Bonfire!

Liam has a tradition of building giant fires with the wood tossed from the Court Theatre stage set. It's also a goodbye get together for him, and soon to be myself.


It started out nice and tame. He had stopped by a cleaners to ask for some hangers to roast our hot dogs and marshmallows. I supplied marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers and felt very well prepared. He brought ... hot dogs, sausages, a pineapple, bell peppers, zucchini, onions, condiments: in short, a feast fit for kings and queens. Such a man. The veggies were for "foil pouches," something I haven't tried on a bonfire before, but I hope to replicate in the future.


Soon the evening was winding down and we still had a giant pile of wood left. So Liam threw the rest on to the fire and a giant conflagration ensued.


The fire was so hot that we all moved away from sitting on the stone benches to admire Liam's (pyro) handiwork. Some guy stopped by and asked us for a lighter. It was amusing to see Liam reach into the fire with his bare hands to pull out some embers, and then even more amusing to see the guy dart his face close enough to the flaming stick to light his cigarette.



Earlier on, Miles had amused us by attempting (and somewhat successfully???) roasting an egg over the flames. Actually, it exploded, leaving eggshell shrapnel on my face ... but Loren neatly outdid him later on by attempting to roast a chicken thigh on our "frankenstick." (hanger + stick)

All in all, a good evening.

A Gentlemanly Century Ride

On Saturday, I pried myself out of bed to ride a century with Tony's group.

Tony has assembled an intriguing group of cyclists who live in the Hyde Park area. They are all somewhere over 40 years old, have very intimidating professions, ride shiny expensive bicycles, and keep a very steady 18 - 22 mph. Needless to say, I felt somewhat out of place as the lone Asian, 20 something year old female on a low end Specialized Roubaix. However, they were all very welcoming, and did not make me feel like they didn't want me there or anything.

On the way out to Indiana Dunes, I rode alongside Ralph, an Austrian professor of Art History. We ended talking briefly about his specialization (Romanticism ... which I sadly know very little about), and quickly moved on to European architecture. Here was someone who not only appreciated Zumthor, but had visited the Thermal Baths at Vals, Switzerland, went to an exhibit on le Corbusier in Berlin, and wondered my opinion of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's famous prismatic structures in Chicago. It's not often that I get to discuss 3 of my most favorite architects on a bike ride, so I was pretty stoked.

We stopped for lunch, where most of us got some form of breakfast food for sustenance. On the one hand, my bike looked slightly absurd next to a carbon Storck Scenario 1.1 and titanium Serotta, but on the other hand, I was glad that my bike was definitely not the most desirous item when it came to stealing. Belgian waffles + 2 scrambled eggs + coffee = amazing combo.

On the way back, I enterred "survival mode" as I call it at some point. This means I focus on whosever wheel is in front, and all of my mental capacity is devoted to hang on for dear life. I wasn't to the point where I felt absolutely destroyed, and I knew I was getting back, so no worries. And then there were horses on the Point when we got back. Apparently they have a Black Rodeo once a year. It felt pretty surreal to see so many horses in the middle of a city.


And here comes the unfortunate part about the whole thing: when I got home, my mom handed me a salad to eat. I didn't want to not eat it, because I hate letting food go to waste, but with every successive bite, it was getting harder and harder to chew ans swallow. It was as if my body were actively rejecting the vegetables. And then, I just started to feel absolutely awful. Exhausted, depressed, everything. By dinner, I was livid. I had been planning to go to a concert that night, but I ended up cancelling on all my friends, and going to bed early.

Moral of the story: salad after rides is a bad idea.

Marriages and Bike Races

Rob and Lauren got married on Saturday! They are classmates from U of IL, and they are among the 36 people who studied abroad in Versailles with me for junior year. It is beyond a little surreal as they are my age!

It was a very short and sweet ceremony. Liz was super nice and drove me, and it so happens our friend from Versailles, Marine is visiting and came to the wedding too. Actually, Liz, Marine and I made a small detour to the Walgreen's on the way there ... Liz had gotten a framed graphic poster for Rob and Lauren, but she hadn't had time to wrap it. We felt super classy walking into the Walgreen's dressed for a wedding the way we were. We felt even classier wrapping the frame in the Walgreen's parking lot before heading to the reception.

