I am a lawyer

Today dawned with three things I really had to get done.

This wasn't one of them but it provided early morning (well 8:30 or so) entertainment.  The city crews arrived to finish the repair of our street sink hole.

It maybe goes without saying that it was a really pretty morning in Roseville today.

Pretty shortly after that I was on to my three tasks.

One is the title of the post.  I decided rather belatedly in the three year term in which I must achieve continuing legal education credits if I want to retain my license that I did in fact really like the feeling of walking around with that plastic license card in my billfold, I like it enough to make me willing to pay some money for having the plastic card.

This morning began with me having 43.25 credits of 45 required during the three year term which ends on, can you guess, June 30?  Not to worry, there was a 2.0 credit webcast from Minnesota CLE beginning at 9am.  Today's subject was the Business Case for Diversity.  There are lots and lots of good business reasons for promoting diversity in one's legal practice.

Mostly I was there, I logged on, I watched or listened to almost the entire broadcast.  I am a lawyer.

At the very end I was listening but also watching and listening to the start of the TV coverage of France v. Nigeria.  I am a futbol nerd.

The second of today's important tasks is bicycle related.  Today is the final day of the month and as happens on the last day of just about every month from March to November I had some totally artificial but significant to me nonetheless mileage goal that I really wanted to reach.

At an exact minimum no matter what I needed six miles.

I watched the futbol while at the same time keeping track of the radar weather on the intertubes.

At the final whistle of the France 2:0 Nigeria I checked both my driveway and the intertubes.  My driveway seemed benign but I wasn't willing to start without radar confirmation.  I am able to get a live radar from a couple of sources.  One of them has google earth maps behind the radar image.  Looking at that one in extreme close up I could see that it was not raining at my house.  It was, however, raining on Prior Avenue which is the opposite side of the field from where I live and the north end of the field was also experiencing precipitation.

I briefly doubted the accuracy of all of that until I went back up to find that it was just then beginning to rain in my driveway.

I almost always surrender in a situation like that but today I really wanted those 6 miles.  I waited it out and by about 2:30 it seemed like if I was lucky I could make a loop and get my 6 miles.  I went for it.

See how pathetic I am?

Eventually I got 18.

At the end I was sprinting for home to try to beat what I felt was the onset of more rain.  I got home, settled down to watch the end of Deutschland v. Algeria (Deutschland uber alles) and outside it turned nice.

Wow.  Really nice evening.

But my third was still to come.

I am a lawyer.  Which means that I am almost automatically really not very handy.  Want to hear the story of unscrewing the faucet handle?  I did nothing beyond that but I immediately had to shut off the house water supply and pay some fellow $700 to fix the plumbing.

I don't do plumbing.

We have an issue with the switch on one of our TWO sump pumps.  I convinced TOPWLH to call our handyman to ask for help with this.  He replied that he is really busy right now and that this is such a simple repair that certainly I could handle it.

Well, I have assembled the parts and tools and I have spent more time than I care to reveal sitting on that mini-step ladder looking at it and . . .

Maybe he is right.

All I have to do now is saw off that black pipe on the right sump pump (at the right level), pull that whole thing out of there, insert the new sump pump (the one with the white pipe), and then cut the black to the correct level so that it will line up with the clamp on the top of the white.

Tinkertoys.  Put A together with B and tighten the clamp and then go on with my life.

I sit on the mini-step ladder and I am traumatized.

I am, after all, a lawyer.

Startling blue sky

As occasionally happens after a stormy day the turbulence of the storm seems to have moved not only the storm away but most of the ambient air pollution that usually hovers over a metropolitan area of this size.  The sky was blue, really, really blue.  Startling even.

I waited until after the first game before heading out.  Foul or no foul?  But no matter which way you decide on that how about those Dutch?

I wanted to ride down to the river to get at least a peak at it while it is still near flood stage.  The wind was pretty punitive so I wavered on my commitment to the river and logged some State Fair miles.  For the first time the pavement leading up to the refurbished arch was available.  Naturally, I rode on it.  I have only seen the arch from the Fair side but today I could get just barely past it to see what was on the other side.  A new paint job at what will officially be the West Gate.

The wind was so strong from the south and west that eventually I headed down the hill towards the campus.  Easy enough into the wind because it was downhill, expecting easy enough on the way back uphill with a strong tail wind.

I rode on the trail over to the pedestrian bridge.  The last time I was there there was construction and loose gravel before you could even get off the bridge approach on the far side of the river.  A lot of that has been cleared up allowing me to explore a bit farther.

This is going to be good.  Just on the other side of the bridge there is a tunnel under 35W leading directly into downtown.

This promises lots of potentially interesting new routes.

I stopped on the bridge on the way back to get the view of the river that originally motivated me to try to ride in that direction.

Particularly for a Sunday it was quite a nice ride.

I think Contador.  I watched the final stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné a couple of weeks ago.  Talansky had escaped and eventually got far enough away from the leaders to allow him to win the overall.  Meanwhile Contador and Froome were in a group together a few minutes behind the Talansky break watching each other.  Eventually Contador decided that he wasn't going to win the race riding with Froomy and he attacked the leader group alone.  And absolutely rode away leaving them all behind.  He had left it too late and never was able, riding solo, to get within reach of Talansky but he absolutely annihilated the Froome group.  Froomy looked very vulnerable, even with teammates to help he had absolutely no answer for Contador.

My take is that Team Sky has had to scale back the "medication" program.  The testers occasionally make inroads into the advantage usually held by the "elite riders".   My belief is that Wiggins "medicated" to win the Tour the year the Olympics were being held in the UK and rode that medication advantage to the Olympic gold medal.  Having won the gold medal the economic incentive for Wiggins to continue to medicate and risk exposure was markedly reduced.  Froome moved to the forefront and won last year's Tour.  But it appears that Team Sky is being a bit more conservative now and Contador's doctors have taken the lead.

Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

It won't be Evans.

Before the boomers

I have heard from TOPWLH that Wireless got in 21 miles this morning.  Myself I waited until the first futbol was over before deciding to give it a try.

