Wednesday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Wednesday

cycling / memories / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
23
Jul 25

Almost fast

I worked on a class meeting today. That means, if my notes hold up, one more day’s work is prepared — at least in brief. There’s always some refinement, some bright idea, some thing that has to tie in, or some other thing that has to carry over. These things, in my experience are never done. But if we can all leave a class with two or three things to really ponder and learn from, we’re doing something right.

Also, I have discovered my first meeting of the new term. It will happen next week, a full month before the term begins. And that’s how it begins, in dribs and drabs in the months when you are off the payroll. Funny, that.

I had a nice bike ride this evening. One of the better ones of the year, which I suppose makes up for the last several mediocre experiences and outright failures. Probably it is meant to carry over through the next several of each, as well.

Went out fast, and with a tailwind, apparently. And I worked so hard on the way back in to keep up the speed that I forgot to take a photo. So here’s a bit of asphalt, right at the end.

So that was an 18-mile outing, and I was done in an hour. You can do the math. Even I can do that math.

I recall reading somewhere years ago that, for amateurs (which needs the added superlative “very” in my case), riding 12-15 mph was slow, 15-18 was considered average, and 18-21 was fast. So this, then, was one of those brief times when I was approaching fast.

Also, when I got back in the measurements say the headwind was 13 mph. I’m terrible in the wind, so I must have gotten quite aero today.

You might recall that in April we had to do some work on the honeysuckle. It was growing over a trellis, but the trellis was rusting through. The trellis was rusting through because it was made of a cheap metal and that’s just the nature of cheap products. One time last year the wind got into the honeysuckle, which was top-heavy, and pulled the whole thing down. We carefully stacked it back up, put some pavers on the feet of the trellis to way it down and hoped for the best. And it worked. But, this spring, we realized that rusted metal doesn’t heal itself, so the old trellis had to come out, which meant we had to do some surgery on the vines, because it was woven in … about like you imagine vines would do. In extricating all of that, which was the best part of an afternoon, we found just how deep into the earth the old trellis’ post hoc anchoring went. The old owners of the house had sunk some metal rods into the soil, here where the heavy land and the green sands meet. Some of it was pretty cheap itself. But two of the pieces were honest-to-goodness rebar, and those were put in with enthusiasm.

All of that came out. The honeysuckle got cut back out of necessity and for shaping purposes, and I was a little nervous about the whole thing. For one, it’s a plant. And we’re stewards of the thing now and I’m a bit overmuch about that. For another, its honeysuckle, and it’s easy to want to cheer for something with this much character. Plus, it’s honeysuckle in a garden, over a trellis. And the triplets who lived here probably ran through that, hid behind it, and wondered why the flowers were so stingy with nectar. (This species is stingy with nectar.) And it is easy to be sentimental about that.

Sometimes we are haunted by our own ghosts, and the ghosts of others. It’s difficult to know which ones are the most welcoming, or the most distracting.

I remember saying aloud, “It’ll be fine. It is honeysuckle and you can’t kill this stuff.” I didn’t feel it, but I said it. And then I remembered something important a few days later, as we waited and hoped it would bounce back from a hard spring pruning: It is honeysuckle and you can’t kill that stuff.

And here it is today.

You can’t kill that stuff. But now we’ll find out if it can learn through that sort of stubbornness. I am trying to train it to grow over and down the other side of the trellis. We’re a little way over halfway there.

All of this makes me wonder what I might do if it wasn’t so hot out. Just the 80s today, but it’ll hit 93 tomorrow and the heat index for Friday is forecast to reach 110. I do not do as well in the heat as I once did, and I’m old enough to admit that to myself now.

But hey, the summer is the life for me. Except for the class prep. And the meetings.

cycling / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
16
Jul 25

Air dense as water

Today’s heat index finally quit at 103 degrees. At some point after that, with the daylight fading and things still as sticky as possible, I set out for a little bike ride.

And this is how you know it is hot and humid. Usually, because of the speed and the wind … let me rephrase … because of the “speed” and the wind you don’t feel a lot of sweat. For a person that can sweat a fair amount, this was a weird sensation to grow used to. I could be out on an extremely hot day and, aside from a bit of it getting into my eyes, I never seemed to sweat — at least until I got home.

About halfway through today’s short little ride, though, I noticed that every inch of my clothing and most of my skin was covered in perspiration. The dew point and the humidity were the same. There was nowhere for the moisture to go.

Not too long after that I ran across this sign. I was on one of the usual roads, and they’d been advertising this closing, so it was not a surprise.

Today might have been the first day of the closure, which was supposed to begin yesterday. And here I remembered one of the many virtues of the bike. I can go where a car can’t go.

The work has something to do with an overpass. In addition to the closure and detour signs, and the barrels, they’ve got barriers up on either side of the bridge. Presently, they are set up to allow a zig-zag access, presumably for the heavy equipment that should be arriving tomorrow or the next day. I suppose you can still get through there in a car, but you’d have to work at it. I didn’t have to slow down.

