Thursday, October 26, 2000 OK, this is really annoying. I thought that I'd noticed an interesting relationship between my body fat and weight some time ago: almost every time my weight would go down, my body fat would go up. I even posted a chart to my old training log. Well, here's a new one, and it's ever so obvious that there's an inverse relationship. The two measurements track so closely that it's almost eerie. I created the chart by subtracting 200 from my weight and charting it against body fat. My question is - is this natural, or is it the fact that the scale (a Tanita TBF-551) is ineffective at measuring either body fat or weight? My guess is that it's a dehydration thing. I weigh less when I'm a bit dehydrated, but for some reason, that boosts my body fat rating (seems counter-intuitive, though). Any ideas out there amongst my millions of readers? muttered around 10:22 PM

Wednesday, October 25, 2000 I'm a software guy. I like software. I build software, and have been doing it for a long time. Even though I like and build software, I don't believe it's the answer for everything. For example, software isn't good with the nuances of language. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Web filters are stupid. As proof of this position (a rather popular one), check out: DFN: Winners of the Foil the Filters Contest The shame of all this is the marketers of the Web filtering software know their products are bad, but have no problem marketing this tripe to the panting, obsessive, built-in market of buyers who want to believe that filtering works. So, the filtering vendors make a killing off of mass hysteria and ignorance. Kind of makes you a bit cynical, eh? muttered around 9:36 AM

Tuesday, October 24, 2000 Too funny: Great Mobile Homes of Mississippi. muttered around 10:04 PM

Monday, October 23, 2000 A discussion thread on BikeE recumbents. muttered around 7:27 AM

Saturday, October 21, 2000 On October 14th I dropped out of the Atkins diet (I wrote about it then, too), basically because of its impact to my cycling performance (negative, to say the least). I've been procrastinating, but finally here are graphs that demonstrate the results. The graphs show actual measurements in blue, moving averages (for a smoothing effect) in bold black, and trendlines in dashed black. I've also annotated the graphs by placing a green line at the start of the diet and a red line at the end. I've also put in the actual weight and body fat numbers at beginning and end. It's always interesting (to me, at least) to have a look at a graph and see how things compared. First, you can see that I "lost" about 3 pounds of weight, overall, during the diet. Unfortunately, the day I started I weighed in a bit lighter than I'd been weighing the 5 days before (those weigh-ins were the reason I started Atkins again). The first-week weight loss is more impressive if you use the first weigh-in figure of 234 as a starting point, which gives an overall loss of 4.4 pounds. What's particularly interesting to me is that the low point of my weight, 227.8, is reached midway through the diet period. After that point, I start climbing back up. A possible explanation for this is that on 10/01 I started weight training again. I don't really think I put on 1.8lbs of muscle during the diet, but it is a small possibility. While I showed a weight gaining trend toward the end of the diet period, I showed a body fat losing trend, which is really the measure that matters. An unfortunate spike on the last day of the diet results in a last-day measurement being higher than the first day measurement, but the trendline (dashed) tells the real story. Actually, in both cases, the trendlines tell the real story. Note that both lines trend downward. This is good, and it's what you're shooting for when dieting. When dieting, don't worry about local minima and maxima, because only the statistics over time indicate your progress. Therefore, if you're doing a diet like this, be sure to track your weight, body fat, and physical measurements very carefully each day. Don't get freaked out by a given day's results. You should only be concerned if you see a trend over a few days. Oh, and if you're interested, here are graphs of my weight since 01/10/00 and body fat since 05/18/00 of this year. The body fat chart bothers me a bit. You can see that the overall trend is upwards. However, I started the chart during the my highest-intensity period of cycling this year. As we've entered fall, I've cut down on my number and distance of rides per week, and was sick for a couple of weeks, etc. Regardless, it's interesting to note how "spiky" the measurements are. That's why it's very important to use trendlines. muttered around 8:03 AM

