Tis the Season

Why yes, it is mountain biking season! It only took me three miles of trail to become very muddy, sweaty, sunburned and just a tiny bit bloody. Happy Spring, ya'll!

Ouch

Okay, this is it for a while. My right arm -- that would be my mousing arm and the one attached to my yuiopghjklbnm fingers -- is hurting. I've got internet elbow and carpal-tunnel-graded-too-many-papers-itis. Since there are still more papers to be graded and it pains me more than the joints and tendons to not write comments on them, I've got to scale back the 'puter time. I've give my Scrabble games to E (watch out!) and set my Facebook status to something that begs to not be changed for two more days...

I do have a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking 8 laying around. I may try to get that up and running... and then I can dictate comments for my students and yammer out all the blog posts running around in my brain. Then I can save more precious right arm for other amusing pursuits :)

Bike with Bike Ypsi Once Again

Spring is springing and it is time to ride, people! Come out for the Bike Ypsi Spring Ride and Festival 2009 on May 3. Medium and long rides start at 10:00am, a neighborhood ramble (self-guided) goes from 10:30 until 1:00pm, and then its hot- and not-dogs, booths, bike polo, and there is some talk of games. Cool people go to the Corner after for a beer. It was amazing last year (see those happy faces????) with 120+ people. And there is a new run of BY t-shirts!



Also, as we did last year, Bike Ypsi is organizing Bike to Work Fridays for the month of May. Here is the deal...

May is bike to work month. Meet up with local Ypsi-to-Ann Arbor commuters every Friday in May for a leisurely ride to work. We ride rain or shine.

On May 1, 8, 22, and 29, we will meet at 8:00am at Bombadill's coffee shop (217 W Michigan Ave) for the ride in to AA (leaving by 8:15am).

On May 15, there is a special Bike to Work rally in at the AA Farmers' Market and we will meet at Bombadill's at 7:15 and leave by 7:30am in order to attend. All riders are encouraged to wear their Bike Ypsi t-shirts on this day (these would be the t-shirts you can buy at the spring ride on May 3)! There will be food and give-aways at the rally.

Return rides will meet every Friday at 5:15pm at AA Farmers' Market in Kerry Town to ride back to Ypsi.

Bombadill's offers free coffee to all helmet-bearing cyclists before our Friday rides! Help yourself from the pot at the front of the store.

Routes are chosen based on where people need to go, but we generally have a group that rides out Packard and one that rides out through Gallup Park.

We will end our rides at the Tap Rom Annex (W. Michigan Ave) for happy hour specials. They haven't told us what the deal will be yet, but they were delighted to be asked and mentioned cooking up some "freebies" for us, so I'm excited!

All riders are encouraged to wear helmets for these rides!


See the happy riders in these pics from last year's Bike to Work rides? Yes, we even rode home in the rain one evening... but it was a warm rain and there was beer at the end and we had much fun being silly and wet. Give it a whirl if you are heading to AA some Friday.

Sleep Weirdness

Oof, I was tired last night. Actually, it started in the afternoon and carried through to evening. I went to bed by 10:30, armed with earplugs to keep out the world. I slept relatively well, though my ears objected to the plugs by morning, and I overslept. Whenever I oversleep, I tend to have bizarro dreams that I can remember well (maybe they are no less bizarre than my regular dreams and the difference is really just that I remember more of the details).

Here was this morning's dream:

I had a baby with me and was wandering around a giant frou-frou supermarket -- like Plum Market only Ikea-sized. In three of the departments, I was having a flirty good time with the staff (one person in each section). One of them suggested I crash a party they were supplying/catering. For some reason, the baby and I -- on bike -- went. (note: only in dream world could I transport a baby and a conventional non-trailer stroller on my black bike, but I did).

The party was also in some enormous space, vaguely circular in its layout and near water. It was night now, actually growing quite late... the baby drifted off to sleep in the stroller and I proceeded at various points in the evening to drift in an out of flirty interactions with each of the three staff people -- one of whom morphed into my gay yoga instructor, who was acting in decidedly un-gay ways toward me (which I was quite fine with). How I managed to have fairly intimate conversations (along with lovely drinks and spectacular food) with each of these people is lost on me now... I just kept wandering off from one and winding up with another. At one point two (or was it all of them?) encountered me together -- and there was some tension, but I just introduced all and pretended not to notice, secure in the fact that I had no official plans with any of them so I felt pretty free to do what I wanted without apologies.

By this time (in dream land) it was very late, and I headed out to my bike with yoga dude who morphed into another guy along the way (I think this was because my waking brain reminded my sleeping brain that in real life yoga dude doesn't have a bike). At the rack, as I am pondering the difficulty of getting the baby and stroller home on my bike, I realize that while my old black bike bag is there, my back rack has been stolen. The flirty good fun of the dream is gone and I wake up... because dealing with a stolen rack and non-trailered baby/stroller was more than I wanted to deal with, I think:)

Nice Praise

At the end of today's executive committee meeting, one of the other committee members said to me:

"Nice job today. I think the mark of a good colleague is one who can disagree while maintaining civility."

Yep, I was the minority opinion on one of our decisions today. While I may have lost on the issue, I earned me some respect. And I'll spend that capital on another day.