Tag: baseball

Spring Arrives in the DMV

Spring is fighting off winter here in the DMV. (The DMV is what all the cool kids call the DC, Maryland, Virginia area.) The weather goes up and down betraying any ability to get comfortable. If you want consistency, move to San Diego.

Friday, I woke up super early and rode to Friday Coffee Club. My plan was to see the famous DC cherry blossoms at sunrise. I timed it wrong and the cherry blossoms were a day shy of peak bloom, but the sunrise over the Potomac didn’t disappoint. I stood on the river bank for a few minutes just to take it in.

Sunrise wow

Not half bad.

The 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River reaches the DC side right smack dab in the middle of the Tidal Basin, ground zero for cherry blossom tourist madness. I managed to wiggle through cars and buses and work my way around the Tidal Basin, up 15th Street, and around the Washington Monument, enjoying blossoms the whole way. Friday Coffee Club was busier than usual so all is right with the world.

Yesterday, I rode into DC to see my first Nats game of the season. The temperature during the game was perfect. We sat in the shade just below the TV announcers who were sitting in their perch in the press box. We were directly behind home plate which afforded a pretty good view of the pitches. Throughout the game, the plate umpires inclination to call outside strikes (to right handed batters) strikes was obvious. Somehow the Nats batters didn’t seem to clue in.)

NATS view

The fans in our section have a tradition of chanting N-A-T-S NATS NATS NATS WOO!!! for each Nationals score. I’ve never been into such organized things at baseball games. Such displays are better suited to football or hockey.

Every so often pedals from the cherry trees outside the ballpark would drift down on us.

My daughter Lily kept score. She’s getting pretty good at it.

During the seventh inning stretch, the stadium played A Ha’s Take on Me, something that was discontinued a few years ago. It was most welcome but the crowd didn’t seem to get into it. The whole point is to hit the high notes for the line “In a day or two.” I didn’t attempt it, which I am sure Lily appreciated.

As for me, despite the scorekeeping and the pedals and the perfect weather and the great seats and the drifting blossoms and Take on Me, I had a hard time getting into the game. It didn’t help that, for the second game in a row, the Mets didn’t win so much as the Nats lost.

In the Friday’s game, rookie center fielder Victor Robles was caught in a rundown trying to score from third base. He thus committed the Nat’s first TOOTBLAN of the season. (TOOTBLAN means “thrown out on the bases like a nincompoop.” ) Beating yourself appears to be a Nats forte. Robles, the centerfielder, also seems to enjoy overthrowing the cut off man, perhaps so we won’t miss Bryce Harper so much.

At least a quarter of the fans present were Mets fans. A throng of them in the left field bleachers chanted LETS GO METS throughout the game. This seemed pointless since it is pretty much indistinguishable from LETS GO NATS. Late in the game as the Mets scored several runs,  a few Mets fans in our section M-E-T-S METS METS METS WOO!!! Well played, dudes.

The ride home featured a fifteen minute delay getting to the Tidal Basin as I duckwalked my bike amid tourists headed for the Tidal Basin. The sidewalks around the basin were absolutely packed with tourists. The roads were packed with cars. Nobody seemed to be having much fun.

I escaped the madness and stopped at the Crystal City garage bicycle races on the way home. I watched a couple of laps of the Anything Goes race. It’s fun to see people, some in costumes riding unicycles, cargo bikes, tandems, fixies, and other assorted contraptions.

I rode home at twilight wearing a t-shirt.

Spring is here.

 

 

Bicycles and Baseball: I Just Can’t Even…

Today was one of those rare weekday afternoon baseball games. The weather was pretty awesome. I decided to ride Little Nellie to the ballpark.

About 8 miles into the ride, a woman flagged me down next to a swampy area along the Mount Vernon Trail, just north of Old Town.

“Do you know how to change a tire?”

I said “Sure” as my brain noticed two things. First, she was an attractive, fit woman who was probably in her mid twenties. Second, when I was young and single, not once did an attractive, fit woman who was probably in her mid twenties ever ask me to help her change a tire. Not once.

I just can’t even…

I hopped off my bike. Two other bike riders stood by to see how tire changing is done. I thought “Don’t screw this up, you old dork.” Flat tire woman, whose name was Susie, already had the rear wheel (it’s always the rear wheel) off. She had used tire levers to remove the tire and tube.

