From sync@caliban.Corp.Sun.COM Fri Jun  5 20:14:21 1992
To: nomadness@caliban.Corp.Sun.COM
From: wordy@lorien.qualcomm.com
Subject: Notes from the Bikelab -- #17
Status: RO

--------------------------
NOTES FROM THE BIKELAB
Issue #17 -- 6/5/92
by Steven K. Roberts
Rochester, NY
--------------------------

Copyright (c) 1992 by Steven K. Roberts.  All Rights Reserved.  
(Intact reposting and free distribution are OK with permission; 
personal forwarding is OK without.)

IN THIS ISSUE:

	Road stories, Bostonian PING, sensory input capacitors
	Hints of Aquatic Nomadness
	FTP status and media update


"If it needs to be stronger, we make it bigger.  If that makes it 
ugly, we chrome it."
 -- Harley-Davidson engineer, speaking anonymously during
    discussion of structural engineering and materials science.



Well, well.  The miles, they DO fly by -- since my Kentucky 
posting (bikelab-16), I've crossed the Appalachians (an easy 
task with the mothership), filmed the Donahue show in 
midtown Manhattan, spent a week in DC at Interop, dropped in 
on a few companies and friends, ridden an unloaded upright 
bicycle through Pennsylvania hills, enjoyed posh hotels, 
languished in a seedy old dorm room, spoken at CMU and 
Xerox, wandered city streets, glimpsed lifestyle alternatives, 
discussed a film deal, experienced intense moments of love and 
terror, begun real planning of the next technomadic platform, 
and bounced email off of a satellite while nursing a beer.

The usual.

I'm in Rochester at the moment, fresh from a speaking gig at 
Xerox and preparing to disappear to a dear friend's cabin on a 
lake in the Adirondacks for three days of swatting the dreaded 
black flies and kayaking with a jazz singer.  After that... it'll be 
off to Boston or Austin -- hey, they rhyme, so the choice is 
confusing.  How's this:  if I get some interesting invitations 
from Boston (like speaking gigs and other fun stuff), then I'll go 
there sometime around the week of June 15 and then head up 
to Peterborough and Maine before turning around and aiming 
myself at Colorado (by way of Austin).  If no interesting 
opportunities materialize, I'll just head for Austin, then west.  
(I love winging it:  ye Bostonian denizens of the alias, consider 
this a ping!  Much easier than actually digging through my 
poorly maintained database and making cold calls....)

Anyway, this adventure in the east has been intense, even if I 
have been lumbering around in the mothership (Doug 
Brightwell, writing a caption for one of the pictures in issue 
#11 of the revitalized print journal "Nomadness," put it thus:  
"Not a mere gas guzzler, the Mothership is actually a 
sophisticated energy transducer that takes solar power 
generated millions of years ago and liberates it from the dense 
matrix in which it has been stored over eons...").  Consider the 
New York City experience, for example...

The plan was simple enough:  show up in midtown Manhattan, 
drop the bike at NBC, park the mothership, hang around for a 
couple of days and tape a show with Phil Donahue, then pick up 
the bike and rumble down to DC.

Well... New York is a challenge.  I met the show's associate 
producer, Molly, at the Vince Lombardi rest area in New Jersey, 
took a deep breath, and plunged into afternoon traffic:  slowly 
creeping down Westside Highway with some guy in a Caddie 
yelling at me to get the trailer off the road or I'll get a ticket.  
Into midtown, nervous, creeping through intersections in my 
40-footer as cabbies honk in chorus, the whole frenetic pace of 
Manhattan suddenly in my face, familiar, alien, enchanting, 
terrifying.  Me bewildered, unflappable Molly directing, me 
questioning my sanity, Molly telling tales of big-city media.  At 
last we turned into the tunnel under Rockefeller Center for a 
moment's respite -- unloading the bike and taking it upstairs to 
spend the night on the Donahue stage.  That was the easy part.

But the mothership could not remain in the basement -- plenty 
of room down there, but we have RULES, y'know.   Someone on 
the staff had done phone research in anticipation of this 
problem, so we headed off to find a distant parking garage 
guaranteed to be suitable for my machine.

