I just suffered a strong sense of cognative dissonance this morning reading David Byrne wax poetic on Justin Timberlake's Madison Square Garden concert [about 2/3 of the way down, "JT on HBO"]. I would have assumed . . . Well, I would have assumed that he was as closed-minded as I am.

Sure, I could write it off as simply one artist's appreciation for the craft execution of another. But that would miss an important lesson here: one of the things I admire and respect about Byrne is the gusto with which he tries new things!

As an artist, it benefits him greatly to be able to embace the new. But the same could be said for all of us as human beings.

I should go back and count the number of times I've written this entry in one form or another. On the other hand, it would probably just depress me.

I have a whole bunch of entries rolling around in my head (and opening my blog stash file I found a few more), friends have posted things that I'd very much like to reply to, but as of yet, none of that has happened. The trouble is, I generally only write such things on the train anymore, and though I head for the train with the best of intentions ("Yeah! I'm going to write THAT entry when I get there!") by the time I get on the train, nothing could be further from my desire at that moment. The same is pretty much true now, but let's see if I can get any of them done now.

Edit: This was actually written yesterday morning, just to show that I still suck.

. . . I'm a bad conservationist. And a terrible ambassador.

I broke a spoke on my touring (& commuter) bike last the previous Thursday. Since I'm lazy, I haven't fixed it yet. Since I'm lazy and incredibly busy, I tried to take it to someone to do it for me (they were closed), but that's not what makes me a bad person.[*]. It just means that I spent some time this weekend (finally!) getting my Stumpjumper into a ridable state, and I've been commuting on that.

Yesterday (Thursday) morning I contemplated making up for slothish behavior earlier in the week by getting off the train in Menlo Park and riding in from there, but I wimped out, since I was going to be riding back to Palo Alto for games at Matt's house.

. . . Then fate handed me a second chance. There was a fatality in Mountain View, we were held at Menlo Park with no idication how long it would be.

I set out with the intent of riding through the Baylands & Shoreline.

Last night I found myself marveling: at the fact that I'd (we'd) finally moved to the city, at the fact that it allowed me to be quite a bit more social than I normally was, but mostly at the fact that I was wandering drunk down Market St. toward 8th, where I'd pick up the bus to take me home, at 10pm on a Monday night thoroughly enjoying the sensation, at least in part because I didn't have far to go.

I'd just come from Hotel B[*]...something, a shishi wine bar where I'd met up with Salim and, coincidentally, Aram, and just spent a lovely few hours.

The other source of my amusement was something I'd put together before, but I don't think I'd shared it here: alcohol tolerance is a function of (among other things) body mass. My own tolerance has gone down perceptibly now that there is 24% less of me. I'm becoming a cheaper date. I never remember that up front. That's what I get for drinking so much wine on an empty stomach.

[*] Every time I try to remember the name of the bar I think "Hotel Baronni" as in Baron Greenback's yes-man Stiletto's "Si, Baronni", and start giggling. It's actually Hôtel Biron.

Note: This was actually written last week, but there were issues posting it. I should also compose a wrap-up of this weekend (and perhaps I will on the train)

[...It would appear that this has devolved into a recap of the weekend. C'est la vie. At least it's something.]

I've gone and done it again. I've withdrawn from the outside world. I've had a few entries rolling around in my head for a while now. They fall into major and minor categories. The major ones I'll continue procrastinating for a while longer, as they'll take much longer to get out (though I may hammer on one or two of them some more after I finish here).

That leaves the minor (minutæ) entries of no import. I've collected them all into one entry to make them easier to ignore. They themselves fall into a few broad subcategories.

My ride to the train station was HOT today. Plus, I'd left myself little alternative than to sprint the whole way. Into a nasty headwind. Again. I am very fortunate that the trains have air-conditioning.

Friday took its sweet-assed time getting here. Next week looks to be more of a bitch than this week, one thing in particular that I'll probably kvetch about later.

