Gangrene (Well, Maybe Not Quite)

As I’d mentioned, I did go riding last night. I did not, however, go riding at Cades Cove. I talked to Wally at mid-day and he established that instead of going up to the Cove, he would instead be leading a night-time Greenway ride starting at the old Bi-Lo Supermarket at 6:00pm. I begged for a later start, say …6:30, and he agreed. I just can't get there after work by 6:00.

It should have been easy for me to make it by 6:30. Really, I could have been there a few minutes early on an ordinary day. But as I was leaving work yesterday, a co-worker asked me for an opinion on a subcontracting issue he was struggling with. He’s a good guy, and I’ve been dealing with subcontracts for years, so I spent a few minutes discussing it with him. Not a problem; even ten minutes late leaving I could make it.

Then I got behind a flatbed truck carrying sod on a curvy, hilly road (actually I was about seven cars back). I think it averaged about 15 miles per hour (the speed limit is 55 mph). Yes, they had room to pull over onto the shoulder. No, of course they didn’t. Five miles later the line of cars stretching behind that truck was likely a mile long.

Even once I got home little things slowed me down. I ended up finally deciding to take my mountain bike since it already has my light mount on it and I didn’t have time to transfer it to another bike. I barely had time to find my lights before I left. I called Wally and let him know I was running behind, so he said they’d ride up a little ways and then come back for me.

I got to the parking lot and got my gear together as quickly as I could. Gary C. showed up and asked if I’d seen Wally and the others. We took off down the trail at about 6:40 pm to go catch up to them.

We met Ron coming back the other way after about ½ mile. He told us he was headed back to Wally’s truck to get him some extra light cable and that Wally and Gary S. had taken a detour to RiverSports to get better gloves. The temperature was in the low 30s and the gloves they’d brought weren’t doing the job. Gary C. was under a time crunch, so he decided to go on and ride out the Greenway, so I turned back with Ron. We got Wally’s cable and headed to RiverSports.

Wally and Gary S. got some nice gloves there. There was a sale on some Mountain Hardware gloves, and they did look warm. So with that out of the way we headed back to the Greenway happy and warm…almost.

I had good gloves. I had good tights, a wool jersey under a windshell, a balaclava, and wool socks. Sadly, the socks were the weak link, or rather the lack of shoe covers may have been. My toes started feeling a little cold right from the start. No worries, I thought, as they would warm up once I got my body temp up and my circulation really going. Riiiight.

We rode out to the Ijams Nature Center, stopping at the Island Home Community Park when we saw Gary C. coming the other way and spent a few minutes chatting with him. We did a total of about 23 miles, and I’d given up on having warm toes after about seven. I just didn’t think they’d ever get that cold. I ended up being the one to say “OK, let’s get going again” each time we stopped just so we could get back to someplace warmer sooner.

With about five miles to go I noticed that the cold was creeping up my legs. That was actually a secondary concern at that point because I noticed that my lights were fading. In fact, the light on my handlebars was about dead. The light on my helmet was still shining, but somewhat diminished. I turned my light off during the times we were under streetlamps, but the last three miles were in the woods. With a little over a mile to go I had to ask Wally to pull up next to me so I could see by his light. It might have been my imagination, but I think he started half-wheeling me about then.

We got back to the cars and decided to go get food. We ended up at Ruby Tuesdays (I do like their burgers), but I never really warmed up while we were there. Even when I left I blasted the heat on high the whole way home. I never got warm in the truck even though my head was sweating. I took a hot shower when I got home. I changed into clean dry wool socks. I hopped in bed and stuck my feet under a heat engine (aka: cat). It still took another hour before my feet felt warm.

We’re doing this ride again next week. I’m buying some shoe covers this weekend. And maybe some battery-powered socks.

I wonder what the ASPCA would say if I just strapped a cat to each foot while I ride?

