Ten years ago, my brother Max and I rode our bicycles across the US, starting from Portland and ending up in Washington, D.C. We were sponsored by the National Bicycle Greenway, and we kept a travel log of our trip, back before wordpress, blogspot, etc. existed. We’d write our posts on our little handheld PCs and then hand code the markup necessary to apply styles. These were then ftped onto a website that was hosted by my employer, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, which popped them into a pre-made template using Cold Fusion. An archive of the site can be found on my permanent domain (Max and Mark’s Excellent Adventure). The actual trip was from June 1 to August 29, 2000; we took a leisurely ride lasting the whole summer, hitting as many kitschy, touristy stops as we could along the way, staying a week in Chicago with our cousin Leo and his wife Stacy, etc.
I thought, since it’s been ten years, it’d be nice to resyndicate our travel log, so I’ll be posting our original posts into this blog, exactly ten years after the fact. I’ve missed the start date already, though, so I’ll have to backdate those posts. I plan to live vicariously through my past self. 🙂
This is my recap of the past few days. Oregon is allergy central. Since arriving in Portland I’ve had asthma, a rash, and severe nasal congestion. But it sure is green and beautiful. The past few days have been sunny and hot. Skin crisping hot. Plus not starting to ride until noon isn’t that smart either. Damn we are lazy bastards. My burn was made even worse by wearing a t-shirt the next day and getting my forearms fire engine red.
The fairgrounds in Rickreall was the pits anyway. It was no loss that they didn’t allow non RV’s.
Corvallis, home of da Vinci Days (pumpkin cannons and kinetic sculpture races), is full of weirdos on recumbent bikes. Very educated community with delicious goth chicks to boot. The burritos were 13″ long and only $4.50! Bike shops to this place is like Starbucks to Seattle. Eric (Erik?) Haluzak (Hazuluk? Haluzuk?) from Peak Sports let us crash at his uncle’s house. His stepdad builds bents down in Santa Rosa. Erik was biking up one summer, got an injury, collapsed at this uncle’s doorstep, fell in love, and never left Corvallis (except to tour).
Brian the house bike dude was an earmuff wearing dreadlock loon, but hella cool. He plans to start selling a line of geosite (maybe the name is not quite right) mobile bikes – complete with bathrooms and dinettes. How could he wear earmuffs in 85 degree weather? I bet he’s got tiny ears like me.
So now we are in Eugene. I thought there was going to be a large group leaving from Paul’s Bicycle Way of Life but it turns out that it’s just me, my brother, and two others arriving Tuesday via Green Tortoise. Paul is actually shacking us up at his beautiful contemporary but cozy house in the hills. Hot showers, futons, strawberry lemonade, free internet connection, damn these past three days we’ve been spoiled. We’ve decided to stay for a day to try and get a hold of the Tuesday group. Eugene has a great bike path system, complete with a scale model of the entire solar system. Pluto is hella far dude. The sun and gravity seen in a new light. Paul gave us the grand bike tour. We went to two of his shops and the Center for Alternative Transport. CAT makes all sorts of bikes, especially recumbents and cargo bikes. By sheer luck, Jan (pronounced yawn) was there to show us around. They do some great stuff with youth and community.
Paul started the bike business on a five dollar bet. He started teaching at Urbana-Champagne because his wife was there. I’ve come to realize that many people don’t really have plans for their lives. Or that women basically run men’s lives.
Yesterday we dropped by Bike Friday and I got fitted. Michael showed us around the manufacturing floor and explained the Bike Friday philosophy. That’s three bike manufacturers in three days! Cool beans. I’m kind of looking for a folding bike, but I think a grand is a bit much. I saw numerous chainless bikes today. One Dutch and two Chinese ripoffs. Maybe I’ll just wait until I get to Shanghai and get a junker.
Tomorrow the biking begins in earnest with the first day of climbing the Cascades.
I should have heeded Mike more when he told me about male numbness. I tried 4 saddles in two weeks and decided that I liked my original hard-as-rocks one. But I change it out for an even harder one… the one supposedly most used in the Tour de France. I should have stuck with my original, but I don’t know if it would have helped any. I now know what it feels like to touch someone else’s maleness. Mine was so numb that I had lost all feeling. Looks like Max would have to carry on the Chen legacy.
