time people who aren't in SUVs are more likely to die when you hit them with your massive vehicle), they do get much worse gas mileage, and that does contribute in part to America sending money to Iraq and Saudi Arabia which are terrorist friendly nations. Still, the reactions of most people who've seen the ads lead me to believe that the shock value may turn off too many people to be effective in motivating action.

Whatchoo talkin' bout fool?

King Kaufmann of Salon writes that Serena Williams, not Lance Armstrong, should be Sportsman of the Year. He makes a couple of points:
1. Cycling is all just about pedaling fast.
2. Americans don't care about cycling.
3. Cycling is popular in Europe, and Europeans don't know squat.
4. Serena Williams is a cultural phenomenon. She transcends her sport.
5. Americans pay attention to tennis.
6. Serena won the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open, dominating her sport.
7. Maybe racial discrimination is to blame.
He's right on one point, and that's #6, that she dominated her sport this year. On points #1-5 he proves himself to be the ignorant, ugly American. And point #7, which he tosses out there without committing to it, is just cowardly and irresponsible. If you're going to accuse your sportswriting peers at SI of racism, come out and say it. Don't cast aspersions if you're not willing to stand behind them. He writes:
I don't know why Williams doesn't get the respect she deserves. I'd hate to think there's a racial element at play in Sports Illustrated's choice of Armstrong over her, but this is America, and if we're honest we dismiss the issue of race at our peril. Fashion magazines reportedly don't sell as well when they have black women on the cover as when they have whites. Could S.I. have been thinking along those lines? I hope not, and I seriously doubt it -- neither Williams sister is a stranger to the magazine's cover -- but I can't imagine what criteria there might be under which Williams wouldn't win. (Willingham, the Sporting News' winner, is black.)
Weak weak weak.
To address his other points:
1. Cycling is not about pedaling fast. The same way running is not just about being the fastest runner, or auto racing is not just about flooring it the whole way around the track. Even Lance acknowledges that he's not the world's most talented cyclist. To win the world's toughest endurance event four years in a row requires talent, courage, skill, brains, and a tremendous capacity for suffering. That King does not bother doing any homework on cycling despite being a supposed sportswriter just indicates his ignorance or laziness, or both.
2. Americans do care about cycling now, and Lance is in great part responsible for that. San Francisco now holds an annual Grand Prix bike race, and New York City shut down to host the first annual NY Grand Prix this past fall, and neither would have happened without Lance's success in the Tour.
3. Jingoistic crap.
4. Serena Williams is an interesting person, but wearing some provocative outfits does not a cultural phenomenon make. I don't see anyone dressing like her. I've never once had a conversation with anyone about her. One successful year does not a tennis career make. Meanwhile, Lance Armstrong's autobiography is the bestselling sports biography of all time, and cancer patients everywhere look to him as a savior. I was in France for the Tour and saw thousands of Americans running up the mountains alongside Lance, with Texas horns on their heads and American flags painted on their chests.
5. America does not care about tennis. It's a sport in serious decline and needs help. Too bad, because it's a lot of fun.
Fortunately, readers of Salon called Mr. Kaufman out on his poorly researched attempt at playing provocateur.

Australian Visa

I've been trying all morning to apply for a darn Visa for Australia using this online site. Three times now I've gone through all the steps, filled in all my info, only to get to the last step and receive the message "The credit card processing system is down. Please try again shortly."
Gee, thanks. That's great. Why don't you give me that message ahead of time, so I don't have to waste 10 minutes of my life?

SI's 2002 Sportsman of the Year

Ah, finally some American appreciation for cycling. Lance is SI's 2002 Sportsman of the Year. I can appreciate it even more, having been there to witness him putting the hammer down on his opponents in the Pyrenees and the Alps this summer.
It recalls that scene from Zoolander. "For the past four years, the world of male cycling has been dominated by 3 syllables: Lance Arm-Strong."
Kelli Anderson, whoever he or she is, writes a memorable metaphor of the first mountain stage in the Pyrenees, which I watched tonight as I rode for an hour on my bike on the trainer: "One by one the Posties burned themselves out and fell away like booster stages on a rocket launch as they led Armstrong on a chase of 33-year-old Laurent Jalabert of France on the final climb to La Mongie." And that's how it was on seemingly every mountain stage. Hincapie would be out front at the base of the mountain, then someone else like Floyd Landis would pull for a short bit. Then the daily Spanish special, Chechu Rubiera would lead out and lift the pace to shatter the chasers, leaving only Beloki. Finally Heras would come up front and lift the pace yet again, pushing Beloki to the redline and allowing Armstrong to attack and separate to the finish.
I've decided I must return to France next summer to see Lance chase five in a row. It will just happen to be the 100th anniversary of the Tour, and the French need few excuses to party.

