The Hour

Just to reinforce the ‘Irony’ theme, this morning I was listening to NPR on the way to work. If you’ve ever listened to “Morning Edition”, you know that frequently they will play a brief portion of a song between news stories. One of those songs this morning was a string quartet playing their cover of KISS’s “I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night (and Party Every Day)”. Well, I think the title is actually “Rock and Roll All Nite”, but regardless, string quartets do not, as a general rule, rock.
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Tonight I went to a program hosted by my bike club (Southern Cycling Operations, or SCO). Dr. Bassett, who is a professor over at the University of Tennessee’s Sports Physiology (or something like that) department, gave a talk on the hour record in cycling. He started out by going over the history of the hour record, pointing out that there was a real change in the approach to the record in 1983. That was the year that Francisco Moser broke Eddy Merckx’s 1972 record. The difference was that Moser was the first to use aero equipment.

Following Moser, everybody used specialized gear in an attempt to develop an aerodynamic advantage. The strangest looking of these was Graeme Obree’s “Praying Mantis” style riding position. He built his bike himself using scrounged parts, but he did break the record. And then the UCI (the main international governing body for all things cycling) banned the “Obree Position”. Undaunted, Graeme came up with a new style and riding position (the “Superman Position”, so called because of the outstretched arms) and again set the record. Chris Boardman also used the same position to break Graeme’s record, but then the UCI decided to ban that one too. So much for encouraging the innovative spirit, eh?

Sometime around the turn of the 21st Century, the UCI stated that the official hour record would apply only to those who rode equipped as Eddy had been equipped. Out with the aero gear entirely, though they did decide to recognize a second “Best Human Performance” record which does allow for the weird gear, but the hour record is the one with all the romance (and potential lucrative endorsement deals) attached.

So, Dr. Bassett and his colleague Dr. Kyle did a study to evaluate just how each of the ‘Moser and after’ record attempts stood up to Eddy’s. They evaluated the drag of the clothing used (high-tech skinsuits versus Eddy’s cotton jersey and wool shorts). They looked at the drag from aero positions versus Eddy’s ‘riding in the drops’ position. To be fair, they also considered the altitude differences as to how they would affect performance (and Eddy did have that small advantage). They also looked at peak wattage outputs and applied all of the above correction and correlation factors.

What they found out was that Eddy would have been beaten for the record, for not for a longer time and not by nearly as much. Eddy rules anyway.

This was the perfect presentation for a cyclist-engineer geek like me.
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Trivia Time
Rules here. Email to bgoab at mindspring dot com like always. Okay class, you may turn your papers over and begin.

1. Name at least three of the four original members of KISS.
2. The newspaper cartoon “Snuffy Smith” started out with a different name and a different lead character (it slowly changed over time). Who was that original title character?
3. (fill in the blank) Gropius, Jeanneret, and Mies van der Rohe are often considered to be the fathers of modern _______________.
4. (One from Mrs. Guy) Who narrated “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”?
5. (Also from Mrs. Guy) What platform at King’s Cross does the Hogwart’s Express depart from?

Isn't It Ironic?

You be the judge.

Since I was sick yesterday and the day before, I had a chance to seriously catch up on some reading. I finally finished reading the Chronicles of Narnia bookset that my parents gave me for my last birthday. Well, re-reading, actually, since I had read them once long ago when I was to young to really recognize the themes that C.S. (Jack) Lewis wove into these tales. I finished The Last Battle yesterday morning and started looking through the book I got with the set, The Companion to Narnia. From that and some looking at other sources I learned of the following little tidbit.

Jack Lewis got married fairly late in life (in his 50s) to a woman he knew to be in bad health (she was suffering from bone cancer). She went into a brief remission and lived another four years before the cancer returned and claimed her. Jack soon after wrote a book about his grieving process titled A Grief Observed, but since it was so personal he decided to release it under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk. The ironic part is that Jack later had to come forward and admit that he was the one who wrote it. Why? Because so many of his friends started to recommend the book (that he wrote!) to him as something that he might read to help him with his own grieving process.
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It isn’t just the President.

