AG: Aunt Granny's Advice, or How to become an elderly cyclist:

On Fri, 9 Jan 2015 03:38:44 +0000 (UTC), Doc O'Leary
wrote:

For your reference, records indicate that
John B. Slocomb wrote:

You are saying that the Chinese have been taking powdered rhino horn
for at least two thousand years and no one has discovered that it
doesn't work?

Actually, it turns out that my suggested use is a misconception:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoce..._trade_and_use

Regardless, *many* people have discovered that it doesn’t work as a
medicine. Just not the ones who take it, I assume, who may themselves be
ignorant of the placebo effect. If only they were homeopaths, too, the
rhinos would be doing a lot better in the wild.

Regardless of how it is used, for some 2,000 years people have been
buying the stuff. Do you really believe that all those peoples -
millions I would guess over 2,000 years - bought it and it did
nothing?

--
Cheers,

John B.

For your reference, records indicate that
John B. Slocomb wrote:

On Fri, 9 Jan 2015 03:38:44 +0000 (UTC), Doc O'Leary
wrote:

Regardless, *many* people have discovered that it doesnÂ’t work as a
medicine. Just not the ones who take it, I assume, who may themselves be
ignorant of the placebo effect. If only they were homeopaths, too, the
rhinos would be doing a lot better in the wild.

Regardless of how it is used, for some 2,000 years people have been
buying the stuff. Do you really believe that all those peoples -
millions I would guess over 2,000 years - bought it and it did
nothing?

Yes. Knowing what we know now, it is quite clear how pre-scientific
humans could (and still can) be fooled into putting their faith in
things that don’t actually do anything, or sometimes are outright
dangerous. To believe otherwise is to set yourself up to be scammed
by the next bit of quackery that comes along.

--
"Also . . . I can kill you with my brain."
River Tam, Trash, Firefly

A thin plastic sheet over one's shoe makes one's foot strikingly
warmer. Just slide the foot into a bread bag, then pull a wool gaiter
on to hold the bag in place.

Of course, one does need a fresh bag for the trip back -- or maybe in
the middle, if you put your foot down a lot. Nobody eats that much
bread, but I've found that the orange bags that my newspaper comes in
work perfectly, and a summer's worth lasts all winter. In a pinch,
one can buy a box of gallon-size twist-tie bags. For wide bags, one
needs the sort of gaiter that comes down over the foot.

When we wore slot cleats, the cleat would snip a hole in the bag in
exactly the right place. I doubt that this would work with the
more-complicated cleats now in fashion, but I've no idea what to do
instead -- my pedals never wore out {replaceable bearings, you know},
so I still wear slot cleats. (In the summer. Winters, I wear walking
shoes.)

I've used bags to keep my socks dry when wearing sandals in snowy
weather. In this case, pull the bag over your heavy socks, then pull
knee-hose over the bags to keep them in place. The thinner and less
absorbent the hose, the better, so buy the very cheapest. They do
come in black.


--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

On 1/11/2015 9:26 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:

A thin plastic sheet over one's shoe makes one's foot strikingly
warmer. Just slide the foot into a bread bag, then pull a wool gaiter
on to hold the bag in place.

Of course, one does need a fresh bag for the trip back -- or maybe in
the middle, if you put your foot down a lot. Nobody eats that much
bread, but I've found that the orange bags that my newspaper comes in
work perfectly, and a summer's worth lasts all winter. In a pinch,
one can buy a box of gallon-size twist-tie bags. For wide bags, one
needs the sort of gaiter that comes down over the foot.

When we wore slot cleats, the cleat would snip a hole in the bag in
exactly the right place. I doubt that this would work with the
more-complicated cleats now in fashion, but I've no idea what to do
instead -- my pedals never wore out {replaceable bearings, you know},
so I still wear slot cleats. (In the summer. Winters, I wear walking
shoes.)

I've used bags to keep my socks dry when wearing sandals in snowy
weather. In this case, pull the bag over your heavy socks, then pull
knee-hose over the bags to keep them in place. The thinner and less
absorbent the hose, the better, so buy the very cheapest. They do
come in black.

I agree, with one detail: I always have one pair of socks underneath
the plastic bags. Works for me!

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sun, 11 Jan 2015 22:26:25 -0400, Joy Beeson
wrote:


A thin plastic sheet over one's shoe makes one's foot strikingly
warmer. Just slide the foot into a bread bag, then pull a wool gaiter
on to hold the bag in place.

