Jackhammer Explosion

Today at 12:40p a jackhammer doing excavation work on a demolished building on the southwest corner of Madison Ave and E. 53rd Street exploded. The cause of the explosion is unknown to me. It is also unknown if anyone was injured, but no ambulances showed up, so that’s a good sign.

You’ll have to click on the image to see the whole thing. I’m having formatting problems.

Bike Shop

Since we have had bad weather for the last few days I figured it would be a good opportunity to bring my bike in to the shop and have it tuned up. I can’t tell whether this is just sales-guy talk or not, but after taking a look at my bike they really wanted to convince me to buy a new one. Granted, I know it is old and heavy, but it’s not the worst. And as I’ve been informed by many a cyclist, it’s not the bike, it’s the rider that really matters. So, if it means that I have to train a little harder than the guy on the custom-fitted carbon frame, so be it–well, I’ll just say that now until I’m stranded on 9W because something has broke.

So I got it back from the shop yesterday. We upgraded my front and back fork ends which were holding my tires on with bolts for some dropouts. A smart move, since I have had the problem of my wheels becoming loose after long days of riding. This will keep me much safer. The chain was cleaned and the brakes were tuned up. All the squeaks and grinding in the drive train is gone, so I’ll be a much happier rider.

I rode my bike to work for the first time in the city and it was quite enjoyable traveling downtown through Central Park, but navigating to the office in Midtown East, was a little bit of struggle. I’ve made a note to avoid 7th Ave at that time in the future because the road surface is terrible and there isn’t a good lane to ride in. Other than that, the tune up makes it a whole new bike and I was climbing hills with a lot of speed, something that my dirty chain was holding me back from doing. Tonight we have a training ride, so I’ll get to see how I hold up.

…but wait, what if Google is evil?

Sometimes my life plays out just the way that Google wants it to and my conversation feels like something out of the “how to” page, except in my conversations, we usually end up complaining about Microsoft.

March 20, 2007

12:39 PM Jeremy: Dude, did you see the new themes on google home page?
me: no, it looks the same
12:40 PM Jeremy: Go to the personalized home page
Then in the middle-upper right corner it says “New! Select theme”
So dope
6 minutes
12:46 PM me: no, it’s not letting me
12:47 PM weird
15 minutes
1:02 PM Jeremy: Strange.

I still have not figured out why my browser will not let me view the page. Naturally, I’m blaming Vista.

Google is kicking ass, but my computer is failing to let me view the new site.

Also consider February 9, 2007

me: alex
have you seen google maps this morning????
they put in the subway stops into the map
10:53 AM plus, all the buildings
10:56 AM Alex: that’s pretty cool
i’ll have to check it out after i restart my failing computer here

Google has updated their Maps client, my brother’s computer sucks–he is running Windows XP.

Riding before Sunrise

Last night I went to a clinic for Team in Training that dealt with keeping your bike in good repair. My bike is in poor shape and I am reminded of it every time I try to climb a hill. Other than that, my pace is good and I’ve been in the front packs for our training rides. I’m looking forward to investing a little money into a full tune up, slapping some new wheels on her, upgrading to clip-in pedals and see how she flies. Someone gave me his old cycling shoes (well new and unused shoes that didn’t work for him). We are the same shoe size and it was extremely generous as the shoes are gorgeous.

I was up at 5am this morning and was in the park by six to do this Tuesday’s training ride. I guess mostly due to day light savings it was still dark, but on the second lap I got to see the sunrise over Central Park and the New York City sky line. It was the first time that I’ve ever got to be outside to see it in the city and it was beautiful. It happened so quickly like someone switched on a light and for the next hour, the roads were still empty but everything was bright.

We start each ride by letting someone share something inspirational. Today one of the people in the group asked us to all think about while we were riding how lucky we are to be able to do what we are doing. Thinking about that helped me appreciate being up out of bed so early in the morning. It also helped me connect the energy I was taking to ride on my bike to the fight that so many people are fighting with Lymphoma and Leukemia. I’m looking forward to the next morning ride. Heck, I might do it on my own everyday if I can.

So I got back to my apartment a little earlier than when I normally wake up, took a shower, made some breakfast, bitched about Bush-Cheney policy and then went to work. Thanks for reading!

