chasing mr. broiler

discovered Strava recently.  it's a website that takes your GPS tracks from workouts and allows you to compete against other similarly wired individuals along known courses or segments.  users create the segment, so if you're not KOM (king of the mountain) on any published segments, you can create your own until you're a KOM somewhere.

one thing that's simultaneously good and bad with Strava is that it makes every ride a race.  it's hard to ride through a known segment and not throw down to earn the KOM.  i find myself occasionally rushing in a commute to earn a KOM or at least boot my standing.

there's a fellow by the name of mr. broiler that seems to be the local king of Strava.  if you follow his rides, he appears to do a lot of short rides hitting all the known Strava segment in the area.  he's flying on the mount vernon trail.  have managed to come close a few times, but this bike path hero is moving way too fast for me.

he's one of the few on Strava that rides with a nom de guerre.  i use my real name.  not sure of the rationale for a name like broiler.  is he into chickens? or is he riding so fast that he's broiling hot?  no clue.  all i know is that i have a week to catch the broiler man on a few of these rides.

lessons learned commuting

i've been commuting to work by bike for 6 years, although the first 3 hardly count, since i rode 1.5 miles to work...and for the next 2 years, i expect to ride 2-4 miles every day.  that really doesn't count.  at 11-13 miles each way, my DC commute is much more respectable.

i've commuted by bicycle for 3 years here in the DC area.  although it's infinitely more enjoyable than the 4.5 years i spent driving across the wilson bridge during my last DC tour, it's not exactly stress free.  there are plenty of challenges associated with bike commuting.  i've done my best to mitigate those challenges, but you can only do so much, like today.  rain and thunderstorms were predicted, so it was an iffy call on whether to take the bike or metro.  decided to go with the bike.  stayed dry in the morning.  in the PM, went out for my commute home to find a flat tire.  did a quick change and discovered a staple was the cause of the flat. put in a new tube quickly, pumped only to find that this tube was bad.  crap.  time for plan b...call for a ride.  only ride to the neighborhood staying late, wouldn't work.  jumped on the metro.  massive downpour, so i guess the bad bike was a blessing.  now what to do with the bike.  for plenty of reasons, needed to get it home tonight.  drive back up 395 to pick it up.  since it rained, traffic sucked.  get home at 8pm.  oh well, in 3 years, this is the third day where i've had a flat.  can't complain about that.

back to the title of the post, here are a few lessons i should remember for the next time i'm a regular bike commuter.

1) Never trust the weather forecast...if it's a 100% chance of rain and you don't ride, it won't rain.  if it's a 20% chance of rain and you do ride, it will rain.

2) If you see a rent-a-bike, give it a wide berth....i'm all for more people riding, and more people commuting. bBut, the rent-a-bikes like Capital Bikeshare and Bike and Roll are dangerous.  Capital Bikeshare riders are usually helmetless hipsters strolling through town in their skilly jeans on their way to some hip new restaurant with a PBR discount.  the only reason they're on a bikeshare is because someone hipper than them tweeted about it.  Bike and Roll riders are gawking tourists that will stop abruptly to see a plane landing at National Airport or is trying to fine the turnoff Memorial Bridge

3) Bike to Work Day is the most dangerous day of the year.  bike paths are insanely crowded.  even saw a penny farthing this year.

4) Cyclists can be their own worst enemy.  sometimes i think it's pointless to follow traffic laws.  i'll be at a light waiting for it to change, and some jackass will pass me and ride through the light, nearly getting hit by a car in the process.  cars honk horns, get pissed and take it out on me later.

5) No matter how fast your ride, how many lights you run, the commute time will never vary by more than +/-  5 minutes from your average.  seriously, almost every ride to and from work has been somewhere between 40 and 50 minutes.  i may have busted my ass and gotten it under 40, but that's rare.

