Even in Kyoto

There have been some rather blunt reminders recently as to why I've backed off on involvement with certain forms of bike advocacy in the area.

For one example, today was supposed to be Bike to Work Day, except it's scheduled as a Press Op, and boy do I ever feel like a Token whenever I've tried to show up for it. It starts at 8:30 am, when many people need to already be at work, and it involves traveling on a dusted-off bike within a fleet of Bike Police some short distance over to a podium where some words can get said about things but little actually ever changes on the ground.

And due to the rainy forecast, it got postponed to next Friday anyway.

Yes, I biked to work, like I do every day. I am celebrating with a cup of tea at my desk.

For a second example, there are some people in this area who are working pretty hard to forge broader connections and community among bicyclists. Then there are people who refuse to do anything other than the very particular way they've determined is the Only Way things can get done. You can make a wild guess about the primary demographic that behaves in that manner, and your guess is very likely correct, because this has been a longstanding Known Issue within cycling advocacy, and was in fact part of the reason why our Arizona advocacy organization got started - there was an opportunity to create something more inclusive, and people did.

There are times when it sucks to live in a place and have to think, things could be so much better here, but this obstinacy is getting in the way.

But on the other hand, the bike valet is a thing I can do and help out with. So I'll keep doing that.

The cats have been "helping" me get things done today.

Martha was fascinated by the spinning bike wheel as I trued it:


Meanwhile...

Are you familiar with the acronym PEBKAC?




It stands for "Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Computer." It's generally used to refer to situations where the issue isn't so much the computer itself as it is the user of said computer.

Anyway, George is rather PEBKAC.



Here's his recent favorite snuggle spot:




He is easily offended if I dare to do anything other than just sit there, providing warmth and a nice snuggle spot.

These are mostly from campus, but also my garden.

The internet tells me this is a Japanese Kwanzan Double Blossom Cherry. Anyway, here it is shortly before blooming:



And then bloom'd:


This year I was also really struck by the beauty of this stand of trees, which I believe are all crabapples:


There are a couple of redbuds tucked behind the crabapples, which I also really enjoy this time of year.



Meanwhile, in the garden, the Useless Rhubarbs are going wild.


If they could talk, I'm sure they'd say, "The better to propagate, my dear." But c'mon, rhubarbs, you have one job, and that job is to make delicious juicy stalks! Harumph.

Meanwhile, the rest of the bed is full of strawberry flowers, which will more happily turn into delicious strawberries at some point.



To celebrate this season of flowers, I'm having a beverage made with Creme de Violette. And also with some of the gin that a cousin gave to me like 5 or 6 years ago. And with one of the precious Meyer lemons my sister sent to me. My stockpile is dwindling but I'll enjoy every last one of 'em!

I might not get to articulate things for another day or two, however, because it's Finals Season and I'm playing catch-up on everything. To wit, the house did not get vacuumed this week but we're just going to live with it.

Anyway - 300k done, in 16 hours.

Just prior I finally read the Renee Hearse treatise on supple tires, and now I want to experiment on that front.

I am also thinking I need to change up Froinlavin's gearing, but I don't pay too much attention to gearing so I have some work to do there.

I have a lot of bike maintenance I need to catch up on in the near future.

The short version of the 300k: We started in Westfield, MA, dipped down into Connecticut, then turned noses north and rode up into southern Vermont, then back south to Westfield. It was a Phenology ride: Connecticut was in full bloom - dogwoods, lilacs, redbuds, still some cherries, some daffodils, tulips, phlox, everything in all those beautiful shades of bloom and green.

There were places in Massachusetts captured right at that stage where the fiddleheads were just barely beginning to leaf out. Fairy tale landscape and I regret I didn't pause for one particularly beautiful moment to take a photo but the image will live on in my head.

The hillsides in Vermont were still the gray of late winter/early spring, certain things just barely starting to leaf out.

