Water on the Bridge Theory

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A reflection on connection, design, and the quiet work of maintaining relationships

Prologue: The Ride

The idea for this theory, it began in the rain.

A friend, let’s call him Rayno, and I were cycling one morning, talking about a mutual friend who’s been… difficult. We’ll call him Brice. But before I get into that, let me rewind to where it began — three weeks ago, by the Wolf River.

It was the usual scene. We were by the river, by the bike trail. Three or four vehicles with bike racks. Men in tights, speedster helmets and bikes. All braggadocio and arrogance, one would think. Not these men. They all possess a strange humility, and a certain quietude. This is my second ride with them. On the previous ride, we pushed hard, but we didn’t continuously slipstream each other. We often rode side by side, talking to each other about our lives, our wives, our families.

This ride, there is a new man joining us. “I’m Scott, good to meet you,” I said as I offered a warm handshake.

“I’m Brice, wow I’m super excited to be here. Thank you guys so much for letting me join you. I run every day and bike every day, I hope you all can keep up!” Ok. He’s one of those guys. I look to the other men and see some eyes roll.

Rayno, who invited Brice, takes an opportunity at an aside to tell me, “Brice is a really good guy. You just have to crack the shell. He’s very socially awkward.”

“I get that,” I told him.

Later, on the ride, “Fred, hey Fred, wait up,” shouts Brice as he pulls up next to me. I look around. Fred is actually about 30 yards ahead. He’s always ahead.

“I’m Scott, not Fred,” I told him.

“Oh my gosh oh my gosh I’m so sorry. Just call me Alex,” he says. Now I’m confused.

“Alex? I thought your name was Brice?”

“It is, but I need to make things even, you have to get even with me. I can’t believe I forgot your name! I’m such an idiot!” and he gushes on a bit about how stupid he feels and so on.

These are the pillars upon which our bridge, that thing that connects him to me, will be built.

Later, we stopped at a cafe. Brice can’t stop talking. He is telling us about a trip he took to his homeland.

“Everyone there is so poor. My family is so poor there. I paid for everything. I took everyone out for meals, I paid for it all. I have so much, I am so blessed, so wealthy, I almost don’t know what to do with all my money,” he said.

He is laying down the rebar for the decking, and the substructure pylons aren't even all in play yet.

I began to speak in french to one of our french friends. Brice immediately cuts me off, speaking french very rapidly. I’m not sure what he said. I’m not sure he knows what he said.

“I’m fluent in french and spanish,” he added.

“That’s great, how did you learn it so well?” I asked. He goes into a lengthy monologue about his childhood and the background of his family.

He's putting down the final decking, and it's underwater.

Later, we are riding back. “Fred, hey Fred,” he shouted to me.

“I’m Scott,” I remind him.

What I learned about Brice on this ride is that he tends to speak abruptly, saying really random things. He alternates between harsh negativity, self-adulation, arrogant statements, insecure observations, wealth bragging, wealth shaming, etc. It runs the gamut and feels like he is penetration testing conversational interlocution — trying a variety of methods to see if he can snag your interest in hearing him monologue. My thoughts at first were around neurodivergence. I suspect severe ADD, multiple personality disorder, borderline personality disorder.

and I even suggested loneliness might be part of the problem—that some people simply don’t know how to ask for company. Some people don’t know how to create the negative space that will allow others to fill the void and permit the function of bridge building.

Brice kept calling me by the name of someone else in the group, a guy named Fred. I corrected him several times, but he kept doing it. Getting a name mixed up repeatedly, such as confusing Greg with Craig or Ann with Anna is understandable. These people should just understand that their names are similar and just accept their fate. However, Scott vs Fred? And it happened more than twice on the ride. It was either an expression of neurodivergence, or a manipulation tactic to attempt to relegate me to a social position of irrelevancy.

A couple weeks later, on a subsequent outing, the parking lot for the preserver where we would ride was closed because it was predawn. There is some confusion in the group chat. “Where are we meeting?” I mention the parking lot where I am, I drop a pin, and suggest we park here. I didn’t see any signs prohibiting it. I see a car with two bikes on it and they appear to be my friends (who I really don’t know that well. I flash my lights at them. I had simply seen a car with bikes, assumed it was my friends, and signaled to them with my lights. When the car pulled up, this guy rolls down his window and said to me, “You’re not Red.”

I get confused, “what?” I ask.ed

“You’re not Red,” he said.

“What?”

Finally, “Fred, you aren’t Fred,” he said. This really scrambled my brain because no, I’m not Fred or Red, and, I had developed the impression that this guy was looking for someone named Red. Now I’m in full bore cognitive dissonance.

“Don’t I know you?” I asked. He is that guy, Brice, from the previous ride, but suddenly I have completely forgotten his name. “What is your name?”

“Brice,” he said.

“Ahhh. Right.” You’re that guy.

The span of the bridge stretches, draws thin into the horizon of the distance. The thick cables of the suspension collapse and compress within the confines of a stone arch and then twist in a riot of aeroelastic flutter, undulating like a ribbon with ululations of creaking and snapping concrete as it crashes into the water below.

This is a bit of an aside, but it does speak to how we can evaluate, and make determinations about what kind of bridge builder or owner we are dealing with.

When someone you barely know approaches you and calls you by the wrong name, or simply speaks gibberish, it has a strange, neurological impact on you. Your actual thought process may question if you even know them. The more times you are called by the wrong name, the less you may actually recognize them. In my experience, the more unfamiliar to me he became until I was quite certain I had flagged down some other random bicyclists who were looking for a friend named Red. See the sidebar for an explanation of the actual neurological process.

“Brice,” I said to him.”Maybe you don’t want to live in your mistakes with other people. It’s not helpful or funny to keep reminding someone of how you can’t remember their name,” I said.

Part of my confusion was because I had met him previously, and gotten familiar with him while he was wearing a helmet. It’s like at the dog park — you recognize people by their dog. Bikers recognize each other by their bikes and their helmets.

Later, there was an incident during the ride — actually a couple — with Brice — that led me to some deeper introspection about him. Don’t get me wrong — I genuinely found myself disliking Brice, but my dislike made me savagely curious. The man is a curiosity and I don’t know if it is intentional — if he is aware of his actions and they are some how intended. However, his behavior at times is unhelpful. At one point, we had gotten ahead of the other riders and we stopped and waited. Rayno came riding up.

