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adventures

adventures / cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off
1
Sep 25

Happy Labor Day

Welcome to September. And to fall. And the semester. Anything else? Everything else. And so long summer. Except for the second summer, which is here for a time. Second summer, a mild, brief, way to overwrite the memory of the heat wave and the sweats you didn’t ask for. Quite, slow and mild, give me three or five months of 70s and 80s and I’ll be ready for spring. In this way we can also overwrite the season that actually offends in favor of a sequence of days and weeks and months of weather just like this. Who needs a winter anyhow?

Sometimes it’s easy to miss a subtle joy of spring, overlook an earnest day of summer, or the calm and thoughtful afternoon of fall for dreading what comes next. It’s a shortcoming; being aware of it doesn’t solve the problem. I guess one day I should find ways to enjoy the winter.

Thinking of it somehow just highlights the problem.

I mean, here I am, going on and on about that on a perfect mid-year day, the beginning of a beautiful September, which was hearkened forth by the beautiful end of August. A day which, just a bit ago, I was outside watering plants, covering the grill, and counting my blessings: health, a peaceful day, a delicious dinner, and so on. Everyone should have those things.

This was the view from the backyard, while the grill was going.

And while we had perfectly made steaks, we also enjoyed our own fresh-grown okra. Took all season, and we got one large meal out of the yield. Worth it.

Today, being the first day of the month, means cleaning the computer, updating some files, building new subdirectories, and so on. One of those little tasks is tracking the site data. August, for some reason, had the most visits in the 21 years of the website. I don’t know why people keep coming back, but I’m glad they do.

And also the bots, I suppose, but I appreciate the people more. So thanks for being here.

We had a bike ride with Miles, the neighbor, on Saturday. They dropped me near the end, but I took this shot 30-some miles.

Ours was a morning ride, which is unusual. Especially after the fact. There was a full day still to go. There are so many things to discover about early mornings. Rediscover, actually. I did morning drive for about a decade and, years later, I am still revolting against the notion of early alarms.

I went for a solo ride this evening, a much more normal time for a bike ride, if you ask me. And no wonder, look at these views. This is some farm land not far from the house. I wonder if they put in any okra this year.

I missed the perfect shot here as I pedaled along, but there is also a little cut out in the treeline, and I knew it was coming. So I framed up the sun. Not a bad composition for off-the-hip soft pedaling. Just staying upright and getting close to the photo you want is sometimes a thing. Putting the sun between those trees in the foreground and the trees in the background, simultaneously? That’s real talent.

Along that same road, the tree, the moon, the chip and seal.

And just over that hill is a beautiful old swayback Appaloosa, enjoying dinner.

You wonder if horses ever look at sunsets. You wonder what they think about when they do.

Classes start tomorrow. Guess I better figure out what I’m going to talk about, huh?

adventures / cycling / Friday / photo — Comments Off
22
Aug 25

Then don’t go that direction

Just work today. Sorta, anyway. I’m now pulling together my final class of the term — and just in time! The good news is all the material is there. Today I worked out the syllabus and started the Canvas shell. I’ll finish the former this weekend and the latter in December, when the class ends.

All of the material is in hand, except for perhaps one reading. I just need to sort it all out, and get myself sorted out. But that’s what the next eight or nine days are for — he told himself, confidently.

Also there are something like three meetings next week, so it isn’t that many days.

But it is a beautful, seasonally mild-to-appropriate Friday, and you don’t let details get in the way of appreciating seasonally mild-to-appropriate Fridays.

Also, I’m tired. And possibly ready for a nap.

We had a nice bike ride today. We went “back that way,” which is a 20-mile out and bike from our neighborhood, through the next one, down and up a hill, before turning left at the church and then pedaling like mad for two miles, all of which was the preface to what I now think of as Always Bad That Direction.

Every time I go this way, it’s a poor quality performance on my part.

This one, though, she was cooking. I only caught back up to her wheel because she was kind.

I set a Strava PR on the last uphill. It was one of those things which I hadn’t previously realized was a segment, but now I do, and so today I tried a bit harder. Only I wasn’t sure exactly where the segment began, so as soon as I took the left turn, I was determined to make it to the top of the hill, a little over a mile a way. Turns out the segment was that whole stretch of road. I took 32 seconds off my previous fastest time of the year and 38 off of last year’s best.

I’ve ridden that hill 16 times, and only now noticed it was a segment. (The fastest time recorded on it is a full 1:31 better than me. That’s not reachable.)

Also, I marked my second and third best times on two other segments, but, still, the whole ride felt slow, and my legs heavy, right until the very end. (It should not take 70 minutes for my legs to warm up. Especially since I won’t stay at top condition for more than 12 minutes anyway.)

