- Bicycle/triathlon training
- Girlfriend
- Blog
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Rock, paper, scissors
This week an online article came to my attention describing the ongoing Via Linda climb cyclist/resident conflict.
The Via Linda climb is way out in east Scottsdale near the city's border with Fountain Hills. The article does a sufficient job describing the conflict to anyone who doesn't actually travel up and down that dead-end road, but the gist, in case you're not much for following links, is that hundreds of cyclists each weekend ride up and down a hill on a dead-end residential road, and the residents are not happy about that. Does it even matter what the specific controversy is?
The Via Linda climb is one of my favorite climbs, not so much because of its physical characteristics but because so many cyclists are out there each Saturday morning. I ride with two groups that feature that climb as the highlight of their Saturday morning ride every weekend.
Sometimes I spin up the hill leading others; sometimes I struggle up it holding on for dear life to stronger riders' slipstreams. Often I fail; often I succeed; and each time I sprint those final meters before the cul-de-sac at the top of the climb I'm greeted with yet another feeling of accomplishment.
The article does a good job of journalistic professionalism by presenting both bicyclists' and residents' sides in the conflict. I was impressed with it and learned a little more about the history of the road and its associated quarrel, which was well underway before I ever knew of the climb. And so I read the article with a sense of satisfaction.
Then I read some of the readers' comments. Wow.
The surprise was that the article generated so many comments. The non-surprise was that most of the comments fall into either the pro-cyclist-anti-motorist or pro-motorist-anti-cyclist camp.
This brings me to this post's topic of the rock, paper, scissors game of motorists, bicyclists, pedestrians.
I've spent a lot of time throughout my life as a member of any of the three groups, and with that experience I think I've come to understand pretty well the psyche of each.
The bicyclists are my preferred group, being as how the bicycle is my preferred method of travel. Bicyclists are usually strongly anti-motorist, or at least they are when they're on their bicycle and not driving their SUV. Bicyclists' anti-motorist rage often leads them to feel a bonded kinship with pedestrians, fellow sharers of the motorist-inflicted dangers on the road.
But pedestrians don't really care much about motorists because the two groups are well segregated, owing to the distinction between road and sidewalk. Pedestrians--at least, the ones who don't often ride a bicycle--instead, in fact, hate bicyclists. Often more so than motorists do. I learned this fact firsthand as a bicyclist when a pedestrian tracked me down at the library after I had ridden too close to his girlfriend on the sidewalk several hundred meters away. He poured his blue sugary slushy drink all over my bicycle. Sacrificing his sky-high glucose level for righteous justice came only after he stood eye to chin with me and demonstrated a very authentic eye twitch of anger +1. Again, the point: pedestrians in fact hate bicyclists and feel no kinship with them.
Then there are the motorists. Fat, lazy motorists. No one likes motorists--even motorists hate other motorists--but the hatred is more of a seething, pitying exasperation rather than a pure rage as demonstrated by my pedestrian friend at the library. Everyone realizes that motoring is equivalent to selling out, kind of like begging for scraps from the kill rather than joining in on the hunt and actually doing something useful and helpful. But motoring taps into humans' twin primal urges for comfort and loud music, and so motoring is the de facto standard for transportation in most American cities. Motorists are sometimes frustrated by pedestrians at crosswalks but generally reserve their real antipathy for bicyclists. Bicyclists with their special lanes on the sides of roads that limit the potential width of SUVs. Bicyclists with their red-light-running anarchical disregard for the law. Bicyclists with shaved, toned legs in delicious Lycra serving as a reminder that motoring to work and spending a mere forty minutes on a treadmill in a florescent-lit gym three times a week just ain't cuttin' it.
And so it is. It's like rock, paper, scissors save that bicyclists take the brunt of the roadway anger.
Past that righteous rage, past the exasperation, past the cynicism, the bicyclist eventually emerges with a Zen-like indifference to the game. Motorists are assholes, but so are bicyclists and pedestrians. We're all in each other's way; that's the nature of traffic.
So I, as a bicyclist, resort to my trusty passive aggressive slave ethic of resentment. After all, what's more likely in a hundred years: that there will be more automobiles or that there will be more bicycles? In case you're doubtful, I suggest you consider the actual definition of the word unsustainable.
Goodbye automobiles! Hurray!
But one must be careful what one wishes for. The imminent, slow death of the car won't change people's underlying sloth. It's not as if, with oil production far past its peak and the American population reduced to competing with the rest of the world's billions on a frighteningly more equal playing field, people will gladly embrace sneakers and spandex and use human power to transport themselves.
No, the automobile, even with all its awful destruction and pollution of both man and nature, holds back a far more evil, more sinister transportation vehicle. And for all the times that I bemoan my fate to live during humanity's blink-of-an-eye age of the automobile and to see that glass as half empty, I force myself to see the other half and to appreciate the fact that my hatred is directed towards automobiles and not horses.
The Via Linda climb is way out in east Scottsdale near the city's border with Fountain Hills. The article does a sufficient job describing the conflict to anyone who doesn't actually travel up and down that dead-end road, but the gist, in case you're not much for following links, is that hundreds of cyclists each weekend ride up and down a hill on a dead-end residential road, and the residents are not happy about that. Does it even matter what the specific controversy is?
The Via Linda climb is one of my favorite climbs, not so much because of its physical characteristics but because so many cyclists are out there each Saturday morning. I ride with two groups that feature that climb as the highlight of their Saturday morning ride every weekend.
Sometimes I spin up the hill leading others; sometimes I struggle up it holding on for dear life to stronger riders' slipstreams. Often I fail; often I succeed; and each time I sprint those final meters before the cul-de-sac at the top of the climb I'm greeted with yet another feeling of accomplishment.
The article does a good job of journalistic professionalism by presenting both bicyclists' and residents' sides in the conflict. I was impressed with it and learned a little more about the history of the road and its associated quarrel, which was well underway before I ever knew of the climb. And so I read the article with a sense of satisfaction.
Then I read some of the readers' comments. Wow.
The surprise was that the article generated so many comments. The non-surprise was that most of the comments fall into either the pro-cyclist-anti-motorist or pro-motorist-anti-cyclist camp.
This brings me to this post's topic of the rock, paper, scissors game of motorists, bicyclists, pedestrians.
I've spent a lot of time throughout my life as a member of any of the three groups, and with that experience I think I've come to understand pretty well the psyche of each.
The bicyclists are my preferred group, being as how the bicycle is my preferred method of travel. Bicyclists are usually strongly anti-motorist, or at least they are when they're on their bicycle and not driving their SUV. Bicyclists' anti-motorist rage often leads them to feel a bonded kinship with pedestrians, fellow sharers of the motorist-inflicted dangers on the road.
But pedestrians don't really care much about motorists because the two groups are well segregated, owing to the distinction between road and sidewalk. Pedestrians--at least, the ones who don't often ride a bicycle--instead, in fact, hate bicyclists. Often more so than motorists do. I learned this fact firsthand as a bicyclist when a pedestrian tracked me down at the library after I had ridden too close to his girlfriend on the sidewalk several hundred meters away. He poured his blue sugary slushy drink all over my bicycle. Sacrificing his sky-high glucose level for righteous justice came only after he stood eye to chin with me and demonstrated a very authentic eye twitch of anger +1. Again, the point: pedestrians in fact hate bicyclists and feel no kinship with them.
Then there are the motorists. Fat, lazy motorists. No one likes motorists--even motorists hate other motorists--but the hatred is more of a seething, pitying exasperation rather than a pure rage as demonstrated by my pedestrian friend at the library. Everyone realizes that motoring is equivalent to selling out, kind of like begging for scraps from the kill rather than joining in on the hunt and actually doing something useful and helpful. But motoring taps into humans' twin primal urges for comfort and loud music, and so motoring is the de facto standard for transportation in most American cities. Motorists are sometimes frustrated by pedestrians at crosswalks but generally reserve their real antipathy for bicyclists. Bicyclists with their special lanes on the sides of roads that limit the potential width of SUVs. Bicyclists with their red-light-running anarchical disregard for the law. Bicyclists with shaved, toned legs in delicious Lycra serving as a reminder that motoring to work and spending a mere forty minutes on a treadmill in a florescent-lit gym three times a week just ain't cuttin' it.
And so it is. It's like rock, paper, scissors save that bicyclists take the brunt of the roadway anger.
Past that righteous rage, past the exasperation, past the cynicism, the bicyclist eventually emerges with a Zen-like indifference to the game. Motorists are assholes, but so are bicyclists and pedestrians. We're all in each other's way; that's the nature of traffic.
So I, as a bicyclist, resort to my trusty passive aggressive slave ethic of resentment. After all, what's more likely in a hundred years: that there will be more automobiles or that there will be more bicycles? In case you're doubtful, I suggest you consider the actual definition of the word unsustainable.
Goodbye automobiles! Hurray!
But one must be careful what one wishes for. The imminent, slow death of the car won't change people's underlying sloth. It's not as if, with oil production far past its peak and the American population reduced to competing with the rest of the world's billions on a frighteningly more equal playing field, people will gladly embrace sneakers and spandex and use human power to transport themselves.
No, the automobile, even with all its awful destruction and pollution of both man and nature, holds back a far more evil, more sinister transportation vehicle. And for all the times that I bemoan my fate to live during humanity's blink-of-an-eye age of the automobile and to see that glass as half empty, I force myself to see the other half and to appreciate the fact that my hatred is directed towards automobiles and not horses.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The Underwear Post
A certain Just Enough Craig reader whose name shall remain Anonymous recently commented that he was getting too little Craig these days, what with the dearth of new blog postings here. And so I figure it's best to correct this deficiency by making sure he and all other readers get all the Craig they can stand by me writing about my current shift to a personal no-underwear policy. And so I give to you The Underwear Post.
First let's discuss some history of Craig attire. Like many middle-class American kids, I grew up with a closet full of typical clothes ideal for their intended use of sitting around on one's butt all day within an air-conditioned environment: jeans, shorts, T-shirts, short-sleeve shirts with collars, etc. In my drawers were my drawers: boxers.
Cotton, cotton, cotton. Known to some outdoorsy types as death rag.
Advance a few years to when I began using the bicycle as a replacement for automotive transport. Suddenly my wardrobe was no longer merely unfashionable but was impractical, too. Soon after moving to Phoenix and accelerating the shift away from the car and to the bicycle, the first attire change I made was to switch from boxers to briefs. Let's just say that bicycling in regular shorts and any kind of underwear is a bad idea but that boxers are way worse than briefs. (You must understand that back then I hadn't yet acquired the fashion sense to wear Lycra shorts everywhere, and so I would often ride around in whatever impractical shorts I would have worn had I driven a car to my destination.
But boxers-to-briefs was just the beginning! About a hundred bad hair days later, I buzzed off most of the hair on my head and began wearing bandannas everywhere. No more sweaty helmet hair.
Soon after I discovered the joy of everyday spandex, which rendered the boxers-to-briefs transition moot (on the bicycle).
A while later yet, after developing a rather pronounced farmer tan on my arms, I began acquiring a full collection of warm-weather long-sleeve shirts suitable for keeping off much of the desert sun without the need for sunblock.
