Eureka...sort of

So I'm taking a shower in my "substantially complete" bathroom on Saturday before the 2nd of two parties this weekend when it hit me.

Ever since I started working in the field of architecture, I've collected bits of paper filled with data, sketches, all sorts of information that was immediately important at a particular moment in that slice of my career. I've collected it in 3 ring binders, file folders, magazine holders, piles...then the internet happened and I've got a digital version of this pile of bric-a-brac that we all recognize as the unorganized "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" bar. My own memory serves as the organizational traffic cop that determines to which projects these bits of information are connected.

The beauty of the field I work in is the relentless accumulation of knowledge based on practical problem-solving, puzzle resolution, iterative design flow, and plain old curiosity. The problem has always been to compile it all into a searchable, accessible reservoir of information that isn't a pile of useless paper or an unnavigable sea of web addresses.

I think I'm onto something. I'll just organize this "data" into some sort of "base". Oh yeah. That's been done. So instead I can just scan everything and have electronic versions of paper cluttering up various drives. Or I can organize my favorites bar. Stop laughing.

So I took a little bit of that and a little bit of this and created this:

The Elusive Binder

I figure I've been blogging for some time now and the format lends itself to a flexible, expandable, searchable, editable document that I can access from anywhere. I can even add anecdotal comments that will trigger synapses that will open up memory currents that will feed my creative lobe so that both of you can read more utter scintillation on this blog. My favorites bar can shrink and be filled with more important things like how to pitch a tent made of ham or quick access to the activities of Chad Vader, day shift manager.

Like all of my compulsive organizational tendencies, I wonder how long this will last. Two blogs. Wow, that's livin'.

The better team

Two weeks ago tonight we sat in disbelief as we saw Montreal take apart the Caps in the first round.

Tonight we sat in awe as they did the same thing to the reigning Stanley Cup champions.

When my sister and brother in law (Caps season tix holders) watched the dwindling minutes of the home loss two weeks ago, the Habs fans in their section were shaking hands with Caps fans, and told them (in accented French Canadian English) that the better team did not win.

I beg to differ with our northern neighbors, as the better team did win that night, and tonight against the Pens. Perhaps the more talented team did not win, but certainly the better team did.

Now that I've watched 14 straight games featuring the Montreal Canadiens, I am invested in their future success. Here's to adding a 24th (!) Stanley Cup banner to their rafters.

Crazy boys

"It takes a special kind of craziness to be a professional athlete", so sayeth my wife, who is married to a doughboy who eschews all kinds o' pain.

While I hold these lunatics in high admiration, I am glad I don't have to earn my paycheck with these sorts of "workplace hazards", like:

Losing eight teeth in the first period, getting your roots trimmed, and coming back into the game in the third period (with about 100 stitches in your mouth). "It's the playoffs", he says.

Or take a puck in the face FOR THE SECOND TIME IN A SEASON.

Breaking a collarbone or clavicle while training or racing, and figuring out how best to prepare for the Tour de France, less than two months away.

Takes a certain type I guess.

The epitome of smooth

Pay particular attention to 0:17 to 0:25 of this vid:

Cyclocross dismount/remount at race speed on road shoes on cobbles (fercryinoutloud!!!) and doesn't miss a beat. Oh and he won the race too.

Also of note is the Mike Green-like mohawk (but with added mullet effect) hairdo on his mechanic who sighs relief.

Fabian Cancellara, man and beast.

Remember when?

It was way back in April of 2010, way back when (remember the good old days?) the Washington Capitals were the best team in the EN-tire NHL, finishing out the last week of their storybook season against the Bears of Beantown. Adam's friend Andre got an extra ticket to the game, so the two of them went downtown to watch the Caps take apart the Bruins (it was actually a close overtime win for the hometown boys). I drove down to pick them up, and I waited as the red-clad throngs left the arena with a promising spring of playoff hockey. We had, after all, re-acquired my favorite Slovakian defenseman in a late season trade for 2nd round action (he was injured). Sorry I didn't get to see you this spring, Juice.

I even saw one of my college/racing friend and his girlfriend as they were leaving too. The boys met me at the car and we headed home, talking about the game. Andre actually plays hockey, and he's a great kid. Parents and older sister are good people, too. So then Andre drops the bomb that later that week he's going to Children's Hospital to get one of his heart valves replaced. HOLY COW. I figured that once he recovers from that he'll be able to play hockey again, but apparently the doctors are recommending that he doesn't do strenuous activity anymore. That's quite a shattering realization when you're 15, and he puts on a brave face every day. As it turns out this was his third major heart surgery in his short life, and maybe not his last. He is in my thoughts often.