Today at work I went to a presentation given by a woman who works at one of the old Manhattan Project sites in Oak Ridge. She has worked there for quite a long time. She is a highly educated woman and very well trained in what she does. You would think that such a person, especially one who is quite articulate (is she is) would not share one of George W. Bush’s particular idiosyncrasies, but she does. She kept saying “Nucular” (rhymes with ‘New Cue Blur’, but without the ‘B’). Not just once, but at least two dozen times during her talk, and possibly more. I think I gritted my teeth even tighter at every occasion. I felt like getting up and shouting “Nuclear! NEW-CLEE-ARR!!!” But I didn’t. That would have been rude.
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And speaking of rude…

I was on my way to the Post Office after work today. It was rainy and the light was failing, so I was really on my guard in traffic. Good thing, too. I was driving down the street perpendicular to the road the Post Office is on when I noticed a car driving through the parking lot on the right hand side. I just had a bad feeling about how fast he was going, and I was also very far into ‘defensive driving mode’, so I kept an eye on him and was ready to cover the brake. Good thing, too. He pulled out directly in front of me to turn in the direction I was coming from, saw my car, and stopped right in the middle of the lane, set up perfectly to get t-boned. I still don’t know how I was actually able to stop in time given the rain and the slight downhill slope, but I did get stopped and within mere inches of his door (hurray for anti-lock brakes). And then, he flipped me off and drove away, nearly hitting another car on the other side of the road (they had slowed down dramatically when they saw what was going on).

What the… He flipped me off?!?

Finally...

Better late than never though, right? BTW, stayed home from work again today. Head full o' gunk and no energy. I hope to feel well enough to go tomorrow, though.

So here are those answers I owe everyone. I still have to update the points list.
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10/19 Answers
1. What two fictional characters' "real" names were Scoobert and Norville Rogers? Scoobert was the given name for Scooby Doo, and Norville Rogers was Shaggy. Scooby’s last name was Rogers by default, since he was Shaggy’s Great Dane.

2. What two fictional characters' "real" first names were Jonas and Willy? Jonas Grumby and Willy Gilligan were the Skipper and “Mighty Sailored Man” who piloted the ill-fated SS Minnow.

3. On Tuesday I told a story using some names of other fictional people. If I were their uncle, what would my name be? Huey (Hugh), Dewey (Dewayne) and Louie (Louis) were the nephews of Donald Duck.

4. Louis Cristillo and William Abbott (their real names) were famous for talking about a baseball team. Name as many players (and their respective positions) as you can. [For this question I will award one-half point for each correct answer and will round down to the nearest whole number. Get one and you get one-half point which ends up being zero. Two or three correct equals one, four or five equals two, et cetera.] Who’s on first. What’s on second. I Don’t Know is on third. Why is in left field and Because is in center field. The right fielder was never identified as far as I can find out. Today is the pitcher and Tomorrow is catching. Last, but not least, I Don’t Give A D@mn is playing shortstop.

5. These men, listed here by their birth names (or as much of their birth names as I could find), were all at one time or another associated with what well-known comedic group?
Harry Moses Horwitz
Samuel Horwitz
Jerome Lester Horwitz
Louis Fienberg
Jerome Besserer
Joseph Wardell
Emil Sitka
Perhaps the most famous clowns of their time, they were all at one time or another members of “The Three Stooges”.
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10/26 Trivia
1. NAUI and PADI are governing bodies for what sport? SCUBA diving. Mrs. Guy and I took the PADI course way back in 1990 – and haven’t been diving since. Shame on us.

2. Most people likely know who Ichabod Crane is of "Sleepy Hollow" fame, but do you remember the name of the woman he was in love with? In the old stories and in the movie, the name of Katrina remained unchanged.

3. Who is the real Slim Shady? Marshall Mathers, AKA Eminem, claimed that title for himself.

4. Who wrote the classic "Brave New World"? Auldous Huxley. I keep thinking, how would it have been to grown up with that name? I can barely spell it.

5. Name at least three major characters from Matt Groening's Futurama. The most major three are Bender, Leela, and Phillip J. Frye. Other major characters are Prof. Farnsworth, Amy, Dr. Zoidberg, and Hermes

Bonus Non-Scoring Question: What are you dressing up as for Halloween?
I don’t know about you guys, but I went as a surgeon. Ironic, no?

Bike Lies

I stayed home from work today, sick (a cold, I'm guessing). I'm wiped out. I hope you didn't think I would create a full post after that. Did you? Silly rabbit, sicks are the skids.

So instead, I'll throw you this little list I wrote a while back, but just found last night. I present to you now the most common "Bike Lies" as I know them.

1. This is just going to be an easy ride today, so you won’t need to worry about getting dropped if you are out of shape
2. Really, everyone else on this ride is out of shape as well.
3. It’s just a fairly flat 20 mile out-and-back.
4. I’m really tired today. I think I’ll just take it easy and spin.
5. There’s only one climb on this route.
6. Yeah, we should be done by 5:00 pm, so you’ll make that 7:00 pm dinner party no problem.
7. This course is pretty technical.
8. There’s nothing really technical about this course.
9. I got nothing left.Work for me today, and I’ll work for you next race.
10. I'll get those trivia answers out tomorrow.

