CharmingGeek.net Funness

It’s scrub-the-bathtub night at my apartment, and I feel like Cinderella.
Before the fairy god-mothers stepped in. Don’t get any ideas.
I am not wearing glass slippers.

One of the key things I learned in the Virgina Basic Rider Class was how to avoid road hazards and obstacles when on a motorcycle. Any obstacle that is lower than your front axle is surmountable, and thus it is possible to go over it. Any taller than that, and you’d better find a way around.
Chihuahuas are surmountable. So are dachshunds and Maltese. Great Danes are not surmountable. Dalmatians, not surmountable. All cats are surmountable. Possums, raccoons, chipmunks, all surmountable. Deer are definitely not surmountable. We don’t have elk or moose around here, but if you encounter them, they’re not surmountable.
Squirrels are consummately surmountable.

With the new bike, I’m still trying to figure out this dressing for the weather and the 60 mile per hour wind thing. Turns out 70 degrees is really really cold when it’s blowing through you. At least weather.com said it was 70 degrees. Of course, weather.com also said that the puddle on my seat and moisture in my helmet was the same partly cloudy that’s dripping from my pants legs. I don’t remember any of this in Easy Rider.
In fact, I’m pretty sure I never watched Easy Rider.
I am definitely getting 55 miles per gallon, though.

Although I’m sure dressing entirely in plastic is not the most comfortable thing, this is still really cute. Check out the other photos in mleak’s Flickr album.
Great job matching some fantastic shoes with that unique dress, too.

I have a new favorite sentence.

“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo.”

I promise, that is a completely grammatically correct and not completely nonsensical sentence.

The sentence is unpunctuated and uses three different readings of the word “buffalo”. In order of their first use, these are

• c. The city of Buffalo, New York;
• a. The animal “buffalo“, in the plural (equivalent to “buffaloes”), in order to avoid articles;
• v. The verb “buffalo” meaning to bully, confuse, deceive, or intimidate.

If you’re still having trouble with that (and you still care) see the Wikipedia article.

Well, I got a bicycle too, but here’s the one I’m really excited about.

I’m going to my parent’s house this weekend, and intend to get a bicycle out of storage while I’m there. I think it would be a pretty quick ride into my Arlington office, and a more fun way just to get out.
I just found this interesting site about bicycling in Amsterdam that really points out the difference between biking in the US and in Europe. Around DC, I see a lot of people on bikes. However, they are usually spandex-clad and pedaling furiously with their special biking shoes and aerodynamic helmets. To paraphrase the author of the linked site,

“Now faced with this shocking disparity, I think any reasonable person must come to the conclusion that either the people in Netherlands do not value the safety of their children, or [DC] bicyclists are clumsy pansies with soft heads and weak minds that must be protected from hurting themselves no matter how much it infringes on individual rights.”

I think I can refrain from talking or texting on my phone while riding, though.

I am currently on day 13 of a 9 day business trip with 4 days to go. 3 clean t-shirts. Over-packing came in handy. It is Tuesday and I’ve already worked 40 hours this week. More than that. 14 hour work days are fun. When there’s nothing else to do, it’s really not that bad.
Getting up at 3:45am is that bad, even if it’s almost 7 on the east coast. There is just no way that you can shift through three time zones in four hours and not pay for it. Men weren’t made to fly.