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| Random Technology Bits
Just a smattering of stuff from all over...
- Welcome to the year 2009: I was de-friended by someone on Facebook this week by someone because I un-followed them on Twitter. Yes, seriously. (And no, I will not identify the person, because I value their... acquaintance?... for other reasons. And the person in question's Twitter account is mostly bits & bobs of tech links and about 1% personal content... *sigh*
- Neil Gaiman's Twitter following (presently 919,129) eclipsed the population of Detroit this week, leading to the following two tweets:
- The population of Detroit is 916,952. People: we could take them in a fair fight. I'm just saying.
- No, I'm not
really sure what we'd do with Detroit either. Probably best nobly to
end this war before it begins. (We SO coulda taken them.)
- The problem with trying to take Detroit is that it would be akin to trying to win a land war in Asia.
- And that 916,952 figure is WAY high, methinks.
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| Footprints
Considering how infrequently I have posted or even so much as stopped by this site in the last few months, taking a look at my "Footprints" makes me wonder if visiting is some people's way of saying "hi" without actually saying "hi".
So when you see this, "hi" back at ya.
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| It was brought to my attention a while back that it seemed that I'd more or less abandoned this blog. This is true, to a degree. I've always seemed to go in ebbs and flows in my posting here, and lately, it's been very much in ebb. Part of that is parenthood, part of it is pure laziness. I'm not sure if I'll ever get back to posting as frequently as I once did, but I'll at least try to put stuff up here from time to time. However, if you're curious as to what else might be going on, here are a couple of salient links: - My Facebook page. Lots of the throughput on there is related to silly, time-wasting games at the moment (hey, at least I'm honest about it), but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for when I can wash my hands of them in a satisfied manner. I tend to at least post pictures there from time to time from our activities. Challenge me to a word game at your peril please!
- My YouTube page. A mix of stop-motion videos from my handlebar-mounted camera on the Michigander (a.k.a. "Biker Butt-Cam") and videos of Brayden.
- My Gallery site. This is where the bulk of our pictures go, with new event folders added whenever something occurs. Mostly, stuff gets added to the Brayden folder, which is organized descending by date (i.e. newest pictures always show up on Page 1).
- My Twitter feed. Probably the least-used of the four, but occasionally will see an update when I'm running around and feel like spitting something out from my Blackberry.
So, yeah, those are basically the places I am, more than I am here these days. With that said, I rode the Michigander for the fourth time from July 11th through the 18th, and since I've made an annual tradition of posting my recaps, here it is, better late than never!
Michigander XVIII Recap
Best Downhill
This year's tour was mostly flat, a lot of mid-Michigan farmland. About the only day that we had real hills was on Friday, from Rockford to Edmore. I think I hit the mid-30MPH range on one of them, but nothing in comparison to earlier tours. Looking very much forward to next year's 'Gander, which should be a northern Michigan circle route.
Worst Uphill
It wasn't the steepest or the longest hill we rode, but pretty much the entire off-trail portion of Sunday's ride from Alma back to Edmore was just brutal. We were on washboard dirt roads, going uphill into a 15MPH wind, and I was towing Brayden in the Burley. Ouch. There were portions where we were literally slogging along at 4-5MPH.
Best Food (Camp Edition)
This is tough. Breakfast on Sunday morning in Edmore was as good this year as it was last year. The folks at Maxfield's in Edmore catered the first four days of the tour, and the food was usually pretty solid. The BBQ ribs in camp on Monday in Bay City were good. Overall, it was as good a food year as I've seen so far.
Worst Food (Camp Edition)
Nobody was uniformly terrible in feeding us this year, although individual bits of meals (the swiss steak in Rockford, particularly) could be pretty bad.
Best Food (Lunch Edition)
Ooh, this one is a tie between the pizza buffet at Buccilli's Pizza in Clare and Brother's Sports Bar & Grill in Reed City. I can't pick just one. We absolutely gorged ourselves on the pizza buffet (beware hungry bike riders at buffets! They had trouble keeping up with the six of us that showed up...), and the reuben and onion rings I had at Brother's were both awesome.
Worst Weather (Ride Edition)
Well, besides the aforementioned wind issues going back to Edmore on Sunday, the only day we had really bad weather was the first third or so of the ride from Clare to Reed City on Wednesday. We made it about 3-5 miles out of camp before the rain came down, and it was a soaking downpour for about the next hour. When we got to the SAG stop in Evart after 15 miles of dirt/grass trail, pretty much everybody got off, used the provided hoses to give their bikes a quick cleaning... and in my case, I pulled off my shoes and wrung about a half-cup of water out of each of my socks. Ugh.
Worst Weather (Camp Edition)
Again,
we were very lucky with the weather all week. We didn't have really any rain in camp. We couldn't have asked for much better weather overall.
Best Post-Ride Activity, also Special Commendation for Host City
Boy, there's no way that I could overstate how well we were all treated by the folks of Reed City. The meals, co-hosted by the Rotary Club and a local church, were fantastic -- we'd no sooner sit down with our tray of food when one of their roving band of volunteers would arrive and offer to take the tray, and pretty much as soon as plates were emptied, those were offered to be taken from us as well. The tables (yes, as in more than one) of desserts were awesome, particularly the concoction that seemed to be a peanut butter Rice Krispie treat on the top, a brownie on the bottom, and a layer of marshmallow cream in between them. YUM. Reed City also put on a free outdoor concert with ice cream social, and had a free shuttle running from the camp site to the center of town all night... not that it was a terribly long walk, but after a long day of riding, it was very welcome. I was so impressed with everything that after dinner I tracked down a gentleman who, by his tie and the conversations he was having with the volunteers, seemed to have some responsibility for things there, and expressed my appreciation for everything they were doing. Kudos, Reed City. (Oh, and the game of bocce we played among the tents in Reed City was fun, too!)