But even with all these changes, I continue to wear normal clothes upon arriving at my destination. Okay, not all destinations. Not soccer. Not book club. Or people's houses, or shops or shores, or restaurants or bars, but never mind those places because I'm writing about work. I wear normal clothes upon arriving at work. (Although it's been said that wearing a white T-shirt every single day is not considered normal. Bear with me here.)
So there I sit on my butt while at work, having switched into my trusty jeans and short-sleeve cotton T-shirt and, of course, my cotton briefs.
Enter the running shorts. Comfortable enough on the bike for short trips, suitable as underwear beneath regular-person clothes.
Why wear underwear?
Running shorts are superior to briefs because they're technically not underwear. In a pinch, off come the jeans and I hop on the bike to make that quick trip to the grocery store or library in the middle of the work day. No more changing in the bathroom. No more brief inconveniences.
No more underwear.
There, that should keep that anonymous reader happy for a while.
First let's discuss some history of Craig attire. Like many middle-class American kids, I grew up with a closet full of typical clothes ideal for their intended use of sitting around on one's butt all day within an air-conditioned environment: jeans, shorts, T-shirts, short-sleeve shirts with collars, etc. In my drawers were my drawers: boxers.
Cotton, cotton, cotton. Known to some outdoorsy types as death rag.
Advance a few years to when I began using the bicycle as a replacement for automotive transport. Suddenly my wardrobe was no longer merely unfashionable but was impractical, too. Soon after moving to Phoenix and accelerating the shift away from the car and to the bicycle, the first attire change I made was to switch from boxers to briefs. Let's just say that bicycling in regular shorts and any kind of underwear is a bad idea but that boxers are way worse than briefs. (You must understand that back then I hadn't yet acquired the fashion sense to wear Lycra shorts everywhere, and so I would often ride around in whatever impractical shorts I would have worn had I driven a car to my destination.
But boxers-to-briefs was just the beginning! About a hundred bad hair days later, I buzzed off most of the hair on my head and began wearing bandannas everywhere. No more sweaty helmet hair.
Soon after I discovered the joy of everyday spandex, which rendered the boxers-to-briefs transition moot (on the bicycle).
A while later yet, after developing a rather pronounced farmer tan on my arms, I began acquiring a full collection of warm-weather long-sleeve shirts suitable for keeping off much of the desert sun without the need for sunblock.
But even with all these changes, I continue to wear normal clothes upon arriving at my destination. Okay, not all destinations. Not soccer. Not book club. Or people's houses, or shops or shores, or restaurants or bars, but never mind those places because I'm writing about work. I wear normal clothes upon arriving at work. (Although it's been said that wearing a white T-shirt every single day is not considered normal. Bear with me here.)
So there I sit on my butt while at work, having switched into my trusty jeans and short-sleeve cotton T-shirt and, of course, my cotton briefs.
Enter the running shorts. Comfortable enough on the bike for short trips, suitable as underwear beneath regular-person clothes.
Why wear underwear?
Running shorts are superior to briefs because they're technically not underwear. In a pinch, off come the jeans and I hop on the bike to make that quick trip to the grocery store or library in the middle of the work day. No more changing in the bathroom. No more brief inconveniences.
No more underwear.
There, that should keep that anonymous reader happy for a while.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Life Is Happiness Indeed
Edward: [singing] Dear Boy! \ Sweet honey comes from bees that sting \ As you are well aware \ To one adept in reasoning\ Whatever pain disease may bring\ Are but a tangy seasoning \ To love's delicious fare—
Jack: —Edward, greetings!
Edward: Jack! Hello, friend.
Jack: Were you singing?
Edward: Ah, yes. Pardon me. I sometimes take to singing tunes while out and about and hiking alone on a trail under a beautiful blue sky and amid the serene natural landscape and ... Never mind that. How are you?
Jack: I feel great. I take to going as fast as I can while hiking. It's good to keep the heart rate up.
[Jack places two fingers on his neck for a few seconds to check his pulse.]
Jack: Although, I think I could use a break. Would you mind if I walked along with you for a while?
Edward: Certainly. I suspect both you and the ears of the wildlife would find it most restful.
[Jack and Edward walk together along the trail at a modest, casual pace, and for a few moments they walk in silence.]
Jack: Edward, about our previous conversation: I forgive you.
Edward: You forgive me?
Jack: Yes. I forgive you.
Edward: Well, thank you, I guess. May I ask for what I'm forgiven?
Jack: As you surely remember, you and I discussed moral relativism.
Edward: I do remember.
Jack: And the conversation did not play out as I liked at the time. In fact, I'd say you destroyed moral relativism for me. This could have been very bad, but in fact it's all for the best. In fact, much good has come about because of that conversation. I see now that moral relativism is a dead end.
Edward: Really?
Jack: Yes. Now I'm pursuing my Doctrine of Universal Acceptance.
Edward: Your doctrine of universal acceptance?
Jack: Yes, but capitalized. It's my idea of accepting everyone around me for who they are. It's quite liberating, really. I find myself much more at peace than I ever was as a moral relativist.
Edward: That's good to hear.
Jack: It is good—if I were to pass judgment on it.
Edward: Sorry, I'll try to refrain from implying judgment.
Jack: If you want. It's totally up to you.
Edward: Um, yes.
Jack: I know now that there are moral absolutes. And yet while there exist both good and bad things, I accept all in kind and wish not to change the bad to good. Especially the good and bad in people. I wish to respect their autonomy.
Edward: Certainly.
Jack: Really, it makes for the best of all possible worlds. To each his own and to all, love. You're frowning, Edward!
Edward: My apologies. I have a rather nasty habit of doing that while I'm deep in thought.
Jack: Deep in thought? Is something I said unclear?
Edward: What you said is quite clear indeed. Really, it's just a small matter about which I was thinking.
Jack: Please speak your mind. I'll accept anything you have to say.
Edward: Well, okay. You say that this doctrine—excuse me—this Doctrine of Universal Acceptance is a new outlook for you. Does this mean then that you previously were not accepting of the people around you?
Jack: Certainly I wasn't! Previously I judged people and sometimes quite negatively so. It can be quite frustrating, as you surely know, to see someone acting in a way you wish them not to act, and the desire to have them change their behavior can be very strong. Only with my new Doctrine do I now see that in the best of all possible worlds people are accepted for who they are. Live and let live, I say. To each his own!
Edward: I see. That's quite liberal of you.
Jack: Thank you.
Edward: So do I understand correctly that your natural inclination—your default level of acceptance—is not to accept people fully and completely?
Jack: Exactly. This is a newer me, a happier me, and it's all due to my Doctrine.
Edward: Yes, your Doctrine of Universal—
Jack: —Acceptance!
Edward: Yes, and your Doctrine is truly universal and applies to accepting everyone and everything?
Jack: Absolutely!
Edward: Including yourself and your own nature of not accepting everyone and everything?
Jack: Well...
[Jack stares ahead for a few moments, deep in thought, as the two continue walking along the trail in silence.]
Jack: I think I must be pushing along now. One should keep one's heart rate up, of course. You should do some speed training, Edward. It would be better for your health and overall fitness than always ambling along at such a slow pace.
Edward: So some say. Goodbye, Jack. Have a good run.
Jack: Goodbye, Edward.
Jack: —Edward, greetings!
Edward: Jack! Hello, friend.
Jack: Were you singing?
Edward: Ah, yes. Pardon me. I sometimes take to singing tunes while out and about and hiking alone on a trail under a beautiful blue sky and amid the serene natural landscape and ... Never mind that. How are you?
Jack: I feel great. I take to going as fast as I can while hiking. It's good to keep the heart rate up.
[Jack places two fingers on his neck for a few seconds to check his pulse.]
Jack: Although, I think I could use a break. Would you mind if I walked along with you for a while?
Edward: Certainly. I suspect both you and the ears of the wildlife would find it most restful.
[Jack and Edward walk together along the trail at a modest, casual pace, and for a few moments they walk in silence.]
Jack: Edward, about our previous conversation: I forgive you.
Edward: You forgive me?
Jack: Yes. I forgive you.
Edward: Well, thank you, I guess. May I ask for what I'm forgiven?
Jack: As you surely remember, you and I discussed moral relativism.
Edward: I do remember.
Jack: And the conversation did not play out as I liked at the time. In fact, I'd say you destroyed moral relativism for me. This could have been very bad, but in fact it's all for the best. In fact, much good has come about because of that conversation. I see now that moral relativism is a dead end.
Edward: Really?
Jack: Yes. Now I'm pursuing my Doctrine of Universal Acceptance.
Edward: Your doctrine of universal acceptance?
Jack: Yes, but capitalized. It's my idea of accepting everyone around me for who they are. It's quite liberating, really. I find myself much more at peace than I ever was as a moral relativist.
Edward: That's good to hear.
Jack: It is good—if I were to pass judgment on it.
Edward: Sorry, I'll try to refrain from implying judgment.
Jack: If you want. It's totally up to you.
Edward: Um, yes.
Jack: I know now that there are moral absolutes. And yet while there exist both good and bad things, I accept all in kind and wish not to change the bad to good. Especially the good and bad in people. I wish to respect their autonomy.
Edward: Certainly.
Jack: Really, it makes for the best of all possible worlds. To each his own and to all, love. You're frowning, Edward!
Edward: My apologies. I have a rather nasty habit of doing that while I'm deep in thought.
Jack: Deep in thought? Is something I said unclear?
Edward: What you said is quite clear indeed. Really, it's just a small matter about which I was thinking.
Jack: Please speak your mind. I'll accept anything you have to say.
Edward: Well, okay. You say that this doctrine—excuse me—this Doctrine of Universal Acceptance is a new outlook for you. Does this mean then that you previously were not accepting of the people around you?
Jack: Certainly I wasn't! Previously I judged people and sometimes quite negatively so. It can be quite frustrating, as you surely know, to see someone acting in a way you wish them not to act, and the desire to have them change their behavior can be very strong. Only with my new Doctrine do I now see that in the best of all possible worlds people are accepted for who they are. Live and let live, I say. To each his own!
Edward: I see. That's quite liberal of you.
Jack: Thank you.
Edward: So do I understand correctly that your natural inclination—your default level of acceptance—is not to accept people fully and completely?
Jack: Exactly. This is a newer me, a happier me, and it's all due to my Doctrine.
Edward: Yes, your Doctrine of Universal—
Jack: —Acceptance!
Edward: Yes, and your Doctrine is truly universal and applies to accepting everyone and everything?
Jack: Absolutely!
Edward: Including yourself and your own nature of not accepting everyone and everything?
Jack: Well...
[Jack stares ahead for a few moments, deep in thought, as the two continue walking along the trail in silence.]
Jack: I think I must be pushing along now. One should keep one's heart rate up, of course. You should do some speed training, Edward. It would be better for your health and overall fitness than always ambling along at such a slow pace.
Edward: So some say. Goodbye, Jack. Have a good run.
