Thank God the montage is over

While there is still a little extra bump on my collarbone, things look a lot better than this now. I can even sort of do pushups.

My shoulder looks great compared to the bike.

Busted

In the Streets Department they call them breakaway poles, but I would beg to differ.

The good news is that I don't have a zipper on my spine, the bad news is that my bones now number one more than they did Tuesday morning.  Six to eight weeks in a sling, don't know yet if I need surgery.

Looking back

Mom retired this month and has been cleaning out the closets. I am the lucky beneficiary.

Lots of pictures of my awkward teens, but some keepers.

Last year, so hot, so tired.

The day started with shaking hundreds of crickets out of our clothing at the roadside pullout where we camped.  We got water, and a breakfast of some cheese, apples and Dr. Pepper at a gas station and grocery store in Cody, Nebraska.

For lunch, we stopped in Valentine for the best salad I've ever eaten at a McDonalds.  I took a work call because we had cell service for the first time in a long time and then I attempted to rinse the sweat off of my body in the bathroom sink.  It wasn't very effective.

By the afternoon, the 20 mile per hour tailwind from the southwest had turned into a 25 mile per hour cross/headwind from the southeast and we were beat.  We sat by the side of the road for 30 minutes, saw one car, and watched a monarch butterfly flap in vain as it tried to get to Mexico.  We settled down for the night just off of Turbine Road in the one bedroom house that we rented in Springview after 100 long, hot miles. 

Lightning bug and I

Both staring at our true loves.

Return home and return home

Jennifer and I spent the last weekend in Ames for no particular occasion.  While I love the fun of being home at CHristmas or Thanksgiving with all the family in place, it was actually really great just to spend some time with my parents, see Jennifer's family and pass some time in lovely Iowa spring weather.

The general routine is to fly in late one night, crash at the McMakens and then spend the next day or so trying to maximize time with my folks.  Saturday morning I ended up working a Bike Rodeo with my dad at the Nevada (pronounced Ne-VAY-da) Police Department's spring safety fair.  A bike rodeo usually consists of a helmet giveaway, safety instruction for kids, and a couple of willing souls from a local bike shop trying to make a bunch of really crummy bikes safe enough to ride.  The Nevada Police auctioned off a bunch of bikes that they'd impounded or recovered over the years and as the morning crept onward it was clear that we were working on a bunch of refuse.  On one hand, it sucks, because people with low expectations purchase a bike for a 'good deal' and then are left with something that barely functions.  Deals are only deals when they are worth more than you paid for them.  I joked with my dad that next year he should head over a day in advance and pay the police $20 bucks to throw about half of the bikes in a dumpster.

On the other hand, this is the type of repair that I am truly excellent at.  My years working on shitty bikes at Michael's Cyclery, Grand Performance, Skunk River Cycles and Trophy Bikes prepared me well for fixing crap and fixing it fast.  I got a surprising amount of satisfaction from quickly identifying the real failings that would keep a bike from moving or stopping and then hosing it down with Tri-Flow and making it do its thing, at least to a small degree.  I am a top-shelf kludge-master.

The remainder of the day was spent hanging out with Claire, who sort of surprised everyone last minute by making the trip from Iowa City.  It was great to spend time with her and have some tasty drinks and catch up on the various craziness that is her life. Her husband is now helping one of their catering customers put together a hydroponic system on his roof in his spare time, which is nearly nil.  I can oddly identify with that.  My people are helping people, even at the expense of their own free time or sanity.

We had an oversized dinner, oversized numbers of beers and other drinks, and then had a small backyard fire in the pit that my dad had constructed from pieces of an old bed frame and the guts of a washing machine. Classic style.

Down'a Shore

In late April I rode down to Avalon, down on the Jersey shore with Colton and Nick. It was a great ride, for reasons I can't fully explain. I guess I just like to sweat. The initial tail wind was nice, and we rolled along at 24 mph much of the time.

It ended up being 110 miles in 5 hours and change. Met a fair bit of headwind and a fair number of crazy people in Atlantic city where we boarded the train back.

Locally Famous, again!

Spent the morning hanging out with my IndeBuddies and Quincy Harris from Fox 29 here in Philly.  Its amazing how easy news can be when you work with a morning show personality on a channel that you pay for advertising.

Locally Famous

I'm frequently found about town with a bike frame strapped to my back.  Usually it's something that I'm picking up or dropping off for a friend or teammate who has busted their carbon race bike.  That's exactly what happened here last month as I was delivering this to Philly Bike Smith for one of their folks.

The picture below was posted to "Philadelphia Stolen Bikes" on Facebook.

It's the little things

In preparation for having Susanna and Camilo over on Saturday, Jennifer and I finally took it upon ourselves to put the refrigerator into the lovely little nook prepared for it.  While the move itself caused the standard sort of argument that occurs when people move furniture into tight spaces, the end result was fantastic.

Friday morning, I had the unmitigated joy of reaching into the cereal shelves pulling out a box of granola, and then reaching a mere 3 feet below to open the door to the refrigerator to extract a bottle of milk. 

Fantastic!

Peppers

Jennifer found a recipe for fermented chili sauce that was mostly jalapeños, with a little salt and a little garlic thrown in. We started slicing them and knocking out the seeds, but then the air got a bit too spicy. Drastic measures were in order.

posted from Bloggeroid

Wise men sometimes

My friend and bike club teammate Kevin posted this to our list serve the other day. I didn't write it myself, but it describes a lot of what I love about my team and riding in general.

The new year is a month old and races are already being posted and trained for. We have had a blizzard - life goes on. In the hours spent in the house last weekend I thought about the the bonds that we form as a result of being connected to this crazy sport - the people we meet - the people that change us. And I suppose that's why I keep coming back every year because I know I need to be changed - that I'm missing something many things and if I just hang in one more mile I'll find at least a part of it. The ride is never truly complete. I have ridden since 1986 and there are more miles- I watched Meurig ride across the United States - there is more. Those of you that I don't know well I should know better/ those whom I think I know I do not know enough. Those who have left us are with us- on every ride which is never done.
       K.G. 

The game is afoot

It's always agonizing to prepare a resume for a new job.  There is the uncertainty of what to highlight in one's career, the endless permutations of formatting and font and all the other BS that will help your name stand tall among the pile of others just like it, vying for the same job.  It's even more agonizing to prepare a resume for a job that you already have.  There is a sense of hurt that even though you've done your best, and had success, that they may not have need of your services in the next rodeo.

Well, I got over it.  It's only fair that a new mayor can put his or her stamp on their team.  Speculation is rife in the office and while I'm not particularly worried that they will find someone who knows how to run a bike share program better than me, I'm definitely worried that the new administration will break up our band.  MOTU has been such an awesome place to work, and my colleagues are great.  If only we could keep building on what we've got, I'd be happier.  As my old boss used to say, "Philadelphians embrace change, as long as it looks exactly like it did before you changed it."  I guess I'm becoming Philadelphian in that sense.

First Degree Connection

I had an odd experience the other night.  I'd just been to a presentation at DVRPC where I gave the standard presentation about all of the work we are doing to make Indego bike share a representative and socially equitable program in which the race and income of our users mirrors that of Philadelphia as a whole.  I was on a panel with a guy from Rutgers, Charles Brown, (no joke, generally goes by Charlie) who presented his team's research on the disparate impacts that crashes have on people of color.  The upshot: if you are poor or black or brown or poor AND black or brown, your odds of being hit or killed in a car crash are dramatically higher than if you're white and middle income or higher.  In places like New Jersey and the Philadelphia Metro, the maps of crashes can often look like the maps of 'communities of concern' as they've been dubbed.

I was impressed by the work, and particularly by Charlie's presentation.  I work hard on making sure that when I give a presentation I'm engaging and that I use whatever media I've got at my disposal to the best of my ability. Over the years, I've gotten pretty good, and I'm generally to the point where I think that I'm one of the better presenters on any given panel that I do.  I did a passable job last week, but Charles' absolutely rocked.  Clear, compelling and well supported by the graphics in his powerpoint.  I was in presentation envy and following our meeting, was pleased to find that he'd sent me a connection request through LinkedIn.  I'm not much for social media, but I do dabble enough to understand that it could be useful to cultivate this connection, so I clicked on the link.  Charlie and I were now connected, and since I was in the portal where one accepts pending invitations, I started clicking through the requests.  Several were from people who I'd never heard of, several from some who I didn't want to hear from again and then I found one waiting in my inbox from Wade Frank.  He'd sent the request some months ago and I'd never really bothered to respond.  No particular snub there, I hadn't responded to 10 or 15 other people who'd been patiently waiting in my inbox.  I hadn't seen Wade since he'd moved back to Des Moines from Ames where he worked for my dad while he was finishing, or generally not finishing, his dissertation at ISU.  I'd always liked Wade and I'll always think about him now in my work.  Not because of our connection on LinkedIn, but because I think that I'll always be thinking about how to encourage more people to ride bicycles and to help more people stay safe on the roads.  It's a strange coincidence that my reminder of him was the result of a poignant talk about road safety.  Cheers to you Wade, and goodbye.

Historical information.

Yesterday I got a text from my friend and former colleague Mardi who, in an effort to age gracefully, started with a new personal trainer.  The catch was that the new trainer was pushing her to do things that her body didn't like, such as moving side to side, rather than front to back.  Lateral motions generated enough winces and ouches that he told her to stop and go see a doctor, something was not right with how her left hip was working.  On the minus side, Mardi was headed to Rothman for some x-rays and consultation, on the plus side, I COULD BE THE BEST FRIEND EVER SINCE I'D ALREADY HAD MY HIP RE-JIGGERED AT ROTHMAN!

We talked for a good 30 minutes about all the various procedures and doctors and pains and aches and really connected on the sort of stuff that connects people who are getting older, slower, and also have no kids.  I was able to forward on my blog posts from 2013 when I'd undergone my various surgical and therapeutic procedures.  It made me realise, or in fact, re-realize how this blog has become a lot more like a diary than the communication tool that it started as.  I began it when we were in Japan, 12 years ago, as a way to keep my friends and family in the loop with how we were doing half a world away.  Supposing that my blog isn't magically wiped out in the next economic catastrophe or during the GoogleBook merger of 2018, I would like to keep it as a log of my adventures and deeds.

But because I'm 'busy' and 'committed' and 'a hard worker' I rarely take the time to write anything here anymore.  It is in this vein that I'm going to (and seriously for real guys/friends/family/future Aaron) post some things that I should have gotten around to long ago.  There is a set of posts from Iceland over this past summer, more and better posts from our trip to Germany, some ruminations from our continual projects around the house, a set of great shots of sunsets from across the Great Plains and some ruminations from my time spent as a crew-member on RAAM for Meurig in 2013.  I'm going to try to put them in the general order of when the events happened for the better finding later.  First day of the next part of my life, where I remember and write about the last part of my life, starts now.

Iceland for all - Post 1

Aside from the fact that it would probably wreck the place, everyone should go to Iceland.  Jennifer and I went in mid June and it was stunning.  We arrived in the bright mid morning sun at 5:30 AM and then proceeded in to Reykjavik to rent our Kuku Camper.  Watch the video to get an idea of how awesome they are.  The morning started off well, I took a nap on a municipal running track and ate a bunch of weird Icelandic liquorice,  Jennifer read a bit and lazed in the sun.  Then we walked over to the Kuku headquarters for them to outfit our car.  Everything was easy and cheap and everyone spoke better english than they had any rights to.  The highlight of the morning was when they tested out the camp stove in our car before sending us off and discovered a thrilling gas leak around the canister body that resulted in our Kuku team member swearing in a couple different languages and throwing the canister and flaming stove into the street where it exploded in a fireball.  Cool.

Then we drove to the Bonus supermarket and stocked up on a bunch of junk food and snacks for the week and then headed out of town. Though the scenery was largely fantastic right out of Reykjavik, I fell asleep pretty much as soon as we headed out on the road.  One major plus about touristing in a place where the sun doesn't set is that jetlag isn't really an issue. I napped a bit and then we woke up by this giant blue volcanic pool near some bubbling fumaroles and we got out and wandered around.

We got back in and since we only had 23.5 more hours of light left, headed straight to the south coast of the island to explore some waterfalls off of Highway 1 (FYI--there really isn't a Highway 2 in Iceland, though there are a number of other lesser roads)

We ended up following a bunch of tour buses to this cool waterfall called Seljalandsfoss. The grass was so lush and green, it was no wonder that aside from tourists, the dominant mammalian life was sheep.

TubBelay

So, all of your friends are skinny cyclists?  Nobody has arms bigger than pencils?  Feeling wantonly DIY?

That's why the good lord created a little thing we like to call mechanical advantage.

Indegos bicycles is my SHIT

Even better than Liam Neesons.

Hell of a month

Growing up, April was always a month that I looked forward to. My birthday falls right in the middle of the month, the weather tends to warm up nicely, nights get shorter, days longer. It was always a time to get outside and have some fun. Then, adulthood gradually began to sink in and the nature of the month started to change bit by bit. First it was in grad school. I remember a guy saying something like, "April sucks. It's always finals and deadlines."  Sure enough, April rolled in and I was up to my eyes with papers and projects. That was kind of a drag but I didn't really want to think of my birthday as a harbinger of crappy times.  What I've settled on is that April is really about change. Of course, I'm projecting backward and cherry picking some important dates but there is a long list of big stuff happening in April.  I was hired for my job at MOTU in April of 2010, in April of 2012 I moved full time to working on bike projects. In 2013 we were finalizing the business plan for bike share, last April we announced our plan to deliver a system to Philadelphia by this spring, and lo and behold, we delivered a few weeks ago.  The following week, my boss, who has been instrumental in most of my successes here at work announced that he was departing the City.  Woof.  

I've gone from fully focused on one project to fully scattered on the little details that surround the operating of a bike share system, and without the guidance that I'd expected.  On the plus side, this is a good chance for me to take some time to think about what I actually want my future to look like.  I'm still thinking.