8 posts tagged “ride”

Ariel's wedding, July 19, 2009


Originally uploaded by ochawan

Younger sister's finally married. Wasn't too excited about it but it turned out pretty good. The place for the ceremony was great. Was good to see some of my own family but didn't really meet much from the other side.

I finally got to visit Zankou Chicken. Would be nice to see some place like it in Seattle.

Mom decided to leave later on Monday and I (needlessly) took a vacation day. Not a good idea. Watched Ariel and Phil open their presents, which were mostly kitchen gadgets. There are many still out there that have a strange fantasy they will really make regular use of an ice cream maker or bread machine. They should have gone for some new knives. At the very least get a good set of knives!

Fundamentally, it's impossible to convince people they need something better until they've experienced the difference. これは納得できない！

About six months back I got a set of knives from Dexter-Russell. They make cutlery for commercial kitchens (and fishermen) so they make a good knife first, then sell more expensive models with fancy handles for those that want them.

Work in the past few weeks has mostly been about hassling other people, mainly for network services. This is not much fun. But progress has been made.

Last weekend, I participated in two events: Seattle Century and a day hike to Mount Rainier.

I wanted to check out the Seattle Century ride, but wasn't ready to part with $70 or so for basically a for-profit event. So I checked out their volunteer options. Turns out that they needed people as medical riders and mechanical support to do the ride. I just learned CPR so I was okay with the former. I could probably have been a mechanic as well, if it were just fixing flats and tightening stuff, but I get the feeling they wanted people who work or had worked at bike shops.

I did the 93 some miles in about 6 hours, including stops and calls to the ride coordinator. The ride was fairly flat at the beginning and end and I could go about 19-20 mph pretty effortlessly. But it was hot! And I wondered if I should have been riding more slowly, as I was riding more with the athletic people. Still, I wasn't told how fast to ride...

I was done around 1:40PM. I drove home to see Hitomi in the house. She was volunteering as well for the event, for end of ride dinner and clean-up starting at 4. After I showered and ate, we went together to a bookstore. Hitomi's been doing fashion research for a game package design at Nintendo. Dinner was a bit mismanaged. Food was better than the usual stuff rides provide, but there was no salt, pepper and salad dressing. Three things you need to eat salmon, asparagus, and salad. And the meal ticket included two beers, but somehow there was an exchange of drink tickets and people ended up with a few too many beers. And for those still around after clean-up, the tap was freely running.

Hitomi did not receive a meal ticket, officially. But I slipped her some food as nobody was checking for tickets after a certain time. And they had a surplus of food, which went into the garbage, unceremoniously.

Turns out clean-up, starting around 6PM, involved loading carts with heavy boxes and stacking chairs, etc. Poor Hitomi! I helped out, unofficially.

Sunday I had to get up early (again) for our trip to Mt. Rainier. We borrowed Nintendo's ZipCar (for free) for the day. (Having air conditioning sure sounded nice for the 4-5 hour drive there and back!) It was nice to see some non-hikers out for the day. And it was a beautiful day! Hideki, our drive from here.esteemed Japanese Relations Guest Manager wasn't in the best shape for the hike, which kept the pace slow, annoying some I guess. Still, what's the point of the hike if you're racing toward the end? Dinner at an awesome Korean BBQ place called Kokiri and would gladly return to the place, but Federal Way is a long drive. (I don't know why Korean food in Seattle has to suck so much. Still, it's not too far to Hosoonyi at least...)

Father came out to see me--on the bus no less!--after work on Monday. He and Stephanie hole up in Mercer Island with Grandma Jean on their annual trip out here. One year I got him out on a kayak trip to Cyprus Island. This year it was impossible to find the few days for it. Anyway, we did have a good evening kayaking, swimming and met up with Hitomi at Malay Satay Hut.

Tuesday, it was hot. Stayed at home to work, left home and waited for Tony Grills at the LWRC dock. Yesterday, there were a few people hanging around the dock, obviously not rowers, but today were quite a few more non-paddlers. Lots of good looking people in bathing suits. The dock is open to the public, but given the popularity, I wonder if the club might eventually kick those people out that aren't there to launch boats? Tony brought some suprisingly good $2 sandwiches from the Costco employees' cafeteria for dinner and we ate in the arboretum.

