Cellphone goodbyes...

I realized the other day that everyone seems to have their own style on the phone. I'm sure we've all done the interruption game... taking turns mistakenly interrupting the other person- ya know pretending like we're on Fox News or CNN or something.

Even more awkward than that, though, is trying to remember what kind of goodbye each person uses. Some people seem to be cool with just leaving it with "talk to ya later", and then hanging up. The odd thing is if you try and sneak a "bye" in after that, and they don't respond.... they were just in the act of hanging up right? It's not like they ignored my "bye". Or how about the:

Person 1: "goodnight"
Person 2: "talk to you later"
Person 1: "ok"
Person 2: "bye"
Person 1: thinking...what the hell, do I need to say goodbye AGAIN?

I mean... jeez how many times do you need to say, allright- this conversation is done. I'm almost to the point where I need something in my phonebook that reminds me that, hey the person I'm talking to is just a "talk to you later" person. I need not try and say goodbye after we say "talk to you later". But maybe it's just me.

PEACE.

Novel Searching.

I need some suggestions for some readin'. I don't want to read some sappy family saga drama though. Right now I'm reading about Krakatoa... volcano near Indonesia (west coast of Java) that blew to high hell in 1883. Sort of a cool read so far.
But seriously. send me some good books you've read. Fiction preferred... need some fictional stories in my life right now. Whitman, ShoJo... don't send shit about Playboy or anything with pop-up graphics.

Applications....

I finally submitted all my online applications... $400 worth. Applied to 7 schools.

1.UCI
2.UCD
3.RPI
4.VT
5.PSU
6.UDel
7.UConn

Still have to make sure all the recommendations make it there on time, and send out some transcripts and some essays which I have already written. So just a little more leg work, then I can sit back and wait for the rejection letters to pile up.

After living in State College for the last 5 years, I think I'd like to check out the urban scene for a while. Too bad I didn't factor that too much into my school choices. UCI is near LA. Sweet... LA rocks if you like smog. UCD is near SanFran. That'd probably be cooler. Other than that though... I'm looking at crappy 2nd tier cities or State College equivalents. Sucks... why can't there be any cool places in Boston, DC, San Diego? Ok there are good schools there, but MIT? Let's be serious. I don't think I could stand NYC- no place near enough to ride, and I also don't know if they have any good programs there.

On the way home for Thanksgiving I'll be stopping by Cornell, which I decided not to apply to afterall, and then RPI the next day. Can't wait for this semester to be over with.

Think I'm ready to ride outside again...

Hopefully I'm ready for an hour's ride outside.... this is the last ride I did... on the rollers. Avg power of 216W. I could easily do a ride outside and average far less than that.

Yea... the zero power in the midde was me falling off. Still can't ride with no hands on rollers. Oh well.

Sleep

The only reason I've been able to sleep this week.

Lance's new position

Lance's new position looks to be immitating Landis's TT position... all upright and shit.

PowerTap

I sort of used the PowerTap. Here is my first "ride"... 20 min jaut on the trainer which started out shitty but my knee felt better after I warmed up. Hopefully this trend will continue when I try and ride...gasp... outside tomorrow.

Serfas

usually suck, but these rock.
I'm going to buy some and then join a U2 fangroup.

Knee issues take 2

So my left knee has been bugging me since early September when I borrowed a friend's fixed gear to commute to campus a few times. I'm not sure what was going through my head, but I borrowed it because I had traded commuters with another friend so I could use his track bike to race the track. I might be the stupidest person I know. Cross season was the first victim of my stupidity, so I sold the Redline that never quite fit me right anyway. I'll get a Cannondale next year, if I'm healthy then. But my main concern is the fact that I'm supposed to start putting miles in on my road bike the 2nd week of November for the collegiate season. I'd also like to be hitting the gym now.

Well I've been doing PT for three weeks, and just had my 2nd appointment with the most incompetent sounding doctor I've ever hearrd. Got an MRI ordered this time though, hitting that tube of fun up tomorrow morning. Hopefully that will shed some light into what is going on, and I can get in to see one of the more knee specalists there and try and fix my second knee.

Seriously, if you have a fixed gear, I might break it when I see you next. No joking.

Naked Men...

I'm taking racquetball this semester. As I soon realized you get quite sweaty playing racquetball in those small stuffy courts. So after every class I hit up the locker room to change before heading out to my other two classes. First off you should not schedule normal classes right after Kines classes. Stupid mistake.

My beef starts in the locker room. Why do old men feel the need to prance around naked? Now if they didn't have a towel handy while changing, that's cool. But walking around the locker room naked with a towel hanging around your shoulders is just unacceptable. Even better are the old men who feel the need to weigh themselves while butt naked. All of these men are overweight. Is the quarter pound towel really going to break your goal for that day? I've done a little data collection and I've found that there is a one to one linear relationship between how overweight the dude is and how willing he is to walk around naked in the locker room:
I must share, though that my most traumatic naked man incident did not occur at the IM building this semester. And no it not feature Joe Whitman. A few summers ago my boss at my co-op also frequented the locker room where I showered after doing noon-time workouts on the bike. One time he happened to be there after doing a jog on his lunch break and he flagged me down and gave me some things to do that afternoon... all while butt naked in the middle of the locker room. I had a towel on. I sort of felt like I should have taken it off and just let her fly out there in the air. Am I alone on this? Towels are there for a reason.