DanBailey.net

Hey, like most of MN, I just happily acknowledged Al Franken’s win. We have two senators again.

There are people who are lamenting the fact that our State Supreme Court did not order Pawlenty to sign the election certification. They don’t have to. He’s legally compelled to sign it anyway.

This leaves him two choices:

1. He signs the certification without hesitation or question, which pisses off his right-side wingnut base, and it puts a dent in the support of his rumored 2012 Presidential bid. Or,

2. He declines to sign the certification, which pisses off the middle-grounders because it looks like more Bush-era obstructionism. And it puts a dent in the support of his rumored 2012 Presidential bid.

Either way, he’s fucked. So he might as well go along with the State Supreme Court’s ruling.

Dan Life politics

A few family-related updates:

1. Saw Transformers 2 last night with one of my future brother-in-laws. The verdict: fight scenes good, plot’s awfully thin, and one really really bad continuity error (you don’t go out the back door of the Smithsonian into a desert with mountains in the background and a bunch of parked C-141 Starlifters looking like they’ve been mothballed.) Predictable. Probably won’t watch again.

2. Working with other future B.I.L. We’re going to get a few iPhone apps rolled and on the App Store — that’s the plan, anyway. We’re still trying to come up with a name. We’ve got 2-3 good ideas for software, and I’m trying to think of others.

3. Picked up Mooch’s remains at the UPS depot yesterday. That was surreal and a little sad. My chubby little girl’s been reduced to a pound of ash. I’ll need to track down a classy little urn for her.

4. Mom’s heart appears to be okay. EKG glitch gone, still some minor chest pain/pressure. They think it may be her gall bladder. Crazy stuff. She’s starting to have lots of surgeries — knee, bladder, bunions, etc. Pretty soon, my mom will be a cyborg.

5. Kate’s back in NC, after coming home for the family camping trip this weekend. I’m missing her like crazy again, but I’m looking for upsides to this. Upside: I get to drive the Honda Fit while she’s gone. Woo, gas savings.

Dan Life blackwoods, kate, mom, mooch

So I’ve not been updating lately. The last month-and-some-change has been pretty tough. First there was Terry ending his own life. Then there was having to euthanize my cat/BFF. Last week, I found out that my sister-in-law has breast cancer and that it’s metastasized. And then last night, mom gets admitted to the ER with chest pains (a blip on the EKG, enough to warrant a trip to her primary care this week).

So yeah, haven’t been writing a lot lately. I’m sure you’ll understand.

Upcoming, though: reviews of the Fibre Flare and Nite Rider USB Mi-Newt lights, my thoughts on Iran and North Korea, and other scintillating fun.

Dan Life mom

It’s not often that I see a bike tool that makes me salivate, and really I can’t remember the last innovative idea I’ve seen in bike tools. Sure, there’s new items every year from Park and other companies to accommodate the various new foo-foo standards — and these days that’s mostly around the plethora of bottom bracket styles. My first thought upon encountering the Pedro’s Vise Whip was, “Holy crap! Why didn’t someone think of this twenty years ago?”

What Is It?
The Vise Whip looks like a normal set of vise grips at first glance. A look at the jaws, however, will show you that something’s amiss. What you have is a classic tool that’s been modified to replace a cumbersome and annoying tool called a “chain whip” (example: Park’s SR-1) — in which you wrap a length of chain around the cassette to keep it from spinning while you use another tool to loosen the lockring.

The problem with the chain whip solution is that you frequently will have issues with the chain portion slipping, and it’s a nightmare to loosen track cogs, which are frequently tight enough to require a cheater bar to leverage off. The Pedro’s Vise Whip solves this problem neatly, by slotting the jaws of the tool to allow accommodate a gear, while providing two pegs that will fall in between the gear teeth, neatly securing the cassette or track cog. Lock it in-place, hold the grips while you turn the lockring, and you’re done. It’s that simple.

MSRP: $70.
Pros: neatly solves the annoying process of removing a cassette lockring
Cons: cost, doesn’t work with 1/8″ cogs
Verdict: a god-send in the bike shop; a nice touch for the home mechanic

Dan Bike gear, review, tools

Okay, despite the score/level shown, I am really not the Bejeweled shark that this image would make me out to be. And no, this isn’t a Photoshop job. This is being used as evidence of a bug in Pop Cap’s game Bejeweled 2 (for the iPhone).

Want to score eleventy bajillion points and get that dirty feeling of shame at the same time? Here’s what you do.

Start a normal game of Bejeweled 2. Start trucking along. When you get to the point where you have no more moves left, the blocks are going to wiggle and explode.

Very quickly hit the home button on the phone (you know, the one with the square on it). This will take you back to your screen full o’ apps. Hit the Bejeweled 2 icon again, wait for it to start. Then hit select Classic Game. The phone will ask you if you want to resume your previous game. Yes, you do.

The game will restart you at the beginning of the level you FAILed at, with the same score you started the level with.

Dan Geek iphone, video games

R.I.P., Mooch
June 2, 1999 - June 6, 2009

 
In a bit of serendipity, Mooch came home with me on a rainy Saturday afternoon, riding in the passenger seat of a Honda, with Nirvana on the radio.

