<\/p>\n
So, my day started off with a run around lake calhoun with front runners. Well, biking to the far side of lake calhoun, then running around lake calhoun, then biking back home. Unusual for me with prior frontrunners experiences, I was the fastest running that day. Not unusual for front runners groups, I was by far the youngest there. It was a good start.<\/p>\n
After that, I biked to campus. There is a segment of bike path which was recently paved (though still marked with “road closed” signs, which clearly didn’t stop everyone. This segment connects extends one bike trail to meet another, resulting in a bike path route, nearly entirely free of traffic covering almost the entire distance between my place and campus: megarocking. <\/p>\n
On campus, I put in some work on a group paper due tomorrow evening. One of my team mates was justifiably pissed at me, because I’d completely restructured the analysis section of the memo (probably 2\/3 of the memo by itself), autocratically, because I couldn’t wrap my head around doing it the agreed upon way. I also admitted that I had done so, and expressed a willingness to revise it back to compliance with the outline. Also, the other 1\/3 of it was pretty well done. She was in fact pretty pissed, and had told me that I didn’t need to come in. I came in anyway, sat down & helped out. By the end, she was back to being friendly. I did contribute, we did rework it to the original outline, and it looks like the other 1\/3 will be mostly kept.<\/p>\n
Stopped by the north country coop, to do a bit of grocery shopping, then continued with the bike home. While still on the not-yet-open segment of trail, some little hoodlums (estimated mid to early elementary school) were throwing things, (gravel sized rocks, I think) at passing bikes. Not at the cyclists’ heads or anything. I gave them a withering look, and they said they wouldn’t mess with me. As I biked past, they threw something at my front wheel. I lost my temper, dropped my bike, shed my groceries, and the bag with my laptop and course readings, plus a few expensive books in it, and started pursuing the brats. They ran through people’s yards, around houses, through alleyways, etc, I followed, they split up, and I stuck with one of them (probably ran after them for less than 2 minutes). I could have caught them, I was feet behind one of them, and was stopped by two thoughts: 1) What am I going to do with this kid, if I do lay hands on him, and would I be legally in the wrong for laying hands on the kid. 2) What could be happening to my bike\/laptop\/readings\/food\/etc while I’m fucking around chasing these brats. <\/p>\n
On my way back to my bike I ran across an older kid (late elementary\/early high school) who tried to talk to me. I was pissed off and curt, and didn’t miss a step while talking with him.
\n“Did you catch them?”
\n“No.”
\n“If I see them, I’ll teach them a lesson.”
\n“Good.”<\/p>\n
Less than a minute later, as I was passing under another bridge on this path, I felt a small puff of dust\/dirt land on my head & right shoulder, and I think I heard somebody saying something up on the bridge, but who the hell knows. It’s a busy city, I chose to ignore it, and get on with things. I think I may ultimately have done nothing to discourage them from engaging in the same idiocy again, possibly even reinforcing their behavioral pattern. I hope not, but I’m cynical.<\/p>\n
How many of you guessed that all 3 kids (2 throwers, and the one talker) were black, I wonder? <\/p>\n
Next time some shit like that happens, I’m torn between grabbing the little rodents and asking them whether they’d rather talk with the cops or with their parents about what they were doing, or waiting till I’m out of their earshot and calling the cops in to deal with their behavior. I can easily visualize the former scenario blowing up in lots of ugly ways, though it would be sooooo much more gratifying. And the latter seems so much less certain of producing any sort of an end to their activity, but is probably really the better way to go.<\/p>\n
When I got home I made chocolate chip oatmeal cookies (for the n-billionth time), and lemon\/date\/coconut\/oat bars for the first time. Both were good, but the bars were better. Then I met to discuss an outline with my public management & leadership group, on the successful (?!) response to the AIDS epidemic in Uganda. It was good, much agreement resulted. And compliments on my cooking.<\/p>\n
Following this, Joe, James, and Seth came over for some board gaming fun. First was San Juan, second was tongiaki. James won, as I recall, though Seth was close. Seth kept building tiny buildings, and I didn’t build much the first few times. I had 9 buildings, but they were all pretty decent. Then came tongiaki. Tongiaki was much more freeform, because I’ve played it like twice, and lost both times, while none of the rest of them had played at all. I did pretty well. My last play was an obscene chain reaction involving at least 5 launchings, and a new island or three being discovered. And the game lasted as long as it possibly could have. But it was fun. And the most fun part of it all is the trash talking that goes on throughout. <\/p>\n
All in all, I guess it was a fairly full day. I wish I had more like it. Though less with the juvenile delinquents, and the moral conundrum they pose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}