OK, I did add that last one just now.

The Road to Hell...

…is quite often paved with the very best of intentions. I know I said I’d get to trivia answers, but thus far I guess you can see that I have not. My only excuse is that I’ve had a much busier weekend than I’d planned. Feeble excuse, I know, but that’s all I’ve got. Maybe tomorrow? No promises, though. I know better than that.

Ridden, Driven, and Huh? (plus an "oops")

I finally got another ride in today. This was only my second ride since the accident on Labor Day, and my first one in two weeks. I just took a simple ride on the singlespeed around tha Boulevard a few times. The singlespeed is good for early season training usually, but I guess I'm using it for early recovery training. Besides, you can't go a ll that fast on a singlespeed, and it gave me time to appreciate the scenery. Maybe I can do it again on Sunday, but it is forecasted to rain tomorrow.
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I went with Mrs. Guy to pick up her new company car and turn in the old one today. The new one is a SUV/MiniVan hybrid. It took a while to get all the paperwork figured out down at the car dealer, so I wandered around the lot a little. I found a used 2006 Jeep trail-rated 4x4 for about 60% of the 'new car' price. Not bad, considering it had all of 50 miles on it. One of the signs on it said "10 miles", but I guess it had been test-driven since then and they'd put a revised sign on it as well.

Really now, somebody turned in that car after driving it 10 miles? I really wish I knew that story.
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Before we left with her new car we looked it over pretty good. Mrs. Guy asked that whatever the smudge was on a back seat be cleaned off before we took possession. And then the strange but true part of the story. This brand new, and not normally inexpensive vehicle, did not have any floor mats. Not that they were missing, mind you. It didn't come with them. The guy dealing with us said "Yeah, we've got a $45,000 pickup truck over there on the other side of the lot that's the same way. The mats are an extra $80."

"You gotta be kidding me," I said. "A $45,000 vehicle and the mats cost extra? That would be a deal breaker for me."

"Yeah," said the guy, "Same for me. If I was the one to sell it I think I'd just throw them in out of my own profit."

I like that guy. I may remember that in the future.
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I know that I owe you guys a lot of trivia answers right now. I will try to catch up tomorrow on that and announce the new standings (we will be starting over since there is a '50 points' winner).

Speaking of whom, GeekCyclist pointed out to me a mistake I made. Yes, I have to admit it, the Quiz-meister is fallable on (hopefully) rare occasion. As it turns out, Switzerland never converted to the Euro, so they are still using the currency they have had for however long. So, the question is still valid, but it leads you to believe something that isn't right.

Good thing I don't have a sword around to fall on.

Keep Bermuda Beautiful ... Please

Bermuda is beautiful, there’s no debating that. That said, there is that seedy, seamy side of Bermuda that most tourists would never see. This is, of course, the type of place I tend to seek out at some point or another during most of my ventures far a-field. It gives me the Big Picture of the place – el Foto Grande – la Grande Image - большое изображение, if you will.

I got that on Saturday, and I really wasn’t even trying at that point. I just stumbled into it, actually. Saturday was the day that we moved from the hotel in Southampton Parish to the one in Hamilton. Mrs. Guy was between conference sessions, so we took a taxi (since we had several pieces of luggage) over and checked in. Mrs. Guy decided to take that opportunity to ride the ferry since it went from the Hamilton hotel to a dock very close to the other hotel. I went along to spend the time with her, but I knew I didn’t really want to ride back on the ferry. I hadn’t really decided how I’d get back at that point.

But I did have my options planned. I figured that I could catch a bus that would take me back, or I could try walking partway on the old Railway Trail and catch a bus along the main road if I got tired of that. I ultimately decided to give the Railway Trail a try.

The Railway Trail is essentially a linear park that follows much of the old railbed from way back when Bermuda had a train that went from one end to the other. They’ve modeled it after the Rails to Trails program here in the states, and it does get a lot of use. Well, at least on the sections closer to touristy spots and closer to where the wealthy folks (the “infamous”, as one Bermudian put it) like to get their exercise. But that’s not where I was. I was in an area more populated by the locals not of the uppermost echelon (not to say it was a slum, either).

Now, out on the main roads, or out on the beaches, or near the tourist shops or in town or near parks or you get the idea, you won’t see any litter. Or at least I didn’t. It’s kept quite clean. But that’s not where I was.

