Batman: The Dark Knight

I saw The Dark Knight a couple of weeks ago already! Time flies! I need to be better about posting. I know I keep saying that…

We saw it in Seattle at the IMAX theater. Recommended. You get quite a visual effect from the movie. The Dark Knight is the 2ndin the “new” series of Batman movies. I really need to see the 1st one again, but I really liked this movie. Some might object to the politics of the movie, but I didn’t find it terribly onerous. The movie is long, though for me, it didn’t seem overly long.

The late Heath Ledger’s Joker portrayal is stunning. You should almost see the movie for that. He gets quite a bit of airtime. Yeah, I liked him that much.

The special effects and acting are all top notch. The one thing I didn’t like about the movie was that the Joker at one point burns a small mountain of cash that belongs to the crime lords of Gotham city. He claims to have no use for money. And yet, he also seems to have agents everywhere (including police officers) and the ability to deposit huge amount of explosives (I believe they said diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate/fertilizer) all over the city, including places that would, in general, be very difficult to operate (like on ferries). Apparently all these bad people do all these things for little or no cash. And he kills a lot of the bad guys helping him along the way to boot!

That part of the movie bugged me.

But overall, it’s a small quibble, I suppose.

My main takeaway from the movie was this. At it’s core, it is a story the struggle to fight a nihilist. For at his core, I think that’s what the Joker is. I’m not much of a philosopher, so I might be picking the wrong philosophy, but my sense is that, for the Joker, life has no meaning. However, ironically, his one goal, his one purpose in life, is to convince everybody, and Batman most of all, that his way is the right way. In that, he is decidedly not nihilistic!

How can Batman fight somebody like the Joker? The only way to stop the Joker is to kill him, which is what the Joker wants. His death at Batman’s hands would be the ultimate triumph. But killing is something Batman cannot, or I should say, will not do. So Batman has a real problem on his hands!

The Joker is somebody who will kill anybody and do almost anything to prove to Batman that life is meaningless. Batman struggles to avoid falling into the Joker’s dark chasm even as the Joker takes what is dear to Batman’s (aka Bruce Wayne’s) heart. All of Batman’s immense efforts and suffering are rendered nearly meaningless. But at the nadir of his success, Batman displays his moral superiority. In the face of everything, he still soldiers on, refusing to give in to his most human wants and desires.

I think there are obvious parallels with what we are dealing with today regarding Islamic terrorists. They, too, display a level of nihilism. As a country, we have strayed to ‘the dark side’ with our torture and illegal wiretapping. We are not The Dark Knight.

9/10

STP 2008

Boy, I seem to be very lazy lately. I still haven’t written up my STP ride and it’s been almost 2 weeks!!

So, this year, Steve and Denise convinced me to do the STP in one day. I, of course, am up for reasonable challenges. Our official goal was to start at 4AM and finish by 8PM. I figured this was doable, though somewhat optimistic because you have to average a bit better than 12.6 mph including rest breaks. Seems reasonable enough.

The weather was being reported as very warm, up to 90 degrees, but with a tail-wind. I was not looking forward to riding with it that hot after my experience of 2 weeks ago, but at least I knew that dumping water on my head was a good idea!

I woke up at 2:30 AM, Saturday, July 12th. I’d packed the night before and was mostly ready. It was hard moving and I ended up staying up much too late unfortunately. Next thing I knew, Steve and Denise were at my door and I was still running around in my underwear!! They were more than 5 minutes early!!

I hurridly finished getting ready: slapped my sunscreen on, got dressed and gathered my stuff together. Miracle of miracles, I didn’t forget anything! Yay! We drove down to the starting line. Steve and Denise’s friend Brian was kind enough to drive. How they get him to get up well before the crack of dawn is beyond me! I figure they must have some good dirt on him that he doesn’t want revealed!

We got to the start line, Husky Stadium around 3:30 AM. There were a few people already arriving and a surprising number of folks who actually slept at the starting line! After unloading bikes, getting set up and hitting the port-a-potties, we were off right at 4AM.

It was cool and dark. We had to use lights to see the road. I almost fell over twice in the first couple of miles since we were following Dan Henry’s that were difficult to see in the dark. The first couple of miles you zig-zag through Seattle streets before getting down to business and riding south along Lake Washington.

About a half-hour into the ride, I was following close behind Steve and Denise enjoying the cool morning air when BAM!! I hit a pothole. Hard. Did I mention hard? I hit hard enough that one of my water bottles flew from it’s cage! I stopped to get the bottle and realized that not only did my water bottle pop off, but my rear tire was flat!!

Grumbling, I pulled off to the side of the road. By dumb luck we were at a nice spot to change a tire: a small park. I set about fixing the flat. That was when I discovered that I’d left the one of my pockets of my bike bag unzipped. My phone was gone!! Steve walked back to where the pothole was and found my phone: in pieces. Fortunately, when we put it back together, it worked!

