Aug 29, 2010 – Sept 2, 2010
Montreal!
World Congress on Pain
Aug 28, 2010
Total distance: 4 miles
Route: Work, home
Iain was getting groceries and I had put V8 on the list. He found the Low Sodium V8 but wasn’t sure if that was the right thing, and looked at the ingredients: sugar?? Then he found the regular V8 that I like, and it does not have sugar. Why do they bill something as “low sodium” and then add sugar? What is the point of that? They do the same thing with whole wheat chips. It sounds healthier because it’s whole wheat but then read the ingredients, they added sugar.
It is something that makes me angry. They are trying to pull one over on us. Make us think it’s healthy, so we buy it because we are trying to be healthy, but put in a bunch of unhealthy crap. Only the most vigilant and alert catch on.
Aug 27, 2010
Total distance: 4 miles
Route: work, home. I ate lunch at the fastfood greek restaurant down the street.
I created a little video showing the right way to get on and off your bike. The reason there is a right way and a wrong way is because a lot of people put the seat too low. They sit on the seat first, both feet on the ground. Then they start to pedal. Since the pedals are a couple inches above the ground, that means the seat is a couple inches too low. Your knees will hurt.
If the seat is high enough, then you can’t sit on the seat with your feet on the ground. To mount the bike, you pedal one stroke to get the bike moving and then sit down. That explanation isn’t very good so I made the video which shows it. It takes a little bit of practice to get used to it, but it isn’t hard to learn.
The proper position so that your knees don’t hurt will have your knee slightly bent when the pedal is at the bottom of the stroke. Your knee will be nearly level at the top of the stroke. If you sit on your seat with your feet on the ground, raise the saddle about two inches, or so it is level with your hip when you are standing next to the bike. Every time you ride, you can adjust the seat a little, higher if the fronts of your knees hurt, lower if the backs of your knees hurt, until you have a perfect fit.
Aug 26, 2010
Total distance: 11 miles
Route: Pool, work, home for lunch, work, home
Can you bike with your eyes closed? Often on my way back to work after lunch, I’m feeling sleepy. I bike slowly, and my eyes burn slightly. I blink and sometimes don’t re-open my eyes right away. A couple years ago I read a book about a man who was blind from an accident when he was very young. Growing up he learned to ride a bike. That amazed me. Sometimes I close my eyes for a few pedal strokes to see what it is like.
It’s really easy to balance. It seems we don’t use vision at all for balancing on a bike. Of course steering is a bit of a problem. I tend to drift to the left, toward the center of the road. If I make a conscious effort I can avoid that. On the trail I drift left or right, even into the grass.
We’ve had wonderfully mild weather this week. I barely break a sweat even at midday. On my way home for lunch, I passed through some grass clippings that had been blown onto the trail. I didn’t realize until I was in the middle that dozens of tiny grasshoppers were in them! They jumped at my wheels and legs.
We moved here in June, well after Truman classes were over. The fall semester started today, and the sleepy little town has woken up. I had to wait for TEN VEHICLES before I could turn left at 5:00 p.m. when I went home.
Aug 25, 2010
Total distance: 8 miles
Route: Work, home for lunch, work, home
Next week I’m going to Montreal for the annual meeting of the International Association for the Study of Pain. In November, we are going to Costa Rica. There are some other trips I’ll be taking throughout the year. Iain gingerly and hesistantly pointed out that all this travel does not consistent with one of my (many) reasons for bicycling: use less oil, for political and ecological reasons.
Actually I agree with him. If I were in charge of these sorts of meetings, I would make some drastic changes to them and hold them in a way that minimized travel and maximized networking by using a whole lotta technology.
Costa Rica is an indulgence. And generally I prefer vacations and sight-seeing that is closer to home. Missouri terrain, fauna, flora and history are pretty interesting to me and don’t have all the inconvenience of travel and disgust of crowds. The way I’d really like to visit on exotic place would involve slower travel and take months. But since we have cheap oil, and I don’t have months, we’ll indulge.