We had hurriedly packed on the morning of our departure. By the time we were ready it was noon and we joked about delaying for a day. We then discussed our route out of Portland and decided that the Hawthorne Bridge would be tons better than the Ross Island or Sellwood. Felt kinda foolish passing OMSI again after I’ve already said all my good-byes (minus a few people – bye!). So we didn’t stop, but I saw Laura and Kemble walking across the bridge during lunchtime.
Max suffers from congestion.
By the time we got to our halfway point it was 3 pm. (We filled up our water bottles at this one restaurant which featured a 3 lb. burger!) We didn’t take the route we had originally planned (219 down to 99W) and instead got on 99W right away. We got to Rickreall, our first stop of the trip, around 8 pm. Our map from Adventure Cycling showed that there was camping available at the Polk Fairgrounds, and a call before we left confirmed that we could pitch a tent for $8. When we got there, however, they said RVs only. The person we had talked to on the phone was no longer there. We went to a restaurant down the street and ate and asked about campgrounds or motels nearby. They told us that they’ve seen people camp next door! Oh well… New rule or racism? You decide. The restaurant people then told us that we could stay in a motel in Dallas which is 4 miles west of Rickreall. Let me tell you, 4 miles in a car is nothing. By bike, it’s usually not bad at all. After 8 hours of nothing but pedaling (with a few breaks – lunch, dinner, etc.), 4 miles is hardcore.
We made it to a Best Western and convinced the attendant that it was good karma to let us bring our bikes in. Their spa is excellent! Lessened the pain in my wrists and lower back. My numbness was slowly going away, too, but even on the next morning I still couldn’t feel anything on the top part. I adjusted my saddle, bought a back support thing from Walmart, and we were off at 11 am.
We are in Corvallis now and a kind guy, Eric, at Peak Sports has offered to let us pitch a tent in the backyard of a house he’s housesitting. I got a Specialized saddle, one of those groove ones, just about the only kind I hadn’t yet tried, and I think it’s helping!
Bike-E
We visited Bike-E since Max owns one, and they gave us a tour of their facilities. They are the nicest guys! Gave us baseball caps even! I think my next bike is going to be a Bike-E.
big ass burritos!
On the way to Bike-E we stopped at an awesome Mexican place called Tacos Uruapan. The biggest burrito I’ve ever seen, and believe me, I’ve seen some doozies.
After Bike-E, we stopped at a cafe and met this other guy on a house-bike! The most incredible thing I’ve ever seen on two wheels! This guy, Brian, built a 20 foot house on two wheels. Granted the house part is the size of a two-man tent, but it was still incredible! All styrofoam and aluminum. He had a moped wheel in front and a Nissan wheel in back. The front wheel was attached to a generator which recharged a battery. When he needed to, he could flip a switch and the whole thing would be motorized. He claims to have gone 73 miles an hour on this thing! He’s been living out of this house-bike for 5 years now, and this is his 13th model (the last one burned up in a fire). Absolutely amazing!
We met up with Eric, his wife, Christine, and their friends, Jason and Denise at the house and brought some food for a bbq. These guys are super friendly. They plan on a cross-country trip next year to Maine, too! Christine made a lovely apple pie for dessert… 🙂
Max’s log – To actually pinpoint a specific event or date when my expedition began is quite difficult. I moved out of my SF apartment May 1st, I quit work May 5th, I went soapbox derby racing, and my heart had a short roller coaster ride the whole time. I actually left the Bay Area via a Green Tortoise bus ride on May 15th to Portland, Oregon. It definately was an experience to share a sleeper bus with 38 other people and three large dogs. The Cow Creek campground was replete with a geodesic dome, a warm fire, yummy breakfast, a sauna, a freezing cold river, and unfortunately, enough poison oak to make me look like Phantom of the Opera for one week. I’ll probably still go back.
