Too Dark Is the Knight

Short version: I loved The Dark Knight despite its manipulative sadism.

Long version: The Dark Knight is everything a summer blockbuster movie should be. Plenty of violence, chase scenes, compelling story, long play time, over-the-top acting -- it has it all.

What I didn't like about the movie is that it was guilty of a couple of pet peeves of mine. One thing that bothers me in movies is when a movie preaches against something it's guilty of itself. The Count of Monte Cristo is a perfect example of this. On the surface, the movie supports the theme that revenge is bad. In the end, the guy loses his love because he's changed too much, etc. But on a deeper level, the movie (and book) is a celebration of violence. In fact, it has no value -- aesthetic or otherwise -- without using revenge as a driving manipulative force.

It's a neat trick. Not only do we get to revel in vengeance, but we also get to feel good about ourselves by climbing to the moral highground at the end.

The Dark Knight has some of that dissonance going on. There's all this lofty talk about the nature of heroism (or anti-heroism), but deep down, the movie relies on the joy of violence. In real life, violence is rarely both satisfying and warranted, unless it's done by a cop.

I know, I know. It's comic book violence. But there's something especially unsettling about the violence and torture when there's an attempt at sophistication. Any realistic depiction of that level of violence should be less gratifying.

Still, I dug it.

I Am So Tagged

Elden tagged me over on his blog. I do not fear him. Despite his nickname, he is a puny man who strikes dangerously only when he comes up behind you on a bike. Here are the questions I must answer to avoid leprosy:

If you could have any one — and only one — bike in the world, what would it be?

I honestly don't know. I don't pay attention to which bikes are good. I like Elden's road bike that I picked up with one finger. And I want a mountain bike that makes me go faster, especially at altitute. In short, I want a really good bike.

Do you already have that coveted dream bike? If so, is it everything you hoped it would be? If not, are you working toward getting it? If you’re not working toward getting it, why not?

No, I don't own the coveted dream bike. No, I'm not working towards getting it. Spending $5,000 on a tricked-out bike is taking food out of my children's mouths. Literally. I would have to pull the macaroni and cheese out of their mouths and put it up for sale on eBay.

If you had to choose one — and only one — bike route to do every day for the rest of your life, what would it be, and why?

If this question really means every day for the rest of my life, I'd have to pick something relatively easy, like Hogg's Hollow or South Fork. When I'm 72, I don't want to have to drag my colostomy bag up and down a hard ride like Tibble Fork.

But if this question really means "What's your favorite ride?" I'd have to narrow it down to these five:

1) Gooseberry Mesa
2) Tibble Fork
3) Gold Bar Rim
4) Little Creek Mesa
5) Slickrock

What kind of sick person would force another person to ride one and only one bike ride to to do for the rest of her / his life?

This has the makings of a sci-fi novel. On the planet of Gebarn, enslaved Polowots are forced to do all kinds of things against their will. One polowot must do the same ride every day for the rest of his life -- until he escapes! On a Vespa!

Do you ride both road and mountain bikes? If both, which do you prefer and why? If only one or the other, why are you so narrowminded?

I ride both, but I spend way more time on my road bike since I live in Seattle.

Have you ever ridden a recumbent? If so, why? If not, describe the circumstances under which you would ride a recumbent.

Yes, I have ridden a recumbent, and it was fastastic. Seriously. It put a huge smile on my face. I wouldn't think twice about riding a recumbent around.

Have you ever raced a triathlon? If so, have you also ever tried strangling yourself with dental floss?

Yes, triathlon. No, flossy suicide. In my first triathlon, I won my age group (35-40). For my victory, I received an Ironman watch, which was an excellent conversation starter: "Hey, guess where I got this watch..."

I swam in high school. In fact, I was a two-time state champion* so I could hop in a lake right now and swim a mile in under 20 minutes. But I destroyed my knee training for a marathon, so I'm not supposed to run more than 6 miles. If I do a sub-12 Leadville, I'm going to train again for triathlons.

* The Upper Peninsula in Michigan is officially considered a state in high school athletics.

Suppose you were forced to either give up ice cream or bicycles for the rest of your life. Which would you give up, and why?

Easy -- ice cream. I could take or leave it. Now if you gave me the choice between bicycles and pastries, I'd have a more difficult choice. But you said ice cream, so that's the end of that.

