holidaze

A holiday weekend. Nice. I'll be traversing to a wedding in Jersey tomorrow, but the hope is to work out an overnight camping/biking field trip Sunday-Monday. That's tonight quest. Must find a suitable area with campsites available. I'm giddy just thinking about the seasons first camping trip. If not, bike riding in the least.

Some random friday mind children that have been crowding up my brain space:
1. Why on earth do the same politicians that support the war in Iraq emphatically oppose stem cell research???? (it especially peeves me when their dolt-like reasoning proves they have absolutely no knowledge of the process or possibilities)
2. Why are there some people that have adapted a permanent face-to-the-floor posture when walking through hallways? I know it gets tedious to say hi to every person walking buy....but don't their necks get sore in that perpetual state of floor/shoe examination??? (i'm a nodder...i try to nod a hello to pretty much everyone that walks by, cuz it's good to acknowledge existence...even if you do it 100 times a day).

That's all the children I can remember for now. Time for coffee (and maybe water too, cuz i'm a fan of hydration)

Rain, Rain, Rain

Rain and 50 degrees in May. What glum weather. That's all for today...work calls.

shoe apples

I drove by a shoe store last night that had apples in the window. Apples? Shiny mens dress shoes, loafers, and apples...many apples. All around the shoes. Looked like gala apples. What's the connection there? Was someone hungry while dressing the window? Are these shoes made of apples, or inspire one to eat them? That has to be the most bizarre form of shoe advertising I've seen, and a waste of apples (unless they were fake, but they looked real).

synaptic anomalies

the seat next to me stood occupied by unbalance and unrest.
I felt it nudge my side, and there I was...out cold.
..................................................................
i put the cup to my lips and drank it down, as if it were
my own soul.
.................................................................
scratching at the dry spot on my hand,
feeling a tingle of tired in my eye,
skin puddle gathered beneath each eyelash.
I grasp a water-soaked cloth and scrub away the lethargy.
.................................................................

this weekend,

i did the following, (and now I'm tired):

1. My first solo mountain bike ride
2. Made banana and raspberry panckes (and covered them in fresh maple syrup)
3. A six mile mt. bike ride with the boys, and kept up better than usual
4. Discovered how amazingly easy it is to get to NYC via the Metro-North from New Haven
5. Entered NYC via Grand Central Station for the first time (usually arrive via plane)
6. Saw sketch comedy at a place called "Anatomy Club" in New York City
7. Ate an amazingly good falafel somewhere around sixth and Avenue A (or B)
8. Drank with Funny people at a place called Fitzgeralds
9. Rode the subway back to Queens around 2:30am
10. Devoured a deli sandwhich around 3am
11. Slept Some
12. Ate brunch at Jekyll and Hyde (a kooky spooky themed eatery that fed us good brunch)
13. Hung out in various mellow locales (union square, central park)
14. Took the Metro back to New Haven

now i'm salivating for coffee and looking out into the rain that was called for this weekend. the rain that could have detroyed my first solo ride and made trekking around NYC a rather uncomfortable experience (meanwhile, i walked around sleeveless yesterday). weather guys are such liers. the end.

blogspit

yup, rather than "blogspot", I typed "blogspit"...and of course that url didn't do anything for me, but i thought it was humorous. It's that kind of day. Everything is funny to me. So actually, blogspit, which would normally be slightly amusing, seems damn near hysterical to me on this everything is funny day (okay, i really only laughed in my mind - but it seemed loud in there). Talk about a long story about nothing to start the afternoon...
So here I am with my black coffee. (house blend, size small...while everyone was high-tailing it to various lunchtime eateries...i was getting coffee. surprised? I thought not). Besides getting caffeinated, I'm doing an anti-rain dance in my head. I'm always torn because I actually like rain. I like after-rain smell, and it's regenerative quality. I like a hot cup of tea and a big 'ol book and the sound of rain spattering against a window pane. It's a good combination. And if it's raining lightly, the windows can stay open and the during-rain smells are almost as nice as the post-rain. When I was little I'd go outside in my rain jacket and bare feet in the summer to splash around in the puddles, and twirl around, and sometimes just sit on the sidewalk and feel the rain splatter on my jacket and let water gather around my toes as it ran down the street. My rain jacket was big, so it covered all my clothes and just my legs stuck out. I'd scamper around bare-legged like I was a raindrop too. I'm glad my mom was a "she won't melt" kind of person. I like a good thunderstorm too. But, it seriously inhibits a bike ride. I could ride in the rain anyway, but only on reallly rocky trails (can't damage those so much). I think if it rains tomorrow I'll stay inside with my windows open and make banana bread. Cooking in the rain is fun too. :o)

