An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

Let me start by saying that when I bike ride I am never a MAML. This acronym (pronounced "mammal") stands for "Middle Aged Men in Lycra" and refers to guys who squeeze their paunchy mid-life selves into too-tight bike clothes, with a net visual effect that's both comedic and horrible. So, I'll also add that I'm not a MAMT. I just made up this acronym and don't have a good pronunciation for it, but it stands for "Middle Aged Men in Tie-dye". Heck, even when I was younger I didn't wear much tie-dye. I always felt inauthentic, like I was impersonating a hippie. The folks who followed the Dead, the white guys in dreadlocks and their barefoot women, the 60's holdover stoners ... they were entitled to wear tie-dye. I did not wish to be an impersonator of a particular lifestyle. Let me say that last night at Jiffy Lube Live (capacity 25,000) there were roughly 24,999 people who disagreed with me. The place was littered with DC MAMLs, b...

Father's Day present #1: Hearing David leave for work at 4 AM Father's Day present #2: Hearing Ted leave for work at 6 AM. Father's Day present #3: A nice bike ride with the NOVA Casual Bike Group (CBG) meetup. With cycling as with many things I find myself between categories. I'm too slow to ride with "serious" cycling groups, but can do distances longer than the "casual" bike groups. The CBG Beginner rides are about the right pace for me, but too short in distance. Sunday I decided to join the CBG on a Civil War-themed ride. I biked from home to the Shirlington meeting point, turning the official 16 mile official ride into a 26 miler. The first thing I noticed on my arrival is a lot of straight bar, hybrid bikes and that, refreshingly, not everyone was in twee Lycra outfits. The group turned out to be a mix, from an older couple with electrified bikes (they dropped out partway) to some folks in full fig. The second thing I noticed was t...

I kayaked from Columbia Island to Fletcher's cove today, and took David's 360 degree camera along to play with. Actually, the whole genesis of the 360 degree camera is kayaking-related: A student at SK102 had just been to the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas and was very jazzed about VR and 360 imaging. He let me play with his Google Cardboard VR thing. After that, I got to thinking how that technology could be used in a long-standing idea I had for navigation training. I mentioned this to David and asked what he knew about these sorts of cameras. He said, "not much." The next day, I watched some YouTube videos and learned a little about how it works. Over the same period David devoured an enormous amount of information online about 360 degree cameras and VR, and had ordered a low end camera to experiment with. One day later, thanks to Amazon Prime fast shipping, we had a 360 degree camera in the house. Here are some images from t...

The Wilderness Systems Pungo is an extremely popular recreational kayak. Twelve feet long, wide and stable, and with a big cockpit, it's perfect for many casual kayakers. Sea kayakers sneer at the Pungo. It is not a "real" kayak, and our impression is that it's mostly paddled by yahoos without any regard for safety who survive their outings only because the Darwin effect isn't 100% reliable. Last weekend we visited our friends A & S out at Bethany Beach. Imagine my excitement when S suggested that we spend Saturday kayaking in his and his friend Gene's Pungos. S had previously mentioned that he had bought a kayak and liked to paddle around "the pond" which made me expect a couple of hours of putzing around a scummy little pond. Truth be told, I had intentionally *not* brought my kayaking stuff so as not to encourage such an outing. The three of us launched from the dock at their development (cool!) into what turned out to be a lovely salt p...