A decade later, she left home for the last time, much the same way. Kate drove and Mooch was cradled in my arms, wrapped in a blanket. I talked to her while she watched the rain on the Honda’s windows. When Nirvana came on the radio, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and goosebumps crawled down my arms.

The decision to help her move on, to end her pain, was the right one, and the most painful decision I’ve ever had to make.

She was a wonderful, unique cat. Everyone that met her loved her, and she loved new people and new experiences.

Our last days together were good. On Thursday, I worked from home, and we spent time together on the couch. She got to eat all her favorite foods and always had little samples, despite her waning appetite. We went outside and she got to feel the grass between her toes and to watch the birds flit around the trees in our front yard. During those times, I got to see my girl again — curious, happy, and goofy. I told her I loved her, and she licked my fingers — something she did when she needed reassurance, or when I did.

On Friday night, Kate came home. I fell asleep on my side, with Kate spooning up against my back, and Mooch against my chest. I got to repeat it the next morning, too, and those are memories I’m always going to carry with me.

On Saturday afternoon, we drove to the vet. We talked to them about the diagnosis, and the pain factor, and that Mooch wasn’t really herself anymore. With heavy hearts, and a lot of tears, we opted to have her put to sleep. They took her away to install the catheter, and brought her back to us, so we could spend time with her. And I told her I loved her, and kissed her head while I cried. She licked my fingers and rubbed the sides of her face against my hand.

The vet came back when we were ready. She unmasked the catheter and got the needle put in it. I told my friend that it wasn’t going to hurt anymore, and that I loved her. She gave me a quiet meow, and when the injection started, she began licking my fingers again.

And then she was gone and the light was out of her eyes.

We held her for awhile longer, and I couldn’t stop crying, and kept thinking I felt a slight purr along her sides. The vet came back to take her again, and I made sure I kissed her head and smelled her fur one last time before she was gone.

All I have left of my baby girl is my memories and a paw print in clay. There’s some fur and whiskers around the house, and some photos in Flickr. But I can’t hold her again, can’t hear her little “laugh” noise, or fall asleep with her snuggled up in the crook of my arm. And that breaks my heart more than you can possibly imagine.

She came into my life not long after I’d moved to Philadelphia, at a time in my life where I was just starting to figure myself out and to truly grow. And so we grew together, and over the decade of her life, we were the only constants for each other. We moved to new homes, other cats came and went through our lives, and there were all sorts of upheavals, but we always had each other.

She wasn’t just a cat. For almost a third of my life, she was my best friend and my family, and I’ll always love her as much as I do right now.

Goodbye, Mooch. I miss you.

(A huge thanks to Mandy at Glimpses of Soul for her amazing photography work.)

Dan Life cats, goodbye, mooch

• Mooch passed away on Saturday. I’ve written a tribute for this site, which was heart-wrenching to do, and I’m waiting on some photography, but I’ll be posting it here.
• People are making me fucking crazy with their obtuseness.
• I’m still moving along with Anathem — holy christ what a dense, interesting, fun book. I hope to finish it by 2014.
• Got on a conference call with China this morning at 0700. Turns out that that was 0700 Pacific time. Or 0900 my time. Craptacular.
• Haircut tonight. Much-needed.
• Gary Fisher Triton? Thoughts? Y/N?
• I am dead-on-my-feet tired

Dan Life

As amateur athletes, we often struggle to find the balancing point where hobby and the rest of our lives overlap — and that overlap can be both time and financial. Being an endurance athlete isn’t cheap in hours or dollars, and often we get so caught-up in that we miss the bigger picture.

Yesterday my cat/”BFF”, who has been a constant source of happiness in a fairly tumultuous last decade, jumped up on the bed, breathing heavily and acting a little weird. She’s an odd cat, and I associated her behavior with playing with one of the other cats. Fairly soon, it was obvious that this was not the case.

Almost immediately, we were in the car and on the way to the emergency vet. (And I cannot say enough positive about the emergency services at the University of Minnesota Veterinary Clinic.) Over the course of the day, I wiped out my personal savings that I had set aside for my new mountain bike — and it didn’t even occur to me until about 5pm, and when it did, I didn’t care.

For over a year now, I’ve wanted a new Gunnar Ruffian 29′er frame. I’ve been stockpiling parts, sweating over the colors (loving and wanting that Bright White Pearl), and have been saving money toward ordering the frame. Next Friday, the 12th, I would have been ready to make the order. But there was never a thought of not going to the emergency vet. Cost be damned, because a bike can’t give you back the love that a friend/pet can.

So, hours and hundreds of dollars later, it’s been determined that she’s got a blood clot in her leg, and she’s being treated with aspirin and painkillers. There’s still the matter of determining what the source of the clot was, and whether or not she’ll regain use of the limb — more money in diagnostics. The important thing right now, though, is that my best friend is still with me. (And dammit, I’m tearing up while writing this. I thought I was all cried-out.)

