45 years...and counting

One day in July of 1964 a man got on a plane in Argentina and made a long trip north, to the west coast of the U S of A. He then boarded another plane and skipped across the Pacific, via Hawaii and Guam, to arrive in Manila, the Philippine Islands. Tracking northward from the southern hemisphere and then westward across a vast ocean was a long trip in those days...long, not so comfortable, noisy, bumpy, as jets were only in commercial air service for 6 years by this time. In the two trips I've made to the Philippines in the past 10 years from the east coast I've always counted on 30 hours, real bed to real bed. It's a tiring trip even now, and considering that this man travelled the two legs of a triangle to get there, it must have been even more taxing then.

Arriving in Manila wasn't the end of the journey, however. He still had to negotiate a flight to one of the Visayan Islands by going to the domestic terminal in the sweltering heat, the unruly crowds, the strange smells and cacophonous noise. The stewardess on the plane passed around a basket which had a hand lettered sign requesting that all firearms be deposited for the duration of the flight--you'll get your gun back when you land. The last leg of the trip was coming to an end.

Several days of parties welcomed this stranger to a strange land, a loving family willing to take him in, dozens of siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and relatives of the woman he was to marry. They met in college here at Georgetown U, fell in love, and decided to spend the rest of time together. The wedding was beautiful, and from all accounts a lavish party. I only see it from the black and white filter of the wedding album that my sisters and I would look at when we were younger.

But while virtually every wedding that I know of is populated by relatively equal numbers of family from both sides of the aisle, this man was literally the only person from his family at his wedding. It was financially not possible for anyone in his family from Braddock Pa. make this trip, and while finances were a major limitation, I'm certain that the culture shock and journey into the unknown was as much of a deterrent. Travel just wasn't very facile those days, and certainly not for such a long distance to such an exotic place. His best man was one of my uncles, and in case he got cold feet legend has is that one of the relatives known for his proclivity to be less than faithful to his wife had a car and plane on standby for an escape. I think this was exaggerated family lore, and due to sound decision making on dad's part I am able to recount all of this.

This is a staggering concept, to travel such long distances, to commit so fully to someone that you trust that you willingly leave the umbrella of safety and comfort that your own family offers. To become a member of a new family halfway across the world required an enormous leap of faith and a journey far more precipitous in what was then unknown.

Thanks Mom and Dad for making that leap, and HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

Ouch

I've never been a good descender. My panic speed is low; I hit 49.8 MPH coming down into Charlottesville from Crozet 21 years ago, almost to the day. That's the fastest I've ever travelled on 2 wheels, and I couldn't quite get it up over 50 as the bike started feeling odd, and I backed off.

It was a great summer of training, riding, racing--I was done with the charade of graduate school, in which I learned that I'm much more of a history buff than a historian. I also realized that year that if I wanted to teach in the public school system I would have to spend another year or so learning stuff that I thought I already knew. These were necessary lessons that diverted me from a life of academia and enabled me to satisfy the urge to own a bike shop out of my system. A couple more years of that and I realized that it was just retail, and I didn't want to work on weekends, or fix other people's bikes, or sell.

So instead I became an architect, which means that I (sometimes) work on weekends, sell professional services, and grind along like everyone else. I'm paid to draw and solve problems, sometimes getting to design some pretty cool stuff.

So back to descending. The skill required, the lack of fear, the ability to trust centripetal forces and coax your center of gravity into the right position, to clamp your knees onto the top tube to quiet the shimmy at 45 MPH+, to quell the gnawing thoughts that just one stone can turn your knifelike profile into an uncontrollable wobbly mass of skin on pavement, all of these qualities I don't quite have nailed down. I do most of them well, but not well enough to make up time lost on a climb, which is guaranteed, since it's even harder to lug two bucks worth of body mass around on a bike these days. My mind is weak, and I can't convince the rest of me to take those chances anymore.

Which is why watching Jens Voight's crash in today's tour stage so chilling. Probably the hardest man in the sport today, he was helpless when body and bike conspired to collapse under him while thundering down the Petit Saint Bernard. I've never seen anyone SKID ON THEIR FACE at 55+ MPH. I hope to never see that again.

He's a tough dude. He'll be back. Not in this race, but soon.

Movie night

It's been a while, but we did the movie night thing, preceded with beers and eats at the local pub. Finding a slice of time during the summer evenings to just hang out with some friends.

We usually meet in Silver Spring, but The Hurt Locker is on limited release, so we saw it in Bethesda. Worked out for me, as I stayed late at work to finish a proposal and joined the boys before the late show.

Walking to the theater from the pub we saw a big raccoon dumpster diving in one of the street garbage cans, right next to people eating dinner al fresco. I tried to get a picture of the little beast, but he was too quick for me. I should have gotten pictures of the horrified diners who watched Rocky slink back into the storm sewer.

Intense movie, that Hurt Locker. Awesome, actually.

Skim coat

One more layer of mud is all I need before getting to paint this thing. The bathroom that just won't end actually has a light at the end of its tunnel. Nothing like the pressure of a shindig at our place this Saturday eve to kick me into subcontractor mode. It's not like our half-finished family room isn't hillbilly enough--at least the bathroom will have all of its pieces and parts painted and trimmed...for the most part.

Kind of like the situation at work lately. Lots of things half done, not quite finished, and since there is little work on the horizon it seems that finishing projects translates into looking down the steep precipice of who knows what. But we gotta finish to send out invoices, so the machine trudges along.