South we went into nighttime Manhattan, lost briefly in 
Chinatown, over the Manhattan Bridge, and into Brooklyn... 
then a few miles on Flatbush Avenue and east on Park.  She 
had laughed at me earlier for locking my door, but now locked 
hers.  It was getting scary, and we drew more and more stares 
as we went on, cruising neighborhoods in a growling 1-ton 7.3-
liter International diesel dual-wheeled cowboy cadillac of the 
sort rarely seen in New York, both it and the blazing white 20-
foot trailer crammed with high-tech toys and bristling with 
antennas.  At last, a tight turn onto a tiny street (Molly and I 
both nervous -- nah, this CAN'T be it!) and sure enough, the 
garage -- a tiny overhead door atop a short steep ramp.  On one 
side of the road, drivers idled, waiting for something... we 
paused while a couple of cop cars zoomed past, sirens shrieking 
and lights ablaze, before approaching the dusty old building, 
somehow the same color as the street.  Sullen eyes watched 
carefully from the shadows -- the dramatic, tall redhead and 
the bearded white guy in shorts and sandals, carrying a pack 
with rubber-duckie antenna.

The proprietor emerged.  "Hey, you made it!  Everything's cool, 
come on in, it'll fit -- no, no, don't worry about a thing, no 
problem with security, just leave me your keys.  Oh, those 
people?  It's cool, they's just buyin' drugs, don't worry....  What 
you doing in town, anyway?"

"I'm going to be on the Donahue Show with my--"

"Donahue!  That's what I call 'junk TV'."  I saw Molly bristle, 
and she asked him why he felt that way.

With surpising clarity, given the hint of alcohol breath and our 
general setting, he elaborated -- and Molly, a real pro, swiftly 
formulated a plan.  "Want to be on the show next week?" she 
asked.

"Me?  On Donahue???   Sure!"

And so the Mothership's security was assured... the garage 
owner would participate in a panel called "What I Don't Like 
About Talk Shows" -- as long as the equipment remained safe 
and secure for the next two days.  Fifteen minutes of fame as 
an instrument of commerce...

Getting it into the building was non-trivial, though, and I was 
glad I had Wells Cargo weld on a couple of sacrificial skid bars 
last month... they left deep grooves in the Brooklyn street.  A 
few false starts, fractions of an inch to spare, some rough clutch 
abuse, and we were in.  Moments later, a stretch limo pulled up 
to whisk us off the Drake Swisshotel and immersion in another 
whole asymptote of New York culture.

I emerged from my suite in the bustle of morning and limo'd to 
the studio to be swept up in the whole dizzy gestalt of national 
TV production.  I've filmed many a feature out on the road, but 
studio work is all different:  makeup, lighting, a crew of dozens, 
sound checks, cataloging Kentucky B-Roll clips for Phil to cue, 
mics on my body and the bike, endless details.  Energy built as 
the audience queued in the waiting area; people scurried about 
giving me advice and making adjustments.  The people were 
ushered in, someone went to work warming them up and 
telling them how to be a good audience, and Phil briefly 
dropped into my ready room to say hi and give me a couple of 
last-minute tips.

And we were on!  He was amazing -- quick and efficient, never 
letting a lull develop, moving briskly through his notes and 
handling the audience with total control (after 25 years of this, 
I guess he knows how they work).  Questions came rapidly, 
mostly level-1, but enough to provide the conversational 
openings required to hit most of the high points.  Now and 
then, Phil would change the subject -- perhaps mentioning ham 
radio and then saying "show 'em Brian" to launch the clip of me 
sitting behind the trailer, dredging some guy in Florida out of 
20-meter static.  At one point, the bike's cellular phone rang 
and the answering machine responded:  "Sorry, I'm doing the 
Donahue Show at the moment and can't take your call... please 
leave a message and I'll get back to you in an hour or so."

Every break, the cute makeup lady would dash on stage to 
powder away the sheen of my advancing pate; producers 
would hustle over to remind me about certain key points or 
hand Phil a note.  The crowd was eager, asking questions even 
during commercial breaks, the whole scene one of fast action 
and high energy.  Phil, I discovered, is a yachtsman and loves 
GPS, computers, and communications... so this was hitting home.  
The show flew by -- too quickly -- and after a wind-down chat 
I was back on the street, leaving the bike backstage overnight 
to be ready for a meeting with a book editor the next day.

Playing in New York.  Feeling high and successful, handing 
dollar bills to homeless people slumped dejected against filthy 
walls.  Watching a sexy couple in Central Park, pausing to enjoy 
a jazz band, browsing 47th Street Photo, hitting MOMA to 
marvel at "Hide and Seek," walking, walking, endlessly amazed 
by the rush of it all, loving it but longing for the mountains.  
Retreating to the luxury of the Drake for room-service and 
conversation, then suddenly we were back in Brooklyn to 
recover the mothership, do it all in reverse, and escape to New 
Jersey.  (An odd concept, indeed, but after Manhattan, northern 
NJ is relaxed and mellow.)

