Bicycle Fixation - Common Sense

Here is an article about perception, really. Also about how what we see as normal can sound pretty outrageous when placed in a certain context. One of my favorite quotes from the article:

And I thought, if some alien intelligence were to look in on this spectacle, which for us is normal daily life, they would consider us mad.

You'd be hard put to design a system more wasteful of money, natural resources, time and human mental well-being. To add insult to injury, it often even fails to deliver its basic stated purpose: convenient transportation of goods and people from one place to another.

Yes, it is about riding bikes.

A better way to educate

Forget math and science, the world would be a much better place if this is what our kids learned in school.






Well, apparently the video above is no longer available. Try this similar, though more professional and less ridiculous version of the same Rambo move here:

You down with OSS?

From time to time I get the hair-brained idea to switch from my beloved Apple-made applications like Mail.app and Safari.app to open-source alternatives such as Thunderbird for email and Camino for web browsin'. Well, I recently did it again.

In the past Thunderbird has never worked for me. This time is different though. Leading up to switch Mail.app had really been bothering me. It unexpectedly crashes and quits probably a couple times per week. Also, there is an annoying bug (or is it a feature?) that makes quickly cruising through lots of emails a frustrating ordeal. Basically, after deleting a message the next message becomes the message being actively viewed. If I immediately scroll the newly-appeared message, then the message is automatically (and annoyingly) deselected and the viewing pane goes blank. Then I have to use the danged mouse to reselect the message I had read the first few lines of. It's an annoying bug.

Thunderbird, on the other had, doesn't do this. Also, it's not crashing as often as Mail.app. And maybe it's all in my mind, but it feels "snappier" and more stable or solid. Also, I'm using the side-by-side view and I really like it. I can't seem to find that view in Mail.app.

Mail.app wins for aesthetics though. Thunderbird's look just isn't as refined as Mail.app. I've tried a few themes, but none can match Apple's GUI finesse.

The Achilles heel of Thunderbird 2.0 is poor integration with AddressBook.app. Auto-fill for addresses just doesn't work very well without that. I'm trying to find a solution for this, but I've read that version 3.0 arriving in 2008 should fix this. This may be the only reason for me to switch back to Mail.app.


On the web browser side of things, Safari is pretty nice and I love the ability to rearrange tabs. It is fast, looks good, easily syncs bookmarks with .mac, and crashes all the time. Since Mac OS X 10.5 Safari has always felt less stable to me and I've had way too many crashes.

Camino doesn't do this. It feels rock solid and I like the subdued look. I miss the tab rearrange-ability, but I can handle that until Safari becomes more stable.

So why not Firefox, you ask? Because Camino is more under the radar and therefore if you use it you are cooler. And using a Mac is all about being cool.

Mind exercises

http://puzzles.nigelcoldwell.co.uk/index.htm

I ran across this link while googling prime numbers. Pretty fun stuff. Let me know what you think.

ALL41&14ALL

These are for Dad and Nate.

The "Chin Strap":



And the "Musketeer":

Our presumed home

Here's a fancy "hyperlink" to Jaime's blog with pictures of the house we bought (closing is pending on June 6). You'll have to scroll down a bit. The pics of the huge house at the top of the post are not the house we bought, but just where we stayed while house hunting.

Rochester, NY

We've been in Rochester since Monday looking for a house to buy. We bought one on Thursday and it is sure nice to have found a little place to call home. It is small, affordable, humble, on a quiet street, and has a nice yard. Hard to ask for more than that. I may get around to posting pictures later.

Total Immersion Swim video

This is a pretty good summary of the Total Immersion swim philosophy.  I'm reading the book and watching the DVDs right now trying to learn to swim efficiently.  I still have trouble with breathing and wasting energy, but I'm really enjoying all the pool time.  My speedo is pretty sweet, too.

Self Portrait 1

"But where did the lighter fluid come from?"

The Final Countdown - please say that will literally be the last time.  These guys go through cello bows like Slash goes through guitar picks! The Final Countdown will totally be the next piece I start working on. Yeah, right after I learn a couple other classics like My Prerogative (Bobby Brown version) and Oops I Did it Again.

Great old photo bloggy blog

This site, Shorpy, has great photos that are old. Pretty simple, but really interesting pictures from back in the day when "colored" people had their own drinking fountains and hollywood wannabe actresses were ugly. Here's an interesting one for all you FUVKs (freaky utah valley kids). Yeah, I'm so above being from Utah Valley now.

We're moving.

View Larger Map

We'll be packing our bags and heading out to Rochester, NY this summer for residency. Big news for us. We're excited. Yay.

Crazy Robotic Canine

This is really cool and simply freaks Jaime out. It's a robotic dog. I think its absolutely amazing.

