I TEACH-A YOU DE ENGLISH!!!

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:20:46 GMT

Patrick Warburton was on Sesame Street this morning (yes, I sometimes watch Sesame Street at 6 am) with a chicken stuck in his shirt, and it got me to wondering something. I looked for a clue on his Wikipedia page, but got nothing, so I'm left with the unanswered question: Why is Patrick Warburton so awesome?

Hey, we took Lily to the beach last week. She'd been to Ocean City for New Year's but never made it out of the sling. She also visited Wildwood with us after my Coast the Coast ride in May, but we never left the boardwalk. As such, Island Beach State Park was her first true going-on-the-sand-and-in-the-water experience. Here she is:

You'd Think Rain Would Feel Good on Sunburn: More Notes from the Ride

Fri, 22 May 2009 19:59:08 GMT

The ride is nearly a week behind me now; my sunburn is fading, and I'm starting to walk normally again.

I want to take this time to sincerely thank all of you who donated or even spread the word. It's cliche, and I say it every time, but without your part in my rides, mine has no importance.

I took some pictures this time! With a real camera! Except the obvious self-portrait, which is a camera phone.

The first day was nothing but fog for a very long time, and that heavy kind of fog where you occasionally run a hand over your beard (or what have you) and find that it's as wet as if it were raining. So I didn't take pictures of nothing but this here moisture-laden spider web to illustrate.

That's during this one part of the ride in the northern shore suburban towns when we actually have to get off and walk over a little foot bridge. The ride planners have gotten better about this since I started doing the CtC - there's less of it - but getting off and walking still sucks.

Crossing the (much larger) bridge into Toms (sic) River, which is fairly well placed between North Jersey shores and South Jersey ones. If people talked about there being a Mid-Jersey, this would be it.

Lunch - halfway through the first day, and when the sun finally came out. Foreground: foreheads of my family, who were good enough to meet me there.

Toward the end of the first day, these two pictures show a different kind of Jersey, in fact a different kind of Pine Barrens, than many people think of. Low trees, even more sand - it barely looks like my state even to me.

Now as I mentioned, the ride length of one day was more than all of the training rides I had done to prepare combined. As a result, I was pretty wiped out after day one. In fact, when I heard showers were moving in for the next day, I all but gave up on doing the second leg. Corri and I started thinking about all the things we could do with the unexpected day off. I did, though, have to go to the start line to pick up my bike from the night before, so...

I talked myself into it at the last minute. It's hard to explain why; part of it would have been missing the camaraderie of the ride, part of it missing going through Wildwood, and part of it was an unwillingness to pass up ten to twenty mile-an-hour north winds. You see, the second half of the second day is the hardest ride I do every year, partly from fatigue, partly because of the killer winds at the southern shore points coming in from any direction but at our backs. I was not going to miss those stretches finally cut down to something manageable. And you know what? They sure were. They were the easiest last 40 miles I've ever done on the Coast the Coast. It did rain all day, though. Wet biking isn't too bad, but wet biking socks are the worst.

You can see me wearing the stylish bicycling poncho. What's sad is that I could have sworn I was smiling when I took this.

I pull into the Coast Guard station in Cape May where Corri takes the requisite finish line picture as well as one to prove that I really did ride 170 miles. Um...I guess I did some of them in reverse. For the curious, six to six and a half hours on the bike each day, eight to eight and a half start to finish.

Thanks again for helping me with another successful fund-raiser, which in turn always makes for a successful ride, no matter how difficult.

I Can't Feel My Feet: Notes from the Ride

Mon, 18 May 2009 22:35:42 GMT

In the past seven months, people have occasionally asked me what it's like to be a new father. My answer usually involves such ideas as responsibility, love and fatigue. There's something else, though.

Lately, I'm fairly emotional and given to tears easily. As I started off on this ride, I saw a man pedaling solo on a tandem bike with nobody riding in back. I had just enough time to think how out of character this was for the Coast the Coast, whose riders tend to be fairly traditional (none of the mountain bikes, BMXs or fixed-gears that I sometimes see on the City to Shore), before I noticed a laminated piece of paper, tented and attached where that rider would be: "FOR [man's name] / 19**-2000 / HE HAD MS, BUT MS NEVER HAD HIM"

And it just started me thinking. I've been working against this disease for most of a decade, and I know it sucks, but what disease doesn't, right? People die. We work against it, but they die anyway. Or: they die, but we work against it anyway. I guess I'm saying that until I saw that sign (one of similar dozens, maybe hundreds, I've seen over the years), my opposition to MS had always been hypothetical, but something about my mindset as I reread that little piece of paper, starting to feel that emotion that I suspect most men fight if only out of reflex, hit me on a personal level. So far, I've been one of the fortunate few on these rides; I've never directly known anyone with multiple sclerosis. But this person's death was so important to this guy that he was affected enough even years later to pay tribute to him by making this already dedicated ride that much more difficult.

