Rides This Week - 06/30/2012

So I did manage to get back in the saddle for a couple rides to work this week on Monday and Wednesday.  Both felt great, as the oppresive heat wave that has defined this weekend hadn't moved in yet.  The heat wave's not supposed to move out until the end of the week, so I likely won't get back out again until next weekend.

Monday 6/25 - 16 miles - To work
Monday 6/25 - 16 miles - From work
Wednesday 6/27 - 16 miles - To work
Wednesday 6/27- 16 miles - From work

Conflict Mediation in High Intensity, High Emotion Competitive Situations

Umpiring’s been going well.  I’m working less than I have in years past, which is a good thing, but I’m still over 50 games for the year already.  It’s been a good balance.  With the school season over, we’re into the (generally) much lower key rec season where games matter a whole lot less to everyone, and with that the baseball definitely goes downhill a little as well. 

Anyways, I was working with a guy the other day who had just graduated from college, and was still looking for a job and umpiring in the meantime (much like I did after graduation).  He cracked me up when he said he put umpiring on his resume as “Conflict mediation in high intensity, high emotion competitive situations.”  While that’s actually a pretty accurate description, it just reeks of resume BS in a way that’s spectacular. 

Last night I worked a game where that description was more applicable than usual.  It was a 45 and up mens league game.  In the third inning Team A started complaining that Team B had an illegal player.  Apparently Team B didn’t think they were going to have enough people so they got a sub to come in, which is allowed.  But then Team B’s 9^th guy was able to make it, so now they had 10, which Team A claimed was not allowed.  Pretty soon the coaches were yelling at each other, trying to call two different league commissioners who each thought would side with them, and 20 people are standing around waiting to start playing again.  Trying to get between them was pointless.  Eventually Team A gave up and said they would play on, but protest the game afterwards, so we continued. 

Then in the 6^th inning this giant brutish asshole didn’t like that I called two strikes on him.  The first one might have been a little low, but it was a crap game so every other batter was walking and I was trying to open it up.  The second one was a beautiful curve that went from the bottom of the letters on the inside corner to belt high over the center of the plate.  Strangely, the second one pissed him off more than the first, and he started bitching, calling me terrible and asking how badly I wanted to go home.  Often people like to think all we want to do is call outs so that the game is over and we can go home, but given that we had 4 innings and 20 minutes left on the timelimit I questioned his logic in this situation. 

I warned him, and he shut up for a pitch, but when I called the next pitch a ball, (an extremely high outside pitch) he gave me a “oh I guess you have some limits look” and started to open his mouth to be an asshole again.  I should have ejected him then and there, but instead I cut him off and warned his bench that anything else and I would start throwing people out.  The next pitch he whiffed with a hilariously overdone swing for strike three, and the pitcher (who knew both strike calls were justified) just started laughing at him. 

He looked ready to charge the mound, but again I cut him off and ordered him back to the dugout.  He glared at me loathingly (again I should have tossed him) but stalked off.  He proceeded to glare at me (I think he thought he was threatening) every time he ran on and off the field the rest of the game.  I regretted not tossing him, but he didn’t give me an excuse for the rest of the game.  The rest of the team had been fine before that, but they started to get a little chatty from there out.  When they blew their lead in the bottom of the 8^th (the last inning because of the time limit) they really started to go off, but fortunately we were done and just got out of there. 

All in all I thought it was some great conflict mediation in a high intensity, high emotion competitive situation.

Things have been busy

I haven't posted much lately because things have been busy.  It's summer baseball season, so I've definitely been having a lot of games (I'm over 50 for the year now).  Last weekend was the BBBBBQ (Beer BourBon and BarBeQue) festival among other Holmesing shenanigans, and there have been other events the last few weekends.  On top of it all work has been especially busy so I've been working more hours than normal, and when I'm not working writing isn't always what I want to do. 

