Friday Night Threesome

Robin and I decided to go visit Steen after work today. She normally goes during the day when I'm at work, and I usually tag along on a Sunday here and there. But tonight we decided to have a relaxing Friday night ride and hoped we would have the place to ourselves. And we did. Not a person in sight, just a few little Japanese Chins.

This was my first real ride in the outdoor arena, and it was pretty fun. Steen was OK with having me on his back as long as he got to do some inconsistent figure eights close to the herd. After awhile he got used to me and then explored some more.

Robin rode after I did. She is much faster than me.

Someday I will get faster, too. Tonight I held back, though, for tomorrow is the fall ride of rides to Amana and the brewery. It should be fun and a little bit painful. Hopefully the Iowa Pale Ale will help dull pain on the way back to town.

The First Day of School

And the first day that I have not had to go to a first day of school in well over twenty years. Sure, work was busy, but it was no school.

Paint Night Date Night

As many of you know, quite a few weeks ago I joined the ranks of people who spend a large portion of their days in an office. As offices go, mine is pretty nice. I have a nice chair, some shelves, and plenty of cabinets for food, tea and coffee fixings, and I guess some files, too. The only thing my office lacks that I can't really do anything about is a window. But windows come with time, and I can easily get up out of my chair and walk to all the windows I could want. And I enjoy the excuse to stretch my legs frequently.

But still, the office is pretty drab. Beige-ish walls, light wood shelves and cabinets, and a light gray speckled desk top. I knew I needed some art, but then I remembered that I'm picky and poor. So I thought that maybe I would just get some blank canvases and paint them three different colors. I consulted my favorite artist, and she thought it was a fabulous idea. And it was a good thing she did, too, because while I am pretty good at coming up with ideas like this, I am not too excited to commit ideas to paper. It seems so permanent. And my lack of art skills was not helping me get started.

Thankfully, mixing paints and putting a solid color on canvas can be very forgiving and easily changed. So after a cool crisp pale ale, Robin and I went into the basement studio and got started.

I had a vague idea of what kind of colors I wanted, but I really only felt strongly about two of them. So we got started on a sage-like green and decided to see where that took us. For each canvas we (mostly Robin) would mix the color, apply one layer evenly over the canvas, and then mix a very similar color and add a second layer on top with varying brush strokes to create the texture.

After the green we moved on to a blue that was, and still is, my favorite.


For the third canvas I really didn't know what color to do. I originally thought something in a burgundy, and Robin was feeling deep brown. But as we looked at our first two colors we realized we wanted something more bold. So we leaned towards orange.

A lightning fast brush stroke is a sure sign of a competent painter.

And the finished product. I will send an update when I get them into my office.

On Disappointment

After finishing Frank Conroy's extremely enjoyable Body & Soul, I was left with a desire to read something with a European feel to it. Perhaps it was all the classical music, or the small sections of the book that took place in London, but I really wanted to cross the pond for my next book. But I only ended up going back and forth, and in the beginning, that was all right.

I settled on Zadie Smith's On Beauty. Zadie is a young, popular British novelist who has received much critical acclaim. On Beauty is loosely based on E. M. Forester's Howard's End, takes place in London and the Boston area, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2005. So it met many of the criteria I had for my next book.

Unfortunately, I cannot recall the last book that left me so disappointed. I think I can say that Smith is a good writer, and the story was captivating enough early on that I felt compelled to finish it. She also does a good job of asking large questions about race, gender, social action, and the nature of an individual's beliefs. However, none of those questions reveal any new insight, and in the end they are drowned out by unbelievable chracters, cliched academic jargon peppered throughout the novel so as to appear smart and witty, and increasingly unlikely coincidences that are necessary to move the plot forward. If you like books about wacky academics, both Francine Prose's Blue Angel and Richard Russo's Straight Man are much better. And if you are interested in social commentary on race, gender, and social action, well there are too many good ones to list.

On a not disappointing note, Robin and I had a fabulous date night where we enjoyed the smoke free atmosphere of George's and for the first time tried their much talked about burgers. They were simple and not much to look at, but for some reason they just tasted so good. We will definitely be back.

Iowa State Road Race

No, I didn't race it. But when I showed up to the Thursday night group ride Hopson and Nick Martin roped me into driving a follow car. I was too nice to say no. Since most people on the ride that night were trying to take it easy for Saturday's race, I decided I'd try to be a little less nice on the bike.