Thursday, October 19, 2000 Sigh... I just got another message on my work mail system that's an obvious mail virus. They're annoying, but I think I've finally found a useful side-effect of these viruses (I'm talking about the ones based on the recipient opening an attachment that contains potentially harmful code and that also replicates itself by mailing others in your address book). What these viruses provide to society is this: they help to identify the drooling idiots that somehow continue to exist in a more and more complex world. Question for the the drooling idiots: how many times does this have to happen before you get it? These viruses have been in the media for months. The ILOVEYOU virus was national news. All you have to do is think for a second before opening an attachment, that's all it takes. Just a single moment's thought, given what you have experienced lately when using a mail system, if you happened to be paying attention at all. Why can't you recognize the following simple clues, and act accordingly? Clue #1 The mail came into my inbox from someone within my company who I've never met. Clue #2 The attachment is called LIFE_STAGES.TXT.SHS. Umm, doesn't this ring some sort of bell? Oh yeah, that was a virus that made the rounds a couple of months ago. Conclusion Maybe, just maybe, I shouldn't double-click the attachment. muttered around 8:15 AM

See John Forester's site for info on responsible and safe bicycling (may not be what you expect). muttered around 8:00 AM

Wednesday, October 18, 2000 Rode home yesterday on the Cherry Creek Trail (CCT). Got a flat within the first eight miles, which is actually pretty early in the ride for flats. This is flat season. The plants that contain the evil goat-head thorns line both sides of much of the CCT, and this time of year, they dry out, and the thorns get spread out onto the trail. These thorns are tough, with .5 inch long spikes that are very strong and very sharp. There's basically no way to avoid getting a flat if you hit one. While fixing my flat, I let another guy (seemed to be foreign, and very nice) use my pump. I also had to show him how to work with his presta valves. I commented to him that I hoped it proved to be good karma, and he said "oh, it will". I guess he was right - I made it through the usual flat territory later in the ride unscathed. I definitely felt better toward the end of this ride than I did on last Friday's (which was done while I was still on the Atkins diet, and was the reason I dropped off the diet on Saturday). muttered around 8:07 AM

Tuesday, October 17, 2000 OK, I know I'm in trouble when I get obsessed with something. After MB and I rode one at REI last week, I really want to get us a pair of BikeE recumbent bikes. I've been doing a lot of research on recumbent cycling (this is how I excercise an obsession), and it's an interesting subculture of the cycling scene. A lot of the guys are very hard-core anti-car kind of guys. One guy rides around on a 12-foot "streamliner" that has a full fairing, rather than driving a car. From the looks of his picture, he appears to be a mad-scientist-type but I have a feeling he was going for effect. Anyway, riding the BikeE was a lot of fun, even for just five minutes. I think it would be a great way for MB and I to ride together. She's less than comfortable on her mountain bike, and I think the BikeE might be a great equalizer in general. There are tons of other designs for recumbents, but I've yet to see one so elegant. The elegance comes out in interesting ways. For example, for most practical purposes, one size fits all. The seat slides back and forth on the extruded aluminum bar that makes up the frame of the bike. The bar is on a slight incline, so as a shorter person slides the seat forward, the seat simultaneously gets closer to the ground. That's elegance in design. One thing I'm afraid of is lack of speed on a BikeE. You read over and over again how recumbents are fast. Yet you also read that they're slower than traditional bikes. Here's what I think: a high-end recumbent ridden by a very fit recumbent cyclist can likely outrun a high-end upright road bike ridden by a very fit upright rider on flat ground, and definitely downhill. However, this combination rarely occurs in nature. What you usually have is a decent recumbent ridden by a fairly fit person against a pretty nice road bike ridden by a very fit person. In my experience, anyone riding an upright road bike is usually pretty into fitness. I mean, after all, a road bike is not very comfortable - they're built for speed. In this situation, the guy on the road bike is going to toast the recumbent nine times out of ten. How can I say this? I do it all the time. Back to my fears related to the BikeE - I don't want to be that guy getting passed. I don't want to sit there thinking, "if I wasn't on this damn recumbent I'd leave you twirling in my dust", as some roadie passes me. But I think I'm also missing the point. By and large, 'bent riders are doing it for the fun and light exercise that 'bent riding affords them. They're probably mildly amused at the intensity of the average road bike enthusiast. Perhaps I can adopt that attitude, but probably not if I'm riding alone. But if I'm cruising along with MB and we're having fun, who cares? That's the attraction. muttered around 7:21 AM

