Saturday, September 22, 2001

Impetus Ailuropoda Melanoleuca

Sigh - No longer worried, just wondering why she hasn't returned my e-mail message from last week. At least I'm free from entertaining the darker imaginings, now I just have to wonder why I haven't heard from her in over a week.

I did go riding this morning, but didn't see anyone that I knew so I did the trail by myself. The good news is that I cleaned a small hill that has always given me trouble, but the big hill in the middle still daunts me. (It's a lot of up and down on this trail.) Definitely could use some front suspension, going down some of the hills at speed is a little nerve-racking and bone-jostling with a rigid frame bike. Only took me 40 minutes to traverse the shortest route around the lake (including stopping to pump some air into my front tire halfway through). Had to take the bike back to the bike shop and get a new front tire and tube put on (the tire was about 6 or 8 yrs old and isn't protecting the tube from flats, must have picked up a stone on Friday night's ride cause the tube was flat on Saturday morning and had a slow leak).

(For thos curious about the quote... PvP - Impetus Ailuropoda Melanoleuca)

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 5:57 PM

Friday, September 21, 2001

The Evening Wander

Greetings friends, I haven't wandered too far this evening. Just been sitting and thinking, and trying not to think about other things.

Good news! I got my car back from the dealer today and they replaced the front brake rotors. (The same rotors that they ground last Friday because the brakes were shuddering when I used them, and then they started making funny noises early this week.) So my car is back on the road and I'm happy. I got zero hassle when I went in Thursday evening; got a loaner, left my car. Even less hassle when I stopped in this afternoon to pick it up (I was in and out in 10 minutes). Everything has been covered under a warranty so far, so my wallet is very happy.

Went for a short ride this evening. Needed to get the endorphins flowing again. Wasn't a great ride (only 60 minutes, 13 miles), I wasn't feeling like I was ready to burn up the trail; but hopefully a warm-up for tomorrow morning. What's that you say, do I have a special ride planned tomorrow? Why yes I do! I'm finally going to try to link up with the GenX riders from LWCC because they're supposed to be riding a trail that I know around 9:30am on Sat morning (which is a good time for me to ride). It will be interesting to see if I know anyone because I don't know who will be there. If I don't know anyone, then I'll just pretend to be another solitary rider on the trails and do my own circuit. Maybe there will be opportunities to meet someone tomorrow morning.

Finished prepping for the fall riding season (I think). I've got a few long-sleeve jerseys, a wind vest, a rain-proof riding jacket, full-finger gloves (that fit), and a pair of leg warmers and a head-covering-thingy on order. I'm planning on riding until it gets down to the freezing mark (last week it was in the 40s overnight, so riding 1st thing in the morning was brisk). My design for riding gear is lots of layers, I even have a few sleeveless undershirts that are wicking-type fabric, so I can have 4 or 5 layers easy (including the vest and the jacket, and maybe wearing a short-sleeve jersey under a long-sleeve jersey, along with the undershirt). Heck, it'll be more fun getting ready to ride than going riding, neh? (Bike gear has a built-in cool factor.) Still waiting for the new handlebars to come in (also going to add bar-ends) to help with getting the handlebars higher so that I don't put so much weight on my hands when I ride for distance.

So what am I trying not to think about? What else, but wondering where the gal that I've been courting for the past few weeks has gotten to. Hopefully, my card arrived at her place today and either she'll give me a ring, or someone who reads it will give me a ring if she's unable to. So many scenarios to try to explain this that I've come up with, and most of them involve horrible accidents (I have a morbid imagination running on overdrive some days). I really hope she just went on vacation and forgot to tell me, or got sent out of town on business (being in the insurance industry). I may try to call her sometime tomorrow only once or twice, but I won't leave another message until at least Tuesday of next week. Gonna let the card do some lifting for a bit. This would be so much easier if I just knew that I had been dumped (that would be information); living in zero-information-void is getting tiresome. But we don't know any common friends or anyone else who knows both of us, so there are very few channels that I can use to find out what's happened (if anything). sigh, maybe I'll get resolution this weekend.

On another front, I gave someone a hint that I'd enjoy if they called me, but all I got back was a phone message (I wasn't home) indicating that all was well and that she'd see me at church on Sunday (didn't sound like an invitation to call her back). sigh Either there's no interest there, or my hints are inscrutable. Might have to make the hints a little more definite in a few weeks (still waiting to see what happens on the other front). Of course, tomorrow another opportunity might drop in my lap (tomorrow is another day).

I'm not worried about not being attractive anymore; actually I think I'm an okay looking geek. I feel like it's more important to concentrate on getting fit, making myself more attractive and feel better about myself rather than do the searching first and get fit afterwards. So I feel like I'm improving for myself rather than to please a specific other person. (Okay, that's all clear as mud, I'm sure.) I've still got issues that I'm working on, but the majority of my life is under control or moving quickly in a positive direction that I have a friend who says that it's "their loss" whenever I talk about someone not working out. So even though I've been depressed all week, I'm still feeling a little afterglow of the manic mode that I've been in for a few months. Even if I'm not dating, I refuse to get depressed and let myself become a fat slob. (I still think of myself as fat, even though I've lost almost 40 lbs. But that's because I was obese before, now I'm just overweight. It's my short stocky legs and my fat around the waist that makes me feel fat.)