About the futbol, are there any other takers for the I am not yet sold on Brasil as a favorite bandwagon?  Blessed with the softest of draws (not their fault but Group A was undeniably soft) the host team has now also benefitted immensely from the results of games in other groups.  They find themselves in the knockout stage in a full quarter of the draw stocked with only other South American sides, none of whom are Argentina and all of whom are likely to be a bit intimidated to be playing the Brasil in Brasil.  Brasil enters the knockout round against Chile who did the hosts the extreme favor of knocking out the defending champions in the group stage.  This game easily could have been Brasil v. Espana.  As it is, Chile takes Brasil all the way to the final kick in the penalty shoot out before bouncing one off the upright to lose the game.  Brasil cannot face a European side until the semi-finals.  When it is likely to be Deutschland.  I am not yet sold on Brasil, I still think Deutschland v. Argentina in the final.

I rode pretty hard.  It was sunny enough when I started or I wouldn't have tried at all.  But every time I turned towards the west I was impressed by the looming black clouds, gradually getting more looming and much blacker.

Still along the way I saw a couple of interesting sights.

When the 35W bridge fell down they rerouted that freeway traffic down this not designed for that level of traffic state highway at the edge of Roseville.  Several changes had to be made to the highway, mostly to limit access from some city streets with the intention of improving traffic flow.  When the new bridge opened it was decided to retain several of the changes that had been made.

Back in the old days there was a street here which permitted direct access onto the highway.  The change involved building that sound wall and tearing out the asphalt, effectively abandoning the street.

The deal was though, they couldn't completely close the gap because there is some sort of infrastructure out there that city crews still needed to access.  A lift station I believe.

Over time I noticed as I occasionally rode past that some scofflaws were still sneaking around the barrier.  There were persistent tire tracks through the grass and out towards the highway.

Well, now gravel has been hauled in and it sure looks like a street to me.  I don't expect those barriers and sand bags to present any serious impediment to those who are likely to decide that the shortest way onto the highway is the best way.

The wind was strongly from the south so I found a place where I could gain some southern distance while in the shelter of a heavily wooded neighborhood (University Grove if you must know).  It was getting pretty dark but I though I could still get a couple more miles by cutting through the Fairgrounds.  This led me past these: 

Did we all know that the cows have a nice Japanese lilac as shade?

I got into the Fairgrounds and discovered much to my chagrin that the whole north end of the grounds was blocked off for some sort of pet fair.

It was getting pretty dark and now I had to exit the front gate of the grounds and cross Snelling before heading back north and then west across Snelling again.  The final turn towards the west after getting across Snelling was extremely dramatic, straight into near night time looking conditions.

But I made it home before the rain and although it wasn't much, it was 12 miles that if I didn't ride today I was never going to get to ride.  It felt like work, which is, of course, good.  And right now we are getting thunder and lightning and plenty of rain.

I forgot to tell this story yesterday but I think it is fun so I am going to include it today.  At the very end of yesterday's ride grandma turned her bicycle onto the same street I was on about a block ahead of me.  Even at my relatively by age reduced pace I quickly overhauled her.  On the occasions when I do pass someone on the path I usually say something.  On the street there is usually enough room that I just ride way out around them, hoping to give them plenty enough room so that they won't be startled.

Grandma though, looked, shall we say, not terribly experienced?  It didn't seem right to do anything that might be unpleasant for her and ruin her ride.  So about three bicycle lengths back from her rear wheel I carefully announced, "Coming by on your left here, please".

Sure enough, she startled somewhat and immediately glanced over her RIGHT shoulder to discover what was behind her.

I mumbled it so mostly to myself but I just couldn't resist, "Your other left."

A day without futbol

I love the World Cup.  But not even this world wide extravaganza is scheduled for every single day.  The first round is complete, on to round 2, the knockout phase, time to take a day off to assess leaving for the first time in seems like forever a day without futbol.

It feels a little weird after the near total futbol immersion to have no futbol today.

There is still that tennis thing going on, of course, and it looks to be getting pretty interesting.  Meanwhile, just exactly when does that Tour de France thing begin?  And in England again?

So just by way of illustration, next Saturday is the Wimbledon women's finals, two of the four World Cup quarterfinal matches (including if they get there Argentina) and Stage 1 of the Tour de France.

An extravagant abundance of riches.

Today featured a 50 percent chance of precipitation.  At shortly after noon I decided that the earlier of the two waves of approaching unpleasantness had probably mostly missed us and that the really heavy stuff of the second wave was at least a couple of hours out.

I love it when my weather prediction is accurate.

But riding in those conditions is NOT conducive to photography.  To be sure, the sun appeared for several nice long periods, but it also kept disappearing into what every time looked like fairly menacing black clouds.  I had to keep riding if I was going to get the desired mileage before the deluge, photography took a back seat.

But I did get one that I think is interesting.

That whole new WestGate project at the Fair means that lots and lots of people will be entering the Fairgrounds at a location quite significantly different than what they are used to.  Planners have taken this into consideration and created a new ramp leading down from the street where WestGate is located into what would last year have been the side of the Midway.

That's new pavement so guess what I did?

I rode on it.

The exercise ALWAYS feel like it was worth it.  And the black clouds to this point have produced only an incident or two of quite light sprinkles, no heavy stuff yet.

Life is good.

1,000 miles this bike, this year

I think I warned you all a week or so ago that another milestone was coming.  Today NewLOOK rolled through 1,000 miles this bicycle, this year.

More on that later.

Wind direction almost always determines my route.  Today I was headed off down Como when I came upon this.

That's bike speak for route alteration.

It was kinda fun in a way because turning around to head back to the alternate route gave me a really strong tail wind.  That's always fun.

It was only about half a mile and it was a long train.  When I came to alternate route it looks to me like it might even be the same set of grain cars.

Changing the route didn't change the desired destination though, I still wanted to get another look at the Happy Warrior Memorial Parking Area on what used to be the State Capitol Mall.

Also of some interest is that the Governor of our state has relocated his office from where he usually sits in the undergoing rehabilitation Capitol building to somewhere in that building down there on the other end of the mall, the Veterans' Service Memorial Building.  I used to work there myself.

I was lining the Happy Warrior photo up when a fairly unkempt fellow about my age rode up on his not a complete POS comfort bike and demanded to know what benefit I was expecting from wearing a helmet.  He was not wearing one.

He was about my age so I was not at all nonplussed.  I have an entire life time worth of experience dealing with all sorts of guys about my age.  I just went ahead and gave him my standard response about how learning the alphabet a second time is supposed to be really hard.  He launched into his 64 days in a coma after being run over by a giant SUV while riding his bicycle through an intersection story.  He said he has already done that whole relearn the alphabet thing and it wasn't that big a deal.

