Distracted by the Sky

25 February 2014

It wasn't easy getting work done at my desk today.  All day long the sky distracted me.

Hill Slugs Waders Club

 photo by Tom Hammell

23 February 2014

The Hill Slugs Waders Club card is here!

If you haven't experienced it yourself, by now you've certainly heard that Tom and I have a thing for finding closed roads, ignoring the signs, and barreling on through.  Sometimes this means we merely slow down to go around a barrier or two.  Other times there's an easy detour the next block over.

And then there are the times when we just don't feel like going the long way around.  It's for these times that you will need your Waders Club card.

Ford a stream or slog through mud with us five times and I will buy you a cup of coffee.

Cards will be available the next time I lead a ride.  Get yours today, clean the mud out of your cleats tomorrow!

Cranky for No Good Reason

23 February 2014

For the first time in three weeks the roads were clear, the air was above freezing, the sun was out, and we were on our bikes two days in a row.  We ought to have been ecstatic today.  We weren't.

It's not Winter Larry's fault that we spent a lot of time waiting for flats to be fixed.  It's not his fault that we spent much of our time with one hand on the handle bars and the pointing out potholes.  We did that yesterday too.

Maybe it's because we're not in good enough condition yet to enjoy two days in a row.  Maybe we blew ourselves out yesterday, had too much fun, and were just tired enough not to be our usual, goofy selves.

I'm never at my best on Sundays anyway because I'm usually leading or following some sort of epic adventure the day before.  Today I didn't really hit my stride until we were about 29 miles into the ride.  We only went 34 miles.

My burst of energy coincided with all of us gathered at the intersection of Butcher Road and Route 33.  "Here comes the Macho Mile," I said.

"Macho Mile?"  May asked.

"Yeah.  Everybody knows where he is now and everyone takes off.  The ride splinters into a million pieces."

"Green up!"

And we were off.

"Hey, Larry, remember when this water tower was being built?"

"Yeah.  It took years."

"We've been doing this a long time."

Left at the restaurant -- it's been Ouzo for a few years now, probably a record -- and the group splintered into the wind.

When I get to Halsey Reed I pick one of three songs to get me home.  Today it was Whirly 3.

I was taking my helmet off at my car when Plain Jim came up to me.  "What's this about the Macho Mile?"

"I had to demonstrate," I said.  "Maybe I'll blog about it."

In Which We Sort of Get It Together

Hopewell-Amwell Road

22 February 2014

I'm halfway through my mug of Death Wish-Steady Eddy (do they cancel each other out?) when I think I see a black Prius driven by a red jersey pass the house and keep on going.  It's 8:45.  We leave at 9:30. This is early even for Plain Jim.  I don't see him pass again.  Maybe he's gone to the diner to pass the time.

I'm ready early.  I have time to play fetch with Moxie (yes, he's a cat, and yes, he fetches; all three do).  Then Chris pulls in, two wheels into the snow.  Then Jim is back, and Ed, and Ron.  Chris had to extricate Jim's car from the snow, and Ed found himself at Quakerbridge Mall or something, and Ed pulls into my driveway (finally somebody has!), and we're five minutes past the time we need to leave, but Ed is still getting his shoes on.

We leave in a hurry, but when I look back there are only three of us.  "Ed forgot his gloves," Chris says.  "They'll catch up.  Jim knows where to go."  That'll ruin Jim's reputation for sure, if it gets out that he knows where he is.

9:59, within sight of the Hopewell Administration Building (not the YMCA!), Miss Piggy stuffs her chain between the front chain ring and the frame. This happens as Jim and Ed catch up.  I send everyone on but Ed and Ron stay to help me extricate the chain.

At 10:02 we pull in, two people ready to go, one more driving in, and two more arriving by bike.  When I see that Sean is among our number, my decision is made.  We're going to Lambertville.  I'd promised him I'd take him there someday.  He's on his cross bike.  He'll be the only one who won't need to dodge the new crop of potholes.

The potholes keep the ride interesting.  It's a new slew of landmarks we'll have to memorize.  Pennington-Rocky Hill Road is going to be detoured around the bridge soon.  Federal City to Old Mill will add some miles.

We're heading to Province Line Road.  We're taking it all the way to its northern end.  I do this to the Slugs every spring.  The view balances out the pain.

This is the fun part, the roller coaster from Cherry Valley to Route 518. That's Sean about to descend:

On our way up the second half of Province Line, Sean and I look at an ivy-laced silo.  I contemplate getting a picture.  "Naah," I decide.  "Too phallic."  Sean suggests that it needs a pair of hay bales at the base.

Then the fun begins.  It's not as tough as I remember.  More than enough sleep? Death Wish doing the work?  The fact that's it's nearing 50 degrees right now? The marathon training sessions on Gonzo?  All of the above?  Anyway, I'm not pushing.  It's not my job to be out in front; it's my job to keep my eyes on everyone.

Hopewell-Amwell Road:

We cut west on Ridge, then Mountain.  One of our number, riding too close to the side of the road, finds himself half-sideways in a snow bank.  He dusts himself off, unhurt.  I look at his imprint in the snow, but he's so light that he's barely left a mark.