Wednesday: Record heat! I took the bus into and from work. Which was probably hotter in some ways than just bicycling the route. Maybe. NOA had their transformer blow up, so no power and Hitomi came home early. I went kayaking and swimming with her off the LWRC dock. Surprisingly, she swam off the dock, since she seems to panic in deep water. Since I promised to not make her paddle, she sat in the front and crocheted as I went around the lake.

I received an email request to leaders to help out with the Cascade Training Series, sponsored by CycleU.

The ride was from Marymoor Park to Issaquah, about 65 miles and plenty of hills.

I was assigned to help with the "Blue" group which averages 16-18 miles per hour. (There is a slightly faster Purple and fast Orange group as well, but Blue was the largest.) Until the first stop, I basically hung out in the middle. I didn't know the route. Later on around mile 30, I got ahead with a number of riders and was asked to lead the faster riders of the Blue.

I had no "sweep" (someone in the rear to monitor) so I couldn't really keep track of people who were hanging on with me. Plus I wasn't aware of any regroup points or rest stops and I didn't see any reason to stop to wait. But there were people without cue sheets (directions) and people stuck behind traffic signals in Sammamish or slow climbing hills, as I found out later, who got dropped. (I had assumed Pat, the real leader, would pick them up, but Pat had been a lot slower, so those dropped had a long time to wait or went off on their own. I wouldn't even see Pat after waiting about half an hour back in Marymoor.)

Good news was more than a few riders thanked me for helping with the ride. A few who somehow made it back on their own were unhappy with me.

I was sweep for a few Tuesday Night Surprise rides for the Cascade Bicycle Club. Last night I was officially leading the ride. Lynn was going to "sweep."

With the help of Google Earth and Bikely I put together this ride which renders like this in Google Earth:

Lost_in_laurelhurst

This is Seattle; Gasworks Park, where we started, is off to the left (East). The route we followed is the thin white line you see overlaid on the map. It roughly follows the shoreline of Lake Washington. To the right is Magnuson Park.

There were 17 riders last night, and due to the good weather some newcomers. I was a bit nervous, given the turnout there were likely people wrong for the ride. I was also using a mostly untested (in a group) route which would have a fair number of hills. The hills would certainly be a problem for some, especially a Dad with his two kids (largely "dead weight") on a tandem.

Still, despite the possibility of being "too hard", I was looking forward to some "new roads" in the route. The route followed many roads I've never seen other leaders chose: roads through the University of Washington campus (twice), roads of Laurelhurst and Windermere, Magnuson Park, and my favorite bridge over Ravenna Park. I included many roads I used to ride 10 years ago as a student. I also picked out a number different hills, some new to me.

We went through U.W. mostly together. There are a few hills and decents where I picked up speed, but I kept my pace at 14 mph on the flats -- the "moderate pace" meant I had to keep it at around 14-16 mph. Still, I went faster than many in the group. I was told to "keep it slow" and keep the group together. A couple of lights through U.W. a parking lot later, we were in Laurelhurst and I was having to check the cue sheet. Laurelhurst was really the main focus of the ride. My route was called "Lost in Laurelhurst" since the roads snake around a bit making it tough to navigate and I did make one wrong turn -- into a dead end! -- since my cue sheet was incorrect. And rounding the tip of the peninsula (shown in the middle bottom of the map), was a big climb which I think was hard for a number of riders. It was still hot!

I was to wait and regroup after every climb, which I did. It took some time to for all riders to arrive. I felt like apologizing to those late-comers who were having a bit of a hard, obviously. I took out a couple of extra climbs in Laurelhurst but there was still another climb until leaving the neighborhood.

Waiting in front of a gas station, Lynn (sweep) was telling me to "stop" and wait for somebody with a dropped chain. Given we had 17 bicycles, it was inevitable that something would happen to one of them. Then there was a lady who was walking her bicycle downhill, and who I later heard was recovering from a shoulder injury before she left the ride.

