jforbess.org

Did I do anything today besides karaoke? Mailed a few letters. Talked
to Mom.

Death doing karaoke is awesome. He chose a wide variety of songs,
including a very lonesome cowboy song. He really excelled at “London
Calling”. It’s in his range, it’s got a driving beat, etc.

Me, I flailed all over the place, and really only did alright on
“Don’t Tell Mama” and “I Think We’re Alone Now”. I disappointed the
crowd by singing “Baby Got Hack” (off of Death’s Treo pointed to
babygothack.org) instead of “Baby Got Back”. It might be time to write
“Baby Got Calves”, an ode to bikers everywhere.

Tanker Truck Accident Destroys Connector Ramps to MacArthur Maze in Oakland (4/29/07 1:16 p.m.)

On Sunday, April 29th, there is a severe traffic alert for the
MacArthur Maze in Oakland following a tanker truck fire and
explosion. The westbound I-80 connector to southbound I-880 has been
destroyed and will be closed indefinitely. Motorists are advised to
use the following Caltrans approved detour route: W-80 to E-580 to
W-980 to S-880.

The eastbound I-80 to eastbound I-580 connector ramp also has been
destroyed and will also be closed indefinitely.

Riding on Death’s motorcycle was great. I used Dave’s suspenders to
attempt to hold up Death’s old riding pants. Mostly hopeless. I felt
like an eight year old in hand-me-down snowgear. It still hurts my
back to ride for more than a few minutes between traffic light breaks.
I think it’s because I have to reach so low to grab around him, because
the second seat is so high.

Made Death sing a duet of “Careless Whisper” in Karaoke Revolution to
relive our Vietnam trip. We managed to break 10000 points, so we
didn’t actually suck, we just came really close.

Brunch. Ah, brunch with Death. It’s like a tradition now. He wears a
Hawaiian shirt, and has to go back for his sunglasses because the
sunlight hurts his eyes. We agree that it’s worth waiting for the
patio. Cole St is full of strollers and dogs.

We bought a lot of booze at BevMo! The ! is part of the store’s name.

We drank a lot of booze. Death ran a travelogue. I had to bite my
tongue to stop stealing his punchlines, but I finally managed
it. Ladybug, Quinzee, Lifto, Jofish, Christy and Uboat all showed
up. I wore my Hmong outfit, my Cham sarong, my ao dai and my
robe. I wore Death’s waistcoat at one point, and he taught me to tie a
single Windsor. I need a vest. Julia and I can look for them at
thrift stores.

Biker double standards drive me bonkers, even as I argue them
myself. The biggest faux pas of Critical Mass is arguing that “We’re
not getting in the way of traffic - we ARE traffic!” while actually
being a parade running through red lights cycle upon cycle.

Also, I got yelled at for littering by some bikers. In a nice way. A
fluorescent pink paper with IMPEACH BUSH / CHENEY had gotten caught in
my wheel, and I had nowhere to put it, so I tossed it like confetti.

Critical Mass is as I expected: a parade of bicyclists high on their ability to take
over the street for an hour. Some enjoying the camaraderie, some enjoying
pissing off cars, some enjoying a beer. Me, I don’t like mobs enough to really
enjoy it.

Entertaining reactions:

Place - Person - Reaction

Embarcadero - 25 year old white management consultants, blue shirts,
khakis, trying to get people to give him five. “My job is too boring.”

? - asian men in black suits in Wells Fargo watching the bikers pass.

Market - tiny black boy, maybe 3? looking so excited trying to high
five bikers. I tried, but couldn’t reach.

SOMA(?) - black woman “Take it over!” (Share the road, take the lane)
SOMA - black woman “Y’all look stupid!”

Castro - white young hipster in silver SUV “How many of you own cars?”

Haight - everyone, residents and bikers, standing around chatting

I borrowed The Cheese Monkeys from Anand last night. I’d been wanting to read it since Jim had interviewed the author for Flak.