What is a question you think this questionnaire should have asked, but has not? Also, answer it.

“Do prefer riding uphill or downhill on a bike?” would be my question, to which my answer would be "Both!"

You’re riding your bike in the wilderness (if you’re a roadie, you’re on a road, but otherwise the surroundings are quite wilderness-like) and you see a bear. The bear sees you. What do you do?

Look for a wild berry to eat.

Now, tag three biking bloggers. List them below.

No. The cycle of tagging ends here. I do not fear leprosy. By the way, I read a cool article about a doctor named Paul Brand who spent his life trying to cure lepers. When he visited the leper colony, he tried to figure out why lepers lost their fingers and toes and went blind.

He had an epiphany when he tried to open a jammed lock with a key. The leper boy who was with him grabbed the key and opened the door instantly. But the boy's hand was torn and bleeding. The Dr. Brand realized that leprosy caused partial paralysis, and the lepers were losing their fingers and toes to avoidable injuries and nibbling rats. So he had them wear heavy duty gloves and socks.

Lepers also developed cataracts more easily because they weren't blinking enough due to damaged optic nerves. When Dr. Brand figured this out, he performed a simple surgery in which he rerouted the eye muscles to the jaw muscles so that whenever the patients moved their jaws, their eyes would blink. True story. And that's why lepers look so silly.

Leadville 2008 Status Report, Part VI

Three weeks to go until the big race.

I am not ready. I repeat. I am not ready. I am five pounds heavier than I was last year. I get winded more easily climbing hills and running up the Thistle stairs. I'm telling you, I'm not ready.

Finishing Leadville in under 12 hours isn't entirely out of the question. I missed the 12 hour mark by 25 minutes, but it's not like I had a good race. The altitude messed me up from the beginning. If I'm feeling well, I could cut 25 minutes off the Columbine Mine climb. I could cut 25 minutes off the Powerline climb. Hell, I could cut off 25 minutes if I had just stopped at the last rest stop for only 5 minutes instead of 30. I could cut 25 minutes off by riding a faster bike.

So yes, if the altitude doesn't get to me, I could finish in under 12 hours. But since I live at sea level, and since the race reaches 12,600 feet, can't I assume the altitude will get to me? But that's being too negative. Here are some positives:

* Last year, two weeks before the race I went on a cruise to Alaska. While I had fun, eating rich cafeteria food wasn't exactly the best way to train.

* This year, I'll be in Utah ten days before the race instead of five days before the race. That means I can do three or four small training rides at altitude instead of just one. That could mean a lot.

* While the conditions were nearly perfect last year -- fast course, no rain, no headwind -- it was really hot in the afternoon. Maybe we'll get cooler weather and an actual tailwind. Or at least I'll cool myself off better with a water bottle.

* Last year, my single biggest mistake was accepting the pain. I should have taken Tums early in the race when my stomach was bothering me. I should have taken ibuprofen and Tums the first time I hit a wall on Columbine. I waited until I was three-fourths done with Powerline, which gave me the energy to ride faster than I had all day. If I can do a better job of pill popping, I can avoid losing so much time on the two biggest climbs.

* This year, maybe the highway won't be jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive.

Estimated time if the race were held tomorrow: 12:15

Estimated finishing time on August 9: 11:59.30

Ride Report - STP 2008

I woke up at 3:30 on Saturday morning and debated whether to try to sleep for a half hour before the alarm went off. I couldn't sleep, so I got up, ate breakfast, and unloaded the dishwasher out of guilt. I started the ride from my driveway at 4:20am. It was still dark, even in Seattle.

I live in West Seattle, which should really be called South Seattle since it's due south of downtown. Instead of driving to the starting line, I decided to ride north to meet the early starting riders at the I-90 bridge. I ended up riding an extra 3.5 miles, which seemed like nothing until I got close to Portland.

Early Speed - I went out too fast by plan. I wanted to bonk and then work my way out of a bonk to practice for Leadville. So I jumped behind two tandem bikes from California who were going about 23 mph. You get a good draft off tandem bikes, so I wasn't pushing too hard. I stayed in pace lines for the first half of the ride.

