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adventures / cycling / photo / Rowan / Tuesday — Comments Off
12
Aug 25

Catching up on the weekend

It’s a big week of doing work. A big week of working. So this probably will be a light week here, while I’m busy being productive finishing syllabi, making Canvas come to life, pulling together lecture notes and the like. And then there’s the endless doubt and self-recrimination that always comes with taking on, and creating, new classes. Am I doing this right? Is it right? Is it enough?

Is it too much? Will it hold up to scrutiny? Can others also find it interesting? Am I going to meet the class objectives? Will it be well received? Will we want to offer this again?

I’d feel this way about it if someone gave me an immortally successful class that was failproof.

I might feel this way with a class I’d built that was always successful, too. But I have somehow never had a lot of opportunity to test that concept. My chair noted in my contract packet last spring that I’m flexible and amendable to taking on new courses at the last minute. It was kind of him to say, but that’s perhaps not the reputation you want to burnish. Constantly building and learning and mastering new material is a fun challenge, but it can be a challenge — especially if you want to really master it.

This term I am teaching classes seven, eight and nine here. It’s my fifth semester here. There’s a certain amount of psychic energy involved in all of that.

The good news is that I can worry over this a little more. Perhaps, by 2027, I’ll have finally built out all my own courses. My own corner, indeed.

Anyway.

There’s something about my Saturday bike ride I’m trying to get off my chest. This was one of those rides where I wanted to change up from the usual routes. Sometimes the best surprises come from simply asking the question: what’s down that way? So I did some very familiar roads, and then I got to a particular place and turned left instead of the usual right. I was rewarded with some lovely tree-covered roads, a delightful change of pace considering how often we’re riding out in the open air wind here. I was under those trees, in that shade and on those close-in curvy roads long enough that when I got funneled back out into the farmland again it was a bit of a shock. So bright! And wide open!

About the time I adjusted to that again, I realized where I was. I’d come this way before, but in the other direction. Then I saw a sign which told me which town was in each direction and I was clearly oriented. And so I’ve put another few roads together in the mental map.

It was about that time that I saw a little blinking light well ahead of me. Another cyclist! Instead of turning around, I decided I’d go catch that person, which I did about a mile later. Before that, though, I experienced a dangerous pass from a truck hauling a trailer loaded with a Bobcat. The truck would have been bad enough, but it was one of those that felt like you were going to get sucked under the trailer. I suspect you’d need to experience that to really appreciate it.

So when I got up to the other cyclist, I asked him how his day was. I asked him how that truck had been for him. He gave me a grim half-smile, which allowed him long enough to play it cool. “He gave me about a foot.”

And, friends, that’s not OK. Nor should we play like it is.

Since it was Saturday, and I had a long bike ride, and elsewhere my lovely bride set a new PR in the Olympic distance tri, we celebrated with a custard.

At the same time, all of this is still going on outside.

And there’s easily more than a week of that to go. No scurvy will be had in August.

Yesterday i tore myself away from the computer for 90 minutes for a bike ride. I did my 25-mile time trial route and took 36 seconds off my previous best, which was just last week. Making me think that I might be close to topping out. Or that there are still a lot of gains to be made. Anything is possible.

Either way, the corn is coming along nicely. Sometimes you whip out the camera and shoot something at 19 mph without even looking at the composition, and it works out pretty well.

Hopefully the next one will, too.

cycling / photo / Rowan / Wednesday — Comments Off
6
Aug 25

Progress continues to be made

Just another mild, gray August day. Weird in the ways that any day can be when it’s warm, but pleasant, but overcast. Is this cloud cover? Is it Canada on fire? Why do both feel equally ominous when clearly one is worse than the other?

I went to campus today to visit with a colleague. We are discussing a class and she has been most generous with her time and thoughts and we had a nice hour-long chat today. I came away from it with several pages of notes. And now I can complete my preparations for that class. The rest will just be execution.

Pretty soon I’ll have two of these classes under control. I’m not sure if I am behind schedule or right on time. It depends on when the thought occur.

