I Quit

CAUTION - NEW POST AHEAD



That's it, I quit. I'm resigning from our society. Maybe seceding is a better term. I'm going to form my own separate society. Want to know why? I'll tell you...here's a list

1. Monopoly Electronic Banking Edition - This new battery powered wonder replaces the beloved rainbow of paper Monopoly money with...DEBIT CARDS! I shit you not, it comes with a little mini card reader and debit cards. The "banker" simply key in the property amount (now in the tens of millions - inflation, ya know) and swipe your card. No muss, no fuss, no MATH, no THOUGHT. Who didn't practice making change by being the family banker? Anyone not secretly treasure those orange big-money bills? No wonder every pimply fast-food cashier needs an online toush screen register to make change and our banking system is in ruins. For GOD'S SAKE people, don't rob the next generation of ANY CHANCE to master simple math! Oh, and just so you can pick ahead of time, the player pieces now include a dog in a handbag, a Segway, and a flat screen TV.

2. The Decline of Western Education. The generation currently graduating high school is the FIRST EVER to have a smaller percentage earn diplomas than the preceding generation. I don't want to scare you off by turning this into a word problem, so I'll summarize. For the first time in American history, we are measurably (in the scientific sense) getting DUMBER. You can skip all the granola-munching "a diploma doesn't equal intelligence" crap. It's bullshit, and deep down, you know it.
Secondly on this point, since 1997 there has been a 20% decrease in the number of BS degrees awarded in hard sciences (engineering, chemistry, physics,etc.) This means that we as a society have decided that warm, fuzzy learning like pet psychology and history, are more important than knowledge that allows you to MAKE things. Making things is fairly central in advancing as humans and having a stable economy. And that puts us at a distinct disadvantage against other societies that are working hard to teach all their little rug rats math and chemistry. Think about that. I'm sure I'm going to get some hate mail from all my liberal arts friends. Sorry, you guys are the exception. Really.

3. Paris Hilton. Okay, I really have nothing against her personally, hell, I've never even seen her video. But she has come to stand for our current obsession with status and image in place of substance and value. You can go ahead and add American Idol, Survivor, and almost every other reality show to that list. At some point, we gave up on really working on any sort of base value, and just settled for a quick paintjob and some chrome plating. Worse yet, we've begun to wear our stupidity and lack of any ability with PRIDE. Suddenly, it's okay to be inept and useless. Think about Paris's reality show and tell me I'm wrong. Look, people, if you can't do something useful here on Earth, QUIT BREATHING MY FREAKING AIR.

4. Politics. Despite my outlook on the new president-elect, I think the state of American politics is deplorable. It would qualify as laughable if it wasn't costing us the country. Look, if any executive had screwed up as bad as the people we put in charge over the last decade, we would have fired them and probably arrested them. At best, they would have gone out of business and ended up making incorrect change at a fast food restaurant. We trusted them to be educated and make the right choices for us all, but instead they've made choices that made quick-kill profits but turned a blind eye to the long term investment. Now there's lots of argument about how to fix everything, but nobody wants to talk about the road we took to get here. Seriously, when the Russians and the Canadians are pointing and laughing, how bad have we screwed the pooch?


Okay, that's the top four. I'll give you the others when I catch my breath.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Back in the Saddle Again

due to weather and work, I had been off the bike for over a week when I finally found time for a ride last Thursday night. As a matter of fact, I had been off the ROAD bike for almost 2 weeks before we headed out into a beautiful, warm evening on our velocipedes. I wasn't sure if I could make it around the full 25 mile Perry lap, or if they'd have to leave me hunched in a ditch somewhere quietly crying and rocking myself gently. Luckily, I found my groove and avoided all but a little crying and rocking. Really, half of my mental malaise was just being off-bike, I think. Somehow things always look rosier perched on a good bike. My dear wife even commented that it was plain sickening how quickly my mood improved once I started pedaling. I countered that she therefore assumed I was in a BAD mood to start, which wasn't the case. Of course looking back, it was the case.

As it usually does when I've been bikeless for a while, the peculiar grace of our hobby struck me solidly about two miles into the ride. Here we are, bipedal creatures, whose limbs have evolved (or were created) for piston-like resistance to the anchor of gravity, whirling along whilst straddling an ungainly contraption that, if left to its own devices, would topple resolutely to the tarmac and lie like so much scrap. There is nothing obligitorily natural between the motion of a cyclist and the motion of a walking man. Having one leg on each side of a solid rail is usually not the way to get somewhere. Small rubber tires that hold less air than one swimmer's lung are generally not what you want for covering distance.