Aug 24, 2010
Total distance: 13 miles
Route: High school, work, home for lunch, work, library, home
Nell biked to the library after school and I met her there and we biked home. She put in 6 miles, which is a long day for her. Then she went to swim practice in the evening. She was exhausted. “I can’t do that again,” she said. “Well, I could if I did it all the time.”
“So you could do it again if you did it again?” I asked.
“That’s right,” she agreed, “if a = a then a = a.”
In the evening we drove to swim practice. I attended the swim team parent meeting for a few minutes, then left for the high school open house and met with several of her teachers. Several years ago I went to this sort of thing at her first public middle school. I was so traumatized I never went to another parent-teacher conference or open house. But Nell has been talking about her teachers and I was keen to meet Cranky Old Mr. World History, Young Pregnant Redhead Mrs. English, Funny Cute Mr. Student Teacher Biology, and the rest.
Mr. Biology looked about 12 years old to me. Mrs. Algebra said one student who walks to school hangs out in her classroom after school until the parking lot clears. I like that because we have also found the parking lot tricky to navigate right after school, on our bikes. Also she has a TON of books to bring home, and the homework takes maybe 30 min, so if she could spend 30 min after school, she could bring home a lot fewer books. They usually end up on my bike so I know exactly how heavy they are!
After the first day of school, Nell liked 3 1/2 of her teachers. The 1/2 teacher was Mrs. Algebra, Nell was on the fence about her. Since then she’s come out in favor of Mrs. Algebra, and I agree. She seems like a great teacher, really involved, organized, and interested.
I picked my most inappropriate shirt for the High School Open House, but no one commented.
Aug 23, 2010
Total distance: 13 miles
Route: High school, work, home for lunch, work, high school, home
Nell biked today. I think she might know the route well enough to get home by herself. I like biking to school with her but leaving in the middle of the afternoon to meet her after school is inconvenient. Not to mention it was hot today. We need a different set up for her backpack. It is super heavy, which makes it uncomfortable to bike wearing, but it doesn’t sit well on her rack. I scavenged her rack off another bike, ages ago, and it doesn’t fit well. So what she really needs is a new rack.
When I came back to work after lunch, I accidentally left my keys at home. I took my bike downstairs to my office in the elevator, and got someone to let me into my office. (I considered briefly climbing through my hallway window.) When I left to go get Nell, the elevator shaft was open, some repair or maintenance. That bike is HEAVY with the basket on, but I managed to get it up the stairs.
Walking downtown, Iain and I saw this bike with ivy growing in the wheel. I think it's been there a while. I'm always amazed at the number of bikes not locked up, and yet not stolen.
Aug 22, 2010
Total distance: 25 miles
I rode a road bike for the first time. Deb-from-work has talked Nell and me into doing a team triathlon in 3 weeks. Nell will swim, Deb will run, and I will bike, on Deb’s road bike. Hers is a Trek, I think a 4300 WSD. I got the rats done early, then headed over to her house and swapped our saddles. We tinkered with the saddle positions for a bit, then headed out for a 2 hour ride.
She loved riding my commuter bike, since she rides an old Schwinn mountain bike as her commuter, and it is as heavy as steel. Which in fact it is.
I wobbled a lot each time I started up, but by the end of our ride I was a lot smoother. It took so little effort to make it go! I never quite got the hang of the shifters so I didn’t do so well on the hills as I might have. When I got back on Crush to go home, I was all wobbly again!
As I suspected would happen, I now want a road bike, or a touring bike (nearly the same thing). Something lighter for weekend rides. It’s not a high priority because my commuter bike is my vehicle, whereas a road bike, which is going to be more expensive because road bikes are, would be a toy, for recreation and exercise. Her cat-eye also does cadence, so at long last I finally know what my cadence is. At its slowest, 70. Typically around 90. That’s actually really good. I’ve known you’re supposed to keep a quick cadence but with no reference I had no idea what “quick” is, if my cadence is quick enough or if it is slow. (Cadence is how fast you turn the pedals. You are supposed to gear down and keep spinning quickly, not mash away on the pedals in too high of a gear.)
Of course, once I get a road bike, I’ll have to eat gel shots, own many more bike jerseys and bike shorts, and be obsessed with average speed.