The first part of the Railway Trail along my path was actually more of an alley in between houses. Cars and scooters were parked along each side. I walked right past kids playing in their yards. Quite a few yards were unkempt compared to others, but that was not a big deal. As I walked, I would occasionally get to areas where the trail was actually a trail and motor vehicles were not allowed. But people in the local area apparently used this part a lot, based on the items I saw discarded along the way.

I got back onto paved alleyways and through more neighborhoods, still noticing a good bit of debris. I even had to traverse the parking lot of a warehouse-type grocery store (where they probably never see tourists enter…and I didn’t either, though I thought about it), but I was still on the official path. And soon, I reached a part of the trail that went along the boundary of a goodly-sized county club/golf course. “Ahh,” I thought, “Perhaps things will improve.”

Of course they got worse.

The sheer amount of junk was appalling. Almost frightening, in fact. There were all of the types of things I would expect to find in a landfill. I counted no less than three twisted and mangled husks of what might formerly have been scooters shoved down the bank within about a quarter of a mile. “This must be where scooters come to die,” I muttered, barely aloud. “Yep, looks that way,” said the man I hadn’t noticed walking his dog behind me.

Almost from this point forward, though, I found a strange thing happening. I started noticing the litter less. Every once in a while I’d look around to see if it was still there – and it was…in abundance – but overall, my mind started tuning it out. I think that happens to all of us. By the time I reached the end of that section of trail and turned toward Hamilton and the hotel, it was all pushed back into my subconscious.

And yes, I ended up walking the whole way back to the new hotel. I’m not certain, but I think I walked somewhere between seven and eight miles. And thanks to that journey, I could happily abandon my plan to spend the rest of the afternoon seeking out the “dark side”.
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Trivia

OK, you know the Rules, right? And you know to send answers to bgoab at mindspring dot com as well? Good. OK then, here are this week's questions.

1. Name the characters on the front of a box of Rice Krispiestm.

2. Where is the U.S. Naval Academy located?

3. What archipelago was made famous at the onset of US involvement in World War II?

4. What is the name of the location that serves as the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail?

5. Before the Euro came along, what was the major unit of currency in Switzerland (e.g., US=Dollar, UK=Pound, et cetera)?

Illin'

Mrs. Guy is feeling sick, so instead of posting much tonight, I'm going to go try to take care of her. Sorry, but she comes first.

Biking the Mid-Atlantic

Or “Mr. and Mrs. Guy on a Bermuda Bike”

One of the charming things about Bermuda is the fact that you can’t, and I mean absolutely can not, rent a car. It just isn’t allowed. You, as a foreigner, can’t even buy a car. Only residents can buy a car, and then at only one per household. When you think about how small the island is (something like 22 miles long) and how little roadway there is (I think Mrs. Guy read that the total was around 158 miles), you start to appreciate the limitation. Actually, calling Bermuda an island isn’t correct. It’s an archipelago, or a series of small islands. There are over one hundred, but most of the populated areas are on the seven larger ones that are joined by relatively short bridges.

So, how do you get around? Well, you have a few choices. You can take a taxi, as we did from and to the airport and when moving from one hotel to the other. You can take a bus, and the bus service is pretty decent. You can take a ferry, but you are limited to going from one docking point to another so it’s best to do that for longer hauls and then grab a bus or hoof it to your final destination (we took the ferry once, just to have done it). You can even walk, as long as you stay clear of the main roads. There aren’t many sidewalks, but there is the old Railway Trail (more on that another day).

But the most popular way to get around is by bike, which are available for rent in lots of convenient locations. Now, when I say ‘bike’, I mean the bike as the Bermudians call it, which is to say that it’s a scooter. Bikes like I would normally talk about are called ‘pedal-bikes’ there. Mopeds also exist, but the main ‘bike’ is the scooter.

Mrs. Guy and I did a two-day rental on a scooter. I thought about getting just a ‘pedal bike’ for myself, but Mrs. Guy isn’t comfortable piloting a scooter on her own. Besides, I will say this about Bermuda: Bermuda is a cyclist’s paradise or his/her worst nightmare, and possibly both at the same time. Why? Traffic and narrow roads lean to the nightmarish side of the equation, and the speed limit and the beauty of the place lean toward the paradise side. Traffic is heavy. Traffic doesn’t give way a whole lot. Many tourists aren’t good scooter drivers and might (will) crowd you out. However, the speed limit for the entire country is set at a maximum of 35 kph (approx. 21 mph). Yeah, right. Mostly traffic moved at closer to 50 kph, but that’s only about 30 mph, so that isn’t too bad. And the views....