She: “I put a dollar bill in the tire as a boot. Here’s my Road Morph pump.”

Me: “Marry me. You are the woman of my dreams.”

I didn’t ask how she knew the cool trick of covering the hole in the tire casing with a dollar bill. Nor did I ask how she knew had my favorite pump. (It looks like a little frame pump but converts to a miniature floor pump.) In fact, I had the same pump on my bike. She even knew enough not to mess around with lame patch kits when a replacement tube was so much faster and easier.

She had the whole thing down except actually putting the tire back together.

So I filled up the tube with some air. Put it in the tire. I started working the tire onto the rim. She reached for the levers. Her only mistake!

“Don’t use them to put the tire on. They puncture the tube.”

One tire bead went on. The other went on except for the last, stubborn little bit. I showed her how to push the tire on the far side of the rim into the well of the rim. Then I used the bottoms of the palms of my hands to nudge the last bit of bead over. She pumped it up a bit more. We checked to see if the tube was not sneaking out from beneath the bead. Nope. She filled it up noting that the gauge on the pump was kind of useless. I said “Use your fingers. Just pump until it’s hard to squeeze the tire.” Done.

And off I rode.

About three minutes later Susie blasted past me. “Thanks, again.”

I felt old. Again.

I just can’t even…

So I rode to the game. I sat along the first baseline just beyond the Nationals’ dugout. My seat was on the aisle in row T, about 20 rows up from the field. The sun was shining. The humidity was low. The wind was blowing out. The section I was in was getting a nice breeze from the big gap in the upper decks of the stadium behind us.

Two men were behind me drinking beer and making funny remarks. I had my official Alex Rodriquez glove on my left hand. Unlike ARod I was not taking performance enhancing drugs. Perhaps this was a mistake.

Anyway, life was good. Then. along about the third or fourth inning, Trey Turner, a right handed batter, came to the plate. Right-handed batters stand on the left side of home plate. (This just occurred to me after 62 years. Weird.) They tend to foul balls to the right side of the field. In other words, in our direction.

Turner hit a high fly ball. Foul. Over the Nationals dugout. Over the sections to our left. Over our heads. Then it came, improbably, straight down. The three of us stood. Looking up. I’ll be damned it’s going to land right. Here.

It grazed the front of the man behind me as he stood in the aisle next to us. He flinched to protect his beer. And the ball hit the concrete and bounced over his head about 10 rows behind us.

I just can’t even…

It never once occurred to me to stick the glove out and catch the damned ball. All around me I could hear fans say “He had a glove on!”

Translation: “LOSER!!!”

Complete humiliation.

I felt a strange kinship with my friend and fellow blogger Tim Jones. Tim and I went to school together for six years. He actually played sports in high school. He had and has no vices. (Except perhaps microdosing LSD, but that’s just a rumor.) I, on the other hand, spent my years of military high school incarceration taking PE classes and channeling Bluto Blutarski, who had yet to be invented.  These days, Tim is a comically horrific athlete. He sucks at racquetball. And, remarkably, he was a slower marathon runner than me.

In stark contrast, I am an inept fan. I just can’t even…

Recently, my vegan friend Klarence, who is a baseball fanatic of the first order, acquired a leather glove to catch foul balls. This was a major philosophical concession on her part. She rationalized that the glove was previously owned by a friend from West Virginia. It’s probably covered in coal dust from the mahns. It’s seriously used. Then it occurred to me, the ball is covered with horsehide.

I just can’t even…

 

 

 

It’s Hard to Like April

Mostly, April 2018 will fade from memory, because nobody wants to think about cold, wet, windy weather. April did have a few high points. For a start, my pulmonlogist was pleased with my recovery and backed off the prospect of leaving me on blood thinners for years or maybe even forever. She also lowered the dosage of my asthma medicine. And hopes to further lower it when I get back from my bike tour.

