So a bunch of nerds (cool ones) made a life size R2 unit (pink) for a girl with brain cancer.

And now Hasbro is releasing it as an action figure.

Damn, that’s awesome. Check it out.

Warriors Mark 33 mile loop
Originally uploaded by ratsinis.

The RBR recumbent rally had two ride days, Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday, there were two available routes that both started at Fairbrook park. One route was 15 miles. The other route was 33 miles. Being the relative noob that I am, I went for 15 miles and finished it with little problem.

So I went back yesterday and did the 33 mile run.

Since I had done 28.5 miles between Spring Mills and Millheim, I wasn’t too worried about endurance issues, but this still marks a new personal best for me.

The only problem, really, is that I end up averaging 10MPH over these long runs (usually starting at 13-15 and ending at 8-9, though I got a second wind at mile 31 and was pulling 13MPH in the final stretch). That’s a problem because it means that a 33 mile ride is roughly 3 hours. To ride any farther requires more time which, as is usual, is at a premium.

Laz said something to me today about how I’d probably eventually end up doing a cross-country and back ride, but there’s no way I could ever in my life be on the road for two months.

I’m pretty happy just with what I’ve accomplished so far. My goals for the next year are to do a metric century (62 miles) and then ride in the 2008 MS 150 (75 miles per day over a weekend), assuming I can talk my way onto my company team and raise the $200 required pledge cash.

If you’re ever in the mood to meet with a small group of cyclists on the top deck of a parking garage and watch a movie projected onto a concrete wall from a portable, self-contained projection system (power, speaker, projector, and player on the back of a large tricycle), then keep an eye out in the CDT for “Bike-In Movie” night.

I went last night to watch The Road Warrior, but the movie playback was plagued with technical difficulties, so we instead watched a bike messenger documentary titled Pedal.

There was no surprise that I was the only recumbent rider to show up. About three people consented to taking my trike for a spin (people are so hesitant to get on it for fear that they’ll break something), and all three enjoyed it.

The big advantage for me, though, was that I essentially rode in on my chair, so once the movie started, I grabbed my popcorn and iced tea from my panniers, sat back into the seat, and put my feet up on the pedals for an evening of comfort.

Wow, it was a bad weekend for bicycling. Check it out:

First up, “Rage on the Bikeway”.

Next, “Activist Arrested for Reciting First Amendment”.

And, finally, a “Bicycle Rage” letter to the editor.

My experience riding around Centre County has so far been pleasant, but then, I’ve actively avoided busy roads like College, Beaver, Atherton, and Whitehall.

As I get older and my family more complex, I find that going camping is a huge god damned production. This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy camping - I really do - but just check out this list of stuff we take:

To buy
Gallon Zip Loc bags
Batteries - 2 D, 1 brick
Firewood
Lunch Saturday - Something easy
Dinner - Mountain Pies
Bread
Pizza sauce
Cheese
Pepperoni
Butter
Breakfast Sunday - Eggs (beaters), bacon, juice
Lunch Sunday - Cold cuts, chips
Bread
Turkey
Mayo
Tomato
Lettuce
Potato or Sun chips
Snack - marshmallows
Diet Coke
Bottled water
Ice

To pack
Tent
Chairs
Flashlights
Sleeping bags
Pan
Cooler
Sleeping pads
Bikes
Draftmaster
Hatchet
Lighter
Newspaper
Mallet
Shovel
Gareth’s food and meds for two days
Gareth’s suction, catheters, and charger
Toys/books for Gareth
Diapers, wipes, et cetera
Clothes for the three of us
Swimsuits
Towels
Biking bag, water bottles, trike cushion
Kayak and related gear
Camera and batteries (recharge them)
trash bags
paper towels
bug spray
Toiletries
Sunscreen

Part of me wishes that our camping could be simplified to a tent, some trail mix, and a good pair of hiking boots, but the reality is that we are suburbanite flatlanders who require some level of comfort while recreating in the woods. One time, I even looked at prices for pop-up campers. Doing so filled me with the same sense of dread as shopping for a mini-van, but I know that, at some point, a camper will be more and more appealing to me.

A few weeks ago, Circuit City was selling Kingdom Hearts II for $10. Since it had a Tron world in it, I couldn’t resist purchasing it.

But holy hell, I started playing it and it took me five hours just to get to the title screen and start the actual game. Now that I’m there, the game is a lot more enjoyable, but that was quite a hurdle.

Having never before played a Square Enix game, I had to come into work and ask other folks if all their games started this way. Turns out no, KHII just has the longest intro ever.

28.5 miles, downhill speed of 36MPH.

I’m so pissed that I didn’t break 30 miles.

Within the past 7 days, I have pedaled 50 miles. 20 on Saturday, 15 on Sunday, 8 on Tuesday, and 7 today. I would have expected that, at some point, my legs would be sore, but so far, they’re just fine. Chances are good that I’ll do another 7-8 on Friday, taking my total to 58 miles.

