wrog

We needed to get a hitch installed on our new Kia, and rather than ordering it and having our local shop do it, because they made a hash of installing the hitch on the Tesla, we decided to go to a place that does all hitches all the time (actually they do roof racks as well). But they were in Framingham, which is 23 miles away. I had the idea I'd bike home today and bike back to get it tomorrow, but then Valerie needed the Kia for a trip tomorrow morning, so I only went one way, and we just went and got it with two people and a car in the afternoon.

22.59 miles in 2:18. Average 9.7, because I'm slow, but also the roads were sometimes covered in puddles from melting snow, and you can't hit a puddle fast if you can't see for certain what's under the water, because it could be a 3 foot pothole. There were a couple of downhills I got to go fast because it was dry and clear, but there was a lot of being cautious. Also there was a bunch of icky traffic in Framingham.

Don't know when the last time I went more than 20 miles was. I suppose I could scroll back through my bicycle tags. Perhaps there will be many more now that there's less demands on my time, and it's warmer. Even if I have time, it's hard to bring myself to go more than about 10 miles when it's 30°.

(edit: It was June 12: https://nosrednayduj.dreamwidth.org/159443.html)

I spent the weekend at the Tech Squares annual square dance weekend, where I had a blast. There was dancing on ice skates, dancing to pre-recorded stuff from the 1950s, dancing to silly hacks that people invented, just regular plus dancing, higher level dancing, board gaming, jigsaw puzzles, chatting with people I only see once a year, chatting with people I see more often than that, decent food, and not enough sleep.

Somebody had brought a Rubik's 4x4 cube, and I learned that I have forgotten everything I knew about what to do with the centers. At some point I had edges and corners solved and was making progress on the centers, but slowly, because the thing I was doing did more than I wanted it to, so I tried to figure out what I needed to do to be more restrictive in what changes my moves made, and of course ended up messing it up completely. Then I repeated that situation, and then I got into a mess where I couldn't solve the edges, and the centers were still a mess. Then I gave the cube back. Maybe I will get mine out and spend some of my retirement re-deriving how to do this.

The new car went 220 miles and returned with 24% left in the batteries. It's "guess-o-meter" is moderately accurate.

I found out about the whole bombing Iran thing while I was away, but mostly was not looking at any news sources and stuck my head in the sand about it til I got home. Today I clicked around for protests, and I found one, this evening in Boston. I would say there were 200-300 people there. This one was also put on by the socialists, like a previous one. Some decent speakers. The MC was pretty good at getting everybody to cheer at the right times and he led us in a number of chants. After an hour of rallying we started marching. I don't know what the destination was, because after 40 minutes of walking, it seemed we were getting further away from the train station, and when it was 15 minutes away and there was a train in 20 minutes, I got my phone to give me walking directions and, like a dork, I just stuck it in my pocket and had it announce things like "your next turn is in 1000 feet". Walking is often faster than taking public transit, and more reliable (assuming your feet work, which surprisingly, after dancing them off all weekend, mine did). I'm sure I would've missed the train if I'd taken transit, even though I walked past a couple of T stations.