News from the front

July 8th, 2009

Latest news from my leg:  Last week was quite painful, the whole leg felt like it had a big, neverending cramp on its whole length. My stomach was -and still is- full of bruising with the Lovenox shots I was taking. I’m done with the Lovenox, but my prescription for pills run until the end of the year. I met with a vascular surgeon on Thursday last week who proposed a pharmacomechanical thrombectomy. The procedure consists in going into the vein an basically vacuuming it from the clot, thereby restoring the blood flow. I underwent the procedure this Tuesday and I left the hospital that same night and have been resting at home since then. The surgeon proceeded to make two very small incisions, one through which he inserted a filter to catch clots and one to actually insert the stuff that would get rid of the clotting in the vein. There’s been some bleeding since then but this is expected because of the blood thinners I’m taking. I’m feeling a lot better now. In theory, my thigh is now able to regulate the blood flow again and therefore letting the calf rest. This is also meant to prevent this kind of thing to re-occur in the future.

I’ll be consulting with a anti-coagulant clinic from now on, I should meet one of their doctors next week.

Close your eyes and see the skies are falling

July 3rd, 2009

Watch this video until the end, when the ‘reviewer’ actually confesses not having read the book yet. Reading what you’re supposed to talk about is for wusses. He basically succeeds in making all the same simplistic associations of ideas that he he’s denouncing in the book. Blaming the authors for telling people to own guns and be prepared to use them is also, hmm, what’s the word?... Ah yes: “fucking hypocritical”. Dude - owning guns is written in your country’s beloved constitution. Using them to protect yourself against an abusive government is the goal. And I thought weaker governments was all what the neo-conservatism was about - this book doesn’t say anything different. The more I think about it, the more I believe the authors of the Coming Insurrection and Fox news reporters are actually of the same kind: total nutjobs.

Circulatory system EPIC FAIL

June 30th, 2009

So I talked in previous posts about this problematic calf of mine. I already had someone take a look at it two weeks ago with an idea of what it might be but the doctor dismissed it and diagnosed a torn muscle. But when the pain started to suddenly reach the upper end of the leg on Sunday and yesterday, I kinda knew what was getting at me. I was diagnosed today with deep vein thrombosis. It’s a big word to say that a blood clot formed in a vein in the calf and worked its way up to the upper thigh, causing pain and swelling.

Facts:

That’s it for today. I will post more news as I get them. I’m seeing a vascular doctor on Thursday.

Breathing joy

June 28th, 2009

That was about the feeling I felt when attending this year’s San Francisco Pride, which took place today. Smiles on people’s faces. Sun shining in a clear blue sky. It was joy, plain and simple.



Rather than just standing on the side like I did last year, I decided to march with folks from work. It was great but I missed a big part of the actual parade since we were one of the last contingent to go. Sadly, I cannot seem to openly share the gallery I have just finished uploading until it clears out with all the co-workers whom I took a snap at. And that’s a fairly big number. Meh.

Fixie

June 27th, 2009

Remember my last post when I said something about working on a fixie as a summer project? Well, Craigslist is a damn efficient way to look for such things with their RSS feature and it only took a couple of days before I found something suitable. I was in Berkeley last week to purchase a 1986 Peugeot Iseran which has already been converted to a fixie. The previous owner was a bit sad to let it go (he had maybe 4 or 5 bikes in an apartment 3 times smaller than mine) but was happy that a frog would be the next owner.

image

This is a full bike that I have already ridden to work on Monday (even though I shouldn’t have since my recovering calf has been hating me ever since) and I have to say it is quite fun. It is definitely a good workout for the legs and I’m looking forward to be able to ride again (I’m giving this calf two more weeks to recover and that’s IT). Anyway, the bike is purchased and the conversion is already done. What’s left to do, you might ask? Well, the handlebars are too narrow, the stem is too low, the saddle is comfortable but a tad in bad shape, the seatpost is not shiny enough, the pedals are old-ish, the tires are worn out and don’t match. In short, I think there will indeed be a few months before this bike reaches my standard of hip-ness. I’ve already ordered new handlebars (Nitto bullhorns RB-019 in 42cm) and I’m waiting for 24mm seat posts to become available for this obscure shop in Wyoming that seems to be the only place on Earth to sell them still.

