Truer Words - A Journal

Drowning My Sorrows?

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:15:00 GMT

Today I was nearly "one of those people" you read about. You know, those crazy people who try to cross raging rivers in their cars because it "didn't look that deep." Those people who end up washed out to sea or found at the bottom of a drainage ditch.

It rained like mad today. Definitely the hardest rain we've had here in years. We got nearly five inches in five to six hours here in Westerly.

Joe Cascio had asked me to meet him in Watch Hill for coffee, at 1:30. By 1:15 the lightning had finally let up, so I left. Didn't get very far, though. Less than a half mile from the house, I tried to cross what looked like a very deep puddle. There was a car in the oncoming lane that was just sitting there... and I found, too late, that behind him the water was both much too deep and moving very fast.

I got stuck, and the rain kept falling. Here's a movie of it:

Happy Birthday, Richie

seth@macrobyte.net — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:07:49 GMT

Richie (Lauren's big brother) turned five yesterday.

We didn't get to see him, but I hope he had a good day. Eric Pride told me that he and Bonny miss him (so do we).

Still coming to grips with all this. In spite of Mike completely flipping out there at the end, I'm missing them all pretty intensely. But especially Lauren. Every time I think of seeing her again (hopefully someday soon), I get a jolt of pain like I've touched a live wire.

They're Gone

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:19:57 GMT

This morning, Mike and Shannon took Richie and Lauren, and left.

I mentioned this on Twitter, but couldn't possibly tell the whole back story there for all the friends who don't know any of it. So here's the back story in the form of a timeline. After the history lesson is a recap of what happened today.

December 12, 2006	Corinne introduces everybody to Mike and Shannon and explains what we're planning to do, and why. Read this one, it's the most important.
January 3, 2007	I write an abbreviated update on the status of our burgeoning family. It describes our first few visits with M&S, and how we felt about them.
January 3, 2007	A parallel update from Corinne about Shannon & Mike.
January 17, 2007	Mike and Shannon come to visit us at home for the first time (in Mystic), and we ask them to move in with us.
February 3, 2007	The four of us are learning to coexist.
February 24, 2007	More learning, and dates are set for Shannon's c-section (Lauren's birth), and their sentencing at court. Just eleven days apart.
March 2, 2007	Shannon goes to the hospital and Lauren is born
March 13, 2007	The sentencing. Mike gets 22 months, Shannon gets 20. We now have legal guardianship of Lauren, and leave the courthouse with her but without her parents.
March 31, 2007	Our first visit with Mike in prison.
April 11, 2007	Our first visit with Shannon in prison. Took a lot longer to see her because they thought she was a suicide risk and had her basically "locked down". We did get to talk to her on the phone a number of times, though.
July 26-27, 2007	A couple updates on Lauren. Some pictures for her fan club and the story of her first visit to the doctor.
August 2, 2007	Shannon calls to let us know that she is now in a halfway house.
August 23, 2007	Shannon, now in a halfway house, gets to keep Lauren for a couple of nights. I drove Lauren down there (2 hours each way) but forgot to leave her suitcase. Oops.
October 26, 2007	Corinne and I drive down to Norwalk to meet with Shannon and her therapist about setting "rules" for her when she comes home.
January 4, 2008	Status update, including a cute picture of Lauren from New Year's Day. We were preparing for Shannon to come home form the halfway house.
January 16, 2008	Shannon gets in trouble again, just days before she was supposed to come home.
January 17, 2008	She gets off with a warning.
January 24, 2008	The same day that I bring Shannon home from the halfway house, we're evicted because the landlords want to sell the house. (Eventually, they agree to give us to the end of the year because of Shannon's and Mike's situations.)
February 11, 2008	In spite of the home inspection officer telling us that Shannon would be "washing his car for a living", she starts working at the Staples in New London, CT.
March 2, 2008	Happy First Birthday, Lauren Deane!
March 19, 2008	Lauren learns to walk. Cool pictures.
May 3, 2008	Important. Shannon starts going to school for massage therapy. This is a big deal, as it means she'll have a trade. It's like a light at the end of the tunnel: we won't have to support them forever. (I don't resent it, but I don't want it to continue indefinitely.) Also, I go to court with her to help her get back custody of her son Richie.
May 4, 2008	Lauren's dancing debut. This is only here for the smiles. Mine.
June 23, 2008	Lauren and I attempt to go camping with the ecclesia. Hah. Better luck next time.
October - December, 2008	A Chronology of Chaos — Richie comes to live with us in October. My parents, who lived with us for a few months, move to Missouri the week before Thanksgiving. Dad comes back a week later to tie up some loose ends and sleeps in my office because their old room is now Richie's. We all move to Westerly, RI, in December, and Dad returns to Missouri.
January 9, 2009	Mike comes home from prison. Shannon and I pick him up. All the moving is done! (I never wrote about this here on [tw], but I don't remember why.) He settles in quickly and we all get along well. He's great around the house and is a fastidious house keeper and yard worker. He's great with both kids.
March 2, 2009	Happy second birthday, Lauren!

Since then things have just kept on keeping on. Except...

Today Things Get Ugly

Shannon got sick a few weeks ago. Stomach cramps, in the area of her appendix, but they said it wasn't appendicitis. She spent a few days in the hospital, but they never figured out what was wrong. She improved, but still walked with a limp. Her Massage Therapy instructor said she felt a torn muscle in her abdomen, and Shannon was pretty sure that was it.

She stopped going to school. The first few days were understandable: she was in the hospital, or could barely walk. But then she'd miss because she felt a little nauseous (oh, forgot to mention they got pregnant again). Corinne and I were concerned she was losing her motivation.

This morning she stayed home again. Corinne found out while I was taking my shower, and asked her about it. Mike told me she was home while I was eating my breakfast. He said the school didn't care if she missed the days, she'd be able to make it up. Shannon came into the room and I asked her about it. She gave me a completely different story from Mike... basically she sounded defeated. Making up all of her "logs" (practice massages) and schoolwork would be too much work. She'd even have to drive to Hartford (90 minutes)!

I told her/them that she can't drop out, passively or otherwise. We can't support their family forever. Her Massage Therapy certificate was the “end game”: it was to be their ticket to self-sufficiency. Mike, getting angry, said she still has her job at Staples, and they'll keep paying us our $60 per week. (Which covered their two cell phones, but not much else.)

“Don't yell at her about this, it's her choice,” he said. Now I was mad. I tried to explain that this “choice” of hers is costing me money. Everything I said resulted in the same response, almost a dozen times, “It's her choice.”

