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koffkoffkoff
Nov. 23rd, 2009 09:51 amWhat a weekend, etc. My brain is still full of mucus from a cold, so I'm staying home today. But let me tell you briefly about the weekend, or what I can remember of it at the moment.
Friday morning, I got motivated to finally move the giant manure pile that was in the patio into the back garden. Now we will be able to use the patio again, without having to sit around a big manure pile. I mean, it wasn't smelly or anything, but it would make conversations kind of awkward. Then I went in to the lab and did a bit of tidying up, and ran a few errands, etc. Then I clambered into the lab truck, packed up some belongings, picked up![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scrottie, and drove down to Tucson for an insect conference (called Hexapodium, heh). I can say this now - amazingly enough, I did not have any car-related drama while in Tucson! Anyway, the meeting went well - we got there 20 minutes early, which was a relief because I thought we were 10 minutes late. The talks were relatively interesting and relevant for my research, and they fed us a nice, big dinner at the end. I also got to see my friend Do, who started work as a postdoc this fall and has been busy remodeling her house. I can only begin to imagine what a massive undertaking it has been.
After all that, I got a phone call and various messages from friends, and learned that P was waiting for us at the Tour de Tucson convention center, whereas R and J were still up in Tempe because R was still working. So the Extreme Picnickers were down to three, instead of the original six. C'est la vie, I suppose. So P, S, and I headed over to my friend W's house for the rest of the evening. W is a friend of mine who graduated from ASU a couple of years ago. When I first visited ASU, W took me to see the rowing programs on the lake, and coincidentally introduced me to the ceramics program. Those were pretty important factors in my decision to go to ASU.
Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early so we could grab some breakfast and head over to the start of El Tour de Tucson. While we were dressing, S happened to discover a tutu that belonged to W. W was still asleep, but I assured S that she wouldn't mind too terribly if he happened to borrow the tutu for the bike ride, and so he put it on.
The ride - oh, where to begin? We drove down close to the starting line and parked. We spent a few extra minutes getting organized, applying Chamois Butt'r, packing the picnic basket, etc. Then we rode over towards the starting line. As it turned out, we found the very tail end of the starting line a mere two blocks from where we parked. Eventually, the massive horde started to move forward, and we were underway with the ride.
My goal this year was to do the ride as a race, to see how fast I could go while riding a steel-framed mountain bike with a fully loaded picnic basket. So soon after we got underway, we started to weave through the riders in our push to move forward. I have to tell you that this was probably the first and last time that I'll race. I just have a better time if I'm traveling at a comfortable speed and don't feel like I have to hustle through the stops. Seven hours and thirty-eight minutes of hustling is a really long time to be pushing myself. But I'm glad I did it. We got a lot of comments and heckling from the bicyclists around us, many of whom wanted to know if S had lost a bet.
It was close to three o'clock by the time we reached the finish line. We lost track of P relatively early in the race, but found him again at the end (he fell behind when he stopped for a bathroom break, and then rode past us at some later point). After a brief celebratory picnic, we headed back to W's house to shower, and then returned to the finish line to meet up with Do, DM, and Da, who had gone for a run. Right before we found them, we ran into L, and then K, who had been completing the 67-mile ride. Jeez, this is getting confusing, even for me. L had made it about 30 miles before she felt that she had to call it quits - the first couple of miles involved some pretty intense hills. K decided to stick with it, and managed to pass 98 riders as she finished the remaining 37 miles. She looked like she was still feeling good and strong by the finish, which was more than I could say. It sounds like she's going to be totally ready to go for the ride down to Tucson and back in January.
What else? Well, there was dinner at a fantastic restaurant on 4th Ave, then dessert at a fun spot out on Grant and Craycroft, then we were ready to sack out for the night. In the morning, S and I found a sweet coffeeshop for breakfast, and then wandered around and spent too much money on souveniers. It turns out that there are some good spots to go shopping in Tucson, which I hadn't discovered previously. By "good spots to go shopping," I'm referring to an independent bookstore, a grocery co-op (bulk spices and shampoo, hooray!), Native SEED/SEARCH (more gardening materials, hooray!), and some of those little boutique-type places that carry things like earrings and pendants made out of car wreckage. Eventually, S and I tore ourselves away from it all and drove back up to Tempe.
That wasn't the end of the bicycle-related fun. In the evening, TBAG held its annual membership meeting, where we plotted and schemed about projects to make bicycling more awesome in the Phoenix area. I introduced people to the Phoenix Bike Guide idea, and gathered some useful tips and ideas. We also discussed how to make more bicycle-related art happen in Tempe, and formulated some plans for that. I hope we are able to carry through.