Mission Accomplished

Dick Cheney in a speech March 12, 2007 to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee 2007 Policy leveled the following statement to the Democratic Party:

There is a third myth about the war on terror, and this one is also the most dangerous. Some apparently believe that getting out of Iraq before the job is done will actually strengthen America’s hand in the fight against terrorists. This myth is dangerous because it represents a full validation of the al Qaeda strategy. The terrorists don’t expect to beat us in a standup fight. They never have. They’re not likely to try. The only way we can win is if we lose our nerve and abandon our mission and the terrorists do believe that they can force that outcome.

At this point, America well knows that there were serious lapses in intelligence that was given to the White House, or taken even further, accurate intelligence that was flat out ignored, but regardless, the White House strategy from the beginning has been to get out as soon as possible. On May 1, 2003, Bush delivered a speech on an aircraft carrier in front of a banner that read mission accomplished. The White House argues of course that this shouldn’t be taken literally, that the mission being accomplished was the 10 years of service that the carrier had in operation. However, the administration was obviously setting itself up to walk away from Iraq, in the face of whatever turmoil was left there, much in the same way that they did in Afghanistan. And while terrorists still operate within that country and conflict abounds, these stories are largely ignored by the mainstream media. The White House’s true culpability in hiding the facts of the situation in Iraq could be argued, had they been successful in convincing the American people that it was time to leave, but what played out was much different.

Nearly four years after the speech, America is still in Iraq. As evidenced by Cheney’s speech, the rhetoric has changed considerably. The White House has made an enormous change in rhetoric to now admit to the complicated conflict we have put ourselves in the middle of in Iraq.

The second part of Cheney’s statement to the AIPAC refers to the rhetorical war that is being played out with al Qaeda. al Qaeda seems to be employing at least two strategies in Iraq: one is to make clear to the world that if the US leaves, we win. The second, lay low for now and keep the US in Iraq for as long as possible, building support and sympathy for al Qaeda throughout the region. It is sad to see the White House fall for a silly schoolyard trick as calling someone chicken to make them do what you want, but it seems that is what the administration wants to do.

Despite their best efforts to get in and out as quickly as possible, the White House may only settle on leaving until they can officially declare victory over an opponent who is hiding and wants them to behave exactly as they are behaving now.

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Saturday’s Ride

So this weekend I made it to the Saturday training session, despite the cold. The weather being reported on the internet said that it was 32 degrees outside, which when I actually got outside, found that it felt a little warmer. Many clothes were suggested to be worn, none of which I had. What was recommended was biking shorts, which for the next ride, I will definitely try to have a pair because I’m sure nobody wants to read a blog that complains about chaffing. Also, gloves, I lost mine last weekend riding around. You get the picture. Of the absolutely required equipment, about all I had was a helmet. The rest of what I put together were some brown pants (I was the only one in pants at the practice mind you), and a blue thermal layer with a T-Shirt. Since I don’t own a windbreaker, I wore this blue work jacket. I’ll have to recreate the outfit and take a picture for the blog sometime. Regardless if people were snickering under their breath at me, I couldn’t care less; I was there and I wanted to ride.

Also, I love my bike, but it’s a really heavy piece of junk sometimes. When I got home, I finally noticed that the back wheel had somehow got loose and was now rubbing against the brake. For right now, I figure the whole process should be figuring out what I absolutely need so that I don’t waste money on stuff like foot covers (which I might actually buy because my feet were frozen after riding). Nevertheless, my bike was the coolest one there and a lot of people wanted to check out the old Raleigh steel frame that I was sporting.

We did four laps around the park. The first was a warm up lap. Then we did a timed run. I had no idea where I should place myself in the pack, but I ended up doing quite well–or so I think. My time was 23:35. So, the loop in Central Park is 6.1 miles long, meaning that I averaged about 15 miles per hour. I guess someone can check my math, but that was: distance / time * 60. My goal, obviously, is to do much better than that. We finished with two laps and I went home and took a nap.

Monday I’m looking forward to the clinic on bike repair, so I’ll be oiling my chain and dealing with the loosing wheel issue.

An Adage

If you buy a new shirt, the chances you will spill coffee on it the first time you wear it are very high.

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