I don't remember, now, exactly how it happened, but Mike said they'd move out by the end of the week. Entirely out of anger, and now to my regret, I told him to be out within the hour. By this time, we were in the basement (their apartment).

We went upstairs, and he held the kitchen door open. I'm not sure why, as (most?) everybody else was outside. I started to go through the open door, but he snarled, “Don't you touch that door.” Well, I wasn't going to, but telling me not to touch my own door... bah. Anger sucks. I touched it. “What, do you want to fight me?” Sure. Let's go outside.

No, I had no intention of fighting him. I just wanted to say goodbye to the little girl.

Somehow, he ended up over by Shannon's car, talking to her, while I was still inside. I don't remember waiting to go out, but I must have. When I came out, I asked what they were still doing there. “We're leaving!” I told him he wasn't leaving, he was standing there talking.

I walked over to the back door, passenger side, to say goodbye to Lauren. Shannon yelled, “Don't touch my kid!” and Mike came flying around the car. I said I was just going to say goodbye to her, and Mike said I wasn't. Yes, though, I was. I opened the door before Mike could block it, and, well...

He punched me in the left ear. Big roundhouse punch. Maybe it's my height, or my size, or maybe he pulled it at the last moment, but it didn't really hurt. Definitely surprised me, though I didn't fall down or anything. Shannon yelled, “Michael!” I looked at him and said, “You're crossing a line you can't ever come back from.” (Ok, so it was a little awkward, but he knew what I meant and so do you.)

Then I walked back to the car, opened the door (again), and calmly told Lauren I loved her very much, to please be a good girl, and that I may not see her ever again. Mike was trying to pull me away, but I just ignored him. She was scared and confused, but Opa was talking to her calmly so maybe it was going to be ok. She gave me a little smile, and said she'd be a good girl.

I went inside and talked to Corinne. I was crying. Two and a half years of our life had been devoted to helping Mike and Shannon straighten themselves out and become (legally) self-supporting... all destroyed by pride. Probably pride on both sides.

Shannon came back about 90 minutes later with a Westerly cop. He was just her escort as she got some of their stuff, because (she said) she didn't feel comfortable going to the house alone.

We haven't seen or heard from them since. They have no diapers, food, or money. A few clothes. They're probably going to live with Mike's grandfather in North Stonington, but we don't know for sure.

We're both really worried about the kids, Richie and Lauren. Mike and Shannon can fend for themselves (mostly). The kids don't deserve this insanity. :-(

Bare Bones Released BBEdit 9.2

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:02:19 GMT

BBEdit 9.2 was released today.

(Sorry about having two BBEdit-related posts in a row like this. I have other things to talk about too, trust me. I'm just warming up again.)

I played a small part, again. Most of my time was spent on the brand-new Lasso module. There are 168 changes in the official change notes. (There were actually a lot more than 168 changes, trust me.) The excerpt listed below includes those I'm particularly happy about or with which I was personally involved.

The blue stuff, below, is what I worked on or was somehow directly involved with.

Additions

✫ BBEdit now has a “Sleep” command. ✫
Lasso is now a fully supported language, with syntax coloring, functions listed in the function popup, and automatically generated fold points.
There’s a new color setting in the Text Colors preference: “Numeric Constants”. This can also be adjusted on a per-language basis in the appropriate language’s settings (in the “Languages” preferences).
Added a feature to the language module interface for giving the module control over resolution of include file references.
The Menus preferences now has a group of commands so that you can assign keyboard equivalents to operations in FTP/SFTP browsers, if desired.
There’s a new setting in the “Editing” tab for language-specific preferences (Preferences -> Languages): “Tab width”. Edit the value here to set a language-specific value for the default tab width. (I — and probably others — requested this.)
✫ BBEdit now implements the necessary hooks so that the following JavaScript functions now work when using “Preview in BBEdit”: window.alert, window.confirm, window.prompt, window.onbeforeunload ✫
Disk browsers can now explore tarballs (.tar, .tar.gz, .tgz files). When an eligible file is in the listing, it will have a disclosure triangle next to it. Twist it open to reveal the files and directories within. As with other items displayed in disk browser listings, you can view files in the editor view, or double-click them to open in a separate window for editing.

Changes

✫ The internal mechanics and UI presentation for recent items have been overhauled. ✫

I love this one, as the redesigned "Open Recent" menu item is much more usable.

Fixes

Fixed a bug in the ActionScript function parser. No longer tripped up by a function return type of * (which is the explicit way of typing something as “untyped”).
Fixed a bug which allowed ActionScript’s get to be recognized as a function-starter in JavaScript files (similar to the function keyword).
Fixed possible cause of a crash related to populating the function popup in JavaScript files.
Fixed missing fold widgets for fold ranges containing a single line break.
Fixed crash when JavaScript functions with assigned names, such as foo.bar[bat] = function() {...}, were not in a recognized/expected form.
Fixed bug in which using “Save As” did not change the document’s language if the default was something other than “(none)”. This change also addresses a bug in which the document’s language wasn’t recalculated if the file’s name changed on disk.
A variety of changes have been made to reduce application startup time.
Fixed a bug in the Ruby module which would cause a multi-line, general delimited input string (%+string+) to fold incorrectly (the closing fold point was one character too soon).
Fixed a bug in the Ruby module where Begin/End blocks could cause fold points to be be placed at seemingly random places in the document.
Fixed a bug in the Ruby module where complete for or while loops, written on a single line and within curly braces, could throw off the folding for the entire document.
Fixed a bug in the TeX module in which a $math$ section within a {required param}, where the $math$ section contained a closing curly brace (e.g. \caption{foo $i_{0}$ foo}), would confuse the parser. This tended to manifest as incorrect autofolds and improper indentation in the function popup.
The Ruby module will no longer detect regular expressions as the first token immediately after a string or another regular expression. This resolves a syntax coloring bug found with the syntax used by the Merb framework (which uses an overloaded ”/” method.)

Now go buy a copy. Or two. Please. More sales at BB means more work for me. (Blah blah blah |BEdit Disclaimer|)

Apple's Changes Can't Rattle These Bones

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 04 May 2009 22:44:16 GMT

Last week I got an email from John Mello, a reporter working for Mac News World. He asked if, as a BBEdit user, I'd be willing to be interviewed for a story he was writing about Bare Bones. I said yes, and later we talked on the phone for about a half hour.