The reception was in a beautiful eclectic village of reception type buildings. Our particular building felt like a large mansion with a gorgeous backyard. Hats off to Lauren :)

The best part was being able to catch up with everyone and taking lots of cheesy Versailles reunion type pictures together. Everyone seems so grownup and elegant all of a sudden, and I still feel like an affordable house builder/cyclist/hippie.

Today was the Evanston bike race, which is part of Superweek. I didn't actually race because I don't have a Storck, and non-Storck bikes were not allowed on the race car. In stead, I rode up to Evanston with Bernard, Loren Bo, and Joe to spectate.

Apparently this course is notorious for being quite dangerous. One corner in front of the Burger King is called the BK Stacker because of bottleneck corner. We checked it out while watching the men's 4/5 race, and it looks like they've put in a lot of effort to make it safer, notably pinching the road off with a parked car and cones before the corner as well as using plenty of old mattresses.

I was almost tempted to race just because some shop or team brought a fleet of Tarmacs for neutral support! The plan of action was, steal Liam's ancient, many times crashed Trek for a few laps, crash it out, get a Tarmac, and ride off with it.

The month of June.

Urban Farming -

It's strawberry season, and currently, our front lawn is a mass of tiny organic strawberries. Who knew berries would grow so well in the middle of a city. They were a grand garnish to my lovely lunch salad of Cosco greens, Treasure Island yellow pepper, avocado, and tomato.

Children - Who knew that working in a bakery would be a lesson in child-rearing? Many kids have been coming in with parents because it's hot and we sell ice cream. Brunette girl walks in, probably around 6 or 7. I ask the parent, "can I help you?" He replies, "one moment," as they walk over to see the ice cream flavors. They come back to the counter, and the girl looks at her dad, who nods. She asks, "May I have a scoop of the rainbow sherbert please?" Which made me smile. I gave her an extra big scoop. Later on, a blonde girl, maybe 3 or 4, tucks her chin on the counter, screams, "ICECREAM!!! Ice cream!!! Ice cream!!! I want icecream !!!" I raised an eyebrow, and looked over at her father, who smiled at me and said, "The queen wants icecream." I did not smile back, as I kept flicking my glance between the smiling father and child who was continually screaming about icecream. I didn't even know what to say.

Icebergs - The dry cleaners is mad hot these days. Consider the factors against us:

1) Pressing machines. For several hours a day, the pressing people flatten hundreds of shirts, pants, and suits using scorching hot steam. Try calculating the specs on an HVAC system that could handle that. I bet the unit's size would be comparable to the size of the building we work in.
2) We work in an economically build brick box building with few windows. There are a few overhead fans, but they are definitely not large enough to cool off the entire building.
3) There is an existing cooling system for the non-pressing side of the building, but it's a swamp cooler, and apparently it always leaks moisture when in use. The ducts are right over the racks with newly cleaned and pressed possibly expensive clothing. Compared to angry customers, I guess heat is the lesser of 2 evils.

I've been racking my brains for a solution to this HVAC problem (in classic nerdy form). Combatting the steam-generated heat using electric methods, ie "Active Systems" seems exorbitantly expensive. Unless there were some way to capture the heat for cogeneration ... "Passive Systems," such as installing low and high windows for passive cooling seems to be a more viable option, but I imagine the single story walls are actually load-bearing not structural steel, so windows seem difficult. More massive overhead fans? Groundsource "heat pump" style passive cooling? Radiant cooling? Ah, the options are endless. Anyways, the heat makes me fondly desire some iceberg pets. Norwegian, Arctic, or Canadian. I'll take any.

Rides - Some great rides recently. I finally made it out to Willow Springs through the not so great neighborhoods into rolling suburban hills. I informed everyone that I was carrying 1040 calories for anyone who felt like they were bonking, and I consumed 700 of it before the ride concluded. Bike and Build trained. I stayed behind the fast group with Sarah Bransfield. Looks like she finally might have found a bike that fits her, which is great news. Also, we had Marc's father with us. We let the French men pull us back to Hyde Park. Sadly, I will now represent the only Korean woman rider on the team, as Liz has abandoned us for her cooler friends in New Jersey. She'll be flying out to S. Korea on the English-teaching Fulbright which is super exciting!!! I hope she keeps a blog :D

Court Theatre - Liz invited me to see a production on standby through our Tati connectin (Rory!), and it was a blast. "The Piano Lesson" by August Wilson had very minimal set movement, but they managed to tell an intense, layered story all in one house. The best part was when Rory took us backstage! We saw the piano up close, with the microphones all rigged up, the shop where they build walls and furniture, the costumes shop, and lastly what Rory called the boring stuff: initial planning and architectural floor plans (!!!!!). I've seen many Court productions, but this was the first time I got to see backstage.

