There’s not much along State Route 240 to make one pause: a long strip of highway, a few unmarked turns, and sage brush. For miles, there’s a barbed wire fence and on the other side, Hanford.

The United States Department of Energy’s Hanford Site was an integral part of the Manhattan Project and developed bomb-grade plutonium through the 1980′s. It is the nation’s most contaminated spot and largest Superfund site. In a lucky fluke, I was able to snag two cancellation spots to the hard-to-get-in tours. While I was elated, everyone else I chatted with was worried I’d come home with tumors and multiple heads. In Washington State, Hanford and the clean-up, the cost, and toxicity are a regular news item. I came home with only one head, but it turns out there was plenty I had no idea about.

When it comes to Hanford, there’s really no way to comprehend the scale of what is going on out there.

Dave and I were on the general Hanford tour: 5 hours on a bus, 7:30 a.m start, US citizens only. It included not only the B Reactor, but stops at many of the cleanup operations as well as some pretty interesting drive-bys. No cameras, no cell phones.

Here’s a few things we saw:

The B Reactor is the first place in the world where an industrial-size nuclear reaction occurred and is where the plutonium was created for the Trinity and Nagasaki bombs. A national historic site, the core building has been preserved and filled with many interpretive displays and videos. With almost as many “guides” as tour participants, and geiger counter on the walls, I found rather amazing that we were allowed to “explore” the building at the end of the tour. There’s no way to adequately explain the strange power of turning a corner from a narrow hallway to standing in front of the enormous multi-story dark cube of graphite coursed with tubes that is the heart of the B Reactor.

The Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility (ERDF), basically a giant dump. But here’s the deal with this giant dump: entire buildings go into it and everything’s been put in plastic bags. Imagine your house crushed and put into a plastic bag. Now imagine a large machine rolling it flat to make sure there’s no air pockets and then sealing small sections in concrete to ensure that there is no way that water can leach into it. And imagine next that if that machine breaks, it too just goes in this dump to be compressed…and every machine that has any contact at all with even the dust of the hundreds of buildings surrounding the many reactors at Hanford will also go into a this dump. No one knows when they’ll be finished digging new “cells” for the dump (at a cost of $25,000,000), but the guess is the dump will be completed in 2030.

We passed a 25 billion dollar factory that’s going to turn radioactive sludge into radioactive glass logs. It’s only halfway done and will take another ten years to complete. We certainly didn’t stop there, but got a “turn to your left!” to see it. Waste from tanks up to seven miles away will be piped into the factory and where they’ll actually bury the radioactive logs is anyone’s guess now that Yucca Mountain’s been decommissioned. My guess will be that it will be buried at Hanford. And out the right window, we saw giant sarcophagus that contain the spent fuel cells from the nuclear subs.

We saw people in suits with yellow radioactive chest decals cleaning something.

We drove by a hole in the ground that’s going to become the world’s most advanced water purification system, where for years and years, they’re planning on pumping all the water out of aquifer under Hanford (remember the site is bounded by the Columbia River) to remove the chemical and radioactive waste that’s been leaching from the site. How many years will they pump water? I can’t recall, but it is an astounding project with wells and pipes running throughout the site (which is approximately half the size of Rhode Island).

We stopped by a facility where they test robots and tools to clean out the old leaking tanks of radioactive sludge. Too dangerous to dig up, filled with odd poisons created by chemicals brewing for years and years, most tanks only have a twelve-inch opening to get the equipment in with the goal creating something that can be vacuumed out into a sturdier tank..and of course, anything that goes in the tank, stays in the tank.

When I think about Hanford, it’s the time frame and deadliness of the radioactive waste that’s most difficult to fathom. I keep thinking about our recent trip to Israel and the piles of rocks and the mysterious people who lived in these pre-Biblical cities and how that’s only a fraction of the time that these wastes will be extremely dangerous and along the major river of our entire region. Even the thought that the dump for the non-radioactive buildings in plastic bags may not even be finished in my life time is staggering, let alone thinking that ten thousand years from now when our species could be gone, that an earthquake, volcano, or ice-age flood could potentially release the poisons from a site long forgotten and perhaps not even understood.

