The Magic Day

On Saturday, August 1st, 2009, I set out to ride to my folk's house in Pennsylvania, opting for the long route. My aim was to hit a list of 7 points of interest to me, and to take my new Cannondale Super Six all of 100 miles in the process. I had previously dubbed this bike The Magic Bike. I also dubbed this ride the Northern Vision Quest. One can only guess exactly what I was hoping to find with this ride. Whatever it was, it was successful. This is my story.

The Plan

Here is how I laid it out before the ride. This is how I prefaced it the day before the ride on my training thread:

"I am doing the Northern Vision Quest ride:
http://bikeroutetoaster.com/Course.aspx?course=70258

The idea here is to get out to Califon as directly as possible, as far from home as fast as I can. Then I'm going to meander around and hit various items of interest. This will totally be back-loaded, I think everything is after the halfway point. In order of appearance:

1. Fiddler's Elbow, the reputed hardest climb in NJ
2. Merril Creek Reservoir, where Eagles live
3. The Buddhist Shrine up on Montana Mountain
4. The house I lived in until 3rd grade
5. The East-West Shrine, just because it's there
6. Iron Bridge Road, the reported second hardest climb in NJ
7. The house I lived in from 3rd grade to college

After that I'll go up and over the hill to Milford, then up the river to my folks just south of Easton. The ride clicks in at 98 miles, so I will likely look to add a few miles to get the magic 100.

I need to figure out where my pit stops will be. I may hit Pottersville if it's open at that time of the day, even though it's only an hour into the ride. I need to make sure I don't burn myself out tomorrow."

My big concern was water intake. I had done a century the weekend before, and dehydrated colossally. I wanted to avoid that happening again. It's so easy to think you're not in trouble while you're losing water faster than you know.

The Easy Start

I woke up fresh, feeling good. A quick breakfast and cup of coffee and I felt like this day was going to be a good one. I don't know why. Maybe my mindset was on. Maybe it was meant to be. I just felt like I was going to have a good ride and I felt good getting ready to go. I was excited to be going out on this ride. It had a purpose, something so few of my rides have most of the time.

I started easy, jumping on county route 512 and taking it west to Califon. I kept a moderate pace while listening to my music. I'm one of those people who listens to his iPod on the bike now, though often I listen only for the first hour or with 1 earbud in. There are so few cars on the roads I ride I've never had it be a problem. My playlist:

The Black Keys - Rubber Factory
Kings of Leon - Because of the Times
Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
Cold War Kids - Robbers & Cowards
Wheezer - The Red Album

I got to Pottersville and the store was closed. Same deal with Califon - not opened until 8:00. I wasn't in dire need but I was being aggressive with my water and food intake for the first hour. When I got up to the town center I saw a Dunkin Donuts, and jumped in to see what it had to offer. Luckily, it was a combo DD and convenience store, and I grabbed 2 bottles of water and a Luna bar. Shortly after I was on my way into roads never before ridden.

The Unknown

Coming out of Dunkin Donuts I was heading into unknown territory. It was generally a short foray there, as I would be in familiar areas soon enough. But it was cool nonetheless. I immediately climbed up and out of Califon, and while I didn't click down into the granny gear I was close. The pull out of there is steep, and you know when you leave. I had picked this route up from MapMyRide, so I knew it was reasonably bike friendly, or so I thought. I would soon find out differently but for the time being I was on roads that were reasonably paved and peaceful.

I hopped out onto 57 south of Hacketstown and it was like gliding on ice. The pavement was so smooth I wanted to just blast my way down 57 for the next 20 miles to Phillipsburg. While I knew it wouldn't be all nice pavement and soft downhills the entire time, it felt good to be out of the hills and the rougher gravel roads that accompany them. The bliss was short-lived, as I soon turned right and headed up to a town I had never heard of, Port Murray.

Soon my route took my left onto a road that looked much less friendly than the road I was on. Aside from the obvious pavement quality, there was a sign at the head of the road. This is not a picture of it, but this is just what it looked like:



What does this sign mean, exactly? Well, the MapMyRide link went through here, as did Google Maps. Interestingly enough, NJBikeMap did not. In fact, there was a dead space where I was going to ride. Why did it not click that this might be an issue? I think the MapMyRide link assured me that I would be ok. Here is the road in question on Google Maps itself: Warren Rd.

If you pan out you notice that it's an area totally bereft of roads, except this one, the one that "isn't a through street".

At first it was fine, despite the house that looked as if it hadn't been lived in for 40 years. There was some sign of civilization. The road wasn't totally paved but it was ok, then I got to a split in the road and one way was dirt and the other clean pavement. Ok, I figure, this is all good and I'm good to go. I take the right on the pavement and immediately see a closed gate, a private drive. I then knew that I was going down the dirt road. It strikes me quickly to wonder who would have barred iron gates at the end of a half mile of ragged pavement in the middle of absolutely nowhere. But the bigger concern is that I'm going to be riding the Magic Bike on a dirt road, which I'm not thrilled about.