It’s amazing how much of a motivator a recumbent rally can be. I had always avoided road rides because of traffic fears, but after two days of strength in numbers riding, I have now lost my fear and don’t have a problem taking the lane at a busy intersection (such as Whitehall Rd/R26) even when I’m sitting lower than the bumper of the truck idling directly behind my rear wheel.

Speaking of that rally, Gareth was along for the ride when we did the 20 mile route. He was good for that first hour, but when we hit mile 11 on the way back, he lost it. I don’t think he’s ever been so pissed at me before. Turns out that two hours is a long time for a child to sit on a bike, regardless of the comfort of the seat. Lesson learned.

Following up a bit on yesterday’s post, I once was trapped in a van with somebody who was incredibly religious and figured out a way that God gave the okay to shoot people with a glock if need be.

This guy’s wife also liked sex “on top”, but that’s neither here nor there.

Anyway, we got into a discussion regarding God, faith, evolution, and atheism. He was doing his best to figure out why it was that I didn’t believe in God when, at one point in my life, I was doing puppet ministry and was the favorite teen in the local Methodist church.

When we somehow got to the death of my father, he pounced: “Do you blame God for your father’s death?”

“No, I blame his 30 years of chain smoking. He died of lung cancer.”

In fact, I never once thought, “Why, God, why?” It was so patently obvious that my dad poisoned himself over a very long period of time and suffered the consequences. I’m not saying I don’t miss him, but I’m sure not about to try to place blame elsewhere.

The same will probably happen soon with my mother who is overweight, diabetic, suffers heart palpitations, and continues to smoke. No anger need be directed towards the heavens if that passing comes to be.

During our conversation, we were hitting on creationism vs. evolution. I found myself saying the following: “Have you ever thought that maybe evolution actually happened and was set in motion by God? If you go with that slant, then we can all just agree to study evolution and not worry so much about its point of origin.” Yeah… I went and applied intelligent design “theory” before even having heard the phrase. Go me. I differed a bit from ID in the fact that I was suggesting that evolution still took its own course after its supernatural jumpstart. I wasn’t suggesting that humanity was a known goal.

My point, really, was to make this guy think that maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t thought about all the possibilities. That, to me, is the first step in free thinking. Our conversation didn’t have any long term impact on him, though. The guy drove like a maniac, so I wasn’t keen to get stuck in the van with him too often in order to reinforce these new thought patterns. Plus, he had a glock.

When I was a teenager, I attempted the same thing within my own family. I one day asked my at the time very Catholic mother, “How do you know that the Bible wasn’t written by Satan just to mess with you?” The reaction to that was not pleasant. Role playing games were thrown out, heavy metal music and paraphernalia was destroyed, and I was no longer allowed to skip church. Had she stopped for a moment, she could have realized that such a scenario relies upon the existence of Satan which, ostensibly, means there’s a God to which we would have to answer regardless. But no, the reaction was that such a thing was not possible because the Bible is the word of God. And there was no questioning that.

That was the moment when I stopped believing in God.

I put on a fine act for several years after that, counseling at church camps, making puppets talk about Jesus, joining the friggen choir. I professed to be “born again”, attended Christian music concerts, and was active in youth groups. At one point, a minister told me he thought I was destined to be a minister myself. Mostly, I just wanted attention. What kind of godly child would have his camp kids wear bras under their shirts all day only to end the evening with a rendition of “The Bra-dy Bunch” wherein they remove said bras and fling them over their heads? (And, equally terrible, I had to cajole female campers into lending them to us.)

Hmmm, probably shouldn’t have admitted to that last bit.

I ran into a cousin of mine while picking up photos at Wal-Mart last night. This particular cousin, without fail, always tells me that the resemblance between my father and me is stunning. He mentions this largely because my father has been dead for 17 years, half of my life.

As we talked about how our respective families were doing, how our jobs were, et cetera, he stopped to say that my father was likely looking down at me from above, proud of all that I’ve done.

I smiled, nodded politely, and muttered, “Yep.” What I really wanted to say was, “Well, I don’t think there’s an afterlife, so he’s probably just dead. And the only person that I really need to be proud of me is myself.”

Don’t get me wrong. Folks that know me know I’m an attention whore so it seems like I’m constantly fishing for approval, but as I explained to Brandy last night, that’s really a case of running around saying “Look how awesome I am!” and not “Do you think I’m awesome?”

Anyway, there’s usually little sense in making somebody feel bad for trying to be nice, so I let those things slide. But for the record, I feel the same way about people that say “Bless you” when I sneeze. I don’t really require a blessing every time I clear dust from my nasal passage. Nobody blesses me when I fart or belch.

Speaking of atheism, I finished reading Hitchens’ “God is not Great” last night. My one line review: not nearly as intolerable as Dawkins’ “The God Delusion”. I’ve now moved onto lighter reading - the rise and fall of Commodore computing.