A story about a kid at State University who is thrust into a graphic design class taught by a jaded professional written by a professional graphic designer. The story flows, and the lessons are entertaining.

I was struck by the ‘limits are possibilities’ lesson. It’s time for me to focus. It will help me accomplish something worthwhile.

Tim’s kombucha is tasty. Like slightly fermented apple cider, but made with nothing but tea, sugar, and friendly bacteria. Thanks yeast!

I stopped to get my bike derailleur looked at on the way to
Death’s. The guy at SF Cyclery made the internal hub switch much
better. Then I dropped my bike outside Death’s. It’s unclear how much
that hurt my bicycle.

Today I ran over a squirrel on the 46 mile bike ride over hills.

Christy said I was her hero. But I did’t make sure it was dead, and
bring it back to her, so I had room for improvement.

The route can be seen at http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=886441

I’m heading to SF from April 18 to May 3.

I’m heading to Boston May 3 through May 10.

I’m heading to Madison May 10 through May 17, with a side trip to Milwaukee.

I return to Boston at that point, but not to stay for long. I’m not sure exactly what my plans are. I am looking for a job in renewable energy, probably wind, solar or wave technology, but I’m pretty unfocused right now. Let me know if you have any leads.

One last day of tourism in the Pacific. Mauna Kea. Wow.

I’ve dreamed of Mauna Kea for a long time, having an awful lot of
friends who are in astrophysics, not to mention having taken and TA’d
some observational astronomy classes at MIT. I’d heard people sigh
over having to go to Hawaii and spend three weeks up on the
mountain. I always cursed them for not knowing a good thing when they
had it.

The Saddle Road from sea level to 6000 ft was curvy, but not a road
you’d think rental car agreements would ban. Apparently some people
have problems with the concept of engine braking. The Mauna Kea road
got steep fast. Two of N’Djamena’s friends came along for the tour,
and some time ago they had biked from sea level to 6000 ft one day,
camped, and biked up the rest of the mountain the next day, neither
one quite making it to the top. One probably stopped around 12000 ft,
and the other around 12500 ft. Riding in the car up those switchbacks
I found it amazing they’d gotten that far. It meant they’d biked over
a badly washboarded, sandy, steep stretch of raod, and then
kept going up inclines that made N’Djamena use his 4WD, all with a
third to half as much oxygen as they’d had the day before.

We stopped at the visitor center at 10000 ft to acclimate. Sadly,
there were no Mauna Kea shot glasses to add to my collection of space
shot glasses. (I have two different NASA kinds.) We took a little hike
out to see the silversword, one of the native plants almost totally
destroyed by the grazing cattle. It’s beautiful in the sunlight, but
doesn’t come out in photographs.

Then we ground up the killer road to the top. We took the scenic route
through the telescopes, N’Djamena pointing out the various scopes and
their purposes along the way. Apparently the Japanese have the biggest
mirror on the mountain. They finalized their design just after Gemini,
the telescope N’Djamena works for, did, and decided to make theirs
just a few inches bigger than Gemini.

We didn’t have enough time to climb the true summit, sadly. Instead,
we got to tour N’Djamena’s telescope. They tilted the mirror over just
for us to see. There was almost no wind at the summit, so they opened
up the side doors for a beautiful view. The dome rotating so the view
changed didn’t really help our vertigo. All of us were feeling the
altitude. It was strongest when we stepped inside out of the fresh air.

It’s amazing how industrial the telescope is. Everything is huge. The
mirror weighs 30 tons.

We stepped outside to watch the sunset. Amazing. We were lucky to have
a bunch of cirrus clouds reflecting amazing apricot, gold,
bronze. Poor astronomers. Good sunsets mean bad seeing.

Then we stepped back inside for a hot drink (sadly no traditional hot
chocolate), a chat with the operator and astronmers, and then back on
the road down. It was wonderful how dark it was when we stepped
outside. No glaring mercury lights to ruin your night vision.

