RyanHarne.com

I think cycling was a good choice for me. It has a thorough culture and various subcultures. While I don’t empathize with or particularly enjoy the fixed-gear/hipster culture, the rest of cycling culture is quite encouraging, like a book club, and the internal workings are not nearly as concealed and shady as the occasional media coverage may make it seem. I’m sure if bodybuilding received even a slice of the media coverage that cycling gets, there would be enough doping stories to last a decade or five. But, no one wants to see images of elephantitis-suffering crotches hidden behind a thin layer of spandex on the 6 o’clock news. Fortunately, American cycling and American cycling events are so heavily controlled (i.e. require thousands of drug tests before/during/after events and during training) that cycling doping is going extinct rapidly.

Anyways, the Tour de Georgia is going on right now. American events are considered fairly relaxed compared to the Pro Tour races; the Pro teams open up the pace once they feel like it and thoroughly destroy the Pro-continental teams still hanging on. The easier levels of duress encourage a bit of playfulness within the peloton, in addition to greater interaction with the media. And, thankfully, many of the riders like to blog. David Zabriskie, who rode the fastest Tour de France time trial ever, is keeping up with his blog. Several riders are contributing to cyclingnews.com blog section, like the popular Rory Sutherland and Trent Wilson. The Jittery Joe’s Pro Cycling Team is keeping everyone up to date with photos and videos.

Then there’s Ted King of the new Bissell Pro Cycling Team. Similar to the humor of Zabriskie, King is so popular among pelotons that he was in the running for “most loved rider” during the Tour of California, alongside the likes of the George Hincapie. Ted King’s blog is pretty nice. He took some photos with his iPhone during the Tour of California, while he was actually riding along in the peloton, and then posted them to his blog that night. Were I not afraid that the other Cat4 riders in my races would freak out and crash when they see me racing with one hand and taking cameraphone pictures during a race, I would absolutely do it.

Cycling blogging must becoming an everyday affair, considering other riders from the VT team. Four other riders have their own blogs, complete with plenty of visuals (sometimes even photos that I took…), to stimulate the Watts-watching geek inside of all of us. Yes, this was a good group to begin getting involved in. Fits like a nice carbon sole. Plus, the footage is always a blast (ad before video).

This past Saturday I participated in a road race/ride in Wytheville, VA, proceeds benefiting a support center for abused women & children in the area. It wasn’t exactly a race because it wasn’t USAC-sanctioned, but it was closer in feel to the Blacksburg Wednesday Worlds race rides. The name of this ride is Mule Hell-Roubaix.

If you’re not familiar with Paris-Roubaix, then allow me a moment to explain the reference. The oldest of all cycling races still held today, Paris-Roubaix is known for brutalizing the best riders out there from the start in Paris to the finishing velodrome loop in Roubaix. Dozens of cobblestone “sectors” are chosen each year for the course, which varies year-to-year based on the condition of the roads. This year’s course was 260 kilometers long (~180 miles) and contained 28 cobblestone sectors totaling 50km. Half of the time, France is doused in rain during the spring turning Paris-Roubaix into a demoralizing slop.

Mule Hell-Roubaix doesn’t actually take you to Roubaix but does include several gravel sections - cobblestones are hard to come by in Wytheville. This year’s ride had some showers at the beginning which tapered off as the day went on. The course was 50 miles of flat terrain with a finish of steep rollers in a residential neighborhood.

Several of us Rogues racers went out to support this local event. The pace split up the group on 2 or 3 occasions leaving a group of 9 of us as contenders for the finish; the pace never really let up and only accelerated towards the finish. Fortunately, 5 of the 9 remaining riders were Rogues and there was a general agreement among the Rogues to set me up for sprinting up the hard rollers at the end. Unfortunately, no one wants to really finish a race ride on a slow note, so not long after I was off the front sprinting, a few other Rogues started the chase as I reached the flat, time-trialing section before the line. But, I was about 10 seconds ahead by that point and was just moments away from the finish. Where I finished alone, alongside several tables of prepared food and drinks. It’s not common to be treated to a small banquet after a local ride, so we enjoyed that.

So, it was a good start to the weekend. Then, once home, I napped and then headed back to the lab for a group meeting. Wow, the fun never stops. Actually, the fun slows down a bit once the semester ends in another week. Thankfully.

