March 2009 Archives

today's ride was definitely the best ride i've had since the century. the setup was good: i was relatively well rested, my reserves all stocked up the night before with moldy cheese and white wines, the sun was shining, the roads were dry.

i biked, zombified, to alpine and los trancos. actually, i am pretty sure this is the first time i've made that leg of the ride without de-seating myself to accomodate my refusal to use the granny gear. by los trancos i was a little tired, and had some food. i biked up to the intimidating hill that turned me back last week, said a prayer to crom, and climbed up it. this time i did get out of the saddle.

midway was a turnoff to a flatish part of road, which i took while i considered which way to go. i caught my breath and decided on up.

once up, i did the same thing: took a little side road, caught my breath, and decided: what the heck, more up.

after considerable more up, albeit much more gentle up, i stopped to ask for directions. i wanted to go to the very top of alpine, ride down that to portola and home. after i communicated this, i got some directions, which i promptly and characteristically forget.

fortunately, i ran into another local. actually, he ran up to me. i was stopped in a driveway for another snack and a re-evaluation of my route, considering that i was facing another stretch of climb at least as steep as the starting climb, with no end in sight. we talked about how long the climb ahead was, and how to get to where i wanted to go. his directions were different than the previous set of directions. i set off back up the hill, and, dear reader, in disgrace, i switched to my granny gear. it's the first time i've used it since i rode with That Dude a while back. as it happened, the remainder of the climb was much, much shorter than had been described, and i probably could have made it without the granny. i switched back to my middle ring ASAP.

i wandered around a bit and came to some intersections. the problem with getting lost on a bike in a place like that is that i had limited water, and even more limited endurance. i could easily find myself in a valley with steep climbs on both sides. i did not want that. so i tried to follow the directions.

i ended up on ramona, a curvy, tremendously steep descent. in fact, i set a record for myself for most frightening descent. down i went with full brakes, making a horrible racket, in fear that with any amount of speed i'd lose control of the turns and hit an ascending BMW.

soon enough, i ended back at the intersection at the top of the first intimidating climb. i recognized it quickly, chuckled, turned right, and am pretty sure i managed to set a personal speed record (no dingus on my bike, so i canna be sure).

the ride back to canada was tiresome, because i was tired. beat, even. once i hit canada i knew i wasn't going to have enough water to make it back. i was already reluctantly riding gloveless because i'd only brought my fingered gloves, and it was way too warm for them. once i turned onto canada, i was confronted by a headwind. argh.

literally less than a minute after i drank my last sip of water, i noticed to the left of me a water fountain! it was in the gated area around the Pulgas Temple. i rode in and filled my bottles as best i could, and drank a bunch of cool water. i had plenty to finish the ride.

i band-aided the ride, i decided to call it, and took horseshit bridge to ralston trail instead of the more gentle but longer (and more dangerous) 35 to crystal springs. on the way back home i rode nearly underneath the passing zeppelin. it is quite possible that its route took it directly over my apartment. crikey.

i'd guesstimate (guesstimate is apparently a word, the spell checker likes it!) a total length of 48-55 miles for today. one of these days i'll plan my route up los trancos on a map.

also, i raced a butterfly. we were both winners.

if i'm having a mid-life crisis right now, does that mean i'll be dead by 63?

someone hid my orange shirt, but i found it, my precious, oh yess!

and for a change

i'd prefer it wasn't myself.

in the last week or so i've discovered two ports i don't like:

cockburn's ruby
taylor fladgate's 10yr tawny

this is exciting because until this point, "i liked port". now, i'm more of a discerning taster, and "i like certain ports" which is really much more impressive. and impressive is what i'm going for.

bow before me, oh ye impressed! i like some ports and not others!

for the one of you that wonders what's up with me lately:

- i've been working on a new web app to keep track of my reviews of things. here it is. i enjoy working on it.

- hops got a crackberry. loading up the above website on the crackberry shows that i know my shit. it degrades gracefully and is 100% functional.

- i'm now into wine. all these years i thought i hated wine, when in fact, i hate astringency. i don't like wines with heavy tannins. unfortunately, it seems many california wines are loaded with the stuff. i'm learning and recording.

- i'm also into cheese. i have always liked cheese. apparently i really like blue cheese. cheese goes with wine. wine is better when it's with something.

- i'm tired. i think it's the deadlifts.

- last night i chipped my crown on hops' corn bread. wtf? argh! going to see the dentist this week.

- we busted out the 30yr laphroaig last night, but the cork broke. ARGH. after 2 years in the opened bottle, it seems to have shed its oaky vanilla flavors and re-asserted its bandaidy laphroaiginess. that isn't a good thing -- now it tastes like the 10yr!

