Words

Nice coinage: "metrosketchual."  As in, "I saw the pix of Duck dynasty dudes with their families, posing for expensive portraits at a resort in khakis and highlighted hair.  It was fairly metrosketchual."  Or, "Who does Ryan Seacrest think he's fooling.  Totally metrosketchual."  Or something.

Interesting developments afoot

PC makers sidling away from Microsoft, incorporating Android apps, etc., makes for  interesting speculation about the near future for the older pieces in the wide array of gadgets now becoming must-haves.  Shaking things up would be nice.  I had to ditch Vista for Linux because it simply would not work on my machine, which is still purring on Ubuntu.  No love lost for Microsoft's monopoly game here.

This just reads like a shelf of 80s SF novels...

That's a Mpls St Paul airport Delta gate, apparently in a futuristic Bond wannabe phase.

Nice to have a day off

You can almost see our skyline, such as it is, over Lake Hiawatha there.  Lake Nokomis skaters and docks.  Flair's fountain in its usual winter state, frozen except for the burbling top, lit with colored lights.

That was not for a funeral or politics.  It's been a while.  Actually, it just feels like that, cos I went to NC for the GF's marathon in early November.  Oh yeah...  It's nice to lay around instead of traveling, tho. 

Of course, I shoveled twice and ran to the lake, in "laying around."  And helped make some dinner, lots of root vegetables thanks to the CSA I joined this winter.  The dog is slowing down a lot but had fun eating snow, still her favorite activity.

I finished The Shining Girls.  It was a good read, and meticulously researched.  In the end, it's all about a (time traveling) serial killer, though.   Somehow, that's less satisfying by the end than it was in the beginning.  I ended up feeling it was gross and sad but I hadn't really learned anything.  YMMV...  Now I'm on a rampage to finish Reamde by 12/31.  250 pages to go...

Happy holidays

I am too darn busy.  And still reading Reamde.  Along with Lauren Beukes' The Shining Girls.  It's as good as everyone says.  I have so little to say these days.  I did a year end review for Aqueduct, no. 15 here.  In which I tried not to squee too much about Rick Bowes and get put next after his entry...

I had to put the old cat to sleep, afyer 22 years, 20 with me.  RIP, Hazy.  The brat misses you, he's actually being snuggly, for now.  Enjoying it while it lasts...

I'm being snowed on in a bus shelter.  Gotta love it.  Two feet or maybe 3 inches for Christmas, we'll see.

Carrie (2013)

I saw this a while ago but haven't had the time to rave about it like I want.  I will take a brief stab at it for now...

Chloe Moretz is very very good, which is to say creepy, then brutal, yet demanding sympathy.  Julianne Moore is terrifying, even when still and silent.  The script's a little creaky, as the reviews say, but Kim Pierce hits the spots of King's story De Palma did not, and critiques teen movies in the process.  My hope this would be a very queer version was not misplaced.  For instance, fundamentalism, the small town brand of erotophobia, and bullying are linked to claw at the underlying horror of Othering and smothering in concert.  I thought it was semi-subtle and well done.  Brought me back to 80s repression yet mined current trends, at the same time.  More later...

Breaking Glass

Hazel O'Connor stars in this story of a punk/new wave singer's rise to fame in 80s Britain.  The music will bring you back, if you remember.  Selling out, mass consumerism, and conformity as the themes make this a true punk movie.  The film is surprisingly fresh this many years later, due a lot to O'Connor's personality and stage performances.  The hit song will stay in your head for weeks, but it beats that Journey song you heard in the elevator...

Brrr

It's definitely winter.  I've been trying to keep up with a winter CSA share from Featherstone Farm, with a lot of help from my friends.  Today is cold enough for roasting a funky-looking kohlrabi of immense proportions and some golden beets.  Yesterday was squash tofu Thai curry soup in the crockpot, a nice end to a long day of work, running at the gym, and having to take a convoluted combination of bus and lightrail home.  Before that, turnip, daikon, parsnip, potato mash and fennel chicken worked well. 