She’s my baby girl. Doing what I’m doing at the cost of a new bike isn’t even something that I’m going to sweat. When the day comes that I do buy a new Ruffian frame, it will make the first ride even more special knowing that the wait — whether it’s a year or five years — was worth it. The time with my friend is more a far more valuable thing.

The lesson here is that your family and friends should always come before the bike. There’s no point in being the fastest, the most technically capable, or the strongest, if you don’t have the people you love to come home to afterwards. Never forget that.

(And when I do, someday, get around to buying that Gunnar, I’m going to get it in black, and a decal for the top tube that describes Mooch — “Happy-Go-Lucky”. Call it a tribute bike.)

Dan Bike, Life 29er, cats, gunnar, mooch, mtb, ruffian, UMN

So I had this awesomely huge to-do list for the weekend, and was all gung-ho about getting through it. Saturday morning, I woke up, attacked it and lasted until about 1pm before I decided that I was done. I did manage to get in a good ride, hit up Target for some necessities, and wash both the WRX and the Fit.

I did read a few hundred more pages of Stephenson’s Anathem. Like everything he wrote after Cryptonomicon, it’s kind of slow going. It’s not that it’s boring, it’s that it’s dense with ideas. And that slows me down a bit. There’s the paperback edition of another book (not by Mr. Stephenson) I’ve been wanting to read and that’s coming out tomorrow, so I’ll be hitting up B&N and shoving it to the top of the to-read list.

In addition to my reading, I also watched the entire first season of Big Bang Theory, which I scored at Target for $16 on DVD. (Awesome show. Something you should really be watching, particularly if you’re a geek.)

Dinked around with the money a bit — planning and thinking work.

Had a great talk with Kate. Aired out some of the emotional difficulties surrounding her long business trip, and as a result, I think we’re on the same sheet of music, and stronger for it. Have I mentioned that I love that woman? Yeah, well, I do.

So I’ve gone and done it again — another post laden with trivia about how I spent my weekend, and how I’m goofy-in-love with my fianceé. I’ve got some more interesting/substantive stuff forthcoming, I swear.

Dan Life kate, reading, sci-fi, tv, wrx

So I’m home from my Memorial Day Weekend. I’ve got a few small splotches of sunburn (top of right foot, front of right shoulder), I’m friggin’ exhausted, and if I see another airplane again this week, I might throw myself down a flight of stairs.

As I’ve mentioned here previously, Kate is traveling for work, leaving me living the pseudo-bachelor lifestyle. This weekend, her employer paid for me to head to North Carolina (Wilmington) to visit. They’re good to their people, and indirectly very good to me.

Friday

I blew out of the house at 7 a.m., caught a bus downtown and jumped the light rail to the airport. For a weekend like this, I’m a one-bag kind of guy. Layover in Charlotte. Excellent people-watching.

Got to the airport, met Kate. Hugs. Leave airport. Hit Chick-Fil-A for late lunch/early dinner. Go back to the hotel and have a nap together. Wake up. Go out drinking/dancing. 80’s cover band. A bar called Southpaw. Some dance club — not my scene and had to walk up five flights of stairs to get to it. From there to Waffle House for food, hilarity in the form of a waitress named “Bunny”, and some seriously stoned dude sitting in the booth next to ours. Awesome!

Saturday

Slept in a bit. Dunkin Donuts for breakfast on the way to the beach. Spent some time lazing in the sun. Had finished Jay Lake’s Escapement by this point, started new stab at Stephenson’s Anathem (the autographed copy I won). Lots of clockwork in this fiction lately. Went home. Ate Chick-Fil-A again. Another nap. Saddled up and went out on the Haunted Pub Crawl, which was seriously awesome.

Talked about famous hauntings and sightings in Wilmington — not sure how much I believe, but it was still pretty cool. Afterwards, it was back to the hotel again for more sleep!

Sunday

Slept in holy friggin’ late. Went to go see Star Trek, but were foiled by it being sold out. Wound up experiencing Southern hospitality at its finest in the form of a seafood boil at one of Kate’s co-worker’s homes. I sat at the far end of the table and ate grilled chicken. More sleeping!

Monday

Woke up. Had another run at Dunkin Donuts on the way to the beach. Had to stop for about an hour after witnessing a car crash that looked bad (but only looked that way). After making a statement, we finished our run to the beach, where we got shit on by a seagull. Then we watched three kids get dragged in from the rip by a lifeguard. Back to the hotel where we showered, and I packed. Went to eat Mexican food. Went to the airport. Flight delayed. Layover in Charlotte. Flight delayed at gate and on the runway. Got to sit between two crying babies. (”How to make mute babby?”) Arrived in Minneapolis after midnight. Missed 12:27 train by nine minutes. Mom came to get me, just having finished her late shift at the VA. Got dropped off at home around 1:40. Finally fell asleep around 3:00.

All in all, though, an awesome vacation. I’m back here now, missing Kate — it gets harder every time we do this, but it’s better than the alternative (not seeing her). So yeah. My first real vacation in years and it was fun, inexpensive, and fun. Did I mention fun?

Dan Life kate, nc, vacation