I'm a husband, father, author, cyclist, sailor, travel addict, and Silicon Valley software engineer. I've written 4 books and actively review books on this blog.
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We left Orange and immediately headed into a massive headwind. Riding into Vaison where we had some relief due to the Mountains to the North, we saw a bike shop but they did not have a replacement lateral adjustment screw for Mike.
One more km later, to add insult to injury Mike got another front flat from a glass cut. The wind got nastier and I saw to my dismay that Ventoux was shrouded in clouds.
We stopped in Entrevaux and called a couple of hotels before finding one that would take a call. They had a room for us and when we showed up we were a little surprised to find it right in the middle of some vineyards. I called for a short day in light of the impending weather.
After lunch I riode to town to pick up groceries and it rained on me a bit. I guess it was destined to be a short day one way or another. If this is typical Provencal weather I wonder why anyone thinks it's great touring country. If I'm to be rained on I'd rather be in the Alps.
We decided that we would make an attempt at Ventoux. Roberto had emphasized that he wanted to visit Bourg En Bresse before the end of the trip, and it was on the way. (Plus, who could resist another tall mountain?)
From Ales we headed East towards Salindres and Navacelles. Just before Salindres, however, I got my first (and only) flat of the trip --- a glass flat, no doubt picked up by having wet tires roll over city streets. The terrain was rolling, with views of the hills around us. This was classic Provence touring country, low shrubs with no forest, and wild desolate scenery that was reminiscent of the American West. At Lussan, we stopped for lunch, and then rolled towards Bagnols-s-Ceze, but turned off to visit Cascade du Sautadet, a beautiful stream side road, before heading North into St. Laurent-de-Carnols, where we picked up D23.
At the top of the hill, there was an old castle, Chartreuse de Valbonne, which elicited a detour from us. The castle was very nice, but I beheld an even rarer sight there --- a woman cyclist touring by herself (I could tell she was touring by herself because she had 4 panniers), and no companions. We would espy her later at Pont-St-Esprit. Unfortunately, with the push to Ventoux, we didn't stop to talk to her, and rode on towards Pont-St. Esprit after getting a few pictures.
At Pont-St. Esprit, we crossed the river Rhone for the first time, and made our way towards Mondragon on as small a road as my GPS uni could find, but the wind was so strong and annoying that not only did the bridge crossings feel precarious, so did any road sharing! From Mondragon, I picked up D152 towards Rochegude, an unremarkable road following vineyards and winding up some hills. Rochegude had another old castle, but one used as a hotel. It was a four-star place, however, so one look at the price list sent us running (or rather, cycling) for our lives.
From the map, it looked like St.-Cecile-Les-Vignes had lodging, and indeed it did, but because it was a Friday night, everything was taken. The local Logis-de-France place told me that the nearest place would be Orange, so off we went, down D65 towards Orange. This was a scenic ride, and very pleasant, now that there was a tail-wind with us. We made that 15km run in well under 30 minutes to take a cheap place in Orange after very little hunting.
A relatively flat day, with 113km cycled and 1226m climbed.
We left Causse-de-la-Selle around 9:15am, heading towards Ganges. The road was pretty, running along the same river we had ridden yesterday, but it didn't take an hour before we ran into a mechanical problem --- Roberto's cassette was loose! Fortunately, each of us carried an NBT2, intended for removing cassettes for replacing a broken spoke, but it can also be used for tightening them up, and after a bit of fiddling, we got it to work. I bought a supply of those in 2005 in Switzerland, and they are definitely worth carrying in the saddlebag.
We then rode through Ganges in a hurry, and rode towards Laselle via a series of small but scenic roads all labeled D153 through country villages, local hills, and lovely rock formation. I decided that I liked the road enough that from lasalle, we chose to continue along the road to St. Jean-du-Gard, where we had a grocery store lunch.