I discovered that I’m really slow fixing flats! Since I got my Ultra-Gatorskins tires, I’ve had very few flats, so I’m really out of practice. It took me 15 minutes to fix it. In the meantime Steve spoke with a ride official and they spray-painted the pothole so nobody else would run into it. I got all packed up and was wheeling the bike to the road when, guess what, I discovered that my front tire was flat too!!

So I had to fix that. My prior practice didn’t help me much. It took me another 15 minutes! I was stressing about the fact that both of my spare inner-tubes were gone and we’d only traveled 6 or 7 miles! The clock went from 4:45 to 5:00AM as I worked on fixing my front tire. The bike traffic when from almost non-existent to quite heavy. By the time we were on the road again, there were a lot of bikers on the road. This would prove costly.

So instead of whisking along by ourselves getting passed only by faster riders, we were in the middle of the morning pack of people. Our speed was slow!

We rode to the first stop: REI. According to Denise, this is an “unofficial” stop. But it is probably the best stop on the ride. They had a Vegas/Elvis theme going on. It was fun. We were just slightly ahead of the crowds. When Steve and I went to the port-o-potties, there were about 4 - 6 people in line. 5 minutes later, there were double that in line! I’d bet that by the time Denise got to go, there were 3 times what we saw initially.

I grabbed some food and went to buy some inner-tubes. The REI repair guy gave me one for free! Very cool. I would have preferred 2 tubes, but I wasn’t going to ask for a free 2nd one.

We were there probably 15-20 minutes. Of course, I’d planned on keeping a more detailed log of what we did where and when but my pen had gotten lost in the bottom of my bag, so I had nothing to write with.

We rode on. Many of the miles are a haze. It was nice in the morning. It kept getting hotter and hotter though. I drank lots of water. So much that I had to stop every 10 miles or so! At the REI stop, we were there long enough that I really felt like I wanted to go again but the lines were so long, that I didn’t. That was a bit of a mistake.

10 or 15 minutes after leaving the REI site, I really wanted to go, but I kept quiet and tried to suck it up. We were really behind schedule now because not only did we lose a 1/2 hour fixing flats, but the REI stop took much longer than ideal.

Eventually I started to really suffer. We rode on though and I managed to make it to our next stop in Puyallup. We stopped at a small coffee stand where Steve got an iced mocha (?? I didn’t pay that much attention). I used the bathroom. Twice as it turned out.

The big hill in Puyallup wasn’t that big, just longish. I’ve climbed worse.

We rode and rode. At some point in the later morning I got stung in the mouth by a bee or wasp! Yes. Inside my mouth on my upper lip. Nice. I was thinking that this ride is not going so well. We had to stop and I felt around for a stinger. It either came out or was never there in the first place. I took a Claritin antihistamine to help the swelling. I think it did help as it didn’t swell up too badly. It was tender for the rest of the ride.

We rode on. It was getting hot! Fortunately, we had the air to cool us as we rode. At one point, we came to some fresh chip seal road. It was black and hot! You could feel the head radiating upwards. We rode by some poor guy who’d crashed on this stuff. I felt bad for him. It would be like crashing on a cheese grater. Yuk.

Now we were in the heat of the day. There was nary a cloud in sight. Every stop I would dump lots of water on my head and soak my clothes. I had to be careful not to get my camera wet! Despite having my camera, I took a handful of very uninteresting photos. I was too busy trying to keep pedaling in the heat!

The miles and time rolled on. 100. 120. 140. I was in uncharted territory. Overall, I was feeling OK. My wrists and shoulders were doing OK. My butt was fine. The heat was my main enemy. I just haven’t trained enough in the heat. I started to fall behind a bit with my water. Certainly I didn’t do that well with nutrition. I seem to be able to tolerate Perpetuem for about 6 - 8 hours and them my stomach doesn’t like it so much. That left me with not a lot to eat. Eventually, I bought some corn chips and a Baby Ruth, which went down pretty well!

I was really happy when we crossed into Oregon, though we still had over 40 miles to go! It was in the 4PM timeframe. Without my pen and paper, I didn’t keep an exact time-hack. I’d been watching the clock for most of the ride. We were averaging barely better than 10 or 11 miles per hour through the first half of the ride. Fortunately, we had a tailwind which helped us. We made up a little time on the 2nd half, but even then we were not going anywhere near fast enough to make it by 8PM!

Along the way, Denise revealed that their real goal was to finish before 9PM, which is the official end time of the ride. Steve and Denise have ridden the 1-day STP 4 times prior and something always conspired to prevent them from finishing in 1 day!

By the time we crossed into Oregon, I figured that we had a slim chance of making it by 9PM. The heat just melted us!! Even at 4PM, the heat was intense! Our rest stops were too long. We spent a lot of time watering up and puttering around. Some of it was a comedy. Steve would go to the bathroom and then come back. Then I would go. Then when I got back, he’d wander off to get some food. Then I’d wander off to get water. Then he’d wander off to get some water and I’d go to get some food. Then I’d need to go the bathroom again, so Steve would wander off to look at stuff. By the time he’d get back, I’d already have drunk enough to need to refill my water bottle and spend a minute drenching myself with water! And so on. A 10 minute break would turn into 20 minute break in the blink of an eye.

