Passivity

I've heard a lot about the passivity of Seattle residents, both from friends of mine who live here currently, and those who have lived here in the past. One of my friends says that when she's open and direct with people, they assume that she's from New York. Those don't seem to be Seattle qualities, for some reason.

So imagine my surprise tonight when I witnessed a very "in your face" example of non-passivity. I was driving with some friends, heading downtown. We were passing through the Pacific Place area (Pike/Pine), and I was in the rightmost lane on a one-way street. As I approached the next intersection, there were no cars waiting at the light in my lane, and it had just turned green. So when I saw a pedestrian walking across the street, left to right, who had just passed the second lane (of three), placing him squarely in my path on a green light, I honked. It was a quick two-pulse beeping, to alert him to my presence. I'm OK with jaywalkers in general, but I just wanted him to know that he was crossing against the lights. It wasn't a long hold-down-the-horn blast, just a "Hey, be careful, or be roadkill!!" kind of thing. And as I passed by the ped as he cleared the intersection, he slapped my car!

WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? I very nearly stopped on the far side just to get out and scream at him. I spent the next 10 minutes doing breathing exercises trying to stop being angry. I was so livid! But I resolved to just come home and blog about it, and then put it behind me. Passive, my ass.

I Hate Computers

Too many problems of late with harddrives going flaky, power supplies going on brownouts, and now the latest is my network infrastructure (haven't figured out if it's hub, switch or network cabling with the issue). Crabtastic!

Sepang Sunday

In contrast to the whole "light rail + shuttle bus" thingy I had to deal with to get to Sepang on Saturday, Sunday was a delight. The hotel I was staying at offered a shuttle to the track. So I rode in relative comfort (not in standing room only smashed up next to sweaty Finns on the bus) to the track. They even handed me a bottle of water as I stepped out of the van (saved me RM5!--about $1.25).

Sunday's schedule saw no action of the Formula 1 cars until the race at 3pm. I arrived at around 9:45. What to do, what to do? Well, the good news was that there were support events as well. A single-make race (Porsche Carreras) called like Formula Asia (10 laps) or something, and then a demo of some AMG-tuned Benzes (3 laps). The lead Benz actually had a passenger, too; that must have been a fun ride.

Speaking of Mercedes, their tent/display area in the Mall was kind of cool. They had a bunch of different makes of car that you could actually touch, get into, have your picture taken next to, etc. Like stuff I'll never own: SL65 AMG V12. Yes, twelve. But their display was actually two cars short. A serious downpour the prior night, combined with wind, collapsed the tent, and a support beam smashed two of their display cars. I think the quoted damage was about 300,000 Euros.

After the support events were done, there was a lot of waiting to do. So, I fueled myself up and wandered around a bit. Did a bit of souveniring, then headed back to the stands. From where I was seated, I couldn't really get a good look at the grid girls as they started setting up the cars. Bummer. But before long, the national anthem played, and we knew it was getting ready to go.

The cars tear around the track for one lap, driving in fast esses and spinning their tires to heat them up. Then they come back into place at the starting line for the standing start. Such a great noise to hear all 22 cars rush past on that first lap. After that, they start to space out, and you never get that same blast of thunder again.

As I mentioned in the Saturday post, half the population of Finland appeared to be in Malaysia for this. The other popular color in the stands was Ferrari red. As the first lap progressed, and the giant screen showed that Kimi Raikkonnen had spun out and hit the wall on the first lap, a lot of red shirts cheered. I thought that was bad form. Sure, Schumi fans are concerned that Kimi might get in the way of Michael claiming an eighth world championship, but shit, that's not cool.

Anyway, during the time that I had fed myself, some dude had taken up residence in my seat. There were plenty of others, so I wasn't worried about it. But I had to kind of laugh; this guy clearly hadn't planned ahead. When I posted about the Ministry of Sound, and I said "if you're in front of the stacks and plugging your ears, move", it could have applied to this guy. He hadn't brought earplugs. So every lap as cars came around, he plugged his ears. I wonder if his arms got tired.

