i’ve always had a bit of a love affair with cars. presumably i got it from my father, a consummate dickerer and deal-hunter; he would routinely spend his sunday afternoons poring over the thrifty nickel and the columbian classifieds with a literal magnifying glass looking for his next automotive adventure. he went through a variety of cars: a beater pinto, a bronco, a corvette stingray, and even a big dump truck repainted with leftover house paint. eventually the state caught up with him and demanded he register as a car dealer. instead, he switched his focus to classic ford tractors, painstakingly rebuilding them into fine showpieces.

in college i ended up working for the now-defunct autoadvisor, riding my bike there every day while my coworkers sold people on the american dream. the owner and his wife were both auto writers, and a system exists by which auto writers can have a new car to test drive every week. a steady stream of vehicles came through, each one getting a thorough testing (sometimes with unawares employees riding shotgun) and the office was filled with a steady buzz of car information and – other than myself and evilmike – car aficionados. i was always happy to talk shop with people, though i’d not had a license (and did not get one until 2005), i was excited to research new (or used) purchases and ponder what sort of car i’d end up with.

it turns out the answer isn’t that surprising: a car that i can use for the things i think a car is good at. i’m not going to be driving to the supermarket or around greenlake or to work. i’m not even going to be driving downtown and circling the block looking for parking. my bicycle is always better for those situations. but when it comes to weekend adventures it’s tough to beat a car – unless you want to spend most of your weekend (or more) just going out and back the car is the key that fits the lock of the american transportation system.

but to the gritty details: i got a 1999 subaru outback. it’s got 95,000 miles on it, and the previous owner was a little old lady that took it back to the same dealership she bought it at to change the oil every 3000 miles. when i was evaluating it the dealership gave me a printout the car’s lifetime service record – and it’s clear that this woman was thorough. she brought it to be serviced at the dealer when she spilled soda on the passenger seat. at $9500 after sales tax and licensing it’s the most expensive single item i own, and the most money i’ve spent in one day since i graduated college. my goal is to put about seven or eight thousand miles on it a year, and it’ll mostly live at cc’s house since i still dislike driving. i’m thinking of putting a little chauffeur’s hat in the glove compartment.

similarly, this evening i got around to measuring my bicycles. i’d had some conversations with alex about my swift folder and adjusting it to match the cockpit of my long haul trucker – a bike i knew fit me well for all types of riding. i set out with the measuring tape and lo and behold i was surprised to find that even though the swift folder is a 20″ wheeled aluminum fixed gear with bmx bars, it has the same bottom bracket-to-handlebar, bottom bracket-to-saddle, and saddle-to-handlebar measurements as the long haul trucker – down to a couple millimeters. the same held true for my trek. the pugsley was the outlier, primarily because it rocks (runs? rubs?) a lower saddle. across the board, without ever really consciously measuring out any of these bikes, i’d arrived at a very narrow range of comfortable lengths.

so, logically, i now feel an impetus to revisit my old workplace with a measuring tape and sort out the relevant distances that made me able to work there for many years without discomfort. and maybe i’ll take that old green chair, because for all it’s lack of adjustability, it sure never hurt my back.

quick facts:

• the new company is datstat, in fremont.
• they (we!) build data collection software and research management systems for universities and businesses.
• i’m excited to be done with classic asp and vbscript, but not particularly excited about asp.net. we’ll see.
• my first real day will be 2/9, but i’ve already picked up my laptop and started checking my email account obsessively.
• i did get a pretty significant pay rise, but that’s the nature of leaving the university.

i definitely feel like the university has been a good place for me, and i am sad to be leaving it. either as a student or an employee i’ve been there continuously since 1997, and it has been in almost every way the center of my seattle experience. fortunately, datstat is in a good location and has a number of former university employees so i’m hoping to feel right at home.

then i ate at the wallingford pizza house, the home of the dome. followed by dessert at molly moon’s just down the block. i boomed some blox, finished off the beer from this weekend, and then came home to watch the west wing and update my blog template a bit. observe the newfangled twitter link and slightly cleaner interface!

yes, indeed, my birthday week marched out triumphantly.

despite siff’s best efforts to keep me entheatered, i’ve managed to make it out into the woods for three quick camping trips.

