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Nature’s candy in my hand or can or a pie

Great weekend around here, thanks. How was yours? I did garbage duties on Saturday. I let the cats lounge on me. I floated around listening to nothing. I found the weed eater, which I used this morning. Weeds needed to be ate, and the job was accomplished in the back yard and on one side.

Now I need to get some better line, something less fragile than dried, crystalized cotton candy, so that unwanted grasses and weeds can be removed from tricky spots with a casual waving of the magic device.

I found the manual to the weed eater, too. This was useful, because I could find the page telling me precisely which size line I need to acquire. We had a weed eater guy at our old house. He solved all of these problems easily, and efficiently. Also, that gentleman knew the intricacies of a weed eater. A craftsman know’s his tools. My weed eater’s manual also had a stamp showing the build date. It was manufactured in 2012. I know, for a fact, it has been used … not very often.

Also today, I checked on the peaches, deadheaded some flowers and showed a few pokeweed plants who was boss around these parts. I rescued a frog, discovered two electric outlets that apparently don’t draw power and watered the plants. And I vacuumed.

This evening we brought the first batch of peaches in. I think I ate four in the yard and three in the kitchen today? It was a warm day, the extra hydration couldn’t hurt.

We looked up things to do with peaches beyond cobblers and ice creams. We’re going to be making a lot of peach salsa. We’ll put it on everything.

Yesterday I did a triathlon. It was a backyard triathlon. No clocks, no medals. Which is to say I timed it, it was slow, and there were no finisher medals for me, because it wasn’t an official triathlon. But I did a swim-bike-run. It was my first tri since … the 10th. The 10th of October. The 10th of October of 2015. That was a half Ironman, and a lot happened after that, so I sat out the beginning of the 2016 season to save money. After which I started a new job, and that took up a lot of time.

Sure, the really devoted find the time. Make the time. I recall reading the inspirational story of one man who was an Ironman, a medical doctor, and a father of nine. He found the time. But me, and my old split 50-60 hour schedule and no pool time had no time. Which is to say I could have made the time, but there would have been no other time. And I didn’t want triathlon training to be my only hobby.

These are the things I told myself since 2016. Now, I have a little more time. And, one hopes, more motivation. And so it was that I had, just last month, my first swim(s) in years. And also running, which comes and goes for me due to apathy. (I see people riding their bikes and think I wish I could go for a bike ride. I have never watched anyone run by and thought, Man, I wish I could be jogging right now.) And so today, a backyard sprint triathlon. (Sprint in this case denotes distance, not speed.)

Counting laps in a pool is hard. The mind wanders. You lose track. Was that 15? Or 16? So, today, I used sticks.

I swam 800 yards, moving a stick from one pile to another. Then I did an easy out-and-back 20 km bike ride. It was a decent ride. I had six stop signs, and I was conscious of having to shuffle through a run after. So I took it easy-ish, but it was fun and I was pleased.

I was not at all pleased with the run. I was not surprised by that, either.

In July of 2015, when I was eight years younger and in a different kind of shape, I did a sprint tri 15 that was minutes faster than what I did today. The week before that, I did another spring tri. (Two weekends in a row. See? I was in a different kind of shape.) In that one, I was 12 minutes faster than today. I was proud of my bike ride in that one. I had the third fastest bike leg on the course. They were roads I rode every day and, it turns out, there’s a little advantage to that.

It was a brand new event put on by our old LBS. I miss those guys, and I wish we’d had the opportunity to do that one more than once. I wish for a lot of things.

Anyway, my fastest sprint tri was 22 minutes faster than today. I can find 22 minutes somewhere, right? Right?

Phoebe says the answer to my question may be just through this door.

Through that door is the garage. And my car is in there. And it does go faster than my bike and feet. So she’s not wrong.

She still loves sitting in boxes. Good thing we’ve kept a few kitty-sized bits of cardboard around for them.

Poseidon really doesn’t want me to write anymore about Phoebe. He’s jealous of her and whatever she’s doing, at most all times.

