Dennis has no friends at George Mason.

That's what Facebook tells me, anyway.


...Oh, wait! Now I do. In your face, Facebook!

...uh, nice to see you, too...

Carrie has been with us about a week now, and has gotten used to us enough that when we reappear from being away for any length of time, we are greeted with a greyhound "smile."

We were warned early on that Carrie is a "smiler" and were also warned that a greyhound smile can be a little—'disconcerting.'

'...Disconcerting?!?'

...Did you see "Alien"?

A full greyhound smile is like the Alien's smile, but with less dripping and fewer sets of teeth.

Hey! I've got one!

Carrie had a huge outburst of scheissenfreude this morning!

And when she comes in from the cold, she shakes so hard to settle her coat that—no fooling—her front legs fly off the ground.

She's a hoot.

Isn't it interesting...

...that the I.D.iots always frame the discussion in terms of "Intelligent Design" versus "Evolution," not "Intelligent Design" versus "Natural Selection?"

Would that be because evolution is a little bit mysterious and difficult to actually envision, while "Natural Selection," which is really what Darwin was espousing (the idea of evolution had been kicked around forever—no one had really nailed down the actual mechanism before) is plain to see everywhere in the world around us?

Why do rational people keep letting the yahoos and hicks set the terms? Take back the argument, folks, turn the tables—the real argument is between natural selection and "...pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

And for goodness sakes—why are we even dignifying their position by arguing it? Let them dry up and blow away.

Indisputable proof of natural selection:

The voters of Dover, Pennsylvania, exercised their right of natural selection and voted out their entire evolutionarily unfit, poorly adapted School Board. In a brillliant display of Intelligent Design, they voted in a full slate of science-minded candidates, perhaps in response to being dubbed the "Dayton, Tennessee" of Pennsylvania.

The good news for the ousted school board members is that they can probably find work in Kansas, which at the exact same time was renewing its status as laughingstock of not just the midwest or the U.S., but pretty much the whole world by insisting the their students be "taught the controversy" in the name of "free speech" and "intellectual freedom."

You win some, you lose some. But you know--I feel a mysterious hand at work here, directing us towards...oh nevermind.

I just don't know whether to laugh or cry.

p.s.: Way to go, Virginia. Once again, I'm proud of my Old Dominion. And don't call it a state, buddy--it's a commonwealth.

Here's another update

On September 5th, the second word of the day was "schadenfreude," German for, literally "harm-joy," or less literally, 'taking a perverse pleasure in the misfortunes of others.'

However, we have a recent report of an instructor (who will remain unnamed) allegedly using the term "scheissenfreude," which in French would be "Joie de Merde."

I am wracking my brain just trying to come up with a context in which you could use such a phrase. But rest assured, as soon as I find one, I'll be dazzling my listening audience with my witty multilingualism.

...Aucune merde, mi amigos!

An Analogy update from August

Now that I know a lot more about Greyhounds than I thought was humanly possibly, I rescind my analogy of Beast to a Greyhound, though I will stick with my comparison of the F650 to a Jack Russell terrier. A this point, the best "bike" = "dog" analogy I can make using a greyhound and a BMW is "Campaigner" = "Carrie."

Campaigner sits for extended periods without ever moving.

Carrie, likewise.

Campaigner has a long, successful professional career behind it.

Carrie, likewise.

Campaigner can be provoked into speeds in excess of 40 MPH on occasion.

Carrie, likewise. (So we have been told.)

Campaigner is beautiful in a classic, elegant, understated way.

Carrie, likewise.

So there you have it. The perfect Bike=Dog metaphor.

Carrie on!

Shin Kicker - Rory Gallagher

Well, it's a shin-kick morning
Gotta kickstart the day
Wind up my machine and I'll be on my way.
Well, a burning fever
Woke me up at dawn
I didn't have no choice,
I had to carry on.
Well, my engine's overheating
And I'm running out of gas
I only got the two speeds and it's slow and fast.
Well, I got to find a town that's got some action
Got to find a place stays open late, right away.
C.C. Mama, Motorcycle queen
I'm gonna catch up with you with my lightning wheels.
It's cold black coffee
Eggs and grease
Stop in at the truckstop, I don't want to sleep.
Well, it's a shin-kick morning
I'm gonna turn up the heat
I'm racing all the truckers and I got them beat

Vincent Black Lightning 1952 - Richard Thompson

(click on title to hear Richard Thompson perform this song)

