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| Click picture for RSNT press release at the time. |
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| Cancellara won his record fifth Tour-opening yellow jersey. Photo: Graham Watson | www.grahamwatson.com |
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Tour Tidbit du Jour - 6/30/2011 - Prologue
From this broken collar bone in the Tour of Flanders:
To this much happier collar bone today:
In a nice pair of victory bookends, Fabian Cancellara's first victory in a Tour de France also occurred in Liege, Belgium, back in 2004, when he beat Lance Armstrong in the prologue by one second.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
"Forgot Password" Means "Forget Password"
Because my dad wanted to watch back episodes of Franklin & Bash online, which our cable provider allows us to do, provided you authenticate your account with your bundled email login and password, he nuked his 20 year old email password by confusing it with his Netflix password. This is the same Netflix password, incidentally, he has never had to type in anywhere himself, since I set up Netflix on his TV and his web browser, yet this is what he thinks he has to type in when a cable network's online presence wants to confirm his cable/phone/internet credentials.
After he wasted half an hour on tech support, but before I knew my email address was getting all the account change notices, which I set up, so he would never have to change or worry about the internet account online, and just pay his paper bill like he's used to, I found him still on the phone, on hold, and told him to tell the guy on the phone goodbye, and his son would have him up and running in two minutes.
Two minutes later, 1 minute of which was wasted because my dad somehow thought it unnecessary to tell me the temporary password locked into his account by the tech support guy, he was able to access his email again. That is when I explained to him, Never Click Forgot Password because that means you will never use your old password again. "Forgot Password?" means "Forget Password," 'cuz that old password is gonzo. So thanks Franklin & Bash (why dad, why?) for erasing a twenty year old bit of my father's online identity.
Oh, and to make things even worse, I couldn't even replicate what got him running down the rabbit hole chasing a forgotten password. I went to TNT, I clicked on Franklin & Bash, a pop-over asked me to click on my cable provider, a splash screen asked me "to federate" the U-Verse account, and then I was watching a full episode *shudder*. My guess is that he didn't have an active session cookie with his AT&T credentials, even though that is his homepage and he can't avoid it. Whatever. Then I spent 10 minutes using aural memory techniques to drill the new password into my dad's head. Why? Because, obviously, my dad doesn't like to read anything on a web page except to find the OK button to click it, otherwise he would have known what to expect from reading all the prompts after he clicked "Forgot Password?".
After he wasted half an hour on tech support, but before I knew my email address was getting all the account change notices, which I set up, so he would never have to change or worry about the internet account online, and just pay his paper bill like he's used to, I found him still on the phone, on hold, and told him to tell the guy on the phone goodbye, and his son would have him up and running in two minutes.
Two minutes later, 1 minute of which was wasted because my dad somehow thought it unnecessary to tell me the temporary password locked into his account by the tech support guy, he was able to access his email again. That is when I explained to him, Never Click Forgot Password because that means you will never use your old password again. "Forgot Password?" means "Forget Password," 'cuz that old password is gonzo. So thanks Franklin & Bash (why dad, why?) for erasing a twenty year old bit of my father's online identity.
Oh, and to make things even worse, I couldn't even replicate what got him running down the rabbit hole chasing a forgotten password. I went to TNT, I clicked on Franklin & Bash, a pop-over asked me to click on my cable provider, a splash screen asked me "to federate" the U-Verse account, and then I was watching a full episode *shudder*. My guess is that he didn't have an active session cookie with his AT&T credentials, even though that is his homepage and he can't avoid it. Whatever. Then I spent 10 minutes using aural memory techniques to drill the new password into my dad's head. Why? Because, obviously, my dad doesn't like to read anything on a web page except to find the OK button to click it, otherwise he would have known what to expect from reading all the prompts after he clicked "Forgot Password?".
Sunday, June 03, 2012
One Hour
After 4 weeks back on the bike, from a layoff of 7 and a half months, I'm finally back in shape. Over 7 months, what happened? Tendinitis on the outside of my right knee from a repetitive stress injury caused by a bad habit of letting my ankle relax as I went through my upstroke on a fast pedal cadence. I usually ride for 9 months out of the year, then as bad weather conveniently kicks in, I can catch up on my other hobbies (video games, books, video games... I wrote that twice, whoops). The first month off the bike, the pain was terrible, and as it slowly healed, the damaged area included my upper calf. It wasn't until February that I could get out of bed without any pain. It wasn't until the end of April that I could flex and wrench that tendon without feeling any give or weakness at all.
That timing matched up nicely with three events: 1) I sucked the life out of Skyrim, which came out in November; 2) the Giro d'Italia was starting up and making me long for the bike; and 3) my weight loss from my diet plan had plateaued for 3 weeks. Weight loss, how, where? Well, hard to believe, but from January 2011 to the start of May 2012, I have lost 15 pounds. For a small guy like me who is not fat, that is quite a bit of weight, but I always knew I could get leaner. Since I was not exercising at all, I cut down my carbohydrate intake. I also varied my snack time from week to week, so my body would be expecting calories in my bloodstream at a certain time, not find it, and have to burn fat to make up for the deficit. Last year, without paying attention to my diet at all, I lost 8 pounds, I gained 2 over the Christmas break, and then lost 9 before I got back on the bike. I have not been this light on the bike since 2006. I can't wait for 2 months from now, when I hit peak fitness, then I can eat as much carbohydrate as I want. But that's not where I'm at yet. I'm just fit and in shape.
How do I know I'm at base fitness? I have two daily routine courses for the bike, one pancake flat, and the other rolling, that should take me one hour to complete. My first day on the bike, which I also call "puke day," I did my flat course in 1:13. This is 20 minutes slower than my peak fitness average. After 4 weeks, I'm down to one hour. I'm looking forward to see if I can break my record for these hour-courses now that I'm 7 pounds lighter than when I set them. And maybe that "beer softness" around my core will finally go away. We shall see.
That timing matched up nicely with three events: 1) I sucked the life out of Skyrim, which came out in November; 2) the Giro d'Italia was starting up and making me long for the bike; and 3) my weight loss from my diet plan had plateaued for 3 weeks. Weight loss, how, where? Well, hard to believe, but from January 2011 to the start of May 2012, I have lost 15 pounds. For a small guy like me who is not fat, that is quite a bit of weight, but I always knew I could get leaner. Since I was not exercising at all, I cut down my carbohydrate intake. I also varied my snack time from week to week, so my body would be expecting calories in my bloodstream at a certain time, not find it, and have to burn fat to make up for the deficit. Last year, without paying attention to my diet at all, I lost 8 pounds, I gained 2 over the Christmas break, and then lost 9 before I got back on the bike. I have not been this light on the bike since 2006. I can't wait for 2 months from now, when I hit peak fitness, then I can eat as much carbohydrate as I want. But that's not where I'm at yet. I'm just fit and in shape.
How do I know I'm at base fitness? I have two daily routine courses for the bike, one pancake flat, and the other rolling, that should take me one hour to complete. My first day on the bike, which I also call "puke day," I did my flat course in 1:13. This is 20 minutes slower than my peak fitness average. After 4 weeks, I'm down to one hour. I'm looking forward to see if I can break my record for these hour-courses now that I'm 7 pounds lighter than when I set them. And maybe that "beer softness" around my core will finally go away. We shall see.
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