Easter Saturday

We never bought a video game console until the Wii came out. It was a way to save myself from myself, as I was a bit of an arcade rat as a teenager and was addicted to Defender, among other games.

Those graphics are so AWESOME!

So now we have a Wii, and no doubt we all have seen innumerable YouTube videos showing the destruction wrought by inadvertent handling of the Wii remote (which is why they have straps now, which should ostensibly be used). Very funny in a "haha boy that's funny I can't imagine what it must feel like to have a piece of disposable electronic equipment become toast" sort of way.

Well that destruction visited our house this weekend. Being Easter weekend and all, families converged on our abode to visit and relax, eat and drink, and have the good times that families have, often magnified by the holiday (Thanksgiving comes to mind). So my nephew was bowling against my teenager, the latter of whom rolled a gutter ball (WHO ROLLS GUTTER BALLS IN WII BOWLING???) but that's another story which will be played out later in life, as he will be irreparably damaged by my criticism from failing in one frame of a fake video bowling game.

I digress. My nephew, who (or is it whom?) I love very much, and is named after me (only in his first name, and I think that was not intentional), was rolling some intense frames against Mr. Gutter Ball. His younger sister, who has a propensity to bother him in a most exacting manner, pushed him, which threw him off his motion and led to the unfortunate loss of grip of the remote, amidst much yelling and other consternation. Since none of this happened in slow motion, the resultant sturm und drang became the highlight of the day, as John was quite upset about destroying our TV and at one point would have gladly exchanged his sister for the TV. Therein lay the daily lesson where we told an 8 year old the major differences between people and things, and how they cannot be equated, and that his uncle and aunt were not really angry, because accidents happen. He's the type of boy that needs to process these thoughts and emotions for awhile before moving on to the next adventure.

So here's what the destroyed TV looks like now:

I know. If my iPhone had a better camera function, one would still not be able to see the tiny scratch a bit northwest of the centerpoint of the screen which looks so innocuous to the naked eye...until you turn on the TV, thusly:

Pretty cool. The emanation of the impact point is quite evident here. Unfortunately it's kind of hard to watch hockey and the Tur day Fraaaance when the technicolor dreamcoat is draping the screen like some sort of psychedelic Etch-a-Sketch.

So after everyone left I thought briefly about Lenten sacrifices (briefly) and then went to Best Buy and bought a new TV. I've been meaning to get one, as my eyes have been failing me as I age, so the obvious solution was to spend the money I would put into glasses on a new hi-def instead.

Priorities, ya know. You can't live a solid life without 'em.

First time ever

This may be the spring of firsts. It also may not, but I am guardedly and cautiously optimistic.

Caps beat the Pens tonight, and by doing so swept them in their season series for the first time ever. First time they've earned the President's Trophy too. And while they were at the 1998 Cup finals, they will hopefully celebrate another first sometime in June.

It'll take 3 divisional and conference series sets to get there, but I am guardedly and cautiously optimistic that it will happen.

It's already been 5 years...

Tour of Flanders was yesterday. The Ronde Van Vlaanderen. I happened to turn on the live stream when Boonen and Cancellara made their escape and battled it out over the last 40K. Didn't watch the rest 'cause it was Easter Sunday and we needed to leave for church. Such is the life of a lapsed Catholic.

Such a great race, and emblematic of the Belgian mania for hard racing.

Went back to the archives to find a posting I placed on my club's listserve about my journey to see these classics:

From April 2005:

I thought I'd share a few of my experiences from my recent trip to
Belgium. As some of you know, I was able to coordinate a family trip
to Belgium on the exact week as the Tour of Flanders, Ghent Wevelgem,
and Paris Roubaix. My wife had lived in Belgium as a teenager and
always wanted to go back to visit. Her spring break was 2 weeks
before our trip, the kids' spring break was a week before the trip,
and mine was whenever I wanted SO WE DID IT WHEN I COULD SEE 3 SPRING
CLASSICS EVERYONE ELSE'S SCHEDULE BE DAMNED. Oh, and the family
vacation was fun too.

I'm not THAT selfish, but if you ever get the opportunity, go to
Belgium and see a spring classic, any spring classic. I met
Americans at every race, the Belgian fans were passionate and
friendly, and the locals in Roubaix (which is a decent sized city)
were helpful. We stayed in an apartment in Brussels and I took the
train to small towns that were way off the beaten path. If only we
had a train system in this country that was as efficient...oops, this
country is about 50 times the size of Belgium, so that's asking a bit
much.