So while I struggle to figure out what I want to do with myself this weekend because it looks like I don't have any dates to look forward to now; I guess I'll have to just go riding a lot this weekend.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 10:13 PM

Six options beyond war and peace

Reason magazine - Six options beyond war and peace discusses 6 ways of dealing with the WTC disaster:

1. The Gandhi Option
2. The Kojak Option
3. The Bronson Option
4. The Bugs Bunny Option
5. The Caesar Option
6. The Strangelove Option

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 10:28 AM

Archive Pages

How do I make the archive pages so pretty? Well, if you look closely, you'll notice that they're about 3 weeks out of date which should be the clue that they are hand-coded (gasp!)...

It's a bit of work (about 5-10 minutes per week), but it does look very nice, neh?

Guess I'll work on that too while my DSL is out...

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 8:48 AM

Stuck on Dial-Up

What do you mean that I have to dial up?

SIGH... looks like the house got hit by lightning last night when I wasn't home (or at least it struck the phone line). Came home to a network hub lit up like a Christmas tree and a DSL modem that was dark and without power. So far it looks like I've only lost the DSL modem, the hub, and my answering machine for the business line ... so I got off lucky. Everything else was behind a surge protector (I just didn't have the phone line surge-protected like I used to), or the spike didn't come in via the power line. Guess I'll have to reconsider how I have things routed and wired (and go back to using a surge protector for the phone line too).

Verizon says I might get the replacement modem on Saturday morning (I get special service because it's a business DSL line), or might be as late as Monday morning (via UPS red).

Gee I hope my bike is fixed today so that I can go riding and work off some stress this weekend.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 8:45 AM

Tuesday, September 18, 2001

Ford Focus ZX3 Pictures

Hey, pictures from my trip! I've decided that my car always looks like it's ready to play (check the 3rd picture in).



posted by Wuphon's Reach at 3:56 PM

Call Me Circumspect

My brother accuses me of being paranoid when I say "use a pseudonym in your web logs"; okay, maybe not so harsh, but that's probably what he's thinking. Actually, it's not that bad because you'll see that I use the occasional first name here and there. I would definitely never use a full name unless it was that of a public figure because there's enough personal information in here already (those in the know will know who's web log this is, the rest of the world should have to guess). So I take back what I said to him earlier about making up pseudonyms for his friends and people that he mentions, that's probably overkill as long as he sticks to first names or nicknames.

There's a fine line that gets walked because sometimes when you mention someone, the entry may not be specifically about them but is only being used to get a point across, but they may eventually read it (always a chance). So how specific do you be, and how paranoid do you be about them eventually reading it. I try to walk the "no gossip" line, meaning if I wasn't part of a situation I really shouldn't blog about it and I try not to comment on other people's lives (except in general), and I stick to espousing my own opinions about my life.

And all that's probably about as clear as mud... (I'm not in a clear-thinking mood today).

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 3:23 PM

Paint Me Fat

On the flip side, uncertainty like this makes me anxious, which makes me depressed, which means that I tend to munch on comfort foods like pizza, chocolate mini-donuts, chips-n-salsa, cheese cubes. I've been munching since Sunday...

I wish I could have gone riding this afternoon, but I put my bike in the shop at lunchtime to get a flat tire fixed and to get a taller handlebar installed (too much weight on my palms is causing my hands to fall asleep so I need to change my position to get the weight off of the hands). That's been my usual battle method against feeling depressed and just sitting around the house getting the munchies (even if it doesn't cure the munchies, I feel healthier and I'll usually make better food choices when I get back from riding). I thought about going down to the local gym and joining up, but wasn't motivated enough to do it.

I figure I will end up joining a gym this fall/winter, once it gets too nutzo to go bike riding (that means snow on the ground or temperatures below 32F or sleeting/snowing). I've finally gotten my rain jacket for bike riding (bright red and waterproof) and I've got another few long-sleeve jerseys, full-finger gloves, ear-band for around my head, and a sleeveless wind vest on order to keep me warm enough to ride down to around 40F. So I'm not afraid of going riding in the cold weather, I just need to be dressed for it. On the plus side, the trails will be a lot emptier as it gets colder (maybe I'll meet someone who's as in to it as I am). As it gets colder, I'll make adjustments to my wardrobe and buy heavier gear if needed.

Time to go see what else in the fridge is calling my name (I'm going to try to choose fruit).

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 12:55 AM

Monday, September 17, 2001

Weight Loss - Successful Losers

CNN's Health has a pair of good articles this week...

Obesity rise weighing on U.S. health - This article tells us what most of us already know about the US population. I've already chosen to no longer be one of those 40 million obese americans.

The skinny on losing, keeping weight off - This is a really good article that talks about being a "successful loser". The best line in the article is "You have to take a change of attitude where you assume responsibility for your weight". People always pooh-pooh their efforts at losing weight because they say they'll just gain it back (and with that sort of attitude, you usually will), the good news is that they say that after 3-5 years of keeping the weight off you're likely to keep it off. It all boils down to changing your lifestyle, not changing your weight.


posted by Wuphon's Reach at 9:17 AM

Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund Drives

Well, Yahoo has raised about $11 million but Amazon.com's system was crashed most of yesterday. The latest total for Amazon.com's drive is $5.8 million ($37.87 per donor).

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 7:19 AM

Sunday, September 16, 2001

Killing Time

Such a nice weekend and I didn't do half of the things that I thought that I'd be doing this weekend (like go on a date or get in a bike ride today). Well, the bike ride I'm going to fit in tomorrow evening, and the date situation will clear itself up in a week or two (maybe it's time to start browsing again).

On the plus side, I did track down an old friend today and we're going to get together and do something Tuesday evening.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 7:15 PM