Trivia Answers From January 18th

Question 1: Who are the two British guys who have been announcing the Tour de France on American TV for about the last twenty years? Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwen have been America's voices of Le Tour for as long as I've been keeping up with Le Tour, which is amusing when you consider that they aren't even American. Still, they beat Adrian Karsten hands down IMHO.

Question 2: Actually, one of them doesn't even live in Great Britain. Where is his current home (just name the country)? Paul and his family live in Uganda (near the border with Kenya), where he owns a gold mine.

Question 3: What two martial arts movies did Darryl Hannah appear in? Darryl appears as the 'best looking eye-patch-wearing-psycho-murder-b!tch in a nurse outfit' in Kill Bill Vol. 1, and returns in Kill Bill Vol. 2 to try to kill "The Bride" (Uma Thurman) off once and for all.

Question 4: Speaking of parks, what is the largest National Park in the United States? Most people said "Yellowstone", but wouldn't you think that the largest state would have the largest park? Yes, it's Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, covering over 13 million acres of Alaskan countryside.

Question 5: The Cassini Spacecraft is currently flying around taking data on and pictures of Saturn and its moons. What was the name of the probe that Cassini piggybacked out there and then dropped off at Titan? The Huygens probe was named after 17th Century Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens (no, the extra 'a' is not a typo). He is credited with discovering Titan in 1655.
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There may not be a post tomorrow. It depends on whether or not I go on a Cades Cove Moonlight Ride tomorrow with a bunch of friends. Those who have been reading my blog since the beginning (yeah, both of you) might remember that my second ever blog post was the story of a Cades Cove Ride.

A Little Riding, A Little Work, A Good Day

I went riding at the King today. I met Ron and Joshua at I.C. King Park just after 11:00 this morning. What did you think I meant, Burger King?

Actually, I met Joshua at a little after 11:00 this morning. Ron was running a little later than I was, so he called and said we should go on and ride a short loop until he got there, and that he’d call my cell phone when he got to the parking lot.

Joshua had never been to the King before (having just moved here recently), so I decided to take him on the expert loop. Now don’t get the wrong idea and think that I was being mean by throwing him to the wolves, so to speak (even though they do have such nice shiny coats and such sharp, pretty teeth). ‘Expert’ at I.C. King Park doesn’t mean all that much. I really decided to go that way because I figured it wouldn’t be all that muddy.

And it wasn’t all that muddy. It was actually rather good riding, if somewhat rollercoaster-like. We got around to ‘The Center of the Universe’, which is where most trails north of the water converge (though not all), and decided to cut back along the low trail which most closely follows the shore back toward the parking lot. Ron called soon after we started that way, so heading back was a good choice.

The low trail, however, was not such a good choice. Even though it hasn’t rained in a good while, the trail was as muddy as, if not muddier than, I have ever seen it. My bike was covered with big hunks of gloppy muck by the time we slogged our way back out to Ron’s truck. While Ron finished getting ready, I spent the time clearing as much mud from my drivetrain as I could with my fingers.

With Ron ready we went back into the trail system, but we didn’t go far before we stopped at one particular new trail that someone had cut in a few years before as a hiking trail, though it was actually more likely used to hide out and pursue more nefarious activities. Today we used some folding saws we’d brought to remove some of the tight underbrush and make it a rideable connector between two other trails.

The saws came in handy later as well. After we’d ridden over to the south side and come back, we came upon a pine tree that had fallen across the lower trail between the bridge and ‘The Center of the Universe’ (that section being not so muddy). The tree was too big to move and too big to ride around, but not so big that Ron and I couldn’t brandish saws while Joshua hauled off what we cut away. Ten minutes later the trail was clear again except for one small bit that Joshua wanted to finish up. That's Joshua in the shot below using my saw to cut back one last branch.

We rode out satisfied that we’d done our good deeds for the day.

