Kyle noticed this in the parking lot next to where we were buying Surly Fest (Oktoberfest), shortly before he tried to give me meat poisoning by feeding me what seemed like four pounds of pork chops, a field of carmelized carrots, and a plate of rice.
It quite literally is the Vangina.
Look - close up!
Addendum: in the spirit of the Vangina, and with a little bit of paint, I have christened Pooteewheet's car the Ford Fuckus. I know I should have christened my own car, but the only thing I could think of was the Saturn-alia, and that's just stupid. Maybe I could have gone with vedickle, as vangina is the type off vehicle, not the make or model. But that's not nearly as funny.
Yesterday morning Kyle and I went on the North Hennepin Community College Tater Tour, in and around Elm Creek Park Reserve (Maple Grove, Champlin, etc). I've never been on an organized ride outside my bike group that late in the year, and was expecting it to be about 32 degrees, particularly given the 40-degree weather during the Wisconsin ride two weeks ago. But it was pleasant, albeit a little overcast, and a really nice twenty-five mile ride (there were 15 and 55 mile versions as well) with the exception of a few spots of significant wind. Elm Creek has some nice up and down on the trails, so it's a bit of work here and there. At the end, they served us a loaded potato - add your own fixin's - and a root beer float. A strange combination after a ride, but surprisingly refreshing.
I forgot my helmet, which is a real no-no in an organized ride. Fortunately, Kyle had two, having just picked up a second. Here is a seriously unflattering photo of me mugging his extra helmet with the straps extended about as far as they'll go. Guess who's bigger - him or me.
Here's Kyle rushing the bridge in the park. Behind him is a family of three - he dropped them like they were standing still. Ming might like to know that Kyle held up really well on the ride, given the knee problems he's been having, and the fact that he messed up his back a few days ago. Too bad it's so late in the season - it's going to be difficult to get in anything more.
My handlebars. You might notice that despite my assertion that it was nice out, it was long sleeve weather. That's my $5 Bike Classic jersey that was too big for Ming. I wear it all the time now as it's mondo comfy..
This guy had a turret and gargoyle on his house. His home is quite literally his fortress. I wonder if he sits up there and pretends he's defending his place from bicyclists with crossbows and battering rams.
Compared to some of the other rides I've been on this year, there were not many people, as is evidenced by the rest stop. There were probably 50 or so cars in the lot, so at least 100 bikers, but with the two-three hour starting window, other cyclists were few and far between on the trail and at the stop.
But there were a few cyclists here and there, though I'm not sure which ones were on the ride, and which were just out for an end of the year family jaunt.
Kyle cam! Now you too can pretend you're biking right behind Kyle. I should have made one of these movies on the Sunrise Trail for the post about Ming and Malaysian buttocks, but hey, live and learn.
Two more action videos. Long and not very interesting, but if you're on your trainer and want to mimic part of the Tater Tour for a while, they might be fun. Or, if you're pondering the ride and are worried about the big hills and crowded trails, these might set your mind at ease. Virtual Tater Tour Ride #1:
Another foray into retro photoblogging. Here's my sister, LissyJo, posing for a cheesy picture on our trip out east to drop me off at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (the big pic). Isn't she cute! She looks like a rock star in those glasses. I thought this might be Baltimore with Chesapeake Knife and Tool in the background, which has since closed, but on closer inspection, it's Faneuil Hall in Boston, making the statue LissyJo is mugging upon Arnold "Red" Auerbach, former Boston Celtics coach who "led the Celtics to an unprecedented eight straight championships from 1959-1966, giving him plenty of occasions to enjoy a victory cigar. The statue shows Red holding a rolled up booklet in one hand and toting a trademark cigar in the other" and bouncing my sister on his knee. Red was famous for his love of Chinese food, which is similar to Korean food in some respects (at least in the rice), so perhaps that's why he seems so appreciative.
We saw this on our way back from the Renaissance Festival. It might be related to the losers of the jousting. Maybe the plague reenactment. Or perhaps the thieves guild that you don't get to see lurking behind the stages. No wonder Puke and Snot seem so festive - it's nervous energy regarding whether they'll make enough in tips to cover the protection money.
Eryn, Pooteewheet, Kyle and myself went to the Renaissance Festival yesterday. It's the first time any of us have gone in about eight years, so it seemed like it might almost be new again. I'm going to start with the funniest bit first. This is the wind up guy at the fair. You give him a dollar, and he winds himself up. Pooteewheet gave Eryn a dollar and she cautiously approached him to drop it in his collection receptacle. When she did, he tossed his ball to her, causing her to immediately turn, a look of horror on her face, and sprint back to the safety of our group. She warmed up to him a little bit, tossing the ball back to him, but it was an uneasy truce.