In the meantime I’ve been wandering Portland, working on this webpage, and reading. Mission Impossible 2 is the epitome of John Woo. Fun Fun. The 27-29th were the HPV and electric vehicle races here in Portland. There were a handfull of recumbent afficionados plus electric go carts that enlightened these jaded engineering eyes to new uses for duct tape.
We leave tomorrow. I don’t think the weather will favor us though.
BBQ party; Mark’s co-workers; work that grill, Carolee!
[Ed note: First, I know this is ranty. Generally, I love my friends and family. I accept you for who you are and what you believe. More than that; if you’ve found power and agency and motivation in those beliefs, that’s awesome. Just try not to force those beliefs on me.]
I’ve long believed that the world needs to be made a better place. People need to be kind to each other, help each other out, actively not fuck each other over. It’s not enough to live and let live. Instead, we need to fight oppression and injustice.
And I’ve also long thought that it doesn’t really matter what an individual’s motivation is to do good, only that they actually do it. That is to say, if someone’s being kind to their neighbor because they believe a higher power compels them to, whatever; that’s cool.
Religion, though, has been used to justify many things over the centuries. Christianity and other religions have been invoked to do great injustices in the form of overt violence to nonbelievers. It’s also been more subtly used to maintain social order and control populations.
But, again, I don’t care so much if the faithful are blind to their oppression, so long as they are good people. I can buy the use of religion as a motivator to make the world a better place.
A gigantic problem is that using a faith-based belief system to motivate acts of kindness comes with a huge brainwashed side-effect. That is, in order to get people to be just to each other, the religion has had to convince them that there’s a payoff at the end, and that the only way to get that payoff is to subscribe to the religious beliefs.
This is a problem because people like Robin’s siblings then seriously think Robin and I are going to Hell because we don’t believe. It doesn’t matter that we’ve devoted our lives to be awesome people who care about others, the environment, global and local social justice, etc. All that matters is that we don’t believe.
And the majorly problematic bit about this is that they then feel the drive to spread the word and try to convert us. Robin called it hella annoying. I call it oppression. It means that their God is, at the extreme, vindictive and spiteful, and, at the least, enacting a colonialist, outsider power play. “I’ll forgive you of your sins, and you can join me here in Heaven, so long as you play by my rules, don’t critique the social order, and cede all power to me.” Yeah, that’s not going to work for me.
And all that doesn’t even consider all the fucking ridiculous rules. No homosexuals, no control of our own bodies, no eating pork on a Tuesday, no figure skating with leotards. In other words, I guess there’s two main problems: 1. that they need to spread their beliefs to sustain their cult, and 2. that some of those beliefs are fucked up. Really. Fucked up.
As a side note, a big fat irony in all this is that we–us heathen atheists–seem to be more tolerant than believers of a faith that compels them to be good. Our sense of social justice, squarely grounded in the idea that *this is it, this is the world we have and we better make it livable*, is more focused on being good than theirs, since they’re sidetracked with replicating their meme.
So, I guess what I’m saying is that I’m starting to doubt whether it’s wise to be so tolerant of people who aren’t reciprocal in their tolerance. Why do they have to spend so much energy in acts of control and less in doing good?
And I fully realize that I’m generalizing. No, I don’t know the history of religions as well as I probably should. No, I don’t know all the different flavors of Christianity, and I know that some people of the faith believe in a benign God and don’t need to proselytize. But sometimes, man, it’s just a pain in the ass.
Aaron shared F_CK SH_T STACK, a video by Reggie Watts, last week that perfectly sums up postmodern existence for me. It’s extremely NSFW, but I think its irreverence opens up a space to start to criticizing how we live and maybe take the fucking huge fucking poles outta our fucking asses and finally just relax.
It’s kind of a clusterf*ck isn’t it? A crapshoot, a messy affair, a disorganized, archaic, completely in-line with academic processes affair.
First, there’s the fact that the jobs get posted a year in advance, so PhD students are applying for positions by hyping up their dissertations before the dissertations are actually finished. If this goes well, they may give job talks about aspects of their work, which seems slightly bizarre since, again, the dissertations aren’t quite all done, yet, so preparing and writing about them takes away from actually finishing them.
