James Pearl Thinks Blogging is Dead

Maybe a goal for next year is to ride outside at least twice? a week?

Riding inside all the time works for you, I get it, but your motivation seemed to always spike when you would ride outside also. If I am not mistaken, your last time outside was HPCX, which was obviously a shit show. Maybe try to ride outside when it is nice out?
 
Damn, I dropped you like a bad habit. Well not really. As usually happens my friends keep me in check. I too have been floating the needle quite low. It happens. Go with it. We can’t pin it all the time.

What I’ve learned after 50? This would require more time than I have. BUT. Everyday is different and I realize I have to take each day for its face value. Some days, rockstar, other days homeless guy on Bleeker St. Once my eyes close it all resets and the next minute they open it’s completely different. You are keeping your goals and that’s all you can do. One of the reasons I always admired you is your commitment. Man, these pistachios I’m eating are amazing.

So let’s plan the next great white north excursion. Ok, time to refresh my Bombay Sapphire.
 
@fidodie
The real issue is that the meetings turn into:
-Joe needs to finish upgrading Duke (4 hour effort)
-Joe needs to fix these 9 things we want different for Delaware (5 hours effort, maybe more)
-Joe needs to write-up these findings for Seattle (1 hour)
-Oh hahahahaha, we have nobody to actually fix the shit Joe found for Seattle so GUESS WHO GETS TO DO THAT?!?! (8 hours?)

All of that on 30 minutes a day. See what I'm saying?

And so on. There's nobody else to drive the bus, so in an odd irony I'm driving the bus that's running myself over. My boss and I have decided that fuck it, I will walk off the bus and it will plunge into the goddamn Atlantic Ocean for all we care. His boss agrees with that so we're good. They've had 9 months to replace me and last week we interviewed a guy who had ZERO coding experience. Zero. None. Nothing.

When we asked him a question he said he would solve it by "escalating to development" - I didn't have the heart to tell him he was development. So I just filled out the internal doc and said NFW would he be a good fit for this role.

As far as the Internal meetings go, I agree they are real work and very valuable and we had another 4 hours of them today. Guess how much work got shit on Joe's plate during those 4 hours of calls? None.

@stb222
Last time was NoHo but your point remains.

Right now I am pretty set on this training plan and with the work constraints being what they are, riding inside is precise & defined. I can do exactly what I need to do and get exactly the workout I want to get and I can do it all in a very set amount of time. Today I had very limited time so I did a brutal NYC race which got me 65 minutes of total riding, but also tied my best CP20 on Zwift and I had the highest overall power ever in a Zwift race. I got off the trainer, showered, then got done at 10:26 for my 10:30 call. Then I was jam-packed until 5:00 when I emerged from my cave with the entire family + my parents there.

I would like to be riding outside but I'm not as interested in the road right now and the trails and junk. It is now especially high on the list but once 12/14 is here & gone I hope to get back on the MTB. We've done a fair share of off-road riding and I look forward to getting back but I have run my patience out with the weather. I think I mentioned it elsewhere but I will say it again, I am also more mentally leery of the road after having read about these lane-assist/correct cars and the fact that they often don't un-correct when cyclists are on the road.

I would like to get back outside when things line up but right now, the variables are not plugging in very well. I hope things get much colder and the trails firm up soon. Once I am done needing a backup cx bike I will put that back on the trainer then I will have the road bike setup to be outside again. Currently I don't actually have a bike for pavement and taking this off the Kickr isn't quite as easy 1-2-3. I'm not pretending I will be an outdoor road warrior in January & February. But I would like to get some bigger hour outside days in the saddle next year.

I'm not going to say that you are wrong, but for the next 3 weeks and a day I'll mostly be inside. After that we'll see how it shakes out. Can I average 2 rides outside a week? Average maybe. But I'm sure you would contend that 104 outside rides in 26 weeks is not what you were thinking.