“Brice broke down, something is going on with his crank.” We rode back and started going to tooltown on his bike. We figured out that he had somehow managed to break his rear hub axle. While we were trying to fix it, he wouldn’t stop talking. Stressing about his investments, “How am I going to pay for this? All my investments are going to shit. I have no money, I can’t afford any expensive bike repairs,” and “I’m going to tear the guys apart that sold me this bike–“

“Brice,” I said. “This isn’t helpful. We need positivity, not negativity here.” Then, once we were done and had decided we couldn’t perform a trailside repair, I asked him, “How much did you pay for this bike? Not because I care, but because I want to give you something you should say to the guy where you bought it.”

The structure is entirely under water.

“Two thousand dollars,” he answered.

“Ok, here is what you say: ‘Two thousand dollars seems like a lot of money to have spent on a bike that breaks my first time out on it.’ Then Shut. The. Fuck Up. Create a negative space. Allow them to breathe life into it. They will solve the problem for you. I guarantee it.”

I was thinking, perhaps Brice lacks, completely, an internal locus of control. He needs that voice in his head that he can pattern against — at least until he develops his own.

We made sure Brice got somewhere where he could call for an Uber, and then continued our ride. Toward the end of the ride, Rayno and I had a chance to have some one-on-one conversation.

“Wow,” I said. “Brice. Interesting guy. He’s just all over the place.”

“Yeah, but listen — I’ve known Brice a long time. He wasn’t always like this. It’s gotten worse.”

I suggested, “Perhaps there has been some recent trauma, like a head injury? Or maybe it is something neurological. Like a tumor. Like that guy you learned about in history — the one who got a pipe shot through his head. Didn’t be become really…un-level-headed?”

He answered, “He’s lost a close family member recently…”

“Or maybe it’s a symptom of loneliness,” I suggest.

“Loneliness?” asks Rayno.

“Yes, loneliness can be profoundly damaging to psychiatric health. At least, that is what my psychiatrist says.”

Just then we crossed a bridge slick with a hundred puddles. Ever slat of the decking made a spash as we rode over them. Rayno comments, “There’s a lot of water on that bridge. I’m surprised it doesn’t dissolve or disintegrate.”

Without missing a beat, I said, “Or it could be a brain tumor, and have nothing to do with the water at all.”

We laughed, but the metaphor stuck in my mind. The bridge. The water. The slow, quiet threat of erosion. Some relationships fail because of what gathers on their surface, and some because of deeper faults we can’t see. Either way, the water is there. The vulnerability is there. And that’s where this theory began. First, we will discuss the four archetypes of bridge owners/builders/users.

Sidebar: Cognitive Dissonance Exploit

Expectation setup: The hippocampus retrieves recent contextual memory: car with bikes here, driving slow, looking at me → my friends. The prefrontal cortex uses that cue to generate an expectation: friend encounter imminent.

The man approaches and speaks unexpected words. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) detects conflict between the predicted and actual sensory input. The result? Context mismatch. Cognition is fractured and seeks repair.

Language resolution attempt. Wernicke’s area receives the phrase “You’re not Red.” It fails to resolve semantic coherence and cycles through phonetic alternatives to restore meaning (“Red?” “Fred?”), while at the same time, attempting to resolve a possible false recognition.

Recognition correction – Identify Friend or Foe (IFF). The fusiform face area (FFA) withdraws a prior positive identification based on visual similarity and context.
The brain updates the recognition model: unknown person, not friend. Random bikers hailed by accident?

Neurochemical adjustment.
The locus coeruleus releases norepinephrine to increase attention. Dopamine release supports rapid model updating.
Cortisol output rises slightly in response to amygdala signaling.

Context rebuild and name-retrieval sequence: Prefrontal cortex integrates new data: incorrect recognition event → stranger interaction. Fusiform face area (FFA) re-activates a stable face representation.
Anterior temporal lobe (ATL) / perirhinal cortex activates contextual memory—where I know him from.
ATL → left middle and inferior temporal regions attempt lemma access (semantic → lexical).
Left temporal pole and posterior superior temporal gyrus/sulcus attempt a phonological retrieval of the name.
Recent competitors (“Red / Fred”) occupy the phonological workspace.
Left inferior frontal gyrus (selection control) fails to suppress the active competitor trace.

Result: tip-of-the-tongue state—semantic node active, phonological form unavailable.
Arousal and norepinephrine output remain elevated, prolonging the block. When I ask his name, external cueing re-engages ATL and frontal selection; phonological access restores; name retrieved; cognitive coherence re-established within seconds and the face becomes familiar.

The Four Archetypes

Every relationship requires a bridge—some abstract structure that allows two people to meet across distance, difference, or time. Yet people approach bridge-building differently. Four archetypes capture the tendencies.

1. The Bridge Presenter

Presenters offer the same bridge to everyone. It’s a prefabricated design: strong, familiar, and identical. “This is who I am; take it or leave it.” These bridges are efficient but impersonal. They work best on level ground—and fail on uneven terrain or over troubled waters.

2. The Bridge Builder

Builders roll up their sleeves beside you. They discuss materials, adjust the span, argue over design, and in the end build something unique. These bridges last because they are shared creations, infused with compromise and care.

3. The Bridge Maintainer

Maintainers see structure. They can walk up to any bridge—yours, theirs, or another’s—and instantly sense where tension or rust is forming. They clear drains, tighten bolts, patch quietly. They understand that connection doesn’t survive on intent alone; it requires maintenance.

4. The Bridge Destroyer

Destroyers see bridges and want them gone. Sometimes out of fear, sometimes pain, sometimes habit. They feel safer in isolation, or believe nothing built will last. Their destruction is tragic, yet instructive: they remind us not everyone seeks crossing, and not every bridge deserves rebuilding.

I. Water on the Bridge

A bridge that collects water may still look sound. The surface gleams. The reflections are pretty. But underneath, corrosion begins.

Water on the bridge is what happens when communication stops flowing—when silence replaces speech, when tension pools instead of drains. The danger is subtle: stillness mistaken for calm. Over time, what was once strong becomes slick, then brittle, then unsafe.

All bridges are vulnerable to it. Even the beautiful ones.

II. Ten Bridges of Relationship

1. The Covered Bridge — Shelter in a Storm

Old, sturdy, enclosed. Covered bridges hold the sound of rain and memory. They keep out weather but also hide decay. Comfort and complacency are often neighbors.

2. The Suspension Bridge — Strength in Tension

Suspension bridges survive by balance. Their flexibility, not their stiffness, keeps them standing. Relationships like this sway with change yet endure through trust and counterweight.

3. The Toll Bridge — The Cost of Crossing

Some bridges charge admission. Attention, validation, allegiance—each crossing comes with a fee. The key is discernment: is the toll maintaining the bridge or enriching the collector?

4. The Drawbridge — Boundaries and Defense

Drawbridges protect as much as they isolate. They rise at the hint of danger, fall at the invitation of trust. Mastering one’s drawbridge is the art of timing—when to defend, when to welcome.

