Mere hours after the Bruins season came to a victorious ending, my bike commuting season has begun. This morning, I biked the sixteen miles in to work for the first time this year, which took me an hour and seventeen minutes. I forget how that compares with previous years, but I’ll assume it’s somewhat slower. It certainly felt so, but my expectations were low: making it here in one piece is good enough. Let me tell you, tele-commuting is much easier! 😉
There’s a biking blog I like to read called EcoVelo, which is written by a guy who is something of a bike fanatic, and I mean that in the most complementary way possible. I read with envy about his commuting in California, with its almost always beautiful weather, and I look at his pictures with lust in my heart. I could probably do my commute six months of the year, reasonably, without too much cold weather gear. But I know that when the temps are in the forties, my hands can get painfully cold in less time than that. In contrast to the dedicated bike paths, and quiet rural roads through wildflower-filled fields described by Alan, my commute is along heavily trafficked, narrow roads, frequented by trucks going 40-50 mph. Keeps me awake and moving, though! Plus it motivates me to get an early start on the day.
Most drivers are reasonable, but occasionally I encounter one who clearly expects me to ride in the shoulder (or what they undoubtedly think of as the “bike lane.”) I’d like to explain to these folks: “See this painted line here? This line represents a contract between road users and road maintainers. The road maintainers promise that they will work to keep most of the storm drains and broken pavement on the right side of the line. They will sweep all the sand, broken glass, debris from car accidents, random screws, nails, etc. to the right of that line. They are saying, if you keep your big, four+ wheeled vehicle and it’s inch thick steel-belted radial tires on the left of the line, you will be safer. Now, do you really think it’s right to expect me to ride my vehicle, balancing on its two, eighth-inch thick tires, there? Really??”
My commute route:
Author: tastewar
-
A Late Start to the Season
-
More Pony Tails than an NFL Game
We’re here at Dilboy Stadium in Somerville to watch the Boston Militia take revenge against the DC Divas. The Divas beat us in our opening game, and gave us our only defeat on the season. Tonight’s game is the last of the season. It’s clear that these are the two most competitive teams in the league. The Divas haven’t lost, and in fact only two teams (the Militia being one) have scored on them at all. And our results are pretty similar. Our most recent win was something like 70-0.
Anyway, good family fun at a reasonable price, and walkable (< 2 miles) from our house!
-
Ouch!
Life gets busy at times. And then there’s the un-cooperative weather. Mix in some natural laziness, and you have the perfect recipe for a late start to the biking season. Yesterday, though I finally got our fleet of bikes out and got them ready for riding. For me, this means washing off the winter dust, inflating the tires, a quick lube of the brakes and derailleurs, and Bob’s your Uncle! Then I put the bikes away for the night, but they didn’t spend very long in the basement, as this morning we took a family ride to one of our favorite local diners, at Bagels by US on Mass Ave. After that, we continued up Mass Ave. a ways into Lexington, but not as far as the center, and then we hit the Minuteman Bikeway and cruised back home. We then watched the small Memorial Day parade,
which we almost always do (I remember my dad being with us last year). This year, Clara and I followed the parade past their first stop (right near our home) and into the cemetery, and heard all the speeches, many of which were sobering reminders of what Memorial Day is all about (hint: it’s not about shopping).
Then shortly after noon, I headed out on the bike again to Lexington Center, to meet up with my friend Mike, to go on a longer bike ride. It was challenging, to say the least. A loop a little over 20 miles, which was about 10 miles more than my legs felt up to today. My excuse is that Mike’s legs were fresh starting at Lexington, but mine already had about 13 miles on them before we started out together. It was both good to get out, and yet miserable. Mike and I are often pretty equivalent riders, but he’s already got more than a couple hundred miles on the bike this season, so he’s way ahead of me, and that’s where he spent most of the ride. Here’s a picture of me from the ride:
Sorry to have held you back, Mike. Maybe in a couple of months I’ll be able to keep up with you. We stopped for lunch at Fern’s in Carlisle, which is quite obviously a big biker hangout.
Anyway, here’s what our route looked like:
The last 5 miles I did on my own, after Mike got back in his car and drove off from Lexington Center. That part is included on the map, while my 5 miles up to Lexington aren’t. All told, I put about 40 miles on the bike today. Which is good. Though it doesn’t feel that way now. My legs, butt, shoulders, and neck all ache from the abuse. -
Useful
On Thursday (2 days ago) I ordered an electronics prototyping kit based around an Atmel ATmega8U2 microcontroller. The kit is called an Arduino, and I ordered it from Adafruit Industries (funny name, I know), and paid for UPS ground shipping. I’m glad I didn’t pay for 2-day or 3-day “Priority” shipping, because it arrived Friday, the very next day.