6) During cold weather, comfort level (L) is a function of both clothing (C) and effort (E), where C x E =L, when B (freezing balls off)  

7) You can never have a light too bright

8) As soon as you commend yourself for having no flats, you'll have 2.  pack appropriately.

9) If you're not carrying any tubes, you'll flat.  if you're carrying tubes you most likely will not, but if you do you will have n+1 flats, where n=number of tubes you're carrying.

granite countertops, really?

just read this fluff piece in the washington post. it was on the front page. i expected better from the paper of record in our nation's capital. oh well, there are very few serious news outlets left. just partisan crap on TV and lifestyle pieces/advertisements such as this printed as news.

called the post to cancel my subscription. they convinced me to stay by knocking 60% off my current rate.

not your internet source for strap-ons

a little bored this evening, so i decided to look at google analytics and see who has viewed this rarely updated blog in the past 3 months, and if they did look at it, how did they get here?

most are looking for something called a "strap-on" , and think that a blog called strapsblog would be the definitive source for all things strap-on. unfortunately for would be strapper-onners, it is not. strap is a nickname i picked up back in '98. few people call me strap, but it's the only other handle i've ever had (so to speak).

'garlic hangover' is the most popular single search term, however if i added up all the various permutations of strap-on, i know it would be beaten.

here are a few of my favorite search terms:
domestic strapon blog
christians view on dildos
awkward man hugs
peeing in a bottle in a car

mosterboobs.blogs strap on
are dildos ok for christians
i just opened a michelob ultra and it tastes like paint thinner

and my personal favorite:
honolulu prostate ass strap

yes, someone in hawaii is looking for something called a prostate ass strap. hope they found what they were looking for at another site.

2005 Christmas Letter

Cleaning up a removable harddrive and found this Christmas letter we sent in 2005.

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We’re sitting here on a Saturday night, trying to determine our level of consciousness. After listening to Dr. Hawkins discuss the map of consciousness, we’re both eager to get calibrated. We’re in need of a verified teacher over 400.…do you know of any? How high would you calibrate a groundhog? I would say they calibrate fairly high on the scale of 1-1000...certainly over 200, the level of truth and integrity. They’re a dedicated lot that enjoy doing their ground hogging all day. Say what you will about the Japanese during WWII, but the Kamikaze pilots calibrated to around 390, due to the honor, integrity and love of country that drove them to their actions….same with the Luftwaffe, they calibrated somewhere in the 300s. Phoenix is certainly in the 400s…not quite to the level of enlightenment (600), but up there with a lot of the greats.

Well, that’s just some of the things we’ve learned lately….maybe a lot of info here, but here are some other tidbits of info you might find useful:

1) A lot of modern ailments are due to dehydration. Heart burn, for instance can be cured by drinking more water…sea salt is another good cure. The rule of thumb is that you should drink 1oz for every 2lbs of body weight…for example, if you weigh 200lbs, you should drink 100oz’s of water per day. For optimal health, mix ¼ teaspoon of sea salt into each quart of water. Make sure it’s sea salt, and not the table variety. Table salt has 3 minerals, whereas you get 50+ in sea salt.

2) Americans have gotten so fat in recent years, so needles for giving injections in the buttocks are now made longer.

3) The moment of our death is karma-cly determined when we are born. No matter what you do, you will die on this preset date. However, you have no way of knowing this date…well, I think if you reached the level of avatar (985), surely you could. This is all FACT…and is proven. You can check that out.

4) You should strive to have 3 bowel movements per day.

Hopefully some of this stuff has helped you in your quest for enlightenment…have you been calibrated lately? Unfortunately, our level of consciousness is determined at birth, Karma-cly I suppose, and we can only hope to vary by 5 points throughout our lifetime…so, what that means is that if you hope to attain enlightenment in this lifetime, you must’ve been born at 595 and hope for the full 5 point gain. I haven’t heard of many people (other than Jesus and Buddha) that were even in the 500s--Winston Churchill was a 510.

Merry Christmas,