On the other hand, we needed the rest because it was so hot!! The whole day I was taking tons of Enduralyte caps. 4 at time. I think it helped. I do think I was still running low on salt because the corn chips were very tasty!!

Eventually we were at St. Helens, just 25 miles to go! Well it was more like 28 miles, but who’s counting! I remember seeing a couple of bank thermometers. One read 90. The other 89. This was at 6PM or even a bit later! And the most distressing thing is that we things felt cooler! By St Helens, I was really dragging badly. My calfs were constantly on the edge of cramping and I was just feeling weak and a bit shaky. Nothing like the deathmarch from 2 weeks ago, but I was feeling like I was on the way!

We ate at McDonald’s. A small burger and lots of fries with some water. I was hungry. I wished we could have stayed there longer! I loaded up on ice and water in my water bottles. The cold water was very welcome.

After McDonald’s, I felt better. The cold air of the restaurant and a real sit-down time plus some high-calorie food did wonders. I also think the fact that we were starting to ride in shadows helped a lot. The temps were definitely cooler, though still quite warm.

Now I guess Steve wasn’t feeling so hot. We sort of dragged in this section. We passed the point of no-return on finishing before 9PM. I estimated about 9:45 which turned out to be almost exactly correct.

All along the way at this point, we rode by people who were sagging themselves out. Dozens of people were parked by the side of the road or were loading up their bikes on cars. We saw dozens more cars with bikes mounted on top heading into Portland.

An hour from from the finish-line I was actually feeling far better than I’d felt for probably 10 or more hours. Despite being at mile 190-ish, I was feeling good and strong. Peppy even. Our spirits improved markedly as the clock ticked by. We knew we weren’t going to make it by 9, so we just relaxed and enjoyed the cooler temperatures.

It was getting dark enough that I stoped and changed to my clear lenses and put my headlight on my bike. I rode for a few minutes before discovering that my headlight was almost falling off! The impact in the morning had just about sheared the lamp from the plastic clip used to mount to my bike!!

Fortunately, it didn’t get really dark till we were nearly at the finish line and then we had a good number street lamps to see by.

I was very glad to finally finish! There was a small group of people lining the finish cheering and clapping, which was cool. I got my 1-Day STP patch, thanks to the volunteers who stayed after the official end time!

Stacy was there to meet me. We chatted for a few minutes and then went our seperate ways. I loaded my bike up into my Civic, a bit of a challenging affair and we headed to the Paramount hotel, where we’ve stayed a number of times.

I took a shower and washed all the sweat and grime off. I discovered that I should have been a bit better about applying sunscreen. My arms were slightly sunburned. Fortunately, my face didn’t get sunburned.

After showering and changing, we headed across the street to Stacy’s favorite Portland wine bar. Of course, the name escapes me! It’s right across from the Paramount. You can’t miss it.

We had a cheese appetizer plate and a meat appetizer plate and I ordered a beer and a burger. The burger took a really long time to show up. I fell asleep sitting on my chair a few times. When the burger arrived, it was very red/pink in the center! So we sent it back. Eventually, it came back again in much the same condition! Oh well. I just ate it.

After dinner, we went back to the room and I crashed. Of course, it was 1AM or later, so I’d been up for nearly 23 hours straight!

The next day I woke up around 11AM. I was still rather sore. Not my butt so much as my quads and calf muscles! We left the Paramount around noon. We drove around for a short bit looking for a breakfast place but I was very hungry and didn’t feel like screwing around any longer so we headed south to Bridgeport Mall in Lake Oswego, OR (maybe 15 miles south of Portland). We missed the exit so had to drive to the next one and turn around. As we were getting off the exit, I saw the Fudrucker’s sign!

We sat down for lunch around 12:45. I’d forgotten how good their burgers were! They’re very tasty and they have the best buns too! Freshly baked and freshly ground meat! You can’t go wrong. Highly recommended!

After lunch we wandered over to Old Navy to shop. I didn’t see anything that inspired me. We then headed over to Bridgeport for some real shopping. Our first stop was Z-Gallerie. I sat and slept on a comfy love seat while Stacy shopped. I needed the rest!

When we walked around outside, I couldn’t believe how hot it was! But it was only 90 degrees! It was crazy hot. I couldn’t believe that I was riding around in that heat the day before!

We went to see the 5:30 showing of Wall-E. It was a good movie. Very entertaining.

After the movie, we went to the Blue Tangerine for dinner. It’s a Greek-style place. I had a tasty beef shishkabob (sp?) and rice and a beer. Yum.

