another curve ball in the election

maybe since i'm from minnesota, and everybody here was all atwitter about the possibility of pawlenty being the vice presidential candidate, i didn't see this one coming. mccain chose a woman (gov. sarah palin of alaska) for a running mate. this clinches it - no matter who wins, history will be made. it's either our first minority president or the first woman veep.

i give a nod to mccain for his choice. she's cute. :) it's also a smart choice for a couple other reasons (in my relatively ignorant opinion). he may get a few voters who really wanted to see a woman in the white house, and aren't happy with obama's running mate. and if he wants to play the american oil card, he's positioned himself well.

i bought circus peanuts (aka sugar bombs with artificial coloring) in honor of this historic day.

they were fresh. nummy.

i'm still not voting for you, though.

friendship (postulate #1)

a good friend will bail you out of jail.
a true friend will be sitting next to you, saying, "boy, that was fun!"

in the big world of web 2.0, there are tons of social networking sites around, such as linkedin, facebook and twitter. i have friends on these sites, but am a rather passive friender. if you find me and want to be my friend, i'm very happy to be your friend. otherwise, i'll just see you in real life.

i have this theory that everything obeys the laws of physics. i'm sure you've heard me blather on about this before, and now i'm going to apply the laws of physics to friendship. to start, let's postulate that each person has a set amount of time and energy available to them on any given day.

next, let's acknowledge that there are different levels of friendship, and that each level of friendship requires a different level of energy.

friend type: acquaintance
characteristics: talk to them at the club; have a beer with them after a ride
energy requirement: minimal (quantified as 1)

ft: actual friend
c: we have gone out to dinn'r; i have invited you to my home
er: moderate (2)

ft: good friend
c: i've driven your drunk ass home; i've picked you up when you were in a bind; i probably owe you money, or you owe money, but neither of us keeps track (except for razzing purposes)
er: high (3)

ft: true friend
c: you've slept in my bed, perhaps because we had sex, or perhaps because i was too drunk to drive your drunk ass home
er: higher (4)

for simplicity, let's make this analysis time-independent. time has all sorts of significant effects on friendship, and good experimental design is based on isolating a single variable. if you're not the scientific type, just trust me on this.

let's say that you have 8 units of time/energy in a day. with minimal math, you can see that if you only had acquaintances, you'd have time for 8 of them. if you had only true friends, you'd have time for 2 of them. from this, we can conclude the following:

friendship postulate #1: the number of friends one can have is inversely proportional to the quality of the friendships.

another year wiser

i had a birthday this week. i have successfully completed ** years on planet earth. good job me.

i have an affable yet unconcerned attitude toward birthdays. my mommy no longer bakes me a cake*, so there isn't much reason to get too worked up. nonetheless, i do have one unfailing tradition. i take the day off of work. my reasoning is, if i don't have to work on jesus' birthday, i don't have to work on mine.

birthdays are a personal inventory time for me. sort of like my own new year's day. i look back at the big ticket items for the past year: i went somewhere new (seattle); participated in some bonspiels, bike races, racquetball tournaments and golf tournaments; volunteered at women venture; did some home improvements; worked enough to stay financially solvent; took a residential wiring class; completed my 2007 resolution to eat at an alphabet of new restaurants; missed my deadline to get barnithebus.com up and running.

all in all, a good year.

and of course, i also look forward. for the coming year, i'd like to: go somewhere new; compete; volunteer; finish the upstairs remodeling; go live with barni the bus; maintain my weight over the winter months; go to a seminar; take a class; have friends over for dinner once a month; get puppies.

nothing left to do but make it so.

