photo « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

photo

adventures / cycling / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
1
May 25

Into the ever-persistent wind

My in-person class wrapped up yesterday, but they still have a final to submit, and there will be plenty to read there. Meanwhile, my online class is going strong. While mindlessly washing dishes last night, I thoughtlessly made the mistake of counting up the number of things I have to read and score between now and the middle of the month. And, because it is mindless, I went ahead and tried to determine how many pages that will work out to.

About 650, but perhaps a few more.

So there is a lot of work to be done. Plus meetings and who knows what else that pops up.

Anyway, while I wait for things to get submitted, we got in a nice little bike ride this evening. Here’s me, and my shadow!

And here are some Angus we ran across.

And a red Angus for good measure.

Of course, I could be wrong. My cattle identification is a bit rusty. That was a 20th century skill of mine, and it was shaky even then.

In my freshman year of college I had an animal and dairy science class and breed ID was a part of the class. The professor had a carousel of slides that he showed us, let us study, and quizzed us on. I found that, for some species of different sorts it was easier to learn what was in the background of photos. Great for a quiz, absolutely useless in the field, of course. Then again, I’ve not been asked to identify a breed of farm animal professionally since my internship ended … several presidential administrations ago.

Anyway, these are the things I had time to think about and remember on a windy out-and-back ride. I got dropped on the way out, fighting a bitterly persistent wind. My lovely bride is better in the wind, because she gets lower on her aero bars and I’m just a parachute. But then we turned around, enjoyed the tailwind and I pulled my wheels off the road.

I had a 38-mph sprint on one timed segment, days which I thought were behind me. And they are! But so was the wind!

There she is, in the final miles, after she caught back up, and riding into the sun. My ride back was 13 minutes faster than my ride out. She was faster, still.

photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
29
Apr 25

A moment of paws

It’s time for our weekly check on the kitties. And, this week, we’ll do a little comparison. Our cats, being bike cats, like to work on their aero technique. Here’s a recent effort of Phoebe’s.

Poseidon’s aero looks much more efficient … ears not withstanding.

We have a joke that when the cats are doing the same thing, or holding the same posture, my lovely bride says “You’re going to freak him out … ”

Then, I look at the cats, note the synchronicity and mock yell, “YOU’RE FREAKING ME OUT!”

The cats sometimes sit like this. Here’s Phoebe.

And here’s Poe.

To be sure, a lot of cats sit like this from time to time. But … still … they’re freaking me out!

cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off
28
Apr 25

Three great rides

I went out for a little bike ride on Saturday, the best sort of ride, the kind where there’s no route, no plan at all, and you just find out what happens. This is much more fun than estimating a time or distance, and far more fun than the normal enterprise of planning a route. Saturday I just went … that way.

And so I went by the historic haunted house and past the church and down the three stretches of a road named after a town which was named after a plantation. From there, I turned left. Part of this road I know, in the reverse direction, because it is one of the regular routes. But I did not turn onto either of those two roads. I just kept going passed this barn.

There were clouds in the sky, something to keep an eye on, but i was going in another direction.

Over this way, for example, we had beautiful skies. And so I just kept pedaling. I contemplated alternated lefts and rights, but figured I would be sure to mess that up on the way back.

I just kept going straight, because the road allowed for it. Passed the houses and the woods and the cattle.

At some point I passed a “Now enterting” county sign. I hadn’t even realized I’d left the county, but now I was back. I’d been riding a straight line, but it was maybe a circle?

Maybe that explains the thunder, and then the rain, and possibly the small hail. It was raining, hard; I was 20 miles from home and who knows where this misbehaving storm cloud was headed.

I turned around, laughing, and started back. I had to do about two miles in the rain, but dried out for the last hour or so in the sunniest weather possible. It was 40 miles, round-trip, and at one point I went 11 miles without seeing a car.

And that’s how a spontaneous trip becomes a planned route. I’ll be doing that again.

Sunday afternoon I did the now-usual 15-mile route. I met this tractor near the house.

Nice of the guy to wave. Then, on the way back, I passed another tractor. This one was tilling right by the side of the road.

And that guy waved, too.

Me and my shadow are quite popular, sometimes.