It was 9PM, closing time, when we finally headed home. We stopped by a gas station before hitting the highway. Gas is cheaper in Oregon than in Washington by somewhere around 10 cents per gallon. And that’s with full-serve only. So you can imagine how high gas taxes must be to be more expensive. I remember the day when you always filled up in Washington so you wouldn’t have the pay the usurious Oregon cost. No longer.

The drive home was uneventful. Traffic was light so we made it back in just over 3 - 1/2 hours, which is amazing considering that I drove the speed limit for nearly the whole drive!

Hancock

I saw Hancock on the 4th of July. I liked the movie, though it’s not a spectacular movie. Just a decent movie.

Hancock is about John Hancock (Will Smith) who has superpowers on par with Superman (though w/o the x-ray vision or heat beams). However, Hancock is a drunk screw-up, causing more damage than he prevents. One day he save the live of Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) a talented, but somewhat starry-eyed marketing agent, Ray takes it upon himself to help John market himself better.

The interaction between Ray and John are some of the most enjoyable parts of the movie I thought. It is a bit hard to describe but Jason Bateman has this manner of speaking that is calm but makes his idea come across but it’s also slightly funny without being highly affected.

The special effects in the movie were good and the acting was good as well. I liked the twist on the standard super-hero fare, though how Hancock could get drunk off of alcohol when he’s invulnerable to everything else is a bit of a mystery to me. Could he be killed by alcohol poisoning?

The last 1/4 or so of the movie has some interesting twists in it, though in the end, I found the conclusion somewhat ho-hum.

I’m going to give this a 6/10. It’s decent movie, but not a great movie. Rent it when it comes out.

A quiet 4th of July weekend

It was a quiet, though nice 4th of July. Lots of TV and movies were watched!

On the 4th Stacy and I went to see Hancock. Afterwards, we headed over to Jesse’s house for a small 4th of July BBQ. Anthony cooked chicken and burgers which were quite tasty. Mostly we just watched the 2nd season of Weeds, a really funny/strange TV show about a suburban housewife who becomes a pot dealer after her husband unexpectedly dies.

Saturday I went for a short-ish bike ride. 51 miles. Stacy was working up in Marysville so I rode up there to find her. Unfortunately, the directions she got from Mapquest were wrong so I rode to the wrong place! So I turned around and rode home. I tried calling her to find out where she was exactly but I couldn’t get ahold of her.

The weather was nice and cool, which was a pleasant change from last week’s insanely hot weather!

Saturday evening Anthony came over and I fixed some Thai food for dinner (really simple stuff though: store-bought curry sauce and rice!) and we watched TV.

Sunday we met up with Anthony for brunch and then drove around and visited several Legacy Homes sites which is the company that Stacy is primarily doing open houses for. We spoke with the site agents. Things are slow in the real-estate market right now!

After a brief nap early-evening, Anthony came back up for some more Thai-food cooking (red curry this time instead of massaman :)) and we watched Good Luck Chuck and some other random TV.

Improve your learning

http://ririanproject.com/2007/04/15/7-little-known-ways-to-drastically-improve-your-learning/

I don’t know much about this site. There are other links to articles/blog posts on learning related issues. I have to say that I agree with the 7 items on the list.

Sunday’s bike ride: Hot death march

So my plan for this weekend’s final, long distance ride before STP was to do 140 miles. Cascade Bike Club has a series of training rides they do to help you prepare for the ride. The official ride was 104 miles. I was going to add on approximately 40 miles by riding from my house to the starting point and from the finish point back to my house.

Saturday, I’d developed a nice crick in my neck. It was painful enough that I wondered if I should even do the ride. Eventually, I decided that I’d ride to the starting point and see how that went. If OK, I’d do the ride. If not, I’d ride back home, which would still give me a 40 mile ride. Not a lot, but OK.

Saturday night, I got only about 4 hours of sleep thanks to my neck. It was hard to get comfortable, so I kept waking up.

I got up on time, but was moving slowly. I finished packing up and headed out nearly 20 minutes late. My plan was to go down the Bothel-Everett highway all the way to 522, instead of my normal bike commute route that takes me up and over a nice hill. It’s shorter when I go to work and it’s on side streets which B-E Hwy is definitely not. And B-E Hwy does not have great shoulders past 405.

That plan worked quite well. I enjoyed the fast, downhill slope and hit 522 quite nicely. I rode along 522 for a while, looking for a spot to jump onto the Burke-Gillman trail. I got on what I thought was the trail only to find out that it wasn’t! Fortunately, it dumped me back onto 522, so I wasn’t too screwed. I rode along 522 some more and found a major street that I was pretty sure would take me to the trail. I rode about 1/2 mile along it before I chickened out and rode back to 522. I didn’t see the trail anywhere!

So here I am getting lost over and over again and I’m already considering myself to be late. Eventually, I actually *did* make it to the trail. I rode pretty hard because I didn’t want to miss the start. In the end, I got there about 10 minutes before the actual, official start, which was 8AM. Of course, we didn’t leave for at least 20 minutes after that.