From St. Jean-du-Gard, the road to Ales was marked as being closed, but I bet that bicycles can get past any road block, and indeed, when we got to the road construction, the construction crew paused a moment from their work and let us through, no trouble at all, granting us a relatively traffic free ride from then on, though the locals that did drove the road went pretty fast.
The climb up to Aubignac demonstrated Piaw Routing in a big way, leading us up along a hiking road (paved, but steep) before descending into the backside of a campground and then joining the main road. This was pretty riding but tough. There was a bit of drizzle on the climb to Col d' Uglas (539m), but it went away relatively quickly, and I thought nothing of it... untilthe descent, when it poured. I don't mean regular heavy rain, I think we had an inch in about 15 minutes. Not only did the brakes work less well, it also made for poor visibility. In several places the road was flooded and we rode through with ankles soaked, repeatedly dunking our bottom brackets into the water.
To top it off when we got to Ales, all the hotels reported being booked, so we had to ride to a suburb to find one with room for us. They didn't have a restaurant but there was a Chinese buffet place across the street --- Restaurant Aux Delices Des Etoiles, with reasonable prices, and run by a family that was actually from Zhe-Jiang from China. We ate our fill and I had a nice chat with the family.
With 101km and 1606m climbed, we hoped for dryer weather tomorrow.
Our train didn't leave till past noon, so I got in a swim at the beach (again) before leaving. If you're ever in the area, mornings are the best time for the beach --- there's very little wind, and you get the beach all to yourself. The water's a little cooler, but not noticeably so.
We checked out, bought a grocery store lunch, and then rode to the train station, which was about 2km away. There's plenty of horror stories about bikes on french trains, so on this trip, I tried to avoid taking French trains as much as possible. The Argeles-Sur-Mur to Montpellier run could easily have been another horror story --- unlike German and Swiss trains, the French regional rails don't have bike cars, so we loaded up our bikes into the entryway of the bike. Obviously the conductor was unhappy with that, but fortunately he was a nice guy, and rather than throwing us off the train (which I've heard of happening), he asked us to move our bikes into the disabled parking spot for wheelchairs, etc. We had to unload our baggage from the bikes, and then tie handlebars and wheels down. This meant that to unload ourselves in Montpellier we had to form a human chain to get everything down in the limited amount of time.
Once in Montpellier, I once again relied on my GPS unit to get us out of crappy riding as quickly as possible by first setting a course for Grabels, then Murles, then Cambous. It was 20km of riding before we got out of the the suburbs of Montpellier. This was the Languedoc area still, and got great views of the vineyards around as we rolled around the area. Then we headed north out of St. Martin de Londres towards Causse de la Selle. The climb was ok, but the descent was gorgeous, winding around lovely rock formations, rivers, lakes, and finally crossing a bridge before the final approach.
Causse de la Selle was a one hotel town, with a Logis de France place. They looked closed, however, and when I called them they confirmed that they closed on Wednesdays. A minute later, however, they called back and said they would open just for us, but there would be no dinner service. That was fine by me, so we accepted and got ourselves a room for 3 for the night. There was a restaurant in walking distance.
Mike and I got up at 8am, ate a quick breakfast. And rode towards Colliure, hoping to pick up the trail to Tour du Madeloc. Soon, we saw other cyclists on the road and on a hunch followed them. That was a good choice, since they led us up a road that wasn't on my map onto D86 and confirmed that this was Tour du Madeloc. The views from the climb were as pretty as I remember from 10 years ago, with the Cote Vermeille off to our left and the pretty seaside village of Collioure gleaming away in the distance.
At the junction we turned right after a short retrograde and then right again after climbing to 450 meters. Then past the no-entry sign (regularly ignored by everyone) the grade got steep as it climbed to 652m in steep pitches that almost had my front wheel lifting off the ground.
Fortunately our gears were low enough and we were at the top of the mountain. After pictures and admiring the scenery we headed down the mountain, but didn't get far before I heard a pop. It wasn't my tire but it was Mike's. We booted the tire but Mike didn't trust it so he decided to walk down while I rode to the hotel to get a spare.
