Pride cometh before the Stupid Idea

Keirin (noun, KEE rin): a bicycle race on a track, in which a half dozen riders follow a motorcycle at increasing speeds until it exits the track, after which the riders sprint. Insanely fast and dangerous. See, for example, the following video:


The Japanese love this race. They invented it, and it's their version of horse racing. Keirin gambling is a big-money industry there, with bazillions of yen changing hands every race.

When the Sega gaming system came out, it was probably inevitable that a video game based on the Keirin was created for the Japanese consumers. The unparalleled crappiness of this game was also unavoidable.

At least the soundtrack rocks.

My biggest problem with this game is that you can move through other riders like they weren't there. Okay, thats not true. My biggest problem is that they don't have this game on Playstation or Wii, 'cause I'd move into Jenks' apartment and play it 24-7.

I think I can fix it, though. I think I can make a verion of this game where the laws of physics are (mostly) followed, where the computer players ride like they have any idea how Keirins work. The graphics will suck, like Bomberman suck. Pong suck.

But I think I can do it.

I told Will as much, and he bet me I couldn't. In fact, he and Aaron have 3 pools going: When I will give up entirely, when I will "complete" a barely-functioning version, and what the frame rate of the final product will be. They don't think I can do it.

So now I have to do it.

E-buddy

By now, the incoming class of grad students in my department has been finalized. Some of the rising 2nd, 3rd, and 4th years have been asked to communicate with the newbies (noobs?), to act as mentors or whatever and guide them into their graduate careers.

Will was not asked to be a mentor. Will is misanthropic. At least his posts are entertaining.

My N00B is from my alma mater, and I'm looking forward to answering his questions. Mostly I'm looking forward to observing the pure joy that comes from escaping Cleveland.

My only hesitation is this: why is this program called "E-buddies"?!?

Weekend Wrapup

So the Watermelon Crit came and went. Meh. Extra respect, however, is due to the following people:

• Dave Kim, for spending 10-to-go through 5-to-go at the front, working like a dog (dawg?) to keep the attacks in check.
• BeastMasterChris, for staying upright even when the idiot in front of him locked up his brakes through the 2nd turn and took him onto the grass.
• CaptainChaz, for coordinating (or at least attempting to) the leadout train with 2 to go.
• FlantasticDan, for riding the crit like a crit racer. Welcome back to the world of elbows-out.

Charlie and I went for a MTB ride (with Ricardo, whose glasses broke before I got a chance to get any riding in) in the Livingston Preserve, intending to do an easy cruise. Well, Charlie's easy is definitely not easy for me, especially when he's trying to test the durability of his new tubless tires by bombing every turn. Luckily, I was able to refuel rather nicely at the Hermutgers BBQ at Tom's house. Mmmmmburgers.

Yesterday, though, was the big money day, watching the USPro - or whatever it is called now - race. Jenks and Mark have already described most of it, and Craig doesn't have a blog but he'd probably echo their sentiments. I will, however, add one story (to which Jenks has alluded but that I will explain in glorious detail)

So we're riding on Diamond Street in North Philadelphia, through some less-than-opulent neighborhoods. Jenks is riding in his Hermes kit, and I'm festooned in the truly badass, always stylish Rutgers kit. Rolling up to a red light, we hear a girl's voice shout "Nice ass!!!"

Awesome... but who's the young lady referring to? Jenks has a nice enough bottom, I suppose, but my ass is world-renowned as excessively nice. Fortunately, the girl clarified a few seconds later... "Nice ass, red!"

I'll admit, I immediately started to gloat. Jenks had been putting the hurt on me for 60+ miles at this point, so I felt like I was due a little vengeance. My swagger, however, was cut short. Sitting on a stoop at the corner was an elderly lady who was quick to point out, "Naw, them asses is FLAT!!!"

drat.

Um... whaa?

Tomorrow is the Watermelon Crit, a race put on by the Highland Park Hermes Squadron of Much Awesomeness. The course is the same was the Rutgers Classic Crit course, or rather vice versa. 3 turns, a big-ring hill, downhill finish.

The Hermutgers 4/5 crew will be out in force, including cameos by alumni Tedward and DanFlan. We own this course. We have the numbers. Shit is ON.

I haven't ridden my bike since that Sunday with Mandy (so pro). Today I did openers on the crit course. That's 12 days of not-bike. Expectations were low.

And yet I had the good sensations. Not great, but sure as hell good. I know my job for tomorrow (best not to go into detail, lest I give away the plan!), and riding that stretch of course at speed felt sorta okay!

So again, I say... whaaa?

Damn my lack of foresight

Last night, on my way out the door, I looked at my camera and thought, "Nah. I've posted too many photos to the blog recently. I don't want to be that guy at the bar tonight".