So I told him my knocked off my bike by another bicyclist at the Ironman and sitting with the EMT slowly recognizing that although I seemed OK that my helmet was broken story, with the conclusion being my realization that it could just as well have been my skull that was broken.

Pretty soon we were pals.

Talk went on and on and on if you know what I mean.  I didn't change any of his opinions and he didn't change any of mine.  Eventually I begged off further conversation saying I wanted to get home to watch the end of the futbol.  Even he knew that I meant soccer.

I took a turn through the parking lot and came back out to get the photo of the Capitol I was thinking about when my new friend originally arrived.

Nice parking lot.

Most of the work on this side of the building is apparently over.

I rode on.

Some readers will remember that my last ride of last season resulted in a very round number appearing on my bicycle odometer.  Today's ride added 1,000 miles to that total and moved me to a really, really round number for NewLOOK.

And so I enter the exclusive club of those people who own three different bicycles on which they have ridden at least 10,000 miles.  10,012 on this one by the time I got home.

I am sitting here thinking about it and riding 10,000 miles on even one bicycle is an achievement almost no other bicyclist ever reaches.  I have done it three times.  And I know someone else who has also done it.

Note the reflection on the bicycle computer of my red sleeveless jersey.

This is not what my street looked like when I headed out but by the time I got home official actions have been taken in response to our street sink hole.

TOPWLH correctly identified that that isn't necessarily all totally good.  In the last 0.10 mile of a huge milestone ride I got little tar covered pieces of gravel stuck to my tires.  I got home and after opening the garage door I had to take a minute or two to clean my tires.

It's always something.

Jacket weather

Of all things that could delay a ride in late June, today's ride didn't happen until it got warm enough to ride.  50s overnight, heavy cloud cover today, temperatures were very slow to rise to anything resembling comfortable.  As for myself, my ride began with one turn around the cul de sac and a return to the house for my jacket.  I had a GRider with me today and she resolutely set off in her red sleeveless.  After 0.42 miles we had to turn back.

Hey, she got a lot farther from the house than I did.

But even with the cloud cover there was never a hint of precipitation so we had a pretty nice ride.  She is gradually stretching out and after one or two more she will be ready for the 10 lake tour.

It occurred to me recently that this season's postings have a shortage of corn reports.  The reason for this is that there haven't been any corn reports.  Today even GRider mentioned whilst we were out.  At first I didn't think so.  Did I mention the heavy cloud cover?  But eventually it brightened up and the sun started to find a few holes.  This was enough to make this photo possible.

Even considering late planting on the heels of another horrendous spring I believe the corn looks pretty good. That's way more than knee high with 9 days to go until the 4th of July.

Note that she has zip off sleeves on the jacket she was wearing and during our FIFA mandated rest stop at Lake Emily she zipped them off.

Pour moi, it was full sleeves for the full ride.

As all bicyclists know and as we occasionally remind each other I am not dressing to keep her warm and she is not dressing to keep me warm.

Here's today's flood picture.

You may think it looks dry there and you would be correct.

Here's the deal, the Saint Paul city traffic impound lot is located down on the flats on the West Side.  I read in the newspaper that they were going to have to move it because any sort of significant flood (and this one IS significant, 7th highest crest on record) would inundate the lot and further damage the impounded vehicles.  Geez, just imagine the litigation that that would produce!  Here is where the impound lot is going to be until the Mississippi recedes, one of the completely fenced parking lots at the Fairgrounds.

There were tow trucks coming and going, a police presence, and a trailer set up at the gate where I am sure they would accept cash for reclaiming the piece of junk you left on the street somewhere until the city towed it away.

Boy oh boy, that's going to be expensive.

That same newspaper this morning also reported that the city and state have declared flood emergencies partly so they can initiate accounting procedures to identify costs accrued which are a result of the flood.  Later they will seek federal flood emergency designation which if received will allow city and state to request federal assistance (in this instance, as in many, assistance means "money") for flood related activities.

It was quite a scene, tow trucks of various sizes and shapes including one which had a flat bed carrying a vehicle and a tow bar behind bringing another, a twofer tow truck.

Boy oh boy, that's going to be expensive.

Suarez bites . . . for the third time

This is obviously the big news of the day, probably much more interesting than the details of my bicycle ride.

This is such big news that everyone will hear about it.  I am certain that the sports channel types are postively aflutter with commentary and video.  But this is so big I am willing to state that surely it has been on CNN, I bet even Shep said something about it on Fox.  If not Shep, then Billo will be all over it for sure.  In fact I bet it even made it onto MSNBC.  They have that afternoon panel, or at least they did the last time I watched, where one of the guys fancies himself a futbol expert.

Here's my take.  I am such an unbelievably big futbol geek that this is the second time I have seen it live.  I missed the first one (and the most outrageous) when Suarez was in the Dutch league but I was watching the Barclay's Premier League on what used to be called the Fox Soccer Channel when bite number two occurred.  It was Liverpool v. Chelsea, a big game.  I was watching.  And I was watching today.  Two out of three.

Too bad in a way because this is sure to overwhelm coverage of the other big story of the day.  Ivory Coast, with advancement to the knockout phase in hand based on having tied the game against Greece, instead, and in stoppage time, commits a clear foul in the penalty area.  Greece converts the penalty kick and instead it is Greece.  Greece advances to the knockout for the first time in Greek history.  Which everyone knows is a long time.

I managed to fit a ride in by leaving immediately after the early games (no doubt missing out on some hysterical reactions from the futbol media types about Suarez) and missing the first half of the second games.  The wind was mostly west but had shifted around to WNW instead of the quite persistent over the past several days WSW.  I wanted to ride north and check out the swamps out there to see how the recent record rainfall has affected those areas.

I rode through Grass Lake expecting to find that at the far end there was water in the tunnel which would be access interdite for travel to the further along Snail Lake Wetlands.  The water was even higher than I expected.

Back there you can see the utility lines along the street.  The underpass is slightly left of frame center near where a traffic sign is visible.  This view isn't much downhill at all so the water level that you see can be fairly accurately projected over to the road.  The water is nearly up to the level of the road.

For example, that water body to the right is usually a smallish pond deep down in a depression.  I estimate that the water is at least eight feet above normal out there.  Which means that the path is blocked and that most likely there is no visual evidence of the underpass.  I suspect the whole deal is under water.

That's a lot of water.

It was at about this point that I suddenly realized that I was too far from home on the wrong side of the precipitation probability.  I started towards home and immediately felt a few drops.

I ordinarily prefer to keep a pretty close watch on the pavement ahead but as I rode back through Grass Lake on this occasion I was mostly looking at the sky.  I knew I was in trouble.  There was one large black blob in the middle of the sky that was definitely rain.  And it was definitely between me and home.  And it was definitely starting to move over my exact location.

But as I looked at it I thought that if I could just quickly get a few miles south (quickly? me? on a bicycle?) that maybe, just maybe I could ride out from under the rain.  Fortuitously I was north of home meaning that south was the direction I intended to ride anyway.

I kept feeling drops as I rode along but never enough to consider it rain.  I was just riding on the edges.  I got a couple of miles and thinking to myself decided that maybe I could make it to the bike shop where I knew they would let me take cover until the rain let up.  That would leave me 5 miles from home and require riding home on wet streets but it would be better than riding those 5 miles in a downpour.  Which downpour continued to seem to be imminent.

I was riding up the hill to the bike shop when what to my wondering eyes appeared but sunshine clearly evident in the intersection ahead.  I had done it, I rode far enough south in a short enough period of time to get out from under the cloud.  Instead of ducking into the shop I rode on.

And quickly discovered how close I had come.  After passing through the intersection at the bike shop I rode half a mile of pavement that while clearly NOT wet was also clearly NOT dry.  Just a small amount of light rain at that location, but I was now riding where the rain had been earlier when I was looking at that one black blob of a cloud in the sky.

I got lucky.

Before I did much riding today I took a good look at the neighbor's tree which I know to be a Japanese lilac and determined that yesterday's tree is definitely not one of those.  Having been saved from the rain I was able to ride past yesterday's tree and get a close up view of the flowers and leaves.

After arriving home I visited Monsieur Google.  It's amazing the stuff you can learn on the intertubes if you type in "tree with white flowers and plain leaves".

Catalpa.

Arriving home I discovered that our neighborhood sinkhole seems to have attracted official notice.

I parked the bicycle and went out to the box to haul in the mail.  I discovered that the Father's Day card that my sweet dafter had promised she had sent me from Quebec (which was where she was on that actual day) had arrived.

Pesky girl.  The dang thing is in French.

As we all know, my French is weak.  But on the other hand it IS a greeting card and greeting card prose is usually fairly basic stuff.

Here's what it said on the outside:

joyeuse fête des pères

OK, I can get that part.

Flip it open and I am confronted with this:

Tout ce qui peut t'apporter le sourire le plus radieux, voilà ce que mérite un père aussi extraordinare que toi.

Un très beau dimanche.

OK, a lot of those are pretty common words.  The last part, for example, is clearly "a very nice Sunday".

I had to puzzle some of the rest though.  "Sourire" I do not know.  I think I recognize which is the verb though (peut apporter), and the rest is more or less about what is merited for a father as extraordinary as moi.

Monsieur Google has identified sourire for me as "smile".

Anything that makes me smile radiantly is what I deserve?

Merci, sweet girl.  You are the greatest.  You have just made me sourire le plus radieux.

Body shop saga

There wasn't any riding yesterday.  It rained during the morning and remained icky (technical term) throughout the afternoon.  The rain didn't really reoccur and actually the streets had dried with plenty of daylight left.

Alas, I am not as hard core as I used to be.  I let another day go.  Even worse with the ambiguity about riding conditions I never committed to tire replacement.

So I still have THAT on my agenda.

My most significant activity for the day today was getting my car out of jail (aka the body shop).  Full report to follow.

Today was mostly cloudy, sometimes feeling a bit like rain but mostly not, mostly feeling like a continuation of the part of yesterday that was icky but without actual precipitation.  Eventually I was done with my other tasks so I buckled down, skipped a fair amount of futbol and went ahead and rode my bicycle.

There are a lot of these trees around, most not as big as this one, but everyone single one of them is putting on a nice display right now.

I rode past lots of them without taking a photo as, is probably apparent even from this one, it was mostly overcast and not at all good lighting for photography, even photography with an inexpensive camera suitable for the pocket of a bicycle jersey.

A couple of months ago I got backed into by a moron in the post office parking lot.  It took too long and an unseemly amount of haggling with the moron's insurance company before the moron's insurer agreed to pay 75 percent.  I backed up, I was at a dead stop honking my horn when the moron backed into me.  I believe that my only fault that day was going out in public.  But I finally said the hell with it as no one ever really gets out of these things unscathed and 25 percent was going to be in the ball park of what my deductible would be if I turned it in to my own company anyway.  Here's what it looked like before.

Then  I got a break, the estimator at the body shop decided that the slightly sprung trunk hinge and the damaged fuel door were part of the collision damage.

So they fixed the trunk hinge and I got a new fuel door.  Here's after.

Moron's insurer paid for 75 percent of those two jobs too.

As the body shop people cleaned up the car after the body work was finished (note that they put shiny stuff on the tires, they also cleaned the floor mats), the body shop people discovered a screw in one of the tires.  They fixed that, promising that it would only be $20, but lo and behold when I went to pay my 25 percent of the bill the tire repair was NOT on the bill.

I think I got a pretty good deal at the body shop.

So, it's still a pretty old car but it is again at least presentable.

Also worth mentioning is that for the before picture I was wearing an orange hat, for the after I had on an orange tee shirt.  Look closely, it's all there in the images.

At long last I got somewhere

I am feeling a tad under the weather and thought I would not ride today.  But, it was such a nice day.  And all weather reports indicate tomorrow isn't likely to be as nice.  Eventually I decided that a little spin really wasn't very likely to make me feel worse and I didn't feel THAT unwell.

I didn't really get anywhere at all today but I can report that when I got my bicycle back into my garage that I have 1,016 miles for the year.  That at least feels like somewhere.

Considering that the season is at least one-third over this isn't a huge number.  But for comparison I offer that I am 8 days ahead of the date last year when I reached 1,000.

I was mostly just riding around not wanting to get TOO far from home.  Did I mention I am . . . oh, yeah, I did.  JRA was actually a good plan because those old cars are in town and traffic patterns EVERYWHERE are pretty weird.  For example I was riding through Como Park near the new swimming pool and because of what was happening with the cars I, for safety reasons, had to move out into the center of the lane (AKA taking the lane) because I was traveling faster than the motorized traffic.  Maintaining speed and cutting between the slow moving cars and parked vehicles would have been a moronic thing to do.  Passing on the left would have equally as foolish.  So I took the lane as a vehicle and rode along at about 4mph until finally I arrived (first in line) at the traffic light just as it went red.  I took the center lane to allow all of those folks turning right to do so without killing me.  Very weird traffic pattern.