Later that day, I took Iain, Nell and our friend Julie out along the route I’d biked, to see the herd of miniature donkeys. They are adorable. I wonder what one does with a herd of miniature donkeys. I hesitate to use my imagination. (Miniature donkey burgers?)
Baby miniature donkeys are nearly as big as their mamas
Aug 20-21, 2010
Aug 20 total distance: 8 miles
Route: Work, home for lunch, work, home
Aug 21 total distance: 0 miles
At 5:20 p.m. Friday evening a lightning strike took out our wide-area wireless internet. Naturally it occurred just after business hours. We called the tech support center, where I heard Iain say things like “My operating system isn’t relevant. What is relevant is that your equipment doesn’t work.” He eventually got tired and angry and hung up. I called and said immediately “The last time we called the manager we poke to suggested that we ask for our ticket to be elevated right away,” and I only had to answer a few stupid questions as she filled out the form and submitted the service ticket.
The tech came first thing Monday morning and fixed it. However, the lightning strike also took out our router, so while we aren’t entirely without internet, we only have it on one computer at a time.
Fortunately it was a busy weekend. I didn’t bike to work Saturday, because Iain needed to check on some internetty things, and so I drove him to my office when I went in to do ratty things. I still got exercise that day: we rented a canoe and a kayak and paddled around the lake. It’s different than on the river. When you stop paddling on a lake, you stop moving.
The storm moving in was beautiful, but I could have lived without the beauty in exchange for our internet.
Iain is exhausted from paddling.
Aug 19, 2010
Total distance: 12 miles
Route: Pool, work, home for lunch, work, bank, home
I behaved awfully well today. I got up early to swim laps, walked instead of biked from my office to check on the rats, sat on my exercise ball all morning, biked home for lunch instead of spending money at the cafeteria or, more temptingly, at a restaurant, and ran an errand. On the other hand, all this good behavior meant I strongly wanted to counteract it with some sort of vice containing sugar and caffeine.
Somehow I managed not to talk myself into it.
I even shut down everything extraneous so I could better focus on my grant, twice today. A veritable Pollyanna I am.
Aug 18, 2010
Total distance: 13 miles
Route: High school, work, home for lunch, work, high school, home
Today was Nell’s first day of school. I biked to school with her, and met her in the afternoon to bike home. She wants to bike only on nice days when she doesn’t have outside marching band. Well, we can’t all by all-weather cyclists.
She said it was a quiet day for her. She knew her classmates in band, and a few of her band classmates were in some of her other classes, but mostly she didn’t know anyone. She likes her teachers in Band, Biology, and English. Last week when we met him, the band director said “Nell laughs at my jokes!” The Biology teacher is a student teacher working on his master’s degree in education. Nell appreciated the “professionalism” of her English teacher. History is taught by a grumpy old man, Spanish by a Puerto Rican who speaks the language very well but is perhaps not an excellent teacher, and the Drama teacher is too friendly. She hasn’t passed judgment on the Algebra teacher yet.
That seems like a promising start to me: 50% good impressions is a good rate.
Aug 17, 2010
Total distance: 4 miles
I meant to get up early and swim laps again. I did get up early, but I hung around home instead of going to the pool. That’s ok, because in the evening we went to the lake, with cash this time, and swam a little and played a lot. And my arms are sore from yesterday’s laps.
Language lesson for men
When you say “I don’t like the food in the cafeteria on your campus”, the woman hears “I don’t love you”. The reasoning in her mind is, she ate at your campus cafeteria which didn’t have particularly delicious food the entire time you were in school just so she could spend a little extra time with you, and you could return the favor by eating in her cafeteria even though you don’t like the food.
At this point Iain pointed out that stating that he didn’t like the food doesn’t equate to refusing to eat there. Then he informed me that “I don’t like the food” does not mean “I don’t love you”. I was somewhat startled to realize that my translator had done that.
Aug 16, 2010
Total distance: 10 miles
Route: Pool, work, home for lunch, work, home
The indoor pool will finally be open again on Wednesday. I used the outdoor pool once for early morning laps when the indoor pool was first closed in June for maintenance. It was uncomfortably chilly. Today, the outdoor pool was very comfortable. I got my goggles on water-tight and so my eye isn’t twitching now from the chlorine. It was a great swim. I also worked it out so that I had a minimum number of changes: I biked in my swimsuit, swam, showered, and changed into my work clothes for the bike ride to work. It’s only a mile and it was cool this morning.