I’d recommend this tour to anyone. I would have liked to have more historical information at the start of the tour on Hanford’s roles in the Mannhattan Project as well as some more easy-to-understand science. For anyone interested in how public tax dollars are spent, particularly, Washington State citizens, I think the tour is really essential to help conceptualize the scale of the project and the necessity of the environmental cleanup.

With no camera, there’s not much to show, but I’d point you to the Washington Nuclear Museum and Educational Center (WANMEC), on online museum by the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility to learn more about Hanford as well as some great archive photos of the site.

I’ve a sweet spot for the World Cup. The first summer in Seattle was spent underemployed and with plenty of time to drink with new people watching mid-day matches.

Here’s a favorite from my Lost Vacation show: Brazil 1975.

In April, Pam invited 29 people to write a story about traveling. No how-to’s, no destination guides, no tips and tricks, just good storytelling.

If you’ve ever been at my house, at a restaurant, or out camping with me as I start to whine just a little about how things aren’t just so, you’ve probably seen Victor lean in and say “Mauve!” You’ll know now that’s he’s trying to remind me of one of my weakest moments: it’s his way of telling me to take a chill pill.

My Story as Number 29 on Nerd’s Eye View.

“Fried egg sandwich work with you?”, he choked out.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” I replied, too hungry to care about his feelings, but filled with shame nonetheless.

“Brown bread or white?”

This was going to be a long meal.

The Appalachian Mountains run their course and meekly sink into the ocean as boulders at L’Anse aux Meadows, the town that sits at the northern tip of Newfoundland. It’s a small huddle of houses, no real main street, not much for businesses, and less than 50 people braced against the cold sea.

It took us seven days to bike to L’Anse aux Meadows from the wide spot in the road the bus from St. John’s dropped us. Most of it spent was spent in a howling, cold rain we’d normally equate with November. Like everyone who comes to L’Anse aux Meadows, we were there to see the Viking ruins. Despite warning Victor (a doe-eyed cyclist that would soon become my husband) that these remote places are often smaller than they might appear on the map and lack services, we were both surprised to find no camping near either the actual Viking ruins or the recreated Viking village.

Like folks anywhere on the edge of the world, people in L’Anse aux Meadows are scrambling to make ends meet. Some make bakeapple jam for the tourists to take home, some hunt moose to sell to the one restaurant in town, others spend their day dressed in wool smocks reading bits of the Vineland sagas as Vikings of yore. Then there are those few who open their homes as bed and breakfasts.

I can’t stand staying in bed and breakfasts.

Too often you end up in a cluttered room with a host who not only needs your affirmation that their antique or country-cute knickknack collection is extraordinary, but that want to be your friend. This wasn’t something we needed to worry about in Newfoundland, where people, while pleasant and kind, are by nature, taciturn. They’re also not out hoarding since there’s not much shopping to be had.

Traveling without reservations meant we had to keep moving from home to home as places would be already booked by folks driving up from Gros Morne. After a few calls though, our current host would find a bed for us in a home close by. And so it was that we stayed several days in the area.

On our last day, like each day before miserable for biking but filled with Vikings, we were wet and cold as darkness fell and a large 4 x 4 pulled up next to us. “We were wondering where you were!” the driver yelled out the window. “You’re almost there!” Thinking about dinner, we rounded the hill to a low-slung ranch home, but instead of finding the friendly truck driver, whom we never saw again, we met an older sullen man who gruffly pointed us where to lean our bikes and seemed more than anything surprised to see us. The heat was on, the living room full of chatting guests and the bedroom next to it, empty.

There’s only so many ways to be miserable, but there in that room as I set my wet panniers down on the mauve carpet, I discovered a new realm of untapped despair. Collapsing on to the too soft mauve bed in exhaustion, my future husband standing looking out the mauve curtains into the fading day, I thought only one thing as tears started welling in my eyes, “I cannot stay in this mauve room!”

The carpet, the bedspread, the walls, the curtains all a sickening, dying salmon blush of calamine pink swollen flesh mauve. Mauve. Even the word causes a shudder of horror to my much stronger sensibilities now, but in my weakened state, it was unbearable.