That's not the funny part. The funny part was a few minutes later, as we were walking toward the kids' wand area, when Pooteewheet pretended to wind herself with a whirring noise. Eryn freaked out and told her to knock it off. The look on her face when the guy threw her the ball was great. The look on her face when confronted with wind-up mommy was hilarious.
Wound up:
Concerns about PETA were cast aside for the day. After all, if you're willing to pet the toads and snakes that are carried around in sacks, the bigger toads restrained by rubber band leashes, then riding the elephant isn't quite the existential moral issue it might otherwise be. This particular elephant had a friend and looked much happier than the Jose Cole elephant we wouldn't let Eryn ride. That's the justification. That, and Pooteewheet had to ride along, so it was funny.
Stop-motion animation of the ride brought to you by Ray Harryhausen:
The nice violin lady who played a duet with Eryn while she tapped the bow on this saxaboom-esque violin that played an electronic song regardless of your strumming technique. She gave Eryn a small Renaissance Festival coin for playing with her. Easily the nicest performer we met at the Fair. Of course, we didn't get this close to most of them. Puke and Snot could be princes, but they're way up on the stage most of the time. There was no reference to having played Mad Dog Vachon in The Baron.
Video of the concert:
Tortoises, demonstrating their medieval jousting technique. He's going to feel so stupid when he realizes he forgot his lance. Or did he? Kyle pointed out that someone asked the herpetologists if the tortoises were mating, and the response was "no" they were just a couple of boy tortoises wrestling.
Eryn really liked the snakes. She was accused of chasing one off by tickling its tail. There's a lady in the background somewhere (out of sight) with a handbag dog. I pondered whether she was just trying to prove a point by keeping it around a bunch of boa constrictors and alligators. The lady who said Eryn was tickling the snake's tail was half joking with her. The lady that gave her what for when she touched a carved (tobacco) pipe was not. You would have thought she was nailing up boards with a meerschaum instead of lightly touching a plaster of paris imitation. I was in the process of telling her not to touch, like the lady had asked, when she laid into me with the equivalent of "if you were a good parent, you'd put her in her place and tell her to quit it" quip. Yikes. She needed to smoke a bit more of the stock.
Giant hobby horse. It might be fun to have one of these in the back yard. Which leads directly to my conclusion - for the umpteenth time - that RenFest is sort of a rip off. At $12.95 per parent, minimum, plus $20+ in food, you generally drop $50+ while there, if you don't buy anything, touch anything, ride anything, tip anyone, etc. For $50 a couple, I figure I can just have everyone over to my house next year. I'll trick out the back yard in hay bales, buy a keg, find lots of food, install a king-of-the-log log and some beating pillows, and provide entertainment dressed in a foppish hat and apocalypse cloak. Pooteewheet can dress up as the wind up person.
In action:
Very nice pirate who pushed the kids on the two-headed swing. This was a pretty good deal, because they pretty much kept pushing until there were enough kids to replace the ones on the ride. Way longer than the butterfly ride where Eryn was told she was too big. She's four! Damn...that was cold. She looked crestfallen. But she liked this as an alternative. And she got a ring that she wanted, so she feels all grown up.
With arghing...
Yum. Fence. Reminded me of my niece, although she prefers Twizzlers.
Zilch the Torysteller. He basically tells tales where he reverses the letters/lettersets at the beginning of adjacent words. For example, Jomeo and Ruliet. There's a lot of nerd humor mixed in - Star Wars, Star Trek, et al - and the humor comes from joined words that he can't say together in front of a family audience, like Friar Tuck. He's one of our favorite acts, and we were surprised he was still around.
Eryn went to the Festival and washed dishes. She has now washed dishes at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival and at the Now Then Threshing Show (2006). There's a theme in her festival attendance that she'd do well to avoid as a teenager.
Mean Mr. Mustard took a picture of the Dragon Boogers. I was more worried about Merlin missing his moons, and how the hell any fairy passed a stone this size. Ouch.
When it comes down to it - the Festival is a truly romantic place, where one can renew one's vows in the open air, in front of a medieval cardinal who was probably boffing everyone in the village on threat of damnation. And, as Kyle pointed out, nothing says romance like renewing your vows in your Netscape t-shirt.
For Ming, who was unaware that the Red Hat Society existed, or that if he attends events in Minnesota, they might be lurking outside the privie waiting to jump him.
The tragic side of the Renaissance Festival. Too much wenching, too much mead, too much time on King of the Log.
I think Kyle and camel have the same expression. What are that woman and her child doing on my friend the elephant?