One big difference between this year and last year -- the pace lines were smaller and more traditional in 2008, with each rider taking a pull. Last year, nearly all the trains I jumped onto were being pulled either by an exceptionally strong rider who was dragging along his wife or buddies, or by a team of strong cyclists that didn't care about sharing the pull. I left a little earlier this year and rode faster early on, so maybe that accounts for the difference.

Tailwind - For the last 150 miles, we had a nice tailwind that at its weakest caused the leaves to rustle and at its strongest caused flags to wave straight out.

Besides helping you to go faster, the great thing about a tailwind is that when you hit a wall, you can drop out, ease up, and still go along at a pretty good clip. For me, it was pretty easy to sit up and still go 18-20 mph -- at least until we crossed into Oregon for the last 50 miles.

The heat - In the afternoon, the bank displays along Highway 30 flashed temperatures between 92 and 94 degrees. I was worn out and riding around 15 mph, blowing by a few people but watching a whole bunch of people blow by me. I never really bonked, but I hit a few little walls here and there. At various points along the way, I saw riders collapsed in the shade. I heard later that a whole bunch of riders trying to make it one day had to abandon the ride from heat exhaustion.

The Lexington bridge - People kept talking about how treacherous the Lexington Bridge is, but I didn't understand what the issue was. There was a dedicated section with room for two riders to ride side-by-side. But no one mentioned the fact that there are huge gaps in the bridge on the downhill side that can cause a pinch flat or even taco a wheel if you hit them. Fortunately, I was riding alone, so I had time to jump my bike over the gaps.

Friends and Family - Minette, Andy, and Wendy and the boys drove down to meet me at the Lexington food stop and again at the finish line. Stan and Grey met them at the finish line, so I had a whole throng cheering my arrival. That puts a smile on your face.

Final stats

Total time: ~14 hours
Total time in saddle: 12 hours 35 minutes
Maximum speed: 40.9 mph
Average speed: 16.6 mph
Distance: 208.3 miles

Conclusion

Riding 200+ miles in a day isn't exactly fun. I love the course and the support and the festivities, but I don't want to do it again, not in one day. I'd rather take two days. I'd stop and eat pancakes, fill a Camelbak with whiskey, and sing "Danny Boy" during the ride.

Photo courtesy of Minette.

Pre-Ride Report

I'll be riding the STP (Seattle to Portland) again this year. The ride is tomorrow. Because I finished this 206-mile ride in one day last year and failed to break 12 hours at Leadville, I have it in my mind that the STP is a cinch while Leadville is nearly impossible.

Today, the day before the STP, all of a sudden I'm getting jittery. I'm just remembering now that I had a pretty serious bonk last year around the 110-mile point. I was dizzy and sick to my stomach. I tried to call Wendy so that I could tell her to forget about meeting me at the next check point and come pick me up right then. Fortunately, we had a bad connection, so I was forced to keep riding. By the time I got to mile 146, I had recovered enough to push through the last 60 miles. By the end of the ride, I felt sore and tired but happy that I made it.

I was in better shape last year.

This year, we're going to ride in temperatures in the 90s. For you desert types, 90 degrees seems like nothing, but in the humid northwest, 90 degrees is hot, especially for people who are used to 55-degree weather seven months out of the year.

In an odd way, I'm looking forward to a nasty bonk. I think one of the reasons I failed at Leadville last year was due to mental weakness. It took me too long to work my way out of pain, and I made things worse by mashing a high gear and getting discouraged. And discouragement is Satan's tool. He has a pitch fork in one hand and discouragement in the other, the foul red beast. I hate him!

Tomorrow will not be a jaunty ride down the coast to meet friends and family. No. It will be Bob's Battle Against Beezlebub! BBAB. Courage! I shall not fail!

Olio

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't updated my web log in awhile. Here are the reasons.

Work - I'm in crunch mode at work. Basically, now that most of Adobe's products are part of a suite, I'm extra busy whenever the suites near the end of the 18-month cycle. Now is that time. After the suites ship, I'll be in cruise mode for the next year or so, and then it ramps up all over again. In the past, writers worked on several different products during the year, sharing the workload. Now, the writers work on one project, unless of course there aren't enough writers, in which case certain writers have to work on multiple products. In my case, I'm responsible for four different help systems -- InDesign, InCopy, Version Cue, and some goofy Japanese product. As compensation, I have demanded two extra phones for my desk.

