It’s Friday! Right? Friday? Yeah. Sometimes you have to check a calendar, just to be sure. I wrapped up the week’s grading in yesterday. And I have done the updates to my computer, cleaning a month’s worth of files, creating subdirectories for May, updating site statistics in the site statistics spreadsheet.
And, hey, we’re well ahead of last year’s numbers here, so thanks for that. I don’t know why people come here, but I’m glad you do.
So one class wrapped up this week, and their final is due next Monday. My online class has another week-and-change to go, with a lot of work still to come. And a lot of things to grade, and then grades to submit. The next two weeks, then, are busy. A lot of sitting here staring at computer screens, plenty of little study breaks, but then right back to it.
I never learned that skill young, but there’s nothing like impending deadlines to teach new skills.

I set out for a 25-mile ride after a day of sitting in front of the computer. One of the regular routes I established last year. It is a route that, on the map, is roughly shaped like a bullet, though I am not nearly as fast as.
I went into town and through it, doubling back and through a crossroads that has the word “town” in its name, but it is nothing more than a red light, a farmer’s market, a gas station and a small car dealership. Then, out into the countryside.

I took a turn that sends me back to the river, but crops, woods and a few houses and developments in between. Usually this is a road that gives me five or six miles without any cars. And, once you’ve done this for a while, those experiences stand out, and you make note of them, so that you may ride them again.

When the road ends, it is time to turn right. You have a nice wide shoulder-slash-bike-lane-but-mostly-shoulder, where you can do four miles super fast, which you also make note of, and visit as often as you can. And then back on the road for home, a seven-mile stretch … into the wind.
This is a mistake. The conventional wisdom is that you start into the devise a route that puts you into a headwind first, and then the tailwind on the way back. Economy of efficiency when you’re more tired. Because I was doing a rectangular route, a squishy bullet, I should have had a tailwind to start, and a tailwind to finish.
But, if you live in a place like we do, this is a challenge. Nearly an impossibility. Today, on that same road, a straight line with flags flying at regular intervals, the wind blew from every direction on the same road within 80 minutes.
What even is that?