I also went downstairs to the classroom I’ll be in this fall to test the equipment and play some videos. I had seven to try and six worked perfectly. The other will too, in time. And, for that, I have time. That class only needs a few supplemental sets of notes and two extra bits of source material before I can call it done. And that’s what the rest of this week will be about.

But if you ask me right now, it’s that other other class that’ll keep me stressed out between now and December. So far, it is just a few pages of notes. Helpful, structurally useful, but hardly complete. Fortunately, I live with, and share a campus office with, a person who knows all about that class. The material I know. The sequence of the class is what I have to wrap my arms around. And being fully prepared is what next week will be about.

When I got home my lovely bride was off riding her bike and doing a run with the tri club. So I set off for a quick evening ride. Just 15 miles to be moving in the breeze. To feel a few raindrops on my skin. To enjoy those brilliant August skies.

This was our basic “You’ve got an hour to ride” route. It’s a simple out-and-back, and there are a few places you can add a loop or two to make an easy 20 miler if you like. But let me demonstrate to you what I’ve been complaining about, when I’ve lately been complaining about the wind.

When I headed out, NNW, I get to the next little crossroads town and there are two flag poles. Flag poles, hold flags, of course, and flags are useful for telling a story. On the way out, I passed two flags that said “right-to-left crosswind.” And a reasonable one, too, these flags were on full display, and that wasn’t surprising because I had been experiencing for 18 minutes. When I came back reversing my course and on my way home, 12 minutes later, the first flag said “left-to-right crosswind.” The other said “headwind.”

Look how close together these flagpoles are!

I’m hardly an expert in this, but Strava tells me I’ve passed by that spot, at least going one way, 48 times. So I know a little bit. And it doesn’t take a northern European or a meteorologist to look behind that fire station and see that the background doesn’t change between in that short a distance, 269 feet!

But the wind surely can.

We’ve been on an animal cracker kick lately, and I’ve noticed that we somehow purchased the generative AI version of animals. These are the animals from Pandora, better known to the Na’vi, than us.

And if they aren’t “James Cameron Presents: Animal Crackers” just which planet are these mutant animal crackers from?

adventures / cycling / music / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
5
Aug 25

Last night in New York

We left the house at 2:30 yesterday. OK, 2:38, because my lovely bride would wonder what was wrong with me if I was on time. And, yet, we were still early because, before we’d even left the yard I exclaimed, “EXCLAMATION!” And she said, “What?”

I was pulling out my phone by then, because I’d just remembered I’d set up a time for someone to come by the house on Wednesday, only I won’t be at the house.

She didn’t know that, yet, and she said, “What is it? We’ve got time. We can go back.”

So I guess I didn’t have to be out of the house at 2:30, after all. I think she’s counter-programming our schedule to allow for my difficulty in grabbing shoes, belt, wallet, making sure the doors are locked, the cats are on guard duty, that food is in their bowls and that the battalion of ninjas out back understand their orders (Defend!) for the night.

So I rescheduled the guy. He’ll come by next Wednesday. Watch me forget that, too, somehow.

So we drove to Hamilton Station, a four-track, two-platform commuter operation. It worked out such that we were about six, maybe seven minutes early. I am definitely being counter-programmed.

We boarded a train with the dingiest windows you’ve ever seen, because this is the U.S., not Europe, friend. And we went into Penn Station. From there, we walked to a subway.

So this trip has taken the car (which was great), a train (which was fine) and a subway (which I can do without, but whatever). We went up four stops. Had dinner on a pier — which was more cosmopolitan than it sounds, I guess, and thankfully not terribly overpriced. I had a little basket of fish and chips, which sustained me through the night. There was a citrus herb mayo — see? Cosmopolitan. Then we went next door, or to the next pier over, and upstairs.

We were there because Pier 17 had the show, which we’d come to see. It was the same show we saw last week. It was nearby, a rescheduled event (previously postponed due to severe weather) with inexpensive tickets and we figured, why not?

It was a terrific little venue. Look at the backdrop we had as The Mountain Goats performed.

I mentioned on Friday that the lead singer, John Darnielle, had a small little social media conversation with me. He gave me suggestions on where to begin in his catalog, which I thought was generous of him. So I’ll wind up picking up a few things eventually.

