March 29, 2007
~ Parma, Nyssa, Ontario...ho! ~
On Saturday, despite the pain from my mountain biking crash, I had the opportunity to go on an exploratory adventure. Josh and I packed up our persons and drove West. Our first stop was his old stomping ground, Parma. As we pulled off the highway, we drove up to a replica of Olde Fort Boise, which is apparently the only thing to see in Parma. In front of the withered concrete structure was a sad looking model of Big Foot. At the base was an educational snippet about Big Foot, as though Big Foot were, you know, real. ...It was odd. Speaking of Parman education, while we were there, we stopped by Josh's old middle school where it appeared that the construction of a new building may have destroyed the hiding place of a time capsule that his class had burried beneath the earth. Despite his saddness, he was able to have some fun at a nearby park. Here's a sweet photo of the little apple of mine eye finding some joy in the day. 
We then drove our persons across the border to Nyssa, Oregon where the fun was simply overwhelming. The two-block downtown provided ample amusement for two young bumpkins like ourselves. We started the Nyssan adventure by entering a quilting store and wandering the stock of brightly colored fabric. There was a seemingly antisocial genderless being playing a game on a computer and Josh bought a small stuffed animal friend of the ground hog variety with top hat and bow tie which we named Half Chubb because of its resemblance to a semi-erect penis. Nyssa provided ample more excitement, including a video rental establishment with cheaply priced items and a "fashion" store which embodied the epitome of gaudy. 
View image
And so we found ourselves in search of further excitement in Ontario, Oregon. I might mention that before leaving Boise, we stopped by the record store for some new compact discs with which to listen to some musical tunes, which included the new Modest Mouse album. Josh had wanted to purchase tickets to their concert while we were at the record store, but he learned that the tickets sold out in seven minutes. So, no dice..or, no mice. Anyhoo, Ontario. Our hunger compelled us to drive around town looking for a tasty place to eat (rolling of mine eyes...a tasty place at which to eat, but we were so hungry that we could have eaten an entire establishment). After driving around for a good amount of time, we finally decided to enter a cheezy "Italian" restaurant whose decor I simply could not contain my disgust for. I dunno, call me Judge Mental, but I found their expression of the shabby chic with cheap "made in china" knock-off furniture along with plastic grape vines and postcard photos of Italy not the choices that I would have made if it had been my restaurant. We ordered some garlic bread and sauce which was veddy veddy yummy and some calzones which were alright. I wanted four beers but had water instead. After filling our bellies with authentic Italian food in an establishment that made me feel like I was on the streets of Roma (insert another rolling of the eyes), we wandered the streets until we came upon the local train station. 
March 27, 2007
~ wound care ~
As you read in the most recent installment of this fine recounting of the wonders of my life, I felt that I was in a glorious place last Friday. After a week of being inert in front of my computer, pumping out brilliance in the form of some research papers, I had come upon the glorious day of Friday which was the due date of my final research paper and the beginning of spring break. To bask in this glory, Josh and I went on a mountain bike ride. We rode Shane's Loop, which is a very mild ride that I have ridden countless times. I found this ride particularly difficult on that Friday and I attribute this to my having remained inert for the duration of the week. Which is telling of my out-of-shapedness considering the easiness of the Loop.
Anyhoo, I don't feel much like recounting every single dingle wingle inconsequential detail of the ride, which is unusual for me...do I feel okay?, so I'll skip ahead to the point of impact. Which was the ground and me having failed to engage in the proper landing of a jump, resulting in my flying over my handlebars and landing with an audible 'thud.' I say 'audible' because Josh was riding a decent distance in front of me and heard the 'thud' that I produced upon impact. I have surmised that I was flying through the air for several seconds because I was able to asertain in mid flight specifically how this was going to ruin my weekend.