Graduation - Bernard got hooded with the strange looking PhD hoods this past June. The ceremoney was, to be honest, quite boring. The PhD speaker I liked, because she reminded the PhD's that they should still be able to laugh at themselves every so often. The MD speaker clearly thought that only MD's were real people and I stopped listening to his speech early on. The highlight for me was when one of the Pritzker family children spoke for receiving and honorary fellowship (?) of some sort. Pritzker family, as in, the people who give out the Pritzker Prize in architecture !!! They're real people ?!?!?! Congratulations, Bernard!

"Up" - Bernard and I went to see the new Pixar movie, "Up" in theatres, and I loved it! Aside from the fact that there are houses the fly using helium-filled baloons, talking dogs, and giant rainbow colored birds, I thought it was surprisingly realistic in terms of the ups and downs of life. (Spoiler alert! Entire story synopsis to follow!) In the very beginning of the movie for example, although Carl marries the love of his life, she passes away before they are able to go on their dream voyage to Paradise Falls. The rest of the story is also quite simple: Elderly Carl flies to Paradise Falls in South America. Young Russell accidently accompanies him. Along the way they meet Kevin (a bird), and Dug (a dog), and run into a discredited explorer seething to reestablish his reputation by capturing a bird such as Kevin. Carl, Russell, and Dug all work together to save Kevin, and in the end, have each other as companions for the future. I really admire Pixar's ability to tell stories through very little naration.

Fisheries! Prom! Icecream!

50 mile ride to Indiana today.

The sunny weather brought out a sizeable group of people: Jesse, Francisco, Bernard, Sasha, Andrew, Marc, Rory, and J. Liz did manage to show up eventually.

It was a good ride :D And on the way back, Bernard, J, Liz, and I stopped at Calumet Fisheries. They're famous for their unique way of smoking fish, and they're right next to the bridge where they filmed the Blues Brothers bridge jump scene! AWESOME!

Calumet Fisheries has a very humble exterior. It's also take out only.

They smoke the fish outside, right next to the restaurant building.

The inside's covered in Blues Brothers paraphernalia. The owners are huge fans. Apparently they hosted the entire film crew for 3 full days while they shot the bridge jump scenes at the beginning of the movie!

Disreputables chowing down.

In other news, I'm back to working part time at the dry cleaners. Being the holiday weekend, and down one worker on vacation, I've been tagging for eternity. The week previously was more exciting because it's prom season!

A little too wedding like for me, but quite nice :)

The front one must have been a nightmare to press ...

I like this one, but the color's a bit drab. How about orange?

Some random tidbits too. The other day, Bernard and I went up to Wicker Park for dinner at Earwax. We wandered around and happened upon I Cream, a modern style icecream place. You choose yogurt, pudding, or ice cream, then flavors, then toppings. And then they make it for you entirely custom.

Front lobby, where people wait for their orders. It was packed!

That tank at top is where they store the liquid nitrogen.

The liquid nitrogen is fed into snazzy Kitchen Aid mixers to freeze the yogurt or milk into delicious ice cream. Yum.

Bike Races and Bike Crashes

Bad News First, because it really put a damper on the whole race day for me.

In my first race, I heard the unmistakable metal on asphalt sound of someone crashing behind me. It does happen, and the race goes on. However, it turned out to be bad enough that they called an ambulance and stopped the race early.

I've seen crashes before, but in general, it happened to people I didn't know well, or the crashes weren't too bad, and the people walked away afterwards. It's not like I knew Vanessa that well. I had raced with her once previously. At the starting line yesterday though, she called me out to mention she remembered me from the Half Acre Crits, and that I had beaten her. She said it with a smile that acknowledged my win without negative bitterness and promised challenging and friendly competition in the ensuing race.

