So everyone has those little "moments" on their bike...you know the one I'm talking about. You're spinning along, riding the same route you've ridden 1,000 times, daydreaming, on complete autopilot. Your hand are only loosely on the bars, and you're barely aware you are even on the bike as you think about what you're going to have for lunch or what other movie that actor was in you were just watching before you left...when - BUMP! - you are shaken from your reverie just in time to recover your form and get your hands back on the bars, with a sheepish grin, hoping nobody just saw you...
Sometimes.
I couldn't shift my weight back over the rear wheel quick enough and thought, "at least I'm not going that fast," when whack! I was on the ground. Just past the Oak Street Beach curve, I'd hit the last of those big asphalt scars on the lake front path, and completely lost control.
The next thing I knew there was a passer-by who helped me up and asked me if I was OK. I don't remember much of what I said, other than maybe, "I'm fine." So then I'm alone, and as I look down the path, I realize I can't remember which direction I am going. Or where I came from. Am I going to work? Or coming from work? I remember looking at my phone for the time and seeing it was it was 2:45. After what seemed like only a couple minutes of sitting on the steps along the path trying to get my bearings I looked again and it was 25 minutes later.
Again I looked down the path and struggled to remember. Where had I just come from? What was I doing before this? And as I struggled the synapses began to reconnect. I hit the Recent Calls button on my phone and rang Katy. Thankfully she answered right away, and I must have seemed pretty foggy still because she said she'd be there immediately. Later she told me that I'd asked her if I was with her that morning. It also took me until then to remember that I'd lifted weights with a teammate that morning, as well. Soon it was all back and I asked her to call work for me since I couldn't seem to get connected through 411.
My face hurt and I noticed my knee had a hole in it on my winter bibs as I walked under the overpass to get to the Chicago/LSD intersection to wait for Katy to come and pick me up. I looked in the glass on the law library and I was missing a little skin on my swelling left jaw.
She watched over me last night, making sure I didn't fall asleep until it was time to go to bed. We had pizza and watched bad TV while she sewed up my torn balaclava and winter bibs.
The head feels fine, no other symptoms such as nausea or dizziness, other than my skin missing a layer of skin on my jaw. My knee is a bit painful, and I was in fact on my way to the team ride this morning when the knee pain got a little bit more than tolerable, and I realized it was probably better to rest it.
So here I am, blogging of course, when I should be catching up on house work, and drinking coffee. But I have my memory, for now at least, if not my pride. In one more week I have health insurance again, and then I can have these dumbass moments all I want.
In the meantime, I'll just pay more attention.
Showing posts with label Schadenfreude. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Schadenfreude. Show all posts
24.11.07
21.9.07
This Week's Most Embarrassing Moment
Getting to the checkout counter at Walgreen's and realizing I'd bought the "Large" size, and having to go back and get the regulars.
5.9.07
Fun-employment
A change in the angle you look at the painting. Adjusting the equalizer a bit. Or hearing somebody else's side of the story. Otherwise known as a change in perspective.
How many ways has my first week of unemployment been the best week of my life? The more I think about it, the more way I count.
First, just seeing the neighborhood during the day again. Seeing the crazy homeless woman screaming profanity that would make a sailor blush at the Sun-times hawker as she muscles her shopping cart halfway onto the curb. Halfway on, halfway off, she turns around to shoot out a giant, bloody loogie at the paper guy. But, the wind catches it, sending it onto the hood of the car waiting at the light. I looked at it's driver, but he just half-smiled at me and sat there. David himself wouldn't have dared sling so much as a pebble at that woman.
I have too long been only down on the Mag Mile during the day, surrounded by waddling tourists and sweating suburbanites looking for absolutely nothing new or out of the ordinary. And the Mag Mile obliges. It's safe, flat, with pretty colors and nothing is scary. Rarely, at least. But in the depths of Chicago's neighborhoods during the daylight hours lurks inspiration that will take you to dizzying heights and depressing lows, all in a single block.