I'll spare you some of the less sexy details of my crash, like how the impact dislodged an incredible amount of mucus from my nasal passageway, and allow you to think that the crash was totally rad, when, in fact, it was not...totally rad. The raddest part of the crash, however, was how I strategically dispersed the impact to three rather largish areas of my person, rather than focusing the impact at one locus. So, rather than having one part of my person being severely injured (say, if I had stuck out my hand to break my fall and instead broke my wrist), I have three parts having been mildly injured. Basically, the left side of my person is lame, specifically my left knee, my left thigh/hip region, and my left forearm sustained the brunt of the impact. As I recall, that which made me feel the worst about the crash was when I saw the horrid tear that the crash had caused in my brand new awesome green cycling jacket. Just thinking of that two inch tear in the sleeve of the jacket brings tears to my eyes. So sad, it was such a beautiful jacket.
Anyway, here's a gross picture of my bloody knee
post impact with the ground. You might have been surprised, as was I, by the sheer amount of swelling that occured to this knee over the weekend. You might also be surprised at how great the pain was on this knee, pain which has made every movement of my person sheer agony. The pain and inability to move and bear weight on the knee had become so great by Sunday night that I had resolved to go to the free employee health clinic at my place of employment. Monday when I awoke, the knee was remarkably better. The swelling was gone and the knee had returned to a state of sorta-nimbleness. It still hurt like the dickens, but was noticably better.
So, I walked into work and all of my coworkers, many of whom have university degrees on how to take care of the human body, could not contain themselves over the state of my wounds. My supervisor literally saw my knee and then escorted me across the street to get a tetnus shot. She had to hold my hand throughout this process because the thought of being impaled by a needle made my knees weaken and my stomach churn. She even held my hand when it became incredibly clammy and cold sweaty as I saw the ginormous needle about to inject me with poison. I thought I would faint.
Later that day, one of the experts on the human body had a telephone conversation with the local wound care specialist and also utilized the library services to research wound care in sports medicine. This brought her to recommend that I apply a specific kind of dressing (Tegaderm) to my knee. She surmised that this dressing would only be available at specialty medical supply shops and might be rather expensive. I made a few phone calls and discovered that I could buy the dressing at cost through my employer, and so I procured three of them for two dollars. The experts on the human body with whom I work said that Tegaderm would be just the ticket to allow my wound to breath, would not stick to the wound, and would allow for proper drainage.
For those who are like me and are not experts on the human body, here is my experience. First, this dressing, to my unexpert eye, resembles celophane in its clear and smoothness. It is obvious that it is not made out of plastic, unlike celophane, and is more pliable, stretchy, and almost rubbery. I am confident that this is not going to stick to my wound...one of the experts on the human body and I had something of an argument about medical supplies purporting to not stick to wounds. I was a vehement disbeliever and did not want to apply any sort of dressing to my wound. But I now believe. Secondly, the drainage has been an interesting experience for me. The dressing seems a little porous and when I brush my hand against its surface, I sense a slight moistness that may be due to my wound goo evaporating and forming condensation on the outer side of the dressing. At the same time, the dressing forms these pockets in which the wound goo accumulates, and these pools of wound goo push themselves into rives and leak out from the underside of the dressing. The dressing is translucent and it is possible to watch all of the disgusting healing powers of my person. This is not to say that I have wound goo dripping down my leg, but it does accumulate in crusty wound goo patches. I am now in the habit of having a tissue with me to periodically wipe away the crusty wound goo. Here is a gross photo of my knee with the dressing on it. If you examine it closely, you can see how it resembles celophane, the pools of wound goo that accumulate on the inside of the dressing, and the crusty wound goo that drains onto my leg. As disgusting as this looks to you or I, according to the experts on the human body with whom I work, my wounds are healing nicely.
March 23, 2007
~ another human emotion, relief ~
Today, my friends, is a glorious day in that it marks the end of this week. By the time that I had depressed the SEND button on my email to my professor with an attachment of my research paper, I was feeling somewhat sad that bars do not open at 9:00 in the a.m. Also sad that it's not appropriate to drink champagne at work. 'Cause I felt lik celebrating!