“Where else can we go?” Victor asked reaching down to soothe my back..and in that touch, I went to a dark place and all the ways that the room, the house, the trip, my travel mate, the very country itself was unacceptable but all I could get out while sobbing face down in the mauve pillow sham was this, “Mauve. It’s all mauve!”

I don’t know how long I cried, but by the time I gathered myself up enough to go the the bathroom to wash my face, all the guests had left the living room and the house was quiet. The room was still mauve. The owner of the house not only sullen, but nearly cross. I could hear Victor ask him about dinner through the walls and I realized that it was likely that the entire roomful of people must have sat there uncomfortably as these two men appearing on bicycles “emotionally discussed” the home’s decorating scheme.

There was no dinner that night but our host, bless him and his wife’s love of dusky rose, made us a sandwich, mainly with bile, but edible all the same.

After years of proclaiming his innocence and being stripped of his 2006 Tour de France victory, the last couple days have been a swirl of news about him writing different members of the cycling community, prosecutors, and news organizations detailing his extensive doping and implicating others.

At my best, I’d like to be empathetic as I’ll never understand the drive it takes to be among the world’s most elite athletes nor the pressure to remain there. I can also understand why he’d want to clear his conscience. However, let’s be real. How much can you trust a guy that goes on book tour with Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France, takes donations from fans to mount a legal defense that cost upward of two million dollars, and is implicated in hacking into the French drug lab and blackmailing Greg Lemond (who himself doesn’t appear to be the most emotionally stable cycling personality). In a blog post from several years ago, I described this entire episode as unseemly. It, and he, remain so.

A fan of the sport, more than a particular rider (expect that hot coke-fiend Tom Boonen!), I’m content not to write more about Landis. It must be a terrible thing indeed to spend the rest of your life known to all as man without integrity.

I don’t often talk about my work on my blog, but this morning was spent thinking a little too much about how a particular mix of poorly thought-out strategy, a website likely built for small client who likely has no idea how to maintain or change it themselves, and a flash of unpleasant PR can go horribly wrong.

OUCH Medical Center is doctor’s office outside of San Diego. Specializing in sports medicine, it’s both a rich man’s pleasure, and not an unnatural fit, for it to sponsor a cycling team.

I’d never heard of OUCH and the last thing I’d thought I’d be looking at today was an awkward, poorly designed site for medical office in a town 2,000 miles away. When I googled “Floyd Landis” to catch up on the news, FloydLandis.com opens a section of their business site and is about their star cyclist. I assumed I’d be visiting a personal brand site of Landis.

Leading with “Floyd Landis: An American Hero“, it follows with the story of his defamation by the lab, his many great victories, his triumphs with a hip replacement (there’s the tie in, right?). If it was a bit over-stated three day ago, it’s now just embarrassing rubbish. That content, which I’d have argued isn’t germane to their business anyhow, needed pulled with an hour of this story hitting the Wall Street Journal. That is was up for almost two days after this story broke is ridiculous.

One could assume they discussed the value of Floyd Landis’ sponsorship, but did they really understand what taking over anyone’s personal.com and rolling it into a sub-domain and navigation structure of their business site could mean?

Which leads me to social media: it’s harder to control. If you’re not going to be actively managing it, you’d shouldn’t be messing with it. What does a small medical office need to tweet? Is it useful to anyone to be fan of your doctor’s office?

FloydLandis.com/OUCH the Bicycle Team/OUCH the Medical Center have been completely blurred. It’s bad enough that the actual information needs of current and prospective patients is neither segmented nor presented well, but to have it be further confused by the mixing in of fan management for a side project is incredibly short-sighted.

How many people have visited for all the reasons you wouldn’t want in the last 48 hours?

I always wonder when a client asks to get involved in social networking, who’s actually responsible for maintaining and refreshing this content? How much time and money is that really going to cost? How much transparency do they actually want and what is the plan if something going askew?

OUCH the business is tweeting, “@ridertbt again, this is the medical center account, not the team. We have to watch the news just like everyone else 3:23 PM May 20th”. Their company Facebook page and blog are gathering nasty comments, and why not? I got to these pages through FloydLandis.com so it is certainly fair game.

