Politics
Sigh. We're just going to have to keep doing this until we get it right:
Impeach Trump. Again.
My pronouns are they/them, purely to irritate intolerant morons (like the ones who snuck clearly illegal and unconstitutional anti-DEIA provisions into Kansas SB125).
I also advocate for due process, for everyone.
Diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility are all good things. If someone claims not to like DEIA ask them which part they don't like and why.
Indiana Jones hates Nazis. You should, too.
Recent Biking
I survived the big rides of Spring (watch for my galleries) and now face the Summer heat. If it gets too bad I'll just ride Zwift inside while watching the Grand Tours.
This year I rode the Cottonwood 200 over the Memorial Day weekend, followed by Unbound Gravel and finally Biking Across Kansas in early June. About 1000 km in about a month. Just a little stretch of the legs.
My rides are recorded, of course, in excessive, modern, technical detail. See my Ride With GPS, Garmin Connect or Strava pages for more number-crunching from slightly different points-of-view.
My photo galleries for the 2025 Bike Across Kansas, Cottonwood 200 and Unbound Gravel are up! Proper captions are trickling in.
Genealogy
The Needham genealogy and most of the maternal lines associated with it can now be traced back to the immigrant ancestor, if not further. For this line of Needhams, the American progenitor is John Needham, who emigrated to Massachusetts around 1660.
The Simmons family tree traces back to Benjamin Wilkes Simmons, born around 1780. He appears to have been born in Virginia, but the family migrated to Kentucky in about 1815. I suspect, but cannot yet prove, that the family originally was part of the Catholic migration to Maryland.
I promise that I really am working on a comprehensive update to the genealogy site. I've designed a new look for the web pages, and I'm rewriting the program that automatically creates those pages. That's more tedious than complicated. Your patience will be soon rewarded.
Other Stuff, Rants & Raves
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"The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor
and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.”
― John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty", 1869 - “I haven’t broken it, I just increased its need for maintenance.“
-
Noir comme le diable
Chaud comme l’enfer
Pur comme un ange,
Doux comme l’amour -
"I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything."
- Charles Darwin, in an 1861 letter -
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
- Sherlock Holmes, "A Scandal in Bohemia", Arthur Conan Doyle, 1891
What I'm Reading
"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." - Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey"
- Saturn's Children, Charles Stross, 2008
- Friday, Robert Heinlein, 1982
- Luna: New Moon, Ian McDonald, 2015
- The Strangest Man, Graham Farmelo, 2009
Memorable Passage
Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men. The little man has no way to judge and the shoddy lies are packaged more attractively. There is no way to offer color to a colorblind man, nor is there any way for us to give the man of imperfect brain the canny skill to distinguish a lie from a truth.
Gulf
Robert Heinlein
November 1949
Last updated on Thursday, 07-Aug-2025