From the Archives - Bits & Bobs Volume XVI

Introduction

This is the sixteenth installment in the “From the Archives – Bits & Bobs” series. Volume I is here, Volume II is here, Volume III is here, Volume IV is here, Volume V is here, Volume VI is here, Volume VII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume IX is here, Volume X is here, Volume XI is here, Volume XII is here, Volume XIII is here, and Volume XIV is here, and Volume XV is here. (The different volumes have nothing to do with one another and can be read in numerical order, alphabetical order, in birth order, or in whatever order your Ouija Board advises.)

What are Bits & Bobs, in the context of this blog? They’re like little literary snacks … brief passages from old emails or essays, or things I’d have scrawled on a bathroom wall if I were a vandal. Though generally written to a friend or family member, they’re tidbits I figure my albertnet audience might get a chuckle, snort, chortle, or at least a smirk out of. Read these aloud to your friends, family, colleagues, or a stranger on the phone, ideally a telemarketer. Or copy them onto Post-its and stick them all over your house for inspiration!

January 17, 2005

Welcome to Gmail! I’m glad my special exclusive invitation hit its mark. I hope you consider me kind of elite to have made this new platform possible for you. Of course, it’s hard for me to feel superior when you got a cooler address than I did. Alas, dana.albert is always taken when a new email platform sprouts up. Anyway, as you start using Gmail I entreat you to never click on any of the Adsense “sponsored links” (i.e., ads), lest you help launch a new way to advertise, which is the last thing this country and world need.

Gosh, that’s a less-than-cheery paragraph, I now realize. I’m pretty fed up, I guess. We took the kids to San Francisco today for a nice stroll along the new waterfront, where they’ve restored a wetland. It was absolutely frigid, with a howling cold wind. L— cried continuously. A— had a blast, though: she saw her first helicopter, her first container ship, her first motorboat, and her best (if not first) view of a seagull, quasi-hovering not 10 feet away. Then we went to House of Nanking, where A— pronounced most of the food (scallops excluded) “too spicy,” and L— tore up the place, even flinging food at the couple at the next table. We had to take turns walking her outside. We got home and put both kids to bed, and tried to get a nap ourselves (I’m fighting some bug), but the phone rang every 20 minutes, and no handset was near. So I have half-napped, which is a recipe for grogginess and a sour disposition. So, have a better one!

December 3, 2006

What do I mean by “damn fritjes?” Why, I’m glad you asked! “Fritjes” is a Dutch word, the diminutive of “frites,” which needless to say are fries, as in French fries. There’s a story behind this. When my mom was married to the man who had formerly been her landlord, and whom we thus always called The Landlord, or more precisely The Landlo’, they traveled quite a bit. This was fun for my mom except that the Landlo’ was, well, a total dick. I doubt you could find a single living human who would describe him in any other way. I suppose if he’d met a nun somewhere along the line she’d choose a different description, like “sinfully cruel and unredeemable,” but you get the idea. Anyway, he didn’t really “tour” places, he “did” them. As in, “Do you think we can do the Sorbonne in under twenty minutes?” Travel, to him, was a way to check off all the “been-there” lists. He was terribly impatient in general and I think travel just exacerbated the trait. Anyway, G—, when showing them his adopted country, went for the slow-absorption style that reasonable people tend to favor. The Landlo’ was having none of that. If there wasn’t a famous landmark to be checked off and mentioned later to some disinterested, and doubtless uninterested, third party back home, he wasn’t interested. About the only specific thing on G—’s list was fritjes. He really loves the fritjes in Holland, and for good reason. They really do them right. There are stands all over the place. As far as he (and thus I) know, everybody in the country always orders “frites mit.” That means “fries with.” You’ll be happy to know that there’s no need to specify with what; of course “mit” means “with mayonnaise.” They don’t skimp, either. As far as I can tell, frites mit is about the only luxury that the temperance-addicted Dutch allow themselves, unless you count raw herring.

Anyway, as the Landlo’ dragged my mom and my brother around at his breakneck pace, cussing and looking at his watch every five seconds, poor G— decided to cut his losses and forget every single local attraction he’d planned to show them, except fritjes, since that at least still seemed possible. He reminded the Landlo and our Mom to keep an eye out for a fritjes stand. Finally the Landlo’ decided he (and thus they) were done with Holland and started to drag them back to G—’s place. G— meekly protested that they hadn’t had any fritjes yet, and the Landlo’ blew sky high and gave the poor guy a blistering diatribe about “you and your damn fritjes!” From that moment forward, G— has never called them anything but damn fritjes, and neither has our mom, and once the rest of us heard the story, the name has stuck with all us brothers, kids, nieces, and nephews as well. It’s gradually spreading from there (e.g., to my friends and colleagues). Needless to say, if you ask one of my daughters if she’d like some damn fritjes, she’ll know exactly what you’re talking about. “French fries” might throw her, though.

February 29, 2009

[I sent the following email to a mass audience of family and friends.]

I am pleased to introduce my web log, or as they say in the Internet space, my “blog.” (It is with great trembling thrill I use these élite modern words like “space” and “blog.”) Please stop whatever you’re doing and go—right now!—to www.albertnet.us, and check out my Intro post and my first (real, non-intro) post, “Wrecking the Car.” While you’re there, click the “Follow” button and become an official albertnet follower. To the first person who does this, I will send a spanking new patch kit from biketiresdirect.com, postage-paid. I’ll bet you’re wondering, “What’s in it for me, a man or woman of acclaimed Command Presence, to become a mere follower?” Well, for one thing, when you do this something will be enhanced about your “dashboard.” I was reading about this somewhere but I can’t remember where. Think of being a follower as social and/or intellectual Armor All for your dash. (If you happen to know what a “dashboard” even means in this context, please drop me a note and explain it to me.)