But as the miles unfold between myself and Sunnyvale, my stress level unwinds. I'll be home soon. I get to see my sweetie (haven't really been awake at the same time for the last 48hrs) We have a full weekend ahead of us, but it's all things we've been anticipating for a while.

It's good that I have this time to unwind.

The commute hasn't been as nice to me this week. In general the bike cars have been full when they arrive at 22nd St. I also realized this week that the new style (which I thought were great) bike cars HALVE the space for bikes. When the weather was crappy they were running two bike cars on the baby bullets I was taking. Now that it's gotten nice and everybody & their brother is riding their bike (and the gas prices continue to to climb above $3/gal.) there is only one. I know this is a coincidence, but it's rather aggavating.

The culmination of this state of affairs was yesterday when I missed TWO back-to-back baby bullets! (8:04 & 8:16). The next train didn't stop at 22nd St., and the train following (which I got on) that didn't stop at either Mountain View or Sunnyvale! (I briefly contemplated riding in from Santa Clara, but I was already over an HOUR behind where I started)

After that fiasco, I have very begrudgingly decided to give up my ~3 minute, barrel-down-the-hill morning commute, and ride to 4th & King. (I'll still get off @ 22nd St. in the evening). That commute was one of the reasons I looked at living on Potrero Hill. But our house is still awesome, and the view is still crazy. I'm glad we didn't compromise. It's just annoying to get up earlier to ride longer for a train that leaves earlier. But it's much more likely to guarantee me a spot.

This morning I left at 7:30 to give me plenty of time to test ride my newly configured touring bike (another post coming later) and make the 7:59 departure early enough that wouldn't be blocked. I arrived at 7:40, and the doors weren't open yet for the 7:59. No other bikes around. Perfect. As they were closing the doors on the 7:43 (a limited local), I noticed it arrived at Mountain View a just few minutes earlier than the 7:59. I snuck on, and am now arriving California Avenue. I've debated getting off at San Antonio, to ride on the Baylands trails. (My old commute to work!)

A few days ago I noticed that my rear tire was flat as I left to catch the train home. As it turned out, it wasn't the kind of thing that a new tube or a patch would fix. I've had these tires for many years, I've repaired more minor issues, and I've probably put at least few hundred miles on them. It's time to retire them. I don't have spare tires, and for some reason I've put off ordering more since this happened.

So for the past few days I've been riding my mountain bike to work. There are definite advantages to doing that: my trip down to the train in the morning is even more of a joy, since I don't have to dodge the various cracks & small holes in the pavement, and can just bomb down the hill. AND I finally rode home to my door the day before yesterday. Lower gearing ratio was key there. Yes, I have a triple on my road (touring) bike. It's not low enough. I'm lame. This should not be news.

But on the far end, the ride to work is much more annoying. I'm constantly upshifting, or trying to. "What, that can't be it?!?" My cruising speed feels anemic and pushing to my top speed feels like a joke!

On the plus side, in the last day or so I think I finally broke through the next fitness plateau. It might be the mountain bike vs. the road bike, but I think the first day of riding the mountain bike was just as much of a struggle as the previous days on the road bike. Today and yesterday, it was much, MUCH easier.

Another bonus: with my new schedule, I just got home. But that's a post for another time.

In a fit of "fuck it" this weekend, I pushed the redesign of my personal website live. It replaces a design that is just shy of 9 years old.

I was very pleased with this design when I mocked it up. The whole thing came together in just over 24 hours of hyper-creativity some time in early December (I think). It's only the second time a design of mine has suffered the translation out of my head more or less in tact. (my mom's site (while it still remains) being the other.)

The trouble is that it's taken quite a while to implement it, the vast majority of that time spent beating my blog into shape, and trying to cram all the blog navigation onto the page. I'm not done (the archives box on the left should not be fixed, but I need to figure out how to correctly unfix a descendant of a fixed container in a fluid design, it ends up relative to the parent, which is on the right. (I may break down and break it out into it's own container, but that breaks the logical flow of the (unrendered) page).