I heard the strangest exchange this morning at Starbuck's, while getting my somewhat-usual chocolate-chip and cinnamon-chip scones: as the customer ahead of me, a short heavyset woman, walked away from the counter, the Starbuck's guy said "lose some weight". The customer turned around and said "excuse me?" He calmly responded, "sorry for the wait". She turned slowly and walked away, clearly perturbed. I'm pretty darn sure he said what I (and she) thought he said the first time. As the situation unfolded, I actually had time to think to myself "wow, she must have been telling him some diet story or something", between the time he said "lose some weight" and she responded. Now, what happened, exactly? Did he accidentally say exactly what was on his mind, and then make a quick recovery? Or, is he kind of a weird dude and actually meant for the whole exchange to happen that way? The world may never know. I'll tell you one thing, I listened very closely to everything he said to me. muttered around 7:02 AM

Sunday, October 15, 2000 Did a ride with a guy naned Rick, from REI, today. REI hosts Sunday group rides, and he leads them. Well, it was supposed to be a group ride (my first with them), but he and I were the only ones that showed. It was pretty darn cold (35 degrees), so I wore my heaviest tights, baggies in my shoes, and toe covers on them, a fairly heavyweight long-sleeve jersey, and my rain/wind jacket. I also wore Gore windstopper fleece gloves and earband. I took off from the house at about 8:05, and arrived at REI at 8:30 on the nose, and hotter than a steam room. I just plain underestimated the sun here in Denver. I had to take off the jacket and ride figure 8's in the parking lot to cool down, in the 35-degree morning air. I actually ended up tucking the jacket into its handy little pocket and wearing it like a fanny pack for the remainder of the ride. Surprisingly, I didn't really ever get cold. I mean, my chest went numb, but it didn't feel cold. Note to self - if it's sunny and over 35, just wear a heavy weight jersey and a nylon vest - you'll be plenty warm. We rode all over Highlands Ranch, which is a giant neighborhood south of mine. It has very wide streets, many of which have bike lanes. (Now, with me, a bike lane is nearly useless. Why? Because they're usually full of glass, rocks, cracks, potholes, screws, nails, piles of dried concrete, paint, boogers, earwax, and severed fingers (probably from cyclists). What I mean is that they are the worst possible surface to ride upon. There are other problems with them, too. If you ride in a bike lane, you're marginalized as if you don't belong on the road, proper. There's a little of the "out of sight out of mind" thing going on, too. Then, when you get to an intersection, and you're going straight and the car to your left is turning, who has the right of way? Uncertainty can kill. On the other hand, if I'm in the road, I can take a little piece of it for myself when appropriate to ensure my safety.) Anyway, we took turns riding with one of us in the bike path (barely) and the other just to his left, in the road. It was a compromise. Rick is built compactly, and basically flew up hills without even breathing hard. He always stood, and I chose not to in order to conserve energy. We climbed at about the same speed, but at the top I'd be dying, and he'd just keep right on truckin'. I'm not sure why, but even though I felt like I was working hard for most of the ride, we only managed a 16mph average for a 22-mile ride. It was windy and hilly, however. Played a bunch of Quake 3 Arena with my bud Christoph today during the Broncos' game. I ruled (are you reading this Christoph?). Heh. muttered around 5:29 PM

Friday, October 13, 2000 Man, this has to be a record -- 4 flats within 24 hours. I fixed one flat last night (just happened to notice it on the bike as it sat in the garage), fixed it again this morning (forgot to remove the culprit from the tire last night, had to pump up the tire again in the parking garage before I left work, and got a flat from a goat's head thorn on the road. Today was my first chilly ride home. Yahoo weather claims it's 63 degrees, but I don't know about that. Felt more like 55 or so, but then the sun was in, so I didn't have that to warm me. I really felt like crap for a lot of the ride. I blame the Atkins diet. I blame it so much that I'm dropping off of it. I mean, I can't have it affecting my cycling performance, so I'll just have to control my weight by controlling my intake a little (darn). muttered around 6:09 PM

