Get Your Grump on Thursdays - Was (What's chapping my @ss today?)

[TMB]

Pardon my ignorance on this one, but listening to US and Canadian radio I have heard about the efforts (or lack thereof) that western nations are engaged in with regards to the ME and the refugee issues. What I haven't heard of is the efforts of China, Russia, Brazil, Japan, Korea, Argentina, Mexico, Indonesia, etc.

Are other nations engaged in humanitarian causes, at least accepting refugee populations, the way "we" are?

No .......

[Mark Kelly]

Much as I love Australian hardwoods, not when a piece goes straight through the RD on the bike I'm riding.

Before and after shot (actually "after and similar RD from the parts bin" shot):


Busted RD

Scootering a bike for 5k is rather tiring for the support leg. Who knew?

[Lionel]

Heading to Amsterdam for a week of trade show meetings, evening customer entertainment, drinking, smoking pot and hookers deal negotiation. This does not help cycling fitness atl.

[Matthew Strongin]

I have a cold...again. I've been sick more this year than the last 5 years all together. Over it.

[robin3mj]

We left Chicago over 5 weeks ago, and still have another 5 weeks til we (hopefully) close on our next house.
This interim phase is getting old, esp for my pregnant wife.

[Tom]

So I'm working on this project where we need to secure session traffic to the system. Among all the people signing on to the system there are some process ids signing on periodically. Don't get me started on screen scraping, but that's what they're doing if they're coming this way. So I approach the app team lead for one of the ids and ask him what it is doing. They don't know what it does after it signs on but they do know it signs on all day every day. Uh, OK, that makes sense. You have a process happening in the app you're responsible for but you can't be bothered or are able to find out what it is. What could go wrong?

Or the guys that said they pushed session files to 1300 machines... but last week 450 were using the old ones. The guys that did the push don't have any logs of how it actually went so now I have to have people that never did configuration change two parms in their setup... 450 of them, minimum... do you think the guys that did the push are going to support it? Oh, hell no. They stride briskly away now that their job is done.

Or the app guy that just asked me what the requirements were on the project. By instant messaging. After the email I sent him with the links and the one item he has to do spelled out in it. Why's that a chap? Because it is every day I get one of these of some form or another.

Gutting the skilled and experienced application support staff to replace them with outsourced commodity programmers is not a good company strategy no matter how many times the internal organs carry articles that it is a brilliant success story. They need to stop talking to the execs that made that decision and talk to the people that have to make it work. The way those things work is that when the contract is new, you get the best people they have. Then when they sign a new contract with somebody else those people are reassigned. You get what's left.

[dogrange]

First World grumps - can't figure out what to do with our house projects, all projects are either stratospherically priced or otherwise just not that appealing. Working weird hours means no bike riding for the last week, hoping that will change soonish . . .

[j44ke]

I have developed a sore right hip which may be related to a recent saddle change, a recent pedal change or a recent crash in which I was twisted around and my right cleat did not disengage. Or it could be from driving our manual shift car through miles and miles of stop-and-go traffic during the holiday season. I have a sore left hand that has been sore since a crash in Italy where I did something that may have torn/stretched/strained one of the muscles/tendons/ligaments that has something to do with holding my pinkie finger and my ring finger together at the large knuckle. Anything that spreads those two fingers apart or requires gripping with those two fingers is pretty painful. Neither seems to be healing on their own.

Yesterday I had my hand up to my face while lightly scratching the right side of my nose as I turned quickly to retrieve something I had forgotten on my way out of the house and I banged my raised hand into the door jamb and punched myself in the nose. There was a nice "pop" sound when I did it, and now the cartilage at the end of the septum feels broken and if I move my nose while doing something menial - like washing my face or blowing my nose - I get a nice stiff jolt of pain.

On Tuesday I do the prep for my first colonoscopy/endoscopy of middle age, which will occur on Wednesday.