And then Will brought tears (of laughter) to my eyes when he sang a Michael Jackson song, even stealing some girl's fedora to complete the effect.

And then Jenks went a little crazy with the Weezer.

And then Jenks went a little crazy.

The apocalypse is nigh.

It's weird coming from Mexico back to the US. More accurately, coming from El Squid Roe back to Harvest Moon. From Sol and Pacifico to Belgian Witbier and British Nut Brown. From Pablo the Substitute Pimp to Milky Manchester the KJ. It's a complete paradigm shift, necessitating an entirely different mindset.

Things I miss, in no particular order:

• "If you're from the East Coast, the West Coast, the Midwest, the Dirty South, Texas, New Jersey, L.A., make some noise!!!"... jeez, Pablo, why've you gotta leave out Colorado?
  
• Negotiating the fare for the cab ride home
• The geriatric women of Cabo Wabo and their devotion to Sammy Hagar
• The omnipresence of whistles
• "Chiclet? Chiclet? Chiclet?" No thank you, four year old child, and shouldn't you be asleep?
• "Want some weed? Want some blow? Want some Mexican ladies? Why not, you gay?"
• Hagen-Dazs in bulk
• Santa the Drunken Homeless Radiologist and his opinions on life
  

Undecipherable 2

Sal was the first to solve the first Undecipherable. Unfortunately, he only got as far as "How much time did you waste?" and realized he was wasting his time. Will and Charlie also solved it, but they preferred to mock the post rather than participate. Screw you, Will and Charlie.

So here's the new one. It should be the last. Also, it may interest you to know that my lucky number is the number of Rutgers racers at Granogue.

The chief insists your innate prowess assisted his warfare in digital form. Swear, resting at ease, to attach by fealty to our army. Come to your niche, grow up among evils. I assume any aggrieved industry boldens here, or leads to ripping anger. Kin, mirth to us!

Seriously, man, airports are boring when you don't have a book.


------------------------------------------------------
Solution to Undecipherable #1:
Congratulations! You have cracked the code. How much time did you waste? The secret message is "Go read a book!" Be the first to post that message to the comments and win a prize. You have one week.

Mexico, days 5-6

Day 5, Saturday, was a bit of a non-event. We lounged about like it was our jobs. Feeling a bit frisky, we went to the beach, only to get absolutely pummeled by the surf. My heart rate was well above threshold trying to get out of the undertow. Prem's shoulder took a beating when a wave threw him around. Rob needed to sit for a few minutes once we were on terra firma. I wanted to do it again, but they wouldn't let me.

The evening was spent playing backgammon and chess, eating innumerable quesadillas, and chatting over a few beers. Prem, Rob, and Handloff had to get up at 5:30 to go fishing on Sunday, which necessitated a very tame evening.

Banditos? Terrorists? Motorsports Enthusiasts?
Whatever, Mexico's coastline is the gorgeous
The big deal for me was Sunday afternoon... ATVing. Prem and I had gone my sophomore year - those dunes, by the way, were the location for filming of the movie Troy, and are now closed to the public - and Handloff "loves every activity that has motors and might kill [him]". Before Prem was to leave on Monday, we had to go ATVing again.

(l to r) Handloff, Prem, Don
We showed up to the ATV home base with about 3 minutes to spare before the next tour and acted very nonchalant about the whole thing... this really helped negotiations and made the whole experience more palatable.

The 3 hours of ATVing consisted mostly of long, dusty back-roads ('roads' is a very generous term) that we used to get to the venues for "free time". We spent 10 minutes in one venue, which was set on the side of a large dune, and 20 minutes in an open field, where bulldozers and time have created jumps, banked turns, and technical sections.

Prem gets some air

Honestly, riding on the roads was fun in and of itself. Those ATVs can book it. The "free time", though, was amazing, unforgettable, intense, sweeeeet. I used a lot of Charlie's MTB lessons yesterday, like finding "superman traction" before a technical bit, looking into a turn, and so on. We tore up that course, finding the limits of those machines' capabilities.

There's one picture, though, that was never taken. After Handloff went off a jump, I decided to try it. I asked him for advice about how to handle it. He responded "Gas Gas Gas". So I hit the jump with a lot of speed... too much. Apparently it looked awesome. Had I not spent hours at Chimney Rock, French Creek, and Granogue figuring out how to use my body to manipulate an airborne vehicle, I'd probably be blogging from a hospital. Fortunately, all I have to show for the experience is a bruise on my ass.
Handloff takes the Jump Of Doom in style...
add a foot or two of air and rotate him
45*clockwise, you'll see my jump
That was my last bit of adventure for the day. Free time was over, thank god, and it was time to go home and cook some fish. What fish? These fish:

Rob and Big Tuna
Handloff, Prem, Rob, and Hammerhead F'in Shark

Mexico, day 4

I'm going to try to show you where we're staying, but it's clear to me now that the photos simply don't do any justice to Jerry's compound.