When I turned off the tracker, Strava gave me this happy news.

And I was a super late adopter to that app. My first tracker has me at almost 2,000 and 2.2 months of exercise. That seems like a lot, until you remember how long it takes to get there. The first thing I recorded there was a short little bike ride in May of 2011.

I remember it like it was 14 (!!!) years ago.

adventures / cycling / photo / Rowan — Comments Off
18
Aug 25

Do not remove, in parts or in toto

Much progress was made, for a workday, for a Monday. I finished the notes and slides for a key lecture. One more of those and this particular class will be all but set. Which is great because the fall term is hurtling toward us quickly. So I am motivated, and wide-eyed, looking at those deadlines. I’ll wrap this up tomorrow. And then I’ll start work on finished the prep for my last class. Fortunately, all the materials are gathered, and I have good help to get it done. It’s just a matter of doing the eye-squinting part of finishing it, and polishing the product.

I’m still finding typos in things for this other class. And while that is mortifying — even as it is, at present, intended for an audience of me — I am making my peace with it. I’m just never going to consistently punctuate bullet points correctly. If you’re wondering if you do it right, and we all wonder, well, it is complicated.

I don’t want to say I’ve fallen into the “What does it matter” camp, but I do understand the allure of the “They’re bullet points, what does it matter” argument. There’s a difference there, and you’d do well to distinguish between the two. If you’re having difficulty in doing so, I have spelled out the argument in the following:

Just kidding.

Saturday afternoon, after my pretty decent little Friday night ride, we went out for another. She said she was up for an easy ride. And this is part of what that looked like. See her? Up the road?

I think this is about as far back as she got from me. Also, I’m not sure where that shade was, but today’s route needed more of it. I was tired and it was hard, not easy, and also warm.

When I did catch back up to her, I did not go way up the road, but rode alongside, trying to grab a good shot for the socials.

Sunday, I saw this. Please read the sign. And please do not remove.

You know, right away, they’ve had problems with that. You wonder how many times they’ve had that problem, that finally motivated the addition to the sign. You wonder how it was removed. Did people push the cart away? Did they tie it to their bumper and drive it away? And what’s the top speed on an oversized cart of this sort, anyway? What’s the lead on your rope or chain? And can it hold up to a sharp right turn?

Alas, a closer look will show you they’ve taken further anti-theft measures.

Or, else, the local prankster is thumbing his nose at the sign one part at a time.

I saw that as we were on our way to a swim. My lovely bride found a 5K swim to do, and I found some shade to sit in. Here she is, looking over the start of the course. Apparently, it was a swim around that little island out there.

Anyway, she did it, emerging pleased with the course, the ability to see the buoys after a mid-day (rather than an early morning) start. That was her longest swim in a couple of years, prior to her big bike crash. So she spent the rest of the evening rubbing her shoulder. Also, we basked at the local creamery.

And then, today I worked. This evening, so pleased was I with my progress, that I went out for a ride in 69-degree temperatures. It was overcast and pleasant and I timed this one just right, getting back right before darkness landed on the road in front of me.

Did you know you can ask Siri for sunset times where you are? That comes in handy for evening rides, as it was for this 23-mile effort.

Now, to work on another lecture …

adventures / cycling / photo / Rowan / Tuesday — Comments Off
12
Aug 25

Catching up on the weekend

It’s a big week of doing work. A big week of working. So this probably will be a light week here, while I’m busy being productive finishing syllabi, making Canvas come to life, pulling together lecture notes and the like. And then there’s the endless doubt and self-recrimination that always comes with taking on, and creating, new classes. Am I doing this right? Is it right? Is it enough?

Is it too much? Will it hold up to scrutiny? Can others also find it interesting? Am I going to meet the class objectives? Will it be well received? Will we want to offer this again?

I’d feel this way about it if someone gave me an immortally successful class that was failproof.

I might feel this way with a class I’d built that was always successful, too. But I have somehow never had a lot of opportunity to test that concept. My chair noted in my contract packet last spring that I’m flexible and amendable to taking on new courses at the last minute. It was kind of him to say, but that’s perhaps not the reputation you want to burnish. Constantly building and learning and mastering new material is a fun challenge, but it can be a challenge — especially if you want to really master it.

This term I am teaching classes seven, eight and nine here. It’s my fifth semester here. There’s a certain amount of psychic energy involved in all of that.

The good news is that I can worry over this a little more. Perhaps, by 2027, I’ll have finally built out all my own courses. My own corner, indeed.

Anyway.

