Saturday, June 18, 2011

In this one raindrops keep falling on my head

Good evening my adorable Parameciums,

Let me tell you a story about little @damookman. Little @damookman was an avid sprinter and loved to read about physics. He learned at a very young age that when when one travels close to the speed of light, the traveller gets tunnel vision due to the vagaries of physics unicorn blood-magic. He also learned at a young age that running down a hill meant running way faster than his body could ever manage on a flat surface. It was during one such run that he started to experience Tunnel Vision. Instead of stopping like any sane living creature would, little @damookman assumed that he was nearing the speed of light and then wondered why he was lying on grass with red liquid secreting out of new orifices in his body. Needless to say it was confusing. Through careful study of unicorn blood-magic, I chalked it up to the fact that running at the speed of light causes your blood to freak out and it wants to run away from your success at mocking mother nature.


A similar experience presented itself in Lake Placid last weekend. You see after a mammoth 10 hour drive Eric C and I rolled up to the inn where we were staying. Thank you to John and Freda who stayed up to make sure that we got in all right. Thanks guys.

Next morning, armed with my camera I stepped outside. This is what I saw.

That is not what it looked like.

The Adirondacks were beckoning. However, the fluffy grey things that you see above the mountains were also there and said "If you come out and play we are going to get you very wet".

So we strapped into our death machines, also known as bikes and started.  And as promised those grey fluffy things yelled "HOOORAY", and started drenching us. Leading this march of idiots, was the unbelievably strong KT, the pigheaded MT, Eric "True Grit" C, and a lovely, warm, sensual blogger, me.

We were soon confronted by a steep descent....in the rain... with a gorge on one side.... and oncoming traffic on the other side. When I say rain, I do not mean piddly pitter-patter (I totally win at alliteration). I mean rain, that is cascading from the heavens cutting a wide wet swathe and pummelling the ground below in sheer wetliness.

In this rain we plummeted. With speeds hitting in excess of 50 km/h Hojillion kms/h on tires that are 23 mm wide, I started to get tunnel vision again. This totally meant that I was hitting the speed of light. However, let it never be said that I do not learn from the past. I recognized that hitting the speed of light makes your blood leave you in fear, so I bravely braked and slowed my descent to more manageable speeds.

With normality restored I noticed that MT was long gone, and was travelling at relativistic speeds, I bravely pursued KT bravely, passing her for the very first time in my life at the descent. She claims that she slowed down, but that is beside the point. What is important is that I passed her. I somehow managed to get to the bottom upright, on two wheels with all the necessary fluids contained within my body.

Remember Ventoux when a chalet got in the way of my climb. Well this time it was a cafe at the bottom of the valley. With both Eric and I shaking like very, very wet leaves left in the cold, MT drove us back abandoning his parents John and Freda as well as his children at the cafe where they met us. KT, with her balls of steel (metaphorical balls) decided that she was going to do the remainder 50 kms alone. She is something else.

So what were the lessons learned from all of this. Travelling at the speed of light scares the blood of your body and KT is an unstoppable machine who will stop the rapture from happening. Also John and Freda are awesome.

@damookman

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