(Photo taken by my wife.)

I’ve been making a concerted effort to be a better observer. In particular, ever since we watched the Perseid meteor showers, I’ve been more interested in stargazing. On our vacation, I gained a newfound appreciation for birds, thanks to all the interesting birds we saw in the Outer Banks of NC.

Astronomy

Since we got back from our vacation, I bought some binoculars. It’s amazing the mileage I’ve gotten already from a couple of library books on astronomy and a cheap pair of binoculars — even with the nearly-full moon, when the moon is so bright it interferes with night vision.

The Harvest Moon was spectacular last Thursday, and Jupiter has been very bright the past few nights as well. Friday night I had a revelation when I was able to view Jupiter and all of its moons, through my binoculars. It was quite a sight: Jupiter and its four moons were all in a line. From left to right, I saw Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede, followed by Jupiter, followed by Io. I looked for Uranus, but didn’t find it. I also saw an amazing cluster of stars which I later identified as the Orion Nebula.

I’m still learning my way around the night sky. It’s frustrating sometimes trying to find things, but again, the incredibly bright moon has made things more difficult. I think I’ll have more success once the moon wanes a bit more.

I found an amazing, free astronomy program called Stellarium. You set your location, and it shows you how the stars look from your location, complete with constellation/planet/nebula labels, if you like. You can also search for objects and it will show you where they are, or enter a different time and it will show you how the sky will look then. It’s absolutely amazing!

Ultimately, I would like to extend my photography into the astronomy/birding realms, but both can be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. For now, I’m focusing on observing. Later, once I learn more, perhaps I can work on photographing stars, planets, nebulae and birds and other wildlife.

For now, I’m enjoying learning more about the world around me — looking up at the stars, I feel an almost childlike sense of wonder that as an adult is rare, and it’s quite refreshing. I’m amazed at the things I can see that have been there all along, but I to which I previously paid no attention.

It’s been an interesting year, so far. I’ve ridden a few centuries, and even completed the 160-mile Ride Across INdiana. I’ve ridden faster, and covered much greater distances, than ever before. All of this leads me to ask: what now?

I’ve given some thought to pursuing even longer distance rides, either through Randonneuring or other channels. And I have to admit, longer distances do sound appealing. For a while it felt like I was trying to see just how far I could go (literally).

But, the thing that I didn’t really consider, going into the longer rides, is that not only do the long events themselves take up a huge chunk of time, the training it takes to be able to do them is even more time-consuming.  It seems a few of the more hardcore local riders ride centuries on at least a weekly basis, if not more. For me, I think that would be physically doable, but it would leave me drained all the time, and I wouldn’t have time to spend with my beautiful wife, or doing anything else. I also think it would cease to be fun, if I approached riding that way.

After RAIN, I debated finding a double century or something else to build up to. But instead I found my riding tapering off a bit. Aside from commuting, I’ve been doing less riding during the week, and my weekend rides have mostly been shorter. And you know what? I’m having a blast!

Ultimately, cycling is a hobby. I’m glad I focused on it enough to do RAIN, but I need to find some balance. I need to spend more time with my beautiful wife, and our dog, and the rest of my family. And I also want to spend time on my other hobbies … especially writing music.

Music

You might ask, “What music?” I originally started this blog to chronicle my music-writing. I used to make electronic music, on a regular basis. Cycling just took over, and I haven’t written any music, or written about music, for quite a while. I miss it, and I’m going to start making music again. If you want to check out my music, listen to the album I made back in 2006, Elements (it’s free). There’s more where that came, which I will find a good way to share soon.

What does this mean?

Cycling-wise, I still intend to ride a lot, and probably even do centuries on a semi-regular basis. For right now, at least, I have no intention of pursing anything much longer than that, unless it takes the form of a multi-day tour. I’m not really scaling back my cycling much, except to return it to normal levels before I started training for RAIN.

And hopefully, you’ll see some new music from me soon. You might also see some music-related posts popping up around here. If they don’t interest you, ignore them. Or, you can always read only my bicycling posts, if you prefer.

I’ll leave you to ponder this hilarity: Ambient Sequencer AS-606.

2009 was a strange year. We spent most of the year in Pennsylvania, having moved there in October of 2008 when Sarah was offered a job there.

Her job was great, but we hated living there (really, we hated the Wilkes-Barre area, not the whole of PA). We missed our families, both of whom live in Indiana. We took a long hard look at what was important to us and we realized we belonged back in Indiana.