I had opted to convert my research paper into a .pdf so that it wouldn't be quite so obvious that I had not followed some of the formating rules, such as double spaced instead of 1.5 spaced and 12 point font instead of 11 point font. What with brevity not being my strong point, it is much more simple to defy rules and guidelines than trying to constrain my brilliance. Of course, in my email, I said some bs about wanting to make sure that the file transfered well because I've got a "weird version of Word," which is a total lie.
Anyway, I stayed up really late working on the paper and I found that once I started sipping on a beer, I was more intellectually stimulated and inspired. And feeling stimulated and inspired somewhat made up for the fact that I have had virtually no life all week. Today also marks the beginning of spring break and I am looking forward to not giving one second of a thought to the public policy process. On my walk to work, I decided to treat myself to a 16 oz. mocha and while I was at the coffee shop, I ran into one of my classmates who articulated that we are well deserving of a break.
March 22, 2007
~ the human emotion, anger ~
Something funny happened earlier this week, and by "funny" I mean the opposite. Actually, there were numerous funny things, but in this writing I would like to focus on one of them which I have not had the opportunity to relate to anyone yet because of my preoccupation with the other main funnyness.
Monday was the start of a very. long. week. I got up at the ridiculously early-for-me hour of 6:00 a.m. to work on my two research papers that are due this week. I say! Two research papers due in the same week is awesome! Then I went to work, where I remained for ten entire whole hours without taking a break. Then I went directly to the university where I sat in class for another three hours. Because of something that happened at the very end of this class, I ended up staying up very very late working on my blasted research paper, couldn't sleep, and got up at 4:00 the next morning to continue working on it.
But that is beside the point. What I would like to focus on was the funny thing that happened during the class. Now, keep in mind that I am not what you would call a "fan" of this class or of the professor due to the incredible boring factor. I dread Mondays because of this class. Okay, so after the clock struck the time of six o'clock, the professor called the class to order and announced that the structure of the class would be just a tad different than normal. He then informed us that we would be holding a mock trial and that each of us had ten minutes to prepare ourselves. In this trial, there was a set of attorneys, judges, constitutional law experts, and the media. The attorneys were to give an impromptu speech about a case using what we've learned in the class and then answer the judges' questions. The constitutional law experts and the media had to comment on the attorneys' analysis. It was the attorneys who had to do the most speaking with no preparation or notice, had to then answer everyone's questions, and were put on the spot for the entire class. What you might find interesting is that this is not a constitutional law class or a class that has anything to do with the law...so it was 'funny' that we were required to participate in this impromtu mock trial.
At any rate, the professor selected me to be one of the attorney's to stand up in front of the class and give this spontaneous speech relating a case study to everything that we've gone over in the class. The professor had encouraged the judges, law experts, and media to try to be particularly ruthless in their questioning of us four attorneys. Due to my overachieving, I was able to perform quite well (and several members of the class have subsequently approached me to tell me what a good job I did) but the impromptu-ness of the task and the lack of preparation made me feel quite uneasy and nervous. I felt very badly for one of the other attorneys who is much more shy than myself and she did not do well because of her nervousness.
I felt that it was exceedingly unfair of the professor to place us into those positions, but it was only one demonstration of his unreasonableness. Anyway, I have spent this week getting no sleep, working overtime at the job, and trying to rewrite my research paper for the class which is due tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. I have felt extremely overwhelmed, stressed, and screwed. The end.
March 19, 2007
~ Temped by the Fruit ~
I find this article about a cyclist being cited for being hit by a car rather interesting. On the one hand, I didn't realize that if one rides a bike on the sidewalk, that one is responsible for a different set of rules than when one rides a bike on the road...I wonder if this means that there are a whole slew of pedestrian rules that I am not familiar with. And the implications... It seems that perhaps one should need to have a pedestrian license just to walk or ride a bike along a sidewalk. How do we determine competency to travel via sidewalk? For some reason, I thought the law was that if you are a driver in a vehicle and you crash into something, that you are responsible, regardless of whether that which you crashed into was operating based on the laws of the road or the laws of the sidewalk. Does this seem fucked up to anyone else?