I love when I catch him yawning. Usually it makes him look angry or ferocious. Once or twice a big yawn has looked ludicrous. In this one, I think, he looks playful.

cycling / Friday / memories / photo / site — Comments Off
4
Aug 23

Happy birthday to the website

Twenty years ago today, yikes, I wrote my first blog post. I wrote four brief things that day. They were nothing to write home about, but I certainly did put them on the web. No one saw them, of course. Since then, I have published 6,538 more posts.

Nineteen years ago, this weekend, I launched kennysmith.org. My goal at the time was to make something aesthetically unique that had minimalist coding. Two hidden frames, with text on the left and a small photo collage on the right. Of course, no one was visiting. The site had 647 visits that month. (For those of you still around, I thank you.)

Last month, was pretty good. The site saw a 10,925 percent increase over August 2004 first month. In between, for whatever reasons, we’ve logged. 5.3 million visits. (And thanks.)

And so we launch year 20 on this URL, and year 21 of writing the blog. The party hasn’t begun yet. I’m waiting for the cupcake to get here.

Even so, this place has come a long, long way since then. So I have. I wonder what kind of fun and interesting things we’ll see in the months to come.

Today in outdoor fun, I picked up sticks. What should I do with all of these sticks, I wondered, and then I remembered we have a fire pit and we’ll need kindling. Stick problem solved.

I was going to cut away dead branches from a few trees, but that’s never as fun to contemplate when you’re standing under a tree as when you’re inside wondering what you should do.

The apple trees are coming along nicely. And I spent some time studying the chokecherry trees, and started reading about what you can do with chokecherries. Do you like tart jams, jellies or wines? Chokecherry might be for you.

I found some maple saplings that I’ll try transplanting this winter. And I pulled up, and then chopped up, a few more pokeweed plants. I also checked on the tomato vines, a new seasonally favorite habit. In a few more days more will go from the vine to the kitchen.

Next, we’ll have to figure out the herb garden. That’s what the weekend is for. There are a few bramble vines in there. And I’m looking forward to picking those berries sometime soon.

And we’ll need to keep a closer eye on the peaches. We’re going to have a lot of peaches. They’ve really lit their tree up this week.

Across the way, a darker tree looms. Check out this maple, which pins the yard to the road.

There are a lot of fun things to explore outside, so I’m taking it a bit at a time. Plus, ya know, outdoors being outdoors, it’s always changing.

I didn’t have that stack of kindling this morning, for example.

I’d planned a 30 mile bike ride today. It was precipitating when I left the house. Saying it was misting wouldn’t be accurate. Saying it was sprinkling would overstate it. Minkling. It was minkling. Minkling sounds fun. I rode through the little downtown, checking out some of the sites and taking photos for later.

Then I turned toward the southeast, to follow the next part of the route. I looked up and saw dark clouds. I felt a new precipitation begin, something much more sprinkling-like. I glanced at the time.

Which was when I thought of the one reason to continue on — because I planned this route — and weighed that against all of the reasons I should call it early. Instead of pressing on I took the next right. And then two amazing things happened.

I started riding without looking at a map. Then, three miles later, I found myself at an intersection I knew. That sensation of knowing a place, the feeling of some knowledge clicking in, you know the one, right? It probably isn’t much, that “Ohhhh yeah!” moment, but it surely seems like a big thing when it occurs. It’s just an intersection with a red light and a Sunoco, but it was a big deal. Those realizations of clarity, understanding a tiny bit of context in a new place always feel like a big deal.

As I rode back, the weather in front of me was better than the stuff behind. Still gray, as you can see behind this hay shed, but brighter.

The cattle in the pasture next to it seemed content, for cows. Why wouldn’t they be? They can see their winter food right there. That would be reassuring to them, if they understood calendars, and the tilt of the earth, and seasons.

Anyway, I set three PRs on Strava segments on this ride. And I am now in second place on the segment that someone drew up on our road.

That’s one of the many things I wasn’t doing 20 years ago when I started this place, sitting at an old MDF desk, using dialup: riding my own road for highly personalized bragging rights.

Small steps. At least until that cupcake arrives.