There’s something about my Saturday bike ride I’m trying to get off my chest. This was one of those rides where I wanted to change up from the usual routes. Sometimes the best surprises come from simply asking the question: what’s down that way? So I did some very familiar roads, and then I got to a particular place and turned left instead of the usual right. I was rewarded with some lovely tree-covered roads, a delightful change of pace considering how often we’re riding out in the open air wind here. I was under those trees, in that shade and on those close-in curvy roads long enough that when I got funneled back out into the farmland again it was a bit of a shock. So bright! And wide open!

About the time I adjusted to that again, I realized where I was. I’d come this way before, but in the other direction. Then I saw a sign which told me which town was in each direction and I was clearly oriented. And so I’ve put another few roads together in the mental map.

It was about that time that I saw a little blinking light well ahead of me. Another cyclist! Instead of turning around, I decided I’d go catch that person, which I did about a mile later. Before that, though, I experienced a dangerous pass from a truck hauling a trailer loaded with a Bobcat. The truck would have been bad enough, but it was one of those that felt like you were going to get sucked under the trailer. I suspect you’d need to experience that to really appreciate it.

So when I got up to the other cyclist, I asked him how his day was. I asked him how that truck had been for him. He gave me a grim half-smile, which allowed him long enough to play it cool. “He gave me about a foot.”

And, friends, that’s not OK. Nor should we play like it is.

Since it was Saturday, and I had a long bike ride, and elsewhere my lovely bride set a new PR in the Olympic distance tri, we celebrated with a custard.

At the same time, all of this is still going on outside.

And there’s easily more than a week of that to go. No scurvy will be had in August.

Yesterday i tore myself away from the computer for 90 minutes for a bike ride. I did my 25-mile time trial route and took 36 seconds off my previous best, which was just last week. Making me think that I might be close to topping out. Or that there are still a lot of gains to be made. Anything is possible.

Either way, the corn is coming along nicely. Sometimes you whip out the camera and shoot something at 19 mph without even looking at the composition, and it works out pretty well.

Hopefully the next one will, too.

adventures / cycling / music / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
5
Aug 25

Last night in New York

We left the house at 2:30 yesterday. OK, 2:38, because my lovely bride would wonder what was wrong with me if I was on time. And, yet, we were still early because, before we’d even left the yard I exclaimed, “EXCLAMATION!” And she said, “What?”

I was pulling out my phone by then, because I’d just remembered I’d set up a time for someone to come by the house on Wednesday, only I won’t be at the house.

She didn’t know that, yet, and she said, “What is it? We’ve got time. We can go back.”

So I guess I didn’t have to be out of the house at 2:30, after all. I think she’s counter-programming our schedule to allow for my difficulty in grabbing shoes, belt, wallet, making sure the doors are locked, the cats are on guard duty, that food is in their bowls and that the battalion of ninjas out back understand their orders (Defend!) for the night.

So I rescheduled the guy. He’ll come by next Wednesday. Watch me forget that, too, somehow.

So we drove to Hamilton Station, a four-track, two-platform commuter operation. It worked out such that we were about six, maybe seven minutes early. I am definitely being counter-programmed.

We boarded a train with the dingiest windows you’ve ever seen, because this is the U.S., not Europe, friend. And we went into Penn Station. From there, we walked to a subway.

So this trip has taken the car (which was great), a train (which was fine) and a subway (which I can do without, but whatever). We went up four stops. Had dinner on a pier — which was more cosmopolitan than it sounds, I guess, and thankfully not terribly overpriced. I had a little basket of fish and chips, which sustained me through the night. There was a citrus herb mayo — see? Cosmopolitan. Then we went next door, or to the next pier over, and upstairs.

We were there because Pier 17 had the show, which we’d come to see. It was the same show we saw last week. It was nearby, a rescheduled event (previously postponed due to severe weather) with inexpensive tickets and we figured, why not?

It was a terrific little venue. Look at the backdrop we had as The Mountain Goats performed.

I mentioned on Friday that the lead singer, John Darnielle, had a small little social media conversation with me. He gave me suggestions on where to begin in his catalog, which I thought was generous of him. So I’ll wind up picking up a few things eventually.

They had a fine set last night, and they have a devoted following, do The Mountain Goats. They finished strong. All their fans were jumping around and the floor, which was someone else’s roof, was bouncing around and I am now “Can we not do that?” years old.

As they left the stage and the road crews came out to set up for Guster, The Mountain Goats fans pulled away from the stage and we moved forward. A thing Guster has been doing is that in one particular song, Ryan Miller has come out into the crowd. Given that this was our fifth time to see them this year, we’ve picked up on the pattern. The other night, my lovely bride said she wanted to try to get where he might come off the stage. She picked the spot and we weaved ourselves right up to the crowd barrier.

