It’s been sweet weather; I’m told there’s some sort of record breaking consecutive sunny days going on right now. The elections for a bunch of offices will take place soon and we got our voter’s ballots but have no idea who to vote for… IKEA really is something amazing. We spent 5.5 hours there when we went and we plan on going again in a week or so since a couple of the things we wanted weren’t in. I’m eating some of their Swedish meatballs right now.

Played the Warlords IV demo (good–coming out soon), the XIII demo (prob better on a console–coming out soon), the Neighbors from Hell demo (quite amusing–out now), the Divine Divinity demo (got good reviews when it came out a while ago, but I think it’s already outdated), and the Lionheart demo (despite using the Fallout rule system, this game is a Diablo clone and not a deep RPG–out now) among others. But basically can’t wait until Half-Life 2 and UFO: Aftermath.

When we got here our friends Geoff and Ann brought everyone who helped out Thai food from an unknown restaurant. We’ve also been to MiYi (the great Australian bite–pasties and such), Hattie’s Hat (since 1904–burgers and such), and the Firehouse Wingmasters (Buffalo wings and burgers–can’t find the Wingmasters part online, just their music info). We went to Pike’s Place with Colin and Diana (they came up Labor Day weekend) and had some Russian peroshkis and fresh mini-donuts. There’s also this amazing grocery store called Central Market; they have like 4 different types of locally made crab cakes in their freezer section, just to give an idea. Surprisingly, however, sushi is better from the Fred Meyer near us than from Central Market; they both have chefs make them right in front of you.

And finally, check out Achie McPhee… We live 3 blocks from their store.

Din din was at American Dream, a pizza place that Erik claimed was the best pizza in Corvallis. We walked past the daVinci Days happenings (a concert in a park by that time) and found a place that offered free sno-cones as a promotional thing. Don was extremely skeptical, but George insisted we cross a couple of streets to check it out. Yes, they were free, no strings attached.

American Dream’s sign from far away looks like the gay/lesbian pink upside-down triangle except it’s yellow. At the time I told G that Jews in Nazi Germany had to wear arm-bands with the triangle and that gays and lesbians reappropriated the symbol, turned it upside-down and colored it pink. I was close. Actually, the Jews wore a Star of David while gays and lesbians had to wear that pink upside-down triangle. So the gay and lesbian community just reclaimed the symbol they were given by the Nazis. Kinda like how blacks reclaimed the word “nigger”.

We passed by a Chinese restaurant on the way to American Dream which G and I really wanted to go to, but we couldn’t since Don couldn’t afford it. So, we arrived at American Dream right around 8:30 which is lucky since they have a late-night special for a 1-topping large pizza and one soda for $10. The sauce, cheese, and pepperoni were good but the crust was tough and bland. Don liked it, but George and I thought it was overall mediocre. Don’s quote: “The pizza is good; just don’t eat the crust.” To which George and I replied: “The pizza *is* the crust!” In hindsight, I think maybe Don thinks of the outer crust as crust while George and I thought of the whole bread part, including the middle with toppings, as the crust. Given G and my definition, you can’t have good pizza without good crust. But G grew up in New York and I live with a pizza gourmand, so our standards are higher. Try, for example, Escape from New York or Pizza Roma.

Anyway, I got the soda that came with the meal, G got water, and Don got a beer, making his share of the meal the highest cost. Admittedly, I felt kind of cheated since I think Don spent as much as we would have if we had gone Chinese. I guess he needs his beer.

We got back to Erik’s place and went to sleep. The place is a duplex, 2 floors of a house that’ve been converted to 2 flats, with an additional small place out in the back yard. The landlords just got the place like 2 months ago and so were still fixing up the back place which is the place they said we could stay in. We were also offered the lawn and Erik’s floor. Since we got back before Erik, we figured his floor wasn’t a good idea since he might wake us up or something when he got back. The house out back was extremely hot and stuffy; only 2 windows opened and it had been a hot day. So we all opted to sleep in the backyard.

Four funny/cool things…

1. Don’s new ride was both a blessing and a curse and it started to manifest itself fully this night. He could’ve stuck it in the garage where Erik keeps some of his bikes, but I guess Don didn’t think it was secure enough since Erik and his landlords don’t lock it. He could’ve stuck it in the house, but again, it wasn’t locked. So instead he bungie corded it to his sleeping bag so that if anyone tried to make off with it, he’d wake up. Later he told us that he had another measure of security which he didn’t tell us about, cuz I guess he was afraid we’d make off with it… ? Anyway, George and I were starting to think Don was a little paranoid.

2. While we were lying there and looking up, we counted many, many satellites. That was cool. I told them about the time in college when my roommate and I were walking very late at night… around 2 AM.. to the pool hall when we saw a very bright shooting start type of thing, only much slower than a shooting star and much faster than a plane. It was maybe an inch long if you hold an inch out an arm’s length and basically going across the Western sky from North to South. Some drugged out hippies nearby were freaking out like it was a missile, but it just didn’t seem right. I found out a few weeks later that it was the space shuttle making an emergency landing!

