You’re not in Boulder anymore
Posted by kemibe in Self-Indulgent Wankery, The Running Ape on January 16, 2012
So yesterday afternoon I decided to incorporate a visit to my parents’ house into my run. It was in the single digits, and they have an energetic 1 1/2-year-old Golden retriever named Izzy who needs exercise every day regardless of the weather, no aspects of which she finds daunting regardless of the opinions of her humans. My parents are always happy to let me run her around for a while and I’m always happy to oblige. I figured that I’d hang out there for a while afterward and get some work done using their reliable Wi-Fi connection, so I packed my laptop and cell phone into a backpack, dressed as best I could for the weather, and made the two-mile trek from my place to theirs.
Once there, I farted around for a few minutes to warm up, then took Izzy out for three miles or so. I spent the rest of the afternoon writing training schedules, putting the finishing touches on an article about the Olympic Marathon Trials that had taken place the day before, and harassing putative running fans on the Internet, and along the way prepared and consumed some pasta and broccoli, putting the leftovers in a tupperware container. I had the equivalent of a social engagement at 8:30 and then, calling Ohio from my parents’ place, took part in a radio show on WXUT at about 11 p.m. I then took Izzy out into the now-2-degree-Fahrenheit evening for one last excretory salvo before packing all of my stuff up again and heading back toward home.
It was about 12:30 a.m. I’d had a productive day as a freelancer on multiple fronts and the radio show had been fun, so I was on a high even if the mercury in local thermometers wasn’t.
Benign enough, right? Well, it was all a set-up for a brief and annoying comic interlude. Read the rest of this entry »
BoCo vs. DoDo: The Trails of Two Cities
Posted by kemibe in Getting Boulder, Self-Indulgent Wankery on December 12, 2011
I’m writing this from a Starbucks in West Roxbury, a neighborhood in the western fringes of Boston close to the more upscale suburb of Brookline but also not far from the worst of the city’s ‘hoods. (That’s the charm of this compact place: Back when the Combat Zone still existed in its full fury 25 years ago, if someone had put a blindfold on you and asked you to walk for 15 minutes from downtown in any direction, you wouldn’t have known if you would wind up in the midst of crackwhores or on the lawns of Beacon Hill mansions.) And I mention Starbucks only because she’s a bitch I can’t get away from even though I don’t respect her, a place I go to for a couple of assets I could get most anyplace else and in higher quality–in this place, wi-if and coffee–only because of habit and a craven unwillingness to explore neighborhoods.
I move around a bunch. I’m not talking just about my day-to-day hyperkinetic ways — running, overcaffeinated tours of neighborhoods with equally rambunctious working-class dogs, tapping out blissfully agitated e-mails at a Mach 19 despite using only three fingers — since 2002, I’ve been comparatively sessile in the past few trips around the sun, managing 18-month-long stints in Dover, N.H. and Boulder, Colorado between December 2008 and today. The Great Front Range Experiment is now history, and since a lot of what a place like Boulder has to offer fits seamlessly into my wants and needs, it stands to reason that moving away — even if back to the state where I’ve spent most of my life — would be a jolt.
The title of this post includes a couple of neologisms of the pithy type I despise, with syllables based on place names, e.g., SoHo. But I couldn’t resist “DoDo” (for “downtown Dover”) because it’s just do frigging witty and mimics the name of a friendly but impossibly stupid Madagascarian birds from centuries ago that asshole colonists recreationally blasted into extinction. But really, with “Dover” I’m referring to all of suburban and exurban Boston, as right now I’m actually in the city and will be settling soon enough back in N.H.
Anyway, regarding the Boulder-Greater Boston comparison, it’s impossible to state a firm conclusion without some thought, as it’s a multifaceted trade-off. SO I thought about it for five minutes and decided that these areas represent the most glaring vis-a-vis aspects: Read the rest of this entry »
Glory Hallelujah!
Posted by docbushwell in Catablogic Blathering on December 1, 2011
I recently downloaded Frank Turner’s (relatively) new album, England Keep My Bones and was delighted to find what is now my favorite hymn!
~ Doc B.
