Previously on "Scamming the Scammer:"

"Vivi," a 29-year-old single woman from Washington state contacted me on a social networking Web site. Vivi wants to be my new friend but I am suspicious so, using the nom de plume "Ignatius," I write to her and pretend that we knew each other in high school.

Vivi is confused and wants more information. In my next e-mail, I mention some familiar names in hopes of jogging her memory:

Vivi, Vivi, Vivi!
My long-ago love, why do you pretend not to remember me? Back when we were seniors together at Hermann Goering High School, we spent every free moment together - lunchtime, study hall, even detention hall after we were caught dancing on top of the principal's desk in our underwear.
Now you pretend not to know me! Why? For answers, I went to one of your old high school friends, LaVerne DeFazio, who explained that you suffered some sort of industrial accident several years ago while working at Shotz Brewery in Milwaukee. LaVerne didn't go into details about the accident but said that you might have lost part of your memory from that. Oh, and LaVerne and her friend, Shirley, told me to tell you hello from them.
OK, I feel better now that I know that and am sorry you had that terrible accident. But please tell me you remember me, your sweet little "Squiggie," even a little, from our days together.
I desperately want to return to your loving arms.
Always Yours,
Ignatius

Does Vivi remember any of this? Read on:

Hello
How are u doin today..i would realy want us to chat so we could get to talk things out and meet in person,...am so sorry that it seems am doubting u but could u send me the pics of ur Vivi so i would be sure its me and i would also want u to see my pic b4 anything okay
Pls get back to me again i must tell u i realy want us to get to meet in person soon
Regards
Viv cares

There aren't any pictures of us together. I am making the whole thing up! What now? I know! I gave our pictures away to Ethel.

Vivi,
I don't blame you for not remembering us and our time together long ago. As I stated in a previous e-mail, your old friend LaVerne Defazio, said that you had lost your memory in an industrial accident  at the Shotz Brewery where you both worked together years ago. Perhaps your memory will return someday.
As for pictures of us together back at high school, I afraid to say that I gave them all away. After you married Mr. Banana Plantation Guy, I was heartbroken and in a fit of ennui, I was going to burn all our photos and love letters. However, your best friend at our old apartment, Mrs. Ethel Mertz, asked me if she could have the photos and letters. Ethel said that you two were friends for a long time but she didn't have a picture of you so I handed all of the material over to her. I guess you can contact Ethel to see if she still has the pictures of us. Last I heard, she married an older gentleman named Fred and lives in New York City,
Yours, Ignatius

Instead of clearing things up, I'm afraid that my e-mails have confused Vivi even more. Now she wants me to call her:

How are u doin today..u seem to be too sure of wat u are saying..tell me more about urself and where u live now i would love to meet u in person..coz a bit far from u now and trying so hard to get back to my memory..send me ur cell phone number and ur yahoo emailing id.wat do u do now??hav a great day

To be continued ...

A few years ago, I joined a free social networking Web site. i haven't made any new friends there but I do enjoy reading the blogs and discussion forums on the site.

Recently, I received an unsolicited e-mail from someone who wanted to be my new friend. Being the nosey newspaperman that I am, I checked this person's profile and learned that it was a "single, 29-year-old woman from Olympia, Washington," writing to me. The profile says she has a graduate degree and is self-employed in the construction business. OK, so far, so good.

Here is her initial e-mail to me (I blocked out her last name, which is probably fake):

Hello How are u doing today i am Vivi XXXXXX. i am single and searching was going thru profiles on here wen i came accross urs and taught it would be nice to leave u a message
How are u doing today ,would love to get to know u better.....if u find me interesting u could get back to me so we could share sometime together to get to know each other
Hav a wonderful Day
Regards
Vivi cares

Well, now I know that her graduate degree is definitely not in English or journalism. I smell a rat so I fire off an e-mail in reply. Using the name of "Ignatius," the main character in the hilarious novel, "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole, I pretend that we were sweethearts in high school. Let''s see if she/he takes the bait:

Hello Vivi,
I was very flattered to receive your e-mail and a little surprised to hear from you after all this time. Of course, you knew how I felt about you all those years ago.
Vivi, don't tell me you don't remember how I chased after you back when we were seniors at Hermann Goering High School. Your heart belonged to another. I knew that. I understood that but it didn't make the pain go away.
I looked for you last year at the Goering High School reunion but you weren't there. One of your friends, Weezy Jefferson, told me that you had married a man 30 years older than you and had moved with him to his banana plantation in Brazil.
That was five years ago. And now you contact me after all these years! The pain in my heart is still there, but so is the yearning I have for you, my long-ago love.
Write to me here and tell me how you have been doing. Are you still with Mr. Banana Plantation Guy or is your heart free to love again?
Your former love, Ignatius

Her reply:

Hi
How are u doing....i am happy to hear from u but a rather surprised a little bcos u hav not even seen my pic yet and u are judging me....i find it heard to believe that we hav met but if u are so sure of that then come online....am gonna be online all thru tonite....here is my yahoo id..incase if u hav an id u can add me to ur friends list so that we can chat and talk a lot okay...here is my idd xxxxxxx@yahoo.com.
Add me and leave me a messsage looking forward to hearing from u soonest
Regards
Vivi cares

Come on now! This person is supposedly a 29-year-old American woman with a graduate degree. Surely, she must know that no American high school - in fact, no school anywhere in the world - would be named after Hermann Goering, the head of the German air force and the No. 2 top Nazi during World War II. Will she fall for any more of my nonsense? To be continued ...