CONGRATULATIONS! I have matched.

I got an email today telling me I've matched for a residency spot somewhere. On Thursday they'll tell me exactly where. Probably Rochester, NY or Milwaukee, WI. The email read:

Congratulations! You have matched.

Check the Match Site at https://services.nrmp.org/R3/ on Thursday, March 20, 2008, at 1:00 PM eastern time to find out where you matched. Because you are matched, you will not have access to any information about unfilled programs.


And now you know.

Torpedo?

I'm taking up swimming down to the local YMCA. This photo proves it.

Let's give this octopus some boots

Now, I'm admittedly a classical music nerd, but I thought this was very funny (the first time through). I found this link on one of my favorite blogs The Rest is Noise .

The Firebird

I took Asher to the Powell Symphony Hall yesterday for his first symphony concert. It was a family concert for kids four and up. The pieces were all based on stories that somehow involved fire. The concert included Beethoven's overture to Prometheus, Manuel De Falla's Love, the Magician, and Stravinsky's The Firebird. Again, live orchestra performance are so far superior to recordings, that it's not worth talking about. Just go to the symphony and enjoy being enveloped in sound, rhythm, and energy.


Asher liked it, but it was during nap time so he was a bit restless. I warned him before we went into the hall that some of the music is very loud and that he shouldn't be scared, but that he could hold my hand if he wanted. Well, that really freaked him out and as we climbed the stairs to the balcony to find our seats (outside of the actual hall now) he covered his ears and told me how scared he was that it was loud. He's a cute little man.

Via the Velo Orange blog via Velorution:

On Cars: A letter to the Financial Times from a car designer:


“Absurdity is when a 70kg adult commutes alone in a 1,400kg car, meaning that for every litre of fuel he or she buys to transport him- or herself, another 20 litres is purchased to propel the vehicle. When the vehicle in question is a 3,000kg sports utility vehicle, absurdity becomes an obscenity.

“Even if we can make cars totally emission-free, running on sustainable energy, if their profusion causes constant gridlock they are no longer a means of transport, merely destructive, wasteful and expensive items of vanity.

“Sadly, particularly considering the pathetic return on investment associated with carmaking, the majority show depressingly little inclination to change themselves from being merely manufacturers of cars to being complete providers of mobility."

Short ride / Shostakovich 10

I was able to ride 18 miles today. It was pretty cold (less than 30 F) the entire ride and there was a bit of wind, but at least the sun was out. I found a fire hydrant that matched my bike and also a neat sign for a photo.

This evening I went to the St Louis Symphony concert. On the program was Nielsen's Clarinet Concerto, and Shostakovich's 10th symphony. The Nielsen was good. The Shostakovich was amazing! Seeing a symphony like that live is an almost overwhelming experience. After the concert I listened to part of the symphony on my iPod on the way to my car. Classical music is meant to be heard live. Recordings do not adequately convey the scope, depth, and warmth of a live orchestra in a good hall. There are some pretty neat youtube videos of this symphony, but the sound quality is even worse than listening on an ipod.

One funny thing about the concert: the score calls for two piccolos. The first piccolo player was the fattest man in the whole orchestra and the second piccolo player sitting next to him was the smallest woman in the orchestra. The man was probably four times the size of the woman next to him and the juxtaposition was comical. Ha!



It was nice of the city to match the paint on the fire hydrants to the paint of my bike.

Brevet

As promised here are some quick details about the ride. I rode along the Mississippi river and then rode back home. I took some photos of the bald eagles that were resting in the trees along the banks of the Mississippi. I saw about eight eagles during the ride. The trail is paved the entire way and is a well-maintained route. The first few miles don't have a very great view because the trail runs along the outer side of the levee (I guess) wall. Instead of a view of the mighty Mississippi you see a fifteen-foot high concrete wall to your right and to your left beautiful salvage yards. It's better than nothing though and gets you out of the city fairly quickly.

In longer news, I've decided to ride a brevet in April. A brevet is an organized bicycle ride that is different a regular race. The idea is to finish a determined distance within a set amount of time rather than to finish before everyone else. For example, the brevet I plan to ride is 200 km and you have 13.5 hours to ride it. This is the shortest brevet. Other distances are 300, 400, 600, and 1000 km. There are some famous brevets such as the Paris-Brest-Paris which is 1200 km and the time limit is 90 hours.

This type of bicycle racing is called randonneuring after the French Randonneurs who started this type of riding back in the late 1800s. It's about camaraderie, testing yourself, and riding self-sustained. I think it is a sport I will really enjoy.

For now, I need to get out on my bike more. 200 km is about 124 miles, four times farther than my last ride.