Our apartment... Rob and I have this room, Mark and Prem have the other. Each has its own bathroom and fridge.


Walking down the stairs away from the rooms.


The pool outside our apartment. Yes, the slide is as fun as it looks.


The alley between the North and South side of the compound.


Our 'gym', the small yard where we did pushups, situps, etc in an attempt to not completely atrophy.


The view from the table outside the main building, where we have most of our meals.


Looking back up the hill towards the South side of the compound.


More houses on the South side, one terrace lower than the main building.


The house on the lowest level may be the nicest. Paris Hilton once reserved it, but cancelled. No, that wasn't a demonstrative exageration. Here is the living room.


Turning around, you see the Infinity Pool, complete with a sexy-posing Prem.


A gratuitous waterfall.


Apartments on the North side are guarded by a creepy statue.


Finally you have made your way down to the beach.


Who's house is this? See if you can guess. (clue: I didn't give him a Rutgers Cycling shirt)

Mexico, day 3

I wanted to post about Panchos, where our host Jerry took us for dinner. I wanted to show you the fishbowl from which they ladled the tequila. The fishbowl full of rattlesnake.


I wanted to tell you about the social strata at Nowhere Bar, or about the Substitute Pimp at El Squid Roe.

But no. I get to tell you about my interaction with the Mexican Police.

I volunteered to drive home tonight. We got in the car, pulled out of the dirt parking lot through the dirt alley, and got onto Cabo's Main Street. Then lights started flashing behind us. Now, I was definitely sober enough to drive - you know me, I'm far too neurotic to risk driving drunk - but I'd been drinking enough (N>0) that I was worried.

The cop told me that I'd gone the wrong way out of a one way street. This is, I assure you, a bogus charge. First of all, there's only one exit in that lot. Secondly, doesn't a street have to be paved to be a street?

I know enough about negotiation to recognize the maneuvering he was doing. Really, it was rather artful, and I was objectively impressed even as I was made miserable by it. He refused to speak any English, putting me in a position of uncertainty. He kept deferring to his superior, who was standing a few yards away. He took my license away, not for paperwork but for bargaining power. I was kept off-balance the whole time.

The next infraction of which I was informed was that the license plates were ____. Expired, maybe? Improper? Who knows, it was all in Spanish. It doesn't matter, it never mattered. That wasn't the point.

The fine was $80 per infraction. I would have to pay it at the station the next day. Yeah, right.

So I set about my negotiating machinations, tentatively suggesting that we are poor college kids and can't afford $160, that we just want to make things right. Without naming any numbers, I was able to work the cop down to $80.

Fortunately, I had Handloff with me. Handloff was drunk enough that his playing dumb wasn't really an act. Handloff was bold enough to immediately make a more reasonable counteroffer of $10. Handloff was callous enough to risk my license, because it wasn't his license.

So while I worked on cop #1, Hanloff manipulated the superior. His negotiation progressed much more quickly than mine, and I was so eager to get the hell out of dodge that I was glad to accept their terms. In the end, we had to cough up $40 in bribe money, I got my license, and we were on our way.

In conclusion, rattlesnakes make tequila taste delicious.

Mexico, day 2

The bars were a little bizarro last night. Perhaps the bizarro-ness of a Don-free karaoke night can transcend international borders and infiltrate the bars in Cabo. Which is not to say that I didn't have a good time. On the contrary, it was a great time.

After some strong drinks at Martini Jungle, care of a bartender who is a fan of Phi Psis (and Phi Psis' American Dollars), we rolled over to El Squid Roe. Every night ends at El Squid Roe. This is a sign in El Squid Roe:

For whatever reason, half of the TVs in the bar were showing a draft-legal (ie, quasi-road-race) triathlon. Drunk Don was excited. Drunk Don shouted at the triathletes to work together and stop being pansies, exclaiming "What's wrong with you? Go harder!". Drunk Don made a bit of an ass of himself.

Today was a recovery day. After breakfast, we read by the pool, swam in the pool, did a bit of a workout, and just tried to relax. Handloff and I played the ugliest ever game of chess. We set the board up wrong, with his queen opposite my king... I was in check in 5 turns. We forgot to announce checks. During some queen-on-queen dueling, we realized that we'd been playing for 3 turns with my king in check. Chess by the pool. Not bad.

Oh, and here's the view from the breakfast table. That's a wet bar gazebo on the left.

Part of the compound has been rented out for some social gathering, a mucho-dinero-per-plate dinner for 100. I took a picture of the setup before it started. Note that the lawn is actually on the roof of one of the buildings in the compound.

Finally, Handloff has requested that to make up for the last post, I add the following picture, which pretty much speaks for itself.