My bike tour planning is going along very well. I received several bike maps from the Adventure Cycling Association a few weeks ago. This allowed me to plan my trip as far as Missoula, Montana. There are numerous options for the rest of the trip to the coast. The southern route goes through central Oregon and follows the Adventure Cycling Transamerica Route. The middle route follows their Lewis and Clark route down the Columbia River gorge, through Portland, and on to the coast. Both these routes are encumbered 50 miles on road construction through the Lochsa River valley. In this corner, Felkerino, who is a man of many miles, advises that this road is awesome and contains a continuous downhill stretch of over 90 miles. In the opposite corner is Andrea, a woman of many miles too who rode the Northern Tier from Seattle east. She (and some commenters on this blog) both say the Cascades are awesome.

Two more maps arrived today from Adventure Cycling. One is for the missing segment from Missoula to the western edge of Oregon on the Lewis and Clark. The other is the segment of the Northern Tier that goes through the Cascades. To get to the start of that route, I’d need to ride a truck route along the Flathead River. I’ll plan both routes out and wait until I get out west before finalizing the way to the coast.

Getting back to my health, I did an acupuncture treatment last week that has done my left arm and shoulder a world of good. Yesterday I rode a 52-mile event ride called Breaking the Cycle. It was cold. The first 28 miles were uphill into a headwind. I rode The Mule as a test ride for the tour. It did fine except for some chain skipping on the cassette (which I had tended to today). At Friday Coffee Club last week, I bought a Brooks Flyer saddle from Felkerino. I mounted it too flat and spent much of the ride sliding my butt back to the rear of the saddle. This caused pain in my bad shoulder. Today I tipped the nose of the saddle up just a bit and my shoulder is happy again. So happy in fact that today’s visit to the gym involved two machines that I have avoided for over a month. So I cancelled tomorrow’s physical therapy session in a fit of optimism.

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The Mule at the Turn Around Point

A word of warning about acupuncture, if you don’t want to look like a junkie, you might want to avoid acupuncture if you are on blood thinners.

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The Golden Arm

Near the end of April, the sun came out. The trees and grass did their thing and we got to enjoy a shit ton of pollen. This is my car today.

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There was one excellent thing that happened in April, I went to three baseball games! On my bike, of course. I missed catching a home run at the first game. The Nats lost. At the second game I nearly killed my buddy Kevin with a nacho bomb. The Nats lost.

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At the third game, I avoided batted balls and gut bombs but the Nats still lost. I sense a disturbing pattern.

Despite its crummy weather, April did give me my biggest mileage month of the year. I rode 27 out of 30 days for a total of 789 miles during the month. For the year, I’ve ridden 2,743 miles. That’s a pretty decent foundation for what lies ahead.

 

Two Tailwinds, Two Paisanos

The early afternoon weather in DC was beautiful. 70 degrees with a strong breeze out of the south. As luck would have it, the Washington Nationals were playing a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at 4 p.m. I bought a ticket and jumped on Little Nellie, my Bike Friday, and rode the tailwind 15 miles to Nationals Park.

It was a lovely ride except for the bit about the big black car nearly hitting me 100 yards from the stadium. The driver’s window was open. I barked at him that he had just done something incredibly dangerous. He seemed not the least bit concerned. Then I jumped off my bike and beat the crap out of him. There was blood everywhere. I beat my chest and howled.

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Not a bad day for a baseball game or a bike ride or a nap in a hammock

Okay, not really. I let it go at words and went in to enjoy the game. I sat down the left field line. My seats were on the field level. I brought my glove for protection. Sadly no foul balls were hit my way but a woman two sections over got clobbered by one and was escorted out for medical attention. The two teenage boys in the row behind me ate their way through the first eight innings. Mom bought them hot dogs and pizza and funnel cake and ice cream. I could sense them growing with each passing inning.

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The giant presidents at the ballpark are very creepy up close. Shortly after I took this picture, Washington ate these two fans.

During the game I had a chat online with my friend Emilia who was sitting across the stadium. Emilia is from Venezuela. She and I keep tabs on the Nationals players from her country. There have been five paisanos in recent years. For the last few weeks there were none. Emilia texted me to let me know that Adrian Sanchez, who was called up from the minors to play third base for the injured Anthony Rendon, was from Venezuela. A short while later she texted that the Diamondbacks David Peralta was also from Venezuela. “I will not root for him,” she said.

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That’s Emilia. Somewhere up there.