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Sign That Bicycles Could Help Cure Society’s Ills

As I left the parking lot to go home, I turned right just as another car was coming along in the other lane next to me (going the same direction. I was driving a ten year old pickup truck with a muddy mountain bike thrown in the back. The other guy was driving a shiny new Mercedes E320 with a $5,000+ bike attached to the roof rack. Old truck, new car. But we both raised our hands to wave at each other at exactly the same time with no hesitation.

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Silly Question

After I got home I found MG in the home office playing something or other on the computer. She couldn’t wait to tell me something that had happened today when she worked relief at the Vet Clinic. Preface: MG got some new earrings this week to celebrate a big company award she got at their recent company-wide meeting. They’re very nice. OK, on with the story.

Mrs. Guy: Mary Beth noticed my earrings today.
Big Guy: Yeah? What did she say.
MG: She really likes them. She wanted to let her husband know she wants some like them for Valentines.
BG: Yeah? Well, they might be a little hard to describe to him without him being able to see them.
MG: I know. Get this. She asked me to Xerox them.
BG: You … what? You Xeroxed your earrings so she can show him which ones to get?
MG: Yep. Blog-worthy?
BG: You have to ask?

Milestone

Brighid turned 50 today. 50k, that is. It happened out on I-40 while I was on my way home from downtown. It was a big thing for me. Not so much for Brighid, though. Confused? Brighid is a car.

To be more precise, Brighid is a 2000 Evolution Orange Mazda Miata. Yeah, we name our cars. We name our cats, too, and the cars are just as likely to come running when we call them. Some people think it’s silly to name cars (and have told me so in no uncertain terms). Not that I really care. I have a long history of naming cars, starting with The Behemoth (Mom’s old Mercury Marquis). Actually, it may have started before that. I can’t remember if Dad got The Slug (a Ford Zephyr) before Mom got The Behemoth. No matter.

Regardless of history and tradition, it makes a bit of sense that MG and I named Brighid. At the time, Brighid was not our only Miata. I also had a 1992 Miata named Mjolnir. It was easier to say “I’m going to go put gas in Brighid” than to say “I’m going to go put gas in the Miata. No, not the white one; the other one.”

So naturally you can’t name just two cars if you have more than that. We currently still have Brighid, of course (I sold Mjolnir a few years ago). We also have Traineau Noir and the truck, which I recently named Jene (short for Genome – don’t ask).

All this might naturally beg the question, “Hey Big Guy, what about the bikes?” Yep. They have names as well. There’s Silver, Trigger, Clyde, Spock, PopMonster, the Beast, Jessica and Daisy. There are reasons for their names, of course, which I will be happy to tell you over an adult beverage sometime, provided you come here and buy me one.

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Trivia Quiz-thing

Please refer to the Rules as necessary, and please send your answers to this email address.

1. What is the mythological significance of ‘Mjolnir’?

2. What does ‘Testarossa’ mean (hint: it’s Italian)?

3. Mars has two moons. Tell me the name of either one.

4. In the 1998 movie “Shakespeare In Love”, who played the part of the Queen of England?

5. Most of us using computers these days are familiar with USB ports, but what does USB stand for?

Post Poned

I must offer my apologies for this, but trivia and any other post I might write will have to be put off until tomorrow. Sorry about that, but that's how it goes sometimes. So consider tonight's post officially poned.

What? Huh?!?

It’s official now. I am deaf.

Some who know me wouldn’t be too surprised to hear me say that (at least the ones who can hear). I’ve always demonstrated some minor amount of hearing loss, though I don’t know that you can say that you’ve lost what you’ve never actually had. OK, I guess it’s safe to say that I don’t hear certain things quite as well as others do.

But as of yesterday, it would seem that I have a severe hearing loss. "How do you figure that?", you might ask. "Huh?", I might reply (in jest, of course).

Yesterday was my annual physical at work. Since I work at a hazardous waste site (though I don’t handle the stuff myself), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) thinks I should have a physical every year to make sure I don’t suffer any ill effects from said waste (such as a new foot growing from my kneecap, an extra eyelid over my scapula, you know, stuff like that, I guess). I’m not complaining. I get a free annual physical and they share the results with my regular doctor.

