Then arrived the horrible winter of 2011-2012 happened. The lack of snow kept me from training and hurt both races: the CoLL race shortened and staged on a short loop in Theodore Wirth Park earlier today, and the Vasaloppet was canceled outright. I didn’t even bother to go up to Minneapolis for the CoLL. I have no ski fitness at all, and skiing laps on a golf course didn’t sound appealing.

Trying to put a positive sporting spin on the day, though, I did go for an hour-long gravel ride – kicking off my training for the Almanzo 100 on Saturday, May 19.

It was a solid ride – not long, by any means, but I averaged just over 15mph and, most importantly, I felt pretty good, except for my frosted toes. I can’t wait to do some serious training over the next three months.

This was all the more remarkable to me because I’m reading the bio on my iPad, which is of course a rectangle with rounded corners.

The list mixes old and new stuff I’ve always meant to read, and there’s no rhyme or reason to the list except that I’ve heard good things about all of these books. As it happens, in the last month I’ve finished a few of these books, and loved them. I’ll try to remember to post some mini-reviews of those books soon, and to keep up with posts on other books as I finish them all year.

• Blair, Ann: Too Much to Know (2011, nonfiction – information overload in Renaissance Europe)
• Carr, Nicholas: The Shallows (2011, nonfiction – polemic against the Internet’s effects on thinking )
• Gibson, William: Distrust that Particular Flavor (2012, nonfiction – collected essays)
• Gleick, James: The Information (2011, nonfiction – a history of information in the modern age)
• Inskeep, Steve: Instant City (2011, nonfiction – Karachi)
• LeCarré, John: The Honourable Schoolboy (1977, fiction – 2nd book in the George Smiley trilogy)
• LeCarré, John: Smiley’s People (1979, fiction – 3rd book in the George Smiley trilogy)
• Lipsyte, Sam: The Ask (2010, fiction – college fundraisers)
• Martin, George R. R. : A Game of Thrones (1996, fiction – fantasy)
• Martin, George R. R.: A Clash of Kings (1998, fiction – fantasy)
• Martin, George R. R.: A Storm of Swords (2000, fiction – fantasy)
• Martin, George R. R.: A Feast for Crows (2005, fiction – fantasy)
• Martin, George R. R.: A Dance with Dragons (2011, fiction – fantasy)
• Mehta, Suketu: Maximum City (2009, nonfiction – Mumbai)
• Monchaux, Nicholas de: Spacesuit (2011, nonfiction – a history of the Apollo spacesuit)
• Murakami, Haruki: 1Q84 (2011, fiction – literary fiction)
• Smith, Tom Rob: Child 44 (, fiction – crime novel)
• Stephenson, Neil: REAMDE (2011, fiction – SF thriller)
• Szymborska, Wislawa: Miracle Fair (2001, poetry)
• Vanderbilt, Tom: Traffic (2008, nonfiction – study of auto traffic and driving)

Maybe I’m naive, but I was shocked by some of the critical comments that Daum quotes. This made me pretty sympathetic to her critique of hater culture on the internet, which not only dumbs down the (often already low) level of discourse on the Web (and, now, in every other medium, since everything’s everywhere), but contributes to what the conservatives rightly call the “coarsening” of our culture. Not that I believe America ever was, or should become, a high-toned society, but really, we are not better off when anonymous haters can tell Daum:

What a pathetic, inept, and uninformed person you are. Your articles are brainless, and when I read them I think of how miserable as a person you must be. Probably a fat ugly little girl who needs to prey on others to feel better…A fat, ugly squashed bug.

Which brings me to my own current experience with internet haters: the anonymous and horrible crap that’s being vented by “readers” on the webpage for Shannon’s book. I won’t quote any of them, for at least four reasons: most are awful (being badly written, cruelly vitriolic, or both), many are stupid (betraying the commenters as very poor readers), at least some of them are coming from a person or people we know, and – most importantly – the negative comments are more than outweighed by the numerous thoughtful comments.

Now, don’t misunderstand me and think that I am (or think my wife is) a delicate flower who can’t stand being criticized. To the contrary: both of us learned in grad school to take some hard knocks and profit from them. I have to be similarly flexible (or bulletproof – pick your metaphor) to do my grantwriting at Carleton. And Shannon’s been a blogger for a long time, in which role she’s received some pretty awful comments.

But but but, there is a huge difference between, say, redlined comments on a grant-proposal draft and a “review” on Shannon’s B&N.com page such as

I truly expected a really helpful read, the answer to my many answers. Failed to live up to its title and expectations I had. ”

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one quote.) Constructive criticism exists to improve the writing to which it responds, and the writer and the critic are in a relationship that assumes the value of the writing. On the other hand, a half-literate “review” on B&N.com exists only to tear down the writer. It actually prevents any sort of meaningful connection between the reader and the writer, and rests, as another couple reviewers say, on the readers’ idiotic evaluation of the writing as a “joke.”