The article is now published, entitled Apple's Changes Can't Rattle These Bones. Kinda clever.

Among BBEdit's merits cited by the code warrior are its support of multiple languages, syntax coloring, code folding and HTML editing and preview, as well as speedy performance and powerful search features. Not only can it perform a search and replace on multiple files, but it will display the results of a search in a separate window for easy review and manipulation.

Hey he called me a code warrior. That's so much nicer than code monkey! (I'm mentioned by name a couple paragraphs earlier.)

The article is, um… a bit fluffy. It never claims to be otherwise! You can't do a one-page "company profile" as hard news.

He never mentioned my rant about email clients, even though we talked about them extensively. (No surprise he didn't mention it, I really do rant.) I was slightly surprised to find that he never mentioned my relationship with the company (which is currently on hold, but hopefully not for long...). Sean was surprised, too.

A significant point I made in our conversation ("interview") that I honestly thought he'd cover: all the editors give you a decent space to type your code. You don't differentiate editors based on which one gives you the best typing experience. Know what I mean? All of the good editors provide a decent space for entering your text. What matters to me is all the other stuff that I expect of my editor: language support, syntax coloring, code folding, performance and — perhaps most important of all — really powerful search and replace.

Anyway, I don't seem to get into the news these days for anything except the PMC, so it was cool for that alone, if nothing else. :-)

MarsEdit 2.3 Is Out

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:57:43 GMT

Red Sweater has released MarsEdit 2.3! (Congratulations, Daniel.)

Obviously I haven't been writing much, lately, but that has to change if I'm going to do the PMC software bundles again this year. Maybe I'll start using MarsEdit and BBEdit together again.

The new MarsEdit's biggest new feature is probably it's support for Tumblr, but that doesn't affect me. What I'm happiest about is the improved Media Browser. It already hooked up to Flickr, but Daniel put some work into optimizing the experience when choosing photos to include in posts. That's handy for me, since I include so many pictures of the kids. :-)

Speaking of the kids, here's a recent favorite picture of Lauren. Just because.

Five Years

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:27:58 GMT

sell me your suffering
dear one
for a nickel
tis all I have
but I'll have it all
 
“take it
away, away with it
(but not too far)
oh how I miss him”
 
the nickel was not enough
burning still, never cooled by tears
the nickel was not enough
but it helped

(Explanation: Shane died 5 years ago today. If you still don't understand the poem, imagine I'm talking, Corinne responding, and then me again. Better?)

Lauren is Two Years Old

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:12:12 GMT

Happy Birthday Lauren Deane!

She's two years old. That's just... ugh. Everything I want to say sounds so trite. All parents and parent-like people go through this. Yet it really is amazing to watch her grow up. She's so aware, so bright, so sweet. She's also turning into something of a... diva? Primadonna? (Yeah. We're working to correct that. The problem is mostly that she really doesn't like being told "no." Apparently most kids LOVE that.)

In other news... nearly everything at the house has improved lately.

It's really great to have Mike back, he's taken 90% of the duties with Lauren and Richie, he's extremely helpful around the house (that's such an understatement!), he's strict but fair with both kids, and respectful and friendly with both Corinne and myself. In fact, Jed might have some competition for "best roommate ever" if he keeps this up.

Richie's troubles have mostly passed. He's still more fearful than we'd like, but it's not as bad as it used to be. He's eating quite well now, and in fact has some very cute, chubby-cheeks! Kid talks like no other child since... um... me at that age, I guess. So I'm told. (It's all lies!) He's even sleeping through the night without any nightmares!

Chaos and Chronology

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:43:10 GMT

It feels like everything has changed in the last month. It's thrown me off balance and I don't expect a return to normalcy until January.

The first big change is that Richie came to live with us much earlier than he was supposed to. Richie is Shannon's son, Lauren's half-brother, and he's 2 1/2 years older than she is. For most of his life he's been living with Shannon's mom, first here in CT, and for the last two years in North Carolina.

He's an extremely bright lad, but he's had very little discipline and, conversely, is afraid of nearly everything. He wakes up every night screaming and crying, and often sleepwalks while crying. An example of the fear: Dad and I took him (and Lauren) sledding on Sunday. Dad sat him in the sled and pulled him up the hill... but he wailed in terror the entire time… going UP the hill. (Going down it was no better, so that was the extent of our sledding.) The lack of discipline manifests itself as him tending to do whatever he wants, even when we're standing right there asking/telling him not to (hit the kitties, throw the ball at the window, jump on the couch, etc., etc., etc.)

We are making progress with him, and I'm very fond of him. His situation is just so different from Lauren's, and we weren't prepared for it. Literally — he wasn't supposed to move in until after we moved to RI. Shannon's grandmother died in November, a couple weeks before Thanksgiving, so Shannon's mom (Brenda) had to come up here anyway... it just made sense for us to take Richie then instead of forcing them to make another trip in late December or early January.

Shortly after Richie came to live here, the week before Thanksgiving, my parents moved out of our house in Connecticut to a house in Missouri. My Dad has a new job out there working for a friend (starting in January), so he's giving up his business here (which had fallen on very hard times anyway). Dad flew back again the following Monday so he can finish up his last few contracts, and will be flying back to Missouri on January 2nd.

Of course, while he was gone we gave my parents' room to Richie so he wouldn't have to sleep on the floor in his Mom's room. So when Dad came back he had to pump up his king sized air mattress… to sleep in my office.

Back in January, while I was driving to Norwalk to pick up Shannon and bring her home, our laandlords told us we have to move. They didn't push it, which is good because the house we're moving into is still occupied by Ellyn and Gary (Ellyn is my Dad's sister), Katie and Tom (two of their three kids) and my grandparents (who officially moved in with them at the end of October). They're all moving to a new house in Bradford just a few miles from where they live now, but it took 6 months longer to finish the new house than was expected. Originally they were going to move in June or July, but I just helped them pack the first moving truck yesterday!

Now that they're moving, so are we. We'll be living in Westerly, RI, this weekend.

Of course I still have lots of work to do in the midst of all this chaos, and my poor, little, pea-sized brain does everything it can to find escape routes from all the chaos.

But wait, there's one more big change coming. A week after my Dad leaves, Mike — Shannon's husband, Lauren's sire — comes home. January 9th.

Please forgive me if you've expected something from me but I'm late with it. Or if I stood you up for coffee, like I did to Joe Cascio *twice* in one week.

Life is total chaos right now, but it should start to settle down in a couple of weeks.

Chaos.