The way it broke down was I saw the finish of Flanders, the start and
finish of G-W, and the finish of P-R. Without renting a car or being
in a British cycle tour, seeing starts and finishes was pretty much
the way to go, because you can see the riders up close, the team
cars, the buses, the mechanics, etc. There's also plenty of food
(frites and waffles and bratwurst type sausages) and beer and more
beer. I got some decent video, and in Wevelgem while I was waiting
the finish we watched local amateurs compete in a circuit race
through the small downtown area.

It was a Belgian week, as Boonen won the big ones and Nico Mattan won
Wevelgem emotionally only miles from his hometown. The scenes after
the races was controlled chaos, as the riders would book back to the
team buses, leave the bikes for the mechanics, and get on. If there
were no media obligations or other distractions, that bus was outa
there once it was loaded up. The Discovery bus was always at the end
of the line, ready to roll.

Some of the Americans I met were there to watch the races or ride
parts of the courses...I mostly met families; a father/son combo from
South Carolina that wore matching Postal kits; a traditional unit
from Houston (both former Cat 4's) with 2 year old boy and 6 month
old girl tagging along; fresh out of college dude with mom and dad
from Wisconsin, drinking beer and riding parts of the Tour of
Flanders course. I also met a guy from somewhere in the midwest who
was studying climatology and went to the finish at Flanders because
he had never seen a race and wanted to check out the fuss. He
noticed that I spoke English and that I was gesturing with a Flemish
guy about how to get to the finish from the train station, so he
tagged along. So as we walked to the town sponsoring the finish, the
three of us could communicate because I spoke English and bikin',
Flemish guy spoke Flemish and bikin', and climatologist spoke English
and Flemish. So by the time we got to the finish area Flemish guy
went to look for his mates and we watched the last 50K on the giant
diamond vision screen and saw Boonen roll in to the roaring crowds
and the Flemish lion flags and banners. WOW.

Got many more stories, but I thought I'd fill you all in on a pretty
cool trip, one that I've wanted to take since I saw this mag called
Winning with Sean Kelly on the cover winning Paris Roubaix--it's
everything I thought it would be.

Yeah it was pretty cool. Five years ago already. Time do fly.

Bruuuuuuce!

Sometime in 1975 or thereabouts my dad took me and some other Cub Scouts to the Cap Centre to watch Washington's hockey team play the Atlanta Flames. It was not memorable except that it was a giveaway day, and the team doled out wooden hockey sticks with the old Caps logo on a red stick. I think I broke the stick that week playing street hockey in the alley with Bobby Blanchard and Rusty Strasburger and it's now just another bric in the brac of my memory.

I'm not into autographs or collectibles, and most of the stuff they give away at pro sports games is cheap junk anyway. What we get out of going to games is that opportunity to be at a communal event with thousands of others. While the hassle of getting to sports venues often taints the entire experience (Redskins at Raljon), going to the Verizon Center on the Metro is by far a great journey, both bland in routine and giddy in anticipation for the event, lately the event being a Caps game.

So when I'm not lucky enough to get a ticket from my friends/family (thanks Kurt, Bill, Tim, Justin, and the boys at Meridian Construction), I get to watch it at home with the fam. And while we pretend to be knowitalls about a game NONE of us have ever played, we are unmatched in our knowledge of the nuances of the DC metro areas most talented dramatic actor, Bruce Boudreau:

Notice the timing as he leans back when he sees the "cup holder" here. OK for his first attempt.

Since he's a Canuck, listen for the "eh" here, at about 0:21. This one in particular is pretty lame, since there's not enough Bruce.

"There just aren't the words". Much better.

"I'm what you call 'fiscally conservative'." Definitely on the upswing.

and of course, "You HAD me at no problem." When we start mixing in pop culture references to popular movies, we're definitely trending upward.

The rest of his ads are nothing to shake a stick at.

Karen thinks I watch too much TV. Yathink?

Debacle

Some say that the definition of insanity is to approach a situation the same way every time and expect a different result. My current definition of insanity is to approach a lifestyle challenge in a manner that I KNOW will result in a less than positive outcome, all the while expecting a more rosy result.

