Set Up

Well, as usual on the day before a cyclocross race, we were out there right around noon to actually set up the course. I know I talked about the course earlier this week, but that was just to decide where it would go. Today was all about setting out the flagging and other course markers.

Caleb and I showed up right around noon and hopped on our bikes to just have a quick spin while we waited on John B. to arrive with the marking stuff. It was a real quick spin, as we didn't even get 1/4 of the way around the course before he got there. I'd set my cyclometer to measure a complete lap, so I went ahead and finished a lap before going to John's car and grabbing a handful of flags. The course lap length is right on 1.6 miles, by the way, which is longer than any other course we've ever set up. To me that's a good thing from a scoring perspective. It means the riders will come through fewer times and more spaced out (on shorter courses theres a lot of lapping going on).

Marking went fast; faster than normal. By the time Steve showed up at 1:00 pm or so we had almost completed the course marking in general, but he got to help me with setting a triple barricade on the lowest part of the course and with some final tweaking of the course overall. Caleb headed over to Haw Ridge to do some mountain biking once we got done, and Steve stayed to ride the course for a while and get a good workout in. At that point John and I went to lunch.

We talked about a lot of stuff in general over lunch. Cycling plans, travel plans, cycling travel plans, music, house stuff, and the creative process. The creative process has been on my mind a lot lately. I feel like I'm having problems with mine. Not a total writer's block, per se, but a bit of one. And it isn't all about my writing, but it is about it where the blog is concerned. I guess I just don't feel like my writing has been up to my own internal standards for a while. A long while, actually. Maybe even as long as it's been since my last surgery, though I don't think it is necessarily that event that knocked me off-kilter. I just feel that with few exceptions, my creative writing hasn't been up to snuff, maybe even forced. For that, dear reader, I apologize.

However, I hope that I can turn a corner on this soon. I've started thinking about woodworking projects again. I've started thinking about some photographic work I'd like to do. I've even started thinking about some new poetic stuff (man, how long has it been since I posted any of that in my blog? - a long time, I can tell you, maybe even since June or so). Gotta get all the creative juices jump-started at once, I think.

So I know what I'm up against here. They say that knowing is half the battle. As far as I can tell, the other half of a battle must involve violence of some kind. Hmm. Maybe I need a better saying than that one, eh?
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Trivia Answers from 2/1/07

1. Today is the Feast Day of one of Ireland's secondary patron saints. Rumor has it she was named after one of Ireland's pagan gods of yore. Who is she? St. Brighid (though the spelling varies) of Kildare. The Goddess Brighid was apparently the Celtic equivalent of Athena for the most part.

2. What is the only X-rated movie to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture (and Best Director)? 'Midnight Cowboy'. No, I've never seen it, but those who have tell me it likely would only have gotten an NC-17 rating under today's system.

3. What was the last G-rated film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture? 'Oliver!' It was actually the only film originally rated 'G' to win, but that's because the rating system was new that year. Other winners such as 'Sound of Music' were rated first under an older system and re-rated under the new system.

4. What two teams faced each other in the very first Super Bowl way back in 1967? The Green Bay Packers (most people knew that) and the Kansas City Chiefs (not as many knew that part). I guess the winners are always remembered a bit better.

5. What Augustinian monk is considered to be the father of modern genetics? Gregor Mendel, who worked mostly with different varieties of peas to discover the dominant/recessive natures of genes.