In other news, California is turning into an oven this week-end, with temperatures reaching 37C tomorrow and over 35C today. I must have lost 2L of water since I started writing this post, so I think I am going to cut short and go make some iced coffee.

Everything is my fault

June 18th, 2009

I know, I know, it’s pretty shameful, I haven’t posted anything in a month, except for that stupid Twitter song which I’m sure most of you have figured was prepared well in advance, since I was on the plane where it was actually published. That’s how cool I am.

A-ny-way, the past month has been pretty hectic, and my excuses for not posting boil down to being asleep, out or drunk, or any combination. I have been having some really weird sleep cycles lately, sometimes going to bed at 9:30 or so and waking at 5:50 in the morning. I don’t close the blinds in my room, so maybe it’s just a seasonal thing, but this is kinda weird. I was driving on the 101 tonight and you can clearly see the sun setting, even past 9pm. The equinox is in 3 days. Hell.

If you didn’t get the clue from my last post, I was in NYC three weeks ago and I had a blast. I was meeting my dad there for a long week-end as he was doing a trip on the East coast. I love New-York so much it’s hard to describe what it felt like. I went to Brooklyn for the first time, crossing the bridge by foot and walking to Brooklyn Heights. I went to see the WTC, which looks pretty much the same as three years ago. I went up the Empire State Building by night, when there’s 100 times less people in line and it’s actually cool. I went to have dinner at Gallagher’s. I did not bike in Central Park because I had twisted my ankle in a pretty freaky way a couple of days before. I took 1005 pictures. I was afraid that the 8GB card I had bought before the trip was not going to be enough. Pics. Playing with luminance level in Lightroom was really fun.

I finally participated in the most anticipated Tour de Cure. It was a very nice ride, that I had rehearsed many times so I knew what to expect. 2h45 of riding time for 75km, which is a nice average. I actually went really fast on the second half, once I knew all the climbs were behind me. I think I ended in the first few groups but can’t be sure of it because it was just a ride and no one was keeping track of the ranking. It was a very nice day and I raised a total of $1126 (including the gift matching from the big G) to fight diabetes. w00t for the donors and kudos to the people who organized the race and the lunch.

I went to GoogleServe last week and helped a public park in the city to get rid of invasive plants in a tree. It was pretty tiring and easily the dirtiest job of all, but it was pretty fun to just brutally tear down long stems of ivy and dispose of them. We found an empty bottle of whiskey, a Starbucks lid, a soccer ball, a blanket and a condom wrapper. Next to a child’s playground. Gross. Some guys are creepy enough to fuck next to where kids play, but not crazy enough to get the girl pregnant. Or get an MST, I don’t know. With the ball, we ended doing some casual playing and I think this is when I injured my calf. It wasn’t obvious at first, but it got really painful over the week-end and pretty much prevented me from walking normally since Monday. It’s not too bad but I need some rest. I still hope I’ll be in shape for the Giro di Peninsula metric century in 9 days.

I’ve lived without TV for a good month now and though it still feels a little weird, I’m getting used to it. I have to say: I am very disappointed by the legal digital distribution channels. Hulu is good but I just don’t get why I can’t buy individual episodes of series from HBO or Showtime. Or why I couldn’t watch the French open finals without streaming from some dubious russian stream dubbed in Arabic and where the ball is nothing but a pixel mush whose trajectory you can only deduce from the compression artifacts on your screen. Why can’t I pay $5 to stream this thing in HD, with a guarantee that I won’t get kicked out of the stream? I suppose the powers that be do not get that it’s getting pretty popular to not have a landline and not have cable. A cell phone and an IP address are all you need.