Parts of the ride were somewhat surprisingly remote, but I guess that's a good thing to have learned about the northern Berkshires.

My hip and back are still pretty creaky today.

I missed my chance to look at the Housatonic Tunnel!! I need to learn more about that.

I think I lost my cycling gloves at the finish line, sigh. I need to modify the next pair so they are less Stealth and more Obviously Mine.

Route URL, photos to follow later: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/380962991

Better go to work now...

I've decided that it should be an annual tradition for me to gather up all my research ducklings for an end-of-year lab celebration. Conveniently, we have a day dedicated to research presentations, so we're going to just use one of the hours for our celebration.

In an ideal world I would have the bandwidth to make the festive drinks and snacks myself. Looking at my calendar for this week, I had to unfortunately conclude that I would need to resign myself to going to a conventional grocery store to obtain premade festive drinks and snacks.

Dear reader, the sticker shock. My usual grocery shopping habits involve purchasing ingredients in bulk from the grocery co-op. The co-op actually works really hard to keep prices down, with an awareness that everybody needs to eat and not everybody is rolling in the dough. Also, bulk raw ingredients and locally-sourced produce are inherently going to be less expensive than anything created and marketed by a middleman.

Somehow I was most amazed by the prices for a bag of chips, easily pushing upwards of $5-6/bag now. All told I still went ahead with my purchase of festive snacks and drinks, but, wow. Guess I'd better not develop a chip-eating habit anytime soon. More than anything, the unevenness of the price hikes fascinates me.

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Right now I'm in the midst of a supply ordering frenzy at work, and a supply ordering frenzy for miscellanea for the rowing club. It's a hectic double-whammy. You might be surprised to learn that rowing our carbon-fiber and fiberglass rowing shells out on a river full of fishing boats and logs results in damage to said vessels. At present it seems the rate of damage is outpacing the rate at which we can carry out repairs, particularly in cases where we have to order specialty replacement parts, sigh.

The ordering frenzy at work is always stressful. I have to sort out which of the various expensive instruments I might possibly be able to afford to replace, then go through whatever rigamarole is involved in getting a quote, sending it to the right person, et cetera et cetera. Right now I'm at the stage of just replacing all the consumables in need of replacement, which I need to do before I will have a sense of what else I can afford.

I'm also going to need to do additional parts management for my Bicycling class fleet, as mentioned previously. For that aspect I don't yet know whether I will be able to pay for things through work, or whether I need to set up a side hustle. The parts aren't going to be insanely expensive, but on the other hand, just on principle I don't really want to join the legion of teachers who pay for supplies out-of-pocket.

Oh, and then there's thinking about what field supplies we might want and need for the summer.

Yeah. Whee.

1. The spokes on Frodo's rear wheel almost reached the point of being dangerously loose. I'm going to have to spend some quality time with the truing stand now, sigh. At least I caught it in time? Maybe?

2. I tried riding Princess TinyBike to the Empire State Museum this past Saturday, but the dyno hub is making some really horrible shrieking noises that make me think some saltwater managed to work its way into the exceptionally well-sealed cartridge bearings, sigh. You might be amazed/horrified by how far the saltwater from winter riding can work itself into things. It's really bad, really.

3. Today during Bicycling class (~10 students total):
-Bent gear in the middle of a cassette (??!!)
-Pedal fell off - no idea how that worked loose, it re-threaded back on just fine, at least (whew, not stripped).
-A second bike whereupon the rear wheel ate the derailleur, like it does.

...I definitely need to come up with a fundraising/funding scheme for general management of the Bicycling fleet. Also, the helmet-wearing resistance of this cohort is obnoxiously bad.
Was sunny and warm better than last Monday's snow flurries? Or just different?

4. Planning for a Bike Valet at Albany's annual Tulip Fest is well underway. I hope some other people sign up to help run the valet with me? I need to ply people with food and drinks, but not alcohol, at least not directly at the event itself.