I have an appointment to see the doctor about the hip and hand on Thursday. My Pilates instructor is working on a PT program for the hip (he's both a Pilates instructor and a certified PT.) And I am re-adjusting pedals and saddle to make sure cleats, saddle height, contact point measurements are all on the mark.

But I just want to go ride, you know?

[mmoore]

Heading to Amsterdam for a week of trade show meetings, evening customer entertainment, drinking, smoking pot and hookers deal negotiation. This does not help cycling fitness atl.

live a little, enjoy your trip. ;)

[dashDustin]

Boys are in their new school. Same shit, different day. The youngest has spent a few mornings sleeping through (3rd grade) class, in the classroom, and someone is giving him the impression that is ok.

Both appear to be set up to enter advanced math classes, teachers saying they'd enjoy the challenge. Well, apparently I'm the only one that recalls that the whole reason they're in this school is because they didn't handle the challenges that the previous school presented. But whatever, I'm just the step-dad.

[David Tollefson]

Earlier today, Jerry Baker, driving force in the PacNW racing community, passed away from acute leukemia.

The man was iconic in the local 'cross scene, owned the Baleno clothing company, "won" the first Seattle-to-Portland ride, and raised the initi+al funding for the Marymoor velodrome. Always smiling, always energetic, always had a great story. He will be missed.

[nspace]

Rant: I can't stand some of the graphic/bike ventures I keep seeing in the bicycle industry. There is good and bad, don't get me wrong. It just seems like there is a lot of faux-boutique stuff being pumped out, and I'm not buying it. I don't know if it just bugs me because I am a graphic designer, or maybe that I just find a lot of these efforts lacking class or elegance. Perfect example: Cadence Collection, everything they touch seems to give me the cringe-shivers. Maybe it is their clunky looking logo, or the fact that they are "collaborating" with Ritchey to slap a bunch of gaudy graphics on already designed made-in-China components. (Disclaimer: I'm not implying that there is anything wrong with being made in China necessarily, just that this is essentially a mass produced product that already exists in Ritchey's line-up of components). This is a collaboration now? It warrants its own video? I realize its all just marketing, but how many people gobble this stuff up?

[nelo784]

No .......

This table is problematic. Remember, 'lies, damn lies, and statistics'!

Liberal MP Kelly O'Dwyer incorrect on Australia's refugee intake - Fact Check - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

And this paints a very different picture:

New report: Developing countries host 80% of refugees

Just saying! You certainly don't want to go to Jordan at the moment where they are dealing with some 2 million plus refugees with the limited capacity they have.

[randonneur]

People who bitch and moan about the supposed financial burden of taking in refugees. As though North America wasn't built literally and figuratively by immigrants. It's short sighted thinking at it's worst. Most need a bit of help at the beginning, but it's short term pain for long term gain.

My experience has been that most folks don't barely escape alive from a war torn country to just end up freeloading somewhere else. While there are some bad apples (much like any large group of humans), the overwhelming vast majority want to make an honest living, and end up working very hard to become productive, contributing members of their new society. Nearly every study done on the subject backs this up.

My mother's vietnamese and was lucky to emmigrate before the war, but her family wasn't so lucky. My parents sponsored dozens of her siblings and extended family during the boat people era. They all very quickly landed on their feet, became gainfully employed, and set up prosperous households here.

ETA: this isn't in reply to any specific post in this thread, just a reaction to some topical current affairs.

[Saab2000]

People who bitch and moan about the supposed financial burden of taking in refugees. As though North America wasn't built literally and figuratively by immigrants. It's short sighted thinking at it's worst. Most need a bit of help at the beginning, but it's short term pain for long term gain.

My experience has been that most folks don't barely escape alive from a war torn country to just end up freeloading somewhere else. While there are some bad apples (much like any large group of humans), the overwhelming vast majority want to make an honest living, and end up working very hard to become productive, contributing members of their new society. Nearly every study done on the subject backs this up.

My mother's vietnamese and was lucky to emmigrate before the war, but her family wasn't so lucky. My parents sponsored dozens of her siblings and extended family during the boat people era. They all very quickly landed on their feet, became gainfully employed, and set up prosperous households here.