I have to make an apple pie and vanilla ice cream to fulfill a fundraiser auction item for the Combined Federal Campaign, and then it's Thanksgiving stuffed squash and Quorn roast.  Then no more eating til January 1, or until the next CSA share pickup...

Luckily, I've also been busy trail running, tuning up for a food bank fundraiser 10k for Thanksgiving, and weight training a little, recovering from a botched half marathon in Mankato, MN.  I got off course and only did 10.5 miles, but I think it kept me from injuring myself, so theoretically I've accepted this as yet another failed half attempt.  Ready to cut off the bad muscles, except I need something to sit on...

The lack of much to say here stems from having started Neil Stephenson's 1,000+ page Reamde while furloughed, then being sent back to work within a week because I am, of course, essential.  The book is awesome, I can barely put it down, except I constantly have to...  It's sucking up all my free time, such as that is, but in a good way.  Classic cyberpunk subject matter, thriller style, and timely observations about technology, globalization, and practical economics.  Or something.  Highly recommended, if you can make the time or don't mind reading the same book for months.

Oh yeah, I also went to DC to see the folks, bro, niece and nephew, and Air and Space, of course.   Then to NC to watch the GF run the OBX (Outer Banks marathon to the uncool, apparently.)  Pix and more later.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

I have plowed through a bunch of books and stories without time to cover them, lately, thanks to being deemed "essential" just as I got used to being at home with time to get things done (that do not cost too much).  I started Reamde by Neal Stephenson, thinking this was the perfect opportunity to get through its 1,040 some pages.  But no, it goes back on the pile.

Neil Gaiman's latest, the Ocean at the End of the Lane, IIRC, came up at the library, amazingly after 200 plus people on the list.  I started it.  It was engrossing and properly creepy.  Then downright scary.  Then I figured we were ready for Act II.  And it ended.

Really?  That's all?  All's well that ends well, essentially?  I'd say more, but major spoilers to discuss it on any level, especially since it's so short...

I'm listening to a Harry Hole, Norwegian cop mystery series.  This one, The Snowman, is also creepy, but they kind of go on and on.  This makes them better as audio books, for me, because I can tune in and out and get things done in the meantime.

I may get back to Reamde, because it started very well.  Snow Crash started well too, but then it meandered, so we'll see.  Reamde has a lot of plots in play from the get-go, so it's about keeping all those balls in the air.  I find Stephenson's brand of cyberpunky economic connectivity pushing the "what ifs" very entertaining, but I think it's probably an acquired taste, especially at such length.

Naomi Kritzer, local author, Wyrdsmiths member, and election guide guru, has a short story up at Clarkesworld called "Bits" that is pretty damn funny.  But it's the Clarkesworld type of Very Adult story, so I'm not gonna link to it.  Aliens meet Suzy Bright.

I can't think of anything else right now, before coffee, so I will stop there.  My brain is also addled from trying to figure out whether we're ever going to get a paycheck for all this work we're doing and get to use leave again.  I had to go in at 6:30 so I could be only a little late to a seminar I paid for three weeks as go, and may have to miss another one that's right in my area of practice, forgoing money and the credits I need to keep my bar license.  And for what, exactly? More unclear and off point every day... 

Really?? That's my word for the week, and I trust it will continue to prove useful...

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TC Marathon and Ten Mile

Yes, that is a banana.  There were a Viking, a (bearded) grandma, and various other intrepid costumes and wigs.  And the frontrunners at mile 15.5, and an early wheelchair runner.  Some were too fast for my camera skills...

I had a long day of biking over to St. Paul, and up Summit Avenue's incline to watch a co-worker (who's working without pay or her usual backup helpers who do a LOT behind the scenes to meet our eve-increasing production goals) run in the ten mile, then back to Minneapolis to mile 16. 

