I've been tagged

Bad mom good mom (my wife's blog) tagged my blog. To paraphrase her blog, being tagged means:

1. I have to post five things about myself that I haven’t already mentioned on my blog
2. I need to tag 5 people I’d like to know more about

I'll knock off number one here.

My email address is bikeboy at gmail dot com. It's now on my profile.

Grace recently outed me as a randonneur. I was an avid long-distance cyclist until my daughter was born, when I ramped down my activity considerably. In 1999, I completed Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP), the premier randonneuring event. PBP involves 1200 km (750 miles) of riding in 90 hours or less. 3500 riders participate, riding day and night with only short stints of sleep. I also was an avid participant in the California Triple Crown series of double centuries (200 miles in one day). The picture is courtesy of bikeaholics, from the 1997 Eastern Sierra Double Century. It's taken from the back of a tandem, and I'm the lead rider in the picture (I like staying near the back of tandems).

Travel and the outdoors are also passions. Some of my best travel experiences have come by accident. In 1997, I won a KCRW (public radio) prize of a trip to Buenos Aires. Grace and I turned it into a three week vacation, visiting the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile (adjacent pic) and Iguazu Falls at the Argentine-Brazil border. In 2005, Grace got sent to a two-week school in Corsica (lower pic) and the family got to tag along. I threw this in so I could add some pretty pictures to the post.

I have been reading the Dickens novels in order and have been stuck for years on Barnaby Rudge. Although I know that the path to David Copperfield and Bleak House goes through Barnaby Rudge, it's hard to get myself energized to get through it. By the way, The Pickwick Papers is much more fun than I was led to believe.

My previous addresses have been San Diego (born and raised), Cambridge Mass (MIT undergrad), Berkeley CA (graduate school in Chemistry), and Boulder CO (postdoc). When Pat Buchanan gave his famous (infamous?) speech about the cultural elite, I was living in Boulder and he mentioned my two past addresses. I felt personally honored.

After six months of binging, I am now a recovered sudoku addict. Unfortunately, I discovered a site which has introduced me to Hashi, Kakuro and Hitori. Check out the link at your own risk.

That's it. Now I have to find five blogs to victimize.