Anyway, the main benefit of following my blog is that you’ll help me gain other followers. Right now I don’t have a single one, and it’s kind of embarrassing. I had hoped that before I turned forty I’d have scores of minions, not just followers, but as so often happens I’m needing to adjust my expectations. By clicking that little button, you’ll be seeding my future success. (Think of me as a virtual busker who doesn’t yet have a single coin in his violin case.) Oh, and please leave comments for me on the page as well. If you don’t have anything nice to say, say something arch.

March 2, 2009

No, I didn’t get a Prius [to replace my 1984 Volvo wagon]. Fuel economy be damned: I’m tired of Priuses. They’re kind dorky and far, far too common. (I used to call Albany the Volvo Belt, but now it’s clearly the Prius Belt.) What we bought is a newer Volvo wagon, about which Robert Frost would write:

Whose car this is I think I know;
It’s not his old grey Volvo, though.
This fly-ass ride is newer, so
I’d have to guess he’s pimpin’ ho’s.

Okay, that was lame, but at least it rhymed. Anyway, the Volvo we have now is a barely used (pre-depreciated, I like to say) V70. I couldn’t get a stick shift model without going to like Miami, which was, alas, out of the question. It’s my first automatic transmission but surely not my last <sniff>.

March 15, 2009

I have a couple of household items I no longer need, that I hereby offer “free to a good home,” as they say.

Item #1 is a Silca floor pump (they call it a “track pump” for some reason), black. It’s less than fourteen years old. It’s made of a Columbus tube (Cromor, their cold-drawn seamless chromium molybdenum tube, in this case non-butted for obvious reasons). The brass chuck is only a few years old. It works okay on presta but shraeder is a pain in the neck. The gauge sort of works, sometimes; its clear cover is gone and the needle does its own thing. The hose leaks at both ends so you have to pump really fast and there’s a constant hissing. It’s possible to repair this pump by cutting off the stretched-out ends of the hose and crimping a fresh, tight section over the chuck and pump base with the little wire doodad. I did this repair a number of times before something in me just died and I couldn’t do it anymore.

I also have a microwave oven by Sharp, and it is. Works great, and you can turn off the beeping. Carousel. Dedicated Hot Dog button (like a macro). Popcorn button (though microwave popcorn should be illegal because it’s gross, and air-poppers work so well). Compu-defrost. Auto-sense. Interactive help menus. It’s eleven years old. The catch? It’s pretty disgusting in there. It’s rusting. There’s an accumulation of food shrapnel on the ceiling and walls that we’ve given up trying to remove. In the heady dot-com days we’d probably have just pitched it, but times have changed and who knows, maybe you belong to a nursery school co-op that wants a dedicated microwave for defrosting mice for its snake. Or for your home. Yours if you want it.

March 16, 2009

You’ve probably read about the shocking revelation that cyclists tend to have poor bone density, because we don’t carry enough weight around on our skeletons. For some reason cyclists, among other very lean athletes, are singled out by these studies. It is true that, statistically speaking, runners suffer far fewer broken collarbones than cyclists do. But some researchers have proposed that this is because runners almost never get driven into the pavement at 30 or 40 mph. I would like to propose a follow-up study comprising a control group of typical runners plus a test group who are subjected to high-speed impacts with asphalt to test their collarbone strength. I think YouTube would be the ideal way to showcase the results.

In light of this disconcerting stuff, I want to share some good news for a change. We’ve all known for a long time that ice cream and cheese are chock-full of calcium. But that’s not the only way forward for bone health. New studies are showing that alcohol suppresses bone-weakening hormones, so we should be including more of that in our diet. Meanwhile, there are minerals such as boron and silicon that occur naturally in beer (more so than in wine) and that also promote bone health.

Below are some links on the great news about beer.

• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-385602/Drink-beer-beat-crumbling-bones.html
•  http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/490673

Meanwhile, running is hard on the joints, plus I’m no good at it, and it doesn’t give you great belches like beer does. So stop worrying about your bones. Ride your bike and drink your beer (though not at the same time). That’s my 0.71 rubles, anyway…

November 18, 2008

Thanks for the email! Gosh, so much to reply to there. To start: the way you describe the dread you felt when you moved that furniture, worrying that it would crush you? I had to chuckle because that’s how I’ve felt my whole life! At least you have an upper body. “Gosh, I wish I had a cyclist’s body,” said nobody ever. Swimming has been good to you, even if you haven’t done it in years and years. You’ve still got the muscle memory there (literally hundreds of miles of muscle-feeding capillaries that dudes like me lack) so you’ll get it back the moment you go back to the pool or get a rowing machine or whatever. I’m trying to rehabilitate my shoulder still, and I want to add some muscle there to hold everything together now that the ligaments are permanently severed. Maybe when you’re here for Thanksgiving, we can do my little circuit training regimen together (barbells, this weird sport-cord thing, a soccer ball, and a big exercise ball—you’ll see).

But what’s this about cigarettes? You literally smoked a whole pack in one day? What’s up with that? Don’t punish your body, dude, it’s done nothing to deserve that. I assume you’re not planning on smoking during your visit (not in front of my kids, or I’ll stub the cigarette out on your arm!). I’d recommend you quit right now, so if there’s any withdrawal it won’t be distracting you during your vacation.

Wow, I just picked this big booger and flicked it away, and I heard it hit the window. It’s like that sucker had wings.