Yes...that's the name of my new novel, about a matchbox-esque girl who exiles herself beneath the Minnesota skyway system because she doesn't fit in with our ubercoolness. Eventually, she doesn't get invited to the right party and freezes to death. It has nothing to do with the strange woman/perhaps-co-worker who was sitting on the isolated steps underneath our corporate skyway (in the burbs, not downtown - that would normal), curled up against the fire-escape door glass by the heavily-trafficked stairs that lead up to the skyway from my floor, looking sort of depressed. I noticed her as I was returning to my cube from lunch, and dropped off my notebook and wandered back across the skyway and outside, and back under the skyway (almost exercise) to see if she was o.k. She assured me she was, gave me a "dude you're crazy just because you haven't seen anyone sit here in eight years doesn't mean it doesn't happen all the time look, then immediately pulled out a tiny Bible and began reading. I'm of the opinion that most Christians are probably loathe to kill themselves while physically reading the Bible, so I meandered back to work, wondering if perhaps she had a boyfriend/husband who had instructed her to wait for him on the steps, where he could visibly check on her now and then, and study her theology. Some Charles Mansony Christ type. Although the only person I know who fits the bill left the company quite a while ago. I wonder if there are random women reading the Bible on the steps of his Christ-centered employer. If he had known that was an employment perk, he might have stuck around.
On another note, I saw a posted request in the main cafeteria today that there be more toothpick drops in the cafeterias. I'm wondering if this was requested by someone else who saw the guy sticking both fingers up his nose before swooshing the toothpicks around and grabbing one. More toothpick makes for a better boogy-to-toothpick ratio.
Eryn and I went to My Little Pony: The World's Biggest Tea Party at the Target Center today. She's not exactly one of those girly-girl types, but when she some money for her birthday, she bailed on the Cars board game she was going to buy to get a My Little Pony with walker instead. So it's obviously important to her. Thus, when the tickets were on sale at work, I picked up two. Two...not three. I felt this was one of those experiences that was best experienced by a single parent. That, and I've been coaching her to tell any hot mommy with a foreign accent that "real mommy" died of cancer and I just haven't found it in my heart to take off my ring. It's probably just a matter of finding the right person.
An aside. To the woman who was gripping her steering wheel so tightly with her mouth hanging open that we passed as we drove to the tea party. I realize it's probably medical, but you looked like you were going 200 miles an hour when you were only going 40, and like it was scaring the crap out of you. That was cool. And to the Bolivian-looking hottie in the red Audi - we missed you at the Tea Party. Per above, Eryn was prepared to talk to you.
So what does the world's biggest tea party look like? Like this. But with singing. Much of it, "I'm a little tea pot." Pretty harmless, although I won't subject you to any video. Unless you're my sister, in which case Eryn sent A' a few videos to watch so she's jazzed to go with us next time there's a similar event, which would save you the trouble of reminding my wife she's supposed to be babysitting. For those of you who aren't familiar with My Little Pony, we have Pinky Pie (Eryn believes this is the My Little Pony she has, although it's in pajamas), Rarity the Unicorn who lives in the land of Unicornia, so how freaking rare can they be, Minty, who's easily confused and green, like someone who's had a few grasshoppers, and French Fry, the pegasus. As for the rest. I have no clue, although there's also a dragon named Spike and three Andrews Sisters' like ladybugs.
An enhanced picture to show one of the other dads who sat near me. His wife left with his two daughters, leaving him behind to fend for himself. What's a fellow to do when there's no one else around and he has a light up wand and a Pinky Pie doll? Pretend like it's casting magic spells, of course. Don't think he didn't light that baby up - he did.
The ponys don't take kindly to interlopers. This bear was jonesin' for a bit of kidtention and they took him out...Russian Mafia style. He never saw it coming. A horn in the back from Rarity who was dropped paratrooper-wise by French Fry. Scared the s*it out of me.
Eryn and her pony having some popcorn. I'd like to add that she was a great kid, and expressed an interest in a wand/ball/balloon, but when I pointed out that not spending that money meant we could do popcorn and a soda, or a nicer Christmas present, or rides at the MOA, she was very accepting. Like the miser I am, I stress that everything costs money, and that we don't have a problem spending it, but that there absolutely are trade offs, and she seems to be getting the general lesson. That'll probably backfire on me later in life when she tells me that stripping is her way to afford that light-up wand she always wanted - shudder.
Couple more pictures out at my Flickr 2007 set for anyone interested (Grandpas and Grandmas) including Eryn in the skyway and on the escalator.
I was going to update my list of favorite blogs on the right tonight. I added a few before I realized that on three different computers I have three slightly different lists of blogs I read. If you're blog-saavy - my OPML files aren't in sync. So I spent some time scouring the internet for a tool to synchronize them. I didn't find a tool, but I did find a stylesheet that will work with the XML/XSLT program I wrote at work (because I can't get them to spring for a copy of Altova XMLSpy now that I'm not a real developer). So soon I should be able to make everything copacetic. I'm a little worried about losing the categories I group my blogs under, but I think I can modify the XSL to take that into account.