And yet,
Here we are. With the open fields of soybeans slipping by in near silence, save the rush of the breeze, pouring ourselves over the asphalt into the cool shade of the pecan grove. Not for some short distance that can be seen or grasped, but over miles and miles, ending where we began in geography but leagues away in experience. Having surveyed the usual countryside, we return by circuitous route, to the place where we first mounted the odd contraption, and we are all - slightly - changed by the journey. As peculiar as the motion and the form of the cyclist might be, more peculiar still is the change wrought on the cyclist. How differently does a wren exist having jumped the nest and flown? Can a robin, back in the safety of a nest, still smell the high air currents that sift occasionally from a ruffled wing? we are cyclists not by the ownership of a bike, or spandex, or any other item. We are not cyclists because we think bikes are the great white hope of alternative transportation. We are cyclists because of the miles and leagues and centuries of wind blown past our forearms, through our helmet vents and spun crazily out through the whirling spokes of our driving wheel. We are cyclists because now matter how clean, the smell of the wild breeze and open path cling to us.

time flies...

Man, it's been over a month since I posted to the blog. Sorry for not updating. Work has hit high gear, like it usually does about this time. With implementation of the new MIS system looming, I have even more to do at work, so I seem to have fewer hours to accomplish it. Lots of projects. Lots of stress.
Combine that with the never-ending tropical storm Fay keeping me off my bike, and you have one grumpy puppy.
Suddenly, my birthday is right around the corner. As a kid, this was a great thing. as an adult, it means I have to pay lots of money to the state for car tags. Great, now on top of work-stress and no-bike stress, I've got no-money stress.
Beautiful.
At least it looks like the remains of tropical storm Fay is moving off, so maybe we can get back outdoors. We'll go walk Thomson tomorrow to check for storm damage, and hopefully we'll be out on the road bikes Thursday night. Maybe that will ratchet down the stress-o-meter.

Foiled Again

I started the day today at our Oconee office in Greensboro (GA), which meant leaving the house at 5:45 AM, at which time I'm usually in my birthday suit sleepily rummaging through my underwear drawer wondering what color drawers complement khakis and the clean-shirt-of-the-day. Oooh, sorry for that image.
Anyway, I had to meet a tech guy there to finish up the hardware install for the network in the new office. He was an hour late, so I sat like a lump for a while, then I sat for a while longer while he set up the equipment. I dashed back to Macon and picked up my road bike from the shop. I had to have a spoke replaced on the rear wheel that let go on the ride Saturday. I also had them face the bottom bracket shell. When I installed the bottom bracket and torqued it to the recommended spec, it developed a bind in the rotation. The included instructions (where English was the fourth language down the line) told me that if a bind developed from an out of true shell the proper procedure was to back the piece out, add some lock tite and tighten to 30 Nm. I did that. Well, all except the LockTite part. Hmmm..that detail might have kept the bottom bracket from unscrewing...which it had. It was unscrewed about an eighth of an inch. EEK.
Anyhoo, I picked the bike up and hauled back to work, only to run into some network issues that jumped on my ass like angry beavers on the last sugar maple. I really wanted to ride tonight, for no other reason than to test the terry saddle on the road, but the angry beavers got the best of me. I had to bail on my ride buddy and work late. It sucked, but I did manage to trap the angry beavers and back them into a corner. At least if I had to work late, I came home wearing a nice beaver pelt cap.

But I still didn't get to ride. Bummer.

Going the Distance

Yesterday we rode from Perry to Montezuma for ice cream. On our road bikes, I mean.



No, really, we rode from Perry to Marshallville and then to Montezuma so we could get some ice cream at William Brown's Farm market. We left at 8 AM so we would hopefully be back before the real heat of the day. The mileage totaled a little over 50 miles of *fairly* flat roads with *fairly* light traffic. We put together the ride as a social ride, keeping a slow pace so we could ride together and talk. This also made the ride more approachable to newer riders like Carrie.
I think everyone had a good time. I drifted around in the pack and could hear conversations on all kinds of topics throughout the ride. It's nice to have rides like this because it gives us the chance to really build friendships and a sense of community. Fast rides are great for training, but when the pack is running 20+ mph, no one has much of a chance to talk about the movie they saw last night or the great car they just test drove. Hell, most of us are too busy trying to suck in more oxygen than a human should need to bother talking. Social interaction isn't the point of a training ride. A training pace ride is meant to make you a faster rider, and talking doesn't write that check. Talking is necessary, however, to make a stronger community. People who are only concerned with being faster are missing out on half the reason to ride. Some people join gangs, pledge fraternities, or pay country club dues just to find some sense of belonging. It's human nature to go to almost any length to be part of.....something. Locally and all around the world, there's a huge clan of people who pedal, and all it takes to be a part of it is to show up. It's a damn shame that some people miss out.

Okay, enough soap-boxing. The ride went well. I've managed to convert the road bike to an all-Campy drive train with a shimano rear wheel and cassette, and thanks to the Jtek Shiftmate, it's working pretty well. It hangs between gears once in a while, but no more than the all-cheap-shimano drive train I was running. The shorter crank arms feel worlds better, and the aero drop bars are really comfortable. In general, I'm feeling better than ever on the bike. I did find that after about 30 miles my saddle is near insufferable. Now, at some point, even the best saddle starts to feel like glued down shards of glass, but I think mine could be better. I swapped the Terry Fly onto the road bike today, so we'll see if it's any better. Several of the guys have offered the use of their box-of-rejected-saddles so I can try a few and find what works. Looks like more product testing.