I did a Zwift race today, came in 2nd place. Had the highest ever power average for a race at 299w. This is still lower than I would like to think my race power is but this is inside. If I told you a year ago that I would be able to do an indoor race and average 299w, I would have said you were full of shit.

Julia made the swim team!

@graveyardman67 - great white north. I'm in, let's do it. I've set myself a goal to downhill ski 6 times this season. The most I've even done in a winter is 2 and if I am ever going to turn the corner from "slightly better than a paper weight on sticks" to "jesus christ he's going to hurt someone" it would be good to get out there more than 2 times. On commitment, this is the first time in ~47 years I have made any sort of January 1 structure and stuck to it. I totally get what you mean about waking up and opening the gift of yourself and some days you are happy and some days disappointed. I am learning to embrace that but at the same time if we go up north and I wake up to you walking around the cabin with nothing but a bowtie in your junk, I'm gonna back away slowly then shortly after probably remember I have to get my hair cut.

Happy Thanksgiving. Goodbye Lee Smith. Hello Mel Blount.
 
You are definitely next level numbers analysis, and no, I wasn’t thinking 104 rides outside in a year. And yes, this year has been the pits for the Mtb. You might just want to up those ski days as your outsideness.
 
Norm said:
@fidodie
The real issue is that the meetings turn into:
-Joe needs to finish upgrading Duke (4 hour effort)
-Joe needs to fix these 9 things we want different for Delaware (5 hours effort, maybe more)
-Joe needs to write-up these findings for Seattle (1 hour)
-Oh hahahahaha, we have nobody to actually fix the shit Joe found for Seattle so GUESS WHO GETS TO DO THAT?!?! (8 hours?)

All of that on 30 minutes a day. See what I'm saying?

And so on. There's nobody else to drive the bus, so in an odd irony I'm driving the bus that's running myself over. My boss and I have decided that fuck it, I will walk off the bus and it will plunge into the goddamn Atlantic Ocean for all we care. His boss agrees with that so we're good. They've had 9 months to replace me and last week we interviewed a guy who had ZERO coding experience. Zero. None. Nothing.

When we asked him a question he said he would solve it by "escalating to development" - I didn't have the heart to tell him he was development. So I just filled out the internal doc and said NFW would he be a good fit for this role.

As far as the Internal meetings go, I agree they are real work and very valuable and we had another 4 hours of them today. Guess how much work got shit on Joe's plate during those 4 hours of calls? None.

@stb222
Last time was NoHo but your point remains.

Right now I am pretty set on this training plan and with the work constraints being what they are, riding inside is precise & defined. I can do exactly what I need to do and get exactly the workout I want to get and I can do it all in a very set amount of time. Today I had very limited time so I did a brutal NYC race which got me 65 minutes of total riding, but also tied my best CP20 on Zwift and I had the highest overall power ever in a Zwift race. I got off the trainer, showered, then got done at 10:26 for my 10:30 call. Then I was jam-packed until 5:00 when I emerged from my cave with the entire family + my parents there.

I would like to be riding outside but I'm not as interested in the road right now and the trails and junk. It is now especially high on the list but once 12/14 is here & gone I hope to get back on the MTB. We've done a fair share of off-road riding and I look forward to getting back but I have run my patience out with the weather. I think I mentioned it elsewhere but I will say it again, I am also more mentally leery of the road after having read about these lane-assist/correct cars and the fact that they often don't un-correct when cyclists are on the road.

I would like to get back outside when things line up but right now, the variables are not plugging in very well. I hope things get much colder and the trails firm up soon. Once I am done needing a backup cx bike I will put that back on the trainer then I will have the road bike setup to be outside again. Currently I don't actually have a bike for pavement and taking this off the Kickr isn't quite as easy 1-2-3. I'm not pretending I will be an outdoor road warrior in January & February. But I would like to get some bigger hour outside days in the saddle next year.

I'm not going to say that you are wrong, but for the next 3 weeks and a day I'll mostly be inside. After that we'll see how it shakes out. Can I average 2 rides outside a week? Average maybe. But I'm sure you would contend that 104 outside rides in 26 weeks is not what you were thinking.

