Government-Issued Foil

I had to renew my passport finally, and evidently the age of Electronic Passports came while I wasn't paying attention (Wikipedia tells me it was 5 years ago now). I imagine that there was a big privacy brouhaha about the introduction of little chips that contain government database information on the passport holder.

And I'm trying to imagine the meeting that all of the State Department folks had about getting the privacy people to shut up, because apparently "But, NINE ELEVEN!!!" wasn't doing enough of a job of that anymore... And I'm picturing that maybe after about two weeks of sitting there, eating crappy generic take-out sandwiches and mediocre chinese that had been brought in...maybe that's when somebody threw up his hands and implored "why don't we just give everybody a piece of foil to wrap it in?! Can I go home now?! I'm not sure that my children remember who I am."

And I think that's exactly how it went, because now, when you apply for a passport card, you are issued a little foil sleeve to store it in.

It's not that I want a giant metal chicken...

Because I really, really don't. But the image in this blog entry is going in my file of Things To Look At When The World Starts Acting Like it Should Be Punched in the Face. That image may very well save the world's life, or at least preclude the need for reconstructive nose surgery on the part of the world.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for whimsy.

Musings on my fourth MS 150

Two of my teammates and I on the ride (Kim Morris Photography)

I spent June 11-12 riding my bike from Proctor to White Bear Lake. A good time was had.

The Seafoam Green Machine
This was a test of sorts for my bike, which I still consider to be new. I bought it last July, after declaring that, Lo! That would be the last MS 150 that I did on a hybrid. And indeed, it will be, for the SFGM has proven itself worthy of remaining a part of my household. It currently has a place of honor in the living/dining room. I was able to keep up with a group of my teammates this year and biked with people for the entire distance. In the previous years, I biked the whole thing alone. Sometimes I would go 15 minutes without seeing another cyclist, despite there being 3500 of them on the trails. The only modification to my bike is that I replaced the stock saddle with my Brooks at the last minute due to concerns about numbness. That worked out pretty well, I think. Butt soreness is at a [relative] minimum today.

Socialist Biking
The biggest benefit of the SFGM is that I was able to go about 2 mph faster than I was on my previous bike with no additional effort. This meant that I was able to keep up with a group of people and take advantage of the wonderful world of pacelines. There was a stupid, stupid headwind on Sunday, but thanks to being in a paceline, I only had to deal with it head-on for 2 out of every 10 miles. Saturday was pretty amazing. We were keeping about a 16.5 mph pace for some pretty good-sized chunks of time (keep in mind that my general average pace on my training rides was about 13.5 mph). Occasionally we would pick up some strays traveling about our pace, which I welcomed because that means more people to rotate into the leader position! I think the most we had going at any given time was 11 people. It's kind of exhilarating being the leader, responsible for all of those people. But it's also nice to give it up and float to the back so that all of those people can break the wind for you. :^) By the last two segments on Sunday, we were having to switch off every mile.

I need a bell
I'd never passed so many people in previous years. I went hoarse from yelling "on your left" for 5 hours on Saturday. I have a bell on my other bike that I should switch over to this one, now that it has proven itself worthy of the Compass Bell.

Number-y things
From the Garmin--
First day: 72.7 miles, with an average speed of 15.6 mph.
Second day: 74.7 miles, with an average speed of 14.3 mph. <--headwind :^(
Just shy of 10 hours total time on the saddle.
I guess I ate exactly the right amount of food, even though it felt like I was eating constantly. My weight Friday morning was the same, down to the fifth of a pound, as it was on Monday morning.

Leave no cyclist behind
A contributing factor in the lower average speed for the second day is that my group of four took a really slow cyclist with us on the final segment-- a coworker of mine who was riding for his first time (he actually just bought a bike 2 months before the ride). He had taken the SAG to the final rest stop, but we convinced him that he could ride the final segment because it was really short. The worst hill of the entire ride is a one block section just before the finish line, which he walked up. Another coworker and I waited at the top of the hill so that we could cross the finish line together.

The morning after
My neck is sore and my quads kind of feel like I've been biking for two days. My left knee hurts, which I think might be due to the sup-par bike posture that I developed after my butt started hurting (fortunately didn't really happen in earnest until after lunch on Sunday). Oh, yeah, my butt hurts. :^P My upper back and shoulders are kind of sore, along with my arms. I am going to schedule a massage for very soon.