How to clear airport security without a photo ID (if you’re as lucky as I was)
Posted by kemibe in Self-Indulgent Wankery on November 23, 2011
About two weeks ago, I lost my driver’s license and Social Security card (the latter an item that only idiots like me keep in their wallets in the first place) . Fortunately, the rest of the contents of my wallet remained in my possession, so I still had my credit and debit cards and a Circle K coffee club card edging ever closer to free-cup status; this combination allowed to me accomplish the major tasks of my day-to-day life as a tentatively scheduled trip across the country fast approached. I ordered a replacement copy of my out-of-state license online a week ago Saturday. the 12th, and booked a late-Tuesday-the-22nd flight from Denver to Boston, figuring that this would allow enough lead time for my ID to arrive before I had to deal with the TSA. It didn’t.
Until a few days ago, I figured that without a government-issued photo ID, I had no chance of boarding my plane last night. Then I started doing some research as the likelihood of my not having my license in time to travel home appeared greater and greater. As a result, when yesterday’s load of mail bore nothing of use, I wasn’t all that distressed as I rode down Route 36 toward the infamous DIA demon horse. Read the rest of this entry »
To the BRC guy I saw doing a road fartlek this morning (North Boulder)
Posted by kemibe in Sheer Procrastination, The Running Ape on November 22, 2011
(Yeah, I’m posting in Craigslist Rants & Raves mode.)
Hi. I’m the guy you saw a few times on and near the Cottonwood Trail at 7 a.m. who was wearing a bright blue Charlottesville Running Company windbreaker, black Sporthill-style pants, a Delaware XC hat and two-dollar gloves from Walgreens. (You surely couldn’t see all that, but I like describing this crude ensemble.) You were — and probably still are — about 5′ 10″ or 5′ 11′ and 160-ish pounds, and were wearing black bicycle-type tights and a Boulder Running Company top. You had — and most likely still have — a dark mustache/goatee combination and appeared to be about 30 or 40 years old. (I didn’t have my sunglasses on.) Here’s the deal. I was out to run for a little over 70 minutes so I could call it ten miles. That gave me the freedom to go by my watch rather than landmarks, which will explain the behavior I’ll review below. Read the rest of this entry »
The CU football team’s awesome el foldo
Posted by kemibe in Getting Boulder on October 2, 2011
I love the CU track and cross-country programs and the diversity of the school’s academic programs, and I despise the football team just as much. Actually, it’s their fans I can’t stand. Or the whole phenomenon of home games. I know these folks flowing into the city are just trying to have a good time, but every time there’s a home game, Boulder becomes littered with alumni with an average age of about 68 who swarm across the bike paths with a seemingly willful degree of cluelessness and in general fuck up the city. (The woes were compounded this round by the fact that it’s Parents’ Weekend.) They dress so similarly that I almost suspect there is a de facto uniform — CU T-shirt, CU hat, and in some cases CU shorts. And for all I know, CU tampons and butt plugs. I saw one guy in his 50′s who was actually wearing football pants (no pads, though). Then again, this place having the character it does, that guy may well dress like this every day of the year. Read the rest of this entry »
And you thought Guliani was done running
Posted by kemibe in Hootworthy, The Running Ape on September 26, 2011
Nope. He’s pretty close to the top of the pile, actually. Check out 19th place in the small-school boys’ race at this past Saturday’s Manchester Cross-Country Invitational. (Okay, the spelling is a bit off, but were this a road race rather than a sanctioned high-school event, I’d be screaming fraud.) It was at this meet in 1985 — my sophomore year — that I first transformed myself, in my mind, into a decent runner. The event has exploded into an extravaganza attracting many top teams from New England and — obviously! — New York State.
Woe there, Gribbit!
Posted by kemibe in Hominidiots, Political Pungency on September 3, 2011
As always, I can’t resist the combination of supreme confidence and spectacular ignorance. It’s what made NBC’s The Office — the central theme of which is Michael Scott’s unremitting self-delusion concerning his own capabilities and esteem — such a hit. And it’s what makes Gribbit, the rabidly anti-socialism blogger who lives on a government paycheck, such an enchanting wreck of a commentator. (Unlike Scott, Gribbit lacks the sort of nominal charm and that accompanies good-hearted cluelessness and guilelessness, and is merely a malignant asshole. (His attempts to keep people from cutting and pasting, or even linking to, his content are also a continued source of amusement.)