After the race, I headed back to the hotel. Even though Sunday wasn't nearly as hot as Saturday had been, I was still looking forward to a dip in the pool. Well, that won't be happening, says the sky. Lightning, and a heavy downpour. Ok, so no swimming. So I put on my trunks and sat out on my balcony in the rain anyway. It was a welcome chance to cool off.

So after witnessing my first Formula 1 event live, I have to say it was pretty fun. But I also have to add that it was a pain in the ass to keep track of everything that was going on, since I couldn't see the whole track. I think from now on I'll sit in my climate-controlled house and watch races on the wall of TV.

Sepang Saturday

As a bit of reward for my last-minute trip to Malaysia ("It's 10am, can you leave tomorrow?" Aaah, that "tomorrow" actually means 12:40am.), I stuck around in Putrajaya (about 50km SE of KL) to go catch the Formula 1 race at Sepang.

The local light rail carrier had set up a shuttle to and from the circuit, to cope with the volume of people going to and fro. So I caught a cab from the hotel to the local train station, and went to buy my special race pass. Well, they don't sell that except at the KLIA (airport) terminal, or at KL Sentral Stasen (that's Malay, not a typo). Ok, well gimme a ticket to KLIA then. Boarded the train, rode to the airport terminal, then picked up my shuttle pass. I shared the bus over to the race with half a dozen Finns in SUOMI t-shirts, as well as a few others (who actually looked Asian--perhaps they're just local Kimi fans) wearing or carrying some form of the Finnish flag. The other popular fan base is those people who think that Schumi is better than sliced bread. They all wear the red of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro.

Once I got to the circuit, I made my way through all of the vendor booths (passed up the opportunity to buy more t-shirts, in an effort to avoid declaring allegiance to one particular team) to the gate. Entered into the main "mall" area where my seat was situated.

I happened to arrive during the second practice session, before qualifying. A few of the drivers were out on the track, testing the settings of the car, as well as (re-)familiarizing themselves with the course. A link to the course map is here; the mall entrance is at the wide portion of the main east-west V. So the sounds that greeted me were the quick gear changes of drivers entering the back straight, or down-shifting into turn 1.

This year, new rules dictate that the power plant in the car has to be a V-8. However, one team (Scuderia Toro Rosso) was afforded a break on this rule, as they were newly formed out of the ashes of the Minardi team. They're still running last year's 10-cylinder engine. However, to ensure that the playing field is (mostly) level, the V-10 has been fitted with an air intake restricter (think sprinting while breathing through a straw), as well as an RPM limiter. That RPM limiter is set somewhere around 16,000 RPM. Yes, that's right, restricted to 16k. One of the teams is reportedly running their V-8 as high as 20,000.

Imagine if you will cars whose output is in the 700 horsepower range (you'll never get a straight answer out of a team regarding its BHP numbers), weighing only 1300 lbs (ish). "Speed Racer in the Mach 5" comes to mind. As I mentioned above, I was welcomed to the course by the sounds of the drivers on practice laps. Turn 14 (before the back straight) is listed as a 107km/h curve, suggesting that the drivers would be in 2nd gear. So as they pass through that corner a little over 60mph(!), the drivers are slamming open the throttle to burn down the back straight. They're churning through gears (most cars are six- or seven-speeds) as they get up to speed, shifting through about four of them in the time it took you to read the words in italics. Kick. Ass.

Since not nearly as many people were at the track to watch the support races and qualifying on Saturday, the grandstands were a bit less restrictive on where you could sit. My ticket was for the 'Sapphire' area, but I was free to roam over most of the adjacent 'Emerald' area as well, and nearly to the 'Diamond' seating. It gave me a chance to get photos of most of the teams' pit areas (coming soon), and to see a bit more of the activity there.

I won't bother with posting qualifying results here, that's somebody else's job.