Loggin' and rollin'

So I didn't have any burritos this weekend, but atleast the rain didn't impede our bike riding. We did stay home saturday (it was windy and threatening outside)...and cleaned the apartment. This was a necessity as it's no fun to let a small apartment get any more than a little cluttered. We made it to the trails yesterday though. Branford again. The first time we went here it was uneventful, but upon further exploration we found a mecca of trails hiding just beyond a hill we weren't sure was actually part of the trail network. YES! SCORE! I like these trails for their mix of simplicity, and technicality. I'm the kind of person that needs a good confidence builder sprint at the beginning of the ride. Something that kick starts my adrenaline and momentum, and yields a lot of "woo hoos" along the way. A few strategically places logs and rocks, just enough to really get me excited for those hills and drops. I like exploring new trails, but when we check out places that are brutally technical, it's hard to get started and I spend the whole day trying to find my momentum. It takes the wind out of my sails no matter how gung-ho I am that day. I like trying new trails, even difficult ones, but when you're still trying to build up muscle and endurance, spending more time off my bike than on it is a little frustrating. I'm trying to remedy this though...even if it means just crusing around the parking lot a little to get myself psyched up, or crusing on the road after to get a little post trail-walking work-out. Next Sunday will be a day I'll need to do that. It's a Westwoods day. Westwoods isn't really brutally technical, but there's a lot of stunts that I won't go near, which makes for an extensive sometimes on, sometimes off the bike ride. I've only gone with Jake and Sundays ride is with the bike store owners and their group. They say it's a slow ride because they all stop and do stunts the whole time. I'm thinking of it as more of a show than a ride. Ride a little, watch someone jump off a rediculously high rock (some of the guys are trials riders). Ride a little more, walk down a 50 foot rocky crag (westwoods has some insane rocks...it amazes me that people ride down them). All these guys wear pads and face shields, so I'll certainly feel more like a spectator with only helmet protection. It should be a very interesting ride (err, walk).

Alas...

There's rain in the forecast all weekend. This is distressing. I spent the last 2 weekends in Pittsburgh and am thoroughly excited to be back in New Haven, preferable outside somewhere. My plan may be foiled. Atleast we have a new dart board, guess I'll practice my cricket skills. Tonight, it's pancakes with berries for dinner...a good diverson from the impending doom of inclement weather.

Nutritious Mind Food for the weekend: Moby-Dick
My friend gave me two pieces of art work depicting scenes from Moby Dick (abstract, painted herself), so I decided I must read it...at about 1 third through, I am intrigued and intensely dedicated to the story.

Intellectual Peril for the weekend: Tackle a book chapter on Tracer Kinetic Modeling written by the co-director of the new Yale PET Center. I've had this chapter in my possession for some time (it lives in a quite large PET book I own). Though I've glanced through it, now that I work with the author I feel I must get down and dirty and reallllllly read that thing.

Hopeful Anticipation of the weekend: Not just one, but several bike rides...followed by several burritos.

happy post time

Not that I've been grossly depressing, but it seems time to have a post that's exceedingly gleeful.
Um, well...can't think of anything too gleeful, 'cept that dark guatemalan coffee I drank this morning alongside some fresh blackberries and raspberries. That's good stuff. I worked three 10 hour days this week, cuz I'm a brain analyzin' machine :o) Yay for nerdliness. the end.

April 27, 2005 was

The day my grandfather died. The day we lost a man 95 years young. The day we started telling his stories a lot more. The Tribune Review has my Pappap's Obituary. He lived to tell stories, so it's appropriate that this is the second time the newpaper has run a little story about his life...the other was July 2003 in the post-gazette. It was a long, but comfortable and healing, weekend in Pittsburgh. I have another angel now...with a floppy hat, a pipe, and a handful of cookies.