I looked like hell already. I’d flown through some bug clouds, so I had bugs stuck all over my sweaty face and arms and my legs were covered in dirt from I don’t know where.

We were off. I was in the “blue” group which is the slowest of the CATS group (Cascade Advanced Training Series). Nominally this is the 16-18mph group, which is the speed on the flats. Actually, if it was flat, we were doing more like 19-21mph. Nevertheless, I was feeling OK. It was early and the temps were still moderate.

We got down to near Seward Park where we had to have a course deviation. There was a marathon going on! We took some side streets to bypass the marathon. On a quiet side street hill, on of the ride leaders was barking at us to not ride on the wrong side of the street (with no painted dividing lines). I complied by drifting to the right only to have my front tire fall into a huge crack in the street. By some miracle, I managed to unclip before I fell over or my front wheel would have been trashed.

We rode on. I watched my wheel carefully. It was still true. I was amazed. However, I noticed some noise on braking. Closer examination during a stop revealed that I now have some rather deep gouges in the rim of my front wheel that I will need to have looked at to make sure it is safe to ride.

The next few hours passed rather uneventfully. We were doing a lot of flat ground travel so I was doing OK. Just a mile or two faster than I was used to, but it was flat. The heat was getting to be pretty good though, which was making it a challenge to stay hydrated.

Eventually we reach a park for a rest break. It’s not good that I don’t need to go to the bathroom. I’d visited this park last year and was amazed that nobody knew about the water spigot that was a hundreds yards from the bathroom. People were having all sorts of trouble filling their water bottles in the sink. My tall water bottles would not work at all.

I rode by myself to the water spigot and filled up my bottles. I was riding back and was going to mention to people the spigot when suddenly fell down when I turned! Apparently, the ground was slick with a thin coat of mud! It was like standing on a greasy driveway! By some miracle, I managed to unclip my fall-side leg and so, again, was unhurt other than a slight, non-bloody ding on my knee and hurt pride. My bike’s new handlebar tape job was scuffed up and my pedal was all scratched up though, which irritated me to no end.

By the time I got myself put back together, it was time to go!

Now things were getting hot. The ride to Black Diamond Bakery was hitting me really hard. Temps kept going up and up and terrain was getting hilly. I was always in the back of the pack thanks to my heavy load. All the other riders had no racks and just a pair of small water bottles with food stuffed into jersey pockets. I have to admire such light loads but I’m not sure I’d always want to replicate that in the shape I’m in.

Finally, we were at the 1/2-way point. Everybody piled into the Black Diamond Bakery all hot and sweaty. I bought a couple of cookies and a couple bottles of water. One I packed with me. I filled up my water bottles as well. We spent probably 20 minutes there. Maybe longer. I wasn’t watching the clock! Mostly I waited in line to buy the water and then took care of getting more water and using the bathroom and putting on sunscreen. I did get to spend a few minutes sitting and eating one of my cookies!

The ride leaders decided enough was enough and offered the option for a shorter course. Temperatures were getting to be extremely high with people reporting close to 100 degrees. A few die-hards decided to do the full 100 mile loop while the majority did the somewhat shorter 85-90 mile loop. The ride leader didn’t know the exact mileage since we were not taking the published route. Needless to say, I went with the shorter ride.

My all too brief break helped me out but I was still feeling pretty week. I dragged my butt around behind everybody else. At this point, I was just hanging in there and since were were “off the map” as it were, I didn’t have a huge amount of choice about dropping off the back end altogether and riding on my own.

I don’t know what mileage it was when we got to a gas station for more water and another rest break. At this point, temps were above 100 degrees on the road! I was feeling really bad. Stomach was upset, drinking water made me nauseous though I still pounded almost a liter into me. I bought 2 liters of chilled water, one of which I put in my bag. Again, more weight but in order to stay in operation, I was sucking my dual 22 oz bottles dry quite quickly. I didn’t want to get stuck too far out w/o any more water because I knew that would finish me.

My other problem was that I started to run low on Endurolyte caps. I’d been taking 2-3 per hour, but that just didn’t seem to be enough. I’d only planned on 3 per hour, so when I upped my dosage to 4 per hour, I was running really low. I will take extra in the future! They didn’t do me much good sitting in the bottle at my house!!

The nice thing about the gas station is that they had a soda-pop dispenser, so I dumped a bunch of ice  and water into my water bottles so I had ice-cold water for a while. I also found that pouring water on my head was very, very helpful. It was a shock to pour cold water on myself, but it felt like my brain instantly got 2 or 3 degrees colder! It was very refreshing!

All too soon, we were off. I was just limping along at this point. Still I manged to hang in there and keep up. I was really wishing I’d ridden with the slower group now! But the last time I rode with them, I’d been so bored and didn’t feel like I got a good workout. Now I would have been quite happy to ride slower and on much flatter terrain! Oh well, too late now!

