James Pearl Thinks Blogging is Dead

Norm said:
Today I

...rode Chimney Rock. The plan was to go to Sal's which is really called Walking Purchase Park. One wonders why the park is called this. Perhaps one day some dude was walking and he decided to purchase a park? So why is it called Sal's? Maybe the guy that bought the park was named Sal.
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Why its called "Walking Purchase" is actually a pretty interesting story ... It's known as Sal's because its original name was "Salisbury Township Park" (that's where it is - Salisbury Township.) It's now called Walking Purchase because of an event that goes all the way back to colonial times. "Walking Purchase" is based on a dark moment in PA history - when William Penn, the founder of PA, died his son stated (falsely) that the Lenni Lenape tribe had agreed in a treaty that the Penns could take ownership of any land that a man could cover walking northwest for a day and a half - in other words, they could purchase that land by walking it. Basically, it was a land grab at the expense of the current occupants of the time. Apparently, the area where the park sits was part of the land covered by one of three men who made the journey - a guy named Solomon Jennings. So the next obvious question is "why on earth would they name the park after an event that exemplifies how horribly the Native Americans were treated by the white folks?" Well, the township claims that the name is not meant to honor the land grab, but to teach people about it. Kinda feels like they're honoring it, though, doesn't it?
 
1speed said:
. Kinda feels like they're honoring it, though, doesn't it?
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I dunno - I’m glad it wasn’t renamed to “la la nice park place” so that the history is literally forgotten in the name. Maybe call it “stolen land by walking across it”? Keeping the name gets the history right there. Maybe “purchase” is the issue? “Walking theft” might be better in that case.
 
1speed said:
Why its called "Walking Purchase" is actually a pretty interesting story ... It's known as Sal's because its original name was "Salisbury Township Park" (that's where it is - Salisbury Township.) It's now called Walking Purchase because of an event that goes all the way back to colonial times. "Walking Purchase" is based on a dark moment in PA history - when William Penn, the founder of PA, died his son stated (falsely) that the Lenni Lenape tribe had agreed in a treaty that the Penns could take ownership of any land that a man could cover walking northwest for a day and a half - in other words, they could purchase that land by walking it. Basically, it was a land grab at the expense of the current occupants of the time. Apparently, the area where the park sits was part of the land covered by one of three men who made the journey - a guy named Solomon Jennings. So the next obvious question is "why on earth would they name the park after an event that exemplifies how horribly the Native Americans were treated by the white folks?" Well, the township claims that the name is not meant to honor the land grab, but to teach people about it. Kinda feels like they're honoring it, though, doesn't it?
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Interesting stuff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_Purchamerica, great place
 
1speed said:
Well, the township claims that the name is not meant to honor the land grab, but to teach people about it. Kinda feels like they're honoring it, though, doesn't it?
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I'd speculate that when they named the park attitudes were different and folks didn't care much about how people other then whites were treated.

Attitudes have changed, for the better. While the name of the park is somewhat educational, knowing the history of what happened, the park would be named something different by today's standards. If the park were more in the spot light like a football team, it would probably be renamed.

But then again, how many Lenape Parks can we have. Imo the current name of the park is way more interesting and does not hide a shameful act.
 
Today I

...rode Nassau, then rode the High Bridge Flow Trails. This was D's Mother's Day choice, as this park allows all of us to ride together and have a good time. Nassau was good, conditions were solid today. We didn't do everything in both directions like usual because we wanted to save some for the Commons, which I believe is the actual name of the flow trails. So we did 45 at Nassau and maybe another 30+ on the other side.

I had every intention of hitting the drop, but as soon as I saw it my brain turned left and went around. It usually takes me a while to get my confidence dialed in and it's obviously not there yet in 2021. That said, when we hit the flow trails I had no problem sending every table top. I guess I inherently trust the flow trail builders more than the Nassau builders.

By the way, the flow trails are far, far better than the original version they rolled out last year.

On the way out of Nassau I blew a spoke, which happens. One of the jumps is a huck to flat and well, gravity is what it is. I stopped and wound it around another one and finished out the ride without incident.

It ended up taking me forever to fix it when we got home because it broke off in the nipple and I had to deconstruct the wheel completely to put a new one in. I also had to do this tonight for reasons you will figure out in the next version of Today I. On that note, I've decided I won't be doing Yesterdays & Tomorrows in this current iteration. This is a sort of approach to being here now. Or something like that. I will probably break this rule in a day.

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Today I

...drove to Massachusetts, and on the way stopped in at Rhode Island to ride the trails at Woody Hill. I'm on my way to work thing which I will discuss when it happens (I had to edit out what I am doing tomorrow - see? 1 day and I almost failed at not discussing tomorrow). I got this park from the Vietnam thread and some of the trail descriptions were pretty interesting. So I carved out some time this afternoon and spent a few hours trying some of the stuff out here. I would say it's pretty good, not so amazing that I will find time to come back before I leave. But I can certainly imagine coming back one day.