In other news, this weekend I had the opportunity to experience the fruit of satan and have been tempted beyond the point of return. If anyone is agonizing about what to get me for my birthday, I must mention that a gift certificate to Josh's bike shop would come in handy, as I have decided that I am going to purchase for myself, to celebrate the anniversary of my birth in June, the Gary Fisher HiFi Deluxe full suspension mountain bike.
Here is the full scoop...
Currently and for the past two years (which comprises the totality of my mountain biking experience), I have been riding a Gary Fisher Tassajara, a wonderful hard tail mountain bike that I have grown very fond of. During the past two years of blogging about my mountain biking experiences (which I am sure are very entertaining), you may have failed to learn about some of the pain and discomfort that I have felt. This pain has tended to occur while I have ridden down particularly choppy, rocky, gravelly, and did I mention choppy?, steep downhills. If you have never ridden a bicycle down an extremely choppy downhill section of a trail, I don't know how to describe it in such a way that you would fully understand.
Imagine, if you will, riding a bike down a mountain. It's pretty steep, so there's a good angle that you perceive from your handlebars, to the ground that your wheels are touching, from the distance that you will reach in a nanosecond of time because you are traveling fast. Your butt is pulled behind the saddle so that your bicycle doesn't begin to perform summersaults down the mountain. Add to this, a trail that is similar to a washboard, with thick deep ruts that you best avoid getting your tires in, loose rocks that threaten to disrupt your traction, and all sorts of other obstacles that you should avoid if you want to remain in one piece. Now, during such a mountain biking experence, if you were me riding my Tassajara, your body would be jerking violently at each bump, rut, rock, and washboard drop off, jerking uncomfortably so that it sometimes sends you into something of a panic because it is unpleasant. What is more, this jerking sensation stimulates an intuitive response that you are invovled in something dangerous, regardless of how under control you actually are. This sensation of danger causes you to feel afraid of what you perceive to be impending doom.
My Tassajara has a front shock. And while the bicycle is my size, the front shock appears to not be for someone of my weight, as I have never received more than an inch of travel from it. Other people have gotten more travel from it, but even if I slam all of my weight down upon it, it gives no more than a single inch. Which is not much if you're going down a steep and choppy trail. In fact, I have often thought that it wouldn't be much different if I had no front shock. At the end of last year, after giving this a lot of thought, I decided that this year I would invest in a better front shock. I've spent a month or so looking into this and doing some price checking. For those of you who have never considered upgrading your shocks, it's pretty expensive...like almost $1,000 expensive. If you think that it seems slighly unreasonable to put a $1,000 shock on a $700 bike, you would probably understand my hesitation about this. At the same time, I feel that having better suspension would greatly improve my enjoyment of mountain biking. I feel that, during the past two years, I have engaged in mountain biking enough that I could be thought of as a "recreational mountain biker." I feel that, because of my vested interest and enjoyment in mountain biking, that it is conceivable that I will continue to mountain bike well into the future. Additionally, mountain biking, for me, isn't just an outdoor recreational activity that provides an outlet for exercise. It has become an incredible source of joy and enthusiasm, as well as a wonderful social opportunity. Thus, it seems reasonable that I would invest some money to maximize my enjoyment in mountain biking.
During this process of trying to decide about the front shock, I have consulted my main bicycle information resource at length. This resource, whose name is Josh, has provided me with all kinds of things to think about. What is more, he has done a good job at complicating this decision. As he is somewhat familiar with my finances, he has not been overtly trying to persuade me to do one thing over another. Which is irritating because I am left to make up my own decisions. At some point, he planted the seed into my mind that perhaps I should think about upgrading the entire bicycle to a nice full suspension one. For some time, I was resistant to this idea because I did not fully grasp the benefits of full suspension. Josh articulated that a good full suspension bike would come with a much better front shock and that most of the components would be high quality as well. Nevertheless, I remained a disbeliever in full suspension.