Jack: Goodbye, Edward.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Reading Log, no. 6-5
The austerity measures began in the lobby, with the flowers and bowls of candy. Benny liked to smell the flowers. "I miss the nice flowers," he said. Then we got an officewide memo taking away our summer days. "I miss my summer days even more than the flowers," he remarked. At an all-agency meeting the following month, they announced a hiring freeze. Next thing we knew, no one was receiving a bonus. "I couldn't give a damn about summer days," he said, "but my bonus now, too?" Finally, layoffs began. "Flowers, summer days, bonuses -- fine by me," said Benny. "Just leave me my job."Finally, a book that exposes white collar employment for the adult day care that it is. Or so I thought while reading Then We Came to the End, which is yet another work of fiction dealing with the absurdities of office work.
Joshua Ferris
Then We Came to the End
And so I enjoyed this book, although really it's kinda lame. I could never figure out if author Joshua Ferris actually is properly cynical of our modern economy or instead whether it's impossible not to write something damning of white collar employment if one writes anything about it at all. Perhaps the excellent bits of cynicism in Then We Came to the End are merely the emergent consequences of describing a system that is beyond redemption.
Probably the most important thing is that the book is funny, and humor is the only effective vehicle for negativity.
There was so much unpleasantness in the workday world. The last thing you ever wanted to do at night was go home and do the dishes. And just the idea that part of the weekend had to be dedicated to getting the oil changed and doing the laundry was enough to make those of us still full from lunch want to lie down in the hallway and force anyone dumb enough to remain committed to walk around us. It might not be so bad. They could drop food down to us, or if that was not possible, crumbs from their PowerBars and bags of microwave popcorn would surely end up within an arm's length sooner or later. The cleaning crews, needing to vacuum, would inevitably turn us on our sides, preventing bedsores, and we could make little toys out of runs in the carpet, which, in moments of extreme regression, we might suck on for comfort.Thanks Mr. Ferris for the good read, but I won't be actively looking for anything of yours in the future.
* * *
So concludes Reading Log no. 6.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Election Day
Tomorrow is election day. It's the Phoenix City Council election. I know this because I received a sample ballot in the mail many weeks ago, and like any skilled and masterful practitioner of procrastination, I'm just now getting around to figuring out who these candidates are who are running for the council.
The sample ballot informs me that here in District 6, or, as I like to call it, The Six, I may vote for no mas de UNO of the following four candidates:
Fortunately, I don't even have to leave my apartment to become civically responsible, for the postman has delivered valuable aids in making my decision. Today in my mailbox awaiting me were two more pieces of mail concerning tomorrow's election.
The first piece was from Sal DiCiccio himself. It's a thick, full-sized sheet printed in red, white, blue, and yellow, and it says that Mr. DiCiccio "believes the highest priority for the City is the protection of our families and safety of our neighborhoods." It then goes on to laud his prior accomplishments as a city councilman along with displaying several photos of him. In one he's listening to a police officer to talk; in another he's listening to a fireman. What a great community-minded guy Mr. DiCiccio is! I too am for the protection our families and for the safety of our neighborhoods. Mr. DiCiccio must be the candidate who represents my views.
But wait! There remains that second piece of mail. I wonder what it says. I should read it if I am to determine which candidate best represents The Six.
The second piece is a slightly smaller piece, and it's printed in ominous grays with a touch of red. It says boldly across the top: "Sal DiCiccio: The Developer's Pal". The piece then describes how Mr. DiCiccio has taken money from developers and then done zoning sorts of things that are bad. After flipping to the reverse side of the piece, I then see a colorful green and blue layout with the name "Dana Marie Kennedy" across the top in a bold font. Below I am informed that Dana Marie Kennedy is for "smart growth" and "services and safety"—among other wonderful things. Wow. I too am for smart growth and services and safety.
With two great people vying for my one vote, I can tell that this is going to be a difficult decision for me, though admittedly that little thing about Mr. DiCiccio and zoning has me a little worried. And I haven't even started researching the other two candidates. I can only hope that they are for terrible things such as eating cute, fluffy kittens and telling dead baby jokes at inappropriate times because I don't know if I can handle three or even four super great candidates.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some civic responsibility stuff to go do.
The sample ballot informs me that here in District 6, or, as I like to call it, The Six, I may vote for no mas de UNO of the following four candidates:
- NATHAN R. OSHOP
- BARRY PACELEY
- SAL DICICCIO
- DANA MARIE KENNEDY
Fortunately, I don't even have to leave my apartment to become civically responsible, for the postman has delivered valuable aids in making my decision. Today in my mailbox awaiting me were two more pieces of mail concerning tomorrow's election.
The first piece was from Sal DiCiccio himself. It's a thick, full-sized sheet printed in red, white, blue, and yellow, and it says that Mr. DiCiccio "believes the highest priority for the City is the protection of our families and safety of our neighborhoods." It then goes on to laud his prior accomplishments as a city councilman along with displaying several photos of him. In one he's listening to a police officer to talk; in another he's listening to a fireman. What a great community-minded guy Mr. DiCiccio is! I too am for the protection our families and for the safety of our neighborhoods. Mr. DiCiccio must be the candidate who represents my views.
But wait! There remains that second piece of mail. I wonder what it says. I should read it if I am to determine which candidate best represents The Six.
The second piece is a slightly smaller piece, and it's printed in ominous grays with a touch of red. It says boldly across the top: "Sal DiCiccio: The Developer's Pal". The piece then describes how Mr. DiCiccio has taken money from developers and then done zoning sorts of things that are bad. After flipping to the reverse side of the piece, I then see a colorful green and blue layout with the name "Dana Marie Kennedy" across the top in a bold font. Below I am informed that Dana Marie Kennedy is for "smart growth" and "services and safety"—among other wonderful things. Wow. I too am for smart growth and services and safety.
With two great people vying for my one vote, I can tell that this is going to be a difficult decision for me, though admittedly that little thing about Mr. DiCiccio and zoning has me a little worried. And I haven't even started researching the other two candidates. I can only hope that they are for terrible things such as eating cute, fluffy kittens and telling dead baby jokes at inappropriate times because I don't know if I can handle three or even four super great candidates.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some civic responsibility stuff to go do.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Reading Log, no. 6-4
And they went further and further from her, being attached to her by a thin thread (since they had lunched with her) which would stretch and stretch, get thinner and thinner as they walked across London; as if one's friends were attached to one's body, after lunching with them, by a thin thread, which (as she dozed there) became hazy with the sound of bells, striking the hour or ringing to service, as a single spider's thread is blotted with rain-drops, and, burdened, sags down. So she slept.I did not like this book. I did not like it because I was expecting something great, or at least classic, and instead I read something forgettable. While reading it I felt peeved that I was investing time reading something that I think has been arbitrarily selected for praise by snobby literary critics.
...
And as a single spider's thread after wavering here and there attaches itself to the point of a leaf, so Richard's mind, recovering from its lethargy, set now on his wife, Clarissa, whom Peter Walsh had loved so passionately; and Richard had had a sudden vision of her there at luncheon; of himself and Clarissa; of their life together; and he drew the tray of old jewels towards him, and taking up first this brooch then that ring, "How much is that?" he asked, but doubted his own taste.
Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway
Or maybe I just didn't get it.
However, consider the following. Literary innovation, which is supposedly one of Mrs. Dalloway's accomplishments, is generally a good thing, but that does not mean that we should spend our time reading innovative books when such books' innovative ideas have since been improved upon and perfected in other works. Sure, read it if you're an English major working on your semester thesis. But don't put the novel on a list of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century.
But maybe I just didn't get it.
If Mrs. Dalloway were first published today by a no-name author, I highly doubt it would be discovered to be a great novel.
Then again, maybe I just didn't get it.
I struggle to imagine a novel with characters I find any more boring than the ones that exist within Mrs. Dalloway. I couldn't care about the characters or the plot. Any messages concerning contemporary issues of the day were lost on me, and any timeless philosophical wisdom were too obscure to have been of practical use to me.
Or maybe I just didn't get it.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Reading Log, no. 6-3
At the door, she hinted:The short version:
"Mr. Bjornstam, if you were I, would you worry when people thought you were affected?"
"Huh? Kick 'em in the face! Say, if I were a sea-gull, and all over silver, think I'd care what a pack of dirty seals thought about my flying?"
It was not the wind at her back, it was the thrust of Bjornstam's scorn which carried her through town.
Sinclair Lewis
Main Street
City woman marries small town doctor and moves to live with him in the country. Woman wants to revolutionize the town to make it better; townsfolk all resent her wanting them to be artistic and scholarly. Woman is dejected and must cope.
While reading it, I found Main Street to be a depressing book, but now that I'm insulated from the experience by a few months, I can state how great the novel is.
It's not particularly tragic, though there is some tragedy. Rather, what made Main Street a depressing read is its long, steady narration of doomed aspirations. Slowly our Carol falls into despair about her failing situation. That things will get steadily worse for her becomes clear early on in the story, and yet just exactly how things will play out is not clear. Along the way, Sinclair Lewis masterfully levels criticism every direction at early 1900s small town America that remains freshly relevant to modern day urban America.
I recommend Main Street. As such, I don't have much more to write about it and will leave the remainder of this post to Sinclair Lewis.
On young love:
Of the love-making of Carol and Will Kennicott there is nothing to be told which may not be heard on every summer evening, on every shadowy block.On privilege:
They were biology and mystery; their speech was slang phrases and flares of poetry; their silences were contentment, or shaky crises when his arm took her shoulder. All the beauty of youth, first discovered when it is passing--and all the commonplaceness of a well-to-do unmarried man encountering a pretty girl at the time when she is slightly weary of her employment and sees no glory ahead nor any man she is glad to serve.
Carol rose. She suggested that the Thanatopsis ought to help the poor of the town. She was ever so correct and modern. She did not, she said, want charity for them, but a chance of self-help; an employment bureau, direction in washing babies and making pleasing stews, possibly a municipal fund for home-building. "What do you think of my plans, Mrs. Warren?" she concluded.On conformity:
Speaking judiciously, as one related to the church by marriage, Mrs. Warren gave verdict:
"I'm sure we're all heartily in accord with Mrs. Kennicott in feeling that wherever genuine poverty is encountered, it is not only noblesse oblige but a joy to fulfill our duty to the less fortunate ones. But I must say it seems to me we should lose the whole point of the thing by not regarding it as charity. Why, that's the chief adornment of the true Christian and the church! The Bible has laid it down for our guidance. 'Faith, Hope, and Charity," it says, and, 'The poor ye have with ye always,' which indicates that there never can be anything to these so-called scientific schemes for abolishing charity, never! And isn't it better so? I should hate to think of a world in which we were deprived of all the pleasure of giving. Besides, if these shiftless folks realize they're getting charity, and not something to which they have a right, they're so much more grateful."
