Letting Go Is Hard To Do

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K1AWP/SK

Joseph T. Amaral Sr. Bridgewater Joseph T. Amaral Sr., of Bridgewater, Feb. 4, 2008. Mr. Amaral died at Good Samatitan Medical Center after a period of failing health, he was 88. Born in Bridgewater, he was a son of the late Manuel and Delphina (DaSilva) Amaral. Mr. Amaral was a good year stitcher for Lucy Shoe Co. for 40 years, retiring in 1984. He was devoted to his late wife Theresa (Brown) and his children, Theresa Craig Sloan of Florida, Thomas T. Jr. of Hanson, Nancy E. Reed of Halifax and Richard M. Amaral of Bridgewater; brother of Manuel of Bridgewater and the late Edward and David. Also survived by 10 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

1937

Mr. Amaral was a lifelong resident of Bridgewater, member and past grand Knight of the Bridgewater Knights of Columbus, Holy Name Society, St. Vincent DePaul and former alter server. He was active in the Civil Defense, V.F.W. and the Massasoit Amateur radio club. He also served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

__________________________________________

Two months ago my last living grandparent died. His name was Joe but to me he was simply Grampa.

Grampa at his radio. K1AWP has signed off for good now.

Some of my earliest memories are of his and Nana's house, particularly on Christmas Eve. For almost half my life the evening of December 24th meant descending on 30 Aldrich Road in the company of my immediate family, various aunts, uncles, and cousins. On those December nights it seemed impossibly crowded at that house, even to a child who could squeeze through the press of revelers.


The highlight of the evening was crowding into the front parlor to pass out gifts. The nativity scene and Grampa's always spindly, Charlie Brown Christmas tree forever in danger of being knocked over by some wayward grandchild. Visiting the house after Grampa's funeral, that room seemed impossibly small. Likely it possessed of TARDIS-like properties to which only Grampa knew the secret.

Other memories float back from over the years. Eating Fruit Loops in the basement kitchen. The monstrous ham radio tower. The huge vegetable garden which to this day my best efforts are but a shadow of. The venerable ride-on lawn mower. Shooting a rifle for the first time in the back yard. Hanging out in the old camping trailer even though we were parked in the yard. The list goes on, but it is only a sliver of his life, as seen through my eyes.


Knowing one's grandparents can be a challenge. By the time we come along they have lived so much, seen and done so much that it's hard to grasp it all. We take them for granted sometimes, these elder statesmen (and women) of our families. They are just there, solid, reliable, forever old in the eyes of us much younger.

Until of course, they are gone. Then you recognize what they were. The center of orbiting families, their gravity holding otherwise distant relatives together. Some of those satellites may have moved far off since those days of crowded Christmas Eves and barely feel the pull anymore of that center. But when it's gone, you notice.

One of Grampa's ham radio plates in its new home.

ptb

Christmas

2007's Tree. Used the big, non-blinking "Grampa" style lights this year.

For the first time since I started my "new" job at CollabNet 10 months ago I had some real time off. The company closed for the last week of December and reopened January 2nd. This was fortunate timing as my whole family descends on our little corner of NH for Christmas and some serious cleaning needed to be done to get ready for them.

The Dinner table at my in-laws side of the compound.

I only recently moved into my new office and my old office off the bedroom had turned from a once neat, if small workspace, into a Superfund site. It alone took a day to clean. Seriously, a 7'x4' nook took 10 hours to clean. I should have just rented a flamethrower. The Brides office/dumping ground was in an even worse state.

Mary, Lenny, Suzy, and Mom apparently about to get down to some serious drinking.

But eventually everything got cleaned to the Bride's satisfaction. I was particularly excited this year because my brother and I were planning to take my nephews skiing the day after Christmas. Unfortunately T was sick as a dog when he arrived the afternoon of the 25th and it was clear that he wasn't likely to rebound sufficiently to ski the next day.

How could this child get so dirty indoors while the evening is still young? I've seen cleaner sanitation engineers getting off a double shift. It doesn't matter. Look at that face. You just ain't going to get mad at him.

T did have enough energy to open gifts of course and we performed our usual gift exchange. I got the boys Star Wars Fatheads, Darth Vader and Yoda, which they loved...oh wait, they didn't. Because Fathead ships via DHL, which must stand for Delays in Handling Likely. I paid extra to have the Fatheads arrive the day before Christmas, but they shipped one to the wrong distribution center and the other was listed as "with courier for delivery" for the entire week. I'll stop before I enter rant mode, but DHL is a joke. How they stay in business is a mystery on par with the origin of life, how to beat the Patriots, and a proof for the Riemann Hypothesis.

These demonic elves have sat on this poor deer's head for Holiday the past 30 years (as if being shot and eaten was indignity enough). The Bride used to have bad dreams about them.


Over at our side of the house for the gift exhange.