Along with testing my blood and my blood pressure and my eyes and everything (yes, that everything every few years), they also perform a hearing test every year. After all, there is a lot of heavy equipment used at our jobsite that is quite loud. I’ve always scored about the same on the test, or at least I did until yesterday.

Now let me say that I am just getting over a cold, which might affect my hearing slightly, but that’s not really a factor here. What is? Be patient, I’m getting to that.

The audiometric test (AKA hearing test) is performed by placing the subject in a sound-isolating booth (think ‘cone-of-silence’), putting headphones on said subject, and having them push a little button every time they hear a tone. The pitch and volume of the tone change, so you go with the lowest volume heard for each pitch to determine the overall score. Most of the time I can hear my own heartbeat and breathing louder than some of the quietest tones I can hear. Except for yesterday, that is.

You see, the sound-isolating booths aren’t exactly perfect at cutting out all external noise. As standard protocol, the technician either leaves the area or just sits quietly at the console during the test. In that case, the booth is adequate. But imagine, if you will, that the technician stays in the room, joined by another technician, and maybe another technician, and they discuss (loudly) the (apparently) hilarious television show that each of them watched the night before. You might, as part of your imagining, wonder if the booth would be adequate at “sound-isolating” under that set of conditions.

Well, wonder no longer. It really came as no shock to me that I failed the test miserably. I did ask them to run the test again while, perhaps, standing in the next room in silent Zen-like contemplation and self-reflection. (Okay, I didn’t say it that way, but even though I was polite, I did get a brief scowl from one of the technicians – fortunately not the one who later drew blood from my arm). I passed the next test with my usual score.

Too bad, really. I could have used the ‘deafness’ excuse the next time MG gets after me to do some minor chore around the house. Hmm, I think I (don't) hear her coming now...

Panography at the Tapas Bar

Try saying that title out loud. Now imagine that you were overhearing that phrase from a few feet away. Suppose that you are unfamiliar with panography (as most people likely are - it's a photographic technique). What word might your mind perhaps think it heard? And then there's also the part about the Tapas Bar. What might that sound like?

And that is how a friend in my Sunday School class thought that I was saying that I'd been discussing pornography in a topless bar last night with my wife. OK, I can see the humor in that. I did have to set him (and everyone else in earshot) straight about what I was really talking about.
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So I went out on Friday afternoon and helped set out a new cyclocross course in a park I'd never seen before, Victor Ashe Park. It's a nice park, I must say, and a lot bigger than I'd imagined it would be. Given that much space, the course that Steve R. came up with was huge. The longest course we'd ever had before was 1.2 miles per lap (last year at Melton Hill Park), and we all thought that was long. The course this weekended up being 1.6 miles.

The course took some time to set out, but not as long as I'd expected. John B., Steve, Phillip and I met there at noon and split into two groups, with Phillip and me concentrating on the lower half of the course. Bob D. showed up a bit later to help, but we were almost done. He and Phillip test-rode the course, and then Bob did another lap with me when Phillip offered me his bike to go give it a try. Steve also went out on his own bike, and John rode Phillip's bike for a lap after I did.
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It was Saturday morning before we knew the length of the course, though. None of the bikes on Friday had a cyclometer, so I arrived early enough to make another test loop on my own bike to get the measure of it. Even being as long as it was, it was a very fast course. Faster than we'd really expected, because the mucky mire we expected on the climb toward the scoring area/finish line never really developed. The conditions were there, but everybody was able to use the four to six inch lane on the far left of the pathway that was relatively hardpack, and it never got worse as the event went on.

But not everything went smoothly. I had a couple of computer problems with scorekeeping that I didn't discover until after the races were over. I still had all of the places correct (after confirming with the guys keeping score on paper for back-up), but I lost the split times for all but the Men's-A race. Very embarrasing, but I now know what went wrong (a PEBCAK error), and I'll be able to prevent it from re-occuring during future events ... I hope.
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Trivia Answers from 1/11/07

Yes, there was a bit of a theme to this quiz.

