Category: Geeks are People Too

Tail End of a Wagon

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Remember that part in Indiana Jones, where he’s being dragged behind the truck, through gravelly road, hanging on by his whip?

Harrison Ford actually did that stunt, although he was given extra clothing and they pre-dug a ditch for him to “ride” in. Somehow gravel down the front of your shirt at however many miles per hour doesn’t sound like a good idea, though.

I feel like that lately. Halloween came and went way too quickly, and I am inundated with Christmas decorations throughout Target and any other retail outlet (except, comfortingly, Trader Joes). Folks, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet.

At work, the machine is inexorably charging to the end of the year, an amalgamation of metrics, goals, initiatives, and projects, culminating in an end-of-year event in Las Vegas in which I must present (both personally and professionally). At school, the first progress reports have come out but the schooling gets harder, the volume of new things increases and the personal responsibility the boy must have increases — making the winter break a fantastical respite not only for the holidays (for he celebrates both Hanukkah and Christmas) but for the break from seven hours of daily seating and applying oneself. At home, we are contending with the recent passing of a beloved grand (and great grand)mother as well as the imminent passing of the family pooch; it’s very unlikely she’ll make it to her 10th birthday (Christmas Eve).

Let’s not even get into my sporadic ability to get to the gym — four times last week, but it’s becoming a real project to get it in this week.

I’m attempting to slow down the truck — or at least add speed bumps — by putting new and interesting things here and there. For example, Thursday evening I am going to the Pacific Northwest Ballet to see the All Tharp programme. I have no idea if I’ll like it, the idea hit while listening to Twyla Tharp being interviewed on KUOW’s Weekday with Marcie Sillman.  I have a front-row, far right of stage seat. I will be able to see the dancers up close and personally, but at a hyper angle.

I’ve gone through my annual list of things I planned to do and learn this year — I still do not know how to drive a stick shift, I still do not know how to ski or snowboard (I think I’ll change that to snowshoeing or cross-country ski).  I’m not sure if adding these things is going to slow the wagon down enough for me to get on, or speed it up so I fall off.

Either way, I will still be contending with accelerated gravel a bit longer.

Twit

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Twitter is my modern D&D dice: I play with it here and there when I need reassurance that there are other geeks like me, and table it when I get too busy with grown up stuff.

Of late there have been some hashtag games on Twitter that I’ve been tempted to participate in, most notably #moviesinmypants and #thingsIhaveincommonwithWesleyCrusher (courtesy of @wilw aka Wil Wheaton, who is actually much cooler than Wesley Crusher). The problem is, my Twitter is attached to my Facebook, and my Facebook is attached to people at the office, and while I don’t believe that I give an aura of someone excruciatingly professional and remote I don’t know how serious I’ll be taken if I do things like tweet*:

The Ring in My Pants #moviesinmypants

or

I took myself way too seriously as a teenager #thingsIhaveincommonwithWesleyCrusher

Twitter itself has undergone an evolution in purpose and function since it began. It was first 140 character microblogging– something to say about your day or your opinions or your orifices or your cat, that sort of thing. With the accessibility of hashtags, trending topics, and increased user base, it’s become a collective gumwall for people to post upon. Much like the 1970’s Kilroy was Here, you can follow people you don’t know and watch them as they post to people they don’t know. I personally have sent tweets directed at Leonard Nimoy, Nasa, LeVar Burton, Wil Wheaton, Eddie Izzard, and Simon Pegg. I can *guarantee you* that none of them has read those tweets, but somehow knowing I sent them makes me feel better. I think.

I will say this: I adopted FourSquare recently and abandoned it just as blithely; an application by stalkers for stalkers has limited relevance in my post-SayAnything years. I would have a difficult time, however, giving up my twitter feed: it serves as endless bite-size entertainment, like leftover Halloween candy.

Which goes straight to my hips.

*Why is the action of using Twitter indicated as “to tweet”? Shouldn’t it be “to twit”? Or is that too honest?

Screams and Scares and Pizookie Pie

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Oh my. There are two things battling for Most Scary Aspect of Last Night: Maris Farms’ Haunted Woods, and my caloric intake.

BJ’s in Tukwila is known for good beer and pizookie pie (a large, warm cookie with a scoop of ice cream on top); the have this unfortunate aspect of their menu, however. Like most 1Up to Applebee’s type places (Cheesecake Factory, anyone?) they  have a menu that rivals a phone book, so that you actually spend time reading it. They should get Patrick Stewart or James Earl Jones to read it, I’m sure they could lend the proper gravitas to something as ubiquitous as a Cobb Salad. I digress…

At the end of the BJ’s menu, in very very small print, is the nutritional information (including horrifically realistic calorie counts) for everything you can get there. Having something as seemingly innocent as chicken pasta got me nearly four-figures in the hole, and the couple of glasses of wine followed up with most of a Cookies and Cream Pizookie Pie pretty much finished me. I’m fairly certain I’ve had enough calories to power me for the week. Scary, scary stuff.