5. The Rope Bridge — Fragile but Courageous

Rope bridges demand faith. The boards creak, the wind tugs, and still you cross. Vulnerability and fear coexist here, but that tension is life itself. The wobble means it’s working.

6. The Open-Spandrel Arch Bridge — Angels in the Architecture

The Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena is an open-spandrel masterpiece: arches within arches, weight lifted by grace. Light and air move freely through its frame, reducing pressure while revealing beauty.

The best relationships mirror this. They distribute weight through proportion and openness, not control. Each curve supports another. There is divinity in that geometry—the “angels in the architecture,” a term in design refers to hidden structures that provide unseen, and perhaps even unnecessary, strength a la over-engineering.

Grace, in this form, isn’t decoration. It’s structural integrity.

7. The Flooded Bridge — Neglect and Forgetting

Some bridges have sunk beneath years of silence. You can still see them when the tide of life recedes—ghost outlines of what once connected two shores. Whether to rebuild or remember becomes the question.

8. The Collapsed Bridge — Lessons in Failure

Collapse feels sudden but rarely is. It begins with unattended cracks, long before the final fall. When a bridge fails, the ruins are a classroom. Don’t curse the storm; study the blueprints.

9. The Hidden Bridge — The Quiet Miracle

Sometimes a crossing appears where you least expect it—a conversation that dissolves years of distance, a kindness that rebuilds faith in humanity. Hidden bridges remind us the world remains secretly interconnected.

10. The Floating Bridge — Impermanence and Grace

Not every bridge is meant to last. Some are seasonal crossings, meant to carry us partway. Their brevity doesn’t cheapen them. Meaning is not measured in permanence but in sincerity.

III. Maintenance: The Work of Staying Connected

Bridge maintenance is unglamorous work: tightening bolts, clearing drains, walking the length after every storm. In relationships, it’s the apology made before resentment sets in, the honest check-in, the willingness to listen.

Neglect is corrosion; perfectionism is paralysis. The real craft lies between them—care without obsession, repair without blame. Bridge Builders and Maintainers understand this rhythm instinctively. Presenters often resist it. Destroyers prove what happens when it stops.

IV. The Circle Closes

Every bridge, no matter how exquisite, is susceptible to the same quiet danger: water on the bridge.

That’s the truth behind all connection. The gleam of pooled water may look harmless, even beautiful, but left alone it will eat the steel from within. The silence mistaken for peace, the calm that hides decay—it’s the same pattern repeated in every human heart.

To love someone is not to promise the bridge will never rust. It is to promise to walk it after the rain, together, to see where the water gathers, to laugh at the puddles, and sometimes to joke, “Maybe it’s not the water at all. Maybe it’s just a brain tumor.”

Because maybe it is. Maybe the problem isn’t the bridge. But the point is that you were both there, crossing anyway.

And that’s what keeps the bridges standing.

Notes & References

  1. “Angels in the Architecture,” Aisling Shannon Rusk, Angels in the Architecture, blog (2013).
  2. Design of Bridge Deck Drainage, Federal Highway Administration, HEC-21 (FHWA).
  3. Bridge Hydraulics: Deck Drainage, South Dakota Drainage Manual, SD DOT.
  4. Bridge Drainage Systems, NCHRP Synthesis 67, Transportation Research Board.
  5. The Colorado Street Bridge (1913), National Park Service Historic American Engineering Record.

Closing Reflection

Which bridge are you maintaining right now—and where might the water be pooling unseen?
Consider walking it again, before the next storm.

Predictive beat processing

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A long time ago (a few years, I don’t know how many) I heard a story on the radio about beat perception. It was about how tempo perception changes in individuals depending on the size of the room.

In an effort to locate the article, I happened to run across this article. I am not a neuro scientist, so I leveraged chat gpt to provide a summary of the article so that someone with a decent reading level–but not a neuroscientist–could understand it. I sometimes think scientists use words that are common to their field in a way that usually renders their articles inaccessible to the layman. Whether this is intentional or unintentional? Who knows.

Here is the summary of https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4026735/

I fed the article to chat GPT and then had it write a 1500 word summary, written at the graduate level of reading comprehension of a non-neuroscientist:

The discussion revolves around understanding how the brain processes musical beats. A hypothesis called “action simulation for auditory prediction” (ASAP) proposes that beat perception involves simulating actions and predicting auditory events. It suggests that interactions between regions responsible for motor planning and auditory processing are crucial for beat perception.

In a study by Iversen et al. (2009), researchers investigated the role of beta-band neural activity in beat processing. Beta-band activity refers to a specific range of brainwave frequencies associated with motor processes and cognitive functions. The study found that induced beta-band responses, which are not directly driven by external stimuli, were synchronized with the imagined location of beats. This suggests that beta-band activity is involved in predicting upcoming beats in music.

Another study by Fujioka et al. (2012) explored the role of beta-band oscillations in beat processing. They found that beta-band activity gradually increased before the onset of the next beat in rhythmic sequences. This indicates that the brain uses beta-band activity to anticipate the timing of beats. The study also revealed synchronized beta-band activity between auditory regions and motor planning regions, suggesting that these regions work together during beat processing.

The discussion then focuses on the dorsal auditory pathway, a neural pathway that connects auditory regions with motor planning regions. This pathway plays a role in auditory spatial processing and identifying auditory objects. It enables communication between auditory and motor planning regions, facilitating the coordination of auditory and motor processes.

The dorsal auditory pathway meets certain criteria required for beat processing. It connects auditory and motor planning regions, allowing for the exchange of signals between these areas. It also supports precise timing of signals, enabling accurate coordination between auditory and motor processes.

Researchers have observed differences in the dorsal auditory pathway between humans and other primates. Humans, who have vocal learning abilities, exhibit stronger connections between auditory and motor planning regions compared to other primates. This suggests that the evolution of vocal learning in humans may have influenced the development of this pathway.

The discussion then touches on cross-species research on beat perception. While some animals, such as parrots and elephants, have demonstrated the ability to synchronize their movements to a beat, research with chimpanzees has shown limited synchronization abilities. Further research is needed to understand if beat perception is a widespread capacity among animals or if it is restricted to certain species.

The ASAP hypothesis offers several predictions for future research. For example, if beat perception is disrupted by temporarily deactivating motor planning regions using non-invasive brain stimulation, it would provide evidence for the involvement of these regions in beat processing. Additionally, investigating how the performance of individuals on beat perception tasks is affected by engaging in unrelated motor movements can shed light on the relationship between motor planning and beat perception.