They had a fine set last night, and they have a devoted following, do The Mountain Goats. They finished strong. All their fans were jumping around and the floor, which was someone else’s roof, was bouncing around and I am now “Can we not do that?” years old.

As they left the stage and the road crews came out to set up for Guster, The Mountain Goats fans pulled away from the stage and we moved forward. A thing Guster has been doing is that in one particular song, Ryan Miller has come out into the crowd. Given that this was our fifth time to see them this year, we’ve picked up on the pattern. The other night, my lovely bride said she wanted to try to get where he might come off the stage. She picked the spot and we weaved ourselves right up to the crowd barrier.

There was a little gap between the stage and the crowd, and so we were wondering if he was going to climb down and do this bit. He did. Off the stage onto a monitor, to the ground, and over the barrier. He disappeared into the audience about five people over from us. They kept feeding XLR cable to him as he worked his way all the way to the back of the venue.

The chorus is just …

If you don’t come
I’m doin’ it by myself
If you don’t care
I’ll do it by myself
By myself

… and between each line he has enough time to say “Hi” or interject some random “Where am I going?” thought into the microphone. They kept feeding him cable, he kept shuffling back. That cable run had to be about 60 yards. The chorus continues. In between two lines he says “I think you know where I’m going.” And everyone did. There was a little platform, a little rooftop viewing deck back there. Up the stairs, singing, high-fiving, giving hugs, and so on. And then he has to come back. There are two guys that are pulling the cable back. He’s just playing that chorus. This all takes a while, working through those people, and I’m wondering what the band’s plan is if he doesn’t make it back in time. The other night, he made a stop at the bar and got drinks for the band. On his way back the XLR cable passed over me and knocked my phone out of my hand. And we were only sort of close. But where we found ourselves tonight, Miller walked right by me.

Right by me.

As a finale, they played Boz Scaggs’ “Lido Shuffle,” because, I guess, if you have a guy playing a nice warm saxophone like Matt Douglas in your midst you find a song with a nice sax run. So here’s the big finish.

And, yeah, it sort of did seem like Darnielle pointed right at me.

We pronounced it a grand show, and a lovely venue. We took a subway back to the train station, caught the earlier of two options, and got back to the car without incident. We stopped at a gas station at Hamilton, pronounced we wanted one of everything to drink, and got one drink for each of us.

All talk, the two of us. We got caught behind an accident that shut down the highway, and necessitated a long detour, but made it home at about 1 a.m. Today, I have spent working.

Except for this evening, when we went out for a bike ride. Let me tell you how fast my wife is riding this year.

She wanted to do 25 miles, and she suggested my 25-mile time trial route. If you look at it on a map, it is the world’s most misshapen rectangle. And after the first little bit I decided I would be the rabbit that she got to chase, for as long as I could stay out front. Here I am, out front.

There’s one part of this route that she’s not terribly wild about, and it had a little additional traffic on it this evening that also displeased me. But I lucked out in the traffic pattern and was able to move on through with no problem. By the time she got there the circumstance demanded she be a little more conservative. Before long, I could not see her behind me. But there were turns coming up and I would have plenty of time with both a left and a right to run my eyes back down a long, flat, open road to see her behind me.

Except she was not there. It was just me and the fields. And some livestock from time-to-time.

I can track her progress on an app, so I looked at a certain, specific point. She was nine-tenths of a mile behind me. Now, I’m having a good ride. Legs are strong. Lungs aren’t burning. There’s no wind to push me around. Everything feels just as it should. Plus I had that traffic scenario. And I’m nine-tenths of a mile ahead. She’s safely through all of that and the rest of the route is a simple and safe as you can make it on open roads. So I pedal-pedal-pedal.

I go all of the way down that road, turn at the appointed spot, and then it’s just a four-mile push that I can ride well. (We all have our strengths.) I resolve that, when I get to the end of that leg of the route I will check her progress on the app again. Because there’s no way she’s coming back. Not after being almost a mile back and me on one of my better stretches and having a great ride. I’ve been peaking over my shoulder, but I knew it would be super human. So, at the next turn, I check her progress again, as planned.

She is now three-tenths of a mile behind me.