Eric

Apparently, everyone is talking about it. The confident city cyclist classes mentioned in this WaPo chat sound like a great idea.

Any local tips you'd like to share here?

OK. I'll admit. I was drooling over the custom women's bikes made by Sweetpea Bicycles in Portland when I saw this really interesting program on their blog. A credit union that offers bike loans, much like car loans. Because, let's face it, are many of us ogle $4,000 custom bikes, but can't afford them.

So, uh, doesn't the Advocate need a Portland bureau? You know, to report on stuff there?

Leslie

That's what's making me happy this week. Seriously, if your handlebars are getting shabby, new tape is in the $20 neighborhood and totally improves your ride.

I was also thrilled this morning to see at least two unfamiliar faces riding this morning.

And now, I'm getting ready for a late  afternoon trek on the Trek. Not a bad day at all.

Leslie

I've been working on a story about bike commuting in Victoria that's scheduled to run in Sunday's paper.

I think one of the things that surprised me most is there are a handful of people in Victoria who either ride or are building fixed-gear bikes. Fixies. This is the style of bike you'd see in track racing events. Elsewhere, they've been the hot thing in bikes for a little while.

I enjoyed the NYT story about fixies, but a good frame alone runs in the hundreds -- and I've got other bikes on my list of things to buy well before I shell out for one of these.

I also take issue with the story's assertion that there are people who ride fixed-gear bikes that don't know or care about gear ratios.  Puhhhlese, where are they hiding? I've never met anyone who rides a fixie that didn't have a little something to say on the subject.

Leslie

Wear a helmet.

Now, I'm not anyone's mother. But I cringe when I see most of the cyclists in Victoria don't wear helmets on the road. They're pretty cheap -- starting at $15 or so. Certainly much cheaper than hospital care.  They're not sexy, but from what I've seen, neither are brain injuries. And you can take your helmet off at the end of the day.

Maybe you're one of those people who rides a bike for fun, or because you can't afford a car, or because you think you're going to save the world by pedaling. Whatever the case, cyclists tend to get more scrutiny than drivers. We're more visible (it's not always possible to see if a driver is wearing a seat belt, but you can tell if someone on a bike is wearing a helmet.) Plus, we kind of stick out here.

Yesterday, I went for a ride with restaurant owner Cliff Kuykendall. I think he summed it up best: "Always wear a helmet. I wear my seat belt in the car and I wear a helmet on the bike."

Leslie

OK. So I'm not really one to follow the Tour. But thisinteractive map is pretty nifty.

Leslie

Riding one mile is cake. Ten, a round-trip commute.  Thirty, a long weekend ride. One hundred? That's a  century.

And I did it for the first time Friday. Greg and I dragged ourselves out of the house at about 6 a.m. -- to make a round trip to Magnolia beach. To tack on some extra miles, we looped around Alamo beach, Placido, Riverside Park and then went grocery shopping (by bike) afterwords.

As single-day adventures go, this was great. The lowlight was me almost getting myself killed when I didn't see an SUV coming up behind me while I turned left. Generally, I'm extremely cautions in taking turns. The lesson here -- triple check over your shoulder before you turn. Keep in mind, if it's windy and loud, your cycling partner might thing you asked "Is it clear?" rather than "Are there any cars?"
Thank you to the kind man in the Lincoln Navigator who did not kill me.

After I stopped sobbing hysterically over my brush with death, we rode into Alamo Beach. A man driving away told us surely, we were headed the wrong way. The wind picked up and hard, cold rain (or hail?) drove at us from the side.  Fortunately, the Indianola Baptist Church, with its big, inviting awning was right across the street from us we sat there and ate lunch, figuring we were doomed to get crushed sitting on a church porch.

Did I mention it was cold? Seriously, I learned even in July, in South Texas, bring some long sleeves or a blanket or something. But it blew over, we made it to the beach. Greg, who since moving here a couple of months ago has begged me to go to the beach, announced he didn't want to get all sandy.

The best surprise is both our legs felt pretty good by the end of the day. Possibly because the terrain was mercifully flat. As my mom would say though, we had sore hineys. (I swear, she would say that. Or tushes.) And the back of my neck  and shoulders were all kinds of sore (Anyone know if this means my handlebars don't fit?) And we were as hungry as a couple of raging brontosauruses.

All and all a great ride. Anyone have a good route for a century ride mapped out they'd like to share?

Leslie

Spend more time exercising outdoors.

At least, that's what the New York Times reports some physiologists say. According to the story, the best way to handle exercise in hot, humid conditions (uh, we don't know anything about that here, do we now?) is to keep on sweating. Your body will acclimate.

The story also notes it's easier to cycle (YAY!) in the heat than run.  But really, did we need science to tell us that?

Leslie       & nbsp;       &n bsp; 

It's Canada Day, when our neighbors to the north celebrate the birth of their country. So I'm told by a Canadian-born co-worker and NPR. I'm embarrassed to say that, like most Americans, I don't know a ton about Canada, despite having lived in Vermont for a of couple years as a kid.

Maybe when someone says 'Canada' you think: hockey, lumber, beavers, William Shatner and lower drinking ages. But maybe you should also think about fantastic outdoor recreation.  It seems the Canadians are busy working on this trail system.

Sounds like it will be a great ride (or hike) when it's done.

Leslie