Still Searching for a Home

We haven't found a home for the cats yet. Please ask any cat lovers you know if they might be able to take in a pair of cats. Thanks.

Jabberwocky

And now, one of my favorite poems:

Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll
(Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

I absolutely love the nonsensical nature of this poem. Lewis Carroll conjured up words as he pleased; yet somehow the poem still manages to call up iconic images. Even when a word has no known meaning, you have a general sense of things--an absolutely fantastic use of language and whimsy.

Most wonderfully indicating the broad influence of this poem, the words frabjous and chortled have been accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary. More fascinating information about the world's most famous nonsense poem can be found in the Wikipedia entry for Jabberwocky (including a glossary and pronunciation guide).

Uniting two of my favorite whimsicalities, the Muppets once performed the poem on The Muppet Show (with Brooke Shields as Alice). Afterward, Scooter proclaims it "the strangest thing we've ever done on THIS show..." Now that's saying something.

Anyone Want to Adopt Two Cats?

No, we're not giving up Max and Daisy. Through a strange turn of events, my family has become the custodians of another pair of house cats. We're looking to find them a good home.

This pair has probably lived together for at least a couple years. One is a large orange tabby. The other is a medium sized white cat with a tan stripe down its back. Both are longhaired. Although we haven't taken them to the vet yet, they appear to be in generally good health.

Does anyone know of someone who might like to adopt them?

A Decidedly Odd Return to Berkeley

A couple months ago I got together with my decidedly odd friend Jeff, his friend Kendra K, and her boyfriend Joe. Having recently earned his second Masters Degree from UNC, Jeff was making a brief stop in Berkeley on his way up from his parents' house in San Clemente to his new job in Seattle. Although we'd gotten together briefly two times while Jeff was back at Berkeley teaching in the summer of 2004, the last time I'd spent more than a couple hours with him was when we met up in Germany. So it was very nice to see him again.

I met up with Jeff at the Berkeley Rose Garden, one of my favorite places in Berkeley. He was classically wearing a shirt displaying the letters of the alphabet that ended in wxyc--indicating the UNC Chapel Hill radio station where he'd been a dj.

From there we headed over to Kendra's. Jeff and Kendra both worked at and had shows on kalx. Actually, Kendra still has a show there. Since graduating from Berkeley, Kendra has been a librarian at the university. But she's perhaps best known to the outside world for her blog and for being a close friend and confidant of a certain Dr. Frank of MTX fame.

In any event, her place was the quintisential Berkeley abode. The decor could best be described as a mixture of second hand furniture adjoining large columns of musical albums accompanied by literature, with a sampling of instruments. And all of it sprinkled with years of show-going ephemera. I absolutely loved it.

Joe joined us and we ate at the the ever popular Barney's. Joe's nearing the end of his extended stint as a graduate student at Berkeley. Also active in the music scene, he's has been heavily involved at Gilman for quite a while.

I believe the original plan for the evening was to attend Punk Rock Joel's annual pop punk birthday party show. But having embraced the opportunity to converse face to face, we'd missed the first couple hours of the show. Sleepily I meandered back to the south bay, while the others went on to the show.

Returning to Berkeley to meet with Jeff was a fond reminder of days past. For a few hours that day, Berkeley almost felt like home again.

A few pictures:


Jeff


Kendra and Joe


Me


Jeff, Kendra, and Joe


Jeff and Me

Tiny Cities Made of Ashes

Continuing my theme of soft spoken background music, you're now listening to a Sun Kil Moon cover of Modest Mouse's Tiny Cities Made of Ashes. Mark Kozelek's delicate rhythm could scarcely be more different from the heavy handed sound of the original Modest Mouse version. I love the way he asks, "Does anybody know a way that a body could get away? Does anybody know a way?"

Yesterday's Happy Happenings

Bob's BMW was in need of a new radiator. So the first order of buisness was a trip to pick-n-pull. Not long after we arrived, a relatively good looking BMW was brought into the yard. In short order, that vehicle became a donor to Sir zLog's patient. While there, I also managed to pick up a pair of cupholders for my family's fleet of Camrys.