She has plenty of strengths.

But now I’m on the last leg, it’s just eight miles. Three hills. Most of it in a straight line and long stretches of it with views way out in front of you. So she’ll see me, if she can’t already see me, and then she’ll just magically be there. Or be in front of me.

Should I ride on? Should I wait to let her catch me and then try to speed away again? It isn’t a race, but it is a race. Which is when the mind bets begin. If I can get over this hill … If I can get over that hill … if I make it to the tree line, I might hold her off … if I get to that next stop sign there’s only a small chance of her catching me … if she gets me on the final straight I know I can at least put in a good show as we get back to the neighborhood. I do all of that, and she’s not there. It’s just me and my legs and I made it in first.

Strava tells me this is the fifth time I’ve done this route. And this time was one minute and 16 seconds faster than my previous best. I was only just stopping the app recordings when she wheeled into the driveway behind me.

Later, I asked her when she first saw me after the traffic thing. She described it. She saw a flash of color up ahead, but then realized it was a neighborhood kid riding his bike. And then she saw me. And then she dropped her chain. So she had to stop and dismount, fix that, and still almost caught me at the end. So I dropped her and she essentially caught me twice.

So she’s going to have a super strong triathlon Saturday.

adventures / bluesky / cycling / Friday / memories / music / photo / video — Comments Off
1
Aug 25

pop-pop-pop

“You should treat yourself to a ride today. It’s pretty spectacular out there.”

My lovely bride had already been out and about. I was sitting still and reading the morning news. But when your beloved encourages you to do a thing, you do a thing, and that’s how the personal revolution began today.

The first day of August is the academic’s traditional day of “What have I done with my summer?!?!” panic. The fall term comes into focus and there’s a lot to do, and it’s a scramble until May. But I’ve been doing some work of late, and today just didn’t feel like it. It was, I was told, pretty spectacular out there.

So I went to the library.

The local public library — which is staffed entirely by volunteers and open for 28 hours a week, but only 24 per week in the summer, which asks you to pay $2 for a card which is provided “Compliments of” a bank in a different town altogether — called yesterday to tell me they’d received a book I’d requested through the interlibrary loan.

Libraries, if you’ll let them (which is to say, if you go more than once) are magical places. But, really, the ILL system lets everything come to your library, even if you have but a small library in your town. About once a year, this time of year, I avail myself of the library for an easy fiction read. (Most things I read throughout the year are news, work-related or history. But there’s always something easy and/or breezy if you’re willing to be seen checking out such a thing.)

So I did that. I’ll read it this weekend, and the revolution will be over and it’ll be back to work on Monday. Or possibly Sunday evening.

I came home and, because it was spectacular, I treated myself to a bike ride. It was blue-gray out. The UV was only a 3. The temperature was 78. After I’d worked up a sweat it felt almost coolish outside. (This is different than the brief bout of cold you might feel with heat exhaustion. It was purely damp clothes, damp skin, and 20 mph winds.

There was one place where, on a straight road, I passed a house with a flag, a restaurant with parking lot flags, and a fire department with two flags. In that brief span, and it couldn’t have been any greater a distance than two city blocks, if you were in a city, the flags were blowing in three different directions.

It was not the fastest ride, but the one place I really tried I easily set a new Strava PR, so there’s that.

After that, it was time to go to the yard. It was time to pick up sticks from yesterday’s storm. Mostly it was just that, five-six, pick up sticks. The magnolia did fine.

But there’s a branch in another tree that will have to come down. Eventually. Somehow. It’s a little high up.

Our poor trees stand no chance in these winds. This weighs heavily upon me.

Then again, a lot does these days. How could it not?

We were trying to count, and we believe this is the fourth time we’ve seen Guster this year now. They just play around us a lot. Or, we are in a place where they do a lot of shows. If it is four times this year, then it’s seven times since we moved here. They’re close by, it’s a good show, so why not go?