Oh says Red Molly to James "That's a fine motorbike.
A girl could feel special on any such like"
Says James to Red Molly "My hat's off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952.
And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favourite colour scheme"
And he pulled her on behind and down to Boxhill they did ride

Oh says James to Red Molly "Here's a ring for your right hand
But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man.
For I've fought with the law since I was seventeen,
I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine.
Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22
And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you.
And if fate should break my stride
Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride"

"Come down, come down, Red Molly" called Sergeant McRae
"For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery.
Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside.
Oh come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside"
When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left
He was running out of road, he was running out of breath
But he smiled to see her cry
He said "I'll give you my Vincent to ride"

Says James "In my opinion, there's nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl.
Now Nortons and Indians and Greeves and Harleys won't do,
Ah, they don't have a soul like a Vincent 52"
Oh he reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys
Said "I've got no further use for these.
I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome,
Swooping down from heaven to carry me home"
And he gave her one last kiss and died
And he gave her his Vincent to ride.

Some of the ways motorcycles are better than cars

1. No cupholders (...except on Airheads)
2. No CD player
3. No cellphone
4. You can't put your feet on the engine block in a car.
5. You can't gas up your car from the driver's seat.
6. You can't steer your car with your butt.

Our new baby

Our new baby. This is not schaved Schroeder with the top of his head taken off. This is Carrie, soon to be the newest member of our household. A retired professional athlete, Carrie likes sitting in front of the fire, sitting on the couch, taking long moonlit strolls on the beach, and can do zero-to-sixty in less time than it takes to order a drink at Starbucks.

That's why I want to be a journalist:

Headline from the Washington Post, Sunday October 23, 2005:

"Spanish Newspaper to Fold"

Ah, October

I love October. There's no doubt summer has relinquished it's grip, fall is here for real and winter is racing up behind us.

I left class last night while there was still some twilight in the sky. It was in the forties, and it was starting to sprinkle earnestly—not enough rain to make me put on my raingear, but a steady, modest, regular sprinkling. In short order it coated both the inside and outside of my windshield, visor and glasses with fine droplets (a total of six beaded-up surfaces) making the world in front of me something of an educated guess.

The best thing you can do in a situation like that is simply reduce the number of surfaces that catch rain. So off come the glasses, stuffed hurriedly in the first available pocket at the next red light. But the problem is that still leaves four surfaces—the inside and outside of the windshield and the visor. Well, the windshield is cut so low that I don't really see through it much anyway. If I'm lucky, I can use some of the high-speed air spilling over its upper edge to sweep rain off the visor.

But unfortunately, I need to see straight ahead clearly and that means the visor must be almost completely open.

So here I am on the interstate in the cold rainy twilight, tiny little ice-cold bullets smacking me in the eyes again and again. No matter how hard I try, I can't both see the road ahead and keep the rain out of my eyes.

Once the droplets sting you, they roll around the back of your eyesocket behind your eyeball and drip down the course of your optic nerve until the very backmost part of your skull (you know, where your occipital lobes are stuck) is filled up with 40-degree water.

Fortunately, you are going fast; momentum and inertia and the wind-blast keeps the cold water pooled in the back of your skull. If it didn't, or if you were to slow down too quickly without first shaking your head to fling the cold water out your ears, you might drown when it sloshed down around your brainstem and shocked you into unconciousness.

Despite this needle-y torture, it is a pleasure to be on the road. The cold doesn't bother me; I am dressed for it. The dampness doesn't bother me—I'm not made of sugar and I know I don't have far to go. It's exhilarating and makes me look forward to the coming months.

That'll look good on the resume...

Newly tattooed Phil is working this weekend—parking bikes and providing security for Biketoberfest in D.B. So what are you gonna do if things get hairy—rationalize them into submission? Whip out Occam's razor and slice off their fallacy? Obfuscate them with your explanation of the significance of the first 47 digits of pi?

Too cool. But to do it properly, he needs to shave his head, get wraparound shades, and shave Schroeder, too.

Schroeder would make a bad-ass junkyard dog, unless the object of having a junkyard dog would be to protect the junkyard...

Curmudgeon

If I am fortunate enough to make it to old man-hood, and I am in the dwindling days of my stay on this mortal coil, I'll be damned if I'm gonna waste one @#$%^&*#$%" MINUTE of my time arguing with a checkout clerk about whether something is on sale or not.

If that ever happens, shoot me—on the spot. I'll carry a little card in my wallet, authorizing it.

Go Figure!

Well, I have to consider it simply a colossal failure of imagination on my part; maybe I can attribute it to my slowly advancing years or something.