Another Tati teammate, Janna, was right behind Vanessa before she crashed. Janna saw Vanessa's front wheel rotate far beyond what it should have, Vanessa went down, and someone right behind Vanessa rode over her. Apparently she had a seizure for a few minutes, with no history of seizures, but then she did try to get up. Someone on her team was either an EMT or a medic, and made her stay lying down until the ambulance came. They stopped the race early to let the ambulance through, and the last I saw, they were opening up the ambulance's back. I really hope she's doing ok.

Anyways. Liz got second in our first race (cat 5/4 race) after staying in a race-long breakaway with Cathy Frampton. I got a slow-leak flat tire which I didn't realize until my back wheel felt oddly shaky on the corners, and I finally borrowed Tim Hermanez's wheel to finish off the race. The race finish was confusing because they stopped it very short, and I don't even know how I fnished.

The second race was cat 3/4 + Masters women, and it turned out to be much more challenging and exciting than the first. The women were clearly more experienced, the pack was dynamic and cohesive and intriguingly didn't break up into smaller ones but rather, chased down all the break aways except the one with 3 laps to go. Anona of Wildcard took off, and I tried to chase her but missed her wheel. The chase group mobilized, but I missed that too after trying to chase solo on the end of the back stretch. A couple of riders caught up to me, said let's chase. I said ok ladies, let's do it. This one woman racer, I don't even remember who anymore, pulled me and Cathy Frampton all through the tail-wind stretch, Cathy Frampton took over on the first half of the windy back stretch, and I just barely made it on to the back of the chase group. I'm not even sure they knew I had made it back. On the last lap, I stayed behind everyone on the windy stretch, took the corner wide, and slingshot past most of them (but never caught the breakaway) to get 5th in the race, 4th in cat 3/4. Now that I think about it, I didn't sprint very intelligently. I probably could have tucked behind someone for a while, but what I ended up doing was madly charge past them in stead, screaming on the top of my lungs, kendo style. Of course. Dumb luck?

The rest of the race, I corner marshalled and ate constantly.

I hope I hear word of Vanessa from Spider Monkey soon.

Enchiladas con queso + 17 miles on bike ???

Tonight the team meeting was dinner out to Pilsen for Mexican food. So authentic you pretty much had to order in whatever survival Spanish you knew. We rode up with a motley crew of bicycles: commuter steel frames, custom Tati single speeds, Bianchi fixie, Specialized Roubaix, orange Dutch bike with coaster brakes, and carbon Storcks. However, none of our bikes were nearly as awesome as the custom cargo bikes we saw at this icecream place. We all wanted to roll up to a line on one.

At this point, I'm not sure the enchiladas con queso, ciocolate caliente con leche, and icecream was such a great idea. The potholes didn't make for a smooth ride ... but it's worth it in the end?

Floral Bike Shorts???

Headed out for a crack of dawn type bike ride to make it to work in time. A few other people joined me up to Fullerton, so we had a small crew of 4 people total on the way back. We pass this one guy on some kind of touring bike with racks wearing ... floral print bike shorts??? Liz and I were in back, so we were the ones to hear his query, "do you mind if I join you guys?" We ignored it at first ... in my younger more foolish days, I probably would have said sure, but now I am more wary of people's bike handling skills. Anyways, J told him, oh go ahead and pass us, and I thought that was the end of floral bike shorts guy. Around 31st St, Bernard, J, and Liz turned around to intercept the UCVC social ride going up north again, so I puttered back home alone ... until I saw floral bike shorts again. I couldn't stand the idea of having to go slow and have to stare at the floral bike shorts all the way home, so I decided to hammer past him. And then Floral Bike Shorts has the nerve to try to draft off me! No way was I gonna let that continue on. At this point, I'm just time trialing like mad to drop Floral Bike Shorts, and not too long thereafter, I hear a whistle (of defeat) and a welcome silence.

Today, everyone who owns a bike in Chicago took it out to ride. The 50 mile ride to Indiana crew even saw quite a few people going south for once. Gorgeous though :D

200k in one day!

April 25, 2009 - Team Tati rode 200k in One Day.

T-Storms lurked on the weather forecast, but the day disarmed everyone with its sun and balmy temperatures ... I hesitated while packing my Arc'teryx Beta AR, thinking I'd regret having to cart it around all day and the resulting sweaty back. Even if it does rain, I thought, perhaps I would be really hot in this jacket. For some reason, I even packed a Craft long sleeve base layer. As I shed my arm warmers within 2 miles, I considered myself insane and wished we had a Bike and Build style van that I could pack it into.