Zoom!  Down the Jersey Turnpike through a gauntlet of cops 
and rush of traffic, and into DC in a killer thunderstorm, streets 
flooded, beltway jammed, skies black at 4 PM.  A visit to GEnie, 
a filming with the French TF-1 network.  A night with a GEnie 
friend and her husband -- chief scientist on the Hubble Space 
Telescope  -- and houseguest Joanna, wandering the US alone 
by Honda Gold Wing and living on GEnie.  Out to Columbia for 
pix with London Daily Mail and a day off, then plunging into DC 
itself for a week at Interop -- unmistakably the best-managed 
trade show I've ever seen.  The whole event was surprisingly 
easy, with a daily commute from the L'Enfant Plaza via Metro 
(DC's swift, safe, and comprehensible subway system) to the 
Convention Center.  

I took a tutorial from Doug Comer on TCP/IP (hey, way-cool 
stuff, this), and spent the rest of the week in a nonstop 
schedule that occupied every waking moment... running the 
bike booth with the aid of lovely Eva, hired by the show to 
keep me sane... doing evening events, including a party at the 
Air & Space Museum... and getting to know Christina, a 
kayaking jazz-singer and network administrator.   (I've driven 
a van to Vancouver and a car to Carson City; I once even 
walked in Waukegan and got THIS close to pedaling to Petal.  
Now I want to kayak to Nyack.)  Nights in Adams-Morgan and 
Dupont Circle, workouts in the hotel weight room, more activity 
in a single week than I used to see in a pre-nomadic month.  
THIS is what it's all about.

Richmond:  installing the new Icom dual-bander in the 
mothership while catching up on growing kids and the magical 
new NeXT cube (wow) with Jim DeArras.  Back to DC for a gig at 
the National Science Foundation and meeting with the 
delightful Noah Adams of NPR's All Things Considered (aired 
last week -- 5.5 minutes!).  And then the road... off to York, PA 
to drop in on Soft Systems Engineering (a Sun VAR) and share a 
few days with netfriend Patti and <pang> her water-company 
engineer boyfriend, including the very strange experience of a 
16-mile bike ride with him on unloaded upright diamond-
frame machines.  What an odd sensation:  a bicycle light 
enough to lift, cranking up hills in a middle gear, whisking 
along Lake Williams (I think) and pausing to watch huge 
catfish flirt with spillway disaster... I'd forgotten the sense of 
speed and freedom.  Might hafta try losing a few hundred 
pounds sometime!  (Stay tuned)

More road.  CMU, killer Grand Concourse breakfast buffet (go 
there and do it!) plus a detailed tour of the surprisingly 
interesting city of Pittsburgh courtesy of Jon Danzak, a DEC 
friend from my old CompuServe days.  Hanging out in a tired 
old dorm awaiting the speaking gig, cruising town with a lovely 
lesbian friend <oh jeez, still MORE pangs>, and then, zoom again, 
here to Rochester and Xerox for a talk, a party, a visit, and the 
warm startling experience of seeing my lovely 12-year-old 
daughter for the first time in 7 years.  Fast action.  Change.  
Intensity.  Emotional extremes.  Longings.  Delights.  

And I subject you to this shallow, rapidfire expose' of road life 
to make a point... 

That's exactly what it's like.  I'm not kidding.  There are 
moments, sometimes even hours, when the discovery of a 
person or place is accompanied by a longing to stay -- along 
with the painful realization that by wanting it all, I'm accepting 
a stiff trade-off.  It's gain-bandwidth again... like a bento at a 
Japanese restaurant.  Some of this, some of that -- plenty of 
food and all quite interesting, but not enough of any one thing 
for a real relationship to develop.  This is perfect for one who 
loves discovery, but there are some very real <pangs> triggered 
by people, towns, companies, lifestyles, restaurants, schools, 
and even bicycles... knowing that I damn well better enjoy it 
now because I may never pass this way again.  In general, this 
is a healthy attitude, but there's this constant tension between 
the extremes of going and staying.

Whenever I start complaining about that phenomenon, 
however, I soon find myself in one place for a while and it 
drives me crazy with wanderlust.  The time involved is 
anywhere from 2 days to a few months, depending on the 
bandwidth of the experience.  Discovery is an addiction; if I 
may be permitted one more electrical-engineering metaphor, I 
am living an AC-coupled existence.  There's a big series 
capacitor between my senses and reality, and if the input 
doesn't change at some minimum rate, perception decays to 
zero.  (Would someone without that capacitor please tell me 
what it's like to remain stimulated by the same inputs for 
years???  Do you REALLY, or are the habits just too comfortable 
to break and the costs of change too high?  Winning entries will 
be excerpted in the next issue.)