On to Outlook 2007. I hate it. It took me quite a while to get on the Office 2007 pilot at work because it gets in the way of the SAP client, and I was listed as an SAP user. That was in my previous life when I worried about student passwords, billing categories and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Now I just use the SAP web client, so the app is a non-issue. But a few small projects at work that I still support needed Access 2007 upgrading and validation, so desktop services finally upgraded me. A serious mistake. Most of the tools run great. But Outlook is a dog. It's not a dog at first, mind you. It's a dog when your .pst archives start to top about the 5000 email mark. For some people that might seem like a lot. But it wasn't a lot when I was a lead developer, and it's not even close to a lot now that I support around ten projects, each with approximately ten people, some with twenty or thirty. If each individual sends an email once a week, I get at least 5200 a year, not including those from the development groups I work with. But the actual total is more like an email every 2-3 days from each person, not including warning/status emails. I'm guessing I pull down a minimum of 1000 emails per month. I don't read all of them of course. But I do store them in archives so that I can use Google Desktop to tell me if a particular set of data, a certain box or service, or an individual has had a similar problem before. My primary job function is knowledge management. In developer-ese, I'm an abstraction of my email system and several document management systems into an easy-to-use, hopefully personable API other projects can access.
When my Outlook 2007 archive hit 10000 emails it started to crawl. The slight wait I had moving email to the archive began to show a lengthy status bar and waits of 10-15 seconds. Outlook had a patch, but when I went to install it, I found out that it had already been installed seamlessly behind the scenes by the company. So I was seeing the improved speeds. I can't imagine what it would have been like without the patch. Unable to function with a mailbox that locked up my whole computer, I followed some web advice and tried to break up the Outlook archive into half a dozen smaller archives. In the old days, I could just move folders between archives quickly. In the Outlook 2007 days, I can count to 10 as the first folder decrements by one item, and the target folder increments by one. Multiply by 10,000 and it doesn't even seem like a process that complete overnight. It can be circumvented by copying the emails from within a view of the folder into the other folder, presumably bypassing some processing, but it's still slow as dirt with the new mail item structure.
When you're finally done copying, don't assume you're done. Your archive is still oversized, and you really need to go into the archive settings and compact. Something best left for over lunchtime, or as you leave the office.
There was some discussion the other day, off line, and not involving me, about what a nut job I was to make the giant Valentine's Day card for a girl I wasn't even dating. In my defense, I'd like to point out that despite my nutjobbery, I still post my embarrassments on line, even the retroactive ones no one knows about.
I can't say as much for my friends, because who knew one of them played Uncle Hobart in Romana Quimby? It wasn't on either the photo blog or the text blog. Maybe Mean Mr. Mustard knew, but not me, and he certainly wasn't sharing. And more importantly, why are there no pictures of this friend in his emmy-nominated supporting actor role dressed up as Professor Fumbledore of the Pigpimple School of Magick in Barry Wotter: Son of a Witch?
That sort of oversight obviously needs rectification. My favorite part of the description of Barry Wotter, "His nine-year-old son, Koleman, not pictured here, also appeared in the play." You displaced your own nine-year old in the publicity stills! Harsh.
Ming hates it when you say nipple in the company cafeteria. Which sort of surprises me, because it's not really a bad word. I think he's worried that people might think we're talking about their nipples, or the nipples of the person sitting next to them. And we might be. But it could just as easily be my nipple we're talking about, or his nipple – in which case it’s not really obscene by GOP standards, male nipples being exposed on beaches and in cars driven by teenagers and skinny-white country folk, unless we're talking about piercing them, or sucking on them (especially each other's), or perhaps pinching them. And that's certainly a possible topic of conversation. After all, Dan and I once had a nipple-pinching fight in the middle of a yard in a first tier suburb (Richfield if you must know. That's probably important if my boss reads my blog, as she'll appreciate that I'm no longer part of the community, unless I'm pinching the nipples of some renter, and that will get me arrested. Then nipple talk once again becomes appropriate in the cafeteria). He was pissed about losing at boccee for the third shut out in a row, and he snapped. My excuse was that when faced with pinchers of nipple destruction (PNDs), one must retaliate. If only I had pinched his nipples first, like George W. Bush would have, I might have walked away a little less sore and a little wiser. But the moral of the story is, no one called the cops even though I was yelling, "Quit pinching my nipples you fucker!" so even in that context, male nipples aren't taboo and really should be allowable cafeteria discussion.
What really go to me is that he shushed me. I haven’t been shushed since my fifth grade teacher shushed me for the using the word vagina too many times in a five minute span. If you're a fifth grader who used a search engine to get to my blog for guidance, three is where she drew the line. Depending on your teacher, maybe less, probably not more, unless it's the appropriate reproductive health class unit.
