Hill Slugs Chocolate Bunny Ride, SUNDAY, 24 April

22 April 2011

THE RIDE HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO SUNDAY.

Same starting time, same location, same chocolate bunnies.





21 April 2011

Another Saturday, another iffy forecast. Stay tuned.

If the ride is on, meet at the Hopewell YMCA/school administration building parking lot on Main Street, across from Ingleside, in Pennington. The ride will start at 9 a.m. Extra-milers can ride with me from my house at 8:30 a.m.

This is a traditional route from my earliest days as a Free Wheeler. We'll go up into the Sourlands to get to the rest stop, but we'll go around the mountain to get home.

Ki'ins!

17 April 2011

In his new role as Only Cat, Burnaby is going nuts.  When he's not following us around or flopping onto his back so that we'll wrestle with him, the poor guy has taken to chasing his own tail for minutes on end.

I keep promising him that we'll find him some kittens to play with.  Thanks to this blog, Glenn put us in touch with his dentist, Richard, who has been taking in semi-feral cats.  He trapped a pregnant one last month, and, with the help of a vet who comes to the house every couple of days, has been socializing the four kittens.

They were born the day after Cleio died, which puts them at a few days over three weeks old.  The mother cat, who just about puts up with Richard, will never teach her kittens to trust people, so he wants them out of her care as soon as possible.  He and the vet are thinking eight weeks.  That's about four weeks from now.

Time to clean the house.

Yesterday we went to visit the little critters.  There are three boys and a girl.  I have names -- Mojo and Moxie -- I just don't know which two will be getting them. 

Richard brought out just two at first.  Here they are, on my legs, before we went with them to a blanket in the living room.  These little guys sure made a lot of noise.  They were much happier on the blanket.

Mr. Pushkin, rescued from Brooklyn, oversaw the proceedings.

Burnaby's brother, Erazmo, was a gray tabby who died of FIP at five months.  I picked the name Mojo to remember Erazmo.  I think this little guy is going to be Mojo.

Yeah, I know this picture is blurry, but the little fella is cute anyway.

Richard took him back in so that he could drink his dinner, and he brought out the gray girl.

I think she's Moxie.

Richard already named the fourth one.  He's got a hunch that Spats might be staying at his house.

Moxie and Spats decided that Jack's lap was the place to be.  Every cat we've ever had has come to the same conclusion.

Mojo discovered the wonders of the lap as well, and parked himself there.

Spats climbed on board:

We spent over two hours playing with the kittens.  Next week we'll go back and decide who's coming home with us.  I figure we'll let the kittens pick us, but I'm pretty sure that Moxie is Moxie.  Mojo might be the tabby or the one who isn't Spats.  We'll see.

This morning, Burnaby, in an attempt to prove that he, at six and a half years old, is still a kitten, got himself good and riled up over his refillable catnip carrot, a gift from Sean and Dale.

Early Spring on the Road

17 April 2011

Chris, George, and I decided to get some miles in before yesterday's rain.  George was riding a loaner from a shop that is not Hart's.  It was a Specialized Roubaix, neon orange, with "test bike" decals on the down tube.  I was on Miss Piggy, with her "berzerker green" highlights (as Cannondale calls them).  There was no way we wouldn't be seen.

We didn't get very far -- only Titus Mill Road near where it meets Route 31 -- when George's chain hopped its rings and wedged itself between the frame and the crank.  At first George and I figured it would be a simple fix, but it wasn't.  We pulled into a driveway and Chris dug a screwdriver out of his bag.

The two of them worked on it for about five minutes before deciding that, short of removing the crank, there was nothing any of us could do.  Chris hung the loose chain from the bottle cage as he gave up.

George took Chris' bike down Route 31 into Pennington while Chris and I
waited with the orange mess.  I sat in the grass, shivering in the wind, while Chris adjusted my front shifter cable.

Walking around wasn't keeping us warm, so we took shelter behind a tree across the street.  I took pictures of a farm to pass the time.

We'd lost half an hour by the time George brought Chris' bike back and loaded the orange disaster onto his car.  It was around 10:00.  According to forecasts, the rain would hit at noon.

We decided to go up onto the mountain anyway, and get out of the wind.  To add miles we zig-zagged up Woosamonsa, Bear Tavern, Harbourton-Woodsville, New Road, Linvale, and Mountain.