I saw the wheelies and elites flash by, watched the frontunners, saw a friend cruising to a very good PR in the 3:30 range, then people-watched until the friend we were sherpaing for came by in the 4:30ish crowd.  Friend M drove a woman with what sounded like a foot stress fracture to meet her husband, so she could get to Urgent Care.  Sounds like she'd been running on a tiny fracture for some time.  Ouch.

We then biked back to Summit to see her around mile 23 and passed out Gu (brought by M) to many people while waiting.  One woman cried a little because she could not get the last pack open with her gloves on, so we opened it for her.  Hope it helped...  People were pretty thankful, which made me wish I'd  thought of buying a box to pass out in years past. 

Then we took our marathoner to happy hour to refuel with a burger topped with three cheeses, french fries, and fried battered green beans at the Blue Door.  Miraculously, her heart did not stop, and she is planning the next race... Next up, my first half marathon, and then the barefoot runner will have to survive TAPERING for a marathon.  The race is not the hard part, at least for everybody else...

One small step for space science

No thanks to the posturers, but.

Mars-bound Maven to launch anyway.

More on the mission. 

I'm glad they're pleased with themselves

Watch who gloats to assign credit.  Bachmann's positively beaming as she sends our very productive MN office home and lets her constituents wait indefinitely for financial stability.  Homelessness, foreclosure, hunger, medical emergencies, why should she care- she gets her cool quarter mil, or whatever it actually is in farm subsidies...

As a headline said, they get an F grade in Hostage Taking 101.  All I'm gonna say, probably due to Stockholm syndrome setting in.  If I talk about SFF, it's not cos I'm oblivious.  Just too angry to speak, and somewhat fettered. 

Governance. It's not just a word. 

Have a beer, on me.

Too sciencey!

Someone gave me a very intriguing book: The Tapir's Morning Bath, about biologists researching rain forest animals and ecology.  Great cover!  Thanks. 

I put aside KS Robinson's 2312 because it was so slow to start.  Now I may put away the other ebook I was about to try again, for SCIENCE...  without the fiction...

Go, little tin can, go

Elvis has left the galaxy.

See...

Why I'm excited about "Carrie" 2013

I was listening to Worldcon attendes discussing the trailer for the"Carrie" remake and totally disagreeing about the likelihood the movie would be both bad and as simplistic as the trailer, as I ran my 11 miles last Sunday.  But I wasn't really sure I was not offbase.  Hadn't seen the trailer.  Or the movie.

But I've been excited because Kimberly Pierce is directing.  Kimberly Pierce of "Boys Don't Cry" and "Stop Loss," which have similar themes of bullying, violence, and the externalization of shame and self-hatred.  These articles convince me it's worth a peek, as she seems to be focused on the queerer aspects of "Carrie," being truer to the book, and exploring those very timely themes.  I'd have to guess revenge and the thrill, horror, and remorse that come with it, or don't when they should, figure in too...

Article with interviews 

After Ellen video interview 

Oh, and Julianne Moore as Carrie White's mother- terrifying and bound to be interesting and different.  If not wickedly brilliant.  Todd Haynes has used her skills to great effect.

Local agriculture

A friend was cranky at the students running this project in the neighborhoods today, but it made me  research further.  I have even more respect for Gandhi Mahal now...   This too.  They obviously have not worked out all the kinks, in true nonprofit style, but I'd give an A- for big ideas in action...

Labor day

I'm headed in on a fine Saturday morning, the first non-90 degree day we've had in weeks, or it seems like that anyway.  Don't defame us public servants.  No one else is headed in today to make things keep moving along, except some flight attendants and guys who're clearly headed to open restaurants.  (My old job, I do not envy them. It's hot and greasy in the kitchen, and restaurant managers... Yeesh.)

I'm listening to China Mieville's City and The City, which I just started and have to restart cos of some VERY LOUD kids on the light rail yesterday who were pulling the "You're racist if you complain or move away" schtick that doesn't really work that well in public transportation when it's not the suburban Vikings/Twins crowd. 