1. What 1980 film featured John Travolta and Debra Winger and centered around Gilley’s Club? Urban Cowboy. The story prominently featured mechanical bull riding.

2. What domestic model was the best-selling car in the U.S from 1992 to 1996? That would be the Ford Taurus. MG even once had one as her company car. I understand that fleet sales helped keep the overall numbers high for the Taurus.

3. What mythological critter was famous for hanging out in a maze? Half-man, half-bull, the Minotaur was famous for setting up house in the mythological labyrincth.

4. What is the term used for a solemn public decree issued by the Pope? Don't ask me how it came to be called this (though I'm sure I could look it up if I had time), but it's the Papal Bull.

5. Who caused Custer’s downfall (other than Custer himself) and where? The 'where' was Little Big Horn, and the 'who' I was looking for was Sitting Bull. Still, Custer's overconfidence and arrogance were major factors in his defeat.

Bonus: What was wrong with Fuzzy Wuzzy? I departed from the theme here in a way, but I was going with a tie to 'Bull vs. Bear' markets. "Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?"

Imbedded Trivia

I just got home from the first of my Bike Club's Winter Movie Series showings. We do these about once a month during the colder months up until the time changes and we can get back out on our bikes in the evenings. Tonight's movie was "The Tour, Baby", which is a behind-the-scenes look at the Tour de France from the perspective of a guy who started out as just another tourist, but ended up getting a little ways inside the door into the machine that is Le Tour.
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Don't forget the Rules and where to send your answers.

Question 1: Who are the two British guys who have been announcing the Tour de France on American TV for about the last twenty years?

Question 2: Actually, one of them doesn't even live in Great Britain. Where is his current home (just name the country)?
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Speaking of movies, I just dropped by Blockbuster Video on the way home to return the movie I watched last night. I occasionally like to watch martial arts films, especially the ones by Jackie Chan (they're usually pretty funny), but I've found that some of the more recent big budget ones have way too much "wire work" that takes away too much of the realism.

However, last night I watched Jet Li's "Fearless" based on a recommendation from a friend. I must say that I was not disappointed. This was a little "wire work", but no so much that it took anything away from the story for me. And Jet Li is such an incredible martial artist that it blows my mind. "Fearless" will never take the place of the Akira Kurosawa movies in my heart, but it is absolutely worth watching, probably several times,
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Question 3: What two martial arts movies did Darryl Hannah appear in?
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Tomorrow I go back out to help set up another cyclocross race course for this weekend. We're going to a park I've never been to before; Victor Ashe Park (named after a long-time Knoxville Mayor and current ambassador to Poland). I'll have to let you know tomorrow how the set-up goes.
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Question 4: Speaking of parks, what is the largest National Park in the United States?
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I really don't have any more topics to discuss tonight. I guess I'll just wrap it up and get started on some housekeeping work I need to do before MG gets back from Baltimore tomorrow night. I only have tonight and tomorrow morning to do it all (since the afternoon is dedicated to cyclocross stuff). I don't even have a lead-in for a last trivia question. I guess I'll just have to pick something at random.
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5. The Cassini Spacecraft is currently flying around taking data on and pictures of Saturn and its moons. What was the name of the probe that Cassini piggybacked out there and then dropped off at Titan?

Spamalot (Rather, a Lot of Spam)

A 7-year-old girl with cancer. What could be sadder than that? Who wouldn’t want to help if they could? Especially if all they had to do was simply forward an email to 50 million of their closest friends? But, contrary to popular gullibility, uh, opinion, you can’t. Really. Need more information to back up my claim? OK, try looking here. Go ahead. I have time.

…

…

Had a look? OK. Now I’ll be the first to admit that there are numerous (‘numerous’ being somewhat of an understatement in this case) such urban legends and other similar tripe flying about from inbox to inbox these days. So why did I pick this one? Because this is the one that caused the huge email firestorm at work today.