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Email me here . For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

My Bad Habits

Introduction

My daughter A— read one of my old posts recently (this one) and drew my attention to a passage from it:

Even less promising [in a list of 101 blog post ideas] was prompt #51, “Create a blog post about your bad habits,” which said, “Smoking, alcohol, drugs, yes they could be blog ideas too! Tell them something shocking!” In general, not just with my blog but in life, I try to avoid incriminating myself in writing. Meanwhile, my bad habits are not exactly shocking. Sometimes I go to bed without flossing, or get crazy and have a second beer.

My daughter said that this actually could be a good blog post. I reminded her how harmless my habits are. She said no, they don’t have to be bad bad, just outlandish, and cited my “neuroticism about loading the dishwasher” and “compulsion about bike gear,” along with “rapping Eminem lines randomly” which is “peculiar for an old(ish) white dude.” Well, Eminem himself is an old(ish) white dude, but point taken … he’s the poet, he gets the poetic license. My family doesn’t actually need (or deserve) my drastically inferior cover versions.

And so, I’ve taken the bait and compiled a list of my “bad” habits. How many of these do you share? And how many inspire you to think, “That’s nothing, compared to the way I…”? Post your comments below, or email me them, and if I get enough I’ll do a follow-up post! And now, with no further ado, here they are.

Neuroticism about loading the dishwasher

My daughter hasn’t elaborated on this point, and my wife seems reticent to do so. I will say I am a meticulous sort, and have been known to remove and reload recently placed mugs, saucers, and plates even while my wife is still loading. There is historical basis for my corrections; a  mug that’s not properly inverted can fill with sudsy water and turn the dishwasher into a steam room instead of a sauna during the dry cycle. But the fact is, the dishwasher actually stopped working months ago and is now only a dish dryer, so my fastidiousness is arguably overdone. Meanwhile, reading over this paragraph I realize even just the description of this could be more than any sane wife could take. Clearly this is a good habit gone bad.

Compulsion about bike gear

I ride bikes a lot, and will not go out unprepared. The amount of gear in my pack for mountain biking is arguably excessive (details here). And (as my wife just reminded me), when something is missing or I’m packing the car for a race, I can get pretty agitated. This is surely based on “my favorite failure” which you can read about here. But gosh, I sound like a pain in the ass, don’t I? Don’t worry, not all my habits are this tedious.

Rapping Eminem lines randomly

Is it ever not random to rap Eminem lines? Some of them are very apropos and deserve to be cited; for example, there are many scenarios where one could sagely point out, “I don’t go around fire expecting not to sweat.” But I don’t rap that line; I’m more likely to just say it, with the preface, “In the words of the famous philosopher Marshall Mathers…” The random rapping really is more of a spontaneous outburst. On some level I think I’m training myself for when I become senile one day … if my utterances are going to be random anyway, they might as well be interesting. I can picture myself in a long bleak hallway of the old folks’ home, picking my way along with my walker, and suddenly yelling, “PISTOL-WHIPPIN’ MOTHAFUCKIN’ BOUNCER SIX-TWO!” to the shock and mystification of fellow codgers and staff alike.

Pondering unimportant grammatical matters

Words and grammar take up far too much of my brain activity. Whenever I see a sign saying “Entrance,” as in “enter here,” I automatically think that it might as well be saying the word we pronounce “en-TRANCE,” meaning “to put into a trance.” This gets me thinking about heteronyms in general, which really nobody needs to ever do. I’m also picking apart sentences all the time. For example, the recorded message that plays on the subway at every stop, saying, “The doors are closing … please stand clear of the doors” gets me thinking about how “the doors” got to be the subject of the first half of the sentence, and then became a mere object in the second half, like it got demoted. What a pointless realm of thought. Think of how much good I could do in the world if I used this brain power for good!

Apologizing for belching

I don’t belch on purpose—a belch will just suddenly overtake me—so I can’t call that a habit. Apparently there’s a way to muffle them, but I haven’t really mastered that, much less made it a habit. (Lack of a good habit isn’t the same thing as a bad one.) But without fail, I’ll say, “Sorry!” afterward. I guess this is faster and more efficient than saying “excuse me.” I think I got this from my brother G— because I seem to say it with a bit of a Dutch accent, like the one he’s acquired after over thirty years of living there. Or who knows, maybe he’s unconsciously modeled this behavior on some Dutchman’s. Anyway, it’s weird, I’ll admit it, and the strangest thing, is I’ll apologize even if I’m completely alone. Someday there’ll be an intruder in my house, sneaking up behind me, and suddenly I’ll burp and apologize and scare the crap out of him, since he’ll think I knew he was there all along. Until that day, this is a pretty pointless behavior.

Gesticulating broadly while belching

Sometimes I realize I’m about to belch and it’s gonna be a good one: loud and long. So I’ll make it as big and proud as possible, and part of that is making a grandiose gesture such as a master orator would make when delivering a speech in front of a vast audience. I totally got this from my brother G— and amazingly I was barely aware that I do it, until my wife pointed it out as one of the habits to list on this blog. I was like, oh yeah, I guess I do do that! I’m not sure if she was complaining or what, but she’s never, like, applauded or anything.

Buying boxers online

There are spam emails from J. Crew that I actually open … on purpose. Are they still spam? Decidedly yes, as for the most part they’re a waste of my time. I’m talking about the emails with titles like, “Time’s running out: extra 60% off sale.” The “extra” means it’s 60% off the already discounted price, so it’s actually a good deal. I can get a pair of boxers for like $4.50 instead of $24.50. The trick is that they’re usually the seasonal ones, so I get boxers with hearts all over them in late February, or Santas in January, or raccoons on skis in spring.