3. So a few hours pass, and I think all of us are sleeping horribly. I keep waking up and alternating between hot and cold by covering and uncovering myself with my really well insulated sleeping bag. George starts laughing so I look over. Funny thing about George is that he is often woefully unprepared. For this trip, he deliberated didn’t bring a sleeping bag because he thought it would be warm enough outside to just sleep on the ground! Anyway, he got cold since it was kinda windy, so he put on pretty much all of his clothing. He had like 3 T-shirts on regularly and another around his arms. He had 3 pairs of shorts on, one regular, one pulled up to just his knees, and one just around his ankles. To top it off, he had a pair of blue-green plaid boxers around his head! So I started laughing too and told him I was definitely going to take a photo of him in the morning. After about 20 minutes he finally went inside to the house out back, but about 20 minutes after that the wind died down and the rest of the night was actually quite nice.

4. I guess it must have been around 2 or 3 AM… Don and I woke up but didn’t do anything when we heard 2 or 3 guys crash into the backyard from hopping a fence into it and then try to find their way out on the other side, all the while laughing and saying stuff like, “Holy crap, there’s people sleeping here!”

Day 2: 46 miles, 3 hours 20 minutes actual riding, 14 mph average.

We woke up early, around 7 or so. I went inside the little house and took a photo of George! 🙂 We ate breakfast at the same cafe that my brother and I met Brian on his house-bike 3 years ago! Breakfast was with Erik and we chatted about Portland places to live since he and his wife are moving up in August. We then said good-bye and headed to Eugene. We took Peoria Road down and then from Junction City we took River Road. I think this is the exact same way my brother and I did it the first time, so in the end, we followed the same route we did 3 years ago!

The ride down was really nice. At Junction City we called Barbara Gleason, graphic designer for Burley, who would be our hostess for our stay in Eugene. She rode out on River Road to meet us and escort us into town. Actually, another Burley employee, Russell, who was still recovering from a minivan hitting him in February, lived closer to downtown and we were able to crash at his place. He wasn’t home yet when we arrived, but his cat Hunter was home. We freshened up and made plans for Barbara to give us a tour of the city (in her nice A/Ced car). The heat was more oppressive than the previous days; I’m glad we left and finished our riding relatively early compared to our other days. While waiting for Barbara, Russell came back with his girlfriend, Tina, I think. Russell then showed us the cool beaded tapestry that he had/has been working on for the last 4.5 years.

The tour of the city was cool…:) and we saw a lot of Eugene from a butte in the center of town. After our tour, we met up with Dan, Barbara’s husband, who is a prof at U of O, specializing in birds, and went to Tasty Thai. Oh man, I love Thai food and this place was no disappointment. We were very hungry by this time since we had skipped lunch. George ate much rice.

After dinner we just chatted for a while back at their place. Hummingbirds really like Don’s bright red hair! We then went back to Russell’s and crashed. George and Don slept outside since the house’ ventilation wasn’t the greatest; it retained heat pretty well. But I slept inside since I didn’t want mosquitoes bugging me the whole night.

Day 3: 48 miles, about 3 hours 30 minutes, about 14mph ave.

We got up and met Barbara for breakfast. She then went off to work while we just hung out chatting for a couple hours at the market waiting for the big meeting at the Mayor’s Office a few blocks down. At one point we watched people getting newspapers out of one of those metal stand things. It got stuck but then one guy came and tugged on it hard and then left it slightly ajar for other people. We took the opportunity to borrow one which we replaced after we had finished reading the day’s news. 🙂

When the time came, we headed on over to the Mayor’s Office. It’s the corner office in a building housing other city offices including the police department. Even so, Don didn’t feel comfortable locking and leaving the bike out in the courtyard. At one point, I mentioned that it was funny how Don was being very protective of this bike because it cost so much while at the same time George and I were being relatively lax about our bikes even though our bikes weren’t cheap either. Don’s reasoning was that I could afford to get them replaced while he couldn’t. I don’t think that was it, actually. I mean I *could* get them replaced if they were stolen, but it’s not like I want that to happen, and I don’t think I actually would get them replaced since I am not exactly flowing in cash right now. In other words, it would still be a big blow to me if I had my bikes stolen. The difference is that I don’t let fear run my life or hold me back. With proper precaution, I feel that I should be able to do what I want to do. It’s not like I was suggesting we leave the bike unlocked out on the street.

Anyway, we met up with someone at the Mayor’s Office who let us know the mayor wasn’t in quite yet (we were early) and that Don could stick his bike inside the office. We then waited around and met Barbara. Then Diana Bishop showed up with her granddaughter and the whole office swarmed around for the baby. 🙂 Finally Mayor Jim Torrey showed up and we all shook hands and chatted. We got some photos of him handing the proclomation over and we were given some really good chocolate and pins of the city as gifts. It was very nice and low-key. No speeches or anything fancy-schmantzy this time around. Afterwords, Jim left the way he came, just walking down the street! By way of comparison, I think Portland’s mayor, Vera Katz, would have had a police escort or an entourage of some sort as security.

After we said good-bye to everyone we headed off to McMenamin’s on High Street and called Robin who was meeting her mom for lunch in Eugene to come pick us up for Portland. Turns out that she didn’t have lunch with her mom so we all ate at the McMenamin’s.

The car ride home was hot; no A/C in our little Honda Civic. The bike rack worked great! We dropped Don off who presumably returned the Trek the next day… George ended up staying until like Thursday or something; we kept going over to Scott’s to play Gran Turismo 3. Fun. All in all a great bike ride, limited only by my poor athleticism, Don’s poor money resources, and George’s poor packing foresight.