On the way back,I got a call from Mike saying that a he had gotten a folding 23 from a passing van, so we agreed to meet in Collioure where we had lunch (our waiter happened to be one of the Mountain Bikers who had guided us this morning!).
Back at the hotel, Mike fixed up his brake (which rubbed against the tire causing it to explode), and I mailed maps I didn't need anymore back to myself. Roberto bought train tickets to Montpelier, and I took a brisk swim at the beach. Dinner was at a Turkish restaurant which gave me a pear-based dish that was quite good!
We set off this morning up D22 to the top of Col d'Aussueres (1020m). It was cool to the point where we had to go hard to warm up, but the top of the Col was in sunlight, with views of pastoral farmland before descending down to the Pyrenean desert on the other side.=. The descent down to Sournia was on pretty but narrow and rough roads, with only occasional traffic. Once there, however we took a wrong turn towards Campoussy instead of towards Col des Auzines (606m). What really irked me about this mistake was that I had my GPS unit there, and I have even written a blog post on dynamic routing, my I had neglected to put my brain in gear and use it when the intersection was signed ambiguously. Fortunately, we did not have to do much extra climbing before turning around and heading towards the right place --- Col des Auzines. The approach to this pass was classic Pyrenean desert with chapparal and rock outcroppings --- the only thing that told me it wasn't California were the old ruined castles and the like. From just past the Col we could see our first glimpse of the Mediterreanean.
With the beach in view at last, we were pulled towards the coast with ferocity. The descent was fast and furious, and the corners well graded and banked, so soon we were in Ille-sur-Tet.
The last 30km or so to the beach was a drag --- stiff headwinds, heavy beach traffic, and warm weather, a shock to my system after the cool morning. The roads were also rough --- much worse than the mountains. As we approached Argeles-Sur-Mer, Mike discovered that his saddlebag was leaning against his rear brake cable, causing an annoying noise. We stopped at a supermarket to pick up Orangina bottles, drinking one immediately to cut the bottom into a shim to fix this problem. Riding into Argeles-Sur-Mer was such a headache that I resolved to take a train out of the area if possible.
After asking at the local Hotel de Ville (city hall), we were directed to the tourist information center, where we got a list of hotels, and picked a cheap one with air conditioning. We got an obligatory picture of the three of us at the beach with our bikes, and by 5pm I was on the beach at Argeles-Plage, swimming and getting ready for a much needed "rest day", after having ridden 96.3km and climbed 1024m.
The night, I discovered the true purpose of the Vibram Five Fingers --- while playing air hockey with Roberto, a beautiful blond woman came up to me and started talking to me excitedly. Since my French was nearly non-existent, I was non-plussed until I'd figured out that she was talking about my shoes! I obliged and took off my shoes and showed it to her.
We left Tarascon this morning late as usual and headed in the wrong direction to pick up a beautiful road known as route des corniches which starts in Bompas with a scary 15% grade which turned out to be a false scare as the road itself (D20) was relatively level. It was a lovely road, shaded by trees with farms and lots of things to look at. Riding along the ridge I was struck by how beautiful this road was --- it was definitely one of the highlights of the trip despite the relatively low altitude, winding its way high above the ridge where we could see the main national highway before, with views of the villages below us.
The descents were gentle and swooping, giving us lots of time to admire the views, and the climb was relatively gentle. Upon looking at my Michelin map, I saw that there was a trail marked from Cassou directly to Col de Marmare (1361m), bypassing Col de Chioula (1431m). Well, a rough stuff traverse this convenient begged to be tried, so we took it, knowing that it could be quite a bit of work. The trail started out nicely enough, with butterflies of varying colors fluttering before our wheels, and views of the surrounding peaks. About a couple of kilometers into it, however, the trail suddenly took a sharp left turn, and went up at what looked like a 30% grade.
