Quick ride into the hills

Trying to get my legs back in time for a century ride in September. A few of the scouts in our troop are game to try the distance for the first time. I'm one of their chaperones. Took the Raleigh International (fixed). Beautiful summer morning. Elapsed time 2h15min, 1800 ft climbing.

Shake Down ride, confidence shaken

300km brevet on the horizon next weekend, so with Saturday the only break in a rainy weekend, I set off at 7am for a 100 mile ride on my old "hilly hundred" route: 100 miles and 7300 ft of climbing.

I made it to Crockett in 4 hrs, had a light lunch at the very likable Valona market and deli in town. But on the way home, starting at about Inspiration Pt, I really ran out of gas. I could only manage 30 or 45 minutes at a time without an off-the-bike rest. A little worrying, considering next weekend I'd be doing 187 miles. Later that night, I looked back at some of my notes from years past. Turns out I'm not eating enough on my rides! I'm averaging 170 calories per hour, whereas I used to regularly consume 230 or 250/hr on brevets. As my wife reminded me, less-than-sufficient food really doesn't work for me, so I'm optimistic next weekend will work out.

California budget crisis: leadership crisis

A tidy summary online at the New York Times this evening re California's continuing budget woes:

The roots of California’s inability to address its budget woes are statutory and political. The state, unlike most others, requires a two-thirds majority vote in the Legislature to pass budgets and tax increases. And its process for creating voter initiatives hamstrings the budget process by directing money for some programs while depriving others of cash.

In a Legislature dominated by Democrats, some of whom lean far to the left, leaders have been unable to gather enough support from Republican lawmakers, who tend on average to be more conservative than the majority of California’s Republican voters and have unequivocally opposed all tax increases.

And then there is Governor Schwarzenegger, whose budget woes far outweigh those of his predecessor, Gray Davis, whom he drummed from office in a 2003 recall that stemmed from the state’s fiscal problems at the time. The governor has failed to muster votes among lawmakers in his own party, whom he often opposes on ideological grounds, resulting in more scorn from Democrats.

(source)

While the Governor is not blameworthy in isolation, it is ironic, as noted by the Times, that he replaced Gray Davis because of the state's budget troubles. What has Governor Schwarzenegger done in the meantime to resolve the issue that launched him into office? Has he spent any meaningful time really leading, educating Californians on what the options are for managing state revenue inflows and outflows in a more viable manner? No. Opportunity squandered. Leadership ducked.

Democracy promotion, half-baked

In today's NYT online;

"After Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Bush and his aides decided that autocratic
regimes, particularly in the Middle East, fostered hopelessness that
led to the attacks on the United States."

Thus in part the justification for Pres. Bush's democracy agenda.
While the above surely contributes to the conditions that open a path
to extremism, the Bush administration failed to recognize an important
second component of US comportment in the world, one that was
essential to keep the administration's pronouncements about the value
of democracy from sounding hypocritical. The Bush gang failed to
realize that as a superpower and symbol of democratic structure, we
carried a heightened obligation to define and hold, indeed exemplify,
the moral high ground. Every foreign policy initiative that fails to
pass muster undercuts our ability to sell this way of life, and in the eyes of people around the world, lowers
democracy into the same pit as those autocratic regimes we cite as
stimulants to the cause of extremism.

How I Spent my Saturday

200 km (125 mile) bicycle ride yesterday. First of the San Francisco Randonneurs brevet series in preparation for a long ride this summer. Golden Gate Bridge to the Pt Reyes lighthouse and back. The day prior it rained all day, with more promised for Saturday, but we were largely spared. The was even some sun on the beach N of the lighthouse.



The hardest miles for me were between 40 and 70, in Pt Reyes park. Hills have been my strong suit in past years, but I've done so little hill riding in the last six months that they really sapped me this time. I stopped for a wonderful bowl of chicken, wild rice, and vegetable soup (cream!) at the Busy Bee Bakery in Inverness Park. That helped start my recovery, and a tailwind from miles 83-100 also helped. Around 5 or six hours into the ride my internal "furnace" was finally lit. As long as I fed in easily digestible food at regular intervals (for instance, 125 calories of vanilla GU gel every 45 minutes) my legs stayed strong.

The light on the SF skyline and the bridge were beautiful at just before 5pm when I returned. We live in a wonderful part of the world. A few more details of the ride here.

Highlight of today's sunday paper

Best article of the morning.

Thanksgiving at New Years

Big excitement at our table this New Year's Eve:


Thanksgiving to New Year's passes even faster than the whoosh of the rest of the year. So this New Year's it was good to have some time to recall the many good happenings of 2008 to our family. The kids, C and I pieced together an impromptu list over dinner.