Quickly the dirt road turns into this:



And it got worse. If I have to guess I'm on this dirt paved road for a good solid mile. At points, this road was approaching the quality of a Ringwood fire road. Certainly it was no better than a jeep road. My car would never have made it down it. Now that I'm in the comfort of my own home, I can explore Google Maps a little bit and see that this is apparently what was behind those locked gates: a major estate of some sort.

I would love to know what was up there. If you look closely you can see what appears to be a large pool next to the house. At the top of the clearings, I couldn't begin to guess what that stuff is. Your guess is as good as mine as to what is up there, but it's intriguing as hell, I'll say that.

Eventually I spit back out on the road and was greeted with smooth pavement and nice scenery for the next little while. I was slightly distressed that my bike was full of grime and grit but I wasn't about to let it ruin my magic day. Shortly after crossing 31 I came across another deli and I stopped to stock up on water. This was a bonus as I did not know what was on the route. I was quickly approaching the meat of the journey.

The Goods

Fiddlers Elbow, the reputed nastiest climb in NJ.



This hill starts out steep, as you would expect. But it's not that bad. The real pisser with this hill is that as you go further, it gets steeper. Or at least it stays really steep and then at the end, it pitches up. I got to a point where I was sitting in, and my front wheel kept hopping off the ground every pedal stroke. So I stood up and leaned way, way forward and at times my rear wheel spun out in the gravel. There wasn't a lot of gravel on the road, but enough to make it tough for the bike to bite on the climb with my weight forward.

This was by far the toughest climb I've ever done in my life.

I got to the top, and then took the downhill. Down, down, down, and way down. Eventually my GPS told me to go left. Left, huh? Here? For the second time Google Maps led me astray but this time, at least it had the decency to try and send me into oblivion from a main road as opposed to leading me halfway into the woods before dropping me off. At this stage I was in familiar territory so I dropped down to 519 and cruised out past the county fair I used to go to when I was a punk ass kid:



I then hit 57 and headed towards Washington, around the south side of Merrill Creek. This wasn't what I wanted to do but I had actually added some junk miles at the end of the planned route in the event that something like this happened. So I took the alternate route up to the reservoir entrance, in the process climbing back up the hill I went down previously, and took a break at the reservoir:



Tibet

I've never been to Tibet. But I have been to Taiwan, and the Buddhist influence there is greater than what you might imagine. Religion in the East is different than what you see in the West. It is more subdued yet more prevalent and accepted at the same time. It's a strange dichotomy, and somewhat tough to explain. While I'm not a religious guy by any stretch, I do embrace the peacefulness that is Buddhism and I was pretty excited to find out that there was a Buddhist learning center so near.

As I turned on to the road, things seemed to be more tranquil, quiet. I passed a driveway that had numerous stacks of firewood lining the drive, neatly organized. The neighborhood was old, quiet. I knew it was impossible for the people here to not know the center was there, so it held a kind of acceptance of it's existence, a harmony almost. I was excited and nervous to see what would be there.

When I came upon the entrance it was obvious:



As I rode up the driveway, there were banner-like streamers hung in the trees. I don't know enough about the religion to say what that means, but it was familiar to me in a way which I can't exactly explain. I must have seen something similar before in Taiwan. This is what the Internet has to say about what they are:

Tibetan Buddhists string prayer flags between trees and from poles on stupas, high mountain passes and other places. These flags are printed with mantras, and every time they flutter in the breeze they are spreading the merit of that mantra's message through the air to all living beings.

As I rode up there was a guy doing some yard work and we talked for a bit. We discussed the center, the hours, programs, and an upcoming festival that anyone is welcome to attend. Like I said, I'm not a religious person but it is intriguing. Part of me has become very enamored by the East, and this was a way to reach out to that without having to fly halfway around the world to see it. I look forward to going back someday when there is more activity there.

While the architecture wasn't like what you would see in Taiwan, there was some flair:



After I left I felt really energized. I dropped down the mountain and back onto route 57 and felt like I was as strong as I've ever been on the bike. It made me wonder, what is it like to really, truly believe in a god? I don't mean the token belief that most of the world gives to some deity, but to truly believe that there is a god riding with you every day, that you've got someone watching over you. Does it lead you to do stupid things on the bike? Do you just hammer forward with the idea that if it's your time, then so be it and the world will either protect you or move on without you?

While wondering this I was passed be a rather large and noisy truck, and decided that good feeling or not, I better watch out for myself.

Childhood Memories

Shortly after I turned on to the old street I used to live on in Washington and cruised up to my old house. I used to live next to a 1-legged girl who lived in the blue house on the right. Her dad was a cop and she had an insanely hot older sister who once asked me to rub suntan lotion on her. I was in 2nd grade at the time, and I think that was the moment in my life when I finally understood what a woman was. I cannot for the life of me imagine what she was looking for with that request of me.