Looking at my GPS unit, it looked like we only had 1km left, but we had to climb 300m in that time, so we got off our bikes, and braced ourselves for a slog. And a slog it was. It turned out to be a horse trail, and the hiking was tough, necessitating several stops to lift our bikes over rocks, tree roots, and other obstacles. We had to rest quite frequently, and by the time we summited we were tired. (And there was also a sign that said no bikes, which didn't do us any good!)
Our reward a 4 course 2 hour lunch with Creme Brulee as the dessert. We then went over Col des 7 Feres (1253m) and descended on D20, a gorgeous slot carved into a gorge along a river. By then it was getting late but we got to a tourist information center off the main road at the Axat intersection before it closed and booked a place in Gincla.
Riding into Gincla, we were impressed by the hotel we had booked sight unseen --- it was a Logis de France place, but because of the isolation it was very expensive.
A relatively easy day with 89.3km and only 1512m climbed (except for the rough stuff).
We woke up in the morning to the sound of rain, and so took our time with breakfast hoping that the rain would go away by the time we left. This turned out to be a strategic mistake, as the rain didn't stop, and so we didn't leave till till 10:40am. It drizzled mildly as we descended into St. Girons with mildly annoying traffic. In St. Girons, I tried to navigate us onto a small road along the Gorges de Ribaouto, but it turned out to be one way only in the wrong direction so we had to ride the main road along the river to Masat, where we stopped for a huge 4 course lunch. It was so big none of us could finish the main dish and Mike had to decline the dessert.
There, we debated the wisdom of various alternate routes to Tarascon that might be more scenic or less traffic'd, but the rain that came down as we left the restaurant decided that for us --- we ended up riding along the main road onto Col des Caougnous (947m) and Col de Port (1250m). The rain was quite warm, so much so that I had to shed my rain jacket halfway up as it got too hot. The rain started getting heavy as we arrived at the summit, and then we had the cold descent in the rain before we arrived in Tarascon. In Tarascon, we looked at two hotels before settling into the Hotel de la Post along with another group of van-supported cycle tourists. That turned out not to be such a bright idea as the hot showers were only luke-warm when 20 or 30 cyclists tried to use them at once, but the food was decent. Our Kindles which had become our primary defense against the incredibly slow French food service industry, drew a lot of attention in the dining room.
A soggy day with 87.1km traveled, and only 1019m climbed. We hoped for better weather the next day.
We woke up to sunny skies, and proceeded down the road towards Col de Peyresourde (1569). The Col was marked on my Michelin map as a double chevron, supposedly well above 8%, but the reality was that the road was straight and didn't feel very steep at all, with nice tail wind helping us push all the way to the top. The only real challenge was a deliberately set brush fire that generated a ton of smoke which forced us to sprint through it. The summit had a cafe where a couple of British cyclists were sitting down, having passed us unloaded. Being friendly, we sat down with them and ordered lunch and had a good chat.
The two of them had done the full Raid tour the year before, and hence could give me information about the surrounding areas. My GPS-set route had us going South from Bagneres-de-Luchon into Spain, but my companions still did not want to brave the hospitality industry in Spain. It turned out that the road I was trying to ride around, D125 had wide bike lanes, so we didn't have to route around it. I also spotted a white road (as described in Raising the Bar). This wasn't on the official Raid tour, but since we couldn't give a rat's ass about that anyway, and the OCD guide gave it good reviews, we decided to go for it and ignore the rest of my carefully routed GPS routes.
The descent from Col de Peyresourde turned out to be just as fast as all the previous Cols, and we arrived in Bagneres-de-Luchon delighted to find a tailwind waiting for us. We quickly rode the flat 18km to Marignac, and turned off onto D44 towards St. Beat. The warm day had left Roberto already with empty water bottles, so he filled up at a cafe in St. Beat despite the owner's unhappiness at not making money off the transaction. The climb up Col de Mente(1349m) felt quite a bit tougher than Col de Peyresourde, ranging above 8% most of the time, but fortunately the sky chose to cloud up at that moment, which made the climb relatively cool.