On Saturday, Josh and I went on a three hour mountain bike ride which we entitled 'Tour de Foothills.' We rode up Bogus Basin Road to Corrals, up and up and down and up to Upper 8th Street, down Trail 4, down Freeway, across the Military Reserve to Buck's Trail, up Rocky Canyon Road, up Three Bears, and down Central Ridge. By Josh's estimates, it was a 20 mile ride that was pretty intense, and a lot of fun.
For this ride, I had "borrowed" a Gary Fisher HiFi Deluxe from Josh's Bike Shop in order to test ride the full suspension. There are no words from the language of English that adequately convey how amazing and wonderful it was riding this full suspension bicycle. For one, there was no pain or discomfort during the steep choppy downhills. Because of the lack of jerking discomfort, my person did not perceive the situation as dangerous, and so I did not experience a single moment in which I was afraid of plummeting to my death. Because of both the lack of pain and fear, there was nothing getting in the way of my fully enjoying the downhill. This means that during the sections of downhills that I have never before experienced joy, that I found joy, happiness, and had a lot of fun. What is more, the handling of the bicycle was simply amazing. The shifting was perfection, the turning was heaven, and the bike enabled me to experience moments of mountain biking zen in which I mountain biked with no effort, it was so natural. Another notable mention was that the bike enabled me to ride terrain that has been much too extreme for me to ever ride successfully before. There is a section of Three Bears, for example, that is very very steep with huge rocky drop offs, and I have never been able to ride hardly any of it and have actually fallen on it a few times. With the HiFi, I made it almost all of the way to the bottom and was not afraid in the least, which is worth mentioning because I frequently feel like the biggest scardie pants and I become paralyzed over steepnesses and heights that don't seem to bother others. The fact that I enjoyed riding what used to make me shit myself is impressive.
In sum, because of the loss of pain and fear, coupled with the drastic increase in fun and joy, I feel that the time is ripe for me to purchase the Gary Fisher HiFi Deluxe. June is not only my birthday month, but it is also a month in which I should receive a raise, along with a few extra dollars for various things, so a perfect time to award myself with a fantastic birthday present. Some of you may feel that this is foolhardy and not the best use of my dollars, but I place joy and fun above financial responsibility and I am confident in my ability to come up with the money because my desire is so great. If I must, I will even get a second job.
March 16, 2007
~ swimming not for recreation ~
You know when you're swimming and you suddenly get overwhelmed and it feels like the water is too heavy to hold yourself above and you panic at the thought of sinking and not being able stay high enough to accomplish breathing? I think it's called drowning. And I don't think that I am the first person to use the concept of drowning as a metaphore for how I am feeling about my work loads for both school and work.
...heavy sigh...
So, this year the United States Congress has decided to change the time and implement daylight savings time earlier. Including all of the IT issues this has caused for the daily functioning of my life, it has also thrown off my internal clock. Which would have happened anyway, but this is a rather inconvenient time for my internal clock to be messed up (see above). I have two research papers due next week, am getting up an hour early to complete these papers (which is now two hours early), am staying up an hour late to work on my papers, am working on my papers right when I get home from the job, and am putting in overtime at the job.
What is noteworthy is that I have found a lot of intellectual stimulation in both the writing of my research papers and in the working at the job. This morning I was able to get the bulk of one of my papers done and was feeling so satisfied with it. Also, I've been slowly but surely weasling myself away from the lamer aspects of my job (successfully delegating them to others) and have been taking some initiative to assume other responsibilities. It's a neat little trick that I've been trying out to gradually evolve my job in a direction that I like. Earlier this week, my supervisor took me behind closed doors to inform me that she put in for a position transfer for me to formalize my new roles and responsibilities - - since it was clear that what I do bears little resemblence to my job description - - and this means that I am going to start earning $1 more an hour, which is a significant amount of money for someone like me. To put it mildly, I am pleased.