Matchpedia.com

As I book flights for holidays, I think to myself, how nice would it be to be able to select what stranger you sit next to on a flight. Aaron agrees, having recently been seated next to an old man with what Aaron diagnosed as tuberculosis for a long flight. My last flight to San Francisco I was seated in the same set of 3 seats as an androgynous 15 year old (okay, turns out he's a boy) who couldn't stop dancing to the Japanese techno pop on his walkman and who confessed to everyone in his general area that he was bisexual and on medication. Thankfully some United pilot bumming a ride on the flight was seated between us.

Blown away

I've had issues to work out this week. The easiest way to do so is by working out. Saturday I hoped for a break in the weather so I could get out on my bike. Since my accident, I haven't been outdoors on my bike, and among other things, I wanted to overcome a calcifying mental block about riding around Mercer Island.
All day, the rain came down in patches while the wind was strong enough to rattle my windows. Not a good sign. I waited, cleaning my room, watching TV, reading, doing my laundry. I called Rachael to see if she'd be crazy enough to meet me out. A companion would mitigate the pain of being outside in lousy weather. Nope, she was too sane for that.
Finally, at 4:00pm, I glimpsed a brief patch of blue sky way out over the Olympics. Close enough. I quickly donned every warm-weather cycling item I owned, which took a while. Bundled up like a scuba diver in layers of high tech synthetics, I emerged into the darkening grey afternoon.
About 40 feet out of the driveway, I knew it was a bad idea. The wind was howling, and I had to grip the handlebars as tightly as possible to keep my bike from twisting in the wind. On the I-90 bridge, it was worse. The ice-cold wind seemed to be blowing in all directions. It was in my face, and it attacked me from both sides. I've never felt my bike pitching and bucking underneath me with such violence. By the time I summited the hill on the other side my hands and forearms were sore from gripping the bars so tightly.
On Mercer Ave., the mental challenges continued. The rain and wet leaves on the pavement formed a slick surface, and I couldn't shake the image of a wipeout every time I turned. Drivers on Mercer Island have no patience for cyclists and so they buzzed by me to the left, even in sharp turns where they had no way to see if a car was coming in the other direction. If a car did emerge in the other lane and the car in my lane swerved to the right to avoid a collision, my bike and I would be swept off the road off the edge of the hill inter the trees. Meanwhile, the wind continued to gust in rage, and all the trees on Mercer shrieked as the leaves were ripped from their branches.
Halfway around the island, with little light left in the day, I stopped and turned around. The sun was setting earlier than I had anticipated. If I continued on around the island, I'd be finishing in blackness. That would be idiocy. As it was, when I reached I-90 again it was too dark to pick out the terrain of the road anymore. If I haven't exhausted my reservoir of hyperbole, the wind was worse on the return trip across the bridge. It always is.
I finally pulled into the driveway, having seen not a single other cyclist or jogger out on the road. That was definitely the worst weather I've biked in. In retrospect, not the smartest decision.
Still, it's a start on my comeback. It's not quite Maverick in Top Gun, unable to engage in a dogfight after losing Goose in that freak accident, but something like that.

The Two Towers

I finally finished rereading Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Reading that tome is an epic quest in itself, one that parallels that of Frodo himself. Not always the fastest read, especially with all those declarative sentences.
Nevertheless, there's enough there that I can't wait to see the movie hit the big screen. How will they depict the Ents, the massive battle scene, and finally Shelob? The heart of a film geek sings.

Scott is on his way

Spoke to Scott earlier today. He just completed his first 50 miles today, having left Key West in the morning. It's funny--his bike computer wasn't working, and I think, though it's hard to tell from so far away, but I think it's because he mistook the setting for circumference of his bike wheel for accumulated mileage and lowered it to 10. That means he basically reduced his speed by 200 times on a regular 700 x 23 road wheel. Take his 50 miles of riding today and it's no wonder it looked as if he was going zero miles per hour the whole way.
Or it's possible his bike computer just crapped out, which is entirely possible, because of all the advances in bike technology, almost all bike computers are still junk.
Anyway, I'm sure you'll all be able to read about it from him shortly, but in the meantime he asked me to pass along a big hello to everyone, and I know no other way to reach as many people as by typing and uploading. Scott is sore, for sure, and is planning to ramp up his mileage by about 25 miles a day for the next few days. Crazy stuff.
More power to him. I've only met a handful of people who've pulled off the Ride Across America, fewer people than have completed marathons, or climbed mountains, and other extreme things of that ilk. That's because riding your bike across this vast country is extremely long, hard, and occasionally, I'd imagine, boring and lonely.

Flavors of pain

I got a note from my pen pal bike coach from CTS (I'm giving this remote coaching a trial run for a short while) with some suggested off season lifting regimens to begin now that the weather in Seattle has gone to hell again. The spreadsheet contained different sessions and lifting exercises and suggested set and rep counts, but I couldn't tell if I was supposed to do 3 sets of 10 reps for each exercise in each session, or if each session counted as one of the sets. Anyway, to be conservative, yesterday I did the full 3 sets of 10 reps for each exercise in each of the 3 sessions. It all added up to some 60 odd sets of 10 reps, and it took forever.
I haven't lifted at the gym in a long time, but even when I was lifting, I never did that many sets in one workout. That's the territory of full-time bodybuilding beefcake meatheads who spend hours at the gym each day, lifting as an occupation. Well, turns out I did too many sets, according to an e-mail I received today from another coach on the staff.
That was the answer I was looking for, because I couldn't pull my socks on today or stand up out of my chair, simple things like that. Some 9 sets of squats will do that to you. If someone is reading this, please come to my room and lift me out of my bed.