To wit: A few days ago, I participated in the GamJams CompuTrainer Throwdown at Conte's Bike Shop in Bethesda. This was a Saturday morning, typically spent on the road with a group of like minded individuals spending quality time on two wheels. Of course, the snow and, previous to the storms, apathy prevented me from getting in some quality road miles, and I've been limited to some spinning on the trainer indoors, with no real structure or purpose other than trying to keep the legs moving.

When it comes to "preparing" for "competition", that doesn't really cut it.

Without going into any details, my performance was pretty abysmal. It was worse than even I thought it could be, even though I enjoyed (???) the process, the geeky technology, the ability to "virtually" race, though the sucking was a reality. And what's almost comforting is that I knew it going in, and knew that I would be up against some pretty motivated people, whose strength was not so much drawn from their fitness but from their sheer desire, or will, to be uncomfortable for a short time. The guy I raced with beat me by 3 minutes, an almost 10% difference in this short course. Seemed like a nice fellow, certainly new to this aspect of the sport (told me he raced BMX, so not that new), and definitely more energetic. Wish I could've offered him a greater challenge, but I didn't. On the bright side, I got to see James P. and Dave K., who rode in the earlier heat, two of many that I've met over the years due to this shared interest.

The benefits gained from getting to know a few new people with similar interests on a cold Saturday morning far outweighs the insanity that I sometimes put myself through as I spin my hampster wheel. I think that there's a strange logic to extracting acquaintances and cementing friendships out of this strangely sociopathic sport. Kind of like how a heat pump works: it extracts heat out of the cold air to warm the interior of a house via the compression cycle. Whaaaaaa? I don't know either. It just works that way.

Maroon Seven

I'm sitting at work today, after a (not unexpected) long commute in due to the constriction of lanes because of plowed snow, and I get a call on my cell from a number that I don't recognize.

"Hi Johnny, sorry to call you at work. It's Tom H......."

"Tom H......." Flashing through the dwindling memory bank. Nametoface, nametoface, doesnotcompute.

"Maroon Seven" he says helpfully.

"What's UP Tom!" He rides a maroon colored Seven, a beautiful titanium steed, and when I'm riding on a regular basis, I see him once a week, at least. Although he and I usually see each other in silly lycra costumes with dopey looking styrofoam lids, fat old geezers (or soon to be) who just like to ride, sometimes fast. Takes a few more clicks to recognize my riding buddies, especially out of context, but it comes through.

Anyway he called for some professional advice about the worrisome pile of snow on his roof, about to get more worrisome with the abundance that is falling as I type this. He wanted to know if he should risk climbing on his roof to get as much as he could off before more piles on. I got the particulars ('60's rambler, trussed roof), and told him he was probably OK, but I'd check around with my colleague and a couple of structural engineers, as collapsed roofs tend to happen when epic snowfalls occur.

The short answer was that he has nothing to worry about until the snow gets to about 4' deep on his roof and it starts to rain. The nice thing about building codes is that they account for serious record-breaking conditions upon which to base simple life-saving design principles--in our area it's snow loads of 30 pounds per square foot for basic wood construction, and even hillbilly construction complies most of the time. OK so there were a few collapses around the region, but they were mostly flat roofs and there are exceptions to every rule, especially when you're dealing with gravity. Just look at my gut.

So of course I HAD to use my bicycle wheel analogy about trusses, in which the individual members (2 x 4 studs or 14 gauge wires) are flimsy but when integrated and properly connected and made rigid via a diaghram or tensile construction, they are incredibly strong structures that resist vertical and lateral loads very efficiently. Kind of like the Washington Redskins, though they aren't integrated or properly connected at all.

Back to Tom. He's a pretty amazing guitarist:

Double treat

Two Caps games in two days. That doesn't happen often, but I'll take those opportunities when they come. Same goes for seeing old friends. My friend Tim was at both games, and having only seen him a coupla times in the past decade, it was great to catch up twice in a week.

The best thing about old friends is the ability to just pick up where we left off once before.

Tim and I used to train together. Not in an overtly serious fashion, but working in a bike shop with him and putting in some road miles, going to a few races, it adds a dimension to friendship, like any shared experience. So after finding our different paths, we would always have something to talk about when we would see each other at weddings or when he was in town. He kept on training, and eventually became a Cat 2. I kept on eating and would be a Cat 6, if that category existed. Category 2's race with professionals. 'Nuff said.

Icing on the cake was that the Caps won both games.