Addendum: In a weird twist of irony, my bike was stolen about a week later… 🙁 Maybe Don has cause to be cautious?

We said good-bye to Dat while riding out of town. We finally left Portland around 3pm. The ride itself was relatively uneventful. I hate hills. There was one time when this guy was turning right onto 99W, the street we were riding, and I guess he didn’t even see us until the last minute and had to hit his brakes. People just don’t expect bicycles sometimes, which is why this ride and all bicycle advocacy is so important. A friend of mine once asked me why I complained about biking in Portland since it is so much nicer than some other cities. My answer is that bicycle advocacy will always have a place until bikes are treated as equally as cars. When everyone who drives looks for bikes as well as cars before turning that’s when we are equal.

We stayed at McMinnville Friday night, July 18, at the Paragon Motel which had an outdoor swimming pool. The Best Western right next door had an in-door one *and* a hot tub, but it would’ve been way more expensive… Check in time: 7:30. Turns out Don is flat-out broke, but we discussed this before the trip and I offered to pay for the motel room the first night. I assumed since I was paying for the lodging, it would free up Don to be able to spend a little more on food, but we found out that day that Don is really, really, flat-out broke. This was a little disappointing since George and I wanted to go to this diner next to our motel, but after a quick dip, we ended up going to Taco Bell Express.

Day 1: 48 miles from Bike Gallery, 3 hours 40 minutes in the saddle, about 4 hours 30 minutes from start to finish, 13 mph ave, 35 mph max. George snores.

Saturday, July 19, we woke up late (I think we slept 11 hours!) and didn’t leave McMinnville until 11 or so after some quick continental breakfast and some nasty fake Dole orange juice from the Texaco mini-mart. Don educated us about fruit juice. If the first two ingredients are water and high fructose corn syrup, it sucks. The ride down today was really nice. Not *too* much traffic, mostly wide shoulders. George and Don stopped a lot for berries which grow everywhere in Oregon. I tend to stay away from car-exhaust berries, so I kept riding saying I’d meet them at the next shaded area. Little did I know the next shaded area would be a couple miles away! The shade was provided by a nice tall oak tree or something (Robin can tell you that I suck at identifying flora) which was the prominent object in someone’s front yard. Most houses along 99W are farm houses and are quite a ways from the road, but not this one. So, I stopped, and noticed that I was out of water. I walked over to the front door and rang the doorbell. While I was waiting for an answer, I noticed the faucet out of the front of the house just 10 feet away, but I thought it might look really, really bad if I just used it willy-nilly without permission. Since no one answered, I turned around and headed back for my bike when I saw a Jeep pull into the driveway. I walked over to the Jeep as the driver rolled down the window and slowed to talk. Ron turned out to be a really nice guy and we talked a bit… the usual questions: “Where are you from? Where are you going?” with the added “You’re gonna need, a lot of water!”

I was feeling good, so I got back on my bike and took off without waiting for the guys. I biked really slowly though, taking in all the views and sounds. You know “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” where the author describes how cool it is to be so close to nature and the road? Well, I’ve always thought that we bicyclists have an even greater experience in that we get a myriad aural sensations while motorcyclists just get engine noise. So, I listened to the birds chirping, the rustling of grass as some lizard, or whatever I imagine, runs away from me, and the lovely sound of me belting out a great rendition of “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” Anyway, by the time I get to Rickreal, I figure the guys must surely have caught up to me by now and that they must have passed me while I was talking to Ron, getting water. There is a really nice bike path from Rickreal to Monmouth (funny link) and I followed that going pretty fast. By the way, I quickly shot the evil eye at the RV campground in Rickreal which wouldn’t let my brother and I camp there 3 years ago during our ride to DC for NBG because we were on bikes and not in an RV!

So while riding to Monmouth I pass two teenage girls who are also enjoying the bike path. This NBG idea is a really good idea; have I mentioned that? I tell them that I’m looking for two other guys and ask if they’ve seen them. They say no, so I tell them they are probably behind me and ask if they see them to let them know that I’m just up ahead. Nice girls said yes.

When I get into Monmouth, and the bike path ended, I see a Burgerville. Good a stopping point as any. I sip on a strawberry-banana smoothie as I wait for the guys. And they did show up! It turns out they stopped like 3 or 4 times for berries! We headed on down to A&W and had some lunch. A nice worker there told us how her dad does weekend rides a bit and how it’s incredible that we could go three days. Don and I didn’t tell her that he’s biked to SF and I’ve biked to DC. Honestly, I have to say that biking for days on end is not *that* hard, so long as you pace yourself and you take the time to enjoy life. If you can do a week, you can do a whole summer. But don’t let anyone know I told you that, cuz like I said, I need to milk this thing for all it’s worth. My problem is that I’m lazy by nature, but once I’m out there, meeting new people, almost all of them friendly, man, it’s awe-inspiring.

So after lunch, we realize we only have about 20 miles to Corvallis, maybe one and a half hours. So we book it on down, get tired after 30 min, rest, and then take off again. We rest a lot. I think it’s good for us; keeps us hydrated and sane, and is the key to lasting a long time on the road for people who are out of shape like me.