I might have sped up on the overpass, though. Who knows why they’ve got that bit of the road closed.

Anyway, it was a usual route, one that has the benefit of being well-defined, and quite in the evening. It’s easy to race the darkness on a route you know well.

Here’s a bit of it I don’t think I’ve photographed before. That’s probably not my fault, it’s the asphalt.

There was no wind for this ride. Not even a breeze. And it seems that I can still do an almost decent ride when I’m not battling the breeze. My computer was pleased. Pleased to be going fast for once.

That’s not fast, but respectable by my standards; I’ll take it. I’d take a little cooler weather, but I’m not going to get that in the near future.

photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
9
Jul 25

There are a bunch of names for skin cells

We had a hot dermatology date today. It’s every bit as exciting as it sounds. We drove over there from here, around some detours and arriving right on time, despite whatever it was I did that slowed us down on getting out of the house.

There was no one there, so as soon as sat down they called us back. The best part: no paperwork, so I guess we’re both enough in the system now.

These were routine checks. It probably took longer to book the appointments than to fulfill them. The doctor, yet another one in a now-growing line of people who are younger than I am. Younger than me and, yet, she looked more tired than the rest of us. You wonder how many times a day she does this, starting with the scalp and glanced in between the toes. You wonder if she’s sick of it yet, dismissing this worry, weathering a bad joke here, staring at an awkward blotch of skin there.

Well, not on us. We both saw the same doctor. She told my lovely bride that she has wonderful skin. To me she said, “You don’t have many moles.”

I’ve worked very hard to avoid that, yes.

Anyway, clean bills of health. Don’t lose any sleep over anything. Come back in a year.

Later, we got behind this truck.

It wasn’t that we followed him. He just kept turning onto all of the same roads we wanted.

adventures / photo / Switzerland / Wednesday — Comments Off
25
Jun 25

Once more, to the rails

We said goodbye to Ringgenberg, and our new friends Mark and David, two brothers who run the hotel where we stayed. Just delightful guys, they took a real liking to my in-laws, let them stay an extra day, and tried to charm their daughter at every turn.

Again, this was the view they gave us from our balcony.

(Click to embiggen.)

From the two of them we learned a lot about Switzerland, how the culture and the government and their sports work. So it became more than just the views. It became the sort of feeling that made you think: we’ll be back to this specific place sometime, soon.

Again, look at that view. Why wouldn’t you go back to a place like that if there were nice people there, too?

So we hopped on a series of trains — our last day with train changes, I think — and then headed two-and-a-half hours to the south, and into the mountains. It’s just basic views like this the whole way. No big deal.

And when you don’t see mountains, or small waterfalls, or the verdant nature of summer in Switzerland, you can see the rivers and streams and creeks that parallel the train tracks.

The closer you get to the snowmelt and the glaciers, the whiter the water gets, from all of the sediment and runoff. But no matter the shade you see in any given moment, it’s impressively, starkly beautiful.

Oh look, more mountains. So mountainous.

Which reminds me … we have seen several young people — on trains and at famous places — doing the things that people do these days. For days now the four of us have been saying “So preeeeeetty!” to one another after sharing a train car with five teenagers who were passing all of these beautiful sites and could not be bothered to see any of it because of all of the selfies they were taking. But their photos were “So preeeeeetty!”

Go ahead, I dare you, try to explain influencers to anyone that’s not chronically online. You sound like an insane person. And it looks ridiculous when you see it in practice. (To be fair, most things having to do with media look ridiculous in practice.)

Anyway, we have arrived at Zermatt. Here’s my lovely bride pointing out the chief attraction.

And here’s an artfully framed composition of that same mountain.

“So preeeeeetty!”

Also, I did that thing where you hold the camera lens up to the tourism telescope. So here’s a closer look.

And the view, no kidding, right outside of our hotel.

We are at Zermatt, and that’s the Matterhorn. The day after tomorrow, we’ll climb the thing. By which I mean we’ll take a train to an adjacent high spot and pretend like we’ve climbed the thing.

adventures / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
18
Jun 25

Where am I? Who am I? What day is it?

OK. We’ve traveled, by plane. And we arrived at our hotel, where we will stay for two nights. And this is the first night or the second night, depending on where you are in the world. And I have no idea what is going on, so scrambled are my brains and biorhythms. That’s your next hint. So this is the Wednesday post, which could also be on Tuesday, depending on where you are. That’s a hint. And here’s the final hint, a quick shot from a hop-on/hop-off bus tour we took to see the area, and ward off jet lag. And, as it turns out, to get a little breeze on the skin. It is unexpectedly warm here, despite forecasts. Anyway, that last hint.

That photo hint probably is only a little help. If you stare it closely it might help you eliminate several possibilities, but probably won’t give you a precise location. I’ll offer you that tomorrow; if I’m awake for it.