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14
May 23

Not just another Monday

This evening I asked my lovely bride, who is now fighting off a head cold, if she would be offended if I left her on the sofa and went on a bike ride. It was my first ride in a week or more, somehow, and I hate when that happens, because I hate how those breaks make my legs feel.

But the light under these trees, on a gray and overcast day no less, was magical.

This is the same road, but coming back out from the dead end.

So that was one of the highlights of today. One of ’em, anyway.

One of the highlights of the weekend was Saturday morning. My lovely bride, who was not fighting a head cold then, was off in a local sprint triathlon she does every year. It’s close enough that there’s no travel involved, but she still has to get up early. And, thankfully, she lets me sleep in for this one.

But I had errands to run, so I set an alarm. I set an alarm for Saturday morning. (Oh, the indignity!)

First, it was to the recycling center. It’s a task that always seems bigger than it is. We sort as we go, so it’s just a matter of putting four big tubs in the car, wrangling in whatever cardboard you can get in there, and then driving two miles to the conveniently located recycling center. The hard part is remembering which of their giant bins is for steel, and which is for glass and aluminum. (I think they move some of them around.) So it’s easy enough then, which means I’ve now built momentum.

After that, I visited the Surplus Store. It was a special, overstocked Saturday sale, and you never know. So I did two laps, saw nothing I wanted or needed, and then hit the third chore of the day: a drive across town to replace two tires on the car.

The tire shop I use is on a road filled with mechanics and auto parts places. It’s an area I have no real need to go to on a regular basis, so I use a maps app. As luck would have it, they were able to fit my car into their schedule for the day. Moved the front tires to the rear, put two new tires on the front. The same thing I did three years ago and not all that many miles ago, actually, so now I have almost matched tires.

I got hungry as I waited, so I opened up the maps app to see if anything was in walking distance. There was a Steak ‘n Shake, another restaurant that uses apostrophes incorrectly, but they’ve got good milkshakes, so all is forgiven. I started walking that way. Along the way, I called an audible, because there was also a Mexican restaurant nearby, a bit closer, in fact. I went there. They had sweet tea, which is why you always ask. I had huevos con chorizo, and a tea. The waiter, a kind, older gentleman with reasonably good English kept calling me buddy. It amused him that I ordered mostly in Spanish, but I did not know the phrase “tortilla de harina.”

Finished my lunch and walked back to the tire shop, trying to recall the last spontaneous thing I did like that. Trying to remember the last time I ate alone.

It was before the pandemic began. One of my favorite things to do has always been to sit and eat and read. Only we don’t go out to eat anymore, except when traveling, really. Surprisingly, I don’t miss dining out, something I’d long seen as one of my bad habits. But there I was, being spontaneous, and eating out, and doing it alone. It was, I realized, a big day.

Which was just before I realized I need to liven things up.

Can do! Just you wait and see.

Anyway, I have new tires now. And The Yankee made it back from her triathlon, her first since her big, horrible crash last September. Two weeks prior she finished her PT, but she still projected as being a few months away from a full recovery.

She won her age group.

I spent a few minutes yesterday finally updating the art on the front page of the site. Same style, different decoration. There are a dozen new images for you to enjoy, though, all from our trip to Andorra in March. They look like this.

So, if you like mountain views, click that link, and enjoy.

Which brings us to the site’s most popular weekly feature. It’s time, once again, to check in on the kitties.

Here’s Phoebe, enjoying yesterday afternoon on her blanket. We have four blankets like this. This one she’s claimed as her own. And if it isn’t out, there’s a whole ordeal of silent staring and judging.

She also enjoyed a bit of window time this weekend, looking out over the shrubs, watching the birdies and the squirrels.

Poseidon found a new box, and so, of course, Poseidon had to get in the box.

He was not successful in this case, though he did push it all around the floor for a while.

I am not sure what is going on with this pose. It took me a while to figure out which paw was which. But he looks cozy, I guess?

The cats are doing just fine. And if they understood Mondays, I’m sure they’d wish you a happy one.

