PSFEI

Well after three days on the job, I feel like I'm starting to get a pretty good handle on things. Still need to set my alarm correctly, however. This morning I awoke from a relatively trippy dream to what seemed to me as a lot of light in my bedroom. Well I was right, because it was 8:15, which was late because I wanted to be at work at 8. Well... I got there before 8:30 after neglecting to comb my hair (nothing new) skipping breakfast (new) and the application of deodorant (so not new).

So I get to my desk, and pull up my stuff.... login, check my email... check cyclingnews (ya know, the important shit) and then my boss walks in. He's like, "Erik I'm sorry, I know you said you had some questions- I couldn't get down here earlier". I just sort of look at him and say, "yeah... because I've been here since 8 huh?", and he just says, "yeah sorry, so what questions do you have?" Rocking. I left at 4:30, ya know, as if I had been there at 8.

Work is pretty tedious, and what's worse, it seems pretty unnecessary. I'll elaborate later when you have recharged your desire to read my dribble.

The Bicycle Shop

Hey Bicycle Shop:

Thanks for letting this kid EP his heart's desires using a 6 month no interest credit card. Six months is looking like it's going to go realllll fast. Bicycling is an expensive habit.

Sincerely,
Indebted Engineering Student

Work.

Well I start my co-op rotation tomorrow with Penn State Facilities Engineering Institute. Not exactly sure what to expect. I know I'll be working with a group that maintains PennDOT buildings. Basically they create and update databases that calculate which buildings are in the most need of money to repair them... or better said how to spend the money and get the most out of it as far as useful improvments go. Evidently this all centers on calculating the exisiting value of the building, and summing up all the repairs needed. I know you sound jealous already.

Should find out more tomorrow, but I know the "core" hours I need to be there are 9-2. I'm really hoping that I can consistently do something along the 8-2 schedule, thus pulling about 30 hours, but still allowing plenty of time to ride after work. That way I won't be a slave to the weekends in order to finish off base miles and start adding intensity into the longer rides.

Polar Heart Rate Monitor Noise....

Anyone else notice that their polar HRM strap makes noise when it's picking up your pulse? Put it on in a quiet place. You don't even need the watch/computer part to be near you, or even on. Just put it on and listen. It produces a very quiet, high pitched beep, everytime your heart beats.

Anyone know how these things work? I guess it senses the electrical signal from your heart firing somehow, but anyone know the details of the sensors used? Why would it produce noise? My roomates have noticed similar sounds from computers when the wheel magnet goes by the sensor, so if those things are related its not HRM specific, but something in the electronics that both of those components would have. There's got to be some EE's out here... whats up??

Base Miles

The last few weeks have seen me pile on some base miles. The last few days have seen around 3-3:30 hours a day, a pretty decent load for me. I'd like to be able to be more consistent from week to week, but I'm feeling real strong already, so I think things are going real well. Started to mix in some hills while at home over break, and have been sprinkling them into rides here in Happy Valley... keeping it pretty easy until February, when I plan to start kicking my butt up them.

For the time being though, it's a great feeling to ride for 3 hours at a heartrate of right around 140. It feels like I'm juuuust about to be tired, allll the time. But when I get back I don't feel very fatigued- always ready to ride the next day. Sounds like good base mile pace to me... hopefully I'm not cooking too early. I keep picturing the start at the Rutgers Prologue.

Also made two purchases today:

Easton Tempest II Carbon Wheels. If you don't have an erection right now over these straight pull spoke, carbon rimmed, self adjusting hubbed wheels, it means you're either a girl (still not a great excuse) or you don't race bikes.




Polar CS200 w/ Cadence. Looking forward to throwing this bad boy on my new CAAD9 that will be equipped soon enough with DuraAce 10spd shifters. Yum

What's up with people?

So I was out riding yesterday, back in Happy Valley. Went through Bellefonte... and this car is going past me in the opposite direction. It slows down a bit, and this old woman, maybe in her 70s, flips me off! What the heck is up with that? It's not like I just blew a stop sign, or cut anyone off... I did those things eariler and she didn't see them. I can't flip her off back... she's old! You can't take my grandma's house... she too old! Hurry up I want to watch the hockey game later.

Other blogs don't have shit on my blog.

If you think my blog is rambling and ultimately a little unsatisfying in the humor column, check this blog out: We Have a Better Blog.

It'll be sure to make mine look funny.

Home for the holidays

Well I've been home for over a week, and I finally finished off everything from this past semester. Needed to turn in a homework and submit my portion of a group paper... all done now though.

This spring I'll still be in State College, working at the Facilities Institute, doing database type work in support of their maintenance of PennDot buildings across the state. They basically catalog absolutely every detail about a building, and come up with a ratio of what its worth to what it would cost to fix it. Basically rating what building needs funding first. Real fun right? Not really, but it'll keep me paid, in State College, and still a full time student... which is important because I'll have health insurance, and can race my bike for the blue and white one more time.

Speaking of the bike... I've been puttinig in some more hours in the saddle. anywhere from 10-15 hours a week the past few weeks. I'll be putting in a few monster days tomorrow, taking a little tour of the Hudson Valley region... if the weather holds.

Also been picking up some other things from home... playing the piano and reading more. Hopefully I'll be doing more of both this next semester. Once I figure out a cheap way to record stuff I'll throw some tunes up here too.

Happy Holidays.

Posted...Keep Out... No Problem!

I've noticed that while riding around Central Pa, a lot of shoddy run down homes in poor areas have lots of posted signs. KEEP OUT! Don't come knocking at my trailer park door, son! Most of these places resemble the picture above... who would want to go down there? It looks like the apocalypse might be down that private road- I'm not ready to be judged yet. Most of these signs are relatively unneeded.

Even better are the handmade signs along people's driveways that say "No Turning Around". Most of these you can't actually see until you've pulled into the driveway already. then what... I'm just supposed to pull out the same way!? "Shit, I didn't see that sign, I'll have to keep on going down the wrong way until I find a more friendly driveway owner". Lots of wear and tear on your driveway there buddy...

End of the semester

Well I'm busy as hell with tons of projects and homework and stuff at the end of the semester, but make sure you don't move to Cherry Tree, Pa. I mean... I might expect that from Wyoming or something, can you be serious?

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.