Every once in a while we felt some rain.  It wasn't much, but it was enough for me to decide to bag the rest stop (it would have been Peacock's) and head down Rileyville towards home.

I did stop to get a picture of the Hillbilly Hall sign.  Someday maybe I'll go in there.

On Featherbed the rain spat on us again.  Chris said, "Each time it's a little stronger and lasts a little longer."

We climbed the annoying hill on Van Dyke, crossed 518, barreled down the other half of Van Dyke, and turned onto Crusher Road outside of Hopewell.

I was telling Chris about Sean and Dale moving to New Jersey in the fall.  We were talking about quiet places to live, and how New York City just wouldn't cut it.  "They need to see green," I said.  "Like this."

On our right was a pasture with cows, sheep, and horses.  I couldn't get them all in one picture.

Pushing against a headwind and gusts over 20 mph, we made it back to the house without getting wet.  The rain started not too much later.

Terry S. had assembled eleven of us for dinner at Leonardo's in Lawrenceville.  The rain was coming down in sheets, the wind whipping it.  There was thunder and lightning and a tornado watch.  We wondered if the roads would be dry enough to ride on by morning.

Sunday's winds were predicted to start at 18-10 mph and gust to over 30 mph.  I bailed on Chris' ride through the wide open fields of Burlington County and went with Terry S. and Alan instead.  The plan was to start in Princeton and stay in the hills, among the trees, out of the wind.  And to ride slowly.  That I could handle.

I took Kermit this time because he's a better bike to be on when there's wind around.  I took Princeton Pike, my commute-to-work route to Princeton.

There's a pasture just north of I-95 where the Cherry Grove Farm cows graze.  The pasture reaches all the way to Route 206 to the west, so the cows aren't often on the Pike side.  Someday I'll get pictures of them.  But today's scene was different:

Princeton Pike was closed at Province Line Road.  I figured Quaker Road, which runs by the D&R Canal, must surely be flooded, but to close Princeton Pike this far south must mean much worse.  I decided not to find out, and took Province Line to Route 206 instead.

At the entrance to Quaker Road there, a police car blocked the road.  Water streamed across from the other side of 206, forcing cars into our lane.  Kermit's undercarriage got a good bath. 

Terry, Alan, and I did our best to stay out of the wind.  On Bayberry at Pennington-Rocky Hill Road I took a picture of the clouds speeding by over new spring leaves:

For this next picture, at the south side of Stony Brook where it meets Route 518, we'll pretend that this little waterfall isn't coming from a cement storm pipe under the road:

Terry left us at the top of the mountain so that he could go home and finish his taxes.  Alan and I continued down Rileyville.  The cross-wind was so strong that I couldn't move my head to look (through my mirror) behind me on the way down.  Alan said the same thing.

Here's the farm on Wertsville Road across from Rileyville.  If I were being persnickity I'd have cropped out the road sign.

Peacock's is usually bursting with cyclists.  Not today.  We were the only ones.  The flower bed along the fence at looked peaceful.

Across the street, daffodils reflected in a muddy puddle.

We climbed more hills after the rest stop than before, and by the time I hit the 30 mph headwind, solo, at the I-95 overpass on Princeton Pike, my legs were shot.

Hill Slugs Ad Hoc, Saturday, 16 April

14 April 2011

We're on if it's not raining.  If it is raining, the ride will be postponed to Sunday.  Check here on Saturday morning if things look iffy.

Let's meet at the usual spot:  the parking lot of the Hopewell School Administration Building/YMCA on Main Street in Pennington, across from Ingleside Avenue.  We'll stretch the distance to 45-ish miles.  The ride will start at 9:00. 

Extra-milers can meet me at my house at 8:30 a.m.

EWR/ORD ORD/YVR YVR/SFO SFO/EWR

A View of Vancouver, BC, from Stanley Park

2 April 2011

EWR to ORD
(Newark Liberty to Chicago O'Hare)

In mid-March I was sent to Chicago for a week for work-related training. It was intense: we started on a Sunday evening and went Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. We had to be back for more training in the evenings, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

Once class started, we had no time to look around the city. Our hotel, and the training, was held downtown, in the center of the business district, where the only amenities were Starbucks, 7-11, Dunkin' Donuts, CVS, and Walgreens, seemingly one set of these per city block.

