Do you eat hot pockets?

It was good.

And lo; the Lord provideth not only the hot pockets themselves, made of soy be they, but the means by which to heat them.

Now to find the prophesized 120v outlet...

Colorado

Work trips can be great if they involve cool factory tours.

On Friday, I was taking a tour of Kiosk, the company that manufactures the B-cycle stations.
They do good work, and I'm confident that if things get screwed up with the launch, it will not be for lack of preparation on their part.

Last night in the mole hole.

Last night was the last time we will ever sleep in the Mole street house. It was the first house we bought nearly 9 years ago.

Change always makes me melancholy, this one is no different.

That is what kind of day it is.

My motivation to ski petered out around 9pm. The sake is delicious though. Now the plan is to get up early and go for a quick schuss tomorrow before work.

Wishful thinking

New years Eve, Erfurt.

I think that there is a real similarity between how the Germans and that Japanese operate. Both counties are known for their strict adherence to the rules, and a general cool demeanor. However, throw in a holiday, and all bets are off. Germans do not mess around with new years. We got off the tram at about 11:30, and watched as hordes of drunks descended upon the domplatz, or the cathedral square. Each group had somewhere between an arm full and a shopping cart full of fireworks.

For the next 2.5 hours it was like daylight.

At home with the Asa-nator

So one thing that I am too old for is back to back all night travel.

We flew into Munich and arrived on a Sunday morning, and then, since Erfurt was another 4 hours away by train, we decided to just power through and take the longer, 7 hour overnight train Sunday night so that we could arrive in time to hang out with Asa and Erika on Monday morning. This would have been fine if we had started off well rested, but coming off of jet lag and a day spent wandering in the cold, not do good.

We got to Erfurt about 7 AM, which anyone who knows my brother can tell you is simply to early to drop by his place. It is also too early to expect to check into a hotel room, so we dropped our bags at the front desk and wandered back out into the still-dark morning. Erfurt is nice in the dark, but not if you are dead tired and cold. We found a backerei and waited until the sun peeked out about 9. When we finally got to their place, Asa had gotten some eggs and coffee together and we had an awesome breakfast and caught up, and then promptly crashed and fell asleep on their bed for a few hours.

Winter in Munich

Munich was pretty but cold. We arrived early in the morning, made it through customs and then headed in to town on an immaculately maintained, spanking new train. We wandered around the city for a while and then walked through the Deutches Museum. Warm? Check. Time consuming? Check. Largest indoor exhibition of mining and mineral extraction through the ages? Check.

We also hiked up the stairs to the top of the tower to Saint Peter's Church, and admired the cold, but satisfying view.  The act of climbing the stairs had a nice warming effect as well.

This has been the first time that we have been abroad with a smart phone and data plan, and it has honestly been really nice. Navigating new cities is always hard, and particularly in Europe, where roads don't really trend to go just one cardinal direction.

Refreshment

After a looooong day and night of travel to Germany, Jennifer and I ate a super hearty Bavarian feast. Oh yeah, and some beers.

Winter games, Munich style

This was a game that we saw at the bier hall in Munich over new years. It was a while back, but I'm finally getting around to posting about our adventures. It's been a hell of a month but first things first: winter is still here and nobody does winter quite as well as the Germans.

Behold, the Erfurt Slammer

In honor of my far away family, both over seas and in the middle of the prairies, I have created the Erfurt Slammer. It consists of equal parts bourbon and gin, half a part simple syrup, a twist of grapefruit and two dashes of bitters.
It is like a sweet pinecone smoking a corn cob pipe. Delicious.

Just sitting in my fainting chair

Jennifer has been huge into The National for the past two weeks or so. We've listened to all the albums, with a particular emphasis on Trouble Will Find Me. There is a song about three quarters through the album called "Pink Rabbits" in which the narrator describes a scene where he is "just sitting in my fainting chair, drinking pink rabbits."   Epicureans that we are, we endeavored to make this poetic drink. The internet lore has it that the drink is made with strawberry Nesquick, Kahlua, and tequila. I fancied it up with some frozen strawberries blended up with sugar and milk rather than the fake drink, and I went for name brand booze.

Then we gave it a shot.

Pink, with a bite from the tequila, and an oddly comforting coffee wang, they are not nearly as bad as you might think.  Jennifer prefers hers with rum, not tequila, however. We'll let her get away with a small deviation, it's her favorite band after all.

Christmas orangeaments

Merry Christmas little house.

Guess what? Bike share!!

See that, IT'S PHILADELPHIA!

Bike share has been the question and answer to about six and a half out of seven days a week for me for the last, well, for the last year at least.  A few weeks back, the good folks at B-cycle were in town to do a test with their first run of the new stations.  This was a big deal for my office, and for me particularly, since I was responsible for helping them plan the demo.  They had two small stations brought from Colorado on the back of a truck, and then installed piece-by-piece in a set of locations about 2 miles south of our house, at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.  I was down there on a daily basis, running tours and showing off the equipment to City employees as well as friends and onlookers from our partner agencies.  The weather varied from about 60 degrees on the first day, to about 25 degrees overnight over the two weeks that they were in town.  Rain, snow, sleet and the buckets of winter crap that we expect each year greeted us and the stations.  Fortunately, bike share don't give a damn.  Thankfully, though not really surprisingly, everything went just fine.  No malfunctions, minor tweaks to be made before production, and hopefully smooth sailing.


The fun part was going over the details with the head of my department.  Rina is a bold woman, though not honestly so bold on a bicycle.  She's pledged to be ready to roll for next spring, and also pledged that I'd be fired if I took any pictures of her on a bicycle.  She rode like a champ though.  A rusty champ.

Let's see if she reads my blog.  

The Bike Share Family

See, a good one

With enough practice, I may actually get some good photos of Jennifer out of the deal.

Stuffed

As usual, it was good to be home for Thanksgiving. Ian and Natalie, Kelly and Nate, the parents and the pets. We learned a valuable lesson in traveling through Chicago Midway, pack a lunch. Not a health or tasty option to be had, though to be fair, we didn't give King Wah Chinese much of a chance. Jennifer packed a bento of rice and greens on the way out, and my mom provided us with some of her awesome enchiladas on the return trip.

The founder of the feast

Aside from the standard of beers, overeating and bb guns, we had a new kitten to play with, and fat bikes to ride. Howie the cat was about as lively and rambunctious as one could possibly hope for. Though he shredded everything in sight, it kind of made me (and to a lesser extent Jennifer) want a kitten.

Since it had snowed abut 4 inches Wednesday morning, my dad had the prescience to bring home two fat tire Charge Cooker bikes from the shop. Nothing quite as awesome as monster trucks mating with mountain bikes and making babies for us to ride on.

Natalie crushing it through the back yard

I also some time time breaking in the new camera.  We got an Olympus EM-1 last month in anticipation of our Christmas trip to Germany.  As Jennifer put it, it's the first camera we've had since our Canon F-1 where it's actually fun to take photos.  It's got great depth-of-field or 'bokeh' control. This involves a LOT of photos of my feet while sitting on the bed, but also a good number while roaming around Iowa.  There's nothing quite like the sunset over the prairies, and nothing quite like taking a gazillion pictures of it.

Anyone want a cute little row house?

Jennifer and I aren't done with the new place yet, but we are hoping that the prospect of selling the mole hole out from under ourselves will get the productive juices flowing.

There are probably a thousand things to do before we move in, but at the basic level we need a working bathroom, kitchen and bedroom. First things first.

Yesterday night saw us plan the completion of the sewer stack and the insulation and the plumbing and the paint in all the necessary rooms and a couple of the unnecessary ones. Planning for progress is a good precursor to progress.

Now we just have to sell the little house. Everyone needs a deadline right?

Babysitters

Jennifer and I are babysitting for our friends Peter and Eleanor who are busy manning (and womaning) their both at the Philly Bike Expo. It's been a while since either of us has been in charge of caring for an infant. In some ways they are easy, they do about 4 things that you have to deal with; poop, pee, get hungry and cry, and the rest of the time they just sleep.

Hazel went from furious to feasting to fast asleep in 3 minutes. This behavior would raise calls of alarm in adults, but is apparently normal for children.

It's not you, it's me

Famous breakup sessions often begin with those words.  "It's not you, it's me.   I mean, it's not that I don't like, LIKE you, but you know, I don't like, want to be around you...you know?"

Work, I'm kind of talking about you.

In one view, I'm kind of in love with the work I'm doing.  I'm planning a bike share system for my city, Philadelphia, and I'm doing a great job at it.  From the specifics of where each station will go, to the graphics on the bikes, to the cost of the rides, to the way that we present the program to the public, I'm in it.  That's awesome.  So awesome in fact that I end up putting a lot of myself into the work (it's bikes plus city planning, how could I NOT).  I care a whole lot about the project and I want it to succeed.  I want to do my absolute best every day, because I think that what I'm doing is going to change the face of the city, and to do so for the better.  Again, that's awesome.

Well actually, I want to do better than my best, I want to do the best that anyone has ever done.  I don't want to make a mistake, I don't want to forget anything, I don't want to leave anyone unconvinced or unsatisfied or unanswered.  And there's your problem, folks.

And that's why it's not you, it's me.

Best is a superlative, and based on my recollection of middle school english class, it is impossible to more best, more perfect, or more invincible.  My brain has known that since I was 14, but for some reason my heart and guts are still not quite on board.  For whatever reason, the seemingly disorganized, lackadaisical Ritz clan has got quite a bit of drive in it.  Something or other is flogging me pretty hard from inside to make sure that I keep up, that I don't let the other kids get ahead of me. It doesn't really kick in around the house (who cares who the best dishwasher is) and it doesn't really make much of a difference to me in my wallet (so what if I make a lot of money, you can't take it with you) but it REALLY makes a difference to me when we're talking about that core concept of Aaron = awesome bike guy.

So this has been a learning year for me.  Thankfully, most years have been learning years.  I don't think I've gotten any dumber over each of the last 35 orbits of our planet around its star, but 2014 will stand out for a while as the time when I figured out how to work on something to my utmost.  With the possible exception of March, every month for the past 12, I have worked harder than the last.  I have spent more time, and psychic energy on the program, and I've survived it all.  I can't honestly say that I have enjoyed it, but given my natural propensity to screw off, procrastinate and winge, it's kind of a jolt to look at the amount of things we've accomplished in the past year.  Last November, I'd just put the finishing touches on the RFP that set us down this road.  I'm now in it to my eyeballs, and working my ass off, and wondering where the year went.

It certainly didn't end up in blog posts.  Most of them would have been something like, "So fucking busy, can't write much" and so they just haven't existed.  But Jennifer forwarded me something that she dug up from the japan years that reminded me how valuable the blog has been for me in recording some key points in my life.  I will make amends with the blog, I will post more, and more often.  Hopefully it will be more thoughtful than the weenie posts that have dominated this forum of late.  It's crazy to think that an online journal, readily accessible to everyone, would feel somewhat private, but there you have it.  This blog is my diary, as it exists.  I'll try to make it worth reading.