adventures

adventures / Covid-19 / memories / Monday / photo — Comments Off on My bicep is a little sore
8
Mar 21

My bicep is a little sore

That didn’t go over at all how I’d pictured. I’d somehow imagined something big, more emotional, more celebratory. I am all of those things, and something approaching the direction of relieved, too — but it’s internalized.

A young woman named Emily gave me my first Covid vaccine dose today. She said she’s been at this eight days. She’s not counting how many people she’s seen, how many times she’s handed over the famous cards, answered the same questions.‬

‪I made sure she heard my “Thank you,” made sure she knew it was sincere.‬ It seemed the only feeble thing I could do, then and there. Sometimes you just want to give high fives to total strangers. It’s hard not to be excited about this.

I am not showing my whole card, because putting that online is somehow when the microchip gets activated. And my superhero powers haven’t kicked in yet, but you know I’m trying.

We stayed at the store a while, to make sure there were no side effects, which was interesting because you could overhear the excitement of others. It was nice to see and feel the optimism of others once again. We passed the time in one of our group chats, where I made a decent Spider-Man joke, and, later, a Hulk joke that didn’t land as well as I wanted it too. The Yankee made a terrific Sue Storm joke, though, and so it was worth it. We had no perceptible side effects in the minutes and hours after the shot, and still feel fine. But my arm is a little tender right at the needle spot. Small price to pay, of course.

So, one down, and come on, end of March, at which time all of those feelings will be externalized, and there will be much relief expressed in many ways — while carefully making sure to continue observing the appropriate safety measures.

Honestly, if it’s a peace-of-mind thing at first, then it can be a peace-of-mind thing for a while.

We’re charting a snow pile at the local box store. This is from Saturday, our fourth week of observation. The weather has been delightfully mild this past week, and that’s reduced this mound to a pile of dirt and debris.

This is that same pile, on Valentine’s Day, after the first snow that mattered.

Just a few days after that photo was taken we got a substantial snow event, and so this was our pile on February 21st.

And, last week, on February 28th, when you could see some obvious decline.

May it all be gone, and soon.

And the weekend helped. Saturday I stood in the shade on one side of the house and had a bit of a chill, but I stood on the other side of the house, in the sun, cleaning windows, and it felt rather grand. Yesterday it was almost t-shirt weather. So, hoping to encourage the onset of, ya know, spring, I wore a t-shirt. This was a Christmas present. Pretty awesome, right?

And it is still, mostly, autobiographical.

The cats are doing well. Phoebe has just about scratched herself out. She had a big weekend full of getting into places she shouldn’t, and being allowed in places we don’t usually let the cats explore.

That’s pretty much every day for Poseidon, though. He’s constantly everywhere. It’s really cute, in retrospect, but not so much when you’re constantly having to jockey against him and fight for position.

But it’s cute.

adventures / Bloomington / IU / journalism / photo / television / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on And happy Wednesday to you, too
24
Feb 21

And happy Wednesday to you, too

The Yankee and I had a picnic in the old K-Mart parking lot. It was a drive-thru Chick-fil-A sort of experience, best part of the day with little doubt. The parking lot is next to the restaurant, which is still all drive-thru and curbside pickup and so we got our food and moved off to eat. When I’d finished my spicy chicken sandwich I looked up through the sun roof and noticed this view:

It was a mild day here, if you actually made it outside. I seldom seem able to do that. I live under fluorescent lights in a beige and dirty-cream color office with orange carpet and no windows most of the time. If I get a different view it’s under a handful of LEDs in the studio. But to get outside is nice, to get away for a few minutes is even better. And to see more fake signs of seasonal change is a delight.

As I noted yesterday on Twitter:

And the same thing applies today. So, when I was done with my work day I went up to the top of the parking deck to watch the sky whirl by. It was a pretty good choice, I think. The stratocumulus made for some dramatic views.

And why share one when you can share three? So here are two more pictures from the same parking deck.

Something to see, huh?