My love of TextEdit has been overturned. A few features that it lacks are now becoming hassles, namely a word count and proper embedded image support. I like to edit and create practically all of my written work in TextEdit before continuing over to a general word processing application, like Pages or Word. But, this year, I’ve begun doing practical all editing in TextEdit, even for documents people send me.

This has created a problem. As an engineering student, mathematics symbols are commonplace and who doesn’t love using a ∑ whenever possibl∑? Text∑dit does a decent job of them but interfacing with them is a hassle. Then, there’s absolutely no internal word count support and the 3rd party apps for word count are ridiculous. Probably the greater issue, however, is that embedded images are not opened at all. Even QuickLook can view some images in a standard Word doc, which, of course, is the file du jour in engineering.

While browsing around for a quality word count plugin for TextEdit, I came across Bean. Bean is a free and almost fully-featured word processor with integrated word count and, well, I’ve yet to come across any major feature it is missing. It’s relatively new but seems to be much further along than beta (it’s currently 1.0.1). And, since I’m a stickler for not wasting RAM, it is a paltry 2.6MB in running size (TextEdit is 22.1MB, which I thought was miniscule; Word 2008 is 63.7MB and no wonder it is so slow in opening). Bean also supports docx for those times when peers or colleagues email you an attachment in the file format with no future. (As a gesture of goodwill, always send back the file in a doc format).

So, check out Bean. Plus, if you’re a fan of having nothing or almost nothing in your dock, Spotlighting “bean” is almost a natural motion. Try it. Apple+Space then “bean”. There’s almost no effort involved. Our fingers are practically programmed to type “bean” on the standard qwerty keyboard. Plus, the application icon has a coffee mug in it - the last remaining object of productivity I needed to remain on my desktop. Oh, it’s a good day when I discover great, free software.

Edit: After having actually read the file formats article on the Bean website, I realize that it doesn’t do everything. However, I have still found a great TextEdit replacement with a word count and better-than-average embedded image support.

One year later and the memories are remarkably clear. No matter how hard I may try, the memory of the open 2nd story windows of Norris Hall still gives me chills. However, as a whole, Virginia Tech has healed; over time, the university will be unable to remember the event with any greater clarity than the monuments that now have permanence across campus. Gradually, a school shooting is all but forgotten.

The vast numbers of students at a university of this size helps to diminish the effects. Even though the 5 or 6 degrees of freedom rule applies in nearly all cases, the death of a person in a university setting only has significant effect on those within 2 or 3 degrees. The day following the shooting here, April 17, 2007, was the mourning at Cassell Coliseum. Afterwards, I ran into some friends who knew or who had friends who knew some victims that I didn’t know. The knowledge that I was so closely connected to yet another victim, without knowing him/her directly, literally hurt. You would think that only the 1st or 2nd degree of freedom would endure such anguish, but another factor is at play.

American universities come in 3 sizes: tall, grande, and venti. The tall, or private, universities have small student bodies, often well-developed curricula, and close ties. The grande are the small public universities, frequently with academic specializations or unique programs that can be especially marketed to high school seniors with an indifferent but adventurous approach to their higher academics. The venti universities are those that compete in Division I athletics and have a football team that is consistently ranked; these schools are black holes for undergraduates and have school spirit written into every piece of text you’ll find printed, scrawled, or vandalized across the campus.

Virginia Tech is a venti university where the school spirit - Hokie Spirit - is pervasive. A family connection is created by returning your acceptance letter which never ceases to exist (VT alum give an unprecedented amount of money back into the university following graduation).

When a school shooting takes place on the campus of a university like Virginia Tech, the school spirit suffers, too. This doesn’t mean that the school spirit is diminished by the catastrophe, but, rather that a type of innocence is lost for everyone. In effect, the 6 degrees of freedom rule is negated. If you’re a Hokie, you hurt.

One year later and the hurting isn’t as bad. The raucous environment of venti universities and the transient nature of graduates and incoming freshmen eliminates the attention span of its students, and suffering, or the need for healing for that matter, can be neglected. The phrase “We Will Prevail,” has worked and Virginia Tech is back on its feet.

Yet, one group still remembers April 16, 2007, with unmatched clarity.

Those in the 1st degree of freedom can never forget, never put to rest, and never replace the loss. I feel most sympathy for the families of those lost; I doubt one year of difference has provided a recession for the grief. The Hokie Nation has healed sufficiently but that veil of recovery is dwarfed by the remaining pain for those stuck in the 1st degree.