There’s lot of reasons being involved with Landis may have been exactly the right thing to do for this company and for the people who run it, but I’m sure no one at that doctor’s office ever expected to be a part of the national news cycle. But now they’re news, all the flaws of their web “strategy” are obvious and their lack of really understanding the medium apparent.

[note: While writing this post, the FloydLandis.com redirect was moved to stand separate from the business site and is no longer is a navigation option: still complete rubbish, but at least not directly tied to the business....But you can still buy Landis-signed $1000 OUCH jersey there if you'd like!]

Spring was early, but it was still February and a far cry from sitting on the beach with a beer.

We’re heading into our third year in our garden, but it’s the first year where I’m thinking more about the joy of it than the work in it. So much is starting to happen on its own; plants are growing in, patterns are becoming established. We’re wrapping up the last of the infrastructure work (final fences, chicken coop, shed improvements) and finally gave up on our ecolawn. We plan on replacing it with pumpkin patches. The mason bees actually survived the squirrels and are busy at work.

What we’ve done more than anything is just enjoy the show of spring. The succession of bulbs from the diminutive crocus, the heady hyacinth (more of these next year), a mix of daffodils that only finished last week and now into the last of the tulips. We’ve uncovered the cloche until June when we’ll recover those beds to try growing eggplant and okra), the potato cages are going to be filled with straw instead of dirt, and the chickens have been out a few times to peck at the yard, but will soon live full time behind the shed. We’re hoping to grow half of our food this year.

While the last month has cooled down and we’ve had some much needed rain, we’re about three weeks earlier than normal with the lilacs currently blooming and plenty of iris about to start. It looks like I could have lilies by my birthday.

Here’s a gallery of pictures of how the spring progressed here at “the homestead” —and here’s a few of where it was when we started: here and here…lovely grass!)

Two weeks ago my first fall bulb catalog arrived…time to pick out next spring’s hyacinths and daffodils!

Think of your life without it.
Without that slab of outlaw time punctuating every pillow —without pillows.
from Anne Carson’s “Ode to Sleep”

I didn’t have much problem falling asleep despite sleeping in pajamas. The wires taped to my head, my chest, my legs were odd, but didn’t keep me from drifting off. Actually, “drifting” is not something I’ve ever done in sleep, instead I’d say I collapse into it and even with the sensors taped under my nose, there wasn’t anything unusual at all about my sleep. Both nights in the lab felt the same to me.

I have classical sleep architecture, “straight from a text book”—this is a good thing, and a bit unusual. “Classical sleep architecture” seems to me like something Anne Carson could work with. This means I drop quickly into a deep sleep, but then gradually transition in waves to a R.E.M. or dream state before starting my day.

What’s problematic is what the doctor calls “arousal” (which sounds pleasant) but I’d call “my mind waking up without me.” I do this, on average, fifty-three times an hour. I am stuttering through sleep. Another concept Anne Carson could work with.

So now I am sleeping with a mask that provides rhythmic bursts of air, a pressure to keep me breathing, my mind unstartled. I’m not remembering more dreams, but I am waking up out of a dense unworried fog.

I spent my evening preparing for sleep reading the latest Anne Carson, NOX. An accordion scrap book, an elegy, and a making sense of her brother’s death, or rather, his intersection and disappearance from their life before he finalized that disappearance with death. She gives this its lexicon of grief; a study at the edge of night, from the caves.

“Prowling the meanings of a word, prowling the history of a person, no use expecting a flood of light. Human words have no main switch. But all those little kidnaps in the dark. And then the luminous, big shivering, discandied, unrepentant, barking web of them them that hangs in your mind when you turn back to the page you were trying to translate.”

Earlier that day, I started a new poem about a sailor, a shift of flags on his arm. He doesn’t sleep (I don’t know how that turns out). —the barking web hanging in the mind.

Early last summer, I stumbled on the site by Rapha. I’m not even sure how I found it, perhaps I was looking for a new cycling cap. I’d never heard of them before, but was completely and utterly blindsided by their slick marketing: a simple but gorgeous site, generally clean copy (with only occasional hyperventilating), and a call to audacious riding that I admire.

