Cycling and Blogging

Today was a cycling day. I left early - around 9:30, before the wind picked up - and rode my usual 20 mile out-and-back route. It was a gorgeous day, temps in the 50s, clear skies and light winds from the west or thereabouts. Wind direction is important...a westerly breeze means I get a tailwind coming home, which is always nice. (OTOH, I've found that my best times for this route have generally occurred when I have a headwind on the last leg. Sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but I suspect I know the reasons. First, I'm really warmed up by the turnaround, so hammering back into the wind isn't as tough at that point as at the beginning of a ride. Second, if I'm riding against the clock, I know how fast I need to ride that return leg and can make a stronger psychological commitment. Third, the return leg is ever-so-slightly downhill. Which is probably a lot more important than the first two factors, but doesn't sound as, well, athletically impressive. After all, I can't claim any credit for the immutable effects of physics.)

Anyway, these rides grow increasingly precious as winter approaches. I never know when a ride might be the last for the season, or at least for a couple of weeks. And the alternatives aren't pretty: move the bike indoors for the windtraining sessions (boooorrrring), or climb on the treadmill for 4 or 5 miles (painnnnnnful). Can't complain too much, though; I suspect that I get more [pleasant] outdoor riding time than about 75% of the rest of the US cycling population.

The exercise is important, but the think-time is even more so. I ride the same route every time, and although I concentrate on traffic flow (self-preservation being a strong instinct) I'm also able to slip into a stream-of-consciousness state for several miles at a time, due to my familiarity with the route. This gives me time to mull over challenges, plans, dreams, fears, song lyrics, conjugation of Spanish verbs...you-name-it. And it was thus that I came to an important decision today regarding the Gazette.

It must be transformed into an all-CSS layout! (What...you were expecting that I'd solved the problem of peace in the Middle East?)

There's really no excuse for me not to get rid of all the tables and put up a CSS-compliant site. While my clients won't tolerate a site that looks bad in older browsers, this is a blog, for pete's sake, and, frankly, I don't care how it looks in IE3 for Windoze. And that's very liberating. Besides, maybe if enough of you IE3 for Windoze users keep seeing ugly websites in your browser window, you'll finally decide to upgrade...leaving us web designers with some extra time for solving other problems. Like peace in the Middle East. Besides, LOTS of blogs - some of them good - use table-free designs.

So, stay tuned for changes in this layout. Don't know when, don't know how, don't know exactly what...but the winds of change, they are a'blowin'.

I leave you with this link, to CoffeeGeek.com...you know you've got to have it!

Getting the hang of this blogging thing

I spent most of yesterday creating a new template for the Gazette, and familiarizing myself with the intricacies of Blogger. I can't decide if I'm happy with the new layout. I wanted to do a completely CSS-styled layout but just couldn't bring myself to do it...still too many old browsers out there to totally relinquish positioning control. Sorry, Zeldman, et al. I did notice an apparent problem with my Archive link, but haven't yet taken the time to research it. Please bear with me.

I've also reinstated my "Cycling Adventures," which had lain dormant for lo these many years. They've actually been online, just unlinked, as I tried to decide how - or if - they should be connected to my business site. I've finally gotten comfortable with adding a discreet semi-mysterious icon at the bottom of the page, along with an equally discreet semi-mysterious icon linking to the Gazette.

And...I learned a valuable Blogger lesson today, as I labored over today's entry, only to see it vanish into the ether due, apparently, to a hiccup in the system. I hit the Publish button, and...nothing. No post, no publish, no entry, no recovery. Moral of the story: compose offline, then copy and paste to publish. Not rocket science, is it? Still, some things must be learned the hard way. This works better anyway, as it's much easier to use GoLive's HTML generator than do the hand-coding. [Note to HTML purists: So sue me.]

I leave you with a link to this article, explaining why we should carefully read End User License Agreements (I know I do, and I'm sure you do, but what about everyone else?). Especially now that we're being "politely" asked to voluntarily turn over our Outlook Contact Lists to spammers. The innovative sleaze of Marketing Types never fails to astonish and amaze.

Think your job is tough?

I walked outside a few minutes ago to check the mail, just in time to see an Animal Control truck pull up to a house directly across the street. The driver, a slightly-built blond female, jumped out of the truck, carrying a noose-on-a-stick, and made a beeline (dogline? canineline?) for what appeared to be a youngish pit bull crossbreed, chocolate brown with some ugly long scars across its right side. No collar or tags...dead meat, in other words. The dog made the AC truck immediately. Could have been the smell of panic-striken dogs and dead cats...a easy call for an obviously street-smart canine. In an instant, he (or she...hmmm...I didn't notice...just assumed...) was past the officer like a K-State running back through this year 's Nebraska d-line and was gone around the corner in the blink of an eye. They really need to teach those AC officers the theory of getting the proper angle on the ball carrier...um...fleeing dog. The officer ran back to the truck, yelling something into her shoulder-mounted 2-way (just like on COPS!), squealed a u-turn and was off after the offender. I don't know if she ever noticed me.

I'm what you call a "dog person." I can anthropomorphize with the best of 'em, when it comes to man's best friend. The scene I witnessed was not something I enjoyed, as there was no imaginable happy ending. The dog gets caught; it's too ugly/aggressive/demanding/alive and no one will claim it...in a few short days it will be put down. Or, the dog escapes, to...to what? Hunger, fighting, more scenes like today? It's not something I want to dwell on.

What I wonder, however, is what it's like to have a job like that. One where you have to drive insanely through a quiet neighborhood, dive out of a truck in a clumsy attempt to capture a dog - a DOG! - that is obviously quicker, stronger and more desperate than you'll ever be. You know in advance that you won't succeed, and that you've probably got an audience...if not on the sidewalk, surely peering through curtains...and, worst of all, that you're viewed as The Dogcatcher, enemy of all that is good and kind in the world. But here's what I think, or at least what I hope: only someone who loves animals works in Animal Control. I'm willing to give the blond lady the benefit of the doubt; she's just doing the dirty work required to clean up the mess left behind by an uncaring and/or irresponsible owner. It's not the dog's fault and it's not her fault. We can root for the dog, but if we really care about animals, we'll root for the officer.

I don't know about you, but that's hard for me to admit.

And so it begins...

So...I have a blog...hmmm. It's a little anticlimactic.