Anyways. I have no eloquent finale, only thanks to those who were caring for and loving me that day.

Musicals are the gateway to our soul. Or at least they can turn certain films into gold (see: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg).

Just take this boring food court, for example,

I did not watch many of the typical television shows for kids and teenagers when I was growing up. SportsCenter never received my viewing attention and my enjoyment of shows like Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was short-lived. When I was a kid, I watched Nick at Nite (their 1990s shows were the “classics”, as they are now known, like I Love Lucy, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days) and Nick Jr. (the day-time Nickelodeon shows, aimed at pre & elementary schoolers, namely Blue’s Clues, Eureka’s Castle, and Rugrats, to name a few). Far from the average kid, I enjoyed television programming targeted to audiences to which I didn’t belong.

It’s no wonder why I liked the classics - anyone who doesn’t enjoy the frenetic scenarios of Lucy Ricardo is messed up in the head; anyone who doesn’t wish they had the suavity of The Fonz should try to remember the uncertainty and embarrassment of high school. However, my continual viewing of the Nick Jr. shows baffled me then and only recently have I begun to decode my fascination. It wasn’t the contextual complexity of the shows that kept me locked - because, certainly, those shows are designed to have minimal layers - but, as I’ve realized, it was the simplicity itself that held my attention.

I’m reading The Tipping Point, a book about causality and how small things can have enormous effects. One of the examples is Blue’s Clues, a show targeted at 3/4/5-year-olds that was launched when I was 11 years old; it had such tremendous success despite being a show that most adults could not stand watching with their kids. It was too simple for most people outside of the demographic - the host’s, Steve’s, pauses and audience-directed questions would drive most adolescent or adult viewers insane.

During the Blue’s Clues case study in The Tipping Point, author Malcolm Gladwell shows the amazing stickiness (his term) that the program’s uncomfortable and continual repetition creates. The viewing audience of small children are rapt by the detective-like narrative and the increasingly-difficult puzzles that are solved along the way. The network’s decision in one area of the show set Blue’s Clues apart from other children’s programming: only one episode is shown per week, but that same episode is shown every day. Should any other television programming choose this method to create a stickiness with its audience, they would certainly lose viewership in a heartbeat. But, the detective-esque routines and the audience questioning allows Blue’s Clues an unparalleled connection with the audience that seems (and seemed to me when I was watching years ago) fresh every time around.

This type of repetition worked so well for me because I am the type of media viewer who always tries to associate myself with what I’m watching. I struggle to watch horror movies because I do my best to become the hopeless protagonist who is likely going to suffer; even knowing that I sympathize so deeply with the characters is not enough of a realization to refrain from doing it a second time. To this day, whenever I watch The Empire Strikes Back I still hope that Luke would have given up shooting the Imperial walkers sooner and had gone from the legs at the get-go so as to actually halt the offensive (oh, what a deplorable job of leading you did there, Skywalker). In addition, I absolutely, absolutely cannot watch any show or movie with close-up shots of gore - I seriously bury my face into Becky’s shoulder when, watching an episode of House, they show some operation or computer-animated version of flying through human organs. When watching something, I really enter into the environment of the show, so as to assist the characters along in their struggle (albeit, to no avail).

This is precisely why Blue’s Clues appealed to me and why the 5-day marathons couldn’t phase my adamance. I wanted Steve to wise-up and solve the puzzles at a greater pace and the 2nd and 3rd days of the original show were just another chance for him to catch onto Blue’s clues faster. But, since Steve wasn’t going to solve puzzles faster and since I was becoming totally immersed into the clue-finding and clue-deciphering action, I would become furious that he was unable to learn from mistakes and I, ashamedly, would be poised on the edge of my seat ready to throttle Steve for having no adaptability.

Somehow, maybe through the peaceful contemplation of the episode-ending Thinking Chair or the enjoyable appearances of that animated dog named Blue, I never gave up my viewing. Only once I spent my summers doing more outdoors stuff, especially when I got into casual mountain biking in middle school, did I forget about television and lose all appeal in the programming. Still, today, I cannot escape the sympathies that I have for thematic characters; it’s as if they were friends that I could only wish the best for. And that’s really the appeal that producers and writers have in designing television shows, so I’m forever at their mercy. Fortunately, I know to avoid the horror & medical genres, whenever possible.