cycling « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

cycling

You can wind the week down with a lot of work

After a day of committee meetings, and email, and grading, and a bit of class work, I realized that every Friday is like that. Most days are similar. Some days have classes. Not every day has committees.

For a while today was so full, though, that I wrote a To Do list for the afternoon. I’m not a big To Do list guy, but I find that, from time-to-time, it’s an actual productive way to do a bit of cognitive offloading. Plus there’s a little satisfaction of having it all laid out in front of you. Fridays have become a lot of that this semester too: just a big block of uninterrupted time to take on what needs taking on. And, finally, there’s the muted pleasure of scratching a thing off a list. I didn’t use check marks. Didn’t draw a line through an item. I scratched it out aggressively. I don’t know why that is.

Speaking of cognitive offloading, I do a thing in my classes now where I show an AI fail each day. Usually it is an image. I try to find the sports-related one since those are my classes. And I try not to make them all about Google’s AI, which is unrepentantly terrible. If I just showed that thing every day I’d look like I was piling on. Some of these are funny. And sometimes my students ignore them. It is either, I’m not as funny as I think I am — which is not true — or they feel like I’m shaming them about lousy technology that has been marketed to them and they’ve fallen for — which is true, for the most part.

Here’s my next example. The perils of letting AI plan your next trip:

Miguel Angel Gongora Meza, founder and director of Evolution Treks Peru, was in a rural Peruvian town preparing for a trek through the Andes when he overheard a curious conversation. Two unaccompanied tourists were chatting amicably about their plans to hike alone in the mountains to the “Sacred Canyon of Humantay”.

“They [showed] me the screenshot, confidently written and full of vivid adjectives, [but] it was not true. There is no Sacred Canyon of Humantay!” said Gongora Meza. “The name is a combination of two places that have no relation to the description. The tourist paid nearly $160 (£118) in order to get to a rural road in the environs of Mollepata without a guide or [a destination].”

What’s more, Gongora Meza insisted that this seemingly innocent mistake could have cost these travellers their lives. “This sort of misinformation is perilous in Peru,” he explained. “The elevation, the climatic changes and accessibility [of the] paths have to be planned. When you [use] a program [like ChatGPT], which combines pictures and names to create a fantasy, then you can find yourself at an altitude of 4,000m without oxygen and [phone] signal.”

People will trust the weirdest things.

This is lousy op sec, and of course silly on the face of it, and catty to boot. Great reporting from the Star Tribune.

After the day’s work was done, we hoped on our bikes and rode up the road for a miniature group ride with our neighbor. Here I am, out front. Or, rather, here is my view in the one moment when no one was in front of me.

I’m riding with two All-Americans here. One of them a rather recent All American. I’m just trying to stay close to the drafting lines.

Near the end of the ride, on a false flat, there was a tease of a sprint. And then there was a sprint. My lovely bride spun it up, and the many years and thousands of miles riding with her told me instantly what was happening. So I sat on our friend’s wheel. She went to the inside of the lane and tried to take on the three-time Ironman. I was right in her slipstream, waiting. I figured if she got over I was going to counter attack. It would be beautiful. And then she sat up. Our neighbor is pretty new at this, and probably a bit stronger than she realized, but the other person in that photo is pretty fierce.

So I finished third, which is a perfectly fine way to start the weekend.

Catober / cycling / photo / site / Wednesday — Comments Off
1
Oct 25

Welcome to Catober

Welcome to Catober, where, every day, we share a photo of one of the kitties. It’s a big hit and we all look forward to it every year.

Tomorrow we’ll have a photo of Phoebe, Friday, a picture of Poseidon, then another of Phoebe on Saturday, and so on. You’ll want to come back every day to see the cuteness and/or hijinx. You might also like this category to catch up.

We went to a local diner for breakfast this morning. We took my in-laws, and there we met my god-parents-in-law (just go with it). This was planned. They were all down to see their granddaughter, and granddaughter-in-law, play field hockey last night. But they each had to head back to their respective hometowns today. It was a brief trip extended by a leisurely breakfast.

My father-in-law and godfather-in-law met when they were five and six years old. My mother-in-law and godmother-in-law met in nursing school. My godparents-in-law met one another at my in-laws’ wedding. And so for these many years they’ve been tight. And each is godparents to the others’ kids. Hence all the go with its.

Across from my seat was this photograph.

It was taken in 1922, on the occasion of the first air shipment of produce in the U.S. It was asparagus.

The first commercial flight was in Florida in 1914. I’m a little surprised that it took eight years before anyone thought they should throw some veggies on a plane. I’m disappointed the first choice was asparagus. Kids across the country were too, imagine, this new technology, and that’s what we’re using it for? Asparagus?

And I’m writing about asparagus because that’s better than discussing how I spent a full day grading. I needed to do it. I was oddly looking forward to doing it. I did it.

This evening we went for a bike ride. One of our neighbors went with us. Here I am trying to chase down two All-Americans.