Then we went to Maris Farms. Maris Farms is located out on the Sumner-Buckley Highway, and you just know as you exit the 410 E you aren’t in Kansas anymore. We were passed by a large red pickup truck with ANTLERS on either side of its rear-cab windows. ‘Nuff said.

The Haunted Woods at Maris Farms is ostensibly 30 minutes (not including line wait, which we didn’t have much of thanks to fast passes) and it feels longer. If you’re a screamer (Hi!) you will be hoarse at the end of it. If you’ve been there before, note that they do change it up — I went last I think 3 or 4 years ago, and there was definitely some novelty. The souvenir mud lining the base of my jeans and my black docs was part and parcel of the fun. This year it included dead bodies, zombies, ICP kids, hillbillies with chainsaws, ghosts, vampires, people being sawn in half, people being medically experimented upon, a weird set of walkways that make you feel like you’re being squeezed out of them, trick floors, pitch-black mazes, and people just scaring the hell out of you.

It is important to note that there are porta potties just outside the entrance and exit, but nothing midway.

I think I’m good for another 3-4 years.

Birthday

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Today is my birthday. I’m 37.

When I was a kid, I looked forward to my birthday first and foremost as the day when everything would magically go right: there would be cake and presents and I’d be the star of the party. Oh, and presents. Wait, I already said that. At any rate, there would be wonderful awesomeness and it would rain down glitter and stars and balloons and even when I was in junior high (which I hated, hated, hated) it was still a pretty good day to be had.

The thing is, when you’re a kid, you spend a lot of time planning and daydreaming about your next birthday — usually starting the day after your last one — and then you get to the big day, and then you start daydreaming of the next one. These daydreams are punctuated in pause by Christmas (or Hanukkah or whatever other large family occasion one celebrates) and occasionally ameliorated by summer break or vacations.

In my 20’s, my birthday was still special, but of course then it involved alcohol, a check from my parents, and some sort of dining-out thing. Occasionally it included a trip to Vegas (for, living in San Diego, Vegas is a cheap and expedient trip). The amount of daydreaming and expectation surrounding the actual day, however, did start to dwindle.

In my 30’s, I had a child, sold and bought a house, got a divorce, and embarked on a new career. All of these things chipped away at the birthday expectation time, until we arrive to this, my 37th birthday.

I just realized yesterday that today was really IT.

Here is an absolutely accurate account of how I have spent this birthday:

1. Woke up. Late. As in, I hit the alarm clock one too many times. So, I spent my at-home birthday morning rushing around the house like a wildwoman, dressing in the first convenient thing (grey dress, black boots, tights), fed the dogs and off I went.

2. Oh crap, I didn’t moisturize. And I’ve run out of in-car moisturizer. Target time, where I buy moisturizer. And Oil of Olay’s latest foofy answer to wrinkles and eye bags (I kid you not). Anti-aging cream as the first purchase of the day: it says something, doesn’t it?

3. Oh crap, I didn’t eat breakfast. Ok. Top Pot time, even though I wasn’t  all happy about my weight (which was -2 on Thursday but +1 on Friday. I have worked 5 of the last 6 days so I do not know what is up there).

4. To work, barely in time for meeting 1. Then there’s meeting 2, some more work stuff, blah blah. Then it’s off to

5. The Chiro, who is Always Chiropractic & Wellness, and I highly recommend them.

6. Well adjusted, I went home to walk dogs and sort out this and that whilst I waited the 20 minutes for the

7. Parent Teacher conference for the boychild. Boychild is doing well, we have plans to increase the wellness. And stuff. So then I rush back to

8. Work, where there are more deliverables and stuff.

And that’s really my day. I may go out later … it’s looking like I will… but I can’t help but think this is a comment on my relative age: the day has revolved around the boy, wrinkles, work, and the generalized responsibilities of the suburban single parent. There is no birthday check in the mail, there will not be presents and cake and candles, and I’m fine with that. At least I haven’t got to the point where birthdays are a chore, or to be avoided.

I expect that’ll be next year.

Glub Glub

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Very little in my life is safe from the rationalization that an Excel spreadsheet offers. Within rows and columns, little formulas and “if” statements valiantly try to take the somewhat-partial data I have and render a decision for me. The spreadsheets are rarely seen by anyone other than myself, as it would be akin to airing my entire thought process — even those thoughts that you don’t tell anyone you have but you actually have. I have a coefficient for budget splurges based on average monthly temperature, for example.