I used to live on the left side of the white house. As I look at it now, the neighborhood is a total shit hole. The entire town is more or less rundown, and it was understandable why my parents moved out. At the time that 1-legged girl was my best friend, and I didn't want to move. We said we would ride our bikes back and forth to visit. Of course, I never saw her again.

When I came up to the house, an extremely fat woman was turning around in the doorway to go inside.



I rolled on and went past the Blue Army Shrine, which is just something I would often see in the distance as a kid. I don't think I ever went up into the grounds:



The difference in religion between the East and West cannot be better stated from the 2 pictures. One is a modest gateway, the other a sprawling 1000 acre estate. It was striking at the time and begged for comment.

I rolled into Asbury and came across my next surprise deli, which I almost rolled past but decided to hit anyway. I grabbed a bottle of water and a peach Snapple before the half mile roll to Iron Brige Rd. The people there eating breakfast seemed a little startled to see me and my bright superhero outfit there, and the old timer across the street watching the world was trying not to let me catch him staring at me. As I rolled away I gave him a nod.

Iron Bridge



Like Fiddlers Elbow, this is both brutal and relentless. After 75 miles of road riding this is not the hill you want to be climbing. While this does not punch you in the gut at the end like Fiddlers, it seems to go on just a touch longer, and doesn't want to end. When you reach the actual iron bridge, you can't be more than 1/3 up the hill, if even 1/4 of the way up. As you hit the top, or what seems to be the top, it still doesn't let up and merely eases up a bit as you struggle to get up to 6 mph and spin your legs out just a little bit.

Despite that, my legs never tried to cramp and I made it up, which is the important thing. I crossed the top of the hill and shot down 173 at mach speed, taking up an entire lane since I was going as fast as the cars on the road. I hit the bottom and kept cruising and blew right into Bloomsbury, which came up faster than I could have imagined.

More Memories

I looked down and was doing 28 mph on 173 as I came into the town. I don't know where this mass of energy could possibly have come from, but there it was. I felt like I was just about ready to line up for a race and have at it. I knew it was fleeting, but I felt on fire, just blasting down the road. I remember there was a day when the truck stop seemed so amazingly far away from downtown where we used to hang out at the Cracker Barrel all day. It took all of 3 minutes to ride my bike between the end of town and there.

Everything was so small, so beat down. I hadn't really lived there since high school, summer of 1990. I guess a lot changes, and having spent a lot of time across the world and having jobs in NYC changes what you consider up-to-date and rundown. But I was really surprised at how beat up this town is. I don't think the street I grew up on has been paved since the first time it was ever paved. What I used to think was a far walk from the store to my house was maybe a minute on the bike.

When I pulled up to my old house a woman was taking pictures of her daughter, and I asked, "Mind if I take one too?" She was taken aback, to be sure. But when I explained I grew up there she opened up entirely, as these are the people who bought the house from my parents. We talked briefly, then I snapped a picture of the old house and was off and up the hill.

This is where I grew up:



I climbed up to the old railroad bridge and stopped for a minute. A car went over when I was on it, and the way the rickety old bridge made noise when someone drove over it was like an echo from the past, so distant yet so familiar. The whole bridge creaked and shook, nothing had changed a bit. This is looking down the tracks to Pine Hollow, where we used to have colossal parties with major bonfires. Once a freight train stopped to warn us the cops had been called by the previous train. Like idiots, we kept drinking and hopped on the train. Next thing we knew half of us were sitting in the back of cop cars:



At this point I decided to jag across and climb up Bloomsbury Mountain, which Maurice thinks is tougher than Iron Bridge Rd. I was this far, 85 miles in. What the hell is another 700 feet? Along with Iron Bridge, this is also on the list of major climbs in NJ. I did this one slow & steady and aside from the sun beating down on me, I didn't think this was nearly as tough as the previous 2. Hard, no doubt, but not in league with the others. This is from the top looking down, which doesn't give you a good perspective at all as the hardest part is the first half up to the hairpin turn.



Wrapping it Up

At this point it was a matter of hopping across the mountain then coming down to the paper mill where my step-father worked years, until the economy caught up to it and it shut down. Currently the owner lives on the property in his RV. From there it was a straight & flat shot out to the river. It was all in the sun, but my legs had a lot left in them as I was able to ride out this last section at 20/21 easily. Finally I hit the border, and the Delaware River which was apparently flowing directly from Wonkaville this day:



I shot up 611 and wrapped it all up at 101 miles and 9100+ feet of vertical for the ride. This is the token shot, lovingly referred to as the money shot. I guess this is my 4th this year and slowest of the bunch, but by far the most rewarding and enjoyable.



