Never scratch a monkey butt.

"Monkey butt" is the official biker's terminology for the riding rash I've managed to acquire on my 100 mile ride.

If I were to drop trousers, I would look like a baboon from behind.
I've already got the look from front.

Did I tell you I rode A HUNDRED MILES in a day last Tuesday.
Well, I did.
It's almost worth bragging about.
But I am too modest.

Due to this posterior erosion I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been spending my days standing up and my nights trying not to sleep on my back.
I can do the wood cutting and fitting standing up, so work on the mandora proceeds.

I hereby present both sides of the object in question.

The mandora, not the burnt hamburger looking butt.






Mandora mold with latest strip being glued on.

Doing the Ton

"The Ton" was a name for the useless "upper" classes of Victorian and Edwardian times who did nothing but impose their ridiculous fantasies on the sweating hoards (Tu et Moi).
Spent their time going from place to place trying to impress each other in the absurdity competition.
Refer to P.G. Wodehouse's work involving Bertie and Jeeves.
Total airheads.
They have been replaced by the "jet set" and such.
These are the people who just recently screwed you out of your pension funds.
They are oft seen running certain social rackets like...oh Symphony orchestras.

But, that's not what it means to me.

What it means to me is in the phrase "doing the ton at Goodwood" which means lapping the aforementioned race track at 100 miles per hour or more.

Whether it actually ever meant that is irrelevant.

Closely related to the phrase "going whole hog".

What it means here on this post is that yesterday I managed to ride 100 miles up and down and around and in and out by the shining waters of Lake Washington.

My butt is an aching mass of eroded flesh!!!

Left the house at 7 AM and straggled back home at 7.15 PM.

Got in some nice rest stops lying on the grass looking up at the lightly clouded sky through the branches of the trees.

Highlight of the trip was the Sammamish (used to be called "slough") river.
The Sammamish river connects Lake Sammamish and Lake Washington.
There is not a very big difference in the levels of the two lakes, so the water just sort of sits there.
But the big thing is that the powers that be have been restoring it from a dredged out canal to a classic look riverbed with sand bars, gravel banks, fallen trees and all that "out in the wilderness" look that it was born with.
Very nice and Japanese garden look to it.

No more boat races there.

That was in the first 50 miles. The last 50 was just pumping, grunting and breathing heavy.

Anyway, I finally found out what was wrong with the counter. The battery in the
sending unit was going out. It lasted for the first 50 miles so I was able to put together the total from previously measured rides.

None of the bike shops along the way had such batteries.

So there's no splog today. Not that you care about that. I'm just using the site to keep track of the rides.

A Maple day

Finished rakett, mandora mold behind

Well. I didn't work on the cello concerto yesterday. Instead, I slices up some pieces of maple and ran them through the planer to make thin strips for the mandola project.
Mandora is like mandola or mandolin or a whole lot of other stringed instruments.

That thing that looks like a gigantic honey dipper is the mold for the mandora.
I've got to steam a bunch of thin slices of wood over the mold and fit them together to make the body of the thing.

So anyway, yesterday M wanted to get up early and drive out the Maple Valley road to Black Diamond to a bakery (CJ's) for a serious ingestion of sugar and coffee.
We each had all we could eat of a cinnamon roll drenched in maple sauce (a soft version of the frosting on a maple bar)
Then we got a little lost finding our way to Southcenter mall and Kenelley Keys where I bought a mouthpiece for the rakett.
That's not the new mouthpiece. If you look closely, you'll see a little chunk broken out of the edge of the one in the rakett.
I dropped it.
Kinda ruins the playability.

That piece of paper it's sitting on is for one of the violin parts to the 2 violin concerto.

Later on, we had maple flavored sausage for dinner. Mapleness tripled.

Later that night I found Keth watching "Airplane" with earphones (it was after midnight) Didn't need to hear it myself, that's just what they would expect me to do.

Later in the week it became now.

If it's Tuesday...

This must be a bike ride.
Same ride as last week, but this time I rode the kilometer up 3rd West.
Sad to say, I pooped out at the base of 57th and walked up Waters all the way.

Splog!!!

33.4 miles
3:27:33 hours
9.6 average speed
35.5 mph top speed
1307 accumulated miles.
72 to 84 degrees.

No more messages today I've got to sand and paint the cello concerto.

Up the Creek

1, The mighty Skagit river























2, Into the mossy woods to the falls.























3, Ladder creek, the stream feeding the mighty Skagit






















4, One of the many waterfalls making up ladder creek.
























I got tagged with a meme, here are the answers.

1, Jaques Tati, I don’t know why.
2, My computer music composition setup.
3, Being harassed by Seattle Symphony security on the streets of my own home town.
4, First Bicycle.
5, Pissing away my $5000.00 savings account opening my own shop instead of buying the Ferrari I could have bought instead.
6, Arrogant, Absurd, Irreverent, Insecure.
7, It’s 2008 already? Umm.. Selling off my collection of odd automobiles. (1951 Bristol Saloon {which I was just dreaming about}, 1960 FIAT 500, 1961 ALFA Romeo Guiletta Spyder).
8, If not Triplets of Belleville, then Casablanca.
9, I intend to be the definitive voice in 21st century orchestral music.
10, Duke Nukem. I realize he is a computer game character, but he’s a cartoon nonetheless.