My plan worked out a little bit. Coming into Lone Tree it was only Heath and myself trading off hard pulls. About a kilometer or so from the town limits sign I decided to come through hard. Not attack, just put my head down and see how long I could keep the pressure high. As I did this, Heath somehow pulled out of his pedal as he was trying to stay on my wheel. I heard lots of "Oh Shits" from the group. When I looked back I had a big gap, and everyone was still upright. I moved to the side of the road to keep anyone from sneaking into my draft and hammered for the line. I won. No check or anything, but I guess it was my own little State Road race. The rest of the ride was nice, and for most of it, it was Heath and I on the front with a few other non racers coming in to play, too.

The weather for Saturday's race was supposed to be super hot and muggy with temps into the 90s. But Friday evening a cooling trend came in and Saturday turned out to be a very nice day. Still warm, but not uncomfortable.

I was the driver of the wheels truck for the Women's Cat. 1, 2, 3 race. All six of them. West Branch Ford provided the trucks. So there I was, sitting in a gigantic F-150 pickup with two sets of wheels in the back. I felt more than a little silly. I was excited to volunteer for the local race and all my friends, but driving 81 miles in an ugly pick up truck just doesn't seem to fit with what bicycles should really be about. There is no support like this in mountain bike races, but I suppose that is mostly because there is no pack and there aren't really any vehicles that can easily follow through tight, twisty single track. With the nature of the pack in road racing, self supported races might not work too well, but so much of racing is gambling anyways, so maybe self supported races would just force people to be more careful with wheel and equipment selection before a race. Just a thought.

All complaining aside, it was a pretty fun day. I ate a nice lunch of pb&j, grapes, cookies, water, and gatorade while I watched the race from behind. The first lap was pretty uneventful as no one was excited to attack and no one wanted to get dropped. Towards the end of the lap I could see all the ladies chatting and next thing I know they were pulling over into an empty road maintenance parking lot. They had decided to all take a neutral nature break. This suited me fine as I also had to pee. So there I was, peeing on the side of the road next to a ditch with four other women scrambling to get out of their bib shorts. It was highly amusing.

On lap two Kim Eppen and Robin Williams (not my Robin, and not the actor either) started pushing the pace on the big hills in the crosswind. The first casualty was Andrea from Bikes 2 You. Up until that point she had been one of the strongest riders and was almost always on the front. Shortly after Andrea came off one of the two Punk Rock Cycling ladies slid off the back as well. After a few hills she managed to drag herself back to the group. At this point, no one wanted to work, but to get through the race they eventually settled into a fairly even rotating paceline.

This lasted through lap 2 and into most of lap 3 where Robin again attacked on the big climb out of the Cedar River Valley. Only Robin, Kim Eppen, and one Punk Rock racer were able to keep the pace. They continued to ride hard with Robin making lots good attacks. The Punk Rock racer rode a rather smart race as she forced Kim to chase almost everytime. With just over 1km to go Kim attacked hard and only the Punk Rock rider could follow. Kim gave everything she had to try to shake her from her wheel, but it was not to be. On the final hill miss Punk Rock came around and poor Kim was out of gas.

It was a fun event, and I think the promoters did a good job with what looked like a very demanding course. I hope it is here again next year, because I just might want to try my own chances in the race.

High and Dry

Yesterday I came home from work a little groggy and very unenthusiastic about the group ride. This often happens to me. It is difficult to sit around all day and then try to get geared up for what is almost always a couple of painful hours. Of course, it feels really good when it's over. Especially while sipping beer with my legs up in the recliner.

While trying to decide whether or not I should go on the ride, the sky outside was getting darker and darker. We have had a lot of quick and violent thunderstorms this summer. When I checked the radar it looked almost OK. But I had been burned by this in the past. Finally at around 5 o'clock I remembered those other days that I went out and got pummeled by thunderstorms. The rides turned out just fine, but there were always a lot of worrisome moments and plenty of thoughts like, "this is stupid. Why are you riding your bike into a storm front?"

So I decided to stay home. I felt much better once I made this decision. Instead of riding, I made tea and sat down to read Frank Conroy's Body & Soul. I had started it the day before when I foolishly left my other book (Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale) at work. I was somewhat resistant when I started Conroy's story, as I was really curious about what was going to happen to Offred. But after only a page or two I was sucked in.

The protagonist is a young boy named Claude who has a natural talent for music. He goes from teacher to teacher learning everything from scales and posture to theory and composition. It is very well written and I find the music parts fascinating. They are extremely detailed, but not at all tedious to a non-music person like myself.

There is something simple about the story, too. About a hundred pages in I found myself thinking that it was really nothing new, that there was really nothing special about this book, but I liked it anyways. It was also around this time that the boy's only consistent tutor told Claude that his story of growing up had been told countless times, and that he really wasn't all that special or unique. I love it when authors are aware of these things and share that fact with their readers.

