PALM Fills

We posted the PALM 2012 application for download on Jan 12. It was supposed to be at noon but I put it out there earlier so that the server wouldn't be bombarded. I  picked Jan 12 so that people would have two days to mail in their applications before the MLK holiday. We would be able to tell by the Saturday mail whether people knew that the application had to be downloaded from the website or whether we had to call/email people over the weekend to tell them about it. We needn't have worried. We received the applications for 629 riders and 53 staff postmarked Jan 12. We received the applications for 137 riders postmarked on Jan 13. We decided to accept all the riders postmarked Jan 13. That gives us 766 riders, well over our 700 rider cutoff. PALM filled in two days. Amazing.

Using the email address on the applications, Ellie sent out emails for every application that was accepted. She returned the checks with our regrets to everyone whose application had a postmark after Jan 13. Everyone who mailed in an application should know by now whether they are on PALM or not. It's nice to fill quickly but we really don't like telling people that they can't be on PALM. We all live for PALM and can imagine what we would feel like if we couldn't do it. But we are limited: we stay at schools and they can only handle so many people comfortably. There is just so much you can ask an all volunteer staff to do. Still we hate to say no. We don't keep a waiting list. Instead we accept more riders than our limit to cover any cancellations that may occur.

   So looking at the numbers, I am 833 behind : 766 riders and 67 staff/SAGs. So much for New Years resolutions. There are basically three of us doing registration. Vickie checks the applications (Were the waivers signed? Were sizes picked for the tshirts?  Is there an emergency contact? Is the check amount correct?) and does the paper work for the accountant while Judy and I key in the applications, create and send out the confirmation letters. (The meal, bus, and tshirt counts and the meal and bus lists come from this.)

   Vickie has the tougher job. Any mistake means she has to contact the rider by email or phone to straighten it out. Any mistake with a check means she has to mail the check back and get a new one. This takes time. It also means that your check won't be cashed for a while. Vickie processes the applications in the order received and doesn't cash the checks until the application has been verified. There are roughly 500 applications. It's a good thing Ellie sent out emails telling people that they are on the ride because it may take weeks before they receive a confirmation letter or even have their check cashed.

Am I on PALM?

We are getting this question a lot lately. On February 13 Ellie sent back all the applications with regrets that didn't make the cutoff. There were 170 of them. If you were too late to get on PALM, you should have received your returned application by now and know that you are not on PALM. If you mailed in your application before Feb 3 and haven't heard from us, then the odds are very good that you are on PALM.

PALM does not have a waiting list. What we do is register 750 riders by accepting everybody that we get on the cutoff date, this year Feb 3. Then we count on 50 riders having to cancel to bring us down to the 700 rider limit. This has worked pretty well the last 2 years: the extra riders we accept act as waiting list, but they don't have to wait. Why do we have a 700 rider limit? We stay at schools and use their facilities. Schools are not hotels and some of them are small, especially in the northern part of the state. 700 riders is about what they (and our volunteer staff) can handle.

I got another packet of applications to process. With these, we are up to 283 applications processed. I'm the one who mails out the confirmation letters. I figure I'm working on applications that were mailed about Jan 23. I'll mail these out tomorrow so some of you will start receiving them on Monday, but, as you can tell, we are way behind. So far only a couple of riders have had to be added to the database from scratch. Everybody else I've processed are people who were on the mailing list, either at their request or because they have ridden PALM before. This shows that if you want to be on PALM, it is very important to be on the mailing list.

To stay in shape over the winter I run outside. I've decided that the hard part about running in winter is the snow, not the cold. Running on ruts of worn down snow and watching for patches of ice is tiring. The cold you can dress for, at least down to 5 degrees. When I got back from Florida all the snow had melted but it was still cold. I was able to run as well here as I did when I was on vacation. But, no use. There's more snow on the way this weekend.

PALM Is Filled!

Ellie picked up the mail today. There are over 700 riders that have signed up for PALM. We have reached our limit so, as of Feb 3, PALM is officially closed. Last year we filled in a little over 3 weeks on February 19. This year we filled in less than two weeks. This is really amazing, given the winter we're having. Who can believe in spring?

Vickie has hundreds of applications that she's working on. With the big rush to mail in the applications, there were a lot of errors: missing checks, signatures, names, etc. It's going to take time to contact each rider to get the errors corrected. I have the easy job: I enter the corrected applications into my PC and send out confirmation letters, but I have no applications. Tomorrow I will get the first small batch so I can test the program for this year. I'm looking forward to it but I'm 700 applications behind. It's going to be weeks before I catch up. Spring training and Lent will have started before I'm done. Please try to be patient.

There is no easy way for us to tell you whether you are on the ride or not. The applications are spread out between three people in different geographic locations. Any effort we make to determine whether an application made it in time takes away from the effort to enter it and mail out the confirmation. Even if we did compile a list of people who are on the ride, what would we do with it? Use it to send emails? Isn't that what the confirmation letters are for? Post it on the internet? Personally, I wouldn't be happy if my name was on the internet. I get enough spam as it is. Does anybody have any ideas?