There was a little gap between the stage and the crowd, and so we were wondering if he was going to climb down and do this bit. He did. Off the stage onto a monitor, to the ground, and over the barrier. He disappeared into the audience about five people over from us. They kept feeding XLR cable to him as he worked his way all the way to the back of the venue.

The chorus is just …

If you don’t come
I’m doin’ it by myself
If you don’t care
I’ll do it by myself
By myself

… and between each line he has enough time to say “Hi” or interject some random “Where am I going?” thought into the microphone. They kept feeding him cable, he kept shuffling back. That cable run had to be about 60 yards. The chorus continues. In between two lines he says “I think you know where I’m going.” And everyone did. There was a little platform, a little rooftop viewing deck back there. Up the stairs, singing, high-fiving, giving hugs, and so on. And then he has to come back. There are two guys that are pulling the cable back. He’s just playing that chorus. This all takes a while, working through those people, and I’m wondering what the band’s plan is if he doesn’t make it back in time. The other night, he made a stop at the bar and got drinks for the band. On his way back the XLR cable passed over me and knocked my phone out of my hand. And we were only sort of close. But where we found ourselves tonight, Miller walked right by me.

Right by me.

As a finale, they played Boz Scaggs’ “Lido Shuffle,” because, I guess, if you have a guy playing a nice warm saxophone like Matt Douglas in your midst you find a song with a nice sax run. So here’s the big finish.

And, yeah, it sort of did seem like Darnielle pointed right at me.

We pronounced it a grand show, and a lovely venue. We took a subway back to the train station, caught the earlier of two options, and got back to the car without incident. We stopped at a gas station at Hamilton, pronounced we wanted one of everything to drink, and got one drink for each of us.

All talk, the two of us. We got caught behind an accident that shut down the highway, and necessitated a long detour, but made it home at about 1 a.m. Today, I have spent working.

Except for this evening, when we went out for a bike ride. Let me tell you how fast my wife is riding this year.

She wanted to do 25 miles, and she suggested my 25-mile time trial route. If you look at it on a map, it is the world’s most misshapen rectangle. And after the first little bit I decided I would be the rabbit that she got to chase, for as long as I could stay out front. Here I am, out front.

There’s one part of this route that she’s not terribly wild about, and it had a little additional traffic on it this evening that also displeased me. But I lucked out in the traffic pattern and was able to move on through with no problem. By the time she got there the circumstance demanded she be a little more conservative. Before long, I could not see her behind me. But there were turns coming up and I would have plenty of time with both a left and a right to run my eyes back down a long, flat, open road to see her behind me.

Except she was not there. It was just me and the fields. And some livestock from time-to-time.

I can track her progress on an app, so I looked at a certain, specific point. She was nine-tenths of a mile behind me. Now, I’m having a good ride. Legs are strong. Lungs aren’t burning. There’s no wind to push me around. Everything feels just as it should. Plus I had that traffic scenario. And I’m nine-tenths of a mile ahead. She’s safely through all of that and the rest of the route is a simple and safe as you can make it on open roads. So I pedal-pedal-pedal.

I go all of the way down that road, turn at the appointed spot, and then it’s just a four-mile push that I can ride well. (We all have our strengths.) I resolve that, when I get to the end of that leg of the route I will check her progress on the app again. Because there’s no way she’s coming back. Not after being almost a mile back and me on one of my better stretches and having a great ride. I’ve been peaking over my shoulder, but I knew it would be super human. So, at the next turn, I check her progress again, as planned.

She is now three-tenths of a mile behind me.

She has plenty of strengths.

But now I’m on the last leg, it’s just eight miles. Three hills. Most of it in a straight line and long stretches of it with views way out in front of you. So she’ll see me, if she can’t already see me, and then she’ll just magically be there. Or be in front of me.

Should I ride on? Should I wait to let her catch me and then try to speed away again? It isn’t a race, but it is a race. Which is when the mind bets begin. If I can get over this hill … If I can get over that hill … if I make it to the tree line, I might hold her off … if I get to that next stop sign there’s only a small chance of her catching me … if she gets me on the final straight I know I can at least put in a good show as we get back to the neighborhood. I do all of that, and she’s not there. It’s just me and my legs and I made it in first.

Strava tells me this is the fifth time I’ve done this route. And this time was one minute and 16 seconds faster than my previous best. I was only just stopping the app recordings when she wheeled into the driveway behind me.

Later, I asked her when she first saw me after the traffic thing. She described it. She saw a flash of color up ahead, but then realized it was a neighborhood kid riding his bike. And then she saw me. And then she dropped her chain. So she had to stop and dismount, fix that, and still almost caught me at the end. So I dropped her and she essentially caught me twice.

So she’s going to have a super strong triathlon Saturday.