Five Things This Week: 2021, week 19

The Teeny, Tiny Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill
Wired
In the field of epidemiology the line between what constitutes droplets and an aerosol is 5 microns. Larger than 5 microns and it’s a droplet, and droplets don’t travel far. The Corona virus is larger than 5 microns and, therefore, wasn’t originally considered an aerosol, despite growing evidence to the contrary. In order to upend decades of this droplet/aerosol dichotomy — and, more importantly, slow the spread of the disease — scientists first had to figure out where the 5 micron definition came from.

The Case Against the Eagles
The Ringer
This does a nice job of explaining why, despite some objectively great songs, I really can’t stand the Eagles. I’ll admit, I’ve always liked Glen Fry, but I can’t speak to his character. I have, however, followed the, to be kind, irascible Don Henley. He’s an asshole. I’ll just put that out there. Which is sad because his songs are amazing. Aside from the Eagles you’ve got tracks like “End of The Innocence,” “Boys of Summer,” “Heart of the Matter” … But, wow, is he an asshole. Really, if you’re looking for the biggest jerks who make amazing music it’d be a fistfight between Don Henley and Van Morrison. And what’s tough is you see people bagging on nice artists all the time – folks clowning on Billy Joel, or Phil Collins. Sure, they can be fussy, but on most day’s they’re fine people. The Eagles in general and Don Henley in particular? Let’s just say I wouldn’t invite them to my party because they’d probably pee in the punch.

Has an Old Soviet Mystery at Last Been Solved?
The New Yorker
Have you heard of the Dyatlov pass incident? 1959 a group of nine young, experienced outdoors-people set off into the wilds of Siberia only to die mysteriously in the night – skull damage, major chest trauma, missing tongues and eyes, hypothermia. It’s nasty – and kind of spooky – stuff. Many theories have been put forth from the natural (avalanche) to the paranormal (Yeti, or, possibly, UFOs), to the conspiratorial (USSR weapons test gone awry, CIA/KGB meeting gone awry). I read Donnie Eichar’s detailed book Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident which concludes the wind across the mountain blew in a particular way that created infra-sound that terrified the hikers into fleeing. This article dismisses that theory in favor of a sort-of avalanche. It’s a good read and the explanation makes a lot of sense, even if many (most?) people involved still aren’t buying it.

Narcos and necromancy: Turf wars and black magic in Colombia
Telegraph UK
This story is as fascinating as it is disturbing. At this point I’m surprised anything can surprise me with these Narco cartels – from homemade submarines (there’s even a Netflix movie, “Narco Sub”!), to Narco hippos, it’s a macabre kind of crazy ingenuity and excess. But going to witches for an edge? You know, it’s not the strangest thing in the world…

“Electric” 
Katy Perry
That last Thing was pretty dark. Here’s your palette cleanser: this track and video dropped today and, people… people…. It’s Katy Perry. And Pikachu. KATY PERRY AND ARGUABLY THE MVP OF THE POKEMON FRANCHISE. Okay, okay, so does this track belong in the Katy Perry Pantheon of Bangers. No, no it does not. Does it pop? Yes, it still pops. Oh, and it’s got Pikachu in the video. Yes, I’m going to keep repeating Pikachu is in the video until you click on one of these damn links and go watch it on YouTube! Now go! It’s adorable. It’ll make you smile. Go!

Selfie: 2021, Week 19 – The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

With apologies to Robert Pirsig, I don’t know that I ever found anything approaching Zen when performing motorcycle maintenance. I do, however, routinely discover new and creative swear words and create impressive scars.

Or at least I did.

In my Story of Jasmine, my old Honda CB360, I mentioned some egregious wrenching faux pas and that I grew into a decent mechanic. What I didn’t mention – who I didn’t mention – was my friend Kirk. I don’t know this, but I suspect Kirk saw from the beginning that Shawn’s truck never did run quite right. He likely knew Perot (my CB200) was absolutely never going to run again. Because Kirk could fix anything he touched.