Don't like that? Too bad, so not sad

One of the things I've learned this year is that I can't make everyone happy, and I'm fine with that. I didn't used to be, but I can only do what I can do, and sometimes it's not what others want, or it's not enough, or whatever. In fact, I've probably made more people unhappy this year than ever before, and I think it's a healthy sign because it's a terrible burden, the desire to please everyone. Part of it probably stems from the fact that I'm usually right, too. Wow, have I reached that inflection point where I've become a crusty, bitter, stubborn old codger who's seen and heard it all before?
Besides, I miss having a few well-cultivated enemies.

Basketball Prospectus

Faithful readers know I'm a huge fan of the guys over at Baseball Prospectus (not being sexist here; they really are all guys). Well, I picked up the Football Prospectus and was fairly disappointed. Where was the wit and insight that the baseball guys had established for the Prospectus brand? I finally got my copy of Basketball Prospectus and highly recommend it for any major NBA fan. It's the best objective analysis about the NBA and its players ever published.
I've only just started to delve into the brilliance of author John Hollinger's debut book and already it's revealed all sorts of interesting things, some of which I suspected, others which surprised me:
1. Michael Jordan was the best ever and still is. Most people know this, but recently everyone has been ready to anoint Kobe Bryant the new Michael Jordan. Kobe's a very good player, but he's not even close to Jordan in his prime, especially on defense. He's not even the best player on his own team. That would be...
2. Shaquille O'Neal. It's popular among basketball fans to deride Shaq because his free throw shooting is poor, or he just runs people over, or whatever. I've always disliked him because he's such a terrible interview. The fact is, though, that he's been the best player in the league ever since Jordan left, and he's one of the most dominant players of all time. Underrated defensively, a physical freak of nature, he's unstoppable when healthy. Free throws aren't everything, he has a variety of moves now which are amazingly effective, and complaining that he's bigger and stronger than all the other centers is like complaining that Yao Ming is too tall. Frankly, people push each other around in the post all the time. It just happens that Shaq is so much stronger and bigger than most his defenders that it magnifies the difference. In other players such physical prowess is called toughness. I still think Shaq is a terrible interview, but the Lakers struggles this season are just the latest evidence that he's the main reason the Lakers have won 3 titles in a row.
3. Tracy McGrady is better than Kobe Bryant. Younger, too.
4. Dennis Rodman is the best rebounder of all time, and it's not even close. I got to watch him play a ton his last couple years, when he was on the Bulls, and he just clearly had a sixth sense about how the ball would come off the rim and how to get his hands on it before anyone else did.
5. Allen Iverson is incredibly valuable for his team, despite his low scoring percentage, primarily because he can get off shots for himself that most other players could not.

Shock jocks

Mornings right now are brutal because my right shoulder, which I separated in the bike accident, is so stiff after a long night of inactivity. I never realized how important the shoulder is in so many movements until now. I was lying there trying to roll myself over and up out of bed without using my right arm; basically, I was stuck.
On popped my radio alarm clock, and it was some shock jock engaged in a heated debate with some caller. And, I'm not making any of this up, this is the conversation they were having:
Jock (shouting): Next time I see a cyclist in the road, I'm running him over! GET OUT OF THE ROAD! I'm so sick of these damn cyclists!
Caller: Cyclists should be treated like cars. You should wait until it's clear to pass.
Jock (shouting): Cyclists are two-wheeled wimps. They are not the same as cars. Get on the sidewalk. Get out of the road. I'm so sick of cyclists while driving in Capitol Hill.
Caller: You're stupid.
Jock (shouting): I'm stupid?! I'm stupid?! You're an idiot. I see you on the road, I'm running you over.
Caller: How about I come over there and beat you up.
Jock (shouting): You want to come beat me up? Come on in. I'll kick your ass.
I'm not sure what radio station it was, but it was the same guy I've listened to on the radio every morning since I got to Seattle. Basically, with my cheap clock radio, I'm relegated to leaving it on the one radio station I get good reception on, or using the BEEP-BEEP-BEEP heart-attack-inducing siren that all alarm clocks are loaded with at the factory. This guy is a moron (so was the caller, but given my bike incident, I was locked on the DJ). I wanted to head over to the radio station and throttle the guy with his headphone cord.
Seriously, 95% of radio station shock jocks are simple-minded monkeys intended to boost radio interest through their controversial, inflammatory rhetoric. Like sports radio hosts who don't know the first thing about sports. They sit in the studios, behind the glass, insulated from all human contact like a circus freak, shouting at callers through microphones from their cells, making prank phone calls to random people for kicks. Why do we have to put up with these idiots?
On my way home from work late tonight, a prostitute was standing in the road near the intersection of Massachusetts and Rainier. I stopped because I thought she was crossing the street, but she didn't move. Instead, she made hand gestures and asked if she could get in the car. I waved her off and drove around her, and she started cursing at me using language not suitable for my PG-13 blog.
Fortunately, in between the morning and the evening, I was at the office where most of my coworkers were sane.