The magic bike was great on this magic day. I have yet to give it the proper photo shoot and I may now have to clean off some of the grit from that non-through street before I do that. But there it is, waiting for me to dish out more of whatever I can. It was more than ready to abide:



And your truly, at the end of the ride:



This was a keeper, an absolute magic day on a magic bike. It may be a long, long time before I put together a ride as meaningful as this. But all we can do on a day to day basis is try. And when I wake up tomorrow and roll out of the driveway, I'll know that while it's unlikely, you just never know when you're going to knock one so far out of the park you might just remember it for the rest of your life.

Pandora Radio

The past few weeks I've really been finding myself loving Pandora radio (pandora.com). I'm sure most, if not all, of you have heard about it and/or tried it out. It's more or less the perfect radio station, at least within the realm of what you can expect without the nebulous Hand of God playing any sort of role in this dream. First of all it's free Internet radio. Second, you get music that you know you like. Third, it plays music based on the songs you rate. If you like a song, thumbs up. If you don't, thumbs down.

I'm sure most people are familiar with it so there's little need for me to talk more about it is. Here's what I'm finding though. All of my Pandora roads lead to 2 bands. Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins. No matter what band I start with, both of those bands seem to be on the playlist eventually. I guess it's not surprising that my musical tastes were heavily influenced in the early 90s when grunge/alternative were really coming into their own. The thing is that I don't have either of these bands as a Pandora station.

Two of my favorite bands of all-time are Jane's Addiction and Phish. Neither of these bands have made it into the rotation of any other station I've created. I have Wilco, Radiohead, Beck, Pearl Jam, Primus, and RHCP off the top of my head. All of these leads to Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins. None lead to Jane's Addiction.

So as much as this is perfect Internet radio, it's still not exactly perfect. I'm not complaining, mind you. I'm just pointing out that the mainstream artists are still going to hold sway over the contraption, no matter how smart you think you've made it. And one other thing. How the Eagles' Hotel California comes in as the 6th song of a RHCP station is incomprehensible. Again, not complaining because it's a simple matter of giving the thumbs down and moving on. But still, the Eagles?

I've been looking into one of the Pandora receivers over the past week. I just got my work bonus so I'm thinking, "How can I enrich my life with something that's totally and completely not needed and at the same time a cash sink that will likely be obsolete and/or unused in a matter of months?" After a few minutes I decided, "A portable Pandora radio!"

Actually, I've looked a little at the mini-box versions that I could presumably drop on the counter or in the basement. When I work from home I work in the basement and I sometimes use another laptop as my Pandora receiver. But I don't have headphones which leaves the sound quality lacking. My work laptop isn't powerful enough to run Pandora and the RDP into work.

The problem that Pandora solves is this. With an IPod, you can have all your artists and all the songs at your disposal. After a while, you say to yourself, "How the hell do I choose between the 800 CDs I've loaded on here? And how do I organize this mess?" Pandora allows you to listen to what you want, sorta. It also potentially exposes you to new music unless, like me, most of your music was popular 15-25 years ago. Actually, Radiohead and Beck are still current but alas, those roads apparently run back to Nirvana as well. I'm tempted to start with Diana Ross to see how long it takes me to get to Nirvana. I would guess at least 100 songs but I would also guess that I would get there eventually.

I haven't looked everywhere, but if I could find an IPod-like receiver that I could take anywhere and still use to give thumbs up/down on the train or at home, I might very well pull that trigger today. I know they offer Pandora to your "mobile device" but that's not a viable long-term solution, especially considering you have to pay for the $15 data plan to make it worthwhile. Currently it seems that this is exclusive to the iPhone, at least in terms of a legitimate portable Pandora.

That leaves something you can buy and use in the house, which there are a few options. The options are sleek, to be sure, with Sonos possibly being the coolest of the bunch. Of course cool comes with a price tag, $999 at the minimum. I got a nice bonus but not that nice, you know?

At the lower end you have Chumby coming in at around $199 for a functional unit. But then what you're really buying is a controller for your Pandora that needs to have a wireless connection. Ok, our house is wireless but then I need to either have headphones or plug it into a stereo. We're tipping back to the point that the second laptop, which we already have, is a perfectly fine Pandora controller since it's already here.

It's an awesome idea that also happens to be very cool, sleek, and sexy. But without being able to do exactly what you want with it - ie, walk out your door and down the street while listening to your music - it's hard to spend that kind of scratch on something like this. I have an iPod that does me just fine to "get me by" so to speak. And I'm in the office 3 days a week where the point is moot. So it's really for those days I'm working in the basement which is 2 days normally and full weeks when I'm on-call. Given that Pandora on the web is free, and the add-ons at those prices aren't sounding terribly cost-effective for me right now.