My cycling clothing and style can be summed up as a desperate search to optimize a long distance traveling kit. For the type of riding I like to do, I need to be comfortable ambling on the bike for 10 hours at a time and not feel odd sitting in a bar somewhere along the road or taking pictures along the way. I’ve tried lots of Lycra, woolies, t-shirts, jerseys, padded, unpadded, liners, shorts, clips and clipless. This optimizing is a process to be sure, and always one of experiment, but ideally I’m traveling with not much specialized clothing, just stuff that works. It’s easy to clean. It looks good (enough). It’s comfortable.

I ordered a cap. I must have ordered something else as well, some small trinket that I could sneak through our budget..but now I can’t recall what it was. Perhaps the first pair of socks.

For months, I followed this site. I tried some of the longer rides or variations of them last summer…and most importantly for Rapha’s bottom line, I became a vein hungry, addled addict for their goods. One package and then another and another arrived from London. This lead to bitter domestic disputes, awesome rides, and the most expensive items in my closet, despite shopping in the clearance bin and waiting for free shipping. This stuff, as noted in plenty of commentary, is not cheap.

They aren’t making any claims on the actual work of producing this stuff: it’s a lot more heartless than the brand would have you to believe: the majority of the woolies (as far as I can tell) are being made in factories in Fiji by people who wouldn’t need the knowledge of wearing the stuff— and I can’t help but feel a little let down by that.

So here’s the fundamental question: is it worth it? How much of a premium are you paying to be involved in the brand versus the actual functionality of the goods? Are you really getting serious performance upgrade or are you just a sucker advertising that you’ve got too much money to burn?

Ah…but if there were a simple answer!

Alas, now that I’ve dropped an unhealthy percentage of my income with this company at the expense of doing other things like adding to my retirement account, I would say that overall, their products perform as advertised and as they hammer in the copy: it’s the detailing that make the garments, simple things like gripper tape, off-normal seams, longer sleeves for being down in the drops. I’d say it’s been a bit of a revelation to me.

I’d say that my overall disappointment is in the cleaning of any of the light colored material. It’s like the sizing (meaning whatever is used to finish the fabric) is not designed for road grim, dirt and sweat. Within three or four rides, the white merino base layers look like I’ve been gardening in them, dingy with ring-around the collar, my socks gray, the reflective tape on my bibs almost black with road grim that won’t come out. To spend $175 dollars on a jersey and then have it always look dirty, even from the minute it comes out of the delicate wash…well, that’s a tough pill to swallow and has definitely cooled my lust.

As a “brand”, I also can’t help feeling a bit of poseur in it—considering how slowly I bike, how distinctive it is, and how they’re as famous for items like thousand dollar bike suits and silky scarfs. My favorite ridiculous moment in the new campaign is a very sexy guy fixing his bike in a $125 “city” shirt. Oh, come on! I’d have a hard enough time eating at some cute cafe on a date in a good looking $125 shirt, let alone fixing my greasy steed in it. So there’s that: on days when I am struggling up some little pokey ridge and some kid on a one-speed whizzes by me in his skinny jeans, it’s hard to not think, “A fool and his money…”

I’ve bought way too much of this stuff, completely overhauling my wardrobe in the process. Full disclosure: my interactions with the company have been limited to going to my mailbox and getting packages except for one email exchange for some information about a jacket (not bought), and one painless return. I am a bit embarrassed about how much of this stuff I’ve gotten, but we don’t have a car, being reliant on our bikes as our primary transportation…etc., etc., etc.

Here’s the products in the order I’d recommend them, from “OMG! Who knew! Push send button, get them!” to a some “Meh! save your money, you addict!”. I’m not linking to specific products as they change the looks and goods every spring and fall and I bought what I could out of the clearance section.

Merino Socks: Cycling Weekly gives these a 10 out of 10. Yep. They are that nice. I had no idea how much more comfortable my feet could be while cycling. Super light, breathable, but also warm. However, like I said, my white socks looked like hell within a few wet rides, so if you’re really putting together some special occasion look, save your socks for then, you’ll never get these clean again.

These socks were so comfortable, I thought I’d pack them as my only socks for a bike/walking week in NYC. That turned out to be a mistake. For me, whatever greatness they have in riding, it does not translate into walking. Strange, eh?

