Siri - What The???

Siri actually seems to get most of what I say but today when asking to remind me to pick up my pants at the taylor on Wednesday afternoon, she(it?) came up with this:

OK, I may have had the music a bit too loud but for the record, I'll not be bobbing Lola for physical, logical or conceptual and need no reminder of what he do or don't do do do.

Little or no original content

I'm a public radio kind of guy yet a few years back when faced with unplanned unemployment, I signed up for Google AdSense in hopes of generating a few nickels.

Then I sort of forgot about it.

Until, that is, Google sent a note explaining they had disabled my ad feed for policy violation #66361.

Turns out my crime was having "Little or no original content". It's a sad comment but true given the current fullness of my plate. Grad school takes a lot of time to do well and there's no point if you don't do well. I also still get in a fair amount of riding so the blog has suffered.

I'm OK with that.

So since I'm not living up to the incredibly low standards required to have ads anyway, I'm returning to my values and running an ad-free format.

Oh, I'll still feature little or no original content just a little less of it.

Go ride your friggin' bike.

Not so epic

CAMBA's Namakagon Cluster - IMBA Epic

It's the pinnacle

My mountain biking season

Now IMBA epic

Hard to find sometimes

Impossible not to love

Yes, that is the trail

Cars - Dramatically more deadly than war

From an interview by NPR's Scott Simon of Mike Hawley, formerly of MIT's Media Lab and Principal Engineer on the NeXT computer with Steve Jobs:

Hawley: Well, let's just put a number on it, a sort of a glib number. The grand total of U.S. automotive fatalities from 1975 to the present, about one and a half million people. Now, the grand total of U.S. fatalities from 1775 to the present in every military conflict we've had is 1.3 million. So in other words, in the last roughly 35 years we've killed more people with cars than we have in more than 300 years of warfare.

Just in case the death toll from automobiles wasn't bad enough, we are at war to keep the things on the road with cheap gas. What are we thinking here?

I'm thinking we could do well to encourage more of these to hit the road and reduce the number of cars.

Gradual School

Walt: Daddy what's gradual school? 
T. S. Garp: What? 
Walt: Gradual school. Mommy say's she teaches at gradual school. 
T. S. Garp: Oh Gradual school is where you go to school and you gradually find out you don't want to go to school anymore. 

Changes in the wind

Changes in the wind
Education comes around
I'll be tardy here

FAA Shutdown

From the New York Times:

The partial F.A.A. shutdown, which began July 23 and is likely to continue at least through Labor Day, has also idled tens of thousands of construction workers on airport projects around the country. Dozens of airport inspectors have been asked by the F.A.A. to work without pay and to charge their government travel expenses to their personal credit cards to keep airports operating safely.

Air traffic controllers, who are paid with separate funds, will continue to work. Ray LaHood, the transportation secretary, said he firmly believed that passenger safety was not at risk. “No safety issues will be compromised,” he told reporters on a conference call. “Flying is safe. Air traffic controllers are guiding airplanes. Safety inspectors are on duty and are doing their job. No one needs to worry about safety.”

So as long as the airport safety inspectors are willing to work for free and pay their own expenses, our airports remain safe. The TSA security will still be on duty checking grandma's diapers though so I guess we have nothing to worry about.

What in the hell is going on that we are running our country like this?

Fatback Upgrade

 Look for it...

 There it is...

 Hmmm...

 Oh boy...

Ahhhh....

I ordered a couple of bottle opener spacers from Ahren's Bicycles but since they were back-ordered, they sent me this stainless steel prototype WiseCracker LITE (at no charge-Thanks!) to hold me over until my order could ship. It's thinner than the regular WiseCracker but works great.

An excellent addition to my ride; I can't wait to get the others so I can make certain not to be unprepared when riding my other bikes.

Reincarnated Frog?

I believe I may have been a frog in a past life. The trouble with having been another species in a former life is that somehow certain behaviors leach over in to this life but often without the corresponding acumen that made them effective as that other species.



While that may not be an example of effectivity, it does underscore a certain skill. I too, it turns out, have great skill at catching insects on my tongue. I do it on the bike rather than a lily pad. I seem to be able to catch them much more frequently than anyone with whom I ride. However, just like the frog in the video, it doesn't work out that good for me. Oh sure, extra hands-free nutrition, blah, blah; still not working for me, but no big deal.

Until last Thursday.

After a week of hellacious heat and soggy humidity, Thursday was a delightful day with lower temp and lower dewpoint. I rode home gulping in the fresh crisp air as I warmed up and got ready for some good old hammer time knowing that I wouldn't be risking death by heatstroke. It just as I was soaking in the pleasure of the wind in my face and the tarmac shooting beneath my wheels that I made another fine catch.

Having considerable experience bug catching, I can tell in an instant what I've caught and how to process my bounty. A gnat might not even generate a spit since it's diminutive size makes it nearly impossible to find and so what anyway. A mosquito will generate an ejection spit, a fly a spit and a cough, etc. I have a protocol and I follow it automatically; pure motor response, no thought required.

It works best that way.

In this case I made the mistake of pausing just long enough for a 'what the?' thought as my catch was in a new class that seemed to fill my mouth and it had scored a bullseye on the back of my throat. Lovely. Action then followed using an enhanced fly protocol in hopes of hastening the ejection process but somehow it

Wasn't... going... anywhere...

About ten minutes later, or 1/4 high-cadence turn of the crank, I had successfully completed the maneuver, released my catch and entered the assessment phase. Assessment is optional and usually involves a bit of chuckling and banter with whomever witnessed my catch and release. As in the catch phase, I paused and pondered the pain in the back of my throat. I wasn't going that fast, 20mph (31kph for those so inclined) tops so I postulated that my catch must have had equal and opposite velocity and the impact had bruised my uvula.

I was thinking best case while thinking I was thinking worst case.

Though my mouth was now clear, I invollantarily entered another round of the enhanced fly protocol; spit, cough plus gag just to finish with panache. It was becoming clear that I was in new territory as the pain was ramping up just like when you smack your thumb with a hammer and in the slow motion raising of the hammer off your thumb, the pain wells up like a tsunami as your mind begins to assess what just happened.

My assessment was coming around to the fact that I had just been stung on my uvula by a bee, wasp or cruise missile and had a situation that required more than spitting, coughing and gagging. I know people who are so allergic to bee stings that they carry an epipen to prevent anaphylactic shock in the case of a sting, my sister being one of those people.

So now I am thinking I have escaped heatstroke only to die from a uvular bee sting as I feel my throat start to swell. Though I commute across a major metropolitan area, this part of my commute is pretty isolated and it could be many minutes until someone comes along by which time I will just be a corpse at the side of the road. Oddly enough, this section of road along the river bluff is where the local municipality dumps dead deer carcasses so the stench of my decay won't even stand out.

Knowing outside help is unlikely, I decide it's time to really hammer and start thinking about where the nearest location where I can get some Benadryl. As I ride I realize that the swelling isn't really increasing although the pain most certainly is and that I will likely survive the ordeal.

So it's all turned out OK but I have a deep empathy for Babs and will think about looking up a uvula specialist as mine is still at least twice it's normal size and not at all happy.