So, in September of 2009, we moved back home. Once we returned, we went through a lot of effort to attempt to put our lives back the way they were before the move. And, we did such a good job of it that now it almost feels like the 10 months we spent living in Pennsylvania never happened. Like a weird dream, or an extended vacation (even though our time there was largely miserable).

I also found myself unemployed at the beginning of 2009, and started my own company. That went relatively well, but ultimately I learned that I hate working for myself, at least in that way. After we moved back home, I got a more normal job, and it feels great.

So, in a way, it was a year-and-change of mis-fires: moving to Pennsylvania, starting my own company. But we learned valuable lessons about how we DON’T want to live, which in turn reinforced how we DO want to live. It was a year of taking risks, but also of taking control of our lives, and learning how to steer the ship. We oversteered a couple of times, but we managed to correct for it.

Moving back home was even risky. Sarah had to quit a good job so we could do it, and we spent a lot of our savings to make it happen. But we saw what we wanted and went for it, and I am proud to say that we did. We are now both gainfully employed and loving being here … near our families and friends. It’s great to be home.

Poll: Should I ride the Long Haul Trucker through the winter?

Options:

1. Bikes were made to be ridden! Ride it in any and all conditions. The bike will love you for it, anyway.
2. No way, are you crazy? That bike is too nice to subject it to that kind of abuse.

What are your thoughts?

Now, there’s a saying that Chicago has two seasons: winter and construction. And there’s a lot of truth to it. Last time we were there, it was winter and the high temperature was hovering around 0 degrees. This time, the drive up there, which is usually about 4 1/2 hours, took over six hours. We hit major construction and traffic on the way there. In fact, every leg of our trip was plagued with traffic jams. The drive back from Green Bay, which was supposed to be about 7 1/2 hours, took more like 10 1/2 hours. Yikes!

I’ve lived in Chicago before, and I have a lot of fond memories there — but this trip served as a reminder of just how much I prefer living in a smaller town. A place where parking isn’t an issue and the roads aren’t packed with vehicles all the time. A town that sleeps. And, a place where getting out of the city doesn’t involve driving for an hour or more. I have re-adapted to a much slower-packed lifestyle, and I love it. During some more frustrating moments, I found myself thinking of the Fred Neil song “Badi-Da:”

I get so tired
Hanging round this town
Oh this old city life
Sure brings a fella down

ba da da da da da
ba da da da da da da
ba da da da da da
ba da da

I sure get tired
Trying to sleep at night
Oh these old city lights
They keep on burning bright

ba da da da da da
ba da da da da da da
ba da da da da da
ba da da

I get so tired
Hanging round this town
Oh this old city life
Sure brings a fella down

ba da da da da da
ba da da da da da da
ba da da da da da
ba da da

On a positive note, Chicago was absolutely crawling with bicycles. I don’t remember seeing nearly as many bicycles when I lived there a few years ago. Was I not paying attention, or has bicycling exploded in popularity in Chicago in the past few years? Even late at night, we saw tons of cyclists.

It seemed like, based on what I saw, Chicago is probably a good place to ride, if you can somehow stay safe amongst all the insane drivers (and there are a lot of them).

I wish I had something to say about Green Bay, but we saw very little of it since we spent almost all of our time on wedding-related activities. It seemed like a nice city, much smaller than Chicago but big enough that it seems to have a lot going on.

The wedding, of course, was fantastic. This couple was the first of my close friends from college to get married, and I couldn’t be happier for them. Sarah and I will be next, in just over a month!

It was fun to just ride for a change, without any distractions. And it was certainly a good workout, riding 21.82 miles in 1:13:53 (17.72 mph average). Not the fastest ride I’ve done, but probably the fastest this year. I had fun, and I was glad that I got to ride, but I don’t remember many specifics from the ride, except that … well, I was really hammering. It’s good to do rides like this sometimes, but for the most part I prefer riding a slower pace, exploring, and stopping to smell the proverbial roses.

It’s been raining here yesterday and today, but I’ve ridden to work anyway. I’ve lucked out and it hasn’t rained in the morning — usually, I decide whether to ride based on that. I don’t mind getting wet on the way home, but I don’t want to show up at work drenched.