Gribbit is again playing the “you should have listened to me” game again with this incoherent rant about…well, Obama and stuff, which begins with this: Read the rest of this entry »
Head games
Posted by kemibe in Getting Boulder, Self-Indulgent Wankery on August 31, 2011
In early June I was wandering along a sidewalk on my way to a dog show in a neighboring down and happened across a Boston Red Sox hat hanging on a parking meter. It was one of the rogue ones that’s emerged in recent years — olive-green instead of navy blue, but with the same red “B” with a white border on the front. I took and kept it for a while, but wasn’t really keen on it and ultimately left it for someone else to find. (This wasn’t the first time I’ve kept a had I have found during a walk or a run.)
About six weeks ago, I was walking down Valmont Road in North Boulder and found another Red Sox hat, this one in the traditional style. Given that this was the second Red Sox hat I had found in a five- or six-week period — in Colorado, no less — and that I did grow up a Red Sox fan, I figured that this was either an entertaining coincidence or a sign from God, so I held on to this one and now wear it daily. Read the rest of this entry »
NAQ
Posted by kemibe in Self-Indulgent Wankery, Sheer Procrastination on August 27, 2011
In the spirit of National Lampoon magazine’s “Letters from the Editors,” I bring you our list of “Never Asked Questions,” which I decided to post as a page rather than as a post.
It’s safe to say that these are inane admonishments
Posted by kemibe in Sheer Procrastination on August 27, 2011
“Stay safe!” “Have a safe trip!” “Be safe, OK?”
Most of us are guilty of addressing people with one or more of these phrases. I’ve done it many times and will surely do it again. When you get right down to it, these are no more useful than “You’re in my prayers.” In fact, they arguably translate to the same thing.
I have told a number of my friends on the East Coast, bracing for the possibility of a powerful windstorm this weekend, to “stay safe.” Maybe the fact that I have only written this in e-mails and not said it out loud lets me off the mental hook I’ve constructed and jammed into some needless wall in my mind. But I can’t help but be amused by common turns of phrase when they are essentially goofy.
I mean, what do I expect to change about the people I know by telling them to stay safe during, say, a transcontinental commercial flight? If I deliver these magic words, even if by text message, will this change the course of events? Will my friend have an epiphany and say “Fuck! I’d better sit up in the cockpit!” and take over in the event of an aircraft malfunction? I suppose it’s possible.
In some ways telling people to stay safe when a known hazard is heading their way makes more sense, as more factors lie within the sphere of their control under these circumstances. But most of my friends are not blithering waterheads, so in theory I don’t need to tell them to, say, not go sea kayaking in the middle of a category 4 hurricane, or make a sport of catching falling bricks or playing with live downed wires in the midst of a ruinous earthquake. Even if I had a habit of choosing such friends, they’d be quickly selected out of the population given the number of possible ways to behave in lethally stupid ways.
By the way, don’t be offended by any of this. Keep on keeping on, because it is what it is.
How to Lose Readers (Without Even Trying): Sam Harris
Posted by kemibe in Hominidiots, Yeah, I used "Press This" -- Sue Me on August 25, 2011
This is great. Sam Harris’ responses to criticism of his essays and views are always perfect, but then he would not have gotten to where he is without a pachydermal bearing.
The Blog : How to Lose Readers (Without Even Trying) : Sam Harris.
What I’d like to tell the loud dude in the coffee shop
Posted by kemibe in Sheer Procrastination on August 25, 2011
“Yes, the Beach Boys started out in their garage. So did most bands that went on to huge success. But so did the thousands upon thousands of wannabes who never went any further than that.”
People have a difficult time with the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. This is probably founded more on stubborn optimism than ignorance, but either way it’s entertaining. Whenever I hear something like this, I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes, this one by Carl Sagan:
“[T]he fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
There’s a guy I’ve written about here a number of times who fits this mold perfectly. He’s a top-tier crank who denies the benefits of high-mileage training for runners lacking what he declares to be unusually favorable genetics, and instead suggests that the route to success for the average runner — even those training for marathon — involves running three times a week and doing lots of weight work and sprinting. Not surprisingly, this fellow was, much to my amazement, quoted in the same Competitor article that featured an equally cranky guy advocating more or less the same garbage. The two of them share an important trait, one common to every would-be revolutionary: They have convinced themselves that mockery of, and arguments against, their ideas are rooted in fear and a conditioned unwillingness to consider alternatives to conventional wisdom. Whether they started with this stance or developed it over time after being serially marauded so as to dispel cognitive dissonance is unclear, but it doesn’t matter. They are Sagan’s Bozos. Read the rest of this entry »
Rick Perry doesn’t believe in anthropogenic climate change…
Posted by kemibe in Failures of Faith, Hominidiots, Political Pungency, We're Doomed on August 18, 2011
…and in a similarly shocking vein, certain Jamaicans are suspected of cultivating marijuana.