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11
May 23

Thursday, May 11th

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5
May 23

500 site words, 400 music words, and then the weekend

It occurs to me, and matters to no one else, that I need to spruce up some of the site’s images. Some of the headers and footers on the blog should be ~~updated~~ removed, and the images on the front need a big refresh. I think I might get into some or all of that next week. I have, of late, updated a few of the mini-banners you see breaking up sections of each post. Some of those have already been implemented. Others will make their debut later this summer.

You could say that the blog’s aesthetic itself is due a refresh — I’ve run this WordPress theme for seven years, it seems — but I don’t know of a better look for what I’m (barely) doing here. Those rotating headers and footers, a bit of PHP echo code, are the key. Go ahead, click refresh a few times. You’ll always have a different look. There are, as of this writing, 107 different headers and 107 footers that surround these brilliant words. But you’re right, 107 is too many. That should get pared back.

The problem, he sighed, is that I use a basic numerical system for the numbering, which makes the PHP randomizer work better. So if I decided to remove, say, the 36th header, 37 must become 36, 38 must become 37 and so on, all the way up to 107. Errr, 106. This isn’t hard, but it can be tedious and leads to errors, which leads to restoring backups, which always feels more perilous than it should, even though my host is incredible. And all of that comes after the editorial angst. Sure, that trip to Washington was terrific, but is that cloud shot important enough, really, to keep in play? And I have to ask myself that 214 times?

Take this one, for example.

That’s from my former job, it has no meaning to me, but it’s supremely ridiculous, and so it survived the last cleaning. What was the point here? That they’d mastered the art of putting eyelets in cardboard stock? Showing they had a second font? Did someone have it out for sans serif and inconsistent stroke? They could now do full color? Were people missing the older 1960s-ish sign an inch above it?

That one, I’m sure, I shot for the specific purpose of making as header art. But what of other photographs? Easy enough to edit, I only look at them and wonder about the decisions I made when I hurriedly cropped them to fit the template. If editing them is easy, taking them out of rotation is harder.

I’d rather edit something I’d written — kill my babies, as writers say — than take photos out of the mix.

Of course, I have an entire folder of retired banner images, why do you ask? Why do I have an entire folder of retired banner images? Because, well, you never know.

We could get into the philosophical here, too, reducing the volume increases the penetration, but I’ve already written 500 words about … well … nothing.

I have a reorganization idea though, maybe I’ll implement that this summer.

In today’s installment of the Re-Listening project, 1998/1999-me picked up my copy of “March,” the 1989 debut album of singer-songwriter Michael Penn. I love this record.

The song you might remember is “No Myth,” which went to 22 on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart, number five on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, peaked at four on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, and hit number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.

There are a lot of musicians’ musicians on this record, and most of Prince’s backing band are listed in the credits, too. Kenny Aronoff, who played with John Mellencamp and John Fogerty, and graduated from right here at IU, plays some of the drums.

I’m not sure if it was this record, or his next one, where I thought it would be neat to sit down for a few days and try to write things with him. I don’t normally think that about musicians. I enjoy the work, I might see the shows if it works out, but I never think, “What would happen if I, a person who has never written a song in his life, sat down with this person and a few notepads?” Except, fpr some reason, when I listen to a Michael Penn record. No idea why. Could be the clever lyrics.

The other reason, I think, was that I didn’t have that much going on whenever that idea came to mind.

As debuts go, this record shows so much promise and potential. Penn wasn’t exactly a new to all of this. He was in Doll Congress, which earned a nice following in Los Angeles. Half of the songs on this record he wrote during his time in that alternative band, which might explain the incredible varied, and engaging things he’s doing throughout this record. This is the last track.

A few other Michael Penn CDs will appear in the Re-Listening project sooner or later. These days, he seems to be spending his time producing others, and composing and scoring for TV shows and movies. In October of 2020, with no other work on his plate, he released a non-soundtrack song for the first time in years. Presumably he’s back at it again these days.

I was hoping I would discover he’s doing small venue gigs and that he was going to be in the neighborhood this fall, but alas.

Have a great weekend! I’m sure I’ll be here, muttering about banner images.