mid-may we piled into the volvo with my housemates and drove up to bellingham for mrs. sarah’s 30th birthday bash. i hadn’t been to larrabee state park before so that was a treat. plus we borrowed alex’s tarptent. the whole trip was less than 18 hours but got all the staples – fire, food, banter, sleepin’ under the stars, and of course awesome sunsets:

two weekends later andre and i dusted off the bikes for a s24o out to green mountain state park. we left on the 530pm ferry after work and were camping by 9pm – this time of the year it’s amazing how well that works out. hammocks went up and the campground was scouted for potential band of idiots escapades. once again we hit all of the high points, and andre turned a pile of wet wood into a pretty solid blaze:

most recently, cc and i took a trek up into the olympic mountains. for all of my biking adventures and other outdoorsyness, turns out that i’ve never actually been backpacking. hikes, sure, bike camping, yeah, but carrying my stuff on my back to sleep in the woods? craziness. regardless, on alex and christine’s advice we loaded up the jeep and headed out to lena lake. it was roughly equal time driving there and hiking but it was a good first effort. for caroline it was her first test of her new tarptent and trekking poles. for me it was the first time putting onto my back all of the stuff my bike normally hauls. i’d estimate my load was pretty minimal overall – although somehow i ended up carrying the kitchen and the shelter. i’m sure a titanium pot and a pop can stove will make all the difference in the way my back felt the next day. that and perhaps a better groundpad – while my new hammock pad is quite warm and light, it’s not really what i require for sleeping on the ground. apparently my choice of dress pants and a wool hat went over pretty well – caroline snapped this photo when she thought i looked particularly dapper:

the slow progression of sunlight deeper into the evening combined with the noticeable change in the texture of the rain has started to stir in me a longing to load up my bike with camping supplies and head out into the wilderness. the showers over the weekend were just the right kind that, had i actually been out adventuring, i’d not have minded a bit of a misting.

instead of actually riding my bike, however, i went over to alex’s to finish brazing a new porteur rack for the long haul trucker. i broke the $8 nashbar rack i’d been using sometime last year and over the winter i’ve been using a bulky, heavy jandd extreme front rack. it’s hard to imagine any amount of weight making the lht feel more sluggish, but somehow that beast accomplished it.

the new rack uses a platform scavenged from alex’s first build, and since he no longer likes the look of 3/8″ tubing i took advantage of it and built myself a beefy design. it’s got an integrated 6mm mount for screwing on a bit of handlebar to hold my headlight and a cable stop on the rear for my cantilever brakes. after shopping today i put 35 pounds of groceries on it and it didn’t really flex at all, so that bodes well. i think i’m kind of getting the hang of this whole brazing thing. who knows what my next project will be?

of course, hopefully that project will be in the fall, when the weather again turns to the dark, cold, wetness. in the meantime i’ve got a new porteur rack, a new (dumpstered) downmat 9 deluxe, and my trusty bike, hammock, sleeping bag and bucket panniers that need to see the stars.

• tryst, an application we’ve helpfully tagged as “something about filesharing” has been a fun programming project of late. it’s reminding me of all the mad h4×0r skills i used to have and have apparently subsequently lost, replacing them with something else. i did use it as an excuse to visit san francisco and ride around, which was pretty cool. neat city. anyhow, tryst is a cool idea and i’m working with some cool people on it – i think y’all will like it, once we get it done.
• television. a project? perhaps. no longer having to work my series-watchin’ around caroline’s schedule let me plow through all of the amazingly-brilliant-how-did-i-not-watch-it-before-now cowboy bebop. space cowboys? sold. i’ve also finally started watching rome and it’s great as well – hbo brings the hits – and even better it comes with free history lessons.
• bicycles! i’ve been volunteering at the bike shack and convinced myself to sell almost my entire bike pile. in exchange, i now have one practical bike and two fairly impractical bikes – a pugsley and a swift folder. yes, one has very very big wheels and one has very very small wheels. it’s comic. sadly, the one day it snowed here i was using the practical bike to help a friend move from lynnwood and didn’t get to use my snow bike at all. lame.
• podcasting! soon you will be able to hear my sultry baritone (and that of my colleagues monkey and paul) talking about video games and other nerdy games on the internet once in a while. it may or may not be something like this, only in audio-only form.

hopefully this post will be adequate for getting me back onto maggie’s blogroll.

regardless, we’re currently at ainsworth state park on the oregon side of the columbia gorge. yesterday we woke up stupidly early at jace’s house in portland, loaded up our bicycles with gear, and headed out. we took the max blue line out to gresham – damn light rail is such a good mas transit experience. from there we headed west, dropped down to cross the sandy river, and then started our climb up the historic columbia river highway. the fog and clouds broke somewhere after crown point, and suddenly we were basking in the clear sunny skies of centralish oregon. we ended up going all the way to cascade locks, which included riding on the shoulder if the interstate and traversing some steep stairs as well as a six mile section of abandoned highway, restored for bicycles alone. once there we deservedly and lazily laid about in the grass and watched barges go by. and then ate the most delicious food (as it always is) from a little hamburger and ice cream stand. bacon cheeseburger and chocolate peanut butter shake for the win!