She had inquired as to the effect of this dominating dullness upon foreigners. She remembered the feeble exotic quality to be found in the first-generation Scandinavians; she recalled the Norwegian Fair at the Lutheran Church, to which Bea had taken her. There, in the bondestue, the replica of a Norse farm kitchen, pale women in scarlet jackets embroidered with gold thread and colored beads, in black skirts with a line of blue, greet-striped aprons, and ridged caps very pretty to set off a fresh face, had served rommegrod og lefse--sweet cakes and sour milk pudding spiced with cinnamon. For the first time in Gopher Prairie Carol had found novelty. She reveled in the mild foreignness of it.On feminism:
But she saw these Scandinavian women zealously exchanging their spiced puddings and red jackets for fried pork chops and congealed white blouses, trading the ancient Christmas hymns of the fjords for "She's My Jazzland Cutie," being Americanized into uniformity, and in less than a generation losing in the grayness whatever pleasant new customs they might have added to the life of the town. Theirs sons finished the process. In ready-made clothes and ready-made high-school phrases they sank into propriety, and the sound American customs had absorbed without one trace of pollution another alien invasion.
And along with these foreigners, she felt herself being ironed into glossy mediocrity, and she rebelled, in fear.
"But was I more happy when I was drudging? I was not. I was just bedraggled and unhappy. It's work--but not my work. I could run an office or a library, or nurse and teach children. But solitary dish-washing isn't enough to satisfy me--or many other women. We're going to chuck it. We're going to wash 'em by machinery, and come out and play with you men in the offices and clubs and politics you've cleverly kept for yourselves! Oh, we're hopeless, we dissatisfied women! Then why do you want to have us about the place, to fret you? So it's for your sake that I'm going!"And on the meaningless of everything:
Thus Carol hit upon the tragedy of old age, which is not that it is less vigorous than youth, but that it is not needed by youth; that its love and prosy sageness, so important a few years ago, so gladly offered now, are rejected with laughter.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Reading Log, no. 6-2
He became my favourite teacher at Petit Séminaire and the reason I studied zoology at the University of Toronto. I felt a kinship with him. It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them--and then they leap.This story will make you believe in God, or so it claims. I realize that this sort of thing is a marketing ploy to increase book sales, and yet still I take the comment seriously enough to challenge.
I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
Yann Matel
Life of Pi
But first, the short version:
Boy name Pi tells story of being stranded in lifeboat in the Pacific for 227 days. Also in the lifeboat are a tiger named Richard Parker and, initially, a few other animals. Through boy's resourcefulness, boy and tiger survive. (Tiger eats other animals.)
But wait! There's a surprise twist! Boy then tells a parallel story of being stranded in a lifeboat, but instead of being in it with a tiger and, initially, a few other animals, he's instead in it with a few other humans. Boy admits to partaking in the savage act of cannibalism.
Boy then poses question: if you can't prove either story then should you not believe in the better one, the more comforting one? (That's the first one, in case you're wondering.) As a bonus, the tiger story has one chapter devoted to a carnivorous island, which is way cool!
And so that's how it's suppose to go with all of us. Given that we can't prove God's existence one way or the other, should we not choose to believe in God? -- the more comforting option compared to the one that involves difficult questions and few answers?
Yann Martel has proposed a modern equivalent to Pascal's wager: you can't know for sure, so you may as well make yourself comfortable. It precludes the possibility that there exists an ethical consequence for belief, and I find it irresponsible.
The twin fears of death and of lack of external purpose drive a lot of people to do and believe tremendously irrational things. Answers, not questions, assuage those fears. But answers, not questions, stymie progress. Clearly there's a balance to be struck between pain and comfort, and so it seems reasonable that the best of theological positions would strike some similar sort of balance.
Richard Parker was not in that lifeboat. Perhaps Pi should have better followed his father's advise?
But I learned at my expense that Father believed there was another animal even more dangerous than us, and one that was extremely common, too, found on every continent, in every habitat: the redoubtable speciesAnimalus anthropomorphicus , the animal that is "cute", "friendly", "loving", "devoted", "merry", "understanding". These animals lie in ambush in every toy store and children's zoo. Countless stories are told of them. They are the pendants of those "vicious", "bloodthirsty", "depraved" animals that inflame the ire of the maniacs I have just mentioned, who vent their spite on them with walking sticks and umbrellas. In both cases we look at an animals and see a mirror. The obsession with putting ourselves at the centre of everything is the bane not only of theologians but also of zoologists.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Reading Log, no. 6-1
Rachel even had to ask me in one of her emails whether I stopped reading
too. No, no, I replied. I still read. It's just that I stopped blogging
about reading -- and everything else, for that matter.
But the days are getting noticeably shorter. Lately, the weather has
turned, and I'm no longer cursing Phoenix but instead anticipating the
ensuing forty-six weeks of easy times. School is back in session, and
that means the city has plenty of school zone speed limits ripe for
breaking. Things reset; old routines reassert. It's only fitting I write a
reading log.
Like with a procrastinated school project, this catch-up reading log is
a monster. It's too long to expect even my most bored readers to slog
through, and so I'm breaking it up into separate posts for each book.
* * *
What would such a utopia look like?
Apparently it would involve people watching a lot of television, people having a lot of sex, and people spending a lot of time driving cars. But I assure you such a world is totally different from ours -- the cars are flying cars. But are the cars carbon-free, too? Unknown.
Clarke wrote Childhood's End half a century ago, back when the world was still infinite. What would the novel be like if it were written today, now that the world is becoming annoyingly finite? That's a question I repeatedly asked myself throughout the book.
Ignoring technological obsolescence for the moment, overall the image Clarke paints of utopia is convincing. People separate into two groups: the passive consumers and the active self-actualized (ineffectual though they may be). Either way, people are instilled with a unqualified happiness that belies a certain emptiness, a certain non-humanity. This is chillingly denoted in a passage describing the head Overlord's foreboding assessment of the utopic world he manages:
too. No, no, I replied. I still read. It's just that I stopped blogging
about reading -- and everything else, for that matter.
But the days are getting noticeably shorter. Lately, the weather has
turned, and I'm no longer cursing Phoenix but instead anticipating the
ensuing forty-six weeks of easy times. School is back in session, and
that means the city has plenty of school zone speed limits ripe for
breaking. Things reset; old routines reassert. It's only fitting I write a
reading log.
Like with a procrastinated school project, this catch-up reading log is
a monster. It's too long to expect even my most bored readers to slog
through, and so I'm breaking it up into separate posts for each book.
* * *
By the standards of all earlier ages, it was Utopia. Ignorance, disease, poverty, and fear had virtually ceased to exist. The memory of war was fading into the past as a nightmare vanishes with the dawn; soon it would lie outside the experience of all living men.The quick version: A race of extraterrestrials seemingly possessing omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence enter into earth orbit, establish contact with humans, and direct changes for human affairs to improve conditions for everyone and everything on the planet. Humans learn to deal with their new paternalistic masters.
With the energies of mankind directed into constructive channels, the face of the world had been remade. It was, almost literally, a new world. The cities that had been good enough for earlier generations had been rebuilt--or deserted and left as museum specimens when they had ceased to serve any useful purpose. Many cities had already been abandoned in this manner, for the whole pattern of industry and commerce had changed completely. Production had become largely automatic: the robot factories poured forth consumer goods in such unending streams that all the ordinary necessities of life were virtually free. Men worked for the sake of the luxuries they desired: or they did not work at all.
It was One World. The old names of the old countries were still used, but they were no more than convenient postal divisions. There was no one on Earth who could not speak English, who could not read, who was not within range of a television set, who could not visit the other side of the planet within twenty-four hours...
Crime had practically vanished. It had become both unnecessary and impossible. When no one lacks anything, there is no point in stealing. Moreover, all potential criminals knew that there could be no escape from the surveillance of the Overlords. In the early days of their rule, they had intervened so effectively on behalf of law and order that the lesson had never been forgotten.
Crimes of passion, though not quite extinct, were almost unheard of. Now that so many of its psychological problems had been removed, humanity was far saner and less irrational. And what earlier ages would have called vice was now no more than eccentricity--or, at the worst, bad manners.
Arthur C. Clarke
Childhood's End
What would such a utopia look like?
Apparently it would involve people watching a lot of television, people having a lot of sex, and people spending a lot of time driving cars. But I assure you such a world is totally different from ours -- the cars are flying cars. But are the cars carbon-free, too? Unknown.
Clarke wrote Childhood's End half a century ago, back when the world was still infinite. What would the novel be like if it were written today, now that the world is becoming annoyingly finite? That's a question I repeatedly asked myself throughout the book.
Ignoring technological obsolescence for the moment, overall the image Clarke paints of utopia is convincing. People separate into two groups: the passive consumers and the active self-actualized (ineffectual though they may be). Either way, people are instilled with a unqualified happiness that belies a certain emptiness, a certain non-humanity. This is chillingly denoted in a passage describing the head Overlord's foreboding assessment of the utopic world he manages:
They would never know how lucky they had been. For a lifetime, mankind had achieved as much happiness as any race can ever know. It had been the Golden Age. But gold was also the color or sunset, of autumn: and only Karellen's ears could catch the first wailings of the winter storms.Perhaps we in the 21st century are living in the Golden Age and all without the assistance of those devilish Overlords.
And only Karellen knew with what inexorable swiftness the Golden Age was rushing to its close.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
This guy is SO you!
It's not intentional that I'm unique. Or, more accurately, it's not my aim to be unique. It just happens that I think most people make poor life choices and I care not to tread down all the same paths as them.
And yet this week I received no fewer than three instances of different people telling me about three different people and how those people are like me. Or maybe it's that I'm like them. The funny thing is that the three people to whom I was compared all, well, have something wrong with them. Or so that's how it's perceived.
Here are the three comparisons, in the order in which I received them:
So there you go. People who know me take me for a socially inept, serial-killing homeless miser. Sounds like a pretty good life choice to me.
And yet this week I received no fewer than three instances of different people telling me about three different people and how those people are like me. Or maybe it's that I'm like them. The funny thing is that the three people to whom I was compared all, well, have something wrong with them. Or so that's how it's perceived.
Here are the three comparisons, in the order in which I received them:
- From my sister, Rachel, via email:
from Rachel
to Craig
date Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 6:20 AMJason (and me, some) started watching Showtime's "Dexter" this weekend. Jason actually loves and managed to squeeze in the entire first season in addition to demolishing the upstairs flooring and re-piping all the upstairs hot water. Anway, have you seen it? The premise is a guy name Dexter is a serial killer but he's a hero because he only kills really bad people. Troubling? Yes! No, what's freaky is this guy is SO you! Do I need to run a background check?
- From Laura, via text:
From: Laura
They made a movie about you. We must go see it!
7:55A Fri Jul31
From: Craig
You too? My sister wrote me saying there's a tv show about a serial killer who's just like me.
8:10A Fri Jul31
From: Laura
Nice! Please dont target brunettes from long island. Anyway my movie has a guy with Asperger's.
8:22A Fri Jul31 - From Coworker Neil, via office email:
from Coworker Neil
to Coworker Craig
sent Fri 7/31/2009 11:53 AM
Is this you in 40 years time?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111091624
So there you go. People who know me take me for a socially inept, serial-killing homeless miser. Sounds like a pretty good life choice to me.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Bicycle prison
This afternoon on my way home from work I felt like exploring the city a bit. I thought it would be interesting to take 15th Ave. south to see for how far it remains bike friendly.
