Life Since June

As my June 2019 post indicated, I’ve been focused much more on living life than photographing or writing about it.

Did I mention it here?  In June, for my wife’s birthday, I got it into my head to bake her a cake.  She requested a cherry chip cake made from scratch.  I ended up more assisting her than making it myself, but she was pleased.  It was good enough to eat.

Frosting also from scratch

Turned out the cake was edible

In July, my family and I motored north to my wife’s family farm in Indiana (I always hate writing ‘in Indiana’ but this time will not find another way to present that data) where my wife was briefly reabsorbed by her family, I spent a lot of time bicycling, and our son hung out with and bonded with his cousins.  I crashed or fell off my bike twice in the same day injuring a different shoulder each time and am still feeling the residual effects of one of the injuries.  Both falls were stupid and each was my own fault – while annoying, that truth actually does help me accept the ongoing pain.   Rode to Muncie, Prairie Creek Reservoir, small municipalities thereabouts.  I saw what looked like a heroes’-gate shrine of some sort.  No hero this writer, I didn’t walk through the gate although I found it open.

Indiana chip and seal road

Nazarene church parking lot where I crashed the first time.  Don’t ask.

Muncie Chic-Fil-A.  I eat there every year.

Only one graffiti snapshot.  Grassroots Christianity is an interesting phenomenon.

Patriotic display in a poor community.  I really liked it.

Heroes’ gate

Sometime during the intervening months, my car hit 222,222 miles, but I snapped the odometer photo at 222,223 – missed it by that much.

Missed it by that much…

Last month, my son and I finally painted the mailbox’s weathered, white wooden post.  My mother has averted her eyes in shame the past 5 – 6 years when she’s come over to the house to visit due to the deficient pride in ownership that neglect has evidenced.  The month before, I finally finished sanding out the damage perpetrated by our yard’s squirrels upon three of my 2005 Pouch RZ96’s cockpit ribs.  I’d left the kayak assembled outdoors and neglected it during a dark period in my life when I worked in an agency maybe best described as the unfortunate-kid-from-the-dysfunctional-family-down-the-street of law enforcement.  About three weeks ago, I re-varnished the squirrel damaged ribs.

I’ve been writing out my thoughts and ideas – working on a conceptualization of a variety of human interaction I refer to as “Shit Room Theory.”  It’s not ready for publication yet and I’m trying to figure out how to manage a lecture on the subject for my YouTube channel.  That said, in its embryonic form, the theory’s been of help to two or three individuals facing a variety of unpleasantness.

After having been in my “new” office since March of this year, I finally last month admitted to myself I was unable to make sense of the room’s shape, its space, for the purposes of hanging my stack of artwork and arranging my furniture.  Once I’d done that, I asked a family friend if she could help me out with the office and within the space of about 4.5 hours, she’d corrected and made sense of my office’s decor – I simply followed instructions and moved things, sorted clutter.  The woman’s a genius.  If it wasn’t a breach of my company’s rules, I’d post a couple of photos to prove it.

Within a couple of days of that, a family very dear to us relocated to Helena, Montana.  Theodore Zachariades has taken a position preaching at a Reformed Baptist congregation not far from that capitol as well as working with a Christian polemics website, Pulpit & Pen.  Although I haven’t had much contact with the Theodore and his family in the past year and a half, my world feels emptier with them hundreds of miles distant.  Not gone, as the Expanded Universe Mandos have it, just marching far away.

Yesterday morning, I assembled the RZ96 and with my son’s help loaded it onto my Volvo’s roof-racks and drove to a nearby slough with a put-in at a rural city park.  I gave the boy the good water shoes and wore a many year’s old pair from Wal-Mart that tore up while we were lining the boat through shallows.  This was his first time in a kayak, and he’d been nervous because he supposed the behemoth unstable.  By day’s end, however, he was comfortable enough to stand while underway to better view the scenery.  I hope you have all been well and that you enjoy the photos.

My son saw what he referred to as a “bees’ nest.” We steered well clear of this hazard.

Second lunch stop.  Dunno whether these were piers from bygone footbridge or part of an equally past-tense dam of some sort.

In the shallows.  That’s a Klepper paddle probably my age.  We did some umbrella sailing early on.  My son didn’t think it would work and was amazed when it did.

This is how I look when I’m smiling.  Obligatory selfie.