Sad news from one of my friends in architecture school. One of our profs succumbed to brain cancer after battling the cancer that had started in his lungs. This guy was quite cerebral, entertaining, imposing, and quirky, qualities that I always admired. He taught theory and was a great critic, always intertwining Italian modernism and Renaissance/Baroque architecture, among other things, when commenting on the dreck that we presented to him as we stumbled along, learning in lurches. I'll always appreciate his discussion of the "moment" on a facade, that instant when the composition finds its balance, is inevitable, and just right. But even more memorable is the mundane moment at the Circuit City, when the salesman was showing him just how vibrant this TV was, he interrupted him and said "I don't care what it looks like when it's on. I only care what it looks like when it's off."

RIP, Tom Schumacher.

Getting dropped

It's been a woeful year for me on the bike, if all I'm looking at is numbers. Otherwise it's been OK, as the few that I have logged in this year have all been memorable, in their own ways. By now I usually have a couple of thousand miles in my legs (based on 100 mile weeks over 6 months, give or take a few low mileage or no mileage weeks). The weekly club rides are never a problem when my base is laid.

I MAYBE have 350 miles in this year, if I'm charitable. It's no wonder that I'm being dropped like a bad habit on rides that normally are easy. In recent years (and especially when I tried to race), getting dropped was usually a trigger of increasing self-doubt and teeth gnashing which begat all kinds of lame conversation with whoever would listen to the self-loathing. As I hate to hear that as much as the next person, I try to clam up when the discussion of in-season form comes up during the small talk. It's all hollow.

Getting dropped often this year, however, has been kind of liberating. I'm not going to be involved in the animated competition that takes place during the rides because I simply can't hang right now. This is a brutal sport, in which one needs to train consistently hard just to suck. Riding alone gives me ample opportunity to resolve things bangin' around my head, of which there has been a lot of activity lately.

A couple memorable moments from my few rides this year, and lessons learned.

1. Don't eat 4 chorizo breakfast burritos before riding from Herndon to Silver Spring via Poolesville. The demands of the GI tract are much louder and more irrational than most human urges, and certainly harder to control voluntarily. I started that ride with arm warmers; I no longer have those in my wardrobe.

2. When embarking on the annual century with the intention of riding only half of it, I plan on paying attention to where I am so that I don't end up riding 20 miles shy of the 100. While I didn't bonk, I cramped in muscles that were buried in other muscles, numerous times. Stupid is as stupid does.

3. Realize that getting dropped in places where I used to lose contact when I started riding seriously again 5 years ago is because I'm at about the same form now that I was then.

Duh.

MORE FUN/BLACK SUN

One of the most worn cassettes that I played in the '82 Corolla over and over was my 90 minute Maxell with the third and fourth albums by X on each side. More Fun In the New World was more slickly produced and therefore more commercially successful, but the one that sticks with me, speaks to me, marks a shift in the way I looked at things and never gets old was Under The Big Black Sun.




I was a freshman in college in 1984 and my hallmate was practicing his bass on "The Have Nots", the last song on the album. Something about the dischordant harmonies was oddly attractive, and soon addictive. I could turn this passage into an homage to John, Exene, Billy, and DJ but suffice it to say that there's enough of that out there. While their first two albums were even more raw and energetic, there was something about Black Sun that allows me to discover something new every time I hear it. From these 4 albums X put together a set at the 9:30 Club last month that just may be the last time they all play together as a band. I'm glad I got to see them, after many failed attempts.

This is especially helpful when I'm in one of those morose funks that I find myself in every once in a while, about "lost opportunities" and "what could have been," despite the fact that I have everything I want in front of me. Just writing also helps me process these green thoughts, and two solid days of riding this weekend should dispense of the rest of the accumulated flotsam and jetsam of the feeble mind.

That ability to dissipate the negative energy has been missing for much of this year, so that's gotta change now. And 'cross season is just 2 months away.

Pandora's box

Look, don't look. A simple choice can alter one's day significantly.

Sometimes it's better to let sleeping dogs lie.

This is purposely cryptic to remind me of a lesson I learned today. I've found that looking back over this journal has done what I originally intended it to do, which is to stave off memory loss that is part and parcel with the accretion of years that seem to glide past with ever increasing frequency.

So one day I'll look back, read this entry and remember what it's like to lose perspective for about half a day.

Idiots

There is a bike lane on Woodmont Avenue in Bethesda, the portion that is one way with a gentle curve and a nice consistent 3-5% grade in the direction of travel. Before the bike lane was painted, it was a common sight to see cars swooping down into the lower Bethesda business district (also known as Snootytown or Caucasia) at speeds higher than warranted. Our office is perched above these lanes, perfectly positioned to watch the mayhem unfold. Other than a few fender benders, we've seen nothing worse.

That will change soon, especially if idiots use the bike lanes and roadway in ways that I am seeing with saddening regularity.

Typically people roll down this bonus lane in the direction that the arrows are pointing, something one learns early in life. Instead I see, on a daily basis, certain people "salmon" up the lanes opposing the established traffic route, which are determined by

a. the established vehicular traffic pattern on a one way street

b. the painted markings which do not require literacy skills to understand.

Clowns are putting their own lives in danger, and even worse, the lives of cyclists rolling down the lanes in keeping with the direction intended.

But what I saw today (though not the first time) were two cyclists salmoning up the bike lane, and where it ended (or began, if moving in the proper direction of travel), chose to continue riding against traffic IN THE VEHICULAR LANE WHILE THEY COULD HAVE USED THE SIDEWALK FOR A SHORT STRETCH (oh that's right--not cool to ride on sidewalk--and actually lot legal in some places, but certainly more legal than riding against traffic...). Stultifyingly and astoundingly stupid, as while their actions have a direct relationship to their proclivity to maim or kill themselves, by their actions they add another brick in the wall of hatred between vehicles and bikes, making it harder for the rest of us.

Not to say that I never do stupid stuff on the road, I'd like to think that I have about half or even one ounce of awareness. Not a lot, but something...