Currently, I’m at home (11:15am on 9 June 2004) because I couldn’t go to work today. I’m not sick in the classical sense, but I managed to throw out my back sometime in the past two days, and any movement is difficult. I’m supposed to be working, but that’s hard to do when your co-workers are hogging the Terminal Services connections, so here I wait for a connection to open.
Anyway, back (heh) to the matter at hand. I think I sprained a muscle in my back two days ago, bending over the gate we have at the base of the stairs to pick up Seb. I was two steps up, and he was leaning against the other side of the gate. Not only was I picking him up without bending at the knees, he was below the level of my feet. Duh. There wasn’t pain immediately, just a dull ache. Then last night, while we had some friends at the house for dinner, the muscles decided to spasm, which I’m guessing is what getting stabbed in the back feels like.
A combination of drugs and ice allowed me sleep alright, but it’s taken more drugs and about five hours for the muscles to loosen up enough for me to get around the house. I feel like a big loser, since I’m home but can do little to help Jen with the boy, since it’s almost impossible for me to pick him up. No lie. Those muscles just aren’t responding at the moment.
So, remember kids, “bend at the knees.”
Posted on 9 June 2004
Last night was the “Steel Back the City” alleycat. This time, the race was a true-blue scavenger hunt-style alleycat, with a four page manifest of things to do and stuff to get. Some of the more unique tasks included:
* Riding a double-decker bike (homemade) at Free Ride. This was quite exciting, as you needed to scale a pile of pallets to even mount the thing.
* Delivering coffee across Oakland.
* Drinking beer at the 31st Street pub.
I rode it with a handful of local messengers, and we got stuck at one particularly annoying task — finding the glowing green light in Homewood cemetery. At one point there were 15 of us riding throughout the place, and we just couldn’t find it. It was there, however, as we talked to some other folks who did manage to find it.
All in all, it was good fun, though I didn’t stick around long enough to see who won. It was cool riding with some other fixed gear riders for most of the race as well, though they were geared a bit higher, so I was spinning pretty darn fast to even keep up. It’s also good fun to see all the bikes, especially from the folks out of town. Pittsburgh’s messengers have a unique style of bikes (that I end up emulated since my bike used to be owned by a local messenger, and other cities have their own styles as well. The bravery award goes to the guys from Columbus who were riding brakeless track bikes.
Posted on 6 June 2004
Not much activity here lately, eh? There are plenty of things I should be talking about:
* The reaction of some members of my denomination to a series articles by my father-in-law examining what a loving Christian response to homosexuality should be.
* My growing disaffection with systematic theology (directly tied to issue above).
* My growing interest in the Christian Socialist movement.
* Discovering that there are other subversive Reformed Christians out there.
* Our first camping trip with the boy. Jen has already given her take.
* The upcoming Rally Acropolis.
I’ve started and stopped a bunch of entries on some of these topics, but I haven’t the discipline to finish them. Someday. Maybe.
Posted on 2 June 2004
What do you do when your city government mismanages its finances? Put the burden of recovery on the taxpayer. Pittsburgh has been in financial trouble for a long time. And now, a state task force has presented its solution. The worst of it:
* A $120 occupation tax (up from $10).
* An increase in the income tax.
* An increase in the property tax.
Fantastic. I’d gripe about the commuter tax, but hey, we live in the city, so that wouldn’t apply to me.
Posted on 26 May 2004
The FIA decided today to exclude both Peugeots from the Rally Cyprus after concluding that the 307s were using non-standard water pumps. The rally was awarded to second place driver Sebastien Loeb, and everyone else in the standings moved up one place. The “win” moves Loeb into first place in the driver’s championship (giving him the unenviable task of running first on the road in Greece), and drops Gronholm to fourth, four points behind Petter Solberg. Ford’s Markko Martin currently holds third.
Posted on 26 May 2004
I came across this today on Salon:
James Dobson, chairman of the Colorado Springs-based Christian group Focus on the Family, offered a grave assessment of the jubilant same-sex couples flocking to court houses in New England.
“We will look back 20, 30, 50 years from now and recall this as the day marriage ceased to have any real meaning in our country. The documents being issued all across Massachusetts may say ‘marriage license’ at the top but they are really death certificates for the institution of marriage as it has served society for thousands of years.”
Do Christian leaders not realize that the divorce rate is roughly 50%? Seems to me that the death knell for marriage has already been heard. Some Christians have to realize that we can’t legislate faith. The institution of marriage won’t be saved by fighting for an amendment defining marriage. Marriage will be saved by Christians not getting divorced. The divorce rate among Christians is roughly the same as the national rate — 50%. Here we are, loudly proclaiming that homosexuality marriage will destroy the moral fabric of this country (assuming of course that the country has a moral fabric to be destroyed) while silently slinking into divorce court.