So it looks like I won't be spending any disposable cash on a product I would love to have. To be sure there's a market for this. Really it's a total slam dunk, no brainer. I'm still surprised that you can't get something like this relatively easily. But it's generally new. And while it can still rake in the mad cash selling the items as-is, it won't change much. But I imagine something will come along to challenge the Pandora Paradigm, then it will be easier to get my personalized radio stations wherever I want them. For now though, being limited to my work PC or the floating laptop at home will have to suffice.

So if you have a product and/or service I can spend my money on, give me a ring.

Chicago Again

So I finally got there, got to Chicago. That was last week, of course. And it's already Tuesday as I sit down to start writing this. So what's taken me so long? Well, it was a hectic trip, as you'll see. And I came home and just kept drinking and piling it on myself that before I knew it I was sick. Again. So here I am, sorta still sick, a few days off a story I should have written earlier. Well, I got there, so here it is, in a timeline format, with pictures and videos. Not many, but something.

Tuesday

The night before, Nat makes a nice meal. At this stage it was over a week ago so I haven't the foggiest idea what we had but I remember it being good. A table full of empty dishes always indicates that you got some good food on. I'm trying, but just can't remember and empty plates don't ring a bell. We often use that bowl for noodles though. So my guess is noodles and some sort of greens.



After dinner I partake in 2 glasses of red wine. Why do I drink wine when I don't much care for it? I don't know. I'm a beer guy, through and through. I guess it was there, and it spoke to me in that "I'm a bottle of wine and, well, you know, I don't really speak so whatever's going on is all in your head" kind of way.



Wednesday

5:30 I am up. I eat breakfast and have my first cup of coffee. What's the over/under for number of cups of coffee on this trip? 15? 2000? It's cold outside, having snowed a ton the day before which also means that I don't get out on the bike for 2 days before I leave, plus 2-3 days while I'm out there. Either way, it translates to it being cold out. But I'm going to Chicago so I'm bound to be cold anyway, right?

6:15 I start my car to warm it up, and the door won't close. I decided to drive to the airport and use the short-term parking. Check it out. I'll be there 2 days and 5 hours, roughly. That will cost me $75 to drive myself both ways. Last trip the car service was $150 one way. Screw that. While it's not my money that's a little absurd.

6:30 The warming up of the car allows the door to shut, thankfully. I take off for the airport as the sun rises and it is a stunningly beautiful day. The trees are covered in snow. Very nice start. Traffic to the airport is light.

7:35 I am checked in and I get coffee #2 at terminal A14. If anyone fails to use the online check-in, they're a fool. It totally removes the need to stand in line at the Departure counter. Why would you not do this? I drink my coffee at the terminal, waiting for the hour to drain away while I read.



8:30 Did I ever mention I hate airplanes? Well I do. Maybe not hate, but there's something about a multiple-ton hunk of steel in the air that doesn't sit right with me. There are no delays and we board right at 8:30. I get on late since I sit in Economy Plus and have the front row behind the "business class" which means they get a curtain drawn between them and us plebes. I drink coffees #3 and #4, watch 2 episodes of Scrubs, and read. There is no turbulence, the flight is uneventful. We land early.

11:00 I am in the office already. I consume coffees #5 and #6 and have then had enough. Travel always makes me drink copious amounts of coffee and they have reasonable coffee there. So I partake in free and decent. I get a turkey sandwich for lunch under the guise that I can maintain some sort of health. We then launch into a sporadic fight to get all our normal work for the day done, which renders this day useless in terms of me learning anything on my first day out here. I sit down with someone for a little bit but we just go over stuff I'm already pretty familiar with. Too much work to do on our NY-side of the fence for me to spend too much on this.

5:00 I check-in to the hotel.



5:30 I at the bar for the next 8+ hours, where I drain far too many beers and eat far too much food. It's good to hang out with the guys out here. They're definitely more of a team than the NY side. I've never gone out once socially with the NY people, and I doubt I ever will. I fit in well with these guys as they're all my age or younger. We eat and drink more.

2:30 I take a video of myself, because I can, I guess.



Thursday

7:30 I wake up with a light headache. I hurt, maybe not as much as I should but only because I stopped drinking hours before I went to bed. The beer just wasn't tasting good anymore. When you get to that point, it's best to stop. In college, you plow on because you're an idiot. But at this stage of the game, it's best to stop.

8:30 Out of the hotel and walking to the office. If you check the temps it's more or less the same as NJ. But the real bitch is that it's windy as you can imagine a city named "the windy city" would be. It's actually worse. I have a 7 block walk to the office and I stop halfway there to get coffee. By the time I get there I'm totally freezing. I can't imagine living here and riding a bike outside all year around. Incomprehensible.

9:00 I grab some breakfast and coffee #2 then start the day. The morning is more or less me wondering why i would drink so much as well as taking care of some NY-side details from the day before. I knock out my required workload early so I can try and make some use of the trip.

12:00 Group lunch. The day hasn't been productive and we as a group are more or less hungover. We have a meeting in the afternoon to get some things in-line. I'm having fun but the trip wasn't exactly required or anything. But again, good to show my face and be part of the team. I like coming out.

