A Good Evening

I finally have something bike-related to talk about again! Hurray!

I went down to the Bike Zoo this evening. My bike has been mended and is ready for riding. Too bad I’m still not allowed to yet. But the bike will wait on me.

I met Franklin in the parking lot (he just beat me to a close parking space, but waited for me to walk in). I got inside and Wally and Caroline were also there hanging around. Caroline said they were just talking about me. She has a plate on one of her collarbones from last year and is contemplating having it taken out over the Thanksgiving holidays. I guess you can’t say “plate” and “collarbone” down at the Bike Zoo without working me into the conversation somewhere.

Jay and Ron showed up a little later, as did Jon C. and Kent and a few other people I know by sight but not by name. It was a very popular night. Wally invited me to head over to dinner with him, Ron and Jay. They were going to Wok Hay to talk about their team for the 12-hour race coming up at the end of the month. It’s the same team I would have been on both this year and last except for my misfortunes with frangible clavicles.

Did you have to look up “frangible”? It’s OK if you did, you know. Here, I’ll even make it easy for you with this link.

They have a fourth member for their team, but he couldn’t make it tonight, so I filled his seat at the dinner table. I know they were intending to talk about the race, but that took about 2 minutes of conversation time. The rest of the hour or so that we were there was spent talking about a wide array of stuff, including where the best positions my be for me to get pictures at the race. Other stuff discussed included chopstick usage, cell phones (merits, features, et cetera), iPix technology, sniper rifles, … you know, the usual stuff.

So anyway, I was happy to get my bike back, and I was happy to hang out with my cycling buddies at the bike shop and at dinner. I now don’t have time to hit the trainer, but I guess I’ll just have to make an extra effort to get over my disappointment somehow. Maybe I’ll just listen to my Eisenhowers CD. Yeah, that might do it.

argh

PT more painful than normal. No long post tonight. Should be OK tomorrow (?).

OK, Let's Try This Again, This Time With Feeling...

I lost five pounds last month. Hurray for me, I guess, except that I realize that a good bit of that was the appetite suppression effects of the painkillers I was taking for about three weeks. The rest was probably muscle atrophy. Regardless, I was happy to see the pounds gone when I stepped on the scale.

Except that Friday morning I noticed that one of those pounds had crept back. I didn’t panic. I was going away for the weekend, so there wasn’t any use in it. Mrs. Guy and I tend to eat well when we’re vacationing. Still, I got a good bit of exercise, what with all the walking around that we did on Saturday and Sunday. But this morning there was another half of a pound that found its way onto the bathroom scale with me. . .

I got home from work today and thought briefly about going for a walk, but I knew it wouldn’t be fair to the dogs to go for a walk without them (and I certainly can't handle all three at a time right now). I went to the basement and walked the two younger dogs outside to … do what they needed to do … and when I walked back in I spotted my trainer out of the corner of my eye. It still has a bike set up on it from way back in the Spring. Hrmm. I hate the trainer. It’s so mind-numbingly boring. I went ahead and fed the dogs and walked back upstairs.

Mrs. Guy and I got a new TV a week ago. She got a nice bonus from work, so we decided to do something fun with it. Well, she decided we’d do something fun with it, but I jumped right in to help. We ended up getting a new 42” plasma screen TV and a new DVD player (progressive-scan) to go with it. It’s very nice, and She-mom enjoyed watching it while she was down this weekend dog-sitting (she’s watched it more than I have yet). Please don’t think that I’m bragging, though. I only tell you that in order to tell you this next part.

The TV that had been in our main room went upstairs to the bedroom. The TV that had been in the bedroom went to the basement, along with the old DVD player from the main room (there was already a little one in the bedroom). I took it down there so I could watch TV or DVDs while I’m down working on projects in my shop.

But as I sat at my desk upstairs, a nagging argument started to creep its way into the back of my brain. “You’re getting fat again. You can’t run yet. You can’t ride yet. You certainly can’t lift weights. But there IS the trainer.”

“NOOOO!”, the other part of my brain screamed in response, “Not the trainer!!!”

“Oh, yes, Precious. You could do it. All you need is a distraction. And there is the TV…”

“But it’s not hooked up to cable yet…and there’s nothing on worth watching on Mondays!”

“There’s the DVD player…”

“But I don’t have time to get into a movie!”

