Weekend at the beach (catching up on some old business)

Some might think it's crazy to pay to stay in a beach cottage when you only live four blocks from the beach. But they are really cheap, I was able to get a reservation for one, and I wanted to see the controversy first hand.

So off we set on the bicycle [the Friday before last--sorry I'm a little behind]; Nico thought we were going to San Diego, but must have been happy when we stopped after 7 miles in Crystal Cove State State Park.



We had one of the few rooms without a view, but here are a few shots from the (shared) balcony:



We spent a lot of time drinking expensive drinks at the Beachcomber, but managed to get out for a bike ride down to Dana Point. To mix things up, we biked out of Dana Point Marina the back way. Here's a picture taken from the top of what might be the steepest hill in Orange County:



Overall, I found the cottage to be a little on the uncomfortable side. The accomodations are about what you would expect in a State Park, I guess. If you are used to camping, it will feel luxurious...if you have our tastes, it will feel like camping.

All Aboard America

Our troubles with the tandem and Amtrak are well documented...or if they are not, they should be; so it was with some trepidation that we signed up for the Amtrak Century (it's a 100 mile bike ride from Irvine to San Diego, if you don't feel like clicking that link). [Actually, it seemed like a pretty safe bet since the ride is put on by the Orange County Wheelmen--they have their very own tandem division.]

After running into a tandem team we had met previously on a Santana tour of Europe (and a few of their friends on a tandem and a single), we opted for a 6AM start. The ride began with a 10 mile loop around Irvine, followed by a trip through San Juan Capistrano, before heading to the Coast. Most of the route followed our typical path to San Diego (as featured in Bicycling the Pacific Coast). The OC Wheelmen did not get permission for 1,100 bicycles to ride through Camp Pendleton, so the route sheet called for 8 miles of I-5...we did not follow directions, and went through the Marine Base (without a problem).

Team Lasko was in perfect 80 mile shape, which got us to the bottom of Torey Pines. At the rest stop at the top of the hill, we rested with extra cold Popsicles and made a few repairs...and didn't see our riding companions again until the end. A horrible headwind after La Jolla slowed us down to a crawl. We drafted behind a blue Trek tandem for a few miles (thank you blue Trek tandem), but they proved to be too fast for the wiped out Laskos. Only the Navy was enjoying the wind. [I believe this is the only picture Nico took during the ride; the boats appear to be Santana 22s...no relation to the tandem bicycle company).


We arrived at the train station, loaded our bike onto the "tandems only" 48' truck, changed, and walked over to happy hour before the train ride home.


The ride home turned out to be on a rented MetroLink train. We had not packed well for the train (no cooler full of beer), and were in a relatively tame care (filled mostly with moderately loud drunks and people trying to feed us). Above us, someone had brought 12V blenders and enough margarita mix to feed a train. We heard stories of pole dancing in the other cars. I'm not quite sure what one had to do to get beads from this guy:


We saw 20+ tandems during the ride (and a few others who were not doing the century, including some friends from the San Juans). A few interesting bikes: One beautiful blue Erickson, one sparkly green Meridian, and a red Calfee. Tandems, tandems, everywhere.

Total mileage: 103.5 miles
Total pedaling time: 6:43
Total time: a little over 8 hours

Nabisco: Seriously, don't you have a team of people to say things like: "Maybe hiring the Mannings and the Williamses for this campaign might be a bad idea"? Hey, if you're looking for other marketing ideas, I seem to remember Alec Baldwin playing a priest on Saturday night live who loved to "spread the cookie open and lick the creamy center..."

It's the Double Stuf Racing League-a fierce competition to see who's fastest to twist, lick and dunk there Oreo cookie! The league has gained popularity thanks to sports luminary like Peyton & Eli Manning, and now Venus & Serena Williams.

This guy for President:

Arnold Epstein: [Spending too much on care at the end of life] is a big problem. The numbers I've seen put it at something like $130 billion a year. The quip is that the U.S. is the one country in the world where they think death is optional. And we act that way. I think we have to start to deal with that. And the time to deal with it is not at the bedside. It's with a broader group trying to think about standards and piecemeal efforts where we can put things out of bounds. I don't know if that means we say that people don't get dialyzed when they're 97, or bring it back to 95 or 92. Or that certain medications when the cost per adjusted life-year is $500,000, we say that we're really not going to cover them. And we try and change the culture.