We stopped at the visitor center to take off our coats and stare up at
the stars. Saw a few satellites. Saw the zodiacal cloud of asteroid
dust around Venus. N’Djamena explained it, and said it was only
visible without light pollution, because it usually is swamped by it.

An awesome last day of touring the Pacific. Really terrific.

What I read before heading out:

Statement as of 3:56 AM HST on April 16, 2007

… Wind Advisory in effect from 9 am this morning to 8 PM HST
this evening…

Locally strong trades of 20 to 30 mph… with localized gusts to
45 mph… are expected today. The winds will be strongest in
exposed coastal locations and over higher terrain.

Winds this strong can make driving difficult… especially for
high profile vehicles. Use extra caution.

—————————————————————–

And it was pouring when I woke up around 6am. Showers predicted until
mid-morning for Hilo, but the radar was down for maintenance, so I
couldn’t see what that means for the coast I’m biking along. Gah.

But the wind wasn’t nearly as bad as the past two days. Thank god.

I did get a flat tire on my trailer, though. While it was raining. I
had no spare tube or tire, but the patch seemed to hold just
fine. Setting the bead on the tire was a pain, though. I mulled over
the benefits and drawbacks of getting solid tires (weight? vibration?)
over the tube situation.

The highway was a little annoying, mostly from the one lane sections
caused by construction. The one automatic traffic light section didn’t
really work so well for me on a bicycle. I had left all the cars going
my direction go ahead so that I wouldn’t be holding them back, but
then started on a yellow light, and didn’t make it to the far side
before their light turned green. The first car, a small Honda squeezed
past me, but the next truck just waited. The trucks behind it all
started to pull out to see if they could go, and then
waited. Reasonably civilized, all told.

I thought of getting on sections of the old Mamalahoa highway, but
none of them were explicitly marked, and all of the likely roads
involved a small uphill to start, so I just stayed on the main
road.

I stopped for lunch in Honomu, at a cafe recommended by my
guidebook. I was planning to bike another two miles up the road to see
the Akaka Falls, though I was dragging a bit. I ended up chatting with
a man after lunch who turned out to be the owner of the cafe, and he
offered to drive me up to see the falls, to save me time and effort. I
accepted, having given up most concerns about what I thought
constituted cheating on my bike trip.

I’m glad I went; the falls were beautiful. I’m glad I got a ride,
because I spent half an hour wandering around, and it would have taken
me longer to bike, and I saved my extra time for the good botanical
gardens along the scenic drive. Expensive, at $15, but worth it. I
only spent an hour there, because they were closing up shop, and that
was about the minimum you could spend without feeling like you’d
missed something. I could have sat and soaked in the beauty of the
plants and the ocean for much longer, but I had decided it was a
better bet to see them for an hour while it was sunny that day, rather
than see what weather the next day would bring (pouring rain!).

The scenic drive was beautiful as well, though possibly better in the
other direction. When I returned to the main highway, I thought that I
counted the right number of streets on the map to get to Chad’s house,
but I ended up getting lost and ended up at Honoli’i Beach, watching
the surfers. They were really good. Better than the surfers at Bondi,
I thought, though perhaps the waves were smaller, so they could work
them more. Even just watching them is a joyful event.

I found Chad’s street, and started up it. I was at about 100 ft. He
lives at about 1500 ft. I knew that it was possible he or his wife
Tara would pass me and offer a ride, which I knew I would take. There
was a very steep hill directly after a one lane bridge that I really
didn’t want to have to pull myself up.

Luckily, Tara passed me with the pickup truck and asked if I wanted a
ride. Woo. No ceremonial biking up the driveway for me.

We celebrated with a growler of Mehana beer, their pale ale. It was
good, flavorful without being crazy hoppy. Then we went out for sushi
where I got the famed ahi poke, and a bunch of other special rolls.
The service was ridiculously slow, but the food was good.