Segway

I saw my first Segway rider in public today. Some guy cruised by as I drove to work this morning. It was a rough neighborhood, too. I guess he wasn't too worried about getting Segway-jacked in broad daylight.
I look forward to the day when a healthy Segway after-market of parts and modifications exist so that people can lower their Segways, add chrome hubs, neon highlights, and 400 watt subwoofers. Well, I don't look forward to it, but you know what I mean...never mind.

Keep your dog on a leash!

Had been working so much recently I didn't have time to do anything. Work out, read, watch TV (about 50 hours of shows taped on that thing--I thought it was supposed to reduce the amount of TV you watch), return personal e-mail or phone calls, sleep, and stuff like that. Today I slept in like a log, then went to the office to try and keep up with a big project and to attend a meeting. Afterwards, it was still light out, and I really had to get out on my bike. It had been two weeks since I got my heart rate above 70. I had to get out on my bike. I had to get out on my bike.
Rushed into gear, then sprinted across to Mercer Island at about 6pm to try and take advantage of the remaining sunlight to get one quick loop in. Just across the bridge, then up the hill, and then I headed down the hill by the two baseball parks (you Mercer-ites know where that is). Just as I began picking up speed, I spied a mother walking with a stroller and a young child along side her a ways down the path. I moved to the right, and they moved to the other side of the path. Then, I was going about 22 mph, and out of the bushes and shrubs at the right a large, grey dog sprinted out of the bushes. It remains in my memory now as a vague grey blur in the shape of a dog, like a vision illuminated for a nanosecond in the darkness.
Bam.
Visually I don't remember the next few seconds. I hit the dog and went over the bars, and my next conscious thought (I don't think I went unconscious) was waking up in the bushes, rolling around in pain. I felt it in two places. My right cheekbone, and my right shoulder. My vision was a little blurry, and I was hurting. I tried to stand up, and found that I was in the bushes. Lying on my back, I could make out shapes and light and darkness as I stared straight up at what I knew from experience was a grey, cloudy sky.
The lady who owned the dog called 911, and in what seemed like 5 minutes, I heard an ambulance wailing, and then I saw a circle of firemen and emergency workers looking down at me as if I were a campfire they needed to start.
They wanted to immobilize me. I said my neck is fine, please don't immobilize me. They won and soon my neck was in a harness. They did that thing where they roll you onto a board on the count of three and strap you to it like a trophy fish. I couldn't move my head because of the neck brace and because they taped my forehead back to the board.
Then I'm off to the hospital resigned to looking straight up at the sky, then at the lights on the roof of the ambulance. Then I'm lying on a hospital bed, still strapped to that board like Ahab to Moby Dick. They left me there for what felt like a half hour, and soon I had a pulsing headache from the spot on the back of my skull which was taped so firmly to the board it felt like they were trying to flatten the back of my head. I started squirming around and trying to tear myself free of the neck brace because the back of my head was throbbing.
My head hurts now. Gotta fast forward.
X-rays. 1st degree shoulder separation. A partial black eye. A bloody right cheekbone like a Neanderthal. Arm in a sling. A throbbing headache.
Please, people, keep your dog on a leash on a bike path. If I had been further down that hill, I would have been coasting along at 30+ miles per hour. This time, the dog came out perfectly. But at 35 miles per hour, the dog would not have fared nearly as well, and neither would I.
Fellow cyclists, wear a helmet and sports glasses. Mine both need to be replaced now, but if I hadn't been wearing them the whole right side of my head might need replacing.
My last gripe, because I'm upset right now. At the hospital, the first words out of a few nurse's mouths were, "How's the dog?" I'm lying there trying to pull myself free of their immobilization device because I have a pulsing pain on the back of my skull, and nurses are asking me about that dog that ran out from the bushes like it was my fault. Then they leave me there for a half hour squirming in that device with a pulsing headache. One of the nurses hears where the accident took place and complains about the cyclists that ride on Mercer because they sometimes hold up traffic. I guess she lives over there. She says this all with a smile, like she's glad one of us cyclists got our due. Alright, first off, I always ride the shoulder if there is one on Mercer to give cars room to pass. Second, I always wave cars through if I see around a turn and it's clear. Third, it's the dog's fault for running out in front of me from the bushes. Or the owner's fault for not having that dog on a leash. I wasn't even in the street, blocking auto traffic!
Sometimes America is too dog-obsessed. Some people treat their pet dogs better than their fellow man, and I'm sorry, that's messed up. Secondly, those damn wealthy Mercer Island residents with their gigantic gas-guzzling SUVs and sports cars are complaining about cyclists in the road? I'm sorry, wait an extra twenty seconds to pass, or get your rich fat ass on a bike.
In this case, the owner of the dog was kind enough to call the ambulance, and I'm not really venting against her, but I have no pity whatsoever for Mercer Island residents complaining about cyclists out getting some exercise. Okay, the cyclist who rides smack dab in the middle of the road needs to learn to share the road. I agree. But I meet far fewer of those than I do some young, rich punks in their daddy's SUV or truck, buzzing by cyclists and honking at them or running them off of the road. For those road hogs, I wish nothing but...
I'm getting too worked up. I'm going to lie down on my good shoulder and pass out.

