Content-type: text/html Ray Manning

Friday, June 08, 2001 8:18 AM

Homeless Nopesterini


On Thursday morning I receive a call from my friend Tom. He's in Montreal helping out a Formula Atlantic team with data acquisition. The Formula Atlantics are sharing the weekend with Formula 1. He's called me on his cell phone telling me how tight the security is ("Dude, I can't walk 50 feet without an armed guard wanting to see my pit credentials"), how cool each team's pit is ("You should see the size of these plasma displays!"), and how many pit scooters/vehicles each team has.

I wish him well for the weekend and remind him that he needs to make sure that he has ear plugs. (Formula 1 engines rev to 18,000 rpm and are loud. Very loud!)

I'm leaving work after a productive day. Well, NPOESS and IntelSat work was productive even if EOS work wasn't. I stop by one of my liquor stores on the way home and buy a bottle of whiskey. The young guy in the wheelchair sees my motorcycle riding up towards the liquor store and he races over. We talk about the Lakers and some other things and I again give him some money on the way out.

When I get home I lube the motorcycle chain, mow both the front and the back yard, and dismantle Nopesterini's doghouse. The dog house was in the backyard when I bought the house 14 years ago and is weathered and getting old. And, besides, Nopesterini never used it anyway - always preferring to sleep on the kitchen floor.

I've started in on the bottle of whiskey halfway through mowing the lawn and before I get out the power saw to dismantle Nopesterini's doghouse. I'm starting to have fun cutting up the old wood! And then I think that I should start trimming the fruit trees. A voice in the back of my head says, "That power trimmer is big enough to remove a few fingers if one isn't careful." So I decide not to trim the fruit trees tonight and, instead, go in and watch a bicycle race.

I rewind the tape and hit the play button. The announcer comes on with the introduction, "It has been a black day for the Giro". (Talking about the 18th day of the 21 day bicycle race around Italy - the Giro d'Italia.)

I immediately hit the stop button on the VCR and go walk out into the backyard. I look up at the sky and pray. "Oh God, please don't let somebody else lose their life on a bicycle. Not on a bicycle. There is no point to it." When I feel that I have prayed as much as I can, I go back in and see what happened. I am relieved, kind of, to hear that the Italian police have raided all of the team's cars and hotel rooms in a search for performance enhancing drugs. There is no fatality.

But then I am upset and mad that today's stage, a 230 km stage with four savage mountain passes and 6700 meters of total climbing, will not be ridden. This was the day that Peter Luttenberger, who is currently in 15th place and is a pure climber, was going to gain time and get into the top ten. I am livid that I will not be able to see the world's strongest bicycle riders crawling up mountain passes in 39 by 27 gears. I take another drink.

Later in the evening, after a good walk with Nopesterini, I call the kinesiologist/biomechanician (KM). We have the final version of "The Talk". We agree that things are not working out and that we should go our own ways. We agree to collaborate on Matlab and biomechanics things, but not on anything else. I take another drink.

I don't know how I got to bed, but I'm woken up in the middle of the night by a commotion. There is banging and struggling going on with the back door. I get up, large flashlight/weapon in hand, and tentatively proceed to the door. There is Nopesterini, half in and half out of the dog door, struggling to get in. He's having a hard time pushing off with his hips to make it through the dog door and into the kitchen. Just as I approach him to help him he gives one final push and makes it in. (This is the second time, by the way, that Nopesterini has had a hard time getting through the door because of his hips.) I comfort Nopesterini and give him a milkbone biscuit for his effort. Now usually Nopesterini will grab the biscuit, go out the dogdoor, and eat the biscuit in the backyard. But tonight, he grabs the biscuit, heads for the dogdoor but stops short. He stands by the door staring intently at it and wondering what to do. And finally decides to lay down on the kitchen floor and eat the biscuit inside. Good doggie!