Archive for the 'cycling' Category
So I’m currently just sitting here, waiting for a backup of the norcalwp.org WordPress MU to finish downloading, so that I can scrap it all and upgrade to 2.7.1, and then–perhaps–try out the BuddyPress plugin suite, turning the site from a simple blog host to a social network a la Ning but without the (intentional) lack of control provided by Ning. I’m thinking that might be a cool thing to have around when the Summer Institute starts up in a little more than a month.
As I’m waiting, I’m pondering a few different things. It’s dumping rain outside (an oddity in May in Chico), and I’m wondering how my friend Alicia‘s first century bike ride went yesterday. We had a break in the storm for most of the day here, but I’m not sure if the same was true in Redding, where the ride happened. I’m marveling that she can pedal for a hundred miles. I’ve been spending more time on the road with my new 36″-wheeled unicycle, but I think around 14 miles is the longest I’ve gone on it so far. That hardly compares to a 100 mile endeavor. My riding buddy, Gary, and I are mapping out some endurance rides in the Team Bigfoot series–mostly 8- and 12-hour races over the summer and into the fall. I’d like to see some improvement in my performance at these kinds of events. I seem to always lose it at around the 5-hour mark; I want to get some better results. Maybe if I continue to lose weight–I’m down below the 200 lb mark (from around 225), and would like to hit 185 ideally–I’ll see some improvement. I need to keep hill riding, too, just to get my legs into better shape.
On the professional front, I received notice on Friday that, as of next school year, I’ll be promoted to Professor. For those not attuned to the ranks of academe, those hired in tenure-track jobs at colleges begin as Assistant Professors (and spend, usually, 6 years at that rank), then are reviewed for tenure and promotion to Associate Professor. After a period as Associate (generally another 5 or 6 years, depending on the institution), another review occurs, and promotion to Professor ensues (if one is successful). Particularly strong candidates–those who publish a ton, or who secure lots of big grants–get on a fast track. That wasn’t me. I was 6 years to tenure, and another 5 now to reaching full prof status. It’s a little odd to feel like, in a way, I’m done with all the little games that have to be played to help find success and surety in the academic world. It’s not that I feel like I no longer have to work hard–far from it, in fact–but I do feel that, to a greater degree, I can make decisions about where to direct my efforts without trying to simultaneously predict how those efforts will be interpreted by others at my university. That’s a pretty nice feeling. And it’s also not like I had to make strenuous efforts to make my colleagues see and/or value the work I’ve been doing, either. It’s cheesy, yes, but it feels a little like a Sally Field moment (“You like me! You really like me!” 
). And when you’re an educator, you take as many of those moments as you can find.
And speaking of educators … and the Summer Institute (okay, that was a couple paragraphs ago, but hey, you’re paying attention, and that’s a good thing, right?) … the NCWP held the orientation for the 2009 Summer Institute this past Saturday. Taking a cue from the awesome advice given by Tracy Baisden of the MUWP, and Bruce Penniman of the WMWP, my colleague Amanda and I structured the day as a kind of Summer-Institute-in-a-nutshell, so that the new participants could get a sense of what they’ll be in for when the summer rolls around. I thought it was a great day, but that’s the kind of thing that happens when you get interesting, committed teachers together. Thank Jim Gray for figuring that out 35 years ago.
Okay, so the download of my backup is all done, so I can proceed to mess with stuff. It may be that I’ll lose this entire post when I do the upgrade dance, but that’s all right. Worse things could happen.
May 04 2009 | cycling and Daily life and Muni and NCWP and Teaching and Work | 1 Comment »
So after seeing how cool my friend Gary’s new Garmin Forerunner 305 is for tracking training (I hesitate to add the term “athletic” to the pathetic excuse for training that I do), I ordered one for myself. I’ve only had the chance to use it on two muni rides so far (meant to go for a run this morning, but forgot about an appointment I had with my insurance agent). You wear the thing like a rather unwieldy wristwatch (although it’s not heavy by any means), and it tracks your distance, speed, and heart-rate. What’s really cool, though, is that when you click it into its little charging station, it uploads your data to your PC, where it shows you all sorts of cool stuff. It will make a little map of where you went, and chart all sorts of info–like your speed and heart-rate, or elevation, or about anything else you choose.
But here’s what I’ve noticed about going for a ride with that puppy: I work harder. I don’t want to see my lazy ass resting when I look at the training results. But I also noticed that I spend too much time with my heart rate at around 180 or higher, which I suspect is probably too high for a man of my advanced age and weight. But maybe that’s just the glory of muni, as opposed to other kinds of exercise. I’ll try to run tomorrow and see what the results look like. I’m still working on figuring out the easiest way to upload to
MotionBased, a website hosted by Garmin, that allows one to share results online. I’ll start tweeting those once I get them up and running.
January 21 2009 | cycling | No Comments »
Yesterday, I tweeted about being saddle sore from 44 minutes straight on a 5+ mile unicycle ride.
My friend and fellow cyclist, Alicia, who regularly rides for a gazillion miles and spends hours in the saddle on her road bike, sent me this on twitter:
Are you seriously complaining about 45 minutes of saddle time? SERIOUSLY? I scoff at you.
To her and others sharing that opinion I say, scoff if you must. But here’s a shocker:
unicycle saddle ≠ bicycle saddle
Just look at the following images, and you’ll see:
The typical comparison would be “apples to oranges,” but more apt here would be diapers to thongs.
And the thing is, those 45 minutes in the uni saddle don’t feel like 45 minutes on a bike. Unless you’re riding the bike that whole time with your hands on your hips to make sure that all your weight is on your sit bones and it’s nearly impossible to stand up and pedal.
