Loop the Loop, indeed...

Shown in blue is the 5k race I'm running with my little sister Alexis on Sunday morning. The race is called "Loop the Loop." I've shown the actual Loop in red. What do you think? False advertising?

Quarterly Post

That seems to be what it's come to, huh? Perhaps I'll be better. Actually, it's occurred to me that November is NaBloPoMo, which I almost successfully completed last year, so perhaps I'll do it again.

So, since our last episode, I think all of the effects from my bike crash have healed. I went to Chicago (pics), visited with the fam, ran the Chicago Triathlon (pics), saw some peeps. Emily and Josh visited Chicago also while I was there. We went on a boat tour w Sarah, Tomas, Janna and some others. Stayed w George the day before my tri. Marty came down from Milwaukee a couple times. Saw Harold. Hung out w Christine, Matt and Owen. Owen is seriously cute. Also hung out w Gillian, Mark, Ellie and Jen. Ellie is seriously cute. My dad and I went to the Shedd Aquarium to view things, and University of Chicago to buy a book. Attempted to fly a kite w dad and Alexis, but not enough wind. That's the gist of the trip. Busy.


My bike was apparently tousled around a bit by UPS during its trip back to DC. The box was beat to shit, and some tubes were sticking out of the box and such. This after they told me I couldn't insure the bike unless it was surrounded by 1 inch of cardboard. Kind of bullshit, because when I shipped the bike from the Alexandria bike store to Chicago, UPS insured it, picked it up in the same box I used to ship it back, and it arrived in pristine shape. Seems like they take care of your stuff if you're a bike company shipping a bike, but refuse to insure it and beat the hell out of it if you're just a civilian shipping a bike. Of course, I only have two data points, but that's never stopped me from drawing conclusions before.

Started school. Just when I thought work couldn't reach any insaner levels of insaneness, it has.

Before all of that school and Chicago craziness, I went with Amanda, Gordon and a posse of others to stay in Doyle's River Cabin in Shenandoah.

It was pretty much awesome. The group was all of my biking buddies, and they all wanted to bike Skyline Drive, but I had just crashed my bike and hadn't fixed it yet, so I went on a long hike by myself instead. It occurred to me in the middle of the hike that maybe that wasn't the smartest thing to do, when I ran into an enormous rattlesnake, and saw lots of bear tracks. Although I wasn't completely alone... I brought Charlie's dog, Mojo, who was a pretty awesome hiking partner. We did a not un-difficult 8-mile hike. I'm not really a dog person, but he nearly changed my mind.

I could go on and on about the trip. Super fun. But I won't.

Also, Doug, Kim and Sidra are moving to San Francisco. Doug is gone already and started his new job, and Kim is here with Sidra until the house sells and such. But should be gone within a few weeks. Before Doug left I went with all of them to the Potomac Boathouse so I could watch Sidra while they went out rowing for the last time before the move. Sidra is seriously cute, and that's even after considering that she yacked on me a couple times and came within inches of pooping on me yesterday.


Well, that's enough for now, don't you think?

Spoiler Alert!

Once again it's been a while. But I have an interesting story.

Had a pretty violent crash today on my bike. I was passing a runner on the GW Parkway trail, about halfway to Mount Vernon, and yelled out "on your left." So what does the guy do? Well, naturally he immediately jumps into the lane that I"m passing him in. And I hit him head on, going at a pretty good clip (19.3 mph). I remember only a few distinct moments. I remember yelling to him that I was passing. I remember yelling again when he jumped in my lane (like 0.01 seconds before impact). I remember lowering my head so I'd hit him with my helmet (also about 0.01 seconds before impact). And I remember lying there on the pavement after the crash.

I was in pretty good shape. I lost a chunk of skin from my finger, but pretty small. I got a bloody nose, but managed to not get too much blood on me. That made it look kind of bad at the time... And... well, I think that's all I suffered. This poor guy was not in such good shape. My aerobars hit him right in the chest. Oh, and my helmet hit him right in the chest. He swore he was ok, but I think he broke a rib. He wasn't walking very well.

The bike suffered an injury also. Broken aerobars. They're bent up at a pretty severe angle, which make me wonder why I didn't realize this until like 5 minutes after the crash. Also, somehow my bar tape on the right side came undone.

For you voyeurs, here's some pictures...

The bike...


Ok, for those of you who don't bike, those bars sticking forward and up from my handlebars should really be going straight forward. The dude's chest bent them up. Pretty obvious, right?, but I didn't realize until I was about a mile down the road after the crash.