One stupid thing?….Today already?
Promised my self a 60 mile bike ride which I’m already late for and don’t feel like now that I’m awake.

For the questions, check out Jannie Funster. She's linked under blog party revelers.

WEEK, and a few of my favorite things

After the bike ride on Tuesday,

WEDNESDAY!
showed up. So I dealt with that by going to my favorite Queen Anne coffee shop, my favorite Queen Anne grocery store, my favorite downtown coffee shop, (where "Happy Birthday" was sung by the folks running the place to a friend [I assume it was a friend] who walked in), my favorite downtown branch of my favorite library, my favorite composition teacher at my favorite Community College, one of my favorite movies (Key Largo, which featured Tonto before he was even Jay Silverheels as one of the ill-fated Osceola brothers and some skinny little girl [not bad lookin'])

THURSDAY!
followed like Thursday follows Wednesday.
I somehow mistakenly mentioned to M that the quilt museum in La Conner was having a show which featured some especially fantastic work on their third floor. So we drove there and looked at it.
Was good.
Dropped in on her brother who lives in Bow.
Drove up the Skagit to look at the hillside garden behind the hydroelectric plant and to walk up (climb up) the trail along the waterfalls.
Drove home the same day.
Got pictures, not processed yet.

Tired.

FRIDAY!
followed like Thursday follows Wednesday also. There seems to be some kind of pattern involved.
I got many hours work in on the cello concerto and a couple hours in on the clarinet Rakett (see above picture) that I'm building for Stuart Zobel, a friend from my Soundbridge days.

Watched "Mirrormask" an interesting mix of live, puppet, and computer generated imagery.

And now it's

NOW!
which follows nothing.
And I gots to moe the lon.


The picture is of the Rakett, my Buffet, the mold for the Mandora project, two different kind of masking tape, various tools and an old pair of pajamas.

Oy, Fidelio!

Popped out for a little ride. the bike behaved itself as well as could be expected seeing as how I put the front gear on wrong. An adjustable problem.
The new "there's always something" deal is the computer.
It misbehaved something fierce. Most of the time I was being told that I was randomly going 4.5, 13.2, 8.1, etc mph. The rest of the data was jumping all over the place too.
I though the battery might be a problem, but the guy at the bike shop in Leschi said no, so I decided to buy a new computer.
And a Clif bar. (Chocolate chip variety)
Fifty bucks
Back at the bike I cleaned the magnet on the spokes and, after awhile it seemed to work again.
But can I trust it?

Go ahead, ask me why I didn't clean the magnet thingy before I spent fifty bucks.
Go ahead, see if I care.

So today's specs are estimated. I rode to SPU but didn't do the kilo hill climb to the Starbuck's near the spot where somebody tried to run over me in a SSO-related incident.
Stopped at the little park along the canal at the foot of the hill and watered the horses.
Had the chocolate chip Clif bar.
I measured the trip home and doubled it.

31.4 miles
3:15:51 hours
30.6 maximum speed (I didn't double that)
10 mph average (approx)
1273 on the odometer.
84 - 94 degrees.

Lot'sa nice trees out this time of the year.
Cool shade appreciated.

I'm tired.

Taking a spin in the yard

Got up this morning and finished the chipping project.
The chipper has been stored and the tarp put over the canoe to protect it from UVs, which are the only thing that can damage it.
Not even kryptonite.
I wonder if Coppertone would help?

Got the camera out and snapped this panorama.

This.....is my back yard.

Anyway after a short nap, I went back and put in a couple hours on the cello concerto, a darker work than I have ever done before.
It's gonna be great.
Perhaps I won't think so tomorrow on a cold listen, but tonight I yam a jeenyus.

Then I made dinner, pork chops and mashed potatoes, Meredith's favorite.

After which we settled down to a CD's worth of the new Doctor Who.

Wild and crazy times on the Redwing estate.

An Encounter

Waiting to cross 6th avenue heading east on Union street, south side of the street, I notice something in my peripheral vision and see a woman cross Union and stop for the same light.
She is tall maybe five-ten dressed mostly in black. When I first see her she seems to be looking at me, but her focus quickly changes to a longer focus.
I, too decide to pretend to look further down the street. We both gaze around casually, avoiding eye contact until the light changes.
Then we both take off across sixth.
It's pretty much a dead heat, but she's slightly ahead ahead.
As we reach the other side she turns in front of me and heads south.
"Cutting me off", so to speak.
Is this aggression, this race, this display of survival techniques some sort of atavistic mating ritual?

Sex is better left to the imagination.

It's better to have loved and lost.

Much better.