At the top, I put on a jacket, arm and leg warmers and ate my apple. When everyone had showed up, we first looked at the lodging available right at the top of the Col --- it turned out that while they had rooms, they had no food, so we began the descent towards Col de Portet d'Aspet (1069). All through the descent we tried to find lodging but had no luck because I had stupidly thought that France's area code was 43, rather than 33, so every phone number at every B&B returned a busy signal.
Well, we thus had no choice but to climb the Col, riding past the memorial for Fabio Casartelli. By the time we arrived at the top, Mike was out of water, I was nearly out as well, and Roberto was still climbing. So Mike dumped his saddlebag, filled up bottles at the fountain, and went down to get Roberto. On the climb, I noticed an advertisement for a Logis de France hotel in St. Lary, so I knew we could find something if we kept going. Riding down to St. Lary, we followed the signs to a very nice hotel. This was doubly surprising because the advertisements had announced that it was not just a hotel, but also a bar and a tobacco shop. We ordered the demi-pension, and got a nice suite much better than the 65 Euro charge would have implied. The waitress was also quite pretty, so Roberto went back to the hotel room to get his camera so he could take pictures with her.
Of all the days we had while riding, this felt the most like a day in the alps: 84.5km, 2204m climb.
Day 1 Hendaye to St. Etienne, 98.5km, 2026m climb Day 2 St. Etienne to Ochagavia, 78.8km, 1765m climb Day 3 Ochagavia to Bielle, 97.9km, 2116m climb Day 4 Bielle to Luz, 74.5km, 1762m climb Day 5 Luz to Arreau, 62.4km, 2037m climb
Yes, it's quite rugged out here. Our mileage is dropping even while our climb stays the same. The descents have been steep but fun. Consistent 9-10% grades, with controlled tight turns. Feels a bit more like sky diving than cycling when you're dropping out of the sky like that.
Even Roberto admits to feeling fear on some of these descents. He even braked on sone straightaways! The roads are pretty rough, and it's been warm. A nice change from Germany.
So far, in 3 days, we've covered 250km with about 6000m of climbing. The tour of the pyrenees is turning out to be far more rugged than the tour of the alps are --- we had a long climb this morning with a super short 16% grade descent. So fast and furious even Roberto called it scary.
I was afraid the Pyrenees would be disappointing after the alps, but it's really quite pretty in its own special way. Much more bucolic than the alps, which is more majestic.
Matter is Iain M. Bank's latest novel set in the Culture universe.
It starts out with the classic story of a betrayal of a King by his trusted Lieutenant, witnessed by his son, the Heir to be, named Ferbin. The son flees with a trusted servant, hoping to seek help from his sister, who was gifted to the Culture and is now an agent in the Special Circumstances unit of the Culture.
Along the way, we discover that the world Ferbin is from, Sursamen, is actually a Shell World, a huge constructed world with many levels, each harboring a different habitat suitable for different beings and in the center a machine to control it all. The makers have long abandoned such shell worlds, and the inter-level access is controlled by different species.
The narrative switches between several viewpoints --- the capital, with the evil Lieutenant now running a boy-prince as Regent, Ferbin and his trusted servant, and then his sister, Djan Seriy, who is now a Special Circumstances agent. There's quite a bit of the usual Banks misdirection, but unlike The Algebraist, where I felt the mystery was well constructed and the plot puzzle fair, the build-up, world building, and construction does not quite match up to the ending.
The ending felt very much as though Banks wrote himself into a corner, and then basically solved it all with big explosions. Not that I don't like big explosions, but the result is definitely not one of Bank's best works. Still, mediocre Banks is very good, all things considered. Recommended, but read his other works first, if you haven't already.
Chase & Amazon are offering $70 off the Kindle by using the discount code VISACARD on checkout. The promotion is for the Chase Amazon.com card (which is a reasonable card to use for Amazon purchases), and I don't know if it'll work with any other credit card if you don't already have one.