Diana and I had said at one time that we would do our first Century ride this fall at Albany's nut roll, but after riding 52 miles, I must say that 100 seems like a stretch.

Of course, I would have said that about 50 miles not long ago.

Better find that saddle.....

Locals Only #2

Emilio's Cuban cafe, 402 Hwy 247, Bonaire

Emilo's has been open several months and we've eaten there several times. It manages to pull of a surprising combination of good food and good atmosphere in a standard strip mall, which is pretty impressive. I drove by it in the new shopping center at the corner of Sandy Run Dr and Hwy 247 every day for quite some time before stopping in. I was definitely missing out.

The cuisine is traditional Cuban, with lots of starches, spiced meats, and (of course) black beans. When I say the meats are spiced, I don't mean they're habanero hot or jalapeno driven. I mean there are a lot of spice flavors involved, with lots of emphasis on garlic and onions. It bears some taste relation to Mexican fare, but also has a lot of ties to traditional American comfort food. Don't expect to attack the main courses with vegetarian glee or low-carb fervor.

The appetizer selection is a little limited, but you won't find anything they serve on another menu in town. The Yuca Fries ($4.25) are akin to firm, dry french fries, and are well worth the time just for the Mojo sauce they include. They come nice and crispy and the sauce is a wollop of garlic goodness that's cooled with a cream base and maybe cilantro and lime. Whatever is in there, it's an Emilio's secret, and it's damn good. The Ham Croquettes ($3.00) were kind of like salmon patties made with ham. Wait, it's not what you're thinking, they were good! A little on the greasy side, but how can you dislike fried ham?

They do of course offer a Cuban Sandwich ($6.25) and it's tasty. It could have a little more meat for the price, especially since it's sans sides. You can get a 1/2 Cubano on the lunch specials menu with sides of rice and beans for $6.75, which I think is a better deal. They do have several other sandwiches and combos as lunch specials, and also serve breakfast.

All the dinner entrees include choice of white or yellow rice (get the yellow), Black or red beans (black, of course) fried sweet or green plantains (sweet, definitely) and mojo marinated boiled yuca or yuca fries. I really like the boiled yucas - lots of onions with a tang of lime or maybe vinegar and plenty of garlic. The staff calls them "an acquired taste" but I acquired it the first time I tasted it. With all of those side, you better come hungry.

My favorite entree is the Lechon Asado ($10.95) which is marinated pork served shredded. It looks dry, but is actually slow cooked to juicy, spicy perfection. The Arroz con Pollo ($10.95) is the cuban version of chicken with yellow rice, and it's 100% comfort food. Good and filling, and packed with subtle flavors. The Carne con Papas (meat and potato stew) also hits a comfort food home run, so thick and chunky that it's served on a plate and doesn't run around. They also offer a sampler platter that lets you pick out a new favorite.

If you have a sweet tooth or a chocolate obsession, don't miss the Mid-Night Havana Cake ($4.50.) It's a chocolate mousse cake that absolutely defies description. Unless you're a chocolate professional, it may be too much for you. If you are there with your spouse, order two if you want to stay married. Trust me.

The last item to cover is the coffee. If you go, you have to order the Cafe con Leche, a beautiful concoction of steamed milk and Cuban espresso. The coffee is strong, the cup is large, it has about 3 cups of sugar in it, and it may be the best coffee I've had in town. There's a reason some of the staff wear t-shirts that read "Powered By Cuban Coffee."

As with other local dining, the service has been good every time we've been there. The wait staff is happy to explain any of the dishes and make good recommendations. The management even happily stayed open late the last time we stumbled in five minutes before closing. And they even have killer live music once a week! So, go try some thing new, maybe you'll find the comfort food you've always dreamed of.

This is your town. Eat here!

Ridin' the Broom

Well, I went out on the Tuesday road ride as usual, despite the near-record heat. It was actually a pretty nice night for a ride, once we got rolling. I was feeling pretty good for not riding in a week. I've been concentrating on pushing harder on the climbs, and they were seemed easier tonight. I don't know if they really are, or if I was just having a good night. By the time we reached the silos and turned right on Mosely, I had finished one bottle of water and the second was as warm as bathwater. Since One of our good friends and fellow cyclists lives on Mosely, I planned a stop for fresh ice water.

Everything was great until we started back out of her driveway. When my back tire hit the street, it didn't feel right. It was everything but flat. We rode back down the driveway and borrowed a floor pump, only to watch the guage fall from 100 to 90psi in less than a minute. Sigh. I think I might have pinched the tube coming over the construction on highway 49.

Now, being a fairly prepared kind of guy, I do carry a spare tube and tire levers and stuff. But frankly it was too damn hot to bother changing the tube when Kat offered a ride back to the store in a nice, air-conditioned truck. I'll get to it before the next ride.

Hey, everybody rides the broom once in a while......