2:00 We have our meeting and I do some one-on-one with one of the girls and pick up some knowledge. The afternoon is more productive so it makes it more worth it. Just getting your feet wet with the code is worth it. It will be good to code again on some level.

5:30 Just my boss and I go out that night, a mere 6 hours this time. It's a different bar with a much better beer selection, for which I'm very grateful for. Everyone else begs off which leaves the 2 of us which is all good. We actually get along pretty well. I have a chicken and guacamole sandwich with a side of hummus. And like 7 beers. As the night winds down, I say, "Sure, just 1 more."

11:00 I leave the bar and I am brutally cold, just shiveringly cold. It's a tough thing to think about living here. Wow, that would be hard.

Friday

6:00 I wake up tired, and again, hurting. What is wrong with me? I've spent more time in the bar than in bed the last 2 days.

6:30 Showered and out of the hotel, in a taxi to the airport. Traffic is light enough and we make it with no issue. I am spaced out, to say the least.

7:05 Through security but not early enough to get stand-by on the early plane. So it's me and 2 cups of coffee in the terminal. I also get a bagel but it sucks. I mean, it just sucks. I also find a revolving seat cover on a toilet.



8:30 I board the plane, again perfectly on time. I'm losing my dislike of airplanes I think. This trip, only the takeoff unnerves me a bit, and not that much. Landing is no issue. I read the entire time, too tired to fish through my bag and get my DVD player or iPod. I have 1 cup of coffee making it 14 cups on the trip.

12:35 I am back home, where I immediately get right back to work and lay down whenever possible. Nat and Julia are at the in-laws today so I get a quiet day. Overall good. But for no good reason I have a few beers that night. Truly, I'm an idiot.

Ok, so that was my trip. It's Wednesday morning and my boss and his boss are back in town tomorrow. So it's only 1 night this time. But the last time we went out in NYC I fell asleep on the train ride home and woke up only because I set my phone alarm. I then called in a sick day after that. These guys are a bad influence on me.

What You Are Saying

Check out this graph of users and page views from the blog:



Big month of March I had there. What you're telling me is that I need to travel more. Well, I'll be going to Chicago this week but I'm not sure that's the kind of travel that keeps the people coming back for more.

I'm still baffled by this breakdown:

Browser Language Unique Visitors
English / United States 3411
Korean 216

How does Korean rank so high? I don't get how that works out but all I can guess is that some Korean blogger latched on to my Taiwan trip and a handful of his readers checked out some pages.

Nothing really of value here but I just decided to check my stats today. They're pretty poor, admittedly. I'll try harder in 2009*.

*I'm lying

Following Life of Pi

Just last week I said I was going to try and blog once or twice a week, in a more serious fashion, where “more serious” is defined as longer, maybe more involved. Well there goes the second week (last week) and I didn’t get a blog on. Bloggon sounds like a planet from science fiction. So here I am on Bloggon last week, not getting my blog on. I was home all week because I was on-call. I guess it slipped through the cracks. I did warn you that it wouldn’t last, though I didn’t think it would be one and done. Anyway, it’s Monday and here we are with a blog entry that isn’t exactly pointed but encompasses many different independent thoughts I’ve had this morning, none of which appear as bright shiny objects in my world right now.

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. Am I un-American for that? The reality is that football interests me little, at best. Football, and all sports, have fallen off the map for me unless you include biking in that. But biking is hardly sport in the sense that the NFL is, especially the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is gambling, eating, drinking, funny commercials, a social gathering, and oh yeah a game in there too. Biking is exercise. Football is chicken wings. Biking is not. I enjoy a good gathering. But watching a game I’m not interested in just isn’t, by definition, interesting to me.

It just so happened that it was a good game, much to my surprise. While I find it hard to pull for the Steelers there would be something cosmically wrong with the Cardinals winning the Super Bowl. It could stand as a metaphor for our country if Obama doesn't get the job done, right? His first feat of office was to see the Cardinals win the Super Bowl! But in the end, the Old Guard stands strong and wins the day. Does that mean another year of war debt, bad economy, and Everybody Loves Raymond reruns?

I voted for Obama so this is no sly political commentary. I just thought of it so went with my current SOC diatribe.

I did watch the last 26 seconds of the game. Kinda. Nat will probably check out the commercials on youtube today and tell me which ones I should watch. But really, this social event wasn’t a social event for us. Terren invited us over but my parents were at the house and how can you stay up until 10:00 with an almost 3-year-old? While she does stay up that late, being out that late would be major meltdown territory. We went to the neighbor’s in the past, which is convenient because you can come and go pretty easily and you don’t have to deal with the drama of the car ride at 10:00 at night. Aside from that, it’s just a late football game. Competition! Raw power! Large men in spandex! I get all the “men in tights” action I need in my biking life. No need to add enormous tracts of muscle.