In this way, I suggest that it is okay to be temporarily insanely overloaded with work if I am both satisfied in my work and am rewarded, either financially at the job or with a grade of A or higher at the school.
In other news, I am currently enjoying eating a duck salad and some muschroom soup that was left uneaten from a hoity-toity administrator's meeting. I don't believe that I've ever eaten duck before and I am surprised at both the consistency and fattyness. I am, however, giving thought to eating more fowl in my life. The mushroom soup was probably the tastiest thing I've ever eaten in my entire life.
March 12, 2007
~ sunshine ~
As you can see from this photograph which I snapped on Friday, a small snowstorm thwarted my plans for going on a mountain bike ride. Snow is good, however, for another outdoor recreational activity: snowboarding. If you examine the photo, you will note that it was taken from about 1,000 feet elevation on Bogus Basin road. On Friday, instead of mountain biking, Josh and I went snowboarding. The snow was an interesting consistency - - a combination between slush and snow with a skiff of fresh powder. It was by no means the funnest snowboarding, but it was pretty fun...and much better than being down in the valley where it was raining.
On Saturday, the sun was out and it was glorious. After enjoying some morning coffees, Josh and I went on a big walk to absorb some vitamin D. We went a little bananas in the photographing of things with sunshine, but sometimes it's nice to be overly-enthusiastic about nice weather. That afternoon, we went on a big road ride out to Kuna and back. It was about 40 miles which we rode in three-ish hours. I know that the idea of riding a bike out to Kuna doesn't sound like the most appealing activity, but it was lovely. And if one has an open mind about the concept of beauty, I would say that I experienced many beautiful moments on the ride. I will say, however, that I was getting pretty tired and feeling a lot of pain by the end of the ride. I'm not exactly in optimal riding shape, and I was ready for the ride to be over about 45 minutes before it was. That evening, my energy crashed and I was not good for much except for reading about the hijinks of celebrities and receiving an update on spring fashion.
On Sunday, I spent most of the day trying to work on my two research papers which are due in one week. Incidentally, one is going well and the other is not. The one that is not going well, however, is for the class which I received the highest grade in the class on the last paper, so I am not all that concerned. I was still exhausted and without energy from the road ride of the previous day, and my mind didn't want to think about anything. So, I spent a lot of time sitting in front of my computer not accomplishing much. I did have a lovely intermission during the afternoon when I met some friends for a picnic - - and after sitting outside with them for two hours, I discovered that I received my first sunburn of the year. That evening, Josh and I made it on a mountain bike ride. We rode Freeway, which is a very mild beginner trail, but as I was leading the way downhill, I decided to fly down Red Tail, a more advanced downhill. It was an incredible amount of fun. This trail had become extremely rutted, which posed some interesting challenges on some of the steeper decents, but I found plenty of humps and bumps to launch off of. This photo to the right depicts one of my more hardcore moments (and I say "hardcore" ironically...as it is not hardcore, but I felt a twinge of bad-assedness). 
March 8, 2007
~ CSI: Boise ~
Last night I had the pleasure of going to the bar with some friends and as we were leaving the second story Balcony, my attention became directed towards some law enforcement vehicles below me. I perched myself at the edge of the balcony and watched as a police officer proceeded to inspect a large truck. And in that moment, I felt myself thrown into a real-life episode of CSI: Boise. It was very exciting.