Victory!!!!!!!


After a Summer of disappointing (mostly second place) finishes, I sailed to a commanding (2 minutes and 19 seconds) win for the last Beercans of the season. A big thank you to Joe (currently blogless) for your excellent crew work.

In other news, here's my coworker Tom holding a $10,000 purse belonging to another coworker. That was not a typo. The purse has a little lock on the front, so that nobody can steal the valuables that you might keep inside your purse...

The part about the hippo was already there...

Ouabain is used worldwide extensively by scientists for in-vitro-studies to block the sodium pump (Na-K-ATPase). In many non rodent species, low concentrations of this substance (i.e., in the nanomolar range) provide effective stimulation of the NaK-pump. The issue in rodents is more complicated because there are different isoforms of the NaK-pump - some of which are very sensitive to ouabain while others are not. Ouabain is no longer widely used for the treatment of human heart failure. However, in France and Germany, intravenous ouabain has a long history in the treatment of heart failure, and some continue to advocate its use by mouth in angina pectoris and myocardial infarction. There is limited anecdotal evidence for improved efficacy of ouabain relative to digoxin in a small number of patients. However, no well controlled research exists that proves or disproves the efficacy this practice. A sufficiently concentrated ouabain dart can bring down a Hippopotamus. The Galápagos tortoise, however, is immune to the effects of ouabain darts.

Things I did on vacation that did not involve bicycling

1) Sat in my very favorite Vietnamese pharmacist's massage chair. He is too poor to afford a full time masseuse, but not too poor to buy a $30,000 massage chair. Incidentally, I found the chair to be quite uncomfortable, if not excruciating at times...maybe I should see a spine surgeon. In my hand is a book by Richard North Patterson; it was not very good, but he wrote the Lasko Tangent, so occasionally I feel obligated to buy his books.

2) Ate some crumpets...and, my God, we're drinking tea...in Seattle.


3) Watched as several waiters challenged my very favorite Vietnamese pharmacist to eating contests (eg. "There's no way you can eat a 28 inch pizza...")



4) Rented the world's smallest sailboat. You're probably thinking there are smaller sailboats...there might be shorter sailboats, but there are no sailboats with smaller cockpits/lower booms...at least not that you would try to fit two adults in.


5) Paddled around Lake Steilacoom in Nico's friends' divorce boat. The first picture is with the professional kayaker in the boat, the second is without. As they say, "Wherever your relationship is going, you'll get there faster on (in) a tandem". Nico's friends: I'd give you a link, but the security on your site is too tight.



6) Bummed rides off the locals. Here's me sitting next to Rebecca, fleet captain of the Orcas Island Yacht Club aboard her Merit 25...and a shot of her husband Vaughn on the deck...with some other island off in the distance.



I guess I should write about the bicycling some time.

It is probably impossible to be jet-lagged without changing time zones...

Here are some vacation pictures:

1) Seattle

2) San Juan Islands

3) San Juan Island Tandems (It's a bunch of pictures of people riding tandems. Unless you were on the trip, or you think pictures of people riding tandems are really cool, this album might not be of interest to you).

Nico came from out on the Island...

If you have an hour or two to spare you could take the Catalina Flyer, but it case you hadn't noticed, Nico and I don't roll that way...and accordingly, only a 15 minute flight aboard the BonanzaBago would hold our interest.

Here's Captain Marty making sure nobody has put sugar in the gas tank, or something. I am pretty sure he discarded a couple hundred dollars of high performance jet fuel in the process...


If I look nervous here, it's because I am attempting to keep the plane on that narrow strip of air that will allow the plane to not fall out of the sky.


The Airport in the Sky (from the air)--as scary as it sounds...of course, as I told the Captain, I don't even like driving over bridges.


Safely on the ground at the Catalina Airport, we had a lunch consisting of buffalo burgers and regular burgers. I am not sure which was which, though one was considerably better than the other. Here's a photo of Nico and I at the airport. Please notice that we are still alive at this point. Also please notice that there are no photos of us (still alive) back at John Wayne...perhaps because Nico flew part of that leg, and she was not interested in keeping the plane in the narrow strip of air that would allow the plane to not fall out of the sky...


Parting shot of Avalon from the air:

Another line for the resume...

Kayaking class today; brought the (waterproof) camera along. Here are some really dark and stormy looking pictures of my class: