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There’s no excuse for not having updated in years. Plenty of reasons, but no excuse! So I’ll welcome myself back with a bit of a ride report from the trip to Canuckia.

Day -1: Final Prep Jeff rode in to Bklyn Saturday afternoon with a borrowed trailer hooked up behind his Wrangler. Thankfully I had time to get the VFR mostly prepped before he arrived – new shoes, new brake pads, erl change, sorta-rebuilt rear brake caliper that Paulie helped me with … long story that, which comes back to bite me on Day 1 of the trip. I took Jeff out for sushi in the slope, packed up my gear when I got home, and we loaded up the bikes for an early Sunday departure.

Day 0: Road to America’s Hat

Dock in a Box. That is all.

Day 1: I Ain’t Got Time to Bleed!

{coming soon}

Day 2: Ft Irwin / Algonquin Route

After our daily waffle ration, we headed East from Hunstville on Rt 60. A slabbish run to warm up, but we quickly got onto Rt 35 / N Shore Rd. It had a ton of open sweepers, some decent elevation changes, and we had the whole damn road to ourselves. I mean, seriously, not a car for miles on a Tuesday morning. I was breaking in new pads, newly flushed brake lines, and new tires, so the pace was barely North of scenic, but who cares, right?

Our next big change-up put us on St Peter Rd, which ran by one of the myriad lakes in the area. The road started fully rough, with a load of potholes, bad surface, many cracks and worse, but soon just settled into a rough surface. It was fairly technical, with some good blind turns and swift drops and rises, and we dug in with gusto.We went around Eagle Lake (County Rd 19 now), to Ft Irwin, and down into Haliburton. We suburbaned it on 121 (118?) heading Southeast, and turned left on Country Rd 4. Past Essen Lake into Wilburforce, onto 648 … then to the real gem of the day – Elephant Lake Road. This was a peach! Mostly sweepers, with a lot of hills … again, we were alone on the road. It became Peterson Rd, and just stayed perfect. Tighter sections came more often, with some relaxing open bits thrown in. All the way to Maynooth, then NW on 127 for some not-boring-yet-not-mindblowing blacktop.

We stopped at the Portersville Diner for the best pizza in Ontario (no really, it was teh bizzomb) and some local color. We really felt welcomed. And the older gent repairing seat upholstery in the diner was glad we were there since he wasn’t allowed to work while customers were eating! The rest of the route consisted of mostly Rt 60, which took us East-to-West through Algonquin Provincial Park. Gorgeous scenery, a little more traffic (but nothing which got in our way), and yet more sweepers.

Important safety tip: check your gas gauge before entering the park, as there may be dozens of miles between options to fill up. You know, speaking theoretically of course, it’s not stressful to be on one blinky bar for 15 miles while you’re charging up hills with no gas stations to be found.

Anyhoo, back to Hunstville for a chill evening and a tasty meal at The Cottage by the waterfront. This town makes for an excellent home base, by the by … good restaurants, a movie theatre, a Wal-Mart … lots to do, cheap hotels, and everybody’s quite friendly.

Day 3: Parry Sound / Muskoka Lake

We got a late, late start on Wednesday. Garmin made some huge problems with BaseCamp a few months ago, resulting in all the via points on your route being deleted on your Zumo — sometimes. So we got lost in our EconoLodge parking lot for an hour while trying to figure out how to get our route to load. An hour later, in a Tim Horton’s parking lot, we figured out the problem. Sigh.

We sprinted up Rt 11 to Katrine Rd (exit 235 to Rt 592 to Katrine) … this crossed and re-crossed the highway for over a dozen miles, providing smiles and zippy open turns. Rt 530 to “Unpaved Road” (which was paved, and fairly rural) … a turn-off for Gordon St / North St and hey! No more road! Rather than get stuck on a dead-end, we backtracked a bit and navigated to Rt 124.

This was more open sweepers, but it brought us to Hurdville Rd, which will be an AWESOME moto road chock full of twisties — when it gets paved. For now, it’s a striped-section deep-gravel enduro challenge, with 100m of pavement, 200m of gravel, repeat until cranky. Eventually we got onto the old pre-stripped section, and had some fun. Rankin Lake Rd, then Rt 400 for some slab to get to the next section.

We went through the Wahta Mohawk territory (Dr-38), which was pure, clean, twisty asphalt and a ton of fun. Big thumbs up. 169 North after that, through Bala and our Hook & Ladder lunch stop (more poutine, anyone?) … some forgettable stuff for a while (118) … Peninsula Rd wasn’t that bad … 632, 141 … then came the next challenge in our Off Road Spectacular: Turtle Lake Rd / Star Lake Rd. Another recently-stripped gem with a fair bit of gravel, this one will be a road to remember when it gets re-paved. For now, it was a slow trek to the final legs of real twisties.