I was not an All-American, so this was difficult. Our friend was a swimmer and a legitimate, I mean legitimate track star. She’s got all the cardio you want, and now she’s just taking up tris and bikes, as you do. And that she’s just getting started is probably the only reason that this happened.

She better not get good at this, or by this time next year, I’ll be well off the back.

I hurt the big toe on my left foot somehow, and it isn’t exactly pleasant to walk on at the moment. Not too bad in shoes. But I made the mistake of trying to stand up on the bike and I immediately sat back down. I’ve never gotten out of the saddle a lot anyway, but I’ll need this little ache and/or pain to go away soon for just general use, and also in case I need to lean out and sprint.

Sprint. That’s funny.

Classes tomorrow. And more Catober! Come back for that!

cycling / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off
22
Sep 25

I’m not saying I rode with a ghost; I’m also not not saying that

I’ll just tell you, straight away, that this is going to be a full week for me. I’ll probably feel it for the next three weeks. Which is to say that this week is busy, and I’ll insist upon taking an extra moment or two next week to recover. And, because of that, the week after that, I’ll be in this same boat again.

Also, I have papers to review, extra meetings to attend and some things to write. And I’ve been writing other things. Maybe some of them will see the light of day at some point. Plus the regular work, of course. Well, it keeps you busy, as they say. Anyway, you’ll probably just get a lot of scenes this week. So let’s do that!

Here’s a little sunset montage I made, but I don’t think I ever shared it. Nothing to it, just a few extra photos, literal over-the-shoulder photos.

I went on a circular ride on Saturday. A crude circle. A child’s unsteady drawing of a circle, if you looked at the map, and if the child did not yet understand circles. The wind was in my face for about three-quarters of the ride. Especially right here. I’d been ducking one breeze and then took a hard left, thing I could be relieved because that wind would be on my shoulder, but, no, an even more annoying breeze was in my nose.

A bridge near us has been closed for a good long while. Closed in a “Yes, this applies to you” way. But now it is open. If you go over that bridge you’re pretty quickly into another township, which makes for three or four in one quick effort out that direction. This was from today’s ride.

And on that same ride, as I paced myself back toward the neighborhood and the approved low-light roads … the sun is telling these spent cornstalks good night.

It’s not as dark as I look, and I made it back into the evening roads. It’s a nine-mile route with bike lanes or extremely low traffic or both. And, if you’re really desperate, you can add in another five miles of pre-approved neighborhood roads to the mix. (I have negotiated this with my lovely bride in a safety-first way and, since, have only annoyed her with my choices twice.)

So I made it back to that area, and that’s where this photo is from.

I was on that road because one stretch of those 14 miles of evening roads is now being undone and redone. It’d be great for the gravel bike, but that’s not what I was riding. I suppose the good news is that I was able to share that chip and seal news with the local bike ride group we’re forming up. Way out here, where the heavy land and the green sands meet, we have a hardy little bunch of eight people in that riding chat, and that doesn’t include one of other just-too-far-away riding buddies and a few of the notorious no-one-can-hold-their-wheel beasts that I see out from time to time.

I rode with one of those guys for a while today. I was just a few miles in and then I heard the noise come along side. Big man. He turned his head to look at me for about two pedal strokes, wordlessly, and then moved to the front. I sat on his wheel for about three miles, turning out 25 and 26 mile per hour splits. I had to let him go, and he had the decency to turn a different direction at the next road.

I see him on Strava. I think I saw him off in the distance on a ride earlier this year, when I chased a taillight for miles, but then it disappeared I know not how. The locals say that, on a quiet evening, if you listen really closely, you can hear him sigh, shift gears and pedal into the phantom world.

I bet he would have enjoyed Saturday’s wind.

adventures / cycling / Friday / photo — Comments Off
19
Sep 25

Our hydrangeas do not fluoresce at night, but …

Fridays are meeting days this term, it seems. I sit on a lot of committees and they all demand a bit of time. Friday is the most common day of the week that everyone has ~~available~~ on their calendar, and so there we all are. In Zoom, in person, you name it. Last week it was an experiential learning committee. This week a student relations committee, and so on.

Also, I need to call together a committee I chair. Note to self …

One day, when I am not pulled in four other directions, I will consider making a photo study of the hydrangeas. Their flowers are lovely throughout the season, whether upright, or bent over by the weight of rains.

There’s a unique trait to some hydrangea plants. Did you know that? The color of many hydrangea blooms acts as a natural pH indicator for it soil. Blooms that are blue are living in acidic soil. Those shrubs with red or pink sepals are growing in more alkaline soils. White varieties, such as ours, grow white in either soil. But you can manipulate the color of some of the flowering shrubs in this way. This is thought to be a singular trait of the hydrangea.

Our yard is full of plants and trees that aren’t from around here. The landscapers that put all of this in, long before we bought the place, were going for a united floral nations theme. And the hydrangeas are no different. Their taxonomy was first discussed in Virginia, there are more varieties of this sort of plant in east Asia. We have two. One by the northern gate and one by the backdoor. They both sit in the shade of the house. One gets a perfect dose of morning and midday sun. The other lives in a bit more shade. They’re both huge.

