Alright, so all I do anymore is ride bikes. I just wait for Tori to need to go get cigarettes at the store so I have somewhere to ride, it’s that bad.

I drove into the office today to get my blue bike and brought Wendell’s older mountain bike down here for storage/a spare. Our garage had nine bikes in it this morning somehow.

Wendell, Hannah and I rode over to Seward Park to go swimming and it turned out to be bike day there. I think it was sponsored  by Cascade Bicycle Club / Group Health. I lost my chain while pedaling through the parking lot and took an awesome spill. Nothing broken but a few dents and cuts really. The folks there gave me a cute little bandage kit and I borrowed a bike tool to tighten some things up. I lost the chain twice more on the way home across capitol hill.

I did some reading when I got home. The rear has a quick release so it’s hard to get the chain taught right. The red bike is a single speed with 40/18. The chainline isn’t straight though so I’m wondering if I should buy a new wheel with a flipflop in July and try out one side with a fixed gear since I’ve been having so much fun with the single speed.

I think I’m going to try to get some sleep now. I’ve been putting that off because it’s still really hot inside. If this doesn’t work out I’m sleeping in the basement or the garage.

So I bought a new bike today off craigslist. It’s a Red ’85 Schwinn Sprint (Taiwan (Giant?)), about 63cm from the seat post to center of the bottom bracket. The old bike, a Blue ’84 Schwinn World (More Taiwan) is about 53cm measured in the same manner, so it’s a much bigger frame. The new bike is also a single speed (freewheel, not fixed). I’m much happier with the size, plus it has aluminum wheels. Getting a new bike was one part the old frame being small, and a second part having pretty well destroyed the ancient rear steel rim on the World.

It’s got a few modifications by the guy I bought it from. He said he built the wheels, cut the handlebar and the likes, causing new brake levers to go along with it. I didn’t ask everything he had done. I put new pedals on it today because the ones he gave me were a little shifty and difficult to flip up-right. And the pads were making a terrible racket so I put some different brake pads on. I’ll probably ride it at CM today with tda. We’ll see how I feel about the single speed bit. Despite fixies being super popular in Seattle, I usually don’t know where I’m going and run into some pretty awesomely steep hills. Plus I don’t think that it’ll be geared as high as I want for the majority of the ride between Georgetown and downtown.

Good thing we have a garage in Georgetown, I think we have seven bikes new between the three of us. Time for more hangers I think.

it’s nice to be home. I think I have athlete’s foot; that’s kind of weird, itchy, but somehow not gross to me, just annoying. Will have to stop by the Rite Aid next to work tomorrow.

Went out to Fancy Beer In Seattle (FBIS) #2 tonight, (after Stumbling Monk). But, maybe they’re #1, because they had pints of Rainer, whereas Stumbling Monk always gave me shit for not knowing the name of Fancy Beer (FB) that I wanted. I got to read a crazy menu that taught me 4x more about beer than I ever knew before though. and I met John and Courtney (and Eric), which was awesome.

The (10mi) ride back to gtown wasn’t bad, despite the mechanic at Elliott Bay Bicycles telling me I really should replace my rear wheel on my crap-tacular (Courtney speak) Schwinn. It’s no better really than what I could do after I left it there for an afternoon to see if they could true it and take out the dent, so I guess I don’t totally suck. I’m thinking about buying a bigger bike on craigslist if I can get the whole frame size thing figured out. Being tall sucks sometimes…

Dad called me today and started talking to me about the Burkowski book I bought for him for fathers day. I mostly expected a sort of “I don’t read anymore” response from him, but he started talking to me about how it reminded him of Jack Kerouac and I had to stop and realize that I never considered my father had read any Kerouac because I’ve always known him as grumpy ol’ pa. Mom described his past self recently as stoic; I never saw that, so it’s just odd to consider.

I ended up at squid when I got back to gtown, reading Burkowski no less, and some dude from dead baby bikes sat down next to me and he showed me a bunch of stuff on the web site he had made and tried to convince me to register for their upcoming race.

What a town you are Seattle… What a town.

There’s an article at the register today about gmail and their battle in Germany over the name. The title is “Google’s Gmail verboten in Germany”, which just reminds me of an old sign on a tree at some sporting camps I went to growing up far off in the woods that said “bathen verboten”. I have a nice picture somewhere of Ben Maddocks out on the dock there, I think at sunrise. I really need to retrieve the old backs up attic now that I have disk space on a server again. Lazy me. I did fix my SAN at home last night though.