I'm going to spend the last free night that I will have for a while packing vegetable seeds into envelopes for the Garden Resource Program. I've heard back from the Michigan Land Bank. I'm still on track for leasing a lot two blocks from my house for gardening. At least one neighbor there is all for it. And I have another meeting next week on a proposed community garden. I've taken pictures of one proposed site. It's completely covered in snow (surprise!) so it's hard to visualize a garden there and it's a long way from a source of water.

Caught up as winter fades

I finished processing and mailed out the confirmation letter for the 717th person on this year's PALM on Wednesday. If you mailed us an application and haven't gotten either a confirmation letter, your application back with regrets, or a call from us saying your application has an error, something is wrong. (We still have applications for about 70 people that were incomplete or had errors. ) It looks like I am finally caught up.

Take a good look at your confirmation letters to be sure that I got everything straight. I checked everything, but I was pretty rushed and wasn't at my best. Be sure I got you emergency contact information, t shirt sizes, bus rides and meals right. These are things I could have messed up that wouldn't get caught by my program.

I'm happy to report that the snow on my lawn is almost all melted and all the debris left during the winter is visible. Friday was the first day I was able to run without worrying about ice. Instead I had to watch out for mud. Our bikes are out of the shop and are ready. And even though there is not a speck of green to be seen, Saturday was the seed distribution day for the Garden Resource Program here and now I have seeds for radishes, lettuce, beets, turnips, peas, carrots, green beans and more. I'm not sure how far I can dig in the ground before I hit frozen dirt, but I'm ready.

(No) Wait List

I had a few days break before the next batch of applications arrived. I'm up to rider 643 as far as processing applications and mailing out confirmation letters are concerned. I probably have 100 more people to register. We've been returning late applications with regrets that the ride has filled.

A word about wait lists. PALM does not maintain a wait list. Instead we accept about 40 more than the 700 cutoff and expect cancellations so that we get down to the cutoff. Sort of like the airlines but, unlike the airlines, if not enough riders cancel, we live with it. If you check the counts from the previous 3 years on the website, you'll see we are generally above 700. One of the reasons is that we don't count support people as part of the 700. I expect one more batch of applications, then all that are left are applications with problems. Generally 10% of the applications have errors but this year there have been more, probably because of the rush.

I spoke too soon about being caught up. I got another batch of applications just now that take me up to rider 719. When I get though this batch (it could take me a couple of days), then I am caught up except for problem applications and you know who you are. Everyone who sent in an application should get a confirmation or a returned application by this weekend. If not, email us. We'll try to track it down.

Spring morning in winter

When I got up this morning it was almost 50 degrees and you could see the sun. This after a week where we've either had snow storms or lows around 11. Sunny, but cold. The forecast is for falling temperatures and snow by dinner. You've got to love Michigan. It forces you to live in the moment. Which brings us to PALM. PALM allows you to live in the moment. You have very little responsibilities on PALM. You get up. You eat breakfast. You pack up. You ride. You setup. You finally have the time to look around you and notice that it is summer and you are in Michigan.

Things are changing here, but slowly. I run in the morning. Because the days are getting longer (and because I work), I'm now running at dawn. The last couple of days have been sunny so that I've started to hear the dawn chorus of birds. I swear I heard robins although I can't imagine what robins do when it is 11 degrees and the ground is covered with snow. I've also taken my bike into the shop to get ready. Maybe the weather will get the idea.

So far I have entered applications for 579 people. (I mailed confirmations for 75 people this morning. I'll mail the confrimations for 80 more once I have checked the confirmations against the applications to make sure I haven't made mistakes.) I have 140-160 more people to process. I may only be 2 1/2 weeks behind, hey almost caught up.

It never ends

Just as I finished up the last batch of 75 applications on Monday, bringing us up to rider 368, I got another batch of applications to process (which will bring us up to rider 445). This is like standing in front of a fire hose. So far 90% of the applications are for people who have been on PALM before. These are easier to do because their names and addresses are already in the computer. All I have to do is enter the emergency contact (very important) and not mess up the t shirt sizes or meals. Later on most of the riders will be new so that I'll have to enter all the information and things slow down. Even after processing all these applications, I'm probably still 3 weeks behind. Hold on. I'm getting to you.

One of the last things I do is compare the confirmation letters I generate with the application to be sure I entered everything right. Then I stuff the self addressed stamped envelopes (you remember to include one, right?). My cat really likes this. He sits on the applications and swats at me as I manipulate the letters and confirmations. I have to wait until he goes to sleep to work. Fortunately cats sleep 16 hours a day.

Daylight savings time starts on March 9. That's the start of summer, right? I'm beginning to get antsy to ride. I try to ride at least once a month throughout the year. I've already missed October and February is in danger (even though I went to Florida last week). Winter has been so long that 40 degree days seem like biking weather especially if the sun is out. (These are two conditions that haven't occurred much this year though.) There is something I can do: I'm taking the bikes into the shop to get ready for the season.