Life is for Living

As has been the case for the last two or three years, I’ve been busier and more interested in living life with my family than I have been in writing about it.  Here’s a little of what’s been going on:

A New Bike for 76

Last Thursday, I picked up a 2005 Gary Fisher Tarpon from a Craigslist seller for my son.  He outgrew and sold off his 1990s Giant Talon 7-speed mountain bike a couple of years ago and I’ve kept the money from that to go toward a new bike.  We tried to sell on Craigslist his 1970s Columbia Challenger in ride-able, original condition but got not even one query.  I convinced my son to donate the bike to a local bicycle club’s “reCycle” program for needy kids and told him I’d combine the value of that bike with the money from the Giant.  The Tarpon cost $65 – about 20 dollars over Bicycle Blue-Book’s valuation for an ’05 Tarpon in excellent condition, but the the bike was in such good shape I wasn’t going to insult the seller by offering less than 1/3 his asking price.  At $65, the bike came in well under the $327 the original dealer receipt indicated the seller paid in 2005.

1970’s Columbia Challenger – above.

2005 Gary Fisher Tarpon – yes, I have the original seat and plan to clean it up and install it if my son decides he hates the strange, spongy seat that’s on the bike, now.

Mother’s Day Breakfast

I haven’t really learned how to cook, but I can scramble eggs and am trying to learn how to make an omelet.  I usually arise on the weekends before dawn and head to the gym, then return to the house before my family is awake and make some kind of breakfast – scrambled eggs and tortillas with salsa, for instance.  On Mother’s Day, this year, I prepared a breakfast for my wife and son consisting of scrambled eggs, sausage patties, and biscuits.  I know, three things, right?  I was able to manage preparation times so that I cleaned up as I cooked and had everything on the table at about the same time.  Family was happy with my efforts, so I’ve done this two or three times since.

Water Snake – Poisonous? Probably

Sometime close to Mother’s day, my son and I rode a local greenway and, while looking at a creek from a low bridge saw this snake.  We saw a couple of others that day, as well.

Theis Holsters

For the sake of comfort, I wish we lived in a society where open-carry was the norm.  That said, Theis Holsters serve as a relatively comfortable inside-the-waistband means to concealed-carry my pistols.  I purchased the basic leather version – EZ Clip for my FNS-9c and the Single Clip for my Glock 42.

Lunchtime Rides Continue

Since the weather’s dried up a bit – and it was about the wettest autumn and winter I can recall here in Southern Middle Tennessee – I’ve been keeping the Miyata 610 at the office and riding 3-5 miles during my lunch hours maybe three or four days a week.  Here’s the uphill view from one of the routes I take:

Mountain Goat Trail

Last Sunday morning, my son and I rode the Mountain Goat Trail at Sewanee.  This was his first ride on a Rails to Trails paved bike path, and he very much enjoyed the largely motorway-distraction-free experience, as well as the opportunity to ride through wooded sections that felt “like the middle of nowhere.”  The trail starts near Woody’s Bike Shop in Sewanee and ends at the Dollar General Store in, I think it is, Monteagle.  No more than five miles, probably closer to 4.6, each way.

The route includes a few gentle hills, maybe two secondary road crossings and one crossing at Highway 41.  Parking’s available at the Sewanee trailhead where there’s also an informational marker discussing the history of the former railroad as well as a topographical map of the trail.  At one point, there’s a 90 degree turn where the trail is constructed of wood and elevated over a declevity and around a property line.  In another place, gravel and sand tends to wash across the bike path from an adjacent gravel/sand pit or quarry – that’s the property around which the trail turns with the wooden elevation.

My son managed managed all of the trail well on his Modikoso superbike except for the gravel and clumps of sand across the path from the quarry.  He had to dismount and push the bike over it.  I rode over it on the Jamis Supernova with no real concern.  On the way back, oddly enough, we found the hazard had been, it looked like, completely washed away.  Odd, because although there’d been slight precipitation during the intervening time, nothing that would clear the trail.  Maybe somebody from the quarry hosed it down?

 

 

Bike Days

I think this last Thursday or Friday was Ride Your Bike to Work Day and last week was Bike to Work Week.  Something to do with Bike Month.  Because I work about 30 miles from the house, riding to work wasn’t something I was going to do, however, I take a bike to work most weeks, leave it there, and ride at lunch.  I’ve established three or four different routes, changing them as various subnormals* leave their pitbulls unchained in front of their domiciles.  Shooting the dogs would unnecessarily complicate my workday, so I’ve found other places to ride.  Usually about three to four miles, maybe 15 minute rides depending on headwinds.

Last Wednesday was the local bike club’s Ride of Silence to honor those who’ve been killed while cycling and to raise awareness among motorists that cyclists share the roadways with them.  I’ve ridden along on one other Ride of Silence two or three years ago and had found the experience unpleasant but one that also proved valuable in terms of insight gained.

This year, I brought my young son along because it was something he said he’d like to do.  I wanted my son to ride with me so he’d have some experience riding with a group and some safe experience riding on the street with traffic present.

This year, I’d adjusted my expectations based on my previous experience.  My son and I showed up only a little bit early.  I didn’t bother trying initiate talk with anyone beyond a distant “Hello.”  Not surprisingly, a couple of kids with whom my son’s slightly acquainted from school did not speak to him.  Three people I really like spoke to me, and it was good to see them – it’s been over a year, maybe closer to two, I think, since I last did anything with the bike club.

My son had trouble riding slowly – about nine miles per hour – and some impatience with riders ahead of him slowing unpredictably.  He did a pretty good job of keeping his bike’s wheels from overlapping those of other riders.  He found the Modikoso uncomfortable at first, and I may need to get him a bike-fit appointment one weekend soon.  Amazingly, he was able to maintain total conversational silence during the entire ride.  Afterward, back at the house, he told me it’d been VERY difficult to remain silent during the ride.  He also expressed some disappointment that our police escort rode bikes instead of the cars with flashing lights he’d expected.

Overall, this was a much better experience for me than my last Ride of Silence, because I’d adjusted my expectations regarding the other participants and because I got to ride with my son.

*EDIT: I call them subnormals not because they live in mobile homes, have several junky-looking cars parked in their driveways, possibly perform shift-work through temporary agencies at the area’s few remaining factories, or even because they have pet dogs some of which are pitbulls. I call them  subnormal because they fail to responsibly keep their animals confined.  $.02

Modikoso So Far

Turns out I was able to find components around here beyond reasonable priced.  Ancient, road-rash, big Dura-Ace crankset plus Shimano 600 side-pull brakes.  NOS 105 9-speed shifters.  Seatpost and stem purchased from the frame’s seller.  Dura-Ace 9-speed RD I already had.  Same for handlebars.  The entire thing assembled at Woody’s Bike Shop.  Bike still needs a different front fork – carbon fiber, probably.  Also junky plastic bottle cage I had in a parts bin in the garage.  This frame will never make a cyclocross bike – rear stays clearance w brakes installed allows for maximum width 28mm tires.  Panaracer Paselas 650c in that width allow for a little surface versatility, but lack of clearance contraindicates success in muddy conditions.  My son loves the bike.  Here are a few pictures of the Modikoso so far:

 

Bike Project for 76

Update: I’ll try to post some better pictures of the bike frame this week. C.

Tuesday evening I drove out Murfreesboro to buy a Modikoso bike frame for my son.  Goal is to build up a versatile cyclocross-ish bike for the boy to ride on and offroad.  I happened upon this amazing deal using SearchTempest to search multiple area Craigslist pages within however many miles of home I was willing to drive to make a purchase.  A couple of things sold me on this frame – it came with a Chris King headset that, itself, was probably worth close to what the seller was asking, and it was designed for use with 650b wheels.  A few years back, I picked up a 650b wheelset for $50 from Mike at Elon Bike Shop when I was visiting my best friend, Eric.  (See my Troi Villes Tour d’Alamance blog posts for reference as well as this post about Elon Bike Shop.)

The wheels I thought were Shimano 105s, but turns out they were Mavic Experts Mavic CXP 21s (from a distance the sticker looked like it said Expert) with a 105 9 speed cassette.  I’ve got good condition Dura Ace front and rear derailleurs I got around the same time at a local sale for a few dollars.  Now, the big things I need are fork, seatpost, appropriately sized stem, handlebars, crankset and shift/brake levers.  And chain.  And cables. And pedals.  Tires and tubes should be no problem.  Those that came with the tires are old and unsuitable for the use I think this bike will get.

The frame’s seller told me she’d set it up for time-trials.  While I have only the vaguest idea what that is, that Kinesis Air Foil front fork looks like it was designed for riding fast in a straight line on intact, smooth pavement.  Thing I’m trying to figure out is whether the Kinesis fork has to be replaced with a 650b-specific fork or whether a more standard and more easily obtainable 700c fork will work.

