Month: May 2021

2021 Week 21 Recap: Is this any way for a man in his 60th year to behave?

Hey man,

Got my second AstraZeneca and am about 12 days away from bombproof.  Sick yesterday but not as bad as the first dose.

-redacted-

We’re off for the next several days working on the last big room and I’ll send updates.  We’re off till Wednesday with Monday a Bank Holiday (national thing, there are several of these spread out throughout the year, and everything shuts down).  

Planning to trip hard on Sunday morning (you know, early, at sunrise, like 4 am) and go for a run whilst in the cosmos.  Six hours to answer the question, “is this any way for a man in his 60th year to comport himself?”.  I may not be able to report on this because I’m deep diving into the ‘heroic dose’ realm: I have 28 grams (an ounce or near enough) of dried fungal material that, for my weight, yields a stage 4 experience at 4 to 6 grams.  I’ll tell you something, rest assured, but you know how these things are. 

Love you, see you soon (relatively, you know, in the next year or so),

Bunny

Letter to our Deb

The previous text was sent to our oldest friend who is now fully vaxxed and newly in possession of a passport. I hope she uses it to come here.

The birthday dose did not pan out but the birthday involved tequila and I think further explanation is superflupus.

New paths for the last two weeks in red, below. Fines and fees for this week = £58.50. Peace and love, y’all.

2021 Commute #12: A Sunny, Largely Cloud-Free Run

It was warm today. And, sunny. It has been so very long I barely remember what it is like. Glorious 9 miles over some new territory using only the shadows and topography to steer. Grand.

Spotted the mural on familiar paths but soon worked my way onto new streets for a while.

Bombproof

This morning I got my long awaited 2nd dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. I wouldn’t say I’ve ever been fearless — despite evidence to the contrary– but ploughing ahead into the routine maelstrom of daily terror will be a lot more tolerable now that I’m only dealing with my own demons (whether actual or paranoid delusion).

I don’t know how I’ve dodged the COVID bullet without ever stopping work (key personnel at the Uni, dontchaknow?) or mixing with the — shudder — general public throughout the lockdowns to date but here we are. The vaccine needs to age and mellow in the whiskey cask that is my carcass for a couple of weeks to be fully effective but I now feel like I’m taking the lateral flow assays for you lot instead of me and the missus.

Good luck out there.

2021 Commute #11: Partially New Paths

Off work tomorrow morning for an appointment and taking Friday for vacation with Wednesday and Thursday sort of busy so today was my best chance at a commute this week. The run started in bright sunshine and the rain threatened but held off until a half hour after I managed to get into the labs and change into my big boy clothes.

I veered off a bit near Rotton Park and actually managed to cover some new paths despite cutting a mile from the normal canal-only path (shown below in red on an excerpt from the cumulative commuting map).

2021 Week 20 Recap: Pråmod Aryal

There’s a big refurbishment push next week. It makes me wish I were still a god.

Pråmod Aryal was a god. This was not my opinion.

One day in the mid-90s when I was still working on a PhD in Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech, I made spare cash running the line at an Italian restaurant. Pråmod was my sous (there were only two of us) and every now and then he would get a visitor bearing a mattress or another toting some lamps or other furniture. They would leave these gifts in the dining area near the kitchen then back out of the restaurant, bowing and gesturing with clasped hands, and we’d store these gifts in the walk-in fridge until after work when I’d load them on my pick up truck and drive them to his fantastically furnished apartment. This went on for months before I asked what the fuck was it all about.

He seemed sheepish and embarassed as he, matter of factly, told me that in his bit of Nepal he was the incarnation of some god or another. “How do I get a piece of this action?” I asked.

“There are more gods than people in Nepal. I got this because I built a skip antenna to pick up tv signal reflections off the ionosphere. The guy was so happy with the Indian cricket broadcasts he made me a god and sent me to study at university. You should be a god, too. It’s good.”

“Downsides?” I asked, not believing any of this.

“No one will ever believe you if you tell them you are a god,” he said, anticipating my doubts. See, I told you he was a god.

I don’t remember if we ever agreed to anything about this matter — drugs may have been involved — but the next Friday (and every week or ten days or so until I moved back to Athens) some South Asian weirdo or another would show up at at the gaff with a box for a deck of cards with only the jokers remaining and a generous amount of psychoactive materials packed into the space where the deck used to be. I have no idea why it was cards, although I suspect the Jokers were down to Pråmod and the space was about right for a quarter ounce of weed or an eighth ounce of mushrooms. They’d generally order an appetiser and ask for me by name; after the first one came through, I’d make something special for the worshippers to eat and drink before they left but I never got the sort of genuflection that Pråmod did (and why should I?).