So after yelling at the Dallas Ave ruffians yesterday I saw him standing in his driveway a few houses away and checked in on him. He can't do a whole lot for another week or so, and we chatted briefly. Then it dawned on me that the Caps gave him a gift that was better than anything they would've done this spring. By losing like CHOKING DOGS in the first round, they spared Andre's heart from any additional stress as he recovers from this surgery. No need to tax that muscle anymore, we can wait for spring of 2011 for that.

Speaking of the Bruins, here's one of many of their stellar ads. Kay I know you're not a hockey fan but I think you'll like this.

Chain tension

While I was bloviating yesterday about how great single speed bikes are, I forgot one minor detail. Chain tension.

Almost had a "call home to get picked up" type of day, as my chain came off not once but twice. These ENO eccentric hubs, while very cool, are finicky if you don't get the rotation dialed in properly. Second time was the charm.



And it was nice to have some of the clubmates stop by as I was resetting the whole smash on the side of the road, as Paulie V, Karim, and Phil P. were out on this beautiful afternoon.

I was also thinking that the hipster fixie and single speed culture that has been hijacked by the big manufacturers is akin to stone-washed jeans, "distressed" furniture, and most things retro. Did you hear that? That was late 2007 calling me to ask for its cultural criticism back. I don't have new thoughts.

Back to the commute. Two blocks away from home the Dallas Ave ruffians were running willy nilly through the streets, so as I watched them traverse the street with oncoming traffic for the third time I made sure to yell at them in my best grumpy voice that next time I saw them making bad decisions I'd call their parents. Last thing I want to do is call anyone's parents, but I fully expect a call if my kids do something to sully themselves.

I do enjoy yelling at other people's kids, though. Something about making them feel that there are eyes on them all the time, even when they think they're pulling one over on us. Takes a village, right?

Hipster script

There's a bike shop near my office that sells reaaalllly expensive bikes, but then again, most shops do. In the effort to capture as much of a broad marketshare as possible, bike shops jump on the bandwagons that bring in the cash. While feeding fads in the short term, the products are so contrived as to be date stamped by their own style.

Fixies have been on the fringes of cycling since the eighties, when Kevin Bacon made courier chic, well, chic.



[Even though his "fixie" had a freewheel body, but that's like Bruce Willis using Pacific Bell telephones at Dulles Airport...details, details]. In the past 10 years or so fixies and single speed bikes have been in vogue as "edgy" ways to ride two wheels. I can't hold a candle to the written social criticism surrounding this culture, so I won't even try.

My teenager just entered his third year of teenagerism, so we decided to get him a bike that doesn't require the seatpost to be way past the minimum insertion point and a drivetrain that is orange with rust. As he rides his bike to school everyday and spins around the neighborhood just as often, a new ride was, and is, the perfect gift. We settled on a single speed Bianchi which is delightful in its simplicity and will give him years of service--the drivetrains and suspension systems of bikes geared (get it?) toward the Axe smelling crowd usually results in creaky, maladjusted, dilapidated bikes within a year, and that's just criminal. The best thing about this ride, though, is the non-obnoxious style of the bike itself. It's a Bianchi. It doesn't sport the dominant color, Celeste #227, though there is a small highlight on the top tube and the graphics are classic Bianchi bold. World Championship stripes at a few key locations. It's a bike that's meant to be ridden and used.

It doesn't have this:



Or this:



The suffocatingly unctuous cursive graphics on the Pinarello, coupled with the track bars and the half rubberized grips and the color coordinated deep rims on the Raleigh scream "phony baloney". I could go on and on, but that's done to so much greater effect here. And actually the bikes are overall not that bad, there's just something so irritating about the marketing efforts behind the designs...

Adding the Bianchi to our family stable made me re-think the configuration of one of my bikes, the one that I built when I succumbed to the fixie fad about 4 years ago. I converted my old Giant Cadex racing frame into a fixed gear machine with an Eno eccentric hub and some bullhorn bars. I enjoyed riding it for awhile. I perched on it and took the picture, with the sun behind me, of my shadow that is the masthead of this here blog. But then I didn't ride it for a long time. It just wasn't quite the right bike for itself.

Until last week, when I added a single speed freewheel and converted the stem and bars to their original configuration. Now it's a sweet singlespeed commuter, and suddenly I'm commuting again, on the bike. Which may be the domino that tips a bunch of other dominoes that may straighten some things out personally for me, since the last 18 months or so have been weird, as I have written. Or not.

Regardless, it's a great feeling to be able to commute to work on two wheels in the same amount of time as it takes in a 4 wheeled cage, with that much more clarity due to a short spin before and after work.