ZZZZZZZZ
For the first time ever, I didn't camp out either night. It was kind of nice to not have to worry about setting up my tent, keeping warm at night, and trudging afar to the bathroom in the morning in order to wait in line to brush my teeth. A non-riding coworker of mine's wife has a brother-in-law with an extra house (was his parents), and they invited four of us to stay up there on Friday night. It was actually located in the town that is our first rest stop on Saturday. It was a little surreal to see the rest stop with no people. We ate dinner in Duluth with the people whose house we were staying in-- that was really nice. The brother-in-law used to be a ship captain on Lake Superior. We went to the house and played Boggle and had some drinks before going to bed at a semi-reasonable hour. It was nice and relaxing.

Strange Addiction
I registered for my 5th ride at the finish line. Can't wait for next year. :^)

Tom JoCo Cruise Crazy

The Baths at Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands

It's official! I have a spot on the second iteration of JoCo Cruise Crazy, featuring the geekily handsome stylings of one Mr. Jonathan Coulton himself. And some other guys, like John Hodgman ::slightly reservéd squee::. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be one of the few people wearing regular clothing, which I guess makes me a weirdo among weirdos. :^) But there will be fezzes, that much is a certainty.

Holland America will be a new experience for me, though I imagine that being surrounded by 600 JoCo fans will temper the effect not insubstantially. We (I'm going with a good friend of mine) have a verandAH stateroom, a slightly pompous spelling, which I pronounce in the same fashion as DakotAH. The alottment of those rooms was booked within half an hour, to give an indication of how many are itching to be Sea Monkeys. :^)

It's been almost six years since I've been to the Caribbean, which I pronounce with the optional more lackadaisical emphasis that I find more befitting of this particular sea, and I'm itching to go back. The water there is a breathtaking blue-green and it suddenly makes sense that there is a color called aquamarine. It's very unlike all of the water here and in the bits of Pacific and north Atlantic that I've seen, all of which are a deep, dark blue that betrays their cutting chill. The Caribbean is like being in a really fantastic bathtub, if bathtubs had fancy fish and a surplus of rum-based beverages.

So, yeah. Excited. And I have to wait 8 months!

Now that it's warm, I'm dreaming of the cold.

Those adorable little guys are captives of the New England Aquarium, which is awesome. But you know what's even more awesome? Where they're from. Well, not these ones in particular. They hail from South Africa. But their more famous King, Emperor, and Gentoo cousins

Only 9 years and 9 months until I board a boat bound for Antarctica! How's that for alliteration? I'm dreaming of glaciers and penguins and a sturdy hull crushing through the surface ice. I'm dreaming of setting forth through the frigid waters in an inflatable kayak, of standing on the bow, breathing in the crisp air and admiring the vast expanses of ice and sea. It's going to be, in the words of one Barney Stinson, legen-

-DARY. Oh, yes.

Punching things for fun and profit

Okay, so the profit goes entirely to Chaska Krav Maga, but the fun is all mine! Mine, I say! Last night was my tenth class, though it feels like I've been doing it for longer. Vacations and floods and random canceled classes intervened, but I'm mostly on a twice-per-week schedule.

I never knew how fun defending chokes and punching things could be. If I had, you can bet I would have signed up for this years ago. I was a bit skeptical at first. I mean, doing martial arts for the first time at age 30? Turns out to be an idea of legend. Tuxette started it; it's all her fault that I've found a physical activity that it actually enjoyable to supplement my biking. 

Like made of carbon compounds?

This is an organic pepper that I grew; it's organic because I didn't care enough to do anything to it.

As a chemist (sort of), the word organic has a very specific meaning: relating or belonging to the class of chemical compounds having a carbon basis. So, I'm organic. You're organic. Your dog is organic. And pretty much all foodstuffs are organic.

To the USDA, organic has a different meaning: foods that are grown without antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, irradiation or bioengineering. That's it. It does not mean that the food is healthier than foods that do not bear the apparent gleaming gilded halo of a sticker that says "Organic." It has no relationship to processing. You can process the bejeezus out of ingredients that were grown without pesticides.

If you had a batch of organic corn, you could make organic high fructose corn syrup, and I think we can all agree that's just as bad as regular high fructose corn syrup. There are organic toaster pastries, but I can assure you that regular old oatmeal would be a better choice.