In any case, I would never in my wildest imaginings have though that when my two children decided (on a wild, un-parentally-supervised Daytona Beach weekend, what with them being adults and all) to get tattooed, that I would not only end up approving of the idea, but be impressed by the results and prouder than ever of those two knuckleheads.

This apparently started out a long time ago as Madeline's idea. And what do you think a graduate of one of Virginia's most prestigious "Governor's Schools," the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, would have tattooed on her?

For his part, Philip crafted the design using the family's ancient Remington Manual typewriter. He worked up the original, which was then enlarged to create the template for the tattooist.

So now, in a band encircling the thickest part of Madeline's left forearm, and the thickest part of Philip's right bicep, is tattooed...

...the first forty-seven digits of pi.

Not the name of a girlfriend or boyfriend, or a fighting slogan, or a meaningless symbol, or a symbol misappropriated from another culture without regard to its meaning. A universal constant, a mathematical expression—in a circle, no less. An expression of constancy, of unity, of closure, of connection. Shared by a brother and sister. Now come on, what could make a parent happier?

And supposedly, if you carry pi out to forty-seven digits, you can calculate the diameter of a circle the size of the known universe with a margin of error less than the width of a single proton. How do we know this? We know this because somebody told us. We're too busy to check it out, but it sounds really, really, impressive.

In addition, both kids donated blood immediately prior to getting inked (since now they won't be allowed to donate for 12 months) and Phil even got some of the guys at school to donate for the first time. Madeline, for her part, has lined up something like two dozen potential first-time donors at school to cover for her downtime.

When they get the time, they're both going to go back and have the remaining digits added.

And all four of us are taking a good, hard look at phi. Hmmm...

Hierarchy (ca. 1992)

The first defense is judgment.
When judgment fails, depend on skill.
When skill fails, depend on instinct.
When instinct fails, depend on the grace of others.
When others fail, depend on preparation.
When preparation fails, depend on chance.
Chance defies control.
Failure of judgment is the road to disaster.

Still got it

You will be relieved to know that after a hiatus of over two-and-a-half years, I started throwing boomerangs again and within my first six throws of the big birds, I got one successful return to my feet, a double throw with both returning to within ten feet and one bonafide catch—which I can still feel across the fingers of my left hand.

I had also forgotten exactly how invisible boomerangs can be at twilight when you are watching them against the western sky. That gave me one ‘squealing-like-a-little-girl’ moment when I completely lost sight of both incoming 'rangs. At a time like that, you don't really know what to cover up, so running in circles seems like a good idea. Fortunately for me, they both stalled out and dropped a safe distance away.

But I had forgotten how much fun the goddam things are. I'm frustrated because today is a beautiful fall day, but way too windy for boomerangs. Maybe at twilight...

The Twin Mountain

It's been two months since Madeline and I did our traditional ride to mark the end of summer and the beginning of the school year. What was once an event held every four years is now a quadrennial tradition. We really need to do it annually, but have consistently been "overtaken by events" at that key transition.

Well, of course, one of the events we were overtaken by was our memory of just how fricking uncomfortable the last ride was. Campaigner has a saddle like two cinder blocks covered with roll roofing, and with two long-legged folks on board, there's about one option for where to sit. Strike that; there's about one-and-a-half options but they're divided between the two of you, so that's really three quarters of an option per person.

By the time we reached our apogee, we were both miserable and the most salient memory we both have of the return is coaxing Campaigner to hyperlegal speeds and watching the mileposts tick past as we headed home. I don't think I was ever so happy to get off a bike...okay, there was another time...but that'll be another post.

One of the main attractions for blasting out to the mountains that time of year is grabbing the last of the local peaches before Labor Day draws down the curtain on peach season. We stopped at one of the ancient dusty stands lining the old road, so left behind by the superslab and by people's changing tastes, a lonesome avatar of another era when traveling meant something.

The stand is scabbed together from salvaged lumber and tarpaper, string of bare-bulb droplights casting shadows across the wooden baskets of produce, yellowjackets inspecting and sampling the wares with insouciant impugnity. Prices are tacked up on misspelled signs written on paper bags with magic marker. Full names are rarely used; instead, you can buy cukes and lopes, zukes and maters. We bought a sack of softball-sized peaches: sweet, soft, fragrant and covered in downy fuzz. We each ate one on the spot, drenching ourselves in sticky golden juice, then packed the rest in Campaigner's tankbag.

