{"id":573897954,"date":"2025-05-02T21:40:28","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T01:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/?p=573897954"},"modified":"2025-05-17T10:18:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T14:18:48","slug":"the-fickleness-of-the-breeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/blog\/2025\/05\/02\/the-fickleness-of-the-breeze\/","title":{"rendered":"The fickleness of the breeze"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Friday! Right? Friday? Yeah. Sometimes you have to check a calendar, just to be sure. I wrapped up the week’s grading in yesterday. And I have done the updates to my computer, cleaning a month’s worth of files, creating subdirectories for May, updating site statistics in the site statistics spreadsheet.<\/p>\n

And, hey, we’re well ahead of last year’s numbers here, so thanks for that. I don’t know why people come here, but I’m glad you do. <\/p>\n

So one class wrapped up this week, and their final is due next Monday. My online class has another week-and-change to go, with a lot of work still to come. And a lot of things to grade, and then grades to submit. The next two weeks, then, are busy. A lot of sitting here staring at computer screens, plenty of little study breaks, but then right back to it. <\/p>\n

I never learned that skill young, but there’s nothing like impending deadlines to teach new skills. <\/p>\n

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I set out for a 25-mile ride after a day of sitting in front of the computer. One of the regular routes I established last year. It is a route that, on the map, is roughly shaped like a bullet, though I am not nearly as fast as.<\/p>\n

I went into town and through it, doubling back and through a crossroads that has the word “town” in its name, but it is nothing more than a red light, a farmer’s market, a gas station and a small car dealership. Then, out into the countryside. <\/p>\n

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I took a turn that sends me back to the river, but crops, woods and a few houses and developments in between. Usually this is a road that gives me five or six miles without any cars. And, once you’ve done this for a while, those experiences stand out, and you make note of them, so that you may ride them again. <\/p>\n

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When the road ends, it is time to turn right. You have a nice wide shoulder-slash-bike-lane-but-mostly-shoulder, where you can do four miles super fast, which you also make note of, and visit as often as you can. And then back on the road for home, a seven-mile stretch … into the wind. <\/p>\n

This is a mistake. The conventional wisdom is that you start into the devise a route that puts you into a headwind first, and then the tailwind on the way back. Economy of efficiency when you’re more tired. Because I was doing a rectangular route, a squishy bullet, I should have had a tailwind to start, and<\/em> a tailwind to finish. <\/p>\n

But, if you live in a place like we do, this is a challenge. Nearly an impossibility. Today, on that same road, a straight line with flags flying at regular intervals, the wind blew from every direction on the same road within 80 minutes.<\/p>\n

What even is that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s Friday! Right? Friday? Yeah. Sometimes you have to check a calendar, just to be sure. I wrapped up the week’s grading in yesterday. And I have done the updates to my computer, cleaning a month’s worth of files, creating subdirectories for May, updating site statistics in the site statistics spreadsheet. And, hey, we’re well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,14,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573897954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-friday","category-photo","category-site"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573897954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573897954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573897954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573897955,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573897954\/revisions\/573897955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573897954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573897954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573897954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}