Travelogue: Moving Gramma and Grampa from FL to RI

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:57:29 GMT

Ellyn, Gramma, Grampa and I flew to Florida a few weeks ago to pack up G+G's house and drive all the stuff back to RI. I meant to write the whole story down at the time, but we can put that good intention in the same bucket as all the other writing I was going to do this year.

So, here's a quick recap.

(To get started: Ellyn and I got along great, there wasn't any trouble, but please color everything in the rest of this travelogue with the fact that I was traveling without Corinne and missed her quite badly. That may be the most memorable part of the trip, for me.)

The flight down (via SouthWest) was pretty uneventful, as it should be. We shepherded G+G through TSA without much difficulty. While waiting at the gate, Gramma just sat down and waited for us to tell her it was time to get in line, and Grampa kept getting in line too early. He is too easily bored. ;-)

Brad (my Dad's and Ellyn's brother) picked us up in his old clunker at the Tampa airport, took us to the grocery story and then to the house.

That right there indicates the first problem we had: we didn't rent a car. Their car was in RI already.

Brad picked us up again Thursday morning so we could get the Penske rental truck and have a little tour of his business. The truck wasn't ready yet, though, so he let us borrow his jalopy for a few hours, and we returned it when the rental was ready a few hours later.

Ellyn pointed out that I always manage to forget something. This time, it was my sneakers. Sigh. So, on the was back to swap Brad's vehicle and the Penske, we stopped at the New Balance store and I picked up a pair of size 16 New Balance 622's. I was going to get 609's (which is what I left at home), but the "fit expert" at the store got all snooty and said they only manufacture *those* for department stores and factory outlets. Well excuuuuuuuuse me! ;-)

The Penske was our only means of running errands for the rest of the day, but Thursday night I packed a lot of boxes into the truck so we couldn't drive it at all on Friday (can't move the truck until it's all packed, as things will fall and break).

Friday morning I NEEDED COFFEE so Grampa and I were going to walk to Dunkin Donuts. It was sprinkling when we left, but by the time we got to the Camelot Lakes (the community where they lived) entrance it was pouring and I felt really stupid to have my 81 year old grandfather out in the rain like that (even if it was his idea). We headed back to the house, and about halfway there JAMES Wilkinson (his emphasis) happened by and offered me a ride to Dunkin Donuts, as long as I promised not to call him Jim. Ever. Grampa continued home without me, on foot.

I'm not kidding about calling him JAMES. :-D

I was fed up with not having a ride, and we needed more supplies, so I rented a little car from Enterprise. Why Enterprise? Because "they'll pick you up!" They did. No brown paper wrapped around the car, though, so I was quite disappointed. Driver said it's easier to see without the paper. FALSE ADVERTISING.

Other than taking Grampa to the bank (an experience I'd rather forget) to get money for our homeward-bound travel expenses, the rest of the day was spent packing boxes and the truck. By Friday night almost everything was in the truck that wasn't still needed (or actually staying) in the house.

Friday evening I drove G+G to (Uncle) Brad's house for dinner, and re-met a couple of my cousins. This wasn't really our first meeting, but it's been years and they're still in high school so they didn't really remember me and they've changed a lot since I last saw them.

Dinner was spaghetti, with "home assembled" sauce by Uncle Brad. After dinner he wanted to go for a walk but Grampa wasn't up for it. He suggested some games, but Grampa just wanted to lay down. While he went to snooze in the living room in front of a game, Brad mentioned that my Dad had "schooled him" at Boggle last year when he visited. "I think I'm pretty good, but your father is much better."

Sigh. Yes, we played. I won't be too graphic on the carnage that ensued... in fact I'll just say that I, at least, had fun with that game. ;-)

After driving back to G+G's house, they went to bed and Ellyn and I did a bunch more packing (and went to the pool, and got kicked out for being there too late).

Saturday morning we finished packing the truck, said goodbye to Gramma and Grampa (they would be spending a few days with friends and then flying home on Wednesday), returned the car and hit the road!

Added later:

Oh, one more funny detail. I lost my shades at Enterprise when I returned the car. I looked all through the car and near the rental counter, but couldn't find them. An older lady wanted the car I was returning and was already sitting in it before I had even given the keys to the guy at the counter, but she assured me that she hadn't seen the shades.

I was very frustrated. These Oakley's were a gift and fit me perfectly, but after looking all over the Penske I gave up and decided they were just gone.

About 30 minutes later, I saw their reflection in the windshield. They were on the dashboard, but had fallen down so I couldn't see them. Still, they were right in front of the driver's seat, where I was sitting, so that felt a little silly.

The trip home was mostly uneventful. There was a major traffic jam in the middle of nowhere (GA), bad enough that Ellyn got out and walked far enough to be completely out of sight (trying to find out what had happened). In South Carolina we made a pit stop and I saw this ransom note right at the restaurant:

We stopped at the halfway point in North Carolina and got a two-double-beds room for next to nothing. The walls were cinderblock with wallpaper (Ellyn interjects here that she's sure she saw it on CSI, the site of some grisly murder...). The hotel was called the Red Carpet Inn, but they carpet was dark green. Ellyn was more than uncomfortable, but it was somewhere to sleep.

Sunday was slightly more eventful (but only slightly). Can I just state for the record that I HATE NEW JERSEY!? What's the deal with Route 95, huh? This would be the World's Busiest Highway (if I'm not mistaken), running from northern Maine to southern Florida, right? SO WHY DOES IT END IN NJ? How can they do that?

We'd talked about this ahead of time. We both knew that we needed to get on the NJ Turnpike when it splits off of Route 95. I95 goes to Philadelphia, then swings back into NJ and abruptly ends. The NJTP goes all the way through the state and magically turns back into I95 again in NY.

Talking about it in advance didn't matter. Grampa called just as we approached NJ. Ellyn drove for just 2.5 hours for the entire trip home (she would have driven more if I had asked, don't worry), and just happened to be the one driving when Grampa called. She was just distracted enough to not notice that we were on the wrong side of the split until it was too late. (This wasn't a real big deal, it just added 20 minutes to our trip.)

I picked the George Washington Bridge instead of the Tappan Zee. Why? Because I forgot that the GW is bad on Sunday nights. That's another 90 minutes added to the trip. At some point I also made a wrong turn and we saw a bit more of NJ than we had wanted too (which is not hard to do when you don't want to be there in the first place).