Downtown Chicago is trying to kill vegetarians. Tired of shaking by early afternoon, I took a three-mile walk on Wednesday evening in order to find something edible that I could bring back to the hotel room for the next couple of days.

Jack was with me from Sunday until Wednesday morning. Our plane landed in the late morning, so we had time to walk around a little before everything started.

I spent a lot of time looking up and photographing buildings.









That's a Frank Gehry-designed ampetheater in the pictures above and below.


We walked to the lake. The water was green. The shore was cement. There was nothing worth photographing.

Then there was this thing, above a public skating rink:


I think it eats vegetarians.


The Chicago Public Library building has some way creepy gargoyles. The light was all wrong, but I tried anyway. Click on the pictures to enlarge them.








On Wednesday evening, when I went out, without my camera, but with my cell phone, in search of non-meat protein, I passed this fountain at the Daley Center. Apparently, the city celebrates Saint Patrick's Day by dying its waterways green. The big parade had been the weekend before, but nobody told the water in this fountain.

Having now spent over three days immersed in microscopy, my first thought was not of the holiday, but "It looks like GFP." Insider joke for scientists.


Actually, that was my second thought. My first was, "Ick."

The bottom section of this building is a parking garage.


The setting sun reflected on the gold top of the building in the distance.

Jack had left for Vancouver that morning. While I was sitting in a darkened room, at a very fancy microscope that was taking pictures of my slides, Jack texted me that the view of the sunset out of his hotel window was really something.



Fine. But I got to see this, as classmates played on the microscope before I had my turn:



I sent the videos to Dale, who, with Sean and Jack and a handful of my other friends, was also in Vancouver.

She wrote back, "That's the coolest thing I do not understand."

Left: a sea monkey, labeled with three different fluorescent dyes. Right: Muscle cells labeled with a nuclear stain (blue) and a protein stain (green).

The next day I went walking again. I brought my camera this time, but the sky was so overcast that the pictures didn't come out very well.

I bought a dichroic frog, though.



Friday I tried to go without caffeine. We'd all been drinking way too much coffee in order to stay alert. Even people who didn't drink coffee had started drinking it. I'd been getting up at 6:30 a.m. for the past three days just to run on a treadmill before sitting on my ass for most of eight hours. Lucky for us, the last day was a short one. We finished an hour early.

One of my classmates lives near the airport and gave me a ride to O'Hare on his way home. These are the last pictures of Chicago that I took, from the passenger seat of his car:



ORD to YVR
(Chicago O'Hare to Vancouver, British Columbia)

My flight was a little late leaving Chicago. I got to Vancouver at midnight local time (two hours behind Chicago). At the hotel, Jack and I hung out a little with Brycchan and some others. By the time I showered and did my PT it was well past 2 a.m. (4 a.m. Chicago time; I'd been up 22 hours).

Six or so hours later, we awoke to rain:


My first order of business was to find Sean and Dale. We met for breakfast. I didn't care where or what I ate, as long as there was caffeine involved. Nora was there too, and she agreed with me on the caffeine thing.

Jack trundled off to some sessions. Dale and Sean and I, not much liking the hotel's offerings, went in search of some real Evil Bean down the road. We sat in a coffee shop (Vancouver has coffee shops every three feet) for a good, long time before finding a bus that would take us to Stanley Park.

"Look!" I said. "Buds and flowers!"


This is a view of the city from the park:


We walked along the water's edge the whole time.



Dale was fond of the old tire lying among the driftwood. The shells were cute, but a little too deliberate:





Yeah, it's touristy, but we weren't going to have time to learn any in-depth First Nation history. I'd learned a bit the last time I was up here, though.





Around the bend, the view wasn't so pretty, unless you're into piles of sulfur:





A set of stairs took us back towards the city side of the point.





Sean said, "Here they're just called 'geese'."


Dale and I had fun climbing into this tree trunk for our pictures:






The sky started to clear.


Dale said, "Look! A bald eagle!"






Very patient bald eagles. It took us at least five minutes to get from where Dale first saw them to the base of the tree where they were perched. One of them flew off minutes after my last picture.



We hopped a bus back up the hill towards the hotel.


