johan's Journal

I had a great visit with my Aunt and Uncle in Vermont (and New Hampshite) 28 Jul - 2 Aug. Flew in and out of Manchester, NH, and rented a car -- just couldn't find a more reasonable (time balanced against money) way to get from Manchester to around Dartmouth. On the way up, i'm pretty sure Ralph Nader was on my Austin -> BWI flight. I don't think many guys like that fly Southwest, so gotta give him props there. The weather was awesome -- lows around 56F, highs around 84F. It rained a bit, but nothing too heavy. The people were friendly, the microbrews and local cheese were yummy, and the little i saw of countryside was gorgeous. I hear the winters can be a bit chilly, though (lows as low as -10F) and real estate is not cheap. Some pictures. Ooo and the Manchester airport has free WiFI!

Haven't been on the skateboard at all for the past week, and only for commuting a little the week before that. Morning of the 13th, skating the Mabel Davis bowl with longboarders C & E, i had to take a big step down the side of the pool (because staying on the board would have been Bad) and did something unpleasant to my right leg. Back of knee, top of calf... can't really figure out what it was. Of course i kept skating for another hour or so. Then i went and skated at Patterson for another hour or two. It hurt everytime i turned, though. Next day, i was limping... could not walk normally. :) But it mostly got better quickly. Tuesday, i could walk normally, though stairs were painful. It improved a bit more, but still really hurt to skate, so i decided i better take some time off. Life without skating now makes me grumpy(ier). I'm off to Vermont next week to visit my Aunt aunt and Uncle. Hopefully it'll all be better by the time i return.

defective yeti: Does The Griptape Come in Cherry Red

Had some yummy Migas at Star Seeds about 05:15 (was the only customer there), and headed down to Mabel Davis about 06:00. There were a couple of gals skating long boards in the bowl. Asian guy i saw a week or two ago showed up, and skated around the park and then in the bowl after the gals took off. After he left i skated in the bowl for awhile. Eventually went over front side into the wall and split my lower lip open. I skated some more, other people started showing up, so i went over to the miniramp at Patterson around 07:30. Traffic sucked already, so i took surface streets. Had a good time on the miniramp. Backside 180 turns are still pretty crappy. Stepped off at one point and the board smashed into the inside of my right leg, just above the high top. (Maybe it hit the high top and rode up.) Leg is now scratched, bruised, and slightly swollen. I'm either in much better shape, or as Trent suggested, i'm learning which muscles to use -- i'm not really muscle sore and i skated for at least as long.

Hehehe i'm starting to sound like Mr. Pither from The Cycling Tour Monty Python episode. He's the character (played by Michael Palin) who's touring around on his bike. He invariably wrecks, and then annoys complete strangers by going into great detail about how the food he was carrying was damaged (or not).

So after about three weeks of skating, i've:

• cracked rib
• opened what feels like a 2" gash on the back of my head
• fallen on my left butt cheek so hard i thought i'd permanently damaged my spine
• so exhausted my hip flexors that i cannot cross my legs without picking them up with my hands
• so worn out my lower back that i'm walking around like a stooped over grandpa

It's great. :)

The first two i did at the ditch near my house. The last three i did at Mabel Davis. I went there Sunday evening and just watched. There are some very good skaters there -- they make it look easy. I went back when it'd be less crowded, about 12 hours later, ~06:30 Monday.

Another skate venue will open at Patterson park. Looks more like a half pipe rather than the bowl at Mabel.

So i was figuring this is my non-conscious brain's (cheaper than buying a red convertible) way of dealing with the "turning 40" (perhaps midlife) crisis. Ironically, it may turn out to actually be productive (especially in contrast with a convertible) in that i now feel much older (or, arguably, "my age"), at least physically. I'm in OK shape for someone my age, but i am not in the same shape as i was at 17 when i was skating a half-pipe. And its unlikely i'll ever have those reflexes again. But if i keep skating, i'll get to exercise all those muscles that bicycling does not, and maybe actually end up in better shape than otherwise. And by comparison to bicycling, skateboarding is far less efficient, so more calories burned! :)

Skating is also restoring some powers of concentration that had atrophied over the years. I can't skate (without falling on my head) if i'm letting thoughts about work or blondes* or whatever randomly pop into my mind. I just have to focus on what i'm doing and let all of that drop away. It's very meditative, in a sort of insane way. I think i've internalized the act of cycling so much that i think about other things while i do it, especially how not to get hit by cars. There's a very logical, cranial component to cycling, in dealing with the cars. When i'm skating in the ditch or park, i need to let my "animal" brain take over and deal with the balance, timing, and reflex issues, and that means ignoring the "rational" brain's chatter.

Pain, or fear of pain, turns out to really help me focus in this way.

*How i cracked the rib.

I went over to Tekgnar today and got a new board. I think the long shots of skating in Paranoid Park got me thinking about getting a new board.

Prices haven't changed much. This one was about $190, and i think the old one was about $150. I got about 24 years out of the old one -- that's like $7 a year or something. (Though i guess i only skated about 8 years on it.... still, that's like $19/year...) Hell, with inflation, the boards are probably cheaper now.

What's cool is i might be able to skate to work.

It's sort of a retro setup -- all stuff i could have bought in 1985:

• Powell Peralta Ripper deck
• Independent 169 trucks
• White Rat-Bones 97a wheels

Long boards seem a lot more popular now, and have new tech... the decks are a bamboo-carbon-fiberglass-epoxy sandwich. I like the look of this Loaded Dervish.

Large hail and high (70 mph) winds last night, around midnight, here in Central Austin. (Reports of funnel clouds a bit more North, around Marble Falls about 21:00.) Lots of very big parts of trees down. Broken car and house windows from hail and tree limbs.I got lucky -- screens on my W-SW facing windows probably kept them from being broken by the hail, and i parked my car under a branch. (Luckily the branch didn't fall, and it seems to have shielded the car from the hail.)

About 1am, me and my neighbors were clearing the tree limbs out of the road. I gave a couple of flashlights to my neighbors across the street who were without power. I never lost power, but cable Internet service went almost right away, and only came back about 09:00. I had a small crown of a hackberry come down in the backyard, but i don't have any big trees left in my yard after last year's ice storm, so there wasn't really anything to get blown over.

I'm starting a new blog category for bad drivers. Seems like i see a "fresh" automobile accident every 2-3 days, and pretty much daily, i see a driver do something dangerously illegal. So i might as well take pictures. This first one is the South-bound lanes of N. Lamar, just South of 29th St., about 19:30 14 May 2008.

(Sorry, just the camera phone... i need to get a decent but pocket-sized point and click digital.)

I was at The Movie Store and i took some pictures.

Just ran across this quote as i was packing books for the impending move:

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose — and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us" but he will say to you "be silent; I see it, if you dont."

The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as i understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.

Representative Abraham Lincoln, letter to William H. Herndon, February 15, 1848 — The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 1, pp 451-42 (1953). (I found it in Respectfully Quoted A Dictionary of Quotations Dorset Press, 1992, edited by Suzy Platt.