Yoga Me

NYC Century Bike Tour 2011

Last Sunday I participated in the 22nd annual NYC Century Bike Tour. It is a 100 mile tour of New York City, including Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Manhattan. The one hundred milers (the group myself and my two friends Jon [middle] and Sean [right] were in) started at 6.30 am Sunday morning. Regarding that last statement and the description of this event that follows, I should probably remind you this is all for fun, I was not forced to do this, even paid a small fee to do so.

Hopped up on coffee and cutting through the (super) brisk darkness towards the start line at Prospect Park (2 blocks from my apartment and my home base for all things cycling and outdoor leisure), the day  seemed ripe for some long distance riding. The goal was a touch over my previous longest 90 miles completed across Long Island earlier this summer - so it seemed ‘feasible-challenging’. Upon arrival at the start, we quickly realized our visual preparedness ranked in the lowest of categories. These people were ready to ride, in all ways. Sweet spandex, jerseys, sleek helmets and cycling shoes as far as the eye could see. We got our race bibs and affixed them to our woefully heavy cotton thermals and sweatshirts and mounted up.

Once on the road, things fell into place pretty easily. I was quite surprised at the level of camaraderie amongst the group, and in fact, it seemed many of the hundreds of riders knew each other, asking if the other was ‘going next Saturday’ - ‘Ah, no, but next next Saturday, yes’. Riders ahead would signal when a turn was coming up, or point down to a pothole. This was a pleasant surprise, as riding in NYC is typically a You VS Everyone Ever situation. They even broke the law together. Alright, I run red lights occasionally, especially those above dual one-way intersections, but this was something else. They rode through with such entitled energy it took a while to even understand my distaste for it. All in all, riding with so many people was disconcerting, containing more bravado than I’m comfortable with.

I won’t bore any casual readers with an in-depth breakdown of my bicycle issues, but I can say it was falling apart often and with great success. Until, that is, a mechanic at one of the rest stops not only fixed my loose bottom bracket, overly tight cups and spindle, but also learned me how many other errors I’d committed when putting this bicycle together. As humbly as I think I’ve ever taken criticism, I tried to soak up everything this Man of Bicycles was telling me. You see, I rode the newest addition to my stable, an Italian touring bike with a racing spirit. Sorry, it’s just, I really like this bicycle, and it’s about the nicest thing I could have ever hoped for or afforded; so the Man of Bicycles was speaking of things I really wanted to hear.

About 15 miles in, my ankle started acting funny. Writing this now, 3 days later, it is still quite swollen and a stiffly stifferson. There was something about how I was riding and the shoes/pedals I was riding with that created a perfect storm of anti-ankledness. My pals faired pretty well, Jon suffering from a similar ankle-hurt and Sean getting understandably ragged by mile 70. There were so many excellent things to see, things I’d never have seen otherwise, despite having lived in the city for 2 years now.

TOP THREE THINGS THAT HAPPENED (by time):

1. A large black woman crossing the street yelled “Oh God, more cyclists! OH I SEE!” She was very animated and excellent.

2. We turned onto a street called Force Tube Ave. I think I was the only one to find this very excellent, because when I commented out loud ‘Yeah, a right on FORCE TUBE AVENUE’, no response was forthcoming.

3. We rode directly passed the World’s Fair grounds in Queens. The globe and whatever that decrepit mess of metal and disks on towers is, were both excellent.

The Brooklyn and Queens leg was fantastic, with much riding along the shore. As you might expect, it all turned a bit sour when we hit the Bronx. I’ve cycled up the west side and into the Bronx a few times now, and have never really had a bad time, and am always amazed by Van Cortlandt Park, but this was just plain awful. I’ll risk sounding like an awful snob by saying the roads are a touch ‘not smooth at all’. This does bring demographics into the discussion however. I’d say the average age of rider was a touch over 40. Cycling, in this capacity, is typically a middle-upper class affair; explaining all the rather pricey bicycles. I’m still not quite sure whether it’s the sport or the kind of event that accounted for the age of rider.