Published!

That photo of Lance and Beloki I snapped on La Plagne at this year's Tour got posted on Lance's website.

Cure for poor customer service

For the most part, I've had a good time ordering online, and I'm a fairly prolific online shopper--I rarely go out to shop anymore. Occasionally, though, I still have that bad experience shopping online, and one bad experience will stick in your craw for months. The only relief in these cases when I can't get any help from the company itself is to complain about it on my blog. In a few weeks, several hundred people will see my gripe and think twice the next time they decide to do business with company XYZ. That means some more lost sales and market share for that company, and it feels good knowing you've hit them in the wallet and their reputation.
So here are a few of my recent gripes:

• Don't ever buy from PCNation: I made the mistake of getting all bug-eyed over a low price on PCNation for a photo printer. I placed the order in July, when the availability was listed as 1-2 weeks. Well, I haven't gotten my product yet, and I've only received a reply to half of the four e-mails I've sent to customer service over there. They don't have any information on when my product will arrive. At this point I just want my money and credit card # back from them. Sites like this remind me of why people buy from Amazon, because it's a name you know and trust.


• Dell: I received an e-mail from Dell pushing a 15% off memory promotion. Well, with all the massive file sizes I deal with while photo editing, my PC has been slowing down quite a bit and even crashing, so I decided a RAM upgrade was a good idea. I went to the website, punched in my serial #, and Dell pulled up a few memory chips based on their stored profile of my computer. Pretty nifty, I thought. Here's where customized customer profiles were going to simplify my shopping experience. So I ordered another 128Mb of RAM. Got it, plugged it in, turned on my PC, and...nothing. Didn't register. So I call Dell up, and the guy says that for my computer I have two channels and both must be filled with RAM for things to work. Funny, that wasn' t in any of the fine print. Fine, so I order another 128Mb of RAM. Plug that in, crank up the PC, and BEEEP. My computer doesn't even boot. Just beeps at me. I try reversing the RAM, shuffling the four DIMMs around, pulling them back out. I rummage through online documentation at Dell.com, and finally I find an old PDF file that says I must have the same size memory DIMM in every slot. Since I have 2 256MB DIMMs in my current PC, I have to buy two more. My two 128Mb DIMMs are worthless. Great, thanks for the heads up. So much for Dell's customized ordering wizard. Turns out if you don't return the memory within 30 days, you can't. Well, I ordered the first DIMM more than 30 days ago because the guy on the phone told me to order another one, so they better let me return both. I tried calling customer service today, and some guy who'd clearly been drooling on his keyboard in a slumber told me the computers were all down and to call back in the morning. Stay tuned on this one. Dell has a reputation for great prices and an innovative business model, but they need to make good on this one.


• Adorama: very impressive selection of photography equipment at this site, but a small incident recently has me peeved. I ordered 3 photo album binders from them. Each came with 100 sheets of sticky photo paper. Well, once they arrived, I used one and set the other two aside. Recently I developed a few more photos and tore open the shrinkwrap to the second binder. The binder rings were broken. They didn't close. So I called Adorama up for an exchange. No good--they had a 10 day exchange policy. Here's a site that might make hundreds of dollars off of me in future business on equipment like Nikon lenses, and they wouldn't exchange a simple photo album binder. What a short-sighted policy. I'm taking my business elsewhere until they make good.


• Air France: still haven't received an apology from them for not having delivered my bike and clothing for the first 5 days of my 7 day trip to France for the Tour de France camp in July. Hey, I defend the French when people denounce Parisians as rude and snobbish, but their damn airline isn't helping their cause. In fact, at this point, a damn apology isn't good enough. I'm making it a point to encourage all my cycling friends to fly another airline to France for next year's Tour, or for their next bike trip. Frankly, I've never met an airline I've liked. People think lawyers are evil, but at least some of them will get you out of jail in exchange for your money.

Aaaaah. I feel a little better already. Thanks for listening.