When we get into Corvallis, we stop at a Rite-Aid, call Erik Haluzak to get directions, and have some nasty but not so nasty as this morning orange juice. It turns out that the annual daVinci Days festival in Corvallis is happening this weekend, so we biked through the festivities to get to Erik’s place. Actually, we stopped and took a bunch of photos and met up with one of Don’s friends by happenstance. Sam is a journalist and took a bunch of photos of us and we all chatted and whatnot.

When we finally made it to Erik’s place, he introduced us to his uncle, Charles, and his dad who’s visiting from CA. And yes, Erik is the guy whose dad makes recumbent frames! Small world. George and Don left to check out daVinci Days some more and Erik and relatives went for a bike ride. I’m done typing, for now anyway, and think I’ll take a little nap before George and Don get back and we go eat some din din.

George, Don, and I rode for the National Bicycle Greenway’s National Mayors’ Ride this year. This is the same organization that my brother and I rode for 3 years ago when we went across the country. Martin Krieg, the guy in charge of NBG, changed the format of the ride a couple years back to a relay ride instead of a trans-am ride to get more people involved and to get more cities involved. I was actually around last year, but didn’t even hear about the ride! Ah well…

So the leg that we participated in was just for 4 days, Portland to Eugene. This being a relay ride, someone named Rocky Brown rode from Boise to meet us in Portland, and we in turn were to “hand off the baton” to a guy named Skot in Eugene who would then go to Arcata, Chico, and Sacramento. The ride originated in DC in May or so and will end in Santa Cruz in August for some huge party which I think my brother will be attending since he’s doing SF to Santa Cruz.

Most of this post is copied from an email I sent Martin, but I’m embellishing it a little and adding photos as I go…

George and I left my place Friday morning, July 18, and met Don at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry since it is pretty close to the Hawthorne Bridge. We then biked across the bridge and when we got to the plaza where we were meeting everyone else, we noticed people protesting Ashcroft and the war. There were even a couple of topless women holding signs up (no photos, sorry). But we didn’t have time to dally, so we looked around and saw Dat, from Shift, Don’s friend, and a city transportation worker of some type, come running up to greet us. He told us where everyone was, so we headed over. At this point, my chain fell off; I fixed it later, but something to keep in mind if it happened again…

“Everyone” was us three (Mark, Don, and George), Dat, Kristine and a coworker, two parking enforcement officers, Andrew and Lisa Heckman, and Pat from TerraCycle. Kristine is also a transportations city person or something like that. The funny thing is this whole thing was slightly disorganized, so I’m not sure who all the city people represented… mayor’s office, transporation, what have you… Andrew Heckman is the guy who was riding last year for the Mayors’ Ride from Chicago to Des Moines when he was struck by an inattentive motorist and is now physically handicapped. Crazy story; the woman apparently still claims to this day that she didn’t hit him even tho there are visible dents in her car. Pat is a guy who builds bikes; I’m not sure how he was involved with the ride.

We were all wondering where Rocky was. Across the block, across the street, were some people setting up a podium at the steps of city hall. Basically we just spent the time (about 25 min) meeting each other and checking out each others’ rides. Andrew Morton, the guy who did the ride from PDX to Eugene last year, showed up around then, too, and fun was had by all. It was at this time when Pat noticed the completely broken chain-stay on Don’s bike. Uh-oh. But we didn’t have time to do anything about it since Rocky and his sister showed up at City Hall and biked over. We then made a little train, led by the bike parking people, over to the steps where some 20 people were crowded around waiting to see what happened.

When we reached the steps, we met Cynthia and Eileen, two more workers for the city, and Eileen told us what was happening. When everyone was gathered, she made a speech, and read the proclamation, followed by speeches by Andrew H and Rocky. Andrew is an amazing guy and his speech was well put, IMHO, lauding Portland for being bike friendly and stressing the idea of a Willamette Valley bike path to bring tourists and money into Oregon. He also talked about his accident and how he can cope with it thru positive thinking. Rocky is also amazing–not complaining about 108 degrees because last year he had to endure 118. Bejeezus, if I were them, I’d milk it for all it’s worth. Dirt Bag, Rocky’s pet rubber lizard that he found on the side of the road, is well, too. More info about this event has been written by Andrew and there’s even some photos! Dat also took lots of photos!

So after the speeches and the clapping and all that, Kristine shows us the box lunches they had prepared for the cyclists. The day before she called me and asked if there should be food, saying something like, “I don’t know if you guys want food or if we should provide food for something like this. I mean, I don’t know if you are on some type of training regimen or diet or something…” To which I replied, “Well, *I’ll* eat at least! Actually, the ride we are doing is really easy, so any kind of food should be fine.” And the food was indeed fine. Very nice actually: Paradise Bakery and whatnot. Don, George, and I had planned on leaving right then and there and to take our food with us before we found out about Don’s bike. So instead, we ate on the lawn of city hall, while Cynthia made some phone calls. This woman has some bicycling clout! Or should I say “grease”? She got a hold of Bike Gallery and they offered to lend Don a bike for the weekend. After we finished eating we all said good-bye to both Andrews, Lisa, Rocky, and his sis, and we rode with Dat to the Bike Gallery located on the other side of the city (the one on Sandy Blvd–Too bad they couldn’t find a bike at their downtown location!). I guess due to Don’s height, they didn’t have many bikes that would fit, so he got stuck with some carbon fibre USPS racing team Trek. Such is our luck. 🙂

Well, i’m assuming that mark and gwu are somewhere between pdx and eugene now on their silly mountain bikes (although gwu is riding my bike)! I hope you guys make it home safe.