Plain Jim sings us through Route 31 at Rocktown Road.  It's the Lord's Prayer, in Latin:

"Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Adveniat regnum tuum. 
Fiat 

CAR!

voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. 
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. 
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo."

I want Sean to see Mount Airy and Alexauken Creek, so even though we've got 20 miles under us, I aim us towards the scenery.  "Wait at the cows," I instruct.

Jim says, "Where you'll take pictures."

"Of course."

Sean is digging the view.

Alexauken Creek Road blows his mind too, as does a ginger cookie at Rojo's (via Lovin' Oven).  I choose fruit-nut, and we each down a Red-Eye (that's a cup of drip coffee with a shot of espresso).

At the top of Rocktown, I wave Chris on with "Right turn!" seconds before somebody calls out, "Flat!"  Chris is long gone, and it takes us a CO2 cartridge, a hand pump, another new tube (the first being shredded at the valve), and another cartridge to set things right.

We turn onto Dinosaur Hill, then head across 518 to one of the two hills around here that's worse than it looks.

Ron's chain, being on the same model as Miss Piggy, and jealous of her earlier antics, hops off the rear cog into the spokes.  It takes a few minutes to untangle that.  Chris must be back at my house by now.

The rest is downhill and flat, and studded with fresh potholes to the point of requiring single-track mountain biking skills.  We get through it without incident. Chris is waiting at the entrance to the parking lot.

The five of us dodge more potholes on the way home, the road being much worse in this direction.

It's Chris' turn to be stuck in the snow, the right rear wheel of his truck spinning furiously. I offer to dig him out.  When I come back with the shovel, he's freed himself and is heading down the road.  I make sure Ed knows how to get home without going to the mall.  Miss Piggy gets hosed down.

Burnaby sleeps through the whole thing:

Good idea.  I should stretch.

Tomorrow has us following Winter Larry through the flatlands.

Hill Slugs Ad Hoc, Saturday, 22 February

UPDATE (21 February): The ride is on!

my car, a tree, and several weeks of snowstorms

18 February 2014

Dare I think it?  Is it too early in the week to think it?  Sunny skies, temperatures above freezing, dry roads?

Hell, yeah, let's dream for  a few days and pretend like we're going on a bike ride on Saturday.

Let's plan on a 10:00 a.m. start from the Hopewell YMCA on Main Street, across from Ingleside, in Pennington.  Plan on 40-something miles.  For an extra 11 miles, meet me at my house for a 9:30 a.m. start.

Check back here on Friday for confirmation or exasperation.

What Tom Said

15 February 2013

http://frisket.blogspot.com/2014/02/note-to-weather-god.html?m=1

Can I get an amen from the choir?

Holy Light Switch, Batman!

(image courtesy of batsound.com)

14 February 2014

Today I walked around the lab with a bat detector.  I got it from the guy who sometimes borrows our manatee brain.

Um, what?

My day job is oftentimes so absurd that my work dreams are more realistic.

So you dreamed there were bats hiding in the lab?

It was the lights, actually, and I didn't dream it.  Motion detector lights.  The kind that turn on when you enter a room.  All of the motion detectors in the new building use infrared sensors.  Some also use ultrasound. The detectors are almost everywhere, except the animal holding rooms because those are on a strict light cycle.

OK.  That's kinda creepy-cool.  So why were you--?

Because rodents can hear in the ultrasound range.  They communicate in ultrasound.

Wow, OK, so...

Imagine hearing a dial tone in your head all day.  

That would suck.  That would drive me crazy.

I have tinnitus.  It does suck.  It has, at times, driven me crazy.  Anyway, we study mouse behavior, and we don't want the little guys to be stressed out.  They might well be hearing the equivalent of loud restaurant chatter whenever they leave their holding room.

Why the bat detector?

Bats communicate with ultrasound, which we can't hear.  So the detector converts that to tinnitus -- I mean an audible squeal -- er, tone.  So today I went around listening to the lab shrieking.

What are you guys going to do?

In our lab, the building manager cut the wires in two of our rooms.  No lights, but no more noise.  Later we learned that another lab found the off switch on the sensors.

Oops.

Yeah, well, it ain't our money gonna fix it. Plus now I know how to use a bat detector.

What about the manatee brain?

Oh, that's still in the cold room in the old building.  We'll move it over one of these days.

*****

A propos of nothing, the full moon is bright on the snow tonight.

Sunsets and Snow

13 February 2014

One of these days we'll see pavement and temperatures above freezing at the same time.

Meanwhile, here are more sunsets and snow as seen from the new lab.

This is the view from one of the offices a floor below me.  My cell phone and light from the hallway are reflecting on the window; sorry about that.

Upstairs at my desk, 35 minutes later:

Three days later:

That night, at home, on the railing at our front door:

Yesterday, as the nor'easter rolled in:

Hill Slugs Ad Hoc, Saturday, 15 February

UPDATE:  This ride will be postponed until February 22.