On the other hand, if you don't already have an Amazon.com, applying for one will get you $30 off, giving you $100 off the Kindle directly. Not a bad way to go.
So like i mentioned in my previous post, I've been on a bit of a cleansing fix these last few weeks. The name of the game this time around is "irrigation"...my last review was on the Waterpik oral irrigator, and now, I'm on my second irrigation machine, but this time for the nose.
Nasal irrigation has been going on for a while. The original techniques for nasal irrigation involved a tea-pot and simply sticking the spout into one side of the nostril, tilting your head as you raise the pot, and letting the warm saline water pour through until it exits on the other side.
Sounds gross doesn't it? Well, here's my favourite youtube video on this. =)
Please note that coffee and whisky aren't recommended at all as you can judge from his reactions =).
Anyhow, a quick note on why I got interested in such a bizarre contraption to irrigate my nose. I've always been a chronic allergy sufferer. I was officially diagnosed almost 10 years ago with allergies, and since then have been on various nasal sprays such as Flonase, Veramyst, Nasonex, Nasalcrom, the various claritin flavor du jour, and other over the counter medicine like benadryl and sudafed.
I also have a deviated septum and my left nostril is significantly smaller than my right. On a breath test, the air flow of the left nostril is about 1/2 that of my right nostril. The deviated septum creates a massive obstruction and things just don't come out easily.
This leads to fairly chronic sinusitis. All my life, mucous and phlegm from my respiratory tract has always been yellow or green, once in a long blue moon, its clear, but for the most part its yellow or green. As the link explains, this means my sinuses are infected fairly often and although it didn't really affect my quality of life, the difference was made clear to me when I started on allergy medications.
Being able to breath from the nose is a pretty wonderful thing.
So anyway, I was introduced via the web to nasal irrigation a few years back, but the typical response to that is to laugh at it, in a not so nice manner. =) As I got older, and got a little more intelligent, and suffered from things like post-nasal drip and lingering coughs and also diagnosed with sleep apnea, I decided to take things up a notch and do some more research into nasal irrigation. The results were fairly conclusive, nasal irrigation done on a regular basis does a lot for one's sinuses and can even help with allergies.
Well, that was that, I went out to Amazon, bought the Grossan Hydro Pulse and waited patiently for it to arrive.
Why did I spend a 100 bucks on something like the Grossan instead of a simple Neti-Pot? Its mostly because I can afford something like that now. Were I cash strapped, I'd probably just have gone for the neti pot. Besides, I like my gadgets, and even though its questionable if this cleans better than the neti pot, the amazon reviewers had pretty much glowing things to say about it.
The package is fairly simple. It comes with two nasal irrigator tips, and two tounge/throat cleaning tip, along with the unit itself. Use of the unit is even simpler, the included DVD is a bit of a joke, but its probably worth the 2 minutes of so to watch it. Basically, you fill the tank up with water, add a salt solution packet, stir it up, stick one tip into one nostril of your nose, and turn the unit on.
Wait till the tank is half empty, take the tip out, stick into other side. Repeat till the tank's empty.
The results were astounding. I could actually breath through my nose for the first time in years! By trait, I'm a mouth breather due to not enough airflow thru my nostrils, but about 10 minutes after I used this unit, I could actually get enough airflow that I could stop mouth breathing for extended periods of times!
The second benefit didn't really manifest until the evening. Recall that I had post-nasal drip and a lingering cough because of the PND. That went away too. I didn't really make the connection until I realized I had stopped coughing for more than a few hours.
That basically sold me the machine, but I wanted to use it for at least two weeks before I could make a recommendation and that it wasn't just confirmation bias or buyer's bias.
Well, two weeks have come and gone. I use the machine twice daily, once in the morning, once in the evening. The results are pretty amazing. My sense of smell has improved, my PND cough has gone away, my breathing has improved, I want to say my riding has improved due to better breath control, but that's probably not 100% due to this.