Tuesday, October 10, 2000 Today was my first ride on my sweet new wheels. I was very glad to be riding (it had been a week), but what a day to ride - I had a terrible headwind the whole way home. I mean really bad - I'm guessing 15-20mph the whole time. I averaged 16.4 down to Prince street (terrible), and 14.6 for the entire ride (really abysmal). I also got a bit of a charlie horse in my left quad, to boot (this due to my really trying to push it, into the wind). The wheels held up great. I even rode for a while on pure dirt and rock where they're tearing up yet another piece of trail near the golf course along the Platte. This will be a real mess if it rains, so I intend to do the Cherry Creek route home for a month or so. It's longer anyway. muttered around 9:44 PM

Go visit Kate at geekish.com. muttered around 9:35 PM

Sunday, October 08, 2000 I think I mentioned earlier here that I've re-started the Atkins diet. This instance of dieting is to determine whether my intention of using Atkins as a "technique" to control weight can work. Since leaving the Atkins plan sometime in May, I've continued to track and chart my weight and Body Fat (BFI) percentage daily. There are many spikes and valleys in the charts, but I always held that if my weight seemed to be moving upwards consistently, I'd go back to Atkins for a while to knock it back down. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I decided that this condition had been met. So, on Oct 2nd I started Atkins again. Here is the first chart of the results so far: My nominal weight had been about 230 all summer, with a few significant dips below that. I'd seen a trend in the opposite direction lately, and noted my clothes were fitting differently. Both charts start around the day I decided that things were getting out of hand. Note that my body weight has sharply decreased, while my BFI, on average has increased. I include trendlines to make this obvious. Since I've only been doing the diet since last Monday, it's not a good idea to read much into the charts so far. I can tell you that my pants are fitting a bit looser again. But the Atkins diet is tough -- I crave carbs, since I'm pretty darn active. The problem for me is self-control. After leaving Atkins back in May, I slowly slid back into some bad habits, like drinking Coke, and having desserts. Recently I did a business trip that didn't offer good workout opportunities, but offered great eating opps, and then had a cold that lasted a couple of weeks, during which I didn't ride at all. I think these last two things were the major contributors to the slight gain I experienced. My plan is to "slap down" the weight and then return to carbs (my workouts are better with, than without), but to also try to be "good" in my eating habits again. We'll see, won't we? Stay tuned... muttered around 3:54 PM

OK, I've got my new wheels. Actually, I got them Thursday night, and installed them post-haste. They're Mavic Cosmos, and very slick. But they're blue. Yes, I knew they were blue when I bought them from Performance, but they're really blue. I'm not sure I like them with my orange Cannondale (I'm just not that big a Broncos fan, I guess). "Now, why", you may be thinking, "did he buy blue wheels for his orange bike?" Well, "it's simply because I couldn't get the black ones", I'd think back. Performance, darn their hides, has the worst problem with inventory that I've seen in an online store. Oh, you'd think they have the products that pop up in your browser, but noooo, they don't. I tried to add pairs of all sorts of (cheaper) wheels to my shopping cart, but to no avail. Everything was out of stock, and I was in deep need of wheels. Anyway, the Mavics are very sweet wheels. Firstly, they use straight spokes, the heads of which are at the hub end of things (as usual), but without the usual 90 degree bend. The heads of the spokes on the front hub are not visible at all, lending a very slick appearance (and causing me to wonder how to replace them). The heads in the rear are held captive in, oh I don't know what to call them, uh, "tiny brackets" I suppose. If there were no tension on the spokes, they'd pop right out of these brackets. Anyway, all this straightness is supposed to add strength and remove weight. We shall see, since I'm famously hard on wheels. Secondly, the freewheel is totally silent when freewheeling. Weird. I'm used to hearing a buzz when I'm coasting, and these guys are totally silent. Kind of cool, but I'm not sure if I understand the reasoning behind the feature. I mean, is it a side-effect or an engineering feat, or both? I guess you could stealthily coast up behind someone and give them a wedgie or something. Just guessing. It's been really cool and rainy/drizzly lately, and that combined with the lack of true wheels for my bike has resulted in four days off it. I should ride today, but I'm busy practicing "bodies at rest tend to stay at rest", just to help Newton keep his reputation. The weather for next week looks widely variable - typical of Denver this time of year. It makes it very hard to plan for bicycle commutes home from work. muttered around 3:20 PM

