May 16, 2023 Filed under Amused
Before I visited or even did any research on Belgium, I added it to my map of the gaps. This is what was in my head about the country, from pop culture or hearsay or dimly remembered school. (Of course, actually going there will change this a lot.)
I know this is somewhere in Europe. Name vaguely rings a bell. Is Inspector Poirot from here? Is this where “Belgian waffles” were invented? Suddenly I am not very good at this.
May 14, 2023 Filed under Advice, Amused, Introspection
I slept horribly, battling waves of anxiety over things I might have forgotten or couldn’t control. This always happens…
I guess it will have to do…
Bad sleep or no, it was time for another bike tour! HERE WE GO!
Andrew arrived right on time with his trusty orange-flavored toolbox on wheels.
Classy transport to the airport.
Hooray for vans! Everything fits.
LET’S DO THIS.
I don’t know which adds more personality… This or the pile of random parts next to it.
In a little over half an hour he dropped me off at the airport. What a guy! Now I just needed to haul this stuff over to a counter and get it checked…
Look at those tiny little wheels! They actually did the job!
The scale at home lied to me, and I had to bail ten pounds out of the bike box and move it to one of the duffel bags. This is why we arrive early, folks…
When I sealed it up again, the box weighed 69 pounds. Close enough! Away it went. I could only hope that the inspectors would be smart enough to re-buckle the retention straps.
What, are they trying to make me homesick before I leave?
Ready to move luggage or star in a Space Invaders sequel…
Rehydrating and staying awake…
Big Breakfast Box With Baked Beans!!
SLEEP DEPRIVATION
The skin of the plane.
HURR I WILL MOVE ALL YOUR CRAPOLA
I’ve always been fascinated by the complexity of the hardware inside jet wings.
Bye England! See you again soon!
Oh look, my bike is already on the plane ahead of me! Airtags are awesome.
Have data, will travel.
Reclaimed on the other side of the gauntlet.
The hotel gave me a shuttle run exclusively for my box and gear.
Assembly begins later. First I need to get another bike…
December 6, 2022 Filed under Amused, Inspiration
Got ambitions to go bicycling all around the world? Got fond memories of playing the Carmen Sandiego games on your old Apple II computer with the fuzzy color monitor? Well I sure do, on both counts!
I put these slide shows together from the original games, just following my sense of nostalgia for an afternoon, and when I was done I realized they could serve as hyper-ambitious checklists for bicycle touring.
Currently I can only claim London, New York, and Reykjavik, and I feel pretty accomplished already.
Update: As of June 2023, I can also claim Paris.
I built this slide show to run a little slower, so you stand a chance of reading the scattershot descriptions on the right. On this list I can claim Reykjavik (again), Amsterdam, Brussels, and Copenhagen.
Update: As of July 2023, I can also claim Edinburgh and Luxembourg.
August 17, 2021 Filed under Amused
Okay, so, say you’re in an AirBnB. And it’s multiple rooms, and you can get in the front door but you can’t unlock your own room.
In an emergency you can exit through the utility room.
I bet the key to the other door opens this one too.
For fire safety there’s a key behind some glass that opens a back door, and that passes through a storage room that also contains spare keys. You can see them through the keyhole! But, should you break the glass? That seems wasteful.
You keep looking around. At the top of some stairs you find another locked door that leads to the upper story of the house, where the owner lives. When you look in the keyhole, you notice it’s dark. It appears that someone has left a key in this door, on the other side.
You also notice that the faceplate over the keyhole only has one screw in it. Has someone taken it apart before you? You don’t have a lot of possessions to work with, but you poke around the laundry room and find a dull knife. It’s just enough to turn the remaining screw.
Have people done this before?
It was even easier than it looks.
It’s also enough to turn the entire locking assembly once you get the faceplate off. You do so, and hear a loud “clunk” as the lock disengages. You open the door…
Just on the other side of the door. How handy!
The keys to the kingdom!
… and discover that the owner has left a complete set of keys to the entire house, including all the rooms, hanging in the lock on the other side of the door.
You unlock your own room, fetch your key, then place the keyring back where you found it, and screw the faceplate back in.
Ready for the next guest…
July 23, 2021 Filed under Amused
The singer Bjork is eating the roses off the bushes of a house nearby. It’s just something she likes to do. I decide they must be tasty and I should try one. I turn the bike around in the street to go back to the rose bushes but I see my ex girlfriend, walking about 30 feet away from Bjork.
“She’s out here too?” I think. “Uh oh. The two of them are bound to get to know each other, and then she’ll will find out that I scheduled a date with Bjork for Sunday. I think I’m still in a relationship with her. Wait, am I? What’s my situation? Didn’t we break up like, half a year ago?”
I turn the bike back around, knowing that if I get close to either of them they’ll just walk away from me. They want private time. So, am I seeing other people, or dating again, or am I still with my ex? I can’t remember. We need to talk.
I wake up in an unfamiliar bedroom. I think it’s the house I share with my ex. I hear kitchen sounds in the distance. “Well, that’s probably her. I better get this over with.” I roll out of bed and pick up my pants, which I have trouble putting on because there’s something jammed in one of the legs. I reach in and extract my phone.
She walks into the room. “Okay, here we go,” I think. But instead of seeming worried like I am, she’s relaxed. She’s also wearing no clothing except for underwear.
“Follow me,” she says urgently, and walks into a different room. There’s another bed here. She dives onto it, then reaches into a bedside drawer and pulls out a condom in a clear plastic wrapper, and flicks it onto the covers.
She wiggles around until she’s partly under the sheets. I know what I’m supposed to be doing but I’m not feeling into it. Something is still wrong between us. I’m also skeptical of the condom: It looks too colorful, like something you’d find in a bowl at a saucy adult party. “What time of month is it?” I ask her pointedly. Things are already dysfunctional, and having a child on the way might pull us together into a commitment neither of us feels good about. She’s looking at me expectantly, as if to say, “What’s your problem?”
Some friends and relatives of hers wander into the room, carrying groceries and food. They’re about to throw a Thanksgiving celebration. She climbs off me immediately. We can’t have an intimate conversation with all this family around. Am I the only one who thinks we need a discussion? I get off the bed and walk out of the room.
Night falls instantly. I’m wandering around the gritty courtyard of a large beat-up hotel. The walls are charcoal colored, like either a deliberately spooky paint job, or just a phenomenal amount of decay. People are emerging from the doors and windows of the hotel and wandering around in small groups. There is a party-like atmosphere. I look down and see several coins in the dirt, and pick them up. One is a very thick coin with dull round edges, as big as a silver dollar. I turn it over in my hand and notice that it is stamped with a year far into the future, somewhere in the next millennium.
Impressed with the coin, I begin waving it around and singing an improvised song, in the style of They Might Be Giants:
Hey look! It’s:
-My brain, 4:30am
MONEY FROM THE FUTUUUURE
Who knows what you can spend it on
When all of civilization’s gone?
How valuable is this techno-coin?
Come on everyone, let’s join
The search for
MONEY FROM THE FUTUURRRE
Check it out, it’s
MONEY FROM THE FUTUUUURE
Music erupts around me. Some of the people wandering around turn into band members playing instruments, and when one of them starts a wicked guitar solo, I go running down the street, then jump up onto a wall, then run along it and jump onto a roof. The music fades in the distance.
“Dammit, now what do I do?” I think.
I wake up.