- saw a bottle of the 30yr laphroaig for $500. holy crap!

it's Frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x39.

this time, the barber attempted a fade. i was getting tired of the buzz. i was also getting some major tufts. we'll see how it goes.

once upon a time, i was a young man.

actually, the story i'm about to tell takes place before i was even a young man. i was very, very young, not even to the point where my grandma started calling me a young man, which was probably well before the age of young-manhood. the story i'm about to tell is from pre-young-manhood. i wasn't more than 10.

once upon a time, i was a pre-young man. because i grew up in a fabulously wealthy family, i had a clock radio. many of our neighbors were destitute, and did not have clock radios. my family, however, received monthly stipends from my uncle, John Peter Morgan, and thus, we could afford clock radios, even for the pre-young men in the family, possibly including my younger brother, who, at the time must needs have been but a babe. in any case, along with my silver spoon and my golden monacle, i had a clock radio.

i am not one for clock radios: to this day i do not use one to awake. instead, i have an internal chronometer, much like my idol, mister data. if i wish to wake up at 0630, as i did today, i simply set my internal chronometer before i fall asleep. then, at 0300, i wake up every 15 minutes, check the local time, and go back to sleep if it's earlier than 0630. if it's 0630, i also back to sleep, because i'm fucking tired and 0630 is way too early to wake up when i'm as tired as i am, so i stay in bed until 0700, which is also too early but i've got to get into work so i get up anyhow and make some coffee which is a little under roasted this week.

in any case, that's just how my idol, mister data, does it, i'm sure. except he probably has an event driven internal chronometer. that's the benefit of 23rd century positronic network programming.

so, when i was a wee lad, i had a clock radio which i evidently did not use to wake myself up. but, i did use it to lull myself asleep. the clock radio picked up the local Old People's AM Radio Station, which broadcast lame old people music at all hours of the day, because where I grew up, there were many Old People, and you never can tell when an Old People will be awake an in the mood for some smooth jazz or other easy listening music.

One song that put me to sleep on a regular basis, I remember clearly, as if i were listening to it now instead of Norwegiean symphonic death metal, which, in fact, I am actually now listening to. The Norwegians tell me it's A-OK to end a sentence in a preposition, and they invented symphonic death metal so I'd say they're pretty much an authority on the subject, no matter what you may personally think, dear reader.

The song that lulled me to sleep regularly in my pre-young-manhood featured the refrain (which google, damn youse, tells me I have misremembered):

If that's all there is my friend
then let's keep dancing
let's bring out the booze
and have a ball
if that's all
there is
to love

Apparently this is a song by one Peggy Lee, whom, I'm sure, is famous. However, be warned, o ye blog commenters: if you acknowledge the fame of Peggy Lee, you thereby mark yeself as An Oldster, since, as I've mentioned, I was listening, in my pre-youth, no less, to an Old People's Station, which would mean that should you recognize this song or Peggy Lee, you mark yourself as An Old Person 20 years ago when this song was new to me, and that makes you Old + 20, which is pretty freakin old, sorry mom.

Here are the full lyrics, which I have just located. I will read them with you for the first time, substituting in my mind the lyrics as I remember them for the lyrics as google reports them:

I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire.
I'll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me up
in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement.
I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames.
And when it was all over I said to myself, "Is that all there is to a fire"

SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

Anyhow. Looking back, now that I am myself approaching Old, i find my view of life coming in line with Peggy's. much has changed, and i've suffered, to some minor extent, teh slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. i said recently that i used to have a fortress of solitude, but i lost the way to it (once again, ending a sentence with a preposition, but this time, for dramatic effect (no doubt lost on my illiterate philistine audience (not you, of course, dear reader))), and this sentiment of mine, worded so specifically in my own dialect, resonates with Peggy's words -- as if Peggy's words have been guiding me all these years to cynicism and un-impressedness, even though i had more or less forgotten all but the refrain.

the refrain, though, has been with me most days.

i read sun tzu's "art of war" a couple months ago, because it's required reading for any geek like me.

the notion of his that endures in my mind is, paraphrased, this: the successful general arranges his forces so that when battle arrives, his victory is as natural as logs rolling down a hill (and toppling imperial AT-ATs, no doubt).

this is a profound wisdom that i have tried to embrace, with some limited success. just a moment ago, listening to Therion's "the siren of the woods", a 9:54 epic operatic metal megapalooza, i realized that the song itself is structured according to sun tzu's principle: the first 8 minutes or so are intensive, subtle set-up. the general commands his troops to assemble their forces atop the hill, in the dominant position. as the time for attack draws near, the tension among the troops builds dramatically, everyone knows what is coming, soon now. and then, finally, when the moment hits -- drawn out past the point of no return -- the guitar explodes in an inexorable, irresistable avalanche of awesome, totally destroying all opposition and letting no imperial storm trooper stand in its way.

