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cycling / family / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
7
Jun 16

The B-Line

Riding some of the trails this morning:

This was, I believe, on the B-Line. Bloomington has created a three-mile long paved path that basically bisects the city. It is part of a larger plan which, supposedly, will provide paths and trails to all points of the town when the project is completed. Part of that path is just behind our house and you could walk on it and the various sprawling sidewalks and paths that sprout from it for a fair distance. (Forgive the imprecise measurements. I’m new.)

Anyway, nice and scenic. This is more for walking and running and maybe a casual ride. You wouldn’t, we found this morning, put your bike on this and start hammering at it. But, still, a pleasant route, and one without cars.

We had to get in the car today. Drove up to Indianapolis to pick up my mother-in-law from the airport. It wasn’t a bad drive, except for the construction. I wonder how many times I’ll say that before they finish the construction. (Exactly the number of times I have to go to Indianapolis, would be my bet.) They are working on a giant interstate project and part of that work is between here and there just now. I’m sure it’s coming along with all due speed.

Anyway, she’s come to visit and help us get settled. She got in the house and was ready to work. What a lady. Good timing, too. My progress has slowed to road construction levels. We joked that we were leaving a room for her, and we’ve left part of that room for her to unpack. I’ve pretty much had my fill of it all.

Cardboard is an adventure, until you start getting cardboard cuts. That’s a powerful disincentive.

Bloomington / cycling / Indiana / Monday / photo — Comments Off
6
Jun 16

Photos from the weekend

We went to the Surplus Store. This is a facility IU runs where all of their extra equipment and furniture and what not from the many different campuses comes to be picked over by the general public. Plus, they were having a sale. I mean look at the deal they’re offering on these:

Cheaper than Wheel of Fortune. And authentic in ways that the Wheel letters haven’t been for quite some time. Vanna just touches the rectangle now, she doesn’t even spin them around any more.

The surplus store is interesting, but mostly office stuff. And the stuff that isn’t office stuff seems to be either almost-worn out or the sort of things you might not buy secondhand. I did get some pool paddles, though. And I would have stayed longer, there was that sale, if only to avoid this:

We are overrun with packing paper. Someone came in and poured water on it or fed it after midnight or whatever makes paper multiple. It is overwhelming. There’s at least two full car loads of paper due to a trip to a recycling center. It has to be more than one car load.

And then there’s the tape. And the boxes. We are making good progress, though:

I’m starting to hear the sounds that packing tape makes in my sleep, though, so I’m ready for that to be finished.

We went on a bike ride this weekend. I saw a bridge and took a poorly composed, off the hip while pedaling-beneath-it photo for no reason:

We made our way to one of the lakes, this one is named Lemon:

This ride took us through four towns, I believe. (I’m not sure if we should distinguish Unionville from New Unionville.) And we enjoyed the rural scenery:

And there was so much climbing! At least we didn’t have to go up that hill in the distance. (We’d already gone up that hill in the distance.)

I was vacuuming and wanted to make a joke about this Dyson. (I am not its biggest fan.)

Best I can tell, this Dyson was designed to stop working when it encounters more than four strands of hair or anything with the tensile strength of nine covalently bonded dust motes. Its seven-foot power cord was also an attractive selling point.
But it has this giant orange ball!

The Yankee points out I’m the only one that has trouble with it. Probably because I use it.

Bloomington / cycling / Friday / Indiana / photo / video — Comments Off
3
Jun 16

Someone help that man!

I haven’t seen one of these in a long time:

In fact, out of the corner of my eye, while we were riding our bikes through some of the local lowlands, I saw that today and thought it was real. This guy needs help!

That guy is actually a cool decoration.

And I would have stayed around there all day, it was nice and cool in the shade, but there are boxes to unpack. And soup to eat. Here’s the ceiling fan in my spoon in my soup:

Ceiling fan in spoon. #boomerangapp

A video posted by Kenny Smith (@kennydsmith) on Jun 3, 2016 at 11:57am PDT

Bloomington / cycling / Indiana / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
2
Jun 16

First ride in town

We found, online, the local bike group. One of their rides starts from just up the road from our house. So we joined them today. Also, just before this I broke 7,000 miles on the bike.

Also passed this barn, just before which I realized I was going to have to learn how to actually climb uphill now. It might be too late in the game for that, for me. But I have to try. Anyway, the pastoral beauty:

So that was a quick 22-mile ride that won’t ever turn anyone’s head. And, also, my first ever group ride. That will take some time to get used to. But they are nice folks and they know the roads.

So we’ve been here for about 40 hours and are already riding. That’s a good sign.

Also, it doesn’t get dark here until after 9 p.m. That’s nice.

adventures / Bloomington / Indiana / photo / video — Comments Off
1
Jun 16

Need a box?

So we got into the new house this morning. We emptied the cars and then we went to sign the paperwork. I wish they’d left these guys:

I took that picture in March, when we were house hunting. They were just moving out the day that were looking. We had about 17 places on our list and a handful of them came off the market the first day we were up. It was a huge sellers market in the spring. Of the rest, some looked better online than in reality and a few just weren’t going to fit our style or desires. Which left us the place we ultimately got. They were moving out, big family, and didn’t want to let us in because they were concerned it would be too messy. By the time we got to go inside they were down to that “Do I really have to go back and get that last little bit? Can’t I just set fire to it in the backyard?” stage. The house was not messy. In fact it looked fine. It is a fine house. And two of the things they still had to pick up were those decorations above. I was really hoping they would stay with the house.

Anyway, We’re getting settled, see?

This was all done out of order because of the processing agency and the many layers of paperwork and bureaucracy couldn’t take care of itself in time and there was another meeting and so that changed our schedules and so on. And, oh, simultaneously the moving company was arriving with all of our things. Four guys directly out of central casting who were here to do a job, politely, quickly, and leave. And they did. They only balked at carrying all of my books, so I slung some of those boxes around.

Some things you’d just rather do yourself, anyway.

By the time we’d come back from signing the paperwork, and picking up lunch for the movers, they were almost all done. Those guys hustled. And then we were left with all of our things scattered all over and trying to figure out where to put it all.

This is actually easy because, when we were house shopping, I’d brought a tape measure and compared all of the rooms to our old house to make sure everything would fit where we needed it to. By then we were on our second realtor on this end of the deal. The first guy, let’s just say, didn’t work out.

You knew people like that, say the boyfriend of a friend of yours. You know, the young woman who didn’t know of her own self-worth and so never noticed he was walking her into an emotionally exploitive relationship? The signs were there, you could see them. I didn’t need that out of a realtor. Could you imagine that person standing there while I produced my tape measure and spent six minutes decides which wall the china cabinet was going on? So we thanked that individual, apologized for this not working out and found another one. And, it turns out, she was the selling agent of the previous owners of this house. They had to upgrade here in town. So here we are. Full of boxes, new door locks and so on.

All of the housing difficulties are done. The literally-going-crazy-before-our-eyes realtor representing the buyers of our old house. The logistics of getting a move done. The fired realtor here who went on and on about how they were doing you a favor, the actual realtor and her stand-in. The negotiating. The paperwork, the emotion, the finishing of the packing, the where-the-heck-is-my-charger, the making sure the cat never slipped outside. All of that is out of the way. Now, it is just us and the boxes.

And this wacky ceiling fan I most definitely did not buy at Lowe’s:

That is one wacky ceiling fan, #Lowes, and I bet not a lot of them are sold. #boomerang

A video posted by Kenny Smith (@kennydsmith) on Jun 1, 2016 at 5:12pm PDT