Posted on 19 May 2004
It’s been a few days coming, but here’s the wrapup of the WRC action from last weekend…
As expected, it was a rough rally for all the factory teams. The biggest victim was Subaru’s Petter Solberg. Solberg started the rally well, and held the lead through the opening stages. Then, a minor incident that bent his Impreza’s front bumper caused dirt to be pushed into the engine’s intake, thus seriously limiting the car’s power. Solberg lost over nine minutes by the end of the first leg, destroying his chances of winning the rally. Despite the setback, Solberg was the most consistent driver, setting the highest number of scratch times and fighting back into points, eventually finishing sixth.
So, who won? Marcus Gronholm. The new Peugeot 307 won its first rally, but it wasn’t without incident either. Gronholm struggled with gearbox problems on days one and two, but managed to get enough of a gap on the field to hold his lead. The win also puts Gronholm on top of the championship bracket heading into the Acropolis rally (more on that in a bit).
Sebastien Loeb had a quiet, measured drive to take second place. He drove consistenly, and the Xsara was reliable enough. Ford’s Markko Martin finished third, after battling for the lead on day two. Martin’s teammate Francois Duval didn’t have a good time, however, retiring on leg two. Citroen’s Carlos Sainz ended up in fourth. Peugeot looked like it could take the top two spots on Saturday, with Harri Rovanpera holding second place. But reliability issues with Rovanpera’s 307 dropped him to fifth overall.
Subaru’s Mikko Hirvonen finished behind teammate Solberg in seventh. Hirvonen has performed quite well for Subaru this season, with only a couple of years of experience under his belt. The Finn will stand on the podium before the end of the season. Ford’s Janne Tuohino took the last of the driver’s points in eighth place. Mitsubishi had another disappointing rally, with both cars retiring. Gilles Panizzi did managed to fight his way into the top eight on Saturday.
The results of the rally have no yet been finalized by the FIA yet, however, as they are examining both the Citroens and Peugeots for possible technical violations with the cars’ water pumps. Should the FIA exclude both teams, Markko Martin would take the win, with Solberg and Hirvonen taking second and third.
So, here’s what the championship looks like:
1. Marcus Gronhom – 34 pts
2. Sebastien Loeb – 33 pts
3. Markko Martin – 32 pts
4. Petter Solberg – 28 pts
5. Carlos Sainz – 18 pts
Quite a close race. Each of the top four drivers have won a rally this season, with Loeb taking the double on Monte Carlo and Sweden. Loeb, Martin, and Solberg actually expressed delight with the positions heading into Greece. Gronholm, thanks to his lead, will be running first on the roads on day one, acting as a sweeper for the rest of the field.
Posted on 19 May 2004
The championship picks up again tomorrow morning on the rough and twisty roads around the island of Cyprus. This is the first of three very tough events to start the summer, with this rally quickly followed by Turkey and the Acropolis. This means a lot of damaged cars and many retirements. All of the teams are sporting relatively new cars, and none of them have cut their teeth on rough terrain, so this weekend will be good indication of how the teams have done developing the latest WRC iterations.
So, who are the favorites? At this point, it’s Petter Solberg and Marcus Gronholm. The Peugeot 307, while suffering some reliability issues on the opening legs of the championships, has the most kilometers under its tyres than the other cars. Gronholm, however, has a less than stellar record on these rough and twisty events. Solberg, while driving a newer Impreza, won here last year, and always does well on the rough stuff. Solberg has already said he plans to run a consistent race, just to see what happens to his rivals. If he can post decent times and stay out of trouble, he should be able to stand atop the podium on Sunday.
Keep on eye on the youngsters this weekend as well. Despite the fact that neither Ford’s Francois Duval or Subaru’s Mikko Hirvonen have much experience in this event, they may fair well if they play it safe. Both could finish in the top five if they take care of their cars and the rest of the field runs into trouble.
Markko Martin should also be a factor, but the reliability of the newer Ford Focus could be an issue, with Martin already damaging the turbo during the shakedown. Citroen isn’t expecting much, either, with the newer Xsara, though both Carlos Sainz and Sebastien Loeb need a decent result to get their championship aspirations back on track. Mitsubishi also isn’t expecting much after a horrible race in New Zealand, though it would mean a lot for the team just to get both Lancers to finish ramp on Sunday.
My Top 8
1. Petter Solberg
2. Marcus Gronholm
3. Markko Martin
4. Carlos Sainz
5. Mikko Hirvonen
6. Harri Rovanpera
7. Francois Duval
8. Sebastien Loeb
Posted on 13 May 2004
Slate has an interesting Chatterbox article about who (or what) is to blame for the military debacle at Abu Ghrarib. I’d like to respond to a couple of the people who were quoted in the article:
Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission: Can I ask that you take another good look at your Bible? There was this minor event we Christians like to call “The Fall” that occurred, which screwed things up for a very, very long time. Moral pundits always like to point out that society in their day and age is going downhill. NEWSFLASH: it’s been going downhill since the dawn of humanity, and it’s not getting better without divine intervention. Torture, rape, and humiliation are not 21st century inventions. Society, Mr Land, has been broken for a long time.
Diana West: Blame the media? This is same sort of thing Donald Rumsfeld hinted at during his testimony before the Senate — “things wouldn’t be so bad if those photos didn’t get out to the public.” Ahhh, yes, the “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it” argument.
Posted on 13 May 2004