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cycling

cycling / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
16
Jun 16

Slow stones, fast rides, long suns

On our bike ride today, we stopped and regrouped in the parking lot of this little church.

The place is basically carved out of the woods. The new place, that is. I don’t know where the “old one” was, though. But you think about when that stone was ordered, sometime in the 1950s or later. Whoever placed the job, do you figure they were up against a per letter budget, or there was a committee or a severe case of writer’s block.

I chased her …

And I chased her for 34 miles …

Now, she’s riding pretty well right now, and I’m doing what I can to hang on, but I think my app might have malfunctioned. It says my maximum speed for today’s route was 452.4 miles per hour. And it thinks I did that for about four miles. The precision in the error is what I like. Point four.

And, finally, this picture:

What is significant about this picture? I took it at 8:37 p.m. It would be some time later before the sun went down. That’s a nice feature.

cycling / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
14
Jun 16

Happy Flag Day

We have a flag. It is not yet on display. We’re still displaying other things. Allie, meanwhile, has found her first favorite spot:

The Black Cat is a creature of habit. She’ll spend part of her day here or there, following the sun, being around us, watching the outdoors, curled up asleep. I always wonder what makes her pick her spots. Well, the sunshine is an easy one, but the rest seem like something just short of chance. And, after some amount of time — forgive me, I’ve not charted this all out — she’ll rotate into entirely neat spots for whatever reason. That landing, where she can catch a bit of the early afternoon sun, is her first spot.

Here’s a scene from a quick 18-mile bike ride yesterday:

We’re still learning roads, and so it was no surprise that it was a surprise that we wound up at a place where this could happen:

I’m not a taker of street signs, but that’d be a neat one to see on a wall somewhere, wouldn’t it?

Also the 300-700 feet footnote … I’m sure that has to do with seasonal water levels, but it does seem a bit vague, doesn’t it?

So many mysteries.

cycling / family / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
7
Jun 16

The B-Line

Riding some of the trails this morning:

This was, I believe, on the B-Line. Bloomington has created a three-mile long paved path that basically bisects the city. It is part of a larger plan which, supposedly, will provide paths and trails to all points of the town when the project is completed. Part of that path is just behind our house and you could walk on it and the various sprawling sidewalks and paths that sprout from it for a fair distance. (Forgive the imprecise measurements. I’m new.)

Anyway, nice and scenic. This is more for walking and running and maybe a casual ride. You wouldn’t, we found this morning, put your bike on this and start hammering at it. But, still, a pleasant route, and one without cars.

We had to get in the car today. Drove up to Indianapolis to pick up my mother-in-law from the airport. It wasn’t a bad drive, except for the construction. I wonder how many times I’ll say that before they finish the construction. (Exactly the number of times I have to go to Indianapolis, would be my bet.) They are working on a giant interstate project and part of that work is between here and there just now. I’m sure it’s coming along with all due speed.

Anyway, she’s come to visit and help us get settled. She got in the house and was ready to work. What a lady. Good timing, too. My progress has slowed to road construction levels. We joked that we were leaving a room for her, and we’ve left part of that room for her to unpack. I’ve pretty much had my fill of it all.

Cardboard is an adventure, until you start getting cardboard cuts. That’s a powerful disincentive.

Bloomington / cycling / Indiana / Monday / photo — Comments Off
6
Jun 16

Photos from the weekend

We went to the Surplus Store. This is a facility IU runs where all of their extra equipment and furniture and what not from the many different campuses comes to be picked over by the general public. Plus, they were having a sale. I mean look at the deal they’re offering on these:

Cheaper than Wheel of Fortune. And authentic in ways that the Wheel letters haven’t been for quite some time. Vanna just touches the rectangle now, she doesn’t even spin them around any more.

The surplus store is interesting, but mostly office stuff. And the stuff that isn’t office stuff seems to be either almost-worn out or the sort of things you might not buy secondhand. I did get some pool paddles, though. And I would have stayed longer, there was that sale, if only to avoid this:

We are overrun with packing paper. Someone came in and poured water on it or fed it after midnight or whatever makes paper multiple. It is overwhelming. There’s at least two full car loads of paper due to a trip to a recycling center. It has to be more than one car load.

And then there’s the tape. And the boxes. We are making good progress, though:

I’m starting to hear the sounds that packing tape makes in my sleep, though, so I’m ready for that to be finished.

We went on a bike ride this weekend. I saw a bridge and took a poorly composed, off the hip while pedaling-beneath-it photo for no reason:

We made our way to one of the lakes, this one is named Lemon:

This ride took us through four towns, I believe. (I’m not sure if we should distinguish Unionville from New Unionville.) And we enjoyed the rural scenery:

And there was so much climbing! At least we didn’t have to go up that hill in the distance. (We’d already gone up that hill in the distance.)

I was vacuuming and wanted to make a joke about this Dyson. (I am not its biggest fan.)

Best I can tell, this Dyson was designed to stop working when it encounters more than four strands of hair or anything with the tensile strength of nine covalently bonded dust motes. Its seven-foot power cord was also an attractive selling point.
But it has this giant orange ball!

The Yankee points out I’m the only one that has trouble with it. Probably because I use it.

Bloomington / cycling / Friday / Indiana / photo / video — Comments Off
3
Jun 16

Someone help that man!

I haven’t seen one of these in a long time:

In fact, out of the corner of my eye, while we were riding our bikes through some of the local lowlands, I saw that today and thought it was real. This guy needs help!

That guy is actually a cool decoration.

And I would have stayed around there all day, it was nice and cool in the shade, but there are boxes to unpack. And soup to eat. Here’s the ceiling fan in my spoon in my soup:

Ceiling fan in spoon. #boomerangapp

A video posted by Kenny Smith (@kennydsmith) on Jun 3, 2016 at 11:57am PDT