Strange

A couple of Sundays back, I had the opportunity to explore some new trails. My oldest kid had an all-day lacrosse clinic at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. I took the opportunity to scope out some local trails.



After dropping the kid off at W&M, I had a few hours to myself. Area trail reviews tended to favor the Marl Ravine Trail at York River State Park, so that's where I headed. After finding the park and asking a local rider where the trailhead was, I suited up in cool weather gear, mounted the (still-fixed) Monkey and pedaled off into the unknown.

The trail was fast, fun and a hell of a workout (particularly for my non-ridin'-ass). The terrain was what you would expect if Fountainhead and Rosaryville got together, got bizzy and made a baby trail. Flowy, but not as flowy as R'ville. Lotsa quick up and down hills, but not as grueling as F'head. Total distance is anywhere from 6 to 7 to 9 to 14 miles, depending on who you believe. The trailhead says 5.8, I think, but the paper map available at the park entrance seems to say 9.1. I've ridden my local ~7 mile loop fixed a few times, and the Marl Ravine *definitely* felt longer. Probably didn't help that there was a ~1.5 mile ride from parking lot to trailhead. I definitely felt that at the end of the loop. I also took the opportunity mid-ride to take a break in the woods and just soak up the total silence. A rare item you don't find at many local trail systems.

I had planned on posting a GPS track of the trail. I meant to pack the GPS in the backpack, but managed to leave it safe and sound in the truck instead. So no waypoints for you.

Props to the Eastern Virginia Mountainbike Association for building and maintaining the trail system there. Apparently, they had been out cutting new trail as recently as the day before my ride. Well done! One request, tho: When you get to the one and only intersection with the vague marking "Raccoon Run --->" and "<--- Bluejay Jump", how about an idea what one is getting one's self into. I was actually looking for the longer route and decided on the "Raccoon Run" option, since it seemed to be more in-line with the trail and flowed more naturally than the other. But I have no idea if that was better/worse/shorter/longer than the other cleverly named path.

The entire endeavor took just about two hours (including gearing up before and gearing back into street-clothes after). Afterward, with time running tight, I tried finding a local pub for a beer and burger, but came up empty. I sadly had to settle for an Appleby's (Applebees? Whatever.) for a mediocre brew and uninteresting burger. Following that, I picked up the kid and took off north-bound on the leisurely three-hour drive home...in traffic.

CNN: We're Good at Stating the Obvious

In a story about the Indian lunar orbiter overheating* CNN, speaking about a probe released by the orbiter, says

"Officials say that the TV-size probe...hit the moon's surface at a speed of 3,579 mph."

So far, so good, right? Then they thankfully point out

"...[it] was not intended to be retrieved after that."

o_0

Who'd have guessed.

* Side note, isn't space roughly 0°K (like -276°F)? Can't they just crack a window on the orbiter and be done with this overheating problem? If "yes", can I now add the title of "rocket scientist" to my resume for offering that bit of advice?

NotGeo

Dear NatGeo, don't you think you have enough quality photographs in your archive that you don't need to swindle average, unsuspecting photo-contest entrants out of their mediocre photos? Stop it already.

From the above linked site:

5. License

By entering the Contest, all entrants grant to Authorized Parties (National Geographic Society and its licensees) a royalty-free, worldwide, irrevocable perpetual, nonexclusive license to reproduce, distribute, display, and create derivative works of the entries (along with a name credit) in whole or in part, without further review or participation from the entrant, in any medium now existing or subsequently developed, in editorial, commercial, promotional and trade uses in connection with NGS Products.

Bottom line, **every photo submitted** to them (not just the winning photo, which would be bad enough) becomes theirs to do with what they want. Forever. And ever. Amen. If you enter this contest after knowing this, you're an idiot. If you've entered without reading the fine print, you're naive.

Props to Twitter user Photo_Guide for pointing this one out.

Best. T-shirt. Ever.

(Click the photo for link to original. Image by flickr user sconartist).


In case you don't get the reference:



Edit to add: Apparently the place to get this masterpiece is Slash Jeans in Berkeley, CA. They have a website where they were advertising the shirts for sale in CA for $25 (with $5 from each shirt going to the Obama election campaign...my kinda shop!!). I emailed this morning to see if the shirts were still available and if they shipped. Fingers crossed.

Edit^2 to add: The shop in CA is sold out. The guy who made the shirts sells them online here:

http://dna-barackbrains.11345.com/catalog.php

Assuming he has them in stock, I'm placing my order tomorrow. Without a doubt.

That which often halts my finger just before hitting the "send" button.

(webcomic XKCD)

Often, I spend time crafting a retort to a friend's/acquaintance's/random stranger's online post; Be it an email, blog post, Facebook post, news story comment, or whatever. I put thought into my reply, only to hit the delete key at the last minute. Invariably, I think back on this comic and see the futility of my actions. I'm trying to get to the place where I think of this comic *before* wasting my time crafting marginally informative missives, only to send them to the ether.

Here's hoping whatever ride takes place in DC on 1/20/2009 it will be more optimistic than the CritMass Anti-Inauguration ride of 1/20/2005.







(above photos not representative of the angry-ness of the CritMass ride of 1/20/2005, but they're all I had handy.

I feel like Gwadz

So many updates, so short a timespan.

Cool bit: Google Street View comes to DC.