I'm also reading Outlaw Platoon, about the U.S. troops in Afghanistan.  True war stories, my guilty pleasure.  It's interesting, from the POV of a new platoon leader set down in a remote village with lots of local political intrigue.

(Later) I made it home, napped, ran 5 miles, biked to the store, and now I'm making black Russian sourdough and chipotle raspberry chicken wings, while it decides whether it's storming outside.

I'm reading Riding Fury Home by Chana Wilson intermittently, but can't take too much of it at once.  It's fascinating - particularly as a look at daily life in the 60s/70s women's movement and lesbian circles, but a little too much of what I think about all day at work.  Will review it separately.

Later- I'm trying to rework the setup for these two different novels I got stuck on.  The setting in terms of time and place is not right in one, maybe just slightly off.  The other is not taking the characters where they need to go.  I think it's the characters, not quite realized enough.  They started as kind of stereotypes, so that's likely enough.  Stewing about them on the page is likely my plan for today- now Sunday.  Plus finishing the bread, which rises overnight, then five hours, easier to fit in a weekend.  Farmer's market in Kingfield and salsa canning is possible, too, if I'm not too lazy.  And it doesn't rain- it's hazy grey out.

Anyway...  Wrote this like I read and write fiction, in fits and starts...

Tryin' to make a living...

I'm headed in to work Saturday OT, to help crush our ever-mounting workload.  On the train, I've been madly reading Charles Stross, Rule 43.  It's very good so far.  I  hadn't realized that all but one or two characters are decidedly not heteronormative, because he made a point of making it so.  It's relatively well done, so far.  The cyberpunk is chock full of tech goodness, suspense, economic extrapolation, and good old fashioned cynicism.  I'd say more, but I have to get back to it.  Here's the MN zoo's new tapir, because he's pretty.

You know it's summer when...

A 10k blocks the road Saturday, and a triathlon Sunday.

There are backyard parties at more houses on the block than not.

You're looking up zucchini recipes, desperately trying to find something really different.

You feel bad for the people running at 4 p.m., even if they look happy.

A retro funk band is playing LOUD in your neighbor's backyard, and nobody cares 'cos they're pretty good.

You're about to break the record for most (fake) BLTs in one week.  Or fresh salsa and chips.

It's hot and you want these people with gardens and parties to shut up and go away.  So you can sleep in the shade.

You're dead tired of mowing.  You're even more tired of your neighbor mowing.  Because he makes it clear you should be too.

Chafing.  Ouch.  And a singlet and shorts are too much clothing.

Weeds.  Dreams of blowtorch or DDT.

Dogs panting and sighing and looking at you like it's all your fault.  And it is, of course.  Like fireworks and squirrels who taunt them.

Everyone else at work is on vacation.

Everyone gay is getting married.  Oh, that's new, and state- and year-specific.  But let me say, one wedding per couple, please...  You're hardly unique if we have more than one until-now-denied friend.  And don't honeymoon in a hater state, please.  Spend those niche dollars wisely.

At least my hometown is vacated by the transient powerbrokers, and everyone else can breathe that August drained swamp air freely...  Did you hear, they may have a vaccine that works for malaria?  That's actually news.

Anyway... It's hot.  And the neighbors are playing "... I got the moves like Jagger..."  *You* try to be interesting.

Writing advice from the pros

I'm an internet slacker.  I catch onto things only years later.  Following up on a recommendation to read  this, by Charlie Anders, I ran across a lot of other funny stuff, including  this. 

"There are two things more difficult than writing. The first is editing, the second is expert level Sudoku where there’s literally two goddamned squares filled in. While editing is a grueling process, if you really work hard at it, in the end you may find that your piece has fewer words than it did before, which is great. Perhaps George Bernard Shaw said it best when upon sending a letter to a close friend, he wrote, “I’m sorry this letter is so long, I didn’t have time to make it shorter.” No quote better illustrates the point that writers are very busy."

