Saturday, October 11, 2008

A Breath of Fresh Air

Written by felix

Felix Wong is an outdoor enthusiast living in Fort Collins. A mechanical engineer by day, he is especially passionate about bicycling, running, and backpacking.

16. Maybe Size Does Matter

Friday, 27 July 2007

I was working in the yard when my neighbor asked me, "Would you like some zucchini?" Sure, I replied, why not? Whom am I to turn down free food?

I was in for a little bit of a shock when she brought one back from her garden.

Check out the size of this specimen! The one at the very bottom is a zucchini I picked up at Albertson's; the one above it is the one from my neighbor.

I suppose that is the difference between store-bought and home-grown. Or rather, home-grown by someone who has a green thumb. For some reason, none of the vegetable plants I planted this year have produced anything but sagging leaves and bruised egos. I've given up on my own garden plot for the year.

Maybe that's not such a bad thing when I have a neighbor with a knack for producing super veggies large enough to feed an entire Caribbean island. I guess I will be eating zucchini pasta for awhile.
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17. License Plates

Wednesday, 18 July 2007

I was loading groceries into my car outside the Sunflower Market when a twinkle of highly-polished chrome across the parking lot caught my eye. A few pre-World War II hot rods were lined up in an orderly row, with several more pulling in. It turns out that this was an annual gathering of hot rods in front of Mancino’s Pizza & Grinders, the starting point of a “Cruise the Night” event.

One thing I noticed were the number of custom license plates present. Almost all of the hot rods had them (which I guess makes sense — if one is going to customize everything else about the car, you got to do the plates too!) While most people probably view “vanity” plates as a frivolous expense, I am clearly a big fan of them, having had custom plates on several cars I've owned in my lifetime. They are a quick way to individualize one’s vehicle and far less expensive (at ~$25/year) than, say, a ground effects kit, tinted windows, mufflers louder than a Harley’s, and a 10,000-watt earthquake-causing “sound” system that are often retrofitted to cars nowadays.

Here are sampling of the custom plates at the show:

DO RUN (on a car from the 1920s... I guess the car actually works)
KRUISIN (on a hot rod)
KRYSLER (a Chrysler... okay, so not very creative)
37 HUMP (on a "humpback" Ford)

Here are some of the ones I've had:

GMN ART: on a BMW Z3, because it truly was German art! Although many people couldn't get it... people would guess "go man art," "gaming art," and even "gay man art" (even though I am very straight!) One person, upon hearing it meant German art, even responded, "Oh... so you study German art?" :(
[heart] MT RDS: on my MGB. Means "loves mountain roads," because I love driving on them. It could also mean "loves empty roads" or "loves mountain rides".
2C STARS: formerly on my Alfa Romeo Spider. Means "to see stars" (since it's a convertible and I love driving it at night) or "to see movie stars" (since it was kind of a date vehicle).
RCKNSOL: the current plates on the Alfa. Means "rock and sun" (two things I love around here), "rock and soul" (two genres of music I like), or "rock and S-O-L" (stuck between a hard place and sh*t-out-of-luck, something owners of Italian sports cars often find themselves)...

Got any plates you'd like to share?
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18. Household Chores Not Worth Doing

Friday, 06 July 2007

Lately there seems to have been a number of mundane tasks that have taken precious time that I'd rather be spending on my bike, on the trails, or even on the computer, writing. Many have brought the satisfaction akin to washing your car one afternoon only to drive through a few mud puddles on the way home, making you think, "Wow, was that pointless or what?"

Well, now I have concluded that many household chores are just that. My nominations:

Washing windows. Two weeks ago, right before going on vacation in California, I spent 1.5 hours doing just this. While the windows did almost look like they had disappeared when I was done, when I returned from vacation a week later, all of them were spotted just like they were before I washed them. Apparently, Fort Collins must have got some rain when I was gone. Considering that this (the rain) could easily come down again, this is one task that I will be saying, "No mas! No mas!"
Checking the mail more than once or twice a week. 99% of the mail I get nowadays is junk mail or bills. The junk mail doesn't even get read. The bills never need to be paid until at least a couple of weeks after receiving them. I see no reason to spend the three minutes walking to the mailbox and back and dealing with a bunch of envelopes that don't require urgent attention.
Filing bills that amount to less than, say, $50. Does one even look at these again? I have water bills dating back to 1999 that were scanned into my computer (paperless house) and my answer to that question is "no!"
Getting groceries more than once a week. Despite buying virtually no food with preservatives, the food I do consume -- meat, vegetables, fruit, and dairy -- do seem to be able to last a week. Heck, I believe that's why refrigerators were invented in the first place. Now I try to get enough groceries at one time to minimize the number of trips to the supermarket.
Weeding the lawn. The last couple of months I've seemed to spend more time pulling weeds than mowing the lawn. Now I wonder why when most of the weeds I pulled were green and largely unnoticeable from more than five feet away, especially after mowing.
Edging the lawn more than once a month. Does this really make a big difference to how the lawn looks? Hardly worth the time!