I was at the point where I just chugged so slowly up the hills and then worked equally hard to catch up on the downhill and flats. At least we were getting closer to the end!

The next stop I just poured water all over me. Despite that, I was dry in a few minutes! It was so hot. One rider said his thermometer read 105 somewhere back! It was hot! I was dying. We took a few group photos. I’m sure I looked great!

The rest of the ride was just a death march for me. I was barely keeping it together, riding the ragged edge of collapse at this point. My muscles were right on the edge of cramping up, which I could really feel when I stood to pedal up the hills. Even small hills were forcing me to stand. I drank a lot of water ate a bit and babied my electrolyte caps to have a few left in reserve.

Finally we reached I90! Only 10 miles to go! At this point, I told them to not worry about me and just go on ahead. I could find my way back from here. They were nice and tried to keep me in sight. I pushed myself a bit to keep them in sight as well, but it was more like pushing on a noodle at this point.

Our final stop was the Mercer Island park. We rested and watered up. I poured more water over me. I think a few people felt sorry for me because they could see I was suffering big time. I was actually in reasonably good spirits, but I was just really, really spent at this point.

Crossing I90 went OK, though people were still banging along at 19+ mph. I did manage to keep up thanks to the short rest. We climbed the other side and then went through the pass to the other side to get to ML King Way. This is the shorter and less hilly route back to Sand Point. By this point, I’d pretty much given up on keeping up with them, though I still managed to keep them in sight until the looong hill climb up MLK. It seemed like it went on forever! They lost me completely going up that hill because I was in the lowest gear and just grinding my way up so slowly.

Eventually I hit Madison. I was surprised to see a few bikers turning onto Lk Wash Blvd to go through the Arboretum! Thinking back, I don’t know if they were with CATS or not. I rode along Lk Wash Blvd to the other side and was quite surprised to almost run into the back of the pack! They must have taken a bit longer route or maybe even waited for me!

I crossed over the Montlake bridge and found them all waiting for me on the other side. One rider offered to give me a ride up to Bothell if I wanted to, but at this point, I was figuring I’d be taking it real easy since I knew how to get back home from here for sure! I didn’t want them waiting since I didn’t know how long it was going to take to get back to Sand Point. I took the Burke-Gillman trail and they took the “official” route, which stayed on streets. It was also hillier than the BG, so there was no way I was going to do that!

I said goodbye and I rode about 1000 feet before I decided to say “screw it” and stop. I was feeling really bad at this point and there was nothing I needed to prove to anybody. I already had 111.15 miles, so I was well ahead of anybody else on the ride!

I found a shady spot on the trail and pulled over and called my friend Anthony. It was about 4:15PM at this point. Stacy works till 5 otherwise I would have called her! Apparently Stacy had just left her site and was heading out to Anthony’s (we had plans to meet for dinner), so I called Stacy and she said she’d pick me up!

I parked my bike, and sat on the steps across from the foot bridge that crosses over Montlake and leads to Hec Edmundson Pavillion. I took the last of my Endurolytes and drank water and poured some of it over my head to keep cool. I felt periodic waves of lightheadedness pass through me. When that happened I knew I’d made the right decision to stop!

I also knew I was messed up when, more than 45 minutes later, my heart rate was still over 85 bpm. My normal resting heart rate is around 60!

Eventually Stacy showed up and we loaded up my bike and went to my friend Anthony’s for a tasty steak and salad and quite a bit of water drinking on my part! I didn’t feel all that well the entire evening!

In the end, I hadn’t made it 140 miles, but I did get 111 miles done and other than crashing once, almost crashing another time and almost being a heat casualty, I felt pretty good!

Final stats: 111.15 miles, 7:29:40 on bike, 9:55:13 total, 14.8 avg mph on bike, 126 avg bpm, 159 max bpm, 3340 ft (!! no wonder I was so smoked!!), 7295 cal burned.

Programmer Compentency Matrix

I think this is a very useful way to judge your abilities as a programmer. It helps me see where I’m weak and where I’m OK as a coder and so I know what I should be be looking at.

http://www.indiangeek.net/wp-content/uploads/Programmer%20competency%20matrix.htm

Check it out!

Flying Wheels Century

My friends Steve and Denise were doing a different ride this weekend, so I was on my own. My initial plan for the weekend was to ridethe course on Sunday, the day after Flying Wheels, since I figured I’d be helping out with a GDH class the same weekend. However, it turned out that I wasn’t needed, so I decided to do official ride. I figured it would be more interesting than doing it solo and I’d be ’supported’.

As far as Flying Wheels the ride goes, I am somewhat non-plussed by it. There was a large turnout, so lines were long everywhere, and I didn’t think the food support was great, which prompted me to skip many of the food stops for anything other than water.

Since I was by myself, I chose some ambitious goals. I wanted no more than one hour of break time and to average 15mph while on the bike. I would have been happy with 14mph since my pace to/from work (22 miles) is routinely in the mid 14’s. So 15 was very ambitious on my part.