This is my favorite view of Lake Como, from up on the hill down at the southeastern most extension of the lake.

I didn't get very many miles on my spring bicycle this year so another mileage milestone is coming pretty soon for NewLOOK.  In checking over the log to verify for myself that all of this mileage stuff is true I notice that I am getting too close for comfort to most miles ever ridden on a recycled set of tires.  If it rains tomorrow the bicycle content here is likely to be new tires.

Just a warning.

Riding helped, it didn't make me feel any worse and that means it made me feel better because regular exercise like riding a bicycle is really, really good for me.  And for everyone else too.

Yet another storm of the century

Last year the storm of the century came on June 22.  This year it was early, arriving mostly overnight and then for most of the day yesterday.

Lots and lots of rain, the most ever blah, blah, blah . . .

It's always something.

We survived with only inconvenience instead of actual damage like last year and by the time futbol started today we were pretty much returned to normal.  TOPWLH departed on important errands for her parents, I settled down to watch Italy clinch their place in the knockout round.

Oops.  I have previously described the Italy, England, Uruguay group as the real group of death at this year's tournament.  All of that assumed that the fourth team, Costa Rica, was a minnow swimming with sharks.  After two rounds of games it turns out that this really IS a GOD except that TWO really good and top ranked teams are going home.  Costa Rica refused again to submit and Italy joins Uruguay as a team with a loss to this upstart.  As a further result England is eliminated.

The next game was France v. Suisse for leadership of the France group so I threw on my FC Nantes jersey and postponed my bicycle ride.  3-0 France at the half convinced me that it was safe to ride.  5-2 was the final.

We had that record rain so I went over to a place that I was pretty sure would provide interesting visuals of what happens after record rain.

This is a look upstream from the Falls towards the Hiawatha bridge.  None of us have ever seen water pouring through that opening in that volume.

I also doubt that any of us have seen the creek with water's edge marked off by police tape as a spot where we are not allowed to tread.

There is a water flow sensor over there in the Hiawatha gap.  I am not sure how long it has been in place but the morning newspaper reported that the flow yesterday was THREE times as high as had been recorded anytime in the last eight years.

So that's a lot of water.

Here's a look at the the young lovers immortalized in the poem.  They are out on a small island just above the falls but again, I believe this may be the only time they have been separated from their many admirers by a police line.

Just a FYI, Friday afternoon is not a very good choice of times to be at the Falls and Friday afternoon when the rate of flowage is historically high is really, really not a very good choice of times.

But I found a gap at the rock wall and got a video.

So that's a lot of water.

Today for fun I figured out how to edit the HTML to center the video and to make it larger.  It's not very hard.

Learning new things is good for your brain.

Shifts

This World Cup thing is really throwing my routine off.  I knew I wanted to watch the Dutch in the first game today but I thought (and hoped) that they might settle things early allowing me to take off and get in a ride before the start of the second game, an absolute must see featuring world number 1 Spain.

What actually happened is that the designated opponents of the Dutch, the Australians, the lowest ranked team coming into the tournament, refused to go quietly, instead producing off the charts entertainment.  Cahill's goal for Australia to tie immediately after Holland took the lead is one of the highlights of the tournament to this point.

And then, by golly, those plucky lads took the lead.

Amazing.

So I had to stay until the very end of the game.  That meant there really wasn't enough time for a full ride before Chile v. Spain got under way.  I decided to ride in shifts, a shortish ride for now to get back in time to watch most of the expected thrashing of Chile by the world number 1 and then another ride after that game was settled.

Well, tickle my ass with a feather*.  Particularly nasty weather.

*there is a whole joke that goes with that which I promise to recite to anyone who wants to hear it but not on the internet.

The first part of my plan worked, I took a shortish ride and ended up getting in my full ride only by riding in shifts.

There is definitely something big being planned at the Grounds this weekend.  As proof I offer the big three of modern festivals:  trash barrel, recycling container and ATM.

Those are placed in front of the Salem Lutheran Church dining hall, one of the I believe now down to two surviving church dining halls on the Grounds.  You can sorta see the sign over there on top of the building but here is a better look.

Yes, indeed, serving great food since 1949.  Which is a while.

And I now totally know if I ever want to get a coffee at the Fair where I am going to go to get it.

Swedish Egg Coffee.

Take that S***bucks.

The old cars are starting to arrive.  Here's a 57 Chevy 2-door station wagon, a pretty rare bird when it was new, an extremely rare bird 57 years later.

I am fairly confident that this is a 55 Ford although I concede without a better look at the tail lights I am a little insecure in that identification as it could just possibly be a 56.  I think 55.

Lots of things about that car are probably stock but one thing I am sure is not stock is the color.  There were no factory painted orange cars in the 50s.

I distinctly remember the very first orange car I ever saw in the USA.  Horse had been to Europe for some student program in the summer of '68.  When he came home I and several of his friends helped him paint, with paint brushes and a can of paint purchased at the hardware store, his previously grey Volkswagen beetle in bright orange in homage to the orange beetles he had seen in Europa.  It was absolutely the very first orange car I ever saw.

Within a year or so factory painted orange VW's began to appear on the streets.

Copa:

The second game, what an amazing game.  Upstart Chile absolutely dismisses the erstwhile world number 1.  Winners of the last three major international tournaments and defending World Cup Champion Spain is the first team eliminated from this year's event.

Stunning.

And perhaps most stunning, it was no upset.  Chile didn't hang on to win some sort of major upset or anything like that.  Chile DISMISSED the reigning world champions as the pretenders they clearly were at this year's Copa.

Going forward?  Huge game next Monday, Holland v. Chile for first place in that group.  Second place team plays winner of Group A in first round of the knockout phase.  Brazil has only a game against also already eliminated Cameroon to secure that first place in Group A.  That game looks a lot different now that it will NOT be Spain.  Brazil v. Holland and Brazil v. Chile (in South America) both shape up as wonderfully entertaining possibilities.

I love the World Cup.