So life is busy, but good.  I think I'm through my trail descriptions for a while.  There's one or two others in DC I might get to eventually, but I would want to re-ride them first.  I've only been on one short ride on my bike since New York thanks to baseball, work, extreme heat, and rain, but that's ok.  I'm hoping to get down to work tomorrow or Wednesday.  We moved buildings a couple weeks ago (just down the street) so my gym isn't as conveniently in the same building, but oh well.  The move has been a little frustrating, I don't like my new space (a cube) as much as my old crammed little interior office.  There's just a lot less privacy both audibly and in not having a door/having my back to the not-door and being next to a kitchen area so there's lots of foot traffic.  Also there is not enough AC in the new building, although it's not awful. 

BBBBBQ festival was awesome, as was a weekend with all the male holmeses from around the country.  DC, Pittsburgh, Houston, LA, San Francisco, and Minneapolisish? (I don't have a clue where Alex lives in Minnesota, but I figure I have a 50/50 shot on the city).  The VIP tickets were worth 10 times the additional cost for them.  Good times.  Also, while my crab feast suggestion was not as big a hit with everyone as I had hoped, it meant I was eating leftover crabs all week.  I took a psuedo-sick day Monday to recover (I still worked a good bit from home, like I said work's been busy), but it ended up being appropriate since I proceeded to have a mild cold the rest of the week.

Kina is doing well, although she apparently does not like loud fireworks.  She seemed fine when the first couple went off that didn't make loud booms, but she was spooked by the end.

I'm currently going back and forth between Valkyria Chronicles and Little Big Planet.  Valkyria has been a lot of fun but requires at least an hour to play through levels, and more to see the stories on either side.  LBP has been a fun distraction that's easy to pick up and put down, but not much more. 

Caitlin and I went to Brave, which was definitely cute and enjoyable, but certainly no Wall-E or Up.  I got War of the Arrows from blockbuster which is one of the best Asian ancient/epic type movies I've seen in a good long while.  Other than that there haven't been any notable movies.  Despite middling reviews I still want to go to Prometheus, but other than that I'm a little disappointed with the summer movie lineup.  I don't think I really care about anything until Dark Knight at the end of next Month.  Oh well.

So that's life. 

The Bluemont Junction Trail

I almost didn't include this one in my list of trails, but now that I've covered most of the other big trails I figured I might as well get this one too. The Bluemont Junction Trail is about 1.5 miles of paved trail that connects the W&OD and Custis trails a mile or two after they split. The trail splits from the W&OD in Bluemont park (right next to the house I grew up in) and connects up to the Custis trail in Ballston. There's a big hill up from the W&OD at the start, and then another to get over I-66 to the Custis trail at the end, but other than that it's flat.

The W&OD, Custis, and Bluemont trail make for about a 4 mile circuit, and I used to ride that route all the time when I was a kid. While I don't mostly go for rides that start down there anymore, I do still occasionally use the circuit to cap off a ride down the W&OD and turn around.

Google Maps

New York Biking

I was up in New York to bike with my sister two weekends ago.  She lives in downtown Manhattan.  I drove up after work on Friday and after slogging through rush hour traffic and an hour delay from a highway-closing multicar accident/truck fire, we just got a quick dinner and went to bed early Friday.  On Saturday we did a 62 mile ride to Nyack and back , and then a shorter meandering ride Sunday before I headed home.  The weather was perfect both days.
On Saturday we went from Erin's apartment in Manhattan across town to the trail that goes up the Hudson.  From there we continued up to the GW Bridge, then went across.  It was something like 400 feet to go from the river to the bridge, and that happened pretty fast which was tough.  We continued up the west side of the river along roads that are signed as for bikers up out of New Jersey to a little town called Nyack that's apparently where all the bikers go.  There was a many biker filled bakery where we had a little lunch and then headed back.  I also bought a cookie and a pecan bar for after the ride.  Both were delicious.  The way back was a little tougher as there we worked from the river elevation back up to bridge elevation over a long stretch, and we had a killer headwind the last stretch home in Manhattan, but we made it. 

On Sunday we just kind of went all over south Manhattan.  We started out going to the West side of the island and stopped at the donut plant.  Great donuts.  From there we went down South to go see the new (and extremely tall) Freedom tower that's going up.  It's now taller than the Empire State Building.  We tried to go to the 9/11 memorial but it turns out you need to get tickets in advance (they're free, but you have to reserve them).  We continued down through battery park at the southern tip of the island, and then took a ferry over to Governor's Island.  Governor's Island apparently used to be a coast guard station, but they moved out a few years back and the city has been turning it into a big park.  It was about 2 miles to bike around it, which w did once before going halfway back and having some lunch and a beer.  After ferrying back to Manhattan we continued up the East river and then back home.

