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cycling / photo — Comments Off
27
Mar 20

It’s Friday, let’s go ride bikes

Left work about 15 minutes early to go on a bike ride. And by “left work early” I mean “announced in the four different platforms in which we are presently communicating (because the first three weren’t sufficient), that I was going for a bike ride.”

So we set out for a pleasant little 30-miler. Someone told me in the fourth communication platform, eschewing the other three mediated formats, to be careful. I take this advice to heart every time it is offered. Fortunately the traffic broke our way:

That’s the benefit of getting out just a few minutes early. You can beat the crowds that don’t exist. Down that road is the local lake and, even on a slightly chilly and predictably gray day you’d expect to see one or two boats being pulled down for the weekend float. But not today.

So we went through the three neighborhoods, long roads with houses and big yards really, that we normally cruise through on that route. We came back up the same direction, over the big hill which has the ice cream shop sitting tantalizingly at the bottom of the descent, the big hill which sometimes I can get over in one gear, and sometimes I need to the whole cassette, and on neither occasion have I ever wheeled my bike in there for a cone, but one day I will. There’s a big false flat sprint after that, a hard right hander into some rollers and then a left turn before two long stretches of road where you can really build your pace or completely lose your wits, and then we saw these guys:

And then on the last little bit we worked on the art of moving fast, but trying to look casual about it.

She’s doing somewhere between 22 and 25 miles per hour right there. That’s not a put your head down and grit your teeth pace, or anything, but it’s a fair clip, for me at least, with one hand and in a small gear ramping up to the last descent at the end of the ride.

Covid-19 / cycling / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
25
Mar 20

I am still able to keep count — for now

This is Day 14, I think. It all depends on how you choose to count and where you are, I suppose. Two weeks ago yesterday the university announced they were seriously curtailing campus activities, and that has continued to evolve the more they dive into it, and will likely continue to do so. Two weeks ago from today our dean told us to go home and work from there and not come onto campus unless it was vital that you be there. So I worked in the office that Wednesday and then went in that Thursday evening for television … and we were all so much younger back then.

So two weeks at home, and working from home. Lots of Zoom meetings and a lot of email. The latter is basically my natural condition anyway. What’s nice, I suppose, is that I get to sleep an extra 40 minutes. And I can have breakfast at home, instead of at my desk.

And today I’ve started moving around the house, so that I don’t sit in the same spot every day. Also, I’m working on straightening up my home-office, which was overdue to be reworked anyway.

Last week, our first full week from home was Spring Break, so The Yankee was able to scale back her workload. Mine was naturally reduced by timing and circumstance, so I got busy playing catch up on a few things and enterprising some other projects out of the very air. This week has been a second week of Spring Break, ostensibly to let the faculty readjust their curricula to an online setting, and probably just to let everyone catch up with the changing floor beneath us and other important things like, their breath. So next week is Back To It: No, Really, But From Home.

We’re still doing great. We had a nice day of mild weather for a change and went on a bike ride. Saw this guy on the private road that almost no one rides down. It features a nice up-and-down roller through the woods and a loop on the back and then the harder version of the down-and-up roller to leave the little pastoral neighborhood.

When I went down the road he was on the left hand side, sitting on his horse, and talking to another gentleman who was standing across the road. Maybe that’s just how they’d going when they ran into each other, but as I tried to carefully split the road perfectly between them I liked to imagine that they were the local vanguards of the social distancing movement. And what an awful name that is, no?

When I finally caught back up to The Yankee, who is faster than me at this stage of the year:

In the originally sized image you can see me pretty well in her sunglasses. So really this is a selfie.

cycling / errands / Friday / photo — Comments Off
13
Mar 20

To the fruits ahead

My first full work-from-home day in several years, it turns out. I used to do this quite frequently at a previous stop. Once you are in the right groove, it can be quite productive.

I remember I found that the advice to keep a schedule was something that worked well for me. So I set the alarm, get home, have a breakfast snack, do the morning read of news, cringe at what I’m reading in the news, and then remember I have saved 20 minutes of commute here, plus the time ironing slacks and that sort of thing.

It is important, for some reason, to address the mop on top of my head. And it is important, for some reason, to wear some sort of shoes.

So give that a try, if this sort of thing is new for you. And remember, grace and patience. Even with yourself. Perhaps especially with yourself.

We went to the grocery store this evening, which is basically just a morbid fascination I have now. Even though we’re now ready to cut way back. Today I discovered a new thing in the produce section. This is a jack fruit. You can pick it up for $1.99, but lift with your legs and not your knees. These ran about 20 pounds each. Why, yes, I did weigh them.

Jackfruit, I’ve just learned, is a unique tropical fruit native to South India.

It has a distinctive sweet flavor and can be used to make a wide variety of dishes. It’s also very nutritious and may have several health benefits.

Just once, I want a site like this to say, “The flavor is meh. And you can only use it in one or two things anyway. If you don’t already have a natural taste for it, or if it doesn’t remind you of home, don’t worry about it.”

The description I just read, however, sounds interesting, and I’d like to try it sometime soon.

Got in the third bike ride of the year this evening. Hopefully the weather will soon warm up to the point where we stop picking our spots for rides, and I stop counting the progression.

No photos, because those don’t come until after the first few rides, when I remember how to do this properly. A little more fitness would help, too. Also, I need it to warm up for photos, since my full-length gloves discourage photos.

But it was a nice, easy, 20-miler. And as soon as I stop counting the progression of bike rides I can start counting the addition of extra miles. That’s a goal for this year. More miles, more miles.

cycling / IU / Monday / photo / running / video — Comments Off
9
Mar 20

A run, two rides, but mostly cats

Happy Monday. This week is going to be a memorable one, you can just tell, can’t you? It will. And if you can’t tell, come up for air and read the news. It’s going to be a memorable one.

But before all of that begins, we have our new usual Monday feature of checking in with the cats. Let’s see how they spent their weekend.

Phoebe discovered a new place to sit on the stairs. We have a small landing, and she’s familiar with that, but this step gives her a commanding view of the foyer, a window and escape routes up and down the stairs. I’m sure that’s how she thinks.

Poseidon spent part of Saturday night curled up in a big fuzzy blanket. I think he’s coming around to the lifestyle:

They got two new toys in the mail from a friend this weekend. They are little lizard shapes with some hardcore strain of catnip inside:

They are jealous cats, so jealous that despite there being two of the identical toys, they are fighting over the lizards. So now we’ll have to hide them.

Some naps, for whatever reason, are cuter than others:

We went for a run on a sunny Saturday. I am now tasked with running ahead and taking pictures. So my sprints should improve, because the job is to get far enough ahead that I can find a good spot for a reasonable composition, stop, turn, open the camera, frame a shot and watch the runner run through:

It’s a good chance to catch my breath, though, before having to run on and catch back up. But, check this out, same picture:

I got the two-feet-off-the-ground shot. Not bad for trying to do all of the above while winded.

On Sunday afternoon I got in my first bike ride of the year. And this evening I had my second bike ride No photos or videos of either of those. Or probably for the first four or five rides. I have to remember again where all the gears are and what all the levers on the bike do again, first.

I shot this after today’s bike ride. And I am suddenly very interested, once again, in natural sound.

The late night show produced this episode for you last Friday. The guest is one of our professors. Ordinarily my critique would be that you have to go find people outside of our own buildings. There are a lot of reasons for that, groupthink, the burden of real producing, the what’s-entertaining-to-you-isn’t-entertaining-to-everyone phenomenon, but that concept may not apply to Susan Kelly, who is quite entertaining indeed:

Anyway, for the rest of the week, and whatever else is coming to us soon, I hope your times aren’t that interesting.

cycling / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off
24
Feb 20

Leave room for cream?

Friday night we saw Bert Kreischer, who is as clever and frat-tastic as ever. He played two shows at Butler, and we stood outside in about 20 degree weather until almost the published curtain time, which meant the actual start was, of course, later. Someone said he started the first show late, and that it went long. So the rest stood to reason. That meant we were going to get extra comedy, but first we had to move seats. Because I sat in the wrong row. Joke’s on me!

Anyway, the show was terrific. If you like bawdy material it works. He can put the whole room in his hand and give them whatever he wants. The crowd control of it all might be the most interesting thing. They’re just stories. Stories he’s spiced up for maximum impact, and often even the tangents are deliberate, but how he can hold a room for 90 minutes just telling tales is interesting.

Near the end he basically took requests, because he’s reaching some interactive iconic level of comedy now. I assume that’s owing one part to his talent, but another to the times in which we live, how there are bits online everywhere, and how he has embraced the intimate part of fandom that social media creates as a bit of his act.

And of course he has to tell The Machine story because, as he said Friday night, a Facebook version of that story changed his life and put him where he is today, which is selling out shows across the country and about to premiere his third Netflix special.

The Facebook version of The Machine story works, he said, because the Facebook algorithm put a key, but unnamed player in the actual story as a top commenter and she verified the whole thing. You can look the whole story up on YouTube. It’s 10 minutes or so long, and if you like bawdy, over-the-top humor, you’d find it amusing.

If that’s not, however, your thing … errrmmmm … here are two quick cycling videos!

The Yankee got her tri bike. And this weekend she braved some cool temps and finally gave it a try. (It’s a cruel thing to buy yourself a bike in February and wait.) The fit isn’t there yet, but she looks pretty pro, don’t you think:

If that one is a little blurry I blame my upload connection and her speed.

But watch this one, she’s coming right out of the screen!

I’ll never be able to keep up with her on that thing.

Also, it is my turn to buy a bike. Hmmmm …

I should mention this:

Yesterday we had sun for a record-breaking fifth day in a row. I don’t remember the last time we saw the sunshine for five consecutive days. Maybe November, for sure in October, if I had to pick a definitive time. Certainly it has never happened here in February. Yesterday, even, we got all the way up to 56 degrees — making for an excellent afternoon for a run. Maybe this sort of weather will happen some more.

It rained all day today. We’re due for snow on Wednesday.