Navigation is a challenge for sure. It's sort of like Allaire in that regard but I would wager there are 2-3x the trail intersections that Allaire has.

In the middle of the woods I found this mailbox and felt justified adding a sticker to it. In the picture you can see a Hershey kiss right behind the mailbox but it had ants on it, so I left it.

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After I was done riding I drove to Providence to meet a coworker for ramen. I work with this dude a bunch but had never met him in real life. He suggested this place across from Brown which was pretty damn good. I miss travel ramen. Well, right now I don't miss travel ramen. This was very good. I would come back here for sure.

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Fun fact @Norm I ran at east coast level HS track races at the indoor track at Brown U in the late '80s. Actually had a hotel incident that happened there ...lol. We'll talk about it at KT
 
Today I...

rode Vietnam - the park, not the country. I'm in MA for work, as it's the yearly ServiceNow conference and we're taking in some of this stuff together. This is really an opportunity for the team to get together, as it's approaching a year and I had not met these guys yet. So we're up here for 2 days to spend some time together, which is probably underrated as not everyone can be 100% self-sufficient all of the time. But before that, at 6am this morning, I rode my bike to the trails and knocked out almost 2 hours of riding before I had to call it a ride. Again, there are lots of trails here and trying to follow them can be difficult. But this is going to be the first of many times I ride this park - assuming this job lasts. So I have plenty of time to figure this out.

I liked it, and will be back someday. It's very technical, and well-maintained in spots. Raw AF in other spots. And bordering on insane in others.

Today I also met 7 coworkers for the first time. I had met 1 last night and knew 1 previous to coming here. Our core team is 10. The crew is a pretty nice set of people. The Boston sports paraphernalia is off the hook in this office.

Today I also ate a lobster roll and a cup of clam chowder for dinner. When in Rome...

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Today I

...rode Diamond Hill in Rhode Island before work today. To Kevin's point, this has been a good opportunity to reset my riding schedule. Having said that, I'm definitely not all-in at that time of day. I am sure that could come in time. But that time was not this morning. Coupled with the fact that this is back-to-back super early days and I was off a step today, for sure. So Diamond Hill is where they had this ESC enduro and it was obvious today that a lot of people had ridden here recently. The trails are decently fun, but as I said in another post about it, you really need to know a place like this to get the most out of it. So doing blind runs was not all it could be.

I cut the ride short today because I was tired, the trails were a maze that all led to the same place, and at the bottom of one of the runs I had a slow speed fall into the mud that signaled the end of my rope. So I called it.

On a side note, all 3 of the parks I rode this trip had plenty of things built up where you could easily get some air. Between drops & gap jumps, I would say each park had a dozen different spots where there was air time built into the flow of the trail. I find this interesting, as I did not specifically search this out. This really does speak to the difference in mindset between MA and NJ. In theory these 2 states are very similar but when it comes to building trails, MA and RI are light years ahead of NJ. I mean Monday there was a wooden tabletop in the middle of the park randomly.

In any event, I'll be back before long.

Today I also met up with the team again less 2 people. To clarify, this conference is online. It's the one I have gone to in years past that's been in Vegas or Orlando. The only people in real time were my coworkers, not the people doing the conference. It's sort of lame, I will admit. This was more an excuse for us to get together as a team. It was good. I'll be making more trips up in the future for sure.

Today I also drove home.

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Norm said:
*words words words*

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My asymmetrical handlebar OCD has kicked into overdrive!

k-edge.com

K-EDGE Fixed Garmin Stem Mount - K-EDGE

Fixed Stem Mount is a great solution for cyclists who prefer their computer above the stem.
k-edge.com k-edge.com

Re: ttf's in New England, you are correct. NEMBA has over 5,000 members and they purchased 47 acres of the Vietnam Trails for $210k back in '03. Not whining, but it is a bit easier to GSD when you have a member base such as that.
 
Today I

...rode my road bike outside. I had done 6 mountain bike rides in a row, in 6 different parks, in 3 states. I obviously get caught up in these nonsensical things now & again, so I thought to myself, maybe I should try to keep that streak going. But it made a lot more sense to knock out 1.5 on the road and just enjoy the day. My legs are a little raw from the past week so it was ok not to have to push too hard. I remember a few years ago I had lunch in the city with Mandel and he said that you get 5-10 absolutely gorgeous days in the city when the weather is perfect. Today was one of those days. Just fabulous. I enjoy these warm days and cool nights.