Here are some other things to check oiut. These are the videos from last night’s television productions.

News:

Pop culture happenings:

Oh, and I forgot the other day, there’s a morning show to check out, too.

That oughta hold you until tomorrow.

adventures / Friday / memories / photo — Comments Off on One more of these
12
Feb 21

One more of these

Because it’s a fun trip down memory lane, and maybe I should archive the good ones somewhere better than Facebook.

Facebook: Literally everything is better than us.

I wrote this bit below a few years back and it just showed up in my Facebook Memories and, wouldn’t you know it, I put it here on the site back then, too. Because we’ve always really known that this was better than Facebook.

Facebook: Literally the worst for forever.

Anyway … I like this one. It’s almost Valentine’s Day. (That’s Sunday, fellas.) It’s hard to do much, so I got a small little handful of flowers — just some color for the house since we’re all going to be seeing snow drifts for the next week — and already they’re dressing the place up. And I picked up a brownies mix, a new brand, so we could have an adventure in a box. Because we’re celebrating the little things during a stay-at-home pandemic. And that, and maybe a walk in frigid, frigid weather will be the extent of it this year. But that’s a lot! We are well and together and healthy, and that’s the extent of what you could hope for, anyway.

Some pictures are worth remembering. Some pictures you just know perfectly. I have about 13-plus 18-plus years worth of snapshots on my website. And after Lauren, earlier today, posted a picture of the two of us from our 2013 trip to Ireland I wondered if I could recall the first one of her I uploaded.

The sun-eating one, I figured, had to be high up the list. And so I went back through our early months of knowing one another. I scrolled through the people we knew, most all of whom have kept us around, since then, until there I was, 12 16 years ago. February 2005. I remember the night I took this picture going down the highway, and that one is probably from a library, because I have always liked repetition in my pictures. These next two are at a Super Bowl party in Five Points we were invited to.

The Patriots beat the Eagles in that game. Paul McCartney was the halftime show. (I had to look this up.)

And, oh look, here are a few sunsets and clouds. And there she was. The 10th photo I uploaded in February 2005, the first one of her.

We were in her car. I know precisely where that was, two cities, two jobs (for each of us) and one car ago. She was probably taking me home after work one day. We were carpooling at the time. We’re traveling north, to soon turn west.

That next weekend we got invited to a dinner party — (thanks again, Laura!) and sometime after that we realized we were getting invited to places. That people in our little world thought of us as a package deal. I skimmed through the rest of the 2005 series of photographs. Jamie​ shows up, and so does Greg​ and Brian​. Look, there’s Justin​ and RaDonna,​ and Wendy​, too! There are family shots in there, also. There are pictures of colorful people that you pass by in life. There are blurry, low-res, sometimes underexposed pictures in the collection. There are trips and sports and bands and Lauren figures into most of all of those pictures, somehow, even though she’s not in a lot of them. That’s how you remember, though, the circumstances and the stories and the time you went to the place and saw the thing and tried the unusual item on the menu.

“Who” is how you remember those. Some are worth remembering. Some you just know perfectly.

adventures / photo / Thursday / Twitter — Comments Off on Leave it
21
Jan 21

Leave it

On our walk late this afternoon, when it was unseasonably warm, you could hear it before you could see it. There was a breeze blowing and cars whirring by and it was all punctuated by our conversation but there was a crinkling, crunchy dispute of it all.

We’d already seen one driver, breaking the state’s hands free law, almost rear-end a pickup. We were making our turns based on maximizing the weak winter sun. We were talking about trips we couldn’t take when the dry parchment sound set upon the ears. Those dry, plaintive leaves, still hanging on in defiance, rustling in the wind.