KICK ASS.

i was with you, dude, right up until you talked about scanning a hash table.

that's a mighty poor hash table you've got there if you're doing any sort of scanning.

a couple of weeks ago i decided to give ruby on rails another chance. http://beans.sainttoad.com is the result of that.

at the time, i was seriously impressed at how easy it was to get my app up and running. in one week of part-timing it, i went from 0 experience with rails/ruby to a full, non-trivial deployment (reverse proxy, url-rewriting, url-prefixed deployment, har). at the end of the week i'd whipped up 90% of the features i wanted in my app, a decent (or at least consistent) style, and am now happily using the app with no problems.

except one problem: when i go back to polish off those remaining 10%, i'm left wondering: wtf am i doing this in ruby? i mean, really?

the problem with ruby on rails: ruby. i've been told that ruby makes much more sense if you're japanese. well shucks, i'm not japanese. is that why i think that "" == 0 == [] == true is a stupid idea?

rails makes it incredibly simple to get a useful app up and running with breathtaking speed. but then, in the real world (and not in the world of my tiny-dataset app), you'd go back and refactor and optimize your database access and so forth. that looks to be a pain in rails, where the ORM makes it difficult to do things well. or, perhaps the problem is that the ORM documentation makes it difficult to make the ORM do things well. that's a difference without a distinction.

at work, i use pylons. it's got a lot of the sugar of rails, but it's got a different philosophy: too much magic is bad. rails is all about the magic. in pylons, there's much less magic, and when i need to fix something, because i'm not relying on magic, i know how to fix it. rails? not so much (although i did find and fix a bug in the auth package: but to merge it back? i have to learn git? no thanks).

anyhow: i'm not making any sense. here i am saying rails is great and ruby sucks, then telling you why rails sucks. i've had minor exposure to each and this is the end result:

ruby: i get it, it's like python, only there's the bizarre 0 == true thing, and the block thing which is kinda cool but really a very complicated route to doing simple things, and less emphasis on functional programming, and not enough haskell influence (:D).

rails: super easy to get working. encourages some pretty bad design choices and also encourages beginners to think they know what they're doing, which leads to pretty bad design choices. this is a tough problem for framework designers to address, and i can't say i blame rails for making the choice they made. after two weeks of not using rails, when i went back to look at it, i wondered: wait, why am i using rails? maintenance is maybe not so enjoyable as the thrill of getting the app whipped up. and since maintenance is what app development is all about, maybe i picked a poor framework.

second trip to Mack's in san carlos. the ribs were not quite reheated properly, and were not as smokey as i like. however, the food was still excellent by any lunch standard, and the mac-and-cheese had bacon in it! an excellent lunch.

yesterday was a bit of a milestone in my new "training" regimen. i rode alameda n-s to ralston, and then, for good measure, i rode ralston up instead of down. all this with no granny gear.

right as i approached the 15-20% starting hill at alameda, i said, "bring on ze pain!", hopped out of my saddle, and rode up the hill. after the initial climb it levels off to a series of 10% grades separated by 5s. it's not a long stretch of road, but it's intimidated me since i got my bike. i had gotten to the "it's no so hard" point by using my granny, but it took me a while to attempt it without.

finally having done it, this being my first set of real hills without the GG, i can say: it wasn't so bad. ralston was far worse, in fact, since it's longer. i find it much easier to sprint up a steep hill than slog up a steady one. but in a higher gear, i'm done sooner in each case.

whoopie.

in my top 5 most favorite alcholic beverages ever, Old Portrero holds two slots, one for the 19th century and one for the 18th century. the 19th century may be my favorite spirit (and beverage) of all time.

last night at a disappointing bar, i had the old potrero hotaling's, which i thought was pretty harsh -- but it had the signature Old Potrero flavor, a floral, unmistakable aroma which i had thought was a result of distilling 100% rye malt.

until tonight, when, inspired by the somewhat disappointing dinner i had last night, hops and and i prepared a 2 course meal with wine pairings (heh). 1st course (for me) was NY strip steak with grilled asparagus and tomatoes, and a side of bamboo rice. the more i grill steaks, the more i wonder how it is possible to get a poor steak in a restaurant -- nothing could be easier than preparing a good grilled steak. it's beyond me how restaurants manage to screw it up. i think they probably fall down at step 1: select a good steak.

anyhow, second (dessert) course was a cheese plate with port. i had only one unopened port in my cellar (har), the opened port having collected quite a rash of sediment, the collection of which leads me to believe it tastes less than optimal, though not subobtimal enough to warrant discarding, when suboptimal sweet wine could be used to excellent effect in a barbecue sauce, which i am known to create now and again.

anyhow.

i had a bottle of Cockburn's Special Reserve, which hops noted doesn't sound very portuguese, and which i think is probably not so special or reserve. i'm guessing it's a cheap bottle of port but it's been in my cellar (har!!!) so long i have no idea.