I can't remember exactly what time it came through, but it was very early in the day, likely in the 8:30 am range (of course by then I'd been at work for two hours, but others come in later than I do). Somebody had gotten the "Amy Bruce" email from someone else outside our company and decided that it was worthy of forwarding ... to the entire company distribution list. This despite well published rules against using work computer resources for this type of thing.

Why did he do it? I don't know. I don't even know him. But maybe he was hooked by the part of the subject line that said "(This is local!)". A quick look through the email trail revealed that "local" in this case was reported to be somewhere in Kansas. Kansas doesn't even border Tennessee. How local is that?

But regardless of his reason, the response was quick and multiple. My personal response was to delete it, but the first "Reply to All" response that went out was actually in the right spirit. The respondent quickly pointed out that the message was indeed spam and that folks should, in the future, refrain from forwarding such useless drivel. Well that was all well and good, but then came a cascade of further responses in rapid succession. Some were pleas to "Please remove me from this type of distribution", which they of course sent to everyone in the company. Some were brutal assaults on the mental capabilities of the original forwarder, which were of course sent to everyone in the company. Then came the attacks on the "pleaders" and "assaulters" for sending their responses to everyone in the company. These were naturally sent to, you guessed it, everyone in the company.

In the space of about five minutes there were 14 messages that came into my inbox that were all related to the original spam. I would have found it amusing, except that it slowed my system down and even locked up the computer of the guy across the hall from me for a few minutes. That plus the time it took for me - and everyone else in the company - to identify and delete the plethora of mishapen missives. I do wonder how much wasted money that represents.

The IT department finally weighed in with a terse reminder that computer resources were not to be used in such ways and that the company has its own department which handles sending out well-screen company-wide announcements.

One thing I do wonder about, though. I only saw the responses that went back out company-wide. I wonder how many responses the perpetrator got from people who hit "reply" instead of "reply to all" to dress him down? I'm guessing that number is rather high. I'd also guess he got a personal note from IT about the whole brouhaha and his part in it. I wonder if he's crawled back out from under the nearest rock yet?

Snap

I ran last night around the neighborhood. What (you might ask)? Hey Big Guy, didn’t you just explain yesterday how you bonked out so badly at Haw Ridge? Well, yes, I did, but I think that the two, maybe two-and-a-half hour long nap I took yesterday afternoon helped tremendously. And I didn’t really spend the evening planning on running. It was really a last-minute decision.

It was about 10 pm last night when I looked out to see what the weather was like. It was raining lightly; enough that it would keep me from running with the dogs, but not enough to keep me from running. It was a quick little “I used to run all the time in this kind of weather” thought that started the ball rolling, and before I knew it I was tying the laces on my running shoes and putting on my rain shell.

But what made me really decide to do it? A couple of things, I guess. First was the realization that I had bonked so badly because I am somewhat out of shape and need to correct that. Compelling, I suppose, but I could have waited a day, right? Except that I knew a little something about today. Sure, I knew I had a meeting downtown after work, though a little planning might have made that work in my favor if I'd taken running gear with me. No, what I knew about was the weather forecast.

We here in East Tennessee were blessed with a wonderful holiday weekend, from a climatological perspective. While regions of the West and North were being battered by bad, really bad weather, we had warm temperatures and only mostly cloudy skies (despite predictions for a weekend full of rain). And even though it did start raining on Monday afternoon, it never rained really hard. But a cold snap was coming, and my left shoulder joint confirmed the forecast for me. I'd rather run in light rain and temps in the mid-to-upper 50's than run in the dry with temps in the low 30's any day of the week.

So running last night was my best option, no matter how slow I might end up going after the harsh lesson of Haw Ridge. But you know what? I felt good. Really. I don’t mean to say that I set any records, but all things considered I felt really, really good.

So from now on I’m going to plan two, maybe two-and-a-half hour long naps into my exercise schedule.