*this seemed to stop around the time where i got too old to blow out all my candles anymore. :-\
**42

no turning back

the remodeling project has begun. you may follow along on the web if you like.

meaning from abstraction

do you ever stop to consider all of the assumptions we have in the world that allow us to function? just the other day, i wrote down my name. based on that simple action, i got a bunch of tangible, useful items in return.

think about this for a bit. i flexed the muscles in my hand - while holding a pen and touching it to paper - and somebody gave me some valuable stuff. how abstract is that?

the other day i gave blood. again, i had to move my hand in a prescribed manner, to give my solemn oath that i have not indulged in any bad behavior which may have tainted the vital fluids somebody else may need.

what is so special about a signature? you are merely writing your name. anybody could do it, even a monkey. yet the power of a signature is staggering. scribbling out the letters to my name (in proper order, of course) got me the house i live in. scrawling out someone else's name could send me to jail.

very abstract, indeed.

because i'm feeling impish

impish. now there's a word that's not used often enough anymore. that and davenport. when i grew up, the big thing in the living room was called a davenport. now, it's called a couch. folks here also eat breakfast, lunch and dinner; i grew up eating breakfast, dinner and supper. funny how three hours on the freeway makes a significant cultural difference.

but anyway, on to my impishness.

yankee doodle went to town
a-riding on a pony
stuck a feather in his hat
and called it macaroni
yankee doodle, keep it up
yankee doodle dandy
mind the music and the step
and with the girls be handy

there.

enjoy singing that little ditty for the rest of the day.

weekend report: uncle chuck's 70th

the family gathering for this summer centered around chuck's 70th birthday party. as usual, it was good to see everyone, especially the east coasters who seem to have forgotten where the midwest is. most of the family was present, representing factions from duluth, the twin cities, seattle, zion, rochester, and new york mills. unfortunately, we were missing the wichita crew (hope you had a good anniversary).

for everyone's enjoyment, i took a few photos. and of course, have video of the commemorative acrobatics.

i think that was the last of the weekend reports for a while. now i can get back to ranting about stuff.

weekend report: 24 hours of 9 mile

saturday was the national 24 hour championships at nine mile in wausau, wisconsin. it was hot, dusty, and a completely good time. as a bonus, the participating wednesday mtb girls all made it to the podium.

we (me, dana, janet and nicole, in that order) got a respectable 2nd in the 12 hour women's team event. good job us! we came home with some awesome mugs and swag.

i was happy to be the starter; i like running, even if it's in bike shoes. i got off to a good start, only to play the waiting game at the entrance to the first bit of single track. the first couple sections of singletrack were slow, but eventually everyone got spread out and riding was good. there were only a couple of places where i had to get off the bike and walk, so i was pleased with my riding. riding first in the order meant that i was done first; we each did 2 laps, going through the rotation twice. i was really glad to be the first one finished, but then kind of felt like a weenie because i was putting my bike away when some people were racing for 16 more hours. but it gave me time to concentrate on "rehydrating" and cheering, so it was all good.

valerie got an awesome 2nd place finish in the 12 hour women's solo event. to do that, she rode about 100 miles. wow. good job, valerie!

lynn, husband josh, carrie and husband barry totally annihilated the competition in the 24 hour coed open division. they did four more laps than the 2nd place team (note: these are 14+ mile laps). four. wow. if you had blogs, i'd e-stalk you! ;)

as has become custom, i randomly adopted someone to be my pony (think horse racing) and made a concerted effort to cheer for her.* this time it was #2, a women's solo championship racer whose camp was across the way from us. "you finished another lap already? way to go!" "woo hoo! nice job 2!" "you're heading out for another lap?!" "good job!" "go #2!" from the race results, i see i was cheering on stacey la presta, who got 5th place. good job, stacey!

we also provided extra amounts of cheering** for #130, the solo freak man racer who was next to us. race results show that he is adam beien.*** we owe you a cake, i guess; we'll have one for you next year. good job, adam!

artifacts from the race include: sore muscles, exhaustion, dehydration, sore throat (from all the dust and cheering), sunburned ears, black snot and good memories. i can't wait to do it again.


*she actually thanked us on sunday for the cheering, and said it really helped.
**not to be confused with heckling ("we baked you a cake. but we ate it.")
***adam thanked us for the support, too.

weekend report: hope golf classic

if you hadn't noticed, the weather in the twin cities on the first friday of august is always nice, and 2008 proved no exception. thank you, mother nature! we appreciate your support for golf for the cure.

this year, one of our typical foursome was not able to golf, as she is battling cancer. her daughter stepped in and did a great job of helping us celebrate the day. terry, everyone missed having you out there with us!

i took a few photos of the beautiful afternoon. enjoy.