Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • More Bikepacking Adventures: Nutmeg Noreaster

    This last weekend was the eighth annual Nutmeg Nor'easter, a fall bikepacking-adjacent event held in Connecticut. About 500 people convened at the former campgrounds of a boy scout camp in the woods, and camped and biked for the weekend. The event was organized by "Ronnie Romance" of Ron's Bikes and Ultradynamico Tires. The community of bikers that have coalesced in this particular bike niche tend to be focused on steel bikes, a combo of road and off-road, wool clothes, "retro-grouch" bikes. There were a lot of 80s and 90s mountain bikes and custom or handmade steel bike makers. For example, there wasn't a single bike jersey, gel bars, or aerodynamic road bike to be found at the event as far as I could tell. Instead, zines, retro bike products, mountain bike tires, old bikes and plenty of screenprinted bike tees were abundantly represented.

    [...]

    That evening I had some snacks with new friends in the hall, then biked down the mountain back to the train station to pick up my friend. Coming in late after dark and biking into the woods alone would be less fun than biking with a friend, so I wanted her to feel welcome and supported. We biked over to a supermarket to buy food supplies for the weekend. We purchase tuna and crackers, nuts, lots of apples, bananas, carrots, snap peas, and some beer. Then for dinner we bought sushi and my friend got a slice of individually wrapped piece of cake with lots of frosting.

  • Twenty races and still not decided 🏎️🏆

    It's a big task for Norris. He has to solidly outscore Verstappen in all of the last four races. And if either fails to finish a race, it might be all over. Complicating the outcome is that there are three teams who can win races now, and occasionally four. In Mexico, Norris didn't win, but Verstappen did worse.

  • A Siren Song

    In swoon of my heat exhaustion,
    I find myself unseemingly cast among an deserted sea;
    a sailor fated to an ill odyssey
    Among a storm of doubts and unrecalled memories.

    Among a rocky outcrop, hailed a Siren
    Wailing to the top of her lungs like filling seawater.
    I felt myself lured to her curtain call; a shark drawn
    By a blood red scent.

  • Citrus ranking

    Citruses are my favourite fruits. I like many other fruits too, but the citrus family keep releasing banger after banger.

  • named my degu

    The younger three are Romeo, Diego, and Fauna. Romeo loves attention and will basically climb into any hand that reaches into the cage. Diego is usually up for some sort of adventure and will either hop into a hand or use the hand as a means of getting to an arm that he can quickly scurry up. Neither Romeo nor Diego know fear. Fauna is a little more timid. She will allow herself to be picked up, but she doesn’t jump into any open hand she sees right away. She’s more cautious about it. Of the older two, Bram will cheerfully climb into a hand, but only when he decides to. If you reach for him, he tends to move out of the way. He’s more open to attention in the afternoon. Flora will sometimes climb into an open hand, but usually once she discovers there’s no food (left) in that hand, then she’ll wander away to do whatever she was doing before the cage was opened. I wonder if it’s an issue of age, or just how much attention they received in their respective pet shops. The little degu are much more social than the older degu I have. But the age difference isn’t really that much.