Later, as I was walking home in the rain, I remembered a conversation that I had had earlier that day with Amy about CSI: Miami and watching television at the YMCA. During this conversation, we made some particularly keen observations about commercials and their affect on a t.v. watching experience. Firstly, we agreed that commercials detract from the experience of watching a television program. Now, I'm not sure that commercial makers or t.v. editors realize this, but commercials are rather annoying. What is more, I have noticed that the commercials span four to five whole entire minutes - - a time frame that borders on torturous when one is trying to be entertained while working out at the YMCA. And then the span for the actual t.v. program tends to be no more than the allocation for the commercials. Furthermore, the same commercials are duplicated over each commercial break! I don't know if it's poor editing or that there's just not enough stuff out there to advertise, but I actually have several commercials memorized because I have seen them so many times. And maybe it's naive of me to think that commercials fail to induce me to purchase a given product, but many of the commercials are for products that I am already familiar with. For example, soda products. Granted, I'm not much of a soda person, I'm more of a water, coffee, and beer person, but were I to suddenly get an urge for a soda, I feel very knowledgeable about the soda options available to me. Yet the number of times that my CSI: Miami viewing experience is disrupted with some Coke, Pepsi, and Mountain Dew commercials - - you'd think they were this new product that people would enjoy consuming if only they knew about it. At the same time, I am frequently subjected to commercials that do not pertain to me. I have wondered if Channel 47 at the YMCA has done some demographic survey of their viewers and have scheduled their commercials according to their viewer profile (a profile that perhaps I don't fit into), but I feel that Channel 47 plays an inordinate amount of commercials for medicines to help things like erectile dysfunction and high blood pressure. And it's not that I view these things as being unimportant or trite, but I have come to resent the commercial breaks which disrupt my viewing of CSI: Miami to advertise products that in no way pertain to me.
I'm sure that if only the commercial makers knew that this about their commercials, they would change them.
March 7, 2007
~ moonshine and muffins ~
I had one of the more glorious days in my recent history this past Sunday. I somehow managed to navigate my morning coffeeshop experience, studying and completion of one of my weekly presentations, a relative's birthday party, a social engagement, all of my weekly errands, as well as a bicycle ride in one day. Yes, that's right, your ears did not deceive you at that last part, a bicycle ride. I went on a bicycle ride at the beginning of March. It was WONDERFUL. I cannot tell you how tired I am of what seems like such a long cold winter. Indeed, it has been too cold for me (the coldy pants) to go on a bicycle ride since October. In between then and now, I have spent good chunks of time almost each and every day dreaming about going on a bicycle ride - - remembering the gloriousness of my favorite mountain bike trails and the marvelousness of speeding along on my roade bike. But something strange happened this weekend - - it became spring...or at least, faux spring. After Josh got off of work on Sunday, we donned our cold weather cycling gear (and procured for me a good windbreaker) and went on a fantastic hour-long ride. I am still having some coughing and phlegm action from my flu, but it wasn't bothering me much on the ride. I was thrilled to go on a great bike ride.
I am confident that I am not the only one who has been viewing the Boise weather forcast with a great deal of enthusiasm. Seriously, it is in the high 50's/low 60's and it is GLORIOUS! This weekend is expected to be in the high 60's. My email inbox is once again flooded with emails from the local women's mountain biking club and I am not longer in my depressed cold winter funk.
Yesterday, I made the conscious decision to not attend my class. I had spent a good long while deliberating the pros and cons of this decision the night before. My plan was to spend the entire evening working on my multiple research papers that are soon due. However, when I exited my place of employement, I came into contact with the GLORIOUSNESS of the outside and decided to go on a bike ride. My reasoning included my ignorance of the upcoming weather forcast - - for all I knew, yesterday could have been my only chance to enjoy the glorious weather.