The hardware is “open source” and there are many freely available open source tools for programming it. Tyler and I played around a little with it last night, and made it blink an LED. I played a little more after he went to bed and made it light up a series of LEDs in various patterns. Cute. The programming environment is C-based, so it is pretty familiar to an old programmer like me. Today (Saturday), I spend a couple of hours (chopped up into 5, 15 or 30 minute increments) and was able to make something, well, useful. It also uses a separate LCD display that I also purchased (seemed like it could be a fun add-on), and a temperature sensor that came with the kit. Using the display meant also using my nice new soldering station to solder 21 connections! Here it is:
It is a thermometer that displays the temperature when you press a button. It displays for 5 seconds, then the display turns off to conserve the battery.I was partly inspired by a friend who also bought a kit and has been enjoying it. I had heard of Arduino starting a few years ago from the Make: blog and magazine. It is very popular among hobbyists and artists of a certain bent. It has lots of useful means of interacting with the real world, and a bevy of enthusiasts who have contributed lots of code and made add-on hardware for the platform. We have plans for a much more involved project, but for now, these little steps are still exciting.
-
We’re An American Brand!
Growing up, my mom always bought me Toughskins. They may have had their own ads, but boy did I lust after Levis. I couldn’t even bother to ask — I knew there wasn’t enough money to buy me “expensive” pants. There did come a point however, maybe it was junior high, when there was perhaps a little more money, and when my desire to fit in outweighed my need to resist asking for non-essentials. There was a store, I don’t think it was actually a Levis store, but that’s about all they sold, at the local strip mall (the Hamden Plaza). At that age, I was given some money and allowed to walk there and buy my own pants. It was honestly something of a relief to be wearing the same pants that most everyone else was. At least the boys. For the girls, as always, there was more freedom. Chic, Jordache, etc. For boys there was Levis, and the occasional Lee or Wrangler, but by and large, it was Levis.
Thus began my relationship with the brand. They had done their marketing well. They presented themselves as American as apple pie, as the saying goes. So aside from dress pants, I wore Levi’s exclusively for decades.
But back in the 1990’s, Levi Strauss and Co. began using offshore manufacturing, while still using the Made in the USA label. Thus began my disillusionment, though I didn’t act on it for a long time. A few years ago, though, I did a little research and came across a web site that listed companies that still made jeans here in the U.S.A. Check out the list if you want to help keep your fellow Americans employed.
I’ve bought jeans from both All American Clothing (including their select Carhartt jeans that are Made in the U.S.A.) and Pointer Brand, and have been happy with all of them. The All American jeans are pretty close in character to the Levis I used to know and love so well (though no rivets). The Carhartts are also Levis-like, and the only black jeans I could find in the crowd. I don’t see them listed on the site any longer. I have 2 pairs of the Pointers, one is the funky Hickory Stripe (think railroad engineer…), and the other are the regular jeans. My only complaint about them is that the pockets aren’t as deep as I am accustomed to, though the smaller (watch?) pocket is quite roomy. -
Turning the Tables
For my recent (45th, but who’s counting…) birthday, I received a gift that I specifically requested — a deluxe box set of the Decemberists’ latest release, The King is Dead.
Among other items, it features a pressing on “180 gram white vinyl” which is very cool. Records are making something of a comeback, among audiophiles and a younger crowd to whom they have that coveted “retro chic.” One of the nicest things about records is that the album covers are BIG and therefore the artwork on them is that much more enjoyable than the little CD’s we’ve grown accustomed to. Or worse yet, the thumbnails available on downloaded music. In this case, it’s just a photo of the band (a nice one, though), so perhaps the canvas wasn’t used to best effect, but it’s a pleasure to hold and see nonetheless.Ironically, I may never get to hear the album this way. The last turntable I owned was also the first I bought, back when I was in high school. We just got rid of it when my parents moved out of their house, and I forget exactly what brand/model it was. But I do remember that it was a “changer” (meaning you could stack records on it to play in turn), and that it had a ceramic cartridge (as opposed to the preferred magnetic). It played 33’s (LP’s), 45’s (singles), and 78’s (oldies — had to flip to the other needle in the cartridge)! I remember that some multi-record sets (dad’s set of Beethoven symphonies, for example) were pressed specifically for record changers, so that you could stack up sides 1,2,3,4 and then flip over the stack for 5,6,7,8, for example. So 8 would be on the back of 1, and 5 on the back of 4, etc. Anyway, records were much more tangible than the recordings we have today. There were people who could look at the grooves on a record and recognize the recording just from that! I still have my collection of old records (somewhere…), so perhaps someday I will buy a turntable. But for now, the record will remain a conversation piece.
