When Nature Attacks!

Today I was surprised to see a red tail hawk in the parking lot just across from the entrance to my office. The bird was in the process of dismembering some sort of small mammal, maybe a rat. I heard later that the hawk picked up the animal, carried it on to a nearby car, pooped on the car, then flew off. Awesome. Even more awesome when I learned that the car belongs to our esteemed union president.

This has nothing to do with that...

One's sense of smell has a powerful ability to induce nostalgia. I just walked into the hallway here at work and was overwhelmed by the odor of grilled food and cleaning products. Presumably this is a sign of good things going on at the cafe down the hall, but it also sent me immediately back to Chatterley's, in New Hartford, CT. I spent many an evening (too many, in hindsight) in that bar. Every time I walked in there I would smell the grill (mmm... cheeseburgers...), smell the cleaner they used on the bar, and smell the stale, musty spilled beer. They don't serve beer here at the Foundry, but the other two smells are strong enough to make my mind conjure up the beer stench anyway...

Nature

On the ride in this morning I observed a cat chasing a squirrel. The squirrel looked like it was working a lot harder than the cat...

Chilly today, almost like fall for real.

New Paradigm

I'm surprised I haven't seen this around here before...

Yesterday I stopped at the market on my way home for the purpose of buying some milk. I was not riding but rather combining trips. Anyway, when I walked out, I saw a bike in the rack with an Xtracycle conversion kit! The cargo bike revolution has come to town... maybe.

I'm sorely tempted to buy a long bike, like a Kona Ute or a Surly Big Dummy, but I still haven't solved the home-storage issue. I'll have to give it some thought. I also just got my car tax bill from the city... yet another encouragement to find another way.

Football?!? Or, how it is extremely difficult to travel to Gillette Stadium by any means other than by car

Yes, it's still August, but there are already professional football games going on. Tonight, the Eagles will play the Patriots at nearby Gillette Stadium. My sister's boyfriend has season tickets for the Pats and he has generously offered a few seats so we can go see this game. Apparently among true football fans the preseason games aren't so interesting so the tickets are usually given away or sold at a steep discount. The face value for our tickets is $117 or some such nonsense but we'll be dropping a mere $50 per. Seems crazy to me but the NFL is big business even when it's not the real season.

But that's not what is annoying.

How does one travel to Gillette Stadium? One drives, of course! Unless, that is, you have reservations about the whole scenario, be it the $40 parking fee, the traffic, the hassle, whatever. The other option is to take the train. The MBTA, in partnership with the Patriots, operates a special train on game days. Sports fans can travel from Providence or South Station in Boston right to the stadium. And by "right to the stadium" I mean "somewhere nearby, surely within a day's walk." Perhaps I'm complaining prematurely, we'll see. I've never been there.

That's not the annoying thing either.

The annoying thing is the list of restrictions on what one can travel with on this train, and subsequently carry into the stadium. My original plan was to ride my bike to the train station, lock up, jump on the train and be good to go. This would involve me carrying a messenger bag to stash my helmet and a jacket. Maybe a couple beers... but for consumption as road sodas, not to smuggle into the stadium (I'll surely drink a few $9 Bud Lights once there, don't want to withhold my money from Mr. Kraft). Problem is, carrying a bag like that into the stadium is prohibited! Blast! Thank you Department of Homeland Security! I feel safer already. Anyway, if I have nowhere other than on my head to carry my helmet, etc., it makes riding to the station more of a drag. Waaaaah. So, instead, I'll take the bus. While I still can. RIPTA is broke and going broker. It'll add some time to my trip and increase my walking mileage, but I'll manage. Somehow.

So it will be a public transportation adventure, involving uncertain scheduling, disorientation, alcohol, and rowdy sports fans. What could possibly go wrong?

Fall preview

Today it was cool enough on the ride in for my eyes to water when I was going fast. It amuses me to imagine what drivers I see at the stop light must think. "Huh, that guy must be crying because he doesn't have a car."

Or, more likely, they don't even notice.

Today's idiot

As I rounded the final corner of my ride in this morning, I saw that the parking lot shuttle bus was ahead of me and was stopping right in front of the doorway to the office. This is not unusual as the bus is, after all, a means for the lazy people who drive to work to avoid walking that last 100 yards or so from the parking lot to the building. It happens that the bus always stops in such a way as to completely block the ramp up on to the sidewalk. This means I have to dismount in the street or, as I usually do, hop the curb to finish my ride. No problem, although I do think it's rude for the bus driver to park in such an obstructive manner.

