Happy New Year!

Happy new year… from the FUTURE!!! Currently, I’m in Knoxville, Tennessee, for the wedding of one of Bronwyn’s cousins. This means I’m in Eastern time, so to all my friends and family on the west coast - 2008 is the awesome!

That Boy is Jamming!

Why did I only hear about this kid yesterday?!

Should I ever happen to have a little one of my own, I doubt his name will be Nathaniel, but I hope beyond hope that he will like to dance.

In other news, Bronwyn and I did the Dim Sum and Then Sum ride yesterday and it was a deliciously awesome way to spend the day. The destination was Sea Harbour Restaurant in Rosemead (my favorite!), with a fairly direct route through downtown via Valley Blvd. out and a longer loop going through Pasadena and Eagle Rock on the way back. It began where it ended, in front of the Bicycle Kitchen, which means that when we returned there was the additional treat of Scoops. Tastiest ride ever!

The total trip was about 37 miles. To mix it up, I rode my track bike and this was probably the farthest I’ve done it thus far in one go. It was perfectly comfy, though. The only hairy part was bombing (or skidding) down that hill going west on Colorado Blvd. just before entering Eagle Rock. Mmm… burned rubber.

Since the 200km brevet is happening on the 12th of January, I think for “training” purposes I need to squeeze another long ride (maybe 80 miles) in before then. Bronwyn and I are leaving for the holidays on Saturday and won’t be back until the New Years, which leaves just the weekend of the 5th & 6th. I can’t remember if there were any other plans, but if not, maybe I can do another roundtrip ride down to Long Beach out to this brew pub on the beach I remember.

Pomona College to Eliminate Loans

Got this in the email yesterday from my alma mater.

Dear Pomona College Alumna/us:

We wanted you to be among the first to know that Pomona College is taking a significant new step to assure affordability and access. Today, the Pomona College Board of Trustees voted to eliminate all loans from its financial aid packages beginning next fall and to replace them with scholarships. This change will affect all current and future students who qualify for financial aid.

Pomona is among the first liberal arts colleges in the nation to take this major step, which is designed not only to make a Pomona education more affordable for students from lower- and middle-income homes, but also to ensure that all of our future graduates will be able to follow their aspirations—including the option of service careers—without having to take into account the need to begin repaying college loans.

This is the latest in a number of initiatives that the College has undertaken in recent years to ensure that a Pomona education is truly accessible to gifted students from all walks of life. To provide you with further details, I am attaching a copy of the news release that is being distributed to the media today.

Sincerely,

David Oxtoby
President

Sadly, I’m seven years too late, but this is still fantastic news considering the staggering amount of debt college grads are facing. I’m lucky in that my post-college debt is below the average, but there’s still so much I could do with that money like… oh… have some savings.

For the Love of Cotton

That’s a photo of half the line at the American Apparel flea market that I missed on Sunday shortly after the sale started. I don’t feel so bad about missing out anymore. $1-10 is a deal for their clothing, but then again one could always go to the thrift store. I’m more into nice and soft merino wool nowadays, anyway. If Icebreaker or Ibex or Smartwool were to have a factory sale, I would be all up ons.

Putting on the Miles

I’m officially signed up for the 200km and 300km brevets coming up in January and February. In an attempt to get myself physically trained for them, I’m trying to put on some more miles on my road bike starting as of yesterday.

I did a metric century yesterday which was organized by a group training for the AIDS LifeCycle ride in June, Team Midnight Ridazz. It was a straight shot down to Long Beach via the L.A. river bike path and back. We got down to Long Beach pretty quickly, but ended up doing a couple of extended stops in Long Beach, one to wait for a couple of people to catch up, and one for food. The catch-up wait time was something like 45 minutes, which is nearly how long it took to get from Vernon to Long Beach. I didn’t get the story about what happened, but it definitely killed the momentum. The return ride also saw a few more stops than I would have liked and we ended up getting back a little around 5pm, having left at 9:30am.

I didn’t much like that as there were other things I was hoping to get to that day, like a flea market at the American Apparel factory and the Yelp Elite Holiday Party in Santa Monica. Given an easy pace of 15mph, we should have been able to do the little more than 60 mile route in four hours, with another hour for stops. Having missed out on those events, I opted to spend the evening with Bronwyn watching the Godfather II over plates of spaghetti (MMMM! CARBS!) and a bottle of Sangiovese, so it ended up being a nice evening anyways.

