Wednesday, April 27, 2005


Indy Dog Posted by Hello

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Googling colours

Google just keeps getting better. My eldest needs to find defintions for words every week as part of his homework so naturally we've been turning to the web. I found out yesterday that if you type "define:" into google (where is what you're looking for) then a whole lot of definitions come back.

Thinking I was being clever, I typed in "define:pink". After all, how do you define a colour ? Lots of results came back, but here's one that really caught my eye.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink

"Pink is a color made by mixing red and white and sometimes described as being a light red, but it is more accurately a bright undersaturated red. There are many different shades of this color. "Pink" was not a color word known to Shakespeare: it was invented in the 17th century to described the light red in pinks, hardy carnations of the genus Dianthus, named from the "pinked" edges of their petals, appearing to have been cut with pinking shears."

It just seems so odd that Shakespeare would not have known this word. That you can invent a word for a colour. I suppose it's always happened, but I'd never ever given it any thought before.

My new colour word is bloon, for when black is tinged with maroon.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Aging gracefully

At the risk of being insensitive, there was a sight last night which just amused me.

Let me back up a bit.

On Tuesday evenings there's a regular big bike ride that comes through our neighbourhood. The weather was perfect yesterday, no wind and around 75F. The first group came through of about thirty, then spread out other groups of sixes, fours, fives, threes.

Pretty much towards the back was a tandem. I don't see many tandems in the first place, but on the front of this one was a chubby older bloke looking like Father Christmas in lycra. He was sweating away, pink face, looking fit to bust. It was so comical that I never even took in the person pedalling behind him other than she was a she. And what a fine view for her - a broad expanse of yellow and pink cycling top with sweat pouring off it.

Someone remind me to never do this if it ever comes up. Thanks!

Monday, April 11, 2005

Liberal musical taste ?

I'm not sure what to think about this. Just this morning I realised my muscial taste is being mirrored by the tunes that National Public Radio (NPR) play in the background when closing down a segment. Do I even have liberal tastes in music ? Is there such a thing a liberal music ? Would a conservative republican listen to Massive Attack ?

Other news: my first continuous thirty mile ride on my bike this weekend. And congratulations to Michael on completing his first brevet (some fancy name for a bike ride). He got in 125 miles this weekend in 9 hours 20 ins. He *may* have stopped eating by now.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

This just in

Every human being spends about half an hour of life as a single cell
- From the "Little Giant Book of Science Trivia"

Of course there are some that don't seem to have moved too far away from that state at times too. Most seem to drive Chevy pick ups.

Friday, April 01, 2005

More news from the biking front

More news on the bike front. I've now ridden to work and back four times. It works out to be 26 miles round trip, although I do get a nice eight hour plus break at work in between. So far I've really enjoyed it - actually, I've enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. When you have a destination in mind it's very committing and not at all like being at the gym. On the gym treadmill I'll run for maybe a mile, then get bored and stop. Half way through a ride to work all that stopping does is make me later to getting to where I need to be. Enforced exercise works better for me I guess.

I was discussing riding with my ex-boss this week, also a biker. His goal this year is to ride 2,700 miles. Not that I'll be able to, but if I ride twice a week every single week of the year I'd be on for similar mileage. And that would be 2,700 miles less of gas and wear and tear on the car - the savings in gas are probably disappearing into more breakfast at the cafeteria though.

The ride home has more uphill in it than the ride to work, but last night I managed my best ever time. I ended up taking just under 45 minutes and had an average speed of 17.4 mph.

I can now see how people get compulsive about biking - who knew ?