Today’s ride was one of the standard 21-mile routes. (We have two of those.) And in this ride, an oddly misshapen rectangle, I encounter a dozen stop signs, seven turns and two railroad crossings. I did not have to put my foot on the ground the first time.

That’s a great ride, too.

cycling / photo / Rowan / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
23
Apr 25

Advertising and bikes, but not bike ads

In my international media class today, we talked about some facets of advertising. I had them read a few things, and a few students did the readings. And I had them watch a few videos, because, believe it or not, videos about how advertising works will always elicit some conversation.

Here’s one of the videos.

They really got into the Coke video. I enjoyed seeing the Coca-Cola products from other parts of the world.

And I also shared this video with them, which discusses women in advertising. Jean Kilbourne has been a model, an author, a filmmaker and an activist. And this is one of her now classic pieces where she dissects the ideals of beauty. Or starts to. You can’t get into all of it in a single 7-minute clip. In retrospect, I should have made this a full day’s worth of class.

The takeaway I leave them with is that there is an argument to me made that advertising is a form of journalism, or at least a glimpse of the contemporary record keeping of any given time. Kilbourne talks about how ads sell values, they sell images and concepts and, thus, normalcy. Ads are who we are. We can also say that attitudes in culture inform our ads.

More and more, I realize I should be turning this in to a culture class.

And then I sent them away with the happy thought that Kilbourne points out that there are some attitudes we need to get away from in this current portrayal of advertising (which had been de rigueur for decades before that production, and has remained so in the decades since) because “What’s at stake for all of us is our ability to have authentic and freely chosen lives, nothing less.

Next week they’ll be reading and talking about hijab advertisements, the economic globalization of ads, fragmentation and, of course, Stanley Cups.

Next week is our last week of class, somehow.

I’m only just now starting to get to know these people.

This evening I had enough daylight for a 26-mile ride. I reversed one of my usual courses, heading through one small town to the river, and then over into a neighboring city. Then I fought six miles of winds through woods and subdivisions, and then took a turn through the farms. Horses were the theme today.

I also went past the fields now turning green, most of the work still being done below the soil, and also past the vineyards. And more horses.

On this road, there is a bike lane, and I am obliged to ride in a bike lane when there is a lane. Usually this is fine, but they come with their own challenges.

This wash out will never not be the case right there. Busy little stretch of roadway, too.

cycling / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
22
Apr 25

I guess distances accurately

The cats have gracefully argued that they haven’t graced the page in almost two weeks. They remind me that they’re almost the sole cause of site traffic around here. I don’t know if they’re right about that, but they are the most popular feature here. Sometimes, they’re the only feature here. So, we should show them off.

I tried to get them to type this up, but they’re a little heavy on the keys. They also don’t have a firm grasp of punctuation, or what the space bar does.

What they lack in keyboard etiquette they make up for in patiently posing.

Phoebe was enjoying a little sunny afternoon time in the dining room.

Poseidon has his choice of boxes on which to sit.

The kitties are doing great, in other words. They are miffed about not landing on the site on Monday, though. And they’ve been letting me hear about it all day.

I had a nice 30 mile-bike ride today, over mostly the usual roads. Out to the river and back from the river and over to town, riding right across on Main Street, and then out past the edge of town. I was on a quiet two-lane road when I saw a woman walking from the other direction. Long pants. Hoodie. It was a warm spring evening. She raised her voice as I went by, asking if this was the way to the next town. Without slowing down, because she was not in distress, I yelled back over my shoulder, “Take this left and you’ll go left again, but it’s 15 miles from here.” It was almost 7 p.m. by then. I looked on a map later, and she was exactly 15 miles away on foot. I hope she made it to an Uber.

I crossed over Yorketown to Pierson, and then crossed Yorktown (there is a place where Yorketown and Yorktown intersect, and I wonder how many people have noticed that outside of this little town). I skirted the west side of the town limits, and then rode through the pastureland to get back home. If it sounds romantic, you don’t know the half of it.

This, though, was only my fifth ride of the month. I waited for forever for new tires to arrive. We traveled. There was work. This is all getting in the way of my accumulation of miles and shouting out directions to random passersby. Like I know where I’m going.