So true.  Write your heart out.

Deep summer

Tomato season.  Peppers, tomatillos, corn, eggplant, bitter melon.  Salsa canning.  Need I say more?

Best use of Game of Thrones in social theory

Jack Halberstam hits another one past the fence: on Bully Bloggers.

"...Sedgwick, she tells us early on, had critiqued Lord Halperin (House of Homosexuality and House of Joan Crawford) for investing in a Foucaultian model of genealogical thinking that placed too much emphasis on the notion of the clean break, or the Great Paradigm Shift. Sedgwick, in her emphasis on the coexistence of different models of sexuality, obviously leans more to the house of Unhistoricism than that of Historicism. But because Sedgwick is such a powerful player in the Game of Thrones, she cannot so easily be ceded to the other side."

The dog is skeptical.

So is Nena.

Watching me dance to "Let's Dance," playing on Teenage Kicks (The Current).  She's a Bowie purist.  But I remember trying to sound like Bowie did on that album, his voice deep and snarling.  That voice made the blonde bouffant and pop backing strange and artificial, as posed as any of his former guises.  Maybe.  The girl I like like liked was a huge fan, what can I say...

Listening to Tina Fey's Bossypants and wondering why I had delayed.  Freakin' funny.  She makes some timely observations about how straight people, even and maybe especially nerds and other unpopular people, have used gays for entertainment and succor, a captive audience, from a place of privilege.  I would say more, but she puts it very well from her own "oh, revelation about my past" POV.

I'm also reading Vestal McIntyre's Lake Overturn, which is slyer but just as funny in moments, a very gay take on "normal life" in Amrrca, in the form of Utah here.  The plot revolves in part around a science fair, so there's a geeky edge.

Diversicon is this weekend  with Catherine Lundoff and Jack McDeavitt as GoHs, and the GF's mom is in town.  I am trying to rev up onto the half marathon schedule again, after a two week break from various stupid injuries (no doubt from being tired).  I still plan to get some writing done, as I've been tossing some disparate things around in the noggin, not quite ready to throw on the blender.

Ah, Purple Rain.  Dig if you will, a picture...

Ha

The MSBA, our voluntary state bar, informs me I could get a 50% discount if 90% of the attorneys in my office joined too...  Herding fifty-some cats...  That would require skills way above my pay grade.

Speaking of shimmering fantasies, I just finished "The Spell," by Allan Hollinghurst.  Enjoyable, not exactly lite but lighter than his other novels that I've read.  Those were later, and had loftier ambitions, won Man Booker and all that kerfuffle.  It was nicely gay, not how straight people might write gay in trying to imagine gay life. 

The competition and understanding between the gay father and son were more interesting than the movies I've seen that tried to explore that.  What if the son's your average low level drug dealer and enjoying his sex appeal to the full- not the usual "keep it positive" special issue.  And not as out there as QAF because not TV in the age of sensation. 

Nicely done, overall.  The characters were a bit stilted at times, but in ways people truly are, in their heads.  They had self-consciousness and lack of it in human doses...

Oh, Shirley

The Shirley Jackson awards are nice and all, but honestly, no one writes horror on her level these days.  In a way, it can't be done anymore because we believe too easily in what she convinced us of, the mundane horror of daily, normal life.

The Lottery has been done, now.  The Hunger Games doesn't have that effect.  What horror story can, aside from real life, which is more horrible.  There are a million goth girls playing at being Shirley and Plath now.  Sunniness is more shocking.

"The story created outrage on publication in 1948 in The New Yorker, described in letters to the magazine office as “gruesome” and “a new low in human viciousness.” But Jackson preferred to quote the letters she received from readers who “wanted to know where the lotteries were being held, and if they could go watch.”

 From Open Letters Monthly 

This is less unbelievable in the era of reality TV, cyberbullying, school shootings, and Google Glass.