But the real reason I have been enjoying this novel (I'm not finished with it yet), I believe, is that I love the Bildungsroman genre. I have long said that I prefer the beginnings of stories to the other parts. The way the characters are introduced, come together, slowly encounter problems and begin to work through them. I find it all very exciting. And inevitably the feeling changes as the story progresses. But with the bildungsroman, I think the beginning feeling is prolonged just a little bit more. And for some reason I appreciate that.

Returns (Sorry, it's a long one)

I know, it has been awhile since my last writing. In this time things have been both extremely busy and wonderfully quiet. A few weeks ago I went to Geneva, Il for my sister's wedding. It was a hectic weekend, but both Robin and I maintain that it was one of the most fun weddings we have ever been to. Good food, good drinks, lots of dancing, and good company.

When we returned we did a little housesitting for an awkward pair of shelties. This was a little bit of an uncomfortable week. I think I might have a slight dog allergy, as I was very cloudy in the head every morning that week. Thankfully, the gig paid well, and Robin eloquently declined the invitation to sit again.

In this time I have also done a little bit of riding, but nothing to write home about. I have mostly been working and reading books in my free time. When I announced my departure from Ph.D-dom back in May, I suggested that it would give me much more time to read for fun and leave me more excited to talk about what I have read. In that time I have only talked about one book, Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (which I still think is great), but I have actually read many books these last few months.

When I first stepped away from my studies I was excited to immerse myself in some guilty pleasure reading. Robin and I are both fans of the epic sci-fi/fantasy adventure genre, and she particularly enjoys listening to books of this sort on tape (well, ipod, really) while at work. I suggested that she give Stephen King's The Gunslinger a try and told her that, if she liked it, there were dozens of hours of listening that could follow.

I started reading the massive Dark Tower series when I was a teenager. The first four works delighted me, as had many other stories of King's. But then he took a break from the Dark Tower and I went off to college and started reading different things. When Robin listened to the first book and I saw how much she enjoyed it, I knew I had get back into the series myself. And rather than picking up where I left off, I decided to start over from the beginning.

The epic tale did not disappoint. But after reading the first five books in succession, I realized I needed a little break from the massive story and yearned for some more character-driven tales. Around this time Steve had mentioned that he started re-reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, a gargantuan story of tennis, drugs, terrorist politics, and pretty much everything related and not related to those three things. I had forced myself through this dense work (it's a thousand pages and has probably 300 or more intensely detailed footnotes) in the summer of 2005. For the most part, I enjoyed it. But I did not get everything out of it that I should have. And listening to Steve recount the amusing happenings at the Enfield Tennis Academy sparked my interest to give it a re-read, too.

Unfortunately, Infinite Jest is not a great substitute for a seven volume epic story. I read the first hundred pages, and for the most part really enjoyed them, but I had to put it aside. I think I will still re-read it, but it will probably happen in chunks.

Instead I looked to our rather large bookshelf and started pulling things off that I acquired long ago and never read. In quick succession I read two Pulitzer Prize winning novels. Although the major prizes have their problems (I think Sinclair Lewis's explanation for why he refused the Pulitzer is a nice place to start. Although, it should be noted that five years later he did accept the Nobel Prize for Literature), I generally find that they are good reads. Indeed, many of my favorite books and authors are Pulitzer Prize winners (Kavalier and Clay, Middlesex, Jhumpa Lahiri, Willa Cather, and others).

So I sat down to two rather interesting tales of the decline of American values and icons--Phillip Roth's American Pastoral and Richard Russo's Empire Falls. Both have a strong postmodern undercurrent that leaves one grasping for some kind of stability in life. The former does so with a more serious tone of regret and violence, and the latter is a little more flippant and carefree. I am happy I read them both, but I preferred Empire Falls.

This morning, though, I found myself bookless. Well, not completely, there are others on the shelf that I have not read, but none of them called out to me. So I spun on down to the library and returned with Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist. It was a finalist for the Booker Prize last year, and I am yet to be disappointed by a Booker. It is a short, powerful book set in Lahore, Pakistan in which the Pakistani narrator recounts his life in the United States to an American traveler. The entire book takes place over the course of one sitting, and I think it is best to read the story over the course of one sitting as well. Hamid manages to convey many details through his sparse prose, and the narrator is a fascinating mix between a wealthy Pakistani interested in American cliches and a brilliant, highly educated financial analyst. I highly recommend the story.

While I have no intention of being a book reviewer, I will try to write about my readings with a little more frequency. And if I don't wait so long before I discuss them, I might be able to say more interesting things about each one. But as always, no promises from this blogger.