As it turns out, we have the lesser paisano. Peralta hit two home runs (he eats the National’s pitchers alive) and the Diamondbacks won in ten innings.

Around the 7th inning the skies grew dark and the wind changed direction. I thought for sure I’d get soaked but rain never came. Instead I was pushed all the way home from the game. Even the clouds of bugs didn’t ruin the ride.

So let’s recap with some maths:

Two Tailwind Ride > Big Black Car + Wrong Paisano + Bugs in My Mouth

And a  final note: Big congratulations to Blissful Britt who finished her last exam for her college degree today. On to grad school. (Just kidding.)

Friday Double Header in Shorts

Spring finally arrived for a few days on Friday. It was shorts weather at the break of dawn so I rode to DC to attend Friday Coffee Club properly attired. The ride featured a warm tailwind, the best kind. Little Nellie’s wee wheels were rolling just fine.

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@edbikes’s apple fritter and coffee

After hanging out with the cool kids at Swings House of Caffeine, I headed back home. Of course, I took another walking lap around the Tidal Basin and a spin down to Hains Point to absorb all the cherry blossom goodness.

Inebriated on all the pinky whiteness, I rode home into the aforementioned wind which was decidedly less than joyous but I had shorts on and I didn’t care.

After a few hours at home, I rode back to DC for some baseball watching. My route back glanced off the cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin again. (If you don’t do cherry blossoms and bald eagles, you might as well not live around here.)

I met Kevin U. at The Wharf, DC’s newest, absurdly overdone development on the water. What it replaced was utterly forgettable, but the excess of this place is just inane. Kevin and I ran into Ted and his mother and her friend Bert. I think this is the first time I have seen Ted without cycling clothes on. Now that I think of it, it may be his mom’s first time seeing him with cycling clothes on too.

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I parked Little Nellie in here. It’s the best thing ever.

Kevin and I walked to the ballpark. He wouldn’t accept payment for the seat he gave me so we agreed that I would buy him some nachos. At the nacho booth, the server was being a bit stingy with the portions in the chicken nachos for the customer in front of us. The server’s co-worker started kidding her about it. Then I got into the act as a joke. Stingy server moved down the line of ingredients and Co-worker waited on me. The co-worker put his finger to his lips to keep me quiet as he made a HUMONGOUS bowl of chicken nachos for Kevin. We all had a good laugh when Kevin hefted the thing.

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Here’s Kevin, slim and trim before eating his nachos
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The Nacho Bomb: Kevin’s gonna need bigger pants

Back at our seats I pulled out my food from home and Kevin dove into his nachos. In the spirit of the thing, he did his best to eat as much as he could but it was a titanic calorie bomb. I brought a glove to catch foul balls (our seats were down the first-base line). Good thing too, because the nachos had rendered Kevin immobile.

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The view from our seats. Note the nets put up to protect fans during batting practice. They take them down for the game.
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I brought my son’s glove for protection. Note that it is an ARod model. As a former resident of Boston, I felt a sense of intestinal distress putting it on.

The game was a bit of a yawner. The Nats played poorly and lost 2-1. During a pitching change, the stadium played some dance music and hidden cameras panned the stands for people dancing. A woman in the row behind me was dancing up a storm. That’s how I, standing with my arms crossed looking bored, ended up on the Jumbotron. (It was my second time on the big screen. The previous time was under similar circumstances as the cameras spotted the large couple in front of me wearing Virginia Tech clothing on Virginia Tech Day.)

Well, I didn’t catch a foul ball, but Kevin and I had a good time. Kevin’s gastroenterologist, however, will probably not be amused.

As always, my favorite part of riding to night games is the ride home in the dark. Even the headwind didn’t spoil the fun. I made it home at midnight.

I awoke late on Saturday. At 10:30 a.m. I found out that the Nats were playing at 1 p.m. I could go! Sadly, I was too pooped to pedal. Double headers are hard.

My thanks to Kevin for a fun evening.

 

Extra Innings by Bike

One of the benefits of retirement is you get to go to baseball games whenever you want. Today’s Nationals vs. Braves game started at 1 p.m. All during breakfast and my hour of physical therapy at home I checked the weather. I didn’t want to go and freeze my butt off.