I could really use a deck of cards for next week’s construction push.

Fines and fees: £66. One commute and 30 total miles, but few new paths to report (updated map next week).

Run Notebook 27 July 2001-24 Jan 2006

Went through another of The Notebooks. Here’s a collection of excerpts:

89°F, high humidity. Carb replacement: pint of chocolate soy milk mid-run, pint of Bud Light @ Mellow Mushroom, after.

4 August 2001
Cartoon from The Flagpole, the torchbearer of all things Athens, GA

Saturday after the Architecture Boat Tour, we went back to the hotel for drinks and muscle relaxers to ease my back spasms. Then, Blue Chicago for the evening, leaving at 1 am. Up at 5:30 to head to the race, but only the El was running (well, the El and me) so I still had to put in 3½ miles just to get there. Finished, then another 1¾ to the nearest station. Slow, but I bet I was the first finisher who could blow 0.08 at a DUI stop.

9 September 2001, writing up Chicago trip before heading home the next day

Flew home. Rain, traffic awful. Got to Debra’s to pick up Bobo at 8:30 pm then started packing for Edinburgh.

10 September 2001 entry ( rushing around before interview trip to University of Edinburgh)

Hijacked airplanes destroyed World Trade Center and part of Pentagon. Shock, drinking. Still sore from Sunday. Trip delayed.

11 September 2001 (the need to rush was lifted around 9 am this day)

4.4 miles at the Bot Garden. Sore first mile then picked up pace. Averaged 7:10 per mile.

12 September 2001, no further mention of terrorism until travel resumed in a few weeks
The Harry Potter forehead scar came from the bike wreck. This is all I know for sure about Harry Potter.

Backpack list for long A-to-B runs: compass, maps, bus and train schedules for the day, notebook and pen, water bottle, snack, dry clothes, strippenkaart, vordeelurenkaart, ID, cash, pot, eyedrops, neusspray.

Part of the planning for “Run Across Holland” which went on the duration of my two year postdoc position. The national cycle/fiets map I blackened in with runs to connect the, first, east-to-west then north-to-south jogs has long since fallen apart.

Some random other photos. Above, 20 July 2004 we were back in Athens and voting in the primaries. Below is from earlier than June 2002 (when the photo was finally developed), showing the proper, minimal supplies to write a dissertation:

In April 2005, I drove a University of Georgia van to Blacksburg, Virginia to pick up a gifted mass spectrometer. Went for a few hours run in the wilderness area nearby and discarded the soaked shirt with George Bush as Alfred E Neuman as I emerged still far from the vehicle.

This notebook, covering nearly 5 years, overlapped quite a few others; but, this was the ‘official’ run log for the period. At the back, lists of races and notable runs were tallied for the first time…and, long before my naming at a hash, there were hashes listed here. Excellent memories considering how shit everything in this one seems to be.

2021 Week 19 Recap: And then it snowed

Have the Israelis ever heard of David and Goliath?

The Donner Party tribute that is {insert one: the GOP, Middle East peace, popular music} continues to eat itself.

Just over two weeks into a hard liquor fast (inspired by a colleague doing Ramadan the last few weeks), fines and fees are down (albeit wine consumption up). Sitting on some stories but, rest assured, it has been a week.

Inci-Dunce

For decades (back to my teens), when asked about the path to one story or another, my stock reply has been (and is), “yeah, well, there was an incident.” You know, like, “Bun, where are your clothes?” or “how did you go from Atlanta cab driver to internationally known* academic?” are answered, completely, with, “there was an incident.” {* note that “known” does not equal “respected.”}

The Uni defines inicident this way:

“An incident is an unplanned, uncontrolled event that has led to damage or losses to property, equipment, materials or the environment.”

Grain of salt: they also promote this graphic on Accidents, Incidents’ more serious sibling:

Key: Lifting an upside-down box leads to flatulence. Magnetic tools may be drawn to the plate in your head. The colour of your blood appears vastly different depending on the background, but if this applies to you pick your hand up off the floor. Dancing with a cylinder near nuclear waste receptacles is not advised.