Adding to that, somewhere around the middle of my working on this, Salim pointed me at this post about "slugs". Unfortunately, I think our version of MT predates the "keywords" field, but it got me thinking about my whole blog archive structure, and I spent a fair bit of time redesigning that, which meant I needed to figure out the best way to expose the new structure in breadcrumbs.

Right before I pushed it live, I wrote a quick perl script to go through the database, pull out the entries and categories, and write out Apache .htaccess (permenant) Redirect commands, so that in the vanishingly small chance that someone actually reads my blog (or, more accurately, finds it in a search engine) the old links will continue to work. I'm actually a bit proud of that, even though it was easy.

After staring at it for so long, I've come to the conclusion that I hate the new design, I hate it's whole aesthetic raison d'être. But I also realize that it's light-years better than the 9 year old design. So rather than start this process all over again (for the third time, at least), I'm just going to make it live, and in theory, the new XHTML nature of the pages will make changing the design a snap. (Yay! separation of content from formatting! We've reached 1997!) Once I've built up enough energy to take a stab at it, that is.

Not so good this morning. I missed not one, but two trains looking for my %$#@%$ing shoes. This is why I hate cleaning up. The next train didn't stop at 22nd St, so I booked it to 4th & King. I made it with plenty of time, so at least that was good.

A bunch of bikes got on with me, carried by too-cool-for-it-all hipsters (Including one who could very well be Jen Besemer's doppelgänger except that she's, you know, outside). I asked them all where they were going. Need I say? Palo Alto. So it also goes without saying that they took up 4 different racks (half of the total), in spite of going less than half the distance this train is travelling. And the doppelgänger gave me the "oh, puhleeze" look when I suggested she double up with one of the other two.

Sure enough, the crowd that arrives just before the train leaves just got here, and they're forced to move bikes around in the back because the 4 up front are for Palo Alto. GRN. Situational awareness, people! It's NOT THAT HARD! (yes, yes, kettle, meet pot. So if I'm complaining about it, it has to be bad.)

And yes, for those who were about to ask, I HAVE had breakfast already.

Update: Doppelgänger is now having a very loud cellphone conversation. The voice is wrong. But maybe it'd get closer if I shoved that phone up her ASS!

Yesterday hit me harder than it has in recent years. I ended up stepping out of the office and just bawling for while. This lead to a catharsis stronger than I have felt in a VERY long time.

It also posed a bit of a dilemma. I realized that sitting home in the dark, sipping Oban might be a perfect way to remember him, but it probably wasn't the best thing for my mental state at the moment. But at 4:50, I was going to have a hard time finding some way to avoid doing that. Especially without a vehicle in the South Bay.

Fortunately, Salim, Jim, & Dawn were going out to dinner to celebrate Jim's new job and they invited me along. Synchronicity was with me as I somehow managed to make every connection from VTA (I think the driver waited for me) to Caltrain to Muni to Muni. I wasn't sure if I'd mention my own reason for seeking social interaction, and as it turned out, it never really came up.

We went to Magnolia (Haight & Masonic) I'd been there for beer before, and always liked it. I don't know how I never looked at the menu! Everything looked fantastic!

In the end, I had a very nice evening out with good friends. I can think of few better way to remember the dearly departed.

Oh, and I got DRENCHED on my way back home.

Here's to my little brother. He's never far from my thoughts.

Update: I just got mail (sent yesterday) from Yojo (stealthymonkey) that said (among other things):

You forgot a really fucking bad date. Not a really fucking awesome person.

please remember that.

She always has had an uncanny ability to put things in perspective. Thanks, dear!

