That's Vaughn stopped on a ride a couple of years ago, with his Olympus XA camera, the same kind of camera that I took the picture with. I think he'd just loaded it, or something.
Many of you read this already, and if you haven't, it makes sense to read it before reading my comments on it below. Because I have some observations/opinions that I came to after reading it, and it'll be more interesting for you to come to your own without any unintended suggestions from me as to what they should be:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/world/asia/andaman-missionary-john-chau.html
my comments below; I didn't want to make you accidentally see them
It's a sad story in many ways, especially for the family..yes. But there is a romance to it, a fantasy, a something. Maybe he couldn't reconcile his private self with his religion, and his mission on the island was a compensatory act for (what he'd been taught were) his inner demons, he was born a way he grew up believing was a sin and trying to convert the natives was his way of atoning, he was willing to risk suicide by hunter-gatherers, and if it didn't work it might impress the ultimate scorekeeper, at least. Did you get the part where the arrowhead was metal? Did they make the metal from ore...maybe an 88/12 mix of copper and tin, which makes bronze? Or did metal from shipwreck wood chunks float up to the island, and they then--what? Heated that and poured it into arrowhead molds? These are answers we'll never know, but it's a gas to think about them.
Here's the followup, a day later:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/world/asia/north-sentinel-island-missionary-killed.html
my comments below, same story:
I hope nobody gets in trouble. Closure for the family might be an issue, but he DID say if I die here don't come get me. Personally, for me...TO me..I think it'd be cool to be buried in the ground by hunter-gatherers. It is sad that he died, because you get one life and your death affects so many others, too. But GIVEN that he died--once you're passed that--is there a cooler way to have died than by arrow shot by near stone-agers on a virgin island a day or so after the arrow-in-the-bible incident? Imagine the display that arrowed bible would have made. Maybe his boat drivers have it. And his final resting place! What cooler place to be, so much cooler, better in every way, than a solid gold mausoleum.
This kind of post is why "comments" have been disabled. Volatile topics don't generally bring out the best. Somebody will NOT buy a bike here because of this. Sest la vee.
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The Paradise fire is out now, thanks to hard work and rain. I don't understand the thinking behind calling the the Camp Fire. It started near Camp Creek—OK, call it the Camp CREEK fire, or the Creek fire, just just the Paradise fire, because that's the town it burned. Camp fire is too cute and convenient and misleading.
It may have been named by the same person or agency that named the fire about 65 miles north of it 5 months earlier. It was in the town of Redding, but it was called the Carr Fire. Is there a Carr Creek nearby? Not good names, but I get that given all the destruction, it's slightly in bad tasted to squawk about the names. I think the clever/convenient names dismiss some of the disaster-ness. I am terrified of fire, more than many, I bet--so that's where some of this is coming from.
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Last Saturday an old friend came by, a guy I used to ride with in the '70s a lot. We bought Tom Ritchey frames at the same time in 1980-1. He's ridden tons. He outweighs me by about 50lbs and has two years on me, and he just stopped by for a chainring, but I had my HHH (tandem) here and asked if he wanted to ride it with me to the junction on Mt. Diablo--a road ride, a 6.5 mile, 2,000-foot climb--and we did, and I was on the back. He has owned a couple of tandems, and he's one of maybe two riders I'd trust on the front, so I had to take advantage of it. Between us, we had 420lbs and 130 years (420+130= 550), so absent any other contenders, I'll claim that as the weight/age record for riding a tandem to that point from the entry gate on the north side to the junction on Mt. Diablo (to be clear).
The HHH is as good a tandem as I can imagine. It fits, is strong, fits big ol' tires, and if we couldn't detect flex, you won't be able to, either. If we can get 20 people to absolutely commit to one and pay for the frame before we have to pay for them, we'll do another run. I've ridden it with my nephew's wife, who can't even ride a bike, and she loves it. At some point I'll probably ride it with grandchildren as young as eight. It's a good bike to have around, an ideal bike to ride with people who don't ride.
A whole complete one costs about $4,300 or so, depending on details (you could do it for $3,900, but probably won't). It takes up a ton of space and is hard to transport on a car, but over the next 90 years, it will get plenty of use, and every ride will be a joy. We don't have to do them, and we might not. I'm just thinking that there's not another fatty-tire stout-n-perfect tandem out there, and I don't see one happening down the road, either.
I think we have two larges left. If your PBH is 96cm+, you should probably get one. Nobody else will ever make you a tandem that'll fit, and it'll cost more and be worse if they do. Come on. Get it, deal with the built later. Until the end of the month, because we dearly need cash flow, $1,500.
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Ford and now GM are phasing our passenger cars, cutting way back on them, emphasizing trucks and suvs. Is that going to work?
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Waiting to hear from medical schools is no fun, and that's a fact. My youngest is doing that now, and...we all just want this to be over. It's a forbidden topic.
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The seemingly possibly racist or at least Confederate-sympathizer won in ol' Miss. The owner of the S.F. Giants donated to her campaign, and is in full backpedal mode. I'm sure it's controversial that I mention that. It's not what you come here fore, I know, but that's the thing with these free blogs. There are other things to get mad at. I wanted the other guy to win, but he got trounced. Whaddup, MS?
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We're shooting photos for the Gus brochure. Some have to wait until we get the next round of samples, but some are independent of that, and Will was shooting some of those this morning. He'll develop the film tonite, scan the negatives tomorrow, and we'll see what we've got. The Gus Boots-Willsen is our Hillybike. I see it becoming a teensy flash in the pan, ignored unless it's disparaged for all the technology it lacks, but I also think it will be wanted more in 50 years than now. We're not going to order a ton and hope they trickle out. We'll order maybe half again as many as we get firm orders for.
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