2003-06-30

Friday we stayed up late setting up the cables on the the bike and Saturday we got up early to adjust them. We were just about done and about to put the bike in the car and take it out to Amherst when the old-style shifters we'd settled on snapped off the frame, leaving us with what amounted to a crappy gift. We threw it all in the car, drove out and ate lunch and talked and ate dinner and stopped at radio shack to pick up a cable to show the bike pictures on the tv, managing somewhere in there to secretly remove the rear derailleur and to take a few links out of the chain. So it became a one-speed. But Mathew liked it and we were happy and we're just going to have to look for a replacement shifter set, and who knows what else -- maybe another rear wheel since there's a friction problem. The brakes are also a bit soft, but you know -- it's a bike and it looks good and it rides smoothly and as my dad said, "if it has to be a one-speed, this is definitely the speed you'd want it to be."

���� We took a look at the Quabbin Reservoir also, and some other national-parky observation point, and played Cranium and overall it was fun. The only downside was the grit-feeling in my eyes all weekend, possibly from dusty wind but more likely just allergies.

���� On the way back, Nicholas and I debated the meaning of dying on a motorcycle -- I think that while it's tragic and undesireable for people, it has no inherent badness; Nicholas is more inclined to define the phenomenon by way of cost/benefit analysis in a strictly social context, ie. motorcycles aren't worth it.

���� There's a man here at work, a client who comes in every day to use the computers. He calls me "the man" and holds his fist out for me to butt with my own fist, Wonder Twins-style. It started when I formatted his resume for him a week or two ago and it's reached the point where he calls me the man for showing up in the morning. Normally I'd feel good about having helped him but I'm the man so often that I'm starting to regret it.

���� The guy who wanted me to help him make a website about transsexuality is also incredibly frustrating and I've pretty much left the team -- continuing only to provide explanatory help -- mainly because it's my job to help the people who come in here. He decided arbitrarily and stubbornly to use MSN Groups and every time something comes up that he doesn't understand I have to go in and research it and try it out myself in order to be able to explain it to him. Which is impossible because he doesn't distinguish between words like "pages" and "documents," or "messages" and "email." He also doesn't understand the difference between local files and server files (or even between files and applications). So I explain and then he explains back and I have to decide if he's close enough to the concept for me to ignore his confusion with terms. Also, every so often, he throws back his red wrinkled crone head, and winces "fuck, not now, jesus," while grabbing his thigh as it seizes. Which I ignore, saying, "you'd probably put pictures of yourself on the page about yourself, which would be separate from the page about beaches in Mexico; the clip art could probably go with the beaches."


0 Comments

 First

 List

 Email

 Comments

 Latest

statcounter.com