At 6:30 am yesterday morning, after my 5am team time trial practice ride, I sat at the Starbucks (safe as well, I know, but after a 90 minute ride at near 90% - all before the sunrise - I need some familiarity) at Irving and Damen, eating some yogurt and sipping coffee before my massage appointment. I was chatted up by a couple of half-drunk gents, red- and rheumy-eyed, about my bike.
"That's a nice bike man." I'd brought it in the entryway since I had no lock. "I used to be pretty into bikes, man. I was pretty good."
"Shut up. Yer no good at nuthin'," replied his bearded, grizzly friend, who looked to be 50 going on 80. "Can't even make love to a woman right." With these guys it was lines straight out of a Clint Eastwood movie from the '70's with an orangutan as the supporting actor.
"Shut up, Dad." They then both shared a tender moment from a plastic vodka bottle.
It's also been the networking. I have three job prospects from friends and teammates. Yesterday I enjoyed dim sum at a restaurant I walked past for 3 years in Argyle and never went into before then. We sat, talked about the wine biz, ate fun rolls, and watched Caroline take pictures for her restaurant blog. We headed out afterwards for a little bit of the aroma of the neighborhood (and if you've ever walked between Broadway and Kenmore on Argyle you know what I speak of) and sights and sounds of the street's many grocery stores. Here's one that gives the gist (I've submitted this to engrish.com):
(It's some sort of grape flavored gummy.)
Knowing that I am done with the advertising scene forever has filled me with a joy that constantly refreshes every few minutes. All it takes is one particularly bad commercial - KFC for example - or simply one of the ubiquitous pea-green LaSalle Bank taxi toppers slinking around the city to remind me it's all behind and in the past. One breath of fresh, sweet bus exhaust while St. Ben's strikes noon on a hot day to tell me everything has changed.
Finally, it really is, as I always say, teammates who make the difference. Being up at 4:30 and riding at 5am three times this past week has filled me with power, confidence, and an unbeatable spirit. It has carried into every phone call about my resume, every time I investigate another job posting, and certainly today in the stellar first interview for a job in the 'burbs.
Yes, the 'burbs. With a 20 mile ride on decent roads, I can get training on my morning commute. The benefits are spectacular, the best I've even seen, and I felt the interview couldn't have gone better. So hopefully I am getting a call early next week. Although, if I could land a little bar tending a couple nights a week to round out a bike shop gig, that would be absolute heaven. So if any-youse bike riding drinkers out there have a lead, please throw it my way. That is if you already have a job yourself.
I leave you with a few more pics from the week...
At the Cubs Game:
An old Beemer in Wicker Park:
In the Zoo:
Sundays Salmonfest:
Happy Birthday, Jan!
Midnight, and drunk, heading home from Evanston on California. Who needs health insurance?!
But up at 6am for a beautiful Labor Day. The turn-around point:
Uncle Rick and me at Erik's Monday BBQ:
And his hat was pretty popular:
And from today's interview excursion to Elmhurst:
How many ways has my first week of unemployment been the best week of my life? The more I think about it, the more way I count.
First, just seeing the neighborhood during the day again. Seeing the crazy homeless woman screaming profanity that would make a sailor blush at the Sun-times hawker as she muscles her shopping cart halfway onto the curb. Halfway on, halfway off, she turns around to shoot out a giant, bloody loogie at the paper guy. But, the wind catches it, sending it onto the hood of the car waiting at the light. I looked at it's driver, but he just half-smiled at me and sat there. David himself wouldn't have dared sling so much as a pebble at that woman.
I have too long been only down on the Mag Mile during the day, surrounded by waddling tourists and sweating suburbanites looking for absolutely nothing new or out of the ordinary. And the Mag Mile obliges. It's safe, flat, with pretty colors and nothing is scary. Rarely, at least. But in the depths of Chicago's neighborhoods during the daylight hours lurks inspiration that will take you to dizzying heights and depressing lows, all in a single block.
At 6:30 am yesterday morning, after my 5am team time trial practice ride, I sat at the Starbucks (safe as well, I know, but after a 90 minute ride at near 90% - all before the sunrise - I need some familiarity) at Irving and Damen, eating some yogurt and sipping coffee before my massage appointment. I was chatted up by a couple of half-drunk gents, red- and rheumy-eyed, about my bike.