I checked ticket prices. I found a seat in the front row of the left field grandstand about 20 feet to the fair side of the foul pole. For $10. I figured, if it gets too cold, I’m only out ten bucks so what the hell.

Little Nellie and I took our time during the 15+ miles to the game. As I passed the Tidal Basin, I could see that it was still peak bloom for the cherry blossoms. One tree in particular just gobsmacked me. So I took it’s picture.

 

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No words

My seat was perfect. My friend Katie Lee who is a baseball fanatic sent me a message asking if I had brought my glove. I laughed and said no.

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Caution: Baseballs are closer than they appear

I looked up and there was that foul pole. In the first inning, the second batter, a former National named Kurt Suzuki, hit a home run that hit the pole (the foul pole is in fair ground) about 20 feet above my head. BONG!

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It’s hollow

Maybe Katie was on to something.

The game was entertaining with some strange things that made it notable. The Braves tried to steal home plate late in the game and nearly got away with it. It was one of several plays in which the Nationals’ players seem to fall asleep mentally. On another a Braves batter managed to get a double because no Nationals fielder bothered to cover second base on a bloop hit. Derp. The Nationals had a runner on first base late in the game. The next batter hit the ball hard with a resounding WHACK and his bat shattered sending the top two thirds like a spear down the third baseline. The ball made it to the third baseman who threw out the batter to end the inning. If that bat had stayed intact I might have had another home run come my way.

The Nationals tied the game with a homer in the bottom of the ninth. Extra innings. For ten bucks. (I actually paid as much for a soda as I did for my seat. Normally I drink water but the water vendors who set up outside the park were not there today.)

The sun was in and out of the clouds all day. In the first inning I wore two layers topped with my hooded jacket. After the sun dropped below the stadium roof line, I put on a wool sweater and put my hood up.

Did I say something about another home run. Well, Kurt Suzuki hit another home run. It was coming right at me. Holy crap. My brain said “If I catch it with my bear hand the blood thinners will turn my hand into a black blob.” I turned to watch it come and went to stood up. At this point I realized that my now four layers of clothing had turned me into a hooded, immobile mass. A virtual Charlie Brown in the dead of winter. The man sitting in the row behind me three rows to my left “fielded” (more like shielded, I guess) the ball off his oversized scorebook. It bounced to the row behind him.

I thought again of Katie, who keeps score at every game she attends. She’d have made the catch if only to protect her scorebook. She would give a rats ass about my blood thinned hands. (JK, KL.)

There is a video summary of the game on Facebook. You can clearly see me dressed like the Unabomber in the front row.

In the 12th inning the Braves prevailed. Sad face.

I’d have ridden straight home, but the cherry blossoms called my soul. I did another lap of Hains Point. I saw two trees without blossoms. But the rest were just stunning. I just had to take another walk around the Tidal Basin. I was surprised to see that the sidewalk wasn’t very crowded.

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I’m drunk on cherry blossoms

After feeding my addiction one last time, I started the long slog home into a steady headwind.

I’m going to Friday night’s game. It will be in the 80s during the day. No more Unabomber outfits for me. And maybe I’ll bring a glove. Or a scorebook.

 

Daylight Retired Time

I’ve now been retired almost six months. If it hadn’t been for physical therapy and medical appointments, I would have no idea what day of the week it is.  (I’d also be somewhere warm, but that’s another story.) As for daylight savings time, who cares? The worst thing about standard time was riding to or from work (and for a couple of weeks each year both to and from) in the dark. Since I now get to determine where I go and when, the clock is of little concern.

Today, however, was a little different. I wanted to do some minor chores around the house, do my physical therapy, watch the Nats spring training game on TV, and go for a bike ride. I didn’t have time to squeeze my ride in before the game. But wait. It’s daylight savings time. I did the physical therapy and chores in the morning. Then I watched the game at 1 p.m. It was over by 4 p.m. and I had 3 1/2 hours of daylight left. And that’s not all; it was warmer in the afternoon than it was before the game. So I rode 24 1/2 miles afterwards.

My apologies to my bike commuting friends who will ride to work in the cold dark pre-dawn hours tomorrow. You’re tough. I’ll be thinking of you when I roll over in bed. Daylight Retired Time is hard.