One nice thing about leaving my otherwise treasured home state of New Hampshire is that I don’t have to see first-hand the parade of Republican hopefuls who — thanks to New Hampshire having the nation’s first presidential primary election — begin flooding the place in pre-election years when there’s a Democrat or two-term GOP-er in the White House. This year, more than in any other, virtually all of them hold fifth-degree idiotbelts, from the no-hopers to Obama’s potential adversaries. It’s a sad day when someone like Mitt Romney has to be given credit for admitting that human-caused climate change is at least worth a look.
Rick Perry, the Texas governor known as much for his coif as his stances, told a crowd in Bedford that he’s a global warming skeptic. This in itself is no surprise. Perry represents a state with colossal fossil-fuel interests and has previously hit all of the podunk low points, from advocating “Intelligent Design” to opposing same-sex marriage to condemning abortions. As someone pandering to a citizenry like Texas’s, he has no choice but to support such causes. Read the rest of this entry »
The 30-year-old Colorado state 1600-meter record: athletic and personal perspectives (Part 2)
Posted by kemibe in Getting Boulder, The Running Ape on August 17, 2011
The other day I described an encounter with a homeless man who nearly reached the Olympics 23 years ago. I didn’t get to the main reason for writing about him because of the lengthy introductory material, so here it is.
In the spring of 1981, Rich Martinez of Widefield High School of Colorado Springs ran 4:10.98 at the 5A State Track and Field Championships in Pueblo to establish a state record that still stands. Third in this meet as a junior, Rich, by his own account, demolished defending state champion Greg Keith of Smoky Hill — the alma mater of state 3200-meter record-holder Brent Vaughn, who turned in a 9:05.89 in 2003 — in the final half-lap to set a mark that has been on the books for longer than any Colorado high-school track record. Thirty years is remarkably long stretch for any running record to last; for a distance event in a running mecca like Colorado, such a time scale is nigh geological. Read the rest of this entry »
Violent crime and a cratering economy: not what people think
Posted by kemibe in Getting Boulder, Hominidiots on August 16, 2011
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Yesterday afternoon, three women were robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight on the busiest recreation path in Boulder. This sort of thing almost never happens around here, but the incident comes on the relatively close heels of the shooting death of University of New Hampshire football player Todd Walker, who attempted to intervene in a robbery on University Hill.
Last night I overheard someone discussing yesterday’s robbery, and at the end of his soliloquy he declared that this was the kind of thing that would continue happening thanks to people defaulting on their mortgages, losing their jobs and otherwise suffering the ravages of a shitty economy. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard some version of this claim, not the second, nor even the tenth. It’s a bona fide meme, and I’ve never believed it. Think about it: How often do you see canned CFO’s and out-of-work software consultants jailed for pulling a gun on a random person in the hope of grabbing maybe fifty or sixty bucks? People of means happily commit crimes, but do not typically indulge in such offenses as robbery, burglary, larceny and other brute-force malfeasance. Instead, they defraud banks, skim from their employers, commit identity fraud and do end runs around the IRS. |
Civil disobedience in the high-tech age: the BART protests
Posted by kemibe in Monday open discussion, Techies & Technology on August 16, 2011
I don’t like using terms such as “high-tech age” or, even worse, “age of technology.” What’s high-tech today will appear quaint in a decade or two (not so long ago, it was considered marvelous to have a computer that didn’t take up an entire room that required supercooling to keep the whole apparatus from fricaseeing itself). But every societal undertaking been affected by the trappings of the Internet, cell-phone service and skilled hackers — even potential confrontations between law enforcement and protesters.