When I moved to Phoenix less than three years ago, 15th Ave. was a mirror of 12th St.: alternating stretches of well marked bike lanes with stretches of crammed-in double lanes compressed between the curbs, which counter-intuitively seems to act as a cue to motorists for them to speed up and drive aggressively. (Theory: when there exists another lane for going the same direction, motorists subconsciously feel threatened that they may be passed, and as a result they speed up to maintain their honor and dignity.)
However, sometime within the last year or so the city has repainted the four-lane suicide stretches and converted them into spacious two-lane bits of road with comfy, rather clean (by Phoenix standards) bike lanes, and so 15th Ave. is now a very good north-south route between Butler Dr. and Thomas Rd. Maybe even further south, too, but I don't know because I haven't recently been that far south west of Central Ave. And so this afternoon on my way home from work I felt like exploring 15th Ave. south of Thomas to find out.
But I couldn't, and so I didn't.
I couldn't go exploring after work because these days I'm in bicycle prison.
My bicycle prison sentence started a few weeks ago, sometime in early July. It was a similar sort of day; during the afternoon on my way home after work I decided to go exploring. That time my mission was to search for new possible training climbs north of Lincoln Dr. east of 36th St., A.K.A. the 36th St. Climb, one of the steepest patches of asphalt we have here in Central-ish Phoenix. Google Maps shows the region as having all sorts of promising windy roads around those foothills with some zigging and zagging sharply and thus giving the telltale sign of switchback steepness. But a lot those roads are private roads and gated off, and it takes a real asshole to climb up and down them for intervals, unlike, say, Cholla Ln. west of 64th St., which is a private road but not gated off, and so we cyclists conveniently forget to see the "private road -- no trespassing" sign each time we gasp our way to the top. (Theory: the real assholes are people who buy mountain-side property in the middle of a four-million capita metropolitan area and then expect the flaming-torch-and-pitchfork-wielding-masses not to come a-stormin' their privacy gates.)
But I digress from my digression. My point is that I had a mission that afternoon a few weeks ago, and it was to find new training climbs north of Lincoln Dr. Normally this kind of mission is no big deal; it's an extra hour tacked onto my half-hour commute, and it's not mandatory that I crank hard up the climbs, but I probably will because steep climbs are an easy, brainless way to get in a good workout. As shallow foreshadowing I note here that I'm carrying half a gallon of water on my bike within my two oversized water bottles, so what could possibly go wrong?
I set out and time trial it along the canal path to its end, past where the pavement stops and the hardpack trail starts. I detour my detour and climb 36th St. as a sort of warm up, as sort of a measuring stick by which to compare whatever other climbs I find. Only when it's 46°C outside the idea of a warm-up is silly. (46°C, converted to Fahrenheit, is really really hot.) By the time I make it to the top of 36th St., which I'm assured is a make-out spot for teenagers, and circle around for the white-knuckle descent from thin smog to thick smog, I have that bad feeling of knowing I'm done -- done possessing any capacity to crank hard. My body is meekly transitioning to shutdown mode, the mode in which I can pedal all I want but I can't make myself work. It's like I can't breathe and my sweat glands can't possibly keep up. And also I have to employ water rationing because my water is mostly gone. I take a small sip to moisten my mouth but instead I burn my tongue and lips because 46°C water, when converted to Fahrenheit, is really kind of disgustingly hot and totally not refreshing.
But I press on through the heat and confirm that there aren't any other great training climbs in the area. At least any other good climbs are well hidden, but then again, I wasn't really paying attention to any road that didn't lead to home. But besides, motoring traffic on Lincoln Dr. during rush hour kind of sucks anyway, so I'm not sure about the area. I'll stick with my Camelback climbs for now.
That afternoon, within the span of one and a half hours I drank a full gallon of water -- I stopped at an ice cream shop (of all places!) to refill -- and still I arrived home dehydrated. Some people say the body can't absorb more than a quart of fluid per hour. (Theory: maybe that's true when you're full of shit.)
And so it's when I arrived home that afternoon that I realized that I had been sentenced to bicycle prison: the time of the year during which cranking hard during midday or late afternoon is a no-go. I'm currently serving what I think will amount to be a two-month sentence. Some days they let me out in the yard in the wee early hours of the morning or during the evening after the sun has set, and that's when I can get my exercise. But during the day I sit inside and gaze longingly at my bike map and daydream of the places I'll go after I break through these bars and get out of this bad place.
When I moved to Phoenix less than three years ago, 15th Ave. was a mirror of 12th St.: alternating stretches of well marked bike lanes with stretches of crammed-in double lanes compressed between the curbs, which counter-intuitively seems to act as a cue to motorists for them to speed up and drive aggressively. (Theory: when there exists another lane for going the same direction, motorists subconsciously feel threatened that they may be passed, and as a result they speed up to maintain their honor and dignity.)
However, sometime within the last year or so the city has repainted the four-lane suicide stretches and converted them into spacious two-lane bits of road with comfy, rather clean (by Phoenix standards) bike lanes, and so 15th Ave. is now a very good north-south route between Butler Dr. and Thomas Rd. Maybe even further south, too, but I don't know because I haven't recently been that far south west of Central Ave. And so this afternoon on my way home from work I felt like exploring 15th Ave. south of Thomas to find out.
But I couldn't, and so I didn't.
I couldn't go exploring after work because these days I'm in bicycle prison.
My bicycle prison sentence started a few weeks ago, sometime in early July. It was a similar sort of day; during the afternoon on my way home after work I decided to go exploring. That time my mission was to search for new possible training climbs north of Lincoln Dr. east of 36th St., A.K.A. the 36th St. Climb, one of the steepest patches of asphalt we have here in Central-ish Phoenix. Google Maps shows the region as having all sorts of promising windy roads around those foothills with some zigging and zagging sharply and thus giving the telltale sign of switchback steepness. But a lot those roads are private roads and gated off, and it takes a real asshole to climb up and down them for intervals, unlike, say, Cholla Ln. west of 64th St., which is a private road but not gated off, and so we cyclists conveniently forget to see the "private road -- no trespassing" sign each time we gasp our way to the top. (Theory: the real assholes are people who buy mountain-side property in the middle of a four-million capita metropolitan area and then expect the flaming-torch-and-pitchfork-wielding-masses not to come a-stormin' their privacy gates.)
But I digress from my digression. My point is that I had a mission that afternoon a few weeks ago, and it was to find new training climbs north of Lincoln Dr. Normally this kind of mission is no big deal; it's an extra hour tacked onto my half-hour commute, and it's not mandatory that I crank hard up the climbs, but I probably will because steep climbs are an easy, brainless way to get in a good workout. As shallow foreshadowing I note here that I'm carrying half a gallon of water on my bike within my two oversized water bottles, so what could possibly go wrong?
I set out and time trial it along the canal path to its end, past where the pavement stops and the hardpack trail starts. I detour my detour and climb 36th St. as a sort of warm up, as sort of a measuring stick by which to compare whatever other climbs I find. Only when it's 46°C outside the idea of a warm-up is silly. (46°C, converted to Fahrenheit, is really really hot.) By the time I make it to the top of 36th St., which I'm assured is a make-out spot for teenagers, and circle around for the white-knuckle descent from thin smog to thick smog, I have that bad feeling of knowing I'm done -- done possessing any capacity to crank hard. My body is meekly transitioning to shutdown mode, the mode in which I can pedal all I want but I can't make myself work. It's like I can't breathe and my sweat glands can't possibly keep up. And also I have to employ water rationing because my water is mostly gone. I take a small sip to moisten my mouth but instead I burn my tongue and lips because 46°C water, when converted to Fahrenheit, is really kind of disgustingly hot and totally not refreshing.
But I press on through the heat and confirm that there aren't any other great training climbs in the area. At least any other good climbs are well hidden, but then again, I wasn't really paying attention to any road that didn't lead to home. But besides, motoring traffic on Lincoln Dr. during rush hour kind of sucks anyway, so I'm not sure about the area. I'll stick with my Camelback climbs for now.
That afternoon, within the span of one and a half hours I drank a full gallon of water -- I stopped at an ice cream shop (of all places!) to refill -- and still I arrived home dehydrated. Some people say the body can't absorb more than a quart of fluid per hour. (Theory: maybe that's true when you're full of shit.)
And so it's when I arrived home that afternoon that I realized that I had been sentenced to bicycle prison: the time of the year during which cranking hard during midday or late afternoon is a no-go. I'm currently serving what I think will amount to be a two-month sentence. Some days they let me out in the yard in the wee early hours of the morning or during the evening after the sun has set, and that's when I can get my exercise. But during the day I sit inside and gaze longingly at my bike map and daydream of the places I'll go after I break through these bars and get out of this bad place.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Hot stuff
Apparently Just Enough Craig isn't living up to its name these days. Apparently people read this thing and are waiting for the exciting conclusion of the California bike trip. Apparently they'll get what they want but not today. For today I write about something that has nothing at all to do with the fact that I might be trying for filler -- to publish at least one post this month so as not to break my streak of posting each month.
Today my ride home from work was the first one this year where it felt hot. The weather report online assures me that Phoenix is finally -- yes, finally -- hitting daily highs above 40ºC, which statistically is about average for this time of the year, but somehow today it felt especially hot, as if I had stepped not outside but inside -- into a blast furnace.
It could be that I spent an unusually large amount of time this weekend inside air conditioning and that my sweat glands had weakened to mere mortal status.
It could be that I failed to keep up with my normal water intake this afternoon at my desk and was dehydrated on the ride home.
But then again, maybe it really was hot. As evidence for this alternative explanation, I provide for you evidence A:
I passed this guy on the canal path. As I passed him I realized that, yes, that blurry white thing on his neck and upper back is a bag full of ice! Here's evidence B, the close-up:
So much for bikes not having air conditioning!
Today my ride home from work was the first one this year where it felt hot. The weather report online assures me that Phoenix is finally -- yes, finally -- hitting daily highs above 40ºC, which statistically is about average for this time of the year, but somehow today it felt especially hot, as if I had stepped not outside but inside -- into a blast furnace.
It could be that I spent an unusually large amount of time this weekend inside air conditioning and that my sweat glands had weakened to mere mortal status.
It could be that I failed to keep up with my normal water intake this afternoon at my desk and was dehydrated on the ride home.
But then again, maybe it really was hot. As evidence for this alternative explanation, I provide for you evidence A:
I passed this guy on the canal path. As I passed him I realized that, yes, that blurry white thing on his neck and upper back is a bag full of ice! Here's evidence B, the close-up:
So much for bikes not having air conditioning!
Monday, May 25, 2009
California Bike Trip, day 1: Los Angeles - Carpinteria
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Friday. I awake in the lounge car, which I discovered to be an underrated place to spend the night during my train rides to and from Houston during this last holiday season. The lounge car features several trios of side-by-side chairs facing out through the windows, and though these chairs serve as instruments of contortion for someone of my height, they are the only place on the train where one may sleep horizontally while avoiding the expense of a bed in a sleeping car. I'll take horizontal-yet-contorted over vertical-yet-stretched-out most nights.