Lisa - My sister has cancer -- a particularly aggressive form of lymphoma. No, it's not Hodgkins, which is highly treatable. Non-Hodgkins lymphoma is still treatable, and Lisa has a good chance of surviving. Still, Lisa's cancer made me profoundly sad. She's a single mother of a 1-year-old toddler who's now undergoing chemotherapy, which is harsher than aromatherapy by a good margin. I've been meaning to write about Lisa, but the situation was too depressing and uncertain. I thought about writing other entries, but I kept wanting -- and not wanting -- to write about Lisa, if that makes sense.

Cycling - I've gone on two (2) mountain bike rides since last I wrote. One was a six-hour ride at Tiger Mountain in which I kept doing loops around the Preston and Iverson trails. Six hours is a long time to ride a mountain bike alone. I've mentioned this before, but I would almost rather prefer riding a road bike alone. Riding a mountain bike alone is actually depressing to me.

One good thing about being alone at Tiger Mountain is that I took a particularly embarrassing fall that I'm glad no one saw. It was one of those slow-motion falls that lends itself to announcers. Here's what the announcers would have said if they had been there.

Announcer 1: And here comes Bob riding up the trail. This is unusual because most mountain bikers ride up the 5-mile dirt road and ride down the singletrack trail, while Bob is riding up. Isn't that unusual, Announcer 2?

Announcer 2: Sort of. I know people who put their bikes on ski lifts to go up to the top of the mountain.

A1: Right, it's very unusual. And here goes Bob. He's riding up over a set of roots, and IT LOOKS LIKE HE'S NOT GOING TO MAKE IT!

A2: He's tipping over. I though he could pull it out, but he tipped over.

A1: He's on a downslope right now with his hand just above a puddle.

A2: Now his hand is in the puddle. Why would he put his hand in the puddle like that?

A1: I have a better question -- Why did he slide the side of his body into the puddle like that?

A2: Where is his arm strength? Where is his agility?

A1: Look. Now he just put his foot in the puddle. It's like he doesn't care anymore about personal hygiene. What's next? Will he throw himself headlong into the puddle and make a mud angel?

A2: No, he's made it out. He's swearing. He's saying lots of swear words right now, aloud.

A1: "Chit. Ducking duck. Some in a ducking birch." That's all I could make out.

A2: He's riding again. Oh, here comes someone down the hill. They just rode by.

A1: Yes, and he's gone now. That was uneventful. Let's hope Bob comes down again. That should be fun.

I also rode Crop Circles this morning while listening to Bruce Springsteen.

Music - It's official. In any desert island scenario, the Boss would make it on my list, even if it's a list of one. I just discovered an album of his called "Born in the USA."

Television - It's also official. Deadwood is my favorite television show. I'm not saying it's the best. But for me, it's the most watchable and rewatchable. It's oddly ugly in its beauty and beautiful in its ugliness.

And now I better stop ignoring the twins.

Bob

A Graphic Is Worth a Thousand Words

This chart was created by a Frenchman named Charles Joseph Minard who wanted to show the losses suffered by Napolean's army that invaded Russia.

I love this graphic because it tells a story using several variables. The brown band depicts the size of the army as it invaded Russia with 422,000 men. As they travel eastward in the cold weather, the band thins as men die or run off. By the time they get to Moscow, there are only 100,000 men left. The black band represents their return journey. The line at the bottom of the graphic shows the falling temperatures during the return. That little tiny black band that meets up with the beginning of the brown band represents the number of men who made it home -- about 10,000.

After analyzing this graphic, I've come to the conclusion that invading Moscow was a tactical error.

Ride Report - Flying Wheels Summer Century

The official word of the Cascade Cycling Club is that if you're fit enough to do the 100-mile Flying Wheels event, then you're fit enough to do the 200-mile STP in one day. The reasoning is that the Flying Wheels has a lot of climbing -- five big climbs to be exact -- while the STP is flat. The truth is that the climbs in the Flying Wheels event aren't particularly long or steep. My personal calculations indicate that riding the 100-mile Flying Wheels is roughly twice as easy as riding the STP.