"That's a nice bike man." I'd brought it in the entryway since I had no lock. "I used to be pretty into bikes, man. I was pretty good."
"Shut up. Yer no good at nuthin'," replied his bearded, grizzly friend, who looked to be 50 going on 80. "Can't even make love to a woman right." With these guys it was lines straight out of a Clint Eastwood movie from the '70's with an orangutan as the supporting actor.
"Shut up, Dad." They then both shared a tender moment from a plastic vodka bottle.
It's also been the networking. I have three job prospects from friends and teammates. Yesterday I enjoyed dim sum at a restaurant I walked past for 3 years in Argyle and never went into before then. We sat, talked about the wine biz, ate fun rolls, and watched Caroline take pictures for her restaurant blog. We headed out afterwards for a little bit of the aroma of the neighborhood (and if you've ever walked between Broadway and Kenmore on Argyle you know what I speak of) and sights and sounds of the street's many grocery stores. Here's one that gives the gist (I've submitted this to engrish.com):
(It's some sort of grape flavored gummy.)
"It's translucent color so alluring and taste and aroma so gentle and mellow offer admiring feelings of a graceful lady."
Knowing that I am done with the advertising scene forever has filled me with a joy that constantly refreshes every few minutes. All it takes is one particularly bad commercial - KFC for example - or simply one of the ubiquitous pea-green LaSalle Bank taxi toppers slinking around the city to remind me it's all behind and in the past. One breath of fresh, sweet bus exhaust while St. Ben's strikes noon on a hot day to tell me everything has changed.
Finally, it really is, as I always say, teammates who make the difference. Being up at 4:30 and riding at 5am three times this past week has filled me with power, confidence, and an unbeatable spirit. It has carried into every phone call about my resume, every time I investigate another job posting, and certainly today in the stellar first interview for a job in the 'burbs.
Yes, the 'burbs. With a 20 mile ride on decent roads, I can get training on my morning commute. The benefits are spectacular, the best I've even seen, and I felt the interview couldn't have gone better. So hopefully I am getting a call early next week. Although, if I could land a little bar tending a couple nights a week to round out a bike shop gig, that would be absolute heaven. So if any-youse bike riding drinkers out there have a lead, please throw it my way. That is if you already have a job yourself.
I leave you with a few more pics from the week...
At the Cubs Game:
An old Beemer in Wicker Park:
In the Zoo:
Sundays Salmonfest:
Happy Birthday, Jan!
Midnight, and drunk, heading home from Evanston on California. Who needs health insurance?!
But up at 6am for a beautiful Labor Day. The turn-around point:
Uncle Rick and me at Erik's Monday BBQ:
And his hat was pretty popular:
And from today's interview excursion to Elmhurst:
10.8.07
Macbonds
I have a feeling we just finishing up Act VI here.
Barry Bonds would be perfectly at home in a Shakespearian tragedy. The irony of his current situation follows so closely to that of Macbeth it is almost tragic. Sorry.
Yet, here we are. A great baseball player, a sure lock for the Hall of Fame. The perfect all-around player: hits for average, fast on the base paths, and plays the field well. He could easily finished his career up in 2003 or so with 500 home runs, and 500 stolen bases. He's close to 3000 hits now, but in actuality his best years for average were between '01 and '04. Which leads me to the irony.
Steroids don't really do much for a slugger. Probably 90% of hitting a home run is simply making contact with the ball. It's the hardest thing to do in sports, it has been said. Power does come into the equation sure, as does the percentage of fast twitch muscles, which is probably the part were steroids affect the equation. However, the biggest role for performance enhancing drugs, especially for a player striving to reach a goal that has much more to do with career longevity than power, is it's effect on recovery.