Even better though is horizontal-and-comfortable, which this morning I notice is what another passenger has achieved by taking to the floor and luxuriously lying with straight legs and straight back within the cozy comfort of his sleeping bag cocoon. His brilliant plan has me feeling by comparison (1) stupid because I have camping gear on the train and could have avoided both contortion and chilliness by using my sleeping bag if only I possessed the creativity to have used it on a train and (2) weak for again succumbing to the temptation of furniture.
Soon the sun rises and the lounge car steadily fills with passengers. I sit in a chair and pretend to read my book on philosophy but mostly just look out upon the blur of the moving landscape. It dawns on me that I'm committed to doing this trip. Have I sufficiently worked out all the details? No bother. These things always work out in the end. Or so I tell myself. It's the vague faith possessed by anyone who has yet to mess up.
Rolling through the endless sprawl of Los Angeles takes hours and feels even longer. From within the lounge car I gaze upon the marred landscape, at times trying to imagine the beauty of the land before thirteen million or so people took it over and at other times trying to imagine the daily desperation undoubtedly experienced by the typical commuter on the I-10.
Today the sky is shrouded in a grayness that's caused either by fog or smog -- by which one is unclear. Two fellow passengers near me come to an uncertain agreement that it's fog and not smog. Sucked into the conversation, for train passengers are unfailingly talkative, I am then brought up to speed on all the reasons why and all the ways how the Lakers will make it to the championship series this year.
Eventually we pull in to Union Station, most of us disembark, and promptly I become lost. I am not expecting Union Station to be a real train station with real teeming masses and a baggage claim carousel. But it is. Where's my bike?
After a while, I give in and ask a station employee for directions to where bicycles are to be claimed. I follow his directions and become lost again. I return to the same guy and ask again, and this time he physically leads me to an elevator just around the corner, one that I'm fairly sure wasn't there two minutes ago. The elevator takes me up to a small, secluded hallway containing an opaque, locked door plainly marked "Baggage Department". I ring the doorbell. I wait a minute or two. I ring the bell again. Immediately, the door opens and an employee not so politely instructs me that ringing the bell twice is unnecessary. I politely nod my head as if this will somehow improve the condition that I'll find my bicycle to be in. I'm led through a large, cluttered warehouse-kind-of-room to my bike box, which is right-side up, which means my bike is upside down. There are a few holes punched in the box. He checks my claim ticket, and I anxiously remove my bike and reassemble it and check it out. The brakes require realignment, but otherwise everything looks good. I load my gear on the racks and leave.
I depart the train station around 11:15AM, and before leaving the parking lot I'm already lost in downtown LA. I take no heed of the fact that I've already become lost three times before my trip has even started, and I ask a station security guard for directions to Venice Blvd, my route to the ocean. Then I'm off for real.
I've heard plenty of horror stories about bicycling in Los Angeles, but it turns out they're all true. Getting to the coast is nasty work: impossibly thick midday traffic, potholes, loading vans parked alongside the curb in the bike lanes, traffic lights equipped with sensors to change the lights to red just as any cyclist approaches the intersection. And a slight hint of a westerly wind. Yet I persist and arrive at the Pacific and snap this photo of the bike path on Venice Beach:
I stop to chow down on some trail mix and bagels, and I talk to a woman who is playing with her child in the sand.Craig: Do you know if this bike path connects with the Hwy 1?This is my first lesson in learning an important thing about Californians: they're liars. I will not be seeing "all kinds of wind". I will be seeing one kind of wind, and it will be a headwind. This woman does not have the second sight nor does she possess a degree in meteorology. If it had been the case that at any time during the next two days I experienced a different kind of wind, I would have felt overjoyed. Tears would have trickled down my face. But in actuality, what will happen is that the tears will blow off right off my face and into my trailing slipstream. But I digress--
Woman: Yes, it does. Where are you going?
Craig: Oh, just up the coast. [I say this with the smug confidence of someone engaging in a Grand Adventure.]
Woman: Oh, good for you. My husband did that trip not too long ago. [She says this with the smug indifference of someone who knows that biking a portion of the California coast is No Big Deal.] Of course, he biked down the coast, not up it.
Craig: I suppose that makes for a more favorable wind.
Woman: Oh yeah. You'll see all kinds of wind.
Up the coast I go. The bike path connects with the Hwy 1. The Hwy 1 winds endlessly through Malibu. Traffic is heavy. Cars are parked all along the shoulder next to "no parking" signs, and countless times I must merge into speeding traffic to get around the parked obstacles. Eventually I climb a hill, which breaks the tedium and inspires me to snap this photo:
Onward, onward, onward. I pass through Malibu, take another rest, and I bike for a few miles on pavement decorated by signs that are important to ignore, signs that say things like "Freeway -- bicycles prohibited". By rush hour I'm in Oxnard, and this is the low point of the day. Oxnard is not a beautiful city; it's flat and not at all scenic, and traffic is at its worst for the day. I stop at a convenient store for food and water. But I'm in a city with hubbub, not out in the middle of nowhere at a quaint country store, so I lock my bike to only thing serviceable as a bike lock: a trash can.
Somehow I find this demeaning in addition to being outright unsanitary. And I'm behind schedule. I stock up on items that rank high on the calorie-per-unit-weight list while simultaneously not appearing on the may-kill-me-or-worst list. I begin a trip-long tradition of buying raw tortillas, to be eaten either plain or smothered in peanut butter. Then I'm off again. I press through Oxnard and then through Ventura, which is Oxnard's much more beautiful twin.My spirit perks up. For most of the day starting somewhere in Malibu I've been seeing running the opposite direction Ragnar relay racers and their decorated vans and exchange points. Finally I decide to stop and snap a photo of one:
I ride through Ventura and contemplate my options for getting to Santa Barbara. My California state map informs me that the freeway may be the only option. Then I notice that adjacent to the road I'm currently on is an isolated bike path. I try my luck. The path winds away from the road and then continues for several miles along the coast:
Then the path turns inland. It's getting dark, and I know I'm running out of time to find a place to camp for the night. I'm stopped by a woman frantically running from the opposite direction and carrying a bag containing some fruit and asked whether I've seen a man in a such-and-such jacket. He's diabetic and suffering from low blood sugar. I haven't seen him, and I want to help her search because I'm on a bike and thus much faster, but I'm kind of lost myself and trying to finish the day Somewhere Up The Road. I ride off and keep a look out but never see the man. Eventually I myself stop and ask three women walking the opposite direction where the path leads to and whether it will take me to the freeway or some other road that connects to Santa Barbara. They think so but aren't sure. I continue onwards. The path becomes a road that appears to be unused by motor traffic. Then ahead of me I see this:
And to the left, this:
Which way? The 101 definitely takes me where I want to go, but it's a crazy freeway with crazy motorists. I place my faith in the small, green bicycle "bike route" sign and continue forward along the path, which leads to this:
The path leads me out along a back road that runs parallel to the freeway. The sun has already set, and the sky is rapidly darkening. I observe a park near the coast. It has well manicured softball fields, a restroom, and some hiking trails. It also has signs saying that camping is prohibited, but whatever -- I decide this shall be my campsite.I rest my bike up against a tree within a brushy area next to the softball field and hope that I'm sufficiently unexposed to Trouble. I make my pad in a perfectly little grassy opening nestled between some bushes. I lay down my blanket, on which I place my bivy sack and sleeping bag. I change into my wool shirt and tights and slide into the bag, and I congratulate myself on finding such a fine spot. I'm cozy warm and, why, even the ground slants just perfectly down to my feet ever so slightly. I lie on my back and watch as the stars appear one by one. Camping is not at all hard.
End day 1.
"Get up. Get up."
Continue day 1.
It's a stern voice, and it repeats for what seems to my half-asleep brain like hours its unyielding request to get up. Is it speaking to me? The voice is off a ways; it's coming from the park's parking lot, about 50m away. I'm behind a few bushes, however scraggly, and my gear is all dark colored, so I should be invisible. I lie still and wait. The voice continues commanding. Then:
"Get up. Get up and come out of the tent."
I don't have a tent. Phew, the bad voice isn't directed towards me.
I listen to figure out the situation. Some people, some law-breaking, rules-don't-apply-to-me types, these freeloading, no-good hippies, they've decided to ignore the clearly marked signs and camp overnight in the park, and they've been caught. A policeman is kicking them out. Serves 'em right.
Of course, I'm really scared. A policeman is kicking out some people who parked their car in the parking lot and set up a tent right there. Stupid, sure, but their folly may expose mine. This park isn't very big, and if after kicking out the tent dwellers the policeman then decides to walk the trails for only two minutes then doubtlessly he'll find me. He wouldn't even need a flashlight. I hope and hope that he's a lazy type who patrols only the parking lot and then moves on. It's dark. It's cold. I have nowhere else to go, or, if I do go then I won't be able to see where I'm going and will have a difficult time finding another spot. (This isn't true. I'll discover the next morning that I camped just down the road from a half a dozen motels.)
To the others: please please go away and leave me alone.
To myself: please please don't sneeze and give myself away.
After a time ranging somewhere between one and two eternities, the campers drive off and the cop thereafter follows. I fall back asleep immediately.
End day 1.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
California Bike Trip, day 0: Phoenix - Maricopa
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The trip starts with me arriving home from work a tad early from an otherwise typical Thursday.
A well planned California Bike Trip entails packing and loading everything onto the bike the day before so that the pre-ride preparation involves little more than fueling up and riding off into a figurative sunset. Of course, the sunset is merely figurative and not literal because riding from Phoenix to Maricopa is much safer while there's still light out.
Of the many things that will go wrong over the next few days, the fact that it's Thursday afternoon and I haven't yet packed and loaded has the distinction of being the first. There was a mix-up at the bike shop, and the panniers aren't yet in. Tomorrow afternoon in Carpinteria I'll check my voice mail and learn that my panniers arrived late by one day. I won't be pleased. Very fortunately, Coworker Steve had come through today and lent me his panniers for the trip. They're small and they're not waterproof, but they'll suffice.
So I pack and load most of this junk:
Onto my bike like so:
The printer-paper box is intended only for today. I'm planning on using it to store in one neat place everything I must bring with me onto the train (since I don't have proper luggage). The box idea works out well. Again I am impressed by the practicality of ghetto style.And I'm off. I ride into an actual, literal sunset, already behind schedule. Actually, it's still somewhat figurative, but that's only because today I ride south and not west.
Another benefit of packing and loading ahead of time, had I done it, is that it allows one to test ride the bike fully loaded. If I had done so then I would have discovered that my handlebars cannot simultaneously fit both the handlebar bag, though it is a small one, and my large, to-see headlight, so I resort to using my small, to-be-seen headlight. Most of the today's route traverses through the ongoing sprawl of Phoenix/Tempe/Chandler, but outside the pale artificial glow of the Valley streets, Hwy. 347 is dark, and the night is moonless. My to-be-seen headlight may be nifty with its simple and lightweight velcro mounting strap and tiny, ingenuous battery charger, but it does little to illuminate the tumbleweed and rocks and assorted junk that are littered about along the shoulder. Fortunately, I can somewhat manage to see where I'm going because the headlights from the endless stream of late-working motoring commuters act as searchlights that zoom ahead to reveal the pavement ahead. I manage to avoid most obstacles.