 

 

Top Ten List for 2017

For a year that started out rather boring, 2017 did a fine job of recovering. In no particular order, here’s my top ten.

  1. Hey Bulldog – Daughter Lily grabbed her diploma with departmental honors from Butler University. The way she maxed out her college years put me to shame.
    • An entire junior year abroad split between Sydney, Australia and Stockholm, Sweden.
    • A double major and a minor, taking classes in the summer to make it all work.
    • An internship in the county DA’s office, working on student government, making community service trips out of spring breaks, and displaying infinite patience as an RA for two years.
    • Traveling to Russia, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the UK (London and Scotland), France, Belgium, Germany, Czechia, Poland, Latvia, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Italy, Vatican City. Monaco, Spain, Thailand, New Zealand, and undoubtedly a few more.
    • She’s now in London for grad school. Her passport must have burn marks on it.
  2. Call Me Johnny Paycheck – Mrs. Rootchopper threw in the towel on the work-a-day world in the spring. She immediately adapted to the new normal. I waited until my August birthday to get a 10 percent bonus on my pension. We are both very happy with our decisions. If, however, you want to pay us big money to quilt or ride bikes, we’d be interested in your financial offer.
  3. I’ll Take 50 States, a Century, and Break Some Cider, Hon – I rode only five event rides this year.
    • I traveled to Charm City to do the Tour Dem Parks, Hon ride and visit with Mr. Hoppy 100, John Roche, and his daughter Eleanor. (I think she’s swell.)
    • Carrie Ross is on the board of a local charity that helps homeless people get back on their feet. She’s also married to Greg Billing, WABA’s Executive Director. In a page right out of Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland movies, they put on a bike ride for the charity. Sadly, there was no tap dancing. Anyway, I rode it. Pretty darn good for a first time event. Not to rest on their laurels, Carrie and Greg brought a baby boy into this world a few months later. Congrats Mom and Dad.
    • In the late summer, I rode the Reston Century. I failed to understand that hilly rides are a bad idea unless you have itty bitty gears. I believe I was lanterne rouge.
    • This explains why, a couple of weeks later, I nearly died climbing to Cathedral Heights during my ninth 50 States Ride. I was aided and abetted by a great posse of #bikedc’s finest including Stephen, Rachel C., Kevin W., and my 2014 50 States Ride buddies Michael and Emilia. Ellos eran muy buenos.
    • In November I did the Cider Ride for the fifth time. It was cool, literally. I missed a few turns, but used the Google to get back on course. For the second year in a row, I was stung by a bee at the second pit stop. It was all worth it because the after party, as usual, was a winner.
    • In December I rode around in circles for 44 miles with something like 600 other people in support of WABA’s Women and Bicycles program at the Hains Point 100. It was an impressive turn out considering the fact that most people have crazy schedules this time of year.
  4. Let Me Help You with That  – For the longest time, I have avoided volunteering. I’m such a jerk. This year I volunteered at WABA five times. I learned that stuffing envelopes in the office is more comfortable than standing around in the cold  at the start/finish of the Vasa Ride. Do the math: free beer + pizza > hot blooberry soup. I also tried my ineffectual, introverted hand at bike advocacy by attending three events.
  5. March! – I attended some rather large marches in DC. The Women’s March was really the yoogest. I could not see the edge of the crowd I was in. When I got home and saw pictures of the throng I was shocked. There were at least a three dozen people I knew there. I didn’t see any of them. My guess is the crowd was at least 500,000. The Science March seemed inane. We’ve stooped this low in this country that we have to march to support science? I hung with the folks at WABA for the Climate March. I went to the Immigration Ban protest and left before it became a march down Pennsylvania Avenue.
  6. Riding to the End of the Road – Without a job to constrain me, I took off on a solo, unsupported bike tour. With cool weather approaching I decided to avoid the chill and head straight south — into a hurricane zone. I called it the No Way So Hey Tour. After hundreds of miles of rural poverty, cotton and peanut farms, friends old and new, and gale force winds pelting me with sand and rain, I rode through the hurricane ravaged Florida Keys. What a great feeling to stand next to the storm-damaged Southernmost Point buoy in Key West. I followed it up by riding Alligator Alley through the Everglades across central Florida. Along the way, I took side trips to Charleston, the Okeefenokee Swamp, and Savannah.
  7. Making the Most of a Sad Situation – Through Facebook, I learned of the death of one of my grad school roommates. Jim Burgess, whom we called Chet, was, as Mrs. Rootchopper said, “The nicest guy in the world.” He died of colon cancer. I drove to Providence for the wake and funeral. Afterward I went for a bike ride along Narragansett Bay. On the way home I stopped to ride Little Nellie around the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
  8. Why Life Nearly Doesn’t Begin on Opening Day – At the end of March, I was riding in the rain to a Nationals exhibition game when an SUV came out from behind a wall and hit me. How in the world I managed to get out of it without a scratch is beyond me. About 100 yards later, I learned that the game was cancelled.
  9. Lazarus in an Expos Hat – After surviving the exhibition demolition derby season, I attended about a dozen games. I even went to Baltimore with some co-workers for a Saux game. It was so wikkid we did it again at Nationals Park. I drove to a few more Nats games with Lily who likes the pregame happy hour about as much as the game itself. I also did a game with @BobbieShaftoe and her family. March 29, 2018 can’t come quickly enough.
  10. Take a Walk – As usual, I didn’t do nearly as much hiking as I intended to.  I managed to finish the Potomac Heritage Trail. In a planning blunder, I did the Ashby Hollow hike again. The hike to Raven Rocks was probably the best though. I have a fear of heights so there’s nothing like a hike to a cliff to keep things interesting. And in the spirit of Nigel Tufnel,
  11. Full House – Last night we had a full house for the first time in two years.  Mrs. Rootchopper spent days making fudge and baking cookies in anticipation. Daughter Lily flew in from London and son Eamonn came around the world from Phuket, Thailand. My hope is they both remember to drive on the right. Image may contain: 4 people, people smiling, closeup and indoor