This years meal was downright traditional compared with the Bride's normally adventurous menu. Her Dad had bagged two deer this year, so despite the Bride's normal prohibitions against terrestrial meat, a venison roast was served. Bruny, who essentially eats only meat from what I can tell, approved so much he dispensed with any utensils before ripping in. When told to use a fork, he said, "T-Rex doesn't use a fork!"

The Bride gives her new pan some love.


T musters the strength to hold his sickness at bay long enough to bellow, "Behold my magnificent Mars Mission Lego set. Bow down to its superior piece count and inappropriate age rating. Who among you is worthy enough to build it for me?"

The Bear falls asleep on his Dad after a very long day.

With skiing cancelled we did some sledding the the 26th and also broke out the Bride's almost 30 year old Yamaha Bravo snowmobile. This thing is a classic, a single cylinder 250cc air-cooled two-stroke it comes from the time before global warming. I never tire of blasting around the yard with it.

Boony works it to stay in the track.

T is just too heavy for me to pull up the hill any more. So he must climb on his own...

...and then call it a day after all that work.

Hey, that thing isn't a bench!

That's more like it.

The Bear does not turn down snowmobile rides. Ever.

Minime and me. It may not look it since I'm a bearded freak in this pic, but my nephew looks just like me. Handsome kid. He'll do well with the ladies ;-)

Dana shows off the latest in sledding haute couture.

Of course no Christmas would be complete without a driveway duel between Yoda and Darth Maul. If you are at least 30% geek (or 20% nerd) and don't yet own one of these, then shame on you.

Well that's all for now. Hopefully going to get back to posting more regularly. Part II of the Expansion is loooong overdue, Jabba wants Halloween pics, and I know the public is just clamoring for my shim method how-to for quieting Avid Juicy Seven squeal!

ptb

Costume Countdown

The following is for Jabba:



He is laboring under the delusion that Halloween is a few days away. Like most 7 year olds his sense of time is either wildly optimistic (as in this case) or dreadfully pessimistic (a ten minute time-out seems like 10 years).

P.S. The lightsabers are on the way.

P.P.S. Though it never happened in the movies, come Halloween we *will* determine who would win a fight between Darth Vader and Darth Maul.

ptb

Saquish

The Bride and I only got down to my brother's beach house in for two days this year. Rained one day. Beautiful the next. I would have preferred to stay a week...

Classic Saquish Beach Shack
Not where we stayed, for some reason I never took a picture of that.

Back Beach looking at Clark's Island

The beach house is in Plymouth, MA, the town I grew up in. I don't have any family living there full-time anymore so I don't get down much. And I was never much of a beach guy. Having grown up doing a lot of shell fishing, the water always meant long days and hard work. But that was a long time ago, and it's hard not to enjoy the beach on a day like this.

Bruno and his Dad Heading for the point of Back Beach.

Visitor on the back deck of the old officer's quarters.

I looked through that telescope.
You can't see anything.
But they still looked intently.

Scorpion #1 Strikes her best Movie Star pose.
$5 Sunglasses complete the look.

Clark's Island and the "Gatsby" House.

The Bear runs from some terrible sea nymph who threatened to turn him into a pile of rockweed.

Sunset over the Myles Standish Monument in Duxbury.

Monkey T and his Auntie.

Moonrise over Front Beach.

ptb

Hampshire 100: Results

Spun this round approximately 44,871 times last Sunday.
Rotor squealed for about 42,744 of those.

"What could possibly go wrong?"

Something *always* goes wrong, otherwise it would be called road racing. The weather was cool and dry and my legs never cramped, so far so good. But my new front brake, after much fiddling and tweaking the night before, started up its brain-numbing, will-sapping, death squeal about a mile into the race. And it continued to torture me for most of the race, stopping after some hard braking, only to return 30 seconds later or until I thought "Hey! It's stopped, maybe it fixed itself!".

Other riders would become annoyed and seemingly try to sprint away from me or drop back. One fellow appeared to drive right off the trail and crash into a thorny shrub in what appeared to be an effort to avoid the "Squealing Brake of the Apocalypse" (coming to theaters this fall, don't miss it). To those tortured racers I say, "Sorry folks, I know it's tough to be near my bike, but imagine having to ride the Squealmaster for 100k". I'll have to try some sintered pads and if that doesn't work I'm moving on to Voodoo.

"How bad could it be?"

I am comfortable in saying "quite bad". The race description led me to believe this was going to be a relatively mild course...well as mild as 62 miles off-roading in New England can be. The reality was 6000' of climbing (according to another racer's wrist altimeter), lots of overgrown double track, and some Mensa candidates on ATVs taking down the course arrows. There was one particularly charming stretch along a newly graded section of power line. Steep. Soft. Ugly. That was one of many low points. While there was some sweet singletrack, my rough estimate is that this only made up 20% of the course. Creating a 100k loop in this part of the world is always going to entail a few paved and dirt roads to hook everything together, so I didn't mind those. It's just that there were too many parts of the course that were simply crap riding. The kind of things you find when exploring for new riding spots and later report to your friends, "not worth it, it can be ridden, but why would you want to?".