I heard that a second person has compared me on my strange commuter bicycle to the Wicked Witch of the West. I wonder if I can get a witch-hat-shaped helmet. No wicker basket for Toto–there’s too much junk on my handlebar already!
We attempted to go to the lake this evening. We discovered that they close the beach at 6:00 p.m., and they charge money to swim in the lake! $3 per person! That is ridiculous. That’s about what it costs to swim in the pool (or what it would cost if we didn’t have a free membership, one of the best perks of being an ATSU employee!). Nell wants to practice swimming in a lake before we do the triathlon, and I think she was disappointed at not getting a little family time in before school starts. We’ll try again tomorrow, but with cash.
Speaking of the triathlon, I don’t think I’ve mentioned that on here yet. On one of our bike rides, Deb talked me into doing a team triathlon if Nell was interested in doing the swim. Nell IS interested and so we have a team. I’m going to ride Deb’s road bike, Deb will run, and Nell will swim. I’ve never ridden a road bike yet. (I’ll try it out ahead of time to get the saddle height adjusted and all.) I’ve been joking that I’ll cross over to the dark side after this, and not only own many more bike jerseys, but eat gel blocks, wear clipless shoes, and sneer at fenders.
It’s the NEMO Triathlon, which at first I thought was the Nemo Triathlon and I couldn’t figure out why it was named after a town in southwest Missouri. Eventually I realized NEMO stands for Northeast Missouri. Sort of like SAVEMOLIVES. Save Missouri lives, or save ‘m’ olives? You decide.
Aug 15, 2010
Total distance: 31 miles
We saw a llama guarding a herd of miniature donkeys. I took a picture with my cell phone, but I should have used the zoom, it’s not easy to tell that’s what the critters are in the picture. A red fox ran across the road in front of us. Deb & I started out at 7:00 a.m. and the weather was gorgeous for the ride.
No sugar update
Nell made carrot cake and insisted I have a piece. So I did. She did a good job on it. It didn’t taste too sweet, but the sugar rush made me hot & flushed!
Aug 12-14, 2010
Aug 12 Total distance: 4 miles
Aug 13 Total distance: 4 miles
Aug 14 Total distance: 0 miles
I used to think I was an early morning person. I’d be up at 7:00 a.m. and searching for signs of life. One student last year really annoyed me because 8:00 a.m. was too early for her to come to work. But here, everyone talks about getting up at 4:30 a.m. as if it were a regular thing, no big deal! One person said he goes running, biking or swimming every day at or before 5:00 a.m. Another usually gets to the office at 6:00 a.m., unless he woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep and then he comes in earlier. One other person, whom I thought was more normal, casually mentioned going for a run at 4:30 a.m.
The med student who does the injections has class at 8:00 a.m. and so we start at 7:00 a.m., which means I’m there at 6:40 a.m. to set up. I’ve been getting up at 5:40 a.m. It means the morning bike ride isn’t too bad. I am kind of dull and stupid though because I’m not on that schedule. Since I only need to get up so early every OTHER week, I don’t know if I will adjust to it! If I’m smart I’ll get up early during the off weeks and save myself the suffering of adjusting to a new schedule every other week.
That would be a really good idea. During the off weeks, I could go swim before work.
August 11, 2010
Total distance: 4 miles
When I found the preying mantis on my bike yesterday, I encouraged it to step off my bike and try out Deb’s. Her bike is sized better for it, and she is a microbiologist. Microbiologists think things like enormous preying mantises are cool. Then I went home. Today she told me, she didn’t notice the preying mantis until about halfway home when it jumped on her hand and she jumped! She put it on her handlebar like a hood ornament. It looked like it was having fun. At home, it jumped on her shirt, and she helped it relocate into a tree.