In conclusion, the ASAP hypothesis suggests that beat perception involves simulating actions and predicting auditory events. It highlights the importance of interactions between motor planning and auditory regions in this process. The dorsal auditory pathway plays a crucial role in connecting these regions. Future research will help further unravel the neural mechanisms underlying beat perception and clarify the extent of this ability in different species.

How To Change the Hydraulic Brake Pads on Your Bicycle (and properly bleed the lines)

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This procedure is pretty generic and should work with most hydraulic brakes. One of the goals of this post was to use as few photos as possible.

It’s important that you don’t skip any steps here.  Skipping a step or not following the directions exactly may result in spilling hydraulic fluid, dropping the hydraulic reservoir by accident and splashing it on your friend’s shoes, or worse, getting hydraulic fluid on your pads.

There are two reasons you might want to change your pads:

  1. They got contaminated with oil of some type. You will know they got contaminated because they will make a very loud SQUAWK when you use them
  2. They are worn out.  You will know they are beginning to be too thin because they will start to make an unpleasant sound when you brake or may begin to vibrate. New pads are 8-12 mm thick. You’ll want to check with the manufacturer to see when you should replace them.

What you need:

  1. Either a really robust set of Allen and Torx wrenches, or one of the kits they sell for bikes.  These will usually have everything you need
  2. A small glass or a large shot glass, something you can place the reservoir into and is a tight enough fit to keep it from falling over.
  3. Some sort of container, like a shampoo bottle or something (cleaned) that you can use to dispose the fluid.  If you don’t have a clumsy friend around to accidentally spill your fluid on the ground, here is a discussion of several interesting methods of disposal/recycling. I prefer the recycling approach.
  4. A SPRAY bottle of 95% Isopropyl alcohol – they sell them at Walgreens in the first aid area.
  5. A roll of paper towels
  6. A small pair of flat ended pliers. A set like this will serve you well for many years. https://www.amazon.com/CRAFTSMAN-Pliers-6-Piece-Pouch-CMHT81716/dp/B07QL3CLRS/ref=sr_1_8?dchild=1&keywords=pliers&qid=1624834837&sr=8-8

The PROCEDURE

  1. Remove both wheels and support the bike somehow. I used a large plastic bin and a friend to support the front fork and keep the bike from falling on my head.  We supported the bike at the center with an old paint can. The plastic bin also makes a convenient bench.  Find the smallest chair you can, or a log, or maybe your spouse’s favorite footstool, so you have something to sit on.
  2. Make certain you read through this procedure ENTIRELY and check as you read that you have a tool that will fit each bolt head.
  3. Buy one of these.  It comes with more than enough oil for the job for two brakes, even if you accidentally spill the entire reservoir on your friend because you have butter fingers. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LWN4LSD/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_VFFBE7C0QE5D46QR349J?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
  4. To avoid contaminating the brake pads, first we are going to completely drain the fluid from the system.
    1. The brake assembly down by the disk, located usually on the left side of the fork a the center of the wheel, is called the “caliper” and it comes apart into two pieces.  Observe how the hydraulic line from the lever housing goes into only one side of the caliper. This will be the “inside” caliper.  I will call the other one the “outside caliper.”
    2. On the bottom of the outside brake caliper, locate a small, plastic cap.  Pop the cap off, holding it securely.  There should be a little ring holding it to the bleed valve nipple, but they do break sometimes.  You don’t want to lose this because dirt can get compacted in the nipple and, if you perform this procedure in the future after having lost that cap, you will surely clog your lines.
    3. In the kit you bought, locate the flat, elliptical tool that has notches in both ends. The tool is a flat piece of plastic, shaped roughly like an American football. Clip it to the end of the clear tube. One of the notches may fit your nipple better than the other. Use the end that fits most snugly.
    4. Test that you can seat it all the way down onto the nipple. This is super important. It must be ALL THE WAY SEATED. Just leave it there like that. It should stay, all on its own.  If it doesn’t, you screwed up.  Try again with the other side or get some help because you might not have the chops to do this.
    5. Using your pinky and thumb, attach one of the knobby things with the flanged nipples to the syringe.  It’s plastic, so be careful not to cross thread! The rule of thumb with plastic parts is don’t go past pinky tight!

  1. Fully depress the syringe plunger
    1. Attach the syringe to the tube. 
    2. On the outside caliper, above the nipple, is a screw.  Loosen it two or three turns
    3. On the brake lever housing you will see a circular, flat, screw head. It receives one of the smaller Allen wrenches. Completely remove it and put it in a bowl that you borrow from your wife’s pantry without telling her.
    4. Pull the plunger, drawing all of the fluid into it.  If there is no fluid and it is hard to pull, then the valve didn’t open.  Maybe you turned the wrong screw.
    5. Once you have successfully drawn out all the fluid, tighten the valve screw and, while pulling gently on the plunger, remove the hose from the nipple and dispose of the fluid into the shampoo bottle. Thoroughly clean the syringe and hose using the isopropyl alcohol. Place the tip of the spray bottle of isopropyl directly up to the end of the hose and flush the tube.

Congrats! You have successfully drained the system for the front brakes.

Replacing the brake pads

What you will need:

  1. You need to have first drained the system. If you skipped the first half of this checklist, go back and do it. Seriously. It is important that you drain the system or you will almost certainly contaminate the pads and make a fucking mess.
  2. A pair of helping hands OR some rubber bands