Merino Hat: Straight from Fiji, it’s the winter hat! I’ve a couple little skull caps made from polyester for fitting under my helmet or just wearing around when it’s a little chilly for my bald(ing) head, but this little black number was, again, a revelation. I hardly used my beefy Newfoundland hat this winter. It’s just the right amount of warmth. It would be great if it came with a geotagging transponder so I could find it more easily as I am always slipping it in and out of pockets and bags. There’s a been a lot of heartbreak around this hat as I misplace it for days at a time, convinced it’s been lost, only to thankfully find it. This hat rules.

“Neck-(swea)ter” or Wool Collar: Related to the hat is what we’ve been calling around the house the “Neckter”. A simple thin tube of light merino wool, it slips over your head and takes the place of a scarf. Of course, we like seeing people with scarfs biking around so we kind of hope the Neckter doesn’t take off, but I am here to tell you in the cool Pacific Northwest, this is another lovely light thing to slip into your bag, not only for biking, but for when the day turns unexpectedly blustery and you’re just walking around. Gave one to a pal and his report is the same: it’s awesome!

Merino Base Layers: Since they looked like I’d been out gardening in them after just a few hard rides, I figured I might as well be out gardening in them. These things are replacing all my normal t-shirts during the winter. I find that they offer great insulation and love how they feel. Victor doesn’t like his for being too scratchy.

As far as biking (since that’s why they arrived!), I’d never biked with a base layer under a jersey and definitely would never have thought to do so when it’s hot. Ok, it works pretty well, but since I’m not a high-performance riding, just a high-performance sweater, I can’t say if I’m getting any benefit. I am comfortable in them, and yep, there is no stink. You can wear them for days and days…I often do.

Despite my love of white t-shirts, I’m only buying these in black here on out. I can’t get the grim out of them. I have also noticed some piling on one of them already (within 20 washes).

Merino Crewneck: I can’t say how this feels except to say it’s heavier than the base layers. I bought this as a gift for Victor and he wears it almost every day and looks amazing in it. Nicer cut than your average sweater if you’ve got the body to pull it off, which Victor does.

3/4 Length Bibs: Dear God, these are expensive. New to bibs and new to the 3/4 length, both were recommended by a pal of mine. Now that I’m in bibs, I am never going back to just shorts. Wow, so lovely not to have my belly drooping over my shorts and it feels easier to “stay with the core!” as if I had a core to stay with. That 3/4 length is really perfect for quite a bit of the time in Seattle and gentle on the knees.

Again, I’d mention the reflective details completely grimy and the dye in it wasn’t set well so I the first time I wore it, oooh…not nice! The padding is great and they are lined with a soft fleece to keep you a bit warmer. They’ve got a great little pocket in the back for your keys (again, it’s the detailing that seems to set Rapha apart). The inner thighs are wearing quicker than they I think they should against the seat though I’ve got beefy, flabby thighs. Still, for this price, I’m open to exploring other company’s bibs.

Club Jersey: What’s not to love about a simple, pale blue soft jersey with a white stripe? A joy to bike in to at least 80 degrees (again, I’m not moving in a high-energy way), the only thing that keeps me from loving this jersey is that there is no cleaning out the ring around the collar or any smears on the white stripe. What’s up with that? I don’t have that issue with any of my other clothes… why these? Heck, I’ve even switched up from Woolite to the Grant Peterson recommended Kookaburra Wool Wash, to no affect. It’s such a shame because while I don’t mind a grease spot here or there, it’s hard to get excited about putting on a newish jersey that looks grimy.

Bicycle Cap: It is what it is, a good looking straightforward cycling cap and step up from the normal team or component caps you see hanging in most bike stores. I don’t know why I did this, but I also order the “tweed” version. Obviously made in a different factory with a different sizing, it may look cute on real people somewhere, but made me look like a true knob. I returned that hat (FYI: returns are very easy).

