Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Snow day

It snowed, as forecast.

Not that you’d doubt it, because you’re trusting souls. And I, being forthright with the readers here, have given no reason for you to not believe me. But maybe you haven’t seen snow in a while. Here is a bit of hastily gather evidence from this morning.

We enjoyed chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, as is the snowy tradition.

By last night, we were hoping for snow just to have the pancakes.

It was a pleasant sight, and not nearly as bad as anticipated. The birds are out eating seeds. The roads are more quiet. Much of everything is closed for the day. The power never blinked. My kind of terror dome.

This afternoon, when the snow had finally exhausted itself, we went out to shovel the driveway.

Oh, I prepared the snow blower, but we only had three, maybe four inches of snow. That didn’t seem worth putting oil and gas in the blower, honestly. So I shoveled the sidewalk before my lovely bride realized it, and had gotten started on the driveway when she came outside. So we did that.

Then I looked over at our elderly neighbor’s driveway. It was cleaned. And then I thought, you know, another of our neighbors is out of town right now. Won’t be back until tomorrow, and has two or three new joints. Maybe that person shouldn’t be out there shoveling day old snow after a week of transnational travel. So we shoveled that driveway, too.

I thought it’d be a nice surprise. A nice mystery. But I looked up, and they have a camera covering the driveway, of course. Technology.

Once again in our yard, I did a quick inspection for snow related issues and noted the patio table, with some delight.

For some reason I want waffle fries now, though.

And that’s been today. Tomorrow will be different.

Ten years ago today, we were doing this …

Reading as we lazily sailed to the south Caribbean.

We might have been smarter in 2015 than we are today.

cycling / Friday / photo — No comments
03
Jan 25

A furry Friday

New year, still the same features which we will start easing back into in the coming weeks. Of course, we can never overlook the site’s most popular weekly feature, checking in on the kitties.

I caught Phoebe here in a little moment of silly. She has three speeds — affectionate, intense relaxation, silly — and it’s that last one that’s perhaps the most difficult to capture. It’s a little fleeting, and she doesn’t show it off except in just the right circumstance. This, I guess, was one of those moments.

I’ve come to think of it as the cats are petting me back when they do things like this.

And, as Poseidon is demonstrating there, they do that quite often. There’s a lot of affection around here.

I made myself get on the bike this evening. That’s the right verb for it, too. Finally I got talked into a little round of a light spin, and then see how it felt. And, after about 11 miles, it felt pretty good. So I started pedaling a bit harder and faster. I did nine more miles and stayed ahead of everyone who was likewise in the Zwift virtual world.

Nothing of them knew we were racing, but that’s really their fault, isn’t it?

So I’ll probably sit around like a slug this weekend and watch football and do a little work and then get back to spinning the back wheel of my bike and going nowhere fast sometime next week.

Already, I’m behind on my mileage spreadsheet.

cycling / Thursday — No comments
02
Jan 25

It has no title as yet

I’m working on this essay, and I can’t decide if it should be serious, or if it should be humorous, or if I am able to thread the needle.

This is all the head work, the biggest part of the process. It doesn’t emerge fully formed, but it coalesces in my mind before I start to type. Then, when I finally do sit down at the keyboard, I just add in the typos, and a little more context than anyone would want. I have a lot of source material to draw from, in this particular case, and it’s all serious. But I want to be mindful of not being a clucking do-gooder with too much serious tone. Heavy tone probably ruins the point. Who wants to read that guy. Also, there’s going to be an issue of understanding in this piece that’s now coming together in my mind. While I’ve been assembling likes and anecdotes and research on it for some time, I am close to overthinking it. Which means it is almost time to put typos to ideas, and out-of-context notions within the confines of the context.

What I think I’m saying is that I need a better writing process. And also about 36 hours in each day. And two unflappable copy editors.

A funny thing happened today. I rode my bike on the trainer. Hated every second of it. One day off, I guess, was not a sufficient recovery from overdoing it last week. So I stopped at 15 miles and resigned myself to trying again tomorrow. Maybe. If I feel like it.

It could be the basement view. It might be the many steps to get back up after a ride. It could be that I haven’t fueled well these last several days.

Whatever it is, I need to get better at it. And soon.

Anyway, there wasn’t much more to today, a day which crept up to 43 degrees, which will be something we can’t say again until mid-February at the earliest. I think this is the year I will utilize the 38-and-under protocol I implemented when we moved north. Roughly, the wording of that agreement said, when it gets to 38 degrees, I don’t have to go outside for anything non-work related if I don’t want to.

Also, there’s a winter storm coming this weekend. So I’ll be outside shoveling snow at some point in the next few days. But, after that, the 38-degree protocol will be observed.

Don’t read that as grouchy, but rather, pragmatic. Much the same as many of us heard from our parents about how there’s nothing good that happens after midnight, nothing important is going to be going on outside at 37 degrees, or colder, either.

Cheery pragmatism, with a great degree charm.

cycling / site / Wednesday — No comments
01
Jan 25

Happy New Year

We brought in the new year in the same way we have the last two years, counting down the seconds, riding our bikes on the trainers. Doing something three times makes it a tradition, right?

They were just a few symbolic miles, almost soft-pedaled. I was cooked. But, after consecutive days of 54, 58, 64 and, finally, 56 total miles last night, my year on the bike ended like this.

That’s a new PR, in terms of miles, be it ever so humble. December also became my second largest month ever (second only to February) despite no rides in the first two week. For the year, February, September, October and December are the most prolific of each of those months in the last 14 years. In 2024, I rode around the circumference of the planet — at this latitude, anyway.

I’ll complete my first trip around the equator, distance wise, in the next month or two.

None of these numbers mean anything, beyond the context of my spreadsheet.

Speaking of spreadsheets, I did the regular file deleting and updating of things today. One of those things that gets updated each month is a spreadsheet on site traffic. Last year we had almost three-quarters of a million site visits. Who knows why. It was the best year ever, and a 12 percent increase over 2023. Some of those were even people, and not bots. Whatever brought you by, I’m glad you’ve visited. Please come back around again.

Also today, in the process of doing the monthly computer chores, I added one banner here on the blog. (You know those rotate, right? The one on the top and the one on the bottom change each time you load or refresh the page. You knew that, right? You also knew there was a banner on the bottom too, right? Because you read the entire page every time you come by. There’s only five posts per page, and that’s not too much to ask.)

Anyway, now included in the rotation at the bottom page, something I saw at the Museum of the American Revolution two weeks ago.

Let us hope that’s a perpetual sentiment.

Happy New Year!

cycling / Tuesday — No comments
31
Dec 24

So much bike riding

Fifty-four miles on Saturday. Fifty-eight miles on Sunday night.

A metric century yesterday.

Fifty-three miles today.

That’s a lot for me. A lot of time staring at the basement, too.