The Procedure

  1. The pads are held in by the geometry of the calipers and also a cotter pin, or maybe a regular bolt. Remove the cotter pin (or the single bolt). If it is a cotter pin, bend the end straight with a mini pair of flat nosed pliers.
  2. The caliper is held together by two bolts.  They will likely be Torx. Remove them both and place them in the bowl. The assembly should fall apart in your hand. Note that hydraulic fluid does not leak out all over the place. This is because you were smart, and drained it all.
  3. There may be some small tiny amount of leakage. wipe down the area, as follows: Spray a towel with isopropyl alcohol and clean the entire area thoroughly.  If the pads were contaminated, take a family member’s toothbrush (clean it thoroughly with hot water and then alcohol) and spray the pads and get them nice and soaked.  Brush them vigorously with the brush. Wipe with the towel.  Do this until the towel comes away clean.
  4. Place the new pads into the caliper in such a way as to match the geometry therein. The metal clip AND the two calipers should be securable with the cotter pin.  
  5. Have a friend hold the caliper together while you insert the pin. Once the pin is in, and through all three parts (the two pads and the metal brace), screw them together.
  6. There is a flat, plastic, thin block. This is a spacer that is slightly thicker than the disk. Insert it between the pads.Use a rubber band to hold it in place if needed.
  7. Attach the reservoir to the hydraulic chamber on the top of the brake lever body. Thread it carefully, pinky tight. Ensure the stopper is inserted.
  8. Fill the reservoir as high as you can. 
  9. Insert the tip of the syringe into the reservoir and draw as much fluid into it as you can
  10. Connect the hose to the nipple on the outside caliper, ensuring a snug fit.
  11. Connect the other end to the syringe.
  12. Open the bleed valve a couple turns.
  13. Ask your friend to pour just a quarter inch or a centimeter or so of hydraulic fluid into the reservoir.  This will keep it from sputtering and spraying in his face when you press the syringe in the next steps. It will also allow him to redeem himself in the event he dropped it on you before.
  14. Have your friend remove the stopper and place it in the bowl.
  15. Depress the plunger, holding it higher than the caliper and pointing toward the ground
  16. Have your friend tell you when it stops bubbling. 
  17. Repeat the drawing and pushing of all of the fluid, without ever fully emptying the reservoir, two or three times or until all air is out of the tube between the syringe and the caliper, and there are no more bubbles. Go slowly! Wait a few moments between draws to give bubbles a chance to work their way out. The pulling and drawing of the plunger should work to purge the air completely.
  18. When completed, reinsert the stopper.
  19. Close the bleed valve tightly. 
  20. Remove the reservoir, dumping the excess into the recycling. It may have little bits in it from the system, so don’t reuse it. Place the reservoir into the shot or juice glass to hold it because you will need to use it again to do the rear brakes.
  21. Insert and tighten the brake lever housing hydraulic cap screw
  22. Remove the yellow spacer
  23. Repeat the entire procedure on the rear brakes. They will be very similar.
  24. Ensure the brake disks are clean – use the alcohol and towels to ensure their cleanliness.
  25. Reattach your wheels. Brake check by walking the bike and depressing the brake lever. Next, test by riding slowly.  If you hear a squawk, stop and immediately remove the wheel.
  26. Spray the pads with the alcohol. Using a folded paper towel, gently drag it through the opening until you are sure it is clean. 
  27. If you still hear squawking, repeat the entire process.  Practice makes perfect!

You are awesome! You have successfully replaced your brake pads and bled your brake lines! 

How to Stifle Creativity

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This guide was NOT inspired by “How to Argue like an Idiot” guide. THAT guide is designed to destroy thinking of any and all types. This one targets only creative thought.

“One of the serious problems in planning the fight against American doctrine, is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine…”
– From a Soviet Junior Lt’s Notebook

Why Discourage Creativity at Work? The new economy demands it. Global competition and world wide technological stagnancy in fields such as automotive and medicine have left many of us scrambling. If your business is a moneymaker, and profitable, STATUS QUO is the order of the day. DO NOT INNOVATE. STICK WITH WHAT WORKS! After all, things like toilet paper and umbrellas have not changed significantly in thousands of years, and they work great! If people really had a voracious appetite for ideas and innovation , they would change things themselves, not wait for you to do it!
Punish Failure. If anyone dares to try something risky or creative and fails, be sure to let them know you “told them so.” Make them regret it for the rest of their days there, which should be few, because you need to use them to set an example. The biggest success stories result from the one guy that knew absolutely what he was doing and was a super genius without compare. Remember Edison and the light bulb?
Eliminate Ambiguity. Something either works, or doesn’t. You. Are. The. Boss. Stamp out uncertainty. If you think it won’t work, it probably won’t. Why try if failure is even a possibility? FEAR FAILURE! Straight A students didn’t get straight ‘A’s because they were smart, they got them because they were terrified of failure!
Interrupt your Inferiors and pull them away from what they are doing without asking. Don’t ever let them build up enough steam to do anything worthwhile that might improve working conditions or threaten your job.  Periodically, even the best employees begin to work up come creative mind-flow which must be disrupted. Preferably, wait until you see them furiously intent on what they are doing. If they are working with power tools, so much the better because there is nothing better than when the “Days Without An Incident” sign reads “0”. Remember, productivity decreases by as much as 40% when people “multitask”, and if people are 100% productive then that is less productivity for you to steal.
Don’t Pay Attention to Others when they say things you don’t understand. How dare someone have an idea in your magnificent presence? When someone comes to you with an idea, or you hear an idea, interrupt them with an idea of your own, yawn, grimace, frown, sneer, look at your email, look at your blackberry, start a side conversation, do ANYTHING but pay attention to them. And DON’T make eye contact! It will only encourage their rambling. Be sure to write their idea down, though, so that you can claim it as your own later on.
Censor EVERYTHING. Stifle the creative juices by monitoring employee communications. Correct employees on everything from grammar to punctuation. If they send a funny email out to the entire company that is relevant, pertinent, and thought provoking, call them into your office and chew them out. “’Everyone’ is for HR only!” Make sure they understand that all of their ideas must come from you first. The added benefit to this is that if you run across an idea that actually has merit, you can take it.
Sleep During Meetings. If you don’t hear the idea happen, then it didn’t. Long, unnecessary meetings, full of boring graphs and charts that berate and belittle every department, including your own, are fantastic sleep induction devices.
Create Rules and Boundaries. People are supposed to toe the line, not cross it! Punish violators severely. Promote at least 50% of your staff to some sort of management responsibility so that the rules may be enforced most effectively. Post inspiration slogans on the wall like these time honored axioms:
• “Stay Within The Lines”
• “Follow Procedures!”
• “Watch the Bottom Line”,
• “Quarterly Profits are not everything, they are the ONLY thing!”
Remember, a demoralized staff is a hard working, obedient staff.
Don’t Ask Questions. People ask questions when they are interested in something. You can’t maintain conformity and status quo if things are being questioned. Things are going just fine the way they are. Why mess with your perfect world?
Happiness is the Enemy. Foolishness, silliness, storytelling, imagination, etc… these are all things that distract from productivity. Nip them in the bud on sight. Begin your correction of the wayward employee with phrases like :
• “Well THAT won’t work.” (or any variety of “it can’t be done”)
• “Let me tell you what we’re not going to do…”
• “Be Serious”
• “Think before you speak!”
• “Sit down and shutup.”
• Get back in your box?”
• “Who let you off your leash?”
• “We don’t do that here.”
• “Wipe that smile off your face! If you are smiling, you aren’t working!”
Procedures Must be Followed. In the military, there is an entire command of officers and non-com’s who exist for the sole purpose of approving any changes to procedures. It takes months, if not years, to change even a simple procedure. And look at how successful they are! In some countries, they are the ruling body! Establishing a rigid command structure will guarantee your corporation a place in the annals of history.

Some day, I will release a book that is a tell-all about all the shitty bosses I have been plagued with in my life.  For now, though, this will have to do.