The old couple who owned this house for decades planted flowers everywhere. Those are their snowdrops that come up first thing in spring. (pictured earlier this year)

They also planted grape hyacinths through the lawn:



The hyacinths last up until the guy hired by the landlord comes by and starts the annual lawnmowing.

Useless Rhubarb update:


I have two varieties of tulips:


Some are Teeny Tiny Tulips, you can see a teeny tiny white flower from one of them in the above photo.

I don't think I'm going to get many flowers from the larger tulips this year. Plus, the bunny rabbits do love to snip off the flowers. If I had bunny rabbit teeth, I'd probably enjoy snipping off the tulip flowers, too. I don't know what kind of soil amendments the tulips like.

Next to the Teeny Tiny Tulips are some blooming violets. The side yard lawn has a number of violets embedded in it, too.

The violets all made me think about the Creme de Violette liqueur I obtained several years ago, so I also mixed up an Aviation cocktail for myself this afternoon.

Gin is strong, and I think that's why I wound up spilling chopped garlic all over the kitchen floor while cooking today's soup. On the other hand, cooking while tipsy is pleasant.

I thought I had signed up to go rowing this morning, but then I had one of those mornings where I had insomnia through the night up until the hour before the alarm went off. When I went to check what the consequences would be of dropping out, I discovered I hadn't signed up after all! Whew, off the hook!

But was I able to fall asleep again after that? No, of course not.

So I got up to start working on the hundred things that were on my mind waking me up all night. Namely, dealing with all sorts of Stuff and Things and Projects.

In that regard, I did a bunch of work rearranging various bits of rowing stuff. Well, to begin with, I finally ordered and received another batch of rare earth magnets, so I could finish the project of gluing magnets onto rowing trophy plaques, as seen here, with George for scale (and for aesthetic reasons, naturally):



The plaques got loaded into the pictured yellow-lidded storage bin, carted over to the boathouse, and installed. I'm so DONE with the plaques that I didn't even take an updated photo of the trophy wall.

( more on the boathouse adventures... )

Last lab of the semester yesterday. The students enjoyed the crayfish tremendously, a reminder of why I go to such great lengths.

I tend to experience insomnia in the spring, which I suspect is mostly due to allergies. When it struck this morning, I went ahead and got up to go to the optional Wednesday strength training practice with rowing teammates. After all, exercise can really help with anxiety.

There are just a lot of loose ends to tie up: Getting us in lecture to where we'll actually finish out our course topics for the semester; ordering supplies needed; fixing a bike from the Bicycling class so a student can get back out on it; watering the ants and checking the crickets; meeting with research students; setting up the lab for the lab practical next Tuesday; et cetera.

High-octane life can't go on indefinitely.

Because Cat News is the Best News.

Here's a carpenter bee that got stuck on the front porch on Thursday:



The cats were quite interested in it.



I released the bee back outside shortly after this video, and it flew off.

Part of the reason George is keen for Catio time is that he loves hunting and chasing things out there. Here he is with his favorite stick:



This video can give you a sense about how much he LOVES to chase this stick, except imagine this video is about 10 times as long and the chasing and pouncing are even more ferociously cute:



In fact, he loves his stick so much that when I tossed it into the basement to try and get him to go back indoors, he jumped back through the catio door into the basement, and, well, see for yourself:



Hilariously, if I keep George out of the catio and just let Martha out, she loves the exact same stick game. I think they like being able to chase and pounce on the grass since it's softer than many of our indoor surfaces.

Meanwhile, here's the part of the catio where George has been making his more recent escapes:



I tried wedging those pieces of wood between the pole and the side of the house, but (a) they're going to fall out, and (b) George just climbed up onto that window ledge on the side of the porch and then climbed over all my handiwork.

So that whole corner is just going to need to get redone, but that isn't something I'm going to manage to get to right now. But clearly it's something that needs to get done, based on how much the cats appreciate their outdoors time.