A short time later, after the BMW was repaired and the Camry improved, we set to work on the Metropolitan. Armed with the knowledge that the Met could be safely started, we readied it for it's first road test by checking the tires and rebleeding the brakes. Then Sir zLog got behind the wheel and fired it up. The Met started surprisingly easily. Bob then managed to get it into reverse and back it out of its long term parking spot. This marked the first time the Met had moved under its own power in a long, long time.

Emboldened by our success, we decided to take the Met down Fortini to see if it would get into all three gears (four if you count reverse). The Met performed admirably. As we rolled along smoothly, Bob easily shifted it through all the gears. I now know what it feels like to go 40 miles an hour with no windshield. Consult the zLog for more information.

Shortly thereafter, Rich arrived in a minivan to deliver a dvd player that he'd won earlier that day while purchasing a bag of ice at Safeway. That makes it four, count them four, rental cars for Sir rLog since the smooshing of his Chrysler. He was then coerced into the unexpected privilege of taking a ride in the Met.

Much to my dismay, I didn't have a camera with me. However I did manage to locate Sir rLog's phone, which I used to produce the following image:


Soon to be a regular sight.

Cupholders, a radiator, and a moving Met

After yet another day of automotive efforts, I have the following to report:

1. My Camry has a working and fully retracting cupholder again.

2. Bob's BMW now has a new radiator and a few other new bits.

3. The Metropolitan rolled down the road under it's own power for the first time in who knows how many years.

More details to come; but I don't want steal Sir zLog's thunder. For more immediate information, I happily refer you to the zLog.

Color Blindness

I mentioned in my last post that I can't titrate very well due to my inability to differentiate various shades of pink well. This, of course, stems from my red-green color blindness.

As many of my readers are aware, I have a number of perceptual issues with regards to color as a consequence of being red-green color blind. One of which is that I perceive certain extremely pale shades of (what people tell me is) pink as gray. I discovered this after I purchased a sweatshirt in our nation's capitol that appeared quite gray to me. Later, faced with overwhelming and independent opinion that it was pink, I was forced to concede that it must indeed be pink.

As it turns out, I'm not too good at differentiating certain shades of pink and purple either. And the odd shade of blue will appear purple to me (but that's rare). But the best way to sum up the most common effect of my color blindness is that I have a hard time seeing small red or orange flowers in fields of greenery.

Of course there are some other practical problems. I often have difficulty making out color on the thin lines of things like card and tile games (especially the unfilled single shapes on Set cards). This predisposition in concert with bad lighting or a poor angle will make the colored lines on the card appear black to me. If I do get a hint of color, my mind will fill in the color; and the card will then appear that color--but not always the correct one. Some of my readers have found it amusing to continually find new ways to elict this response.

Make no mistake about it though, I can see the red and the green of the stoplight just fine.

The wonder of red-green color blindness is that it's a sex-linked trait. It's a recessive trait whose gene only appears on the X chromosome. As a result, men only need one such gene to exhibit color blindness; while women need both chromosomes to carry the recessive gene in order to be color blind. Depending on whose statistics you believe, ten to fifteen percent of the white male population experiences it to some degree. Meanwhile, it affects less than half of one percent of the female population.

My brother and I are both red-green color blind. Although it doesn't matter, my father isn't color blind (he could only pass on the trait to a daughter). We must have inherited this lovely trait from my mother. We're not enitely sure if she became a carrier by way of her mother, or if my grandfather wasn't perhaps red-green color blind and didn't know it.

I had no idea that I was red-green color blind until my younger brother was tested for it early in elementary school. A year or two later I was tested; and much to my surprise, I couldn't see some of those fabled numbers in the dot patterns. Heck, for all I know there aren't any numbers there.

For your edification, I present to you a handful of Ishihara color blindness dot tests. You should be able to quickly see distinct numbers amidst the dot patterns. Due to the variance of color calibration and the transmitted light enviornment monitors provide (as opposed to a reflected one), these tests may be less accurate than their printed counterparts. Just the same, they generally work on me. I can only see the first two and part of the third. The rest are just dots to me. I'll publish the numbers behind the dots in a comment, so you don't cheat subconsciously.