I did a Zwift race today, came in 2nd place. Had the highest ever power average for a race at 299w. This is still lower than I would like to think my race power is but this is inside. If I told you a year ago that I would be able to do an indoor race and average 299w, I would have said you were full of shit.

Julia made the swim team!

@graveyardman67 - great white north. I'm in, let's do it. I've set myself a goal to downhill ski 6 times this season. The most I've even done in a winter is 2 and if I am ever going to turn the corner from "slightly better than a paper weight on sticks" to "jesus christ he's going to hurt someone" it would be good to get out there more than 2 times. On commitment, this is the first time in ~47 years I have made any sort of January 1 structure and stuck to it. I totally get what you mean about waking up and opening the gift of yourself and some days you are happy and some days disappointed. I am learning to embrace that but at the same time if we go up north and I wake up to you walking around the cabin with nothing but a bowtie in your junk, I'm gonna back away slowly then shortly after probably remember I have to get my hair cut.

Happy Thanksgiving. Goodbye Lee Smith. Hello Mel Blount.
Click to expand...

Ah - resource constrained.
Why are you at the meetings where they are discussing CRs and defects? The case of you telling the client what they want?

I've got to find that pic of Bill wearing just a guitar.....
 
graveyardman67 said:
Damn, I dropped you like a bad habit. Well not really. As usually happens my friends keep me in check. I too have been floating the needle quite low. It happens. Go with it. We can’t pin it all the time.

What I’ve learned after 50? This would require more time than I have. BUT. Everyday is different and I realize I have to take each day for its face value. Some days, rockstar, other days homeless guy on Bleeker St. Once my eyes close it all resets and the next minute they open it’s completely different. You are keeping your goals and that’s all you can do. One of the reasons I always admired you is your commitment. Man, these pistachios I’m eating are amazing.

So let’s plan the next great white north excursion. Ok, time to refresh my Bombay Sapphire.
Click to expand...
Liked for stream of consciousness content.

And Old Guy Wisdom.
 
I had a great weekend with @Dominique as we trekked out to the Pittsburgh burgs and spent some time out there with our good friends Alex & Mark. This was a much-needed getaway from the house, which I did not necessarily realized I needed until I got it. Many thanks to @MurderBort for inviting us to his folk's place along with him & @2Julianas. This was yet another great weekend with them.

Thanksgiving day I turned +1 years old and Alex & Mark had prepared by buying a cake for me. It was Mark's nephew's birthday also. So we had both cupcakes & cake. MOAR CAKE!

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Friday we kicked off the day by heading to 1 of the espresso shops I had found. This was good, not great. To the immediate left is Alex's daughter who joined us for part of the trip.

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Headed over to the Carnegie Museum of Art where we looked at stuff. There was many stuffs.

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Took a quick tour after the museum to the Heinz Chapel then the Tower of Learning before going to The Original Hot Dog where we grabbed a quick snack. This is a really big snack, obviously.

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Hit Cure for dinner after grabbing an espresso across the street. D and I shared the cassoulet which was good, better than french fries.

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Then we went to the Monongahela Incline where Alex more or less had a panic attack on the way up. She's not in this picture because she is behind me hugging things that are firmly attached to the ground. This platform was more or less floating in air on top of a post.

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Saturday we hit the indoor bike park. Place is awesome! Really wish they had something like this here but I am sure it's impossible for any number of reasons, the biggest of which is: who wants to invest in this? It's really well-built and I can only imagine the start-up costs here. This section is where we watch. These kids have insane skills.

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Smile for camera. The pump track behind us is legit. This place definitely scratched the itch of riding a little bit. If it were close enough we would get season passes.

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Went to the Warhol Museum after the bike park and blasted it out between 3:30-5:00. We actually finished it in less than 90 minutes. I mean, it was ok but the layout left a bit to be desired. Anyway, we parked in front of Willie Stargell.