P.S. If you have read this far and don’t realize it is satire, then you just might be a shitty boss.  Good luck with that.

Remotely viewing the Internet activity on another computer

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As long as you have an account on the computer, and the computer is linux or Mac (unix), and it is an admin account, this is what you can do:

First, you will need to be on the computer and enable remote access. On a mac, it is not enabled by default.

STEP 1 : Enable Remote Login on subject computer

Hit Splat (⌘) -spacebar, type ‘terminal’, and hit enter.  A bash shell will open.  Welcome to command line 🙂  Enter the following command (the ‘>’ denotes a prompt.  Don’t type that):

> systemsetup -setremotelogin on

 

STEP 2 : Figure out its IP address

While you are in terminal, get the IP address:

> ifconfig | grep ‘inet ‘

This will get you the IP address of the machine.  It’s not 127.0.0.1.  It’s the other one 🙂

If it changes later, from your terminal window on your own mac you can scan the network and find it with this:

> sudo nmap -sP 192.168.2.1/24

NOTE: 192.168.2.1 might not be your IP address range.  Whatever the IP address is that you located earlier, change this so it’s right.  

STEP 3 : Access the subject computer remotely

Now, from the terminal window on your mac, open a shell to the other mac, the one you are surveilling, using the ipAddress that you discovered in step 2:

> ssh yourUserNameOnOtherMachine@ipAddress

Next you will be asked for a password.  It won’t see the usual Password: •••••••• where a bullet appears with each keystroke.  You’ll just see Password:•  But don’t worry, your keys strokes are going in.

Monitoring

Now that you are connected, there are a few interesting things you can do.  When it comes to the tcpdump command, these commands are simplistic and just the tip of the iceberg of what it can do.

DNS Requests

This command will get you DNS calls.  Whenever the subject opens a new page or browses to a new website, you will see stuff here:

> tcpdump -vvv -s 0 -l -n port 53

control (^) – c to quit

 

HTTPS Requests

This one will get all HTTPS headers so you can see what websites are being accessed, as they are accessed, and basically every request sent out (somewhat noise).  Since it is HTTPS, you won’t be able to see the exact request, you’ll only see the site being accessed.  Google and Youtube properties all look like they are from 1e100.net.

> sudo tcpdump dst port 443

HTTP Requests

> sudo tcpdump dst port 80

You can open multiple windows and run both.  

Good luck, and don’t forget:  accessing a system that you neither have permission to access nor own is ILLEGAL.  Spy on your SO at your own risk. I won’t go into the morality of spying on your children or employees.  It’s too murky and really depends on the situation.

Of cranks and origins and things

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Questions to ask your kids:

1. What is a “dial tone”?
2. What is a “busy signal”?
3. In cars, why do we say “crank the car window down”? why do we use the word “crank”? maybe you use the word “roll?”
4. What does it mean to “tape” something, as in, a video?
5. When you “turn the heat up” it means to make it hotter, but when we say, “turn the AC down,” what does it mean? (hint: different things to different people)
7. What if we say “crank the AC up?” Does that mean, “make it colder?”
8. Why do we say “turn down” the TV? does anyone have a TV that has anything on it that turns?, it’s regional)
I wonder how many questions my dad could ask me like this, that I wouldn’t know the answer to…

I Ate my Pedometer

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by scorellis

For telling bold lies
About late night rides
With savage, fast paces
Under blackened skies,

For midnight train chases,
And closing gate races
With swift tailed birds
And their feathery embraces:

For the sprayed up muck,
And a well pointed buck,
And for making me wear it,
even when I fuck

For racing trains,
Through wooded lanes,
Crosswalk diving
And making me take Main

And for all my mirth,
(for what it’s worth)
Laughing
That extra mile to Kenilworth:

And for the perpetual ringing
And distant singing
of the crashing gate bell,
And its drifting dinging,

And for tricking me
Into accidentally killing
A 13 striped ground squirrel,
And a toad:

For making me dance,
For every missed chance,
And going knee to knee
In a standing stance,

For each walking meeting,
And cold trick-or-treating,
For each meter I cursed
And this poem, so over-versed:

For angry skunks,
a chattering chipmunk,
And that girl on the path
Lugging her bright red trunk

Through 40 miles of tight knit land;
For every blasting grain of sand
In November’s cutting gusts,
And wintery cold demand,

Strung with slow dismember,
so far I won’t remember
To watch for stray car doors,
Or the fallen, stray timber:

And lastly (finally)
For white retrievers off leashes,
And sand blasting beaches
And elevator races to
Manadnock’s stairway reaches,

For two twisting winds
Dressed like big leafy twins
Bullies, they knocked
Me down for my sins,

And finally (really this time)
For every kilometer
That I wore my bike seat
Like an angry thermometer.

The Explorers

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The hazy morning sunlight filtered through the rip in the cheap hotel curtains. It stared at the vanity, reflecting from the mirror to the lamp across the room. The sun was always low in this winter sky and as the beam of light slowly traced a reflective path across the mirror, a misshapen mass of lumps and bumps under the covers rolled over and snored loudly.

Outside, hover-jet taxis whisked past, tearing up the virgin plains, whipping around new construction sites. Workers vibrated their many antennae at the taxis and continued to turn and shape the minerals of the ground in the way the Explorers had taught them. The beam of light gained intensity as the sun rose higher.

Living above ground was more comfortable, more cost efficient, more convenient, taught the Explorers. Better to cultivate, propagate, invigorate the land. “They break our way of life like they break fast: Without a thought,” leading Yibishar complained.

The beam of light reflected across the room to the television (an ancient device, but one which would whet the Yibisharistis appetites) before working its way across the plain white adobe wall, really a textured, virtually unbreakable ceramic derived from minerals present in the indigenous soils.

The phone began to ring and the sunbeam worked its way across the width of the bed. The lump in the bed groaned, rolled over and reached for the phone. He opened up his eyes and groaned as the light hit them. Momentarily blinded, he knocked the phone off its rest and yowled. He looked around. His vision was blurry, but he knew this hotel room. He didn’t quite recall how he’d arrived in it, but he knew it. He shook his head. He had a vague recollection of how he’d ended the previous evening: gambling, drinking, and spending most of his credits. And then the Explorers had come over to his table and started buying him drinks . . . Aury groaned and immediately threw the covers off the bed and checked himself to make sure none of his parts were missing: feet, hands, arms, legs, eyes, ears, teeth, noses, hair, . . .wait! he stopped and began to groan . . . there was something not quite right here . . .eyes?! He’d only had one eye when he’d gone to bed last night!

Quickly he jumped up and ran across the room to the vanity mirror. There it was. Set right there off to one side of his face. His other eye had shifted over too, and his vision—usually double in the morning anyway—blurred in and out of focus.

