Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Angel


She: "Come on, go with me. You're so hansome. Don't leave."
Me: "Can't do it Angel. I'm married. It's not my time."

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Hulegu and the Assasins

Hulegu, grandson of Genghis Khan, set off with a massive army to conquer the Muslim states and their prize city Baghdad around 1255. Baghdad was the cultural and financial capital of the Arab world. A long the way, Hulegu first had to conquer a number of mountain strongholds of the Nizari Ismailis.

The Ismailis relied on hashish to keep their followers and to make them fearless in battle. For this they were called Hashshashin, or "the hashish users". While having no organized conventional army, this Muslim sect of Shiites maintained its political power through one effective method. They would kill anyone, particularly leaders or powerful people, who opposed them in any way. As a result, Hashashin eventually evolved to assassin and spread to many languages for the word meaning the murderer of high officials.

You'll have to pick up Ghenhis Kahn and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford, for the rest of the story.

I think about this story from time to time when I see us trouncing around in Iraq. Think of the number of battles fought in that land since the time of Mesopotamia and the birth of western civilization. Think of the pride the people must have and the reluctance of being ruled by a nouveau rich state like the US. We should get out of there, but before we go we should also dismantle Iran and then support moderate Sunni led factions from behind the scenes in a Machiavellian way with the hope of a moderate arab state resulting.

But what do I know?

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Hardee Ha Ha

My buddy John rides for Pegasus. He said he got a chuckle when they got their new uniforms for '07 because their blue/orange/white was similar to the Specialized / Sierra Nevada team that I ride for and dig so much.

Well, I've seen their new gitup now and what's really got me chuckling is how they've gone from one the best looking kits in the peloton to one of the lamest. And no, I don't think they look like S/SN.

Apparently the orange was supposed to be gold... a little known secret is our orange was supposed to the color of a pale ale (does it make sense now?). So it must be some Voler thing for mixing up gold and orange.

I wonder how many other teams out there are riding kits that aren't exactly what the designer was thinking?

Friday, February 09, 2007

Passing out

Racing season must be officially here because I've been getting dizzy spells from standing up too quickly. The usual run of the mill dizzy spell occurs when I'm kicking it on the couch watching TV and stand up to go to the kitchen. I usually get a couple of steps before I realize I'm blacking out. My knees start wobbling and nocking and my whole body sort of shakes as I'm about to pass out. Kind of scary, but it actually feels sort of good. Kind of how you feel when you sneeze. I've never passed out... until this week.

Couple nights ago, I got off the couch with my 5-year old Spencer hanging on my back. He wanted to go wrestle on the bed as per usual. I got to the doorway of the kitchen and realized I was going wobbly. "Uh oh, this is not a good time with the boy on my back" I thought.

Brain to heart (use your Star Trek voices): "Scotty, I need more blood up here"
Heart: "I'm givin er all I can Cap'n. Yer didn tell me yer was gettin up naw did ya."

I grabed hold of the doorway hoping the heart would deliver before I buckled. Next, I heard myself say "Spencer, please get off my back. You're hurting my back." with my eyes shut and a little confused. I thought I was still standing but when my vision returned I was looking at the kitchen tile floor only inches from my face. Spencer was crying and actually 10 feet away already looking for a hug from Mama.

These usually aren't the kind of things I tell my Mom about 'cause... well you know how Mom's are. I told her today just to test her reactions. It was typical: "You need to go to the doctor immediately". "It might be low blood pressure". "You might be diabetic". "Go get it checked out".

"No" I tell her. I won't go to a doctor. It's from riding so much. I just stood up too fast. A little googling confirms it's normal for a trained athlete (I even saw a note that cyclists, rowers, and cross-country skiers typically have the largest hearts from their training - two of the sports I've done consitently for 20 years). The info I saw says anything below 60 bpm is abnormal except for trained athletes. I'm at 54 right now, caffeine and all in the middle of the day. I'm not anal enough to check my resting heart rate daily, as some coaches have insisted, but I figure it's around 37. So what are you all at? OV, you're resting HR is probably 12... although I've generally observed the smaller the person the faster the HR, kind of like humming birds. So maybe you won't win this race.

Anyway, me and Spencer, we're both ok.