Nipple-shushing rudeness aside, how do people in the cafeteria know I’m not talking about cows? Or pigs? There still have to be 7-10% of Minnesotans who grew up on farms, or near farms - the Minnesota Fact Sheet says it's more like 1 in 100, who knew, but that's still at least 2 or 3 people in the cafeteria - at least those people will think I’m talking about husbandry. At least they would, until Ming shushed me, then it’s obvious something else is going on and I'm likely referencing the blow-up nozzle for dirty pillow. If he wants to engage in misdirection, he’d be better off just laughing and saying loudly, “Yeah…I know what you mean. I had to apply udder cream to stop the chaffing.” Then it’s obvious were talking about milking. Cows.
BigTree thought it might be a hognose, known for flaring it's neck like a cobra. But the Eastern Hognose looks sort of squat and stubby in all the pictures, and this snake was longer.
Reading about, I thought it might be a bull snake. But this Flickr pic didn't look like the snake. But it did look a little like the one on the Minnesota site, and the babies we saw would have been born about the right time. The Wisconsin DNR site noted blotchy front, ringed tail, perfect region, and comparison with milk and fox snakes (bottom of link) showing the Eastern Fox snake with an unmarked head. This snake definitely had a marked head. But Bull snakes are somewhat rare, and there's even a sighting initiative in Wisconsin.
Then Pete reminded me of a snake in his Fort Snelling biking post that turned out to be a fox snake. That looks pretty darn close. Particularly the part about the black line from the eye to the jaw, that's a giveaway, although the Wisconsin site didn't do a good job describing the markings, particularly on the page that showed a mostly unmarked head. Conclusion: Pete is the premier amateur herpetologist - it's a Fox Snake.
If you don't pay attention to the informational messages Blogger gives you when you create a post, or you don't use Blogger, Blogger Play is as much fun as they claim. It was fun to watch what people looked for on search engines, and it's fun to watch what they upload for pictures. Although I have to stress, the pictures are often nfsw. It reminds me a lot of when I used to run an application to make sure we weren't getting uploaded student porn on the website I worked for until last year (millions of hits, so lots of uploads) and occasionally got images like a boyfriend doing a top down strip tease, or female students licking manikin breasts. Be still your horny hearts. You don't ever get to see it - there are privacy rules.
Technology is not living up to my expectations. I put my headphones on the other day, and truly expected the music to just start and play something I wanted to hear. I was just sitting there, waiting for it.
Pooteewheet and Eryn caught a rabbit. They took the dog outside in the morning and scared the beasty, which promptly leapt at the wire fence, stranding itself halfway through, about six inches above the ground. Too far to get any leverage. My wife made me come outside and guard it from cats and foxes and polar bears displaced by global warming until she could get gloves on and push it free. It was fine, although deserving of a Darwin award. Kyle tells me this is not an uncommon event, and the rabbit should feel fortunate not to have bounced off the fence and directly into the jaws of a physics-savvy greyhound.
The new issue of the Twin Cities Imbiber is online, featuring Big Sky Brewery and cooking with coffee.
If you search for a ride on the Minnesota Zephyr on Google, you will discover the train is powered by AtomicForce. I saw "Atomic Train" on SciFi and it sucked, so I'm looking for a good B&B instead.
Robert Jordan passed away. If you're not familiar with him, he was the author of the Wheel of Time series that has been slowly accumulating more and more time between books with every release - almost ironic. I quit reading around book 4 or 5 because I couldn't remember what the hell had happened in the previous book by the time the next one came out. I said to a friend, and this is almost verbatim, "He's going to die before he finishes these. I'm not going to read them anymore. I'm not going to read any unfinished series ever again. Robert Jordan has ruined them for me." And since then, I have never read a series, on purpose, that isn't complete with the exception of Harry Potter - and I read the first one by accident. Said friend bought me a f-ing dragon book by Terry Goodkind, and I think he meant it in good faith, but based on the earlier conversation, I was almost certain he was being an a-hole. It sits on the shelf, unread. To give you a timeline perspective, The Wheel of Time is unfinished, and I sent Dan'l the first one, used, paperback, from the Uptown book store, to his ship, the U.S.S. Tarawa, during Gulf I, in 1991, 16 years ago.
She Says thought the man who died after internet gaming for three (3) days might in some ways resemble me, given I have talked about "gaming weekends" in the past. I pointed out that while my gaming weekends may have actually lasted three days, and involved 16 gallon kegs of beer for only three people, we did on occasion venture up from the gameboard to drink said beer and to eat a buffalo burger near the Res.
Speaking of which, Pooteewheet and I went to Superbad (a spoiler below). I'd recommend it. It's a teen sex comedy, and slightly offensive in the beginning, but the pace just builds and builds and it gets funnier and funnier. I loved it. Near the part of the movie where the action gets the fastest, the kids are stopped by two cops and about to be framed, there's dialog for a while, things get tense and more tense, and then one of them just runs like a bat out of hell. This scene is so much funnier if you've sat on a porch in Mobridge, SD, drunk, watching a pair of cops pull over a car full of Native Americans. Much to the cops' annoyance, there's snow falling, the Res residents are twitchy, and the drunk idiots on the porch closest to them are playing a Mexican Hat Dance Mooing cow alarm clock over and over and over and over. In a moment of distraction - maybe it's the snow, maybe it's the cow clock - the Native Americans make a break for it, sprinting off at a speed the cops can't hope to match given the icy road. End result - within ten seconds there's not a Native American in sight, there's an abandoned car from the Res, there are two very grumpy looking cops, and there are two drunk idiots on the porch playing a moo clock and laughing so hard it's probably an arrestable offense. I applaud them for their restraint in not hauling us in, though I suspect it had more to do with not wanting our testimony on record.
I thought I had heard a lot of terms for mixed race, but "swirl baby", which I learned about over at The Other Sarah's Blog, was new to me. Lissy Jo should have no fear, I'm not likely to use that one any time soon as I can't imagine how you'd have the balls to ask someone if they were a swirl baby. And I don't mean balls in a brave sort of way, I mean balls in the maybe you don't think so well with the parts of your body meant to be used for thinking sort of way.
On the other hand, this post by The Other Sarah about her mother is ironically hilarious. I am impressed with the level of ability it took to find humor in that situation.
A post primariy for my mother, who has some sort of rubber duck fetish. A blurry rubber duck fetish, if you go by all the pictures she took and left on my computer. Don't believe me? Here - I have taxed the intent of the internet, uploading 258 blurry duck pictures - 122 megs - to Flickr. They said I could have unlimited space, so I'm testing my limits. Hit refresh a few times if you want to see a limited selection of ducks.
Munchkin.com is having a duck decorating contest. You buy a Susan Komen duck (.20 goes to the Komen Foundation), you decorate it (here's an example - the angel duck), take a photo (non-fuzzy, Mom), and submit it before October 31, 2007. Prizes include a year of housekeeping, time at the spa, and Munchkin gift baskets.
It was one of my goals to ride a 100-mile bicycle ride this year. I have failed. Yesterday, with Kyle as our SAG, Ming and I attempted to ride from just north of Trempealeau, Wisconsin, to Reedsburg, Wisconsin, 101 miles away. I'm giving away the climax first, but we made it as far as 97.5 miles, 99 if you include my riding around in circles for a while waiting for our ride.
Back to the beginning...
Friday night, I played poker at Tall Brad's. He may be disgusted with me, but my incredibly heavy betting on my last hand, resulting in my bust and 5th place finish, had more to do with the first good hand I got after 10:45 than anything else. Knowing you're getting up at 5:00 a.m. to bike 101 miles puts the screws to how late I'm willing to stay out. And get up at 5:00 a.m. I did, and packed, and lashed the carrier to the car, then waited until Ming and Kyle showed up for our 2+ hour ride to Trempealeau, across the river from Winona. On the way down, I convinced Ming that the Elk Ranch at Oronoco was owned by Enya. He seemed surprised.
If you look at this map, we started at the "Marshland Access". And immediately got lost where the trail splits in two at that first bump, adding 3.5 miles to our ride. A nice federal park ranger advised us we were lost and explained how to get back to the trail - but it was an inauspicious beginning.
Both the Great River Trail system (25 miles) and LaCrosse River State Trail are pretty flat and nice, except for the unpaved part, and the starting when it's around 40 degrees. But we made good time, and had our first real stop at Sparta where we lunched with Kyle, who had spent his time perusing the bike museum. Once we left Sparta, it got a little dicier. Apparently the locals are quite aware that if you're going from Sparta to Elroy (32 miles), instead of the other way, it's a lot of uphill. Not steep, but long. There were eight immediate miles of climb, and on dirt and leaves and sticks, that's some work.
That was followed by a tunnel. We walked our bikes through, because the path sort of forms a mound, with the slides sloping toward small streams on both sides and a constant drip of water from above, almost like a very light rain. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to take a spill on your bike in the tunnel. There were three tunnels in all, and they were built in the 1870s. The prelude to each was 5-8 miles of uphill, followed by a few miles of downhill on the backside. Elroy is only 160-170 feet above Sparta, but we climbed a trail that took us over the tops of silos, so there was more than enough "up" to wear us out.
And by Elroy, it was getting dark. We stopped for a few minutes, and then took off to finish the last 22 miles on the 400 State Trail. Our light lasted about 30 minutes, and 30 minutes later it was pitch black. Ming had brought two headlights (I gave him a hard time about bringing two, but it worked better than my flashlight bungied to the handlebars. He pointed out his superior planning. I pointed out he'd been 30 minutes late, so he owned 30 minutes of darkness). While I was putting the light on my bike, Ming took a leak in the grass next to the path, which seemed ok, because it was dark, and cold, and of course nobody else would be on the trail. But as soon as we got on our bikes, we passed a couple out for a romantic walk on the side of the trail. Oops.