Organic can mean a lot of things, but it is not a synonym for healthy.

30 Days of Biking

We've had a rather snowy winter relative to last year, so I was not able to get any biking time in March. Last year, I had been biking for about 3 weeks by this time, but the snow finally melted off of the trails in time for April and the 30 Days of Biking challenge, which I am doing because I otherwise wouldn't push myself hard enough this month. There are only 2 months until the MS 150 and I hope to get at least 350 miles in before then.

It's still a bit cold and some of the trails are closed due to being at the bottom of the Mississippi River, but biking season is officially on! (Yes, I know, the really hardcore people don't observe biking season, but I was too busy drinking hot cocoa and being cold in January to bother shivering through a bike ride and/or nervously waiting for hilarity to ensue in the game of bike vs. ice.)

Nature: Asserting its dominance since the dawn of time

Every once in a while, I'm struck by the notion that this land is not ours. Of course, that's obvious when something like Japan, Indonesia, Haiti, or New Orleans happens. But it never strikes me until I'm standing before nature myself, even though the impacts that I see with my own eyes pale in comparison to the aforementioned catastrophes.

It hit me when I was standing in Pompeii looking toward Mt. Vesuvius. People who stood in that exact spot before fell to the whim of that cantankerous beast. That I could stand there then is only because the volcano allowed me to.

And last night, as I walked down to the newly expanded Mississippi River, I was in awe of how she just takes what she wants and anybody with good sense gets out of her way when she does so. This isn't even a particularly bad flood; everything that is flooded now floods every year. That's the nature of the river, and if we want to live here, we have to do so around it.

And it's so very tempting to kayak down the bike path. Too bad I don't own a kayak.

Land of Enchantment all over the place

I had such a good time last year (the Lake is a Lie incident excluded ;^) that I decided to do another epic driving vacation this year. We have an awesomely beautiful country (unless you're not from the US, in which case I'm sure your country is perfectly lovely as well). This year I decided to venture to the southwest, where I've never set foot before.

March 5-8 were spent in Albuquerque, which is the only place to which I've ever traveled and thought "I could totally live here." The photo below is from Old Town, which is basically where you go to give Albuquerque all of your money.


On March 6, I ventured up to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, where I hiked through the very aptly named Slot Canyon. These were some pretty spectacular rock formations.


On March 7th, a friend and I went to Petroglyphs National Monument which is a 1-mile hike along rocks decorated with ancient petroglyphs and more modern graffiti art. Our hatred of vandals intensified throughout the walk. Specifically, some guy named Tom.


Later that day, we went to the aquarium in Albuquerque, which was perfectly lovely but had nothing on the parking lot of said aquarium. For the parking lot contained a road runner! And he ran right at me! He didn't catch me, though, for he is neither as large as he appears on TV nor a coyote.


I woke up in the slightly wee hours of March 8 to drive to Arizona where there was, shockingly enough, snow. Maybe an inch. Enough to leave semis and cars strewn about the ditches in its wake. In any case, I made my way to Petrified Forest National Park, which includes a goodly portion of the Painted Desert and is very scenic. This park was largely a driving park; there are only a few short hiking trails and a lot of the petrified wood has been stolen/vandalized. The top photo is of the Painted Desert with a bit of snow, and the bottom photo shows a petrified log sitting atop the rocks.



On March 9th, I was able to make a photo tour at Tonto National Monument, which features two sets of ye olde cliff dwellings. The upper cliff dwellings (where we hiked to) are only available by guided tour. Thanks again, vandals. Once again, the views were spectacular and made it entirely worth the long slog to the top. It was especially refreshing to be on a tour where I could take as much time as I wanted to set up and take photos.



I stayed in Tucson that night, which was very close to my next stop on March 10: Saguaro National Park, which is very fun to say. Here I took a guided tour about desert life in the saguaro forest. It was really interesting and I saw this really befuddled saguaro below:



I drove to Las Cruces for the night and saw this in my rearview mirror, so had to stop to take a photo of it.


March 11th was all about the White Sand. I went to the missile range first and then on to White Sands National Monument, where I plopped down on a nice, cool dune and stared out at the other dunes for close to an hour. Very soothing and beautiful and all that. I was able to be on the dunes for sunset that night, which I highly recommend!