Of course, one does need a fresh bag for the trip back -- or maybe in
the middle, if you put your foot down a lot. Nobody eats that much
bread, but I've found that the orange bags that my newspaper comes in
work perfectly, and a summer's worth lasts all winter. In a pinch,
one can buy a box of gallon-size twist-tie bags. For wide bags, one
needs the sort of gaiter that comes down over the foot.

Why not put the bag on over the sock and then foot, sock and bag, into
the shoe?
I've done something similar in heavy rain and it worked for an hour or
so till I got home.

When we wore slot cleats, the cleat would snip a hole in the bag in
exactly the right place. I doubt that this would work with the
more-complicated cleats now in fashion, but I've no idea what to do
instead -- my pedals never wore out {replaceable bearings, you know},
so I still wear slot cleats. (In the summer. Winters, I wear walking
shoes.)

I've used bags to keep my socks dry when wearing sandals in snowy
weather. In this case, pull the bag over your heavy socks, then pull
knee-hose over the bags to keep them in place. The thinner and less
absorbent the hose, the better, so buy the very cheapest. They do
come in black.

Ah, I didn't read this before I posted the above :-)
But why sandals in the snow?

--
Cheers,

John B.

On Mon, 12 Jan 2015 18:58:54 +0700, John B. Slocomb
wrote:

But why sandals in the snow?

My feet are wider at the toe than at the heel, so wearing shoes isn't
always an option, and I wouldn't dream of attempting to drive a car
wearing boots.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net

On Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:51:54 -0400, Joy Beeson
wrote:

On Mon, 12 Jan 2015 18:58:54 +0700, John B. Slocomb
wrote:

But why sandals in the snow?

My feet are wider at the toe than at the heel, so wearing shoes isn't
always an option, and I wouldn't dream of attempting to drive a car
wearing boots.

I don't think that wider at the toe than the heel is abnormal, is it?

As for driving shoes, you sound like my wife :-) She has a special
pair of sandals just to drive the car. Says her regular shoes "don't
feel comfortable".

( But, of course she's never seen snow either :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

On 12/01/2015 11:51 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:
On Mon, 12 Jan 2015 18:58:54 +0700, John B. Slocomb
wrote:

But why sandals in the snow?

My feet are wider at the toe than at the heel, so wearing shoes isn't
always an option, and I wouldn't dream of attempting to drive a car
wearing boots.


In Québec most people have to deal with driving a car wearing boots - at
least for 7 or 8 months per year.

On Tue, 13 Jan 2015 08:17:33 -0500, Duane
wrote:

On 12/01/2015 11:51 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:
On Mon, 12 Jan 2015 18:58:54 +0700, John B. Slocomb
wrote:

But why sandals in the snow?

My feet are wider at the toe than at the heel, so wearing shoes isn't
always an option, and I wouldn't dream of attempting to drive a car
wearing boots.


In Québec most people have to deal with driving a car wearing boots - at
least for 7 or 8 months per year.

Perhaps because I wore "brogans" for the better part of the 20 years I
spent in the air force I can drive with "boots" on.
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brogan

I include the reference as I discovered that "brogan" is not the name
of a specific item of foot wear, as I had thought, but means a number
of different things. It is even a bloke's name :-)

I even found a site attributed to "Successful Writer", and entitled
"Exploring the use and misuse of words" that discussed the term and
displayed a picture of what he referred to as a "brogan", referring to
it as an "Air Force Brogan". It makes me wonder as when I served the
word "brogan" was listed in the supply catalog as a very specific shoe
style which described an ankle high work shoe. The picture was a calf
high thing that the Air force termed as a "Boot" in my day :-)

I guess it is true, as I have read, that English is a language that is
still evolving. Perhaps it is a reason for the very evolved
(convoluted?) discussions that we sometime have in these "bicycle"
sites :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Mon, 12 Jan 2015 18:58:54 +0700, John B. Slocomb
wrote:

Why not put the bag on over the sock and then foot, sock and bag, into
the shoe?

Same reason I don't put my windbreaker on under my jersey. The
bread-bag trick is for times when you have to wear summer shoes in the
winter; if you buy a special shoe large enough to wear over thick
socks, it might as well be one without ventilation holes.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net