the Deathly Hallows
Finished it last night @ 1:30, plowing through the last couple of chapters (and epilogue!) after walking around a bit to stay awake.
I won’t give any spoilers, but wow, nice job. A really well-done ending to the series. Plenty of aha! moments as old threads got pulled in a tidied up, and amazing new stuff that tied in perfectly. A couple of really hilarious bits. Some hard, sad losses of characters i liked, and several spectacular scenes that digital animators will be dying to get their hands on in a couple of years.
and Dobby. and Neville. and Snape. and how.
the connected commuter
This morning’s commute was in the best weather we’ve seen in weeks. Cool and dry, partly cloudy and a little breeze, comfortably riding in regular old work clothes. As i waited on the light at the first main intersection, an obviously homeless guy came up and said hi, chatted about the weather and said ‘praise the lord’ about five times. He smelled strongly of listerine and pine sol, but he was pleasant enough and had kind eyes hiding amongst his matted hair and beard.
A few stoplights later, i chatted with another guy apparently waiting for a bus, bagged lunch in hand. He seemed a little mentally slow, but commented on the weather and said that it looked like fun to be riding a bike. We had a pleasant two minutes small talk while the light cycled through, and we wished each other a nice day.
With the bustle of commuting and managing traffic, even riding a bike can sometimes be an isolating experience. This morning though, a couple of nice (aside from the disinfectant smell) little moments of humanity that nobody in their car could have had even if they could get past the initial appearance of these characters. Life on the human scale is a much richer existence.
next up
Sunday’s 150 mile ride was my longest continuous ride ever, and my longest single day of mileage ever. Maybe it was the perfect weather, maybe it was having good riding companions, maybe it was just the pie, but i had a really great time on the ride. I wore only silkweight boxers and linen shorts, and even my butt was fine after sitting on a saddle for 10 hours. There were certainly things to fine-tune; slight change to the angle of the bars, new shoe insoles, bring much less food when stops are planned - but i thought it went really well. So well that i want to do even more.
A like-minded friend with much more experience in this pointed me to The Forth and Back 200, and i think i’m going to give it a go.
That means i’ve got a few gravel centuries to cover in the next couple of months. Anybody know the fastest way to get to a long gravel road from Midway?
the WIN-MSP Dual Mode Double Metric ride
(or, the DMDM 1.0 :-)
(all images link to an enlarged version with caption in the photo gallery)
On Sunday, i spent an excellent day with two good cycling friends on a fun day trip. We departed from St. Paul, MN on the Amtrak, rode the train to Winona, MN, then rode our bikes home.
It was my first century ever, and the first one of the year for the other two, though they’ve each done much tours before. We made a leisurely tour of it this time, making plenty of stops along the way for food (ice cream! pie!) and scenery (eagles! topless teens!), and some interesting detours along the way. We got in a bit later than planned, but the night riding was sublime, and i finished feeling good enough (or was stubborn enough) to ride a final 4 miles around my neighborhood to round the trip up to an even 150 miles (240 kilometers).
I had a blast, can’t wait to do it again. Continue on for the full story and pictures!
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