I don’t remember who got theirs first, but he also had an ancient CB360 and where I was able to keep Jasmine running reasonably reliably, Kirk kept the same model bike with all its questionable engineering choices running with the efficiency of a Swiss watch. Which was good, because I’ve never seen anyone push an antique right to the edge of its performance envelope. But if something broke – and, despite his meticulous maintenance, it would – there wasn’t a question of whether it would be fixed. The only question was how much better the repair would be than when the bike came out of the factory.

I tried to glean everything I could from Kirk in terms of wrenching, but he had the touch. Maybe for him it was Zen – I’ll have to ask him. I saw skinned knuckles, fascinating conjunctions of four-letter words, and dollar signs. But I did learn…

There’s a gap of about fourteen years between those old riding days of Perot, Jasmine, and, later, Pumba (1985 Honda V-65 Sabre). If you know me, then you already know what brought about that gap – a little argument between Pumba and the hood of a gray Volvo that turned left in front of me. Spoiler: Pumba and I lost. Between not being able to walk on my own for eight months and finances, I wasn’t able to get a bike again.

But, man, did I want one. I still read all the magazines (most of which have gone out of business), then blogs. I could tell you merits of various cylinder configurations, the bells and whistles offered by one manufacturer versus the other. For a while I thought my next bike would be a Honda Valkyrie… and then that went out of production. Maybe one of the shiny Moto Guzzis with their V-twin cylinders peeking out the sides…

In the back of my mind, though, my dream motorcycle never really faltered. Since I first saw one at a show in the 90’s I was deeply in love with BMW’s big opposed twin “boxer” GS bikes. When the stars aligned (or so I thought) and I was able to buy my dream bike – a 2014 BMW R1200GS Adventure (Amelia) – I deliberately bought it new because I knew it had so many electronics and I didn’t have a garage to work on it – not that I’d know how to do anything anyway, right?! I’ll let the warranty (and extended warranty) deal with that!

A few months ago, I was at a Costco gas station at 9 at night when I went to start the bike, I realized my mistake. The starter clicked rapidly, the tell-take sign my battery was dead, and a cold dread washed over me. Sure, I was stuck – I had to do the crabwalk of shame to get the bike out the way of the next car in line. That didn’t bother me – everyone’s had that situation whether on a bike or a car. No, as I was waiting for Akilah to come with a jump starter, the panic I felt was due to the fact that I didn’t know how to get to the battery.

Yeah, I’d managed to ride Amelia – Amey for short – to Death Valley twice, over the highest pass in the Sierras, up to the uppermost islands of Washington state and I didn’t know where the goddamn battery was.

Akilah showed up (of course), and I got Amey home, all the while admonishing myself for having to use YouTube on my phone in a Costco parking lot to figure out how to jump start her. I wondered where that guy was that was able to perform the fairly herculean task of adjusting the valves on that ridiculously awkwardly canted V-4 in Pumba…

Okay, I wasn’t that hard on myself. This is one of the ways in which I’ve grown in the last few years – beating myself up over mistakes (real or imagined) doesn’t get me anywhere. That sounds obvious, and I’m sure some of you are rolling your eyes and audibly saying “duh,” but I cannot express how hard fought that lesson has been for me. I suffer from crippling self-doubt. It’s taken me a long time to push past through that terrifying fear of failure and just try. I fight it every day, every hour, right now – “Does anyone really want to read this…?” (answer: “Who cares? Worst case you’ve got it down, and that’s creating something”).

I went back to YouTube in the light of day. I changed the battery myself. That picture up there? That’s me changing my rear brake pads myself. I’ve got some other things to do in the coming weeks leading up to an exciting trip I’m taking in June (that’s another story), but I’m feeling really confident I can do them. In fact, as I was reading the manual, I said out loud, “Oh, I’ve done that before!” See, despite her German lineage, despite electrically adjustable suspension, Traction control, ABS, despite a goddamn CANBUS… it’s still a motorcycle. I can work on motorcycles (thank you, Kirk).

