Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in June 2006.

I am a unique and delicate snowflake.

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in June 2006.

If the soul of the dashboard meme is to mark the passage of time or the significance of an event, I humbly submit my entry: New Year's 2000:

TT 1999-12-31 23:59

TT 2000-01-01 00:00

My date for the evening (my good friend
Jessica) wasn't having a good time at the party, so we split and drove
down the George Washington Parkway. We pulled into the park north of
National Airport on the Potomac and waited out the clock watching the planes land before the fireworks.

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in June 2006.

Because Anil reminded me of this classic.

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in June 2006.

Ducati 748

Part of me wants to be altruistic and do the Right Thing. Another part of me agrees with Mena and needs two wheels (in my case a Ducati 748). The responsible part of me says by a $10k CD. Or sink it into some incredibly underpriced stock and hope the graph goes upward.

Quarter

Nah, I'll probably just flip Patti for it.

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in June 2006.

Reblogged from Flickr:

Ingredients:

• 2 small pork chops
• 2 small/medium pears
• 1/2 large red onion
• 5-6 long sprigs fresh rosemary
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• sea salt
• pepper

Recipe forthcoming.

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in June 2006.

At the aforementioned DWR warehouse sale (a disappointing shadow of its former self), I acquired a bookshelf. It's a nifty stainless-steel & molded plywood affair with 3 shelves + an extra they threw in for some reason. Edit: It was designed by Richard Holbrook.

So finally after 4 months I unpacked my book boxes. I also moved a lot of the various CD/DVD/electronics/cables/old mail boxes up to the closet. I came downstairs about an hour later and (maybe it was the time of day with the light streaming in through the window) my place looked twice as big. Or at least a quarter-again. All this extra space to work with, joy!

Dear Lazyweb: I'm looking for a desk. I have weird specific requirements:

• It's more like a table than a desk. No drawers, sides, etc. Just a tabletop and legs.
• It has an extremely high width-to-depth ratio. 80 inches wide by 20 inches deep would be ideal.
• The tabletop isn't reconstituted anything. Butcher block, hardwood ply, concrete, frosted glass, whatever. Just. No. Melamine.

The dimensions are important because I have a smallish office with a long wall behind my kitchen. It should be deep enough to slide my knees under, and hold a laptop next to a keyboard/mouse or two for other machines. All screens will be wall-mounted.

Craigslist/Ebay are utterly useless searching for this. Help!

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in June 2006.

...or maybe just Cingular sucks. Or perhaps it's just my phone. In any case, having a shiny new tricked out Smartphone with the most expensive data plan available in an area that should have more cell coverage than flies on shit just goes to show you, it doesn't. Mean. Diddly.

Two beautiful pictures taken at 7 this morning from the top of the headlands, one click two and they're off! Or are they? Despite all my tries, pleas and harassment, my phone still refuses to email the messages I had intended for this blog.

Which I suppose is OK, since the two most interesting events of my ride weren't captured in pictures anyway:

1. Riding down the back descent of the headlands I envisioned being passed by a Ducati with a dry-clutch motor. Sure enough, on the last 50 feet of the headlands road before it enters the one-lane tunnel back to civilization, a Duc Monster S2R with a ventilated clutch cover rumbles, clanks and clicks past. The fellow pulls up the light and promptly shuts off the motor (he's done this before). I mention my premonition to him, and he smiles (or at least I think he does, it's hard to tell under a full-face helmet). After which he informs me I can ride a bicycle through the tunnel despite the red light: "There's a bike lane!" I bid him good ride and drop into the tunnel. I did not see or hear the motorcycle again.
2. Riding up Market street can be a scary thing for a novice bike rider. I've done it a few times (and had my share of almost-oh-shit-I'm-gonna-wipe-out-on-the-rails moments) on different bikes in all kinds of weather & traffic, so it doesn't really bother me. In the morning (around 8:30 or so) it tends to be clogged with commuters of various persuasions, including motorcycles, pedestrians, buses, trams, taxis, cars and  cyclists. Including this one girl on a Cannondale, with iPod, blazing up at the front of the bikes-waiting-at-the-next-light mob. This goes on for a few blocks, she and I trading pole position, until I give it up on a techicality (a senior citizen in a Crown Vic shoulders me out of my share of the lane). This is going fine until we hit the beauty that is Market & 4th. There are about 10 cyclists now, and one poor driver stuck in the intersection. Well, not quite stuck enough to compel Ms. iPod to stop. So she tries an around-the-back, between-the-rail-and-bumper swerve around the Corolla. At which point Corolla stops to avoid hitting the more conservative cyclists going in front of her. Ms. iPod eats shit, slams into Corolla's bumper and does an inverted aerial, landing on her back right in the center of Market street. This happens about 2 feet in front of me. Everything stops for about 5 seconds while a few pedestrians & cyclists (including myself) query as to her condition. She gives me a thumbs up from the pavement, neither her hair, nor sunglasses nor iPod headphones out of place. I ride on, and when I look back, she's already on the curb putting her chain back on.

Reminds me, need paragraphs in <li> elements in this hizzie.

Update: Finally my phone synced. Sweet!

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in June 2006.

DWR Line

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in June 2006.

DWR warehouse sale. Woohoo!

Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in June 2006.

Oi, the blogger and the cuteness. Determining who is which is left as the exercise to the reader.

Self Portrait with Maddy