Some things were different biking in New York.  First off, Manhattan street biking is a little terrifying.  Around here I am pretty much always on car-free trails, and when I'm not they are wide suburban roads.  But I was surprised that Manhattan street biking wasn't as terrifying as I had expected, given how driving can be there.  We stuck to the E-W streets for the most part which have lower traffic, and only a single lane.  One lane of traffic makes all the difference.  On the west side of the river there aren't so much bike trails as wide shoulders.  Most of this felt plenty safe, but there was a section where it was two lanes each way, with not a huge shoulder.  Biking on the side of two lanes is always worse than on the side of one, because despite the extra width, people are much less likely to slow down or move over into the other lane, particularly when there's a car there but even when there's not.  With one lane, people can see the oncoming traffic better (and vice versa) so people get over a little as they go by, or at least wait until they can.  There wasn't too much traffic on the dicey stretch though and plenty of other bikes so we made it.  The roads were actually marked as bike routes because I guess thats how they want to go.

The other different thing was that we didn't run into any wildlife, but we did see a lot of wilddeath, aka roadkill.  My sister is terrified of birds, and deathly terrified of dead birds.  She counted 8 on the Saturday ride, including at least one duck, a bright red cardinal, a couple pigeons, and a few other less descript mashes of crushed flesh and feather.  In addition to the birds, there was a ground hog, cat, squirrel, and a couple of reasonably sized snakes.  I guess that's what you get when you're biking on roads more, particularly highish speed parkways through forest. 

Anyways, all in all we had a fun weekend, and hopefully it helped Erin finish up her training for her century ride next week.  Good luck to her!

Rides this weeks - 06/09/2012

A lot of good rides to report on, but all of them last week.  It's been a busy work week and I've been tired/umpiring, so despite obscenely gorgeous weather I didn't get out this week.  I'll have a post on my NY riding hopefully soon.  In the mean time -

Sunday 5/27 - 35 miles - Finally made it to the end of the Accotink trail!  There's a lot more river fords those last few miles. . . Also it was brutally hot.
Monday 5/28 - 45 miles - W&OD one way to Purceville from Shirlington.  Got it done without too much trouble, although it was also brutally hot that day too.  My mom picked me up at the far end and we went to a couple wineries before heading back to my car.
Tuesday 5/29 - 16 miles - To work
Tuesday 5/29 - 16 miles - From work
Saturday 6/2 - 62 miles - to Nyack from my sister's apartment.  More on this later.
Sunday 6/3 - 15 miles? - Around South Manhattan from my sister's apartment.  More on this later too.

And that sums it up.  Not sure when I'll get back on the trail, as I have umpiring and hosting duties for the next week. 

Four Mile Run Trail

The Four Mile Run (4MR) Trail is a 6 mile trail (insert distance joke here) that runs parallel to the W&OD while the W&OD goes along Four Mile Run (a stream).  The trail starts just after the Custis trail splits from the W&OD around W&OD mile marker 4.  It continues past the end of the W&OD another 2 miles until it hits the Mount Vernon Trail and the stream empties into the potomac.

While it runs parallel to the the straight, level W&OD rail trail, the FMR trail is neither straight nor level.  It winds whimsically along with the river, with some pretty brutal hills up, down, through, and along some of the ravines.  The trail is paved, although at a few points the pavement is pretty old and tree roots have turned it into an extremely bumpy ride.  Parts of the trail through busier parks have a good bit of foot traffic, but there aren't a lot of people who ride the trail end to end, particularly since the W&OD is so close and convenient.  It cuts in and out with the W&OD at a number of points, so you can take sections of both pretty easily. 

Due to the hills, the trail has a unique feel compared to most of the other trails in the region, and it can be a good challenge for a short ride.  It's also a welcome change of pace occasionally if I'm biking down that way.

Google Maps