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For those of you who have never visited San Francisco or (egad) Oakland, the two cities are joined by the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system, which runs under San Francisco Bay via the 3.6-mile long Transbay Tube and extends south on the San Francisco side and in all directions on the Oakland side. It is a very pleasant commuter experience. The family of of Oscar Grant III would probably not agree, given that Mr. Grant was fatally shot in January 2009 by a BART police officer who was later convicted of murder (reduced to involuntary manslaughter on appeal). Ditto any associates of a homeless man named Charles Blair Hill, who was shot dead on July 8 by a transit cop. Hill came at officers with a vodka bottle and a knife, but Grant was unarmed and face-down on the ground when he was shot in the back. This shooting, which was caught on numerous video cameras, qualifies as an execution by any standard. |
Ironically, uninformed people say mistaken things
Posted by kemibe in Hominidiots, Sheer Procrastination on August 14, 2011
That’s obviously (I hope) not an example of irony.
“Ironic” may be the most misunderstood and misapplied adjective in frequent use. It’s a tricky word; ironically, it can be hard to distinguish irony from its diametric opposite. But while it’s understandable and no big deal that the rank and file continually misuses the word “ironic,” one would hope that broadcast journalists in a major metropolitan area would know better, or at least that their producers would.
This morning, one of the Denver news stations ran a story about the wind-induced collapse of a stage at the Indianapolis State Fair that killed four people. The anchorwoman had something very close to this to say: “Ironically, an announcer warned the crowd of severe weather just a minute before the collapse.”
Okay, let’s break this down. Someone points out that the weather is getting nasty, and an element of that nasty weather nastily wrecks something. That’s irony? If so, then so is “Ironically, after spending eight hours in the Florida sun, Maine vacationer Charlene McGillicuddy suffered a terrible sunburn. Now, had the announcer in Indianapolis boasted that the facility had just received the “Safest Set-Up of 2011″ from the American Association of Fairground Structures right before the collapse, that would have been ironic. Coincidence is not irony. Unfortunate timing, like last night’s, is not irony. In fact, I’d guess that in four out of every five instances of someone using the word “ironically,” replacing it with “not surprisingly” or “sure enough” would create a far more coherent delivery.
The 30-year-old Colorado state 1600-meter record: athletic and personal perspectives (Part 1)
Posted by kemibe in Nostalgic Reverie, The Running Ape on August 13, 2011
On a mild December day in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, I find myself seated next to a trim man who appears somewhat older than me. He sports a luxurious goatee, olive cargo pants that match his winter hat, a tired red North Face parka, and the unmistakable odor of vodka. Beside him is the bicycle from which he has recently disembarked, a cobalt specimen that is — at least at the moment — in far better condition than its owner. None of this is noteworthy; this is Boulder, Colorado, after all, where even many of the transients get around efficiently on bicycles and are far more physically fit than the typical American.
The man casts a glance at my feet, nods. “You’re a runner?” he asks. I’m wearing a new and obnoxiously overbright pair of trainers that have relegated everything below my ankles to Papa Smurf territory. I smile, almost apologetically. “Guess the shoes are a giveway, eh? Yeah. I used to race marathons. I more or less jog now.”
The man shoots his arms out in front of him and uses an index finger to tick the digits of his other hand as he rattles off numbers: “1:47. 3:38. 3:55. 13:45. 29:11.” Another curt nod, this time coupled to a faraway look. Read the rest of this entry »
Crazy choices explained, maybe
Posted by kemibe in Brains and Behavior, Self-Indulgent Wankery on August 12, 2011
It’s often difficult to comprehend why people choose the mates they do. There’s the classic case of the attractive professional woman paired off with the layabout and perhaps abusive man, a situation that comes in a variety of flavors. There’s the quiet guy with the overbearing, endlessly carping wife. There are the women who seem determined to wind up with an active alcoholic or drug addict, and date not just one but a parade of such types. Why do people make the choices they do? I am not a psychology expert and have no interest in what those who are have to say, at least for purposes of this post. Instead I’ll do my best to explain my own patterns and how they have been both adaptive and maladaptive. Read the rest of this entry »
- Doc Bushwell is a biochemist and a medical writer who serves as a slavering minion of the dark lords of Big and Little Pharma; Jim is an engineering professor with a fondness for running shoes and drumsticks; and Kevin Beck is a self-exiled member of the clan who refuses to stay gone.
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