It wasn't just pitch black, it was freezing. My knees and fingers kept getting colder, and by the time we got LaValle, we were all done, primarily worried that to go the last 7 miles of the trail would mean being stranded away from a town and out of phone reception if we couldn't finish - and our pace was slowing, because you just can't go as fast in the dark. It was probably for the best, because as soon as we were off the trail, a little jeep with lots of lights came rumbling along in the other direction - looked like a sweeper vehicle to look for anyone still on the trail.
It took a long time to warm up, and I'm not so sure I wasn't working on a bit of hypothermia given the shivering I did through the first 1/2 of dinner. Ming wasn't shivering as much, but at one point he nodded forward and looked like he was going to fall asleep right on his plate.
So maybe next year. When the day is longer, and it's warmer, and I'm not riding on dirt, uphill, I'll get a century done.
Here's the pictures - me standing outside the gate to the longest of the tunnels. They used to open and shut the tunnels during the day when the trains were going through. I'm not sure why - maybe to keep out snow and animals.
Ming outside the tunnel. That poor woman on the right tried to use my pump to no avail. I felt really bad and the experience has convinced me I need either a much better pump or a CO2 system. It's disheartening to give a stranger hope only to have your pump snatch it away.
Video of us walking through the first part of the tunnel - somewhat dizzying as we hand the camera back and forth:
Sparta, bike capital of the world. Kyle said it was because the Sparta-Elroy trail system was the first in the U.S.
And they have these nifty bicycle-oriented street signs. Useful if you're looking for a grocery store or residence. If you're looking for a beer, just head downtown. Every town in Wisconsin has in the neighborhood of seven bars on the main street. They take their beer seriously.
Sparta. Kyle thought LT Sullivan needed a less pornographic sign. You might have to go to the Flickr picture to check it out, but he's either got a strangely shaped phallus, or he's humping a big pink camera.
We ate lunch at Ginny's Cupboard in Sparta. Very good soup and the nicest place on main street.
MOTHER FUCKING SNAKES ON THE TRAIL! We saw four sunning themselves, the biggest of which I pointed out to Ming, and while I was stopping to snap this picture he almost ran into my stopped bike while looking backwards at it. No rattles, and after much discussion we thought they might be corn snakes.
Ming looking at a wedding in Bangor, Wisconsin. He later remarked that their school mascot should be the beaver. Get it? Bangor...beavers? It was funnier when we got to Reedsburg and their mascot was the beaver.
Bangor. Every town in Wisconsin seems to have a tank, or an attack helicopter, or both in the town park. They take Red Dawn very seriously.
Nice picture of a bridge we rolled across near the beginning of the ride, somewhere before Onalaska.
The end of the tunnel. Drip some water on your head while you're looking at it to get the full experience. Ironically, if you were to take away the light at the end, this was about how dark it was on the trail at the end of our ride. Although it would have been ten degrees warmer if we'd been riding in a cave (it was 40 and headed down when we stopped for the day), and there would have been fewer creepy animal noises.
In case you don't believe me that it was wet in the cave - there was a little bit of reflection with the flash.
In honor of Klund's birthday, I present a mashup. Not a Yahoo mashup with a picture and news story, an invention of his, but one from my Netflix queue in-transit list: "Inside Deep Throat. Sandwiches You Will Like."
My sister and Kyle had an email discussion about scary clowns this afternoon. I offer into evidence this recent post by Planet Dan.
I'm not quite sure if I saw a nipple today. I was in a meeting, and my eyes were drawn to what appeared to be a bit too much... I don't know. What do you call it when it's not traditional plunging cleavage, but sort of shirt pulls to the side over a low-cut bra cleavage? Anyway, there was a lot of breast showing and my eyes were drawn, like George Costanza at a television pitch. I was surprised, because I don't usually check out breasts. They were nice, but I realized that what had caught my attention was a dark spot on the bra/breast liminal. At first I thought it was a nipple - well, the part you could see with a low cut bra - the areola - not to be confused with the aureola, the luminous part around Jesus. Then I thought, no, it's more like a birthmark (which could have been shaped like Jesus, but who's to say with only part of it showing). But that wasn't quite right. Maybe a bite - could be breast feeding a little animal who doesn't understand he has teeth. Finally I settled on hickey. Then I worried about whether I'd been looking too long. What? No...I was contemplating Christ!
In case Mean Mr. Mustard doesn't believe me, National Alpaca Farm Day is September 29th and September 30th. National Alpaca Farm Day is on two days. No wonder alpacas always look so surly, if they're only getting half their food on any given day because their owners think a day is 48 hours long.
