August 05, 2004
Beautiful Day
Just another one of those gorgeous days in Syracuse. Temperature dropped into the upper 60s, the sky was blue with marshmallow-like puffy well-defined crisp clouds. So it was bike ride time, feeling like autumn bike ride time. It makes me wonder if the southwest is really the place for me after all. Slightly chilly sunny weather is the best for riding. Keeps me moving so I don't get too cold.
So I went down the long loop, to Jamesville, up the Mini Alp d'Huez (as I've named it) to Pompey, but kept going down to Fabius, to Tully, to Apulia, and back to Jamesville. It was just a gorgeous ride, interrupted only briefly by a coyote nearly running into my front wheel as I went up to Pompey (nature provides these fun diversions every once in a while, though I wonder about the poor coyote's health running about in the daytime).
The other puzzling thing lately has been my distances while riding. I am rather new to these devices; since I have bought it, I have ridden much less distance than usual. I'm doing the same routes, just for some reason they aren't as long as they are supposed to be. I believe I will have to write in to write in to CatEye.
So today's ride was a nice 45 mile, 2.5 hour ordeal (with much time spend on Pompey). I think that I should be riding more.
After the ride, I made supper, and after supper I decided to go for a walk. A 2 hour walk through parts of Syracuse that I have not walked through before -- the hill atop Kensington Avenue, small trails winding along Comstock. The walk was to be so long in part because of more wildlife that was to be found in the form of a skunk bumbling around only a few blocks from my home. I think that all will be in agreement that such a detour was not only enjoyable, but necessary.
Indeed I received other good news today -- I have a new roommate by the name of John Maweu. One of Dr. Blair's prize graduate students and paper collaborators, he will likely provide some rounding out in the household as both a master theoretician and amazing pool player. We may even be buying a pool table for the house.
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Further back...
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Previous Trips...
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Hiking Mount Whitney, 2007 
Spring Break in West Virginia, 2005
New Year's in Paris, 2003-2004
Coming to America, 2003
Protesting in Berlin, 2003
Prague Bier-Tour, 2002
Dresden, 2002
Recent Reading
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The Curve of Binding Energy
John McPhee follows famous physicist Ted Taylor in this piece that was -- and probably still -- ahead of its time.
Originally published in 1973, McPhee outlined the coming security and environmental issues surrounding the plutonium enrichment processes. For the most part, though, McPhee invites the reader to draw his or her own conclusions, although he does point out the ease with which any number of people could obtain the material (though not necessarily the manufacturing prowess) to make an atomic weapon.
The question still sits in my mind after reading -- are we being too paranoid, or not paranoid enough?
Rated 
by reid
on October 01, 2007
by reid
on October 01, 2007
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Zodiac
Zodiac touts itself as an 'eco-thriller,' and it is just that. Told from the first-person perspective of ST (or Sangamon Taylor), the book recounts a roughly six-month period of his life busting big corporations for violating environmental laws.
Not the tree-hugging political activist type, ST is equipped with chem labs, scuba divers, maps, and an organization (GEE International, the Group of Environmental Extremists) that masterfully brings the press into the fold to scare the public with the very real dangers posed by illegal dumping. It's sort of a Sierra Club member's wet dream -- a band of ecowarriors that actually get things done.
ST finds something odd happening in Boston Harbor during his tale: a new form of pollution that could poison everyone on the planet in a matter of weeks. His quest to uncover exactly who and what is causing the latest spike in toxins goes all the way up to the President of the United States, and could end up costing him his own life.
While a neat and fast-paced tale, the novel drags on a bit toward the end, begging disbelief from even the most forgiving sci-fi folk. While not as good as his latest offerings, it's still a great read for those that enjoy a good Stephenson novel (or even those who don't).
Rated 
by reid
on July 17, 2005
by reid
on July 17, 2005
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Cat's Cradle
A few years ago, I attempted to woo an online datee, and she immediately criticized me for my politics. I protested the war on Iraq, which was "a shame." She defended her position of complete noninvolvement by standing behind Vonnegut.
It may seem odd to open a review that way. My assumption is now not that she was an idiot, but that she had only read Cat's Cradle, and only with a rather odd viewpoint.
Cat's Cradle looks at a cold-war world where the personifications of religious, political, and scientific single-mindedness collide to destroy the world.
Vonnegut tells a masterful tale, but it makes me wonder what one person's indifference would do to prevent us from all dying? So for now I will continue to unblindly stop unjust wars, even while I'm only reading.
Rated by reid
on July 17, 2005
by reid
on July 17, 2005