You see, there’s apparently a romantic tradition of a woman buying thematic boxers for her boyfriend as a gift. I actually received a couple pairs of these when I was younger. The first pair was way, way too big and my girlfriend was super embarrassed, so much so that when she bought me another pair, they were way, way too small. Maybe I’m trying to made amends for all the money she wasted … naw, I’m just a cheap bastard. The upshot is that I now own more pairs of boxers than I could possibly go through, with themes like Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, even Easter. And yet, like all guys, I don’t retire a pair until it’s like twenty years old and literally falling apart at the seams.

Is there anything wrong with this habit? Sure! At $4.50/pop, for something I already have plenty of, this is still a waste. If I bought three-packs of manufacturer’s seconds at Ross Dress for Less (never mind that they’d fit wrong, like they’re on backwards), and donated the money I saved to UNICEF or Oxfam, I could make a big difference in the world. Instead I have boxers featuring St. Bernards with Christmas wreaths for collars.

Edgy humor

I think some of the best humor is edgy. For example, when my late father was in a nursing facility after a cancer surgery that hadn’t gone so well, he decided he should revise his will and get fresh signatures on it. We were in his room helping orchestrate this, and while trying to explain something to us he suddenly suffered a massive coughing fit, that, given his gravely ill state, made it look like he could actually expire. This inspired my brother M—to thrust a pen at him and yell, “Sign it, quick!” This was obviously totally inappropriate and our dad sure didn’t appreciate it, but man … it was just so damn funny! Another time, my brother G— was in the ICU after a terrible car accident, and though he wasn’t technically supposed to have visitors, my other two brothers and I were in there hanging out. We were supposed to be really quiet but just couldn’t manage it. Finally G— motioned to us to come closer so he could whisper something to us—you know, the kind of thing a guy does before delivering his last words —and as we craned to hear him he croaked, “Could you guys try and keep it down? There’s people trying to die in here.” It killed me. And so, a lot of the time I just can’t resist dark humor. For example, when this charity solicitation arrived in my mail, addressed to my father  (who passed away almost seven years ago and had never lived at this address), I couldn’t help but to annotate it a bit:

(No, I did not send that to the good folks over at the Ocean Conservancy ... just to a couple of appreciative family members.)

Workplace humor

At my workplace we all had to take this harassment training—a guy in our Legal department did a road show and gave the training in person to everyone—and one of the things he advised was just to never make jokes in the workplace. He says that’s what gets people in more trouble than anything, and most of the time they’re not trying to make anyone feel bad, but humor is just too subtle and it’s not worth the risk. And yet, I often just can’t help myself. A workplace with zero humor just doesn’t seem like anything anyone should have to put up with for an entire career. Of course I try to be careful and so far, so good. I go for the goofy stuff which seems like safer ground. For example, I cracked wise during a team All-Hands online meeting with like 70 people. Normally people are muted by default with this big a group, but in this case we actually weren’t, and I could hear some background chatter as people joined. And then we all heard, clear as a bell, some guy say in a singsong voice, “Do you need to go potty outside?” I came off mute and said, “Nah, I’m good.” That got huge laughs but I know I’m messing with fire. Somebody I’m gonna, like, offend a sensitive pet owner, and my career will be over.

The Wordle

As explained here I wasn’t initially inclined to do the New York Times Wordle puzzle, but was won over because it’s a fun way to have an ongoing (but low-stakes) dialogue with my daughter. I can now say I’ve done 654 games, and it’s a good thing they usually take under a minute. Actually, just to amuse my daughter, I spend as much time adding fun stickers to my completed game card as I do on the puzzle itself:

My daughter has gotten into the decorating too, though her picture editing tools are perhaps not as sophisticated:

I guess this is harmless, but man … 654 games. Seems like in that amount of time I could have created a critical vaccine or something.

Trying to interest my wife in sports

As much as I enjoy pro cycling coverage, such as of the Tour de France, I cannot interest my wife in it. And yet I still try. I showed her the breathtaking final kilometers of the recent women’s Olympic road race, but she was somehow unmoved, even with Kristen Faulkner claiming the first American victory in that event since 1984. And still, I keep trying. I mentioned how I had to school my brother after he suggested it was Alexi Grewal who last won the gold … he was tied with Connie Carpenter, who won the women’s event that same year. My wife couldn’t even be bothered to yawn. So I said, “And Connie’s was arguably the more impressive win because she didn’t deliberately screw over her teammate, as I have it on good authority Alexi did.” Absolutely no response, but that’s okay, because a had an ace up my sleeve. “You know what I mean by ‘good authority’?” I asked. “I don’t mean I read it somewhere or somebody told me. I got the entire story from Alexi Grewal himself, in the flesh!” She looked at me like I was some kind of idiot, as if to say, “So what! I don’t care!” I said, “How many people do you know who got to hang out with an Olympic gold medalist?” Another blank look. She has been steadfastly uninterested in sports in the entire time I’ve known her … so why do I still try? Force of habit, I guess.

(In case you’re interested in the story of how Alexi screwed over his teammate, Davis Phinney, you can read it here. Alexi had told it to me so I could turn it into freelance article, but then revoked the permission when he found out it would be in an online-only magazine, dailypeloton.com. He eventually wrote it up himself for his now-defunct blog; fortunately for those among us who do care about sports, Velo Veritas picked it up.)