As a side note here, can you really become good friends with someone after college? I used to believe this, then I thought I changed my mind on it. But now I’m starting to go back to the idea that after college, you never really make a friend that you really consider a “great” or even “good” friend. I’m speaking vaguely, because I’m not sure I believe this assertion. I guess if I wanted to really assess that I would need to make a list of people we would invite to a wedding if we got married again. I wonder, how many people that we invited then would be invited now? How many more? Would my wedding party be the same? Best man? I think the answers to the questions would be: most of them but not all, I don’t know, probably an extra person or 2 on each side, and yes.

After a long Saturday of being on-call I had 2 Stone Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ales and an Anchor Steam. The Stone beers were good, are good. Not past tense, but present tense. Or past, present, and future tenses. I’m not a huge fan of Stone beers but I really like this offering quite a bit. Ok that’s besides the point, there are plenty of good beers out there. After those 2 beers I went to the well of mediocrity and grabbed an Anchor Steam. I don’t know how long I’ve had it so it may be old, but boy I really didn’t care for it all that much. I know a lot of people like it but it was pretty mediocre for me. It may be that on the heels of the Stone offering this one can’t possibly compete. But it was a tough one to get down Saturday night. It also may be a better first beer as you don’t get tuned into the taste of something else.

I'm off to Chicago this week so I may try a video capture from somewhere out there if time permits. But more than likely it won’t, unless I break out the camera in the airport or on the plane. Maybe I will, just because it’s something new. Once I hit the ground though I’ll be neck deep in work and post work activities. The time out there will likely be really fast and then back to Jersey 2 days later.

Vinny has asked me what else to read after Life of Pi. This is a tough question which has sort of helped me on my path of identifying the 51 authors that should be on your bookshelf. See, I have this grand plan to name 51 authors you should own. Or maybe 51 “entities” or “items” is a better way to name it. The idea of an entity stems from the thought that you don’t want to list 5 Kurt Vonnegut books, even though any good bookshelf will have at least 5 from him. So maybe I put Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey as one entity. Then maybe a dictionary and thesaurus, even though the web makes those items a bit out-of-date. Or a travel book (or set of books) to your favorite destination. The Foundation books, if you’re into Sci-Fi, are required but that’s like 5-6 Asimov books plus the Caliban trilogy that followed. Then there are the Robot books. So your entity here is “Asimov’s Foundation and Robot books”, which amounts to something like 10-15 total books. Hey, any solid bookshelf is going to have hundreds of books.

So to answer the question, Salman Rushdie is awesome but over most people’s heads, my own included. The Namesake was a good book, but not like Life of Pi. Bel Canto was good, but again, not as good and maybe too slow for most people. I can’t come up with a book to recommend in that ballpark. It’s a tough park to play in, really. Some will suggest Cormac McCarthy but I can’t say I agree with that. Not bad, just different. It’s like Vonnegut or Robbins or Christopher Moore. All solid authors but different than Yann Martel.

Amazon tells me that the Kite Runner and Water for Elephants are most commonly bought with Life of Pi. I have read neither of these books. It also suggests the Curious Incident of the Dog etc (which I strongly disliked and isn't remotely like Pi), Secret Life of Bees (I own, have not read yet), Time Traveller's Wife (wtf?), the Alchemist (heard of it, more intrigued now), Poisonwood Bible (I do like Kingsolver), and Middlesex (another huh?).

So really, I’ll have to get back to you on that one. It may take a long time.

What Have I Been Up To?

This post is dedicated to Vinny, who commented:

"Believe it or not, there are still people checking this (now pathetic) website for updates. We want to know know if you reached 179 or blew up to 350+. We want to know if you're still stalking unsuspecing commuters and flirting with the NJ sexual predator list. We want to believe that the internet is NOT DEAD. Put down that beer, get off your (potentially enormous) ass, find some motivation and give us an update. We want to know what the hell is going on in your life. Come on man, you owe it to your loyal following.....get back in the saddle and give us some insight."

First off, yes, this is an absurdly pathetic website. But I'm not alone. Just as video killed the radio star, Facebook killed the Blogger star. Another blog I read made the same comment last week. I spend a lot more time on Facebook and let's be honest, my status messages embody what is really going on in my life. Do these blog posts ever amount to more than 5-10 words anyway? I may type 2000, but in the end, don't the following really describe my life:

* Norm hit the 170s!
* Norm got in a 4 hour ride today.
* Norm likes beer.
* etc etc

I may write more than that, but do I say more than that? Probably not. But here I am, using more words to say something I probably could have said in 5 words. Maybe at the end I'll summarize it in 5 words if I feel so motivated. I do have to say that I'm thinking of trying to make 1-2 posts a week, but longer, and more in depth, and maybe even with pictures and videos. Why bother? I really have no idea. Maybe this is my natural cycle where I like to express myself in words. I like to fancy myself somewhat capable with words. And I know there are a few people out there who do read, apparently Vinny included. So maybe I'll give that a go. I can tell you now it won't last. But at least we can try.