De Le Hoya vs. Vargas

Saturday, HBO re-aired the De La Hoya-Vargas fight from the previous week. I've never seen De La Hoya fight, but the story behind this fight was the stuff of high drama.
Vargas, the young, powerful up-and-comer, taunting the veteran De La Hoya for years, trash-talking, calling De La Hoya out. Vargas potrayed himself as the fighter who stayed true to his Mexican roots, representing his people against De La Hoya, who Vargas demonized as the rich, pampered pretty boy, corrupted by his wealth and the comforts of America, drained of ambition by his beautiful wife. De La Hoya, who many regarded as a finesse fighter with the quick hands, against Vargas and his pure punching power. Even their faces seem to conform to the story lines: De La Hoya with the softer features and handsome, boyish face, while Vargas had the fierce scowl and sharp, defined features of someone who survived the mean streets, the tough neighborhood fights.
Vargas goaded and prodded and shouted for years, and finally De La Hoya could take no more. Vargas had called him out, and they'd settle things in the ring. Nothing like a fight between two men who deeply hate each other. De La Hoya was the one with the most to lose. He had the greater reputation, and if he lost after being called out by Vargas, his reputation and legacy in boxing would be tarnished, perhaps irreparably. That De La Hoya put everything on the line after not having fought for 14 months is gutsy.
That's what I love about boxing. You put on a pair of gloves and settle everything in the ring. Talk isn't just cheap in the ring, it's free.
The first few rounds, Vargas came out in a fury, bloodying De La Hoya in rounds 1, 3, and 5, and the crowd was in a frenzy, chanting "Vargas! Vargas! Vargas!" De La Hoya had to be wondering what he'd gotten himself into. Or that's what I thought, looking at the blood dripping from his face. But De La Hoya continued to box, stayed calm, fought back his fear, and somewhere in round 6 or 7, Vargas began tiring, and De La Hoya knew it. Then he began to just box Vargas to death, left jabs and hooks peppering Vargas' face in rapid flurries.
In round 10, De La Hoya staggered Vargas with a left hook, and as De La Hoya moved in for the kill, the bell rang. In round 11, De La Hoya saw the opening. He waited and waited, and then Vargas threw the jab, and De La Hoya cracked Vargas in the head with a left hook. Down went Vargas, and he popped up just as quickly, but De La Hoya smelled blood. He moved Vargas into the ropes and then unleashed a non-stop rampage of left-right-left-right punches to Vargas' head--we're talking about Agent Smith with the body shots on Neo in Matrix--until Jose Cortes, the referee, rushed in to save Vargas who was just holding his fists to his face helplessly.
The interview was fascinating. De La Hoya is a good interview, extremely well-spoken and honest. He admitted Vargas was a strong puncher, and he admitted to accepting the fight because Vargas had finally gotten under his skin. When asked what he thought when he saw Vargas bleeding, he confessed, "I know it sounds brutal, but when I see blood, I want more."
There aren't many sports which have the confrontational drama of boxing. In basketball, stars routinely avoid guarding each other. In football, offensive players from each team don't play against each other, they play against the other team's offense. Mono y mono keeps everything pure and clean. Sure, you have your ringside support, but it's a bit ridiculous sometimes. You've just had your head knocked around by your opponent for 3 minutes, you're bleeding from your nose and both eyes, sweat is burning your eyes out, and your coach is slapping your face and shouting at you, "C'mon, man! Whatchoo doin? Get out there and whoop his ass! Move your feet! Don't let him hit you!" I can't wait for the day when some boxer gets up, throws his stool out of the ring, and shouts back at his coach, "Why don't you get your ass out there in the ring? Yeah, that's what I thought. Now shut up, give me some water, and let me rest!"
De La Hoya and Vargas. Great fight. And I didn't pay for it, unlike the Tyson Lewis fight, which cost $55 and was barely a contest.

Prior out for season, and that's a good thing

Mark Prior has been put on the DL for the rest of the year, and that's a good thing. It means his arm can get a rest early in his career, and Bruce Kimm won't do any more damage by leaving Prior out there for 120+ pitch outings.

French concede: Lance is the man

The French finally ended their nearly two year long investigation of Lance Armstrong and the USPS cycling team. Early tests indicated Armstrong and his teammates were clean, but the investigation was kept open because, well, the French are jealous of the American champ. Some fans shouted Do-pay at Armstrong this year, though I didn't hear any of this while I was there. They should be shouting at Richard Virenque, one of their hometown heroes, who actually was convicted of using banned substances a few years back. Sheesh.

Stands for Big Missing Picture

Didn't realize that .bmp files, which most websites seem to use for their photos, don't show up in the Mac version of IE. I think I realized this once before, when browsing my own website from my Mac, but I always forget. Must be because sites don't want their pictures easily copied and used on other sites, but it's kind of a pain. When I save pictures on my Windows PC, many are in BMP format. If I don't bother converting them into JPGs then Mac browsers just see a bunch of empty spaces on my site.

Downloadable surround sound

This is pretty cool. You can download a Dolby Digital or DTS file to your computer, burn it to a CD-R as an audio CD, and play it in surround sound on your home theater. Of course, you need a surround sound set-up in your home. II'll give it a try tonight.

Ah! There it is!

