the ending's the same

two days ago ms. cicadashell and i celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of our marriage. we marked the occasion by picking out the same card for each other. notably, we both were concerned that the choice was perhaps a bit too whimsical, but decided to go with it anyway. that pretty much sums things up.



yesterday, possibly related to the tree that fell at the edge of the parking lot, a swarm of bees gathered on a smaller tree just outside the back door of the office. we called everyone we could think of who kept bees, but no one had an empty hive available. to be sure, the location of the bees near the top of the tree was problematic in terms of the usual, safe methods of gathering them. but they were gone within a couple of hours anyway.











<+}{+>:<+}{+>:<+}{+>:<+}{+>:<+}{+>:<+}{+>:<+}{+>:<+}{+>:<+}{+>

return of the son of monster magnet

oh hi. i'm back from florida, had an interesting time we did, taking in disney world and the keys at different turns. i may prepare a diatribe, or simply post a few pictures, or something. the sweetest recollection from disney world was riding back on the bus from epcot and listening to this woman sitting next to me cooing to her toddler in a soothing scottish accent - "doan't cry, lad" she would say.

yesterday there was a blinger of a storm racing past the office in the afternoon. i did not have the camera so i couldn't record the piles of hailstones (a mix of pea-sized to something of the order of large blackberries), or the fierce winds, or the deep runoff in the grassy swales. i did see a dead tree blow over in the thin strip of woods remaining between our parking lot and the latest addition to avis farms, and i thought the noise it made upon impact was rather loud and sharp, but i thought nothing more of it until this morning, when i took a look at the neighbor's new jeep; apparently it offerred little resistance apart from breaking the main trunk in two.

















i don't ordinarily make note of the location of large, dead tree trunks relative to the spot where i have parked my car (on those infrequent occasions when i actually do park my car), but perhaps i will begin to do so. it's a good thing nobody was hurt by this.

just look in his eyes and then you'll see why

well our fair city held its first ever bikefest this evening, in conjunction with its "green fair" (that featured, among other things, free rides on a segway, which is about as green as my ass), and i think the organizers would have to call it a success. the older boy, on hand as an employee and representative of the great lakes bike shop, did well in the trackstand competetion although his nearly 22-minute time was eventually beaten. here he demonstrates his execellent form and concentration:
















after ten minutes, he has managed to turn himself 90 degrees anti-clockwise, in his own impression of a foucault pendulum:
















great lakes also had tallbikes represented:
















this young man eventually posted the longest time of 36 minutes, not bad for a town with no actual bicycle couriers. a couple of minutes after i took this picture he removed his backpack and handed it to the woman at right; he had the no-handed thing down pretty good.
















it is tricky to get decent photographs of jumping bicycles with anything besides an slr, but i tried. here is one:















blogger doesn't seem to want to continue uploading photos any more this evening, so more jjump pictures will have to wait. but yes it was a fun time, nice to hang out on the street with other bicycling idiots, show off my track bike (although braden's 3rensho totally stole the show, at least for people who care about such things. it is a very pretty bike, although he and i should trade cranks so his can be (nearly) all-njs and mine can be (nearly) all italian. perhaps someday...

she goes to the mirror to put on her stuff

sometime last week the catalpa trees started blooming, so it must be summer. there is a stretch of newport road, after you descend the big hill, that is lined with catalpa trees, a couple dozen of them. and when you ride through that stretch around this time of year (better in a week or two) the flowers are dropping all around you like big, wet snowflakes. it is one of those times when you wonder how it was that we got so lucky, to become humans here, of all places.

too freaking goldurnit busy these weeks, trying to get these st. louis waterways models running, so much back and forth with the hydrodynamics and the eutro linkage and the CSO loads and all that. confusing, fascinating, irritating by turns, but it will be good to finish; i will have learned some things.

we are getting excited about bikefest this friday. although it is to some extent the typical ann arbor cornball stuff, it promises to be fun because the bike shop where the older son works is going to go all out with freeride demos on this ramp they built (and the city paid for! my tax dollars at work, finally). so it will be fun to be a bikin' idiot downtown and watch my progeny take on all comers in the trackstand competition and just generally hang out. naturally it is scheduled for the first night of the dick walden vélodrome's incredible three-day madison tournament; but since when did anybody in the city of ann arbor pay attention to anything happening in oakland county? or maybe there was a (gasp!) lack of communication. anyway i'm sorry i won't be able to get to the track for any of that, due to leaving for the florida vacation early on sunday and all. but anyway, can't do everything.

<:-s-:>~<:-s-:>~<:-s-:>~<:-s-:>~<:-s-:>~<:-s-:>~<:-s-:>

the sound of coins spent on useless toys

so yeah. such beautiful weather. i sure hope i can find our goddammit camera. things are happening and i want to take pictures. riding to work was extra joyful this morning because yesterday i gave in and replaced the bottom bracket on the follis. therre had been this radial wobbling, that was getting worse, and i finally disassembled the thing and concluded that the adjustable cup, venerable tange item though it may be, was rather significantly gouged ("brinelled," the curious technical term), and stood to be replaced. i did have, in my stash, a brand-new shimano 105 french-threaded bottom bracket, so out it came. the replacement went easily enough, although i had no more blue loctite so i thought i'd risk it, with no glue. bad idea, or should i say, a poor choice based on an inadequate wassessment of risk, because by the time i got here the relentless precession had already begun, and i have some wobble (axial this time, rather than radial). the real mistake was not bringing the tools to tighten it up, however; i really hope i don't grind it up on the way home, with it coming more and more loose with every turn o' the crank.

we shall see.