June 08, 2006
February 15, 2006
pillow fight club
pillow fight club rules:
1. tell everyone about pillow fight club.
2. tell everyone about pillow fight club.
3. turn up at the arranged pillow fight club venue with pillow hidden in a bag.
4. at the exact given time pull out pillow and fight.
5. you cannot fight anyone without a pillow (unless they want it).
justin herman plaza, 6:00, valentine's day...
<br>
February 14, 2006
yum
tom yum.
from best of thai noodlehouse on haight street.
<br>
January 26, 2006
jury duty
after getting summoned for the third time, i served on my first californ-i-a jury last week. i had to defer in november because of travel plans that overlapped with the case in question, so i got called back this month. they sat me right down in the jury box for the jury selection with 19 others while the rest of the prospectives sat in the back waiting to get dismissed. i have a feeling it was because i had deferred. fantastic, that dramatically increased my chances of landing on the jury. word to the wise, don't defer if you can avoid it. it could increase your chances of getting stuck on a jury when you return.
it was civil court, so no one's life or freedom was at stake. only $$$$. juror questioning quickly turned to the topics of escalators, high heels, and broken bones. i mentioned that one time when i was a little kid and got my shoelace stuck at the bottom of an escalator and a stranger behind me grabbed my leg and pulled until the lace broke. a little scary, but no blood no foul. i also mentioned my skepticism of an overly litigious society. several of the other prospective jurors riffed on it too and got dismissed, but for some reason it wasn't enough for me and i got picked.
thankfully it was a short, 1-week trial, so not an awful one to get stuck on. some lady fell down a bart escalator. she was walking down the moving escalator in high heels with her hands full when it suddenly came to a stop and she fell and broke her ankle. a plate and two screws later, she got her day in court. you may not realize that escalators are designed to stop and stop quickly to avoid damage and injury in certain situations. like when coins, shoelaces, and small mammals get stuck in them. so most of the testimony was from boring escalator people about what causes them to stop, and if this particular escalator stopped for a good reason. loose screws stuck in comb plate impact switches. riveting.
it's worth noting that it was the busiest escalator at the busiest bart station (embarcadero) and it happened just after rush hour. although it had a record of stopping more frequently than average during the timeframe in question, it also serves about a million patrons a year, so one might expect it to have more problems than average.
in the end, bart didn't have it's act together enough to provide convincing evidence that the escalator stopped for a good reason. they didn't produce the nefarious jammed screw or a single bart employee that was on the scene, and their paper trail was lacking. so we ruled in favor (although not unanimously) of the plaintiff, and gave her most of her stated expenses (medical, lost wages, etc.), but very little on top of that for pain and suffering. she said on the stand that she can pretty much do everything she used to do, so we weren't crying for her. it amounted to about $15,000. she had an expert witness who cost about half that. after her lawyer fees, i doubt she walked away with much, if anything. she really should have settled. during closing arguments, her lawyer overshot and asked for $100,000, so i think he upsold her on going to trial thinking he could get more out of us.
so if nothing else, we kept the system alive. it was sort of an interesting process to see. i enjoyed the long lunches exploring civic center. it's too bad i didn't get a total bye from my day job and had to head in to the office and work into the evening. made for some long days. i wish i had some sort of jury credit that would keep me from getting called again for awhile.
<br> - juror #6
January 24, 2006
twin peaks sunrise
photo:cameraphone [more]
since i'm not training for anything specific, but am trying to retain some semblance of fitness, i'm trying to mix up my rides and get out of the rut of the two or three rides that i usually do in the morning. i decided to point my bike up instead of north this morning. twin peaks is less than a mile as-the-crow-flies (and ~700 vertical ft.) from my house and i wanted to get up there in time for 7:20 sunrise, so i didn't get much of a warmup before the pavement tilted up.
after watching the show, i headed east over bernal hill, through the mission and soma to work. a nice change of scenery and commute. places i hadn't really ridden since i moved out of the mission almost 3 years ago.
oh, and i got a new cheapy cameraphone, so now i can subject you to spontaneous yet grainy photos.
<br>
November 23, 2005
grand prix clark natwick
golden gate park
2005/11/20
cat b
22nd/71
teammates: joe, roger (ss), rich (ss)
great day in the park today. perfect racing weather. sunny, but not too hot. the low autumn sun mottled from filtering through the eucalyptus reminded me of my best morning training rides. made me feel like i was on home turf. really cool to ride to and from the venue. just strapped the race wheels to the gear bag and go!
managed to get the punctured tufo from yesterday sealed and holding air again. also took delivery of some 700x35 ritchey clinchers that i can run lower than the schwalbe's. so happier with my wheel options than yesterday.
got there nice and early to help set up the popup. lauren et al had it well under control. put the race wheels on only to find a puncture in the front tufo this time. not a great weekend for the tufos. worked the sealant down to the leak and it seemed to close up, but i didn't really trust it at that point, so left it in the pits. decided to run the rear tufo and the front clincher today, which worked out fine.