Typical summer Saturday morning

Making sourdough squash, kale, corn pancakes (mostly) and strawberry raspberry  jam from the garden while listening to the Clash on Teenage Kicks (The Current 89.3 FM).  Then biking to the Farmers Market if my back will let me. 

Had a little pain after trying to lift the balky dog up the stairs, after pulling a calf muscle running fast in hot hot heat.  It's thrown my running schedule off but, except for the pain, I'm happy for a little break.  The last few weeks I've been tired in the 90 degree heat and unable to go run in the gym for various reasons.  (It's not much cooler there, but no sun beating down.)

I have been reading the bio of Lopez Long, a Sudanese lost boy who ran for the US in the last two Olympics, and just broke the indoor American record for the 5,000m.  The video is worth watching, if you google it- nice surprise kick ahead of the leaders.  The book is interesting, tho a little too fawning on W.

I'm now reading Alan Hollinghurst's The Spell.  So far it's pretty captivating.  It meanders with lots of scene description, but he has this style that makes that sort of gripping, very 19th century.  Working on a novelish thing that delves into the spiritualism and poetry of that era, so it fits.

It's hot...

The faucet has been dry when I turn it on.  But the write-a-thon process seems to be helping.  Today I got a slow trickle of ideas for rewriting this thing I was trying to work on.  Sigh, sometimes it's sooo sloooow.

Not everything changes overnight...

Besides the ugly news from Russia and Poland, there's been a steady stream if stories of hate crimes in WI, as well as their poltical madness.   Recently from BigGayNews:  "The Pioneer Press reports that the organizer of what would have been Wausau [WI]’s first gay pride parade has cancelled it, saying he has experienced a wave of ugliness in the community. Daxx Bouvier, who is from California but owns a home in Wausau, said that he made his decision to cancel the parade following the negative comments from a Wausau City Council member and a number of articles in the local media caused people planning to be in the parade to be concerned for their own safety. Bouvier said that he does not plan to organize any future gay pride events in the city."

More @:  Big Gay News 

It's a little like having formal rights at work all of a sudden but still having to navigate the same ignorance and hostility every day, along with enjoying the camraderie of the same friendly, supportive people.  Changed, yet not at all.

Score one for the birds

The ridiculous rain from the previous month's storm made the walking path part of the lake/wetlands.  The ducks and egret were happy.  I misjudged and got sloshy shoes for the next four and a half miles.  Oops...

My first raspberries came in, though.  They're loving the downpours alternating with 85+ degree days of full sun.  Now I have to add picking twice a day to the schedule, if I can't con others into picking and eating all the berries.  The birds got more aggressive about them last year, and took all my pears (and rabbits or birds took all my peas this year) so we'll just have to see.

Eight miles

I ran across the bridge and down the river on the St Paul side to Crosby Farms, which is river level.  The water is high, so much of it is closed off.  The Limestone outcroppings on the bluffs are cool.  There's a covered-up cave outlet, which I did not realize, even after reading Greg Brick's book about Twin Cities caves.

It took a long time, at 80-plus degrees and rising, but got 'er done.  The two Somali guys who stopped, dropped, and.did pushups every half mile are hardier than I, and twenty years younger, I might add...

I was listening to the SF Squeecast but then Lopez Lomong's book Running for My Life.  Listening to his description of running away from a Senegalese rebel camp after being taken from his parents at age 6, running all day and night with no food or water to a Kenyan refugee camp, I could not complain about eight miles and a little heat...

Nectarine raspberry

The dogs were less happy.

Midsommer

Finally some good weather is making the garden and lawnmower-obsessed Minnesotans happy.  I biked home 7.5 miles, with a nice downhill several miles, and may have to try the to and from next.  I may take the wimpier path to, though...

The dogs don't like fireworks, but I am following my family tradition of making ice cream, albeit soy and without the old blue hand cranker.  The GF's son returned to his home briefly from fighting that deadly AZ wildfire, so there's something to celebrate. 