Who says electronic equipment doesn't need breaking in. After a week of usage and endless tinkering, and after I finally got my DVD player back from the shop with the upgrade to a progressive scan processor, the picture on my new TV is now finally officially gorgeous. It's a combination of things--feeding it a pristing progressive 480p signal from my Proceed's new PVP card, and the sharp, bright picture from the TV's three 7" CRTs. No more scan lines, bold and beautiful colors with neutral skin tones, a smooth and soft film-like picture as opposed to the harsh video-like picture of most televisions.
What's more, my DVD player can take any video signal from my receiver and de-interlace it before feeding it to my TV as 480p. The TV has the ability to de-interlace as well, but my DVD player does a much better job of doing so. I could sit here and watch movies on it all day (which is pretty much what I've been doing most evenings this weekend).
Any day now I should get my receiver back with its upgraded DSP circuitry and support for higher resolution audio. Can't wait. It may be enough to warrant purchasing an SACD player. Some people buy a house and then decide what room they might use to put a home theater. If/when I start house-hunting, I'll be the first person to look for a house that will fit around my home theater, because the next major upgrade to my home theater is a perfectly symmetrical rectangular room with harder floors and walls with particular reflective qualities.
Yes, I know, I shouldn't derive so much pleasure from material goods, but the quest for audio/video perfection is no different for me than a runner's quest for the perfect race, or a photographer's yearning for that perfect shot. You're never done, and you're having fun the whole way through.
It's time to revive movie night. I have a schedule in mind already. And a format, adopted from Flicks at Stanford. Every movie night begins with a short, and then the main feature. And relevant food, if possible.

Chinese editing style

Watching What Time is it There, the most recent movie by Tsai Ming Liang, and got to wondering why it is that so many directors from the Taiwan New Wave use such long takes without cutting while the Average American film can't go more than a few seconds without jumping to a new shot; it can't just be the influence of MTV and the fact that so many American directors got their start directing commercials...or can it? Maybe the American movie industry got its hands on so many toys and big budgets early on and fell in love with them and their endless possibilities, or maybe the Chinese camera eye is simply more patient, less intrusive; this might be seen as a very Chinese New Wave type of blog, with long, uninterrupted sentences, continuous flowing thoughts.
Tsai Ming Liang films also don't really have much action or even a soundtrack, which, along with the motionless camera shots, give the viewer a sense of quiet.

Shimano XTR 2003

MTB fans everywhere await the new Shimano XTR components with bated breath. This will be the third generation of these legendary top-of-the-line MTB component set.
Two things catch my eye. The new disc brakes weigh only 557 grams in front. That's not much more than the XTR V-brakes at 484 grams. The new XTR disc brakes are reputed to be the best disc brakes on the market, with significantly more stopping power. This probably is the end of linear pull on MTB bikes. I'll need to upgrade!
Also, the shifters have taken a page from the road bike world and reduced shifting down to one lever. To move from one chainring to the other, you flick the brake lever up or down. Same for the rear derailleur. It's a pretty radical shift (pun intended) and will surely draw a lot of polarized opinion.
Other than that, there are the requisite weight savings almost across the board. Can't wait to test some of this stuff out.

Precious daylight

Tuesdays and Thursdays are always a mad dash home from work to salvage enough daylight from the remains of the day to complete my bike training rides. Today it was a frantic rush around the south end of Lake Washington. I got home and it was pitch black out so I finished my training ride on the indoor trainer. It doesn't get light in the morning until past 6am now, so morning rides of any length are out when early meetings are on the docket. Did the summer ever start here in Seattle? I must have been napping.
My allergies are going crazy as well. As I've gotten older, the frailties pile on. Arthritis in the knee, grey hairs, allergies. I was never allergic to anything as a kid. I like to think that the counterbalance is a monumental surge in intelligence and worldly charm.

New novel by Dave

David Eggers, who rocketed to literary fame with the catchingly titled (as post-modern a title as can be) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Based on a True Story is publishing a new novel to be released Sept. 20. To get one of the first 10,000 copies, you have to pre-order from McSweeney's. This week's New Yorker short story is an excerpt from this upcoming novel, and Eggers discusses it in an interview currently posted at the New Yorker site.

Yoshimi

Nope, not a Japanese product like Asian drink Pocari Sweat (is this a bad translation?!?) being pandered by Jean Reno. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is the amazing new album by The Flaming Lips.

Japanderers

4The 15 minutes of fame for Japander.com has arrived with its feature in EW and Yahoo. Features lots of clips of Western actors padding their bank accounts by sneaking over to Japan to hawk all sorts of wares in TV commercials. I've only watched a few, but by far my favorite so far is the Simpsons pushing some drink called C.C. Lemon. Authentic because they speak Japanese and are way too enthusiastic, as all actors are in Asian commercials. Because damn it, C.C. Lemon is NUMBER ONE!!! C.C. LEMOOOOOOOOOONNN!
Menthos!

That's two they'll lose

Hey, I'm not the only guy who'll give up on baseball if they go on strike. So will Sports Guy.