I arrive at the train station mere minutes before it opens, which is a little after 9:00PM. Here's the picnic area out front:
I discover that waiting outside there for ten minutes or so during late April is much easier than waiting there for three or four hours during late December. Not that I know for sure what's it's like to wait there for three of four hours during late December, but I do know what's it's like to wait at the convenient store down the street for three or four hours during late December. But I digress --Once inside I pick up my pre-ordered ticket and pay the extra $15 for my bike: $5 for handling and $10 for the box. Then I proceed to put my bike in the box upside down:
Mistake #2.I wait four hours for the train's arrival. I sit for a while in the lobby chairs. I take to the floor and sleep some. I procrastinate reading my book on philosophy, a trick that I will perfect throughout the trip. I listen to two kids hopped up on sugar play duck, duck, goose -- a game totally unfit for only two players yet able to maintain their amusement for an improbably long time. I give thanks to my earplugs. I ignore the blaring television set in the corner.
The train arrives. This is when I learn that it actually matters to use those bike boxes right-side up.
Conductor: You put it in upside down?I listen to the clang of seat and stem as we flip the box over, and the two of us carry the box to the loading platform, which is just a concrete sidewalk next to the train track. There we wait for a time that in hindsight I estimate to be ample for re-boxing a bike. But rather than re-boxing my bike, I opt to stand idly and wonder how my bike will fare upside down interstate train travel. This line of wondering is unfounded, though; the conductor suddenly whips into action and not-at-all-figuratively throws the box into the baggage car, where the box heavily lands on its side with a discordant bang and thump. Now I wonder how my bike will fare on-its-side interstate train travel. With that thought I board and am assigned a seat right behind the duck-duck-goose kids, and promptly I decide to sleep in the lounge car for the night.
Craig: Yeah, is that a problem?
Conductor: Yes, the cutout handles are on the bottom.
Craig: Okay, I'll just fix that real quick and --
Conductor: -- There's no time! Quick, to the train!
End day 0.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Reading log, no. 5
I should be writing about the California Bike Trip, but the end of the
month has arrived, and that means it's time for all of you to read or
pretend to read about the books I finished reading this month. My
apologies.
* * *
For those of you who aren't Trinity alumni, First-Year Seminar was a mandatory class for all incoming freshmen that was open-ended but, to whatever degree imposed by the prof, ended up being essentially a book club with the addition of a strong writing requirement. Each class was to have some sort of theme, picked by the prof. My class's theme was law and justice, I believe, but I can't remember for sure; it wasn't a strongly held together theme. Rumors abounded how one FYS class's theme was baseball. I never verified that, but it could easily be true. FYS was a luck-of-the-draw class with a wide range of possibilities -- especially for those of us who took the class during the fall semester and had not a clue for what we were registering. I lucked my way into a really good one.
We read the following: First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., and a short story whose name I can't remember but that involved desperate, live-saving cannibalism and a resulting court case with the possibility of the death penalty. It's difficult to imagine a more Craigarian lineup: classical Rome historical fiction, two science-fiction greats, and a short story about ethics and political theory.
Each week we read at a furious pace -- about 200-300 pages -- with the composition of a short paper to boot. It was like Book Club on steroids. And twice each week the dozen or so of us -- the students, the student aide, and the prof -- would sit around a conference table and spend an hour discussing ... whatever, though both the prof and the aide were poly-sci kinds of guys, and so they largely shepherded our discussions around abstract idealogical topics related to the reading material. How could I not have loved that class?
Handmaid's Tale was the selected reading for March for my current book club. We had a wonderfully open discussion about sexual equality, or the lack thereof, and that night I was pleasantly reminded of that very first college class of mine.
* * *
I enjoyed this book. It wasn't about the things I wished it to be about -- I learned more in thirty minutes reading the Wikipedia article on the Chicago World's Fair than I did reading this book -- but Devil in the White City spun an interesting narrative and was excellently written.
month has arrived, and that means it's time for all of you to read or
pretend to read about the books I finished reading this month. My
apologies.
* * *
There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it.I first read The Handmaid's Tale during my first semester in college nearly twelve years ago. This is notable for two reasons: the first being that this is the first reread job I've blogged about here on Just Enough Craig. The second reason is that it seems impossible that it's been nearly twelve years since I sat in that First-Year Seminar class. Please forgive me for writing this under an emotional combination of something like reverie and panic.
Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid's Tale
For those of you who aren't Trinity alumni, First-Year Seminar was a mandatory class for all incoming freshmen that was open-ended but, to whatever degree imposed by the prof, ended up being essentially a book club with the addition of a strong writing requirement. Each class was to have some sort of theme, picked by the prof. My class's theme was law and justice, I believe, but I can't remember for sure; it wasn't a strongly held together theme. Rumors abounded how one FYS class's theme was baseball. I never verified that, but it could easily be true. FYS was a luck-of-the-draw class with a wide range of possibilities -- especially for those of us who took the class during the fall semester and had not a clue for what we were registering. I lucked my way into a really good one.
We read the following: First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., and a short story whose name I can't remember but that involved desperate, live-saving cannibalism and a resulting court case with the possibility of the death penalty. It's difficult to imagine a more Craigarian lineup: classical Rome historical fiction, two science-fiction greats, and a short story about ethics and political theory.
Each week we read at a furious pace -- about 200-300 pages -- with the composition of a short paper to boot. It was like Book Club on steroids. And twice each week the dozen or so of us -- the students, the student aide, and the prof -- would sit around a conference table and spend an hour discussing ... whatever, though both the prof and the aide were poly-sci kinds of guys, and so they largely shepherded our discussions around abstract idealogical topics related to the reading material. How could I not have loved that class?
Handmaid's Tale was the selected reading for March for my current book club. We had a wonderfully open discussion about sexual equality, or the lack thereof, and that night I was pleasantly reminded of that very first college class of mine.
* * *
Again something in the card drew Trude's attention. Many other recipients of Prendergast's cards also took note, despite the crush of mail each received from his true peers, this being a time when everyone who knew how to write did so and at length. In that glacier of words grinding toward the twentieth century, Prendergast's card was a single fragment of mica glinting with lunacy, pleading to be picked up and pocketed.World's fairs are something I knew little about before reading Devil in the White City, and I suppose after reading it they continue to be something I know little about. But I now have a taste of the whirlwind of rushed design and frantic construction behind the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and of the life of the intriguing mass murderer, Henry H. Holmes, who lived and killed in Chicago during the time of the Fair.
Erik Larson
The Devil in the White City
I enjoyed this book. It wasn't about the things I wished it to be about -- I learned more in thirty minutes reading the Wikipedia article on the Chicago World's Fair than I did reading this book -- but Devil in the White City spun an interesting narrative and was excellently written.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tax Day
Cullen Hightower once said, "There's always somebody who is paid too much, and taxed too little -- and it's always somebody else."
Here's a chart that I made that graphs tax rates as a percentage of income versus income (up to $500k).
The red line is the federal income tax rate. The blue line is the rate for the sum of the federal income tax plus the Social Security tax (6.2% of up to $102k in income) plus the Medicare tax (1.45% of up to $102k in income) plus the employer's half of SS and FICA (7.65% of up to $102k in income). In other words, the red line is the tax rate for what is officially called the "income tax," and the blue line is the tax rate for actual tax based on income, excluding capital gains. Neither line takes into account deductions, loopholes, and cheats.
Here's a chart that I made that graphs tax rates as a percentage of income versus income (up to $500k).
The red line is the federal income tax rate. The blue line is the rate for the sum of the federal income tax plus the Social Security tax (6.2% of up to $102k in income) plus the Medicare tax (1.45% of up to $102k in income) plus the employer's half of SS and FICA (7.65% of up to $102k in income). In other words, the red line is the tax rate for what is officially called the "income tax," and the blue line is the tax rate for actual tax based on income, excluding capital gains. Neither line takes into account deductions, loopholes, and cheats.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
What are the odds?
Take a full bag of Scrabble tiles and draw seven. There's a 1 in 1,736,031 chance that you'll be able to play BICYCLE.
There's a 1 in 281,496 chance that you'll be able to play VEHICLE.
And a 1 in 138,064 chance for COLLIDE.
Some days you get all three.
My no-crash streak ended early this morning at a whopping two days. Though I wasn't thinking of this fact as I was flipped onto the hood of a truck -- or was it an SUV? -- that had veered onto my side of the road this morning as I was coasting down one of those mini-switchbacks on the south side of Camelback Mountain. Instead I was thinking something along the lines of whether my front wheel would be shaped like a taco after suffering a direct impact into a bumper.
Short answer: no.
Miraculously I got up without a scratch.
There's a 1 in 179,452 chance for NOTHURT.
Not so miraculously my bike was fine too.
There's a 1 in 282,883 chance for I♡STEEL, though you must have a blank for that last one.
There's a 1 in 281,496 chance that you'll be able to play VEHICLE.
And a 1 in 138,064 chance for COLLIDE.
Some days you get all three.
My no-crash streak ended early this morning at a whopping two days. Though I wasn't thinking of this fact as I was flipped onto the hood of a truck -- or was it an SUV? -- that had veered onto my side of the road this morning as I was coasting down one of those mini-switchbacks on the south side of Camelback Mountain. Instead I was thinking something along the lines of whether my front wheel would be shaped like a taco after suffering a direct impact into a bumper.
Short answer: no.
Miraculously I got up without a scratch.
There's a 1 in 179,452 chance for NOTHURT.
Not so miraculously my bike was fine too.
There's a 1 in 282,883 chance for I♡STEEL, though you must have a blank for that last one.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Goodbye, friend
Today I say goodbye to a dear friend, my favorite bicycle jersey, a bright yellow Pearl Izumi long-sleeve jersey. Although our relationship was a short one, it was an endearing one. And today I killed it.
First, a photo. This was the day I and the jersey were first introduced to each other in person. Here's me and my Mom, Christmas day, 2008. I just opened the package I had had shipped to my parents' house. Surprise! It's a yellow jersey, some tights and other bike stuff I ordered on-line.
(Team Brandenburg-Means exchanged no gifts this year for Christmas -- a notable achievement. Well, almost. Team Brandenburg exchanged no gifts; Team Means succumbed to consumer temptation. I suppose you could say I succumbed and exchanged a gift with myself by ordering the bike stuff. Forgive me, oh gods of cynicism.)
From the start I knew this jersey was better than any other I had. It fit snugly. It breathed well, and yet it stayed warm on cooler days. It was really amazingly super bright yellow and couldn't be ignored except by the most inattentive of motorists.
I wore the jersey in Houston while cross-training for the half marathon. I wore it on the Casa Grande century ride. I wore it on several Tuesday and/or Thursday morning rides. I wore it on Saturday or Sunday if it was still clean enough. And I rode it one last time today in El Tour de Phoenix.