Here are a few more photos of the Modikoso:

On another note, here’s something I drew goofing around with Sketchbook, I think it’s called, on an Ipad:

Better Motivation, Thanksgiving, Living an Ordinary Life in an Ordinary Way.

Motivation

For about the past three or four weeks, on weekends, I’ve been consistently getting up around 4:00 am and either riding my bike or driving to the gym Saturdays and Sundays.  Been a little hit or miss before that.  No idea why I’ve had better motivation recently than formerly.  My doctor told me about a year ago I should concentrate on strengthening my back and rotator-cuffs to alleviate bilateral shoulder pain he attributed, in part, to having overdeveloped my pectorals.  But to look at me, you wouldn’t think so.   Still, I’ve complied with his advice and my posture has improved as well as, a little bit, that shoulder pain.

My workouts have lasted about an hour and a half, and I incorporate legs and abs, some tricep and chest, with my primary lat, back, and bicep work.  Am I a glorious specimen of beautiful middle-aged masculinity?  Not so much, although I feel better – it’s good to feel strong.   I’m gaining weight, but my clothes still fit, so some of that must be muscle.

Thanksgiving

This was our year to spend Thanksgiving with my wife’s family but we stayed home for the holiday because of my work schedule.  We spent a really pleasant day with my family, instead.  Friday, my wife finished decorating the house for Christmas and my son and I went for a bike ride around the neighborhoods.  We stopped by and visited my godparents and then rode home when the boy looked like he was about to fall asleep.  He’s not ridden much over the past couple of months, so he had a hard time riding back up hill.

Ordinary

By some miracle or fluke of predestination and providence, I turned out not to be a complete monster.  I’ve written in this space, at some time or other, that for me or someone like me, the great adventure is to live the ordinary life in an ordinary way.  You can probably not grasp how unimaginable an outcome that seemed for me when I was young or how much joy it brings me now.  It’s what I’m daily most thankful for – my wife, son, our health, meaningful work for both my wife and myself, a modest house in a modest neighborhood, self-directed recreational activities like cycling, paddling, strength training, reading, a small and extremely Calvinistic congregation where we are accepted and maybe for the most part liked and to which we contribute by participation, prayers, offerings.  Also my extended family – much more important to me now in middle age than it seemed when I was a young man.

I have a lot to be grateful for and I hope you do, too.

5 Years a Cyclist

Back in the summer of 2015, I was averaging about a hundred miles a week and I was still the slowest guy in the bike club on group rides, no matter what bike I rode.  Later in the season, just before Fall, I started getting sick. Like a knucklehead, I googled my symptoms and came up with viral spinal meningitis.  My doctor’s nurse practitioner diagnosed instead seasonal allergic rhinitis.  I still think I was probably right, but whatever the problem was, I got over it.  Still, the pounding heart thing while riding abrupt and steep (for me) hills niggled at the back of my mind.  In 2016, about a year later, painful irregular heartbeats occurring at least once a day prompted a lot of diagnostic procedures by a good cardiologist in a neighboring county.  Turns out at some time or other, I’d had a heart attack but damage was not too bad and my arteries were clear.

Anyway, after Fall of 2015, I quit riding for a while and then started again riding only for fun.  I think this year my longest ride’s been about 22-24 miles.

This year, I’ve got a new solo kayak, have taken my son paddling a couple of times, have started working out at a local gymnasium, and continue to ride most weekdays from work at lunch with a few after work and weekend rides.  My son still doesn’t enjoy riding for exercise – mostly, he wants to ride to a destination for nerf-gun war or in hopes of finding a disc some cannabis use disordered frisbee-golfer has lost.

Here’re a couple of photos from 2016 – the cotton field picture is from a lunch ride while I was working in a rural Southern Middle Tennessee county; the dredge photo’s taken beside a small, decorative lake that’s got clogged up with mud and lily pads.

 

Early Mornings but Little Motivation

I got up around 4:00 a.m. this morning and yesterday morning planning to get a cup of coffee and ride my bike to the gym, but instead, both yesterday and today, I had my coffee and read the news.  This morning I think I will work out here at the house, but yesterday I engaged in no fitness activities whatsoever.  Did some other stuff like help out a neighbor and attend my son’s first soccer game of the season, then socialized with other parents afterward at the local Chic-fil-A restaurant.  I almost never socialize with anyone, but sort of enjoyed the time I spent with both my own family and others from the sportsfield group.