I added one more tip to biking in the heat, so here is the complete list:
1. Bike slowly
2. Put ice or cold wet cloth on your neck
3. Leave your helmet at home. This seems like nonsense, but it’s a risk-benefit calculation. I weigh the unlikely but highly damaging possibility of a head injury against the likely but merely uncomfortable risk of heat injury.
A lot of people feel very strongly about the helmet and would refuse to bike rather than bike without a helmet. They’re entitled, but I feel exactly the opposite. I think too many people view the helmet as a magical device that will protect them from everything. Guess what–you can still have a wreck while you’re wearing a helmet. You can still break your arm. Yeah, it protects you from head injury. There are many things I do to protect myself from head injury, like ride as a trained and experienced cyclist so I don’t have a wreck in the first place, understand traffic and traffic patterns, understand how motorists think (being a motorist doesn’t mean you understand how motorists think). Wearing a helmet is just one of the things I do. Since I do so many things to protect myself from head injury, omitting one of them isn’t the end of the world.
I nearly talked myself out of no-sugar. I was feeling pretty good for being the day of the month that it was. My logic went like this: “This no sugar thing really worked this month. So I could have a lot of sugar today because the next bad day is a long time away.” Fortunately I didn’t quite convince myself that it was a really good idea to buy out the vending machines upstairs.
August 10, 2010
Total distance: 8 blistering, boiling, sweltering miles.
When it comes to biking in the cold, or the rain, or even wind, there are a number of things one can do to make oneself more comfortable, or at least less uncomfortable. The heat is more limiting. Fabrics that breathe, wick, and/or don’t retain odor are obvious. Less clothes. Light colors that don’t absorb heat. Sunscreen. Drink a lot of water, replenish electrolytes.
And that’s about it. This summer I’ve picked up two more tricks. 1. I make a conscious effort to bike very slowly. That proved to make a huge difference! 2. I have this neck band I got last year that you’re supposed to soak in water and it lasts for 18 hours. I don’t know quite what they mean by “last”. I soaked it in ice water and it was body temperature two slow miles later. I’ll try it again a few more times before I decide that it doesn’t work.
August 9, 2010
Total distance: 11 miles
Route: Work, home for lunch, work, high school, home
School starts next week, and band starts this week. Nell had her first day yesterday, and told us about a band parent meeting in the evening. I didn’t have time to go home first so I biked to the meeting. I was so hungry when I finally did get home! At the meeting we got on the email list so that next time we’ll hear about it in advance. We found it interesting that the band relies on a lot of parent involvement, but also does a lot of really cool things. However we were not moved to volunteer.
I have not volunteered at her school since she started to public school in 6th grade. I wanted to, but my initial interactions with the school were so distressing to me that instead I have made every effort to minimize my interactions. I send Iain to the parent-teacher meetings. If she needs me to intervene (needs, not wants, as she never wants that) I do so by phone or email. It’s probably best for everyone involved.
If it had been anything other than band, I wouldn’t have gone to the meeting at all. Even for band, I’ll give them money but I won’t volunteer.
August 8, 2010
Total distance: 4 miles
Route: work, home. Then a long drive to Columbia and back!
I’ve been informed that my review of “Advice for New Faculty Members” is confusing, particularly this “not writing” bit. The book is a bit vague too, which is probably coming across. For a book that is about writing, it’s not super well written, which makes the advice a little less convincing!
The author’s main point is that a little writing every day is far more effective and efficient than a lot of writing over a few days. You will write more, and better, and spend less time on it overall, he claims. And by “a little writing” he means it is better to spend 5 or 10 minutes on it than none at all. Some days that’s all you’ll get because you’re too busy. Other days, you’ll find yourself spending on hour or two on it. But, he cautions, don’t spend HOURS on it or you’ll burn out and not want to write your 5 minutes the next day.
What is this Not Writing stuff about? It has to do with impatience and procrastination. This is where it gets a little confusing. He argues that impatience causes procrastination. We are impatient with ourselves, expecting perfection, scared of our expectations, and end up procrastinating the writing rather than deal with the insecurity and emotions. The way he puts it actually makes a lot of sense. Now, I am not a procrastinator, just the opposite, but the stuff about impatience still resonated with me. I jump into projects and don’t plan and prepare nearly enough, because I’m impatient to get to the good stuff.