Particularly "fun" were the fast double track downhills with random tree limbs poking out at eye and crotch level and covered with luxurious undergrowth which obscured the numerous rocks, logs, and unconscious racers ready to catch your front wheel and catapult you into next week. Now don't get me wrong, I like a challenge, but walking on your hands across a floor covered in broken glass and lemon juice while blindfolder is challenging too, I just don't want to do it.

Impressive performances and other factoids:

• As usual the nut job single speeders continue to awe me. On this decidedly SS-unfriendly course, just finishing was impressive.
  

• Elite class racer Michael Broderick won the overall, beating the next closest rider by a staggering 41 minutes! I do think I could beat that though, I just need a new bike.
  

Unimpressive Performances and Other Factoids:

• After 7:31:18 I rolled across the finish line. I came in 75th, which is pretty lame, but is better than 90th (which is what I though I came in when eyeballing the unsorted PDF results. Thanks the cky for the correction).
  

• Out of 175 registered entrants, there were 15 DNFs, 22 DNSs, and 1 disqualification.
  

• Gobbling down Sport Legs pills like a kid with a Pez dispenser did seem to stave off any severe legs cramps, but by mile 48 my legs had imploded and my pace slowed way down. I guess a lack of training can actually slow you down, who knew.
  

• The Bride and Scorpion #2 came to watch at the various food stations and give me helpful advice like, "I really think you should stop stuffing your face with Power Bars and get a move on". Seriously they were great, and without them there I probably would have dropped out in the last 12 miles. Amazing how a little encouragement can spur you on.
  

• Apparently I wasn't the only one getting encouragement. After the race I found the Scorpion sisters at a table of EMS sponsored racers and it came out that at each food station they would wait for the volunteers to yell out, "water, Gatorade, bananas, PB&J" then they would yell out "wine!" and motion to their box of wine. No one took them up on the wine, but a few guys almost crashed at the offer.
  

ptb

Hampshire 100

I must be mad. After a weak showing in the 24 Hours of Great Glen, mostly due to lack of training, I decided there was only one logical thing to do: Immediately enter another endurance race. I'm concerned that this is the lack of prudence that leads to substance abuse and singlespeeds.


Regardless of my misgivings, a quick bit o' Googlin revealed that this Sunday, right in my neck of the woods, is the inaugural Hampshire 100 in Greenfield, NH. Fortunately the '100' is kilometers, not miles. Even better, the race description states:

"The single loop, 100 kilometer course will give participants a good mountain bike workout, while not being so extremely challenging the entire way that one never wants to return for a second year."

Sounds like a nice ramble through the woods. How bad could it be? What could possibly go wrong? A quick check of the forecast (70, partly cloudy, 10% chance of precip) sealed the deal and off my money went.

The Bride and Scorpion #2 have generously offered to come along and cheer me on or carry my spasming body home as needed.

Check back soon for a report, hopefully one that covers the entire course, not just the first 18 miles, a stout tree, and a gruesome spoke injury.

ptb

24HoGG

Camp setup on Friday afternoon. Miraculously my $25 tarp shade would survive the night this year.

Well, it's over. The 2007 24 Hours of Great Glen are in the books. After last years 4th place Todd and I had dared think of a podium spot this year. Regrettably it was not to be and I must take the blame. A new job and home expansion cut into training this year, but not so much that we couldn't have done better than our 7th place in the men's pairs this year. The thing that killed us was a rookie mistake on my part, electrolyte imbalance.

The Bride and I's glamorous hotel room. New job pays enough to not sleep in tent Friday night. Still slept like poop and woke up at 5:00 am.

Last year we just alternated laps the whole race, except when we each went out for two night laps to allow the other racer to sleep for an hour. Noticing that all the teams ahead of us were doing multiple laps we thought we should do the same too. It worked well for the first 9 laps. We were in the 6th spot and feeling good, knowing that night would bring a host of problems for many teams (hopefully some in front of us). But on the end of lap 9 my left hamstring just went bezerk, cramping horribly. I went out for a tenth lap, but finished that in a glacial 1:25:18.

Ready to roll under a dry blue sky.

Campmates, team 'Still No Faster'. They lived up to their name :-D In fairness Chris did the fastest individual lap of our two teams, a tidy 48:12. Of course there were *FOUR* of them!

That was it for me for a while. My left hamstring would cramp if I even so much as bent my leg. I thought about dropping out, figuring there was no way it was going to come back to life without a full meal and good night's sleep. My "epic" lap had dropped us to 10th position.