Whoosh, kind of a day spent with my mind elsewhere I believe.

A friend once said that one of the things she liked best about me was that I always thought she was good. I wish I remembered exactly what she said but I was thinking about that on the bike to work this morning. I rarely seem to think that anyone is up to anything nefarious. Which has definitely put me in stressful and trying situations in the past, especially in relationships where I’ve been far too eager to give away more than I could handle. But it seems to be true, and it is interesting. On first thought I’d say that I don’t care that people may be up to no good. Further contemplation seems to lead away from that path though. I do care, lack of goodness and it’s ultimate consumption of oxygen earmarked for good definitely upsets me when I consider it. It’d be nice to say that I’m such a great guy that I’ve chosen to believe in people’s ultimate goodness, but I’m not sure that there’s really a choice being made there. I seem to simply live, and expect others to do the same. When they don’t, eventually I’m shaken enough to react to it in some way.

What draws people to science fiction? I’m in a particularly emotionally vulnerable period I think, I’m unsure why. I was putting words to that when Susan and I broke up [instead of talking about it]. I’m apt to not believe it’s any mid-life crisis sort of thing, I already had that, haha. Back to the question though, it’s such a matter of personality and what people want to see from life. I’m searching for a word for a type of individual that is excited about adventure, doing, living, seeing. As opposed to what? Feeling cool, acting cool, being cool, strength, sexiness, power, money… as we devolve back towards the goals of the many.

I’m exhausted today. I had no plans tonight and only checked with my roommates to see if anything was up. I don’t think I wanted to see anyone tonight. Much energy has been going into trying to organize disparate crowds together once again. Matt Bennett brought up making fun of vegans on Sunday, reminding me of a past life in Maine at the loft, all the people and social drama it entailed.

Bonds with people can be formed through shared experiences, but are bonds and connections the same thing? No. I connected with so few people on the east coast and I’m not sad per se, but disappointed by that being such a small number compared to all of those I spent time with. As I wander about life learning more about myself, it’s difficult to expect anyone else to put the time into getting to know me that I’ve put in myself; although an external viewpoint likely helps those things. There’s certainly not a lack of openness on my part that’s a limitation, although I feel at times it works against itself as it can be intimidating or overwhelming for some. I’ve definitely been feeling the last few days that I need to spend some time not making plans with other people, and let people make plans with me, again.

There’s many reasons to do this periodically, and my mom being in the hospital from stress this week is a reminder just how vulnerable my family and I am to that trap. I don’t want to think of it as a test against other people to see if they really want to spend time with me. That seems somewhat, devious, but back, sitting alone at home in the loft after having my wisdom teeth pulled I have strong memories of just wanting someone to care.

I suppose it’s partly my independance that’s never particularly desired anyone to take care of me, but there’s definitely large portions of my being that want someone around in my life to care. My memories turn to frustration as I remember an ex-girlfriend telling me I should feel lucky because of the friends and family I have that do care. Do I feel insulted? I don’t know, I don’t believe so. Annoyed I suppose. My emotions are, well, what they are. There are times when I try to stifle them because society and my interactions with it don’t fair well with them, but I’ve never been any good at talking myself out of how I feel. Mostly I’ve just learned the ways to distract myself from how I feel, and at times remove myself from my feelings in just the right ways that I can move on from them. But it’s a maze in a house of cards, delicacy must be maintained.

“liste, friend,” he said, “this whole game is just one big deck of cards. if you want to get into the game you have to take whatever comes up in the shuffle.”

Awesomely out of context quote, sans the surprise orgy and gay sex, from a Bukowski collection I’ve been reading. So the weekend. Friday was bar hopping, which rocked since Tanya came down for, basically, the first time. I drank too much and thus ended up at Uncle Mo’s with Wendell. Which lead to climbing Mount Si with a hangover on Saturday. I saw Ian on the mountain. As used to knowing and seeing people everywhere as I am, it won’t ever sit well with me how small this town… county… state(?) is. We made it out alive and it was a pretty nice view although the crappy weather to the south that had pushed Ian and his friends out of Rainer made for a bad photo opportunity in that direction. But it was only a few hours before we were back home and I was sleeping off and on for the rest of the night.