Sailing in the Virgins with grandparents
June in Hawaii
sister-in-law Carol stayed with us over the summer
M debuted on the musical stage
H and M with new ipods!
H thriving in a new school
M trying the snare drum in band
C a happy interim librarian
C finished her second century on a bike
I got wrapped up in a camera fixation
with the cub scouts at Camp Cutter and at winter camp
Visits to family in RI during business trips to Boston
built a fence with the neighbors
went from two cars to one
bought no new bicycles this year
helped neighbors get married before prop 8 passed
had a joyful Election Day

Happy New Year to all

Shooting film again

Had some fun this weekend developing a roll of black and white film in my kitchen - first time I've developed film since I was a postdoc processing images off a fluorescence microscope. I used Diafine developer. Interesting that google searches for Diafine turn up several pages of photography-related sites and then pages of cell biology journal articles. Seem it's in wide use by bench scientists too! Film was Arista Premium 400 (alledgedly re-badged Kodak Tri-X) shot mostly at an EI of 800 or 1600 in low light, though one or two test shots done at noon in the California sun turned out well too. Quick scanning on an Epson V500 with standard negative holders, film somewhat curled, but turned out OK.

Recession thoughts

So what's the main cause of the current mess?

- living beyond our means over the last two decades (easy credit, excess consumerism)?
- heavily leveraged investment vehicles that became too large a part of our financial fabric?

that is, did the regular "us" cause this, or was it money managers who ruined our sandbox?

Thankful for the country, a balanced view

Author Junot Diaz on NPR this morning remembering his first Thanksgivings, and presenting a balanced view on how to consider a country's historical misdeeds with its triumphs.

Audio here

Perspective on the credit crisis

Published by the New York Times, here

New Year's Day geocaching above Lake Chabot

One cache had us working off trail to get around a thicket of poison oak that seemed to ring the site. Apparently the person who set the cache didn't recognize PO and ploughed right through the worst of it. We eventually found the target just 20 feet off the trail, having approached it from the opposite direction and a 100 yard detour. We were the second group to find this new cache. On our way in, we met the legendary local cache expert TeamAlamo coming back up the trail, having bagged the First To Find honors just a few minutes earlier.

Wonderful late afternoon light as we headed home.

Better Living through Chemistry: New Year 2008

I've had a bottle of Anchor Steam Christmas Ale sitting in my basement for a few years now. Its previous owner had it a few years before that: it was brewed in 1996. After 11 years, I figured it probably wasn't going to get better. Perhaps it was already firmly established on the drinkability downslope. I shined one of my strongest LED bike lights through the bottle. No light emerged. Even at the neck, there was only a hint of transparency. "Good dark glass bottle," I thought, "this might still be good."

I asked my wife, "What are the odds that we wake up tomorrow blind from drinking the mix of organic chemicals in this thing?"

"Zero," was her answer. No hesitation.

OK. All doubts swept aside, we opened the bottle with ceremony when our friends arrived. It make a small pffft as the cap was freed, and out poured a chocolate colored brew with a tiny-bubbled head.

I dared the first sip. Not toxic tasting. No overpowering pine bough bitterness as I'd imagined might derive from years of cellaring a holiday ale that sometimes features strong contributions from christmas trees. It was good. Like a mild porter, smooth, with the lightness of an ale.

We enjoyed it greatly. And the company of our friends until 11:45. Then we went our separate ways, our kids to bed as the midnight fireworks and whoops of celebration sounded across the neighborhood.

Happy New Year to all.

Presidential timber

Huckabee's rise in the polls is prompting a backlash in some conservative quarters, according to the NYT.

...[conservative journalists] who seem to see in the former Arkansas governor an unknown quantity with suspiciously compassionate tendencies. ...[conservative PAC] which sees Mr. Huckabee as a tax-raising, regulation-imposing, anti-business populist governor who spent too much of his tenure dealing with the problems of poor people

Heavens, we wouldn't want a president with these qualities, would we?

Fall weekend

Beautiful fall colors in the Bay Area. We visited the Coyote Point Museum, display of gingerbread creations by local school children. Favorite was this desert scene with vultures eyeing a candy carcass:



(In California, gingerbread houses have surfboards out front.)

Morning Ride

Cold start to the morning. Wool tights, long-sleeved wool jersey and wind vest. Great to be up and riding by first light, home in time to make the family coffee.


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It's been 20 years since I've been bowling

Our workgroup took an afternoon away from the job today to do something completely unrelated to work. We went bowling at the Albany Bowl. Why haven't I done this more often? We just had to walk in and everyone got a small burst of excitement. The sight of the lanes, the sound of pins being struck, some Frank Sinatra on the jukebox, shoes with crazy colors, balls to match - it was a gas. No regular bowlers among us, but everyone showed brilliance at times. Good stuff.

Trails alone

More time on the trails today, this time by myself. Challenging on the fixed gear. See a hill ahead, quick jump in intensity, pedals whirling to bank momentum before the hard grind as the slope is reached. Sometimes no relaxing on a downhill. Instead ride as hard as possible to attack the hill a little further on. Wonderful tires: 2"+ of soft suspension.

Joaquin Miller Park

Overlooking the Bay from the Oakland hills. Bicycling in a local park with the family, getting the kids used to hills and narrow paths.


On my new fixed gear 29er, first ride in the US (bought this summer in the UK)

Evening ride around Alameda

From the Bay Farm Island bike bridge


Columns under main bridge