I thought back to one rider that Corri and I saw at the Woodcrest PATCO station at last year's City to Shore start line. Many people write "In memoriam _______" somewhere on their gear or even pin photos to their jersey. This man, though, seemingly in his early twenties, had simply written in grease pencil or makeup across the back of one calf, "I MISS MY MOM." Not, "In loving memory...", not "In tribute to...", or something else so euphemistically distancing, but something so powerful and intimate that it came back to me this past Saturday, about ten miles into a foggy morning ride, and combined with the empty seat on the tandem bike just made me glad that that an MS ride is a good place to cry because tears are indistinguishable from the sweat every rider has on his or her face. I realized it doesn't matter what other diseases are out there. It doesn't matter whether MS is the top killer or even in the top ten; it is the reason these two people who were so loved by others are not walking around on this earth anymore.

And that was enough to make me hate the disease in a way I never have. It made me want to keep biking until it was gone. That kid was way too young to lose his mother. And maybe that's why I've made more of an emotional connection than ever before; this heightened empathy is something I only occasionally see mentioned by other new fathers. Maybe it's not a universal phenomenon, but maybe it is and men just don't talk about it.

Ride insecurity

Tue, 12 May 2009 18:52:55 GMT

Guys, we've known each other for a while now, right? I feel I can confide in you, show my weaker side, my vulnerabilities.

I am really worried about this upcoming ride.

I know I always say I'm underprepared, but this time it's so much worse. The longest ride I've done so far is about an hour. Each day of this weekend will be about seven hours of riding. It's hard not to focus on the "each day" part.

But I committed to do it when I signed up, and I committed again when I posted asking for money, which is probably why I did it. I think somewhere along the way I decided it's better to try and fail, all while raising money for MS, than not to try at all. It's a noble sentiment, but it will feel like nothing but bullshit around mile 35. That's over twice as far as any ride I've done yet, but it's less than halfway through one day.

The ride itself, however, is not bad; I've done it before, four times or so. In the end, I suppose this is an opportunity to see just how much of my training holds over from the previous season. I hope a lot, though I'm not holding my breath. Mostly because that would make it even harder to ride.

Anyway, many people have been posting about my ride, and I want to thank each and every one of them. Every time my donations start getting active again, I can tell someone has spread the word - it really is effective and really is helpful.

If you can donate:

BensMSRide.com

And even if you can't (or already have), please pass along the info in any way you see fit. I'm glad you are all part of this life-long project with me, and I thank you for helping me.

Tue, 05 May 2009 20:49:00 GMT

You know how evey year I do two MS rides, and every year I come on here and ask all of you to donate to them, and every year I mention how little training I've done.

This year is no different. Or maybe it is...

You see, this year there has been a horrible combination of bad luck. I say this not to complain, but to illustrate. The fantastic timing of a surprisingly broken bicycle, delays at the shop, and damn near a week of rain have all combined to leave me about a week and a half from a two-day 170-mile ride having not ridden my bike since last fall.

Honestly, I've been thinking of skipping this one.

Compounding matters is the fact that one of my part-time jobs (they're both part-time) has informed me that they are (allegedly temporarily) suspending their ESL program. This would seem to indicate that I'm joining the statistics of the recession, though there seems to be some hope of reduced hours in a different position. Nothing is certain at this point. Anyone need some English taught?

I know this seems unrelated, but there's a certain low level of background depression coloring my decisions. As a father, a husband, a "breadwinner" I kind of feel like I should be spending this time looking for jobs, or at least polishing my resume - maybe even working on a cv or, at the very least, learning what a cv is.