It is important here to say I’ve seen these guys play, off-and-on, for more than a quarter of a century now. It’s become a joke, who has opened for them. They sell custom-shirts that they’ll print at the venue, so you can make yourself known as a hipster by signifying which Grammy-winner-to-be you saw with them. I think Jump, Little Children might have opened for them the first time I was able to catch a show. (Unless I’m forgetting an even earlier one.) All of which is to say, they are a fun band and they do terrific fan work and it doesn’t always sound exactly like their studio stuff. But, in all of those years, or the last four year shows this year, or any show I’ve seen of theirs in six or seven states, they don’t seem to do a lot of ad lib jams.

But, tonight, I just happened to be holding my phone at the right time for this little diddy.

Look how much fun they’re having! That may be the best part of the whole thing.

The Mountain Goats opened for Guster. This past year I’ve suddenly heard a lot about The Mountain Goats. When this show came up I thought I should learn about The Mountain Goats. But then I got distracted and, finally, I decided, just find out live. And I’m glad I did. I understand what everyone is talking about. I mentioned this on Bluesky.

Finally got to see @themountaingoats.bsky.social.

I understand what everyone was saying. I get it now.

[image or embed]

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.bsky.social) August 1, 2025 at 8:05 PM

One of the guys in the band wrote me back, right after the show was over. That was about the point when I was looking over their catalog: 22 studio albums, four compilation albums, three live albums, not to mention many EPs and demos that are floating around out there. That’s a lot to contemplate. I don’t think I need to be a completist here, but there’s not enough time in the day to learn where to pick up on something new that’s already so robust. (It’s concept albums everywhere and sequels decades on and so on.) Where to even begin?

And then the guy in the band gave me album recommendations.

So that’s nice. And just as soon as I get through three other musical stacks of things I’m doing … I’ll be doing this.

They’ll have pumped out nine more albums by then.

Anyway, we’re contemplating seeing them again Monday night, because they’ll all be close by again. And why not? Also, Monday, it’s back to work. And I’ll share one or two other videos from this show. (One including The Mountain Goats.) And then, Tuesday, it is working on campus. Meetings and everything.

And, Wednesday, I’ll start making syllabi. Then it gets real.

Unless it is pretty spectacular out again.

cycling / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
31
Jul 25

Storm riders

We’ve been reliably told — or so the weather reports would tell us — that the heat wave will break. The storms that rolled in this afternoon were pushed through by a cold front. That happened in the mid-afternoon, and the phones erupted with obnoxious sounds urging us to take action. And to also plug in and turn on the weather radio. (Note to self …)

I was standing over my lovely bride’s shoulder in her home office when this happened. So two phones in close proximity made great big wah-wah sounds. Tornado warning. And all the little towns and crossroads listed seemed relevant. Seek shelter now, and all of that.

So we went to the basement. Twenty-five months in this house, and that’s the first time.

We stayed down there about a half-hour, which was probably about 10 minutes longer than necessary. The local TV meteorologists have a large DMA to cover, and they seem to think that other communities also deserve attention. But, finally, between what they were showing and what I could see on the radar apps, the storm that suggested rotation passed over to the north and west of us.

Hopefully everyone is OK. Things look good for the most part, here. It rained all through the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, so we couldn’t do a complete inspection.

For now, I know this. I sure could go for some days in the 80s, and I’m not talking about the decade.

So maybe we’ll stop roasting. Or is it broiling? That all depends on the humidity settings. We did a bit of both this morning, when we went out for a quick ride. You know, before it got hot.

I have convinced myself that I don’t handle the heat as well as I used to. Or can do. It takes some habituation, and the other part of this is that I’m not particularly enthused by the idea of suffering through it to the extent necessary. What once felt like a badge of honor now just feels like There’s other stuff to do, too, ya know …

So after a time, I went slowly. Because of the heat. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Somewhere in here — not here, but on this ride — I crossed 20,000 miles on my Specialized.

I’ve been saying that’s when I’ll spring for myself a new bike. But that means shopping. And analysis. And agonizing. This is not a hobby bereft of details. And people love their specs. I’d like to be over bike specs, but you can hardly avoid them to get the fit and function you’re after.

Also, this is expensive. Buying a bike is the fourth most expensive thing I’ve ever purchased, after my home, my car, and a pound of ground beef.

So if you want to help me shop, or start a GoFundMe …