Damascus, Part II

This is a continuation of Damascus, Part I.

I was already at the rental house when the others arrived.

“Hey Brendan, how are you?”
“I’m finer than frog hair. “
He introduced me to a short, box shaped man with a grey goatee, “This is Dee. he does 3rd party logistics.”
“And Matt,” turning to a tall man in his late 20’s. “He works with me.”

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked.
“Tonight we are riding into town for pizza. We will ride the trail tomorrow, then dinner and the theater. Back home Thursday.”

We had only 3 bikes, so one of us was going to have to drive to dinner. I thought about volunteering because I had no confidence that I would be able to ride a mile, but I didn’t want my first bike ride in 15 years to be down the side of a mountain. I know you are not supposed to forget how, but I wanted to remember on flat land.

The pizza place was in a supermarket plaza. Pizza with strangers usually involves complex negotiations, but this place had a buffet so the process was painless.

For Dee, Matt and Brendan this trip was an extension to the sales conference they attended earlier in the week, and at first they were talking about things they had done together and people I didn’t know. They were laughing a lot. I was listening for a chance to contribute or a joke I could understand.

The waitress came over to refill our drinks. I didn’t notice her paying any extra attention, but as soon as she left, Matt and Dee both started saying that she really liked Brendan. As she was the only woman in the place that was even moderately attractive, the subject was interesting enough for a few minutes of conversation, and it was a joke for the rest of the trip.

Matt mentioned that he was engaged. Dee started to talk about his impending divorce and Brendan cut him off. “We are getting away for a few days. No work and no divorce.” Matt and I both told stories about friends who had made dumb relationship choices.

We ate pizza, drank root beer and talked about nothing in particular for a while longer.

Matt had been the one to drive to dinner, but Brendan drove back, allowing Matt some bike time. The parking lot was about 10 feet higher than the trail. Before dinner we had walked our bikes up the steep hill. After, we rode them down. Knowing that the next day we would be riding down the side of a mountain, this seemed like good practice.

The descent was without incident, but before we had gotten far Matt had a problem with his gears. Dee was in front, and he continued on, unaware of the problem. I stopped and waited, looking for opportunities to make suggestions as Matt turned his bike upside down and worked the peddles with his hands, watching the chain turn.

The ride to the restaurant had been easier than I expected. Struggling on the way back, I realized that the trail only looked flat. I was glad that our trip to town in the morning would be down hill.

Getting Out of Hand

I watched the Perpetual Commercial 400 at Daytona Saturday night.

In baseball, football, basketball and hockey they wait for the game to stop before a commercial. In soccer, where the clock never stops running, they wait for halftime before they run commercials. Only NASCAR, a program featuring rolling billboards going in circles, cuts away to commercial during competition; despite frequent caution periods where actual racing is prohibited.

The broadcasters realize that the slogan "Every Lap Matters" is ridiculous. Every time a car spins or some debris falls on the track the race goes to caution, and any lead that has been built up is erased. Each caution also allows one driver who fallen behind to get a lap back. The networks believe that as long as they show the last 10 laps of the race uninterrupted viewers will keep coming back. NBC pushed this to the limit showing 2 minutes of commercials for every 5 minutes of racing during their last year of NASCAR coverage.

TNT either to make a better product, or to find a way to reach Tivo owners, has gone with a new format for advertising. Instead of cutting away from the race to show commercials, they have logos on the screen constantly and at odd intervals show commercials on part of the screen while continuing to show the race on the rest. This allows for seeing more of the race, but it makes the commercials seem endless.

Every time something happened we were listening to the sponsors not the announcers. We could see Allmendinger hit the wall, but were left to wonder what caused it. Who hit Biffle? Why was Kyle running on the apron? We wait to find out.

And even with the national commercials being shown during the race coverage, they still cut away several times for local ads.

At Daytona, the UPS Toyota of David Reutimann came back from 5 laps down, on 5 successive cautions, to finish 22nd. Kyle Busch’s Interstate Batteries Toyota was leading when the caution came out with 4 laps to go. On the restart he managed to hold off a challenge by Carl Edwards, in the Aflac Ford, and held a narrow lead when the caution came out on the last lap, ending the race. Kyle Petty did not bring any Papa John’s pizza to the other announcers in the booth, but the winning team sprayed Coke Zero on each other in victory lane.

Damascus, Part I

I had only been back from Florida for 5 minutes when Brendan called.

“Hey Brendan.”
“Rickster. You free this week?”
“No plans.”
“Out-standing, we are going to Damascus, Virginia for a 17 mile bike ride. It’ll be a blast. Meet us there tomorrow at 4.”
“Brendan, I can’t ride a bike 17 miles.”
“No, it’ll be no problem, it’s all downhill. You won’t even have to peddle. It’s going to be great. We are renting bikes and riding around town, we’re going out for dinner and going to see a play.”

His words were coming too fast for me to make much sense of them, but Brendan’s excitement is difficult to resist. Even without any clear understanding of what I was setting out for, I was looking forward to the trip.