The spreadsheet has had me purchase a triathlon wetsuit. I’m totally blaming the spreadsheet.

Renting a triathlon wetsuit is $40 for a six-day span (Thurs-Tues). Purchasing a decent one is about $160. I have 6  weekends of swimming ahead of me, and more if I end up doing the Black Diamond. $240 being patently more money than $160, I caved.

Would that it were that easy to get back in the water again. Swimming laps in a pool is a semi-boring chore that offers at least the diversion of the occasional mouthful of chlorinated water. Swimming in the open water means that occasional mouthful is of something that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike water. There are *things* floating in there. It doesn’t taste good. 

The thing is,  having done a tri before, I’m shirking more than I ought. Even though my first few runs have been at a pathetic pace, I’m still in the “oh three miles no big deal it’s not like I have to actually *train* or anything” mindset, and this is naturally extending to my lack of workouts (only 2 in the last 4 days) and thusly the scale making noises at me.

I need to build a spreadsheet for that, I think.

T-5 days, and Counting

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Eek. 5 days. 5 days to pack, get geared up, buy the food for the ride, get last minute equipment, etc. I’ve spent the last five MONTHS with the attitude of “just survive until the 21st”. Well, the 21st is next week, and I have a triathlon to start training for.

It’s a good thing I got on Hamish (the Schwinn) yesterday as I’ve discovered his front gears are all fu-bar’d. I leave for Vancouver on Thursday, his timing is spectacularly bad. However, Performance Cycle is close and I needed to get a cushier bike seat anyways (I’m sure to be sore, sore, sore…), so this is not awful.

What is awful is getting biker’s burn. Do you know what biker’s burn is? It’s like a farmer tan, except we’re talking about yours truly, and yours truly BURNS before she TANS. Ergo, I have redness of the skin in patches. And not in normal patches.

When I bike, I wear longer bike shorts (let’s prevent chafing, shall we?), a tank top, fingerless gloves, a watch, my helmet, a pair of wraparound sunglasses, short socks and my shoes (natch). Therefore, I have a burn on my arms down to my wrists and then completely white hands, a white strap where my watch usually is, and on my legs from about mid-thigh to my ankle. Oh, and my nose (not anyplace else on my face).

What is most distracting is the “red thigh-high” effect of the burn on my legs — the bike shorts are longer than regular shorts, so it’s a bit distracting seeing shorts, patch o white skin, then red. I feel like I should make some sort of weird garment such that I can get strategically burnt in all of the white bits, but something tells me that won’t really work out as intended.

Inappropriate Bike Humor

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Last Saturday was 46 miles in 4.5 hours (not including breaks) from REI over the Burke Gilman to Montlake and then back the same way. Getting up at 6AM to meet your bike cohorts is difficult, realizing it’s actually 5am because your supposed 7am meeting time is 7am on the day the time changes — that’s kinda brutal. So as the sun poked out above the leafless trees in the RTC parking lot, the three of us took off.

It could have been the cold.

It could have been the fog.

It could have been the sunnyness of the day.

I personally suspect it was because we all have twisted senses of humor.

It started with Duncan talking about his screw. For his cleat. You see, clippie shoes (they are actually called clipless systems, riddle me that?) have screws that attach them to your shoe. There are usually at least 2 and sometimes 3, and they keep the clip in place so when you shift your foot to the side it takes the cleat with it and separate it from your pedal resulting in your ability to keep yourself from going bonk.

At any rate, Duncan was missing a screw. He talked a great deal about his missing screw, and then we started joking about how he should get a screw by some random shop along the road.

Then there was the discussion of which person had the bigger cog. Your cog size, you see, determines how far a rotation can go on your bike. More cogs = more power, right? Duncan and Bryce got into it but apparently Duncan’s cog is bigger. I did not wish to compare my cogs, as I was busy dealing with cycling legwarmers.

These are not the 1980’s flashdance legwarmers: they are not soft, they are not scrunched, they are not hot pink. They are black lycra and quite tight, and look a bit like they should be kept on you with a garter belt. Verily, they look like cycling fetishwear, and consequently I spent an inordinate amount of time adjusting them as we cycled along. Ever try to look professional while pulling up lycra legwarmers already wearing an impossibly curve-hugging costume? No, I didn’t think so. The jokes trended back toward my bike S&M gear (complete with full length black gloves) and the cogs were momentarily forgotten.

