scary bumpy things, death in the air, and detox

Today I learned to get over a couple of intimidating curbs and through a scary gully on my bike. The trick is to go pretty slowly, which doesn't really work on the trail obstacles I generally encounter. Those you need some momentum for, or then you get stuck in the sand or at a standstill on a 50% grade.

In other news, since I already reported that I get sick if a smoker gets behind me in a grocery line, I can't really say I learned today that third-hand smoke will kill you, but some researchers from MassGeneral and Harvard did. By third-hand, they mean the residue that is left over when the smoke clears. You know, the heavy metals and other fun invisible PM2.5 particles you get from combustion that fix it so, for example, people die during the holidays from fireplace smoke.

In shocking news, according to what's available on Wikipedia, Scientologists are actually sort of right about detox protocols. What appears on that page is an extremely aggressive version of what works for detoxing EIs. I would go so far as to say it would kill you, but if you're healthy to start with, I guess you could get away with it, but then it's not clear why you'd need to.