My wife, who earlier in the morning looked after her friend’s three young children d/t a family emergency, wanted me to check an email we received to determine whether we’d had our data compromised in the recent Equifax data breach and I got side-tracked deleting some 2200 emails from the family email account my wife uses.  There’re probably about that many more that need purged.  No, we didn’t get any Equifax notification.

Finally, I tore myself away from the computer and drove out to my mechanic’s garage on the off-chance that he’d be there working on a Saturday.  He often does work Saturdays and holidays, but doesn’t answer the phone on those days.  The car I’ve been driving since my green ’98 XC70 was totaled last summer by a young woman who had lterally gone off her meds a week or two prior to the wreck.

Apparently some previous owner had a mechanic (or did it himself) who hard-wired one of the low-been headlight bulbs.  Now, after seven years, it’s gone out.  I ordered some replacement bulbs to change them out, myself, but found yesterday morning the wired-in problem.  Hence the need for professional intervention.  I may drive out the garage again, today, because the place was closed up when I got there, yesterday.

On the way back to the house, I stopped at a produce stand and got my wife some tomatoes for BLT sandwiches.  Our backyard garden hasn’t produced much.  Three green tomatoes out there, now.  Not much else besides, although the various plants seem to be okay.  About a 30 mile round trip, but not completely wasted.  I hate driving around with a headlight out – it feels shameful not having something that basic tended to.

Did I mention I’ve been reading a lot, this year?  Mostly Star Wars “Legends” novels – way more entertaining than the lame SJW-inspired Disney sponsored novels that are now, supposedly, “canon.”  By “reading a lot” I mean wasting a lot of time reading novels like some people eat candy.  My mind is probably getting fat and lazy and my brain fit for maybe the glass-jar equivalent of soft, fast-food and ice-cream stained couch.  Did I mention I had a milk-shake yesterday at lunch.  See?  It’s not just my brain that’s deteriorating here.

My wife reports my son has complained that I’ve been spending too much time reading and not enough time playing with him – hunting each other with Nerf guns outside Son-on-Scooter versus Dad-on-Foot dodge-the-scooter driveway game; backyard target shooting with the Tippman 98 (ours has been modified for killing grackles); building with Lego blocks, etc.  So, late yesterday afternoon when my son was too worn out from a day playing soccer and running around outside with friends while watching other teams’ games, I got another Mojang account so he and I could multi-play Minecraft on our LAN.  THAT was pretty time-consuming.

Next week, I’m scheduled to preach at our congregation’s worship meeting.  I don’t think I’m very good at that kind of speaking.

I think part of what’s getting in the way of my preferred leisure activities is that I know I’ve got two or three responsibilities I’ve got to carry out and have been procrastinating about getting them done.  That’s weighing on me and obstructing the clarity of purpose and function that equals motivation I seem to’ve been lacking recently.  To the good, I haven’t been binge-watching series on Netflix.

That’s all for today.

 

Barren Fork River Float, McMinnville, Tenn.

Last Sunday, my son and I skipped church and floated the Barren Fork River through McMinnville in Warren County.  We put in at Smooth Rapids (who shuttled us back for about $11.00) and took out at a concrete ramp in the VFW parking lot – a downstream journey of about six miles.  Another father and son team paddled with us; the kids threw rocks in the water, talked, went for a swim, shared snacks.  After we got back to the outfitters and put the canoe back on the Cross Country, we had a pretty good lunch at the restaurant the outfitter operates overlooking the riverside launch point.  Here are some pictures – I’ll add a few more later as I noticed none of those I’ve posted below are particularly good representations of the river as seen while paddling downstream.

We saw at least three guys paddling sit-on-top purpose designed fishing kayaks not too far downstream from Smooth Rapids put in, and tried to keep our noise to a minimum until we got past.  Much later on, we saw three or four guys in what looked like an Oregon drift-boat (only with an outboard motor) – they were also fishing.

We saw numerous turtles along our route sunning themselves on logs.

Some rocky cliff faces with undercuts, as above, in many places to our left as we paddled downstream.

A lot of this kind of water grass we saw during the entirety of our trip downstream.

Got out of the canoes here so the kids could swim and throw rocks into the water. It was here that we picked up a number of rocks, and piled them in the boats so the boys could throw them when we continued.  Easy fun, and I was happy to note they didn’t throw them at each other.

Here’s where the Collins River meets the Barren Fork River.  On the map, the stream’s marked Collins River past this point.

This point is not too far from the VFW parking lot take out.