Test 1


Test 2


Test 3


Test 4


Test 5


Test 6

Old Friends and Titration

A college friend that I'd lost track of recently got in contact with me. Knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I'd hear from him after college. So I was pleasantly surprised when I opened my email yesterday.

This inspired me to locate a few other friends that had wandered away as post-college life beckoned. Two of them wrote back to me almost immediately. Amusingly, one of them replied thusly:

"What a wonderful surprise to receive your friend invite. Ground Rule no.1: no cracking of column chromatography joke!"

This particular friend studied chemistry and philosophy (among other things) at Berkeley. The column chromatography joke he mentioned was an ongoing friendly jab that I'd make now and again. Not knowing enough about what he actually did as a chemist, and being reasonably curious about it, I'd ask, from time to time, about what he'd titrated in the lab today. Or, when he arrived at philosophy club having come straight from lab, "how'd titration go today?"

For those of you not in the know, titration is a process whereby chemists determine the concentration of a substance. It usually involves the use of a titrant (of known concentration) held in a burette over a flask of a reactant solution. The titrant is then slowly added to the solution until the solution turns the desired color, thus indicating it's concentration. Since this color is typically pink; I have always titrated poorly. Anyhow, most of you have done this in a chemistry class at one time or another.

Needless to say, real chemists don't actually determine concentrations this way very often. They have machines to do this for them; and even if they didn't, you wouldn't catch a researcher doing this sort of menial lab work. So it was a bit of a low blow to continually insinuate that he was titrating all the time.

I guess it was a bit like asking Kris what the biology homework was everyday at lunch during junior year when he wasn't in a biology class. Although that was unintentional.

Couch on Wheels

Rich's second rental car was a Lincoln Zephyr. It was comfortable, if uninspiring. But it was no where near as bad as the amusing review from Car and Driver made it out to be. They basically claimed it was the couchiest couch on wheels that ever couched.

Hellyer Bike Ride

Returning to my ongoing recap of last summer's rides, the next major excursion I was a party to was the Hellyer Run with Kris and Rich. This 30 mile ride took us from Coyote Hellyer County Park to Anderson Lake County Park and back by way of the Coyote Creek Parkway.

Though we attempted to depart early, by the time we reached the staging area at Hellyer it was approaching midday. Although it was pretty hot, we felt fine cruising along the paved parkway trail. But by the time we stopped at Anderson Lake for lunch, we were all feeling the heat. Thankfully, ample amounts of shade and water were available there.

Feeling somewhat refreshed, we started out on the 15 mile return trip. No more than two miles into the return trip, we all started struggling. You see, in addition to the now stifling heat and slight incline, the whole trip back is into the wind. By now we were all working hard and feeling tremendously uncomfortable.

At this point, Kris and I (and to a lesser degree, Rich) arranged ourselves in a line and started trying to draft. For a little while we all took turns pulling at the front. But I was beginning to tire, so Kris took a few extra turns. After one of those long turns, Kris was fading a bit; so I tried to take the lead. I started cramping as I passed Kris. After that it seemed clear that I would do no better than limp back.

We stopped a handful of times during those first few miles back (where the wind is strongest). Between the triple digit heat and my cramping, I felt awful. Mercifully, the wind subsided about half way back to Hellyer. Rich and I were cruising along slowly, just thankful that we didn't have to fight the wind anymore. But Kris had an abundance of energy left and took off. He must have led us by a half mile most of the way back.

Kris eventually let us catch up. I was feeling a little bit better; but it was still a big struggle. I just wanted to get back to the car as soon as possible. So I spent what little strength I had left in an effort to return quickly. I wasn't very fast, but Kris didn't chase me down. I arrived at the car first; whereupon I put down my bike and fell in the nearby grass. A minute or two later Rich joined me. We didn't move much for some minutes thereafter. Amazingly, Kris still seemed fresh at the end of it.

The jerseys:
I suppose I got the stage win, but I didn't deserve it. Kris let me have it. Kris wins both the Sprinter's jersey and the Most Agressive Rider for taking over the ride. The hills were minimal and there were no King of the Mountains points.