Suffice it to say that I highly recommend this product as well. If the price of the Grossan HydroPulse is too high, I'd still suggest going to your drug store and just picking up a nasal irrigator. I am going to be trying one out for the next few weeks while I travel, so look for an update to this review when I finally use a manual nasal irrigator.
I consider nasal irrigation to be a a life changing habit, and I highly encourage everyone to try it. As usual, perhaps talk to your doctor first to make sure you have no special conditions, but I suspect 99% of the population have no problems and will benefit greatly from nasal irrigation. As a personal anecdote, I've stopped using all my allergy sprays and haven't suffered from any allergy syndromes for the last two weeks. This sampling might be inaccurate as I'm also undergoing allergy shot treatments and perhaps the pollen count is not terrible this year. But as mentioned above, the real dramatic improvements is my ability to breath through my nose and my sense of smell has never been better.
So I've been in a bit of a cleansing mood these last few months. A combination of sickness, the dentist telling me that I need to better take care of my teeth (and i floss, do 10 minute brushes, and mouthwash every day!), and a lingering cough finally got me off my butt to order a couple of items. This review here will talk about the Waterpik Ultra. You can get it from Amazon at below 50 dollars.
I received the unit two weeks ago and has been using it for that long. First the Aesthetics. The unit itself is quite small, smaller than you expect, consisting of a water tank capable of holding 600ml of water, a case so you can put all the spare piks the unit comes with that also doubles as a lid for the water tank, and the sprayer/nozzle.
The tips that comes with the unit are as follows:
# Two standard jet tips -- Cleans deep between teeth and below the gumline # One tongue cleaner -- Removes bacteria that cause bad breath # One orthodontic tip -- Cleans hard to reach areas around braces and other dental work # One Pik Pocket tip -- Gently delivers therapeutic rinses into gum pockets # One toothbrush tip -- You can brush and water jet at the same time
So all in all, the package is pretty featured packed.
So how does it work? You basically fill the tank with water or mouthwash, pick the pressure settings and then turn the unit on. In minutes, water starts pulsing out of the pik itself. Place the pik with your mouth closed at a 90 degree angle from where the gum meets the teeth and the cleaning starts. The first time I used it, I put the pressure on 1 and it felt like a cleaning from the dentist.
Now, feeling as clean as it does from the dentist, and it being as clean are two separate things, but the amazing thing is that the waterpik does clean out stuff from way back, the wisdom tooth area where the pockets are typically the biggest and you'll also find the biggest chunks of stuff. A good flossing can remove about 70% of the stuff that lodges back there, but the waterpik actually gets over 80 to 90% based on what I feel. Usually after I floss, I can still feel a bit of stuff back there, but the effort to dig it out is usually too difficult. With the Waterpik, a good spray and its usually out. So I'm fairly impressed.
On the topic of accessories, as can be seen from the list above, it comes with a ton of stuff. I've used the pik pocket and the tounge cleaner and the brush, and they all seem to be...less than useful. Perhaps I just like the high pressure feel of the regular pik, after two weeks, I'm on pressure setting 6, and can use 10 if I want to, but the rest of the accessories seems more interested in diffusing the water so that it floods rather than pulses. It just doesn't feel as clean after I used the pik, and the brush, as I mentioned above is useless. Stick to your automated toothbrushes folks!
The other nice side effect of using the Waterpik thus far is the feel that it gives you a gum massage.
Research has also proven that the Waterpik does do the job. Note that it does read like a Waterpik commercial, but I could detect no real bias as others are mentioned and the reason for the seeming Waterpik bias is because they've been on the market forever.
In short, if your oral care is less than ideal and you feel like you could spend less pain at the dentist, I highly encourage you pick up a Waterpik. Even if it breaks like some reviewers on Amazon states a year into it, it'll still be less than the price of an extra cleaning at the dentist! I go 4 times a year and pay 70 dollars each time out of pocket for the 2 extra cleanings, so spending 50 dollars more a year to improve my dental hygiene? Its a no brainer!
Highly recommended product, based on the research and my personal experience so far.