"What'd you get?"
"Decoder ring, you?"
"Fake tattoos."

"Think the mandatory meeting will start late this year?"
"Yup."
"Think they will just tells us what we already know?"
"Yup."
"Think people will leave before it's over?"
"Yup."
"You ever say anything but 'Yup'?"
"Nope."

Todd of course just said he'd go out and see what he could do. He did two more laps which got us to 1:12 am, but he was hurting too. This was the low point of the race for me. My leg was still all screwy and riding was out of the question. I considered just pushing the bike around for a lap and maybe rolling down the flats. But that seemed rather pathetic, and feeling rather pathetic and wallowing in self-pity I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Arty-farty juxtaposition of synthetic and natural mountains.

Todd tries his luck at the ancient Chinese bike puzzle...

...hmmm, trickier than it looks...

"Out of my way fool!"

"See, it's easy!"

"I am Todd-Lor. I come to wage war on your puny and insignificant planet. Even now my battle cruisers have trained their plasma cannons on your major cities! Your only hope is to bring me your finest popcorn. Now hurry you sniveling dogs, don't force me to demonstrate my fleet's firepower on Manchvegas! Because I WILL SO DO IT"

So we decided to catch a few Z's and see how we felt in a few hours. Before sleeping I downed a few electrolyte pills and ate a box of Annie's Shells and Cheddar. Todd got back out sometime in the dark as I slept away with my guilt ridden dream, and proceeded to do three straight laps, nothing fast, but somehow during the night we managed to crawl up to the 7th spot.

For the benefit of people like my mom, this is the battery charging station. It's where, well, we charge our light's batteries between laps. I have nothing funny to say about it. Sorry, batteries just don't lend themselves to humor.

The cattle queue up for the start.

Todd follows my sage advice for this year's Le Mans start: "Run faster"

Todd-Lor contemplates calling in an orbital strike to thin out the pack.

Riders hoof it up the first climb on lap 1.

TM rails the plunge.

Max roars out of the start/finish area. Alas my alter ego would soon falter, and pitiful Paul would soon return clutching his left hamstring.

By this time I had gotten my sorry butt out of bed and was stuffing myself with food and more electrolyte pills. The leg started to feel a lot better. I went out for another lap and was able to do a 58:50, the leg was getting a little suspect so Todd went out for another after me.

Max Power is so fast he can barely be caught on film. Or possibly Scorpion #1 doesn't know how to operate the camera. Honestly, at first I thought this was some cool pan and blur shooting technique. Until I saw that all the other pictures she took were blurry too. Unless they were of Todd, those were all fine, in crystal clear sharp focus. I heard her muttering something about, "you look better blurry". Not sure what that means.

Still feeling fine and cruising to a 51:12 first lap.

Looking over the selection of sport beverages, it dawns on me, "blue" is not a flavor.

Do I like to wear my helmet at a jaunty angle? Or is my head just not symmetrical? The latter sadly.

Todd got back at 11:08 am. I headed out for the last lap. The power of your last lap is great, knowing you don't need to go back out lets you lay it out and not worry about saving anything. Of course when you haven't trained enough, laying it out only results in a 56:49 lap, but hey, I'll take it.

Haircuts like these just don't happen people, it takes preparation, poor grooming, and hours of helmet wearing. Giant Elvis Costello glasses complete the look.

We can all smile now that it's over.

So we held onto the 7th spot in the end. A tantalizingly small gap of 1:26 separated us from the 6th spot. Sorta wished I'd known we were that close before the final lap. Of course then I would be killing myself for *6th* place and that does seem rather pathetic!

The Bride says: "Ride faster next year you maggots, 7th place is unacceptable!"

So while it could of been worse, I must say I finished the race pretty disappointed. I had fun, the bike didn't give me any serious problems (aside from the front brake squealing like the proverbial pig for the whole race), but can't help but feel I didn't do my best. Not sure exactly what went wrong with the leg, it could just be a case of O-L-D. The lack of training miles compared to last year wasn't helping certainly. Or maybe just doing 2-2 alternating laps got me out of my eating and drinking rhythm. Whatever the case we'll be back next year if the fates allow.

This brings me to my parting random thoughts on this year's race:

1) Soloists are crazy right? So what does that make the single-speed soloists? I'm not sure, but kudos to both groups, it's a tough race when you are alone *are* the team, gears or not.

2) The weather - Three straight years I've done this race and three straight years the weather has been great. Why do I feel like we're due a monsoon come 08?

3) Peter Ostroski - Damn this kid is amazing. Two years ago his Red Jersey two man team just crushed everyone. This year he won the overall solo title with 24 laps. And he is still in the 0-18 age group. Yikes.

4) Even more impressive is Melanie Brown, winning her second women's overall solo title. Amazingly she beat all the men but Peter. Nice job.

Until next year...

ptb