Once past the bridge it was clear sailing all the way to my house (other than yet another stop for the small-bladdered-one). I parked the truck out front and grabbed my stuff, she ran into the house for a minute (ahem!) and then drove it the last 15 miles to her house.

We did it!

But That's NOT All, Folks!

That's just stage one. Next up: my parents are moving to Missouri the week of November 16th (next week). Then Gary, Ellyn, Katie, Tom, Gramma and Grampa are moving from Westerly to the new house in Bradford, at the end of November or very beginning of December (as long as there are no more problems). Finally Corinne, Shannon, Lauren, Richie (?), me, four birds and four cats are all moving to Westerly in early-to-mid December.

Oh, and Mike comes home January 10th.

Florida for a Few Days

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:58:27 GMT

Ellyn (my Dad's sister, but more like my sister) and I, along with Gramma and Grampa (her parents) are flying down to Floriday this afternoon. My grandparents live with Ellyn in RI now, but their stuff is still all down in their house in Sarasota. We're going to spend Thursday and Friday packing a truck (when Ellyn isn't relaxing by the pool... ;-) with their stuff, and then Ellyn and I will drive it back Saturday and Sunday.

Actually, Ellyn's going to do all the driving and I'm just going to sit in the passenger seat whining, "Are we there yet?" Just for old time's sake.

(We're all moving in the next few months, and this is just the first step.)

Gramma and Grampa will fly back next week.

Chirp, Chirp

seth@macrobyte.net — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 12:35:44 GMT

Sorry it's been so quiet around here lately. After the PMC I helped photograph a friend's wedding, spent almost three full weeks processing about 1100 offers for software bundles, and since then I've been trying to catch up on work.

I've been too busy to mention that BBEdit 9 was released, even though that's a big part of what kept me so busy! Too busy to mention the Westerly Fall Fraternal with Bob Lloyd. No mentions of my cycling. Went to the Taste of Mystic festival again this year, but didn't write about it. Shot lots of pictures of Lauren — and managed to post them (eventually) on Flickr — but didn't write about it. We've had a big camper parked in our front yard for almost two months now, but I haven't mentioned that either!

OK, maybe "I'm busy" is a lame excuse. I fell out of the habit of writing. Let's see if I can ease back into it.

Twenty Eight Years

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:09:25 GMT

Shane Michael Ray Kilhefner should have been twenty eight years old today.

One would expect today to be one of the most difficult days of the year for Corinne, but it's actually somewhat cathartic. More difficult are the six weeks leading up to his birthday. I can't say that she thinks about him more during those weeks, it just seems that the anticipation of his birthday is worse than the day itself.

What's hard for me is to hear her reminisce about being pregnant with him. Those last six weeks of pregnancy when she just wanted to meet him and was so excited about it. When she could feel every kick, every turn, every hiccup.

Hearing her talk about it chokes me up. Just thinking about it chokes me up.

Anyway, as I've suggested, Corinne seems to be dealing with it fine today. She's out with Lauren for the day, and will spend some time with Ellyn before bringing Lauren back so they can both have their naps.

PMC Fundraising: Home Run!

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:36:03 GMT

I"ve raised over $10,000 so far this year. That was my goal.

Up until a couple hours ago I was planning to shut the site down tonight. However, I just found out that a friend, Chris Rawson, is having a hard time meeting his fund raising goals this year in the PMC.

So, I'm going to keep it running for a few more days. When I agree to a bundle, I'll just give the buyer the URL for donating through his PMC account instead of mine.

Progress in the PMC Bundle Builder

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 02:04:26 GMT

Since the post went up about building your own software bundle, on Monday, I've had at least 600 offers come in.

Probably more than that. But I've lost count.

I do know that, right now, I have 341 unprocessed offers. Offers I haven't even read yet.

The thought has crossed my mind more than once that I may have made it a little too easy to build a bundle this year. :-) I can't possibly keep up. Eventually everyone will hear back from me. But it'll take awhile. Next year I need to more fully automate the system. (Duh.)

Since we went live I've added at least ten new titles to the list of what's available. Also, I ran out of the most popular apps in the first couple days, but many of them are back in the bundle builder again because the donors stepped up with larger donations! Yay!

I'm two thirds of the way to my $10,000 goal, and all but the first $1,000 of that is from selling these bundles. (That total doesn't include the $700 or so that I got for the two Adobe apps that were auctioned on eBay. Those haven't been credited to my PMC account yet.)

Make Me An Offer!

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:25:12 GMT

For the third year, I'm selling thousands of copies of mac applications, to support my fund raising efforts in the PMC.

I'm running a bit late this year, but I think I've found a great way to present the software that's available, and to make it really easy for the buyer/donor to choose what he/she wants in a bundle.

I have three targets to meet before we're done:

$4400 by the end of September (I'm "legally committed": they'll take any balance from me, personally)
$6700 by the end of October, to meet my "Heavy Hitter" commitment
$10,000 by the end of December, to meet my personal goal for 2008

Please go build a bundle and make me an offer, and tell people about this however you see fit: twitter (where I am sethdill), digg, your own blog, StumbleUpon, smoke signals... whatever.

My Best Friend's Birthday

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:11:45 GMT

Happy Birthday Corinne!

I guess it's a little unfortunate that our anniversary and wedding fall so closely together, and also that the PMC happens in the same month. We spend a lot of money (a lot for us, anyway) every year at the PMC, and then it seems like Corinne gets a little gypped every year because her birthday falls two weeks after those other big events.

It also didn't help that I seemed to be a little grumpy this morning. I didn't know it, and I don't know what would have caused it, but I'm not denying it!

Anyway, we did have some fun. We took Lauren to a local "town farm" in Groton, and she started screaming "buck buck!" at the top of her lungs as soon as she saw the free-range chickens. A few minutes later her screams changed to, "Baaaaa! BAAAAAAAAAAAA!" when she saw the sheep way down at the other end of the fence (and then ran all the way to them).

If you see Corinne around, make sure you wish her a happy birthday (even if it's belated), and give her a vigorous hug. No wimpy hugs, please. ;-)

Rides #78 and 79: Time Trial and Birthday Loop

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:31:43 GMT

Ride #78, A Solo Time Trial

Due mostly to Steve's and Penny's wedding on Saturday, I didn't manage to ride from Friday through Sunday. By Monday afternoon I was so full of energy I couldn't sit still, so I went out for a short one. I had time for a longer ride, but knew I shouldn't burn too much before the Tuesday night Birthday Loop ride.

Well, my enthusiasm got the better of me. Instead of riding long, I rode really hard. Like a time trial.