Before the ride, I had told people that I would ride Bike and Build style: 15 mph no matter what. It started out that way, but then J attacked, luring out Liam, Maris, and Loren. Dan, John Ozik, Liz and went a more sane pace. At some point it was just Liz and I, and we got in a lot of great girl talk (haha). Us women gotta stick together in the sea of testoserone.

Some 10 miles into the ride, it got darker and started to rain. Then it hailed. Liz and I each put on our respective jackets, and continued on. It did start to T-storm a bit, and I wished I had a camera to capture the imagery of bike riders against the livid skies.

By the first rest stop, it was pretty cold, but it wasn't too bad yet. By the second rest stop, it was freezing, and everything about it reminded me of the 6 days of rain through Pennsylvania. At that point, I changed out my sopping cotton socks for my thermal Craft socks, which I discovered randomly in the pockets of my Arc'teryx. I also covered my toes with sandwich bags. Bernard found these free disposable plastic gloves by the food display, and most of the people opted to try them out.

On leg 66.9 miles - 100.3 miles, I somehow found myself pulling J, Dan, Liz, and Bernard at 19 miles per hour, even hitting 31 mph on the downhill. I thought, odd, will I even be able to keep this pace much longer??? It didn't last too much longer, but we still kept up a ridiculous pace.

At the final rest stop, I simply couldn't stop eating. Energy gel, Larrabar, coffee, small bean burrito, 1/3 of a churro, potato chips. It wasn't inhaling pace, but as long as we sat there, I kept eating. Delaying the hardest leg, probably. I told Loren about the reason why I no longer ate donuts during a ride. Liam told people about his stomach gnome that needed to be placated. Everyone agreed that the gloves worked - our hands were still cold, but they weren't absolutely stiff and painful.

Leg 100.3 - 128 miles, J, Dan and Liam sped off at race attack pace. Loren took a monster pull for probably over 10 miles at 18 mph with Liz and I holding on. Liz vanished at one point, to take a phone call. Dan told her that apparently J and Liam both got lost and lost their cue sheets... Yikes. (They did get back safely eventually, but rode an extra 10 miles) However, the last 15 miles were just me and Liz ... She took a monster pull into a long stretch of headwind. We mooed at gloomy looking cows standing in the rain. At some point I took a pull, and then we kept up a steady cycle of short pulls until finally ... 2 miles ... 1 mile ...

The early arrivals had rented a room in the Super 8 to take showers. Everyone took showers and relaxed in the sauna like temperatures of the room: awesome. At dinner we shared stories of what we started to hallucinate after mile 100. One person imagined having handlebar tape on his bike that notably has none. Another heard voices and saw bears. As for myself, during Liz's monster pull, I kept imagining that the paint stripe on the road was telling us to turn right, out of the headwind. Go figure.

Conclusions:

1) This ride has converted me to Arc'teryx-ism. Previously, I thought people were insane for considering getting these ridiculously priced technical outergear, but it's probably the biggest reason why I'm not hacking up a lung right now. It kept me dry, but breathed enough that when I did warm up, I didn't get too hot. Also, although it's not snug-fitting, it did not flap in the wind because the fabric is really stiff. Of course, more than the jacket, it might have been the socks I discovered in the jacket pockets that really made me happy. Take your pick.

2) Team Tati =/= Bike and Build !!! OMG. On Bike and Build, I was usually in the front group going at a decent, steady clip. Here, even with randomly interspersed 19 mph pulls or pacelines, I was usually in the "slow group," with the fast group going upwards of 25 mph. Atmosphere was entirely different too, much more business-like.

3) Tati women's team >>> Tati men's team.

4) Nebraska is still worse.

Korean Wife(s)?

In order to minimise my surface area in contact with shop Tati's newly polyurethaned floors, I was sitting gingerly, cross-legged on a chair inside. A certain gentleman walks by, one of J's multifarious customers, they chat about bikes etc. At one point, he looks in my direction and asks: "oh, is that your wife?"

...

This means one of 3 possibilities:
1) I look like a 40+ Japanese woman.
2) J looks like the type of person who marries 20 something year old women.
3) Asian people all look the same and ageless.