Long Sleeve Jersey: It’s in black, so there’s no grime to notice, but while this jersey gets lots of action, I’m always struggling to maintain the right temperature in it. Too hot when it’s over 60, it’s also not even close to warm enough when the temps are closer to 40….so you’d think it would be perfect here, but alas, for reason unknown to me, my arms are almost always too cold, or my torso too hot. Even with the base layers, I feel like the wind goes right through it. That said, when I get humming along, it definitely feels better…but it’s often the jersey I wear for quick errands around town (it looks GREAT) and well, maybe for that it just be better to wear a something a bit thicker. Details on this thing are wonderful, but the shoulder seam (I’ve broad shoulders) is coming undone.

Gloves (older Criterium): Ok, despite my illness for all things Rapha, there was no way I was going to drop over a hundred dollars on gloves. No way. I did however find a “barely used” pair on eBay for $40, so I thought I’d try them. They recommend sizing down so they’re nice and tight, and so if I was going to buy these again, I’d get medium..the large are just a tad loose. Would I buy these again? No, I would not. The leather keeps my hands way too hot, they are really quite difficult to get off. To get these off you have to really pull at all the leather finger holes. I’m a guy who likes knit backs and breathable gloves (or even no gloves) and these are the opposite of that. I’m still in the market for gloves.

T-shirt: Let’s be real: buying a t-shirt from Rapha is completely just being over the top. This came to me from the deep clearance section but I can’t wear it because it’s just too small for my current fatty self. One thing about cycling clothes are they tend to be sized small, which makes sense since most cyclists are in great shape. Rapha’s line actually seems sized for normal people and I bought the size I’d normally wear. In some cycling clothes I am comfortable in XXL these days, but in Rapha it’s XL and that’s fine. The t-shirt though is sized for cyclists, so maybe with a little less riding to the bar, it will fit later in the summer. I can report it is incredibly soft and the color pleases me, but otherwise, withhold judgment.

Finally, I am going to add that I have also picked up a short sleeve shirt for Victor and again, it looks amazing on him and he was delighted with all the little features on the shirt and can’t wait to ride around in it later this summer….

So that you’ll know I am not completely over-the-top with these people, some of the stuff I have seen in person is horrible: the “Portland Swift” jersey is one of the ugliest pieces of bike clothing I have ever seen…it’s true hideous nature doesn’t come out on the site, but to see it in person (River City Bicycles in Portland is the closest Rapha dealer to us) is to be amazed that anyone could think this was a good idea! Currently, this year club jersey look incredibly ugly and really, the “transit elite sweater”? No, really? Dear god, I don’t know how the models kept a straight face.

But for every ugly, ugly thing, there is a thing of great elegance: I won’t lie, I am totally vein-smacking jonesing for one French country jerseys. Just oh, wow. Lovely.

For the past month, this recording has added some hope as I’ve struggled through a lack of sleep, a return to dreary spring weather in the Northwest, and the quiet dissatisfaction with life and the choices made. It’s quiet, produced beautifully, and emotionally and lyrically mysterious. It’s exactly the type of music I love most.

Gregory Alan Isakov is South African by birth, but sounds quintessentially Western: but then what’s the affinity of the West but to drift? This record is not so much about here (or his adopted home of Colorado)— though when he sings about snow, the mountains, the sea; the land is mine— but the immigrant and finding home and losing that home.

In this, he feels different than John Ritter, with whom he’s often compared. He’s got a similar voice and range, and in the more produced songs there’s a similar sense of sound and richness. Ritter feels inherently most at home in the language of the West and his imagination and lyrics feel tightest when tied to the land and our shared mythologies about it. Isakov not so much so. Not to say there’s the cliche of going in his songs, but there’s an affinity in his music where it’s the most natural thing in a world of pioneer music to sing about the sea you’ve never seen, that far side of the mountains, the leaving, the letters sent and never returned.

It’s as if Ritter is the station, Isakov the rail between.

I’ve got a bit of crush on Gregory Alan Isakov. I’ve added him to my pin board of imaginary boyfriends. To me, his voice is like lifting the lid of a box of old photos: it’s tired, rich and gentle. For an imaginary boyfriend, it certainly doesn’t hurt that he literate and cute. Seesshh, what more can you desire from imaginary boyfriends?

You can listen to snippets from This Empty Northern Hemisphere here.

Alas, there aren’t many decent sounding YouTube videos from this album, but there’s this great version of “3 AM” from his previous record, That Sea, The Gambler.