Yanking out white sideburn hairs

I get these really weird, wiry, long white hairs growing in my sideburns. They aren’t that noticeable against the blonde ones around them, and I’m not exactly vain, but they annoy me. So I frequently take a moment to try to grasp a hair and yank it out. It’s easier said than done … in the mirror it’s hard to focus on a tiny hair because I have to be close up and the depth perception is tricky. Plus, it’s hard to get a good enough grip. Why do I bother? It’s not like I’m a model or anyone is paying that much attention. The time I spend doing this must add up … time I could be spending doing something more useful, like emptying the cat box more often.

albertnet

As of this past February, as detailed in my 15th Anniversary post, I have spent something like 3,500 hours—that is, 1.9 years if this were a full-time job—writing this blog. I guess that counts as a habit. Is it a good one? Well, I just compared it to the 7 habits of highly successful people, and even the 8th habit I came up with myself, and it’s not looking so good. Blogging doesn’t really match any of the effective habits. But hey, better than drinking, smoking, and gambling. If you are hungry for the salacious details of a blogger’s bad habits, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

albertnet 15th Anniversary + My Favorite Posts!

Introduction

I almost missed a big milestone this week: the fifteenth anniversary of albertnet! 

I well remember the day I decided to start this blog. It was a blustery afternoon in early February of 2009, and I was having a late lunch at a Russian tea room in San Francisco, south of Market, with some long lost UCSB friends. We got to talking about writing, and S—, who had seen some of my freelance articles in the Daily Peloton, suggested I take a crack at blogging. He had a blog about travel gadgets at the time (though I cannot find it now).

So, on that cold February day I decided to take up S—’s suggestion, and fifteen years on I’m still at it. Should I be? Is albertnet a success? Well, as a former boss once told me, “Metrics are important in this space.” He was talking about a different space, but let’s look at some numbers anyway.

albertnet metrics

• $0 – how much money I’ve made from albertnet
• 714 – number of posts so far
• 2.2 million – estimated number of total words
• 3.7 – times the size of War & Peace
• 144 – estimated hours it would take to read it
• 3,500 – estimated hours I’ve spent writing it
• 1.9 – estimated years writing it, if a full-time job
• 26.5 – months it would take to read it, at 1 post/day
• 5.7 – estimated # of reams of paper to print it out
• 46 – number of followers
• 921,373 – number of total page views to date
• 186,000 – estimated cumulative hours readers have spent here*
• 1 – *Number of very big ifs regarding that last metric

In a previous post I defined a successful blog as “one that shows up for work.” By that measure, I’d say albertnet is doing fine. My goal has been to blog four times a month, and I’ve averaged 3.97. Moreover, irrespective of what others think of it (e.g., followers, readers, skimmers, randos who stumble in here and quickly leave, haters, and bots), this blog has amused me all the way along … and as I’ve recently explained, that’s pretty much the whole point. See how easy success can be when you narrow the definition this way? It reminds me of this motivational poster:

(If that looks familiar, it’s because it’s from this very blog.)

Other measures of success

Okay, great, I consider albertnet a success because it’s been a good hobby for me. But has it contributed to the world in any way? Well, I do think it’s made something of a mark, based on certain posts that have been popular enough to climb to the top of Google’s search results. Here are ten search phrases that produce an albertnet post on the first page of results:

• spelling of kindergartner (second result listed, right after dictionary definition)
• cowboy sam review (second result)
• bicycle “corn cob” poem (first image result, second text result)
• inner tubes fascinating (first non-video result)
• tire chains seething (my East Bay Times story is the first result; my blog post is second)
• velominati “BS” (second result)
• missy giove acne (second result)
• lance eminem (third non-video result)
• cycling world record Berkeley
• “how to write a sonnet”

Google searches used to be a more helpful measure of my blog’s impact, back when merit alone determined placement in a search. For example, for at least five years my vasectomy post was the very first result when you googled “California vasectomy law.” But those were the olden days. There’s money to be made on search results, and over time companies have learned how to use SEO, content marketing, and various other techniques to get themselves featured higher, confounding the “organic” search results of yesteryear. The fact that some albertnet posts still perform well in Google searches tells me I really am touching a nerve here and there.

Which brings us to reader comments. Candidly, I don’t get a lot of comments on this blog, but sometimes the quality of a reader’s feedback is so heartwarming, it fuels my resolve to keep going. I’ll give you a couple of examples. I blogged about a favorite children’s book, Cowboy Sam, and as you can see here, the granddaughter of the author left this comment:

Dana, I have to say that I enjoyed your post about the Cowboy Sam series. Very entertaining, well written and definitely brought a smile to my face! Edna Walker Chandler was my Grandmother and passed away in 1982. Her son (my father) passed in 2014 and I inherited copies of most of her books. Would you mind if I copied your post to my family history book for personal purposes only? Thank you! --Celeste Chandler

And below my post “Farewell, La Fiesta” about a favorite restaurant that closed, you can see this gem of a comment:

This made me cry.

They called me “Cinco Verde, Budweiser” for many years. A #5 is a Chile Relleno, an Enchilada and Rice and Beans.

I’m bawling. 

How am I celebrating?

So … you may be wondering if I’m doing anything to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of this arguably successful blog. Will I be buying a new car for every one of my readers? Or throwing an amazing party with a free taco truck and a live band? Alas, I don’t really have that kind of budget. So, along the lines of the the albertnet index that accompanied my fifth anniversary, I’ll provide something here that should interest my loyal readers: a list of my very favorite posts.

You may wonder how this would be more useful than the list of most popular posts that I already provided. Well, popularity is not necessarily the best indicator of quality. Sometimes a post goes viral (at least, in a modest, albertnet way) because it gets referenced in some other place that gives it inordinate traction. This was the case with “No Mo’ NoDoz,” which was cited in a scientific journal for some reason. Not a bad post, but for about 18 months it was insanely popular and until I chased down that source, I couldn’t figure out why.