Slow pace aside, it was a beautiful day and a beautiful ride. I’m wanting to go back down the river path again soon to spend a day at the Long Beach aquarium. I need to see if I can get a group together for that.

There are a couple of rides coming up this week. One is the Midnight Ridazz All-City Toy Ride. That’s not so much “training” as fun times on a bike, but it’s still a ride I plan on doing. The other one is a 40-mile ride from the Bicycle Kitchen to somewhere in the SGV for dim sum. That ride sounds too delicious to pass up.

Midnight Ridazz in L.A. Times

The L.A. Times has a nice article here about the origins of Midnight Ridazz, Los Angeles’ monthly 1400+ rider phenomenon. I was particularly pleased to see the support it gets from the city council:

Calling Midnight Ridazz “a reflection of the growing frustration people have with L.A.’s car-only culture,” Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti welcomes the challenge of incorporating its constituents onto city streets as a way to reduce car traffic and pollution. He also sees deep sociological significance in the group.

“There’s this myth in Los Angeles that we lead solitary lives, but I think that Midnight Ridazz and the other bike groups run counter to that. Los Angeles is a place where you certainly need to be in the know to find out where things are, but once you do, you see as strong and deep a community as anywhere in the United States.”

I am also in pretty strong agreement with their comparison between Midnight Ridazz and the more politically charged Critical Mass. Whereas Critical Mass rides occur once a month during rush hour, Midnight Ridazz happens at night with minimal traffic and with a much more laid back atmosphere - essentially a party on wheels. People like having fun more than having an agenda. Because of this, Midnight Ridazz has, in my opinion, done more to inspire and attract new cyclists in this city than any other form of cycling advocacy. The proof is in the list at the end of the article detailing other rides and groups in the L.A., many of which sprouting as a result of Midnight Ridazz.

The next official Midnight Ridazz ride is December 14th with a holiday theme and toy drive. They did a similar theme and toy drive last year. I hear it was pretty successful, and I can tell you first hand that it was a lot of fun so I recommend everybody roll out for it this year.

BSG: Razor

This came in the mail yesterday:

Holy frak it was good times! I miss this show. Bronwyn and I don’t have cable so we weren’t able to watch Razor when it aired a few weeks back. We watched the unrated extended version last night and I think I just may want to watch the broadcast version very soon to see what was different.

I can’t believe I have to wait until April to see Season 4. That’s madness. That means that, not counting Razor, the show will have been off the air more than a year. What is the Sci-Fi channel thinking? That’s a serious test of patience for fans. Maybe by the time they get Season 3 out on DVD and I can sit down and rewatch the whole series it’ll be April. I need something, especially since Bionic Woman has proven to be a poor replacement for my Katee Sackhoff fix.

UPDATE: Apparently the Season 3 DVDs also aren’t coming out until April because the studio wants the DVD release to coincide with the season premier. The problem is I probably won’t even remember what the frak was going on by that time.

PCH Randonneurs

To follow up on the post I had made earlier about wanting to do the double century in Death Vallery, I was unfortunately unable to register. I had thought it over that weekend. Bronwyn and I went backpacking out around Mt. Wilson and enjoying that bit of fresh air and exercise convinced me that I wanted to get out and do the ride. However, when I tried to register that Sunday evening, all the spots had filled up. In fact, the 300-person capacity was reached within ten hours of registration opening. Who would have thought that that kind of masochism would be so popular?

A little disappointed, I was happy to hear that there is an alternative. For the first time in Los Angeles, there’s a brevet series starting up in Los Angeles put on by the PCH Randonneurs. A brevet series is a series of long-distance, non-competitive rides called brevets or randonées going in increasing distances of 200km, 300km, 400km, and 600km. If a rider, or randonneur, manages to finish the series, they’re qualified to ride in the ultimate challenge of a 1200km radonée. Sounds insane, right? That’s what I like about it.

As it is, the PCH Randonneurs only have half a series planned for January and February, the 200km and 300km brevets. They’re going to see what the interest level is in Los Angeles before deciding if they want to organize the second half of the series. I’m going to do this. Anyone else interested in joining me?