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After the museum I took one of Clemente who was my first ever favorite historical athlete-like figure. I did a report on him in grade school, and always respected everything about the guy.

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Went to a place called Spoon for dinner then back to the house to hang out before heading out this morning. Journey home was more or less uneventful which is good.

I will say it again, this weekend was FANTASTIC. I am somewhat out of steam right now so I will let the 10 pictures this site allows to carry the vibe of the trip. This is the 4th weekend getaway we have had with Alex & Mark this year and each time we enjoy them totally. As always we look forward to the next.

This coming week is the last semi-normal week before chaos starts in earnest. But these next 2 weeks are also jam-packed with meetings. The next journey is just over 2 weeks when we drive to Kentucky.

Stay tuned. Or something.
 
The closest indoor place is Penn Skate in Allentown, PA. It’s very small and really only good for BMX. Sounds like you are ready for Ray’s. We and @ChrisG get out there a few times.
 
@Norm glad you had a great weekend and happy belated! Holy crap, I did a report on Roberto Clemente in like 5th grade. For some reason I can't remember what my citations were...maybe TOPPS? I know at the time about 99% of resources were filled with Britannica or World Book, although back then it was called "Bibliography" and these days everything I write is "References"
 
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The above picture is what happens when a Nespresso coffee maker doesn't work as expected. The intended operation is supposed to go as such. You brew the coffee, then release the handle, and the pod pops out and drops into the chamber to the right of the pod. In the above picture, the pod didn't drop into the chamber. The operation of the coffee maker worked almost to perfection, but not quite. I was forced to push the pod into the chamber by my own power. Now what happens here is 1 of 2 things. I can push the pod into the hole and enjoy my coffee. Or I can rally against the coffee maker and flood the Internet about how poorly constructed the machine is.

I think this epitomizes what many of us face on a daily basis. I believe you do well enjoying the coffee and not hating on the things in life that are not perfect.

Why do I have a coffee maker? I have a Nespresso because my boss gave it to us as a wedding present. He gave it to us as a wedding present because when I spent time at their house, I may have had 1 or many cups of coffee from it. While it may not necessarily be in-line with what I typically drink, it serves me well each afternoon when I need a cup. It is also brilliant when I have 2 minutes before my next conference call.

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I did a Zwift race today that I won by 58 seconds. It was a London loop on the Classique loop in the C class. I easily made the selection and was the only C in the A/B group. I hung with them but the elite selection dropped me. The top ~20 guys (of about 180) got away and I was in the sub-selection of maybe a dozen guys, all of them Bs save for me. We cranked out 3 laps then greased it up for the sprint. I launched with about .4 miles to go and passed the entire sub-selection but came up just short of winning the sprint as 2 guys jumped on my lead and nipped me at the end. I think they were sprinting for 6th in the B class.

After 4 days off, I had some gas in the tank. I used some today but not all of it. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

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I started scoring myself and my eating habits again today in an effort to prepare myself for the trip to Kentucky. While I think the fitness is in the bank and I am just feathering it as best I can, eating & sleep are 2 things I can do to make the experience the best it can be. For those of you not aware of my past, I have gone through any number of iterations of scoring what you eat. This can be handy in making sure you eat well, and it has worked in the past. But it's not something you can do every day, forever. It's something I like to do on occasion to reset myself. The next 2-plus weeks is a good chance for that. I will likely revamp it in the winter when I am pushing harder to drop pounds.

And that's Monday.
 
That was quite the shellacking, you gave to the rest of us C’s. It’s amazing how quickly you can miss the selection at the beginning if you’re not 100% on, from the first second.

Any idea how zwiftpower decides who to score? Zwift needs to find a better way to show results at the end of the race, I am usually to bleary eyed to really make sense of them in the 30 seconds they show them for.
 
The New Philosophers was a group of French philosophers that broke from the standard Marxism/Leftist realm of philosophy in the early 1970's. This is not to be confused with a band of the sort-of same name, the songs of which I am unfamiliar with so I will not bother to link their music or make references to that most of you won't get because they are too oddball and/or arcane. The new philosophers represent a new philosophy. Thus the name.