Summer project: build a bike. I want a fixie and I’m not ready to put as much cash as needed in one go, so I’ve decided to spread it out over the coming months and will hopefully get done in time to make it a good self-present for my anniversary in October. I want one of those super skinny frames from the 60’s/70’s, a French one from Gitane or Peugeot if possible, and then buy and assemble all the parts by myself. I think it can be a really cool project that will keep me busy for a little while. I’m on the lookout for a frame at the moment.

Finally, I’m going back to New York for the 4th of July, this time with my Mom and younger brother. I’m hoping it’ll be cool.

La canzone del Twitter

May 28th, 2009

http://twitter.com/alislous/statuses/1605687337
http://twitter.com/cmg1187/statuses/1603689574
http://twitter.com/KadyLeila/statuses/1532492409
http://twitter.com/davidhorvitz/statuses/1683670519

kilometers += 100;

May 18th, 2009

cen•tu•ry |ˈsen ch (ə)rē|
noun ( pl. -ries)
[...]
4 a bicycle race of one hundred kilometers : [as adj. ] On Sunday, Julien did a century ride.


As I was sneaking out of the office on Friday, I asked Brendan if he had any plans for the week end. He said he was doing a century and invited me to participate. After pondering quite a bit on Saturday, I decided to go for it and woke up at 6:00am on Sunday to head to Sunnyvale where was the start of the Foothill Century, a charity ride in favor of a local Jewish school. A few hours later, I was almost dying on my bike, 105℉ on the asphalt, going uphill for the third time in an hour when I only expected one big climb on the whole route. I must have drunk two gallons of a weird Powerade and water mix. I almost gave up twice, once on the way back at the Edgewood/Cañada intersection and the second time at the third and final rest stop. Until the very last second, I could have gone down Woodside and back home instead of taking Mountain Home Rd. But for a reason I still have to fully make sense of, I turned right and kept going. I’m a bit proud of that even though it came out of nowhere.

Out of tiredness, I took two shortcuts: one to avoid the little jog back on Woodside and Whiskey Hill from Cañada, and the second one when coming back on Foothill to avoid the loop on Magdalena. In total, I think I still did about 96 kilometers — I cannot seem to edit or embed the map Brendan sent me to reflect the shortcuts. Nevertheless, it was an extremely tiring ride, which I do not intend to do again in the foreseeable future (liar). It was definitely much harder than expected, even though I was really happy in the last 15 kilometers to realize I was going to make it.

After the ride, we went to spend the end of the afternoon at Stintson beach, way up North the coast in Marin county. And although I was exhausted, it was a nice feeling to be driven down the 280 and read each of the exit signs South of Burlingame and be able to think: ‘I know this road, I’ve ridden it’.

The coming insurrection

May 11th, 2009

My home government is once again intimidating witnesses to the great French railroad terrorism debacle, for which 1 person is still behind bars after 6 months, with a mostly empty case. This situation already felt ridiculous at the time I was in France last Christmas, but 4 months have passed since then. Supporters of the group are being arrested, questioned for days without their attorney and then released. The one central piece of evidence to the case is an anonymous book, “The coming insurrection” written by an “invisible comity” of which Julien Coupat is the accused leader. Having read a bit of it as I was doing the formatting, I can say it is a harmless, somewhat trivial and not very well written book that covers a whole range of usual anarchists concepts. I have no special sympathy for the anarchists but I do think it is unfair to keep detaining and arresting people for their opinions. I have therefore decided to host both the original French version and the English translation of the book on this website. I care very little about the spreading of this text or of the ideas in it, but freedom of speech only wears out when you don’t use it, right?

L’Insurrection qui vient
The coming insurrection

As far as I have seen, the rights to the book have been waived and it is freely distributable. So is the derived work I have made of it by reformatting the text and adding a stylesheet.

Ethereality

May 9th, 2009

I’ve been cooking up a long post since the release of Mirror Mirror, but it’s become so convoluted and inane that I can’t decently publish it now. So I’ve decided to try condensing the stuff I’ve listened to recently in a few words only:

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