Author: Bob Harrison

I’ve been missing in action for what really amounts to all of 2011 so far. I’m on the committee and webmastering a medium sized convention coming to town in March and it’s been eating up a lot of my time. Still I’ve not been completely divorced from my own life.
Back in January I joined our gym at work, yes we have a one in our building just for us, but hadn’t actually gotten around to using it till this week. It’s not exactly like I’m inactive as I do cycle everywhere accumulating over an hour day on the average but still…
I decided to be easy on myself and rather than jump into serious gym stuff I’m taking it easy with thirty minutes on an elliptical trainer before work: 5:30a-6:30a. Ouch!

Ours are made by Life Fitness and probably offer far more than I’ve been taking advantage of so far.
The good news is that I’ve actually made it in all week and kept going for the full thirty minutes each time. It sure feels good.
Once I build the habit of showing up I’ll vary my routine and add some other sorts of exercises, but for now this is getting me moving in ways I haven’t had to recently. I can feel a bit of soreness from it, but frankly it’s not too bad.
I’m going to spend a bit of time at lunch studying the manual for this thing and see if can make me coffee on the energy I’m expending. 🙂
Aloha

On Monday night I gave my Giant Sedona to friend who has admired it for a long time and who is, or more correctly – was, sans bicycle.
I bought this bike back in June 2008 when I’d decided to get back into biking. Now, less than three years later I own several other bikes and, frankly, prefer them all to the Giant. Don’t get me wrong, it was perfect at the time. I rode it hard, even going camping on it. I learned how to love biking all over again.
But in time I outgrew this bike. I realized a lot of my energy was being wasted by the suspension, front forks and a sprung seatpost. The upright position grew uncomfortable with time as well. True for some time I used a better than stock saddle, but after experiencing my Rivendell I simply could never work up any enthusiasm for my Sedona again.
So off it went this week.
Here’s looking at you kid:

"All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts…"

And then of course there's the Master Thespian.

Sigh.

I've been on stage quite a few times. All of them have been fun, though some only in retrospect. In fact a few days ago I tried to recall all the times since high school that I'd appeared in something….

https://statrix-redux.netlify.app/2010/12/21/my-life-on-stage/

Hi, I’m trying to figure out how to your Thoughts, the.

Hey. I’m trying to figure out which account, this is a lot. Bye bye.

Generally these two topics have little to do with each other unless you ride bicycles a lot AND are a friend of my buddy Aaron Lowe. Then you are in luck.
The HBL JBK 2011 Metric Century Ride is scheduled for April 10, 2011:

I rode this in 2010 and it’s a great ride…a really great ride.
And to make it even better this year, my friend Aaron has agreed to get married the day before in pretty much the same location! Yeah! That means, if everything works out, I can do the wedding on Saturday and ride on Sunday.
Of course, as it happens, I may have to be on Kauai that same weekend which is kind of a bummer. I know being on Kauai doesn’t sound like a bummer but given the wedding and the ride…sigh. We’ll see.
Aloha!

Xmas turned out to be problematic bike-wise. I’d decided to ride out to Hawaii Kai for Xmas dinner instead of busing it or taking my moped. The ride itself was fine as far as it went…that was the problem actually, “as far as it went.”
I stopped at one of the Starbucks in Hawaii Kai because I’d gotten there early and I really hadn’t had my coffee yet though it was after noon. While enjoying my book, Louis L’Amour’s “The Walking Drum.” I like a good historical novel and this one fits the bill. Too bad he never got to write the planned second and third novels of the series.
In any case I looked over at my bike and noticed something amiss on the rear wheel. Sure enough I had a broken spoke. These are hand built wheels and I’d not had any trouble in the thirteen months and thousands of miles they’ve been on my Quickbeam. I’m definitely not complaining about the wheel. It did mean I had to take it easy for the last mile to my aunt’s place though.
When I got there I realized I really couldn’t ride home another fifteen miles. I’d been lucky and no other spokes had broken by the wheel was slightly out of true and I expected it would get far worse had I tried to continue. That meant a ride on TheBus or, as I like to call it, TheSagWag. 🙂
Sunday I dragged my beater bike out, pumped up the tires, and took my wheel in to get a new spoke. I’d forgotten how much I actually like riding the beater (it’s a great bike to ride and looks like hell for the most part so I can park it in places I might not want to leave a Riv for long).
Since it looks like more rain coming in, I expect I’ll keep it out for a few more days before getting back on the Riv. Mind you the Riv is fine in the rain. It’s got full fenders and I’ve ridden rain before, but as long as I’ve got my beater out…well it deserves to be ridden too.
Here’s a screen capture of the impending rain…

