Poisoned

There was no hint of Fall for this morning's ride and when I headed out in the dim light of early dawn the air felt thick and heavy like it does most summer mornings. We ended up with a rather large group up on the levee and quite early a little cohort of four or five split off the front. The rest of the group was still rolling along pretty well, though, and there was no real effort to bridge. Luke looked up the road and remarked that most of them were only going as far as the pumping station in Kenner. He was right. Rob was left alone and waited for the group. At some point, Eddie C. went to the front on his TT bike and once again I found myself on his wheel clinging to a slim draft at 27 mph for what must have been a few miles. Somewhere out there near Williams we picked up Tim R. After the turnaround everybody seemed ready for a little rest and besides, Ronnie had gotten a flat around the Luling bridge, so things didn't get going again until we were past the "dip."

Next thing I knew, I'm sitting on Tim's wheel and the pace is going up and up and up. Tim's on his TT bike and he starts pulling at 27-28 mph steady. I'm hanging on for dear life about three inches off his rear wheel, spinning a 53 x 15 and trying to make myself very small. I finally look back and the rest of the group is a blurry smudge in the distance. After a couple of miles, Tim motions for me to take a pull. I go to the front and the pace immediately drops two mph while I take maybe 60 revolutions before pulling over and seeking shelter again. At Williams Blvd., Tim turned off the bike path to head home and I was happy to be able to ease up and recover a bit before getting swept up by the pack. Turned out to be a good training ride. When I got home my jersey and shorts were soaked with sweat as usual.

The word from the Tour of Guyana wasn't very good last night. A bunch of riders got food poisioning and one result was that Troy took a trip to the local hospital (which must have been a real interesting experience all by itself). In fact, the video on www.rfo.fr showed him getting into the ambulance. He didn't look too chipper. Kenny was apparently also not feeling well, but I think he finished the stage. The same video showed him, apparently off the back, looking at the cameraman and patting his stomach. Quite a few other riders weren't so lucky, however. Realdo is in 9th on GC. Hopefully everyone is feeling better today.

So the Louisiana Board of Regents is trying to revamp some of the programs that are part of the Board of Regents Support Fund, a state program that funds research projects, endowed professorships and that sort of thing. There is a whole contingent at LSU that thinks the private universities like Tulane (actually, specifically Tulane) shouldn't be getting any of those funds and they keep trying to put wording into the policies that exclude private universities. So this morning I had to go dig up the language in the Louisiana Constitution (yes, it's actually in the state Constitution) that specifically says that both public and private universities are eligible, and then go find the Attorney General's opinion from quite a few years back that confirmed it. I'm still trying to figure out what the BOR staff thinks it's doing by even including such language in the proposed policies, since I know that they know it is illegal and would require a constitutional amendment to change (not they won't probably try some other even more interesting maneuver). It really gets tiresome to have a few narrow-minded folks constantly beating the same dead horse. The support fund was never intended to be a form higher educational welfare, it was supposed to be used to best develop R&D and education in the state of Louisiana.