 

“Sorry”, Java, and Pop!

Thursday was a bikes and baseball game. Kristen and Sean invited me to a baseball game. It was an end-of-summer outing for their two school aged girls.

Of course, I rode.

The weather was wonderful. I was about three blocks from the ballpark when an impatient driver pulled out from behind a turning car and came within inches of me. All I could was yell. Fortunately, the passenger side window was opened and the driver heard me and stopped abruptly before hitting me. I turned toward the stadium. The car followed. The driver said, “Sorry.” All I could think of was: let’s change places so you can wet your pants when I swerve into you.

Rant over.

The game was a terrific one. I often see kids at games and they don’t pay attention and drive their parents crazy. As often as not, the family leaves early. Not these folks. The girls had fun with the game and scouted out some healthy food. I mean baseball and dumplings go together like tea and sugar, no?

I managed to ride home unscathed. The game started at 4 so I was riding home as the sun went down. I didn’t stop to put on lights. Just my wee blinkies front and rear. Just me, the river, and a trillion midges. Nothing makes for a lovely ride like riding through clouds of bugs having sex.

Today I rode to Friday Coffee Club. I left at 6:30 around sunrise. I miss the long hours of daylight already. And it was 58 degrees. Just on basic stubbornness I rode in shorts and shirtsleeves. Twas a tad chilly with a steady headwind off the river.

We had our coffee indoors and the conversation was free flowing. I stayed to the end, through three shifts of bike commuters. Another retirement luxury. The ride home featured a brisk tailwind. There’s nothing like a tailwind to make you feel like you’re in great biking shape.

When I got home, I did my usual back exercises, which are mostly yoga asanas. One of my poses is a side plank. Lying on my side on the floor, I extend my left arm and raise my upper body off the floor. Then I extend my right arm up and point it at the ceiling. Typically I teeter a bit as my stomach and back muscles engage, which is the whole point of the enterprise. This time, I wobbled a bit and my lower left back or, maybe my hip, went POP! Dang, it felt like a knife. I lowered myself to the floor and waited for the pain to subside. I have never felt anything quite like it. Hopefully, it is nothing serious. I’ll know when I wake up in the morning, I guess. My advice to you is don’t get old. Your body betrays you.

As luck would have it, the forecast calls for rain tomorrow. So I will be a good boy and rest. Then on Sunday I have to say goodbye to an old friend; I am riding 25 miles to the Rock Creek Trestle. The trestle will be closed on Tuesday. Apparently for good. It was fun while it lasted.