It was a beautiful day, so we rushed out to the S-Bahn to catch the train to Wolfrathausen with barely seconds to spare. Leaving the train station, we immediately headed East, following the route I once found to Holzkirchen, but ignoring a detour that had gotten us lost and making very good time. The weather was really nice, giving us nice views of crepuscular beams coming through the trees, and gentle mist rising from the ground (it had rained the day before) giving the impression that the ground was smoking.
We rode past Wolfrahausen and immediately followed the route I had used before to Scheliersee, this time paying close attention to where I had gotten lost before --- it turned out that the GPS signaled for a left turn where there was no road! This was the first time I'd found a bug in the Garmin Mapsource, so it was truely unique. The tour this time involved a lot less dirt (in fact, no dirt at all), and as we approached Scheliersee, we started looking for places to eat. After a few false turns we made it to Scheliersee where the tourist information office was open on a Sunday, of all things!
The woman in the office (who spoke no English, but fortunately my German is decent enough) directed us to a Biergarten, where we ordered half a roasted chicken, a shrimp salad, and pork chops, and ate it all down. Mike & Roberto made quick work of their beers but as usual I couldn't even finish my Radler (which is only half alcoholic). We debated doing maybe an extra ride up to a higher lake, but looking at how much more riding we had to do, we decided against it.
Riding back along the ridge I had planned before, I was impressed at how pretty it was, even though most of the wildflowers were gone. There was a bit of annoying traffic here and there, but whenever I spotted a turnoff we found something good to ride on, and there was enough bike paths for many of the really bad sections. We made our way past Seehamer See, and then went on to see the town of Valley, at the bottom of a 24% grade. We made it into Holzkirchen around 4:00pm, with enough time to eat a lot of ice cream and catch the train back to Solln at 5:02pm.
Phil has put together a bunch of panoramic photos from our tour of Rosenlaui. To get the full impact, click through, and select "Download Photo". Be impressed. He said that these pictures were constructed using Hugins
Soul was one of Tor's giveaways. The novel revolves around Julia Huntington, a geneticist/researcher who comes home from trying circumstances in Afghanistan to find that her husband has run away with her best friend. Since her research is into genetics, she tries to figure out whether or not there's a gene for violence --- i.e., whether there are folks who can kill without regrets or post-traumatic stress disorders.
The parallel narrative of the story is about Lavinia Huntington, one of Julia's ancestors who was accused and convicted of the murder of her husband. We learn of her marriage, her son, and the circumstances which lead up to her husband's death.
The theme here is that of biology is destiny. We wonder whether or not Julia will end up murdering her ex-husband in a fit of anger, and the author deliberately tries to draw parallels between the two genetically linked women. The message seems to be that we shouldn't do such research (which is hogwash), and that we do have free will. Any serious study of genetics however, will reveal that genes definitely don't for instance, lead you to murder someone, so I think either the author didn't understand his research, or just wanted to write a morality play, which unfortunately is awfully heavy-handed and obvious.
Since the last viewpoint character was dead, we now have a new viewpoint character in the form of Walter Slovotsky, the party's Rogue (or thief, in OD&D vernacular). The plot this time revolves around two issues --- a rift in reality that the main characters have to track down, and a raider from their own side gone rogue. The first novel in this omnibus deals with the first. This one could have been a great fantasy story --- the twists in time, and the party figuring out what's going on could have been great. But Rosenberg fools around with showing us how smart Slovotsky is, and then has one of the characters Deus Ex Machinas the ending and figures everything out without actually providing any revelation as to the nature of his world's reality to the reader. That's a bummer.
The second half of the omnibus is even worse --- it's like a bad D&D campaign where the DM has run out of ideas and decides that a side-quest is what the party needs. Well, this particular side-quest is so boring and pointless, I don't see how a reasonable PC wouldn't say, "Screw this, it's not my problem!" Finishing the book was a chore, and I only did it because it snowed in Rosenlaui. Not at all recommended.