Now and again we look at something and change our opinion of it. As an aside, I think sometimes we feel the need to get too attached to our opinion. And I think this leads to the Internet pissing wars that arise pretty much daily. There are 2 distinct ways that people express their opinion, at least for this conversation. Like this:

A. I believe the answer is X, but you know what, I don't feel that strongly so whatever. If we go with Y it's all good.
B. I believe the answer is X and I will punch you in the face if you do not agree.

The vast majority of people fall into category A, but we only ever hear from those in category B, as they have the loudest voices. I will skip the NJ Cyclocross Facebook discussion because I think it's too acidic. But take the eBikes discussion. I think they should not really be allowed on trails, but you know what? I just don't care that much. Whatever. I don't feel strongly enough to punch you in the face if you disagree. If you want to talk human rights, ok I get it. But eBikes, and race categories for 3 people - IMO you should chill the F out.

I digress. The point of the new philosophy is that I have been sticking to one post a day, which has come at 10:00 pm every night the more this year has worn on. I may still do a post at 10:00 pm every day, just as a sort of recap of the day. But I'm finding that with the pause in my writing maybe it's not a bad idea to occasionally pick up a random topic and post it in the middle of the day. I like to write, and maybe it's not bad to have a new philosophy on occasion.

I am neither French nor am I a philosopher. Just for the record.

@BCurry - this whole post is for you. The new philosophy is to maybe create some random tangent like a coffee pod or to talk tactical shit, like below.

1. These Zwift races are a great way to work on your race starts. From a training perspective, when you are alone, the first minute is "easy" to do solo. But maintaining the active recovery part on a road bike in the middle of nowhere is hard. Use the races to teach your body to deal with that.
2. When the countdown timer hits 0:00 - go like a bat out of hell. If you need to, bring a power-up in and slam it when the chaos begins. I do not do this because it does not help me train but if it gets you what you need, do it.
3. Zwiftpower will DQ you if your W/Kg is above the category range. I am still within range so I get scored. C is 2.5-3.1 so I guess I am actually just sitting at the top of that. I'll need to upgrade to the never-never land of the Bs soon enough. That's a winter goal for me.
4. At the end of the race if you move your mouse the 30 second timer will stop and you can click around on ALL or the specific category. But it will only show you the racers who have finished so far
5. When you are done with the ride and it shows you who has given you a "ride on" and who you rode with, you should be able to see the race results - this is new so you may not have been looking for it.
 
Man, rip the days when these discussions were about tactics for real, in-person races. What a crazy time that was.

I have a theory that the rambling about these zwift races is to make even more of a mockery of actual riding, than the act of virtual races already is.
 
Phew.
Okay just binge-read the 87th season of Life with Norm.
Some things below, I may or may not have caught them all.


Norm said:
I did my self-review yesterday
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Blog meets or exceeds expectations.

Norm said:
I totally get what you mean about waking up and opening the gift of yourself and some days you are happy and some days disappointed.
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Liked this, and the post that prompted it.


Norm said:
Hit Cure for dinner after grabbing an espresso across the street.
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Norm said:
While it may not necessarily be in-line with what I typically drink, it serves me well each afternoon when I need a cup
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I really like our Nespresso (older model). I don’t use it often anymore, but love it when I do.
Pro tip: hit up Nespresso Cafes on business trips, and you can use leftover per diem to stock up on pods.


Norm said:
I have gone through any number of iterations of scoring what you eat.
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Weight watchers has been shown to be the most successful way to lose and maintain weight. I’m certain this is because of the built in numeric accountability.
They are changing things up, making meals organic or something.
That’s fine as long as they leave the numbers in there. That is why it works.


Norm said:
The New Philosophers was a group of French philosophers that broke from the standard Marxism/Leftist realm of philosophy in the early 1970's. This is not to be confused with a band of the sort-of same name
Click to expand...
New Pornographers instead.
 
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