On a final note, in 2014 I rode the 50 States in a group of ten people. Michael, a friend I met at Friday Coffee Club, led. He is doing a ride along the 185 mile length of the C&O Canal. It’s called WABA in the Wild. It raises money for WABA, the Washington Area Bicyclists Association. If you are feeling generous, you can help him reach his fundraising goal by going to his donations page.

Thanks.

Weekend Round Up

Dang am I tired!

I rode to the baseball game yesterday. The weather was great. It was a 4 pm start. I figured I’d get home long before dark.

Then the Nationals put 18 runs on the board against the woeful Reds. You know you’re in trouble when your pitcher’s first name is “Homer”. I am not making this up.

I nearly got whiplash from watching batted balls fly all over the place. Home plate had a dent in it by the 8th inning.

I rode home at twilight. I used blinky LED lights and made it about 2/3rds of the way home before it became legitimately dark. Rather than stop and mount my real light, I carried on. The entire ride would have been wonderful but for the exploding midge population along the river.  Ick.

Today I got up and did some light yard work. Mostly I cut branches so that I could ride straight to the shed in my backyard without getting my face all torn up.

After writing an unintentionally woo woo blog post, I hopped on my bike and headed back to the ballpark for another game. This time the Reds scored a bunch of runs early and the game dragged on under a hot sun for over 3 hours. I was fried despite the sunscreen I applied. Rather than buy beer, I bought water.

The game really was a dud to watch. So I kept looking up and the clouds drifting over the park. The sky was just perfect.

Image may contain: cloud, sky, outdoor and nature

I left quickly and rode home on impulse power. All weekend the trail was cluttered with people in groups riding slowly on rental bikes and Bikeshare tanks. Little kids popped up as if obstacles in a video game.

I did not drop one single f-bomb. (Takes a bow.)

I even stopped to help a woman on a Bikeshare bike who crashed. I saw her go down and knew it wasn’t serious, but these things tend to feel much worse than they are. It took her about five or ten minutes to let the pain dissipate and to get her composure. We sent her on her way. “Finish your ride, then drink some wine.” She and her partner liked the idea. Then I said “No tylenol.” When I told her that tylenol and alcohol are toxic to the liver she was shocked. She explained she regularly took tylenol before drinking to avoid a hangover.  My work here is done.

When I got home I was pretty tired from riding and sitting in the sun. So I mowed my lawn. What a maroon. I am now officially rode hard and put away wet.

Tomorrow I am dropping my daughter’s car off for service and cutting 24 miles off my bike commute. It’s a bit like resting your old players in a day game after a night game.

Finally a note about yesterday’s blog post. A friend of mine, who I will call Brian because that is his real name (or so he tells me), declared me to be his guru. He is currently sitting on my back porch meditating which is appropriate given the twisted provenance of the title of his advice column in the local weekly newspaper. Anyway, he will henceforth be referred to herein as Sexy Sadie.

The thing is my woo woo post was actually motivated by the neurology of attention. A few years ago there was a video about attention that went viral. It demonstrates that our brains have limited processing capability, especially when assigned a complex task. Watch a teenager learning to drive. They are overwhelmed mentally. They have to sort out what’s important and what’s not. Over time, they learn to tune out the “not”.  We all do. The problem comes when the “not” unexpectedly becomes important. This happens a lot when you’re driving.

Another takeaway from this is the fact that we are on autopilot so much of the time. Walk into the kitchen. Grab a cookie. If you want to lose weight, all you have to do is become aware of your brain seeking a little pleasure reward and ask “Is this a need or a want?” If you want to increase your savings you do the same before you buy anything.  This may explain why I am an incompetent consumer.

What flips me out is the fact that your brain can hyper focus during an emergency. Mrs. Rootchopper and I both experienced this when we each were hit by a car. It turns out that for brief bursts our brains can pay attention to and absorb an astounding amount of information with incredible clarity. It’s really unsettling, in a way. You have more thoughts than you normally have time to think them.  So you normally unthink them. Your brain knows to ignore the useless stuff. If you stop for a few minutes and refocus on them, you’ll find out what you are missing. As it turns out, you’re missing a lot.

Who knew?