Anyway, after a bit of internal debate, I have decided to do the ride after all. I think doing some good for someone in the world will make me feel better about my situation. Unfortunately, this puts me in a position of trying to fundraise in the eleven days remaining. So here we go:

www.bensmsride.com

That's where you go to support horribly cramped legs and medically threatening levels of fatigue and sunburn. Oh, and multiple sclerosis research and support programs. Those are very important.

Seriously, if I ever again start to wonder if I should do the ride, just remind me of the one or two times someone in public has seen my MS ride T-shirt and approached me just to thank me for what I've done for them or their family. Total strangers. I feel like I could ride two hundred miles on just that feeling. I hope my poor legs agree.

Please donate!

www.bensmsride.com

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:53:40 GMT

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:39:12 GMT

I think we really dropped the ball on the placement of Christmas.

It's difficult to think of now that the weather has turned, but last week, and maybe later this week if it gets cold enough again, all I could think of was Lewis Black's description of winter: "It just gets greyer and greyer and greyer, and then one day you wake up and it's the greyest day you've ever seen. And then the next day is even greyer." You know what would help that? Christmas! Just toward the end of winter.

To me, Christmas should be the payoff of the season, the reward for suffering through weeks of bitterness, dreariness, shoveling, scraping, skidding, slipping, and no daylight. As it is now, we all celebrate the biggest winter event right at the beginning, and then slog through the rest of it with nothing to look forward to soon but more of the same. The White Queen damned Narnia to eternal winter without Christmas, but that's what winter really is here with the holiday frontloaded the way it is.

Also, as it is now, the Christmas monster has pretty much eaten up all of fall, a season that deserves its own attention. Let that build-up happen when there's snow on the ground, not when the leaves are changing and people are drinking cider. After the big snow last week, I saw a house with all its lights up, the perfect Christmas picture, and all I could think of was how long it had been since winter seemed charming. Everybody gets all excited for Christmas, cuts out paper snowflakes, goes to see the Nutcracker, hangs lights and decorations, artificially frosts their windows, and then the first serious snow falls about a month after the big day. They've done all this in merely a slight chill with bone dry streets. Push it back about two months, and let them do it in the snow.

But for God's sake, don't push it back too far; give people a week or two to take their stuff down. Ben's rule still applies: If you have Christmas decorations up after the first day of spring, I get to drive my car through your front door.

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:39:38 GMT

"Don't piss on my foot and tell me it's raining."

I used to think that was pretty clever until I realized you could end that sentence much earlier and be closer to my actual philosophy.

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:13:17 GMT

A block-wide fire had a local reporter on the news the other day say that it started in one unit and then "spread like wildfire" to other units.

Is that right? Can you say that? I don't have a very good creative writing background, so what is this? A failed simile, failed because it's too similar to begin with? Isn't this a little like saying, "The rubies shone like precious gems"? Or, because the fire wasn't really wild, "The cubic zirconia shone like precious gems"?

Unrelatedly, on my walk to the train this morning, a woman half a block back shouted, "Tiger! Tiger!" When I turned around, she was just calling her cat, but until then I thought maybe Sagat was behind me. You know, with a high voice - his wife or mom or something. Or someone quoting William Blake. Now that I think of it, no reason it couldn't be both.

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:17:37 GMT

As I was falling asleep last night, my mind reeled off into the future, and I thought of all the things that I am very unlikely to do. I will never climb Mount Everest. I will never compete in the Olympics. I will never sell a piece of fruit.

I woke up a little. Could that be true?

As the years stretch out ahead of me, even if I get seventy more of them, might I never in all that time sell a piece of fruit?

The more I thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed. Sure, I could potentially befriend a fruiterer, and he may on some day ask me to watch his shop while he goes and buys Lotto tickets, but that's unlikely. And on an individual level, under what circumstances might I ever sell a piece of fruit to another person rather than just give it freely?

No, no, I was becoming more convinced; there is no fruit commerce awaiting me. I thought that after sleep this would seem ridiculous, that in the clear light of day I would be able to refute or abandon this position. Now I find I can do neither.

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:08:41 GMT

I got Corri a Wii Fit for her birthday, and I've been trying it out too. The other day it kind of gave me the business for skipping a day, but in a totally patronizing way: "I guess you were too busy to work out yesterday, huh?" Being as it includes a functional scale, it tracks your weight and BMI, helpfully plotting them on a graph for you. I never thought I'd see the day that a video game had an integrated weight loss plan over a course of three months.