Ben, that’s cool that you saw some pro players up close… did you get to see kobe in that hotel room?! hah..i’m sorry, i think that whole situation is kinda sad. don’t they teach you about things like that in nba boot camp?

Some of the things i’m going to write about are kinda ‘out dated’ but i have photos..so at least look at them and ignore my lack of writing skills.

So this first pic here shows how much pain i was in on that last lap around mt. tabor. i think at this point i was sucking in air so hard i thought my lungs were going to explode! our first lap was at that blistering 23mph which thankfully slowed down to around 20mph. so much for ‘climbing’ up hills…the pace was so fast it didn’t matter. Anyway, i don’t think i’ll be racing any time soon, unless of course some one pays me to do it..hah. i did appreciate having ben, gwu and of course diana there cheering me on.

Moving right along, i have some selected pics from mark and robin’s reception. this first one on the left shows how gwu was so anxious to play ball, he was willing to steal one from a poor unsuspecting toddler. The next one is of the cake cutting. unfortunately i don’t have a good pic of mark shoving cake in robin’s face. i thought that both did a great job on the reception and i hope mark will post more pics soon.

You know, i didn’t realized writing and adding images on this blog can be difficult at times. the formatting is kinda screwed up at times.

So moving right along, the next big thing for me was STP or seattle to portland. my brother and i had talked about doing this sometime last fall. in fact, i had convinced him to spend lots of money to build a new bike.

to keep a long story short, about 4000 miles later, we were both ready to finally take on STP. after months and months of riding, we felt that the ride should go well. actually in retrospect, i probably didn’t need to train that hard but i guess it was a good thing.

on friday (july 11th), we had a friend drive us up to seattle in our rented chevy trailblazer. i actually think brandon’s durango was bigger. but we basically needed a vehicle to take up two bikes. my brother and i spent the night at a UofW dorm room which was about the size of a closet. we were lucking at reed…let me tell you that. after having our last real meal at denny’s (lots of carbs in those pancakes)…the 5hrs of sleep we got were great.

the next morning ,we managed to start with the first wave of one day riders at 4:45am and headed out through the suburbs of seattle. about 5hrs later, we were already in centralia…our 100mile mark. not bad, we rode and impressive 20mph ave! this is something that we probably wouldn’t have been able to do if we were riding alone but the fact that there were hundreds of riders to draft with..it made things a lot easier..but dangerous at the same time…20 man pacelines are not fun!

i think the pic on the right was taken at around mile 120. yes, we are still smiling because we weren’t aware that we were going to get some headwind back into portland and also some rain. ya, my parents also managed to score some team malaysia jerseys not available to the public back home…cool!

the rest of the ride was pretty uneventful except for the flat tire my brother had along the way and the second one he noticed 2 miles into portland that he refused to fix! he was riding rim all the way to the finish line baby!

the second half did take a little longer due to the headwinds but we were feeling really good at the end and in fact dropped the group that we were riding with. at the last rest stop about 30miles from pdx, a lady noticed my brother’s jersey and told us that she lived in malaysia in 1976. turned out that she went to the same school we did, where my parents work and she even remembered them. i called my dad on the cellphone and he was amazed that we had met up with her. he did remember her and it turns out that she’s debbie armstrong who was a gold medalist in the winter olympics in the mid 80s! truly a small world.

we finally cruised into the finish line around 7pm for a total time of 14hrs with 11hrs of actual saddle time. our average was a good 18.1mph. my brother was pleased since he was planning for 12hrs of ride time but i think i was convinced that we could have done it in 10hrs. we did spend way too much time at the rest stops because of the group we were riding with. but that’s okay because i think that’s one of the reasons why we were strong the last 30miles to pdx. (i think i’m trying to wipe mud off my face from the rain)

in retrospect, i didn’t think the ride was extremely difficult since it was pretty flat. the temperature was bearable but the headwinds did slow us down a bit. i don’t know if i’d do it again because i’m realizing that i would rather ride faster for shorter distances than to hammer for 11hrs. if anyone wants to do it…mark (since you’re going to be up there next year), it would be fun to maybe do it in two days and have a party at the midway point. but again, if i feel like i’m riding stronger next year, i’d want to ride it in one day and try and break my record. you’d also have to ditch your mt. bike and get a real bike, mark!

yes, finally some confirmation. the ride route was suppose to be 206miles though.

after riding in 40 degree weather during the winter, doing a 10wk(6 days a week) training program for my century in May, and later doing 100miles for saturday rides…it was finally over! or was it…

I’ve just returned from a trip to the Pacific Northwest to attend Mark and Robin’s reception and see the gang. Here’s a lil blow-by-blow:

6-28-03: Arrive (two hours late due to an unexpected plane switch in Cincinnati; luckily we switched on the ground) in PDX around 1. George picks me up in the World’s Jankiest Truck, which I am thankful for. We spirit off to Mark and Robin’s (M&R’s hereafter), and are put to work 15 seconds after arrival threading beads. Mark is the fastest bead-slinger. I am the slowest. Such is life. Acquire taquitos at Jack in the Box. We played some Epic Duels with M, G, Mark’s friend Grey, and George’s friend Claire. George suffers his only defeat for the whole week after a brutal tag-team in a 2vs3 match. Install my version of Rise of Nations that evening and eventually get it running right (thanks Mark n Grey!). Amazingly, George and I leave at a reasonable hour to crash at the Reed Christian Pad.