I arrived at Marymoor Park around 8AM, which was the offical start time for the century. My plan had been to get there about 7:45, but I’d stayed up quite late (well past midnight) the night before (watching Sex and the City) so I didn’t have time to prep or anything. I was quite surprised by the crowds! There were lots of people! I was kicking myself for not showing up at 7:30 let alone 8, which would have been slightly better. Given the number of cars already there, I’d say that showing up at 7:00 would be the only way to make things somewhat relaxing.

I ground my way through the traffic and finally got parked. Then I rode to the start line where I registered! That wasn’t too painful. They had a lot of people there so the lines were only 2 or maybe 3 people deep.

I got myself set up and away I went! Of course, I wanted a bathroom break right away. The lines were quite long for the port-o-potties, so I figured I could hold it till the first stop. However, on the way out the east gate, I remembered a ride I’d done a few weeks ago. There was a bathroom near the east gate parking lot. I was amazed that not only was there no line, there was nobody at all using the bathroom!! Sweet! It was just a 5 minute detour but I got to use a real bathroom with running water!

The weather was nice for a bike ride: cool and overcast. Perfect to generate a lot of heat in. I didn’t do much map watching since I knew that for the first N miles, I would be following everybody else and there were a lot of everybody elses to follow. You go south from Marymoor for 4 or 5 miles and then climp up to the Sammamish Plateau. That’s a smoker! Of course, you are fresh, so it’s not too bad.

The first rest stop was only 15 miles in at Camp Korey. Along the way, a few bikers were confused because there were some Dan Henrys from a different ride. Camp Korey turned out to be the best supported rest stop in my opinion. There was lots of food and the bathroom wait wasn’t very long. I only wanted to spend 5 minutes there, but ended up closer to 10 thanks to the lines and the fact that the weather was threatening to get nice. I put some sunscreen on. Soon enough I was off. The next supported rest stop was at mile 31, which was just water and port-o-potties.

I rode around and eventually was on the 100 mile loop which takes you up to Snohomish and Monroe. I am becoming familiar with this route! Steve and Denise and I rode large sections of this route several times this season. I pretty much blew by the mile 31 rest stop. I stopped long enough for some water. An ambulance was there to help out somebody, which made for a little excitement.

I rode and rode. My pace was pretty good and I was feeling strong. I knew from past experience that I usually do well up to about mile 50 and then I start to get tired. This is an improvement over last year where I would start to suffer around mile 30! My back and shoulder and wrist were all feeling pretty good, so I was happy overall. I was impressed by the number of incredibly strong riders. Many, many riders passed me going easily 2 or 3 miles an hour faster! The most impressive were the ones who blasted by me going up hills! I would be standing and they’d be sitting and just roll by me like I was standing still!

At some point, I realized I was riding in a cohort. I kept passing the same people over and over again. I’d pass them downhill and or on the flats, and then they’d go by me going up a hill. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I reached Snohomish and felt good. The weather had gotten quite sunny, which I really started to notice now that I was away from hills and trees for shade. Snohomish was still 10 miles from the official stop, but there were a good number of riders who stopped at this informal stop. I took a quick bathroom break and ate and drank and refilled my water bottle. At this point, I started to drink some of my Perpetuem.

The ride to the official food stop was fast. There were moderately strong headwinds - I’d say 10-15 mph - on the ride up to Snohomish. Fortunately, the ride up was nestled along the western slope of hills, so were were fairly insulated from them. The ride from Snohomish to Monroe (location of the next official stop) was very fast. I had a tail wind much of the way, so I averaged probably close to 20 miles per hour for the 10 miles!

I was quite disappointed by the Monroe stop. There wasn’t much shade and the lines were long for everything! The bathroom line was long and the food line was really long! Only the water line was short! I ate my own food (one advantage of bringing a lot of heavy food along — part of the reason I’m such a bad hill-climber ), filled up with water and put some sunscreen on. I needed to go to the bathroom, but I knew there was a park just down the road thanks to riding with Steve and Denise!

This time, there were a handful of people there, but it was a matter of no line and sharing a bathroom (w/ running water) vs. standing in a long line for a port-o-pottie. I was kicking myself a bit for not grabbing some water from from the stop and rolling down the street since that spot even had shade! I’d ended up standing in the sun at the other stop just up the street. Oh well.

I checked my watch. I’d spend 40 minutes in breaks! More than I’d wanted to!

The ride south was mostly uneventful. I rode by a collision that had happened just a minute before. Lots of people had already stopped so I figured there was no need for me to do so. At first, I headed more or less into the wind, but eventually I was back against the west side of the valley and the winds were either nothing or at my back. There were a lot of rollers, so I was making good time but not great time. I was still feeling pretty good as I hit the W. Snoqualmie Valley Rd. stop (informal). There was nothing left but port-o-potties and some water. I gassed up on water and ate some food and headed off.