Blood on helmet (not MY blood)...

I don't know where this blood came from. I don't think it was me... I only had a bloody nose, so not sure how that would get on the top of my helmet, and I did pretty much impale the guy with my helmet, so I'm pretty sure it was him. Although after the crash he wasn't obviously bleeding. I dunno...

Ouwie on my finger...


Luckily I had my gloves on, or this would have been much worse. There are some pretty good scuff marks on the glove palms, which I'm sure would have been my skin all over the pavement.

Well, that's all... for now...

Highly Recommended

Hi again...

I'm getting sick of making excuses for my long gaps in posting, so I'll just fess up... I haven't felt like it. That's how I roll sometimes.

Let's see, lots happened. Liz and Jesse had a wedding that I attended. Very nice. My first time to Florida. A little touristy for me at first, but we found our place lounging around sipping drinks by the wedding party's pool.

I bought a sinfully large flatscreen monitor. 22 inch widescreen. My whole world looks different now.

Heard from Mason. They denied me to their PhD program, but then offered me a masters slot. It seems that there is a whole series of macro/micro classes that I'd have to basically repeat if I wanted to go on to a PhD AFTER doing the masters, so I'm seriously considering rejecting the offer. I feel like I'm getting old enough that I just can't waste that much time taking useless classes they'll make me repeat for no reason whatsoever. On the other hand, I don't really want to sit around for the next year. A quandary. I suspect I'll talk to my profs and see if I can continue my research for a year... hopefully get a chunk of what I would have to do for a PhD thesis done, and then apply again.

Speaking of Mason and rejection, I got a little story for ya. So we have these student seminars once a week. At each one, a grad student presents their research and usually some data. And they're usually packed. Except for the last couple weeks, the others this semester have been standing room only. So I was scheduled to give a seminar on April 6. I bust my arse, get some stuff together to present, stay up late the day before getting everything ready. Time of my seminar comes along.... zero people show up. Zero. Actually one dude came in about 10 minutes after it was supposed to start and asked if I was giving a seminar. I was like "Uh, I guess. Yeah, come on in," to which he replied, "Oh, no... I just want to use your projector when you're done. I'll be in the lobby. Can you let me know when your through with it." Turns out there was some big shot economist who came in from Caltech to participate in a big seminar somewhere in another building that day, and they emailed everyone to reschedule the April 6 seminars EXCEPT the guy scheduled to actually do the seminar that day (me). I kinda figured something was up, because it wasn't just that no one showed up to my thing... The whole department was empty. It was clear that something was amiss.

My sisters and mom came to visit me last weekend. Went to FDR memorial and Washington Monument with Alexis, and took the whole crew to Eastern Market Saturday morning. And dinner w Mary, Partha and Pia.

OK, must go...

More notes on my blissful life

My long lost blog friends... It's been a while, I know.

First, I want to say how I just set up my Google Reader with RSS feeds from all of my friends' blogs, only to have them post at a underwhelming rate since then. I wasn't even sure it was working for a while. So go forth and post blogs, if for no other reason than to boost my confidence in my RSS feed reader. And I don't want to hear about how hypocritical I am that I scold you for not posting, but don't post myself. We're talking about you here, not me.

I feel like several things have happened since last time I posted that, at the time they were happening, I specifically thought that I had to do a post about them. But now I can't remember. I'll do my best.

First a non-event. I still haven't heard from GMU about my admission to grad school. Hoping to hear soon. In other school-related stuff, my research stuff is coming along very nicely. I have a programmer for my reactive power thing. I had a project status report today with my advisors at GMU. Good news all around. They're buying me some expensive software that I need. (Win.) They're giving me server space. (Win.) They had lots of good feedback on what I have so far. (Win.) They agreed to let me out of a commitment I had to do a seminar on my experiment in four weeks, which is good because I won't have any data by then. (Win.) Is anyone keeping track? That's win, win, win, win, right? Yes. So, a good day. For the last week I've been so stressed about this crap that I haven't even been sleeping very well, but today I feel much better.

I had a raccoon living in my rafter space. But I called the man, and they seem to have come and trapped it. I wonder where Rocky is living now? Do you think if they let it out like a mile away that it will find its way back to my apartment building, like those dogs that find their owners from halfway across the country, and I'll soon be hearing Rocky sharpening his claws on my ceiling joists at 4AM once again? Perhaps.

I go to Florida next week for the first time to see Jesse and Liz get married. I'm looking forward to it being warm enough to play tennis. I need to get a new racket before then.

That'll do, blog. That'll do.