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cycling / Friday / photo — Comments Off on How fast am I?
15
May 20

How fast am I?

We went for a bike ride to bring in the weekend. We decided to go out 50 minutes and then turn around and come back. I went 55 minutes, because sometimes you need an extra 10 minutes. I’m looking, now, at the mile splits on the tracking app. Each number represents the maximum touched within that mile. Let’s check them out.

27.2
66.8
27.3
28.7
25.7
30.9
103.3
24.4
21.9
25.6
28.9
25.5
26.2
26.9
32.0
31.6
49.9
19.9
27.0
25.6
36.9
26.4
30.7
78.1
26.9
104.4
27.2
35.3
22.3

There are no typos there, but which do you think are wrong? Some of them are wrong. I was pounding on the pedals and stretching the chain and really working through the hills and trying to remember to breathe and, otherwise, having a good ride. Still, nothing like some of those speeds. So I assume there’s a GPS-out-in-the-country issue, or a dropped-signal issue or a this-app-isn’t-very-good issue.

Anyway, on mile 17, when I wasn’t doing 49.9 miles per hour, I cruised past this place. Couldn’t tell you the last time I saw a kokopelli.

Surely there’s something about putting two of them together that is a bad idea. It was a god of fertility, a god of agriculture. Oh, and also a trickster. If there’s a place where you don’t want a trickster god, it would be in your crops, or your abode.

Elsewhere, work stuff. There was a meeting and I wrote 1,900 words about demo reels and so on.

Most important news of the day …

And, to the weekend!

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hobby / photo / running / Thursday — Comments Off on This is for the birds
14
May 20

This is for the birds

I do believe spring and summer showed up on the same day, making themselves unmistakably known during today’s little jog. It was a simple and persperific 5K, and the first time this year that has felt actually warm during a ride or run. Oh, I’ll sweat in almost any temperature. We are, however, now suddenly, and without any proper build-up befitting it’s importance, flirting with that time when you wonder if the concept of sweat does, in fact, cool you down like you were always told.

Which sounds like I can’t be pleased by the weather. Too cold. Too gray. Too damp. Too hot. And for the first two those your analysis is correct. For the third, no such thing. For the fourth, I just need a week or two of acclimation, that’s all. And that’s where we find ourselves today, wishing there’d been a proper subtle transition. But sometimes you aren’t allowed nice things, meteorologically speaking.

Sometimes we complain just because we can.

Hey, 77 felt fantastic. And then I elevated my heart rate a little and the sweat started stinging my eyes and that was fine, I guess. Later I got to that point where the ol’ internal thermostat decides to flip on over and there’s a signal from the engine room: all pores answering. And that’s how my run ended, doing planks, sweating a lot, laughing at the idea of a spring, missed.

It sounds like a mid-20th American novel: The Spring Season Lost.

None were concerned at the bird feeders. The blackbird least of all:

Fun tidbit about the House Finch. It was originally a western bird. Someone took them east to try to sell them in the early 1940s, but eventually set them free in disgust. (“I just knew these people were going to want them as caged birds!”) And they’ve spread to be seen across the country and southern Canada since.

That’d be an annoying caged bird, if you ask me. But rare is the bird that isn’t. And they should all be flying free, filling their role in the ecosystem, not cluttering up the house.

Now this guy isn’t judging me, at all:

It took a long while to win over this blue jay for pictures. But at least he didn’t attack me:

I got a few nice shots of him. And I think I understand his hesitancy.

He’s conscientious about his combover!

Covid-19 / cycling / photo / podcast / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on The usual much ado
12
May 20

The usual much ado

All of that sun on Sunday was so nice and lovely, but the passing shadows told the tale. When I stopped taking pictures of the birds it was because the sun had scooted beyond the houses and was focusing on something else. A chill took over from the sun. Because that’s going to be the natural conclusion of things around here in May. I went inside because I was shivering.

And yesterday, Monday, I went on a bike ride and shivered some more. It remains the second week of May and jackets are required.

It was a quick and short ride. Today, a short and slow run. First time out in a while, dashing off a casual little 5K:

Because if you asked me to actually work through a 5K right now I could only laugh at you.

We talked the performing arts! Dance! Theatre! Musicals! I mentioned a classic Italian and sounded learned:

Of course, it is a conversation with the chair of a high quality program, so we know who the real learned person was. These conversations are fun, but here soon, as the reopening begins, or continues, or begins to continue, we’ll have to start thinking about some of these are framed. Which is just as well. We’ve had about 15 of these sorts of episodes now and a little change of pace is called for.

Which is why it’s cold, and I’m shuffling on slow neighborhood runs. See? The pace, she changes.

I’m getting to the point where I could do for some change. Thursday will mark nine weeks at home. That’s a lot, and I’m a homebody. One mustn’t complain overmuch. We have our health, and the health of our loved ones. We are still working. And sure, we have missed out on some activities, but those are relative inconveniences. It is easy to get caught up on the personal inconveniences. It should be easier, still, to maintain one’s perspective. I read that story about cruise ship crews and I think of the few I’ve been on, and the gracious and kind people who spend their lives working hard and working long hours for small amounts of money to make sure people have a wonderful experience, and this is happening in their office. It’s a terrible thing. My office is all-but-closed and we’re working from home offices. And, if that gets too stuffy, I move to the living room, or the kitchen island, or the deck as I did one day, or the front porch as I did another day. So I’ll stay quiet about what I need. My chief complaint, then, is the weather, which is out there while I’m in here. What I can complain about is inconsequential at the moment.

I sat on the deck all afternoon Sunday, I had a bike ride yesterday, a run today, and tomorrow it will be cold again. I’ll have a Zoom meeting or two. We’ll read about something sad that has happened somewhere, and something sweet and endearing that took place elsewhere. I’ll probably watch something I have had in a queue for a while. It’ll be Wednesday. (Or so I’m told.) And it’s all downhill from there. Patience and grace.

cycling / hobby / Monday / photo — Comments Off on So many photos to enjoy
11
May 20

So many photos to enjoy

Happy late Mother’s Day. I think all of our flowers arrived today. But the cards got there early. One of those years. Mothers, being moms, completely understand.

The cats are doing just fine. Phoebe is in a tunnel phase:

It’d be wrong to ascribe human emotions to cats, of course, but that is one content-looking cat:

I have decided to keep the cats out of my home office for the many breakable things. Any closed door, to a cat, is an opportunity. (A mentality I totally appreciate.) But figure out the pattern, dude. I open the door, you sneak in, I scoop you up and put you back out in the hall. He has not figured out the pattern. So I made a sign.

The Yankee says it was nice of me to put it at eye level. That, I thought, was the best part of the joke.

He disagrees. And he likes to let me know about it.

A view of one of the local lakes from Friday’s lovely bike ride:

One of the apps that I use — there are three — to track rides gives you the maximum speed you hit on each mile segment. There were 35 miles in that particular ride and there are a lot of times that make sense: 27.2, 25.2, 28.8, 24.5, 28.1. If you looked at the terrain or stop signs or things, it tracks very well.

Except for that one spot where, I know I was sprinting, but I’m fairly certain I didn’t hit 2,513.9 miles per hour.

I will accept the data it gives me for a split three miles down the road where it says I was doing 51 mph. Probably I wasn’t — in my experience when you hit about 46 it all starts to feel noticeably different — but I’ll accept it.

The Yankee on her weekend run:

I was on my weekend sit-on-the-deck phase …

I was sitting on the deck to have a Mother’s Day call and watch the birds. Check out this little guy:

You can sit up close to a bird feeder and, if they are hungry enough, most birds will come to accept your not being in the way of their dinner:

Anyway, it was a fine time, a nice long chat about this and that, some pleasant weather for a change and watching the wildlife go by:

Like I’m a nature photographer over here:

A red-winged black bird on the ground, very common in this area:

One of our neighborly cardinals, which aren’t exactly in abundance, but not scarce. I guess that means they are plentiful. There are at least four:

And a nice brief little look at an Indigo bunting:

We call the red-winged blackbird a Superman Bird. You can really see it when he flies. And I guess you’ll have to take my word for it since I only have pictures of it standing around:

And a nice red head finch wrapped up the photo safari on our back deck.

So that was the weekend. And how was yours? And back to the new week. How’s yours shaping up?

Covid-19 / Friday / photo / podcast — Comments Off on To the week … end? To the weekend!
8
May 20

To the week … end? To the weekend!

Isn’t this a lovely little Iris from our late afternoon walk? I took several different shots trying to find the perfect angle. The lengths I go to for you, gentle reader.

Fine day for a walk, which is about all that can be said. Days and nights seem like the only distinguishing features right now, and that because of the visual cues. Psychologists, I have read, would suggest this is because the days don’t have the normal distinguishing features. Makes sense. If you don’t have a sport practice or a musical rehearsal to get to, if your weekly book club is canceled, all of the days seem like … Tuesdays, or whatever they seem like to you.

But, then, that’s just your programming. How did that work before the before times? Before all of the serious structure that we’ve anchored everyone too? I suppose they were a different sort of drudgery, more back breaking, and without conditioned air and ice cubes, without an entire universe of streaming distractions.

See? Not so bad, not knowing what day it is, when you think about in those terms.

Tom Duszynski from the Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI in Indianapolis talked with me about where we are with the stay-at-home plans and what could happen next. He’s one of those actual experts you should listen to, so listen to him.

I’m also sending some of his soundbites out to local television stations. Maybe one or two of them will pick up quote or two. Wouldn’t that be a nice way to celebrate the weekend? That is what happens next, right?

More on Twitter, check me out on Instagram and listen to a few On Topic with IU podcasts as well.

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