with an eye to our schedule, we came back downriver to ainsworth, once again traversing the freeway and stairs. we showed up just in time to get the already paid for site of some folks leaving early, in a full campground. win!

today we ride back over highway 30 into portland, harass jace further, clean up and ride downtown to see spamalot. i’m excited!

last weekend was intended to be a whirlwind adventure, sadly it opened with a whimper rather than a bang. instead of being able to take the train down and attend the “copious drinking” portion of my 10 year high school reunion, i instead found myself standing incredulous at the train station discovering that the amtrak cascades had all just been cancelled. with that portion of the plan removed, i went straightahead onto preparations for the 2007 black bbq, and joyously biked down to big time brewery to pick up a pair of pony kegs in my trailer. that is always good for some positive attention, and as i piled ice atop the kegs at the ghetto safeway even passing fratboys looked on in awe. the bbq was executed flawlessly, and this year i didn’t even have to learn any new lessons about mixing of intoxicants, and the resultant unmixing of stomach contents.

i did get a ride down to portland with the crew as they left, however. my mother, bless her heart, made me a delicious birthday cake in anticipation of my arrival that weekend, and i fortunately arrived before it had gone to waste. i took advantage of the weekend to show off my shiny new camping gear, pick up a shiny new macbook for the carolines and take a whirlwind visit to the fairgrounds with big jon and rosie. in less than two hours i consumed a peach milkshake, an elephant ear, kettle korn, and a corndog. and that on top of my birthday cake lunch!

the extremely brief visit to the fair was excellent, the sights and smells and tastes all at once restoring neurons that dwindle ever-so-slightly more with each passing year. i can still remember the old fairground layout, with our trailer down the dusty gravel road from the cow barns, and the smell of dried grass and fresh chipseal as i played gijoes and filled out voltron and gobot coloring books. visiting this place each year brings those memories back to the surface, firing tiny charges of electricity through the neurons and hopefully keeping them active and close at hand for when i want a fond memory to reminisce on.

this past weekend i went with .83 up to monte cristo for some bicycle camping and general outdoor hooligannery. we hiked to poodle dog pass and silver lake. i met some interesting folks, slept under the stars in my hammock, and took some photos that you might enjoy. as for now, my legs are tired, and this blog post has gotten long.

…

that question today interrupted my fortnightly cleaning, mail responding, and general filing adventures that i call “sundays at home”. i’ve been making an effort to use my sabbaths for something different than my usual “unscheduled time” – no sleeping in until noon, and no getting up and frittering away my morning on surfing random websites, watching tv, or playing video games. cooking, cleaning, working on bikes, going outside, playing the didj, reading a motherfucking book, even writing in my blog.

but that question brought me pause even in the midst of my light-to-no organization. it stared back at me from the questionnaire attached to the invitation to my 10th year high school reunion, surrounded by such mundane details as married (nope!), kids (nope!), and contact information.

what is my biggest accomplishment in the last ten years. the past decade! what have i done with myself? i briefly pondered what my classmates might have answered to this peculiar test question: graduating college, getting married, landing a big job, climbing a mountain, buying a house? what adventures of mine go beyond mere braggary and into the realm of accomplishment?

after giving it some consideration, i came up with this list of biggest accomplishments:

staying alive, getting some degrees, growing a kickass goatee.

that of course is just an abbreviated list, the full list exceeded the length provided. here is the current list, to be amended later as i accomplish more:

staying alive, getting some degrees, growing a kickass goatee, learning how to cook, learning how to love, having my heart broken, learning how to drink a shot, learning how to make people laugh, learning how to ride a bike, learning how to drive a car, learning how to program in c, camping in the mountains, going to greece, going to canada, moving to seattle, learning how to fix a toilet, paying my own rent, getting a job, quitting a job, taking a summer off, making out while sitting on the porch on a warm summer’s evening, watching movies in foreign languages, speaking a little german, making tiny huge mistakes, taking the train, spending a summer in fresno, playing d&d with the same folks for over a decade, switching to os x, being the first of my friends to have only a cell phone, living in a big house full of guys and making it work, living with a married couple and their insane cat, building a bicycle, building a computer, building a workbench, swimming in two oceans and several lakes and rivers, living.