After exactly 22 miles my average speed was exactly 22 miles per hour! That's fast, at least for me. Unfortunately, I wasn't home yet. I had just crossed back over the Mystic River, ridden through downtown, and was turning onto River Road. I had one Gu with me, but hadn't eaten any and decided to continue home without eating it.

That was a mistake, because my speed sank like a stone over those last four miles. Still my fastest solo ride of the year, but not what I could have done if I had eaten the Gu at the halfway point as I had planned.

Stats: 26.19 miles (42.16 km) in 1h 13' 44" for an average speed of 21.31 mph (34.31 kph).

Ride #79, The Birthday Loop

Tuesday morning I had breakfast at Snoopy's with Rich, then worked from his place for a few hours (and had a small plate of pasta for lunch). On the way home I stopped at Mystic Cycle to pick up some more Gu and Power Gel, and get some chain cleaner: my bike is always a big mess after the PMC, and I wanted to clean it before the evening ride.

Corinne and Mom both sat out on the front steps and chatted with me while I cleaned the bike. Mom thought I was coating my chain with something when I was actually doing the opposite. This was all a little odd, though, as I've been washing my bike like that for years and nobody has ever, not even once, sat out there to watch me work.

Due to the chit-chat, it took me twice as long to wash the bike as it normally would. When Corinne mentioned it was 4:20, I rinsed the bike off and ran in to change my clothes. We had agreed to leave the shop at 5:00 sharp this week, so I had to leave the house by 4:40!

Well, I didn't get out until 4:45, and arrived a few minutes late. Didn't matter, because Rick (one of the partners, and the ride leader) wasn't ready yet. We left at 5:15, still earlier than last week.

We left with five (Rick, Matt, someone from Mystic Velo, the blustery older guy who's ridden with us three or four times but I still don't know his name, and myself), and rode through/around two other pace lines on River Road and Rte. 201 the way to Wintechog. Both times, we picked up a couple extra riders, but they only stayed with us for a few miles.

I was fine on Wintechog. Not fast, but I wasn't worried. Then on Rte. 2, heading to Cossaduck Hill, all the wind went out of my sails. Blustery-man set a devil's pace up the slight incline, and I stayed with them but knew I was working a lot harder than I should have.

On Cossaduck it was obvious that I was having some trouble. I wasn't last up the hill (but only barely), but I was slower than I was the last two weeks. I recovered a little on the rest of 201 (but Matt quit, so there were only four), but then Gilliver put the hurt on me again. We kept the pace down on 49 so I recovered a little again.

Wyassup Road starts with a very small, slight ascent (like 0.5% for 1/8th mile), which turns into a very slight descent and then dives into a fantastic free fall to the base of the first climb. Every week we do the same thing: Rick pulls up the baby climb, then rolls to the back to get on my wheel, even if he has to sneak in front of someone else. I told him I was feeling tired and wasn't sure I could do what he wanted.

Still, I stretched my calves and relaxed my shoulders a bit with a few rolls, to get ready. Just before we hit the dive I accelerated hard and shot past the guys in front of me (who never expect this). I hit the bottom of the hill at 51.5 mph, my fastest ever for this ride.

As I told Steve this year, I work almost as hard going down hills as I do going up. (Unfortunately, there's a limit to how fast I can pedal..) I was almost completely smoked, and it took me forever to get up that next hill. I had one of the guys in sight, still, but he was gone by the time I reached the top of the second hill. (Wyassup starts high, so it's down, up, down up, down.)

They waited for me at the end, before we crossed over Rte. 2 back onto 201. I'd recovered again, somewhat, and stayed with the other three. At the top of 201 I joked that this is the part where Rick loves to "race it," so I caught his wheel as he picked up speed. I yelled, "come on baby, go!" and he did. 30. 31. 32 mph, on relatively flat road. 33, 34. He signaled with his elbow and pulled off, and I kept the same pace... and shelled him!

He was only a hundred feet back when we turned onto Wolf's Neck. I *think* this is where the Mystic Velo rider pulled off, but maybe that wasn't until after Town Farm's steep climb. Can't quite remember.

Once we were back on River Road I told Rick that I was heading home after Oral School. I'd felt the telltale signs of cramping in my abductors, so let them ride ahead. Sure enough, I had to stop on Oral School Road to let the cramps pass: I couldn't even move my left leg for a minute.

So, in the end I left out one of the climbs, but still did over 50 miles and managed this year's best pace ~and~ my fastest descent. No complaints!

Oh, and two other things:

At least half of this ride was on soaking-wet, just-rained-on roads, but we never saw a drop of rain. In fact, most of the time the sky was blue and sunny!
I've cramped up more this year than ever before. I'd love to know what's causing it. Rick suggested I need more salt, but I can't find anybody local that carries salt tablets!

Stats: 54.27 miles (87.37 km) in 2h 45' 2" for an average speed of 19.73 mph (31.76 kph).

Oh, and here are the ride stats for

6/17: 18.46 mph
6/24: 18.59 mph
7/1: 18.48 mph (I forgot to have lunch that day!)
7/8: 18.56 mph
7/15: 18.86 mph
7/22: 18.94 mph
7/29: 19.33 mph
8/5: 18.9 mph (PMC was just before)
8/12: 19.73 mph!

Maybe next week we'll finally finish at 20 mph.

Eleven Years Together

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:50:46 GMT

Happy Anniversary Corinne!

As of yesterday (August 3), Corinne and I have been married for eleven years.

Eleven years of knowing, believing, and being reassured that we chose wisely and correctly. Eleven years of knowing that we're both with the right person. Eleven years of feeling completed and complemented and balanced.

We've seen each other through a lot of big things in those years. Bad things like my bike accident in 1998, real poverty, the near failure of my business, and of course Shane's death. Lots of good things, too, like kittens scampering all over the house, helping Mike and Shannon, experiencing Lauren from day 1, and watching (or even helping) each other grow and "blossom" and change in unexpected and interesting ways.

I can think of nothing in this life which is ever perfectly flawless, but nor can I imagine anyone else with whom I would want to share this imperfect life. Corinne, you are the beating of my heart, I love you.

(Sorry I didn't post this yesterday, folks. Flaky internet connection in the hotel, and I was too tired to write anything coherent.)

PMC Day 1: Sturbridge to Bourne, by the Numbers

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 03:03:02 GMT

Saturday, August 2, 2008

This was my sixth year riding the PMC, and my fourth year to include the Huckleberries ride (which makes it a three-day event). Those previous three years, I was totally exhausted on Saturday morning from the hard ride on Friday.