Steroids allow for muscle and joint recovery to happen much quicker, and it's benefits for an older baseball player in the regard are undeniable. Barry Bonds has never hit more than 49 home runs in a season except for that one year. For the most part he's been a day in, day out 35-45 home runs a season. It's just when he's still doing at age 40, then 41, and...wait...42?! (really?!) is what is remarkable, and what has gotten to the event of breaking Hank Aaron's record earlier this week.
If it hadn't been for the steroids, we would seen the injuries take over, the starts diminish, and a great player having the sunset of his career around 2002. Instead, from 2000 to 2004 Bonds hit for an average .341 and 307 home runs. Not exactly an evening stroll after dinner for an old man.
The man could've had it all if he'd just left things to their natural course. Respect, adulation, and a bust in the Hall of Fame. Instead, he wasn't satisfied with his accomplishments and became mired in jealously over others (ill-gotten) fame - McGwire and Sosa. For some reason his current career path wasn't good enough and it had to be all about the home runs. So it was - his fatal flaw. So then Barry Bonds had arguably one of the best 5 year runs in history, let alone for a player over 35.
And at what cost? He has arrived at Baseball hallowed ground with Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron's record in shatters, and what has happened to the respect and adulation? Gone, under all the speculation of steroid abuse. And it's pretty obvious to anyone who has been paying attention, to the released court documents, to all the parties involved, that it is much more than just speculation.
And just as in any other tragedy, when the deed is finally done and people begin to talk, the man with the fatal flaw begins to wilt and sag under the crushing weight of the guilt and shame and realization that had he just let things be he'd be much better off.
Barry Bonds would be perfectly at home in a Shakespearian tragedy. The irony of his current situation follows so closely to that of Macbeth it is almost tragic. Sorry.
Yet, here we are. A great baseball player, a sure lock for the Hall of Fame. The perfect all-around player: hits for average, fast on the base paths, and plays the field well. He could easily finished his career up in 2003 or so with 500 home runs, and 500 stolen bases. He's close to 3000 hits now, but in actuality his best years for average were between '01 and '04. Which leads me to the irony.
Steroids don't really do much for a slugger. Probably 90% of hitting a home run is simply making contact with the ball. It's the hardest thing to do in sports, it has been said. Power does come into the equation sure, as does the percentage of fast twitch muscles, which is probably the part were steroids affect the equation. However, the biggest role for performance enhancing drugs, especially for a player striving to reach a goal that has much more to do with career longevity than power, is it's effect on recovery.
Steroids allow for muscle and joint recovery to happen much quicker, and it's benefits for an older baseball player in the regard are undeniable. Barry Bonds has never hit more than 49 home runs in a season except for that one year. For the most part he's been a day in, day out 35-45 home runs a season. It's just when he's still doing at age 40, then 41, and...wait...42?! (really?!) is what is remarkable, and what has gotten to the event of breaking Hank Aaron's record earlier this week.
If it hadn't been for the steroids, we would seen the injuries take over, the starts diminish, and a great player having the sunset of his career around 2002. Instead, from 2000 to 2004 Bonds hit for an average .341 and 307 home runs. Not exactly an evening stroll after dinner for an old man.
The man could've had it all if he'd just left things to their natural course. Respect, adulation, and a bust in the Hall of Fame. Instead, he wasn't satisfied with his accomplishments and became mired in jealously over others (ill-gotten) fame - McGwire and Sosa. For some reason his current career path wasn't good enough and it had to be all about the home runs. So it was - his fatal flaw. So then Barry Bonds had arguably one of the best 5 year runs in history, let alone for a player over 35.
And at what cost? He has arrived at Baseball hallowed ground with Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron's record in shatters, and what has happened to the respect and adulation? Gone, under all the speculation of steroid abuse. And it's pretty obvious to anyone who has been paying attention, to the released court documents, to all the parties involved, that it is much more than just speculation.
And just as in any other tragedy, when the deed is finally done and people begin to talk, the man with the fatal flaw begins to wilt and sag under the crushing weight of the guilt and shame and realization that had he just let things be he'd be much better off.
9.8.07
Geese, Payback, and A.B.