Anyway, there was a competitively priced rental place right at the hotel, so we rented from there for Thursday and Friday. We had about five hours to go out on Thursday, so we headed west toward the Dockyards. That turned out to be a good choice, because I found out that the traffic is generally lighter on that end. It gave me time to get used to driving the scooter with a passenger and also to driving on the left (a bit of British influence there). We checked out the Gibb’s Hill lighthouse. We checked out the World’s shortest drawbridge (just wide enough to allow for the passage of a sailboat’s mast – seriously, it was less than a foot). We went to the Dockyards to see the shops, but that was a little disappointing for Mrs. Guy since we were just into the off-season. I wasn’t bothered, and besides, we couldn’t carry much on the scooter anyway.

We finished off in Hamilton (the Bermudian Capitol) before heading back to let Mrs. Guy do her part at the conference on Thursday. On Friday we headed east from the start and checked out some of the south beaches, the town of St. George, and tried to find Tucker’s Town (unsuccessfully, though we did find the golf course). We got rained on a little going back to the hotel, but it ended before we got there and we weren’t terribly wet. I went back out for a little while when Mrs. Guy went off to do the conference-thing. I mostly drove along the south beaches trying to find good photography spots, but I only found a few due to the still occasional light showers and the generally bad (i.e., cloudy) lighting conditions.

I personally thoroughly enjoyed my Bermuda biking experience. I think Mrs. Guy also had fun, though the sometimes long periods on the seat and the heavy traffic in Hamilton gave her pause. But we survived it with no injuries to body or psyche, so I guess it’s all gravy.
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This post was delayed a bit tonight. I went to vote. What usually takes me five to ten minutes too an hour and a half tonight. Either more people are voting this time or my local precinct has increased in population by about 1200%. Just doing my civic duty, I guess.

And, of course, I voted for Bill and Opus.

Wishing...

OK, we’re back home from Bermuda. We got in late last night (there’s a story there, and I may yet tell it). On the whole, I enjoyed going to Bermuda, but I wish certain things had been different. What kinds of things?

I wish Mrs. Guy had more time to spend with me on Thursday and Friday. Not that I’m complaining about the time we had, because we did get a good portion of the day together, but it could have been better. Especially Friday, but there’s a little more later about that.

I wish food hadn’t been so expensive…or so good. It is expensive for two main reasons. First, a lot of it has to be imported. Bermuda grows some of its own food, but not nearly enough. Second, it’s a tourist market, and the market will bear it, especially at the nicer restaurants where we ended up for the most part. The problem with it being so good is that I ate way too much of it.

I wish the weather had been better, but you have to make the best of it. Still, I had really hoped to spend most of my “sans Mrs. Guy” time taking pictures, but the wind, clouds, and frequently light and/or misty rain put a damper (no pun intended) on that.

I wish we had…well, that’s a spoiler for tomorrow’s intended post.

I wish we hadn’t played musical rooms at the conference hotel. When we first found out we were going, we took over the reservations of the fellow that Mrs. Guy was replacing at the conference she went to attend. We added an extra day on the front end because Mrs. Guy was nervous about getting in on Thursday late with little or no time to set up for that evening. Of course, that did give us almost 24 hours free, but that’s beside the point. Our first night’s room was on a separate reservation, and it was pretty nice, but we had to move for the second and third nights into a room that wasn’t so nice. I could go on and on about it, but just to give you a small sample of the downgrade I can tell you that we went from a room with a harbour view (which was OK, but not of the ocean) to a room with a view of a wall and the hotel’s loading dock. ‘Nuff said.

I wish we hadn’t had to change hotels for the last night. Because we had to make our plane reservations so late, we couldn’t get a flight out on Saturday. The conference hotel was booked full for Saturday (huge Rugby tournament on the island). We ended up moving over to that hotel’s sister hotel in Hamilton, where we got a room with a view of … well, they said it was a “garden view”, but it was really a parking lot view, unless that’s where they grow asphalt. While Mrs. Guy was over wrapping things up back at the conference, I decided to spring for the extra $70 to upgrade us to a deluxe room with a view of most of the island and a whole lot of water. I earned points with the Mrs. On that one.

I wish we hadn’t wasted two hours on Sunday by getting to the airport early hoping to go ahead and get our bags checked in. That’s a story for another day as well.

I wish I hadn’t had to get up this morning and go to work. Gotta pay the bills, though.

Lastly, I wish that Mrs. Guy wasn’t feeling sick, but she started fighting a sore throat on Saturday and I think that the air travel pushed her resistance past its limits.

All of the above, except the last one, are really minor things, and didn’t make my time in Bermuda worse at all. On the contrary, they gave me a few stories to tell. Tomorrow I promise to start on some other stories, and maybe even tell one about two wheels.