“No, but you do have that concert DVD…”

Eureka!!! Pure brilliance! Mrs. Guy bought me Rush’s 30th Anniversary concert DVD for Christmas. I could watch for as long as I could stand to ride, and the tempo would help me keep my cadence high. So I changed into cycling shorts and a CoolMax T-shirt, grabbed the DVD set, and headed downstairs. I started the DVD and pumped up the bike’s tires while the introduction was playing. I hopped on right as the music was starting and rode for 45 minutes until my butt started to loudly protest my lack of recent saddle time. That’s not a bad length of time for a first time back, and I still have over half of the concert footage remaining.

Perhaps I’ll try again on Wednesday, just to make sure this new acceptability wasn’t a one-time fluke.

A Light Twist of the Knife

Mrs. Guy and I are here in Blowing Rock, NC once again for the last of the yearly “Art in the Park” series. They hold this event six times, once each during the warmer months, and this the final one for the year. It’s always interesting to see the wide array of artistry here, from painting to photography to pottery to glass (stained and blown) to woodcarving/woodworking to … well, you get the idea. Mrs. Guy and I woke up early this morning and went for breakfast at Knight’s on Main (made famous in books by Jan Karon), and then went for a walk up into the high-priced neighborhoods up the ridge from downtown. It’s a beautiful area. I’d be tempted to move here except that property values are about four to six times what the are for comparable properties at home. So instead I’ll wait until we win that lottery.

I know that I’d mentioned writing about some “twist the knife deeper why don’t you” stories today, but I’m in a little too good of a mood to actually do that now, so I’ll just relate one that I find a little amusing.

When I started blogging back a little over a year ago, I really didn’t have any grand plans for fame or fortune (certainly not fortune) as a result of it. I really started doing it just as a creative outlet for myself. I began with a plan to update three times a week (Monday, Wednesday and either Friday or Saturday), but I almost immediately abandoned that for a mostly seven day a week schedule. Sometimes you have to give your muse a nudge.

Still, I didn’t want to necessarily call great amounts of attention to myself by self-promoting. I only told a few friends what I was up to (usually when checking facts or stuff like that). I figured I’d just see what came about naturally. My readership was boosted first by a link on the Fat Cyclist website (in fact, Elden’s blog was part of the reason I started mine with a bit of a cycling bias – I’d been reading his for several months). Other links followed, many with reciprocating links back to them from my site, and I got a fairly steady readership based on the hit data.

Now I started over on the MSN Spaces site, and I stayed there for about nine months or so, but I finally got tired of all of the indiscriminant changes they kept making. My URL changed at least four times during that period of time, and each time they did an overhaul some stuff just didn’t work right for a while if it worked at all. There were no warnings that I was ever aware of either, which really ticked me off. The final straw came in July, and I switched to Blogspot full-time.

But there was one interesting feature over at MSN Spaces that I liked. Each week they would feature four different bloggers in a thing they called “What’s My Story?”. Sometimes there was a general theme (e.g., all single mothers or something), but often there wasn’t. I picked up on quite a few of the blogs I still read by checking that feature every week. I know from their comments that their hit counts went up dramatically during their featured week (because of me and hundreds, if not thousands, like me). Fat Cyclist was featured three different times that I know of.

I recommended a few other bloggers to be featured, but I never asked to be featured myself, nor did I ask someone else to nominate me (as I know a couple of others who did). Thus, it never really surprised me that I wasn’t featured (besides, bike-blogs are a bit of a niche market). Still, it would have been nice, I guess, if only to see what different comments I might get during that week.

So, fast forward to September now that I’ve laid out all of the background. Just after I went on hiatus due to the wreck, I got an email from some lady at Spaces Live (which is what MSN Spaces has become, I suppose). She said that she was thinking about including me in the next version of “What’s My Story”. She went on to say that she had just looked in on my site and it appeared that I had moved my blog (yeah, I had). The email rambled around for a few more sentences and then concluded with something like “Well, if you were still on Spaces we’d feature you, but since you’re not, nevermind.”

Now, what I want to know is, what possessed her to actually hit the send button? I mean, really – what was the point? That’s sort of like Random House sending me a rejection letter for a book manuscript that I hadn’t even sent in to them. I just found myself shaking my head as I hit “Delete”.

In reflection, is it any wonder I left?