got out on the course for 2 practice laps in between other races, which i think was more than most. legs were pretty heavy during warmup, and heartrate was noticably lower, but i figured that was to be expected on the second day. my head was in the right place today, so i wasn't too concerned.
good spot at the start with joe right behind the ritchey/lapierre guys in the front row on their trainers. got stuck in traffic a little off the line. tried to work my way to the outside so i could get around people, but got boxed in a bit. eventually managed to get out and around some people before the big crunch at the bottleneck.
felt pretty good throughout the race. moved up pretty well most of the race thanks to the help of my hometown cheering section. rode with and even beat a few people who beat me at the first two pilarcitos races. had pretty good luck finding wheels in the open sections, or at least making sure i wasn't giving anyone else a free ride. basically felt more like a racer. was reeling people in more easily, and looking ahead more instead of behind. i was even gaining on jeremy sarrow at the end, who i've never been able to touch in a race before. if i had another minute of race, i maybe could have caught him.
had a great time on the course today. i like this kind of woodsy stuff with fast open sections but no extended runups or climbs to recover from. just gotta keep laying the power on, good and steady like. thanks to all my peeps who came out just to watch: julie, ariel, dave, deb, katy, jay, marissa, chris. and to all the other voices i heard out there cheering for me including (but not limited to) jessica, sasha, jeremy, mikeo, beav, negley, and all the rest of the sycippers.
really enjoyed the rest of the day wandering around the course watching the elites showing us how it's done. some mountain bikey friends, rayner and dambrov, came out to spectate with us. the vibe was pretty cool throughout, especially by the pond where the pink rabbit and orange jumpsuited hecklers made the pros work for their living.
<br>
October 25, 2005
seismic model of san francisco
October 17, 2005
thou shalt not preregister
the nth commandment of bike racing:
thou shalt not preregister for an event unless there is a clear and present danger of it filling up before race day.
skipped the race this weekend due to my sore knee (which is feeling much better now thank-you-very-much). from what i've heard so far about the race, i'm not too upset about it. it was a hot day on a dusty technical course with lots of running. not what my knee would have appreciated. unfortunately i had preregistered, so threw away that entry fee. thankfully, cyclocross races aren't very expensive. that's the third time i've forfeited a race entry this year, so i need to follow the nth commandment better. just because you can preregister, doesn't mean you should. it's setting yourself up for murphy's law to knock you down. no one can blame me of not supporting bike racing though. logically, the inverse also holds:
the n'th commandment of bike racing:
thou shalt preregister for an event if there is a clear and present danger of it filling up before race day.
got bit on that one once this year too. got turned away from a big event because i didn't preregister. whoops! did get a good ride in at soquel demo that day though.
so instead of racing this weekend, i enjoyed a romantic sunset dinner with my sweetie to celebrate our 4th anniversary at the beach chalet. also spent a nice day with the future in-laws exporing a couple neighborhoods of san francisco that i usually don't have the opporunity to. potrero hill for brunch, and specific whites for a walking tour of victorian era architecture. lucked out on weather all weekend, thanks to the too-short san francisco indian summer.
<br> - velologian
September 30, 2005
fore!
i played my first ever round of 'real' golf yesterday. it was a company function at the golden gate park course. golf is not my game. the times i managed to connect it was anyone's guess where it was going to go. chipping went slightly better. it's a good thing we were playing best ball, or it would have been a long night. at one point, a guy who worked there (and had about a 2 second attention span at the cash register) came rolling up in a golf cart to help move us along because we were taking too long. claimed he would help us learn to 'play bad golf quickly', which included telling us everything we were doing wrong or non-traditionally. thanks guy, way to sell the newbies on the sport. i missed a putt just to take longer and piss him off. or at least that made for a good excuse...
of course at the end he wanted to present us with a plan to practice drills back at the office and schedule monthly office tournaments at his course. yeah, i see that happening. that guy needs to learn how to read an audience.
the course was super low-rent. $10 for city residents. the brodie mountain of golf courses.
golf is similar to bowling in that it is not just figuring out the technique, but also being able to predictably repeat the technique with controlled adjustments. i succeeded at neither. with bowling i have enough muscle memory from my childhood bowling league days to fake it. not so with golf. also with bowling there is more opportunity for repetition to learn it. not so out on the links. i guess that's why they invented driving ranges and putt putt. also like bowling, it is fine activity for drinking and socializing. luckily, many of use were similarly skilled and inclined to focus on the drinking and socializing.
couldn't ask for better weather. the park was gorgeous with the evening sun filtering through the eucalyptus. good to get a different perspective than my usual one from the saddle, alone in the early morning, sober.