6-29-03: Awake at 8 to go see Colin in his first bike race, 4 laps on Mt. Tabor. Colin gets cocky and attacks early but still finishes an impressive 4th. G runs off to speak with God and I take the bus across town with Diana, meeting Colin at their place (C&D’s hereafter), which is quite swanky, including two full living rooms (but only one with Grand Theft Auto, which oddly is the one we ended up in). Ben begins learning how to jack foolz and pop caps in their asses immediately. Brandon arrives in town early evening in the Most Valuable Vehicle (MVV), da Durango. We should have filmed a commercial and sent it to Dodge this weekend, cause we really got a chance to use it’s tasty SUV-ness. We even had the racially-balanced group of young people which is so important these days (they could have air-brushed my ass out and replaced me with a golden retriever or something). We all went off to a tasty Chinese dinner at Legann (SP?) on 82nd with a bunch of Mark’s peoples. George ate roughly 6 times as much as the rest of us combined, impressive several of the ladies in the process. I’m so proud of him, having found the ability to woo women by gorging himself. He’s come so far! Then off to Avalon with G, C, and Brandon. Brandon whooped all our asses in air hockey, a fact he made sure to remind us of over the subsequent seven days. A good time was had by all. Then back to the comfy confines of C&D’s for some more GTA and bullshitting.

6-30-03: Day of the reception!! We wake up late, hit off some more RoN and venture to Tigard to have it our way. Then more gaming and off to the reception when Colin and Diana get home from work (you poor guys!). The day turned out colder than predicted, but the reception was big fun with great food (especially the Middle Eastern stuff). We catch up with a bunch of people and play some volleyball (mostly poorly, cept for G and Mark’s friend Jeff, who is roughly 11 feet tall). Mark and Robin played off the cake cutting, but I kinda felt myself a little choked up nonetheless. It’s crazy how life works sometimes; I guess it’s just nice to celebrate people and relationships sometimes, and our group doesn’t seem to do that too often. It was good to have a little party, no matter how laid back. Due to the overestimation of the turnout, there is a LOT of leftover food, which is distributed among a bunch of people. Then back to C&D’s where George commences demolishing the Chinese and the BBQ leftovers. More RoN and GTA as well.

7-1-03: Wake late and game a little, then we hit the road and had some Mexican food near M&R’s at La Carreta (which Brandon probably regrets, ask him why). Then over to gather George’s and my stuff and Brandon offers to drop George at the SKI CABIN, so we hit the road in a hurry to Mt. Hood. On the way we sample G’s favorite music (read: Milli Vanilli, Paula Abdul, Whitesnake heh heh). The sun was low in the sky and the scenery was gorgeous! Definitely worth the trip. After a few minutes shooting the bull with Johnny, who was subbing for G, we hit the road. Destination: Seattle. During the 3-hour ride, Brandon actually remembers each car (4 of em) which passed us on the drive. You figure out what it means! Stop of at Denny’s for midnight breakfast and then on to Brandon’s casa downtown, which was quite nice if small and within walking distance of EVERYTHING. A bit of PS2 gaming and we crash, having to get up early the next day. We also see the worst set of pictures I’ve ever witnessed of what happens when you get bit by a spider and get necrosis (hint: it’s bad).

7-2-03: We wake up early to make an appointment across some frickin body of water in Bellevue, to take in the trusty Durango. From there, a cab to see the first showing of Terminator 3 at a nearby theater. I thought it was amusing, more funny and less action than T2 but worth it. We made friends with a cabbie after Brandon laid on the charm (it’s the Harry Potter thing, good conversation starter). I guess if you are a cabbie long enough, you eventually have to deliver a baby and who knows what else. Turns out the car we took in had no problem, so that was a waste. Lunch at a fusion Cajun/Irish place. Good food, but I mean, I’m just sick of all the Cajun/Irish places out there. Don’t people have any imagination? I learn the benefits of the minigun in Vice City, and we have Chinese for dinner (there Brandon, are you happy now that I told everyone?). I love Brandon’s place, there’s like 50 restaurants within 2 minutes of walking. Maybe it’s not a good thing, as for the next roughly 48 hours we didn’t do anything but bullshit, game, and watch movies (I saw 4! all of them i’d seen before! how dumb is that?!)

7-3-03: More useless gaming! Lunch @ Mexican (another bad move, MR. Bond!) and dinner @ Italian.

7-4-03: We go to a July 4th BBQ at Brandon’s apartment complex. Full of interesting young people with cool talents (i.e. a ten-year-old who asked people to throw plastic forks at him all night so he could test our his shield fashioned from a plastic platter…I actually got good at lobbing the forks OVER the D). I heard some cool hip-hop from some guys who are up on underground stuff, and hopefully will get a copy of a CD compliling stuff produced by Kayne West (if Brandon hooks me up, come on dawg). Finally get back after another Jack in the Box run around 2:30 and we decide to play and not sleep.