Annual Medical Drama
Three years ago, in Traverse City, I had to give a fellow rider the Heimlich
maneuver at dinner. Last year I had my own bike crash, eventually leading to my late-fall shoulder surgery. This year, I was back on the giving end of medical aid...
On Thursday, at the last SAG stop, Bruce got a call from Mark, who had forged on ahead, that camping was going to be at a premium in Rockford due to some extensive construction work that was going on around the school. We blasted out of there with Bruce's son Eric, and were making great time on a long downhill stretch of the White Pine Trail, only a couple of miles away from camp. Bruce was riding lead, with Eric behind, and me pulling up the rear. As we rounded a bend, we saw someone sort of half-sitting, half-laying on the opposite side of the trail, with a bike just off the shoulder of the trail. Bruce called out, "Are you okay?" and received the answer back, "Sorta..." which is obviously not the answer you're looking for in that case. All three of us slammed on our brakes, Bruce hitting his hard enough that Eric bumped into his rear tire. Pulling up the rear, I was able to stop the quickest, and was almost immediately off my bike to see what I could do.
All she initially wanted was something to drink, and as Bruce and Eric rolled back, we started asking questions to determine what exactly had happened. She said she wasn't diabetic or hypoglycemic, and didn't think that she'd passed out, rather that she'd been biking up the trail ahead of her mom and brother, and had started feeling woozy, so she got off her bike. Smart girl, based on how we found her, if she hadn't gotten off, she'd undoubtedly have crashed rather harder very soon. She wasn't with the Michigander -- just a 16-year-old local girl out for a day with her family.
More Michigander riders (along with another local, walking her dog) started showing up on the scene, and all willing to help -- including, fortunately enough, a nurse with a first aid pack onboard. I'd say, at the peak, that there were probably 10 riders performing various tasks. Bruce, after a couple of minutes, rode ahead down the trail to find the girl's mom and brother. No sooner had he rounded the next bend then there they were. Her mom agreed that emergency services needed to be called, and more or less confirmed our suspicions that the girl was dehydrated. Eric and her brother rode back a couple of miles up the trail to where their car was parked to retrieve her mom's cell phone, and by the time they got back, the fire department was showing up. It was quite a scene -- one rider up the trail alerting oncoming bikers to slow down, four of us holding a rain jacket as an improvised sun shield over her, the nurse administering an ice pack to the girl's head, two more holding her legs elevated... here's a very blurry picture taken late in the process:
Eventually, once the fire department and EMS had asked all the questions they needed of us, we got on our way, probably 45 minutes after we initially saw her. Hopefully everything came out okay.
Looking Forward
Again, it was a great ride. It was awesome having Sarah and Brayden on the two-day ride, and Brayden really seems to enjoy his time in the Burley. We learned enough in the two days of riding with him to know that when we next think about trying to ride the full Michigander with him, there will be things we do differently. Next year, it will probably just be him and me on the 2-day ride, with Sarah sticking around camp, but who knows how it'll be in two years? | | |
| Finito!
Well, the last couple of days have been interesting. I sent the second draft of my paper to the professor on February 28th, and since then, have just been patiently waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting some more.
On Monday, the book I had on inter-library loan was due back, so I figured that between that and the impending April 1st informal deadline that he had set in our initial emails, it was worth dropping him a line to see when I might expect to get his feedback on the second draft.
The email I got back was... well, it was pretty vague and non-committal:
"I think that we go back and forth on the paper one more time for
final polishing. I’m around pretty much from now until May 1. We should try to
wrap up this process by then."
Hmm. That wasn't what I was hoping for. So I pressed a little bit more, especially after I went to the library and learned that ILL materials can only be renewed once, and we'd already done that.
"As it turns out, the library only allows one renewal on inter-library
loan materials. Any idea when you might get to the second review? If
it's likely to be this week or next, I'll just hang on to the book. If
it may be longer than that, I'll return it and either see if they can
get another copy sent in or do without for the final revision. I'm
obviously anxious to get this finalized so that I can get the clearance
information sent over to advising for spring graduation, but understand
that you have priorities other than me. I'm just trying to figure out
where I fit into them."
I figured that was a good balance of being urgent without being overly pushy. About an hour later, the response came back:
"I’m really sorry about this. I think because of the web links
you put in the e-mail, your revised draft was routed to my junk folder. I
thought I was still waiting on you.
Go ahead and take the book back, this will be the last
iteration. I’ll have it to you tonight." And he meant exactly that -- this morning, when I woke up, there was an email to me and the coordinator of the writing requirement for the department that the paper was complete.
With that, I am -- fourteen years after I left campus as a student for the last time -- finally done. It's a huge relief, and a great joy, to know that in a little over a month, I'll be walking in commencement activities, and that I'll finally have that ridiculously expensive piece of paper that I can frame and hang on the wall. Pretty damned cool, and not something that I'll ever take for granted, even if I'll likely never do anything actually within my original field of study.
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| Quick update
I got the review of my rough draft back... and the news was good. The critical piece of the email that accompanied it was this:
"This
is in pretty good shape, so I don’t think that it will take too much work
to clean it up."
Ahhhhh yes.
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