But the sad part is, apparently someone asked the same thing about Liz! Yikes.

Pink + Salad + Ride

A tidbit from the dry cleaner: Real men wear Pink.

Spinach salad (spinach, tomatoes, goat cheese) topped with tuna steak and mustard vinaigrette, is my new best friend.

The ladies on Tati like to lord over everyone. Actually, throughout the course of coffee, everyone eventually migrated to the sunnier side of the courtyard from the chill, and there was the most sun up on the ledge.

Expanding Architecture + Creepy guy on Bike Path

Expanding Architecture:

On Thursday, Metropolis magazine presented Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford's Expanding Architecture/Design as Activism at the Merchandise Mart, and I got to go. (Free food, how could I resist?) I happened upon it fortuitously. I was trying to look up the BPA-free Kor Water Bottle as an example of something absurdly expensive on the Metropolis website, when I happened to see the event. (Liz, I admit your water bottle is actually quite nice, and that I kind of want one now.)

Bryan Bell presented the book briefly, most of which was not new information to me because I read it cover to cover. This book made me realize that UVA is actually quite a hot spot for socially responsible and affordable architecture, and made me more excited about my acceptance there. (Oh yea, forgot to mention I got into their grad school, yay.) It was also interesting to see that a couple of the panelists worked not only on affordability in Chicago, but also discussed Hyde Park as an interesting example of how difficult it is to expand affordability. I may just write a few more blog entries on just this panel event, we'll see. Anyways, Bryan Bell was very personable, and I hope I get a chance to either work with him or learn from him in the future. I also got signatures on my book from 3 other people whose essays are in the book (Thomas Fisher, Roberta Feldman), including Katie Swenson, who not only graduated from UVA with a masters, but also got the Rose Fellowship to pursue affordability, community design and design activism. Intriguing ... As with all other architecture-related events it seems, I ran into a large contingent of 4240 people again, this time including Tom Brauer. It was good to be able to briefly catch up with him. And congratulations to Maurizio, who got into the post-professional program at Columbia! :D

Creepy Guy on Bike Path:

I rode alone because I had a dentist appointment in the morning, but I figured I could at least greet my fellow Tati riders on the way up north. I was happily minding my own business, noting the tail wind, when I heard someone approaching from behind me because their chain was audibly rubbing something, probably the front derailleur. If someone wanted to draft, I was fine with it, but the chain was annoying, for sure. I dropped him on the first hill, and I thought, phew. His pace must have been oscillating quite a bit though, because I kept hearing that chain whir ebb and flow behind me, which was even more annoying. To make things worse, then I could hear the guy moving side to side, probably trying to pass me, but apparently wasn't quite able to move faster than 21-23 mph (my pace at the time). Or, maybe he was checking out my calves like the other really creepy guy from last year. Finally, he moves up side by side. He was largish, riding some red beater-ish looking road bike with yellow handlebar tape.

Guy on Red Bike: "Nice day for a ride, eh?"
Me: "Yea."
Guy on Red Bike: "Been training all winter? You look like you're in pretty good shape."
Me: "Yea."
Guy on Red Bike: "Alright, well good day."

And he finally left me in peace to continue my ride. Maybe he was just trying to be nice, but I'm pretty wary of random guys with loud chains approaching me on rides to compliment me on my fitness level.

So Hungry!

Eating just a 90 calorie snack bar before the 50 mile ride yesterday was not wise. With the first spring weather, indoor-training sick riders, one Frenchman on a Vitus, one ultra-stiff Storck carbon bike, and only one other woman's rider (ie, lots of testosterone to share), we kept up a pretty high pace with random sprints here and there. By the time we got to the Starbucks in Indiana, I was starving. By the time I got back home, I simply couldn't quench the hunger no matter how much I ate. First I cleaned off the leftovers from a Greek restaurant the night before, no mean feat since it was the family style with 4 different entrees. Still hungry. Apple sauce, and 2 spoonfuls of icecream later, still hungry. I considered buying a morning roll at Bonjour Bakery, in the spirit of the summer rides, but the afternoon hour and nice weather foiled my plans: sold out! Bernard brought me some Greek dessert while I was studying at C-Shop, and that seems to have helped. And then Francisco, J, Dan, Doria, Jesse, Bernard and I ate a giant platter of seafood at El Barco's for dinner, and my stomach finally shut down.