I also never thought I'd see the day that I'd skip a piece of chocolate, worried what my Nintendo would think of it.

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:49:28 GMT

How much did I rake last weekend?

Yes, that's a blister. From three days of raking. Maybe I was doing it wrong?

And how cute is my daughter at one month and two days?

Yes, she sleeps in a Hulk Hogan pose.

An introduction

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:13:16 GMT

Everybody, I'd like you to meet Lily Barnett:

Grand entrance at 8:26 p.m. yesterday, October 7th, 2008. Be good to her, world.

Hawks & Doves

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:26:43 GMT

I'm finally getting around to posting about the ride, and I find I have little to nothing to say about it. I ended up doing the century on Saturday, something I wasn't sure about right up until I made the turn that committed me to it. The ride pretty much kicked my ass from mile 60 to about mile 85 where I cheated and drank some caffeine. Oh, I was a different rider then! Anyway, I sent out the email thank-yous on Tuesday, but if for some reason you didn't get one, let me take this time to thank you now for donating. To paraphrase my own email, without your support, I'm just some schmo staying on a bike far longer than is advisable.

Unrelatedly, here's a story from work today: After class, one of my students asked if I had watched the debates last night. I did, and so had she; I asked her if she had any opinion about who she liked better. She said Biden because, get this, he answered the questions that were asked of him while Palin just talked in circles without saying anything. Now, I know that this is conventional wisdom - pretty much what was expected and perceived from the debate, but this is an ESL student in her late teens or early twenties. Don't get the wrong idea; she is not a person who just speaks English with an accent and occasionally hilariously mangles an idiom. This is a person who struggles with the English language every day of her life, and she was not confused by Palin's accent, rate of speech, or vocabulary. She was very aware that Biden had structure, form, and most importantly, content to his answers. He laid out a main idea and supported it with details, just as we teach students to do. It astounds me that any large group in this country could not demand that at a bare minimum of a VP nominee.

Also, here's some pictures of some kestrels on Drexel's campus about a month ago.

Also...

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:14:00 GMT

I can take directions.

- Take a picture of yourself right now.
- Get a hot dog. Be nonplussed. Just take a picture.
- Post that picture with you looking nonplussed with a hot dog.
- Don't go posting an eight megapixel hot dog.
- Include these instructions.

By the way, I finally upgraded to a paid account just for this.

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:57:57 GMT

I want to thank everyone who donated yesterday in response to my plea (as well as, of course, those who donated earlier). The fundraising is looking up a little bit, though I'm still a couple hundred shy of my goal. Help me rectify this; go to bensmsride.com and donate while there's still time.

While we're here, I'd like to thank Calamity Jon who is donating his time and effort by selling original artwork toward the cause. If you go there and buy a piece, the money goes straight to the National MS Society. I can't recommend it enough. In fact, when Jon has done this in the past, I've even bought a piece or two. There's one up in the nursery right now, hanging o'er the crib. How does that make you feel, Jon? Drawing for little kids, that is. My daughter is going to spend a lot of time in her formative years staring at your rooftop rabbit.

You know how to tell that it's MS ride season? There's a hurricane on the way. I mean, not that we haven't done the City to Shore through a hurricane before, but I'd just rather not do it again is all.

One last short ride

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:48:58 GMT

I did my last training ride yesterday - 52 miles out to Toms River. My time wasn't as good as it was two weeks ago when I went to AC, but I still finished the ride feeling just fine and ready for more. I'm really starting to believe that this weekend will be easy.

If you haven't donated yet, please do. To be honest, this has not been the best year for donations so far; I keep hoping for a last minute surge. Anything you can donate is generous, and I know the National MS Society puts it to good use. As always, please put the word out too, if you can. That always helps. While you're at it, go to Calamity Jon's, and bid on original art for a donation. This is something that Jon has done for me in the past, and it really goes a long way toward helping raise money. Thanks Jon!

BENSMSRIDE.COM

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:59:41 GMT

I just wanted to post a reminder to anyone who intended to donate, that you can do so at BENSMSRIDE.COM. The ride is fast approaching, and, even though I am, as always, far behind where I should be in training and fundraising efforts, every year everything seems to come together just fine. Thanks to anyone who donates, and if you can, put the word out. I hope the redirect will make it easier to do so; other people talking about the ride always creates a very real and significant jump in donations.