Rt 518, Stisted, and Ravencliffe Rd brought us back to Huntsville. This was the reason we woke up in the morning (other than the angry swarms of bees that attacked us at a rest stop). We charged up and down hills, through tight sections and great elevation changes … not too challenging but a total hoot. I finally felt like I remembered what good street-riding form could feel like. Jeff figured that either I was angry and was trying to lose him, or I was having a blast — and since my grin was splitting my helmet in half, it was clearly the latter.

We got in at a reasonable hour, and nabbed dinner at Crabby Joe’s. Don’t order the Krabby Patty.

Day 4: Rosseau to Haliburton

I have found the reason we came to Canadia, and it is Southwood Road!

We loved the roads from the end of yesterday’s ride so much, that we put them into today’s route so we could ride them the other way. Ravencliffe, Stisted, Rt 518 … 45 minutes of pure yum. What a great way to start the day. And instead of wrassling with gravel and crap on Star Lake / Turtle Lake, we found a great alternative: Tally Ho / Sword’s Rd, which was twisty and had a nice smooth surface. Excellent stuff.

After the extra 40 miles we had tacked onto the front of the route, we were back on the “fishy” route (it looks like a fish on the map). I won’t go into the gory details, there were some lovely fast roads here — but please allow me to rave about Southwood Rd. We picked it up in Torrance, by Black Lake. This road was the reason we put fresh rubber on the wheels, the reason we filled our tanks with 91, the reason we have a right wrist. 30 miles long, and ruly inspiring with its variety of curves, excellent elevation changes, and wildlife (I almost killed a suicidal chipmunk who ran BETWEEN my wheels, and I saw my first and only deer of the ride). It also provided us with the opportunity to get a little air (!) off a convenient ramp-like outcropping on the edge of some train tracks. I was hooting and hollering in my helmet for miles after that one. But this road, oh, man, you have to get on it if you’re anywhere near Eastern Ontario. It’s that good.

The other “highlight” of the route was Bobcaygeon Rd, off of Rt 118 outside of Haliburton. Oh, it was bendy enough to have fun, but it had 3 different surfaces in its 8-or-so mile length. Crap, crappier, and kidney-busting. Someone had told Jeff it was not to be missed, so he put it in there, but we now think he was being messed with.

In any case, a great end to a great trip. Time to pack up and head back to NYC tomorrow, so I can get ready for my Neuro clerkship. So much to do this weekend.

Oh, and Eck, congrats on the upcoming nuptials! Sorry I won’t be there.

Funeral Blues
W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Goodbye Thursday, hello Friday morning … and hello three more days until medical school starts. And while I typically/flippantly answer one of three ways* when people ask me if I’m nervous, or excited, it is actually something I’ve given some thought to. To which I’ve given some thought, dangling prepositions aside. The Impending Life Change.

I peeked at the class list for the upcoming term, and SUNY Downstate will be keeping us busy. Starting from genes to cells, moving up to organ systems, delving into A&P, the usual suspects. I have a feeling my brain will be a bit sore from the stuffing it’s about to receive, but I am looking forward to it. During my post-bacc at Hunter, I was working full-time for the former employer, taking classes and labs at night, volunteering at PSVAC and taking the occasional EMS shift at Lutheran. These days I’ll be able to focus, erm, 100% on school. And another few percentage points for nights and weekends at Lutheran, but hey, I can study on the bus, right?!?

So scared, no, nervous, no, I’m pretty invincible. It’s nice to be invincible again, beats being invisible. Concerned about taking out the equivalent of my entire mortgage again in loans, and frustrated about hoop-jumping for paperwork related to getting in the doors of Higher Learning, but everything’s manageable. Excited, too, about taking the next big step on my new career/life path. Heck, it’s even got me blogging again. I also find comfort in various furry and unfurred noodles who seem to believe in me and abilities mine.

Expect more updates soon. This coming week is orientation, and on 24 August … the floodgates of knowledge open to me!

* Friends, family, strangers on the bus, when they find out they ask me: “Medical school? Are you scared? Are you excited? Are you ready?” My top three responses, then, are:

• “Eep.”
• “Nah.”
• Actually, it’s only the two. I’ll have to think of a third. I’ve pretty much just been focusing on enjoying my Last Summer of Freedom and Working to Save Money, and haven’t focused too much on teh quipzes.

This is my first blog post from the WordPress iPhone app, so bear with me. First post in way too long, too. Guess I’ve been busy living it up in my last free summer before med school! Case in point:

Saturday evening, Papa Bear showed up at my house, ready to load up for our track day at New Jersey Motorsports Park. His enclosed trailer is awesome, with plenty of room for our motorcycles and all our gear. We enjoyed a traffic-free ride down to the Quality Inn in Millville, NJ – $60 per night! We had plenty of time to catch up; I haven’t seen enough of Dan this year.