I knew Windermere was going to be easier, so I wanted to move along and redeem myself. Indeed, it was a fun ride and much flatter than Laurelhurst. Then there was getting to Magnuson Park, which was easy. I discovered the park was under serious construction and no water for the people who ran out. This was bad, although not really my problem since the riders could have easily carried enough to ride these 20 miles! Lynn also said goodbye to the injured woman and her friend, who I guess wasn't up for the ride.

Post potty break, we rode through the rest of the park, reaching the end, and there I was finding the road did not end up at the exit of the park, but instead pretty much dead-ended. With 17 people (now 15) you try to hide your mistakes a bit. Near the old Navy village, people were clamoring for water, but there was none, and we had to carry on.

There was one more big climb, and I sort of dreaded it, since I think people had their fill by now. I stuck with the plan. The decent was fun but lead to a busy arterial with no shoulder (NE 95th Street). It'd be normally okay, but with 15 riders it was pretty dangerous to take that road, especially uphill a bit. John with the two kids had enough and went home. And the rest of us went to Meadowbrook Community Center and had a water break. It was now getting on to sunset.

Lynn suggested a different way back than in my cue sheet to save a hill, and advised me to take a way not entirely familiar. I missed my turn to Ravenna Avenue NE. The group was split! Realizing my mistake we U-turned and the front half (me) eventually caught up with the back half.

Returning was mostly uneventful except for passing through a Block Party, which we weren't supposed to do.

I learned a few things from this experience: 1) Moderate pace means picking a route with hills climbleable with moderate effort. (Though 80% of the riders were okay, it probably wasn't good to "kill" the other 20%) 2) Pick routes for groups not for individual riders. This means routes with fewer lights and lots of room for cars to pass. 3) People are very tolerant of mistakes made. 4) I might want a clipboard for the sign-up sheet, which takes a long time for many people to get through.

We had a pretty good turn out for the post-ride meal. At the Nickerson, we had a rider under 21 -- a first for this ride? -- and given the liquor laws, we had to eat inside, frustrating since it was hotter inside the building than out. I talked rides with Mike Wong, a ride leader off for the week, ate meatloaf, and had a Manny's.

I had originally planned to ride with the Cascade Bike Club on Saturday, but somehow the description of their ride put me off. They were planning an 80 mile bicycle ride with no food stops and the post further explained that your bicycle should be in good condition (has had a tune-up in the past two years) etc. and the ride leader wouldn't leave the group to fix your flat. Also carry your own money and be prepared to get yourself home. And so forth.

I think it's fine you have common-sense rules, but once you start reminding people to be responsible over and over, it seems a little condescending. And it certainly is not fun to assume if something goes wrong to you or someone else, they're simply abandoned.

Seattle Bike Club's rides are less popular and so less people show up. We had about 10 riders. They say that 2-10 riders is best since: It's easier to remember people's names. Less frequency of mechanical trouble. It's easy to keep track of each other.

The ride yesterday was a 75 mile loop from Fall City to the city of Snohomish through the Snoqualmie Valley. The ride was mostly flat an on mostly low-traffic roads. I saw about 100 other bicycle riders out, mostly people on club or group rides.

I'm definitely going to be doing this ride again, hopefully with Kevin, to get his riding mileage up.

Valentine's Day

2008 has been going pretty well for Hitomi and I. I'm not sure if it's because I've turned into a nice(r), more thoughtful guy or Hitomi's happy, or getting old or tired of each other smooths out relationships. In any case, it's been good so far. One theory I have is I've been off enjoying my own hobbies and I've been busy with work. Or she's been grateful I've done translation work for her idol, Momoi Halko.

Valentine's Day I had considered weeks in advance. Gifts and deed ideas ranged from baking a cake to sending flowers to her work. Hitomi's not too into jewelry or flowers, which saves money. I've done cake baking before. But what has been successful before, on a number of levels, has been buying clothing, or underwear aka lingerie. She still wears Birkenstock sandals bought by her very ex-boyfriend and a watch or two. And she's kept around the few clothes I've bought her over the years and it's always a treat to see that.