I just can’t get them to survive, upright, a late summer heavy rain. The water comes down, sits on those leaves and pulls the whole thing over. But they do flower lovely, and even at this later stage of their season, they are satisfying to look at. (But I’d prefer them upright.)

We did a 20 mile bike ride this evening. It was a late start for reasons of work and ennui. So we did most of the time trial route. It was almost curtailed by the new neighbor’s angry dog. He was out in the yard and aggressive. Took nips at both of us. No skin was broken. One sock was punctured.

Usually, when you’re riding, you can see a dog coming. Being field-trained in trigonometry, they’ll often take a good angle. But they don’t understand gearing, and you can usually mitigate the interaction. And then there’s a good old fashioned yell. In my experience, every dog speaks the parlance of my people, “GITOHNOUTTAHEA!!!” works surprisingly well. And no dog is expecting a spray from a water bottle.

But all of that works when you’re up to speed. Since this dog lives directly across the street, all of the dynamics were absurdly different, and I was reduced to using bike frame and tires as a shield when he came back for a second try and we were, stupidly, still standing there.

The neighbors never came outside to observe the ruckus.

Which is good, I suppose. That’s not how I want to meet the new people. We weren’t here when they moved in and we have so far just been waving at one another, all pleasant like, but “Hey, could you watch out for your dog?” might set a tone.

But also bad. My concern is for the young families that walk their kids through this strip of road, the other cyclists that come by, and the people down near the end that drive way too fast on a closed residential street. And, you know, we’re on this road too.

Anyway, it was a pleasant ride, and now we’re going to bring in the weekend with a local outdoor pizza. what a pleasant way to start a lovely few days.

Have a lovely few days yourself. We’ll catch up on Monday.

adventures / cycling / Indigo Girls / Monday / music / video — Comments Off
15
Sep 25

‘Four years (prostrate) to the higher mind’ is doubly ironic

This is quick, because I am doing class prep. We’re reading two stories in Criticism tomorrow. In Org Comm we’ll be talking about the very important and incredibly interesting definitions of communication. It’ll probably be the slowest week in that class for the semester. You need baselines for everyone, though, because there are students from multiple majors and it’s important to make this approachable. Next week will be more fun, this week is definitions.

That’s what I’ll tell them tomorrow.

And there’s also my online class, which is new. Three new classes to wrangle, every week, between now and December. It seems like a lot to me, but I’m gamely going to try.

And that’s why this is quick.

For some reason, even on a mild day, the irrigation systems out in the fields look refreshing. This was part of an easy 20 mile ride on Saturday afternoon. It was one of those days where I set out to go this way, got halfway there, and then went that way instead. It was a good day for that.

Sure, it was right out of the neighborhood and then a mile and a quarter down to the stop sign. There, instead of going straight, I turned left. We go this way sometimes, but I don’t do it often when I’m on my own. It’s an up and down thing, and then you cross a busy intersection — if you can catch the light — and go by the warehouses that they’ll never finish building or fill with inventory. Down to the river, and back up through some farm land and you can keep going down that road, where you’ll eventually run into a town, and the big river, and have to change directions, or you can turn early. This is what I did today. There are two or three roads that you can turn onto that will lead you back to another road that can point you home. But we rarely cut those short, and so it’s a guess: Is this a road that crosses over to the highway, or is this a road that dead ends in a corn field?

And so I’m going down this side road, hoping it is an in-between road, trying to remember if I remember it or not. The features don’t really help. It feels right, but not distinctively so.

Then, the road bends to the left, and forks to the right. This is where a white Cadillac decided to pass me in a slow and unsafe way. (Thanks for that, young person driving your grandparent’s Caddy … ) She went left. I went right, and I was rewarded with distinctive features. I was on the road I wanted, a double tree-lined affair that was quite and pleasant and demanded you sit up and go slow — which wasn’t a problem for me.

Eventually, I ran into this sign.

If you turn right, you’d go this way, and wind up down at the river, or someplace.

If you turn left, you wind your way to another tributary, but the highway which will take me back toward home.

I stood there and felt the sun and listened to the wind for a few pleasant, long minutes. It was the perfect time of day in a lovely little place and I had it all to myself, all of it. And maybe that’s the reason we should ride bikes.

OK, here’s the last clip from last week’s show. Four, from me, is a pretty decent amount of restraint. Anyway, because they’ve been at it for four decades now, the Indigo Girls obviously have to play the hits. And they’ve long established their most mainstream number as a regular big finish. It got a lot of people in the door, and those people won’t let you leave without it.

(I wonder how long a show would be if they played all of everyone’s favorites. We already wound up taking a late train out of town, and they didn’t play all of my favorites this time. They can’t play them all. They should play them all.)

Anyway, the regulars are counting songs and they know it’s about to come and OK, everybody sing along. And also here’s three-time Grammy Award winner, and holder of Four CMA awards, Jennifer Nettles, to help us out too.

I hope we get to see them again next year.