Sunday, 6 am came very quickly. We grabbed our free breakfast and drove the few miles to the track, and set up in the paddock at the Thunderbolt course. I failed tech inspection with a leaky fork seal (nothing I could do about that but “promise to watch it”) and a too-loose chain. Easy fix, but adjusting the chain meant I missed the first lap of red group, so I never got to see the race lines. Shame, that, since I’d never been on Thunderbolt before. Ah well.

So I took it easy the first session, for that reason and because I haven’t been on the track since 2007. Eep. Everyone passed me at least once, but it wasn’t crowded out there so there were no problems. Apparently someone crashed during the checkered lap, no injuries but he was out for the day. Someone always tries too hard in the first session …

Dan, like me, took it easy in his first session – though he was in the blue (advanced) group. He may have gotten passed as much as I did. As I geared up for my second session, I was concerned I might get bumped down to the white (beginner) group. Turns out I wouldn’t find out yet, as crash #2 happened right in front of me in lap 2 of red session 2. Right after the 90 degree left halfway through the back of the course. I didn’t see him go down, but I had to pick my way through his yard sale of plastic and metal debris. Sigh, session 2 over for red.

A coach, Chris M, pulled me over on the pit-out lane, asking me if this was my first time on this track. Yes sir, sez me, that’s why I’m going slow, and I never got the lines. He wanted to take me out in white to show me the line and evaluate me, maybe bump me down to the beginners. No problem, I’m not proud, let’s go …

There was some confusion about me needing a white sticker to go out in that group, but it turned out to be bogus. I followed Chris and got the lines, but a lot of the two laps were at parade pace due to the ART basic gang. And then, right after the 90 degree left again, sone idiot tries to pass into the baby duckling line of ART basic riders, on and off the throttle all choppy … he set up a tankslapper, hit an ART student (!) and was pitched off his ride 10′ into the air. He came down hard into a tumble right in front of me; I could hear him cry out in pain as I swerved to avoid him and his bike. I later found out that his buddy did the same thing on lap 2 of session 2 the day before, crashed out secondary to idiocy. You’d think it would have slowed him down … the aftermath was a busted collarbone and femur.

Hard lesson to learn.

So if you’re counting, that’s three crashes before blue even got their second session. And we were fresh out of ambulances, so the track was closed until one came back. At 11:30 we started up again, and when red came up I went back out with Chris M. He led for a few turns then signaled for me to pass him … I went ahead for two laps, and then the rain came. Big time. I pitted in, and went to find the coach.

He said I wad running mid-white pace, but didn’t need to be demoted as long as my lines stayed clean. Whew! =) Which would have been fine, except for the storm …

Turns out Thunderbolt was aptly named. Dan and I hunkered down under the pop-up for what seemed forever, getting to know some of the riders near us in the paddock, eating, watching others pick up and leave, and wondering if we should do the same. I really wanted to wait it out, though, as this may have been my only track day this season! We caught a break in the weather, and then it came again … really heavy. It laid down a lot of standing water on the track, the guys running slicks would be SOL.

Eventually it cleared, and TPM dried off the race line so we could get back out around 3:15pm. They had held a meeting and let us decide if we wanted to wait it out … the 20 of us who’d stayed were all for it. So when the track was safe, they gave us open track tine for the rest of the day!

Now this meant everyone could go out any time they wanted, for as long as they wanted – as long as we played it safe and watched out for the wet spots. There were about 10 places where water was running across the track (there were a lot in the 120 degree left) and there was standing water coming onto and at the end of the front straight. No worries, take it easy they told us, and do all of your braking early on the straight.

So Dan and I joined the free for all, and we had a blast! I could feel the rear sliding around a bit on that left, but it was manageable, and a fine spot to learn traction control. I stayed slow on the straight to let the red & blue riders pass me so I wouldn’t be a rolling road block in the turns.

I got more comfortable as the afternoon went by, the air warmed up, and the track dried off. I dialed in turns 1, 2, and 3, and up to the 90 degree left … figured out how to handle that one as it had some slick patches … but I never got to master the tighter left or the decreasing-radius right on the back side. I needed more time and maybe a coach.

There was one more crash: one of the kids next to us lowsided coming from the front straight into turn 1. He was unhurt, and his Aprillia was mostly unharmed … just muddy as hell from where it went off-roading. Guess he missed the note about the standing water …

In any case, I haf no complaints. The open track time was glorious, I got all I wanted. Dan was feeling good by the end of the day, and we both had big ol’ smiles on our mugs as we loaded up for the ride home. I’m so glad we went!

Just a quick update tonight, I’ve got to head into the city to pick up Michela. Shh. Illicit blogging!