This was supposed to be a bike tour of sorts.

Mid-week the weather deteriorated and emails started flying…were we going as Vikings or French nobles? French nobles or savages? Ah!

Last year, the Expeditioneers did this trip on our bikes, but I still managed to pack along some homemade paté. Like pound cake, it’s not so tough to make being basically one part chicken liver, one part butter, one part cream…it’s sealed with crushed almonds and more butter. In a moment of true serendipity, we used this butter with the bits of embedded almonds and paté to pan fry some halibut. Ooo la la, a classic was born! Halibut au Whidbey!

This year, I had two crates of food go up with us. Not only did I pack some paté, but some pickled cherries and dills I canned last summer, great Dijon, a sorrel pie, along with a couple bottles wine. Traveling as French Nobles is certainly something I am pretty good at.

I don’t normally post up recipes on my blog, but with Halibut season just getting underway, I think this is one worth having.

Halibut au Whidbey: Pan-fried Halibut in Paté Butter

1. Make some decent paté
Adapted from the book American Charcuterie by Victoria Wise

3 tablespoons butter
1 pound chicken livers
1/2 teaspoon chopped sage leaves
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 cup brandy (all the better if it’s from last season’s homemade brandied cherries, peaches or plums)

3 tablespoons butter
one small onion, roughly chopped
one small apple, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
1 teaspoon thyme leaves

1/4 pound butter at room temperature
5 tablespoons heavy cream

1 ounce chopped blanched almonds
2 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons clarified butter

In a sauté pan, melt 3 tablespoons butter until foaming, then add the livers, sage and white pepper. Cook 10 to 12 minutes until livers are firm but still pink in centers. (Be careful not to overcook!) Raise heat, add brandy, and ignite with a match. Shake pan vigorously for a minute until alcohol burns off and flame dies. Remove livers to a large bowl where juices can collect.

In the same pan, melt three more tablespoons butter and add onion, apple, and thyme. Cook over medium low heat 20 to 25 minutes until apple and onion are cooked through. Remove to bowl with livers. Allow to cool to room temperature.

To make the paté, use a food processor to purée livers, apple, and onion until quite smooth, along with any collected juices, water, and cream.

Next, work on the topping. Chop almonds (this is important, they must be chopped medium fine… you want to know you’re eating nuts and it’s important they aren’t too large or slivered for cooking). Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a sauté pan and add nuts, and stir cook constantly over medium heat until browned but not burned. Remove to paper towel in and set aside.

To finish, pack moose and into several half-pint glass jars leaving an inch at the top. Pressed down tight and smooth out as you go. Spread toasted nuts over top and pour clarified butter over all. Cover with plastic wrap after fat is set. Refrigerate at least three hours, but preferably overnight. This will keep refrigerated up to 10 days sealed under butter.

2. Fry up some halibut

1/2 pound firm, clear halibut fillets per person

1. Crack cold butter from paté and scape off into warmed heavy skillet.
2. Heat butter to medium heat, add fish to the pan.
3. Cook 3-4 minutes on one side, turn over… cover and cook until flaky, which depends on how thick your fish is.

Serve roasted fingerlings tossed with porcini, a sharp salad like arugula with shaved parmesan, a nice wine and good friends!

A bit of a parlor game, this is the second Soup Swap Vic and I have hosted where we’ve opened our house to anyone living within our neighborhood, the Central District of Seattle.

Yep, putting the word out to the local press and defining our neighborhood so that anyone living south of Madison, north of I-90, between 14th and 30th is invited…it’s possible we could have thousands of people of all kinds show up.

Lucky for our snack budget we only had about 20 people show, but it’s a great opportunity to get to know the people you might see on your walks, hear about the latest new restaurant or crime from, and of course, find folks nearby that you could borrow the proverbial “cup of sugar” from. It’s good to know your neighbors and to have them know you. Drinking wine, swapping soup, and listening to how much care and interest people put into cooking for others is a great way to start.

While we hope next year to actually make the National Soup Swap in January, we’re both a huge proponent of these neighborhood Soup Swap. You can read all about how to host your own at SoupSwap.com.