So, I’m reasoning that if you like my blog, you must like my style, and would naturally respect my literary taste, and it’s pretty likely you’ve missed a few great posts over the years. So, with no further ado, here is my list. It was really hard choosing my favorites so I didn’t narrow it down too much: I came up with my top 35. That might seem like a lot, but it’s only the top 5% of all posts. I couldn’t possibly decide which are my very favorites among these, so I present the list chronologically, with the most recent at the top:

Dana’s favorite albertnet posts:

• If William Wordsworth Were Writing Today
• I Drank a Gallon of Water a Day for a Week - Here’s What Happened
• Three Toasters
• COVID-19: Helping Teens Cope
• Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2021 Paris-Roubaix
• English: I Think That That Language Is Screwy
• Stop Pushing STEM!
• From the Archives: Riding La Marmotte - Part II
• Fiction - The Things They Carried Biking
• Spelling Focus - Is It “Kindergartner” or “Kindergartener”?
• Ode on a Double-Edged Razor
• Famous Last Words - Part II
• If I Had Defended Floyd Landis
• Ode on a Chain Lube
• What You Didn’t Know About Giraffes!
• Velominati’s “The Rules” - Brilliance or BS?
• Лучше Девушка - My Russian Picture Book
• Ghost-Written Race Report
• 10 Fascinating Facts About Inner Tubes
• Ode to South Park
• Bride of “Pink Floyd The Wall”
• Our National Anthem
• Farewell, La Fiesta
• Stage Play - Lance’s Defense
• Trouble With Tire Chains
• The Lotion Sniper
• Lance & Eminem
• How to Write a Sonnet
• Highbrow vs. Lowbrow
• Farewell,‘84 Volvo
• The Myth of the Angry Bike Mechanic
• The Case Against Margolis & Liebowitz
• Book Review - Cowboy Sam
• Corn Cob
• Everything You Wanted to Know About Getting A Vasectomy - But Were Afraid To Ask

I’ll update the above list over time, like I’ve done with the index. Check back often! Tell your friends!

Well, I guess that’s about it. Thanks for fifteen great years, unless you just got here, in which case it’s about time! ;-)

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Because It Amuses Me: the albertnet Subhead

Introduction

My wife is starting a business, and recently read up on how to build a good website. This has given her some ideas for albertnet, one of which is to have some kind of subheading, beneath the masthead, that conveys the nature of this blog. I guess the subhead is meant to be kind of a slogan, or a mini-mission-statement. It should ideally answer the question of why the business exists: i.e., what is the point?

Having been thus encouraged to apply this idea to my blog, I’ve had to do some head-scratching. One result of this is the subhead you see above. At least, you should see it above, if I updated the template properly. In any case, you can see it below:

My thought process, including further examination of the question “why albertnet,” follows below. If you’ve ever wondered what the hell this blog is even about, this is your chance to (maybe kind of) find out.

Not a business

First and foremost, albertnet is not a business. Since I pay for web server storage and for my domain names, but receive zero revenue because I refuse to turn on AdSense advertising, this blog is actually a cost center for me. This means the answer to “why?” can’t simply be “because money.” Meanwhile, I can’t call this is a non-profit, pro bono type of business, because I have no way to tell if it’s actually benefitting anybody. To date, this blog has had about 890,000 page views, which pales in comparison to a great many blogs (though in absolute terms it strikes me as a somewhat large number). I’ve posted over 700 times over a period of about 14½ years, so 890,000 views is not a lot of bang for the buck. I also don’t know whether a page view represents somebody reading an entire post or just glancing at it and deciding it’s not the Google result he was looking for, and closing the page. So to assume I’m serving some market and satisfying readers would be pure guesswork.

Does that mean I shouldn’t bother trying to promote my blog? Not necessarily; after all, what writer doesn’t want to attract an audience? But that doesn’t mean I have the time or patience to work much at it. After all, technical tricks like search engine optimization and content marketing are not nearly as interesting to me as, say, writing. So what if I double my page views? From the financial perspective, two times zero is still zero. From the “actual reader” perspective, leading people here does not make them read.

What do readers want?

For a blogger—that is, the kind of writer who can’t simply look at book sales to see if he or she is successful—page view counts might seem very valuable. Data mining is certainly a popular practice in corporate America; I recall a big boss once advising me, “Metrics are important in this space.” (Man, I think I actually bruised my eye sockets at that moment, so forcefully did my eyes roll.) Another time my director was counseling my boss and me on a tough decision we had to make: “Go with your gut,” he said, and then—seeming to suddenly remember the business zeitgeist of the time— he quickly added, “but make sure it’s data-driven.” Um … okay.

Okay, fine, I’m poking fun at puffed-up pronouncements here, not the data behind them; what does page view data actually have to say? Could I use blog post popularity data like a mini-focus-group? Well, consider that my most popular post of all time, as of today, is “Spelling Focus: Is It ‘Kindergartner’ or ‘Kindergartener’?” which has racked up over 11,000 views. Should I conclude that this the kind of post albertnet readers love, and do more posts like it?

Well, not so fast. I think when companies make data-driven determinations like this, they’re using the feedback to try to react quickly to the market. But if this “Kindegart(e)ner” post were a TV show, it’d have been canceled immediately, because it was initially stillborn and generated practically zero page views for the first two years it was up:

This isn’t an isolated phenomenon: my most popular post of the past month (though it’s only so far climbed to fifteenth overall), “Selecting Bicycle Wheels – Part I,” was largely dormant for over nine years before suddenly gaining traction about six months ago. It’s been going strong ever since, getting almost 1,700 page views (about 60% of its total over time) in the last three months alone:

I see this again and again with albertnet posts: “Everest Challenge ‘Pep Talk’” took six and a half years to go anywhere and is now my tenth most popular ever; “The Problem With Soccer,” my eighth most popular, malingered for almost a decade before building any momentum. So why should I put any stock in page view stats, knowing that any of my 700+ posts could, theoretically, suddenly tip? All I can really glean from the data is that albertnet posts are not timely. But then, I knew that.