Today I also finished mowing the lawn, which is something I started about 10 days ago. Tomorrow I will go back to the beginning and start it all over again because it's about a foot tall in the front again. I enjoy the results of yard work when it's done. I just don't have a lot of time for it.

Today I also went to a play with the family, for the first time since [the thing that shall not be named] happened. It was a high school play that was outside. It got cold, fast. It was nice to take yet another step towards real life coming back. I look forward to more of that as the CDC is finally saying what we all know to be true.

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Today

I went on another road bike ride, this time into the Watchung Reservation. Back when I lived in Kenilworth this was my go to park. I would ride to it, around it, and back. I think this is before GPS, so I have nothing on record to compare it to. Strava tells me this is the 7th time I have ever done it in this direction. It was another glorious day. I mean the weather. The actual day was a sort of up & down day. Read on.

I found out this morning that my peer at work gave his 2 weeks notice. Last year, I took over another guy's workload in the summer when he got shit-canned. This current guy's whole plate will come to me in the immediate future. In theory, we will hire someone as a backfill, but we've been trying to hire someone passively for 6 months. In reality, we will likely backfill with some offshore help while I BPC/BA/SA 7 or 8 different projects. We can hire 6 people for what it costs a single onshore resource. And they don't fuck off all day and make excuses for why shit didn't get done. But yeah I know, it's not perfect.

I also started mowing the lawn from the front of the house again today. Then the throttle wire broke. Instead of buying the right one I just rigged it up with a Shimano shifter cable. It works.

And we walked the dog around Watchung Lake this evening.

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Norm said:
Today



I also started mowing the lawn from the front of the house again today. Then the throttle wire broke. Instead of buying the right one I just rigged it up with a Shimano shifter cable. It works.
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Pics plz
 
Today

...I officially "led" one of the intermediate group rides at Stephens, but in reality @Kirt led it while I swept up the end. It was quite the showing which really does speak to how much people want to get out of the house. I think we've had more at some of the old Six Mile rides. But we probably have not seen a turnout like this in quite some time. One of the biggest for sure. We did a lot of the good stuff but at the end when the train was going up & down Hally To/Tally Ho, @UtahJoe and I took a subset back through the maze to the cars. That double at the very end that I passed on last time, I hit with ease today. 2021 confidence is growing. I suppose riding the mountain bike so much lately helps. That's like 8 times in 10 days or something.

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I went home and fixed D's road bike, which had a screwed up FD due to some chain shifting mishap that she had a few weeks ago. It rotated a bit so it wasn't able to throw the chain up. I didn't need to re-cable it, but I had done the other one in blue cable and wanted it to match. So I did the cables and wrapped the left side to complete the job. This one was not my best wraps ever but it'll last for a while. These things are always a crapshoot for me.

Unfortunately when I was done I realized I forgot to change the shift levers so that the hoods match. Shit.

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Then I picked up mowing more of the lawn. D had done a bunch while I was gone starting where I left off, and when it ran out of gas, she left it right where it stopped. That's exactly what I do, so I knew right where to start. Got a bunch more of the lawn cut and I may be done before too long and will be able to take a little break this time. Depends how much it rains. The mower is now sitting out in the yard just closer to the back. It's like art.

Then I took a picture for @rottin' - the throttle side looks fine with the cable stop, but this is what you really want to see. I was going to clean this up but I know you will enjoy this more. So I will leave it as-is.

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Finally we rounded out the afternoon by taking the 15 year olds to get vaccinated. So of the 10 shots the family needs to cross the finish line, we are 6 shots down. 2 more in 3 weeks then we play the waiting game for the FDA to give the green light to the 11 year olds. Or we wait until December for Simon to turn 12.

Today was a good day.
 
Today

...I finished mowing the lawn by 10, so the epic saga of the lawn mowing can finally be put to rest. I was thinking of rigging the throttle with an old gear shifter. Or putting bar tape on the mower bars. But the amount of time I have falls way short of the number of ideas I have. So all you get is words.

After the kids woke up, I did a road ride to round out my 10 hours for the week. D was up at Stirling and the kids are old enough that we have no issues leaving them alone now. So we can both go riding at the same time while they occupy themselves. This is only the second time I've hit my 10 hours in a few months. The last 1.5 months has been a little rough for a myriad of reasons but I managed to get it done today. I felt pretty good and it was another great day to be out there. I saw someone in the swamp that knew my name. Then I saw Stacey of world cyclocross fame. Then I saw Ed from the old High Gear A rides as I was almost home. He pulled over and looked about ready to lay in the grass. He said he was fine but I suppose I should have driven by later to make sure.

After lunch I dropped the kids off at 3 different places and I went to CR with Bear to scope out some tweaks to things that need to be fixed.

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