Call ahead

I rode past that shoe that I photoed yesterday.  Today it had moved out into the bike lane (aka the street) and seemed less charming than yesterday.  Out in the street it looked pretty much like what it actually is: a lost shoe, a piece of urban trash.  I didn't update the photo.

I was trying to go north as I haven't been lately.  Fairly quickly I stumbled onto extremely bad news.  That's Garden Avenue leading away to the east from Hamline Avenue.

I use Garden to cross Snelling and to cross Hamline.  It is still a safe spot for crossing Snelling but with that huge application of oil and loose gravel I won't be using Garden east of Hamline.  The not completely visible in this photograph extended disaster is the local municipal government's plan when oiling and gravelling the street.

They don't just treat the street.

In this instance they have extended the oil and gravel all the way out into the traffic lane on Hamline.  This means they have completely covered the shoulder.  You know, the shoulder, the place where bicyclists ride.

I tried to veer off and get away without riding in the oil but quite quickly discovered what did not come as a surprise.  They are doing lots of streets over there, including Roselawn.

My option at every one of those streets is to take the lane, riding completely out into the middle of the area that cars pretty much consider, perhaps not unreasonably, as their territory.  Not a good plan.

This is trouble, I count on Hamline to get to every place I ride to the north.

So I rode out to the north a ways anyway, eventually confirming a couple of really ugly repeats of the oil and gravel treatment along the way.  Traffic was relatively light so I was able to take the lane when I needed to thinking I might be keeping oil covered little bits of gravel off my tires.  *sigh*  Eventually I had to find a shady spot to stop to clean the junk off my tires.

I HATE that.

So I headed the other direction.  I stopped to get a picture of the rain garden I often picture later in the year.  This is the one where I get photos of those red flowers.

The recent abundance of moisture has created quite good conditions for these plants which probably fairly obviously have been selected for a rain garden due to their ability to thrive in pretty damp conditions.

It already is looking pretty attractive and ends up by the end of the growing season being pretty spectacular.  I wonder if we can get one of those planted in the storm runoff capture dead hole the city created next to our house.

The big old car show comes to the Fairgrounds this weekend.  I was riding through.  By the way if you think I ride there a lot it appears that you are right.  I am now on a nod and wave of the hand basis with the State Fair policeman who works the day shift over there.

He's about my age, although probably at least a couple of years younger.  He is still showing up for work every day.

The big old car show brings huge crowds and lots of the vendors who might ordinarily be expected to only be open for the actual Fair show up for these other big events and open their stands.  Here's one I hadn't seen before.

So poutine, as served by Duke at this establishment, is fresh cut french fries topped with fresh cheese curds and piping hot gravy.

Hence the title of today's post.  You probably want to call ahead and schedule you arterial un-blockage surgery before you place your order for a serving of that.

World Cup today:  Huge game in the second of today's three.  As I believe to be true, Brazil today was NOT good enough, playing a nil-nil tie with Mexico.  Mexico did not make the tournament directly from the usual qualification process and, in fact, barely squeaked into the tournament by filling one of the supplemental qualification berths with a back door victory over New Zealand, the first team outside the regular qualification in the Asian zone.  Mexico was extremely fortunate to even qualify for that game, getting there only after zone qualification leader USA scored in added time at the end of its last qualification game.  USA did not need the goal, did not need the game.  If the USA had coasted Mexico would be watching the tournament from home.  Instead the USA scored and Mexico today played and tied Brazil.

Brazil has some great players but they are not good enough this time.  They are going to be really, really disappointed when the elimination comes.  I still expect it to be Spain in the first round of the knockout phase.

Huge win yesterday for the USA.  One of our German guys gets the game winner.  We have five guys on the team who really are Germans, having grown up in Germany with their German mothers.  They qualify for our team by having American (usually American military) fathers.

I note another member of the family has been roped in by the tournament.  I concur that the tournament is in its early stages but a LOT has already happened.  It is fascinating at this stage, everyone is still here.  I loved Japan v. Côte d'Ivoire.  I am hugely entertained by Russia v. South Korea.  A little late to the party but the Asians are coming.  Does anyone think it will be a long time before China arrives?  And after they arrive does anyone think it will be a long time before they win?

Personally I don't think Italy can win the tournament this time.  I don't think their opening win was over a team of extremely high quality.  The English have the best league but their national team is short of quality up front (only Rooney), a little old in midfield (Garrard? really? Is he really at this point in his career the Captain and face of English football?) and too young at the back.  England is an OK team, top 10 or so in the world but Italy should not be booking rooms at the finals based on 2-1 over England.

I do think Balotelli is a wonderful player and perhaps by next time may be one of the very best in the world.  That would make Italy a contender at that time.

Best sporting event in the world.

I would not have started in the conditions I finished in

It was sunny and warm here when the final whistle blew in Brazil on Germany's command performance over Portugal.  The second game was Nigeria v. Iran, I decided to go ahead and enjoy the nice weather with hopes of getting home in time to see the last half hour or so of the game.

I quickly discovered that it was muggy and a bit too windy.  The wind was mostly south so I adopted the strategy I often use when the south wind is too strong, I headed mostly west, hoping to lay down a west to east traverse that would get me to an as yet unknown spot from which I could ride mostly north and west (mostly tail wind) for enough miles to get to the mileage I wanted.

I had only been out a short time (under two miles) when I rode past this.

I decided there was an 8 year old somewhere who was in a real hurry running as fast as she could when she just busted out of her shoes, leaving this one behind like a bad dream.

Probably not though.

I rode through the Fairgrounds.  Something big is coming.  These benches go inside somewhere into storage pretty much as soon as the Fair is history.

This is the first day I have seen them out and in fact, you can see a couple of the men who were part of the crew setting up the benches.

Also note that it is still sunny out when I got this photo.

I was deep into the parallel traverse, about 11 miles into the ride when I felt a drop of water on my forehead.

Over the next mile and a half or so I felt two more.  Well, 3 drops in around 10 minutes does not constitute rain.  It does constitute sufficient reason to alter the intended route.

I bent towards home and tried as rapidly as possible to get within 2 miles of home.  Two miles is 10 minutes of riding or less, my acceptable time to be riding in the rain.  Within 2 miles of home the horse and I can make it to the barn dry enough even in the case of actual rain.

I felt I think only two more drops before completing the desired mileage but most of that last 12 miles I was quite pleased with myself for being so close to home.  The sun disappeared, overcast and significantly cooler, still a bit too windy.