Given my schedule, shopping waited until the day of. I went out cycling to a few stores in search from some undies. It was a beautiful day and I had time in the morning to shop. I was dressed like your typical bicyclist, and though I stick out like a flashing LED in a lingerie store, somehow that makes me feel more comfortable.

Construction-wise, there's a lot of variation of underwear. But the general rule seems to be, the less material the more expensive. But I try to be mindful of comfort. You hope they're worn at least a few times.

I also picked up some chocolate at Fran's which was quite busy even in the middle of the morning, full of men deciding how big of a box is reasonable. I actually haven't heard Hitomi complain her chocolate box wasn't big enough, and actually in the mind of Hitomi an enormous box would be neither cute nor conducive to maintain body weight. Selection was easy and the line moved relatively rapidly until a man who wanted to put together a customized box for his honey stalled the process. Yes, you can hand-pick 20 different chocolates and caramels but if you don't have any idea about anything, why not buy the already assembled "assortment" box?

I made it back in time for some meeting. I was going to meet Hitomi downtown and she was late and I was too. Hitomi decided on Japanese crepes for dinner. The place was closed though, it being one of those "occasional" days they close early. Still, there's nothing wrong with the alternative restaurants nearby. Then, I bring out the with gifts and find out Hitomi wasn't expecting anything, since I was busy. And thus, I got nothing in return.

The behavior/result flowchart is as follows:

Wife-logic

You may notice from the diagram that there are only two final states, neither of which result in a strong positive for me. Of course, Hitomi would cite several supporting arguments for why I should be reasonably scared of her.

.83 Ride to Bellingham

Mike and Ian came by soon after I returned home Friday. Ian has spent a large amount of money on Magic cards but does not seem to win as many games as he might. I won two out of three.

We later wandered over to Ballard, where I thought we might catch the night life. I thought first to check out Cupcake Royale, who put a decidedly gourmet and hip twist on the ordinary cup-cake. I liked what I got (orange frosting and vanilla cake) but would have to make a few more trips there to try some others. I can't say their cupcakes were as revolutionary as the superior desserts from Top Pot Donuts.

The place got close to closing and we left. If it were just Mike, I would have probably gone to a few more places, i.e. bars. Ian was tired and disinterested, obviously. Since the smoking ban, I don't mind going bars but need somebody to talk with, and I'm not friendly with strangers. I figured we could drop Ian off and Mike and I could go to the Wedgewood Tavern.

There, I lamented on how Ian can't get it together to make more of a business of his painting. And how specifically, to make money as a fine artist you have to sell really hard and cover a range of markets, e.g. make high-quality prints. Frankly, I don't see myself capable of that kind of salesmanship, and somebody like Ian lacks this ability. Mike was quick to defend Ian, pointing out how Ian is developing a collection of paintings, and we shall see how it goes.

Fortunately, for me to develop my career, all I had to do was go from Catdaddy to @mobile, stick up for myself at various occasions, and I make considerable money. I have Boon Hwang to thank for getting me started and supporting my career at different points. I do have my own talent, hard work, and deep interest in computers as well. If I were less timid and more motivated I could develop my own consulting business (or company?) full-time and possibly be successful at that.

I spoke to Mike about the sailboat business Tim is putting together, with some help from me. Hopefully the boat will be completed in due time, and this will be my next big thing. This may take years. So simultaneously, I do know well enough about how to run a software organization, or at least I know how not to run one based on prior experience, that perhaps I could get into management or something besides development. The way I see it, although individuals can develop really good software, single-person efforts means little unless there's a more functional organization around it.

About Mike's job: I do know a bit about what he does now, which is natural language processing for organization-specific search engines using a specialized scripting language. He alone seems to have mastered the intricate details, whereas other people use a higher-level tool that "writes" the underlying scripting language but does not allow for much customization.

Saturday, Hitomi had a all-day show at the Seattle Center. She's been busily making things to sell, as well as ordering vast quantities of T-shirts with her designs. This, the first of three shows this year, was quite slow, embarrassingly slow. Compared to last year's event, there were just a handful of interested people, and a lot of the traffic was actually from other booths. For what I believe is a waste of effort, I still help out carrying things and setting up and tearing down her booth and give up a day for her things.