Friday morning, I got motivated to finally move the giant manure pile that was in the patio into the back garden. Now we will be able to use the patio again, without having to sit around a big manure pile. I mean, it wasn't smelly or anything, but it would make conversations kind of awkward. Then I went in to the lab and did a bit of tidying up, and ran a few errands, etc. Then I clambered into the lab truck, packed up some belongings, picked up
scrottie, and drove down to Tucson for an insect conference (called Hexapodium, heh). I can say this now - amazingly enough, I did not have any car-related drama while in Tucson! Anyway, the meeting went well - we got there 20 minutes early, which was a relief because I thought we were 10 minutes late. The talks were relatively interesting and relevant for my research, and they fed us a nice, big dinner at the end. I also got to see my friend Do, who started work as a postdoc this fall and has been busy remodeling her house. I can only begin to imagine what a massive undertaking it has been.After all that, I got a phone call and various messages from friends, and learned that P was waiting for us at the Tour de Tucson convention center, whereas R and J were still up in Tempe because R was still working. So the Extreme Picnickers were down to three, instead of the original six. C'est la vie, I suppose. So P, S, and I headed over to my friend W's house for the rest of the evening. W is a friend of mine who graduated from ASU a couple of years ago. When I first visited ASU, W took me to see the rowing programs on the lake, and coincidentally introduced me to the ceramics program. Those were pretty important factors in my decision to go to ASU.
Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early so we could grab some breakfast and head over to the start of El Tour de Tucson. While we were dressing, S happened to discover a tutu that belonged to W. W was still asleep, but I assured S that she wouldn't mind too terribly if he happened to borrow the tutu for the bike ride, and so he put it on.
The ride - oh, where to begin? We drove down close to the starting line and parked. We spent a few extra minutes getting organized, applying Chamois Butt'r, packing the picnic basket, etc. Then we rode over towards the starting line. As it turned out, we found the very tail end of the starting line a mere two blocks from where we parked. Eventually, the massive horde started to move forward, and we were underway with the ride.
My goal this year was to do the ride as a race, to see how fast I could go while riding a steel-framed mountain bike with a fully loaded picnic basket. So soon after we got underway, we started to weave through the riders in our push to move forward. I have to tell you that this was probably the first and last time that I'll race. I just have a better time if I'm traveling at a comfortable speed and don't feel like I have to hustle through the stops. Seven hours and thirty-eight minutes of hustling is a really long time to be pushing myself. But I'm glad I did it. We got a lot of comments and heckling from the bicyclists around us, many of whom wanted to know if S had lost a bet.
It was close to three o'clock by the time we reached the finish line. We lost track of P relatively early in the race, but found him again at the end (he fell behind when he stopped for a bathroom break, and then rode past us at some later point). After a brief celebratory picnic, we headed back to W's house to shower, and then returned to the finish line to meet up with Do, DM, and Da, who had gone for a run. Right before we found them, we ran into L, and then K, who had been completing the 67-mile ride. Jeez, this is getting confusing, even for me. L had made it about 30 miles before she felt that she had to call it quits - the first couple of miles involved some pretty intense hills. K decided to stick with it, and managed to pass 98 riders as she finished the remaining 37 miles. She looked like she was still feeling good and strong by the finish, which was more than I could say. It sounds like she's going to be totally ready to go for the ride down to Tucson and back in January.
What else? Well, there was dinner at a fantastic restaurant on 4th Ave, then dessert at a fun spot out on Grant and Craycroft, then we were ready to sack out for the night. In the morning, S and I found a sweet coffeeshop for breakfast, and then wandered around and spent too much money on souveniers. It turns out that there are some good spots to go shopping in Tucson, which I hadn't discovered previously. By "good spots to go shopping," I'm referring to an independent bookstore, a grocery co-op (bulk spices and shampoo, hooray!), Native SEED/SEARCH (more gardening materials, hooray!), and some of those little boutique-type places that carry things like earrings and pendants made out of car wreckage. Eventually, S and I tore ourselves away from it all and drove back up to Tempe.
That wasn't the end of the bicycle-related fun. In the evening, TBAG held its annual membership meeting, where we plotted and schemed about projects to make bicycling more awesome in the Phoenix area. I introduced people to the Phoenix Bike Guide idea, and gathered some useful tips and ideas. We also discussed how to make more bicycle-related art happen in Tempe, and formulated some plans for that. I hope we are able to carry through.