Speaking of food. Pooteewheet made me a loaf of coffee-banana bread last night. I had an urge to see what coffee grounds mixed into banana bread would taste like, seeing french toast with coffee grounds had turned out pretty well, and I like ice cream with coffee grounds. However, she washed the stove dials during baking and cooked the loaf at 550 degrees. At that temperature, it tastes like charcoal. I ripped the top 1/3 off and recooked the rest at a lower temperature and it turned out pretty well, but I can't taste as much coffee as I like, and it leaves grounds in my teeth. Not precisely a success.
Velocipete has a very funny post on his site about his ritual to appease the gods of flat tires. I feel for him. I had my share on RAGBRAI, during casual riding, and across all my bikes. Sacrificing a balloon sounds like it might work as well as anything else.
I promised I'd throw some pictures out here of the giant Valentine's Day card Kyle helped me make for a girl I wanted to date when I was high school. Construction involved two 4x8 pieces of wood for the card sides, and another piece for miscellaneous bits, like the giant heart on the front and the raised scroll lettering. There were also hinges, Christmas lights, and a box of chocolates involved. I'm sorry some of the pictures are really fuzzy, but we were trying to be stealthy really early in the morning, running for a moving vehicle, with a crappy 110 camera that had a limited number of exposures left. The times they are a changin.
I think this is the picture I posted last time. Kyle applying the blood red coating to the heart. His pacu are watching from the tank behind him. It might seem like I'm taking the picture, but I'm probably upstairs listening to stories his dad is telling me about Wu's house of death, cheap chickens, and drinking too much brandy.
The lettering. The card was for Kris, in case you weren't able to figure that out yourself. After this little stunt, she dated a friend of mine from the tennis team instead, declaring that I was a bit too strange - what with the giant card, the print outs from computer class (no ascii penises - I'm classier than that), the washing machine clips that powered the tape recorder when she opened her locker door, etc. Sounds stalkerish now, but that's only because I'd be drunk if I were doing it now.
Yeah...me. What the hell, eh? Painting either the front or back of the card.
I don't know why we made a giant card and put it in someone's yard. We could have just strapped this hot picture of me in my terrycloth sweatpants in front of a heart in shadow to a piece of paper and women would have been falling over me. Wonder if Hallmark would have been interested..."My heart is unfinished without you." I lost that shirt during the construction of the card. Caught it in a belt sander. It should have been a sign that the chest was ripped out of my shirt.
Kyle, obviously drilling. Many many power tools and other implements were used during construction. It probably took a wider variety of taps, drills, sanders, painters and other pre-Home Depot equipment than is involved in an average bathroom remodeling. I don't know if Kyle continued to drill holes in hearts later in life. He's currently single, so maybe. If any potential dates are impressed with his skill using a power tool and dedication to a Valentine's project that doesn't involve a girl he's trying to court, I can put you in touch.
The card. I believe the front says "Happy Valentine's Day" with "Kris" in white letters on the front of the raised heart. Inside I think it says something like "Great things are done for little smiles" - but it was twenty years ago, so I'm not sure if that's really what it said, or if that's the Alzheimer's speaking.
Update: ah, I found some stray photos. Pooteewheet's scanning abilities are questionable, or the software is, and she has them sort of spread out all over the laptop. As you can see, I was close enough for horse shoes. I don't think that's a quote, unless it's a quote of me...unfortunately. Raised lettering all over - and I signed it with a black sharpie - that's class. A second fuzzy view that gives you a perspective of how big it was compared to a house. Notice the lights that are on? We definitely woke up the household with our shennanigans. I hope Kris enjoyed the chocolate more than Jody enjoyed the bowl of whip cream at Perkins and the frequent honking as we passed her house.
Bonus photos from the same year, though not nearly as fun. This is the girl I was supposed to take to the prom, but didn't, because I just wasn't too keen on promming at all, and I didn't really get that she like me. She was later crowned Miss Monticello.
She dated my friend Ben - shown here at Sea World during the trip he, Kyle and I took to Washington, D.C. and then to Florida our senior summer - now a teacher. I think on their first date, he ended up eating the fuzzy black covering of a car seat. I'm not sure how that equates to romance. Maybe it was lust.
Nikki - another girl I was interested in dating who spurned my advances, most memorably by sending me a letter early in my freshman year of college accepting my invite to a date at the Chanhassen dinner theater, and then adding that she had discussed it with her boyfriend and he was ok with it, signed, "Your Buddy, Nikki". I don't know how it goes in other parts of the country, but I always figured getting 48 red roses in your locker (NSP hothouse - they were $0.25 each) wasn't a sign that the other person just wanted to be buddies. I know it seems from the above stories, that I didn't have a particularly illustrious dating career in high school, but the failures are way more interesting in retrospect than any story about who I might have felt up thinking her breast was an elbow (seriously, the failures are more interesting).