Of course, a hundred miles rattling around on top of a motorcycle's gas tank is not the best place for a sack of peaches. By the time we unfolded our aching selves at home, the peaches had turned to mush, a soggy, sticky mess melded with fuzz and the pulp of the paper bag, plastered all over the inside of the tankbag. We picked through the ruins and hosed the balance out.

This year's ride was similar in many respects: early blue-plate special breakfast at our favorite diner; chilly to start out but warming up rapidly as the day goes on. But we rode right past the fruit stand we had frequented without realizing it was closed and gone forever. We doubled back just to make sure, and realized how many places that we took for granted were gone, not just in the last four years but in the last few months.

I should also mention this time we were on Beast instead of Campaigner, which makes a whole world of difference. More power, better handling, but mainly a whole lot more comfortable and...more fun. We crossed the Blue Ridge in a serpentine fury, and rolled through the broad valley amid a herd of S2000 enthusiasts. It seemed like we all spoke the same language for a few miles, though in different dialects; at least we were all having similar kinds of fun on the open divided highway with its hundred-mile vistas.

But the highway has limited appeal to accompany its limited access. We slowed abruptly, and leaned into the sharp turn taking us off the beaten path. The backroad northward leaves the upland valley and descends to follow the course of the river for a few miles; then it rises again to skirt the east flank of the mountain, before cutting west, rising gently at first then bolting in a straight line to the ridge with nothing but rocks on the left and air on the right.

This stretch of road, with its unimpeded sightline dead ahead and limited chance of the unexpected inspires me to stand up on the pegs, stretch my legs and open the throttle as wide as I can bear (at least when I don't have a passenger on board). Winding my way up the mountain with the wind surrounding me and flowing over me, I imagine I am as close to flying as I will ever get. The view eastward is spectacular, but the ride itself is the payoff.

We stop briefly at the summit to take in the view, then descend west to the next valley, racing steeply downward and noting the other road deep in the woods directly below us—parallel to the road we are on, but oddly dropping away in the opposite direction. It takes a moment to realize it is our road; where we are and where we are going connected by an unforgiving and nerve-wracking 5-mile-an-hour hairpin turn, strewn with gravel and debris from shoulder to shoulder.

We turn north again on the two-lane road that snakes through this valley. As we lose elevation, the air becomes oppressively hot and still, even as we cleave it at seventy miles an hour. We are ready for a break, and stop briefly for lemonade and conversation at the lone country store on the road. As we continue northward, the broad valley closes in until we have steep wooded hillsides rising up on both sides, and the rocky creek is directly beside the roadway. We round a bend and enter a deep shady grove of hemlocks; the hillsides beneath these trees are rock-strewn talus, with no undergrowth to speak of. It is a dramatic change from the farm fields and deciduous forests we have been riding through up to now.

The cool shade is welcoming. I park Beast on the narrow shoulder, leaving our helmets perched on either mirror. We pick our way from the roadside down the banks of the creek, so evidently scarred by flooding—detritus clinging to tree branches above our heads, ground scoured and fresh trash wedged in unlikely spots.

The creek moves with languor through the smoothed rocks; it is not the pristine crystalline waters of melting snowpack, but the clear tea-colored waters of eastern forests, stained by its passage through leaf litter. The rocks constrict its passage into a deep pool just downstream of where we stand, like a faucet into a bath. The choice is obvious.

Madeline and I both take off our heavy riding gear and pile it on the rocks. Trusting the creek, I wade barefoot over slick polished rocks, and sink into the flowing waters, a self-baptism into a momentary state of grace. The creek supports me, and begins to ever so slowly carry me towards the sea. But I am blocked by the rocky barrier at the outfall of this pool, and remain motionless in place except for the gentle rippling of the water—staring up through the interlaced hemlocks at the cloudless sky framed by the mountains.

We linger in the cool waters until warm sounds good again. Then, dripping wet, we suit up for the return trip. The dampness beneath our riding suits keeps us comfortable for the ride home, and in what seemed like no time, we are back in the world again. The return trip was enough to supplant our recollection of the previous painful sprint homeward, though in all honesty, it's always kind of nice to get out of the saddle after a couple of hundred miles.

We need to not wait four years to do this again—things change too fast. Same time next year?

The Rules of the RoadRunner

In case you didn't know, just like Noh and Kabuki, Perry Mason and Law & Order, Roadrunner cartoons have their own rules:

1. The coyote never catches the road runner;

2. The road runner never actively interferes with the coyote's plans;

3. The road runner must stick to the road;

4. Whenever possible, gravity is the coyote's biggest enemy.

From Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist by Chuck Jones (1994).

(By way of The Straight Dope)