Which is funny because I adore planning. It’s something I’m really good at and I absolutely love doing it.
Kind of–if I know, or think I know, what I’m doing. I don’t like planning if I have to keep going to look stuff up. And so that’s one thing I learned before I read this book, that the first step to writing a new grant or paper is to dive into the literature and start learning all about it, before I try to write anything. Only according to him, I’m not doing that quite right either, because I try to learn everything, which isn’t efficient or (usually) possible. A better approach would be to think about what it is I need to know, and go learn that, instead of trying to learn everything.
So where does Not Writing come in? That’s a technique to counter the impatience. You’re supposed to spend a couple minutes clearing your mind (meditation or however you like), then a few minutes thinking about what you’re going to write today. Not that you are thinking the words that you could by typing, you are thinking “I’m going to work on the Outline today”. Then you say it out loud. Then you can write down your plan. All of that is part of Not Writing. Finally you do it, you work on the Outline. That part is Writing. Only if you get stuck, or start to get frustrated, or impatient, you go back to Not Writing for a moment.
No sugar update
I had a coke. And frozen custard from Andy’s.
August 7, 2010
Total distance: 0 miles
Nell helped me with the rats this morning, and since she woke up with a sore throat and didn’t feel like biking, we took the car–she drove! With her help it took nearly 3 hours. Without her help I’d have been there a long, long time. I had one set of 16 to take off the running wheels, weigh, and put in regular cages. We moved those 16 running wheels to clean cages, and set up the 16 new running wheels on clean cages. And I weighed 32 rats to start on the next experiment, putting them in the 32 cages. I paid her $20 for the help. I’ve GOT to get a new undergrad in–when school starts!
In the afternoon I developed the sore throat. Nell & I think she picked it up last night playing with some kids at the Summer on the Square concert. It’s a very mild virus with a short incubation. Nell and I went to Brashear Cemetery for the theater skits of people buried there telling their stories through the medium of local actors. It was plenty warm even in the evening, and this is one of the cooler days lately. We learned about the Orphan Train, Mr. Brashear, and a sensational murder which resulted in the only legal execution in Adair County.
Nell drove home all the way from Brashear, about 10 miles. She used 4th gear for the first time. She got passed a lot. We got a little nervous close to Kirksville, because the truck behind her wouldn’t pass. A long line of cars ended up behind the truck, which hugged the center line and made it impossible for anyone to safely pass both vehicles. She learned about keeping your eyes on the road far in front of you, instead of close, which makes it easier to keep a straight line.
August 6, 2010
Total distance: 8 miles
Happy 16th Anniversary to me and Iain! Also the anniversary of the Battle of Kirksville, and A.T. Still’s birthday. A.T. Still is the founder of osteopathic medicine as well as the A.T. Still University.
To celebrate we ate at Thousand Hills Dining Lodge, which overlooks the lake in Thousand Hills State Park. It’s a beautiful view. I was there once before, but I don’t remember what the food was like. It was over a year ago. The food was not fantastic tonight. The view was still excellent. The waiter was the actor who played the King of Hearts in the production of Alice in Wonderland last month. He recognized Nell.
Afterwards we came back to town and viewed the diorama of the Battle of Kirksville in the Adair County Historical Society Museum, as well as the rest of the museum which wasn’t much. Then we walked up to the courthouse and listened to the jazz band play on the courthouse lawn. This is the 3rd Summer on the Square concerts we’ve been to this summer, and the only one that the music was decent.
Nell got her learner’s permit a month ago and has been reluctantly driving a little bit. She drove us home from the concert. Her progress today is, up until now she has only used 3rd gear when she got to the highway. Today she used 3rd gear in town. She also did not kill it nearly as much. Learning clutch is difficult.
When I was biking home this evening, I heard squealing tires. The sports car behind me was going too fast, couldn’t pass me because of oncoming traffic, and had to slam on the brakes. The two sports cars behind her also had to brake suddenly. I’m not sure whose tires I heard.
I got my bike repair stand repaired. I asked our instrument shop guy where I could find a mechanic who could drill these holes through the pony clamp. “I’ll do it,” he offered at once. I thought he might.