Trivia Answers

My plan today was to write a post of a recent "Thanks, why don't you twist the knife again" experience, but Mrs. Guy and I spent the day travelling, spending time with her grandparents, and are now in Blowing Rock, NC after a full meal and a couple of glasses of wine. I'm too tired to relate the whole thing now (maybe tomorrow), so instead I will just post answers to last weeks trivia questions.

1. What is the largest (known, and not underwater) cave system in the world (hint, it's here in the United States)? That would be the Mammoth Cave sytem in Kentucky, whic is still not classified as fully explored. It's big. It's huge. It's ... Mammoth.

2. What city hosted the last "World's Fair" (or more properly, "World's Exposition") that was held in the United States? I posted this one a little bit as a trap for my friends who live in Knoxville, since the 1982 version was held there. However, the last one held in the US was held in New Orleans two years later in 1984.

3. What did the "J. R. R." stand for in J. R. R. Tolkien's name? John Ronald Ruell Tolkien was his full name. Most of his friends apparently called him "John Ronald".

4. If you were to spend 18 minutes and 20 seconds listening to a folk singer's song about "The Draft", what song would you be listening to? Arlo Guthrie spent an awfully long time talking about Alice's Restaurant and his subsequent experience at the Draft Board in his nost well-known song's recorded verision (the seminal "Alice's Restaurant"). I've heard that in his live performances he sometimes stretched out the tale to over 45 minutes.

5. Who was the famous (perhaps infamous) American businessman who went to Northern Ireland to start his own ill-fated automobile manufacturing company? John DeLorean had a lovely idea with his DMC-12 automobile, but it just didn't catch on like he'd wished (I'm sure the cocaine-related legal charges didn't help any). The DMC-12 always caught my imagination, but the only person I've ever known that owned one died related to injuries sustained in it during a traffic accident a few years ago. A sad tale, to be certain (and I won't saddle you with it here).

Bonus question: Name the fathers of any three of Tolkein's characters from The Lord of the Rings trilogy (and Isildur doesn't count). So many to choose from. Many I can't remember off the top of my head, but I'd have looked them up if I'd needed to based on your answers (I didn't need to though - most answers were ones I already knew). Some examples? Gimli was son of Gloin, Aragorn was son of Arathorn, Legolas was son of Thranduil, Arwen was daughter of Elrond, Frodo was son of Drogo, Eomer son of Eomund, Samwise son of Hamfast (or "The Gaffer"), Boromir and Faramir sons of Denethor, et cetera, et cetera.

Points will likely update tomorrow. Thank you, and good night.

Trivia

Sorry for running a bit late tonight. Mrs. Guy and I took some food over to a friend's who's father died this last week, and then we got caught up watching the latest X-men DVD on our new TV. I did try to come up with trivia earlier, but I just couldn't come up with a fifth question. Mrs. Guy just gave me one though, so we'll go with that. Remember to follow the Rules and to send your answers to bgoab at mindspring dot com.

1. What's the name of the cartoon character and his "pet" stuffed tiger that graced the comics pages for several years.

2. Which author owned the house where six-toed cats enjoy sanctuary to this day?

3. What is the capital of Australia (negative points if you answer "A")?

4. Which actor lent his voice to help make "Shrek" come alive on the silver screen?

5. Name the female characters featured in the game "Clue"? (This one was Mrs. Guy's.)

Bonus Question: Who drew the characters mentioned in Question One?

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Mrs. Guy and I are headed off tomorrow (Friday, which at this point is actually today) for a long weekend in Blowing Rock, NC. I hope to make regular posts, but I don't promise anything.

Oh, Theft Most Base

Mrs. Guy and I have been having a lot of landscaping work done over the last couple of years. We got started with Coleman doing work for us in between his classes in Landscape Architecture here at UT in town. Then he just kept working for us after graduation when his big job offer fell through. Instead, he’s struck out on his own for now, with help from another of his classmates, until he goes back for a Masters Degree in a year or so.

It was because of Mrs. Guy’s work travel that we first got in contact with him. His father is one of the managers at the hotel where she stays when she’s in Nashville, and he’d mentioned his son once when he heard where she lived. We feel lucky to have him here working for us. He does great work, and he hasn’t balked at taking on more and more complex work scope. He’s a great guy.

Yesterday when I got home from work I noticed that they had taken my little utility trailer, which they often use, to dump all of the brush that had collected up during recent trimming work by them and Mrs. Guy, including the weeds I’d pulled over the last week and added to the pile. In place of the brush and weeds was a full load of mulch. “Ah,” I thought, “They must be going to plant the new trees in the back tomorrow.”