Back from Florida

When we last tuned in, I was getting ready to go out of town even though I had just received applications for 200 people to process. I went to Florida for a little winter R&R. On my last day I got up early, so early that I could still see some stars and all the planets, and ran on the beach as the sun rose. I was on the Atlantic side so I got to see all the sunrise colors as the sun slowly slipped out of the sea. The next day (at home) I got up early and got to run at sunrise with overcast skies, past boarded up buildings in 15 degrees. Vacation over. (The only way you can tell that the sun has risen in Michigan in the winter is that the street lights turn off. There is no sun.) Do you know when I got back, the applications for 200 people were still waiting for me?

I've gotten through the applications, thru rider number 298. We got an email from a rider who sent in his application on January 29 and wanted to know if we got it. He wasn't in the batch I just processed. This means that I am still processing applications that were mailed before January 29. If you mailed in your application after that, I haven't gotten to you yet. Don't worry. By the way I received another packet of applications to process. The application for the January 29 rider was in that packet. I'm sure I am still processing January applications.

Maybe you don't have that much time

Right after I did the post last night I got an email from the woman that picks up the PALM mail. We got applications for 84 people yesterday. Now we are up to 590 and our cutoff is 700. If you haven't already mailed your application, I don't like your odds.

I mentioned that I had 95 confirmations mailed but the person who does the first half of the registration process (in Florida) was 200 behind. I got a big box today in the mail. She is no longer 200 behind. I'm 200 behind. Actually I'm 500 behind if you count what's been received, but the other 300 are not sitting on the left side of my desk, waiting. Did I mention that I'm taking a winter break for a few days? I hope I can forget what I have to come back to.

Registration for PALM 2007 is closed

I've been on staff for 8 years. Last year was the first time that we ever hit the 700 participant cutoff before May 1, the date cutoff. Last year we were caught off guard and ended up registering over 800 people. This year we were a little better prepared: we posted updated registration counts on the website and the blog to warn people about how many people were registering. Since the schools are smaller this year, we were monitoring the counts more closely. Anything much over 700 will impact the quality of this year's ride. We have received applications from more than 750 people and it is time to close registration. We will start returning checks with letters of regret shortly. We've been dating when we've received applications. It looks like if we've received your application by March 1, you are on the ride.

So far we have mailed out 486 confirmation letters. That means that we have over 200 applications that we haven't finished processing yet. Some of these applications have errors so we can't finish processing them (even though they will be on the ride). Still we are way behind. If you've mailed your application before February 23, you are virtually certain of being on the ride. (We go off of when we received your application, not the postmark. Most of the time you can't read the postmark.) If you mailed in your application after that, the longer it is before you hear from us, the better your chances are. Believe me, everyone who is doing the registration and everybody who is on staff for PALM feels bad about turning down anyone who wants to be on PALM.

Setting limits

First the registration counts so far: 96 confirmations sent out with about 200 additional people in the PALM registration pipeline.

Worried about biking 50 miles a day for several days in a row? My advice is don't set limits. Don't say you can't do something. Instead find out what you can do. I run in the mornings. On Tuesday I found out that I can run when it is 0 degrees and a wind chill of -13. But I think this year's limit will be wind chills of -15.

The trouble is that I work with a guy from Russia. He says that he doesn't like winter when it is 32. He likes it when it's 5. He says that we don't have a culture of cold. He can't understand people who go outside in the winter, don't button their coats or wear hats, and then complain about the cold. He once got on Google Maps and showed me around the neighborhood where he grew up using their satellite maps. I looked at my house using the satellite maps. All I could see was how lousy my lawn looked even from outer space. This is what I have to work on: the glass is half full, not half empty.

First confirmations mailed - wind

I've entered the first set of applications I received and mailed out their confirmation letters. That's the good news. The bad news is that it will still be in single digits when they arrive. What I sent out is about 1/3 of the applications that we have in the pipeline. There should be about a 2 week lag between mailing your application to PALM and receiving your confirmation. It's safe to say that if you haven't received a PALM application in the mail by now, you are not going to receive one. If you email us, we will mail an application to you. Or you can download one from our website.

Wind

During the winter when I can't bike, I run. I run outside in the morning before work, around 6:30 AM. On cool mornings, you notice the wind, even it is only 5-10 mph. On mornings like this morning, you notice every molecule of air as it drags itself over your skin. Wind is different for biking. Biking on hot days, you pray to be going against the wind. But wind is treacherous. Several times every year I go out on a ride where I feel really good, when I am going 3 mph faster than I usually go, and I feel that I'm really in good shape. Then I turn around to come back. Only then do I find out that I really had a 15 mph tailwind that I hadn't noticed until now when it was too late. Now I'm going 3 mph slower than I usually go, if that, panting and shifting to lower gears. You would think I would learn, but no. Humility is hard to learn, easy to forget, and must be taught over and over.