First, a clarification about the geese comment. Yesterday was the xXx fitness-check time trial. Everyone on the team meets up at McFetritch St (the east/west street that's just north of Soldier Field) and the Lake Shore Path, right next to that big steel monument to Chicago's families, or mothers or whatever. We go off at 2 minutes intervals, heading south to the turn-around point at the 52nd St. overpass. Then head back, pretty simple. Except for the geese on the path. These things are lazier than pigeons. Even when, what must look like some kind of frothing, panting monster, comes barreling at them at 25 miles an hour, they refuse to get out of the way. Coming back I had to scream at one, lest his dumb neck get tangled up in my spokes. However, teammate Matt Moran informed me that they do respond well to honking. Yes, honking. He demonstrated a good one for me. I needed another hour of endurance yesterday, so I headed back out at lunch and tried it out. Worked pretty well. So remember, give a couple loud honks as you approach the gaggle of stubbornness sitting in your way, and they will move.
By the way, I continue to improve. My first effort back in April was 29 minutes flat for the 9.7 mile route. Just over an average of 20 miles an hour. It was a brutally cold and windy day however, not to mention, it was probably the first time I had ever ridden that hard in my life. My second effort six weeks later netted me a large improvement at 26.40 on another equally windy and crappy day. On my 3rd installment of the FCTT I clocked in at an RCH under 26 minutes - 25.58. And yesterday I knocked over a half-minute off it, at 25.23. Yeah!
Payback
Speaking of my lunch time ride... As I was headed back north yesterday, around that section that juts out right next to the water, just south of the 35th street skate park, I passed this absolutely gorgeous woman on a nice bike. She was moving well, had good form, looked pretty experienced. Except she was wearing no helmet. So I thought I'd have a little fun. "Where's your lid?" I asked as I pulled up along side her. She grinned and replied, "It's in San Francisco."
"You know, we may not be as hip as San Fran, but we do have bike shops here in Chicago."
She didn't think it was very funny, and told me, in more choice words, to ride on. Which I did, without further comment. However, less than a half-mile later, a got a flat. And I had stupidly neglected to transfer my tube and pump in my backpack to my jersey pockets before heading out. She came by about a minute later.
"Why don't you go find a bike shop!"
Somebody did stop, on account of my team jersey, and donated a tube and some air. Turns out he knew one of my teammates, Nico. Nico, if you read this, email me and I will pass along his name. Your father sold him his house.
A.B.
A.B was the owner of the little shop across from the security desk at the entrance to 410 N. Michigan, the North Tower of the Wrigley Building. He always greeted you with a cheerful hello in his thick Pakistani accent, if he wasn't on the phone, or always tried to hilariously upsell you a beverage with your banana or granola bar: "Sumt'ingk too dreenk??" He's been a fixture in the building for as long as I've worked here.
Every once in a while the gate would be drawn, if he'd decided to take a day off, but it was never more than just a day. However, it has been closed since Monday morning, and today we were told that A.B. had died on Saturday.
It made me sad, and I felt like a writing a few words about him here. I only knew him through the few dozen or so words he'd spoken to me, but he was as much a part of the Wrigley Building as it's Clock Tower, or the brass molding over it's elevators.
By the way, I continue to improve. My first effort back in April was 29 minutes flat for the 9.7 mile route. Just over an average of 20 miles an hour. It was a brutally cold and windy day however, not to mention, it was probably the first time I had ever ridden that hard in my life. My second effort six weeks later netted me a large improvement at 26.40 on another equally windy and crappy day. On my 3rd installment of the FCTT I clocked in at an RCH under 26 minutes - 25.58. And yesterday I knocked over a half-minute off it, at 25.23. Yeah!
Payback
Speaking of my lunch time ride... As I was headed back north yesterday, around that section that juts out right next to the water, just south of the 35th street skate park, I passed this absolutely gorgeous woman on a nice bike. She was moving well, had good form, looked pretty experienced. Except she was wearing no helmet. So I thought I'd have a little fun. "Where's your lid?" I asked as I pulled up along side her. She grinned and replied, "It's in San Francisco."
"You know, we may not be as hip as San Fran, but we do have bike shops here in Chicago."