But today, when they came back, the mulch was gone. Along with my trailer.

I was leaving for lunch today with some friends when I got a call on my cell. It was Coleman. “Hey Big Guy, did you move your trailer last night, maybe take it somewhere else?”

“Um, no. I take it that it isn’t there now, huh?”

“No. I was really hoping you had it.” I could tell he felt bad about it since he was the one who’d used it last and left it on the side of the house, but that’s exactly where I always left it myself.

When did it happen? The only thing I can tell you is that it was between midnight and 10:00 am this morning. I didn’t even think to look over there for it this morning when I left. I wouldn’t think someone would come get it after I left the house at 5:30 am, since that’s about when the slow work-ward exodus begins in my neighborhood. I asked the neighbors I saw outside when I got home today if they’d seen anything, but not surprisingly no one had.

I guess I’m out a trailer, but I think Mrs. Guy was more upset that they waited until it had fresh mulch on it instead of getting it with the brush on it. All I can say is that at least they’re going to have a flat tire on the left side within a day or so (it has a slow leak in the left side tire, and Coleman had just pumped it up on Saturday). Small comfort, perhaps, but that little catharsis is the only silver lining I can think of.

Except that perhaps now I can finally argue for an old beater pickup truck without Mrs. Guy saying “You don’t need a truck – you have a trailer.” Well, not anymore I don’t. Anybody got a beater truck in good mechanical shape that they’d let go for $1,000 or less?
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Tonight's title is from the works of William Shakespeare, specifically from Act II, Scene II of Troilus and Cressida

Hi Ho, Hi Ho ...

Today was my first day back at work. It was a little weird, and not really because I’ve been out for a month. No, it’s more about what has happened on my project while I’ve been away. Specifically, it’s that my project went away. Yeah, seriously.

I work for a company that has several government contracts. Most of the work done in my division is for the Department of Energy. That said, my project was a little unusual because though it was run through the DoE, our funding source came from the Department of Defense. Strange, I’ll admit, but that’s the government for you. Actually, considering the work we do, it really made sense on a basic level that it was done that way, which some might find really surprising (gasp…the Government did something that made sense!?!...[swoon, clunk]).

Okay, so I was out of work starting on September 5th. On the 7th, they announced that our funding for the next fiscal year (which in the government world begins on October 1st) was being pulled back. I don’t know why. I never heard. Maybe it has something to do with the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan? Like I said, I don’t know.

Most people I know would freak out if they learned their job was going away while they were out, but when you work for a contractor you have to take the mentality that you are always trying to work yourself out of a job, and then move on to the next job. Besides, I think I do good enough work that I wouldn’t have a problem finding something else locally in my division.

I got to work this morning a little before Medical opened (technically I have to go through them before reporting back to work). I spent the time walking over to my functional manager’s office and saying “Hi, I’m back as soon as I clear Medical. Got anything for me to work on?” “Yeah,” he said, “Go see Don H. after you’re done.”

“Hmm.”, I said to myself, “This might go better than I thought. It doesn’t sound like I’ll have to beat the bushes today scare up some work today.”

I ran into Don out in the parking lot as I left the building. We talked for a few moments and he told me to stop by after I got done at Medical. I wandered on down and ran into Rick B. in the waiting room, who is someone I’ve worked for before.

“Hey Rick, how’s it going?”

“Hey Big Guy. I heard you were coming back today. Did anyone tell you that you were going to be working on my project again?”

“Um, no. But I only just ran into Don a few minutes ago. I didn’t really have time to get too much out of him yet. I’m going to see him after this.”

“Great. Good to have you back on board. Stop by my office sometime when you get time.

“Sure thing, Rick”

Things were looking up. I wondered to myself how long this string of luck was going to hold. I guessed it would be too much to hope that I’d be put back working with Glenn or Doug, whom I had worked with back about a year ago on other stuff. I got to Don’s office and he started to show me around to introduce me to people in the office. “Um, Don? I know all these guys. I worked in this department about a year-and-a-half ago.”

“Ah, well, I’ll just take you straight over to Mike then. You’ll be working in his group.”

We got over to Mike’s building, but he wasn’t in. Don had to get back, so I just left Mike a note to call me and was going to head back over to my own office when I ran into both Doug and Glenn. We started talking about, well … the accident … when Mike came walking up. “Hey Big Guy, I guess you already know Glenn, huh? That’s great since you’ll be working directly with him.”