Maybe I shouldn’t apologize to Mr. Pirsig too much, after all. My high school drama teacher gave me a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance after the first time I rode Jasmine to play practice (yes, I know how cliche that sounds, but it really did happen!). I appreciate the book, and it’s one I like to revisit every once in a while and I still wrestle with the philosophy. In the end, though I think I wanted more motorcycle than existential exercise – more of William Least Heat-Moon’s Blue Highways on two wheels. Or even Kerouac, On the Road… My problem, I know, is I’m too much Pirsig’s romantic and not enough the rationalist.

Can a leopard change its spots? Can a romantic even out his rationalist? Can I push through my staggering fears? I’ll tell you this, it starts with changing my own battery…

Five Things This Week: 2021, Week 18

The Mitchells vs. The MachinesNetflixI don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in a long time. Just a really well-executed movie across the board. Seriously, drop what you’re doing and go watch it. I’ll wait… 
See! I was right!


Into the Mystical and Inexplicable World of Dowsing
Outside Magazine
In high school I worked on a maintenance crew out at Shoreline park in Mountain View. We planted trees, built retaining walls, installed fencing. One cold morning a contractor showed up with auger attached to the back of his Jeep to drill holes for fence posts along one of the overflow lots for Shoreline Amphitheater next door. Our supervisor got told him where we wanted to drill and the man took out two bent welding rods and proceeded to dowse the drilling spot to determine whether he’d hit anything. 17-year-old paranomal-obsessed Jordy was gobsmacked and pumped the guy for details about what dowsing. He said he does it before every dig just to be safe. He pointed out that back in 1985 when he was hired to drill for extra fencing around Stanford stadium in preparation for the Superbowl that year he told the foreman he couldn’t drill at the indicated site because there was an electrical run underground. The foreman insisted, saying the electrical run was safely a few feet away. The guy shrugged and drilled and hit a power line that blacked out the entire block.
This story reminded me of that guy. Science says dowsing isn’t real. I know what I saw – on that hillside he correctly located a gas line safely ten yards away from the proposed fence line. It wasn’t marked on the ground, but our supervisor verified it against a map later. Cool stuff.

How The Pentagon Started Taking UFOs Seriously
The New Yorker
Wow, first dowsing, now UFOs… Didn’t expect this to get all paranormal themed! A really well written article about, well, how the pentagon started taking UFOs seriously. It’s grounded in real people and no one is written off as crazy. UFOs may or may not be from across the galaxy, but it’s worth looking in to at least.

The Bad Batch
Disney+
Okay, I’ll be honest, this was the Star Wars series I didn’t think I needed. I mean, I’ve watched all of Clone Wars – even the continuation that came out last year (where the Bad Batch were introduced). I’ve watched all of Rebels. I even tried to get through Resistance – and maybe that was it. Maybe that was when I felt I’d reached Peak Animated Star Wars. 
Well, I was wrong. Beginning in the Star Wars timeline right about act 3 of Revenge of the Sith, it picks up at a dramatic time that hasn’t been explored too much (at least in film or cartoons). First two episodes have dropped as of this writing and I’m all in!

Sam Pilgrim
YouTube
“Sam Pilgrim (born 4 June 1990) is a professional freeride Mountain biker. Known for his missing tooth and his unique style of tricks, he gained international fame with his YouTube channel exposure under his name Sam Pilgrim in which he makes videos documenting his extreme stunts on various courses around the world. He is an FMB World Tour overall winner in 2013, becoming the first European athlete to win the competition since its establishment in 2010.”
That’s from his Wikipedia page. I went there after I watched too many videos on his YouTube page. 
Look, I know absolutely nothing about freeride mountain biking. But I know his videos are a lot of fun to watch. And he comes across as the nicest guy in the world. Seriously, this ridiculously talented guy has nothing but the kindest things to say about everyone else around him. It doesn’t matter it’s a mediocre trick — “That’s EPIC!” “Whoa, living the dream!” Go to his channel and watch a few of his videos. I think this was the first video I watched. Careful, it’s addictive.