Adding to the whole melancholy mood, I walked around the Seattle Center Fun Forest and nearby buildings, making mental notes of what things had changed over the years. My dad used to take me and often a friend to the "Fun Forest" and buy us an all-day ride pass, available on certain off-season times at discount rates. This time of year, most of the rides were shut down. The relatively new indoor arcade area had some incorporated the same carnival games that used to be outdoors elsewhere. The old 18-hole mini-golf course was removed and replaced with a shorter , less silly course. As a kid, I would also wander around the Center House and go buy food, candy or tchotskis at various stores; some have moved, some have gone, some surprisingly are still around.

I returned back to Hitomi's booth. I played on Hitomi's Nintendo DS until around closing. Near the end, it was almost completely dead, and the people and friends loitering in the neighboring booth set up chairs in front of their booth. A confused or thoughtless women wandered into our booth area and started talking to somebody in the neighboring booth, her butt just two feet in front of where I sat. "Get the fuck out of my booth!" I might have said. But obviously nobody was coming by, and we were obviously of no interest or notice to anybody.

Frankly, I get depressed thinking about holiday shopping, which could have resulted from my days at helping set up, tear down, and occasionally man booths for Steel Silhouettes.

Sunday, I had thought to spend the day with Hitomi, but Hitomi came up with yet more project stuff, so I went bicycling instead. It was cold and the road was icy in places, but other riders were cheerful and the sun was out. A little under of fifty miles did me some good, I hope. With about 40 riders, our speed was pretty uneven. One fellow, Ken, who almost killed me on last week's SBC ride, was sporting Zipp "Speed Weaponry" wheels, specifically a clincher wheel set which retails for about $2000. I think he picked the wrong ride.

It was my first ride of the Chief Sealth Trail. All 3.6 miles of it.

My initial thoughts were it's really quite unlike most rails-to-trails trails in that it's quite hilly, it's also not very practical for transportation. I had my single-speed bicycle on it, and there's quite a lot of steep sections. I remember seeing a post complaining it wasn't straight, but it obviously curves to make it easier to climb. I was amused thinking about young kids trying to bicycle it. It was during the day and I didn't see see any bicyclists, just some walkers. I don't think there would be any bicycle commuters come evening.

On the plus side, there's some unobstructed views off east of Lake Washington and Mount Ranier looks lovely, but the power line towers cross the view a bit. And it is fair training ride, but would be improved if the sections of trail weren't continually criss-crossed with roads.

Yesterday, I participated in a Cascade Bicycle Club (CBC) ride called "Tuesday Night Surprise." The plan was for a 20-25 mile ride through various parts of Seattle, and the leader would take us wherever he felt like.

Meeting at Gasworks Park, there were about 6 of us. The ride called for "steady pace" (12-14 miles per hour) and "some hills." It sounded relaxing and perfect for a nice, sunny and cool spring evening.

Although it did start out relaxing, since there wasn't anybody slow in the veteran group -- me excluded -- they turned up the pace a bit. It turned into a hilly, and at times, a "brisk" ride (16-18 mph). We climbed up around Beacon Hill and Magnolia Hill. And the ride went on for over two hours, with about only one break over a minute, so I'm guessing we went about 25-30 miles.

From Lake Washington Boulevard, we crossed Martian Luther King Jr. Way, and went up a long, steady hill to the top of Beacon Hill. I've actually never explored the hill on bicycle, but there's plenty of interesting and potentially good ethnic restaurants. Then, we coasted down past Amazon.com's main office and across the bridge over I-90 to the International District. I was getting hungry and was smelling plenty of Chinese food -- but we did not stop. Then, riding along Alaskan Way north, through the new Sculpture Garden, into Magnolia, around Magnolia's bluffs, through the Ballard Locks, and back.

My fellow riders were good natured and seasoned, that is to say older. Though, I probably should ride with people my own age, assuming I can keep up with them. It was getting dark, and with no lights, I had to race back home (another hill climb up Stone Way Avenue to Greenlake) to change and go eat. Otherwise, I would have stuck around for hamburgers and beers.