Once upon a time I actually appeared in quite a number of theatre performances. I’ve been trying to recall them all and, sadly, I’m afraid I’m a little lost when it comes to certain periods of my life. Still I did a number of things and enjoyed most of them. Here’s the list as far as I know it right now…

Acting Resume

Shorewood High School – Shorewood Wisconsin

• Dracula – Prof. Van Helsing (1975)

The Experience Theatre Company Milwaukee Wisconsin

• Kennedy’s Children – Bartender (1978)
• The Exercise – Actor (1980)
• ???? – Genie (1980)
• Bad Habits – Hiram Spane (Dunelawn)/Mr. Yamadoro (Ravenswood) (1979)

University of Hawaii at Manoa

Lab Theatre

• Waiting for Godot – Pozzo (1988-89)
• Fool for Love – Martin (1989-90)

Main Stage

• The Tempest – Alonzo (1989-90)
• Blood Relations – Mr. Borden (1990-91)
• The Slaying of Gavaka – Gavaka (1991-92)
• West Side Story – Glad Hand (1991-92)

Manoa Valley Theatre

• Twelfth Night – Antonio (1988-89)

Starving Artists Theatre

• Breaking the Code – Sgt. Mick Ross (1989-90)

Hilo Community Players

• The Tradegy of Richard the Second – Richard (1990) (Tiki Award Winner)
• King Henry the Fourth, pt. 1 – Falstaff (1991) (Tiki Award Winner)

Marks Garage (Lizard Loft Productions)

• Lesbian Vampires of Sodom – Oatsie Carew (2003)

The only strange thing I’ve found in researching my list is that a fellow named Terry Gavin claims to have played the same roles I did in Bad Habits in what appears to be the same theatre company. How very odd as I don’t recall him, but I do recall playing “Hiram Spane, of the Newport Spanes.” As Mr. Yamadoro I recall the review saying I displayed “an interesting intensity.” It’s not the same as being intensely interesting, but you take what you can get and mostly ignore it anyway.

I wish I could recall the production I did with The Experience Theatre Company I’ve marked with question marks. I played some sort of genie as I recall, jumping in and out of trunk with a false back. I have no clue though. Sigh.

Aloha!

It’s been raining off and on pretty hard the last few days. We’ve had a bit of flooding and the roads are in terrible condition. I’m not sure how we build ’em here, but it seems that a little rain melts the roads and next all that can be found is black gravel and potholes. Sigh.

Say what you will about smokers. I was one myself for years, quitting several years ago. I don’t regret smoking, I enjoyed it. I’m also glad I quit, but that’s me; your mileage may vary.
Why am I bringing it up? I have a friend who still smokes and doesn’t enjoy going out nearly as much as she did before Hawaii passed laws preventing one from smoking just about everywhere. As I enjoy her company it’s been a bit of trial figuring out where we can go for a bite to eat where she can get out easily to have a puff or two.
The other day I reading an article on virus hunters in the New Yorker (you’ll need a subscription for the full article) and discovered the Ploom. It’s a smoke free delivery system for nicotine which comes from real tobacco. By vaporizing the nicotine (and flavors) out of real tobacco without burning it you are, supposedly, able to avoid all that smoke but still get flavor and your kick.

Hopefully it works and we can once again go out in society. 🙂
Am I buying one for myself? No, I quit smoking a few years ago and have quite enough bad habits as it is. Besides if I get hooked on nicotine again the day will come when I don’t have my Ploom with me and will need a fix. Then I’ll be back to cigarettes and…well I’d just rather not go there.
Aloha!