Mental Trackmarks

One of the great things about working hard is the feeling of accomplishment. Another is finishing and looking back at a job well done. I have been working rather diligently lately doing some coding for mobile devices (Windows Mobile of all things … how I ended up at that is a long and winding tale beyond what I feel you, the casual reader, can endure at this moment). I was also teaching a programming course for high-school students on Saturday mornings. On top of this I was enjoying helping a vision-impaired cyclist train for a 200km tour ride by being a sighted rider on a tandem with him. Actually, “rider” is not entirely accurate because there was no notion of “being along for the ride” while we were training (yes, damnit, it was training and my legs are still sore).

About ten days ago I finished the programming course. It was quite good but I am sure I could do better if there is a next time. That day (Saturday) I went out biking for the long ride that was to be the big ride before some easier rides that would lead to the tour the following Saturday. Man, what a ride. It was long and hot and … as we were going down a large hill very quickly … terrifying. The second most horrible sound a person wants to hear (and possibly the last sound one might hear) when speeding down a hill on the front of a tandem bicycle (one that tilts the scales at nearly 600lbs with both riders and gear) is the taaannng of a spoke breaking on the front wheel. The most horrifying sound is a second taaannng that follows the first before one has had a chance to decelerate any significant amount while still going down the hill at great speed and squeezing the brakes with increasing force and urgency.

It was a very long, careful, and slow ride back to town.

I also want to plug MacQueen’s bike shop in Charlottetown (particularly Danny) who shook his head and pulled a wheel off of one of his tandems and told us not to worry about it until later so we could finish our ride. I appreciate his desire and ability to keep us riding.

The upshot of all this is what my body did to me on Sunday. The biking, teaching, and working left me tired and (apparently) susceptible to the Martian Death Flu (MDF). Not to be confused with Swine Flu or West Nile Virus, or any of the horrors that will terrify us throughout the summer, the MDF knocked me out of normal life for a week. Of that week I spent 4 days in bed (it might have been 5 but it is hard to judge that last one where I was out of bed for part of it). Did I mention that I was IN BED during this time–and not just moping around the house.

The good news is that I was able to watch movies and (eventually, when my brain would allow it) read some books. I read all five of Dashiel Hammet’s novels and would seriously recommend The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key, and The Thin Man. The first two, Red Harvest and The Dain Curse are quite intense–think Kill Bill as a novel. I have watched The Maltese Falcon a few times and it is very close to the novel. The Thin Man movie was a much looser interpretation of Dashiel’s book but attention to the characters in the movie brings out much of the charm (yikes, lots of pretence to use the word “charm” when writing about books and movies) of the novel. The characters spawned a total of six Thin Man movies. I like them all (with the last two being my least favourite but still worth watching).

So I read (I also finished my next book in the Cadfael series, Saint Peter’s Fair) and watched (all three of the original Star Wars movies with director’s commentary on–you know you are sick when you can lie through that dribble and be too apathetic to change the audio track). And I am very glad to be back on the mend. Oh, and the BBC adaptations of the Cadfael novels is quite good as well.

Life lesson: do not work so much that you get sick. Burning the candle at both ends leads to a short and soggy candle, even if it were extra bright while it burned. Let’s see if I can remember that for the next time.

Rather than read a book on programming and project management as per my last post I let myself, more or less, float through the evening. I watched the movie Diva (find the time to watch it when you want to float through an evening) and looked at a number of photos from an art exhibit in Chatham Ontario (where you should go because the show features barbie and “ken” dolls and features the work of Laurie Langford). I currently have “Nevermore” as my screen background.

Later, because I did not have enough media pounding its way into my head, I watched the Trailer Park Boys (I believe) last special entitled “Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys” and may I never again have to see even a fleeting vision of Mr. Lahey’s penis.

There … that should take the tone of this post down sufficiently. It makes listening to Eddie Izzard discussing his visit to France to do comedy (well, it is hard to tell where the discussion of the visit ends and the comedy begins as he mentions needing to bring a cat, a mouse, and a (naughty) monkey with him in order to be able to use the French he learned in grade school in the course of conversation–the monkey later goes on to reenact the movie Speed so I am thinking there is some creative license being taken). Here is a transcript to the lead up to the aforementioned bit about reenacting Speed.

“Bonjour, je suis Anglais, je suis ici en vacances. C’est très belle ici, les couleurs, les bois, très belle.”

( inhaling ) “Tu est un travesti?”

“Oui, je suis un travesti, mais pas un travesti typical. Je suis un travesti executive… Un travesti d’action!”

“Très bien…”

This is better when viewing the performance. His rather large and dress-wearing person does make the executive transvestite / action transvestite bit rather funny.

Okay, enough floating through the day.