silly phones

Thanks for all the feedback on phones. After playing around with the store models enough to make the Verizon employees wince every time I walked in, I settled on the LG VX7000. It's a flip-top (which appeals to me for strange and nameless reasons) has a pretty decent camera, and is supposedly supported by BitPim, which should allow me to download pictures and configure the phone with wallpaper and ringtones without paying Veri$on more pointless access fees. I have 15 days to decide whether to return it, so I'm playing the hell out of it for now.

Tim playing around with his new toy at work:

Jeez. I'm getting old.

Pro: it has more address book categories than the old phone, and lets you create new categories.
Con: it only allows you to put 10 people in any single category. What kind of bizarre decision was that?

crazy biking

I biked to work this morning. It didn't get above freezing all day, so I wore long underwear under fleece exercise pants, an insulated biking jersey, and a polypropylene sweatshirt from the Army surplus store. My headgear for the last several weeks has been a fleece headband underneath my helmet, to protect my ears from the cold. As soon as I got on the bike this morning and started pedaling, I could feel the wind chill driving ice spikes into my brain, and I knew that wasn't gonna be enough.

Fortunately for me, I had the foresight to pick up a cheapo balaclava from the Army Barracks on my last trip, so I put that on and strapped the helmet over it. With all my padded black exercise clothes and the face mask, I told Ellen I thought I must have looked like the Michelin Ninja. It did the trick, though: after stowing my eyeglasses (they were fogging up too much) I was able to ride the 14 miles in to work in, believe it or not, reasonable comfort.

When I left work at 6:15 I discovered that it had started snowing. So I got my first taste of biking in the snow, whether I wanted it or not!

Things that I learned:
- It's definitely possible.
- I don't particularly want to do it again.

When there's actually a substantial layer of snow accumulating on the ground, it just feels too precarious, and it definitely slows me down quite a lot. I also suspect that fenders may be more of a hindrance than a benefit in the snow. They're great in the rain and probably even in slush, but they collect so much snow that it actually starts pushing against the wheels and making it harder to pedal. Lose, lose!