Thankfully, Shannon knows all this. A few days ago she called out the negative commenters in a post on her blog. In addition to requesting that anyone who’s read and liked the book post a comment to that effect on the book’s page, Shannon said (in part):

If you’ve been following along at home, you know that there’s been quite a bit of drama over at my book’s Barnes & Noble page. I’ve been blessed to get a ton of super-great, five-star reviews over there, which is thrilling and exciting. I’m grateful for every one. However, I’m being dogged by a troll reviewer who has been putting up hateful “reviews” for every good review that goes up, from the very first day of release.

…

Many of these comments have been flagged as abusive, off-topic, or inappropriate. My publisher and book marketing manager are in contact with Barnes & Noble regarding an investigation. But in the meantime, this person or persons is/are intent on continuing to bring down my ratings average by putting up a 1-star review for every 4- or 5-star review that goes up. (Fortunately, most potential buyers and reviewers are smart enough to notice the suspicious nature of these troll reviews, and more than one have actually mentioned it in the comments.)

As you should expect, the fact that my talented, hardworking wife has been attacked like this on the internet angers me, and I applaud Shannon for standing up to them. I (we!) value the exchange of views, even opposite ones, but I think the hate by the comment trolls is beyond the pale of normalcy or value. Which is probably why I felt such a strong jolt of satisfaction when Daum wrote in her Believer essay, “These days, being attacked isn’t just the result of saying something badly, it’s the result of saying anything at all.”

We’re all lucky that some of us are brave enough to say something good anyhow.

What’s even more amazing is that, seventeen items earlier, the land of the kromer is listed as another “perfect thing”!

I wish some of this U.P. cool would rub off on me, eh.

However. When we arrived, the attendant told us that the whole alley was going to close down for a league tournament in just a few minutes. The girls were very bummed, and only partly mollified by a promise to come back the next day. Knowing we needed to salvage the afternoon with some sort of special outing, we went back out to the car to talk about an alternative. After a few minutes of conversation (Shannon, Julia, and me) and grumping (Genevieve), we hit on the idea of going to an indoor playground about 45 minutes away. (Such is small-town life that you have to drive most of an hour to find such a place.) We Googled up some directions and headed there.

The drive wasn’t bad, but both girls soon showed off their inborn travel-hating trait that makes us very leery of venturing very far from home – say, the city limits. After distracting the girls with everything we could, we found the playground. Admission was cheap and the place was relatively uncrowded. Julia started exploring right away. Vivi, on the other hand, was reluctant to do anything at all, and only gradually warmed up enough to try some of the toddler toys. Finally, after about 45 minutes, Julia convinced her to go into the playground itself. They played for a good half hour together, before Julia started getting tired out. Of course, Vivi was still raring to go. I worried the we were either one or both would have a meltdown, but Julia – being a great sport – dragged herself through the playground a few more times.

By this time, it was almost dinnertime, so Shannon and I decided to get a fast-food dinner on the drive back home, then head straight to a huge holiday-lights display at a farm outside of Northfield. We’d planned to see those lights on Christmas night, but the girls had been way too tired for it. They were game for our new dinner-and-drive idea, so we found a convenient McDonalds and then headed back towards home.

The drive was not a pleasant one. Both girls whined incessantly about “sore legs”, about being bored, about wanting to go home, about where in the world we would actually find these lights. After a solid hour of driving – not much in the grand scheme of things, but a transcontinental trek to Julia and Genevieve – we found the farm, which was in fact pretty incredible: a colossal light display put on by the family that owns the farm. The girls enjoyed driving around the displays a couple times, then we headed back home.

That drive was the shortest of the day, and it was only 7:30 p.m., but the girls were trashed, and acting like it. Speeding home, I took a shortcut on one of my favorite gravel roads. I was pleased that it both cut our drive down by a good ten minutes and that Shannon found it a bit dicey. Soon enough, we were rolling into the garage, and then upstairs for the bathroom routine and bedtime. The girls were probably asleep thirty seconds after I left the room.

I hope they rest up for the bowling tomorrow.

It sure did. The bright yellow sun and 40°F temperature were nice; the 20-mph westerly wind and my disturbing lack of fitness were less so. But any time spent riding is time well spent! The gravel was dry and pleasingly fast, the lack of clouds or foliage made for endless vistas, and there was plenty of fresh cold air to inhale.

So far this winter, I’ve skied one hour, a couple weeks ago, just after we received our only significant snowfall of the season. This is the sorry snow situation around here right now:

The only “snowy” stretch of Arb trail.

All that’s left of our sledding-hill jump.

The dwindling bank of plowed snow at the end of our block.