Good News for zLog

I just heard back from the guys at Metz Mets about the oil situation in the engine head. Here's their reply:

"Fire it up, just cranking the motor will not get oil to the head on the 1500
Met motor, there is more bleed off than the pump can put out unless you can crank it over at 800 rpm (idle speed is just bearly adequate). It may clack for a min or two but should not harm anything."

The Things You Find on Wikipedia

Apparently Bob is in good company. The Wikipedia entry on Weird Al Yankovic reports in its trivia section that his favorite car is the Nash Metropolitan.

Car Shopping, Breakfast with Friends, and British Cars Improved

Cars have become quite a theme here. I hadn't planned on automobiles taking up so many of my posts. But when I recount how I've spent my time of late, I must inevitably mention the many hours and days spent on and around cars.

This Saturday I accompanied Rich on his search for a suitable replacement for the Chrysler 300M that is now a pale shade of smooshed. He test drove four new station wagons: The Saab 93, Mazda 6, Audi A3, and the Volvo V50. The Mazda offers the most car for the money. The Audi was far and away the most fun to drive. Rich has a tough choice ahead of him.

Later that evening Sirs rLog and zLog realized that I hadn't seen the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Movie. I was then forced to watch a handful of their favorite MST3K Movie scenes. I now know the meaning of phrases like "Breach hull-all die. Even had it underlined" and "that would mean something if our hands were made of metal". I also now know what an interocitor is. Now if only I knew what is is.

Abhay had alerted me that he was going to be in town for the weekend; and he requested that I marshall the troops for an excursion. So Abhay, Bob, Rich, surprise guest Kevin, and I enjoyed a leisurely Sunday breakfast at Le Boulanger. It's always nice to see old friends.

Afterward, Bob and Rich helped me to remove the old temperature sender from the MG and install a new one. I am happy to report that I now have a working temperature gauge. In fact all my gauges work now (the fuel gauge isn't very accurate, but that's immaterial). O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Subsequently we went to work on Bob's aging automobile. Despite a new wiring harness that Bob made himself, the Met is still haunted by a few Lucas demons (some of whom may have lost their smoke). After attempting to resolve a few electrical issues, we topped off the oil and got the engine cranking to see if oil was making it's way into the engine head. Unfortunately the oil pump doesn't appear to be working. Bob then inflated the old tires; and somewhat surprisingly, they held air. We called it a day on the Met after bleeding the front brakes.

We concluded our day with a pleasant barbecue, complete with cookies and a dose of Pikmin thrown in for good measure.

If You Think Your Smooshed Car Looks Bad...

In light of recent car happenings I thought everyone might enjoy a website featuring Wrecked Exotics. This site contains literally thousands of photos wierd and exotic cars after major accidents. Due to copyrights, I won't reproduce any of their pictures here. Although I will point you to this page for an image of a Ferrari crashed at 40 miles an hour. All things considered, especially as concerns safety, Sir rLog's car performed admirably.

The Lion's Mane

My mane has grown rather long again. For a time, I even attempted to complete the look of the king of the jungle by growing a matching beard. Unfortunately, I don't think the facial hair quite balanced out the mop. Judge for yourself:









Also, you're listening to to a lovely song by Iron and Wine called The Lion's Mane. I really love the sound, the poetics, and the sentiment of this song.

For those interested, here are the lyrics:

Run like a race for family
When you hear like you're alone
The rusty gears of morning
And faceless, busy phones
We gladly run in circles
But the shape we meant to make is gone

And love is a tired symphony
You hum when you're awake
And love is a crying baby
Mama warned you not to shake
And love's the best sensation
Hiding in the lion's mane

So I'll clear the road, the gravel
And the thornbush in your path
That burns a scented oil
That I'll drip into your bath
The water's there to warm you
And the earth is warmer when you laugh

And love is the scene I render
When you catch me wide awake
And love is the dream you enter
Though I shake and shake and shake you
And love's the best endeavor
Waiting in the lion's mane

A Profound Saddness Engulfs My Sense

Lila, my Berkeley landlords' beautiful longhaired cat, has died. I spent a great deal of time with her at my Northside cottage. Though I hadn't seen her in a little while, I now feel the presence of her absence.