ObRant: It was 38 degrees on Saturday. Even under the grandstand, I was roasting. I've been reminded that I'm not suited for tropical climes--I started to develop heat rash on Saturday. But a quick rinse and then a dip in the pool at the hotel soon fixed that.

Helal Dim Sum

These are words that just don't belong together. Helal describes the set of dietary rules followed by pracitioners of Islam. The laws are similar to kosher in many ways, and likely stemmed from practices to ensure good hygiene in pre-refrigerator days. And, like kosher, helal stipulates no consumption of pork. Dim sum, of course, is that style of Chinese small plate dishes that is so popular for lunches in Hong Kong.

My favorite entries on the dim sum menu involve pork in some way. You can see where I'm going with this. After the big meeting for which I was flown to Malaysia, the members of the presentation team went out for dim sum. But to cater to the Muslim inhabitants of Malaysia, the restaurant is helal. My favorite steamed pork buns? Honey-barbecued chicken. Siu mai? Also chicken. But to be honest, I couldn't tell the difference.

No, this doens't mean I'm going soft on my consumption of pork products (I'll be back home Wednesday, thank you very much), it's just a testament to the culinary skill of the chefs at this establishment. So cunning are they, that they can fool even a pork lover like myself. I got to sample many of my favorites: deep fried taro balls, pan-fried daikon, siu mai, steamed pork buns, sticky rice, even sesame balls with red bean paste! There were only two of my favorites missing: shrimps in glass noodle, and those little trefoil things filled with shrimp, green onion and cilantro. But what I did have was so tasty!

Whipping Boy

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...."

My boss recently announced his resignation from his post, effective Friday; he's going to take another opportunity elsewhere. His first act as my manager approximately two years ago was to ask me to go to Japan, after I had just returned from a vacation to Europe. I was in the country less than 36 hours. His last act as my manager was to send me to Malaysia, to assist in a sales pitch to a large customer there. I found out about this trip Monday afternoon, got the green light at 10am, and my flight leaves at midnight.

Yep, off I go. But damn, this is some tasty lemonade--I'm going to go see the F1 Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang this weekend. It's something I've wanted to do for quite some time, and now I get my chance!

Spinning

Today I went for a long ride. The day dawned (mostly) clear and blue, and I planned to set out early. I had done the work of retaping my bars, re-positioning the (original) saddle, and taking the bike off of the stand last night. I grabbed a quick breakfast, loaded up the jersey pockets and set off.

I had specific goals in mind today. The last time I went for a ride of this distance, I went out way too fast, and by the end of the ride, I was completely flat, and I had a hard time making it up my home hill. So today, I wanted to maintain a regular pace that would be sustainable. The second part of this was to maintain my nutrition levels, again, so the whole thing was sustainable.

My planned route was to head around the BGT, north until I hit 68th Ave NE, turn south into Kirkland, then make my way to I-90, through Myrtle Edwards across the locks and home. I made that route with a little bit of additional distance so I rounded out to a full fifty. The route had a few climbs, so I had to take care on these as well.

Going out for the first few miles, I resisted the temptation to pull harder to catch the folks that kept passing me. And on the first big hill, I had to make sure I didn't climb to aggressively. Also, I had to remember to feed myself before I got hungry.

All in all, I met my goals! But I did so by going against a bit of conventional wisdom. They say that spinning helps you in a few ways, but not the least of which is theoretically reducing your overall energy expenditure. Once you get the cardio base to sustain the spin rate, you'll use less energy to maintain the same speed at a higher RPM.

But I think that everybody's different. Like the way that A needs to eat carbs, while K's body basically demands that she not have them. I don't think I'm built to be a spinner. I feel more comfortable at a slightly lower cadence (say, 70-80 turns or so--my cadence sensor on the bike is broken...), and I feel like I can maintain it for longer. Like on today's ride, I felt strong the whole time. Part of that was paying attention to nutrition, but the other aforementioned ride saw me consciously trying to spin, and it didn't pay off.