Plans today kept threatening to fall through. I couldn’t get a hold of anyone in the morning. Finally Wendell called and he and Hannah came down for breakfast with Tori and I. The four of us biked (mostly) down to White Center and had some nice vegan ice cream at Full Tilt. We met Jeff, one of the owners, who was a nice enough chap. Since we still hadn’t heard from anyone we headed down the west side and road back along Alki. Matt made contact, and little from Cecila so we headed back to Georgetown and had a bit of a barbecue. It ended up only being six of us but it was nice weather and we had a nice time. The night was ended with a ride down to Gateway North Park where Louie had adorned some sort of goose feather in his cap and was preaching to the geese from a rock near the old pump house for the steam plant.

I ran across an interesting essay about privacy and John blogged about it recently so I sat down today and read it, despite so much else being on my plate right now. All I’ve got to say about right now is that we’re doomed. DOOMED.

I’d really love to see this sticker on a patch I could put on my messenger bag. Really big, on the left hand side of it would be awesome.

I’ve find an hour to write some pseudo-fiction. I’ll be putting it here in the future. Hopefully I’ll find the time to keep doing this. Perhaps I should make a habit of drinking beers at the Squid after work? Anyways, it’s a different direction and should prove interesting. Comments are, as always, considered and appreciated.

Ranting on IRC about this isn’t enough, so I’m going to vent here too so I can get back to work. I ride to work most days now on my bicycle from Georgetown to the downtown core business district. I used to take Airport Way, which is alright once you get used to the cars not usually changing lanes to pass you despite there being two lanes in your direction.

I recently started taking fourth because a friend said that was his route. Fourth is alright, I hadn’t taken it before because there wasn’t a sidewalk over the railroad yard bridge, but I don’t usually use those anymore so it’s okay. Fourth isn’t really any different than Airport way. I still get cars passing me in my lane if I stay to the right of it, and people yelling and honking if I stay in the middle of it so they have to change lanes to pass.

The one benefit of fourth is it has dedicated one way routes to get on and off third, which is my preferred downtown route because during the rush hours it’s limited to buses and bikes. I was north of Jackson and south of Prefonatine Place S today, where 4th is one way. I worked over to the middle lane but traffic was thick and I needed to get to the left in another block or two to get on to Prefontaine Place (which goes to third). Then a cop in a car started telling me over the PA that I couldn’t be there and I had to move to the right. Unfortunately my bike doesn’t have a PA. After I figured out what his issue was he said, “Sir, don’t you understand what I’m saying?” and I managed to communicate my need to go left with hand gestures and he stopped talking and drove off. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t be in the middle lane though.

This is a pretty good page for Washington Bicycle Laws. RCW 46.61.770(1):

Every person operating a bicycle upon a roadway at a rate of speed less than the normal flow of traffic at the particular time and place shall ride as near to the right side of the right through lane as is safe except as may be appropriate while preparing to make or while making turning movements, or while overtaking and passing another bicycle or vehicle proceeding in the same direction. A person operating a bicycle upon a roadway or highway other than a limited-access highway, which roadway or highway carries traffic in one direction only and has two or more marked traffic lanes, may ride as near to the left side of the left through lane as is safe. A person operating a bicycle upon a roadway may use the shoulder of the roadway or any specially designated bicycle lane if such exists.

So you can’t ride a bicycle in the middle lane, unless you’re trying to get to another lane. Which I was, so I was fine, which is surely why he left me alone,  but my morning would have been nicer if he had waiting a minute to see what I was doing before yelling at me.

Why can’t we have a South Park to Downtown bike trail already?

Well fuck.

Why do you have to swear so much, dude?

My eyeball, and wikipedia:

In North America, “hazel” is often used to describe eyes that appear to change color, ranging from light brown to green and even gray, depending on current lighting in the environment.

I always thought hazel was actually a color, not a social compromise for identifying difficult eyes.

And for more random movie references:

Only 1-2% of the world’s population has green eyes and it is the least common eye color.

Chinese girls do not come with green eyes.

My new flight medical came in the mail, the one that caused the whole “I weight 200lbs, that’s weird.” debacle. I got looking at my earlier ones.

The first from 2000-09 when I started flying. I was working at Panax, had graduated high school after dropping out the year before and spending a few months re-evaluating life and finding ground. I weighed 178lbs, which was about normal for me all of my life that I can remember my weight from.

The next was 2004-06. I would have been about finishing up working on the road doing the towers jobs then I think. After 18 months on the road doing hard physical work daily, it’s no surprised I weighed 196lbs.

And now today. I sit in a chair most the day, but I’m probably the most active I’ve ever been. I bike to work the majority of days a week now and go hiking most weekends depending on who I’m with and how active they are.