Lila curled up beside the bench outside my window in Berkeley.

Flightless Birds

"The Stephens Island Wren may have been the only passerine bird entirely incapable of flight. In any case, its flightlessness evolved during its long residence on the island, where there were not enough threats to make the ability to fly worth retaining. Once people settled the island to the extent of building a lighthouse there, the species was both discovered and exterminated by the lighthouse keeper's cat, Tibbles, whose kills supplied the specimens that are found today in several collections around the world."

--Murray Gell-mann, from the afterword to Fred Bodsworth's Last of the Curlews.

I found this little tidbit courtesy of Dr. Frank's What's-it, the blog of the Mr.T Experience's singer/songwriter.

Automobile Pictures Posted

I posted photo albums from the MGOC Pierce Manifolds Tour, Metropolitan Tune Up event, and the Arcane Auto Society Candy Store Brunch at my MG photo page.

By the way, if you haven't already noticed, you can see larger versions of any of the images posted on this blog by clicking on the photos.

Men's Doubles Tournament

This weekend I was on the tennis court attempting to do something I haven't done in a long time--play really good tennis. You see, I don't actually get to play against strong competition much these days; and I haven't trained in some time. Despite this, I can still outplay the juniors and all but a few other players at the club. Unfortunately, my partner and I were called upon to play two such people in the club's annual men's doubles tournament.

Despite the difficulties involved in finding my form on the fly, the playing field was fairly level because none of the four players on the court had played so much as one match this year. All things considered, I played pretty well. Although I dug myself a few holes on serve, I was never broken. I started to regain my big forehand return again; and with it, my confidence. On the down side, I double faulted seven or eight times (once at 4-3 in the tiebreaker for the first set!); and I made a handful of very poor plays at the net.

Although we lost 7-6(7-5), 6-3, I am satisfied both with how I played and the match in general. It was a competetive and, for the most part, well played match. My only disappointment is that this matchup of strong players occurred in the first round.

Automobiles, Rain, and Tennis

My weekend began with the revelation that is moonlit falling snow. A few snowballs (and about nine hours) later, Bob and I drove up to the Hayward Hills for this month's meeting of the Met club. There we learned what not to do when changing the oil and adjusting the distributor.

Shortly thereafter, I was on the tennis court playing in the annual men's doubles tournament at the club. For those who care about such things, more on this in a future post.

Directly after my match, I got together with Bob and Manny for a relaxing evening of catching up and Pikmin. I had hoped to see Charlie; but he was only in town for about ten hours (and only awake for about two of those). Bob did see Charlie briefly as he was starting out on his return trip to Washington. I hope Charlie made it back safely.

The next morning Bob and I stretched the top back onto the MG; and set out in the rain for The Candy Store in Burlingame. Aside from being the location of 24th Annual (they think) Arcane Auto Society Business Meeting and Pot Luck Road Kill Brunch, The Candy Store is an old Packard dealership that now houses the very impressive cars of Store members. As usual, both the cars and the people were delightful.

At the business meeting I was named, unbeknownst to me until that moment, "Official (Unofficial) Arcane Photographer". I truly appreciate that the club president sought to recognize me in this fashion. Although I must say I was a little embarrassed when eighty people all turned to look at me.

Despite the intermittent rain, the tennis tournament was scheduled to continue that afternoon; so Bob and I had to depart the arcane event a bit earlier than we would have liked. The tale of the remainder of my day is too frustrating to repeat at present. Perhaps if you catch me in the right (or should I say wrong) mood, I'll tell you about it.

And now, the pictures:


A nice Met awaiting tuning.


"Daysey" is a convertible.


A couple shiny Mets.


A couple Citroens and an Alfa outside The Candy Store.


What a beauty.


A beautiful old Citroen with Caltrain in the background.


More arcanes outside The Candy Store.


The Peel Trident.

Movin' Right Along

The studebaker inspired me to capture and post a new piece of musical merriment. You're currently listening to Kermit and Fozzie sing "Movin' Right Along" from The Muppet Movie.