But I got the miles I wanted before finding this deal right in our street in front of the house two doors down.

I should have put something down for scale but the dandelion seeds may be sufficient.

Not a big hole, but a definite on its way to being a sink hole.

I've seen all of the favorites now and I think there are four teams with a chance to win the Cup.  Germany, obviously, dominating victory over a high quality opponent.  Holland, obviously, a dominating victory over the team ranked number one in the world.  Argentina, they still have Messi.  And?  The losing team in that second day shocker, Spain, the number one ranked team in the world.

I love the World Cup.

Progress report

This World Cup thing has serious possibilities for disruption of both my bicycling and my bicycle blogging.  So many games.

TOPWLH and I got in a very nice ride on Friday but . . .

We had to leave at half time of one game and got back for the second half of another.  And even to do that required NO STOPS.  No pictures.  And then with the second half of one game and the third game after no time for blogging anyway.

No ride yesterday, all day rain which was cold and ugly but never officially severe.  The rain continued overnight and into this morning, I thought today was going to be a day for futbol. And today was a hugely important day for the Copa.  France had their first game and my personal pick to win the tournament, Argentina, also opened.

The sun came out though and it got to be warm enough.  Then France got that goalkeeper dumps it into his own net own goal right at the start of the second half to make me confident in the outcome of that game.  I positively bolted for the door.

It was warm enough and dry enough but it WAS way too windy.  I wanted to get some miles but pretty much conceded that the standard distance wasn't going to happen.  Too windy and Argentina starting at 5pm.

So I did get some pretty nice miles in and as always, it felt good.

Strong west winds I headed downhill towards the west, a standard move, and then circled uphill with a tailwind and then up through the farm campus.

I ended up circling back through Saint Anthony Park and then again uphill with a tailwind and though the Fairgrounds.  There is a new permanent fence going in behind the new Home Depot up on Machinery Hill.

That thing cuts directly through the area of pavement used the last several years by the skateboard park.  It looks to me like they are cutting this mostly underused area off from the main Fair area, my guess is they are going to use it for parking.

Of all the things they have over there during the Fair, the one thing they seem chronically short of is parking.

Meanwhile down at one of the main parking lots there were people running some sort of car rally, driving around a course laid out with cones.  They had official timing devices and everything, including polite applause by a group standing near the finish whenever one of the cars came through with a good time.

Austin Healey?  Anyone know for sure?

That guy was fast but there was a white Corvette that had the best time during the time I watched beating this guy by about two seconds.  It is certainly worth mentioning, however, that this guy was actually shifting his gearbox while the Corvette appeared to be an automatic transmission.

The Corvette was posting the best time based on horsepower but the red car was the one who was actually driving.

So, the Copa so far.  First off, Germany hasn't played yet so there is still a huge unknown.  Everyone knows about Holland 5, Spain 1, an absolute culture changer for world football.  Spain is totally and forever stripped of the aura of invincibility that was built up by their victories in the last three major tournaments.

Teams that have won games that have no chance of winning the Cup?  Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast, lots of them.  For Brazil, the two 22 year old super stars lived up to their billings, albeit with a certain amount of assistance from the referee.  Overall, the team isn't good enough. Their keeper plays in the MLS for crying out loud.  Further first place in their group meets second place in Group B in the first round of the knockout.  After Holland 5, Spain 1 (see above), second place in Group B is likely Spain.  Beating Spain is going to be a very tall task for the host country.

Teams that lost who could still win?  Spain.

Once every four years, an incredible marathon.  So far I have really enjoyed Ivory Coast over Japan, very entertaining, Columbia over Greece, best team dancing after a goal by Columbia after their first goal, and Switzerland with an impossibly late goal absolutely stealing one from Ecuador in extra time this morning.

The greatest sporting event in the world, the FIFA World Cup.

World Cup predictions

The tournament gets underway tomorrow in Sao Paulo.  I rode my bicycle through Saint Paul today, it seems like a good excuse to submit my guesses.  First a little about the ride through Saint Paul.

I got down to the State Capitol again today.  I wanted to see what the landscaping looked like. Long ago when I worked in the area there were spectacular plantings many of which came to peak at about this time of year.  As it turns out instead I spent most of my time checking out a couple of pieces of public art that I was vaguely aware of but which I had not previously visited.

This first one is the Spiral of Justice, a memorial dedicated to Roy Wilkins.

To be completely honest, what actually drew me to that part of the mall is those cars visible frame left.  Sure enough, that actually is part of the mall with another huge chunk of lawn temporarily covered with asphalt.  We have already heard that rant so I will move on.

Down by the Veteran's Service Building is this newish memorial to the state's fallen fire fighters.

I believe that one is pretty much brand new.  I have no idea what the vertical elements are meant to represent but that in the middle is a guy in a fire helmet carrying a child.

Parking lot visible behind the memorial.

The climb up the hill to the Cathedral doesn't get any easier and today I made it mostly into whatever wind there was.

I rode a ways down Summit and then paused for a photograph of The Germanic American Institute, formerly known as Volksfest Kulturhaus.

I believe it is also sometimes identified as the Gardner House, named for the affluent local family who lived in the house when it was new.  Limestone.

They are taking Kultur fairly seriously over there as Deutsche Tage are scheduled for this weekend.

Actually I was aware that they take Kultur seriously over there, I have also ridden by in October when they host some Oktoberfest activities.

I took the route that led me through my favorite roundabout.

As is fairly standard, once around, pause for a photo, ride on.

Just around the corner to the Monarch butterfly house.

I wanted the photo to be of the yard so I wasn't able to fit in the milkweed right in front of me when I snapped this one.  I believe the butterflies require milkweed.

OK, the Copa.  Argentina and Germany in the final.  This is just a guess right now because we still don't know much about the fitness level of Lionel Messi, Argentina's best player.  If he has returned to form I select Argentina as the champion.  Argentina also has Raquelme, one of the very best players in the world perhaps not yet recognized as much as some of the others.