Until I pointed out I was trying to match them stroke for stroke. You see, when Bryce and Duncan take off, they *take off*. Like my new nickname is Waldo and I’m getting a red and white striped bike shirt. And so I played with my gears and attempted to match theirs, and then attempted to match pedal rotation frequency (e.g., stroke). And even though I was attempting to do that, I was not succeeding. So I whined about it at the next break.

Whining to two men who were comparing cog sizes, and one of which talking of his needed screw, while adjusting my black lycra, was probably not the most prudent thing to do.

Fortunately, we found a local bike shop where Duncan got his screw. It was literally by the side of the road, rather quick, and very cheap. But it does the trick; he’s still satisfied with it, as far as I know.

The bike shop guys were alternately freaked out or laughing uncontrollably. We’re… not sure which.

A Letter to Burke Gilman Trail Users

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Dear good people on the Burke Gilman trail, I bring to you enlightenment and knowledge. I bring to you advice as only I can, for we have been on it together now for some weeks and I couldn’t help but notice you need guidance.

FOR THE PEDESTRIANS:

  • It is a lovely day, isn’t it? It is. It truly is. And Scrappy the wunderdog is a happy lil’ fellow, isn’t he? Yes. But could you please keep Scrappy on a leash under, say, 150 feet?  My brakes are fine but Scrappy can move faster than my brakes. And I don’t want to scrap Scrappy.
  • For that matter, I don’t want to scrap you. So when I call out, “on your left” when I’m 20 feet behind you, that means I’m going to pass you… on your left. Get it? Makes sense. This means you should not, you know, walk farther out to your left.
  • Or move to the left after your co-walker figured it out and moved right. S/he wasn’t asking to switch places, s/he was trying not to end up as so much muck on my wheels.
  • Little Jimmie and Janie love their playdates… in their strollers… staring blankly ahead but *right next* to each other. Awesome! Just please have them give up the convenience of their side-by-side solitaire while we use the trail next to you. In seven feet of trail width, your two strollers take up five feet, leaving two feet for me. That’s fine, but I’m big boned, and I’m nervous as a hooker in church on a bike. Just sayin’.

FOR THE AUTOMOBILES

  • Chances are if you’re one of the many cars we encounter, you are coming in to or going out of a driveway. The chances are good, then, that you live on the BG trail. Possibly it was a selling point when you purchased the house? You know, when you walked through with the spouse you looked at each other and talked about how you’d take little Jimmie and Janie out for walks, along with Scrappy. Great! That is just what the trail is for. It’s also for cyclists, though, and so when you park your car in the intersection of the trail, some of us have to brake rather suddenly. Doing this and unclipping ones shoes is not an easy feat, so please don’t give me the dirty look when I come inches from your door. Trust me, your door will do more damage to me than I will to it.
  • On those unfortunate bits where the trail is side by side with you in traffic — I know, right? Totally rude of them to do that — please do not stalk me. If you are driving your car at my speed, and not passing me, reminding me with every little rev that you have 2 tons of something that will render me into the svelte shape (although, not the same type of svelte shape) I’ve discussed wanting, you are stalking me. It’s not funny, and I’m calling you many rude names in three languages. Four, if I can remember to.
  • Also, please pass me. Please please pass me. When there is space to. Passing me such that I can tell you purchased the carbon-grey-metallic paint instead of regular grey-metallic paint, or passing me such that I can tell what Prada purse you have in the passenger’s seat (you may want to pick up that lost earring on your floormat) is a little too close for comfort. I think it’s cute that you also have a “Share the Road” sticker on your car.

FOR OTHER CYCLISTS:

That’s us: the crack elite team. They made the trail for us; aren’t you glad I told those pesky pedestrians and drivers off for you? Let me tell you though, you guys can be assholes too.

There, I said it.

What do you mean, what? Let me spell it out for you, bro:

  • When you pass me, please use “On Your Left”… or even “Left” or use your bike bell. But don’t scream it at me as you are ACTUALLY on my left. How about saying it a little ahead of time, so I’m not hearing it as I’m checking out your new Pearl Izumi thighwarmers? There is this thing called the “Doppler Effect“, and it is not a 1980’s new wave band.
  • If you don’t use the “On Your Left” or “Left” or bike bell, please do not have the gall to tsk-tsk me as you fly by. I get it: you go faster than I do. That is so awesome for you! But speed does not equal an asshole-ectomy.
  • That two by two rule that I ragged on the pedestrians about? Yeah? That goes for you too. I’m talking to you, the guy in the blue and orange two weeks back who saw me oncoming, pointed to me to his buddy, and then firmly and fastidiously stayed two by two — on the I90 bridge deck — with pedestrians and other cyclists. That was totally uncool, and those thighwarmers make you look fat.