It took me a tad longer than I had intended to get ready for the bike ride. I got it into my head that I wanted to use my heart rate monitor that Josh got for me. So I sat down and worked on trying to get it all set up, but after about ten minutes I gave up and decided that right at that time wasn't the best time to whip out my heart rate monitor for the first time. Then, I was getting my bike all ready to go. Now, my road bike has been at Josh's place of residence for some time, so my plan was to go out on my mountain bike and do a road ride. I'm not sure what possessed me, but I was obsessed with going out Hill Road. As I was pumping up my tires, I realized that I didn't have my mini pump because it was attached to my road bike at Josh's house. I sat down and pondered this for several minutes - - see if you can spot my failed logic - - I thought about how many times I've gotten a flat on Hill Road, about how flats don't suck hardly at all if you're prepared for them, but about how horrid it would be to go way out Hill Road and run over a thorn miles and miles away from home. So, after much deliberation over the threats of cycling on Hill Road, I took myself over to...gasp!...World Cycles to buy a mini pump specifically for my mountain bike. You will note that this is NOT the bike shop where my boyfriend works, and you could infer that another bike shop dude was helping me with my bike and putting his greasy hands all over it. Of course, I did consider going over to Josh's Bike Shop, but I live four blocks from World Cycles and by this time I was getting antsy about going on my bike ride.
Anyhoo, so once I completed the mission of procuring a pump, I was heading down 8th Street from World Cycles and I suddenly decided to NOT go on Hill Road (this was the failure of my logic - - being so narrow minded about having to ride on the thorn and glass strewn Hill Road) and instead to try a mountain bike ride. I wasn't sure how the trails would be this early in the year, but I decided to check them out. And they were fantastic. I cannot begin to articulate how much fun I had or how wonderful it was to be mountain biking.
And, I'll have it on record that when I returned home, I sat down and spent the duration of the evening working hard on my paper. I was very satisfied with my evening and all that I had accomplished.
March 3, 2007
~ peats and vales ~
I fell ill this week with a flu virus. On Sunday, I felt overwhelmingly lethargic and sore, which I attributed to a particularly wicked snowboarding adventure the day before (see below). On Monday, I awoke at 4:00 in the a.m. with a throat that felt as though someone had taken a steel bristle brush and scrubbed my esophogus. I called in sick to work and spent the day feeling lame. Because I'm apparently not one of those people who is content to be sick and rest all day, I spent the day trying to accomplish a variety of things. I took myself to the university library and did some research, and then returned to my wee shoebox of an apartment to read my research. I ended up doing a lot of sitting around feeling lame, becoming more and more lonely and depressed. I was pretty certain that I would be going to work the next day, but when I awoke on Tuesday morning, I felt worse. This day was a repeat of the first, except I was more depressed, more lonely, and feeling worse. Anyhoo, it is now Saturday, virtually a week later and I continue to be ill and puny.
So, a week ago, Josh and I went on a particularly wicked snowboarding adventure. Bogus had received about five inches of fresh powder, and the snow was magnificent. We did a few runs down the front side of the mountain before heading down the long series of catracks to get to the backside. It was glorious. I can be something of a scaredie pants about heights and steepness, but I was having none of that and instead was just having fun. We did several runs down Paradise, and I experienced several moments of snowboarding zen - - where the snowboarding came without any effort. Also, on certain parts of the mountain, I felt as though I was surfing on billowy soft snow pillows. It was brilliant.
In other news, I have been introduced to a new coffeeshop in the Linen District at which I anticipate spending many hard-earned dollars. This morning, Josh and I went there for our morning coffees because our normal coffeeshop was overrun with people. Along with a coffee, I couldn't help but order a breakfast item (scrambled eggs, turkey, tomato, swiss, and spices atop a bagel) and it was AMAZING.
Anyroad, I must return to my studies - - at which I am excelling. Last week, I dragged myself to my classes (and suffered greatly) where I receive the results of my first research paper. Now, it can be true that while I view myself as fairly intelligent and capable of presentation of research, I am constantly undervaluing my work. Ever since I handed in the paper, I have been agonizing about various things about the paper - - concerned about imperfections. Well, my fears were ill founded, as I received the highest grade in the class. The professor provided me with two thumbs up and said to me, "McGill taught you well!" Of course, this would all sound better if I chose to withold from you the fact that before distributing the papers, the professor spent a good amount of time berating everyone (except for me) on their inability to properly cite, spell, use grammar, and properly punctuate. During this beratement, I was feeling stunned and incredulous that a group of graduate students collectively failed to exercise basic writing techniques.