2007 STP - 200 miles, 13 hours riding time, gentle rollers
2008 Flying Wheels - 100 miles, 6 hours riding time, rollers and hills

The ride starts at Marymoor Park near the Microsoft campus in Redmond. It goes through what we writers call bucolic scenery in which we head through rolling farm lands and pass through quaint small towns like Duvall, Snohomish, and Carnation.

The ride starts at 8:00 am. I wanted to end the ride early in the afternoon because both my brother and Robert's family were coming back to town. Unfortunately, there was a huge line of cars waiting to park, so I didn't get on the bike until 8:15. I rolled along for a couple miles when it hit me -- I didn't lock the car door. In fact, I think I may have left the passenger door wide open when I was putting on my bike shoes. Here's one of the nice things about getting old -- you know who you are and how your mind works. I knew if I didn't turn back then, I'd have spent the entire ride obsessing about my ransacked car with a dead battery. So I turned around, locked the car, and started the ride all over again.

At the 15-mile mark, I reached the first rest stop. I thought about not stopping because I had ridden only 15 miles -- actually 20 miles if you include the turnaround -- but I wanted to see if I could get a map since the course wasn't marked. And what I saw was the best stocked rest stop out of any ride I've been on. It had twenty kinds of energy bars, various power gels and glu shots, bread and bagels for making PBJs, cookies in packages, pop tarts, and all kinds of sports drinks. Unable to resist the siren song of "free stuff," I loaded my pockets and took off.

I rode another 60 miles when I decided to attack. I blew by a few startled cyclists, and then rode to the finish line. At that point, I drove home. And that is the end of this account.

Leadville 2008 Training Update, Part V

I have mixed news to report. On the positive side, I have avoided all the colds and flus (and pneumonia!) that have hit the family, so I've been able to do my favorite training rides.

The 7 Lakes of Seattle. I've done a couple of 80 mile rides around Lake Washington, which I called the 7 Lakes of Seattle. Please understand that my definition of "lake" is somewhat loose in that I refer to the Pacific Ocean and the Sammamish River as lakes. It just has a better ring than "7 Bodies of Seattle Area Water." I think we can all agree on that.

The 7 Hills of West Seattle. This 25-mile ride takes about 2 hours. I loop up and down the biggest hills within ten miles of my house, pushing hard on all but the first climb. While this ride hammers my legs and lungs, it doesn't quite simulate doing the 9-mile climb up to the top of Columbine at 12,600 feet.

Bursting. Twice a week, I sprint for quarter-mile stretches or climb hard up hills. I hope this is moving me from commuter shape to racing shape, because people in Myrtle Edwards Park stare at me.

The Red Hook Ride. One of my favorite rides is to Red Hook Brewery in Woodinville. I leave early in the morning, ride 60 miles, and then Wendy and the boys meet me in the car. Once I went on a little bike ride with the boys while Wendy and Kim hit a couple of nearby wineries, but all the other times I just throw the bike on the back of the car and we eat and drink at the brewery.

On the negative side, I still weigh 180 pounds. Unless I go on a crash diet, which is highly unlikely since food is so readily available in our society, I'll be doing the ride as the Before guy in one of those diet commercials. It will be a jiggly ride.

Then again, on a positive side, Fatty has agreed to let me race on his light mountain bike. It won't be as comfortable as my full-suspension System^TM, but I need to be built for speed, not for comfort. The lighter bike will help compensate for the fatter body.

Then again, I haven't been riding my mountain bike this year. I haven't gone on a single mountain bike ride in Washington since October 2007. That's not good, because Leadville is a mountain biking race, not a road biking race. In fact, I need to pull my mountain bike off the wall in the garage and see if it still works.

Estimated Time If Leadville Were This Weekend - 13:00

Estimated Leadville Time If Training Continues As Is - 12:05

Obama Wins!

As an official Democratic caucus member, I am pleased to inform you that Barack Obama has just won the Democratic primary! Huzzah! The last time I wrote about the primaries, I was saddened by the whole Reverend Wright affair, announcing that I was pro-Hillary. In my madness, I forgot the one critical thing that I kept harping on in previous months -- he didn't authorize the Iraq war. Hillary did. As did Kerry and Edwards and a bunch of other frightened politicians.

Here's what Obama said in 2002, before the war:

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.

For that reason alone, I should have been for Obama all along. I'm sorry for ever wavering. Forgive me, reader. And forgive me, Mr. Obama.