anyhow.

port was my introduction to alcohol. not beer, not crappy tennessee whiskey, and not forties of old fortran. port. courtesy of my college mentor, who was quite a collector of port. so i like port. i like port so much that i don't like red wines that don't taste like port. hops and my friend all say "eeegggh, too sweet" to port, but i say "bleh, too astringent and thin" to anything that's not port.

now, dear reader, you'll never guess what the dominant aroma is in Cockburn's Special Reserve. that's right, it's that same characteristic aroma of Old Potrero, my favorite spirit of all time. How is this possible? I thought that aroma -- which, until now, I had detected only in the three varieties of Old Potrero that I have had -- was a result of distilling rye malt, but there is no malt of any sort in port.

so now i have a favorite port, and (according to the internets) it costs $20 and is basically rotgut -- but it has the definining character of the world's finest whiskey.

whatever gives, my mind is blown.

i've discovered a new kind of pain. actually, strike that, i've just come up with a silly name for an old, familiar pain.

you know the old saying, "it hurts so much it's not even funny", don't you? well, my legs hurt so much it is funny. i am laughing at myself and the comically over-the-top pain in my legs. it's funny for two reasons: because it's incredibly painful, impedes my walking, sitting, and standing, and yet it's totally harmless. it was also entirely expected.

i deadlifted on friday, and just because i also squatted. when i get back into a squat/dead routine, there is no amount of warmup/cooldown exercises that will forestall the inevitable painful-to-the-point-of-hilarity DOMS that i can look forward to enjoying for the following week.

i expect to stop laughing at this walk-inhibiting pain sometime around friday.

haw haw haw!

is that so wrong?

i used to envision the blog as a place to record my most brilliant and pertinent thoughts, a non-wetware storage for all the brilliant brain droppings that i could save before they got flushed away into the sewer of my ADD.

lately my blogging has been under assault by the twit-like allure of facebook statuses, which compel me to arrive at witty (or not) self-absorbed one-liners instead of page after page of rambling self-absorbed bloviation (which firefox claims is not a word, but is nonetheless). and, were that not enough, lately the very brilliance itself of my random thoughts has come under question, by, ironically, the very same random thoughts. oh, the pain of thinking i'm not as clever as i am, or at least, if i am, the sad suspicion that that cleverness has netted me not much after all. also, this gorram cold i've got won't go away and is really dragging me down. but that's life, so i can't hold it against, uh, it.

but anyhow: i thought a thought today which i figured was both somewhat clever and somewhat reassuring. it goes a little something like this:

remember the future? remember how it was all bright and happy and you were looking forward to it and couldn't wait until it arrived? and then, remember how suddenly the future turned all grim and stuff and now the future more or less sucks and you're really kind of not looking forward to it all so much anymore?

well, depending on your understanding (or perception) of the nature of time, it's still the same old future. unless your idea of the future was the first three months of 2009, the future is still ahead of us, and it hasn't changed any since when you thought it was super duper, the only thing that's changed is your imagining of it.

and of course, by "you" i mean "me" and all that. the cheery part of this fabulous epiphany is that the grimness of the now-future is just as much an illusion as the golden rainbows of the then-future. unless your future horizon is very, very near, your view of the future is likely very wrong.

yesterday i went for a ride for the first time in six days, it being also the second week of my desertion of the granny gear, in the rain, which had paused for brief hours before i departed, only to resume five minutes into my ride, and to really kick in hard during my first little ascent, to the point where i had high-velocity raindrops and possibly small hailstones delivered horizontally straight into my ears the entire several minutes of my climb up to ralston trail, during which i could see nothing because my glasses were so wet, but taking them off would invite worse blindness due to glare and the impact of high-velocity raindrops directly upon my eyeballs, these raindrops and possible hailstones which managed to soak me quite thoroughly chilled me to the bone by the time i reached the top, the entire climb during which i resolved to turn around at the top and go home, but of course, when i reached the top, soaked, cold, and blind, the rain stopped so i proceeded on the descent which chilled me further, and at the bottom of ralston trail i decided to go home, at which point the rain resumed and i got more wet and more cold and thought up the ride summary which i posted elsewhere the moment i arrived home, though my thumbs were painfully swollen and frozen:

happy by way of cold by way of wet.

seems good enough for now.

because my bike broke saturday, i ran for the first time in 2 months. it was a shortish run of 3 miles plus change. sunday, i did a quick kettlebell workout and began working toward doing one-armed pushups. today i combined those workouts and went for a 2 mileish run followed by OAPs and kettlebell bent presses.

now i am sore in places that i didn't really even know i had, and i don't know which exercise to blame it on.

for those of you that read this mess but not slashdot: