Canyon

I'm not really what you'd call an outdoorsman.  It's not that I don't like the outdoors, mind you -- cycling, hiking, kayaking, canoeing, sailing, tree climbing, exploring... there are tons of things I like to do out there.  But as I said in my last post, I don't have one of those hiking goals you sometimes find among people you know, and back when I was a scout (I was a Cub Scout of the various grades, and a Webelo, but punched out of the Boy Scouts after one meeting), I never really went for the whole camping thing.  I enjoy an occasional night in a tent and with a camp stove, but you won't catch me out there every weekend or anything like that.  I don't like having stuff stuck to my feet, maybe -- sand, evergreen needles, etc.  Think what you will. 

That aside, as I was discussing (virtually) with a friend of mine, today, I do appreciate the diversity of the landscapes of our planet -- or even just the continent I call home.  Coming from New England, I've found the dry hills of northern California, the flatness of Florida, the glaciers of the Canadian Rockies and the deserts, buttes and canyons of the American southwest just fascinating.  And I've had the chance to see some amazing stuff out west -- Bryce and Zion, Moab and Sedona, Yosemite and the Columbia River Gorge.  And twice, now, the Grand Canyon.

It's an incredible place, if you haven't been.  I've posted a few pictures, here, rather than try to describe it.  Its vastness is impossible to comprehend through photographs.  Most of the big features in any of these pictures are miles away.  Even stuff up close is out of snowball's reach (I checked that).  And a hike to the bottom on the Bright Angel trail you can see in these shots is something like 17 miles.

This week I spent a fair bit of time thinking through some letting go I need to do -- really painful stuff that I've tried hard to avoid for a year.  And I've got more coming in the next few months, which I mostly haven't been trying to avoid.  All of it necessary to getting on with life, none of it easy, and some of it impossibly hard.  I'd like to be able to tell you that the trip to the canyon made everything easier -- that the vastness of the place and the geologic time scale made all of the hard stuff I've been wrestling with seem unimportant.  But I can't lie like that.  It's an incredible place that inspired awe over and over again, simply by shifting my location or casting my gaze in a different direction.  But it's just a place.  It doesn't make things go away, and it doesn't make them easier or hurt less.  Even so, it's good to get a dose of awe, and a pair of 3-hour hikes equals six useful hours of thinking time.

The last time I was at the canyon, I hiked to the bottom with my ex, and it was a good and memorable experience.  This time, the canyon received snow just before my arrival, which lent the south rim a different feel than it had the last time.  I didn't have the right gear to hike down in, or enough time to get very far, so I just hiked the rim, in both directions from the Bright Angel lodge -- one per day.  It would have been nice to get down in there, but my only real regret is that I didn't have someone to share the experience with.  Rather than swapping impressions, I spent last night reading Hemingway.  Good, but not as uplifting.  Maybe next time.

Back to bikes next week -- I promise.  I'll be finishing the fitting work on Juli's Schwinn, and doing the overhauling work on my friend Carol's Fuji (possibly with her husband and son), and hopefully(!) getting in some outdoor miles on the Motobecane.  Maybe Juli will even get to test out her new bike?  Time will tell.

All for now,

J

Living in Service

The kitchen will be done today, and the roof wires will be back on the roof where they belong.  The kitchen looks fantastic, by the way, in red and white.  Then the house will go on the market, again, next week.  I'll still have to do the pantry, and replace and prime/paint a few rotten boards on a fence gate.  And if I were to get started on a list of "shoulds" for the house, the list starts getting pretty long.  And that's just indoor stuff -- by May I'm going to have to start cutting the grass again.

I'd kind of lost sight of how home ownership essentially means living in service to a building.  That's no way to live, and it's something I have to be more vigilant about.  I grew up working and watching my parents work around their place rather than getting out and exploring, and that experience is definitely part of my core.  Just look at my last post:  It's about painting and finding the bright side of something that that I know full well is devoring time I should be spending doing other stuff.  Bad habits.

While I was priming molding this morning, I realized that I've never really had a lifestyle "dream".  There are things I like to do, yeah, but I don't have a "climb all 10 peaks higher than X feet in North America" sort of thing that's guided my path.  Most of my goals have been centered around stuff, or work.  Apart from my kids, cycling is probably the closest thing I have to a lifestyle locus.  It's a good one, but it's not clear to me that there's a path to personal exploration and growth that stems from bicycles.

So what do I do about all of this?  Getting out of this house will be a great start, and with any luck I'll be moving this summer.  From there, I'll need to make time to explore new places and spaces, both with and without the girls, to see what feels right.  The potential for fun is tremendous, of course, but the challenge feels strangely daunting, too.  Habits are hard to change, after all.  But it seems really important that I focus on this one.

I had 7 resolutions this year, and I'm doing pretty well against them.  They weren't unimportant or minor things at all, but given the realization this little post is wrapped around, it feels like I missed a pretty important one.  I guess it's never too late to add -- or maybe just reaffirm -- an eighth.

All for now,

J

Color

The kitchen project is moving along.  Slowly, but moving.  The walls have come out smoother than I'd any right to expect them to, and the gray primer on the walls right now makes the kitchen look very different than it has in the 12 years I've (mostly) lived in the house.  The stained and polyurethaned wainscotting, trim and doors will be painted white to match the rest of the house, and the walls will be red.

Every time I paint a room, I ask myself why I don't paint rooms more often.  A room with a fresh change of color remains a little treat to the eyes long after the color should cease to surprise.  That compounded treat is well worth the time spent painting, and the process of emptying and refilling offers a great opportunity to purge crap, as well.

12 years in this house, and I've painted 4 rooms, the front hall, and the three secondary stairwells. Also, both bathrooms have been re-papered and otherwise redecorated.  Now the kitchen and pantry.  And that leaves the dining room, parlor and master bedroom untouched.  Anyway, that's not so bad, numerically, but it's still a third of the rooms unchanged since I moved in.  Seems odd, when I look at it that way.

Note to self:  Paint my next place more often.  A little change of color can be a very good thing.

Still no progress on finishing Juli's bike -- or starting Carol's.  The weather is changing fast (I've no snow at all in my yard, now), and I need to set some time aside for that work.  But I think I'll be busy with paint for a few weekends, yet.

Happy spring everyone.

All for now,

J

All-in

I worked out on the rollers yesterday morning (21.2 over 15 miles), but am not going to today. I've been working on my kitchen the past couple of days.  Just a quick spruce-up before I re-list the house in April.  The trim is down, the wallpaper is down, and now I'm patching the walls up, and replacing sections of the wall where the horse hair plaster has come away from the lath.  Then the whole kitchen will be freshly painted, and that'll be that.  Except that I have to do the same to the pantry.  Either way, it's not a huge amount of work, and my hope is that it'll make a difference in selling the place.

I was completely exhausted last night and had a hard time getting up this morning -- thus the no riding today. Working in the kitchen is giving me plenty of exercise, and I don't want to fall asleep at dinner tonight (going out with a friend in Cambridge -- it's restaurant week in Boston).  I may tackle a couple of bike projects if I have time though.  Just quick ones -- trim down Juli's kickstand, mount the rack and bottle cage holder on her Schwinn, etc. The snow is melting very quickly, now, and we may have a weekend soon where an outdoor family ride will make sense!

While I've been working, I've had a lot of head time.  And one thing I took away from yesterday is that I don't like working on my house anymore.  Most of my house projects over the past dozen years have been solo, but I didn't mind so much when I was married -- first, because I was working towards making house better for us, and then later because it was an escape.  But I'm only working on the house now to make it more appealing to someone else, which isn't nearly as much fun.

But apart from grumbling to myself about the house, I've been mulling over the notion of being all-in.  I'm not all-in to the house, because I'm essentially waiting to leave it behind me.  And I've realized that I haven't been all-in to other aspects of my life for a while, either.  Instead, I think I've been waiting for something.  For my next thing to come along, maybe.  For Allyson to come back.  For the house to sell, as I've said, or for the divorce to finalize.  Waiting is a very passive activity.  Not all-in at all.

And that's not really like me.  I've always been a fairly intense person, and I've lived/worked/played with intensity.  Not self-destructively, just intensely, and I generally throw myself into whatever it is that I'm doing, working to exhaustion and starting over the next day.  But not lately.

I understand how I got where I've been, and I do think I've made great strides this year to upping the intensity back to where I'm used to it being.  I feel much more in life, now, than out of it.  And that's good, because being all-in is the only mode I've ever been happy in.  This waiting bit has really sucked, by comparison.  Even more than that, the others in my life need me to be all-in.  My kids, my friends, my employer, my dog, all the women I've been meeting out for dates -- everyone.  They don't need someone taking up space, they need an active participant -- someone ready to give it (whatever "it" is, in each case) their all.  If I can't do that, why bother?

Last May, I realized I needed to start living again.  And now 9 months later I think I've figured out that it's not just about living -- it's also about how I live.  Let's see if I can do a little better than that in turning up the intensity...

All for now,

J

Five Weeks Gone

Gosh, where did February go?  One minute I was talking about fox words, and suddenly it's March.  So what have I been doing with myself?

• Riding:  Well, indoors.  And not as much as I'd like.  Still, the activity has been good, and I've logged 20.8 mph average speed sessions both of the past two Saturdays.  I hope to match that tomorrow and Sunday.  My left knee complains, but not as badly as last year -- not at all.
• Fretting:  We had a ton of snow in January and early February, and ice dams and their consequences have been on my mind.  One of my sets of anti-ice dam wires was ripped off the roof.  By falling ice, I believe.  I have some indoor and outdoor repairs to do, now, that I hadn't planned on.  It happens...
• Dating:  I've met some really nice women, and had some nice evenings out.
• Hosting:  I've hosted friends for my first dinner party since I moved back into my house nearly two years ago.  I was exhausted, but I enjoyed the cooking, the company and the sharing of food and wine.  The exhausted part came from some travel (still pretty tired, but my sleep schedule is back to normal), but it was still great fun, and it feels good to continue making connections and expanding my social circle.
• Traveling:  I've been to France on a business trip, and taken a quick trip to Versailles while there.  I've said it before and probably will again -- it's no wonder they cut Louis' head off.  The place is obscene.  I really enjoy working with folks at our French HQ, too.  There's a different dynamic, but it's interesting learning the ropes.  And though they operate differently than the organization I'm part of, it's not worse -- just different.
• Tinkering:  I've picked up another bike project!  More on that another time, but it's really just a simple bearing overhaul for a friend's wife.  This is her High School bike.  Nothing fancy -- a Fuji and more or less equivalent to Juli's Fuji, but a perfectly serviceable all-rounder.  She's an athlete, and should get a sportier bike for the triathlons she does, but this'd be a great bike for a rack and a basket for family duty.
• Renovating:  I've made some progress on some house projects, getting the place ready (again) to go on the market again (again).  Fun stuff, in the sense that I haven't done anything of the sort in a good while, and possibly not too much work.  Possibly.
• Contributing:  I've signed up for the PMC, and now have to a) get in shape, and b) raise a pile of cash.  Yeah, I'm fast on my trainer, but that's not going to translate into stamina and speed on a 160 mile ride.
• Thinking:  I've given a lot of thought to where I am, how I got here, what I need and what the people in my life mean to me and why.  And I feel pretty good, honestly.  One important realization in all of that was that having different social goals for myself doesn't mean changing my standards or expectations (of myself or others) -- it just means living within those standards to different goals.  And my heart is big enough to care for lots of different people in lots of different ways, I think.  The exploration has been fun so far (see the dating comment above), and I'd like to think it'll remain so.
• Parenting:  They're always there.  And they're wonderful.  And I think they're going to be OK, honestly.
• Working:  Too much to do.  Not enough time.  No different than most anyone, I know.

11 months ago this Sunday, I drove home from NJ, hopped on my bike on a 70-degree day and later walked Jake in shorts and flip-flops.  Time flies, as they say.  I'll try to get more up here in March.

All for now,

J

Words

Language is something that fascinates me.  Not to the extent that machines do, mind, but still a lot.

I like words.  I like finding out what they mean, and from whence they came.  I like seeing the cross-pollination of other languages into English, and being able to recognize something in English that's obviously French (or otherwise Latin) or German in origin.  I don't much have the patience for learning new languages, but wish my French and Italian were better.  I like playing Scrabble, and thanks to one of the most important people in my life, I always seem to have a game of its clone (Words on the iPhone) moving slowly forward.

I have a friend on Facebook (old colleague) who posts a daily word, pronunciation and definition on his wall.  It's possibly a Facebook app, but whatever the source, it's very cool.  And thanks to EJ, today I have a new favorite word:  Vulpine.

Vulpes means fox in Latin, and it's clear that we didn't get fox in our version of English from the Latin.  Vixen, though (and that's a fox word you'll all recognize), is Middle English for a female fox.  Vix, in the same tongue, is a male fox.  Fuchs is fox in German.  Pretend you're really drunk on mead or scotch and that you speak both Middle English and German and sometimes get confused about what language to use, from all the drinking and being oppressed, and you can see where our word fox came from.  That's hardly a scientific analysis, but the linkages are obvious, whatever the actual evolutionary flow.

Just as a gratuitous cycling tie-in:  Volpe means fox in Italian, and you have to say it with an Italian accent or you're missing out one of life's small pleasures.  Not with a silent e, like volt with a p on the end.  Rather with a stretched out and full-mouthed first syllable, and a definitely-not-silent Italian e at the end -- vohl-peh.  Bianchi has or had a bike called the Volpe.  Nothing fancy, really -- just a welded steel road bike with basic components.

So back to my new favorite word:  From vulpes springs vulpine, meaning cunning or fox-like.  Say it with me (this time in English):  Vool-peen.  Fills the mouth like a sip of red wine, I think.  Something sharp and Tuscan.  Vulpine...  Not far from lupine, which might describe my friend snoozing on the rug over there -- though more in the genetic sense than in temperament.

Vulpine...  Fabulous!  Anyway, I like words.

All for now,

J

Winter Routine

I broke through 200 winter training miles this morning.  I'd hit 95 just before the holidays (spread over 7 rides), and then almost doubled that over the two holiday weekends by riding 15 miles five times.  Between travel and messing up my back, January has been a low-mileage month, and I've only put 45 miles on since, for a grand total of 205.

Today, my average speed was 19.1, which is up from the 18.8 of two weeks ago, before I messed my back up.  Tomorrow's 15 miles will be logged in the next-smaller cog, and will get me to 220 miles.  With any luck, I'll start February strong with a two-ride weekend, which'll get me to 250 miles.  No more math -- promise.  Then I'm off to France for a week, I think, the second week in Feb.  But without a bike.

I'd hoped to log some additional training miles mid-week on a consistent basis (every Weds AM), but between catching up on work, Skyping with friends, being a dad and trying to build a new social life (with some success, I'd add), it's hard to find time to ride.  It makes me wonder how many miles I'll be able to log next summer.  I'm going to be training for the PMC, so I'll have to find some time somewhere!

The truth, though, is that indoor miles are tedious.  Even with my iPhone to listen to and maps and postcards on the wall opposite my riding stall to look at, it's hard not to get bored.  Rather than looking forward to a particular straight, climb or descent, the head game becomes one of "OK, that's 3 miles, just 4 more sets of those and I'm done", which itself gets boring too.  I also try to figure out on the fly the average song length in terms of miles.  So far it seems like about 1.3 miles, but some are more like 1 and others more like 2.  That's all math -- sorry.

I've made a sort of pact with myself not to spend much money on bikes this year, so I'm not even doing a lot of wrenching right now.  Juli's bike project is on sort of a hiatus for now, but I do need to spend some time fitting the rack and other accessories to it, soon.  I also need to buy myself some toe clips (both bikes) because having my feet flip forward off the pedals has long since gotten old.  And today I noticed today that my rear tire is wearing very quickly on the rollers.  The front seems OK, but I'm going to need a new rear tire for sure, come April.

April!  April is what's great about this boring winter routine.  Come April, when we get the first weekend warm enough to ride, I'll be in shape and so many of the other guys out there won't be.  Last year it was fun running the guy on the Cervelo down on my old Kestrel.  This year, it'll be on a late-'70's Motobecane.  And it may be late April by the time all this snow is gone.

Can't wait.  One month gone.  Only two or three more to go.  This winter routine is boring.

All for now,

J