So what have I been up to? Well let's see, the past bunch of weeks I've more or less worked from home all the time. I went into the office 4 times in the last 2 weeks, but before that I was home for 3 straight weeks. And before that I was in the office maybe 4 times in 3 weeks. So it's something like 7 times in 7 weeks, which accounts for my not blogging nearly as much because when I get on the train I read or watch DVDs. I have enough diversions and so little time that I tend not to blog anymore. I WFH again this week and the 3rd week in February.

So did I hit 179? Yes I did. Then 178 and 177 which is my current low weight. I fluctuate on a daily basis of course, but still solidly in the 170s currently, even though I'm not riding nearly as much as I would hope right now. The weather plus 2 colds has really limited me in the last 4-5 weeks. Currently getting over the second cold but the weather still sucks. There's still a solid covering on the ground and as I sit here in my kitchen the temps are in the 20s outside. At least the sun is setting later and rising earlier. So we got that going for us, which is nice.

Work is work. I do love my job basically because my boss and his boss "get" it. The job itself is solid, and I can more or less do what I want so long as we get what we need done as a group. So I look for interesting ways to make the job easier and entertain myself in a work environment. Aside from that the whole WFH thing makes it a lot easier to mix work and home.

In the end, this is more or less what I do with my spare time when I'm not riding my bike or drinking beer:



Or this, which is the kind of thing we need to do to get her to take a bath:



And when Mommy leaves Julia with Daddy, we get doughnuts:



I'm also trying to clean up my basement so I can figure out WTF is going on when I'm down there, which is pretty often since that's where the W happens in the WFH abbreviation. This is my "before" pic though this is really a "during" pic. Everything in life is a work in progress, my basement included:



Hopefully I can post a worthy "after" pic in a few weeks but I can imagine anyone but I would care. This is why I'm riding less than I like. Every other day I wake up to this which, while beautiful, sucks the riding wind out of my sails:



Here is another reason I find it hard to ride some days:



For whatever reason, they never plow our road. So I take it in, enjoy the season, drink beer - you know, all the same sorts of things people like to do. The weather will turn soon enough, and I'll be pumping out 15 hour weeks before you know it. But for now, with the cold and my sickness, the last 2 weeks were barely 4 hours each. Thankfully I haven't taken this opportunity to get fat again. Or more precisely, fatter. But I need to watch what I eat, which is lame. I like to eat, and when I ride a lot I can eat a lot. It's a dual bonus because eating is one of my favorite hobbies as well. Same story on drinking beer. Triple bonus!

I did finally build a cross bike so I can better ride in this crap weather. Took it out twice last week - lots of fun! But plenty more fun to come for sure:



Anyway, that's about it. I'm sure there's more but for now, I'd say that's more or less enough to keep you up-to-date on what's going on with me. And if you want to step into the present, join Facebook and set your status message now and again.

So the Facebook blurb is this: "Norm is summing up his existence."

Still Going to Work

Despite the nearly 4 inches of anticipation on the ground I managed to wake up and get myself to work today. It was tough in a way, since anticipation can be such a heavy burden to drive and walk through. My car seemed not to be effected by it though. I was surprised, since the roads were really icy with anticipation.

The train is sprinkled with random people who were able to make it through as well. I guess many were not able to open their back doors and see that no snow had actually accumulated on the ground yet. Maybe it will. The weatherman says t-minus 2+ hours until it starts. But there's a funny thing about weathermen, they're rarely right. I know this because I've been biking 10+ hours a week for the last 2 months despite the call for rain 5 out of every 7 days. A wet road doesn't equal rain.

Is it going to snow? Who the hell knows. But I refuse to pre-bag my day because they want to scare you into watching the news all day. It's snow, not a nuclear winter. I see on the Facebook status messages that some schools are closed already? What a soft world we live in when schools get closed in anticipation. Shit never used to happen when I was in school.

I have a shit load of work to do today so I want to be in the office until I can pound it out. If anticipation has turned to actual snow I may leave early. Or I may just act normally and take in the panicked carnage all around me. It tends to be fun if not too annoying and obnoxious. Hopefully the Worry Whales at work stay home today because they'll just clog the hallways and complain about the snow.

The Internet is Dead

I'm pretty sure that the Internet has died. Usually there's so much content that I don't know what to do with myself. Right now, there are no message board posts, no unread blogs, no emails or PMs to attend to. I don't know what to do with myself.

I guess it's expected at this time of year. People use up vacation, companies freeze code, people go into a shell with the weather - it's not entirely odd to see this happen. But it's almost like someone turned the lights out in the last week.

Otherwise, life is good. Hopefully I wake up and see 179 on the scale tomorrow.