This year was different...

PMC Day 0: The Huckleberries Ride Again

seth@macrobyte.net — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:50:25 GMT

Friday, August 1, 2008

This ride was epic.

There were fifteen of us, as shown in the picture below:

15 at the Start

From left to right: Scott, Joel, Jon, Tom, Mark, Dave, Tim, Not Sure, Ellen, Me, Steve, Mike, Mark, Not Sure, and Steve.

Could someone fill me in on the "Not Sures" please?

Did I forget to mention that I was riding with Lilliputians? They may be tiny, but they make up for it with numbers!

Click the image for higher resolution. (This is Mark Stockwell's photo, used with permission.)

Not pictured...

PMC 2008: Day -1, "Holy Screwed Up Feet, Batman!"

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:17:27 GMT

Thursday, July 31, 2008

“Day -1” is the travel day from home in Mystic, CT to our hotel on the MA/NY line in West Stockbridge, MA. This day is normally quite uneventful, if slightly stressful. I sleep poorly the night before (mostly due to excitement), work in the morning instead of packing, hear a little (deserved) fussing from Corinne because I haven't yet packed, then finally pack everything into the car and leave.

Things were a little different this year. I slept well, and only worked for less than an hour in the morning, while Corinne was at a doctor's appointment (checkup), and manage to pack most of my clothes before she returned. I checked my Gmail account to see if any new software donations had come in, and found that someone had donated 1,000 licenses of his app!

After Corinne returned and we finished the packing, I started loading up the minivan which we borrowed from my Dad for the trip. My bike was the last item to go in, and I was prepping it in the garage. Dad was holding Lauren, and kept "peeking" her out around the garage door so I could say "boo!" and make her giggle a little. The last time he did it, I jumped at her to get a bigger reaction... and my left foot landed squarely on an old screw on the garage floor... !

Ride #69: Push It!

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:11:32 GMT

My plan was to ask Rick to push me. Hard.

Saturday's century was great. Not super fast, but I felt strong all the way to the end. Sunday I went out again for 40 miles and still felt strong (though I faded a bit in the last few miles).

Monday I rested. Tuesdays are the big hill ride. A group ride with 4400 feet of climbing in about 55 miles, and this would be our sixth time out. We ride hard, but the fastest climbers always wait at the hilltops for everybody else to catch up. Nobody gets left behind. (That's a welcome change from previous years, it makes the ride a lot friendlier.)

So I was feeling strong, and had planned to ask Rick (the ride leader from Mystic Cycle) to push me this time. Make me work. Keep the pace up.

I never asked, because I didn't have to. Two new guys (Alex and ... the other guy, I can't remember his name) showed up who normally do the 5:30 a.m. ride from downtown Mystic. They were both very strong, and brought out Rick's competitive nature.

There were five of us: Rick, Jeff (also from MCC), Alex, what's-his-name, and myself.

At the end of the ride I had my highest avg. speed for this ride so far this year, but that doesn't really tell the whole story. There were lots of places where we noodled around waiting for slower riders to catch up. (Sometimes I was a slower rider, especially on the two biggest hills, but mostly I was near the front.)

(See, the guys who ride faster and then wait for the others to catch up end up with the same average speed.)

My average speeds for the six "birthday loops" (as this ride is called):

6/17: 18.46 mph
6/24: 18.59 mph
7/1: 18.48 mph (I forgot to have lunch that day!)
7/8: 18.56 mph
7/15: 18.86 mph
7/22: 18.94 mph

These rides are good training for the Huckleberries ride, where we have over 6,000 feet of climbing in about 100 miles. That ride is Friday, August 31st, the day before the PMC... so I get just one more of these before the big event.

Stats: 57.96 miles (93.31 km) in 3h 3' 36" for an average speed of 18.94 mph (30.49 kph).

Ride #67: First Century of the Year, with Tom Tinory

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:01:55 GMT

Rawson Hubbell, who joined us for the first time on the Huckleberries Ride last year, wrote to ask me if we were doing it again this year. I knew we were, but there hadn't yet been any communication between the group, so I (eventually) wrote to everyone to talk about starting times. Even tried to fool them (half-heartedly) into thinking we should start at 6, to beat the heat.

We'll be starting at 7:30, at the same spot on the MA/NY border, on Friday, August 1st, the morning before the PMC.

In the burst of email which followed (between the fifteen or so riders on the cc list), one mentioned being in CT for vacation so he wouldn't be available for a proposed hill-ride sometime in the next couple weeks. "In CT?" I thought. So, I asked him if he was in my area, and (if so) if he would like to go for a ride.

Not only was he in my general area, but he's staying at his mother-in-law's house right in the very same town. Another Huckleberry right here in town? There's only one thing to do.

So, at about 5:40 on Saturday morning I set off to meet Tom Tinnory somewhere between...

Er, what's that, you ask? No, it's not a typo. 5:40 a.m., that's right. FIVE FORTY IN THE MORNING. No, really, I'm not kidding. Stop it, I'm serious!

As I was saying, I left the house at 5:40 AM, just a few minutes after sunrise, to meet Tom somewhere between his place and mine. That place happened to be on Route 117.

I mentioned the ride on Twitter, yesterday, and someone asked me for the route. My response managed to compress the whole ride into a twoosh! (A twoosh is a post on twitter that uses exactly the limit of 140 characters.)

@dreimiller 184->201->Cossadduck->49->184->River Rd->1->Watch Hill->Misquamicut->1a->1->215->117->184

That doesn't include the approximately 4 miles from my place to the meeting point on Route 117, but it says, in English: Route 184 to Route 201, to Cossadduck Hill Road, to Route 49 (actually, I forgot to include Route 165, as 201 never intersects 49 as far as I know), to Route 184, to River Road into Mystic and Route 1, to Westerly and the back roads into Watch Hill Road then Misquamicut, to Rotue 1a, back onto Route 1, to Route 215 in Mystic through Noank, back onto Route 117... er, hang on.

In fact, that route was wrong. After Route 215, we turned right on Long Hill Road (still Route 215?), which ends on Route 1 at the top of the hill. Tom turned left to head home, I turned right — away from Route 117 — and took Flanders Road back to 184, then to Haley Road and home. Whatever, it was close enough.