The only solution, at least logically, is an illegal combination of 
gain and bandwidth... breaking the rules once again by 
advancing the technology or trying something outrageous... 
like...


LEVIATHAN:  Amphibian Nomadness
--------------------------------------

It's really bad luck to publish information about a project 
before it becomes a reality, so I won't.    Hell, the acronym isn't 
even entirely nailed yet.  <giggle>  


FTP Update, Fine Print, Media, and Noise
------------------------------------------------------

Man, that was mean.  I'm such a tease.  Seriously, I am 
exploring the next phase but at the moment it's just a PBI 
(partly baked idea), and anything I write now is guaranteed to 
be really embarassing in retrospect.  (Lessons of the past -- 
you might have seen some of the stuff I wrote about the bike 
before it actually happened <shudder>)  Basically, we're trying 
to identify mission-critical subsystems and implement them in 
a vehicle that is not tied to asphalt, since that means hills, 
potholes, drivers, glass, and, well, a lot more of what I've come 
to know all too well.  The style of travel itself can become too 
stable, you see -- I'm now investigating the second derivative 
of wanderlust.

For those of you who are new to this alias, I should cover a 
couple of important matters.  First, the back issues of these 
Bikelab Reports, as well as some GIFs, archives of the 
technomads alias, and about a megabyte of road stories (the 
"Miles with Maggie" episodes that take up where my 
"Computing Across America" book left off) are available free 
for the asking in ftp.telebit.com under /pub/nomad/.  Get the 
READ.ME file for the directory structure, and help yourself.  
Most of the bikelab reports, unlike this one, include lots of 
technical details about BEHEMOTH... and recent technomads 
archives include quite a bit of discussion about chord 
keyboards, voice, and other nomadic data-entry techniques.  If 
you want to join this active discussion group, send a note to: 
           technomads-request@bikelab.corp.sun.com
If you have administrative business related to THIS one (like, 
you're gone for the summer and I'm about to see lots of mailer 
daemons), please send a note to:
           nomadness-request@caliban.corp.sun.com

Second, my itinerary these days is as random as ever, but 
much faster.  Because of the mothership I can zip around the 
country with relatively minor propagation delays, and am 
reasonably responsive to paying gigs and particularly 
interesting visits.  I'll try to keep you advised of the general 
plans, and please freely attempt to modify them if it seems like 
I'm going to be near you.

Rough plans for the next few weeks are:  east immediately to 
Syracuse and the Adirondacks, then either Boston or Austin as 
noted earlier.  If Boston, we can probably assume a host of 
suburbs (a suburb of hosts?) as well as Hartford, Peterborough, 
and Deer Isle, Maine -- maybe also Camden.  If not Boston, then 
the path to Austin will be more convoluted, doubtless including 
Dallas and other points between here and there.  After that, 
Colorado and Utah in July, Washington State in August, 
somewhere in September (this I can state with reasonable 
certainty),  and SF Bay Area in October and November.  A few 
deals in negotiation will rubberband that line beyond 
recognition, but those are the approximate anchors.

Another anonymous ftp site is open on my Sun machine at 
Qualcomm, and it will carry a file ("positions") of lat-long 
updates from the OmniTRACS satellite terminal.  I'm not sure 
what we're going to do with this just yet, but it should be fun.  
As you can see from the signature block at the end of this, I 
now have the link running -- that location data was lifted from 
the automatically-generated header of a message sent to 
myself from my host's driveway.  The lat-long is derived by 
some spherical geometry and timing magic involving a pair of 
satellites, and the towns are plugged in by a piece of software 
at Qualcomm as the mail passes through the gateway.

Media:  The Donahue show will air soon -- I should have a firm 
date a few moments after irrevocably sending this file, and will 
thus follow it with a notice soon.  Good Morning America is 
supposed to happen any day now but we keep playing phone 
tag, and other stuff is in the works.  As usual.  

Those are the headlines... cheers from the road!!!

   -- Steve



---------

Steven K. Roberts, N4RVE           wordy@lorien.qualcomm.com 
NOMADIC RESEARCH LABS

according to the OmniTRACS satellite terminal, I am currently at:

X-Position: 43 8 3 N 77 32 25 W 
X-Nearest-City: 4 miles ESE of Rochester, NY
X-Nearest-Town: 3 miles NW of East Rochester, NY