I'm not happy that the sequester has left them shorthanded and low on needed big equipment, though.  It's one thing to defund us desk jockeys, but drowning first responders in the bathtub is just plain destructive in all ways.  Shortsighted is blowing in the wind.  You don't need a weatherman to tell...  Just headlines.

I'm reading a bio of Mark Spitz and Borderliners by Peter Hoeg side by side.  Both studies in authoritarian pedagogies, it seems to work better for sports, when the pupil is very very driven, as well as physically gifted.  Borderliners has an interesting obsession with theories of time, as well as psychology, but it is weird, as in purposely obscure.

I have to get to work, to meet my write-a-thon goal of one hour a week.  While I actually have some free time. This experiment in triathleting is hard on the schedule.  Fun though, so far, though swimming is still eluding me.  It's harder than it looks... Kind of like writing.

Bone loss science

One of the reasons I enjoy poring over certain types of sports training books is the reems of odd scientific studies they usually discuss. 

I'm reading "Bike for Life: How to Ride to 100" by Roy Wallack and Bill Katovsky.  At first, it had lots of funny stories of their crazy ultra-cycling escapades with high elevation climbs from hell.  But then an offhand comment sent me ahead to Chapter 9 on the discovery of widespread prevalence of developing osteoporosis in male elite cyclists, even young ones.  Female too, it turns out.

The chapter gives an interesting tour through the vagaries of scientific method, such as doing a ton of studies on impact and resistance and diet but not considering calcium loss in sweat content. 

But Bill "Bagman" Gookin, a marathoning biochemist who puked up green Gatorade during a failed Olympic trial, back in the day taped plastic sandwich bags to his back, chest, and armpits while running to gather sweat samples.  He found calcium as well as potassium, sodium, magnesium, and all the usual things sports drinks are concocted to replace.  Yet most drinks do not include calcium, or did not.  I looked, the increasingly popular Nuun fizzy tablets do, though not in the All Day version.

So then they do the maths: 200 mg calcium lost in 1 hour x a seven-hour century ride = 1,400 mg.  12 hours a week amounts to 2,440 mg lost.  Two day's RDA a week, year after year...

Triathletes, however, have strongass bones because the impact of running,  and resistance training for those who also lift weights.  Turns out cycling is like a mild version of spaceflight- weightlessness causes bone loss from no impact or resistance, causing weird workout machines (or plain old resistance bands) to be concocted and used up there.  Another argument for cross training besides over-development of specific muscles.

Then there's the resting when not riding, so less walking, running, jumping sports, and weight lifting.  Why studies and education make a difference in training: what you don't know could drastically thin your bones.  I read a lot of cycling books and magazines in the eighties, but they did not know this yet...

Plus, phosphate from soft drinks leaches calcium too.  They harp on the sugar and obesity, but, man, even diet drinks have the phosphorus that sucks out calcium... Easy to forget, like all the individual little pieces.  What I love about these types of discussions in training books is the sheer number of interacting and sometimes contradictory factors at play.  (X is good, but detracts from Y, which you also need.  And Z is just bad, but who wants to give it up?) 

In the end, we do need science, not just doing what feels right, or trial and error...  Except... 

Cute as hell

Berlin Zoo's baby spiny anteater.

The Voting Rights Act was gutted by the SCOTUS today.  I'm not in the mood to read it or the ICWA case yet.  Yesterday's decision was weird.  I'm not looking forward to the next release- think they will deny standing on both.  But who knows. 

I hear Alito was very unprofessional listening to a Ginsberg dissent.  In AZ they make you take a course where you learn not to make faces when opposing counsel or party speaks.  Not the worst idea.

My online workout log is looking more like triathlon training.  Little biking guy and swimming guy alternate with running guy on the display.  It's the sweating season.  Everyone was dripping on the paths tonight, and at the Y yesterday, where the fans cool the weightlifters only.

Writing is up next.  I actually got a new idea today.  Hallelujah.  It's been a while.

Storm damage

From around the Longfellow neighborhood, on my run home.