There were two mechanicals on the trip: the first was Tom getting a flat on Route 49 after riding over some glass. We saw quite a bit of glass, in fact, because we haven't had rain in ages so there's been nothing to wash it out of the road. The second mechanical was shortly after his flat: my bike started making this incredibly annoying metallic ringing sound! Turns out it was just a broken bottle cage.

With Cossadduck and Route 49 in the first half of the ride, we were mostly done with the hills before the temperature went too high. Our first water stop was actually my house, where we went for a little side trip after returning from Route 49 (about 45 miles into the ride) because I had left my Gu (energy gel) there. Second water stop was a gas station on Route 1 a couple miles East of Mystic Cycle and just a couple minutes after 9 a.m.

Another bit that my "twoosh" left out: from Route 1 in Stonington we turned right onto Greenhaven, followed that to the Pawcatuck River and swooped left onto River Road. This takes us into Pawcatuck, right on the border with Westerly.

Tom had never seen Watch Hill from the road, only from his boat. Not sure he really saw it this time, either, as he was focused on both not being hit by any tourists in their big cars and not running over any of the many careless pedestrians.

In Misquamicut I did what I always do: pick my way through the stopped cars waiting to enter the beach parking lot, and then crank up my speed to whatever maximum I can manage all the way around the big curve of the parking lot. This time, that speed was 30.1 mph, for about 30 seconds, then about 26 mph for another 45. Slowed down at the far end so Tom could catch me (I didn't warn him), then told him Steve Davis hates it when I do that. It's nice to stretch my legs a little, sometimes.

After the beach area we had rabbits: five cyclists ahead of us, and I wanted to catch them before the end of the road in Weekapaug. It was a struggle, but we did it with just a few dozen yards to spare. Rode with them to our next water stop, the Mobil station Dunn's Corners. Turns out they were all from URI, and were also doing a century.

Tom was a little concerned that we were going to end up with a lot more than 100 miles, but instead of retracing our route we took the most direct route back to Mystic Cycle. It took almost 30 minutes for them to replace the bottle cages on both bikes, because one of my bolts was completely stripped (the inside, where you put the allen wrench). They finally ripped the cage off and then used pliers to grab and turn the round bolt.

After last year's disastrous PMC ride, I was really worried about how I'd handle my first century this year. Would I be ready for three days in a row?

Once this was all done, though, I felt great! Tired, of course, but still far better than I expected. Plus, I got to ride with a friend instead of going out solo. Thanks for a great time, Tom!

Stats: 101.46 miles (163.3 km) in 5h 30' 13" for an average speed of 18.43 mph (29.68 kph).

My weight for this ride was 244 pounds. Last year at the PMC I was 253, and my lowest ever at the PMC was 250. (I've been down to 239 later in the summer, but never this low so early.)

If Only Drivers Shared the Road...?!

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:58:49 GMT

Billy Starr, founder and leader of the PMC, sent out an email today asking — nay, commanding — all of the PMC riders to read an article on the Boston Globe's web site: If only drivers shared the road, cyclists would be safer.

It's very much like similar articles I've seen many times before: it's a little dangerous to be a cyclist on the roads with big cars and angry drivers. I have no argument with the basic premise, and it's certainly true that many drivers wish we weren't out there. Most drivers tolerate us just fine, and a few seem to actually like to see us, but there's a very vocal minority who would rather see us banned. More dangerous, I think, are the careless drivers on cell phones, though. While the angry driver will usually just try to scare you, he hasn't actually lost control of his big, red pickup truck. The careless driver, though... look out.

As I said, I have no argument with the idea behind the article. Some of what it actually says, though, is bordering on asinine.

I just have one question: Why are you so angry? We're out there obeying the rules, getting exercise, and saving gasoline. We've ridden in charity rides that benefit cancer, mental retardation, poor children, multiple sclerosis, and myriad other causes. We stay on the far right side of the lane. We never blow through traffic lights or stop signs. We're cautious because we know that you're out there in mega-ton vehicles, any one of which could flatten us in an instant.

Sure, lots of us ride in charity events, but I honestly don't know many drivers who always obey the rules of the road. In fact, that paragraph is so ludicrous that I have to wonder if it was written just to get a rise out of the motorists who read the story. MOST CYCLISTS COMPLETELY IGNORE THE TRAFFIC LAWS AND ALL COMMON SENSE RULES OF SAFETY.

I'm going on a 60 mile hill ride with a bunch of ultra-experienced cyclists in about an hour. All of us will put in at least 5,000 miles this year, and some of the group were actually professional (that is: paid, Cat-1) racers at one time. Yet, the most experienced of the whole group is almost certainly going to do little more than slow down for stop signs, and will only stop for red lights if the cross-wise traffic is not yet moving.

Now, I know the roads I ride on VERY well. There's a light at the end of River Road, for example, that a cyclist can't 'trip' to turn green, so there's no choice but to go through it (after checking for traffic). There's a four-way stop on Clift Street, half way up a ridiculously steep climb: frankly, if there's no car there (or if there is but they wave me through because they understand) then I'm not stopping for it because then I'd have to walk to the top.

But I don't know anyone who rides the way he describes in that article. Not really. I know plenty of riders who pretend they ride that way, who claim it in conversation, but I don't know any who do it.

In fact, I was thinking the other day that if we're going to claim to have just as much right to the road as cars do, then perhaps we should be licensed to ride on roads the same way cars are. (Admittedly, we don't pose a safety risk to others quite the way a car does, but that's not the only reason drivers are licensed.)

The reader comments after the article are all over the place, but I agree a lot more with the second commenter than I do with the author's "perfect world seen through rosey glasses" imagination. I'll quote in full:

Oh, so many things wrong with this article. First, I have the "pleasure" of driving to work through "cyclist heaven" (Lexington, Belmont, Bedford, etc) and have had on more than one occasion, seen a "law abiding" cyclist do the following: take a right turn around a car from the wrong lane; failing to stop at stop signs/stop lights, not stopping for school buses (yes, there was a near miss). I am all for cyclists getting exercise and using alternative transportation, but YOU as a cyclist should be required to be licensed. If I have to be licensed to drive my car on the streets/roads of MA, you should be too. Just two weeks ago, I thought I had inadvertantly struck a cyclist who cut me off (while he was wearing iPod headphones) on a busy road. An officer cited him for reckless "driving" and ticketed him. one word: karma.

(That reminds me that Steve once told me about a roadie wearing iPod headphones and being completely unaware that Steve was trying to get his attention. Way to die, buddy.)

Safer roads and friendlier drivers would be great, but we bear at least some of the blame for the anger and the danger.