When riding off road, the little adjustments you make all the time to avoid rocks or roots, to step down drops, or to climb up a hill–taken together, these mean that you spend very little consecutive time with your full weight on the saddle. Plus, if you ride like me, you fall off regularly, and that gives you lots of little breaks from the saddle. So this on the road, staying on for (relatively) long periods of time, is new to me.
But I suppose the truth is that, in the end, I’m just too much of a softy. Sorry for the pun. Well, not really.
January 08 2009 | cycling | 6 Comments »
I’ve had a rough couple of weeks. September never used to be so stressful, did it? But there’s a fast-flowing river of crap that I’ve been trying to canoe my way up, and I guess it’s inevitable that such a trip would include some messiness. So on my plate:
- Writing Project budgets and reports. These are so flippin’ complicated for someone with good financial sense that they leave me–with only a passing understanding–bewildered. I’m lucky that Rachael and Michele are keeping a pretty good handle on it, but I’m still the bottom-line responsible one, so it worries me that we may not dot-and-cross those essentials.
- English department work. I’ve had to make trips to Sacramento and Redding on business for the English department. While neither was a task that was unpleasant in any way, they just sucked up some hours that I wish I could have put to better use. Windshield time, I guess it’s called. I think if I had a long commute, I’d go crazy. Anyway, the Redding trip was to observe and write a report on a colleague teaching a course at our satellite campus, and it was great to watch his class–wonderful teacher. So that’s off my task list. But the Sacramento trip was for technical assistance in getting our English Ed program approved, and the work behind that is still pending–loads of revisions to make to our document, which to start with was over 1,000 pages. Urgh.
- Promotion portfolio. I found out about 4 weeks ago that I’m eligible for promotion to full professor this year. I don’t know why, but I had it in my head that it was next year–I was thinking a six-year cycle, just like the normal term for assistant-to-associate term. But it’s five years. Okay. So I hadn’t done any of the things I was planning to do this year to prepare for that promotion review, like get nice letters from other academics from across the country with whom I’ve worked over the past 11 years, or testimonials from the great leaders I work with in the Writing Project, or anything like that. But I do have 3 new book chapters/articles just this past year, plus more than a dozen conference presentations and over $300,000 in grant money since tenure. I’ve decided to (try to) take the zen approach my friend and colleague Thia recommended (from when she was in the same position): ask for the review, and if you get it, be happy. If you don’t, you’re no worse off than you were before, and you simply ask to be reviewed again the next year. Repeat until promoted! Anyway, all the materials for my portfolio are due on Monday, and then it’s just a waiting game of review by department, chair, college, dean, and provost, with results coming in mid-May. I’ll just be happy once it’s off my plate.
- Observations. I had to be observed while teaching twice in a row, by colleagues. This is really kind of silly that I get worked up about it, as I’ve never received any bad reviews (not even lukewarm), but I had trouble sleeping the night before each of the observations. I think in part it’s because both of the people observing me are people I respect deeply and know are amazing teachers themselves, so I wanted to make sure all went well. I haven’t received the write-ups yet, so don’t know what they thought of the classes they saw. Oh, yeah. I’d never before been observed teaching this particular class format (it’s a hybrid face-to-face/online class, with 100 students), and it’s not always easy to manage a big group. I bet that was part of the anxiety.
- NCWP reunion retreat. Thursday and Friday of next week the NCWP’s Summer Institute participants will re-unite at a resort up in Lake Almanor. This is always a wonderful event, both relaxing and stimulating (does that make it oxymoronic?), but prepping for it is stressful. I generally do the shopping and food preparation duties, and while I enjoy it, it’s still something more to think about and keep track of that adds to the confusion.
- Grading. Keeping up with 2 (approx.) 1-page assignments per week from 100 students is tough. I’ve been trying to comment on almost each one, as well, and it’s pretty engaging to do, but takes a flippin’ long time.
- Whiskeytown 9 to 5. I just paid my registration fee for this endurance mountain bike event, which my riding buddy Gary and I are riding solo on our unicycles again this year. Last year, despite the 8 hour nature of the event, we discovered we had only four and a half hours of endurance in us before we both started getting some serious leg cramps. We completed two laps (about 20 miles, with 1600′ climbing per lap) last year, and are shooting for three laps this year. I’m worried about it, though, in that I feel like I’m in worse shape than I was last year (or at least have had less practice, I’m pretty certain), while Gary’s lost something like 40 pounds and ran a “casual” 16 miles on Sunday. I know he’s approaching the race with a “we’ll just go out and have fun” attitude, and won’t care about our times or anything, but I don’t want to be an anchor in our effort.
So that’s it. I’m really hopeful that by mid-October I’ll feel sorted out. But I won’t hold my breath for it. There’s always more work to come!
September 30 2008 | cycling and NCWP and Work | 2 Comments »
There was a nasty confrontation between riders in Seattle’s Critical Mass on Friday and a motorist late for dinner, resulting in several people going to the hospital, a couple of wrecked bikes, smashed car windows, slashed car tires, and lots of U-lock-sized dents in a car.
Critical Mass is supposed to be about making the driving public aware of bicycles’ place on the roads–their tagline is something like “We don’t BLOCK traffic. We ARE traffic.”
I’m not so convinced, though. As someone who rides for recreation and as a part-time commuter, I care about how cars perceive me when I’m on the road. I don’t want to be associated with groups who violate the law and anger drivers–drivers who may want to make a little swerve in my direction (or my kids’ direction–they ride their bikes to school, and have had incidents with aggressive drivers) just because they think I’m the same as the riders who blocked downtown streets on the last Critical Mass ride.
I firmly believe that bikes need to be better accepted as part of the traffic patterns–whether in Seattle, or here in Chico–but I don’t see that skirting traffic laws is the way to make that happen.
July 27 2008 | cycling | 1 Comment »