<br> - linksman
September 26, 2005
cyclocross[dress]
photo:julie [bigger]
cyclocross is a fall sport that i have come to love over the past several years. it satisfies my love of dirt from my mountain biking background, and provides an exciting, fast-paced, competitive environment that i have found addictive in its painfulness. it's a niche sport. it has it's own specific skill set and equipment. there are probably only a couple thousand people in the country at any given time who would label themselves active cyclocross racers. it's huge in europe though, in proportion to the popularity of cycling in general. going into my third season, i'm starting to consider myself a cyclocross racer more than a mountain biker. teammates who have been into it for longer say that is a common pattern.
the regular 'cross season starts in late september. there are local races on saturday and sunday most weekends into january. locally, they start out hot and dusty, and transition with the season to chilly and muddy. dfl, a local san francisco 'team' 'organizes' a pre-season race series called the urban outlaw cyclocrossdress series. (quotes indicate loosely defined terms.) basically they set up renegade cyclocross courses in public parks around san francisco and hold races. they charge $5 to race, but it's free if you opt to crossdress. so a dress from the goodwill pays for itself in one race. there is a best-dressed award at the end of the series. the courses are rough around the edges to say the least. non-optimal clothing increases the degree of difficulty. it is run auhorization- and insurace-free. because sometimes it is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. the effect is 50 some odd crossdressed bikers descend on a given park for a frantic, 45-minute hammer-fest, and then go away. hopefully before anyone complains.
participants range from first-timers to elite professionals. pokey to superfast. pot-smoking anarchist messengers to hyper-regimented bike racer geeks. with me falling somewhere in the middle on all scales. newbies are tentative and get lapped multiple times by the leaders. i usually get lapped once by the leaders and lap a few at the tail. from a race-organiztion point of view, it's a fast and loose nightmare. yet somehow everyone seems to play nice and does't get hurt. at least no too much.
this wacky urban phenomenon is how i got introduced to cyclocross in the first place. it is one of those uniquely san francisco things that makes me appreciate living in this city that can seem expensive and difficult sometimes. it takes racing, which can get so serious and negatively competitive, and turns it on it's head by adding elements of absurdity and chaos. and much hilarity ensues.
so i do the series. i try to appreciate the cultural aspects of it and not worry about my results too much, which can be hard for a racer-type. i and the other participants with aspirations of racing the real season risk an injury or a too-early peak to our fitness by starting to race early before the long season. so i realize that it might not be the best move towards realizing my potential in the 'real' races. but i also realize that i'm not really genetically programmed to become an elite bike racer, so i balance the risk with the fun of the series and the appreciation i have for it as a phenomenon.
here's what matt smith from the sfweekly had to say about it last year during the 10th anniversary series, with a political spin.
<br> - slut
September 19, 2005
remembering todd
we went to a memorial on saturday for todd wilson. it was a lovely service for a lovely man. todd grew up going to the same church in troy, ny as i did. about a decade older, he was my junior high youth group leader in what seems like a different lifetime.
he moved to san francisco. when i first came to reconnoiter in the late 90s, he was a great host and evangelist of san francisco. he wouldn't let me pay for anything. he took me on a bike ride up the railroad grade on mt. tam because i told him i liked mountain biking. he was a bike commuter, but not really a biker. mt. tam is a little bigger than market street. but no big whoop.
when i decided to move here, i asked him if i might crash at his place for a bit while i looked for an apartment (in 2000, the worst possible time to look for an apartment in san francisco). he and his partner chris welcomed me without hesitation. they were scheduled to be out of town when i arrived. he sent me a house key in the mail with the only request being that i water the plants (i think i overwatered a cactus, sorry!). he was pivitol in making my move to the left coast that much more manageable. when i didn't really know many people here at all, he opened himself and his home up to me. all in his smiling, open, completely non-mental, non-judgemental way. when you're with todd, everything is going to be just fine.
that same year, when i didn't go home for holidays, he invited me to his intimate family xmas eve dinner. good company and a gourmet dinner (thanks to chris) during a decidedly blue period of my life, during the bluest time of the year if you don't have a place to go. for all these things i will be forever indebted to him. of course he would have never seen it that way.
he was a talented dba and passionate independent film maker. i also have him to thank for my imdb entry. he made films that reinforced his ability to be exactly who he was. respectfully, positively, and unapologetically a gay man.
even though we did not remain close as my life in san francisco took root, he was, without a doubt, a person who i was just happy to know was in the world. i think the last time i saw him was last winter sometime. both commuting up market street on bikes. traffic, darkness and the general chaos of the daily commute made it so i did not get to say hello, and i'm not sure he saw me, but his 6'6" frame pedaling his upright commuter bike was unmistakable. maybe i noticed he had a cough. he died of lung cancer at the age of 42 and will be sorely missed.
when i found out from my family that he had fallen ill, i wasn't sure exactly what to do. i knew that, with the life he lived, he was well supported. and given that, i didn't really feel close enough for it to seem natural for me to reach out. i don't know if i was worried about seeming more of a burden on him than a help. maybe that he might not feel comfortable accepting help from me. those are my insecurities on confronting mortality talking and i still feel a little guilty for that, yet as i heard updates, and went to the memorial, i saw just how strong a community he had built around himself, and how it helped him through his final days. so i'll let this be my little contribution.
<br> (ix) - cafe patron