Now, it’s tempting to think I could set the numbers and timelines aside for a moment and simply look at the topics of my most popular posts and try to figure out what they have in common. Here are my top five of all time (as of today):

Hmmm. No single theme is jumping out at me. The top post is about spelling. Second most popular is a news story about a cyclist setting a world record. In third place is an essay about whether highbrow entertainment is actually superior to lowbrow. Fourth goes to a harrowing personal history about having my balls shaved and my vas deferens snipped. And the fifth most popular is a poem about bicycle gearing. In terms of topic, these posts almost couldn’t be more different.

Could it be some other characteristic they share, that makes them popular? Well, I guess they’re all arguably funny—but then, I try to find humor in everything I write about, and these posts aren’t necessarily standouts in that regard. The one about the cycling world record, for example, has a few decent gags but isn’t nearly as funny as, say, “From Farting Liberally to Liberal Arts: the Flatulence Files,” which has performed dismally, with under 600 posts total over nine years.

Should I care what readers want?

When I look over those top five albertnet posts, I can remember how each of them came about—and in every case, worrying about whether the topic would attract readers never crossed my mind:

• The corn cob post was a result of a cycling teammate of mine ribbing me about the randomness of my blog topics. As I wrote in the post’s introduction, he said, “You could write an essay about each cog, or better yet, you could write a sonnet, an ode to the corn cob!”
• The vasectomy post was simply a great yarn that demanded to be told; from the shaving of my scrotum, to the mysterious ConMed Hyfrecator machine, to the mid-procedure power outage, to the doctor declaring ominously, “I’ve got your vas,” the confluence of events was practically literary entrapment
• The “Highbrow vs. Lowbrow” post came about because I’d wasted a bunch of money at a museum and wanted something to show for it, if only an essay
• The cycling world record post almost didn’t happen … it seemed like an interesting opportunity to actually report on some breaking news, but I was feeling lazy, and prevaricated before finally deciding, what the hell, I’d go ride South Park Drive a bunch of times with a wannabe world record holder
• The “Kindergart(e)ner”post was simply to help out a curious friend, who puzzled over the spelling but wasn’t as keen as I to dive down rabbit holes after arcane knowledge

The common thread you can discern about those posts is that the likelihood of an enthusiastic audience wasn’t the point. And why should it be? Writing for me is simply a hobby, and how many hobbies are measured by some worldly notion of success? Does the fly fisherman care how many fish he catches (particularly if he always releases them, as many do)? Does the bird watcher mainly do it for the bragging rights? Does the Netflix binger hope his encyclopedic knowledge of “The Crown” will bring him glory at the office water cooler? No … we do these activities simply because we enjoy them.

The joy of not caring

At the end of the day, many if not most bloggers are amateurs. Many of us have probably considered writing for a living, but that means pleasing our publisher and editor and getting worked up about what critics have to say, and how well we’re selling. That sure seems like it could take the fun out of the activity. If I always write with some potential readership in mind, then I’m really doing this for them. But since this is my hobby, why shouldn’t it be about me? And if others happen to find my stuff useful, funny, or insightful, why not just consider that a bonus?

So if you’ve ever come to the end of an albertnet post—perhaps this very one!—and thought, “Man, that really didn’t do it for me,” don’t be disappointed. This blog was never about you. It’s about me, and more specifically, whatever I think it’d be fun to write about. And thus the answer to “why albertnet?” is a simple one: “because it amuses me.” (I hope it happens to amuse you, too.)

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

About the Author

Introduction

Who is the guy behind albertnet? It has occurred to me that my so-called “complete” profile on Blogger doesn’t actually say much: just that my gender is “MALE” (their all-caps, not mine); that my Occupation is “specialist”; that I live in Albany, CA; and that I’m interested in cycling, food, literature, and parenting.

Of course you could learn all that from the blog itself, but that would take effort. Before making the commitment to spend any time on albertnet, I suppose you deserve the equivalent of the “ABOUT THE AUTHOR” blurb on the jacket of a book. That’s what this post is about.

About the author

DANA ALBERT is a graduate of UC Berkeley, where he earned a degree in English (not such a significant achievement since he grew up speaking English at home). He is a company man turned blogger (though still a company man) and is a regular contributor to albertnet. In fact, he is the regular contributor to albertnet. In addition, Albert’s Letters to the Editor have appeared in the Boulder Daily Camera, the Colorado Daily, the Rivendell Reader, and The New Yorker. He has also written holiday newsletters, chalkboard graffiti, lists of all kinds, and lots of checks. He lives in Albany, California.

(Hmmm. I don’t think that came off exactly right. Let me try again.)

About the author

DANA ALBERT is the author of “Everything You Wanted to Know About Getting A Vasectomy - But Were Afraid To Ask,” “Ode to the Corn Cob,” “Stop Pushing STEM,” and “From Farting Liberally to Liberal Arts - The Flatulence Files.” He has dreamed of winning the Man Booker Prize, The National Book Award, and the lottery.

(Gosh, that didn’t really work out either. Take three!)