ETA: this isn't in reply to any specific post in this thread, just a reaction to some topical current affairs.

A woman I work and who is also one of my best friends with left the remnants of the fracturing Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Her family settled in Chicago and her father proclaimed, "We're Americans now". She went to college and is a highly successful pilot at United Airlines. She's one of my favorite human beings.

And she arrived here as a refugee from a brutal war.

[j44ke]

One telltale sign of a totalitarian government, regardless of what the leader of that government insists is the true nature of its system, is that they rarely if ever have any refugee population seeking asylum within their sovereign borders.

[Jonathan]

I'm headed out in a few minutes for a long ride and it's still 93.

[Mabouya]

Here's a perverse complaint:

When I filled the tank on my Subie this morning regular gas was down to $1.9999 / gallon in suburban St Louis. (It was probably even less than that closer in to the city.)

No, I'm not crazy, and I like saving money as much as the next guy, but IMO the only thing that prevents many Americans (and eventually, the rest of the world) from getting progressively more obscenely huge SUVs is the occasional sticker shock they get when filling up, say, the 26 gal tank on their Cadillac Escalade.

The longer we have $2 gas the more of these behemoths we're likely to see "sharing" the roads with cyclists.

[becomingblue]

Here's a perverse complaint:

When I filled the tank on my Subie this morning regular gas was down to $1.9999 / gallon in suburban St Louis. (It was probably even less than that closer in to the city.)

No, I'm not crazy, and I like saving money as much as the next guy, but IMO the only thing that prevents many Americans (and eventually, the rest of the world) from getting progressively more obscenely huge SUVs is the occasional sticker shock they get when filling up, say, the 26 gal tank on their Cadillac Escalade.

The longer we have $2 gas the more of these behemoths we're likely to see "sharing" the roads with cyclists.

I don't know how they put up with it. At only 26 gallons, they're spending a lot of time at the gas station. My neighbors older Suburban holds 42 gallons, he says he's good for a long time.

Besides, the tax per gallon stays the same so the more gas consumed means more tax collected that benefits, well, I don't know what it benefits, but it's more tax collected and that's a good thing. The real problem could be that these SUV's are getting better gas mileage than ever. Better gas mileage means they are using less gas and that means less tax collected, which is bad.

Plus, lower to middle income people are having to spend a smaller percentage of their income on gas so that means they have more money to spend on other things: clothes, food, whatever, which is a good thing. That is more money pumped into the economy and more tax collected, which is a good thing.

But my real grump is when, oh when, are we going to stop assuming people that drive big SUV's are less of a person, or worse drivers, than someone who drives a, I don't know, Honda Accord. Are there statistics out there backing this up? Why aren't drivers of full sized pickup trucks called out? The gas mileage can't be much different. I'm on the road a lot. I'm not seeing the obscenely huge SUV's, and the people driving them, acting any different than the other traffic.

[devlin]

Here's a perverse complaint:

When I filled the tank on my Subie this morning regular gas was down to $1.9999 / gallon in suburban St Louis. (It was probably even less than that closer in to the city.)

No, I'm not crazy, and I like saving money as much as the next guy, but IMO the only thing that prevents many Americans (and eventually, the rest of the world) from getting progressively more obscenely huge SUVs is the occasional sticker shock they get when filling up, say, the 26 gal tank on their Cadillac Escalade.

The longer we have $2 gas the more of these behemoths we're likely to see "sharing" the roads with cyclists.

In Australia we are paying equivalent to $5.70! per gallon at the bottom of the weekly cycle and we have too many cars on our roads.


My grump is I'm still sitting in this freaking office and I feel ill everyday at the thought of coming here. I sure do hope the hard work and sacrifices I am making now translate into a successful business.

Lastly, my little girl had her heart broken today when her first boyfriend broke up with her. Nothing growing up prepares you for that. We all know you get over it but it doesn't stop it hurting at the time.