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.

26. How to Wake Up Early in the Morning

Sunday, 29 April 2007

For the last week or so, I've been waking up at about 6:10am, which is quite a bit earlier than usual. Why is that? Well, let me tell you about my new alarm clock.

This alarm clock, like a diligent rooster, detects when the sun is just peeping over the horizon. However, instead of giving off a "cock-a-doodle-doo," it makes a more rhythmic noise, which sounds exactly like a neighbor nailing siding to the exterior of his home every three seconds.

In fact, the first day I heard it, that's exactly what I thought was the noise. The second day, however, I thought someone was knocking on the door, so I bolted downstairs to check. Nobody there.

By the third day, I was no longer fooled, but I still was awoken at this hour, which in truth was a little earlier than my exhausted body wanted to.

"Why don't you just turn the alarm clock OFF then," you may ask?

Well, for one thing, this is not an alarm clock I purchased, placed by my bed, and turned on. No, in fact, it is... a bird! The dumbest bird in the world, I am convinced.

Let me explain.

So after the third day of this nonsense, I ran downstairs only to see a perky, orange-bellied bird attacking the window by the dining room. Unlike a woodpecker, however, it wasn't just pecking at the window, it was actually going full kamikaze into it, as if it wasn't there.

Now, last month I did wash the window, but it is not so clean that you wouldn't think it wasn't there. (Indeed, now it has a gazillion beak marks on it, courtesy of the orange-bellied bird. ) And you would think the bird would have learned after the 50th time it nearly bonked itself out on the window.

"Maybe," I thought, "it is attracted to the orange flowers on the dining room table." So I moved the flowers to some inconspicuous area on the floor. The 4th day, no bird crashes. Success!

Or so I thought until the fifth day.

That day I heard the now-familiar knocking noises at the now customary waking hour of 6:10am, only to see the bird attacking not only the dining room window, but an adjacent window with a screen on it. It seems like the last couple of days it's actually been favoring the screen.

I told (or rather, complained) to my friend Tori about this, and she has a theory.

"Funny about your bird. Maybe she has a crush on you! Maybe she just really wants to be an indoor bird."

Great, I may now be a victim of a bird stalker.

Well, at least I am having no problems waking up early anymore. So for those sleepyheads who want to get up earlier, just get a bird!

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27. Snow Running and Other Adventures

Monday, 09 April 2007

"Maybe we'll be able to drive with the top down on the way back," I said to my friend Nick, whom I was to go for a long run with on Saturday.

Heh, in hindsight that seemed a tad optimistic, as were most of our ideas on Saturday. Observe:

The plan was to meet up at Nick's place at 7:00am, drive over to Horsetooth, and go for a nice morning run along the Blue Sky Trail. We'd start at 7:30am, run down to Loveland and back for a total of 20 miles, and be done by 10:30am. We'd be back at our respective homes by, oh, 11:00, and still have an entire day to Get Stuff Done. Sounds good, yes?

Well, I got out of bed on time and met up with my friend at 7:00, but then there were a few things that prevented us from getting out of his home for a while. Like food, talking with his wife, playing with his kid, and, oh... snow. It was 70 degrees inside his place and only 20 outside, which hardly helped motivate us to get us moving along.

By the time we hit the trailhead it was 8:15am. Ah, well.

Then there was the issue of the trail. For some reason, despite all the forecasts calling for snow, I was positive that no white stuff would actually stick. Let me say this was also a tad optimistic. The good thing was, in the first 15 miles, I only slipped about, oh, three times. No blood or sprains, so that was good.

Running would get harder after that.

That is because my quads started aching from the rolling terrain, and soon I was lagging far behind Nick, a 2:55 marathoner. Then my hands sent numb, and my left calf started cramping. Suddenly running a single mile seemed like ten.

But we made it back to the car, with our reward being... a parking ticket. Doh! I my distracted state, I had forgotten to deposit $6 in the parking kiosks. Well, good to see that the rangers are still working on a 20-degree day!

The last challenge of the day was driving back. Now, that would seem fairly trivial, except my hands were so cold and numb that I could not even turn the key in the ignition. Ultimately, I was able to do so using two hands, much to the laughter of Nick. Though he wasn't laughing much when he saw how ineffective the defroster was in my little convertible ("that's Italian engineering for you," I remarked.)

Needless to say we didn't drive with the top down after all. Nor did we get back at 11:00, or even 12:00. But it was a good little adventure, and probably our last snow run of the year until October.

One can be optimistic, after all.

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28. Ninth Grade Geography

Sunday, 25 March 2007

Now, I have a lot of respect for CSU students. Most of the ones I have met seem a lot more knowledgeable and worldly than, say, a certain segment in society that sing Alan Jackson songs about not knowing the "difference in Iraq and Iran" and whose sole notion of culture is driving down to the local Taco Bell to pick up a bean burrito. I was a little surprised, then, to see that 49% of CSU students polled last week could not point out Iraq on a map of the Middle East.

Well, I guess that is not that bad. That means that slightly more than half did know where Iraq is, which is better than most young people in the nation (~40%) and is a higher percentage than, say, the high school graduation rate of South Carolina. On the other hand, that also suggests that a lot of people have already forgotten ninth grade geography! No wonder we Americans are often the laughing stock of the world.

A refresher is in order, then. Thankfully, there is the Internet with numerous websites to help us out. Here's a good one: http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/ . While it is technically a "quiz," it's a good learning tool, and also quite fun.

I figure, by doing one of these quizzes a day for a week or two, one's geographic prowess will be almost good enough to qualify for Jeopardy. My suggestion is to start out with the most basic (e.g., where are each of the U.S. states) and then working his way around the world.

Today I finished learning all of the territories in the Carribean. Those were kind of hard, considering that I hadn't even heard of Anguilla, Martinique, Barbuda (not to be confused with Barbados, which is also in the Carribean) and several others before. I'm sure Africa and some of the whereabouts northeast of that continent will present another challenge to me. But hey, at least I can already identify Iran and Iraq!
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30. Maybe This Is Why More People Do Not Vote

Thursday, 22 March 2007

I just received the official ballot for Fort Collins' Regular Municipal Election in the mail today. When I saw that there were only four ballot questions for my precinct, I thought, "Great, this shouldn't take much time at all!"

That was before I actually read one of the questions.

City-Initiated Proposed Charter Amendment No. 2 asks,

"Shall Article XI, Section 5 of the Fort Collins City Charter (Franchises and Public Utilities) be amended to eliminate leases and other rights from the existing twenty-year limit on the length of franchises, leases and other rights that the City can grant to private persons or entitles to use the streets or public places or property of the City, so that only franchises will be subject to this twenty-year limit?"

Now, I thought I did pretty well in the reading comprehension section of the SAT exam (then again, that was 15 years ago), but I had to read the above no less than three times just to get the gist of what it is asking. Of course, not having researched nor pondered its pros and cons, I can't really answer "yes" or "no" yet.

Um, I guess I will leave it blank for now.

I have determined a good fifth question to add to the ballot, however. It is, "Who writes these things?!"
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