7-5-03: Wake up at 6:30 after an hour of sleep (train left early) and haul our asses to the train station, where I say farewell to Brandon. Sleep most of the ride and get into PDX at 11 AM. Roll over to Dharma’s pad where we catch up for several hours, with one trip to 23rd in NW for food at the Cameo Cafe (hotcakes the size of a pizza, I shit you not). I also procured some tasty treats at a bakery up there but then left em at D’s place. Hope you enjoyed it, Dharma! Early evening, I roll back to M&R’s on the 19. We hit up Dairy Queen for dinner (my first DQ dinner, woo!) and then go down to Belmont for another Avalon trip. After shooting the breeze with Dylan and Doug, we think better of nickling it and return to the pad for some RoN.

7-6-03: We had dinner at Thanh Thao’s with C&D, which was quite good. It’s too bad I didn’t get into TT’s more until after I left PDX. Then back to M&R’s for some Cranium, where I drew a bad-ass tennis racket blind. Unfortunately, George wasn’t feeling me and M&R carried the day.

7-7-03: Wake up late (notice a pattern?) and finally make the Chang’s pilgrimage (TM) for lunch: G, Mark, Scott, and I. The soy seemed a little weak but otherwise, it was quite happening. Adhering strictly to the one-garlic-scoop rule, we improvised. Mark and I disgraced ourselves by eating like just over 2 bowls between us, but G was on the ball with a solid first run and a double-bowl on the second. We had leftovers for dinner and watched “Shaolin Soccer” as well, which was SUPER funny. I think I might have to rent or buy it to see it again. An instant classic. We ate some leftovers for dinner and George cooked some food for a late-night snack. Then Mark and I dominated in Pictionary, Mark won a quick round of the Great Khan Game, and we made the mistake of staying up later to play some DungeonQuest. Basically, DungeonQuest consists of the following steps: you all pick a character (they’re all the same) and one “magic ring” (also, all the same). Then you wander into a randomly-generated dungeon, where you get bitten by flies, fall into spiked pit traps, spun around by rotating rooms, and eventually flung into a bottomless pit. The person who dies last is the winner, I guess…

7-8-03: Lunch at the hotcake house. My poor GI system is ill-equipped for that kind of thing these days. Then we trekked back to the pad for some online 3-player RoN with Brandon; we seemed to be getting a lot better, easily beating even numbers at tough-tougher. Aside from the intermittent crashes, these were some fun games. Hooked up some Teriyaki for dinner. That evening, an epic game of Talisman, with M and G (Scott had to work so he left early, his Samurai sitting dutifully in wait for him for the remainder of the game). In the end, I beat George to the punch by a single turn (lucky, cause he had been whooping my ass for several turns) and rolled a lucky ending, whereupon the dragon king ate my enemies.

7-9-03: Take the MAX to the airport on two hours sleep…get stuck on the runway in Cincy (AGAIN) in a massive LOUD thunderstorm, arrive at home just after 11. I read the entirety of PKD’s “The Man in the High Castle” over the course of the day. I still have to think more before I can describe the book. Nevertheless, it was quite riveting.

Thanks everyone for big fun! If Mark has some pictorial depictions from his new camera of anything I talked about above, I welcome him to post em or send em to me so I can include them. I’m trying to become a blog-picture-whore like Melhus.

Mark & Robin: I hope that your wedding reception was a success on Monday! I’m sorry that I couldn’t be there to hang out with you guys. I hope that Schrag honored my absence with several misplaced comments in poor taste, as that’s what I would have done. I also have to ask (based on last week’s posts) how many cars Woo-Hah tried to “borrow” over the weekend to help people out, perhaps he could have served as the valet (a la Ferris Bueller, no doubt).

KT and I celebrated in our own way (yesterday) by spending the day at Six Flags New England in “glorious” western Massachusetts. It was a pretty nice day, and we spent just over 9 hours at the park. We mostly stuck to roller coasters (KT’s favorite), but we also spent a few hours at the water park (my favorite). Here’s what we rode, in order:

• Flashback (not a good ride to “warm-up” on)
• Cyclone (I like these old wooden coasters, they’re kind)
• Blizzard River (longest line of the day)
• Thunderbolt (another wooden coaster, but smaller)
• Scream (200 ft. straight up, then down. Terrifying.)
• Mind Eraser (the picture at right says it all)
• Batman (just kept my eyes closed, focused on survival)

.sixflags.com/parks/newengland/rides/superman.asp”>Superman after all that physical and emotional abuse, plus it was after 9:00 pm and the line was pretty long. Of course, it’s supposedly one of the best rollercoasters in the country, but I’m sure that the person that believes that is also comfortable taking a 208 ft. drop at 80 mph. I am not.

Everybody….

Grill meister.

Don’t look!

Food is yummy to eat.

Guess who’s home?

Who brought this guy?

The Zboard, by ideazon, is a keyboard which takes interchangeable key layouts for different applications. The review sample I received* is a base keyboard with a Windows/IE interface. The ideazon rep also sent key layouts for Photoshop, Medal of Honor, and Age of Mythology.