So I'm a masher, and I'm proud of it.

Michael Jackson

Because I've been lazy about getting on the bike, and I'm needing to put in some saddle time (and, in part, because my couch has been taken away, awaiting repair), I set up my trainer and bike in the front room. It's handy this way, I can watch TV while riding. Watching an hour-long show, sans commercials, or a half of (proper) football is a good bit of exercise.

Because this setup is stable, it's allowed me to do a couple things. First, I've come to realize that my old Specialized Alias saddle was actually bent from my encounter with the carport. No wonder it was feeling weird. I've also put it together that I really need to replace the Bar Phat I had on my old handlebars. My hands just suffer. And since this setup allows me to enjoy a relatively warmer climate than outdoor Seattle, it allows for some differences in costume. Like bike shorts, instead of tights. Like a regular t-shirt instead of a jersey. Like short-fingered gloves! Er, uh glove, since I can only seem to find one....

On the subject of "warmer climate", today's forecast called for winter mix, followed by thundershowers. Reality? Mid-forties with bright sunny skies, and only a couple puffs of cloud. Rock on, Mr. weather prediction man.

Update: Ok, so it did snow. Just a few hours later than predicted. And this morning was really nice!

Singapore to Seattle

I'm back now after a trip to SE Asia. After training our partners in Kuala Lumpur for a week, I had a couple of days in Singapore to do a bit of sightseeing during the day. I made Little India my first priority. Well, my second, since my first was trying to stay cool in the sunny, humid weather.

Little India is a short trip via the subway from where I was staying. The subway system in Singapore is pretty cool. It's efficient and clean, and the tickets are somewhat unique in my experience. Tokyo has firm cards that can be tied to your credit card (or used as a credit card), or, for single trips, a small paper ticket. Singapore has the firm cards, but even day trip cards are credit-card thick, and stiff; there's nothing to actually insert into a machine (like BART tickets or the one-use ones in Tokyo). You pay a deposit of $1 SG for the card, which can be refunded when you're done with your trip. The only trouble is that if you already have one of these cards, you can't add to it, so a second trip means first getting your deposit back, then buying a new single-use pass. Just causes a bit more queueing at the ticket machines.

Little India itself is replete with shops of all kinds. There are grocery stores, spice and dry goods stores, clothing stores, etc. Rarer here are the electronics shops that are prevalent in other parts of the city. But I wasn't here to shop. No, I was in search of FOOD. And I found it. An amazing Southern restaurant, which even serves some of the menu selections on a banana leaf. You signify that you're done by folding the leaf over. The ginger tea was amazing, and of course the food was astounding, too. And despite the aforementioned diet, I was undaunted here, and I left well-fed.

The second sightseeing day was spent wandering through Chinatown and the historical district. The day was a bit warm, so I didn't wander around as much as I had planned. But I saw the original landing site of Stamford Raffles, and some cool sights in Chinatown.

Wednesday saw me up at 5:15am to make my way airportward. Quiet roads and a nutty cab driver (saying that all people are assholes) made the drive pass quickly. Unfortunately, that was the only part of the trip that did. The flight from Tokyo to Seattle in particular seemed interminable. Couldn't really sleep, and in my window seat, I couldn't keep to my usual practice of wandering around and standing up often. Oh, and another problem: Non-upgradable fare. WTF? They make such a thing? Have to pay attention to that one in the future.

I also have to say here that clearing customs in Seattle sucks. You clear immigration (I got grilled, 'cause the agent noticed "Oh, Singapore are you bringing back any goods with you?"), then wait for your luggage. While waiting, I was grilled again, by a wandering agent. Then you walk through the "nothing to declare" line, and give up your bags. Yes, you've claimed it from the carousel, and you get to do so again, this time back in the terminal. When I finally headed for the parking structure, I was fed up and ready to be home. The good news is that my bed is still as comfortable as ever!