Gut buster

Just rode for the first time with John and Jim from work. Damn they're fast! I could barely catch my breath the whole way around Mercer.
It was funny, some big huge 240 pound 6' 4" dude with oak tree trunks for legs pushing some monstrous gear passed us, and Jim jumped out and chased him down and passed him. When Jim rode by, that guy did a double take and started riding like a madman, and then John jumped out to catch him, and they were all furiously pushing the gears up this hill, and I was 20 meters back about to have a heart attack.
The good thing is, I got my spring out of the way for the week. Everytime I ride Mercer at 6am, some riders fly by me. You want a fast ride, the Mercer morning circuit is it. No casual riders get up at that god awful hour to suffer on a bike. There's not a whole lot of conversation, either, especially since you don't have any air in your lungs to spare. All you hear in the shadows of the morning dusk is the click-click-click of the shifting gears and the muted mechanical clatter of chain on cassette.
My goal is to get my speed up so that I can chase all those huge dudes down in the morning.

Butts up

Did you play butts up in elementary school? There are few times in a person's life more terrifying than trying to survive playground games in elementary school. The Japanese film Battle Royale had it right. The corporate world is nowhere near as ruthless as lunch hour dodge ball, smeer the queer, or butts up.

Unfortunately named ride

I never won a lottery spot in Death Ride, but Tim did. Told me it was grueling, tougher than RAMROD. 12,000 feet of climbing is no joke, and it also means 12,000 feet of descending.
Most people don't live near long extended hills with long, straight stretches that allow you to pick up crazy speed on a bike. On the Tour de France, riders hit speeds just over 70 miles per hour in the descents. That must be close to terminal velocity because they're not touching the brakes much. In the Alps, I hit speeds of around 52mph and feared for my life. If you spill, or hit a pothole, or get the wobbles, you either hurtle across the coarse pavement at 50 miles per hour, which is like whipping skin across a cheese grater, or you fly over the edge of the cliff and drop a couple thousand feet.
On the descent from Mont Ventoux, as I hit 48 miles per hour, I came around a turn and saw a cluster of people and cars by the side of the road. One cyclist had lost control and crashed. His bike was a mangled skeleton of aluminum, and he was unconscious. Blood was dripping down his forehead and caked on his face, and one of his legs was coated in blood and gravel. A man cradled his head.
I saw this, but when I rode on, I rode just as fast as before, if not faster. Cyclists who spend hours suffering a climb up a mountain don't want to be deprived of the visceral thrill of the downs. The pounding of a nervous heart adds to the physical excitement. At a certain speed, I won't even shift my hands to the brakes because the slightest movement might tip my bike off balance. Just hang on for dear life and hope the bike frame holds together.
On Death Ride this year, Tim saw a cyclist who had crashed on a descent, but in this case the rider died. It was the first death in the history of Death Ride, and perhaps that's the reason their website is currently deactivated.

Entertainment news

Hard to believe the fall is just around the corner, with football and Fall TV. I arrived back to Seattle from France and it felt like summer was just beginning. Then the second day back it was about 55 degrees and rainy.
The season premiere of of the second season of 24 has been set on Oct. 29, a Tuesday, at 9pm. The entire first episode will be commercial free. Maybe we'll see Jack Bauer have to use the bathroom during that episode.
Sarah Michelle Gellar likely won't sign on for season eight of Buffy, so next season's it. Good long run for Joss Whedon.
Baz Luhrman has thrown his hat into the Alexander the Great ring. He's now competing with Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese, and Mel Gibson to be first to market with a biopic on Big Al. Very strange how everyone in Hollywood is always converging on the same ideas. I can guarantee that if there are four movies on Alexander the Great, not all four will succeed.

Stupid Stupid Stupid Human!

Aaaaaaaaaaaa! So I lug my camera and my big 80-200mm lens over to France for the Tour. The last time I used my camera, I was at a wedding, and it was dark, so I decided to shoot my 400 speed black and white film at 800 and then push process it later. Well, being the idiot I am, I didn't bother checking the rating when I loaded new film in France during the Tour. I shot two rolls of Provia 100F at 800 speed and the slides all came out predictably underexposed. Noonan!
I think it's partially Nikon's fault for not flashing an alert or resetting the speed when a new roll of film is loaded. Damn!
Fortunately, my one good shot of Lance was shot on 400 speed film. Everyone in the camp was so impressed watching me with my giant lens, lens hood, and monopod, running back and forth across the street to get angles on the incoming cyclists. They're going to have a good laugh at this one.

Best of the streaming music services

Listen.com's Rhapsody online music subscription service is supposedly the best out there. Their musical catalog is impressive, and you can play an unlimited number of tracks each month, but you're limited to burning ten tracks a month. That means most of your music listening still has to occur at your computer. Not my preferred mode of listening to music.
Pressplay finally unveiled unlimited downloads and streams for $14.95 per month.
All these services are inching their way towards usefulness, which makes it somewhat more palatable that the file-sharing services online are crippled. Still, lots of problems remain. The quality of downloaded streams is not CD quality, only 128kbps for Pressplay, for example, and streams are just at 96kbps for customers with the fastest online connections. That's weak, and insufficient for music like classical or jazz which counts lots of audiophiles among its audience.
These services try as hard as possible to not tread on the turf of CD sales, and that's their downfall.