Thank you everyone - I'm almost halfway to my goal already.

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:50:26 GMT

Have you ever managed to cut yourself a good one with the serrated edge of a box of plastic cling wrap? Have you ever done it on your stomach?

Unrelatedly, my summer's not over. In fact, Drexel only begins its break on Labor Day. Because of this, I'm down to just one job for most of September, and I've been spending it goofing off and riding. In fact, I've got a moderate sunburn from riding down to Atlantic City two days ago. Corri met me down there to drive me home, but not before pizza and an ocean foot-soaking. Maybe I had a tailwind, but it was a pretty easy 55 miles; I'm feeling more confident than usual about my upcoming ride.

What ride, you ask? Oh come on, are you new here?

bensmsride.com

Thanks again to Manning for building (and hosting) the redirect, making it easier than ever for you to remember how to donate, should you be unable to click that link right now. I mean, you can even type "Ben's MS ride" (no quotes) into google and it's the first hit.

In case you are new, here's the basics: Twice a year I bike in a non-competitive event to raise funds for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. These funds go to help the victims of MS and their families, as well as support future research into the disease. MS is a deadly ailment about which much is still unknown, including specific causes, and, unfortunately, a cure. I hope to be part of a movement that eradicates, or at least tames, MS. But I can't do it without you.

Donate any amount that you can; your generosity is always appreciated. You can read more about the disease and my ride by following the links on the donation page.

As always, thanks in advance to any and all who donate.

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:19:29 GMT

Last week, I created a new Livejournal game for myself. Somebody on my friends page who shall remain nameless, on account of I can't remember who it was, put up an image that stretched everything out horizontally. No problem; happens all the time. But in a bit of good fortune, the amount I had to scroll right to read the content was exactly enough to cover people's name/ID/color, but not the time stamp or content.

I scrolled down the list trying to determine who had posted what. Some topics were dead giveaways; a few styles had enough clues too. Surprisingly, though, this new game was pretty tough. I misidentified more than I got right, including some people to whom I am shamefully close. Well, shameful given this context.

Is there a good way I can re-break my friends page in this manner, or should I just keep a strip of duct tape by the monitor?

Another thing from Friday

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:36:16 GMT

As I rode my motorcycle down 5th Street in Philly, I could clearly hear the tour guide aboard the Ride the Ducks vehicle next to me going through her bit. We were stopped in traffic just past the Bourse as she told her passengers that the empty space (formerly the KYW/93.3 building) on the right was the site of the future Jewish Heritage Museum. Then, in response to a passenger question, she had to quickly explain that being stuck in traffic had led to her music cues coming up early, and "Money Money Money" was really intended for the U.S. Mint rather than the current (soon-to-be) attraction.

What I noticed last Friday

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:52:11 GMT

There is something weird, yet oddly appropriate, about getting a haircut and mowing your lawn on the same day.

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:22:53 GMT

People gave me Father's Day cards yesterday. The feeling is unusual.

Sun, 18 May 2008 02:13:59 GMT

The ride is going pretty well. I'm fairly burnt (wait, is that an oxymoron?), but ready for more tomorrow.

Today is an anniversary of a sort. Some of you know this story already, but every year when I do the Coast the Coast, I stay at my father's and stepmother's house on Saturday since they live relatively close to the first day finish line. Well, last year I came home from that first day of riding to find a message from a pretty lady in my MySpace inbox. "Strange," I thought, "pretty ladies don't usually contact me." I wrote her back, she wrote me back, and so on, to the point that when my folks took me out to dinner that night, all I wanted to do was come home and see if she had written to me again. Five and a half months later, we were married.

Technically, the anniversary of that is Monday, but today is Saturday, the first day of the ride. Corri is here at the folks' house with me, she's tapping her stomach because our daughter-to-be is kicking, and I can't believe how great my life is turning out.

Thank you

Fri, 16 May 2008 20:45:37 GMT

Thanks to everyone for donating and getting the word out yesterday. Donations took a huge jump. I'm always worried about badgering you all with donation requests and reminders, but I guess I need to remember that I hear "You should have let me know," more often than "Shut up with the donatin' talk." In fact, I never hear the latter.

So, if anyone was waiting until the last minute, or waiting until payday, here we are. bensmsride.com is still up and running.

OK, I'm off to my lopsided sunburn and saddle-soreness. Thanks again everyone.