A knock sounded on the door.

“Room service!”

“Go away! I’m sleeping!” Aury grunted and looked over at the phone by the bed. He looked in the mirror again. I do hope I’m just imagining this. Maybe I’ll just wake up and this will not have happened. His antennae twitched at him. He turned and walked back over to the bed, sat down and picked up the phone off the floor.

He was beginning to get accustomed to the implanted eye but, nonetheless, it took him six tries to get the number right. He held the phone and as he waited for an answer he picked up a glass with one hand, a pitcher with another, turned on the water with a third and scratched his secondary thorax with a fourth.

“You’ve reached the Exploration Command Center phone menu! Please enter the extension number if you know it or hold for more options . . .Press One for Base Operations, press two for Base Operations Orderly room, press three for Base Operations Commander, press four for Base Operations Vice Commander, Press five for . . . . . press seven-hundred fifty seven for Aboriginal Assimilations Research and Alterations Developmental Division — Thank you, your call is very important to us and will be answered in the order received by the next available operator.”

“Dum dum de dum dee ddeee diddle dee dum . . . ” Aury hummed along with the music on the phone. He was familiar with it from his previous contacts with the base.

He leaned back on the bed, setting the phone down next to his ear. On the night stand was an interesting book called Gideon. He picked it up and began to look for good parts. Soon he was asleep, and dreaming.

A long hall stretched before him, and as he walked it turned and twisted this way and that. Each time a turn presented itself, another turn appeared in the other direction, beckoning him. He never took the other turns–he tried to stay to the right, less three hundred and sixty degrees. He knew he wasn’t going in circles. As he passed each turn, billions of tiny men would jump into him, hitting him and pulling at him and he watched how, as he progressed through the maze, parts of his body would be transformed.

“AARADD, can I help you?”

“Sxxxxgjkkkzzzzzzz” Aury snored into the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Snnnnxxxxzggggkkkkllllgrrrgh.”

“Well, ok then. It’s been my pleasure. Click”

“Snxx–Huh? What? Oh crud. They hung up.” Aury looked at his watch and noticed how incredibly late for work he was. Then, as a piece of the previous evening clicked into his jigsaw memory. its puzzled edges clicking firmly into flashback status, he remembered the reason for the previous evening’s binge.

*****

Migration season had passed, and the Zibishari prides had returned to their respective den-hives with much ceremony and celebration.

Aury requested through the retirement formality a leave of absence, was granted one, and settled into his den for deep chrysalis. He would emerge refreshed, having shed his exoskeloten. He emerged bearing an even deeper, more regal, shade of burgundy coloring than he had hoped for, and departed his den to present himself to the queen.

Approaching the hive from a distance, one could almost mistake the forested palisades for natural formations. Upon closer examination, one notices the uniformity of the cliff faces, the regularity of the tiered forestry, and then, as one nears even closer, the teeming activity at all levels at the many entrances to the hive. The first thing Aury noticed as he approached his base Hive was the absence of the usual activity. He checked the sky and noted by the relative position of the moons that he was not early—in fact, he was several days late.

The main entrance to the hive, usually rippling with activity, was nearly deserted. Aury paused at the collonaded entrance and approached a Zibishar who seemed to be standing around doing nothing. He presented himself in the traditional manner, a defensive posture followed by an untenable one. The other Yibishar ignored him and walked away. Aury’s antennae ruffled and twitched. He was amazed. The traditional greeting was never ignored. To do so was to bring tragedy to your entire family for seventy-seven generations. Aury continued on, passing only two other Yibishar as he progressed deeper into the hive. A frightening noise sounded from behind him and quickly he hid behind one of the many pillars lining the Great Hall. An object, whirring and screaming, broke the silence and whizzed past. A strange creature appeared to be trapped within it.

Aury continued on to Central Registration. The area was devoid of life. Aury signed his name in the book, and continued on to his office in the Queen’s Security Council Center only one level removed from the Queen’s chambers. Here, in the Center, he would spend the remainder of the year until the Great Migration would take them to the warmer climates which would induce Yibishar to breed. He was, officially, one of many official consorts to the Queen. In actuality, he was more of a security analyst and spent most of his time purveying security reports.

Footsteps echoed in the halls. Warily, Aury turned quickly; a hideous, pithy looking creature loomed over him. Aury began to ululate the Yibisharisti Fighting Chant and reared up into a defensive posture. His talons wrenched forth from their protected sheathings and lunged toward the foul beast. Aury fully intended to rend the intruder limbless and headless without even saying hello. It was quite frightening looking. Two eyes, two legs, two arms. The simple repetition of the number two so many times was reason enough for Aury to want to destroy it, but then their was that hollow, rancorous noise it was making at him. Like an incentive saying “go aheaad, tear me to pieces!” Aury lept at him. And bounced right off. One of the creatures appendages must have snaked out at him with lightening speed and countered his attack. Aury lept again and again he was repelled. The creature continued to make that grating noise.

“Ok,” the creature said after Aury had bounced off of it several times.

“You speak, beast.”

“Of course I do. I’m a highly civilized creature. May I help you up?” he asked as he extended a hand. Aury rolled up into a ball. When he unfurled an hour later, the creature still stood their. It looked to be on fire.

“You are burning.”

“Nono, I’m smoking a cigar,” it explained and then began making that insidious noise again.

“It smells foul. Why are you making that horrible noise at me?”

“There was nothing else to do while you went fetal on me,” he explained as he stubbed out the cigar underfoot. “That noise is called laughter. It has to do with an emotion called ‘happiness’. But listen, before I scare you again, I was sent down here to gather your security files.”

“Who are you?” asked Aury.

“You really don’t know? Geez. You must be the last person on the planet to be notified. Let me think . . . ” the Explorer tilted his silly looking head to one side and pondered carefully. “Here’s the schtick: I’m an Explorer. I come from a distant galaxy, far far away.” He lit another cigar and tilted part of his head to one side. “We come here in peace, to show the Yibishar a more convenient and self reliant lifestyle—we’re like, I dunno, like gods I guess. But we’re not. We just have a lot of scientific advances that may make us seem godlike. It’s tough, and the Yibishar don’t possess the technology, but I can be attacked and destroyed. Eventually the Yibishar will be technologically progressed and gathered into the Explorer Way, and will join us in searching the Galaxy for intelligent life,” he finished. He took off part of his head, much to Aury’s disconcertment, and waved it toward the ceiling. The Explorer noticed his trepidation and explained. “It’s a hat. A garment, something you wear. See?” He handed him the large brimmed object which Aury then turned over several times in his hands before giving it back.

“Where do I fit in?” asked Aury.