I think my body has adapted to Bike and Build style long rides, so any hint of a long ride just jacks up my appetite ridiculously.

In other news, AIG, WHAT THE HELL ?!??!?! $165 million in bonuses ??? Give me my taxes back!

Doughnut Call

After my first day donning the locally famous "Obama Eats Here" shirt professionally, I stopped by at Shop Tati to see how the mayhem was progressing. Most of the shop floor was a colorful array of assorted high quality bike goods, and J himself was pondering the bizarrely stiff carbon headset of Jesse's new Storck. Somehow, I found myself poking a hopelessly giant housing end cap (with cable housing) into a hopelessly small brake arm. And then the cable housing was loose without the housing end cap. Anyways, I started to feel a bit hungry, possibly from busily concocting cappucinos, lattes, and chocolacinos all day long, so I asked if there happened to be random donuts around. There were not. And thus, J made a doughnut call. Within 10 minutes, Miles rolls up to the shop to respond to said doughnut call. And in not much time after that, we were able to feast upon a whole dozen doughnuts. Perhaps my fear of doughnuts has been eradicated today ???

Conclusion: I will still refrain from doughnuts on rides, except in dire (snowy cyclo-cross type) situations.

Jack of all Trades

Been M.I.A. a while trying to figure out how to structure what I would term "real life."

Work Interviews: I had interviews at both Jamba Juice and the Medici Bakery, an interesting comparison of large corporation vs. smaller businesses. Firstly, for Jamba Juice, it was a group interview! I thought they only did those at giant consulting firms, but perhaps the economy is bad enough at the moment. They asked fairly standard questions such as: what Jamba Juice drink would you be, what can you contribute to Jamba Juice, what did you like about your last job, what was a difficult situation you were able to overcome, what do you consider a personal failing. Medici on the other hand, I hardly even knew the interview had started because it was more just conversational. I get the feeling, the manager knew I could handle the work since I'd graduated from Lab, and it was more figuring out if my personality type was a good fit for a place like the Medici. At the same, I also think she got exactly the information she needed to get from me, so it was a much more interesting interview. Medici was definitely the preferred choice by the way, because I would get to wear a shirt that says, "Obama eats here." And ... I will be soon! Medici hired me! Thus, I am soon to be serving fresh baked chocolate croissants, carrot muffins, and Kickapoo Fair Trade Coffee :D

Dry Cleaning: I'm now a permanent part of staff for the time being. I can work at almost all points of the sequence of dry cleaning: tagging shirts/clothing as we receive them, sorting wet shirts according to what day they need to be completed and quantity of starch, pressing tablecloths (pressing shirts is really tricky and takes time to learn), taking the tag off clothes to put on hangers, de-linting, de-pilling, bagging or boxing shirts. I like to count the number of Thomas Pink, Ermenigildo Zegna, Brooks Brothers, Tom James, and obscure Italian brand made in Milan shirts we get. It's a bit absurd how many we get of each ...

Shop Tati: I started volunteering at J's shop. I learn how to build bikes about 25% of the time. So far I've learned the basics of putting on a headset, bottom bracket, cassette, cyclo-cross style breaks, and lacing up a 3 cross wheel. From previous bike learning from awesome Illini friends such as Dillon and Jamie, I already knew a certain amount about configuring cable housing, cables, and tuning front and rear derailleurs, pedals. The other 75% of the time, we discuss what the shop will carry, the color theme, stripey socks, the shop layout, folding bikes, leather saddles, and the "lifestyle" that we want to market. Wouldn't it be great if we could change Hyde Park from mostly car based to mostly bike based? Why wait for the city to create bike paths. Convince people that riding bikes is fashionable, more convenient, and less expensive, and create the demand for more bike friendly roads. It's interesting that J designs his bikes very much the way an architect should design a building, to correlate with the needs of their way of life. I find the entire shop to be a fascinating design project ... can't wait to see it in full action :D

Wild Duck: This past Friday, Bernard and I received free tickets to The Wild Duck, a play directed by Charles Newell of Court Theatre in Hyde Park shown at the MCA Chicago. I had no idea that Charles Newell of UCVC was in fact the person who runs Court Theatre ... he seemed a normal enough cyclist the few times I had been on group rides with him. I was very impressed with the production ... it revived fond memories of 7th and 8th grade when Lab School kids could skip class to attend the matinees for the entire Court Theatre season. The set mainly featured these giant loft style windows stage right, black painted steel stairs stage left, a few spare furniture items, and these giant suspended wood doors. Very converted factory building style ...