Today, I zoomed up behind the bus, hopped the curb, and dismounted. As this was happening, I noticed the bus driver dismounting from his fine steed. This is also not unusual as the driver is a fat man who frequently interrupts his work to buy coffee or dispose of the coffee he has already consumed. Today, the timing was such that I opened the office door just in front of the driver who, as I've already indicated, parked so as to rudely block the entrance. As I passed through the second door I just continued on, not bothering to hold the door. The fat bus driver was behind me by enough that I didn't think I was violating some law of etiquette by not waiting. Mr. Driver Man at this point says to me, "Thanks!", just dripping with sarcasm.

HA! Thanks to you, Fat Man, for parking your lazy person's ferry in the way of everyone else! How dare you imply I'm rude when you, in fact, have been recently even more rude! I will NOT hold the door for you until you learn to pull ahead one bus-length before dismounting for your coffee-and-pee break. STOP BLOCKING THE RAMP!

And this is just another small example of the indignities suffered while riding a bicycle for transportation.

So Tired...

I woke up from an anxiety-induced dream at 5 this morning. As often happens under this circumstance, I was wide awake. I briefly considered getting up and exercising, but since it was 5 a.m. I put myself back to bed. When the alarm went off an hour later I had a difficult time getting up. In fact, it took me a solid half hour to get to the point where I felt like I was truly awake. I forced myself to go through my exercise regimen but it felt bad. From this experience (and numerous others like it) I believe that sleep cycles are real and have a huge impact on how I feel. Despite getting around 8 hours of sleep last night I still feel fatigued. I can get more sleep but it's for naught and I feel like crap if I wake in the wrong part of a sleep cycle. Alternately, I can get very little sleep but if I wake up on my own, at the appropriate end of a cycle, I feel good.

So... the next time I wake up at a ridiculous hour of the morning, maybe I'll just get up and start my day. Let's see what happens. If I was awake at 5 I would even have time for a quick road ride before work. How fun would that be? Ripping around town on my bike while idiots drive to work, fat and zombie-like... Anyway, we'll see how things work out. My schedule over the next few days will keep me up later than I'd prefer so this may or may not come to anything for awhile. Getting rid of Luther will require efficient use of my time and the early morning might provide opportunities.

A post in 2008?

Insert here the groaning sound Krusty the Clown makes each time he realizes what an incompetent entertainer he is... As I myself realize what an incompetent blogger I am. "You're supposed to write in the thing!" they tell me. I see.

Well, it's just that I've been too busy trying to recover the cycling conditioning I had a month ago. I spent the last week figuring out which way is up after taking the previous two weeks to go sailing in Maine. By "sailing" I actually mean "motoring through the rain with the sails up", but that's neither here nor there. The week prior to the aforementioned trip, I was packing and preparing. Mostly I was not riding.

I had been doing a fair bit of mountain biking and was feeling pretty solid about my conditioning and my meager skills. I rode Lincoln Woods a couple times and not only didn't break myself, I even discovered a couple of new trails to mix up my typical route. I also spent an afternoon getting semi-lost in the dust of Big River. I rode fast and I rode well. Back in early July I had a ride in Arcadia that was borderline epic. Started with brutal suffering on the Mt. Tom trail, then amazing riding on the Arcadia trail and some others I don't know by name, then finished with a log (not a stick, a full-on log) going through my rear derailleur on the Breakheart Trail. How appropriate... Truly satisfying adventures, all.

Then, along comes a wonderful vacation and mucks it all up. In life we take two steps forward and then sometimes one step back. So, to recover from my vacation I've been trying to ride more frequently and I've even started running on the days I don't ride. We'll see how long this lasts but it's fun to say. "Yes, I've started running. I figure if I actually train for the Mews 5k in November I'll kick everybody's ass..."

The real reason has nothing to do with the Mews 5k, the Blackstone River Greenway Challenge, or any other vaguely competitive mess of an adventure. Instead it's because I have discovered a new friend. I call him Luther and he lives around my waist. He sprang into existence sometime recently but I'm not sure exactly when. He feeds mostly on beer and cheese and inactivity. Other people tend not to notice Luther, but I always see him. Perhaps it's because of the angle I'm viewing him from. Luther is literally weighing me down, but he's also now fueling my bicycling. And my running. It's crazy. I have a new appreciation for how easy it must be for women to develop body image issues. I weigh myself once, discover that I've bulked up to 181 pounds, and all of a sudden I'm trying to be Mr. Fitness. Crazy. All I want is to be able to jump on a bike and ride it with some competence and not feel like I'm going to puke while it's happening.

It's not that bad, but there's work to do...