13 February 2014

Saturday at 9:00 a.m., have a good breakfast and a pot of strong coffee.

At 10:00 a.m., get on your wind trainer, fluid trainer, rollers, elliptical cross-trainer, treadmill, stationary bike, whatever, and stay there for two hours with your heart rate between 65% and 80% of your maximum.

Ice Day

5 February 2014

A flash of light from outside -- lightning? -- and then Jack's alarm goes off.  "Is Rutgers open?" I ask when I wake up again.  "Yes," Jack says. "It's raining but there's no snow on the street."

I stay in bed another 20 minutes until my alarm sounds.  I reach for my phone to check if the university is closed.  Opening at 11, which isn't really closed at all.

Time to check if all of our trees are standing.  They are, but our next-door neighbor to the east isn't so lucky.

Missed their deck by a couple of feet.  There's going to be a lot more light in our back yard this summer. I can see almost to Princeton Pike now.

I email a couple of people from work, telling them I'll be there around 9 a.m., but no sooner have I hit "send" then Jack announces that Rutgers is opening at noon and both the Hamilton and Princeton Junction train stations are closed.

I send another email that starts with "Scratch that."  No sooner have I hit "send" then Jack announces that the stations are open again but trains are whizzing straight past both of them.  We decide to wait it out and get him to Hamilton.

I write another email, this time to the whole lab, telling them that I don't know when I'll be in.  No sooner have I hit "send" then I get a message that Princeton University is closed.

Halfway through my breakfast, Jack tells his 1 p.m. class that he's canceling it because, at this point, he doesn't know if he can get to Newark in time.  Within minutes, he receives an announcement that Rutgers is closed.

I put on a pot of coffee.

The texts start pouring in:  from Dale, from AK at work, from Cheryl.  Cheryl has been without power since 6:20 a.m., is cold, and in dire need of caffeine and a hot shower.  She'll have to leave the dogs at home, but she'll head over soon. Dale, Sean, and her father are hunkering down with the lights on.  AK has a thesis committee meeting that he's trying to cancel, and also trying to figure out how to get from here to there without being turned back.  We're both checking Twitter for closed roads and downed trees; eventually everyone on his committee reports back and he can stay put.

In the back yard, our pitch pine has been bent over underneath arched bamboo since Monday's snow.  At first I thought I should leave it under there, the bamboo protecting the pine from more ice, but now I want to go out and check, having asked Chris C what he'd do.

Yeesh.  It's a cold mess out here.  The pine is under the bamboo, some of which are over, and some under, three bent arbor vitae.  I rescue the pine first, then do my best with the arbor vitae.  I don't care what happens to the bamboo.

Then I take pictures.

Here's the pitch pine:

The blue spruce (a former Christmas tree):

The black cherry:

Looking up into the corner of four yards:

What's left of the bamboo-arbor vitae tangle:

While I'm out here I might as well take a walk up to the Pike and see what's doing.

Sweet gum seed pods on the sidewalk:

Our eastern neighbors again, this time with a shredded ornamental.

Further along, frozen buds:

Along a fence:

Our driveway, like many others in the neighborhood, ends in a lake.  With so much snow piled up from the plow, the melting water can't get to the storm drain. For a minute I consider digging out the drain, but the snow is so deep I can't tell where it is.

Our back porch:

A view of the bamboo mess from our bedroom window.  I will be monitoring this all day, because that arbor vitae bottom center hasn't bounced back much:

Burnaby doesn't care.

Cheryl arrives.  I get her caffeinated and she plays with Burnaby and Mojo. Moxie is a lump under the bed covers.

While we're talking I notice that one of our dogwood branches is leaning on three lines coming into the house.  "I've gotta go fix that," I tell Cheryl.  She says she'll watch the entertainment from here.  I take a telescoping pole (meant for putting in light bulbs from a distance, but it'll do for this) and whack the ice from the branch, taking care never to touch the lines.  I manage to free the lines and get showered with ice at the same time.

Cheryl eventually warms up enough to get a shower.  "I feel like a new person," she says, and packs her things.  "Gotta get home to the girls," she says, and she's off.

After lunch is more arbor vitae rescue, then a workout.  Work-in?  After cardio (did the lights flicker or am I getting tired?), between lifting sets, I check the tree out back.  Is it moving up?  Will I have to get a rope and pull it straight?  That'll have to wait till tomorrow. Right now I have to re-set the clocks.

Upstairs, the cats have the right idea.  Mojo is out of his hidey-hole: 

Cheryl's power comes back on at 4:00.

Campus Snow

the back end of campus that nobody sees

4 February 2014

Now that we're in the new building, my walk from the western parking lot takes me through the back end of campus, next to the woods, halfway down the hill, behind the ball fields, away from everything and everyone.

When heavy snow still sticks to the trees, it makes for some good pictures.

This path goes to graduate housing:

The sapling outside my window again:

A wind-blown clump of snow on the berm reminds me of a picture my father took long before I was born.  He called it a "natural snowball."

Sunset, the ice storm coming in:

My office mate thinks we should mount a camera on the window so we never miss a sunset.