“Ummmm . . . I need those files?” Aury nodded his head succinctly, turned to his office door. and then slid back a series of levers that, when thrown in the proper sequence, unlatched the door.

“There they are.” He directed the Explorer to a row of file tablets against the wall. The Explorer then pointed an object at the files and Aury watched as they disintegrated.

“That was my life’s work! You destroyed it!”

“Nono, just gated it to Howard Space Port. We’ll probably be needing your help over the next few weeks to answer any questions we may have. Here’s my card. You can catch a cab to the Howard Shantytown and stay there until we call for you. If you have any questions, dial the number on the card and connect to Alien Security Control. It’s all on the card in Yibi and in Galactic. Have a nice day!” The creature turned and walked away. Aury stood their looking at the card. He hadn’t comprehended half of what the creature had said to him, but he was beginning to assume that much had happened in the time he had slept.

******

 

Getting dressed was a bit of a chore: his eye glass didn’t fit him anymore and everything looked fatter than it had before. He banged his head on a few things but after he managed to find his way around he began to suspect that the additional eye was indeed a blessing. His peripheral vision improved, depth perception heightened, and he imagined that he would actually be able to see further than before.

After checking out of the hotel, Aury paged a cab and waited patiently until one drifted down from the sky. The door wooshed open. As he reached for the door to pull it closed after him he entertained the sickening observation that as he reached for the door the arm he tried to use to reach for it simply wasn’t there.

“Yiyiyiyiyiyiyiiyiy—” he started to chatter in his native tongue the death chatter he had been taught as a child in hatchling school. His whole body felt like it crawled with insects one instant and numb the next. Other Yibis waiting at the platform looked at him as if he had lost his mind so he stopped, regained some composure and used one of his remaining four arms to pull down the door.

“Problem, buddy?” asked the Yibishar pilot.

“Nono. Just a small matter of growing and losing body parts.”

“Well, as long as it ain’t nothing serious. I knew a guy once who got pinched like a pimple by some heavy machinery. The sad thing was that he was alive, and they knew he would stay alive until they separated the machinery that had him all caught up, ya see? So they done brought his woman by to say goodbye, and his kids and his mawmaw and all. Damn near had a family reunion—”

“Thank-you for sharing, a lovely story, really, but I don’t think I need to hear anymore. Just take me to Howard Space Port please.”

“Ah, you’re a zonie, are ya? Should have known by them two eyes you got. You almost pass for a Zibi, you know. Why, if your shell was just a shade darker…And I can tell them antennae ain’t real . . .if you ask me they ought hire a guy like me to check over what they do over there in alien research and development—You know what them crazy space aliens are doing over there now, don’t you?”

“Please, tell me,” inquired a skeptical Aury.

“Well, I ain’t suppose to tell no one, but seeing as how we’ll all know sooner than later, I guess there be no harm in tellin you,” he confided in a near whisper. “I heard from a couple of explorers that the latest invention the Explorers are going to let us have are robots.”

“Robots? What are those?”

“They’re like little, mechanical Yibishar who will do all our work for us. I heard they can even perform surgery, cutting us open and the like to fix what’s gone wrong. I bet they could have saved that pinched guy.”

“Yes. I’m sure they could have.” Little Yibishar . . .little men? Aury felt like chattering again. He began to scratch at his skin. Skin?

“Well, here we are. That’ll be twenty, Galactic.”

“Twenty, Galactic!!!!!?” What do you take me for, a damn zonie? Do I look like some kinda Space Bopper to you?!” he demanded. The Yibishari in the front seat turned around and looked him up and down.

“Well, you sure look like an Explorer, but I don’t know, you speak Yibi better than any Explorer I done heard. A bit stuck up, like you might be one of them Nouveau rich politicians I read about, maybe you been getting some of that surgery or something. That’ll be twenty, Galactic.”

“—oh, nevermind,” Aury handed him the twenty and got out of the cab. He paused as he exited the cab and viewed the Space port sprawled before him. A series of well planned out architectural buildings lined both sides of the street. A gatehouse stood to one side of the avenue and an arch spanned the road bearing the name “Howard SPB” in large, metallic letters. Aury took a step towards the gate and as he fell forward and his face rapidly approached the pavement, he noticed that he was missing a pair of legs and that his second thorax had completely disappeared. In fact, he surmised as he lay there, his exoskeleton was feeling rather mushy and soft as well. Aury looked to the gate and remembered the trees and rolling hills which had once been here. Now they had been hacked back to a safe distance, the jungle kept at bay by stasis field pods set all along the perimeter. In the distance a space shuttle launched vertically into the sky. A twinkle and it was gone. Overhead a flight of hover-craft thundered past.

Aury stood up, brushed himself off, adjusted his now loosely fitting clothing and suddenly wondered at another appendage he seemed to have sprouted in the area where his two walking appendages met his…waist. Oh no, not one of those, too, my oh my. What is happening to me? What have they done?

He took a few hesitant steps and realized that walking wasn’t really so tough. He could even manage a little sway of his arms—he only had two left now—just like the Explorers did. Why am I coming here? he wondered to himself. It’s not like they’ll help me . . . I’m sure this is part of some plan they have to destroy our culture and takeover. They’ll just somehow transform all Zibis into bipods.

He neared the gate. As he approached, a uniformed officer stepped out of the booth. Smiling, the man stepped up to him and extended a hand. “Well, Major O’Donnel,” said the uniform. “I’m glad to see you made it back. We certainly didn’t expect you so soon. Your implants notified us of your approach. I have a car waiting.” He held out an open palm to one side and indicated a waiting car.

“Thank-you,” replied Aury. “It’s been a rough mission. I’ve obtained the information . . . Is this car secure?”

“Of course,” replied the officer. “Central Alien Investigations Office, please. And be snappy,” he directed to the driver. “This man has just come back from intensive transmogrification.” He turned to Aury. “I imagine you are tired, and a little disoriented, and would like to unload the pico-lattices as soon as possible.”

“You bet. Up until I saw you at the gatehouse I had no idea I was really a human, transmogrified into an alien transmogrifying back into a human. I really believed I was a Zippy.”

“Hehehe. How quaint,” remarked the officer politely.

“You know, they actually are amazed by miniature robots? Imagine what they would think of pico-lattice technology. Billions of subatomic energy lattices linked, working together to alter the very pattern that binds us to what we perceive as reality, changing Plankett structure of any object. What next, hehe. Right?”

“Right. What next?” the officer laughed quietly under his gloved hand.

Aury leaned back in the seat, ran his fingers through his hair, and let out a sigh. Wait a minute . . .he ran his fingers through hair again and felt the small, nubby stumps where the antennae had once sprouted. Quaint?