The 2nd to last stop was again Camp Korey. This time, I was a bit disappointed. The lines were mercifully short but there was nothing left other than some bananas and a some food with high fructose corn syrup in it! So again, I ate from my own supplies before getting some water and moving on.

I was getting a bit tired, but still felt good up to around mile 80, when I started to really feel run down. I think my lack of eating more substantial food was catching up to me. Also, my diet of Nuun-laced water and Perpetuem was starting to make my stomach unhappy. At Camp Korey, I’d stuffed a bag of Cliff Shot Blocks in a pocket, so I started to eat those a cube or two at a time and I drank a bunch of my Perpetuem. That started to perk me up just a bit and then I hit the 3 mile (!!) climb back up to the plateau on the way towards the last rest stop. Yes, the map even says, “- start 3 mile climb”. That was not welcome news!

I chugged up the hill, standing often. I did not feel strong at this point at all. Many, many riders passed me. I envied their energy! A few did stop to rest. I didn’t do that because I didn’t know how I would get started again! I worried about my pace, since I was going 4-6 miles an hour all the way up the hill. I’d checked my computer a few times earlier in the ride and had been running around 15 - 15.3 mph average. I figured there was no way I’d keep myself above 15 after this horrible hill climb.

After an eternity of chugging, I was at the “top”, which turned things into rollers. At least I got to rest occasionally on the downhill sections!

I was quite happy to get to the last rest stop at mile 86! This stop was fairly well-provisioned but I didn’t eat much. Mostly, I used the port-o-potties, ate my stuff and got water. I headed out feeling not too strong. I’d switched from using the Nuun to just the Endurolytes since by then, my stomach was feeling none-too happy. I also put some dates in my pocket. Pure carbs, but tasty and I like them.

The ride to E. Lk. Sammamish has a fun little 10% grade right at the end. Normally I would have tried to get as aerodynamic as I could manage and blast down the hill, but I was enjoying my rest since I would have nearly 10 miles from the bottom of the hill to the finish line. The ride back was characterized by rollers and the usual I pass them going downhill and they pass me going uphill. I drafted a guy for a few minutes (he invited me) but he lost me on a hill. I was feeling pretty tired and run down so my hill perf was pretty sucky. Other than energy level, I was feeling OK. My butt hurt and my shoulder was aching a bit but knees felt good and my wrists were OK.

I was quite happy as I made the left turn leading to Marymoor! I rolled by the finish marker and checked my average: 15.5mph!! I was quite surprised and very happy with this result. I rode to my car at a reduced pace and by the time I’d gotten there, it was down to 15.4! Oh well. I found that my goal of no more than 60 minutes was exceeded by 2 minutes! Close enough!

Tired and sore, I loaded my bike up and drank some Recoverite before heading out. It wasn’t so pleasant given the quite warm bottle of water thanks to sitting in the sun all day and my somewhat unhappy stomach.

My stats were: 6:21:42 (bike computer), 7:23:03 HR; 15.4avgmph, (13.36 overall avg mph); 98.67mi; 134avgbpm; 3540ft; 6089cal; nice weather, lots of people on the 100 miler!

Sex and the City

I saw Sex and the City recently (though I’m dating this entry to the day I saw it, I’m writing this Monday 6/16). It was OK. Women love this movie. As a guy, you’ll probably not want to stab your eyes out. And there is some female nudity, so you have a reason to not do so.

The original series dealt with 4 young-ish and single-ish women. Now they are older and most are not single. The lone standout is Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) who does at least get engaged to Mr. Big. You get to find out his real name too! Woot!!

Of course, this being a 2+ hr movie, stuff has to go wrong and it does. Eventually things are resolved.

I don’t really have any complaints about the movie really. If you like the TV show, you’ll like the movie since it’s the same format as the show, only longer.

I’m going to give it a 6/10 since time passed fairly quickly. I never even checked my watch once!

Kung Fu Panda

I saw Kung Fu Panda a few days ago. I liked the movie. It stars the vocal talents of Jack Black as Po, a fat, lazy panda bear whose father is a crane. That oddity is never explained though they do have a fun joke about it. Dustin Hoffman is Shifu, the wise master who is a *cough-cough*. Excuse me. Had a tickle in my throat there. There are a number of other famous, name-brand actors and actresses lending their voices to the project.

Po is a noodle boy, destined to serve noodles. However he dreams of being a martial artist. Through a series of humorous mishaps, he ends up being the ‘chosen one’ to save the valley from an evil snow leopard. Of course, there are no accidents.

The movie is funny and friendly and the animation is, of course, top notch. Jack Black is, well, Jack Black. So Po throws in various little humorous Jack Black sound effects like “skidoosh”. Everybody else does a fine job as well. Nobody sounded wooden at least!

The movie has a message of sorts, so it’s like vitamin-enriched sweet cereal. Sort of good-ish for you but you eat it because it tastes yummy.

I would definitely watch this movie again, so I’m giving it 8/10. Hey I like Captain Crunch, too!!