It’s funny, the idea of trips. We had three scheduled last year that were canceled, plus probably three holiday visits. I don’t think I’ve been anywhere since Christmas of 2019. I mean anywhere farther than I’ve pedaled my bicycle. The Yankee has made a few trips to make appointments in Indianapolis, and that’s it for both of us. The curiosity of a staycation has been satisfied, and continues on. We, like the leaves, are still hanging on. But, lately, I’ve spent idle time planning other interesting trips that one might do. These don’t rise to the level of let’s make plans, but, rather ‘Wouldn’t that be neat?’ My favorite one was a four or five day bike-riding trip through New York … or a vacation home that’s both far away from everywhere, and yet easy to reach, and warm … or a B&B somewhere quiet. Crinkly, crunchy leaves would be required.

There’s another cold snap coming this weekend, and maybe some snow and ice, so a few more of those leaves may fall away before we find ourselves there again sometime next week. And while it is too early to think this way, in just 11 long weeks or so, those proud leaves will be replaced by a new generation of green sunlight collectors, and we can pretend like some of this never happened. But only some of it.

adventures / cycling / history / Twitter / Wednesday — Comments Off on Inauguration Day, riding with Bo
20
Jan 21

Inauguration Day, riding with Bo

There was something pointed and determined and grim about the inaugural. They are, by design, designed in certain ways. And the impressive thing about this particular speech was that it hit all the hallmarks in keeping with the formula, so as to not sound as out-of-left-field as the previous one, and yet, it took it’s own tone. A historical one, in a way. Which is obvious, you might say, because these speeches are written for our contemporaries, but also our posterity. And that is true.

Today’s speech, though, seemed like a tone from a different time. This was an early nation kind of speech. It’s themes were humility and the continuation of our style of government. It was not global, but looking inward and to our own society, focusing on work, health care, safe schools, the coronavirus. It was foundational, and attitudinal, warning against the bitter extremes “anger, resentment and hatred, extremism, lawlessness, violence.”

A speech such as this finds its themes formed by the world around them. So you must think of the capitol city as it is today, the country and the mood of it as it is today. That’s how the text sought to strike a balance between basic aspiration and some more densely brooding spirits of the dangers to democracy, pinned with the needs to preach unity and togetherness.

It was a speech out of time, and a speech absolutely for the time. What an unusual time.

It will be interesting, and important, to see how this inaugural speech is viewed through the long lens of time. But for now, today, it does feel as though a tiny bit of breath you’ve somehow held onto for some time can now, finally, at last, be exhaled.

This evening we had the chance to go on a bike ride with a hero and a celebrity.

Bo had, you can tell, already warmed up a bit. And that is why he took off and left everyone. Never mind the fact that he’s 58 and is bionic. Bo can absolutely fly on a bicycle. If this was about anyone who isn’t already a superhuman, I would suspect video game shenanigans.

Put it this way. On this ride there were 49 Strava segments and I PRed 31 of them. I had the ride of the year — indeed, the ride of the last several years. I never had a chance stay with the lead groups. Never. None. And Bo was somewhere out ahead of all of them. Except for The Yankee. She was in front of him at some point, of course. But he was also answering questions from people on the ride. The same old questions, with charm and good cheer.

(You should not try the bat breaking trick(s) at home.)

Years ago there was a video of two sports reporters who took a bat out back of their newspaper and tried to do everything they could think of to break a bat like Bo Jackson. It looked painful. They looked silly, which they embraced. And they failed. I can’t find the video anymore.

Anyway, this wasn’t a nostalgia trip, this is a fund raising exercise. Good cause? Great cause.

This is the 10th anniversary of Bo Bikes Bama, and the second year with the Zwift installment, apparently. Zwift have become big supporters of the fast man who’s well up the road.

Where can you donate? So glad you asked. Over the years these bike rides and the surrounding efforts have raised more than $2 million for the Alabama Governor’s Emergency Relief Fund. Bo Jackson’s efforts in the community have helped bankroll relief projects, the construction of 68 safe rooms and developed other disaster preparedness resources.

There’s no group ride this year, owing to the pandemic. But there is a ride from home fund raiser and another Zwift ride, in April. I plan on being easily dropped in that one, too.

Goodnight, Bo.

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