So last week was the Park Slope Volunteer Ambulance Corps’ annual fundraiser dinner … where all the EMTs and officers dressed up and thanked all of the wonderful people who support us, financially and otherwise. Everyone is amazing, we’re very luck to get such great support. Plus, we held our raffle … and a local girl’s father won the 42″ HDTV! I hope he lets her keep it:

She’s very excited. Clickly linky above for picture set.

And yes, of course, I can’t forget last weekend’s überAWESOME NIN/JA tour concert! Michela and I went down to Philly for this, we went with Jeff and Cyn … the show was as good as I’d expected it to be, better even, since I’d never seen Jane’s Addiction live before. Perry, sure, all the time, but not JA. And They did. Not. Disappoint. Pictures? Sure, click here!

Deep fried, of course.

This year’s Hunter College Pre-Health Post-Bacc club End-of-Year party was something else. No bar, no skee-ball, no me cooking everything … our very own Derrick hosted, and he hosted a Fry Party. Basically, we all brought what we wanted to see put into boiling hot oil, and he did the honors.

In no particular order, we had: Jamaican beef patties (yum), pickles, okra (cool), pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, a big cupcake from Crumbs (effing awesome), a breadbowl pasta deal from Domino’s, Twix bars (the tastiest), Reese’s peanut butter cups (not bad) … and more. All deep-fried and served up hot, of course. Michela and I didn’t stay for the whole thing; I’m sure someone put John’s playlist in there before the night was over. =P

Oh yeah. Then there’s the sweatshirt (see left). See, people were hatin’ John’s playlist a bit, and Derrick convinced John that he could remain in charge of the music as long as he wore this big kitteh sweatshirt. Now, I’m not judging, but (a) John looked super-cute in this, and (b) I have to question why Derrick owns this particular article of clothing.

So a super fun night, and as this may have been my last chance to hang with some of these post-bacc kids, some good memories. Have a great summer everyone, and good luck getting in when it’s your turn! All of the pics (including plenty more with the kitteh shirt) are up here.

I’m a big fan of this one:

… and with it, a full recharging of the “all is right with the world” batteries. This was the sixth annual AngelRide CT (and the 4th one I’ve done), in which 250 or so bicyclists rode from Norfolk CT to Mystic CT over two days. As charity rides go, it was pretty easy — just an 80 mile day and a 60 mile day), but there are some nifty hills in there to keep them cyclists honest.

I was on the motorcycle safety crew again, and it was a real pleasure to spend three days on the best bike in the world (the 1998 Honda VFR, of course). And it was great to see some old friends and make some new. We brought in a great handful of new moto recruits, who I’m sure will be back in 2010. They did an awesome job wrangling the wayward bicyclists and keeping them self (though we had one of our motos go down in some gravel — he’s okay though).

This ride raises money for the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a legacy of Paul Newman. The Camp allows kids with cancer and other terminal or just-plain-tough diseases to be regular kids for a week or two, and play like regular kids — without sacrificing medical care. So we all helped some kids be kids, kids who normally had to worry about WBC counts, rad therapy, or being to weak to swim in a lake. It’s a very good cause, and I’m thrilled I got to help out again.

So, as always, pics are up on Flickr, here … enjoy!

On a serious note … on Monday, Michela and I had to say goodbye to Mezzanotte, the sweetest little purry furball that we’ve ever seen. He’d been lethargic for a week, with an obvious temperature, and when she took him to the vet they diagnosed him with Feline Infectious Peritonitis. It’s invariably fatal, and rather than put him through more pain and misery and have him slowly get weaker and die, we made the hard choice. Hard for us, but the right choice for him.

We miss him dearly.

Mezza was bright and sunny (if a little dim, but hey, he was a silly boy kitteh, and spoke in LOLz), supremely affectionate, curious and playful, and very loving towards his family (including his sister, Lani, who remains a comfort to Michela). He would hop into bed and cuddle unabashedly with his people, and poke his face into whatever we were eating at the table, again, without shame.

In short, he was a cat. He was the best of cats. And he was with us far for far too short a time. We gave him lots of love, and we know he had a happy little life, but it still killed us to hold him at the vet as he slipped away. 

Mezza, rest in peace, little buddy. We love you and miss you.

If you’d like to see pics of his happy little self with his kitten pals, check out here and here.

It’s someone’s birthday this weekend … which means it’s time to bake a cake! Sorry, Paulie, it’s not for you, but I’ll do what I can to save you a piece. This is what I plan to make: a sweet German Chocolate Cake. I used to go to FoodNetwork.com all the time for recipes, but I’m liking AllRecipes.com more and more. Especially since they have a nifty iPhone app so I can look up recipes while out in the world (and clearly cannot cook them).

Don’t tell her what I’m making! Let it be a surprise.