Food Shelter: Today, my mom and I went to serve food with our church at Cornerstone Community Outreach. It was interesting ... It was strange to have purportedly homeless people making demands upon us almost as if we were a restaurant (e.g.: "I want coke, not Sprite."), and my mom said she even saw that a lot of people didn't even finish the corn and green beans. She remarked, only in a food shelter in America will you see homeless people throwing food away. Absolutely ridiculous, and even outrageous in a way. A very few people even tried to come back for another tray, and some kids came up asking for more. It's not that I want to sound patronizing, or that I want these people to act servile towards us, but I would have thought that they would at least realize that it was not our job to be there, that the food we brought was bought from private donations from church members, that we were serving them food on an entirely voluntary basis, that they didn't really have a right to make any demands from us. Then again, I've never been in a situation where I had to go to a food shelter for food.

CX in Snow !!!

Miles was wearing some kind of spelunking helmet complete with a light. Tunneling through show, possibly ??? There sure was enough !!!

Sometimes the snowdrifts were nearly up to our knees, and many of us resorted to shouldering our bikes and running with them. I was in fact on platforms, and generating enough momentum to cut through snow was pretty tricky at times, at which point, I resorted to snow angels.

J's chain broke right outside of Bonjour Bakery, so Dan towed him all the way back to the shop. Every time we cyclocross, some bizarre mechanical occurs (such as Jesse's derailleur snapping off), but generally we seem to come up with some kind of awesome solution. (No, "awesome" does not translate to "shortbus." Stop that!)

Random Stuff.

Diana's in town from NYC for Thanksgivings Day, and she brought back a red velvet cake from Magnolia which I got to partake in! A-mazing. Her friend Andy also brought some New Zealand Riesling wine that was surprisingly good.

This is Miles getting lots of corgie love from Carly's lovely canine friends. He misses his corgies back in Kentucky. (Note his fitted, buttoned vest.)

Occasionally, there are so many geese on the path. Silly geese. (I should use that sky for a rendering though, it'd be perfect.)

The Aftermath ...

First actual running workout in 5 years.

Susan was our fearless leader in team Tati's pursuit of better running fitness. It actually helps in cyclo-cross to a certain extent (for example, last Sunday, they had to run up 2 flights of stairs). We did one lap easy, 3 laps of fartlicks, lunges, balance drills, and 800m tempo, and I'm TOAST. The lunges really killed me. Longest 2 minutes of my life.

The upshot? Today, I mumble innocuous profanities and sound like an 80 year old arthritic whenever I stand up because my hamstrings burn. However! I am glad to be running again. (Once upon a time, B.C., as in Before Cycling, I was a runner.)

Back on the Bike :D

As fun as travelling celebrity/backpacker style through some glitzy east coast cities was, it was great to get back on the bike with my Tati teammates.

Jesse, Dan, Liz, Francisco, Bernard and I headed up to Northerly Island where I pretended I was on a cross bike to practice mounts and dismounts. This might have been a bad idea, as my front wheel is definitely somewhat out of true now. The cyclo-cross people were lazy on the way back and made the roadies pull the entire way. Oh, actually, Bernard got lazy, so it was me and Liz that pulled the guys home. (Kidding, kidding.) And as always, coffee/tea/morning rolls at Bonjour is a great start to the day.

Portfolio time.

Metropolis and Cyclo-Cross

We were ostensibly going on an easy spin, and it didn't really happen. So it goes with a group of guys sometimes :p On the way back though, we stopped at Montrose Park to try out some hill repeats. Riding up a hill on road tires is pretty tricky. My back wheel was sliding like crazy, but I made it up eventually. Not all of us had cross bikes, so Jesse, Dan and J began with a demo. I tried a few on the pink bike, and eventually it looked so fun that Bernard decided to give it a try too.



I think J should consider ordering a custom pink skin suit and white accessories for whoever's riding the pink bike. Hot.