And that was when I woke up.

No, seriously, the morning went better than I’d even thought possible. I’ll miss working with some of the folks from the old project (all of whom have also gotten re-assigned, so nobody got laid off). I’ll especially miss working with “other George”, but at least I found out where his new office is and I will see him at least once a week in a functional meeting we’ll both be attending for our respective new projects.

Oh, and in the next few weeks Glenn and I and some other guy who’s coming in will be moving into a new office space over closer to the job site, and away from all of the distractions of the cubicle farms.

I have several small bruises on my arm from pinching myself all day.

Zing

Tonight I present to you a couple of recent one-liners that Mrs. Guy has had to suffer through. I'm not proud, necesarily, ... well, yeah, maybe I am, ... but I feel that I need to report them anyway. I do not attest to the quality of said one-liners, but I do promise that they are original.

Number One. The setting - a Super-Target store. Background - Mrs. Guy has been going slightly nuts this year buying up Halloween decorations. Bats, spiders, et cetera. Anything in theme, it seems. And not necesarily the cheap stuff either. Here's how it went down.

[scene opens, Mrs. Guy brings yet another two pieces of Halloween decoration for the Big Guy to decide between.]
Mrs. Guy: OK, which of these to "Welcome" signs do you prefer - the one with pumpkins that says "Eeek", or the on with bats that says "Booo"?
Big Guy: Honestly? I like the one by our door now that says "Welcome".
MG: Yeah, but that isn't Halloweeny.
BG: And your point would be...?
MG: You just aren't in the Halloween spirit.
BG: Boo, humbug.

Number Two. The setting - Wal-mart. Background - Mrs. Guy and I have come to buy some different kind of cat litter suggested by a veterinary specialist (long story). I had dropped Mrs. Guy at the door and parked, then met her in the Pets section. I ended up having to go back to the car to get the piece of paper that had the information written on it. We bought the litter and were leaving. Here's how this one played out.

[scene opens, Mrs. Guy walks out of her way to go through the "Entrance" door while the Big Guy leaves via the "Exit" door.]
Big Guy: Why did you walk over to the "Entrance" to leave? The "Exit" door was closer.
Mrs. Guy: Oh, I don't know. I went in through the "Exit" door, so I guess maybe I was just evening things out.
BG: Ahh, OK. Well actually, I used the "Exit" side all four times I went through a door here.
MG: Why did you do that?
BG: That's just my "Exit Strategy".

And yes, folks, she has stayed married to me for lo these last 15.75 years. Let's hear it for Mrs. Guy, eh?

(So Sis, which parent did I get my sense of humor from?)

Return of Trivia Answers

Wow, it's been harder than I thought it would be to get back into the blogging swing of things. Mrs. Guy and I got so busy around the house today (cleaning, ironing, laundry, replacing the kitchen faucet ... and that's just some of the stuff I was doing) that I almost let it slip my mind to do a post at all. So here I sit, listening to iTunes playing Beck on the desktop, and trying to come up with something to write, and I'm drawing a blank (except ideas which would take too long to get out right now). With that in mind, here are the answers to the trivia questions posted way back on August 31.

1. What is the most visited national park in the US? It's practically right out my back door, being less than an hour to the nearest entrance. It's the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and second place isn't even close.

2. What British general's surrender at the Siege of Yorktown effectively signaled the beginning of the end of the American Revolutionary War? General Charles Cornwallis got that dubious distinction, though it was far from the end of his military/political career. He spent time afterwards in both Ireland and India in various governance roles, and is buried near the Ganges River, where there is still a memorial to him maintained by the Government of India.

3. What was the common nickname used by pirate Edward Teach? Arrr, he be Blackbeard. Pirates didn't last all that long in those days, and by many accounts his own reign as pirate captain lasted less than two years before his violent end.

4. There are three Orders of classical architecture. They are Doric, Ionic, and _______? Corinthian. What, you thought it would rhyme with the other two?

5. In Roman mythology, who was the goddess of the hunt? This was Diana, who was also the goddess of the Moon (supplanting Luna at some point or another) and of chastity (she was also known as the "Virgin Goddess").

Bonus Question: Who was her Greek mythology counterpart? Artemis was also the virgin goddess of the hunt and the Moon, but somehow was also put in charge of childbirth, which I find strange for a "virgin" (couldn't they get someone with more experience in that area?).