There were some storms rolling through the area yesterday afternoon and around 5-5:30 pm, it was very dark outside, raining hard with some thunder and lightning. I heard someone complain, “How am I going to get to my car?” There are two places you can park if you work for my company: right next to the building or right across the street. I thought to myself, “You’ll walk! And you’ll get a little wet. Who cares?” I heard various other complaints about getting a little wet, and even one person debating whether it was safe to drive. What the hell?

I mentioned I rode my bike to work, garnering astonished looks from a couple of people. One of them offered me a ride home, which I appreciated, but politely declined. This brought more astonishment. They seemed to be thinking, “What kind of masochist would ride a bicycle in the rain?”

Honestly, I was looking forward to it. It’s still warm outside, so I can take my preferred approach to riding in the rain and just accept the mantra, “If you ride in the rain, you’re gonna get wet.” I wear clothes that won’t get too waterlogged and that dry quickly. But I get wet and I dry off and change my clothes when I get home. I don’t understand this fear so many people have of getting wet. They aren’t going to melt.

People act the same way about the heat in the summer, the cold in the winter, the dark during the night, etc. They ask things like, “How can you ride in the (heat/cold/rain/dark/snow/mud)? Won’t you get (hot/cold/scared/snowed on/dirty)?” The answer, of course, is YES. If you ride in the heat, for instance, you’ll get hot. You can dress appropriately and try to make it more comfortable, but if you go out in those conditions anyway, you’ll get used to it. You might be a bit uncomfortable, but so what? Why let the weather stand in the way of doing the things you love? I know that sometimes the weather really will make it impossible or undesirable to do some things, but why is so many people’s threshold for discomfort so low?

I do understand how sometimes weather will make people lazy. It almost happened to me this morning. It looked like it could rain at any moment, so I wasn’t sure whether I should ride or drive to work. I decided to ride, and I’m glad I did. It was a beautiful morning, with the smells of the rain we got overnight. It was overcast, but everything basked in a warm glow. It was pretty muggy, but I rode slower and I was fine. It was a perfect morning to ride to work, and I got more astonished looks when I walked in carrying my bicycle helmet. I’ll probably get rained on again on my way home — and I am looking forward to it.

This “Simplify” sign had a surprising impact on me.  I’ve thought about it a few times since then. Then yesterday, I looked at my bank statement online and felt stupid — “this transaction was unnecessary,” I thought. “This one, too.” There were several things on there that I just didn’t need. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much stuff is cluttering up my life.

Then, on my way home from work (I drove, since my bike had a flat tire), I saw a man laying on the ground and a cyclist trying to help him. I turned off on a side street so I could turn around and see if I could help. I turned around, and I was stuck at the intersection, but I could see across. A few people were trying to help the man, and at least two people had already called 911. The man appeared to be unconscious. He started to convulse a little bit. Moments later, he regained consciousness and tried to get up. Someone helped him to his feet. He seemed to have enough help, and I could hear an ambulance already, so I decided to continue on my way.

Another reason I didn’t stick around was that I knew I couldn’t do much. I don’t know much about first aid, and I took a CPR class back in high school, but that was a long time ago. I felt helpless. Fortunately, this guy already had people helping him, but what if I was the only one there, and I didn’t know what to do? I felt silly that I had worried earlier that day about my flat tire and getting a new tire and how I was anxious to get home quickly. Those things are so trivial compared to a human life.

I need to get back to basics. I’m going to make a concerted effort to simplify my life. I’m not sure yet what that will mean, but I need to figure that out. Two things I know it will involve are buying less crap and learning some first aid and CPR. Especially with all the cycling I do, and the hiking Sarah and I do together, I really need to know those things. Sarah said she’d take some classes with me, which is a great idea. I think I can get rid of a lot of the junk I already have, too. I have a lot of clothes that don’t fit anymore, and stuff I don’t use. It needs to go. I have two old bicycles I’ve been meaning to get rid of, but haven’t. I have no idea why, I just keep putting it off.

I’m hoping this simplification will help on several levels. It should help me save money, and I think having less clutter will make me more comfortable. It’ll be easier to find things if I don’t have so much junk to dig through. But more importantly, I have been trying to be more self-reliant in general, and I think that learning first aid — and trying to depend less on things I should be able to do without — should help me do that. I already feel more self-reliant from cycling. If my car broke down, or I crashed it, or something happened and oil prices skyrocketed even further, I could still get around. But if one of my loved ones got hurt, I wouldn’t be able to do much of anything. That is unacceptable.