If you didn't know about the studebaker reference before, listen closely.

A Bear's Natural Habitat?

Should a bear's natural habitat be...


Orange?


Flaming Orange?

Snowy Hills

I assigned Bob the task of photographing the beautiful snow-capped hills as I drove us North to a Metropolitan event earlier today. Though we were going about 65 miles an hour when these were shot, they still turned out rather nice.


There's snow in them thar hills.


Heading North on 880.


Almost every peak is snow-capped.


Unbelievable.


Simply unbelievable.

It's strange to see the golden hills of Northern California looking quite so green and covered in snow.

Snow in Almaden!

Snow, glorious snow, has fallen in Almaden. Not just in the hills, but at my very doorstep. As I was leaving Bob's place, I saw what appeared to be snow falling in the moonlight. But I simply couldn't believe that it would be snowing here at less than 400 feet above sea level. So I presumed that my contacts were blurry and it must simply have been raining. Sir zLog, amazed, pointed out that it was indeed snowing.

Since it was surprisingly warm out, we spent a few minutes beneath the moon amid the wonderous falling snow. I even made a couple of good snowballs from the snow that was collecting on my car. They rapidly turned to ice, numbing my hands, and thereby causing the first projectile to miss it's mark.

Upon my return home, I noticed that my neighbor's new convertible was coated in snow (as was my mailbox). I remember seeing Mt. Umunhum capped in snow in years past; but I don't recall snow falling in the basin of Almaden Valley in my lifetime.

Like Teaching Kindergarden Crossed with Gardening

What could this possibly refer to? In a word, Pikmin. It's an abusrdly entertaining video game that Sir zLog introduced me to last night.

In this game you are Oliver, a humaniod alien marooned on a foriegn planet in search of the various pieces of his spaceship. As it turns out, this is a monumentally daunting task. Luckily, you can enlist the help of the creatures for whom the game is named. Pikmin are a friendly sort of worker lemming that appear not unlike carrots, and are similarly planted in the ground. Once you pick them, they can walk around autonomously; but they will follow your every command if you can manage to round them up. It is then your task to continuously harvest pikmin, gather them up, set them to tasks, check on other pikmin, reorganize others, et cetera.

Somewhere between the cute animation and the amusing noises, an overwhelming confusion about how to organize and oversee fifty tiny walking vegtables set in. Causing further pandemonium, Bob entertained himself by afflicting me with all manner of strange creatures in battle mode. At one point, while thoroughly enjoying my panic, Sir zLog uttered the phrase, "Get your car washed, your blowhog's on fire".

You can read more about the crazy world of Pikmin at Wikipedia.

Stage 2 Peloton Photos

The peloton raced through a few minutes after the breakaway.


Here comes the peloton.


A race official leads them out.


The field stretched out beneath the Union Pacific underpass.


Notice how the teams stay together.


The Gerolsteiner team is pulling hard.


The Tour against the backdrop of the Fremont hills.


The pack passing by.


If you look closely you can see George Hincapie, the eventual stage winner.


Riding on.

Stage 2 Breakaway Photos

I finally got my race film back from processing. Though I'm not too pleased with the quality of the scans, here are some pictures of the three man breakaway group. I shot the all the images of the riders in less than 30 seconds; so they ought to give you a good sense of the speed of the tour.


Waiting for the Tour in Niles Canyon.


The Police clear the way.


Here comes the breakaway group.


Flanked by motorcycles and team cars.


Getting filmed as they go.


Coming though.


Drafting and working hard.


Passing by.


...and they're gone.

The three riders that you can see in my photos of the breakaway are, in order, Credit Agricole's Mads Kaggestad of Norway (green jersey), TIAA-CREF's Mike Creed of the USA (blue jersey), and San Jose native Ben Jacques-Maynes riding for team Kodak-Sierra Nevada.

Mike Creed broke away from the Peloton at the 10th mile. Kaggestad and Jacques-Maynes bridged the gap at 14 miles. By the time they blew by me (around the 45th mile) they had worked together to create a gap of almost 5 minutes from the peloton.

They were eventually caught by the peloton while climbing Sierra Road an hour later.