A long story made slightly shorter, we weaved our way through Manhattan traffic at rush hour after having bicycled 90+ miles, went over the tourist filled (I held back there, because I always refer to the Brooklyn bridge as Euro-filled, but that is a bit insensitive, as many Asians are also clogging up the bridge that would be beautiful if it weren’t for Everyone Ever being on it Always) Brooklyn Bridge, and made it into Prospect Park as the sun was doing that excellent but saddening diagonal ray thing it does in early fall. We gathered up our sweet free shirts and less sweet free waterbottles and headed home to eat copious amounts of food and talk of how much more tired we were than the other and how badly we’d feel in the morning. What ended up being 107 miles was most excellent. I’m looking forward to my 2nd annual century ride next September.

Maybe these guys are a brother-sister rock duo.

Wrestlemania 31 Icons

Made some icons for this year’s Wrestlemania. They were printed out as stickers and used on bet-sheet score cards. Pretty fun little project.

Finally put up a Birds of Brooklyn poster for myself. You can see it here with a childhood bat I reshaped and painted some fun patterns on. There is 1 MORE LEFT! of the original run of posters if you're interested in getting yourself one.

Download the AE Luxury Scorecards here.

I've recently been turned on to scoring baseball games. It involves intricate note-taking, pens and attention to detail (i.e. just the right thing for me.) I was a bit stressed though, having to use the provided scoresheet in the program. It was too small to allow for any flourishes of the pen whatsoever and did not keep track of how many hot dogs and beer I consumed or how many high-fives I gave out or got. This is why I chose to make my own.

Not to mince words - this is the Cadillac of scoresheets. Each team has two 8.5x11 sheets of luxurious score-keeping real estate. I've added in special marks too, like whether a pitcher is a lefty or righty, an icon for pitcher change (oh so important to note to keep accurate pitcher stats), and most importantly, a wonderfully large at-bat cell, with room to draw hit trajectories and cleanly label out sequences. If you don't really care about size, you can always look to the wonderful Eephus League package, but I needed a bit more room and details.

You can download the AE Luxury Scorecards here. Hope you like 'em. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions, concerns or suggestions on the set.

Season 3 Episode 10 in which a supposed NSA agent tries to keep Mulder and Scully from uncovering a dastardly alien-human hybrid experiment gone bad. This is the guy that was in the fantastic zombie film Pontypool, which I highly recommend for anyone liking radio-play style, mostly implied horror.

This is part of an ongoing project to catalogue the villains from the television series X Files. Check out the others here!

Been reading a bunch of books from the Parker series. They are excellent, no-nonsense crime books about one hard hombre. I had a little difficulty coming up with a design that worked, because he is described in one way, but reads in another. Described in the first book as:

Big and shaggy, with flat square shoulders. His hands, swinging curve-fingered at his sides, looked like they were molded of brown clay by a sculptor who thought big and liked veins. His hair was brown and dry and dead, blowing around his head like a poor toupee about to fly loose. His face was a chipped chunk of concrete, with eyes of flawed onyx. His mouth was a quick stroke, bloodless.

Throughout the books, he seems to get a bit more charming and attractive to women (maybe a bit of the Bond progression, from blank mold to a model man's man). I went with a more grizzled look, huge hands and an overall brutish appearance. Characters often call him the meanest man they've ever met, but he's just brutally principled and a fun character to read because of it.

Season 3 Episode 2 in which long-time bad guy, the (Cigarette) Smoking Man, comes to the forefront of evilness. He has to bargain and bluff some other bad dudes and the good guys too and creates some pretty stressful situations for all. 

This is part of an ongoing project to catalogue the villains from the television series X Files. Check out the others here!

Recently had several conversations with folks about the history and current state of the Bond franchise. I'm a pretty huge fan of the series as a whole, but could be a whole lot happier about the current choices being made about the (historically) suave and cunning spy in the suit.

Made some invites for my, well, social club. Our next event is home beer-brewing with my buddy Mike and I hosting and teaching! Mike will be doing most of the teaching but I will be providing color commentary and possible doodles if explanations get a bit too heady...