First, a photo. This was the day I and the jersey were first introduced to each other in person. Here's me and my Mom, Christmas day, 2008. I just opened the package I had had shipped to my parents' house. Surprise! It's a yellow jersey, some tights and other bike stuff I ordered on-line.
(Team Brandenburg-Means exchanged no gifts this year for Christmas -- a notable achievement. Well, almost. Team Brandenburg exchanged no gifts; Team Means succumbed to consumer temptation. I suppose you could say I succumbed and exchanged a gift with myself by ordering the bike stuff. Forgive me, oh gods of cynicism.)From the start I knew this jersey was better than any other I had. It fit snugly. It breathed well, and yet it stayed warm on cooler days. It was really amazingly super bright yellow and couldn't be ignored except by the most inattentive of motorists.
I wore the jersey in Houston while cross-training for the half marathon. I wore it on the Casa Grande century ride. I wore it on several Tuesday and/or Thursday morning rides. I wore it on Saturday or Sunday if it was still clean enough. And I rode it one last time today in El Tour de Phoenix.
My sweat you wick
Through air, so quick.
You ate asphalt --
My sudden halt.
In loving memory, Pearl Izumi jersey,
2008-2009.
Through air, so quick.
You ate asphalt --
My sudden halt.
In loving memory, Pearl Izumi jersey,
2008-2009.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
No. 61
Open arriving to work this morning I had waiting for me in my personal email in-box an email composed entirely in Italian. How else could it go?
In the restroom stall while changing from my commuting Lycra and polyester to my office job denim and cotton, I got to thinking about Italiana. Being in the cycling frame of mind, I got to thinking of the movie Breaking Away and how the main character, in his Italian persona, once says farewell to his love interest: "buenanotte". In Spanish good night is "buenas noches". Spanish and Italian are very similar languages, and phonetically the two farewells differ mainly by the soft "t" of the Italian being replaced with the hard "ch" of the Spanish. And this got me thinking.
I thought of how a slangy pronunciation of "you" has become CHOO or JOO. Once again the difference in pronunciation being a soft consonant, this time a "y" changed to the harder "ch" or "j". And this got me thinking.
We English speakers pronounce it "JOO-lee-uss" as in Julius Caesar. But the more accurate Latin is "YOO-lee-oose" as in "YOO-lee-oose KEE-sar". Again, the same difference from soft "y" to hard "j". Or "YAY-soose" as in Jesus Christ. Some people, of course, say "HEY-soose" or "HEY-zoose".
I didn't have anywhere in particular I was going with these thoughts. I suppose it's worth wondering if the transition from soft to hard is a common one, but by this time I had finished changing into my jeans and T-shirt and was on my way to disengaging my brain by way of sitting in a morning meeting.
Adiós mofos.
In the restroom stall while changing from my commuting Lycra and polyester to my office job denim and cotton, I got to thinking about Italiana. Being in the cycling frame of mind, I got to thinking of the movie Breaking Away and how the main character, in his Italian persona, once says farewell to his love interest: "buenanotte". In Spanish good night is "buenas noches". Spanish and Italian are very similar languages, and phonetically the two farewells differ mainly by the soft "t" of the Italian being replaced with the hard "ch" of the Spanish. And this got me thinking.
I thought of how a slangy pronunciation of "you" has become CHOO or JOO. Once again the difference in pronunciation being a soft consonant, this time a "y" changed to the harder "ch" or "j". And this got me thinking.
We English speakers pronounce it "JOO-lee-uss" as in Julius Caesar. But the more accurate Latin is "YOO-lee-oose" as in "YOO-lee-oose KEE-sar". Again, the same difference from soft "y" to hard "j". Or "YAY-soose" as in Jesus Christ. Some people, of course, say "HEY-soose" or "HEY-zoose".
I didn't have anywhere in particular I was going with these thoughts. I suppose it's worth wondering if the transition from soft to hard is a common one, but by this time I had finished changing into my jeans and T-shirt and was on my way to disengaging my brain by way of sitting in a morning meeting.
Adiós mofos.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Reading log, no. 4
Jimmy's father spent more and more time at his work, but talked about it less and less. There were pigoons at NooSkins, just as at OrganInc Farms, but these were smaller and were being used to develop skin-related biotechnologies. The main idea was to find a method of replacing the older epidermis with a fresh one, not a laser-thinned or dermabraded short-term resurfacing but a genuine start-over skin that would be wrinkle- and blemish-free. For that, it would be useful to grow a young, plump skin cell that would eat up the worn cells in the skins of those on whom it was planted and replace them with replicas of itself, like algae growing on a pond.Oryx and Crake was Book Club's monthly reading selection for March -- for five minutes -- before we switched to the other dystopic Margaret Atwood novel, Handmaid's Tale. I previously read Handmaid in college, and I decided to go ahead and read Oryx instead. Actually, I decided to read both, but I didn't finish Handmaid in time, and so you'll be reading my thoughts on it in next month's reading log. Which comes out this month because this reading log is late.
The rewards in the case of success would be enormous, Jimmy's father explained, doing the straight-talking man-to-man act he had recently adopted with Jimmy. What well-to-do and once-young, once-beautiful woman or man, cranked up on hormonal supplements and shot full of vitamins but hampered by the unforgiving mirror, wouldn't sell their house, their gated retirement villa, their kids, and their soul to get a second kick at the sexual can? NooSkins for Olds, said the snappy logo. Not that a totally effective method had been found yet: the dozen or so ravaged hopefuls who had volunteered themselves as subjects, paying no fees but signing away their rights to sue, had come out looking like the Mould Creature from Outer Space -- uneven in tone, greenish brown, and peeling in ragged strips.
Margaret Atwood
Oryx and Crake
Whew. I'm glad we got that all straightened out.
So Oryx and Crake. It depicts a very bleak Malthusian doomer scenario come to fruition. Whereas Handmaid is all about breakdown of sexual equality, Oryx is all about the failure of humanity to exercise self-restraint. The planet is wrecked, the corporations are running what's left of the show, but the well-to-do are going on about their decadent and superficial lives in all the same ways as we always do -- only humanity is frantically employing ever more sophisticated technology to patch the problems stemming from its upkeep. The solutions make for more problems, of course. And, of course, the outcome is the extinction of homo sapiens and the proliferation of a tribe of genetically modified people free from religion who spend their time munching on grass, creating lines of defense out of urine, and having some serious sex orgies. How else could it go?
Oryx and Crake is over the top, but so is Handmaid's Tale. Both novels are great for stimulating thought and discussion.
* * *
Unrequited love was, at that period of my life, the only kind I seemed to be capable of feeling. This caused me much pain, but in retrospect I see it had advantages. It provided all the emotional jolts of the other kind without any of the risks, it did not interfere with my life, which, although meagre, was mine and predictable, and it involved no decisions.A short-story collection is to me a lot like a jar of peanut butter. It sits on the shelf, ready-made for quick, low-commitment consumption and tantalizing with its dense nourishment. Here! Read me! You can read one story before bed each night. No bookmarking, no leftovers, I'm low upkeep! It's only after I begin reading the short stories that I realize that I rarely like collections of them as much as I do a full novel and that the lure of dense nourishment was a false promise. And the no-bookmarking thing never works out. Instead I'd have been better off taking the time to make myself a pot of oatmeal. But perhaps I'm getting mixed up in my analogy.
Margaret Atwood
Hair Jewellery
Dancing Girls and Other Stories
March ended up being Margaret Atwood Month for me. It just worked out that way. I picked up Dancing Girls at the library as an impulse checkout. For a collection of short stories it wasn't too bad. In fact, I liked a lot of the individual stories. It's just that somehow I rarely like short-story collections. I think I'd prefer it if novels included a single short story in the back, kind of like dessert, rather than reading a slew of short stories all together, like a full meal. Just like peanut butter.
* * *
But then he thought of something else, another line of thought that he well remembered Hallam himself had dealt with in one of the articles he had written for popular consumption. With some distaste, he dug out the article. It was important to see what Hallam had said before he carried the matter further.In I. Asimov Isaac Asimov wrote that the two chief criticisms he received about his science fiction were firstly that he rarely if ever incorporated aliens into his stories and secondly that his stories had too little sex. So in the 1970s, after he had semi-retired from writing science fiction but before he made his big comeback, he wrote The Gods Themselves, and in it he wrote not just of aliens and not just of sex but of alien sex.
The article said, in part, "Because of the ever-present gravitational force, we have come to associate the phrase 'downhill' with the kind of inevitable change we can use to produce energy of the sort we can change into useful work. It is the water running downhill that, in past centuries, turned wheels which in turn powered machinery such as pumps and generators. But what happens when all the water has run downhill?
"There can then be no further work possible till the water has been returned uphill -- and that takes work. In fact, it takes more work to force the water uphill than we can collect by then allowing it to flow downhill. We work at an energy-loss. Fortunately, the Sun does the work for us. It evaporates the oceans so that water vapor climbs high in the atmosphere, forms clouds, and eventually falls again as rain or snow. This soaks the ground at all levels, fills the springs and streams, and keeps the water forever running downhill.
"But not quite forever. The Sun can raise the water vapor, but only because, in a nuclear sense, it is running downhill, too. It is running downhill at a rate immensely greater than any Earthly river can manage, and when all of it has run downhill there will be nothing we know of to pull it uphill again.
"All sources of energy in our Universe run down. We can't help that. Everything is downhill in just one direction, and we can force a temporary uphill, backward, only by taking advantage of some greater downhill in the vicinity. If we want useful energy forever, we need a road that is downhill both ways. That is a paradox in our Universe; it stands to reason that whatever is downhill one way is uphill going back.
Isaac Asimov
The Gods Themselves
Needless to say, the book immediately found itself at the top of my reading list.
The story's plot centers around a not-too-distant fantastic invention called the Electron Pump that, in short, generates seemingly limitless, seemingly consequence-free energy by pumping electrons from our universe to what is called the para-Universe. And in the para-Universe live what we call para-men who operate what must be some sort of positron pump, which pumps positrons from their universe to ours. Being in different universes and almost entirely barred from communicating with each other, men and para-men can only speculate about each other's existence, but we fortunate readers get both perspectives. Meanwhile, both universes benefit from receiving energy out of the process -- a real perpetual motion machine.
And, of course, the story's plot involves lots and lots of alien sex. Asimov went over the top with his descriptions of it. It's really rather gratuitous though entirely decent due to the sex's utterly bizarre and, well, alien mechanics. I think this was precisely Asimov's point. I won't go into details about the details, but let's just say that the sex gives a different meaning to the Modern English song lyric "I'll stop the world and melt with you."
But this is not some mere alien-orgy fiction. This is a story about the consequences of the laws of thermodynamics and how even seemingly limitless and seemingly consequence-free energy isn't so limitless or consequence-free after all. It would take a rather dense reader not to replace "Electron Pump" with "fossil fuels" and "supernova of the sun" with "climate change". Yes, The Gods Themselves was written in the 1970s and predates our current incarnation of pop-environmentalism. Great science fiction is timeless.
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