Wednesday, October 04, 2000 I had posted the following to my new training log, and then realized that I write a lot about my bicycling adventures here, and that if I started writing about them there, this blog would be fairly (more) boring. So, I think I'll stick to this blog for the day-to-day stuff, even my "training" activities. Yesterday I had the ride from hell, in the form of my normal commute home from work. It started out OK, though a bit chilly, and there was a nice tailwind. However, within a mile or so of entering the Platte River trail, I reached a place where a couple of kids had abandoned their BMX bikes right in the middle of the path. This was also on a short bridge, so there was no way around the bikes. I figured I could make it through a narrow opening between the bikes. I figured right (that's not what you were thinking, was it?), and as I was riding through, I heard the kids off to the left of the bridge, and it sounded as though they were upset that I was riding so close to their bikes. I hollered, "you kids need to move these bikes", thinking that if they don't want people riding close, they oughta put the bikes out of harms way. Well, I hadn't gotten fifty feet past the bridge when I heard the response "F you mutha F'er" and some other cursing-type sounds, to which I rejoined "bite me you little assholes". This was not my finest moment by any means, but come on. Anyway, I figure these guys are well on their way to juvie. This little episode over, and riding high on pissines, I quickly turned my concentration toward going fast to take advantage of the tailwind. A few miles later, I came busting out from under an overpass, and ran over a branch. Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft... I had flatted in the rear. Good God, I thought, just when I'm making great time. I pulled over and fixed the flat. While I pumped up the tire, I noticed that my left elbow, the one that had been bothering me for months, was a little sensitive. Hmmm. Anyway, tire patched, I hit the road again. A few miles later, I was still obsessively looking down to check my rear tire to make sure it wasn't losing pressure. At one point, I heard a "clink" and looked again. Wow, my wheel seems to be pretty wobbly, I thought. So I pulled over, and sure enough I'd broken another damn spoke on my rear wheel. I recommended that God should damn the wheel and spoke and just about everything else, along with a few other comments about the situation. This spoke was on the non-drive side, whereas the last one that broke was on the drive side. I tucked the spoke away, and took all the crap off my bike (for the second time today), and flipped it over with the intention to attempt a bit of roadside trueing. Well my blessed multi-tool just couldn't seem to get a grip on the already overtightened spokes, and so did a more effective job of rounding off the nipples than anything. I made a bit more very loud commentary (I was right next to a golf course - I think they're probably used to that), and released the rear brake and took off again. The ride continued relatively uneventfully (except where, riding like a maniac, I inadverdently ran another guy off the path (well, in my opinion, it was just his poor bike-handling, and not really my fault - he looked over at me as I passed and then he somehow ran off the path into the grass)), until I got to Prince Street in downtown Littleton. I was attacking my "graveyard climb" (so named because, well, a graveyard is to your right as you do it), when I saw some glittery stuff in the near distance. As I approached, I realized it was the remainder of a sheet of plate glass that had been dropped in the street. Oh, to be sure, the car tire paths were nice and clear, but the bike lane was full of glass. I couldn't get to the car tracks because of traffic, so I had to stop (remember this is a hill), pick up my bike and carry it over to the sidewalk, and then try to restart in a high gear. I made my last comment to the universe there, as the rest of the ride was uneventful. I averaged 19mph (could have been better) to the Prince Street turnoff, and 16.4mph (crappy) for the entire ride. muttered around 7:54 AM

Monday, October 02, 2000 This is my first day of returning to the Atkins diet. My intention is to stay on it thru the month of October. Today's menu consisted of: Breakfast: 4 scrambled eggs, 8 pieces of bacon Lunch: Dickie's Barbeque 3-meat combo, no sauce, and two sides of green beans Dinner: 2 chicken breasts, 2 thighs, and broccoli with cheddar cheese Yesterday I did weight training for the first time in about three months. I stopped back in the summer because of some sort of injury to my elbow, which was aggravated by lifting. The session went fine. I made it a fairly easy work-out to avoid getting too sore. I guess I did a good job because I'm only a little sore today. I'll go again Wednesday night. muttered around 7:47 PM

Heh heh: BSOD Wanted muttered around 8:20 AM