I spent the night in El Paso, which was the first time I've ever been in Texas. I wasn't there for too long, though. I had to get up to drive in the morning before the sun even rose. It was a beautiful sunrise, though!


The reason for my early rising was that I had a 10:00 tour at Slaughter Canyon, which is a part of Carlsbad Caverns National Park. There was a 45-minute hike to the canyon entrance, so I had to leave plenty of time for that. the hike was pretty brutal. It was a 500-ft elevation gain over half a mile. The cave was not the greatest one I've been in. The floor was very slippery and there was a lot of evidence of guano mining, which is not a good thing. The features all had black goo on them from motorized equipment being used there, despite regulations not allowing it. Still, the columns below were pretty impressive (I included people for scale).

After Slaughter Canyon, I went back into Texas to see Guadalupe Mountains National Park. I only did a couple hours of hiking here. It's definitely more geared toward all-day and multi-day hiking. It looks like a beautiful place to be if you have more time.


After Guadalupe, I went back into New Mexico to the main cave at Carlsbad, which at that time was only accessible by elevator (the natural entrance closes after a certain hour to ensure that there's time to exit before the park closes). I descended 750 ft into the Big Room, which was pretty impressive, but it was a lot more touristy than the other caves I've been to. There was a paved path all the way around and the cave was lit. There were certainly some interesting formations, but I may have been caved out by this time. :^)

I stayed in Roswell that night (no UFO sightings), and then headed back up to Albuquerque for my last day. On the last night, Lael and I took the tram to the top of Sandia Peak to catch the sunset. The sunset was okay, but the view was still fabulous. This is Albuquerque from the top of the tram:

This vacation was completely exhausting, but I would do it all again!

Slowly whittling away at my lists.

It's a fun list to whittle. :^)

Here's my updated list of National Parks, with the completed ones in Bold. Crater Lake gets to be crossed off despite being nothing more than a sign posted on a mountain.

Acadia National Park	Maine	1919
National Park of American Samoa	American Samoa	1988
Arches National Park	Utah	1971
Badlands National Park	South Dakota	1978
Big Bend National Park	Texas	1944
Biscayne National Park	Florida	1980
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park	Colorado	1999
Bryce Canyon National Park	Utah	1928
Canyonlands National Park	Utah	1964
Capitol Reef National Park	Utah	1971
Carlsbad Caverns National Park	New Mexico	1930
Channel Islands National Park	California	1980
Congaree National Park	South Carolina	2003
Crater Lake National Park	Oregon	1902
Cuyahoga Valley National Park	Ohio	2000
Death Valley National Park	California, Nevada	1994
Denali National Park and Preserve	Alaska	1917
Dry Tortugas National Park	Florida	1992
Everglades National Park	Florida	1947
Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve	Alaska	1980
Glacier National Park (part of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park)	Montana	1910
Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve	Alaska	1980
Grand Canyon National Park	Arizona	1919
Grand Teton National Park	Wyoming	1929
Great Basin National Park	Nevada	1986
Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve	Colorado	2004
Great Smoky Mountains National Park	North Carolina, Tennessee	1934
Guadalupe Mountains National Park	Texas	1966
Haleakala National Park	Hawaii	1916
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park	Hawaii	1916
Hot Springs National Park	Arkansas	1921
Isle Royale National Park	Michigan	1940
Joshua Tree National Park	California	1994
Katmai National Park and Preserve	Alaska	1980
Kenai Fjords National Park	Alaska	1980
Kings Canyon National Park	California	1940
Kobuk Valley National Park	Alaska	1980
Lake Clark National Park and Preserve	Alaska	1980
Lassen Volcanic National Park	California	1916
Mammoth Cave National Park	Kentucky	1941
Mesa Verde National Park	Colorado	1906
Mount Rainier National Park	Washington	1899
North Cascades National Park	Washington	1968
Olympic National Park	Washington	1938
Petrified Forest National Park	Arizona	1962
Redwood National and State Parks	California	1968
Rocky Mountain National Park	Colorado	1915
Saguaro National Park	Arizona	1994
Sequoia National Park	California	1890
Shenandoah National Park	Virginia	1935
Theodore Roosevelt National Park	North Dakota	1978
Virgin Islands National Park	U.S. Virgin Islands	1956
Voyageurs National Park	Minnesota	1975
Wind Cave National Park	South Dakota	1903
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve	Alaska	1980
Yellowstone National Park	Idaho, Montana, Wyoming	1872
Yosemite National Park	California	1890
Zion National Park	Utah	1919

I was able to shade in 3 more of the states, leaving only 15 left to visit.

