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I’m like an owl on a mole tracking the bike’s movement to Anchorage. I have never been to Troutdale, Oregon. If anybody inlooking lives in Troutdale, Oregon, perhaps you landed here by googling “Troutdale”, would you do me a favor and stop by the FedEx facility and snap a reassuring picture of my bike, and send me an e-mail? It’ll be the one dressed down in doubly reinforced cardboard.

Which reminds me, I need to establish a name for “The Bike”. I’m flirting with Otis (pronounced: Oh-tee) given the model name of my Serotta is Ottrott (Oh-troh). Ottrott being the name of a region in France, puzzling given Serotta is Italian inspired. Anyway, around our house we tend to anthropomorphize a lot. Examples: The Espresso machine isn’t “The Espresso Machine”, no,  he’s Geppetto. The oldest Siberian Larch in the yard is Laura. Our Outback is Roo. Etc.

Not like it’s a lovely day for a debut ride. Overcast and sprinkly right now. By the weekend, though, lookout — supposed to be 65 ‘n sunny! I know what you’re thinking, but recall this is 61.2 degrees north.

A perfectly fine mountain bike ride into the Chugach mountains this morning with our friends Mark, Jasper, Gypsy (aka “Little Gyp”), Aiofe, and shutter shy Lucy. No wind. No moose. No bears. One eagle. Mosquitoes galore. A shout out to the U.S. Army for inventing DEET.

Let me tell you, these dogs are athletes.

Last night, a date night with the Happy Wife at Maxines.

Where Happy Wife enjoyed what we both considered was the entree of the night, Surf ‘n Turf: Asparagus skewered prime rib sirloin, topped with spicy Alaskan crab salad, wasabi aioli, soy maple glaze and chili oil. Yum.

Oh.    My.    God.

17.04 pounds (sans pedals) in earth’s gravity.

Arriving next week!

Hope you think so too.

Hat tip: Instapundit

Cool.

And creepy, in an omen-like sort of way, that Venus’ passing coincided with Ray Bradbury’s passing.

Source: NASA Solar Dynamic Observatory.

Hat tip: Improved Clinch

Enter “mosquito microwave” as a search string, click a few top links, and you’ll see the current wisdom as to how mosquitoes avoid death by microwave. Before peeking my thought was, as small as a mosquito is, surely there must be a few molecules of water inside her, and when vibrated by microwave energy they would eventually boil, and the rapidly expanding gas/vapor would pop our summer pest wide open. Isn’t that how corn pops?

Evidently the standing waves in a conventional microwave exhibit some stochastic behavior. That is, the waves are not uniformly active on every molecule of water at every cubic angstrom of space at every instant in time. Explaining why food is unevenly heated, even with a revolving plate.

And why the mosquito that had found its way into our microwave yesterday evening when I put the beans and rice in for thirty seconds, evaded death. It was merely a stochastic luck of the draw. When I opened the door she flew out and flipped me the finger, like I had swatted her hard against my arm, which as every Alaskan knows is insufficient to kill an Alaskan mosquito. It only pisses them off.

I see, in New York it is no longer considered defamation to call somebody “gay,” thus it is not slander, and thus it is no longer illegal.

Fine.

But just try sneaking a Big Gulp past the Niggling Nanny State. Just try.

Source

Across the bay.

Bigger Please

Kayaks depart.

I was thinking about Rufus (aka Tan Man) yesterday during my walk with Lucy. The Happy Wife and I have spent, and continue to spend, considerable time in the company of dogs. I wondered how much I’d spent with Rufus, in terms of the miles we had walked together, including the times he ran/walked and I rode my mountain bike, during the 11.5 years he was with us. I made some conservative estimates.

First, I rounded his age down to 11 years, times 365 days/yr is roughly 4000 days. For a variety of reasons we didn’t walk with Rufus every one of those 4000 days, for instance when we were away on vacation or out of town for work. So again, very conservatively, let’s say 25% of those days we didn’t walk (or me ride) together — 4000 x 0.75 = 3000 days. Then, say the mean distance of the walks was 2 miles. This is harder to estimate, but it seems pretty conservative, because the trails we walk most weekdays at Kincaid Park (near our house) in just the last three years since returning to Alaska are all two miles or longer, and the trails we often walk on the weekends are longer still. Plus, when Rufus was younger, it wasn’t uncommon for us to walk together more than once a day, and being he was a youngin then he would roam a lot, covering more distance than I did on the trail.

So, 3000 x 2 = 6000 miles. According to Google maps, this is about 7% more than the driving distance (via I-80) from Los Angeles to Atlantic City, NJ, and back.

I was surprised by the result. That’s a lot of walking together.

And I wouldn’t trade a single mile of it.

Roam if you want to
Roam around the world
Roam if you want to
Without wings, without wheels
Roam if you want to
Without anything but the love we feel

                                    — B-52s, Roam