It's been a grueling few weeks for the little guy. First, I took all of his stuff away. Then I moved him in the middle of the night to a new place. A place with very different (and in a few cases, disturbing) smells and sights. He was just getting comfortable in this new place when I pulled the biggest whoppers of them all. Nothing could have prepared him for the last 48 hours.

First, after several days of getting used to weird smells, he had a "viewing." He saw one of the reasons for the change in the strange smells. One of the closed doors to one of the rooms opened a crack and there was ANOTHER CAT! There was growling and a bit of hissing, and some puffing, but then it was over. Except now he new the terrible secret about that room.

AND THEN, yesterday, he went back into the box, back into the car, and onto a cold table at the Vee-Eee-Tee. She poked and prodded him in all his no-no places (BADTOUCH!BADTOUCH!NOMEANSNO!) and then he got Ess-Aych-Oh-Tee-Ess! He was a very brave boy, but was very happy to be back in the weird, new place after that. Even if one of the rooms might be infested with weird animals.

Also written started on the train!

It would appear that I didn't take the 9:04 Baby Bullet yesterday. While they have started staggering the stops at which the 3xx trains stop, none of the southbound trains in morning (nor the northbound in the evening) have been staggered to stop at Sunnyvale. (The opposite configurations both have, *grumble*)

I guess the local express was running late, because I arrived after it should have left. The trouble was that there was a train pulling in just as I came down the stairs, and I still needed a ticket, so I didn't have too much time to scrutinize the situation too much.

Today, I definitely got on the right train. It was even better than yesterday. I hadn't been in the new bike cars yet. Facing seats with two power outlets for each set of 4 seats! It was wonderful!

Fortunately, the conductor called out the two next stops, which made me realize that this train wasn't stopping at Sunnyvale. That made me check the schedule, and realize the mistake yesterday. I rode in from Mountain View, rather than taking VTA. I'm pretty sure I beat the light rail to my office. Yay!

[Oops, forgot to post this last night... ed.]

I'm actually writing this on the train. Today was my first day back commuting on Caltrain.

This morning was fantastic! The trip to 22nd St. was all downhill, so it was a breeze. This was good because I got (at most) 4 hours sleep last night, and woke up with just enough time to make the last Baby Bullet at 9:04.

I've ridden the Baby Bullet before, and most of you have heard my "WTF, we're here already?!?" story. It was a very nice ride, but I realized I'd left the power brick for my laptop at home. It was time to get a spare, anyway.

I rode to Sunnyvale instead of Mountain View, to force me to ride in, and it was nice, fun, exciting near misses with stupid drivers yakking on phones while failing to aim their sublimated sexual inadequacies^W^W^Wurban assault vehicles. It was too short, I'm actually thinking I'd more enjoy riding from Mountain View.

Actually, I just realized that once the days get longer, I should consider getting off at San Antonio, and riding through the Baylands to the Stevens Creek Trail! I could have my (very) old commute back! I loved that ride! I still miss that ride.

On the way into work this morning I realized that I had left my light at home. Based on that, I decided to take VTA home rather than ride in the dark.I looked up this evening and realized it was nearly 6pm. I checked the schedules and realized that I had a slim chance (if VTA wasn't in any way delayed) of making the last Baby Bullet if I raced to catch the next light rail train.

The Caltrain wasn't pulling out as we pulled up, as I expected, but I needed to buy a ticket, and the machine didn't work, and it pulled out as I was running to the other one.

The next train didn't stop at 22nd St, so I waited 40 mins (total) for the next one.

Even with all of that, I'm very happy with my commute so far. I know it's still a honeymoon, and I may feel differently in a few months. But right now, I'm REALLY looking forward to working on my own projects (like blogging more regularly) and relaxing.

I may feel differently once I've scaled the hills back to my house.

Update: Holy crap, that hill kicked my ass! The cyclist in me is ashamed at how badly such a "short" hill got to me.

But it hasn't affected my enjoyment of the commute. If anything, I look forward to making that hill my bitch.