Are there any other tasks you'd like to add to this list? Please leave a comment below with your ideas!
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19. The Super Sized Solution

Tuesday, 26 June 2007

A couple of weeks ago I rode in the Rocky Mountain Cycling Club's 600-km Brevet, a self-supported 372-mile bike ride starting in Louisville. This was a long distance to ride in less than 1.5 days but fortunately, the day before the event, I had watched the 2004 documentary dubbed Super Size Me.

Now, many people may wonder why a movie about stuffing one's face with as much lard-laden, grease-spewing McDonald's food as humanly possible for a month could be a good movie to watch before a long bike ride. Wouldn't a flick such as Breaking Away or American Flyers be a little more appropriate? No, I'd reply... let me explain.

From Super Size Me, I learned that a Big Mac has nearly 600 calories, and a medium milkshake has almost 400. Woah -- that's a lot!

So after cycling for more than 25 hours, I promptly stopped by a Mickey D's and ordered both of those, figuring it would be an excellent way to make a dent into the caloric deficit of, say, 8000 calories I had amassed. Or if not an "excellent" way, an "expedient" one. (Let's not talk about arteries right now!)

That's right... I was actually compelled to go to McDonald's after watching Super Size Me. That was probably the opposite effect that the documentary's producer, Morgan Spurlock, was hoping for, but at least Ronald McDonald and Grimace would be pleased.

Unfortunately, the Big Mac (something I had not consumed in about 15 years since being a teenager) was much less delicious than I'd have expected, but the strawberry milkshake was okay. If they had tasted a little better, maybe I could have ordered a few of those to further cut into the caloric deficit. Hmmm, maybe next time I should try Wendy's instead.
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20. Too Many Events!

Thursday, 14 June 2007

At the beginning of the year I had resolved to do as many running and cycling events in Fort Collins as I could, having felt that I squandered several opportunities to do so last year. Should be pretty easy, I thought, as this is just a small town of 128,000 people. The last two cities I lived in had over twice the population, and each were lucky to have three or four running and biking events a year.

Well, despite doing some sort of athletic competition virtually each weekend for the last few months, it seems like I am barely making it to some of them and completely missing out on others.

For example, two Saturdays ago I rode in the Rocky Mountain Cycling Club 400-km Brevet. Despite being very tempted to just stop at Mile 150 when the course came within three miles of my home in Fort Collins, I soldiered on, completing the course by 11:10 pm in Louisville. Since I hadn't slept in 21 hours, I had to take a nap in my car immediately afterwards, getting home at 2:30am.

That normally would not be a big deal, except the Fort Collins Running Club's Lee Martinez 10k was at 8:00am that morning, so after crawling out of bed like a zombie, I showed up at the start line just in time. I ran miraculously well (a PR) but let me tell you trying to run 6 miles less than half-a-day after biking 250 is not an ideal amount of recovery time.

Then, last weekend there was the Colorado Cycling Festival's Rist Canyon Ride on Saturday, and the Horsetooth Trail Half Marathon on Sunday. Having an out-of-town-visitor that weekend who had no interest in doing either, I had to pass. Besides, with the Taste of Fort Collins and Old Town Car Show going on, I would have had to miss at least one of these.

Now, next weekend is the Spring Creek Recumbent Bike Rally on Saturday and a Father's Day 5k Race on Sunday. As much as I'd like to ride my recumbent in the former and run the latter, I already signed up to do the Rocky Mountain 600-km Brevet (that's 375 miles) that will require both weekend days to complete. I can't do them all!!!

Well, I suppose this is one wonderful thing about Fort Collins, that we have all of these choices. Not to mention there is always next year. My legs should have recovered by then.
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