The death of professional bike racing, or the rebirth?

The 2007 Tour de France is over, and what a strange and exciting one it’s been. There are those out there who want to stress the negative – both the overwhelming pre-race favourite Vinokourov and the guy who probably would have won it kicked out of the race. But to me there is much to be positive about.
Continue reading “The death of professional bike racing, or the rebirth?”

New glasses

I got new glasses on Tuesday. I had reading glasses before, but I hardly ever wore them because until recently I didn’t need them unless the light wasn’t very bright. There were only two times I really felt the need – when I was reading in bed, and when I was trying to plug something into the back of a computer. Plus they gave me horrible eye strain if I looked through them at distant things. My eye doctor recommended that I get those no-line multi-focus lenses, because then I could keep them on all the time and they’d be there when I needed them, plus there would be one part of the lens that was good for up close stuff and another part that would be good for computer screens.

Ok, two days on, here are my impressions:

  1. They do fulfil the promise of something I could keep on all the time, so they’re handy when I need them.
  2. There are some things that don’t fit the multi-focal glasses paradigm of “close things are down low, far things are up high” – the one I notice most is the wing mirror on my car.
  3. I’ve got to learn to ignore them, because I think I stare when I’m looking through them. A few hours and my eyes get really dry.

Also, I was walking into work yesterday and I thought something was wrong with my iPod – there was a large dark area on the screen. A little while later, sitting at my desk I looked and was releived to see it was no longer there. And then l saw it again on the way out to the parking lot. That’s when I realized that the clip-on sunglasses that came with the glasses are polarized. D’oh!

Hating re-routes, part II

I woke up this morning at was shocked to find it was raining. This was a total surprise to me, as I thought the forecast was for more sun. This was a huge disappointment, because I’d decided that I’d prevent New York controllers from giving me a half hour ground hold or re-routing me all over hell’s half acre by flying VFR.

Fortunately, while it was raining all over most of southern and eastern New York and New Jersey, it was all layered stratus clouds so no thunderstorms. So it would be IFR, but flyable IFR. That’s good.
Continue reading “Hating re-routes, part II”