I was introduced to The Decemberists back in early 2007, around the time of the release of their Crane Wife album by an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air. The lyrics were so different from most pop music, and so refreshing, that I felt intrigued by a band for the first time in perhaps a decade. Colin Meloy, lead singer and songwriter for the Decemberists, has a unique voice; and while he may throw around “10 dollar words” like they’re going out of style, I prefer his perspective, which to paraphrase, is a desire not to be constrained to using the limited vocabulary currently in vogue. But it’s not just the words, it’s the stories. While it seems to me much of today’s music (and to be fair, not just today’s) can be characterized as regurgitated love songs, the Decemberists explore a much greater range of the human experience, and draw from a wide variety of source material and ideas. Give them a listen, if you haven’t.
-
Enough Already!
So apparently, this past month, we recorded the 3rd highest snowfall total for a January in Boston. Impressive. I am not generally a winter whiner — I put up with the cold, and the snow. I shovel, I snowblow; I sand and salt; I dress warmly. My 4-wheel drive pickup gets me through most conditions. Part of me misses our old Audi wagon, as the Honda Odyssey definitely isn’t as sure footed.
But this year, we’ve had storm after storm, usually on Wednesdays which complicates clearing the snow and commuting. I spent a good part of late Friday afternoon shoveling snow off our third floor deck. There was between 2 and 3 feet of snow all over the 9’x12′ surface. It was a lot of work to shovel all that snow and chuck it over the railing way into the back yard. Thankfully, the snow storm that was anticipated for Saturday devolved into a small rain storm. We ended up having a weekend of mostly snow melt, which was sorely needed.
When I went out to get muffins this morning (a Sunday tradition), I brought my camera along and took some pictures. These are after some melting, so imagine the piles a foot higher or so, and no pavement visible, etc. Note how far out into the street the banks are.
[set_id=72157625988211976] -
January Hymn
On a winter’s Sunday I go,
To clear away the snow,
And green the ground below.
On Friday night, Susan and I went with friends to see our favorite band, the Decemberists, play at the House of Blues in Boston. It was a fun night, which started with dinner at the H.o.B. The opening act was a band called Wye Oak, who were interesting in part due to their configuration: a female lead singer/guitarist, with a male drummer/backup singer. And the drummer only used 3 limbs for drumming — his left hand was playing keyboard and/or twiddling knobs. So they had a surprisingly rich sound for a two person band. His drumming looked rather frenetic as well, as he tried to do two arms worth of drumming with one. So they were intruguing, and I even sort of liked the vocalist’s voice, but you (I) could hardly understand any of her lyrics. And she was quite the shredder on guitar; not my particular favorite style. Anyway, curious enough.The D’s came on at shortly after 9:00, and played until about 10:15 with a brief break. Disappointingly short set, but we learned later that Colin apparently was suffering from a stomach flu. Sorry, Colin. Last time we had tickets to see them, someone in the band got rather sick, and they had to cancel the remainder of their tour. That one was called The Long and Short of It, and it was two nights: one for their long songs, and another for their short ones. We had tickets to both nights, which was quite extravagant for us, and so very disappointing to have it canceled. But again, our feelings were with the band (mostly). We missed them when they came around for the Hazards of Love tour, which certainly would have been fun. Anyway, I can’t claim to be much of a music critic, but we certainly enjoyed the show — it was a good mix of material from their new album, and older tunes. And on the bright side, it saved us some baby-sitting money 🙂
-
We’re Going to Disney!
Actually, we’re almost done here, but it’s hard to find the time to write, especially when there’s no free wifi and Internet access in our room costs $9.95 per night. How antiquated.
We came here because Clara had an optional travel meet at Disney, so we opted to make a short family vacation of it. We thought we were taking the kids out of school for two days, but Friday turned out to be another snow day, so it seems as though they’ll just miss one day. Here’s one pic of us by the castle.
-
Blizzard, Part II
Here are a few pics post clean up.
[set_id=72157625811120546]