About the author

COUNT DANA ALBERT was born on the family estate of Albertus Alberticus in the Pannonia province. He studied Barbaric languages and law at the Sorbonne but left before completing a degree. In 1985 he joined an artillery regiment in the South Orkney Islands. He took part in the Great Orkney Food Fight and after the defense of the Junior Enlisted mess hall table wrote “The Pizza Crust & Thousand Island Dressing Massacre,” which cemented his literary reputation. After leaving the army in 1988 he spent time in San Luis Obispo, California where he got involved in radio stations and bike shops, establishing himself as a world class troublemaker. Albert wrote two great blogs: albertnet and … okay, one blog. So far.

(Getting closer, but perhaps I ought to stick to the facts.)

About the author

DANA ALBERT is one of the top 30 million bloggers in the United States. His posts have been read less widely than the Bible, Shakespeare, and all other published works combined. His output has surpassed more than 1.5 million words, many of which have been read by others. His posts have been translated into dozens of foreign languages by countless users of Google Translate, surely. He died in 1976. Wait. Scratch that. He is alive and well. Relatively.

(Dang it! This is much harder than I thought! Bear with me…)

About the author

Born and raised in Boulder, Colorado during the ‘60s and ‘70s, DANA ALBERT made a full recovery and now lives in California. He is the author of albertnet, along with “Driver Keeps Warm by Seething About Chain Requirements,” “Campaign Signs – the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” and, most recently, “Autocomplete Zeitgeist Revisited.” His work has been praised by family members and sarcastic critics alike.

(Nope. That’s not it.)

About the author

LINDSAY ALBERT’s delightful sketches atop the pages of albertnet have earned her a dedicated following of parents and grandparents, and a reputation as one of America’s finest blog illustrators under the age of twenty. Her work, alongside such posts as “Ask a Sinead O’Connor Fan,” “Never Discuss Politics,” and “Helping Teens Cope with COVID-19,” has surpassed even that of previous albertnet illustrators.

(Hmmm. Maybe I can actually use that. But it’d have to be alongside my own. So I have to keep working at mine.)

About the author

DANA ALBERT is a longtime staff writer at albertnet and a syndicated columnist. His columns, including “Ask a Sea Kayaker,” “Ask a Middle-Aged Guy,” and “Ask Dr. Tyre,” appear in more than zero blogs worldwide.

(Oh dear. Not quite there yet.)

About the author

DANA ALBERT is the author of an untold number of unread poems including “Ode to South Park,” “Urination Poetry,” “Ode on a Belly: Mine,” “Ode on a Chain Lube,” and “Ode on a Double-Edged Razor.” In 1989 he was nominated at the UC Santa Barbara Cycling Awards for “Most likely to form a rap group.” He was also considered, though not seriously, for an Honorable Mention in Retail Quarterly magazine for his essay “The Lotion Sniper.” He is almost unanimously reviled by hipster/poseur douchebags for his groundbreaking “Velominati’s ‘The Rules’ – Brilliance or BS?” and has been pestered by his children for almost two decades.

(Damn. That ain’t right.)

About the author

DANA ALBERT left his native land of Boulder, Colorado, to attend college in California in the late 1980s. His literary career was delayed by his dizzying climb up the corporate ladder (dizzying not due to heights achieved, but due to the ladder swinging around, and all that coffee besides). Albert is considered by many of his readers to be an authority on the spelling of “kindergartner.” He lives in Albany, California with his family, though his children keep moving away and his first cat died.

(Man, WTF. I think I’m getting worse at this.)

About the author

DANA ALBERT is a British-influenced unpublished short-story writer who was born in America and stayed. His first book, The Cowboys and Stagecoach, was indecipherable because he hadn’t yet learned the alphabet, and (probably as a result) it was never published. Albert won the Gold Plunger award for best writing about toilet emergencies, with such groundbreaking essays as “Train Trip – Part 3,” “Everest Challenge 2013 (Stage 2),” and “The Toilet Paper Hoarding Conundrum,” though he was subsequently disqualified due to conflict of interest, as he totally made up this contest and was the only entrant.

(Nope. Cannot use that. No way, no how.)

About the author

One of the twenty-first century’s most masterful prose stylists (according to his mother), DANA ALBERT was born at a hospital in June. After learning to read by essentially memorizing Cowboy Sam, Albert went on to be educated in an elementary school, following which he pursued a high school diploma, graduating on time in good standing, and then attended college at a university. Following his formal education he remained in the western hemisphere, where he launched a brilliant literary hobby. He has coached fifth graders in math; seniors in the use of the Android operating system; and high school kids in mountain biking. All of these activities are the rough equivalent of teaching literature at a prestigious university, at least as far as effort and noble intent are concerned.

(Yeah, I know, that pretty much went off the rails.)

About the author

DANA ALBERT is the bestselling author of the Princess Dariella series of children’s books, the basis for the hit Netflix original series Dariella, in his dreams. He would be the recipient of the Food Writers of America Rubber Spatula award for amateur food memoirs, if any such thing existed, based on the potential success of his essays “Easy Recipes for College Kids” and “Homemade Pasta.” He would go on to contribute to the Hulu/BBC adaptation of “My Humiliating Senior Prom,” if any such project were undertaken. He lives in Albany, California with his wife, one of his kids, his cat, and probably about 100 species of arthropods, if his home is typical.

(Perhaps there is a reason this book jacket task is typically carried out by publishers, not writers.)

About the author

DANA ALBERT was trained as an office worker. He has worked as a bike mechanic, an underwear canner, a radio station receptionist, and (though not professionally) as a dishwasher installer. He lives indoors. This is his first blog.

(Okay, that’s a wrap. Here’s the finished product … but I just realized my blog doesn’t have a jacket to put this on.)

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.