She didn't think it was very funny, and told me, in more choice words, to ride on. Which I did, without further comment. However, less than a half-mile later, a got a flat. And I had stupidly neglected to transfer my tube and pump in my backpack to my jersey pockets before heading out. She came by about a minute later.
"Why don't you go find a bike shop!"
Somebody did stop, on account of my team jersey, and donated a tube and some air. Turns out he knew one of my teammates, Nico. Nico, if you read this, email me and I will pass along his name. Your father sold him his house.
A.B.
A.B was the owner of the little shop across from the security desk at the entrance to 410 N. Michigan, the North Tower of the Wrigley Building. He always greeted you with a cheerful hello in his thick Pakistani accent, if he wasn't on the phone, or always tried to hilariously upsell you a beverage with your banana or granola bar: "Sumt'ingk too dreenk??" He's been a fixture in the building for as long as I've worked here.
Every once in a while the gate would be drawn, if he'd decided to take a day off, but it was never more than just a day. However, it has been closed since Monday morning, and today we were told that A.B. had died on Saturday.
It made me sad, and I felt like a writing a few words about him here. I only knew him through the few dozen or so words he'd spoken to me, but he was as much a part of the Wrigley Building as it's Clock Tower, or the brass molding over it's elevators.
5.7.07
Website of the Day
Let me preface this link with two items.
First, please refer to my post, back in April, regarding the giant inflatable Axe Body Spray can. I have no love at all for this particular sundry, or anyone who wears it, or anyone who is at all influenced to buy it based that incredibly obnoxious ad campaign.
Second, a coworker told me a story today about how she and her boyfriend saw the Axe Body Spray Car, apparently - complete with a vanity plate that read, "BCWW" (grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!), driven by five Axe Body Spray bimbos. They parked the car at Walgreen's in order to have lunch at Portillo's across the street.
I guess the manager at Walgreen's wears TAG.
But, forget all that. And feast...your eyes...on THIS:
First, please refer to my post, back in April, regarding the giant inflatable Axe Body Spray can. I have no love at all for this particular sundry, or anyone who wears it, or anyone who is at all influenced to buy it based that incredibly obnoxious ad campaign.
Second, a coworker told me a story today about how she and her boyfriend saw the Axe Body Spray Car, apparently - complete with a vanity plate that read, "BCWW" (grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!), driven by five Axe Body Spray bimbos. They parked the car at Walgreen's in order to have lunch at Portillo's across the street.
I guess the manager at Walgreen's wears TAG.
But, forget all that. And feast...your eyes...on THIS:
1.7.07
Confidential to Rosemary and Family
It's down.
I'm truly sorry for my insensitivity and I hope you can forgive me.
Peace.
I'm truly sorry for my insensitivity and I hope you can forgive me.
Peace.
17.4.07
Axed
If you have been walking down the Mag Mile at all this week, you've certainly noticed the giant inflatable Axe Body Spray can that was in the middle of Tribune Plaza, complete with mini-skirted 18-year old "actresses" jumping around inside it, much like the Moonwalk at the carnival. Written on the side of it: "Now, With Added "Bom Chicka Wah Wah." What great place for this thing, four blocks down from the Disney Store.
Anyhow, notice I say, "was."
I was walking back from the bank about an hour ago and just happened to glance at it when a huge gust of wind blew the thing nearly sideways. Almost immediately, the top of the monstrosity split open with a huge "bang!" and immediately collapsed to the southeast down onto the grey-tiled plaza. I just stood there gaping for a couple seconds, then started applauding and whistling.
Made my day. I hope who's ever idea that was is getting shit-canned at this moment.
Anyhow, notice I say, "was."
I was walking back from the bank about an hour ago and just happened to glance at it when a huge gust of wind blew the thing nearly sideways. Almost immediately, the top of the monstrosity split open with a huge "bang!" and immediately collapsed to the southeast down onto the grey-tiled plaza. I just stood there gaping for a couple seconds, then started applauding and whistling.
Made my day. I hope who's ever idea that was is getting shit-canned at this moment.
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