Second, though I say the jobs are all posted a year in advance, it’s actually much more messy than that. Some places post in August, some in October, job postings just keep trickling in. It’s almost February, and I’m still applying to new postings. This causes all sorts of anxiety. What if a place wants to interview me or, worse, wants me to make a decision before I hear back from another place? The reaction I tend to get is, “eh. That’s how it is.” Why are we settling for this?? We live in an age where simple technological tools could be used to streamline and aggregate large chunks of data. There ought to be a better way for jobs to get announced.
Third, some postings are formalities. The search committee already knows who they’re going to hire. What a waste of time for people thinking they have a chance.
Fourth, some postings are canceled a few weeks or months later. Budget cuts suck.
Fifth, not all the apps want the same things. Well, this is fine since I’m tailoring each letter anyway, but sometimes vague terms are used for what the app materials include. What’s the difference between “evidence of teaching effectiveness” and a “teaching statement?”
Sixth, letters of recommendation are bizarre things, too. Two of my letter writers asked me to write the first draft of the letter. Presumably they go in and add their tweaks, etc. but damn.. it is odd writing about yourself pretending to be your prof, made more complicated when the prof has an existing relationship with whomever is on the search committee. Do I write in a formal voice or be slightly less formal than usual since they know each other?
Seventh, oh my god, I pity anyone who is also applying to non-academic jobs. I recently applied to a job at Google and I *think* my apps were okay, but I’m so embedded in academia, it’s hard for me to judge whether the cover letter or resume was appropriate.
Eighth, though I prob should have made this the first thing, there’s no one place where jobs get posted. I basically have five different sources: The Chronicle of Higher Ed, Higher Ed Jobs, and three mailing lists. Hearing about post-doc positions is even worse.
Ninth, not all places let you know your status in the process. I got a rejection letter from one place, a rejection email from another, a rejection by word of mouth rumor from yet another. I was told I was on the short list at one place months ago and nothing since then. It’s all sort of varied. I assume I was rejected by other places and maybe am in the running for others that I just don’t know about.
Lastly, all this obfuscation is made worse when you consider that many places are still influenced heavily by sponsorship and social networks. Who you know and how well you can get in people’s faces matters a hell of a lot.
As I walk pass the bicycles locked near the law building, I keep a look out for a hybrid with a suspension stem. My old bike before moving up to Seattle for graduate school (back in 2003) had the same suspension stem, and it was of note because they’re pretty rare. The bike I remember was the one I used while bicycling across the country 10 years ago with my brother. (I plan on republishing our blog with commentary over this summer so that each entry from our bike trip is posted exactly 10 years later.) I put it together myself, bought all the components separately, etc. Alas, that bike got stolen about two weeks before we moved up here. 🙁
When I first started school again, I took a class in museology at the Burke Museum. On the way back from there to Miller Hall, where the college of ed lives, is the then new law building and the then new bike racks. That first year, that bike with the suspension stem was always there. I don’t really expect to see it ever again, but… every time I walk past those racks, I look for that bike and wonder who the owner was.
I figure I’d start off this year with a massive list of games I’ve played recently and then post individual game reviews as I play them. Also, for the new year, I’m going to try to endeavor to think more critically and reflectively about the games I play. But here’s a non-critical list of the games I remember playing in the last two months of 2009:
PC
Torchlight– level 35 or so, finished main quest. Fun Diablo clone with great art. Not sure it has legs, but it’s good for when you need a 30 min wind-down diversion.
Dragon Age: Origins – twice, on third iteration now. Google for reviews. I can’t really add anything more other than to say that it has very strong introductory chapters for the different origin stories you can choose for your character, drags a little in the middle (massing an army can be tedious), and has a relatively short end-game (what we’d get that army for again?), but all in all, classic Bioware and a triumphant return of deep(ish) party dialog. Looking forward to community mods.
Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon – I bought this game years ago but it never installed on my various computers I’ve owned over the last few years. Buggy install is a bitch. I saw it on Steam 2 weeks ago and figured I’d give it another shot. It worked! and it’s a pretty good game. Odd Tomb Raider-esque ledge climbing given its pedigree (the first two were point-n-click 2D adventure games), but they didn’t really bother me. The art did take a turn backwards though when they moved to blocky 3D. I played Broken Sword 4 a couple of years ago and remember it being much prettier.
Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy– Yes, I’m a sucker for Nancy Drew games. They’re all generally the same with not much innovation between iterations, but that lets them pound out… what two dozen games? in the last few years. Kinda like trashy romance novels.
Mirror’s Edge– the first-person pakour game that came out a year or so ago. Most games I play are at least a year old so I can afford them… But anyway, yes, this game was fun. Shortish. Captivating music. The cutscenes were done in cool Samurai Jack-esque cutout-esque artwork. It was frustrating a few times, but overall good. Racing game combined with platformer combined with FPS. Neat.
DS
Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes – Best DS game of 2009 for me. Though, admittedly, I haven’t played GTA or the new Zelda. Essentially, a puzzle game with RPG elements. Engaged me more than Puzzle Quest did.
Broken Sword 1: Shadow of the Templars – haven’t quite finished it yet. Just as good as I remember from playing it years ago when it first came out and then replaying it a couple of years ago on the PC. For some reason, Nico’s apartment as a sort of home base works really well and is missing from the later games in the series. Also, being able to talk about everything to everyone and get (mostly) unique dialog is pretty cool. The DS version adds some nice 2nd-screen portrait close-ups when talking with NPCs but the small main screen makes seeing the various environment elements a little harder, though they tried to make up for it by making things highlight when you touch the screen with your stylus. I bet the Wii version is great, so go buy it if you have a Wii!
Xbox 360
Fable II – Got this pretty much right after I (finally) bought an Xbox 360 in November. I think I liked the original Fable more. The morality system was pretty meaningless since it didn’t affect the story at all, just your character’s visuals.
Lego Batman– Playing with Robin. We aren’t done, yet. It’s fun. 🙂
various incarnations of Rock Band – Fun as always. The main reason we got an Xbox 360, actually. Well, that and the fact that it hooks up nicely to my home network and Windows Media Center.
Forza Motorsport 3 – When we get a house and a dedicated home theater room some day (I want to take you to a monster-free city), I’ll be getting a racing chair and a wheel to go with whatever version of Forza exists then… It is sooo beautiful. Damage modeling, too!
Wii
New Super Mario Bros.– Haven’t actually gotten to play it much, but I like it. The kids we sometimes hang out with like it.
Wii Sports Resort – borrowed from Steve. I spent a few hours just flying around. 🙂 Sword fighting is fun.
Wii Fit Plus – We had to rearrange our office to make enough room between the couch and TV for the Wii balance board. Now that we’ve set it up, we’ve used it maybe once a week, which is better than sitting on our asses all the time. Pretty fun so far, actually.
I’ve decided to post really quick reviews of each game I play.
The thing is, I’ve been replaying some older games and realizing how much of them I’ve forgotten, and then I have a tiny moment of panic about how ephemeral my experiences with these games are–a tiny existential crisis ensues. Do I play the games because life is nihilistic and I should just fill it with personally engaging experiences, or do I try to contribute something to the societal world–games culture and academic progress? And then I figure, well, it won’t take much time to write at least a one-line review of the things I’m playing.
Part of the hesitation, though, is also the fact that I play *a lot* of games. A LOT. It’s kind of frightening, actually, given that I’m trying to finish the dissertation and apply for jobs and do academic stuff at the same time. So, there’s a bit of shame or guilt involved, too.
But talking with Theresa, another student at the college of ed who also studies games and learning, has convinced me that knowledge about games is part of my academic identity. I’ve come to be known as “the games guy” in my department, and that label or position has definitely given me some cultural capital that I’ve been able to ply into various opportunities within academia, if only by giving me confidence in myself by seeing that others value my knowledge.
The positioning, though, is kind of strange since I don’t think I’ve done all that much to cultivate it. It seems like I can contribute to it and make it productive while also justifying all the game playing if only I shared my thoughts about these games, and thus, my new year’s resolution is to write about each game I play.
Or maybe I’m just trying to make an obsession have some sort of extrinsic value…