Other musings, the American media continues to hammer away about the USA being in "The Group of Death".  The GOD is soccer tournament shorthand blathering for a group of four with three really good teams in it.  Only two advance from each group, hence the group is death for a really good team.  The problem with calling the American group the GOD is that there are only two really good teams in the group, Germany and Portugal.  If the USA can get past Ghana in their opener and if the most recent bulletins indicating that Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal's best player, will miss the tournament due to injury, two fairly large ifs, but if those happen the USA could reach the knockout round.  If they do they will be promptly knocked out.  I don't expect USA to make it out of the group.  I am joined in this assessment by the principal USA citizen soccer analyst in a suit on ESPN the major USA TV host of the tournament and by no less a luminary than the USA coach (who is, after all, German).  It is going to be extremely difficult to advance without scoring some goals and goal scoring is problematic for the USA on the world stage.

By the way the real group of death includes Uruguay, Italy and England, three really good teams.  I expect England to be the one failing to advance there as England shares a problem with the USA, that despite the fact that they DO have Rooney, which is better than last couple of major international tournaments when they had Crouch and Heskey up front.  But they still don't have enough really premier scoring to make a dent particularly in someone like the Italians (whose inability to score very often doesn't seem to hurt them as much as it hurts everyone else given that Italy only gives up a goal on rare occasions).

The host country Brazil?  Too soon.  Neymar, their best player, is only 22.

These are only guesses, I reserve the right to revise after having seen some of these teams play.

What Willie sang

It is fairly unusual for me to miss four days in a row in June but I just did.  Three days going to and coming back from Iowa with a party in the middle and then yesterday just seemed too cold for this time of year, in the 60s, wet streets, threatening skies.  Today had none of those deterrents so off I went, back on the road again, even though when I headed out a temperature of only about 71 still seemed a tad coolish for so near the solstice.

It fairly quickly became apparent when I reached the Minneapolis side of the Marshall Avenue bridge that most people emphatically did not share my misgivings.  The m family was out in impressive numbers.

It's a 10 foot wide path along the river, usually plenty OK on a Tuesday afternoon.  Today I came upon a tandem and a third member of the party, all bikes parked ON THE PATH and all riders standing on the path side of their rides.  I am sorry but I expect other bicyclists to be aware of and sympathetic to the needs of other bicyclists who might be using the path.  Those three were taking up slightly more than half of the pavement and none of them were moving.  Everything they were doing could have been done every bit as well on the grass.

End of rant although I probably should throw something in about the family of four with one of those pedal cabs from the park weaving back and forth up the hill at that one choke point where the path shrinks down to only six feet with a fence on one side and a cement wall on the other.  They were using about five feet of the available pavement, you know, weaving back and forth trying to get up the two percent gradient uphill.  My handlebars are 40 centimeters (not quite 16 inches), I waited.

OK, now for sure end of rant.

It felt pretty dang good to be out there riding around.  Sometimes I just can't wait.

Of late at the Falls I have been leaving the street side path at the earliest opportunity and riding along the path next to the deer pens area of the park.  This leads to the Falls from the downstream side.  Today I went ahead and rode all the way up to the roundabout and descended back into the park on the upstream side of the Falls.

The creek is still running very, very high.  There is still an absolute torrent separating the lovers on the island from the tourists on the mainland.

I've been on that island lots of times.  Usually by late August you can get there without even getting your feet wet.

I went over towards the Falls where I left my bicycle at the bottom of the stairs and walked up onto the bridge over the creek and took a photo from above.

Historical note:  I was about 10 stair steps and 15 of so feet from my bicycle when I took this picture.  That is actually the farthest I can remember ever being from my bicycle in a public place with who knows how many potential thieves around.  I did it because there was a lull in the pedestrian traffic, there was a family of 5 or 6 on the bridge at the same time I was and not a soul around the area where I had left NewLOOK.  It still made me nervous.  I quickly lined up the shot, snapped the photo and hustled back to my bicycle.

It was a touching reunion, I assure you.

We made it home safely.

Homeward bound

A fine celebration in Cedar Rapids and homeward bound today.

The sun appeared only a short time after we got on the road and the day developed nicely, even though, as noted Friday, the ride is a trifle long for my preference.

No bicycling for three days but on the other hand travel is also hard.

We had two instances over the three days where I discovered that my affinity for water towers is not diminished by crossing the state line.  It still seems like everywhere I go I end up on top of the hill.

At the time we were there early this afternoon I believe that those are pretty much the four most significant attractions in Nashua, Iowa.  The water tower (interesting paint job, unusual for a water tower in my experience), the sign for the Dollar General Store, Casey's food and fuel and the fourth significant attraction.

Regular activities are expected to resume tomorrow.

Iowa

We are in Cedar Rapids for round two of the reception.  We went downtown for dinner.  The restaurant had those leg lamps from A Christmas Story.

Nice, very nice.

We had a walk around after dinner.  Downtown has some nice old buildings and a couple of fantastically ugly new ones.

Sorta like lots of places in the world.

Very nice day in Iowa, a pleasant enough drive down, if a trifle long for my taste.  Reception tomorrow, home on Sunday.

Afternoon rain

But we got out early enough for each of us to get about twice as many miles as did the last time we rode right before it started to rain.  It's still raining right now.

The GRider pronounced herself pooped.

It was actually nice when we started so I had some confidence in getting more than two miles from home.  However, the radar looked iffy and Lake Como was plenty far enough.  On the route we rode today it is about six miles to the far end turnaround point for a Como ride.

There was an article in our local newspaper about what a tough winter it was for local conifers.  This is particularly true of the smaller shrubs and bushes, as we rode today we pointed out blighted shrubs to one another  We also found a stand of something larger, some red pine in Como Park that looks pretty beat.

There's the lake back there down through the trees.

Actually the real reason we stopped there was it was also apparently a bad winter for lilacs.  That patch on her left where the grass is just starting to fill in had several large lilacs growing there as recently as last year.  Some may remember the lilacs with one branch of white flowers grafted onto a purple flower bush that I featured a couple of years ago.

Gone.

We rode around down to get closer to the lake as that is something she always requests.

I caught her slightly before she had completed preparations for being photographed.

We looped back through the Fairgrounds where they are getting ready to have something called an electric run.

I assume this is similar to what they did last year.  They run it in the evening with flashing lights, colored smoke, loud music, umbrellas in the trees and inflatable archways over one of the streets.

Some of that seems unnecessary but if they are having fun I am all for it.  No one runs for free I remarked to the GRider.  I spent the rest of the ride trying to recall the name of that woman who jumped into the Boston Marathon one year about a mile from the finish and was actually given credit in the TV coverage and early press for having won.  Only none of the other runners had any idea who she was and her physique was not typical of what you'd expect for an elite distance runner.

Rosie Ruiz.