Dale wanted a picture of the clouds. Her cell phone wasn't cooperating.


This is our hotel reflecting the buildings across the street:



That evening I tried for some sunset shots of my own, but we had to leave for a group dinner before the sun went down. Dale and Sean were too tired to join us.




Just for fun, I took a picture with the curtain between the window and the lens:


On our way back from dinner, on the expansive patio outside of the hotel, we found Sean and Dale looking at the moon. It was a special sort of moon, apparently, because it appeared 18% bigger than it usually does. Dale was trying for pictures with her phone again. I made some attempts with my camera in case hers didn't come out.




Sunday was our last day in Vancouver. We went to Granville Island. I remembered it having a lot of art galleries and First Nation art. Somehow, though, we wound up in the touristy section this time, where most places were just selling crap.

One gallery was open by appointment only. This odd critter was near the window.


More views of the city:



The first time Jack and I were in Vancouver was October 2003. We still had our original pair of cats then: Maia and Cleio, who were both fourteen and a half years old. We were walking to Granville Island when Jack saw this street sign:



"Burnaby would be a good name for a cat," he said.

A year later, Maia died. Two months after that, this little guy took up residency:


Six and a half years later, he still thinks he's a kitten.

YVR to SFO
(Vancouver, BC to San Francisco)

Sean, Dale, Jack and I were on the same flight to San Francisco. We had a long wait in the airport, and our flight was late. I didn't think to do any PT while we were waiting. We were too worried that we'd miss our connecting flight to Newark.

I was wearing my orange Princeton sweatshirt and walking through the concourse with Sean when a guy approached me from the side and said, "New Jersey!"

I replied, "What's wrong with New Jersey?" leaving myself -- well, no, the state -- wide open for ridicule.

Instead, he said, "I'm from New Jersey, but you've probably never heard of where I'm from."

"I'm a cyclist," I said. "Try me."

"Crosswicks."

I laughed. "I know Crosswicks."

Sean will too, soon, because Dale got into CUNY for grad school and they'll be moving out here at the end of the summer.

SFO to EWR
(San Francisco to Newark)

Jack and I had to sprint-walk ourselves and our bags out of the terminal, more than a quarter mile outside, into a different terminal, and through security in order to get to our gate just as boarding had begun. I didn't have time to do my PT before getting on the red-eye to Newark.

The flight left at 10:15 p.m. San Francisco time (1:15 a.m. New Jersey time) and arrived in Jersey at 6:30 a.m.

Jack went north to teach class. I took the train home. I could have gone straight to the lab but I wanted a shower and some coffee first.

Cleio's benign cycst had burst again. As a nearly 22-year-old cat with renal failure and probable lymphoma, her cyst (we called it her egg) was the least of her worries. There was dilute blood all over the kitchen. At least she'd been eating. I found her under the covers, looking skinnier than ever. She got up, went downstairs, and yelled for food. Business as usual.

At work, I unpacked the dichroic frog.


Thirty-six hours later, Cleio rose from her spot on the Moose Room sofa and crawled under it, listless and unresponsive. At 11 p.m. we took her to the vet, knowing what we were going to have to do.

She was dehydrated and anemic. Her heart murmur was worse. The vet said that even intravenous hydration wouldn't help her; she was too anemic for that. We decided on a blood test just to make sure that what was wrong with her was what we suspected: multiple organ failure.

She stood on the table, looking from side to side, not focusing on us or on anyone. We held her on our laps while we waited for the blood test results. She was having trouble standing up.

In twenty minutes they had the results. Her kidney function indicators were literally off the charts. "She'll never feel any better than she does right now," the vet said.

"Do it," I told her. It was 11:45 p.m.

Cleio at Princeton Animal Hospital, 22 March 2011

Now Burnaby is Only Cat. He's chasing his own tail instead of Cleio's and walking around the house meowing. He needs some youngster friends to keep him busy. If any of you out there know of a pair of kittens looking for a good home, there's a brown tabby and a pair of names waiting for them.

Soon, I hope, I'll have pictures to post of Mojo and Moxie, whatever they look like.

Meanwhile, here are some cows at Mount Airy that we saw on our ride last Saturday:


The amaryllis I bought nearly a decade ago had two blooms on it this week. Spring must be here.


About the kittens: I'm serious.