I'm just sayin'

Amazon.com has a "Universal Wish List Button" you can add to your browser; it will allow you to add items from non-Amazon sites to your wish list.

Pretty cool.

Concessive-impulsive disorder

n. phrase: The habit, nay, reflex, of always saying "yes," even when you really shouldn't. May result in unexpected delights.

Or extreme exhaustion.

Team Fat Cyclist: Win Susan!

Does the full-zip jersey make me look fat? I hope so.

I've mentioned Elden Nelson, the Fat Cyclist before, but now's the time to talk a little more about what he's done for me and the rest of the world, and what I'm trying to give back to him, by giving back to the rest of the world. And what you can do to help.

The Fat Cyclist is one of the best blogs on the internet, hands down. Yes, it's a little more personal if you like bicycling, or if you have some sort of capacity for human emotion, but even if not, you'll laugh your coffee out your nose at "An Open Letter to Assos" and its follow-up, "The Wit and Wisdom of Dr. Michael Lämmler". If the screamingly funny posts don't get you, then he gives away some really cool bike stuff in contests and drawings every now and then and you're hooked. And if you follow the posts, you'll cry as I did when you read that Susan, Elden's wife, has had a relapse of her breast cancer, and it has metastasized to her brain, with thousands of tiny tumors like dandelion seeds in her brain.

I've commented occasionally that TV shows are for people who don't have interesting, or attractive, or funny friends, but the thing about the internet is that you can actually get to be friends with interesting, funny, smart, attractive, hard working, wonderful people. And I consider Elden to be my friend (it says we are, right there on Facebook!). He's the sort of friend you want to be more like; not perfect (we all have our moments. And jeez, he serves brats with no beer.) but when I read his writing, he makes me want to be a better person, a better dad, a better husband. Like another big brother. Because, after all, it doesn't really matter what kind of a cyclist you are.

So we (the internet) try to 'be there' for Susan and Elden and the kids, and those of us who are in Utah can come over with dinner, and help clean the house and the like. But when Elden says, "This is helpful," and it's something we can do--we jump. Seriously, he could say, "I really need you all to send me your toenail clippings," and he'd be able to open a glue factory in a week. And so he's put together a fundraising team for the Lance Armstrong Foundation (did I mention Elden's a bicyclist?), and he asked for team members to create the largest, most successful fundraising team in the history of the event. I jumped. And jumped in for the Seattle ride, on June 21--it seemed only appropriate, in that the other person I look up to like him is my brother, that I go ride in his town. (By the way, brother Wombat, can I sleep on your sofa?)

In our family we know something about cancer from a couple of different sides: Dr. Fledermaus's family tree has a terrifying streak running through it (thankfully, late-arriving, slow-moving, and excisable), and Dr. Fledermaus herself has a Ph.D. studying the disease. One thing I'm learning too well is that I'm now at the age when my cohort of friends is starting to develop cancer. Three good friends, all with kids, have been diagnosed in the past two years, with varying prognoses. But one thing I didn't know was the range of things that the Armstrong Foundation does. Yes, they support research (amen!) and treatment, but they also provide a huge range of services to cancer patients and their families. They provide personal guidance, counseling, really, in a way that all the books and brochures and even doctors can't.

All of which is to say, I'm asking now, and I'll probably ask again sometime before June, for you to chip in a few bucks by clicking here. In return, I'll ride a hundred miles with your names on my back, and if any of you can come to Seattle, too, I'll grill brats for you according to Elden's recipe (ok, I use the same recipe). We'll have a send-off grill in Chicago, too (where we know a thing or two about bratwurst).

And if I win anything, I'll share like Bat Jr., and try to gloat humorously.

The Co-op is dead. Long live the Co-op.

12 kinds of soy milk
No buttermilk

And then...

"Our card machines are down: no credit or debit cards, no checks, cash
only."

As so often over the past thirteen years, I went to Walgreen's.

Reports of enlightment greatly exaggerated

I'm flabbergasted that in our day and age, someone can (try to) use the color of a kid's diapers and the painting of his toenails as reasons not to allow a parent to see his kid. The kid clearly likes his diapers: '"(Kennedy) pulls down his pants and says, 'Mommy, look how pretty they are,'" she said of the diapers.' Likewise the nail polish: '"He'd say, 'Mommy, I don't want to get my nails wet. I don't want to mess them up,'" she said. "It took two hours to get him in the bath."'

Props to Urlacher. I think he knows something about masculinity, and I hope his example of openmindedness is heeded. Now if only I could get my kid to be a little less overwhelmingly gender-stereotypical in her dress!

CBF=>ATA

There's significantbuzz in our local corner of the bike geekery blogosphere about the recent name change of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation; it's now the Active Transportation Alliance. Reaction seems to range from the "what a colossally stupid idea," to the "what a colossally stupid idea and if you're not pissed about it you should be." I'm somewhere between these two responses, myself. SFBikeBlog's post covers most of the objections I have (and then some), but I feel more betrayed as a Chicagoan than as a biker. For the record, I don't think I'll be renewing my membership: an organization that treats its members this way is not one that I want to be a part of (though I seem to find myself in more and more such situations). The way that they made this (locally) momentous decision smarts personally, while picking a goofy name that doesn't say anything about what you stand for only offends me intellectually.

But I'm doubly disappointed that they're adopting the nickname "Active Trans." Have they no members in Lakeview? Anyhow, here's the first thing that occurred to me on hearing the term:

(Yes, that is a mixte frame.)

Cyclocross update.....

I know what you're thinking--"why no race reports? You have been racing, right, Dingbat?"

Well, I missed two weeks, one due to travel and one due to ill-health but the other reason is simpler. I've been terrible. Slow. Feeling like someone's adding glue to my tires when I'm not looking. Looking back a lap or two in to make sure I didn't somehow forget to unhitch the trailer. That is, when I'm not looking back to see who's blowing by me this time.

And extra-frustrated when Nemesis (the quy who outsprinted me in JP, and whom I beat in Hawthorne Woods) is third place overall in the series.

I think, though, I can boil it down to two factors: One, umm, cardio fitness. I'm just not riding enough. Two: I'm not eating enough on race day. Breakfast followed by fruit and fruit juices is not enough fuel in the tank, which is why I'm able to go go go for a lap and a half and then--bonk. On the grass, it's not as dramatic as on pavement, so it took me a little while to figure out.

Anyhow, I had fun in Lansing yesterday; there was a sandpit and I had a blast sprinting to catch a guy at the finish line. I wasn't until I'd gasped my way around the course that I realized that I hadn't caught him so much as lapped him at the line. But I held off the guy who was on my lap, which is a satisfaction. The important thing is that I got excited to train again after putting my finger on the big factors in declining performance.

Read Joe's race report for something a little more inspiring. Or Michael Barry's fun (if perhaps occasionally overwrought) recent article in the Times.