[Review] Bigelow Chemists : Bigelow Chapped Hands Soap-Free Cleanser

[Warning: potentially TMI photos]

Rating: 12 out of 5 stars

It is the middle of winter, and my wrists are not covered in tiny open sores. It is the middle of winter and my hands are not bleeding. It is the middle of winter and I can exercise without searing pain emanating from the skin on my hands and wrists. I have not had a winter day without pain in at least 12 years. I was the type of person who kept lotion in my purse, desk at work, car, desk at home, bathroom, kitchen, living room, every coat pocket, and anywhere else I thought to stash a bottle. Finding myself without lotion actually constituted an emergency, and I would stop at the nearest convenience store to pick some up if I was going to be away from home for more than an hour. That was just to keep the open sores from worsening. The pain never really went away, and actually most lotions made my skin burn.

It has been about a month since I acquired this stuff, and I feel that I can confidently say that it has changed my life. I have not had to use lotion more than once per day since I started using this once or twice a day, even though I still wash my hands with regular soap very often and use alcohol-based hand sanitizer. My use of lotion has also definitely been of the non-emergent variety.

I was going to give it a mere 4 because it doesn't make my skin perfect and magically silky smooth, but then I looked at a photo of my wrist last year (yes, I am exactly the kind of person who documents bodily grossities-- want to see my bike accident scars?!) and it turns out that, no, it's exactly as awesome as I thought it was.

This is my skin last year:

This is my skin this year:

30 years down, 70 to go (feeling optimistic here)

I keep forgetting that I'm supposed to be lying in bed today, weeping for my lost youth. I just haven't the inclination to do so. For one thing, what loss? I still think the infinite slide is a fantastic use of the Portal gun. Ten year old me would have thought so as well, but now I have the benefit of wisdom that comes with age. I would be sure to wear pants if my infinite metal slide were in the sun, for one thing.

A list, because lists are fun, of things I've done:

• Visited 32 of the US states
• Been caving
• Found out who my real friends are and realized they are greater in number than I thought.
  
• Made mistakes. Big ones. And hopefully learned from them.
• Made it through school. Got a couple of degrees to show for it.
  
• Got a job that I've now held for almost precisely 6 years.
  
• Saw the sun rise over Icelandic glaciers from an airplane window.
  
• Realized that what everybody else thinks about what you do actually doesn't matter. They're not the ones who have to live your life.
• Changed my mind about cats and got one of my own. Have managed to keep it alive.
  
• Had an accident, saw the injustices inherent in the system, got bitter, got better, got over it.
• Took a vacation alone. Embraced the solitude.
  
• On a similar vein... got lost in the middle of unfamiliar land with no cell reception, no satellite reception, and no map. Kind of liked it.
• Sort of figured out what I want and am totally okay with the parts of it that are anormal.
  

Things that I hope I'll do in the coming pre- scrabble-playing nursing home days:

• See the other 18 states
• Antarctica!
• Get a master's degree in materials engineering
• See the sun set over Icelandic glaciers from a ground-based vantage point.
  
• Whatever else strikes my fancy.

Want to be thankful for winter? Browse NPS.gov

Windchills were recently down in the -20F range, though I wouldn't really know, as I spent the entire weekend lying on the couch cursing germ theory. This stint did give me an opportunity, however, to research a possible spring vacation to the southwest.

Apparently the National Park Service is doing their very best to convince me not to, for they have warned me of:

1. Flash floods. In the desert.


2. Mountain lions. At which you are apparently supposed to throw rocks and adopt grizzly bear arms before punching them if they come any closer.


3. Rattlesnakes-- 6 whole species of them! And if you're bitten, remember not to move but to get to a hospital really, really quickly! And call 911 where there's no cell reception.


4. Killer bees-- At least they'll warn you with a gentle nudge before swarming upon you. Fortunatly, you only have to sprint half a mile away from their hive before they'll cease their warfare.


5. Also you might die of heat. Enjoy your national parks!

Blizzards and deer ticks are beginning to seem rather quaint, and I for one am perfectly happy that we have 6 months of the year so cold that they kill off anything that so much as looks at them funnily.