“What the heck am I talking about?” you ask. Basically, the Zboard is just like a regular keyboard with a few exceptions:

1. It features some special keys above the F-keys; one launches media player, another IE, there’s mute and other audio controls, etc. This feature appears on some other keyboards from Logitech and the like.
2. There’s nice labels on some of the keys to let you know what those keys do in combination with the control or windows key. For example, the “W” key also has “Close” silk-screened on it letting you know that if you Control-W you’ll close the current window or document. Handy feature.
3. The biggest feature, the keys can be removed and replaced with another set of keys featuring different hot-keys or key combinations for use with specific applications. The Photoshop interface, for example, features tons of keyboard short-cuts for many of the image manipulation tools you can use. Furthermore, each interface does not have to follow the traditional QWERTY layout. This is most evident with the Medal of Honor interface where the whole left side has been replaced with movement keys and the QWERTY alphabet has been shifted over to the right. Pretty neat.

Check out this demo!

So, how does it work?

Basically, each interface has a chip in it which tells the base which layout has been installed and what each key does. Additionally, some software which came with it on a CD lets you program the special keys at the top and I’m guessing hooks each layout with a specific application like Medal of Honor.

And how *well* does it work?

I’m typing up this review with the basic Windows/IE interface. The keys are harder to push than the ones on my old keyboard which is making my hands tire out faster. This also makes it harder for me to capitalize as sometimes I’m not pressing the shift key down far enough apparently. Still, the handyness of knowing what all the hot-keys are and the usefulness of the top row of special keys is a very nice feature.

When I first saw the Zboard at the Game Developer’s Conference last March, I saw the Medal of Honor layout and assumed one could use that interface with any FPS by just reprogramming the FPS using the game’s in-game settings. Currently, I’m playing Splinter Cell and so tried it out. Unfortunately, it seems, the MoH layout will only work with MoH! I’ll try it with some other FPS games in the future so might amend this statement later, but, if this is the case, it’s not exactly useful for me since I stopped playing MoH months ago. I haven’t tried the Age of Mythology interface with one of the RTS games I have, but I don’t have AoM, so if it only works with that game, I won’t even be able to try it out! IMO, this greatly diminishes the attractiveness of the Zboard since most of the hard-core gamers I know go through like a game a month. To expect them to pay for a new interface for each game I think is asking for too much.

Since I couldn’t get the MoH interface to work with Splinter Cell, I switched back to the standard IE interface and played with that. That’s when I encountered something buggy. It seems that you can’t hold down one button and then hold down another and have the first button continue to register reliably. This, of course, happens all the time with an FPS–hold down W to move forward, then hold down D to sidestep while continuing to move forward, then let go of D but not W. Sometimes I would stop moving forward. Sometimes, even worse, I would continue to move sideways like the key was stuck. When I noticed this I thought it odd. When an enemy saw me because I stepped out of the shadows, I switched back to my old $7 keyboard! Not a good recommendation!

The Zboard as a training tool for the working world, however, might be where this product has the most promise. Photoshop has new features every time a new version comes out, but the standard functions will always be there. And when I say standard, I mean like oh… a hundred or so commands. To have a handy way of accessing those commands without having to wade through the drop down menus is of great benefit. If you’re even just a casual Photoshop user, getting the Zboard and the Photoshop interface might be money well spent. I have not yet had time to check out this set-up and will post an update as soon as I do!

*on behalf of OMSI who are currently revamping the tech hall and are trying out different human-computer interfaces to demo on the floor. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear keyboards are a good interface to demo unsupervised since they allow visitors to do pretty much whatever they want with the computer…

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Aight… So we went out drinking with my boy Mark one night. You might remember Mark as the dude that can’t keep his eyes open. Yup. That’s him there, with his eyes closed. Typical. Anyway, we were all psyched to watch the T’Wolves get some revenge on the Lakers, but the Lakers beat the pants off of them. Oh well.

We had a few beers. We took a few pictures. A good time was had by all, except that we almost missed the last train home! Whoops.

This picture is kinda sideways —->

Jenny thought that she looked cute in my Kapalua visor, but I think it was the Curious George shirt that brought the cuteness. Although, it was a little awkward when Mark tried to collect data from the little guy. Oh yeah, did you notice that Lara is rocking a Canada hat? Bet you didn’t.

I don’t know what the thing in the bottom corner is, but it sure looks bright. Maybe that’s why Mark’s eyes are closed… Then again, maybe not.

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Later in the week, we went to the Mass Ave for some breakfast. The usual + bacon for this special occasion.

How about a toast? white or wheat…

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I was really busy this week, and didn’t get to hang out too much with these crazy girls. They went to various places. Saw certain things. For example: this tree.

I think that they were fond of trees, because they made another friend with this blooming young fella:

So, I had a lot of crazy meetings this week (7-11 pm two nights in a row!). The girls decided to grab Katie and have a good old time in the North End without me. Is that rude, or just really smart?

They had dinner at some Italian joint, and then loaded up on Cannoli’s from Mike’s pastries.

Wow. Boston looks pretty good at night…

Then it was time to go home and pig out. They are so lucky they didn’t spill any cannoli on my new couch!

Grils just love dessert.

Amazingly, they saved one for me.

It was good.