The Benefits of Cybernetics

Bike tires are fickle beasts. Several weeks ago, I got my bike up and running again; attached the derailers, replaced the brake pads, slapped on a new chain and generally made sure all the pieces were aligned properly. This lasted a good couple of weeks, when my rear tire tube went out on me. Blasted things. I replaced the tube and the very next day, it went out on me again. Just to get this out of the way, I'm mildly retarded. My bike was left alone to wallow in its misery for a while as I looked around for my spare tubes. So this past weekend, I found them and James had picked me up one from the shop he works in.

So this morning, I'm all set and pop up in one of these babies and fill it up to about 80 psi. Did you know that a snapping shrimp's defense mechanism involves rapidly closing a their claws to create a highly pressurized bubble that explodes. This cavitation wave bursts out at hundreds of decibels, with a small piece of it breaching several thousand kelvin. It's capable of killing fish and shattering glass. Knowing this, you can imagine my joy when I peek around on the side of my tube and see that a section of the tube has expanded to push the enclosing tire out of its track. Did I mention I'm retarded? Futily, I push on it to see if I can slide the tire back in, then bewilderly watch as this little bubble seems to be growing slightly. It's at this moment that I see a black shrapnel shard stuck into the tire, just near this spot.

Unfortunately, bubbles wait for no man or their desires to inspect sharp objects lodged in their possessions. In a split second, the tubing rapidly expands, shooting a volley of highly pressurized air my way as I drop the wheel. Blinking my eyes a few times and waiting for my ears to stop ringing, the damages suffered are minimal. With a curse and the rear end of a hammer, the gremlin metal bit flips from its grasp. 2 tubes pissed away to incompetence. Hoorah.

Fortunately, all of that nonsense did get worked out and for the first time in a week or two, I was able to ride into work. Paid extra attention to the condition of that back tire, but otherwise it was good to be moving again. On my trip down the jail trail, I spooked a pigeon on the side of the rode. This pigeon did the strangest thing. It began to fly directly in front of me, zig-zagging back and forth along the rode, staying at low altitude so I was still right along side it, flying with it. We went down the ride like this for some time until the bird had enough and peeled off to land in the grass. If you ever get the chance to fly alongside a bird, I highly recommend it.

Now it's a damn shame that I don't have some functional cybernetic implants. The shortcuts that are being wired into my brain for the memory of that bird are nowhere near sufficient. I want a picture perfect visual replica of what my eyes saw this morning and offload it onto my home computer's hard drive, forever there so I can watch it whenever I want. I'd be satisfied a lightweight, durable wearable computer. It would also be nice to not be so brain-dead and remember to remove schrapnel from a bike tire so that every tube you put inside of it doesn't puncture and explode in your face. Until then, life will remain interesting as I enjoy my brain's deficiencies.

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I've been trying to come up with something meaningful to say about my vacation to Colorado. Having failed that, I'll sum up.

Chipmunks > Squirrels. More courageous and lively. Smaller. Cuter. Neither have anything to worry about from the LGB variety of rodents.

Mountain. Rain. Wind. Lightning. Thunder. I'm going to continue to make a habit of visiting the Tundra in Rocky Mtn. Nat. Park every time I visit there. See picture above.

Family. Seeing people in time lapse reality is very telling. Consequences and motivations become more clear. Lots of good people in this mix, and I'm glad to see an old rivalry continuing to die down; a shame it's caused by a decrease in self-esteem rather than just ego. The population of in-laws in my generation is swelling.

Serenity. With all the mountains in Pittsburgh, you'd think I would be able to find a place where I can sit in calm and look at them.

Motivation. Batteries have reached sufficient levels again. The time off there really got me motivated, not to go back to work, but to delve back into the things of interest that I have been neglecting. Kung fu. Strategy. Reading. Slack lining. Narrative games. You know, all the activities that requires some amount of energy and satisfy me.

Memories. Some good. Some sour. Inevitable with all the nostalgic bits swimming around.